Should Abortion be illegal?

[SFTor]

Actually, they define what is legal.
Not what is murder.

The fact that they have narrowed the law enough to exclude the unborn in this law does not mean murder has not taken place.
It simply means that the law does not cover this particular murder.

Again, I have to put in my two cents here.

In Classical times, the religious document of a particular culture most likely contained the law. This was the case with Israel in classical times. The Holy Book was the foundation of the law, and in many cases it was the law. (The reason I say many cases was that much of Israelite law was an oral tradition.)

In the United States of today this is no longer the case. With the Establishment and Exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution, American life, and American Law, was made secular. The lawgivers and courts of the United States do not observe any religion. They make the laws based on legal tradition and social norms, just like the old Israelites did, but without a religious superstructure.

The lawgivers of the United States act from the same authority, and the same legal depth, as the classical Israelite judges. They are just not part of a religious organization.

I get the sense on this forum that most people are patriots. Many support the war in Iraq for instance, which in my mind requires no small measure of patriotism. The laws of the United States play a substantial role in making the country what it is, and it is part and parcel of what makes us Americans. They cannot be written off as insignificant or trivial, or be discounted out of hand because they disagree with our religious beliefs.

So also with our criminal laws such as they are, and the right to to terminate a pregnancy.

Respectfully,

Tor

 

[aspawloski4th]

Aspalowski:

Please learn to argue your case without casting aspersions on the words of someone who disagrees with you.

The point is not that there are atheist right-to-lifers, the point is that not everyone believes like you do.

It doesn’t make them bad people.

Respectfully,

Tor

You casted aspersions when you divided the seculer and Catholic. I just responded to that aspersion. I also took away you implied aspersion that this is a religous issue .

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

And who has the final word on natural law, mapleoak?

Best,

Tor

Tor - What you and I refer to as the Natural Law, is nothing other than the 10 commandments reduced to writing. As such, God would have the final word.

Since you are a professed atheist, let me ask you some simple questions and I would be interested in your answer. Lets say, you have a Rolex watch on your wrist. Could this just happen. Its parts, the case, the band, everything that makes it up. Or look at an atomic submarine or the Saturn 5 that took man to the moon, Could these just happen without any outside intervention. Most would logically say no, these could not just happen. Now look at the human person. It can grow and develop and reproduce itself . It can heal itself when broken. It can help heal others when they cannot heal themselves. It can communicate with other human beings. it can understand abstract ideas. It can even make these things which of themselves could not just happen. Could something as marvelous as the human just happen, from nothing. Those of us who say no to this last question, identify God as the author, creator. How would you explain these things?

Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B

 

[vz71]

Murder is actually quite narrowly defined in most countries, and certainly in the United States.

Well I see in the definition that murder involves an unlawful act.
Which would give one the wiggle room needed to say that murder is not what happens during an abortion. but then we have to ask ourselves…
So which law is paramount? The law of God or the law of Man?

 

[fix]

Here’s an interesting little piece that has just crossed my desk, courtesy of my own sweet daughter:

“If they’re defining life as starting at conception, then God is the world’s biggest abortion provider, considering only one out of every six fertilized eggs manages to sort itself out enough to implant and, after that, about a quarter of those implantations wind up miscarrying. That means God himself personally takes out 87.5%of precious conceived human souls.”

Thoughts?

marietta

Would you not think there is a vast moral difference between a spontaneous abortion and direct abortion? One is an act of nature and one is willed by a human.

 

[Spirithound]

I get the sense on this forum that most people are patriots. Many support the war in Iraq for instance, which in my mind requires no small measure of patriotism. The laws of the United States play a substantial role in making the country what it is, and it is part and parcel of what makes us Americans. They cannot be written off as insignificant or trivial, or be discounted out of hand because they disagree with our religious beliefs.

So also with our criminal laws such as they are, and the right to to terminate a pregnancy.

Patriotism is not simply accepting the country as it is. You need to work to make it better.

 

[vz71]

Patriotism is not simply accepting the country as it is. You need to work to make it better.

Indeed Patriotism is working to make the country better.

 

[KathleenElsie]

allhers:

My daughter did not compose the piece you refer to; she simply drew my attention to it as an interesting viewpoint.

By the way, she is a Jewish convert, so you can get off her case and mine with the Humanae Vitae and all that other Vatican jazz.

I have encouraged her to talk with me about God in any manner she has wished since she was old enough to put two words together. I believe in freedom of religion and she has chosen a path which satisfies her soul in a way Catholicism never could or would.

Just a little update for you.

marietta

You are on a Catholic Web Site. You will in most cases get Catholic teachings and Vat II information no matter what you want to hear.
PAX

 

[Annie_B]

Yes, it should be illegal, because it is murder. Murder is supposed to be illegal, but it is obvious that not all murder is…
Annie

 

[SFTor]

Well I see in the definition that murder involves an unlawful act.
Which would give one the wiggle room needed to say that murder is not what happens during an abortion. but then we have to ask ourselves…
So which law is paramount? The law of God or the law of Man?

In the United States it is the laws of the United States.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

In the United States it is the laws of the United States.

The Christian is not just a ‘citizen’ of the United States, or Canada, or wherever.

The Christian owes allegiance to God first of all. No ‘secular law’ which contradicts the Divine Law is ‘paramount’ or ‘trumps’ the Divine Law.

That being said, we (just as any U.S. citizen) have the obligation to seek to ‘change’ any unjust law by whatever legal means possible. Further, we have the right to ‘disobey’ that ‘secular law’ if we accept the ‘secular’ legal consequences.

Since as Christians our moral laws include “Thou shalt not kill” we may not, to right a law which is complicit in the killing of innocent beings, murder other beings. Therefore as a Christian I cannot go out and bomb abortion clinics.

However, I can peacefully demonstrate in front of them, recite the rosary, minister to the women by offering help, etc.

If necessary, as the good Dr. Martin Luther King Jrs’ followers did a generation ago, I can participate in sit-down strikes, protest marches, etc. If in doing so I transgress a law of trespass, I would then be subject to legal sanctions. It has not yet come to the point that I personally would do so but if it does, I would follow the Divine Law even if I transgressed an ‘unjust secular law’ in doing so. . .and I would abide by the legal sanctions of that transgression.

And we do know, of course, that secular laws ‘change’. 40 years ago, Tor, I could have tried to walk into an OB-GYN office that offered abortion and have been arrested, under ‘the laws of the United States.’ Today, I would not be. Such mutable and changeable law is opposed to the Divine Law which is unchanging. . .not ‘black’ one day and ‘white’ the next at the whim of fallible humanity.

 

[SFTor]

Tor - What you and I refer to as the Natural Law, is nothing other than the 10 commandments reduced to writing. As such, God would have the final word.

Since you are a professed atheist, let me ask you some simple questions and I would be interested in your answer. Lets say, you have a Rolex watch on your wrist. Could this just happen. Its parts, the case, the band, everything that makes it up. Or look at an atomic submarine or the Saturn 5 that took man to the moon, Could these just happen without any outside intervention. Most would logically say no, these could not just happen. Now look at the human person. It can grow and develop and reproduce itself . It can heal itself when broken. It can help heal others when they cannot heal themselves. It can communicate with other human beings. it can understand abstract ideas. It can even make these things which of themselves could not just happen. Could something as marvelous as the human just happen, from nothing. Those of us who say no to this last question, identify God as the author, creator. How would you explain these things?

Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B

Deacon:

My understanding is that people are the most complex of the creatures we see around us today, mostly because of our brain.

I believe humans developed from simpler life forms over time. As I am not religious, I don’t have the option of saying that we have a soul. I think we have a brain.

I don’t think we can conclude that certain parts of the human body could only have been “designed” by a creator. The eye for instance exists in a variety of executions in nature—everything from simple light-sensitive cells, via eyes that resemble primitive box cameras (squid), to the amazingly acute eyes of a falcon or a vulture, to the middling human eye (not very good at one thing, pretty good at most things), has evolved from simpler types over the course of natural history.

Best,

Tor

 

[SFTor]

Patriotism is not simply accepting the country as it is. You need to work to make it better.

I agree 100%.

 

[SFTor]

The Christian is not just a ‘citizen’ of the United States, or Canada, or wherever.

The Christian owes allegiance to God first of all. No ‘secular law’ which contradicts the Divine Law is ‘paramount’ or ‘trumps’ the Divine Law.

That being said, we (just as any U.S. citizen) have the obligation to seek to ‘change’ any unjust law by whatever legal means possible. Further, we have the right to ‘disobey’ that ‘secular law’ if we accept the ‘secular’ legal consequences.

Since as Christians our moral laws include “Thou shalt not kill” we may not, to right a law which is complicit in the killing of innocent beings, murder other beings. Therefore as a Christian I cannot go out and bomb abortion clinics.

However, I can peacefully demonstrate in front of them, recite the rosary, minister to the women by offering help, etc.

If necessary, as the good Dr. Martin Luther King Jrs’ followers did a generation ago, I can participate in sit-down strikes, protest marches, etc. If in doing so I transgress a law of trespass, I would then be subject to legal sanctions. It has not yet come to the point that I personally would do so but if it does, I would follow the Divine Law even if I transgressed an ‘unjust secular law’ in doing so. . .and I would abide by the legal sanctions of that transgression.

And we do know, of course, that secular laws ‘change’. 40 years ago, Tor, I could have tried to walk into an OB-GYN office that offered abortion and have been arrested, under ‘the laws of the United States.’ Today, I would not be. Such mutable and changeable law is opposed to the Divine Law which is unchanging. . .not ‘black’ one day and ‘white’ the next at the whim of fallible humanity.

Human Laws change, this is true. It is a necessary part of providing meaningful rules to a changing society. Imagine an internet privacy law 50 years ago.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Imagine an internet privacy law 50 years ago

Imagine one 50 years from now. . .if indeed ‘privacy’ as we know it even exists in that society. . .we may indeed not have ‘privacy’ by that time due to technology which would permit us to be under surveillance physically 24/7, and our actions monitored 24/7. . .

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

Deacon:

My understanding is that people are the most complex of the creatures we see around us today, mostly because of our brain.

I believe humans developed from simpler life forms over time. As I am not religious, I don’t have the option of saying that we have a soul. I think we have a brain.

I don’t think we can conclude that certain parts of the human body could only have been “designed” by a creator. The eye for instance exists in a variety of executions in nature—everything from simple light-sensitive cells, via eyes that resemble primitive box cameras (squid), to the amazingly acute eyes of a falcon or a vulture, to the middling human eye (not very good at one thing, pretty good at most things), has evolved from simpler types over the course of natural history.

Best,

Tor

So where did all this matter, this stuff come from. If we evolved from it, where did it come from. Did it always exist. To say that it always was, just inert matter defies common sense. What is its origin.
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B

 

[mapleoak]

In the United States it is the laws of the United States.

It is very dangerous indeed to blindly follow the law of the land. Need some examples?

 

[SFTor]

So where did all this matter, this stuff come from. If we evolved from it, where did it come from. Did it always exist. To say that it always was, just inert matter defies common sense. What is its origin.
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B

We have never seen anything disappear or come into existence. The only thing we have ever observed is change. Change from grass to cows, sunlight and CH2 and nitrogen into plants, etc. etc. No human being has ever, and I mean ever, seen something created from nothing.

Respectfully,

Tor

 

[SFTor]

It is very dangerous indeed to blindly follow the law of the land. Need some examples?

Sure, let’s see what you have in mind.

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

We have never seen anything disappear or come into existence. The only thing we have ever observed is change. Change from grass to cows, sunlight and CH2 and nitrogen into plants, etc. etc. No human being has ever, and I mean ever, seen something created from nothing.

Respectfully,

Tor

So you are saying matter has always existed and has no origin?
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B