Why do some Catholics support legal abortion?

[Charlemagne II]

CatSci

It goes with the point that if saving human lives is the ultimate goal, then abortion is a drop in the bucket compared to number of lives that could be saved by preventing miscarriages.

Off topic. We are not talking about miscarriages. We are talking about the deliberate taking of human life at the fetus stage ... where all of us have been ... and praise God we all had mothers who did not try to destroy us in the womb.

The church does not condemn miscarriages. It does condemn abortion. You disagree, substituting your own wisdom for that of the Church by implying that all abortions are lawful because the blastocyst doesn't have a brain and therefore does not qualify as a human being.

You were a blastocyst before you became a fetus and then a life birth with 70+ years to go God willing.

[Findingmyshoes]

Originally Posted by Lapey

No, it’s not well put; it’s well “miss-put.” Defaulting to one's conscience is required by CCC, but not a uniformed and/or a misinformed conscience. It is a requirement for one to follow his/her conscience, but if you read on in the CCC, it plainly states where that conscience needs to be prepared for the decision in line with Church teaching.

I also know a woman who had to choose between death and life of her child as well, she chose life for her child as we all should; her name is Saint Gianna Beretta Molla.



http://www.saintgianna.org/

How can anyone presume to mandate that a woman sacrifice her own life? Have saints done it? Certainly. Do we all follow the example of all canonized saints? Shall we all live in the woods as John the Baptist? Shall we cut our faces as St Rose?
A woman who chooses between the life of her unborn child and her own life, as well as the life of her other children, and her husband, meets a unique discernment that can only be her own. The magisterium can inform, but not dictate her decision. I believe that abortion is the death of a child, but should being unborn give a child priority over so many other lives? The only one who can say is the child's mother.should she choose to eliminate the life after true soul searching, it is of courses tragedy, but not for us to judge. If she believes she has no other choice, and is trying to do best to follow what God calls hero do, no one an mandate it otherwise.

[CatSci]

since biologically, life begins at conception,

The sperm and egg cells are alive before conception. What you have after conception is the potential for a new person. But even then, most of them don't make it to personhood.

what defines "personhood," then?

A good way to determine personhood that I've seen is to look at the other end of the specrum: the right to die versus artificial suscitation. Ya know, "pulling the plug" on people. The legality there gets into things like having a heartbeat and a functioning brain, and stuff like that. I'd have to look it up though and don't have time right now.

I'm sort of confused as to why anyone would be confusing a natural miscarriage (which is usually due to a defect that does not allow for survival, or a hormone imbalance) with an intentional abortion. but I will admit that I only read a few pages, and may have missed something..

The point I was making there is that people hide behind the "saving human life" reasons for supporting the criminalization of abortion when they're more insterested in preventing what they think is immoral behavior. Since most conceptions fail to implant, if you really cared about saving human lives, then you'd be doing a lot more by funding scientific research into the prevention of miscarriages than you would fighting abortion. But nobody ever talks about saving human life by fighting miscarriages and that goes to show that they're not really so concerned about saving human lives, but instead want to prevent immorality, which weakens the case against legal abortion because its more of a religious matter than a secular one.

[CatSci]

Off topic. We are not talking about miscarriages.

Its tangential to the topic as the logical conclusion of the anti-abortion argument. If you want to save human lives then you should fight to stop miscarriages. And pragmatically, you'd be saving a lot more human lives that way.

You disagree, substituting your own wisdom for that of the Church by implying that all abortions are lawful because the blastocyst doesn't have a brain and therefore does not qualify as a human being.

Wow, is that really what you think my position is? I guess I've failed to properly express myself because that's not it at all.

[Charlemagne II]

CatSci

Wow, is that really what you think my position is? I guess I've failed to properly express myself because that's not it at all.

It's what you've said. Read your own posts.

Do you or do you not agree with the position of the Church that abortion is evil because it is the taking of human life?

A simple yes or no will do. You don't need to go encyclopedic about miscarriages.

[vz71]

And when it can no longer be denied that life begins at conception, the pro-death individuals will attempt to bring in a concept of 'personhood' into the argument.

After all, we are talking about people...right??

Of course, this is just a red herring.
You see, 'personhood' is not even defined in any concrete terms.
It effectively moves the goal posts and allows the pro-death individual to claim a given set of human beings are really sub-human, with no rights.

The real point that our pro-death friend here is trying to avoid is that it is a human life.
Human and unique. End of story, case closed.

And as a human life, unique and its own, it has a dignity and a right to life.

Our pro-death friend would llike to claim that there is some other quality to humanity then the fact of being human that provides us with the rights God provides us.

It is a lie.

[LeafByNiggle]

Originally Posted by CatSci

Yeah, I know its not really about saving human life.

When I say "prevent immorality" I am referring to the immorality of taking an innocent human life.

[zalo]

"pro-death individuals will attempt..."

I really don't see how one can be called 'pro-death' just for being in favor of a woman's right to choose. This is just calling names, and the 'pro-life' and 'pro-death' labels are complete misnomers that have served the Church extremely well.
This allows the Church to support politicians who lie thru their teeth to start wars of choice, visiting 'shock and awe' bomb blasts to thousands of walking-and-talking human beings, while condemning and fighting tooth and nail against other politicians who merely want to leave the decision to the women. So:

- start wars of choice but be against abortion = pro-life
- be against wars and work all your life for peace, but be pro-choice = pro-death

I may be wrong here, but I fail to see the least shred of consistency in such reasoning!

[Bookcat]

Abortion is a baby matter. The killing of an innocent little one.

[ajaxbogs]

QUOTE=zalo;9284573]"pro-death individuals will attempt..."
- start wars of choice but be against abortion = pro-life
- be against wars and work all your life for peace, but be pro-choice = pro-death
QUOTE]

A very common, weak argument used by Catholics who wish to justify their support of the pro-abortion political party. They try to equate "war-mongering" (usually vaguely) to abortion. Sometimes they'll "use" immigrant rights, taking care of the poor, the evils of mammon, etc. in that role as well.

These Catholics flagrantly disregard Church teachings on the non-negotiable stand against abortion & will make the above argument(s) to "feel" better about their stance.

Years ago I was "pro-choice". I happened to see a video of an actual abortion & God gave me a grace to see the horror of it & I changed. I pray the same grace for these deceived Catholics. Peace

[TheRealJuliane]

Originally Posted by zalo

"pro-death individuals will attempt..."

I really don't see how one can be called 'pro-death' just for being in favor of a woman's right to choose. This is just calling names, and the 'pro-life' and 'pro-death' labels are complete misnomers that have served the Church extremely well.
This allows the Church to support politicians who lie thru their teeth to start wars of choice, visiting 'shock and awe' bomb blasts to thousands of walking-and-talking human beings, while condemning and fighting tooth and nail against other politicians who merely want to leave the decision to the women. So:

- start wars of choice but be against abortion = pro-life
- be against wars and work all your life for peace, but be pro-choice = pro-death

I may be wrong here, but I fail to see the least shred of consistency in such reasoning!

Yes, you're wrong here. Killing of an innocent baby in its mother's womb is never justifiable. No matter what else we do, that act is pure sin. It is murder of a baby. Not a choice. The decision to kill her baby should never be made by any woman. Women deserve better than that kind of "choice."

[Charlemagne II]

Juliane

The decision to kill her baby should never be made by any woman. Women deserve better than that kind of "choice."

I am pro-choice and it's obvious the baby in the womb would choose life.

[presidentjlh]

For me, I have little conflict between my faith and my love of freedom in regards to abortion, as I see abortion as murder, ergo, an infringement on the right of the fetus to human life, and therefore, both American political sentiment (right to life) and Catholic teaching are perfectly compatible here.

[thewanderer]

Originally Posted by CatSci

Its kinda both, actually. The current laws as written doesn't allow for abortion to be a criminal act. But that just means those laws would have to be changed.

Too, I haven't seen a good legal justification for the criminalization of abortion.

I know.

No, by all means, if you think abortion should be criminalized then do the things you think you should do to further your cause.

Well, the onus is on those who want it criminalized. I don't have to prove that abortion should be legal, its visa versa.

Again, though, its up to those that are against abortion being legal to make the compelling case that it needs to be criminalized. Keep in mind that it must have a secular purpose and also be constitutional.

But you need to offer more than just your own credulity on the matter. You'd have to show how and why criminalizing abortion is better for society.

Too, you have to keep the mother's rights in consideration. The Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that her rights outweighed those of the potential person, iirc.

Well, I am replying

What do you mean by "actively support"? Typing my opinions in response to the question on a discussion forum is hardly "actively supporting abortion being legal", imho. Its not like I'm donating money, or picketing with signs, or anything really.

Hmmm... the more I think about the phrase 'actively support' the less sure I beccome of exactly what I mean by it. I must have restarted this post at least five times by now. lol.

What I was trying to get at in my post, (and I thought I was getting at by using the term 'active') was the importance, when there is clearly a divided opinion on whether or not a particular action meets the standards for something that should be illegal/legal, of making a personal inquiry into the matter before deciding to take a stand on one side or the other. Yes, when faced with a decision one must make a choice, even if one know they haven't fully looked into a situation, but to advocate for one side of a controversy without fully looking into the matter and without the intention of looking into it further seems wrong. Lets pretend we are back in the days when slavery was a controversial subject. Many people claimed different things and took different sides, would it really have been a good thing for someone to sit back and say you know... theres a whole bunch of arguments on both sides of this issue, it seems like it would be a huge pain to sort them out... so I think I won't bother, after all, I know which side to vote for, always vote on the side of making a practice legal unless there is incontrevertible evidence that it meets the standards of what should be made legal/illegal. It seems the more important the issue the more involved someone should become in determining what the right course of action is.

Basically, I was trying to point out that one shouldn't choose a side legally while remaining satisfied with ignorence of a) the reality of a particular action and its consequences (rather than simply a perceived reality) or b) where that particular action lines up with respect to the standards to which laws must be held. Which in turn demands that each person have some knowledge of what those standards are.

Maybe I am wrong about this, but I get the idea from a lot of people (not necessarily you) that they have lost sight of the fact that just because the laws of a society are not dictated by a particular religion, there must still be some standard to which law must be held. I get the impression that for many people this standard, mostly because they do not realize that there needs to be such a fixed standard, is a sliding one which changes based on a person's emotions, empathy, bias, and preconceived notions that have been culturally ingrained etc. Now, obviously there is no practical way to remove bias etc from the world, we are all human, we all have biases. But what could help is if people began to realize the need of actually having some sort of fixed standard up to which they hold the laws. Gosh... this is kind of just turning into a rant... sorry about that. Its getting late so I am not really keeping everything straight. But I hope this is somehow helpful to see what I mean.

[vz71]

Originally Posted by zalo

"pro-death individuals will attempt..."

I really don't see how one can be called 'pro-death' just for being in favor of a woman's right to choose...

Right to choose what?