Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican says after U.S. ruling

[England my lionheart]

Wouldn't it be great if some of these people who were so loudly against abortion would now demand an end to gun violence. If an unborn child is protected in the womb, maybe a living child should be protected in the classroom.

They just want an unwanted unneeded child to have an AR15,what’s not to like?.

 

[Revoltingest]

The beginning of life is biological, denying their rights based on quasi-mystical non-empirical concepts like personhood is another thing entirely.

The beginning of rights to life are legal.
Biology is merely a consideration, & it offers many possible
criteria, eg...
- Egg
- Fertilized egg
- Correctly implanted fertilized egg
- Number of cells
- Appearance of features, eg, limbs
- Brain activity
- Heartbeat
- Viability outside of the womb

Those are just some possibilities off'n the top of me head.
I can think of more.
To select one, & claim that it's The Truth is unreasonable.

I suggested that @Debater Slayer never puts the principle 'if there is disagreement about which humans are deserving of rights, you should keep your belief that the controversial humans do deserve rights out of politics' into practice under any other premises. If the logic doesn't apply universally, then it really isn't a logic, but special pleading. Different premises don't get different logic.

Well, not everyone has my grasp of logic & application of premises.

 

[Mister Emu]

The beginning of rights to life are legal.

Which is, again, something that is different to "the beginning of human life". Which if you'll remember is what I responded to.

To select one, & claim that it's The Truth is unreasonable.

Like I said, denying humans their rights based on some arbitrary criteria is another thing.

 

[Vouthon]

That's fine but let's not get side-tracked. Let's bring the topic back to abortion.

If the Church's position is that Conscience is primary (The Voice of God), and Catholics should follow their conscience even when it disagrees with the instruction of the Church, why are the American Catholics (56% to 60%) who are following their conscience, rather than their Church's instruction, wrong in their pro-choice opinion?

Indeed, the Church does believe in the 'primacy of conscience' (as we've both discussed many times at length before):

“Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992)​

"...No one ought to act against his own conscience and he should follow his conscience rather than the judgement of the church when he is certain...one ought to suffer any evil rather than sin against conscience..."

(Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) in his letter to Guleilma)​

but it also teaches that baptized and confirmed Catholics have an obligation to try and form their conscience according to the revealed moral law (the church's moral doctrine).

I'm not going to get into a debate on the distinction between intuition and reasoning but in my tradition, as you are aware, they are are both regarded as complementary elements of the one self-same moral decision-making process (hence the term, "dual-process" á la Joshua Greene and team).

The reasoning is an important facet of the process in my paradigm but a secondary one, after the 'gut' impulse of intuition:

"an instinctus naturae—a divine natural instinct present in every human being—capable of providing moral inclination, thanks to the natural law implanted by God in men’s souls" (Ojakangas 2013, p. 53)
​

This intuitive moral judgment is a kind of ‘instinctual’ snap response to a given matter and is for that reason rather unsophisticated, unstructured and often unclear in nature.

Conscience is thus, for the Catholic, a capacity to pass moral judgements which rely a priori on an intuitive apprehension of moral 'first principles', followed by a deliberation on how this universal moral truth is to be applied in a given contingent situation, to produce a moral verdict known as conscientia.

When it comes to abortion, the Catholic understanding would be that moral 'intuition' (synderesis) naturally inclines the human mind to 'intuit' two truths: the first being that each and every human life has inherent dignity and the second that every human being should have 'bodily autonomy' or the power alone to make choices about their own bodies without facing coercion or violence from others.

At the 'deliberative' stage, the 'snap' instinctual response does not help us to ascertain whether or not the fetus in the womb is yet a person or at what stage (zygote, first-second-third trimester etc.) it should be recognised as having the inherent dignity of a human being.

There was a long-standing debate in the early and medieval church, (between those espousing an Aristotelian and Pythagorean natural philosophy, respectively), over whether or not an unformed foetus should actually be considered "ensouled".

A number of church fathers, popes and theologians - such as St. Augustine of Hippo, the Apostolic Constitutions of the 4th century, Pope Innocent III, Gregory IX and St. Thomas Aquinas - argued that for a number of weeks post-conception, the foetus wasn't a person and so, while abortion of pre-ensouled foetuses was overwhelmingly viewed as still being a sinful or undesirable practice, it could not be equated with murder until the foetus "quickened" in the womb and became formed; such that excommunications or equivalent ecclesiastical sanctions were for a long time only issued forth against women and male physicians who aborted 'formed' foetuses after their wombs had quickened, rather than early terminations of unformed foetal tissue.

Even today though, the Church does not teach that we can be sure that the embryo is animated at the point of conception. The stance actually goes that probabilism may not be used where human life may be at stake, thus the 1992 Catholic Catechism notes that the embryo must be treated from conception "tamquam, "as if" a human person". That's an important qualifier. It further states that: "the church has not determined officially when human life [i.e. personhood] actually begins" and respect for life at all stages, even potential life, is generally the context of church documents.

If a Catholic has earnestly tried to form their conscience according to the church's moral doctrine on abortion but remains unable to accept the premise for justifiable reasons, then that is their own prerogative to follow what their conscience is telling them and I certainly don't think anyone can 'judge' them, so long as they don't try to portray their own personal stance as being in line with the doctrine of the Church, when it isn't. As Vatican II teaches: “Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said when someone cares but little for truth and goodness, and conscience by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of a practice of sinning”.

I think it is possible for a good Catholic in good faith to act contrary to the teachings of the church. The church may see them as having an 'erring' conscience but one is still morally obliged to follow (from the church's doctrinal stance) a sincerely 'erring' conscience because conscience is always binding:


https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...s+on+Freedom+of+Conscience+-+Blind+Review.pdf

“A correct conscience and a false conscience bind in different ways,” Aquinas says.17 “The correct conscience binds absolutely and for an intrinsic reason; the false binds in a qualified way and for an extrinsic reason.”

A correct conscience binds without caveat and in every circumstance. It cannot be set aside without evil because it is correct in both the primary and secondary premise.

When a person has an erring conscience, insofar as the person thinks his conscience is correct, he is morally obligated to follow it. While a person has an erring conscience, he will not be aware of the error and he is still bound to follow what he thinks is right.

Violating an erring conscience is equivalent to intentionally doing evil, acting contrary to 18 the moral law he thinks he knows.

Aquinas says that the conscience is always binding and people must always follow their conscience in order to do what is right, thus affirming the necessity of freedom of conscience in society.​

 

[Revoltingest]

Which is, again, something that is different to "the beginning of human life". Which if you'll remember is what I responded to.


Like I said, denying humans their rights based on some arbitrary criteria is another thing.

My only objection is using "criteria" as singular.

 

[wellwisher]

Wouldn't it be great if some of these people who were so loudly against abortion would now demand an end to gun violence. If an unborn child is protected in the womb, maybe a living child should be protected in the classroom.

The problem is the vast majority of deaths, due to guns in the USA, are from illegal guns in inner cites. However, the media tends to hype mass shootings, which are only a small fraction of the total. Why is that?

The Democrats uses the lopsided media hype, as a tool to scare people into taking away all gun rights even for honest people. They never address the illegal gun violence in Democrat run cities, due to black market guns. This is where you can make a lot of progress, faster. However, they seem to support a situation where there are no legal guns, but only black market guns.

If they had half a brain and were actually sincere, they would address the main sources of gun deaths, in their own cities, such as Chicago. Gang violence in Chicago alone, with illegal guns, will kill more people this year, then all mass shootings, combined.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

The problem is the vast majority of deaths, due to guns in the USA, are from illegal guns in inner cites. However, the media tends to hype mass shootings, which are only a small fraction of the total. Why is that?

The Democrats uses the lopsided media hype, as a tool to scare people into taking away all gun rights even for honest people. They never address the illegal gun violence in Democrat run cities, due to black market guns. This is where you can make a lot of progress, faster. However, they seem to support a situation where there are no legal guns, but only black market guns.

If they had half a brain and were actually sincere, they would address the main sources of gun deaths, in their own cities, such as Chicago. Gang violence in Chicago alone, with illegal guns, will kill more people this year, then all mass shootings, combined.

Many abortions also take place among poor people in large inner cities. When you take away their right to abortions it just adds more poverty and more kids to grow up and get guns and cause violence. But again, the right to life people never talk about solutions to all this.

 

[Kenny]

Wouldn't it be great if some of these people who were so loudly against abortion would now demand an end to gun violence. If an unborn child is protected in the womb, maybe a living child should be protected in the classroom.

Isn't the opposite true? "If would be great if some of these people who were so loudly against gun usage would not demand an end to abortion."?

Hmmm... the irony of the statement.

 

[England my lionheart]

The problem is the vast majority of deaths, due to guns in the USA, are from illegal guns in inner cites. However, the media tends to hype mass shootings, which are only a small fraction of the total. Why is that?

The Democrats uses the lopsided media hype, as a tool to scare people into taking away all gun rights even for honest people. They never address the illegal gun violence in Democrat run cities, due to black market guns. This is where you can make a lot of progress, faster. However, they seem to support a situation where there are no legal guns, but only black market guns.

If they had half a brain and were actually sincere, they would address the main sources of gun deaths, in their own cities, such as Chicago. Gang violence in Chicago alone, with illegal guns, will kill more people this year, then all mass shootings, combined.

Have you ever felt the need for an AR15?.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So, we're upset that the Catholic position is consistently pro-life and not just anti-abortion?

The Catholic position is not consistently pro-life.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The problem is the vast majority of deaths, due to guns in the USA, are from illegal guns in inner cites.

No, the vast majority of US firearm deaths are suicides using legal handguns.

 

[74x12]

June 25 (Reuters) - Anti-abortion activists should be concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial director said on Saturday.

Easy for the Vatican to say with their personal swiss guard armed to the teeth and high walls. I don't care what they say or think about my rights to self defense. Hypocrites.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Easy for the Vatican to say with their personal swiss guard armed to the teeth and high walls. I don't care what they say or think about my rights to self defense. Hypocrites.

They may be hypocrites, but they're right when they say that arming onesself with deadly weapons - which I agree they do, too - is contrary to a real "pro-life" position.

I'd say that it's also contrary to Christian faith. After all, why would you need to guard against death if death means ascending to Heaven? Being ready to kill to avoid death sure makes it sound like you don't believe in the good news of Christ.

 

[joe1776]

Indeed, the Church does believe in the 'primacy of conscience' (as we've both discussed many times at length before):

“Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1992)​

"...No one ought to act against his own conscience and he should follow his conscience rather than the judgement of the church when he is certain...one ought to suffer any evil rather than sin against conscience..."

(Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) in his letter to Guleilma)​

but it also teaches that baptized and confirmed Catholics have an obligation to try and form their conscience according to the revealed moral law (the church's moral doctrine).

I'm not going to get into a debate on the distinction between intuition and reasoning but in my tradition, as you are aware, they are are both regarded as complementary elements of the one self-same moral decision-making process (hence the term, "dual-process" á la Joshua Greene and team).

The reasoning is an important facet of the process in my paradigm but a secondary one, after the 'gut' impulse of intuition:

"an instinctus naturae—a divine natural instinct present in every human being—capable of providing moral inclination, thanks to the natural law implanted by God in men’s souls" (Ojakangas 2013, p. 53)
​

This intuitive moral judgment is a kind of ‘instinctual’ snap response to a given matter and is for that reason rather unsophisticated, unstructured and often unclear in nature.

Conscience is thus, for the Catholic, a capacity to pass moral judgements which rely a priori on an intuitive apprehension of moral 'first principles', followed by a deliberation on how this universal moral truth is to be applied in a given contingent situation, to produce a moral verdict known as conscientia.

When it comes to abortion, the Catholic understanding would be that moral 'intuition' (synderesis) naturally inclines the human mind to 'intuit' two truths: the first being that each and every human life has inherent dignity and the second that every human being should have 'bodily autonomy' or the power alone to make choices about their own bodies without facing coercion or violence from others.

At the 'deliberative' stage, the 'snap' instinctual response does not help us to ascertain whether or not the fetus in the womb is yet a person or at what stage (zygote, first-second-third trimester etc.) it should be recognised as having the inherent dignity of a human being.

There was a long-standing debate in the early and medieval church, (between those espousing an Aristotelian and Pythagorean natural philosophy, respectively), over whether or not an unformed foetus should actually be considered "ensouled".

A number of church fathers, popes and theologians - such as St. Augustine of Hippo, the Apostolic Constitutions of the 4th century, Pope Innocent III, Gregory IX and St. Thomas Aquinas - argued that for a number of weeks post-conception, the foetus wasn't a person and so, while abortion of pre-ensouled foetuses was overwhelmingly viewed as still being a sinful or undesirable practice, it could not be equated with murder until the foetus "quickened" in the womb and became formed; such that excommunications or equivalent ecclesiastical sanctions were for a long time only issued forth against women and male physicians who aborted 'formed' foetuses after their wombs had quickened, rather than early terminations of unformed foetal tissue.

Even today though, the Church does not teach that we can be sure that the embryo is animated at the point of conception. The stance actually goes that probabilism may not be used where human life may be at stake, thus the 1992 Catholic Catechism notes that the embryo must be treated from conception "tamquam, "as if" a human person". That's an important qualifier. It further states that: "the church has not determined officially when human life [i.e. personhood] actually begins" and respect for life at all stages, even potential life, is generally the context of church documents.

If a Catholic has earnestly tried to form their conscience according to the church's moral doctrine on abortion but remains unable to accept the premise for justifiable reasons, then that is their own prerogative to follow what their conscience is telling them and I certainly don't think anyone can 'judge' them, so long as they don't try to portray their own personal stance as being in line with the doctrine of the Church, when it isn't. As Vatican II teaches: “Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said when someone cares but little for truth and goodness, and conscience by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of a practice of sinning”.

I think it is possible for a good Catholic in good faith to act contrary to the teachings of the church. The church may see them as having an 'erring' conscience but one is still morally obliged to follow (from the church's doctrinal stance) a sincerely 'erring' conscience because conscience is always binding:


https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...s+on+Freedom+of+Conscience+-+Blind+Review.pdf

“A correct conscience and a false conscience bind in different ways,” Aquinas says.17 “The correct conscience binds absolutely and for an intrinsic reason; the false binds in a qualified way and for an extrinsic reason.”

A correct conscience binds without caveat and in every circumstance. It cannot be set aside without evil because it is correct in both the primary and secondary premise.

When a person has an erring conscience, insofar as the person thinks his conscience is correct, he is morally obligated to follow it. While a person has an erring conscience, he will not be aware of the error and he is still bound to follow what he thinks is right.

Violating an erring conscience is equivalent to intentionally doing evil, acting contrary to 18 the moral law he thinks he knows.

Aquinas says that the conscience is always binding and people must always follow their conscience in order to do what is right, thus affirming the necessity of freedom of conscience in society.​

Thanks for your reply.

I now understand how you and Pope Francis might agree that American Catholics who are pro-choice should follow their errant conscience. CAn I assume that some bishops are unaware that Catholics should follow even an errant conscience? Our Catholic politicians, Pelosi and Biden, have been denied communion by their bishops because of their stance on abortion.

Humans are born with a hard-wired morality: a sense of good and evil is bred in the bone/ i know this claim might sound outlandish, but it's supported now by research in several laboratories --- Paul Bloom, Yale psychologist

I think we are born with the basic structure of Conscience. In both Canadian and American studies, Babies and toddlers show the ability to discern right from wrong. They also show the urge to punish wrongdoing and reward good behavior which is important.

When we take the facts in a typical abortion, it doesn't intuitively FEEL wrong. Furthermore, there is no urge to punish the woman who aborts. The absence of this urge verifies that the act is not wrongful.

When the Church hierarchy and others begin by asking when a fetus becomes a person, they have already gone wrong by trying to reason their way to a moral judgment. They are ignoring their intuitive moral sense, conscience, the "Voice of God" according to Catholic doctrine..

 

[Clara Tea]

Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican says after U.S. ruling | Reuters

June 25 (Reuters) - Anti-abortion activists should be concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial director said on Saturday.

In a media editorial on the United States Supreme Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues.

"Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase," he wrote.

He cited statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing a rise in maternity mortality rates overall and that the rate was nearly three times higher for black women.

"Being for life, always, means asking how to help women welcome new life," he wrote, citing an unsourced statistic that 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or are low-wage earners.

He also cited statistics from the Harvard Review of Psychiatry showing that the United States has much lower rates of paid parental leave compared with other rich nations.

"Being for life, always, also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S." he wrote.​

Wars okay, abortion not? Gun rights mandatory for candidates? Did Jesus look like Clint Eastwood (Good, Bad, Ugly)?

The Vatican (Pope) opposes:

1. War (especially the war in Iraq, which God, Himself, specifically told us not to do, in Revelation). The pope wrote a See to the US admonishing the war. Isn't it odd that you failed to list war as one way that life is lost? Wars seem to be the dominant theme today, as if war is normal and acceptible.

2. Guns (which is why the National Rifle Association put the pope on its enemy list, along with President Bill Clinton. I wonder if there are any certifiable maniac murderers among the regular folks of the National Rifle Association, who might want to assassinate these enemies?) White supremist tracts advocated the assassination of President Jimmy Carter. My late dad (a man of his word) said that if he had a clear shot, he'd assassinate Carter, himself. He was a precision marksman and member of the NRA and felt that assassinating a democratically elected leader was necessary for a free nation.

Many gun right advocates believe that the purpose of Guns is not to fend off foreign invaders (Security of a free state, as it says in the Constitution), but to have an armed rebellion against their own country should a dictator take office. One sign of dictatorship, in their opinion, is taking guns away.

The poor have to make tough choices: eat or heat? However, some women have lots of kids to get government assistance.

Ironic: Bleeding Heart Liberals want abortions. Religious Right (for Jesus) want wars. Remember God said "thou shalt not kill."

W. Bush went out of his way to make more wars. I just bought Ambassador Joseph Wilson's book "the Politics of Truth" about W. Bush and Cheney asking him to tell lies about Niger selling Iraq Uranium (to motivate a war and theft of assets from Niger, and to make a phony justification of the war in Iraq). They they ratted out his wife's CIA identity (her name was Valery Plame).

When we mix politics with religion, things don't turn out well.

The Republicans had a series of scandals: Watergate, Iran Contra, etc. But the Democrats "ain't" saints, either. They cheated Berny Sanders out of the presidency (seems like treason to alter the presidency). Hillary got debate questions ahead of time (to look like a genius). Someone hacked Podesta's emails (he was Hillary's campaign manager).

Ironic that some of the loudest voices for war come from preachers. Reverend John Hagee advocated praying to Jesus to win the wars (kill more effectively).

Apparently, high education in theology doesn't fix characters. One could be an expert on the bible, and still violate God's laws. Therefore, we must not follow preachers to hell. We must read the bible for ourselves, and interpret it our own way, or we may never end up in heaven. The road to heaven is a long, narrow, and arduous journey.

 

[Clara Tea]

They may be hypocrites, but they're right when they say that arming onesself with deadly weapons - which I agree they do, too - is contrary to a real "pro-life" position.

I'd say that it's also contrary to Christian faith. After all, why would you need to guard against death if death means ascending to Heaven? Being ready to kill to avoid death sure makes it sound like you don't believe in the good news of Christ.

I noticed it too.

On the other hand, you'd think that Bleeding Heart Liberals would oppose abortion (especially late term).

Their views are not consistent.

 

[74x12]

They may be hypocrites, but they're right when they say that arming onesself with deadly weapons - which I agree they do, too - is contrary to a real "pro-life" position.

I disagree. I think it's quite pro life to desire to prevent murder or violence of any kind directed towards the lives of yourself or especially otherwise defenseless people around you who are doing no wrong.

For that very reason we honor people who put their lives on the line to defend other people. Such as soldiers and law enforcement. This is not wrong. This is what normal people naturally do.

In nature mothers and in some species even fathers will defend their young or their group. So self defense is as natural and normal as it gets. It's not bad in any way. Yet we see it under attack with gun control laws and even criminalizing the very act of self defense in many countries.This is extremely wrong.

I'd say that it's also contrary to Christian faith. After all, why would you need to guard against death if death means ascending to Heaven? Being ready to kill to avoid death sure makes it sound like you don't believe in the good news of Christ.

Because we're not suicidal or idiots. God made us so why would he want to see us destroyed?

It's good to go to heaven but scripture indicates that to God every death of his saints is precious. So he doesn't like to see anyone die; not even the wicked.

 

[Truth in love]

Pro-life is not just opposing abortion, Vatican says after U.S. ruling | Reuters

June 25 (Reuters) - Anti-abortion activists should be concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial director said on Saturday.

In a media editorial on the United States Supreme Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues.

"Being for life, always, for example, means being concerned if the mortality rates of women due to motherhood increase," he wrote.

He cited statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing a rise in maternity mortality rates overall and that the rate was nearly three times higher for black women.

"Being for life, always, means asking how to help women welcome new life," he wrote, citing an unsourced statistic that 75% of women who have abortions live in poverty or are low-wage earners.

He also cited statistics from the Harvard Review of Psychiatry showing that the United States has much lower rates of paid parental leave compared with other rich nations.

"Being for life, always, also means defending it against the threat of firearms, which unfortunately have become a leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S." he wrote.​

Hr is correct on the core concerns. I disagree with the implied blame the gun for the problem of murder bit.

given that bad medical decisions make murder rates look tiny I’m not sure why that gets focus, but anyhow there is much that could be done to lower death and improve health in the nation. I’m all for that.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

The problem is the vast majority of deaths, due to guns in the USA, are from illegal guns in inner cites. However, the media tends to hype mass shootings, which are only a small fraction of the total. Why is that?

The Democrats uses the lopsided media hype, as a tool to scare people into taking away all gun rights even for honest people. They never address the illegal gun violence in Democrat run cities, due to black market guns. This is where you can make a lot of progress, faster. However, they seem to support a situation where there are no legal guns, but only black market guns.

If they had half a brain and were actually sincere, they would address the main sources of gun deaths, in their own cities, such as Chicago. Gang violence in Chicago alone, with illegal guns, will kill more people this year, then all mass shootings, combined.

Maybe.
In 2021, there were 797 gun-related homicides in Chicago, I believe.
703 deaths in 2021 related to mass shootings in the US.

Can't tell how many of the gun-related homicides in Chicago are gang-related, or feature illegal guns, hence my 'maybe'.

There is a small reduction in the rate of gun-related homicides this year. Not enough to be statistically meaningful, imho. There was also a substantial increase in the seizure of illegal firearms due to the establishment of a Gun Investigations Team.

I'm a little confused, though. Are you suggesting gun law reform can't/shouldn't be done concurrently with increasing police focus on gang violence and illegal weapons?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Easy for the Vatican to say with their personal swiss guard armed to the teeth and high walls. I don't care what they say or think about my rights to self defense. Hypocrites.

The Swiss Guard are armed with halberds