So...should artificial birth control be illegal too?

[flyingfish]

@Flyingfish, hopefully with enough font size to get a reply.

So, would you support taking all children away from poor, young women and putting them in a foster home? If not, why would you support killing them?

To all those in support of abortion, if this isn’t a human, what is ist?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/4dsonogram.jpg/120px-4dsonogram.jpg

Have we discovered some new species of life?

This is an idea called eugenics. Would you also support forced sterilization of poor women? Maybe we could all put them in a camp somewhere? It would be the final solution to crime.

Of course not, I don’t think anyone should be forced to get sterilized or have an abortion. I was simply responding to someone’s comment about unwanted children. I don’t think decreasing crime is worth limiting people’s freedoms, I’d rather live in a society that had both freedom and crime.

 

[JRKH]

“Seperation of church and state” (This phrase is not found in the constitution, BTW) means that there cannot be a fusion of the church and the government, like what happens in England with the Anglican church. It does not mean that there cannot be religiously motivated laws. For instance, the fight against slavery was largely religiously motivated. Was the fight against slavery unconstitutional? Was the 13th ammendment unconstitutional?

Rather than say there can be “religiously motivated laws”, I would say that each American has the right,“act on their conscience”, to lobby and vote in ways that reflect that conscience. If that conscience sees abortion as murder, then they have the right to speak out on this, vote for Pro-life candidates, and lobby their government to stop the killing of innocent children. If enough Americans believe that Abortion is murder then two things will occur.

1. The number of abortions (legal or illegal) will fall,
2. The Laws will be likely be changed to either severly restrict abortion or to make it completely illegal.

It is simply a matter which side of an argument gains enough the individual consciences to effect the action of the collective conscience.

Peace
James

 

[Jermosh]

Adultry is already illegal in civil cases to an extent.

 

[Jermosh]

The back alley abortion is a myth. Prior to Roe the maternal deaths from lllegal abortions was less than 400 a year. 92% of all abortions were perfromed by a licensed physician in a sterile enviroment.

So what has been the result of legalizing abortion? The number of children killed a year has increasd from 400,000 a year to over 1.2 million a year.

It is interesting that whenever somneone makes the “legal abortion saves lives argument” they always leave the child out of the eqaution.

I tried to look this up, but not finding any credible sources. Where are you getting this number from?

 

[kage_ar]

I tried to look this up, but not finding any credible sources. Where are you getting this number from?

The best place for these statistics is the Center for Disease Control (and other gov’t medical reporting groups) and Planned Parenthood aka Guttmacher institute.

Google will also bring this up as one of the first links (cites the studies)

abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them_both_21.asp#You mean all maternal deaths from abortion are not reported?

U.S. BUREAU OF VITAL STATISTICS CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL

Reported Maternal Deaths from YEAR Illegal Abortion in U.S.

1940 1,679
1950 316
1960 289
1966 120 First State Legalized in 1967
1970 128
1972 39 Supreme Court Decision in 1973
1977 21
1981 8

 

[estesbob]

I tried to look this up, but not finding any credible sources. Where are you getting this number from?

Abortion;: The myths, the realities, and the arguments by Germain Gabriel Grisez

I am out of he office this week fso i dont have acess to my copy perhaps you local library has a copy. Her book is heavily footnoted and substatiates all the numbers she gives.

As far as materal deaths:

Year Deaths
1940 1,407
945 744
1950 631
1955 224
1960 251
1965 201
1970 119
Source: “Induced termination of pregnancy before and after Roe v. Wade” JAMA, 12/9/92, vol. 208, no. 22, p. 3231-3239.

 

[SugarMagnolia]

There are some who believe it causes abortion, right?

What about adultery and divorce…should they be illegal too…since those things go against Church teaching as well?

No, you cannot force Catholic morals on non-Catholics.

There’s a difference between morality and legality. Sometimes morality and legality agree on a topic (e.g. stealing), but sometimes they do not. For example, driving on the left side of the road is illegal in the USA but that doesn’t make driving on the left side of the road immoral. Laws are for the smooth functioning of society. Society cannot function smoothly if private property is not protected from theft or if people do not agree to only drive on one, arbitrarily chosen, side of the road.

If ABC is unavailable, abortions will increase because unwanted pregnancies will increase. If abortion is illegal those who are determined to get them will get them illegally which will increase the incidence of malpractice.

Personally, I think it’s really going too far to tell non-Catholics that they can’t use condoms. I’m often surprised by the number of people on these boards who want to criminalize condoms. You can’t claim condoms are murder because the sperm never gets anywhere near an egg. If non-Catholics want to use condoms, telling them they can’t is tantamount to forced conversion.

I think adultery is already technically illegal, which is why it’s grounds for divorce in states that do not have no-fault divorce. It’s just one of those things that’s nearly impossible to prove.

I think making divorce illegal will result in more cohabiting and less marriages. Many people will prefer to live together than get married because then they could break up if they want to. So, criminalizing divorce would not increase morality.

 

[puzzleannie]

There are some who believe it causes abortion, right?

What about adultery and divorce…should they be illegal too…since those things go against Church teaching as well?

they used to be, until the 60s, so were homosexual acts. On my college campus in the 60s a couple as arrested for giving a lecture on the Pill to a group of women who included minors (under 21 at that time). so thank the “sexual revolution”

 

[SugarMagnolia]

Abortion;: The myths, the realities, and the arguments by Germain Gabriel Grisez

I am out of he office this week fso i dont have acess to my copy perhaps you local library has a copy. Her book is heavily footnoted and substatiates all the numbers she gives.

As far as materal deaths:

Year Deaths
1940 1,407
945 744
1950 631
1955 224
1960 251
1965 201
1970 119
Source: “Induced termination of pregnancy before and after Roe v. Wade” JAMA, 12/9/92, vol. 208, no. 22, p. 3231-3239.

When abortion was illegal the cause of death was often fudged.
Women going to ERs would not admit they had had an illegal abortion for fear of being reported to the authorities, so they would simply be considered miscarrying.
Abortion was not the type of crime that it would be possible to get accurate statistics about.

 

[kage_ar]

No, you cannot force Catholic morals on non-Catholics.

There’s a difference between morality and legality. Sometimes morality and legality agree on a topic (e.g. stealing), but sometimes they do not. For example, driving on the left side of the road is illegal in the USA but that doesn’t make driving on the left side of the road immoral. Laws are for the smooth functioning of society. Society cannot function smoothly if private property is not protected from theft or if people do not agree to only drive on one, arbitrarily chosen, side of the road.

If ABC is unavailable, abortions will increase because unwanted pregnancies will increase. If abortion is illegal those who are determined to get them will get them illegally which will increase the incidence of malpractice.

Personally, I think it’s really going too far to tell non-Catholics that they can’t use condoms. I’m often surprised by the number of people on these boards who want to criminalize condoms. You can’t claim condoms are murder because the sperm never gets anywhere near an egg. If non-Catholics want to use condoms, telling them they can’t is tantamount to forced conversion.

I think adultery is already technically illegal, which is why it’s grounds for divorce in states that do not have no-fault divorce. It’s just one of those things that’s nearly impossible to prove.

I think making divorce illegal will result in more cohabiting and less marriages. Many people will prefer to live together than get married because then they could break up if they want to. So, criminalizing divorce would not increase morality.

Yeah!

And there are people who believe that sex with minors is okay, so, we should make THAT legal. Don’t forget rape - there are rapists who believe that rape is a good thing, if we legalize rape, the number of reports for that crime will drop.

 

[Christopher68]

Yeah!

And there are people who believe that sex with minors is okay, so, we should make THAT legal. Don’t forget rape - there are rapists who believe that rape is a good thing, if we legalize rape, the number of reports for that crime will drop.

The above reply is a bit smarmy and condescending. Surely you know the difference between acts that occur between consenting adults and those acts where people have not consented???

 

[Fidelis_Unus]

Adultery is illegal in Oklahoma, with a potential punishment of up to five years in prison.

Defintion by Oklahoma statute:

oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=69410

Penalty by Oklahoma statute:

oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=69411

If only we could enforce it.

Interesting to note that it says “intercourse of a married person with one of the opposite sex”, so apparently same sex relations are safe. Reminds me of chaperoning a public school Jr. High dance. It was ok for the girls to slow dance and other types of lewd dancing as long as they did it with eachother and not with the boys!

I’ll take the morality of the Church over such backwards, harmful interpretations any day.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Just as a gentle point: There is no such thing as “Catholic morality” and “nonCatholic Morality” in the sense that Catholics, say, have one ‘teaching’ that is not to be held as authoritative by ‘nonCatholics’.

The so-called “Catholic morality” is, in fact, the ‘only’ morality. (Catholic means universal and there’s a reason we are called Catholics). Thus, we are all held to this ‘universal’ teaching of God. Naturally we are free to accept OR reject the teaching. (plenty of Catholics do indeed reject teachings though God grant that they repent and strive to live all those teachings if they have ‘fallen’ at a previous time)

Condom use is not moral. . .not just for Catholics but for nonCatholics too. It deprives the sexual act of a necessary function (procreative). Furthermore, if it is used as a secondary ‘protection’ against an STD, while the intent may seem good and laudable, the means is not. Slapping a condom onto the problem of rape, AIDS, etc. does NOT address the root cause, and in fact makes the situation worse. How many people think that so long as a condom is used it’s ‘all right’ to have ‘mutual sex’ outside of marriage (because since you won’t ‘be punished with a child’ it’s all good? It’s not!)

Sure, we’ll have Catholics jumping on the bandwagon and bleating that they’ll never ‘impose THEIR morality’ on another. oppycock. Apparently it hasn’t occured to them (and I am NOT directing this at any poster, but making a general observation here) that by kowtowing to the ‘relativist’ who bleats ‘I can’t impose’, they are letting THOSE people impose THEIR beliefs onto us Catholics! (think about that for a minute.) Imposition is apparently ‘wrong’ unless it’s imposing whatever society (not God but 'society) deems is ‘right.’

 

[Fidelis_Unus]

There are some who believe it causes abortion, right?

Yes, chemical birth control can be, and often is, abortifacient. No, they should not be illegal, because there are other medical reasons to use birth control.

Abortion is a moral issue. Morality drives our laws. It is an issue of humanity. What kind of society gleefully kills their offspring? and, yes, some are gleeful. For some the issue is religious, as well. For me, my religion dictates that I do something about all the women who are suffering. The damage to women and to society is chilling to me.

Here is one example: ** warning this is not a pleasant read **
yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2008/04/17/for-senior-abortion-a-medium-for-art-political-dis/. What have we become that this is allowed, much less lauded? If someone did the same things with the aborted fetuses of seals, dogs, whatever there would screaming and yelling. This went rather silently along. Is this humane?

How bad to things have to get for we as a society, to realize that we are deteriorating, rather than progressing? Are we not unhappy enough yet?

It would be wonderful if no one felt the need to use it for any other cause. It harms women in many ways. That is why many of us are trying to help women who are pregnant to keep their babies are be able to put them up for adoption. Now … this always seems to be turned as my forcing women to keep their baby, I pray that I am not misrepresented here. Women need a true choice and should receive help, so that killing a child is not necessary. Too many women are suffering every day.

but, yes, abortion most certainly should be illegal, though it is hard to imagine undoing the mess that we have on our hands.

*The humane thing to do as a society is to protect all innocent and helpless life.
*

What about adultery and divorce…should they be illegal too…since those things go against Church teaching as well?

Adultery and divorce do not take the life of another human being and therein lies the difference. Besides, just to be clear, I have not heard a person who is Pro-Life say that women should be punished for attempting to procure an abortion, only that providers be held responsible for their actions, which result in the end of a life.

Even the infamous Margaret Sanger decried abortion as both barbaric and a horror and referred to abortionists as “Blood-sucking men with M.D. after their names who perform operations for the price of so-i-so.” She called it “the kiilling of babies” and an “outrageous slaughter”.

 

[Fidelis_Unus]

Yeah!

And there are people who believe that sex with minors is okay, so, we should make THAT legal. Don’t forget rape - there are rapists who believe that rape is a good thing, if we legalize rape, the number of reports for that crime will drop.

SugarMagnolia,
I hope that such comments will not discourage you from asking questions and having discussions. I believe this was said to illustrate a point, perhaps using strong examples, and that point may be that if you discount Christianity (upon which most people’s moral’s original grew from), WHAT morality do you use? It simply becomes a free-for-all. We’ve seem to replaced the ten commandments with “If it feels good do it!”.

In fairness, as harsh as it may sound (and it does) there are men out there who gather and practice their beliefs about free love with boys, which damage young children and society (by forcing their idea of morality on us, encouraging us to be ‘more accepting’. of their “choice”. They are gaining ground, too. HOw many children suffer for this! What are we doing? You see, for me, saving these babies is exactly the same. They suffer and decency and humanity require that we fight to save them.

Do you see the dilemma?

 

[Fidelis_Unus]

The back alley abortion is a myth. Prior to Roe the maternal deaths from lllegal abortions was less than 400 a year. 92% of all abortions were perfromed by a licensed physician in a sterile enviroment.

So what has been the result of legalizing abortion? The number of children killed a year has increasd from 400,000 a year to over 1.2 million a year.

It is interesting that whenever somneone makes the “legal abortion saves lives argument” they always leave the child out of the eqaution.

True and the reality is, by nature of the sheer volume of aboritons since Roe v Wade, more women die from having an aborion, then prior to Roe v Wade, so their premise of reducing womens’ deaths failed entirely (ignoring the obvious deaths of their offspring).

 

[SugarMagnolia]

SugarMagnolia,
I hope that such comments will not discourage you from asking questions and having discussions. I believe this was said to illustrate a point, perhaps using strong examples, and that point may be that if you discount Christianity (upon which most people’s moral’s original grew from), WHAT morality do you use? It simply becomes a free-for-all. We’ve seem to replaced the ten commandments with “If it feels good do it!”.

In fairness, as harsh as it may sound (and it does) there are men out there who gather and practice their beliefs about free love with boys, which damage young children and society (by forcing their idea of morality on us, encouraging us to be ‘more accepting’. of their “choice”. They are gaining ground, too. HOw many children suffer for this! What are we doing? You see, for me, saving these babies is exactly the same. They suffer and decency and humanity require that we fight to save them.

Do you see the dilemma?

Thank you for expressing your disagreement in a civil manner. I do see the dilemma. I too am unhappy with the diminishing morals of our society. But I see a few other problems that I think are being overlooked.

There are religions other than Catholicism out there that would love to turn their morality into law. What if Islam took over and imposed their morals? We women would have to cover our faces because they believe it’s immoral for women to show their faces. We wouldn’t even be allowed to drive because they think it’s immoral. That’s why I say Catholics shouldn’t impose their morals on others; because I don’t want those other religions to force their morals on me.

The other problem I see is that we are too focused on the symptoms and not addressing the cause. If we focused our attention of eliminating unwanted pregnancies, abortion would go away by itself. This is my major objection to campaigns to stop abortion. They’re short-sighted. They focus on preventing today’s unwanted pregnancies from ending in abortion instead of focusing on the reason the unwanted pregnancies occur.

As far as contraception, there’s a difference between the pill (which is not really a contraceptive because it doesn’t prevent conception) and the condom (which does prevent conception). The fact is, people are having sex and they’re not likely to stop no matter how much our religion tells them too. There’s really no way to make fornication illegal short of putting cameras in everyone’s bedroom. Besides which, I really don’t see this as something the law should punish. There are lots of sins that are not illegal. People covet their neighbor’s stuff, people act uncharitably toward others, in short, people sin. If every sinner is put in jail there won’t be anyone left outside to hold the key. We’ve got to make our own choices; and that means we sin, we repent, and try harder to be good, we succeed partially, we sometimes mess up and have to start over, etc. So I say allowing condoms to be legal at least prevents the unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortion. Catholics have NFP and can encourage others to learn it and use it, but condoms need to be there for those who think differently.

As far as contraception, adultery, and divorce are concerned there is no loss of life or harm to a child, so they are a different story from abortion. They are indeed consenting adults making choices about their own lives. I too think it’s a problem that our society thinks nothing of adultery and divorce. I must repeat myself here. Criminalizing divorce will likely increase conhabitation because people will be more frightened of the commitment. It will also likely increase adultery when unhappy spouses cannot get out of their unhappy marriages. Instead I think we need to focus on the cause of the problem rather than the symptom. Why do people want adultery and divorce? Are they unhappily married? Why is that?

Criminalizing stuff is the easy way out. Figuring out why people are drawn to these things is the difficult question. I say we should tackle the difficult question. Maybe it’s a matter of what our ultimate goals are. Are our goals simply to eliminate abortion, contraception, adultery, and divorce? Then the easiest thing to do is create a Catholic version of Orwell’s 1984 with cameras in our bedroom. Or is our goal to make people’s lives better? Then we must tackle the difficult problem of why we do the things we do and how we can create lives that never end up needing these things in the first place.

 

[kage_ar]

The above reply is a bit smarmy and condescending. Surely you know the difference between acts that occur between consenting adults and those acts where people have not consented???

So, sin is okay if both people consent to it???

 

[kage_ar]

There are religions other than Catholicism out there that would love to turn their morality into law. What if Islam took over and imposed their morals? We women would have to cover our faces because they believe it’s immoral for women to show their faces. We wouldn’t even be allowed to drive because they think it’s immoral. That’s why I say Catholics shouldn’t impose their morals on others; because I don’t want those other religions to force their morals on me.

You make the assumption of indifferentism here. Islam is not the same as Christianity. Christianity is true, Islam is a lie. It is a lie for those who believe in it.

To be a Christian, you must accept the fact that God is right. God is truth. God’s law is universal, it applies to every living human being who will walk this planet.

So, you want to find out why people are drawn to sin?

It is because of our fallen nature.

Laws exist to help fallen man keep a form of society and order.

Without a fallen nature, there would be no need for laws against murder or rape or stealing or birth control or abortion or divorce or hatred.

We are sinners, we need laws.

 

[SugarMagnolia]

We are sinners, we need laws.

Is it virtuous to refrain from commiting a sin that is impossible to commit? No.
Virtue means you could commit the sin, but you develop the strength to resist it.
You want to eliminate sin by eliminating the possibility to sin.
You want to make it easy. Lock you in a room by yourself and you can’t fornicate.
Does that make you virtuous? No.
If that was what God wanted, he wouldn’t have given us free will.
The point of Christianity is to develop virtue.