SC Catholic priest: Vote for Obama "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil"
Voting for a pro-abortion candidate is "material cooperation with intrinsic evil.."
The priest, Rev. Jay Scott Newman, took this position in calling his parishioners to penance before taking Holy Communion if they voted for Sen. Obama knowing his pro-abortion position.
Recognizing differences have been tossed back and forth here about the abortion topic, it seems to me that no one who is raising or remembers raising a child from birth could support Obama's capitulation to the pro-abortion lobby if they just thought through the implications should their own child just happened to have been born to someone else who defended abortions and chose to abort.
Our unborn children are our children. It doesn't matter that we can't see them, do not see their ultimate growth, can't see their physical destruction by doctors and it doesn't even matter that people call them something else other than human and alive, when they are both. In the main, elective abortion destroys, kills and murders the human lives of our most innocent fellow human beings.
This is why I voted for Alan Keyes on my ballot, however much I wanted to vote for attributes about Obama that I found to be good for the country. In discussing "readiness," if a person is willing to believe that it is alright to have elective abortions as birth control, what killing cannot be justified if enough euphemistic and dismissive rationalizations are employed until everyone falls asleep to the atrocity?
This is not an isolated issue from foreign policy, war policy and other policies in which life hangs in the balance. It is central ethically, legally, and morally.
Holy Fuckin Eucharist! Are you for real? Is the Roman Catholic Church really in any position to dictate morality? An even if you belive they are, do you have even a sense of havin your own thoughts?
November 13, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your hate speech aside, I'm not RC.
November 14, 2008 3:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a thought, if you believe abortion is morally wrong, don't ever have one. However, you have no right to insist other must do as you do or they are intrinsically evil. And a small suggestion, look to cleaning up the morals of your own house of worship before passing judgement on the morals of others.
November 13, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me get this straight. I believe it's murder and you tell me I've no right to say murder isn't a right.
November 14, 2008 3:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
No one is "pro-abortion." Calling people "pro-abortion" means you automatically lose any effort to try to sway people to your position.
The quesiton is whether your conviction that abortion is "murder" should be the law. if so, let me as you a question. If, as you believe, abotion is murder, does that not mean mean you'd support imposing whatever penalty a given state provides for capital murder upon any woman or girl who had one?
November 14, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look, there is an entity, place, principle and more than that outside of politics, law and coercive institutions that holds an entirely legitimate non-dependent view of murder.
That said, to meet a legal standard would require mental state -- knowledge or intent -- or some excuse or justification for knowing/intentional killing...probably most people don't have that, and most people don't have abortions. However, if we are going to discuss what position we ought to hold, that can be an ethics or morality discussion. Even so, those are limited aspects of the problem.
Maybe a better question: let's ask, whatever the law should be, what actually happens to the soul, mind, body of a person who aborts a child as birth control? Let's discuss that alone.
And what happens to the mind, emotions and conscience of a person who defends abortion to the end? Another worthwhile discussion.
November 14, 2008 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, um, how about - it depends on the person. I'll also call you out on what you mean by, "aborts a child as birth control." Do you mean, aborting a child to prevent birth, as opposed to for health reasons? Or do you mean the serial abortionist who doesn't want to bother with a condom?
Why do you think anything "happens" to such a person? And what do you mean by "to the end?"
November 14, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Plain meaning.
November 15, 2008 1:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you presume to know? Maybe the God you think you know is a merciful and loving God that gives women a choice.
I tend to believe He is, and that is why He wisely gave the obligation and burden of raising a human being to women. Men are too into control.
In the meantime, I won't let misguided and frankly, blasphemous know-it-alls presume to judge me. What I have done is between me and my God, and upon conference we have determined that it's really none of your business.
BTW, God Hisself (Herself?) is the ultimate abortionist, He/She tends to perfom billions of them a year. After conception, even.
Go figger.
November 15, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your premise is that no one, except an individual to himself, can know something. Then you contradict the premise by assailing others' knowledge. Unless you are above others, you assail yourself in the process.
November 16, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Only to those who have been indoctrinated by blind watchmakers. I'm trying to understand you, but I can't. I don't mean that I can't understand why you have the position you do (which, to the degree that I understand your position, is also true). I mean I literally can't understand about a third of what you write, and I actually have a pretty good understanding of the Bible. I'm sure it's even harder to understand you for those who have been atheists from birth. You need to understand that many of us are operating from a different reference frame than you, so when you use your faith-speak we don't know what you're trying to say. If you're trying to communicate, the first rule should be to understand your audience.
Look, I'm guilty myself of occasionally using phrases that the general public might not understand, but when called out on it, I'm not going to say "Plain meaning", since if it truly were, no one would be asking.
November 15, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
You understand or could understand, but you choose not to do so then pretend incomprehension. That is the decision you've made on your own power.
November 16, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yew betcha that was one heckuva second paragraph...er...sentence.
You were channeling Bible Spice...how apt.
November 13, 2008 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, do you support the death penalty?
November 13, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Death imposed on innocents by sinners is evil. Logic isn't required to know this. We know it innately.
Death undertaken by innocents to save sinners is good. Neither logic or innate knowledge grasps the magnitude of this.
God takes death from the hands of both the sinner and the innocent and brings about justice, mercy and eternal love. He does a simple thing that we find so complicated and near impossible to do here on earth.
Children don't find it so hard to love.
November 14, 2008 5:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
You totally didn't answer the question. It was a simple yes or no, so I'm not sure what's so difficult.
But how about you use "I" in place of "we" when making your grand pronouncements, huh?
November 14, 2008 7:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
A free man is free to answer questions off the stand.
Think about your question. "Do you support the death penalty?"
Which one? Can you be more specific?
Are you so programmed that the death penalty imposed by states on people found guilty of crimes eligible for it is the most important aspect of that question?
If you're tried, convicted and sentenced to death, you die.
If you win your appeal, you die.
If you lose your appeal, you die.
If you are clean as the bald guy on the cleanser bottle, you die.
And God, God dies with each of those God loves. Not a thousand deaths but billions, trillions ... who knows how many? And with a depthless love for each who goes through it.
How about this: do you think moral evil committed by mankind is responsible for physical death plaguing mankind in this world? Does it lead to entropy? Why or why not?
November 14, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a pretty simple question, Mike. Pretending like you don't know which "death penalty" I'm referring to is the coward's way out. You know why I'm asking and you know what your answer is, so you're talking about the subject because your answer leaves you in a position that you can't defend with logic.
That said, I've never been in an argument before with someone who gets backed into a logic corner and employs physics to get out of it. Nice try.
November 15, 2008 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Orlando, you've missed the point entirely. We are all under death. You ask if I support it when a government hastens it. I guess it depends on whether the government is defending innocents or wiping them out with the death penalty. If the former, I'd support it (as with the WWII Allied invasion to force the nazis from Europe). If the latter, I wouldn't.
Whether a government kills a person or not, the person dies eventually. Is that a penalty? Whether death is a penalty depends on how a person has lived his or her life before they died. Did they prepare for judgment day? Or gaffe it off like a teenager trying to prove he's tough but only succeeding in proving he's dense.
And the "death penalty" versus abortion canard is far from any useful point of discussion. It's a false parallel used to drag people into its long spent parlour game of faux Perry Mason logic.
"It's a simple yes or no question!" screams the bad guy lawyer at the witness. He's mad because the person wants to tell the whole truth but he wants them to squelch most of it and follow his partisan, adversarial script.
The death penalty you speak of is mixed up with an attempted justice system. The abortion industry doesn't even try for justice -- it just goes on denying personhood to unborn human beings -- akin to Dred Scott's legal dehumanization. Also, the prisoner on death row is not usually an innocent. An unborn child is.
November 16, 2008 12:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
We aren't pro abortion. We are pro choice. My goodness these people piss me off.
November 13, 2008 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
If they are 'our children' how come Joe the Plumber, Mike7Woodson and the Republican 'base' don't give a crap about them after they are born?
The Repugs won't pay a penny of extra tax to better support the 25% of American children who live in poverty, they don't support universal medical/dental coverage for children, which is the norm all over the western world.
Mike7Woodson supports forcing raped 14 year old girls to term. That is truly sick and evil.
November 13, 2008 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your hate speech aside, I'm not a Republican.
It's peculiar about the partisan mindset that if a partisan's position is criticized, whoever criticizes him must be the other partisan.
Isn't that what you all here have said to be George W. Bush's problem? You're either with us or against us...
November 14, 2008 5:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are making no sense whatsoever regarding partisanship. In the beginning you deny being Republican then you lump everyone together that is pro-choice. Now who is being presumptuous, which is the entire obstruct to a real dialogue, crunching people into boxes rather then seeing who or what they may really be as individuals.
Jay the Priest needs to save souls and get out of politics.
Here is the concundrum. If abortions are legal there is no guarantee that anyone will have one, so supporting someone who agrees that we should seek to reduce their frequency comports with being a Christian, IMHO.
On the other hand, supporting a candidate who is eager for war, guarantees there will be death. So which is really the higher calling, to defeat the war monger, or to defeat someone who has an actual chance of saving the unborn.
Jay the Priest, your 15 minutes are up.
November 14, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some good points you make. If you read my entry, you will see your point about the scope of pro-life thinking you explore in your comment.
In other blogs I've discussed Mary Ann Glendon's good points about the partisan factions on abortion not breaching the gap to reduce abortions and agreeing with her gridlock-breaking prescriptions on that count.
However, in thinking about abortion I have to consider that there are more than legalistic, pedagogic and reactionary ways to discuss its impact, implications and effects on larger belief, moral, legal and ethical systems of social conduct.
All of these points have been made in various ways and places, however we all forget sometimes, some ignore all the time and many look for fertile ground for learning from their neighbors about things they don't agree on.
At one time I though no one would discuss this issue and all I'd get were lots of insults just for bringing it up. I've learned that on this, one of the websites left of center-left, some actually think about it and respond while others excoriate, curse, blaspheme and tempt you to do the same so that they can say you're a hypocrite.
It's a cycle of frustration and tedium we all sometimes face when dealing with those who oppose our views on the net. The repeat offense is prejudice assumed against people whose hypothetical conduct is brought into focus for discussion. Are there subtleties? Sure and starting from the more general, they may be introduced into the evolving topic.
November 14, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear you. I have a friend who was born to a young, unmarried, teen mother. That's why I think abstinence education (as well as contraception education) is the devil's work. Teenagers should be having as much sex as possible—otherwise people like my friend wouldn't be born.
Does that analogy make the flaws in your argument clear enough for you?
November 13, 2008 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, because it is a false analogy.
You are analogizing decisions made before conception to decisions made after. The two phases are different and distinct, however, the same principle of protecting another's life over one's own selfish interest would prevent unprepared parenthood in one case and energize preparation for parenthood in the other.
November 14, 2008 5:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the analogy was about the potential of children yet to be. Your point seemed to me that allowing abortion prevents these wonderful children from coming into the world. Well, abstaining from sex prevents far more wonderful children from coming into the world.
However, if you want to draw distinctions between pre-conception and post-conception, it's just as easy to draw distinctions between pre-birth and post-birth. The two phases are different and distinct. Reality is, as always, much more complicated. Fetuses do not begin to form neurons in their brain until week 20. Prior to that point, I find it difficult to consider them any more human than the mole on my neck. (In fact, that mole has more hair than any pre-20 week fetus, so in some ways, maybe it's more human.)
If you want to think of the Pope as infallible, so be it. Don't force it on the rest of us, however. I wouldn't consider myself to be a strong pro-choice advocate (I'm just a scientist who loathes misinformation), and I am willing to see some restrictions put on abortion after week 20. OTOH, I think most of those restrictions are political posturing as very few women have abortions after week 20, and those that do most likely have strong reasons for doing so.
November 14, 2008 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ben, you aren't seriously advocating for the excision of human moles, are you?? Sure, if you are talking malignant moles, I might see your point, but to lump malignant and benign cutaneous growths together into a single category.... My god, man, it's an abomination I tell you! I will defend the rights of benign human moles to my dying breath, Ben Hocking, this I swear to you!
November 14, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not pro-excision. I am pro-choice. My personal choice was to keep Henry. I can't imagine my life if I had chosen differently, but I think we need to be able to make those personal choices for ourselves. As for your phony distinction between malign and benevolent moles, I'd argue that so-called "malign" moles (I've never seen them so much as hiss at me) are more capable of becoming fully human than the weak "benevolent" moles (who said they could co-op my name?), so maybe you're the one who should be rethinking your position.
November 15, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
The SS used to joke about their prisoners at Auschwitz, Mauthhausen and on the cattle cars the way you compare unborn human beings to excised moles.
November 16, 2008 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
The mole on your neck doesn't grow into a person.
The developing, dependent human being in the womb does.
November 14, 2008 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearly you've never seen the mole on my neck!
November 15, 2008 6:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Life begins at conception and ends at birth. It's all perfectly clear, really.
November 13, 2008 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even the Catholic Church does not actually believe that human life begins at conception. They allow for abortions, when performed to save the life of the mother. If a fetus is a human at conception, then this would be murder, would it not?
I am unaware of any Biblical citations which indicate that a fetus is a human at conception, although I am aware of an Old Testament citation, which states that this is not the case:
This is the King James citation, so before you go off of the ranch here on your interpretation: The New Jerusalem Bible, The New American Bible, and The Douay-Rheims Bible, all specify miscarriage in the text of this citation.
Clearly, if the husband got to dictate punishment, then it was not construed as murder. Where is the Biblical justification for a fetus being a human at conception then?
November 14, 2008 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting take on the passage.
The text appears to talk about a miscarriage or abortion caused if "men strive" such that it harms a pregnant mother. That the text assumes a tangible and real loss is clear.
The "striving" suggests an involuntary manslaughter situation were we to accept that the lost child (the verse also says 'with child') was incidental to the brutes' striving.
On what is punishment, the law assumes the parent of the child will decide, but that doesn't mean a manslaughter hasn't taken place. The possibility that a father would be more severe than a detached judge is great, and so the deterrent value is perhaps even greater in protection against the killing of the unborn.
November 14, 2008 5:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're using one of the modern interpretations of strive, whereas the original meaning was to quarrel or dispute. Since your post was about a Catholic Bishop's musings, here's some citations of the same text from Catholic Bibles:
Clearly, a fetus is not a lawful person under this standard, or the punishment would not be up to the father to decide.Orthodox Jewish traditions seem to take the same view, albeit nuanced. They believe that a fetus, having potential to become human, is held to a higher standard, and that abortion is not allowed, unless the pregnancy may cause real harm to a living person. There are allowances to save the life of the pregnant mother, as well as an abortion being allowed if the pregnant mother is still nursing an infant. I believe there are other exceptions, but have not queried any Rabbis extensively on the subject. It's not a topic easily entered into.
This is the Old Testament law, and I'm willing to accept any New Testament citations from Christians which would indicate it was overridden, but am aware of none. The whole claim of anti-abortion Christians is that it is their religion which dictates their belief, yet there is no Biblical citation which backs up their claim. Why is that?
November 15, 2008 6:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
True, any close reading of the Bible will reveal that 'personhood' tends to be conferred when the "breath of life" is bestowed. That tends to be at the quickening. (I wasn't aware of my daughter as a person until she kicked me and let me know she was there.)
That reading is good enough for me. It is consistent will a loving, and hands-off Creator.
Pity his creations feel such a need to meddle in things that are clearly not their concern. Perhaps these people ought to crusade against the billions of spontaneous abortions that have plagued women through the ages...
Nah, they'd lose their 'righteous' indignation. It's soooo fun to judge and look down upon others, isn't it. However, that might be shown up to be the folly it truly is if the campaign went against the Ultimate Abortionist.
November 15, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
A "Hands-off Creator"? Careful, you're walking into Deist country with that idea...
November 15, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the great American tradition? I think I can live with that
=D
November 15, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
PCA, clearly "strive," "fight," and "quarrel" if they wound up causing a "miscarriage" would involve violence. So my use of strive tracks the archaic usage.
I've used the word "manslaughter," which is a form of homicide that has a less culpable mental state and lesser sentence than murder. And it is such a situation the OT passages you quote is talking about if you parallel it to today's law.
The men in the passage have the intent to strive or fight. Most probably a woman intervened, not wanting to see the father of her child get the bad end of the fight. And, what happens is she loses her baby. The intent of the guilty party who caused the miscarriage (not natural, therefore manslaughter) was not to cause the death of an unborn child. Yet it happened. And separate from what the judges are authorized by the OT passage to do, set civil compensation, there is a penalty of criminal law to apply.
An eye for an eye provision isn't possible if the offending manslaughterer has no pregnant wife in which to cause a miscarriage, true? And in that case an eye for an eye would be pretty unjust anyhow, wouldn't it? And so the OT here puts punishment in the hands of the striving father who lost his unborn child to another man. That's not necessarily a less severe prescription.
Likely, it would be worse when you consider the importance of children in antiquity -- carrying on the family line, caring for parents in old age, and good old fashioned parental love.
Yes, the families of Egypt wailed after the Passover's initiating event, and Rachel wept for her children.
A striving father who loses a child to a man he was already fighting with would be a scary, possibly sadistic, judge to face if you were the opponent. So the value of the unborn child is apparently considered very great in penal and civil law of the OT. Not only that, but it is set that way because children born to tribal kingdoms constitute their very survival, productivity and defense.
The OT also recognizes mercy as a virtue, as when St. Abigail persuaded King David to spare her crude husband. She pleaded for mercy. David had the right to punish the man for double crossing him. However, Abigail argued that this would put bloodshed on David's hands and that would not be pleasing to the Lord. So the father in your OT passage is given the power to do mercy. What will he do with it? Interesting power God gives through the law, isn't it? Almost NT like. In this there is something to carry over to a discussion with Orlando above.
The penalty of death doesn't please the Lord either, but it is the reality of humankind's abuse of power in every generation. Men, not God institute the death penalty. Men sinned causing death. God let man discover the realities of abusing his power of freedom. "The death of sinners is evil." It's a great loss no matter who dies, however, in a world in which unity with God has been broken by humankind, justice is elusive at best. Self-service divides. God waits and continues to give people of every generation a chance to repent and renew a right heart within themselves. Help is given for this, yet there are also many who oppose the process in every generation.
November 16, 2008 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, I hate to disappoint you, but that priest would be regarded as a quack by most of the Roman Catholic church; it's right in the article:
I will not be surprised if he is disciplined. The Roman Catholic church supports separation of church and state. It's been like this for a very long time, most of the 20th century, I remember my extremely devout Polish Catholic grandpa saying it when I was a kid in the 60's: no priest is going to tell me how to vote. They can preach all they want about the evils of abortion, and they can even point out which political candidates live and believe Catholic prinicipals, but they aren't supposed to do what he did. That's not to say there wasn't some nasty goings on with Catholic hierarchy delivering voting blocs in the 19th and early 20th century, but precisely because of all that, it's not considered right anymore. You're a politician and you want to get votes that way, the Hasidim rebbes are maybe the only ones who can deliver it anymore.
The mere fact that this is being reported means that parishioners complained about it.
You refuse communion to a sinner who has not gone to confession, that's the only reason. Fact: it is not only not a sin to vote for someone who supports abortion, you can have close friends and family members who have had an abortion and support abortion and still get communion. There is no sin here, that priest is a quack.
Warning: you may be seeing more quack priests in the Catholic church in the news, they have a real serious recruiting problem right now. Lots of Catholics in the U.S. expect to get low-quality priests nowadays, expect it with a shrug, which just makes them listen less to the priest and do more of the cafeteria Catholic thing.
November 14, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Art, the priest didn't refuse communion to those who fit the instruction. He prescribed penance for them before they commune. This is in keeping with the words of St. Paul, who instructed the flock not to partake of the Holy Communion lightly or having failed to recognize the Body of Christ.
With abortion, a total innocent, the least of these, is destroyed. Christ is in them and with them as they are destroyed and brings them home. He is crucified with them again with every abortion, whatever its justification.
Those supporting such a thing must not partake of communion lightly, not recognizing the Body and Blood of Christ.
The priest is not a quack. The Catholic Democrat organization is a quack-organization mixing church and state.
November 14, 2008 5:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would argue that the Father was not a hypocrite only if he recommended penance for any parishioners that voted for/or supported Rudy Guiliani in the Republican primaries.
November 14, 2008 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew Greeley:
What might such a reason be?
It might have been that while the candidate did not reject abortion, he supported most of the other Catholic positions on life, i.e. he condemned unjust wars, the death penalty, torture, kidnapping, cruelty to immigrants that his opponents implicitly support.
Some bishops and priests argue that abortion is such a horrible evil that there can be no proportionate reason. That might be their opinion, but it goes beyond Catholic ethical demands. Another — and similar — stand might be that the Catholic voter would have to abstain from all politics since there are very few political leaders who support the whole list of Catholic life issues. Opposition to abortion does not by itself exhaust the moral obligations of the Catholic social ethic.
The pro-choice enthusiasts who think they have fulfilled their moral responsibility when they reduce that social ethic to abortion do not understand Catholic teaching. Abortion certainly violates Catholic respect for life, but so do many other actions that are common in many modern societies — like torture, the death penalty, unjust war, cruelty to the elderly, abuse of children, racial injustice — what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin called the seamless garment of life.
If McCain were elected, we were told, he would have appointed judges who would have reversed Roe vs. Wade. Perhaps that would have happened, but we kid ourselves if we think that the present court would in fact do that. Moreover, if it did, state laws would continue to apply.
Ultimately, Catholics must strive to persuade others by the depth and power of their commitment to life issues. Ranting at others because they are “killing babies” may be emotionally satisfying, but it doesn’t change people’s minds. In a society like ours, one needs to build a coalition to change people’s minds on such an issue. Arguing with them and trying to impose the Catholic notion of natural law on them by political power won’t work.
http://www.agreeley.com/articles/110508.htm
November 14, 2008 7:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I screwed up the blockquote, but that whole thing is quoted from the link.
November 14, 2008 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
To be "pro-abortion" would entail deliberately seeking pregnancy - for the purpose of an abortion. Otherwise, it's a "choice." And guess what, "choice" is God-given! Free will.
November 14, 2008 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wrote Father Newman this last night... No response yet. I'm very curious to see if he weighs in on the question.
"Father Newman:
I'm certain that your inbox is "full" after the AP printed the story regarding your statements about parishoners who voted for Barack Obama. I have a legitimate question, though, and hoped for your opinion on the matter. I chose to vote for Barack Obama, despite the many "conservative" values I hold, largely because of John McCain's stance on the war in Iraq, and war in general. Using your argument, shouldn't a vote for a "pro war" candidate also disqualify me from taking communion? Would Jesus condemn abortion more vehemently than he condemns war?
Sincerely..."
November 14, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
i'm anti-abortion, but pro-choice because i don't feel it is my place to tell anyone else what to do with their body, and as long as a woman's body is needed for a fertilized egg to develop, i feel that ought to be taken into account.
i am also generally pro-life: anti-torture, anti-death penalty, and anti-war. i respect people who view abortion as murder, but i don't consider them to be pro-life unless they're also with me on the death penalty, war, poverty; and vote to help people on issues that seriously impact the poor, single mothers, the unborn, and children.
most of the so-called pro-life movement unfortunately just acts to control women. i wonder whether father newman also chastised parishioners who voted for bush (a mass murderer in my opinion).
November 14, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's start this conversation from another direction. I would argue that absolute stands against abortion really do little good.
Abortion is going to occur whether it's legal or not. No law is going to stop it. It never has, never will. That being said, I'd prefer that abortion be legal so that the procedure is done properly and safely.
A question then arises: If we are opposed to abortion, how do we lessen its incidence?
European countries have lower rates of abortion than we do. The achieve that through proper comprehensive sex education, readily available contraception, and social support systems that allow women to have children without fear that they will be unable to raise a child.
We need to imitate the Europeans here.
The goal should not be the legal banning of abortion but limiting its frequency. That will do far more to lower abortion rates than pursuing some absolute ban that will never work. And, that, by the way, is close, I think, to the position of Obama and those around him in the upper realms of the Democratic party. (Mine, too.)
Absolutist moral visions are not a useful perspective from which to make ethical decisions about public health. The moral reasoning that works for some individuals does not necessarily work for society as a whole.
November 14, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Abortion is wrong and the the symptom of failures individual and governmental. On an individual level, people have engaged in conduct which has a potential consequence which they have not mutually agreed is acceptable to both parties. In some cases, there is no consent at all to the conduct by the woman. In either case, there is some failure of individual responsibility in any unwanted pregnancy. Basically someone had sex without being prepared to raise a child. Try making that illegal and see how much good that does for you.
Abortion, just like pre-marital sex, still occurs in all societies, whether legal or not. Where it is illegal, there may be less sex or less abortion, but you will not eliminate it. Indeed as a law enforcement matter we cannot catch, prosecute and imprison all the people who shoot each other every year. Sensible restrictions on gun ownership could prevent some of those killings, yet gun control does not factor into The good Father's logic.
Nevertheless, there is huge failure on the part of government to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies through birth control and sex education. I have found almost no "pro-life" person who supports either birth control or sex education.
If "life begins at conception" becomes the law of the land rather than a concept of conscience, birth control pills, IUDs and a number of other methods of contraception like the morning after pill will be made illegal. Indeed, is not in vitro fertilization then some form of wrongful imprisonment?
On his website, Father Newman says he did not say. Taking him at his word, his logic is faulty. First, to accept his position you have to accept the infallibility of the Pope. Then you have to extend that throughout the hierarchy of the Church. Lastly, you have to accept that this is the only law needing reform and that all the other decisions made by the Supreme Court do not matter.
With all due respect, this logic is a house of cards. Nor is it supported adequately in scripture, but that's another post.
November 15, 2008 6:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Stryker,
You say there is mutual responsibility for the risked human life that is the well-known consequence of intercourse. True. Then you say that most societies abort. And you assume that irresponsible sex is too popular to do anything about. Therefore, abortion is the logical follow-up to correct for that irresponsibility. It is as if you are assuming that individuals do not have the progressive potential to be responsible for children they risk, i.e. they cannot and will not become better people so do not expect it of them.
Seldom is there progress for humanity in any field that does not improve the person.
January 26, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink