'abortion Like Holocaust'

The way I form opinions on abortion (as well as a lot of other things) is to imagine how people would vote before they were born. Given you'd be as likely as the next person to be the aborted foetus I'd have thought abortion would've been seen in the same context as murder. In the case of rape or a severe handicap it wouldn't be so clear cut, since you might have to live the life of the raped girl or the severely handicapped person (I suppose though you'd have to view the latter from the perspective of a severely handicapped person).

Personally, if I was told beforehand I'd probably live for 80 or 90 years, watching many of my loved ones die and thereafter I'd be going back into oblivion, I'd tell 'them' (whoever 'they' are) to stuff it up their arse. Any finite number divided by infinity equals zero and if anybody could prove to me 100% that oblivion was where we were all headed I'd top myself and my loved ones right now. I've never been able to understand how oblivionists function. I used to have regular arguments with one of them. The guy would argue that once you were dead that was it, then he'd get up at 5 a.m. in the morning to drive a bus. I mean, if you went to the doctor tomorrow and he told you that you only had two years to live - you'd be depressed wouldn't you? This guy claims he's been told he's got 40 or 50 years to exist and he's away driving a fucking bus for 7 quid an hour. I can only think people like him have some chemical inside them that I don't (I like to call this chemical 'Galooton').

I haven't a clue what it's all about but I'm fairly certain I couldn't function without hope. If there's no God that doesn't preclude the possibility of an afterlife. Geneticists will soon discover the death gene and thereafter people will only die in accidents. Living such lengthy lives will accelerate discovery. In time they may discover time travel and find a way of returning to the instant of a loved one's death and a means by which they can capture the 'essence' of that person and download them into the future. They in turn will then download their loved ones, and so on, profilerating back to the beginning of time itself. All very far fetched I know but, eminent physicists are already coming round to the idea that our universe may just be a hard drive simulation dreamed up by a superior race (if that is the case I'd just like to take this opportunity to say "Give us a hard drive afterlife you heartless bastards. We truly experience and feel. At the cost of a bit of RAM you could give us such joy"). There again maybe we need to be deserving of an afterlife. Maybe if we blow ourselves up that's where it ends. Maybe we don't get to meet God until the end of the universe and only deserve to do so if we get ourselves there first.
 
Brian, you're leading the debate in a different direction, and to suggest that I am not responsible for my beliefs is extremely patronising.

The issues in question have been debated many times over the years by hugely learned people, and I, too, have spent much time on many occasions struggling with the 'line' my religion takes on many issues. This isn't one of them, and in any event I do not see this issue as a religious one.
 
Originally posted by Maurice@Mar 28 2005, 01:57 PM
Brian, you're leading the debate in a different direction....In any event I do not see this issue as a religious one.
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Presumably though, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, who was the inspiration for this thread, does?
 
I think An Capall's initial post summed it up nicely -

Or as The Sun might put it...

'Cardinal advocates Catholic Beliefs Shocker!'
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which was pretty much my initial thoughts on reading this thread. Hence, I would have to agree with Maurice - I do not believe this issue is a religious one. If a Muslim leader voiced his condemnation of eating pork he wouldn't be questioned, so why it is so terrible that a Catholic Cardinal condemns abortion?

The question of whether or not abortion is morally right is another one entirely - personally I applaud the fact that women do have a choice as to whether they carry a pregnancy to term or not. I also believe that it is disgusting that anti-abortionists picket outside abortion clinics and victimise women who are undoubtedly going through a great trauma already in terminating a pregnancy without needing some self righteous do-gooders giving them hell too.
 
Originally posted by Shadow Leader@Mar 28 2005, 04:54 PM
I also believe that it is disgusting that anti-abortionists picket outside abortion clinics and victimise women who are undoubtedly going through a great trauma already in terminating a pregnancy without needing some self righteous do-gooders giving them hell too.
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I agree with this entirely.

What does concern me is the lack of choice the unborn baby has.

Brian, you'll have to discuss the Cardinal's view with him. As I understand it, he likened the mass numbers of abortions to the Nazi extermination of what was perceived by the Reich as an inferior race. He didn't bring religion into the argument. It was the fact he happens to be a Cardinal that was jumped on, and the fact he is a Cardinal really should be irrelevant.
 
Of course it's not a religious issue - but Rome has always treated it as one, and now those lunatics in Washington and their fanatical supporters/masters are dangerously doing the same.
 
Looks like the church here doesn't agree with us that they should keep out of politics - after Cardinal O'Connor's sermon a Catholic archbishop has entered the row over abortions and embryo research, saying MPs should be made accountable for decisions which affect the "innocent and vulnerable" in society.

Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Birmingham, called on parishioners at St Chad's Cathedral in the city to keep the issue alive in the run-up to the General Election to end the "dreadful" situation of Britain's abortion laws.

The Most Reverend Nichols echoed the leader of Scotland's Roman Catholics, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, who used his Easter message on Sunday to urge members of the Church to challenge would-be MPs on "pro-life" issues.
 
I too am at a loss as to why the cardinal's views are such a shock. I'm with An Capall and Shadow Leader on this , if you object to his views get a new religion because the Catholic churches view on abortion are well publicised . Why make a song and dance about his views on here ? What you've reported as a revelation is not .
 
Well, I have no idea at jejquade's reason for starting the thread and of course we would all know his eminence's views. But what I object to is the mixing of religion with politics such as the cardinal's praising of Michael Howard. We've all seen what this has done elsewhere - and I'm referring particularly to the power of the religious right in the USA.
 
I agree with Solerina et al.

Whether you support their views on abortion or not, the Catholic church has always had a fairly consistent line on the matter, so where's the "shock"?

Brian, the American Bible Belt's religious views may often be a bit daffy, but they harm no one but themselves. and I don't feel they're in the same league of danger to others as some of the muslim stuff that's put about.
 
I have to state a viewpoint. I am unreservedly opposed to abortion in all circumstances. (I know whats coming, and hopefully my loved ones will never be raped etc. I will not however get in the way of others choices.)

I also disagree that it is not a religious issue. I think 'life' is about as religious as you can get. I am an imperfect Catholic - this is not an issue of dogma. Its just that my cells, sinews, fibres and soul (?) transmit a message to my brain that abortion is an absolute wrong.
 
The idea that governments and churches even presume the right to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her own body is, to me, an absolute wrong.
 
I don't really understand where you are coming from An.

I suspect that there isn't a god but I accept that it makes sense to believe in one as there isn't an awful lot else to believe in.

I doubt that there's much else by way of life anywhere at all in the universe, but if there is then it will have to involve shagging as how else to you create life if you don't shag? Once you get beyond shagging as a compulsory natural instinct, as it is for most other life on this planet, then inevitably you end up with issues such as abortion, birth control, rape and so on. That's the price of having the choice.

So if people didn't argue about the rights and wrongs of abortion and similar issues then we wouldn't be who we are. It's a fact that we shag and we have choices as to the outcome of that act. Those choices will be made whether we like it or not. If there are any other forms of life then they will face the same problems. Religion does make us more humane and when religion is questioned and ridiculed then we inevitably become less humane over such issues.

Obviously everything is guesswork but I suspect that this is probably as good as it gets.
 
The only person who is qualified to make that decision is the prospective mother . So why should an embryo take precedence over someone's rights ? I can't see why . It its interesting that those who complain are male.
 
I'm with you on that one, Sols - NO-ONE, bar the mother, has any right to make the decision on whether to carry a baby to term & anyone who attempts to force a woman into doing other than what she has decided in such a situation is bang out of order.
 
Originally posted by Shadow Leader@Mar 28 2005, 09:37 PM
I'm with you on that one, Sols - NO-ONE, bar the mother, has any right to make the decision on whether to carry a baby to term & anyone who attempts to force a woman into doing other than what she has decided in such a situation is bang out of order.

That's nothing to do with being a bloke, because I have no interest imposing my views on anyone. Nor is it a religious issue. It is just a gut feel that abortion is wrong.
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I agree with that and have no truck with fundamentalists picketing clinics etc. Notwithstanding that, like An Capall says above, a lot of us instinctively feel uncomfortable about the concept of abortion.

That's nothing to do with being a bloke, because like I say I have no interest in imposing my views on anyone. Nor is it a religious issue (for me). It is just a gut feel.
 
I agree with everything An Capall has said about this issue.When I lived in London I was shocked by the amount of convenience abortions I heard about.I knew a millionaires daughter who had four "terminations"-I find that very hard to justify.
 
So, AC and LUKE are confirmed in their view that it is right and correct that, say, a 13 y.o. victim of incest (which in itself is also rape) should be made to carry her father's, or grandfather's, or uncle's, or brother's baby to term? There are more terminations carried out for this reason than for females made pregnant by rape, which says something about family values. It's all well to judge what's right, provided it's at a certain remove: if you could imagine it happening in your own family, it'd be interesting to see whether that implacability was changed for compassion.
 
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