CO teen pregancy and abortion rate down 50%... Republicans upset

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is why, even though I respect the reasons that lead many people to oppose abortion and think that's a perfectly valid position to take, I have nothing but contempt for conservative politicians who claim to champion these views. Preserving the sanctity of life is just a pretext to them (indeed, some of them have no problem forcing women to abort when it's convenient to them, as a certain TN Congressman well knows). In the end, it's all about preserving male control over women's sexuality and life choices.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is why, even though I respect the reasons that lead many people to oppose abortion and think that's a perfectly valid position to take, I have nothing but contempt for conservative politicians who claim to champion these views. Preserving the sanctity of life is just a pretext to them (indeed, some of them have no problem forcing women to abort when it's convenient to them, as a certain TN Congressman well knows). In the end, it's all about preserving male control over women's sexuality and life choices.

Isn't the stated policy goal of keeping teenage girls from getting pregnant a desire for control over women's sexuality and life choices, as much as is the desire not to promote birth control?

I hate to say this but... Schadenfreude is right. Nobody's talking about stopping teenage girls who wish to have children. The State should simply offer them the possibility to make their own choices and wrestle control of their bodies away from men, regardless of income. To be clear, I do think that families and communities have an important role to play in helping everybody involved handle these issues in a caring, sensitive and nonpatriarchal manner that focuses on the girl's welfare, happiness, and the fulfillment of her moral values. But if they try to take away this choice from her, then at the very least it must be based on a compelling moral interest (like I understand protecting life would be to some). Opposing choice as a matter of principle, when no life is on the line, is just wrong.

A long time ago there was a thread where some creep (was it Cory? I think it might but I'm not sure) proposed forcibly administering birth control to High School girls. That's an absolutely disgusting idea and I'm sure most progressives would never sign off to that.

[Antonio the Sixth]

http://www.vox.com/2016/8/4/12369912/hillary-clinton-pro-life

(The author is a very well known hipster Christian blogger and author, so I was really happy to see her on my favorite news site.)

That's an excellent piece, thanks.

The idea is that contraceptives/birth control is simply "abortion by another name". I don't believe that, but there are plenty of religious people that do.

So life begins before conception? That is just not a legitimate position to hold. And it's very obviously a pretext.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The idea is that contraceptives/birth control is simply "abortion by another name". I don't believe that, but there are plenty of religious people that do.

So life begins before conception? That is just not a legitimate position to hold. And it's very obviously a pretext.

Didn't you grow up in a Catholic country?  I'm surprised you're only just finding out about this concept now.

No one in France seriously opposes contraception. Even in the conservative Catholic High School I went to, it never came up as an issue. And when it was legalized back in 1967, the arguments against were either natalist or very obviously misogynistic.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yes, I'm aware of Humanae Vitae, but I thought it was widely understood as a moral obligation placed on the faithful rather that as a call to outlaw contraception as a matter of public policy (as is the Church's opposition to divorce, sex out of wedlock, etc.). It's a very important distinction to make.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Contraception isn't generally denounced by the Catholic Church because of anything to do with abortion directly (unless we're talking abortifacients). Contraception use (with the intent to contracept) is a mortal sin because it artificially severs the two mutual purposes of sex as designed by God, the unitive and the procreative. It has nothing to do with killing a life as abortion or abortifacients do. There is no individual life prior to conception.

Yeah, that's what I meant with that post Scott took issue with. Life as a holistic process has to be distinguished from life as the property of a specific being, and I would have been very surprised to find out that such distinction wasn't present in Catholic thought (I also think it's crucial to distinguish the latter from personhood, but obviously I don't expect Catholic posters to agree). My point is, if you take the position that the fertilized egg is a living human being, then it's obvious that the State has a compelling interest in protecting the fundamental rights of such person. But that compelling interest cannot reasonably be argued to exist in the case of (preventive) contraception, and thus claiming that it's "abortion by other means" really proves my point. What bothers the largely upper-class, middle-aged, Protestant White men who dictate the Conservative agenda about both these issues has nothing to do with the taking of a life - it's the fact that women are taking control of their own bodies away from men.

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That strikes me as a somewhat specious distinction, to be honest. What makes one type of means "natural" and the other "artificial"? Literally every human action is made possible through the means God gives us, isn't it? The fabrication of contraceptives, like any chemical, uses materials that exist in nature. Conversely, while abstaining from sex during ovulation doesn't require external materials, it still requires some form of knowledge and manipulation of natural processes. That doesn't strike me as qualitatively different from the type of knowledge and manipulation of natural processes necessary to make a contraceptive - the difference of degree is obvious, but would it be sufficient to justify the moral distinction?

[Antonio the Sixth]

You're essentially saying there's no moral distinction between was God has made and what man has made. That seems the very opposite of most Christian thought; after all, God is sinless in His creation whereas man is anything but. It's similar to saying that God created both man and the Tree of Knowledge, therefore eating of the tree couldn't be wrong because God gave man the ability to eat of it. Something can exist for its own sake while possessing the ability to be perverted by man.

No, that's very clearly not what I was saying. What I was saying is that humans tamper with God's creation in any case. They tamper with God's creation when they use materials to make contraceptives, and they tamper with God's creation when they deliberately choose to only have sex in certain phases of women's reproductive cycles. That "something can exist for its own sake while possessing the ability to be perverted by man" was exactly my point! And "perverting something God created" is exactly what people can be easily accused of doing when they deliberately abstain from sex to avoid childbirth. As you yourself admit, it's done with the same intent and produces the same outcome as contraception, so any moral distinction has to hinge on the former being "natural" while the latter is "artificial" - a claim I find highly dubious.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm not sure what allows you to infer with such certainty that this particular use of the female reproductive cycle is what God intended. God created many things that could be used in a multitude of ways, some of them I'm sure you'd find very clearly immoral. The fact that understanding the female reproductive cycle in a way that allows you to avoid childbirth requires a great deal of observation and deductive reasoning means that there is some human (ie, potentially sinful) input involved in the process.

[Antonio the Sixth]

One last thing I would like to note is that Catholics (along with most Christians probably most people in general) are not consequentialists. Simply pointing to a worse outcome (such as an increase in abortions) does not necessarily justify all actions that lead to a better outcome. Whenever the issue of abortion and contraception is brought up, this point seems to get quickly buried by well-meaning but faulty arguments that ignore the means and only look at the ends. It is occasionally argued that pro-life individuals are being hypocritical or disingenuous to oppose both abortion and contraception. It is an understandable misunderstanding for people with other views to have, but it ultimately arises from a view that society is merely an equation to be optimized when there are other considerations too besides the most pressing one.

Thanks for bringing up this issue, as it allows me to address what's recently become a pet peeve of mine.

I think everybody is consequentialist and nobody is. Consequentialism is simply not a coherent and logically sustainable moral framework, because it rests on an artificially constructed distinction between "means" and "ends". To say that "the ends justify the means" forgets that the means are ends in and of themselves: the most immediate consequence of committing any deed is that such deed will have been committed. This is a reality as tangible as any other. There is nothing that tells us that this most proximate consequence is of a different nature than the more remote ones, and thus no serious reason to disregard the former for the latter. People who use "the ends justify the means" as their maxim are really saying that some specific ends are more important than other - they aren't actually making a general point on the nature of morality.

Now, on the other hand, I think we can all agree that deontological morality taken to its extreme does not provide appropriate moral guidance. No one would seriously argue that actions must only be considered in the abstract, without any regard for the context in which they occur. That certainly doesn't strike me as being the position of the Catholic Church, as to the contrary attention to context strikes me as paramount in its discussion of sin. When I factored in all this, I came to the conclusion that the distinction between deontology and consequentialism doesn't really provide any useful insight into the nature of morality. It might be useful in casual conversation to describe some general tendencies, but I really don't see how you can take it much further than that. Maybe there's something I'm missing, since it seems that these terms are still in wide use among philosophers, but I have no idea why.

To me, what the deontology/consequentialism distinction often serves to mask is a distinction between fundamentally materialistic and fundamentally idealistic approaches to morality. Materialists argue that the only actions/outcomes (as I argued before, those are one and the same) that are morally significant are those that have a measurable effect on the physical reality (note that, because mind processes are "physical", this does include people's emotional state). This attitude, taken to its extreme, leads down the path of utilitarianism, which is indeed "a view that society is merely an equation to be optimized". Idealism, by contrast, argues that some actions/outcomes can be right or wrong on the basis of intangible principles that transcend material reality. Personally, I find myself very firmly on the idealistic side of this divide. Although my principles are ostensibly secular, I like to think that this means my moral framework has more in common with those of many religious people than with those of secular materialists.

It's on the basis of this commonality that I'm hoping I can say something on the Catholic stance toward contraception. Obviously my grasp of Catholic thought on these issues is very limited, so I really hope it's not arrogant of me to speak on these issue, but I would dearly like to be able to find some common ground here. My argument is that it is morally permissible (actually, I'd like to be able to claim that it's morally required) for a Catholic to support expanded access to contraception as a matter of public policy, even if they view contraception itself as a sin. I don't want to take issue with Catholic doctrine on the morality of contraception. While it is a view that strongly offends my own values and principles, I recognize that it flows coherently from its premises (with the exception of the argument I had with RI on the validity of the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" means, which really bothers me).

What I'm trying to argue is that, if Catholic morality values the preservation of life as much as it purports to, then it must acknowledge when, in the context of how society actually works, letting a lesser sin occur (which is not the same as condoning it) contributes to preserving life. This is not a consequentialist argument because, as I've argued in the first part of this post, there is no such thing as a consequentialist argument. And it's certainly not a utilitarian argument, because life in a Catholic perspective is clearly not a utilitarian value (and frankly, a utilitarianism that takes life as the quantity to maximize strikes me as one of the most bizarre and downright creepy moral frameworks I can think of). It is, rather, an argument about hierarchy in Catholic values and principles. I'm glad you confirmed to me that Catholicism views some sins as greater than others (which I never doubted, since the opposite view would be f**ked up). If taking a life is a worse sin than distorting the purpose God gave to sexuality, then doesn't that mean that a society that practices the latter sin as opposed to the former is less sinful than one that does the opposite?

I understand that Catholicism seeks to eradicate both sins and, in a pluralist society, it is welcome to try. It can make its case to women that contraception and abortion are both wrong, and that abstinence is the only moral way to avoid pregnancy. Others will make the opposite case, however, and right now it's pretty clear that they (I should probably say "we" since, even though my discomfort with the modern-liberal view of sexuality is well-known on this forum, I still find myself on their side of this issue) are winning out. This doesn't mean that it isn't a fight worth fighting, but it means that, in such an unfavorable context, some sacrifices have to be made and a lesser evil has to be chosen. Thus, you can either choose to use the tools of policy to combat the lesser sin, knowing full well that this will create new opportunities for the greater sin, and that these opportunities will oftentimes be exploited no matter what you do, or you can combat the lesser sin through other (undoubtedly less effective) means in order to preserve society from the greater one.

To be honest, choosing the former course of action strikes me as a sinful attitude in and of itself, one that prioritizes one's own moral self-satisfaction (the self-satisfaction of knowing you don't yourself partake in sin) over the desire to save one's fellow people from sin. I realize that it's arrogant of me to claim that, but at this stage of my reflection I just can't escape this conclusion. Is there something I'm missing? If saving people from sin is what matters most, then isn't it more important to save them from the greater one? Or does the wide availability of contraception somehow degrade society in a worse way than the wide prevalence of abortion does? Or is there some principle higher than life in Catholic theology that changes the nature of the problem?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I too really appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion, TJ. I hadn't put so much thought and effort into a post in a very long time, and I definitely don't regret it after reading your response. Thanks a lot.

If you don't mind, for the sake of streamlining the discussion, I'll trim your post down to the specific passages that I think capture the most critical issues or those on which I have something to add. Feel free to point it out if I've overlooked an important point you made.

I think we are in almost entirely in agreement here, with the small caveat that the more proximate a consequence is to an act, the more responsible one is to consider it when considering the act. I think all of these sorts of distinctions matter.

You're right, this is a distinction that cannot be avoided. It's not a distinction I'm very happy with on a theoretical level - I just have never heard any convincing argument for why a distant but perfectly foreseeable consequence would be less morally relevant than an immediate one - but I realize that there's no sustainable way to avoid this distinction in practice. And of course the degree to which a consequence is foreseeable is very highly relevant.

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That's actually part of what I was trying to argue in my discussion of deontology. This is a very important point and I should have made it more explicit. I think it critically contributes to undermining the distinction between deontology and consequentialism.


Virtue ethics is actually the moral framework I adhere to, by and large. I was already veering in this general direction before I was introduced to the concept properly speaking and, since then, my appreciation of them has only increased. It's the only standard I find stringent enough for me to be able to hold myself up to without feeling like I'm being self-indulgent, and adopting it has helped me become more lucid on what makes me a bad person and how I can try to start rectifying that (which of course I know I'll never be fully able to). The role I'm willing to give it in the realm of politics is a bit more ambiguous: I think the polity ought to further both the material welfare and the moral growth of all human beings. I hold out to the hope that, when sought with sufficient foresight and prudence, these goals are not mutually exclusive - even that they are mutually reinforcing - and as such I'm extremely distrustful of worldviews that claim to sacrifice the former in the name of the latter. That said, the latter is absolutely crucial, and I'm fully aware that forgetting it would lead us right down the path to Brave New World.

A Catholic should never personally provide someone with artificial contraception or advocate for them to use it (I mean this on an personal basis; not a pharmacist working at the counter).

I greatly appreciate that you are willing to draw a distinction between individuals who act of their own private initiative and those who act in a professional capacity. I think this distinction is fundamental to modern society and unavoidable in discussions of this nature. I want to be sure I understand the basis on which you draw it. Is your argument that the pharmacist's material cooperation to the practice of contraception is justified by the duty to perform one's professional obligations (and the impracticality imposing on all Catholics that they avoid the profession of pharmacist)? I'd agree with that, but I'm sure you wouldn't be willing to extend this logic to all sins - otherwise this basically legitimizes the Eichmann defense. Thus, would it be correct to say that the leeway allowed for material cooperation in a sin varies according to the gravity of said sin? And, more specifically, that in the case of contraception (and other sins of comparable or lesser gravity), material cooperation can be allowed even for reasons other than to prevent a greater sin? After all, renouncing to become a pharmacist isn't a sin, even if the aggregate social outcome of such choice would be problematic. I think that this line of thinking, then, can be taken to illustrate how the position of the policymaker deciding on contraception policy (note that this includes, and in fact is primarily intended for, the voter, who in a democracy is the real policymaker - I'll be using "policymaker" in this sense throughout my argument) is different from that of the single individual deciding whether or not to recommend contraception to another individual.

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This is the first area where I really think this distinction ought to apply. I agree that the single individual can't engage in this sort of calculations (especially because a single individual would presumably have the same ability to sway someone on abortion as they would on contraception, making the either/or calculus rarely applicable). However, when it comes to the policymaker making decisions for society as a whole, probabilistic forecasting of how people in the aggregate are likely to react to a given policy is of vital importance. No sound policy can ever come out of deliberately ignoring probable outcomes. At best, such deliberate ignorance represents a severe professional failing - far more severe than that of a pharmacist who would refuse to sell contraception. But I'd even argue that, when such ignorance facilitates or encourages the commission of a sin (especially a sin as serious as abortion in a Catholic perspective), it is itself a sin. I know that sin requires intent, but I'd argue that deliberate disregard of relevant information in one's action is the sign of a sinful intent.

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To be honest, I have a very hard time seeing how this view of the State as nothing more than a natural extension of society could be sustained. Of course, I don't want to argue that the two are completely distinct, as if the people who ran government were aliens or robots extraneous to the society that surrounds them. And I certainly wouldn't claim that the State should be "neutral in all situations"! No State action is "neutral", all affect society in one way or another (indeed, if it didn't, what would even be the point of a State?). That being said, a fundamental autonomy from the other formal and informal structures of society - both in agency and in the nature of its ties with those structures - is the basis of the modern Weberian State. In the liberal-democratic framework, the State is subordinate to society through the process of representative democracy (and of course religiously-motivated parties have a right to compete in this process) but, once this initial link is established, it should be relatively free of the influence of powerful social forces. I realize that Catholicism isn't too fond of this model of statehood, but I don't think it would want to reject it outright. It does entail separation of Church and State (which btw, is also something I'd be interested in arguing for on religious grounds), yes, but it's also what shields the State from the influence of other power structures in society, most notably economic power. This is crucial because the State, far from being neutral, sometimes has to go against society. Indeed, isn't it what many Catholics want the State to do when they advocate for certain policies that go against the general tendencies of modern society? This isn't something to which I object on principle (although my on view of which specific tendencies the State should favor or go against is quite different).

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I'm not sure I'm following you here. On the end of the Catholic policymaker, enacting a program that provides free contraception on the basis that, in the aggregate, when people have access to free contraception, the number of abortions decreases dramatically, would surely constitute material cooperation, wouldn't it? Of course, this policy will inevitably have the side effect of providing contraception to women who would never have aborted regardless, and the Catholic policymaker is aware of that. But just because she/he is aware of it and still knowingly chooses to enact such a program doesn't mean that she/he shares in the intent of the sin. Policies are always highly complex objects, and almost every policy has both positive and nefarious outcomes. Just because someone chooses to enact a policy knowing that it has a specific nefarious outcome, doesn't mean that they are intentionally causing this outcome. As I've pointed out above, a cost-benefit analysis is absolutely inevitable in this realm, and refusing to engage in it is, I've argued, is morally problematic on its own.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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Of course it's not coincidental, but surely you're well aware that just because one event precedes another doesn't necessarily mean the former caused the latter. I highly doubt that the spread of contraception was what causally triggered the loosening of abortion laws. This isn't a case where X caused Y, but rather one where Z caused both X and Y. The common underlying variable behind both occurrences is a long-term shift in values throughout the West, one that preceded any change in legislation and unfolded even in countries where legislation opposed a fierce resistance. Legislative changes favorable to contraception may have, at most, accelerated the trend slightly (although even that is a claim that lacks empirical verification), but surely they haven't triggered it. Furthermore, Catholics, even if they seek to spread alternative values, must acknowledge the reality that, in the foreseeable future, these values are here to stay. One of the implications to draw from this is that policies widening the availability of contraception are one of the very few policies that remain effective at reducing the prevalence of abortions.

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Yes, sorry. I phrased myself really poorly there, but I was in fact well aware of this. I don't think it necessarily invalidates any of my arguments, although it might if it's taken in the direction you take below.

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I must concede that this is a logically unimpeachable argument. My problem with it is that it rests on a theological premise that, to be frank, I find horrifying. I realize that this is an entirely subjective perspective, but I hope you don't mind if I develop my thoughts a bit. Simply put, the single issue most crucial to me in my relationship to Christian thought is the question of the universality of salvation. There are many Christian values and principles that I personally hold very dear and that I believe can have a wonderful impact on the moral growth of society, but to me these values and principles only ring true if they are associated to the promise of universal salvation. Without this promise, without the certainty that God's grace will ultimately vanquish every sin, I think Christianity loses its compass and risks wandering in some very dangerous directions. I cannot accept that some sins, no matter how heinous, could be beyond redemption - that some people, no matter how wicked, could be beyond saving. I don't want to believe that about a fellow human being. I don't think this diminishes the severity of God's justice (He has, after all, the eternity to work on purifying a sinner). To the contrary, I think that believing in eternal damnation could lead confirmed sinners to believe that they have "gone too far" and that it's too late for them to change their ways. I realize that universal salvation is somewhat at odds with the Catholic mainstream but, from what I've been told, it is not explicitly condemned. I dearly wish the Church (and all Christians everywhere) would embrace this doctrine. Then, to come back to our point, if universal salvation is taken as a premise, there is no such thing as a "mortal sin" per se (some sins would still warrant damnation, but damnation would always be temporary, and the time it takes to cleanse one of their sins would depend on their number and gravity) and it makes sense to try to minimize sin rather than take an "all or nothing" approach.

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That's a legitimate concern, and I agree that the attitude you describe is problematic. I am definitely not arguing that people who genuinely see contraception as sinful should give up on attempting to rectify it. My argument is simply that some remedies are worse than the disease.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What you're describing here is the principle of double effect. From the viewpoint of a Catholic deciding what actions to personally take, advocating contraception access to reduce incidence of abortion would probably pass the third bullet point, might pass the second depending on the specific ins and outs of the advocate's intentions, but definitely wouldn't pass the first. I agree with you, especially on this issue, that the Catholic policymaker, if she is serious about what is and isn't realistically possible, will want to operate according to a somewhat different, more harm reduction-oriented set of priorities. The trick is to find a way to do that without going full Niebuhrian Christian Realist, which I think TJ and I would agree is a morally untenable position.

The principle of double effect strikes me as a generally sensitive guide to individual action, although I'm not sure what the first criterion would entail exactly. Speaking of the "nature of the act" as something distinct from its outcomes strikes me as reflective of the distinction between deontology and consequentialism that I've tried to deconstruct earlier (I haven't gone further in the article than the introduction, though, so maybe I'm wrong). I'm curious what I'd think of Thomism in general, I don't know much about it but it seems intriguing.

Could you briefly explain what the Niebuhrian Christian Realist perspective entails, why it is problematic, and how it can (if it indeed can) be distinguished from the approach I'm arguing for?

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I'll be very interested in reading this, as soon as I have the time (edit: it's actually a lot shorter than I expected, so "as soon as I have time" should be very soon). I am very glad that we are in full agreement on this point.

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In this case, is the theory that souls become incapable of ever responding to God's grace following death? Or do some souls respond and obtain salvation after that point? If so, couldn't this perspective be characterized as being agnostic toward universal salvation, rather than actively denying it?

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's my turn to apologize for an even longer delay. I can't say I was truly busy (as my posting rate attests!), but I've had several concerns in mind lately that have made it difficult for me to concentrate on this discussion. I'm again really thankful for your willingness to respond to my arguments and explain your rationale in such detail. If you wish to continue this conversation further, here are a few points that I think can be expanded further.


Regarding your first paragraph, I think we agree entirely. My main point there was to caution against worldviews and ideologies that explicitly claim to be preoccupied only with material welfare or only with moral growth. Admittedly, the former are a lot more common than the latter in this day and age, but I'd argue that the latter can be just as dangerous.


Thanks for the clarification regarding the case of the pharmacist. The "prevention of a worse evil" rationale that you put forward as a basis for material cooperation strikes me as very sound, and I think that it's highly relevant to our main discussion on contraception policy. To be clear, I brought up Eichmann as a reductio ad absurdum to encourage this clarification - I wasn't actually arguing that his situation and that of the pharmacist were reasonably comparable (personally I find it plausible that his cooperation in the Holocaust was material, along the lines of how Arendt described it, but of course for evils of this magnitude the distinction loses its moral relevance).

I was again a little sloppy here in my initial response when I said ”Catholicism views the government as a natural extension of society” I meant that Catholic thinkers have traditionally conceived it beginning (both historically and ontologically) as such. The purpose of the state is to protect the natural rights of its subjects and to work for the common good. This occurs in the society from which the government emerges. Its exact structure is of lesser importance to Catholics in principle. As such democracy vs. monarchism vs. a republic vs. etc. is a sort of question that Catholicism is agnostic about it. Catholic individuals may, of course, have a range of views on the subject (obviously most with want something like a democratic republic in 2016). So a disagreement between the government and the majority of the members of a society is not an area where traditional Catholic thought has a principled description of who ought to be listened it. What is important is what is decided. I would also argue that there is no such thing as a truly neutral government decision. Every decision, unless it is completely inconsequential, is some type of moral statement. The reason is because an “ought” type of statement regarding society is a moral statement. Now, that does not mean the government must dictate every moral action that occurs within society. Nor does it mean the Church should control the government. Both are institutions with largely overlapping goals, though not quite identical goals. The state’s role is to protect the natural rights of its citizens and to work for their common good. Of note here is that it is a natural right to, in earnest, seek the truth. (Indeed it is part of our very humanity.) As such the state is not simply a tool for the enforcement of doctrine. So what I favor is a distinction between Church and State but not a true separation as typically defined in the US. In the US that phrase has come to imply bizarre ideas like “the government cannot legislate morality”, which have no real meaning. The government is always legislating morality. There is very little it can legislate that isn’t morality (or a mistaken notion of morality).

To be clear, the latter is absolutely not what I meant by separation of Church and State. The idea that "government should not legislate morality" is inherently absurd for all the reasons you mention, and I personally loathe this talking point. We are in full agreement here, and I hope I haven't given the impression of arguing otherwise.

What I mean by separation of Church and State is that I believe that religious bodies should not maintain organic ties with wielders of political authority or attempt to sway their decisions through means other than public advocacy (I'm not against Churches taking stances on political issues or even endorsing a party/candidate in elections, though I'd prefer if they refrained from engaging in the latter too overtly). This might get us a bit sidetracked, but if you're interested, I'd be willing to argue that this separation is beneficial to both State and Church. It is beneficial to the State because it preserves the purity of the democratic principle, while direct Church interference would essentially mean that political leaders "serve two masters" rather than being only accountable to their constituents (which is the same reason why I support a ban on all private contributions to political campaigns). And it's beneficial to the Church because its collusion with State power invariably degrades it morally, encouraging Church authorities to seek power for themselves and making the Church more sensitive to the interest of the powerful while it should be on the side of the weak and powerless. I think the reason why there is so much corruption withing the Catholic Church (a point I'm sure you won't dispute) is because it has partaken in these arrangements more than any other Church.

I am not fond of the concept of natural rights in general, but many of the problems I have with it is that it's hard to reconcile with a secular philosophical framework. In a religious perspective ("natural" thus meaning "ordained by God"), it actually makes a lot more sense. In this context, I would hope that modern Catholics would view the right to equal participation in the political process (ie, democracy) as one of the right the State must preserve.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is a situation where a rational application of principle is insufficient to select the course of action and we must engage in speculation about how people will react to various policies.

I admit that there is some degree of uncertainty in this respect, and that this might lead people to have legitimate disagreements. However, how people will react to various policies is also, in good part, an empirical question. It's a question that can be investigated by observing what has been done elsewhere or, if you're really breaking new ground, through partial experimental implementation. In this case, at least, the impact of contraception access on the prevalence of abortion is well-documented, and I don't think you have disputed it. Thus, the only issue that remains to be resolved when it comes to policy outcomes is the one below.

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I must admit the question of whether wider access to contraception contributes to spreading these values is not one that can be resolved as easily as the one above. Fear that making contraception available would ultimately induce people who otherwise wouldn't to view abortion as permissible would certainly be a valid argument against such policy from a Catholic standpoint. Personally, however, I think that this fear is highly unreasonable. Whatever damage that contraception may have done to the traditional view of sexuality (and I again dispute that there was any), I think it's fair to assume that it has run its course. Almost everybody, in the US and elsewhere, is aware of the existence of contraception and abortion, and of the debate that surrounds them. Making the former more widely available shouldn't much change how it is perceived, let alone how the latter is perceived. Still, I realize that this is not a question that can be answered empirically.

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Based on the exchange I've had with Nathan and the readings he's pointed me towards, I think the main issue I would like to take with this view is the "as long as they walk this earth" qualification that you add at the end of the fifth sentence. I might certainly be missing something, but I really cannot see any compelling theological imperative why repentance should be impossible in the afterlife, and I'm extremely saddened that the Catholic Church has established this view as dogma. Personally, I find it profoundly immoral for a variety of reasons, the most glaring of which being that many people are simply never given a chance to repent during their lives (heck, millions of people have lived and died without even knowing that Christianity existed - do they deserve damnation for their ignorance?). This might actually be the single biggest problem I have with Catholicism, even surpassing my distaste for its top-down power structure.

Universal salvation is absolutely not the view that everyone "goes straight to heaven" upon death. That would be a ridiculous idea, and frankly I'm a bit surprised that you thought so poorly of the respected theologians who embrace this view (actually, I'd also like to argue that no one goes straight to heaven, but that's besides the point). If one accepts the premise that repentance is possible at any point in the afterlife, however, then universal salvation makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? If you have an eternity to meditate on your own life and actions in a state of at least partial awareness of God, then I don't find it hard to believe that everyone will sooner or later realize their mistakes and misdeeds, and sincerely turn to God for mercy. For the most wicked souls, this might take billions upon billions of years (and  billions upon billions of years of damnation is not something anyone would be looking forward to!), but it must, I think, eventually happen.