Pro-Life Catholics, how do you respond to this?

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Erikaspirit16:
abortion…after all, it was common in ancient Israel
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Quote me your primary source, please, that says the OT Jews were cool with it as a Thing.

Copy & paste is appreciated, ty.
 
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Ah, sorry. Let me fix that.

Indeed, I know that modern Judaism is okay with it, but I can’t think of a single ancient text that said the ancient Hebrews accepted it as a common practice. All the texts I can think of associated infanticide/deliberate induction of miscarriages with pagan practices and witchcraft.
 
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Yes, I know that abortion has existed since ancient times.

But the point is, when someone cites–
Erikaspirit16 said:
I’m still curious why Jesus never mentioned abortion…after all, it was common in ancient Israel and Rome. And yet Jesus was preoccupied with the plight of the poor. Did he have the wrong priorities?
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the obvious implication is that abortion was common in ancient Israel amongst the Hebrews, as well as in the Roman Empire amongst the pagans. Not “common in ancient Israel because it was full of Babylonians and Persians and Cretans and other people who brought it from their societies.”

Jesus himself said he came to save the lost children of Israel. The times when he reached out to “outsiders”— the Samaritan woman, the Roman centurion-- were very clearly pointed out as being outside his norm. It wasn’t until after the conclusion of the Old Covenant, and the beginning of the New Covenant with his Passion/Death/Resurrection, that all of us Outsiders were brought in.

So if Jesus was preaching to the Israelites, and the ancient Hebrews associated abortion with paganism and witchcraft, why would he specify it as a Thing? Otherwise, that territory gets covered in “love your neighbor as yourself.”
 
midori said:
Quote me your primary source, please, that says the OT Jews were cool with it as a Thing.
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“cool with it”? That’s not what I wrote, and it’s certainly not what I mean. NO ONE is “cool with it.” Everyone opposes it. The real questions are, “How serious is it? Is it allowable? Is it murder?” To Jews, ancient and modern, abortion before the fetus moves in the womb is not murder. It certainly was not seen as a “good thing.” But it was accepted before a certain stage of development; the fetus was not seen as a “human being” before that.

Let’s start here: What Do Orthodox Jews Think About Abortion and Why? A fair article giving both sides of the argument, Orthodox Jews being on both sides.

And then move to here: There's nothing about abortion in the Bible | Salon.com Which points out that there is NOTHING about abortion in the Bible–either Old or New Testaments. Considering the long list of “Thou shalt nots…” that’s rather astounding. If you can find a passage in the Bible that talks about abortion (explicitly, not implicitly), please let me know.

More generally, this addresses the question asked by the original poster: The flaw in the pro-life argument that I can’t ignore. This asks the question “Why do pro-life activists seem only to care about unborn lives?”

See above. But once again you are framing the question in the wrong way. NO ONE is saying they “approve” of abortion. At best it’s seen as a necessary evil. That’s not the question. The question is, is it murder? To Judaism, it was not murder before they could detect movement in the womb. True today, true in ancient times. True for Jerome, Augustine, Aquinas, and church law until 1867. Even true for a pope–Innocent III. To pretend otherwise simply ignores history. Again–how many times??–no one is saying that the Church “approved” of abortion. But before movement in the womb, it wasn’t murder. It was an offense against the rights of the father.
 
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Because Jesus did call out specific sins. Sins do not care if you are Babylonian or Jewish.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Because Jesus did call out specific sins. Sins do not care if you are Babylonian or Jewish.
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Indeed. And that is why he left a Church— because he was talking to 1st century Hebrews, but knew that ultimately, things would spread throughout the whole world.

But what is culturally acceptable amongst the Babylonians or the Greeks was different from what was culturally acceptable amongst the Hebrews.

And just like politicians speak to their audience-- Jesus spoke to his audience as well.
But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.”
And he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon.
And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.”
But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, “Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.”
But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
And He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
But she said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed at once.
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So, we can say, “Out of all the things he could specifically mention, why is Jesus focused on hand-washing?” But then we miss the big point of what it is he’s talking about— how although ritual cleanliness had helped culturally distinguish the Hebrews from their neighbors, ultimately, it was only a superficial thing if your heart was full of impurity. But he phrased it in terms of hand-washing, because it was appropriate to the audience he was addressing.
 
But He didn’t command us to shake our neighbors upside-down and pick their pockets. He commands us, his followers to do the work and to be a light.
 
Agreed. Our pockets… which are filled through our honest labor. Not sure what the issue is.
 
True. Our Lord did bless me with a good job that fills my pockets and allows me to be a blessing. I’m not really pious enough to use such semantics without prompting. Thank you.
 
Erikaspirit16 said:
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RCIAGraduate:
If I’m not wrong I understand you are an educator or teacher,
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I was: high school, university, and adult education for 13+ years. But I also worked for 25 years in the corporate world. Five different jobs. Lucky me. (sarcasm)
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Well, I’ve basically had one job and I’m worried I’ll retire without having had more varied experiences in my life.
 
Abortion is not the only issue. It is the most important issue of our day.
 
“you may certainly vote for someone who supports . . . abortion IN SPITE OF that position if the person supports other positions that support ‘the common good’”. That is not quite the position, though, right? There have to be proportionate reasons, not just the support for other positions that advance the common good. I agree it is up to the individual, generally, to make the determination of what reasons are proportionate, but my goodness, there are around a million abortions a year.
 
“no one is ‘cool with it’” I assume you mean on this board. Perhaps you have heard of the ‘shout your abortion’ movement. There are certainly currently people who are cool with it; all the more reason to oppose.

To me, the whole line of argument that ‘there’s nothing about abortion in the Bible’ is extremely disingenuous. As pointed out above, we are not sola scriptura, and the entire big T Tradition of the Church is against abortion, whether it saw it as murder or as contraception - - grave matter either way.
 
If I understand correctly, isn’t the greater evil allowing destitution and poverty to occur especially if taxes can be remediate or minimize it; for instance taxes could/would and should very well be utilized for a public sector safety net. Meanwhile the risk with charities is they may not have enough capacity to meet the needs, making the goals and objectives of social justice moot such as practical realities.
 
Eh, I am not sure it is any more just to take the same percentage from someone who has less as from someone who has more, and this need not be paying someone off. Roads, defense, police, benefit all, no? Or were you intending to limit your criticism to more welfare-ish type programs that pay benefits directly?
 
RCIAGraduate said:
If I understand correctly, isn’t the greater evil allowing destitution and poverty to occur especially if taxes can be remediate or minimize it; for instance taxes could/would and should very well be utilized for a public sector safety net. Meanwhile the risk with charities is they may not have enough capacity to meet the needs, making the goals and objectives of social justice moot such as practical realities.
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Can you give three real-life examples of countries where poverty does not exist?

And yet, practically speaking, poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is a very different creature than poverty in Singapore. Poverty in India’s slums is a very different thing than poverty in Austria or Sweden or the United States. In less-developed areas of the world, “poverty” is defined as living on less than $x/person/day. But in first world countries, “poverty” is defined in relation to how one person’s income is in contrast with what’s “normal” for that area, regardless of the standard of living attached to it. So in one sense, poverty has been eliminated in the United States, in that there aren’t people struggling to live on a dollar a day in the same way they do in, say, Liberia or Burundi. But it would be equally unfair to say that no one in the US struggles to put food on the table or clothes on their backs.

It’s good to reach out to poor places and help them with our relative affluence. But at the same time, we need to be aware of the destitution and poverty in our own back yards. Rather than waiting for government to magically cure it— they haven’t, in about 5,000 years of recorded human history-- we need to be the difference. Rather than saying, “Well, private charity doesn’t have enough resources to solve the entire problem”, we need to support those private charities in their efforts to make the difference they’re able to.

God’s not going to be impressed when I try to explain, “Well, I was waiting to win the lottery before I helped anyone-- because I knew I could do way more good winning the Powerball than just my $10.” Instead, he’s going to ask me why I wasted my $10 on something stupid and selfish, rather than putting it to use doing good.

He’s not going to be impressed if I say, “Well, I was waiting for the government to raise my taxes, so that it would go to all these cool social safety net programs we really ought to have” — he’s going to ask me why I didn’t use the money I saved from lower taxes towards some sort of righteous works.

God’s not going to hold me accountable for not helping the person in Somalia, but God will hold me accountable for ignoring the needy people I encounter every day, a la the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

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midori said:
Eliminating extreme poverty by killing off the children of those living in poverty is bad.
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In all modesty, you do not understand the pro-choice position.
Pro-choice means that abortion should not be considered until all other avenues are exhausted. The world is not a perfect place, and forcing a woman to become a mother without giving her the means to do so is just as sinful. Pro-choice is NOT pro-abortion.

I’ve made this suggestion before, and I mean it in all seriousness. Every childless married couple under 40 yrs of age with an income greater than $100K per year MUST adopt a child that otherwise would have been aborted by a woman in poverty, regardless of the sex, health, or race of the baby. If such a law were enacted, I would accept making abortion illegal.

If you are seriously pro-life, why would you not promote the above idea?
Clearly the above idea doesn’t work, but that is why abortion must continue to be legal until reach a social structure where abortion is no longer a needed option.
 
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