On the Square Today

In his On the Square column , Joe Carter discusses how moderate pro-choicers can determine the relative value of fetal life:

Polling shows that they think the percentage of abortion should neither be 0% nor 100% of its current rate. But what percentage do they think it should be? And how should they determine the number?

One approach is to press them to consider the moral value of early life vis-à-vis infants or adults. They could approach the task of quantifying the number of acceptable abortions using economic analysis. “Economists have a curious habit of affixing numbers to complicated transactions,” said economist Steven Levitt in his best-selling book, Freakanomics. Levitt applies this “curious habit” to the question, “What is the relative value between a fetus and a newborn?”

And George Weigel wonders why a martyred American missionary in China hasn’t yet been beatified:

In a 2010 interview with Catholic World Report, Cardinal Joseph Zen, S.D.B., the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, wondered aloud about the Catholic Church’s reticence to acknowledge those who had been martyred by Chinese communists during the Maoists’ rise to power, and thereafter. “Why should we not publicize . . . those martyrs?” Cardinal Zen asked. The truth demands it. Self-respect requires it. Today’s Chinese Catholics, especially those who are persecuted for the fidelity to the Bishop of Rome, would be strengthened by the example of brave witnesses who held firm until the end, Zen suggested.

I think Cardinal Zen is entirely right. One way to start filling in the blanks of China’s modern Catholic history would be to remember, and beatify, a martyred American missionary in China, Bishop Francis X. Ford, M.M.