I heard this question posed by a prochoicer the other day: why are Catholics so opposed to abortion, if these babies are going to end up in heaven* anyway?
Our response as Catholics should be: we don't kill people just so they can go to heaven. If this were our moral code, then we should be killing every baby right after he's been baptized, because then they'd be guaranteed a place in heaven. And killing everyone once they step out of the confessional. And killing anyone baptized who's in a state of grace.
Obviously, that's an absurd paradigm.
Rather, we work in cooperation with the will of God, and let God determine when a person dies.
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Also, there's been a lot of dialogue by prochoicers that asserts things like "When you have a uterus, then you can have an opinion on abortion. Otherwise, stay out of my business".
It is a peculiar objection prochoicers have, which excludes 50% of the population from voicing an opinion.
And it should also be noted that 9 men (who presumably did not have a uterus) made their opinion on abortion the law of the land 45 years ago. These 9 Supreme Court Justices were permitted by prochoicers to rule on Roe v Wade, making abortion legal through all 9 months of pregnancy ..and prochoicers seem to have no problem with their not having female body parts on this ruling.
As a parallel: imagine if a Northerner in the 19th century objected to a Southern Plantation owner's slavery. And the Plantation owner said, "If you don't know what it's like to manage a plantation, stay out of my business. You can't oppose slavery if you don't own a plantation".
No plantation, no opinion! (on slavery)
That would be nonsense, right?!
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Finally one other prochoice question I've seen lately is: are you going to adopt every baby that's in danger of being aborted? No? Well, then stay out of the woman's business if you're not going take responsibility for that fetus.
Our response: do you adopt every puppy that's being beaten? Should the people who oppose domestic violence take every victim into their homes to protect them? Should the abolitionist have been responsible for caring for every slave that was freed?
Hopefully, our parallel questions will help the prochoicer recognize the absurdity of her position. One can be opposed to a particular issue on its own merits, without necessarily being responsible for every foreseeable consequence of this opposition.
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*The Church doesn't profess that babies who are aborted go to heaven. Rather, we entrust them to the mercy of God and can have a sure hope for their salvation. "It must be clearly acknowledged that the church does not have sure knowledge about the salvation of unbaptized infants who die. She knows and celebrates the glory of the Holy Innocents, but the destiny of the generality of infants who die without baptism has not been revealed to us, and the church teaches and judges only with regard to what has been revealed. What we do positively know of God, Christ and the church gives us grounds to hope for their salvation, as must now be explained."
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