{"id":2252,"date":"2011-05-28T17:42:29","date_gmt":"2011-05-28T21:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/watchwomanonthewall\/?p=2252"},"modified":"2011-05-28T17:42:29","modified_gmt":"2011-05-28T21:42:29","slug":"outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html","title":{"rendered":"Outlawing Abortion Bit by Bit: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Outlawing Abortion: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism, II<\/h2>\n<p><em>by Gerard Nadal, Ph.D. | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 5\/27\/11 4:46 PM<\/em><\/p>\n<div>Today, I\u2019m privileged to present a guest article written by Father Steven E. Clark. Father Clark is Pastor of Saint Francis of Assisi Church, Mount Kisco, New York.\u00a0He is a 1976 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis MD, a former Marine Corps Major, helicopter pilot and naval flight instructor, as well as master of Sacred Scripture. He\u2019s also a priest\u2019s priest, best friend whom I met in the seminary and Joseph\u2019s Godfather. He brings an important perspective to bear on this ongoing debate.<\/div>\n<p><em><strong> <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Here is Father Clark:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"151\" height=\"126\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg\"><\/a>Recently Dr. Gerard M. Nadal, Ph.D., posted the blog entry, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2011\/05\/23\/outlawing-abortion-making-the-case-for-an-incremental-approach\/\">Outlawing Abortion: Making the Case for an Incremental Approach<\/a>.\u201d The graphic is very apropos, and his reasoning I find very sound, quite in agreement with the moral\u00a0<strong>Principle of Double Effect<\/strong>. Now before the \u201call-or-nothing\u201d crowd blasts off to a region somewhere beyond the Plutonian orbit, let\u2019s all take a breath and review the principle of double effect as I remember it from\u00a0<strong>Msgr. William B. Smith\u2019s<\/strong> course on Fundamental Moral Theology.<\/p>\n<p>There are four conditions for the legitimate use of the principle of double effect.<\/p>\n<p><strong>First<\/strong>, the act itself must be morally good or at least morally indifferent (neutral). What could be better than working to save an innocent human life?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Second<\/strong>, the evil effect must not be intended for itself but only\/merely intended. Here the person working to rescind the laws permitting abortion has taken a approach to incrementally rescind parts of the law(s) permitting abortions because for the past 30 years the all-or-nothing approach at overturning such laws has met with vociferous opposition and repeated failure. So, a person working to incrementally rescind\/overturn abortion laws (I\u2019ll call them \u201cincrementalists\u201d for the purpose of this article), intends to save lives within the realm of possibility, not directly intending the death of others, but looking forward to an eventual overturning of all laws permitting abortion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read the rest of the reasons at:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2011\/05\/27\/outlawing-abortion-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism-ii\/\">http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2011\/05\/27\/outlawing-abortion-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism-ii\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 297px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/prayinghandsclipart.com\/prayingbible\/prayinghands_bible10.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"297\" height=\"385\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pray for the mothers who keep their babies under trying circumstances, counsel them, support them. That is the Christian way!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Visit Life Site News:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/\">http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Outlawing Abortion: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism, II by Gerard Nadal, Ph.D. | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 5\/27\/11 4:46 PM Today, I\u2019m privileged to present a guest article written by Father Steven E. Clark. Father Clark is Pastor of Saint Francis of Assisi Church, Mount Kisco, New York.\u00a0He is a 1976 graduate of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[466],"tags":[976,974,975],"class_list":["post-2252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pro-life-2","tag-good-works","tag-pro-life-incrementalism","tag-save-babies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Outlawing Abortion Bit by Bit: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism - Watchwoman on the Wall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Outlawing Abortion Bit by Bit: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism - Watchwoman on the Wall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Outlawing Abortion: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism, II by Gerard Nadal, Ph.D. | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 5\/27\/11 4:46 PM Today, I\u2019m privileged to present a guest article written by Father Steven E. Clark. Father Clark is Pastor of Saint Francis of Assisi Church, Mount Kisco, New York.\u00a0He is a 1976 graduate of the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Watchwoman on the Wall\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-28T21:42:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Calvin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Outlawing Abortion Bit by Bit: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism - Watchwoman on the Wall","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Outlawing Abortion Bit by Bit: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism - Watchwoman on the Wall","og_description":"Outlawing Abortion: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism, II by Gerard Nadal, Ph.D. | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 5\/27\/11 4:46 PM Today, I\u2019m privileged to present a guest article written by Father Steven E. 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Father Clark is Pastor of Saint Francis of Assisi Church, Mount Kisco, New York.\u00a0He is a 1976 graduate of the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html","og_site_name":"Watchwoman on the Wall","article_published_time":"2011-05-28T21:42:29+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg"}],"author":"Donna Calvin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html","name":"Outlawing Abortion Bit by Bit: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism - Watchwoman on the Wall","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg","datePublished":"2011-05-28T21:42:29+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-28T21:42:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#\/schema\/person\/1470e1ef6765f8a27f970307b0835df1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/stopabortion.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/05\/outlawing-abortion-bit-by-bit-the-case-for-pro-life-incrementalism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Outlawing Abortion Bit by Bit: The Case for Pro-Life Incrementalism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/","name":"Watchwoman on the Wall","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Calvin","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/#\/schema\/person\/1470e1ef6765f8a27f970307b0835df1","name":"Donna Calvin","description":"In sixth grade my teacher told us that we were going to be the first generation to see the year 2000 and all things would be different. He continued that God wasn't important, wasn't real, and our parents just used God to impose restrictions on us because they were inadequate to parent effectively. I knew then I was going to be involved in a war and that I would have to be in Jesus Christ's Army. Even then, I knew the United States of America would cease to exist without the vast majority of its citizens voluntarily submitting to the Perfect and Good Laws of the Holy Bible. I am a woman who loves the Lord Jesus Christ. I am tired of seeing our LORD denigrated from the school house to the White House. I search the Internet for items that ought to serve as a warning to Americans and Christians all through America, but the nation seems to be sleeping. Wake up America! You are losing your freedoms, your children and your country. 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