Courtney McGrailIt was probably unsurprising that an April 19 open letter sent to Poland’s bishops from 100 female theologians and others has ruffled feathers online, given it begins with an assurance that its signatories “are Catholics who respect the Church’s moral stance against abortion” but argues that in certain circumstances they “believe that access to early, safe and legal abortion is essential”.
Online ire has focused especially on the figure of the British academic Tina Beattie, Roehampton University’s professor of Catholic Studies.
A trustee of The Tablet and a member of the theological advisory group for Cafod (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development) – the English and Welsh equivalent to Trócaire – Prof. Beattie is not merely the best-known name among the letter’s signatories, but appears to have played a key role in the writing of the letter. Such, at least, is the import of a Facebook post by her duplicated at the Anglican blog archbishopcranmer.com entitled ‘Tina Beattie, abortion morality and the Catholic bishops in office but not in power’.
Solidarity
Explaining in her post that she had started a private Facebook group called ‘Standing in solidarity with Polish women’, she proposed that group members “draft a careful letter which expresses support for Catholic women in Poland who are not simply pro-choice, who respect the serious ethical issues surrounding abortion, but who also want to speak out against the criminalisation of all abortion which is currently being proposed by the Polish bishops”.
This group, she said, should be “very clear” that it is neither “a pro-abortion group” nor “about a woman’s right to choose”, but rather “is about respecting the sometimes tragic realities of life, and supporting women and girls who are deeply vulnerable because of an unintended and uninvited pregnancy”.
It’s certainly worth reading the letter, usefully reproduced with interpolated comments in the marklambert.blogspot.com post headed ‘Bishops must act to correct error of “Catholic” theologian’, rather than simply relying on online reports.
Rebecca Braten Weiss at patheos.com/blogs/suspendedinherjar has sought to defend Prof. Beattie and her fellow signatories from online anger, arguing that they are simply maintaining that while abortion is wrong, neither is it right to criminalise women who feel driven to abortion.
Others, commenting on her piece, have countered that if that is indeed what the letter said, then they would have agreed with it, but that the letter says rather more than that.
Moral theologian Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith addressed the letter on air, and in a Facebook post since reproduced at marklambert.blogspot.com maintained that the letter undermined Catholic teaching. Praising how the letter began by stating that the signatories “uphold the sanctity of all human life” he asked what exactly this means.
“I understand that upholding the sanctity of all human life means that I could never ever approve the taking of human life in the womb, and that this admits of no exceptions,” he wrote. “To understand anything else by this statement would be to reduce it to meaninglessness. In fact, the letter goes on – without really ever advancing any carefully argued position – that the signatories uphold the sanctity of some human lives some of the time, because they are quite prepared to countenance the abortion of some children.”
Among the other posts most worth reading on the issue is Joseph Shaw’s at casuistrycentralblogspot.com. In this post, the Oxford philosopher contests many of the claims in the Beattie letter and highlights the perversity of attempting to use one Vatican II document – Dignitatis Humanae, the council document on religious freedom – to justify abortion being legalised, when another conciliar document, the dogmatic constitution Gaudium et Spes, explicitly declared that “from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes”.