OK to Break the Law to fight Abortion, or not?

Sailboat · #1 Sep 19, '06, 3:14 pm

OK, someone mentioned this on my other thread. Is it okay to break the law in order to prevent abortion or undermine abortion providers' ability to do abortions? For instance, can you damage their car so they can't go to work? Or hack into their website and disrupt it? I'm talking about things less dramatic than firebombing their clinic or assassinating abortion doctors.

What do you all think of this question?

**Tantum ergo** · #2 Sep 19, '06, 3:15 pm

It is never permissible to do evil, even in order to bring about a good. (IOW, the ends don't justify the means.)

wjp984 · #3 Sep 19, '06, 3:19 pm

true but although it is a stretch, can you not call it self defense or protecting the lives of an innocent?

**Tantum ergo** · #4 Sep 19, '06, 3:26 pm

No, not even by a stretch.

Any LAWFUL means can and indeed MUST be used to protect the innocent. . .any UNLAWFUL means may not.

Now, one could argue that slaves were frequently hidden (unlawfully) from their masters by abolitionists. However, chattel slavery is against the natural law, and laws which upheld chattel slavery were unjust even if they were legal.

The laws which protect property and life are, however, both just and legal laws, and may not be abrogated. There is no such thing as a law which is just for only CERTAIN people (i.e., meaning it's okay to destroy property of abortionists, murderers, thieves, heretics, nonChristians, etc. etc. simply because they are what they are.)

helgasdogs · #5 Sep 19, '06, 3:29 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tantum ergo

It is never permissible to do evil, even in order to bring about a good. (IOW, the ends don't justify the means.)

Now, that's a load of rubbish. Plenty of innocent people got bombed to death in World War Two for the sake of stopping fascism - if bombing families to death isn't evil, nothing is.

If babies are people and are in danger of death, then unless you're arguing that the law is more valuable than human life, those babies' lives should be defensible by any means any one else's life is, whether by the person attacked or by anyone capable of rendering assistance.

The law is not morality. If it were legal for the police to execute street people, it would be morally justified to kill death squads on sight. Those police officers' lives would be forfeit.

By the way, the ends certainly do justify the means. Three words prove this:

"Surgery on children"

wjp984 · #6 Sep 19, '06, 3:32 pm

the ends do in fact justify the means but that doesn't mean it was morally right.

**Tantum ergo** · #7 Sep 19, '06, 3:34 pm

You are testy, helga, and you are also attempting an argument based on feelings or emotions. You seem to be doing this quite a bit on other threads you have started--perhaps you would like to address them as well? Perhaps you would like to take some time to consider, without defensiveness or 'what-ifs', what I said and to make an argument as to why, IN DEFIANCE OF CHURCH TEACHING, you posit that it WOULD be morally allowable to do an evil in order to achieve good. And back it up with Catholic doctrine that supports your contention. Thank you.

Teakafrog · #8 Sep 19, '06, 3:35 pm

I know of plenty of good, faithful priests, nuns and religious, even some bishops who now have rap sheets--because they were protesting in front of abortion clinics. They did not do any physical damage to anyone's property, just peacefully praying and holding signs. They called it harassment and arrested them. I don't think that was wrong at all. Of course, it was a peaceful protest. The things you mentioned were all clearly illegal. There is a difference.

**Tantum ergo** · #9 Sep 19, '06, 3:37 pm

To support my contention I submit this directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

1759 "An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention" (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means.

God bless.

Sailboat · #10 Sep 19, '06, 3:48 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tantum ergo

To support my contention I submit this directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

1759 "An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention" (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means.

God bless.

So, where do you draw the line? What about peaceful protesters who get arrested? Is it okay to harrass a doctor on the sidewalk of his home with signs? Is icepicking an abortion doctor's car evil.

What about underground workers who fought communism or the Nazis? They were breaking the law. Do you think they were doing evil?

**Tantum ergo** · #11 Sep 19, '06, 3:59 pm

Sailboat, it is not about where I personally 'draw the line'; it is about what we as Catholics are TAUGHT.

Your original post asked if it was morally okay to damage someone's property in order to make it I suppose more difficult for them to do their job--a hideous job I agree.

It is NOT okay, because laws which protect property protect the just and the unjust (morally speaking) equally.

God HIMSELF tells us that he sends the sun and the rain on the just and unjust alike.

I gave the relevent citation from the Catechism.

I already answered your other question. Did you not read what I said about slavery?

I am sorry but you cannot equate helping a slave escape unjust slavery with icepicking a car. You aren't keeping the person from doing his job so you aren't 'saving a life.' And killing or torturing or imprisoning abortionists is just as evil as abortion itself is.

The ends do not justify the means.

Catholig · #12 Sep 19, '06, 4:02 pm

My take on it is a little different...

Personally I wouldn't see anything wrong with say, burning an abortion clinic to the ground, so long as no one is in it at the time. I'm not saying "Do it!" or anything. I just don't see how this would be an evil act in any sense of the term. I mean if you look at it from a certain prespective you might even be Preventing the abortion provider from sinning... I, personally, just don't see how this is evil.

Catholig

helgasdogs · #13 Sep 19, '06, 4:07 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tantum ergo

You are testy, helga, and you are also attempting an argument based on feelings or emotions. You seem to be doing this quite a bit on other threads you have started--perhaps you would like to address them as well? Perhaps you would like to take some time to consider, without defensiveness or 'what-ifs', what I said and to make an argument as to why, IN DEFIANCE OF CHURCH TEACHING, you posit that it WOULD be morally allowable to do an evil in order to achieve good. And back it up with Catholic doctrine that supports your contention. Thank you.

So, you think it's groovy that we bombed all those German potato farmers in World War Two?

**Tantum ergo** · #14 Sep 19, '06, 4:13 pm

Helga you are coming perilously close to crossing the line here. In fact some of those German potato farmers were my kith and kin!!

I wonder that you cavilierly pose this uncharitable 'assumption' of my morality simply because I give you the AUTHENTIC CATHOLIC TEACHING supported by the Catechism?

I weep daily for those who have suffered death and loss. War is a dreadful evil, even a 'just' war, and once again I reiterate "The end does NOT justify the means."

helgasdogs · #15 Sep 19, '06, 4:21 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tantum ergo

Helga you are coming perilously close to crossing the line here. In fact some of those German potato farmers were my kith and kin!!

I wonder that you cavilierly pose this uncharitable 'assumption' of my morality simply because I give you the AUTHENTIC CATHOLIC TEACHING supported by the Catechism?

I weep daily for those who have suffered death and loss. War is a dreadful evil, even a 'just' war, and once again I reiterate "The end does NOT justify the means."

Then perhaps you'd like to answer in terms of that authentic Catholic teaching regarding whether bombing farmers in their fields for the sake of a just war is morally acceptable. And, if it is, how using various expeditious means to thwart the operation of abortion clinics is not.