Can raped girls abort?

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Fidelis_Unus said:
Hold on a sec. I’m not judging anyone and I wish to heck people would stop claiming that I am. :nope: This is a discussion about Catholic teaching and my response is to your (incorrect) statement. Becoming learned in Church teaching is how we are able to more fully participate in our faith. It is hard to have an informed conscience if one does not spend time learning about their faith through discussion, studying Church history, the CCC, the Bible and Vatican documents (e.g. Humanae Vitae). Is confession between the person and God? Of course, but we have a responsibility to know the nature of sin and how confession works and what our Church teaches.

One of the necessary parts is to make reparation. CCC “1491 The sacrament of Penance is a whole consisting in three actions of the penitent and the priest’s absolution. The penitent’s acts are repentance, confession or disclosure of sins to the priest, and the intention to make reparation and do works of reparation.” How does one do that when the victim of their actions is dead? Well, for example, they may help others to not commit the same sin or, at the very least, they must refrain from contributory sin (ie, not counseling, consenting, concealing, defending, partaking, provoking, praising or silence.) Doing any of these would be an impediment to being contrite or repentant.

You brought up the idea that a woman can get an abortion, go to confession and be absolved of her sin. I still maintain that this is true UNLESS she is not truly penitent. zYou claim that since she’s unlikely to get raped again it’s not an issue. This is patently untrue. The state of her soul is the issue. It doesn’t matter if the situation comes up again or not, it matters what she would do if it did. One cannot get an abortion, planning to go to confession and get rid of a sin you are not truly repentant of. Doesn’t matter if the circumstance may never arise again, the issue is the state of the woman’s soul. If she would commit the same sin again then the absolution is not valid as it is a necessary part of the Sacrament of Confession. It’s not like taking a quick shower. It is the state of one’s soul and one’s willingness to submit to God’s will. Confession is for *repentant *sinners.

While we are on the subject… We believe … the Catholic Church believes that this is a human life and abortion is a mortal sin, separating one from God. From the Catholic viewpoint, no one wishes that a victim of rape then suffer an abortion, 'causing them to be further from God’s Grace and missing out on the healing Graces they might otherwise be afforded.

You made an earlier comment that rape is worse than murder. From my personal experience of being raped in my twenties, I wholeheartedly disagree. In fact the first positive emotion, the glimmer of hope coming was being able to feel glad to be ALIVE. The sun shone, a bird sang, all those lovely signs of life that God created brought. With life there is always hope.
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No. “thou shall not kill.”."

BLUELAKE
 
jmcrae said:
:rolleyes: Of course not.

Your argument in favour of abortion seems to be that, because abortion isn’t included in the legal definition of murder at the present time, that therefore, abortion is morally acceptable
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Could you point out the post where I’m meant to have endorsed this as my personal position??? :confused:
 
The point is simple. Just because something is legal does not meant that we should do it and it certainly does not mean that the law is just. There have been many unjust laws in human history. Since Doc is British and I happen to come from a British family, I’ll give a perfect example. We had a law in England that if a man and a woman became engaged the man could not cry off. If he cried off, he could be sued. Was that a just law? We all know that it was legal.

We had a law that when a woman married, all of her property became her husband’s property and she had no legal rights over the wealth that she brought into the marriage, unless her father had secured part of that wealth in some other trust. Basically, a man could use a woman to increase his personal wealth. Was it legal? Yes. Was it just? No.

We had a law that said that we could tax our colonies without representing them in parliament. Was it law? Yes. Was it just? No.

We have a law that the British Empire could take whatever it wanted from any of its territories and transfer it back to England to increase the wealth of England, leaving the rest of the empire in dire poverty. We did this to India. Was it legal? Yes. The whole world bought into it. Was it just? No.

I can go on and one about the many laws that the UK has had that were immoral and were changed, because they were unjust. The argument that because abortion is legal in the UK and USA it cannot be challenged or overturned is ludicrous. If it is immoral, it deserves to be challenged and overturned, just as we challenged and overturned many laws in the USA and UK.

The big problem that the UK and USA share is a sense of entitlement. They have equated super power with omnipotence. It is true that they are the super powers in today’s world. But they are no omnipotent and omniscient. They may not legalize everything they want to legalize without any concern for morality. And they are not in a position to defend that they know what is right and wrong. They can only defend what is legal and illegal. That is not wisdom. That’s jurisprudence without the prudence. But nations have set in motion a very dangerous precedent of entitlement.

When government feels entitled to ignore morality, it is released from any moral obligation to its citizens. In the end, it’s simply a game with laws that appease the demands of a group of citizens, even if those citizens are morally wrong. This is always going to happen when politicians buy into lies that deny the dignity of human life.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF
 
There’s a whole complicated argument that has gone on for over a century at least about the relationship between law and morality.
I have not equated law with morality at any stage.
 
Doc_Keele said:
There’s a whole complicated argument that has gone on for over a century at least about the relationship between law and morality.
I have not equated law with morality at any stage.
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There is nothing complicated about it. Government does not pick up where God left off. Salvation of souls is not a concern of government. That is why we need to turn elsewhere in questions of morality to determine what is truly in the best interest of society. Legislation is a human fabrication. A law is only good when it is grounded in God’s law. We lose sight of what should be the priority in our life if we expect to find it in laws that have been conceived by men rather than in those given to us by God. In a question such as this, law may provide a comfortable answer, but, we need to appeal to a higher Authority for the right answer and for the sake of our souls. Both God’s justice and His mercy are the same for everyone. You cannot say that about any earthly government.
 
It might be complicated to you, but the reams of material on issues of jurisprudence say different.
 
Doc_Keele said:
There’s a whole complicated argument that has gone on for over a century at least about the relationship between law and morality.
I have not equated law with morality at any stage.
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Yes, you did. You were provided with the dictionary definition of murder and asked how, under that definition, abortion was not murder. You replied that you adhered to the common law definition of murder in which murder only applies to those considered legally persons. Therefore, your stance seems to be that abortion is not murder because the unborn aren’t legally persons.
 
Well that’s your incorrect inference. The definition of murder provided, whether “dictionary” or not, was incorrect. I merely provided the correct definition of murder in my jurisdiction.
 
Doc_Keele said:
Well that’s your incorrect inference. The definition of murder provided, whether “dictionary” or not, was incorrect. I merely provided the correct definition of murder in my jurisdiction.
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Oh, does that mean you think that murder differs from place to place, time to time, and situation to situation?

That murder by ‘your definition’ in AD 2010 is different from murder in your land/home before Cook’s definition? And I don’t just mean that we recognize the difference between say murder 1, murder 2 and manslaughter (to give some U.S. terms) or that a person could be found to be insane and thus not able to be convicted of murder. . .

I mean that what Lord Farquahar of Ravensby in AD 1810 saw as murder then would be --from what I understand you to say–‘different’ from murder as what his great-great-grandson would see as ‘murder’ today because somebody has ‘redefined’ the definition.

Oh well then. So if we want to commit a particular murder, all we need to do is go to a place where it isn’t recognized (legally) as murder. I see. And if we want to decide that something isn’t murder any more, we just need to make the legal determination that it isn’t murder any more, and that totally and completely erases the ‘morality’ too.:rolleyes:
 
Go ahead and try and find a place where murder isn’t illegal if you wish:shrug:
but that would be totally mistaking the point I’m making.
Coke (pronounced “Cook” but not spelt that way) expressed the common law definition. To wonder if the definition was different before him is to mistake the nature of the common law.
You continue to misunderstand the relationship between law and morality.
There’s illegal acts that are moral. There’s legal acts that are immoral. Is that too difficult to understand?
 
Doc_Keele said:
Well that’s your incorrect inference. The definition of murder provided, whether “dictionary” or not, was incorrect. I merely provided the correct definition of murder in my jurisdiction.
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And when asked how abortion wasn’t murder under THAT definition, you said that the fetus isn’t legally a person, which has no bearing on the MORALITY of the act, as examples such as the murder of black slaves in pre-Civil War America and the murder if Jews in Nazi Germany amply demonstrates.

What is your definition of murder according to your own moral code? Is it the same as the legal definition?
 
My personal definition of murder is the unjustified intentional killing of another human being by a rational actor I guess.
 
Doc_Keele said:
The law does not consider the foetus a person.
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Then the law is unjust, immoral, and conflicts with God’s law and as Catholics we are required to not adhere to it and to do everything we can to remove it.

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.
 
LittleSoldier said:
Then the law is unjust, immoral, and conflicts with God’s law and as Catholics we are required to not adhere to it and to do everything we can to remove it.

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.
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At last, some understanding of the law and morality!👍
 
Hmm. I’ll quote one of your best English speakers and say, “The Law is an ***” myself.
 
:eek:
Rence said:
I agree with that Doc. I think that if abortions were made illegal, more people would get them illegally. I know people who swear they would, especially in the case of rape, and I believe that they would. And I agree with you, better for it to be legal that illegal where one would get a back street abortion. That would just cause more trouble than it’s worth. Anyway, I don’t expect abortion to be made illegal anytime too soon, especially in the case of rape. I don’t think the American public will tolerate it.

Look at Brazil, where abortion is illegal except for the case of rape and the threat to the woman’s life. Backalley abortions rose, and they’re very expensive, and on top off that, care for the resulting infections and injuries rose. And to top THAT off, all that is apparently no secret, so what’s the point of making it illegal? 🤷
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What:eek: So you are saying its BETTER to commit MORTAL sin legal then illegal?:confused:

ANd whats the point in making it illegal? So then if thats the fact lets make every commandment of God legal right? Because if its legal its not a sin!:confused:
 
Rence said:
I agree with that Doc. I think that if abortions were made illegal, more people would get them illegally. I know people who swear they would, especially in the case of rape, and I believe that they would. And I agree with you, better for it to be legal that illegal where one would get a back street abortion. That would just cause more trouble than it’s worth. Anyway, I don’t expect abortion to be made illegal anytime too soon, especially in the case of rape. I don’t think the American public will tolerate it.

Look at Brazil, where abortion is illegal except for the case of rape and the threat to the woman’s life. Backalley abortions rose, and they’re very expensive, and on top off that, care for the resulting infections and injuries rose. And to top THAT off, all that is apparently no secret, so what’s the point of making it illegal? 🤷
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:eek::eek::eek: So - are you “pro-choice?” Please think about this carefully because you’re very close to heresy.

And I’ve just thought of something else, while re-reading your post. Rape is illegal, right? But people do it anyway and we all know about them doing it. So why don’t we just go and make rape legal? I mean, what’s the point of keeping rape illegal? 🤷

It would certainly be easier. Women (and men) who are raped could just go to the ER and be treated. The way it is now, it’s just more trouble than it’s worth - lineups and sketch artists and DNA evidence; it seems to me that an awful lot of money is being wasted on something that is going to happen, anyway.

And why stop there? Let’s make theft legal, too. And every other “crime” because it costs so much to run prisons and jails and it’s really more trouble than it’s worth. Don’t ya think?

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.
 
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