Legalization of abortion?

[fakename]

I was thinking if legalization of abortion was wrong or right but I realized that I don’t know what “legalize” means. Does it mean, “to make it optional” in which sense eating is legalized because you can either do it or not. Or does it mean “to protect” in which sense the right to education is protected because there are laws against stopping people from going to school, indeed even voluntarily.

Which one do you think it is?

Also, about abortion, I think that it is okay to tolerate (not favor) abortion -that is if ending abortion will only make people worse or will damage the good along with the bad.

But a law is simply a custom of the people. So I guess to legalize would mean to take an action that would lead to making x a custom.

 

[edwest2]

You have to look at the reason abortion was legalized. A human person dies in the process. In the beginning, it was heavily marketed as necessary in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Later, it became a form of birth control.

A human embryo is a human being.

Peace,
Ed

 

[fakename]

You have to look at the reason abortion was legalized. A human person dies in the process. In the beginning, it was heavily marketed as necessary in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Later, it became a form of birth control.

A human embryo is a human being.

Peace,
Ed

But is there no moral difference b/t the two legalizations?

 

[beafedor]

Roe v Wade as I understand it, ceased to make it illegal for doctors to kill babies in the womb. Before that, a doctor found guilty of procuring an abortion was prosecuted because he was breaking the law. As a side note, antibiotics have been around since the 40s so a lot of doctors had been procuring illegal but “safe” abortions (meaning that the “back alley” abortions that ended up in horrible injuries and death were not that common).

 

[beafedor]

By the way, Fakename I thank you for searching the truth. I do not believe that your view on abortion is correct. You say that it’s OK to tolerate abortion “if ending abortion will only make people worse or will damage the good along with the bad.”

So what do you think could be good and tolerable about abortion? I can tell you because I have studied the subject and because I have experienced it, that nothing good comes out of an abortion. I have been pregnant 5 times, ending 2 times in abortion and even though I was an atheist when it happened, I can tell you that all the suffering and grieving of my children and soul searching that followed was not worth it. We need to address the real problems and find holistic solutions for girls and women in crisis pregnancies. The problems are the lack of money and the lack of emotional support from the partner and the families, and also poor prenatal diagnosis. Please read a few testimonies of women and men who have experienced abortion to help you find the truth silentnomoreawareness.org/

 

[fakename]

By the way, Fakename I thank you for searching the truth. I do not believe that your view on abortion is correct. You say that it’s OK to tolerate abortion “if ending abortion will only make people worse or will damage the good along with the bad.”

So what do you think could be good and tolerable about abortion? I can tell you because I have studied the subject and because I have experienced it, that nothing good comes out of an abortion. I have been pregnant 5 times, ending 2 times in abortion and even though I was an atheist when it happened, I can tell you that all the suffering and grieving of my children and soul searching that followed was not worth it. We need to address the real problems and find holistic solutions for girls and women in crisis pregnancies. The problems are the lack of money and the lack of emotional support from the partner and the families, and also poor prenatal diagnosis. Please read a few testimonies of women and men who have experienced abortion to help you find the truth silentnomoreawareness.org/

okay maybe abortion should not be tolerated but that doesn’t mean that a central governing authority has to outlaw it (it might be handled privately).

Here’s St.Thomas Aquinas on the limits of law: "law is framed as a rule or measure of human acts. Now a measure should be homogeneous with that which it measures…since different things are measured by different measures. Wherefore laws imposed on men should also be in keeping with their condition, for, as Isidore says (Etym. v, 21), law should be “possible both according to nature, and according to the customs of the country.” Now…since the same thing is not possible to one who has not a virtuous habit, as is possible to one who has… In like manner many things are permissible to men not perfect in virtue, which would be intolerable in a virtuous man.

Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like. "

And also on killing sinners:

“Our Lord commanded them to forbear from uprooting the cockle in order to spare the wheat, i.e. the good. This occurs when the wicked cannot be slain without the good being killed with them, either because the wicked lie hidden among the good, or because they have many followers, so that they cannot be killed without danger to the good, as Augustine says”

Now abortion is equal to murder and I don’t think that it is essentially different -only in name. So maybe abortion should always be outlawed but then, wouldn’t it still be tolerable if the death penalty might kill an innocent person (who are not to be killed unless told otherwise by God -the only person who can dispense with life or death)?

I guess my main question is (forgetting all the subsidiary questions): whether one can permit abortion as a lower evil and be safe from excommunication?

 

[beafedor]

okay maybe abortion should not be tolerated but that doesn’t mean that a central governing authority has to outlaw it (it might be handled privately).

Here’s St.Thomas Aquinas on the limits of law: "law is framed as a rule or measure of human acts. Now a measure should be homogeneous with that which it measures…since different things are measured by different measures. Wherefore laws imposed on men should also be in keeping with their condition, for, as Isidore says (Etym. v, 21), law should be “possible both according to nature, and according to the customs of the country.” Now…since the same thing is not possible to one who has not a virtuous habit, as is possible to one who has… In like manner many things are permissible to men not perfect in virtue, which would be intolerable in a virtuous man.

Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like. "

And also on killing sinners:

“Our Lord commanded them to forbear from uprooting the cockle in order to spare the wheat, i.e. the good. This occurs when the wicked cannot be slain without the good being killed with them, either because the wicked lie hidden among the good, or because they have many followers, so that they cannot be killed without danger to the good, as Augustine says”

Now abortion is equal to murder and I don’t think that it is essentially different -only in name. So maybe abortion should always be outlawed but then, wouldn’t it still be tolerable if the death penalty might kill an innocent person (who are not to be killed unless told otherwise by God -the only person who can dispense with life or death)?

I guess my main question is (forgetting all the subsidiary questions): whether one can permit abortion as a lower evil and be safe from excommunication?

Thanks for quoting this great theologian on this subject. I don’t think that making the direct killing of an innocent human being legal compares to any evil that was licit in St Thomas’s day. Abortion is, as you rightly said, equal to murder and is an evil. Why can’t we work to make real solutions that don’t hurt anyone available to those contemplating abortion?

Why are you assuming that outlawing abortion will cause people to die? The doctors and anybody providing abortion would be prosecuted but it doesn’t mean that they will be condemned to the death penalty. Are you trying to define if the life of an innocent born person is more or less important that the life of an unborn child in a situation where one must die so that the other one lives? (sounds like Harry Potter and Voldemort).

Every life is precious and counts. “Pro abortion”, “pro choice” or whatever you call them crowds pit mother against child. The child is the enemy of her dreams and goals, the mother is not judged capable of raising the child. This is not dignifying for women and it is degrading our image of family, motherhood, fatherhood and life in general. Pro-lifers love them both and so does the Catholic Church. I’m among those who fight to defund planned parenthood and to outlaw abortion. As many of my brothers and sisters I’m also against the death penalty. I pray everyday for those who provide, consel or advocate abortion. They are my brothers and sisters too and I want them to be saved. For these reasons your scenario doesn’t seem to be likely to happen.

 

[fakename]

Thanks for quoting this great theologian on this subject. I don’t think that making the direct killing of an innocent human being legal compares to any evil that was licit in St Thomas’s day. Abortion is, as you rightly said, equal to murder and is an evil. Why can’t we work to make real solutions that don’t hurt anyone available to those contemplating abortion?

Why are you assuming that outlawing abortion will cause people to die? The doctors and anybody providing abortion would be prosecuted but it doesn’t mean that they will be condemned to the death penalty. Are you trying to define if the life of an innocent born person is more or less important that the life of an unborn child in a situation where one must die so that the other one lives? (sounds like Harry Potter and Voldemort).

Every life is precious and counts. “Pro abortion”, “pro choice” or whatever you call them crowds pit mother against child. The child is the enemy of her dreams and goals, the mother is not judged capable of raising the child. This is not dignifying for women and it is degrading our image of family, motherhood, fatherhood and life in general. Pro-lifers love them both and so does the Catholic Church. I’m among those who fight to defund planned parenthood and to outlaw abortion. As many of my brothers and sisters I’m also against the death penalty. I pray everyday for those who provide, consel or advocate abortion. They are my brothers and sisters too and I want them to be saved. For these reasons your scenario doesn’t seem to be likely to happen.

About anti-abortion=death I was simply wondering how far one should go. If the death penalty one day becomes the penalty for abortions I think I might be in favor of it but at the same time, I know how much evil a law can do and I was wondering that even if a law accidentally harms an innocent person, are we obliged to follow it? But now we are getting into the realm of harm vs death of an innocent person.

 

[hxcCatholic413]

About anti-abortion=death I was simply wondering how far one should go. If the death penalty one day becomes the penalty for abortions I think I might be in favor of it but at the same time, I know how much evil a law can do and I was wondering that even if a law accidentally harms an innocent person, are we obliged to follow it? But now we are getting into the realm of harm vs death of an innocent person.

If a law is contradictory to the Word of God than we aren’t obliged to follow it…meaning we don’t have to pay taxes that are going to fund abortions. The US Government is full of contradictions (as well as other governments)…abortion is legal, but if we kill a one year old baby out of womb we are crucified by the courts. It’s obvious that life starts at conception (scientifically proven)…why is one legal, one illegal?

And the logic of “I’m personally against abortion, but It’s a choice up to you” is equivalent to someone going up to you saying that they plan to kill the president and you reply “hey I’m against it, but I won’t report you…it’s your choice”.

 

[fakename]

If a law is contradictory to the Word of God than we aren’t obliged to follow it…meaning we don’t have to pay taxes that are going to fund abortions. The US Government is full of contradictions (as well as other governments)…abortion is legal, but if we kill a one year old baby out of womb we are crucified by the courts. It’s obvious that life starts at conception (scientifically proven)…why is one legal, one illegal?

And the logic of “I’m personally against abortion, but It’s a choice up to you” is equivalent to someone going up to you saying that they plan to kill the president and you reply “hey I’m against it, but I won’t report you…it’s your choice”.

As for the “I’m personally against…” I tend to be at least rhetorically sympathetic to such a reason because the only reason why we would want to stop abortions is if it was already choose-able technically everyone’s pro-choice in some sense, because choice is a reality independent (ironically) of choice. Also, I think there’s much to be said about this attitude: “I’m against abortion but I don’t think that you can totally ensure, through punishments or other means, that someone won’t abort their kids. So in this sense I can only concede that someone would kill their fetus and so I have to tolerate an evil in some sense.” Essentially if you can’t stop it, then why are you morally expected to do so? I won’t say that this is applicable in the US but I think that it could be in some future.

 

[1ke]

okay maybe abortion should not be tolerated but that doesn’t mean that a central governing authority has to outlaw it.

Yes, it does.

it might be handled privately

Would you propose rape, murder, and robbery be handled in the same manner? They should be legal and “handled privately.” What does that mean, anyway?

I guess my main question is (forgetting all the subsidiary questions): whether one can permit abortion as a lower evil and be safe from excommunication?

I don’t understand your questions. “be safe from excommunication” makes no sense.

 

[fakename]

Yes, it does.

Maybe.

Would you propose rape, murder, and robbery be handled in the same manner? They should be legal and “handled privately.” What does that mean, anyway?

I’m just saying, for the same reason education can be handled privately (homeschooling) so too you could probably handle rape, murder, robbery, etc. privately or indeed quasi-privately. This is due to the possibility of there being a medium between public and private since these two terms are contrary and so admit of an intermediate term -not to mention that if something is possible to be and valued highly enough then that thing can be done, but since stopping murder privately is something both possible and potentially valuable, then it could be done.

Also, indeed it doesn’t seem that it is logically implied in the premise of “I want to stop murder” that therefore “gov. should stop murder” is therefore concluded -unless of course it be true that only the gov. can stop murder which seems unlikely.

I don’t understand your questions. “be safe from excommunication” makes no sense.

Is it true that If you say, “permitting abortion as a lower evil is possible” then you would be excommunicated?

 

[puzzleannie]

Which one do you think it is?

.

what I think does not matter,
what the law says is what matters,
and since the two relevant US Supreme Court decisions in 1973 Roe v Wade and Doe V Bolton, all state laws prohibiting, limiting or regulating abortion were overturned and abortion was therefore legal in all 50 states up to and including during the actual process of live birth. That means any state or local laws which set limits on “grounds” or allowable reasons for elective abortion, or which set limits as to weeks of gestation, or even which limited methods used, were overturned, and each state had to rewrite its laws, get them passed, and get them through legal challenges based on those rulings. Moreover the wording of the majority decisions including the infamous “privacy” right manufactured deduced from the Constitution in that language, does give legal protection to anyone who permits, performs or has an elective abortion, and prohibits as a violation of civil rights any interference with that “right” through any means except state laws which pass the scrutiny.

elective abortion deliberately ends the life of an innocent human being by violence.

murder is defined in every state and in federal law as unjustly without due process taking the life by violence of an innocent human being.

if you do not admit the state has any right to prohibit, regulate or limit abortion, on what grounds do you admit that the state has any right to prohibit, regulate or limit any other murder?

 

[catharina]

1. okay maybe abortion should not be tolerated but that doesn’t mean that a central governing authority has to outlaw it (it might be handled privately).

…

1. I guess my main question is (forgetting all the subsidiary questions): whether one can permit abortion as a lower evil and be safe from excommunication?

You are remarkably confused and you don’t seem to realize it.
To simplfy, I’ve numbered two of your points (above).

1. Law exists for the protection of all - or should there be no laws?
   Skip the laws about murder, rape, slavery, theft, you name it.
   Handle it privately? You can’t be serious.
2. Abortion is a heinous evil.
   It is the slaughter of the totally innocent - no exceptions to that.
   The Church will always recognize abortion as mortally evil.

 

[NeedImprovement]

As for the “I’m personally against…” I tend to be at least rhetorically sympathetic to such a reason because the only reason why we would want to stop abortions is if it was already choose-able technically everyone’s pro-choice in some sense, because choice is a reality independent (ironically) of choice. Also, I think there’s much to be said about this attitude: “I’m against abortion but I don’t think that you can totally ensure, through punishments or other means, that someone won’t abort their kids. So in this sense I can only concede that someone would kill their fetus and so I have to tolerate an evil in some sense.” Essentially if you can’t stop it, then why are you morally expected to do so? I won’t say that this is applicable in the US but I think that it could be in some future.

I think the reality of preponderance is that a human being exists in the womb of his or her mother from the moment of conception. The world’s foremost medical experts in the field made that exceedingly clear 30 years ago. Advances in modern medical technology continue to confirm their assertion. Now if you were ever to ask that little person in his or her mother’s womb whether abortion should ever be tolerated …

Almost 15 years ago, Dr. Frederick T. Zugibe, M.S., M.D., Ph.D., FCAP, FACC, FAAFS , explains that through genetics and forensics …

“The question as to when human life and personhood begins has been made a controversial issue because the proponents of abortion do not want it to begin at least before the first 24 weeks of gestation. There, however, should be no controversy because the scientific facts are incontrovertible…”

Imagine the technological advances which are at our disposal today, even within those last 15 years, which support unequivocally the scientific testimony of human personhood in the womb from the moment of conception. Now contrast that against what experts from the scientific community were saying as far back as 1981 (April 23-24) when they appeared before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to provide their testimony ,responding to the question : **When does human life begin **?

• Dr. Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, Harvard medical School, gave confirming testimony, supported by references from over 20 embryology and other medical textbooks that human life began at conception.
• “Father of Modern Genetics” Dr. Jerome Lejeune told the lawmakers: “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion … it is plain experimental evidence.”
• Dr. Hymie Gordon, Chairman, Department of Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, added: “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
• Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor, University of Tennessee, testified: “The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception.”
• Dr. Alfred Bongiovanni, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, concluded, “I am no more prepared to say that these early stages represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty … is not a human being.”
• Dr. Richard V. Jaynes: “To say that the beginning of human life cannot be determined scientifically is utterly ridiculous.”
• Dr. Landrum Shettles, sometimes called the “Father of In Vitro Fertilization” notes, “Conception confers life and makes that life one of a kind.” And on the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, “To deny a truth [about when life begins] should not be made a basis for legalizing abortion.”
• Professor Eugene Diamond: “…either the justices were fed a backwoods biology or they were pretending ignorance about a scientific certainty.”

30 years ago … ! …… with the technology available at that time , medical science stood up to say, “Abortion is a lie.”

…

Your sentiments, “…technically everyone’s pro-choice in some sense, because choice is a reality independent (ironically) of choice.” , as far as a definition of the word “choice” is concerned, concur with Father John Hardon, S.J.'s definition :

CHOICE. Free judgment arising from reason; a decision to select one out of a number of available courses of action; an act of the free will choosing a particular means to some preconceived purpose or end.

However, going a step further, when we examine how the word “choice” is wielded by those who would justify abortion , it is rather remarkable that otherwise prolific orators and writers, suddenly find themselves unable to finish their favorite sentence :

“I believe a woman should have the right to choose.”

The reply of one particular priest I listen to: “Please finish your sentence -…‘to choose’ to do what?”

 

[Greg27]

To me, ‘legalising’ abortion means it is available in certain circumstances which do not break the law, as opposed to making it a crime never permitted in any circumstance.

Even when abortion is on the books as a criminal offence (as it is in most jurisdictions), there are generally exceptions to criminal liability. The common one is when abortion is performed in good faith by a medical practitioner (read doctor) in order to save the life of the mother or protect her mental and physical health. So even if it is ‘illegal’ in a certain sense, there are (as with most criminal offences) a range of defences available.