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Monica Doumit, the Director of Public Affairs and Engagement for the Archdiocese of Sydney, is one of the clearest pro-life voices on Earth. Here’s what happens when we ask her to admit some of the things pro-choice people are right about.
Cy Kellett:
Pro-choice arguments actually get a lot right. Monica Doumit is next.
Cy Kellett:
Hello, and welcome to Focus, the Catholic answers podcast for living, understanding and defending your Catholic faith. And we’re not exactly going to be defending the Catholic faith at this time. We wanted to talk with one of our … well, you can probably tell from how we respond whenever we talk to her Monica Doumit down there in Sydney, Australia is one of our favorite people in the world. And we love it when she talks to us about pro-life stuff. She’s just one of the best in the world at talking about pro-life stuff. But we posed a little challenge to her this time. Something we thought maybe this will be something we’ll do on a regular basis, which is ask what our opponents get right, because it’s important to acknowledge that your opponents do in fact get a lot right. And not everybody who’s a pro-choice person is a pro-choice person in bad faith. It’s because they get certain things, right and those things are convincing to them on a new intellectual and moral and spiritual level. And so they are pro-choice people.
Cy Kellett:
So we thought we’d acknowledge or ask Monica Doumit to acknowledge some of the things that pro-choices get right in this episode and here’s what she had to say.
Cy Kellett:
Monica Doumit from the archdiocese of Sydney in Australia, the director of public affairs and engagement, which means policy advisor to Bishop Anthony, excuse me, Archbishop Anthony Fisher. Thanks for being with us.
Monica Doumit:
Thank you for having me back.
Cy Kellett:
I’m surprised that you’re allowed to do a conversation with an American from Australia. I thought you guys were locked down in every way.
Monica Doumit:
Well, we are starting to re-emerge after goodness, about five months of being at home. I was on maybe a three mile leash. I’m trying to convert it into American. Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. And it’s into American. Yeah. That’s the thing, all we’ve seen on TV for the last year or so is when you have mass protests out in the streets of people who are like, “I can’t take it anymore. I got to go for a walk.”
Monica Doumit:
Three miles for me, it was a 9:00 PM curfew. So back into your home by 9:00 PM and at times helicopters flying above [crosstalk 00:02:22]. Extraordinary look I’m a pretty compliant person and to be honest, I had enough work to do, to be sitting at my desk for a good 12 hours a day. But for many people, it was just an extraordinary time of particularly a lot of people who were out of work, just having to be in their homes for that long. So thanks good to God we’re starting to come out the other side of it. We don’t want to be experiencing that again.
Cy Kellett:
I can tell you the easiest part of that would be the 9:00 PM curfew for me. I can’t remember last time I was out after 9:00 PM, but the thing is here in the United States, we got it all right. We did not make any mistakes, so we didn’t have any division over it. We were completely United. It was really beautiful to see how America responded to this.
Monica Doumit:
Really?
Cy Kellett:
You’re well known as a pro-life person. You’re a former international, was it international law? Was that what you practiced as an attorney?
Monica Doumit:
So corporate law.
Cy Kellett:
Corporate law?
Monica Doumit:
Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Even worse. And no, I just said that wrong. Sorry, but now you kind of in many cases speak for the archdiocese and for the pro-life movement in many venues. But we wanted to turn the tables on you a little bit and not ask you all, what do we all get right all of us pro-lifers? We wanted to ask you what do pro-choice people get right. And we thought here at Catholic Answers Focus might be the beginning of something we do where we talk about what other people get right. What our opponents, so to speak get right. And you are willing to do it. You’re willing to say that the other side is not just completely wrong about everything.
Monica Doumit:
Yeah. Well, I’d hope so. I hope we combined a little bit of common ground.
Cy Kellett:
All right. I’ll throw some out at you and see if you agree with them and then get your take on why we can agree with these if in fact you would say, we agree with these. All right. So how about this one? Would you say pro-choice people are right that women have the right to make their own choices?
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. Look Catholics fundamentally believe in free will. Right? And so at the very basis, we all believe that we are free to make our own decisions. We should be free to make our own choices, not only when it comes to what’s done to our own bodies, but also then in other aspects of our lives as well. Freedom is fundamental not only from a sort of a civil democratic point of view, but also from a faith perspective. We never want anyone acting out of coercion. So absolutely women, men, everybody should be free to make their own choices. Certainly correct.
Cy Kellett:
Wow. I don’t know if we can have you on anymore. Okay. So you agreed with that one. How about this one pro choice people are right that abortion solves a lot of problems at least for some people.
Monica Doumit:
Yeah. Look I guess I can agree with that one partially. There, there are people, abortion does solve problems. I would say immediate problems for some women. Abortion probably solves a lot of immediate problems for many men as well. I would diverge and say, the point of divergence I think that for me would be whether or not it solves problems in the long term or whether it creates them. Creates more problems for people involved and also from a broader societal perspective. So what might solve a problem? And it’s horrible to be talking the language of a problem when you’re talking about an unborn child, but forgive me, it might solve a problem-
Cy Kellett:
Well, I think responsibility brings problems with it. I mean, every responsibility. So if you think about the child as a responsibility, then of course it makes your life more complicated and brings problems.
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. But what might solve a problem for one might create a society and a societal instead of societal values, that creates a number of problems for many other people down the track.
Cy Kellett:
All right. I hope you don’t turn me pro-choice by the end of this. How about this one? Pro-choice people often say, “Well, we don’t know the exact moment when a human life begins.” Maybe they’re right about that.
Monica Doumit:
Yeah. Look, I have a medical science degree and I would say that certainly between the sexual act and a woman discovering she’s pregnant, we don’t know how long it takes her to fall pregnant. There’s not an exact amount of time. For us we know conversations about [inaudible 00:06:56] and twining and all of those types of things. So I would be cautious of anyone saying we know the exact moment that a human life begins. Again, the point of divergence for us would be, well, then what’s your response to not knowing? What’s your response to that lack of knowledge?
Cy Kellett:
All right, we’re going to cut circle back around to that, but I want to make sure that have the right person, you do work for the Catholic archdiocese of Sydney and you’re willing to concede all these points.
Monica Doumit:
[crosstalk 00:07:25] This call. If the Archbishop is listening, we’ll see whether or not that’s still the case after.
Cy Kellett:
Listen all the way to the end, Archbishop. All right. What about this one? Women shouldn’t be forced to raise a child, especially when they’ve been abandoned. When they’re alone, when they may be indigent, they shouldn’t be forced to raise a child.
Monica Doumit:
Look, I would agree and say that I do not want any woman who is abandoned, who can’t afford a child, raising a child in those circumstances where she is abandoned, where she cannot afford to raise it, where she’s feeling alone and desperate.
Cy Kellett:
Oh my gosh, you are … okay. So this is a lot of stuff we’ve already conceded. As a matter of fact, it seems like this makes a pretty, together these points make a pretty cogent pro-choice argument in that the woman has a right to choose. We believe in her free will, we believe that she’s responsible for her choices? She might in fact solve at least her immediate problems by choosing abortion. We don’t in fact know when the exact moment of the beginning of our lives is that’s shrouded in mystery even today, even given all the science that we have on it, it remains shrouded in mystery and we don’t say that women should be forced into a position where they have to raise a child when they don’t want to raise a child, or when there’s nobody there to raise the child with and they don’t have the means to raise the child.
Cy Kellett:
So why do you remain, maybe we should go back over these and say, why do you remain a pro-life anti-abortion person? And I have to say, Monica, I don’t know how you feel about it. I do not mind when people say that I’m an anti-abortion person, a lot of people are picky about the language. I feel like, no, that’s what I am. You should not commit the act of abortion I’m anti-abortion abortion. But if you’re uncomfortable with it, we’ll use another phrase.
Monica Doumit:
No, I’m happy with it. I’m also anti-slavery.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Right, exactly. Yeah. Not to put too fine a point on it, but yeah, there’s things that we’re against like taking the life of innocent babies and enslaving other human beings. So how can you maintain an anti-abortion position when all of these things you just conceded, everything I said to you, you conceded at least in part, but in most of them in whole.
Monica Doumit:
Well, because I believe that a pro-life position, an anti-abortion position actually provides the best solution to these. So we’ve identified a number of problems. Absolutely. And then I think where we diverge, where we disagree is the solution to those problems. The solution to these issues is most beautifully, most fully found in a consistent pro-life position. We can run back through them, but really the pro-life position, the anti-abortion position provides a much fuller and much more beautiful life giving, fulfilling response to these issues.
Cy Kellett:
Okay, so what about the women’s right to choose? Let’s go through these 1, 2, 3, 4. What about the women’s right to choose, you came down in favor of that. You seem to be one of these women who thinks women can think for themselves and make their own decisions. I’m categorizing you with that group, Monica. So give me the pro life argument that’s consistent with. Women have the right to choose for themselves.
Monica Doumit:
We all accept limits on our personal autonomy when it comes to the protection of other people and nothing has made this more clear than the COVID pandemic, right? I mean, everyone has a right to choose and choose what they do with their bodies, what they do with their lives, except that we do have a responsibility where your personal actions endanger, the life or the health of another. And so, yes my freedom makes sense, but it’s not absolute. My freedom does not extend to the point where my actions put the life of somebody else, particularly at risk. Nobody, despite all of divergent views about mask wearing and vaccines and all of those types of things, nobody would think that somebody with COVID should have the ability to go and actively infect other vulnerable people and put them in a position where their life might end. So yes, your freedom ends at the point where somebody else’s life is at risk.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. I feel like young people get this when it comes to … I mean, many, many young people are very upset about global warming and they get it that I don’t have the freedom to just have the biggest carbon foot print that I can possibly imagine. They’re willing to accept limits on their freedoms to defend the planet we’re saying, or it sounds like you are saying, and I certainly would say that there’s a limit on your freedom when it comes to the life of the child in the womb as well.
Monica Doumit:
Absolutely. And look for centuries we’ve been debating at a political and civil and other levels where those limits are appropriately set. But for abortion, I think it’s very, very clear because you are talking about another human life. There’s no room there for ambiguity, there’s no gray area there that’s another human life. So my freedom ends in the same way that, what’s the saying my freedom of movement of my fist ends at your nose, right? Like I just it’s at the point where you make contact with somebody else in a way that can harm them and particularly end their life, that’s where your freedom ends.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Monica Doumit:
So I think it’s very clear, but other than that, absolutely women can and should be free to make plenty of decisions about their lives. And actually it’s a whole other conversation about conception and sexual activity and all of those types of things. But maybe we can get into that a little bit later.
Cy Kellett:
Well, that’s fine if but what you mean is at least I think where you’re headed is that not in every case, certainly not in every case. And there are women who become pregnant by sexual assault, but in most cases, there are earlier choices that are made where you might exercise your freedom of choice and that would not lead to a pregnancy, therefore not lead to the necessity. So to speak of abortion. Is that where you were going?
Monica Doumit:
Yeah, that’s where I was going. And also that I think that there’s an idea that abortion contraception provides a greater freedom to women. And that’s an often an argument we hear from those who are pro-abortion, but in many respects, those choices end up enslaving women in a way where they feel like abortion ends up being their only choice.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Yes. And this is one of the consequences of modern life is that many of the choices we make that we assert our freedom are in fact enslaving. And you can go back to the Bible, which would teach you for example, about wine that they did have that you’re not going to become freer by drinking all the wine you want to drink. You’re what you’re going to end up is a slave to wine. And the modern world had just has a greater diversity of things to be enslaved to.
Monica Doumit:
Yes. And once you start making decisions that enslave you in a certain way, then by yourself, you are then limiting your own freedoms in a way that [inaudible 00:15:23] pro-life outlook, probably wouldn’t give you those same restrictions.
Cy Kellett:
Here in the United States we have a television program called Saturday Night Live. It’s very famous. It’s been going for decades. And there’s a bit of a controversial one right now where a very funny woman from Saturday Night Live dressed up as a clown. And she talked about her clown abortion. And what she was doing was saying she had an abortion when she was 23, and that made it possible for her to have the life now that she has. But she dressed up as a clown in a certain sense to kind of do a little bit of absurdist. Like I’m not free to talk about this as a woman so I’m talking about it through this character of a clown. And she talked about the Supreme court decision clown versus Wade, I think. And then, she talked about … I don’t remember, but clown abortion and that kind of thing.
Cy Kellett:
And this woman who did this is a very successful woman now. I mean, she’s in TV and movies and she’s wealthy, but more than all of that, she gets to do her art, she gets to do this comedy that she’s capable. So many people are very sympathetic to it. Other people are like, oh, that really crossed the line. I actually found it helpful. I think it’s helpful to the whole conversation, but what it brings up is here’s a woman who’s saying, look, I was 23 years old. I had an abortion. And look at the life I have as a consequence. That, that made the rest of this great life I have possible. What’s wrong with that argument?
Monica Doumit:
One, it’s an argument. It’s a bit of a straw man, right. Because the only thing that this woman has to present is her current life, right? This is the life that I have now. She’s comparing it to life that doesn’t exist. Not only the life of the child that was aborted when she was 23, but also her life as a mother and a mother to that child. And for every celebrity that gets up there, I think of other US celebrities who have done the same thing that academy, awards, ceremonies, and all that and other places they say, look at the life that I have now and it wouldn’t have been possible. had I not had an abortion. You have mothers there who say look at my son who’s just graduated from college, who I was pressured to abort, look at this beautiful life that I have that I would not have had had I not chosen life.
Monica Doumit:
So you can’t compare somebody’s life with a hypothetical that they didn’t pursue and compare one, one to the other.
Cy Kellett:
All right.
Monica Doumit:
And there’s nothing to say. I just have to say, there’s nothing to say that she couldn’t have, or shouldn’t have had the life of a celebrity when having children. We know many successful celebrity women who also have families. And this idea that I either have to choose my career, or my family is something that we really need to challenge, right? Women should be able to do both and to pursue their career dreams, whatever they are and also have children, we shouldn’t be setting up a binary choice like that.
Cy Kellett:
What you just said reminds me of something that a friend of mine here in the US, Gloria Purvi says, and when she’s talking about contraception, she says, instead of changing the world to work for women’s bodies, we change women’s bodies to work for the world. And in this case, instead of changing the world to make it possible for mothers to function, we change the mother make her get rid of her baby rather than making the world work for her.
Monica Doumit:
Yeah, absolutely. Here’s your choice. You can either have your career, or you can have abort your child. I probably told this story before, but back when I was working as a corporate lawyer, there was sort of this unwritten rule that you could have two children and that was it.
Cy Kellett:
You have told me that. Right. Right. Yeah. And it was just like, they just made really clear. Yeah, fine two, that’s a normal person go past two and you’re somewhat of a problem for us.
Monica Doumit:
We used to laughingly call it the Noah’s oak rule, there was a limit of two and it was just accepted to the extent that we had a name for it. Is that freedom? I would doubt it.
Cy Kellett:
No, no, right. All right. Here’s one where people always say, well, follow the science and listen to the science and I actually agree. I mean, I think science is great and you should listen to it, but this seems like a rather major concession to say, even with all the science we have, we don’t know when human life begins. So doesn’t that kind of make you uncomfortable with your pro-life anti-abortion position, Monica?
Monica Doumit:
Well, we don’t know when human life begins to the extent, like I said, the exact moment of fertilization, we don’t know when that occurs for some women, it will take longer. Some women will have twins so that you have two, what begins as one human life ends up being two. We don’t know when that happens, but for the most part, usually, I guess most of us can, agree that that will usually happen before the woman realizes that she’s pregnant. And so, while I might not be able to tell you the exact moment when human life begins, it’s the relevance of that question to abortion. I’m not entirely sure that that’s relevant to the abortion conversation.
Cy Kellett:
It begins early enough in the process that if we said, “Oh, it begins one hour or after intercourse, or it begins two days after intercourse.” Either way human life begins very, very early.
Monica Doumit:
Exactly right. And so I’m not going to claim which one, but by the time you are ready to make a decision about that, then human life definitely has begun.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Monica Doumit:
Probably get into a conversation then about the morning after pill, I’m not sure what it’s called in the US.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. It’s called the morning after pill or plan B I think, although they may be two different things, but yes. Okay. So the morning after pill, right?
Monica Doumit:
So that’s probably the one where this argument that I’m making would be challenged, but that’s when we lean back, I think it’s probably JP2 but he said it even on the chance that a human life has already begun, that your responsibility then is to act in a way that the life is there.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, right. And by the way, for all the people who want to know the science right here in the United States in the year 1874 is when embryologists showed that life begins when human egg and human sperm come into contact [inaudible 00:22:25]. It’s somewhere shortly after that life begins. So this is a scientific fact and it’s not a scientific fact we’re going to argue about, we’ve known it since 1874 and it’s quite clear. So saying we don’t know the exact moment when that process is complete, is different from saying, we don’t know where human life comes from or how it begins.
Monica Doumit:
Yeah, exactly right.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Women, shouldn’t be forced to raise a child if they’ve been abandoned by the father, or if they’re alone in this world or they’re poor, or they’re facing other difficulties, why should a woman be forced to raise that child?
Monica Doumit:
I remember giving a talk at a university this one time and I had, there was actually a gentleman who stood up to challenge my anti-abortion stand and he said, “Look, my former girlfriend when she fell pregnant, we split up, she was on a student visa, she was going to have to go back to her home country, it would’ve been a very horrible experience for her raising a child there as a single mother, she wouldn’t have had a job, she couldn’t continue her education, all of these things. Why would you force her to be in that situation?” And I remember responding to him. I don’t want her to be in that situation at all. You should have stayed with her to start that’s your child as well, right? And then if the relationship between mother and father breaks down, then that’s when the community should be stepping in and providing that woman with support so she doesn’t have to choose between, can I continue my studies and raising a child that we should be able to provide women with the support.
Monica Doumit:
So no one is ever faced with the idea of this child will require me to living away where I can’t look after myself and the child because I can’t afford it where I can’t fathom the idea of continuing studying or having a job where I’m all alone. We don’t want women to be alone raising children. We don’t want women to be poor raising children. That’s why we say that the proper place for sexual activity is between husband and wife in a solid family unit, because we don’t want women to be abandoned in this way. And then when that doesn’t happen, then we want the community supports in there. And that’s where often the church and church agencies step in. Pregnancy support services, and other things like that, and then failing all of that, the state should step in. We don’t want women to be forced into that choice. Absolutely not.
Cy Kellett:
Monica. I really appreciate it and I don’t want anyone to feel that we’re being disingenuous. All of these things that we said that are true, that the pro choice position says they are in fact true. We’re just asking folks to also consider that there are other truths. I can’t think of anybody on the planet earth to talk with that can do a better job doing that than you, Monica. First of all, I just found out in this conversation, you have a medical sciences degree. What on earth? You’re like an international intrigue lawyer, medical sciences degree, pro-life campaigner, coordinator of public policy for an archdiocese. What up, what else have you got?
Monica Doumit:
Masters in bioethics?
Cy Kellett:
I was only kidding. I didn’t know there was going to be more.
Monica Doumit:
So I was not meant to answer that question?
Cy Kellett:
No, that was great. I really I’m grateful. We always love talking with you. I personally always love talking with you. I believe you are a great gift to the pro-life movement, to the Catholic Church and to the world at large, to all of our listeners, you certainly are. So thanks, Monica Doumit we appreciate you getting up early on a Saturday morning in Sydney, Australia.
Monica Doumit:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me always such a joy.
Cy Kellett:
Our thanks to Monica Doumit from the archdiocese of Sydney, Australia. We’re always grateful when she takes the time to be with us. And it always is an enlightening thing, and she always has to get up early in the morning to do it in order to fit with our calendar. So that’s kind of fun too, to make her get up early in the morning. If you have a reaction to this, if you’d like to ask further questions, or maybe you have something else that you’d like us to admit that pro-choice people get right, we’d be happy to take your emails. Just send them to focus@catholic.com, focus@catholic.com. And if you have ideas for future episodes, those have been very helpful to us from other folks and so we’d be happy to take your ideas for future episodes. Give us some ideas of what you’d like to see covered here.
Cy Kellett:
And if you’re watching on YouTube, don’t forget to like, and subscribe. If you’re listening on a podcast service, please subscribe. So that you’ll be updated when new episodes are available and wherever you can give us the that five star review, maybe a few nice words, help us grow the podcast. If you oh, I don’t want to leave this out. If you want to support us financially, it does take money to do this. You can support us financially by going to givecatholic.com. I’m Cy Kellett your host, always happy to get to spend this time with you. We’ll see you next time. God willing right here on Catholic Answers Focus.
Cy Kellett:
And what is fall pregnant? No fell pregnant. I’ve never heard of that. Is that what you say in Australia? She fell pregnant.
Monica Doumit:
Yeah. Do you not say that in the US?
Cy Kellett:
No. That sounds like it was like she tripped and how did that happen? No, it’s she got pregnant. That’s what we say.