A man and a woman can choose platonic friendship, which will not lead them to having to weigh the decision to terminate a pregnancy.
A man and a woman can choose romantic involvement with chastity.
A man and a woman can choose romantic involvement, marriage and sexual activity.
A man and a woman can choose romantic involvement, including sexual activity, outside of marriage.
A man and a woman can choose romantic involvement including sexual activity and natural family planning.
A man and a woman can choose romantic involvement including sexual activity and other forms of birth control.
A man and a woman can choose love, marriage and children if and when they come.
There are occasions when a woman does not have a choice in the sequence of events. If pregnancy occurs against her will she is faced with a choice to either terminate the pregnancy or carry it to term.
I have listed seven scenarios in which both the man and the woman can have an equal opportunity to choose, to be responsible, to be the architects of their own futures, whether together or apart. Aside from the fact that some of the options may not be acceptable within the teachings of Catholicism, we are discussing all religions here and so these options have been included.
In the case of rape, where the woman was denied choice and finds that she has conceived, she still has a choice as to what her actions will be.
This is choice, based on God-given free will. This is what I defend and uphold. Choices which take place up to a woman’s walk into an abortion clinic are critical. Each party is 100% responsible for the events as they fall into place. ** rlg94086** has interpreted one of my posts as saying that I " . . .accept that a man must have a willingness to accept the consequences of a child, but the woman does not . . ." If a man must “accept the consequences of a child”, then logically the woman must, also, as the child will have been born. If he is referring to the dreaded 18 gruelling years of child support, then we can assume the relationship did not work out, the couple did not stay together. In this case the woman carries the fuller measure of responsibility in raising this child. Joint custody cases are not as common as one might believe. The man’s financial contribution does not qualify as parenting.
I defend the right to choose, for a woman and her partner. The choices come before the vacuum aspirator is cranked up, ladies and gentlemen. The woman and her partner, if he is so inclined, have an opportunity to turn around and walk away from the check-in desk at the clinic. Some women are already on the table, have their IVs in place and have a nitrous mask over their faces and they change their minds: they choose not to continue with the termination. I defend their right to do this. I do not defend their “right to kill”; I defend their right to think, feel, pray, anguish, research, worry, discuss, and choose.
rusty 20:
I must correct you: I did not say " …there are no actions which are universally wrong for anybody to commit." I said that “I don’t know that I believe in an objective moral truth . . . [that] I have some difficulty digesting the rigidity of the proposition.” If there is an objective moral truth, a hard shell of morality which surrounds every individual soul and mind, then I suppose the man who repeatedly violently sexually assaulted me in my preteen years, and the man who raped me when I was 18, and the “sweetheart” who choked me into unconsciousness when I was 25 will have some considerable time to spend in what you call Purgatory. And if Purgatory actually does exist, then I will find my own cubicle there and do my own time, for I’m a sinner as well.
See you there.
marietta
