USCCB Voting Guide for Catholics

• "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship."

Five Non-Negotiable Issues

"Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics."

• Abortion
• Euthanasia
• Embryonic Stem Cell Research
• Human Cloning
• Same-sex "Marriage"

Related Issues

• Designer babies
• Freedom of Religion

I am an assenting Catholic

Vatican II taught that we should give religious assent to the teachings of the Ordinary Magisterium.

It taught that abortion and infanticide are "abominable crimes."

Murder is intrinsically evil

I cannot see pitting the born against the unborn.

Buying material comfort at the expense of murdering babies.

It is murder.

It is intrinsically evil.

Catholics are not Gnostics

Vatican II did not embrace gnosticism; many interpreters of Vatican II are gnostics. They hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see.

The idea of conscience espoused by the modern world is gnostic: "If you think it is good, it is good; if you think it is true, it is true."

Rights impose obligations

Establishing it as a right mandates participation by all citizens: taxpayers, doctors, nurses, social workers.

"Any procedure that involves a doctor is part of health care."

Murder is not "health care"

The deadening of conscience that allows us to tolerate government-mandated murder opens the door to other perversions of 'health' care, especially genetic engineering and euthanasia.

Science Says

Science teaches us that the process of life begins with the fertilized egg (the zygote) and continues without interruption until we die.

1. zygote: fertilized egg
2. blastocyst: inner group of cells, which will become the embryo, surrounded by an outer shell, which will become the placenta
3. embryo: highly differentiated
4. fetus: 11th week to birth. Recognizably human.

From the first moment of conception, there is life:

• If it wasn't alive, it wouldn't have to be killed.
• Ingestion of nutrients from the environment.
• Metabolism of the nutrients.
• Excretion of waste.
• Maintenance of homeostasis--self-regulation of its own internal processes.
• Growth through cellular division.
• Consummation of development: attaining the power to reproduce.

It is human life:

• Every nucleated cell in the mother's body contains her genetic identity. We can tell what is and is not part of her body through genetic testing.
• Every nucleated cell in the child's body contains his or her genetic identity. It is from both parents.

Yes, this is bio-centric reasoning. It is the biology that tells us the species of the act being contemplated.

Choosing sides on this issue

I can't see the policies of the Democrat Party as consistent with my faith.

Whatsoever You Do ...

"What you do to the least of my family, that you do unto me."

Natural Law

In a speech delivered at the 2006 “Call to Renewal” conference, Senator Obama offered these thoughts on the relationship between politics and religion: "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values. ... It requires that their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason. Now, I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."

Rom 1 and 2.

All sins are contrary to our human nature.

Links

• "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics."
• "3 new Jesuit college presidents donated to ‘pro-choice’ candidates."
• "The End of the Age of Distraction."
• "Our First, Most Cherished Liberty."
• [1] Compares platforms.