Editorial: Abortion and the Common Good

Catholic Online ^ | 9/07/08 | Deacon Keith Fournier

[tcg]

Among the several organizations using the term “common good” within the ranks of Catholic activism these days there are some who attempt to argue that when people like me emphasize that every procured abortion is intrinsically evil and can never further the Common Good, we are engaging in “a single issue” politics. They argue that this insistence fails to take into account other important elements of Catholic Social thought. I disagree and insist instead that it is the firm foundation for all that other Catholic Social thought. Some of these folks write me in response to my articles. I tell them that my whole life/pro-life position it is not simply about being opposed to abortion. Rather it is about where any authentic understanding of Catholic social teaching should begin, unfold and end - the inviolable dignity of every single human person at every age, every stage, and of every size. When there is no life, there are no other rights. Human rights do not exist in a vacuum; they are goods of the human person. I likewise insist that to be “Pro-Life” is NOT to be a Partisan. Rather, it is to be truly human. Without acknowledging the preeminent right to life, all derivative rights and the entire infrastructure of human rights is placed in jeopardy. The further legitimate questions and positions of political parties become moot. Without the freedom to be born, all of the talk about compassion for the poor and the promotion of freedom throughout the entirety of life, and how we attain it, is hollow and empty. Failing to recognize our neighbors in the womb as having a right to be born and then to live a full life in our community is a foundational failure of our obligation in solidarity to one another.

[tcg]

"Laws that place unborn children outside the protection of law destroy both the children killed and the common good, which is the controlling principle of Catholic social teaching." Francis Cardinal George

[Tax-chick]

A just economic model based on the market must place that market at the service of the person, the family and the common good and expand participation. This position has evoked some of the most rancorous responses.

That's because it's pie in the sky, dear. But aside from the foray into economic goofballery, this is a very good article. Without the right to life, there are no rights, only privileges granted to the weaker by the stronger, for as long as it suits them.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Without acknowledging the preeminent right to life, all derivative rights and the entire infrastructure of human rights is placed in jeopardy.

Truly good governance begins with the smallest governance, the family and must follow a principle of subsidiarity. We were made for one another and we find our human fulfillment only in giving ourselves to the other. And another principle, a principle of social charity called solidarity, insists that we are “our brothers (and sisters) keeper, Family is the staring point, not the individual.

Without life, you have no society to advance your social gospel toward. So if you advocate Abortion-Rights, move to Mars and no one there will disagree with you./sarc?