Shorter Catholic Church: The Right to Life Ends at Birth

She is purposefully mischaracterizing Catholic teachings. The “seamless garment” argument as I was taught, used properly from a ‘prolife’ perspective, would dictate that if a Catholic is opposed to abortion they must also be just as opposed to the death penalty, war, genocide etc etc. I was taught this argument from the anti-death penalty perspective, but the argument is purposely designed to go both ways (I won’t get into details about this or about the flawed premise that a fetus is a human life either from a scientific or Biblical standpoint). It’s probably what she tells herself so she can sleep at night. No, as a Catholic, I must say that the focus of the Church on abortion and not the death penalty (and war) is nothing but hypocritical, and specifically hypocritical to this particular teaching.

I agree with Leah, the “seamless garment” argument isn’t supposed to mean that the right to life ends at birth, it’s meant to call to task Catholics who pick and choose their “pro-life” issues. So, for example, if an anti-abortion clinic protester is also cheering on the Iraq invasion and opposing extending healthcare for children, that person is not “pro-life” in terms of the consistent life ethic. This is also where the phrase “conception to natural death” comes from: according to the seamless garment ethic, all life should be valued and protected at all stages. The way this works in practice however, is another thing: this is where a lot of conservative Catholics get tripped up and focus all their attention on saving the little ones in the womb at all costs, giving little or no attention to what happens to them after they’re born. If they were truly the good, obedient Catholics they claimed to be, they’d be looking at issues of fair wages, access to health care, providing basic food and shelter to all, and ending wars that cause decidedly “unnatural” death. But i digress.

btw, I want to make it VERY clear that I am NOT endorsing the Catholic stance on abortion and When Life Begins. I just think it’s very important to be clear about the terms they and we are using so that we can have better informed discussion on issues like this.

@Victoria

What you said, absolutely. I’m on the more liberal side of Catholicism, though, and that’s evident when I say that I can’t see myself having an abortion, but that is my CHOICE, and everyone else should get a fair shot at making their own choice based on THEIR situation.

My opinion is that (a) it’s not my business, and (b) it’s freedom-hating to get in the way of free choice (which I believe to be God-given). And I love the freedom, so THERE! :D

Wha?

Original sin is part of Catholic doctrine, which logically means even a foetus is fit only for death and damnation.

I’d like to point out that you’re asking for internal consistency for an organization which supported the violent conversion of indigenous peoples to a religion of love…

The focus on the innocent fetus is an extension of the Catholic church’s strange, almost fetishistic focus on the physical act of intercourse. In the same way that condoms interfere with “god’s will” by physically interfering between the man and the woman, abortion interferes with the phsycial act of intercourse & its consequences. When you read what the popes and theologians write on this, you start to see that they seem to believe that the phsyical act of intercourse actually creates or is the love between a married couple, instead of being just one aspect or expression of it. It is almost like transubstantiation wehre the bread BECOMES the body of christ — phsycially and actually, not symbolically. Thus, the fetus is not just the fetus — it IS “god’s will” embodied because it arises out of the “marital act” which god created to give life. Once the fetus leaves the womb its nature it totally transformed into a regular person because it does not have that physical connection to its parent’s act of sexual intercourse anymore.

I know that all sounds really strange, but if you read the Humanae Vitae and other encyclicals you’ll see what I mean.

I’d like to point out that Sunless Nick hasn’t the slightest clue of what he speaks.

And I’d like to point out that I was raised Catholic.

What do you expect from a church that believes it’s a sin to be born?

“ When you read what the popes and theologians write on this . . .I know that all sounds really strange, but if you read the Humanae Vitae and other encyclicals you’ll see what I mean.”

It’s even weirder than that – with JPII, for example, marital intimacy seems to become ‘really’ a sign of god’s (trinitarian) mystery:

“What does it mean? As physical, bodily creatures we cannot see God. He’s pure Spirit. But God wanted to make His mystery visible to us, so He stamped it into our bodies by creating us as male and female in His own image (cf. Gen. 1:27).

The body has a “nuptial meaning” because it reveals man and woman’s call to become a gift for one another, a gift fully realized in their “one flesh” union. The body also has a “generative meaning,” which (God willing) brings a “third” into the world through the couple’s communion. In this way, marriage constitutes a “primordial sacrament” understood as a sign that truly communicates the mystery of God’s Trinitarian life and love to husband and wife, and through them to their children, and through the family to the whole world.”

It’s a weird kind of medieval thinking.

And yes, it’s deeply, deeply cliched, but it has to be said: this is what happens when the folks pontificating on this matter are celibates within a whole intellectual culture of celibates, with no personal, first-hand experience of normal, mature, romantic love and sexual intimacy (let alone parenthood). (Among other factors).

The idea that your moral status changes when you are able to actually perform morality is not anything new or shocking. The whole idea that people deserve to die from the death penalty is based off of the fact that people made bad choices knowing full well what their duties were to others.

I do not agree with the church’s view at all, but to say its hypocritical or inconsistent is not correct. Now, if you measure up their capital punishment beliefs against their ideas on physician assisted suicide.. thats pretty damn inconsistent.

So how can fetuses be innocent and then born a sinner?

Birth canal = sin. Duh.

If you look at the RCC in terms of its social organization it is an institution that is controled by a heirachy of men and that explicitely denies women any real power in the church by limiting them to the very buttom rungs of the heirachy. Women having the right to terminate a pregnancy or not is the power for them to chose what happens to their bodies and determine their own future, but women realizing they have a right to decide what happens in their uterus and by extenseion thier own future it does not bode well for an organization where women have no say in the rules or decisions made that affect them. If women were to gain power in the RCC it would be a loss of power for the current heirachy and the RRC has no incentive to stop discriminating since millions of people do what they say and listen despite the discrimination. By contrast people being put to death is not a threat to those in power in the RCC since those being put to death are not likely to challenge the patriachy of the church (since at least in the U.S. it is almost exclusively men executed) or cause any loss of power for those in conrol of the RRC since they are usually poor and have relatively little power in society in general and would just sit in jail cell for life even if they weren’t executed. So it is easy to see why the Catholic church opposes abortion more than the death penalty.

Yes to what Nicole said. Ultimately it is about power and control, which is why the Catholic Church is so big on rigid hierarchy.

Limbo is traditionally regarded as a place of “maximum happiness.”

JPII said limbo doesn’t exist anymore. So what happened to the souls of all those babies that for decades (centuries?) Church authorities have been telling grieving parents were in limbo? Plus, maximum happiness can only be achieved in heaven, or why would anyone want to go there instead of limbo?

Or Nicole,it might be they felt babies were totally without defense,hadn’t done anything to warrant being killed and it was sinful to do nothing in such circumstances.But,Ocam’s scalpel,right?

So, Corwin, if I walk up to Our Former War Criminal President and shoot him, do I deserve a lesser punishment than if I walk up to a baby and shoot it? If innocence is what matters, rather than the fact that murder is a violation of someone’s rights, it would logically be less of a crime to assassinate the ex-president.

Featherstone, QC:

The Catholic church has maintained that the state can allow the death penalty But Catholic teaching has not – in fact, it pleads for less violent forms of punishment for criminals. I quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“If…non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person”.

Also, the death penalty is only permitted if, “the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor,” which is “practically non-existent” in today’s world.

Oh,William.(sigh)
You’ve convinced me you know the names of people who were very bright.
Rebecca,I’ll do this slowly.If you have trouble read it again.
1)You were not given the authority to charge or convict a person.There is a legal system.
2)Such being the case,you would be charged for murder for killing an individual regardless of whether you have decided they are guilty.Heinlein is very good on the personalities of individuals who feel they have possession of”supra morality” His story ‘Coventry’ is based on society that exiled persons who believed they had this unmeasurable quality behind a kind of force fieldThe society of persons like this was inherently unstable.It’s a good read.(part of his future history series)

Corwin, your explanation for why the RCC opposes abortion more than the death penalty was that babies are innocent and criminals are not innocent. Since you seem to be utterly incapable of grasping irony, I’ll rephrase: would I deserve a lesser punishment for shooting a convicted criminal? After all, according to the RCC, the premeditated killing of a criminal is OK and the premeditated killing of a fetus is not.
(You might read Crime and Punishment, too.)

This whole debate is a [somewhat laughable] attempt to find fault where none exists. The unstated hypothesis here is that there is a hypocrisy or prejudice in the RCC focusing on abortion over the death penalty – as if they cannot REALLY oppose both unless they give equal attention to each. How absurd – of course they can prioritize. Why wouldn’t they focus their efforts on what they deem to be most pressing issue or the one where change is most needed?

For a pro-choice person, abortion and the death penalty are not similar actions because abortion is not seen as killing a person. On the other side of the debate, the actions aren’t seen as similar either because the death penalty isn’t seen as murder. [the issue of innocence] For EITHER side to try and draw a parallel between the two actions as the basis for criticism makes very little sense.

BTW – I LOVE it when grammar/spelling nazis make mistakes themselves in the very post with which they correct others. fun game => find the mistake in Jill’s post! [#36]

BTW – I LOVE it when grammar/spelling nazis make mistakes themselves in the very post with which they correct others.

And in an additional irony, there’s a mistake in that sentence too, since Nazi is a proper noun.

But the uppermost thought in my head? I really hate it (because I’m not going sarcastically say “love” for this one) when people casually throw the word Nazi around; that word means something, it means something horrific, and to be blunt, I find using it on people being picky about spelling/grammar to be on a level with treating Holocaust denial as a historical theory. Ok done with the rant.

From http://www.dictionary.com, definition #3:

Nazi:
[Sometimes Offensive]. (often lowercase) a person who is fanatically dedicated to or seeks to control a specified activity, practice, etc.: a jazz nazi who disdains other forms of music; tobacco nazis trying to ban smoking.

The term ‘grammar nazi’ may be slang, but it has a wholly distinct and separate usage from the proper noun ‘Nazi.’ To identify the one with the other would be a mistake. If you want to take offense, I can never stop that, but the intent you ascribe to what I said is in error because I was deliberately not using nazi as a proper noun.

“I agree that if you’re pro-choice it only makes sense to also be pro-death penalty , just as if you’re pro-life, it only makes sense to be anti-death penalty.”

…how did you arrive at that conclusion?

Nick, fair enough.
Rebecca, I actually don’t know. I don’t know what it takes to get someone excommunicated although I’m sure the process is unnecessarily convoluted. However, I’d like to reiterate that failure to provide equal actions in opposition to both institutions does not logically mean that both cannot be opposed without hypocrisy. One might surmise that both are not opposed equally, which is indeed the case.
However, the issue of innocence in Catholic doctrine is a somewhat nebulous concept. There is a distinction between original sin, which everyone is said to be “born with,” and personal sin, which result from conscious, willful actions. The unborn fetus has yet to commit any personal sin, which is the basis for the desire to protect its “innocence,” but they are actually still thought to have original sin. [Which is why the whole "limbo" thing was popular for a while.] The fact that we refer to everyone as being “born with” original sin is not meant to imply that it is received as we exit the womb; it is the Catholic accounting of flawed human nature. In so much as Catholics view a fetus as a person, they also view it as subject to human nature, and thus, as having original sin.

-Rodia [ ;-) ]

BTW – fun game #1 has now ended since the error was corrected, but for those of you playing, she had left out the ‘c’ in ‘punctuate.’

I’d like to reiterate that failure to provide equal actions in opposition to both institutions does not logically mean that both cannot be opposed without hypocrisy. One might surmise that both are not opposed equally, which is indeed the case.

Normally I would agree, but the Catholic Church is an exception. The RCC has a group of luxuries that few other bodies (governments included) don’t: near absolute internal power and cost-neutral policy. Most organizations have to focus their efforts because resources are scarce. If you’re trying to lobby for a global ban on pornography you only have so much money to contribute to the campaigns of legislators, pay bribes, or run ad campaigns to convinces various populations that your policies are worth pursuing. There exists only so many man hours and so much money and they need to be applied in a way likely to pressure or persuade an external system. As a result you might focus your efforts today on child pornography with the hope of broadening your efforts at a later date. That isn’t hypocrisy but pragmatism and priorities.

The RCC doesn’t have quite that problem excommunicating people. Excommunication doesn’t have an intrinsic cost. Even a fairly complicated procedure will be accomplished by people who, for all intents and purposes, are a free pool of labor. If the raw costs of their man-hours become too high the church always has the option of changing the procedure or carving out a special exception. More importantly, no one has to be convinced or lobbied for this to happen because the RCC is organized as a hierarchy with an infallible head.

I would guess that the reason the church generally avoids using excommunication as a weapon is because of fear. As a threat, it holds great weight, but familiarity breeds contempt (a lesson the church learned during the reformation). Right now the church is hemorrhaging members. In the US and Europe people are showing up less and less, if at all and the most reliable members are dying. In South America fundamentalist churches are pulling members and liberation theology always seems a hair’s breadth away from setting off a schism. In Asia the competition is fierce. Theres no money to be made from tithes in Africa. Abortion is an easy mark, but even then the church is selective in it’s enforcement. The church can’t afford to alienate it’s remaining members. So it excommunicates a few politically weak people in countries likely to be sympathetic to the church’s position. The threat remains, but its just posturing. Moving to the death penalty would mean being serious, it would mean excommunicating politicians in the US. Such an action would be unthinkable. The mother of a 9 year old rape victim in Brazil has no voice and the only people likely to give a shit about the situation are people who the church couldn’t give a shit about anyway. Excommunicating a US Senator for being in favor of the death penalty though, now that person has a voice, that person can get in front of television screens, that will get news coverage, that will piss of Limbaugh and Hannity and the rest of the cro-mag volume brigade. More importantly, the news coverage will eventually see the Senator in question find a new church, move on with his life, and excommunication goes from being a threat to being a minor inconvenience.

Its hypocrisy because it’s based in fear, a selective application of policy and theory designed to maximize personal gains and power while minimizing embarrassment.

But the key point to that end is that they do not value both equally. The opposition to the death penalty is a matter of judgment within the Chuch, whereas the opposition to abortion is a matter of doctrine. The official policy of the RCC supports the right of governments to “wield the power of the sword,” if it’s necessary.

Which, to my mind, is core of the hypocrisy. The Church is, in essence, saying that some lives are more valuable than others because the ending of certain lives demands all of it’s resources while the ending of others demands only mild disapproval. That this stance is codified in doctrine doesn’t, to my mind, mitigate the fundamental dissonance. Think about what the “power of the sword” means. It means that individuals in a certain official position of authority may engaged in cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder against defenseless others. This right is enshrined in church doctrine, while the abortion of a pre-conscious fetus is grounds for automatic excommunication. What could the possible reason be for that difference other than a desire by the church not to ruffle the feathers of those who grant them tax-exempt status and other special privileges? The fact that the church has somehow justified that moral compromise enough that they can live with themselves is troubling.

Thus, they lobby for change somewhat peripherally. Abortion, on the other hand, is of such importance to the Church that they use every tool at their disposal to oppose it.

But what drives this difference in valuation? What motivates? The products of unequal values are not, in themselves, hypocrisy. The hypocrisy comes from the root of those differing values, the willingness to treat what the church must see as the same act in different ways. For the church both a prisoner and a fetus is a helpless human being, yet one can be slowly drawn to it’s end with full consciousness of it’s impending death and the church merely objects while the other demands the church’s full power. That is the hypocrisy.

Their threat to shut down all the Catholic hospitals in the US if FOCA is passed was certainly not taken lightly, even though it would obviously be a radically unpopular and alienating move on their part.

Aside from the fact that I have trouble believing the church would actually carry out that threat, I again feel that this is yet more evidence of the hypocrisy for the same reasons stated above. The church is willing to abandon one of it’s most central acts of charity, one which mirrors the actions of their savior almost exactly, in order to make a point about abortion. Where is the similar threat regarding capital punishment? But if we’re looking for hypocrisy, we can always consider recent history. The church has on more than one occasion compared abortion to the holocaust, but their own reactions have been notably, and self-servingly, different.

Ahem. *via latae sententiae*

Use of latin makes one prone to excessive use of the letter e.

William -
Also, the threat to shut down hospitals was not out of protest or “to make a point,” it was a statement that if there is no recourse in the law for doctors to refuse to give abortions, then Catholic doctors will cease practicing, rather than be put in a situation where their refusal to perform such an operation would put them at odds with the law.
Naturally, there can be no such threat with regards to the death penalty since the RCC doesn’t and would never be put in the position of executing criminals. The parallel cannot be constructed for that example.
But even if it could, a parallel threat as such would not be called for as of yet. The notion that the RCC “must” see the two acts [abortion and death penalty] as the same is pitted against the fact that, at present, they do not. Obviously, several people, including members of the Church, think that the RCC is woefully reluctant to change this, but the key fact here is that they have not yet done so. Which means that until the Church changes its stance, the parallel between the death penalty and abortion does not exist.

“To kill someone and not violate the 5th Commandment requires that it be a proportionate response, a last resort, and in defense of yourself or others.”

My mother had an abortion to SAVE HER LIFE yet this is considered breaking the fifth commandment by the Church (and hence my parents are excommunicated), yet if I kill someone in self-defense this is not breaking the 5th commandment. The Church does not have internal consistency in these matters since it does not take into account the health and life of the mother at all. This case is a prime example: 9 year olds lives are endangered by pregnancy, any woman’s life is endangered by pregnancy with twins, combine the two and this child has such a slim chance of living through the pregnancy, yet to save her life via abortion is committing sin? I call bullshit. Her life was threatened and abortion prevented her death.

Also this: “The notion that the RCC “must” see the two acts [abortion and death penalty] as the same is pitted against the fact that, at present, they do not.” is a circular argument. To paraphrase: the Church cannot compare the two because they don’t compare the two. The Church absolutely can, and in fact, it does, hence the whole beginning of this debate with the seamless cloth argument. The consistent ethic of life argument is a pillar of current Catholic theological thought. Ignoring that argument when talking about Catholic philosophy and policy wrt abortion, euthenasia, death penalties and genocide is, at best, ignorant and at worst deceptive.

I understand your point – there are many like you who give even more detailed, Biblical arguments for the adoption of a comprehensive policy of opposition on the death penalty.
And indeed, I would say current policy in the RCC is one of the several legitimate criticisms of the Church. But calling it ‘hypocrisy,’ per se, is not accurate. Their actions are in violation of your standards, but not their own.
To me, I see them as erring of the side of caution. The way doctrine is at present gives them no obligation to oppose the death penalty at all, and yet they continue to lobby against it worldwide because of the way they judge their own principles to apply in a modern setting.
To say that it’s hypocrisy because they’re not doing enough, especially relative to an issue that as of yet they still think to be of greater importance, makes very little sense. Perhaps their doctrine might be clearer or better understood if they took no action against the death penalty at all, but as there are many who feel change is required the Church supports their efforts to reform society while internal debate continues over Church policy.
The bottom line is, the Church opposes abortion absolutely. They commit quite a bit to that opposition. The Church does not oppose the death penalty officially. They still work to oppose it, because many of them feel it is necessary even if the Vatican has not mandated it. Where is the hypocrisy?
This is not an example of an institution ’saying one thing and doing another,’ as the line goes.

This is not an example of an institution ’saying one thing and doing another,’ as the line goes.

If Caesar one day decreed that the eating of olives was forbidden in Rome and that all people caught eating olives would be fined, that would not be hypocrisy. If he then ate olives himself but was not fined, it would be hypocrisy. But if he quietly revised the definition of olives so that green olives, his favorite kind of olives, were no longer “olives” but instead “savory grapes” what would that then be? Perhaps not hypocrisy in the most technical of senses by it definitely fits with the spirit.

William, the last thing I’ll say about FOCA [so as not to de-rail too much] is that the punishment in question is indeed incarceration, no conscription. The idea is that doctors would refuse to perform the operation and be punished for their unlawful malpractice.

Your olives example is a good one. It highlights well how fine the technical distinction is that the RCC makes.
But the time line doesn’t quite match up – the RCC’s support of the death penalty pre-dates the abortion campaign. The death penalty is not being re-defined to exempt it from the standards that abortion is held to, it was exempt long before abortion was found to be specifically not exempt.
And if anything, the current trend is trying to move the RCC to apply the same standards, with people refusing to eat the technically-legal green olives, as it were.

William, the last thing I’ll say about FOCA [so as not to de-rail too much] is that the punishment in question is indeed incarceration, no conscription. The idea is that doctors would refuse to perform the operation and be punished for their unlawful malpractice.

Raskol, so far you seem to have been arguing from a position of good faith so I’ll refrain from calling bullshit. Instead, I ask that you put up or shut up. Here is a link to the full texts of the FOCA, please tell me where it says that doctors are mandated to do anything at all:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1173:

But the time line doesn’t quite match up – the RCC’s support of the death penalty pre-dates the abortion campaign. The death penalty is not being re-defined to exempt it from the standards that abortion is held to, it was exempt long before abortion was found to be specifically not exempt.

It doesn’t matter when you started calling green olives “savory grapes,” everyone can still see the absurdity for what it is. From what I remember Moses didn’t come down from the mountain with a list of exceptions.

Frankly, if you cannot make a distinction between persons who commit capital crimes and innocents, you are an absolute moral idiot. Execution of one who commits a capital crime, after due process, is in no wise a “premeditated murder.”

One cannot be a moral idiot if one denies the existence of morals. Anyway…

The definition of what constitutes a capital crime is subjective and fluid. We like to think of “capital crime” as being shorthand for “premeditated murder” or, at the very least, some form of murder. Thats not the reality in the west much less in the world. A capital crime is no more or less than any behavior which a government decides to kill you for. As for due process, that is hardly a guarantee included in “the power of the sword” unless we’re going to assume that the Catholic church believes all governments existing prior to universal suffrage (including Vatican City) to be unworthy of that power. As usual, Featherstone, your interest in digging deeper is limited by your ideology.

Also, I would object to your argument that executions are not premeditated murder. They are the planned and willful taking of a human life and, until quite recently in the west, often included a significant amount of torture or public spectacle. The only difference between a man who kills his wife for cheating on him and an executioner is the cultural context of their actions, and the last time I checked the Vatican was a big believer of transcendent truth and fought against the forces of relativism. Perhaps Ratzinger has done something interesting while I wasn’t looking…

It is, and remains, a justified killing in defense of the civil order and society at large.

Perhaps that is an accurate assessment but, to go back to my previous analogy, an olive is still an olive. That would be a better argument against the banning of all olives, not for naming one as an exception. Indeed, if we were really considering that thorny matter of internal consistency we might think about another analogy involving olives. Perhaps one concerning an execution following a capital offense. Maybe at the foot of the mount of Olives. Ahh, but perhaps that is a special case as well.

This, the Church holds, is within the prudential capacity of the civil authorities, subject to certain moral precepts. Similarly, the civil authorities may rightfully prosecute a just war – a war to arrest genocide, for example, is just, whereas a war to capture the Stanley Cup and bring it to the United States is not just.

But this is not true of all Christians. I can think of a number of very old, very conservative Christian sects which object to the very idea of a just war. It seems to me that the Catholic church has compromised it’s own rigid moral precepts in order to obtain and maintain power throughout the ages. That is part of the hypocrisy I’m calling out. On the one hand you have the Church arguing that sometimes it is OK to kill under certain social circumstances, on the other you have their savior who stopped a just execution and instructed his followers to turn the other cheek when struck. One would think the latter would carry more weight, but the former gets you further with a Roman emperor who fears the Mithrists in his military.

Lastly, do you really think that “those who grant them tax-exempt status” can be confined to those politicians who support the use of the death penalty?

Your imagination is reliably limited, Featherstone. I was being glib there, I figured most people would understand that I was referencing the various privileges and rights of access the church has developed over the years by collaborating and colluding with governments.

Then again, I suppose the church does have a vested interest in maintaining exceptions for capital punishment and just war. Otherwise how would they justify their history?