Abortion discussion branched off of other topic :)

[CAPSmith]

Originally Posted by Seminarian_Tim

Personally, I think that if the Christian faith-based turnout had been larger and more authentic (true to what their Christian faith teaches about the sanctity of human life), we would have had a different election. From my own faith, I know that Catholicism doesn't permit me to vote for a candidate who is pro-choice. In my own state of RI, we have approximately 650,000 Catholics out of our just over 1 million residents. If they had all voted for McCain, it would have easily been a red state. Just something else to think about.

I suppose if you're a one issue voter that is the stance you'd take - must make voting really easy. Not that I'm "Probama" but Douglas Kmiec, former legal counsel to Reagan and staunce Republican (and practicing Catholic) recently wrote a book, Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question About Barack Obama in which he argues that Catholics can indeed vote for him because he supports policies that "in theory" would reduce the number of abortions - which is also a Catholic way of thinking.

Let us not forget when abortions were a criminal act, there were just as many.

Although the Vatican, etc has expressed that it is immoral to vote for a candidate that is pro-choice because it creates a culture of death, you have to ask yourself is the criminalization of abortion a red herring or will it actually reduce the number or eliminate abortion.

http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Suppo.../dp/159020204X

[SlightlyCatholic]

Catholics can indeed vote for him because he supports policies that "in theory" would reduce the number of abortions - which is also a Catholic way of thinking.

That's not a Catholic position..."in theory", Obama is for abortions and that's all a voting Catholic needs to know. It's not about reduction of abortions, it's about making them non-existant. "Reduction of abortions" is a concept used by those who want to placate pro-lifers while furthering their pro-choice agenda. You don't make compromises with a moral evil like abortion, you eradicate it by not voting for government officials who support it and making the act itself illegal.

Let us not forget when abortions were a criminal act, there were just as many.

Do you have statistics to back that up?

Although the Vatican, etc has expressed that it is immoral to vote for a candidate that is pro-choice because it creates a culture of death, you have to ask yourself is the criminalization of abortion a red herring or will it actually reduce the number or eliminate abortion.

The fact that the highest court in the land has stated that it's legally acceptable to kill a child in the womb can only further the pro-choice cause. We arrest people for committing murder and throw them in jail for several years, and since we as a nation decided to do that (a concept thought up long before the formation of our nation), people have decided it's probably not a good idea to kill each other. The same principle applies to abortion, should Roe v. Wade be overturned.

This is why a Catholic can't vote for a pro-choice candidate:

Except in the case in which a voter is faced with all pro-abortion candidates (in which case, as explained in question 8 above, he or she strives to determine which of them would cause the let damage in this regard), a candidate that is pro-abortion disqualifies himself from receiving a Catholic’s vote. This is because being pro-abortion cannot simply be placed alongside the candidate's other positions on Medicare and unemployment, for example; and this is because abortion is intrinsically evil and cannot be morally justified for any reason or set of circumstances. To vote for such a candidate even with the knowledge that the candidate is pro-abortion is to become an accomplice in the moral evil of abortion. If the voter also knows this, then the voter sins mortally.

Source: http://www.ewtn.com/vote/brief_catechism.htm

I'd rather not get into a theological discussion here, as it would disrupt the spirit of the thread. Perhaps this discussion could be continued privately so the thread isn't derailed?

[CAPSmith]

Originally Posted by Seminarian_Tim

Do you have statistics to back that up?

http://www.womensenews.org/article.c...ontext/archive

Across Latin America, an estimated 5,000 women die every year as a result of clandestine abortions, according International Planned Parenthood Federation. An estimated 800,000 are hospitalized due to complications, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, based in New York and Washington.

But despite such legal risks, Latin America continues to experience abortion rates that are much higher than most countries where it is legal.

The abortion rates are highest in Chile and Peru (where one woman in 20 has an induced abortion). In Brazil, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, it's about one woman in 30, and in Mexico approximately one in 40. (In the United States, the rate is 21.3 per 1,000 women.)

Please note that both Chile and Peru's official religion is Roman Catholicism with 70% and 80% practicing accordingly.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/2/gr060203.html

Prior to the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, illegal abortion in the United States was common; some 700,000 to 800,000 abortions were estimated to have taken place annually in the 1950s and 1960s.

Of the 46 million abortions occurring worldwide each year, 20 million are illegal.

There's also this fact: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/iss...rtion-6480.htm

26 million abortions take place anually in countries where abortion is illegal. An estimated 20 million occur in countries where abortion is restricted (only to save mother's life) or illegal.

39% of women live in countries where abortion is restricted or illegal.

So 39% of women make up for 44% of all abortions? That would tell me that abortion rates are higher in places where it is illegal or restricted.

Of course we'll never have real figures since illegal abortions aren't reported, it's like asking how many illegal immigrants are in the US.

However, also note that since the Roe v Wade decision in 1973 the number of abortions each year in the US has declined with a 25% decrease from 1990 to 2008 even though the number of unwanted pregnancies has not.

So I suppose you have a choice to vote for someone who can actually affect the number of abortions that occur, or pretend that what you're doing is actually saving lives. I suppose it's like dictators in Africa and their stance on AIDs prevention...

[SlightlyCatholic]

I suppose it's like dictators in Africa and their stance on AIDs prevention...

Am I reading this wrong, or are you comparing Catholics to African dictators? I don't see the connection. African dictators have killed and raped millions of people, so I'm not sure that's an entirely appropriate analogy.

A Catholic's voting or not voting for a pro-abortion candidate has nothing to do with a number's game or procured statistics. Rather, it is a teaching passed down in Catholicism that abortion is intrinsically evil and cannot be supported or reduced. A reduction of abortion is simply a smaller number of murders rather than no murders at all. The killing of a fetus in the Catholic faith is (and I would argue universally) unacceptable and can't be supported in any of its forms.

Regarding your stats, which seem to be a bit skewed (from the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform):

All abortion numbers are derived from pro-abortion sources courtesy of The Alan Guttmacher Institute and Planned Parenthood's Family Planning Perspectives.

Alan Guttmarcher and Planned Parenthood are huge resources for pro-choice arguments and data and are very rarely fair or factual.

Should we legalize cocaine, since people ignore the law and do it anyway? Maybe school bus drivers can do a line on the dashboard before they transport fourth-graders to their elementary school. After all, if it's legal, why not? Legality of an act provides a culture in which the act in question can take place, and that's never good.

[CAPSmith]

Originally Posted by Seminarian_Tim

Am I reading this wrong, or are you comparing Catholics to African dictators? I don't see any need for that...

Not what I was saying at all. The AIDs comparison was showing that those dictators still choose to not educate their people about the dangers of AIDs or provide information about how it is transmitted or can be prevented. It's like teaching abstenence only. It removes reality from the equation.

A Catholic's voting or not voting for a pro-abortion candidate has nothing to do with a number's game or procured statistics (yours seem to come from pro-choice organizations whose job it is to make abortion look attractive).

The same could be said about pro-life organizations, however, they seem to have fewer numbers and statistics and focus more on the religious beliefs. Beliefs aren't facts.

I presented facts that show that in places where abortion is legal, the rates of abortion are lower than in places where it is illegal. You say that teaching is passed down in Catholicism, but places where 80% of the population are practicing Catholics have the highest abortion rates in the world!

A reduction of abortion is simply a smaller number of murders rather than no murders at all. The killing of a fetus in the Catholic faith is (and I would argue universally) unacceptable and can't be supported in any of its forms.

I agree with you, but provided facts have shown that the criminalization of abortion does not lower the rates just as it has been proven that removing the guns from the citizenry hasn't lowered crime rates.

Now, one of the things that I didn't investigate is if the legality of abortion is the cause of the lower rate or if it involves education prior to the abortion. In other words, are the countries that have legal abortions the ones that have comprehensive sex education in schools?

I think abortion is evil as well, but in the end, despite the laws we make we'll have to face the creator in the end.

[SlightlyCatholic]

You say that teaching is passed down in Catholicism, but places where 80% of the population are practicing Catholics have the highest abortion rates in the world!

Passing something down and following it are completely different. A teacher can tell a child to go home and do their homework but it doesn't mean the child is going to do it. That was my original point. If Catholics had voted according to the teachings of Catholicism, the resulting vote in my state would have been very different. Unfortunately, there are many Catholics who choose to be "cafeteria Catholics" and pick and choose which teachings they like and which ones they don't feel like following.

It's like teaching abstenence only. It removes reality from the equation.

If you don't have sex with someone, there's a ZERO percent chance of getting any STD, getting someone pregnant, or becoming pregnant prematurely. That's the best way to prevent all three of those things, regardless of what people choose to do with that information. Contraception promotes frequent and immoral sex, and just because people may use contraceptives doesn't mean it should be taught that that's the best way. Contraception is a faulty replacement for self-control and sexual morality, two things that aren't promoted very much in today's society.

[CAPSmith]

Tim,

If you believe in the existance in good, then you must also believe in the existance of evil. Evil is a real part of our existance and must be addressed.

I will not dispute that the practice of abstinence is not the best form of birth control and best way to stop the spread of STDs. But again, it ignores reality. In countries where abstinence only is taught there are higher birth rates, higher STD rates, etc.

Unfortunately, these beliefs aren't held by everyone (abortion is bad, etc) which results in us needing to adopt a set of laws that can mitigate the number of these immoral things from occuring.

I think that John Paul II does a pretty good job explaining why abortion is evil.

http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/__PQ.HTM

So the problem isn't whether or not it's illegal, it getting people to understand and believe that it is wrong - that can only be accomplished by getting the word out, one person at a time.

[Woody]

.Abstenince never worked throughout human history has it ?

Sex is a very powerful human need .As seen by how many people have done really stupid things because of it.Best you can do is equip people with infomation
so they have a chance of making the right choices ,and,Have access to health care when they mess up .
We have tried the victorian approach of not speaking about it and locking up women who have sex outside of marriage (never men though funny that!)
that didn't work .WE have tried the 60s hippy approach anything goes man ! that turned out to be stupid as well .
Guess a pragmatic approach of what works is probbly best .

[SlightlyCatholic]

.Abstenince never worked throughout human history has it ?

It works quite well when it's practiced. If something doesn't work with a significant amount of people, does that mean it needs to be taken off the table altogether? I have no problem teaching about AIDS and the medical information relative to that topic, but I do have a problem with public schools passing out contraceptives to kids during sex education talks. This says two things: a) We expect you to have sex, so there's really no expection that you won't and b) we just lowered the bar for you, so don't worry about being a sexually mature individual. I know several individuals who practice abstinance (and no, they're not other seminarians) and they haven't shriveled up and died from not having sexual relations before marraige. I just think our culture as a whole uses the word "realistic" to mean "mediocre" in regards to our standards for young people.

CAPSmith, thanks for the JPII link. Another good read of his is "Evangelium Vitae", or "The Gospel of Life".

[03_SHOOTER]

Originally Posted by timwoodhead@hotmail.com

.Abstenince never worked throughout human history has it ?

Actually, abstinence works every time it's practiced.

Originally Posted by timwoodhead@hotmail.com

. Sex is a very powerful human need.

Not to quibble, but it is not a "need", it is a desire, and like the desire to smack stupid people upside the head, it can be controlled.

Originally Posted by timwoodhead@hotmail.com

.As seen by how many people have done really stupid things because of it.Best you can do is equip people with information
so they have a chance of making the right choices ,and,Have access to health care when they mess up .

OK, it's obvious that I missed a meeting someplace, but perhaps you can show me exactly where in the Constitution of the United States it authorizes the government to expend even one penny on "health care"? As for people messing up, that's when we get into that whole "personal responsibility" thing, you know, the one that nobody today seems to care about.

Originally Posted by timwoodhead@hotmail.com

.We have tried the victorian approach of not speaking about it and locking up women who have sex outside of marriage (never men though funny that!) that didn't work.

Actually, it worked out quite well, as is evinced by the extremely small number of "unwanted" pregnancies until abortion became readily available. Back then, women KNEW that if they gave in to their animal impulses instead of acting like a sentient human being that the odds of them becoming pregnant were about 100%, so they simply didn't do it.

As to the reason the men weren't "sent away" is because the pregnancy was, and remains today, the responsibility of the WOMAN. It is HER body, and discounting cases of rape, it was HER choice to engage in an activity that she KNEW could result in HER becoming impregnated, so it is HER responsibility. If she didn't want to get pregnant, then she should have remained seated on a folding metal chair, with a dime between her knees instead of throwing her legs up in the air the moment the conversation dried up.

I will not entertain any silly arguments about "it's his responsibility too" either, because that's as patently stupid as holding the bartender responsible when you have too much to drink, blaming Hershey for your cavities, or your pencil for misspelled words. If he really is equally responsible, then why isn't it required that he give his consent prior to an abortion being performed? If he really is equally responsible, then why can he not compel a woman to have an abortion if he doesn't want the child? Simple, because it's NOT his responsibility, it's HERS, and hers ALONE.

Originally Posted by timwoodhead@hotmail.com

.WE have tried the 60s hippy approach anything goes man ! that turned out to be stupid as well.

You mean the one that gave us 'legalized' abortion in the first place? Yup, stupid, and the fact that SCOTUS went along with that utterly fallacious piece of logic still makes my head spin. Murder is NOT a "privacy" issue.

Originally Posted by timwoodhead@hotmail.com

.Guess a pragmatic approach of what works is probbly best .

Yup, and personal responsibility is the most pragmatic approach of all. If you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex, it's just that simple.