Pro-life supporters voting in more restrictive abortion laws

The Irish Constitution did not ban abortion but merely asserted that the unborn baby has an equal right to life with the mother. The 2018 referendum took away that equal protection for a child. A baby until it is born gets no equal right to life to his or her mother.  The removal of this equal right to life in a landslide referendum is alarming even for most pro-abortionists for it suggests the woman can opt during a difficult birth to have the baby killed or born.  It is a total rejection of Catholic values. 

Roman Catholicism says that abortion is always wrong even if the intention is to save the mother's life. It says that from conception to birth a baby is there and is an innocent human life.  The Didache which preserves some of the apostles teaching stridently opposes abortion.  Jesus said that whoever is angry with his brother is no better than a murderer so imagine what he would say about abortion!  Those who follow him could be as intolerant and angry.

Some Catholic politicians support abortion laws on the grounds that the laws are more restrictive than the existing ones or the alternatives and thus supporting them saves some lives.

That logic is inconsistent with the view that abortion is never right and abortion wrongs are never tolerable.

To say we can vote for a cruel abortion law for it is the only way to save some lives and it is not as bad as the existing law or alternative seems to have its problems.

How do you know it is the only way? Even politicians don’t know the full truth about what is going on when it comes to laws being implemented and proposed.

What if sticking to your refusal to tolerate any abortion could have better results in the long run?

Would you vote for a law commanding that the babies of black people be aborted on the basis that it is less extreme and kills fewer than the existing law? In Nazi Germany, did many enable laws to be brought in believing they were a slight improvement on the existing laws and less cruel?

The other issue is that if abortion is murder then ANY law that allows it no matter how restrictive is not a law at all. It is an injustice not a law. You cannot say you vote for a more restrictive pro-abortion law for it is not a law.

Some Catholics are only pretending to be totally pro-life and may actually agree with the pro-abortion laws they vote in. They are lying that they see the laws as the best of a bad lot and not as in any way correct.

The Bible teaches at Exodus 21:22-25 that an unborn child is not considered to be as human as the mother. "And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no [further] injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any [further] injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." The Catholic Church obligates itself to follow the Bible. Thus its ban on abortion can be understood as the Church making a mistake about what its teaching is. Thus it is more Catholic to be pro-choice.

The Catholic Church needed to compete with other religions so it had to invent a human rights cause that made it stand out. Unlike every other religion, it started saying that a full right to life is given at conception even though Catholic tradition says an early foetus does not have the human soul. In principle, if innocent life in the womb is so precious it follows that it is better to implant frozen embryos by force in unwilling women so that they might live than to respect the right of those women over their own bodies.

The sacredness of life in Catholicism does not fit the Bible teaching that if God commands you to stone to death then you must do it. Even Jesus was careful to support that teaching. He was careful to say the Old Testament was infallible.

Just as nobody should be forced to give a kidney even if it is the only way to save somebody else from a terrible death, so no woman should be forced to carry on a pregnancy even if the unborn child is a person with human rights.  Those who talk about the right to life being supreme are hypocrites.  If we thought that we would never go to war for no matter how much a war is needed it is going to go out of control and  you will never know if it was the right thing to do.  And as for Christians who oppose abortion, they had no problem with their Jesus who was God and who told Moses to have women stoned to death for having sex meaning some of those women would have been pregnant.  I wish they would inform themselves about their religion before they set out to destroy the right to choose.

The idea that an early termination is really murder is silly and controversial so the best thing the law should do is keep out of it. It is a private matter and does not affect the public order.  The law is to keep its nose out when it is not a matter of public order.  Respecting the privacy does not make the state supportive or unsupportive of early terminations - it merely accepts that it is a matter for the woman.  Later abortions need to be carefully regulated when it is clear that a human life may be present.

The Canon Law of the Catholic Church prohibits on the grounds of scandal and bad example the giving of holy communion to public sinners. This will include politicians who go out of their way to liberalise abortion. A difference is made between a politician advocating abortion laws that limit abortion as much as possible under the circumstances and one who thinks abortion is murder but wants it allowed for the sake of allowing it. The law is routinely ignored and the politician gets this wonderful placebo at the altar. A Church that says it sees abortion as an intolerable evil and then behaves with such outrageous hypocrisy is a disgrace. It is like accusing women and the doctors who give them abortion treatment of murder but caring more about the backlash that happens if a pro-abortion politician is refused communion. The politician gets votes from being seen as a Catholic in good standing. And the voters feel assured by seeing them getting communion.  Also, if there were no major demand for abortion there would be no need to consider legalising it so the implication is, for the anti abortion person that the woman does not only kill her own unborn child but she creates a way for others to do it too.  She kills her own, makes her doctor a murderer and helps make others murderers too.  If Catholicism is a force for evil and abortion is wrong then is it any wonder the religion can be blamed for it?  If religion stirs the pot for war is it any wonder?

Ireland even before the abortion referendum 2018 permitted abortion if the mother to be was suicidal.  Allowing abortion if woman is suicidal suggests that if she finds abortion immoral but will do it anyway she will lie to get one. So abortion for this reason amounts in practice to abortion on demand.

Let us assume we are talking about an unborn person being in the womb.  The doctor who considers abortion immoral but who refers you to another doctor is getting another do to the "dirty" work. He is partly responsible for the end result: a dead baby. Partly responsible means he is fully responsible but is not the only fully responsible one. Be careful that you don’t see partly responsible as diminishing your role. It is about you being involved with other not about you having a percentage of responsibility.

A country with a law that sees abortion not as ending a life of some description but as healthcare cannot give an exemption to any doctor.  The doctor has no hope of being allowed to refer the woman to a doctor who will perform abortion.