Catholic Priests used to perform abortions, and it was considered a lesser sin than fornication

[GulliverFoyle]

@cannibalpeas

That’s the thing; they are one and the same.

If that’s the case, and it may well be, I lack the experience with them to make any concrete determination.

[Mindysan33]

@girard

For them, there’s literally a law on the books that legalizes infanticide, and it kills tons of kids. From within their worldview, it’s absolutely horrific, like, take the (obviously more justified) progressive horror of the children who died and are molested in concentration camps, and multiply it several-fold

Agreed. They are wrong, but it’s clear from their language they see it this way (comparisons to slavery, genocide, etc). Part of the question is how did they come to this conclusion, though. It’s not automatic. And I think the value in @thomdunn’s post here is that is shows historical processes to a certain degree. This information might give us a means to start changing minds.

[MarcoE]

@girard

For them, there’s literally a law on the books that legalizes infanticide, and it kills tons of kids. From within their worldview, it’s absolutely horrific, like, take the (obviously more justified) progressive horror of the children who died and are molested in concentration camps, and multiply it several-fold. Those are the feelings we’re dealing with.

Which is part of the reasons why traditional counter-arguments about them hating women, etc., often don’t land or work at cross purposes. Because, for them, sexual liberty is not as important as stopping the murder of children.

BIngo! Since there is no “proof” that anyone is right or wrong on this issue, all both sides are left with are their feelings, though each feels it is the rational one. Projecting our feelings on to others does not change minds.
This issue exemplifies Leary’s second circuit, that of territory, politics, emotion. Rationality comes on the next level, but most political discussions don’t make it there.

[Mindysan33]

@MarcoE

both sides are left with are their feelings

It’s not “feelings” to say that restricting access to legal abortions and contraception is a violation of my rights. It’s a fact.

[GulliverFoyle]

@girard

Which is part of the reasons why traditional counter-arguments about them hating women, etc., often don’t land or work at cross purposes.

As an argument to try to reach them no. But I think it’s worth pointing out that misogyny doesn’t merely encompass emotional hatred of women, but also hateful actions towards women, in either case whether or not from women. To be clear, I’m not saying you were saying otherwise, just that many do in fact make that error.

[DukeTrout]

@MarcoE

Since there is no “proof” that anyone is right or wrong on this issue, all both sides are left with are their feelings, though each feels it is the rational one.

Nah, that’s lazy logic. There is scientific, physiological proof; there is the proof of societal harm; there is the proof (as @Mindysan33 points out) that laws against abortion unquestionably infringe on women’s human rights; it just falls on deaf ears when someone’s been programmed their whole life to believe otherwise. There’s even the proof, as others in the thread have pointed out, that there’s nothing in the Bible that explicitly backs their position up. It’s strictly a power play developed over the last century for certain religious groups to try to regain their declining political and social relevance.

[kennykb]

@GulliverFoyle

I personally know Catholics who vote for and believe in pro-choice (including in my extended family), and who whether or not they agree with the Vatican position that abortion is a sin (some do, some don’t), do not endeavor to or believe in using the State to legislate morality.

I know a great many Catholics - including me - who think this way, and many who think that a foetus is a life in potentia rather than a life quidem. The sin of abortion, to this subgroup, is a sin of recklessness: we do not know, and have no reliable guide to, the point at which soul is bound to body and a thing becomes a person, so we avoid the risk. We are not quick to condemn those who have other beliefs where we are uncertain; lex dubia non obligat. (The American hierarchy was never entirely purged of Jansenism, so we hear absolute tutiorism being preached at us from time to time. We nod our heads and ignore it.)

Thousands are enemies of religion who would have loved Christ as a friend, had He been represented to them as a friend and not as an angry tyrant, ever ready to launch His thunderbolts wherever highest perfection is not attained. Let us give expression to what has long been our conviction, namely, that Voltaire, Hume, La Mettrie, Helvetius, Rousseau, and their whole school, did not injure morality and religion nearly as much as the rigorous, morbid Pascal and his followers. – Goethe