This is the eleventh post in our series on the newly published edited volume entitled Reproduction and the Common Good: Global Perspectives from the Catholic Tradition. As we continue to digest the results of the US Presidential election this week, there is no doubt that moral consideration of the social constraints women face will remain an urgent priority for Catholic theologians. We are proud of the work we have done to highlight the complexity of reproductive health care and the importance of women’s voices in shaping Catholic theological ethics now and in the future. This guest post by professor emerita Lisa Fullam examines key take-aways in the chapter by Julie Clague. As a reminder, the entire book is available for free download thanks to the generous collaboration between Journal of Moral Theology and Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church. These spaces for academic dialogue give us hope in dark times.
Julie Clague describes her chapter titled “Structural Inequality and the Social Determinants of Unintended Pregnancy” in two ways: it is both not a matter of theological or ethical scholarship (in method), and at the same time raises questions that are “moral to the core.” (21) Clague’s chapter follows the book’s introduction as a gritty, data-driven demonstration of some of the social structures that undermine women’s health and wellbeing in reproduction. The collection overall employs two complementary guiding frameworks: Catholic social teaching and reproductive justice. The latter builds on the work of scholar-activists Loretta J. Ross and Toni Bond, finding “a broad range of factors…impact women’s decisions regarding reproduction, including health care access, housing, education, political structures, and the safety of one’s environment.” (8). Clague’s chapter is drawn from global public health research, used here in the service of those guiding frameworks.
Unintended pregnancy (a term that denotes both undesired and earlier-than-desired pregnancies) is a global phenomenon that is startlingly common: in studies cited here, nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide were found to be unintended. But the rates of unintended pregnancy vary dramatically by country, driven in part by structural inequalities. Specifically, Clague looks at income level, access to contraception, gender inequality, and access to and attainment of education and how those correlate with unintended pregnancy. In each of these areas, disadvantage or disempowerment correlates with higher levels of unintended pregnancy; these “interlocking and compounding structural inequalities …cement injustice into the status quo.” (53) Unintended pregnancy, then, can be seen as a case study in reproductive justice, where structural inequalities contribute to the precarity of already-vulnerable women, children, and families.
That’s where Catholic Social Teaching comes in. The roundtable discussions that were the origin of this book revolved around several principles of CST: the common good, human dignity, and preferential option for the poor, all of which are clearly implicated (though, as I mentioned, not explicitly discussed) in Clague’s study of unintended pregnancy. Solidarity, a fourth CST principle that shapes the volume, presents here a challenge to all of us who care about justice—how do we ally ourselves in an effective manner with women struggling against the health inequities that limit their reproductive freedom and too often threaten their lives?
In much of magisterial teaching, questions about reproduction are framed as individual moral choices rather than in the terms of social ethics. The ink spilled over the encyclical Humanae Vitae alone would raise the global sea level if poured into the ocean all at once. Those moral questions have social correlates, of course, but those are after-thoughts, social effects of right or wrong individual choices. Those teachings tend to be framed as matters of natural law, not social justice. An approach to reproductive justice founded in Catholic Social Teaching might seem disconnected from the Church’s moral tradition, just as seminary students tend to study moral theology and CST in different classes.
But a closer look at natural law reveals the link. In the Thomistic understanding that predominates in Catholic ethics, what is “natural” most profoundly is what is conducive to human flourishing, individually and collectively. Natural law is the process of human reason pondering the requisites of holistic human flourishing. We are created by a loving God who desires our flourishing and gives us the tools—reason and revelation—to figure out how we best pursue it. But that flourishing, individually and collectively, is harmed when human-created social structures disadvantage some of us unjustly—for example, the poor, women, those who have no access to education, or those who lack the social power to make reproductive choices freely. The connection of reproductive justice to CST and to natural law is clear: “Reproductive justice … brings together diverse individuals and community organizations to foster holistic flourishing, especially for persons marginalized by race and class.” (7) So rather than an alternative or secondary discourse to natural law, CST demands a recognition of how injustice challenges preconceived notions of the natural.
Those human-caused injustices are a scandal. They are a stumbling block on our path to a just society and a pretext for sin. Clague’s chapter drives home the depth of this inequity, and Catholic tradition, both its social tradition and the moral tradition, demand its redress. She’s right—the questions she raises are moral to the core.
Lisa Fullam, D.V.M., ThD., is professor emerita of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and associate veterinarian at the New Baltimore Animal Hospital in West Coxsackie, NY.
