Why are the issues of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage paramount to other social issues?

[Holly3278]

Hi everyone. I am participating in a thread on another website and this person who is a liberal Catholic attacked me because I said that I agreed with Bush more than Obama on moral issues. He basically accused me of putting more importance on the issues of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage as opposed to social justice, care for the poor, and something else. I know that abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage are issues that are paramount to those other issues but how do I explain this to a liberal Catholic who more than likely believes those issues to be equal to the top 3 that I mentioned?

 

[Ender]

Some issues, those dealing with intrinsic evil, present us with no choice on what position we must support. They are intrinsically evil because there is no situation where they can be a moral choice; regardless of ones intention, these things are always wrong. There is a short list of these issues: abortion, euthanasia, ESCR, human cloning, and homosexual “marriage.”

On the social issues, which constitute the vast majority of decisions to be addressed politically, the Church takes no position. These are prudential issues about which each individual is free to choose his own solution. Church teaching provides guidelines and objectives toward which we should strive (justice for all, feed the poor, …) but she takes no position on which specific policies are best to achieve those objectives.

So, to that degree, his charge is correct: you are putting more emphasis on the issues dealing with intrinsic evil than on the prudential issues. This puts you in the same company as JPII.

Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights—for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture—is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. (Christifideles Laici, no. 38)

In order to justify to himself his vote he must diminish the significance of the intrinsically evil things his candidate supports and over emphasize the prudential choices he personally approves. At the heart of his charge is the assumption that his solution to social issues is moral and yours is not. He assumes that, because he cares about the poor, his solutions to their problems will work and that you oppose his solutions not because you disagree with their effectiveness but because you don’t care about the poor.

Agreeing with the Church that abortion is the greatest social evil of our time, and acting accordingly, says nothing whatever about your commitment to any other social problem.

Ender

 

[Ruthie]

I hope these reactions of mine can help you in your fight.

On an emotional level, I simply cannot see how opposing the death of a few thousands, most of whom (on both sides) are volunteers, in the Iraq war can be more important than opposing the death of ***millions ***of ***innocents ***by abortion.

Fighting poverty is also good - but I agree with Mother Teresa on that one. “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

Our society is moving closer and closer to a philosophy that allows us to kill the inconvenient and the expensive. We already have a system in place in Oregon, that allows the state to pay for “assisted suicide,” but *not *for treatment for the terminally ill. Socialized medicine in Canada puts a terminally ill person on a waiting list for treatment, which has in some cases been longer than their doctor’s prognosis. China is controlling their population with forced, involutary abortion.

How far are we from allowing the homeless to be “humanely euthanized” for the sake of our own convenience? How far are we from deciding that the poor (on welfare, for instance) must be made sterile, to prevent them from costing us more money?

To prevent these things, we have to start at the beginning, which is the ***absolute ***right to life, *all *human life, at *any *time during our life cycle.

Hope this helps,

Ruthie

 

[Holly3278]

Thank you Ruthie and Ender. Your posts were quite helpful.

 

[Corki]

The Bishops talk about a heriarchy of life issues which includes everything abortion, education, care for the sick, embryonic stem cell research, etc. Abortion and ECS are at the top since they are the antithesis of life. They kill purely innocent life. Gay marriage is not stricly speaking a life issue; it is a defense of family issue.

There are some things where the issue is black or white; yes or no; always. Abortion is always wrong. Gay marriage is always wrong.

Care for the poor is always right. I have never known anyone who says that we shouldn’t care for the poor. The Church is one of the largest providers of care for the poor. During the recent election year, all sides wanted to care for the poor. The differences lie in the “how”. If someone said they really wanted to stop caring for the poor, that would be undeniably wrong according to Church teaching. To disagree with someone’s opinion of how to care for the poor is not against Church teaching.