The pro-life common sense clincher

[JimG]

Now that I’ve mentioned Peter Singer, I have to mention the conversation he had with Harriet McBryde Johnson, a severely disabled lawyer. Her article about the encounter begins thus:

“ He insists he doesn’t want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along, and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine and satisfy the reasonable preferences of parents for a different kind of child. It has nothing to do with me. I should not feel threatened.”

Singer and Johnson are both liberal atheists. But she disagreed with him over the matter of whether she would be better off dead. (Ms. Johnson has died since the article was published in 2003.) Here is the full text:

 

[StillWondering]

Whiteacre Girl

Just be clear that a pro-choice position is not necessarily a pro-abortion position. Pro-choice is a legal position—not a moral position.

I see, I see. You mean that pro-choice is contained on the legal side and if it is legally permissible, then it’s legally permissible.

But wait a sec, wasn’t Hitler’s mass killings and concentration camps part of national law? Wasn’t it also legal? Yet why did people have those silly war **crimes ** (a legal term) imposed on them. Like the pro-choice position above, it’s merely legal not moral.

 

[StillWondering]

It seems to me that abortion is the “peculiar institution” of our times, comparable to slavery in the 1800’s. We don’t want to look at it too closely. Those people aren’t really human, after all. Best not to think about it too much. Only one thing is certain, we must keep it legal. That seems to be the position of the pro-choice side.

Abortion has been around since biblical times if not more. Maybe it was more shunned and hidden I do not know; however, now it is so popular like a celebrity new hairdo that salons have popped up in nearly every major city just to claim this hairdo.

In the pagan nations during Israel’s subjugation under the surrounding powers, there were slavery for sure and there was abortion for sure. There is even a biblical passage that prohibited woman from taking apothecary mixtures or physical trauma that would result in the death of their baby. If the baby is already born, that passage does not make sense as stated. So they are unborn babies and these mixtures are chemical abortificants. The physical trauma would be blows to the tummy to end the possibility of life for the baby or it would be the so-called backstreet abortions which we do not have to go into details. I don’t have the passage at hand, but maybe someone else can find it. There are other prohibitions around that passage, but that one was directly anti-abortion.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

If the Supreme Court (now with 5 Catholics sitting on it) was to reverse Roe v Wade, what would be the best legal (not theological) argument for doing so?

What are the odds the Supreme Court (with 5 Catholics sitting on it) would dare to reverse Roe v Wade (Catholics alone voting to overturn)?

Yet if they did not do so, forever after historians might point to a Catholic Supreme Court much as they have pointed to the German Bishops of the Nazi era … as too cowardly to oppose and thereby end yet another holocaust.

 

[PrayHarder]

They usually use the child’s inability to survive on his/her own as justification. However, born infants also can’t survive on their own. In fact, I’m not sure how old a child would be b/f they could “survive” (i.e., be able to feed themselves and keep themselves out of danger) on their own.

I know plenty of people in their 30’s who seem to have a hard time surviving on their own.

 

[Christopher68]

Worthy5

*To quote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes " …that it is a constitution we are expounding. …". The Court role is to protect individual rights from the majority will----in Roe the seven justices felt the Constitution had something to say. *

I thought the role of the Court was to uphold the Constitution. The framers of the Constitution believed in the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Which of these rights do you think is pre-eminent, the one without which all other rights are meaningless?

The rights stated in the Constitution that you reference above - (1) life, (2) liberty, and (3) the pursuit of happiness - are closely related and perhaps thus equally important. These three rights grant man the freedom to use his rational faculty to maintain and enjoy his life, to determine his own destiny, and to choose what constitutes his own best interest and private happiness and to work toward it’s achievement - provided he respects the same rights in others.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*Preamble to the Constitution

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.*

I fail to see how legalizing abortion fits into any of the above. Does it establish justice for the unborn? Does it “insure domestic tranquility” when the only way we can find sufficient workers is to absorb illegal immigrants needed to fill the jobs left vacant by 50 million aborted children? Does abortion provide for the common defense when, since Roe v Wade, there are 50 million fewer native Americans to defend ourselves? Does abortion promote the general welfare (oh, please prove that one!) when the culture of death spreads from abortion to legalized euthanasia and now legalized assisted suicide? Does abortion secure the blessings of liberty for “posterity” when the aborted *are *posterity?

 

[Protestant101]

Does anyone have a reply for my last post, #31? I think it’s on page 2 of this topic.

 

[Canto]

Does anyone have a reply for my last post, #31? I think it’s on page 2 of this topic.

Under no circumstances does the Church support abortion.

Sometimes as to wether or not a mother’s life is in danger, there can be a differing of medical opinion ???

 

[Protestant101]

Under no circumstances does the Church support abortion.

Sometimes as to wether or not a mother’s life is in danger, there can be a differing of medical opinion ???

Can you show me where it is worded this way in official Catholic writings? I would like to read the background and the thinking behind that.

Also, in the example of post #31, since abortion would not be allowed by the Catholic Church; why wouldn’t the doctor be equally guilty then of killing the mother to save the baby? Does the Catholic Church teach it is OK to kill in one circumstance, but not the other?

 

[mark_a]

Has anyone ever found an approach to explaining the pro-life position that would leave the pro-choice advocates without a leg to stand on? I mean a *really convincing case *that can stop all discussion dead in its tracks because the pro-choicers have no answer?

I like Ronald Reagan’s answer.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Protestant

*I know that even 30 years ago; a person I know was asked by the doctor, “Do you want us to save you or the baby?” Would Catholics consider it “pro-choice” if the mother chose to live, because she already had four other children at home, AND the attending physician was the one who suggested it? *

This question has been treated by the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas in his doctrine of the double effect. We all have a natural right to defend our lives. If, in the course of defending our lives, without wishing to do so we cause the death of an innocent bystander, we are not to find blame in ourselves.

Aquinas did not direct his argument at the question of abortion, but I think it applies. One chooses to defend one’s life by having a surgical procedure, let’s say, that will of necessity kill the baby the mother is carrying. That is a choice; but it is a choice “mandated” by the fundamental law of self defense, not by the selfish desire to avoid having a child or by the physician’s selfish desire to make money by killing unborn children.

 

[Protestant101]

Protestant

*I know that even 30 years ago; a person I know was asked by the doctor, “Do you want us to save you or the baby?” Would Catholics consider it “pro-choice” if the mother chose to live, because she already had four other children at home, AND the attending physician was the one who suggested it? *

This question has been treated by the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas in his doctrine of the double effect. We all have a natural right to defend our lives. If, in the course of defending our lives, without wishing to do so we cause the death of an innocent bystander, we are not to find blame in ourselves.

Aquinas did not direct his argument at the question of abortion, but I think it applies. One chooses to defend one’s life by having a surgical procedure, let’s say, that will of necessity kill the baby the mother is carrying. That is a choice; but it is a choice “mandated” by the fundamental law of self defense, not by the selfish desire to avoid having a child or by the physician’s selfish desire to make money by killing unborn children.

Thankyou; this is the kind of info I am searching for. I have yet to digest it. Do you know a link where I could read this document you refer to?

 

[mark_a]

Can you show me where it is worded this way in official Catholic writings? I would like to read the background and the thinking behind that.

Also, in the example of post #31, since abortion would not be allowed by the Catholic Church; why wouldn’t the doctor be equally guilty then of killing the mother to save the baby? Does the Catholic Church teach it is OK to kill in one circumstance, but not the other?

Here’s a good article on Catholic teaching, although it’s not official: catholic.com/thisrock/2006/0609uan.asp

And here’s a shorter one:
saintmarys.edu/~incandel/doubleeffect.html

Another excellent example of double effect in Catholic teaching is that relieving suffering of a terminal patient is good, even if it hastens their death, provided murder is not the intent.

 

[Canto]

Can you show me where it is worded this way in official Catholic writings? I would like to read the background and the thinking behind that.

Also, in the example of post #31, since abortion would not be allowed by the Catholic Church; why wouldn’t the doctor be equally guilty then of killing the mother to save the baby? Does the Catholic Church teach it is OK to kill in one circumstance, but not the other?

Catechism of the Catholic Church 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.

Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, “if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence.”

*why wouldn’t the doctor be equally guilty then of killing the mother to save the baby? *

It would not be the intent of the doctor to kill the mother

 

[camerong]

To the OP: I will recount the argument that convinced me, shortly before I became Catholic.

Imagine the most pro-choice couple decides to have a baby. They conceive, get ultrasounds, paint the baby room, come up with names, etc. And then the woman suffers a miscarriage. How do they react? They would be devastated as if they lost a child. They don’t look at each other and say “whoops, oh well, at least it was just a fetus, we’ll go make another one!” In this way, even pro-choice people see “fetuses” as children, when they want the child.

 

[JimG]

Does anyone have a reply for my last post, #31? I think it’s on page 2 of this topic.

The only thing that comes to my mind is ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo is growing inside a fallopian tube, and will burst the tube killing mother and child.

Removing the tube is not considered an abortion, since it is not aimed at killing the child. Direct killing of the child, however, would be an impermissible abortion.

 

[JimG]

Abortion has been around since biblical times if not more.

Of course it has been around. In the earliest Hippocratic oath, (5th century B.C.) new physicians pledged not to cause abortion. I can’t think of any prior society, however, which kills off its young through abortion at the amazing rate that ours does. Kids growing up now can consider themselves survivors of an abortion culture; many of their siblings did not make it out of the womb.

 

[Jermosh]

What does this have to do with the pro-choice position as a legal position?

It forces them into stating why one human life is ok to kill as compared to another.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*camerong

Imagine the most pro-choice couple decides to have a baby. They conceive, get ultrasounds, paint the baby room, come up with names, etc. And then the woman suffers a miscarriage. How do they react? They would be devastated as if they lost a child. They don’t look at each other and say “whoops, oh well, at least it was just a fetus, we’ll go make another one!” In this way, even pro-choice people see “fetuses” as children, when they want the child. *

Your point is well taken. When I was an altar server I used to assist the priest several times a year at the funerals of babies. You never saw such grief! Those were never “Whoops!” moments. We cannot deny the evidence of the heart, which is that babies are loved because they are children … all of them. Even the ones that are aborted will be grieved for years to come by their mothers, unless their mothers have no love or conscience in them.