Ilegalizing Aboriton not the answer

[Edward_H]

If anyone wants to learn more about natural rights and abortion from someone who is clear thinking, enormously studied in the matter, and has made many fine legal contributions to whittling away at Roe v Wade…see this video of Hadley Arkes. First link.

Long video, but as I said…this man knows how to think clearly and precisely.

And he is a fairly recent convert to the Church…his conversion story is funny and enduring…see second link.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=po1iovJNi2o

thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/finalmente-coming-into-the-church.html

 

[Linux]

Now as I pointed out the Church’s position on abortion isn’t contingent on ensoulment…its position stands on natural rights, which doesn’t need to call in supernatural points of argument.
Pax.

It is contingent on ensoulment since a person, in the Catholic sense of the word, is said to be a physical body with a soul. That is not the legal definition of a person. Its the Catholic definition; and in the eyes of the court and the state you have yet to prove that the Catholic definition of personhood has authority over all other beliefs systems or defintions, religious or otherwise. And in the context of civil law i don’t think it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a fetus has a personal soul, especailly when it comes to criminalising people that are in the eyes of the court and the state innocent of any injustice. Genetics is really irrelivant for the reasons i gave in my previous post. I am not going to repeat it again, and i see no point in being in denial about those facts. It will not help the Catholic Church or the unborn children. You are wasting valuble time and money that would be better spent evagelising society.

 

[Edward_H]

It is contingent on ensoulment since a person, in the Catholic sense of the word, is said to be a physical body with a soul. That is not the legal definition of a person. Its the Catholic definition; and in the eyes of the court and the state you have yet to prove that the Catholic definition of personhood has authority over all other beliefs systems or defintions, religious or otherwise. And in the context of civil law i don’t think it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a fetus has a personal soul, especailly when it comes to criminalising people that are in the eyes of the court and the state innocent of any injustice. Genetics is really irrelivant for the reasons i gave in my previous post. I am not going to repeat it again, and i see no point in being in denial about those facts. It will not help the Catholic Church or the unborn children. You are wasting valuble time and money that would be better spent evagelising society.

No. You have a tendency to throw everything into one sentence, pushing for another objective.

Lets look at our natural rights, perhaps best and most economically expressed in the Declaration of Independence…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

These natural rights are further ordered and contingent in the following sense…our pursuit of happiness (our proper and best good) is contingent on our state of remaining a free person able to make choices about our day and our life. We can’t pursue our happiness if we are not free to choose the good.

Our freedom to pursue the good, our liberty in other words, is contingent on our freedom from threats against our life. Life, then, is the most important natural right. Our rights have an order, a priority to them.

This order then helps us sort out conflicts and priorities among our rights BETWEEN people.

My right to happiness can’t obstruct someone’s liberty, their ability to choose the good.

And their right to liberty, can’t impede the life, or cause the death of someone.

No mention of soul is needed.

The nature of an unborn child is complete. Its identity as a human is complete. It needs no further identity to become human. It only needs development.

Development is not a criterion for personhood. A born infant doesn’t have functioning reproduction system, and its skeletal and respiratory systems also are still developing. And in cases where these systems fail or no long function properly, these losses of function don’t change the nature or identity of the person…they are still a person with rights intact.

 

[Linux]

Lets look at our natural rights, perhaps best and most economically expressed in the Declaration of Independence…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

They are not natural rights as a Catholic would understand it. These rights are not employed as metaphysical absolutes. They are legal rights given to you and enforced by the State and are defined by the State in order to ensure or promote civil-order. These legal structures do not exist to promote Catholic morality.

Our freedom to pursue the good, our liberty in other words, is contingent on our freedom from threats against our life. Life, then, is the most important natural right. Our rights have an order, a priority to them.

Insofar as those rights are defined by the state and not the Catholic Church.

This order then helps us sort out conflicts and priorities among our rights BETWEEN people.

If something cannot be legally defined then it does not comply with the pragmatic goals of the state. The state cannot enforce any religious belief, moral or otherwise, on the rest of society. It is not a Catholic State.

And their right to liberty, can’t impede the life, or cause the death of someone.

So long as the word “life” is identical to the legal definition of life, and not the Catholic definition, then you are correct. You don’t live in a Catholic State, therefore Catholic definitions of person-hood simply don’t apply in legal matters.

No mention of soul is needed.

Wrong. For a Catholic a fetus has a personal soul and that is precisely why its wrong in a Catholic context. However; without genuine observable and demonstrable evidence of that fact, the legal system has no legal obligation to agree with you and cannot possibly acknowledge your Catholic faith as a prerequisite for civil law. You have no observable evidence and you haven’t demonstrated it to be true. End of story.

The nature of an unborn child is complete. Its identity as a human is complete. It needs no further identity to become human. It only needs development.

A fetus is either a person as Catholics define persons, or it is not as Catholics define persons. And again, whether Catholicism is true or not, you have no evidence that the fetus has a personal soul and the state cannot know if a fetus has a personal soul.

Development is not a criterion for personhood. A born infant doesn’t have functioning reproduction system, and its skeletal and respiratory systems also are still developing. And in cases where these systems fail or no long function properly, these losses of function don’t change the nature or identity of the person…they are still a person with rights intact.

According to your Catholic faith, but not according to a legal system that does not employ the Catholic faith as a moral prerequisite to civil laws and legal definitions. Thats what happens when there is a split between church and state. Thats what happens when you live in a pluralistic democracy.

You are both ignoring what i have said. You are asserting that the fetus is a person based on your beliefs as a Catholic. I am not going to keep repeating myself.

Heres my previous post again.

It is contingent on ensoulment since a person, in the Catholic sense of the word, is said to be a physical body with a soul. That is not the legal definition of a person. Its the Catholic definition; and in the eyes of the court and the state you have yet to prove that the Catholic definition of person-hood has authority over all other beliefs systems or definitions, religious or otherwise. And in the context of civil law i don’t think it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a fetus has a personal soul, especially when it comes to criminalization people that are in the eyes of the court and the state innocent of any injustice. Genetics is really irrelevant for the reasons i gave in my previous post. I am not going to repeat it again, and i see no point in being in denial about those facts. It will not help the Catholic Church or the unborn children. You are wasting valuble time and money that would be better spent evangelizing society.

 

[Holly3278]

Abortion is murder in the Christian sense of the word. What is your legal basis for calling it murder?

It is the intentional taking of another person’s life. Therefore it is murder. Plain and simple.

 

[Linux]

It is the intentional taking of another person’s life. Therefore it is murder. Plain and simple.

Simple to somebody who holds by faith that a fetus has a personal soul. If you think that argument is going to be the power-blow preceding the overthrow of roe vs wade, then you are living in a fantasy world.

 

[Edward_H]

They are not natural rights as a Catholic would understand it. These rights are not employed as metaphysical absolutes.

Of course they are. There aren’t parallel universes or distinct sets of natural rights, no matter what sort of fancy talk you want to slather over them.

Wrong. For a Catholic a fetus has a personal soul and that is precisely why its wrong in a Catholic context.

No. Study more on the Catholic perspective…they’ve nicely laid out an entirely natural rights defense for life, not requiring a word about morality, soul, or God. They also have spelled the moral case against it, compellingly.

According to your Catholic faith, but not according to a legal system that does not employ the Catholic faith as a moral prerequisite to civil laws and legal definitions. Thats what happens when there is a split between church and state. Thats what happens when you live in a pluralistic democracy.

If you’re saying our rights come from the government you don’t understand natural rights, the US Constitution, let alone the Catholic Church’s position and logic. Rights do not come from the government. They are not granted by the government.

 

[wheels10]

That a fetus has a personal soul. That is not self evident.

Yes you are correct. The same statement could also be said about any human being. It is not self evident that they have a personal soul. So using your argument, there is no such thing as murder.

 

[Linux]

Yes you are correct. The same statement could also be said about any human being. It is not self evident that they have a personal soul. So using your argument, there is no such thing as murder.

False. The state has its own legal definition of person-hood. But it is obviously not the same definition that the Catholic church believes in. Don’t you understand?:banghead:

 

[Edward_H]

False. The state has its own legal definition of person-hood. But it is obviously not the same definition that the Catholic church believes in. Don’t you understand?:banghead:

The state also had a definition of personhood that defined that blacks were 3/5ths of a person!

 

[wheels10]

False. The state has its own legal definition of person-hood. But it is obviously not the same definition that the Catholic church believes in. Don’t you understand?:banghead:

Should laws protect the lives of innocent human beings?

 

[Arturo_Ortiz]

The state also had a definition of personhood that defined that blacks were 3/5ths of a person!

Exactly
Is that self evident

 

[Linux]

The state also had a definition of personhood that defined that blacks were 3/5ths of a person!

True. The legal system has evolved over time. But again that had nothing to do with the legal definition of person-hood, but has everything to do with peoples private beliefs infecting the legal process. They believed that black people were less than the legal definition of person-hood. This racist belief, not the legal definition of person hood, was eventually found to be false in a court of law because there was no genuine evidence to support those racist beliefs; although i am sure that the racists and slave owners (some of which were Catholics and i bet conservative) had all manner of concoction to make it seem as if they did have evidence. Its evidence that is being discussed here, and it is precisely this issue that prevents the law on abortion from changing. It will never change so long as this evidence is lacking and also so long as there is a split between church and state.

Pointing out that racist laws have come and gone, really doesn’t support your case precisely because those racists beliefs suffer from the same flaws as anti-abortion beliefs and that is a lack of legal justification or evidence.

 

[Linux]

Should laws protect the lives of innocent human beings?

Can the legal system justify protecting the lives of people? Yes, so long as you are talking about people as defined by the state, and not the Catholic Church…

 

[wheels10]

Can the legal system justify protecting the lives of people? Yes, so long as you are talking about people as defined by the state, and not the Catholic Church…

What is your definition of a human being?

 

[Dawnia]

True. The legal system has evolved over time. But again that had nothing to do with the legal definition of person-hood, but has everything to do with peoples private beliefs infecting the legal process. They believed that black people were less than the legal definition of person-hood. This racist belief, not the legal definition of person hood, was eventually found to be false in a court of law because there was no genuine evidence to support those racist beliefs; although i am sure that the racists and slave owners (some of which were Catholics and i bet conservative) had all manner of concoction to make it seem as if they did have evidence. Its evidence that is being discussed here, and it is precisely this issue that prevents the law on abortion from changing. It will never change so long as this evidence is lacking and also so long as there is a split between church and state.

Pointing out that racist laws have come and gone, really doesn’t support your case precisely because those racists beliefs suffer from the same flaws as anti-abortion beliefs and that is a lack of legal justification or evidence.

It only took a war, two constitutional amendments, multiple federal and state laws and several SCOTUS rulings to change the status of black people. It had nothing to do with evidence. I had everything to do with people fighting for change.

 

[estesbob]

True. The legal system has evolved over time. But again that had nothing to do with the legal definition of person-hood, but has everything to do with peoples private beliefs infecting the legal process. They believed that black people were less than the legal definition of person-hood. This racist belief, not the legal definition of person hood, was eventually found to be false in a court of law because there was no genuine evidence to support those racist beliefs; although i am sure that the racists and slave owners (some of which were Catholics and i bet conservative) had all manner of concoction to make it seem as if they did have evidence. Its evidence that is being discussed here, and it is precisely this issue that prevents the law on abortion from changing. It will never change so long as this evidence is lacking and also so long as there is a split between church and state.

Pointing out that racist laws have come and gone, really doesn’t support your case precisely because those racists beliefs suffer from the same flaws as anti-abortion beliefs and that is a lack of legal justification or evidence.

You have presented quite a circular argument." Abortion should remain legal because its legal."

 

[Dawnia]

The state also had a definition of personhood that defined that blacks were 3/5ths of a person!

For the purpose of the census that is true, but in most locals for a long time, they were considered property, not people.

 

[RobbyS]

Thanks the reasons I am asking is because my argues that criminalizing abortion would not stop abortion, which I believe she is right in a way, those who want an abortion will find a way and get it. Usually this is true when it comes to money.

I was just thinking about what the best way to prevent abortions. I think that it has to do with the culture and what is being promoted. I personally believe that if the media and cultural influence would be supportive of life then abortion would not be a problem in the first place.

The libertarian movement for most part has tried to decriminalize things such as drugs and other things as supposedly it is better. I don’t really follow that.

I think it goes to the reason why a woman wants to keep her child from being born. It may be circumstances as desperate of those which drove Jean Val Jean to stealing.It might be nothing more important than a woman wanting to keep her figure. We cannot, of course, just outlaw abortion and leave the woman to take desperate measures. The pro-life movement is now getting to the point where we see that we must provide for women. This has always been the Christian way, which is to care for people in a way that the pagans did not. The Romans did not provide for the needy etc. We have not been consistent in this, of course. St.Vincent De Paul had to fight to overcome the prejudice against girls who bore children out of wedlock. He was one of the first to tell women: don’t kill your newborns, bring them to me. We must do as Planned Parenthood pretends to do, which is to take care of women, give them alternatives.

 

[Linux]

You have presented quite a circular argument." Abortion should remain legal because its legal."

This is a straw-man. That is not what i argued at all. Abortion remains legal, because it does not contradict the legal definition person-hood (a pragmatic definition based on the secular goals of the state). If you want to change the legal definition of person-hood to include a fetus, then you need genuine evidence to support it. The Catholic definition of what it means to be a person has no genuine evidence to support it in a court of law, and that is why abortion is legal.