On abortion and Catholicism
An issue that undoubtedly makes people on the left nervous when they discover about my Catholicism is abortion. Similarly, many Catholics are wary of my left-wing politics not least because of the association between being left-wing and pro-choice, an association which, incidentally, I want to support in what follows. In both cases one is vulnerable to the accusation of not really belonging, of being allied to the enemy in a vital matter. Real Catholics, runs the charge in one direction, want abortion to be illegal. Real socialists, it runs in the opposite direction, don’t align themselves with a major opponent of reproductive rights. Perhaps out of timidity in the face of this, I’ve not said much in the past about abortion. I did write a piece criticising a London protest outside a pregnancy advice centre, not even arguing for the legality of abortion, but simply dismissing this tactic as a form of violence against women. This was met with heavy denunciation from several of my c...
