A RANT ABOUT ALL THIS NONSENSE

To anonymous - I blogged about the issue of gay marriage previously on The Way.
In this comment I want to address the opposition to the views that we hold as Catholics.....
in a totally informal and spontaneous RANT.

You said:

"Each one of them will not allow me to use Biblical or Faith based sources because either they say...."
- religion is just a guide
- is used to control people
- is illogical to science
- is seprated from the state.
- interracial marriage was considered illegal and sinful
- we cannot enforce a non-christian to follow this principle because doing so will violate the 1st ammendment's freedom of expression and the 9th ammendment's right to privacy.
- A Christian cannot vote on a bill that will enforce the state to force people to follow our faith, especially since God wants us to have free will.
- We can warn people, as we've been doing for a long time.
- If religion is a guide then what is wrong with being guided?
- If religion is used to control people, then secularism must be a religion because secular humanism is used to control people too by means of mass media and scientific indoctrination through which the secularists seek to keep God and Christian principles out of society and the conciousness of the people.
- If religion is illogical to science, then it is either because science is not true or the religion is not true. If both are false, then neither should be listened to. If both are true, then they cannot contradict one another. Only true religion ought to be followed anyway.
- If religion is separated from the state, and religion has to do with God, then why is this country founded upon belief in God? Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? Have you ever looked at the money in this country? Do you think that a state which denies the existence of God will last? Have you heard of Nazism, Communism, and every other atheistic -ism? Do you think that there is another authority upon which laws can be based without falling prey to the whims of the majority? Are you crazy?
- 1st Amendment and 9th amendment do not give people rights to do whatever they want! Hello! Am I free to express myself in anyway whatsoever? NO! I am not allowed to express myself in ways that are damaging to society. Nor can I do things privately that cause the same damage! For example (as if it were necessary) Do you not think that abortion has effected SOCIETY? an entire generation has been lost. Billions of dollars of our country's money has been piped into this murderous industry. The entire social and moral landscape has been adversely effected. Our economy has suffered drastically. Why? Without children and families economy suffers. Economics 101 anyone! As if the effects of these massive structures of sin and the dark cloud of a culture of death that cares more about things than people were not enough of an effect on society! UGGH!
- Interracial marriage was considered illegal and sinful by a bunch of wackos. Slavery was considered the same way - by wackos. The difference between these issues and the gay agenda? No natural human rights are being deprived by denying that gay marriage exists. O contraire! Human rights are being upheld - the right to know the truth, the right to live in a good society - one that is founded upon a true foundation - the family - and every other right that follows upon this - like the right of children to a father and mother!
- Yes Christians propose the truth for belief and it is not right to force others to believe what we believe (as if this were possible?). But it is not right to bow to the lies of the majority for the sake of not "forcing people to believe" what we believe. So we should let them force us to believe what they believe because it is based on a post-modern, scientific, agnostic view of reality and a false humanism? I think not! you want to be tolerant? Know the truth and share it. you want to defend the truth in a tolerant way? Speak it with love. you want to live the truth in a tolerant way? "Love as I have loved." How did Christ love? He told the truth. They killed Him for it. Don't expect anything less and you won't be disappointed. "Love is stronger than death." Tell it to your family, tell it to the world, pray that their eyes be opened. Pray that their ears hear. It is a battle, already won, but still a battle. The Word of God is a two edged sword. Use it. Let it inform your reason. Truth has one source - God - science, faith, reason - it don't matter. Know the Truth. He will set you FREE! 
This is the question of truth and tolerance my friend. The key to answering this question is to realize that we are not actually on the defensive. Too often Christians feel like they have to defend everything that they believe. Well, for a change, let's have a defense from the other side! Every single thing that they claim that we are doing by our faith-bias, mind control and whatever other way they set up faith against reason, they do themselves. How so?
They claim that we cannot bring our bias to weigh in on the issues. That God must be kept out of state issues and that no one has the right to force others to follow their religion. Well, here is a little Christian offensive for you: You, secularists that you are, whether secular humanists, atheists, agnostics, or any belief system at all whatsoever, should not bring your bias to weigh in on the issues! You should not force others to follow your religions- whether you call them religions or not! And you certainly should not claim the right to make your beliefs that backbone of American legislation! HA!
The key to responding to those who claim intolerance on our part, is to present to them the intolerance on their part! In the end, the only distinction that can show who is being tolerant and who is being negligient is called the TRUTH. Do not be duped into believing that we do not have a right to propose the truths that we have arrived at through our faith for belief to others. Do not be duped into thinking that Christian ethics are purely a matter of religious belief and that they have nothing to do with the nature of man! Pshhaw! They have everything to do with the nature of man, with his true good, and the common good of the entire state! You need not believe in Christ to know that certain things are good and certain things are evil and that the supposed "right to privacy" is a heap of nonsense when it comes to things like PUBLIC POLICY on abortion, birth control, homosexual "marriage," and the like! Christ is "Lumen Gentium." The Catholic Church is "Lumen Gentium." A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS!!!! If we do not apply our faith to the public sphere how will THY KINGDOM COME! Woe betide those who would make the state secular! Who would separate God from His People! Is not man made by God and for God! How will the authentic freedom and good of every individual every be reached if the state is totally separated from God and from its Christian ROOTS? Yes the secularists claim that it is intolerant to bring God into the public sphere.... so WHAT! I claim it is intolerant for them to not let HIM IN! The point is that we need to turn this nonsensical tolerance mumbo jumbo right back on those people from whence it came. The only difference is that we have a different kind of tolerance, a tolerance based on truth, and that is the only real tolerance, the only true way to set others free. JOHN 8:32!!!!! Moreover, do not let people use the Constitution of this great nation against you. Do not let them equate the civil rights movement with the gay agenda. The constitution is based on a view of man as created by God and endowed with inalienable rights - rooted in the nature that he received from his Creator. any interpretations of the Constitution that depart from the dignity of the person in the image of God are evil and must be rejected at all costs. How is the dignity of persons upheld by not allowing homosexual marriage? Because we are not presenting this immoral relationship as a legitimate basis of society in contradistinction to the family - the true cell or fundamental unit of the society!!!!! We are not establishing as social and political moral norm something that is blatantly immoral. We are protecting society and those individuals who struggle with those disorderd sexual inclinations and the same challenge to chastity as all of us from such an affront! Man by nature has a right to truth. If we do not stand up and defend it he will be deprived of that right by those who would make their own wills the sole criterion for truth. 

A Philosophical and Rational Explanation of the Absurdity and Immorality of "Homosexual Marriage"

In what follows I propose an explanation of why "homosexual marriage" is not only immoral, but also not good for society to recognize. Also, I give an account of why "homosexual marriage" is a nonsensical term used by those who have an agenda to make the homosexual lifestyle a social and moral norm in our society and the errors at work in the principles of this group of people. This explanation contains nothing that is taken directly from religious beliefs and so is proposed entirely on the basis of reason. Those who wish to skip over the sections which explain the immorality of homosexual acts based on a philosophy of natural rights and natural law, perhaps because they deny the existence of human nature, may do so by moving to the last section in which a modern, personalist account of human sexuality and sexual ethics is presented, in opposition to a false humanism - Cartesian dualism. The middle sections will still need to be read if one wishes to read about why "homosexual marriage" is not good socially and politically, let alone personally. 

Basic Explanation of Natural Human Rights         

Is there a human right to murder another? No. Is there a human right to defend one's own life by killing his attacker? Yes. Is there a human right to private property? Yes. Is there a human right to deprive others of the things needed for survival (food, water, shelter, etc.) in the name of one's own wealth? No. The point is that human rights are not arbitrary conventions that vary from one culture to the next. On the contrary, they are inscribed in our nature as human beings. It will never be just to murder another person, nor will it ever be just (or possible for that matter) to force someone to believe what he does not want to believe. Why? It is because human rights flow from our natural inclinations as human beings. We have natural inclinations to the good known through reason, to self-preservation, to marriage and the rearing of offspring, to the knowledge of truth, and to living in society. There will never be a human right to destroy the life of another, to keep another from seeking the truth, etc. Why? Because man naturally inclines to these goods and they are due to him, i.e., just for him to possess on account of his nature as a human person. Thus, in general, a natural human right is what is just for us on account of the dignity of our nature as human persons and these are distinguished according to our natural inclinations.
          These natural inclinations form the foundation of our natural rights. If there is a natural inclination to one of these goods, there is a natural right to that good. Furthermore, if it is necessary for someone to possess another good to which he is not directly naturally inclined in order that he can possess one of the goods to which he does naturally incline, then, by extension, it can also be said that there is a natural right to such a good. For example, it is necessary to man to possess private property if he is to preserve his own life and raise a family. Therefore, just as there is a natural right to life and to a family, so also there is a natural right to possess one's own property, without which one would not be able to sustain his own life or the life of his family.

The Question of the Natural Right to "Homosexual Marriage"

         Discerning whether or not there is a natural right to homosexual marriage is simply a matter of looking at that to which we naturally incline as human persons, for as we saw above, the human rights that belong to us by nature correspond with that to which we incline by nature. While there is a natural inclination to sexual union and the rearing of children, there is not a natural inclination to homosexual union. This point is deduced from the fact that our sexuality is instrinsically ordered inseperably to both spousal unity and to procreation, neither of which are involved in homosexual relationships. Since the act which distinguishes a homosexual union from any other kind of personal union, such as friendship, business partnership, or marriage, is not an act to which the human person inclines by nature, like knowing the truth or eating, nor is such an act something necessary for any other natural inclination to be fulfilled, like the possession of private property, there cannot be a natural human right to these acts or to the union that is defined by them. In other words, because it involves an intrinsically disordered use of human sexuality, that is, one that is opposed to the natural ends and meanings of the sexual act, there can be no natural right to homosexual marriage. Nor can the state grant such rights since it has no authority to do so, such an act being beyond the power of those who did not make human nature what it is or bring it into being in the first place. And since this sort of relationship does not offer the same contribution, or even a comparable contribution to the common good of the society, there is no reasonable cause for it to be granted a similar status in law.
       Men and women have the right to marry and to raise a family. Conversely, men and women do not have a natural right to promiscuity, adultery, or homosexual marriage, because all of these are in fact opposed to what our sexuality is naturally ordered, namely, to the goods to which we naturally incline sexually: spousal union and the procreation of children. Some may object to this saying that the natural inclination to sexual union is not ordered towards spousal unity and the procreation of children, but rather, it is only ordered to pleasure and a feeling of closeness to another, whoever and whenever. This objection is refuted simply by understanding the sexual act as a personal act. If there are objections or questions to this point, I will be happy to take them up at another time. Let us now return to our subject matter.

The Question of the Natural Right to the State's Benefits and Recognition of Homosexual Marriage

            Heterosexual union is the basis of society, the fundamental unit or cell of the social body.  Homosexual union is not the basic cell of society, nor can it become so, since natural limitations do not allow for this. Furthermore, the attempt through scientific or technological means to make homosexual union the basic unit of society would destroy the family. The reason that marriages and families receive benefits that those in other relationships do not, e.g., friendships, business partnerships, homosexual unions, is that the contribution of marriages and families to society is irreplaceable and irrepeatable. If homosexual unions ceased to exist, society would continue to grow and develop. If marriage ceased, society and human development would shortly follow suit, ending before another generation could be born.
      Given these differences, it is a political absurdity to conflate these essentially distinct relationships and their contribution to society. I do not have a right to the same recognition and benefits of a single mother because I am not a single mother. Why should homosexual couples have a right to the same recognition and benefits of married couples when they are not married couples? Again, even if you call homosexual couples "married", as some states do already, in reality, these couples are still different from heterosexual couples. This conflation is already a reality in many states, but it does not change the fact that there is no natural right to being recognized as something that you are not, just as there is not a natural right to receive all of the same benefits that others receive from the state, provided of course that these are not benefits which one's being deprived of would constitute a violation of one's natural rights - which as we have seen is not the case here. 

The Confusion Behind the Demand for Marriage Rights and Redefinition

      There are two kinds of confusion that come together in the pursuit of the redefinition of marriage and the recognition of this newly defined "marriage" and the "rights" that come along with it by the state:
(1) the idea that the nature of a thing is determined by the one who defines it, and (2) the idea that the state is the source of human rights.
      To address the first: the definition of a thing follows upon its nature, not the other way around. The demand to control and manipulate nature that is so prevalent in our modern society lends itself to the tendency to define things based upon the purposes for which man uses them. This is all well and good in the case of artifacts, but when it carries over to natural things it is out of place and mistaken. For instance, those who look at sexuality as something to be controlled and manipulated for the purposes of pleasure will define it and the morals surrounding it in terms of their purposes, whereas those who look at human sexuality as a natural attribute of the human person, will define it in terms of its natural purposes and base their sexual morality on human nature instead of human artifice.  
      To address the second, the state is not the giver of human rights. Human rights belong to men by nature and not by governmental decree. Hence the term "inalienable rights" that is written in the American Declaration of Independence. This does not mean that governments will not try to define human rights on their own terms. History has shown that governments sometimes do the same thing with human rights that individuals sometimes do with their own morality, that is, they define them based upon their own purposes instead of defining them based upon the nature of man.
      Thus, the first problem, that of defining things without reference to their nature, and the second problem, that of confusing the foundation of human rights, both follow upon the same denial of the truth about the natures of things as they are - prior to the intervention of human manipulation and motivation - and the assumption of the power to control and manipulate nature according to one's own pleasure regardless of its consequences on natural beings (e.g., human persons). If the nature and the real definition of a thing depends solely upon the one defining it, then there is no reason to stop the redefinition of marriage or the appropriation of the rights of married persons by those that would qualify as "married" once the new definition was accepted. But, for those who know that the natures of things are of consequence, and who acknowledge the truth about man's nature and his natural inclinations as the basis of his natural rights, then for them the attempt to redefine marriage is laid bare as an attempt to accomplish an agenda having nothing to do with the truth about man or his rights. What is more, insofar as the truth is a good to which man naturally inclines and to which he therefore has a natural right to know and pursue, if the state were to pass legislation that redefined marriages and began to teach the indentity of homosexuality and heterosexuality in its schools as a matter of law, then such a state would in fact be guilty of violating the natural rights of its citizens by willfully and forcibly witholding the truth from them.  

    In fine, my thoughts are based upon the following principles:

(1) There is a real human nature.
(2) The truth about human nature can be known.
(3) Natural inclinations are ordered towards the good of that which has the nature.
(4) The good or end of a natural thing is one, not many. (Acorns do not become fish, they are ordered towards becoming oak trees, so also with all natural things, they tend towards the natural good of that what they are.)
(5) The account of the good of the human person must take include the physical, moral, and spiritual aspects of his nature or else it will fall short.

        From these principles it follows almost immediately that the sexual act to which we incline by nature is itself naturally ordered towards spousal unity and the procreation of children, and that the unitive and procreative meanings cannot be separated from this act on account of its nature. These meanings can be violated and these ends thwarted, but it does not change the fact that sexuality is ordered towards them by nature, and therefore that it is truly spousal union and children to which we incline through our natural sexual inclination. One need only consider the difference between love and lust to know the difference between sexual union that is morally good and that which is morally evil.

Why Are Homosexual Acts Lustful and Not Acts of Love?

Any sexual union that is not open to life is deficient inasmuch as that act departs from the natural order that reason discerns in the sexual act. The consequences of this are not simply that children can not and will not be produced from such an act. Rather, there are additional consequences that will affect the totality of the personalities that are directly involved in such relationships and also those personalities who live in their community. Why? Human nature is not some arbitrary concept that moralists use to keep people from expressing their freedom as individuals. Instead, humanity is the name of that which is common to all human persons insofar as the structure of the human person, and the fundamental order present within each personality towards its own good and fulfillment is concerned. Because homosexual acts depart from the purpose and natural order inherent in human sexuality, they are incapable of being an expression of genuine love for another person. The reason for this is that they are acts of lust. How do we distinguish between acts of love and acts of lust when it comes to human sexuality? The distinction is simple. When looked at according to reason, instead of according to passion or a false compassion so prevalent today on the part of those who do not understand the nature of human sexuality, the sexual act is a gift of self. In it, spouses give themselves to the other totally and receive the other totally. Just as in a contraceptive relationship where the totality of the one's self is neither given, nor received, due to the rejection of that most personal attribute of man and woman, namely, their fertility, so also in homosexual relations there can be no total gift of self because the fertility of the other person, which is an essential property of their human personality, is being rejected by those involved. This rejection may not take place explicitly, as though one person would say to another, "I reject your fertility but still want to enter into a relationship with you." But it takes place nonetheless because it is expressed in the actions of the couple. Human actions speak louder than words. Hence, such a relationship is not based on the total gift of self, for the sake of which sexuality exists, but on the satisfaction of the sexual desire, for the sake of which satisfaction another person is used in a relationship that is inherently incapable of providing the context in which the total personal gift of self can take place. One cannot deny that the person with sexual tendencies towards the same sex is not capable of reordering the whole of their sexuality simply by an act of will. The human body is part of the human person. It is not an instrument that the person uses at his own good pleasure for whatever purpose he wishes. It can become such when people fail to recognize that their body is not something other than they are themselves. The problem here is nothing other than a new Manicheism, a Cartesian dualism, which would set off spirit against matter, soul against body, and claim that the physical world is not the sphere of morality, but the sphere of manipulation. The strength of the argument proposed above is that it recognizes the truth about humanity, namely, that the body and the soul form an integrity, one human being, a single person. The nature of the person is such that happiness cannot be found apart from the gift of one's self to others. Thus, in matters of human sexuality, wherein this self-gift finds its fullest expression in a human relationship, it is absolutely necessary to consider the role of the body, and the purposes and meanings associated with the sexual act. For in matters concerning sexuality, in order to know and discern what will lead the person to fulfillment through the true gift of themselves, and what will draw them away from the fulfillment that can only be reached through a true gift of themselves it is necessary to take into account what kind of being the human person actually is, rather than what he might claim to be for the sake of satisfying his desires. And the human person is such as to possess the power of generation, i.e., fertility, within his very self. This amazing power is at the heart of what it is to be man and what it is to be woman, and so, regardless of claims to the contrary, denial of fertility as an essential attribute of the self is tantamount to a denial of the corporeal aspect of the human personality. And so, the gift of self in a marital relationship must be a gift that corresponds to the inmost structure of the person as an integrity of body and soul, namely, a gift that is free, faithful, total, and fruitful, i.e., open to new life, if it is to be an act of love.

The Heart of Atheism

  At the heart of atheism we do not find logical and scientific proofs that disprove the existence of God. Instead, we find the human attempt to answer the question of human existence apart from the existence of the divine. In some way or another these accounts try to make sense of man's place in the universe. What is it that would compel men to account for their existence apart from God? There are certainly many things motivating atheists to deny that God exists. However, I find it hard to believe that the majority of atheists have chosen that particular system of beliefs on account of the fact that they are convinced that God does not exist.
    How can this be? What sense does it make to say that atheists are not what they are because they do not believe in God? Is that not equivalent to saying that Christians are not Christians because they believe in Christ? The reason that one becomes an atheist cannot be the knowledge that God does not exist, since no proofs with such a conclusion exist. The mind not being moved to assent by reason itself, there must be some other cause at work in the mind of the person who professes that God is not. This cause is the will, since the atheist must choose what he believes and it is the act of the will to choose.
   This only pushes the question back you might say. "What is it that moves the will to reject the existence of God in the first place?" As we said above, concretely speaking, there are innumerable things that could lead to the belief that God does not exist. But they must all have one thing in common, namely this, they must all have something to do with goodness. Why? Because goodness is the object of the will. Which is to say that what we choose, we choose insofar as it is good, and what we do not choose, we do not choose because we do not see in it the good that we are looking for.
   If God is by definition Goodness itself, then what would keep someone from choosing to accept his existence? Somewhere there must be a disconnect between the goodness of God and the person who is faced with the choice to believe in him or to deny his being. If a person accepted that "God" referred to goodness itself by definition, then for someone who understood what he was doing to deny that God existed, would require that such a person also deny that there was something good in itself. This does not mean that an atheist would never enjoy a sunset, or like reading books, etc., because he was incapable of seeing anything good in them; but it does mean that the atheist, by definition, would be incapable of seeing a real and lasting goodness in anything since the goodness that an atheist sees is merely a momentary product of his experience and not a participation in Goodness itself. Now I am at a loss as to exactly what makes something good if there is no real foundation of goodness for anything....
    To be an athiest, is not to deny that God exists; it is to deny the existence of something good in itself! Since there is nothing good in itself, there can be no God, because to be God, is to be goodness itself. What is it that causes man to reject the existence of a real and true good? Can he deny his own experience of the goodness all around him so much so that the goodness all around him is nothing but an unfounded, soon-to-disappear, happenstance occurence? Is there nothing more to the experience of a vast blue sky with bright sun shining through its expanses than a momentary conglomeration of materials in a mechanical motion? Does not the fact that the entirety of that sky can be taken in to the person who stands beneath it point to something greater than mere mechanics? Can the fact of beauty be so outrightly denied that the relationship between the beautiful thing, e.g., the ocean, and the one who perceives its beauty, the person, is nothing but an illusion? And why do I say illusion? The reason is that beauty implies something more than just a material event. The sun can shine on the ocean, but the ocean will never be pleased by the hyalescence that the sun gives to it. The moon can shine mysteriously through a night sky, but the ape and the chimpanzee will never consider how pleasing the moonlight is to behold or wonder about what lies beyond that moon, why it shines as it does, or what mystery might lay behind its mysterious shimmer.
    The experience of the beautiful, just like the experience of goodness, lifts man up, beyond the merely material existence of the world around him, and draws him into the transcendence of those values, the experience of which cannot be accounted for apart from the existence of a human spirit whose depths and heights allow for the material realities of this world to open up in their goodness and beauty and actually be perceived for what they are. For man to deny that there are goodness and beauty in the world around him, he need first deny that it can be found in himself. And once he has done that, it is no wonder that he would deny it is the rest of the world, since he himself is the most wondrous creature of all.
    But this is perhaps the point that I was seeking in the first place, namely, that the denial of the good and the beautiful, is not just a scientific resolution concerning matter, but that it is a denial of goodness and beauty in man, and therefore, in all things. And in a world such as this, what person would dare to believe that there was an all-good, all-beautiful God? If there is no foundation of goodness in itself, then there can be nothing that is good because of another, and all material things are good because their goodness has been caused in them by something else.
    The point then is not for us to confound atheists in a solely rational manner, e.g., with the five ways of Aquinas, because logic is more than often not enough to convince a person of goodness where he sees none. The point is for us to show that goodness does exist, that beauty too exists, and that these are found quite visibly in man himself, in the works of his hands, and in the depths of his mind, where God's own voice waits for him in his conscience, speaking to him of goodness itself. For from where would we have learned to speak of goodness and beauty in the first place, if not from him whose Word gives form to all words?
     Moreover, it is no surprise that atheism goes hand in hand with moral relativism, since the atheist, in his denial of goodness itself, by that very denial, denies also the existence of a transcendent conscience which is capable of judging between good and evil. This would also account for the distortion of freedom into license, since without conscience as a standard of goodness and evil, man is no longer free to choose between what he knows is right and what he knows to be wrong, his choices being reduced to his private interpretation of his feelings about what is to be done or not done. Moreover, it is no surprise that atheism has taken root in many hearts in our day because the emptiness of a world without values and without goodness and beauty, where children have grown up without moral norms, expectations, or responsibilities, does not easily lead to a belief in a God who is good, beautiful, and loving. Nonetheless, God is still present to His people, and to every human person, He has given the unreturnable gift of conscience, that listening to His voice in the depths of their heart, we might be led through the reasonable and responsible exercise of freedom to a trust in Him and in His goodness that is the key to unlock the fullness of the meaning of the goodness and beauty that each person seeks after and experiences in undeniable ways every day of our lives.   AMDG
  

On A Logical Argument In Favor of Abortion

The Original Argument:

P1: If abortion is not legal, there will be women who would be desperate enough to find a specialist to abort her fetus illegally.
P2: She would be putting herself at risk of an abortion operation from a quack.
P3: She could die along with the fetus.
C: For the life of the woman, abortion should be legal.

Firstly, I will comment on the logic of the argument formally, that is, with regard to form of the argument, apart from truth and falsity:

P1: The first "premise" proposes a hypothetical, highly probable situation, that, in the past, has been a historical fact. This statement does not have any logical flaws. It merely presents the conditions of the syllogism that follows it. To simplify it for the sake of analysis: If abortion is illegal, it will still be performed. (Let it be taken as given throughout the course of this commentary.)
P2: The second premise, while not presented formally, can be restated formally as such:
P2: Illegal abortion is a health risk to women. There is nothing illogical about this statement. It can be used as a premise in a syllogism. The only question is whether the other premises used in that syllogism will lead to a logically valid conclusion.
P3: Placing this statement in its logical form, that is, two terms connected by a copula (is), it looks like this: Illegal abortion is a potential cause of death to abortion patients. From this we can see that it is being used in conjunction with P2 to give support to the conclusion that is drawn from some unmentioned premises.
C: The conclusion does not explicitly follow from the preceding "argument." The argument stated its conclusion in this way: For the life of the woman, abortion should be legal. This is not an appeal to logic, since this conclusion does not follow from the premises. A logical argument must connect two different terms, a major and a minor, through a common term, the middle term. This argument's conclusion is not derived directly from what is stated in the premises, nor could it have been since there was no middle term in the argument, and new terms are being introduced in the conclusion. There are a few steps in the argument that are made implicitly. If we examine the argument more carefully we will be able to see what is going on more clearly:

Given: If abortion is illegal, it will still be performed. 
P1:  Illegal Abortion is a health risk to women.
P2: Illegal Abortion is a potential cause of death to abortion patients.
C1: If abortion is illegal, there will be health risks to women and potential death for women who have abortions.

C1 is the logical conclusion based on the given conditions and the two premises (P1 and P2).

So how are we supposed to arrive at the conclusion that "Abortion ought to be legal."?

The term "ought" indicates that according to the conclusion of the argument, legalized abortion should be an obligation of the state. On what grounds? The grounds of the argument are P1, P2, and the given conditions concerning illegal abortion. How did we move logically from C1:  That there will be health risks to women on account of illegal abortion, all the way to the moral obligation to have legal abortion without any connecting premises or terms whatsoever? The argument arrives at its conclusion through the following implicit or hidden premises:

Hidden Premise 1: Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
Hidden Premise 2: Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
Hidden Premise 3: It is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.

It was explicitly assumed that abortions will continue to be done if it is illegal. What is implicitly assumed in order to arrive at the conclusion is that abortion needs to be done even if it is illegal (HP1). The reason that this is implicitly assumed is that the conclusion mentioned above (C1) does not dictate any action or obligation on the part of the state, rather it merely concludes that illegal abortions are serious health risks to women. If illegal abortions are serious health risks to women than all that can be concluded from that with respect to the state is that the state has done well to make such life endangering procedures illegal. However, a different conclusion is drawn: Abortion ought to be legal. By brushing away P1 and P2, which serve only to support HP1, we can look at the argument as it actually is formulated, albeit implicitly:

HP1:   Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
C1:     Illegal Abortion is a risk to the life and health of women.
HP2:  Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
HP3:  For the life of women it is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary for the life of women that there be legal abortions.

Formally speaking, this argument is logical. If abortion is necessary for the life of women, and the only kind of abortion that does not harm the life and health of women is legal abortion, then surely legal abortion is necessary. The scary thing is that the logical argument is not presented explicitly, rather it is hidden underneath a vacuous argument that appeals to emotions in order to lead people to conclude that the best thing for the health of women is abortion.

Secondly, I will comment on the logic of this argument materially, that is, with respect to its truth and falsity:

HP1:   Abortion is necessary for the life of women.
Why? This would only be the case if the conditions for abortions were necessary. What are the conditions for an abortion? Unwanted pregnancy. Why are there unwanted pregnancies? People have sex and do not want to have children. Is it necessary to have sex and not want to have children too? Certainly not. Then neither is abortion a necessity for the life of women. This is an outright falsehood which assumes that women and men are unable to have sex in a responsible, rational, and consequently, human way.  False.

C1: Illegal Abortion is a risk to the life and health of women.
True.

HP2:  Legal Abortion is not a risk to the life and health of women.
False. Many women have died because of complications from abortion, e.g., bleeding, infections from baby's body parts which remain in utero after the procedure is completed, anesthesia complications, etc. Also, women who have had abortions are 60% more likely to have breast cancer. Women who have had abortions regularly experience Post-Abortive Trauma, psychological damage that takes years (if ever) to recover from.

HP3:  For the life of women it is necessary to protect women from risks to their health and life.
True.

Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary for the life of women that there be legal abortions.
False. Even if only one of the premises from which the conclusion was drawn was false the entire argument would fail to produce a true conclusion. But this argument has two false premises that both need to be true if the conclusion is going to be true! The argument itself does not conclude logically and the latent argument does not conclude in reality because it is blatantly false to say that abortions are necessary for the life and health of women.

In fine, this argument ought to be rejected as a manipulative attempt to steer its audience towards the evils of abortion. For it attempts to reach its conclusion by evoking emotions and relying on a degrading concept of women as incapable of reasonable and responsible actions in the sphere of human sexuality in order to sway the audience from a rational analysis of the evils of abortion.  AMDG.

Did Mary have other Children?

In response to Gary's question:

First of all, let me begin by saying that Mary was a PERPETUAL VIRGIN, this meaning: She was a virgin before, during, after the birth of Christ. She did not have any other children.

Many fundamentalists challenge the Catholic doctrine of Mary's Perpetual Virginity. One of the most common claims is that scripture states that Jesus had brothers, . Matthew 13:55 states: "Is he not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother named Mary and his brothers james, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?" It is extremely important to denote that the word "brother" used in the bible can also mean "relative." In fact, two of the brothers mentioned, namely James and Joseph are identified as the sons of another Mary, the wife of Clopas (Please compare the scripture verses Matthew 27:56 & John 19:25). In addition to this, it does not make sense, if Jesus had blood brothers, that He would have entrusted Mary to John and not one of these so called "brothers."

Just for historical accuracy, let us make it clear that this doctrine was not even challenged until about 400 AD (the time of Saint Jerome) AND it is interesting to note that the founders of Protestantism did not challenge the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. EXAMPLES:

 Luther wrote: " It is an artical of faith that Mary is the Mother of the Lord and still a virgin.....Chrsit, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact."(See works of Luther v. 11, pp. 319-320; v. 6 p. 510)

Calvin wrote: " There are certain folk who have wished to suggest from this passage (Matt 1:25) that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; BUT WHAT FOLLY THIS IS! For the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph's obedience and to show also that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent his angel to Mary. He had therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company...and besides this Our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to the precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first born wheter or no there was any question of the second."(Sermon on Matthew 1:22 -25, published in 1562)

Zwingli: " I firmly believe that Mary, according ot the words of th gospel as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remained a pure, intact Virgin." (Zwingli Opera, v. 1, p. 424)

I have a question for the Fundementalists:  Why do they not honor Mary as their own Founders did?

Questions!

If any of you have any questions on defending our faith please ask through the blog. we will be checking it frequently. I hope everyone enjoyed Apologetic night on Mary and the Saints, i know some of you had questions after but we were short on time so this is your opportunity to ask away. Joe, Danniel, and Me will be available to answer your questions, just know that if we don't know the answer we will find it. the Catholic Church is endless in her theology!!

St Mary mother of God. PRAY FOR US ALL!

Mary and the Saints

Can we possibly comprehend what life was like for Mary and the saints? The saints were sinners just like us. The power of grace worked in them in such a way that they became conformed to the will of God just like Christ. But Mary, Mary never sinned. From the moment of conception she was preserved from the original sin and all her life she never once gave into temptation. What a miraculous work of grace! No wonder she was assumed into heaven - her body and soul were perfectly united and perfectly ordered in their integrity of being and in their free and total offering to God. Mary and all saints, pray for us!