Bishops, Abortion, Pregnant Children That Have Been Raped and Sedition

There's a bit of a storm brewing presently and the media are picking up on it and running.

A 9 year old girl who'd been abused by her stepfather for years, had an abortion on Wednesday to remove the twins she was expecting. To go through with the pregnancy would have put her life at risk.

This all happened in Brazil. The Archbishop, José Cardoso immediately announced excommunications all round (except for the little girl). Indeed, the archdiocese's legal representatives had threatened the child's mother with charges for homicide prior to the abortion. Generally speaking, abortion is illegal in Brazil, excepting in cases of rape and where pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.

The Archbishop has stepped back somewhat from his earlier aggression. He's now pointing out that canon law states that abortion carries an automatic excommunication. He's also saying, and this is what interests me the most, that God's law is above human law and that when human law ignores God's law it has no value. Though in fairness to him, he did contextualise this by saying that this was the case with regard to excommunication.

Is the Archbishop declaring the law to be invalid and that it should be ignored? And if a bishop in this country made a similar pronouncement, would he be charged with incitement and sedition?

This particular saga gives much food for discussion.

LINK

Abortion as a silent holocaust? What an arresting notion, or at least a good soundbite.

When it comes to abortion all matters of law fly out the window. Legality and ethics are replaced by morals. Has the archbishop commented on the damage the abortion would have done the young child? I thought there was an acknowldegement by the church that cases of pregnancy that involve a high level of risk to the mother were more open fopr abortion.

Brazil has a strange record on this matter. At the risk of gross generalisations, I would compare their attitude to sex to that of the Americans to guns, or our own attitude to alcohol. Sex is good and to hell with the consequences. There are high levels of abuse, often around stepfather/stepdaughter relations. The stepfather in this case has been arrested. But I have an interesting book, called Laughter Out of Place, which describes similar abusive relationships where maybe all that would happen is the abused child is moved out of the house.

As we know, these things have happened here in Ireland. The lack of availability of safe and legal early abortion has lead to infanticide and horrible late abortions.

As a result of viewing this through a religious, rather than humane prism, we have case law in Ireland that doesn't differentiate between an abortion at 8 weeks and an abortion at 28 weeks. Because women having abortions must travel from Ireland, on average Irish women abort at a much later stage than average.

http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr7/abortion.html

It would never be possible to stop abortions taking place: there is plenty of evidence that women will risk their lives to abort illegally if no illegal abortion is available.

The sheer hypocrisy - how many priests who have raped children have been excommunicated?

If you substituted religious with ethical/moral you might make sense. There are plenty of people who are not religious in the slightest yet still are firmly against abortion owing to their opinion of the preciousness of life and when life begins. Religious groups which disagree with abortion are only one sector of the debate in Irish society, albeit a voicerous and powerful one.

johnfás wrote:

If you substituted religious with ethical/moral you might make sense. There are plenty of people who are not religious in the slightest yet still are firmly against abortion owing to their opinion of the preciousness of life and when life begins. Religious groups which disagree with abortion are only one sector of the debate in Irish society, albeit a voicerous and powerful one.

If I substituted ethical/moral I would make no sense at all. I was contrasting humane / ethical approaches to approaches that are dogma based. I'm sure that many religious people would in practice choose ethics and morality over dogma.

Quote :

As a result of viewing this through a religious, rather than humane prism, we have case law in Ireland that doesn't differentiate between an abortion at 8 weeks and an abortion at 28 weeks.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/medb-ruane/why-is-a-woman-who-has-an-abortion-automatically-excommunicated-from-the-church-while-a-paedophile-is-not-1206102.html

There are multiple prisms, aside from religious ones, which would not differentiate between an abortion at 8 weeks and one at 28 weeks. There are multiple prisms through which people disagree with abortion fundamentally, irrespective of the stage of pregnancy at which it occurs.

johnfás wrote:

If you substituted religious with ethical/moral you might make sense. There are plenty of people who are not religious in the slightest yet still are firmly against abortion owing to their opinion of the preciousness of life and when life begins. Religious groups which disagree with abortion are only one sector of the debate in Irish society, albeit a voicerous and powerful one.

That would be my position, but strong objections to abortion on non religious grounds & being religious are not mutually exclusive positions.

johnfás wrote:

There are multiple prisms, aside from religious ones, which would not differentiate between an abortion at 8 weeks and one at 28 weeks. There are multiple prisms through which people disagree with abortion fundamentally, irrespective of the stage of pregnancy at which it occurs.

Perhaps, although I'm struggling to think of one. The arguments that relate to the preciousness or sacredness of life as an absolute are deeply imbued with religion. Have you ever come across a non-religious person who would have given any credence to preventing a raped 9 year old from having an abortion?

I've come across plenty of non-religious people who disagree with abortion fundamentally save in situations of extreme risk to the life of the mother. That is clearly the case in relation to a 9 year old who has become pregnant- by the way I also know plenty of people who oppose abortion on religious grounds who would hold that point of view as well. However, such non-religious people who fundamentally disagree with abortion do not differentiate between abortion at 8 weeks and at 28 weeks, which you maintained was fundamentally a religious position.

One only need type atheist pro life into Google to find countless examples of people who are not religious yet disagree fundamentally with on demand abortion. Here is one such example: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/8383/atheist.html .

I have not given my personal opinion on the issue, however I reject out of hand the notion that being anti abortion is in anyway a position which people hold exclusively on the basis of a religious point of view. Tonys has already rebutted that notion from his own perspective above.

johnfás wrote:

I've come across plenty of non-religious people who disagree with abortion fundamentally save in situations of extreme risk to the life of the mother. That is clearly the case in relation to a 9 year old who has become pregnant- by the way I also know plenty of people who oppose abortion on religious grounds who would hold that point of view as well. However, such non-religious people who fundamentally disagree with abortion do not differentiate between abortion at 8 weeks and at 28 weeks, which you maintained was fundamentally a religious position.

One only need type atheist pro life into Google to find countless examples of people who are not religious yet disagree fundamentally with on demand abortion. Here is one such example: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/8383/atheist.html .

I have not given my personal opinion on the issue, however I reject out of hand the notion that being anti abortion is in anyway a position which people hold exclusively on the basis of a religious point of view. Tonys has already rebutted that notion from his own perspective above.

The person who wrote that piece uses religious language throughout - the reasons given for being anti-abortion expresses the belief that an embryo or fetus at any stage is a "unique, never to be again, individual being" that under no circumstances should be aborted. She says that her opinion was largely based on her own experience of what seems to have been a late abortion.

Could she possibly be a sock puppet? Perhaps that is an over-suspicious thought.

Most fertilised embryos are naturally aborted without anyone knowing it has happened.
This is a link to a pro life site that shows to scale (on the left) embryos and fetuses from 4 weeks to 18 weeks.

http://bluewavecanada.blogspot.com/2009/02/fetus-picturesto-scale.html

Tony has not explained his thinking on this, so I can't take a view on whether I think it is religious or not. However I can't see how anyone could compartmentalise their religion on an issue like this.

There are plenty of people with no religion who believe that life starts at the moment of conception and that the destruction of life is wrong and thus disagree with abortion at any stage. This is not purely a religious position, it is a position held by many religious and non religious people alike. If you are of the opinion life begins at the moment of conception that is your opinion and it is irrelevant whether that life is 8 weeks old or 28 weeks old, just as it is irrelevant to someone who believes life begins at birth whether a living person is 8 years old or 28 years old.

johnfás wrote:

There are plenty of people with no religion who believe that life starts at the moment of conception and that the destruction of life is wrong and thus disagree with abortion at any stage. This is not purely a religious position, it is a position held by many religious and non religious people alike. If you are of the opinion life begins at the moment of conception that is your opinion and it is irrelevant whether that life is 8 weeks old or 28 weeks old, just as it is irrelevant to someone who believes life begins at birth whether a living person is 8 years old or 28 years old.

What do you mean by "life starts at the moment of conception" ?

cactus flower wrote:

Tony has not explained his thinking on this, so I can't take a view on whether I think it is religious or not. However I can't see how anyone could compartmentalise their religion on an issue like this.

My position is not religious based at all, my view is simply that as you quoted yourself "the belief that an embryo or fetus at any stage is a "unique, never to be again, individual being" that deserves the same shot as we all received and in the absence of a real threat to the life of the Mother should not be interfered with. It seems to me that unlike my own case it would be entirely possible to hold that view and still be religious in the normal way

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Tony has not explained his thinking on this, so I can't take a view on whether I think it is religious or not. However I can't see how anyone could compartmentalise their religion on an issue like this.

My position is not religious based at all, my view is simply that as you quoted yourself "the belief that an embryo or fetus at any stage is a "unique, never to be again, individual being" that deserves the same shot as we all received and in the absence of a real threat to the life of the Mother should not be interfered with. It seems to me that unlike my own case it would be entirely possible to hold that view and still be religious in the normal way

I don't doubt for a moment that you are religious, and ethical, in the normal way tonys. Do you have any views on the events that Hermes posted about in the OP ?

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Tony has not explained his thinking on this, so I can't take a view on whether I think it is religious or not. However I can't see how anyone could compartmentalise their religion on an issue like this.

My position is not religious based at all, my view is simply that as you quoted yourself "the belief that an embryo or fetus at any stage is a "unique, never to be again, individual being" that deserves the same shot as we all received and in the absence of a real threat to the life of the Mother should not be interfered with. It seems to me that unlike my own case it would be entirely possible to hold that view and still be religious in the normal way

I don't doubt for a moment that you are religious, and ethical, in the normal way tonys.

I'm not religious in any way.

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Tony has not explained his thinking on this, so I can't take a view on whether I think it is religious or not. However I can't see how anyone could compartmentalise their religion on an issue like this.

My position is not religious based at all, my view is simply that as you quoted yourself "the belief that an embryo or fetus at any stage is a "unique, never to be again, individual being" that deserves the same shot as we all received and in the absence of a real threat to the life of the Mother should not be interfered with. It seems to me that unlike my own case it would be entirely possible to hold that view and still be religious in the normal way

I don't doubt for a moment that you are religious, and ethical, in the normal way tonys.

I'm not religious in any way.

Apologies, I misread your earlier post. So do you see any difference between abortion at 8 and at 18 weeks?

cactus flower wrote:

johnfás wrote:

There are plenty of people with no religion who believe that life starts at the moment of conception and that the destruction of life is wrong and thus disagree with abortion at any stage. This is not purely a religious position, it is a position held by many religious and non religious people alike. If you are of the opinion life begins at the moment of conception that is your opinion and it is irrelevant whether that life is 8 weeks old or 28 weeks old, just as it is irrelevant to someone who believes life begins at birth whether a living person is 8 years old or 28 years old.

What do you mean by "life starts at the moment of conception" ?

There are plenty of people, religious and non religious, who believe that life begins at the very moment of fertilisation, that being the starting point of human life. Such an opinion, whilst perhaps not your own, is a perfectly plausible position for people to hold and there appears no objective justification for you branding everyone who holds such opinions religious and dogmatic. There are plenty of rational people who hold such opinions even though it might contradict your own, equally rationally held, opinion.

Well, it is obviously a "starting point for human life", but why does that mean that every starting point must at all costs go from being an embryo to a fetus ? I take it anyone with that view would be against in vitro fertilsation and the morning after pill ?

cactus flower wrote:

Well, it is obviously a "starting point for human life", but why does that mean that every starting point must at all costs go from being an embryo to a fetus ? I take it anyone with that view would be against in vitro fertilsation and the morning after pill ?

Yes, it would seem that an objection to the morning after pill would be the natural consequence of the opinion that life is ultimately precious from the moment of fertilisation.

I think your "at all costs" comment is slightly trying to skew that position though. No society protects any life "at all costs", we allow people to die natural deaths. However, people who hold the opinion outlined above would presumably object to any non natural acceleration of the death of the life, which they recognise as existing and worthy of protection from the moment of fertilisation.

A person might equally ask why does it mean that babies should be protected to go from being an infant to an adult. Whilst a baby can feel pain it cannot apply logic on the same basis as adults, nor can it fend for itself.

I'll leave this for the moment for anyone else who has a view. Lots of interesting questions.

Did the dying child whose photograph Auditor #9 posted, with a waiting vulture beside her, also have the "right to life" ?

Are you asking me personally or are you asking me the opinion which I put forward above on a third party basis? I was pretty explicit that what I was writing above is not necessarily my own opinion, I was merely expressing it as a rational counter view to yours. I believe there are plenty of rational opinions that contradict my own.

In respect of the right to life of the dying child... there are plenty of interesting spin offs you can take from a question like that. If one were to apply something like the standard of the criminal law to the issue one would conclude that you cannot gennerally commit a crime by omitting to doing something, that you can only do wrong by positively acting, of course there are plenty of other measures on which we judge right and wrong. However, on that basis there is a difference between the two situations because in one (the child with the vulture) you are merely omitting to help, which has the effect in that instance of death. In the second situation (that of abortion) you are actually making an intervention which would cause death. In short, if you ommitted to doing anything in both situations the unborn baby would live and the dying child would die. If you intervene in both situations the unborn dies but the dying child in fact lives.

There are lots of peculiar permutations to situations like the above, at the end of the day everyone applies morals to these situations, whether they are based in religion or not. Whether or not omitting to doing something is wrong is essentially a moral question outside of the law. There are multiple rational approaches which can be taken, each coming to a considered but different conclusion.

cactus flower wrote:

I'll leave this for the moment for anyone else who has a view. Lots of interesting questions.

Did the dying child whose photograph Auditor #9 posted, with a waiting vulture beside her, also have the "right to life" ?

Of course her life should be protected to the greatest extent possible, why would you think there was a need to ask the question?

I am a Catholic, but while, were I to become an atheist in the morning, my views on many things would change in the absence of religious belief, my view on abortion would remain absolutely the same. In my view it is either morally impermissable from the moment of conception onwards, or permissable all the way up to term, the 'have your cake and eat it' of an arbitrary line during the middle of pregnancy seems both morally and logically unsustainable to me. There are many of no religious persuasion who feel the same, it is a mistake to ascribe the view purely to religious people. It is also a mistake for religious opponents of abortion to introduce religion into their arguments, no state policy should be based on religious arguments, nor should religious opinions be imposed on anyone else. I am therefore always very careful to confine my arguments against abortion to a secular and logical moral argument, steering well clear of religion. I remember reading Roy Hattersley some years ago talking about how he and Dominic Lawson, then editor of The Spectator magazine, had discussed setting up an agnostics/atheists against abortion group for these very reasons. I don't think they ever did, but it would have been worthwhile...

Quote :

n my view it is either morally impermissable from the moment of conception onwards, or permissable all the way up to term, the 'have your cake and eat it' of an arbitrary line during the middle of pregnancy seems both morally and logically unsustainable to me.

Consequently, thinking along those lines, the judiciary has decided here that there is no difference between a small group of cells and a viable living baby.