Friday, September 19, 2008
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"Obviously, we have other important issues facing us this fall: the economy, the war in Iraq, immigration justice. But we can’t build a healthy society while ignoring the routine and very profitable legalized homicide that goes on every day against America’s unborn children. The right to life is foundational. Every other right depends on it. Efforts to reduce abortions, or to create alternatives to abortion, or to foster an environment where more women will choose to keep their unborn child, can have great merit—but not if they serve to cover over or distract from the brutality and fundamental injustice of abortion itself. We should remember that one of the crucial things that set early Christians apart from the pagan culture around them was their rejection of abortion and infanticide. Yet for thirty-five years I’ve watched prominent “pro-choice” Catholics justify themselves with the kind of moral and verbal gymnastics that should qualify as an Olympic event. All they’ve really done is capitulate to Roe v. Wade."
-- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput
Vote for Real Hope and Change
First Things August 19, 2008.
Further Commentary
Catholic Bloggers Against Biden
23 comments:
Knights of Columbus are skating on thin ice here ice bringing Lincoln's anti-slavery comments into the argument, considering the Church's position at the time to slavery. As an Irishman I take no pride in Arch-Bishop Hughes's pro-slavery stance. Of course St. Patrick was one of the first to ever condemn slavery, and him a Brit! Some arguments made centuries ago were actually very valid. Biden well within his rights to quote scholars of antiquity. There's many spouting stuff today who have not even half the brain of Aquinas - the attached letter being Exhibit A.
Brendan,
There is a huge difference between what individual bishops did & what the Catholic Church actually taught (unfortunately, not much has changed since then either). The Church officially condemned slavery long before the time of Lincoln. I also suspect that you have no clue as to who Carl Anderson is either.
Basically Carl Anderson reitterated the statements by the various Bishops, are you saying they were wrong also?
Biden well within his rights to quote scholars of antiquity.
Sure, just like everyone has a right to display their ignorance. Once again: The intrinsic evilness of abortion does not stand or fall on theories of ensoulment. Biden could clear lots of air by saying that abortion is intrinsicly evil. But I don't think we will ever hear that because nothing he says or does indicates that he believes that.
Brendan,
First off, Biden made it clear he didn't know the first bloody thing about Aquinas -- who did not in fact in any sense agree with Biden's position. Aquinas considered abortion a grave moral evil, and the ensoulment debate which Biden has not the wit to understand had naught to do with the matter.
Secondly, the Knights are simply saying the same thing that dozens of bishops have said in regards to Biden's comments, I'd say that you're "skating on thin ice here" in criticizing them -- unless your "Irish Catholic" credentials are on the level of Jews who eat pork fried rice for passover.
Finally, as the descendant of Irish Catholic immigrants who fought and bled in the Civil War to wipe slavery off the face of this continent, all I can say in regards to your contention about Lincoln is: speak for yourself if you want to defend slavery. But don't speak as an "Irish Catholic".
Father Corapi's new newsletter and I quote:
"In the past few months leading up to what may prove to be the most crucial presidential election in this country's history, it is outright frightening how many Catholics think they can vote for a pro-abortion candidate. As many of our good bishops have pointed out, under the current circumstances this is not possible. Abortion is the overridingly most important moral issue of our times, all others being important, but rendered irrelevant if the preeminent right—the right to life—is destroyed."
He spells it out clearly, either you are in allegiance with the Bishop of Rome or you are in negation and apostacy!!!
Barry and Biden have NEVER met an abortion they would not sanction....as opposed to the most pro life ticket in the history of US modern politics!!!
As the father of an autistic son and a member of the Knights of Columbus, I have always been proud of how the Knights have emphasized the rights of the disabled and the defense of the unborn. I have never been as proud of being a Knight as I was after reading the letter.
Joe Biden, the true lipstick on a pig Veep candidate.
When will you religious believers realize that this is a nation that separates church and state? It is not up to you to decide what I can do with my body. The laws of this land protect my right to choose, not based on doctrine of any kind, but based on the intent of our Founding Fathers. And if you think that they did not intend the separation of church and state, you are sorely misread. Abortion is an awful choice to have to make, but you need not make it. Make your choice in the privacy of your home and I will make mine. To be so self-righteous to think that everyone must believe and act as you believe is certainly not what Jesus would have intended either.
You all are being brainwashed by the dirty republicans and catholic church. WAKE UP. It's hard to watch conservatives be so easily manipulated :(
I hope you will allow my post to stay up even though I am a Catholic who intends to vote for Joe Biden (and Barack Obama).
I am of the opinion that the best way to gauge the success of the Pro-Life movement is to take note of what % of pregnancies are terminated by abortion and see if they're rising or dropping.
I've provided a table that I hope you will examine. (Sadly, it's currently impossible to get reliable abortion data on any year after 2003)
YEAR Abortion%
1983 30.20713
1984 30.06100
1985 29.70093
1986 29.52542
1987 29.04247
1988 28.92201
1989 27.94223
1990 27.90012
1991 27.46516
1992 27.33286
1993 27.27273
1994 26.57875
1995 25.91185
1996 25.98440
1997 25.49434
1998 25.24747
1999 24.93364
2000 24.44155
2001 24.45112
2002 24.32738
2003 23.93528
The abortion rate has been steadily declining. It declined under Republican administrations. It declined under Democratic administrations. It declined in good economic times. It declined in bad economic times. Why has it declined? It has declined because the Pro-Life message has been getting through to women. It's because people (especially Catholics) have been speaking from their hearts and because people (especially Catholics) have been praying to end abortion.
I expect that when we get data for the years after 2003 we will see that the rate has been steadily declining under Bush. If McCain becomes president it will decline under McCain. If Obama becomes president it will decline under Obama.
The work that Pro-Life people do is having a tremendous effect on the abortion rate. Women are choosing to keep their babies. No matter what happens to Roe v. Wade women will not submit to being forced to keep their babies. It's not about the Supreme Court. It's about the power of free will, and our respect for free will here in the USA.
I don't think it will ever matter who's president. Women are getting the message and the message is, "your baby has as much right to live as you do."
I'll be deciding who I vote for based on other issues.
"It is not up to you to decide what I can do with my body."
An unborn child isn't your body, but a separate human.
"The laws of this land protect my right to choose, not based on doctrine of any kind, but based on the intent of our Founding Fathers."
The Constitution says absolutely nothing about abortion. The right to kill unborn children was created as a "raw exercise in judicial power", as Justice White, a Kennedy appointee noted in dissent, in the case of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in 1973. The Founding Fathers were the ones who believed that we are endowed by God with a right to life.
"And if you think that they did not intend the separation of church and state, you are sorely misread."
You are gravely mistaken. The Founding Fathers did not want a Federal Church established. Several states had established churches into the 1830's. The first Congresses had no problem appointing military chaplains, paying for missionaries to Indians, calling on the nation to fast and pray, opening their sessions with prayers, etc. They would have found the idea that religious belief should play no role in formulating laws as bizarre in the extreme.
"Make your choice in the privacy of your home and I will make mine."
The choice to kill a child is not a choice but a crime. It is a crime that is legal currently in our nation, but it is a crime nonetheless, just as slavery was a crime even when it was protected by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision in 1857.
"To be so self-righteous to think that everyone must believe and act as you believe is certainly not what Jesus would have intended either."
Jesus said that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The relevance of this simple teaching for the abortion debate is self-evident.
"No matter what happens to Roe v. Wade women will not submit to being forced to keep their babies. It's not about the Supreme Court. It's about the power of free will, and our respect for free will here in the USA."
Then why not do away with laws against infanticide and murder, since the best way to stop such crimes is by simply changing the hearts of the people who commit such crimes? Because the law exists to prevent people from harming the innocent. 45,000,000 innocents have been put to death by abortion in this country since Roe. The man you support has vowed that he will sign the Freedom of Choice Act which would make Roe a part of Federal statutory law. He opposes the partial birth abortion ban and has raised campaign funds by trumpeting his opposition to the ban. He has made campaign commercials in this election castigating McCain for McCain's opposition to abortion. When you vote for Obama, you vote for abortion. It is as simple as that.
Mr. McClarey,
I will not respond to the issues of personal choice that are related to your faith as those are deeply personal and up to you to choose. But what I will concretely refute is your ignorance of the intentions of separation of church and state:
http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html
It is this and nothing else that matters in this discussion. The wall exists and as a citizen of the USA we should fight to uphold it. The personal beliefs of a potential elected official are yours to use, if you choose, when making your decision to vote for them. However, to be for or against someone based on their stance on a moral religious issue is useless. Roe v. Wade is legal and your beliefs, no matter how strong they are nor how well intentioned they are, have no place in the governmental arena. To use slavery as the comparison point is grossly exaggerating the points that I made.
As for your point that an embryo/fetus/unborn child is not part of my body but another human, I cannot disagree more. If it needs my body to survive, then it is a part of my body.
And when you vote for Obama, you vote for choice, not for abortion. No one is FOR abortion, they are for the right to choose. (Not to mention you vote for someone who is far more prepared to engage with the world and who isn't proclaiming himself to "not be an expert on the economy")
You all are being brainwashed by the dirty republicans and catholic church. WAKE UP. It's hard to watch conservatives be so easily manipulated :(
Do you have any substance to add? Or is this just another toss-grenade-and-run.
"Roe v. Wade is legal and your beliefs, no matter how strong they are nor how well intentioned they are, have no place in the governmental arena. To use slavery as the comparison point is grossly exaggerating the points that I made."
Absolutely incorrect. Did you see the movie Amazing Grace? Wilberforce in England, and most abolitionists in the US, were motivated by their Christian faith in opposing slavery. The idea that government policy cannot be influenced by religious faith is simply bizarre, and completely contrary to the history of this nation. If you do not believe me. perhaps you will believe Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address:
"Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
Your attempt to divorce God from governmental policy is completely counter to the history of this country.
"As for your point that an embryo/fetus/unborn child is not part of my body but another human, I cannot disagree more."
An infant also needs you to survive. Are you in favor of infanticide? Of course the unborn child is a separate human being, that is basic biology. You simply believe the unborn should have no rights, just as slaveholders prior to the civil war believed that the people they held in bondage were chattel with no rights.
"No one is FOR abortion, they are for the right to choose."
Please, give that tired slogan of the pro-abort movement a burial. If you believed that people had a right to own other people you were pro-slavery. If you believe that people have a right to kill their kids you are pro-infanticide. Pro-choice is a euphemism to disguise the very ugly right to kill that you support.
Again with the unfair & grossly exaggerative comparison to slavery. I was not disputing what happened when slavery was abolished, I was talking about now.
To say that I am in favor of infanticide is quite outrageous. You miss the point (as do many of the ultra religious of all sects) that I am trying to make. An infant needs someone to survive, but not necessarily me. A fetus needs me and only me to survive. Whereas your line of distinction of life is at conception, mine is at viability outside of the womb, a view that I am entitled to and a view that certainly does not make me in favor of killing little children. I made no attempt to attack nor belittle your beliefs or ideas and yet you felt the need to belittle and twist mine.
I also did not say that religion would not influence politics, it's impossible to separate who you are from what you believe, but what is wrong is the explicit use of religion as determinant in policy. What has happened in the past is just that, the past. If you were to apply your logic that religious belief was the reason that public opinion changed for the better, do you then think that the Inquisition was a stellar point in the history of the Catholic Church, one that should be revived post-haste?
Donald McClarey,
Thanks for responding to my post! You ask a good question, "Then why not do away with laws against infanticide and murder, since the best way to stop such crimes is by simply changing the hearts of the people who commit such crimes?"
Two questions that lawmakers have to ask that bishops don't have to ask are: 1) Will the law I'm enacting be effective?, 2) Will the law I'm enacting be appropriate?
As to the 'effective' question, I'm quite sure that the laws against infantacide and murder are effective in lowering the rate of infantacide and murder. I think laws against abortion will be about as effective as laws against drinking were in the 20's. If anything, drinking got worse.
As to the 'appropriate' question, the law is based on the premise "You may do no harm to another person, if you do harm you will be punished". It would not be appropriate to base a law on the premise, "You must do good to another person, if you refuse you will be punished." There are certain relationships (which people enter into voluntarily -- like teaching, or doctoring) where it is appropriate to punish those who neglect their charges; but those relationships can be dissolved if one party chooses to dissolve it.
When a babies die as a result of an abortion, they don't die because someone hurt them, they die because someone stopped nurturing them.
Abortion is a sin because the law of God requires us to help the ones God puts in our lives to help -- it's an appropriate sin, it's not an appropriate crime.
theworldasiseeit,
You make an interesting comment, "Whereas your line of distinction of life is at conception, mine is at viability outside of the womb," I disagree with you about viability. If a woman carrying a previable fetus has the right to terminate her pregnancy, a woman carrying a viable fetus should have the same right. Doctors should take care, if a woman wants to terminate, to make every effort to remove the fetus intact and then, if needed, provide medical support. The only thing I would argue for (and I don't know why this never came up in the 'Infant Born Alive' debate) is that a woman who elects to terminate a pregnancy prematurely should be barred from having custody of the baby she aborts. The state needs to provide a guardian immediately and that guardian should be responsible for the new baby's health and well being (and for giving him/her a proper burial if he/she should not survive).
Other than that, I like a lot of your arguments (some are a little fishy, but mostly they're good)
I also did not say that religion would not influence politics, it's impossible to separate who you are from what you believe, but what is wrong is the explicit use of religion as determinant in policy.
But isn't that the problem with Roe v. Wade? -- you are attempting to assert a completely arbitrary and metaphysical value to the life of a human being: "Insofar as they are utterly dependent on me for life, I retain the so-called 'right' to kill them."
You don't necessarily have to be religious to believe that human beings, regardless of where they are in their development from conception onwards, shouldn't be murdered. We should strive for a country in which all its members are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- particularly the least among us.
As Robert P. George observed:
It is pro-choice advocates who want to distinguish between when a human being comes into existence “in the biological sense” and when a human being comes into existence “in the moral sense.” It is they who want to distinguish a class of human beings “with rights” from pre-(or post-) conscious human beings who “don’t have rights.” And the reason for this, I submit, is that, short of defending abortion as “justifiable homicide,” the pro-choice position collapses if the issue is to be settled purely on the basis of scientific inquiry into the question of when a new member of homo sapiens comes into existence as a self-integrating organism whose unity, distinctiveness, and identity remain intact as it develops without substantial change from the point of its beginning through the various stages of its development and into adulthood.
Normally, a Catholic would not recommend an Atheist site. But Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League
Homepage. See, if opposition to abortion were merely a religious artifact, such a group would not exist. Abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent human. If one wants to be agnostic on the humanity, its still wrong in the same way that a hunter firing into a bush without knowing what he is shooting at is wrong.
Abortion is wrong by its very nature. Stop supporting it either formally or materially.
Carl Anderson will some day run for office. And he he does not vote for ALL KofC members
It saddens me to see the Knights weigh in on this issue in such a public manner. My grandfather was a Knight for 70+ years and even had a chapter named after him. I always think of Knights in a positive way, drinking beer and playing bingo. This political kick is just unseemly.
My aunt is a nun, and I am sure the Motherhouse of her order will be voting with a solid Demo majority. It is not a sin to vote Democratic. If it is so, then I guess my aunt is going to hell, along with me and a majority of the Catholics in the US. Get over it, folks, and quit ruining the name of the Church for your political ends. Jesus wasn't overly concerned with the temporal government; Catholics should vote however they want with no interference from the church or its followers.
Catholics should vote however they want with no interference from the church or its followers.
Catholics should vote in accordance with the Truth. Abortion is intrinsicly evil. Meaning it is evil regardless of someone's opinion of it. Voting for someone who formally supports an intrinsic evil is material support for evil. No one here has said anyone is going to Hell if they vote for Obama. But it is still wrong.
As for your point that an embryo/fetus/unborn child is not part of my body but another human, I cannot disagree more. If it needs my body to survive, then it is a part of my body.
This contention is absurd.
A woman is pregnant with a male child. After the child develops its genital organs, is this woman an hermaphrodite?
The answer must be yes if the unborn child is considered a part of the woman's body. The woman obviously has female genitals. The unborn child has male genitals. But if A include B and B includes C, then A includes C. So if the unborn child is a part of the woman's body, then the woman also has male genitals. And so the woman has both male and female genitals. Thus she is a hermaphrodite.
This conclusion is necessarily true. But this conclusion is absurd. Thus the premise that forces us to come to this absurd conclusion must be false. And that premise is the premise that the unborn child is a part of the woman's body. QED.
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