Steve Shaw says: I really don't want to hear from apologists for an organisation that promotes ignorance and that bans contraception, which then condemns women for getting abortions.

Gee, whizz, Steve, does that mean you don't want to hear from lil' ole ME?

Or what does it mean, Steve? What are the implications of the attacks from you and Jim Carroll and all you other born-again atheists? That the Catholic Church must be disbanded or restricted or suppressed?

Back in the 1960s, birth control pills were relatively new, and they were a hot topic of discussion in the Catholic Church. We were sure Pope Paul VI would change the rules, but in 1968 he came out with his Humanae Vitae encyclical that banned the pill. Many Catholics left the Catholic Church over that issue, and a few tried to practice rhythm or other abstinence methods, or they went ahead and had lots of children. But many of us who had paid attention in catechism class knew that an act can't be sinful if a person doesn't believe it's sinful, so we simply ignored the prohibition and learned the valuable lesson that the Pope can be wrong sometimes. Still others practiced birth control but felt guilty about it, and I feel really bad for them and have done my best to convince them there's nothing wrong about contraception. And gradually, the issue of contraception has more-or-less been forgotten If people don't make an issue of it, I think the Catholic Church will eventually deny that it ever officially prohibited birth control, and that will be that (like what happened to Limbo).

Abortion is a stickier matter, because the rational argument against abortion is a lot easier to defend. The biggest question in the debate is when life begins, and the easiest answer is that it begins at fertilization/conception. The next question is, at what point does it become wrong to cause that life to cease, and the easiest answer again is at fertilization/conception. To come up with any other answer to these two questions, you have to do a little dance into arbitraryland. And many people do that dance, ad infinitum.

But I think there's another question: are there factors that are more wrong than ending the life of a foetus? My answer to that question is yes. There are many times in life were there are no good choices; and we're forced to choose among bad choices, choosing the lesser of two evils. It's a balancing act, as most significant moral choices are - and I think that oftentimes the answers are (and must be) very subjective. And ultimately, I believe that the person best-suited to make the choice is the woman who is pregnant.

There are many, many absolutists in the Catholic Church who disagree with me and condemn me for my thinking on this, but I'm not ready to give up my church because other people think I should. The absolutists play hardball on this issue, and I and many others have suffered because of the atrocious things they have done to defend their position.

But every atrocious thing they do, makes them a little less credible. There's no question that this Zika virus issue undermines the anti-abortion movement worldwide. The excommunication of the nun in Phoenix was a remarkable victory for pro-choice people in the Catholic church, as was the excommunication of the parents of the 9-yr-old rape victim who got an abortion in South America. Bombings of abortion clinics are a real blow to the credibility of the anti-abortionists. The most significant thing I've done myself is to write my bishop and demand my contribution back when he withheld funds from an anti-poverty organization whose director had spoken favorably about Planned Parenthood.

There are many pro-choice people within the Catholic Church, working quietly and steadily and very rationally. Many are in leadership positions, so they do have to be cautious about what they say and do. For the most part, they avoid hysteria and condemnation and attacks like those that appear so often in this thread, because that just strengthens the resolve of the anti-abortion people. It seems to work best to let the anti-abortionists make themselves look stupid, and then all others have to do is quietly and rationally point it out.

Sooner or later, somebody will come up with a solution to all this. In the meantime, I'm not ready to surrender my church to the Dark Side.


-Joe-