(no subject)
May. 16th, 2007 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingSo there's a Japanese Catholic hospital.
They don't like abortion, predictably, but they have a relatively sensible take on it for Catholics: rather than just working to ban it, they try to actually address the causes of abortion and came up with a novel solution they hoped would reduce both the number of people who want abortions *and* the number of babies who die from being abandoned.
Their solution: "The Stork's Cradle", a place where unwanted newborns could be dropped off anonymously - allowing parents to have their child adopted, and hopefully reducing the number of abandoned babies left in dangerous places, or where they would not be found in time.
It opened last Thursday.
On the first day of operation, they also had their first drop-off: A toddler, approximately three years old, who was only able to tell the police that he'd come there with "daddy", that he'd taken the train with his daddy to the city and that he really didn't know where home was, or what his daddy's name is.
They don't like abortion, predictably, but they have a relatively sensible take on it for Catholics: rather than just working to ban it, they try to actually address the causes of abortion and came up with a novel solution they hoped would reduce both the number of people who want abortions *and* the number of babies who die from being abandoned.
Their solution: "The Stork's Cradle", a place where unwanted newborns could be dropped off anonymously - allowing parents to have their child adopted, and hopefully reducing the number of abandoned babies left in dangerous places, or where they would not be found in time.
It opened last Thursday.
On the first day of operation, they also had their first drop-off: A toddler, approximately three years old, who was only able to tell the police that he'd come there with "daddy", that he'd taken the train with his daddy to the city and that he really didn't know where home was, or what his daddy's name is.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 04:08 pm (UTC)Advancing as a people is tricky business. Practices which seem horrendous to you will one day be standard practices. What am I saying? This is a world where parents buy their 16yr-olds boob jobs.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-17 06:00 pm (UTC)'cause if it's the first group, I don't suspect their birth control choices come into it unless they're all getting pregnant and then abandoning the child. If it's the second, I don't think Catholicism necessarily informs their birth control and abortion choices.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-20 01:20 am (UTC)You've missed my point. Catholics don't have the choice of birth control and abortion. They shouldn't have to be forced to do it any more than you should be forced to kill your living children. (Which is another perfectly valid solution to the problem... but our society doesn't like that one.)
I understood that the hospital was run by Catholics. The facilities are presumably available to anyone who needs them. Why wouldn't they be? (How could they not be if it's anonymous?)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-20 07:09 am (UTC)It seems that you are using "these people" to mean the Catholics who are running the hospital (which consists of more than a drop-off point, and I am prepared to bet good money that the hospital does not treat all its patients), and the solution that they are going with is offering a safe abandonment location to other people who have unwanted children.
My point is that the birth control/abortion choices of the Catholics running the hospital aren't at all relevant to the production of the unwanted children.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-18 01:02 pm (UTC)What they believe is their choice and they need to be held accountable for their own decisions. Much of the time, religious doctrine like this is used to pass the buck. Of course they can believe anything they like, but they still have to be responsible for their own actions, whether god told them they were right or not.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-20 01:34 am (UTC)For all we know they are, and all we condom using folks are horrendous mass murders.
How can anyone be "held accountable" for doing what they believe to be correct?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-20 07:11 am (UTC)I'm just theorizing, here. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-20 09:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-20 02:04 pm (UTC)You asked "How can anyone be held accountable for doing what they believe to be correct?" and I answered that they can be held accountable if the social context they're operating in says they're responsible for their own actions.
F'r example, if you're an adult and believe it's correct to raise and clothe and educate your child as best as possible, you are held accountable for the actions you take of your own free will while working to fulfill that belief. If you believe it's correct to blow up abortion clinics, you are held accountable for the actions you take of your own free will while working to fulfill *that* belief.
Note that it doesn't really matter if the actions are *acceptable* to society or not; in general (e.g., discounting children and the insane to certain degrees), if you are a person choosing to act in a certain way, you are held accountable for your actions.
If you meant "How can you justify holding anyone accountable for doing what they believe to be correct?" that's a different question.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-21 08:04 am (UTC)Of course there are many things which people do with the best of intentions that they really shouldn't.
I just feel that some other commenters are taking the view that because there are other options they feel to be superior, everyone should take those other options. I'm trying to say that you shouldn't force or expect people to do what they feel is wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-21 06:55 pm (UTC)