Why are so many Catholics pro-choice?

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estesbob said:
As Archbishop Chaput put it we are not voting for the lesser of two evils-we are voting to lessen evil.

As far as mud slinging goes we are much more civilized today that we were in the past. Recall the attacks on Taft over the rumor he had an out of wedlock child. They taunted him “Ma, ma where my Pa? He’s in the White house making the law”. Also note when Preston Brooks nearly caned Charles Sumner to death on the floor of the House of representatives over an alleged insult.
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Taft I did not know about, Preston Brooks, I did. What I’m referring to is we have TV now with live coverage, and it’s being used to convince more and more people that the Culture of Death is good. That any limits on abortion or contraception amounts to “a war on women.” I’m not unsympathetic to the plight of some women, but let’s face it, after pills or other forms of contraception, abortion is the worst form of contraception. I agree with Archbishop Chaput but since I know who is promoting evil the most, I never think of parties, just the issues.

Ed
 
edwest2 said:
Taft I did not know about, Preston Brooks, I did. What I’m referring to is we have TV now with live coverage, and it’s being used to convince more and more people that the Culture of Death is good. That any limits on abortion or contraception amounts to “a war on women.” I’m not unsympathetic to the plight of some women, but let’s face it, after pills or other forms of contraception, abortion is the worst form of contraception. I agree with Archbishop Chaput but since I know who is promoting evil the most, I never think of parties, just the issues.

Ed
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I cant recall if Brooks felt he was insulted or that Sumner had insulted South Carolina. Brooks was never charged and the southern delegation all showed up the next day waving canes!
 
Zoltan_Cobalt said:
One more thing about that poll…

Among all faith traditions – only 34 percent of weekly church attendees support same sex marriage.

An unbiased media would have headlined that…

“76 Percent of American Church Goers Stand Against Same Sex Marriage”

But…no. They had to pick on the Catholics.

Interesting fact…since over 80% of all Americans claim to have some religious identification…and Quinnipac finds that 76% of all faith traditions DO NOT support legalizing same sex marriage…I would think that the vast majority of Americans do not support same sex marriage.
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Zoltan - your maths is not too good. ;). It’s 66% of church goers…
 
madtom said:
you know, this reminds me…I went to a private Catholic prep school in NYC for high school, and my senior thesis presented in front of my class was on abortion and the pro-life stance. My main point was as you said, “what about the right of the baby?” some of my classmates looked at me like I had two heads. Not only had they never heard that argument, they couldn’t even grasp it. and this was a room FULL OF CATHOLICS! I guess that answers your initial question!
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That’s unfortunate…and I was really wondering what the Catholic schools are teaching about these issues. I would certainly hope they teach the moral issues as well.

I have noticed that when other women say they believe in the right of the woman and I ask about the right of the baby they get kind of a deer in headlights look like I never thought about that. I have never had someone argue against it and I pray I won’t!
 
tifischer said:
That’s unfortunate…and I was really wondering what the Catholic schools are teaching about these issues. I would certainly hope they teach the moral issues as well.

I have noticed that when other women say they believe in the right of the woman and I ask about the right of the baby they get kind of a deer in headlights look like I never thought about that. I have never had someone argue against it and I pray I won’t!
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Surely some will tell you you can’t compare a lump of cells the size of a pea, attached to and dependent on the mother for life, with a person?
 
madtom said:
well, what did the poll ask specifically? did it ask are YOU (personally) opposed to abortion? or, did it ask are you in favor of overturning roe v. wade and outlawing abortion? and how does it classify pro-life? is it defined as being against ALL abortions, or does it allow for exceptions? we know what the Church teaches and what we are to believe as Catholics, but there are many Catholics who are personally opposed to abortion and consider it murder, but do not believe it should be made illegal because that would be an imposition of their religous beliefs on others. there are also Catholics who are opposed to abortion but are willing to compromise on certain cases (rape, life of mother). so honestly, it’s hard to comment on these numbers without knowing exactly what they mean.
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Great points. I too think it’s likely that there are a lot who are personally opposed (wouldn’t get one themselves and have an unfavorable view towards it in general) but don’t feel comfortable in making it unavailable to others - if they see it as immoral due to their religious beliefs, and only due to the fact that it’s in church teaching, then trying to impose that on others outside of their religion is trying to force aspects of their religion on others who don’t believe.

Also, as you mentioned, rape/incest/health of mother are fairly common exceptions for a lot of people who would otherwise be 100% pro-life, but I think any compromise or acceptance of the practice can put people in the pro-choice camp by default. There seems to be no middle ground in terms (pro-life/pro-choice), but I suspect like many things in life that people have opinions on, there’s actually a spectrum from always 100% forever wrong, to 100% always acceptable, with lots of ground in the middle - exceptions for rape/incest, acceptable only in 1st trimester, acceptable only until the baby can survive on its own outside the womb, acceptable only when the mothers life is at risk, etc.

Variances like these are hard to capture in polls.
 
AnnieHall said:
Great points. I too think it’s likely that there are a lot who are personally opposed (wouldn’t get one themselves and have an unfavorable view towards it in general) but don’t feel comfortable in making it unavailable to others - if they see it as immoral due to their religious beliefs, and only due to the fact that it’s in church teaching, then trying to impose that on others outside of their religion is trying to force aspects of their religion on others who don’t believe.

Also, as you mentioned, rape/incest/health of mother are fairly common exceptions for a lot of people who would otherwise be 100% pro-life, but I think any compromise or acceptance of the practice can put people in the pro-choice camp by default. There seems to be no middle ground in terms (pro-life/pro-choice), but I suspect like many things in life that people have opinions on, there’s actually a spectrum from always 100% forever wrong, to 100% always acceptable, with lots of ground in the middle - exceptions for rape/incest, acceptable only in 1st trimester, acceptable only until the baby can survive on its own outside the womb, acceptable only when the mothers life is at risk, etc.

Variances like these are hard to capture in polls.
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Opinions on most real-world matters fall across a spectrum, whereas many polls are essentially binary. A modest number of people would support the Church in prohibiting abortion in ALL situations, whereas a more size able proportion would support a view that abortion is wrong when pursued for convenience. Of course, this does underscore the poor understanding of why abortion is wrong.
 
Please remember that discussions involving particular political parties are not allowed in this forum. Thank you for your cooperation.
 
Matilda_Bennett said:
Please remember that discussions involving particular political parties are not allowed in this forum. Thank you for your cooperation.
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My discussion was not concerning the political party but the moral values of our Catholic community.
 
Rau said:
Surely some will tell you you can’t compare a lump of cells the size of a pea, attached to and dependent on the mother for life, with a person?
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Yes. The Bible reads that Jesus, David and others were conceived in the heart of God before they were even one cell. Surely you do not want to imagine what our lives would be like if their mother’s had thought like you?
 
tifischer said:
Here is the article. It just says pro-choice vs pro-life. If you think that those Catholics may be pro-life because of rape or incest then they are in for a very unpleasant surprise because those cases are a ridiculous small portion of those who are aborted. Also, the statistics are pretty much the same where ever I have looked. And rape and incest still are not reasons to kill a baby…as though it is the baby’s fault? This article although a little older people-press.org/2009/10/01/support-for-abortion-slips/ it seems the weekly evangelical has a pretty impressive moral stance on pro-life.

Saying that imposing religious beliefs would prohibit Catholics from taking a pro-life stand would be a failing in our teaching of moral values. The law says that you cannot kill people…but no one seems to think that is imposing one’s religious beliefs. Those people would definitely want to reevaluate their learning of what it means to have moral values. If you have moral values it does not matter if you learned them from religion or not, you would still stand by them.
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Did you mean to link to the article you were referring to in your original post dated 2013? I couldn’t find it.

In the 2009 article it shows practicing Catholics at 67% for ‘illegal’ while Catholics identifying as ‘attend less’ than weekly were only 29% for illegal. I think that reflects that most Catholics don’t choose their religion (baptised at birth) but continue to identify as Catholic throughout life despite not having a Catholic faith.

On a side note, I don’t get the relevance of separating black/white and Hispanic people in the statistics. Sure for practicing and non practicing religious I see relevance but race lines, no.
 
LongingSoul said:
Did you mean to link to the article you were referring to in your original post dated 2013? I couldn’t find it.

In the 2009 article it shows practicing Catholics at 67% for ‘illegal’ while Catholics identifying as ‘attend less’ than weekly were only 29% for illegal. I think that reflects that most Catholics don’t choose their religion (baptised at birth) but continue to identify as Catholic throughout life despite not having a Catholic faith.

On a side note, I don’t get the relevance of separating black/white and Hispanic people in the statistics. Sure for practicing and non practicing religious I see relevance but race lines, no.
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Only a portion of the Catholic community attend weekly mass so I would say that reasoning that those who attend weekly are more likely to be pro-life (67%) is not impressive. If you were to tell me that those devout Catholics who attend every week are (>90%) pro-life that would be much more impressive. However to say that our devout population is only (67%) pro-life is not impressive. The percent of Catholics who attend mass weekly is closer to 45% of the Catholic population.

The 2013 article theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/16/these-americans-are-the-most-and-least-likely-to-support-abortion-plus-are-most-women-really-pro-choice/
 
Rau said:
Surely some will tell you you can’t compare a lump of cells the size of a pea, attached to and dependent on the mother for life, with a person?
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In addition to my earlier response to your comment, I would also like to add that you may want to consider that biologically speaking those first cells are actually the most important to sustain life. That would be hypocritical that people actually believe that those cells are meaningless to the viability of the life of a human.

Blessings!
 
tifischer said:
Yes. The Bible reads that Jesus, David and others were conceived in the heart of God before they were even one cell. Surely you do not want to imagine what our lives would be like if their mother’s had thought like you?
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How do I think? I am questioning the suggestion that concern for the life of the child would persuade all mothers that they must not abort.
 
tifischer said:
In addition to my earlier response to your comment, I would also like to add that you may want to consider that biologically speaking those first cells are actually the most important to sustain life. That would be hypocritical that people actually believe that those cells are meaningless to the viability of the life of a human.

Blessings!
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I did not advocate that the newly conceived is not a person, though you appear to have concluded I did. I identified what I believe is a common justification for abortion.
 
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