Why does the church say its wrong to force its views on others when we try to force our views on abortion and contraception on everybody?

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The Catholic Church in America has never sought any law requiring people to believe in our theology. But Catholic Americans have the same rights as any other citizen to have our say with regard to morality and social justice. Laws by nature always force something on someone, and the Church wants our laws to be based on natural law since any law opposed to natural law is an unjust law.
 
Sarcelle said:
This is the discrepancy and the conclusion is that a another human can arbitrarily declare another human as not human. Such is the case with slavery. Either the law considers the unborn as not being human or considers them all human.
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Some believe that abortion extends to the destruction of an unfertilized egg, which they claim is also living. There is seemingly a fine line here as it takes one sperm 24 hours to penetrate the egg and conceive so what is it if one terminates a half penetration, for example? And how do we know for sure?

And, by the way, Roe vs Wade only gave the right to terminate the pregnancy to the mother. As you pointed out it is criminal for someone else to abort.
 
ProVobis said:
Some believe that abortion extends to the destruction of an unfertilized egg, which they claim is also living.
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Who says this? I have never heard of such an idea.
There is seemingly a fine line here as it takes one sperm 24 hours to penetrate the egg and conceive so what is it if one terminates a half penetration, for example? And how do we know for sure?
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And how do we know for sure how far along the process is when the medicine takes effect? And how do we know at which point of the penetration life begins?

If a hunter sees some movement, he cannot simply shoot. He must be sure that that at which he aims is not a human being. If he thinks there is a chance that what he’s aiming at is another person, it would be morally wrong for him to shoot, wouldn’t it?

In the same way, since we do not know the answer to your questions or mine in the matter of using a morning-after pill, it would be morally wrong to do so if the woman is ovulating.
And, by the way, Roe vs Wade only gave the right to terminate the pregnancy to the mother. As you pointed out it is criminal for someone else to abort.
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This is a made-up “right.” If the government can give some peoe the right to kill other people, where does it end? Already there are some “philosophers” who think it would on tye same basis be all right for parents to kill their children for a period of time after birth as well.
 
ProVobis said:
rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/07/07/antiabortion-activists-push-new-more-radical-personhood-measures
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I think you misunderstood what was at the link. The text in the grey bix at the top seems to have been a quote from a pro-abortion writer denigrating efforst to protect life from conception. An “egg” can be either fertilized or remain unfertilized. Once fertilized, of course, it becomes a member of its species, ie sea turtle eggs. It seems that in order to denigrate the pro-life movement, words such as egg and zygote will be used to further diminish the unborn human being.

A human zygote is what the unborn child is called from fertilization until implantion, about 2 weeks. Those who manufacture hormonal meds which are supposed to prevent ovulation have changed the “beginning of pregnancy” to be implantation rather than fertilization, and by this manipulation of the language declare their meds to be non-abortifacient.
just saying. For the record, I believe what the Church says (as most posters here) about human life beginning at conception.
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I was surprised by your previous comments!
Incidentally one of the posters noted that Roman Law allowed abortions. I doubt this is true because Cicero profoundly condemned it.
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I missed that comment in this thread, but from what I have read, abortion and infanticide were always outlawed but the laws were not strictly enforced during the decline of the Roman Empire.
 
Robert_in_SD said:
Catholicism does not force it’s beliefs on anyone. But we as Catholics have an obligation to speak the truth, and act in accordance with it. Thus, we support laws that promote the truth, and oppose laws that are inconsistent with truth. The Church (at least in America) does not have the authority to “force” laws on anyone. But as Catholics we have the right to participate in the political process, to contribute to a society that we believe should be rooted in the truth. I do not see how participating in the political process as a Catholic is “forcing” anything on anyone. Do you have a specific instance of Catholics “forcing” their views on people that is troubling you?

Peace,
Robert
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Not at all, I just wonder why we don’t try to make our world more christian by requiring people to believe, or at least study it. We’d have a much better society if there was only one religion and everyone followed God, rather than just do whatever they want. However I realize this is impossible and can never happen, but why not try to make it happen, or at least as close as we can make it happen.
 
benjammin said:
Not at all, I just wonder why we don’t try to make our world more christian by requiring people to believe, or at least study it. We’d have a much better society if there was only one religion and everyone followed God, rather than just do whatever they want. However I realize this is impossible and can never happen, but why not try to make it happen, or at least as close as we can make it happen.
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We ARE trying to make it happen that people follow God but we cannot “require” people to believe…That violates free will.

As for requiring that people study the faith…This does occur somewhat in universities and occasionally in some high schools (in the US) and I agree that it would be a good thing if it were more widely applied…but we have to remember that if one requires that the Christian faith be studied, other major faith systems would need to be included. This would only be fair in our pluralistic nation.

Peace
James
 
ProVobis said:
Some believe that abortion extends to the destruction of an unfertilized egg, which they claim is also living. There is seemingly a fine line here as it takes one sperm 24 hours to penetrate the egg and conceive so what is it if one terminates a half penetration, for example? And how do we know for sure?

And, by the way, Roe vs Wade only gave the right to terminate the pregnancy to the mother. As you pointed out it is criminal for someone else to abort.
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Who are the some that believe that abortion extends tot he destruction of the unfertilized egg? Are they Catholics? If so, they are mistaken.

The Catholic church believes in the protection of life from conception to natural death. This means the protection of an individual from the conception to natural death. Conception meaning the egg has been fertilized. Nowhere does the Church say anything the protection of an unfertilized egg. If that were the case than all women who are not pregnant, or continually pregnant for that matter, have committed the sin of abortion since unfertilized eggs are flushed naturally from the woman’s body.
 
I’m not a Catholic, and I can’t say much about Catholic teaching, but I can say that it’d be impossible to force me to become a Catholic. Sure, if I was at risk of a beating, or a jail sentence, or the death sentence or something, I would pay lip service to the church and pretend to be a Catholic, but I wouldn’t actually believe unless I was convinced. I think that’s what the folks on here are getting at.
 
benjammin said:
First of all, don’t think i’m some pro choice cafeteria catholic trying to say the church shouldn’t stand up and be pro life or something crazy like this. What i am asking is why do people (and the Church, though i admit I need a source, and if there isn’t something from the church that says this, than I guess my argument falls short) say that we can’t force our Catholic beliefs on people, yet, as Catholics we try to force our pro life views on people by trying to work for governments that are pro life, even though not all people are Catholic or even Christian. Why not go further? Why is it wrong to force people to become Catholic and recant their sinful views? Why shouldn’t we work for a government where the Church is supreme and its laws are the laws of our nations. If Christ is Lord of all, shouldn’t he be our ruler on earth as well as in heaven? I understand there is the whole free will thing, but shouldn’t we try to save all people for Christ?
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When we as Catholics say we are against abortion we are saying that we are against the murder of an innocent child. One doesn’t have to be a Christian to recognize that murder is wrong. Society already has laws against murder, but the laws are inconsistent in that they condemn some kinds of murder while celebrating other kinds.
 
Regular_Atheist said:
I’m not a Catholic, and I can’t say much about Catholic teaching, but I can say that it’d be impossible to force me to become a Catholic. Sure, if I was at risk of a beating, or a jail sentence, or the death sentence or something, I would pay lip service to the church and pretend to be a Catholic, but I wouldn’t actually believe unless I was convinced. I think that’s what the folks on here are getting at.
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But maybe at some point you’d begin to believe it. Kind of like a stockholm syndrome thing. Not that i’m advocating that. I’m all for free will.
 
benjammin said:
First of all, don’t think i’m some pro choice cafeteria catholic trying to say the church shouldn’t stand up and be pro life or something crazy like this. What i am asking is why do people (and the Church, though i admit I need a source, and if there isn’t something from the church that says this, than I guess my argument falls short) say that we can’t force our Catholic beliefs on people, yet, as Catholics we try to force our pro life views on people by trying to work for governments that are pro life, even though not all people are Catholic or even Christian. Why not go further? Why is it wrong to force people to become Catholic and recant their sinful views? Why shouldn’t we work for a government where the Church is supreme and its laws are the laws of our nations. If Christ is Lord of all, shouldn’t he be our ruler on earth as well as in heaven? I understand there is the whole free will thing, but shouldn’t we try to save all people for Christ?
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to save the lives of the babies. to save the abortants from eternal damnation. it’s the least we can do…

two wrongs don’t make a right…
 
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