The abortion debate

[EndTimes]

But maybe I’m wrong–maybe all you mind readers out there know exactly the extent of free will and intention in every single action you condemn, and are totally accurate in labeling people selfish or atheists or pro-abortion…Maybe. But I doubt it. God have mercy on your souls, whatever your intentions. You see, I can’t read your minds…

Yes… Maybe you are Wrong…

THAT SAID, we’re neither mind-readers - nor condemning you …

On a Catholic Forum - we’re allowed to post Catholic Teachings on Abortion…

That’s it. No one’s twisting your arm to more deeply consider the babes in the womb ..

_

 

[pnewton]

Viki63:

That no human being has a right to life if it requires the use of someone else’s body.

I think this is the sentence that distinguishes this post from the others on abortion.

Agreed. It is a scary thought, and one I do not think makes sense. It puts an convenience as a greater value than life. Legally, that is a terrible idea. If a convenience to the body is so valued, it is no great stretch to allow the common good for food and shelter for all to be as important as medical inconvenience. Therefore, if a group, like the disabled, or the Jews, are classified as being at least inconvenient to others as carrying a baby is to a mother, then they no longer have a right to live.

Furthermore, it would mean that any one who needs another human being, be it a baby, or a person needing a transfusion, would not have a right to live.

 

[nfinke]

“Pro-abortion rights” seems like a better term to use, I agree.

I guess this is fair, it just seems to me to not be a fully honest take. The concept of the ending of a human life being a specially awful thing comes from religion to, as does the concept of unalienable human rights at all (see the Constitution), yet people see as very important outlawing murder and making laws penalizing the violation of rights. Abortion is a weird case where those same people think “I don’t think the law should step in on something I think is truly evil”

The belief that a fetus is a “human being” is a purely religious matter. It is not science, and science has nothing to say on the matter

This is a really hot take. To imply modern science looks at a fetus and the best it can come up with is “duh, I don’t even have an opinion” is obviously false, and even silly.

There was a survey done recently of thousands of actual biologists of all different religious beliefs and political alignments who answered with around 75% responded that human life begins at fertilization. “science has nothing to say on the matter” seems like a stretch to me.

 

[nfinke]

But in closing, I would like all you good Catholics to think long and hard about charity.

…you…you’re making an argument…that we should be ok with people murdering babies because…charity

I have to admit I really thought I had heard all the arguments in this debate, but that one threw me for a loop.

 

[blackforest]

Here we go again. One LAST TIME: morality is NOT necessarily the same as legality.

I’m done here.

Time will tell if you really are. But it you could always mute the thread just in case. I’ll still respond to some stuff just so it’s out there for lurkers.

But in closing, I would like all you good Catholics to think long and hard about charity.

It starts with kindness and civility, even toward those who disagree with us. I don’t think any of us are behaving as charitably in this thread as we could be.

I respond to what you WRITE, not what you WISH you wrote.

In which case you should probably read what I wrote.

Where do you get this stuff? It’s not “elective”? You mean it’s forced on the woman? New to me.

It shouldn’t be. For well over a decade, abortion rights advocates have been shouting from the moutain tops that MAP doesn’t cause abortion.

Again, let’s stick to facts, particularly if you can find the facts in 10 seconds.

Consider it done. Investigation reveals morning-after pill may not prevent implantation - CBS News

 

[nfinke]

I think the most notable thing about this argument is were not talking about a generic “human being” and “someone else’s body”. We are talking about a mother and her child. The argument equates the moral responsibility a mother has to care for her child to the moral responsibility she has to any random person, when literally every society on Earth, including ours, considers that relationship special, and has no problem enforcing that moral responsibility with the law…unless its in that sweet spot where the mother is allowed to murder the baby.

 

[Rau]

“Inconvenience” is quite a stretch. Again, you are assuming you can read the minds of women who have abortion. You don’t need to speculate! There are numerous polls out there of women who have had abortion, and the reasons they have given. Please read a few.

I recall doing so in the past. Don’t ask me the numbers, but I recall being shocked at how large a proportion could be put down to the disruption at a given stage of life (Eg at university, career building). The weightier motivators such as grave medical risks were almost non-existent, and poverty considerations were also significant.

 

[Aquinas11]

I’m done here. As always, when I find myself simply repeating what I’ve already written multiple times, I bow out.

I’m taking my ball and I’m going home!!

maybe all you mind readers out there know exactly the extent of free will and intention in every single action you condemn…but I doubt it

Again the irony is nuclear - you just mind read the “mind readers” while simultaneously condemning mind reading. The lack of self awareness is indescribable

 

[MamaJewel]

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

This is problematic because the church just basically condoned gene-editing.

 

[EndTimes]

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

“This is problematic because the church just basically condoned gene-editing.”

No. Not problematic at all. It’s simple, clear - and required belief for Catholics.

And… the Church addresses gene editing as a separate issue…

"Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity"85 which are unique and unrepeatable.

 

[goout]

Erikaspirit16:

But in closing, I would like all you good Catholics to think long and hard about charity.

…you…you’re making an argument…that we should be ok with people murdering babies because…charity

I have to admit I really thought I had heard all the arguments in this debate, but that one threw me for a loop.

It illustrates the consequences of indifference to the quality of human life.
When charity becomes a weak abdication in the face of the killing of innocents, it has ceased to be charity, because it proposes a charity devoid of the humanity it pretends to love.

 

[MamaJewel]

"Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity"85 which are unique and unrepeatable.

Gene editing looks very hopeful to eradicate inherited diseases. If scientists can eradicate inherited diseases in the earliest stages of human development in (and outside of the womb), then gene editing will be used as a healing mechanism.

I can easily visualize gene editing done in the womb using a form of nano-technology within the next 2 to 3 decades, maybe sooner.

It would be like having a Magic School Bus that joins to the zygote, maps the DNA, and completes the indicated gene edits. When finished, the Magic School Bus disconnects from the zygote and heads out of the fallopian tube, allowing the zygote to become an embryo that eventually implants.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

I think she must mean moloch worshippers

 

[EndTimes]

• "Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities.
• Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity" which are unique and unrepeatable.

“Gene editing looks very hopeful to eradicate inherited diseases.”

Could be… yet that also drifts away from “Certain Attempts” as noted above…

In the same manner that solo focusing upon gene editing drifted away from ABORTION
and the living Embryo… as a person… a human being just like us.

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

 

[TULIPed]

Except that the baby didn’t force itself in there.

For the life of me I don’t know why this simple fact doesn’t get more air time in the debate.

 

[MamaJewel]

Except that the baby didn’t force itself in there.

That depends on how one looks at it. No, the developing human didn’t do anything to put itself in the woman’s body, but once there, biological interactions do occur on molecular levels to maintain a pregnancy whether it is healthy or not, or whether the embryo/fetus is healthy. Molar pregnancies are deadly without adequate treatment and are an example of the lengths nature will work to reproduce a new being in a species.

The placenta of the developing human embryo/fetus functions to keep the pregnancy from recognition by the mother’s immune system, similar to the way tumors behave. (No, I am not comparing an embryo to a tumor, but I hypothesize that tumors in mammals probably came about because of some defect in placental or pregnancy function in the past.)

 

[MamaJewel]

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Gene editing shows the uniqueness of a human derived embryo as a human being rather a clump of cells or random tissue. Initial gene editing techniques will require a human being to be in the earliest stages of its life in order for the editing to be effective, unlike human life in latter stages.

This will evidence that the human embryo is a human being that can be healed of inherited conditions when humans in later stages of being cannot (due to the sensitivity of the editing process). Early gene editing techniques will place the human zygote and embryo in unique positions for medical treatment, unlike older human beings. And the Church is telling us beforehand that medicine will have the responsibility to treat these tiniest humans to remove inherited afflictions, before that human takes its first breath.

 

[EndTimes]

medicine will have the responsibility to treat these tiniest humans to remove inherited afflictions, before that human takes its first breath.

That works as long as the newborn to be - is allowed to live - no matter its afflictions.