abortion

What is Pro-Life?

A political candidate’s position on abortion has become the de facto litmus test of morality, and of respect for life. However, the data show that these also have a profound effect on life. Consider the matter of health care. For a study of life expectancy in the United States published in PLoS Medicine in 2006, Harvard Professor Christopher Murray analyzed 8 years of census and health statistics data. He found an astonishing 35 year gap - in life expectancy based on county of residence, income, and other social factors. In my home county, Fairfax Virginia, life expectancy is among the top ten in the US ­ about 81 years. Life expectancy in counties at the bottom is only 46 years, shorter than that in many developing countries! This isn’t a new finding - many other studies found similar results. There are several reasons for premature death, but socioeconomic status and access to health care are the heavyweights. Thus, health care in particular, as well as many other policy differences between the political parties can have as profound an influence on life as the death penalty or abortion. Clearly, the moral justification for voting cannot be based on a single issue.

As a Catholic, I've been opposed to abortion all my life, and efforts to reduce abortions must continue. However, the pro-life concept must encompass all causes of death, not only abortion. The positions the Democratic Party has held with respect to universal health care, taxation, unemployment, war and torture, all of which have life-or-death consequences, are more consistently pro-life than those of the Republicans. My conscience requires that I vote for Barack Obama, and I will do so with great enthusiasm and hope.

Peter Kaufmann, Ph.D.
Past President, Society of Behavioral Medicine
Secretary, International Society of Behavioral Medicine
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of the SBM or ISBM.

Thank you for posting what I had to say about abortion. It was nice to read what others had to say. The response about usury was interesting. In the dioceses in which I have lived the Bishop charged the parishes borrowing a higher interest than the bank. Like any good thing it can be terribly abused but that does not negate it's goodness.

You wrote: The reverse of the data establishes the fact that in 65% of the times an egg and sperm connect preganancy does not result.
Is it reasonable to consider the day after pill an abortive act?

The church defines conception as fertilization. Science defines it as implantation. Even the language upholds that. If conception came before implantation, who has conceived? Not the woman, not at least until implantation. Laws based on fertilization =conception would ban not only abortion, but oral contaceptives as well.

Ever since the pedophile coverup hit the presses, I have held the belief that if the RCC Magisterial Authority says that something is right and good, then odds are it isnt.

Sad to say, so far, that axiom continues to hold true.

Every now and then it doesnt, but most of the time it does.

Sad, very sad indeed.

So the church was WRONG about usury? Unjust interest rates and unfair tactics are tearing this country apart seems like usury to me. It reminds me of Shylock in 'The Merchant of Venice'. Now we are being forced to accept as a country what the banks refuse to accept, garbage loans. CEOs inflate the value of their companies, present the result as strength adn walk away with millions upon millions. Some people should be in jail but instead they will be promoted and hit the front page in the press.
Every man woman and child now owes an additional $3,500.00.
Doesn't anyone want a government that works?
So the church was wrong about no meat on Friday? Accidentally She was right but not that we should eat fish. Vegetarian food is more ecologically correct and more health-giving.
About abortion, Bishops who speak as you did about abortion would get a message from the Vatican. Instead they play right into the hands of the press.Abortion is in part a symptom of the times we live in.They,the bishops, sit condemning abortion but never reach out a hand to the pregnant women,never support adoptions, never consider anyone who has to try IVF. According to them conception is an inconvenience.

The Church is wrong about human reproduction. It is wrong in its understanding of human behavior, believing it to be commonplace that people will abandon themselves to sensual pleasures without conscience. It is wrong in its teaching that nothing must ever interfere with the progress of sperm and egg, as if the only reason there are billions of people in the world is because copulating couples failed to prevent it.

I agree with you, Aloysius, that abortion is defined too broadly by the Church. However, even if the Church were to be more restricted in it definition of abortion, it still has too many other rules that don't respect people's intelligence or good intentions.