Blessing an abbatoir

"We pray that you will make this a place of safety and give a sense of sanctuary..."

...except for the little people sliced into itty bitty bits and sucked up with a vacuum. For them, not so much sanctuary.

"Woe to them that call evil good and good evil."

I have stopped being surprised at anything Planned Parenthood pulls. They consistently find ways of lowering the bar.

Believe it or not, Rod, some people (including some religious people) do mot think abortion is wrong. Some people even think that women having what they see as control over their bodies as a good thing. It's not that surprising that someone with that point of view would bless an abortion clinic.

Honestly. I don't like abortion and want to see it banned later in pregnancy, but it's not that hard to understand where they're coming from.

I guess the old "pro-life" tactic of yell and demonize dies hard. Funny, I would have thought people would have learned by now that it doesn't work.

"Zoetius--(assuming what you say is true) then why are they so opposed to the sidewalk counselors who are peaceful and only want to help prevent the women from having abortions."

Because it's not uncommon for violent thugs to hang out with such people, and do things like, to mention a couple of incidents from Texas in recent years, drive a truck through the front door of the building while people are at work in it (Planned Parenthood - Houston) or leave an explosive device in the parking lot (Austin Women's Health Center). And this of course leaves out the various and sundry threats of violence that people who work in abortion clinics have to face, some of which have lead to real violence - including murder, from people who have later been found to have a history of so-called peaceful protest.

So, in that context, it makes sense for them to be opposed to "sidewalk counselors" being near their facilities. Also, more than a few of those counselors use insults and harassment are part of their counseling regimen, so that gives further reason for the Planned Parenthood crowd to want protestors to keep their distance.

I will say this, sometimes protestors are good for fundraising. I've been to a couple of Planned Parenthood events where we do an "adopt a protestor" fundraiser, wherein we throw in a few extra bucks for each protestor outside the event. Sometimes we single one or two out for the fundraising. We make sure to inform the protestors of that, when we do it. That's always rather amusing.

didn't traditional judaism and catholicism allow for abortions before "quickening?" (first trimester)?

didn't traditional judaism and catholicism allow for abortions before "quickening?" (first trimester)?

not Catholicism, I can tell you

Moreover, if PP is so interested in preventing abortions, why don't they take on a more persuasive role, trying to make a minimal effort to encourage alternatives to the present "choice"--and treat abortion as a last resort?

Human sacrifice has been part of pagan religions for millenia (even recorded in the OT), and it is part of some pagan religions today, as this post describes. There may be legitimate exceptions, but generally I see abortion as a sacrifice to the great false gods whose names are Convenience and Individualism.

This is evil, plain and simple. The only one likely to respond to such prayers is the father of lies and prince of darkness, and I shudder to contemplate the eternal destiny of those people participating in that blasphemous ceremony should any of them die without repentance.

This sort of thing does point out the schizophrenia of the pro-abortion side of this issue, though. Is abortion a personal tragedy for a woman, or merely a rite of passage? Is an abortion something to be mourned or celebrated? Should they pull long faces and use phrases like "safe, legal and rare" or clap wildly at the moment of death, during a video tape showing an actual partial birth abortion, as a roomful of "reproductive rights" activists reportedly did? Is a baby born alive during a "failed" abortion a little miracle waiting to be adopted, or a "burden" to her mother, as Barack Obama said?

All the more reason to support Mike Huckabee tomorrow. Get the message out!

5 smooth stones.
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=26591&page=1

Well, Zoetius, I can't speak for folks in your neck of the woods. In my area, it doesn't play out like that. And I'd venture to say that many abortion clinics don't have the most professional of staff and certainly aren't there to counsel women about their choices. Again, if PP is so concerned about reducing abortions, they ought to at least put up a pittance to try and steer the woman away from it.

It's not a political demonization...it's a judgment on their practices.

I think it is possible that Zoetius is making the same judgment about CPCs that he accuses pro-lifers of making about PP.

I wonder if these Aztec Aquinases did any scripture readings at their little ceremony. For future use, may I suggest the following:
Old Testament Reading: Job 3:3 ("Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.")
Psalm 137 ("Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.")
Gospel: Matthew 26:24 ("But woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It had been better for that man if he had not been born.")
I hope these folks finally attain heaven, where (I am sure) they'll have a great time pulling the wings off cherubs.

Since a person is not ensouled until the first breath of life is drawn, how is abortion a moral evil?

John E.:

Not directly related to what you said, but there's a passage in the Divine Comedy where Dante says that a fetus does not become a person and is not ensouled until their brain is stitched together in the womb (i.e., not prior to that). I find the sophistication of that thought extremely cool, given how long ago he was writing. Plus it's just great common sense.

Dante is a cool author. The stages of hell were interesting creations. But he isn't the Author of the Truth.

Souls are created by God. Our job as Christians isn't to know the commencement of the merger of body and the soul. Our commandment is 'Thou shall not kill.'

Here's what The Creator says to the created.

Isaiah 43:1,2,4-7
Israel's Only Savior
1 But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze. ...
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.

6 I will say to the north, 'Give them up!'
and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.'
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth-

7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."

ossicle. Good. But it's not MY argument. I wasn't going for Argument.

I was aiming at meditation on God's Word. God's word always goes forth and accomplishes something. Suppose there are supposed to be holes for the Holy Spirit to work. It is the Water of Life after all and what good is it if it stays in the bucket.

Standing by it.

It always amazes me that one side of this debate is so opposed to science and rational inquiry that they would have us return to the embryology of Aristotle and Aquinas.

Not to mention long, drawn-out debates about purely subjective terms like "ensoulment" and "personhood".

Of course, since "living" and "human" have reasonably objective criteria easily established with today's technology, sticking to the facts wouldn't help their case too much, I guess.

>>>>
....but that's what the pro-choice argument so often seems to boil down to.
Posted by: Erin Manning | February 5, 2008 5:08 PM
>>>>

Is it? I was under the impression that the argument was that up until a certain point in fetal development, the woman has a right to terminate the pregnancy because the embryo had no rights recognized under the law.

I think that what pro-life/anti-abortion people cannot deal with is ambiguity. But I am afraid that this universe is full of ambiguity, starting with
the fact that if God is pro-life why does everyone and everything in the physical universe die? (to paraphrase George Carlin). Why the frightening waste of life in nature, with something like 40-50 percent of fertilized human eggs naturally failing to implant? No argument from theodicy can answer this, by saying it's original sin or some such cause that brought death to us. Because if God is omnipotent and omniscient, as is the orthodox Christian belief, God knew very well that humankind would fall, that evil would enter creation, but He went ahead and created anyway. He bears the ultimate responsibility, and no one, including the author of Job and C.S. Lewis, has ever answered that other than to sputter, well, well, you just don't understand what God is like. Well, maybe not, but there's that uncomfortable ambiguity again.

"A neonate does not have a parasitic relationship with the body of a human being."

Tell that to a nursing mom, Daniel--I dare ya!

Seriously, without the availability of a digestible artificial formula the neonate would starve to death without the mother's body.

But of course the digestible artificial formula exists. In utero, the fetus has a parasitic relationship that can't be reproduced artificially or through technology.

A nursing baby does not have the same parasitic relationship with the body of the mother that a fetus or emrbyo has with the body of the woman. No matter how much you turn the fetus into a human being completely separate from the women, you can't overcome that biological reality the if the woman's physical life ends, so does the life of the embryo or fetus. It's not as though a fetus can continue to grow inside the body of a woman who is biologically dead.

"No matter how much you turn the fetus into a human being completely separate from the women, you can't overcome that biological reality the if the woman's physical life ends, so does the life of the embryo or fetus."

Nor can you overcome the biological reality that if a pregnant woman dies, two separate and distinct human beings die, the mother and her child. Thanks for pointing that out, Daniel; you're helping my argument more than you're hurting it, you know.

"you're helping my argument more than you're hurting it, you know."

If it makes you feel better to feel that, so be it.

The reality is the fetus and embryo are a part of the woman's body, which she should be allowed to control with the state sending in the police to block the physician's office. There is only one, autonomous human involved and she doesn't have a parasitic relationship to another human being.

Daniel, it's cute that you keep calling the relationship between a mother and her unborn child "parasitic," but I don't think you really understand the term.

Parasitism refers to a specific type of symbiotic relationship in which two organisms of different species interact in such a way that the host organism is harmed in some way by the presence of the parasite. It is not a term used to describe the gestational relationship of two mammals, one of which is mother to the other.

Of course, what you mean is that according to your own personal (religious?) beliefs, the relationship between mother and offspring while the latter is gestating seems parasitic, just as you seem to indicate, above, that according to your particular philosophy the presence of legal rights has an impact upon the scientific classification of an individual in regards to whether that organism is a separate, distinct, living individual being or not. I respect your private (though unscientific) views, but why should I accept the imposition of your morality upon my opinions, grounded as they are in the scientific reality of the origins of human life?

I'm Catholic, Daniel; we don't proof-text.

What biological truths am I walling off, and what scientific endpoint am I ignoring? According to science, the unborn human embryo is human, alive, and a biologically distinct individual. (And "feeding off a woman's lifeblood" isn't a very scientific way of explaining pregnancy, but I'll overlook it.)

When you say this, though, "No artificial technology can keep the fetus alive outside of the woman's body, which therefore makes it different from a human being." you've crossed back into the strange tenets of your religion again. The embryonic or fetal human is still human, still alive, and still a unique individual being in relation to his mother; the fact that the natural process of gestation requires him to obtain nutrition through his umbilical cord doesn't make him not-human, not-alive, or not-individual (for an obvious point, his developing reproductive organs are clearly not a part of his mother's body, are they?) So your own private belief that the unborn human is a subhuman form of life is not grounded in science.

Moreover, your statement is factually incorrect, as well. Human embryos are kept alive outside of their mother's wombs all the time in a state of suspended animation, waiting to be implanted into either their own mothers' wombs or the wombs of those adopting them (they are clearly not dead, or what would be the point?); in addition, the ability of a fetus to survive ex utero depends entirely on his gestational age at the time he is removed from his mother's womb, and the ability to survive outside the womb is trending backward all the time with advances in technology.

But even if it were possible for a preborn human to survive outside his mother's womb--in, say, an artificial womb environment from the moment of conception until thirty-six weeks post-conception--your religion would probably require you to believe that his mother should still have the right to kill him. And why should you get to impose your religion on me?

"According to science, the unborn human embryo is human, alive, and a biologically distinct individual"

Your terminology is the problem. The Embryo is human, in terms of being a part of the species. Whether an embryo is a person is another question of which there is no scientific consensus. The embryo is alive, in the sense of having a heartbeat and brain functions--at least in the later stages--but again is biologically dependent on another person's body. So in that sense, there is no scientific consensus that the embryo is alive. In terms of being biologically distinct, it is true that the embryo has separate DNA.

Your private absolute belief that the embryo or fetal tissue is human and alive is not grounded in science. To say it is intellectually (and scientically) naive and simplistic.

"And why should you get to impose your religion on me?"

We're both Catholics. My religion doesn't believe a woman should abort her fetus. But that's separate from my view of whether my religion should control the public policy of the entire country and be forced on women who don't share my religious belief. And it doesn't require me to proof-text science like you have in order to argue the fetus is an autonomous human being.

Autonomous is your word, not mine. Science isn't concerned with the question of personhood, either. And frankly I'd be amazed if you could find any biologist who thinks that embryos aren't alive, that biological dependency "overrules" the basic scientific criteria for establishing that an organism is a living organism.

My "private absolute belief that the embryo or fetal tissue is human and alive" isn't at all private (and nice work, getting "fetal tissue" in there instead of having to deal with the visible human child on a 3-D or 4-D ultrasound; "fetal tissue" is so depersonalizing, isn't it?). It's scientific fact, whether you choose to accept it or not. Is the fetus dead? Not unless you kill her, or she dies a natural death before birth. Is the human embryo a pig embryo? No, by definition.

Once again, I categorically deny that I'm proof-texting anything. If a scientist wants to tell me that he doesn't think human embryos deserve legal protection, I'm not going to mistake his private philosophical viewpoint for a scientific one. Science is limited to material reality, and the material reality of the human prior to birth is that she is demonstrably human, and demonstrably alive: human, by virtue of her DNA, and alive, by the generally accepted criteria for determining life, and as distinctly opposed to either non-living or dead.

I find it interesting that you identify as a Catholic. I would never have guessed it by anything you've ever said on this forum.

There may be lots of different kinds of Catholics, Daniel, but the ones who favor legalized abortion on demand for whatever reason are in violation of the Church's teachings (see CCC 2270-2275, but especially 2273). In addition, my wholehearted acceptance of the Church's teachings regarding homosexuality (CCC 2357-2359) does not in any way constitute "hostility" toward homosexuals.

Don't tell me, though--let me guess: you approve of proof-texting the Catechism so you can work for social justice in those areas where you (and the Democratic party) agree with the Church's teachings while disregarding the Church's teachings on the sanctity of human life and the nature and purpose of human sexuality, calling yourself a "Catholic" all the while. Unfortunately, I know your kind of American Catholic all too well.

"Whether an embryo is a person is another question of which there is no scientific consensus."

Don't ya just love it? Basically, this quote says that it MAY be a human individual, but since some don't believe it's a human individual, let's go ahead and kill it!

Weeeeeee...throw caution to the wind! Freedom is POWER! Weeeeee....

I don't often post on abortion-related threads, mainly because I'm not 100% confident of my pro-life position (rape?, incest?, 11-year-olds?, morning-after pill?, etc.).

However, what I think important is that the case against abortion is not primarily religious, but is based on science and basic morality. I really think the pro-life position has little connection to Christianity, because
(i) The Bible is clearly pro-abortion at the one point it is mentioned (Numbers 5), and Judaism permits abortion.
(ii) My understanding is that the Catholic church only extended full personhood to the foetus in the 19th century, as the result of embryological knowledge, and that Aquinas, for example, only extended personhood to the moment of quickening. Earlier Christian writers (the Didache??) condemned abortion on the grounds of it being a way of covering up adultery, rather than because it involved killing a human. Look, I might be wrong about this, and I'd be happy to accept correction as long as it is honest rather than bombastic.

There are some influential ancient texts that do condemn abortion, such as the Hippocratic Oath, and some Hindu and Buddhist writings. However, it seems to me that people would do better basing pro-life positions on basically Enlightenment ideas about human rights.

I also feel uncomfortable about the way that pro-life is sold as part of a package, with conservative Christianity, neoliberal economics, trad sexual morality, etc. For example; there is no logical reason why one should not be pro-life and also in favour of gay marriage, yet very few people are. I don't think the pro-life movement is going to get anywhere when it acts like a members-only club. Also, there are important issues to debate about whether access to contraception and health education actually increases unwanted pregnancy, but this debate ought not to be seen entirely through the lens of Christian sexual morality.

"And, sadly, I know yours. We all do."

Yeah, their called Catholics.