Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: IronMan04

Not quite. There's a lot of history behind this statement of belief.

It is very significant that the Governor's position is not "for the *health* of the mother. It is to save the life of the mother.

Don't you believe in self-defense?

Personally, I don't believe that any but the 3rd reason is justifiable. The only reason to kill a human is in defense of life. (Even that statement is a very simplified version of thousands of years of philosophy.).


17 posted on 01/15/2005 12:09:32 PM PST by hocndoc (Choice is the # 1 killer in the US)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]


To: hocndoc

Actually, a Catholic theological analysis of the life of the mother exception would be that the baby was unavoidably killed as a side-effect of saving the mother. That might be the case, for example, in an ectopic pregnancy.

Similarly, it would be illegitimate in traditional Catholic teaching for a married person to have an operation explicitly intended to render him or her sterile, in order to avoid having children while enjoying carefree sex; but it would be perfectly legitimate to have such an operation if necessary to remove a cancer, even though it had the further side effect of rendering the person sterile.

As another example, it would be wrong to remove your arm because you thought you looked better without it, but it would be legitimate to remove it because it was incurably infected with gangrene, so as to save your life.

Perhaps to some this sounds like hair-splitting, but I believe it's the right way to approach such questions.


29 posted on 01/15/2005 6:06:15 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson