Rubicante said:

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WaltonAg18 said:

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Unfortunately there are many Catholic brothers and sisters who will go on and on about the evils of abortion, and with none of the same fervor talk about the beauty of IVF and how lucky they are to have had a child as the result of the process. Ignoring the fact that hundreds, sometimes thousands of lives are often snuffed in the same process.

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It's always been wild to me these are never in the crosshairs of pro life demonstrations when their number of destroyed embryos dwarfs abortion. Is it a life when it is destroyed in a Planned Parenthood but a clump of cells when it is destroyed in a fertility clinic?

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Most people can't intuit a problem with IVF as easily. You can sort of understand why, right? People put it in a category with fertility drugs. It's for the creation of life, not its destruction. The moral evil in IVF goes beyond the loss of life though. Even if it were true that no human embryos were ever discarded or destroyed in the process, it would still be impermissible.

It just isn't talked about, and it needs to be. Abortion on the other hand, has been debated publicly constantly since I've been alive. Everyone understands the arguments.

Wow! Just so casually coming out and denying Church teaching. Bold move!

That's your argument for why you should be right? "Most people agree with me"???

I get it, but do you think the Church hasn't thought these things through and weighed every side?

You're Catholic?

The Church has deemed using contraception as a mortal sin and intrinsically evil. Part of the deal is submission to a guidance that knows better than us common man. There are Church teachings that I have struggled understanding, but at the end of the day we need to come to terms with those matters

You're not Catholic if you don't follow church teaching. You can call yourself a Catholic, but you're really nothing more than a heretic. You don't get to pick and choose which Catholic teachings to accept and which to reject.

Have contraceptives done anything to reduce abortion?

500,000ags said:

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Is that rhetorical?

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No. Without looking for statistics I think abortion has increased at the same time as contraceptives have become pervasive, so it doesn't reduce abortion.

Banning abortion would reduce abortion. I don't get the sense you like that idea. You don't see any dissonance in that?

500,000ags said:

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(2) Inconsistency on the pro-life approach. Meaning the pro-life crowd is almost universally conservative politically, so the notion is to (conveniently) top-down dictate that abortion is not allowed, when things to support the mother and baby are haphazard at best. Speaking for myself only now, I cannot stand the approach to make abortion ended, while the pro-life crowd is almost universally against SexEd, free contraception, and intelligent government assistance.

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To me, this argument comes off like a kidnapper demanding a ransom. Why should you need to be paid off in order to not kill an innocent human being?

500,000ags said:

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What are you talking about?

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He is talking about the contraceptive mindset versus the truth that every child is a gift from God to their parents and the world.

As someone who has lived that lie, so called safe sex, it led me to believe that I could have sex whenever I wanted without concern about others. It was more about what I wanted (sex) and not wanted (baby).

When I got my girlfriend pregnant I was still 19 years old, we were both sophomores at A&M. The last thing I wanted was a baby. So naturally, I suggested she have an abortion. I remember going to the Planned Parenthood on Villa Maria to talk to someone. To her credit, my girlfriend said no, she was having this baby- I can do what I want. I grew up without a dad, so I promised myself I would never abandon my kid. We got married by the JP a few weeks later and moved into an apartment near St. Joseph's hospital so she could work and continue school. Long story short, this child saved me from my selfishness. I started fighting for them instead of thinking of only myself. That was almost 40 years ago!

If God indeed formed us in our mother's womb (Jer 1:5) and wills us into existence against all odds, who are we to oppose his will? Life is a gift and we can cooperate in God's will when we are open to new life. The best way to do this is in marriage and with a full understanding of our fertility (Natural Family Planning).

The other way, contraception, rejects God's will and sets one up for a crisis pregnancy that can often lead to abortion- a tragic consequence and hardly a free choice.

HTH

500,000ags said:

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Thank you for sharing that. I would like your thoughts on something.

One thing that really annoys me:

I see two general camps of people that are so common (in and out of the church):

(1) Very pro life, but pro death penalty, and excuse many war and defense-driven killings, military or civilians.

(2) Very pro choice, but don't believe in the death penalty, they also condemn war and defense-driven killing when those underlying regimes are actually evil.

Both are incredibly hypocritical IMO.

Why is it not more common to see consistency? I'm pro-life, so abortion is wrong, the death penalty is wrong, strategic defense-driven killing is wrong.

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Idk if you can say the death penalty is "wrong", as it's in the bible. I think we can say it's not ideal for sure. But that's me picking nits. Overall you're correct. Being pro-life is not just one issue. But I think you can agree that one issue is killing more innocent humans than all other issues you've listed combined. Hence the focus on it.

The Banned said:

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500,000ags said:

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I don't consider one's live more innocent at all. You're innocent or not. I could also say a 30 year old man that operates purposely in good faith everyday of his life, why should his life be less important than an unborn life. This distinction is, I think, partly the root of the hypocrisy. Because when you invoke such emotion into a "think of the children" stance, it gets weaponized at scale.

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I think you misunderstood. I meant "more" quantitatively not qualitatively. Worldwide, there are 73 million abortions per year. This number is far larger than all those killed by war and the death penalty. It's estimated between 1.5 - 2 BILLION abortions since 1970. That's 250 Holocausts on the low end. There are an estimated 1500 executions per year. There really is no comparison in terms of sheer number of people being killed.

And I agree with the death penalty part to a degree. My main issue with it is distrust in the government to properly convict the guilty person.

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I can sympathize with the argument that we should limit the use of the death penalty because we might accidentally kill an innocent person.

But people who justify the mass slaughter of the unborn (especially if they use the argument that a poor kid might grow up to become a criminal) while simultaneously acting outraged about executing actual convicted criminals (who have the benefit of a trial and freedom from "cruel and unusual" methods of death) are hypocritical scum.