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Msgr. George Higgins

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The AFL-CIO's Neutral Position on Abortion

By Msgr. George G. Higgins

The Yardstick

August 16, 1999

My irate caller said, in summary, that as a Catholic priest (and, as he put it, a monsignor no less), I should be ashamed to be praised by a man whom he said is pro-choice on abortion. Sweeney, of course, is not pro-choice. When I asked my caller for the source of this allegation, he said it was a recent piece in The Wanderer newspaper that described Sweeney as "president of the pro-abortion AFL-CIO." His implication was that Sweeney is personally pro-abortion.

I told my caller that his charge against Sweeney as a person is irresponsibly false and that The Wanderer's description of the AFL-CIO as pro-abortion was incorrect. The AFL-CIO as an organization has not taken a stand on abortion.
My caller then switched gears, arguing that the AFL-CIO's neutrality on the issue means in fact that the organization is pro-abortion. He was in no mood to listen as I tried to explain why I personally had advised the AFL-CIO to remain neutral.

But to set the public record straight, let me briefly summarize here the testimony I presented before a committee of 18 union presidents who had been asked in 1989 to make a recommendation to the federation about how to deal with several resolutions on abortion presented at its last convention. (Sweeney was not AFL-CIO president then.)

I said I was speaking strictly in my own name and that I had not come before the committee to debate abortion either from the ethical point of view or that of public policy.  My basic point was that it would be a serious mistake for the federation to take an official position on this issue. I also said it would be fatuous for the committee to think that this is exclusively a Catholic issue. To the contrary, I said, it cuts across all denominations.

At the end of my testimony the committee, meeting in executive session, advised the AFL-CIO executive council to remain neutral on abortion, and the council subsequently so voted. So at the present time the AFL-CIO as an organization remains neutral on the issue.

If my irate caller thinks the AFL-CIO has no ethical right to remain neutral on an issue of this importance, I strongly disagree. The American labor movement has always been a neutral movement in the best sense of the word -- a movement in which men and women of different ideologies, religions and ethical convictions have been able to unite around basic labor issues and work together in solidarity. No other trade union movement in the world has a better record in this regard.

I think it would be a serious mistake for the federation to depart from this tradition, which has served it so well. Even a casual review of the history of European labor movements, which until recently have gotten involved in all sorts of religious and ethical problems, suffices to show that the U.S. tradition has been advantageous not only to the movement but to religion.

The practice of the European movements led to an almost fatal estrangement between the church and labor on the continent. We are blessed that this did not happen in the United States.