How do abortion supporters reconcile their support for abortion . .

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I told him it looked like a baby to me. He replied ‘that’s because that is what you want to see’. ‘The Church has brainwashed you to see that’. ‘All I see is a lump of jelly’!
Did you mention to him that the secular world has him brainwashed into thinking it looks like a “lump of jelly.” That argument goes both ways.

You could’ve said to him "maybe it LOOKS like a lump of jelly, but what actually** IS** it? Just because it ain’t pretty doesn’t mean it ain’t human.
 
I believe our culture has neutralized life. Even our language has become empty when it comes to life. ie: I lost a child, miscarriage, stillbirth,

We need to look for ways in our daily lives that life has been trivialized. We need to begin to celebrate life in every way.

For example this year my family has buried two children. Theresa died 31 weeks after conception. Joseph died 14 weeks after conception. I tell people I have five children. Three of them I am blessed to be raising and two of them I am blessed to have as Saints in heaven.

Now I could just tell people that I had one stillbirth and one miscarriage. I could then tell people that I one have three children. Kind of looses it’s meaning doesn’t it.

How in even little ways can we bring meaning to life. With out life there is no death, there is mearly a procedure.
You are absolutely right about how we use language and how it can devalue life. I’m sorry for your loss. God Bless,
 
This is the approach I like to use first too, however, sometimes it just doesn’t carry any weight with the person. How do you deal with people who deny science?
Short answer: you can’t.

If someone refuses to think on a natural plane, instead forcing the argument into the whole “I feel personhood means this and nothing is real and nothing is true blah blah” then you are dealing with someone who is denying objective, absolute truths.

If someone walked up to you and claimed that clouds were made of marshmallows, the best thing to do would be to run away fast.

In the abortion debate, someone who continually dismisses the biological aspect instead focusing on philosophies and relativism, is someone who participates in the debate for serious personal reasons. They have an issue that is dragging them down, hard. And they will do everything to protect their bubble.

I think sometimes those who argue what is right and good often forget that those arguing for what is wrong and bad are doing so to hide horrible wounds. Think of the person who forced their wife to abort their son. That person can’t talk about biology! They need counseling and much healing.

Anytime you find someone making things up and ignoring facts, tread carefully. Bumping into such a person can cause them to go carnally spastic. They are protecting themselves from reality, not arguing to support a right or movement.
 
I think sometimes those who argue what is right and good often forget that those arguing for what is wrong and bad are doing so to hide horrible wounds. Think of the person who forced their wife to abort their son. That person can’t talk about biology! They need counseling and much healing.

Anytime you find someone making things up and ignoring facts, tread carefully. Bumping into such a person can cause them to go carnally spastic. They are protecting themselves from reality, not arguing to support a right or movement.
You’re right. Good distinction between protection of self and support of a movement. I think I’ve overlooked that in my discussions and it would certainly change my approach.

What differences specifically do you see between the “self-protectors” and the ones who are all about the “rights movment.”?
 
You’re right. Good distinction between protection of self and support of a movement. I think I’ve overlooked that in my discussions and it would certainly change my approach.

What differences specifically do you see between the “self-protectors” and the ones who are all about the “rights movment.”?
The most common indicator that a person is trying to self-medicate or remain in a neurotic state of mind for personal reasons is that of the over-reaction.

When you are arguing, or even not arguing and just talking about something that seems to you to be quite factual, normal or even mundane, and the other person responds with great admonition, denial, hate, or other weird reactions, then it’s a good bet that they aren’t in the conversation for typical reasons.

For example, if you casually mention how science has proved that conception begins a unique human being, and the other person starts screaming about fetuses being parasites, you know you’ve got a person in the argument to force themselves into the pro-abortion movement as a form of denial or even self-hate.

There are plenty of people who refuse to think consistently, honestly, or even sanely. Not all of them are hurting. The best way to notice if they are in need of help (and distance) is when people react emotionally or overreact. That helps to weed them out.

I have found because I am very blunt and scientifically based in my arguments, that it is uncharitable of me to continue arguing with people who are in need of help. It is like pummeling a person who is unprepared and unwanting to see the truth because they have such deep issues.

After realizing this, I have found that an emotional, friendly approach without arguing about abortion can bring some of these people out of their shells.

I have managed to discover two women who have had abortions by acting this way. If I had continued to argue, I never would have found out. They have both attended a rachel’s vineyard “seminar” and I hope they are doing better. If I had just argued, I probably would have never spoken to them again and we would have gone our separate ways angrily.
 
There are plenty of people who refuse to think consistently, honestly, or even sanely. Not all of them are hurting.
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One of the most difficult conversations I had was with someone who responded with “I know, but…” to every logical, scientific, moral, theological, and social argument. It was like she was saying “I’m going to hold on to this belief despite all the information **I know ** clearly and unequivocally contradicts my pro-abortion position”. She is highly educated in the medical field which just astounds me all the more.

Whether someone is protecting themself or fighting for the abortion rights movement, it sure has to be some mind game they play in order to ignore the facts. It’s scary.

Thanks for the insight about dealing with some pro-abortion people.
 
You left out apathy.

In the world we live in not caring is perhaps the best way of dealing with most of the issues we face but have no power or control over.
Dude that is so ture. You wouldn’t believe how many people equate apathy with some sort of Zen
 
This is the approach I like to use first too, however, sometimes it just doesn’t carry any weight with the person. How do you deal with people who deny science?
you can’t really, pro abortionists are people who are in extreme denial. All of their literature stems from denial and justification.
 
Hi all, Just looking at the bigger picture. There have been about 50,000,000 abortions in the united states alone since 1973,and with the united states being only 5% of the population of the world,there would be a grand total of about 1,000,000,000,yes billion, abortions in the world since that unholy error was made in 1973 Roe vs Wade.

In late 1939, My own Mother was on the abortion table getting rid of me. Just as the Doctor was doing his deadly deed,my mothers sister Margret came running in and screamed to her to stop. She yelled out ;Jean, that child will take care of you in your old age!

Well, the Doctor stopped,and here I am today, with a wonderful wife of forty four years, four great children,eight Grand Children,and a blessing of a Hot dog named Margret Mary,after my Aunt Margret,Thank you Lord!

Over the years,I’ve had many jobs and meet many people in Church and the automobile business,and have touched thousands of people and acquaintances,in many ways,and yes,out of us 6 children,I was her favorite,and helped her till she went home to our Lord at the ripe old age of ninety two! Thats only one little story out of a Billion…
Blessings,Robert
 
Hello. I am only mildly informed regarding the abortion debate, but after reading over this thread, I am surprised at what seems to be a genuine lack of imagination – the lack of the ability to conceive of the “mindset of a pro-choice person” or something like that. That is, it seems there are some of you who honestly do not understand what sort of thinking could prompt a reasonable person to be reluctant to forcibly abrogate a “woman’s right to choose.”

I am not a Catholic (though I am very interested in Catholicism – that is another story), so I am not as educated as all of you in the pro-life thinking and rhetoric. I have been in opposed to the prohibition of abortion at certain points in my life and I have have known many people who were (are) in favor of the legality of abortion. Thus, if any of you are truly curious, I would be happy to answer specific questions to the best of my ability. In return, I would be pleased to hear your reactions, since I want to learn more about the developed, mature objections to abortion that the Catholic Church possesses.
 
Cool Green Tea!

Here is were I come from and why I may not be able to even picture that someone may be able to stand up for abortion.

I held my fourteen week old babies body in my hands. He died before I delivered him. Once I saw how beautiful he was even after death, I could never understand why anyone would ever abort.

I came to a crystal clear truth. Say that baby had lived and I decided to kill him at one week old. The only difference is age. I am his Mama even though he was born dead at an age when it is legal to abort him. Once you know a truth you can never go back to not knowing. I can’t even fathom that there is an argument that could justify abortion.
 
There is no reconciliation of any kind possible with abortion.

When a woman aborts a baby, there is this idea that they are no longer pregnant'. In actuality, they are one of 2 parents of a dead child. The termination’ of the pregnancy does not change the fact that their child is now dead.

There is no amount of arguing with `pro-choice’ advocates. They keep the focus on the mother and her right to choose, never allowing the focus to be around the true center of the issue: the life of a human being whose ONLY crime was being conceived. (As if thats a crime?)

What of incest, rape!.. they cry.

What of that childs rights? No child is `wrong’! The conception of the child is NOT that childs fault!

Why should the mother pay por being raped!?.. they cry.

Why should the child pay with his or her life?

It’s not a child!?.. they say.

Is there ANY chance that, if allowed to live in the womb, this it' would become anything other than a human child? This is not a random chance event! The cell fertilised grows into a child able to survive outside the womb. This it’ will never grow into anything else other than a viable human. How can this `it’ be anything BUT human from the start, then?

The simple truth is words will not disuade people from sacrificing children on the altars of their own convenience.

Abortions will cease when we pray and act as God’s children.
 
IAmEdmund,
There is no amount of arguing with `pro-choice’ advocates.
Fortunately, not all “pro-choice” advocates wish to argue. Instead, many of them are interested in coming to a greater understanding of a complex and emotionally intense issue.
They keep the focus on the mother and her right to choose, never allowing the focus to be around the true center of the issue: the life of a human being whose ONLY crime was being conceived.
This has not been my experience at all. Perhaps you have met a few “bad apples”?
The simple truth is words will not dissuade people from sacrificing children on the altars of their own convenience.
If all you are interested in is people who “sacrifice children on the altars of their own convenience,” then perhaps you are in the wrong thread. As I understand it, this thread was about genuinely attempting to understand those who support the right to abortion.
 
As I understand it, this thread was about genuinely attempting to understand those who support the right to abortion.
There is no `right to abortion’. There is, however, laws protecting those choosing to murder innocent children.

Children are being murdered.

What is left to understand?

The voiceless cannot defend themselves. They have been denied.
 
Grace & Peace!
I’ve wondered for a while - just how do those who support abortion reconcile their support with the idea that human life is sacred?
I am no fan of abortion and would not call myself pro-abortion in a million years. I would even hesitate to call myself pro-choice. Perhaps I am not the person who should be addressing this question. But I’ll do so anyway.

The issue, for me, revolves around when specifically human life begins. Not animal life or merely the processes of biology, but human life. I cannot, in all honesty, believe that human life begins with conception. It’s a very tidy belief, but not particularly compelling and seems to me like an absurdity. When exactly the fetus becomes human, however, I cannot say.

The Torah defines a child in the uterus as part of the mother’s body–for instance, if one sells a pregnant cow, the calf does not return to the original owner, but stays with the present owner. Generally, it looks like Jewish tradition has seen the fetus as a potential human, not an actual one. In destroying the fetus, one is definitely killing something (like killing an animal), but one is not murdering someone. Ancient penance lists in the church indicate that aborting a fetus requires penance, but it is a lesser penance than killing one’s birthed child. There seems to be a qualitative difference between a human fetus and a human child.

None of this makes abortion any less distasteful, nor does it clear up the issue–when does specifically human life begin? But I think there is enough grey area to allow that abortion is permissable within relatively strict limits–to save the life of the mother; in instances of rape, etc. But not as a form of birth control.

That having been said, back-alley or illegal abortions are likely not to be particularly conducive to human life.

And too often what I feel the “pro-life” camp misses is that their platform seems to amount to little more than “pro-birth”. The quality of life in utero of the potential human seems to be of greater import than the quality of life of the actual human child in the world. This is not to say that fetuses who will be born in conditions of abjection, into the comfortless bureacracy of the orphange, or into abusive households should be aborted (far from it), but it says very little in favor of the reasonableness of the “pro-life” argument.

I realize I’ve not really addressed any of the questions. I am, perhaps, too torn one way or another to be of any use to the conversation. But suffice to say that I do not support the criminalization of abortion, nor do I support the idea of abortion-on-demand. I think that both the pro-choice and the pro-life movements are blunt intruments which do not admit much nuance–both positions leave much to be desired, in my estimation, at any rate.

Anyway…

Under the Mercy,
Mark

Deo Gratias!
 
Before I start let me say that I respect everyone’s right to have an opinion and I certainly respect religious freedom and I make the following comments not to be offensive but simply to share a different point of view. And – I am answering the OP’s question. I am not attacking anyone, any belief, any creed. I am simply saying that I have tried desperately to agree with where you are coming from and cannot. And, as much as I hate to wonder into this minefield, I feel I must voice my support for Green Tea and Deo Volente. I myself had an abortion many decades ago and I can tell you that it was a painful decision and it had nothing to do with “convenience”. My reasons were deeply personal and were almost completely based on both mental and physical which I will not to into here. My personal experience compels me to speak out against the idea that women have abortions simply because they are too busy with their social lives to have kids. I know other women who have had abortions and it was a difficult and painful decision for all of them. So if the pro-life folks ever want to have a dialogue with pro-choice folks they need to stop labeling all pro-choice women as “heartless murderers”.

What I’m going to say next will incur the wrath of all but Green Tea: I have personally tried very hard to convince myself of the pro-life argument. I have prayed, studied, discussed but despite all of this I am still unable to equate a fetus and a fully developed baby as being equal. I say this because I know what you folks are going to say to me and I know it won’t be pleasant, so I’m just trying to save you from typing things I’ve heard before and already considered. I have tried both the spiritual and intellectual approach. Having once been a practicing Catholic, I desperately wanted to agree with Church teaching on this issue. Yet, I was never able to. To me, individual life begins at birth or when the infant is viable outside the mother’s womb, otherwise the fetus is still a part of the mother. Killing the unborn sounds like an oxymoron to me. And the fact is that the woman has to carry the child so her experience and her health have to be taken into consideration. She is not just a baby incubator. Women are more than their biological capacities. And since the individual woman is the one who has to carry the child I don’t think anyone else has the right to tell her what to do. As a woman I fully support the idea that we be able to control our own bodies. Born people have more rights than unborn people (who I just don’t see are “real” people). The fact that the fetus will become a fully developed baby if allowed to do so doesn’t change the fact that it is still a fetus - it isn’t a fully developed baby. I do support a limit on late term abortion as the fetus will be approaching viability and should be given the opportunity to be put into an incubator, etc. if development has reached that stage. But in the early stages when the fetus doesn’t even have a brain I see no reason for restriction. Needless to say at this point, I have no problem with artificial birth control.

As for individual liberty, I am a big fan of it. As I said at the beginning, I have no problem with others living their lives as they see fit as long as their doing so does not infringe on my freedom to do the same. We do not live in a theocracy. If you don’t want to use ABC, have sex outside of marriage, have a same-sex relationship, read erotica, have an abortion, etc., etc., etc., then don’t. No one is forcing you to do so. But many of you seem to want to force other free adults not to do these things if they so chose and this is simply not your business, to put it bluntly. If you truly want to have a hope of converting people your best bet is by living a life of love, compassion and charity instead of going on about how terrible other people are. Jesus was able to convert sinners because they felt his unconditional love for them (granted it was a lot easier for him to do this since it was his nature, we have to pray for the grace to do this). Also, I think we need to start from a place of commonality. What do we agree on and where can we go from there? Otherwise we’re just going to go on hating and killing until doomsday. Sometimes I think God gave us all different opinions just to see if we could take his advice and work together, love one another, forgive, not judge, be compassionate and humble, show mercy. We’ve done a bad job so far, if you ask me – which I’m sure you won’t.

Peace.
 
From experience, those little bodies of babies that have been aborted look a lot like my son. It breaks my heart to look at those pictures and know that someone felt so helpless that they felt their only way out was to abort. my son, who was born 14 weeks after conception was perfect. If he was only a part of my body, why did he die and I didn’t?
 
Having once been a practicing Catholic, I desperately wanted to agree with Church teaching on this issue.
Not desperately enough, as you now want to condone the murder of children under the banner of `there are good reason too’.

It’s still murder. It is a holocaust.
 
Deo Volente and Swan, thank you for your posts. Perhaps your voices can contribute to the ability of others in this thread to understand those who think differently. Such understanding breeds compassion and Christian charity, which is the foundation of ministry and productive discussion.

As for myself, I consider abortion a tragedy. Every abortion is a cause for mourning. Would that no women find themselves in the position of having to make such a difficult choice! I agree with Deo Volente – a categorical prohibition is analogous to performing brain surgery with a sledgehammer, and such a blunt, crass, and gross procedure is unlikely to be productive for anyone involved in such a delicate and tremendously important issue.

I would also like to add that the political rhetoric over this issue sickens me. I believe life to be sacred, both that of the fetus and that of the mother. The fetus is a beautiful creature, as dkoinzan has so eloquently pointed out; the mother is likewise a beautiful creature. I consider it a fundamental profanity and travesty for these to be exploited for partisan political gain. I have sometimes heard it said that the number of abortions is evidence of a “culture of death.” I think a political system structured around the exploitation of women and children when they are most vulnerable is a culture of death.
 
I am against abortion also, But i feel maybe just for today beings that it is Good Friday and Easter Sunday is upon us. To maybe just pray for everyone who had made the wrong decision in thier life that maybe some how they can find peace. And maybe they can never fix the mistake they made but some how help another to not make the same mistake. I am sure for whatever the reason someone would do this horrible thing they are human. And sometimes it takes years to even realize what they have done. To somehow pray for them to have peace, and also for the next person, or someone who is thinking about it now to know, to go to God he will find you a way out of this. It may not be the easy way but it will be the right way. God will guide you the right way just trust him. He will never leave you. Maybe if some people had that hope they would have done better. We cant change yesterday only right now, and tommorow.
 
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