On this, the anniversary of one of the most heinous Supreme Court decisions in our history (it's right up there with if not more awful than Dred Scott) we must take a moment and consider what our nation has become since then. Do we really support life when we give of our money and time to soup kitchens and homeless shelters yet will not protect people at their most defenseless?
We do not. What the liberals who have approached me over the abortion question always seem to fall back on is that I need to put all 'life' issues on the same plain. I need to find a balance, of which, they assert, abortion is only one issue.
It may well be only one issue, yet if it is it is the issue. It is based on the dignity of human life, which is what drives any respect for humanity in general. Why should the poor be helped? Because of their dignity as human beings. Why should people not be murdered or stolen from or raped or kidnapped? Because of their dignity as human beings. Where does this dignity begin?
It begins in the womb. Simple Reason tell us as much: human beings have human children.
If you won't support life at its beginning, when it can do nothing for itself, how can I trust that you really will support human dignity later? How can I even trust what you call human dignity? If I can't trust you on that, then, quite frankly, your opinion on education and the environment and our role is world affairs must be held suspect as well. If the dignity of the human person isn't first in your thoughts, then I have difficulty believing in your sincerity on lesser causes.
End abortion now. Work for and vote for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Then we might discuss, with some promise, what to do about ancillary questions.
Showing posts with label pro-abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pro-abortion. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Capital Punishment and Abortion Separate Issues
In the great and ongoing debate about abortion, it is often suggested that opposition to abortion and opposition to the death penalty go hand in hand. Perhaps so; capital punishment should no longer be a shirt sleeve issue for Catholic conservatives, seeing as Rome has spoken so forcefully about it in recent years. Still, it does appear that the one question does not so easily blend with the other.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
"Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
"If however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
"Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent." (#2267)
While this is obviously a very strong statement against capital punishment, it does not condemn it. Indeed it seems to say that, though 'practically nonexistent' the right of the state to use the death penalty does exist. It almost sounds like the admonition against violence or war: it should be used as a last recourse, when no other option exists.
So tying abortion to capital punishment, especially in a state such as right here in Michigan, where capital punishment has not existed since the middle of the 19th Century, indeed to place the death penalty under the umbrella of 'life issues' seems nothing short of a brazen attempt to call conservative anti-abortion activists hypocrites. Don't misunderstand this: if getting rid of capital punishment would in turn rid us of abortion, then we should do it.
But it won't. It would only force the pro-abortion crowd to find another bad name to call the right wing. Because they, unlike the Church and true conservatives, do not want what's right. They want what they want because they want it. They want it, not on grounds of true morals, but on the selfish grounds of mere human will.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
"Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
"If however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
"Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent." (#2267)
While this is obviously a very strong statement against capital punishment, it does not condemn it. Indeed it seems to say that, though 'practically nonexistent' the right of the state to use the death penalty does exist. It almost sounds like the admonition against violence or war: it should be used as a last recourse, when no other option exists.
So tying abortion to capital punishment, especially in a state such as right here in Michigan, where capital punishment has not existed since the middle of the 19th Century, indeed to place the death penalty under the umbrella of 'life issues' seems nothing short of a brazen attempt to call conservative anti-abortion activists hypocrites. Don't misunderstand this: if getting rid of capital punishment would in turn rid us of abortion, then we should do it.
But it won't. It would only force the pro-abortion crowd to find another bad name to call the right wing. Because they, unlike the Church and true conservatives, do not want what's right. They want what they want because they want it. They want it, not on grounds of true morals, but on the selfish grounds of mere human will.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Abortion costs a Human Life
On this, the anniversary of one of the most heinous Supreme Court decisions in our history (it's right up there with if not more awful than Dred Scott) we must take a moment and consider what our nation has become since then. Do we really support life when we give of our money and time to soup kitchens and homeless shelters yet will not protect people at their most defenseless?
We do not. What the liberals who have approached me over the abortion question always seem to fall back on is that I need to put all 'life' issues on the same plain. I need to find a balance, of which, they assert, abortion is only one issue.
It may well be only one issue, yet if it is it is the issue. It is based on the dignity of human life, which is what drives any respect for humanity in general. Why should the poor be helped? Because of their dignity as human beings. Why should people not be murdered or stolen from or raped or kidnapped? Because of their dignity as human beings. Where does this dignity begin?
It begins in the womb. Simple Reason tell us as much: human beings have human children.
If you won't support life at its beginning, when it can do nothing for itself, how can I trust that you really will support human dignity later? How can I even trust what you call human dignity? If I can't trust you on that, then, quite frankly, your opinion on education and the environment and our role is world affairs must be held suspect as well. If the dignity of the human person isn't first in your thoughts, then I have difficulty believing in your sincerity on lesser causes.
End abortion now. Work for and vote for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Then we might discuss, with some promise, what to do about ancillary questions.
We do not. What the liberals who have approached me over the abortion question always seem to fall back on is that I need to put all 'life' issues on the same plain. I need to find a balance, of which, they assert, abortion is only one issue.
It may well be only one issue, yet if it is it is the issue. It is based on the dignity of human life, which is what drives any respect for humanity in general. Why should the poor be helped? Because of their dignity as human beings. Why should people not be murdered or stolen from or raped or kidnapped? Because of their dignity as human beings. Where does this dignity begin?
It begins in the womb. Simple Reason tell us as much: human beings have human children.
If you won't support life at its beginning, when it can do nothing for itself, how can I trust that you really will support human dignity later? How can I even trust what you call human dignity? If I can't trust you on that, then, quite frankly, your opinion on education and the environment and our role is world affairs must be held suspect as well. If the dignity of the human person isn't first in your thoughts, then I have difficulty believing in your sincerity on lesser causes.
End abortion now. Work for and vote for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Then we might discuss, with some promise, what to do about ancillary questions.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Zeal Must Be Tempered Within the Pro-life Movement.
A proposed Georgia law, if it is being understood correctly, would call a woman to task if she suffered a miscarriage. Unless, that is, she could prove that the incident had occurred beyond the scope of human action. In short, and again, we must say that if we understand things properly, a woman who had a miscarriage would have to prove she did no wrong.
Right off the reel, it seems that such laws would violate the innocent until proven guilty assumption which is supposedly at the heart of our system of justice. Yet that is surely an easily altered section of the bill. When the big picture is considered, when we hear ideas of this nature, our first thoughts quickly move towards how these proposals might affect the pro-life movement. That effect cannot be good.
That a willful miscarriage would qualify as an abortion cannot be denied. But to put a woman in the position of defending a miscarriage simply because it was a miscarriage must be seen a nothing more than a witch hunt. The trauma which such an awful event would have on a woman expecting to have a baby must be understood in order to fully appreciate it. That trauma cannot be good, of course. To then add the threat of prosecution to the horror she would have already went through is nothing short of vulgar.
That does not mean that government actions supporting contraceptive use is any less vulgar. That does not mean that real and true abortions are not on their very face willful murder and ought to be stopped. But it does mean that, in their zeal to end abortion on demand, the actions of pro-life activists and legislators must be tempered by reason.
This type of legislation is exactly the kind of initiative which will not help the pro-life movement. It does indeed paint the anti-abortion crowd as lecherous souls leering into every bedroom. Indeed, it threatens the movement in ways and manners of which we should hope that a rational soul would have taken notice: if it embeds the practice of abortion all the more within our society through any substantive counter-reaction, then the blood of those children aborted in the future would in truth be on their hands.
Right off the reel, it seems that such laws would violate the innocent until proven guilty assumption which is supposedly at the heart of our system of justice. Yet that is surely an easily altered section of the bill. When the big picture is considered, when we hear ideas of this nature, our first thoughts quickly move towards how these proposals might affect the pro-life movement. That effect cannot be good.
That a willful miscarriage would qualify as an abortion cannot be denied. But to put a woman in the position of defending a miscarriage simply because it was a miscarriage must be seen a nothing more than a witch hunt. The trauma which such an awful event would have on a woman expecting to have a baby must be understood in order to fully appreciate it. That trauma cannot be good, of course. To then add the threat of prosecution to the horror she would have already went through is nothing short of vulgar.
That does not mean that government actions supporting contraceptive use is any less vulgar. That does not mean that real and true abortions are not on their very face willful murder and ought to be stopped. But it does mean that, in their zeal to end abortion on demand, the actions of pro-life activists and legislators must be tempered by reason.
This type of legislation is exactly the kind of initiative which will not help the pro-life movement. It does indeed paint the anti-abortion crowd as lecherous souls leering into every bedroom. Indeed, it threatens the movement in ways and manners of which we should hope that a rational soul would have taken notice: if it embeds the practice of abortion all the more within our society through any substantive counter-reaction, then the blood of those children aborted in the future would in truth be on their hands.
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