Any ex-pro-life staunchly pro-choicers out there?

[Magdalena09]

I am an ex pro-choicer who is now staunchly pro-life… took me 2 or 3 years of research and thinking to get to that point.

 

[rayne89]

Honestly, if being pregnant threatened to make Mary go blind or otherwise harm her life I think it would have been okay. I don’t understand why this question is supposed to move me to change. I think it’s worse to abort a human than to abort Jesus, Jesus can’t actually be harmed by an abortion, and could always decide to become another human child. It’s not like you can do damage to God!

So what about blind unborn children should they be aborted because otherwise they would have to go through life without sight?

Flyingfish through out your posts on the forum there seems to be a running theme -life that is devoid of sacrifice or suffering. That one should go through life with as little sacrifice or suffering as possible. A secondary theme I’ve noticed is your dislike of children. I believe these two things are the true reason you have changed your views on abortion. You do not think you should have suffer blindness (or whatever ailment) for the sake of your child. That your needs come first.

These ideas will not bring long term happiness in this life (or the next for that matter.) I would address these things with a professional for the sake of your own happiness.

 

[Luke_K]

Yes, I think it would have been moral for the Polish woman in the earlier example to have an abortion and save her eyesight.

And by the way, I didn’t ask whether you thought it was moral or not. I asked if you could stand before Jesus, while the people were bringing infants to him, who said “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them”, and tell him that it’s okay for a mother to kill her child.

 

[flyingfish]

So what about blind unborn children should they be aborted because otherwise they would have to go through life without sight?

Flyingfish through out your posts on the forum there seems to be a running theme -life that is devoid of sacrifice or suffering. That one should go through life with as little sacrifice or suffering as possible. A secondary theme I’ve noticed is your dislike of children. I believe these two things are the true reason you have changed your views on abortion. You do not think you should have suffer blindness (or whatever ailment) for the sake of your child. That your needs come first.

These ideas will not bring long term happiness in this life (or the next for that matter.) I would address these things with a professional for the sake of your own happiness.

I definitely strongly dislike and avoid suffering, and I only make sacrifices that I consider worthwhile. I think the vast majority of people are this way, whether they admit it or not.

I don’t think this is why I am pro-choice though. Pro-choice/pro-life issues are very impersonal for me, since I’ve never been pregnant nor do I ever expect to have an unwanted pregnancy.

But you’re right, I would not be willing to suffer blindness for the sake of pretty much anything. I would make some sacrifices for others, but my eyesight is too important to me to ever sacrifice. I don’t think about myself in regard to pro-choice issues though, I think it’s fairly easy nowadays to avoid getting pregnant.

And by the way, I didn’t ask whether you thought it was moral or not. I asked if you could stand before Jesus, while the people were bringing infants to him, who said “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them”, and tell him that it’s okay for a mother to kill her child.

I really do think abortion is the right choice in some situations, I could say it regardless of who was around me.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I really do think abortion is the right choice in some situations, I could say it regardless of who was around me.

Oh, flyingfish. I tremble for you having seen this.

Because when you die and go before the Lord, these words of yours will hang like chains around you. . .and you will say these words not only to all the ‘born’ people at the Judgment, but above all, you’ll be saying these words to millions of unborn children whose souls are in heaven. . . and with these words, by your support of those who have killed these children, you will have cooperated with this evil and share in the punishment demanded for such evil. . .

Children who were ripped to pieces and burned to death. Children who were poisoned. Children who are in no way different from any one of us ‘born’ people except that for their mother or father, they were an ‘inconvenience’, a burden, an ‘emotional’ nightmare. . .

God knows I’ve said --and done–some terrible things in my life. . .but oh, flyingfish. . .those words of yours are among the most terrible that humans have uttered, and you will be saying them to those who have suffered and died because of people like you whose selfish gratifications matter more to them than the life of another person. May God help you to realize your blindness --you, who are so proud of your eyesight and yet your **moral vision is deeply blackened and blinded.

**I pity you for to those whom much is given, much is demanded. You have received ‘much’. . .you are obviously ‘literate’, educated, comfortable. . .you have much to offer and yet you are choosing to use the God-given talents you have to support, extol, and exult in such evil and suffering. . .God help you.

 

[flyingfish]

Oh, flyingfish. I tremble for you having seen this.

Because when you die and go before the Lord, these words of yours will hang like chains around you. . .and you will say these words not only to all the ‘born’ people at the Judgment, but above all, you’ll be saying these words to millions of unborn children whose souls are in heaven. . . and with these words, by your support of those who have killed these children, you will have cooperated with this evil and share in the punishment demanded for such evil. . .

Children who were ripped to pieces and burned to death. Children who were poisoned. Children who are in no way different from any one of us ‘born’ people except that for their mother or father, they were an ‘inconvenience’, a burden, an ‘emotional’ nightmare. . .

God knows I’ve said --and done–some terrible things in my life. . .but oh, flyingfish. . .those words of yours are among the most terrible that humans have uttered, and you will be saying them to those who have suffered and died because of people like you whose selfish gratifications matter more to them than the life of another person. May God help you to realize your blindness --you, who are so proud of your eyesight and yet your **moral vision is deeply blackened and blinded.

**I pity you for to those whom much is given, much is demanded. You have received ‘much’. . .you are obviously ‘literate’, educated, comfortable. . .you have much to offer and yet you are choosing to use the God-given talents you have to support, extol, and exult in such evil and suffering. . .God help you.

I have wondered about this. Since the aborted don’t have time to develop minds and consciousness, in what state would they be in Heaven? Would they have minds and self awareness there? It’s strange to me to imagine that an embryo would be in Heaven, and would even understand what abortion is, that it was aborted, much less that I wrote on a forum that I think it’s sometimes okay to abort.

To me it would make more sense if human beings got souls at the same time we developed consciousness.

 

[DihydrogenOxide]

I am an ex pro-choicer who is now staunchly pro-life… took me 2 or 3 years of research and thinking to get to that point.

Good for you! high five

Consciousness is what’s important to me, and what distinguishes people from rocks.

I have to say though, I am surprised that no one agreed with me about the case of the woman who lost her eyesight because of pregnancy.

I think there is a fundamental disconnect between some pro-life positions and actions. For example, if you think that the unborn are truly persons, why aren’t you out there all the time fighting for them? Why aren’t you physically restraining abortion providers or women who have abortions to save lives? Why aren’t people who kill abortion providers praised as defenders of life? We certianly would have praised anyone who killed Hitler, had anyone managed to do so.

People are distinguished from rocks in far more ways than consciousness. If you ask any mother whether their unborn baby was ever conscious, you would find all of them to agree that, yes, the child kicks and moves around. Ultrasound images show babies crying in utero…

Would you not sacrifice your eyesight for your own flesh and blood? A baby will never be able to see what its mother was able to see on earth. It won’t be given a chance. This is a selfish reason to abort, and one without trust in God. This woman can still possibly regain her sight.

I’m out there all the time. I’m a pro-life sidewalk counselor at a local slaughter mill.

Physical restraint does nothing, besides the law is not on our side. Women will find ways to kill babies, unfortunately.

Murder of Hitler as a baby would be wrong. He was innocent at that point. He could have chosen the high road, but unfortunately he did not…

I don’t think this is why I am pro-choice though. Pro-choice/pro-life issues are very impersonal for me, since I’ve never been pregnant nor do I ever expect to have an unwanted pregnancy…etc…etc.

Would it be more personal for you if you saw a man come up to a stroller and kill an infant right in front of you?

It’s easy to avoid getting pregnant during any era. It’s called abstinence.

What situations? Rape? A child is innocent. It should not have to pay for the father’s actions. The woman is not getting punished with a child, nor does she have to keep it once it is born. Many women who keep their children from rape consider the child as a gift which helps make up for the trauma of rape.

I suggest this article about a Christian contemporary singer whose mother was given a saline solution abortion and Gianna lived.

Her name is Gianna Jessen.

 

[flyingfish]

Would you not sacrifice your eyesight for your own flesh and blood?

I don’t have children, so I don’t know how I would feel about them. The only other person I might consider making such a sacrifice for is my mom, but to be honest in the end I would probably choose not to.

What situations?

The situations I am mostly thinking of are where a pregnancy would be a threat to the health or life of the mother.

 

[Luke_K]

I really do think abortion is the right choice in some situations, I could say it regardless of who was around me.

Just so I can understand your position, what situations exactly are those? Do you think that a woman who voluntarily performs the martial act with her husband and conceives a child with no health threat to her, has the right to get an abortion? Or is it just in cases of rape and health threat?

EDIT: Sorry for some reason I didn’t see you already answered this.

 

[flyingfish]

Just so I can understand your position, what situations exactly are those? Do you think that a woman who voluntarily performs the martial act with her husband and conceives a child with no health threat to her, has the right to get an abortion? Or is it just in cases of rape and health threat?

EDIT: Sorry for some reason I didn’t see you already answered this.

I don’t have a list of situations, I don’t have a problem with abortion for any reason because as I said earlier for me it’s the capacity to have a conscious mind that makes one a person.

It’s really hard for me to just list off cases where abortion would be a good decision, probably cases where there are threats to health, life, quality of life, existing children. I wouldn’t pretend to know what is the right decision for any given woman, it would be up to her.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I don’t have a list of situations, I don’t have a problem with abortion for any reason because as I said earlier for me it’s the capacity to have a conscious mind that makes one a person.

It’s really hard for me to just list off cases where abortion would be a good decision, probably cases where there are threats to health, life, quality of life, existing children. I wouldn’t pretend to know what is the right decision for any given woman, it would be up to her.

So basically you don’t believe in moral absolutes. . . everything is totally up to the situation, or the individual. There is no ‘right’ and no ‘wrong’??? That’s a very. . .interesting philosophy. Too bad it has no relationship to Christianity. . .nor indeed to logic and reason.

Sheesh, why did Christ need to come to redeem humanity, eh? Because heck and golly gee, it’s not like people really SIN, ya know? Because, gosh, I’m sure that the people going around fornicating and aborting, and stealing, and killing, all think they have perfectly good reasons to do so. And they’ll all go up and look Christ in the face when they die and say, “But gee, Christ, it **seemed to me like it was a perfectly good decision at the time. After all, if I thought it was okay, then it was okay. It’s not like that unborn child was CONSCIOUS. It’s not like I ‘hurt’ anybody by having sex with people to whom I wasn’t married. It’s not like I ‘hurt’ the store I stole from. It’s not like the person I had to kill didn’t deserve it. Etc. etc. Etc.” Come ON, Christ. Did you really expect me to follow all those stupid RULES? I’m a GOOD PERSON, dammit! Those rules are for petty hypocrites. . . not for ‘good people’ like ME!!!

**It’s not, after all, as though God has given us any moral absolutes, any authoritative teaching, any way of knowing whether actions are right or wrong, any kind of body of knowledge or institution which with the Holy Spirit will guide us. . .

um, wait, duh, HE **did give us that. **We have the Catholic Church to teach us regarding Scripture and Sacred Tradition. We have God’s own written Word to guide us and a Church to explain any areas that might seem unclear.

Unfortunately even among Catholics (who should know better) apparently some have been either poorly educated, or have simply not chosen to learn or follow Catholic teachings, yet still identify themselves as Catholic and think that despite their flouting of ‘rules’ they are perfectly ‘right’. Popes of the Church of ME.

 

[hsblok]

I was 100% pro-life, now I am pro-choice. I became pro-choice when I realized that I was pro-life only because I was supposed to be. I don’t think that embryos are persons, they don’t have thoughts or plans for the future, so feel the wishes of the woman are a far more important consideration for me.

What faith ( if any) are you?

 

[flyingfish]

Unfortunately even among Catholics (who should know better) apparently some have been either poorly educated, or have simply not chosen to learn or follow Catholic teachings, yet still identify themselves as Catholic and think that despite their flouting of ‘rules’ they are perfectly ‘right’. Popes of the Church of ME.

What faith ( if any) are you?

I used to be a very conservative Catholic, now I am liberal. But I am in no way pushing my views as “the views”, this thread asked people like myself to describe why they switched positions, so I did.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I used to be a very conservative Catholic, now I am liberal. But I am in no way pushing my views as “the views”, this thread asked people like myself to describe why they switched positions, so I did.

Actually, you never did explain WHY you switched positions, only that you DID switch.

What is the difference between a ‘conservative’ Catholic and a ‘liberal’ Catholic, may we ask?

Can you tell us what you believed as a ‘conservative’ Catholic which has ‘changed’ due to your ‘liberalism’ and why you think that as a conservative you were ‘wrong’?

 

[flyingfish]

Actually, you never did explain WHY you switched positions, only that you DID switch.

The reason I switched is that I don’t think an organism that is incapable of generating a conscious mind is a person. Why did I come to think that? It makes the most sense to me.

What is the difference between a ‘conservative’ Catholic and a ‘liberal’ Catholic, may we ask?

Can you tell us what you believed as a ‘conservative’ Catholic which has ‘changed’ due to your ‘liberalism’ and why you think that as a conservative you were ‘wrong’?

When I was conservative I agreed and lived by every item of Church teaching. Liberal Catholics are those Catholics who are not conservative.

As a liberal Catholic, I don’t see God as a force that keeps track of actions and punishes sin. That is probably the main difference in my thinking between then and now.

I don’t know what kind of answers you are looking for, I am not looking to write an essay about the nature of God. Nor do I claim to have the right answers, I think I’m probably wrong.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

The reason I switched is that I don’t think an organism that is incapable of generating a conscious mind is a person. Why did I come to think that? It makes the most sense to me.
Thank you for your honesty. Have you noticed that everything you say is about “me-me-me?” “I think”, “it makes sense to me”. Nothing about whether something is Truth. . .only about a subjective opinion, feeling or ‘decision’ that is all about you and what ‘you’ believe. When you actually have to defend why you believe something, all you can fall back on is, “it makes ‘sense’ to me.” So. . .Christ’s death and resurrection 'makes sense to you", the Virgin birth ‘makes sense to you’, various Church teachings make sense to you. . .but for the ones that ‘don’t make sense to you’, you don’t have to follow them? See below

When I was conservative I agreed and lived by every item of Church teaching. OK, that sounds pretty. well, sensible. I mean, if you are going to be a Catholic it makes ‘sense to me’ that you would follow Catholic teaching. If you stop following the teaching, though, why still maintain your ‘catholicity’? Why is it that you can claim to be Catholic yet NOT have to agree and ‘live by’ all the rules? Liberal Catholics are those Catholics who are not conservative. Um, are you saying that ‘liberal Catholics’ don’t agree and live by every item of Church teaching? That’s pretty harsh.

Can you imagine a scenario where somebody says, "I’m a vegetarian. A liberal one. That means I don’t have to agree and live by the tenets of vegetarianism. IOW, if I feel like chowing down a beef burrito, I will. If I feel like going out and shooting ducks, I will. But. . .mind this now–I’m a vegetarian. I am NOT a ‘not vegetarian’. I insist on my right to the label of vegetarian even though I refuse to follow the ‘rules’ of being a vegetarian."

As a liberal Catholic, I don’t see God as a force that keeps track of actions and punishes sin. That is probably the main difference in my thinking between then and now. You mean that the nature of God has changed? That the Truth of God has changed? Or that you simply, personally, don’t want to accept God except as you ‘create’ Him?

I don’t know what kind of answers you are looking for, I am not looking to write an essay about the nature of God. Nor do I claim to have the right answers, I think I’m probably wrong.

I think that in many cases you are most definitely wrong. . .and why on earth would any person be content to wallow in a relativistic MESS of muddled ‘thought’ and just lazily be content to be ‘probably wrong’. . .without even bothering to try to find out the truth? That puzzles me.

Do you really think that God is some beneficent fairy tale who will coo over you, delighted in the ‘mind’ that ‘thinks for itself’, casually dismissing your sins with an "oh, well, I’m sure you did the best you could and after all, you were only trying to do the social justice schtick. Meh, I don’t insist on people following RULES. What does it matter that innocent babies are torn apart and burned to death? **Given the choice between such a death for a child, and a woman’s eyesight, YOU save a woman’s eyesight. That is simply so much MORE important than some ‘unborn babies’. **

 

[Magdalena09]

I think I’m probably wrong.

Just out of curiosity… why would you live according to beliefs you think are probably wrong?

 

[flyingfish]

Tantum ergo, I was baptized and confirmed Catholic.

Just out of curiosity… why would you live according to beliefs you think are probably wrong?

It’s not so much that I knowingly live by wrong beliefs, it’s that I don’t know what “the right beliefs” are, if any, and I do my best.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Tantum ergo, I was baptized and confirmed Catholic.

It’s not so much that I knowingly live by wrong beliefs, it’s that I don’t know what “the right beliefs” are, if any, and I do my best.

Well, once upon a time you said you lived by and agreed to ‘all the beliefs’. If you don’t know what the right ones are, why did you change? If you didn’t think those beliefs were wrong, why did you reject them? If those earlier beliefs could just as easily be ‘right’ as your newer ones, why change?

 

[vera_dicere]

If the science does say that human self awareness begins at 2-4, then I think that killing anyone before such time is not murder.

It might still be a crime, for instance depriving the parents of the child they have invested time and effort into, but I would not equate it with the killing of a conscious person but more with the killing of an animal.

Wow. That’s pretty damn cold. But at least your honest, I’ll give you that.

Are there further types of “non-person” born human beings you’d class as not persons worthy of protection of the law?