Why no violence against abortion providers?

[vern_humphrey]

Would that be your policy if ten-year-old girls were being stuffed into cement mixers and flushed down the drain at the local strip mall?

What strip mall is this, and when did it happen?

 

[gam197]

The question that perplexed me is would a Civil War have solved this? We have a divided nation.

When an abortion clinic is bombed, they will just build another one and use my tax dollars to do so. If an abortionist is killed, we become the murderer and while it may seen justified to some, it again won’t solve it. Another abortionist will take his place or a nurse practitioner would be allowed to perform abortions as they already do in some states.

We are called to be a prayful people, children of God, imitators of Christ. We are not called to violence. That is why we should be out at these clinics in full peaceful protest or out giving literature at high schools and colleges. Even that doesn’t happen.

Another thought and I hope it make some sense.

The mother and sometimes father go into the abortion clinic and kill their child. Now the child is not property but it is still their child. They have killed their own flesh and blood.

If a woman didn’t like the looks of her hands and one day she cut them both off, we’d say she has a mental illness. We could prosecute her as a criminal for injuring herself but she has sustained the most damage.

We don’t see the damage done to the parents but we believe there is great damage.

The abortionist is a co-assistant in the murder, if only he hadn’t been there. Society is a co-assistant because it funds abortion for the poor and promotes the safety and health benefits of abortion for the rest of society.

 

[SoCalRC]

The ends do not justify the means.

Bingo. Further, if you don’t understand the value of the life of the doctor, the nurse, the mother, the deadbeat dad, the grandmother who drive, etc., you are not really pro-life in a Catholic sense anyway.

Elevating fetal life at the expense of other human persons (in the sense of the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church) is just as evil as elevating the other persons at the expense of fetal life.

If someone feels a call to action, try following Christ. 60% of the women procurring abortion sin the US are poor. Over half of them are already mothers. A tragic number of them have no spousal support. Be there, find some way to offer them an alternative. Love them as you love yourself and, just maybe, they, in turn, can see their unborn child as claim to.

Answering with violence is easy, seductive, but it is just another expression of evil. We are not called upon to do what is easy, but what is right.

 

[FishMonger]

What strip mall is this, and when did it happen?

It didn’t happen. It’s a thought experiment. In such an exercise, one posits various scenarios and examines the potential outcomes. It’s a bit like the wargames the old infantrymen in the Pentagon play all the time.

Here’s another one. The building is burning down. You can save the two-year-old boy or the refrigerated cooler containing twenty human embryos. You can’t save both. Which do you save?

 

[vern_humphrey]

It didn’t happen. It’s a thought experiment.

It’s bull biscuits.

In such an exercise, one posits various scenarios and examines the potential outcomes. It’s a bit like the wargames the old infantrymen in the Pentagon play all the time.

“Wargames,” is it? And they play them at the Pentagon, do they?

Here’s another one. The building is burning down. You can save the two-year-old boy or the refrigerated cooler containing twenty human embryos. You can’t save both. Which do you save?

I throw you out the window, and use you for cushioning as I drop the kid and the embryos out the same window.

 

[FishMonger]

It’s bull biscuits.

“Wargames,” is it? And they play them at the Pentagon, do they?

I throw you out the window, and use you for cushioning as I drop the kid and the embryos out the same window.

I detect a reluctance to face the issues brought up in the thought experiments. Does anyone have the courage to answer the question? I would take the kid and leave the embryos.

I suggest the reluctance to engage the thought experment may be because doing so would reveal that one really does see a difference between the two-year-old and the embryos.

So, who takes the kid and leaves the twenty embryos to perish? Who takes the twenty embryos and leaves the kid to perish?

 

[vern_humphrey]

I detect a reluctance to face the issues brought up in the thought experiments.

There aren’t any issues – like most amateurs, you have no understanding of simulations and games.

Does anyone have the courage to answer the question? I would take the kid and leave the embryos.

I gave you an answer – I throw you out the window, and drop the kid and embryos on top of you.

I suggest the reluctance to engage the thought experment may be because doing so would reveal that one really does see a difference between the two-year-old and the embryos.

You don’t have a “thought experiment” – you only have some half-baked silliness.

So, who takes the kid and leaves the twenty embryos to perish? Who takes the twenty embryos and leaves the kid to perish?

Nobody – I gave them the answer, and how they all know how to save both child and embryos.

 

[SoCalRC]

Here’s another one. The building is burning down. You can save the two-year-old boy or the refrigerated cooler containing twenty human embryos. You can’t save both. Which do you save?

I would save the formed child and grieve for the embryos (which, if this is a fertility clinic, quite likely faced incineration as biological waste anyway).

There is certainly nothing unnatural about a human reaction like this. Look at this quote from Pope Stephen V from late in the 9th century:

“If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a child even one day old.” -Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz

You’ll see this quote pop up on pro-life sites as evidence that we have always opposed abortion, but the subject is actually infanticide. At the time of Christ, Jews had a tradition that forbade infanticide and most forms of abortion, gentiles did not. Abandoning the ‘tradition’ of, say, burying unwanted children alive did not come easy. So here, nearly a millenia after Christ, we have the Vicar of Christ telling a Prince of the Church essentially, ‘Duh, we believe aborting the still unborn is murder, of course you have to discourage your flock from burying newborns alive!’

The whole point of the Magesterium is for us to be able to understand our Holy Traditions and Holy Scripture in the proper context for our age. Notice that the Church waited until the 19th century to weigh in on the issue of abortion to save a mother’s life. This is a difficult teaching (which we still largely ignore), but in the context of the rise of the modern eugenics movement, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Similiarly, the emphasis that the Second Vatican Council placed on fetal life makes a lot of sense when you look at what was then occuring. For example, Wistra was starting to utilize human diploid cells harvested from abortions in vaccine development. And futurists were starting to speculate about cultivating and harvisting organs.

The idea appears to be that we must expand our understanding of human life to avoid convenient pitfalls where we devalue it. And that seems to be a perfect lesson for the subject here. If we don’t properly value the lives of even the sinful, are we truly understanding the value of the fetus we claim to be protecting?

 

[FishMonger]

There aren’t any issues – like most amateurs, you have no understanding of simulations and games.

I gave you an answer – I throw you out the window, and drop the kid and embryos on top of you.

You don’t have a “thought experiment” – you only have some half-baked silliness.

Nobody – I gave them the answer, and how they all know how to save both child and embryos.

Disappointing and non-responsive. I expected more from an old infantryman.

I see SoCalRC has the courage to deal with the question.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Disappointing and non-responsive. I expected more from an old infantryman.

I expected more from an adult.

I see SoCalRC has the courage to deal with the question.

I hope the two of you will be very happy together.

 

[Hellisreal]

Just join the peacful prayer groups that visit the clinics where abortion is preformed. Bring a Rosary, and be cheerful.
Donate to the folks that give clothes, money, and shelter to those who have chosen not to abort at the various pregnancy help centers that offer practical aid to those in need.

Stop focusing on the horrible sin of the abortionist, or the abortions taking place, and do something practical to help. That helps you feel as if you are doing something, and then you dont get caught up in entertaining thoughts like these, that will likely kill your very own soul slowly.

The mouth speaks what is in the heart. If we are against murder of these precious babies, we will never convince anyone of that if we resort to such means.

We would be hurting the cause to save lives. Not ending this horror.

I am not advocating violence against abortion providers and intuitively I know it would be wrong.

But if someone were routinely killing three-year old kids, many of us would use any means (including violence) to stop it.

So why do we say it is wrong to use violence against abortion providers when we can use it in the above example or in other, everyday situations (like protecting our family)?

 

[FishMonger]

I expected more from an adult.

I hope the two of you will be very happy together.

I was indeed quite happy to read SoCalRC’s intelligent and thoughtful response.

 

[SoCalRC]

Disappointing and non-responsive. I expected more from an old infantryman.

With all due respect, I would agree that Vern is being intentionally evassive with regards to the question, but I am not sure that invoking one’s military service is an appropriate barb, even in jest.

Having served as a combat medic myself I can say from personal experience that, while every Marine is, truly, a rifleman, each is also, most assuredly, a unique and special creation by God. No matter how well you think you know someone, I gurantee that you cannot predict what will concern them most when they are facing their own death. Having glimpsed into those deep waters more than once, I find even the suggestion that any serviceman is ‘more’ or ‘less’ based on a comparison to a stereotype a bit troubling.

 

[RobHom]

OK, you’re in occupied Poland and you have a chance to kill some SS guards from a concentration camp whom you know are running the gas chambers. By what you outlined above you can only intervene when they are physically about to drop the can of Zyklon B into the chamber, i.e., when it will be impossible for you to intervene effectively.

Any analogy that compares “declared war” by sovereign nations with anything else is like comparing a Rolls Royce to a freakin’ Yugo.

The answer to the question about the SS guards: "They would be killed by any enemy as combatants…even while playing “volleyball” or “horseshoes”.

By analogy, if Dr. X has been preforming abortions for years at the same clinic and we know s/he is going to continue, how is that different from the gas chamber? The clinic will also have security to prevent interference when the actual murder is taking place.

You can only do what you can do. The bottom line is this: As long as civil law makes abortion “legal”, any aggressive, violent, assaultive, or homicidal actions on anyones part is criminal.

I realize there are those that openly advocate violence and even murder against abortionists, and abortion clinic workers. They are wrong. It is not within the power of humans to sit in complete judgment of other members of the human race. That is God’s right and privelege alone. Besides, if you go out and start killing people…you will become the hunted, and will be caught and tried.
And whether you end up on death row or not…the worst of it is… you have become one of them, at their level…a murderer.

Nothing done to them on earth can compare to what is waiting for them…in hell.

 

[vern_humphrey]

With all due respect, I would agree that Vern is being intentionally evassive with regards to the question, but I am not sure that invoking one’s military service is an appropriate barb, even in jest.

I’m not evading anything – anyone can cook up a “scenario” to produce the answers he wants. It’s the height of sophistry. Hence my remark about amateurs not undestanding simulations and games.

 

[SoCalRC]

I’m not evading anything – anyone can cook up a “scenario” to produce the answers he wants. It’s the height of sophistry. Hence my remark about amateurs not undestanding simulations and games.

Actually, testing a principle to the extreme is considered a proper tactic for identifying sophistry.

The fundemental principle behind our prohibition on abortion, even when the mother’s life is at stake, is that every human being, from fertilization to natural death, has certain rights bestowed by God.

But belief in a teaching is generally analog, not digital. That is, few are truly held as absolutes. Most are held to some point on a scale. People can be at very different points on those scales, but none of us is perfect. That is why we can openly profess that we are not worthy to receive the Lord at Mass (and made equal by our unworthyness).

The hypothetical question directly tests the connection between your words and your deeds. And everyone knows what the answer is. We also know why you wish not to express it. Presumably there are a few souls who would grab the petri dishes and listen to the child’s screams in the flames behind them, but most of us would follow thousands upon thousands of years of instinct.

This creates an obvious conflict. We can say, as you have, that vaginal cysts are human beings, but when push comes to shove we do not see them as truly equal. This is wholly understandable. After all, it is what makes accepting our teaching on not making an exception for the mother’s health in abortion so difficult. But it is not particularly helpful to try to pretend that this gap between concepts and actions does not exist. Pretending it is not there makes us hypocrits, which undermines us when we try to discuss pro-life issues with secular society.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The hypothetical question directly tests the connection between your words and your deeds. .

No, it doesn’t – since, among other flaws, no deeds are actually to be performed.

It is as valid as asking, “Assume you are a cow. Do you prefer clover or alfalfa?”

 

[SoCalRC]

No, it doesn’t – since, among other flaws, no deeds are actually to be performed.

It is as valid as asking, “Assume you are a cow. Do you prefer clover or alfalfa?”

The point of the question is clear - do you truly value fetal life as much as a more obviously developed child?

The answer for most is also clear, no. But without discussing the matter, we are left only with (at least perceived) hypocricy.

When put to the test of ultimate action, most of us valued the child over the fertilized zygote. Yet, you have argued that social justice for that child, even though it effects both longevity and quality of life, is less important than the preservation of the zygote.

The Church has stated that this is incoherent. Both are moral principles on which we cannot compromise, and attempting to do so undermines our faith. You appear to disagree, but refuse to permit any form of discussion which explores your underlying reasoning.

 

[vern_humphrey]

The point of the question is clear - do you truly value fetal life as much as a more obviously developed child?

So, do you prefer clover or alfalfa?

The answer for most is also clear, no. But without discussing the matter, we are left only with (at least perceived) hypocricy.

Nothing is clear in such a bizzare concept of simulation.

When put to the test of ultimate action, most of us valued the child over the fertilized zygote. Yet, you have argued that social justice for that child, even though it effects both longevity and quality of life, is less important than the preservation of the zygote.

Knock, knock. There was no test! And certainly there was no “ultimate” test.

You do understand the difference between fantasy and reality, don’t you?

The Church has stated that this is incoherent.

“Incoherent” is exactly the word I would use for such nonsense.

Both are moral principles on which we cannot compromise, and attempting to do so undermines our faith. You appear to disagree, but refuse to permit any form of discussion which explores your underlying reasoning.

No – I reject bogus nonsense.

Now, do you prefer clover or alfalfa? Don’t dodge the question – answer straight out.

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

The point of the question is clear - do you truly value fetal life as much as a more obviously developed child?

The answer for most is also clear, no.

Maybe the real value put on both is zero. If a child is seen being cast into a cement mixer they will step in to help, because it is socially expected and there is reasonable expectation of plaudits from the press and maybe a medal when the Lady Mayoress comes round. However thousands of children can starve in Africa, and they will not give up use of their automobile for as much as one day to help them, unless there is a corresponding social benefit.