How many Catholics would vote for full legal implementation of Church teaching on abortion?

  • Thread starter Thread starter FiveLinden
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

FiveLinden

Guest
A thought experiment: There is to be a referendum binding on the legislature(s) in your country. The question you are asked to agree or disagree on is: “The teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion will be implemented in law. Those abortions proscribed by Catholic teaching shall be outlawed”.

This would mean no abortions thought necessary to manage risk to the life or health of the mother, no abortions in the case of fatal abnormality, even abnormality inevitably leading to death before or after birth, no abortions in the case of rape, or in the case of incest. Emergency contraception would be outlawed.

. . . However, to be clear, it would allow for the morally licit application of the principle of double effect, including re: ectopic pregnancies, as well as exhort doing everything possible to save both a mother and her child.


www.hli.org

How Does the Principle of Double Effect Relate to Abortion?

The principle of double effect is an ethical guide for the pregnant woman considering health treatments that could kill her unborn baby...
www.hli.org www.hli.org

https://www.ncbcenter.org/files/9615/6986/9465/NCBC_Statement_on_Phoenix_Case_2010.pdf

In this light . . .
  1. Would you vote ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’?
  2. What percentage of Church-going Catholics do you think would agree?
 
Last edited:
Well, the question doesn’t really make sense because there’s no way to do it. I suspect you just want people to agree with you on this topic, instead of thinking logically through it. If you want to be illogical, that’s up to you.
 
Any Catholics that often (weekly) go to Mass and confession, whatever this percentage is, would probably agree I think (in other wording those who love the church and follow its laws). I personally would abstain from such a vote but would hope it would happen, as i am suspicious of the idea that we (the public) can determine what is right, and other reasons dont want to join in on that kind of thing
 
Last edited:
Of course I would vote for it, however, in the US such a law would never make it to the ballot. It would be fought by both political parties, and the Courts would strike it down.
 
  1. Agree.
  2. Don’t know, wouldn’t change my mind if they all disagreed.
 
I would vote for it on the condition that health services and welfare services were made free and abundant for all people. When Ceaușescu banned abortion and contraception in Romania in the 70’s it resulted in the one of the worst humanitarian crisis relating to innocent children that is still being felt today. We cannot suddenly implement a law without having free and available health and welfare services to support it.
 
Last edited:
I generally find it to be bad practice to enshrine laws based on purely religious justifications. More than that, I think it’s dangerous. State entanglement with religion often leads to violent suppression when popular attitudes shift. Just because the state may currently promote the teachings of a religion that I’m in favor of doesn’t mean that it will be promoting the same religion in 50 years. It doesn’t always take a revolution to switch in state atheism.

As such, I would be forced to vote against it on the basis of separation of church and state.
 
Last edited:
I would agree, and anyone that honestly calls themselves Christian should as well.

Cases of rape and incest are always thrown around, and any good Christian’s response should be two wrongs don’t make a right, example: Just because John Doe raped Jane Smith, it doesn’t then follow that Jane Smith now has the right to murder someone else.
 
Last edited:
FiveLinden said:
The question you are asked to agree or disagree on is: “The teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion will be implemented in law. Those abortions proscribed by Catholic teaching shall be outlawed”.
Click to expand...
It is strange that you as a Catholic would need a civil statute before being obedient to the will of God as taught by your apostolic superiors in the faith.

Are you seeking to have people live like Catholics by the force of law rather than by the free will of faith when they see real Catholics being the light of the world and salt of the earth, who do morality without need of statute to force it.
 
Last edited:
I disagree. If raped and impregnated, I have rights, and I have choices.
 
annad347 said:
Meaning all abortions, no matter would be illegal?
Click to expand...
Other than the exceptions in unusual cases like ectopic pregnancy, yes. This would include emergency contraception such as the morning-after pill. The moderators helpfully added information about this to my OP, indicating the Church view that it is acceptable to remove, if necessary, a fallopian tube in which a foetus is developing on the principle that what is intended is to remove the threat from the fallopian tube bursting and that the death of the foetus is a secondary and unintended effect. This as I understand it is the ‘principle of the double effect’. Enshrining this ‘exception’ in law would be part of full implementation of the Catholic position. It would affect very few pregnancies. (Note: I’m trying to accurately summarise the Church view here. If I am wrong please correct me)
 
John_Martin said:
It is strange that you as a Catholic would need a civil statute before being obedient to the will of God as taught by your apostolic superiors in the faith.
Click to expand...
I’m really asking if, as Catholics, (who generally support more restrictive abortion laws) Catholics here would go ‘all the way’ and legislate if they could for full implementation in law, of the Catholic position.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top