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Denny_in_Gaines
Guest
I am pro life. How did the opposite of pro life become pro choice; I thought it would be pro death. If we called it what it really is, few would claim being pro death now would they ?
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Corki
Guest
You can’t be pro-choice and pro-life, at least not in the way the secular world uses the term. The latter excludes abortion and the former includes it.
But you can, unfortunately be pro-choice and Catholic. There are several that post on this forum that fit that description and a few that identify as Catholic and are outright pro-abortion. They don’t take your Catholic id away just because you reject Catholic teaching.
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Bismarck
Guest
I wish you were right. Caroline Kennedy started her pro choice speech by stating she was Catholic. Not one leader in the church called her out on it afterwards.I would have a hard time counting the ones on full display at the DNC convention as Catholic. To be Catholic and pro-choice is not really possable.
The liberals Catholics which are abundant , are pro choice and for gay marriage.
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JRKH
Guest
And why is the killing of pre-born children not illegal?? Personally - I have never understood it…perhaps you can explain it to me…
Peace
James
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Sailor_Kenshin
Guest
Define the word ‘choice.’You can’t be pro-choice and pro-life, at least not in the way the secular world uses the term. The latter excludes abortion and the former includes it.
But you can, unfortunately be pro-choice and Catholic. There are several that post on this forum that fit that description and a few that identify as Catholic and are outright pro-abortion. They don’t take your Catholic id away just because you reject Catholic teaching.
Post it from a dictionary if convenient.
Then someone explain to me why:
A. Catholics have adopted a term that does not mean what it represents, and,
B. They hepled elect the most pro-abortion regime in USA history, and are likely to do so again.
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snarflemike
Guest
Because in 1973, 7 justices (???) declared it to be legal. One could think of them as the 7 fathers of the new holocaust.
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JRKH
Guest
Thanks Mike…I’m hoping our OP will come and explain it.
Just saying the Justices declared it really is not sufficient to me…what was their reasoning?
Peace
James
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Corki
Guest
Catholics did not adopt the term pro-choice. They incorrectly apply the term to some who are not pro-choice but who actually advocate and support abortion. It was a deliberate effort to confuse and hide the truth.
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Michael_Mayo
Guest
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markeverett49
Guest
Well, they SHOULD but we are familiar with cases of pro-choice Catholic politicians who (sometimes, at least) go to Mass. It is sad.
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ReapReason
Guest
Because it cannot be proven in a legal context that abortion is in fact the killing of a person; not according to legal/secular definitions of what a person is, as opposed to religious or speculative definitions.
Not very surprising given a secular democracy and the split between church and state. I am not sure why you find it surprising.
You can be pro-choice in so far as you understand that the State has no power to criminalise people on the matter of abortion because making abortion illegal would conflict with what state essentially is as a governing body; and yet at the same time you can recognise according to your own beliefs or personal moral standards that abortion in an immoral act.
It seems evident to me that attacking abortion in a legal sense would also be attacking the very idea of a Secular State that recognises and respects the pluralistic nature of society and enforces laws according to what is evidently beneficial to the pluralistic whole, as opposed to what is beneficial to a minority group and their beliefs.
Its as if after hundreds of years Christians are only just waking up to the fact that secular law does not function according to the beliefs and moral definitions of Christianity.
Why are you surprised? This is what I don’t understand.
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anp1215
Guest
It is not sad for anyone to go to Mass. It is sad when they take Communion because they drink condemnation on themselves.
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fhansen
Guest
Actually, from a Christian perspective, the fact that we can’t determine when personhood occurs makes it even more critical that we don’t mess with terminating it’s existence. The real question that’s then left to deal with becomes, ‘is human life sacred/worthy of protection to begin with?’
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Corki
Guest
This always makes me laugh. The only difference between the human offspring that is protected by law from many harms, including murder by a non-doctor, and the human offspring that is not protected is the attitude of the mother. Does she want the baby or not? Legal context is not usually proven based on the attitude or desires of someone but it’s the only way some people can get around the paradox of the various unborn victims acts.
The idea that the unborn are not persons is a fluid concept. The government is able to make a determination of any age it wants for when personhood begins. As Justice Blackmon asserted, the Constitution is silent on when personhood is conferred. Even now, with abortion on demand, the idea that a human being gains personhood at birth is nothing more than a social construct.
Even Roe v Wade let stand the criminality of abortion past the first trimester and later court rulings left abortion as illegal after fetal viability. Isn’t that legal context?
Why would the state not have that power? The state, as a governing body, oversaw for centuries a legal system where abortion was criminalized. The state has no less power to crimalize abortion than to criminalize wife-beating or drug selling or operating a motor vehicle without a license. The state already has, and rightly uses, its power to regulate abortion. There are many abortions that are, in fact, illegal, even in the US. This would include abortions committed on women without their consent, on minors without the consent of their guardians, on mothers who are pregnant with children older than various gestational ages (depending on the state), abortions carried out by unlicensed heath care “professionals” or in unlicensed facilities, abortions that use illegal procedures or drugs, etc.
This is a very odd way of reaching your conclusion. The group that would benefit most from making abortion illegal is the unborn. This is a group you have not even wanted to recognize as persons. In a pluralistic society, shouldn’t all groups be protected, even those in the minority? Isn’t that the very essense of civil rights law?
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snarflemike
Guest
And yet if a pregnant woman is murdered, the killer can be charged with 2 murders. Go figure.
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ReapReason
Guest
Sacred?
A person is protected because the state can see that it is evidently a person, and the state see’s that it is pragmatically beneficial to protect people.
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fhansen
Guest
“pragmatically beneficial”? That depends on the state. Many in the past and present could care less about the welfare of their constituency, while others put such a primary emphasis on the value of human life that much sweat is shed over struggling with the problems involved in dealing with the ethics concerning human life and death. In many societies today, “sanctity of life” may not be a term commonly used and yet, by any other term, human life and death issues are still generally treated with the same kind of delicacy and seriousness as those wo do use that term once personhood is admitted.
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snarflemike
Guest
Good summary of the 20th century.
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ChibiViolet
Guest
Someone is an external Catholic if baptised into most any (until very recently I used to think any, but the Mormon baptism is not considered valid by the Church) Christian Church in the Trinitarian formula with the right form for their particular denomination. In order to be an internal Catholic they actually would have to beleive in all official Church teachings (that they know about.)If you are baptised Catholic, you’ll always be considered a Catholic. So I’ve been told.(someone correct me on that if I’m wrong). If I’m right, then those that are pro-choice and baptised Catholics are still Catholics.
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acacia12
Guest
Yeah but, say if they were baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, they’re still classed as Catholic.
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