If you're pro-life, how far do you take that?

[Lucanus]

What is your pro-life position?

[Catholic_Lady]

So your hypothetical scenario is, what if there would be MORE abortions overall if abortion became illegal?

That doesn't make much sense, but out of principle, direct killing of an innocent human should never be legally permissable. By the same token, I assume if legalizing rape decreased the instance of rape, most people would still say rape should be illegal.

Because the right to life is an inherent right, just as the right to not be sexually violated is an inherent right, those human rights should always (even if purely by principle) be protected by the law.

It's about safety. The point is: making abortion illegal does nothing to decrease the amount of them. They won't increase substantially because of making it illegal, it's just the difference between safe vs unsafe abortions. If putting an end to abortion is your end goal (a good one I'd support) then you should be against making it illegal, because it doesn't work.

I've said this in another thread. In an ideal world, I'd be pro-life. I don't agree with pro-choice logic, to be honest. I want abortions to stop. But making it illegal just puts those who perform them in danger. There's no point to it. Just like I don't want anybody to shoot heroin, but making it illegal and throwing addicts in prison hasn't helped the problem; it's exasperated it. I believe the same logic applies here. . I don't know what to do in order to convince others to respect the life of the unborn child like you mentioned earlier, but making it illegal "on principle" doesn't make sense because one's principles can't outrank the observable results of actions. This is coming from someone who agrees with you on the moral level.

The difference between heroin use and abortion, is that abortion involves a non consenting victim. Like you, I also am personally against heroin but believe it should be legalized nonetheless. You have to compare abortion to other acts that involve a victim to make for a more accurate analogy.

You are right that we can't force people to respect the right to life of another. But as I said, it is certainly worth striving for. I think an initial step to validating the value of someone's life is to protect it under the law. It isn't the whole story, by far, and needs to be followed up with more. As I said in an earlier post, it is a process that requires time, education, understanding, extra care for pregnant women/single moms, and ultimately, a change of heart in people.

When slavery became illegal in this country, people didn't automatically stop having slaves, and it even caused a war where many lives were lost and blood was spilled as a result. And for many years after that, people still didn't view blacks as fully human. And to this day, racism against African Americans still exists in this country. It was/is a process, but one worth fighting for. It had to start somewhere.

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes! The religious rights crusade to impose their divine values on sluts and whores by federal and state law is -so- totally like abolition.  

[Neo-Scholastic]

For those who may be interested, I have been teasing out my position on a parallel thread. And having made three long, and I believe thoughtful, posts about the topic I don’t want to merely cut-and-paste. Here are the links:

HERE
and HERE...
...and HERE

My intention is to thread hop, to join the more rational and civil conversation here. FWIW the Scholastics, such as Aquinas, did not consider the unborn ensouled until "quickening", that is when the mother feels the movements of the child within her. It was only until Pope Pious IX when the RC Church decided that ensoulment happened at conception. That was in the late 1800's

[The Grand Nudger]

For a long while in the US, that was how it was determined that a women was preggers period.

[Angrboda]

The Catholic Church's position on HIV/AIDS prevention has attracted controversy due to its opposition to condom use. In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI said that the use of condoms could sometimes be considered a first step toward moral behavior, but a spokesperson for the church later clarified that the use of condoms was still considered immoral and that the pope had not intended to take a position "on the problem of condoms in general."[1] In relation to the sexual transmission of the disease, the Church teaches that chastity (sexual abstinence before marriage, and monogamy inside marriage), are a better means of limiting the spread of the epidemic than the use of condoms. United Nations bodies have criticised the Church for its stance against condom use, on the basis that condoms are the best available means to prevent infections among sexually active people. UN bodies co-operate closely with the Church on the provision of patient care, and in eliminating infections in children.

Catholic Church and HIV/AIDS

The church has actively opposed the use of contraceptives, leading to an AIDS epidemic in Africa and additional unwanted pregnancies elsewhere. It may be true that if abstinence were a reasonable goal, then unwanted pregnancies would drop. And if wishes were horses, then we'd all ride in style. The fact is that we live in this world, not in that alternate reality which can never be. As long as Catholics continue to compromise the real lives lived in this world for talking about some fantasy land that will never be, I hold them accountable for the vast amount of suffering in Africa as well as the additional unwanted pregnancies, and this idea that you're not responsible because the church teaches an unrealizable fantasy in place of a sensible approach to reality is just bullshit. You're responsible for the consequences of your beliefs, not God. God hasn't been around. This is all on you.

[robvalue]

No one has voted for physically restricting mothers so far. I'm happy to hear that of course, but let me pose a scenario for pro-life advocates:

Let's say it's illegal for doctors to perform abortions, and a pregnant woman is desperate to have an abortion. She says openly that she is going to get it done, however she can. There's every reason to believe she is serious. Should this be grounds to restrain her to prevent her from seeking/performing an abortion? If so, how would the laws you propose justify this?

On a side note, I don't understand how someone can consider an abortion murder and yet hold only the doctor accountable. If the mother is a willing participant, then she's an accomplice to murder.

[RoadRunner79]

What is the responsibility of a doctor, if a patient is indicating that they are going to commit suicide, or harm others?

[The Grand Nudger]

Sounds like conspiracy to commit murder even if they don't go through with it.

......LOCK HER UP!

[robvalue]

What is the responsibility of a doctor, if a patient is indicating that they are going to commit suicide, or harm others?

So you're saying you'd advocate restraining and forcing coming to term in this instance, assuming she never changes her mind?