Contraception Questions

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Yada,

I struggle with the question of voting, and I respect your opinion of Republican politics related to abortion, even though we may not see eye to eye.

Tell me this, though. Was a vote for George Bush and Dick Cheney a vote for life? What of all the lives lost and blood shed in Iraq – a place whe had/have no business fighting a war. Thousands of American soldiers dead and countless more wounded, not to mention the local casualties. Pro-life means pro-life, and to be pro-life related to abortion and not war or the death penalty, etc, is not being pro-life. Not such an easy no-brainer to me.

Peace,

faithandworks
 
I’m not Yada but will answer anyway.

We’re still in 2 wars. You might say Obama inherited it from Bush, but Bush inherited it too. At least the Iraq War which started in 1991. Remember that Democratic president Clinton dropped bombs on Iraq too, probably killing many innocent people.

War should not be treated lightly. But the reality is: 1) there is evil in the world and 2) some things are worth fighting for. The Democratic Party now and historically is not a pacifist party, so I’m not tempted to think that voting for a Democrat will lead to peace.

So, it seems to me the issue of war is a wash between the 2 parties. Voting against Obama still a no brainer in my book.

P.S.-- Just for the record, Obama (and most other Democrats) are pro-death penalty.
 
*Consequences of Artificial Methods
  1. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, **disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection. ***
    vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html
 
Dear Texas,

Thank you for more information. It is all very interesting and I am pondering it daily in prayer and meditation. I must say, however, that since my vassectomy (I did disclose this earlier in the thread) I do not treat my wife in any way as mentioned in the writings. I share with her a giving and very uniting togetherness. Ask her about it. Nontheless, I do understand that unchecked temptation is dangerous.

Thank you to all of you who have participated in this discussion. I apologize that the Democtrat/Republican thing got into it, but nontheless, an interesting subject if perhaps for a different thread. I happen to be a pro-life liberal Democrat – as you can probably already tell 🙂 I struggle daily with the national politics and think we need strong leaders to move us in the direction of peace, humility and justice for the entire nation and world. I would like nothing more than to see a world free of abortions, and if I thought for a minute legislating anti-abortion laws would do that, I would be all for it. I am a teacher and when students fail, I hear so often that we need to raise the bar. If they are not reaching the bar at one height, what makes you think it will help to simply raise the bar to a higher height? I happen to think that for the most part, Democrats are – right now – doing a better job of promoting peace, social justice, and humility in the world. They are helping us to reach higher heights in more areas (not all) but more of the important areas. I would love to find a leader who can do that all – AND be truely pro-life, including abortion, death penalty and war.

Thanks again, all, and God Bless you all.

Rich
 
War is not an objective moral evil - there ARE just wars. There is never a just direct abortion.

Death penalty is permitted by moral law - there is never a permissible direct abortion.

One cannot compare direct abortion that is always evil to something that may be just.
 
faithandworks said:
Dear Texas,

Thank you for more information. It is all very interesting and I am pondering it daily in prayer and meditation. I must say, however, that since my vassectomy (I did disclose this earlier in the thread) I do not treat my wife in any way as mentioned in the writings. I share with her a giving and very uniting togetherness. Ask her about it. Nontheless, I do understand that unchecked temptation is dangerous…

Thanks again, all, and God Bless you all.

Rich
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I think the Pope is discussing if children are a likely outcome of intercourse one is more careful of participating. Do not feel alone or misunderstood, many catholic parents would like to “get fixed” so they could relax about having additional children however again that relaxation changes the unity of the husband wife relationship. By no means am I accusing you of anything I am just trying to explain the answer to your original question. Try to imagine you and her were returned to original fertility would you change your sex life?
 
Texas_Roofer said:
By no means am I accusing you of anything I am just trying to explain the answer to your original question. Try to imagine you and her were returned to original fertility would you change your sex life?
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Excellent point Roofer! I know a couple (non-Catholic) who got a vasectomy reversal because they realized it was the wrong thing to do.

When I asked them early in they were saying that they still had the same tenderness and respect as before, yet when nearing the date for the reversal, they were admitting that the other behavior had just snuck up on them. They couldn’t p(name removed by moderator)oint a time frame, they just were less tender, and more likely to be demanding of each other. The husband expected the wife to “perform on demand” in bed and the wife expected the husband to “perform on demand” in other ways, like his job. They lost the idea of sacrifice for each other.
 
Dear kage_ar,

I agree that sometimes war comes to you. George Bush acted immorally lying to the world, inventing reasons to go to war against Iraq. I believe our Pope opposed the war as well. There is never a permissible, nor a moral, direct lie to the world by a leader, for the purpose of waging an unjust war. So when you (the generic you as I don’t know for certain whom you voted for) voted for GW and Cheny, you voted for a man who started the Iraq war and is responsible for the death of thousands. The unjust killing (directly or indirectly) of a soldier is no more acceptable thatn the killing of an unborn child. Also, Bush put hundreds of prisoners to death as governor of Texas. Is that Pro-Life? Sounds like the choice is not a no-brainer, unless you simply decide not to use your brain…

Dear Tex and Debbie,

I hear you but your comments are so foreign to me, I can hardly imagine it. It sounds to me like these couples may have had others issues that would make them behave toward each other as such. As for my wife and I, I expect several things of her… that she be honest, open and confident in every aspect of her relationship with me. She knows I love her dearly and the fact that I am “fixed” does not change that for either one of us. I do not demand of her, nor she of me. Not a vassectomy issue here, but a communication issue. I pray that those couples get their relationships “fixed.”

Once again, thank you and God Bless. I am going to pray for all of us and thank God for the enlightenment I will take away. I will also pray for peace and the end of wars and for all unborn children. I will also pray for the environment that we may become stewards of the land and our resources and quit killing for them and start sharing and respecting them. I will pray for the Catholic hate mongers who preach doctrine and spread intollerance and hate – not anything toward my fellow thread-participants 👍. I will pray for ALL hate-mongers, but as Catholics, we should know better. Mostly, i will pray to God for continued guidance and humility. Peace and the comfort of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
 
When all else fails, go to the Catechism.

Neither are on par with abortion in the eyes of the Church.

Death penalty:

scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2267.htm

**2267 **Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent.”

On war (too long to post all of it, please read the full section in the Catechism)

scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a5.htm#2307

Avoiding war

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.105

[2308](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/2308.htm’)😉 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.
However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed."106

[2309](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/2309.htm’)😉 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
  • the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
  • all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
  • there must be serious prospects of success;
  • the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
    These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.
 
I agree that sometimes war comes to you. George Bush acted immorally lying to the world, inventing reasons to go to war against Iraq. I believe our Pope opposed the war as well. There is never a permissible, nor a moral, direct lie to the world by a leader, for the purpose of waging an unjust war. So when you (the generic you as I don’t know for certain whom you voted for) voted for GW and Cheny, you voted for a man who started the Iraq war and is responsible for the death of thousands. The unjust killing (directly or indirectly) of a soldier is no more acceptable thatn the killing of an unborn child. Also, Bush put hundreds of prisoners to death as governor of Texas. Is that Pro-Life? Sounds like the choice is not a no-brainer, unless you simply decide not to use your brain…
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I don’t want to single handedly turn this into a Bush debate but…
I tell you a man has a gun and is going to start shooting. You call the police, telling them the man has a gun and is going to start shooting. The police come and arrest him, but then realize he has no gun. They charge you with obstruction of justice since you lied to them- you defend yourself by saying that you were given bad information.
By your logic, that is not a legitimate defense. You would have been pressed to find a western intelligence agency that didn’t believe the Iraq invasion was justified, so the information given to and acted upon by out government was based on that assumption.

Bu even if we want to talk numbers of dead human beings, nothing trumps abortion.

And the governor doesn’t have the power to put people to death.
 
I agree that sometimes war comes to you. George Bush acted immorally lying to the world, inventing reasons to go to war against Iraq. I believe our Pope opposed the war as well. There is never a permissible, nor a moral, direct lie to the world by a leader, for the purpose of waging an unjust war. So when you (the generic you as I don’t know for certain whom you voted for) voted for GW and Cheny, you voted for a man who started the Iraq war and is responsible for the death of thousands. The unjust killing (directly or indirectly) of a soldier is no more acceptable thatn the killing of an unborn child. Also, Bush put hundreds of prisoners to death as governor of Texas. Is that Pro-Life? Sounds like the choice is not a no-brainer, unless you simply decide not to use your brain…
Click to expand...
I don’t want to single handedly turn this into a Bush debate but…
I tell you a man has a gun and is going to start shooting. You call the police, telling them the man has a gun and is going to start shooting. The police come and arrest him, but then realize he has no gun. They charge you with obstruction of justice since you lied to them- you defend yourself by saying that you were given bad information.
By your logic, that is not a legitimate defense. You would have been pressed to find a western intelligence agency that didn’t believe the Iraq invasion was justified, so the information given to and acted upon by out government was based on that assumption.

But even if we want to talk numbers of dead human beings, nothing trumps abortion.

And the governor doesn’t have the power to put people to death.
 
faithandworks said:
Yada,

I struggle with the question of voting, and I respect your opinion of Republican politics related to abortion, even though we may not see eye to eye.

Tell me this, though. Was a vote for George Bush and Dick Cheney a vote for life? What of all the lives lost and blood shed in Iraq – a place whe had/have no business fighting a war. Thousands of American soldiers dead and countless more wounded, not to mention the local casualties. Pro-life means pro-life, and to be pro-life related to abortion and not war or the death penalty, etc, is not being pro-life. Not such an easy no-brainer to me.

Peace,

faithandworks
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Abortion is an inherent evil. War is not an inherent evil and people will debate whether or not the death penalty is or not. But you CANNOT equate the evils of abortion to the evil of the death penalty.

Also, I would ask you if you know what the first thing Bush did when he became President? He signed the Mexico City Policy, which banned the taxpayer money to be used for oversees abortions.

Secondly, I would then ask you what the first thing signed by Obama when he became President? He signed a bill overturning the Mexico City Policy.

If you want to wait to use the term Pro-life for a President that is against abortion, against all war, against the death penalty and whatever else, you will never be able to use that term.
 
Kaninchen said:
Now, prepared to be amazed (on the grounds of “fancy a Jew knowing that”)?

There was a naughty Pope John XXIII, so the modern Pope John XXIII was Pope John XXIII rather than Pope John XXIV because the other one didn’t count.
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Yes you can find some Popes that did things that were not okay or in line with the Church, but show me something that Pope JohnXXIII did that was taught ex cathedra or was considered an infallible teaching. Don’t forget, that Popes are still only human, they make mistakes. There are only certain times when they teach/say something that is considered infallible.

newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm#IIIB
 
Time for my NFP spam 😃

You can set your watch to it. One says something like, “Natural Familiy Planning (NFP) doesn’t work.”. The NFP defender replies that it is every bit as effective as artificial birth control (ABC). On cue, the naysayer goes, “Aha! Then they are the same thing!” Now the defender has the unenviable task of explaining moral reasoning like explaining vector calculus to a gorilla. I got so tired of rehashing it that I typed up this Moral Evaluations 101 cheat-sheet a few years ago and just pasted it when the issue came up. It probably needs serious tweaking, but here it is. (I’m lifting and paraphrasing most of this from CCC 1749-1761):
The goodness or badness of an act must be evaluated according to 3 criteria:
  1. The objective–this is the rightness or wrongness (or indifference) of an act in and of itself. (Examples: murder is objectively bad, almsgiving is objectively good.)
  2. The subjective–this is the intent of the one doing the act (called the agent). Note that a good intention does not make an objectively evil act good, and that an evil intent can render a good act evil. (Such as giving alms in order to trick people into thinking you are pious).
  3. The relative–this is all the surrounding circumstances and the actual result of the act or the end achieved. These do not change the objective goodness or badness of the act in and of themselves.
Plugging the above in it becomes abundantly clear that NFP is NOT morally equivalent to ABC and that the Church’s teaching is entirely consistent.
By the way, the techniques of NFP are not really an act, it’s information gathering. Having marital relations is the act. So:
  1. The objective–Abstaining from sex is in and of itself morally indifferent (not doing something is never wrong unless there is a duty to do something). Putting barriers between couples in the marital act or rendering the womb hostile to life with chemicals is objectively wrong. (Doing something and deliberately thwarting the proper, natural and good consequences of that act.) NFP passes gate #1. ABC does not, so it goes down as morally unacceptable up front. NFP passes, but is not quite out of the woods yet 'till we get to:
  2. The subjective–as stated above, good intentions do not make objectively evil acts good. Here we can see that with an NFP-practicing couple, there is a possibility of evil intent which would render abstinence evil, but obviously it is hard for outsiders to judge others, because ta-da! it is subjective. (We can have a giant debate about what constitutes bad intent, but here I’m just dismantling the NFP=ABC canard. See my other entry: Pius XII and Birth Regulation.)
  3. The relative–and here is the cause of much of the contentiousness regarding this teaching. We are living in the age of a widespread mental blindness that denies the existence of #1 (objective right and wrongs), that everything is #2 and #3, and says the ends justify the means (consequentialism). So people look at the ends: ABC=no pregnancy, NFP=no pregnancy, and wrongly conclude they are morally equivalent. T’ain’t so.
So while one can lodge all kinds of complaints against the Church’s teaching on contraception, logical inconsistency or “distinction without a difference” with ABC should not be among them.
 
PeterMuz said:
Abortion is an inherent evil. War is not an inherent evil and people will debate whether or not the death penalty is or not. But you CANNOT equate the evils of abortion to the evil of the death penalty.

If you want to wait to use the term Pro-life for a President that is against abortion, against all war, against the death penalty and whatever else, you will never be able to use that term.
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Ahh, but I disagree. Every unjust death in an unjust war is JUST as evil as death due to an abortion. MURDER IS MURDER. Same for every innocent man put to death by an unjust death penalty. Are we then talking numbers? Is is more moral to unjustly be responsible for 5000 deaths as compared to 10,000?

FOR THE RECORD, AS I HAVE POSTED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE, I AM PRO-LIFE AND ADAMANTLY ANTI-ABORTION:mad:. I am sad that I must choose between two candidates - one who lies about his intentions and lies his way into an unjust war, and one who outwardly condones abortion. Let’s be real, however. Bush LIED to us all and was basically morally bankrupt.
 
I think there is a difference between abortion - which is intrinsically evil, with no room for debate, and the Iraq war - which removed a dictator from power who was responsible for something between 300,000 and 2 million deaths (making him the bloodiest dictator in the world during the last quarter century).

I know cost/benefit does not work with the dignity of life - but while the war did kill many, how many did it save?
 
Actually the difference is prudental judgement which is a human action required for war but not for abortion
 
faithandworks said:
Ahh, but I disagree. Every unjust death in an unjust war is JUST as evil as death due to an abortion. MURDER IS MURDER. Same for every innocent man put to death by an unjust death penalty. Are we then talking numbers? Is is more moral to unjustly be responsible for 5000 deaths as compared to 10,000?
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I agree. If an innocent man is put to death by the death penalty than that is unjust. But I fail to see how this or the numbers argument is an argument that puts abortion and the death penalty of war as equivalent evils.

I would make this argument to show my point that these things are not equivalent evils. If these three things were all equivalent evils, why is war and capital punishment morally acceptable under certain circumstances, but abortion is NEVER morally acceptable?
FOR THE RECORD, AS I HAVE POSTED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE, I AM PRO-LIFE AND ADAMANTLY ANTI-ABORTION:mad:. I am sad that I must choose between two candidates - one who lies about his intentions and lies his way into an unjust war, and one who outwardly condones abortion. Let’s be real, however. Bush LIED to us all and was basically morally bankrupt.
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Well, this post tells me a lot about you. If you think that Bush knowingly lied to get us into the war, then nothing I say to you will change your mind. If there is nothing you will consider on that, just tell me and we’ll avoid this all together. I will say that he did NOT lie.
We can argue all day long whether the war in Iraq is a just war or not. The Catechism gives 4 requirements for just war and you can make legitimate arguments either way.

I never said you were not pro-life. I believe you that you are pro-life. But there are lots of other people here on this forum and other places who say they are pro-life and have a hard time voting for either candidate. I fail to understand your hard decision. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to pick between the lessor of two evils. The lessor of two evils from the Catholic Church point of view is the anti-abortion candidate every time. That being said, if you can find anything where the Catholic Bishops endorsed a pro-abortion candidate over a anti-abortion candidate, I am willing to take that into consideration.
 
Leave the politics to the political forum and please remember charity in your posts.
Thank you.
 
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