Arguments against abortion bill not supported by facts
By: Tim Rohr for Pacific Daily News
In “Copycat abortion bill is ‘dangerous, outrageous’” (Pacific Daily News, Apr. 11, 2022), Anita Arriola began her letter “It’s like clockwork: you can count on it. Virtually every election year one or more senators copy an anti-abortion bill…slap their names on it, and introduce it in the Guam Legislature.”
There is no medical justification for abortion
by: Marjorie DeBenedictis, M.D.
It disappoints me that some members of the Guam’s medical community taint the profession by supporting the deliberate killing of unborn children – in blunt language, that is what "termination of pregnancy" means. Whenever a pregnant woman presents herself to a doctor, the physician is responsible for treating two patients — and this does not include fulfilling the wish of the woman (or her male partner) to rid herself of an unwanted child.
2018 was when the last abortion clinic closed. No doctor on Guam has been willing to perform abortions since then.
Official Guam Abortion Reports for 2008 to 2020 can be accessed here.
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When it comes to abortion, the pro-abortion side usually attempts to cast the anti-abortion position as "religious." It then moves to discard the anti-abortion position under the false banner of "separation of church and state." See: "The Wall of Separation" at TheMassNeverEnds.com
There is no such banner but it has become a mantra that works for "them." So the pro-aborts use it. And since most of the well-intentioned people on the anti-abortion side don't know how to respond, they revert to religious arguments such as "sanctity of life, etc."
It never works, which is why half a century later, we are still arguing about Roe while babies are being slaughtered - even with the help of our tax dollars - by the millions.
The sad fact is that almost every "church" which bears the label "christian" or the name of "Christ" permits abortion under certain circumstances.
As an example, consider this statement on the morality of abortion from the "American Baptists" - perhaps the most conservative of all Christian denominations in the United States.
Read the statement in full here otherwise here is the key "doctrine:"
We also recognize that we are divided as to the proper witness of the church to the state regarding abortion. Many of our membership seek legal safeguards to protect unborn life. Many others advocate for and support family planning legislation, including legalized abortion as in the best interest of women in particular and society in general. Again, we have many points of view between these two positions. Consequently, we acknowledge the freedom of each individual to advocate for a public policy on abortion that reflects his or her beliefs.
In other words: "It's up to you" - whether or not it's moral to kill an innocent, helpless, defenseless human being.
Compare the Baptist statement to the hard doctrine of the Catholic Church (even though few pastors are courageous enough to still teach it):
2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law..."
In other words, pursuant to Catholic teaching, there is NEVER an exception and Catholics DO NOT get to make up their own "policy on abortion that reflects his or her beliefs." You are in or you're out. (And sadly, as polls demonstrate, many "Catholics" are OUT. See Pew Research: "Like U.S. adults overall, the majority of U.S. Catholics say abortion should be legal – at least in some cases."
There is nothing surprising about this. All non-Catholic "christian" traditions can trace their foundations to Martin Luther, who protested (thus "Protestantism") against the abuses of the Catholic Church hierarchy at the time. And while Luther was correct about those abuses, Luther did not work to resolve them.
Rather, Luther worked to create a new hierarchy of which he was the head, thus opening the door to create new "heads" for anyone who disagreed with anyone, and thus propagated tens of thousands of "christian" churches, of whose leadership essentially makes it up as they go along; and, as in the present case, fundamentally have no way to define doctrine other than to turn everything over to personal interpretation supposedly guided by the "holy spirit" - since that is exactly what "they" did.
So the pro-aborts win.
For now.
Our recommendation, i.e. The Esperansa Project, and especially given the confused leadership of even the Catholic Church, is to stay away from religious "leadership" altogether, and to fight for the rights of the unborn on a purely natural-law level:
The "thing" in the womb of the mother is alive. It is growing. The "thing" is not an ear of corn, an elephant, or a fetal horse. The "thing" is a human being. And the essential question is:
