How do you respond to this question on abortion?

[SilverShadow22]

Modern definitely, OT not immoral.

Somewhat immoral, just not outright forbidden. The best God could do at the time was impose rules to encourage better treatment of slaves.

Just like divorce, it was always objectively bad, but tolerated as a lesser evil to avoid a greater one.

 

[openmind77]

“If your religion said abortion was okay, you wouldn’t care at all about the legality of the matter.”

Personally, I feel that I would still be against it if the Catholic Church was for it, however, it seems like a false scenario.

Lots of people want abortion to remain legal even though they may be personally against it (President Carter for instance). The question is not about being against abortion, but wanting to stop other people from having the choice.

Those people whose churches are pro-choice are usually pro-choice too (although they may be against abortion personally)

 

[Rau]

Lots of people want abortion to remain legal even though they may be personally against it (President Carter for instance). The question is not about being against abortion, but wanting to stop other people from having the choice.

Those people whose churches are pro-choice are usually pro-choice too (although they may be against abortion personally)

Laws cut both way. They forbid me from acting, and they forbid others too. Today, the State finds nothing repulsive in abortion, subject to a few preconditions, so it’s a matter of personal choice.

 

[BornInMarch]

“I oppose abortion because I believe fetuses and embryos are human who have the right to be born and to exist. And as long as I believe that, I will be anti-abortion no matter who or what sanctions it.”

The unborn child’s right to exist is not just the most important reason to oppose abortion, it is the ONLY reason. Nothing else matters in the debate; not cases or rape or incest (children conceived in those means still deserve to exist), not cases of poverty (poor children still deserve to exist), not what the mother wants (when “the right to choose” means “the right to choose to kill your child”, then NOBODY should have that right), not bodily autonomy (the right life supersedes all else, even bodily autonomy), not nothing.

There are people who don’t have any religion yet who still oppose abortion. Not all atheists are pro-abortion, and not all feminists are either. If anyone says so, mention the two organizations linked to below.

secularprolife.org/#!mission/c13dm

feministsforlife.org/

 

[BornInMarch]

I just found some quotes by Abraham Lincoln on slavery, and it’s surprising how many could be applied to the modern abortion debate.

rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln95.html

“Whenever I hear any one arguing for ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

“I am naturally anti- ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion. If ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.”

“I think ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.”

“Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.”

“Those who deny f̶r̶e̶e̶d̶o̶m̶ life to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.”

“I did say, at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do wish to see the spread of ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion arrested and to see it placed where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction.”

" ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion is founded in the selfishness of human’s nature - opposition to it, is his/her love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks, and throes, and convulsions must ceaselessly follow."

“As I would not be ̶a̶ ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶ aborted, so I would not be a̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ get an abortion. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.”

“So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being ̶a̶ ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶ **aborted ** himself.”

“This is a world of compensations; and she who would ̶b̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶ not be aborted, must consent to ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶ not get an abortion.”

“I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican**/democratic** example of its just influence in the world.”

“I have always thought that all men should be ̶f̶r̶e̶e̶ born; but if any should be ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶s̶ aborted it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.”

 

[lmelahn]

Modern definitely, OT not immoral.

I think that would be a misreading of the Old Testament.

It is not that slavery was moral, it is that God was well aware that because of the “hardness of people’s hearts,” that slavery would have to be phased out gradually. All of the laws given about slavery, interestingly, are designed protect the rights of the slaves (e.g., they could only be bound for a certain number of years, etc.)

It is similar to the laws concerning the kidnapping of women, divorce and remarriage, etc.: all of that was immoral even in the O.T., but God’s strategy was to limit the evil first, because people were not yet ready for the fullness of the moral law.

Interestingly, God’s strategy worked among the People of Israel: by Jesus’ day, divorce, slavery, the kidnapping of foreign women, and polygamy were uncommon or even non-existent among Jews.

 

[JMM1957]

Modern definitely, OT not immoral.

Seriously? You believe God was in favor of slavery in the OT?

 

[Wesrock]

The topic question just boils down to: If action X was moral instead of immoral, you would stop caring about laws against it…

To which I say, of course! Your point?

 

[ToeInTheWater]

I just found some quotes by Abraham Lincoln on slavery, and it’s surprising how many could be applied to the modern abortion debate.

rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln95.html

“Whenever I hear any one arguing for ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

“I am naturally anti- ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion. If ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.”

“I think ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.”

“Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country who contemplate ̶s̶l̶a̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ abortion as a moral, social and political evil, having due regard for its actual existence amongst us and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it; but, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong it may come to an end.”

Thanks for the Lincoln quotes, it occurs to me they are also relevant to the question of whether God sees slavery as inherently immoral or not. Note than while there is no doubt that Lincoln was against slavery and eloquent as to why. he was also NOT a “Radical Republican” (yes, the Republicans were the original anti-slavery party) and I think there are also quotes from him where he distances himself from the abolitionists who wanted slavery ended ASAP.

His approach to ending slavery was, at least initially, as he himself states, a “gradualist” one, and there are many Civil War historians claim the South as justified, or at least the North as unjustified, or even have gone as far as to claim “the war had nothing to do with slavery at all”.

And certainly one could argue that the Emancipation Proclamation was more a PR move than anything and didn’t actually free any slaves, as it only applied to slaves in the Confederate states and made an exception for slaves in the Union border states.

So the idea that “God allowed Jews to have slaves in the OT, so he approved of slavery and found nothing wrong with it”, I think is similar to stating that “Lincoln allowed border states to keep their slaves so he approved of slavery and found nothing wrong with it”.

And certainly some anti-Lincoln historians would claim that, too. However, I think most historians do acknowledge that Lincoln was personally anti-slavery, even though when it came to political strategy, he favored the gradualist approach to eventually getting rid of it.

Note that this “gradualist” approach actually was successful in the UK and I’m sure other countries at all. And even the existence of “free states” at the time of the Civil War was an improvement compared to, say, a 100 years ago when the country was first founded, I believe slavery was legal ain all of the original 13 colonies at some point.

 

[BornInMarch]

Note that this “gradualist” approach actually was successful in the UK and I’m sure other countries at all. And even the existence of “free states” at the time of the Civil War was an improvement compared to, say, a 100 years ago when the country was first founded, I believe slavery was legal ain all of the original 13 colonies at some point.

The gradualist approach actually WAS working in the US for awhile, as slave labor was becoming unpractical.

Then The Cotton Gin was invented, and suddenly slavery became profitable again.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

The gradualist approach actually WAS working in the US for awhile, as slave labor was becoming unpractical.

Then The Cotton Gin was invented, and suddenly slavery became profitable again.

I’m no historian, but it can certainly be argued back and forth whether it was ever possible to end slavery in the US in a peaceful way. Indeed, one could argue that while the Civil War, 13th and 14th Amendments, Reconstruction, etc. may have abolished legalized slavery, but many Black people continued to suffer in conditions not much different from slavery for a long time.

And of course, even now there are cases of people being enslaved in every way but in name, such as many victims of sex trafficking and even many “domestic servants” might as well be slaves.

This is one reason why the modern tendency to assume “legal” = “moral” is so flawed.

 

[PRmerger]

I think it is important to keep in mind that the abortion question is not fundamentally a religious one.

We can know that abortion is immoral through reason alone. We don’t, strictly speaking, need the Church to tell us (although it is certainly helpful that she reminds us).

Egg-zactly.

Just like we would feed the poor, tend to the sick, be a good Samaritan, even if the CC did not command it.

 

[TK421]

“If your religion said abortion was okay, you wouldn’t care at all about the legality of the matter.”

Personally, I feel that I would still be against it if the Catholic Church was for it, however, it seems like a false scenario.

Well, generally speaking, ethics precedes and forms legality, so the answer would be ‘of course’. If something isn’t inherently degrading or threatening to the life and/or dignity of a human being or the social order of human beings, then the legality of it wouldn’t be an issue either. I don’t see how that’s suppose to be a criticism.

Catholic belief is that abortion should be illegal for the same reasons any other taking of life ought to be illegal, and it is based on principles of person-hood that can be used to persuade people in the universal sense inside or outside of the Church (although it is advantageous if you’re already acquainted with Catholic ethics, since Catholic teachings are all intertwined and synergistic with one another, like Tetras blocks neatly fitting into place in order to form a whole). Being against abortion isn’t, for example, based on a discipline, such as trying to enforce to the general population to fast on Ash Wednesday.