Redstate

a tissue mass looks like. Hmm... looks vaguely human  even though it isn't. Must be an optical illusion.

just a random clumping of cells </sarc&gt

At the very least we need to start a movement in this country to ban all abortions outside the first trimester...  That should be the next step after we get partial-birth, parental consent, etc....

hardly any human characteristics at all.  I mean, aside from the legs, toes, arms, head, torso, fingers ...

Please, Red State, don't start arguing moral relativism.

Because abortion is wrong and includes much higher numbers does not inherently make the Iraq War right nor moral.

Just War Theory makes the Iraq war right and moral.

but here is a picture of a fetus at 6 weeks, and here is an embryo at 3 weeks.  If one wants to say that superficial resemblance to a baby is a measure of personhood, it would be tough to make a case against emergency contraception or stem cell research using these photos.

Unless you mean you don't want us to talk about relativism between those who are against a moral and right war in Iraq but in favor of killing infants... or clump of cells or undifferentiated tissue mass or whatever they're calling babies today.

The point has nothing to do with the morality of the Iraq war. There are two basic messages here:

1. Abortion has been sold to the American public on the basis of lies and distortions
   
   
2. The Democrats' objections to the Iraq war on the basis that the war was sold on the basis of lies and distortions rings hollow, given their continued support of the abortion regime.

that was a criteria. Were that the case then Michael Moore and Al Franken would be in a cage at NIH.

legal abortions but you will never stop abortions. You cannot stop a woman from doing what she feels is right and within her power to do. The woman's interests trump the fetus. And alway's will.

statement about infanticide, to the extent that it is different from abortion, and euthanasia. Or robbery. Or murder. Or embezzlement.

The fact that people do these things doesn't make a very compelling case that these activities should be legal.

As an opponent of the invasion of Iraq (like many Catholics, including the Pope), I can saw with a certain degree of certainanity that the immorality of the invasion from my perspective is not necessarily tied to whatever folks who planned it knew or didn't know or whether they lied, etc.

So, while:

The Democrats' objections to the Iraq war on the basis that the war was sold on the basis of lies and distortions rings hollow.

may be a true statement for you, know that there were plenty of folks against the invasion that don't base it this and that this "objection" is not exclusive.

Just as it is possible to be against abortion, regardless of any propaganda surrounding it, so it, it is possible to be against our invasion of Iraq absent whatever was said about it beforehand.

Well, OK.  I really don't want to try to defend the aethetics of those two.  Faces made for radio/documentaries, and all that.

I took your original comment to be something along the lines of "it's a little ridiculous to say this isn't a person, since it looks like one so much", but I understand you were being snarky, and didn't really take it as a serious argument.

My point wasn't necessarily directed at you, just an aside that it's dangerous to judge these type of early life issues by appearance alone.

The cooking of the scientific evidence regarding the personhood of the unborn is up next.

I have never heard anyone, on either side, advocate appearance as a criteria. Were I arguing appearances I'd have drawn my photos from here.

But in all seriousness, I'd gladly trade yuu the abortions of the ones who don't "look" human for those who do. Of the 853,000 abortions that were induced in 2001 only 144,000 of them were at <6 weeks gestation and most of them closer the the 6 week, and substantially human looking, stage than the 0 week.

While I come down pretty far to the left of you on this issue, our discussions in the past, especially in re: prenatal science/personhood have always been pretty good I think.  Might not change any minds, but it's great mental exercise at least.  

then tell the woman to close her legs... unless its rape or incest where she has no choice, she knew that the point of sex is procreation.

Ernst Haeckel believed that the superficial resemblance of human embryos to non-human embryos was proof of a common ancestor.  He believed it so fervently that he fraudulently doctored pictures of various embryos to bolster his claim.  Many science books still have these doctored pictures in them today in support of the theory of evolution, so I cannot assume these books contain accurate information simply because they are textbooks.  As they say, don't judge a book...

With better and cheaper means for early pregnancy detection, and easier availability for emergency contraception, I think we're approaching a time when a vast majority of abortions will occur in the first trimester.  I'm interested in your statistics, as to whether they cover surgical abortions only, or include chemically induced miscarraiges-- which are becoming the more routine procedure for very early term abortions.  Also, do the numbers rise dramatically for abortions between 6-12 weeks (12 weeks being the end of the first tri.)?  I seem to remember seeing numbers showing that abortions became less frequent later in pregnancy, but I don't have a cite for my recollection.

Very revealing. And I hope you abide by this as well, yes? That is your intention is to produce a baby when you have sex and you do nothing to prevent that.

prevention is different from murder; before sperm and egg meet there is no life to protect

all methods. From my narrow viewpoint the method used may have some academic interest but I don't see where it makes much difference.

About 78% occur in the first trimester.

Democrats but the flip side is likewise for the Republican war supporters.  The war was instigated with a great deal of misdirection and fear-mongering yet the war is still supported in spite of these "facts" or the facts themselves are in dispute.

Of course, neither side is being inconsistent if they don't believe the claims of misrepresentation being presented about either the war or the abortion issue.  

Disclaimer:  I'm not taking a position here on either abortion or the Iraq war just noting that this sort of rhetorical argument isn't a clear positional win from either point of advocacy.

as ru 486 is on the horizon either legally or otherwise and will bring conversation and images like these to an end.

Whether or not the war in Iraq is moral is not really central to the argument being advanced here. I imagine most war supporters, at least of the sort that post at RS, would at least admit there is the possibility of debate with regard to the morality of invading Iraq.

I think you are missing the logic of the case.

If Iraq is immoral, why? Loss of life has to be the primary reason I would think; economic loss would only be considered for utility purposes, and in that framework loss of life becomes tolerable.

So, to argue Iraq is immoral requires the person to hold a system of morals that holds human life as sacred, or at least so unique as deserving special protection.

To then support abortion is totally inconsistent with such a belief. Just because there are rationales for abortion-- economic, social, etc.-- does nothing to change that absolute, because the United States had considerations for going into Iraq.

Whether you concur with those considerations is totally immaterial. You can challenge the morality of the invasion on whatever basis you like, but ultimately what matters is the harm that came from the action (in terms of judging morality). There might be some very convincing reasons to have an abortion (with health being a legitimate one), but abortion is immoral.

What the law should be is a separate question, by the way, but starting from a proper recognition of what abortion is is important.

you are doing one heck of a job of flinging leftie talking points around.

I, for one, followed the debate leading up to the war and I feel neither misdirected nor fear-mongered.

Medically, oral abortive pills are still considered abortions.

I feel like killing you. Could you forward me your current location and stay there while I come out to meet you?

After all, [y]ou cannot stop [me] from doing what [I] feel[] is right and within [my] power to do.

But my point still stands. A war on abortion pills will be less sucessfull than our war on drugs. Then what?

it and not just surrendering.

Actually, even by the most conservative estimates the number of abortions increased ten-fold after Roe. So if we can roll the 800,000+ abortions back to the 100,000 level we'll be much better off.

If Iraq is immoral, why? Loss of life has to be the primary reason I would think; economic loss would only be considered for utility purposes, and in that framework loss of life becomes tolerable.

So, to argue Iraq is immoral requires the person to hold a system of morals that holds human life as sacred

(My emphasis in your quote)

I agree and disagree.  I agree that it is inconsistent IF you hold all of the beliefs that you asssume here.  But I don't believe that opposing the invasion "requires" this.

That Hussein was a brutal tyrant is undisputed.  That he and his sons were butchers is also undisputed.

But the acts we set in motion have killed thousands and thousands and may result in many more tens of thousands in whatever resulting governement (or absence of one) results.

It is perfectly permissible, IMHO, to oppose our invasion on multi-faceted grounds involving principles of sovereignty (you also overlook the whole you-don't-invade-sovereign-nations-that-are-not threatening-you-or-its-neighbors thing) combined with pragmatic issues of "if we invade will more die than if we tolerate or take some other action."

Ironically, this postion is roughly congruent to the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm."

If you believe, as I do and as many others do, that invading Iraq will do more human harm than good, then you must oppose it, as I did (albeit Iraq was an extraordinarily close call, IMHO).

Among others, I think folks like Pat Buchanan fit into this mold (although Buchanan might be more isolationist and rarely consider humanitarian intervention justified).

My personal position on abortion is so whacked, that I won't even get to it, but I believe it, too, is consistent with this principled opposition to the invasion.

seemed to identify yourself as a Catholic, I'd assumed you were against abortion. Did I misinterpret your post?

...of the doctoring of those drawings, check out Les Stroebel's "Case for a Creator".

I I could make every American read just one book cover to cover, it would be that one.

If instead of framing this as "The woman's interests trump the fetus" you had said "The Mother's interests trump her child's", I wonder if you would have reached the same conclusion. I think the latter formulation to be far more accurate. After all, this is not some disinterested female and just another fetus. It is a mother and her developing baby.

I have yet to find the pro-abortion argument that takes this relationship head on. They all seem to ignore it to the greatest degree possible. Nobody in their right mind argues that parents' interests trumps their childrens' (to the point of killing the child).  But if we change the names and pretend they're not related to each other......

Oh, this attitude aggravates me!

It matters not what MY intent is in having sex. What matters is what sex is designed to do. The only biological purpose for sex is to produce new little human beings. Period. End of story.

"Tradition values" sorts generally seek to recognize this fact and to channel the powers and energy of sex in a way that supports this end ("be fruitful and multiply") while supporting the demands of larger family and social structures.

The reason pro-choice folks are so rabid about the issue is that the ability to separate sex from procreation is fundamentally important if larger utopian social goals are to be realized. The sexual revolution, Feminism, recognition of gay relationships, and the destruction of the traditional bourgeois family all depend on anchor-free sex.

Catholic - Yes.

Against Abortion - Yes.

Pro-choice - Yes.

And, yes.  Serious about each of these answers.

My stance on abortion has very little to do with my stance on the invasion.

that I said or implied that it did. FWIW, there were reasons to oppose the war in Iraq though I don't think there is a single good one to oppose it today.

How do you reconcile 1 and 3 in the context of the Catechism's total and unequivocal prohibition?

Even assuming that the entire biological purpose of sexual intercourse is procreation, it requires that the male achieve orgasm in order to ejaculate so that conception can occur.  Orgasm, as anyone who has experienced it undoubtedly knows, is quite pleasurable.  However, it is entirely possible (and, I would suspect, quite regular until recently) for men to have intercourse with women resulting in orgasm and pregnancy without women having the benefit of ever reaching orgasm themselves -- which they are capable of, some quite abundantly.

So my question is:  if sex is purely procreative and the procreative part works without women necessarily achieving an orgasm, should anyone feel badly about that?  Men will have the pleasure anyway, but does it matter that the woman might not?

to know (or not) that there are a significant number of Catholics who disagree with some of the official teachings and advocate for change (Vatican II was a good first step, can't wait for "Vatican III" -- though I'm not holding my breath with the current pope).

I'm also keenly aware of that whole "premarital sex" prohibition, but its difficult to explain that to my live-in girlfriend.

Sometimes life is slightly more complicated than the Baltimore Catechism.

Given that this is an infallible, not really open to equivocation aspect of the Church's teaching, the normal description for your position is "heresy." I mean, unless the Nicene Creed is open to debate again.

Arias? Is that you?

..But a flawed one.

What matters most is the outcome, not the inputs.  Even if the arguments made to the Court by disingenous and dishonest advocates under cover of scholarship turned out to be just so much propaganda, that just tars those advocates. Responsibility for the decision itself lies with the Court. They screwed it up royally. The whole thing was a constitutional horrorshow from the start.  

In Iraq, if the information presented by the CIA, foreign intelligence services, Congressional committees and the executive branch in general turn out to be flawed, then those entities are tarred by their mistakes. I don't think they were as flawed as we think. Responsibility for going to war rests entirely with President Bush.  And I think he got it exactly right.      

But the Baltimore Catechism is no longer the current catechism.

It may also surprise you, but Vatican II probably doesn't mean what you think it does.

It may also surprise you to know that there have been a number of Catholics who "disagree[d] with some of the official teachings and advocate[d] for change." They were called either "heretics," "Protestants," "pagans," "atheists," or, in a more enlightened time, "burning stake bait," depending on the nature of the disagreement. In other words, this may surprise you, but you're not special, and you're not Catholic, either.

Yes. I'm serious about that.

I'm well versed in what is and isn't on the Catholic menu.  That's well drilled into you.

But -- as I note above -- I'd be hard-pressed to find many parishioners where I've been who strictly adhere to all of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

A good many simply "pick and choose." Others who are more up front about disagreements, try to advocate for changes of those things.

Perhaps you can count me as a curiousity just as I look to fellow Catholics who support the death penalty (or the invasion of Iraq) as curiousities.  I don't dane to judge them any less Catholic for their views and hope that they afford me the same courtesy.

there is the rub. You can't be a serious Catholic and be pro-choice. What you become with that combo is a Protestant (protesting a Church teaching) or, as Thomas says, a heretic.

We aren't talking about "pre-marital sex" or the use of birth control devices, all of which have a fairly simple remedy: marriage, knock it off.

Abortion isn't quite so benign or nuanced. It is forbidden. Some things are so simple they are hard.

From Naomi Wolff:

In one woman's account of her chemical abortion, in the January/February 1994 issue of Mother Jones, for example, the doctor says, "By Sunday you won't see on the monitor what we call the heartbeat (my italics). The author of the article, D. Redman, explains that one of the drugs the doctor administered would "end the growth of the fetal tissue." And we all remember Dr. Joycelyn Elders's remark, hailed by some as refreshingly frank and pro-woman but which I found remarkably brutal: that "We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus.... "

How did we arrive at this point? In the early 1970s, Second Wave feminism adopted this rhetoric in response to the reigning ideology in which motherhood was invoked as an excuse to deny women legal and social equality. In a climate in which women risked being defined as mere vessels while their fetuses were given "personhood" at their expense, it made sense that women's advocates would fight back by depersonalizing the fetus.

The feminist complaint about the pro-life movement's dehumanization of the pregnant woman in relation to the humanized fetus is familiar and often quite valid: pro-choice commentators note that the pro-life film The Silent Scream portrayed the woman as "a vessel": Ellen Frankfort's Vaginal Politics, the influential feminist text, complained that the fetus is treated like an astronaut in a spaceship.

But, say what you will, pregnancy confounds Western philosophy's idea of the autonomous self: the pregnant woman is in fact both a person in her body and a vessel. Rather than seeing both beings as alive and interdependent -- seeing life within life -- and acknowledging that sometimes, nonetheless, the woman must choose her life over the fetus's, Second Wave feminists reacted to the dehumanization on of women by dehumanizing the creatures within them. In the death-struggle to wrest what Simone de Beauvoir called transcendence out of biological immanence, some feminists developed a rhetoric that defined the unwanted fetus as at best valueless: at worst an adversary, a "mass of dependent protoplasm."

But I think you're absolutely right that positions like this are rare.  That's why it caused such a stir when she wrote this.

but you're not special, and you're not Catholic, either.

I don't claim to be special at all.  On the contrary, part of my point is that I'm NOT special.  As for whethre I'm catholic, I'll leave that judgment up to folks with slightly more authority on the subject than you.  Given that I was baptised Catholic, made my first Communion, have been Confirmed, etc.  I'll let the cards fall where they may.

What you missed in my reference to Vatican II is the fact that change is possible within the Church.  Your ascribing larger things to it than that is beyond what I said, implied, and intended.

As for "heretics" etc.  It isn't my intention to leave the Catholic church any time soon.

If you want to have me excommunicated, that's an entirely different issue.

I'm going to try to politely bow out of this conversation, becuase it seems to have gotten you a bit more agitated than I had anticipated or intended.

I've been known to hang out with a fellow Papist from time to time. My wife comes right to mind. A couple thousand others, too.

But -- as I note above -- I'd be hard-pressed to find many parishioners where I've been who strictly adhere to all of the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Most of them lie, too. Guess that means God was just kidding about #7?

A good many simply "pick and choose." Others who are more up front about disagreements, try to advocate for changes of those things.

And, depending on what's picked and chosen, commit heresy or use their enlightened consciences. Did you have a point?

Perhaps you can count me as a curiousity just as I look to fellow Catholics who support the death penalty (or the invasion of Iraq) as curiousities.

Actually, I look at you as someone who doesn't understand Catholic teaching.

I don't dane to judge them any less Catholic for their views and hope that they afford me the same courtesy.

Hey, I'm not judging. Just pointing out that you're not Catholic. That's all.

And try to actually find out what changed at Vatican II while you're gone.

Also, try to find out what the word "apostate" means.

Bye.

1.  Is your judgment the same for pro-death penalty Catholics pro-Iraq invasion Catholics?  If so, at the very least, I applaud -- if nothing else -- your consistency.
   
2.  I wasn't aware that there were degrees of Catholic in the vein of "serious" and "not serious."  From where I stand, if I'm right with God and Jesus on judgment day, that's between me and him.  All else is of somewhat less consequence.
   
3.  Are you saying that change of tenets within Catholicism are immutable?

I understand your reaction to people like me, but there are more than a handful of us.  Having not been excommunicated just yet, I'll stick to the claim -- based on my baptism, etc., that yes, I am Catholic.  And, I'll let you label me whatever you 'd like.

But, really, this is getting pretty far afield of the topic, no?

That we're only seeing part of Wolff's argument, but she seems only to admit that the "fetus" is alive. She seems to imply that the "fetus" might have rights that conflict with the mother's, but that the mother's right to choose, apparently outside of any legal or moral framework, remains inviolate.

I think the poster above was looking for a more cohesive and well developed argument for this right, assuming the unborn as fully human.

I appreciate your dedication to each of the teachings of Catholicism.

I'm pointing out to you that there are many of us w/i the church who think, feel, and act the same way that I do -- AS A PRACTICAL MATTER.

I consider myself Catholic.  Its clear you don't.  I'm not going to convince you otherwise.

A poster asked where I was coming from and I explained.  If you prefer to refer to me as "a guy who goes to church but doesn't believe in each of its tenets" or "heretic" or whatever, so be it.  But I shorthand it to "Catholic."  I'll let you decide that that means whatever it means.

As to a few of your points:

Most of them lie, too. Guess that means God was just kidding about #7?

Er, no.  No need to resort to absurdities.

Actually, I look at you as someone who doesn't understand Catholic teaching.

I understand it well.  What I'm suggesting is that you refuse to acknowledge the existence of a great number of people, like myself, who self-identify as Catholic but who do not adhere to every teaching of the Catholic Church.  Calling us "heretics," IMHO, doesn't do much to advance the conversation.

If I could offer a constructive critique:  if you are that concerned about making sure that Catholic teachings are known and adhered to, you might want to take a less antagonistic and aggressively condescending approach.

I'm pointing out to you that there are many of us w/i the church who think, feel, and act the same way that I do -- AS A PRACTICAL MATTER.

I never debated that.

A poster asked where I was coming from and I explained.  If you prefer to refer to me as "a guy who goes to church but doesn't believe in each of its tenets" or "heretic" or whatever, so be it.  But I shorthand it to "Catholic."  I'll let you decide that that means whatever it means.

I once got in an argument with a young lady who insisted that she was Catholic, even though she believed in a Goddess and practiced witchcraft.

I see no substantive difference here.

Er, no.  No need to resort to absurdities.

Were you as conversant with Church teaching as you claim to be, you'd know there is nothing absurd about it.

What I'm suggesting is that you refuse to acknowledge the existence of a great number of people, like myself, who self-identify as Catholic but who do not adhere to every teaching of the Catholic Church.  Calling us "heretics," IMHO, doesn't do much to advance the conversation.

1. I do recognize them; I just don't see how they can be Catholic, insofar as the definition of "Catholic" is "one who follows the teachings of the Catholic Church."
   
2. Maybe not, but it does describe the situation accurately.

If I could offer a constructive critique:  if you are that concerned about making sure that Catholic teachings are known and adhered to, you might want to take a less antagonistic and aggressively condescending approach.

As a rule, I only do this with people who claim to be Catholic who are, in fact, not.

Napoleon Bonaparte, but that wouldn't make it so.

There are important differences in the Church's teachings on war, the death penalty, and abortion. One can support the invasion of Iraq and the death penalty as matters of conscience, but a Catholic may not support abortion and remain Catholic anymore than a vegan can eat a Big Mac and remain a vegan.

The pews are full of lapsed Catholics.

The distinction isn't meant to be critical, but the distinction is real and meaningul nonetheless.

be within your rights (ordained by who?) To try and prevent abortions chemical or otherwise but I believe you will not be able to. Any more than you can stop someone from killing themselves.

Of the 853,000 abortions that were induced in 2001 only 144,000 of them were at <6 weeks gestation and most of them closer the the 6 week

Does this number count the embryos that failed to implant due to chemical contraception?

is all in the eye of the beholder but I don't see this as a pro-abortion position that is going to be very convincing to the average non-professor of women's studies.

you have to read between the lines in various places, but you are an adult and can figure it out.

Sex absolutely was intended for pleasure, but that pleasure was designed to occur within a marriage, where having babies is normal and expected.

This is ridiculously far afield of the topic of the story and if you want to continue the conversation elsewhere, OK, but both to this commment, which I can appreciate, and the comment below about "the pews being full of lapsed Catholics" -- what is the Church's position on those "lapsed" but self-identifying Cathlolics, who continue to attend Mass, continue to take communion, CONTINUE TO DONATE TO THE CHURCH, etc.?

I understand your definitional stance, but if they aren't kicking us out, they are taking our money, what do you expect us to call ourselves?

The only biological purpose for sex is to produce new little human beings.

How do you know this?

So my question is:  if sex is purely procreative and the procreative part works without women necessarily achieving an orgasm, should anyone feel badly about that?  Men will have the pleasure anyway, but does it matter that the woman might not?

Short answer that I learned in college, no.

And refrain from changing the subject of this thread any more this afternoon.  But I think it would be a wonderful topic for a diary.  I can tell you that the one aspect of feminist thinking that I still find very important is the issue of women's sexual freedom, and especially their freedom to enjoy intercourse and orgasm.  It's an interesting topic, but it should probably have its own thread.

That would be odd, especially sitting in a Catholic church.

Out of genuine curiousity, is it really your position that "lapsed Catholics" should leave the church -- (captial "C" and small "c")?

Most in the parishes around here are recruiting, not booting.

Frankly -- and this might make things cleaner all around -- but if I had a sit down with my priest and he told me I wasn't welcome, perhaps that would be cleaner.

but in favor of killing infants...

Barely anyone favors killing infants.  Loading it up that way is no more fair than me saying supporters of the war favored killing Iraqi civilian children.

As far as Christianity goes, sex has purposes other than procreation. Those include bonding with one's spouse and pleasure. Yes, you can have fun. At least that's true of Baptist teaching.

If you want to look purely evolutionary, clearly you are supposed to enjoy sex. Enjoyment of it is part of the impetus to do it in the first place. Yes, that means both men and women, kowalski. If they weren't enjoying it, they wouldn't do it as often, and then you'd have fewer babies.

Also from the point of evolution, clearly there is an evolutionary incentive in relationships, families, and communities. It's quite clear to see that biological bonding effects from sex would be an evolutionary asset.

Taken spiritually or not, I can see many purposes for sex outside of procreation, the most important of which is bonding.

is going far afield, but my advice is this:

If you have read the Catechism's discussion of the reason for why abortion is prohibited as intrinsically evil and can't buy it, it puts you in the same position as not believing in papal infallibility or transubstantiation from a doctrinal standpoint. It is part of who we are as a Faith.

What about The Pill?

since "my body is like Six Flags" and lounging and smoking a cigarette aren't biological purposes, what other biological functions do you think if furthers?

Are you seriously saying that sex has another biological function beyond procreation?

Bonding is in part a physiological mechanism, not just in humans, but in animals as well. Social bonds are understood to be, in part, biological in nature, including the bonding as a result of sex.

In my opinion, this is a non-trivial function of sex that is not necessarily wrapped up in procreation.

but that's what it is. Sugar coat it if it makes you sleep easier at night.

As to the loading, while it would be a total lie for you to say that the purpose of the war in Iraq was to kill Iraqi children I'll admit that anyone who was in favor of the war had to have foreknowledge that the death of innocents was inevitable. There is more than a little difference here.

It isn't like you are in favor of a medical procedure that will save the mother's life and might possibly kill the child in the process. You are favoring a procedure that has no other function other than to kill the child.

How does one identify which of the Catholic Church's teachings must be followed to be a Catholic and which may be ignored or opposed as a matter of conscience?

On the matter of abortion is there a distinction in Catholic doctrine between having an abortion and supporting abortion, and what does the Church define as "supporting" abortion?

And in which category does divorce fall?  If you are a Catholic and have been divorced are you no longer a Catholic? This applies to my mother and I'd like to know.

but how do you explain non-monogamous animals and the numerous species who live alone and only come together to mate?

Unless you are making the case that sex is only a biological function for some animals and for others sex has multiple biological functions, which I think is pretty hard to sustain from any logical perspective.

If you wanted to send this discussion "far afield" I'd go into the detailed rationale behind my position on abortion -- which acknowledges that life begins at conception and does not recognize a right to kill a fetus but does permit removal from the uterus.

I do not believe that there is a "right" or moral permission to KILL a fetus.  But I do believe that there is a right to remove a fetus from the uterus.

But I'd ask a priest. The answers often depend on personal circumstances, and I'm not qualified to respond.

The Catechism. Begin  here.

With divorce the issue is more nuanced.

Are not exclusively monogamous animals, and they never have been.  The entire history of the X chromosome will tell you that.  Moreover, the imporance attached to sexual pleasure and the taboos around sexuality and its expression have no roots in human physiology.  Hinduism, for example, has never been concerned in the same way that Christianity (and other Western religions) are with the control and regulation of sexual pleasure.  Unless you're willing to say that people in India aren't human beings and never have been, the idea that these cultural standards are sacrosanct to being a homo sapiens is ridiculous.  Have you ever wondered why so many of the people running 7-11s don't seem to have any trouble with the pornographic magazines they sell?  There's a reason, and it's not just that they're lucrative -- it's because they're largely inoffensive to them.

Well, your position just doesn't many any intellectual sense. So there really isn't any way someone can debate the point.

If your basis for opposing Iraq is simple utility... well that creates a lot of problems. The first of which is that there is a good chance Iraq will actually turn out well in the long-run.

So, if the next 250 years turn out better for Iraq than they would have sans invasion, you lose.

But second, that still doesn't explain your pro-abortion stance (OK, "pro-choice") because then the arguments you would presumably use to oppose banning abortion are no longer valid. Well, they are, but only as part of the larger picture.

40 million on one side. A few hundred dead women from illegal abortion attempts. To me, the utility adds up, and it's not in your favor.

So, in summation, you hold a certain set of beliefs, and then set about justifying them with a pseudo-philosophy that takes bits and pieces from pacifism, Christianity, leftism, etc. Not impressive.

It's only hard to sustain from a purely evolutionary standpoint, and even then not impossible.

There is no question that there are other biological effects from sexual activity. The only question, then, is are they a purpose.

From my religious point of view, they clearly are. ".. they shall become one flesh." I've been taught that the Bible shows not just spiritual bonding, but physical bonding, as an express purpose of marriage and the marital bed. This indicates a purpose to me, and since the bonding is facilitated biologically, it can be called a biological purpose.

Religion aside, I don't think it's impossible to make the case that sexual activity has more than one purpose for some species and only one for others. Parental bonding, for example, is clearly an evolutionary advantage, yet not all species experience parental bonding. Which does not mean that parental bonding is therefore not a purpose of the parent/child relationship for those species in which it does occur.

Now, of course, this all gives a wink to the idea of labeling anything as having a purpose from a strictly evoltionary standpoint. Purpose tends to evoke the thought of design, and design a designer. But purpose meaning an evolved utility I think will suffice.

So to my mind, sex serves three purposes, two of which are clearly biological: Procreation (biological), social/physical bonding (biological), spiritual bonding (non-biological).

That although human beings aren't exclusively monogamous, there is a compelling argument to be made that there is an evolutionary pressure in the direction of monogamy, or at least a kind of restricted polygamy (on the part of males):  females had an evolutionary interest in insuring that their mates were monogamous in order to maximize the benefit to their offspring, and males had an evolutionary interest in insuring that they weren't caring for children fathered by other males.  But beyond that, anthropologically speaking, there is a wide range of historical variation in the practice and strictures of monogamy.  

I happen to think the nuclear family model is pretty good, probably one of the best models, but it's not the only one, and it never has been.

I'm not saying that those anti-war talking points are accurate merely that the argument is analogous to Leon's.  You for instance, don't buy the anti-war talking points so you feel that they are misinformed and making political hay outside the facts.

Someone supporting abortion, probably doesn't see Leon's recital of information as purely factual, but rather laden with anti-abortion talking points.  Hence, they have the same surety in their position on abortion as you might on the war.

Basically, since facts are generally in dispute, it's fair to call someone out on the assumptions underlying their belief or position but not necessarily fair to insist that they know their assumptions/"facts" are invalid and choose to hold their position anyway.

Ack, this has gotten confusing.  I was only taking the position that we are usually better off defending our own beliefs and positions than attacking someone else's.  We all use similar tactics of rationalizing, just from a different underlying basis.

I'm no canon lawyer, but by holding to and insisting upon positions that are antithetical to the Church and have been stated as fundamentally contrary to Catholic teaching (note, I did not say "discipline" or "custom" or small-t "tradition") you have placed yourself outside the unity of the Body of Christ. Official excommunication, like formal canonization, is merely an official recognition by the hierarchy of a mystical/spiritual/otherwise reality.

Check out Humanae Vitae for more information. Story has it that Paul VI wanted to be able to allow Catholics to use contraception, and many of his theologians were talking him in that direction, but he knew he could not. Humanae Vitae (which is doctrinal and non-negotiable, by the bye) is the result.

You may not have "left" the Church "politically," but then, the Catholic Church isn't like a political party. It is a mystical reality that is what it is, and those who "are Catholic," are only "members" insofar as they proclaim what the Church proclaims and strive to live by it. Dissension isn't physically persecuted as Thomas points out it used to be, but that doesn't make it any less destructive to "membership" in God's Chruch spiritually than it was then.

God bless

Should say "If I could..."

Q: I would appreciate some insight on the very difficult and divisive subject of abortion.

A:  As you know, there are no simple or easy answers to the question of abortion. Some try to make it simple, with slogans and shouted Bible verses, but that is just bullying. Like any other significant moral issue, the issue of abortion won't be resolved by right-opinion, by shouting, or by demonizing those who hold opposing views. We must reason together, not insist on our own way.

We must separate the decision to have an abortion from the politics and ethics of allowing abortion to occur legally.

I consider abortion a personal and pastoral matter, probably more wrenching to the woman or couple involved than outsiders realize. Except in a few cases, abortion isn't a casual form of birth control, but a difficult decision made by a variety of women for a variety of reasons. Because of timing, the decision is made under stress and hurriedly. Like a couple's decision to practice birth-control, or to have no children, one child or ten children, abortion isn't a public-policy decision.  

My wish for any woman considering an abortion: a caring pastor, caring parents, partners and friends, accurate information, and a competent physician. By politicizing abortion, organized religion has abandoned its primary role as pastor and caregiver. How many women will seek religion's care when they know to expect the scorpion of judgment, condemnation and moralizing? When abortion touches your daughter, your home, your life, you need information, counsel and sound medical advice, not righteous people pursuing their own church-political agenda. Religious organizations might offer their members useful teaching on abortion, but their pastoral role comes first, and they have no business holding the state hostage to their religious opinions.

On the politics of abortion, my starting point is to wonder why abortion has become such a high-profile public-morality question. Of the many moral issues that could merit our attention, abortion seems less frequent in occurrence than others, such as incest and addiction, and less damaging to the human community than, say, racism or systemic poverty or genocide. And yet, on this one issue, people square off angrily, and powerful institutions spend lavishly to sway public opinion and policy.

I will tell you what I think on the politics of abortion. I do so to encourage dialog, not to declare my views singularly correct.

I think abortion is to our society what wearing the veil has become to Islamic fundamentalists: a way to balance a society's moral ledger by forcing something on women. I urge you to read Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi's poignant account of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, where morality police forced women to wear the veil and to give up personal freedom, as if the future of Islam and the state depended on it.

In my opinion, something similar is going on with abortion. The focus is entirely on women (not the men who impregnate them), on denying women a personal freedom, on blaming women for what is perceived to be lax morality in general, and on punishing women who are poor and vulnerable.

I don't buy the notion that abortion, politically, is about the sanctity of human life. If that sanctity truly mattered to people, then we would hear similar outcries against capital punishment, alcohol and other controlled substances, tobacco, guns, warfare, and other known causes of death. I think the abortion issue is about women's freedom, not about theories of life or murder.

Nor do I buy political arguments on behalf of children not born. If we truly cared about children, we wouldn't be reducing health-care benefits, chipping away at government safety-nets, exposing children to exploitative entertainment, allowing children to spend 6.5 hours a day being electronically amused and intellectually deadened, and cheapening public education.

I don't doubt the sincerity of most people who care deeply about abortion. I do notice, however, that opposition to abortion centers on improving someone else's morality, a practice that Jesus cautioned against. I wish the same zeal could be applied to larger and less safe issues, such as allocations of wealth, the surging tide of selfishness, and diminishing concern for the vulnerable in society.

I also notice that some religious and political leaders are using abortion to amass power and are hurting their flocks by making abortion a litmus test on faith and belonging, not to mention distorting the political process by using abortion as a wedge issue to blur the separation of religion and state.  

I think we should stop our shouting and overheated pieties and talk together, starting with asking why a voluntary medical procedure has become so divisive, even as we ignore other issues that threaten far more lives.

By Tom Ehrich

for me it was preaching to the choir. I did not find it particularly well-written for the purpose of convincing. It's tone is too melodramatic and the questions seemed to leading. Someone trying to remain skeptical is not, IMO, going to be shaken at their foundation by this book.

of course.  I just wracked my brain for the pro-abortion argument that takes this relationship head on and this is the closest one I could come up with.  I guess, to be fair, it isn't exactly an "argument."

I don't buy the notion that abortion, politically, is about the sanctity of human life. If that sanctity truly mattered to people, then we would hear similar outcries against capital punishment, alcohol and other controlled substances, tobacco, guns, warfare, and other known causes of death. I think the abortion issue is about women's freedom, not about theories of life or murder.

Nor do I buy political arguments on behalf of children not born. If we truly cared about children, we wouldn't be reducing health-care benefits, chipping away at government safety-nets, exposing children to exploitative entertainment, allowing children to spend 6.5 hours a day being electronically amused and intellectually deadened, and cheapening public education.

This is far from a sensible answer.

Comparing a child playing video games for too long to getting his/her body parts surgically torn apart and thrown in the garbabe is quite a stretch.  

Are there monkies in there?  Or maybe turtles?

don't understand why somebody wants to claim to be part of a church body, when they disagree so much with pretty clear church doctrine and teachings.

There are churches I wouldn't choose to associate myself with, because I could not agree with their doctrinal teachings.

Seems to me, if you want to believe abortion is allowable, and similar, maybe you should look into joining one of the more permissive churches whose doctrines are a bit more liberalized.

But why be a member of a church, when you don't even believe in its teachings?

a position they know is wrong.

It isn't like you are in favor of a medical procedure that will save the mother's life

I sure am in favor of that.  There have been attempts to pass laws which would outlaw abortion's even if they were needed to save the life of the mother.

especially when you consider the historical context the Bible itself was written in, the Bible was actually well ahead of the times, when it comes to the treatment of women in general.  Not just the issue of sex.

I can't have much respect for this pastor.

Apparantly he thinks the government is the savior of the world, and not actually the Savior.

He seems to have failed to notice that Biblical charity is from the heart, and not by force.

Also, he fails to recognize that the baby in the womb is in fact a baby.  Pastors are tasked specifically with protecting the sheep in their flock-supporting the right to murder the most vulnerable and innocent in the womb isn't something a pastor should justify because some kids don't have health care insurance.

The arguments from this "pastor" are neither sensible nor sensitive.

They are in some instances moronic (as RJ and Just Me point out above), in other cases strictly non-doctrinal (his "point" about capital punishment, for example) and frankly sound more like the rantings one would expect from a feminist version of the Talking-Point-O-Matic, not the thoughts of a liturgical student or schollar.

I feel very, very badly for whatever congregation this "pastor" leads.

Unfortunately however, I happen to know from my own personal experience that a great many Catholics, including those ordained, feel much the same way - expecting The Government to do the heavy lifting of The Lord's work.  Sad, and disgraceful, actually.

That is all.

because catholics don't believe there are other churches (eastern right excepted). the ability to choose between churches doesn't exist for a catholic, though he can certainly go to places and find a more liberal or more fire-and-brimstone, depending on the priests.

it's a pretty main difference between protestants and catholics.

Calvinist. No sense of humor.

but as a catholic, i've never heard of the catechism being an infalliable teaching, and it is not so referenced here: http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/prologue.html

I was taught that the only a very few teachings were infalliable. The National Coalitions of American Nuns (http://astro.temple.edu/~arcc/nuns.htm) says this:

"Teachings considered infallible in the Catholic Church are those which have been accepted as true by the entire community of the faithful."

So what teachings are infalliable, and can you provide a source?

Thanks!

That contraceptives prevent implantation and are equal to abortion?  Or do you think we are arguing that?

Do you think we won't be enormously happy if we could only stop the death of all the planted and growing ones?  Or that we are going to demand that everyone stop birth control?

If you have a point, spell it out so we will know the answer to your question.  I believe it is obvious to you and any other elementary reader that the abortion statistics don't count people who never knew they had a fertilized egg.

There have been attempts to pass laws which would outlaw abortion's even if they were needed to save the life of the mother.

Find me any credible proposition of a bill that purported to do that, or even indirectly did that.

The Google (or your favorite search portal) can help.  Here is one answer:

Is the new Catechism an infallible act of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church? Well, it's the same as the Second Vatican Council. If it is the Magisterium Ordinarium of the Church, it is infallible as long as it is in conformity with Tradition. And since we see that there are deviations in doctrine, we must say that in these points they are not infallible. So we have to criticize by interior criterion this Catechism as we do for the second Vatican Council. It is exactly the same. The Magisterium Ordinarium is infallible in so far as it is in conformity with Tradition, and concerning Traditional doctrines. If there is a deviation it cannot be infallible. And, so, it is not an infallible act of the Ordinary Magisterium.

Here is another (caveat: the USCCB rarely gets anything doctrinally correct):

By its very nature, a catechism presents the fundamental truths of the faith which have already been communicated and defined. Because the Catechism presents Catholic doctrine in a complete yet summary way, it naturally contains the infallible doctrinal definitions of the popes and ecumenical councils in the history of the Church.

well reasoned and thoughtful

As to the loading, while it would be a total lie for you to say that the purpose of the war in Iraq was to kill Iraqi children

Of course.

I'll admit that anyone who was in favor of the war had to have foreknowledge that the death of innocents was inevitable. There is more than a little difference here.

You misread me.  I didn't say favor the war--I said favor killing Iraqi children.

There is a difference between being pro-choice and favoring killing of infants.  Just like there is a difference between being pro-Iraq war and favoring killing children.

In both cases, being either the pro-choice or pro-Iraq war plants your feet on the "babies are gonna die because of my decision" turf.  And both sides can say, "But this is for a good cause," where "good" is completely subjective and there will be no concensus.

In that light:

You are favoring a procedure that has no other function other than to kill the child.

Nonsense.  As if the mother wakes up and says, "I'm bored...what should I do...abortion, I dunno, there's no reason other than to kill the child...ah what the heck, let's do it."  There are a lot of reasons people have abortions, and doing it simply to kill the child is a very rare occurance.

Or are you suggesting that the sheer joy of killing is the only reason people do it?

I might as well argue to you that dropping a bomb is only done to kill people--it serves no other purpose.  But I suspect you'd counter that it's part of a larger picture.

In summary, I don't favor abortion any more than you favor killing Iraqi children.

I wonder if the fetus's heart was beating when it was aborted.  I'll bet it was.  

But I think it would be a wonderful topic for a diary.

Now that diary might make the front page of Yahoo.  We could expect to have to pony up for more bandwidth for sure.

If chemically induced abortions actually did kill both the mother and child, I'll bet that would dramatically lower the incidence.

Just to take one tiny aspect of your post:

I consider abortion a personal and pastoral matter

It is a sin.  A pastor who either does not know that or does not care is not worthy of the name.

The enemy (devil) came to kill and steal and destroy.  Abortion is the very picture of his destructive and deceiving ways.  If you fail to alert the members of your congregation to this dangerous evil, you will be judged harshly by a Righteous Judge.

Yes, your questions are my questions.

And the thing is, procreation doesn't really "work" unless the act of conception eventually results in an adult human who also procreates.

We must keep in mind that each species represents a unique approach to the project of survivial. And humans are at the top of the food chain.  We're not the fastest.  We're not the strongest.  But we do this learning thing.

Variations in behavior follow as a natural consequence of the ability to learn.  Such variations give rise to a whole new level of selection.  Consider this vis a vis the interesting question you pose upthread about what matters.

Please, someone out there help me...  Is this 40,000,000 number, just in  the USA since Roe v Wade?  Post to my my email address: jhartle@columbus.rr.com  

That you have all of us pro-lifers figured out so well. I could summarily respond to your post that all pro-choicers are motivated by the desire to cull minorities from the general population, and it would be just as grounded and rational as your post, and supported by statistic evidence besides. However, I'm trying to reform my ways and provide substantive answers, even when they're not warranted. Like now, for instance.

We must separate the decision to have an abortion from the politics and ethics of allowing abortion to occur legally.

Well. I might have seen a sentence more out of touch with reality in my life, but I can't exactly remember when. However, I'm always willing to grant presumptions for the sake of argument, so here we go.

By the by, I'm a former minister myself.

I consider abortion a personal and pastoral matter, probably more wrenching to the woman or couple involved than outsiders realize. Except in a few cases, abortion isn't a casual form of birth control, but a difficult decision made by a variety of women for a variety of reasons.

What a nice sentiment. You know, I counseled with some women who had physically and verbally abusive husbands. Heck, I counseled a lot of people who had other people who just plain annoyed them. As a "pastoral decision," if they came and sat down and talked it over with me first, and I counseled them to just go ahead and kill the offending person - and we sanctified it all with lots of prayer and furrowed brows, does that sound legitimate to you? Should or should not the state intervene in such a situation?

Because of timing, the decision is made under stress and hurriedly. Like a couple's decision to practice birth-control, or to have no children, one child or ten children, abortion isn't a public-policy decision.

This here is what we like to call "assuming what one is trying to prove," or "begging the question." Nice, flowery language aside, if an unborn child is a human being, then you are denying that the regulation of murder is a valid public-policy decision.

My wish for any woman considering an abortion: a caring pastor, caring parents, partners and friends, accurate information, and a competent physician.

My wish for anyone contemplating the destruction of another human life is a sane person standing nearby willing to do anything to prevent them from making such a mistake. We all have our preferences, I guess.

By politicizing abortion, organized religion has abandoned its primary role as pastor and caregiver.

Weird. I thought the primary role of the church was the promulgation of the gospel, and the demonstration of God's righteousness in the world. See the book of Ephesians, generally. Then there is also that inconvenient chapter in 1 Corinthians 5. As a pastor, are you merely negligent in your personal Bible study, or are you wilfully teaching your congregation to disregard them? Generally speaking, a bad idea. See Hebrews 10:26ff, among others.

How many women will seek religion's care when they know to expect the scorpion of judgment, condemnation and moralizing? When abortion touches your daughter, your home, your life, you need information, counsel and sound medical advice, not righteous people pursuing their own church-political agenda.

The further I get into this, the more convinced I am that you've cut out every passage in the Bible that references either sin or righteousness. When you are on the verge of making a decision that is expressly against God's will (that's a sin), what you need is someone who has the wherewithal to warn you before it is too late, eternally. See Ezekiel 3, generally, James 5:19-20, and many others.

A person who will give you a great big hug as you careen towards destruction is no friend at all - and should be ashamed to call himself your "shepherd" (pastor).

Religious organizations might offer their members useful teaching on abortion, but their pastoral role comes first, and they have no business holding the state hostage to their religious opinions.

If the "pastoral role" is not defined by doctrine, then it's not a "pastoral role." It's, "a role that makes me feel good." As far as holding the state hostage to religious opinions - I'll stop doing that as soon as the secularists stop.

On the politics of abortion, my starting point is to wonder why abortion has become such a high-profile public-morality question. Of the many moral issues that could merit our attention, abortion seems less frequent in occurrence than others, such as incest and addiction, and less damaging to the human community than, say, racism or systemic poverty or genocide.

Abortion is less frequent than incest? That's certainly shocking. Have a link to anything that would back that up?

Most addictive drugs are currently illegal. From a public policy standpoint, the reason more isn't said is because that's what can be done.

Ditto racism as an institutional policy.

As far as genocide, I wasn't aware that was currently legal either, apart from the disproportionate numbers of minority children who are being aborted.

And yet, on this one issue, people square off angrily, and powerful institutions spend lavishly to sway public opinion and policy.

Yes, well, the death of a million small children a year gets some people motivated. Others, not so much. We all have our personal preferences, I guess.

I will tell you what I think on the politics of abortion. I do so to encourage dialog, not to declare my views singularly correct.

A nice euphemism for "Abortion shouldn't be illegal."

I think abortion is to our society what wearing the veil has become to Islamic fundamentalists: a way to balance a society's moral ledger by forcing something on women. I urge you to read Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi's poignant account of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, where morality police forced women to wear the veil and to give up personal freedom, as if the future of Islam and the state depended on it.

The rest of your post is fine, if dead wrong. Equate the pro-life movement with the Taliban or similar movements again, and you're gone. This is your One Bite. Further, this paragraph was totally unnecessary to make your actual point, contained here:

In my opinion, something similar is going on with abortion. The focus is entirely on women (not the men who impregnate them), on denying women a personal freedom, on blaming women for what is perceived to be lax morality in general, and on punishing women who are poor and vulnerable.

Women can have all the freedom they want, as far as I'm concerned - so long as the freedom they want is not to kill their own children. From a public policy standpoint, I could mostly care less how promiscuous a woman or a man is.

This argument, which is based on nothing more than a presumption about the motivations of your opponent (which you can't possibly know), is also absolutely silly because if the real motivation was to control the morality and sexual habits of women, we'd be seeking to outlaw fornication and adultery - especially since any reasonably careful person can be as sexually promiscuous as they want and never need an abortion.

Oddly enough, we're not. Which kind of renders your point invalid.

Also, every pro-life advocate I know (and they are legion) is also in favor of more stringent child-support legislation - it's not just about the women.

I don't buy the notion that abortion, politically, is about the sanctity of human life. If that sanctity truly mattered to people, then we would hear similar outcries against capital punishment,

Again, you make assumptions of things you are trying to prove. For a brief primer, I offer you this.

alcohol and other controlled substances, tobacco, guns, warfare, and other known causes of death.

So, because a person does not devote equal energy to every known cause of death, they can't care about one in particular? Also, you're intentionally conflating causes of death that are largely self-inflicted with causes of death in which one person inflicts death upon the most innocent person in their life - their own unborn child.

There's an important difference there, and if you chew on it a bit, I'll just bet you can figure out what it is.

I think the abortion issue is about women's freedom, not about theories of life or murder.

You've already said this. I've already said that you're pro-choice because you're racist. Who is to say either of us is wrong?

Nor do I buy political arguments on behalf of children not born. If we truly cared about children, we wouldn't be reducing health-care benefits, chipping away at government safety-nets, exposing children to exploitative entertainment, allowing children to spend 6.5 hours a day being electronically amused and intellectually deadened, and cheapening public education.

I guess you're right. If we just kill those buggers before they ever escape the womb, we could surely save them from any of the worse-than-death horrors you just mentioned there.

Or perhaps, as a matter of priorities, we could start by ensuring that children reach the age of birth, and THEN worry about getting them all signed up on Cigna. Again, though, we all have our personal preferences, I guess.

I don't doubt the sincerity of most people who care deeply about abortion.

That's funny, you just spent an entire post doubting the sincerity of people who care deeply about abortion. Then you followed this sentence with one directly questioning the sincerity of people who care deeply about abortion.

You are stupid. I'm not calling you stupid. You are stupid.

See how ineffective that is?

I also notice that some religious and political leaders are using abortion to amass power and are hurting their flocks by making abortion a litmus test on faith and belonging, not to mention distorting the political process by using abortion as a wedge issue to blur the separation of religion and state.

I'm sorry, did you have a point, besides "pro-life people shouldn't be active in the political process"? Because if you did, I missed it.

think we should stop our shouting and overheated pieties and talk together, starting with asking why a voluntary medical procedure has become so divisive, even as we ignore other issues that threaten far more lives.

I think we should start asking why so many people are willing to call the legal ending of a million lives a year a voluntary medical procedure. And I guess we're back to personal preferences again.

And I'd never thought of it that way, especially given how many of our lapsed either find God again and end up evangelical or Mormon, or don't, and end up Episcopalian.

We don't have fire and brimstone priests, as the term is usually understood.

The Bible is crystal clear about abortion being wrong.

For example, God affirms that an unborn person is still a person when He says "before I knit you together in my mother's womb, I knew you."

There are manifold other verses that affirm this.

A pastor that would say it is OK really ought to examine the scriptures more carefully.

And God bless 'em!  We could use a few more.  I run a highly evangelical ministry that serves the poor.  I have the great privilege of rubbing shoulders with clergy of many stripes.  With each passing year, I grow deeper in my respect for the priests that work alongside us in helping the poor.  And of course I love their strong stand for Life.

It's been over 30 years since Roe, so, at well over a million unborn children killed annually, yes, we're talking about 40 million deaths on American soil alone.

Actually, I was flipping a coin in my head regarding whether you or Thomas was going to post it.  I knew at least one of you would...

When you are on the verge of making a decision that is expressly against God's will (that's a sin), what you need is someone who has the wherewithal to warn you before it is too late, eternally.

I left The Church for some time and did some amazingly stupid things during that time - and even a couple after I came back (ignorance of The Law and all).  It would have been really helpful were I able to obtain the counsel of someone like you speak of - someone who could have provided guidance on certain decisions that are likely to have eternal, or at least very long term, consequences for me.  S/He wasn't there, all I had were "Pastors" like our example above - relativists, all.  Made me feel better at the time but I now know I'm going to have a whole lot, more than I care to think about frankly, of paying to do down the road.  Thanks for nothing, fellas.

As such, it destroys me to read a Pastor puke this sort of relativism.  In more ways than one, I suppose.

First, you are again trying to subvert the copyright issues we have that resulted in the deletion of your diary.

Second, this Ehrich guy is an Episcopalian minister which, frankly, wholly disqualifies him from giving any biblically based opinion.  While he can hide behind the minister title, it is only a bastardized definition of that word that he hides behind -- see also Barry Lynn and Bill Moyers.

why does a woman's "right" to "do what she pleases" with her body trump that of a fetus?  The last time I checked, a fetus usually, absent human meddling, becomes a child, a life.

Don't get me wrong...I am all for a woman having a choice concerning her body - the choice of whether or not to have intercourse, to utilize contraception, etc. - choices on the "front end".  After conception, her choice should be how to accept her responsibility, rather than how to duck it.

You did not spend too much time on your post.

to your catechesis. The way you fling around "infallible" in this discussion leads me to believe that it isn't particularly strong.

The Catechism is the body of belief of the Catholic Church. It is the baseline from which you must start. So the short answer is yes, those teachings which are set down in the Catechism are infallible as they deal with faith and morals.

On that occasion the Synod Fathers stated: "Very many have expressed the desire that a catechism or compendium of all Catholic doctrine regarding both faith and morals be composed, that it might be, as it were, a point of reference for the catechisms or compendiums that are prepared in various regions. The presentation of doctrine must be biblical and liturgical. It must be sound doctrine suited to the present life of Christians"4. After the Synod ended, I made this desire my own, considering it as "fully responding to a real need both of the universal Church and of the particular Churches".5 For this reason we thank the Lord wholeheartedly on this day when we can offer the entire Church this reference text entitled the Catechism of the Catholic Church, for a catechesis renewed at the living sources of the faith!

John Paul II

but certainly not Catholic belief on the subject. An easy read on the subject is here.

is that Leon's points are not opinion. They are factual and denying the facts is not something one would expect from people to proclaim to be part of "the reality based community." The discussion in favor of abortion thus far has been, in essence, "yeah, so what, it's the woman's right to choose."

Are you responding to me? Because you are saying the same thing that I was pointing out.

Not in my book.  It pretty clear that actually having an abortion leads to excommuniation but that formal support in the procurement of an abortion (and what does that mean?) along with divorce are both only "grave offenses."

My question is can you commit a "grave offense" (support abortion or be divorced) and still call yourself a Catholic?  Are they equivalent offenses?  And where do you go to find these answers?  

Thomas seemed to indicate there are times you can deviate from the Church's teachings as matter of "conscience" and yet still consider yourself a Catholic.  Which teachings are those?  I know the Church is against most forms of contraception.  Can you take birth control pills and still call yourself a Catholic?

But I used to date a Calvinist.  She had a sense of humor, but she was the exception.

I have one.  Its just sometimes hard to find.

I suspect that I'm a closet Episcopalian.

Daily Kos has some pull-quotes from the exhibits from Tom DeLay hearings in which one of DeLay's top aides refers to evangellical Christians as "wackos" and talks about the Republican strategy to turn out their Evangellical base on the Coushetta Casino issue:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

I checked the record, and sure enough, there it is on page 119.  Thoughts?

link

With your chosen user name, and this as your maiden post with said username, you suggest that:

1. you've been here before, probably not for very long
   
   
2. you're not going to be here very long this go-around either

With the content of this post, you've decided to tell us that you never bothered to read the thread, that you have nothing at all to add to the present discussion, but that you were on dKrap today and decided to come by and jab a Pointy Stick™ into the first person you saw and that you chose a thread completely unrelated to the focus of said Pointy Stick™ in which to jab.

You have, in short, provided nothing but yet anoter in a long line of reasons why compulsory public education should be eliminated, immediately, with prejudice.

Either that or you're off your meds this morning.

Had I the power, I'd have sent you to The Pile™ by now.  I don't, but I'm sure someone will be by soon who does and will.

Adios.

actually he's been around quite a while. He's been banned 4 times now.

Does that mean the fumigation procedures need to be ramped-up a bit?  I hear that gets messy.

Cheers.

I think you've been banned at least three times previously.

I think you've been banned again.

I think it's pretty juvenile to keep coming back to post on a forum where you've been banned.

I think your ISP administrator is going to get a complaint.

How do you like those thoughts?

You might want to start here or here.  YMMV, but these work OK for my one-stop shopping on all things Doctrine.

It seems that the answer to your question is that one is and remains a Catholic after committing a grave offense only after an act of perfect contrition and absolution of said offense.

In other words, you have to be truly sorry for the grave offense, confess to the same, and be granted absolution - and then it stands to reason that you should avoid the grave offense in the future.

Then again, I'm a novice at all this - there are some pros here who may be able to give your a more complete answer.

Cheers.

it is pretty easy.

First, offenses are never "only" grave. Grave is as bad as it gets. All direct cooperation with abortion results in one excommunicating themself. As to passive supporting abortion that ground was covered by the Vatican and the US bishops in October last year. You can't support abortion and remain in good standing in the Church.

Of course you can call yourself a Catholic and do most anything, you can also call yourself the Queen of Spain.

No divorce and abortion are not the same. Obtaining a divorce does not excommunicate you but you can't remarry. Your ability to receive communion after a divorce will depend on your own circumstances.

The catechism is clear on which things are black-and-white and which are left to conscience. For instance, the death penalty. The Church, as an institution, is against the death penalty in all cases yet the Catechism 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 to 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 definitely 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."

ditto for war:

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.105

2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.

However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed."106

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

That contraceptives prevent implantation and are equal to abortion?  

No.  The vast majority of people opposed to abortion do not believe that the first is the same as the last or is equivalent to it.

Or do you think we are arguing that?

We're not.

Do you think we won't be enormously happy if we could only stop the death of all the planted and growing ones?  

We would.

Or that we are going to demand that everyone stop birth control?

We're not.

And it doesn't have to be a sleazy diary, either.  I'll think about how to present it.  This notion that somehow Republicans are inattentive or inept lovers, is something we should confront, er, directly.  Speaking as a man, I wouldn't have it any other way.  And I'm a very monogamous guy -- three things were always very intriguing to me in my past relationships:

1. When a couple are very committed to each other, other men tend to look at your female partner and hit on her more vigorously if you are male.
   
2. If you are really in love, the thought of straying to other people really disappears.  
   
3. I've actually gotten into arguments with women that I've dated because they seemed to be more interested in other women's looks than I was.  It was very strange:  in my last serious relationship, my -ex almost had to goad me to look at other women, almost in an attempt to bootstrap her own jealousy!!!  Very bizarre.  But I thought she was the most beautiful creature in the universe, so it really took a lot of goading to get me to comment on other women or compare her.  

Maybe I'm weird.  I think so.

So that being said, what is the difference, morally, between a woman taking the pill normally, and that preventing the implantation of an embryo, and the woman taking the morning after pill and preventing implantation?

Or is implantation the important part?  If the pill de-implanted an embryo, would then it be as bad as abortion?

The between being against abortion and not against the pill is the one I'm looking for.

..."Tornado In a Junkyard" by James Perloff.

If a pill prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, as the morning after pill does, I do not consider that to be abortion.  If the pill de-implanted an embryo, as does RU-486 (is that the right combination of numbers and letters?  I get mixed up with the Freon replacement.), I consider that to be a chemically induced abortion.

I guess my distinction is that one is preventing a pregnancy and the other is ending one.  Also, in one, a woman knows that she ended the life of the child/fetus/embryo/life but the other one never does know anything of the sort.  She doesn't even know if she was ovulating, just that she doesn't want to take any chances so she took a pill to prevent a pregnancy.  I think this person is much less likely to suffer from the post abortion traumas as well as any physical side effects.

I know there are certain people opposed to abortion who believe that a fertilized egg is a pregnancy, but I'm not of that mindset.

If a pill prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, as the morning after pill does, I do not consider that to be abortion.  If the pill de-implanted an embryo, as does RU-486 (is that the right combination of numbers and letters?  I get mixed up with the Freon replacement.), I consider that to be a chemically induced abortion.

Could I say that life begins at implantation, then, rather than at conception?

Because if life begins at conception, and the the mother takes a pill that prevents that life from implanting, would that not be deliberately ending that life with a chemically-induced abortion?

Also, in one, a woman knows that she ended the life of the child/fetus/embryo/life but the other one never does know anything of the sort.

I'm a little confused about how the mother's knowledge plays into the morality of the whole thing.  As a hypothetical, let's say the pill was taken once a month and could de-implant the embryo.  Would the mother be justified in taking this pill as long as she didn't have the knowledge that she was pregnant?  After all, maybe conception simply did not occur this month.

I know there are certain people opposed to abortion who believe that a fertilized egg is a pregnancy, but I'm not of that mindset.

Finally, if a fertilized egg is not a pregnancy, then is there any reason to not use them for research?

An abortion is not natural; the act has consequences, in the year following an abortion a woman is 3.5 times more likely to die than if she had given birth.

Abortion Boosts 1-Year Death Risk by 252%

In comparing the death risk to the mom of elective abortion, Finnish researchers did what U.S. researchers have NOT done:

   1. Included ALL causes of death (NO exclusions)

   2. Made the time period extend to 52 weeks after 'the end of pregnancy', not a mere 6 weeks after.

From table I of that study it is possible to compute the relative mortality risks in the 12 months after the end of pregnancy of induced abortion and live birth:

                  Relative Maternal Death Risk

                    -----------------------

                   Women who  Women with an

                   delivered  Induced Abortion

Total mortality     1.0        3.52  [+252%]

Natural deaths      1.0        1.63  [ +63%]

Accidents           1.0        4.24  [+324%]

Suicides            1.0        6.46  [+546%]

Homicides           1.0       13.99 [+1299%]

----------------------------------------------

[ top Scandinavian journal in the area of obstetrics and gynecology: Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 1997;76:651-657 ]

Table II. Pregnancy-associated mortality per 100,000 cases and age-adjusted odds ratio by the type of end of pregnancy compared to other women. Finland 1987-1994

                  End of pregnancy

             ----------------------------     No

            Birth  Miscarriage  Abortion  Pregnancy(1)

Number of

     deaths   137       40          84       8931

Mortality:

Crude, total   26.7     47.8       100.5       91.6

Age-adjusted,

  total        29.4     51.3       103.2       58.8

OR(2):

Total mortality 0.50     0.87        1.76       1.0

           (0.32-0.78) (0.60-1.27) (1.27-2.42)

Natural deaths  0.49     0.43        0.80       1.0

           (0.27-0.89) (0.23-0.80) (0.48-1.33)

Accidents       0.49     1.40        2.08       1.0

           (0.18-1.33) (0.66-2.98) (1.03-4.20)

Suicides        0.57     1.44        3.68       1.0

           (0.22-1.48) (0.68-3.05) (1.92-7.04)

Homicides       0.31     1.82        4.33       1.0

           (0.02-4.42) (0.36-9.10) (1.03-18.2)

---------------------------------------------------

1 Women aged 15-49 not having a completed pregnancy during their last year of living, including 20 deaths of pregnancy women.

2 Age-adjusted odds ratio of mortality after birth, miscarriage, or abortion compared to mortality of other women (95% confidence intervals in parentheses).

----------------------------------------------------

The Abstract of this 1997 report:

Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 1997;76:651-657, Pregnancy-associated deaths in Finland 1987-1994 - definition problems and benefits of record linkage, Mika Gissler, Riitta Kauppila, Jouni Merilainen, Henri Toukomaa, and Elina Hemminki

Background. Our aim was to study the impact of record linkage and different classification principles on maternal mortality rate.

Methods. The death certificates of all fertile-aged women who died in 1987-94 in Finland (n=9,192) were linked to the Birth, Abortion, and Hospital Discharge Registers (n=513,472) births, 93,807 induced abortions, and 71,701 other ended pregnancies) to identify the women who had been pregnant during their last year of life. All deaths that occurred up to 1 year after the end of pregnancy were classified according to their connection to pregnancy.

Results. In total, 281 qualifying deaths were found.  Only in 22% of the death certificates was the pregnancy or its end mentioned. The mortality rate was 41 per 100,000 registered ended pregnancies (27 for births, 48 for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, and 101 for abortions).  The maternal mortality rate depended greatly on which of the 281 cases were defined as maternal  deaths.  The early maternal mortality rate varied between 0.6 and 2.5 depending on the definition used. The classification of other than direct maternal deaths was ambiguous, especially in case of late cancers, cardio- and cerebrovascular diseases, and early suicides. The official Finnish figure for early maternal mortality (6.0/100,000 live births) seems to be a good estimate, although only 65% of individual deaths were unambiguously classified.

Conclusions. Register linkage is necessary to identify late maternal deaths and pregnancy-associated deaths.  The current official classification of maternal deaths as indirect, direct and fortuitous is arbitrary and allows much variation in defining a maternal death.

The only biological purpose for sex is to produce new little human beings. Period. End of story.

Says who?  You?  I'll be sure to consult with you next time I head for the bed.  Not!

There is no need for you to share with us your preferences in foreplay. If seeking permission from an authority figure is part of your bag, we don't really need to know.

Could I say that life begins at implantation, then, rather than at conception?

You can certainly say that if you want to.

As a hypothetical, let's say the pill was taken once a month and could de-implant the embryo.  Would the mother be justified in taking this pill as long as she didn't have the knowledge that she was pregnant?  After all, maybe conception simply did not occur this month.

I don't think this option is available anywhere, or if it is, I haven't heard of it.  If it becomes available, and de-implants embryos as it's method of birth control (which it would) I would consider it to be chemically inducing an abortion.

if a fertilized egg is not a pregnancy, then is there any reason to not use them for research?

Yes.  I am strongly opposed to using human embryos for research.  They are not a pregnancy (obviously, as no one's stomach is growing), and therefore are not aborted, but I believe that they are a form of human life and we should not use them as guinea pigs.

This is valuable information.  Maybe you could include other health issues as well, for instance, infertility, breast cancer, etc.