www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall CATHOLIC VOTING MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

I do not see the phrase as manipulative, nor am I using euphemism within the context of a Constitutional decision made by the Supreme Court. Less euphemistically, abortion is the destruction of a human life, a developing child. I consider that murder and a heinous crime, as you obviously do. As the law stands now, there is no consensus on what we consider to be mortally sinful and a crime. The law remains neutral and so, under law, puts the burden on the woman and her physician to decide if this is the right course of action to be taken, whether we or others think it is criminal. This is the case in Catholic Italy and Ireland, Orthodox Greece and Russia, and about 98% of countries around the world.

... a Catholic Sharia will never work in our multi-layered society. Even if SCOTUS overturns Roe v Wade, there are multiple States that have strong "pro-choice" laws, and an overturn would not affect or effect these. Carry the Gospel in your heart, and live it.

Your characterization of "Catholic Sharia" is unwarranted even as hyperbole. The state laws regulating abortion before Roe v Wade certainly were not "Catholic Sharia ."

Not quite, it's easy to claim superior logic but proving it is another thing. I've stated the same among Catholics who support the candidate mired in moral dilemma in his personal, professional and "leadership" adventures, but they choose to ignore that in their logic.
Explain.

The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself,[4] because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed. At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty.[5]
Our efforts to protect the unborn remain as important as ever, for just as the Supreme Court may allow greater latitude for state laws restricting abortion, state legislators have passed statutes not only keeping abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy but opening the door to infanticide. Additionally, abortion contaminates many other important issues by being inserted into legislation regarding immigration, care for the poor, and health care reform.

Let's compare where the presidential candidates stand on the issue.

[Candidate mired in moral dilemma]: We are making it harder to get an abortion now, want to overturn federal protections and would support a near-total ban...has expressed support for banning abortion overall, except for cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life... barred federal family planning dollars from going to organisations that provide abortions or refer patients to abortion clinics. As a result, national reproductive healthcare provider Planned Parenthood lost millions in federal funds ... reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, which prevents any US government global health funds from going to foreign groups that also provide or inform about abortions.

[Candidate who is a practicing Catholic]: We will protect a woman's right to choose and fight to keep access to abortion legal... wants to pass a federal law that protects a woman's right to have an abortion ... has pledged to rescind that so-called "global gag rule" in his agenda for women... has also expressed support for repealing the Hyde Amendment, which blocks taxpayer money from being used for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother.

These state laws were formed out of a consensus that was largely born out of a mainstream Protestant morality which prevailed back then. As soon as that mainstream Protestant morality was liberalized that consensus changed; Catholics be damned. The same might be said for many of the other liberalizing trends in modern society. I only need to look at the long history of the town in which I live to be certain of this. I did not characterize a Catholic Sharia; only inferred that it seemed like the kind legislation "jrf" was looking for. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and other "founding fathers" were enlightened Deists - it is a myth that the Constitution was a religious document, or was rooted in the Ten Commandments. From euphemism to hyperbole; what next?

How does a Catholic know if a candidate can earn
their vote? Catholics must apply moral principles
to real issues that are non-negotiable and cast
their vote accordingly. Inside, you can find the
non-negotiable issues and principles by which
Catholics must vote.

Thus, if a candidate supports abortion but is
against racism and promotes the protection of the environment, a Catholic cannot vote for this
candidate because the candidate supports the more grave evil against human life (abortion>racism or
hurting the environment).

I have never supported the Catholic bishops' assertion that Roe v Wade somehow promotes the intrinsically moral evil of abortion, and I have never read or heard of a cohesive argument that it does. Does the absence of a law criminalizing adultery make all who support the state adulterers?... simply gives you the choice...

As you say and have said, abortion is an intrinsic "moral evil." Did Roe v Wade promote this evil? Yes. How many abortions were taking place before versus after Roe v Wade? Does the absence of a law criminalizing adultery make all who support the state adulterers? No. Committing an act is not the same as supporting an act. There's an adage, the law is a good teacher; I'd say more precisely that the law is an effective teacher. It is also held that silence gives consent. With less if any legal constraints for adultery, has adultery become more prevalent? Is it more accepted. Have abortions become more prevalent since Roe v Wade? More accepted?

With neutrality as the objective and choice as the means let SCOTUS strike down laws against, for instance, theft. Then in that scenario does "the absence of a law criminalizing" theft "make all who support the state" thieves? With no law, it's just a choice, to thieve or not to thieve. To allow as choice "the intrinsically moral evil of abortion" or not to allow "the intrinsically moral evil of abortion." To have an abortion or not to have an abortion. To have as a choice "the intrinsically moral evil of abortion" or not to have as a choice "the intrinsically moral evil of abortion." Having no or limited laws prohibiting "the intrinsically moral evil of abortion," that takes a life, should argue for having no or limited laws prohibiting theft, that merely takes property.

Roe v Wade is a product of this permissive consensus that pervades America and much of the industrialized world today, and it is this same permissiveness that enables and promotes abortion, not the SCOTUS decision.

That same permissiveness has increased pre-marital sex, cohabitation, divorce, adultery, euthanasia and a host of other practices that offend the Catholic conscience, but no law is going to change that.

The Second Amendment allows one to have a gun, but it does not prevent or enable/promote murder.

I don't quite see how any appointment will rerule to overturn on the gist of Roe v Wade, considering it was a 7-2 decision claiming the right to privacy. Abortion was derived from privacy so unless womens healthcare when pregnant is going to be determined to be public information, how would this be legally presented? Technically it doesn't have to flow at all just saying what's the logical way to explain how?

At the heart of the controversy in these cases are those recurring pregnancies that pose no danger whatsoever to the life or health of the mother but are, nevertheless, unwanted for any one or more of a variety of reasons - convenience, family planning, economics, dislike of children, the embarrassment of illegitimacy, etc. The common claim before us is that for any one of such reasons, or for no reason at all, and without asserting or claiming any threat to life or health, any woman is entitled to an abortion at her request if she is able to find a medical advisor willing to undertake the procedure.
The Court for the most part sustains this position: During the period prior to the time the fetus becomes viable, the Constitution of the United States values the convenience, whim, or caprice of the putative mother more than the life or potential life of the fetus; the Constitution, therefore, guarantees the right to an abortion as against any state law or policy seeking to protect the fetus from an abortion not prompted by more compelling reasons of the mother.
With all due respect, I dissent. I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers [410 U.S. 179, 222] and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but in my view its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

... 'governinent by judiciary." In 1967, ... Adolf A. Berle opened a series of lectures at Columbia University with the startling statement that "ultimate legislative power in the United States has come to rest in the Supreme Court."
... It remains to be seen whether Berle's pronouncement in 1967 was mere hyperbole or sound prophecy—whether the United States has or has not begun to replace representative government with the Platonic elitism of a "guardian democracy." But the conduct of the Court in recent years suggests that we have yet to comprehend the full meaning of Marbury v. Madison and of the Dred Scott decision as well. We have yet to glimpse the ultimate potential of judicial sovereignty, a theory of power set forth by John Marshall in 1803...