Instead, what we have is a bipartisan ruling class committed, on both sides of the aisle, to incest with large corporations and to stripping us of habeas corpus for when the economy *really* goes south and they need to step on us quickly when civil unrest will surely follow. It’s no longer Left vs. Right. It’s our Ruling Class vs. the rest of us. When you can hop in a jet at any time and head for the villa in the foreign tax shelter, you don’t feel the normal sort of things about patriotism that normal people feel. Wealth and power are great cushions against feeling the consequences of one’s feckless disregard of one’s countrymen. To be sure, these people *use* the language of patriotism to manipulate people because they know ordinary people love their country (and rightly so). But a multinational corporation not only has no soul, it has no country and feels no obligation to America beyond what it is legally required to pay after its lawyers and accountants have tracked down all the loopholes. Our political class works for them, not for you.
I’m not sure I agree that a sane “coservatism” (as that term is currently understood) is the answer to our current woes. Chesterton hit it closer to the mark:
“There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning.” (From WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD.)
Hmm, that’s a great quote, and very apropos to the selection of candidates this year! Thanks, Mark S.
You just earned 100 points in my book for your “dead on” quote from Chesterton.
Practical man = Romney (and to a lesser extent Gingrich and Santorum)
Theorist/Thinker = Ron Paul
I join Dave in seconding Mark
I’m not sure what is supposed to be “sane” about turning women into human incubators and rolling back the clock on LGBT rights, but YMMV I guess.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m fairly certain that my wife, and my mother, and her mother before her would object to being called “human incubators,” at least at some level. I mean, technically it’s true at a biological level, since human women bear human children into the world, but it’s undeniably simplistic to view Catholic teaching on human sexuality as reducing women to mere biological functionaries.
Read some serious Catholic philosophy and theology that explains our reasoning, and drop the bigotry.
Alright, it’s a little more complex than that I’ll admit: under Catholicism’s worldview, women are either human incubators, virgins, or sinful. Better?
Uh, no. Try again. We simply believe that every human person is afforded dignity simply because of the fact that they’re human. Arguing that our position is as simplistic as turning women into human incubators is as intellectually and philosophically dishonest as it is bigoted.
When a man and a woman have sex, there’s a possiblity of new life resulting from that union. It’s disingenuous to reduce this to a matter of a woman’s control over her own body, because the resulting life is a unique person and ought not be reduced to a mere choice.
In fact, the so-called “pro-choice” position is the one that reduces women to servitude, because men now have the promise of sex without consequences, knowing that if a child results from any particular union, it can be conveniently killed and he can continue with his life uninterrupted.
That’s the position that reduces women to mere objects – not ours.
Speaking of projection, is that really all you see mothers as? Incubators?
Indeed. It’s an awfully strange position for a pro-choice individual to take, considering the talk about women being afforded the dignity to make decisions about their own bodies.
I can’t recall a single instance in all of the Catholic materials I’ve read in which women have been identified in such a crude manner.
No, that’s how you see women. If everyone followed your beliefs women would be reduced to having a life that consists of nothing but popping out babies like pez dispensers because men’s Magic Sperm is sacred (and that’s win they’re not dying in childbirth or having their physical and psychological health seriously debilitated by unwanted pregnancies). This also keeps them entirely dependent on fathers, husbands, and priests, namely, the patriarchy, but I’m sure you see this as a feature not a bug of Roman Catholic teaching.
Freedom for women means control over their own reproductive facilities. Having Church and State control them instead is nothing more than, (quite literally in one aspect) forced labor.
“and that’s win they’re not dying in childbirth or having their physical and psychological health seriously debilitated by unwanted pregnancies”
Huh?
What’s an “unwanted pregnancy?” I grant you, forced sexual encounters could result in “unwanted pregnancy,” but I don’t see how voluntary sexual activity qualifies.
We all know what happens when we have sex, that is, if the natural functions of the human body aren’t thwarted.
Don’t want babies? Don’t have sex. Baby-making is its primary purpose. Anyone with a high-school education in biology should have the capacity to understand that.
Nonesense, people have been having recreational sex for centuries. Even other primates and dolphins engage in non-reproductive sex. There’s a reason humans have a desire for sex even if they’re not “in heat” (so to speak).
I have to admit, I’m stunned by very little… but… wow.
You have the right to kill a child resulting from recreational and/or non-reproductive sex?
Why should I care what other primates do? Do they have reasoning and moral faculties?
Go ahead, act like a bonobo or dolphin if you’d like. But don’t project your animalistic impulses on humans with the capacity for moral reasoning.
The amount of question-begging Roman Catholics engage in when discussing abortion is astounding. “Kill a child” assumes the embryo or fetus is a child.
If it’s not a child, what is it? Does something other than a human child result from a human sexual act? What strange, anti-scientific reasoning the pro-choice folks engage when defending the indefensible.
It’s a fertilized egg, then an embryo, then much later a fetus. It is not an infant.
You can freeze a fertilized egg and it will remain intact for decades if not centuries. If implanted it will even someday become an infant. Try doing that with a newborn and see what happens.
And that matters why?
It matters, Mark, because in the words of Sesame Street, it shows that “one of these things is not like the other”.
An infant is not like an adult either. Do you likewise endorse infanticide?
Youngest of nine here. Second of two Caesarians. My mother had to have a hysterectomy after me; her uterus was worn too thin for her to carry another child. And yeah, nine of us plus her predisposition to heart disease, stroke, obesity, and diabetes did ruin her health: she died at age 54.
Even without knowing that part, she didn’t want to be pregnant again, to go through all of that again. But she did, and never regretted it. Not because “sperm is sacred”: it isn’t. Not because she was dependent: she had an inheritance, she wasn’t. But because I was her daughter, not a parasite; and she was my mother, not an incubator. Her *choice*, and she *chose* life.
If she’d believed what you do, and sneered at motherhood the way you do, I’d be dead right now. It’s not an unusual story or point of view for the post-Roe generation, and a very basic one: your beliefs would have killed me. So, not buying; and not staying quiet.
Such a beautiful story of self-sacrificial love. Thanks for sharing it.
I think this is a conceptual or philosophical matter for some folks. For others, like yourself, it’s REAL and it’s PERSONAL.
As usual, instead of arguing, he proceeds to tell YOU “This is what YOU really believe! If you refuse to conform to MY stereotype, you are lying!”
Because the only way he can win an argument is by dictating both sides.
Really? then how do you explain the fact that I follow the Church’s teachings faithfully, have 2 children, have a husband who treats me as an equal (and is just as dependent on me as I am on him to keep our lives running), have good health, have two post-grad degrees, and am now on my second professional career?
Clearly, I am a failure at being Catholic.
Don’t confuse RC with facts. RC has bumper stickers to quote and names to call before s/he dashes away. That’s called “intellectual integrity”.
the word ‘sane’ means ‘thinking right relation to reality’.
Someone who believes what is false but when confronted when confronted with evidence to the contrary would change their opinion is sane , but misinformed.
Someone who believes what is false after having been confronted with insurmountable evidence to the contrary is delusional, aka insane.
Alternately , it is possible to remain intentionally ignorant of facts that cause you discomfort or the need to change. If that is the case the proper term is stupid.
That being the case I can tell by your statement that you are misinformed. I hope you are sane and open minded enough not to be stupid.
What supposed ‘rights’ do you thing LGBT community to have been denied? Before you begin, please be prepared to present real evidence for your claim. What do you mean by ‘rights’ legal ‘rights’ or moral ‘rights’.
It is impossible to claim someone is being illegitimately denied a legal right unless it is because of some moral ground, because if it is denied, obviously the denial is legal, so you must reference something higher and beyond the law to claim the ‘rights’ not existing under the current law exists.
So what moral law are you appealing too , which would be acknowledge by all human being universally in a way that substatiats a claim, which claims that the LGBT community has been denied something it should not have been?
On who’s authority do you base it? Are we supposed to take your word for it over our own judgment of what is moral? if so why? How do you know you are correct? How can we know you are correct?
If you are get to the point where you think you can reasonably answer all of the above questions in a satisfactory manor then you can use those principles you have laid out to address the primary issue.
Are anal intercourse, oral intercourse and masturbation morally neutral or positive , not to mention physically healthy.
Assuming you can support you claim of a universal ‘right’ that should be binding to all humans, which demands the regard of anal, oral ect intercourse as moral and healthy, you still have something more to prove.
you must make the case that those types of intercourse create the same type of value in a relationship that would give the state sufficient interest in that relationship that the state should regulate and endorse such a relationship.
However, the states only reason for being involved in marriages at all is that marriage generate children who need to be protected and helped to become good citizens.
If that is not the reason the stat is involved in marriage there are a series of other questions you will need to address from the perspective of the morally compelling framework you would already have defined above.
Like is it just the state prevent polygamy and polyandry why?
Is it just the state prevent incestuous marriage of non vulnerable ( ake adult) persons, why or why not.
One you have fully though out your position in a cogent and sane manner please present it. I would be very interested in seeing it. As no one I have ever met has ever even attempted to do so.
The usually begin by claiming there is no ‘universal morality’. At that point however you have lost the ability to tell anyone they should change what they are doing ,because how do you not know what they are doing isn’t moral for them?
The irony of your simple remark is that you had a mother. That worthless human incubator that she was. You son of a human incubator.
@Reality Check:
Where, exactly, does the table on display or Shea’s post talk about abortion or LGBT “rights”?
He’s a Roman Catholic. It’s implicit.
You’re a bigot. It’s implicit.
The guy that has a problem with marriage equality and women’s rights accuses me of bigotry!
I believe Freud called this “projection”.
No one has a right to kill. I have no problem with equality under the law for either gays or women. If two homosexuals want to cohabitate, I think the law has nothing to say about it and it is none of my business. I do not, however, believe that they have the right to compel me, by force of law, to regard homosex as something other than a sin. Not all sins, however, concern the state.
Sure, no one can make you believe that LGBT persons are entitled to full rights (including marriage) just like I can’t convince the racist KKK member down the street that interracial sex/marriage is not wrong. However, the state recognizes interracial marriage as a matter of equality regardless of what some bigots happen to think.
(I’ll also add that anti-miscegenation laws were often promoted by many, many Christians, using the Bible to justify their positions, such as the “curse of Ham” etc).
Yes, LGBT persons can marry anybody of the opposite sex that they are not related to within certain legal limits and is of sound mind. Everybody has exactly the same right.
You’ll note that nobody has the right to marry “anybody they want.” That could include their close sibling, their parent, a comatose patient, a baby, more than one person, etc. The law already places limits on what constitutes a legally-joined marriage.
Marriage protects the family that arises from the consummation of the union. Pairs of people by definition cannot consummate and cannot be fruitful – marriage benefits them nothing.
No one can make bigots like you accept that our polyamorous neighbors are entitled to FULL rights. They’re born that way! It’s true because people with an axe to grind say so!
And I have yet to see an argument for why that is different more cogent than … “That’s DIFFERENT!”
Oh, I get it. As long as our elected officials support abortion and LGBT “rights” it doesn’t matter how deep the bankstas have their hooks in to them.
Capitalist plutocracy naturally stems from the Patriarchy, like a horse and carriage.
Roman Catholics used to talk a good game about worker’s rights and ending poverty, but none of that matters anymore. They’ve abandoned the poor in Latin America and elsewhere, and now the only thing they are against seems to be birth control and abortion.
Shred of evidence, please?
Just the US’s participation in building and caring for Latin America: http://old.usccb.org/latinamerica/.
Try and not be a troll.
I bigot with a tiny little brain.
Your final paragraph really hit the nail on the head. We are at the mercy of the multi-national corporations and financial institutions and their boot-licking pols. The GOP is still selling us the bill of goods that cutting taxes for the rich will result in jobs. Imagine a zero tax on capital gains that would have Romney paying nothing on his mega-wealth. Tax cuts won’t create US jobs unless we tie them to an investment in jobs by US workers, employed by US companies.
We won’t see any improvement because the only criteria “conservatives” have these days is that a candidate for president be rabidly anti-abortion and not Obama. They have no problem whatever with hiring another oligarch or their office boys. We will get four more years of the same, regardless of who wins in November.
Have you been reading this blog?
Not if you vote for Paul.
I agree that voting D or R will get us more of the same.
I have read online that India has decided it will not cooperate with US sanctions against Iran and will purchase Iran’s oil because the price is favorable. If this is true, how many “US” companies who have locations in India will be using Iran oil in violation of US sanctions and then how many of us will be supporting Iran indirectly at least by buying products from companies that have locations in India? I feel totally controlled by these global corporations – and I think that those who attack a big government are really distracting people from the real threat to our democracy. We have rights against the government and can petition to redress our grievances – the people are powerless against global corporations.
@Reality Check: go troll somewhere else.
I’m very sorry you’re so disturbed with opposing viewpoints that you seek to silence them and live inside your little bubble.
Thankfully, the other Roman Catholics on this blog are more fair-minded and open than you.
You have yet to actually offer an opposing view point, only short and accusatory epitaphs. Please present an actual view point that has a argument that is at least internally consistent to support your slinging of mud. I like to hear actual opposing view points, but you have yet to present one.
not even a shred of evidence for what you claim.
I’m generally a secularist. And you’re being an immature Internet troll.
Studies also show that widespread poverty ends where women’s reproductive freedom begins, again and again in country after country.
“reproductive freedom”
By which you mean, the “right” to deliberately take the life resulting from activity in which you’ve voluntarily engaged.
And we’re the crazy ones?
Well according to Catholic teaching you can’t have an abortion even if its INVOLUNTARY, i.e. rape and incest.
Correct. Because the child resulting from even involuntary union has rights and ought to be protected as such.
More question-begging from Roman Catholics.
Do they not teaching Logic 101 in parochial schools anymore?
Pot, meet kettle.
Logic and biology 101: two humans have sex, and one of them becomes pregnant. Is that pregancy anything other than a human?
Interesting that you would deny rights based merely on stage of development, as though the child growing within its mother’s womb could develop into something other than a human person. All that’s needed (basically speaking) is time and nutrition.
Who’s failing Logic (and biology) 101 here?
Every time someone calls out the hypocrisy of one of your points you change to another argument.
Let’s back up a little. How about explaining why being pro-choice never extends to being responsible for the foreseeable consequences of the choice made to have sex?
You’re assuming that engaging in sexual activity means consenting to childbirth. It doesn’t.
It doesn’t matter if you consent. Nature sets the rules here. Does jumping off a cliff mean you consent to going “splat” a few seconds later? Who cares?
Jumping off a cliff always leads to going “splat”. Having sex doesn’t necessarily lead to pregnancy. Even putting aside contraception. how about the infertile?
And just as we have ways to get around gravity through technology, we can do the same with pregnancy. I guess Roman Catholics should rail and protest against airplanes and spaceflight since humans flying isn’t “natural” then, huh?
Jumping off a cliff always leads to going “splat”. Having sex doesn’t necessarily lead to pregnancy. Even putting aside contraception. how about the infertile?
And just as we have ways to get around gravity through technology, we can do the same with pregnancy. I guess Roman Catholics should rail and protest against airplanes and spaceflight since humans flying isn’t “natural” then, huh?
You just double posted! INTERNET STUPID!! BOO-YAH!
It most certainly does, because we all know how babies are made, and we all know that babies are sometimes conceived despite the efforts of the parents to prevent it.
Thus, you want to avoid the consequences of the natural end of sexual activity, biology be damned.
Again, humans naturally engage in recreational sex along with some other kinds of primates and dolphins. Just like them we don’t have a special “mating season”. Human males ALWAYS want an attractive woman regardless of if she is in her fertile “period” or not and vice versa.
Recreation sex is VERY natural to humans, just like it is with dolphins and baboons (who also engage in oral and gay sex, again just like us.)
The difference is that you have to actively thwart the course of nature in attempting to prevent pregnancy.
I don’t know why you’d choose to comare yourself to a baboon or dolphin or bonobo chimp. I have no idea why you and folks who think like you believe this strengthens the argument for so-called reproductive “choice.” We’re not animals, and they’re not aborting the results of their “recreational sex.”
Again with the comparison to animals! So I suppose it is OK to eat our young, too, right?
And ditto what Dave said. Do we have the right to do everything animals do with respect to their young? If not, why not? If you’re using animalistic behavior to defend abortion, you’d better be ready to defend against the points raised in Dave’s response re: cannibalism.
It seems to me, RC, that it is *you* who need the logic instruction. Begging the question means that “the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.”(1)
The humanity and right of the child has not been the proposition of either of the posts I’ve noticed you wag your beg-the-question finger at. You simply dispute the premise, and are being a slippery interlocutor to avoid having to handle the premise. In fact, if what you are citing as “begging the question” is actually begging the question, then every time you assert the premise that someone is begging the question–*you* are begging the question. And that’s just stupid. (2)
(1) Wikipedia. “Begging the Question.”
(2) Note that this is not ad hominem. I am not using it to discredit and argument, I am simply classifying the argument.
More on the lesson of question begging.
RC says: “Again, humans naturally engage in recreational sex along with some other kinds of primates and dolphins.”
Note that 1) his/her proposition is that natural sex completely free of procreation is AOK. Now observe that 2) his/her premise assumes a status of natural sex that *only* has recreational aspects to it.
That, grasshopper, is begging the question. Either he/she is being slippery and dishonest, or he/she just isn’t that bright.
Since an embryo/fetus is biologically a human being, we do not have the right to kill it. Is that so hard to understand?
In cases of rape and incest, that can be very hard, but if there are to be any moral ground rules at all, surely the first one should be that it is not permitted to kill an innocent human being, no?
As for poverty…yes, I suppose killing the poor would reduce poverty.
Who said anything about killing the poor?
I merely stated a known fact that providing women control over their reproductive cycles and facilities is the fastest and easiest way to reduce poverty. It is true time and time again. The countries with the worst economies and worst standards of living (and those with fewest rights for women) are precisely those countries which most closely follow the Catholic teaching on contraception and abortion.
Women who are in situations where they would consider abortion are very likely lower middle class or worse. Their child, who’d normally be deprived of a father and much of the attention of their mother, would be pretty likely to grow up poor.
It would be pretty hard to show a causation between abortion rate and economy, except in the limited sense that killing those who are likely to be poor reduces poverty. It is true now, simply because the (already) developed world has sunk into moral degradation, while the developing world hasn’t.
Actually, the best way to reduce poverty and improve the lot of women is to give girls an education — as in, reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.
Speaking of logical fallacies, I think someone (I’m not saying who, Mr. RC person!) needs to look up “post hoc ergo propter hoc.”
Anyone can say “studies show” anything. I could tell you that studies show when you reduce ice-cream consumption in a city the murder-rate goes down. That doesn’t mean it’s true or that if it is true that the correlation means anything.
I’ll repeat again: simply screaming”you can’t kill a CHILD!” or “you’re for INFANTICIDE!” at the top of your lungs is nothing more than question-begging and has no place in a reasoned and logical debate on the question of women’s reproductive rights.
If it’s not a child, a human person, what is it?
Depending on the stage of development in the womb it could be any number of things. But a person it is not.
Huh? What else could it be? What does “stage of development” have to do with anything? And where does such a determination stop?
When it’s no longer using the woman’s body to sustain its own life.
A child is outside the womb. Outside. Is that so hard to understand?
Then explain why a child of 22 weeks that can now be successfully helped to survive outside the womb can still be legally aborted in many states?
“Using the woman’s body”
Then none of us has the right to live, ever. We’ve all “used” our mother’s bodies for roughly 9 months (give or take). So we’re all guilty, aren’t we?
Strange reasoning. A person volunteers to do something that he/she knows could result in a new life, and then decides that it’s not life worth living because it’s “using” a woman’s body for sustenance. Thus, every single one of us is guilty of a grave offense against our mothers.
If not, explain why.
And why “outside the womb?” What’s so special about that? Peter Singer argues for the ability to bump off kids several years after they’ve been born. Which if you is correct, and why?
So a breastfed 3 week old? Not a person?
Even if a child is formula fed, arguing that personhood equals self sufficiency puts personhood at what, like 4 years old? Do you support infanticide until this definition of personhood is achieved?
I would love to see RC engage this point. A breast-fed baby is dependent on mom for nutrition. All newborns are dependent on other persons for protection and sustenance. Therefore, the right to eliminate offspring, in the logic of RC, should extend well past the stage of breast-feeding.
A child is outside the womb.
So, if Mark says that an abortion kill a person, it’s question begging because he’s assuming that an unborn child is a person.
But if you unilaterally declare that a child is outside the room, it’s not question begging because…
Yes. RC apparently found a useful line to confuse idiots, but he/she obviously hasn’t a clue how begging the question is applied.
Is a conjoined twin a person? Am I a person? Are you? What makes a person a person? Is it sentience? If so are two-month-old infants people? Are chimpanzees people?
What question exactly are we begging? Because there is absolutely no doubt that the embryo/fetus in the womb is biologically a human being.
Because simply screaming, “it’s not a CHILD, it’s my CHOICE” doesn’t make it any more true because you repeat it, either. At the very least, we have biology and logic on our side. You have nothing but insistence of “rights,” and those “rights” conveniently focus on people who are bigger than defenseless unborn children.
If human genetics don’t determine personhood, what does, apart from desire? And where does that desire stop? Does it stop with my profoundly disabled 12-year old son? Should be be bumped off for being inconvenient, life-altering and expensive to myself and my family?
What a cold, deprived world that would be.
Yes, I believe the rights of a fully grown woman to control her own destiny and life trump the rights of a blastocyst.
Silly me.
Aha. It’s all about will to power, then. Gotcha. What a cold, ugly world we would inhabit if you and those who share your philosophy had their ways.
I’d still like to know if this cold calculus extends to my terribly inconvenient 12-year old. Or whether there should be a blanket policy of terminating all children with known genetic abnormalities (such as Down syndrome). Where do you draw the line? And who gets to make those decisions?
If it’s about will to power for you (and it most certainly appears to be), then there’s nothing stopping anyone from offing whole segments of arbitrarily-defined non-persons.
I’d still like to know how a blastocyst, or fetus, or whatever other stage of pre-born human development is anything other than a human person. All it needs in order to look like you or me is time and nutrition.
yes, you are silly. So, how does the chart of the rights of a human being work, RC? Pretty much nil until birth, and then suddenly full rights? Yah, that makes a lot of sense. So essentially, their “residence” determines whether they have rights or not.
Biologically, the embryo/fetus is a human being. Distinguishing between a human being and a “person” is classically how one defines away the value of those human beings whom one wishes to kill/enslave/abuse.
So if a fully grown woman gives birth to someone to discover it has my condition, osteogenesis imperfecta, can she just smash it’s head against a rock? I mean her destiny could be changed by this pre-sentient being not being what she wanted.
And I don’t think abortion generally is done in the blastocyst stage anyway.
“I’ll repeat again: simply screaming”you can’t kill a CHILD!” or “you’re for INFANTICIDE!” at the top of your lungs is nothing more than question-begging”
In my cheeriest singsong voice:
No, it’s nooot!
It’s simply a conclusion with a premise to which you object. Having a premise that you object to is not begging the question.
Educated, yet?
Again, this isn’t about fetuses, it’s about controlling women’s bodies. Here’s a good summary:
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/the-anti-choice-fight-for-dog-women
How would you know what it’s about for us? I think it is those who are FOR abortion (especially men) who are all about “controlling women’s bodies.”
For us, I assure you, it is about the right of human beings to live.
Indeed. I wonder why so few so-called feminists argue against abortion on the grounds that it allows men to use women as mere sex objects without fear of consequences in the event that their first-line method of contraception “fails.” There’s always abortion as a backup!
I see… you get to tell us what it’s all about, even though we’ve told you that it’s nothing of the sort? Thank God you’re here to set us straight about what we REALLY believe!
My wife would be interested in this line of logic, considering that she freely consented to have children, and never once considered herself chattel, or regarded the children she carried as hostile invaders subject to death upon her whim.
It’s rather curious that women who choose to carry babies to term are incubators and under the oppressive thumb of the patriarchy, but those who choose death for the unborn are held up as paragons in defense of freedom and liberty. Never once do I hear a defense of the liberty of the unborn from such folks.
Simply amazing.
You’re linking to Pandagon as a source? Really? And we’re supposed to take you seriously?
Are you going to engage the points or just attack the source?
I’ll engage any argument that doesn’t sound like it came off of a bumper sticker on a car in the student lot at a community college. So far, not one of your comments has risen even to that low bar; including the Pandagon article.
Another example of begging the question:
“Again, this isn’t about fetuses, it’s about controlling women’s bodies.”
Note that the proposition of his/her line of argument is that women have the right to kill non-human things inside them in order to control their bodies.
Note that the premise he states assumes that the control of the bodies has nothing to do with the dispute of human life inside the body.
Begging the question. The only question I have is: Is he/she a hypocrite, a deceiver, or an idiot? (Or all three?)
You know I came here to argue against Mark Shea again. I’m almost annoyed you came in with hard-Pro-Choice tracts to distract that so much I no longer think I’ll bother with it.
Yes I’m well aware, probably we all are, that people who work for abortion clinics or NARAL believe the Anti-Choice (I use it for a reason, don’t freak fellow Pro-Lifers) position is all about controlling women’s bodies and sexuality. People often don’t understand each other, I know that.
And to be honest there’s a small amount of truth in it. The absolute control of anything in the body, or of sexuality, is not what societies do. If they did necrophilia, prostitution, organ selling, heroin, being a drug-mule, etc would all be legally fine. I think I’m fairly anti-Choice on even destroying one’s limbs or kidneys for money.
Mostly though this statement about “bodies and female sexuality” is about Pro-Choicers wanting to be smug and superior. It’s not about a reality among most Pro-Lifers or if you prefer Anti-Choicers. A woman can “do” all the players at this year’s Super Bowl and I’d say that’s her legal right. She can shave her head bald or have all her toe-nails removed. But taking a life linked to hers, whether it’s an embryo or a conjoined twin, is obviously different.
Re: “comparisons to animals”
Uh, hate to break this do you, guys, but humans *ARE*, in fact, animals. Primates, in fact. Very intelligent primates, but still primates. Mammals. Animals. We share somewhere between 95% to 99% of our DNA with chimps!
Animals (in your classification, animals other than humans) have the capacity to engage in moral reasoning when choosing between options for conducting their lives? And we’re undeniably subject to ONLY our whims, fancies, desires, hormones and survival instincts?
Heck, you guys are Catholics not Evangelicals so I’m sure you know even the Vatican accepts evolution now. According to the Vatican we’re essentially chimps with “souls”.
What does the Vatican acceptance of the scientific theory of evolution have to do with the moral consequences of behavior?
You seem to know Catholic teaching really, um, well.
And I’d love to see a source for the assertion that the Vatican regards us as chimps with souls… that’s news to me.
He said “essentially”. That is one of those weasel words used to mean “Your position ‘really’ means whatever I say it does.”
You’re like a parody of every dumb leftist know nothing trope, RC. Chimps with souls. Yeah. That’s just what the Church teaches.
Yes we are animals, RATIONAL animals, we have the ability to grasp concepts and form a conclusion based on sound reasoning.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never seen a baboon teach philosophy 101 at Yale or a fox become teach Machiavelli at Oxford University.
Reality Check:
You’ve given your opinion that a fertilized human egg becomes a human being only upon leaving the uterus. You’ve accused Catholics of “question begging” when we insist that a fertilized human egg is a human being whether it’s called that, or a blasocyst, or an embryo or a fetus. (or a toddler, child, adolescent, or adult!)
First, no biologist would accept your definition of when human life begins. It is both illogical and unscientific.
Second, grade school biology tells us that something is alive if it has the ability to: a) grow, b) respirate, c) move and d) reproduce. A human egg or sperm on its own does not have the ability to do these things, but a fertilized egg does. (Yes, I’m way over-simplifying!) Biology also tells us what type of life is present: namely, human. So it would seem that a fertilized human egg is, in fact, a human being.
The Catholic Church teaches that every human life is unique and worthy of respect and dignity from conception to natural death. As a woman and a mother, I find that far more liberating than being insulted by being referred to by my capability to bear a child.
PROVE THAT SANITY HOLDS ON
The law has ratified abortion
But demonstrate to us the dead child’s showing
And see the most of us recoil in horror and disgust
If that fetus is no child, why should they recoil?
Why revolt to see a simple mass of cells?
Even Romans at the Coliseum had more guts
They watched and cheered as mutilated losers
Were dragged out by the hooks of roustabouts -
We will not see a child hooked living from the womb
We turn our eyes away, cover up our eyes
Though eyes are closed when nightmares come
And we will see them in the dark, as in the light
It is still possible to draw the gasp of rage
To make the viewer turn away, in fury and disgust
To prove that sanity holds on to us, but just
Pavel
January 8, 2012
BTW, 50% of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion and most of us never notice the ones that do. If a person exists when a sperm fertilizes an egg, and if killing it is killing a human being, then every woman’s reproductive is a slaughterhouse.
yes, and outside the womb it’s even worse! I haven’t fact checked this, but I’m pretty sure that there is a 100% mortality rate outside the womb!!!
Given that, I guess it wouldn’t be a bad thing to kill my annoying neighbor, or the guy who’s edging in on my business. After all, they’re bound to die anyway eventually!
Ha! much better than my come-back.
And 100% of humans die. So murder is fine since they’ll all die anyway. Do you even think about what you say before you regurgitate the talking point? I’ll give you points for courage in getting outside the bubble of your fellow abortion supporters. But you should really listen to the critiques of your logic.
Good point Mark.
In addition, I could argue, that if 50% of pregnancies (I had heard up to 80%) fail at an early stage naturally, that makes the human beings who survive that early “slaughterhouse” that much MORE precious and valuable.
Spontaneous abortions, which have nothing to do with moral choices made by anyone, are equivalent to directly willing an abortion?
And you keep saying that we’re the ones who fail logic 101?
You claim that human males always want an attractive woman whether she is fertile or not. You do realize that we are biologically compelled to find traits indicative of fertility attractive right? Where do you think the focus on young, fit, and hourglass comes into play? Your basic knowledge of reproductive, developmental, and behavioral biology is severely lacking.
Pro-death people recoil at this image. Not for children, only for the tough, like Reality Check:
http://pavel.romancatholic.org/pavel52.html
And why would they recoil if it is only a medical procedure?
Because they do know what this is about.
Reality Check will die a Catholic. That’s why he or she is here.
I’m I the only one that thinks RC’s illusion that Catholics were against interracial marriage at one point to be utterly hilarious? Does he think Mexicans and Colombians have Castillan last names because they decided they sounded cool? Lord have mercy what a parochial ignoramus. Southern American Protestantism != the historical teachings of the Catholic Church, buddy, as traveling to Latin America can show anyone with half a brain!
There was even a Catholic priest (James Coyle) who was murdered by the Klan for performing an interracial marriage in the South in the 1920s. Save us the talking points about how the Church endorsed racism because, unlike Protestants, it never did.
Or Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans who desegregated both the diocese and then the parochial schools and in 1962 excommunicated the dioceses 3 most vocal segregationists
And I did not notice the Times complaining that he was “imposing his beliefs” when they ran the story on page 1.
I am far from an Obama supporter, but you cannot blame his admin. for conditions which are universal and which existed before his admin. Sane conservatism may be the solution for our ills, but what is meant by sane conservatism will look different to everybody. I’m ok with a bipartisan elite (our Church is run by an elite too, you know) if multi-party views were put on the table, argued, compared, contrasted, synthesized and weeded out.
Wow! A response to the actual post! Yeah, ’tis true it’s not all his fault. Maybe Mark is right, though, and it is all ‘their’ fault – they being the liberal and conservative ‘ruling class.’
Why are we induldging “Reality Check”? Internet trolls will disappear if you ignore them.
Because the Church is not a fortress, but called to bear witness. There’s always the off chance that RC might to try to engage some of the argument put to him/her.
Right – the Church’s teachings are true. They stick with people. They haunt them and stalk them. Keep feeding the trolls with good things – like Pavel’s poetry.
We have no right to abandon anybody, even the godless. Preach with your life.
There is a chapel in the soul -
Have you ever seen that place?
It is what Judas never sold,
It is the safety of God’s grace
Even godless you may bless,
May enter in and kneel in prayer:
Deliver us from emptiness
Enter now this moment, dare
THAT NOTHING CAN REMOVE
There is a chapel in the soul -
Have you ever seen that place?
It is what Judas never sold,
It is the safety of God’s grace
In that place is no regret,
The door invites, the candles burn,
The altar is a table set
Though none an invitation earn
Even godless you may bless,
May enter in and kneel in prayer:
Deliver us from emptiness
Enter now this moment, dare
A chapel furnished from the start
With furnishing of precious love,
It is the chapel of the heart
That nothing ever can remove
If you live or if you die
It will be there forever more,
All are welcome but the lie
And ever open is the door
Pavel
January 24, 2012
I love your poetry, Pavel. Thank you.
The moment that person-hood is attained is fungible only to the pro-abortion crowd, but not to anyone whose logic, natural law and metaphysics are more developed beyond bumper sticker philosophy.
Both federal law and the laws of NY and CA have determined that one who kills a pregnant woman – without regard to gestational age of her child, is guilty of the murder of two persons. So the State suggests that person-hood begins when the person does – at conception. One can only be criminally culpable for the murder of a human person.
To ineptly consider the pre-born child some kind of trespasser who unexpectedly appears in the womb of the mother following some “dolphin-like” genital “play” then the only way abortion could be licit is if you expel the trespasser intact. One does not have the right to kill a trespasser under normal conditions and certainly, even if the killing is somehow licit – and I do not hold that it is, one may not dismember, burn, or otherwise mutilate the body of the purported trespasser.
The failure of the logic in the abortion debate is this – kill a pregnant woman guilty of two murders, hire someone to kill an intrauterine person is a right.
Some of them believe that you are removing the baby/fetus/embryo (I’m not too hung up on terms) to end the pregnancy. The death of said human is not the point, the point is that “I don’t have to use my body to save another life.”
When I’ve asked “so how would you feel about someone who refuses to even donate blood to save another life” the response is either “That’s legal!” (which wasn’t my question) or some variant of how I’m shaming women. However to me the comparison itself indicates abortion is legal, but shamefully selfish. Almost akin to abandoning newborn babies to the woods die of exposure.
And it doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. It’s not like abortion is usually just a matter of inducing labor at a premature point.
The reason today’s “Conservatives” are so foolish is very simple. The Left has moved so far to the Left, that what was once Liberal or Moderate can pose as Conservatism.
Back in the day, the 1960s, Conservatism could be all tweedy and academic. Supported the eternal verities – often with a Thomistic or Calvinist spin. Anyway, it never liked the hustle and push of pop culture.
The middle of the road was Frankie and Dino in Vegas and Hollywood.
Many of today’s conservatives really only long for a mainstream ’60s lifestyle. Red meat, hard liquor, fast cars.
Likewise Neo-cons sound awfully like Truman or Kennedy Democrats. And via the influence of that well-known Cold War Democrat turned Republican Ronald Reagan, today’s GOP seems to support deficit spending, foreign wars, etc just like earlier generations of Dems. Evangelicalism is no help either. Too much reliance on pop culture to pull people into the sanctuary. It’s just like Mainline Protestantism of the 1960s. Catholics too aren’t immune but we have a Magisterium and brothers and sisters from the Global South to stabilize us.
Anyway, our terms can be confusing. What passes for Conservatism is now really Right-Liberalism or National-Liberalism. (Versus the Left-Liberalism of the Democrats.)
That’s a thoughtful and useful analysis. Defining terms is the first step!
“How would you know what it’s about for us? I think it is those who are FOR abortion (especially men) who are all about “controlling women’s bodies”"
Yes, the reality today in the US is that many women are forced to have an abortion because their lover/spouse or other family members urged them.
I don’t know about Mark’s other readers, but I’ve quite enjoyed “reality check’s postings, the last time I saw someone make such a big fool of himself in public was Richard Dawkins trying to worm out of debating Professor William Lane Craig last fall.
Now as others have given him a refresher on biology 101, let me talk to him about responsibility, when two people have sex they do so knowing that certain consequences are possible e.g. that ickle little child may result. Now because compared with lower animals human children are relatively helpless, the mother needs to take care of her little angel for MUCH longer, therefore another figure aka the Father (or if he is dead a father figure) needs to take on the responsibility of ensuring that said child and mommy are looked after, also the parents need to teach the child right from wrong and how to fulfil their obligation to love, serve and worship God – hence we have marriage and the family in a nutshell.
Now whilst no one is denying that single mothers/fathers CAN take care of the children by themselves, it is a situation that is at best suboptimal, hence it is an obligation of the state to promote marriage and to legislate against unnatural unions such as so called same sex marriage, which at their core weaken the meaning of marriage.
Now I can provide a more sophisticated and detailed argument, but I thought that he needed the 3yr olds version first.
As someone who once supported abortion and now sees the sinful error of his ways, I know well how people like RC think. The sad fact is that anyone who supports abortion does not truly value or understand the importance of ‘life’, or ‘human dignity’. They know well that an embryo is life, but they can’t or won’t admit that the truth is — they don’t care because they see themselves and their political desires as more important. It is at its base selfishness and self-centeredness that drives this thought (even as they hide behind ideas like third world sufferage they really could care less about). It is the same thing that underlies support for the death penalty. Yes, it is life — but, to them — that life is valueless. It is merely blastocystic life — unimportant and merely statistical — and less important than themselves. It is no coincidence that religious people are against abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty and secularists are not. The rational mind is cold and selfish. The spiritual is just the opposite. I pray for RC. Perhaps one day, he will see the light. I did. If I can see the light, there is hope for anyone.
The population has doubled in the last 50 years. Can anyone say with a straight face that humans would be better off if there were 500 million more people in china now. We believe thier army is too big with thier present population. North americans make up around 8% of the worlds but are using up around 25% of the earths resourses. That does not seem fair on our part. End 50 to 60 million abortions each year lets see, 20 years, a billion more people. End contraception, that number could go up, what? 10 times 20 times?
Yes, humans would be better off if our aborted brothers and sisters were alive. Yes, I’m saying that with a straight face.
Actually, you have to be really careful with your numbers, randy. A healthy woman can produce only one baby per year, more or less, but can have multiple abortions per year. Same with contraception. Also, populations naturally tend to stabilize themselves over time.
China’s biggest problem isn’t the numbers in her population, but the dearth of women. When you have a large group of young men with no prospects for marriage and family, you might just end up having a big army with nothing to do — dangerous! This situation is a direct creation of the contraception/abortion mentality in a culture that values men over women.
Another point to consider is that some of the best developed nations with the highest standards of living are also the most populous; Japan, for example. In fact, as Japan’s population has embraced western ideas regarding contraception, authorities are concerned and doing all they can to promote births. Some of the poorest nations on earth also have the lowest population density, like Somalia or Guyana.
It’s just not a simple calculation of: more people = bad/ fewer people = good. When you set it up that way, you start sounding like Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol,” whose advice to the poor was: “If they’d rather die they better do it now and decrease the surplus population.”
Just enough of me, too many of you (brown-skinned people)? Perhaps you didn’t intend it as such, but it sounds awfully racist.
And who says that the world is overpopulated, and what does the size of China’s army have to do with whether Chinese men and women have the right to bear children as they desire?
A group of us family and friends are in the landscaping business, and we all bought tiny cars by Kia. We had our business name and logo especially painted on each of our Kias to advertise our business. That was a big investment and cost a lot of money. We learned later that the Kia owners’ manual advises against hitching up a tow trailer to these vehicles – says they’re not designed for it. But what are we supposed to do? We’re in the landscaping business – that’s how we earn our living – and we have to tow trailers loaded with several hundred pounds of mowers, thatchers, bags of cuttings, and laborers. And we have to advertise.
Several of our Kias now have bent and / or broken frames, busted axles, and /or and blown-out engines and trannies.
We refuse to rent or buy larger vehicles designed to tow. They use too much gas, take up too much space, are bad for the planet, and besides they don’t have our business name and logo on them, and it would be too expensive to switch over.
We will keep towing industrial trailers loaded with our equipment with our Kias, no matter what the owners’ manual says.
To believe that I can only solve or head off potential global problems by disobeying the law of God is to ask for trouble. Big trouble.
God made us. He wrote “the manual.” “The manual” is what God teaches through our Church. He knew what He was doing then; He knows what He is doing now, and He knows what He is doing in the future.
Apart from what our Creator tells us, we don’t know anything about what may, might, could or ought to happen, apart from sheerest guesswork, which often turns out to be anywhere from 5* to 180* wrong.
Obey the Lord. Seek to do His will in all things. Encourage others to do the same. Exercise prudence and temperance, and trust in His provision. Convert the world to God. Teach husbands and fathers to view their wives as treasures, their children as gold, and to view other women as their sisters or mothers.
Apart from Him, we can do nothing of any value, of any use, of any good. Apart from Him, we can do nothing.
In Him, and with Him, we can move forward in a positive direction.
When the so called “manual” was written, the world was under populated. How can anyone say that abortion is against gods will. If the creator of the universe knows us before we are concepted, than he or she must know that the abortions are going to happen. Just as he or she knew of the death and suffering that a hitler or stalin,etc,etc or a haiti earthquake etc,etc would cause for his or her people. It must be part of the plan.
How can anyone say that abortion is against gods will?
We are not to bring about death.
We are not to procure death. We are not to desire death, plan death, intend death, seek death, deal death, ask for, or counsel death.
Death is not an option.
Christians don’t hire hit men. We don’t do death. Not for ourselves, not for anyone.
Death is out.
P.S.
Here is something that is ruled out for Christians:
To say, “I’m sitting here, and I’ve decided that that one over there should live and breathe no more. I want that one dead. I want him to cease to exist. I desire that he become a late someone. I intend that his cells should no longer divide. I wish his biological functions to come to a halt.
“That he should be in the ground, decaying, and as soon as possible, is what I’ve set my sights on. It is my goal that he has no future. I want him out of the way. I want him deceased, demised, done, gone, over, out, finished.
“I want him dead.
“Having said that, I now turn to the method to accomplish my goal.
“Poison to destroy him, fire to burn him, bullets to end him, the rope to hang him, the knife the cut him, the blade to slice him, blunt instruments to break him, vehicles to run him over, a rock to crush him, water to drown him are all options on the table. I will use or will procure another to use one of these methods or I will use water for drowning, a cushion for smothering. I will use my power to deprive him of the ordinary means we all require to sustain life: Cold that he will die of exposure, withholding of food and water that he will die of starvation or of dehydration. . .
“Which of these my methods shall I choose?
“Which of these will accomplish what I plan and wish for, at the most advantage and convenience to myself? That is a consideration, as well.”
If a Christian ever finds himself or herself thinking along those lines . . . about anybody, and does not immediately say: “what was I thinking? Oh my God! Forgive me! I do not will the death of anyone. Lord, help me to be just and charitable toward my brother who is causing me trouble! Please bless both of us! Amen!” then that Christian is in serious, serious trouble.