# Fuck the Motherfucking Pope **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182 "2010-05-20T21:15:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 37
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/721 "2010-05-27T19:41:01Z")
I brought up the nine-year-old. In her case, it was an absolute medical emergency. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/722 "2010-05-27T19:45:09Z")
You obviously have not been keeping up with the news, > **[BBC News - Newsnight - Venter: Artificial living cell will benefit humanity](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8696148.stm)** > > A huge scientific breakthrough, or a step too far? Doctor Craig Venter defends the synthetic living cell. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/723 "2010-05-27T19:50:03Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > I brought up the nine-year-old. In her case, it was an absolute medical emergency. No denying that. I am mentioning that case now in response to: > [@](#): > > Surely you realize that extreme cases lead to bad decisions in law and policy, or are real-world results to be thoroughly abandoned at this point? ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/724 "2010-05-27T19:50:31Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Not all rights are equal. One might argue that life is the most important right of all, for without it, all others are moot. So, IMO, at the point at which it’s viable, the fetus’s right to be delivered and live trumps the mother’s right to not have to go through a delivery just 'cause she didn’t want to–not when she’s had ~6 months before that to terminate the pregnancy. Just as she can’t give birth and then suddenly decide she doesn’t want the baby and dispose of it into a trash can instead of at a location designed for such things. > > Which is why my cutoff is _viability_. If the fetus is at a viable stage, instead of getting an abortion, the woman can choose to induce labor at that point. If the baby lives or dies after that, it at least has the chance. No one is trapped into anything. Her mechanism for escaping the pregnancy is abortion up to the point of viability, and after that point removing the fetus from the womb in a way that doesn’t immediately kill it. And if, for some reason, delivery would endanger the mother’s life/health, while abortion would be safer for her? Let’s say some medical condition arose during pregnancy. Is she required to endanger her own life to ensure that the fetus gets a chance? To bring this back on-track - that’s what’s being complained about here. That the Catholic Church expects women to endanger their own lives because a fertilized egg is more important than it’s mother. Most of the posters here aren’t bitching because Catholics oppose abortion. It’s the fact that they are so willing to treat women as nothing but incubators, where the contents are far far more important than the container. Because really, the number of people that carry a pregnancy into the 6th month and then say “you know, I really don’t want to have a baby, I’m getting an abortion now” is damn close to non-existent. And the fact is, in the USA at least, you’re not going to find a doctor that would do one. Hell, you can barely find a doctor that will do a third-trimester abortion to keep you from dying. I think we’re down to one in the entire country, if he’s still in operation. I have no real problem with banning third-trimester abortions for “just because”. However, “just because” is NOT the same thing as “elective”. “Elective” has a different meaning in medical lingo. If you have a brain tumor and decide to have it removed, that’s “elective surgery”. It was not performed as an emergency, you made the decision to have surgery - that makes it elective. Just because you’d die if you didn’t do it doesn’t mean it wasn’t elective. So talking about “elective” third-trimester abortions is dishonest, just as talking about “partial-birth” abortions is dishonest. Unfortunately, many of the leaders of the anti-abortion movement are more than happy to lie about anything that will help their cause. And many of their followers go along, whether willingly or unwittingly. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/725 "2010-05-27T19:51:52Z")
A “person” is a production of experiences and reactions to them. “You are not the same person this year as you were last year” and that. You are not a “person” by any useful definition if the entirety of your existence has been spent in a womb. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/726 "2010-05-27T19:55:50Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Not all rights are equal. One might argue that life is the most important right of all, for without it, all others are moot. So, IMO, at the point at which it’s viable, the fetus’s right to be delivered and live trumps the mother’s right to not have to go through a delivery just 'cause she didn’t want to–not when she’s had ~6 months before that to terminate the pregnancy. Just as she can’t give birth and then suddenly decide she doesn’t want the baby and dispose of it into a trash can instead of at a location designed for such things. And, if I absolutely had to, I’d agree to a ban on third-trimester elective abortions if it was the only way to ensure that more restrictive rules wouldn’t be put in place. But it’s not your opinion that would convince me - it’s my willingness to engage in political compromise. But I’m glad I live in a country where this particular compromise is not needed. > [@](#): > > Which is why my cutoff is _viability_. If the fetus is at a viable stage, instead of getting an abortion, the woman can choose to induce labor at that point. If the baby lives or dies after that, it at least has the chance. No one is trapped into anything. If the baby suffers injury or lifetime disability from its early delivery, can a state-appointed guardian sue the mother or the doctors? What if it dies? > [@](#): > > Well, as I see it, there’s no substantive change to the baby as it moves through the birth canal, that it somehow goes from having no rights on one side to having full rights on the other. I’m not sure why this is difficult. In one case, you’re inside the body of an unwilling host; in the other, you aren’t. Heck, you can gain or lose rights just by stepping across a national border; a far more arbitrary construct than a birth canal. > [@](#): > > Is that the current viability cutoff? Probably not, but “third trimester” (i.e. ~27 weeks) is at least less grey than 22 weeks, in the sense that a premature delivery is more survivable with lower risk of lifetime disability. > [@](#): > > If I see someone open my door and dump you unconscious in my living room, am I allowed to shoot you in the head for trespassing when you didn’t enter of your own volition and cannot leave unaided? No, but that doesn’t prove the point I think you think it does. You’d have to summon professional assistance, i.e. police or an ambulance, to assist with the removal. This does not mean a government official is going to show up and say “Unconscious (and naked?) guy in your living room, huh? Too bad, you’re stuck with him now.” Similarly, a woman can enlist the aid of medical professionals to terminate her pregnancy, ideally without some comparable official showing up to interfere. Besides, I’m not sure how shooting me in the head would solve the problem of me being in your living room. If anything, I think it makes the problem even worse, because now parts of me are mingled into the carpeting and wallpaper. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/727 "2010-05-27T20:49:15Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t quite understand this objection. It seems to me that if our law and policy won’t prevent undesirable extreme cases like this, we should continue to work on our law and policy. Then your reasoning is backward, because you’re not looking at the extreme situation and banning that specifically, but rather using the extreme situation to ban anything vaguely similar. Because the biological (as opposed to positional) difference between a ninth-month fetus and a baby is trivial, one ends up equating fetuses with babies, even sliding back to well before the ninth month, and having concluded that “fetus = baby” and accepting it as an axiom, subjecting women to unnecessary medical procedures (or trapping them in inescapable pregnancies) in an effort to avoid breaking the axiom. As a result, not breaking the rule becomes more important than the actual physical results. Besides, I’m not confident that you’ve done any actual research into why “partial birth” abortions are performed, and even if you could find a case where it was done purely electively, I’m not confident in your ability to resist using this case to hassle women who are not in the same situation. > [@](#): > > Or are you saying that because it happens so rarely, we can simply ignore it as we formulate policy? Well, it’s legal in Canada. I’m not aware that it’s created any problems, so I have to figure it either doesn’t create any or it is indeed extremely rare. So… yes, I think it can be ignored. Maybe there’s some difference between the American and Canadian mindset where we can handle it, but your society would devolve into chaos. In any case, I’d offer you the same compromise (if I had to): no elective abortions in the third trimester. In return, I’d want no effort to add more restrictions, ever. > [@](#): > > Because that doesn’t seem to be the rule applied to discussing rape and incest-related abortions. I don’t recall you, or anyone, caviling over rarity as we discussed the pregnant nine-year-old victim of rape. I never even mentioned her, myself. I don’t think I’ve even bothered to discuss rape and incest pregnancies in this thread. I don’t care how the fetus got there. It’s far more important to me that the woman’s wishes be respected and her health protected. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/728 "2010-05-27T23:58:45Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No denying that. I am mentioning that case now in response to: My point was – what do you think should have been done in that case? Without an abortion, said girl would have died – yet the church still forbids it. How is that not fucked up? How is it an “extreme case?” My point is – why is abortion STILL forbidden when a woman’s life is at stake? The fetus is going to die no matter what – but why must a woman die along with it? We talk about life – what about the woman? In this case, you’re allowing someone to die of neglect. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/729 "2010-05-28T00:26:05Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > If life is holy due to some mysterious process, then can human synthesised life be holy? I might go see Soulless Robots play. But only if they were Norwegian. > [@redtail23](#): > > And if, for some reason, delivery would endanger the mother’s life/health, while abortion would be safer for her? I hear scrolling up is hard. To quote what I already said: > [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Is that the current viability cutoff? That would work for me. And with a broad definition of “medically necessary,” so that a woman who’d be genuinely put into danger by delivery or C-section wouldn’t have to jump through ridiculous hoops to prove it. > [@](#): > > That the Catholic Church expects women to endanger their own lives because a fertilized egg is more important than it’s mother. Nitpick: \*Exactly \*as important as. They’re not giving the glob of cells preferential treatment, simply equal. > [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > You are not a “person” by any useful definition if the entirety of your existence has been spent in a womb. And yet, a “person” who has spent all of .0000000001 seconds outside of the womb has all the same rights as one that’s been out for a decade. Seems fairly arbitrary, no? > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > If the baby suffers injury or lifetime disability from its early delivery, can a state-appointed guardian sue the mother or the doctors? What if it dies? You pays your money and you takes your chances. The mother gets rid of the pregnancy she doesn’t want, and the baby gets a shot at life. If the baby doesn’t make it, at least it had the chance. > [@](#): > > Heck, you can gain or lose rights just by stepping across a national border; a far more arbitrary construct than a birth canal. You’re governed by the same laws inside a uterus as outside. Not that arbitrary. > [@](#): > > You’d have to summon professional assistance, i.e. police or an ambulance, to assist with the removal. This does not mean a government official is going to show up and say “Unconscious (and naked?) guy in your living room, huh? Too bad, you’re stuck with him now.” Who’s suggesting that? Not me. That’s exactly the point–no one is stuck with anything. Up to the point of viability, any woman can terminate for any reason, up to and including “I got pregnant specifically so I could abort on the steps of the Vatican to spite the Hiter Jugend Pope.” After viability, you “terminate” by removing the fetus in a way that doesn’t kill it. You’re still done with it–it’s just that it now gets the opportunity to live. > [@](#): > > If anything, I think it makes the problem even worse, because now parts of me are mingled into the carpeting and wallpaper. Hell if I care. That’s my cleaning person’s problem. > [@Guinastasia](#): > > Without an abortion, said girl would have died – yet the church still forbids it. How is that not fucked up? Yeah, but \*\*Bricker \*\*himself thinks its okay, and as long as the RCC is just sentencing raped tweens to death instead of officially sanctioning molestation, he’s still down with 'em. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/730 "2010-05-28T00:46:43Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > My worldview should prevail in matters of church policy, because the church has every right to set its own belief and polocy. > > And itsn’t this thread complaining about the Pope’s rules? Isn’t it called “Fuck the Motherfucking Pope” for that reason? > > This thread isn’t about any new laws, is it? No. It’s about your side whining when Catholics use - gasp - Catholic doctrine to decide Catholic issues. > > Yes. Except if the choice is to have Catholic beliefs and act accordingly. That’s not a permissible choice, is it? “Excommunication? What? How dare they???” Aha! And now I understand your POV, finally. Thank you for posting this. Guess what? You couldn’t be more wrong. I think most people here understand that the game has to be played by certain rules and that each team has its own interpretation of that game. The game is spirituality (or more accurately, a world view) and the teams are religion. The Jewish team does one thing, the Protestant’s something else again etc. NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT THE CATHOLIC TEAM CANNOT APPROACH THE GAME IN ANY WAY IT PLEASES. You (well, NOT you, since you are neither a cardinal or the Pope–or maybe… But I digress). Catholics can worship any way they like, within reason (that means no virgin sacrifice or–wait for it, kiddy diddling. Oops, epic fail). Catholics can make the rules FOR THEIR TEAM MEMBERS and most of us will merely shrug. It’s when they decide that they get to make the rules for NON-Catholics that things get ugly, like saying condoms cause AIDS and that multiple abortions result in infertility and that you must be a virgin before marriage etc. I don’t believe in hell, unless hell is the Church as it currently manifests itself. Obviously, YMDV. Here’s the thing, though: don’t mistake tolerance for approval. While we are willing to allow the Church to exist, there is no way that tolerance extends to approving of its practices, hierarchy or attempts at political influence. Why SHOULD non-Catholics approve of the Church? The Church doesn’t approve of let’s see here… Protestants, evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, pagans, Wiccans, atheists or agnostics. I may have missed some left-handed, gay Anabaptists, but I think you get my point. The Church rules are that the nun gets excommunicated for saving the life of a woman above the life of a growing entity that would kill her (I don’t say baby to spare you the visual of a baby committing matricide even before birth–how distressing to know that a baby has committed a mortal sin before it’s even sentient. Oh, wait, it’s burning in hell anyway because it wasn’t baptized. Sucks to be that growing entity.). If those are the rules, them’s the rules. What this thread is about, though, is the essential hypocrisy and cruelty of the Church’s position. And yes, it IS hypocritical to damn a female to hell for saving a life while turning a blind eye to the evil within the Church itself lo these many years. You are absolutely correct that the Church can do as its rules state. _What you have completely ignored is that nobody, not even Catholics have to like it or approve of it._ And THAT is what we are talking about here (amongst the brain dead people, the viable fetuses and other various “persons”). But UNLIKE the Catholic church, Jesus was merciful, as is God. How odd that an entity that insists it is the ONE TRUE CHURCH should be so rigid, so unforgiving and so harsh to the very members it should love most. (we can argue for years about whether being forgiven is a valid situation, ie, to be forgiven implies sin or at least a some kind of failing that requires some kind of penance, be it religious or social, but that’s a whole 'nother thread) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/731 "2010-05-28T00:46:58Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > You’re governed by the same laws inside a uterus as outside. You are? Well, I guess the abortion discussion’s resolved, then. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/732 "2010-05-28T00:53:26Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > Oh, wait, it’s burning in hell anyway because it wasn’t baptized. That’s not an RCC teaching. Let’s please be accurate in what we despise them for. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > You are? Well, I guess the abortion discussion’s resolved, then. :rolleyes: This is a discussion of what the laws _should be_, not what they _are_. The physical boundaries of where laws apply are by necessity arbitrary, because that’s how space is structured in our world: different factions control, and set the laws for, different areas. However, personhood is universal. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/733 "2010-05-28T00:59:10Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > When one is brain dead the body starts to decay,even if they administer life support. I No, it doesn’t as long as life support is provided and essential care is performed. That is what makes brain death so hard for the loved ones left behind. The brain dead pt still poops (incontinent, obviously not voluntary), pees, digests, metabolizes, grows hair, sheds skin etc. All systems are go, except that truly there is no one home upstairs, and if life support were removed, death would occur in several minutes. Even with proper care, there is some muscle wasting and contracture that occurs to the joints. The body could start to decay if the brain dead person isn’t turned at least every 2 hours, as the constant pressure of joints and “touch points” with the bed’s surface (back of heels, head, tailbone, elbows, butt cheeks) results in first skin breakdown, then decubitis ulcers (bedsores) appear. Without treatment (with prevention being the most effective), the “sores” will get larger, will entrain bacteria, become infected and the person will (eventually–this will take some time) die of massive sepsis, if the pneumonia from the inability to clear pulmonary secretions doesn’t first. Of course, that will all happen to a NON-brain dead person who is not turned and repositioned, skin kept healthy and intact and clean etc. Quadriplegics, coma pts, PVS pt, stroke pts–all are at very high risk for the above happening. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/734 "2010-05-28T01:05:38Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > :rolleyes: This is a discussion of what the laws _should be_, not what they _are_. Then your statement makes no sense, framed as it was as a definite declaration. > [@](#): > > However, personhood is universal. It is? Hasn’t always been. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/735 "2010-05-28T01:10:22Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > That’s not an RCC teaching. Let’s please be accurate in what we despise them for. Really? I thought they believed that one must be baptized in order to enter the Kingdom. Or was that pre-Vatican 2? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/736 "2010-05-28T08:40:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t quite understand this objection. It seems to me that if our law and policy won’t prevent undesirable extreme cases like this, we should continue to work on our law and policy. Extreme cases like what, exactly? ‘Partial-birth abortions’ are a badly-defined political construct, a construct that was defined in the way it was in order to bypass people’s brains in the discussion of the abortion issue. As you surely well know, and if you’d forgotten, **Elvis** reminded you. So the first thing is for you to bring some of your vaunted legal precision to this question, and say what the fuck you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/737 "2010-05-28T12:13:06Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > No, it doesn’t as long as life support is provided and essential care is performed. That is what makes brain death so hard for the loved ones left behind. The brain dead pt still poops (incontinent, obviously not voluntary), pees, digests, metabolizes, grows hair, sheds skin etc. All systems are go, except that truly there is no one home upstairs, and if life support were removed, death would occur in several minutes. Even with proper care, there is some muscle wasting and contracture that occurs to the joints. > > The body could start to decay if the brain dead person isn’t turned at least every 2 hours, as the constant pressure of joints and “touch points” with the bed’s surface (back of heels, head, tailbone, elbows, butt cheeks) results in first skin breakdown, then decubitis ulcers (bedsores) appear. > Without treatment (with prevention being the most effective), the “sores” will get larger, will entrain bacteria, become infected and the person will (eventually–this will take some time) die of massive sepsis, if the pneumonia from the inability to clear pulmonary secretions doesn’t first. > > Of course, that will all happen to a NON-brain dead person who is not turned and repositioned, skin kept healthy and intact and clean etc. Quadriplegics, coma pts, PVS pt, stroke pts–all are at very high risk for the above happening. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I had understood that some of the organs were not functioning, and were in a state of decay. It isn’t the person living then it is the mechanics of the machines doing the functioning? To add :my thinking that a fetus becomes a person when one can look at the being and recognize that it is indeed human, I have seen pictures of early fetus’s that looked the same as a fish or frog etc. later in pregnacy it showed that it was human. Just like a apple blossom can be called an apple when it can be recognized as such. If self defense is accepted (and the killing in wars like the killing of a lot of Iraqi people just to get Saddam Hussain) then if a woman feels the need for abortion because of a mental, physical, or other problem that could mean giving up her own life (and in self defense) she had an abortion, I cannot see the difference why one is considered evil and the other okay. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/738 "2010-05-28T12:30:48Z")
Because one has traditionally been the purview of men and the other addresses that oh so thorny issue of female sexuality? Just a stray thought… One kills one’s enemies nobly in battle and is lauded and glorified; the sinful whore of a bad mother slays her innocent babe and is condemned to Eternal Fire and societal disgust and shame. And other tommy-rot. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/739 "2010-05-28T13:24:12Z")
Trying to recap a bit… As a whole bunch of us have pointed out, the real problem with the RCCC’s child molestation scandal is the ‘Criminal Conspiracy’ aspect of the Roman Catholic Criminal Conspiracy: the bishops’ (and archbishops’, and cardinals’ and quite possibly the pope’s) willingness to cover the tracks of the molesting priests, and ensure that they didn’t face the least bit of consequence for it. **Bricker** ’s best rebuttal to that seems to be: > [@Bricker](#): > > there was a time when it was somewhat widely accepted that therapy could cure offenders. > > Why don’t you rail against judges that sentenced child molestors to therapy in the seventies, and then had those offenders go on to offend again? There are multiple problems with this. The main problem is that, as unfortunate as it was that secular judges let child molesters off the hook with therapy rather than imprisonment, this was as different from the RCCC’s systemic cover-up as day is from night, in several ways: 1. Open trials (secular) v. hidden decisions (RCCC). The secular molesters may have been let off with therapy, but at least who they were was public record. Not so in the RCCC. 2. Putting them back in the world (secular) v. putting them back in opportune environments for molesting (RCCC). 3. No restrictions on victims’ rights to speak out (secular) v. threatening victims with excommunication, and other forms of hardball and pressure (RCCC). If the RCCC had really _believed_ in the efficacy of therapy in reforming child molesters, it could have been open and aboveboard about what it was doing, and let the proof be in the pudding. After all, the RCCC has been willing to take plenty of other stands that might have been temporarily (or even long-term) unpopular with the laity, on the grounds that time would prove it right, or that standing with Christ was more important than the sentiments of the laity who might be viewing things from the perspective of this passing world, or whatever. Instead, it engaged in a coverup. Some of this, I’ve said earlier; some I haven’t. **Bricker** ’s main response was some crap about Idi Amin that still makes no fucking sense. A second problem is that one expects better, and has every reason in the world to expect better, of an organization that sets itself up not just as a moral paragon, but as the voice of Christ in this world, than of secular institutions. If the Church doesn’t hold itself to a higher standard than it holds the world to, then it is effectively saying it is no better than the world. A third problem is the Church’s “_pensiamo in secoli_” adage - “we think in centuries.” According to the RCCC itself, one if its distinctives is that it doesn’t get caught up in every passing fad of the world, that it has the wisdom of eternal verities. If the world briefly thought, in the 1970s, that child molesters could be cured with therapy, what on earth does that have to do with Roman Catholicism? It’s not like Roman Catholic churches started sporting disco balls in the 1970s either. A fourth problem is that, once the 1970s passed, and with it, the notion of reliably curing child molesters, the molesting priests were still in parishes, molesting children. And still being moved around, and having their tracks covered up. So I find Bricker’s excusing of the bishops to be a fundamental problem in his wrestling (or lack thereof) with the failures of the RCCC. And the notion that sacking a few priests, but not the bishops that covered their trail, somehow constitutes a clean break from the past for the RCCC, is just bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/740 "2010-05-28T13:27:41Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > As you surely well know, and if you’d forgotten, **Elvis** reminded you. I’m pretty sure the message didn’t quite get through, knowhamean? 😉 Maybe yours, either. Probably not **Bryan** ’s. Lalalalala … **eleanor** , you now see what some of us have realized for years - **Bricker** simply does not recognize that there is a concept of morality distinct from the written letter of the law (which he here, unlike elsewhere, feels the need to call “secular law”) OR of the written policy manual of the church to whom he gives absolute fealty. What is foremost for him is the written rules, and a “textual” reading of them. That’s it. It’s the quintessential definition of amorality. It’s futile to try to engage him in a moral discussion, because he literally has no fucking idea what the concept even is. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182.md?page=36) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182.md?page=38)