“While I am well prepared to pay more taxes to stop the killing of unborn babies, overriding a mothers desire to murder her baby does not free her or the father for responsibility for taking care of that baby until the age of maturity.”
It does not free her from the responsibility, no. She is responsible, and remains responsible. The PROBLEM is that in the real world, in which we live, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people of childbearing age are NOT responsible, and a substantial number of them are not going to BECOME responsible.
I know this, because it’s obvious.
In countries where there is no welfare at all, teenage women still get pregnant, still have the kids, and then the kids starve to death.
So, yes, absolutely the parents are always responsible.
But also yes, absolutely, there will be a few million who do not rise to their responsibility. There will be about a million more babies born a year than are born now, to totally irresponsible parents who don’t look after themselves, and don’t have the means or the will to look after their babies - babies which they would abort if they could, because they don’t want them.
That is reality, and it is ineluctable reality. It cannot be made to go away. Abolish abortion, and there are going to be that million or so kids born to poor, irresponsible women who don’t want them. And unless we step in, quite a number of those children will be neglected. Some will even starve and die without social welfare. You cannot make who were irresponsible enough to have an unwanted pregnancy in the first place “become responsible” by saying they should. They WON’T. Some are so drugged out they CAN’T anymore. Others would abort, precisely because they have no will to care for a child. Saying they are responsible is nice. They are. So what? They won’t DO IT. So, what then? We put them in jail, perhaps, at considerable expense. And then we end up raising the kid.
The one piece that we end up with is that we come to a point with millions of children where either WE take over the responsibility for feeding them, clothing them, housing them and educating them, or they don’t get any of those things and die of neglect. That’s reality. It cannot be made to go away by intoning pious nostrums about responsibility. Yes, it’s WRONG that we have to take care of these people.
But what’s the solution?
Refuse to do it and let the babies starve and die? Is that it?
Pretending that if we speak sternly to them and take away abortion rights that they will become responsible is a fantasy. Millions WILL NOT.
Which leaves us precisely two - not three, not five, not twelve - just two - options: withhold the help and let the children die, or provide the help through social welfare.
If we’re going to abolish abortion, we have GOT TO BE mentally prepared to bear that extra welfare burden, because we are GOING TO BEAR IT. We are going to bear it because there is another reality, and that is that there is no way in hell to maintain the political strength to opt to let the babies die.
After all the piety is done, you end up with a feed/don’t feed decision involving kids. And the only Christian answer is that you have to feed them. Period. You cannot withhold the aid to children to teach parents a lesson. Well, you CAN, but it’s not Christian. And if you’re not a Christian, why care about abortion at all?
Johnson gave us the Great Society and he destroyed the urban family for generations to come. You seem to think that was good policy. It wasn't and Pope John Paul understood that totally. Johnson's policies destroyed the dignity, liberty and individuality of generations. Pope John Paul was a Christian one would think. So am I.
Opposing policies that have failed as miserably as the Great Society is not only not unChristian it is the duty of a Christian to oppose those policies because it destroys God's creation and denies His greatest gift, freedom of will, spirit and body. As Christians we are called to support policies that promote family, individual responsibility, freedom and equal rights and justice for all in Caesars world. We are also called to give to those who are in need. We are not called to support failed policies that destroy families and the human spirit.
One can oppose abortion and support policies that require responsibility from parents Vicomte. The two are not mutually exclusive. And one doesn't have to be a Christian to do that either. I, like you, am a Catholic. I would suggest you review Centesimus Annus.