The Catholic Vote and the Counterbalance to Abortion
The death penalty is a legal execution of an individual judged guilty of heinous acts against the larger society; convicts are sometimes discovered to have been innocent of the charges made against them only after their lives have been taken. Many consider even the most “humane” means of execution to be cruel and inhuman, and even when the convict is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, it may be well-argued that killing a murderer does not bring back the victim and that “two wrongs do not make a right.”
In an abortion, the fetus is as subject to the death penalty as anyone ever so ordered by a jury; the fetus is always innocent. Even the most “humane” means of abortion — whatever that might be — involves cruel and inhuman measures. And even if the fetus — in its innocence — is the product of a violent and “guilty” conception, it may be well-argued that one merciless violation cannot be healed by a second — equally merciless — violation and that “two wrongs do not make a right.”
Poverty steals hope, exposes the helpless to political, sexual, and economic exploitation (from friend and foe) and defers dreams. It breaks rather than builds and reduces human beings to the status of mere “votes” or “workers” or “things.”
Abortion destroys a hopeful life, exposes the mother and fetus to political, sexual, and economic exploitation (from friend and foe) and defers dreams. It destroys what is being built and reduces a thriving being, species human, to the status of mere “products of conception” and “blobs of tissue.”
Racism is the superficial and unjust rejection and/or exploitation of another human being or group of people based on race. Racism works to suppress; it denies opportunity and feeds stereotypes (“your kind are not good enough!”) Racism has inspired exclusionary rhetoric and genocidal movements, as may be found in the supremacist literature of the KKK. Racism exists to diminish another human.
Abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood have been observed agreeing to a superficial and unjust request to apply donated money toward the destruction of fetuses of a specified race. Abortion works to suppress; it denies opportunity and feeds stereotypes (“your kind are too good/too poor/too promising to be “punished” with a baby!). Abortion has inspired exclusionary rhetoric and genocidal movements as may be found in the elitist literature of Margaret Sanger. Abortion exists to diminish another human.
Capitalism in the imperfect enterprise system by which free markets provide jobs, goods, and services in order to stir economic growth. Its excesses often result in — among other things — unlicensed or unscrupulous practices and the exploitation of the worker, in pursuit of maximum profit.
Abortion providers are capitalist enterprises that often indulge in — among other things — unlicensed and unscrupulous practices and the exploitation of women in difficult circumstances, in pursuit of maximum profit.
A Catholic conscience is a complex thing that must rely on more than bumper stickers and impassioned rhetoric. Catholicism does not reject reason for faith but demands integration of the two, and prayerful discernment, before taking any action. It serves both prayer and reason to consider that abortion is not separate from the evils of war, torture, poverty and the rest, but of a piece with them. In fact, abortion supersedes those issues by dint of its personal nature. Government policy affects war, poverty, and the rest, while abortion is — like the casting of a vote — a personal choice. But it is a personal choice for the physical and intellectual internalization of war, and of torture, and of the death penalty, and of poverty, and of racism, and of capitalistic exploitation.
Thus weighed, the only counterbalance is life.
Nice article, Elizabeth…but you’re using reason in an attempt to persuade those who follow in-lockstep their pernicious Leftist ideologies.
You ask, “How can ‘Catholics for Obama’ rationalize their support for the pro-choice candidate?”, yet the answer is unfortunately also found (beyond that on which you have elaborated) in the twisted mental gymnastics which permit some to exhibit what is generally understood as prejudiced, racist, sexist, intolerant behavior in the name of “tolerance” (sic), “multiculturalism” (sic) and the such.
Stop the co-optation of the English language and you are half-way to success in a healthier future.
Yes, and she’s not using reason very well.
“Abortion is war” might make a nice metaphor, but the realities of both, from causes through results, are too different for us to use the teachings of the Church on one to apply to the other.
Abortion proviers might be capitalist enterprises, but so are hospitals. Should we stop going to those? Yes, Margaret Sanger was a racist, but so were almost all American intellectuals of the 1920′s. It’s like the fact that George Washington owned slaves.
You also leave out the argument about government’s role in regulation. In many countries that have outlawed abortion, it still goes on in incredibly high numbers. There are many scholars who have argued that making abortions illegal wouldn’t lower the number, but simply change the circumstances under which they were done. The real question is whether abortions will go down in number with someone like a Barack Obama who seeks to promote alternatives and to use government funds for that purpose or someone like John McCain who wants to outlaw abortion and encourage private entities (like church’s) to promote alternatives. Neither view should stop someone from receiving a vote for religious reasons.
Ted,
Government regulation of murder in many countries has not stopped it, it still goes on in incredibly high numbers. Therefore, we should not regulate it. What you legitimize says something about who you are.
Obama’s willingness to slay babies surviving abortion (his rebuke of the SCOTUS on the issue had an enormous amount of passion) says a lot more about him than any cynical platitudes he may be uttering now for political gain. Anybody who can ever say anything like that should never get the vote of any Catholic who actually believes in his faith.
Abortion opponents need to continue to educate the evils of abortion and showing the ultrasound film of a babe in the womb. Only education will end abortion. Republicans have appointed 7 of the 9 US Supreme Court justices yet abortion runs wild. Dems are abortionists as in the past they were pro-slavery. Time does not change the Dem Party. Inform and educate on what abortion really is, the ending of a human life.
Killing a child who has just been born (having survived an abortion), killing a child who has been born past the shoulders (and who would have continued to live birth but for the scissors plunged into his or her brain), and who knows what else that follows from these barbarisms. One does not need to be Catholic, or even religious (as I’m not) to see horror in this path and to be unwilling to walk down it any further.
I’m a Catholic and I will not be voting for Obama because of his support for the killing of the unborn. I’m also a political conservative and am not crazy about voting for John McCain, but there are 7 good reasons to vote for him, over Obama:
Seven Reasons Conservatives Should for Vote for McCain Over Obama
John McCain is pro-life.
Those are very duplicitous arguments made by these Catholics. A buddy of mine, himself a Catholic, says that he votes only for those politicians that follow the churches teaching on such things as gay marriage, abortion, etc. because it is hypocritical for you to believe in it spiritually but not politically.
The Catholic church is against war in general, not specifically against war in Iraq. It isn’t as though Obama is running on a platform that is per se anti war, just anti Iraq war. Furthermore, the Catholic church believes in private citizens helping the poor through charity. They don’t advocate government forcing folks to help the poor through higher taxes.
These Catholics simply don’t really believe in the teachings of the church they follow. There is no excusing voting for someone that advocates abortion, especially abortion on demand, as Obama advocates if you really are a Catholic.
By the way, here is how I broke down the duplicitousness of Obama’s abortion/2nd amendment position…
http://theeprovocateur.blogspot.com/2008/04/obama-on-2nd-amendment-and-abortion.html
Justification is offered in the so called “seamless garment” point of view that abortion is just one of a myriad of social justice issues Catholics and other Christians should consider when voting.
For some of us, abortion is the single most important issue facing this world. I believe that Jesus weeps over the sin of abortion. I also believe that this nation could not have prospered without the grace of God and it is because of abortion that that grace is being withheld.
Until and unless we stop the overt support of this always intrinsic evil, how can we ask for God’s grace to be upon us?
The American Catholic church is divided into two camps, really – the conservative and the liberal (what I call “peace and social justice”)Catholics. The Catholics in my own family are a perfect example – my parents are staunch conservative Republicans and my in-laws are way-left liberal Dems. The Dem Catholics are all voting Obama because he is anti-war, end of story. Abortion, who cares? They view war – anytime, anywhere – as a much greater evil. The fact that Catholic doctrine does not, in actuality, preclude all war doesn’t faze them. Never mind that my Hungarian mother-in-law was liberated from Hitler by the Allies – war is always unnecessary and never justified. (I’m just wondering what they’re thinking of Obama’s recent waffling in his anti-war position.) In their minds, they are the ones being faithful to the Church.
i am of the opinion that abortion is murder no matter where the baby is located. how about changing the law to where the time span on abortion is raised to 62 years old, and give him or her a chance to grow up. you may end up loving them, and at some point when you are old, they may decide to let you live…….with them that is. you’ll still have time to kill them.
inmypajamas said:
The Dem Catholics are all voting Obama because he is anti-war, end of story. Abortion, who cares? They view war – anytime, anywhere – as a much greater evil.
The irony of it all is that abortion takes more lives than any disease, famine, or war we have ever faced. Every month this killer takes more American lives than were lost in the entire Vietnam War. Every six months more die from its relentless onslaught than in all our previous wars combined or in all the fatal automobile accidents of the past twenty years. Every 2 to 3 years it claims more victims than the Nazi Holocaust. (I got this information from ABORTION AMERICA’S #1 KILLER)
Wow – politics and religion all in one post! This is such a challenging issue. The Church does represent an island of morals in a sea of a forlorn society. We have had our spirituality trounced right out of us as a society by policies that have let medical and psychiatric doctors tell us that we are our bodies and chemical imbalances before anything else – it that regard – abortion can be justified, I suppose, in the respect that we are not beings of any sort other than a body; muscle, bone, organs, etc. How is that for a run on sentence!
In my opinion this sort of thinking in our schools, medicine and media has led to a demise of any moral and ethical standards and that makes it easy for sexual morals – indeed any sense of responsibility for ourselves or others – to be ignored (or not even learned). This leads to so much confusion for kids and adults alike. No wonder there are so many unwanted pregnancies. But I don’t see that more laws and prohibitions will solve anything. These sorts of actions don’t get at the root of the injustice of our kids being taught that they are not spiritual beings and that they are merely chemicals and meat.
That follows that there is little regard for any humanity and wars continue. But how many wars have been fought in the name of religion? Just about all!
Catholic guilt is just as strong as Jewish guilt, and it drives some to illogical and contradictory actions.
Add that 30-50% of their Priest were raving homosexuals, and you can see why Catholics are confused.
For twisted logic, nothing beats a convinced Catholic reducing a complicated moral issue to simpleminded dogma. I’ll refute Scalia’s various equations with abortion one by one in the order presented.
War=Abortion
Scalia’s analogy between war and abortion is patently absurd. Her pretension that Catholic morality or ethics stand in opposition to war insults history.
War is not a moral absolute. War is either moral or immoral depending upon the cause. War in a just cause is moral. Not taking up arms in defense of justice and the innocent is immoral.
Catholic opposition to America’s wars does the Catholics little credit. Not opposition to the current war in the Middle East nor to previous wars. Recall that Roman Catholics in large numbers opposed the American government and the broad will of the American people in three of the nation’s bloodiest conflicts.
Irish Catholic opposition to the Union in the Civil War was expressed by the seditious rising of seventeen thousand Irish Catholics in New York. The organized rioters perpetrated the worst racial incident in the nation’s history. Irish Catholics raised confederate flags in the most important city in the north. Irishmen beat, tortured and lynched Black Americans. The outrages inflicted on the hanging, bloody Black corpses by their drunken, depraved colleens could fill another chapter in Kraft-Ebbing. Last but not least, the Irish Catholics killed and mutilated the bodies of recent Union survivors of Gettysburg sent to quell the insurrection.
German and Irish Catholics opposed America’s entrance into WWI, Germans for loyalty to Germany and the Irish for their self-righteous hatred of the English. Before WWII the Germans formed bunds favoring Hitler and the Nazis. In proper fascist patriotic manner, German American Catholics and their Father-Coughlin-inspired Irish American fellow travelers wrapped themselves in American flags while raising Swastikas and zieg heiling Hitler and German victory. Pat Buchanan still sings their traitor’s song.
In the opinion of George Orwell, the most determinedly honest intellectual of the Twentieth Century, the Vatican supported Nazi and Fascist war aims from the Spanish Civil War through WWII.
The Death Penalty=Abortion
Murder proved by legitimate witness in open court should be punishable by legal execution in the most humane way possible. That errors are made and innocent people executed is an administrative shortcoming pointing up the need for vigilance. It is not germane to the moral question.
Capital punishment is just and moral. Nothing less insures justice for the victim and moral order for society.
In any event, the church’s equation of abortion to murder raises a curious question. Why in all the Church’s history have we never heard condemnation of routine infant killing by midwives? That midwives filter the species, and have from its beginnings, is an open secret. Midwives have suffocated unwanted newborns in their swaddling since before Pharaoh’s commandment to the Egyptian midwives in Exodus. Midwives have snuffed millions of odd or troublesome newborns in every generation with never a whisper of protest from the Church.
The ancient Romans exposed their unwanted offspring. Rejected newborns were dropped off on a hill designated for the purpose and left to die. It didn’t deter the Romans from expressing moral outrage at the Carthaginians for sacrificing their children to Baal. Given the Church’s history of cruelty and bloodshed, its moral outrage over medical abortions rings equally hollow.
Poverty=Abortion
George Orwell called the Church “a parasite on the poor.” The Church’s prohibitions, abortion first among them, fall most heavily on the poor and ignorant. Those least informed about sex, pregnancy and contraception. Those least able to afford medical advice and treatment. Those without the means to travel abroad if abortion is their choice and is prohibited at home.
Racism=Abortion
Sexism not racism is what abortion is overwhelmingly used to enforce, especially in China. Females are the least desirable offspring and are most often aborted or suffocated.
The Church’s opposition to racism is several hundred years late. As the Church did not raise a single protest to the Nazi slaughter of Jews in Europe in the last century, so it never raised a protest to the enslavement of Africans (and Native Americans) in America. The church belatedly wringing its hands over African Americans unborn is hypocritical and exploitive.
Capitalism…Abortion Scalia’s assertion that legal abortion opens women up to exploitation or injury by greedy, unscrupulous and unlicensed practitioners is laughable. Ms. Scalia’s strange brief seems to be that prohibiting abortion will benefit women by protecting them from dangerous medical quacks.
Finally Ms. Scalia sails way over the top. The evil of abortion, she concludes. supersedes the evils of war, torture, poverty, racism and capitalism.
Ms. Scalia needs to ask herself a question. If preventing abortion is so plainly beneficial, why is does she have so much difficulty making a case for it? Making a case for preventing war, torture, poverty or racism wouldn’t require Ms. Scalia to tie herself into rhetorical knots.
Next time she feels the urge to defend Church dogma, Ms Scalia ought to try making a case for a national prohibition on contraceptives. It is hugely probable that large numbers of people who support a national prohibition on abortion use contraceptives. They’re comfortable in their opposition to abortion because they know they’ll never need one. For Protestants that may be perfectly okay. But for Catholics, it is morally inconsistent and profoundly hypocritical.
Abortion is a troubling medical procedure and makes no one comfortable. But it is, in the final event, an issue between patient and doctor. Priests and politicians need to butt out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLPYSa7EStY
Not so fast there “Smarty.” Could you show us how you arrived at your dogmatic statement that almost half of all priests are gay?
As for the guilt, maybe it’s good Catholic conscience, i.e., God’s overwhelming non ending mercy calling out “danger, danger” to his beloved children.
Last but not least, this article by Elizabeth is excellent. Anyone who can’t “get it” after reading this clear, and elegant piece, well, IMO, that’s why God made Father Corapi. I suspect when Father Corapi wrote this one last week, he was singing his usual tune of “I’m not going to hell for any of you.
For any out there who STILL think voting for a pro abortion candidate can be rationalized, maybe this one is for you my friends. Be warned, it’s harsh.
http://www.fathercorapi.com/PDF/Death_Wish.pdf
Those who wish to criminalize abortion pretend to believe that their laws will stop abortions. That is dishonest. They know full well that abortions will continue at the same rate after the laws are passed. The only effect of the anti-abortion laws would be to make abortions unsafe for the pregnant woman.
Apparently, that is their desire: to punish the woman with injury, if not death. They should be honest enough to say what they mean.
It seems that you’re suggesting a model of moral calculus where the act of abortion factors in with far more weight than the other acts leading to loss of innocent (or in some cases, less innocent) life.
As far as the basic variables in the proposed calculus go, they seem to be somewhat flawed, moreso when observed in their proper historical context. One only needs to consider crusades and the inquisition to see, how the “catholic social teaching” has ever so subtly adjusted itself throughout ages. It is to be expected that the dogmatic evolution will continue, and perhaps the catholic social teaching will take on new forms in the future. I guess that does not matter in the scope of this particular discussion – the crusaders and the grand inquisitors of yore undoubtedly acted in good faith, and I’d imagine the same goes for every past and future generation.
I’d also imagine that there is but one simple central teaching in the New Testament, namely the sanctity of human life (feel free to correct me, seeing that I’m a godless atheist). Comparing and scoring different ways of snubbing that flickering flame (abortion vs. death penalty vs. war casualties) borders on absurd. How could the life of an innocent victim of war, torture or death penalty be less valuable than the life of an unborn child?
Please note that I’m not claiming the converse either — that an unborn life would be somehow less valuable than any other. That’s another “complex thing”. You argument that unlike abortion, war, policy, death penalty and the rest are mandated by some higher power. On the other hand, those are in a sense personal choices as well (most clearly visible when remembering that in democracies, the government’s policies tend to reflect those of the voters’, if we want to keep these ponderings in the original column’s context).
Moreover, there are oft-cited borderline cases where the “abortion is always a personal choice” argument is set on a somewhat slippery slope: for instance, becoming a victim of rape is never a personal choice, but more or less mandated by some higher power. Going through such a traumatising experience will certainly cast some doubts on the “of own free will” argument.
If faced with the choice, would it be better, then, to support a “pro-life” candidate who’s relentlessly “pro-choice” in the matters of death penalty and torture, but adamantly against abortion? Or rather cast a vote for the candidate who is “pro-choice” with abortion but against torture and death penalty? The mind boggles.
Luckily for moral absolutists, there seem to be no adequately “pro-life” candidates running in the ’08 elections, and thus the problem becomes trivial — one should not vote for even the lesser of the two evils. For the rest of the population, dogmaticism needs to give room for exercising the true free will, and sound contemplation.
As a sidenote: in the country where I live, abortion is definitely not a capitalist venture. Unlicensed or unscrupulous abortion tends not to exist where abortion is legal and strictly state controlled (albeit not in the eugenistic sense).
How would you define misoginism?
I may have a unique perspective to this discussion (at least I’ve never seen it before and I’ve never shared it publicly until now):
I have experienced every side of the abortion/birth/adoption debate (I am now a 50-something-year-old male btw):
1. baby out-of-wedlock in high school (early 70s) and put up for adoption.
2. pregnant girlfriend in college who chose an abortion (late 70s).
3. later married (early 80s) and 3 wonderful children (now all college-aged).
4. wife became unexpectedly pregnant in her 40s (with twins) but crushingly did not survive to term.
I won’t go into much, but being young in the 70s post-Roe era I can remember the relief that abortion was made legal by the Supreme Court. Of course, I’m a horny young guy who wants to chase women with no accountability or responsibility too.
I would consider myself pro-choice up until maybe 5 years ago when I started questioning this stance (secondlookproject.org).
What got me re-considering was this: I started thinking about the daughter that I/we had put up for adoption 30-some years ago. I found myself noticing her birthdate and calculating her age each year. I found myself wondering about her and if she had ever contacted her birthmother. I found myself wanting to meet her. I found myself putting myself into adoption registries. I found myself trying to find her birthmother to see if she had ever been in contact. I found myself also wondering….
…..about the aborted child in college, and asking myself: are we (am I) better off because we aborted that baby? And my answer was NO. A resounding NO. An unhesitating NO.
Yes it was a difficult situation at the time, but really, nothing we couldn’t have survived and thrived with …. we were young and dumb, and frankly, just “couldn’t be bothered” (not proud of this just the immaturity reality of youth) and, well, the abortion clinic was “conveniently” 30 minutes away and very well-known by students.
So was the abortion the best choice? As I look back I think no. I would much rather have that person around now, whether by keeping him/her or being put up for adoption. Is the world a better place without that child? I think not.
The whole 70s was “my body, my self” run amok, but I do understand the mentality back then since I was living it. There were indeed women dying from backroom abortions and there was indeed a harsh religious and familial shaming of women who found themselves pregnant (men were pretty much off the hook). This was the roiling times of “women’s liberation.” So Roe was understandable if nothing else (in hindsight I now see it as an affront to the Constitution—the states should decide abortion laws IMO—but if you wanted to chase girls with lowered moral accountability it was a great decision).
I saw some stats recently on # of abortions in the U.S. since abortion was legalized and the # of illegal immigrants now in the country. Is it a coincidence that both of these #s are in the 30 million range? (30 million!). It seems we’re killing our own country (literally) with our ho-hum abortion polices (and would Martin Luther King, Jr. REALLY be proud of the # of black babies aborted over the last 30 years??).
But now you’ll have to excuse me….I have a “little” girl that I need to find….
Smarty & Klaire:
A Psychiatrist paid by the Church to treat troubled priests estimates that 80% of American Priests are homosexual. The true percentage cannot be ascertained. The Church refuses to either poll or psychologically screen its priesthood.
After the recent scandals, one might think that the Catholic laity would demand, at the very least, a voluntary poll to determine the sexual orientation of its clergy. It seems that Catholics, liberal, broadminded folk that the are, don’t care if those who guide them, not least in the matter of sex and procreation, are gay.
Clovis:
…the crusaders and the grand inquisitors of yore undoubtedly acted in good faith…
Loot, Clovis. Get rich quick. That was the faith of both the crusaders and the inquisitors. You need to take a break from philosophy and read some history. By its charter, the Office of the Inquisition got to keep the assets of those it successfully tortured to confession. Enlightened Christians remarked on the fact that the Catholic Inquisition preyed only on rich Jews.
Includes an estimate that 30-50% of Priests are gay.
http://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Good-Men-Seminaries-Generations/dp/0967637112/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216047747&sr=1-4
As for Catholic guilt, it has to do with being brainwashed into believing that you were born from sin, and that you have to spend the rest of your life making up for it. I am certain that there is more, but I don’t pretend to know all the reasons, I just know the effects: Catholics are far too willing to support abortion, “gay rights” and socialism. Look at the numbers, and tell me how wrong I am, tell me that those Catholics who vote for Ted Kennedy are showing good “Catholic” values by giving him power.
I believe the Catholic position on the death penalty does not refer to it as intrinsically disordered, but actually allows under certain cercumstances to call it moral.
Those on the left, who willingly have codified into law the murder of the most innocent among us, try using the death penalty as moral equivalance, when it is clearly not.
All social teaching of the Catholic Church does not outline support of a socialist government. The principles of susidiarity are in conflict with the “welfare State” as John Paul II described it, for starters. The government’s destruction of the black community through “compassion” and “Care” hardly fit into Catholic morality about compassion. One would have to stand on one’s diabolical head to ignore homosexual marriage as morally acceptable Catholic thought.
The left’s big government destroys individual responsibility and charity as the state becomes the facilitator and arbitor of what is right and wrong.
The biggest offense of the leftist Democracrat may very well be its embrace of relative truth and morality. The very opposite of Christianity.
Smarty I agree 100% with your last statement, but as for Ted, be prepared for a surpise change of heart before he leaves this earth. I don’t want to get into a “gay debate” here Smarty, but know two things: There are celebate and holy “gay” priests, and, since the abuse crisis, the church has changed its rules on accepting (not)gay men into the seminaries. There are MANY holy and “gay” practicing Catholics. We would all do best to be more concerned with the much higher abuses OUTSIDE the church. I say that as one who was greatly HEALED BY the Catholic Church for my 6 hellish years of abuse from a “friendly neighbor”, which BTW David, 15 years of “modern psycharity” did squat (except of oourse, tell me how “special” I am, the me, myself, it’s all about me mumbo jumbo).
David L, this isn’t the place to take you on with your hatred and great misconceptions against the Catholic Church. But know that I have added you to my pray list. IF you want the truth, God will soften you heart and give it to you. In your free will, YOU have to decide if you want an excuse to hate or to know truth; the choice is yours.
To agnostic, thanks for sharing that beautiful posts. I was once far on the other side myself, turned around ONLY by the grace of God, and never been “more free” than by the truth of Christ.
To anyone “not there” yet, beware of the Fools’ Paradise. Sooner or later, we will all stand face to face with Jesus Christ (and as Bishop Chaput once wrote, ALL OF THE ABORTED SOULS. Rest assured, the “nobody warned me defense” will not be option.
Klaire
Smarty I just wanted to clarity my agreement with you that many Catholics, sadly, live against the true teachings of the Catholic Church. Please don’t confuse the always holiness of the Chruch (Christ himself), with the unholiness of many of its members.
A great apologist Frank Sheed once explained it best (paraphase) with the rain analogy.
God’s grace is always pouring down. Just like the rain; we can either indulge in it, or use an umbrella (pride) and never feel a drop. The choice is ours, but regardless, the rain still pours.
Klaire
Agnostic?:
… the roiling times of “women’s liberation”…
Your imagined maturity is merely the waning of your sexual drive, Agno. You’re still the same selfish, inconsiderate, bozo you were in high school. It was the pill not abortion that liberated women from holding the dirty end of the stick when the wages of love needed to be paid.
I have three daughters, too, and I am as proud of them you are of yours. I raised them to observe Biblical commandment and I am proud to say they all do.
My oldest, a Bible scholar is completing her doctoral dissertation and teaching at both her university and its divinity school. My middle daughter, a mathematician with two papers published in respected math journals as an undergraduate, is completing an internship at DOD before going off for a year of research at a German university to be followed by graduate school in the States. My third daughter, an archaologist, recently graduated, is off to Latin America for a year join a friend writing a travelogue before moving to Israel for graduate school and field work in Biblical Archeology.
By the time they are ready to bless me with grandchildren, will be well on their way to advanced degrees and respectable, productive, professional lives. All three are literate in Hebrew and English. Two know Latin. Two know German. One is qualified in at least half a dozen languages long dead. All three are experienced wilderness hikers and campers. All three are life-guards and swim instructors. By the time they have children two will have had military experience. And all three are outstanding cooks.
My daughters never had a curfew. In high school, the two younger ones danced away nights in Lower East Side basements and Lofts in Green Point and Williamsburg, showing up at daybreak or calling from wherever they decided to sleep over. Boys and girls slept over and joined us for camping trips without bed checks.
My daughters had wine and often scotch on the table for at least two Sabbath meals a week from earliest age. Beyond telling them that smoking marijuana was counter-indicated for sustained work and academic performance, we didn’t discuss drugs. Discussion of contraception, like menstruation and other female issues, I gladly left to my wife.
Women’s liberation represents “rolling times” only in your irredeemably sexist and carnal view, Agro. I’m glad you found something in life that makes you feel all virtuous inside. What I object to is you or Ms Scalia or your Pope limiting my children’s freedom through legislation. You’re not fit.
Someone wrote that many Catholic priests are homosexual as though that is a “negative.”
So what? Their sexual orientation is irrelevant if they’re being celibate as they’ve vowed.
There are many priests (and laypeople) who are both gay and faithful to their calling.
Atrooper4,
You are wrong that the rate of abortion will continue after laws against it have passed. The truth is that the pro-abortion advocates outright lied about the numbers of illegal abortions being performed and the numbers of women who died as a result of them. Research Dr. Bernard Nathanson to learn the truth.
If abortions were once again illegal, most women would have the baby. Very few would opt for a “back alley” or self-induced abortion.
Also, even now with abortion on demand legal nearly throughout pregnancy, fewer and fewer OB/GYN’s are doing them. So many of them have come to realize that abortion is wrong. Instead, abortions have now become a cottage industry for free standing clinics which do nothing else.
And JBL, if you call yourself Catholic, you just let us know that you are part of the problem. Priest who like to engage in sodomy with men and/or boys are not community role models, much less religious guides.
You missed the celibacy part?
So did the priests (missing the celibacy part), apparently. That’s why we heard so much about them sticking it in little boys for the last 30 years.
And this is germane to the article how?
Jbl: Thanks for posting that wonderful video and introducing me to Michele Bachmann. She communicates beautifully. I encourage others to see what she has to say if you’re not familiar with her.
Listened to another video of her – on energy – and plan to watch some others. She seems to be someone to watch. We’re discussing Sarah Palin on another thread at PJM; but this woman could be Veep material too.
She’s badly needed in Congress right now making a difference there.
And Klaire, thank you, too. I’ve just returned from your link.
I hope the words of Father Corapi are read and prayerfully considered by countless Americans.
“Abortion is a troubling medical procedure and makes no one comfortable. But it is, in the final event, an issue between patient and doctor. Priests and politicians need to butt out”. Levavi
Nonsense -as is most of your post, including your libels against the position of ther Catholic church vis a vis Nazism.
Every abortion results in the extra judicial killing os a totally innocent and totally vulnerable human being. An embryo could not be aborted if it did not exixt. It is therefore a being. As to whether it is human, it is disposed of precisely because it is human.
Abortion is an issue of concern to all civilized huuman beings. It is not, as you ridiculously suggest, the exclusive purview of those resorting to this abomination and those assisting them.
Are we not talking about a failure of faith? Man insisting upon his will being accomplished, rather than God’s?
Genesis teaches of another, Sarai, who placed her will above God’s. In this instance, she wanted a child, rather than the destruction of one. Taking matters into her own hands, a child was conceived – Ishmael. And a nation as well. Scripture tells us:
Gen.16:12 – “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him…”
I’d say this came to pass.
There are consequences to our actions. Sometimes quite longstanding. But God, in His mercy, offers a way out. Immediately, He established his covenant with Abraham in Ch.17.
How long before we return to Him in sorrow and repentance?
Because there is no candidate running for president this year who is in favor of unjust wars, torture, racism (if don’t count affirmative action as racism) or poverty, I don’t see how this essay helps. Both Obama and McCain support the death penalty. But Catholic social thought does not absolutely condemn it as inherently unjust, as it does abortion. Catholic social thought also does not condemn free markets per se. It does claim that commerce and labor cannot be reduced to merely market transactions and agreements, but that is not the same as saying that capitalism is evil. Free markets within the framework of a morally rich culture grounded in devotion to God and family is absolutely consistent with Catholic Social Thought. As JP II writes in Centesimus Annus: “It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. But this is true only for those needs which are “solvent”, insofar as they are endowed with purchasing power, and for those resources which are “marketable”, insofar as they are capable of obtaining a satisfactory price. But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied, and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish. It is also necessary to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources. Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to man because he is man, by reason of his lofty dignity. Inseparable from that required “something” is the possibility to survive and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the common good of humanity.”
The best and most reliable indicator of reducing poverty is a stable family consisting of one mother, one father who are married to each other and who are at least high school educated. One political party seems to say that such normative judgments are inconsistent with personal autonomy. They have been in the forefront of eradicting every law that was put in place to create hedge around the family. Oh, they may claim that they want to eradicate poverty, racism, etc. But they put in place policies that exacerbate such conditions.
Klaire:
Thank you for including me in your “pray list”. One request: Please address your prayers for me to the single and unitary Creator of all not one or another cultic corruption of his Holy Name. I am a monotheist.
Sorry to look a gift horse in the mouth, Klaire. But believe it or not, there are people in the world who address their prayers to a family of deities and a host of sub deities. Stranger still, these folks insist they’re monotheists. Kind of large-tent monotheism, I guess.
I won’t be praying for you Klaire because someone who lives where God’s love rains down continually doesn’t need prayers. Lucky, you, Klaire. You’ve found the answer to everything. Me, I’m still struggling to find the right questions.
Terry Gain:
You say I’m spouting “nonsense,” Terry. My remarks re the position of the Church vis a vis Nazism are “libels.”
Like Ms. Scalia you are a convinced Catholic and your notions of logic and morality are twisted and perverse. I-think-therefore-I-am is Descartes’ generally accepted proof of being. An embryo is sensate as is a worm and perhaps an amoeba but none are capable of thinking. Killing any one of them does not constitute murder.
You’re a victim, Terry, and if you weren’t the willing slave of a malevolent order, I would sympathize with you. The Church uprooted the ancient faith that was your heritage, destroyed your ancestral shrines, killed the priests and shamans who were your best and brightest and forced your ancestors to adopt a corrupted form of the ancient faith of my ancestors.
You’re a cultural orphan and you have no home but that offered by the Church which orphaned you. I have always maintained that the worst suffered by Jews at the hands of the church is, for all the suffering and slaughter, nothing to what was done by the Church to the Irish.
My objection to you and to other Catholics is not what you believe. It is your insistence on imposing your beliefs on others that offends. I don’t want my children’s personal freedoms curtailed by Vatican Sharia.
The United States was founded by Deists, Freemasons and Protestant Christians. The kindliness and generosity of the Founding Fathers to others is reflected in letters written by Washington and Jefferson to Catholics and Jews. Those views were refuted later on by the Nativists who saw Catholics for a Fifth column loyal to a foreign power.
Who was wiser? The Founding Fathers or the Nativists?
In the time of Washington and Jefferson, when Catholics were few and powerless, Washington’s and Jefferson’s view was entirely noble and righteous. And righteousness, if not nobility, is always wise.
When the Nativists were agitating against them, the Catholics were pouring in. They were a rowdy and intemperate lot. Their cruelty and violence during the Draft Riots was a stain on American history still fresh.
Recent events–Pat Buchanan’s declaration of a Kultur Kampf at the 1998 Republican convention and the manipulation of the Christian Evangelical vote by concerted advertising and direct mail to a “pro-life” position raises the question anew. Who was wiser? The Founding Fathers or the Nativists?
You tell me, Terry. ‘Cause I’m leaning toward the Know Nothings.
“Abortion is a troubling medical procedure and makes no one comfortable. But it is, in the final event, an issue between patient and doctor. Priests and politicians need to butt out.”
Actually you forgot someone. There is in fact one more person in the abortion equation, namely the one getting killed. That person does not have a voice. It is the government’s responsibility to speak for him/her.
Excellent article! It’s about time more American Catholics took their Faith seriously and stood up for core Catholic doctrines. And what could be more fundamental than an infant’s right to life?
“My objection to you and to other Catholics is not what you believe. It is your insistence on imposing your beliefs on others that offends. I don’t want my children’s personal freedoms curtailed by Vatican Sharia.”
The same way I feel for every secularist, atheist, feminist, Jew, Muslim, Protestant, Hindu, etc. that wants to impose their beliefs on other human beings.
“The kindliness and generosity of the Founding Fathers to others is reflected in letters written by Washington and Jefferson to Catholics and Jews.”
Yes, I enjoy the fact that these same men owned slaves, with Jefferson fathering children through one his own Yes, the Founding Fathers really were righteous!
“Abortion is a troubling medical procedure and makes no one comfortable. But it is, in the final event, an issue between patient and doctor.”
Yes, however the patient is the one placing the doctor in the position of doing harm which is a direct violation of the oath a doctor must take when receiving the authority to practice medicine.
Jhariss how are any non – religious persons imposing their beliefs onto you with respect to abortion? If I am pro choice I am advocating giving you a choice to abort an unwanted pregnancy or to carry it to term. No one is forcing you or attempting to force upon you any decision you are not comfortable with. However, you and the rest of your constituencies seem to think it’s fine to push your beliefs on me by forcing people who have no affiliation with your religion to accept your dogma as law. I don’t believe in God and you can not offer me one iota of support to prove to me, an atheist, that I should believe a fetus should have the same rights as a human being. Not one. You don’t abort people. You abort fetuses. You can display as many pictures of third trimester abortions as you’d like. If it wasn’t for the fact that fetuses were necessary to continue to populate our species, the fetus could be regarded as no more then a parasite. They are not people. The sanctity of life is something that does not apply to all living things. Fetuses are one of those things. Humans kill all types of organisms every day without any regard. A chimp has the ability to reason, show emotion and communicate however we kill chimps for our own benefit every day and their DNA is nearly identical to our own. A fetus does not think, it does not reason and is, by definition “unborn” thereby stripping it of any independence from its mother. And because of this lack of independence from it’s host/mother, I firmly believe that the fetus’ rights should be governed by what is allowing it to exist in the first place – it’s host/mother. Not by you and certainly not any church.
Actually, God allows the fetus to exist. It is in the mother’s womb by the grace of a life-giving God. If you can’t get that part right, the rest is not going to make sense to you.
Doesn’t the Jewish view on abortion deserve some recognition?
And the Jewish view is that the baby is not a human (it is just a part of the mother) until it emerges from the womb. In Jewish Law killing a fetus was a misdemeanor and the punishment was a payment to the father of the child. The same as if you cut off a finger of another out of malice. This was based on the only section of the Torah dealing with an unborn child. You have to read it in the original Hebrew to get it right. Some of the translations got it wrong.
So Jews – even those who think abortions for anything other than the heath of the mother are wrong – don’t take it as seriously as some of our Christian friends. So you have to ask yourself – is legislating a particular religion’s view on the matter a good idea?
Now this is rank speculation – but perhaps the reason Jesus never addressed abortion was that he was satisfied with Jewish law on the matter.
And further: abortion in the main is an economic act by poor women. The rate of abortion among Blacks is higher than among other segments of the population. One of the reason is the dearth of Black males of marriage age due to the Drug War. 1/3 are in the criminal justice system – jail or probation and many of the rest have felony records reducing their earning power.
So the first thing to do to reduce abortion is to End The Drug War.
Second – outlawing abortion is just a feel good measure. It will not stop the practice. It will just drive it underground. They will just start having “menstrual extraction” parties again as was not unusual in the 60s. You can look it up. Or RU-485 parties. Or birth control pill parties – or ergot parties or who knows what else?
This can not be dealt with by law – you have to change women’s hearts. But passing laws – well not so difficult – except in South Dakota.
Oh yeah – with the economy tanking expect the abortion rate to rise.
And as long as I have your attention: opponents of abortion should be very well grounded in economics so you can tell your legislators to do the right thing. Any abortion foe not well grounded in economics is not being true to their beliefs.
Are we ignoring overpopulation now?
I’m thinking globally here, not merely nationally.
If the world population continues to grow, we will eventually hit a limit and then only one option will be left: massive death. That’s just ecology. This could happen through a pandemic or a war over resources, which is even more likely, considering the rate we already consume at. We don’t even have to grow and we’ll already face serious problems.
That is, of course, unless we lower the birth rate instead.
Like you, I’d prefer if we didn’t need abortion to accomplish this. But telling someone “don’t have sex,” or “don’t have a family, adopt instead” hasn’t proven successful in the past.
Between war and abortion, I’d say abortion is the more ethical one. And biologically speaking, fetuses are aborted when they’re unviable, aka not alive. So it’s not murder.
If you call yourself a Christian the fact that God chose to enter into human life in a young, unmarried girl has got to mean something.
It’s almost as if he was trying to teach us something right from the very beginning ….