Pew: 77% of Catholics who are Democrats say abortion should be legal

[Erikaspirit16]

“Abortion”: killing an unborn baby.

That’s your opinion. It is not the opinion of most of the world’s population, including the US. People who say “abortion is OK” are NOT saying “killing unborn babies is OK.” Totally different. Not in YOUR opinion of course, but we’re not talking about YOU. We’re talking about people you called “they.”

I have no confusion whatsoever, but I think you do. You seem to believe that you have “Truth” and that anyone who disagrees with you is “wrong.”

I’ll repeat: I am not aware of ANYONE who wrote or said “killing unborn babies is OK.” Neither are you.

 

[phil19034]

Shakuhachi:

I think many people may identify Catholic but may not attend Mass at all

The consequences of “once Catholic, always Catholic”?

No, because these people don’t know anything about Canon law.

It’s just that (like Jewish people) many Catholics have a tendency to identify being Catholic as part of their family history.

They view being their family being historically Catholic just like being historically Italian, Irish, etc.

 

[lwest]

Who are these people who support things they don’t think is ok?

Abortion is murder. That’s not an opinion. It’s a fact.

 

[Randolph]

Hence I believe addressing issues that will lessen the demand is an essential component in the drive to eliminate this scourge.

It is a good thing to fight for and support smaller steps that discourage abortions from being performed—such as parental notification, certain tri-semester, ultrasound, heart beats, etc… They are indeed good steps.

The battle against abortion is no less than the battle against Satan himself. We need to focus on it—and not to allow individual political beliefs to distract from it, or God forbids—to unknowingly provide material support for abortion. Battle against abortion may continue to rage on until Christ comes again.

 

[stpurl]

Well, the main thing is that there is an absolute Truth.

If the absolute truth of the matter is that killing a child in the womb (at whatever stage, because from conception to birth that child is a human being) is wrong, then it wouldn’t matter if ‘everybody’ believed and acted differently, would it? It wouldn’t change the nature of Truth, because Truth is not a ‘majority decision.’

Remember that years ago, slavery, chattel slavery, owning another person, was considered fine and dandy because the person was defined or believed to be ‘not a person’.

Today the claim is that the child in the womb isn’t a person, either. Or that the child is the ‘property’ of the mother who can choose life or death for her property.

Hmm. Today we have loud demonstrations decrying racism and demanding slavery reparations, and at the same time black women and women of colour have the highest abortion rates (meaning more of their children are killed).

And nobody seems to think that situations are parallel.

It just goes to prove that ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing’ because so many people think they ‘know better’ than others and that instead of supporting an even deeper slavery and holocaust through the support of abortion, they are somehow ‘freeing’ the world. God help them; it’s not that ‘they know not what they do’, they truly have so embraced evil as good that they REJOICE in the evil they do.

God help them. Please grant them eyes to see the Truth and not the Lie that has been enshrined as truth instead.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Those who reject some church teaching are placing themselves outside the church.

is there a cut of point when you can say - Nope, you can’t class yourself as Catholic.

When “Catholics” knowingly reject Church teaching, they are not Catholic.

As always, I don’t give my own opinions. I quote orthodox Catholic sources. Argue with them if you like.

Catechism §1267:
Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ: “Therefore . . . we are members one of another.” Baptism incorporates us into the Church. From the baptismal fonts is born the one People of God of the New Covenant, which transcends all the natural or human limits of nations, cultures, races, and sexes: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”"

and §1272: " Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark ( character ) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation."

Actus formulis in Canon Law:
“It remains clear, in any event, that the sacramental bond of belonging to the Body of Christ that is the Church, conferred by the baptismal character, is an ontological and permanent bond which is not lost by reason of any act or fact of defection.”

Please note two passages in particular: “No sin can erase this mark” and “permanent bond which is not lost by reason of any act…”

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Abortion is murder. That’s not an opinion. It’s a fact.

To YOU, it’s a fact. To most people in the world and the US it’s simply your opinion. Believe it or not, there is still a Flat Earth Society. They really, truly, earnestly believe the earth is flat. But no matter how hard they believe, it’s not true.

Again, please note: I am not disagreeing with your belief or the belief of the Church. I’m simply pointing out that OUR belief is not that of the majority. That doesn’t make us right or wrong, it just makes us a small minority.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Well, the main thing is that there is an absolute Truth.

I believe there is “absolute truth” too.

Furthermore, I believe that the Catholic Church teaches that absolute truth when it teaches about faith and morals.

So far, so good. But the issue is NOT what we believe. The issue is that other people either do not believe there is such a thing as absolute truth, or if they do believe it, they believe something different than we do. To simply say “abortion is murder” or “human life exists from the moment of conception” is a statement of belief–Your belief and my belief. It’s a minority (a SMALL minority) belief. It is not “science” and it is not an “absolute truth” that everyone believes. Far from it.

Either you convince other people they are wrong by means of logic and facts, or you force them (i.e., Civil War ended slavery). I would prefer logic and facts. But so far the anti-abortion forces are losing the argument–more people (as measured in several recent polls) are against making all abortions illegal now than there were in the mid-70s. It’s about 16-17%. A very small minority. If, after 45 years of futility, the exact same tactics are used for the next 45 years, do you expect a different outcome? If so, why?

Or are your simply addressing the effects instead of the causes?

It is a good thing to fight for and support smaller steps that discourage abortions from being performed—such as parental notification, certain tri-semester, ultrasound, heart beats, etc… They are indeed good steps.

This is still ignoring the causes of abortion and only trying to deal with the effects of those causes.

What are the causes of abortion? To read posts in this forum about the subject you would think women say “Whee! I want to kill a baby! Abortions are fun! I can hardly wait to get another one!” That’s ridiculous. No one thinks or says that. You don’t have to speculate about why women get abortions. There are several surveys of women who have gotten abortions, and you can see what THEY say. And of course it’s generally complicated–there’s more than one reason. But overwhelmingly, the reasons are economic. Solve those issues, you reduce the number of abortions. It’s that simple. Making it illegal simply isn’t a solution–it’s illegal in Argentina and there are about 500,000 abortions a year. It was illegal in most countries before the 1970s-80s, and there were still abortions. If you think that’s the solution, you need to examine the statistics. It’s not.

 

[stpurl]

But truth does not change because “most people don’t believe what we believe’.

We could argue until the cows come home. And look what it took to bring about an end to slavery—a bloody Civil War and decades of misery. Because people still believe in what they had defined the concept of ‘The South” to be, and because not so much slavery itself but state’s rights were the concept, just as not so much ‘abortion rights’ but ‘the freedom of the human person’ has been made the rallying call of Democrats.

It did not matter to the Southern man if he owned slaves himself or didn’t (most did not), and often many managed to soothe their consciences by considering that the owners ‘did blacks a favour’ by keeping them in a ‘civilised country and ‘not in danger of poverty and death in uncivilised Africa’ just as today the unborn through abortion is ‘freed from poverty and pain as an unwanted child’.

There are simply too many rationalisations and distortions of Truth to attempt to deal with ‘reason’ in the sense of trying to debate all the ‘but what if’ and ‘what aboutism’. That is why it is so important not that ‘we Catholics’ engage in endless so-called education or ‘reason’, but that the law of the land in the form of its lawmakers address the issue.

It took the Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of an actual WAR to free slaves.

What it will take to save the unborn will hopefully not be a literal physical war but it will take legislation. This has to be ‘top down’. “Bottom up and grass roots’ is fine (it took all that for the abolitionists to finally gain enough ‘power’ to get things into legislation), but we need that law.

 

[lwest]

How can two opposing views be equally true? I’ll break that down for you…how can abortion be murder and how can it not be murder at the same time? It’s fact. I don’t care if only a small minority agree with that. I stand by Church Teaching and I will never apologize for it or water it down to suit the masses. I feel it best to stop responding to your comments now. They serve no purpose and I’m not a fan of arguing just to argue nor am I a fan of nitpicking semantics. Enjoy your day. God Bless.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

But truth does not change because “most people don’t believe what we believe’.

How can two opposing views be equally true?

As usual (yes, I’ve been here before…lots of times…) that’s not the point. You are missing the point entirely, so I’ll re-state it one last time.

First, once again, I too believe that there is “absolute truth” that God knows.

YOU and the Church believe “abortion is murder” and “human life begins at conception.” Me too. But we are a small minority both in the US and a much smaller minority in the world at large. Does this make us “wrong”? No. Does it mean the majority gets to decide right and wrong? No.

What it DOES mean is that to make something illegal, you need to either convince the great majority that you are right (pro-life supporters have spectacularly failed to do this) or force the majority to accept your definitions of “Truth.” Pro-life advocates seem to be committed to force–making abortion illegal and imposing civil penalties for those who do it. This has not worked either in the past or in countries where it is currently illegal. There is no reason to think it would work in the US in the future.

No one is asking anyone to change their opinion of abortion. What I am saying–over and over–is that decent, pious, religious people of other faiths (and yes, decent atheists as well) simply have different beliefs. We need to respect those beliefs, not demonize them. And certainly not demonize fellow Catholics who have different opinions. If you are truly interested in reducing abortions, this is simply counter-productive. If you want to reduce abortions, attack the causes. It’s simple.

 

[Shakuhachi]

Can. 849 Baptism, the gateway to the sacraments and necessary for salvation by actual reception or at least by desire, is validly conferred only by a washing of true water with the proper form of words. Through baptism men and women are freed from sin, are reborn as children of God, and, configured to Christ by an indelible character, are incorporated into the Church.

Since “Church” is capitalized it must mean Catholic Church. So , once Catholic (and Christian) always so.

But that does not mean full-communion.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Since “Church” is capitalized it must mean Catholic Church. So , once Catholic (and Christian) always so.

But that does not mean full-communion.

Of course. You can be ex-communicated. But that doesn’t mean you’re not Catholic.

 

[mercyalways]

If you want to reduce abortions, attack the causes

The causes…do you mean our soul destroying culture? The pornography that research shows is typically first viewed by 11 year olds? The culture that means drunken hook ups are more common in college than the long-ago formal dates? The culture that has caused a collapse of birth rates, not to mention marriages?

 

[Shakuhachi]

Yes, sounds like a contradiction but its not. If one repents they do not need baptized again.

 

[Randolph]

You don’t have to speculate about why women get abortions. There are several surveys of women who have gotten abortions, and you can see what THEY say. And of course it’s generally complicated–there’s more than one reason. But overwhelmingly, the reasons are economic. Solve those issues, you reduce the number of abortions. It’s that simple.

You are using economic rationale to justify abortion—where millions of innocent babies are killed in the world each year. Can you possible imagine any human tragedy the history of the world that can be compared to that? If we don’t protect these innocent, vulnerable babies, who will??

Staying with your economic rationale, many people in the world are poor, have no place to live and are hungry. Can their difficult circumstances be excuses for them to commit crimes such as murders, killings, etc… to feed and shelter themselves? Furthermore, is lack of economic means the reason for abortion or other crimes? If yes, then why do people of economic wealth/means have abortions and commit other crimes?

Perhaps, the answers reside inside the deposit of the Catholic faith. The roots of all sins stem from the Seven Deadly sins.: Pride, envy, greed, lust, sloth, wrath and gluttony.

 

[stpurl]

I think we’re talking past each other a bit while also doing a ‘do-si-do’ or two.

The difference we have is not in that you don’t acknowledge absolute truth. We’re not arguing that.

And the difference is not that we don’t realise that hearts and minds need to change. They do, and that need has been there all along.

The difference IS that you seem to have a point of view of indifferentism/relativism, not for yourself but with regard to others.

It is not ‘demonising’ another person to point out where they are going wrong.

THAT is the main ‘fruit’ of the last 50 years or so of mainstream Catholic understanding from both her leaders and society, which have of late pretty much ‘dovetailed’ but instead of Catholic Truth influencing and leading those who disagree ‘to the Truth, those who are far from the Truth have influenced Catholics and led THEM from the Truth by, for one, proclaiming that there are different and ‘equal ways’, and that attempting to proclaim any ‘one’ as ‘superior’ is hurtful to others.

That’s why the whole ‘trying to reach people where they are’ is a dud; because Catholics happily go out to the peripheries and either stand there ‘reasoning’ (and not going back to the truth) or are convinced that out there in the peripheries things are ‘just as true’ and staying there or going even further away.

Does this mean we abandon ‘reasoning’? No. But it means we have to stand up and calmly, lovingly, tell people, “I know you have heard that X is right and loving and good. But God has a greater good and He tells you X is not loving and good. Y is good. We must do Y.. And when they scream at us that Y is evil and X is SO good, we have to be firm and not wilt. We can’t bring people to Y if we’re stuck saying, “well of course X is what a lot of people believe is right and we don’t want to offend them’.

And that again is why we need the legislators to stand up and say “Y is right”. Sure, it might turn into another Prohibition. But it might equally turn into the Emancipation Proclamation. But until it is tried, we won’t have anything at all except, “well I PERSONALLY believe Y but I don’t want to offend people who believe in X, or Z, or pi x the radius squared or whatever, so I have to let them keep on saying these things with the same ‘weight’ as Truth.

 

[Rau]

It is a good thing to fight for and support smaller steps that discourage abortions from being performed—such as parental notification, certain tri-semester, ultrasound, heart beats, etc… They are indeed good steps.

That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting social changes that lessen demand.

We need to focus on it—and not to allow individual political beliefs to distract from it,

Where is that remark coming from?? Certainly not from anything I’ve said!

 

[Rau]

What that reformulation actually means is in hot debate on other thread(s)!

 

[Rau]

People who say “abortion is OK” are NOT saying “killing unborn babies is OK.”

What are they saying?