Abortion

[JimG]

She won’t even need a Judges bypass becasue under FOCA every existing law that limits access to abortion would be overturned … ever parental notification law …

Yes, that would be the case. Under FOCA, any statute limiting access to abortion would not stand, including any requirement to notify parents.

(School nurses would still have to get parental approval to dispense aspirin or Tylenol to their daughters, but they need not be informed of her abortion.)

 

[JimG]

The funny thing is, most people see it this way. Most people agree. There are a lot of people who just will not agree to make abortion illegal because of what you say- their fear that girls will harm themselves seeking abortions.

In that case, we’d make sex dangerous again. And perhaps that would be a good thing.

The remarkable thing is: most people oppose most of the abortions that are actually done in the U.S. currently.

The latest issue of Catholic World Report mentions a poll last October which found that 60% of Americans and 72% of Catholics, favor prohibiting abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.

Actual abortions for those reasons constitute less than 2% of all abortions! Yet, 50% of Americans identify themselves as pro-choice, despite the fact that they oppose most abortions actually performed.

A national poll a few years ago gave similar results when it listed the reasons for which people would allow or prohibit abortion. Only a minority agreed with abortion on demand for any reason. Yet that is the current law of the land!

 

[LeroyCRHP]

Great thread Blade and BLood. Education and support is the key. That is why I have my Pro-Life Program. Even Obama says he is against abortion, he just doesn’t want to outlaw a womans choice. Here is his chance, just eliminate #2 and put strong effort toward saving babies. Give the Catholic Church $$ like Planned Parenthood and it will happen.

1. Have a before marriage abstinence campaign like we do against drugs and cigarettes. Not about contraceptives, but abstinence. Look at the dramatic reduction in smoking in the past 50 years. This is a long term program. I think everyone is for this and if we reduced these high risk pregnancies by 50% in 10 years that would be an incredible savings in human suffering.
2. Outlaw abortions. This will have immediate results and leads to #3.
3. With 1M more babies when #2 is enacted we need a comprehensive plan to address this. Offer support for pregnant couples when it does happen. Include churches and local organizations that help the Mom and baby with health care and delivery if they cannot afford it.
4. There are so many people wanting to adopt babies we need to establish national adoption program that covers the whole process. There are about 150,000 adoptions per year so we would have to staff up to cover some larger number. Not sure of the first year 1M new babies how many would come up for adoption vs how many would be kept… Assuming we would need 1 staff person for annual of 100 adoptions and 300,000 adoptions we would need 30,000 staff people for this program plus management.
5. Create a Family Czar cabinet position. This would administer the campaign in #1, provide a comprehensive plan for #3 and #4.

I could easily do the math and this program would financially pay back in 30-40 years. WIth any luck these first 1 million babies will be graduating college and entering the work force as I retire. This will start the payback process and pay into my social security!

It really would be easy to start a pro-life policy.

 

[Dameedna]

I wonder if most of the people on this forum realize,that the church supported abortion for a very long time. They only “believed” that the human soul kicked in at a certain stage. Abortion, has not been “legal” for 36 years. It has been legal throughout the majority of recorded human history.

As to the OP, you will not change abortion laws by claiming it as murder, or evil or anything else. It simply won’t happen.(I’m not saying you did, just making a point)

By creating a divide between humans and a problem they have by use of heated words, will not actually achieve the result you want.

I suspect most people who use the kind of statments made on this thread, have less interest in actually stopping abortion and more interesting in hating those who do it.Why? because they feel powerless to stop it. The only comfort? Murderers go to hell. That doesn’t help the situation though does it?

If you want to STOP something, you must understand why it happens. And by that…I mean…you don’t invoke “evil” is the reason kinds of statments. Please…give me a cure for evil, I will bottle it…and make a million.

To try and stop abortion, you have to understand where the different parties are coming from and their world view.

This is where you begin. I won’t go any further, I will await your response

 

[Dameedna]

1. Have a before marriage abstinence campaign like we do against drugs and cigarettes. Not about contraceptives, but abstinence. Look at the dramatic reduction in smoking in the past 50 years. This is a long term program. I think everyone is for this and if we reduced these high risk pregnancies by 50% in 10 years that would be an incredible savings in human suffering.

Before you claim absintance programs are the key, take a look at the results so far. They have increased teen pregnancy and STD’s in almost every country they have been tried(when no force has been used). If you want to stop abortion, you actually have to support a program that works.

Not a belief that a program will work.

1. Outlaw abortions. This will have immediate results and leads to #3.

 

[LeroyCRHP]

Before you claim absintance programs are the key, take a look at the results so far. They have increased teen pregnancy and STD’s in almost every country they have been tried(when no force has been used). If you want to stop abortion, you actually have to support a program that works.

Not a belief that a program will work.

In NZ, they outlawed abortions for 3 weeks. The majority of women in the country, showed their voice…and refused to have sex with their husbands, partners and boyfriends.

Abortion was re-introduced as legal 8 weeks later.

I guess if an abstience program doesn’t work in 3 weeks then we should give up on it. Maybe it will take a little more than 3 weeks for an effective abstience program.

How are facts from one of these programs:

Abstinence by Choice. Abstinence by Choice operates in 20 schools in the Little Rock area of Arkansas. The program targets 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students and reaches about 4,000 youths each year. A recent evaluation, involving a sample of nearly 1,000 students, shows that the program has been highly effective in changing the attitudes that are directly linked to early sexual activity. Moreover, the program reduced the sexual activity rates of girls by approximately 40 percent (from 10.2 percent to 5.9 percent) and the rate for boys by approximately 30 percent (from 22.8 percent to 15.8 percent) when compared with similar students who had not been exposed to the program. (The sexual activity rate of students in the program was compared with the rate of sexual activity among control students in the same grade in the same schools prior to the commencement of the program.)

How’s that for an immediate result. From the website: heritage.org/Research/Abstinence/BG1533.cfm There are many more very effective programs that need to be implemented on a national basis. Reducing sexual activity by 40% will likely reduce abortion by ~40% in that age group.

Support is a wonderful way to address this problem. It will not stop abortion. But it is a start…so I will commend you on this one.

Women are not breeding machines. We do not “stop” abortion because other women want to have babies. This completely and utterly dehumanizes females.It’s the worst argument you’ve made.
That was not my position. This is not identifying women as breeding machines but taking care of the baby they have created with a man. This is about taking care of life that was created but that couple cannot care for. Have you seen the movie Juno? It is really worth watching.

If it was easy to create a pro-life policy, then humans would not have been aborting children since recorded history and continuing to do it now. You , have attempte to create simple solutions to a very, very complex problem.

I admit my solutions are feable but I do believe they could change the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions significantly. I’ll also admit this is a very complex issue.

And everything you’ve mentioned has been tried before and failed.
I don’t believe that, the few programs that have been tried have been successful for both abstience and adoptions. They have to be in place over time and they need adequate funding.

What’s astounding to me, as a pro-choice advocate is that I can barely find a pro-life advocate that can give me a convincing argument or reason to support their view at all. As a pro-choice advocate, I have convinced people to change their particularly liberal views on abortion. How can I do that and you can’t?

There are more people signing up for the Pro-Life movement every day. The Pro-Life march in DC January 22nd was the largest yet with >300,000 marchers and small city marches across the country.

 

[davidv]

I wonder if most of the people on this forum realize,that the church supported abortion for a very long time. They only “believed” that the human soul kicked in at a certain stage. Abortion, has not been “legal” for 36 years. It has been legal throughout the majority of recorded human history.
{snip}

I don’t believe you. I believe you are seriously misrepresenting the Church. The Church has never and will never support murder, no matter what others choose to call it.

 

[Dameedna]

I don’t believe you. I believe you are seriously misrepresenting the Church. The Church has never and will never support murder, no matter what others choose to call it.

Well, then I guess you have some research to do

 

[st_lucy]

I wonder if most of the people on this forum realize,that the church supported abortion for a very long time. They only “believed” that the human soul kicked in at a certain stage. Abortion, has not been “legal” for 36 years. It has been legal throughout the majority of recorded human history.

Show us proof of this with an official Church Document. And no individual opinions do not count, it must come straight from the Church.

I will be waiting.

 

[st_lucy]

Well, then I guess you have some research to do

You are the one who threw this out. We have already done our research. Now you have to show us yours.

 

[Dameedna]

From Leroy

I guess if an abstience program doesn’t work in 3 weeks then we should give up on it. Maybe it will take a little more than 3 weeks for an effective abstience program.

Your references to 3 weeks of an absinance program does not come from my post.

To clarify, a decision in NZ to stop abortion was followed by 3 weeks of an entire male nations frustration. The women refused to have sex till the law changed.

It never had anything to do with an abstinance program, so I’m not sure where you above remark is coming from. Could you be fabricating my written words by chance?

Like I said, the only way into this debate is with honesty and clarity. These kinds of comments and manipulations of anothers words get you nowhere.

But …I suspect you care less about the “babies” than you do in arguing.

 

[Dameedna]

I agree with you that we need to do FAR more to lower the number of abortions and to properly educate our children in the Theology of the Body.

This “Theology of the body” that is held so highly was written during a time when humans did not understand what they do about the human body today.

It was never a “christian” truth, just a theory written by one christian. That is all. And like so many before it, has been show to be incorrect.

The point of sex, is not to pro-create. That is the end result. The point of sex within nature, is to create a bond between parents so they will remain together to raise a child. There are many more “points” to sex that we have understood today.

The Theology of the body is nothing other than a philosophy based on human ignorance and an attempt to use nature to support a failing religious belief.

Your church however, will…when it chooses be able to change it because it’s never been declared as “official” doctrine.

 

[davidv]

Well, then I guess you have some research to do

No, I have no research to do. I know what the Church teaches about murder. Abortion is murder.

 

[wanner47]

This “Theology of the body” that is held so highly was written during a time when humans did not understand what they do about the human body today.

What? Theology of the Body was written by John Paul II between the years of 1979 and 1984. Are you trying to say that humans did not understand the human body between the years 1979 and 1984?

It was never a “christian” truth, just a theory written by one christian. That is all. And like so many before it, has been show to be incorrect.

Prove it.

The point of sex, is not to pro-create. That is the end result. The point of sex within nature, is to create a bond between parents so they will remain together to raise a child. There are many more “points” to sex that we have understood today.

Sex is unitive and procreative. They are dual aspects of sex.

The Theology of the body is nothing other than a philosophy based on human ignorance and an attempt to use nature to support a failing religious belief.

Which is *your *opinion, which, given the ignorance you’ve displayed thus far, I am taking with a grain of salt.

Your church however, will…when it chooses be able to change it because it’s never been declared as “official” doctrine.

Yes, it has.

As for your earlier assertion that the Church used to approve abortion, that has NEVER been the case. From the USCCB:

Since its beginnings, Christianity has maintained a firm and clear teaching on the sacredness of human life. Jesus Christ emphasized this in his teaching and ministry. Abortion was rejected in the earliest known Christian manual of discipline, the Didache.

Early Church fathers likewise condemned abortion as the killing of innocent human life. A third century Father of the Church, Tertullian, called it “accelerated homicide.” Early Church councils considered it one of the most serious crimes. Even during periods when Aristotle’s theory of “delayed ensoulment” led Church law to assign different penalties to earlier and later abortions, abortion at any stage was still considered a grave evil.

When biologists in the 19th century learned more about the process of conception, the Church altered its legal distinction between early and late abortions out of respect for reason and biology.

Since that time, science has only further confirmed the humanity of the child growing in the womb. Official Church teaching insists, to the present day, that a just society protects life before as well as after birth.

 

[melis89]

The point of sex, is not to pro-create. That is the end result. The point of sex within nature, is to create a bond between parents so they will remain together to raise a child.

In a biological sense, sex’s ultimate purpose is to procreate. It’s a mechanism evolution has produced with the rise of more complex creatures. Obviously, bacteria and other asexually producing organisms don’t have the same processes. And even within the laws of nature sex comes in many forms and has different affects on different living things. In humans, sex has emotional bonding as a byproduct, in more primitive times anyways. This bonding, is nature’s way to insure the best interest of our offspring. As infants we are one of the most helpless offspring in the animal kingdom, indicating that monogamy in our species has perhaps been a main contributor to our success over the world. So you see, humanity is the best example of how the bonding that sex has evolved to create goes hand in hand with procreation. I am not just talking out of my tooter, I am a biological sciences major. By no means does that indicate I know everything, but the information I have shared is relevant whether I share it or not. Of course there is more to sex than just procreation, there is bonding, there is expression, there is love but when it is done solely for recreation it is a manipulation of why nature has instructed our biology to have sex in the first place. With more understanding humanity has over this world and that of our body, the more we desire to control and manipulate to what we believe is our benefit. From this stems and results into so much other than just abortion. Global warming is ultimately a result of our ingenuity to create and manipulate to our immediate whims without taking into consideration the long run. Even knowing now how damaging our actions can be on our bodies, our family, our children in many aspects Man continues to follow its capricious nature. All this depends little on the presence of a God or not.

 

[dkdempsey]

I’m not religious, but I believe abortion is very wrong. I’m liberal in regards to many other things, but not abortion. Life begins in the womb at conception.

 

[JimG]

Catholic Church teaching against abortion goes back to the very beginning. Here are some sources of Catholic teaching against abortion, going back to the first century.

 

[survive]

To deny that sex exists for procreative reasons is absurd in the extreme. Some creatures reproduce by dividing; they don’t have sex organs as we have. Some reproduce by sending out shoots; they don’t have sex organs as we have. Some reproduce by depositing eggs on the sea floor, and by fertilizing the eggs as they swim by; they don’t have exactly the same kind of sex organs we have. Some reproduce by having sex; they have sex organs like ours, and they have them for the exact reason we have them: to reproduce. If sex didn’t produce offspring, it wouldn’t exists, and in fact, the organs it is accomplished with wouldn’t exist, anywhere in nature at all. Only the species that reproduce by having sex, have sex organs.

 

[Dameedna]

What? Theology of the Body was written by John Paul II between the years of 1979 and 1984. Are you trying to say that humans did not understand the human body between the years 1979 and 1984?

What we have learned about the human body since then( and the entire universe) has grown dramatically in the last couple of decades.

As an example, most of the experiements done on the human brain, were done on the “male” brain because the female brains’ behaviour fluctuated due to hormones so greatly this caused a distrubance in the data. Since the male brain was more hormonally stable, it has been the primary gender for brain research, up until the mid to late 90’s.

This means all “reasearch” into human behaviour that your pope understand about the study of the brain…has historically come from the male brain.

The study of the female brain, is very very new. It is hard to do…because our hormones shrink the brain every cycle, causing experimental data to fluctuate. Our brain also regrows every month. PMS is not something we just do. It’s something our brain does, when it realizes a baby is not made. It puts us back where we were before…ready to begin again.

During the last stages of pregnancy the female brain shrinks to 80% and then “regrows” in a completely different way as a result of her biological drive to take care of her infant.

This is new information, not something that was made available during this particular theology. So yes…the studies done, during the Theology of the body, were done in ignorance. This theology wasn’t an attempt at cruelty it was based on the best knowlege at /the time. But to follow it today, is in fact rather cruel and ignorant

As the human world changes, so will your religion. The world will however…change a lot faster. Religion will follow. It alway’s does.

A new ‘theology of the body" will be created by a pope, who is right now…just a little boy. We wont’ know him…but he will create a new way in accordance with new understandings

Sex is unitive and procreative. They are dual aspects of sex.

Sex IS unitive which is actually the “primary” mechanism for a males desire for sex. He doesn’t want to have sex to make babies all the time. No…men do not desire to have sex to spread their seed. Neither do females. This view is based on ignorance of human biology.

Their natural desire for sex, has very little to do with baby making at all. Baby making, is an end result. Nature…does not support this belief at all. It completely and utterly negates it.IE…humans do not “primarly” have sex to make babies. They have sex, so that they bond together AS A COMMUNITY (ie with other sexual partners in their community) and will remain together(individuall) with the child MAY create. Your theology…as gotten it…completely backwards.

Which is your opinion, which, given the ignorance you’ve displayed thus far, I am taking with a grain of salt.

That’s not for me to decide.

As for your earlier assertion that the Church used to approve abortion, that has NEVER been the case. From the USCCB:

I would suggest, when debate something…go look for the other sides argument first.

You may be surprised(and horrified) at what you find

 

[Dameedna]

No, I have no research to do. I know what the Church teaches about murder. Abortion is murder.

I wasn’t talking about what the church teaches now.

I’m talking about what they supported in the past.