In economically advanced countries there seem to be fewer abortions in countries with liberal laws than in countries with restrictive laws. Especially is you take into account people travelling to other countries. Such judgements are a matter of statistical analysis, not morality.
And that is only because the Church recognizes that many (if not most) American non-Catholics take the moral position that “the end justifies the means where hard cases are involved”. If we could get such laws passed, we would do it, but if we insisted upon absolute moral purity, and agreement with the Catholic stance that “some things just cannot be done no matter what, regardless of the suffering (the suffering of already-born persons, that is) that would be avoided by doing them”, we might end up with no prohibitions at all.
I have never been entirely convinced that the lack of ‘absolute moral purity’ of Catholic politicians is not itself a case of ‘the end justifying the means’. To achieve laws against many abortions, laws are passed allowing, and funding, some abortions. The argument that this is not ‘the end justifying the means’ certainly doesn’t seem clear to me.
You raise a valid point, and the first thing I’m reminded of is the “trolley dilemma” (I have no desire to reinvent the wheel here, interested readers can look it up online, as well as various past CAF commentaries on it) — you can either do nothing and watch several people die, or change the trolley’s course and watch only one person die. Throwing the switch that changes the train’s course is not intrinsically evil. I have never found this to be a particularly difficult dilemma — better to allow one to die, than to allow several to die — but others do. Applied to this scenario, Catholic lawmakers can either stand back and do nothing, because they can’t get absolutely morally pure laws passed, or they can negotiate for the best laws they can get, given that not everyone “draws the line” at the same place the Catholic Faith does.HomeschoolDad:
I have never been entirely convinced that the lack of ‘absolute moral purity’ of Catholic politicians is not itself a case of ‘the end justifying the means’. To achieve laws against many abortions, laws are passed allowing, and funding, some abortions. The argument that this is not ‘the end justifying the means’ certainly doesn’t seem clear to me.
The discussion is Biden and his failure to follow Catholic teaching
I’d support that if Rome denied communion to all Catholics who used contraception, had no problem with ssm, were living in a partnership which was not marriage, didn’t attend Mass and would accept abortions in some circumstances.
Find your local synagogue and make an appointment with the rabbi.
I don’t believe that you cited a Church law or a formal Church teaching on laws concerning abortion. Could you share a citation please?
There is more than one teaching. There is the teaching that abortion is intrinsically evil. There is the teaching that it should not be legal because it is intrinsically evil. Remarriage is also intrinsically evil. The Church do not teach that remarriage should be illegal, or adultery, or homosexuality.
It seems counter-intuitive that more liberal abortion laws lead to fewer abortions, but if that’s the fact of the matter, so be it. But I am not about to advocate making all abortions legal, much less endorse the taxpayer having to pay for them, in hopes of “making matters better”. I ask you to try to see it through the eyes of faithful Catholics, and the best analogy might be for it to be legal (and taxpayer-funded!) to euthanize an infant up to three months (or more) after birth, with “extreme cases” admitting of infant euthanasia up to nine months after birth — in other words, put a mirror up to the time line of Roe v Wade.
HomeschoolDad:
I am quite aware that the Jewish faith “views sin differently”, for lack of a more elegant way to put it. I have more in mind those non-Catholic Christians who, supposedly, have more or less the same concept of sin as we do, yet will admit that “in hard cases, sin quits being sin” (or at least that’s how it comes across). I have also heard (with relation to remarriage after divorce where a Christian marriage is concerned) the concept of “yes, it’s a sin, but Jesus covered all sin in His passion and death, He paid the whole price, so He’s covered that sin too, and besides, once you’re saved, you are automatically going straight to heaven, and no sin can change that”. (The latter would be “once saved, always saved”, but even among those who do not explicitly proclaim OSAS, the concept is still more or less “there”. It’s a rare non-Catholic Christian who dares to suggest that another Christian might not be saved.) I have also found, from many decades of living among them, that there is a strong streak of social respectability among non-Catholic Christians, and if a sin can be kept private, “on the QT”… well, then, it’s not as bad. Keeping up appearances, so to speak.HomeschoolDad:
Find your local synagogue and make an appointment with the rabbi.
I can see it from that perspective. But the underlying problem is that such an analogy makes no sense if you do not think (as most people seem not to in many (most?) societies) that a pre-viable fetus is a human being with human rights. To those who do not accept that, the analogy is like that made by some vegans that ‘meat is murder’. If you accept their premise about the equality of rights of all vertebrates, it makes perfect sense. If you don’t you eat your burger.
Yes. And that is a fringe concept. Most pro-choice people don’t support anything of the kind.
Does he speak publicly to express that position, in the hope it might make possible the ultimate reduction in abortion and the acceptability of greater restrictions?
That is the next logical step. And once one agrees with abortion, there is no logical refutation.JimG:
Yes. And that is a fringe concept. Most pro-choice people don’t support anything of the kind.
Best not to make this statement. The actor is not “allowing”. The morality of pointing the trolley at the innocent bystanders is the essence of the debate.
I don’t think so. Pro-choice people are usually quite reasonable. They just believe differently. I don’t know any that are in favor of murder (which is a legal term), or ever would be.