What are morally acceptable means to prevent an abortion

  • Thread starter Thread starter Socratic_Method
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Socratic_Method

Guest
As Catholics we believe that the killing of the unborn is just as evil as killing any born person, and that the unborn are just as human as the rest of us with all of the moral implications. We always ask the opposition to analogize abortion situations to situations involving toddlers. What methods, then, are considered acceptable or even morally obligatory when it comes to preventing abortions?

It seems that us pro-lifers come to a stumbling block when asked about this scenario:
  • “If you saw a man about to murder a toddler, would it be moral use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that toddler’s life?” Answer is usually yes.
  • “If you saw an abortionist about to perform an abortion, would it be moral to use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that unborn child’s life?” Answer is usually a defensive no.
We obviously don’t want to be associated with people who murder abortionists or bomb clinics. But at the same time we need to be intellectually consistent. Why should the answer to these two questions be different unless we don’t actually think the toddler and the unborn child are morally equivalent? Should we be more radical in our fight against abortion, or should we tone down our rhetoric about abortion being the modern holocaust? Very interested in this discussion.
 
I don’t think it’s where you’re going with this conversation but imo one of the biggest issues is that of culture. I come into contact with women considering abortions on occasion at work. Oftentimes these women are unmarried, lack a strong support system otherwise, and are financially struggling. We live in a society that tends to look down on these women - even when they keep their babies. If we lived more as a community, being available and helping each other through life, and recognizing we are all sinners and one person’s sin isn’t greater than another person’s I think we would see a decline in abortion rates.
 
Socratic_Method said:
  • “If you saw a man about to murder a toddler, would it be moral use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that toddler’s life?” Answer is usually yes.
  • “If you saw an abortionist about to perform an abortion, would it be moral to use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that unborn child’s life?” Answer is usually a defensive no.
Click to expand...
In addition to what @(name removed by moderator) has said I don’t think that using lethal force on the hitperson would have a high probability of saving the baby. Since such henious things are legal the murderer can just hire someone else to kill the baby.
 
Last edited:
Personally I think any means are morally acceptable. But I certainly don’t have the guts to live that belief.
 
@(name removed by moderator) I’m not sure that argument holds up. If the culture we lived in was similarly hostile to the toddler, would killing in the toddler’s defense be immoral just because it might sway public opinion against our cause?

@Elf01 Maybe that would make the action futile, but would it be immoral because of that?
 
I think the issue is effectiveness. Directly intervening like that won’t save the baby (the woman will just hire someone else to murder her child), and will take the life of that doctor. When there are things like state sanctioned murder where the process is legal (and even more nauseatingly, celebrated) there are multiple factors in play. A more apt comparison is someone about to be shot by an SS guard in a death camp. Rushing the guard won’t save that person, will get you killed, and others in the process. By harming the prolife cause in public opinion, more harm is done than good.
 
Socratic_Method said:
It seems that us pro-lifers come to a stumbling block when asked about this scenario:
  • “If you saw a man about to murder a toddler, would it be moral use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that toddler’s life?” Answer is usually yes.
  • “If you saw an abortionist about to perform an abortion, would it be moral to use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that unborn child’s life?” Answer is usually a defensive no.
Click to expand...
These scenarios are not equivalent. In the first question, there are only two persons involved, the child and the murderer. If the murderer is physically separated from the child, the threat is removed and the child will be able to live.

In the second question, there are three persons, and two of them want the child dead. If both of them are physically separated from the child, the child will die. The mother, one of the persons who wants the child dead, is the only person in the world who can keep the child alive.

Socratic Questioner (and others), what now are the options for keeping the child alive?
 
Last edited:
Beryllos said:
The mother, one of the persons who wants the child dead, is the only person in the world who can keep the child alive.
Click to expand...
This is not unlike a hostage situation, where we cannot storm the premises or all might die. We need to talk to the hostage-taker, negotiate, form a relationship, and change her mind. How do you do that in today’s world. Or, if that is not possible, how can we move the world in that direction?
 
Last edited:
Beryllos said:
Socratic Questioner (and others), what now are the options for keeping the child alive?
Click to expand...
True, but the mother can’t kill the child just by willing it dead, nor usually does she have the ability to do it by herself. There could potentially be plenty of ways to prevent the mother from hiring an abortionist, with the most extreme example probably being imprisonment.
Beryllos said:
This is not unlike a hostage situation, where we cannot storm the premises or all might die. We need to talk to the hostage-taker, negotiate, form a relationship, and change her mind. How do you do that in today’s world. Or, if that is not possible, how can we move the world in that direction?
Click to expand...
I do like this analogy. That’s interesting.
 
Great reply, thanks.

Are outcomes and effectiveness an essential component of moral reasoning? I wonder if there’s ever a situation where doing the right thing will lead to an objectively worse outcome than doing the wrong thing… “Do the means justify the ends” I guess.
 
Praying in front of an abortion clinic, with images of Jesus and Mary.
 
Socratic_Method said:
“If you saw an abortionist about to perform an abortion, would it be moral to use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that unborn child’s life?” Answer is usually a defensive no.
Click to expand...
Assuming that “about to perform an abortion” means that the patient is prepped, sedated and/or anesthetized, using any force against the practitioner, lethal or otherwise, places the patient at risk as she will suddenly find herself without monitoring of her vitals, among other things.

We cannot assume that the patient undergoing an abortion is committing a mortal sin by being there. She could be underaged, and forced by her parents, or there because she was threatened by an an abusive boyfriend. It would therefore not be moral to risk her life, IMHO, by killing or forcing away the medical team about to perform the procedure.

There are all sorts of risks with sedation and general anaesthetics that require proper monitoring by the medical team.

You will also be inducing the risk of infection in a sterile surgical environment.

And lastly, unless you are medically savvy yourself, you cannot really tell where, in the procedure, the practitioner is. If (s)he had in fact, already started, you may be introducing a risk of hemorrhage.

Thus, interfering with a procedure already underway is a bad idea on many levels.

If the patient is in the waiting room, then one has to ask the question: is lethal force truly necessary to prevent the procedure? You could probably achieve the desired result temporarily, by yelling “fire!” or pulling the fire alarm, and hope that in the interim between that and discovering it was a false alarm, the woman changes her mind.
 
Last edited:
Socratic_Method said:
“If you saw an abortionist about to perform an abortion, would it be moral to use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that unborn child’s life?”
Click to expand...
I think it would be moral to use such force if the unborn child was in immediate danger, i.e., when the abortionist has his abortion instruments in hand. However, just how would someone see “an abortionist about to perform an abortion”? I assume such procedures are usually done behind closed doors.
 
That’s a good thought!

I think when it comes to something as serious as ending the life of one to save another it has to be done as an absolute and utter last resort as a way of absolutely saving the life of another. When there is only one aggressor and it’s immediate, lethal means may be the only (and good) way to stop the threat. When there are thousands, if not millions of aggressors the situation changes greatly and using something like lethal force is not going to help, making it so two people are killed. The child will be killed by another doctor, and that doctor lost his or her life making him or her incapable of repentance.

I also think about the martyrs of the Church. No one took an immediate violent stance to save them because it was not what was called for at the time for a bigger problem of religious intolerance. There are times to take up arms, and times not to. The church has made it clear that this issue cannot be solved by taking up arms and has asked us to peacefully protest.
 
@OraLabora That’s a really good point. Perhaps this hypothetical would be better if the second scenario was, say, there’s a child conceived through in-vitro growing in an artificial womb, and a person is about to go unplug the machine or otherwise sabotage it.
 
That would still beg many questions. How can we know, for instance, that the person pulling the plug isn’t simply the janitor who has no idea what the machine does? Wouldn’t the correct response be to first yell “hey don’t unplug that machine, there’s a live embryo in it”? Or how do we know that it has been realized that the embryo is dead or not viable, and the person disconnecting is simply turning off the machine to clean it and prep it for the next IVF? Or how even do we know that it is an IVF machine containing an embryo?

It’s still not as clear cut as, for instance, an assailant pointing a gun or a knife at a toddler.

In any event I would say that these are way hypothetical circumstances. The more usual scenario is killing the abortionist on his(her) way to/from work. It would be pretty hard to simply waltz into an operating theatre or room containing live embryos unless you were a staff member with a security access card (or had stolen one).
 
Last edited:
Socratic_Method said:
“If you saw an abortionist about to perform an abortion, would it be moral to use whatever force necessary up to and including lethal force in order to save that unborn child’s life?”
Click to expand...
To do that you would have to be inside an abortion clinic and inside the operating room. That means you have forced your way in there. How does that help? You get arrested and then the abortion simply goes ahead anyway.
 
Yeah, but the point of the hypotheticals is to figure out if using lethal force could be justified to protect an unborn child’s life the same way it could be justified to protect a born child’s life. Obviously a scenario in which lethal force is actually necessary to prevent an abortion in the immediate sense doesn’t seem likely at all. I kinda think too many people here are dancing around the actual question by being too realistic.

For the sake of the moral argument, assume you knew for sure that the embryo is viable and growing inside the machine, and that the man’s intention is indeed to kill it.

As far as the killing an abortionist on the way to work scenario, that’s a whole different moral calculus than an immediate self-defense scenario, which is why it’s a lot easier to condemn.
 
Last edited:
Sheesh! All we need is for some pro-choice folks to see this thread and tweet it.

:coffee: 😠🚬
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top