(photo credit Chicago Tribune)The Chicago Tribune published an article by Mark Silva covering today's visit by the president to Notre Dame University. Most reporters seem to think that the protesters represent a minority of strongly outspoken pro-life supporters. The majority of Notre Dame students, the majority of Catholics and the majority of voters in general agree with President Obama's pro-choice position.
The Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, who served as the University of Notre Dame's president for 35 years, says he believes the school was right in inviting Obama.
The 91-year-old Hesburgh said in an interview Thursday with WNDU-TV that universities are supposed to be places where people of differing opinions can talk.
"It's like a common place where people who disagree can get together, instead of throwing bricks at one another, they can discuss the problem and they can see different solutions to difficult problems and those solutions are going to come out of people from universities,'' he said. "They aren't going to come from people running around with signs.''
What's your opinion? Is Obama making a good move today in accepting the honorary degree from Notre Dame? Isn't there a "church and state" conflict on the part of the pro-life position? Is the pro-choice argument a question of men controlling women? It often seems that way to me. For the most part, I realize it's not 100%, but for the most part it's male legislators and politicians demanding in the name of God to restrict what women can do with their own bodies. That doesn't seem right to me.
What do you think?
I see it this way: Obama is perfectly fine to accept the honor, and the people are perfectly fine to protest him. I however, see it as government interference when the gov't says a woman can't have the option of an abortion. I realize there are times when the gov't needs to step in on certain things, that's not my point, I just believe that the right to have a choice is paramount. Of course you get people saying, "What about the right of the unborn to live?" Well, you show me indubitable proof, not platitudes, not logical fallacies, not photos of fetuses, that a fetus is alive, a living being in it's own right, and not some physical extension of the mother, and I'll rethink my position on the issue.
ReplyDeleteI am pro-life but believe that he had the right to speak at the school.
ReplyDeleteThere is no different set of rules for the president than there is for the common citizen in this regard. Many people who support abortion have stepped foot on campus and you can be sure that they've had debates in the classroom. It is a college university after all.
Ryan
Does a person need to be religious to think that we should protect helpless humans beings from being killed?
ReplyDeleteDoes a person need to be religious to have serious reservations about saying "well, yeah, but _those_ humans aren't _people_ because..."
Because if so, I may need to turn in my atheist card.
for the most part it's male legislators and politicians demanding in the name of God to restrict what women can do with their own bodies. That doesn't seem right to me.It doesn't seem right to me either Mike. Freedom of choice is the hallmark of individual liberty. One cannot be free without freedom to choose. As for me, I'm morally opposed to abortion but I don't think I (or anyone else) has the right to force that choice on others. I feel exactly the same about guns and freedom of choice in exercizing that right.
ReplyDeleteMichael, Does a person have to be religious, or anything else, to say that a fetus is not a human being until it reaches a certain stage of development? Call them potential humans or future possible humans, but the point is, if this is what one believes, abortion would be perfectly acceptable, if done early on, would it not?
ReplyDeleteMichael, Does a person have to be religious, or anything else, to say that a fetus is not a human being until it reaches a certain stage of development?
ReplyDeleteOh, not at all. I'm saying I don't think religion is an inseperable part of opposing abortion. The debate overlaps with religion (on both sides) very frequently in real life, of course, but dismissing the whole thing as an inherently religious issue is, I think, unreasonable.
Now, if you have a good non-religious _reason_ for separating out fetuses as unpersons, I'd sincerely love to hear it. My own reservations on the matter are based mostly on the fact that I've never, ever heard a non-arbitrary distinction between fetuses and "people" that doesn't also make it fine to kill newborns and the severely retarded for the convenience of their parents.
Whatever the time may be when a fetus becomes a person, what is it that's different from a week or a month before? What specific quality of a human is it that entitles that human to protection from murder?
(I'm not trying to beg the question here, by the way. I'm drawing a distinction between "humans"--which fetuses undebatably are--and "persons", who we grant certain protections, and which fetuses may or may not be.)
These are big, big questions which may not actually _have_ concrete answers outside the religious beliefs of both the pro and anti sides. I do not have an answer, and as such I'm deeply uncomfortable with going ahead and giving the benefit of the doubt to killing over protecting (unless, of course, the mother's in danger of death or serious injury). If a given human falls into a grey area, shouldn't we err on the side of protecting them, rather than killing them? Isn't deciding that individual kinds of humans are unpersons who can be disposed of without consequences the worst slippery slope of all?
Difficult, difficult issue.