U.S. Public Continues to Favor Legal Abortion, Oppose Overturning Roe v. Wade

[PetraG]

Not at the expense of another human being’s bodily autonomy. You can’t force a woman to use her body as an incubator any more than I can force you to donate your organs to save those I deem worthy.

I dunno. I think I’d be justified to make you spend two months stuck in an elevator if there were no way to get you out without killing somebody else trapped in the same contraption with you. What do you say? Actually, if you tried to free yourself by killing someone else, I’d have to stop you.

It is not morally permissible to kill one innocent person in order to free another one from a bad situation, not even one that the other person understandably wanting to be freed doesn’t deserve to be in. The baby cannot be asked to give up her life because she was concieved in the wrong place at the wrong time for someone else. It isn’t her fault, either!!

 

[vern_humphrey]

It’s even worse…24% of abortions are performed on Catholics. I believe the general population of Catholics is around 22%.

Catholics make up 24% of the population;

Catholic World Population Center Shifts to South

The next pope will have a Catholic world in transformation to shepherd.

www.americamagazine.org

Interestingly enough, Catholics made up over 28% of the casualties in Viet Nam. or about 27% more than our share.

 

[edwest211]

Have compassion for the woman and for the child. Death is not the answer.

 

[edwest211]

You know very little about Vietnam or its history. A large Catholic population was displaced and ended up in Vietnam. These foreigners could not get everything they needed so they began to steal. During the Vietnam War, some fought for either side as long as they were provided with what they needed.

 

[vern_humphrey]

You know very little about Vietnam or its history.

I served two tours in Viet Nam and a bit more. I was a company commander and was wounded twice. I attended the Vietnamese Language Course at the Defense Language School at Monterey, California (although I have not spoken it in many years.)

 

[vern_humphrey]

Here’s a couple of tidbits for you: Massacre at Huế - Wikipedia

“Two French priests, Fathers Urbain and Guy, were seen being led away and suffered a similar fate. Urbain’s body was found buried alive, bound hand and foot. Guy, who was 48, was stripped of his cassock and forced to kneel down on the ground where he was shot in the back of the head. He was in the same grave with Father Urbain and 18 others”

I was there when the graves were being opened – although not at that particular grave.

I was at t he Ben Sahn Leprosarium, a Catholic hospital, when it was attacked by the VC in '66. I saw the bodies of Catholic sisters who had been executed.

 

[edwest211]

Alright. Did you know about the displaced Catholic refugees? Did you know why they were moved from their place of origin? Who were the ‘bandits’ in Vietnam? I am assuming your tours occurred during the war.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Alright. Did you know about the displaced Catholic refugees? Did you know why they were moved from their place of origin? Who were the ‘bandits’ in Vietnam? I am assuming your tours occurred during the war.

I could hardly be wounded twice in peace time, now could I?

The Bandits were A Company, 229th Aviation Battalion.

If you want to talk to Viet Namese Catholics, there are about 950 Viet Namese Catholic priests in the United States. Go here for more information.

How many Vietnamese Catholic priests are there in the U.S.?

The short answer: There were about 900 Catholic priests of Vietnamese origin in the U.S. by 2012. There are approximately 950 at this time (2017), and probably more.

tuannyriver.com

Talk to them about it.

 

[edwest211]

So you know about the division of Vietnam that was worked out by the Geneva Conference in 1954? You know that more than one million Tonkinese from the North, presumably Catholics, had been moved/displaced from their ancestral homes to the South, which is Cochin China? These people normally did not mix. With no place to call their own, they attacked whoever to get food and whatever they needed. Do you know this was handled by the Saigon Military Mission?

 

[vern_humphrey]

In over two years in combat zones, I never saw such bandits. Stanley Karnow massive and authoritative book (670 pages), Vietnam, a History (ISBN 0-670-74604-5), does not mention such bandits.

What is your cite for such bandits – and when were you in Viet Nam?

 

[Neithan]

Not at the expense of another human being’s bodily autonomy. You can’t force a woman to use her body as an incubator any more than I can force you to donate your organs to save those I deem worthy.

This is the issue that has completely stalled political will on abortion for more than 30 years now. We are not willing to make the right to life a fundamental right compared with liberty or bodily autonomy.

We don’t have to reconfigure basic human rights, though. Except in cases of rape, there is a clear legal argument that liberty is not at stake.

As for bodily autonomy, it’s a unique case where one person is directly dependent for his/her existence on another, with no possible substitute, at least until viability. Is the pregnant woman’s bodily autonomy really violated by conception? No, it’s a natural event. The argument is that she is coerced to continue the pregnancy against her will. Of course, this argument is cogent only if we withhold this exact same human right — bodily autonomy — from the dependent embryo him/herself.

An obvious response is that bodily autonomy is not violated by that body’s own offspring. So long as the embryo is not a legal person with any rights, however, it’s moot.

[Isn’t it strange that corporations can be legal persons, but not human embryos?]

But there is something else going on now that is not following the considered legal arguments about human rights; rather, it’s motivated by vague notions of freedom and security. Why don’t we see more restrictive abortion laws at least until viability? The trend now in some states (contrasted with others) and countries is to remove restrictions.

 

[SadPotato]

Is the pregnant woman’s bodily autonomy really violated by conception? No, it’s a natural event.

Whether or not it’s a natural event has nothing to do with the issue. Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will is a violation of her freedom as it relates to her body - there’s no denying that, even if you think such force is a good thing.

 

[Neithan]

Who is forcing her, though? This is a vague abstraction of the facts for the sake of political and legal rhetoric. No one is actually forcing her to do anything. The principled pro-life position is that she has a responsibility to a new life, similar to a mother with a dependent child. Abortion is the forceful termination of that life. She simply has to refrain — or another acting with her acquiescence — from forcefully terminating it. As you know, the rhetoric only works if that life has no legal rights.

 

[SadPotato]

As you know, the rhetoric only works if that life has no legal rights.

Your rhetoric only works if she has no right to decide whether or not her body is used as a fetal life support system. Not to mention that the health risks of birthing a baby aren’t something you can just gloss over: even if the pregnancy goes swimmingly, childbirth is still an extremely painful and physically traumatic experience that takes time to recover from and can all too easily result in serious injury or death for the mother. That alone should be reason enough for a woman to opt out of having a baby, even if she’s already pregnant.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

That alone should be reason enough for a woman to opt out of having a baby, even if she’s already pregnant.

According to certain value systems perhaps.

 

[Lion_IRC]

U.S. Public Continues to Favor Legal Abortion, Oppose Overturning Roe v. Wade | Pew Research Center

Just because the majority says abortion should be legal does not make it right.

"Among Catholics, more say abortion should be legal (56%) than illegal (42%) in all or most cases. "
How can 56% of Catholics say that abortion should be legal when this is not?

I’m very skeptical of polls these days.
Too many contradictory results.
Too much motive to achieve a desired result.
Too much argumentum ad populam.
“…oh look, most Catholics say abortion is ok. Therefore I need to fit in with the majority view”

Melbourne Uni Law Prof Dr Katy Barnett writing in Quillette cites Timur Kuran’s excellent book “In Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification” and she explains why;
“…it’s less than ideal to have situations where there is widespread preference falsification—where people don’t say what they really think out of fear.
…widely disliked social structures may be preserved because no one is brave enough to say publicly that they, too, do not agree. [Social loathing theory]
…social structures which are predicated on false preferences are prone to sudden collapse once the majority realizes that no one else likes or believes in the particular thing which is being upheld.
…preference falsification distorts public opinion, public discourse, and human knowledge. If people cannot openly discuss their views, then certain views will not be explored or discussed, and the sum of human knowledge will be diminished."

Inducing People’s Employers to Fire Them Should Be a Civil Wrong

While social media inflames tensions, the law aims to remove emotion and passion from disputes.

quillette.com

 

[HarryStotle]

Peeps:

This will not happen.

Of course not. It was a tongue-in-cheek remark. But if you observe @CarmeliteKnight he or she suggests exactly that. Scary thought.

Actually I don’t believe @CarmeliteKnight is advocating that specifically. I think he is advocating for a hypothetical Catholic state where the entire political system would be run according to Catholic theology and morality, but where all those who are members of that state would be there voluntarily.

Most of the population of the United States would not accept such a Catholic state being imposed upon them, which is why it won’t happen.

What if there were somewhere on the earth a truly Catholic state, impeccably run according to Catholic principles and populated by those sincerely working at being saints?

The proviso being that the people and state were actually acting as the Body of Christ and not merely running a facade. I wouldn’t hesitate moving there.

 

[HarryStotle]

Neithan:

Is the pregnant woman’s bodily autonomy really violated by conception? No, it’s a natural event.

Whether or not it’s a natural event has nothing to do with the issue. Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will is a violation of her freedom as it relates to her body - there’s no denying that, even if you think such force is a good thing.

The question, though, is whether violating her freedom where that freedom means ending the life of another human being is morally permissible.

It isn’t as if violations of freedom of everyones’ bodies are non-existent or exceptional. They happen all the time. Try to use your body to freely enter a bank and take money from the cash drawer. You along with your body will be violated and forced to enter a squad car and spend some time in jail after a trial.

The questions of morality all relate to when individual freedom (including bodily freedom) is to be restrained because of moral obligation, sanction or the rights of others. That is the crux of all moral questions, including this one.

Does the pregnant woman have a moral right to terminate the life of another human being (a human being she helped, often without coercion, to bring into existence) merely because she wills to?

There is no other realm or question of morality where one person has the absolute right to terminate the life of another merely for convenience or because they want to.

 

[edwest211]

Without life, there is no fake freedom.

 

[JSRG]

The big problem with these sorts of polls is there’s a lot of misinformation about Roe v. Wade. If people were better educated on exactly how harsh the restrictions it placed on abortion laws were, as well as the fact it being overturned doesn’t induce any state to forbid or even restrict abortion, I think we’d see much more support for it being overturned… or at least an increase in people who are neutral towards the subject.

It would also help if people were to read John Hart Ely’s magnificent critique of the decision (“The Wages of Crying Wolf”), delivered all the way back in the 1970’s–it’s slightly out of date in some respects but most still applies today–so people would know, regardless of what one thinks of the societal benefits of abortion legalization, how little basis the decision had in either the constitution or previous court precedent.