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Yeah your right smile but when they are doing abortion they are really breaking one of the 10 conmandments. They could just chose adoption and let a family who can't have a baby and they can adopted the baby that your not ready for...I guess... wink

First of all, if people are telling you that you don't care about people getting STDs because you're pro-life, well, they're just being stupid. The two have nothing to do with each other.

Second, as a Catholic, the life of the child is definitely a big part of being pro-life, but so is the life of the mother.

Here's my two cents, and it's a bit long, so strap in.

First let's talk about the child. Catholic social teaching dictates that we must protect those who cannot protect themselves and give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. This includes bringing to light issues of concern among traditionally oppressed groups, and this includes standing up for the right for unborn children to live. They are human, and they are alive.
You'll recall that, in Jesus' time, children had no protection under the law and yet Christ demanded that we care for them. They were discriminated against because they had not reached a certain developmental stage. Today, fetuses are discriminated against for the same reason.

Yes, they are alive. Yes, they are human. And yes, they are growing into full adult humans. But their brains aren't fully developed, so they don't understand that you're killing them. Therefore, it's ok to do so. By the same logic, wouldn't it be ok to kill someone with a severe mental disorder?

Well, people will say, that's different. I mean, if you get the fetus in the first trimester, it can't even feel pain. Therefore it's ok to kill it. So, if there is no pain involved, it's ok to kill a human? Does that mean that murder should be acceptable, as long as it is painless?

You see, the arguments that people use to show why killing a fetus is wrong don't actually apply so well when you pin those characteristics on adult humans.

Now, let's look at the mother. Abortions are invasive surgeries that, like any surgery, have the potential for massive complications. I think we can all agree that making possibly harmful surgery unnecessary would be the best option for the mother. I think the biggest way to accomplish this is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. To do this, we must educate young people and adults on proper ways to prevent pregnancies, whether that means contraceptives (which, I know, the Church frowns upon, but in this case, I believe they are the lesser evil), natural family planning, abstinence, etc.

Of course, sometimes all of those fail, and you get pregnant anyway. If the pregnancy endangers the woman's life, the Church says that abortion is acceptable. If not, however, the woman has the option of going through one of two things: An operation with the potential for complications, or a birthing procedure with the potential for complications. So you're pretty much in the same boat either way, except for the 9 months of pregnancy that go along with the second one. Now, provided the woman receives proper pre-natal care, the pregnancy should not be terribly dangerous, and if it turns terribly dangerous, there is the option for the emergency abortion.
So, 9 months of being uncomfortable or ending the child's life? Which do we choose? Well, if an adult someone was making you uncomfortable for 9 months, would the jury give a verdict of "innocent" after you kill that person? My guess would be no.
The right to life outweighs the right to live comfortably.

Ok, so we've made it to the birth, and we have a brand new baby on our hands. Now what? Well, my sister worked at an emergency pregnancy center located next door to an abortion clinic. They got a lot of women in there who had appointments at the clinic and changed their minds last minute. Most of them were low-income women. They couldn't afford to take care of the baby, so they had opted for abortion. The first thing the emergency pregnancy center did was to find out if the woman really wanted the baby. If she did, they provided free pre-natal exams and counseling, and if you attended these appointments, you were given points to go towards getting cribs, car seats, and other important baby items. If you didn't get those points, these items were still marked at a low enough price that they were completely affordable. They also had a program where parents could get free clothing for their child and, when they grew out of those clothes, the parents would return them in exchange for a set in a larger size.

If the mother did not want the child, they were made aware of adoption options. Speaking of adoption, I hear a lot of people talk about how terrible the US adoption system is and how this justifies abortion. We don't want their childhoods to suck, so we should just kill them before it happens. Let me ask you a question. When the topic of abusive homes comes up, do people say, "Well, those children should just be killed."? No! Of course not! They talk about how they can get those children out of abusive situations.
Just because the adoption system here sucks doesn't give us license to start killing people. It just means that we need to work harder at improving it. The average wait time (as of 2 years ago) for parents to adoption a child in my sister's area was 6-7 years. Clearly, something needs to be fixed here. Getting abortions is not solving the problem of poor adoption agencies. It's just sweeping it under the rug so that we can ignore it and pretend we're actually helping the situation.

Now, there is a special case: Rape. Getting pregnant from being raped is different from getting pregnant because you skipped taking the pill or forgot to use a condom. Still, it doesn't justify getting an abortion.
When a woman is rapped, she becomes a victim. But the child is a victim too. Do we kill an innocent victim just to make another one feel better? Yes, we do. But only in cases of abortion. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
A lot of people think that rape is about the sex. It's not. It's about the control. When a man rapes a woman, he takes control of her. When that woman sacrifices an innocent child to keep from dealing with being raped, she give that man even more control over her.
Is it fair to make the woman carry a reminder of that rape for 9 months? No, but life isn't fair. I know women who have been raped, and they carry the pain of that experience with them for far longer than 9 months. Is that fair? No. It's not fair that they have to suffer for other people's actions, but that's life. There are causes and effects, actions and consequences. We can't choose what our consequences will be. We can't choose the effects of other people's actions. All we can do is try to turn those consequences and those effects into something good. And maybe that's too much to ask of some people. But is it too much to ask for people to prevent the spread of evil from the person who wronged them onto other people? I don't think it is.
Now, I'm not saying that the mother has to raise this child, nor am I saying that it will be easy for her to carry it to term. Dealing with rape is incredibly difficult, whether it results in a pregnancy or not. But we help these people in any way we can think of.
Of course, there are some things we don't do. We doing take a machine gun to the rapist's genitals (though we would often like to). We don't promote suicide as an option to take away the victim's pain. Undoubtedly, these would all help the victim in some way, but we don't do them because we know that these actions are wrong.
Why then, if we believe that abortion is wrong, is it suddenly ok to do in a case involving rape?



I'm not sure if you've heard of "feminists for life" of not, but their motto is: Women deserve better than abortion. When people accuse me of not caring about women when I say that I'm against abortion in all cases except where the woman's life is in danger, I just pull out that quote. Abortion sucks. Plain and simple. It's hard to argue anything else. Yes, women get in these terrible situations, but we should be trying to change those situations, not provide a painful quick fix.
We need to reform our adoption system. We need to work to improve the economic status of low-income individuals and provide the things that they need. We need to promote a respect for life. We need to educate teens and adults on what their bodies are doing and what the consequences of all sorts of actions are, instead of relying on them to figure it out on their own. We need to work to reduce teen pregnancies. We need to change the social stigmas that make being a single parent so hated. We need to educate people about how to protect themselves from rape. We need to do all these things so that women don't have to fear getting pregnant. Only then will they be truly free. This is what women deserve, and it's way better than having the option to get a painful, possibly life threatening surgery.


Hope this helped.

Mmmm, I'm gonna have to disagree here.
Life is defined in medical dictionaries as:
a: The quality that distinguishes a vital and functional plant or animal from a dead body b : a state of living characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

A fetus fits this definition completely.

The American Heritage Science Dictionary gives this exact same definition, but adds:
The definitive beginning and end of human life are complex concepts informed by medical, legal, sociological, and religious considerations.

Pro-choice people who claim that science says that life begins at x point after conception are mistaken. Rather, it is decided by social standards (aka the general feelings of society as a whole), legal considerations (what are the ramifications of the fetus being considered "alive" at different points?), and of course religion. People then draw upon medical facts to support all sorts of different positions that are influenced by the afore mentioned factors.

This isn't a science vs. religion issue. It's much more complex than that.

Whoops. Once again I accidentally edited a post instead of quoting it. >.<
Ok, now it's fixed.



If we follow the strictly medical definition, life begins when the cells start dividing, so pretty much immediately following fertilization or implantation (I'm think the cells start dividing right after fertilization, but I'm not sure about that. It might need implantation first so that it can receive the nutrients it needs to grow.)

The question is STILL when does life begin, as you said at first. All I'm saying is that science does not define life in a way that makes abortion not killing. Society defines life in a way that makes abortion not killing.
I don't deny that there is disagreement between people about when life begins. I'm just sick of hearing pro-choice people use science as a defense for their definition of life, or rather, the beginning of life. All it is is an attempt to validate their beliefs by attaching it to science, which is based on fact, instead of societal norms, which are based on personal experiences.

I've read what you all have to say, and this reminds me of my case in my argumentation case in college. Myself and my three teammates were given the topic of Abortion, and it had to be one of the most exhausting arguments I've ever had. Before I go any further, I will say this: I am so glad that argument never made it before the class.

I guess in this situation, I would say that I would be pro-choice. Only because I believe if the woman's life is in danger, it would be right to save the mother. Am I wrong about the situation? Who knows? Only God knows, and He probably won't interfere to tell us which way is correct.

This is one of those topics where, I fear, there will never be a true answer as to whether or not abortion is a good thing. It doesn't go to just abortion either, in my mind. It goes all the way back to the use over "artificial birth control" methods (i.e. condoms, birth control pills/shots, etc.), and their use.

i know a family that had to wait years to adopt because the waiting list is SO LONG.
there aren't enough kids up for adoption.

and i agree with you, it makes little to no sense to murder a child for it's father's sins.

It takes forever to adopt if you want a healthy white baby, because everyone wants a healthy white baby that they can take right home from the hospital within days of its birth.

There's a surplus of adoptable children. Plenty of them never get adopted. They're just generally older children, children with special needs, or children of racial minorities.