So what should a Catholic reaction to the Alabama abortion ban be?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RealisticCatholic
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I agree abortion is rarely abstract. In fact, it’s often so ugly that we want it to be abstract.

Take the poor child above. My heart bleeds for her. She has been violated in the worst possible ways.

But we need to be very clear, abortion doesn’t ‘fix’ things. Abortion doesn’t make her assault go away. Abortion doesn’t somehow make this horrific crime better. At absolute best, it’s a blindfold over the consequences of what happened.

What we need here isn’t ‘better access to abortion’. What we need in this instance is as much therapy and as much human love and support as this little girl needs. What we need is to change the culture to minimize these horrors as much as we can, not add a horror to a horror so we can forget the first one faster.

Saying we need abortion because of rape to me is like saying ‘we need to keep the slaves on the plantation because if they are free they might get lynched’. No, just no. What we need is no slavery and a policy of preventing lynching.
 
I just said so.

Now give me an argument to the contrary. Or else you’re just asserting.
 
Last edited:
Most people aren’t ready for these things when they happen. These are the things that make people strong and courageous in the first place.
 
What we need is to change the culture to minimize these horrors as much as we can, not add a horror to a horror so we can forget the first one faster.
Click to expand...
Exactly what I’m saying.

My point is that the Alabama abortion law, in itself, is not enough. Let’s look at why women have abortions, and try to fix that, too.

Should abortion be outlawed? I think we can answer that better when we also look at how else we are helping women.
 
Actually, OP, I had a similar reaction, let me explain.
I’ve been prolife all my life, sign petitions and write to congress members and prayed outside abortion clinics.
But when I first heard about the law being proposed, I had a momentary sense of panic, like uh-oh, the spit is gonna hit the fan.

And you know what?

Bring it.

Notbody ever thought the pro-legalized-abortion side would roll over and say “well, gee whiz, okay then “

I’m actually energized that Alabama had the guts to attempt this 🙂
 
Last edited:
I’m nervous about the Alabama bill because it might be over-reach. I’m nervous because if it goes to the supreme court and it gets badly beaten we could be set back.

Roe v. Wade was a disaster for this nation on a host of levels. It dehumanized a swath of human beings and made their lives worthless. It threw federalism in the trash and replaced it with a dodgy constitutional interpretation; and in doing so created a ‘right’ that people are now loathe to give up because they associate it with their own personal freedom.

We have been making progress at the State level. I like the heartbeat bills. Heck, I like the Alabama bill. But it makes me nervous.
 
I have also heard that women are statistically more likely to forget the rape than the abortion. In the end, abortion doesn’t help anyone.
 
OP, it seems your problem is is that we don’t have the complete answer yet. But, very rarely do we have a complete solution to anything right away. But, we must not let that paralyze us. The longer we wait, the more lives will be lost.
 
As an Alabamian, I’m quite proud of what my state has accomplished. We don’t often have reason to celebrate the crap that comes out of Montgomery, but this is really something. I applaud Terri Collins and Gov. Ivey for their leadership in spite of this ridiculous misnomer that it was “a couple dozen old white men who decided to take charge of women’s reproductive health.”

As for the subject of rape, my thoughts are this, and I try to be as empathetic as possible: The execution of an innocent child doesn’t make a rape right and doesn’t heal the victim. A child of rape doesn’t create the possibility of another rapist or an inherently evil person (which is the absurd belief of some.) The rape victim will mourn and suffer the effects of what happened to her for the rest of her life. Don’t you think that would be made even harder if, on top of the tragedy of what happened to her at the hands of a rapist, she also had to mourn the death of her innocent baby because she had been made to feel that to keep, or even carry, the product of a rape is something monstrous or ridiculous? That the termination of a child of rape is “just what you do?” If we had a better safety net for rape & incest victims and, better yet, a culture that wasn’t so enamored by sexual depravity and miseducation and nihilism, this would obviously be easier to accomplish. That’s not something that can be done with a single bill.

But this is a start. :+1:t2:
 
I think Alabama has the right end in mind, but not careful enough it enacting it. As @Jimbo says, it might be an over-reach at this point.

I also understand the argument that we must all we can to stop horrendous evil. I get that too. So it’s hard. We must end evil. We must prevent it in all ways we can. But there are associated evils with abortion, too, like poverty that must be addressed at the same time.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
I’m pro-life and accept Catholic teaching on abortion.

In addition, I think abortion is inherently evil under any circumstances. (Of course, this says nothing about personal culpability. And this doesn’t mean abortion can’t be a difficult and complicated decision for some people. That an act is evil doesn’t mean it’s always easy to avoid.)

All that said, I almost have a hard time being excited about the new Alabama bill, because I’m seeing so much criticism about it. I don’t know how to sort through the good and the bad. Abortion is an evil, yes. But there will always be women who want abortion. How do we limit abortion? Is the best solution simply to ban all abortion all at once?

Is there a better Catholic response to this law?

I don’t want to sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about — like on social media and so on. For example, I keep seeing things about rape and so on. But are most abortions even due to rape? Maybe there should be a rape exception. I don’t know.
Click to expand...
A law banning the procedure is a great start but it is a first step only, it is not going to stop abortion completely on its own. Ending abortion will mean women who are pregnant and desperate know there is somewhere to turn - there are people and services out there that will care for her and give her the support that she and her child need and therefore will use those services.

It’s important to help these women understand that the abortion industry and their apologists couldn’t care less about them. They use them and that’s it. They wrap themselves up in women’s empowerment and faux-feminism but it’s all for show, they really don’t give a crap about women. Never have. And never will. Our Church does and is doing an amazing job giving these women the support they desperately need.
 
Last edited:
RealisticCatholic said:
Should abortion be outlawed? I think we can answer that better when we also look at how else we are helping women
Click to expand...
That might sound fine with abortion being the word you’re using, but try replacing it with murder - which is what abortion is.
 
I get what you are saying. I used to be more along those lines myself. But the fact is that the unborn are unquestionably human and alive, and that they are being killed at a tremendous rate.

We wouldn’t allow this in any other instance. We wouldn’t say ‘well, sex slavery is horrible, but before we outlaw it we need to make sure that the people who resort to enslaving others have other options’. We wouldn’t say ‘Child abuse sucks, but before we outlaw it, we need to make sure we are doing something for the abusers.’.

Now abortion is different than these in that, very sadly, many of these women are misinformed about the humanity of the children growing in them. They do what they do often not out of malice but out of ignorance. Admittedly sometimes that ignorance is willful, but it is still there; and easy to understand in an american culture where the dehumanization of the unborn is pervasive. I read an economist article yesterday where the writer said something to the effect of ‘Republicans are making the claim that the fetus is a human being’. I’m sure they meant ‘person’ but it just shows you how bad things have gotten.

So, should we outlaw it? Hell yes.

At the same time, we should take steps to make sure we care for those women.

And, as Catholics, we have to try hard to change the culture.
 
My body, my choice. The man gets to disappear. That is irresponsible. And “a woman’s right to choose” leaves the man out of it. Yes, there are situations where the man threatens to leave if the woman decides to have an abortion.
 
Nobody is arguing that we shouldn’t address those and there are already people working hard at those ends. The people who say that pro-lifers don’t care about poverty clearly have not been involved in the pro-life movement.
 
Both my child and I would be in therapy (with a catholic therapist who is sympathetic) to help work our way through this tragedy, as I would need help with this scenario. Assuming that I am present when the diagnosis is presented to my child, I would tell the ER doctors that our family is devoutly catholic, ask for their suggestions for therapy, and focus on treating the most daunting injuries before worrying about the possible pregnancy. I’m pretty sure that rates of pregnancy from rape are pretty low, so… I’m be on my knees praying that we weren’t one of the positives.
 
Right. But most people understand what murder is. If abortion was clearly murder, there wouldn’t be as big of a controversy.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
I’m pro-life. Abortion is inherently evil in every case.

But:
Click to expand...
So you say “abortion is inherently evil in every case” then add a BUT. You can not take a position like that and then try to add some sort of qualifier. Either you are pro life or pro choice there is no middle of the road.
 
It would be a contradition if I said “abortion is inherently evil in every case, BUT it is not inherently evil in every case.”

No.

The “but” is for the sake of illustrating that you can agree to something in the abstract have a hard way determining how to proceed in practice.

Just look up Aquinas and prostitution, for example.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
But that is different from saying the best way to stop abortion is simply to ban them all.
Click to expand...
would you say the best way to stop murder is to make it illegal? Sure some people will still commit murder but I’m pretty sure the amount is very limited based on its illegality.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top