Social Gospel

[Annie39]

No issue trumps abortion.

But there is also proximity of influence to think about. Roe v Wade was back in 1973. Since then we have had 5 “pro-life” presidents in office for 24 years not including Jimmy Carter. And from 2003 to 2006 nominal “pro-life” Republics controled House, Senate and Presidencey. What did it get us? History has shown that basing all hope on a “pro-life” candidate or office holder who can do almost nothing to change established law is a ineffective. Even a supreme court justice will honor Stare decisis, the legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedent established by prior decisions. Judging a candidate by that one issue oversimplifies the discernment of voting since there are so many other issues and policies that office holders have much greater, if not total, proximity of influence. That being said, I admit that many of those policies can involve “availibility” of abortion services. But there are other issues over which whoever is president has a great deal of control that must be considered in the discernemnt.

I think the Catholic position is that it is a grave sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate because that candidate is pro-choice.

Michael

In “ORTHODOXY” Chesterton wrote: “It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable.”

In your reply you wrote: “But there is also proximity of influence to think about.” I’m not sure that you could have gotten your idea across in words of one syllable, but it would have been easier for me to form a reply if you wrote in more every day language. (I sometimes can relate to Winnie the Poo the bear of very little brain )
I don’t know how much I would agree with you about considering “proximity of influence” in the case of just one candidate. I think that it would be wise to try to elect many pro-life candidates for strength in numbers then they would collectively, me thinks, have more influence.

Annie

 

[Michael_Mayo]

Spoken with true secularism.

We live in a secular culture and want it to accept our religious morality.
We have to expect resistance but not let it deter us.

It is our religion that tells us the right of a fetus to be born is greater than a woman’s right to choose. Secular law sees it differently.

 

[Annie39]

We live in a secular culture and want it to accept our religious morality.
We have to expect resistance but not let it deter us.

It is our religion that tells us the right of a fetus to be born is greater than a woman’s right to choose. Secular law sees it differently.

Hi Michael,
This topic has morphed into a discussion on abortion rather than my original intent. If I get time I plan to attempt to bring it back home. However I have some comments on your statement “It is our religion that tells us the right of a fetus to be born is greater than a woman’s right to choose. Secular law sees it differently.”
Of course we are to be in the world not of the world. As I see it, when you use the words “fetus” and write about “a woman’s right to chose", you are using the pro-death advocate’s language. The English translation of fetus is a human being or animal in the later stages of development before it is born i.e. an unborn child. IMHO, it is best to refer to the child in the womb as just that. Also, IMHO, when one uses the pro-death term “a woman’s right to chose” without finishing that phrase with “to kill her child” we are allowing the pro-death people to control the narrative. As George Orwell knew, words mean things and words have an effect.

Annie