Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Endorsing thuggery Lompoc, Calif. To the Editors: I am Catholic. I am prochoice. And I am deeply distressed by the "Bloody Kansas" editorial in the September 27...
...But perhaps I could have made myself clearer...
...So do I. But this is a far cry from the true prochoice position, which would allow abortion at any time and for any reason--and without worrying about how "sorrowfully" the thing is done...
...Good for her...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...As Mr...
...As for Dr...
...Carlin morally matures, he will discover that "we are...
...It is killing, but it is not murder, because what is killed is not a human being...
...Like foreign adventures for Bush, our focus on abortion is a convenient dodge from the work we're called to do...
...Condoms make sound epidemiological sense...
...reduced to sheer choice when searching for direction in life...
...They should be as compulsory now among sexually active, nonmonogamous, at-risk populations as would the administration of an effecive vaccine to these same groups in the event such a vaccine is ever found...
...And I am deeply distressed by the "Bloody Kansas" editorial in the September 27 issue--ironically, the same issue where my piece on Frank O'Maltey appeared...
...He rejects the objectivity of moral values, and he equates conscience with choice, discarding the traditional notion that conscience ought to be formed by moral law...
...In my moral framework, life begins at the time it can be sustained outside the womb...
...I do not condone abortion as a means of birth control...
...And man, do I worry about those who would not be thus terrified...
...that the prochoice position follows logically from agnostic premises...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $62...
...p. 604, Paul Valerry...
...Over half of North Carolina retirees came from Florida--learn why...
...To the Editors: I ' v e been called many things, but David R. Carlin, Jr...
...We sit in our churches feeling smug because we oppose abortion while those to whom Jesus called us to minister die outside our doors...
...North Carolina golf & lake homesites from only $10,900...
...It looks as though Ms...
...For Christ's sake (and I mean that), lives are at stake here: not petri-dish now-yonsee-it-now-you-don't collisions of sperm and ova, but real women, women being told, effectively, that their selves are only theirs on lend-lease from the patriarchy...
...Spanish helpful...
...He believes instead that "moral values are objective realities," external norms by which some people can decide morality for others...
...Sharon Young says she is not a moral agnostic...
...If they are, then they are at risk of HIV infection...
...To the Editors: Curiously, your editorial ["Condom Sense," September 13] found a way not to mention the plainest of facts about AIDS: that it is an epidemic...
...We should be ashamed of ourselves...
...Canada, $39...
...The abortion debate hinges on the meaning of the word "life" and our responsibility to preserve it...
...Copyright _9 1991 Commonweal Foundation...
...Just because my particular reading of the morality mandated by Jesus Christ doesn't square with his doesn't mean I ' m any less certain than he about what God requires...
...It also referred to "the highly personal nature of pregnancy" and "the ambiguous legal status of the fetus...
...to: 750 La Playa St., Suite 914, San Francisco, CA 94121-3258.24hr Fax (415) 386-0536...
...Of course reasonable people may disagree about the morality of the thing...
...Agnostic...
...Have you been there...
...In answer to his final question: None of us has ever been an unwillingly pregnant and frightened fourteen-year-old girl...
...Not, by God, Randall Terry...
...Young is closer to the prolife than to the prochoice end of the spectrum...
...My contention is that moral agnosticism (also known as moral relativism or moral subjectivism) is widespread in America...
...72r six times...
...On the abortion question itself, the editorial said the issue is "not as simple as Operation Rescue would have us think...
...594: Commonweal CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 594) ingly and sorrowfully used...
...Your editorial refers to "abortion advocates...
...Classified payable with order...
...p. 613, Liederman, Rothco...
...She thinks the law should allow abortion in the "In-st trimester, for reasons of rape, incest, maternal health, or proven gross deformity...
...If you want to continue the debate--and of course you must--please do not coarsen it by sanctioning the advocates of force and intimidation, whose present name, in America, is Operation Rescue...
...p. 615, David Appleby...
...Retire to North Carolina WHY RETIRE TO FLA...
...Teen-agers in our cities' schools qualify as such a population...
...1-800768-7358...
...No wonder we don't want to do them...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...I believe statistics indicate that this group is sexually active...
...foreign, $72...
...FRANCIS J. DURGIN, M.D...
...Yearly subscriptions...
...cover photo, Beacon Communications, p. 600, Baloo, Rathco...
...language less lively than Frank McConnell's, but also less apodictic, and more "really reasonable...
...But is she, as she imagines, prochoice...
...The gospel writers don't report any words from Jesus about abortion, but he told his followers more than once that their job was to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, and visit the prisoner...
...The author r e p l i e s : When I said the prochoice party is made up of moral agnostics, I did not of course mean that each and every prochoice person in America is a moral agnostic...
...25 October 1991:623...
...Thus abortion in the first trimester, for reasons of rape, incest, maternal health, or proven gross deformity, should be an available option, albeit spar(Continued on page 623) Commonweal, is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...Thus all abortion is a sin...
...Civil disobedience is: You state your position, you allow yourself to be busted, and you let The Man carry you away...
...Durgin, he sounds like the real article--a genuine moral agnostic...
...Who "rescues" the scared fourteen-year-old who gets knocked up and can't turn to Daddy or the church or her boyfriend for anything but more grief...
...It also said that Operation Rescue loses moral authority and hurts its own cause by the use of physical coercion or harassment...
...1,1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M148106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster, Ohio 44691...
...and that the prochoice party, not surprisingly, is by and large made up of moral agnostics...
...It's NOT violating the self-respect of women, who are as much the living vessels of Christ as John Paul II--and, for my money, considerably more so than that truly awful man Randall Terry...
...McConnell, was once a Thing in a Womb...
...Nurses Needed You know the problems--become part of the solution...
...In this case we are not persuaded...
...From an epidemiological standpoint, condoms are known to be an effective barrier to HIV infection...
...Single Copy, $2...
...But Operation Rescue isn't scared of that awful responsibility...
...Those jobs are much harder than blocking abortion clinics...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...Alternative Ministry Married, inactive clergy, California-Arizona preferred, interested in creating own special settings/ministry within a small but contemporary Western Rite apostolic church, please write sending S.A.S.E...
...76r three times...
...Each of us, like Mr...
...They have terrorized women with all the manic glee of the Elect...
...Nice name...
...went too far when he labeled me a "moral agnostic" ["The New/Old Abortion Battle," September 13...
...Choice is the exercise of conscience--the simple exercise of free will, inspired by the Holy Spirit and determined by each individual for herself or himself...
...monthly in advance for more than three times...
...Without free will there can be no such thing as moral responsibility or virtue, however the moral dictators of every age may decry it...
...DAVID R. CARLIN, JR...
...Illustrations: Cover, Emil Antonucci...
...Bloody Kansas" (q.v...
...But unless he misunderstands the meaning of these ideas as he obviously misunderstands the meaning of conscience, I fall to see what support they lend his case...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 00103330...
...But "reasonable people" must be really reasonable...
...Stemming the AIDS epidemic presents a greater good to society than the conjectured moral harm that critics say will result from the condom program...
...I am pleased to learn that he is a champion of free will and the Holy Spirit...
...Civil disobedience is not where you and a gaggle of your fellow self-righteous, we're-doing-the-Lord's-work yutzes holler at and intimidate poor and frightened young women going into a clinic, maybe-maybe--just to see if they are pregnant...
...This was exactly the standard of rule-following morality that led to the condemnation of Jesus by the religious leaders of his day...
...U.S., $36...
...To the Editors: For David F. Carlin, Jr., those who follow the leadings of their own consciences and advocate that others do the same are best termed "moral agnostics...
...p. 605, Punch, Rothco...
...COMMONWEAL, 15 Dutch St., NYC 10038...
...Carlin needs to be reminded that save for those few who have been granted visions, we won't really know whether we' ve made or missed the mark until that day when, as we affirm in the Nicene Creed, "he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...p. 601, Schwadron, Rothco...
...Or have we changed the rules, and should we now insist upon baptism in utero...
...Perhaps Mr...
...RAYMOND E ROBERTS, JR...
...Either the population that is the teens in our inner-city high schools are precociously sexually active or they are not...
...bank...
...Furthermore, there is no known cure...
...I've done that...
...foreign, $41...
...Condom nonsense Bergenfield, N.J...
...and at additional offices...
...I pray that the church can move beyond the whole abortion debate...
...Contact: M. Ebner, Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service, 426 East 119th Street, New York, NY 10035.212-289-6484...
...Not II Fresno, Calif...
...Let me try again...
...For the prolifer, life begins when ovum and sperm join...
...Be the first on your block to get one...
...Full- or part-time...
...Canada, $66...
...My moral framework dictates opposition to war and to capital punishment, things I've known many "prolifers" to support with nearly the same fervor they display in their anti-abortion diatribes...
...Moral agnostic indeed...
...I don't know any "abortion advocates" (like, what...
...Quite apart from the issue of the morality of the condoms-in-the-schools is the larger public health issue of halting the AIDS epidemic...
...endorsed peaceful protest and said that the cause pursued by Operation Rescue is "estimable...
...I' ve loved Commonweal since I was in high school...
...I know, from the core of whatever it is that makes me me, that I would be terrified to tell any other person how to negotiate his/her life, his/her particular manifestation of God...
...How could you do this---rome out in support----oh so judicious support, yes, but still support--of Operation Rescue's behavior in Wichita, which is not moral witness, not civil disobedience, but thuggery, pure and simple...
...Free literature...
...CLASSIFIED RATES: 80r a word, one time...
...I know a number of sensitive and caring people--including a lot of Catholics--who believe, as I do, that the Thing in the Womb is certainly a living something, but not a human being, and that the mother--and the father, too--has the right to dispose of it if it would make their lives miserable, and if they both agree upon that...
...Condoms therefore belong wherever there is a population that is known to be sexually active and at risk...
...Registered nurses needed, work with inner-city families as part of team with other professionals...
...SHARON M. YOUNG Conscience & c h o i c e Fayetteville, N.Y...
...FRANK McCONNELL The editors reply: Once upon a time a Thing in a Womb emerged, became Frank McConnell, and began addressing the world, sometimes in italics and/or CAPITAL LETTERS, and often but not always--persuasively...
...p. 617, Jeff Sedlik...
Vol. 118 • October 1991 • No. 18
