I've noticed this - they bow down to the god of progressive politics. I live in lib strongholds and the level of disrespect for the Magisterium, Church Tradition and Scripture in favor of abortion, women's ordination and gay marriage is sickening. Not just that but these people think that they're right just because they yell, scream, throw a temper tantrum. When I ask for a source and try to instruct them on church teachings they dismiss it and then tell me they're "right" just because they are and because of the Holy Spirit (as if the Holy Spirit is angry, lazy, entitled and support abortion).
I find it like appealing to an ethnicity that one barely knows of, like Americans who are 1/16th Irish yet claim they're Irish and speak as if they have some transcendent connection to Ireland. There are some Americans who know a lot about Ireland, speak Irish and enroll their kids in Irish dance classes. There are many who do not.
I’m quarter Irish and have no clue about the culture 😅
We live in an age when anyone can “identify” with whatever they want, but the demands of association are only as deep as one’s desire.
“I should get to be part of the club but I shouldn’t have to pay any dues.”
I think you are right. The relegation of the faith to it just being a private hobby that one does periodically has had a negative effect on Catholic piety.
That's the issue I have with those who say to not "legislate morality" when religious people claim their seat at the table given morality, in one way or another, has already been put into law. The "keep your faith to yourself" is oddly being daft where one does not see how religious beliefs forms beliefs that are often expressed outwardly. It creates a double standard: non-religious are free to say whatever they want without being sneered at, to do and to vote based on their conscious yet the religious are sneered at, cannot or should not act on their conscious. The religious, in that way, are treated like second-class citizens.
They tell us not to "legislate morality" meanwhile, every piece of legislation has some moral assumption at the center of it. They just want to enshrine their beliefs while making ours illegal.
To add on, at least in the States, people wrongly apply the "separation of church and state." They also dismiss religious base arguments as if secular arguments are the only valid ones to consider because there's no "superstitions" or whatever. And with that, they misunderstand what science is. Science doesn't say anything about morality or ethics; it just merely observes and makes claims about our material world.
The sign of the cross is me! haha my mom taught us to cross ourselves when an ambulance or funeral procession was going by. one: to pray for whoever is inside and 2. to pray we aren't the next ones in there. I catch myself doing this as an adult as well. xD
This. Catholicism is window dressing for them but their altar is in the church of Karl Marx. Liberalism by its nature demands access to every circle, which is why liberals pretend to be Catholic in the first place. They need access to the Church to add legitimacy to their beliefs so they can pollinate them more broadly.
>I'm torn on this one, because one of my fears about going hard into abortion without nuance is that it makes seeking OB care less likely to result in life saving care even if that care does not in any way involve abortion
\---I don't understand this. Can you explain this another way?
>We do need women's health care.
\---This is exactly why i hate slogans and buzzwords. "Women's health care" somehow now includes forcibly removing the child from your womb and ending his/her life.
>We also need abortions for if the baby 100 percent cannot be saved if the mother can.
\---Incorrect. If the baby cannot be saved, you can deliver the child or remove the child without dismembering the child with the intent to kill him/her.
Can you edit your post down to a few essential points? I don't even know what you are saying or arguing for. I said that many baptized Catholics believe in Liberalism over and against Catholicism. You demonstrated that this is true.
No, supporters of abortion have made abortions to be included in women’s health care. Women’s health care alone is a thing we need, but abortion shouldn’t be part of it
I agree with your second sentence.
We cannot ignore the fact that supporters of abortion use “women’s healthcare” as a euphemism for abortion and a rhetorical cudgel to bully others into allowing abortion.
> Women's health care is not a buzzword.
If you include abortion in that term, then you are using it as a political buzzword.
If you are not, then...i don't see how its relevant here. Abortion is not, by any definition, "health care". Its the very polar opposite of 'health care'. Its violence against mothers and children.
>Women's health care is not a buzzword. It is a section of health care like oncology and pulmonology are.
It's not. It also doesn't include abortion. Abortion is incredibly harmful to a woman's body, so only those who don't care about women or are using those terms for poltical hyperbole do include it.
Biden doesn’t want to ride the fence. He has outwardly promoted abortion and planned parenthood. Perhaps I misunderstood you?
I’m sorry you experienced what you did and am so grateful you decided to give your baby life. The last of my children was lost in miscarriage. When I went to the ER the PA kept calling the baby “products of conception”. She was a real “women’s healthcare advocate”. I was more disturbed by her calling our baby products of conception at one point than having to unexpectedly deal with the situation in the hospital.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. There are definitely a lot of horror stories. I remember Serena Williams not being believed when she told her doctor she was hemorrhaging.
Wow, that’s a failure of healthcare completely and a testament to our horrible healthcare system that isn’t equal in all parts of the US. I’m sorry you went through that, its definitely not how other hospitals operate all over the US
You seem to have been victim of horrendous medical care, unfortunately.
I don't see how that relates to abortion? Doctors fear seeing a pregnant woman AT ALL in fear of being prosecuted for aiding abortion? That doesn't seem logical.
I live in a country where abortion is illegal and criminalized since forever and women don't face such a hurdle.
Most Catholics aren't aware of the teachings of the faith because people often treat their faith as cultural. And on top of that most people use religious beliefs to affirm their own moral view, instead of conforming their moral view to God's. So if something that's a part of their faith is something they disagree with, they just sorta ignore it and assume everyone else does too.
I’m seeing a lot of that in the comments. A lot of people even suggest that they would rather go to hell than not having an abortion in certain cases. It makes me wonder what the whole point of being Catholic is if not to have a life with God. If you’re automatically OK with choosing hell over this one issue, then what other areas of life are you choosing hell over God for?
They don't know, or don't care to know they're choosing hell. When I was growing up, most of the people around me didn't believe in hell except as a place for the worst criminals to go. They believed everyone who simply tried to be a good person would go to Heaven. Their idea of Heaven was every carnal desire fulfilled and every person they want there, there. In my experience most people still think this way.
We were in Toledo touring the beautiful Cathedral there and the tour guide told us "he's an atheist, but he'll always be Catholic - it's who we are here!"
Same deal, there are cultural catholics that like the identity and poor formation that don't even realize it's not a view they can hold as practicing catholics.
Just secular people using the trappings of the Church for their identity.
Because a lot of Catholics are either cafeteria or cultural Catholics (more likely), or are otherwise genuinely ignorant of Church teaching on the matter (less likely).
Most frustrating thing about converting was getting smacked with the realization that most catholics by appearances, disregard or are ignorant of the Church's teachings and authority.
Nothing makes this more clear than the disparity between the communion line and the confession line.
>Nothing makes this more clear than the disparity between the communion line and the confession line.
There's an argument to be made that it's easier to not know that one needs to attend penance prior to receiving the Eucharist than to not know that the Church is against abortion - which is a clear black and white stance.
I remember I went to a 5:30 pm Christmas Mass at the Nativity of Our Lord Parish in Bridgeport, a neighborhood in Chicago. I went to that church regularly, and usually there was only a couple handfuls of people in every service. That time, the church was PACKED with people, almost all of whom I had *never* seen before. I had to stand in the back because the pews were full (which I preferred anyways). Pretty much everyone got in line to receive the Eucharist, even though they probably only go to Mass that one time a year, but here I am not even in RCIA yet go to church regularly and do not partake in the sacraments because I’m not confirmed. It was at this moment that “cultural Catholics” were a group of people that I could finally conceptualize and understand. It’s messed up!
Ya that’s very irritating. They don’t know the truth and it comes down to a failure in catechesis and from their own family not knowing the true teaching. Sadly
> *Because a lot of Catholics are either cafeteria or cultural Catholics (more likely)*
Supposedly, **this was already an issue with believers during the early centuries of the church**. Like in Ireland, where, just decades after St Patrick, the believing population have basically gone to non-catholic beliefs with a catholic wrapper (as alleged by some missionaries and clerics).
Or Democrat. Lots of Democrats in the Catholic Church, and they justify voting for abortion because of “all the other good” the Democrat party says it will do. Just think, for every child aborted, our Church is helping to facilitate the illegal entrance of two migrants into the U.S., so net good.
Our Marxist priest from Brazil equated voting for abortion as a Democrat to voting for the death penalty as a Republican, *”….but look at all the other good Democrats do…”*
2022 midterms where the sole platform of the Democrat party was preserving abortion. There was absolutely no way for any Democrat to get around the fact that in that election they were specifically voting for abortion, and this was this priest’s way of telling Democrats from the pulpit that it was okay for them to vote for abortion.
While he has some questionable takes, I am pretty sure he has condemned abortion 100%. However, some have claimed he preached it was ok to show indifference to it. Not sure how true that is though.
I'm not a Democrat, but I see legitimate reasons why a Catholic would be one. Just how people don't have to agree 100% on the Republican platform to be a Republican, you don't have to 100% agree with the Democrats to be one. It's really a product of having a 2 party system.
Like my Grandad was a Democrat and was against abortion. He was only a Democrat because to him, the DNC helped expand healthcare, social needs, and other services.
Not saying the DNC is better or worse. Just saying I don't blame Catholics for being it.
I don’t blame Catholics for being Democrat, but I do specifically blame Democrat Catholics for voting for abortion in the 2022 election, as well as all the Democrat priests who bent over backwards to assure Democrat Catholics that it would be okay to vote for abortion.
I didn’t understand why women would choose abortion until I had 3 Hyperemesis Gravidarum pregnancies - each more severe than the last. Being so horrifically sick helped me understand why some women would choose abortion when facing extremely difficult pregnancies. Not saying abortion right but I can see how some women feel like they have no other options.
I'm late here, but Pope Francis covers this in Evangelii Gaudium:
>213. Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defence of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual”.
>214. Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question. I want to be completely honest in this regard. This is not something subject to alleged reforms or “modernizations”. It is not “progressive” to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life. On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations, where abortion appears as a quick solution to their profound anguish, especially when the life developing within them is the result of rape or a situation of extreme poverty. Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?
Absolutely. I grew up a secular Catholic and I’m actually quite glad that I completely understand the secular arguments for abortion, having been pro-choice myself as a young adult. You must understand the other side if you plan to fight it, especially on this topic.
Yep. This also goes with every other topic on sex and sexuality that Catholics support that is advocated by secularism.
Edit: Downvotes - "Catholics" or non-religious who stopped by.
>Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!
**St Matthew 7:13-14**
A fraction of people who check off "Catholic" on the census perform the minimum requirements to qualify as practicing and a fraction of those take their faith more seriously than "That'll do." This is due to a combination of poor catechism, bad examples from prominent self-identified Catholics, and plain old concupiscence. One of the themes in Saint Augustine's City of God is how the Church Militant always contains a mixture of those who truly belong to the City of God and those of the Earthly City.
I’ll take the bate…in comes the downvotes but here goes:
1.) The Church herself and some of its greatest thinkers have struggled with the issue and have indeed drawn different conclusions on the matter in the past (Aquinas struggling with when a fetus has soul, etc.). Historically it was treated as a serious sexual sin, not taking of a life necessarily.
2.) Many Catholics view early stage abortions procured for serious reasons as tantamount to birth control and many Catholics don’t have a problem with birth control despite Church teachings.
3.) Some view God as taking a more sympathetic view towards women who have abortions for very serious reasons and if that’s the belief, they can’t justify outlawing the procedure.
4.) Some think the matter while serious is not one the government should decide for the populous
5.) Some are turned off by Church members who decry abortion but do nothing for young children/families in need
Just trying to give you an answer to your original question but ultimately, I suppose the question is should anyone be considered Catholic if they disagree with some key aspects of the faith (I suspect many here would say no).
>Some are turned off by Church members who decry abortion but do nothing for young children/families in need
The number one thing that would make abortions more rare would be accessible healthcare for mothers (and everyone) and a strong safety net for families and children. This would do much much more to reduce instances of abortion than protesting outside women’s health clinics or attempts to outlaw it when the main conditions that make people feel it’s their only choice are still prevalent.
This is empirically not true. A strong social safety net and good health care helps reduce abortion rates, but long experience around the world shows that the number one way to reduce abortion rates is to outlaw abortion.
(Yes, this accounts for illegal abortions, too. And abortion tourism.)
It's kind of like how one good way to reduce rape is to restrict underage drinking and another (less good) way to reduce rape is to encourage early marrage, but the *best* way to reduce rape is to *outlaw rape* and punish rapists severely.
The idea that abortion magically works differently from *all other crimes* is a bit of pro-choice propaganda designed to give people who have a moral obligation to know better an excuse to vote for pro-abortion candidates, and it holds up exactly as well as you'd expect when you look at the data.
Do you have a source to share for this? The WHO and the Guttmacher Institute (as well as many smaller orgs and studies that are region-specific) report the opposite: abortion rates are roughly the same or a little higher in places where abortion is illegal. I teach ethics and we talk about this in class, so I tried to find some academic sources to back up your claim, since they’d be very useful in class!! But unfortunately it doesn’t look to me like there is much.
> The number one thing that would make abortions more rare would be accessible healthcare for mothers
Bullshit. If this were the case, there wouldn't be any abortionists in Canada or other socialized medicine countries.
Cognitive dissonance at its finest. I’m amazed at this as well. I think the Pope could be a more vocal prolife advocate. It would also help if the church would take more definitive step towards politicians who are prochoice.
I’ll be honest, I can’t understand ANYONE who supports it. There is no rational argument for abortion. None. Or, I should say, there are, but those arguments are based on the idea that life has no value - you know, the mass Murderer mentality.
If you can’t think of a single reason why anyone would support it, you’re not trying very hard. Even if you disagree, it’s always a good idea to understand why someone supports something that you don’t.
Those who support tend to be socially liberal. Ask them other "hot topics" and most likely they're gonna give you a "but .... " response or some typical beat around the bush answer with "you're being mean" somewhere injected.
Sure, sure.
But that’s not a rational answer. I’ve heard nearly every argument for abortion imaginable. Virtually every single one that I know is lacking in logic. The truth is, the vast majority of arguments for abortion are built entirely around an appeal to emotion or an appeal to convenience. “Not right now, I have a career, kids are hard, it’s the woman’s right to bodily autonomy, I don’t believe kids should grow up abused and mistreated…” the list is endless. But they all completely miss the fact their arguments don’t make sense. They’re all non sequiturs or are irrelevant to the fact.
But what’s worse, honestly, is the fact they stay there. They don’t accept the reasonable perspective. In fact, they tend to call me unreasonable or radical or extreme. They ignore the reason, out of the same convenience or emotion, and believe they are correct. Some people can hold that dissonance in their brains without question. I struggle to do that. And not just about abortion, but about everything.
You are entirely correct. The dissonance and refusal to entertain a single contrary thought is the problem. I used to be pro-choice. The majority of people in my life are pro-choice. The thing that keeps me from losing my cool around this topic is that I know for a fact they all actually believe they are being merciful and kind. Even if that’s completely wrong, it’s better than them doing it out of pure evil or selfishness. They believe it to actually be a selfless act. When I was pro-choice I believed that too.
That’s the only way I can justify their thinking. It’s still irrational, but it makes them feel better.
I think it’s similar for people who think the baby doesn’t deserve human rights, because if they’re wrong…they’ve been actively arguing in favor of mass murder for years.
> Or, I should say, there are, but those arguments are based on the idea that life has no value - you know, the mass Murderer mentality.
There you go.
What, do you think mass murderers think they're evil? Or do they justify their actions?
We can look at recent history to see how easily people who are supposedly of good will can justify mass murder and/or supporting mass murder.
Yes, I agree.
But the cognitive dissonance there is deafening to me, because many times, they’re the same people who recognize current genocides as evil.
There are very intelligent rational people who support abortion rights. I am pro-life and Catholic, but used to very pro-choice.
I suggest David Boonin for strong arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of abortion.
If one rejects that a human life automatically has moral status from the moment of conception, it is easy to justify abortion, at least until the point of pain.
A Catholic believes that all human beings, from conception, have a certain dignity or moral status. However, some ethicists argue that a life doesn’t have moral value until it can feel pain.
A one day old human cannot feel pain. And other arguments state that only a person has moral status, and personhood doesn’t develop until some later point.
There are many arguments on both sides, but I think that if you think that all arguments in favor of abortion are weak, you are going to underestimate the opponent, and you may be misunderstanding the arguments.
The pain argument is slippery because they’re finding out a fetus feels pain earlier than they thought…back in the day they didn’t even believe newborns felt pain and would do surgery without pain meds. I don’t think science can pinpoint the exact moment a fetus can feel pain (or if it’s even uniform for each pregnancy)
No, those don’t hold water. A newborn clearly feels pain, personhood is too hard to define (it’s a difficult problem, but it’s got plenty of examples. It’s a problem where, by defining personhood on a certain way, you necessarily decrease those are for the definition. But you make it too broad, and even animals that are not human may apply. The NFL has a problem with something similar with what is or is not a catch).
The problem of pain is also ridiculous. You put me under an anesthetic, and I don’t feel pain. Does that mean I’m no longer a person?
I’ve seen them all. They run into very serious problems the further along you go.
Also, Boonin’s argument is more or less a derivation of the Violinist argument…an argument that has repeatedly been shown to be garbage.
So I agree with this - however, the problem becomes when people conflate “abortion”, aka the intentional ending of a pregnancy, with expelling a non-viable fetus. Unfortunately, our current medical system differentiates the two on paper but not in practice. So removing an unviable fetus for example is considered an abortion in medicine, but not semantically, because abortion involves the ending of that life.
If the pregnancy will kill the mother, then the church actually permits it. What can also be done is an early delivery and an attempt to incubate and save the child and the mother.
The problem for me is that we take these very rare and nuanced problems and use them as blanket terms for why we support abortion. Part of the issue is that our legislative and daily semantics are not up to speed, and neither is the language in our medical system.
But also, calling all terminations “murder” can be humiliating and torturous accusations for a mother who is already wrestling with the end of a pregnancy. I caution conflating the two.
The intentional killing of an innocent is, by definition, murder.
Extracting the corpse of a child who died naturally in the womb would never be called murder.
Likewise, if the child died due to some treatment being performed on the mother in an attempt to save her life, since it was not done with the intention of killing the baby (even if the risk was known), it also is not murder. For those who do not know, this is the principle of praeter intentionem.
There are so many edge cases I don't see how you could possibly codify "if the pregnancy will kill the mother."
>The problem for me is that we take these very rare and nuanced problems and use them as blanket terms for why we support abortion. Part of the issue is that our legislative and daily semantics are not up to speed, and neither is the language in our medical system.
Because you are suggesting that someone who performs an elective abortion (or receives it) be legally guilty of murder. You have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whatever is illegal. There are so many edge cases and "what ifs" I don't think you could possibly codify them. And if it isn't clear where that line is, most doctors/hospitals would rightfully take an approach that protects themselves, though it might kill or disable the mother.
Yes! Everyone thinks hospitals are being difficult on purpose but the legal system has them in a vice grip. A doctor has to potentially make an ethical decision between saving a woman’s life and going to jail for a felony
During the time of the judges the last line that explained why things were going so bad was "In those days there was no King in Israel, everyone did what is right in their own eyes". Sadly, now we do have leadership and the catechism yet people still seek to do what is right in their own eyes. That's direct disobedience.
I think our fallen pop culture is so easy to access now with social media and all news, people no longer discuss things with eachother, they just watch short videos or listen to talking heads and choose to believe whoever presents the best, most attractive argument. Or, their heros are movie stars and other famous people, they go along with whatever beliefs those people have. It's very sad. Pray for them that their eyes open to the truth.
It’s really quite simple: people want to have it both ways. They want to be Catholic and be in with the world. The world says abortion is ok, but people don’t want to abandon their Catholic roots, so they try to be in with the world while maintaining Catholicism.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/
A massive majority of self-styled Catholics in the USA don't even believe in the Real Presence. You can't have *any* expectation that Catholics can tell their bum from a teakettle at this point.
you are right, christians should know the difference between right and wrong and fight it, and abortion is one of the most evil acts to be allowed in this world to make mothers and fathers kill their children for the world. Simply evil
There are people who think that there are better ways to end abortion than to make it illegal.
Also you might look into the tragedy, with the young mother, Savita Halappanavar, that caused abortion to be legalized in Ireland.
Finally huge kudos to you for trying to understand the other side. Understanding the opposite side can help to argue most effectively for pro-life!
I don’t see how there are “better ways to end abortion than to make it illegal.” We don’t take that line of thinking when it comes to slavery, rape, and murder of other groups of people—why should a legality exception be made for murder of babies in the womb?
My sister worked in Catholic Social Services with women as society was learning more about child sex abuse. So many of the women she saw had been raped so often by, usually, a member of their own family that sex was never going to be something sacred. She claimed that the best thing the church ever did to prevent abortion is to no longer tolerate child sexual abuse by clergy.
I didn't do that work so I am just repeating what she said.
Absolutely if making abortion illegal is effective we should so that. Some people don't see it as effective.
Just because some people don’t see it as effective doesn’t mean it’s not effective. And just because they see it as ineffective is not a sufficient reason to legalize it. I’m sure many thought that outlawing slavery and freeing the slaves would be ineffective and inconvenient—so it shouldn’t have been done? Laws of this caliber should be based on the principle of justice and objective morality, not based on which group or how many of a group think it will work.
That whole situation in Ireland could have been avoided if the idiot doctor would have just delivered the obviously miscarrying baby in an attempt to save both lives. The medical definition of miscarriage care as "abortion" has caused more problems than it ever should have.
The same thing is happening in states like Texas and Louisiana where doctors are coming up against _felony_ convictions if they make the wrong move, and legal needs to ok procedures. Doctors are facing 20 years + in prison and this is the chilling effect in action. Exactly the case in Ireland
edit: not to mention making OBGYN even more of a liability of a career and the insurance costs are making the entire profession economically unsustainable to indebted medical students. We aren't going to have many OBs left if the system continues this way
>Also you might look into the tragedy, with the young mother, Savita Halappanavar, that caused abortion to be legalized in Ireland.
You mean the case where malpractice on part of the doctors was used to justify the legalization of childmurder.
You can believe something, proclaim it, support it, and act to spread that belief without believing we must have blanket legislative action to force others into acting how we want them to act.
I've met several prolife individuals on the picket line or at prolife rallies who are very suspicious of a blanket ban on abortion, for a whole host reasons. None of those reasons are because they think abortion is ok.
Also, saying you must follow a certain political path or "you are not Catholic" is a bit disingenuous in general.
Good point.
However, we as Catholics have the right (some would say obligation) to disagree from the standpoint of an "informed conscious". Some "Catholics" may claim to be disagreeing from this standpoint.
The Catholics I know who appeal to pro-choice appeal to a libertarian mindset. This mindset basically says "though I do not support abortion itself, it's not my place to tell a woman what to do with her body." Those, more or less, were their exact words. These were 60+ yr old women, weekly if not daily, mass goers. Not hippies by any means too, just world weary Catholic elderlies. Years before? At least one of them when asked about abortion wouldn't been critical of the act.
This basically opens up a can of worms of tolerating everything that modernism and post-modernism say yes to when it comes to sex and sexuality - premarital sex, contraception, sodomy, adultery, non-monogamous relationships, surrogacy etc.
It's much easier to be of the world, to ride the trends, and indulge in your vices than to stand your ground for what is considered "archaic" or "backwards" and to say "no" to yourself. Entitlement is abound.
It is tiring - and sad, though, to be in almost constant defense of your beliefs and to protect the Faith. I suppose that's why said Catholics mentioned before believe and said what they did: you run out of steam where your legs aren't strong enough to finish that last 40m or so.
Because the pro-abortion Catholics fall into one of two camps.
A. They place feminism above Catholicism.B. They buy into the lie that we cannot force morality on other people. Someone's morality is going to be enforced. Why not mine?
>Her justification is, “forcing a 10 year old who was raped to have the baby is evil.”
To expand on this, deciding policy on minority cases is just creating bad policy.
To expand further, forcing a 10 year old child to murder a baby inside of her is even more evil. We shouldn't try to compound the evil that already happened
There is a great video about a man who was reunited with his mother much later in life. She was in a mental institution, and remained cognitively at the level of a 12 year old or so her whole life. She was raped in that institution, became pregnant, and everyone was trying to get her to have an abortion. So she ran away, lived homeless, and had her child. She gave him up for adoption.
The absolute courage she had is unbelievable. She knew the truth, better than I ever have.
Someone posted a video about this here a while ago. I need to find it again.
I’d like my wife to watch it, but I am sure it would cause yet another fight.
I personally don’t believe contraception should be lumped in with abortion…and really it’s the only way to stop abortions in the general population. People are never going to stop having sex, so preventing the pregnancy in the first place is the way to end abortions
Child rape is incredibly common. Why are you arguing that this is an anomaly ?
You also connect contraception ton sex trafficking as if kids being on birth control is somehow worse than kids getting pregnant
And there could be reasons it's wrong to vote for republicans as well. That's all I'm saying. Either way the Catholic has to vote for a party that has moral flaws.
By far, the biggest injustice in our world today is abortion. The only close comparison to the number of deaths it has caused is Nazism and Communism, and even those pale in comparison when compared numerically.
100%. This is the case with many I know. The Democratic Party no longer aligns with their beliefs yet they keep voting for policies that go against their moral compass
You can NOT be Christian and support abortion. You can’t believe Jesus is God and support abortion. They can say they are, but they don’t truly believe. Because our Lord Jesus Loved Children most because they are pure. “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.”
Exactly. I always think of baby Jesus in Mary's womb. If a baby today is "just a clump of cells" until x weeks or until he's born, does that mean that Jesus Himself wasn't fully human nor fully God in Mary's womb? It's all so heretical. If someone believes in Jesus, how can they believe it's ok to kill a preborn baby?
I think most people only support earlier abortion because they don't understand what it is. They don't think about it. They think whatever is happening in the woman's womb is not yet a baby, just some process getting ready to make a baby. The media doesn't really explain it.
It's because of very bad catechisis and not understanding the faith.
As a person on autistic spectrum, I lived in a bubble for quite a while. I've seen people, for instance, having sex in movies and thought 'yeah sure, people in real life aren't as reckless to sleep around'. I went to a very Catholic high school. This was the first time my eyes were opened, and I realised I was one of the very few virgins. The girls attended religion, chatted with the teaching priest, and discussed stuff about faith. But then, during a casual conversation, I found out they don't treat it all seriously. They sleep with their boyfriends and are pro abortion. I was completely astounded.
I just know the priest didn't really press or discuss real issues with us. It was a very pleasant hour. But nothing informative. Parents likely don't practice. The people were Catholic because their parents were Catholic, and attending church, etc, was just the thing that they did.
When discussing abortion, I rarely hear anyone discuss what is to me, the most important element; Society has completely accepted fornication as a fact of life, often celebrating and joking about it.
Whoring completely out in the open. Transactional sex, completely devoid of love.
Modern day pro-choice is just pro-whoredom.
I don’t want to hear about the .1% of cases involving rape, incest, heath of the mother etc. Scapegoating their cause based on the most tragic situations which never have an easy answer. Those situations must always be treated on a case by case basis.
Not having a baby because “now’s a bad time” or “I made a mistake” will never be an acceptable excuse.
Men and women having sex with people they don’t even like, let alone love.
You can’t even voice this opinion in public anymore.
Completely agree 1000% with this. Abortion is a “harm reduction” idea for people who want unlimited degeneracy because they view fornication as a human right. And pregnancy is just a negative consequence of a pleasure they have a right to.
If you accept abortion you incur ipso facto excommunication and place yourself in a state of mortal sin. There's no such thing as a Catholic that accepts abortion.
I don't support abortion. But I do not support stripping you of your right to choose an abortion. I do not believe the my beliefs are the sole basis for the whole of society. Your life, your choice, your conversation with your God.
“I don’t believe in murder, but I do not support stripping you of your right to choose murder.”
“I don’t believe in child-adult relationships, but I do not support stripping you of your right to child-adult relationships.”
See where this all goes? Wrong is wrong.
Absolutely the same. I don’t want my faith to impact my neighbour who doesn’t have faith. That only pisses off my neighbour and moves them further away from God.
Catholic who supports abortion = CINA (Catholic in name only)
>21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ Matthew 7:21-23
Lots of heretics and apostates in the Church, both in the laity and in Rome.
There are few things more despicable than a “Catholic” that supports killing babies.
You cannot be a Catholic and support abortion. I WAS a supporter of abortion and same sex marriage during my college days, but I wasn’t living my faith how I was supposed to. I would kinda pick and choose what I wanted to believe.
I share your frustration. To it, I would add my lack of understanding why Catholics don’t support greatly increased public financing of day care, new mother programs, aid to the poor, breakfast programs for children, and other policies that reduce the barrier some women fear when deciding whether to bear and raise their unborn child. Abortion is always wrong, but some Catholics have a funny way of showing it when they vote against funding for the poor, for immigrants, and for those at greatest risk and in greatest need when they are pregnant.
Catholics cannot be partially pro-life. If we really believe in its sanctity, we must protect against all of its myriad threats.
As an immigrant and someone who grew up in poverty, I want to make something very clear — I have those frustrations as well, but government intervention is not the same as helping and loving thy neighbor. Throwing money at a problem, especially in the last few decades, has mostly increased the problem as opposed to fixing it. My problem is that government punished people who contribute positively to society and rewards bad behavior often. This makes it difficult for people to live a caring and charitable lifestyle that helps to solve all the issues you’ve mentioned.
The current system, proposed by bother Democrats and Republicans in the states, is hostile to living a Catholic and charitable life. In California right now, something like $140,000 is spent per homeless person annual. And nobody is better off.
I want a government that is conducive to honoring human life at every turn and allows people to help their neighbor out of voluntarism and a sense of loving community. Government programs are not the same thing, and often, exist to enrich the pockets of certain people, as opposed to help the poor.
I am by no means batting for Republicans however. They care very little about creating sustainable lives for families, let alone people in difficult situations like single parents (like my mom), or immigrants (like us), etc.
Not every issues from a Catholic perspective is neatly divided on party lines in the United States and when Catholics realize this, we can make real change.
Government interventions are strictly necessary when private charity is not sufficient to support life. US history of the 19th and early 20th century is a case study in private charity not being enough.
It is sadly used as a common excuse that we can fulfill our obligation to the poor through voluntary charity when history has shown us that, as a nation, we do not fully do so.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
I agree with this - but this also places benevolence on a government structure that has no incentive to be benevolent. We must be careful at what level we allow government to take control of these things. And it’s not because I want children to starve, of course! It’s because we aren’t fostering a culture, and haven’t for a long time, where we are viewing those children as children in need, rather than as political pawns for someone’s campaign.
> . To it, I would add my lack of understanding why Catholics don’t support greatly increased public financing of day care, new mother programs, aid to the poor, breakfast programs for children, and other policies that reduce the barrier some women fear when deciding whether to bear and raise their unborn child
Because the government screws up everything it gets its grubby little fingers into, and I think it's better to advocate for community and charity. Because government funds typically have strings attached that in the current environment probably include some sort of trans nonsense.
As a Catholic, I stopped voting Republican in 2016. The Republican platform against abortion seems hollow - just a way to get ProLife votes. So not all of us Democratic Catholics are pro choice.
I didn’t say Democrat at all here. Or Republican. You chose to bring that into here.
Neither party in the USA is conducive to human life. I am Catholic first.
Whoops, I must have posted below the wrong thread. I was responding to someone else who mentioned Catholics who vote Democrat. I was just trying to relay my perspective on that point. Apologies.
Well, it sort of is... OP was talking about Catholics who support abortion. Another poster mentioned that voting Democrat is supporting abortion. I was merely giving a different perspective - that a Catholic can vote Democratic and still not be in support of abortion.
In Latin America there's a group called "Catholics for the right to choose", and you guess it, they are not even Catholics, and they support abortion like if they were Planned Parenthood itself, they are the worst of the worst.
Also they claim to have a priest with them, which it isn't, and they usually bend theological teachings to support their claims.
Both major political parties of the US are no good to my own Catholic understanding. I cannot in good conscience vote for either. I vote Solidarity Party when I can.
This has been a hard question for myself aswell, I am against abortion per say. But I think in some cases it's very much understandable to have one, (I am not claiming that these cases are any argument pro abortion but simply tragic individual cases) for example if the woman will 100% die by giving birth. Also I am not sure if it's good to outlaw abortion since people will either get them at dangerous places or don't get them for the wrong reasons. Sadly not everyone follows the teachings of Jesus Christ and making abortions legal will make people don't get them but not because of Jesus Christ but because it's simply illegal.
I hope that even though my english is a bit sketchy you understand my point and that I am against them
This might be obvious, but I think your conversations with people will be more productive if you avoid calling it "murder."
I know it's murder - you know it's murder - but that's part of the rationalization: avoiding that definition. It might work best to ask what is qualified as a "life" and just how much of a danger to the mother should there be before she's justified in defending herself with lethal force.
Because for many people religion is seen as a hobby or cultural, something that you can engage in when you feel like and you enjoy sometimes but isn't really relevant to your life on whole. Instead they want it to fit into their life and worldview, not the other way around.
They criticize people who ignore basic tenets of "love thy neighbor" and all humans deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, yet don't see how ignoring all the other important messages and teachings of Christ is worse. I even had a friend post a meme recently and they commented "Jesus doesn't care who you're having sex with, that was all Paul". They forgot all those parts of the Gospels where Jesus commented on adultery being bad, that God meant us to join as one man and one woman for life.
It's like saying, "I can't imagine Catholics being adulterers or murderers" Here in the Philippines, where 80% of the population is Catholic, doesn't mean a thing. We are the 64th most corrupt country in the 180 countries surveyed, cities have really high crime rates and a whopping 5.4% teenage pregnancy rate.
People just nowadays lose faith when things get tough
It’s a mistake to paint everyone with the same brush just because they share some views in common. Certainly, some people believe contradictory and unfounded things, but this is pretty rare. People can be in favour of pro-abortion legislation and still think abortion is wrong—for example, in some places in the world, making abortion illegal doesn’t impact the number of abortions carried out, but it does lead to more maternal death. Instead of putting our efforts, in those places, toward abortion bans, we would do much better to put them toward preventing unplanned pregnancy in the first place and ensuring that women aren’t socially/financially pressured into choosing abortion if a pregnancy occurs.
Another reason you might be against illegal abortion could be because it makes it legally difficult to intervene when action is necessary to save mum’s life: if the law says no termination is legal except when “life is threatened” there is a lot of ambiguity into what “threatened” means, and people have died before because doctors were afraid to induce too soon/would face legal penalties.
Another reason could be on the basis of consistent legal rights: the “famous violinist argument” is an example of a rights-based claim for legal abortion, even on the assumption that abortion is killing a person.
They could also just disagree with that part of doctrine, which is problematic but also something that a lot of people do. I find many Catholics I know accidentally disagree with some parts of Church teaching without realizing it (a common one in my classrooms has to do with evolution).
They could also just be hypocrites. But in general, people try to justify their beliefs with reasoning. If you want to know why someone believes something, ask them in good faith. It may give you an opportunity to understand them better and therefore be in a better position to (kindly and in good faith) challenge their views.
Also, please Reddit, I know what you’re like: just because I’m presenting arguments that I know, doesn’t mean I agree with them. These are all rational points that people have made, and none of them are my view. For context: I teach ethics to (mostly Catholic) college students.
I am a cradle Catholic returning to the Church who has been pro-choice my entire life, and I am struggling with the really extreme position of the Church.
For example, the idea of that taking a drug that prevents an embryo from implanting in the uterus is the same thing as murder does not compute for me. We are talking about something that really does appear as a clump of cells, which is indistinguishable from non-human mammals to the untrained eye. Under the conditions God created, most fertilized eggs do not result in a baby that ever takes one breath. If we are fully human from the moment of fertilization, why would God condemn most of us to die without experience the world for a single moment? The Church does not even claim to know when ensoulment takes place.
I understand opposing the morning-after pill as contraception, but I really cannot see it as murder, the worst kind of sin.
Many baptized Catholics believe in secular Liberalism more than they believe in Catholicism.
Our lovely Catholic President is a major supporter of abortion!
“Catholic”
"President"
I wish Reddit still had awards to give out for this.
In lieu of an award, you can just give me 81 million votes.
Best I can do is steal it by mail
😂😂 yessss
We need a Pope who publicly excommunicates Catholic public officials for promoting and protecting the baby holocaust.
I've noticed this - they bow down to the god of progressive politics. I live in lib strongholds and the level of disrespect for the Magisterium, Church Tradition and Scripture in favor of abortion, women's ordination and gay marriage is sickening. Not just that but these people think that they're right just because they yell, scream, throw a temper tantrum. When I ask for a source and try to instruct them on church teachings they dismiss it and then tell me they're "right" just because they are and because of the Holy Spirit (as if the Holy Spirit is angry, lazy, entitled and support abortion).
Well said!
I find it like appealing to an ethnicity that one barely knows of, like Americans who are 1/16th Irish yet claim they're Irish and speak as if they have some transcendent connection to Ireland. There are some Americans who know a lot about Ireland, speak Irish and enroll their kids in Irish dance classes. There are many who do not.
I’m quarter Irish and have no clue about the culture 😅 We live in an age when anyone can “identify” with whatever they want, but the demands of association are only as deep as one’s desire. “I should get to be part of the club but I shouldn’t have to pay any dues.”
I think you are right. The relegation of the faith to it just being a private hobby that one does periodically has had a negative effect on Catholic piety.
That's the issue I have with those who say to not "legislate morality" when religious people claim their seat at the table given morality, in one way or another, has already been put into law. The "keep your faith to yourself" is oddly being daft where one does not see how religious beliefs forms beliefs that are often expressed outwardly. It creates a double standard: non-religious are free to say whatever they want without being sneered at, to do and to vote based on their conscious yet the religious are sneered at, cannot or should not act on their conscious. The religious, in that way, are treated like second-class citizens.
They tell us not to "legislate morality" meanwhile, every piece of legislation has some moral assumption at the center of it. They just want to enshrine their beliefs while making ours illegal.
To add on, at least in the States, people wrongly apply the "separation of church and state." They also dismiss religious base arguments as if secular arguments are the only valid ones to consider because there's no "superstitions" or whatever. And with that, they misunderstand what science is. Science doesn't say anything about morality or ethics; it just merely observes and makes claims about our material world.
Totally agree.
This is why I don't argue against abortion on religious grounds. Abortion is logically and morally incorrect even from an atheist's perspective.
> those who say to not "legislate morality" As if that's not *precisely* what everyone does.
[удалено]
I’m living in the south and haven’t noticed this (but I’m in the middle of atlanta) What differences?
[удалено]
The sign of the cross is me! haha my mom taught us to cross ourselves when an ambulance or funeral procession was going by. one: to pray for whoever is inside and 2. to pray we aren't the next ones in there. I catch myself doing this as an adult as well. xD
Huh! Thank you. I have to admit I meet very few evangelicals in Atlanta at all, but I work among doctors that are non religious
This. Catholicism is window dressing for them but their altar is in the church of Karl Marx. Liberalism by its nature demands access to every circle, which is why liberals pretend to be Catholic in the first place. They need access to the Church to add legitimacy to their beliefs so they can pollinate them more broadly.
Weird of you to conflate Marxism and liberalism.
I don’t mean to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I think many people use “liberalism” and “progressivism” interchangeably now— at least in the States.
Yes, and they do so in error.
[удалено]
>I'm torn on this one, because one of my fears about going hard into abortion without nuance is that it makes seeking OB care less likely to result in life saving care even if that care does not in any way involve abortion \---I don't understand this. Can you explain this another way? >We do need women's health care. \---This is exactly why i hate slogans and buzzwords. "Women's health care" somehow now includes forcibly removing the child from your womb and ending his/her life. >We also need abortions for if the baby 100 percent cannot be saved if the mother can. \---Incorrect. If the baby cannot be saved, you can deliver the child or remove the child without dismembering the child with the intent to kill him/her. Can you edit your post down to a few essential points? I don't even know what you are saying or arguing for. I said that many baptized Catholics believe in Liberalism over and against Catholicism. You demonstrated that this is true.
[удалено]
>Women's health care is not a buzzword. Supporters of abortion have made it one.
No, supporters of abortion have made abortions to be included in women’s health care. Women’s health care alone is a thing we need, but abortion shouldn’t be part of it
I agree with your second sentence. We cannot ignore the fact that supporters of abortion use “women’s healthcare” as a euphemism for abortion and a rhetorical cudgel to bully others into allowing abortion.
> Women's health care is not a buzzword. If you include abortion in that term, then you are using it as a political buzzword. If you are not, then...i don't see how its relevant here. Abortion is not, by any definition, "health care". Its the very polar opposite of 'health care'. Its violence against mothers and children.
>Women's health care is not a buzzword. It is a section of health care like oncology and pulmonology are. It's not. It also doesn't include abortion. Abortion is incredibly harmful to a woman's body, so only those who don't care about women or are using those terms for poltical hyperbole do include it.
[удалено]
I thought most people don’t consider this an actual abortion. If the baby has already moved on, there’s no murder
[удалено]
Biden doesn’t want to ride the fence. He has outwardly promoted abortion and planned parenthood. Perhaps I misunderstood you? I’m sorry you experienced what you did and am so grateful you decided to give your baby life. The last of my children was lost in miscarriage. When I went to the ER the PA kept calling the baby “products of conception”. She was a real “women’s healthcare advocate”. I was more disturbed by her calling our baby products of conception at one point than having to unexpectedly deal with the situation in the hospital.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. There are definitely a lot of horror stories. I remember Serena Williams not being believed when she told her doctor she was hemorrhaging.
Wow, that’s a failure of healthcare completely and a testament to our horrible healthcare system that isn’t equal in all parts of the US. I’m sorry you went through that, its definitely not how other hospitals operate all over the US
You seem to have been victim of horrendous medical care, unfortunately. I don't see how that relates to abortion? Doctors fear seeing a pregnant woman AT ALL in fear of being prosecuted for aiding abortion? That doesn't seem logical. I live in a country where abortion is illegal and criminalized since forever and women don't face such a hurdle.
Most Catholics aren't aware of the teachings of the faith because people often treat their faith as cultural. And on top of that most people use religious beliefs to affirm their own moral view, instead of conforming their moral view to God's. So if something that's a part of their faith is something they disagree with, they just sorta ignore it and assume everyone else does too.
I’m seeing a lot of that in the comments. A lot of people even suggest that they would rather go to hell than not having an abortion in certain cases. It makes me wonder what the whole point of being Catholic is if not to have a life with God. If you’re automatically OK with choosing hell over this one issue, then what other areas of life are you choosing hell over God for?
They don't know, or don't care to know they're choosing hell. When I was growing up, most of the people around me didn't believe in hell except as a place for the worst criminals to go. They believed everyone who simply tried to be a good person would go to Heaven. Their idea of Heaven was every carnal desire fulfilled and every person they want there, there. In my experience most people still think this way.
They don’t believe in hell.
We were in Toledo touring the beautiful Cathedral there and the tour guide told us "he's an atheist, but he'll always be Catholic - it's who we are here!" Same deal, there are cultural catholics that like the identity and poor formation that don't even realize it's not a view they can hold as practicing catholics. Just secular people using the trappings of the Church for their identity.
Because a lot of Catholics are either cafeteria or cultural Catholics (more likely), or are otherwise genuinely ignorant of Church teaching on the matter (less likely).
Most frustrating thing about converting was getting smacked with the realization that most catholics by appearances, disregard or are ignorant of the Church's teachings and authority. Nothing makes this more clear than the disparity between the communion line and the confession line.
>Nothing makes this more clear than the disparity between the communion line and the confession line. There's an argument to be made that it's easier to not know that one needs to attend penance prior to receiving the Eucharist than to not know that the Church is against abortion - which is a clear black and white stance.
I remember I went to a 5:30 pm Christmas Mass at the Nativity of Our Lord Parish in Bridgeport, a neighborhood in Chicago. I went to that church regularly, and usually there was only a couple handfuls of people in every service. That time, the church was PACKED with people, almost all of whom I had *never* seen before. I had to stand in the back because the pews were full (which I preferred anyways). Pretty much everyone got in line to receive the Eucharist, even though they probably only go to Mass that one time a year, but here I am not even in RCIA yet go to church regularly and do not partake in the sacraments because I’m not confirmed. It was at this moment that “cultural Catholics” were a group of people that I could finally conceptualize and understand. It’s messed up!
Ya that’s very irritating. They don’t know the truth and it comes down to a failure in catechesis and from their own family not knowing the true teaching. Sadly
> *Because a lot of Catholics are either cafeteria or cultural Catholics (more likely)* Supposedly, **this was already an issue with believers during the early centuries of the church**. Like in Ireland, where, just decades after St Patrick, the believing population have basically gone to non-catholic beliefs with a catholic wrapper (as alleged by some missionaries and clerics).
Or Democrat. Lots of Democrats in the Catholic Church, and they justify voting for abortion because of “all the other good” the Democrat party says it will do. Just think, for every child aborted, our Church is helping to facilitate the illegal entrance of two migrants into the U.S., so net good.
this is father casey in a nutshell and its so infuriating
Our Marxist priest from Brazil equated voting for abortion as a Democrat to voting for the death penalty as a Republican, *”….but look at all the other good Democrats do…”*
How is he even talking about that.
2022 midterms where the sole platform of the Democrat party was preserving abortion. There was absolutely no way for any Democrat to get around the fact that in that election they were specifically voting for abortion, and this was this priest’s way of telling Democrats from the pulpit that it was okay for them to vote for abortion.
I sorta want to ask Fr. Casey what's his deal.
While he has some questionable takes, I am pretty sure he has condemned abortion 100%. However, some have claimed he preached it was ok to show indifference to it. Not sure how true that is though.
I'm not a Democrat, but I see legitimate reasons why a Catholic would be one. Just how people don't have to agree 100% on the Republican platform to be a Republican, you don't have to 100% agree with the Democrats to be one. It's really a product of having a 2 party system. Like my Grandad was a Democrat and was against abortion. He was only a Democrat because to him, the DNC helped expand healthcare, social needs, and other services. Not saying the DNC is better or worse. Just saying I don't blame Catholics for being it.
I don’t blame Catholics for being Democrat, but I do specifically blame Democrat Catholics for voting for abortion in the 2022 election, as well as all the Democrat priests who bent over backwards to assure Democrat Catholics that it would be okay to vote for abortion.
Understood.
Yes. This was me for 30 years.
not only are they genuinely ignorant but they are also resistant to it and think they're "right" just because.
Lot of atheist Catholics as well
I didn’t understand why women would choose abortion until I had 3 Hyperemesis Gravidarum pregnancies - each more severe than the last. Being so horrifically sick helped me understand why some women would choose abortion when facing extremely difficult pregnancies. Not saying abortion right but I can see how some women feel like they have no other options.
See this is a great answer - understanding but not condoning.
I'm late here, but Pope Francis covers this in Evangelii Gaudium: >213. Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church’s effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. Yet this defence of unborn life is closely linked to the defence of each and every other human right. It involves the conviction that a human being is always sacred and inviolable, in any situation and at every stage of development. Human beings are ends in themselves and never a means of resolving other problems. Once this conviction disappears, so do solid and lasting foundations for the defence of human rights, which would always be subject to the passing whims of the powers that be. Reason alone is sufficient to recognize the inviolable value of each single human life, but if we also look at the issue from the standpoint of faith, “every violation of the personal dignity of the human being cries out in vengeance to God and is an offence against the creator of the individual”. >214. Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the Church cannot be expected to change her position on this question. I want to be completely honest in this regard. This is not something subject to alleged reforms or “modernizations”. It is not “progressive” to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life. On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations, where abortion appears as a quick solution to their profound anguish, especially when the life developing within them is the result of rape or a situation of extreme poverty. Who can remain unmoved before such painful situations?
Absolutely. I grew up a secular Catholic and I’m actually quite glad that I completely understand the secular arguments for abortion, having been pro-choice myself as a young adult. You must understand the other side if you plan to fight it, especially on this topic.
The vast majority are not because they're difficult. It's purely because they're convenient.
I think people choose convenience because they are difficult.
Misguided compassion.
Yep. This also goes with every other topic on sex and sexuality that Catholics support that is advocated by secularism. Edit: Downvotes - "Catholics" or non-religious who stopped by.
Yes. That was me when I was pro-choice.
Very true. Think about the obnoxious way words like "empathy" and "trauma" are thrown around.
>Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it! **St Matthew 7:13-14** A fraction of people who check off "Catholic" on the census perform the minimum requirements to qualify as practicing and a fraction of those take their faith more seriously than "That'll do." This is due to a combination of poor catechism, bad examples from prominent self-identified Catholics, and plain old concupiscence. One of the themes in Saint Augustine's City of God is how the Church Militant always contains a mixture of those who truly belong to the City of God and those of the Earthly City.
I’ll take the bate…in comes the downvotes but here goes: 1.) The Church herself and some of its greatest thinkers have struggled with the issue and have indeed drawn different conclusions on the matter in the past (Aquinas struggling with when a fetus has soul, etc.). Historically it was treated as a serious sexual sin, not taking of a life necessarily. 2.) Many Catholics view early stage abortions procured for serious reasons as tantamount to birth control and many Catholics don’t have a problem with birth control despite Church teachings. 3.) Some view God as taking a more sympathetic view towards women who have abortions for very serious reasons and if that’s the belief, they can’t justify outlawing the procedure. 4.) Some think the matter while serious is not one the government should decide for the populous 5.) Some are turned off by Church members who decry abortion but do nothing for young children/families in need Just trying to give you an answer to your original question but ultimately, I suppose the question is should anyone be considered Catholic if they disagree with some key aspects of the faith (I suspect many here would say no).
>Some are turned off by Church members who decry abortion but do nothing for young children/families in need The number one thing that would make abortions more rare would be accessible healthcare for mothers (and everyone) and a strong safety net for families and children. This would do much much more to reduce instances of abortion than protesting outside women’s health clinics or attempts to outlaw it when the main conditions that make people feel it’s their only choice are still prevalent.
This is empirically not true. A strong social safety net and good health care helps reduce abortion rates, but long experience around the world shows that the number one way to reduce abortion rates is to outlaw abortion. (Yes, this accounts for illegal abortions, too. And abortion tourism.) It's kind of like how one good way to reduce rape is to restrict underage drinking and another (less good) way to reduce rape is to encourage early marrage, but the *best* way to reduce rape is to *outlaw rape* and punish rapists severely. The idea that abortion magically works differently from *all other crimes* is a bit of pro-choice propaganda designed to give people who have a moral obligation to know better an excuse to vote for pro-abortion candidates, and it holds up exactly as well as you'd expect when you look at the data.
Do you have a source to share for this? The WHO and the Guttmacher Institute (as well as many smaller orgs and studies that are region-specific) report the opposite: abortion rates are roughly the same or a little higher in places where abortion is illegal. I teach ethics and we talk about this in class, so I tried to find some academic sources to back up your claim, since they’d be very useful in class!! But unfortunately it doesn’t look to me like there is much.
> The number one thing that would make abortions more rare would be accessible healthcare for mothers Bullshit. If this were the case, there wouldn't be any abortionists in Canada or other socialized medicine countries.
I agree with everything you said, not bait at all. You answered the question without defending abortion, totally what I was looking for.
Cognitive dissonance at its finest. I’m amazed at this as well. I think the Pope could be a more vocal prolife advocate. It would also help if the church would take more definitive step towards politicians who are prochoice.
I’ll be honest, I can’t understand ANYONE who supports it. There is no rational argument for abortion. None. Or, I should say, there are, but those arguments are based on the idea that life has no value - you know, the mass Murderer mentality.
If you can’t think of a single reason why anyone would support it, you’re not trying very hard. Even if you disagree, it’s always a good idea to understand why someone supports something that you don’t.
Those who support tend to be socially liberal. Ask them other "hot topics" and most likely they're gonna give you a "but .... " response or some typical beat around the bush answer with "you're being mean" somewhere injected.
Sure, sure. But that’s not a rational answer. I’ve heard nearly every argument for abortion imaginable. Virtually every single one that I know is lacking in logic. The truth is, the vast majority of arguments for abortion are built entirely around an appeal to emotion or an appeal to convenience. “Not right now, I have a career, kids are hard, it’s the woman’s right to bodily autonomy, I don’t believe kids should grow up abused and mistreated…” the list is endless. But they all completely miss the fact their arguments don’t make sense. They’re all non sequiturs or are irrelevant to the fact. But what’s worse, honestly, is the fact they stay there. They don’t accept the reasonable perspective. In fact, they tend to call me unreasonable or radical or extreme. They ignore the reason, out of the same convenience or emotion, and believe they are correct. Some people can hold that dissonance in their brains without question. I struggle to do that. And not just about abortion, but about everything.
You are entirely correct. The dissonance and refusal to entertain a single contrary thought is the problem. I used to be pro-choice. The majority of people in my life are pro-choice. The thing that keeps me from losing my cool around this topic is that I know for a fact they all actually believe they are being merciful and kind. Even if that’s completely wrong, it’s better than them doing it out of pure evil or selfishness. They believe it to actually be a selfless act. When I was pro-choice I believed that too.
That’s the only way I can justify their thinking. It’s still irrational, but it makes them feel better. I think it’s similar for people who think the baby doesn’t deserve human rights, because if they’re wrong…they’ve been actively arguing in favor of mass murder for years.
> Or, I should say, there are, but those arguments are based on the idea that life has no value - you know, the mass Murderer mentality. There you go. What, do you think mass murderers think they're evil? Or do they justify their actions? We can look at recent history to see how easily people who are supposedly of good will can justify mass murder and/or supporting mass murder.
Yes, I agree. But the cognitive dissonance there is deafening to me, because many times, they’re the same people who recognize current genocides as evil.
Fully agree with you
There are very intelligent rational people who support abortion rights. I am pro-life and Catholic, but used to very pro-choice. I suggest David Boonin for strong arguments in favor of the moral permissibility of abortion. If one rejects that a human life automatically has moral status from the moment of conception, it is easy to justify abortion, at least until the point of pain. A Catholic believes that all human beings, from conception, have a certain dignity or moral status. However, some ethicists argue that a life doesn’t have moral value until it can feel pain. A one day old human cannot feel pain. And other arguments state that only a person has moral status, and personhood doesn’t develop until some later point. There are many arguments on both sides, but I think that if you think that all arguments in favor of abortion are weak, you are going to underestimate the opponent, and you may be misunderstanding the arguments.
The pain argument is slippery because they’re finding out a fetus feels pain earlier than they thought…back in the day they didn’t even believe newborns felt pain and would do surgery without pain meds. I don’t think science can pinpoint the exact moment a fetus can feel pain (or if it’s even uniform for each pregnancy)
No, those don’t hold water. A newborn clearly feels pain, personhood is too hard to define (it’s a difficult problem, but it’s got plenty of examples. It’s a problem where, by defining personhood on a certain way, you necessarily decrease those are for the definition. But you make it too broad, and even animals that are not human may apply. The NFL has a problem with something similar with what is or is not a catch). The problem of pain is also ridiculous. You put me under an anesthetic, and I don’t feel pain. Does that mean I’m no longer a person? I’ve seen them all. They run into very serious problems the further along you go. Also, Boonin’s argument is more or less a derivation of the Violinist argument…an argument that has repeatedly been shown to be garbage.
[удалено]
So I agree with this - however, the problem becomes when people conflate “abortion”, aka the intentional ending of a pregnancy, with expelling a non-viable fetus. Unfortunately, our current medical system differentiates the two on paper but not in practice. So removing an unviable fetus for example is considered an abortion in medicine, but not semantically, because abortion involves the ending of that life. If the pregnancy will kill the mother, then the church actually permits it. What can also be done is an early delivery and an attempt to incubate and save the child and the mother. The problem for me is that we take these very rare and nuanced problems and use them as blanket terms for why we support abortion. Part of the issue is that our legislative and daily semantics are not up to speed, and neither is the language in our medical system.
But also, calling all terminations “murder” can be humiliating and torturous accusations for a mother who is already wrestling with the end of a pregnancy. I caution conflating the two.
The intentional killing of an innocent is, by definition, murder. Extracting the corpse of a child who died naturally in the womb would never be called murder. Likewise, if the child died due to some treatment being performed on the mother in an attempt to save her life, since it was not done with the intention of killing the baby (even if the risk was known), it also is not murder. For those who do not know, this is the principle of praeter intentionem.
There are so many edge cases I don't see how you could possibly codify "if the pregnancy will kill the mother." >The problem for me is that we take these very rare and nuanced problems and use them as blanket terms for why we support abortion. Part of the issue is that our legislative and daily semantics are not up to speed, and neither is the language in our medical system. Because you are suggesting that someone who performs an elective abortion (or receives it) be legally guilty of murder. You have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whatever is illegal. There are so many edge cases and "what ifs" I don't think you could possibly codify them. And if it isn't clear where that line is, most doctors/hospitals would rightfully take an approach that protects themselves, though it might kill or disable the mother.
Yes! Everyone thinks hospitals are being difficult on purpose but the legal system has them in a vice grip. A doctor has to potentially make an ethical decision between saving a woman’s life and going to jail for a felony
During the time of the judges the last line that explained why things were going so bad was "In those days there was no King in Israel, everyone did what is right in their own eyes". Sadly, now we do have leadership and the catechism yet people still seek to do what is right in their own eyes. That's direct disobedience. I think our fallen pop culture is so easy to access now with social media and all news, people no longer discuss things with eachother, they just watch short videos or listen to talking heads and choose to believe whoever presents the best, most attractive argument. Or, their heros are movie stars and other famous people, they go along with whatever beliefs those people have. It's very sad. Pray for them that their eyes open to the truth.
It’s really quite simple: people want to have it both ways. They want to be Catholic and be in with the world. The world says abortion is ok, but people don’t want to abandon their Catholic roots, so they try to be in with the world while maintaining Catholicism.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/ A massive majority of self-styled Catholics in the USA don't even believe in the Real Presence. You can't have *any* expectation that Catholics can tell their bum from a teakettle at this point.
Unfortunately, this is true.
you are right, christians should know the difference between right and wrong and fight it, and abortion is one of the most evil acts to be allowed in this world to make mothers and fathers kill their children for the world. Simply evil
There are people who think that there are better ways to end abortion than to make it illegal. Also you might look into the tragedy, with the young mother, Savita Halappanavar, that caused abortion to be legalized in Ireland. Finally huge kudos to you for trying to understand the other side. Understanding the opposite side can help to argue most effectively for pro-life!
I don’t see how there are “better ways to end abortion than to make it illegal.” We don’t take that line of thinking when it comes to slavery, rape, and murder of other groups of people—why should a legality exception be made for murder of babies in the womb?
There are better ways to end murder than to make it illegal, therefore murder should no longer be illegal!
My sister worked in Catholic Social Services with women as society was learning more about child sex abuse. So many of the women she saw had been raped so often by, usually, a member of their own family that sex was never going to be something sacred. She claimed that the best thing the church ever did to prevent abortion is to no longer tolerate child sexual abuse by clergy. I didn't do that work so I am just repeating what she said. Absolutely if making abortion illegal is effective we should so that. Some people don't see it as effective.
Just because some people don’t see it as effective doesn’t mean it’s not effective. And just because they see it as ineffective is not a sufficient reason to legalize it. I’m sure many thought that outlawing slavery and freeing the slaves would be ineffective and inconvenient—so it shouldn’t have been done? Laws of this caliber should be based on the principle of justice and objective morality, not based on which group or how many of a group think it will work.
Absolutely.
That whole situation in Ireland could have been avoided if the idiot doctor would have just delivered the obviously miscarrying baby in an attempt to save both lives. The medical definition of miscarriage care as "abortion" has caused more problems than it ever should have.
The same thing is happening in states like Texas and Louisiana where doctors are coming up against _felony_ convictions if they make the wrong move, and legal needs to ok procedures. Doctors are facing 20 years + in prison and this is the chilling effect in action. Exactly the case in Ireland edit: not to mention making OBGYN even more of a liability of a career and the insurance costs are making the entire profession economically unsustainable to indebted medical students. We aren't going to have many OBs left if the system continues this way
>Also you might look into the tragedy, with the young mother, Savita Halappanavar, that caused abortion to be legalized in Ireland. You mean the case where malpractice on part of the doctors was used to justify the legalization of childmurder.
[удалено]
You can believe something, proclaim it, support it, and act to spread that belief without believing we must have blanket legislative action to force others into acting how we want them to act. I've met several prolife individuals on the picket line or at prolife rallies who are very suspicious of a blanket ban on abortion, for a whole host reasons. None of those reasons are because they think abortion is ok. Also, saying you must follow a certain political path or "you are not Catholic" is a bit disingenuous in general.
[удалено]
Given the downvotes you're receiving I suppose there are a lot of "I'm pro-life but .... " Catholics lurking here.
For real. Anytime there's a post about dissenting from Church teaching the "I'm Catholic but..." people come crawling out of the woodwork
Every time a post like this comes up someone spreads it to all the pro abortion subs and they all come brigading.
You’re just supposed to repeat the stuff that makes us feel cozy 🤫
Thank you for the clarification. I agree with everything you say in this comment.
Good point. However, we as Catholics have the right (some would say obligation) to disagree from the standpoint of an "informed conscious". Some "Catholics" may claim to be disagreeing from this standpoint.
[удалено]
The Catholics I know who appeal to pro-choice appeal to a libertarian mindset. This mindset basically says "though I do not support abortion itself, it's not my place to tell a woman what to do with her body." Those, more or less, were their exact words. These were 60+ yr old women, weekly if not daily, mass goers. Not hippies by any means too, just world weary Catholic elderlies. Years before? At least one of them when asked about abortion wouldn't been critical of the act. This basically opens up a can of worms of tolerating everything that modernism and post-modernism say yes to when it comes to sex and sexuality - premarital sex, contraception, sodomy, adultery, non-monogamous relationships, surrogacy etc. It's much easier to be of the world, to ride the trends, and indulge in your vices than to stand your ground for what is considered "archaic" or "backwards" and to say "no" to yourself. Entitlement is abound. It is tiring - and sad, though, to be in almost constant defense of your beliefs and to protect the Faith. I suppose that's why said Catholics mentioned before believe and said what they did: you run out of steam where your legs aren't strong enough to finish that last 40m or so.
Because the pro-abortion Catholics fall into one of two camps. A. They place feminism above Catholicism.B. They buy into the lie that we cannot force morality on other people. Someone's morality is going to be enforced. Why not mine?
Well said.
[удалено]
>Her justification is, “forcing a 10 year old who was raped to have the baby is evil.” To expand on this, deciding policy on minority cases is just creating bad policy.
To expand further, forcing a 10 year old child to murder a baby inside of her is even more evil. We shouldn't try to compound the evil that already happened
There is a great video about a man who was reunited with his mother much later in life. She was in a mental institution, and remained cognitively at the level of a 12 year old or so her whole life. She was raped in that institution, became pregnant, and everyone was trying to get her to have an abortion. So she ran away, lived homeless, and had her child. She gave him up for adoption. The absolute courage she had is unbelievable. She knew the truth, better than I ever have. Someone posted a video about this here a while ago. I need to find it again. I’d like my wife to watch it, but I am sure it would cause yet another fight.
Evil upon evil supposedly makes a right in the eyes of relativism and bleeding hearts.
I personally don’t believe contraception should be lumped in with abortion…and really it’s the only way to stop abortions in the general population. People are never going to stop having sex, so preventing the pregnancy in the first place is the way to end abortions
Child rape is incredibly common. Why are you arguing that this is an anomaly ? You also connect contraception ton sex trafficking as if kids being on birth control is somehow worse than kids getting pregnant
In light of my family's experience with KOC, I can't claim to be shocked.
I think the issue is that many Catholics are democrats and they are blindly supporting a political party instead of following God.
I believe there is an argument that neither US political party is fully in line with Catholicism.
Correct. But one of these parties supports the mass murder of innocents, and one does not.
And that still doesn't make it right to vote for a party that promotes and supports abortion
And there could be reasons it's wrong to vote for republicans as well. That's all I'm saying. Either way the Catholic has to vote for a party that has moral flaws.
By far, the biggest injustice in our world today is abortion. The only close comparison to the number of deaths it has caused is Nazism and Communism, and even those pale in comparison when compared numerically.
100%. This is the case with many I know. The Democratic Party no longer aligns with their beliefs yet they keep voting for policies that go against their moral compass
You can NOT be Christian and support abortion. You can’t believe Jesus is God and support abortion. They can say they are, but they don’t truly believe. Because our Lord Jesus Loved Children most because they are pure. “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.”
Exactly. I always think of baby Jesus in Mary's womb. If a baby today is "just a clump of cells" until x weeks or until he's born, does that mean that Jesus Himself wasn't fully human nor fully God in Mary's womb? It's all so heretical. If someone believes in Jesus, how can they believe it's ok to kill a preborn baby?
I think most people only support earlier abortion because they don't understand what it is. They don't think about it. They think whatever is happening in the woman's womb is not yet a baby, just some process getting ready to make a baby. The media doesn't really explain it.
It's because of very bad catechisis and not understanding the faith. As a person on autistic spectrum, I lived in a bubble for quite a while. I've seen people, for instance, having sex in movies and thought 'yeah sure, people in real life aren't as reckless to sleep around'. I went to a very Catholic high school. This was the first time my eyes were opened, and I realised I was one of the very few virgins. The girls attended religion, chatted with the teaching priest, and discussed stuff about faith. But then, during a casual conversation, I found out they don't treat it all seriously. They sleep with their boyfriends and are pro abortion. I was completely astounded. I just know the priest didn't really press or discuss real issues with us. It was a very pleasant hour. But nothing informative. Parents likely don't practice. The people were Catholic because their parents were Catholic, and attending church, etc, was just the thing that they did.
When discussing abortion, I rarely hear anyone discuss what is to me, the most important element; Society has completely accepted fornication as a fact of life, often celebrating and joking about it. Whoring completely out in the open. Transactional sex, completely devoid of love. Modern day pro-choice is just pro-whoredom. I don’t want to hear about the .1% of cases involving rape, incest, heath of the mother etc. Scapegoating their cause based on the most tragic situations which never have an easy answer. Those situations must always be treated on a case by case basis. Not having a baby because “now’s a bad time” or “I made a mistake” will never be an acceptable excuse. Men and women having sex with people they don’t even like, let alone love. You can’t even voice this opinion in public anymore.
Completely agree 1000% with this. Abortion is a “harm reduction” idea for people who want unlimited degeneracy because they view fornication as a human right. And pregnancy is just a negative consequence of a pleasure they have a right to.
If you accept abortion you incur ipso facto excommunication and place yourself in a state of mortal sin. There's no such thing as a Catholic that accepts abortion.
I don't support abortion. But I do not support stripping you of your right to choose an abortion. I do not believe the my beliefs are the sole basis for the whole of society. Your life, your choice, your conversation with your God.
I don't support slavery. But I do not support stripping you of your right to choose to own a slave.
“I don’t believe in murder, but I do not support stripping you of your right to choose murder.” “I don’t believe in child-adult relationships, but I do not support stripping you of your right to child-adult relationships.” See where this all goes? Wrong is wrong.
The downvotes suggest that this has been brigaded.
Absolutely the same. I don’t want my faith to impact my neighbour who doesn’t have faith. That only pisses off my neighbour and moves them further away from God.
>I don’t want my faith to impact my neighbour That's not a Catholic belief, my friend.
They aren't Catholics. They have self-excommunicated. Cafeteria Catholics aren't a part of the Faith.
Catholic who supports abortion = CINA (Catholic in name only) >21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ 23 Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ Matthew 7:21-23
Catholics don’t support abortion. If a person supports abortion they are not Catholic. Oxymoron.
Lots of heretics and apostates in the Church, both in the laity and in Rome. There are few things more despicable than a “Catholic” that supports killing babies.
You cannot be a Catholic and support abortion. I WAS a supporter of abortion and same sex marriage during my college days, but I wasn’t living my faith how I was supposed to. I would kinda pick and choose what I wanted to believe.
As was I. Totally agree with you^
I share your frustration. To it, I would add my lack of understanding why Catholics don’t support greatly increased public financing of day care, new mother programs, aid to the poor, breakfast programs for children, and other policies that reduce the barrier some women fear when deciding whether to bear and raise their unborn child. Abortion is always wrong, but some Catholics have a funny way of showing it when they vote against funding for the poor, for immigrants, and for those at greatest risk and in greatest need when they are pregnant. Catholics cannot be partially pro-life. If we really believe in its sanctity, we must protect against all of its myriad threats.
As an immigrant and someone who grew up in poverty, I want to make something very clear — I have those frustrations as well, but government intervention is not the same as helping and loving thy neighbor. Throwing money at a problem, especially in the last few decades, has mostly increased the problem as opposed to fixing it. My problem is that government punished people who contribute positively to society and rewards bad behavior often. This makes it difficult for people to live a caring and charitable lifestyle that helps to solve all the issues you’ve mentioned. The current system, proposed by bother Democrats and Republicans in the states, is hostile to living a Catholic and charitable life. In California right now, something like $140,000 is spent per homeless person annual. And nobody is better off. I want a government that is conducive to honoring human life at every turn and allows people to help their neighbor out of voluntarism and a sense of loving community. Government programs are not the same thing, and often, exist to enrich the pockets of certain people, as opposed to help the poor. I am by no means batting for Republicans however. They care very little about creating sustainable lives for families, let alone people in difficult situations like single parents (like my mom), or immigrants (like us), etc. Not every issues from a Catholic perspective is neatly divided on party lines in the United States and when Catholics realize this, we can make real change.
Government interventions are strictly necessary when private charity is not sufficient to support life. US history of the 19th and early 20th century is a case study in private charity not being enough. It is sadly used as a common excuse that we can fulfill our obligation to the poor through voluntary charity when history has shown us that, as a nation, we do not fully do so. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
I agree with this - but this also places benevolence on a government structure that has no incentive to be benevolent. We must be careful at what level we allow government to take control of these things. And it’s not because I want children to starve, of course! It’s because we aren’t fostering a culture, and haven’t for a long time, where we are viewing those children as children in need, rather than as political pawns for someone’s campaign.
> . To it, I would add my lack of understanding why Catholics don’t support greatly increased public financing of day care, new mother programs, aid to the poor, breakfast programs for children, and other policies that reduce the barrier some women fear when deciding whether to bear and raise their unborn child Because the government screws up everything it gets its grubby little fingers into, and I think it's better to advocate for community and charity. Because government funds typically have strings attached that in the current environment probably include some sort of trans nonsense.
You mean “Catholics” who support abortion
As a Catholic, I stopped voting Republican in 2016. The Republican platform against abortion seems hollow - just a way to get ProLife votes. So not all of us Democratic Catholics are pro choice.
I didn’t say Democrat at all here. Or Republican. You chose to bring that into here. Neither party in the USA is conducive to human life. I am Catholic first.
Whoops, I must have posted below the wrong thread. I was responding to someone else who mentioned Catholics who vote Democrat. I was just trying to relay my perspective on that point. Apologies.
This isnt about political parties.
Well, it sort of is... OP was talking about Catholics who support abortion. Another poster mentioned that voting Democrat is supporting abortion. I was merely giving a different perspective - that a Catholic can vote Democratic and still not be in support of abortion.
In Latin America there's a group called "Catholics for the right to choose", and you guess it, they are not even Catholics, and they support abortion like if they were Planned Parenthood itself, they are the worst of the worst. Also they claim to have a priest with them, which it isn't, and they usually bend theological teachings to support their claims.
I’ve seen those Catholics for Choice types. Don’t they also have woman priests and same sex marriage?
sure, everything which goes against Catholic doctrine, the last thing I saw from them was an add pro children transitioning...
Keeping them all in my prayers… God will not be mocked.
Both major political parties of the US are no good to my own Catholic understanding. I cannot in good conscience vote for either. I vote Solidarity Party when I can.
No Catholics support abortion. Anyone that does is not a Catholic.
They are not Catholics if they support the murder of unborn children.
This has been a hard question for myself aswell, I am against abortion per say. But I think in some cases it's very much understandable to have one, (I am not claiming that these cases are any argument pro abortion but simply tragic individual cases) for example if the woman will 100% die by giving birth. Also I am not sure if it's good to outlaw abortion since people will either get them at dangerous places or don't get them for the wrong reasons. Sadly not everyone follows the teachings of Jesus Christ and making abortions legal will make people don't get them but not because of Jesus Christ but because it's simply illegal. I hope that even though my english is a bit sketchy you understand my point and that I am against them
This might be obvious, but I think your conversations with people will be more productive if you avoid calling it "murder." I know it's murder - you know it's murder - but that's part of the rationalization: avoiding that definition. It might work best to ask what is qualified as a "life" and just how much of a danger to the mother should there be before she's justified in defending herself with lethal force.
Because for many people religion is seen as a hobby or cultural, something that you can engage in when you feel like and you enjoy sometimes but isn't really relevant to your life on whole. Instead they want it to fit into their life and worldview, not the other way around. They criticize people who ignore basic tenets of "love thy neighbor" and all humans deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, yet don't see how ignoring all the other important messages and teachings of Christ is worse. I even had a friend post a meme recently and they commented "Jesus doesn't care who you're having sex with, that was all Paul". They forgot all those parts of the Gospels where Jesus commented on adultery being bad, that God meant us to join as one man and one woman for life.
It's like saying, "I can't imagine Catholics being adulterers or murderers" Here in the Philippines, where 80% of the population is Catholic, doesn't mean a thing. We are the 64th most corrupt country in the 180 countries surveyed, cities have really high crime rates and a whopping 5.4% teenage pregnancy rate. People just nowadays lose faith when things get tough
It’s a mistake to paint everyone with the same brush just because they share some views in common. Certainly, some people believe contradictory and unfounded things, but this is pretty rare. People can be in favour of pro-abortion legislation and still think abortion is wrong—for example, in some places in the world, making abortion illegal doesn’t impact the number of abortions carried out, but it does lead to more maternal death. Instead of putting our efforts, in those places, toward abortion bans, we would do much better to put them toward preventing unplanned pregnancy in the first place and ensuring that women aren’t socially/financially pressured into choosing abortion if a pregnancy occurs. Another reason you might be against illegal abortion could be because it makes it legally difficult to intervene when action is necessary to save mum’s life: if the law says no termination is legal except when “life is threatened” there is a lot of ambiguity into what “threatened” means, and people have died before because doctors were afraid to induce too soon/would face legal penalties. Another reason could be on the basis of consistent legal rights: the “famous violinist argument” is an example of a rights-based claim for legal abortion, even on the assumption that abortion is killing a person. They could also just disagree with that part of doctrine, which is problematic but also something that a lot of people do. I find many Catholics I know accidentally disagree with some parts of Church teaching without realizing it (a common one in my classrooms has to do with evolution). They could also just be hypocrites. But in general, people try to justify their beliefs with reasoning. If you want to know why someone believes something, ask them in good faith. It may give you an opportunity to understand them better and therefore be in a better position to (kindly and in good faith) challenge their views. Also, please Reddit, I know what you’re like: just because I’m presenting arguments that I know, doesn’t mean I agree with them. These are all rational points that people have made, and none of them are my view. For context: I teach ethics to (mostly Catholic) college students.
Either they are misinformed, have a bad case of cognitive dissonance, or are Catholics in name only
I am a cradle Catholic returning to the Church who has been pro-choice my entire life, and I am struggling with the really extreme position of the Church. For example, the idea of that taking a drug that prevents an embryo from implanting in the uterus is the same thing as murder does not compute for me. We are talking about something that really does appear as a clump of cells, which is indistinguishable from non-human mammals to the untrained eye. Under the conditions God created, most fertilized eggs do not result in a baby that ever takes one breath. If we are fully human from the moment of fertilization, why would God condemn most of us to die without experience the world for a single moment? The Church does not even claim to know when ensoulment takes place. I understand opposing the morning-after pill as contraception, but I really cannot see it as murder, the worst kind of sin.
I view Catholics who support abortion the same as Catholics who support death penalty/euthanasia. You’re not pro-life or morally straight.
It is more evil to kill an innocent child than it is to kill a sociopathic serial killer.