Some people are so preoccupied with the topic of abortion that they talk of little else on social media and elsewhere. Nearly every political and cultural conversation gets hijacked onto this topic, due to the tunnel vision of the abortion-obsessed, and I am tired of continually taking that detour, so I have written this statement of my position on this issue. From now on, every time someone tries to wrestle a conversation from the price of cilantro at my local market to THE HORROR OF ABORTION, I am posting a link to this blog entry and moving on without further comment.
I do not like abortion
I am not in favor of killing babies. I do not "support abortion." Abortion is horrible. DUH.
Nor will I abandon every commandment of Christ in order to vote for people who say or insinuate that they will make abortion illegal. Making abortion illegal was never a successful method of eliminating abortion. When you make it illegal, you only make it less safe. Because abortion has always been available to women and they will resort to it if pushed.
If we really want to eliminate abortion, we could make our country more family friendly and follow the examples of the rest of the industrialized world by making maternity and paternity leave available as well as free child care. Instead, we behave as if each one of us is in competition with every other American. We behave as if we hate one another and must fight each other to the death for limited resources.
We do not have limited resources. It is just that all the resources have been handed over to a tiny number of people while the wages of the workers that create the wealth are suppressed. When asked, women say that they get abortions because of MONEY. They can't afford to raise a child. It is IMPOSSIBLE. Most workers in our country do not receive a living wage.
The right wing uses abortion as a lure to capture voters when their real agenda is to accelerate this enrichment of the wealthy while they torment, starve and further impoverish the poor.
For instance: In the two years Donald Trump has been in office, Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion provider in the U.S., has been funded by the government something like 9 times. He's seated one truly wretched supreme court judge, whom I firmly believe DID sexually attack Dr. Ford during a party. (In addition to my customary research, I watched all the videos of the hearings.)
The GOP treated Dr. Ford shamefully and, indeed, as I watched the debacle on television, I felt I was witnessing a second rape.
Watching Kavanaugh sputter and riot his way through a decidedly partisan, voluminous defense, his puckery red mouth, wet with the spittle of his outrage, made me want to retch. I vowed never to vote Republican ever again, when everything was said and done. Will Kavanaugh deliver the promised abolition of abortion? He is dishonest enough to renege on his subtle promise in that regard, but he WILL likely save Trump from being thrown into prison for criminal wrongdoing. The whole vile mess makes me sick.
Catholics are not required to vote Republican
The Republican Party, as it is currently constituted, stands for positions that are directly in opposition to everything Jesus advocated. The only quasi-Christian position on their platform is the supposedly "pro-life" position, which actually boils down to a very weak anti-abortion position that only makes it illegal, when illegality has never prevented abortions. It only prevented SAFE abortions.
Anyone that claims that Catholics "have" to vote Republican is lying.
Pope Benedict clarified this during his term as Pope. (See the quote below his picture.)
My opinion: Criminalizing abortion does not solve the problem
There is no corroborating research or statistic that supports the idea that making abortion illegal is a working method because, as history has borne out, women get abortions, whether legal or not.
American laws, generally speaking, reflect the will of the majority of the people, in concert with the guiding principles laid down in our Constitution.
Abortion is legal, but it is not mandatory. This isn't china, where parents are only allowed to have a certain number of children and are thereafter forced to abort subsequent children.
If no one wanted an abortion, we could have an abortuary on every street corner and they would be empty, and this fact relates to my central position.
The remedy must address the needs of both mother and child.
Pro-lifers and pro-choicers are equally vehement in their insistence on the rightness of their respective positions. Pro-lifers are advocating for the babies. Pro-choicers advocate for the mothers. It is a furious pitched battle between them, which is why we need a nuanced approach that advocates for BOTH.
How can we do that? Well, first of all, stop obsessing about whether or not abortion is legal. Even when illegal, is it STILL available, and pretending otherwise is just naive and unrealistic.
We must evangelize the culture
As religious people, we need to stop behaving as if we can (or should) try to force other people to obey our moral laws when it comes to sexual behavior. Sexual immorality and the pregnancies that may result from it are beyond the pale of what Christians can expect to manipulate. We need to remember that Jesus did not force anyone to follow him. He invited them. We should do the same by working to evangelize the culture to gain the hearts and minds of a majority, which is absolutely within the mandate given us by Jesus.
Thirdly, we have to be realistic about the limitations of the American legal system when it comes to impressing Christian norms on it. The separation of church and state has been a fundamental criterion from the very foundation of our country and, while I agree that the founding fathers probably did not anticipate that many Americans would one day belong to non-Christian religions (or no religion at all), the overriding conception of individual freedoms can't be ignored.
In the arena of abortion, even if the law were to recognize the rights of the unborn child, you cannot divorce the baby from the mother until it is born. The law will never again allow the rights of the unborn baby to circumvent the rights of the mother, regardless of whether or not we believe that an abortion murders a child. That ship has sailed.
If you want to make laws, enact laws that support moms and babies.
It is not logical to stand in the way of legislation that financially supports poor moms and their babies, either through direct money or services such as free day care, and at the same time pretend that we care about the babies that suffer because its parents are poor and we refuse to fund their relief.
Babies need food, shelter, utilities, clothing, transportation and day care. If a young woman does not have the income to give a child those basic things, abortion will be the only way out. Forget adoption. Most women know they couldn't give up their child, once they've given birth, and if they don't have the money to support a child, they don't have the money to get themselves through a pregnancy either.
Women do not "want" to kill their children, either through abortion or, in the alternative, through poverty, illness and disease. They are forced into this decision because financial difficulties are the primary reason women cite for choosing abortion.
Legislation doesn't solve every human issue
People who resent tax dollars being earmarked for the poor are resentful because they are selfish, first of all, but in the case of the American Christian, it is often the mistaken belief that supporting illegitimate babies will 'encourage" young women to have lots of children they can't afford. There is no proof of that and, even if it were true for some, the number would be quite small.
I would remind my fellow Christians readers that if there are a few "extra" babies in the world, it's not a bad thing. Right?
Hear this: There is nothing you can do about anyone else's larcenous heart or grifter tendencies. There will always be a small percentage of people who are like that. You can't do anything about it.
There is also nothing you can do about lazy people. I know a young, healthy woman, only 20 years old, who refuses to get a full time job. She says part time is "enough." When I ask her what she'll do if she has an emergency, she asserts that her mother will have to pay the bill! I wonder if she got her mom's agreement to that? (I know her mother. She has one full time job and one part-time job. I'm guessing she's not happy about any of this.)
In any case, nothing is perfect, and we cannot sacrifice a great good because it can't be perfect. Someone will take advantage of our generosity. Someone will steal. Someone will lie and cheat. We have to do the best we can. Here is what Saint John Chrysostom says about it:
Obviously, a baby is entirely innocent and, even if I agreed with you that it is a bad thing to encourage immorality by supporting moms who are having sex outside of marriage, for instance, we would still have to support the babies, right? Part of supporting the babies necessitates supporting the mothers. You can't separate the two.
Don't scream at me.
Now, I can hear people screaming at me already, and I haven't even posted this yet. There are some of you who are singularly focused on the fact that abortion is murder, and you can't SEE anything but that, you can't HEAR anything but that, and you can't TALK about anything but that. Just know that, as long as you refuse to see, hear or discuss anything but the fact that abortion kills a baby, you will be a miserable failure in your attempts to win people over to your way of thinking. You cannot sway people over to your side by hitting them over the head with a hammer. That approach does not work.
Stop spreading superstitious lies about pro-choice advocates and talk to them instead.
I am sick of watching the right and the left fling insults at one another and lie about each other. The right says the left just "wants to kill babies." The left says the right "just wants to control women." They are both off base. Instead of imagining the motives of the other side, it is time to listen. Get on the same page somehow and start using the same language to have the discussion.
At present, the pro-choice people are just as disgusted with you as you are of them, and it isn't because they are, supposedly, evil. it is because the anti-abortion people refuse to see the issues that bother those on the left.
The peculiar quandary in which we find ourselves is that both sides think they are arguing for the greatest good and that the other side is malicious. This is an impossible impasse that we must overcome if we are to make any progress in lessening the numbers of abortions.
Somehow we have to arrive at solutions that respect and dignify every human person. The rights of the mothers and the babies have got to be supported at the same time. At present, the pro-choicers advocate for the rights of the moms while the anti-abortion crowd speaks for the babies. We need a comprehensive approach that supports both.
God save us all
Silver Rose
For instance: In the two years Donald Trump has been in office, Planned Parenthood, the biggest abortion provider in the U.S., has been funded by the government something like 9 times. He's seated one truly wretched supreme court judge, whom I firmly believe DID sexually attack Dr. Ford during a party. (In addition to my customary research, I watched all the videos of the hearings.)
The GOP treated Dr. Ford shamefully and, indeed, as I watched the debacle on television, I felt I was witnessing a second rape.
Watching Kavanaugh sputter and riot his way through a decidedly partisan, voluminous defense, his puckery red mouth, wet with the spittle of his outrage, made me want to retch. I vowed never to vote Republican ever again, when everything was said and done. Will Kavanaugh deliver the promised abolition of abortion? He is dishonest enough to renege on his subtle promise in that regard, but he WILL likely save Trump from being thrown into prison for criminal wrongdoing. The whole vile mess makes me sick.
Catholics are not required to vote Republican
The Republican Party, as it is currently constituted, stands for positions that are directly in opposition to everything Jesus advocated. The only quasi-Christian position on their platform is the supposedly "pro-life" position, which actually boils down to a very weak anti-abortion position that only makes it illegal, when illegality has never prevented abortions. It only prevented SAFE abortions.
Anyone that claims that Catholics "have" to vote Republican is lying.
Pope Benedict clarified this during his term as Pope. (See the quote below his picture.)
A catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation
in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy
communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a
candidate precisely because of the candidate's
permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia.
when a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand
in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes
for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered
remote material cooperation, which can be permitted
in the presence of proportionate reasons.
~Pope Benedict~
My opinion: Criminalizing abortion does not solve the problem
There is no corroborating research or statistic that supports the idea that making abortion illegal is a working method because, as history has borne out, women get abortions, whether legal or not.
American laws, generally speaking, reflect the will of the majority of the people, in concert with the guiding principles laid down in our Constitution.
Abortion is legal, but it is not mandatory. This isn't china, where parents are only allowed to have a certain number of children and are thereafter forced to abort subsequent children.
If no one wanted an abortion, we could have an abortuary on every street corner and they would be empty, and this fact relates to my central position.
The remedy must address the needs of both mother and child.
Pro-lifers and pro-choicers are equally vehement in their insistence on the rightness of their respective positions. Pro-lifers are advocating for the babies. Pro-choicers advocate for the mothers. It is a furious pitched battle between them, which is why we need a nuanced approach that advocates for BOTH.
How can we do that? Well, first of all, stop obsessing about whether or not abortion is legal. Even when illegal, is it STILL available, and pretending otherwise is just naive and unrealistic.
We must evangelize the culture
As religious people, we need to stop behaving as if we can (or should) try to force other people to obey our moral laws when it comes to sexual behavior. Sexual immorality and the pregnancies that may result from it are beyond the pale of what Christians can expect to manipulate. We need to remember that Jesus did not force anyone to follow him. He invited them. We should do the same by working to evangelize the culture to gain the hearts and minds of a majority, which is absolutely within the mandate given us by Jesus.
Thirdly, we have to be realistic about the limitations of the American legal system when it comes to impressing Christian norms on it. The separation of church and state has been a fundamental criterion from the very foundation of our country and, while I agree that the founding fathers probably did not anticipate that many Americans would one day belong to non-Christian religions (or no religion at all), the overriding conception of individual freedoms can't be ignored.
In the arena of abortion, even if the law were to recognize the rights of the unborn child, you cannot divorce the baby from the mother until it is born. The law will never again allow the rights of the unborn baby to circumvent the rights of the mother, regardless of whether or not we believe that an abortion murders a child. That ship has sailed.
If you want to make laws, enact laws that support moms and babies.
It is not logical to stand in the way of legislation that financially supports poor moms and their babies, either through direct money or services such as free day care, and at the same time pretend that we care about the babies that suffer because its parents are poor and we refuse to fund their relief.
Babies need food, shelter, utilities, clothing, transportation and day care. If a young woman does not have the income to give a child those basic things, abortion will be the only way out. Forget adoption. Most women know they couldn't give up their child, once they've given birth, and if they don't have the money to support a child, they don't have the money to get themselves through a pregnancy either.
Women do not "want" to kill their children, either through abortion or, in the alternative, through poverty, illness and disease. They are forced into this decision because financial difficulties are the primary reason women cite for choosing abortion.
Legislation doesn't solve every human issue
People who resent tax dollars being earmarked for the poor are resentful because they are selfish, first of all, but in the case of the American Christian, it is often the mistaken belief that supporting illegitimate babies will 'encourage" young women to have lots of children they can't afford. There is no proof of that and, even if it were true for some, the number would be quite small.
I would remind my fellow Christians readers that if there are a few "extra" babies in the world, it's not a bad thing. Right?
Hear this: There is nothing you can do about anyone else's larcenous heart or grifter tendencies. There will always be a small percentage of people who are like that. You can't do anything about it.
There is also nothing you can do about lazy people. I know a young, healthy woman, only 20 years old, who refuses to get a full time job. She says part time is "enough." When I ask her what she'll do if she has an emergency, she asserts that her mother will have to pay the bill! I wonder if she got her mom's agreement to that? (I know her mother. She has one full time job and one part-time job. I'm guessing she's not happy about any of this.)
In any case, nothing is perfect, and we cannot sacrifice a great good because it can't be perfect. Someone will take advantage of our generosity. Someone will steal. Someone will lie and cheat. We have to do the best we can. Here is what Saint John Chrysostom says about it:
"The poor man has one plea, his want and his standing
in need: do not require anything else from him; but even if
he is the most wicked of all men and is at a loss for his
necessary sustenance, let us free him from hunger."
~St. John Chrysostom~
Obviously, a baby is entirely innocent and, even if I agreed with you that it is a bad thing to encourage immorality by supporting moms who are having sex outside of marriage, for instance, we would still have to support the babies, right? Part of supporting the babies necessitates supporting the mothers. You can't separate the two.
Don't scream at me.
Now, I can hear people screaming at me already, and I haven't even posted this yet. There are some of you who are singularly focused on the fact that abortion is murder, and you can't SEE anything but that, you can't HEAR anything but that, and you can't TALK about anything but that. Just know that, as long as you refuse to see, hear or discuss anything but the fact that abortion kills a baby, you will be a miserable failure in your attempts to win people over to your way of thinking. You cannot sway people over to your side by hitting them over the head with a hammer. That approach does not work.
Stop spreading superstitious lies about pro-choice advocates and talk to them instead.
I am sick of watching the right and the left fling insults at one another and lie about each other. The right says the left just "wants to kill babies." The left says the right "just wants to control women." They are both off base. Instead of imagining the motives of the other side, it is time to listen. Get on the same page somehow and start using the same language to have the discussion.
At present, the pro-choice people are just as disgusted with you as you are of them, and it isn't because they are, supposedly, evil. it is because the anti-abortion people refuse to see the issues that bother those on the left.
The peculiar quandary in which we find ourselves is that both sides think they are arguing for the greatest good and that the other side is malicious. This is an impossible impasse that we must overcome if we are to make any progress in lessening the numbers of abortions.
Somehow we have to arrive at solutions that respect and dignify every human person. The rights of the mothers and the babies have got to be supported at the same time. At present, the pro-choicers advocate for the rights of the moms while the anti-abortion crowd speaks for the babies. We need a comprehensive approach that supports both.
God save us all
Silver Rose
