Tuesday, 24 April 2012
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Aspects of Being “Pro-Life”
By Nic Don at TheopoliticalPeter Kreeft is the professor of philosophy at Boston University. He is Catholic, and therefore often associated with the pro-life movement. (He has written a Socratic assessment of the pro-life/pro-choice debate, which may contribute to the association as well.) Recently he wrote a book based on a journal he kept, recording his general life advice for his children to read after he dies.
In this book, called Before I Go, he describes what it means to be pro-life. Here is what he says:
“Life” means much more than just biological survival. It means all the levels of human life, from the biological to the psychological to the interpersonal to the religious.
Therefore, to be “pro-life” means:
- loving and caring for your bodily health and the health of the planet that nourishes it
- loving and caring for play, that up-rush of life that we share with the higher animals but not with the lower (that’s why we play with dogs, not with worms)
- loving and caring for other human biological lives, not killing them by abortion, euthanasia, suicide, or starting wars
- loving and caring for other human psychological and spiritual lives as you care for your own, loving others as you love yourself
- loving the moral law that tells you how to do that
- knowing and loving nature and the nature of everything: man, woman, animals, God, and even sister death; not acting against their natures but “painting with the grain”
- loving the source and inventor of all life wherever He comes to you: in nature, in conscience, in the Bible, in the Mass, in children, everywhere, even in death.
He summarizes by saying, “See? Being ‘pro-life’ is bigger than #3 alone.’”
What do you think of this account of what it means to be “pro-life”? Is this an account of the “pro-life” perspective that makes sense to those who call themselves “pro-choice”?
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Comments (121)
It's difficult for me to identify myself as Pro-life or Pro-choice precisely because those terms have been so thoroughly trivialized and demonized in American political "discourse" that they are largely meaningless.
Nonetheless, Kreeft's account of what it means to be pro-life resonates much more with my own views than the usual overly simplistic nonsense often peddled by those claiming the label for themselves.
I really love the idea of the book, though...very cool!
The pro-life argument centers around the pregnant woman who thinks that killing her unborn child is some sort of positive solution to an unwanted pregnancy.
Catholic ethics are clear in this matter:
1. Murder of the innocent is the most grievous of affronts to God, man and universe.
2. Evil must not be committed in order to achieve some sort of good.
Keeping a sharp focus upon the actual issue of the debate is critical to reasoning out a clear understanding of this moral problem.
Really good post. Thanks for sharing!
I am pro-choice, because it's not as simple as carrying a sign to make a mentally ill woman feel like shit because she hasn't got what it takes to carry a child. It's much more complicated than pro-lifers like to make it, but, having said that, I like the Catholic stance simply because if you are going to claim pro-life as your stance, then by all means, make sure you support legislation that benefits poor children. Make sure you support people who don't simply pass laws that benefit 1% of the rich, and see to it that billion dollar corporations are not required to pay taxes. Take the pro-life stance and really go for the gusto, not just one aspect of it. Contribute to the attitude in society that says it is a beautiful and honorable thing to place a baby for adoption, and don't judge the mother who actually loves her child enough to do that. This conversation could go on for years, but most evangelicals prefer to discuss only the fetus, and pick on people who are poor. That just doesn't cut it for me. I can actually feel how a woman must feel if she thinks her family will be so humiliated by her pregnancy that she thinks of ending her life.
With all of the rhetoric that divides the pro-life, pro-choice movements... it is hard for either side to see anything positive about the other. It is a very well thought out propaganda tactic to keep us divided and to keep scaring pro-choicers away from those radical pro-lifers and vice versa. Make no doubt about it, someone is working very diligently to make sure that both sides think the other side is nuts. It will take a willing diligent heart to actually get to know the other side, rather than just believing all the rhetoric.
There are good and bad in every circle. I am a non-Catholic female, very deep within the prolife circle having met many, many pro-lifers. Like school, you hang out with the good and avoid the bad. Yet,
I can honestly say that I have yet to meet a single person that threatens anyone… like the cartoon in the article, or who shouts fire and brimstone outside abortion clinics or who would carry a sign “to make a mentally ill woman feel like shit because she hasn't got what it takes to carry a child”. There may be people like that out there… but I have yet to meet a single one in 15 years. All the many I know would NEVER do that; they simply pray and hand out tracts. Those who do carry a sign truly believe they are doing so to bring truth to what abortion is: the death of a human… knowing the statistics that it is often a decision that haunts someone for life. They don’t want that poor woman depressed and forever dealing with unhealed emotions that puts their life in a tail spin. I have also yet to meet anyone that looks at the pro-life issue as just an abortion issue. They all volunteer and help their community through volunteering with organizations and ministries who help the poor and homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, the single mother and many others. Those I know fit the list in the article. So it is my belief that what most people are told to believe about pro-lifers is mostly now an old cliché to keep us divided.
You can kill someone by suicide?
erm...
As "pro-choice" person who has always respected pro-life individuals that aren't nasty toward me and let me explain what I mean by pro-choice, I actually LOVE this very well-rounded definition of pro-life.
See, what people don't understand about myself and many other "pro-choice" people is we are POLITICALLY pro-choice. I don't see abortions as necessary okay, though I won't shame someone for making the choice (what is done, is done) but I wouldn't encourage someone to get an abortion beyond a last resort. I'm pro-choice, but I am pro-making the choice not to have an abortion easier. I just don't believe it is a matter of the state to making laws dealing with something so personal. I also fear that outlawing abortion will lead to several ill effects. Women will no longer be able to go somewhere to get guidance on the decision, and will find more nefarious means to make it happen without someone holding their hand and making sure they have really thought it out. I also fear that any law outlawing abortions will not allow for enough exceptions to cover all unfortunately situations (where a baby is killing the mother, and without an abortion, both might end up dead; to prevent a woman having to give birth to a child that is already beyond any chance of life), There are a lot of messed up things that happen during pregnancies and abortions sometimes what is most medically needed. Do not put a woman who wanted her child through more pain.
Peter Kreeft sounds like a religious, pro-life individual I can easily respect and would love to have a discussion. I have never minded having discussions with individuals who differing political views as long as they are respectful, do not patronize me, and aren't be blatantly hateful.
This isn't anything new to Catholics. The current cultural argument in our country regarding pro-life, pro-choice is whether or not the person growing in the uterus has a right to live.
Interesting how "loving" is a prerequisite for the definition.
Socrates' himself would have problems with this "Socratic assessment"
Realistically, I'm on the fence about abortion. Mainly because I've never been pregnant nor have I chosen to get an abortion. I'd like to think I'm pro-life but, realistically, I'm more pro-choice.
I had a co worker recently (within the last year) who had to abort her baby because, even if she had gone through with the pregnancy and had the child adopted, the pregnancy would have put my co-worker's life at risk. She had two children from a previous marriage and those two pregnancies resulted in her having bed rest for most of the pregnancy as well as premature births in both children. The doctor had even strongly encouraged her to have the abortion for her health safety.
one of the best posts i've read on pro life....but nevertheless i will never change my opinion of PRO CHOICE!
doesn't matter what points you bring up...if someone is pro life, they're pro life forever. same goes for pro choice
@ShimmerBodyCream@xanga - A fair question.
Intentionally removing everything that a person values and finds fulfilling in their life could well prompt them to commit suicide.
Even unintentionally creating an endless conflict between the biological reality of a person and the cultural expectation for them could prompt them to commit suicide.
i'm pro-choice for one simple reason: my mother had an abortion. and i don't think she deserves to be condemned for it.
@Digital_Angel21@xanga - Im so glad someone understands how I feel!
I'm pro choice because I don't believe the government has the right to choose for me. And In some cases....it is a lesser of two evils.
so wait... i have to be a dirty hippie to be considered pro-life?
The term "pro-life" is actually incorrect. Then you have to have an "anti-life" side, and despite what you may feel for abortion, women who have them can find themselves very conflicted when faced with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. It's very broad and inaccurate to say they are ANTI life. People can find themselves PRO life, but also pro choice.
The more correct term is pro-choice and anti-choice. That is what is at the heart of the argument. Those who believe women should have the right to make choices for reproduction, and those who think the government should ban their right to choice.
My single question is why doesn't number three include not killing people by the death penalty while it includes war?
@TrueBritt@xanga - Back in the 1850's Democrat Stephen Douglas held the position that slavery was matter of choice.
His opponent Abraham Lincoln held the position that immorality was not a matter of choice.
Free, self ruling people are not free to choose the ruin of others either by slavery or by murder of the unborn.
Modern America is at the same sort of cultural divide as the one that led up to the Civil War.
@wretched_epiphany@xanga - It is the very purpose of government to preserve basic human rights from those who would destroy them.
If abortion is murder of the unborn, then it is the government's job to protect the unborn human life from those who would destroy it.
So the basic question in this controversy is the following: Is the fetus a human being?
Choice has nothing whatsoever to do with the answer to that question.
For if the fetus is not human than abortion is just another medical procedure. But if the fetus is indeed a human being then abortion is 1st degree murder.
@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - Should a justice system whose purpose is to protect liberty and justice for all, depend on how you or anyone else feels about their mother?
@PrisonerxOfxLove@xanga - i should have rephrased: it's not my ONLY reason. but it's my most basic. my other reason is that i don't believe a fetus deserves individual rights equal to that of the mother, because the fetus is physically dependent upon the mother. and that dependence cannot be transferred to anyone else.
@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - So if dependency on outside help is a determination of humanity, does everyone in a hospital or senior home or on a dialysis machine lose their humanity?
@PrisonerxOfxLove@xanga - i wasn't aware a dialysis machine was human.
@flapper_femme_fatale@xanga - The point is that human rights must be applied equally to all men because we all have the same human nature.
Once excuses like "dependence" become acceptable then authentic human rights are destroyed because they become merely what people feel they should be.
They are no longer based on our humanity.
Wouldn't you want your rights based on your human nature rather than on what someone else felt about you or determined about you?
And if someone else were able to make that sort of judgement wouldn't it mean that they were better than you because equality of among men really did not exist?