Response to Governor Cuomo.

READERS WHO care to review the article in question will have no difficulty sorting out Governor Cuomo's comments for themselves. I would, however, like to draw particular attention to two points he raises.

1. Does the governor advocate restricting abortion? I said he does not. He says he does. How does he want to restrict abortion? He wants to "teach a repsect for life" by helping "impoverished mothers." This admirable policy will, he believes, "help restrict the number of abortions."

Consider a hypothetical analogy: The Supreme Court rules tomorrow that laws against rape are unconstitutional. A strong and vocal minority of men emerges, defending the Court's decision on the grounds that it protects their right to control their own bodies. The governor of a large state says that he does not think "the legal interdicting of rape" is a "plausible possibility." It would be reasonable, would it not, to say of that governor that "his option is to do absolutely nothing to restrict rape"?

Imagine what would happen if our hypothetical governor were to defend himself by saving something like this: "I do want to restrict rape. Why, we spend several million for counseling frustrated males, and we've doubled the Medicaid allowance for group therapy for impoverished men. By these positive actions we can act now to help restrict the number of rapes."

Would it not strike nearly everyone that this governor was using the word "restrict" rather oddly? Surely some commentator would note that if it is perfectly legal to commit rape it is mere playing with words to talk about rape's being "restricted."

Like Black and White

If you say that the state should restrict drunk driving, you do not mean that the legislature should subsidize AA. To promote personal savings is not to restrict theft. We do not restrict child abuse by increasing the budget for family counseling. The distinction between restricting a wrong act and encouraging its opposite is not a fine distinction. It ranks in terms of subtlety with such distinctions as those between black and white, up and down, left and right. If a public official were to apply it to nearly any other public issue he would be openly ridiculed. Is it not, then, an interesting comment on the state of public discourse that the governor of New York has the temerity to say, in effect: "I want to restrict abortion; I've doubled Medicaid funding for pre-natal services."

2. What of the analogy with slavery? The governor again returns to it and again evades the point. The point is that some acts involve violence against human beings in a way that violates the fundamental premises of a free society. Slavery contradicted the principle that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights. So does abortion. Governor Cuomo does not deny that abortion is the moral equivalent of slavery.

On the subject of the Corwin amendment: It represented no change in Lincoln's consistent position. He had never advocated congressional intervention in states where slavery was established. He said this of the proposed amendment in his First Inaugural Address: "Holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express." Lincoln took his stand on the issue of the extension of slavery. Likewise the opponent of abortion can select from many proposed alterations of present statutes to bring law into closer conformity with justice. To compare the man whose election to the Presidency caused the advocates of slavery to secede from the Union with the bishops who ingloriously sat on their hands through the whole controversy is nothing short of preposterous.

Cuomo repeatedly tries to hide behind bishops: dead ones whose cause is utterly discredited when he can't find a live one willing to muddle things sufficiently. But abortion is not a Catholic issue, and the inalienable rights that must animate our opposition to abortion are in no way dependent upon Christian faith. The fact that Cuomo is a Catholic is irrelevant to the public discussion of abortion. That Cuomo is a governor who advocates legal acceptance of the moral equivalent of slavery should concern us all.