Let’s watch as St. John Paul II “kitchen sinks” pro-life.

ecent­ly Leila “Bub­bles” Miller, a Catholic writer with a cer­tain fol­low­ing, plained, yet again, about what she calls the “kitchen sink­ing” of the term “pro-life.” She worries—given the exis­tence of that pesky New Pro Life Move­ment—that the term must now include every­thing, I mean every­thing, even the wery kitchen sink. Because prop­er san­i­ta­tion is some­how not a pro-life issue. Imag­ine this.

Her post was in response to this arti­cle at the right-wing Catholic Vote, by Eric Sam­mons. “Why I’m Through Being Pro-Life”: that’s the title. In it Mr. Sam­mons bewails the New Pro Life Move­ment and oth­ers who broad­en the term to include more than just being against abor­tion. (And, to be fair, con­tra­cep­tion, euthana­sia, stem cell research: These are oth­er evils for the old pro lifers—the Catholic ones, any­way.) He writes:

I haven’t even addressed a less char­i­ta­ble pos­si­bil­i­ty: that some pro-lif­ers call every­thing a pro-life issue because they want to min­i­mize the impor­tance of abor­tion. They don’t believe abor­tion is real­ly that bad (and might even be nec­es­sary some­times), so by lump­ing every­thing under the pro-life label, they make abor­tion just one of many issues. And as we’ve often seen, it becomes an issue that nev­er ris­es to the top in terms of pri­or­i­ty.

Well, unchar­i­ta­ble it indeed is, but it is more than that; it is a lie. I mean, the New Pro Life Move­ment lists oppo­si­tion to abor­tion first among its beliefs. Mr. Sam­mons says that abor­tion “nev­er ris­es to the top,” which is very odd, since the New Pro Life Move­ment puts it at the very top. He makes no men­tion of that.

But Mr. Sam­mons is hon­est about one thing. “As for me,” he says, “I’ve come to real­ize that I’m no longer pro-life. Just call me anti-abor­tion. It’s accu­rate, spe­cif­ic, and tells the whole world that I’m unabashed­ly opposed to child-killing.”

He does not even both­er to add euthana­sia, or con­tra­cep­tion, or stem-cell research, or even mur­der (if you’ve man­aged to get born). Just abor­tion. That’s all he’s against.

Now, you know, the Old Pro Life Move­ment apol­o­gists have long object­ed when peo­ple say, “You’re not real­ly pro-life, you’re just pro-birth.” Hor­rors, the very sug­ges­tion! But now, behold, Mr. Sam­mons admits it is true (at least of him­self), and Catholic Vote pub­lish­es it and Bub­bles Miller pro­motes it. All those oth­er right to life issues apart from abor­tion? Pooh!

The mask and the pre­tense to actu­al­ly being pro-life have now been cast off. Which might actu­al­ly be a real good. We might begin to focus on the dig­ni­ty of being human, and you don’t stop being human once you’ve got­ten your­self born.

Mean­while, let me explain why, if you reject a larg­er mean­ing to “pro-life” than just that you are against abor­tion, you are fight­ing the Church. You’re in the cafe­te­ria. It’s as easy as point­ing out that, in Evan­geli­um Vitae, St. John Paul II him­self “kitchen sinks” pro-life. (In truth, Vat­i­can II kitchen sinked it before he did.) The encycli­cal is about “the val­ue and invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of human life,” not mere­ly the evil of abor­tion; and here is what John Paul writes at the out­set, in §3. The sec­tion is titled “New threats to human life.” (That’s “threats,” in the plur­al. And here he is cit­ing Gaudi­um et Spes 27.)

The Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil, in a pas­sage which retains all its rel­e­vance today, force­ful­ly con­demned a num­ber of crimes and attacks against human life.” [Not just one or two.] “Thir­ty years lat­er, tak­ing up the words of the Coun­cil and with the same force­ful­ness I repeat that con­dem­na­tion in the name of the whole Church, cer­tain that I am inter­pret­ing the gen­uine sen­ti­ment of every upright con­science: “What­ev­er is opposed to life itself, such as any type of mur­der, geno­cide, abor­tion, euthana­sia, or wil­ful self-destruc­tion, what­ev­er vio­lates the integri­ty of the human per­son, such as muti­la­tion, tor­ments inflict­ed on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; what­ev­er insults human dig­ni­ty, such as sub­hu­man liv­ing con­di­tions, arbi­trary impris­on­ment, depor­ta­tion, slav­ery, pros­ti­tu­tion, the sell­ing of women and chil­dren; as well as dis­grace­ful work­ing con­di­tions, where peo­ple are treat­ed as mere instru­ments of gain rather than as free and respon­si­ble per­sons; all these things and oth­ers like them are infamies indeed. They poi­son human soci­ety, and they do more harm to those who prac­tise them than to those who suf­fer from the injury. More­over, they are a supreme dis­hon­our to the Cre­ator.”

Well, now. Talk about kitchen-sink­ing! What­ev­er is opposed to life is a pro-life issue, accord­ing to John Paul II, accord­ing to Gaudi­um et Spes.

And he lists not just abor­tion, not just euthana­sia, but geno­cide; sui­cide; muti­la­tion of the body; tor­ture; sub­hu­man liv­ing con­di­tions; arbi­trary impris­on­ment; dis­grace­ful work­ing con­di­tions; depor­ta­tion; pros­ti­tu­tion; slav­ery. There are fif­teen pro-life issues on this list alone. All of them are “infamies.” They all “poi­son human soci­ety.” They are all “a supreme dis­hon­or to the Cre­ator.” And St. John Paul II con­demns them all “in the name of the whole Church.” (That is, not just in his name alone, as a pri­vate opin­ion, but as the teacher of the whole Church.)

They are all pro-life issues. But St. John Paul II does­n’t stop there. By no means. He goes on, in the very next sec­tion, to say that the num­ber is epxand­ing. So there are more than these fif­teen. “With the new prospects opened up by sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal progress,” he says, “there arise new forms of attacks on the dig­ni­ty of the human being.” In fact, the num­ber of “grave threats to human life,” accord­ing to John Paul II, is “count­less” (29). The kitchen sink may very well be one of them.

And that is why the New Pro-Life Move­ment exists. In an ear­li­er arti­cle, I showed that the goals of the New Pro Life Movement—every last one of them—come direct­ly from the Mag­is­te­r­i­al teach­ing of the Catholic Church. And giv­en that St. John Paul II (with Gaudi­um et Spes) lists no few­er than fif­teen pro-life issues, and says that the num­ber is expand­ing and might very well be “count­less,” it is odd that any Catholic would com­plain about the kitchen sink. We ought to be kitchen sink­ing, if we think that life itself—not just this issue or that—really is sacred and invi­o­lable. The Church teach­es that life is to be pro­tect­ed “from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death,” which does­n’t mean just at each end of life and not at all in the mid­dle.

Was St. John Paul II try­ing to push abor­tion to the bot­tom of the list when he said the num­ber of pro-life issues is “count­less”? I under­stand some­one who might say, “Look, I’m glad you’re call­ing atten­tion to all these oth­er issues. My par­tic­u­lar focus hap­pens to be abor­tion, I choose to focus on that alone, but I’m hap­py there are oth­ers bring­ing atten­tion to oth­er evils and oth­er threats to life.” Very good. No objec­tion.

And I under­stand if some­one says, “Well, abor­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly heinous.” Of course it is. No one denies this. No one claims that all life issues are of equal grav­i­ty. They don’t need to be.

But what I will nev­er under­stand is spend­ing so much time fight­ing, not abor­tion, but fight­ing the Church and engag­ing in a turf war over the term “pro-life,” as though it can only mean the fight against abor­tion, and noth­ing else. That is not how John Paul II thinks. And is it any won­der at all why some­one would say, “You’re not real­ly pro-life. You’re just against abor­tion. You’re just pro-birth.”

And now at least one per­son is admit­ting it, at Catholic Vote. Count me out. I’m pro-life.