Supporting Abortion, Opposing the War
I’ve been involved in several debates on a local newspaper site over the issue of abortion. There have been a number of editorial letters written to the paper either supporting or opposing abortion/”choice”.
Many of the “contributors” are like typical “slash artists”, making very snide or unintelligent comments. And, then there have been those who have criticized pro-lifers because - they say - they support the Iraq War. While that certainly isn’t the case for all pro-life folks, and the argument is basically irrelevant, I find that if we turn the argument back on the pro-aborts, it creates an interesting argument.
See, pro-aborts really have no basis for which to condemn the war. After all, they support the unjust — and unjustified/unjustifiable — killing of innocent human life. In the case of the war, many arguments say that our elected officials went to war, and have killed many innocent lives, for unjust purposes.
The overarching problem is that a consistent ideology is not present in people’s beliefs, values and decisions. They object to whatever suits them at a given moment. Shallow, I think, is what that’s called.
I don’t think that pro-lifers need to be making this argument to pro-aborts, but it does pose an interesting problem that we need to keep in mind in our own formation of beliefs and values.
[tags]war, abortion, pro-life, pro-choice, Iraq, apologetics, catholicsphere, values, morals[/tags]
I don’t think these argument about pro-aborts and anti-choice ever amount to much.
Pope JP II has shown us the way. We must be radically pro-life all the way down the line. It’s OK to say a pre-teen girl must go through a pregancy as a result of rape only if well equipped adult soldiers don’t kill pre-teen drugged-up child soldiers to save their skin or if we don’t accept the death penalty(as in Canada) when we know how fallible the justice system is.
The day Pope JPII’s concept of being pro-life is the norm for Catholics, I’ll join the ranks. Until then,I hope all female rape victims have access to the morning-after pill.
MarioM3 said this on January 30th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Mario,
Why wait?
The way I see it, unless people see those who are “radically pro-life” (and I believe I am on the way, while still not perfect, since I don’t support the death penalty, I don’t support the war, and I don’t support abortion in any case — among other pro-life issues such as health care, living wage, immigration reform, etc).
If there’s no one out there doing it, or those who do are in the extreme minority, then JPII’s idea remains just a “pie in the sky” that “looks good on paper” but doesn’t really work with “reality”.
Matt said this on January 31st, 2007 at 9:48 am
Hi Matt;
Thank you for your post. You once posted something that made me think you supported the pre-emptive war on Iraq. I’ll take your opinion more seriously from now on.
MarioM3 said this on January 31st, 2007 at 12:14 pm