11 years in jail for a stillbirth: did the Church in El Salvador support this legislation?

[IWantGod]

However “the system” DOES protect unborn children that is what is so ironic. The American legal justice system even has even convicted people with murder for the deaths of the unborn! So this really has nothing to do with our religious convictions the legal system already recognizes unborn children as human persons!

Just do a quick search to discover drunk drivers that have killed pregnant women, men that have killed their pregnant wives or girlfriends. Even the infamous Laci Peterson murder in California, her husband Scott was convicted of 2nd degree MURDER for killing her UNBORN son.

It is complete nonsense that in each of these cases the women themselves could have freely walked into an abortion clinic and had their unborn children cut into pieces and murdered no questions asked…yet when their lives are taken by someone else it’s murder? CRAZY!

I agree that it is nonsense. There is some degree of hypocrisy here. However the existence of the right to abortion, which is viewed as a human right, was always an inevitable consequence of a secular system.We shouldn’t be surprised that abortion exists, and its not just because of sin but rather because of how the system fundamentally works.

At the moment it seems that the only time the law recognizes a human embryo as a person is because the mother has extended it that value. Thus the law seems to be operating on that premise.

 

[Annie]

And on what do you base that definition?

 

[IWantGod]

My Catholic Faith.

 

[Annie]

No, that was not what I wanted to ask…

 

[IWantGod]

There should be no debate among the faithful about the time of ‘ensoulment’, or about when a prenatal becomes a human person. The dogmas of the Incarnation and of the Immaculate Conception necessarily imply that, in the very same instant, the body is created, and the soul is created, and body and soul are one. A human being, at any stage of life, in any condition whatsoever, has a body and a soul; every human being with a body and a soul is a human person. The soul in particular is made directly by God, in the image of God. Therefore, human life must be protected from the moment of conception. All prenatal human beings are innocent human persons created by God and in the image of God.

http://www.catechism.cc/articles/life-begins-at-conception.htm

The problem is there is no legal basis for the soul, or that a person is body and soul, or that a person as body and soul exists at the moment of conception, and neither can there be any scientific evidence for this.

I think some Catholics imagine the war on abortion to be some kind of popularity contest and if only enough people showed outrage then the law would change. At first that may seem a reasonable assumption. It’s worked for other things in the past. But unless the legal system basis its definition of a person on the Catholic definition of person, there really is no reason to think that the law will change it’s position on abortion rights…

 

[Annie]

The fact that you base your definition on Church teaching does not mean there is no other way to think of it.

From a scientific standpoint, it is so clear that human life begins at conception that even some advocates for legal abortion admit it, and even PP put out a flier in 1964 agreeing with that.

From that point, advocates of legal abortion have no more of a leg to stand on than did slave owners in the 1850s.

 

[Annie]

What is evident is at the moment of conception the building blocks for the physical development of what society normally recognizes as a person exists.

The word person is a legal term which can be applied to whatever the law decides; hence, corporations are legal persons.

However, most people agree that innocent human beings ought not to be killed.

The issue then is the status of an unborn human being. You say that only “the building blocks for building a person” exist. Well, the building blocks for building a person exist in the corporate papers submitted to a state for approval, too.

But killing a corporation would not be wrong in the way killing an innocent human being would be, so we can’t use that term, can we?

The problem rests not with the existence of a person but with the existence of a human being.

Now the question becomes whether the unborn baby is a human being. And in what way is the unborn not a human being? Not merely the building blocks: the building blocks are sperm and ova. Once joined, the human being is built.

The unborn baby is alive and is an individual. By saying that because of its stage in life, because of its age, we can be permitted to kill it, we are drawing an arbitrary line which doesn’t have to be where it is. Already some serious philosopher has proposed that that line be redrawn at one week or one month after birth.

 

[IWantGod]

The word person is a legal term which can be applied to whatever the law decides; hence, corporations are legal persons.

However, most people agree that innocent human beings ought not to be killed.

The issue then is the status of an unborn human being. You say that only “the building blocks for building a person” exist. Well, the building blocks for building a person exist in the corporate papers submitted to a state for approval, too.

But killing a corporation would not be wrong in the way killing an innocent human being would be, so we can’t use that term, can we?

The problem rests not with the existence of a person but with the existence of a human being.

Now the question becomes whether the unborn baby is a human being. And in what way is the unborn not a human being? Not merely the building blocks: the building blocks are sperm and ova. Once joined, the human being is built.

The unborn baby is alive and is an individual. By saying that because of its stage in life, because of its age, we can be permitted to kill it, we are drawing an arbitrary line which doesn’t have to be where it is. Already some serious philosopher has proposed that that line be redrawn at one week or one month after birth.

This is turning into a game of semantics, so semantics aside, there really is no reason from a scientific perspective to think that the moment of conception involves the existence of that which should be given the same value we assign to human beings existing outside of the womb. We cannot determine that value with the scientific method. The most that is physically evident is that at the moment of conception there is an object which is turning into what we generally recognize as a human being in a physical sense.

There is no point pretending that is not the case. Its only because i believe a person is both body and soul from the moment of conception that i have reason to assign a human embryo the status of person-hood as understood by the Catholic Church.

 

[Arkansan]

It should be observed that the arguments IWantGod is making preclude any sort of political action, not just abortion bans. E.g. we can’t scientifically demonstrate that murder is bad (because that’s a value judgment), therefore we shouldn’t ban it, because laws should only be based on what is scientifically verifiable (never mind that this principle is itself a value judgment).

 

[Annie]

Well, that kinda let’s you off the hook, doesn’t it?

 

[IWantGod]

Accept i never argued that value has to be grounded in science. In today’s society, value is grounded in pragmatic considerations and social contracts, that’s how the system works in regards to law. It is not grounded in the ontological concepts of the Catholic Church. A persons value is not defined by the Catholic Definition of person, and secular law will never define us in this way. This is the problem and there is no point closing our eyes to it. If that wasn’t the case then abortion rights would have never existed in the first place.

If your goal is to permanently change society and how they value things, then you need to recognize that abortion-rights is just the symptom of the problem. The real problem is the system that those laws are grounded in, and you cannot vote away the system…

 

[IWantGod]

Well, that kinda let’s you off the hook, doesn’t it?

What is that suppose to mean?

 

[Annie]

Rather than try to grapple with the idea from a different point of view, a path which many have laid out, you sit back and say it’s a religious thing and so should not have any bearing on non-Catholics.

You let people wallow in decadence despite the fact there is a well forged path from which to show even atheists that abortion is indeed the taking of a human life.

Instead, you leave them with the idea that, hey, it’s only a bunch of religious folks who think abortion is wrong, so it’s not a big deal.

 

[IWantGod]

Rather than try to grapple with the idea from a different point of view, a path which many have laid out, you sit back and say it’s a religious thing and so should not have any bearing on non-Catholics.

There is no different point of view. The only reason abortion is morally wrong is because God created the soul in his image and creates that soul from the moment of conception. Otherwise it would not be wrong to have an abortion. Catholics know from their faith that current secular definitions of person-hood conflicts with the value we are given from the moment of conception, but the legal system does not work on that presupposition. Thus it makes no sense to argue that the laws can be change on the basis of that presupposition. We cannot legally call abortionists murderers even though in actual reality they are committing murder in the catholic sense of the word.

The only way you can change things is by destroying secular democracy.

 

[MPat]

Accept i never argued that value has to be grounded in science. In today’s society, value is grounded in pragmatic considerations and social contracts, that’s how the system works in regards to law.

You keep repeating that, but offer no arguments to that effect, as if that was somehow obvious. But it is not.

To me its simply a qeustion of whether you support the split between church and state. I do,

I agree that it is nonsense. There is some degree of hypocrisy here. However the existence of the right to abortion, which is viewed as a human right, was always an inevitable consequence of a secular system.

We cannot legally call abortionists murderers even though in actual reality they are committing murder in the catholic sense of the word.

The only way you can change things is by destroying secular democracy.

Now those things taken together seem to make no sense.

If you admit that abortion really is murder, and think that it is inevitably legal (if not encouraged) in a secular democracy, why on Earth do you also say you support secular democracy? It looks like you have offered no good sides of it yet.

 

[Annie]

On what basis then can we make any law?

 

[IWantGod]

If you admit that abortion really is murder, and think that it is inevitably legal (if not encouraged) in a secular democracy, why on Earth do you also say you support secular democracy?

Because i believe forcing my faith on people is wrong and two wrongs don’t make a right.

Its not murder in the legal sense of the word because it’s not evident that the destruction of an embryo is the same thing as killing a person. But it is murder by the catholic definition of what a person is.

 

[MPat]

Because i believe forcing my faith on people is wrong and two wrongs don’t make a right.

OK, and why do you believe “forcing my faith on people is wrong”?

And why do you think criminalisation of abortion would count as “forcing my faith on people”?

 

[IWantGod]

OK, and why do you believe “forcing my faith on people is wrong”?

Why would it be wrong to force a catholic priest to perform a gay wedding?

Why would it be wrong for Islam to force its beliefs on Christians?

Why would it be wrong to force a catholic to sell condoms?

You tell me.

You cannot force your beliefs on people because it does not promote harmony in a pluralistic society with a plurality of beliefs. You have to respect that or society breaks down.

But what we can do is come to an agreement and make compromises about how we treat one another, we can discuss how best to survive as a society and what is practically best for its development, and we can create social contracts based upon practical matters, self-evident matters, as opposed to matters of faith.

 

[MPat]

Why would it be wrong to force a catholic priest to perform a gay wedding?

Why would it be wrong for Islam to force its beliefs on Christians?

Why would it be wrong to force a catholic to sell condoms?

You tell me.

Um, those things are also wrong in themselves, objectively.

Also, in those case the law would force someone to do something, while in case of criminalisation of abortion prevents one from doing something. There is a difference.

Not to mention that the same “secular democracy” does seem to be pretty willing to force Catholics to act against conscience.

So, you need a different example.

You cannot force your beliefs on people because it does not promote harmony in a pluralistic society with a plurality of beliefs. You have to respect that or society breaks down.

No, it doesn’t.

That’s something that can be easily seen.

Even in the very extreme cases, we can find examples of totalitarian societies (for example, North Korea) existing for years.

But what we can do is come to an agreement and make compromises about how we treat one another, we can discuss how best to survive as a society and what is practically best for its development, and we can create social contracts based upon practical matters, self-evident matters, as opposed to matters of faith.

Um, you talk as if there are any “self-evident matters” in such case. There are none. Take, for example, slavery. Presumably, you are not going to call for its legalisation, but I doubt you’ll be able to explain why the same reasoning wouldn’t work here.

Also, there is no such thing as a “social contract”. Or are you going to present a copy of it?

Also I see a suspicious lack of references to documents of the Church…

So, let’s take Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church (http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...peace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html). There we find things like:

1. “Authority must recognize, respect and promote essential human and moral values.”.
2. “An authentic democracy is not merely the result of a formal observation of a set of rules but is the fruit of a convinced acceptance of the values that inspire democratic procedures: the dignity of every human person, the respect of human rights, commitment to the common good as the purpose and guiding criterion for political life.”.

Do you accept it?