At last: Bishops criticize politicians who “claim to be Catholic”
September 9th, 2008 . by NedBishops criticize Biden’s abortion remarks for flawed reasoning. In response to Sen. Biden who,
said that he is “prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception” but would not impose that belief on anyone through law. He claimed that to do so would be “inappropriate in a pluralistic society.”
A number of Catholic Bishops in the U.S. released a statement of their own:
“Any human being — regardless of his faith, his religious practice or having no faith — any human being can reason to the fact that human life from conception unto natural death is sacred,” he argued. “Biology — not faith, not philosophy, not any kind of theology — Biology tells us, science [says], that at the moment of conception there exists a unique individual of the human species.”
UPDATE:
Nutroots call to battle stations!!!: McCain-Palin pulling ahead among Catholics.
Also at WisdomisVindicated.
Pelosi, too, got called on ‘pretending to be religious’.
Exactly, Ned. Democrats are the party of atheists, now. They have mounted increasingly hostile attacks on religion, and try to swing under the radar of Democrat voters who still have faith. I’ve persuaded dozens of people to re-examine their commitment to the Party of the Left, because of their increasingly vitriolic attacks on religion…and of course, the soullessness that accompanies their support of abortions.
And not just abortions for legitimate reasons (saving the life of the mother) but for abortions of convenience; those that are undertaken purely to maintain their increasingly degenerate and narcissistic sexual mores.
As Obama said, and Democrats espouse, why be ‘punished with a baby’ when the simple, easy way out is to kill it?
A woman is raped in America every 6 minutes. Ned Williams wants to force all women who are raped to bear the rapist’s child. Ned Williams wants to force all women who are raped by their father to have the child. These are the views Sara Palin and the presidential ticket and if you support it, you support these policies.
I’ll meet you half way, William (even though rape is a splendid tool of child rapists)–we can outlaw all abortions except in the cases of conception from rape or incest. Deal?
I’d tolerate abortions being illegal after the 24th week, the time at which fetal brain wave are generally detected - the true test of a developed human. We don’t like abortion and we want to see it decrease so we need to keep abortion safe and legal because we know that incidences of abortion decrease most where it is safe and legal and where sex education and contraceptives are available. We know that abstinence ed does not work (Bristol Palin) and that those kids who take virginity pledges are 4 to 6 times more likely to engage in anal and oral sex. I don’t think Ned wants that for his daughters, does he?
No deal?
I just agreed to outlaw abortions after the 24th week. Deal?
Oh, I thought I was the extremist because I wanted victims of rape and incest to be punished with not being able to kill the human life growing inside them? My bad, should have noticed the goal posts were on wheels.
Okay, now I’m guessing you’ve got some other “qualifications” on your “deal”? “(mental) Health of the mother” (as determined by, say, Planned Parenthood counselors)? “Severe deformity”?
A woman is raped in America every [4.77] minutes. [That's according to the latest DOJ statistics and my own math. That's 110.080 women in 2006. Does it matter what the number is? Would William defend the choice of only one women? If so, why keep reciting this statistic?]. [Some percentage of those become pregnant. William blurs the facts enough to suggest that all of them do. Obviously that not true. The numbers are for all women 12 and up. Not all of those women are of child bearing age. Also, not every event of intercourse results in pregnancy. What's that number William? I don't know. Do you?] Ned Williams [doesn't want children to be murdered because of the sin of the father]. Ned Williams wants [children conceived, as all of us are, sinless without their own choice, to be able to live their own lives and make their own choices]. These are the views Sara Palin and the presidential ticket and if you support it, you support these policies.
I’ve placed words in Ned Williams mouth. He can feel free to take them out.
Rock on, Michael.
William likes to make arguments personal . . . that makes it easier to intimidate or use bad (or personal) facts to “persuade” people to abandon principle.
But William, please elaborate on why brain activity prior to the loose 24-26 week line does not qualify as “brain waves.” That little Trig Palin’s brain could possibly be less developed than that of my smart canine companion, right?
William blurs the facts enough to suggest that all of them do.
Michael, do you have any evidence to support the above statement?
You are obviously a christian fetus fetishist that cares little about women and the damage of the ordeal of being raped, pregnant and giving birth to a rapists child.
PIG
Oh, and Michael…. thanks for siding with rapists and incest preganacies… the rapists will appreciate your view.
Ned I’d be happy to educate you…and your fetus fetish friend…
Much anti-abortion psuedo science has spouted fallacies like “At only 40 days after fertilization electrical waves as measured by the EEG can be recorded from the baby’s brain” as proof of life. Yes, it is proof of life but it is not a human being because it’s brain is not fully formed.
An EEG involves measuring varying electrical potentials across a dipole, or separated positive and negative charges. Any living cell has an electrical potential across its membrane, and any living structure is a dipole, which explains why people have been able to put electrodes on plants, hook them up to EEG machines, and get “evidence” that plants have feelings. But this has nothing to do with “brain waves,” which are a nontechnical term for a particular kind of varying potentials produced by certain brain structures that don’t even exist in an embryo and associated with consciousness and dreaming as well as the regulation of bodily functions.
To get scalp or surface potentials from the cortex requires three things: neurons, dendrites, and axons, with synapses between them. Since these requirements are not present in the human cortex before 20-24 weeks of gestation, it is not possible to record “brain waves” prior to 20-24 weeks. Period. End of story.
Indeed, the “individuating” function of a person’s brain doesn’t start to come into existence until the outer surface of the cortex begins to develop those deep furrows, grooves, and convolutions (sulci and gyri) that make a human brain look like a walnut, unlike the smooth brains of other animals. The furrows and grooves are what enable our brains to have millions more cells and connections between them than other animals, and so create our humanity. And the precise configuration of the grooves and convolutions are part of what determines our individuality; why, for instance, identical twins have different personalities, and even, perhaps, why Einstein was a genius. However, these structures don’t begin to form until the last 2 months of pregnancy.
98% of all abortions are performed before the 20th week, before the fetal brain is fully functional. If you want to restrict abortions in the last trimester, I have no problem with that
William blurs the facts enough to suggest that all of them do.
Michael, do you have any evidence to support the above statement?
In the comment to which I was responding, you said, “Ned Williams wants to force all women who are raped to bear the rapist’s child.” In order for “all women who are raped to bear the rapist’s child”, as you said Ned Williams wants them to do, a woman first has to become pregnant. Not all women who are raped become pregnant. That’s pretty straight forward.
Can you provide any evidence to support your suggestion that rapists want their victims to (a) become pregnant and (b) carry the child to term?
I care deeply about “women and the damage of the ordeal of being raped, pregnant and giving birth to a rapists child.” Because I believe that life begins at conception, I also care about the innocent life. Abortion won’t take away the fact that the woman was raped. Abortion won’t take away that the fact that the raped woman was impregnated. Carrying the child to term could only be difficult and painful, both emotionally and physically. One person’s emotional and physical pain does not justify another’s murder.
And I want to thank William for proving that humans can conceive (but not produce) non-human entities.
Aha, the brain argument has resurfaced. Let me eviscerate this line of reasoning again:
A doctor is presented with a patient, 42 years old, victim of a car wreck. There is no brain wave activity. The doctor knows that the brain cannot be recovered, so declares the person “brain dead”. This is what William suggests the state of the fetus is before 24 weeks.
But take that same doctor. He is given a 42 year old victim of a common virus that causes “brain-death”. However, the virus is not fatal and the victim of the virus always makes a full recovery in 24 weeks. Would the doctor ever “pull the plug” on such a patient?
That’s is a woman’s choice, here in America and in nearly all of the industrialized world. A minority of religious zealots - fetus fetishists - what to force control on women, based on a religious ideology, onto the majority against their will. It is a despicable and divisive pursuit. I wish we could put this issue to a national referendum and be done with it.
Great debate going on here. Michael, good to see your doing well.
Would the doctor ever “pull the plug” on such a patient?
Bogus comparison… the 42 yr old has a history as a person.
“If truth was a matter of opinion, the majority would always be right.”
We will never be done with this issue.
Michael, You, a gay man, I am astounded you would buy into the republican platform with their religious -based conservative bigotry and discrimination against gays. You really need to think about what you’re apparently supporting.
William, you left out much in your little ‘brain lecture’ above.
Human brains develop chronologically into three distinct working regions…the first and most basic to arrive, the ”reptilian’ brain (controls the very basic functionality of motor skills and links directly to the outside world); followed by the limbic brain (relationships, dreaming, and guitar picking) and the neocortex (advanced thinking and rationality, and the ability to control one’s own behaviors).
The neocortex is still evolving. The frontal lobe comprises the most advanced neocortex tissues: the ability to show compassion, self-denial, Christian love; the ability for feeling benevolence for other people, and the ability to eschew narcissism.
I do believe that leftists and liberals spend much more of their time in the ‘lower brain’ areas; having little compassion or reverence for concepts that involve making a difficult choice involving, say, turning away from basic pleasures, that being understanding that the easiest form of birth control is zipping their pants.
And, as William has aptly demonstrated in this thread, he’s obviously working much in and occupying mostly the reptilian brain…unemotional, cold towards others, unfeeling towards eventual human life and existing human life (unless of course that human life votes only (D)emocrat).
Again, see to your meds, William.
Thanks, Glen.
William: You are right. I’m a gay man. And, I most closely identify with the Republican party. I am a dues paying member of the Log Cabin Republicans. How, exactly, that is relevant to a discussion on abortion, I’m not certain. My own blog would seem a more appropriate place for that comment. Whatever.
I refuse to accept the gay orthodoxy that instructs me to unthinkingly support the Democrats. At best, they talk a good game, but ultimately only take gay people for granted and take their money. The Democrats are the party that brought us Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. Since there is much to the world outside of me, I have to look at the full range of issues and decide which party and which candidates most closely match my beliefs and priorities. No two people, let alone all members of a group with millions of members, will agree all of the time. At this point in time, I’m casting my lot with the Republicans.
Did I mention that William likes to make arguments personal? Keep typing, William.
Great argument Cpt and Serr8d. Michael, that is a great adage–it shoots down a lot of fallacious arguments.
The goalpost has wheels, and the question gets dodged.
The question again, William, is would a doctor kill someone they knew would recover?
Suppose Lady X is in a temporary coma, and her husband wants to be single again, and asks the doctor to give her an OD of morphine. Is that ethical? Should the doctor comply? In this case, think about the intent of the person requesting for the termination.
History is a “no brainer”, by the by, as the fetus has a history as well. Just ask Joe Biden (who thinks life begins at conception, but supports the termination of that life– quite a monstrous stance for someone who wants to be VP, don’t you think?)
The question again, William, is would a doctor kill someone they knew would recover?
Bogus argument. “Someone” was a person, an undeveloped fetus never was. Period.
I got a deal for ya: Let’s make all abortion illegal, since it’s “murder,” and there being no statute of limitations on murder, prosecute every woman and doctor ever involved in having or performing an abortion for murder.
Simple, and non-hypocritical.
.
Constitutionally (Article 1, Section 9) you cannot do that, regardless of what you make illegal. Taking smoking, for example. It was banned in many state buildings. You can’t go back and fine someone for smoking in a building while it was legal at the time. It’s called Ex Post Facto legislation, and it’s a no-no.
But what you can do is interpret a Living Constitution to mean whatever you want it to mean and invent a Right that’s not given in the Constitution, bypassing the legislative and executive branches altogether.
That’s not what Joe Biden says. How does it feel to support someone who thinks a fetus is a person, William? How does it feel to have that person on the ticket? And how does it feel to have two religious zealots on the Democratic ticket, one who requested over $700 million in earmarks for his crony friends, all the while suggesting he’s an instrument of change!
/William nuttery post-type