Abortion: You Know My Views, Right?
Peter Watt discovers that everyone in the abortion debate is certain they're right, right?
4 Sep 2011, 13:12
Abortion certainty
That issue is abortion.
You see I am male. I am catholic. And I am the father of a large family. In fact I am the eldest son of an even larger family. So as you can see, I am pretty much banged to rights on this. My views are clear. I don’t need to set them out. Except of course you may be wrong and you may be just making assumptions.
A couple of year ago I went on a study trip to the U.S. and met a really wide range of people from across the political spectrum. One of the people I met was a woman in Texas who ran a very powerful anti-abortion (‘pro-life’) pressure group. She was a bit wary of meeting me apparently as I was a representative of the Labour Party, a socialist to boot. I haven’t been called for a socialist for a very long time but she made assumptions about what that meant for my views on abortion. In fact she wasn’t just wary, she was pretty hostile.
And then I told her I was a Catholic, father of a large family etc. and she relaxed. She changed her assumptions about my view and then colourfully told me all about that was wrong with the Roe v Wade judgement of the Supreme Court. Interestingly she never asked me my view – she just assumed.
But what I found out from her, and others on the other side of the argument, was the scary certainty that people seemed to have. The pro-life lot were certain that abortion was an evil that needed to be stopped. The language was all about ‘murder’ ‘death’ and ‘judgement’. There was no ambiguity or doubt. The pro-choice lot were certain that women were entitled to do what they wanted with their bodies and that included deciding if they continued with a pregnancy or not. This wasn’t something for the state to determine. There was no ambiguity or doubt.
What there was also on both sides was a lot of shouting and aggression. And of course there was certainty. But I was incredibly glad that abortion was not a political issue in the UK and that, with the exception of very few extremists on both sides, there was an absence of rancour. Well in the last week that seems to have to have been a naïve and rose tinted view.
The level of discussion and debate around the Nadine Dorries abortion amendment to the NHS and Social Care Bill has at times been depressing and at others has been aggressive. Often both. Twitter has been full of such classics as: ‘Get your rosaries off my ovaries’ or ‘abortionists kill babies’. All very helpful as prejudices on all sides are exposed.
All I do know is that I have found the debate very depressing and just a little bit frightening. I wonder what a woman, or couple, facing the uncertainty and potentially difficult decisions associated with an unplanned pregnancy have thought about it all? I would suspect that the certainty expressed by both sides of the abortion debate in the last week will not have been helpful or reassuring to them. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a man, a Catholic and the father of a large family. You know my views right?
Comments (12)
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Your views remain ambiguous, but if you are a faithful Catholic and you attended Mass this morning, you would have heard, read out loud in the first reading, the dangers of not speaking out to others of the things that they do that are grievously wrong, as to withhold that attempt at correction leaves us liable to similar consequences as they are.
It is our duty to speak out against denying the right of a genetically unique being, zygote, foetus, baby, child, whatever you want to call it, from fulfilling the destiny that is manifest through the natural laws by which it was created. If we do not speak out, we, as Catholics, cannot call ourselves Catholic.
We need not speak out hysterically, or use violence to force our opinions upon others. The argument is much too simple to require force to ram it home. The logic of it is unassailable. Those who support abortion do so out of expediency or desperation and as a result they choose to ignore that logic.
I don't know your views. You haven't expounded them.
But I do know that you should have. And, if you're a Catholic, I know what they should be.
The question here, is not whether or not abortion is right, but are you really a Catholic?
04/09/2011 15:37Luckily Cogito there is only one person who will ultimately decide if I'm a good Catholic or not - and it's not you!
04/09/2011 15:49I note that you haven't addressed a single point I have made, rather that you have chosen simply to to be indignant instead that I called you on the question...
Indeed I am not the person who will decide for you whether you're a good Catholic, although I can certainly come to a conclusion of my own, if I wish. For you, though, that is up to your Confessor.
Let me put it this way.
You know what the Catholic Church teaches on the subject (it hardly needs restating) and that for all Catholics this is an authoritative binding teaching. You know what is expected of you. You have also held a position where your voice is heard louder than many ordinary men (and I don't and won't subscribe to the idea that only women may talk about issues of life in the context of pregnancy - life is life: it's above gender). Your position allowed you to talk to people who were able to materially affect the tenor of the public debate and general understanding of the issue. What you do now I don't know, but if not now you may well occupy such a position again in the future.
One pro-choice organisation suggests that upwards of 180,000 pregnancies are medically terminated each year in England, Wales and Scotland (figures apparently drawn from government statistics). For any Catholic in a position of power or influence who does not speak out, this has to be not just shocking but should cause a reaction of abject horror.
I still don't know whether you're "pro-choice" or "pro-life". I reiterate that anyone can know what you *should* be (that is unarguable, since that is the authoritative binding position of the Church that you wish to be part of).
I can only challenge you to stand up for what you believe in. And, if you have not done so already, to make a choice about what it is that you actually believe. Because this isn't an optional matter of private conscience, at least not for a Catholic, and certainly not for a Catholic who operates in the public sphere.
As you say, it certainly isn't my decision. It's yours.
05/09/2011 09:14Cogito - I find you a little bit scary to be honest.
05/09/2011 09:36Cogito - I find you a little bit scary to be honest.
05/09/2011 09:36And I have to say that I find the concept of a person who might have a position of influence who attempts to alter or amend the conduct of the debate without divulging their views on the matter to be equally scary. It strikes me of intellectual fraud.
05/09/2011 09:53Makes me feel so happy that I'm not Catholic anymore.
05/09/2011 12:56Luckily Dave, not everyone is quite as dogmatic as Cogito on my large Catholic family!
05/09/2011 15:25It's evident that you're not all that au fait with what the term 'dogma' actually means.
A dogma is something that is held as an unquestionable absolute, understood as a matter of acceptance as an article of faith.
The Catholic Church's stance on abortion is an unquestionable absolute. There are no half measures, no halfway houses, no ifs, no buts, no maybes. Abortion is always wrong and no Catholic may support it or appear to support it.
To be a 'Catholic' and support abortion is to cease to be in Communion with the Catholic Church and incurs Excommunication until such time as that person's views change and they have received absolution by either the Pope, a Bishop or a suitably authorised Priest (not all are).
It's the Law of the Church (Canon Law) from no less a source than the Vatican: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM - §2270 - 2275
My intention is not to hector or badger: it is to educate. If you believe that you are within your moral rights to approve of abortion or to stand by and let it happen without at least an attempt at protest, then you are wrong. If you actually do support it (and clearly you haven't said you do, but equally you haven't said you don't) then you would be automatically excommunicated. This is a terrible situation to be in and I wouldn't wish anyone to be in that position. That's the only reason why I have posted responses to your post here. It's precisely because you aren't clear and there's a possible danger to your soul (and presumably you believe you have one, as you identify as a Catholic) that someone needs to draw your attention to some very important information on the subject....
Anyway, I have written all I wish to on the subject. The ball is in your court now.
06/09/2011 20:20Cognito Dexter
I think you will find that if the Catholic Church was to resort to excommunicating all those who expressed doubt about its "unquestionable absolutes" then it would lose a lot of its members very quickly. Perhaps this is why they actually limit themselves to only a handful of confirmed excommunications every year.
You may also wish to dwell on how Christian it is to make threats with the aim of scaring those with doubts when the threat is actually pretty negligible.
07/09/2011 12:49tbngu - amen to that!
07/09/2011 22:48tbngu - The Catholic Church actually has two types of Excommunication. The one that you refer to is, indeed, very rare. The other type, which I refer to, 'Latae sentential', is that which occurs automatically by force of Canon Law, rather than by specific Papal Decree. The Church does not need to explicitly excommunicate every individual person who dissents. It's written into the rules that any such person essentially excommunicates themselves (whether they understand this or not). However, in such a case, a change of view and/or repentance undoes the excommunication equally automatically, unless, in this context, one actually procures an abortion, in which case absolution is reserved mainly to Bishops unless the Bishop validly authorises an individual priest to deputise in that role (and not all Bishops necessarily do this).
Wikipedia helpfully provides this explanation of who incurs automatic excommunication:
"A person who procures a completed abortion; and
accomplices who are not named in a law prescribing latae sententiae excommunication but without whose assistance the violation of the law would not have been committed."
That certainly means any Catholic actively voting for a law allowing or retaining Abortion or even, if deliberate, abstaining in such a vote.
A Catholic person in a position of power who does not use their influence to affect the debate is remiss in not doing so. Whether that's an excommunicable act I'd have to leave to a Canon Lawyer. But to miss an opportunity to protest, even just as a matter of recording the objection in principle, is a serious omission on the part of any Catholic.
As for 'scaring people'... well, I think it's a reasonable and Christian thing to do to remind people about the full import of their actions. The threat isn't remotely negligible. If one is a Catholic, then it's incredibly important that one remains in good standing with the Church and with Christ as any Catholic knows that to die with mortal sins on their soul is to put them outside the loving embrace of God. And that means an eternity of, putting it mildly, regret somewhere other than where one would want to end up.... Why would a Catholic want to risk that for the sake of politically correct behaviour in this life?
04/10/2011 12:17