In one of the most inexplicably awful cases of bureaucracy apparently getting in the way of common sense and mercy I've ever heard of, the British NHS decided to end life support for the infant Alfie Evans against the express wish of his parents. By life support in this case is apparently meant "ventilation," that is, assistance in breathing. Further, they are refusing to allow the infant Alfie Evans to be transferred to Bambino Gesu hospital in Italy, despite the pleas of the Evans couple, the Holy Father, the Italian government (which has granted Italian citizenship to Alfie), and to Bambino Gesu itself.
Bambino Gesu has offered to pay all costs associated with transferring the child.
The British courts are prohibiting the parents from moving their child.
The Evans are being treated as a flight risk.
I'm slightly speechless. This is the same sort of thing that has apparently happened in the case of Charlie Gard and Isaiah Haastrup: life support removed by decision of the hospital, against the wishes of the family.
Please pray the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet for everyone involved in this case, especially those making these rather unspeakable decisions about the life of a little boy.
I was asked whether I really believed what I’d said about the news aiming to be objective, aiming to tell the truth, and not simply be politically biased about situations.
That’s a question with some nuanced answers, which I’ll get to later. But for right now, let me just say that I believe you can come to know people truly and deeply by the stories they tell themselves about themselves.
National myths; legends of the founding of organizations or institutions; the songs, the poems, the stories they tell themselves about themselves—that’s how you know what a people or an individual truly values. That’s how you can pick up on the themes and the boundaries of their own self-understanding.
And the media loves certain stories about itself. Consider the recently released Spielberg movie The Post.
Its theme, like the theme of almost every other movie or TV show about a heroic media, celebrates simply telling truth to power. Telling it like it is, without fear or favor. Serving the public’s right to know.
Consider All the President’s Men—ironically, a sort of sequel to The Post, though there would probably not be The Post without All the President’s Men.
There, you have a celebration of underdog reporters, sticking by their principles and protecting their source, all in the service of revealing criminal behavior originating from the highest offices in the land.
Consider Spotlight, called by Catholic sources perhaps the best movie on the sex abuse scandal one could have hoped for.
In spite of family and ecclesial pressure, in spite of a culture of secrecy and silence around priests and religious abusing children, in spite of every reason in the world not to put all the pieces together and tell the truth to the world, the Boston Globe ran a series in 2002 that shook the Catholic Church across the world. They told the truth. They exposed something badly needing exposure.
The stories the media tells itself, then, and loves deeply all celebrate truth telling. Not shading the truth to protect a political lobby or special interest; not suppressing the news about major events; not refusing people a voice. The media tells itself stories that celebrate objectivity, in spite of pressure from peers or friends (at the heart of The Post).
So yes, I believe the media truly believes it should be objective, it should tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and it aspires to be the sort of institution in which there would be full and fair coverage of the March for Life.
Now, there’re some necessary nuances to that story. Namely, the theme echoing throughout all of these stories is about telling truth to power. That is to say, they show plucky underdog media folk telling the truth to the Establishment or in spite of the Establishment (and yes, that does need a capital E). There’s nothing brave about telling a suffering person truths that will make them suffer more, nothing brave about exacerbating a woman’s pain, nothing to celebrate in ripping someone’s heart apart as they lay dying.
In short, you can and should do things to the strong that you have no business doing to the weak or to the oppressed. It’s balancing the scales and serving the cause of justice when you expose the weaknesses of the strong and the vices of the virtuous; it’s petty, spiteful, or acting a s a stooge to the powerful when you expose the weaknesses of the weak, reveal the vices of the vicious, or in any way make it harder for the oppressed to fight off their oppression.
Thus, those groups or individuals identified as victims are not to be dealt with in the same fashion as those presumed to be the powerful or agents if oppression.
It’s a perfectly understandable impulse; chivalrous, even. And yet if the media makes a mistake as oppressor and oppressed—say, for instance, they fail to realize that unborn children are the most powerless and defenseless of all victims of violence; they fail to perceive that many women, if they truly had a free choice, would not want to get an abortion, but rather are under severe pressure from family, friends, or their partner—then the media throws itself into the cause of the wrong party, or at least fails to fairly give a hearing to what they perceive to be the oppressive establishment, which already has all the strength it needs to make itself heard, and so doesn’t need any sort of assistance to get its perspective out there.
I believe they intend to do the right thing; there’s just confusion about the objective facts in play, as well as who has power in this situation. So the work of spreading the Gospel of Life goes on. We have an obligation to continue to share the truth that the dignity of human life and human rights must be defended from conception to natural death; that women are often forced into abortions and not making a free decision; that unborn children are the weakest of the weak, the poorest of the poor, and so deserve every chivalrous impulse to be roused on their behalf; that we need to work hard to make our civilization welcoming to life, animated by love, and one characterized by justice, mercy, and peace.
I can't believe it's almost time for the March for Life--where does the time go?
Yet here we are again (in this 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth), interestingly enough). There's so much to be said, and many people will be saying it. But there's one subject I think has been widely overlooked, and that's the connection between the media's coverage of the annual March for Life in D.C. (as well as their coverage of similar marches and pro-life events across the country) and the way in which the pro-life movement has always taken very seriously President Trump's dismissal of most of the mainstream media's coverage of anything as "fake news."
That is, there isn't coverage of the annual March for Life, as this piece by Terry Mattingly over at the reliably informative and always interesting Get Religion blog indicates. Not serious coverage, at least, and certainly not coverage comparable to that given to the Women's March in 2017, or the coverage given to pro-choice marches and events.
This has been the case for decades, to the point where it's a regular joke amongst pro-lifers and Catholics. We talk about the "ninja march," watch to see just how non-existent the coverage is, and then are confirmed in our belief that the media, when it wants to, can do an impressive job of pretending that tens of thousands of people don't exist; that the country is solidly behind Roe v.Wade as settled law; that there's nothing to see here.
We watch the coverage or the lack of coverage, and we all know that the mainstream media at times offers us fake news.
And it's not just the March for Life. People have been grumbling about media bias or misinformation for at least as long as the media has failed to properly cover subjects in which the average person may have some deep experience.
Catholicism, for instance. Media coverage of Catholicism regularly sucks. And Catholics notice. We often come to distrust or at least trust less those media outlets that regularly get the faith wrong.
Now, some of the errors aren't really their fault. After all, when "fake news" has been handed down in history textbooks and classrooms as the way things are, it's no wonder that it gets reported as fact. And yet supposedly skeptical, objective journalists ought to be able to do better. The resources exist, after all, to discover that what "everyone knows" or "everyone believes" isn't true. For a start:
If the media would fix its coverage of pro-life events, people, and organizations--that is, be as objective about them as they claim to be, and as (I truly believe) they actually aspire to be--then a great deal of trust could be restored in the reading, viewing, and listening public. Get your coverage of Christianity right--not that you must be orthodox, but merely that you have the sort of factual accuracy, insight, and objectivity that journalists such as the excellent John Allen bring to bear--and a great deal more trust could be restored. Cover all religious news with true objectivity and rigor, and you could change the world.
Anyway. All this was spawned by the upcoming March for Life. One other note on pro-life affairs, then, before I conclude.
I've heard it said several times, "Pro-life people care so much about the child in the womb, but can't be bothered to help take care of the child after birth!"
And I'm always amazed that somehow, no one has shown them Mother Teresa's talk from the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C, on February 5, 1994. Among many other things well worth reading, she said:
We are fighting abortion by adoption — by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child.” So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: “Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.” And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child — but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said, “Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.
Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child. From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy.
I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning. ...
And it's not just Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity, as Helen Alvare and her coauthors explain:
In the United States there are some 2,300 affiliates of the three largest pregnancy resource center umbrella groups, Heartbeat International, CareNet, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA).
Over 1.9 million American women take advantage of these services each year. Many stay at one of the 350 residential facilities for women and children operated by pro-life groups. In New York City alone, there are twenty-two centers serving 12,000 women a year. These centers provide services including pre-natal care, STI testing, STI treatment, ultrasound, childbirth classes, labor coaching, midwife services, lactation consultation, nutrition consulting, social work, abstinence education, parenting classes, material assistance, and post-abortion counseling.
Religious groups also provide crucial services to needy mothers and infants. John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, famously pledged to assist any woman from anywhere experiencing a crisis pregnancy, and the current Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, recently renewed Cardinal O’Connor’s pledge.
The Catholic Church–perhaps the single most influential pro-life institution in the United States–makes the largest financial, institutional and personnel commitments to charitable causes of any private source in the United States. These include AIDS ministry, health care, education, housing services, and care for the elderly, disabled, and immigrants. In 2004 alone, 562 Catholic hospitals treated over 85 million patients; Catholic elementary and high schools educated over 2 million students; Catholic colleges educated nearly 800,000 students; Catholic Charities served over eight-and-a-half million different individuals. In 2007, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development awarded nine million dollars in grants to reduce poverty. And in 2009, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network spent nearly five million dollars in services for impoverished immigrants. ...
So as we approach the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, take some time to read up on the history of the debate, the arguments on both sides, and the accounts of those who have taken an active role in the abortion industry only to leave it all behind for pro-life causes.
Ahem. So does this mean that by being pro-life, I'm a feminist? Language warning. Excerpts:
...'This link has just turned me into feminist hulk. Feminist hulk types REALLY HARD, and likes to use CAPS LOCK. You’ve been warned.
This is the part, in particular, that hulkafied me…”For those of us guys who like girls — you know, like them like them — and want to have relationships with them that may last anywhere from a few minutes to many years”…”Your sex life is at stake. Can you think of anything that kills the vibe faster than a woman fearing a back-alley abortion? Making abortion essentially inaccessible in Texas will add an anxiety to sex that will drastically undercut its joys. And don’t be surprised if casual sex outside of relationships becomes far more difficult to come by.”
Oh, you poor, poor little douchebag. GAWD FORBID we tie ANY LEVEL OF RESPONSIBILITY to that 2-MINUTE HOOK-UP in which you might accidentally CREATE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING, because, like, radical fauxminism, and labiaration, and stuff. IF YOU HAVE EVER WONDERED HOW ABORTION MAKES WOMEN MORE EXPLOITABLE THAN ANY OTHER THING UNDER THE SUN, read this garbage… I’m off to go smash $#!%… like the REAL PATRIARCHY. Ya know, the one where men expect you to kill your child so they can get a carefree piece of ass…
The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Texas law that everyone is freaking the f*** out about basically moves the last possible date at which a pregnant woman can obtain an abortion from 24 weeks, where babies can be born alive and survive, to 20 weeks, before the generally-accepted point of viability.
Let’s just hang on to that for a second.
If that seems straightforward, even pro-science to you, you’re not alone: if a kid can survive outside the womb, than it’s kind of hard to make the argument that they are an inhuman parasite. But, whatever. This is abortion legislation, so the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. What matters is, we’re all like, ten Texas legislators away from starring in our own post-apocalyptic Margaret Atwood novel, where us poor folk are chained to beds and forced to have children against our will. Never mind that by the time the Texas deadline rolls around you’re more than four months pregnant, you’re an idiot who simply can’t make up her puny female mind about being a parent, and need to have available a procedure that most of the world (except Canada!) views as barbaric. And Canada doesn’t count. As a country. And just generally. Because f*** Canada.
Oh, and then there’s the part about HB2 shutting down abortion clinics that can’t adhere to the same cleanliness and operation standards as a veterinary office, which, let’s just say, if they aren’t already, women aren’t getting good care. Because they aren’t getting the same standard of care as your dog. And if that shuts a couple of them down, I’m sure no one is going to miss them...
...That's a long fall from grace for the White House in the short period of time since the mutual-admiration society of the WHCA's gala dinner and celebrity red-carpet evening. The scandalous snooping on journalists attempting to keep government accountable through the exercise of the First Amendment may or may not be the most significant of the scandals that the Obama administration faces at the moment — but it's the key scandal that will motivate the press to report more aggressively on all of the others. Circling the wagons with its ideological allies in the opinion media shows that the White House may have reached the same conclusion.
...[T]he administration’s actions shatter the president’s credibility and discourage allies who would otherwise defend the administration against bogus accusations such as those involving the Benghazi “talking points.” If the administration is spying on reporters and accusing them of criminality just for asking questions — well, who knows what else this crowd is capable of doing?...
Carney told the White House press corps Tuesday that Obama doesn’t think “journalists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs” (perhaps he could remind the FBI of that), and the administration has renewed its support for a media shield law (a welcome but suspicious gesture, because the White House thwarted a previous attempt to pass the bill).
If Obama really is “a fierce defender of the First Amendment,” as his spokesman would have it, he will move quickly to fix this. Otherwise, Obama is establishing an ominous precedent for future leaders whose fondness for the First Amendment may not be so fierce.
...The IRS scandal is just as significant. There are few greater threats to our democracy than the use of the IRS, or any part of government, to harass, punish or thwart an administration's perceived political enemies. The IRS actions are particularly disconcerting given its greatly expanded role under ObamaCare...
...[T]he IRS scandal is different because it speaks of the political corruption of a major and crucial governmental agency to whose rules and regulations every American—everyone who has a job or a bank account, or who engages in a financial transaction—is subject. Most people will never have an interaction with the State Department or the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but the IRS deals with an intimate and sensitive part of your life, your personal finances. It is the revenue-collecting arm of the government. It is needed. It does necessary work. When that work is done well it is rarely noted and almost never celebrated. When it’s done badly it’s a terrible thing, because it means a citizen was treated badly or abused. But as an agency it couldn’t be more important to the national mood, the national atmosphere.
If we allow it to become politically corrupt that scandal will not pass, it will be with us every day...
Again, if what happened at the IRS is not stopped now, it will never stop. The next White House will come in and they’ll know they can do it too. And if they’re unlucky enough to be caught, they’ll have a have a few uncomfortable moments in Congress, and a few people who were going to retire in the summer will retire in the spring. And it will all go on.
We are at a point now where you can make a list of things that, all combined and allowed to continue, can kill America. This is one of them. Widespread belief that the revenue-collecting arm of the US government is hopelessly corrupt is one of them...
An interesting note from a man who says he's recently gone through the adoption process. Excerpts:
...As we get word that the IRS has harassed a number of pro-life groups, including at least one alleged demand that a pro-life group not picket Planned Parenthood, check out this statistic: In 2012, the IRS requested additional information from 90 percent of returns claiming the adoption tax credit and went on to actually audit 69 percent. More details from the Taxpayer Advocate Service:
During the 2012 filing season, 90 percent of returns claiming the refundable adoption credit were subject to additional review to determine if an examination was necessary. The most common reasons were income and a lack of documentation.
■ Sixty-nine percent of all adoption credit claims during the 2012 filing season were selected for audit.
■ Of the completed adoption tax credit audits, over 55 percent ended with no change in the tax owed or refund due in fiscal year 2012. The median refund amount involved in these audits is over $15,000 and the median adjusted gross income (AGI) of the taxpayers involved is about 64,000. The average adoption credit correspondence audit currently takes 126 days, causing a lengthy delay for taxpayers waiting for refunds.
While many returns had missing or incomplete information (more on that in a moment), what was the outcome of this massive audit campaign? Not much:
Despite Congress’ express intent to target the credit to low and middle income families, the IRS created income-based rules that were responsible for over one-third of all additional reviews in FY2012.
■ Of the $668.1 million in adoption credit claims in tax year (TY) 2011 as a result of adoption credit audits, the IRS only disallowed $11 million — or one and one-half percent — in adoption credit claims. However, the IRS has also had to pay out $2.1 million in interest in TY 2011 to taxpayers whose refunds were held past the 45-day period allowed by law.
So Congress implemented a tax credit to facilitate adoption – a process that is so extraordinarily expensive that it is out of reach for many middle-class families — and the IRS responded by implementing an audit campaign that delayed much-needed tax refunds to the very families that needed them the most. Oh, and the return on its investment in this harassment? Slightly more than 1 percent...
The LA Times calls for the administration to cooperate fully with the IRS investigation. Excerpts:
Message to the president: Resistance is futile.
There are plenty of juicy targets for investigators in the IRS scrutiny of conservative organizations that applied for tax-exempt status, but the most dangerous for President Obama is this: Did bureaucrats in Cincinnati create this mess on their own? Or did someone in the White House give the marching orders to target the president's enemies?...
Obama shouldn't merely allow the IRS to cooperate; he should order the IRS to cooperate fully and enthusiastically. Meantime, the White House staff should also begin combing their own records to see if there's anything else they need to fess up. Under the doctrine of executive privilege, internal White House records are normally immune from congressional probing, but it would benefit Obama to be forthcoming.
The reason is simple: The president needs to prove a negative. He needs to show that there was no political influence over the IRS decisions. Proving a negative is never easy; it's doubly difficult when others are beginning to doubt your word.
The White House hasn't done much to bolster the president's credibility so far. While Obama himself has said the right things, his aides have sounded grouchy and grudging about cooperating with congressional investigations...
Even worse, the administration is having a hard time getting its story straight on who knew about the IRS problem and when they knew it...
[B]y getting its story wrong and revising it repeatedly, the White House has managed to make itself look guilty of something, whether it is or not. And that is prompting everyone else — even some allies — to invoke the Watergate question: What did he know and when did he know it?
Of course, even though some keep referring to some sort of cabal in the Cincinnati office of the IRS, the purported targets of the politically motivated audits are popping up across the nation, so I'm not sure I buy the whole "Cincinnati Sucks" narrative. In other scandal, Attorney General Holder admits that the US drone campaign has accidentally taken out American citizens without trial, alongside those Americans killed intentionally without a trial. Excerpts:
In an extraordinary admission, Attorney General Eric Holder has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes since 2009 have killed four Americans — three of whom were “not specifically targeted.”
For all the effort that the Obama administration has gone to in asserting that its drones only kill the people that the administration intends to kill, Holder wrote in a letter today to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that Samir Khan, 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki and Jude Kenan Mohammad were “not specifically targeted by the United States.” The fourth American to die in a drone strike since 2009 was Abdulrahman’s father Anwar Awlaki, a radical propagandist whom the U.S. killed in Yemen in 2011.
The five-page letter, obtained and published by Charlie Savage of The New York Times, does not explain the circumstances that led to the unintentional killings of Khan, Mohammad and the younger Awlaki. Holder does not apologize for the killings, nor explain whether their deaths resulted from errant targeting, mistaken identity or another circumstance.
But after acknowledging that the administration did “not specifically targe[t]” those three Americans, Holder defended killing Americans the administration believes to be members of al-Qaida without due process, a constitutionally questionable proposition...
The Daily Beast on civil liberties, press oversight, and this administration. Excerpts:
...Because they tend to share his broad outlook on politics, too many journalists for too long have been in the tank for Obama, explaining away or minimizing his policy failures and reversals. Remember Obama’s heartfelt insistence that he would run the most transparent administration ever? Take a look at this document about warrantless searches of text messages that his administration finally coughed up to the ACLU and get back to me. It’s 15 pages of completely redacted prose. Such a document would be funny if it wasn’t coming from a secrecy-obsessed administration that has put the brakes on fulfilling FOIA requests and has charged a record number of people under the Espionage Act.
Then there’s Obama’s cherished belief in his inalienable right to scrag anyone he thinks was connected to the 9/11 attacks or al Qaeda or is otherwise a threat to the good old U.S. of A. Even George W. Bush never wandered into that constitutionally swampy territory—and he was worse than Hitler, Richard Nixon, and Larry the Cable Guy put together, right? Yet it took a 13-hour filibuster by the libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to get a simple—and still squirrely!—answer to whether the administration thinks it has the authority to dispatch death drones against citizens on U.S. soil...
First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak out—because they were not Fox News. Then they came for government whistleblowers, and they did not speak out—because they were not government whistleblowers. Then they came for the maker of a YouTube video, and—okay, we know how this story ends. But how did we get here?
Turns out it’s a fairly swift sojourn from a president pushing to “delegitimize” a news organization to threatening criminal prosecution for journalistic activity by a Fox News reporter, James Rosen, to spying on Associated Press reporters. In between, the Obama administration found time to relentlessly persecute government whistleblowers and publicly harass and condemn a private American citizen for expressing his constitutionally protected speech in the form of an anti-Islam YouTube video.
Where were the media when all this began happening? With a few exceptions, they were acting as quiet enablers...
These series of “warnings” to the Fourth Estate were what you might expect to hear from some third-rate dictator, not from the senior staff of Hope and Change, Inc.
Yet only one mainstream media reporter—Jake Tapper, then of ABC News—ever raised a serious objection to the White House’s egregious and chilling behavior. Tapper asked future MSNBC commentator and then White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: “[W]hy is [it] appropriate for the White House to say” that “thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a ‘news organization’?” The spokesman for the president of the United States was unrepentant, saying: “That's our opinion.”
Trashing reporters comes easy in Obama-land. Behind the scenes, Obama-centric Democratic operatives brand any reporter who questions the administration as a closet conservative, because what other explanation could there be for a reporter critically reporting on the government?...
If the existence of a person who allegedly associates with conservatives is a “mole,” then what does that tell us about the rest of the media?
What all of us in the media need to remember—whatever our politics—is that we need to hold government actions to the same standard, whether they’re aimed at friends or foes. If not, there’s no one but ourselves to blame when the administration takes aim at us.
...[T]he Right Wing Noise Machine’s relentless habit of dialing up every. single. gripe about Obama to 11 results in Boy Who Cried Wolf syndrome for the average non-political man on the street who has long ago tuned out the hysterics and therefore has trouble telling when a really serious problem has appeared.
And the irony? The RWNM could have learned this simple psychological fact from the Left Wing Noise Machine. Remember the screaming about BushHITLER? Remember how effective that was in defeating Bush in 2004? Remember how the anti-war Left exhausted itself finding fault with every little thing Bush said and did till you tuned them out?
This sort of thing is, by the way, more than merely politically stupid. It is spiritually corrosive and profoundly dangerous to the soul. Here’s C.S. Lewis:
“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”
I limit my animosity to the Obama Administration as much as possible for two reasons. By far the most important is given by Lewis. The second is given by Aesop in the Boy Who Cried Wolf...
Legal abortion was supposed to end "back-alley abortions," both their dangers and their entanglements with shady characters. But the practice and the mores of the back alley are with us still, tolerated by people for whom the ready provision of abortion trumps all else.
Rich is right. Ever since Roe v Wade, proponents of a woman's "right to choose" have warned us against going back to the bad old days of rusty coat hangers and unsterilized instruments from money-grubbing butchers on the wrong side of town. Now, happily, the back alley is on the main drag, and with a state permit framed on the wall...
For years, the supposed regulators averted their gaze - as a matter of policy. For abortion's ideological enforcers, the official euphemisms trump reality. For those on the receiving end of infection, mutilation, sterilization and death, reality has a way of intruding...
The back alley is back, and supersized: The above New Jersey clinic performs 10,000 abortions a year. When the pro-choice rally ends and Cameron Diaz, Ashley Judd and other celebrities d'un certain age return to Hollywood, and the upper-middle-class women with the one designer baby go back to their suburbs, a woman's "right to choose" means that, day in, day out, the blessings of this "right" fall disproportionately on all the identity groups the upscale liberals profess to care about - poor women, black women, Hispanic women, undocumented women, and other denizens of Big Government's back alley.
A government back alley, licensed and supposedly regulated, is worse than the old kind, because it implies the approval of the state, and of society. That's what Gosnell thought he had, when he murdered those babies and mutilated those teenage girls. That's what Planned Parenthood think they have, when they facilitate the sexual exploitation of Third World children. And, given the silence of the PC media, maybe they're right. Aside from the intrinsic evil of not only Gosnell but a state that knowingly colludes with him, these "little" abortion stories reveal an almost totalitarian mindset in the "pro-choice" movement's determination to brook no intrusion of reality upon the official myths. You may be one of those wealthy suburban "feminists" or "new men" indifferent to the fate of eight-pound "blobs of tissue" or 14-year old "women", but the gulf between propaganda and truth, between the fatuous feelgood bumper stickers and the rusty crochet hooks, is profound - and, in a world where statists and social engineers serve as ruthless enforcers for the prevailing ideology, its deep moral corruption will eventually swallow you, too. America should be at the very minimum deeply disquieted by these revelations. That it is not - that it is dismissed as a "little thing" - is even more disquieting.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of NARAL, once discussed the reason why abortion tends to attract the worst doctors--why
the Gosnell case is unlikely to be the last such. He listed a number
of reasons, both personal and professional, including the technical ease
of the procedure, the distaste amongst many younger physicians who'd
rather not perform it, the effect of ultrasound on people who could now
see what it was that they were killing, and the high profits to be made
by those willing to perform abortions quickly. Gosnell is not alone. Update:Gosnellis notalone.
If these conditionsare persisting, even after abortion is legalized, we need to start asking whether illegal abortions were awful because desperate women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the illegal for money, or whether they were awful because women were being taken advantage of by people willing to do the unthinkable for money.
Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.
Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.--Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae: On The Regulation of Birth, July 26, 1968, article 17
...“Development is the new name for peace”[180], Pope Paul VI solemnly proclaims in his EncyclicalPopulorum Progressio[181], which may be considered a development of the chapter on economic and social life inGaudium et Spes, even while it introduces some significant new elements. In particular, it presents the outlines of an integral development of man and of a development in solidarity with all humanity: “These two topics are to be considered the axes around which the Encyclical is structured. In wishing to convince its receivers of the urgent need for action in solidarity, the Pope presents development as ‘the transition from less humane conditions to those which are more humane' and indicates its characteristics”[182]. This transition is not limited to merely economic or technological dimensions, but implies for each person the acquisition of culture, the respect of the dignity of others, the acknowledgment of “the highest good, the recognition of God Himself, the author and end of these blessings”[183]. Development that benefits everyone responds to the demands of justice on a global scale that guarantees worldwide peace and makes it possible to achieve a “complete humanism” [184] guided by spiritual values.
In this regard, in 1967, Pope Paul VI establishes the Pontifical Commission “Iustitia et Pax”, thus fulfilling the wishes of the Council Fathers who considered it “most opportune that an organism of the Universal Church be set up in order that both the justice and love of Christ toward the poor might be developed everywhere. The role of such an organism would be to stimulate the Catholic community to promote progress in needy regions and international social justice”[185]. By initiative of Pope Paul VI, beginning in 1968, the Church celebrates the first day of the year as the World Day of Peace. This same Pontiff started the tradition of writing annual Messages that deal with the theme chosen for each World Day of Peace. These Messages expand and enrich the corpus of the Church's social doctrine.
At the beginning of the 1970s, in a climate of turbulence and strong ideological controversy, Pope Paul VI returns to the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII and updates it, on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, with his Apostolic LetterOctogesima Adveniens[186]. The Pope reflects on post-industrial society with all of its complex problems, noting the inadequacy of ideologies in responding to these challenges: urbanization, the condition of young people, the condition of women, unemployment, discrimination, emigration, population growth, the influence of the means of social communications, the ecological problem...(articles 98-100)
As proven by the fact that no one is born alone, no one dies alone (thanks to the communion of saints, the omnipresence of God, and your guardian angel), and the path to deepest satisfaction, joy, and peace is through agape love.
...“Well, if it were established that an unborn fetus is a person within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, you would have almost an impossible case here, would you not?” Mrs. Weddington replied, “I would have a very difficult case.” And then she laughed nervously. Justice Stewart, not laughing at all, continued that this is akin to ruling that if a ”mother thought that it bothered her health having the child around, she could have it killed.” Mrs. Weddington said, “That’s correct,” and declined any further response.
Our laws still, chillingly, reflect this inconsistency. On the one hand, we have the almost decade long 2004 Unborn Victims of Violence Act which federally recognizes a “child in utero” as a legal “victim” if he or she is injured or killed by crimes of violence, and laws such as the one decided in Alabama this month that recognize “unborn children are persons with rights that should be protected by law.” On the other hand, we have abortion for all nine months of pregnancy and impunity for the ones that kill those children, children who are not even guaranteed the protections given to convicted murderers and rapists in some states. It was not funny 40 years ago, and it is still no laughing matter. These are children being killed. Aren’t children people too?
First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and the human race, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all. This was the testimony at the proper time. For this I was appointed preacher and apostle (I am speaking the truth, I am not lying), teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.--1 Timothy 2:1-8
Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul. Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles, so that if they speak of you as evildoers, they may observe your good works and glorify God on the day of visitation. Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the approval of those who do good. For it is the will of God that by doing good you may silence the ignorance of foolish people. Be free, yet without using freedom as a pretext for evil, but as slaves of God. Give honor to all, love the community, fear God, honor the king.--1 Peter 2:11-17
They sent some Pharisees and Herodians to him to ensnare him in his speech. They came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion. You do not regard a person’s status but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or should we not pay?” Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius to look at.” They brought one to him and he said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They replied to him, “Caesar’s.” So Jesus said to them, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” They were utterly amazed at him.--Mark 12:13-17
God bless the President of the United States, his family, and all his administration.
...December was a hard month. I couldn’t seem to stay on top of anything, and my inability to deal with life seemed to get worse by the week. Three days before Christmas I cleared off an entire evening to wrap presents, and quickly became so angry and overwhelmed that I went to bed in disgust instead. I felt like I barely survived the chaos of Christmas day, and in the week before New Year’s Eve I hardly lifted a finger around the house. I was unmotivated to do anything. I began backing out of social events, and felt exhausted by even the simplest tasks around the house.
I was aware of my abysmal state, and knew what the problem was: I’m lazy. And kind of a whiner. Not to mention not being fully dedicated to my vocation, and unwilling to carry my (small) crosses. Christ asks a few simple things of me, and even gives me this lavish, first-world life surrounded by luxuries, and I let a little pregnancy fatigue keep me from getting the job done! If only I were more open to God’s grace, I’d be able to unload the dishwasher without feeling like it was such a big deal.
I’m ungrateful.
I’m spoiled.
I’m lazy.
These are the thoughts that were going through my head for the better part of a month. And so when the doctor at the Emergency Room sat me down and told me that my lungs were full of blood clots, some of them large, and that he was astounded that I’d been able to function at all, I almost cried with relief. To be completely honest, I was more relieved than I was scared. I know the facts about pulmonary embolisms and know how dangerous they are. Later, I did experience worry and fear. But first, relief.
There is truth to the accusations that I’m ungrateful, spoiled, and lazy. No false humility here — I really do posses all those attributes to some degree or another. But it was simply not true to say that those faults alone were the cause of my suffering. I was struggling against a terribly difficult physical condition, and my body was running in the red zone for all of my waking hours. In those weeks when I was unaware of the reality of my situation, I worked under the incorrect assumption that my circumstances were normal, and that therefore the problems must come down to spiritual and mental character defects on my part. Not surprisingly, this caused me to be in a state of constant inner turmoil. In fact, it was reminiscent of the buried angst that simmered silently within me when I was an atheist: whenever you live under false assumptions about reality, you will live in anguish. It may be buried and only pop up occasionally, or it may burst to the surface in explosions of acute despair, but whenever you try to jam a square peg of your perception of reality into the round hole of actual reality, there will always be friction.
And you know why I bring this up? Because I think I’m not the only one who could benefit from an outlook-shattering diagnosis.
Once I felt like I had permission to admit that one area of my life was legitimately hard, I began to look at other areas as well. And in the process I’ve been reminded of something I’d known for a while, but had slowly forgotten: that 21st-century motherhood is really hard, whether or not you have clots in your lungs...
On Tuesday, January 22, 2013, the 35th annual March for Life and Rally will be held in Olympia at Noon...
Bring a friend, a church group, a civic or campus group. Carry a red rose, the symbol of the pro-life movement and the victims of abortion. You are encouraged to bring a sign identifying the area you come from or the group represented. We want to acknowledge your group and provide you with a program of the day’s events...
According to the terms of our permit, there can be no solicitations of any sort on the Campus. Please do not violate our permit...
There will be a Mass prior to the March. 9:30AM with Archbishop Peter Sartain @ Marcus Pavilion, St. Martin's University, Lacey, WA. (5000 Abbey Way SE, Lacey, WA 98503-7500)
"Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?"--Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, 1531, at Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City, Mexico
This is why repealing the HHS mandate matters for the future of religious organizations and for businesses and organizations owned and operated by people of certain religious convictions. Excerpts:
The owners of Hobby Lobby asked to be exempted from providing the "morning after" and "week after" pills on religious grounds, arguing this would violate their Christian belief that abortion is wrong.
Judge Joe Heaton of the U.S. District for the Western District of Oklahoma denied the request for a preliminary injunction.
Heaton ruled that while individual members of the family that owns and operates Hobby Lobby have religious rights, the companies the family owns are secular, for-profit enterprises that do not possess the same rights.
The family operate 514 Hobby Lobby stores in 41 states and employ 13,240 people. It funds a variety of Christian charities, closes its stores on Sundays and plays inspirational Christian music in its stores...
...The Food and Drug Administration lists the "morning after" and "week after" pills as emergency contraceptives. But abortion opponents like the Green family consider them abortion-inducing drugs because they are often taken after conception.
Hobby Lobby faces a January 1 deadline to comply with the mandate to provide all FDA-approved contraceptives. Failure to do so would entail a penalty of up to $1.3 million per day...
...Scientific progress has resulted in
advances that are unsettling for the consciences of men and women and call for
solutions that respect ethical principles in a coherent and fundamental way. At
the same time, legislative proposals are put forward which, heedless of the
consequences for the existence and future of human beings with regard to the
formation of culture and social behaviour, attack the very inviolability of
human life. Catholics, in this difficult situation, have the right and the
duty to recall society to a deeper understanding of human life and to the
responsibility of everyone in this regard. John Paul II, continuing the
constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are
directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a «grave and clear obligation to
oppose» any law that attacks human life. For them, as for every
Catholic, it is impossible to promote such laws or to vote for them.[19]
UPDATE: Some necessary substantiation here. See also this consideration of ending ectopic pregnancies and the principle of double effect. Excerpts:
It is absolutely true that the Catholic Church bans direct
abortion to save the life of the mother. However (and this is an
extremely important point) the mother's life may be saved by a surgical
procedure that does not directly attack the preborn baby's life.
The most common dysfunctions that may set a mother's life against
that of her preborn child's are the ectopic pregnancy, carcinoma of the
uterine cervix, and cancer of the ovary. Occasionally, cancer of the
vulva or vagina may indicate surgical intervention.
In
such cases, under the principle of the "double effect," attending
physicians must do everything in their power to save both the mother and
the child. If the physicians decide that, in the case of an ectopic
pregnancy, the mother's life can only be saved by the removal of the
Fallopian tube (and with it, the preborn baby), or by removal of some
other tissue essential for the preborn baby's life, the baby will of
course die. But this kind of surgery would not be categorized as an
abortion. This is all the difference between deliberate murder
(abortion) and unintentional natural death.
