Anti-trafficking bill:
Merits lawmakers', Catholics' support

		Eye on the  Capitol  John Huebscher

The principle of solidarity is a basic theme of Catholic social teaching. As the world becomes more interdependent, this principle reminds us that human beings everywhere share a common connection and mutual responsibility for each other's well being.

Solidarity comes into play when our legislature considers laws that help combat national or global evils. One such global evil is that of human trafficking.

Global problem

Human trafficking involves using fraud, force, and coercion to sexually exploit or otherwise press into labor an unwilling person. Particularly common is the sexual exploitation of women and girls, whether in the prostitution, strip club, or pornography industries.

Globally, an estimated 700,000 people are victims of human trafficking, making it the third largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world after arms trafficking and drug dealing.

In the United States, an estimated 17,500 men, women, and children are trafficked every year. While these victims are mostly hidden from view, domestic abuse shelters and advocates against sexual assault are seeing an increased number of requests for assistance.

Church speaks out

In recent years, the Vatican and bishops around the world, along with other governments and human rights groups, have denounced the growing incidence of human trafficking.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recently highlighted the scope and urgency of the problem in a September 12, 2007, statement issued by Bishop Gerald Barnes (Diocese of San Bernardino), chair of the USCCB Committee on Migration.

Among other things, Bishop Barnes called on Catholics to educate themselves and others about the plight of trafficking victims, and to make parishes "centers for action to help identify survivors and provide them support."

"As Catholic bishops," he concluded, "we pledge to use the resources of the church to help end this affliction. We also pledge to use our teaching authority to educate Catholics and others about human trafficking."

Legislation

Since 2000, when Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the federal government has recognized the scope of the problem and created a blueprint to combat it. Unfortunately, the act did not receive adequate funding to properly implement it.

In the face of insufficient federal funding to combat this modern-day slavery, numerous states have passed their own laws to address the problem within their borders. To date, 35 states have anti-trafficking laws on their books.

Now it looks as though Wisconsin may do so as well.

Assembly Bill 544, authored by Representative Suzanne Jeskewitz (R-Menomonee Falls), Representative Frederick Kessler (D-Milwaukee), Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), and Senator Spenser Coggs (D-Milwaukee) takes a helpful step forward in responding to human trafficking.

Providing protection

Their bill would:

• Designate human trafficking as a felony.
  
  
• Punish trafficking of an adult with a fine of up to $100,000, imprisonment for up to 25 years, or both.
  
  
• Punish trafficking of a child with a fine of up to $100,000, imprisonment for up to 40 years, or both.
  
  
• Ensure that victims of trafficking forced to commit a crime are protected from prosecution.
  
  
• Permit a court to order restitution for the victim's transportation, housing, childcare, gross income provided in services, and relocation expenses (if necessary for the victim's safety).
  
  
• Allow the state to revoke the business license or corporate charter of any business operating in the state that knowingly engages in human trafficking.
  
  
• Direct the Department of Health and Family Services to provide emergency services or assistance to trafficking victims, subject to the availability of funds.
  
  
• Require the state's Office of Justice Assistance to collect data on the number and nature of violations related to human trafficking.
  
  

The Wisconsin Catholic Conference has endorsed Assembly Bill 544. Catholics and others can bear important witness to the principle of solidarity by urging its passage before the legislature concludes its business next spring.

John Huebscher is executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference in Madison.

Ecumenism:
Promoted through the Culture of Life

		A Culture of Life  Professor  Janet E. Smith

Catholics have been involved in health care, virtually from the beginning. Catholic health care institutions, many with missionary outreaches, provide excellent medical care, much of it charitable care for the poor. Catholics also have a comprehensive set of principles and teachings about bioethical issues.

For both reasons, many who are not Catholics are very willing to enter into dialogue with Catholics about health care; both our witness and our intellectual tradition have earned us a respectful hearing.

Religious dialogue

Many of the teachings of the Catholic Church on bioethics are based on principles derived from revelation. When dialoguing about bioethics with fellow Christians and members of others religions who may accept Scripture to some extent, we can certainly draw upon the truths of Scripture, especially those that confirm the sacredness of human life.

All Christians and some from other religious traditions believe that God is the Lord of Life, that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, and that we have an eternal destiny. We believe that immoral behavior, rejection of God and his laws, separates us from God (not God from us).

We emphatically believe that we should never directly kill innocent human life, and that we should lovingly care for those who are ill and attempt to heal them and reduce their suffering.

Philosophical disputes

Yet shared belief in revelation does not necessarily translate into a consensus about what is moral and immoral in the bioethical realm. Many non-Catholic Christian denominations and non-Christian religions accept abortion and euthanasia in some instances. They also approve of such practices as contraception, in vitro fertilization, and embryonic stem cell research.

Here, even with fellow Christians, the dialogue is not so much about what Scripture says, since explicit teaching about such issues is not present in Scripture. Rather, here we find many disagreements about philosophical principles and the implications of scientific fact.

Whereas Catholicism maintains that there are objective truths of both a factual and philosophic kind, many other religious groups have embraced philosophical principles based on skepticism and subjectivism, that lead to relativism. (Evangelium Vitae shows how these principles have led to a Culture of Death.)

Thus, dialogue with other believers often requires a knowledge of some of the trends in philosophy and an ability to show their incompatibility with belief in a universe created by a loving God.

It also requires keeping up to date on the latest scientific findings; for instance, science is a great ally in showing that personhood begins at conception, and developments in adult stem cell research take some of the steam out of the push for embryonic stem cell research.

Successful cooperation

There have been instances when various religion groups working together have achieved great things.

At United Nations conferences on population, many forces have been attempting to have abortion recognized as a fundamental human right. Christians, Jews, and Muslims, with a great deal of guidance by the Vatican, successfully opposed those efforts.

The pro-life movement is another magnificent example of the cooperation of Christians and other believers. The fruits of this cooperation are many.

Through the pro-life movement evangelicals have come to abandon much of their suspicion of Catholics - and many have even come to understand the Church's condemnation of contraception.

Many Catholics have come to have a deep respect for the evangelical radical commitment to the Lord, and have even begun tithing!

One of the deepest desires of Christ's heart was that all believers would be one in our devotion to the Truth. Many believers are working hard at achieving that in realms of health care, bioethics, and in opposition to the Culture of Death.

Professor Janet E. Smith is the Fr. Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Mich. This column is syndicated by www.OneMoreSoul.com, and licensed from J. Smith.