You are pro-life, aren’t you? What do you think personally of her comments?
Like with numerous Supreme Court decisions, people can take a position on it, they can agree or disagree with it, and Clinton supports the Roe v Wade decision, whereas Ted Cruz for example opposes it, and their differing positions, if either become president, is likely reflect that, like with a nomination to the Supreme Court etc.
Yes, I’m pro-life, though some would contend I’m not because I don’t think making abortion illegal is going to change things. Like Pope Paul VI in
Humanae Vitae, I think the “culture of death” was ushered in, and is maintained by, contraceptives because they remove the procreative aspect from the sexual act, and procreation is the sexual act’s primary function. When deprived of the procreative aspect, not that I think procreation has to occur each time, the sexual act also loses its unitive aspect and becomes just another form of recreation, and not true recreation, either in the sense of re-creation. I don’t think contraception is going to be leaving society anytime soon, and I don’t believe making abortion illegal is going to happen, either. The Supreme Court justices can’t be counted on - Roe v. Wade showed us that, though I think they made the right decision. Historically, in English common law and in the US Constitution, a fetus has had no rights. Rights have been vested in the mother, although the Court did say that states have a right in protecting those fetuses that have reached viability. I do support those states that have enacted laws that make killing a pregnant woman the murder of two rather than one.
I would like to see abortion eradicated, but I think the only way that is going to happen is by instilling in children a deep respect for the sanctity of life. There are laws against murder, rape, theft, fraud, etc. and yet these things go on daily. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, women will still have abortions, but more women will die from illegal abortions. All we’ll be doing by overturning Roe v. Wade is creating an environment for illegal abortionists to flourish and grow wealthy by murdering. And people who don’t want to do it illegally, will go to Canada. The problem is the way our Constitution is written and the fact that it was modeled, to a certain extent, after English common law. The justices who voted to uphold Roe v. Wade might not have personally believed in abortion, but they might have felt that the Constitution did not grant the unborn rights. Their personal beliefs could have conflicted with the job they were being paid to do. I don’t know, but would not be surprised if that were the case with some.
I don’t really think about that particular comment. Certainly Hillary knows a fetus, an embryo, is going to develop into a human person and it will reach viability. Certainly she knows the state has an interest in protecting the lives of fetuses that have reached viability. I don’t even know if she is truly pro-choice or if she just finds that politically advantageous, just as I don’t know if Donald Trump is truly pro-life or if he just finds that politically advantageous. Hillary Clinton has said that a just-conceived embryo holds the “potential” for life. Personally, I don’t know when God infuses the embryo with a soul, and I don’t know of any Church document that specifically states when, but since God breathed life into Adam as soon as he created him, I’ll go with birth.
Everyone who knows where babies come from knows a human embryo, if left in place and healthy, grows into a human person. So I don’t know what the firestorm is over that comment. She also said there was “plenty of room” to restrict later-term abortions. That, to me, is far more important and is something that could realistically be expected from a Clinton administration.
