Fiasco: Marquette Discussion of When Life Begins Has No Abortion Opponent

At any university, a discussion on “When Does Human Life Begin” would be an excellent idea. And at any university, at least somebody on the panel should espouse the view that life begins at conception.  This should be utterly obvious at a Catholic university.

But what happens when a pro-abortion feminist office at a “Catholic” university organizes the discussion? You can guess.

The discussion was sponsored by Marquette for Life, Empowerment (a feminist student organization), the Campus Ministry, and the Marquette University Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies. That latter one is just what it sounds like.

The discussants were Theology professor Conor Kelly and Monique Liston, who is an adjunct instructor of Gender and Sexualities Studies. One might expect a Marquette Theology professor to defend the Catholic position. But he did not. According to the Marquette Wire:

Because the Catholic Church is unable to pinpoint the exact moment personhood begins, Kelly said the church has developed an assumption that human life begins at the moment of conception. He said this is to protect all potential human life.

“In theology, there’s an ongoing conversation about how to identify exactly when personhood begins as a better way of describing not just life in the biological sense, but life in the moral sense,” Kelly said. “The Catholic Church says it doesn’t know when life begins in the sense of personhood.”

Liston, of course, played the race card, and talked about women making “choices.”

Liston said individuals should consider when a soul into enters the body and when a soul leaves the body at the time of death.

She said individuals should recognize the community contexts that contribute to individuals’ views on this topic. Members of the Marquette community are privileged to be given the opportunity to attend a panel like this, she said.

“We’re not on 30th and Wisconsin having this conversation,” Liston said. “We’re on 13th and Wisconsin having this conversation.”

Kelly added that historical implications of race and class continue to impact today’s populations.

“When we kind of see that reality, it very much complicates this picture and puts a lot of the onus, I would say, on our society to rethink what we’re doing and how we can be supportive, even if we want to affirm the autonomy of people to make choices,” Kelly said.

How the “historical implications of race and class” affect when life begins is something she did not explain. Does life begin at some different point for blacks and the poor? Or is blathering about race and class simply a way that the politically correct avoid discussing issues they don’t want to discuss?

As we shall see, Marquette for Life had to distance themselves from the whole affair.

Conor Kelly’s Views

We wondered if Kelly was actually as favorable toward abortion as he seemed, so we wrote him and asked him the following:

It appears you were supposed to “represent” Marquette for Life, and they weren’t happy with your “representation.” I understand that faculty aren’t lobbyists and neither you nor I would agree to “represent” a view other than one we actually hold.

But just a couple of simple questions: do you believe that “elective abortion” (leaving aside rape, incest, etc.) should be legal or illegal?

Do you in fact believe that life begins at conception, or at some other point?

I ask two simple questions because I don’t want to impose by expecting a long explanation of your views. If you’ve written on this, feel free to point me to what you have written.

On the record, unless you tell me otherwise.

Kelly did not respond to our e-mail, nor to a follow up phone call. The reader can infer what this means.

Some light on how Kelly actually feels is found in an article he wrote titled “The Role of the Moral Theologian in the Church: A Proposal in Light of Amoris Laetitia.” From the abstract:

Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia recast pastoral decisions in terms of conscience and discernment and asked moral theology to do the same. Such a request invites reforms for moral theology, requiring a shift from the traditional role of the moral theologian as an external judge to a more personalist role as a counselor for conscience. This change entails prioritizing the process of discernment ahead of the definition of rules, specifying the place of the ideal in Catholic morality, and attending to the ethics of ordinary life.

The word “discernment” has a synonym. That synonym is “rationalization.”

Once you decide to junk the rules and “discern” what should be done, it’s almost trivially easy to “discern” that you can have an abortion, or a sex change operation, or a homosexual relationship. “Discernment” is for those people who want to cast off all those nettlesome Catholic rules, and do what they want.

Kelly, of course, can believe what he wants. Dan Maguire has been around Marquette for decades supporting abortion, gay marriage, and all the rest. But nobody would pick Maguire to present a pro-life view on abortion.

Try to imagine, for a moment, how an environmentalist group would feel if they cosponsored a debate on global warming and all the participants hemmed and hawed and expressed all kinds of doubt, with nobody presenting a robust case that the earth faces a possible “climate change” catastrophe.

Marquette For Life Responds

Marquette for Life responded by, in effect, distancing the group from the entire affair. In a statement they noted that the event “seemed to cause more confusion than it did clarity.” They made it clear that “the faculty assigned to represent us” in fact did not. They insisted that “human life begins at conception.”

What Was Marquette for Life Thinking?

Good for Marquette for Life. But we have to ask, what were they thinking allowing people who flatly reject Catholic moral views to organize an event they co-sponsored?

Let’s begin with Empowerment. These are the students who vandalized an anti-abortion protest in the fall of 2016. Not only did they vandalize it, they were proud of the act, and demanded that Marquette refuse to allow such a display in the future. Marquette gave them a minor slap on the wrist for their vandalism.

They issued a bitter, intolerant screed, objecting to conservative Ben Shapiro speaking on campus.

The “Gender” Center

The Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies is another hotbed of political correctness. The first clue is obvious on their list of staff: each one lists her “preferred pronouns.”

The Director, one Angelique Harris, was a member of a study group of leftist feminists who supported cop-killer Assata Shakir, and planned to meet to discuss the deep thoughts of communist Angela Davis, and an essay on “The Whiteness of Police.”

Another staffer, one Chrissy Nelson, tried to undermine the talk of Ben Shapiro by advising people who disliked Shapiro to get a ticket, and not show up, depriving people who wanted to see him of an opportunity. This at the suggestion of an (unidentified) “director of diversity.”

How did Angelique Harris punish her when her plan was revealed? She was “repremanded” and remained on the staff.

And just who led the vandalizing of the anti-abortion display in the fall of 2016? Yet another Center staffer, Brianna Hawkins.

The Center is, quite simply, a center of politically correct intolerance.

A Lesson

Hopefully, Marquette for Life has learned a lesson. Don’t team up with people who despise all that you stand for, and probably hate you.

But at a genuinely Catholic university, an anti-abortion student group should not have to learn that lesson. Yes, there might be people who would disagree with them, and there might be debate and discussion. But in a genuinely Catholic university, they would have allies among the campus bureaucrats who would help see that their view was, at least, heard.

New Director of Gender and Sexualities Center Was Assata Shakur Supporter

Marquette’s misguided sop to the campus gay lobby, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, caused the Administration a ton of trouble. First, it sponsored the bawdy Femsex seminar, which had women students creating pornography, coloring pictures of female genitalia in the Cunt Coloring Book, and engaging in “non-judgmental” discussions of abortion and prostitution. Marquette had to distance itself from the program, and cancelled the official university sponsorship.

Then there was the mural of black militant murderer and terrorist Assata Shakur, painted on a wall at the Center. When we outed that, Marquette quickly had it painted over, and fired the Director of the Center, Susannah Bartlow. Bartlow, it seems, was simply too politically extreme.

In the wake of this fiasco, Marquette split the Center in two, with one of the pieces being a center with a scholarly focus. According to a Marquette news release:

Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies will support research, teaching

A new Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies will be housed in the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences and will support research and teaching on the topics of gender and sexualities. Directed by Dr. Angelique Harris, associate professor of social and cultural sciences, the CGSS will also hold the Women and Gender Studies major and minor. The CGSS will be located in Sensenbrenner Hall.

“I am pleased that the CGSS will enjoy the leadership of Dr. Harris, who brings deep professional experience and dedication to the center and its mission,” Myers says. “She and I have already had many productive discussions about how we can enhance and grow the major, as well as provide additional academic programming and course development and research support.”

But it seems that Angelique Harris has political views similar to those of Bartlow, at least were Shakur is concerned.

The following is an e-mail that circulated around the campus this past summer:

Dear Colleagues,

As members of MU faculty who teach in Africana Studies or related fields, I’m hoping you might be interested in being a part of a new study collective forming inside and outside of MU. Your insights, histories, research and commitments would enrich it enormously! In addition, it would be wonderful if you’d take a moment to forward the call below (and readings attached) to anyone you think might be interested in your communities and networks. Please email with questions, and I hope you are all having productive, inspiring, refreshing summers.

Yours, Jodi Melamed

Dear One and All,

* In the wake of the firing of Marquette’s Director of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center and the destruction of a student-created mural of Assata Shakur, a major figure in contemporary Black political activism

*Following 20 years of neglect, zero budget, and no institutional support for Africana Studies at Marquette and in affirmation that Black intellectual history matters

* To support the rise of student and community activism around policing, racism, economic inequality, mass incarceration, detention and deportation, sexual violence and other issues

* Feeling the need to gather to experience the learning that happens when we create knowledge and resist unequal power dynamics in the learning process itself

We send this call for all who are interested to come together in a study collective - name to be determined - inspired by freedom schools and the undisciplined learning collectives of social movements that gave rise to Black, Ethnic, American Indian, and Women’s and Gender Studies.

The name and purpose of the study collective will emerge from our conversations together. Given recent events, we think it makes sense to begin with Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur, a book that has come to represent (once again) the dangers associated with oppositional thinking.

Our first event will take place on July 26th (Sunday) from 3:00-5:00pm at Cudahy Hall (1313 W. Wisconsin Ave) Room 114. Come join us to discuss Assata: An Autobiography, whether you’ve read the whole book, part or none. RSVP not necessary, but appreciated! (To RSVP, email [redacted])

You can also find details on facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/events/841626975905901/

We’ve attached Angela Davis’s Introduction and the first and last chapters of Assata to this email to get you started. The whole book is available on Amazon and in many libraries, including UWM’s and Marquette’s (print and online version available). Please come whether you’ve read the whole book, part or none.

We’re also attaching a short essay entitled “The Whiteness of Police,” which examines policing as a form of racial management which “determines who requires discipline so that others can be secure enough to pursue their self interest.”

Looking forward,
Susannah Bartlow
Angelique Harris
Brianna Hawkins
Jodi Melamed
Sameena Mulla
(Study Collective Co-Facilitators)

This whole project seems as radical as the things that got the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center in trouble. Of course, leftist academics can get together and discuss anything they want, even “The Whiteness of Police” or the deep thoughts of Communist Angela Davis.

And the center that Harris heads is focused on scholarly things, and may be involved only in arcane stuff published in obscure gay and feminist journals (if at all). But, on the other hand, it may be that Marquette has failed to learn a lesson it should have.