The Ultimate Sacrifice/Cure for Abortion?

[Monoxide]

First off, I do not support murder of any human being at all. I was just thinking on this topic. Murder is wrong. Do not take this story seriously, for it is not true, and God-Willing, never will be true.

There is a man. He is a man full of faith and love for the Lord and his fellow men. This man lives in todays society and is absolutely pained whenever he hears mention of anything relating the the slaughter of children (Abortion). This man is knowledgable enough to know that in todays society, absolutely NOTHING at all will be able to stop this menace, he knows that many so - called Catholics support abortion, he fears that initiating a political protest against abortion will only strengthen the enemy. This man makes a choice. He decideds to sacrifice his most dear and beautiful possession to stop this menace. He decides that to save the life of the children being slaughtered, he must sacrifice his soul.

The man thinks long and hard about the best way to do this. Then a solution comes to him. The man possess's the ability to shoot guns and demolish buildings. He takes his ability and uses it. He notices how people have attempted what his basic goal is in the past, so he decides to do it more roughly, but to make certain the goal is achieved. The man goes on a rampage. He walks to the local slaughterhouse (sorry abortion clinic) and somehow blocks all the doors and sets it on fire, killing every human inside. There is a pro abortion demonstration to protest this killing, and he goes in and kills the speakers. He kills people who donate to family planning, murders the CEO's of organizations that contribute equipment and money to the slaughter houses. He bombs an entire floor in a public hospital, the floor that contains the clinic. You see, his solution to the problem is striking fear into the population, committing murder to stop murder.

By doing this, the man obviously violates many of the churches laws willingly, for he kills many men. But in doing so, he has an impact on abortion. He knows he will be condemed by his own church, his family and friends. But he feels that his eternity in hell is worth the eternity in hell of the babies slaughtered.

Wow i read this over and was disgusted, but to summarize,

Do the ends justify the means?

In the fake story above, is the man a Martyr, Murderer or just plain insane?

If a group were to commit acts of terror to halt abortion and such, would they be condemed to hell?

-Monoxide
BTW, i would never ever do anything like this, and I hope and pray that no one else will.

[Benedict]

[quote]Do the ends justify the means?[/quote]
The ends do not justify the means. This is the first and most prevalent moral falsehood in our world.

[quote]In the fake story above, is the man a Martyr, Murderer or just plain insane?[/quote]
One would hope he was insane. I would consider him a murderer. The situation is horrible but, as St. Paul tells us, we cannot accomplish a good by committing an evil act.

[quote]If a group were to commit acts of terror to halt abortion and such, would they be condemed to hell?[/quote]
God is judge.

[Don John of Austria]

Funny most of what you mention might not be murder at all, if his intent is truly to save the innocent and is not rage then it wouldn't be murder, only war, I can't see how this would cost the man his soul, in fact it might well be earn him Merit. It certianly doesn't violate the laws of the Church, although he might be condemned for it, now if he believed what he was doning was murder and then did it anyway, that alone would be a sin, and that could cause him to go to Hell, but killing men is not neccessarly murder, and is not neccessarly wrong.

[Don John of Austria]

Now don't interpret that as me saying that the ends justify the means, for they do not, for examle it would not be justifiable to attack the innocent ( such as a child of one of your mythical CEO's ) in order to achieve this, but those actively engauged in the abortion industry are not innocent and therefore action agianst them would not be morally objectionable.

[Socrates]

The actions described would be murder, and the man, at best, would be seriously misguided.

The described acts involve the deliberate killing of human beings. It goes far beyondthe principle of double effect category of saving the life of others with the unintended consequence of taking human life. (Particularly with regards killing the CEO and others (deliberate murder with the justification of good intent.)

This is a terrorist ends-justify-the means mentality that can lead to all sorts of atrocities and lawlessness.

And, of course, the intended effect of saving lives would be extremely unlikely to result! The likely result of such a rampage would be to strengthen the pro-abortion lobby and it would likely lead to all kinds of unjust legislation and tyrannical government programs to crush "anti-abortion terrorism." (The pro-aborts are always looking for excuses to criminalize any pro-life activity, and this scenario would be their dream come true!)

Evil acts hardly ever lead to good results, but tend to breed more evil.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote]The described acts involve the deliberate killing of human beings. It goes far beyondthe principle of double effect category of saving the life of others with the unintended consequence of taking human life. (Particularly with regards killing the CEO and others (deliberate murder with the justification of good intent.)
[/quote]

I heartly disagree the taking of the combatant out of the man is quite difficult when speaking of financil backers, one is quite entitled to use lethal force to remove the combatant from anyone, someone actively giving money in the support of abortion is certainly a combatant. This falls well within the tradition of Just war and is substativly no differantthan targeting an enemy officer, say a member of the gerneral staff of an opposing army, one is entitled to use what ever level of force is needeed to remove the combatant from the man. As I said one could not target the CEO's Family but certianly one could target him.

[Monoxide]

Thank you all for the thoughtful responses.

Some of you missed the concept. This man or group is so large in scale that people will join in his assistance, rather than support the pro-death group. People who openly support the murder of children would be targeted, causing fear. This would give the pro-death people a leg to stand on, but if there is no one to stand on it..? In todays morally bankrupt society we have little option but fear.

Also i was trying to get the question accross

Is it possible to sacrifice ones very soul for the lives and souls of others?

Thank you for your input

-Monoxide

[bookwyrm]

No.

[Guest Aluigi]

there'd be no point. God doesn't want you to go to hell even if it would send 100000 people to heaven. well, first it most likely wouldn't even if it would seem like it would send them to heaven, and second your soul is precious to Him.

[Socrates]

There are a number of significant flaws in the arguments for the rightousness of this theoretical killing.

1. "Taking the combatant out of a man" only applies when this is the only possible practicable way to save the life in question (i.e. a man's firing a gun at you or your loved ones, and one must take him down to avoid the death of one's self or loved ones.) Killing the financier definitely does not fall in this category. This is analagous to assasinating one who is paying killers. The financier (though morally culpable) is not directly causing the killing, and all other means of stopping the killing he supports must be exhausted before killing the man could be justified.

2. Don John says this is justified because it is "war." However, it fails a number of the Church's requirements for just war. A just war must be declared by a lawful authority (such as a king or government body.) A private individual cannot declare his own "war." This is viligantism, not war.
Further, the war must have a reasonable chance of success. That the rampage in question would have any affect of eliminating abortion is extremely dubious, to say the very least.
Monoxide said "spreading fear" (e.g. terrorism) is how this would used. Therefore, this is not incidental killing to save lives, but murder, whose effect of terror would supposedly prevent further killing.
One need take only one look at the world trade center bombings and the subsequent events to see the utter and absolute absurdity of this proposition. We'd have the government fighting a "war on anti-abortion terror"! Think about it!

Further, our rampaging maniac kills every human being in the abortion center, presumably including the unborn babies themselves! This is not even saving the babies about to be aborted, but murdering the innocent along with the guilty.

And no, the sacrifice of one's soul (damnation) is never an acceptable or noble action. Evil of itself can not bring about good. Only God Himself can bring good out of evil. (And woe to Satan and Judas!)

[Don John of Austria]

Socrates, I don't have time to fully respond right now, however, I have already addressed the right authority issue, and the resonable chance of success as well, your analysus of Double effect is just wrong, one does not have to be in the cact of combat to be a ligetimet target, a soldier can be legitametly targeted while sitting on the toilet. As i said this is no differant thatn targeting a general on an opposing armys staff.

[Carnanc]

[quote]

God is judge. [/quote]
thats all

Edited December 30, 2004 by slywakka250

[Guest Aluigi]

reasonable chance of success means that you shouldn't just go out and do stuff on your own because it's not going to do anything. yeah, rely on God and all, but if that's all we're doing we shouldn't even need to take action right? nah, we all know we gotta put forth the effort to do God's work on earth. an organized and planned war would be good, a disorganized one man plan to blow up a bunch of abortion clinics doesn't do anything. we can see it hasn't done anything except be a PR nightmare for the prolife movement. it will only work if we organized. someone organize and i wouldn't mind enlisting.

[Micheal5403]

Don, why do you always try to justify killing? I know there are some circumstances where killing is just but whenever someone brings up a topic in which death is involved you almost always (everytime I've seen it) support the killing. (have you killed somebody? j/k LOL)

[Don John of Austria]

Micheal I am absolutly willing to say that much killing is not justifiable, but killing is not always morally objectionable, often in fact is is morally permissable, or even on occasion morally obligatory. I object by the modern liberal tendency to try and make Catholicism a pacifist religion-- it is not. The use of force to defend the innocent is not immoral, if you not most of those times we are discussing killing it is discussing that very thing. I find the callous attitude to the death of the unborn to be disgusting, and i find those who would fight to defend their own Children, or thier siblings yet say it is immoral to fight in defence of the unborn to be hypocrytical in the extreme. The innocent are exactly that innocent, and anyone who says they believe that the unborn are alive, living human beings and says it is immoral to use force to defend them either must contend that it is ALWAYS immoral to use force to protect anyone ( which is outside the Tradition of the Church, but philosophicly consistant), or they are a hypocrite, or they are lier and do not really be,iecve that the unborn are human. If they are human then one is fully authorized by the Authority of Natural law to use force to protect their innocent lives, and I cannot abide those that say otherwise-- the only differance between them and the abortionist are that at least the abortionist are obviously the enemy and are not so insidius as to claim to be horrified by the commission of the murder of the unborn. Does that nswer your question?

Edited December 30, 2004 by Don John of Austria