I AM POSTING THIS MATERIAL FOR THE REFLECTION OF OTHERS. I FOUND THE VIDEO HAUNTING.
There are critics who insist that we should never compare the Jewish Holocaust of six million Jews with the 930 million reported abortions worldwide in the modern era. There have been some 50 million abortions in the United States alone.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/wrjp338sd.html
Above is a scene from the film, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, where the verdict is given against the judges who went along with the Nazi regime. Note how the words might apply to a contemporary challenge against human dignity and the sanctity of human life.
JOSEPH ROBINETTE BIDEN
- “I still am opposed to public funding for abortion,” he said on Meet the Press in 2007. “It goes to the question of whether or not you’re going to impose a view to support something that is not a guaranteed right but an affirmative action to promote.”
- Biden was asked, do you believe that life begins at conception? He answered: ”I am prepared to accept my Church’s view. I think it’s a tough one. I have to accept that on faith. That’s why the late-term abortion ban, where there’s clearly viability.”
- Biden voted for the ban on late term abortions.
- During an April 2007 presidential debate, Senator Biden said, “I strongly support Roe v. Wade.” His actions in the Senate demonstrate his convictions. He worked intensely to try to defeat the nominations of both U.S Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.–PLANNED PARENTHOOD
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
- Obama was asked, do you personally believe that life begins at conception? He responded: “This is something that I have not come to a firm resolution on. I think it’s very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don’t presume to know the answer to that question. What I know is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we’re having these debates.”
- Obama opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion (infanticide).
- In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion.
- “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” Obama said in his July speech to abortion advocates worried about the increase of pro-life legislation at the state level. The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is legislation Obama has co-sponsored along with 18 other senators that would annihilate every single state law limiting or regulating abortion, including the federal ban on partial birth abortion.
- “Thanks to all of you at Planned Parenthood for all the work that you are doing for women all across the country… I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught Constitutional Law. Not simply as a case about privacy but as part of the broader struggle for women’s equality.”
JOHN SIDNEY McCAIN
“I am pro-life and an advocate for the Rights of Man everywhere in the world, because to be denied liberty is an offense to nature and nature’s Creator. I will never waver in that conviction.”- The misperception is interesting, considering that McCain has not attempted to keep his pro-life views a secret. Here’s how he put it on an appearance last year on NBC’s Meet the Press: “I have stated time after time after time that Roe v Wade was a bad decision, that I support a woman — the rights of the unborn — that I have fought for human rights and human dignity throughout my entire political career,” McCain said. “To me, it’s an issue of human rights and human dignity.”
- McCain said he thought Roe v. Wade should be overturned and said he would support exceptions to a ban on abortion in cases of rape, incest, and when the mother’s life is in danger.
SARAH LOUISE HEATH PALIN
Politicians of all stripes may say they’re pro-life, but it’s quite another thing to put those beliefs into practice with concrete actions. Two pro-life groups say Sarah Palin did that when she rejected an abortion on her physically disabled unborn child and they say it reminds them of the decision John McCain’s family made to adopt a girl from Mother Teresa’s orphanage.- In November 2006, then gubernatorial candidate Sarah Palin declared that she would not support an abortion for her own daughter even if she had been raped.
- Granting exceptions only if the mother’s life was in danger, Palin said that when it came to her daughter, “I would choose life.”
- Palin makes no secret of her abortion views. A member of the group Feminists for Life, she told the Alaska Right to Life Board in 2002 that she “adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion.”
- “I believe that no matter what mistakes we make as a society,” she wrote, “we cannot condone ending an innocent’s life.”
Very moving. Is that speech a direct quote from the trial itself?
It is important for all Americans to realize that the key issue of your election is the right to life. everything else, the war, the economy, foriegn policy is secondary to this. If there are no babies there is no America.
Wake up do not become another Canada
Vote for life
Not for
Gay unions
Abortions
I notice you’ve tactfully left out McCain’s more, ah, ~ambiguous~ pronouncements on abortion:
[snipped]
“Republican presidential candidate John McCain, when asked Wednesday what he would do if his 15-year-old daughter Meghan became pregnant and wanted an abortion, said it would be a “family decision.”
“The final decision would be made by Meghan with our advice and counsel,” McCain said, speaking of himself and his wife Cindy.”
(…)
“McCain describes himself as a “pro-life” candidate and says he favors a ban on abortion except in the case of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother. But he has also angered anti-abortion advocates last year by saying that reversing Roe v. Wade now would force thousands of young women to have illegal and dangerous operations.”
(…)
“But the anti-abortion group American Life League condemned both McCain’s initial comments and his clarification.
“That is not a pro-life position,” said American Life League spokesman Steve Sanborn. “Because that means that the final decision could be the murder of a pre-born human child who has a right to life.”
In August, McCain said he favored repealing the decision but the ban shouldn’t happen until “we stop this dangerous operation” through counseling, adoption and other alternatives.”
You see, it’s different when it’s personal… [eye-roll]
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/26/mccain.abortion/
And no: abortion should not be compared to the Holocaust.
Way to go!!! There is no sense in distracting from the issue at hand. Making the names all alike allows a fair comparison. Thank you.
Joseph ROBINETTE Biden?
Oh, dear… That’s just awful.
New rule: no more middle names for anyone, ever.
Imagine if everyone in this election went by their middle names as some friends of mine like to be called. We would have HUSSEIN and ROBINETTE versus SIDNEY and LOUISE. Hum, sounds like an old TV movie of the week.
Lady Goddess,
You work so hard running around picking cherries all day! Put a hand over your eyes and grab a typical quote from any of those candidates, and you’d see that Fr. Joe’s lists are accurate portrayals.
Good try, but half the nation isn’t that easy to brainwash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8cNtH1mULo
The definition of “holocaust” indicates that it involves fire. See
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/holocaust
Playing “my pain is worse than your pain” isn’t convincing. And it makes people mad, who lost relatives in the Holocaust.
Abortion is murder not a holocaust.
And I’m not the only who notices the middle names.
Peace.
Oh well, if you want to call me Goddess, I’m not going to complain.
For what it’s worth, I’m reading your name as Bat Man.
And yes, I certainly did pick out quotes that helped me make my point.
Holy cherry-picked quotes, Bat Man!
Thank you. I will check this out in context in the CATHOLIC CATECHISM on the Vatican site. But not tonight. It’s too late to look at something that deep. Helen
Father Joe wrote: “One might argue that the holocaust tag fits quite appropriately: the wholesale devaluation of human beings and the desensitization of any moral judgment or culpability in their regard.”
One might, but for most of us our worldview just doesn’t allow for such an equivalence. The natural view is that a biologically-human life becomes morally significant as it develops consciousness and becomes integrated into the social organism. It just goes very much against the grain for a human to attempt to perceive things differently.
I think most people’s ~sincere~ moral sentiments about abortion tend to be based on something other than a belief in the moral equivalence of a fetus of eight weeks’ gestation and four year old child.
And, I hasten to add, I’m not doubting that you truly hold a belief in such an equivalence. I’m just saying that ~most~ people don’t really share that belief — whether they consider themselves prolife or prochoice.
Oops, I was wrong about the “Lady” part as well.
But hey, what red-blooded American man NOT want to be known as Bat Man! Thanks!
I’ll admit I’m surprised at the responses so far. Here are some quotes from the above video. They could easily be spoken about our modern day abortion, culture of death society.
“The charge is that of conscious participation in a nation wide government organized system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations… The real complaining party at the bar in this courtroom is civilization…Men who sat in black robes in judgment on other men…men who took part in the enactment of laws, the purpose of which was the extermination of human beings.
How easily it can happen. A country is not an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for. Before the people of the world let it now be noted, that here in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth and the value of a single human being.”
Come now, Father Joe, that’s the most complimentary photo of John McCain you could find?
lara
He looks like an angry Pop Eye who lost his pipe.
Lady Godless writes:
The natural view is that a biologically-human life becomes morally significant as it develops consciousness and becomes integrated into the social organism. It just goes very much against the grain for a human to attempt to perceive things differently.
Whoose view? Not mine. Do the elderly and sick become morally insignificant when/if they drop out of the ’social organism?’ Can ANY morally significant individual become morally insignificant for ANY reason? Who decides when someone becomes morally insignificant?
My feeling is that if individuals started ACTUALLY treating eachother as morally significant and not as ‘means’ to our own selfish ‘ends,’ than we would not be plagued by abortions. Child bearing would occur within the context of a committed relationship, and not just as an ‘oops’ which needs to be ‘corrected’ so as not to ‘interfere’ with plans…..
As individuals and as a society we need to work on how we perceive eachother – that much is certain.
This just in: Cindy McCain spills the beans on her husband’s view of abortion? She thinks he doesn’t ~really~ want to overturn Roe v Wade!
Transcript from CBS Evening News:
Couric: And do you believe Roe V. Wade should be overturned?
McCain: No. no.
Couric: No. Why not? Your husband does.
McCain: No. I don’t think he does.
Couric: He believes it should be overturned. That’s what he told me, and that it should go to the states.
McCain: [um, oops...] Well, in that respect. Yes, yeah, I do. I understand what you’re saying now. It’s a states issue.
Couric: So, you believe it should be overturned or shouldn’t be overturned.
McCain: I believe it’s a states issue. That I do believe.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/03/eveningnews/main4413606.shtml
He lost something, Michael! What a photo, huh?
I notice the godless one is still godlessing (cluelessly).
Governor Palin made the Democratic nominee for President look like a fool tonight.
It didn’t require a alot of effort and everything that she said was true.
Did you see her baby boy? It made my heart melt…………God bless him.
I did, Michael. He’s adorable, but I can’t believe he slept through all that noise!!
lara,
It’s time for this country to have a mom in office. Maybe a mother can bring about some positive change.
I just came back from the food store and the prices are unbelievable. I call it robbery without a gun. Things are way out of control.
I would like to know what changed so drastically within the last year to make gas and everything else skyrocket.
The answer is that nothing changed.
It’s the greedy people of this world reaching into everyone else’s pockets because they aren’t satisfied with a million dollar income. They have to make 20 million.
I say that you don’t see any Brinks trucks following hearses.
I would like to also know why this country keeps sending aid abroad when we have people here who need it.
Michael,
I understand your concerns and agree. If you can write, speak and vote, you can do something about those concerns–and you’re doing your share.
Just keep at it.
We know that the mercy of God is far greater than any holocaust.
This is a slide show of the dedication of the new chapel of Divine Mercy. My friends, the Fathers of Mercy, recently built and dedicated this chapel in honor of the Mercy of God.
http://www.bgdailynews.com/multimedia2/770divine/index.html
Please keep the Fathers of Mercy in your prayers. They currently have 10 seminarians enrolled at Holy Apostles seminary in Cromwell Connecticut.
God bless you
Michael
Father Joe wrote: “If there is the infusion of anything like a soul, as the Church contends, then there may be a level of consciousness even from the beginning about which we are not aware and which is forgotten in the process of natural maturation.”
(The beginning being the moment of conception, in your view.)
I have a question. If the soul is present in the body from that initial moment, when does it leave the body, in your opinion?
After the heart stops beating for good, does the soul remain in the corpse — and if so, for how long?
lara
I was watching the RNC and I am very impressed with John McCain and Sarah (Barracuda) Palin.
The most important thing for any candidate running for political office is that they must be Pro-Life. That means that they not only have to disagree with abortion, BUT they must also be in favor of defending, protecting, and supporting life at EVERY stage.
There are people here eating dog and cat food and slowly dying while the American government sends billions of dollars and care packages over seas. WHY?
I’ve also noticed that Europeans and others don’t come here as much as they used to. That’s because they have it better where they are. They come here for a while to work, then go back to wherever they came from and receive Social Security. Wrong.
As far as I’m concerned, the Democrats with their Pro-death attitude will only make things worse.
Please pray that McCain and Palin win. The country can’t afford for them to lose.
MAX: “Abortion is a crime”. “Murder is murder”. When we address such complex moral issues we should do so with the utmost specificity.
FATHER JOE: We should also not forget the gravity of the matter by proposing complex semantics. Too many, Max, like to play words games with an agenda to mitigate fault or blame.
MAX: Within the “political order” abortion is neither a crime nor a murder. Murder is a criminal act within the purvue of the Criminal Code. In light of Roe v. Wade, abortion does not fit either murder or crime within the POLITICAL ORDER”. Of course, abortion may be considered a homicide or the taking of a life (justified or not) within the POLITICAL ORDER”.
FATHER JOE: Okay, I know what you are trying to say; but, it is not the direction I would go. I would utterly reject any attempt to defind the word “murder” so arbitrarily as to reduce it to a human civil or legal rendering. A society can become evil. It can make all sorts of atrocious acts legal that are immoral. I am not using the word “murder” here as a lawyer might in an American courtroom. That is why we are talking at cross-purposes. There will be no discussion of various ratings of homicide. I am not interested in first, second or third degree kilings. Abortion is murder because a higher law says it is so. That is all that matters to me. This is confirmed by the Church. The state should have laws in comformity to the laws of nature and the commands of God. Giving black slaves the ranking of property did not make it so. Stripping a fetus of human rights and rights as a citizen does not make it proper. Abortion is murder and a crime. It is such in the eyes of God and the failure of civil law to recognize this makes the state complicit in such acts. Otherwise, one might contend that political states could never “murder” people, because the laws could always be adjusted to the state’s favor in regards to certain killings or terminations. “Heil Hitler!”
MAX: When the Church speaks of abortion being an “abominiable crime” reflecting on the encyclical GS, the Church is speaking from the point of moral authority. “The Church should never be confused with the political community”
FATHER JOE: The Church is a community, nonetheless, the breaking in of Christ’s kingdom. Catholics are obliged to place God’s laws above any conflicting laws of men.
MAX: To the best of my knowledge the Church does not propose to be an authority on embryology so the question of ensoulment becomes an issue. The Church resolves this issue by entrusting it to an age old axiom in the Church, “primum est vivere” (Life is Primary). This is not to be confused with another old college axiom “primum est bibere” (First we Drink).
FATHER JOE: The Church has many experts of human development, and since ensoulment is not something that one can view under a microscope, has deemed that all human life must be protected from conception to natural death. (See EVANGELIUM VITAE by Pope John Paul II) St. Thomas Aquinas would contend that even life in potency must be given the same level of protection and regard as fully formed human life.
MAX: Since “Primum est Vivere”, the Church’s position is that life becomes PRIMARY. Consequently, if there is a likelihood that human life exist at conception, the embryo must be TREATED from conception as a person (CCC-2274). If we err, we must err on the side of life. This is where many pro-lifers become confused and where the majority of Catholics are confused.
FATHER JOE: This much that you say is true. The earlier bit feeds too easily into the hands of our enemies.
MAX: Many Catholics say “I am pro-life except where there is rape or incest or where it is to save the life of the mother”. The Church’s position is that any DIRECT assault on the fetus, including for rape, incest, or when CHOOSING the life of the mother over the fetus is morally wrong.
FATHER JOE: Yes, again you are right and the Church’s position is sound.
MAX: Unfortunately, most pro-life advocates do not teach the Church’s position on abortion because they know that only a minority of Catholics hold to that teaching and every reliable survey has borne that out.
FATHER JOE: You must move in different circles than I do. I find most pro-life Catholics quite well informed… and I have been in pro-life work some 30 years!
MAX: There are issues in double-effect morality where embryos are PERMITTED to die but that is a whole other matter.
FATHER JOE: And double-effect is often very much misconstrued, even by certain Catholic ethicists. The grounds for it are extremely rigid. But back to the subject at hand: Abortion is a crime that calls out to heaven for retribution. Abortion is MURDER.
THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
Three centuries later we meet with the first record of laws enacted by the State to check this CRIME. Exile was decreed against mothers guilty of it; while those who administered the potion to procure it were, if nobles, sent to certain islands, if plebeians, condemned to work in the metal mines. Still the Romans in their legislation appear to have aimed at punishing the wrong done by abortion to the father or the mother, rather than the wrong done to the unborn child. The early Christians are the first on record as having pronounced abortion to be the MURDER of human beings, for their public apologists, Athenagoras, Tertullian, and Minutius Felix (Eschbach, “Disp. Phys.”, Disp. iii), to refute the slander that a child was slain, and its flesh eaten, by the guests at the Agapae, appealed to their laws as forbidding all manner of MURDER, even that of children in the womb. The Fathers of the Church unanimously maintained the same doctrine. In the fourth century the Council of Eliberis decreed that Holy Communion should be refused all the rest of her life, even on her deathbed, to an adulteress who had procured the abortion of her child. The Sixth Ecumenical Council determined for the whole Church that anyone who procured abortion should bear all the punishments inflicted on MURDERERS.
CATHOLIC ANSWERS
The Catholic Church has always condemned abortion as a grave evil. Christian writers from the first-century author of the Didache to Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (”The Gospel of Life”) have maintained that the Bible forbids abortion, just as it forbids MURDER. This tract will provide some examples of this consistent witness from the writings of the Fathers of the Church.
Didache
“The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not MURDER. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child” (Didache 2:1–2 [A.D. 70]).
Athenagoras
“What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are MURDERERS?
. . . [W]hen we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit MURDER, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit MURDER? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it” (A Plea for the Christians 35 [A.D. 177]).
Tertullian
“In our case, a MURDER being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed” (Apology 9:8 [A.D. 197]).
Hippolytus
“Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and MURDER at the same time!” (Refutation of All Heresies [A.D. 228]).
Basil the Great
“Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not” (First Canonical Letter, canon 2 [A.D. 374]).
“He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful MURDER; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it dies upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees” (ibid., canon 8).
John Chrysostom
“Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication. . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?—where there are many efforts at abortion?—where there is MURDER before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a MURDERESS also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to MURDER; or rather to a something even worse than MURDER. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with his laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for MURDER, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine” (Homilies on Romans 24 [A.D. 391]).
Jerome
“I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother. . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child MURDER” (Letters 22:13 [A.D. 396]).
BISHOPS OF MALTA & GOZO
4/16/2008 – LifeSiteNews – Bishops tell Council of Europe that abortion is “Murder” and a “Negation of the Right to Life”: VALLETTA, MALTA – The bishops of Malta and Gozo issued a press release today saying that abortion is not a choice but murder, and not a right but a negation of the right to life. The statement defending the right to life was issued to encourage a pro-life position to members attending a plenary session of the Council of Europe (CoE) which is meeting in Strasbourg this week. The CoE is currently debating a motion calling for the decriminalisation of abortion in all of the CoE’s 47 member states. The motion would also further lift restrictions in those countries where abortion is already legalised. The resolution calls on all 47 member states, including Malta, to decriminalise abortion, “guarantee women’s effective exercise of their right to abortion” and “allow women freedom of choice and offer the conditions of a free and enlightened choice.” Abortion on demand is available in all Council of Europe member states, except Andorra, Ireland, Malta and Poland. Archbishop Paul Cremona and Bishop Mario Grech said they wished to express their appreciation and support to the Maltese representatives who are actively opposing the approval of this motion. They reiterated that the first fundamental human right is the right to life and that this right is not a man-made construct but “inscribed by the Creator in human nature.” “We have the duty to defend the life of every human being from the first moment of its existence. Abortion is not a choice but murder; abortion is not a right but a negation of the right to life; abortion is not beneficial, neither for society nor for the mother herself.”
APPEALS COURT NOMINEE
Appeals court nominee William H. Pryor Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that abortion is “murder” and that the court case legalizing it is “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.” It was an unusually frank statement by a judicial nominee in a confirmation process that has become highly politicized, especially on the issue of abortion.
POPE JOHN PAUL II
The Pope (John Paul II) writes that both abortion and the mass murder of six million Jews came about as a result of people usurping the “law of God” beneath the guise of democracy. “It was a legally elected parliament which allowed for the election of Hitler in Germany in the 1930s…” he writes. “We have to question the legal regulations that have been decided in the parliaments of present day democracies. The most direct association which comes to mind is the abortion laws… “Parliaments which create and promulgate such laws must be aware that they are transgressing their powers and remain in open conflict with the law of God and the law of nature.”
EVANGELICAL & CATHOLIC LEADERS
UNITED STATES, October 23, 2006 – Evangelical and Catholic leaders who have issued a joint statement declaring that care for the vulnerable in society is an essential requirement of authentic Christianity which must reject any deliberate taking of innocent human life as murder. “The direct and intentional taking of innocent human life in abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and embryonic research is rightly understood as murder,” the document ‘That They May Have Life’ declares, from Evangelicals and Catholics Together.
Published in the October issue of the Catholic magazine First Things, the statement identifies the biblical foundations of the call to protect and care for the unborn, ill and dying in the Divine command to “love your neighbor.” “The love for the neighbor begins…with respect for the neighbor’s right to be, by honoring the gift of God that is the neighbor’s life. Thus the most basic commandment of neighbor-love is ‘You shall not kill’ …rightly understood as ‘You shall not murder,’” the statement declares. “But we tried to be very precise, namely that any direct and deliberate taking of innocent human life is in ordinary language – and certainly in the language of the Western moral tradition – properly called murder,” he said. The purpose of the statement is to “explain to our communities why we believe that support for a culture of life is an integral part of Christian faith and therefore a morally unavoidable imperative of Christian discipleship,” the authors write. “We believe it is of utmost importance that everyone involved in the public discussion of these questions understand the unbreakable connection between a Christian worldview and the defense of human life.”
The statement refutes the argument of compassion frequently used by those who promote abortion and euthanasia, saying:
“While we can sympathize with those who view their own life or the life of another as a burden and not a gift…there can by no moral justification for murder.
“We are determined to employ every legal means available to protect, in law and in life, the innocent and vulnerable members of the human community.”
“Our churches do not simply support the pro-life movement as a social cause. Because the gospel of life is integral to God’s loving purpose for his creation, the Church of Jesus Christ, comprehensively understood, is a pro-life movement continuing God’s mission until the end of time.
“We cannot and would not impose this vision of a culture of life upon others. We do propose to our fellow Christians and to all Americans that they join with us in a process of deliberation and decision that holds the promise of a more just and humane society.”
MADALEN: Father Joe, what I don’t get is why you use one standard for determining the presence of an individual human life in the case of a zygote, and a radically different standard in the case of a person who is dying. For the early embryo, undifferentiated living cells are all it takes to be judged an individual human life. But for the person who is becoming a corpse, the continued presence of cellular metabolism or the lack of autolysis is not enough: the body must be alive as a coherent organism.
FATHER JOE: You actually bring up a very good point, and it is one of the reasons why there is some commotion right now among Vatican experts about the topic of brain death and organ transplants. However, the critical element I see is in regard to developmental trajectory and potency. The conceived embryo will develop and grow through various stages in the womb, experience birth and then continue to grow, if uninterrupted, to natural death. The person who is certified as brain dead may have certain metabolic processes maintained mechanically, but has reached a point where there will be no resuscitation and/or recovery. However, even this scenerio can be a bit problematical, especially when brain activity continues to some lesser degree. When unsure, the benefit of a doubt must be given to life. The Church has taught that not every extraordinary means must be pursued to keep a body alive.
MADALEN: Thing is, a coherent organism is precisely what the zygote is not. Until cell differentiation begins, the early embryo is categorically ~not~ an individual. The cells can divide and ultimately give rise to two or more individuals, or alternatively can fail to develop properly, resulting in a mass of tissue that bears no resemblance to a human person. How can you declare a cell culture to be an individual human life, when it can in fact become several people — or no one?
FATHER JOE: A Jesuit friend who passed away several years ago, and who wrote several books on this topic, breached the very topic you mention. It was his learned opinion that the infusion of a soul occurred at the time of cellular differentiation (when twinning was no longer possible). However, he also deferred to the Magisterium and accepted the only safe answer which was that human life must be protected from the first moment of conception. All the elements that will make us biologically who we are, are present at that moment. There can be no doubt that there is human life. The only question is how many persons will develop from that act of conception. Again, there is a definite trajectory toward a rational human being. Further, if one were to argue for a later ensoulment, which cannot be seen or measured, St. Thomas Aquinas would contend that even a human life in potency must be safeguarded and given those protections proper to a definite human life and person. Abortion in either scenerio would be rejected by Catholicism.
MADALEN: Regarding abortion for ectopic pregnancies and the “double effect” argument that Max brought up: I think that the double-effect reasoning is specious, because it confuses motive and intent.
FATHER JOE: I have heard such reservations and that is why the “double-effect” argument is still debated and increasingly nuanced.
MADALEN: Your intent is the act you have in mind to carry out; your motive is why you’re doing it. The principle in law is this: one is presumed to have intended the reasonably foreseeable consequences of ones actions.
FATHER JOE: Yes.
MADALEN: In the treatment of ectopic pregnancy, a salpingectomy (permissible), a shot of methotrexate (impermissible), and a tube-sparing salpingotomy (impermissible) all have destruction of the embryo as the reasonably foreseeable consequence of the action taken, and therefore the ~intent~ of all of these acts is to cause abortion. There is no double effect.
FATHER JOE:
Double-effect might be applied to salpingectomy in that the intention is to remove a diseased fallopian tube. If there were any chance of moving the growing human being to a location where he or she could survive and grow, this would be optimal. But despite inflated egos, doctors are not gods.
The use of methotrexate is debated in Catholic circles. I would tend to see it as an abortifacient but the Catholic Health Care Association argues that the target of the treatment is cancer cells in the trophoplast (ultimately the placenta). Not everyone accepts the double-effect argument in this regard and I would still regard it as gravely immoral.
Scraping or cleaning out the tube (salpingotomy) would constitute a direct attack upon the unborn child.
Perhaps it would help here to clarify what is meant by double-effect?
The four points to DOUBLE-EFFECT:
1. The nature of the act contemplated must be in itself good or morally neutral.
2. The agent intends the good effect and does not directly intend the bad effect as an end in itself.
3. The agent does not intend the bad effect as a direct causal means to the the good effect.
4. The good effect is proportionate to or outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect while the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm.
A fifth point added by some ethicists is that the intended good and the unintended bad end must be simultaneous. Thus the removal of a cancerous uterus removes a pathology, but if pregnant, it also unfortunately brings about the death of the child. Other conditions have been laid by other ethicists, such as the course of action must be regarded as absolutely necessary and/or there are no other viable and less tragic alternatives. Double-effect is not one of the most satisfactory answers to such delicate questions. A great deal of weight is given to intentions, and such are hard to measure and judge.
MADALEN: But abortion is not the motive in any of these cases; saving the life of the woman is the motive. If that’s a compelling motive, why shouldn’t you choose the safest and least mutilating course of action?
FATHER JOE: In other words, you are saying that the ends justify the means. No, I could never accept that. We are all going to die, but I have no right to shoot you. Similarly, the direct killing of the unborn child can never be intended. It is wrong. Further, there are heroic cases where mothers sacrificed their own lives so that their children might develop to a stage where they would have a chance at survival. What a wonderful witness for life, yes, even amid our tears of sorrow!
MADALEN: But that’s just it — in most cases, the tube itself isn’t defective or diseased. The tube itself isn’t a danger to the woman, and so there is usually no honest rationale for removing it on that basis. The only problem with the tube is that there is a doomed embryo stuck inside it. And the only reason that you’re removing the tube is to remove the embryo. It just doesn’t seem that “indirect” to me.
FATHER JOE: I would disagree with you. The odds are that when the condition is discovered, the tube has already been compromised. It will either have to be removed entirely or just the damaged or bursted section. This is not regarded as abortion even though the child will not survive. One cannot directly attack the unborn child.
MADALEN: (1) Just as a fictitious “disease” of the fallopian tube can be pressed into service as a justification for salpingectomy, it’s possible to recast salpingotomy and methotrexate injection as being meant merely to ‘clear a harmful obstruction, regardless of its nature’. After all, the doctors would in fact treat whatever obstruction they found to be endangering the woman, whether it was an embryo or not. Clearing an obstructed fallopian tube is not, in and of itself, a bad thing to do.
FATHER JOE: The damage caused by the implantation of a child in the fallopian tube is not an imaginary ailment. Removal or sectioning the fallopian tube will repair it. The other two alternatives still directly attack the unborn child although under the euphemism of a mere “obstruction”.
MADALEN: (2) As I’ve already noted, the desire to cause an abortion (”as an end in itself”) is not the motive for embarking on any of these courses of treatment.
FATHER JOE: No, direct assault upon the unborn child demonstrates a wrongful intent. There is nothing of emotion about this, it is just a matter of cold logic. The problem here may be because the effect, the loss of the child, is the same. This confuses matters for those who fail to see why it is a big deal.
MADALEN: (3) This where the fiction of the “diseased fallopian tube” really crashes and burns. Because the destruction of the embryo IS what produces the good effect. The very existence of tube-sparing methods of accomplishing the same purpose proves this beyond doubt. The problem isn’t the tube: removal of the ~tube~ isn’t what saves the woman’s life, and treatment that removes the embryo but spares the tube doesn’t endanger her. The problem is the presence of the embryo within the tube, and removal of the embryo is demonstrably the one thing that needs to occur in order to treat the patient successfully.
FATHER JOE: No, the good effect is the repair or the removal of the compromised fallopian tube and the preserved life of the mother. The loss of the child is a secondary bad effect. No one is saying that the mother could not be saved by scraping the child out and maybe repairing or removing a damaged fallopian tube; but, the problem is then a direct abortion as the primary end in itself.
MADALEN: (4) I think that a woman’s interest in saving her life and avoiding unnecessary mutilation outweighs the interest of an ectopically-implanted embryo in completing of the short trajectory of its ill-fated existence.
FATHER JOE: The Church cannot accept any such utilitarianism and/or proportionalism. Human life is incommensurate and the mother and child’s life have the same worth. If there was some way to save both, then we would be obliged to follow that route. We are also defined by our choices, and seeking the removal or repair of a fallopian tube is not the same thing as directly attacking the unborn child through chemicals or surgery. Double-effect is a strategem for saving the mother’s life while not commiting outright murder. It would be great if we could move the unborn child and implant him or her in the proper place. But we really do not know how to remove that life from the tube without destroying it. Implantation and bleeding presents its own problems. Future technology might help us in this regard. Maybe artificial wombs will one day serve a purpose in such cases? But for right now, despite arguments that double-effect is just semantics, it is a way to save mothers and to avoid the label of murderers. The loss or the segmentation of an already compromised fallopian tube is a small price to pay.
FATHER JOE: “In other words, you are saying that the ends justify the means. No, I could never accept that. We are all going to die, but I have no right to shoot you.”
MADALEN: Depends on what I’m doing to you, though, doesn’t it? A person who puts your life in jeopardy doesn’t have a greater right to live than you do, and so you always have the right to defend your life against someone who threatens it. To accomplish this, you may use force appropriate to the threat.
FATHER JOE: I disagree with you. The unborn child is not an unjust aggressor. My presumption was that you would also be morally innocent. As such, I would have no right to take your life. If your presence threatened my life, as in a scenerio where we are accidentally locked in a room with limited air; I would have no right to kill you so that I would have enough oxygen to make it until someone lets me out. A person might sacrifice himself for another, but we do not have the right to directly target innocent people.
MADALEN: Now, strictly speaking, you don’t really have a positive right to kill me. For instance, if you’ve accomplished the legitimate purpose of self-defense by incapacitating me after I’ve attacked you, you don’t have the right to go back and finish me off. However, had your lawful act of self-defense resulted in my death, then you’d be blameless.
FATHER JOE: This is the basic principle of proportionate force. Even though you are the aggressor, your life still has value.
MADALEN: A problematic pregnancy can put a woman in a self-defense situation.
FATHER JOE: This scenerio was discussed back in the early 1980’s. As I said, there is no moral culpability from the child so he or she is not a true aggressor. It is not a self-defense situation.
FATHER JOE: Further, there are heroic cases where mothers sacrificed their own lives so that their children might develop to a stage where they would have a chance at survival. What a wonderful witness for life, yes, even amid our tears of sorrow!
MADALEN: Actually, that’s one of the scenarios in which I’d tend to consider myself morally obligated to have an abortion.
FATHER JOE: A mother can opt out of any double-effect argument in the hopes that her child might survive. Any direct attack or abortion of the unborn child is always wrong. Your morality would seemingly allow all sorts of autrocities to insure your personal survival. The Church could never approve of a viewpoint that smacks more of Ayn Rand than Jesus Christ.
FATHER JOE: …the odds are that when the condition is discovered, the tube has already been compromised. It will either have to be removed entirely or just the damaged or bursted section.
MADALEN: Well, that used to be truer than it is now. An ectopic pregnancy can be diagnosed and located earlier nowadays than in the past. That’s why many women are treated successfully with the methotrexate shot, and don’t require surgery. Deliberately forcing a situation where salpingectomy is needed by refusing to treat the condition early on is one way that you could create the kind of moral justification that you require. But to me, following that course doesn’t seem remotely ethical.
FATHER JOE: It is still true. I am aware of a recent case. The methotrexate is argued by Dr. William May as immoral and I am prone to accept his view that double-effect does not apply. Some Catholic ethicists disagree. But I have already noted this. I have also made my case that direct assault upon the unborn child is regarded by Catholics as abortion and wrong. I know where you stand. Hopefully, you see where I stand. Why must we beat a dead horse? We disagree, plain and simple.
MADALEN: And now, on to the question of aggressors and self-defense!
FATHER JOE: The unborn child is not an unjust aggressor. My presumption was that you would also be morally innocent. As such, I would have no right to take your life. If your presence threatened my life, as in a scenerio where we are accidentally locked in a room with limited air; I would have no right to kill you so that I would have enough oxygen to make it until someone lets me out. A person might sacrifice himself for another, but we do not have the right to directly target innocent people.
MADALEN: That is an interesting hypothetical, and I will have to think about it.
FATHER JOE: As I said, there is no moral culpability from the child so he or she is not a true aggressor. It is not a self-defense situation.
MADALEN: But! The moral culpability of the aggressor does not provide the rationale for your right to self-defense.
FATHER JOE: My argument regarding abortion is in regard to innocent human life. A person who deliberately attacks me is not innocent. I can use proportionate force to defend myself. Similarly, in warfare, the status of cobatants is not the same as innocent civilians.
MADALEN: Okay, imagine that I’ve been robotized. Some bad guy has put a chip in my brain, and he can compel me to do his bidding against my will. I’m still me, and my thoughts and feelings are all still mine. Only what used to be my capacity for voluntary movement is under someone else’s control. I’m an unwilling tool.
FATHER JOE: Okay, the Borg have forced you into their collective. But you are still acting out someone’s will, even if you are an unwilling or coerced agent. I might oppose you as an extension of such a villain. The unborn child is guilty of nothing other than existence. The situation is somewhat different, but I would admit that you are in a situation much like that of a hostage crisis. The good guys should do all they can to oppose the master pulling the strings. At the same time, every effort should be made to free you from your bondage and to save your life. Should I kill the slave to save myself? I would have a hard time doing that.
MADALEN: Now say the bad guy presses a button and I attack you.
FATHER JOE: Again, I would use proportionate force, but I would not seek to kill you.
MADALEN: Morally, I’m completely innocent. What I’m doing is not my fault. But you still have the right to defend yourself against me, with lethal force if necessary, because the facts are that I am endangering your life — however unwillingly — and your life is not worth less than mine.
FATHER JOE: You might be morally innocent, I cannot measure for sure how much you might agree with your controller. If you are truly acting as a robot then it is not so much you as the one controlling you who is the aggressor. He is the one against whom I must defend myself. You could be setting up another double-effect situation. Do I have the right to directly attack innocent people with lethal force. No, I do not see that. I guess you, or the robot you, would have to kill me. I would defend myself, and you might still accidentally die, but lethal action would not be my intent. You are right that I have just as much right to live as you do. However, I cannot commit an immoral act to save my life. I could freely risk my life so that you might survive and be saved.
MADALEN: I suppose that you could argue that if you had a choice of defending yourself by shooting me or by shooting the bad guy holding the controls, then moral culpability might become a deciding issue in your choice of target. But if you’ve got one bullet, and a clear shot at me and a worse shot at the bad guy (ie, you might miss him and I might get to you), you’d still be justified in taking the shot at me.
FATHER JOE: No, if you mean a lethal shot, I would disagree.
FATHER JOE: A mother can opt out of any double-effect argument in the hopes that her child might survive. Any direct attack or abortion of the unborn child is always wrong. Your morality would seemingly allow all sorts of autrocities to insure your personal survival. The Church could never approve of a viewpoint that smacks more of Ayn Rand than Jesus Christ.
MADALEN: Ayn Rand? Really? [shudder] I aym nothing like her.
FATHER JOE: Ayn Rand was the negation of Christianity. She wrote: “Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”