Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00016)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
> You are giving arguments that have nothing to do with the actual 
> arguments given, and then knocking down the phony arguments.

The argument I was critiquing is the one normally given by abortion 
opponents. You are absolutely right that it is phony. I have yet to 
hear anyone publicly discuss the legal issues in Roe v. Wade,

> There is also a difference between a religious and a philosophical 
> position; you represent the position of the Catholic Church as 
> religious, when it is in fact a philosophical one (when does life 
begin?

The question is unanswerable, which is why I submit the better basis 
is the Utilitarian principle of "the greatest good for the greatest 
number." Abortion is a 2,000 year old issue (they had it in ancient 
Rome) and ther is good reason to believe that all we can hope to do 
is deprive women of safe and competently performed abortions. We 
cannot deprive them of abortions themselves. Therefore, to 
criminalize abortion merely means a lot of women die.

The religious opponents of abortion emphasize the moral aspect, about 
which there is no reasonable doubt. I do not see how any reasonable 
person could dispute that abortion is morally wrong. However, from 
the aforementioned Utilitarian perspective, morality and conscience 
should be private matters and not affairs of state. There are of 
course instances in which morality and the Utilitarian standard 
cionverge, as, for example, in proscribing the kind of behavior 
Robert Blake is currently accused of. It is most regrettable, but 
they seem to diverge in the case of abortion. I am altogether in 
favor of abortion opponents promoting their views (which I happen to 
share) by means of reasoned persuasion, and am opposed to them 
promoting them with bombs, shotguns, and legislative action. It is 
not the appropriate function of the state to enforce religious views, 
even when they are self-evidently valid.

The Catholic church is a religious, and not a philosophical 
organization, and Thomism is a religious and not a philosophical 
system. It is admirable in many ways, but still religious. One of 
the great gifts left to us by our Founding Fathers is separation of 
church and state. To preserve that, the state must base its 
decisions on secular considerations which are rational and can be 
agreed upon by reasonable men without resort to faith or supernatural 
revelation.