
Fetuses have brains, bones, hearts, nerves. They are absolutely capable of sensation. We need to reform the adoption system, absolutely, but there is demand for adopted children and we should not be aborting babies, especially at a time when our fertility rate has gone off a cliff in the wake of Roe v Wade.
Do you know the reason they allow it? Because sometimes the baby dies inside the mom, or the baby doesn’t have a brain, or delivering the baby would kill the mom. Those babies are wanted, desperately, and it’s a horrible thing when they have to let them go. But it’s a medical procedure that saves lives, and is never voluntary.
Of course, however there are instances where we have to think of the whole person. It’s a horrible thing but there are instances where it is the most compassionate thing we can do. I hope there comes a day where it never has to happen, or where women are never forced to make that choice, but that is the choice they must make now. So, I will always pray for those women, I will love them to pieces, and I will encourage them to reconcile with God.
The Church teaches that the baby has equal humanity with the mother, and holds that abortion is not permissible under any circumstance and is a grave mortal sin UNLESS it is to save the mother’s life in very rare and extreme circumstances such as an ectopic pregnancy. You cannot sacrifice the personhood of the baby for the mother in any other situation, and even then it is an extremely tragic scenario
I hear you, however it is more nuanced than that. I would love nothing more than for it to never be a choice that a woman has to make, but it is. It’s horrible and I pray about it every night and it always leads me to the same conclusion: it is happening, and it will continue happening whether it’s legal or not. If it’s not safe and accessible then it will only lead to unsafe practices that will harm more women. I have to stand for the side that will reduce the harm, even if it’s a slow process.
With all due respect, that isn’t the Church’s stance on abortion, nor has it ever been. Keeping abortion legal only incentivizes the abortion industry to further target women and scare them into getting abortions, and incentivizes women to get abortions when they don’t need to (over 95% are done for non health or assault related reasons). It would be good for you to vote with Church morals in mind (which is also not MAGA and probably never has been)
Making it legal only produces more abortions. It’s a fallacious argument and is still against Church teaching and morals, which every Catholic is bound to. At the end of the day it’s your opinion vs the teachings of Christ’s Church, and Christ himself. You need to come back into the fold with Catholic teaching if you are indeed baptized and confirmed.
Wrong. Making abortions legal leads to safer abortions. Making it illegal leads women to risk their health with unsafe abortions. You talk about an industry “scaring women into abortions” but it’s their own decision what they choose to do with their bodies. Frankly religion should never have any influence over legislation.
So you’re looking at this from a Roman Catholic perspective when I’m just not that. I'm an Irish folk Catholic. I recognize the Pope as the legitimate head of the Catholic Church and respect his authority, but our religious practice also draws from Irish folk traditions that exist alongside institutional Catholicism. Some of those traditions differ from official Church practices. I don't see that as rejecting Catholicism, but as practicing a culturally distinct expression of it.
Departing from Church teaching is exactly that - departing from Church teaching. Either you’re a Catholic who adheres to Church teaching, or you aren’t. And right now it sounds like you aren’t. There is no room in Christianity for moral deviations, otherwise there’s no point in being in the faith if there’s nothing actually binding. “Folk Catholicism” isn’t valid Catholicism.