Here’s a link to a post from Joanne McPortland on her feelings about the abortion debate in the United States. The following quote strongly resonates with me:
Tomorrow marks the 39th anniversary of the passage of Roe v. Wade, and everybody I know is–literally or figuratively–on the bus to Washington for the annual March for Life. Most of the Catholics I know and love are on the bus in support of the march and in passionate protest of the right to legalized abortion that Roe established. Most of the non-Catholics I know and love are on another bus entirely, in protest of the march and in passionate support of retaining and expanding Roe’s provisions.
There’s a seat saved for me on each bus, but I feel more like I’ve been run over by them both.
I loathe the vitriol that so often fuels both vehicles, quite frankly. Taking a seat on either bus would mean aligning myself not only with the finest ideals and most compassionate goals of that side of the debate–and believe me, I know how much of a limb I’m going out on even to cede that both sides have ideals and compassion!–but also with the worst bigotry and stereotyping and hatred that side can muster. All this in the name of human life, that most precious and dignified gift of God–as precious and dignified, I deeply believe, in the form of a woman struggling to choose where her life goes next as it is in the tiny footprint of her fetus.
And this:
I want passionately to advocate for a world in which no woman aborts, because there are no circumstances in which there aren’t better and safer and more affordable and compassionate and communally-supported alternatives that respect the woman as a person as much as the child she carries. I want to stand up for the wonder and glory of life in all its complicated, messy, terrifying, holy forms and circumstances.
What she said.
I’m not sure that the two views expressed by the two banners in JP’s picture are in fact irreconcilable.
As someone who opposes abortion, I do not want to see a return to back street abortions so “safe” abortions seem better than “unsafe” ones as Cardinal Martini pointed out.
Excellent Catholic moral theologians working in the Thomistic tradition, such as prof. Cathy Caveny at Notre Dame, have eloquently and persuasively argued that opposing abortion does not necessarily require the state to make it illegal as Aquinas argued that sometimes stamping out evil can cause more evil (he said the state could tolerate brothels on these grounds).
The elephant in the room for those who want to make abortion illegal is exactly what punishment they would settle for on the women who abort.
I’m not even sure that with modern technology making it easy to set up underground abortion clinics, and easy access to international travel, l that making abortion illegal would actually stop anyone determined to obtain one.
God Bless
Yes, which is also McPortland’s point, I believe.
So tricky!!!
I have to admit I’m not entirely sure what the goal of the march is. Is the goal an outright ban on abortions under all circumstances?? I don’t know. If that is the goal it would drive abortions into the arms of the black market, not prevent them outright. Abortions will continue in the United States, under either more, or less, horrific circumstances.
Obama always gets it in the neck, but I like his stated goal to reduce the number of abortions while ensuring that those that do occur do not happen in back alleys
“Obama always gets it in the neck, but I like his stated goal to reduce the number of abortions while ensuring that those that do occur do not happen in back alleys.”
## Surely that is something that can be supported by those in the US who want an end to abortion ? It’s not everything, but it does look and sound a great deal better than nothing. (Or is that too superficial an approach, perhaps ?)
The march seems to be a political rally of the anti-abortion movement. Keyed into a desire to elect a Republican government and bash Obama. It certainly isn’t “pro-life” as they don’t consider life issues such as war, the death penalty or proper access to decent wages and health care.
More here:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/march-life-day-reasoned-discussion-abortion
Holland has free and legal abortion but it’s abortion rate is much lower then that in Latin America where abortion has until very recently been illegal.
We need to look at the social factors around abortion rather than the simplistic conservative idea that making abortion illegal will stop it.
God Bless
I was thinking of posting that link
A really pro-life movement would not abandon the unborn the second they are born, and leave (many of) them to grow up in penury. “The poor you have always with you” is not a commandment or an exhortation, but an observation about a fact of social life, and (by implication) how people react to it.
What I have difficulty with is the rejection of abortion on the ground that life begins at conception – the life of *what* ? The argument oversimplifies the biological facts.
As for single-issue voting: forget it. Bad idea. The really weird thing is how abortion has become the issue that trumps all others. It would surely be far better to emphasise positively that the unborn are among the weakest members of society, than to fling brick-bats at those who emphasise social justice over dogma.
All good points
Kerberos,
At conception, the foetus is fully genetically human. It is not some other non-human species. Allowed to grow it will become a human person, which one can say it already is in potential.
Granted we don’t know the exact moment of ensoulment so we don’t know precisely when after conception a person is present, but I think it is very reasonable, given the very precious value of every human life, to err on the side of caution, the precautionary principle, and regard the foetus as it were a human person at conception.
God Bless
BTW, the Catholic Church allows operations to remove ectopic pregnancies. The parish priest in the article was simply wrong in applying Catholic doctrine to this case. This was clearly taught by Pope Pius XII.
That’s a big part of the problem here – the Catholic right don’t know what the Church actually teaches and often don’t care to know either.
God Bless
Another good article.
http://womenintheology.org/2012/01/24/tough-cases-womens-lives-and-the-pro-life-movement
God Bless
I don’t know if Chris is right about the political context of this specific march, but I find Chris’s suggestion that the march is not pro-life to be peculiar. A march marking the anniversary of a landmark decision in the history of abortion legislation will, of course, focus on abortion. If a march was held on the anniversary of the Gulf oil rig explosion, to protest oil rig legislation, would we object to calling it pro-environment on the basis that it said nothing about carbon emissions or clear-felling of indigenous timber?
However, I intended this post to be about finding the middle ground, not about American preoccupations.
If reaching agreement is the goal, it never works to demonise those who don’t agree with you – whether that means demonising people who think that abortion is always the wrong answer, or demonising people who think sometimes abortion is the best choice out of a set of bad choices.
Actually, that applies to the political debate, as well. If you think you know all about someone because you can label them a ‘democrat’ or a ‘republican’, then you’ve already shut your eyes to the real person.
Like all these things, it is a lot of things at once, and different things to different participants. Some will be purely interested in saving the unborn, some will be acutely aware that it is part of ralleying the opponents of Obama for the election in November. Idealism, politics and cynicism all bound up together!!
I think the march is prolife in the sense of focusing on a prolife issue. The movement behind the march is not prolife but antiabortion, for a variety of reasons, some of which are merely Obama bashing. Jerry’s point is very apt.
God Bless
If you hate abortion, don’t fight abortion, fight the course of abortion: fornication. If you eliminate most fornication, you’ll probably eliminate almost that much of abortion. And much of what’s left will be in case of rape or legitimate threat to the mother’s well-being, and I think then we can all see that provision of meaningful alternatives is more suitable than criminal prosecution.
(That said, some kinds of abortion are plainly distasteful in all circumstances, and ought to be outlawed. I can remember reading an article in Melbourne’s Age some time ago about a Sydney couple “forced” to travel to Melbourne when the woman was almost at term to have abort it. And based on the spin, I was supposed to feel sorry for the subjects. If the baby can survive outside the womb, how can there possibly be a case for an abortion?)
Although apparently, as of today, this sort of abortion will no longer happen in Australia, due to an “operational” decision of the only clinic that provided them, the very same Age reports.
(The “induced labor” approach the Royal Women’s offers leaves me concerned. Does that mean they give birth to the child, and then let it starve to death or something? or does it only work for children who are so abnormal they cannot survive outside of the womb under any circumstances?—I’m thinking of for instance anencephaly, where the child doesn’t have enough of a brain and invariably dies at birth, or shortly afterwards.)
If you eliminate most fornication, you’ll probably eliminate almost that much of abortion
Let’s eliminate dust first, it gets everywhere! So annoying.
Well, you can quote me out of context and make me look like a fool, but I hardly think it’s a fair thing to do. The idea that widespread fornication is inevitable is bizarre, and based on a defeatist anthropology. It is one that might as well say, “well, because we’ve been fighting suicide for hundreds of years and we’ve never eliminated it, we should just give up trying”.
Same for murder, rape (child or adult), and various other things we used to think are bad, and still do. (“We” being Western societies in general.)
The only difference with fornication is that at some point in the 20th c. fornication became completely acceptable. I saw a statistic today, apparently in twenty years opposition to adultery has dropped from 70% to 50% in the UK. People change opinions: there’s nothing that stops them changing in both directions.
So yeah, take what I say and reinterpret it in as hostile a way as you can if it makes you feel better. But it won’t win you any prizes, or contribute to a useful discussion.
Touche
but I think it is very reasonable, given the very precious value of every human life, to err on the side of caution, the precautionary principle, and regard the foetus as it were a human person at conception.
The tricky thing is that a human person is more than just a biological member of our species. If I killed you Chris (sorry), I wouldn’t just be terminating a Homo sapien, I would be terminating a personality, set of memories, hopes, and all the human relationships in which you are enmeshed. — In short I would be interrupting the narrative of which you are the centre. — The “narrative-self” that constitutes identity and personality, does not yet exist for a foetus. Making this kind of killing possibly qualitatively different. ——- If I may play devils advocate!!
Jerry,
We’d dispute that death ends personality, memories, hopes, or relationships.
But killing someone not only kills past & present narratives but also future, and abortion deprives the baby of its future human narrative.
And also it’s narrative as a product of its parents love, it’s family, culture etc which are already in play at the moment of conception.
I think to be a human person goes much deeper than merely narrative. It’s also what and how one is not just relationships.
God Bless
A fair call I think
In the teeth of the fact that no one except Toad will agree, it strikes me that given changing social mores “fornication” is here to stay, and that the Church would help reduce the number of abortions if it were to modify (and theologically it can be done) its rather Quixotic stance on condoms et al. Just saying….
As Jerry knows by now, the Catholic Church does not have a position against contraception in fornication. She has a position against fornication and against contraception in marriage.
God Bless
It’s not clear that Jesus’s objections to the money lenders was that they were earning a disproportionate share of the money floating around. He seemed more to be concerned with the use of His Father’s House as a place to do business.
This is for CHRIS, although off topic. JJ on BF said the above. And I’ve lost my log in. It was not that Jesus was concerned that there was commerce in the Temple — that relies on a false and later Christian analogy between the Temple and a cathedral, where it would be inappropriate. — The money changing was a requisite for paying for sacrifices, an integral part of the functioning of the Temple. —- What is often called the “cleansing” was more fundamental, it was Jesus repudiating the entire Temple system, NOT criticising money-men who should have been elsewhere. Cf Crossan, Meier, and N.T wright. — It’s an important misunderstanding
Well I agree in general Jerry but not in particular.
Jesus was certainly against temple abuses, and happy for the temple system to eventually lapse as a consequence of Jewish “just war” lunacy, the ultimate temple being the human person not a structure of stone, no matter how impressive.
But the NT also has Jesus go the temple after birth, JBap’s father a priest and the apostles continue with temple worship after the resurrection, etc.
So I don’t think it is quite as simple as Jesus came to abolish temple worship, which seems to smack of supercessionism.
God Bless
I think one does need to realise just how oppressive the whole temple/purity system really was. Especially for the poor, shepherds, women etc.
But still, Jesus, Mary, the Apsotles and the early Church were all Jews who worshiped in the temple and observed Jewish traditions, although with some different interpretations of halacha.
God Bless
I personally think it was designed to be oppressive. I’m no fan of theocracy. Supercessionism is problematic—- then again so is Paul and the author of Hebrews. It isn’t that Jesus was anti-temple, but it is important that by criticising the money-changers he wasn’t just removing undersirables from the Temple, he was undercutting an essential component of the sacrificial system. — Which is what christian readers often don’t get, they imagine (roughly) loan sharks operating in a Cathedral.
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Among the legion of unsatisfactory things on this planet can be numbered Abortion and Unwanted Pregnancies.
As to fornication, Toad is in favour of making it illegal, because he’s too old to miss doing it himself, all that much.