Questions on Abortion, Sexuality

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I have a friend who is no longer a practicing Catholic that truly believes that there is nothing wrong with aborting a child in the earliest stages of development. He argues there is no life and even compares it to “nothing but sperm” or in its later stages “just a mass of cells with no feelings.” I know he fails to recognize that life starts at conception and that he is dead wrong, but how do I argue this to get him away from that thinking? What points can I make?

This also comes from a person who believes that pornography is ok as well as masturbation. I don’t know how to help my friend as he continually slides into the teachings of the Secular world. How and what can I say to help my dear friend?
 
Tell this guy that it’s more than sperm. It’s a sperm and an egg. Not a baby? Not pregnant. Not a potential human, a human with a lot of potential. It has its own unique genetic code; therefore, it’s an independent life form.

In the later stages, a baby can feel pain, taste food, and even hear music. Think of what the baby is capable of.

Regarding porn and masturbation, why does he think ir’s okay? If he says porn doesn’t hurt anyone, tell him it hurts the dignity of the women being displayed. Porn and masturbation make a man live in a fantasy world where he has a bunch of imaginary wives. Pretty pathetic, huh?

There was once an interview with a stripper who said that she came to hate all men because of how they treated her.

Also, The AMA discovered that men who masturbate regularly during their teens, 20s, and 30s, are more likely to get prostate cancer later in life.
 
Show him a fetus’ heartbeat.

Or ask him why if a mother is killed while pregnant, the driver can be charged with double homicide?
 
rben20 said:
I have a friend who is no longer a practicing Catholic that truly believes that there is nothing wrong with aborting a child in the earliest stages of development. He argues there is no life and even compares it to “nothing but sperm” or in its later stages “just a mass of cells with no feelings.” I know he fails to recognize that life starts at conception and that he is dead wrong, but how do I argue this to get him away from that thinking? What points can I make?

This also comes from a person who believes that pornography is ok as well as masturbation. I don’t know how to help my friend as he continually slides into the teachings of the Secular world. How and what can I say to help my dear friend?
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Ask him if he was ever a mass of cells once, with no feelings.

Or, you could ask him what the difference is between a mass of cells with no feelings and a black person.
  • Ask him to prove that black people have feelings; then, no matter what proofs he gives, dismiss them all with a with a wave of your hand and say that those aren’t feelings but just reflexes.
  • If you feel especially punchy, if he says that black people can do things that a mass of cells with no feelings can’t do, like talk and do calculus, then tell him that science has already explained how the nerves and brains and muscles of black people work and it’s all just like you said - just reflexes.
  • Tell him that the reason why he insists that black people are fully human boils down to his emotional need to believe that, and because the authorities he chooses to follow tell him so.
Anyway I think you get the drift. Then remind him that there was once a time when people thought that black people weren’t really human.
 
Confrontation should probably be kept to a minimum. We of course have logic on our sides that a fetus is a true human being. But man doesn’t live on logic alone.

Humans needs compassion and connection, not isolation and arguing. I’m convinced that most people that advocate abortion do so because they truly believe they are being compassionate to the woman in tough positions. Perhaps you would need to bring him to visit a woman and children’s shelter, if a nearby shelter offers such visits. Would any of the woman be less poor if they’d aborted their child? Would any of these woman feel less lonely without their children?

Being prolife has to be more than just arguing. It has to foster stronger connections between people, between society and the vulnerable, to life and God Himself.
 
In case this helps a bit, I’ll share my reasoning for rejecting abortion. I came to my conclusions as a teenager with no theological reasoning.

There must be a time when a life becomes human. Becomes a person.

What are the possibilities?
  • Conception is the first possible moment.
  • Birth is another possibility.
  • Or perhaps when a child is able to fend for his or herself.
  • A fourth occasion might be attaining the ‘age of reason’, however a person wants to define that.
Of those possibilities only two seem remotely justifiable: Birth or conception.
All stages in between these two are merely gradual changes as the baby develops. (There is nothing special about, say, the start of the third trimester. There is no ‘one moment’ when one can suddenly be sure that the ‘foetus’ is now a child.)
The problem with using birth to mark to beginning of human life is that the baby does not change in the last few hours (days, actually) before being born. So the actual birth of a baby does not mark any change in the nature of that child.
THERE ARE ONLY TWO TIMES IN OUR PHYSICAL LIVES WHERE WE MAKE ANY CHANGE IN THE NATURE OF OUR BEING: CONCEPTION AND DEATH. All else is nothing but development and decay.
So the one and only point in our biological lives where we can consider ourselves changing from ‘a collection of cells’ into a human person is conception. There is no other major change in our being until death.

Secondly, we must remember that we are dealing with a human life. If we are not 100% sure the life we are about to kill is not human, why even consider going ahead with an abortion?

That’s how I came to understand God’s truth about the beginning of life. Decades later I became a Catholic. Now I have even more reasons!
 
Maureen Condic, professor of biochemistry, I think, has a good essay on this topic; it was published in First Things and used to be available online, but I think you may need a subscription or day pass now. Perhaps you can still find it online. Also, there are sites like Libertarians for Life/Athiests for Life who are obviously not using religiously based reasoning to come to their opposition to abortion; google Nat Hentoff and abortion for similar arguments.
 
I often wonder how to debate abortion with people who are pro abortion. I have argued with people who are involved in the aborton industry. How should I approach this? What lines of reason should I use that would be most effective?
 
matt1985 said:
I often wonder how to debate abortion with people who are pro abortion. I have argued with people who are involved in the aborton industry. How should I approach this? What lines of reason should I use that would be most effective?
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That depends on who you are debating.

Some folk even reject human exceptionalism. For them we are nothing but another animal. Therefore any argument as to whether or not abortion is murder becomes irrelevant.

Recently there was an opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen admitting that a ‘foetus’ is human but argued that this human was not a person!

If you are arguing with a ‘pro-choice’ individual that respects human life it is another matter.
Maybe some of my earlier arguments might work?
There must be a time when a life becomes human. Becomes a person.
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What are the possibilities?
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Code: 
* Conception is the first possible moment.
* Birth is another possibility.
* Or perhaps when a child is able to fend for his or herself.
* A fourth occasion might be attaining the 'age of reason', however a person wants to define that.
Click to expand...
Of those possibilities only two seem remotely justifiable: Birth or conception.
All stages in between these two are merely gradual changes as the baby develops. (There is nothing special about, say, the start of the third trimester. There is no ‘one moment’ when one can suddenly be sure that the ‘foetus’ is now a child.)
The problem with using birth to mark to beginning of human life is that the baby does not change in the last few hours (days, actually) before being born. So the actual birth of a baby does not mark any change in the nature of that child.
THERE ARE ONLY TWO TIMES IN OUR PHYSICAL LIVES WHERE WE MAKE ANY CHANGE IN THE NATURE OF OUR BEING: CONCEPTION AND DEATH. All else is nothing but development and decay.
So the one and only point in our biological lives where we can consider ourselves changing from ‘a collection of cells’ into a human person is conception. There is no other major change in our being until death.
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It always seems to me that one SHOULD be able to argue: If we are not 100% sure that an foetus is not human than how can we possibly excuse killing it?

Another challenge is to get them to change their language and outlook.
Abortion is NOT a ‘woman’s issue’. It has nothing to do with ‘women’s rights’. It has EVERYTHING to do with HUMAN RIGHTS.
Abortion itself is a word that softens the reality. No matter what your perspective, this ‘medical procedure’ is plain and simple KILLING. Killing of what is the real issue, but when hidden by words such as foetus, termination, medical procedure, etc, it masks the reality.
I could go on but it’s getting late. I hope you can find something here that helps you in your own thinking.

Reg.
 
JackVk said:
Also, The AMA discovered that men who masturbate regularly during their teens, 20s, and 30s, are more likely to get prostate cancer later in life.
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I agree with you about the morality of masturbation. But, what test shows this? Where’s the publication?
 
Having read that link, it seems to me that the study quoted cannot be used to prove or disprove the argument about self-abuse and the potential medical dangers thereof, since the results that it shows can be used to promote either a positive or a negative point of view depending on which interpretation you prefer.

So, in that respect, it’s not supportable to make an objective statement that masturbation is automatically medically bad for you. It might be, but then again, it might not be.

Of course none of this has anything to do with the moral aspect, which is what the Church is concerned with.
 
DexUK said:
Of course none of this has anything to do with the moral aspect, which is what the Church is concerned with.
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I’m just trying to put forth a secular argument for the people who say they “don’t believe in morals”. Prostate cancer runs in my family (my grandpa and dad both had it in the last 10 years and made a full recovery).

Another thing is that when the body needs to release semen, it does it automatically, which is why we have wet dreams.
 
JackVk said:
Another thing is that when the body needs to release semen, it does it automatically, which is why we have wet dreams.
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Is this really true?

My body hasn’t released any semen for years.
My last wet dream occurred about 35 years ago.

I am in perfect health, but my station in life precludes any sexual activity. This body has no need to release semen, unless it leaks out somehow.
 
On abortion: from the moment of conception, the being in question is a unique individual of the species homo sapiens. That’s biological science, not theology.

When you dissect a cat fetus in biology, it is called a “cat fetus” because it already has the species felis domesticus. If you cut up a pig fetus instead, they don’t call it a “cat fetus”. They actually call it a “pig fetus”, because it already has the species sus scrofa domestica. That’s just the science of it.

If I’ve got a unique individual of the species homo sapiens, and in fact one which is undergoing metabolic processes, then I’ve got a human life. So abortion would be killing it. Reinforced by the fact that a “failed abortion” is one in which the fetus… wait for it… survives.

You don’t have to mention religion at all during that debate. Abortion is killing a unique individual of the human species. And one that hasn’t done anything wrong. So what do you call it when an innocent human life is taken?
 
Perhaps you should show this person the facts on abortion. You can get the facts from abortionfacts.com/. Some facts you might want to point out to him is that the heart begins to beat at only 18 days, brain waves can be recorded at 40 days, the eye, ear and respiratory systems begin to form at 4 weeks, thumb sucking has been photographed at 7 weeks, by 8 weeks all body systems are present, at 9-10 weeks he squints, swallows, moves his tongue, and if you stroke his palm, will make a tight fist, by 11-12 weeks he is breathing fluid, by 11 weeks all body systems are working, and by 8 weeks the unborn baby can feel pain! And let’s not forget to keep in mind that the vast majority of abortions (88.8%) occur within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Only 10% occur from week 13 to week 20 and only 1.2% occur from week 22 onwards! The medical facts clearly demonstrate that the unborn baby is a human being, an actual living person. Religion tells us that this living person has a soul. Science can tell us that it is sentient as well and many people believe that sentience defines when the baby gets its soul. Of course, that is not true. The unborn baby gets its soul at conception (the moment the sperm and egg unite). 🙂
 
JackVk said:
Also, The AMA discovered that men who masturbate regularly during their teens, 20s, and 30s, are more likely to get prostate cancer later in life.
Click to expand...
Can you link me to that study? I have heard the opposite actually.
 
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