Was the Catholicism question out of line?

[Wisconsin+17]

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So you're willing to ban all abortions done after implantation?

[Silent Hunter]

An abortion question was appropriate, but it could have been framed a bit differently.

[angus]

two things.

One, there's a difference between the execution of guilty criminals and between killing the innocent.

your post makes the faulty assumption that those are orthogonal sets.   They are not.  Many guilty criminals have been proven later to be innocent of the crimes for which they were executed.

Anyways, it does not necessarily follow that just because abortion is wrong, that capital punishment is also wrong.

I never said it was.  In fact, I have never tried to lump together all people who argue that abortion is wrong.  Some of them make very intelligent arguments against it, in fact.  I said that if you really believe that the deciding factor determining the legality of human fetal abortion is whether you consider the developing fetus to be a human, and if by that criterion you decide that it should be forbidden, then you have ruled out killing humans, and must necessarily decide to stop supporting wars and executions and stop cheering when folks are acquitted of killing other people. 

I actually have no ethical qualms with abortion, and a politician's view on the subject, one way or the other, doesn't really sway my vote one way or the other because I don't consider it a highly important issue.  If we could solve all our other problems, then yes, I suppose a pro-choice politician would win my vote, ceteris paribus.  But things are never ceteris paribus in politics, so it hasn't come up yet.  As for capital punishment, I do admit to having qualms with it, but again I haven't yet allowed a candidate's position on that issue sway my vote either.  Mostly because if I only restricted myself to voting for anti-capital punishment politicians, then I wouldn't get to vote very often, would I?

I accept on some level that we kill each other from time to time, and we apparently allow ourselves legitimate excuses for this.  We cheer when people are killed.  Did you ever see the movie A Time to Kill.  Even I found myself cheering when Carl Lee Hayley was acquitted. 

[Wisconsin+17]

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If the innocent criminals ought to be spared execution, than so should the unborn children be spared from abortion.

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Yet no qualms with abortion. That's not very consistant is it?

[angus]

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If the innocent criminals ought to be spared execution, than so should the unborn children be spared from abortion.

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Yet no qualms with abortion. That's not very consistant is it?

I'm not sure, but you were the one who first suggested that one does not follow from the other.  

Ah, look, I recognize that both can be creepy, or demoralizing, but I don't want to get into a situation where we're making it more difficult for people to obtain legal, safe abortions.  Considering the alternatives--which might include illicit, unsafe procedures, or embryos developing inside of women who don't want and can't afford babies, or may be using meth or cigarettes during pregnancy--it's probably the best of some bad options.  Just like if you have a guy who has admitted to, and been found guilty, of murdering people, and would likely murder many more, and our only options are to spend taxpayer dollars supporting him for the next 40 years while he teaches younger convicts how to be worse thugs, or just erase him.  It's the best of the bad options.

[milhouse24]

I saw an article in Newsweek about one doctor's experience with the afterlife when he was in a coma. 

I've also had some random "floating-above-the-body dreamlike" experiences due to health problems. 

I don't know whether its the human brain creating "Dreams" to cope with death and oxygen deprivation.  Sort of like a natural morphine to take away the shock of death. 

But I think its possible to believe that the "Human Soul" can exist somewhere after death, instead of dissolving into the soil. 

I wonder if the "Belief in the Afterlife" can affect whether a person supports abortion.  If you think that Heaven exists, then the idea of killing a life no matter how small, may change someone's opinion on abortion. 

[angus]

I wonder if the "Belief in the Afterlife" can affect whether a person supports abortion.  

possibly.  I've never been pregnant, and will never become pregnant, but I have had similar musings along these lines.  For example, if a person doesn't want a baby to suffer, either because she hasn't the means to support it or doesn't think she is ready, then maybe she considers terminating the pregnancy.  A belief that the baby has a soul that transcends its mortal coil, it seems to me, might ease the burden of guilt.  The soul, being immortal, is unaffected by such transient, fleeting instances as might occur during curettage of the uterine lining.  If, on the other hand, the pregnant individual is unconvinced of immortality, then aborting the baby becomes more difficult.  In that case, abortion of the fetus may be viewed as a hard death sentence, and one that the pregnant individual has a hard time pronouncing.

Such philosophical discussions obviously don't make for good soundbites and and really do not belong to the world of policymaking anyway, so they don't make their way into candidates' debates, but it can be delicious food for thought for those predisposed to ponder such questions.  

[milhouse24]

I wonder if the "Belief in the Afterlife" can affect whether a person supports abortion.  

possibly.  I've never been pregnant, and will never become pregnant, but I have had similar musings along these lines.  For example, if a person doesn't want a baby to suffer, either because she hasn't the means to support it or doesn't think she is ready, then maybe she considers terminating the pregnancy.  A belief that the baby has a soul that transcends its mortal coil, it seems to me, might ease the burden of guilt.  The soul, being immortal, is unaffected by such transient, fleeting instances as might occur during curettage of the uterine lining.  If, on the other hand, the pregnant individual is unconvinced of immortality, then aborting the baby becomes more difficult.  In that case, abortion of the fetus may be viewed as a hard death sentence, and one that the pregnant individual has a hard time pronouncing.

Such philosophical discussions obviously don't make for good soundbites and and really do not belong to the world of policymaking anyway, so they don't make their way into candidates' debates, but it can be delicious food for thought for those predisposed to ponder such questions.  

I was also thinking that "if Heaven exists, and you are judged" then voluntarily killing a baby's soul would be seen as a bad thing.  Of course, some religions believe that you automatically enter Heaven no matter what things you do on earth.  But the feeling of guilt in killing a life unnecessarily may somehow affect your "afterlife experience." 

[Wisconsin+17]

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Why not smother the newborn instead?

[angus]

I was also thinking that "if Heaven exists, and you are judged" then voluntarily killing a baby's soul would be seen as a bad thing.  Of course, some religions believe that you automatically enter Heaven no matter what things you do on earth.  But the feeling of guilt in killing a life unnecessarily may somehow affect your "afterlife experience."  

I gathered from your post that you had reached a different conclusion than I did.  I actually thought about this at one time as well, but had reached the conclusion I posted.  I don't think it would be religion-dependent in that case.  Catholic priests, for example, console miscarriage patients who fret over the fact that the baby was never baptized.  One commonly overheard analogy is about a cup holding all the water that it can.  It seems that a spontaneously aborted fetus with a soul should not be judged any differently than a surgically aborted fetus with a soul.  In Mormonism, the soul sort of flies around for thousands of years, looking for a body to enter.  It was never clear to me whether this entrance occurred at the moment of conception, or birth, or somewhere in-between--Mitt Romney might know--but if the soul attaches itself to the body at fertilization, then is dislodged by D&C, which of the Seven Kingdoms of Heaven does it enter?  I guess we could ask Mitt Romney that as well.  My guess is that it must enter one of them, and if the parents are Mormons, then probably the highest one.  In Hindu, the soul is unaffected by externalities, so I can't imagine that an aborted fetus would have to go back to being a goat or a rhesus monkey in the next life just because it was aborted.  Now, if you're a resurrectionist, like the ancient Egyptians or the many American Protestants during the time of the Civil War, it could be an issue.  What possible use could the embryonic limbs be in the afterlife?  In this case, I guess you could argue that belief in the soul might inhibit abortion, unless, of course, it was known that the baby would have some serious birth defect.  In that case, the abortion might offer the soul a chance for a "do over."  

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Why not smother the newborn instead?

I believe that happens sometimes.  I don't know how it is where you live, but in Pennsylvania that is illegal.  (I actually looked it up.  2010 PA penal code, title 18, Chapter 32, section 3212 expressly forbids infanticide.)  There's at least one valid reason not to smother the newborn.

I don't often post in these abortion threads--and there have been many!  They can go on for days, and no one ever changes anyone else's mind, so they're best avoided, but this one was clever.  And it was Harry's.  And I like Harry.  Also, it was thoughtful, and it was an unusual take on the question.  I only disagree about Biden not handling it well.  Frankly, I don't much like Joe Biden and I certainly don't trust him, but all we have to go on is his answer to the question because we can't read his mind.  His answer to the question was a very mainstream view.  He can be described as Pro-Life (in the sense that he claims to accept the position of the Church that abortion is wrong) and Pro-Choice (in the sense that he does not want to use the law to enforce morality.  This seems to be the position held by a plurality of Americans, and he enunciated it well enough.  The question was framed in terms of Catholicism only because both candidates are nominally Catholic, but I think most religions would say the same thing.  Here, for example, is an excerpt from reformtaoism.org:

On the exclusive grounds that the destruction of life and the disruption of Nature is in direct conflict with the Tao, we would oppose abortion without hesitation; however, other factors are involved. Abortions are almost always sought by people who must take such action to preserve their own lives or way of life and perhaps the lives of people they love....  We advise that the choice to abort a pregnancy be avoided whenever possible and reasonable, but we support those who choose to have an abortion, providing that their reasons for doing so are generally sound.

one more thing:  I looked up gallup polls on this issue, and have found that I am not alone.  Apparently at least a third of the voters don't consider abortion a major issue in politics, and another 44% don't consider it a deal-breaker.  Only 17% of registered voters (and 18% of adults surveyed) say that a candidate must share his/her views in order to be under consideration.  That has always been my contention, but it was interesting to see polling data (gallup.com) that validated my assertion.