First, I would like to say, how much I disagree with many of his comments, I think Deal Hudson has shown the ability to dialogue and enage with people better than most people do on blogs (myself included) and has shown the ability to listen, to some degree, those who disagree with him. It is for this reason I wanted to make a brief comment on his newest post at InsideCatholic: In Defense of Lila Rose and Her Sacred Deception.
On the one hand, I do agree with him, I think the expose of Planned Parenthood is a good thing, and it shows the problems of the insitution itself. Hopefully many will take note what is going on and demand further investigation (as they would if it were child abuse in schools or churches).
However, I disagree with his defense. Consequentialism is not the answer to this. You cannot say, “In war, anything is permissible.” You cannot say “intrinsic evils” are acceptable because the consequences are ones you like. That’s the point of declaring something to be an intrinsic evil — it is evil despite whatever good which can be seen from its use. It is always sinful. And, according to Catholic theology, lying is intrinsically evil (I wrote a whole series on this topic, which is wrapped up with links to the rest of the series, here ). Consequences do not determine whether or not it is appropriate (one, I am sure, could find benefits in war-time to the use of abortion, especially forced abortions on captured but pregnant enemy women, but it would not be acceptable and it would be a war crime).
So, one could ask, could one do what she is doing and not commit sin? What do readers here think (if one wants to read what I think, read my series on lies!).
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