Once again, from the 2004 Democratic Party platform:
They not only want to promote abortion, they want it paid for by tax dollars.
Also the parties would see the handwriting on the wall, and change their orientation.
My post was directed towards those who see both abortion and the war as immoral. If you have two immoral situations that are responsible for the loss of human life and have to choose between one or the other, which do you choose? If immoral situation A is responsible for far more death than immoral situation B, it seems perfectly logical to me to focus on fixing immoral situation A first. It has nothing to do with deciding which is more immoral and everything to do with trying to help the most number of people.
Yes, the death rate of American soldiers is higher, but those soldiers made a choice to join the military. It’s not like a draft was instituted and they were drug kicking and screaming into Iraq. There are jobs that have high risk rates, and when you go into one of those fields, you accept the possiblity that something bad might happen. Victims of abortion never get to make a choice. That alone makes abortion more immoral in my eyes.
The immoratity of abortion has nothing to do with how society feels about crisis pregnancies. Abortion is wrong because it is the willful termination of a defenseless human being.
In no way am I trying to create a mathematical formula to determine whether something is immoral. What I am doing is looking at the immoral situations in our country and trying to see how the most number of people can be helped. How is this ‘mathematical morality’?
He’s giving you the run-around.
Thank you for clarifying. Do you have any data to indicate that US aid has dropped significantly during the Bush administration?
Both soldiers and criminals make a choice knowing that there are possible consequences for their choice, as I just pointed out in my previous post. I’m not sure why you’re trying to figure out who is more to blame for the loss of life - pointing fingers doesn’t seem very productive to me. It’s only natural that using number games to figure blame is far from helpful because pointing fingers is far from helpful. If you want to help keep people from dying, it is helpful to find the largest source of combatible death.
I agree with you completely. Unfortunately, the government can do little to remove many of the causes women have for choosing abortion. If you don’t believe me, look at the linked Allen Guttmacher Institute’s site that lists reasons women give for choosing abortion. (agi-usa.org/presentations/ab_slides.html)).
No, and I don’t believe it has. I’ve been talking general principles throughout here, I’m trying to keep specific political parties or characters out of this because it confuses the issue (I said much earlier above that I would have great difficulty voting for either major US party. However, not being a US citizen, the question is somewhat moot).
I agree that choice is the key issue; that is why even when I was away from the Catholic Church IK still believed strongly that abortion was wrong.
I’ve seen these before. Clearly there are things that can be done for some of these items. Equally clearly, there are frankly frivolous reasons like ‘woman has all she wants’ which we most likely do need a law for, and we really need to be trying to educate people in general that such things cannot be acceptable.
As for “mathematical morality” I really meant two things. One, this idea that you can compare moralities by counting bodies, e.g. war vs. abortion. In the first place, I’m not sure how you go about deciding who to count (in war do you count the civilians, do you count future wars that are tracable to the original war, etc). Second, it leads all too easily to assigning higher value to some lives than others. For instance, is the death of an Iraqi civilian greater or less than that of an American solider? For what should be obvious reasons, this is morally troubling.
This is essentially my point, too, not in regards to voting but in regards to what the priorities of the pro-life movement ought to be. When abortion becomes illegal, I want the legislation to “stick.” For that to happen it there must already be a national consensus that abortion is wrong. Focusing on making it illegal first, and then expecting this in itself to change society, seems to be making the same mistake that the other side does.
Roe v Wade was a judicial attempt to solve by fiat a political issue – it is the mirror image of the Dredd Scott decision.
If your political solution consists in electing candidates who will push for a judicial decision, then you’re going to be shocked and disappointed when your political solution doesn’t pan out as you had hoped.
And you know that’s my political solution, how?
We won’t “create a society that no longer believes in abortion” by supporting pro-abortion politicians.
I, on the other hand, see many Catholics taking the position that there is some way to justify supporting a party with a pro-abortion plank. How will we ever change society when WE go along with the pro-abortion crowd?
Well then my friend, you are very lucky indeed, or you just have your blinders on. I don’t claim to be more Catholic than anyone, but it is a sad fact that in the US we have some less than courageous leadership among the hierarchy. Lukewarm caving to our pc society is rampant. I didn’t create the dissent, I just call it like I see it. When you have orders of nuns praying to “Mother-Father God” and priests promoting women’s ordination, birth control, and watering down the Sacraments till they are barely recognizable, I’d say that’s squarely on the shoulders of the Bishops who are supposed to be safeguarding against such things. But they are afraid to speak up. Afraid to ruffle feathers. Very few have the courage to teach the Truth, and they put up with a lot of persecution when they do. Yes, they all need our prayers, but the wishy-washy lukewarmness **is ** out there. Don’t doubt it. I wouldn’t want their job, that’s for sure. But I know the difference between the Truth and a watered down half hearted version of it that leaves room for people to read into it what they want. We have experts out there who have been warping the heck out of Church teaching since Vatican II. Proof is in the fact that most people don’t even know what Vatican II taught because all they have been taught is the warped version. You have to go directly to the source and read the documents themselves to learn the truth. Then you wonder what the heck happened here in America when you realize that what has been promulgated is pretty far off base from the original. It is sad, but unfortunately, a reality.
That’s just asinine. Make abortion illegal tomorrow. Apply substantial financial penalties against hospitals and clinics that violate the law. Prosecute doctors who violate the law. Abortion will almost entirely disappear within a year.
The first step is STOP SUPPORTING PRO-ABORTION POLITICIANS!! For those of us who consider ourselves Democrats, this means CLEAN UP YOUR PARTY!
Well, I agree that a lot of the change that is blamed at the door of Vatican II is highly unjustified given what Vat2 actually says. To be frank though, it seems to be far more people uncomfortable with the direction the Church has taken in the last 40 years who (seemingly unfairly) blame Vat2, rather than people saying ‘well, this change is demanded by Vat2’
No, you would succeed in driving abortion underground, thereby killing women as well as children, and you would create a highly motivated constituency determined to bring abortion back (not to mention completely fracturing the GOP). And in any case, making all abortion illegal and going after praciticioners as you have outlined above is an absolute impossibility today. Abortion will be illegal one day, but not until we reach a societal consensus that it is unacceptable, which will not happen until it is infrequent.
The standard excuse of the pro-abortion crowd. It asks us to accept at the outset the basic tenent of the pro-abortion movement, that the mother’s interests trump those of the child.