A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.Link (here)
"Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old," he said. "I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."
Link (here) and watch video (here)
Fr. James Schall, S.J. on human rights
So when President Obama goes to Notre Dame this week, we should be sure what is at issue. He goes there for one reason, namely, in this symbolic place, to convince the vast majority of Catholics that his operative definition of “human rights,” not that of the Church, is the correct one.
Link (here)
Obama on "Born Alive Act"
One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down’s syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 to 22 weeks old, weighed about ½ pound, and was about 10 inches long. He was too weak to move very much, expending any energy he had trying to breathe. Toward the end, he was so quiet that I couldn’t tell if he was still alive unless I held him up to the light to see if his heart was still beating through his chest wall. After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.
Obama questioned whether the born alive legislation would impede the right to abort and doctor/patient decision-making. He and an American Civil Liberties Union attorney speculated Born Alive would force doctors to resuscitate nonviable aborted babies.
Obama opposed Born Alive in committee, but voted “present” — neither “yes” nor “no,” but merely “present” — on the state Senate floor, one of many “present” votes that Hillary Clinton has cited as evidence that Obama lacks leadership skills. Clinton voted for the federal Born Alive bill, putting her on record as more pro-life than Obama.Link (here)
The most up to date news on President Obama's speech at Notre Dame (here)
The current opinions from America magazines blog In All Things (here)
Link to the Cardinal Newman Society (here)
Link (here) to Priests For Life
19 comments:
Summary of the Gallup survey: “ we Americans are pro-life, but please keep abortion legal!”
So 51% of Americans call themselves “pro-life” for the first time. But if you get a look at the second poll about the legality of abortion you see as 75% say it should be legal, under any or certain circumstances. And only 23% say it should be illegal in all circumstances. Almost the same outcome of 1975!
Obviously a huge majority of these pro-life is not really pro-life as the Catholic hierarchy intends by these words.
Obama said:
"Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old," he said. "I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."
I agree with Obama as any other parent of course, a part you obviously. So I'm going to teach my children about values and morals and to wait marriage before having sex. But if they choose to have sexual intercourse I will give them imformations about contraception and I will give them condoms.
Where is your problem here, Joe? Do you prefer Bristol Palin's hypocrisy?
The Abortion pols are shifting towards life. With 75% want zero abortion to limits on abortion a far cry from the President Obama who voted to let living children die three times.
joe
Obama didn't say:" I will make my daughter have an abortion." He said: "I will give her information about contraception"
President Obama who voted to let living children die three times.
This is a conservative misleading of Obama voting. But of course Jesuit never teached you honesty.
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As a product of a Jesuit education, I am against abortion and believe life begins at conception. But a single truth, by itself, does not justify any particular course of action. Many things are true -- but those truths must be weighed against other truths.
I believe that "love your neighbor" (Matt 22:36-39) requires that consideration be made for both the values of others and community values. I believe that to ignore others' values is a truly great wrong. I take the two greatest commandments very seriously.
Over and over again we see simplistic enforcement of truths. I don't consider this the way toward God.
TonyD,
Abortion is intrisically evil. I can never be justified.
Additionally, often, those who seek to look at the 'spectrum' of issues--which boils down to lessening the emphasis on abortion--do so without understanding that other issues that matter to the dignity of human life are all logically secondary to abortion. One must be alive, in the very first place, to benefit from anything good that would come from looking at other issues.
The key point is the common good. Nothing is as great of a farce as the claim that the common good is somehow being served while innocent children can still die via abortion. No, in such a case, they are actually being sacrificed for the obtainment of other goods. If goods x,y and z will be secured while at the same time abortion is around, then those who die from abortion will be denied not merely goods x,y and z, but also the very right to life in the first place, something that those benefiting from goods x,y and z already enjoy.
Do you see the compounding injustice and hence, the reason why abortion must be considered as more important than all else?
Consider too the matters of scale: what injustice, what other matter has caused the number of deaths that abortion has caused?
A good nation would not allow such an injustice to go on as a legal right. It's insanity. We have rendered far too much to Caeser.
Stanek’s claim is that Obama was stopping a bill to outlaw infanticide and that such a law was required in Illinois because of what she claims occurred at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. However, the response from the Illinois Attorney General to the claims points out that if such events occurred, those events would already be illegal
http://archpundit.com/blog/2008/08/20/the-problem-with-staneks-entire-argument/
Throughout history it is the Church that dictates morals to kings, not the other way around.
Check out to whom Fordham granted an honorary degree on Saturday.
This has to stop.
Abortion is intrinsically evil. It can never be justified.Refusing to "love your neighbor" is intrinsically evil. It can never be justified.
other issues ... are all logically secondary to abortion. One must be alive...to benefit from anything good that would come from looking at other issues.The bible is very specific about the greatest commandments.
Consider too the matters of scale
I am not pro-abortion. Rather, I advocate values expressed in Matt 22:36-39.
We have rendered far too much to Caeser.Again, taking seriously the values of others and of our society is expected. This society allows its members to not have an abortion. To me, that expresses "love your neighbor" in allowing us to have many children.
Tony D,
Keep coming back, thank you for your comments.
JMJ
Joe
TonyD,
Who's refusing to love his or her neighbor?
Are you trying to pin the Bible against the teaching of the Church?
Loving your neighbor wouldn't include refraining from killing the unborn?
But our society also allows murder of innocent human beings.
Who's refusing to love his or her neighbor?I am trying to point out that multiple things can be true. And, ultimately, judgment must be used to weigh trade-offs. I respect those who reach other conclusions.
Are you trying to pin the Bible against the teaching of the Church?Truths coexist with other truths. Each of us makes decisions daily that involve trade-offs between biblical principles. These trade-offs do not invalidate the principles being considered.
Loving your neighbor wouldn't include refraining from killing the unborn?It is not a simple matter of "right" and "wrong". Oversimplifying, it is a matter of "right", "wrong", and "righter".
Stated another way, good judgment includes many trade-offs -- even those I would rather not make. I am absolutely convinced that life begins at conception. Still, I have an obligation to consider other true values.
TonyD,
I respect the teaching authority of Christ's Church, which says that abortion cannot be traded off with any other good cause, no matter how pressing it is. Abortion is foundational. If we take the right to life away, all else is irrelevant.
Yes, truths coexist with other truths. There is no greater example of this than the Church's conistent ethic on the sanctity of human life. If one thinks that abortion can be compromised, he or she has fundamentally misunderstand the co-existing truths the Church defends.
Really? It isn't a simple matter of "right" and "wrong". Tony, that isn't the teaching of the Church.
Good judgement for a Catholic requires fidelity to the Church, which is fidelity to the Christ. We do not know better than Him and His Church says abortion is wrong--period--and there is 'compromise' or trade-off on it.
Catholics have a moral obligation to adhere to non-negotiable Church teachings, not to pluralistic secular compromises that justify evil.
One of the good things about attending a Jesuit University is that you never see Catholicism in quite the same way.
That is also one of the bad things.
But I wouldn't go back to my old misconceptions of the Church, its doctrines, and God.
Thanks for allowing me to comment here,
Tony
Tony,
I too went to a Jesuit University, and it also changed forever my view of the Catholic Church. I never realized how many enemies of God lie within His own Church and what a menance they are to the teachings of Jesus. I never had fully accepted how evil people never change throughout human history.
Now, I know better.
And despite two degrees there, I've become a better Catholic.
TonyD,
If the Jesuit education caused you to dissent from the Church, then you didn't receive an education. In fact, you were robbed.
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