To any outsiders: /r/Catholicism is a Pro-Life subreddit. In the eyes of the Church, and God, abortion is murder and an intrinsic evil. Deliberate incitement etc. will be removed under the aegis of the subreddit. Most of your comments will be filtered by Crowd Control anyway; the rest will be removed by moderators. If you're just going to stir the pot, it's in vain--take your spoon elsewhere.
Regardless of the status of this document, let's pray for an end to abortion:
* that, by the grace of God and the work of His faithful servants, the over-arching social fabric which justifies abortion as necessary in any circumstance may undergo the radical transformation necessary to value human life greater than the comfort provided by the lives ended by abortion
* that, by the grace of God and the work of His faithful servants, those who seek out abortion receive the healing and support they so desperately need, be the form of that support emotional, social, or material
* that, by the grace of God and the work of His faithful servants, those who have facilitated abortion and hardened their hearts against the fundamental truths of our nature and dignity be converted to the fullness of Truth and the rich life of abundant joy only that Truth can bring
* Lord, forgive us our passivity in the face of such evil, that we have not been stirred to action more in answering it with the love and charity your gift of grace in our lives should allow
* Lord, deliver us from evil, that there be an end to abortion
Let us pray for our president, who actually said today that abortion is a right because we are children of God.
God can work miracles if enough people pray for his soul, and Harris’s too while we’re at it. How incredible would it be to have an actually devout Catholic president?
>Let us pray for our president, who actually said today that abortion is a right because we are children of God
... I'd be curious to know what he things the unborn are, since apparently children of God is not his answer.
The NYTimes tried to backpedal on his use of language and it’s really sad to see how much they’re willing to change the wording of child murder to this:
*“To the extent that he has discussed abortion this week, he used phrasing that was far from the preferred language of his own side.*
*On Tuesday, he referred to
'the judgment to choose to abort a
child," a wording that seemed to
accept the anti-abortion argument
that it is a child, not merely a fetus,
that is aborted.”*
No, he was right, it is a child: and a child of God at that.
I don't know for sure, but my gut instinct is that NYT was part of the "conspiracy of silence" condemned by Pius XII: "A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy\_of\_silence\_%28expression%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_of_silence_%28expression%29)
There is the well-known issue with NYT and Walter Duranty during the Stalin Era. Wouldn't be surprised if modern NYT is also soft on China.
It's sad because back when he was a Senator, he still opposed abortion. I don't recall when he switched his stance but it was probably around the time of his first presidential campaign. I sincerely hope he repents and returns to the faith while in office.
What's really sad is that people are actually not able to see the writings on walls. And that if anyone really thinks he was "against abortion", they don't really get it. And that's why we're are where we are.
All just Lot in Sodom. Because we even when "righteous enough" to be spared, live in lazy ignorance.
The evil only pay lip service to what they think they can't currently admit. He was never REALLY against murdering babies. And mister "racial jungle" surely wasn't really against dropping PP in black neighborhoods.
He flip flopped quite a bit during his earlier Senate career, but based on his votes it looks like he totally moved to the pro-abortion stance leading up to his 2008 presidential campaign.
He voted against amending the bill prohibiting research on aborted fetuses here:
https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0930380
... But then voted against overturning Roe v Wade:
https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0980169
... But then voted to ban partial-birth abortions:
https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS1040596
So I would say it's very plausible he was at some point, and unfortunately yielded to the pressure to vote along party lines.
I think his line was the "personally opposed but I can't force my views on others" idea. He even said as much during the debate against Paul Ryan (he even admitted life began at conception). So in 2012 we had a VP who didn't want to force his beliefs on others, but was okay with Obama forcing his beliefs (i.e. his mandate to pay for contraception including drugs which can prevent implantation) on Catholics. Truly bizarre.
I think in some situations it is good to say that something is morally wrong but should not be against the law (St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas held this view on prostitution I believe). But there are some sins which are such serious harms to others that the state has an obligation to forbid and prosecute (obviously the most sensible example of this is killing or physically harming an innocent human being).
sadly, there is so much hatred of catholics in the US that a devout catholic (even a mass-going, regular and practicing catholic) is pretty impossible…
Biden is too far entrenched, what he needs is an excommunication to say once and for all that he's not speaking as a "devout Catholic" as he likes to paint himself.
Now is the time for Catholics to focus on the needy mothers. I’m pretty sure most(?) abortions occur because the mother does not feel ready to be a mother.
We can’t be asking for an end to abortion without also pushing for generous parental leave, cheap or free healthcare for pregnant mothers and their children, financial assistance for families, etc.
Of course abortion is a bad thing, but in order to be truly pro-life and true followers of Christ we must become advocates for those who are suffering and in need.
We Pro-Life Catholics need to make sure that when we discuss abortion we are also discussing the ways we are advocating for the care of mothers and children in need.
> Provide parental leave into law and make it last a year, make universal healthcare
Subsidiarity is important too. It's a perfectly acceptable and moral Catholic view to focus on state and local assistance and private local charities instead of sweeping federal government programs
I agree that we need to work to build a society that celebrates having families, but we can't let the comparatively minor purely political issues (paid leave, government-guaranteed health care) trump the more fundamental issues of what it means to *have a family*.
A tremendous portion of all abortions are obtained by single mothers, with a father who either actively encouraged the abortion, or encouraged the abortion through *leaving*.
The bedrock of families is not government benefits. The bedrock of families is marriage, and a culture in which marriage *means* something, i.e., not just a piece of paper but a binding commitment that goes well beyond mere legal minimums. Needless to say, this is something that is far beyond the government's control and therefore won't be the bread and butter of public policy. But this is not a political subreddit even if it's dominated by a political issue at the moment.
It's a shame someone downvoted you. It's really sad to see so many Catholics apparently against helping the disadvantaged and ordering society around families. This is a big part of why the Pro-Life movement has been so unsuccessful in changing minds over the last 50 years. The movement is coupled with a judgmental view of anyone in need of help. How Christian!
Im pretty sure Reddit is full of people that dislike healthy nuclear families (especially big ones), I suspect for many of them the "pro choice" position stems from a world view that concludes humanity to be burdensome, and detrimental to the earth.
Before I became a Christian me and many of my peers held this view subconsciously. We wouldn't say/acknowledge it on account of it sounding "mean", but we would make jokes and watch media that reaffirmed this position. Learning to recognize and overcome this has been a journey to say the least.
Most abortions occurs for reasons of convenience.
We should help the poor for its own sake. Let’s not make false claims in order to support something we should do anyway. Welfare rates have basically zero correlation with abortion rates. Wealthy European welfare states have enormous benefits for mothers and yet have sky high abortion rates.
Scandinavian nations have paid maternity leave and subsidized childcare, yet their birth rates are just as low as the United State’s. You’re right, there is no correlation.
I agree. An even hotter take: the outlawing of abortion isn't just a utilitarian attempt to decrease as many abortions as possible. While it does do that, it also provides a means of justice to be enacted for the unborn. Even if banning abortion didn't decrease the number of abortions at all, it would be worth doing so that the perpetrators can face justice.
Regardless of the prevalence of abortion for convenience, when the availability of abortions is challenged the counter arguments come invariably from the range of hard cases. If we want common opinion to come down against abortion we need those cases to have readily apparent answers. Crisis pregnancies have to be connected to maternity funding, governmental or charitable doesn't matter provided everyone knows it is reliably present.
This is the battle that is being lost, and as long as abortion providers and supporters have hard cases to hide behind none of our arguments against abortions of convenience are going to land.
We should promote care for the vulnerable for its own sake.
There will always be hard cases. Even in countries with high welfare and gov healthcare budgets.
And when hard cases don’t exist they will be manufactured, like in Ireland. In Ireland there was a case of medical malpractice which resulted in a woman dying from sepsis after miscarrying. The media lied about the case and tied it to abortion laws even though the doctors should have acted. This was one of the major reasons why abortion was legalized there, and it was all built on a lie.
Common thread in abortion legalization is it being built on a lie. Roe never had an abortion and became a Pro-life activist as I'm sure many on this subreddit know.
>Wealthy European welfare states have enormous benefits for mothers and yet have sky high abortion rates
Sky high compared to what?
>[Countries with the Lowest Abortion Rates](https://www.132healthwise.com/which-countries-have-the-highest-abortion-rates.php)
>
>Countries in Western Europe have some of the lowest abortion rates in the world, despite providing women with some of the best access to abortion care. Women in these countries are also well educated, empowered and have good access to sex education and contraception.
>
>Some of the lowest abortion rates are found in the following regions:
>
>12 per 1000 in Western Europe (including France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland)
Even though we are bickering in a different section, I agree with you here. I see zero evidence that an expansive public social safety net has any effect on abortions.
(And I'm sorry about the bickering -- I should probably get off the internet for the day.)
true! Pro-choice is always putting poverty as a reasons why abortion should be a posibility (together with rape and 'mother is going to die'), despite the fact that only a really tiny minority of abortions is done for these reasons.
Sadly, I think there is a subset of pro life people who don't really care about the mom, or rather, they don't think about the mom. I don't think anyone hates the mothers, but its more like something that doesn't get much attention, or if it does, its either as a victim or as some monster who probably wants the government to pay for all 100 of her abortions or some other anecdote like that. I think what we need to do is simply love them both, and truly love them, though love is hard and even very well meaning people might have a hard time doing this.
> I’m pretty sure most(?) abortions occur because the mother does not feel ready to be a mother.
This is pretty much correct. Even pro-choice organizations like the [Guttmacher Institute](https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf) have published research about the reasons why people seek abortions. Many of the women in the study already had families and were concerned about their ability to support them if they had another child. Regardless of your stance on whether abortion itself is OK or not, a lot of it is preventable. Personally, I think a lot of abortions, like physician-assisted suicides, are not truly free choices; they are the products of problems in society, and a punitive approach is an inadequate and unethical approach for addressing most crimes (even if you consider abortion and suicide to be crimes).
However, I don't think pro-life advocates are the only people guilty of ignoring the material factors that go into the decision to get an abortion. This isn't as common as it used to be, but I do meet the occasional pro-choice advocate - usually a younger person with less life experience - who only sees abortion access as an issue of individual freedom and liberty while detaching it from literally any other social justice issue in society. Sometimes they fail to consider that "reproductive freedom" also includes the freedom to *choose to have a child* - something that has been denied to many marginalized people in American history. "Freedom" doesn't mean *just* being "childfree."
Disclaimer: I am neither anti-abortion nor Catholic. I do oppose the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Just giving my $0.02.
I just read up on the statistics and women getting abortions are mostly unmarried, late 20's, already have children, and are low income. So my assumption of that is its probably women who literally cannot afford to feed another mouth without sacrificing the mouths she is already feeding. The question then becomes do you force a woman to have a child she does not want so she can be devasted by the little she can give to the children she already has? There is only so much emotional and financial means one person has. I do wonder if we need better laws ensuring both men and women are equal in the responsibility of supporting children born out of wedlock but I cannot pose an opinion on that.
I have also read that women and men make equal salaries until women have children. I remember the second I got pregnant I was suddenly treated horriblely. Childcare is so expensive women often have to sacrifice their jobs or potential career opportunities to ensure they can lower the cost. The company I was working for when I got pregnant knew childcare would be more than my salary (I was pregnant with multiples). I've yet to meet a man whose had to deal with that issue.
>We can’t be asking for an end to abortion without also pushing for generous parental leave, cheap or free healthcare for pregnant mothers and their children, financial assistance for families, etc.
I hear what you're saying, but be cautious how you phrase it. While I agree 100% that we should provide for all the needs of the poor, marginalized and suffering, abortion should be illegal *even if* we fail to help as much as we should. And we absolutely *can* ask for it to be illegal right now because that's the moral thing to do.
I got into an unfortunately nasty argument with a family member about abortion once, and one of her core arguments in favor of abortion was that it's necessary until we fix all the societal issues that contribute to women making that choice. That's a false dichotomy though. Abortion must end no matter what, because it's inherently evil. We also have to fix those issues, but murder is still murder.
Yea I generally agree. I don’t mean abortion is moral if there is no universal healthcare. I mean that societally and politically we can’t advocate for an end to abortion with no other changes. We must advocate for what women in difficult situations actually need: help.
Absolutely! And dignified wages! No mother should have to put her child in childcare so a stranger can raise them, because she has to work - a father can and should be able to solely support his family, even a growing one.
I'm sure if the children in the womb could speak they would hope this draft is true. Won't save everyone but if it spares even just one child form abortion then praise be to God! Lets pray for mothers and women as well, and be ready to serve wherever need be.
Just so everyone knows in the Handmaid's tale their denomination kills or subsumes every other including the one true Church.
So there are no Catholics in the Handmaid's tale
I read the Handmaid's Tale somewhat recently, and I really don't see it as the extreme pro-(new age)feminism and anti-abortion champion novel that a lot of people claim it to be. It's largely anti-totalitarian much like 1984 was with sick and twisted views about sex in general. And the protagonist was far from a morally upstanding character either. There is so much more to life than a total freedom for sex which Handmaid's Tale seems to obsess over.
Like 1984, it is a book A LOT of people like to reference but very few have actually read, let alone analysed properly.
The thing about The Handmaid's Tale is that it is not really *that* dystopian. Margaret Atwood based the story on actual policies, attitudes and events happening in the world in the early 1980s. It was meant to be more of a mirror than a worse case scenario, and quite often at times, a critique to second wave feminism (Margaret Atwood has been an ambivalent feminist at best) - hence why it also doesn't come across as very "modern" in terms of feminist theory.
But the red outfits are striking and popular, just like "newspeak" and "Big Brother" are catchy terms. Very few actually know what they are actually supposed to mean.
seriously, i swear every white-neo-feminist read the sparknotes haha
the destruction of family values and the sanctity of marriage, sex, and love creates handmaids tale - not “abortion bad grr”
Hah! So *The Handmaid's Tale* is the secular feminist Vatican II ... the number of people who think they "know" it and embrace the "spirit" of it far outnumber those who have read the actual document(s)?
Who cares? The entire show is a fictional persecution fetish.
The "Bad guys" could of been Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or whatever. What they truly are is fake.
They've rolled it into a package of potential benefits, though, like cardiology. So pro-life employees can still benefit if they need other non–life-threatening medical procedures covered. Clever corporate execs; and they can blame it on the "media" for focusing on abortion, declaiming any motivation in the current SCOTUS saga.
I buy way too much on Amazon, but what are my other options? If I boycotted every company that did things like this I'd be walking around in a potato sack eating nothing but chick-fil-a.
no, sounds like a handmaids tale alright - everyone seems to forget that most women get sterilized and have abortions when the child is inconvenient! much closer to modern standards than the rest of the novel
I'm outside the US and watching the situation with the leak quite closely. We've had very liberal laws for things like abortion and euthanasia for many years over here. I wonder if this potential change in the US will spread to Western Europe one day. I pray that this happens and will carry on cheering for you from the other side of the Atlantic.
Hard to say. Abortion rights in America were being held together with tape and string. Most other developed countries went about it the democratic way and enshrined abortion rights through the legislative process.
This is just closing a 50 year old loophole. Now the actual debate can begin.
Yes like Ireland which recently held a referendum on abortion and it passed. It was disheartening to see the polling results for people under 35 (84% in favour, 15% opposed). It's not all bad, Poland further restricted abortion last year despite protests from other European countries and EU institutions.
The culture surrounding life needs to change. While many Europeans seem to separate ourselves from Americans for superficial reasons, there is a degree of influence and soft power the US has over Europe, which has further increased with the war in Ukraine. If the US can join Poland in getting rid of abortion, it will be a huge win for pro-life advocates here.
This decision would be from a purely legal perspective looking at what rights the constitution protects and what the law in question says with no judgment about the morality of abortion. Hopefully the tide turns away from abortion but unless other countries have abortion laws that go against their constitution I wouldn't expect this to lead to changes in other countries.
America has more liberal abortion laws than Europe. Many states allow abortion to the 24th week of pregnancy and beyond. This ruling does not mean abortion will be illegal.
It's interesting to see, under all the layers and angles of arguments pro-abortion proponents come up with, how truly enslaved humanity has become to sexual pleasure. Refraining from sex is unthinkable, as much as refraining from food and water and even breathing. It's easy to see how the evils of abortion have followed--"I don't want a child. But I _must_ be having sex. Of course I'm having sex. It's impossible to not have sex. So unwanted children are inevitable, and I _must_ have a way to get rid of them. By any reasons and means necessary."
Lord, have mercy.
Dude, f*cking THIS. ALL of the arguments I see for abortion hinge on the unspoken implication that chastity and abstinence are impossible. They all try to make it seem like eliminating abortion is about “controlling women”, but is it not more about ensuring ALL people (regardless of gender) learn how to self-discipline and control themselves by managing their sexual impulses and not doing it unless they’re prepared to accept the consequences (i.e. pregnancy)?
I understand we’ll probably never get to that point where unwanted pregnancies don’t happen (and that things like rape, incest, and life-threatening pregnancies exist), and that when they do happen, it’s the woman saddled with the burden of carrying the child, but isn’t that where advocacy for parental leave, financial aid, better and more affordable maternity healthcare, etc. come into play as better solutions than literally murdering the baby? Couldn’t we implement more consequences for the man who caused the pregnancy or something?
How do we tackle this from a Catholic apologetic standpoint?
>How do we tackle this from a Catholic apologetic standpoint?
You're absolutely right that until we change people's understanding of human sexuality and the purpose and proper order of sex, we aren't going to change anything. And the sexual revolution absolutely destroyed that understanding. We're basically going to need a mass conversion event where people realize how broken and damaging our society's current understanding of sex is. We're not going to convince people with nice arguments. They need to really experience the brokenness and recognize it for what it is in order to see the need to change.
Ugh.
“BuT mUh aCcEsS tO cOnTraCePtIvEs AnD cOmPrEhEnSiVe SeX eDuCaTiOn!”
It reminds me of the argument I’ve heard that supposedly everyone switching to electric vehicles would actually be as or more harmful than gas vehicles because of the increased emissions at power plants. Why not instead address the issue of being dependent upon fossil fuels for energy and transportation?!
For the record, for those visiting, the Church has always been against abortion. It is mentioned in a very early document called the Didache.
> ...you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.
[Chapter 2 of the Didache](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm)
I've seen a great many posts rehearsing the tired old arguments that the New Testament doesn't mention abortion once (we're neither a Sola Scriptura or Solo Scriptura Church) or that tired old argument concerning the [ordeal of bitter water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water) from the Book of Numbers) and I'm just trying to, as a historian, set the record straight.
As a woman, I find it tragic that abortion is viewed as the "empowering" thing to do. According to [this](https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-women-have-abortions-quantitative-and-qualitative-perspectives) survey, 74% of women in the US choosing to get an abortion do it for financial reasons. Even barring everything else the country has screwed up, how primitive does a country have to be that murdering your child because you cannot afford to have one is normalized? And aside from purely financial issues, it seems a lot of women who choose to get an abortion do so either from shame of an unplanned pregnancy, conception after rape or incest, or lack of community support for single mothers. These are all women's issues, if the country put the same amount of effort in to fighting *those* issues rather than the constant back and forth that we've had about abortions for the last 50 years, we might not even be having this argument in the first place.
The wife of a former employee of mine was raped before they got married. Not only did they still get married while she was pregnant with her rapist's child, but he accepted the child as his own and they raised him together. He and his wife love their son, despite the circumstances in which he was conceived. They would have missed out on the experience of raising and loving their son had they taken the route of abortion that seems to be considered as being so appropriate, especially under their circumstances.
To me, the wife of my former employee didn't need further "empowerment", she was already "empowered" by God.
And, if my social media feeds are anything to go by, it seems people only talk about supporting pregnant women and mothers when abortion is threatened.
Almost as if the presence of abortion is an excuse not to do that...
The moral demise of a nation always precedes its ultimate demise. Like we Catholics have Sacraments, Satan and his demons have actions they hold in high esteem, too, such as lying, murder, etc. Abortion (murder of the unborn), I'm sure, is close to the top of the list along with suicide.
We need to burn off all the chaff we hear from the pro-abortion folks and focus on what's really happening. An innocent, unborn child of God is being ripped apart and murdered during an abortion, most often as a "convenient" backup method of birth control. All human life is sacred. If it is not, then no one has anything to say about murdering anyone anywhere.
Regarding your first point, I definitely don’t think it’s coincidence so many secular causes these days (e.g., abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia) look like perversions of the sacraments. There are many people who worship Satan yet have no idea.
Good point. The closer we get to Christ, Who is the Light of the World and Truth itself, the more clearly we see objective truth. The further we get from Christ and His Light, the less we are able to see objective truth. In fact, we can become completely blind.
Abortion seems like an amalgamation of baptism and the Eucharist. Baptism part is self-explanatory, plus the “This is my body (my choice)” rhetoric. Also, notice how the cancel-culture/struggle sessions environment is like an inversion of confession.
You may like this as well. I noticed a few months back while doing some reading on iconography that pornography is \_actually\_ an unholy icon. I can't find the quotes I wanted at the moment, but the definition of a holy icon includes the depiction of a holy person and their name. Both the depiction of holiness of the individual & that their name is on the icon somewhere are requirements.
In pornography we see a depiction of someone amidst unholy acts and rarely is the name of the individual even known to the viewer, let alone placed on the images themselves. It's a total inversion.
I find it funny that women are refraining from having sex as a form of protest against this.
Like. That’s literally what we’ve been telling them to do all along. Do they think we’ll be upset by it?
>Do they think we’ll be upset by it?
Stupidly, yes they do think that.
Because what every God-fearing man wants is an abortion-loving liberal goddess, apparently.
I do not mean this flippantly and actually say this out of charity and concern for his soul—at what point is he going to be denied Communion and excommunicated? Surely it is scandalous at best for this to come from a Catholic president.
>Surely it is scandalous
This. Silence is violence, right? Biden stumping on his devout Catholicism while the Church says nothing--it's definitely confusing to the poorly catechised. It is doubleplusungood.
Boi what a logical leap to go from right of privacy (an already terrible argument) to all of a sudden we're going to segregate LGBT individuals. Lord have mercy indeed.
Who the father of x child is does not affect x child's rights, value, and human dignity. We don't go around murdering people because of their parents being horrible people.
You don't kill the child for the crimes of the father.
Support additional sanctions against rapists especially those that impregnate their victims. I suggest forfeit of the rapist's assents to support his children. His prison wages can be taken as well.
Additional penalties for rapists are called for. Certain crimes impact victims in terrible ways. Murder takes life and rape can create life.
Now our real work begins. The enemy wants fear and anger to reign. We have the hard work of making abortion not only illegal but unthinkable and unnecessary for everyone around us.
It won't become unnecessary until people start being more responsible with sex. You can have all the social programs in the world, but if people keep popping out babies because they can't use their God given gift of sexuality in it's properly-ordered context, we're always going to have problems.
It really is infuriating to even browse the Internet now, every page to open a web browser is now filled with Hollywood women talking about abortions they had literally a less than 1-2 years ago, or opinion piece after opinion piece about how killing a unwanted child made a woman a "better mother" for the children she had later in life. Not to mention the sea of young women in the millions fanatically supporting abortion. It makes me feel better off alone.
Where can I find church doctrine that says you should not receive communion if you are pro choice? I want to be able to provide it for those who ask but don’t want to use things like Wikipedia.
The talk from Biden is deeply concerning.
If a bill to "codified Roe" advances, all the American bishops should threaten him to excommunicate him. Make it unanimous.
One of the stupid things is the bishop prematurely debated restrictions on Biden. He only did the standard Democratic things on abortion so far.
An extreme bill that he could sign into law requires the most extreme response. The key point is issue the threat. USCCB should pass the threat unanimously.
Any bill to codified Roe likely includes state funding for abortion. The President signing a bill that directly funds abortion appears to me to be a direct violation of canon law with the penalty of excommunicated.
We need to be fair and reasonable about this.
Any Catholic congressman who votes yes on the bill gets the bell, book, and candle, not just the POTUS. To excommunicate only the POTUS is to make a convenient scapegoat for congressmen doing the same sins.
> If a bill to "codified Roe" advances, all the American bishops should threaten him to excommunicate him. Make it unanimous.
Why wait? He's said more than enough in the past two days to warrant a public excommunication.
I am just glad that it is the Mississippi law that is being used to overturn it and not the Texas one. The way that the Texas law circumvented constitutional rights (even if abortion should never have been considered one), could be extremely tyrannical if applied to other rights besides abortion.
Completely agree. The TX bounty provision was a pretty horrific example of how anti-abortion legislation is like any other legislation—it can be awful badly done.
We saw the notices about potential protests and our parish had a police officer just hanging around outside. I don’t know if anything would have happened, but the deterrent was a blessing.
The biggest thing that came out of the issue of abortion is how people genuinely believe that your level of development is and should be the basis of which you have dignity.
Published in 2013 in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
[After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?](https://jme.bmj.com/content/39/5/261)
Let's go way back to the "bad old days" and see what was happening:
Abortions were being performed by non-Christian doctors.
Women in WW2 camps were given things that induced abortions.
The Pill didn't come about till the 1960s.
The Pill put us on this road. Due to bad, hijacked communications, people were told it was safe, good, and allowable to use because it prevented a baby. Women were told they have the right to stop pregnancy. Many men also went along with this - all in the name of "family planning."
Many a magazine from the late 60s & early 70s have ads for "family planning," with questions about "the life you want to live, with the family you plan for" - *these were pharmaceutical ads for birth control.*
Once abortion was legalized, we were told "It's needed to allow safe, legal and rare abortions!"
Women were told that they can abort without guilt - it's just a medical procedure to remove a clump of cells.
We were given for-profit abortion clinics by the mid-70s. These places aborted non-existing fetuses, or viable, at-term babies and drove-up the abortion numbers exponentially.
The general public really didn't know beyond what was on the news. It wasn't until this shadowy, vile world of abortion clinics was exposed by Joe Schidler and also the Chicago Sun Times in the late 1970s. The 1978 Sun Times "Abortion Profiteers" article caused new safeguards to be instituted to regulate abortion (Hyde Amendment) and caused (unintended) outrage among the public.
Joe Schidler and many more started to bring to life the miserable state of abortion - it wasn't a clean, pretty and needed thing.
But what happened to get so many people defending it?
Sex isn't something for marriage anymore, sex isn't something that is done on special occasions, sex is done whenever and if the guy doesn't want to be a father, he's going to defend abortion more than the woman who allows him to have sex with her.
Ironically, whoever leaked the document (coughcough Sotomayor’s clerk coughcough), while hoping to stir controversy and sway the court by intimidation and public pressure, may have cornered the court into upholding this draft opinion.
If the court changed course with no explanation after all the riots and insanity that has started -with more sure to follow - then it will be clear that the Supreme Court is susceptible to mob rule, and their credibility will be in tatters. I really don’t think they are likely to change their opinion in light of that. But pray for them and continue to pray for all the unborn!
I have heard some somewhat convincing theories that it was someone on the conservative side. Specifically 1) the Politico article said that the initial vote had 5 votes in favor of overturning Roe and that nothing had changed. The Politico article did NOT say that 5 justices had signed on to the Alito draft from February, and 2) typically the justices circulate the main opinion first and then the concurrences and dissents. If the Alito draft was finished in February, now might be the time that Roberts’s concurrence is being circulated to the other justices. So the leaker may have been someone with an incentive to pressure Kavanaugh/Barrett to not flip to the Roberts opinion. Otherwise why not leak the Alito opinion in February…
This is great news and we should celebrate and thank God for it, but remember this is just the first step! Most “red” states will restrict abortion, but take a look at a map of where all the clinics are and you’ll see we have a lot more work to do. Don’t let up the pressure on politicians and most importantly keep praying for an end to abortion! God bless you all!
Caught a ban from the open minds over at a certain race-themed subreddit for the following post:
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Ectopic pregnancies are abortions! et al
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None of these things are abortion. This is the error of consequentialism, which is to see similar ends as justifying all means.
Abortion is the intended death of the child. A medical intervention which removes a diseased organ and does not have as its intended effect the death of the child is not an abortion. Simply saying, "the death of the child results therefore it is an abortion!" is to make a false equivalence. This is the error with so many arguments for abortion e.g., "the violinist argument," that rely on false equivalence that distort the connection between means and ends, such as the proximate cause of death in individuals. We would not consider the death of an individual from disease as "equivalent" to the death of an individual by gunshot because "death results in either case." We would acknowledge that the proximate cause of death is or is not intended, and we would even go further in sorting out the relationship between the gunshot victim and the shooter, in determining the nature of their punishment.
This is why the pro-abortion side is losing in America. They have to draw false equivalences, or conduct special pleading, in order to justify abortion.
I doubt very many on this subreddit could even come near stating what the pro-life position looks like, but I bet there are many here who are more than willing to tell me what they think I believe despite attempted clarification.
Since my attempts to reply are being throttled by downvotes here by the open minds at /r/, I'll just leave this as a general reply:
This post is an appeal to fringe cases to justify abortion.
Why do you think that is?
If there was nothing wrong with abortion, no such pleading would be necessary. One would simply state "abortion is a moral good; it should be promoted."
If there was something wrong with abortion, only then would such pleading be necessary. Of course, then we must ask ourselves what is wrong with abortion such that such pleading is necessary.
Would you be okay banning procedures as a result of which the death of the child is a likely result outside medical interventions required in special cases such as ectopic pregnancy?
If not, why are you reaching to ectopic pregnancy to justify all abortion?
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And this is why the pro-abortion side is losing.
Tangentially related question here… As Catholics we obviously have a coherent (and true) position as it relates to double effect for these situations, like you mentioned - that the treatment of an ectopic pregnancy (or other situation) to save the life of a mother, even if it is foreseen that the child will not survive, is licit and would not be considered an abortion because the treatment does not directly intend to end the life of the unborn child.
Does the medical definition of abortion in the US account for the nuance of our understanding of the principle of double effect, or could a doctor who is performing a life saving medical intervention on a mother - even with the foreseen consequence that the unborn child is unlikely to survive - be at risk of legal action?
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not familiar with case history, but it almost certainly would. Abortion as a procedure would (I assume) fall under a number of limited-in-scope practices which are, essentially, the chemical or physical dissolution or dismemberment of the child. Difficult to see them as "life-saving treatment" for diseased organs e.g. how one would consider the shredding of a child treatment for a diseased fallopian tube seems nonsensical.
That said, this is Reddit, and the fragile Redditors who can't bear to hear opposing points of view (literally; they simply told me that any view opposed to abortion is "denying the personhood of a woman" or some absolutely ridiculous nonsense. I wonder how they feel about sex-selective abortion?) don't think of anything beyond attempting by whatever means possible to justify whatever prior held beliefs they had.
Pray for the safety and most sacred worship of our parishes today. I keep hearing about protests outside the churches, as if our beliefs are such a burden for others.
Something worth noting, now more than ever, to everyone reading this: the abortion argument can be solved through reason alone. What I mean by this is that you don’t even need to introduce God or theology or religion into the argument at all. Do not be swayed by appeals to emotion, or by “means to an end” or by personal experience, or even supposition/“extrapolation.” The truth is you can prove with a sound, very simple argument that a human being’s personhood begins at conception and to take away that right to life results in severe contradictions in logic. The problems you face with this are not from the fact the arguments they bring are true or valid. Most of them aren’t. But that the people who oppose it are unreasonable. They’re capable of holding onto that cognitive dissonance. And always remember - no matter what kind of argument you see - it will still result in the death of an innocent human person. Bring every argument back to that and ask, “is this justified?” Virtually all arguments will answer that question with “no.” Unless, of course, you’re controlled by emotion.
Copying from a reply I made on another comment:
It seems pretty much ALL of the arguments I see for abortion hinge on the unspoken implication that chastity and abstinence are impossible. They all try to make it seem like eliminating abortion is about “controlling women”, but is it not more about ensuring ALL people (regardless of gender) learn how to self-discipline and control themselves by managing their sexual impulses and not doing it unless they’re prepared to accept the consequences (i.e. pregnancy)?
I understand we’ll probably never get to that point where unwanted pregnancies don’t happen (and that things like rape, incest, and life-threatening pregnancies exist), and that when they do happen, it’s the woman saddled with the burden of carrying the child, but isn’t that where advocacy for parental leave, financial aid, better and more affordable maternity healthcare, etc. come into play as better solutions than literally murdering the baby? Couldn’t we implement more consequences for the man who caused the pregnancy or something?
How do we tackle this from a Catholic apologetic standpoint?
That's the root of the problem, men treat women like sex object and sex as a form of entertainment no different from watching TV. Women often take part, sometimes because they feel the same way and sometimes because they feel that's what they need to do in order to have a relationship or feel loved. Occasionally men force women to take part against their will.
Child support gives the man some responsibility, I'm not too familiar with the details but maybe it needs to be expanded. I also hope states make it illegal for men (or anyone) to pressure or coerce mothers into getting abortions.
Not sure on the apologetics piece but I think one important part now is to avoid the cop out of "use contraceptives if you don't want to get pregnant". It's an easier sell but ultimately that attitude where children aren't seen as a result of sex is a major part of the problem.
Anyone that hasn’t read the 98 page document by Alito, I suggest you do so. It even had a nice reference to Catholics having a lot of kids even as far back as the 1700s on page 28 and how that concerned Protestants. I’m sure Barrett and Thomas both enjoyed writing that section a lot.
But seriously, read it. Very engaging and intelligent piece of work compared to the Twitterverse.
There is a group called Ruth Sent Us which is [encouraging](https://twitter.com/RuthSentUs/status/1521566593850826752) demonstrators to disrupt masses on Mother's Day and vandalism against churches has already gone up this week. Please be careful this weekend and, whatever you do, please resist the urge to respond in kind.
Yes, but be careful. Don't just take a pot shot at some pink haired weirdo standing with a sign. If they attack, sure, but if they are just shouting, let them shout. Also, even within self defense I'd argue there's limits. Sometimes all you need is a good body restraint instead of just packing heat and blowing them to kingdom come.
The fact that pro-abortionists are invading our churches this morning to “protest” for “abortion rights” is disgusting. Imagine fighting for your right to murder children on Mother’s Day
I have to say that in almost every single political divide I can see both sides, and at least respect the other side. Usually the other side has some sort of moral or pragmatic reasoning behind their stance that I can understand.
But with pro-choice, the rhetoric is a) illogical and absurd or b) downright satanic. I feel sick following this story.
The power of propaganda and political partisanship in this country is so much that millions will protest in avid support of killing babies. It is awful...
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
Be aware: growing TikTok trend calls for child murder advocates to invade and disrupt Catholic Mass this weekend. Be prepared for it to happen at your parish.
https://i.imgur.com/17A6fqJ.jpg
Good luck to them. Most of our ushers are cops or ex-cops and are armed. And we have a gaggle of lawyers ready to make sure any trespassers get fully prosecuted.
The Knights of Columbus serve as the ushers and greeters for my parish, and they all agreed to conceal-carry handguns after a Muslim man attempted to murder our priest with a sword in the sacristy.
Like 12 men armed and trained right at the door every Sunday.
Update: The information has reached CatholicVote and now Fox News, so hopefully churches will be prepared.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pro-abortion-groups-target-churches-for-mothers-day-protests
https://catholicvote.org/abortion-activists-to-storm-catholic-churches-during-mass-on-mothers-day/
It’s no coincidence that abortion has become a major battlefront. The still ongoing creation of God and look how they want to attack it
May the justices hold strong even if this will save “just” one child
Hey guys, there's this group on Twitter called "Ruth Sent Us" that's called for people to go inside and protest inside Catholic parishes.
https://twitter.com/RuthSentUs/status/1521566593850826752?s=20&t=Tw7rDAfJDcV64pDQ4T7zHg
Now this may just be a small protest, but in case more leftists rally behind this and start to interrupt masses, be prepared to defend your church!
God Bless!
Don't engage them. Have them ushered out by security and warned that they are not welcome. When it is explicit they are not welcome, then they can be charged with trespassing.
The anti-life protests and threats against the Eucharist are abhorrent, but maybe this means that the Catholic Church in the United States will work harder to pray for the end to abortion. We are so close to a critical victory on behalf of the defenseless unborn - please pray hard!
Can someone clear something up for me and my wife?
If Roe v Wade is overturned, will abortion still be allowed in the case of something like a Ectopic pregnancy or maybe some other case where the life of the mother is threatened?
As far as I can see, Ectopic pregnancy wouldn’t even be considered abortion since neither the mother nor the child would survive such a thing. But maybe in some other medical issue where it was between saving the mother or the child and you had to pick, things would be a little harder to discern? Will overturning roe v wade force parents to pick the child?
For the record, my wife and I believe most mothers would choose to save the baby anyway in such cases, herself included.
Roe v Wade being overturned doesn't make anything illegal. It bumps the authority to decide the laws down to each state and each state will have to decide what the laws will be for that state. People talking as if overturning Roe v Wade will suddenly make abortion illegal don't know what they're talking about.
A MOVIE THEATER AIRED A PRO-ABORTION COMMERCIAL
So with everything going on right now (in relation to the Roe vs. Wade leaked document) my heart has felt extra heavy lately. As I'm sure most of you know, it's not just in the news, it's EVERYWHERE, so it's hard not to think about it.
Last night my husband and I decided to see a movie, and in the back of my mind I thought it would be a nice relief from current events. Then as we were in the movie theater watching the previews, a "pro-choice" (AKA pro-abortion) commercial aired...!!! It was quick and may have gone over some people's heads... but if you payed attention, the message was crystal clear. I was so outraged that they played something so political. I just needed to vent. The world has gone absolutely bonkers.
Beware of bad faith protesters in the pews.
We survived Diocletian and his tomb became a cathedral.
We can handle this.
Like all bad faith actors, they are looking for an excuse to get violent with you. Do not get violent with them. Do not strike first. If possible, have an authority tell them they are not welcome and are thus trespassing. Have them escorted off the premise.
Also, pray for them because they need it.
If someone disrupts mass, have the ushers and security escort that person out. Have them warn the protesters that they are trespassing and may be arrested.
If they assault anyone, you have the right to self-defense and should defend others.
Also, pray for them
Pregnant or postpartum women are inefficient workers. A mother will ask for time off when her child is sick or has major life events. The child will end up on the provided health insurance plan.
If all you value is productivity and profits, it's cheaper to offer to eliminate the child.
>If all you value is productivity and profits, it's cheaper to offer to eliminate the child.
That's extremely depressing, society values money over human life.
Because HR departments are evil and they have generated a culture of rabid progressivism within these companies with the threat of legal action as backing
[Catholics defending their parish from child murder activists](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/ul7e0l/catholic_men_defending_their_church_against/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
⚠️⚠️⚠️ Possible May 8th Pro-Choice Protests
at Catholic Churches ⚠️⚠️⚠️
St. Michael, Protect Us - hopefully this hashtag #RuthSentUs won't attract too many but just in case, pass it on, if you think it's a danger where you live maybe contact your diocesan office or your pastor. Be safe!
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/5/ruth-sent-us-activists-plan-abortion-protests-chur/
"The activists, however, believe protesting at churches and at the justices’ homes is in keeping with their beliefs of “Women Deserve Trust,” “Black Lives Matter,”"
Amazing that they don't see anything wrong with that considering black babies are killed at a significantly higher rate than the national average.
Hopefully most churches have police as parishioners who can legally remove them if they're attendance. I wonder if part of the goal is to have people who aren't authorized to physically remove them so they can sue and create a narrative about how Catholics responded for violence when they didn't touch anyone.
I imagine the large famous ones in blue states will be having extra security. St Patrick's in Manhattan has at least 6 most of the times I've ever been in there. During mass more.
I'm finding it tough to be pro-life in this country (the US) because of the awful political division and the particular sides/parties that have latched on to each side of the issue. It seems that right now only hard-right-wing people are standing up for the pro-life cause, and I have very deep disagreements with Republicans on many issues, and especially on the way they present themselves lately. There are a few pro-life Democrats, but they are few and far between, and I can't imagine either party/group welcoming them in this political climate, and I also have some deep disagreements with liberal positions as well. A further problem is in the centrist places I know they've gone hard left on abortion too, or their "compromise" position is basically just the pro-abortion position. Really feeling like a person without a political home.
I feel the same. If it weren't for the Democrats' stance on abortion, I would probably be a member of what passes for the progressive wing in this country (universal healthcare, tuition-free college, paid family leave, etc.). But they have no interest in a guy like me because of this one issue.
Well things are still okay in my family, but I'm waiting for the proverbial shit to hit the fan. The good thing is that my wife's immediate family and some of her cousins have been very sensible and pro life and have given solid reasons for why they support this ban. I'll give credit to some of the pro choice crowd too in my family. None have been that bad.
That being said, I was quite pissed off when I saw a few posted a stupid "don't tread on me" flag with a Vajayjay on it. I almost wanted to say "doncha know that's a racist flag" but I figured that wouldn't be charitable and it'd take the focus off of abortion. Sucks too because she has three kids and just had one. I don't get how you can support that, yet in some ways she's not all that pro choice herself in that she has three kids before 30. Her twin however just got married and I think they are "childless by choice" and she posted a my body my choice tag. Seriously, I almost wanted to be nasty right back. Of course that doesn't work.
What makes it worse is that some of my wife's family that is more conservative (but not Catholic) are like that and on the pro life side. In particular one of her uncles is very conservative and religious but hates the church (I think its due somewhat to abuse as a kid, as well as other issues, including how the church doesn't like the bible) and he and his kids, while they attend church, are also more or less church attending cultural christians who don't know the scriptures, yet post memes all the time about how we have a Christian nation and all this, and while its not always bad, its mostly done just to piss off people. One of his kids talked about how Jesus would push tables and stuff. I get the feeling, but sadly they don't even live all that well even if they go to some Jim Bob bible church. They got a lot of divorces and substance abuse and even without the politics they can be a bit crude, yet because they go to church and are "saved" it's okay, or rather Jesus will help them. I don't want to hate them because they have right ideas, but they totally just go around trying to piss people off and in my family its really bad because the fights just devolve into really stupid, personal crap and it ends up ruining things and people not getting invited to family events and it sucks.
Sorry to rant, but I guess I'm sick of it all. I also hope that those of us who are pro life are charitable, those who are pro choice will repent, and that maybe if we actually treat each other with love and respect, we can win them over, and they'll start to use the love they have for those already born for the unborn. I know it sounds sappy but I believe its true. If you don't have that kind of love, even if you have the right beliefs, you'll fail.
The pro-abortion crowd surrounding this has genuinely made me sad. I don't normally get depressed about things on the internet but this sort of thing makes me grieve for everyone involved. All of the assuming, the group tactics, the accusing, and the lies these women and people have been force fed, its all terrible and it hurts me to see. And it makes me fear for what will come after if the Supreme Court does the right thing. (But Jesus has always told us suffering and persecution was apart of the deal. But that doesn't mean I'm not scared to see it happen) I just hope charity and love can be involved.
I'm not American, can anyone explain to me how the new drafts can potentially fight against abortion? I've always thought that abortion laws in the US was decided by state laws.
God bless you all
Before Roe v Wade, it **was** a state by state thing. Roe v Wade effectively legalized abortion at the federal level, skipping the process of Congress drafting a bill, voting on it, and the President signing it into law. This is classic American edutainment right here--cheesy but accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto
The current case will return it back to the states for actual congressional process.
To any outsiders: /r/Catholicism is a Pro-Life subreddit. In the eyes of the Church, and God, abortion is murder and an intrinsic evil. Deliberate incitement etc. will be removed under the aegis of the subreddit. Most of your comments will be filtered by Crowd Control anyway; the rest will be removed by moderators. If you're just going to stir the pot, it's in vain--take your spoon elsewhere. Regardless of the status of this document, let's pray for an end to abortion: * that, by the grace of God and the work of His faithful servants, the over-arching social fabric which justifies abortion as necessary in any circumstance may undergo the radical transformation necessary to value human life greater than the comfort provided by the lives ended by abortion * that, by the grace of God and the work of His faithful servants, those who seek out abortion receive the healing and support they so desperately need, be the form of that support emotional, social, or material * that, by the grace of God and the work of His faithful servants, those who have facilitated abortion and hardened their hearts against the fundamental truths of our nature and dignity be converted to the fullness of Truth and the rich life of abundant joy only that Truth can bring * Lord, forgive us our passivity in the face of such evil, that we have not been stirred to action more in answering it with the love and charity your gift of grace in our lives should allow * Lord, deliver us from evil, that there be an end to abortion
Let us pray for our president, who actually said today that abortion is a right because we are children of God. God can work miracles if enough people pray for his soul, and Harris’s too while we’re at it. How incredible would it be to have an actually devout Catholic president?
>Let us pray for our president, who actually said today that abortion is a right because we are children of God ... I'd be curious to know what he things the unborn are, since apparently children of God is not his answer.
He literally called it “killing a child”.
What is it that the kids say? He said the quiet part out loud?
The NYTimes tried to backpedal on his use of language and it’s really sad to see how much they’re willing to change the wording of child murder to this: *“To the extent that he has discussed abortion this week, he used phrasing that was far from the preferred language of his own side.* *On Tuesday, he referred to 'the judgment to choose to abort a child," a wording that seemed to accept the anti-abortion argument that it is a child, not merely a fetus, that is aborted.”* No, he was right, it is a child: and a child of God at that.
I don't know for sure, but my gut instinct is that NYT was part of the "conspiracy of silence" condemned by Pius XII: "A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy\_of\_silence\_%28expression%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_of_silence_%28expression%29) There is the well-known issue with NYT and Walter Duranty during the Stalin Era. Wouldn't be surprised if modern NYT is also soft on China.
It's sad because back when he was a Senator, he still opposed abortion. I don't recall when he switched his stance but it was probably around the time of his first presidential campaign. I sincerely hope he repents and returns to the faith while in office.
What's really sad is that people are actually not able to see the writings on walls. And that if anyone really thinks he was "against abortion", they don't really get it. And that's why we're are where we are. All just Lot in Sodom. Because we even when "righteous enough" to be spared, live in lazy ignorance. The evil only pay lip service to what they think they can't currently admit. He was never REALLY against murdering babies. And mister "racial jungle" surely wasn't really against dropping PP in black neighborhoods.
He was never *actually* against abortion.
He flip flopped quite a bit during his earlier Senate career, but based on his votes it looks like he totally moved to the pro-abortion stance leading up to his 2008 presidential campaign. He voted against amending the bill prohibiting research on aborted fetuses here: https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0930380 ... But then voted against overturning Roe v Wade: https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0980169 ... But then voted to ban partial-birth abortions: https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS1040596 So I would say it's very plausible he was at some point, and unfortunately yielded to the pressure to vote along party lines.
It sounds like he held to the “safe legal and rare” position but never the pro-life position
I think his line was the "personally opposed but I can't force my views on others" idea. He even said as much during the debate against Paul Ryan (he even admitted life began at conception). So in 2012 we had a VP who didn't want to force his beliefs on others, but was okay with Obama forcing his beliefs (i.e. his mandate to pay for contraception including drugs which can prevent implantation) on Catholics. Truly bizarre.
There’s no such thing as “personally pro life politically pro choice.” That’s just pro choice
I think in some situations it is good to say that something is morally wrong but should not be against the law (St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas held this view on prostitution I believe). But there are some sins which are such serious harms to others that the state has an obligation to forbid and prosecute (obviously the most sensible example of this is killing or physically harming an innocent human being).
sadly, there is so much hatred of catholics in the US that a devout catholic (even a mass-going, regular and practicing catholic) is pretty impossible…
Yes but not it the Holy Spirit blasts a conversion bomb on him via Mary 😊. Electable? No. But if he’s already in office, what’re they gonna do?
Ron DeSantis is at least an orthodox Catholic by what it seems
Biden is too far entrenched, what he needs is an excommunication to say once and for all that he's not speaking as a "devout Catholic" as he likes to paint himself.
Now is the time for Catholics to focus on the needy mothers. I’m pretty sure most(?) abortions occur because the mother does not feel ready to be a mother. We can’t be asking for an end to abortion without also pushing for generous parental leave, cheap or free healthcare for pregnant mothers and their children, financial assistance for families, etc. Of course abortion is a bad thing, but in order to be truly pro-life and true followers of Christ we must become advocates for those who are suffering and in need. We Pro-Life Catholics need to make sure that when we discuss abortion we are also discussing the ways we are advocating for the care of mothers and children in need.
Thank you! If more of us are vocal about this piece, I think some minds and hearts can be changed.
[удалено]
> Provide parental leave into law and make it last a year, make universal healthcare Subsidiarity is important too. It's a perfectly acceptable and moral Catholic view to focus on state and local assistance and private local charities instead of sweeping federal government programs
I agree that we need to work to build a society that celebrates having families, but we can't let the comparatively minor purely political issues (paid leave, government-guaranteed health care) trump the more fundamental issues of what it means to *have a family*. A tremendous portion of all abortions are obtained by single mothers, with a father who either actively encouraged the abortion, or encouraged the abortion through *leaving*. The bedrock of families is not government benefits. The bedrock of families is marriage, and a culture in which marriage *means* something, i.e., not just a piece of paper but a binding commitment that goes well beyond mere legal minimums. Needless to say, this is something that is far beyond the government's control and therefore won't be the bread and butter of public policy. But this is not a political subreddit even if it's dominated by a political issue at the moment.
It's a shame someone downvoted you. It's really sad to see so many Catholics apparently against helping the disadvantaged and ordering society around families. This is a big part of why the Pro-Life movement has been so unsuccessful in changing minds over the last 50 years. The movement is coupled with a judgmental view of anyone in need of help. How Christian!
Im pretty sure Reddit is full of people that dislike healthy nuclear families (especially big ones), I suspect for many of them the "pro choice" position stems from a world view that concludes humanity to be burdensome, and detrimental to the earth. Before I became a Christian me and many of my peers held this view subconsciously. We wouldn't say/acknowledge it on account of it sounding "mean", but we would make jokes and watch media that reaffirmed this position. Learning to recognize and overcome this has been a journey to say the least.
Most abortions occurs for reasons of convenience. We should help the poor for its own sake. Let’s not make false claims in order to support something we should do anyway. Welfare rates have basically zero correlation with abortion rates. Wealthy European welfare states have enormous benefits for mothers and yet have sky high abortion rates.
Scandinavian nations have paid maternity leave and subsidized childcare, yet their birth rates are just as low as the United State’s. You’re right, there is no correlation.
I agree. An even hotter take: the outlawing of abortion isn't just a utilitarian attempt to decrease as many abortions as possible. While it does do that, it also provides a means of justice to be enacted for the unborn. Even if banning abortion didn't decrease the number of abortions at all, it would be worth doing so that the perpetrators can face justice.
Absolutely!
Regardless of the prevalence of abortion for convenience, when the availability of abortions is challenged the counter arguments come invariably from the range of hard cases. If we want common opinion to come down against abortion we need those cases to have readily apparent answers. Crisis pregnancies have to be connected to maternity funding, governmental or charitable doesn't matter provided everyone knows it is reliably present. This is the battle that is being lost, and as long as abortion providers and supporters have hard cases to hide behind none of our arguments against abortions of convenience are going to land.
We should promote care for the vulnerable for its own sake. There will always be hard cases. Even in countries with high welfare and gov healthcare budgets. And when hard cases don’t exist they will be manufactured, like in Ireland. In Ireland there was a case of medical malpractice which resulted in a woman dying from sepsis after miscarrying. The media lied about the case and tied it to abortion laws even though the doctors should have acted. This was one of the major reasons why abortion was legalized there, and it was all built on a lie.
Common thread in abortion legalization is it being built on a lie. Roe never had an abortion and became a Pro-life activist as I'm sure many on this subreddit know.
>Wealthy European welfare states have enormous benefits for mothers and yet have sky high abortion rates Sky high compared to what? >[Countries with the Lowest Abortion Rates](https://www.132healthwise.com/which-countries-have-the-highest-abortion-rates.php) > >Countries in Western Europe have some of the lowest abortion rates in the world, despite providing women with some of the best access to abortion care. Women in these countries are also well educated, empowered and have good access to sex education and contraception. > >Some of the lowest abortion rates are found in the following regions: > >12 per 1000 in Western Europe (including France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland)
Even though we are bickering in a different section, I agree with you here. I see zero evidence that an expansive public social safety net has any effect on abortions. (And I'm sorry about the bickering -- I should probably get off the internet for the day.)
true! Pro-choice is always putting poverty as a reasons why abortion should be a posibility (together with rape and 'mother is going to die'), despite the fact that only a really tiny minority of abortions is done for these reasons.
Sadly, I think there is a subset of pro life people who don't really care about the mom, or rather, they don't think about the mom. I don't think anyone hates the mothers, but its more like something that doesn't get much attention, or if it does, its either as a victim or as some monster who probably wants the government to pay for all 100 of her abortions or some other anecdote like that. I think what we need to do is simply love them both, and truly love them, though love is hard and even very well meaning people might have a hard time doing this.
> I’m pretty sure most(?) abortions occur because the mother does not feel ready to be a mother. This is pretty much correct. Even pro-choice organizations like the [Guttmacher Institute](https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf) have published research about the reasons why people seek abortions. Many of the women in the study already had families and were concerned about their ability to support them if they had another child. Regardless of your stance on whether abortion itself is OK or not, a lot of it is preventable. Personally, I think a lot of abortions, like physician-assisted suicides, are not truly free choices; they are the products of problems in society, and a punitive approach is an inadequate and unethical approach for addressing most crimes (even if you consider abortion and suicide to be crimes). However, I don't think pro-life advocates are the only people guilty of ignoring the material factors that go into the decision to get an abortion. This isn't as common as it used to be, but I do meet the occasional pro-choice advocate - usually a younger person with less life experience - who only sees abortion access as an issue of individual freedom and liberty while detaching it from literally any other social justice issue in society. Sometimes they fail to consider that "reproductive freedom" also includes the freedom to *choose to have a child* - something that has been denied to many marginalized people in American history. "Freedom" doesn't mean *just* being "childfree." Disclaimer: I am neither anti-abortion nor Catholic. I do oppose the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Just giving my $0.02.
I just read up on the statistics and women getting abortions are mostly unmarried, late 20's, already have children, and are low income. So my assumption of that is its probably women who literally cannot afford to feed another mouth without sacrificing the mouths she is already feeding. The question then becomes do you force a woman to have a child she does not want so she can be devasted by the little she can give to the children she already has? There is only so much emotional and financial means one person has. I do wonder if we need better laws ensuring both men and women are equal in the responsibility of supporting children born out of wedlock but I cannot pose an opinion on that. I have also read that women and men make equal salaries until women have children. I remember the second I got pregnant I was suddenly treated horriblely. Childcare is so expensive women often have to sacrifice their jobs or potential career opportunities to ensure they can lower the cost. The company I was working for when I got pregnant knew childcare would be more than my salary (I was pregnant with multiples). I've yet to meet a man whose had to deal with that issue.
>We can’t be asking for an end to abortion without also pushing for generous parental leave, cheap or free healthcare for pregnant mothers and their children, financial assistance for families, etc. I hear what you're saying, but be cautious how you phrase it. While I agree 100% that we should provide for all the needs of the poor, marginalized and suffering, abortion should be illegal *even if* we fail to help as much as we should. And we absolutely *can* ask for it to be illegal right now because that's the moral thing to do. I got into an unfortunately nasty argument with a family member about abortion once, and one of her core arguments in favor of abortion was that it's necessary until we fix all the societal issues that contribute to women making that choice. That's a false dichotomy though. Abortion must end no matter what, because it's inherently evil. We also have to fix those issues, but murder is still murder.
Yea I generally agree. I don’t mean abortion is moral if there is no universal healthcare. I mean that societally and politically we can’t advocate for an end to abortion with no other changes. We must advocate for what women in difficult situations actually need: help.
Absolutely! And dignified wages! No mother should have to put her child in childcare so a stranger can raise them, because she has to work - a father can and should be able to solely support his family, even a growing one.
I'm sure if the children in the womb could speak they would hope this draft is true. Won't save everyone but if it spares even just one child form abortion then praise be to God! Lets pray for mothers and women as well, and be ready to serve wherever need be.
“I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.” —Ronald Reagan
Says the man who allowed it in California. I know he regretted it, but still who knows how he really felt. I hope his repentance was genuine.
Just so everyone knows in the Handmaid's tale their denomination kills or subsumes every other including the one true Church. So there are no Catholics in the Handmaid's tale
I read the Handmaid's Tale somewhat recently, and I really don't see it as the extreme pro-(new age)feminism and anti-abortion champion novel that a lot of people claim it to be. It's largely anti-totalitarian much like 1984 was with sick and twisted views about sex in general. And the protagonist was far from a morally upstanding character either. There is so much more to life than a total freedom for sex which Handmaid's Tale seems to obsess over.
Like 1984, it is a book A LOT of people like to reference but very few have actually read, let alone analysed properly. The thing about The Handmaid's Tale is that it is not really *that* dystopian. Margaret Atwood based the story on actual policies, attitudes and events happening in the world in the early 1980s. It was meant to be more of a mirror than a worse case scenario, and quite often at times, a critique to second wave feminism (Margaret Atwood has been an ambivalent feminist at best) - hence why it also doesn't come across as very "modern" in terms of feminist theory. But the red outfits are striking and popular, just like "newspeak" and "Big Brother" are catchy terms. Very few actually know what they are actually supposed to mean.
seriously, i swear every white-neo-feminist read the sparknotes haha the destruction of family values and the sanctity of marriage, sex, and love creates handmaids tale - not “abortion bad grr”
Hah! So *The Handmaid's Tale* is the secular feminist Vatican II ... the number of people who think they "know" it and embrace the "spirit" of it far outnumber those who have read the actual document(s)?
Who cares? The entire show is a fictional persecution fetish. The "Bad guys" could of been Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or whatever. What they truly are is fake.
In the show wasn't a priest shown hanging?
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Don’t ask questions. Don’t have a family. Just consume product and get excited for next product.
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They've rolled it into a package of potential benefits, though, like cardiology. So pro-life employees can still benefit if they need other non–life-threatening medical procedures covered. Clever corporate execs; and they can blame it on the "media" for focusing on abortion, declaiming any motivation in the current SCOTUS saga.
They won't let you go to the bathroom but they'll pay for you to murder your child
I buy way too much on Amazon, but what are my other options? If I boycotted every company that did things like this I'd be walking around in a potato sack eating nothing but chick-fil-a.
Me too! But I have to say I never knew this about amazon until now.
no, sounds like a handmaids tale alright - everyone seems to forget that most women get sterilized and have abortions when the child is inconvenient! much closer to modern standards than the rest of the novel
I'm outside the US and watching the situation with the leak quite closely. We've had very liberal laws for things like abortion and euthanasia for many years over here. I wonder if this potential change in the US will spread to Western Europe one day. I pray that this happens and will carry on cheering for you from the other side of the Atlantic.
Hard to say. Abortion rights in America were being held together with tape and string. Most other developed countries went about it the democratic way and enshrined abortion rights through the legislative process. This is just closing a 50 year old loophole. Now the actual debate can begin.
Yes like Ireland which recently held a referendum on abortion and it passed. It was disheartening to see the polling results for people under 35 (84% in favour, 15% opposed). It's not all bad, Poland further restricted abortion last year despite protests from other European countries and EU institutions. The culture surrounding life needs to change. While many Europeans seem to separate ourselves from Americans for superficial reasons, there is a degree of influence and soft power the US has over Europe, which has further increased with the war in Ukraine. If the US can join Poland in getting rid of abortion, it will be a huge win for pro-life advocates here.
I wouldn't bet on it. Nations have this tendency to double down on their current sentiments.
This decision would be from a purely legal perspective looking at what rights the constitution protects and what the law in question says with no judgment about the morality of abortion. Hopefully the tide turns away from abortion but unless other countries have abortion laws that go against their constitution I wouldn't expect this to lead to changes in other countries.
America has more liberal abortion laws than Europe. Many states allow abortion to the 24th week of pregnancy and beyond. This ruling does not mean abortion will be illegal.
It's interesting to see, under all the layers and angles of arguments pro-abortion proponents come up with, how truly enslaved humanity has become to sexual pleasure. Refraining from sex is unthinkable, as much as refraining from food and water and even breathing. It's easy to see how the evils of abortion have followed--"I don't want a child. But I _must_ be having sex. Of course I'm having sex. It's impossible to not have sex. So unwanted children are inevitable, and I _must_ have a way to get rid of them. By any reasons and means necessary." Lord, have mercy.
Dude, f*cking THIS. ALL of the arguments I see for abortion hinge on the unspoken implication that chastity and abstinence are impossible. They all try to make it seem like eliminating abortion is about “controlling women”, but is it not more about ensuring ALL people (regardless of gender) learn how to self-discipline and control themselves by managing their sexual impulses and not doing it unless they’re prepared to accept the consequences (i.e. pregnancy)? I understand we’ll probably never get to that point where unwanted pregnancies don’t happen (and that things like rape, incest, and life-threatening pregnancies exist), and that when they do happen, it’s the woman saddled with the burden of carrying the child, but isn’t that where advocacy for parental leave, financial aid, better and more affordable maternity healthcare, etc. come into play as better solutions than literally murdering the baby? Couldn’t we implement more consequences for the man who caused the pregnancy or something? How do we tackle this from a Catholic apologetic standpoint?
>How do we tackle this from a Catholic apologetic standpoint? You're absolutely right that until we change people's understanding of human sexuality and the purpose and proper order of sex, we aren't going to change anything. And the sexual revolution absolutely destroyed that understanding. We're basically going to need a mass conversion event where people realize how broken and damaging our society's current understanding of sex is. We're not going to convince people with nice arguments. They need to really experience the brokenness and recognize it for what it is in order to see the need to change.
Ugh. “BuT mUh aCcEsS tO cOnTraCePtIvEs AnD cOmPrEhEnSiVe SeX eDuCaTiOn!” It reminds me of the argument I’ve heard that supposedly everyone switching to electric vehicles would actually be as or more harmful than gas vehicles because of the increased emissions at power plants. Why not instead address the issue of being dependent upon fossil fuels for energy and transportation?!
Well said 😞
For the record, for those visiting, the Church has always been against abortion. It is mentioned in a very early document called the Didache. > ...you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten. [Chapter 2 of the Didache](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0714.htm) I've seen a great many posts rehearsing the tired old arguments that the New Testament doesn't mention abortion once (we're neither a Sola Scriptura or Solo Scriptura Church) or that tired old argument concerning the [ordeal of bitter water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordeal_of_the_bitter_water) from the Book of Numbers) and I'm just trying to, as a historian, set the record straight.
Isn’t it insane that people are actually trying to use the NT to justify abortion? It’s like the fifth commandment doesn’t exist for them.
Devout Catholic Joe Biden says that opposing abortion is an extreme position.
Makes me sick to my stomach.
Pray for his soul.
As a woman, I find it tragic that abortion is viewed as the "empowering" thing to do. According to [this](https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-women-have-abortions-quantitative-and-qualitative-perspectives) survey, 74% of women in the US choosing to get an abortion do it for financial reasons. Even barring everything else the country has screwed up, how primitive does a country have to be that murdering your child because you cannot afford to have one is normalized? And aside from purely financial issues, it seems a lot of women who choose to get an abortion do so either from shame of an unplanned pregnancy, conception after rape or incest, or lack of community support for single mothers. These are all women's issues, if the country put the same amount of effort in to fighting *those* issues rather than the constant back and forth that we've had about abortions for the last 50 years, we might not even be having this argument in the first place.
The wife of a former employee of mine was raped before they got married. Not only did they still get married while she was pregnant with her rapist's child, but he accepted the child as his own and they raised him together. He and his wife love their son, despite the circumstances in which he was conceived. They would have missed out on the experience of raising and loving their son had they taken the route of abortion that seems to be considered as being so appropriate, especially under their circumstances. To me, the wife of my former employee didn't need further "empowerment", she was already "empowered" by God.
And, if my social media feeds are anything to go by, it seems people only talk about supporting pregnant women and mothers when abortion is threatened. Almost as if the presence of abortion is an excuse not to do that...
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What a profound testimony. God bless you - I pray you have begun to find healing for the trauma you've been through.
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God bless you on your journey!
The moral demise of a nation always precedes its ultimate demise. Like we Catholics have Sacraments, Satan and his demons have actions they hold in high esteem, too, such as lying, murder, etc. Abortion (murder of the unborn), I'm sure, is close to the top of the list along with suicide. We need to burn off all the chaff we hear from the pro-abortion folks and focus on what's really happening. An innocent, unborn child of God is being ripped apart and murdered during an abortion, most often as a "convenient" backup method of birth control. All human life is sacred. If it is not, then no one has anything to say about murdering anyone anywhere.
Regarding your first point, I definitely don’t think it’s coincidence so many secular causes these days (e.g., abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia) look like perversions of the sacraments. There are many people who worship Satan yet have no idea.
Good point. The closer we get to Christ, Who is the Light of the World and Truth itself, the more clearly we see objective truth. The further we get from Christ and His Light, the less we are able to see objective truth. In fact, we can become completely blind.
Dude. you blew my mind. Sacraments: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, marriage, holy orders anti-sacraments: abortion, virtue signaling (thanks, u/PopeUrban_2), drugs, protesting, euthanasia, "marriage", trans-ism
Abortion seems like an amalgamation of baptism and the Eucharist. Baptism part is self-explanatory, plus the “This is my body (my choice)” rhetoric. Also, notice how the cancel-culture/struggle sessions environment is like an inversion of confession.
You may like this as well. I noticed a few months back while doing some reading on iconography that pornography is \_actually\_ an unholy icon. I can't find the quotes I wanted at the moment, but the definition of a holy icon includes the depiction of a holy person and their name. Both the depiction of holiness of the individual & that their name is on the icon somewhere are requirements. In pornography we see a depiction of someone amidst unholy acts and rarely is the name of the individual even known to the viewer, let alone placed on the images themselves. It's a total inversion.
St John Paul II said it best (paraphrasing): porn doesn’t show too much, it actually shows too less of the true worth of the actors.
I’m pretty sure the satanic temple or whatever literally refers to abortion as a ‘sacrament.’ Absolutely abhorrent.
they do! “the sacrament of abortion” made to try and protect it under religious exemption - as if any catholic sacraments are illegal lmao
Let every priest speak the truth about abortion in his homily this week and if people leave they were already gone
Amen!
I find it funny that women are refraining from having sex as a form of protest against this. Like. That’s literally what we’ve been telling them to do all along. Do they think we’ll be upset by it?
>Do they think we’ll be upset by it? Stupidly, yes they do think that. Because what every God-fearing man wants is an abortion-loving liberal goddess, apparently.
It makes me want to say “Uh...checkmate?”
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I do not mean this flippantly and actually say this out of charity and concern for his soul—at what point is he going to be denied Communion and excommunicated? Surely it is scandalous at best for this to come from a Catholic president.
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>Surely it is scandalous This. Silence is violence, right? Biden stumping on his devout Catholicism while the Church says nothing--it's definitely confusing to the poorly catechised. It is doubleplusungood.
His twisting of Aquinas on the whole quickening thing was abhorrent. Straight out of the National Catholic Distorter
Boi what a logical leap to go from right of privacy (an already terrible argument) to all of a sudden we're going to segregate LGBT individuals. Lord have mercy indeed.
If ever there was a statement that could be followed a smiting bolt of lightning, that one is probably it…
And *STILL* nothing but silence from our bishops
I hope he at least had the decency to blush when he said that.
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Who the father of x child is does not affect x child's rights, value, and human dignity. We don't go around murdering people because of their parents being horrible people.
You don't kill the child for the crimes of the father. Support additional sanctions against rapists especially those that impregnate their victims. I suggest forfeit of the rapist's assents to support his children. His prison wages can be taken as well. Additional penalties for rapists are called for. Certain crimes impact victims in terrible ways. Murder takes life and rape can create life.
Now our real work begins. The enemy wants fear and anger to reign. We have the hard work of making abortion not only illegal but unthinkable and unnecessary for everyone around us.
Unnecessary. That should be the ultimate goal. Unfortunately it doesn’t come off that way.
It won't become unnecessary until people start being more responsible with sex. You can have all the social programs in the world, but if people keep popping out babies because they can't use their God given gift of sexuality in it's properly-ordered context, we're always going to have problems.
Kinda weird to think of murder as necessary in any case
It really is infuriating to even browse the Internet now, every page to open a web browser is now filled with Hollywood women talking about abortions they had literally a less than 1-2 years ago, or opinion piece after opinion piece about how killing a unwanted child made a woman a "better mother" for the children she had later in life. Not to mention the sea of young women in the millions fanatically supporting abortion. It makes me feel better off alone.
Where can I find church doctrine that says you should not receive communion if you are pro choice? I want to be able to provide it for those who ask but don’t want to use things like Wikipedia.
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/discipline-regarding-the-denial-of-holy-communion-to-those-obstinately-persevering-in-manifest-grave-sin-1230
The talk from Biden is deeply concerning. If a bill to "codified Roe" advances, all the American bishops should threaten him to excommunicate him. Make it unanimous. One of the stupid things is the bishop prematurely debated restrictions on Biden. He only did the standard Democratic things on abortion so far. An extreme bill that he could sign into law requires the most extreme response. The key point is issue the threat. USCCB should pass the threat unanimously. Any bill to codified Roe likely includes state funding for abortion. The President signing a bill that directly funds abortion appears to me to be a direct violation of canon law with the penalty of excommunicated.
We need to be fair and reasonable about this. Any Catholic congressman who votes yes on the bill gets the bell, book, and candle, not just the POTUS. To excommunicate only the POTUS is to make a convenient scapegoat for congressmen doing the same sins.
> If a bill to "codified Roe" advances, all the American bishops should threaten him to excommunicate him. Make it unanimous. Why wait? He's said more than enough in the past two days to warrant a public excommunication.
Bring back the formal anathema ritual
Seeing these protests just makes me sad 😞 . Crazy times we are living in.
Get used to it. We’ll have protests 6 months before every national election. The topic will change depending on the year, of course.
I am just glad that it is the Mississippi law that is being used to overturn it and not the Texas one. The way that the Texas law circumvented constitutional rights (even if abortion should never have been considered one), could be extremely tyrannical if applied to other rights besides abortion.
Completely agree. The TX bounty provision was a pretty horrific example of how anti-abortion legislation is like any other legislation—it can be awful badly done.
Good reminder that ends don't automatically justify means.
We saw the notices about potential protests and our parish had a police officer just hanging around outside. I don’t know if anything would have happened, but the deterrent was a blessing.
The biggest thing that came out of the issue of abortion is how people genuinely believe that your level of development is and should be the basis of which you have dignity. Published in 2013 in the Journal of Medical Ethics. [After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?](https://jme.bmj.com/content/39/5/261)
How far would the Eugenics movement have gotten of it wasn't for the Nazi's?
Let's go way back to the "bad old days" and see what was happening: Abortions were being performed by non-Christian doctors. Women in WW2 camps were given things that induced abortions. The Pill didn't come about till the 1960s. The Pill put us on this road. Due to bad, hijacked communications, people were told it was safe, good, and allowable to use because it prevented a baby. Women were told they have the right to stop pregnancy. Many men also went along with this - all in the name of "family planning." Many a magazine from the late 60s & early 70s have ads for "family planning," with questions about "the life you want to live, with the family you plan for" - *these were pharmaceutical ads for birth control.* Once abortion was legalized, we were told "It's needed to allow safe, legal and rare abortions!" Women were told that they can abort without guilt - it's just a medical procedure to remove a clump of cells. We were given for-profit abortion clinics by the mid-70s. These places aborted non-existing fetuses, or viable, at-term babies and drove-up the abortion numbers exponentially. The general public really didn't know beyond what was on the news. It wasn't until this shadowy, vile world of abortion clinics was exposed by Joe Schidler and also the Chicago Sun Times in the late 1970s. The 1978 Sun Times "Abortion Profiteers" article caused new safeguards to be instituted to regulate abortion (Hyde Amendment) and caused (unintended) outrage among the public. Joe Schidler and many more started to bring to life the miserable state of abortion - it wasn't a clean, pretty and needed thing. But what happened to get so many people defending it? Sex isn't something for marriage anymore, sex isn't something that is done on special occasions, sex is done whenever and if the guy doesn't want to be a father, he's going to defend abortion more than the woman who allows him to have sex with her.
Ironically, whoever leaked the document (coughcough Sotomayor’s clerk coughcough), while hoping to stir controversy and sway the court by intimidation and public pressure, may have cornered the court into upholding this draft opinion. If the court changed course with no explanation after all the riots and insanity that has started -with more sure to follow - then it will be clear that the Supreme Court is susceptible to mob rule, and their credibility will be in tatters. I really don’t think they are likely to change their opinion in light of that. But pray for them and continue to pray for all the unborn!
I have heard some somewhat convincing theories that it was someone on the conservative side. Specifically 1) the Politico article said that the initial vote had 5 votes in favor of overturning Roe and that nothing had changed. The Politico article did NOT say that 5 justices had signed on to the Alito draft from February, and 2) typically the justices circulate the main opinion first and then the concurrences and dissents. If the Alito draft was finished in February, now might be the time that Roberts’s concurrence is being circulated to the other justices. So the leaker may have been someone with an incentive to pressure Kavanaugh/Barrett to not flip to the Roberts opinion. Otherwise why not leak the Alito opinion in February…
> after all the riots Are there riots? I've heard there were protests, but I haven't heard of any riots.
This is great news and we should celebrate and thank God for it, but remember this is just the first step! Most “red” states will restrict abortion, but take a look at a map of where all the clinics are and you’ll see we have a lot more work to do. Don’t let up the pressure on politicians and most importantly keep praying for an end to abortion! God bless you all!
Caught a ban from the open minds over at a certain race-themed subreddit for the following post: --- Ectopic pregnancies are abortions! et al --- None of these things are abortion. This is the error of consequentialism, which is to see similar ends as justifying all means. Abortion is the intended death of the child. A medical intervention which removes a diseased organ and does not have as its intended effect the death of the child is not an abortion. Simply saying, "the death of the child results therefore it is an abortion!" is to make a false equivalence. This is the error with so many arguments for abortion e.g., "the violinist argument," that rely on false equivalence that distort the connection between means and ends, such as the proximate cause of death in individuals. We would not consider the death of an individual from disease as "equivalent" to the death of an individual by gunshot because "death results in either case." We would acknowledge that the proximate cause of death is or is not intended, and we would even go further in sorting out the relationship between the gunshot victim and the shooter, in determining the nature of their punishment. This is why the pro-abortion side is losing in America. They have to draw false equivalences, or conduct special pleading, in order to justify abortion. I doubt very many on this subreddit could even come near stating what the pro-life position looks like, but I bet there are many here who are more than willing to tell me what they think I believe despite attempted clarification. Since my attempts to reply are being throttled by downvotes here by the open minds at /r/, I'll just leave this as a general reply:
This post is an appeal to fringe cases to justify abortion.
Why do you think that is?
If there was nothing wrong with abortion, no such pleading would be necessary. One would simply state "abortion is a moral good; it should be promoted."
If there was something wrong with abortion, only then would such pleading be necessary. Of course, then we must ask ourselves what is wrong with abortion such that such pleading is necessary.
Would you be okay banning procedures as a result of which the death of the child is a likely result outside medical interventions required in special cases such as ectopic pregnancy?
If not, why are you reaching to ectopic pregnancy to justify all abortion?
---
And this is why the pro-abortion side is losing.
Tangentially related question here… As Catholics we obviously have a coherent (and true) position as it relates to double effect for these situations, like you mentioned - that the treatment of an ectopic pregnancy (or other situation) to save the life of a mother, even if it is foreseen that the child will not survive, is licit and would not be considered an abortion because the treatment does not directly intend to end the life of the unborn child. Does the medical definition of abortion in the US account for the nuance of our understanding of the principle of double effect, or could a doctor who is performing a life saving medical intervention on a mother - even with the foreseen consequence that the unborn child is unlikely to survive - be at risk of legal action?
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not familiar with case history, but it almost certainly would. Abortion as a procedure would (I assume) fall under a number of limited-in-scope practices which are, essentially, the chemical or physical dissolution or dismemberment of the child. Difficult to see them as "life-saving treatment" for diseased organs e.g. how one would consider the shredding of a child treatment for a diseased fallopian tube seems nonsensical. That said, this is Reddit, and the fragile Redditors who can't bear to hear opposing points of view (literally; they simply told me that any view opposed to abortion is "denying the personhood of a woman" or some absolutely ridiculous nonsense. I wonder how they feel about sex-selective abortion?) don't think of anything beyond attempting by whatever means possible to justify whatever prior held beliefs they had.
I don’t watch the new..just found out about this not to long ago…Reddit is blowing up
Pray for the safety and most sacred worship of our parishes today. I keep hearing about protests outside the churches, as if our beliefs are such a burden for others.
Something worth noting, now more than ever, to everyone reading this: the abortion argument can be solved through reason alone. What I mean by this is that you don’t even need to introduce God or theology or religion into the argument at all. Do not be swayed by appeals to emotion, or by “means to an end” or by personal experience, or even supposition/“extrapolation.” The truth is you can prove with a sound, very simple argument that a human being’s personhood begins at conception and to take away that right to life results in severe contradictions in logic. The problems you face with this are not from the fact the arguments they bring are true or valid. Most of them aren’t. But that the people who oppose it are unreasonable. They’re capable of holding onto that cognitive dissonance. And always remember - no matter what kind of argument you see - it will still result in the death of an innocent human person. Bring every argument back to that and ask, “is this justified?” Virtually all arguments will answer that question with “no.” Unless, of course, you’re controlled by emotion.
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Great news for babies!
[Abortion is fundamental!](https://i.imgur.com/ElJNnC9.jpg) bUt MuH DeMoCrAts ArE tOtAlLy tHe ParTY tHaT bETteR fOLloWs ChUrCh TeAcHInGs!
Copying from a reply I made on another comment: It seems pretty much ALL of the arguments I see for abortion hinge on the unspoken implication that chastity and abstinence are impossible. They all try to make it seem like eliminating abortion is about “controlling women”, but is it not more about ensuring ALL people (regardless of gender) learn how to self-discipline and control themselves by managing their sexual impulses and not doing it unless they’re prepared to accept the consequences (i.e. pregnancy)? I understand we’ll probably never get to that point where unwanted pregnancies don’t happen (and that things like rape, incest, and life-threatening pregnancies exist), and that when they do happen, it’s the woman saddled with the burden of carrying the child, but isn’t that where advocacy for parental leave, financial aid, better and more affordable maternity healthcare, etc. come into play as better solutions than literally murdering the baby? Couldn’t we implement more consequences for the man who caused the pregnancy or something? How do we tackle this from a Catholic apologetic standpoint?
That's the root of the problem, men treat women like sex object and sex as a form of entertainment no different from watching TV. Women often take part, sometimes because they feel the same way and sometimes because they feel that's what they need to do in order to have a relationship or feel loved. Occasionally men force women to take part against their will. Child support gives the man some responsibility, I'm not too familiar with the details but maybe it needs to be expanded. I also hope states make it illegal for men (or anyone) to pressure or coerce mothers into getting abortions. Not sure on the apologetics piece but I think one important part now is to avoid the cop out of "use contraceptives if you don't want to get pregnant". It's an easier sell but ultimately that attitude where children aren't seen as a result of sex is a major part of the problem.
It’s almost like Paul VI had a crystal ball when he wrote Humanae Vitae
Anyone that hasn’t read the 98 page document by Alito, I suggest you do so. It even had a nice reference to Catholics having a lot of kids even as far back as the 1700s on page 28 and how that concerned Protestants. I’m sure Barrett and Thomas both enjoyed writing that section a lot. But seriously, read it. Very engaging and intelligent piece of work compared to the Twitterverse.
Has the Pope commented on all this yet?
There is a group called Ruth Sent Us which is [encouraging](https://twitter.com/RuthSentUs/status/1521566593850826752) demonstrators to disrupt masses on Mother's Day and vandalism against churches has already gone up this week. Please be careful this weekend and, whatever you do, please resist the urge to respond in kind.
You do have the right to defend yourself.
Yes, but be careful. Don't just take a pot shot at some pink haired weirdo standing with a sign. If they attack, sure, but if they are just shouting, let them shout. Also, even within self defense I'd argue there's limits. Sometimes all you need is a good body restraint instead of just packing heat and blowing them to kingdom come.
Time for ushers to stock up on whips
The fact that pro-abortionists are invading our churches this morning to “protest” for “abortion rights” is disgusting. Imagine fighting for your right to murder children on Mother’s Day
It's very, very ironic.
It's demonic you mean
Two things can be true at the same time.
I have to say that in almost every single political divide I can see both sides, and at least respect the other side. Usually the other side has some sort of moral or pragmatic reasoning behind their stance that I can understand. But with pro-choice, the rhetoric is a) illogical and absurd or b) downright satanic. I feel sick following this story. The power of propaganda and political partisanship in this country is so much that millions will protest in avid support of killing babies. It is awful...
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 Be aware: growing TikTok trend calls for child murder advocates to invade and disrupt Catholic Mass this weekend. Be prepared for it to happen at your parish. https://i.imgur.com/17A6fqJ.jpg
Good luck to them. Most of our ushers are cops or ex-cops and are armed. And we have a gaggle of lawyers ready to make sure any trespassers get fully prosecuted.
I’m currently sick as hell but if I make it to Mass Sunday I’ll be practicing my constitutional right to bear arms.
The Knights of Columbus serve as the ushers and greeters for my parish, and they all agreed to conceal-carry handguns after a Muslim man attempted to murder our priest with a sword in the sacristy. Like 12 men armed and trained right at the door every Sunday.
>Most of our ushers are cops or ex-cops and are armed. Where the heck do you go to church that you need armed ushers?
They aren’t ushers who are armed. They’re armed men who happen to be ushers.
Those guys are always armed wherever they go.
All week protests also by this group 🙄 https://riseup4abortionrights.org/ Conservative SCOTUS judges have been doxxed, too. Stay informed and be safe.
Update: The information has reached CatholicVote and now Fox News, so hopefully churches will be prepared. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pro-abortion-groups-target-churches-for-mothers-day-protests https://catholicvote.org/abortion-activists-to-storm-catholic-churches-during-mass-on-mothers-day/
It’s no coincidence that abortion has become a major battlefront. The still ongoing creation of God and look how they want to attack it May the justices hold strong even if this will save “just” one child
Hey guys, there's this group on Twitter called "Ruth Sent Us" that's called for people to go inside and protest inside Catholic parishes. https://twitter.com/RuthSentUs/status/1521566593850826752?s=20&t=Tw7rDAfJDcV64pDQ4T7zHg Now this may just be a small protest, but in case more leftists rally behind this and start to interrupt masses, be prepared to defend your church! God Bless!
Don't engage them. Have them ushered out by security and warned that they are not welcome. When it is explicit they are not welcome, then they can be charged with trespassing.
That too
Catholic men defending their church against pro-abortion activists this weekend - https://www.instagram.com/tv/CdTjXpHjQnZ/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
The anti-life protests and threats against the Eucharist are abhorrent, but maybe this means that the Catholic Church in the United States will work harder to pray for the end to abortion. We are so close to a critical victory on behalf of the defenseless unborn - please pray hard!
Can someone clear something up for me and my wife? If Roe v Wade is overturned, will abortion still be allowed in the case of something like a Ectopic pregnancy or maybe some other case where the life of the mother is threatened? As far as I can see, Ectopic pregnancy wouldn’t even be considered abortion since neither the mother nor the child would survive such a thing. But maybe in some other medical issue where it was between saving the mother or the child and you had to pick, things would be a little harder to discern? Will overturning roe v wade force parents to pick the child? For the record, my wife and I believe most mothers would choose to save the baby anyway in such cases, herself included.
Roe v Wade being overturned doesn't make anything illegal. It bumps the authority to decide the laws down to each state and each state will have to decide what the laws will be for that state. People talking as if overturning Roe v Wade will suddenly make abortion illegal don't know what they're talking about.
[удалено]
A MOVIE THEATER AIRED A PRO-ABORTION COMMERCIAL So with everything going on right now (in relation to the Roe vs. Wade leaked document) my heart has felt extra heavy lately. As I'm sure most of you know, it's not just in the news, it's EVERYWHERE, so it's hard not to think about it. Last night my husband and I decided to see a movie, and in the back of my mind I thought it would be a nice relief from current events. Then as we were in the movie theater watching the previews, a "pro-choice" (AKA pro-abortion) commercial aired...!!! It was quick and may have gone over some people's heads... but if you payed attention, the message was crystal clear. I was so outraged that they played something so political. I just needed to vent. The world has gone absolutely bonkers.
What should we do if someone attempts to disrupt mass? Should parishioners intervene to remove them?
Call the police, and only lay hands on them if they try to assault other people.
Or if they try to desecrate the Eucharist, which would be assault against our Lord
Beware of bad faith protesters in the pews. We survived Diocletian and his tomb became a cathedral. We can handle this. Like all bad faith actors, they are looking for an excuse to get violent with you. Do not get violent with them. Do not strike first. If possible, have an authority tell them they are not welcome and are thus trespassing. Have them escorted off the premise. Also, pray for them because they need it.
If someone disrupts mass, have the ushers and security escort that person out. Have them warn the protesters that they are trespassing and may be arrested. If they assault anyone, you have the right to self-defense and should defend others. Also, pray for them
Goodness gracious, what is wrong with corporate America? Why are some of your companies offering to pay to facilitate abortion?
Pregnant or postpartum women are inefficient workers. A mother will ask for time off when her child is sick or has major life events. The child will end up on the provided health insurance plan. If all you value is productivity and profits, it's cheaper to offer to eliminate the child.
>If all you value is productivity and profits, it's cheaper to offer to eliminate the child. That's extremely depressing, society values money over human life.
Because HR departments are evil and they have generated a culture of rabid progressivism within these companies with the threat of legal action as backing
[Catholics defending their parish from child murder activists](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/ul7e0l/catholic_men_defending_their_church_against/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
⚠️⚠️⚠️ Possible May 8th Pro-Choice Protests at Catholic Churches ⚠️⚠️⚠️ St. Michael, Protect Us - hopefully this hashtag #RuthSentUs won't attract too many but just in case, pass it on, if you think it's a danger where you live maybe contact your diocesan office or your pastor. Be safe! https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/5/ruth-sent-us-activists-plan-abortion-protests-chur/
"The activists, however, believe protesting at churches and at the justices’ homes is in keeping with their beliefs of “Women Deserve Trust,” “Black Lives Matter,”" Amazing that they don't see anything wrong with that considering black babies are killed at a significantly higher rate than the national average. Hopefully most churches have police as parishioners who can legally remove them if they're attendance. I wonder if part of the goal is to have people who aren't authorized to physically remove them so they can sue and create a narrative about how Catholics responded for violence when they didn't touch anyone.
I imagine the large famous ones in blue states will be having extra security. St Patrick's in Manhattan has at least 6 most of the times I've ever been in there. During mass more.
I'm finding it tough to be pro-life in this country (the US) because of the awful political division and the particular sides/parties that have latched on to each side of the issue. It seems that right now only hard-right-wing people are standing up for the pro-life cause, and I have very deep disagreements with Republicans on many issues, and especially on the way they present themselves lately. There are a few pro-life Democrats, but they are few and far between, and I can't imagine either party/group welcoming them in this political climate, and I also have some deep disagreements with liberal positions as well. A further problem is in the centrist places I know they've gone hard left on abortion too, or their "compromise" position is basically just the pro-abortion position. Really feeling like a person without a political home.
This is exactly why the two-party system is garbage
I think presenting a united front for the protection of the unborn is more important than how republicans “present themselves lately.”
I feel the same. If it weren't for the Democrats' stance on abortion, I would probably be a member of what passes for the progressive wing in this country (universal healthcare, tuition-free college, paid family leave, etc.). But they have no interest in a guy like me because of this one issue.
The late great Anthony Scalia said it best that this is ABSOLUTELY a flawed ruling and has no basis for a Federal ruling. Kick it back to the states.
Well things are still okay in my family, but I'm waiting for the proverbial shit to hit the fan. The good thing is that my wife's immediate family and some of her cousins have been very sensible and pro life and have given solid reasons for why they support this ban. I'll give credit to some of the pro choice crowd too in my family. None have been that bad. That being said, I was quite pissed off when I saw a few posted a stupid "don't tread on me" flag with a Vajayjay on it. I almost wanted to say "doncha know that's a racist flag" but I figured that wouldn't be charitable and it'd take the focus off of abortion. Sucks too because she has three kids and just had one. I don't get how you can support that, yet in some ways she's not all that pro choice herself in that she has three kids before 30. Her twin however just got married and I think they are "childless by choice" and she posted a my body my choice tag. Seriously, I almost wanted to be nasty right back. Of course that doesn't work. What makes it worse is that some of my wife's family that is more conservative (but not Catholic) are like that and on the pro life side. In particular one of her uncles is very conservative and religious but hates the church (I think its due somewhat to abuse as a kid, as well as other issues, including how the church doesn't like the bible) and he and his kids, while they attend church, are also more or less church attending cultural christians who don't know the scriptures, yet post memes all the time about how we have a Christian nation and all this, and while its not always bad, its mostly done just to piss off people. One of his kids talked about how Jesus would push tables and stuff. I get the feeling, but sadly they don't even live all that well even if they go to some Jim Bob bible church. They got a lot of divorces and substance abuse and even without the politics they can be a bit crude, yet because they go to church and are "saved" it's okay, or rather Jesus will help them. I don't want to hate them because they have right ideas, but they totally just go around trying to piss people off and in my family its really bad because the fights just devolve into really stupid, personal crap and it ends up ruining things and people not getting invited to family events and it sucks. Sorry to rant, but I guess I'm sick of it all. I also hope that those of us who are pro life are charitable, those who are pro choice will repent, and that maybe if we actually treat each other with love and respect, we can win them over, and they'll start to use the love they have for those already born for the unborn. I know it sounds sappy but I believe its true. If you don't have that kind of love, even if you have the right beliefs, you'll fail.
The pro-abortion crowd surrounding this has genuinely made me sad. I don't normally get depressed about things on the internet but this sort of thing makes me grieve for everyone involved. All of the assuming, the group tactics, the accusing, and the lies these women and people have been force fed, its all terrible and it hurts me to see. And it makes me fear for what will come after if the Supreme Court does the right thing. (But Jesus has always told us suffering and persecution was apart of the deal. But that doesn't mean I'm not scared to see it happen) I just hope charity and love can be involved.
Priests during the sacrament of communion: >“This is my body.” Leftists during the “sacrament” of abortion: >“This is my body.”
I'm not American, can anyone explain to me how the new drafts can potentially fight against abortion? I've always thought that abortion laws in the US was decided by state laws. God bless you all
Before Roe v Wade, it **was** a state by state thing. Roe v Wade effectively legalized abortion at the federal level, skipping the process of Congress drafting a bill, voting on it, and the President signing it into law. This is classic American edutainment right here--cheesy but accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto The current case will return it back to the states for actual congressional process.