For abortions ...
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Wednesday
that there "has to be some form of punishment" for abortion
if it were banned in the U.S. -- as he says it should be --
and that punishment should fall on the woman. - HuffPo
What?
The 3 wives of Donald Trump
can testify he's a family man
who loves women.
Ed. Note: I may be wrong, but it wouldn't surprise me if this story became part of Trump's domestic policy.
*I'm being facetious.
I know you are only joking, Terry (at least I hope so!) but as one who is staunchly against abortion and prays in front in abortion clinics, I do not feel women should be punished for having an abortion. We can never know the pressures and fears which drive these women to kill their babies. Most of them are victims as much as their babies are, and these women will suffer for the rest of their lives, never being at peace.
ReplyDeleteWith this statement, Trumo is showing once again how much he actually hates women. He judges and condemns with no understanding or compassion. This is just another way to divide people and turn them against one another.
Donald Trumo is one of the scariest people I have ever seen in my lifetime.
I meant, of course, "Trump" but maybe Trumo is a better name for him.
DeleteI am joking about agreeing with Trump. I'm sure they will back track his comments to save face and cover for him. I have no doubt he hates women - no doubt at all. I'm amazed that women actually support him and believe he is the last hope for the U.S. to reverse Roe v Wade. I think some of the more religious may believe that his divisiveness is a 'Gospel sign' - and that's scary. I never thought the far-righters in the GOP could stoop any lower after the Palin VP run. Yet here we are.
DeleteHe already switched to punishing the doctors instead. Trump is weird but the question remains....who...Clinton or Trump is worse for mankind in the long run if Trump would defer to conservative advice on picking Supreme Court judges....and Clinton would pick pro choice judges. Oddly we all have had multiple school teachers in our lifetime who would be better presidents than either Trump or Clinton. But that's water under the bridge. In fact we've had doctors, car mechanics and hardware store owners who'd be better than either one. That's how weird this election cycle is.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting - and defensible to some extent - that Ben Carson defended Trump suggesting he was sort of bushwhacked by the question and didn't take time to think it through. Likewise, not being a real politician, he didn't know how to give one of those politically nuanced answers to smooth things out and placate his listeners. In other words, he's not skilled in double talk - it is like critics of M. Angelica who say she was not theologically nuanced.
DeleteAs Americans, we are used to being talked down to, with critical issues talked around in circles and complicated by sensitivity training techniques. No wonder we are so screwed up over this stuff. In the absence of traditional moral teaching, we make judgments on what is moral or immoral by the laws we pass. Soon it will be against the law to walk and text - therefore immoral... a civil sin.
Know what I'm saying? So abortion is no longer against the law - therefore it is not immoral, the medical techs who perform and provide are not criminals. It's legal - therefore it's not immoral, and if you still have faith, it may be a sin, but do not judge culpability. We can hate the sin - even while making abortion legal, safe - and rare - but never hate the sinner.
As for Clinton - without abortion - equality for women is neither possible or sustainable. Women will never give up the right to choose. Win or lose, liberal or conservative - it isn't going to happen. Making it illegal means nothing without consequences. It's not going to happen.
That said, this is a great discussion Trump opened up. As Catholics we are anti-contraception and pro-life - against abortion and the rights of women to determine their reproductive choices. Stepping outside the Catholic view, one is confused and incomprehensible as to why contraception is not permitted in the first place - to avoid abortion. The lesser of two evils, if you will. Although the contraception mentality is why abortion is legal, 'safe' and anything but rare - it is the final solution in women's reproductive health. Catholics know that, but most people deny it. And forget about NFP in a sexually permissive age - how would that work on a one night stand? LOL!
What a mess though. Some women should probably never get pregnant or have a child in the first place - like crack addicts and those who have babies born addicted. Or wicked step-mothers like mine. Then we have babies born alive who are left to cry themselves to death because of a botched abortion. Some mothers kill their own. Others have multiple abortions. Yet we pretend to be pro-child - although we in fact enable mothers to kill their own child, and encourage child abuse in an immoral, disintegrated culture.
Everything is screwed up. Which may explain why a man doesn't understand all the moral nuances of the pro-choice morality, and why he might make an off the cuff remark that women should go down with the ship.
I'm not defending Trump - I can't stand the guy - I'm just saying he opened up honest discussion on a topic no one wants to talk about honestly, because we don't want to hurt women's feelings - even though the corpses of dead infants are piled high.
I'm praying for a contentious convention that nominates someone else.
ReplyDeleteOf the three poster wives, Marla has aged the best and gracefully so. Poor Mr. Trump, he's all over the place and less palatable these days. Despite her shrill tone and "angry woman" stance, Shrillary just may win it.
ReplyDeleteThe logic is consistent. If it's "banned", then there has to be punishments for those who proceeded with the practice.
ReplyDeleteI probably just hate women.
You need to stand outside an abortion clinic and watch the woman who go in there. You will see the absolute devastation on their faces and realize that they are victims of a culture of death. That is why pro life groups are condemning Trump as well as abortion advocates. Abortion providers should absolutely be prosecuted, but never their victims.
DeleteI believe prostitutes and most of the people who do drugs are also victims of the culture of death. And many people are driven to commit other crimes because they are victimized, e.g. an addict who steals for drug money. I assume you do too (maybe not, I don't know). If you do, would you say prostitutes or those in possession of controlled substances should never be prosecuted because they're victims?
DeleteI can't imagine how you can maintain the rule of law if you don't prosecute someone who voluntarily participates in a crime. I know many, if not most, women who seek abortions are coerced, pressured, and in many ways desperate for an out to a legitimately hard situation. All of my friends who have had abortions were. However, the choice, were abortion to be illegal, is not between murder one and nothing. Just like with drug offenses, there can be probation and counseling alternatives to the prosecute/incarcerate/repeat cycle. Also, coercion is a relevant factor in determining guilt and desperation is a mitigating factor in determining punishment.
I haven't stood outside an abortion clinic and looked in the faces of the women going in and I've never attended a prayer vigil outside of one, but I have had friends who have had abortions. For one, due to a loser boyfriend who ran, I was her main support person before and after (not during obviously). I make no judgments about the moral culpability of any of them or any women who has an abortion. But the heart of the rule of law, which is indispensable for freedom and justice, is consistency and it's inconsistent to say both "abortion is the murder of a human being" and "no woman who procures an abortion should ever have to answer to the law."
For what it's worth (which isn't much), if I were Tsar of America, I would make abortion illegal, prosecute abortionists for murder, and make procuring an abortion a lesser crime with generous provisions for probation and counseling and explicit prosecutorial discretion provisions regarding reduced or no charges depending on circumstances. Those who coerced the woman into the abortion would also be held to account.
Disclaimers: 1) I'm not an attorney, 2) Trump is always wrong, even in the rare instances where what he says is right, 3) how can I hate women? My mum's one.
I find your answer confusing. You say women should be punished for having an abortion, yet you say you supported a woman who had an abortion. If you're Catholic, you are as culpable as that woman is.
DeleteAny woman who has had an abortion answers for it every day of her life. From soon-to-be St. Teresa of Calcutta:
"Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: Half the babies and all the mothers."
You can save your saint-shaming for someone else. I am Catholic. I know what abortion is. I supported my friend, not her abortion. I did not enable it at all, counseled against it as best as I could, and am not culpable.
DeleteYou say she is culpable but that procuring an abortion should not be a crime if abortion is illegal. How do you reconcile those two positions?
Catholic in Brooklyn, I understood Joshua to say he had given his friend support, not that he had advocated for or procured or paid for the abortion. Note also, that a Catholic with poor catechesis might not have the knowledge of church teaching to understand that abortion is a sin. Part of sin is the understanding that it's a grave matter and deliberately taking action despite that knowledge.
DeleteAbsent knowledge of the exact circumstances, all we casn dfo is suggest thast if Joshua's Catholic, he may want to chat with a priest.
Nan's right: I should chat with a priest. Not about my friend's abortion, but I have other things that could use some working out.
DeleteI had a friend who wanted an abortion. It would have been her second one. I don't know if I talked her out of it but she didn't go through with it. However, the friendship was finished according to her because she said I "didn't support her."
Delete.
Our priest had a family come to him to tell him their 5 month supposedly handicapped baby was going to be aborted. He did everything he could to talk them out of it. We had a prayer chain going, we pulled out every stop we could think of. The abortion went through and Father was in the waiting room, praying the mother would change her mind. She didn't so he went to baptize the poor little baby. He was always very Prolife but that experience seared him to the core.
.
Abortion is very complex on many levels. I have friends who have shrugged it off like it was a dental appointment and I have a friend who suffers flashbacks, etc. It affects her marriage although her husband has been supportive even though it was another guy's child (she got pregnant as a teen before she met her husband.)
.
I can tell you that going to Rachel's Vineyard is a wonderful healing experience. If you or someone you love has been affected by abortion - GO.
Joshua - your friend, if she is Catholic, is automatically excommunicated from the Church by obtaining an abortion. In that sense, yes, she is culpable. But I would never incriminate her under man's law. She can seek and obtain forgiveness from God and rectify her life. Under man's law, if we go by what you propose, she will be thrown in jail with hardened criminals and her life will be destroyed.
DeleteThat is the difference.
Joshua, you did not make yourself clear in your first statement as to just how you supported your friend. You just wrote that you were her "main support." That is where the misunderstanding comes from. Thank you for the clarification
DeleteCiB, I don't think we're communicating well about the legal things but that's ok. God bless you for your work at the clinics and your defense of the church on your blog.
DeleteI can't believe that buffoon has made it this far. He is a very poor ambassador for the USA.
ReplyDeleteI wish he were an ambassador for the US. Like to Tuvalu or Tajikistan, though I suppose that wouldn't be nice to the good people of those countries.
DeleteAlso, you could make the joke that he puts the "ass" back in "ambassador."
Hahahaha! Good one Joshua!!
DeleteUniparty's politicians are corrupt and not for the people. Only an outside billionaire like Donald Trump can start the government anew. All other politicians on the left or on the right are complicit in preserving their jobs and do not care about the people except to keep them busy on nitpicking issues. There are evil because of their lies and corrupt ways.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI've spent my entire adult life fighting abortion. I've sidewalk counseled, worked at a CPC, my husband and I sheltered more than a dozen unwed moms. I've babysat for saved babies and been to jail. I know the pressures on women because I've cried with them. Nevertheless, a woman who has an abortion hires a hit man to kill her baby. If she hired a hit man to kill her husband would we just shrug and say, "She was under a lot of pressure." We prosecute women who leave their babies in dumpsters. How different is that from the woman who has a late term abortion? The question is -- Do we really believe the baby is equal to the rest of us? I think most people do not, even pro-lifers.
ReplyDeleteMary Ann,
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's that we don't think the unborn child is not as human as "the rest of us", but that there is something unique about the circumstances, possibly due to the whole "human body within a human body" thing. That doesn't justify it in the slightest, but it does demonstrate a significant difference.
And also keep in mind that any sort of on the books punishment would disproportionately affect the women who probably suffer the *most* coercion – the poor, the abused, etc. over and against the suburban egoists. Think about it – already inner-city folks have the book thrown at them for relatively petty crimes, while wealthier folks have it shrugged off. A lot of this is due to how prosecutors are incentivized to seek convictions and maximum sentences rather than justice or truth, and the quality of the defense lawyer makes all the difference in the world.
In one case, a high school acquaintance of mine became a prosecutor and won a "Golden Handcuff" award for being "tough on crime" – i.e. for getting a maximum number of convictions with maximum sentences, mostly on petty ghetto or redneck drug crime. The guy was one of the biggest drunks and potheads I knew in school, and just two years prior to his award had been arrested for getting drunk and stealing a taxi and going on a joyride in Las Vegas. His connections saved him.
In any event, pre-Roe law in the US did not prosecute women who sought abortion, going back centuries into how the law was understood in the UK and Europe. Here's a link on that:
http://www.aul.org/2010/04/why-the-states-did-not-prosecute-women-for-abortion-before-roe-v-wade/
Mercury - I'm so glad you added that link - it's great - likewise - one more reason to not vote for Trump. This especially is helpful from that article"
Delete"Why did the states target abortionists and treat women as a victim of the abortionist?
It was based on three policy judgments: the point of abortion law is effective enforcement against abortionists, the woman is the second victim of the abortionist, and prosecuting women is counterproductive to the goal of effective enforcement of the law against abortionists." - http://www.aul.org/2010/04/why-the-states-did-not-prosecute-women-for-abortion-before-roe-v-wade/
You always come through buddy when I am most in need of help.
"That's why the man who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin" - John 19:11
ReplyDelete