Please help me comprehend

[CaptainPrudeman]

My point is that your analogy was deficient. You can’t draw the parallels that you did.

Question: Do people have a right to rape that they should never use, or a responsibility to not rape?

 

[JimG]

To be clear, once a woman is pregnant, (i.e., with child), she will give birth, either to a live child through normal delivery, or to a dead child through miscarriage or abortion.

 

[fhansen]

If I used the term pro-choice with respect to capital punishment would I not be saying i am okay with the state using coercive action to killing someone if it so chooses? This seems pretty clear to me that you are okay with capital punishment.

Right, or even anyone killing anyone else who happens to interfere with their lifestyle.

 

[LilyM]

If, as the Church teaches, abortion is murder, what else would we do? No religion, nor creed, nor personal moral beliefs give you the right to kill someone else. If abortion is doing that, then our stance is the only reasonable one. If you’re right, and they aren’t human, then it’s not a problem.

I thought that self-defence, just war and legitimate capital punishment (which is not utterly and definitively xondemned by the Magistrrium) are exactly moral beliefs which DO permit us to kil others.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Replace “kill” with “murder” then.

 

[LilyM]

Replace “kill” with “murder” then.

Some would consider capital punishment under any circumstances as murder. The Church does not. Some would consider aggressive war under any circumstances as murder too.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

That’s not really relevant to the discussion at hand. The Church has declared all abortion to be murder, with no wiggle room.

 

[o_mlly]

I thought that self-defence, just war and legitimate capital punishment (which is not utterly and definitively xondemned by the Magistrrium) are exactly moral beliefs which DO permit us to kil others.

The Church teaches that objectively it is never moral to directly kill an innocent human being. “Directly” means as the proximate end of the act, a moral end in view for any actor. “Directly” does not mean “intentionally”; intention is always subjective, i.e., different for each particular actor.

Self-defense and just war always involve unjust aggressors against whom one may take the necessary force to defend, even lethal force, if necessary, in the moment. Capital punishment also involves an unjust aggressor but not in the moment of aggression. The Church has always taught that the state has the obligation to protect the community. She has also taught that the state’s right to capital punishment has always been a conditional right. Today, penal technology is such that protecting the community can be accomplished in a “bloodless manner”.

Unjust killings are never moral murder absent the actor’s intention to directly kill an innocent human being. The parallel legal doctrine is manslaughter. Direct abortion is morally evil always and everywhere but it is not necessarily murder.

 

[MNathaniel]

I’m not catholic, so I may not have the right to comment on this matter. However, one should know that those who are pro-choice do not “support abortion”. They support the right for a woman to decide whether she wants to go through with a pregnancy or not.

Can you understand that from the pro-life perspective, this sounds equivalent to:

“I’m pro-choice about slavery. Being pro-choice doesn’t mean I “support slavery”. I support the right for a strong man to decide whether he wants to go through with enslaving a vulnerable man or not.”

Both versions of “choice” silence and invisibilize a whole group of people from whom all “choice” is being stripped: children and slaves.

It should never be legal for one person to “choose” to murder another person.

It should never be legal for one person to “choose” to enslave another person.

Supporting some ‘choices’ inherently undermines the human rights of the person against whom that ‘choice’ offends. Supporting legal abortion is like supporting legal slavery.

“I wouldn’t personally own a slave, but I think John should be allowed to.”

“I wouldn’t personally kill a child, but I think Sally should be allowed to.”

 

[Gab123]

They support the right for a woman to decide

That’s like supporting the right of someone to decide whether you live or die, even though you haven’t done anything to deserve death. It’s demonic logic. Just look at the pictures; it’s indefensible no matter how much people rationalize it.

 

[Genesis315]

I think it can be due to a spiritual blindness, often resulting from other habitual sins or voluntary doubt even in other areas. Certainly too many are carnal minded in the Church, but this was foretold. St. Gregory the Great explains how it was the same in his time, and how this was prefigured by the ark of Noah:

And it should not frighten you that in the Church the bad are many and the good few. For the Ark, which in the midst of the Flood was a figure of this Church, was wide below and narrow above, and at the summit measured but one cubit (Genesis vi, 16). And we are to believe that below were the four-footed animals and serpents, above the birds and men. It was wide where the beasts were, narrow where men lived: for the Holy Church is indeed wide in the number of those who are carnal minded, narrow in those who are spiritual. For where she suffers the morals and beastly ways of men, there she enlarges her bosom. But where she has the care of those whose lives are founded on spiritual things, these she leads to the higher place; but since they are few, this part is narrow. Wide indeed is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction; and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate that leadeth to life; and few there are that find it!

The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers - Google Books

 

[TK421]

how a Catholic can be anything but opposed to the killing of pre-born children. I know this topic is pervasive on this site, but if you support the killing of pre-born children how do you reconcile that with your faith? I do not get it.

There’s nothing to comprehend because it’s (probably) not related to the intellect. It’s related to the passions. Human beings hold mismatched and disingenuous views all the time based on whichever set of views are the most personally convenient. That pretty much sums up all evil and injustice in the world.

In the case of an abortion, even if it’s not something that a person has been personally affected by, it’s something that theoretically involves putting limits on what they should or should not do, and anytime that happens it’s always possible for pride to flare up no matter what the subject is.

Peace.

 

[redcatholic]

It isn’t that a lot of people support it. It’s that a lot of people treat it like an annoyance. They wished people didn’t do it but it’s an unfortunate reality. Like a rainy day. The real evil is that people don’t see the evil. Or don’t care.

 

[Pattylt]

The problem for many non-Catholics is that there are two battles going on. The right to life and the autonomy of the mother. Catholics are quite clear that the right to life takes precedence but many non Catholics see the right to autonomy of the already existing mother having precedence over the right to life of an undeveloped fetus.

I’m anti abortion and I’ve faced this battle before. Catholics and some religions spell out which is the superior view but it won’t solve the issue for those that declare the autonomy of the mother takes precedence.

Abortion, legal or illegal won’t change the mindset and probably won’t reduce abortion by much if illegal. Especially as there are now ways to abort without a medical doctor doing the procedure. When you face a woman’s right to privacy and self determination the catholic view won’t mean much to those non Catholics or the Catholics that think the woman should have the right to chose. Until there is a value change in having babies much higher than we currently have, it just is what it is. I’ve heard too many women just comment, “I can always have another”.

 

[MNathaniel]

I’ve heard too many women just comment, “I can always have another”.

What a painful thing to hear.

As if each baby isn’t a separate and unique, unrepeatable person.

 

[Katie777]

Every baby is a blessing. If ANYONE thinks they will ruin thier lives etc. PM me.

 

[Freddy]

RolandThompsonGunner:

I think the only way someone can be pro-choice and not a monster is if they sincerely don’t believe a child in utereo is not a person yet. I don’t agree with that obviously, but I assume that’s what any pro-choice person of good will believes.

A belief that the child is not human in the womb does not permit a pro-choice attitude. One’s conscience must be certain before committing a gravely serious act such as abortion. If not then the teaching of the Church binds them. We are all bound since no one can be certain that the child is not human.

I disagree. We are absolutely positive that what a woman is carrying when she is pregnant is human. Just as plainly as the egg and the sperm is human. I can’t see how that can be denied by anyone. That what a woman is carrying is not human is a nonsensical argument. So should we put that argument to one side? Yes, we should.

And what are we left with is a question of personhood. Which, I agree, is irrelevant from the Church’s viewpoint. But a lot of Catholics, and I would suggest that almost everyone who supports the right of a woman to choose, consider this to be of the utmost importance.

They consider, and rightly so in my view, that there is a categorical difference between that which a woman is carrying a day after she conceives and a day before she gives birth. And this is entirely a subjective matter.

And yes, there are arguments that say that if you consider someone to be less than a person that it can lead to horrors with which we are all too familiar. And some people have compared (and will later compare in this thread) those horrors with abortion. But the comparison is not valid because in the former we are talking about actual people who have had their personhood, which they obviously posess, removed. Or at least ignored. Whereas a few cells in the first few days of pregnancy are yet to attain that status.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Whereas a few cells in the first few days of pregnancy are yet to attain that status.

According, of course, to one’s subjective opinion.

 

[Freddy]

I understand your pragmatic point; better to limit abortion than to continue it at its current levels.

The trouble with that pragmatism is that it requires a non-starter for Catholics: What amount of innocent life taken is acceptable?

None, full stop.

That’s really where the rubber meets the road.

Deacon Christopher

I’ve come across this argument before. But is it the case that you wouldn’t entertain any means by which we could reduce abortion? That it is literally all or nothing? Because if that is actually the case then I see no room whatsoever for any reasonable discussion.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Agreed. Unfortunately, practical steps must be taken to first reduce abortions. Even outlawing some but not all is a step in the right direction, just as Lincoln freed some slaves in the Emancipation Proclamation, but not all.