Is there room in this debate for a person who favors a gray area and not black/white on, say, the issue of abortion?
Church is against abortion because it favors human life, and a human life begins at conception and not, say, at quickening or birth. Okay, I can accept those ideas as worthy premises, but would then like to consider a premise that the state of the mother be considered equally or nearly so, with the fetus, or the right to potential life of the fetus.
The mother may be upset, conflicted, anxious, young, age 17, without economic, emotional, or moral support of family and boyfriend-partner-potential husband.
Or the mother might be mature age 40, pregnant while duly watching her fertile sings but due to age and that contraception usage is not an option, is unhappily pregnant anyway.
I.e., a situations that is difficult, and now made more problematic, by adding that this is a final sixth baby toward the end of her periods with an unsupportive husband who has been injured for years, is in chronic back pain, and living on SSI, The husband demands abortion, and mother is strongly opposed to giving birth to another child.
Perhaps Catholic support to mother, young or old, plus adoption is a solution, but suppose such alternatives are diligently explored and declined by the mother.
Can abortion be in such cases ever be considered to be acceptable, after much prayer, due to a lesser sin than the harm done to mother and others, using a utilitarian criteria to count the harms on each side? The Catholic Church answer – except for certain medical situations – is against abortion. The technique of using balance scales to judge is not available.
I would tend (the situation is hypothetical) to be liberal and favor a legal, medically performed abortion, given the known situation taken as a whole; but be spiritually sad and mournful for loss of potential life, hurt and in sorrow, examine one’s conscience over time, truly repent, request absolution from the parish priest, then attempt to heal and become an active church member and self-supporting citizen going forward.
Now, for taking such a position in an area that I consider morally gray, I am subject to ex-communication, because I tend not to believe fully, all that the CC teaches, with emphasis upon “all”.
Is this a correct conclusion? If so, then is not the Church’s answer doubly non-moral? As some might argue, who have left the Church (I have in mind, one of my phi professors).
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