What if We Stopped Trying to Make Abortion Illegal?

[St_Francis]

**Abortion is not a morally acceptable choice for a practicing Roman Catholic. No matter how much you may want to control people who hold other beliefs, you cannot.

Limerick **

It seems that you do not understand the nature of morality. Morality *exists, *it is not something we each get to make up.

***“The prognosis for babies born with anencephaly is extremely poor. If the infant is not stillborn, then he or she will usually die within a few hours or days after birth.”
(Ibid.) ***

What purpose does it serve to allow a blind and deaf infant with a complete absence of consciousness or feeling live for a couple of hours? To allow the parents to pat themselves on the back for a pro-life job well done? To bring closure to all involved? To allow the parents to then bury the infant with pomp and ritual? All of these actions focus on the survivors, not on the dead infant. I find it rather obscene.

Limerick

There are several anencephalic babies who have lived beyond the “few minutes at most” that they are generally predicted to live. Suppose a woman has an anencephalic baby who was not diagnosed, say, due to lack of pre-natal care, does she have the right to kill the baby after he or she has been born? Or does the mother need to wait until the baby does naturally?

 

[limerick]

It’s pretty hard to tell if misdiagnoses are being made when so many pre-natally diagnosed babies are killed.

**Perhaps, but the science behind detecting anomalies is not as rudimentary as you would have us believe.

Limerick**

 

[limerick]

It seems that you do not understand the nature of morality. Morality *exists, *it is not something we each get to make up.

There are several anencephalic babies who have lived beyond the “few minutes at most” that they are generally predicted to live. Suppose a woman has an anencephalic baby who was not diagnosed, say, due to lack of pre-natal care, does she have the right to kill the baby after he or she has been born? Or does the mother need to wait until the baby does naturally?

**
How long would you predict an anencephalic infant to live? It has no** functional brain. Please direct those of us who are interested toward the actual verifiable cases of these babies who have lived “beyond a few minutes at most” - I quoted the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke as predicting an extremely grave outcome for these infants: *“If the infant is not stillborn, then he or she will usually die within a few hours or days after birth.” * Do you mean weeks, months of survival without a functioning brain? Certainly not.

Your question concerning the mother’s right to kill the baby after it is born with this dreadful anomaly is a typical pro-life hook, one not worth addressing.

Limerick

 

[limerick]

**St Francis says,

“It seems that you do not understand the nature of morality. Morality exists, it is not something we each get to make up.”**

I understand that not every person on this planet is a practicing Roman Catholic.

 

[DavidHume]

It seems that you do not understand the nature of morality. Morality *exists, *it is not something we each get to make up.

Sure. It’s clearly immoral to force a woman to endure fifteen to twenty more weeks of pregnancy, and undertake all of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, to give birth to a child which she knows to have no brain.

 

[St_Francis]

Limerick and David,
Neither of you is Catholic; I understand that, and I think it is unfortunate.

The issue is whether or not people who believe that abortion is wrong ought to fight to make abortion illegal, whether we should in this nation of the free and the brave extend the protections of law to *every *human being, or whether we should reserve them only for those we deem worthy.

I believe that it is a good idea to continue to work towards making abortion illegal. I believe that people should be properly educated so that we are not “forcing it down their throats.” It is the task of the government to protect those under its purview, and the government is failing in this task.

Over 100 years ago, we had a similar issue. In this nation, some of us wee deemed less worthy of the freedom upon which this nation was founded, and these people were “owned” by other people. They were seen as property, not human beings. Those who advocated slavery were fighting for “choice,” the choice of one human to own another human. They were fighting for “rights,” the right of one person to keep the “property” he had invested in.

Now we are fighting for the weakest among us. We are fighting for those who are not yet born. To these youngest among us, we think that the government should extend its protection just as the government extended its protection over those who were born in servitude.

**The condition of the child does not matter. **Limerick says: Your question concerning the mother’s right to kill the baby after it is born with this dreadful anomaly is a typical pro-life hook, one not worth addressing. Why do you not think it is worth addressing? It cuts right to the heart of the matter! If a woman does not have the right to kill her child after birth, what gives her the right *before *birth? Is it just because it is then hidden, so that you cannot *see *what is happening?

What happens when the reality of what is happening in abortion impinges on someone’s mind? Here is what happened to one doctor, as he was performing an abortion: But it was a 1974 operation that “changed my mind about abortion forever.” While doing a suction abortion, Jarrett found that the suction curette was obstructed by a torn-off fetal leg. So he changed techniques and dismembered the child with a ring forceps:

And as I brought out *the rib cage, I looked and I saw a tiny, beating heart. And when I found the head of the baby, *I looked squarely in the face of another human being—a human being that I’d just killed. I turned to the scrub nurse and said, “I’m sorry.” But I just knew that I couldn’t be a part of abortion any more.1

You can say that it is all right to hide in the dark and kill, but you balk at saying that it is all right to kill a baby who has been born. The reason you can do that is that under darkness, one can lie and say that what is happening is something other than the reality. Abortion is full of that. Abortion allows people to hide their sexual lives: it allows predators to hide their abuse of young girls, too. Abortion allows society to be protected from the sight of handicapped people. Abortion allows us to hide the fact that people are sometimes imperfect, that some people need care. Abortion allows us to forget that sex has a purpose other than our own physical pleasure. Abortion allows us to hide from the fact that we can’t control everything.

How many women do you think would pay someone to kill their child if in school we showed them pictures of unborn children?

http://www.empirecontact.com/images/people/unborn_child.jpg

David says: Sure. It’s clearly immoral to force a woman to endure fifteen to twenty more weeks of pregnancy, and undertake all of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, to give birth to a child which she knows to have no brain.

Why? Why is that immoral? Because we *can??? *Does being able to do something make it moral? Is it immoral to let parents watch their children die when the child’s condition is not known until after birth or is it all right to kill those children too?

 

[St_Francis]

**
How long would you predict an anencephalic infant to live? It has no** functional brain. Please direct those of us who are interested toward the actual verifiable cases of these babies who have lived “beyond a few minutes at most” - I quoted the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke as predicting an extremely grave outcome for these infants: *“If the infant is not stillborn, then he or she will usually die within a few hours or days after birth.” * Do you mean weeks, months of survival without a functioning brain? Certainly not.

…

Limerick

Cacilda Galante Ferreira, whose daughter Marcela was born with anencephaly a year and a half ago in Morro Agudo, Sao Paulo State, Brazil. The baby is very much alive, quite healthy, and responds to family members.

“One week I had to go out and I left Marcela sleeping with my other daughter. When I returned she was agitated and crying. I can’t stay away from her for one minute,” her mother told the newspaper A Cidade in February.

Although she was born without most of her brain, Marcela Ferreira has lived for a year and a half with little extraordinary care. She receives oxygen supplementation and eats through a feeding tube inserted through her nose, but otherwise lives normally. She interacts with family members and shows signs of consciousness. Her presence is a joy for all.

“My little dear, the little infant so small and fragile, is today strong and very much loved by everyone,” her mother reportedly wrote in a diary entry. "Little Marcela came into the world to touch our hearts and to show us the true meaning of life."

When Marcela was diagnosed with anencephaly, still in the womb, her mother was given the option to abort the child. Her doctor, she says, “gave me a week to decide if I was going to continue with the pregnancy. I responded that it is not right to be so cruel as to kill that small and innocent child.”

From here, the link I posted previously.

 

[djeter]

Has anyone heard about this story? I found out as much as I could about it and put it on my blog where I also have links to the three articles I read about and summarized.

To whit:

On July 1st, Caritas Christi, the Catholic Health care system run by the Archdiocese of Boston, will enter into a contract with a subsidiary of the Centene Corporation to provide “reproductive services," such as abortion, sterilization, contraception, and counseling for Commonwealth Care (the compulsory state health care system) members in Massachusetts.

Despite the fig leaf of Centene’s subsidiary doing the actual dirty work, Caritas will profit from the relationship and will in fact be counseling patients to receive those immoral services from Centene, even to the point of transporting patients to abortion facilities. The Massachusetts plan foreshadows the national model under consideration by the Obama Administration.

There’s a link to the Archdiocese of Boston for you to send an appropriate “Say it ain’t so!” message.

DJ

 

[St_Francis]

Has anyone heard about this story? I found out as much as I could about it and put it on my blog where I also have links to the three articles I read about and summarized.

To whit:

On July 1st, Caritas Christi, the Catholic Health care system run by the Archdiocese of Boston, will enter into a contract with a subsidiary of the Centene Corporation to provide “reproductive services," such as abortion, sterilization, contraception, and counseling for Commonwealth Care (the compulsory state health care system) members in Massachusetts.

Despite the fig leaf of Centene’s subsidiary doing the actual dirty work, Caritas will profit from the relationship and will in fact be counseling patients to receive those immoral services from Centene, even to the point of transporting patients to abortion facilities. The Massachusetts plan foreshadows the national model under consideration by the Obama Administration.

There’s a link to the Archdiocese of Boston for you to send an appropriate “Say it ain’t so!” message.

DJ

This is a terrible development, but not related to the topic of the thread. It is important enough to have its own thread where more people will see it.

 

[kage_ar]

Limerick and David,
Neither of you is Catholic; I understand that, and I think it is unfortunate.

The fact that neither claim the name Catholic is really irrelevant.

The pro-life stand is one that is taken by people from every single walk of life.

Perhaps spend some time at

godlessprolifers.org/library.html

 

[St_Francis]

The fact that neither claim the name Catholic is really irrelevant.

The pro-life stand is one that is taken by people from every single walk of life.

Perhaps spend some time at

godlessprolifers.org/library.html

You are right, the fact that neither is Catholic is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, but I just wanted to acknowledge that I had noticed that. I probably did that badly

 

[livi]

Sure. It’s clearly immoral to force a woman to endure fifteen to twenty more weeks of pregnancy, and undertake all of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth, to give birth to a child which she knows to have no brain.

Some things, like abortion, are just moral or immoral regardless of what your religion is. Abortion is immoral for everyone, not just Roman Catholics, because it is murder. If a child is born with physical problems, that is tragic but it is a natural occurance. Murdering that child and claiming it is out of compassion is just disgusting. I really don’t think its okay to kill people, born or unborn, because they are sick.

This is kind of unrelated, but someone asked where I heard that 51 percent of Americans call themselves pro-life now. It was on the news relatively recently, they got the number from a poll.

 

[alacoque]

EeyoresB: Interesting post…and thank you for your firm pro-life stance!!

I believe that ALL methods possibly available (morally) can and should be used to fight this most heinous evil. I do not agree with an either/or approach and believe that, since abortion is not only pre-natal murder of the innocent but also a grievous offense against God and Love, we dare not ever cease to end this evil practice, including by making it illegal. It is wrong and is the killing of God’s children and can never be abandoned if we are to stand for what we believe in and for the moral law (which, by the way, as another poster mentioned, governs ALL people, not just Catholics or religious people).

But I believe, like you do, that there are many other options/techniques/approaches we could ADD to what we are already doing, all of which would help. It is a unique aspect of human nature that we demand (and call a ‘right’) consequence-free sex. That’s what all this boils down to, including the ‘attitudes’ your post wants to address. They all stem from the belief that there IS such a thing as consequence-free sex. There is not…so that should be added to our list of things to educate young people / all people about.

God bless us all and bring success to our efforts for life!
p.s. Einstein may have said that same “quote” to Jesus regarding His ministry, life and death. "Context’ is everything.

 

[alacoque]

By the way, I also wanted to add my voice to those of posters who are making the very critical point that abortion (as explained very cogently by the Church) is an INTRINSIC evil! That makes it not only something that screams for every attempt possible to make it illegal but also ranks it at the top, in any hierarchy, of ‘good things to do to fight abortion’.

Addressing attitudes, education, and attempting to change minds is very good; there’s nothing wrong with it, in fact. And it will be nothing but helpful in the fight against abortion. But these things are secondary, not primary, when dealing with intrinsic evil.

In Nazi Germany, with the flourishing of the concentration camps and the insidious ‘going along’ of many of the good citizens of that country, the first order of business (because we are dealing with intrinsic evil!) is to close the camps! THEN…or maybe even at the same time, if you want, the attitudes, morals and opinions of the people racking up the gas cannisters and loading people into the ovens could be addressed.

No doubt, that latter approach would benefit the overall issue, but FIRST, close the camps and liberate the people!

It may indeed be true that the beliefs and attitudes BEHIND what those in charge were doing could be seen as the ‘reason’ for the camps…and one could conclude: "eliminate the ignorance, faulty thinking and base causes of these mindsets, and the camps all but disappear.

This is dangerous thinking and faulty logic. Why? Because it rests on the belief (erroneous) that a lot of people have today - which is that there is no such thing as objective, real evil. This faulty thinking and logic sees all ‘so-called’ evil to be nothing but some variety of ‘social problem’. The cure, then, is to work on the social engineering or social mores that inform people and that will eradicate the evil thing we abhor.

Human history, if not logic (and the Church for those of us who are Catholic/Christian), will show the fallacy of this belief. Evil DOES exist…personified, objective and powerful. Jesus called it (him) the father of lies - which he certainly is - and, just like with Adam and Eve in the beginning - he will twist truth into lies and use the weakness of human nature to attempt the very integration of his evil into the life and laws of humanity. He succeeds much more often than we’d like to think.

My point is that ‘social programs’ and education (unless it is truth-oriented, tough theological and metaphysical education) will not make a dent in his power. So, to educate people is always good, in any way we can…but lets not neglect the father of lies, behind it all, manipulating and twisting things we highly value (like truth, liberty, autonomy, free will, etc) into shams of themselves and convincing us that black is white and evil is good.

God bless all those, today, who will die by abortion…

 

[bobbyva2001]

**Abortion most certainly IS a choice. A woman has options: to carry the pregnancy to term and keep the baby; to carry the pregnancy to term and put the baby up for adoption; to try to carry a baby to term if it has been shown to be genetically defective; to go horseback riding for nine straight months in hopes that she will miscarry; to seek out a legal surgical abortion. These are a few options on the smorgasboard of “choice”. Abortion is but one option, and there are others available to women through the avenue of free will, also called “choice”.

Limerick **

Um… obviously. Negent writes these similar posts. Is it supposed to be a walk on the tight rope on the the edge of pro choice cliff. Its nonsense because you only state the obvious and your object is to make a play on the words pro choice as some sort of thing in line with freewill. You act as if the context of the argument is if we have a choice to commit abortion and if we do than that is what pro choice is. Lame. So I will repeat my words to ngent: the debate is whether it should be legal (without consequence) to kill a child in the womb. Of course everybody has the choice to do it daa. You have the choice to do anything.

It has utterly nothing to do with whether abortion should be legal or not. The real question: is the act of abortion right? Or does the mother have the right to kill (not terminate) her child without consequence? It’s such a lame attempt to distort reality when you do this. Its not crafty . I am pro choice because I can choose to kill some one or not. Just stop. You distract from the question at hand. Contrive a real argument with substance that deals with the act itself. I for one would cordially debate or converse with anyone who would address the issue directly in a calm and reasonable fashion.

 

[livi]

First of all, pro-choice means pro-legal abortion. Its not about free will. And we should protect all people, not allow the murder of unborn children to be committed legally and without conseqence. If a person chooses to kill an unborn baby, then they should be held legally accountable the same way they would be if they chose to kill someone else, like a child that already has been born.

And in response to the comment about a woman going horseback riding for nine months hoping to induce a miscarriage, that also would be seriously wrong because she would be knowingly and purposefully endangering her unborn child. In that case, she should be held accountable for child endangerment. If the baby dies, then she should also be charged with murder.

 

[wynnejj]

How can one be “firmly Pro-Life” if one considers “murder” to be a cliche for abortion? And, if one understands the equation that abortion=murder is not just a cliche, then how can one make a ridiculous statement like:

“Wouldn’t it be amazing if murder ended not because we passed a law but because they were no longer “needed”?”

 

[limerick]

Some things, like abortion, are just moral or immoral regardless of what your religion is. Abortion is immoral for everyone, not just Roman Catholics, because it is murder. If a child is born with physical problems, that is tragic but it is a natural occurance. Murdering that child and claiming it is out of compassion is just disgusting. I really don’t think its okay to kill people, born or unborn, because they are sick.

This is kind of unrelated, but someone asked where I heard that 51 percent of Americans call themselves pro-life now. It was on the news relatively recently, they got the number from a poll.

**Where was the “poll” conducted? Outside a dozen churches after services had ended?

Limerick**

 

[limerick]

First of all, pro-choice means pro-legal abortion. Its not about free will. And we should protect all people, not allow the murder of unborn children to be committed legally and without conseqence. If a person chooses to kill an unborn baby, then they should be held legally accountable the same way they would be if they chose to kill someone else, like a child that already has been born.

And in response to the comment about a woman going horseback riding for nine months hoping to induce a miscarriage, that also would be seriously wrong because she would be knowingly and purposefully endangering her unborn child. In that case, she should be held accountable for child endangerment. If the baby dies, then she should also be charged with murder.

**I strongly disagree with you on the choice=abortion front; if you are interested in what I have said over and over and over to this point, please refer to my posts on this topic throughout other threads. No sense laying it at your feet, anyway, when you will not consider another’s viewpoint unless it aligns with your own.

If a woman went horseback riding daily for nine months in hopes of inducing a miscarriage, it may be “wrong” but that would be her choice and she would be free to make it. Child endangerment? The fetus is not yet a child. Baby? Again, not a child, a fetus. This is not a semantics game. There are reasons laws are written in these terms.

Limerick**

 

[limerick]

Um… obviously. Negent writes these similar posts. Is it supposed to be a walk on the tight rope on the the edge of pro choice cliff. Its nonsense because you only state the obvious and your object is to make a play on the words pro choice as some sort of thing in line with freewill.
**
No play on words here. Free will is a gift from God which allows us to evaluate our life circumstances and make changes that we believe will be for the greater good based on our personal moral code. Catholicism spells it out sharply in black and white. I do not argue with anyone’s right to believe as he or she wishes. But not everyone is Catholic or Christian or even good. Yet we all still have that freedom to decide how to proceed in the face of unexpected circumstances. And your moral code will not automatically apply to those of other faiths, or of little or no faith, faced with the same dilemma.**

You act as if the context of the argument is if we have a choice to commit abortion and if we do than that is what pro choice is.

We do have a choice to seek and undergo an abortion. We also have a choice to add one more child to the family, or raise a child alone in the face of financial stresses, or give birth and allow another family to adopt. We also have the choice not to have sex at all. This is the penultimate choice that is so often forgotten in the debate about abortion. If you believe these points are insignificant then you are physically, mentally, spiritually unwilling to enter into dialogue regarding the abortion dilemma.

Lame. So I will repeat my words to ngent: the debate is whether it should be legal (without consequence) to kill a child in the womb. Of course everybody has the choice to do it daa. You have the choice to do anything.

Precisely. We have the choice to do anything. The debate, however, includes many components in addition to the il/legality of abortion, including complete sex education, appropriate role modeling for children, self-defense, an introduction to substance abuse and how it can drive the abortion industry, etc.

It has utterly nothing to do with whether abortion should be legal or not.

Didn’t you just say “the debate is whether it should be legal (without consequence) to kill a child in the womb”?

The real question: is the act of abortion right? Or does the mother have the right to kill (not terminate) her child without consequence? It’s such a lame attempt to distort reality when you do this. ?? Its not crafty . I am pro choice because I can choose to kill some one or not. Just stop. ?? You distract from the question at hand. Contrive a real argument with substance that deals with the act itself. I for one would cordially debate or converse with anyone who would address the issue directly in a calm and reasonable fashion. -** As long as s/he agrees with me and doesn’t distract me with things I don’t want to consider.**
**
They are all legitimate questions. Have you seen any workable answers to any one of them lately? Would you like to know about my abortion? Is that legitimate enough for you?

Limerick**