If abortion is murder, should those responsible be tried for murder? And if found guilty, should they be imprisoned like other murderers?

[rwoehmke]

I do-how about you?

You darn betcha!

 

[fix]

But it is still a silly argument. The Church makes a distinction between murder and abortion because even though they both fall under the same Commandment, they are different acts with different moral contexts.

… Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as “interruption of pregnancy”, which tends to hide abortion’s true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth.

The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined…

Evangelium vitae

 

[estesbob]

You darn betcha!

And the point is?

 

[mapleoak]

You darn betcha!

Ya! How bout da punch line den, eh?

 

[mapleoak]

You seem incensed at the comparison, but what is the distinction? If I invade you with military might, I know that, unquestionably, innocent people will die.

The act or acts which deliberately and intentionally result in the death of innocent lives is murder, not the fact that an invasion is taking place. In actuality, an invasion may be comprised of or involve many murders. Doesn’t make the invasion itself murder. Faulty comparison. You are confusing cause and effect.

There is only one Commandment, it prohibits killing, but both the Church and secular law have always accepted that killing happens in different moral contexts.

And the moral context that the deliberate and unlawful killing of an innocent person falls under just so happens to be that of murder, regardless of how old the person may be. Here’s a hint: Abortions are murder, not all murders are abortions (or abortions in the common use of the word). There is no further distinction than that. You can post your documents as proof of these distinctions again, however I fail to see anything to the effect that the Church says abortion is different from murder nor where they indicate that sometimes abortion is not murder.

Your quotes:

At the risk of making heads explode, abortion is not always murder under Catholic teaching.

It is always a “grave moral disorder”, but it isn’t always murder.

Haven’t gotten answer to this yet:

Please provide evidence of any instance where the Catholic Church teaches that direct abortion is ever anything, but murder.

Or this:

Can you give an example of what you mean when you say sometimes abortion is not murder and show how it relates to the theological distinction between murder and abortion.

 

[Filius99993]

Just curious as to how many of you posting on this thread have spent time volunteering in places that support women who are convinced to have their baby and not abort it. Life Care Center? If post abortion Project Rachel? Do you at minimum drop a few bucks to support those places that support pregnant and post partum women in need?
Places that aid battered women?

I would, if I had money and if I weren’t in school. I don’t think I’m even old enough to volunteer.

 

[Steve40]

Yes.

 

[c659smith]

In all 50 states why is it legal for a doctor to murder(abort)l a baby in the womb but it is illegal(murder) for anyone else to?

I guess we should make it ok for mechanics to speed and keep it illregal for everyone else****make sense??

 

[JimG]

The original question asks what should happen to “those responsible” for abortions. It doesn’t distinguish between the woman, the abortionist, the boyfriend, the mom, dad or Grandma who drives her to the abortionist, or who applies pressure for her to abort. All are responsible in some way. We might also consider the pro-abortion legislator as an accessory before the fact. And will pro-life groups such as Project Rachel which provide support to women who have had abortions be considered accessories after the fact? The courts could get very crowded.

If we propose sending large numbers of women to jail, better be prepared for a tax increase to pay for all those new jails.

If we put before a jury a 15 year old who obtained an abortion, an abortionist, a Ted Bundy type serial killer, a Mafioso hit man, a drunk who knifed another guy in a bar fight, a careless driver who caused a traffic death, a wife who tossed her husband off the 33rd story balcony, and say “here—they are all murderers,” should the jury treat them all the same? All are responsible for taking one or more human lives. And what about the boyfriend of the 15 year old? The parents who threatened to kick her out of the house unless she got the abortion? Do they go in front of the jury as well?

We might also want to consider, before talking about post-Roe penalties, that if repeal should appear likely, the harsher the penalties, the more likely it is that there will be a surge in abortions before the law is passed, to get penalty free abortions.

But I’m not too much worried about that. What worries me is that the more talk we hear from pro-lifers about punishing women, the less chance there will be of Roe being overturned.

 

[Holly3278]

Yes to both questions.

 

[c659smith]

JimG

You have complely misconstrued my post. It is illegal and a woman has been tried in numerous states for self aborting herself.

A boyfriend or husband has been tried and convicted of murder in many states for doing as the woman wanted and helping her with an actual abortion. I have case laws.

In all states if a drunk driver causes a pregnant woman to lose her baby in the womb due to a crash he will be charged with vehicular homicide.

If a murder is committed on a pregnant woman and the baby in the womb and the woman dies a double murder will be charged.

My question is society is hypocritical and legalizes a doctor and only a doctor to kill a baby in the womb otherwise it’s murder.

So in conclussion how can a baby in the womb be human as declared by a society in all other cases but abortion by a doctor.
I am a pro-lifer

 

[JimG]

JimG

You have complely misconstrued my post.

Sorry, I wasn’t responding specifically to your post, just to the thread. We all know that a new and distinct human individual begins at conception; that’s just a biological fact that most pro-choicers tend not to deal with. Once you talk biological beginnings they suddenly want to talk about ensoulment.

We also know that all states had restrictions or prohibitions of some degree on the practice of abortion prior to Roe.

Because of Roe, some states have had to specifically pass laws making the intentional or negligent killing of an unborn child a criminal act, (except, as you noted, when done by an abortionist.) Pro-abortion organizations greatly opposed such laws because they were seen as an incipient threat to the right to abort. They also opposed any recognition in such laws of the unborn child as a human person. Laws protective of the unborn child sometimes end up being rather schizophrenic in that they criminalize the act of killing the unborn child (legal abortion excepted) while not recognizing it as a person. (You say that all states have such laws, but I recall news accounts of cases in which DA’s refused to prosecute for a killing of an unborn child because it was not recognized as a person under the law.)

My only point is that there are numerous ways of killing; not all receive the same legal terminology or the same legal treatment. When pro-lifers talk of sending women to jail for abortion, that undermines, not helps, pro-life efforts. When the next constitutional conservative comes up for approval by the Senate, I can see the adversarial newspaper ads already: “How many women do you want to send to jail?”

 

[Al_Masetti]

Why do the “pro-choicers” fight SO HARD for the right to kill unborn babies???

 

[Filius99993]

Why do the “pro-choicers” fight SO HARD for the right to kill unborn babies???

Good question. Margaret Sanger’s dead now, so you can’t ask her…

 

[Al_Masetti]

Good question. Margaret Sanger’s dead now, so you can’t ask her…

I strongly suspect that if you examine the lives / biographies / resumes of some of the leaders of the pro-abortion movement closely, you will find that they are / were Communists working in the United States to undermine our society by creating deep divides in our social fabric.

ACLU founder, for example.

A couple of years ago, one of the leaders of the pro-abortion movement died and I was shocked by the detail of her life that was published. My reaction was “no wonder!”; she was deliberately working against us. Had nothing to do with advancing the human cause. It was purely political undermining.

 

[Filius99993]

I strongly suspect that if you examine the lives / biographies / resumes of some of the leaders of the pro-abortion movement closely, you will find that they are / were Communists working in the United States to undermine our society by creating deep divides in our social fabric.

ACLU founder, for example.

A couple of years ago, one of the leaders of the pro-abortion movement died and I was shocked by the detail of her life that was published. My reaction was “no wonder!”; she was deliberately working against us. Had nothing to do with advancing the human cause. It was purely political undermining.

Yeah, that seems to be the way it works. If they were GOOD Communists they’d actually support human life… but now, what is a good Communist anyway?

 

[Al_Masetti]

Yeah, that seems to be the way it works. If they were GOOD Communists they’d actually support human life… but now, what is a good Communist anyway?

A “good Communist” is someone who bends every which way to advance the cause of militant atheism. For Communists, the Truth is whatever it takes to advance the cause of militant atheism.

All of which creates a “problem” for Christianity. We have to tell the truth. Which means that Christians always have a “built -in headwind” in terms of moving expanding Christianity. We are always marching up hill. There are two goals for Christians:

1. always keeping in mind that we seek Heaven for ourselves, individually.
2. preaching the Good News, in the hope that a few people might embrace the Truth … which is Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Unhappily, as Jesus Himself stated, most folks are not open, or willing, to embrace the Truth, so they fall prey to false prophecies as enunciated by the believers in militant atheism.

 

[markomalley]

If abortion is murder, should those responsible be tried for murder? And if found guilty, should they be imprisoned like other murderers?

• The mother
• The abortionist
• Any friend or family member materially responsible, etc.

(Obviously, I’m assuming that Roe vs. Wade is overturned, and abortion is considered murder by the legal system.)

(1) If the abortionist was of sound mind (capable of understanding what he/she was doing was wrong) and then did so with pre-meditation then yes.
(2) If the woman was of sound mind (capable of understanding what she was doing was wrong) and did so with pre-meditation, then yes. If she was of sound mind but did so out of a fit of passion then the penalty should be different. If she was not of sound mind, then she should be adjudicated accordingly.
(3) If another person (the biological father of the murdered baby, the father of the woman, a friend of the woman, or whatever) helped her procure the abortion, then that would be conspiracy to commit…

If a life begins at fertilization, then that life is entitled to all the protections of law from that moment. If that life is not entitled to all the protection of the law, then is it really a life (and is it entitled to any protection)?

 

[Delphinus85]

If abortion is murder, should those responsible be tried for murder? And if found guilty, should they be imprisoned like other murderers?

• The mother
• The abortionist
• Any friend or family member materially responsible, etc.

(Obviously, I’m assuming that Roe vs. Wade is overturned, and abortion is considered murder by the legal system.)

Yes. Plain and simple.

 

[Listener]

I doubt that it would make much sense to treat her as a murderer. One of the reasons we put murderers away is to keep them from killing someone else. I don’t really think that I need to worry that a woman who has had an abortion will come and murder me next.

If we ever get back our laws against abortion, I think the penalties would be whatever they were before the 1970’s. I don’t remember, but I thought maybe the doctor was punished rather than the woman.

Think about it. If women who had abortions were punished as murderers, then would women who had miscarriages be jailed for “neglient homicide?”