Archbishop Vigano

wil said:
Yup ... not science...largely theological folk or otherwise anti choice zealots.
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Well, not the contemporary view of science.

Without taking a side here, there is another dimension to this – that 'group of cells' will, if it reaches fruition, be a human being, so there is a moral argument that it is proto-human from conception and should be regarded as such?

There is a range of issues. Is someone who's suffered catastrophic injury, or illness, is, say, 'brain-dead' still human?

Our view of what constitutes a human, with rights, changes. Science and theology are just two elements of the debate.

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We lost our son to a miscarriage at sixth months – development was slipping further and further behind as the months went on. Those couple of days are all a bit of a blur, and I realise now we were both in a state of shock. I remember being shown my son, and he looked more fledgling than human ... but he was my son, we named him, and we still mourn him.

This was in a time when hospitals treated the whole issue with scant care or concern for the parents. Prem babies delivered stillborn were disposed of as medical waste.

From the moment she was pregnant, that was our child.

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Having said the above, the Wade-v-Roe thing is, I think, a political event, not a moral one, for all the clamour.

It's crazy that people who argue against abortion will most likely argue for the right for their teenage kids to acquire weapons and kill themselves, or others, on an epic scale? Where's the right to life argument then?

Sorry, ranting.
 
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Thomas said:
Well, not the contemporary view of science.

Without taking a side here, there is another dimension to this – that 'group of cells' will, if it reaches fruition, be a human being, so there is a moral argument that it is proto-human from conception and should be regarded as such?
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Your moral argument is not a scientific one.

Thomas said:
Having said the above, the Wade-v-Roe thing is, I think, a political event, not a moral one, for all the clamour.

It's crazy that people who argue against abortion will most likely argue for the right for their teenage kids to acquire weapons and kill themselves, or others, on an epic scale? Where's the right to life argument then?

Sorry, ranting.
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Exactly the Vatican line today I believe..

Paraphrased... You can't call yourself right to life if you don't support gun control, universal health care, eliminate poverty, stop.the death
RJM said:
The constitutional right to abortion on demand?
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This is a when was the last time you beat your wife question.
 
wil said:
This is a when was the last time you beat your wife question.
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I genuinely don’t follow you. May I ask what the constitutional right to abortion means in America? What are the qualifications?
 
wil said:
Currently there is none....

Upto the states to decide.
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But I'm asking what did the constitutional right to abortion mean under Roe/Wade -- what were the qualifications? Could a woman just decide she didn't want the baby (any time during pregnancy)?
 
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On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. The Court also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life.

The Court resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. During the first trimester, governments could not regulate abortion at all, except to require that abortions be performed by a licensed physician.

During the second trimester, governments could regulate the abortion procedure but only for the purpose of protecting maternal health and not for protecting fetal life.

After viability, which includes the third trimester of pregnancy and the last few weeks of the second trimester, abortions could be regulated and even prohibited, but only if the laws provided exceptions for abortions necessary to save the "life" or "health" of the mother.

The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States ...

Despite criticism of Roe, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its "central holding" in its 5-4 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992, although Casey overruled Roe's trimester framework and abandoned Roe's "strict scrutiny" standard in favor of a more malleable "undue burden" test.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
 
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Imo the issue would be where abortion becomes an alternative to contraception, on the same level as contraception -- where doctors should be compelled to perform abortions against their own judgement of the development of the fetus etc, in contradiction to their Hippocratic oath or spiritual convictions
 
RJM said:
Imo the issue would be where abortion becomes an alternative to contraception, on the same level as contraception -- where doctors should be compelled to perform abortions against their own judgement of the development of the fetus etc, in contradiction to their Hippocratic oath or spiritual convictions
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Most docs that perform abortions choose to do so...due to their oath and spiritual convictions (especially when it is made illegal)

When it comes to most any procedure surgeons specialize.
 
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There are degrees and shades of everything. In life nothing is simple black and white, binary yes or no. Anyway this seems to be a US political left vs right issue, that is diverted completely from the reason and logic and social morality of how deep and proper discussion of abortion, a woman's rights vs rights of the unborn child, should continue.

It's become a rhetorical minefield, where you Americans just have to live with your painfully divided society, and the rest of us hope you don't take too many others down with you, imo
 
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wil said:
Most docs that perform abortions choose to do so...due to their oath and spiritual convictions (especially when it is made illegal)
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But, under Roe/Wade Catholic doctors and hospitals were compelled by Federal law to perform abortions? Should unwilling doctors or hospitals be compelled by state law?
 
Is it the gay wedding cake? Does the individual right to abortion overweigh the right of a doctor not to perform it?
 
From what I've heard, Catholic nurses are under pressure to assist during the procedure.

When doing my BA, a woman doing an MA, a nurse, wanted to canvass nurses to gather statistics on the issue. She faced a lot of opposition from hospital management, the implication being, as per @RJM, that nurses are expected to put their objections aside.
 
The 'clump of cells' rhetoric is based on the same science that concludes consciousness to be (just) an emergent property of brain activity. Deep questions ...
 
RJM said:
Terrifying that so many actually believe this stuff, imo
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Baffling and saddening that so few think & study the evidence - as the Abp. says:

What baffles me is noting with what impudence the proponents of the Agenda 2030 have told us well in advance which criminal projects they intended to impose on us against our will; despite this evidence, there are those who amazed that after years of unstoppable infiltration they are actually realizing their plans right in front of our eyes even as they accuse us of being “conspiracy theorists.” There is definitely a conspiracy, but the ones who must be put on trial are the ones who have carried it out, not those who denounce it.
 
RJM said:
Terrifying that so many actually believe this stuff, imo
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Oh dear, yes.

Robert Malone, himself discredited for false claims, repeats a Steve Bannon interview verbatim.

If you're a Brit who takes an interest, then the name 'Steve Bannon' sets all manner of alarms going ...
 
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Nicholas Weeks said:
the ones who must be put on trial are the ones who have carried it out, not those who denounce it.
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If Pence and Pelosi had been in the chamber on Jan 6th the crowd would have lynched them (without a trial)-- they invaded the Capitol with that intention, imo
 
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