These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Catholic options in the abortion debate.
    Author: Maguire DC.
    Journal: Conscience; 1990; 11(3):8-10. PubMed ID: 12178838.
    Abstract:
    The little-known Roman Catholic theological doctrine of probabilism, an ethical system explicated in all manuals of moral theology, is explained using as an example the dilemma of abortion. Probabilism is based on the notion that a doubtful moral obligation may not be imposed as though it were certain. "Ubi dubium, ibi libertas," means where there is doubt, there is freedom. There are 2 types of moral probability, intrinsic probability, where the individual, without the help of moral theologians, perceives the inapplicability of a particular moral teaching; and extrinsic probability, which involves reliance on the findings of 5 or 6 reputable moral theologians, who may hold a liberal view. Probabilism implies a reasonable doubt, and one's reasons must be cogent, but not necessarily conclusive. Today's abortion debate is an example of a respectable debate, where the liberal view has been endorsed by a number of reputable religious or other humanitarian bodies that in some cases abortion is not always immoral. Other examples in history are the view once taught by the church that taking interest on loans was immoral, that depriving slaves and women of civil rights on non-Catholics of religious or political freedom was moral. For today's legislators, there is a precedent throughout theological history for the state permitting an evil: both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that prostitution, although evil, should not be outlawed, because worse evils would occur with prohibition. Legislators who personally find abortion always immoral can support a Roe V. Wade decision because 1) it does not require anyone to have an abortion, and 2) the abortion debate, among Catholics, and non-Catholics is not settled.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]