McGrath Institute and ND Right to Life Host Post-Dobbs Panel
Notre Dame Right to Life and the McGrath Institute for Church Life co-sponsored a panel discussion entitled “A Culture of Life in Post-Dobbs America,” which reflected on life going forward after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June Dobbs ruling. The panel featured DeNicola Center Director, Carter Snead, St. John’s Seminary professor of Theology, Angela Franks, Creighton University School of Medicine professor Charles Camosy, and USCCB Associate Director of the ad hoc Committee Against Racism, Danielle Brown. His Excellency Bishop Kevin Rhoades concluded the panel.
The panelists covered a wide range of topics including jurisprudence, race, public discourse, and women in society. Each panelist brought their own background to the discussion and offered students a more complete vision for promoting the culture of life in an America now less focused on the singular obstacle of overturning Roe.
Professor Snead focused his discussion on the need to develop a legal understanding of true human anthropology. Referencing Pope St. John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, he explained that “the law has to operate from a set of usually unstated premises about what human beings are and what our flourishing consists in.” Snead emphasized the continued need to focus on legal action which does not simply consist of laws outlawing abortion, but also policies which support the mother and child, explaining that such policies are an essential element of success in eliminating abortion.
Danielle Brown focused her talk on abortion-related issues which especially impact the African American community. She raised a concern that the pro-life community may have a tendency to become “all stats” when discussing black Americans and echoed a point similar to that of professor Snead – promoting a culture of life in these communities demands addressing tangential problems, such as those surrounding education and health, which tend to impact African Americans at an inordinate rate.
Brown also highlighted the crisis surrounding the rise of over-the-counter abortifacient drugs, stating, “we are now seeing the breakdown of laws that were designed to prevent abortion from becoming modern-day eugenics.” Brown highlighted a growing mindset in the American right to ignore racial issues enables the fabricating of “desperately needed space between us and those communities that we don’t understand.” Brown concluded with a powerfully imaged statement of the necessity for all racial communities to unite within the Church in order to counter the culture of death.
Professor Franks addressed professional issues, especially in the academic sphere, with expectations and systems that are often constructed without women in mind and rather imposing a flawed “male template.” Viewing the entire modern structure of business and academics as complicit in denying the “orientation of womens’ bodies,” she highlighted the urgent need for change in these structures to allow for women to participate without sacrificing their ability to have a family. She told us “Too often, the message to women (and men) is that family is in conflict with work, while the latter should take priority.” Franks was vehement in her disgust over the trend of seeing women’s liberation reduced to the ability to forgo family life, stating, “Female bodies testify to their orientation to caregiving, as well as the natural timeline in which caregiving for children can happen.” She ended by explaining that there is a zero-sum relationship over modern conceptions of personal success and women’s biology and stated clearly that we cannot allow the latter to become “malleable” to fit the demands of the former.
Ending the series of panelists, professor Camosy shared his belief in the importance of continued dialogue on this issue. “Abortion-friendly orthodoxy is simply assumed and in many cases enforced in nearly all of our prestigious institutions of higher education. To the extent that the views of dissenters are engaged at all, they are dismissed as religious and/or the product of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, or similar parade of horribles.” He warned attendees about the rapid proliferation of this reality after the Dobbs decision. Professor Camosy also highlighted Notre Dame’s unique role in collapsing this trend, calling the university, “the most prestigious school where this kind of debate is still possible” He told NDRtL, “It is imperative that institutions like Notre Dame hold the line and continue to allow for academic debate over abortion.”
Concluding the panel, Bishop Rhoades thanked the panelists and emphasized the importance of a continuing pro-life environment at Catholic universities such as Notre Dame, noting that pro-abortion activists seek to promote their own ideology “both from the outside and within,” This is a possible reference to last semester’s controversy surrounding Keough School of Global Affairs Professor Tamara Kay. Kay was accused by a number of students and media sources of promoting and offering to aid students in procuring abortion after Indiana’s implemented legal restrictions. While Kay adamantly denies any wrongdoing, she deleted several posts from her Twitter page and took down signs on her office door which referred to her office as a “safe space to get help and information on ALL healthcare issues,” and included her non-Notre Dame email address. On her Twitter, Kay stated, “our support for abortion rights is incredibly powerful and therefore threatens the few bigots among us.” Kay later stated that an ND police officer was provided to monitor her email account to protect her from “bigots and hate groups.” Kay’s statements and alleged actions drew both criticism and support from the campus community and beyond.
Commenting on the importance of the panel at this point in time both in the country and on campus, Notre Dame Right to Life President Merlot Fogarty stated: “It is critical to be having conversations like these about the concrete steps the pro-life movement should be taking post-Dobbs, and Notre Dame should be at the center of these conversations. Especially with the onset of chemical abortion and the threat of pro-abortion professors’ involvement in promoting abortion access on campus, we must be making objective moves toward educating and protecting women on campus and in our communities from the harm of abortion and the reality of the lives of the unborn.”
This panel was live-streamed and can be watched here.
William Hunter is a Junior Theology and Philosophy joint major. He can be contacted at whunter2@nd.edu.