The New York Times published a piece by a Notre Dame philosophy professor that calls on the pope to “liberalize” the church’s unequivocal opposition to abortion.
Before I parse his deeply flawed argument, let me just pause for a big WTF moment over a Notre Dame philosophy professor who doesn’t seem to have a clue that Catholic doctrines like “abortion is murder” are based on divine revelation, that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and therefore doctrine is not subject to “liberalizing.”
According to this man’s so-called reasoning, “an early-stage embryo may be biologically human but still lack the main features — consciousness, self-awareness, an interest in the future — that underlie most moral considerations. An organism may be human by purely biological criteria, but still merely potentially human in the full moral sense.”
Apparently, this “philosopher” is saying he believes it’s okay to kill little human beings as long as they’re less than eight weeks old. This would cover mini-dose birth control pills and IUDs (which allow conception, but prevent implantation), as well as the morning after pill (which also prevents implantation) and suction abortions up to 8 weeks gestation (when the embryo becomes a fetus). N.b., first trimester suction abortions are routinely done up to 12 weeks gestation (aka, 14 weeks pregnant).
I get the “consciousness” or “self-awareness” thing, but not how he manages to differentiate embryos from fetuses. Who the heck knows how “self-aware” an unborn baby is?! My gut tells me that the real reason he draws his line where he does is that he and his kind want to have sex without consequences, but are grossed out about killing anything that looks like a baby.
What this man sorely needs is to catch a clue. Catholic doctrine on abortion is not based on the biologically humanity of the unborn life, but on our belief that God gives an immortal soul to each and every human being at conception. Philosopher guy also needs to brush up on developmental psychology, logic and slippery slopes cuz boy howdy, if you take that whole “full moral sense” thing seriously, it opens up a big, ugly can of Nazi worms.
Did you know that it has long been the teaching of the Catholic Church that a human being is not capable of making ethical or moral decisions much before the age of seven years after birth? Think how convenient it would be if you could off any kid who didn’t meet a minimum set of requirements before age seven. I bet Obamacare would even pay for it, you know? Save the taxpayers a bundle on remedial education and whatnot.
Developmental psychologists go even further than the Catholic Church in identifying at least half a dozen increasingly sophisticated moral and ethical stages that humans progress through. They also know that many people get stuck at some point along the way and never achieve the highest level at all. Wow … talk about convenient! We could push that okay-to-kill thing up to include anyone who hasn’t made it to Stage 6, then Democrats could by-pass all that tedious harassing by the IRS and go straight to “aborting” Tea Partiers for failing to “take the views of others into account.”
Whatchawannabet the author of this so-called argument for the morality of early abortion considers himself a fully potentialized and deeply moral human and not … you know … an embryonic Nazi?
Sources:
- Catholic Catechism section about human body and soul @ http://www.catholiccrossreference.com/catechism/#!/search/362-368
- http://www.lifenews.com/2014/01/27/catholic-professor-calls-on-pope-francis-to-side-with-peter-singer-on-abortion/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo
- http://www.baby2see.com/development/week6.html
- http://www.pregnancy.org/article/overview-fetal-development
- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01209a.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development
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