Notre Dame professor: Hey, maybe the Pope should rethink abortion

Hot Air ^ | January 25, 2014 | Ed Morrissey

[amihow]

ND has lost the Faith so it would not surprise me to hear someone there promoting infanticide.

[Raycpa]

The analogy of rape to someone kidnapped to keep another alive fails because the rape is a one time crime and the kidnapped is a crime that continues for 9 months.

[Candor7]

Consciousness, sperm and egg all join at the same moment>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Agreed. And killing that is indeed killing a sentient being.

[TigersEye]

And as common sense and modern genetic science will agree,
a sentient human being.

Acorns never sprout walnut trees. :-)

[BlessedBeGod]

The Ignatius Bible is a Jesuit version.

The Ignatius Bible is not a "Jesuit version." It's called "The Ignatius Bible" because it's published by Ignatius Press. There's no "Jesuit spin."

[Ray76]

Pelosi has been warned.

[svcw]

And warned and warned and warned...
Seriously how many warnings does she get?

[antceecee]

They should have all been ex-communicated already! This would send a very much needed message through the faith community. .. and no they would not have gained re-election should that have occurred in the first place.

[campaignPete R-CT]

An organism may be human by purely biological criteria, but still merely potentially human in the full moral sense

Notre Dame philosophy professor Gary Gutting may be human by purely biological criteria, but still merely potentially human in the full moral sense

[campaignPete R-CT]

I meant to say, too, that I spent the afternoon yesterday at Faneul Hall in Boston at the Mass Citizens for Life annual caucus. A crowd of perhaps 300.

Great to be around a vibrant group ... one that still has a lotta muscle. They are very active and well-financed. Two speakers ... lawyers who argued pro-life cases before SCOTUS.

One is a case involving the Massachusetts “Buffer zone law” for clinics ... used to justify the arrest of a sidewalk counselor. That case has been argued, but not yet decided.

[NYer]

Catholic ping!

[onyx]

Thanks so much for telling us.
God bless and keep you.

[campaignPete R-CT]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3116178/posts?page=4

thread on the Buffer Zone case ....

[onyx]

Thanks again!

[Cronos]

“rethink baby killing”? no. Not possible

[Cronos]

At the same time, the “inviolable value of each human life” does not imply that no abortion can be moral. Here the case of rape is especially relevant. It is hard to claim that a rape victim has a moral duty to bring to term a pregnancy forced on her by rape,

This is a traditional red-herring put forth by proponents of baby-killing.

I refute them with the statistics about Poland -- Poland until the 90s allowed pretty liberal abortion, but then reduced it to allowing abortion only for:

1. rape
2. incest
3. mother's life or health
4. foetus life

And how many abortions does it have a year? about 840. That's in a nation 1/10th the size of the US

By that reckoning, if the US allowed only abortions for the above cases, then there would be only 8400 abortions a year. Even if we assume a 100% increase for the US, that should be max 17,000 abortions a year.

In contrast, the US had a million abortions a year....

So the rape, incest etc. accounts for only about 1% or 1.7% of the abortions. The rest are just as "don't want baby"

[allendale]

The problem with the rape exception is that you are still accepting the summary execution of a human life for reasons not germane to that life. There are of course better more humane solutions to the so called “rape” scenario, but they would never be considered in moral relativism of today.

[Cronos]

I’mnot talking about accepting it, but the liberals use rape/incest (abortions forthese are just 1% of the total abortions) to justify the 99% of abortions that are for “don’t want the baby”

[allendale]

Understood. Merely attempting to point out the flaw in the professor’s reasoning. The rape exception is the nose of the camel in the tent argument commonly used by abortionists.