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choose_to_love
Guest
OK, to all: Am I out of line in this thread? I really have not perceived that I have been, but if I have a blind spot, let me know.
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1
1ke
Guest
In a word, no.
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mgoforth
Guest
In many more words…
No you’re not out of line. I don’t know True Compassion’s intentions, but to me, his/her responses are strikingly similar to comments recently by Sister Pat Farrell and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. In case you don’t know about the situation, they’ve been reprimanded by the Vatican for teaching things that are contrary to the Faith - acceptance of homosexuality, radical feminism, contraception, masturbation, etc…
Here are some of Sr. Pat’s responses:
“We have been, in good faith, raising concerns about some of the church’s teachings on sexuality. The problem being that the teaching and interpretation of the faith can’t remain static and really needs to be reformulated, rethought in light of the world we live in. And new questions and new realities [need to be addressed] as they arise. And if those issues become points of conflict, it’s because Women Religious stand in very close proximity to people at the margins, to people with very painful, difficult situations in their lives. That is our gift to the church. Our gift to the church is to be with those who have been made poorer, with those on the margins. Questions there are much less black and white because human realities are much less black and white. That’s where we spend our days.”
I read that as “we spend a lot of time trying to help the poor and people in bad situations”…(very good!!!)…“and we think we’d be able to help them even more if we could change the rules when and where we see fit” (very very dangerous!!!).
A far more disturbing quote:
*"I think the criticism of what we’re not talking about seems to me to be unfair. Because [Women] Religious have clearly given our lives to supporting life, to supporting the dignity of human persons. Our works are very much pro-life. We would question, however, any policy that is more pro-fetus than actually pro-life. If the rights of the unborn trump all of the rights of all of those who are already born, that is a distortion, too — if there’s such an emphasis on that. However, we have sisters who work in right-to-life issues. We also have many, many ministries that support life. We dedicate to our lives to those on the margins of society, many of whom are considered throwaway people: the impaired, the chronically mentally ill, the elderly, the incarcerated, to the people on death row. We have strongly spoken out against the death penalty, against war, hunger. All of those are right-to-life issues. There’s so much being said about abortion that is often phrased in such extreme and such polarizing terms that to choose not to enter into a debate that is so widely covered by other sectors of the Catholic Church — and we have been giving voice to other issues that are less covered but are equally as important.
Our concern is that right-to-life issues be seen across a whole spectrum and are not narrowly defined. … To single out one right-to-life issue and to say that that’s the only issue that defines Catholic identity, I think, is really a distortion."*
Wow!! Read that again if you need to, but the message is that abortion is basically ok, on two conditions:
- If not killing the child would be an inconvenience to those already born.
- If you’re also working hard to combat other issues like euthanasia, the death penalty, etc…then a little abortion here and there is not so bad. You have to look at the whole picture…
(that’s me feeling just about every negative emotion simultaneously the first time I read Sr. Pat’s statement)True Compassion chose to leave the thread, so we may never get his/her clarification, but what are we supposed to think reading things like this?
True Compassion:
I’m sorry, but this sounds exactly like Sr. Pat’s ultra-liberal, humanitarianism-trumps-all, throw-the-rules-out-if-they-hurt-people’s-feelings brand of Catholicism. If that was the intention, it’s just plain wrong.
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choose_to_love
Guest
All right, thanks guys.
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Listener
Guest
I find these hair-splitting arguments rather ridiculous myself. There is no way one of these pregnancies is going to survive, so to my mind, they belong in the category of killing in self defense.
The problem is that they keep coming up with new medical procedures all of the time. There is no way that the Church can analyze all of these procedures and do these hair-splitting declarations of what is moral and what is not.
Can you imagine the following situation.
Doctor: Mrs. Jones, you are going to bleed to death if we ignore this, so I’m prescribing a pill that will reduce the dangerous swelling in your internal organs.
Mrs. Jones: Doctor, I’m not sure this is a morally correct procedure. Can you contact the Vatican and see what they say?
By the time Mrs. Jones has gone through her hair-splitting options of what is morally correct in this situation, she ends up bleeding to death.
It kind of reminds me of the situation where Jesus asked the disciples what they would do if an ox fell into a pit on the Sabbath.
And yes, if there are any women here who have suffered abdominal pregnancies, I’m sure they need compassion rather than judgment.
The problem is that they keep coming up with new medical procedures all of the time. There is no way that the Church can analyze all of these procedures and do these hair-splitting declarations of what is moral and what is not.
Can you imagine the following situation.
Doctor: Mrs. Jones, you are going to bleed to death if we ignore this, so I’m prescribing a pill that will reduce the dangerous swelling in your internal organs.
Mrs. Jones: Doctor, I’m not sure this is a morally correct procedure. Can you contact the Vatican and see what they say?
By the time Mrs. Jones has gone through her hair-splitting options of what is morally correct in this situation, she ends up bleeding to death.
It kind of reminds me of the situation where Jesus asked the disciples what they would do if an ox fell into a pit on the Sabbath.
And yes, if there are any women here who have suffered abdominal pregnancies, I’m sure they need compassion rather than judgment.
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Catholic80
Guest
I’m assuming this post you wrote was in regards to my post since you commented on my use of the word, “logical.”
How is it that I have no insight into this situation? My post reiterates the current bioethical teaching on the matter of ectopic pregnancies and the like. There is a humane way to treat a dying person, and an inhumane way. The baby in the fallopian tube or abdomen, is, in essence, a dying person. They need to be removed from the harmful situation, but death is inevitable either way.
That baby, even though they are dying, should still be treated with the utmost dignity and respect that is owed to every human being. To simply kill it with a pill is morally wrong. I didn’t simply come up with this on my own… this is the consensus amongst bioethethical teaching.
We don’t want the unborn child to die. It’s the sad consequence of first removing it from harm. A pill directly kills the child. The intent is to first kill the child and then remove it. That’s immoral. It may be easier and less evasive, but it is immoral. Assisted suicide may be quicker and easier than letting a suffering person die slowly, but assisted suicide is immoral because the intent is to kill them. The two situations are very similar.
No where in my post did I make a judgement about anybody. I’m sorry you read into that. There is a difference between defining a moral and immoral action and judging. Christ defined immoral actions all the time. He loved the prostitute; he also told her to “sin no more.” But very often today, people don’t want to be told what is moral or immoral, and if someone does tell them, they try and justify themselves by accusing the other person of judging, when, in fact, the only person who is judging anyone is them.
When someone defines a moral or immoral action, it is out of love for the good of the other person. A mother doesn’t want her child to harm themselves, so she tells them when they are doing something immoral and she teaches them what the correct moral action should be. [ex: “Don’t take drugs, eat healthy and exercise.”] She tells her children this to help them because she loves them. She isn’t judging them.
When I say, “aborting a child in the fallopian tubes with a pill is immoral and explain why surgical removal is the better way” I say it out of love that if a woman finds herself in this situation, that she understands which is the moral or immoral way to handle this delicate and emotional situation. Many women don’t know, and I’ve talked to a woman before who did take the abortificient pill out of ignorance. When she had learned (on her own) that the moral route would have been surgery, she was very upset and worried that she had sinned. But she had followed the doctors advice out of ignorance, and therefore, not guilty of any sin. But now she is glad that she knows. It’s better to know beforehand then after. The more we are educated, the more freedom we have to make the moral choice.
P.S. I also had an aunt who had an abdominal pregnancy… so even though I have not gone through one myself, I am not far removed from the situation.
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tabycat
Guest
There is no way on this board to know what any other poster has gone through in their life. Some one does not have lost a child (or unborn baby) may be, in their own life,just as compassionit as one who has lost a child. :nun2:
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underacloud
Guest
Seconded.
There is nothing wrong with abstract discussion of difficult topics and this forum is the appropriate place for such discussions. Moreover, I haven’t read anything that suggests a lack of concern or emotional understanding.
It is also wrong to suggest that only someone who has been through a situation ought to be able to offer opinion on it. If I am diagnosed with cancer, I discuss this with an oncologist; it is immaterial to me whether said oncologist has actually had cancer themselves.
As another poster suggested, if the abstract moral considerations of this issue cause a reader some distress, they would do well to stay away from this thread.
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