The Catholic Vote & Abortion - here we go again!
Really Protecting Innocent Life - not just symbolically
Direct abortion is intrinsically evil and can never be morally justified and is not a matter of prudential judgment.
In solidarity with all catholics, we can unequivocally hold to the church's moral teachings and earnestly embrace its culture of life ethic, similarly measuring the moral weight of competing values, sharing the same ends and goals, even while, at the same time, recognizing a legitimate diversity of opinion regarding the ways and means and strategies for most effectively realizing the very same values, ends and goals. That is why the proportionate reason matter is a prudential one involving contingent and conjectural elements, which are rather complex realities.
To be clear, it is the political and not the moral reality that is a matter for prudential judgment.
In voting for a candidate in spite of their position and not because of their position, one's prudential judgment measures the likely practical impacts and the probable actual outcomes, in this case, regarding the reduction and elimination of the terrible scourge of abortion. If these impacts and outcomes are judged minimal, which can be for manifold and multiform reasons, then one employs one's prudential judgment in a similar manner for the next most gravely serious and weighty life issues, always looking for maximal impacts and optimal outcomes.
Such prudential deliberations belong to each individual conscience, which has been formed by church teaching. Please join us in prayer for our candidates, our country and all innocent life.
Since this issue surfaces during each election cycle, you may find this particular editorial informative: NCR Editorial: Partisans try to narrow Catholics' choices
Thomas, I am the least to
Thomas, I am the least to claim to have the wisdom of divinity or the righteousness of divinity to pass judgment on "pro-abortion candidates". Nor do I have the daring to distrust God's wisdom in entrusting human life, at all stages to women, to mothers.
I do not believe that people who trust women's judgment, God's judgment, in the matter of their conceptus, are rightly identified as "pro-abortion". It is not inhumane or irreligious to trust women in this matter, and not to pass judgment on them for making hard decisions that we disagree with.
Being "pro-life" involves much more than being hard-nosed about the single-issue that now defines for most people what "pro-life" means. Becoming more civilized, more humanized, more sesnitized, is not about playing God in judging other people, particularly, by people who can't know what the pressures are that cause people to do what they do.
The hyper culture of male gender dominion heavily pressures and compromises female vulnerability. Greater male sensitivity and self control would go a long way to decrease the violation of women and reflexes of desperation. (The broadcast commercializing of sex drugs is despicable.)
The ethical problem of
The ethical problem of abortion deserves to be discussed in the light of the evolution of our sexual humanity.
Genetic Reproduction
I know a man who deals in genes.
What peculiar wisdom set him on this path!
He has learned the secret life of worms.
Worms have no sex life, but produce their young
by hundreds when their time is ripe.
They are an outgrowth of the cell
that splits and splits to reproduce itself.
The wisdom that surrounds us evidently felt
that worm life was a pretty chancey process.
There was no one to care for all the babies,
no one to guide them past the hazzards.
Their need was for a concerned caregiver
who would nudge them in the right directions.
Our genes were thus upgraded sexually.
Let's think of pigs and cats and their relationships.
Piglets and kittens do not know their father
but use or overuse their mother
and play or fight with siblings
for the place of comfort or of power
even as you or I cavort as earthlings.
Yet we humans recognize the power of "father."
Having both male and female genders forces us
into better (or worse) relationships.
The words, "Go forth and multiply,"
can be interpreted in several different ways.
They may not speak for over-population
but may suggest a multiplication of ethical ideas
an overflow of spirit through the universe.
So do we find the genes that give us sex
an addition or subtraction to our being?
Will 9 million people with a sex drive
push the earth beyond its limits?
Well, prudential judgment is
Well, prudential judgment is a matter of conscience - as are all moral decisions. But you say, "...individual conscience, which has been formed by church teaching."
I question the formation of conscience, when such conscience finds ways to vote for pro-abortion candidates for anything - even for county dogcatcher. Can you entrust dumb animals to the hands of someone who is unmoved by the killing of innocent preborn children?
If a man is insensitive to the killing of the most innocent human beings, how can he be trusted with anything of value at all? How can he be entrusted with human life at any stage of life, if he cannot be entrusted with human life at every stage of life?
Anyone can work effectively to protect the strong - but who will protect the weak? Who will protect the vulnerable? Who will protect the voiceless ones?
The mark of a civilized society is the extent to which the strong protect the weak. America is becoming more and more uncivilized, dehumanized, desensitized - and Catholics are helping.
Thomas