Why do some Catholics support legal abortion?

[CatSci]

I think the burden is on you to point the way.

But you’re the one saying there isn’t enough to do for miscarriages and that’s why there isn’t any effort towards it… but I know you’re just saying that to rationalize the lack of effort.

You are the one who said we are not doing enough to prevent miscarriages. If you think there is an obvious next step we should be pursuing then by all means enlighten us.

I’m not sure if there’s an obvious next step or not, but that’s beside the point. The point is that if people really cared about saving unborn lives then there would be more effort towards preventing misscarriage than criminalizing abortion.

There are Catholic efforts aimed at improving pre-natal care. What more do you want?

Either put more effort towards actually saving more lives or stop pretending that saving lives is the actual justification for criminalizing abortion.

No I don’t think you have any point at all in saying that we don’t care as much about miscarriages as we do about abortion. The difference in attention is completely understandable just by considering that by and large miscarriages are natural events that we don’t really know how to prevent much more than we are already doing.

See, there you go again; you’re claiming that there’s nothing more we can do. Really? Have you really looked into that?

On the other hand stopping a willful behavior seems much more under our control.

Take a step back and really look at it though… how many abortions have actually been stopped by the effort to criminalize it?

Its still legal and people are still getting them. Again this reinforces my point that if you really want to save lives, you should focus on preventing miscarriages. The fact that you’re spending way more effort on criminalizing abortion makes it look like you’re more interesting in punishing immorality than saving lives.

We don’t want to punish those who get abortions. They are punished enough by the abortion itself. We want to prevent those abortions in the first place. It is silly to say that we care about abortions because we want to punish bad behavior.

Its just the logical conclusion of the arguments for the criminalization of abortion. If a small clump of cells is a human being that needs to be saved, then you’d be saving orders of magnitude more lives by preventing miscarriages than you would from trying to criminalize abortion. That is, if saving lives is really your ultimate goal. The fact that, compared to the efforts to criminalize abortion, practically no effort is put towards stopping misscarriages suggests that saving lives isn’t really the ultimate goal in all this.

Again I think the ball is in your court. You are the one who is claiming that a reduction in miscarriages is more doable.

Quote me claiming that. I’m not saying we definately can, I’m saying we should try more.

 

[CatSci]

Show me one who does. Ive never known of any Catholic who supports abortion.

I’m Catholic and I think abortion should be legal. I don’t support people having them and I don’t think its moral, I just dont’ think there’s a legal justification from criminalizing it.

 

[PumpkinSeed]

I’m Catholic and I think abortion should be legal. I don’t support people having them and I don’t think its moral, I just dont’ think there’s a legal justification from criminalizing it.

Do you think its murder? If so, why would you want it legalized?

 

[CatSci]

Do you think its murder?

Not in a legal sense. The state doesn’t recognize, say a blastocyst, as a person with legal rights.

In a moral sense, I do see a small clump of cells as less than a full person, so there’s not as much empathy there to say that its definately something as strong as a murder.

I would never do it, but I can see why other people might not have as much of a problem with it as they would with murder.

If so, why would you want it legalized?

Most of my reasoning for opposing abortion stems from religious ones, and I don’t think those are a good basis to impose laws on. Its more about a lack of reason to criminalize than having a good reason to “make it legal”. I think the default should be legality until sufficeint reason to make it illegal arrises.

 

[BenedictFTW]

"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."

–Pope Benedict XVI

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080416_response-bishops_en.html

Exactly!!! God bless Pope Benedict XVI

 

[Bookcat]

In a moral sense, I do see a small clump of cells as less than a full person, so there’s not as much empathy there to say that its definately something as strong as a murder.

I would never do it, but I can see why other people might not have as much of a problem with it as they would with murder.

Psychotic killers without empathy for their victims are not murderers?

Thankfully the definition of murder does not turn on what people may have a problem with or how much empathy one has for the human being one is thinking of killing or not.

 

[Bookcat]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Abortion

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.72

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.73

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.74

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.76

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,"77 "by the very commission of the offense,"78 and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.79 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being’s right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."80

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child’s rights."81

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."82

2275 "One must hold as licit procedures carried out on the human embryo which respect the life and integrity of the embryo and do not involve disproportionate risks for it, but are directed toward its healing the improvement of its condition of health, or its individual survival."83

"It is immoral to produce human embryos intended for exploitation as disposable biological material."84

"Certain attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance are not therapeutic but are aimed at producing human beings selected according to sex or other predetermined qualities. Such manipulations are contrary to the personal dignity of the human being and his integrity and identity"85 which are unique and unrepeatable.

 

[CatSci]

Psychotic killers without empathy for their victims are not murderers?

Hyperbolic spin actually addresses a point?

Thankfully the definition of murder does not turn on what people may have a problem with or how much empathy one has for the human being one is thinking of killing or not.

The legal definition does.

 

[Bookcat]

Hyperbolic spin actually addresses a point?

The legal definition does.

1. Yes my point was made.
2. Legality does not determine morality in and of itself.

 

[thewanderer]

By following the rules of law. I’m comfortable discussing things within the law without getting into the actual purpose of law, itself. That would be more of a philisophical discussion rather than a legal one.

We don’t need to get into the purpose of math to have a discussion about the pythagorean theorem.

Sort of. My reasoning isn’t that circular. One of the reasons that abortion should remain legal, though, does come from how a person is legally defined and gets their legal rights.

That’s right. In ancient Greece, in the first few centuries before Christ, the Spartans performed legal infanticides.

The question here is: what is the rationalization for the legalization?

I would oppose legal infanticide, unlike abortion, because I can empathize with a baby unlike I can for a small clump of cells. Too, the baby is no longer a part of the woman’s body after birth.

How can one determine if the laws are good (ie fulfilling their purpose) if we do not know what their purpose is? This is an extremely important part of this discussion. What criteria do you use to determine what should and shouldn’t be a law (here I am talking about in general, not the particular case of abortion)? What is the standard against which you set the law to determine whether or not it should be a law?

If your reasoning is really not circular please elaborate further what it is actually relying on. You have said that abortion should be legal because the legal definition of a person does not cover anyone from conception on. If this is really the reason you believe abortion should be legal I fail to see how it is not circular. If however there is more to it than this, feel free to elaborate.

So whether or not something should be legal depends on whether or not we can empathize with those who are marginalized??? In other words, If I have no empathy for small infants, or people from a certain ethnicity, there is nothing wrong with me putting laws in place which harm them??

 

[Charlemagne_II]

CatSci

I would oppose legal infanticide, unlike abortion, because I can empathize with a baby unlike I can for a small clump of cells. Too, the baby is no longer a part of the woman’s body after birth.

You once were a small clump of cells with your own special DNA and future life of 70+ years.

Good thing for you your mother could empathize with you.

 

[CatSci]

1. Yes my point was made.

Hrm… you asked a question that had nothing to do with what I was saying. I don’t think we agree on what it means to “make a point”.

1. Legality does not determine morality in and of itself.

Of course not. I’ve already explicitly stated that I think abortion is immoral. But a perceived immorality is not, in itself, a justificiation for illegality. For example, divorce is immoral but should remain legal.

 

[Donna_P]

Would these same Catholics also support legal bank robbing, or legal lynching, or even legal perjury?

They are self centered instead of God centered.

 

[Bookcat]

I’ve already explicitly stated that I think abortion is immoral. But a perceived immorality is not, in itself, a justificiation for illegality.

"This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus soci- ety becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail. Still, in the face of other people’s analogous interests, some kind of compromise must be found, if one wants a society in which the maximum possible freedom is guaranteed to each individual. In this way, any reference to common values and to a truth absolutely binding on everyone is lost, and social life ventures on to the shifting sands of complete relativism. At that point, everything is negotiable, everything is open to bargaining: even the first of the fundamental rights, the right to life.

This is what is happening also at the level of politics and government: the original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people-even if it is the majority. This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the “right” ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism. The State is no longer the “common home” where all can live together on the basis of principles of fundamental equality, but is transformed into a tyrant State, which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenceless members, from the unborn child to the elderly, in the name of a public interest which is really nothing but the interest of one part. The appearance of the strictest respect for legality is maintained, at least when the laws permitting abortion and euthanasia are the result of a ballot in accordance with what are generally seen as the rules of democracy. Really, what we have here is only the tragic caricature of legality; the democratic ideal, which is only truly such when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed in its very foundations: “How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?” 16 When this happens, the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human co-existence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun.

To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom…"

Bl. Pope John Paul II

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html

 

[CatSci]

How can one determine if the laws are good (ie fulfilling their purpose) if we do not know what their purpose is? This is an extremely important part of this discussion. What criteria do you use to determine what should and shouldn’t be a law (here I am talking about in general, not the particular case of abortion)? What is the standard against which you set the law to determine whether or not it should be a law?

Well, there’s the Constitution. A law that isn’t unconstitutional could be allowable. Whether or not its “good” isn’t really something I was considering, and I’m not so sure I would equate it being good with fullfilling its purpose. Like I eluded to before, the philisophical justification for the law isn’t really something that interests me.

If your reasoning is really not circular please elaborate further what it is actually relying on. You have said that abortion should be legal because the legal definition of a person does not cover anyone from conception on. If this is really the reason you believe abortion should be legal I fail to see how it is not circular. If however there is more to it than this, feel free to elaborate.

Because its just one part of the overall argument. In my first post in this thread, message 500, I gave a rough outline of my overall position:

"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."

If you want to have abortion be murder, then you’re going to have the conseptus be a person. That means that you’re gonna hafta change the legal definition of a person before you can have abortion be illegal because its murder.

So whether or not something should be legal depends on whether or not we can empathize with those who are marginalized?

Not necessarily, but its a part of it. Its easier to justify criminality towards the marginalized if we are capable of having empathy with them. For example, if someone empathized with lettuce and wanted to outlaw salads because they’re murder, you’d be right to say that you don’t support that criminalization because you don’t empathize with plants.

In other words, If I have no empathy for small infants, or people from a certain ethnicity, there is nothing wrong with me putting laws in place which harm them??

Not in a legal sense, especially if you can come to a consesus with everyone else. The morality of it is a seperate issue.

 

[CatSci]

"This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus soci- ety becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail. Still, in the face of other people’s analogous interests, some kind of compromise must be found, if one wants a society in which the maximum possible freedom is guaranteed to each individual. In this way, any reference to common values and to a truth absolutely binding on everyone is lost, and social life ventures on to the shifting sands of complete relativism. At that point, everything is negotiable, everything is open to bargaining: even the first of the fundamental rights, the right to life.

This is what is happening also at the level of politics and government: the original and inalienable right to life is questioned or denied on the basis of a parliamentary vote or the will of one part of the people-even if it is the majority. This is the sinister result of a relativism which reigns unopposed: the “right” ceases to be such, because it is no longer firmly founded on the inviolable dignity of the person, but is made subject to the will of the stronger part. In this way democracy, contradicting its own principles, effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism. The State is no longer the “common home” where all can live together on the basis of principles of fundamental equality, but is transformed into a tyrant State, which arrogates to itself the right to dispose of the life of the weakest and most defenceless members, from the unborn child to the elderly, in the name of a public interest which is really nothing but the interest of one part. The appearance of the strictest respect for legality is maintained, at least when the laws permitting abortion and euthanasia are the result of a ballot in accordance with what are generally seen as the rules of democracy. Really, what we have here is only the tragic caricature of legality; the democratic ideal, which is only truly such when it acknowledges and safeguards the dignity of every human person, is betrayed in its very foundations: “How is it still possible to speak of the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted? In the name of what justice is the most unjust of discriminations practised: some individuals are held to be deserving of defence and others are denied that dignity?” 16 When this happens, the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human co-existence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun.

To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom…"

Bl. Pope John Paul II

vatican.va/holy_father/jo…-vitae_en.html

I lost count of how many time you’ve re-posted that, but I haven’t read it once. I’m not interested in reading large chunks of copy pasta. If I wanted the Pope’s position, I’d go to his website and get it. I’m here to discuss directly with other people.

 

[Bookcat]

I lost count of how many time you’ve re-posted that, but I haven’t read it once. I’m not interested in reading large chunks of copy pasta. If I wanted the Pope’s position, I’d go to his website and get it. I’m here to discuss directly with other people.

Oh it would be easy to count.

ONE

Read the above quote please

And please read the one you refer too as well (from Pope Benedict XVI)

 

[Bookcat]

Huh? Are you asking when does a conceptus become a person?

Medically, I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be a “point” as its all very gradual. Even the conception phase isn’t really a “point”.

"Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, "from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and … modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. … -Bl. Pope John Paul II EV

 

[thewanderer]

Well, there’s the Constitution. A law that isn’t unconstitutional could be allowable. Whether or not its “good” isn’t really something I was considering, and I’m not so sure I would equate it being good with fullfilling its purpose. Like I eluded to before, the philisophical justification for the law isn’t really something that interests me.

Because its just one part of the overall argument. In my first post in this thread, message 500, I gave a rough outline of my overall position:

"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."

If you want to have abortion be murder, then you’re going to have the conseptus be a person. That means that you’re gonna hafta change the legal definition of a person before you can have abortion be illegal because its murder.

Not necessarily, but its a part of it. Its easier to justify criminality towards the marginalized if we are capable of having empathy with them. For example, if someone empathized with lettuce and wanted to outlaw salads because they’re murder, you’d be right to say that you don’t support that criminalization because you don’t empathize with plants.

Not in a legal sense, especially if you can come to a consesus with everyone else. The morality of it is a seperate issue.

I understand that you are removing the question of legality from the question of morality. I still fail to see how you do not have a circular argument… I was in fact looking to that particular post when I firsst brought up the fact that your reasoning seems circular. Correct me if I am wrong, but you argue that Abortion should not be illegal. The reason why? because abortion does not break the law, ie, is not legally murder. To me this sounds as though you are simply saying, the law allows for it, therefore it shouldn’t be illegal(prohibited by law). I don’t see how it could get any more circular.

The reason I keep referring to some standard beyond what is currently legal is to try and get out of this circular reasoning. If you are going to argue either a *should *or a should not you need to have some standard by which to judge something which is not the very thing which you are trying to judge. Trying to say that something should or should not be legal based off of what is legal is not a legitimate argument for the should or shouldn’t of it. I understand that you do not want to use religion as the standard by which to judge *should *and shouldn’t in this case, which is why I am asking you to clarify what the standard is that you look to?

 

[Bookcat]

"Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good.

Consequently, a civil law authorizing abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law."

–BL Pope John Paul II EV