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

[Luke_K]

flyingfish, let me try something new.

You agree that a fertilized egg is entirely different than simply a sperm or an egg, correct?
A sperm and egg will die very shortly if left unhindered. The fertilized egg will not grow into a tree, a fish, or a monkey, and no other fertilized egg in the animal kingdom will grow into a human being. The fertilized egg will grow into nothing other than a 20 year-old man or woman if left unhindered. The fertilized egg is alive, and it is human. It has a complete, unique human DNA which is hard at work developing a body just like the DNA in every human alive today did when they were a single cell. It also has a sex, XX or XY, so it is reasonable to refer to “it” as him or her (I know there are sex-chromosome abnormalities, but that is besides the point here).

If God lets the male or female human life live (no miscarriage), then that must certainly means he wants him or her to live for a specific reason. He has called that human life to a specific vocation.

Now my question is this: When did God ever say it was okay for us to personally decide to end an innocent human life that he has called to a special vocation? When did he make us arbiters for determining the value of a life that he has created? Jesus SPECIFICALLY SAID: “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” and “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” Additionally, the Church that Christ founded, of whom he said “The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” has emphatically declared for millenia that abortion is gravely evil. How could Jesus be telling the truth if the Church has been teaching a lie for the past 2000 years? The Didache from 70 A.D. said that “You shall not procure an abortion, nor destroy a newborn child.” (catholic.com/library/Abortion.asp)

In 1995 Pope John Paul II declared that the Church’s teaching on abortion “is unchanged and unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors . . . I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium. No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church” (Evangelium Vitae 62).

It is utterly, completely, against fundamentals of Christian faith to support a mother’s choice to end the life of her son/daughter. You are going against the Popes, the consistent Church teaching for 2000 years, the Church Fathers, and JESUS CHRIST. Do you accept this?

 

[flyingfish]

flyingfish, let me try something new.

You agree that a fertilized egg is entirely different than simply a sperm or an egg, correct?
A sperm and egg will die very shortly if left unhindered. The fertilized egg will not grow into a tree, a fish, or a monkey, and no other fertilized egg in the animal kingdom will grow into a human being.

To an extent. Sex cells are certainly different from a fertilized egg, but I don’t know if I would agree with the “if left to its own devices” argumentation. The main issue I have with this, is that if sperm and egg are “left to their own devices”, their “owners” might choose to have sex and convert the sperm and egg into a person.

Go back some number of billion years, and you could have said “if these stars are left to their own devices, then they will go supernovae and create the elements that, if left to their own devices, will at some point combine to form a 20 year old human being.”

“If the Big Bang singularity is left to its own devices…” I hope you see what I’m trying to say, I don’t see the rationale behind drawing a line at some spot in the chain of physical causation and saying that the potentiality of this state to become something is somehow more significant than the potentiality of the previous state (in this case the sperm and the egg) is. Kind of like… If A causes B causes C. If we’re really interested in C (say the 20 year old human being in your example), then even though B leads to C, A leads to B and so also leads to C. I would say A and B are equivalent in this way.

For this reason I don’t see th value of talking about what something might one day turn into, I’d rather consider what is.

Now my question is this: When did God ever say it was okay for us to personally decide to end an innocent human life that he has called to a special vocation? When did he make us arbiters for determining the value of a life that he has created?

I think God did this through giving us free will and leaving us largely to our own devices.

Jesus SPECIFICALLY SAID: “Let the children come to me and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” and “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”

But it is extremely unlikely that Jesus was talking about fetuses. If anything, he was talking to children old enough to at least walk, so that they might come to him.

It is utterly, completely, against fundamentals of Christian faith to support a mother’s choice to end the life of her son/daughter. You are going against the Popes, the consistent Church teaching for 2000 years, the Church Fathers, and JESUS CHRIST. Do you accept this?

I realize this, and I admitted earlier to disagreeing with the Church on some issue. I am certainly not promoting my view as the official position of the Church.

 

[hosemonkey]

I realize this, and I admitted earlier to disagreeing with the Church on some issue. I am certainly not promoting my view as the official position of the Church.

Well, that’s a relief.
Truly, unless you have come here merely to troll or if this is some sort of intellectual(?) excersize for you, you have about as much chance for your views on this forum as a pig’s chances of flying. I marvel at your moral and spiritual poverty. One can only hope, that if you ever fall into a condition of non self-awareness, that some compassionate person will elect to have mercy upon you and let you live until God, who made you, decides to end your life. I pray the same for any so-called “Catholics”, who share your views. They need to seriously examine their Catholicism.

 

[flyingfish]

Well, that’s a relief.
Truly, unless you have come here merely to troll or if this is some sort of intellectual(?) excersize for you, you have about as much chance for your views on this forum as a pig’s chances of flying. I marvel at your moral and spiritual poverty. One can only hope, that if you ever fall into a condition of non self-awareness, that some compassionate person will elect to have mercy upon you and let you live until God, who made you, decides to end your life. I pray the same for any so-called “Catholics”, who share your views. They need to seriously examine their Catholicism.

You might notice that I did not start this thread! I would have never started a thread about this, I only answered someone’s question. I am not interested in convincing anyone to think as I do.

I don’t see why you put Catholics in quotes though, the Church considers everyone who’s ever been baptized Catholic a Catholic. Something like half of Catholics in America are pro-choice, I guess they’re all “Catholics” huh?

 

[Abu]

Some never learn.

There are faithful Catholics. And there are dissenters – who are full of selfism and pick and choose what to believe (faith and morals) with no fidelity to Christ or the Church He placed in charge to teach, sanctify and rule. Some ofthe dissenters still call themselves “Catholics” – quite meaningless while they betray Christ and promote falsehood.

 

[Onegin]

Mental illnesses and disabilities are not on the level of not having a consciousness at all.

If someone is brain dead, I think they are no longer a person. I am not sure at what age babies start to have thoughts/become self aware. My own earliest memories are from about 2 years old.

Until the self awareness is there, I wouldn’t call it a person, but that’s my personal opinion.

Creepy.

I’ve seen your views on this thread, so I won’t bother trying to reason with you but I think that our society degraded to a horrifying sate of moral subjectivism once we start taking questions of life and death out of God’s hands and placing them in our own.

The question of personhood, consciousness, death and life our not ours to make. They will never be. Science hardly knows anything about the origin of life or of personhood and yet it is so arrogant as to think that it can make these determinations.

Look at the terrible things that have happened because we have tried.

 

[Luke_K]

To an extent. Sex cells are certainly different from a fertilized egg, but I don’t know if I would agree with the “if left to its own devices” argumentation. The main issue I have with this, is that if sperm and egg are “left to their own devices”, their “owners” might choose to have sex and convert the sperm and egg into a person.

I wasn’t arguing against abortion based on that the fertilized egg will become a human, but that he/she is a human. When the sperm and egg join together, they are no longer sperm and egg. You cannot trace my identity back to the individual sperm and egg, because those two gametes by themselves were not me, but sperm and egg which would have died had they not joined together. But the moment they joined together they no longer had the identities of man’s sperm and mother’s egg, but a unique, single, complete human being (“So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”). That same complete DNA that was in the fertilized egg is in my body today, but it was never in a sperm or egg or star or universe before

That fertilized egg is alive in a completely different way than a sperm or egg or star. He is developing his body tissues and organs just as much as a 13 year-old pubescent, growing boy is. The Big Bang obviously did lead to a fertilized egg, but the moment the matter from the Big Bang assumed the form of the DNA and cell from my dad’s sperm and mom’s egg, it was no longer “star material” but a human life. When a complete human life exists, he/she has the right to keep it and not have it taken away.

You are just as alive now as when you were a single cell. You did not become “more alive” when the brain developed. You just developed a new set of cells. Because you did not have a brain you did not have the right to vote, apply for a loan, go to school, or even be counted in a census (because you’re still in the womb), but you did have the right to life because that was something that you did have.

I know you may counter-argue that plants and animals have the right to life too, which they do in a sense, but we have been given dominion over lesser creatures to decide on the value of those lives. We do NOT have dominion over ourselves to take our own lives, for only God has that dominion.

 

[flyingfish]

I wasn’t arguing against abortion based on that the fertilized egg will become a human, but that he/she is a human. When the sperm and egg join together, they are no longer sperm and egg. You cannot trace my identity back to the individual sperm and egg, because those two gametes by themselves were not me, but sperm and egg which would have died had they not joined together. But the moment they joined together they no longer had the identities of man’s sperm and mother’s egg, but a unique, single, complete human being (“So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”). That same complete DNA that was in the fertilized egg is in my body today, but it was never in a sperm or egg or star or universe before

That fertilized egg is alive in a completely different way than a sperm or egg or star. He is developing his body tissues and organs just as much as a 13 year-old pubescent, growing boy is. The Big Bang obviously did lead to a fertilized egg, but the moment the matter from the Big Bang assumed the form of the DNA and cell from my dad’s sperm and mom’s egg, it was no longer “star material” but a human life. When a complete human life exists, he/she has the right to keep it and not have it taken away.

You are just as alive now as when you were a single cell. You did not become “more alive” when the brain developed. You just developed a new set of cells. Because you did not have a brain you did not have the right to vote, apply for a loan, go to school, or even be counted in a census (because you’re still in the womb), but you did have the right to life because that was something that you did have.

I know you may counter-argue that plants and animals have the right to life too, which they do in a sense, but we have been given dominion over lesser creatures to decide on the value of those lives. We do NOT have dominion over ourselves to take our own lives, for only God has that dominion.

I understand what you’re saying, I just think our fundamental disagreement in how we define what it means to exist and what it means to be a person.

I think that I did not exist until my consciousness came into being, I don’t think that when my parents had sex and an egg was fertilized that it was me. So I certainly wouldn’t agree with the statement that the fertilized egg was just as much me as I am now, I would say I didn’t even exist at that time.

So in that regard, the fertilized egg is no different from a sperm and egg or the big bang singularity. They are clearly different in terms of their properties, but each, left to its own devices, would produce a person, and neither is yet a person in my view.

It doesn’t make sense to me to say that person = a human organism with its own DNA. I don’t agree that only humans can be persons, I think anything capable of producing consciousness is a person. I also don’t agree that humans are always persons, such as when they are brain dead or in the fetal stages.

 

[Luke_K]

It doesn’t make sense to me to say that person = a human organism with its own DNA. I don’t agree that only humans can be persons, I think anything capable of producing consciousness is a person. I also don’t agree that humans are always persons, such as when they are brain dead or in the fetal stages.

Even if you don’t agree that a fetus is a “person,” why don’t you believe that a complete human life has the inalienable right to stay alive and not be deliberately killed? If consciousness is where you believe the right to life comes from, does a highly intelligent physics professor have more of a right to live than a 4 year-old preschooler? The professor is obviously more “aware” of himself and the universe than the four-year old or a mentally retarded man.

 

[flyingfish]

Even if you don’t agree that a fetus is a “person,” why don’t you believe that a complete human life has the inalienable right to stay alive and not be deliberately killed? If consciousness is where you believe the right to life comes from, does a highly intelligent physics professor have more of a right to live than a 4 year-old preschooler? The professor is obviously more “aware” of himself and the universe than the four-year old or a mentally retarded man.

I don’t think this because it doesn’t make sense to me to allocate “rights” to something that doesn’t have the capacity to generate a conscious mind. I think persons have rights, and since I don’t think a fetus is a person, I don’t think it has rights.

When a fetus is destroyed, a living organism is destroyed, but the same thing happens when plants are harvested for food. I don’t feel bad when I eat plants because I know those plants don’t have consciousness, and I didn’t destroy a person who was aware of its own existence. It’s the same to me with abortion.

As far as a physics professor vs. a 4 year old, if both were in trouble and I could only save 1, I would save the physics professor without thinking twice about it. (Not because of the contribution they make to society, but because a 4 year old has relatively limited awareness, and probably doesn’t even know what death is or that she would die.)

But I don’t think one has more right to live than the other. I don’t think the physics professor has a right to say, kill and eat the 4 year old in the case of a famine.

In any of those “who does the train hit” situations, I’d save the physics professor though. (All other things being equal, in that the professor is not some murderer or whatever.)

How about you? A physics professor (who is not some evil murderer etc.) and a 4 year old are in a burning house, you can only choose to save one, what is your choice?

 

[OraLabora]

As far as a physics professor vs. a 4 year old, if both were in trouble and I could only save 1, I would save the physics professor without thinking twice about it. (Not because of the contribution they make to society, but because a 4 year old has relatively limited awareness, and probably doesn’t even know what death is or that she would die.)

This is beyond sick.

You have no idea of the potential of the 4 year-old, which could very well be much greater than the physicist’s.

I don’t want to invoke Godwin’s law here, but it sounds an awful lot like the triage that occurs in death camps.

Everyone has the inalienable right to life, even the 4-year old.

Even the fetus.

I was right this thread is descending into mental masturbation, with your arbitrary and self-defined standards.

 

[flyingfish]

This is beyond sick.

You have no idea of the potential of the 4 year-old, which could very well be much greater than the physicist’s.

I don’t want to invoke Godwin’s law here, but it sounds an awful lot like the triage that occurs in death camps.

Everyone has the inalienable right to life, even the 4-year old.

Even the fetus.

I was right this thread is descending into mental masturbation, with your arbitrary and self-defined standards.

I made it clear in my post that “potential” isn’t the reason I would save one over the other. Also, I’m not saying the 4 year old doesn’t have a right to life. The example requires me to choose only one to save, I can’t save both.

I guess since you disagree with my decision you would save the 4 year old? Flip a coin? Why?

 

[Magdalena09]

Most people I know who are my age (college age) or older… would elect to let a young child live over themselves if it came down to that, because children embody innocence.

Jesus didn’t specifically talk about little children for nothing.

 

[flyingfish]

Most people I know who are my age (college age) or older… would elect to let a young child live over themselves if it came down to that, because children embody innocence.

Jesus didn’t specifically talk about little children for nothing.

Most people I know wouldn’t sacrifice their life for a stranger, regardless of their age. Hmm…

 

[Luke_K]

I don’t think this because it doesn’t make sense to me to allocate “rights” to something that doesn’t have the capacity to generate a conscious mind. I think persons have rights, and since I don’t think a fetus is a person, I don’t think it has rights.

When a fetus is destroyed, a living organism is destroyed, but the same thing happens when plants are harvested for food. I don’t feel bad when I eat plants because I know those plants don’t have consciousness, and I didn’t destroy a person who was aware of its own existence. It’s the same to me with abortion.

As far as a physics professor vs. a 4 year old, if both were in trouble and I could only save 1, I would save the physics professor without thinking twice about it. (Not because of the contribution they make to society, but because a 4 year old has relatively limited awareness, and probably doesn’t even know what death is or that she would die.)

But I don’t think one has more right to live than the other. I don’t think the physics professor has a right to say, kill and eat the 4 year old in the case of a famine.

In any of those “who does the train hit” situations, I’d save the physics professor though. (All other things being equal, in that the professor is not some murderer or whatever.)

How about you? A physics professor (who is not some evil murderer etc.) and a 4 year old are in a burning house, you can only choose to save one, what is your choice?

A plant is not a human life. A fetus is.

If the kid and professor were both equally rescue-able but it was only possible to save one, then I might flip a coin. On the other hand, I’d hope that the professor, since he was a grown man, would be willing to sacrifice his life so that the kid would be saved. I think that the professor would be more ready and capable of facing burning to death than a 4 year-old kid.

This hypothetical situation is a bit inappropriate for the issue at hand though, because abortion is (almost always) about willfully killing one human life for the convenience of another. The situation you described is about actively saving one of two human lives. Also, the saving of one person in this scenario does not require the active killing of another (as in abortion to save the life of the mother), but simply letting them die.

 

[OraLabora]

I made it clear in my post that “potential” isn’t the reason I would save one over the other. Also, I’m not saying the 4 year old doesn’t have a right to life. The example requires me to choose only one to save, I can’t save both.

I guess since you disagree with my decision you would save the 4 year old? Flip a coin? Why?

I don’t particularly enjoy these sorts of games of mental masturbation. I believe everyone enjoys the right to life from conception to natural death. Were I in a position where I had to choose one or the other (say pulling someone from the wreckage of a car or plane crash), I would have to judge based on the specific circumstances as to who needs the most immediate assistance, and my own abilities.

It would, IMHO be immoral to base the decision on anything other than situational need (severity of injuries, ability to extract the person from their current position, whether the person retained mobility, etc.), which is exactly what trained paramedics would likely do. We are all equals in God’s eyes, and I would hope that I could live up to that standard.

Were I in a death camp where a sick camp commander put me in a situation where either I or a 4-year old had to die, I would pray and hope to be able to gladly give my life so the 4-year old could live. I think St. Maximilian Kolbe gives us a high, and beautiful example to live up to.

 

[flyingfish]

A plant is not a human life. A fetus is.

If the kid and professor were both equally rescue-able but it was only possible to save one, then I might flip a coin. On the other hand, I’d hope that the professor, since he was a grown man, would be willing to sacrifice his life so that the kid would be saved. I think that the professor would be more ready and capable of facing burning to death than a 4 year-old kid.

I agree the example is not appropriate for the abortion situation.

It’s interesting, I wonder if most people think as you do or as I do. Maybe it’s because I don’t have children, but I generally value the lives of adults more.

I’m sure that were I to have children I’d value them very highly, and might well be willing to die for them. But I wonder if that would change my attitude toward the children of strangers…

 

[OraLabora]

I agree the example is not appropriate for the abortion situation.

It’s interesting, I wonder if most people think as you do or as I do. Maybe it’s because I don’t have children, but I generally value the lives of adults more.

I’m sure that were I to have children I’d value them very highly, and might well be willing to die for them. But I wonder if that would change my attitude toward the children of strangers…

When we had our children I was firmly outside the Church in my atheist years, and tended to view abortion as a private matter for the expectant mother to resolve.

Assisting at the birth of my first-born rapidly changed that attitude and I realized that saying “I personally wouldn’t chose an abortion, but respect the right of a woman to chose one” was a cop-out especially since I am male.

Men shouldn’t be afraid of, as we say in Quebec, “putting our pants on” and taking an unpopular stand on this.

That said I can confirm that yes, having children, radically changes your outlook on life and its value.

Would I bend over backwards for the children of others? Well when my kids were young, we frequently had their friends over and drove their friends and soccer teams all over the place. I felt duty-bound to care for those children as if they were my very own. I think most parents would feel exactly the same way.

 

[Magdalena09]

When we had our children I was firmly outside the Church in my atheist years, and tended to view abortion as a private matter for the expectant mother to resolve.

Assisting at the birth of my first-born rapidly changed that attitude and I realized that saying “I personally wouldn’t chose an abortion, but respect the right of a woman to chose one” was a cop-out

Same happened to me… except it was the birth of my niece.

 

[Luke_K]

That said I can confirm that yes, having children, radically changes your outlook on life and its value.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t soften the hearts of everyone: americanpapist.com/2009/10/mature-audience-woman-describes.html