Pro Choice/Abortion “Catholics”

[LateCatholic]

The “best, healthiest, and cheapest way (by far) to prevent unwanted pregnancies” is to not have sex.

People who don’t have sex don’t get pregnant.

People who don’t have sex don’t get STDs.

ABC seems to be incredibly expensive. Not having sex costs nothing.

That’s not the argument. The argument is that people DO HAVE SEX.
No one is saying not to teach abstinence (though even some Republicans are against this).
But if they have sex, provide free birth control. It’s financially neutral, stops the spread of disease, and prevents unwanted pregnancies. Why do you not support this? Your position is not rational.

 

[Annie]

When we change the consequences of an act, people make different choices.

I remember when the speed limit was reduced to 55 mph and there were heavy consequences on states which did not enforce this.

I lived next door to a state which took this latter very seriously and gave out speeding tickets like crazy.

On the highway which traversed the border of this state and my state, you could see the result: brake lights glistened as drivers slowed down to enter this state.

Now enforcement is the same --pretty lax!-- in both states. Guess what? Everyone speeds!

Thus, the more birth control is distributed, the safer it is perceived to be, the more people will have sex outside of marriage.

I think there are other factors at play here. One is that sex is seen at a leisure activity rather than as a life-creating/life-changing activity.

 

[Brendan_64]

I believe that in a free society, you must give women the right to control their bodies up to a certain point. Then that fetus is an independent human being and MUST be treated as a human being. I don’t support abortion rights past a certain point. And personally, I would never recommend an abortion at any point.

What you are arguing is not about giving women control of their own bodies, but giving them ultimate control (to determine the life or death) of another human being.

As for the argument about a human being independent, is a new-born baby an independent human being? Could it survive independently without its parents? Or what about someone infirm in a nursing home who needs to be fed and have basic functions carried out for them? Or a person on life-support, are they an independent human being?

The argument that bases the right to life not on being a human being, but on whether a person is not dependent on another, is very problematic.

 

[Brendan_64]

I think there are other factors at play here. One is that sex is seen at a leisure activity rather than as a life-creating/life-changing activity.

Yes. And it is also seen as something the everyone should have a right to, with whoever they wish to, without any consequences, and that this is something that ought to be celebrated.

 

[Al1234]

I find it difficult to digest this response. I believe, an abortion is, simply put, the murder of a human being developing in the mothers womb. It is a separate human being, distinct from the mother, alive from the moment of conception.

The facts is that you CANNOT have a free society if you force/control a woman’s body. Period.

You cannot have a free society, if you murder the most vulnerable in that society.

It is not a religious issue, it is a political, society and cultural issue.

It is none of these things - it is divine law. “Thou shalt not murder”. Period.

I do not see this as a nuanced issue worthy of further discussion or debate any more that I see any other murder of an innocent person as such.

I am not a democrat or republican. I am not even an American for that matter. This is simply self evident.

 

[mVitus]

Equality of women

The CC does teach women are equal.

• Importance of the environment
• Financial support of the poor
• Freedom of religion
• Freedom of speech

If you look at the statements of the bishops, you’ll find they support these.

Empathy for animals

This too is supported. Not to PETA levels, but it is supported.

Non-violence

Violence isn’t something condoned for the sake of violence. There are times just wars can occur or lethal methods of defense are necessary, but the CC does advocate peaceful methods first.

Stem cells

Most of the advancements these days have been made with adult stem cells, which are of course perfectly moral to use.

Non-inheritance of sin and guilt

I think you might be interested in researching the Eastern Catholic approach to Original Sin. In their expression, O.S. doesn’t bear personal guilt on us. It’s moreso our Fallen state.

Death penalty

Given your more left views here, I’m guessing you’d be against the DP, which the Church is too.

municipal independence

States have a right to govern themselves. But the CC will speak against unjust laws.

Importance and accuracy of science

The Church is a great promoter of science. Fr. Gregor Mendel, father of genetics. Fr. Lemaitre, Bug Bang Theory. Just to name a couple.

Historical

I’m not sure which parts of history you’re thinking of, but if your library has Bearing False Witness by Rodney Stark, it could be an interesting read for you. He’s a non-Catholic historian who takes on some of the predominant myths of Catholic history.

 

[TULIPed]

And personally, I would never recommend an abortion at any point.

Why not LC?

 

[goout]

goout:

Pro choice is not pro genocide. Pro choice is not pro lynching. Pro choice is not pro child slavery.
Yes there are people who believe killing inferior human beings is the right decision. Because “we can’t afford them we don’t want them they are a burden.”
Yes there are people who believe lynching inferior races is the right decision.
Yes there are people who believe child slavery is the right decision.

Why are you making this false equivalence? Every point you make refers to another human being.

It is truly disheartening to see the loss of coherent thought.
You call false equivalence, and in the same sentence point out my recognition of “another human being”, which an unborn child objectively is.
An unborn child is, objectively speaking:

1. unique in it’s DNA
2. an individual
3. of the species homo sapiens

To deny this is to take up residence with flat earthers and the like. It rejects rational thought. The only justification you can have is to deny the humanity of the unborn child on lack of potency grounds, in other words, the unborn child is simply not powerful enough to assert it’s own rights as a human being.

Do you really want to cast your lot with eugenicists, racists, rapists? Really do you?
Because it seems that is your position. You deny humanity by assertion, not by fact.

This all comes down to when you think a fetus is viable and deserves independence in terms of human rights.

Yes, like that. Rights by potency, not by virtue of humanity.

Catholic believe that life begins at conception and that the fetus should be treated as a human life at that point.

What else is it? You must admit it is human, right? Is it a squirrel? A crocodile? What is it?
If you were to accept mainstream science, what is in the mother’s womb?

I believe that in a free society, you must give women the right to control their bodies up to a certain point.

And the Jews are controlling the mercantile process, they are stealing jobs from our people, they need to go.
Loss of control subjects human beings to murder in your view?

Then that fetus is an independent human being and MUST be treated as a human being. I don’t support abortion rights past a certain point. And personally, I would never recommend an abortion at any point.

Then? What is “then”? “Then” is when you make an assertion?
Why should your assertion be accepted over generally accepted science and thousands of years of moral thought?

I assert, the earth is flat !!! Let it be so.

 

[Sbee0]

Sbee0:

Being pro abortion rights is also completely incompatible with Catholic teaching.

I understand that. I was raised Catholic. But I literally disagree with almost ALL Catholic institutional teaching:

• Homosexual rights
• Birth control
• Right to choose (within limits)
• Equality of women
• Importance of the environment
• Financial support of the poor
• Freedom of religion
• Freedom of speech
• Empathy for animals
• Non-violence
• Stem cells
• Non-inheritance of sin and guilt
• Death penalty
• Importance and accuracy of science
• municipal independence
• Historical accuracy

I mean, there is literally nothing I have found that agree with regarding the institutional beliefs and dogma of the Church. Note that this is NOT the same as what you will hear outwardly or of course what Jesus says. I’m talking institutionally, dogmatically, and theologically.

It seems that your idea of what the Catholic Church teaches is very different than what the Church actually does teach. Or perhaps you are confusing the Church with fundamentalism. Fundamentalism and Catholicism are almost as different as night and day.

As for science, the Church has always been very pro science. So am I. I love science and there’s nothing about science that contradicts my faith. Anything to the contrary is an anti-Catholic myth. Many of the greatest scientific discoveries especially in the area of astronomy are Church influenced. Some of the greatest scientific and philosophic thinkers (like Augustine) in history were Catholic saints.

 

[deMontfort]

It shouldn’t, but unfortunately…

In any case, I can’t elaborate further because the posts will end up being flagged and removed.

 

[Sbee0]

goout:

Pro choice is not pro genocide. Pro choice is not pro lynching. Pro choice is not pro child slavery.
Yes there are people who believe killing inferior human beings is the right decision. Because “we can’t afford them we don’t want them they are a burden.”
Yes there are people who believe lynching inferior races is the right decision.
Yes there are people who believe child slavery is the right decision.

Why are you making this false equivalence? Every point you make refers to another human being.
This all comes down to when you think a fetus is viable and deserves independence in terms of human rights.

Catholic believe that life begins at conception and that the fetus should be treated as a human life at that point.

I believe that in a free society, you must give women the right to control their bodies up to a certain point. Then that fetus is an independent human being and MUST be treated as a human being. I don’t support abortion rights past a certain point. And personally, I would never recommend an abortion at any point.

The fetus is a human being and life does begin at conception. That’s not just Catholic teaching, that’s a scientific fact.

And once you understand that, there is absolutely no moral justification whatsoever for abortion.

 

[TheLittleLady]

This is not a site run by the Church nor by a Diocese. These statements, for the most part, go beyond the teaching of the Church by tweaking the language.

The Catechism is our quick reference and it links us to the more weighty documents.

For instance, the Precepts of the Church are in the Catechism which refers us to this Canon:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P75.HTM

One clip where you can see that the author of “Catholic Doors” is inferring more than the Precepts do:

The second precept (“You shall confess your sins at least once a year.") ensures preparation for the Eucharist by the reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, which continues Baptism’s work of conversion and forgiveness.83

The third precept (“You shall humbly receive your Creator in Holy Communion at least during the Easter season.") guarantees as a minimum the reception of the Lord’s Body and Blood in connection with the Paschal feasts, the originand center of the Christian liturgy.84

 

[HarryStotle]

The Church’s teaching is completely ineffective, immoral, and in many cases, evil. Consider how the spread of AIDS has exploded in Africa where the Church’s teaching against condom usage is considered a key if not primary factor.

Yeah, no.

The spread of AIDS – its primary factor – is not caused by the Church’s teaching. The spread of AIDS is caused by indiscriminate and irresponsible sex. You don’t make evil morally right by slapping a latex covering on it and blaming the reality of moral truths for its existence.

You may as well blame your doctor, and prescriptions for good health, when you die of smoking-caused cancer. The fact that you engaged in a dangerous and unhealthy activity that filled your lungs with tar and your body with thousands of carcinogens isn’t what caused you to die. No, it was your doctor and his insistence that you lead a healthy lifestyle. The fact that you wandered from that path, and got addicted to nicotine, plays no function and is not a “primary factor.” It was the doctor who was “ineffective” in saving you from your choices who was at fault, and is “immoral, and…evil.”

Yeah, no.

Perhaps, the real “primary factor” was the erosion of sexual moral values and we ought to rightfully blame those promoters – in every form of media and legal guidance – of unbridled promiscuity who claim that all human beings are 1) weak-kneed, morally gelatinous, slaves to their appetites with no hope of ever changing, and 2) should be excused for every fault because we are entitled to follow our every whim?

Basically, your claim amounts to the assertion that human beings cannot help but be moral jellyfish and therefore should not be held to any moral standards beyond the most minimal and innocuous – I.e., don’t be demanding of others.

Your position isn’t going to make the world a better or more moral place, it will merely nullify the symptoms of evil by removing untoward consequences and personal responsibility so evil can flourish unencumbered.

The Church’s teaching is completely …immoral, and in many cases, evil.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.

Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away…

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live …
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Deut 30:11-20)

 

[HarryStotle]

I believe that in a free society, you must give women the right to control their bodies up to a certain point. Then that fetus is an independent human being and MUST be treated as a human being. I don’t support abortion rights past a certain point. And personally, I would never recommend an abortion at any point.

When, precisely, do we attain the status of free society?

When every individual is unencumbered by the existence of other individuals and is free to do whatever they want irrespective of the lives and rights of others?

That kind of freedom is precisely what you are advocating that women have with respect to the human beings in their wombs. Yet, for some reason that same freedom to kill and dispose of other human beings isn’t morally transposable past the womb.

Yet, if that view of freedom is so important to you, why wouldn’t you promote it past the womb? Why shouldn’t all human beings strive to be free in that very same sense by throwing off the shackles of moral responsibility that enslave us, if that kind of free society is the epitome of what we should strive for?

I submit that if women cannot see that their view of “freedom” from responsibility to the child in their womb has severely distorted their entire morality, it isn’t going to be suddenly reinstated when the moral value of individuals outside the womb become the subject of moral consideration.

The result, inevitably, will transpose to: if my own flesh and blood in my womb is disposable, others who have no inherent relationship to me will be, as well.

The erosion of morality in society is already telling. Influential bioethicists do not see any justification for preventing parents from killing their own children past birth if they feel they cannot care for them. And these are our deep moral thinkers. Imagine what the shallow ones will allow.

Once you degrade the moral climate it will be very difficult for amoral individuals to find justification in any restrictive – to them – moral principles.

Be very careful what you advocate. Morality, virtue and the existence of a moral society, as human history shows, is a very tenuous thing.

Let’s permit a few cracks to exist in the dyke holding back the floodwaters. Surely it will remain standing if we permit a little water through.

 

[realstevenfrancis]

The idea of self-identifying Christians or Jews being “pro-choice” is dumbfounding to me. It just doesn’t make any sense on any level that I can wrap my head around. Even the language…“pro-CHOICE” is a self-incriminating term. The word itself implies a pre-meditation. One is choosing to kill. This is murder. When a person evaluates and plots out the killing of another human being, and then either commits this murder themselves, or contracts the killing out, through a “doctor”. The science is in. It is human beings that are being killed, and not killed in self-defense or by accident. There is no white wash that can cleanse what is being done. It simply is what it is. Thou shall not murder is the seventh commandment of God. These commandments apply to all human persons in general, but specifically to the Jews and Christians. So if any Jew or Christian of any denomination is holding or propping up views which support murder in any form then they have at a minimum been deluded by the secular world and lulled to sleep on the issue. Christianity and Judaism were just simply not founded on falling into the path of least resistance model. This development is an assault of Christianity and Judaism by the enemy. Plain and simple. Yes. there is is God’s mercy. A truly repentant person can be forgiven for engaging in the act. IF they repent. We all have thoughts and opinions of things which may be at variance to God’s teaching. We can pray for God to remove these thoughts and opinions from us, and to make us more submissive to His will for us, and for our own humility, but then when we go out and publicly proclaim our errant thoughts we are in a sense teaching others error, and if someone is a public figure to begin with, and especially a polititican who has been given power to effect actual law in the society in which they belong, this becomes a grave matter, and I would think that teaching error and actively working towards making error a part of a society’s laws is deeply grave sin. The politicians even can be forgiven, but they must repent of the sin. The problem with modernism and especially post-modernism is that we have put ourselves in positions of deciding for ourselves what constitutes sin and disorder, and we have subdued the nature of sin to fit our emotions and concupiscence, rather than fight against them. It’s quite disturbing, and it has taken away the idea that some things are sinful at all among those who value our secular governments, politicians, and personalities more than we value the laws of the creator of the universe.

We Christians are the ones who are supposed to be swimming upstream, against the current. Not just drifting along on the convenient, wide river to hell.

We all seem to have forgotten that God is merciful and loving, but He is also just.

The Lord’s peace be with all

 

[Sbee0]

LateCatholic:

I believe that in a free society, you must give women the right to control their bodies up to a certain point. Then that fetus is an independent human being and MUST be treated as a human being. I don’t support abortion rights past a certain point. And personally, I would never recommend an abortion at any point.

What you are arguing is not about giving women control of their own bodies, but giving them ultimate control (to determine the life or death) of another human being.

As for the argument about a human being independent, is a new-born baby an independent human being? Could it survive independently without its parents? Or what about someone infirm in a nursing home who needs to be fed and have basic functions carried out for them? Or a person on life-support, are they an independent human being?

The argument that bases the right to life nor on being a human being, but on whether a person is not dependent on another, is very problematic.

Yup.

Plus science cannot provide a benchmark on when personhood begins. It is indeed problematic to leave that up to us to determine for two reasons:

1. Throughout our history, people have gotten it very wrong when it comes to determining personhood, with consequences devastating to the lives of many people.
2. The arbitrary markers or criteria that we use in the abortion debate to determine personhood and independence are not absolute and can easily be used to do the same to people already born, as noted above. Therefore it’s a logically fallacious argument to say that a fetus is not a person because we say it isn’t because of reason X, Y and Z.

We cannot nor do we have the authority to determine with certainty when personhood begins. Therefore, by simple logical reasoning, we must say personhood begins when life begins - at the place science says it begins. At conception.

 

[Rahn]

Abortion is murder. The fifth commandment is “Thou shall not kill”. You cannot be Catholic, or even Christian, if you condone abortion.

Please stop deceiving yourself.

 

[deMontfort]

Abortion is murder. The fifth commandment is “Thou shall not kill”. You cannot be Catholic, or even Christian, if you condone abortion.

Please stop deceiving yourself.

Well, he himself, in this very thread, admitted he doesn’t believe anything the Church teaches:

Sbee0:

Being pro abortion rights is also completely incompatible with Catholic teaching.

I understand that. I was raised Catholic. But I literally disagree with almost ALL Catholic institutional teaching:

• Homosexual rights
• Birth control
• Right to choose (within limits)
• Equality of women
• Importance of the environment
• Financial support of the poor
• Freedom of religion
• Freedom of speech
• Empathy for animals
• Non-violence
• Stem cells
• Non-inheritance of sin and guilt
• Death penalty
• Importance and accuracy of science
• municipal independence
• Historical accuracy

I mean, there is literally nothing I have found that agree with regarding the institutional beliefs and dogma of the Church. Note that this is NOT the same as what you will hear outwardly or of course what Jesus says. I’m talking institutionally, dogmatically, and theologically.

The arguments he’s been making in this thread indicate that he’s pretty much an atheist who’s completely apostate from any orthodox form of Christianity.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Nothing, not sin or death or principalities or powers can remove the indelible mark of Baptism from a Christian. Yes, there are non-practicing Catholics and fallen away Christians, Christians who have apostatized, they are STILL Christians.

 

[RCIAGraduate]

The arguments he’s been making in this thread indicate that he’s pretty much an atheist who’s completely apostate from any orthodox form of Christianity.

To give him or her the benefit of the doubt, making presumptions might not be the best idea, perhaps he or she is still wandering and looking for answers here?