Posted on 05/30/2018 8:47:16 PM PDT by ReformationFan
How Legalizing Abortion Undermines The Basis For A Free Society Ireland’s abortion legalization erodes the very foundations of human dignity upon which self-government depends.
Ireland voted to repeal its long-standing abortion ban on Friday, overturning a constitutional amendment that protected “the right to life of the unborn,” requiring legislators to consider the inherent worth of the fetus in all legislative decisions. In the span of just 35 years, Ireland’s overwhelmingly Catholic population has drifted, in public attitudes and votes, from entrenching the rights of the unborn to laying the foundation for stripping them away.
Newspapers around the world are hailing the decision as an “historic” mandate to expand women’s rights across the nation, which is abandoning its Catholic sensibilities for the trappings of progressivism at warp speed. But what the overflow of laudations is failing to see is that the voters in Ireland, in the name of “women’s rights,” are trampling upon rights that are key to the existence of the liberal democracy that allowed for such a referendum in the first place.
Let’s start with the rights on which the “Yes” Vote (that is, the pro-abortion side) premised the repeal: the so-called “woman’s right to choose.” There is no such thing in a liberal democracy. In fact, the goal of ultimate freedom necessarily requires the limitation of certain choices – for example, the choice to disrespect or harm others’ natural rights – in order to create a society in which everyone has the ability to participate in democracy as equals.
Abortion becomes a clear case in which the inherent dignity, and the natural rights thereof, of a person precede the exercise of choice. Indeed, the unborn are the most defenseless, least equipped beings among us to handle the world without our care. It is in these straits, however, that they get attacked as useless, valueless, not even human (despite the fact that every human was once also unborn). When the unborn are viewed as parasites, or as useless clumps of cells, there is no stopping civilized society from viewing other, less developed, or weaker human beings from being viewed the same way.
Even in cases where the personhood of the unborn is debated (such as early gestation of the fetus), liberal democracies must always err on the side of protection. The insinuation that one must “develop” into a creature with rights undermines the liberal democratic ideal that one possesses rights innately, no matter how weak or strong. If we value natural rights at all, we must value natural rights for all.
Indeed, we have an obligation to the unborn, because though they are fully and completely human, they are also those with the least self-sufficiency in liberal democratic society. They cannot vote. They cannot participate in a referendum to determine whether they should be expunged from their mother’s womb. They cannot advocate for themselves in even the basic way in which every other human in the world can.
This fact of their inability to participate fully in society – not their lack of human dignity, but their lack of political awareness – reinforces the need for the rest of society to step in on their behalf, to be advocates on their behalf. We must do so, not so that the unborn may be granted any special protections, but simply so that they may be granted the same basic rights inherent to any liberal democratic society: the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of the meaning that makes life worth living.
The Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution, repealed this week, had stated this principle of equal dignity concisely and beautifully: that “The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.”
It reflects the notion that society must treat both the life of the unborn and the mother as if both have equal rights. To say the opposite; i.e. to say that the choice of mother must categorically be preferred over the far more basic right to life of the unborn is to grant special treatment for a particular segment of society.
Such special treatment, antithetical to the foundations of liberal democracy, would set the precedent for special interest groups of all kinds to demand that their whims too be satisfied at the expense of the basic rights of others (for example: the whims of sensitive college students over the free speech of their peers). This can only put us on the road to illiberalism.
Legislators who supported repeal of the protections promised that “abortion on demand” would not be the status quo, introducing legislation to regulate abortion to fetuses under 12 weeks and to fetuses that endanger the “health of the mother,” including “mental health.” But the reality of the situation is that 98 percent of the 190,000 abortions carried out in the neighboring United Kingdom per year cited “mental health” as the primary reason for terminating the pregnancy. So the upcoming legislation that will accompany the outcome of the referendum will effectively turn the country’s abortion laws into a facsimile of other countries where legalized abortion is the norm.
The constitutional amendment that the Irish just voted to put down was, quite simply, the only true protection of the rights of the unborn in Ireland. And now it is gone.
Legally killing of nascent life... shame on your enthusiasm, Ireland.
I’d love to see a map of all countries that have accepted abortion and when the did so. I bet only really primitive ones held out so far. They must have something going for them...
Freegards
“We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other.”
~ Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta ~
We can’t expect the Holy Father to excommunicate those who went against the teaching of the Church.
Oh wait - that would be saying something about the values of Catholics who voted for abortion and the Church doesn’t want to face up to it.
What good is the Church when its not a good shepherd of its flock?
The truth is that those women which choose to kill their babies are FOREVER HAUNTED BY THAT DECISION
no amount of bullshit dancing in the streets by the stupid young female morons will ever teach thrm that
Without exception this is. Without exception
Kill your baby. Feel pain agony loneliness and regret forever
All this means to young stupid women is that they can have sex stupidly with no consequence if they screw up
The Irish have embraced neo pagan hedonistic debauchery. So has much of the West. These are dark times. Yet after much suffering and after most alive today have died, believe that a faithful remnant will rise up and save mankind.
Jews were declared to be less than human and look what happened.
Now unborn children are declared to be less than human and see what is happening to them.
I still well remember when Mother Theresa gave a speech with Bill and Hillary in the audience. She spoke out against abortion. She received a tremendous ovation. From everyone except Bill and Hillary of course.
IT’S ABORTICIDE, NOT ABORTION.
If a society won’t protect its most defenseless children, who will it protect?
this is what legalized abortion does to a society.
She was 100% right.
“Newspapers around the world are hailing the decision as an “historic” mandate to expand women’s rights...”
Romans 1
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Among the reasons society came together and ratified our Constitution was to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Thus, there cannot be a right to eradicate the next generation.
You mean because it legalizes murder of a human being in one situation thus creating a slippery slope where other situations are then considered as well?
Such situations include murdering the old, the infirm, new borns (out of the womb), for example. In case you are wondering, I know of people considering each one of these possibilities as the next ‘legal’ action.
JoMa
I once met a woman who claimed she’d had six abortions, utilizing it as a form of birth control. Conscience didn’t seem to have a hold on her.
The comments:
“In fact, the goal of ultimate freedom necessarily requires the limitation of certain choices – for example, the choice to disrespect or harm others’ natural rights – in order to create a society in which everyone has the ability to participate in democracy as equals.”
“Abortion becomes a clear case in which the inherent dignity, and the natural rights thereof, of a person precede the exercise of choice. Indeed, the unborn are the most defenseless, least equipped beings among us to handle the world without our care. It is in these straits, however, that they get attacked as useless, valueless, not even human (despite the fact that every human was once also unborn). When the unborn are viewed as parasites, or as useless clumps of cells, there is no stopping civilized society from viewing other, less developed, or weaker human beings from being viewed the same way.”
lay out the case against “choice” better than I have ever seen it before.
If you want a word more specific than "murder" it's "infanticide".
aborticide
noun abor·ti·cide \ ə-ˈbȯrt-ə-ˌsīd \
medical Definition of aborticide
1 : the act of destroying a fetus within the uterus
2 : an agent that destroys the fetus and causes abortion
You are thinking far, far, too deeply for the even the smartest leftist.
You should feel terrible for planting such a conundrum within the minds of leftists. LOL
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