Why do some Catholics support legal abortion?

[BenedictFTW]

I don’t think that some abortions should be illegal because they aren’t murder. A blastocyst isn’t a person so it doesn’t have any legal rights. The mother is and does.

Ultimately, its the mother’s choice as to what happens to the conseptus. I’d rather those who don’t want to be pregnant have a medical option over the other termination alternatives. Too, society shouldn’t be forcing those women to do things with their own bodies.

It is not the mother’s choice to kill her unborn; this is not a right under God. Only the evil laws passed by successive governments since the UK first passed Abortion into law in the late 60s. That child is a person separate from her; within her body, sure, but separate. She has no right to kill, no more than any other person has. Society does trick people into thinking that they can do what they like with their bodies and when a baby is the result, that it is OK to kill it.

Fact is, once conception takes place, whatever name you wish to use - be it “fetus”, “embryo” - that is a human person. These are merely stages of development. Ask yourself, if you think a fetus is not a human child, what will it be? A chair? An elephant? Of course not, it is a child, from conception!!

This is the belief of our Church, to which you claim membership. You do not have a pass on this subject. Murder is murder. Whether it is legalised or not. We will answer to Almighty God for the murder of the innocents.

 

[sedonaman]

…Laws aren’t supposed to be based on religion.
…

Where is it written that, “Laws aren’t supposed to be based on religion” ?
Every law is the codification of someone’s concept of what is right and what is wrong.

 

[BenedictFTW]

Where is it written that, “Laws aren’t supposed to be based on religion” ?
Every law is the codification of someone’s concept of what is right and what is wrong.

Exactly. And American Law is based on Christian laws and ethics. As are the laws of all Western countries.

 

[CatSci]

Aaaa…who says there are not prolife institutions that are not working on saving the lives of those who miscarry…

Nobody has said that. Which prolife instutions are working on saving the lives of those who miscarry? What kind of work are they doing?

The point is this: If you’re mostly concerned about the conceptus, then whenever the question of the legality of abortion comes up, the reponse should be to push people towards helping the prolife institutions that are working on saving the lives of those who miscarry. The vast majority of lost concepuses are due to miscarriages rather than abortions. Focusing on criminalizing abortion takes away from your true goal of saving conceptuses. You’d be much more productive and accomplished if you re-focused your efforts.

Miscarriage is (all things being equal) an involuntary happening – like other deadly medical events that happen that people do not want…

That doesn’t stop people from fighting cancer…

Abortion is the direct murder of an unborn child.

Not necessarily. And certainly not in a legal sense - a blastocyst is not a legal person.

If one wants to be arbitrary --might as well go all out.

People who are born have legal rights, so you can’t push the line past birth.

Laws aren’t supposed to be based on religion.

Your in the wrong forum. This is the Catholic Answers forum. The question is about Catholics.

I know what forum I’m in, and I was raised Catholic.

Laws in the United States (I assume were talking about the U.S. here) cannot be based on religion alone. They must have a secular purpose.

(PS: but I will note that a law recognizing the inviolable right of an unborn child from the moment of conception is not per se a religious thing.

I agree. There could be a secular justification for identifying personhood before birth. But I don’t think you could define a legal person in a workable way that would include blastocysts. There would still be some abortions that should not be criminalized.

 

[FromTheAshes777]

That is the point. Catholics can live as Catholics with out Catholicism being the law of the land. My neighbor doesn’t have to be Catholic for me to be Catholic.

A respect for human life should span across all of society, not just those that practice a certain faith, philosophy or religion. A person of any belief or none at all can believe it’s wrong to kill children.

 

[Bookcat]

Nobody has said that. Which prolife instutions are working on saving the lives of those who miscarry? What kind of work are they doing?

The point is this: If you’re mostly concerned about the conceptus, then whenever the question of the legality of abortion comes up, the reponse should be to push people towards helping the prolife institutions that are working on saving the lives of those who miscarry. The vast majority of lost concepuses are due to miscarriages rather than abortions. Focusing on criminalizing abortion takes away from your true goal of saving conceptuses. You’d be much more productive and accomplished if you re-focused your efforts.

I imagine various ones. The Paul VI institute for one. Many lives have been saved via their work!

To be concerned for the little child that was just conceived in his mothers womb and to work for the end of the abortion …does not mean that one is not concerned to find out what causes miscarriage.

 

[Bookcat]

People who are born have legal rights, so you can’t push the line past birth.

Sorry certain rights are not given by governments. They are to respect and protect them…but they are not bestowed by such.

 

[Bookcat]

I know what forum I’m in, and I was raised Catholic.

Laws in the United States (I assume were talking about the U.S. here) cannot be based on religion alone. They must have a secular purpose.

The Point being: The question in this thread is not if there should be a law or not!

One is to stay on topic in a thread.

 

[CatSci]

It is not the mother’s choice to kill her unborn; this is not a right under God.

What I meant was that ultimately, the life of the unborn depends on the choices the mother makes. If she really really doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she’s going to make choices that terminate that pregnancy. I think its better to have medical options available to those people, especially considering some of the alternatives.

Fact is, once conception takes place, whatever name you wish to use - be it “fetus”, “embryo” - that is a human person.

I don’t think so. And certainly not in a legal sense.

These are merely stages of development. Ask yourself, if you think a fetus is not a human child, what will it be? A chair? An elephant? Of course not, it is a child, from conception!!

Because it is stages of development, it cannot be a full person at the earliest stages. That’s what development means.

Cracking a seed is not cutting down a tree.

This is the belief of our Church, to which you claim membership.

Yeah, we don’t agree on everything. I’m with ya that abortion is immoral. I just don’t think it should be criminalized/illegal.

 

[sedonaman]

…a blastocyst is not a legal person.
…

A pro-abortion editorial appearing in the September 1970 issue of California Medicine contains a revealing statement on lying in the service of killing: “Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everybody knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but the taking of a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected.” [Emphasis added] This is not a religious perspective; it was written by those who support abortion on demand. And the public fell for their “schizophrenic subterfuge” and continues to fall for it.

 

[fix]

Since it is all gradual, then at the early stages it isn’t a person that you’re “killing”.

Sounds like sociopathy. If you do not know then the answer is to act regardless?

A blastocyst is not a person. And conception is just as arbitrary as any other “point”.

It is not arbitrary at all. It is the start of life. If not then, when does life start? At age 5? 10?

Is a 2 year old less human than a 20 year old? Based on development guess you would say yes?

 

[fix]

And if you’re so concerned about every single conceptus, then what about all the ones that are naturally aborted? Only about 40% of conceptions come to term. Rather than pushing for the criminality of abortion, shouldn’t you be funding scientific research in the prevention of lost conceptions? Pragmatically, you’d be saving a heck of a lot more souls that way.

There is a vast difference between a physical evil and a moral evil. Fracturing your leg by accident is much different than a person intentionally breaking your leg.

 

[Bookcat]

“Guest appearance” on Catholic Answers Forum…

Q: Why do some Catholics support legal abortion?*

A: Pope Benedict XVI:

"Perhaps America’s brand of secularism poses a particular problem: it allows for professing belief in God, and respects the public role of religion and the Churches, but at the same time it can subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator. Faith becomes a passive acceptance that certain things “out there” are true, but without practical relevance for everyday life. The result is a growing separation of faith from life: living “as if God did not exist”. This is aggravated by an individualistic and eclectic approach to faith and religion: far from a Catholic approach to “thinking with the Church”, each person believes he or she has a right to pick and choose, maintaining external social bonds but without an integral, interior conversion to the law of Christ. Consequently, rather than being transformed and renewed in mind, Christians are easily tempted to conform themselves to the spirit of this age (cf. Rom 12:3). We have seen this emerge in an acute way in the scandal given by Catholics who promote an alleged right to abortion.

On a deeper level, secularism challenges the Church to reaffirm and to pursue more actively her mission in and to the world. As the Council made clear, the lay faithful have a particular responsibility in this regard. What is needed, I am convinced, is a greater sense of the intrinsic relationship between the Gospel and the natural law on the one hand, and, on the other, the pursuit of authentic human good, as embodied in civil law and in personal moral decisions. In a society that rightly values personal liberty, the Church needs to promote at every level of her teaching – in catechesis, preaching, seminary and university instruction – an apologetics aimed at affirming the truth of Christian revelation, the harmony of faith and reason, and a sound understanding of freedom, seen in positive terms as a liberation both from the limitations of sin and for an authentic and fulfilling life. In a word, the Gospel has to be preached and taught as an integral way of life, offering an attractive and true answer, intellectually and practically, to real human problems. The “dictatorship of relativism”, in the end, is nothing less than a threat to genuine human freedom, which only matures in generosity and fidelity to the truth."

(Such is really his words…make sure to read all of the above…you will see he answers the question I fictiously put to him in his real answer to a question posed to him)

*(real Q) The Holy Father is asked to give his assessment of the challenge of increasing secularism in public life and relativism in intellectual life, and his advice on how to confront these challenges pastorally and evangelize more effectively.

(more of his ansser vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080416_response-bishops_en.html)

 

[fix]

Permit me to repeat a case study personally familiar to me.

A couple - devoutly Catholic - had six young children. They always had depended upon the church-approved form of birth control. The wife had been warned by her doctor that she should have no more children as it likely this could mean her death and that of the baby. The husband wanted to use artificial birth control but the woman consulted the priest who told her that this would be a big sin. The couple should welcome as many children as ‘God sent them’. Anyway, she became pregnant again. The doctor warned her again, too, and so did the priest.

The husband favored a very early abortion. He found evidence that in the early church men like Augustine had taught that the baby did not receive a soul until two months or so after conception. The wife refused and attended church every day, praying to the Blessed Virgin Mother and various sints to keep her and her baby safe. 

 As the doctor had warned, both died. The husband was both in deep grief and incensed and blamed the priest and the church. Six children under 12 were now motherless and also mourning. 

 In that sort of situation, I think the priest should have told the mother that the decision was hers to make, according to her conscience, rather than emphasize the 'sin' involved. I am inclined to think that the bigger sin was risking the life of the mother and her baby - and the happiness and well being of the other six children and their father.

 The father immediately left the Church, brought his children to the Episcopal Church, and has nothing but bitterness toward Catholicism.

 There are rules and then there are exceptions to rules. Jesus promoted exceptions as when he stopped the men from stoning the women condemned of adultery, or when he healed on the Sabbath - etc. Christianity should  not be a straight-jacket that does more to imprison than to free. Jesus didn't say a word about abortions. As for 'thou shalt not kill' we make exceptions all the time, in cases of self-defense, and certainly when we go to war. (Yes, I know about the just war theory.)

 Abortion is usually wrong - agreed. Far better is artificial birth control which 90% of Catholics practice at sometime in their lives anyway. It is one of the advancements made by medical science, along with brain surgery, various transplants, artificial limbs, etc. The Church's position on it causes deaths by increasing abortions. Besides, if God wants to give babies to women the approved method of birth control also should be condemned. And besides that, mother nature (God, ultimately?) is responsible for the most abortions, which we call miscarriages.

Thanks for the lesson in relativism. I guess your standard is do whatever you feel is right based on emotion or some arbitrary moral code one makes up. That is not consistent with the Gospel imperative.

 

[Bookcat]

“Guest appearance” on Catholic Answers Forum…

Q: Why do some Catholics support legal abortion?*

A: Pope Benedict XVI:

"Perhaps America’s brand of secularism poses a particular problem: it allows for professing belief in God, and respects the public role of religion and the Churches, but at the same time it can subtly reduce religious belief to a lowest common denominator. Faith becomes a passive acceptance that certain things “out there” are true, but without practical relevance for everyday life. The result is a growing separation of faith from life: living “as if God did not exist”. This is aggravated by an individualistic and eclectic approach to faith and religion: far from a Catholic approach to “thinking with the Church”, each person believes he or she has a right to pick and choose, maintaining external social bonds but without an integral, interior conversion to the law of Christ. Consequently, rather than being transformed and renewed in mind, Christians are easily tempted to conform themselves to the spirit of this age (cf. Rom 12:3). We have seen this emerge in an acute way in the scandal given by Catholics who promote an alleged right to abortion.

On a deeper level, secularism challenges the Church to reaffirm and to pursue more actively her mission in and to the world. As the Council made clear, the lay faithful have a particular responsibility in this regard. What is needed, I am convinced, is a greater sense of the intrinsic relationship between the Gospel and the natural law on the one hand, and, on the other, the pursuit of authentic human good, as embodied in civil law and in personal moral decisions. In a society that rightly values personal liberty, the Church needs to promote at every level of her teaching – in catechesis, preaching, seminary and university instruction – an apologetics aimed at affirming the truth of Christian revelation, the harmony of faith and reason, and a sound understanding of freedom, seen in positive terms as a liberation both from the limitations of sin and for an authentic and fulfilling life. In a word, the Gospel has to be preached and taught as an integral way of life, offering an attractive and true answer, intellectually and practically, to real human problems. The “dictatorship of relativism”, in the end, is nothing less than a threat to genuine human freedom, which only matures in generosity and fidelity to the truth."

(Such is really his words…make sure to read all of the above…you will see he answers the question I fictiously put to him in his real answer to a question posed to him)

*(real Q) The Holy Father is asked to give his assessment of the challenge of increasing secularism in public life and relativism in intellectual life, and his advice on how to confront these challenges pastorally and evangelize more effectively.

(more of his ansser vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080416_response-bishops_en.html)

 

[BenedictFTW]

What I meant was that ultimately, the life of the unborn depends on the choices the mother makes. If she really really doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she’s going to make choices that terminate that pregnancy. I think its better to have medical options available to those people, especially considering some of the alternatives.

I don’t think so. And certainly not in a legal sense.

Because it is stages of development, it cannot be a full person at the earliest stages. That’s what development means.

Cracking a seed is not cutting down a tree.

Yeah, we don’t agree on everything. I’m with ya that abortion is immoral. I just don’t think it should be criminalized/illegal.

A blastocyst is an embryo. It is a human life. If you choose to deny this, there is nothing anyone can tell you. You, a Catholic who should really know better, has redefined nature.

Just because it is legal to kill the helpless unborn does not make it moral. Our Church teaches infallibly that it is wrong to kill the unborn. Read Pope John Paul II’s ENCYCLICAL LETTER EVANGELIUM VITAE. You risk your soul by going against the teachings of your Church.

Of course it should be criminalised - if only!! Would you kill an infant? If not, why not? It is just as dependent as an unborn - even if on more than one person!!! It is merely at another stage of development. Where would you draw the line? Up to birth? Have you ever seen a baby in the womb just 10 weeks into gestation? It is a fully formed human child, just in need of growth.

Google some images of babies in the abortuaries of your country (and mine!). Hideous. Hitler and King Herod The Great would be proud of you.

 

[NanciF]

It is interesting how Pro Life Issues are centered around the single issue of abortion. As Catholics, or, for that matter, Christians of ANY kind, we should be SERIOUSLY dealing with ALL life issues, including: Capital punishment, our own country’s Military/Economic acts of aggression (that have taken unknown numbers of lives in multiple theaters in every hemisphere over the past century), and, especially, Domestic Poverty (which, because of gross lack of pre-natal care results in shameful death rates of Infants and children, down there with any third world country).

By the way, I AM Pro Life, against abortion. I am against the taking of ANY life. I would NEVER want my family to seek another person’s life as restitution for my own. Murder is murder, for whatever reason. Yes, I understand that there are times when taking a life, such as in self defense, is necessary. (Our church has seven standards for a Just War, permitting the taking of other lives.) But, I also believe that, in extreme cases, therapeutic abortion should be a decision between a woman and God; such as the woman in Arizona who was early in a life-threatening pregnancy (with multiple children at home) and chose to terminate that pregnancy for the sake of her living children and husband. I will never forget the church’s response (from that diocese) that “we believe, in certain cases, that it is better for the mother and the child to both die.” I am old. I can easily say, now, that I would NEVER have had an abortion. But, back in my reproductive life, and put in the position of that woman, I’m not sure I would have decided differently. If faced with an act of aggression, and put in the position of defending myself or loved ones, I would pull a trigger. And, I would mourn for myself and for that person, for the rest of my life. Just as I am sure that mother in Arizona is mourning for herself and her fetus.

 

[CatSci]

The Paul VI institute for one. Many lives have been saved via their work!

What kind of work have they done to advance the science of preventing natural abortions that happen through miscarriages? How much effort have you put into helping them compared to how much you’ve put into fighting abortion?

To be concerned for the little child that was just conceived in his mothers womb and to work for the end of the abortion …does not mean that one is not concerned to find out what causes miscarriage.

Sure, but that’s beside the point. If what you care about is the “life of the person” that is a blastocyst, and considering that most pregnancies end in miscarriage, orders of magnitude more than those that end in Abortion, then your time and effort would be much better spent in arguing towards the advancements in science that would prevent miscarriages than arguing against the legality of Abortion.

The entire church should re-direct these efforts. That is, if what you really care about is the fertilized eggs.

Sorry certain rights are not given by governments. They are to respect and protect them…but they are not bestowed by such.

Legal rights are given solely by governments.

The Point being: The question in this thread is not if there should be a law or not!

One is to stay on topic in a thread.

The question of the thread is why do some Catholics support legal abortion, and that’s what I’m talking about.

Legal abortion is about the government’s laws that pertain to legal persons.

 

[Bookcat]

What kind of work have they done to advance the science of preventing natural abortions that happen through miscarriages? How much effort have you put into helping them compared to how much you’ve put into fighting abortion?

You can contact them…I am not a research scientist.

As to personal effort – well to be honest --have been very personally active both in preventing a miscarriage (using what the Paul VI institute and others have learned regarding such) and here on CA recently in this thread in terms of recently working against abortion.

 

[CatSci]

Sounds like sociopathy. If you do not know then the answer is to act regardless?

No, I do know the answer: Blastocysts aren’t people.

It is not arbitrary at all. It is the start of life. If not then, when does life start? At age 5? 10?

Is a 2 year old less human than a 20 year old? Based on development guess you would say yes?

You get your legal rights at birth. Life doesn’t start at some point, it gradually emerges. Even conception isn’t a “point”, but has many stages of development.

There is a vast difference between a physical evil and a moral evil. Fracturing your leg by accident is much different than a person intentionally breaking your leg.

Sure, but that argument doesn’t have anything to do with protecting the lives of the unborn. That is about punishing people for immoral behavior. A lot of people are against abortion for that reason and don’t really care about the life of the unborn. It is dishonest for those people to hide behind the defense of protecting the life of the unborn when what they’re really concerned with is punishing immorality.