If only it were that simple. But I can hear all my pro-choice friends now, “But fetuses AREN’T people!!!! Duh!!!!” Anytime I’ve made the slavery or Nazi analogy, I get the angry reply, “Well, it was CHRISTIANS who owned slaves!!!” (as if today Christians aren’t guilty of depersonalizing fetuses right along-side atheists) and “You’re comparing NICE women -someone’s mother, sister, daughter, wife- in difficult, desperate situations to those horrible NAZIS!!! How wrong-headed is that?!? You should have COMPASSION instead of being so judgmental!!!” Overcoming our culture’s blind-spot is simply not that easy.

Great article, Jen.  As a historian, I constantly warn people against judging those living in the past by our modern standards of morality because we will eventually be judged the same way.  You are correct about the situation concerning slavery:  the slaves were seen as no human.  In fact, the constitution in its original form counted each slave a three-fifths of a person for the purposes of political representation.  Just a little over half, but not even close to a whole human being.  Not unlike a 24 week old fetus.
Understanding how this happened can shed light on our current situation with abortion.  The slave states wanted the slaves counted as people while the states opposing slavery said that if they were property and not human, they shouldn’t count at all.  Thus the 3/5 compromise.  Today a wanted baby who dies as a miscarriage is mourned while an unwanted child is killed.  Each baby is just as dead, but we get to choose how we want to classify it.
On a closer note, we are all appalled that people drove everyday past the death camps without doing anything, but I drive by an abortion clinic several times a week and don’t always even remember to pray.  What will my grandchildren think about that?  Will they see my working in a pregnancy clinic as doing enough, or will they say that I should have done more?  Its a very disturbing question.

The analogies are certainly valid but I will point out something that makes them different in terms of culpability (at least for the slave analogy).  Most girls/women who have an abortion (at least their first one) feel forced to do so due a feeling of desperation, even panic.  They are scared stiff and it’s either the child or them is the way they see it.  I doubt this was the state of mind of most slave owners.  Most were not in a state of panic or desperation when they bought their slaves.  They were mostly ordinary middle to upper class families, comfortable and stable.

I dug around in our family’s history & found slave owners, too.But just to even things out, my son took a DNA test which revealed Sub-Saharan African DNA which entered the gene pool around the same era as the slave owners.
Where I live, free people of color also owned slaves.One owned a large plantation.
Things always are a little more complicated than what appears on the surface.

Why do so many of you (including this writer) worry about the activities of ancestors you never knew you had? It’s over and done with, beyond your control. They were sinners who need your prayers now. Your time is better spent fighting the evils of abortion, which is the slavery of our time. How many of your relatives may have had an abortion? If one should admit it to you, counsel them. If they won’t take heed, pray and sacrifice for them.

Great article.  There was a guest on Relevant Radio the other day and he mentioned the three “G’s” in history:  the guillotine (18th century France), the gas chamber (20th century Gemany) and the gulag (20th century Soviet Union), and how all 3 were the result of man’s turning away from God…..what happens when governments turn away from God.  We see how our country is turning away from God, and how this continues to immerse us deeper into a culture of death.  The abortion clinics of today are our generation’s gas chambers and gulags.  Solzhenitsyn used the term “Gulag Archipelago” to refer to the forced labor camps as a “chain of islands” spread out through out the Soviet Union.  The abortion clinics of today, and the countless other medical facilities (read:  Hospitals) are even more widespread and dispersed, not only in our country but throughout the world.  The “Abortion Archipelago” is Satan’s modus operandi:  divide and conquer….I think most people, most Catholics, know and feel that abortion is wrong, but there is fear to speak up.  We are in the midst of 40 days for life.  I firmly believe that if every Catholic, nay, every person, were to stand tall in front of abortion clinic, either in prayer or peaceful protest, then abortion would quickly become a thing of the past…..

Excellent post, Jenninfer. Have you written anything on degrees of complicity? 

I was troubled by this just yesterday because I realized that I have not been involved in the pro-life movement so much that I have gone to jail or even had people yell at me.

The people around me just don’t bring up abortion and I don’t either. How can I act with zeal without going “too far”?

I’m willing to accept some sacrifice and pain of the cross, but I’m afraid of losing my job. I have a family to support.

GABY,
Just FYI:
American Jews owned slaves, too, & were involved in the slave trade.In fact, if you lived most anywhere on the eastern seaboard in Colonial times,North or South, you would have in some way profitted from the slave trade-assuming you weren’t a slave yourself.
The Barbary pirates captured so many white Europeans to sell as slaves that some Italian coastlines were left virtually uninhabited.Every man, woman, & child in one Irish town were captured & sold as slaves.
Very true what you say about blind spots. Each culture & each era has at least one.

Jessica, here are some suggestions.

- Pray.  Daily.  with the specific intention to end abortion
- Fast.  Make a sacrifice with the specific intention of ending abortion.  It could be fasting from meals, some sort of entertainment (forego watching your favorite TV show, etc)
- Mass.  Go to Mass on other days in addition to Sunday, and offer up that Mass with the specific intention of ending abortion.
- Act.  There are number of ways to act.  40 days for life in my community simply asks for people to volunteer one hour per week to pray in front of an abortion clinic.  One hour.  That’s all.  One Hour. The words of Christ can be applied here, with a little bit of change “Could you not spend one hour FOR me?” 

One doesn’t have to participate to the degree that one goes to jail or loses their job, but who knows—perhaps this is a Cross that invites some to carry.  Pray to God for Him to reveal to you what He wants you to do. 

I think if people understood the magnitude of the atrocity that is going on in this country, people would be moved to action…..zealous action that some would say “goes to far.”  Imagine if an event like 9/11 occured every day—would we stop at nothing to try and prevent that event from occuring every day?.....Well, more people die from abortion every day in this country than the number killed on 9/11.

Jennifer, Thanks for this article.  It helped me to reframe my pro-life stance in a way that is now calling me to action.  Now I have to ask myself, “So, you say you’re pro-life.  What are you doing to prove it?”

GABY, good point.  But while anyone should be careful about flippantly comparing anyone to a Nazi, I would nonetheless ask those who say “how wrong-headed and lacking in compassion are you to compare NICE women to awful Nazis!” if they really think that “nice” and “good” are truly the same thing.  In fact, this actually comes out in Ms. Fulwiler’s piece.  To paraphrase Peter Kreeft, what makes any of us at all think that we are “good people”?  Enough times, so many of us think that we’re good people just because we haven’t killed or raped anyone, or stolen anything, or we tell ourselves, “what I’m doing isn’t hurting anyone!”

I think there was an article that got linked from the NCRegister once on Integrated Catholic Life (?) that discusses how often enough, “nice” people think that they’re ahead of the game in the good department:  they’re so nice, so they must be “good people” who don’t have to examine their consciences, and certainly don’t need to go to Confession, because they’ve got “nothing to confess.”  But anyone who has ever had any experience with any clique of girls in highschool knows how the “politics of nice” can work (see Rosalind Wiseman, “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” for example), and how when girls and women are socialized to be “nice” instead of good, it’s a trap:  hurt feelings instead of what’s truly good and beautiful become the standard for what is right and what is wrong.

So any woman who’s ever had an abortion is a slave-owning Nazi. Alrighty then.

Kathleen, while one does want to be careful with something such as moral equivalency or flippancy, what you say is a good reminder.  It is also true that there were a few black slave owners in colonial America, and also integral to the slave trade was the fact that Africans would enslave other Africans captured in war;  for one thing, it was one of the ways to make the Europeans go away.  So historically, nobody gets a free pass.  That does not, however, gloss over the fact that the slave trade was brutal, and that human beings were being commodified and exploited:  you had slave resistance from suicide to slave revolt throughout the 18th century.  It does not gloss over something as awful as racism (though where anyone needs to be careful is know where this comes from:  the association of slavery with blackness happened gradually, and arose as more African slaves were imported into the colonies).

Son of Ski Free Champion, I think you are misunderstanding or not grasping the comparison.  The woman who has an abortion is a victim of the atrocity as well…...

Posted by Son of SkiFree Champion on Wednesday, Oct 3, 2012 9:01 AM (EST):So any woman who’s ever had an abortion is a slave-owning Nazi. Alrighty then.”
*************************
In the context of “We’re all fallen human beings who are capable of almost anything given the culture, era & circumstances”, yes.
We can all come up short. The folks who don’t, who see through the blind spots of their culture are the saints, heroes, resistance fighters, abolitionists, & prolife workers.
Women, though, are often coerced into sex & into abortions.So, in that sense, your comment doesn’t really work.Women are victimized by abortion, too.

You CAN make a difference.  www.rosaryvictory.com.  This coming Sunday October 7, at 3pm eastern time, pray a Holy Rosary - joining thousands of others praying at the same time.  You can also patcipate in LIFE CHAINS around the nation.  Pray for conversions for all who support abortion in any way.
Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us.

P.S. GABY: re “well it was CHRISTIANS who owned slaves!” but it was Christians who were also at the forefront of the abolitionist movement.  So there is such a thing as good Christians and bad Christians.  Many slaves and former slaves themselves were also Christian, and the pleas that they made for freedom and abolition were based in their Christian faith.  Rev. Richard Allen of Philadelphia was one of those (I would encourage anyone who is interested in the topic to read Richard S. Newman, “Freedom’s Prophet”).  Furthermore, what makes discussing slavery complicated is that during the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, it was an economic, social, and even political system that was everywhere and affected everything it touched in the Atlantic World.

It is extremely dangerous to judge people who lived in the past. We’re not living in the same circumstances. Nothing is as starkly simple as you seem to think. Slavery at one time was considered as natural as rainfall, for economic as well as moral reasons. Saint Paul seems to be accepting of it. Or, say you were a Ukrainian in World War II. Hitler’s armies offer the possibility of freedom from Stalinism. Whom do you support?

Once a pro-choice person said to me, “If you Catholics really believed that babies were being killed in a clinic, why wouldn’t you storm the clinic and physically stop it?” That might be the question somebody will be asking about us some time hence.

WSquared ,
We actually had free folks of “color” owning slaves in the 19th Century, too.After the war, when the Jim Crow laws went into effect, everything changed.

I had thought of another term when reading rs Fulwiler’s post: gay. Im familiar with your catechisms statement on respect and dignity for homosexuals, but I dont see it in practice when catholics speak in villifying terms of them, and vote for so called traditional marriage laws. If you vote for such laws I put to that you youre voting against gays, youre not treating them with dignity, youre discriminating (the unjust discrimination statement is reprehensible in my view, discrimination is unjust by definition) wnd you teducing these people to a second-class subhuman status. Why should gay partners not be covered on one anothers insurance? Why should they not have visitation rights when their partner is hospitalized? Why should they not receive funeral or survivors benefits?

steve b,
I personally think that anyone ,so designated, should have visitation rights & receive insurance benefits.If I remember correctly, there’s a form that can be used in hospitals for vistation purposes.
However, in redefining who participates in a legal marriage, are you also discriminating against other alternative lifestyles such as polygamy or those who are closely related by blood? Outside of some libertarians, we all seem to have definitions of marriage that exclude or discriminate against others.Perhaps you’re a libertarian,though & already hold those opinions.

Tiime will tell, but our descendants might be much angrier about our failure to give up temporary comforts and economic advantages in order to prevent environmental damage that ruins their lives than they will be about unknown contemporaries who might have been born but weren’t.

Please don’t bother responding with links to sources debunking climate change. I know we don’t have definitive proof of human-caused global warming. It’s just that as long as we’re speculating on the possible emotional reactions of future generations to our moral failings, a permanently damaged environment would loom a lot larger than the loss of unidentified fetuses. Future generations might take the position that we shouldn’t have gambled their futures on the possibility that human-caused global warming was an incorrect theory.

cowalker ,
There are unidentified,unnamed dead in all eras-unborn children included-& God knows & cares for them each personally, even if we do not.
We reserve tombs to honor unidentified soldiers.
Saying that those who perish unnamed are of less importance is a slippery slope.

Steve B, not to divert this to a discussion on same-sex marriage, but upholding traditional marriage is not the same as villifying same-sex relationships.  It’s about protecting something that is essential to the propagation of the species and society.  The “state” (i.e. society) has a vested interest for protecting and safeguarding traditional marriage:  union of man and wife is the only natural relationship that will ensure the society has a chance to survive.  Regardless of what we want to believe, same-sex relationships can not ensure the propogation of the species.  I think part of the problem is in words we use.  We are quick to use words like “discriminating”, “hate”, “bigotry” when someone degrees with what we believe.  I think the “Heaven’s Gate” cult from a few year’s past were wrong in what they believed, but I did not hate them.  I can say an action is wrong, but it doesn’t mean I hate that person.  I can say it’s wrong for two men or two women to have relations that should be reserved for a man and a woman, but it doesn’t mean I hate those who feel otherwise.

To discriminate means to distinguish or observe a difference.  There can, and should be, such a thing as “just” discrimination, and what we should abhor is unjust discrimination.  Let’s face it, Jesus was very discriminating and was very intolerant.  He discriminated between right and wrong actions.  He did not tolerate people doing whatever they want simply because they wanted to or felt it was good for them.  “Woman, go and sin no more.”

speaking of being morally complicit:  . Bishop John Paprocki of Springfiled Illinois, stated that the Democrat party platform planks “explicitly endorse intrinsic evils”  and “a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.” A vote in the USA today for any Democrat at any level, Obama on down, by a Catholic with a well-formed conscience (well-formed according to Church teaching) is a grave sin.

Sometimes it isn’t so easy to see.  If anyone has read “MAUS” by Art Spiegelman, you would think that his father Vladek would have known better than to be prejudiced, having experienced the worst kind of prejudice himself firsthand (he was a survivor of Auschwitz), yet he called black people “schwarzers” and didn’t trust them.  And when Art’s wife Francoise tried to point out that he was talking about blacks the same way the Nazis talked about Jews, he only said “Tch!  I thought you were smarter than that!  It isn’t even to compare the schwarzers and the Jews!”

Kathleen and GM: I’m presuming you’re both either American or perhaps Australian (two countries where the arguments you’ve presented are most often invoked).  There are countries where same sex unions and marriages (where they actually call it marriage) are allowed.  Last I checked not everyone in Canada and Norway have turned gay or are courting their donkeys.  I’d have to see substantive evidence in other words that society as we know it will crumble if gays are allowed to marry.  I appreciate that Kathleen favors benefits and visitation for anyone so designated, and I wish people like you would be more vocal.  The only voices I hear from many who call themselves Catholic are those of condemnation.

Yep.  The Democratic Party has specifically adopted Abortion Rights and Same-Sex Marriage.  Couple that with the removal of “God” (and subsequent re-insertion, despite multiple NAYS) from their Platform.  These beliefs go counter to what the Catholic Church and Christ believe and teach.  They are Anti-Christian.

Scripture speaks of the Anti-Christ.  Makes one wonder…..are we correct to assume that the Anti-Christ will be a specific person, or can it also be a group or organization.  To quote a cheesy 80’s dance song, “Things that make you go ‘hmmmmmmmm’”.....

Steve b, it’s a slow fade…..courting donkeys isn’t going to happen over night.  but you can see the effects on our society of same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion…..You can see it all around.  Look at the TV shows, and how grim/dark they are…...look at how we treat women….as sexual playthings that can be injected with chemicals or operated on if they get pregnant…...Step back and look at society.  All this isn’t the result of same-sex marraige, of course, but rather the result of multiple things, of which same-sex marriage is a part of

MM: good distinction.  I would add, though, that the people who fight for the legalization of abortion are often people who are not in that desperate situation.  Those are the people who I would compare to slavery/genocide proponents.  I personally have a much easier time empathizing with the women in desperate situations who are tempted to have abortions, a temptation that is easy to give in to thanks to the pro-“choice” activists.

Hat Lady:  it is important to look to the sins of our ancestors because it sheds light on why comparable atrocities (like abortion) occur today.

Claire ,
Yes, if we don’t know history, we repeat it.Sometimes we know it & repeat it anyway.
Slavery’s just gone underground as human trafficking.

Very true Kathleen.  Unfortunately, even insight only goes so far sometimes. How tragic that we are so slow to learn from our mistakes.

We should be careful about judging our ancestors. We usually don’t have complete records of their thoughts, conversations, or practical things they did to make life better for others in justice and charity within their time and place.
*
Some things, like slavery, are easy for us to abhor today, but there is plenty of sin and institutional injustice in every generation and across political and social systems. The Industrial Revolution also had its share of atrocities against human dignity. People can be slaves to their circumstances (such as having no choice but to work 15-hour days in dangerous factories for subsistence wages while living in dirty tenements circa 1885) without being legally stripped of their humanity.
*
It seems best to pray for the forgiveness of all the sins of our relatives, of whatever kind, as well as our own. The truth of the Gospel is that grace is always greater than the sin around us, and we should be instruments of that grace however and wherever we can.

Posted by Son of SkiFree Champion on Wednesday, Oct 3, 2012 9:01 AM (EST):
So any woman who’s ever had an abortion is a slave-owning Nazi. Alrighty then.

Son of Skifree, I’ve had an abortion, and the only place I’ve ever found compassion, comfort, help and real healing is from the Catholic pro-life community.

Don’t speak for me.

Posted by steve b on Wednesday, Oct 3, 2012 11:14 AM (EST):

Steve b. I appreciate your skepticism for this argument. The best analogy for understanding what pro-traditional marriage people are saying will happen is to look at how no-fault divorce laws changed the meaning of marriage and the practice of marriage. Today, marriage is a culturally different institution from what it was a hundred years ago. That’s the kind of change we are talking about. Not all of a sudden “well, if that couple is married, then I’m not going to be married to my husband anymore!” But it will change the cultural meaning of marriage for my kids and grandkids and society.

If you want a blow by blow in detail discussion of how this will work, Read Maggie Gallagher’s book or her serie of posts on National Review Online, the Corner about the importance of culture.

anon for this, my mom had an abortion long before she had me and got the exact opposite treatment from the Catholics she knew. Don’t speak for every Catholic.

Since we are on the subject of same-sex marriage, I have to ask.  In order for one thing to have the same rights as another thing, they basically should be equal, correct?  Women should have the same rights as men, because, well, they’re equal, right?  Black people should have the same rights as white people because, well, they are equal, right?  So if a “male-male” union(or “female-female” union, for that matter) is to have the same rights as a “male-female” union, then they should be equal right?  are they equal?  If so, how?

Good thief and anon: What I read from your posts is that you both perhaps would like to time warp us back to some idyllic Donna-Reed-Show-esque version of the past where everything was right in the world.  As Kathryn H said, every age has had its social injustices to deal with.  The universe is the way it is whether we want it to be or not.  The thing we have to think about if we’re concerned about morality is how to deal with injustices in front of us.  I’ve seen countries run by religion, and they’re not doing so hot.  The countries that are progressing towards better quality of life (and incidentally fewer abortions, fewer teen or unwanted pregnancies and less of things I think we all can agree we’d like to see lees of) are secular and pluralistic.  I’m quite fine with people practicing religion (that’s the essence of pluralism) but I don’t want religious mores dictated to me by my government.  Perhaps a certain church teaching is good policy, however if you want it in government, you have to support it with evidence and rationalization, not with authoritarian argument. 

Apply this to same-sex marriage: We accept that heterosexual unions are beneficial for society (it’s part of our evolution, family units are known throughout human societies as you can see in any book on anthropology, paleontology etc.)  There is evidence to show that a same-sex couple can provide many of the same beneficial family outcomes as a hetero couple (google for australian psychological society lgbt families) and no credible evidence to the contrary (the recent Regnerus study has been disavowed).  In my view there is a reasonable case to afford same-sex couples the same benefits for insurance, survivor benefits and so forth that hetero couples receive.

steve b,
Your comments don’t seem inclusive of others wishing to have legal status for their marriages.We have numerous polygamist families in the US,Canada, Middle East & elsewhere.Other consenting adults wishing marriage ,face legal discrimination as well.Western religious traditions seems to be behind making those distinctions, too.

“[Federal religious freedom law] is a shield, not a sword. It protects individuals from substantial burdens on religious exercise that occur when the government coerces action one’s religion forbids, or forbids action one’s religion requires; it is not a means to force one’s religious practices upon others.”  Judge Carol Jackson.

When comparing abortion to Nazi Gas Chambers or to slavery, ask yourself this question: When was the last time you saw pregnant women herded onto cattle cars or boats and shipped somewhere to have abortions performed on them?  The answer: NEVER!  Comparing Nazis, Slavery to Abortion is simply a false analogy.  There is no government run system created solely for the destruction of the unborn. There is no Final Solution.  Nazi death camps were government sponsored and operated; Just ask Pope Benedict XVI. Slavery was and still is some parts of the world, a fully government sanctioned and operated program. Abortion simply isn’t government sponsored, sanctioned or otherwise. 

There are no laws telling women they must abort their children: This isn’t China. Ironically, there are no laws telling pregnant women they cannot smoke or drink or that they must eat a balanced diet either. When are the pro-lifers going to start rallying and protesting against RJ Reynolds, Anheiser Busch and Monsanto? 

Pro-lifers take note: you might not look like the loons many of you can be if actually took a stance that said “hey pregnant women, we understand the predicament you found yourself in and we are going to help you with pre-natal and other medical care and adoption services if you want them”.  The problem as I see it, you want to judge the young woman who perhaps succumbed to allure of the football team’s captain when her parents were not home without offering any real help except to call her a sinner and a baby killer. She does not need to be judged by you, she needs your help. Period.  If you do not want to help, get the heck out of the way; it is not your position to judge since there is only one who can (trust me when I say you are not it).

They say you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  I believe this to be true.  Maybe tone down the Nazi/ Slavery false analogies and actually do something to help them.  Just a suggestion. 

steve b, hetersexual are not merely beneficial to society, they are NECESSARY.  same-sex unions can not ensure the propagation of the species, and thus society, and that’s why traditional marriage deserves protection.  you may have a point to granting benefits etc to partners….but why is there a need to redefine “marriage”?

The government might not force women to have abortions, but legally there is nothing to prevent them or to protect the life of the unborn.  And the pro-life movement does plenty to help women with unplanned parenthood.

Starzec, our government is forcing it’s people to pay for the killing of the unborn.  It uses our money to fund this killing.

starzec ,
Analogies only work so far.The comparisons of slavery, 3rd Reich atrocities, & abortion all demonstrate a blindness to injustices suffered by “others”.
Sure,American women aren’t loaded on carts to abortion clinics as in China, but nowhere does the unborn child have a voice in the process.He/she is forgotten in your arguement, just as individual slave’s rights were not comprehended by my ancestors-at least the white ones.I’m guessing the ones of color understood perfectly well.

steve b, look at the societies in the past that have totally turned their backs on God.  You get what a recent Relevant Radio guest referred to as the three G’s:

  guillotine - French Revolution
  gas chamber - Nazi germany
  gulag - Soviet Union

When man turns his back on God, away from an objective Truth, he looks inward for the truth, and thus he becomes the source of truth.  We become like gods…..it is this sort of thinking that has paved the way for such atrocities such as the Holocaust, the forced labor camps, and yes, the innocent killings of unborn children at the rate of over 1 million per year in our country alone.

Guitar Man: What sort of thinking paved the way for the Crusades? Or 9/11? Maybe the religious need a better source of truth.

Ahhhh, but God was not the source of the Crusades or 9/11—but rather man’s dis-ordered use of his gift of free will.

Oh, so God doesn’t help at all then. Not sure what your point was, then.

Complaining about the atrocity is cheap.  Solving it is not.  Women do not abort for convenience; they do so for lack of a viable alternative.  Of you who would stand outside an abortion clinic, how many would pay your money (equivalent to that time commitment) to support of the pregnant woman and the unborn child?  What if the support cost was much higher than your time commitment?  Would you sell your property to support them?  Would you take a job (or a second job) to do it?

Son of SkiFree,

Sorry for not making my point clear in my most recent post.  The suffering and death that have resulted from “athiestic” ideologies far surpasses the death and suffering done in the name of God.  Nazi germany’s millions….Soviet Union’s millions….the over 50 million killed in our nation alone since 1973….the millions of unborn that have been killed throughout the world.

Rational thought, that argument holds no water.  Suppose my neighbor down the street is abusing his 12 year old daughter.  If I am unable to, or worse yet, unwilling to take her in and care for her, that does not take away my right to tell him that abusing his daughter is wrong.  And if no one is willing to step up and care for the daughter, that does not give him the right to continue abusing her. 

But you’ve nailed it right on the head.  Caring for children is hard work, and demands sacrifice.  People aren’t willing to sacrifice and suffer for the sake of someone else.  So we take the easy way out—we terminate that life.  You’ve underscored the the belief that is is easier to kill or terminate that life than it is to care for it. As Mother Theresa told world leader’s, abortion trains us to solve our problems through violence.

Rational thought, the Guttmacher Institute publishes reasons why women have abortions….

38% responded having a baby would intefere with career
38% said it would interfere with education
34% said it was because they were a student or were planning to study
25% said they didn’t want people to know they had sex or were pregnant

These are but a few.  If you look at the reasons….all of the reasons, it looks the majority of the reasons boil down to not wanting to be inconvenience.  Granted these numbers are from 2004, but not much change from 1987, so one can assume probalby not much change from 2004 to 2012…..

Guitar Man, are you saying that 9/11 was less vile than the Holocaust because fewer people were killed? I’m not sure what other conclusion I’m supposed to be drawing here.

SkiFree, Nope not saying that at all.  .  Just countering the argument that non-religious societies is the way to go, when non-religious societies have resulted in much more suffering, death and destruction than religious ones.

I don’t know, Guitar Man. Muslim extremists kill an awful lot of people. If they ever catch up to Stalin, will that make non-religious societies better than religious ones?

Holier than attitude is not drawing people to Jesus…..and unless your family lived in Germany during the Nazi regime I would not make assumptions about an entire nation, you have no clue how people (yes German people) suffered….I love the Catholic Church…some Catholics not so much

And two other labels are “gay marriage” and “euthanasia”...

While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in predominantly secular ways, let us not forget the anti-Semitism that built the Nazi crematoria was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, Christian Europeans viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel myth in its newspapers as late as 1914. Catholics seem to have short memories.
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If embracing the Christian faith was a sure cure for all societal ills, we should expect to find some support for this conclusion by comparing the more atheistic societies with the more religious ones around the globe. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report (2005), the most atheistic societies (countries like Norway, Canada, Iceland, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom) are actually the healthiest, as indicated by measures of life expectancy, adult literacy, per-capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality. Conversely, the fifty nations now ranked lowest by the UN in terms of human development are unwaveringly religious. Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, these facts prove that atheism is perfectly compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society; they also prove, conclusively, that religious faith does nothing to ensure a society’s health.

Some of these “healthy” countries have legalized assisted suicide, too.  Personally, I don’t trust the UN standards.  And, let’s not forget that Catholics weren’t exactly treated well under Nazi Germany either.

Wow, this post (and scanned comments) really has me thinking today.  Everyone says “How COULD all the German citizens allow the Nazi atrocities to happen? I surely never would have done it!”  Yet we could very well be in the same place right now.  Why don’t we, like one commenter mentioned, storm the abortion clinics and make them stop the murder.  Why?  Same reason the Germans didn’t stop the trains.  We don’t want to get yelled at, called names, labeled as an extremist, arrested.  What good would it do anyway?  Better to stay home and either mind my own business and trust the powers to be to make the best decisions for “us”, or talk within the safety of my own walls about how horrible it all is and wonder why no one does anything to stop it.  Hmmm, I think I have just called myself out on this one.

The term is not only fetus, it is also woman, man, teenager, kids, woman and man marriage. Every human being is being subject of “slavery” one way or the other, according to twisted agendas like feminists, pro-choice, sex-education, same sex union advocates and other more. The WHOLE human dignity is under a great risk. And if that were not enough, Catholic Christians who defend LIFE are also under attack. These are great times to seek and find all our strength in God through prayer, adoration and all our sacraments. Thank you Jennifer for pointing this out.

Zeke,
At least two of the countries you mention, Japan & Denmark, are dieing out.30% of Japan’s population is 60 & over, Denmark’s day care centers are offering free evening childcare so parents can go home to procreate.The centers fear that they’ll soon lack for kids to care for if current population trends continue.
I think it’s more cultural than “atheism vs religious”.And it can vary with immigration trends, but many of the more secular nations are literally dieing on the vine-better healthcare or not.

OK, I realize that I am going out on a limb here, but I am sincerely interested in being corrected if I am wrong.  The Bible is very clear that marriage is a sacrament between one man and one woman for life. A man cannot marry a man nor a woman a woman. However, neither can a Christian marry a non-Christian, nor a divorced person anyone at all while their spouse is living.  Thus, we see that marriage is something sacred and belonging to the church to administer.
Division of property, insurance benefits, hospital visitation rights, etc., belong to the secular world and are administered by the government and/or private enterprises.  Therefore, I propose that government get out of the marriage business entirely and leave it to the churches, each of which can decide whom they will marry to whom.  Then, create a law where each adult can designate one other adult as his legal partner for purposes of secular benefits.  While marriage is permanent, this designation could change from a college roommate to a spouse to a best friend, according to life’s changing circumstances.
I propose this in part because I do not think it is right to define relationships exclusively by their sexual nature.  When I was in college my roommate and I did everything together that two married people might do except have sex.  Yet when she was sick and needed to be cared for, I had to use vacation time instead of sick leave.  The same would be true under laws recognizing homosexual “marriage” simply because we were not gay.  However, under my proposal, I could temporarily designate her as a “partner” regardless of the nature of our relationship and be able to share my legal benefits with her for a time.

Susan,
My daughter & son-in-law feel the same way.They’re devout Catholics but think govt should stay away from the marriage issue.They also support Ron Paul.

Good points, Nic.  I’ve heard the argument that the pro-life movement should focus on changing hearts rather than changing laws.  I’m all for the conversion of hearts, but I’m really glad that stronger action was taken in Nazi German, rather than spending years trying to change hearts.

Wow. Check this out on the BBC website:

Dutch abortion ship ‘blocked’ from Morocco port of Smir
Women on Waves has previously chartered ships in European waters Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
Abortion boat heads to Morocco
Portugal bans Dutch abortion ship
A Dutch campaign group says its ship offering women medical abortions has been prevented by authorities from entering the Moroccan port of Smir.”
**********
There are actually abortion clinic boats targeting countries like Ireland where abortion’s restricted.I hope the Moroccan’s keep them at bay.

One doesn’t have to “storm the abortion clinic” in order to put an end to abortion.  THere is strength in numbers.  If everyone that is against abortion would assemble and peacefully protest, I have no doubt clinics and facilities would start to close.

Thief, the statistics you cited are incorrect, and you have misinterpreted or mischaracterized the reasons given.  Here is what the Guttmacher Institute’s publication actually says:

RESULTS: The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman’s education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents’ or partners’ desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

CONCLUSIONS: The decision to have an abortion is typically motivated by multiple, diverse and interrelated reasons. The themes of responsibility to others and resource limitations, such as financial constraints and lack of partner support, recurred throughout the study.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.html

“So any woman who’s ever had an abortion is a slave-owning Nazi. Alrighty then.”
Not quite. 
But she certainly is this:  A cold blooded murderer, of her own child.
Whether thats better or worse than slave owning, or Nazi party membership, you decide.

Anyhow, she is still one of God’s beloved children. 
But also, as long as abortions take place, she should be punished like any murderer, to deter others.  And she should welcome her just punishment as a blessing, for the good, deterence, it produces.

Another all too commonly spoke but all too rarely discussed word that devalues people is “retard(ed).” I published my own post on the power of language to devalue people about a year ago. Some advocate ending the r-word because it’s offensive (which it is), but I worry more about the message the r-word sends. Companies sell T-shirts mocking “retards” and five minutes searching Twitter for the hashtag #Downsyndrome or the words “retard” or “retarded” will show you how vulnerable this population is. My Google reader is set to pull stories about Down syndrome and cerebral palsy (my son has the former, my daughter the latter) and it’s disturbing how often the stories involve abuse and crime against an individual with disability.

My son with Down syndrome is the light of my life. My greatest fear is that someone will destroy him because they view him as lesser.

I’d have thought it perfectly acceptable for the Moroccans to board and confiscate the abortion ship, and either put it to use as a supply or medical ship in their version of the Coast Guard, or just auction it off.

This is a religious country. Part of claiming your citizenship is claiming a belief in God, even if you are not Christian. We’ve got the Creator in our Declaration of Independence. We’ve got ‘In God We Trust’ on our coins. We’ve got ‘one nation under God’ in our Pledge of Allegiance. And we say prayers in the Senate and the House of Representatives to God. An atheist could never get elected dog catcher, much less president. Up until now, the idea of being American and believing in God were synonymous. If Obama wants to win the next debate, he needs to wear God, as much as it offends him to do so.

Lucy lee de Cortez, that’s terrible. It is a horror for a mother to kill her own child. But “cold-blooded”? How do you know what they are going through? And being a murderer requires that you know that the being killed is a person. If many/all of the people you trust said it isn’t, wouldn’t you be inclined to believe them?

In other words, you can’t judge the actor, only the action, when it comes to possible moral “blindspots.”

Cold blooded murder. Dont make excuses.

Willfully hiring a professional killer to kill somebody, that’s cold blooded murder. 
It’s what happens in abortion.

Perhaps when the victim is a fellow gangster, it may be understandable, But its still cold blooded murder. 

But when you pay to kill an innocent child, No. 
That’s as cold blooded as cold blooded murder gets.
 
But youre worried about “what they (your cold blooded murderers) are going through”.  That’s as sick as sick gets. 
How dare you write on a catholic website?

He has every right to post on a Catholic website.  Catholicism is about compassion.  He said himself that it is a horror for a woman to have an abortion.  He then went on to point out that many of these women have been conditioned by people they trust to see the baby as less than a person.  Clearly they know not what they do.  That doesn’t take away all their culpability, but only God knows their hearts and can judge how culpable they are.  They have been duped.  They are victims.  Let’s fight the people who perpetuate these lies and who fight for abortion “rights”, rather than criminalize the mothers who often are victims, if to a lesser extent than their babies.

Hi Kathleen,
I could not find any data to support your claim that 30% of Japan’s population is aged 60 and over, but is does appear correct that they lead the world in this category. In any event, if you mean to suggest that the rate of abortion in secular countries is higher than in religiously superstitious ones, there is ample data to support the opposite. Just to take the 2 countries you mention, the abortion rates per 1000 women in Japan (11 in 1995) and Denmark (15 in 2003) are significantly lower than in the United States (19.6 in 2008). In fact, all of the countries I mentioned have lower abortion rates than the overwhelmingly Christian United States, with the exception of Sweden. If these societies are dying on the vine, as you say, it has nothing to do with abortion.
-
In a given country, statistics clearly show that the abortion rate is essentially the same regardless of whether it’s illegal or not; the main difference is that where it is illegal, more women die from the procedure that anywhere else. Ironically, the statistics also clearly show that the only factor that correlates with lower abortion rates is contraceptive use, not declaring the practice illegal, or even belief that the Bible is true. Given this, what positive effect do you think banning abortion in the US will have, other than on your conscience?

Catholicism is about the truth

Try some:
A person who willfully pays a kiiler to murder another person commits cold blooded murder.  It doesnt matter “what they (the cold blooded murderers” are going through” 

And when the victim is an innocent child, and the murdere is the mother it is an abomination.  And it should be punished with utmost severity.  Life in prison, at hard labor, at least.

Perhaps some women are in fact so utterly lacking in judgement that they can be excused. But we’ve all seen ultrasound photos, and 99% of the time women know full well what they are doing.  They are paying a kiiler to murder their own helpless child.

Yes, Catholicism is about truth.  The truth is that abortion is wrong.  Most of us on this thread are well aware of this.  What we can’t know is a percentage of how many women know full well what they’re doing.  Catholicism is also about mercy and compassion.  Women are victims of abortion too, and they could use some of that mercy and compassion.  Which is why Project Rachel and other Catholic abortion ministries are so vital.  As are sidewalk counseling and prayer, none of which involve chastising these women or threatening them with severe punishments.

Please, women can reason!  They have free will!!! 

And theyve seen ultrasound pictures.  So they should know full well they are paying to kill an innocent child. 
You kill innocent children, yore NOT a “victim”.
Here’s what you are:  A murderer.
 
Who’s your next “victim”?  Madoff? 
Yes, he should get compassion and understanding.  But we dont call him a “victim” and make excuses for what he did.  He himself would laugh at you if you fed him that B.S. 

And we punish him, to deter others.  His duty isnt to boo-hoo about himself.  Its to be an adult, admit he did wrong, and beg for forgiveness.  And to accept his punishment as a blessing. 
Yet all Madoff did was steal some money, from the well healed.  He didnt take innocent life.

So we need to do the same with rapists, child molestors, war criminals, and yes, even women who’ve murdered their own children.

You are way out of line implying that I’m feeding anyone BS, just as you were way out of line telling John that he shouldn’t be posting on a Catholic website.

Cold Blooded Murderers. “They are victims”
Your very words.

A person who willfully pays to have an innocent person killed, is about as cold blooded as murderers get.
But you say “they are victims” 
I say that’s B.S.
About as BS as BS gets.

Whatever. 
Take rapists.  “They are victims” too?

Yes, they are victims.  They are victims of being lied to.  Society has told them that these babies are not human, do not have an awareness or a consciousness, are not a separate human being because they are dependent on the mother’s body in order to survive.  They have been told that abortion is not a crime.  When someone is in a desperate situation, it is easy to believe the lies that have permeated our society.  Which is why our Church offers compassion and mercy to post abortive mothers.  Which is why no Catholic apologist, including Father Pavone from Priests for Life, has recommended life imprisonment for post-abortive mothers.  Are they full of BS too?  Would you be outraged if they were to post on a Catholic website?  I disagree with your point of view, and I find you to be very unmerciful, but I have not accused you of BS.  Unless you are able to discuss this without that type of an insult, this will be my final response to you.  I expect insults from trolls.  I don’t expect them from fellow Catholics, especially on a Sunday.  Personally, I have better things to do with my time.

Lucy and Claire:  for the love of God (I don’t use that phrase lightly, and I don’t use it in condemnation or criticism, either…), the truth in charity always, but also always charity in truth.  Truth without charity and mercy stymies the effectiveness of its own witness, and charity not grounded in truth is false charity if not no charity at all.  It goes both ways, and the one will not work without the other.  So it seems that you both have to temper where you’re coming from with a little of what the other speaks to.  That’s no B.S., and it’s no B.S. either that at times as crucial as these, it behooves us to know how the two enable each other.

Furthermore, I’m reading some things in this thread of how we’re a “religious” country, since we have “In God We Trust” on our money.  Okay.  We sure know how to talk a lot about God.  It’s part of the cultural discourse. 

But have we even asked ourselves what we even understand and mean by “God”?  It’s a pertinent question, since there are atheists out there who are convinced that anyone who believes in God believes in some sort of “Flying Spaghetti Monster” or some such thing, while Catholics most certainly do not.  So Catholics are in agreement with those atheists here:  when we say “God,” we’re not talking about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy.  Furthermore, Ross Douthat has written a book about this question called Bad Religion:  How We Became a Nation of Heretics.  And now, apparently, there are Catholics For Obama who are asking Catholics thinking of not voting for Obama how they can vote for Mitt Romney, “a man who doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ.” 

Well, what do we even mean by “Jesus Christ?”  Who is He?  That has profound implications for what it actually means to follow Him as well as what it means to practice.  Those, too, are important questions for any Christian, given how our culture gives us the likes of “Buddy Christ” if it bothers to mention Jesus at all, and the very false dichotomy between “Christ the Kitten versus Nasty Jehovah” (Peter Kreeft’s words, not mine).  We see this even among some Catholics, and it’s theologically quite serious:  not only does that deny the Trinity, given that “I and the Father are One” (and you cannot call yourself a Christian and deny the Trinity) but any active listening to the Responsorial Psalm during Mass and any praying of the Liturgy of the Hours, even on occasion, should disabuse anyone of that notion.

WSquared:  I didn’t in any way mean to imply that women who have abortions have zero culpability.  I am pro-life, I vote pro-life (well, at least for the candidate who comes the closest to opposing abortion), and I pray to God that there will come a day when abortion is no longer legally sanctioned in this country.  But I do disagree with characterizing abortive women as cold-blooded murderers and sentencing them to life in prison with hard labor.  And I don’t think I’m alone in that viewpoint;  I think it’s pretty consistent among Catholic apologists (like Father Frank Pavone), hence Catholic ministries such as Project Rachel.  Some post-abortive women have been valuable contributors to the pro-live movement.  I have much harsher words for pro-abortion activists who perpetuate the lies of abortion and use them to manipulate women who are in desperate situations, into killing their own babies.  Although even some of these people, such as Abby Johnson, have stopped lying to themselves and have become assets to the pro-life movement.  If people don’t agree with me, okay.  But to refer to my viewpoint as BS is uncalled for. 

Anyway, WSquared, I am grateful for your perspective, and that you always express your viewpoint in charity.

Gotta love Catholic-on-Catholic crime. Thank you, Lucy-Lee. Never change.

Zeke ,
Check the recent BBC website article on Japan’s shrinking population for the statistics.

Zeke,
PS- The BBC doesn’t make articles very easy to find but if you type “population” into the search field, you can find the article under a title about “UN Warns of Ageing Populationss” or something like that.
I’m not going to get into a discussion about where abortion occurs & whether it occurs more often in varying cultures.Whatever culture, it’s wrong.It’s a human rights issue, just like slavery & segregation.You can choose to bring religion into the conversation if you wish, but I’ll pass.

Respectfully, that is mush, slush, and gush.
So let’s get back to the truth of the matter.

Assume that a woman is aware that her unborn child is a human being.
Incidently, most women are so aware.

Let’s next assume that she willfully pays a person to kill this innnocent child. 
This is not rare.  Indeed, here in the USA it happens about 120 times every hour.

You say that this woman is NOT a “cold blooded murderer”

Okay, then please give us your defintion of “cold blooded murder”
One that leaves her out.

Lucy Lee:  I will not give you my definition, nor will I answer any questions for you.  (And, you did not answer my question about Father Pavone, Project Rachel, and the Catholic approach to post-abortive women, which is worlds away from your approach.)  I told you that unless you address me respectfully, I will not have a dialogue with you.  People can have different viewpoints without accusing each other of “BS”,“mush, slush and gush”, and telling them that they don’t belong on a Catholic website.  When and if you are willing to address me politely and charitably, I will be happy to discuss this with you further.  Until then, as I said, my time is better spent elsewhere.

I called your bluff.
“Please give us your defintion of cold blooded murder”

And you were bluffing:
“I will not give you my definition”. 
No kidding. you dont got one.

Whatever

But you cant even admit the truth, so we get fast talk, to change the subject. Like “addressing me charitably”.  Thats what a four flusher does.

Zeke,
Sorry if I sounded curt earlier,but I was typing in a hurry.
I think your orginal post compared healthcare in different cultures.My point was that at least 2 of those countries had seriously shrinking populations-for whatever reasons.Part of Japan’s issues are related to the immigration laws.
Abortion may or may not enter into the reason some nations are ageing.I think it has to be considered into the mix, though.
It seems interesting that despite higher living standards, better healthcare, etc, some developed nations are shrinking/ageing at a perilous rate.
I know this is a Catholic site & of course religion’s legitimate for conversation, but I’m weary of the whole atheist vs religion angle that develops not matter what the issue. Just saying…

“you don’t got one”.  I HAVE one.  But like I said, I will save my dialogue for civil people who act like Christians (or civil atheists, for that matter).  If anyone else is interested in the definition I “got” for cold-blooded murder, I will gladly provide it.  And maybe some day you’ll answer my question about Project Rachel and the approach that our church has taken with post-abortive women.  But I’m not holding my breath.  Because you would rather be rude and divisive.

Zeke,
There is an issue with your statistics.  You’re quoting abortions per woman, not abortions per pregnancy.  Given Japan’s low birthrate, it is quite likely that there are fewer pregnancies there.  Thus, this will lower the number of abortions per woman without actually reflecting a different likelihood of an individual pregnancy ending in abortion.

Claire,
Just out of curiousity, what is your take on the Nuremburg war crimes trials after World War 2?  I’m specifically thinking of Albert Speer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer), who received a 20 year sentence despite having mitigated Hitler’s “scorched earth” policy and having taken responsibility for his actions.

It’s interesting to compare different reactions to atrocities.  By comparison, the American Civil War basically ended in a general amnesty (the only war crimes trial I’m aware of was of the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp commandant at Andersonville).  It may have been a simple “they’ve suffered enough” motivated by the death of about a quarter of the Confederacy’s males of military age, it may reflect a different attitude on reconciliation and culpability (perhaps peculiarly American or perhaps nineteenth century), or it may have resulted from the fact that it was a civil, not world, war (in other words, you’d be punishing your neighbors, not another nation).

Dominic, Can you give me a couple of days to get back to you on that one?  I get my names mixed up when it comes to WW2, so I need to research this to make sure we’re on the same page and that I’m not mixing up Albert Speer with another Nazi.  I have to take care of my son today and work tonight, and the rest of the week is looking busy too, but I promise I will respond at some point after I’ve had time to do some research.

Dominic ,
Yes, and in the War Between the States, it wasn’t only neighbors involved, but sometimes brother against brother as well.Pretty sad.

Dominic,
You know, I wonder if things had turned out differently how Gen. Sherman might have fared in a war crimes trial.Talk about a scorched earth policy…
:(

The low birth-rate in Japan and other countries can also be due to contraception. More and more women contracept, especially in wealthier countries.

Joanp62,
That is likely the case, but doesn’t affect the observation related to Zeke’s statistics.  Fewer pregnancies per woman in one country means that the abortions per woman numbers cannot be directly compared between countries.

Since some contraceptive methods work as abortificients, the theory that the low birth rate is due to contraception would in fact further skew the results: the number of abortions per woman and per pregnancy are in that case higher than shown in the statistics that Zeke presented.

On attrocities….
Instead of debating the Civil War, I suggest this:

Those who have provided material support for abortion are guilty of crimes against humanity.  And look at the figures.  55 million state sanctioned killings, in America alone.  By far, the greatest holocust in history.

Now, in the long run, what should be done with these folk?

Totally agree, Lucy.

Jennifer,

My wife Mary when she and I were still young with two children still shares the wonderful advice from her best friend shortly before she died of cancer about bringing up children and the challenges it can bring ” Mary you did tbe best with what you knew at the time!”
I think that’s how God judges us - his judgment is about restoring the unconditional love most of us did not receive during our life time - not with pumishment, as some seem to think, but with compassion and understanding.

Try to understand abortion under similar circumstances.  While I am opposed to abortion in general I have also learned that there are numerous conditions under which abortion is perfectly justified.  So we cannot simply apply absolutes to this issue.  God is our judge and will place his will for us on our hearts, not paper, 

As for your

I saw a “Christian” standing outside of a clinic berating a woman who was a cancer patient for being a “baby killer” because she had to have an abortion due to her own physical ailment. All my life these vermin have been in charge of everything. Pushing women around and bullying medical professionals and threatening them. I don’t like religious fundamentalists from any religion. We all need an anti-theocracy militia aimed at using violence against theocrats of all religions. Imagine a world where religious !@#$% were so scared that they finally learned how to keep their mouths shut. That would be a beautiful thing to see.

Wow, SandraR. How do you know the person was Christian? How would you know what the patient had or why she was having an abortion? Lastly, we live in a free country where we have freedom of speech. And you would like to ‘shut the mouths’ of some citizens. What country do you live in? Weird!

Regardless of the circumstances of your birth or who your parents are, God had a plan in creating you.
.
What this means is that God has pre-planned every abortion that has taken place on our planet.
.
If “God’s plan” is true, you can first of all see that God wants us to be aborting children. Every single abortion is planned by God, so God must be doing it for a reason. Second, you can see that both the mother who requests the abortion and the doctor who performs it are blameless. Since it is God who planned the abortion of the child (God chose the “exact time” of the death, according to Rick Warren), the mother and doctor are simply puppets who are fulfilling God’s plan, are they not? What about all the Christians who are fighting against abortion? If abortion is part of God’s plan, why are they fighting it? God is the all-powerful ruler of the universe, and his plan is for more than a million children a year to die in the United States through abortion. If God’s plan is true, then each one of those abortions was meticulously planned by God.

Sandra:  I agree that the behavior you witnessed was inappropriate.  Abortion is the murder of a baby.  However, screaming at a woman and calling her a baby-killer is probably not going to meet the goal of saving the life of the baby in question.  There are plenty of pro-life protestors who demonstarte peacefully, by praying in front of abortion clinics.  And as Joan said, in a democracy everyone, religious or not, is entitled to free speech.  As far as bullying, killing unborn babies is a pretty good example of extreme bullying.  Those babies can’t speak for themselves, and deserve to be defended by those who can, regardless of their religion (or lack thereof).

Nice try, Peter.

I am angry at these !@#$% cunts for three reasons:
/
They think they are the best and everyone else is !@#$% and they look down on you;
/
They all stick together and are a bunch of !@#$% hypocrites;
/
They think they will go to heaven. WHAT !@#$% BULLSHIT!
/
Well !@#$% you cunts. Shove your bibles and your heads up your !@#$% arses. Get a life like us. Have fun! We don’t live life by that !@#$% book.

Yeah, Peter, nice try as Claire said. By that logic then all the atrocities committed, especially in the last century, were all part of God’s plan and the evil-doers were just doing God’s Will. And anyone against these evil actions were really going against God. Are you serious? You forgot about free will and the fact that God does not interfere with our will, although He will gently try to influence us, ultimately He will NOT control us like puppets. He wants us to FREELY choose Him, which means that many will not.

I’m seriously thinking about changing my user name again.Trolls are out in force it seems.

Joanp62 ,
If folks don’t believe in God, why would they believe in His gift of free will?

Kathleen, if folks don’t believe in God, why do they post on Catholic sites? Really, they are making statements on a Catholic site, they can expect to get answers based on Catholic reality.

Joanp62,
I hear you but the finer points of theology may be lost on one who doesn’t possess faith in the first place.
I appreciate you taking the time to try, though.
I’ve heard that atheist chat rooms are mostly empty so they gravitate to our blogs.Maybe God has a purpose for that.

Yes, the trolls are definitely making the rounds.

Kathleen, I do think Atheists believe in free will. While they would not consider it a gift from God, I’m sure they wouldn’t deny that they are free to think and do as they want. So, I’m not sure where your initial response to my post is coming from.

Joanp62,
Secular folk might be divided on that.Some people see our actions as instinctual-hard drived into our behavior through evolution.

Ok, Kathleen, whatever. You’re always right. So most Atheists then don’t think they are responsible for their own actions? I seriously doubt that based on Atheists I know personally and from many who post on here. Many like to call themselves free-thinkers. That means they consider that religious people don’t think for themselves, but they do. How is that being hard-wired by evolution? If they believe they can think for themselves, then I’m sure they believe their actions are their own.

Joan,
If I was always right I’d buy a lottery ticket today.
:)
I said “some” secular people, not most atheists.And it was in reference to the theological concept of free will.Some believe that our charitable/humanitarian actions may appear to be chosen, but in reality we are biologically driven to preserve the species.

Dominic:  (to get back to you about Albert Speer) I read the link that you provided, and while I was familiar with the name Albert Speer, I really didn’t know anything about him until I read that link.  I honestly don’t know what I think about his 20 year sentence.  Everything is relative, and compared to other Nazis he certainly seems far more humane than the average Nazi.  But who knows how much he was aware of, how much he lied to himself, etc.  He was not a vulnerable person in a desperate situation.  If he was lying to himself, or in denial about what was going on, or ignoring it, etc, it wasn’t out of fear or desperation, it was probably out of a desire for power.  I’m certainly glad that he wasn’t sentenced to death, but the 20-year sentence might have been appropriate.

Good point, especially about the ‘rank and file’ perpetrators. (“They loved God, their families, and did what they could to make the world a better place.”) When the Holocaust is being discussed at school I ask my kids, “Where did Hitler get his Nazis?” The answer, which they never know, is, “Look in any mirror.”
It’s interesting to see your comments on Rwanda. At the time, the Pope is said to have expressed sadness that about 70% of Rwandans were Catholic. (Rwanda was colonized by Germany until nominally Catholic Belgium invaded in 1916. Some comments are at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/29/pope-catholics-rwanda-genocide-church and http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/070595rwanda-genocide.html)
Our Lord Jesus set the example for Christian brotherhood and at the same time defined “Christian” for us: “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are MY DISCIPLES, if you have love one for another.” John 13, Douay; see also 15:13.`
Can someone kill his fellow religionist and still be a considered a member of that religion?
If the religion claims to be “Christian” but violates Jesus’ commandment, can a Christian person remain in that religion?

Dominic,
Yes, in Japan and Denmark, the abortion rate per pregnancy is higher than the rate per 1000 women, but you can easily verify that this is the case for almost any country, including the US. The fact remains that the Christian United States has a higher abortion rate (however you choose to measure it) than Japan, Denmark, and almost all of the more secular nations I mentioned. Your issue is not with my statistics it would seem, but with their implications on the so-called benefits of religion.
http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/abortion-rates-for-101-countries/
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Kathleen,
Just to be clear, my original post didn’t compare healthcare in different countries, but cited UN statistics generally accepted as measurements of the “health” of a society. I also don’t believe that it was I who chose to inject religion into the conversation (after all this is a Catholic website), since the general tone of the article and the comments are that these “atrocities” are the inevitable result of turning away from God. My only point is if this was true, we should expect to see religious societies (or Christian ones) at the top of the UN Human Development Report, when this is not the case. If you feel you’re weary of the whole atheist vs. religious argument, try walking a mile in my shoes watching a once respectable and intellectual major political party veer wildly to the religious right in a quest to merge the Constitution with the Bible to regain political power.
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There is no doubt that certain populations are ageing (you mentioned Japan as an example). This is an article about the evils of abortion. My only point was that we can’t pin the phenomenon of skewed population demographics on abortion. And frankly I think you’re being less than forthright to continue to suggest otherwise with statements like “abortion may or may not enter into the reason some nations are ageing”. Regardless, there should be no disagreement that population growth, not shrinkage, is the major concern of scientists who study the earth’s ongoing ability to support human life.
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Slavery and segregation are indeed human rights issues. So is discrimination towards homosexuals. But abortion is not a human rights issue. Despite what the Pope tells you, preventing fertilized eggs from implanting by using hormonal birth control is not murder. I totally understand the Catholic position on this, but the opinion that a zygote has a soul and thus deserves the legal protections of fully-born humans is not something on which we should base legislation. There is absolutely no evidence that this point of view is any more valid than mine, or that of other Christian sects, or Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, or any other religion. Yet you wish to declare that embryos smaller than the period at the end of this sentence should be treated the same as you and I under the Constitution. Where does this reasoning end? Are we to prosecute mothers who fail to maintain a proper diet and lifestyle of child endangerment?
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Let’s be clear: people who are pro-choice don’t take abortion lightly or view it as a form of old-fashioned family fun. We wish there was no need for abortion, but recognize that women will seek them and get them whether they are legal or not. But days-old embryos, despite certainly being human life, are not people in any sense of the word, nor should they have the same constitutional rights as you or me. Yeah, I’m pretty uncomfortable with later term abortions, and would actually go along with restricting abortions above a certain gestational age, unless doctors advise otherwise. Somewhere on the spectrum between 1 day and 9 months there lies a point where the fetus is certainly more of a person, in the ordinary sense of the word, than not. But it certainly isn’t anywhere near 1 day, and the notion of a soul shouldn’t be part of the argument. You didn’t answer my last question though – what do you feel that banning abortions would accomplish?
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Joanp62,
Hey, how are you? I’m somewhat surprised to read your statement that “the low birth-rate in Japan and other countries can also be due to contraception”. Does it not follow that low abortion rates can also be due to contraception?

Hi Zeke, the posts that I was responding to were claiming, as far as I understood, that the low birth rates were due to abortion. I was just making a claim that contraception also contributes to low birth rates. I don’t see how saying that implies anything about abortion.

Regarding what you wrote to Kathleen, the amount of time that a newly conceived child is the size of a dot or less is very short. By the time most women have abortions, after 8 or 10 weeks, the baby, though quite small, already has arms and legs, a head and a beating heart. And don’t you find it odd that in our country, you can go to jail or be fined for destroying a turtle nest-that at one point had baby turtles the size of a microbe- but it is legal to destroy our own species not yet born? The double standard is insanity.

Well, I don’t know anything about turtles, I suppose it’s because they’re endangered. After all, it is legal to kill animals for sport, food, clothing, and many other reasons.
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So what do you suggest the penalty should be for a woman who aborts an 8 or 10 week old fetus? OK, what about 4-6 weeks? What about 1 week? Does the degree of fetal development matter? I think Catholics could get a lot of secularists on their side if they approached banning abortion beyond a defined point of development. A 8 month old fetus is capable of survival without the mother these days, and it’s difficult to defend the decision of a mother to abort a fetus at such a late stage. I think where you lose people like me though, is to treat an 8 month old fetus like an 8 day old fetus, purely on religious grounds. That’s just my opinion of course.

I’m not suggesting any ‘penalty’ for a woman who has an abortion.
From a strictly scientific standpoint, we know that a 1 day old zygote is alive and human as much as an 8 month old. It’s interesting how they used to argue that it wasn’t alive or just a blob of tissue. They know better now as they should have back in 1973. The point of the pro-life cause is that it is human life at all stages. When you start deciding, as we have, when human life is worthy to be protected based on stage of development, we are setting ourselves up as arbitrators(sp?) of who lives and who dies. We are all people, who among us should get to decide that another one’s life is less important or of less quality?

I’m glad we agree on late term abortion. It never made sense to me how some can advocate for it for the health of the mother. Just deliver the baby, by c-section if needed, and care for both mother and baby.

Well said Joan!  Especially the part about being arbitrators of who lives and dies.  That is essentially playing God, which is dangerous whether or not you believe in God.  I also agree that the focus here should not be on the penalty for the mother.  That is beside the point.  It’s like I ask my four-year old to do something, and he asks what will happen if he doesn’t.  My response is that “what will happen” is not the point.  I would rather he focus on cooperating with me, rather than cause and effect.

Thanks, Claire. Sometimes we all need a little encouragement. God Bless you.

Zeke,
Thanks for clarifying.The UN reference you provided to a nation’s “health” was more for a Western standard of living, education, etc, than for the availability of healthcare alone. However, your point seemed to be that the more “atheistic” countries-I think secular might be a better term- scored higher in this regard than nations seen as religious.If birth rates are taken into the equation, I think the ratings might change.
It would be typical for the UN to not see growth as a positive indicator of a nation’s “health” & to leave this out of the reckoning.

I can think of a few more terms used to treat others less than human, hmm, like homosexual and immigrant.

@Zeke said:
“I think where you lose people like me though, is to treat an 8 month old fetus like an 8 day old fetus, purely on religious grounds. That’s just my opinion of course.”
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Zeke, really?  I thought you were lost when you supported killing babies.  I don’t think there is any baby you would object to killing, right?  You would support killing a baby at 9 months as it is being born, so I’m guessing your soul is lost already, at least when you advocate for it.
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When do you decide that a person has a right to live?  3 month, 12 months?  What about 60yrs or 90yrs? 
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On purely logical grounds your argument carries no water and abortion is murder, on purely scientific grounds your argument carries no water and abortion is murder, on religious grounds you are paving a pathway to hell.

you’re flatly wrong in your premise.

No one in Nazi Germany was going with the flow, They were either deeply deluded, to afraid to act, too stupid to notice, or part of the German resistance to Nazism.

Resistance to Atrocity must be actively repressed. In feudal times, the church rather unfortunately played that role.

You’re also wrong in the belief that you can empathize with a German in the 1930s or a southerner in the first half of the 19th century.