Will there ever be a doctrine that permits contraception?
I was asked if I thought there can be a development of doctrine that in the future will permit the practice of contraception, and I promptly answered, “No.” But why? Well, because Catholic moral laws are most fundamentally rooted in love. That’s what I have learned.
This is undignified.
A marriage is the most 1)fundamental and 2) intimate social unit, a reflection of the Blessed Trinity in which the Father conceives the Word and begets the Son, and from the Father and the Son together – as one substance – proceeds the Holy Spirit, which is Love Itself. Anything that compromises the openness to personified love cannot, therefore, be permissible.What is revealed by God is infallible, and Jesus, God Incarnate, said that loving God and your neighbor is the basis of the whole law. “You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depends the whole law and the prophets.” Matthew 22: 37-40
Father Benedict Ashley O.P. treats contraception in the book, “Living the Truth in Love” and says that contraception, just as anything else that degrades the sexual act to an act only for recreation, “depersonalizes love.” (221-222) It is intrinsically immoral to render the beautiful and loving gift of the sexual act between a husband and a wife sterile by mechanical, surgical, or chemical means in order to obtain for one’s self sexual pleasure unrelated to procreation. [Cue the pagan gutteral roar.]
A doctrine developed that permitted contraception would be a doctrine that directly contradicted the very basis of the entire moral law for how man is to live and find happiness, and for how man is to achieve an eternal life of bliss. Doctrine cannot contradict the infallible revelations of God.
However, it should be noted that it is permissible to know and communicate the natural cycles of the body between married couples, and to choose to abstain from the procreative act during fertile periods, so long as the couple does not completely become closed to conceiving and begetting a family to raise in love.
When I see my husband stare at our baby boy as if he would give all of himself to that child if it were possible, and when I even begin to think of the damage it would do that child were that bond we share ever to be broken, I understand the Blessed Trinity, One God as three Persons, a little better.
What could possibly be wrong with that?
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Beautiful! If we all understood the transcendent, higher meaning of love, rather than the base, common meaning of “love”, we would be healed, individually and culturally.
Stacy: The picture is very telling; might you know when and where it was originally published?
Nothing wrong with choosing to live life without contraception, but it's pretty damn arrogant to say that it's an infallible strategy to find true happiness and live truly moral lives and that people who do not live accordingly are basically degenerates.
I've never even so much as kissed a female. Other males have had many sexual adventures with females. Does this make me more noble than them? No. It just means they do things that I don't that have no apparent moral considerations.
As always, it's easy to say that *insert action here* is wrong. It's a lot harder to explain why.
Thanks Leila for checking over this for me. I can always count on you!
Steve, I get many public domain images from Wikipedia and this one was in the Birth Control page. It says it is a Victorian Era postcard. It was surprising to see it there – you have to scroll through a page of lots of other images to get to it though.
Rome, there are many things wrong with contraception. Can you quote what part of anything in that post made you interpret that I was calling anyone a “degenerate?” I am explaining how we answer a question, and this is a question I will answer to my children. Males having “sexual adventures with females” is degrading to both of them. If my sons ever thought it was OK to use women for personal pleasure like they are objects, they'd get a ear-full. You are a young adult, what did your parents tell you about how to treat women? You said before that you'd give your life to defend a woman's so-called “right” to abortion. Why? Wouldn't it be better to encourage young men to treat young women with respect, and vice versa for the young women regarding the young men.
Stacy,
There is no disrespect between what two consenting adults do, be it sexual or not. To act like what people do out of their own free will is wrong is the real case of disrespect. The fact is sex is supposed to be pleasurable, and if people make use of that simple bit of reality, without harming anyone, by what right do wee have to say they are wrong for it?
Like I said, it's easy to say something is wrong. It's a lot harder to explain why.
As for what my parents told me, they never really told me anything. Left to my own ability to reason, I figured out that there is no intrinsic harm in people trying to experience sexual pleasure with each other, provided that it is done intelligently.
You're just sliding the issue around. In order to show how it is wrong, you need to show how it is disrespectful.
Rome: You wrote: “Left to my own ability to reason, I figured out that there is no intrinsic harm in people trying to experience sexual pleasure with each other, provided that it is done intelligently.”
An intelligent examination of the Church’s data would lead one to conclude that copulation is free of harm when it is open to procreation and within a marriage. There are centuries of data. There is data from non-Christian societies. Reason dictates that the reproductive system is for reproduction just as the ocular orb is for seeing.
It is disrespectful to treat yourself as a piece of meat. I.e. Dan Savage’s “it’s your body to use and abuse as you see fit.”
“Left to my own ability to reason, I figured out that there is no intrinsic harm in people trying to experience sexual pleasure with each other, provided that it is done intelligently.”
How is it intelligent to engage in the act that is meant for reproduction if you have no intent of reproducing (and plan to kill any child that is conceived as a result of said reproduction)?
Why is consent the sole criterion of the good?
SteveP,
No one is disputing that procreative sex within marriage isn't harmful. Thanks for the irrelevant point, though.
My body is a piece of meat with specific functions. The same is true for all people. It's ours to use how we wish. Please, show how this is disrespectful. The only disrespect I see is from the condescending attitude that you and Stacy hold. You disrespect people. They do not disrespect themselves.
JoAnna,
Sex is not just meant for reproduction. It is also meant to be enjoyed, and you can isolate it to just that purpose with the use of contraception. When practicing safe sex and choosing partners carefully, recreational sex poses no harm to anyone at all.
Why is consent not good enough? Do you oppose basic liberty? Do you want to force people to live under a dictatorship?
Sex is not just meant for reproduction.
It is also meant to be enjoyed, and you can isolate it to just that purpose with the use of contraception.
No, actually, you can't divorce the two aspects. If you think contraception is 100% effective all the time, you need to do more research. Planned Parenthood's own statistics say that 54% of women who aborted were contracepting at the time they conceived. No matter how many layers people use, there's always a chance. There's always risk.
When practicing safe sex and choosing partners carefully, recreational sex poses no harm to anyone at all.
This belief is gullible to the point of naivete. See above.
Why is consent not good enough? Do you oppose basic liberty? Do you want to force people to live under a dictatorship?
You seem to be extrapolating a lot from a simple question.
What about a fourteen-year-old girl who has consensual sex with her fourteen-year-old boyfriend? They contracept, but she gets pregnant anyway, or gets an STD because she was on the Pill and they didn't bother to use condoms. How is that not “harm”?
I never said it was 100% effective, but its effectiveness essentially takes procreation out of the equation. In the instances that it fails, women can just have an abortion.
Care to explain what harm there is in any of that? It's going far to call that naïve without explaining the real harm.
Straw man. Pay attention to what I write. I have been discussing what consenting ADULTS do. If your problem is with that, then discuss the merits of that. Don't resort to the cowardly and puerile debating tactic of misdirection.
I never said it was 100% effective, but its effectiveness essentially takes procreation out of the equation.
Read that sentence again, Rome. It's contradictory. If contraception is not 100% effective, than it NEVER takes procreation out of the equation. There is ALWAYS RISK. Study up on method failure rates vs. user failure rates.
In the instances that it fails, women can just have an abortion. Care to explain what harm there is in any of that?
Yes, I would.
Abortion kills an innocent human being and violates his/her right to life (and before you claim that's just a religious belief, it's not – see http://secularprolife.org, for example).
Abortion has long-term emotional and mental health repercussions.
Abortion raises a woman's risk of breast cancer (as do hormonal contraceptives).
Etc. There is tons of “harm” in abortion.
What are you talking about in terms of misdirection? Let's change it, then, to two sixteen-year-olds who have consensual sex, as 16 is the age of consent in Massachusetts. The two have sex, and one contracts an STD that the other didn't know they had. Even if they use condoms, the risk is still there. See? Definite harm came from sex between consenting sexual partners.
JoAnna,
Treating the very small existence of the risk of pregnancy with the level of opposition you do is about reasonable as saying that because the magnetic field of the Earth does not always prevent people from being harmed by solar radiation, it is therefore wrong and unwise to go outside. So no, no contradiction on my part. I am just not making an insane exaggeration.
Since when does abortion involve killing a human being?
Abortions are medically safer than a full-term pregnancy.
What's more is that abortion is voluntary. A woman who makes a decision like that must be willing to accept that she might have wished for things to go differently. I'd wager a lot of the emotional and mental problems come from how women who have abortions are treated by others, which is the real area for concern.
Again, if women are willing to accept the risks, that is their choice to make. Getting a tattoo also increases chances of contracting disease, even if sanitary precautions are taken. Does that make getting tattoos absolutely wrong? No. Really, you're going to have do better than that. There is risk in almost everything we do. Unless you can pretty much guarantee that bad things will happen to other people, it's senseless to say that it is wrong.
I think it is unwise for minors to have sex because they are often the least mature and responsible about it and are also the ones least able to deal with whatever consequences the act might entail. It's a good policy to discourage legal minors from engaging in an act that will affect them more severely, but even then, the chances are small, and I'm willing to concede that sixteen-year-olds are grown-up enough to make that decision on their own. I respect them that much.
Treating the very small existence of the risk of pregnancy….
Why do you say “very small”? It is NOT very small. Once again, research method failure rates of contraception vs. user failure rates. Contraception is not used all the time. It is not used perfectly all the time. Again, by PP's own stats, half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, and half of those pregnancies end in abortion. Once again, by PP's own stats, 54% of women who abort were using contraception at the time they conceived, and very few were using their method perfectly.
That is not “small risk.” That is a SIGNIFICANT risk.
“with the level of opposition you do is about reasonable as saying that because the magnetic field of the Earth does not always prevent people from being harmed by solar radiation, it is therefore wrong and unwise to go outside.”
Not comparable; see stats above.
Since when does abortion involve killing a human being?
Take a basic biology class, Rome. At fertilization, a new human being is created. Abortion kills this human being. Once again, this is not a religious position; it is held by secular people as well.
Again, if women are willing to accept the risks, that is their choice to make.
I don't disagree. In Catholic terms, this is known as “free will.” However, once your choices begin infringing upon the rights of others (e.g., unborn children), it is unjust to say that your choices have no negative consequences. It is also illogical to say that negative consequences should not be avoided when possible.
Getting a tattoo does not present the possibility of creating a new life, or of directly killing that life, so the analogy fails.
I think it is unwise for minors to have sex because they are often the least mature and responsible about it and are also the ones least able to deal with whatever consequences the act might entail.
So you agree that consensual sex can, in fact, cause harm? This is a direct contradiction to what you stated earlier. Have you changed your mind?
Using statistics does nothing to help your argument when you read them incorrectly.
Funny thing is that the biology class only tells that a zygote is formed. It says nothing about a human being being formed. Again, this makes me wonder when it ever became about killing a human being. It has not been shown to me when, at any point, a human being was in consideration.
As an Economics major, my explanation is that, for the woman, the overall costs that result from the abortion are less than the overall costs from not having an abortion. This makes it the most rational course for the woman. Otherwise, she's in an even LESS favorable situation.
Since when is a single life automatically valuable? If you are that concerned about life, I can't wait to see your opinion on vegetarianism and pesticides.
Everything can cause harm. Only when harm is caused to others can we say an act is immoral. What people choose to do to themselves is outside our domain of moral criticism, and consensual sex is one of those things. I have not changed my mind. You just now see a fuller extent of my view: don't interfere with people's lives, if they aren't interfering with yours. When two people choose to have sex, it has no effect on my life at all, so I have no reason to interfere with that.
Rome says:
” It has not been shown to me when, at any point, a human being was in consideration.”
That is because there is no point where a human being is in consideration, other than the beginning of that human life, which is, of course, its conception.
Since you do not see it then, you are logically unable to see it ever.
Which is an excellent reason to conclude that your position on this question is not merely wrong, it is demonstrably insane.
The area was not deemed infallibly solved by the 20th century theologian, Fr. Karl Rahner who for years edited the Enchiridion Symbolorum….the job of which tome was to establish the relative dogmatic authority levels of the various issues. There was a retrospective of his theology at the Lateran in 2002 at which Archbishop Amato of the CDF stated to John Allen that Rahner was an orthodox Catholic theologian. And Rahner had dissented from Humanae Vitae. Another great theologian who dissented was Fr. Bernard Haring, a moral theologian who supported the Vatican position for years but changed under the brunt of experience of seeing difficult cases in the concrete. This discussion on the net is always by women who can afford children and afford internet access and computers….US and Canadian contexts which are tax friendly and welfare safety net friendly to child bearing and early widowhood.
Now take yourself to India suddenly. For ten years I sent money to an child of an Indian widow who had to give away her 4 children to Catholic orphanages
because her husband died of brain aneurism. In the US, she would receive social security and food stamps to help tremendously. In India she received no help from the government and had to give her children to Catholic orphanges and take a maid's job in that area just to be near her own children.
That is what theologians have to deal with: the third world economic situation of child numbers per family. You want China to believe in our view? Off China's coast are two Catholic countries with bad street urchin problems….East Timor and the Phillipines. China does not want what she sees in those Catholic countries because within China, rebellion can mean 20 million deaths as it did in the Taiping Rebellion led by a Christian Chinese in the 19th century.
While Popes will talk the traditional in this area, none have even set aside the time to do an ex cathedra encyclical on this so as to make it settled beyond all doubt. And I think it is partly do to doubt caused in them by the two theologians I mentioned. Other 20th century theologians like Hans Kung and Charles Curran were extreme. They affected no Pope. But the dissafection if Rahner and Haring may have made Popes put aside hopes of ex cathedra in this area. John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae declared infallible the condemnation of abortion,euthanasia and killing the innocent…..but not contraception which EV also talked of. He had polled all the world's Bishops (which allowed him to skip ex cathedra and still draw on infallibility) and received total agreement on
abortion, euthanasia and killing the innocent…..but no such paragraph contained the same infallible wording on anything else including contraception.
Tradition? About 8 Popes out of 265 have written on this topic at all and most are bunched up in the modern era. In contrast, 29 Popes in a row starting in 1585 formally cooperated in the castration system for producing castrati who sung in the papal choirs before opera took them and 78 years after opera stopped. Pope Leo XIII dissented against the practice and stopped it in 1878 for good. In 1930 Pope Pius XI called sterilization “mutilation” of the body….but he never mentioned the 29 Pope involvement with the castrati. The topic is probably still blocked out at new advent's encyclopedia but one can easily read about it at the library in any major encyclopedia.
Benedict is working on a NT book again….not on an ex cathedra letter that would settle birth control beyond all doubt. I think third world family problems give him pause. 6 million people per year die from malnutrition. For three months women with large families have been streaming into Kenya from Somalia many carrying dead babies….many having lost half their children to death. Our sunny homilies at Mass in the US and Canada seldom mention that world of hurt.
Bill, those are compelling and interesting thoughts. I've recently become aware of the progress the Creighton Method and NaPro Technology, and even thoughts about teaching it to young women before puberty. It enables them to know much more than when they are fertile, and also helps to diagnose other reproductive issues. How do you think that will affect future considerations?
Stacy,
Be back tonight….earning a buck begins in minutes at the stock market open.
Using statistics does nothing to help your argument when you read them incorrectly.
And yet you make no attempt to display how I am using statistics incorrectly. Perhaps because you can't?
Funny thing is that the biology class only tells that a zygote is formed. It says nothing about a human being being formed. Again, this makes me wonder when it ever became about killing a human being. It has not been shown to me when, at any point, a human being was in consideration.
A blastocyst, zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, etc. are all organisms of the species homo sapiens. They are all human beings. If you don't believe me, perhaps you should take a biology class and read the textbooks therein.
“Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”
“A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”
Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.
“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a 'moment') is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.”
Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Müller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8.
“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.”
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]
And so on.
If a zygote his not a human being, Rome, then what is it? A puppy? A fish? When does the developing human transform from “not a human” to “a human”? What distinct species were we before we were human? A genetic analysis of a zygote will conclude that it is of the species homo sapiens. Why are you anti-science?
As an Economics major, my explanation is that, for the woman, the overall costs that result from the abortion are less than the overall costs from not having an abortion. This makes it the most rational course for the woman. Otherwise, she's in an even LESS favorable situation.
And as we all know, using a cost/benefit ratio to determine which human beings should live and which should die is such a great idea.
Tell me, Rome, if a cost/benefit analysis concluded that YOU weren't worth keeping around, would it then be justified to kill you?
Since when is a single life automatically valuable? If you are that concerned about life, I can't wait to see your opinion on vegetarianism and pesticides.
Human life, Rome. Animal and vegetative life is also valuable and should be respected, but ultimately human beings have authority over all other forms of life. We have sentience. We have the ability to make moral decisions. We create art and literature. We can control our sexual desires and impulses.
Are you saying that you, as a human being, have no intrinsic worth and dignity? That is is sad. I think you do.
Everything can cause harm. Only when harm is caused to others can we say an act is immoral.
And where did you come by this definition?
What about a teenager who cuts herself, or suffers from anorexia? Would you say that her parents should not commit her for treatment, since she's not harming anyone else?
What people choose to do to themselves is outside our domain of moral criticism, and consensual sex is one of those things.
I've already displayed how consensual sex CAN cause harm to another person, and you've admitted as much as well. So how can you say that consensual sex is outside of our domain of moral criticism? Your assertion is quite illogical.
I have not changed my mind. You just now see a fuller extent of my view: don't interfere with people's lives, if they aren't interfering with yours. When two people choose to have sex, it has no effect on my life at all, so I have no reason to interfere with that.
Well, when those two people conceive a child, and that child is then robbed of his/her right to life via abortion, I'm VERY concerned about that.
Are you saying we should not be concerned by human rights violations? That is a chilling proposition – but I guess it makes sense given your believe that human beings are merely “ugly bags of mostly water” who can be killed if cost/benefit analysis determines they're expendable.
Very, very sad, Rome. I hope you never find yourself in the place of the oppressed instead of being the oppressor.
“My body is a piece of meat with specific functions. The same is true for all people. It's ours to use how we wish. Please, show how this is disrespectful. The only disrespect I see is from the condescending attitude that you and Stacy hold. You disrespect people. They do not disrespect themselves.”
Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?- 1 Corinthians 6:18-19
Do you at least see how these two views cannot harmonize with one another?
Stacy
Back early….market seems settled unless there's a black swan out of Europe.
Your comment: It sounds wonderful….for those who have access and discipline. I don't oppose natural methods at all….they are at the top of the apex given normal circumstances. I don't think there are numerous doctor practitioners who could cover China and if standard NFP fails for a Chinese woman due to a cycle with false or ambivalent signals, the couple who already have the one allowed child (two in some areas) will be forceably aborted and fined three times their yearly income and if it happens again, they will be forceably aborted again and one spouse jailed. Since the Holy Spirit said in I Cor.7:5 that some couples are not to
abstain lest Satan tempt them to go outside the marriage, the conservative Catholic solution of Josephite marriage is anti Biblical for them in particular (a second group later in I Cor. can handle the Josephite marriage….but Rome goes against the Holy Spirit if Rome says both groups can handle the Josephite marriage…Fr. Bernard Haring's point). Solution in China: male sterilization after prayerful, studious dissent from the doubtfully settled papal position. Catholicism allows both the infertile couple and the post menopausal couple to enjoy sex which is not open to life…unless you haven't noticed that Post menopausal births end within the Bible since they were meant to get the Jews ready for something more miraculous….a virgin birth. That accomplished….they cease.
Such prayerful, studious dissent is unknown to most converts and most cradles as a legitimate tradition and they are only given Lumen Gentium 25 and the catechism. Most very intelligent priests know of the exception to religious submission of mind and will from Catholic moral theology tomes even within the most conservative books. Next time you are in a huge Catholic bookstore, seek out “Christian Moral Principles” by conservative Germain Grisez and proceed to page 853 onward. It is a grudging ackowledgement of what is found more clearly in many moral theology tomes for priests for decades….sincere studious prayerful dissent is possible unless an issue qualifies as clearly, manifestlt infallible per canon 749-3(c). LG 25's “religious submission of mind and will” to weighty non infallible positions is a partial truth. That partial truth is completed only in moral theology tomes that few laymen are aware of. I had Jesuits for 8 years and they never told me about the exception to LG 25. The great theologians like Rahner and Haring made mid 20th century educated Catholics aware of it and no Pope censured those two for it despite Popes lamentations in low venue moments. Great theologians will not develop for the next decades in moral matters. Now…Catholic theology profs have to take an oath that resembles LG25. So they must support the non infallible stances like what to me is a bizarre unscriptural one on seeking the abolition of the death penalty….so much for the Holy Spirit in Romans 13:4. Likewise Fr. Bernard Haring's point was that Rome was saying a similar “so much for the Holy Spirit in I Cor.7:5″….as to couples with faint NFP body signals as in China under the one child policy… not abstaining over much lest satan enter in…for some…not all.
Joanna, the world population is fast approaching 7 billion humans. How do you propose we feed, clothe and house these people? Have you noticed the cost of actual “real food” that hasn't been processed for mass production?. An overwhelming majority will not be lucky enough to be born in America or Europe or any other “civilized” region. That vast majority who are “lucky to be alive”; those folks will be subjected to war, poverty, malnutrition, disease and who knows what for their short lives. Who's going to pay for all of that? Not me! Think about that next time you are pushing your buggy around Whole Foods filling it up with “real food” that actually good for you and your family. This a serious socioeconomic problem we have here; just exactly how many people do you think we can put on this little planet of ours before it goes “POP”? I've had this same conversation with my sister. She is 100% in your camp. After a couple of hours of verbal onslaught she threw her hands up and her only answer was that God would provide. My next question for her was “provide what?”.
You say humans have worth? How much is one human worth? A buck? 5 bucks? A million bucks? How much are the dead beats in New York(and elsewhere) whining about how much money they don't have worth? furthermore, should they have there “free” contraceptives taken from them for the sake of their little illegitimate babies they will undoubtedly procreate while “protesting” against system that provides for them?.
I hate to be cold and callous about this but I think a thinning of the heard might be in order and a good way to start is by more abortion, more contraception, more genetic research, more adoption for the unwanted children that are already here and better education. A smaller human population would mean more food of better quality, less struggle and strife. More land for cultivation or just let it return back to nature. Less competition for survival, fewer wars, and not near the pollution and drain on natural resources. There are lots of positive benefits of a smaller human population and my wife and are doing our part by not have not having children.
Andrew, if you're so worried about overpopulation, why not off yourself, your family, and your friends? Funny how this “just enough of me, way too many of everybody else” mentality abounds among the pro-abortion crowd.
The problem is NOT overpopulation. The problem is adequate food distribution, especially in countries where corrupt government officials keep food from being available to the poorer classes.
See the Population Research Institute for an answer to all of your concerns regarding overpopulation. In a nutshell: they're baseless.
To act like what people do out of their own free will is wrong is the real case of disrespect
Really? As long as it is of your own free will it cannot be wrong? Then there is no such thing as sin. Yet the daily news seesm to document otherwise. So if I and a woman choose of our own free will to cheat with eacho other on our respective spouses, it is not wrong?
That vast majority who are “lucky to be alive”; those folks will be subjected to war, poverty, malnutrition, disease and who knows what for their short lives. Who's going to pay for all of that? Not me!
Well, if “not paying for it” is your concern, then it seems the shortness of their lives will solve the problem on its own. Seriously though, what you identify as problems are not caused by the number of people, but by the poor distribution of wealth and resources. Some can afford $15 hamburgers at swanky joints, others starve. Funny how its always the $15 hamburger eaters who complain about overpopulation.
JoAnna,I'm not worried at all about over population. As a matter a fact I couldn't care any less about it. Planet Earth can go float into the sun for all it's worth after I'm gone. But I do feel bad for the little babies and children who are forced into existence only to die horribly from starvation or disease. How about the 30000 or so that died (statistically speaking) last night while you were sleeping safe and snug in your bed? Speaking of statistics, your Population Research Institute looks pretty one sided to me. But to be fair I couldn't look at the whole site because I'm at work; however I'll go out on a limb and say it's one sided never the less.
When I get through cleaning out my garage this weekend I'll get started on the whole adequate food distribution problem and get that sorted out for ya! Yeah that should fix things right up! Girl! You so smart! MMM! HMM! Yeah, ok whatever floats your boat.
HEY!! Are you suggesting that I should commit suicide and/or murder, because I have a different opinion than you?
Anon, It's not so much the shortness of their lives as it is the the rate of replacement.
I worked my ass off for that 15 dollar hamburger and I'll be damned if some bureaucratic Democrat is going to redistribute it to some third world nation.
Bill,
You bring up interesting points and I'd like to discuss them further. I will try to find the castrati information and the Grisez book.
Here's where I disagree with your assessment of NFP. The Creighton Method has improved on that. The signals from the female body are not ambivalent when the method is properly followed and it doesn't have to take as much time to teach as it takes to teach proper contraceptive use — which also takes discipline.
And sterilization of the male? That just seems like the wrong answer. That's what we do to animals. And look at Andrew…we have people promoting that we treat people like animals. It's very disturbing.
The progress in NaPro Technology (which is available to be taught in those countries) is quite useful even for a woman's health, and it still encourages healthy communication and respect between the man and the woman. It seems like if anything's being revealed through science by the Holy Spirit, it's that teaching men and women to know themselves better is the better way to solve extreme problems.
Those are my thoughts. I still welcome a discussion even if it is disagreement.
Andrew, I've given a couple of warning in the last two days about foul language. If you want you comments to stay published, please find another way to make your point.
Andrew, JoAnna's right. I've looked at that data before too. The **world** is not overpopulated. Some regions of it are though relative to the resources they have available.
Please read this post “Earth Unrecognizable by 2050, especially the part at the end about “Cities in the Sky” from the WSJ.
Bill, what do you think of that? The Cities in the Sky? Can that go anywhere?
Sorry Stacy. I just broke the kick start on a customers fancy Italian motorcycle(scooter)and I'm a little miffed. At least you didn't hear what I said when I broke it:) I'll keep it clean. I shouldn't be blogging while at work anyway. I was thinking about responses when I broke the kick starter.
My sister said the world wasn't over crowded also and gave me a similar site to look at but not that one. Maybe when I get through cleaning my garage out I'll take some time to look at it and possibly some counter sites.
So sterilization is a bad thing? It IS what we do to animals so we don't get overpopulated with them. And also we are animals. We are part of the animal kingdom therefore we are by default…animals. And as animals we are also part of the food chain and therefore “just meat”(thanks Rome). Don't believe it? Well, just tell that to a hungry bear or large cat that you and/or your offspring have the right to live your life.
Ah… if repairing the world were as easy as repairing engines.
Stacy
We differ greatly and I'm thrilled at you being you and staying you. Years ago for years I took three little girls to Sunday Mass each week in a murderous section of Newark…the two ten year old twins (in the beginning) were the children of a heroin dealer and their older cousin whom I sent to Catholic school was the daughter of a prostitute but lived with her grandma who kidnapped her from her mom in the beginning. I have been intimate with levels of poor people who will never have the attention span for the natural methods nor do I think methods which were unknown to 1950 years of Catholics are suddenly the Holy Spirit….where was He for all those centuries. Did you know that the natural methods were resisted toward the early 20th century and were denigrated by Arthur Vermeesch, the chief theologian, who helped with Casti Connubii….denigrated by the Bishops of Malines who said the natural methods would lead to abortions…..denigrated by clergy in Spain, that strict Catholic country that somehow produced an Inquisition but also produced the racy culture of Telemundo and Unision which is all daughters and sons of the conquisdators….not too many Mayans or Aztecs on those shows.
History, Stacy…..read “Contraception” by John T Noonan Jr. someday. It does not advocate contraception but gives the history of the sexual topic century by century in the Church. Paid Catholic pundits always talk theology instead of History because they can be simple, winning debaters in theology. History shows what they are leaving out and how they got to simple. Popes will avoid history of a dogma and just talk dogma. It's a Catholic habit.
Currently I trade the market partly to raise my money goal each month for babies in Beijing where a Catholic nun and others take in thrown away children
and dying babies and they hold them. Wish I could hold them but they need the money people like me as much as the volunteer holders of babies who often come from the colleges of the US and Europe. China Little Flower online if you one day want a charity to rejected babies. Imagine a mom giving a child away because she can only have one and it better be healthy so as to take care of the parents when they are old. I don't judge them. My gorgeous wife came from Beijing and when I met her years ago I thought her Japanese… because of the large doe like eyes within the Asian eye shape. Right….I saw those eyes and knew I was too far from home…too far from home. Later my mom would cherish her like a Chinese figurine that one loves.
Stay who you are and keep your position on Creighton. Catholicism is the true Church for sure….but she is a geode to us Church history buffs…..gorgeous colorful mineral deposits at the center of the geode but the outer crust has problems and is a tad ugly in every century. If you followed the Pope in 1456 with religious submission of mind and will, you believed in slavery. If you followed the Pope with religious submission of mind and will in 1520, you believed in burning heretics (Exsurge Domine, Leo X, art.33). If you followed Pius IX, you thought the Pope could kidnap a baptized Jew from his parents. That is the outside of the pretty geode.
The gorgeous center of the geode is where the de fide dogmas/ the merits of saints/ the descent from the apostles/ the liturgy and the sacraments are. The outer crust is us and the clergy and the non infallible posing as the infallible and the fights and differences and the sex abuse scandal etc. etc. etc. Must go….rambling. Had a Bacardi Dark. We in the market all did good today…..for the baby holders of Beijing in my case. Stay who you are but read history within the Church and learn to see through the 24/7 Catholic self flattery. We are the true Church….certainly not the perfect Church which will only come about at the end times.
You got me to thinking Bill: http://www.acceptingabundance.com/2011/10/good-catholic-mother.html
Meet my new granddaughter.
Andrew, it's OK. Good comparison to engines, though I can't even do that!
bill writes:
“Did you know that the natural methods were resisted toward the early 20th century and were denigrated by Arthur Vermeesch, the chief theologian, who helped with Casti Connubii….denigrated by the Bishops of Malines who said the natural methods would lead to abortions…..denigrated by clergy in Spain, that strict Catholic country that somehow produced an Inquisition but also produced the racy culture of Telemundo and Unision which is all daughters and sons of the conquisdators….not too many Mayans or Aztecs on those shows.”
>> A veritable scattershot, a kaleidoscope of insinuations here, bill. I think the most important point to advance in response is that for all of the chief theologians, for all the Bishops of Maines, for all of the clergy of Spain and (we shall leave aside the Inquisition, Telemundo, and the relationships of the sons and daughters of the conquistadores to the Mayans and Aztecs for now, only so much buckshot can be pried out of the wall at a time)—-
for all of that, Casti Conubii declared, in what must have been an astonishingly dismaying formulation for certain chief theologians, Bishops of Maines, and clergymen of Spain, that:
'Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth.”
In other words, bill, the magisterium considered and rejected the contrary arguments.
This happens, gosh, I would imagine pretty much all the time, wouldn't you?
It would seem to me to be pretty important to keep in mind that the whole idea of having a heaven-protected magisterium, is so that really really persuasive arguments from really really smart theologians, bishops, and clergy (to say nothing of Telemundo executives, sons and daughters of conquistadores, or underrepresented descendants of Mayans and Aztecs) *can be seen to have been declined, when proposed as binding on Catholic conscience*.
Thanks Rick. Bill I looked up some of the things you mentioned (you mentioned a lot!) and I'm glad Rick chimed in as I'd like to discuss it more but don't have the time this weekend. Perhaps tomorrow though…
Blessed Sunday to all!
JoAnna,
For one, yes it is. The cost-benefit ratio will show that killing a person, in almost all cases, is unjustified and counterproductive. Exceptions only abound when ending one life saves many.
Since we are talking about me and not the fetal or embryonic phase of my body, I would say that a cost-benefit analysis, using the discipline that I would imagine it to entail, would justify taking my life.
“Human life, Rome. Animal and vegetative life is also valuable and should be respected, but ultimately human beings have authority over all other forms of life. We have sentience. We have the ability to make moral decisions. We create art and literature. We can control our sexual desires and impulses.
Are you saying that you, as a human being, have no intrinsic worth and dignity? That is is sad. I think you do.”
I would disagree on the grounds that, while humans as a species are best suited to reason and act morally, we are not the only species capable of doing so to at least some degree. The great apes and dolphins, and possibly other lifeforms, exhibit the sentience of children. While adults do have to tell children what to do, it does not entitle us to killing them, and therefore, to kill a fully grown gorilla should be considered murder for the same reasons that killing a child would. To think otherwise is to be incredibly selfish.
Also, I don't remember giving any indication that my status as a human being meant I lacked value. I was stating that life, since it does not guarantee the sentience that you and I both seem to recognize as the key factor, cannot automatically have value on the fact of being biotic alone.
“And where did you come by this definition?
What about a teenager who cuts herself, or suffers from anorexia? Would you say that her parents should not commit her for treatment, since she's not harming anyone else?”
The consideration of harm to others is perhaps the most significant principle of all moral understanding.
Your examples of emotionally downtrodden teenagers displaying self-destructive habits is discouraging because it misses the big picture: that any decent parent is supposed to care for and love their children. Anorexia and self-inflicted cutting are routine examples of behaviors that result from a lack of attention and are often a bizarre cry for help. Any parent who sees this behavior should work to find the source of it much like a parent should try to cure the cold upon noticing a runny noise.
“I've already displayed how consensual sex CAN cause harm to another person, and you've admitted as much as well. So how can you say that consensual sex is outside of our domain of moral criticism? Your assertion is quite illogical.”
I never saw where you explained that at all.
“Well, when those two people conceive a child, and that child is then robbed of his/her right to life via abortion, I'm VERY concerned about that.
Are you saying we should not be concerned by human rights violations? That is a chilling proposition – but I guess it makes sense given your believe that human beings are merely “ugly bags of mostly water” who can be killed if cost/benefit analysis determines they're expendable.
Very, very sad, Rome. I hope you never find yourself in the place of the oppressed instead of being the oppressor.”
This is even more discouraging mostly because it features many straw men, defective reasoning, non sequiturs, et cetera.
Here are the problems:
What gives a fetus or embryo a right to life?
When did I define human beings as “ugly bags of mostly water”?
Do you not realize that you live by the cost-benefit analysis already?
What would put me in the place of the oppressor?
Manda,
“Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?- 1 Corinthians 6:18-19
Do you at least see how these two views cannot harmonize with one another?”
Prove that there is a Holy Spirit. That's right, you can't. Prove that there's anything spiritual at all. That's right, you can't.
Good day.
Rome insists that his cost-benefit analysis confers upon him the power of life and death over other human beings.
Demonstrably insane.
If he were ever to find within himself the courage of his own convictions (he won't), then he should become a mass murderer.
For one, yes it is. The cost-benefit ratio will show that killing a person, in almost all cases, is unjustified and counterproductive. Exceptions only abound when ending one life saves many.
If that's the case, why aren't you opposed to abortion?
Since we are talking about me and not the fetal or embryonic phase of my body, I would say that a cost-benefit analysis, using the discipline that I would imagine it to entail, would justify taking my life.
Wait a sec… so you believe your life ISN'T justifiable? If that's the case, why are you still alive?
I would disagree on the grounds that, while humans as a species are best suited to reason and act morally, we are not the only species capable of doing so to at least some degree. The great apes and dolphins, and possibly other lifeforms, exhibit the sentience of children. While adults do have to tell children what to do, it does not entitle us to killing them, and therefore, to kill a fully grown gorilla should be considered murder for the same reasons that killing a child would. To think otherwise is to be incredibly selfish.
Also, I don't remember giving any indication that my status as a human being meant I lacked value. I was stating that life, since it does not guarantee the sentience that you and I both seem to recognize as the key factor, cannot automatically have value on the fact of being biotic alone.
I'm going to borrow a bit from Josh Brahm:
“Humans are moral beings that have the inherent capacity to perform basic functions, like think and talk. We don’t think you gain more rights once you acquire the present capacity to perform those functions.
The right to life is a categorical property. You either have it or you don’t. How can you have a categorical property if it’s tied to a property that comes in degrees, like sentience? You can have more or less of that property.
Also, the criteria that we only give basic rights to sentient humans doesn’t explain why we treat animals that have equal sentience unequally. For example, a cow probably has about the same level of sentience as a 6-month old human, but we don’t treat them the same. Most people don’t cry foul if we feed a human a cow burger, but everyone would cry foul if we fed a cow an infant burger.”
Your examples of emotionally downtrodden teenagers displaying self-destructive habits is discouraging because it misses the big picture: that any decent parent is supposed to care for and love their children.
PRECISELY! Yet you advocate for the right of parents to murder their children via abortion for any reason at all. How does that match with your philosophy above?
It also dodges my original question. A teenager who is cutting herself or who suffers from anorexia is not harming anyone but herself. Your response was that the parents have an obligation to care for her, but that still doesn't answer my original question. If she is not harming anyone else, why should she be stopped? Let's say she's an orphan, living on the streets. Should she be stopped then? Why, if she isn't harming anyone else?
I never saw where you explained that at all.
See here, last paragraph.
What gives a fetus or embryo a right to life?
The fact that they are human beings.
When did I define human beings as “ugly bags of mostly water”?
Do you not realize that you live by the cost-benefit analysis already?
Really? Do tell. I'm not aware of any entity, governmental or otherwise, that determines my financial worth and societal contributions on an annual basis, and also determines my right to live based on those findings.
What would put me in the place of the oppressor?
The fact that your advocate for the dehumanization of human beings, and for the alleged “right” of the strong to oppress (i.e., kill) those human beings based on arbitrary factors such as convenience. Read this blog post for a more thorough explanation.
Rome – Sorry, I missed one of your questions above:
When did I define human beings as “ugly bags of mostly water”?
Ah, you're not a Trekkie. That's a shame. It's a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference about a group of aliens who wanted to kill human beings because they saw them as “ugly bags of mostly water” with no intrinsic worth or value. My apologies for geeking out temporarily.
Rick,
I insist that it confers upon all of us the power to make that determination, and I will give an example of how.
Say there is a hostage situation, and you have an opportunity to kill the gunman holding everyone hostage. He is going to start killing all the hostages in seconds. You do not have the means or chance to slow him down or incapacitate him. Now, the lives of many hostages being saved clearly has a greater benefit than than killing the one crazy gunman, so killing him to save the hostages is the economical thing to as well as the right thing to do.
If using this process to reach that end means insanity, then I would hate to know what your standards for sanity are. I would say you are better suited for the asylum than I.
Joanna,
I am not opposed to abortion because it does not involve killing a person.
I never said my life isn't justifiable. I was indulging your hypothetical.
So you clearly do not value sentience at all then. I for one value sentience as it is what makes the experiences of human beings significant. I personally don't think being a hairless ape entitles me to anything.
It is easy to say that a cow might have the sentience of a six-month old without knowing so. We do know the sentience of apes and dolphins. In addition, we kill cows to eat them, which is just a necessity of all life. Also, you can't feed a cow a burger from an infant, as cows don't eat any meat. It would be wrong because it would be killing a human being in a way that accomplished nothing.
For one, a child who cuts their body is sentient. A fetus is not. The same rule applies. There has been no inconsistency.
You still failed to show that. You are showing statistics for a completely different thing than wheat you claimed. That's not how you used statistics.
Continued…
It's not fact that fetuses are human beings.
The fact that you try to put the cost-benefit analysis into such strict, fiscal terms shows how much you DO NOT UNDERSTAND the analysis itself. Economics is not about money. It is about value.
I do not advocate the dehumanization of human beings. I challenge you to quote me where I did that. I challenge you to show me where strength has any significance in my points. Seriously, you just fabricated half my argument to make a response right there. That's horribly dishonest.
“It's not fact that fetuses are human beings.”
Then it's not a fact that you are a human being.
Rome says:
“I insist that it confers upon all of us the power to make that determination, and I will give an example of how.”
>> Your insistence boils down to anarchic murder at will, and I will show you how.
Say there is a hostage situation, and you have an opportunity to kill the gunman holding everyone hostage. He is going to start killing all the hostages in seconds. You do not have the means or chance to slow him down or incapacitate him. Now, the lives of many hostages being saved clearly has a greater benefit than than killing the one crazy gunman, so killing him to save the hostages is the economical thing to as well as the right thing to do.
>> What in the world has this got to do with abortion? Oh, that's right. Nothing at all. OK Rome, you assume you know what the hostage taker is going to do in a few seconds. Better be right, because otherwise you just facilitated a situation where a hostage will become a corpse if you miss.
R: If using this process to reach that end means insanity, then I would hate to know what your standards for sanity are. I would say you are better suited for the asylum than I.
>> It is not insane to defend the innocent, but it is also useful to note that your cherry picked example requires us to believe that you can predict the future. Let's keep that in mind as we examine your attempt to apply this notion of defending the innocent to the practice of advocating the premeditated slaughter of the inn cent, as in abortion…..
R: I am not opposed to abortion because it does not involve killing a person.
>> How do you know it is not a person? You don't. In fact, you have stated previously that you do not believe there is any point where a zygote, or fetus, becomes a human, which is exactly the same thing as saying that human beings do not exist, since they never begin to exist.
This is truly insane, and reflects back upon your earlier example.
Since you do not believe that human beings begin to exist, we should all insist that you are never permitted to make the decision about when to start pulling the trigger on them.
R: The fact that you try to put the cost-benefit analysis into such strict, fiscal terms shows how much you DO NOT UNDERSTAND the analysis itself. Economics is not about money. It is about value.
>> The fact that you assert the ability to assign a value to a human life- a “strict, fiscal” value, shows that you are demonstrably insane in two precise ways:
1. You deny that human beings begin to exist;
2. You assert that you can assign a strict, fiscal value to a human life which you insist has never begun to exist in the first place.
R: I do not advocate the dehumanization of human beings.
>> To the contrary, you insist that no human beings can have begun to exist. Therefore your entire worldview is predicated upon dehumanization. It is the very essence of your lunatic spiel.
R: I challenge you to quote me where I did that.
Gladly.
Rome earlier: “It has not been shown to me when, at any point, a human being was in consideration.”
Since you deny that there is any point at which a human being is in consideration, it logically follows that your entire argument is predicated up[on the notion of dehumanization.
Which was to be demonstrated.
Stacy,
A fetus is no comparable to me in the slightest. We're fundamentally different.
Rick,
I created the hypothetical situation in which it is treated as fully known and understood. It was a very specific situation that no rational person would try to treat as something that should be applied generally, like you yourself did. Way to pull that one out of your buttocks.
And it has nothing to do with abortion, yes, but then I never said it was and that was not the point. It was referring to the cost-benefit analysis of the value of a person's life.
Actually, I fully concede that a zygote is human. It is part of our species. It is not a person because it is not sentient. That is the difference. I don't call a fetus a person for the same reason that I don't call a mushroom a person; it's non-sentient life. I never said that human beings do not begin to exist. That is a view you cheaply and dishonestly assigned to me.
I also never said that I had the ability to apply a strict, fiscal value to a person's life. I directly said that is not what I am doing and that to do so misses the whole point of the cost-benefit analysis as it really is.
I also have never tried at any point to say that a human being isn't human. That sort of defeats the purpose of calling a human being a human being, wouldn't you think? If I were trying to do that, I would have just said beings, which fails to devalue the being.
That's because a human being is not part of the consideration. It is just a fetus. It's not person like you or me. I do not deny that it is human, in a biological sense, but that awards it no special treatment.
Would you like to try to argue against my actual point of view this time instead of against an army of straw men?
R: Actually, I fully concede that a zygote is human.
>> You have just contradicted yourself. Earlier, you typed the exact opposite: “”It has not been shown to me when, at any point, a human being was in consideration.”
Now since I have already established that you have typed demonstrably insane things multiple times on this thread, let's untangle the thickets of illogic which will *always* be seen to underlie the pro-child-murder abortionist position:
R: It is part of our species.
>> OK. It is now a human being, which it wasn't a few posts ago. Let's go ahead and grant you the most charitable interpretation, which would be that you are renouncing your earlier insanity……
R: It is not a person because it is not sentient.
>> Alas, the charitable interpretation must now be abandoned. Instead you have fled from one form of insanity to another. We now see you attempting to grant that it is a human, and deny that it is a human, all at the same time, by inserting your latest form of insanity, which boils down to:
a human being is not a human person.
Rome, you are floundering here, but it is a useful kind of floundering, in a truly awful sort of way.
R:That is the difference.
There is no difference. You are simply typing lunacy. A human *being* is a human *person*. To assert a distinction is to demonstrate the incredible, mind warping insanity which underlies your entire spiel here on this thread.
And it is getting worse by the frantic, tap-dancing minute……..
R: I don't call a fetus a person for the same reason that I don't call a mushroom a person
>> Rome, it is far worse than that. You don’t call a mushroom a person because it *isn't a human being*. You don’t call a fetus a person because it *is a human being*. Is it possible, Rome, that you might begin to see the incredible, barking madness of your entire, collapsing enterprise here?
R: it's non-sentient life.
>> Now try and wrap your mind around this simple distinction, Rome:
The mushroom will never be sentient life.
The fetus will be sentient life, just so long as you do not kill it as part of your demonstrably insane (mis)calulus.
Capiche?
R: I never said that human beings do not begin to exist. That is a view you cheaply and dishonestly assigned to me.
>> Quite to the contrary. You assigned it to yourself, remember?
Rome earlier:
“It has not been shown to me when, at any point, a human being was in consideration.”
So much for your claims of dishonesty…..
R: I also never said that I had the ability to apply a strict, fiscal value to a person's life. I directly said that is not what I am doing and that to do so misses the whole point of the cost-benefit analysis as it really is.
>> Yep, I see that. Sorry. Let me clarify: it is insane to claim that a human being can only be allowed to live if it has sufficient value according to Rome’s undefined idea of “value”.
This is, of course, still a demonstrably insane idea. It might possibly be slightly less insane, since at least you do not define “value” in fiscal terms.
Of course, you don’t define “value” at all……
R: I also have never tried at any point to say that a human being isn't human.
>> Actually, you have done worse than that. You have said that a human being is not a human person.
Which is barking madness.
R: That sort of defeats the purpose of calling a human being a human being, wouldn't you think? If I were trying to do that, I would have just said beings, which fails to devalue the being.
>> Instead, you devalue the term “human being” by asking us to swallow the load of hooey that a human being is not a human person.
Not an improvement, alas…
R: That's because a human being is not part of the consideration. It is just a fetus.
>> Which you defined, above, as a human being- the very same “human being” which you now claim is not part of the consideration.
You should try running for office in Massachusetts, Rome. I think you have a real future in front of you……
R: It's not person like you or me. I do not deny that it is human, in a biological sense, but that awards it no special treatment.
>> Demonstrably insane. More precisely, demonstrated to be insane.
Rome,
“A fetus is no comparable to me in the slightest. We're fundamentally different.”
Substitute “fetus” with a human of any other age. You were once a fetus, an unborn human baby – arms, legs, hands, feet, a head, a face. That's what the word means. I know, I know you say “to me” as if your opinion is all that matters, but a total disregard for dictionaries is really not a good thing to hang your hat on.
Fetus
I am not opposed to abortion because it does not involve killing a person.
What is being killed in an abortion, Rome? A puppy? A chicken? What?
I never said my life isn't justifiable. I was indulging your hypothetical.
Yet you seem to think that killing people based on a cost-benefit ratio is rational and just. Why?
So you clearly do not value sentience at all then. I for one value sentience as it is what makes the experiences of human beings significant. I personally don't think being a hairless ape entitles me to anything.
I don't think that sentience is a criteria for humanity or for personhood, because it is arbitrary. Newborns and infants are not sentient; do you believe it should be legal to kill them? What about coma victims — they also are not sentient, should it be legal for me to kill someone in a coma if I feel like it?
It is easy to say that a cow might have the sentience of a six-month old without knowing so. We do know the sentience of apes and dolphins.
…so? (You think that studies have never been done on cows, but have been done on apes and dolphins? That makes no sense.)
In addition, we kill cows to eat them, which is just a necessity of all life. Also, you can't feed a cow a burger from an infant, as cows don't eat any meat. It would be wrong because it would be killing a human being in a way that accomplished nothing.
If cows have the same level of sentience as a six-month-old, why is it justifiable to kill them?
So if cows COULD eat meat, it'd be justifiable to feed them six-month-old infants?
For one, a child who cuts their body is sentient. A fetus is not. The same rule applies. There has been no inconsistency.
You're still dodging the question. Why should she be stopped if she's not harming anyone but herself?
You still failed to show that. You are showing statistics for a completely different thing than wheat you claimed. That's not how you used statistics.
You've yet to demonstrate otherwise. What my stats showed was that over 50% of women who aborted were using contraception at the time they conceived, and of that number, only 13% were using their method correctly (or so they claim). This proves that consensual sex, even so-called protected sex, can cause harm to another human being if one is conceived and then aborted.
It's not fact that fetuses are human beings.
Yes, it is. If a fetus (or an embryo, or a blastocyst, or a zygote) is a human being, then it has an inalienable right to life.
The fact that you try to put the cost-benefit analysis into such strict, fiscal terms shows how much you DO NOT UNDERSTAND the analysis itself. Economics is not about money. It is about value.
And who decides what comprises value?
I do not advocate the dehumanization of human beings. I challenge you to quote me where I did that.
If you support abortion for any reason, you advocate for the dehumanization of human beings.
I challenge you to show me where strength has any significance in my points. Seriously, you just fabricated half my argument to make a response right there. That's horribly dishonest.
It's also horribly dishonest to claim first that a zygote is not a human being, then to backtrack and claim it is, but not a person, and then to give only arbitrary criteria for which persons have rights.
You advocate for the death of human beings, Rome. That is the crux of the pro-abortion argument. You believe that, due to some arbitrary criteria of your own choosing, certain human beings should die while others should not. Coincidentally, you are the stronger one in the scenario. If someone wanted to kill you due to their own arbitrary criteria, you could at least speak out against it and protest. An unborn child is the most vulnerable, defenseless form of human life and cannot speak it its own defense.
Do you not see how that makes you the oppressor?
Rome: you need to read this debate between Professor Silver of Princeton University and Professors Lee and George (of Steubenville and Princeton, respectively) regarding whether or not a a human embryo is a human being. An excerpt:
Of course, we have also taken note of the fact that some supporters of abortion and embryo-destructive research acknowledge that human embryos are human beings, but deny that they are “persons,” i.e., individuals possessing inherent dignity and a right to life. Such people typically claim that human beings acquire dignity and rights only after coming into being (if they acquire them at all) and may cease possessing dignity and rights prior to dying. They maintain that some humans (embryos, fetuses, even infants) are not yet persons; others (human beings in permanent comas or those suffering from advanced dementias) are no longer persons; and still others (severely retarded individuals) were never, are not, and never will be persons. They identify “personhood” with possession of the immediately exercisable capacity for a certain level of cognitive functioning. So we have separately argued for the further proposition that every human being, irrespective of age, size, stage of development, or condition of dependency possesses inherent dignity and a right to life.
Rome: Evidence for you to verify: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2800%2902766-5/fulltext; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1651-2227.1996.tb14272.x/abstract; of course there is a response: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2805%2971285-X/fulltext#bib1
You wrote: “I do not deny that it [the fetus] is human, in a biological sense, but that awards it no special treatment.” I say again: you are not just a slab of meat and neither is that child. You both have a dignity that is beyond measure.
Hi Stacy – I know this is way after the fact, but when discussing this topic with some Protestant friends the other day, I had a few questions come up related to this post that I could not answer. These rested mainly on the morality of NFP versus contraception. Of course, contraception (let’s exclude abortificients) has a failure rate just like NFP, and the argument was made that “being open to God’s will” is not about contracepting, but about accepting children even if contraception fails. I countered with the natural law and dual purpose of sex (unitive and procreative), but then the following question came up: why the emphasis on natural means over artificial? Essentially, why is natural sex part of the natural law? Why isn’t something like using medication to help with some illness? And why is sex during infertile times of the month not considered to be recreational like contraceptive sex, which also has a failure rate? Again, it all ties back to the relationship with natural law, which I’m having trouble articulating.
To me, it seems this all comes back to the morality issue. I’ve found lots of great resources on why contraceptives have lowered the moral standards of society, but I’m having trouble finding good arguments on why it is still immoral within an otherwise monogamous relationship between people who understand that even contraceptive sex can still produce children. I’ve seen the Little Catholic Bubble explanation of “sexual bulimia”, but that did not impress them. They say we frustrate natural functions all the time through medication and resources (synthetic vs natural fibers, etc), but I see that as a frustration of natural phenomena to return to what is the intended nature (such as a functioning body), whereas contraceptives are the opposite. Any chance you have a more thorough explanation of this morality aspect?
I wish I could have recorded the whole conversation (a whopping two hours), because there were other points I think I could have found a better answer for. In the end, it seems to me that it’s easier to attack any one aspect of eschewing contraceptives, but when taken as a whole, the theology is sound. The difficulty seems to be getting that all across in conversation before someone brings up a counterargument.
Hi Allie,
Two hours? Wow. Must have been intense.
Read through this and tell me if it addresses the conversation better. I just read through it, and I like the way it builds and also deconstructs the “vomitorium” analogy. It also gives some other analogies, earplugs, vocal chords and communication.
Let me know what you think because I’m always interested in how to better communicate to people.
http://www.ncbcenter.org/page.aspx?pid=297
From Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. — who is brilliant!
I would also concede that using NFP to perennially avoid conception without any good reason for it (illness, lack of resources) is also wrong for the same reasons, it would be like deciding to only talk with your spouse about superficial issues and never taking the risk of deep conversation that could challenge your relationship to grow. I actually think the term “NFP” is misleading. I like “fertility awareness” better, but oh well.
so one can have a good reason for not having sex and can use “fertility awareness” but not for any other contraception? Perhaps if one has a good reason to not create a baby one should refrain from sex until that reason has gone away. It can’t be that hard if you expect others to do it.
Yes, Alan, there are good reasons for choices and bad ones. From the link I gave, could you explain specifically what you do not understand? Thanks!
“Perhaps if one has a good reason to not create a baby one should refrain from sex until that reason has gone away.”
Yes! That’s the point. Self-control. Self-awareness. Abstinence. Good reasoning. All in a way that doesn’t compromise the bond of marriage and communicative openness between husband and wife.
I’m so glad you are interested in learning more about NFP — though admittedly a little perplexed by it. :-/
Stacy
I don’t see any link provide to me. But even if I did I don’t generally look at the links you provide for the obvious reasons.
Not sure why you would ask what I don’t understand though. Seems to be a typical refrain from you all. I think as usual you refrained from reading what I wrote and took what you wanted from it.
And my point was, if you don’t want to make a baby refrain from having sex. According to you it is not that hard to do (well at least you expect the homosexuals to find it easy to do) so that is what should be done, even within the bounds of marriage.
And again you know I could care less about nfp. I am just trying to figure out how in your minds you can say it is not contraception. We have been through this before. Not sure I understand what you need specifically explained about that you did not understand.