The Family Foundation School Catholic Community Bulletin
Pauca Verba – ( A Few Words)
Most of us at The Family School excel in arguing our points and opinions. But often we argue without having any sound knowledge or power of real reasoning. So listen to this argument and the response that follows.
Argument: “I’m personally against abortion, but I’m still pro choice. It’s a legal alternative and we don’t have the right to keep it from anyone.”
Response: Suppose drug dealing were legalized, as some have advocated. Then suppose you heard someone argue this way for selling cocaine:
“I’m personally not in favor of drug-dealing, but it’s a matter for a drug-dealer to decide between himself and his attorney. Lots of religious people are against drug dealing, but they have no right to force their anti-cocaine morality on others. We don’t want to go back to the days when drug-dealing was done in back alleys and people died from poorly mixed cocaine, and when only rich people could get drugs and poor people couldn’t. It’s better now that qualified drug dealers can safely give cocaine to our children. I personally wouldn’t buy drugs, so I’m not pro-drugs, you understand, I’m just pro choice about drug-dealing.”
There is no significant difference between people who are in favor of drug dealing and people who don’t like it personally but believe it should be an option. So one who is pro choice about rape might argue that this is not the same as being pro-rape. But what is the difference, since being pro choice about rape allows and effectively promotes the legitimacy of rape?
BUT MAYBE YOU (dear reader) ARE PRO DRUGS AND PRO RAPE! READ ON.
Those who were pro choice about slavery fancied that their moral position was sound since they personally didn’t own slaves. Yet it was not just the pro-slavery position, but the pro choice about slavery position that resulted in the exploitation, beatings and deaths of innocent people in this country. Similarly, most people in Germany did not favor the killing of Jews, but they did nothing to stop that killing.
In ancient Rome it was legal for fathers to kill their newborn children by setting them out to die of exposure or to be eaten by wild beasts. While many Romans would not do this to their own children, they recognized the rights of others to do so. The early Christians saw this “right” as a wrong, and when they found such children, they took them into their homes to care for them.
Some people have the illusion that being personally opposed to abortion while believing others should be free to choose it is some kind of compromise between the pro abortion and pro-life positions. It isn’t. Pro-choice people vote the same as pro-abortion people. Both oppose legal protection for the innocent unborn. Both are willing for children to die by abortion and must take responsibility for the killing of those babies even if they do not participate directly. To the baby who dies it makes no difference whether those who refused to protect her were pro abortion or merely pro choice.
Randy C. Alcorn – Pro Life Answers to Pro Choice Arguments
Now, why don’t you share this bulletin with some of the many people around here who think, “Well, I would never have an abortion, but I defend your right to it.” You understand, the answer to the argument has nothing to do with religion – just sound reason.
