I have recently been considering the true cost of abortion in Canada. Of course, the main cost is the lives of the children who lose their lives, but let's consider the financial and human costs.
1) Tax dollars. All abortions in Canada, whether it's a woman's first or tenth, are paid for by tax payers. Those who receive the abortion pay absolutely nothing. All associated hospital fees, etc. are paid for by the government, which indirectly I am forced to pay. Where's my "choice" not to pay for this? In Canada there are around 100,000 abortions per year. If the total cost associated with an abortion, and any possible follow-up costs an average of $800, then Canadians fork over $80 million per year for this procedure. This is Life Canada's estimate, and they believe it is conservative, because there are in fact more than 100,000 abortions per year in Canada, and many abortions cost more than $800 (while some may cost less).
2) Opportunity cost. Abortion occupies a privileged status in Canada's health care system. Unlike certain life-saving procedures, abortions are performed on-demand or within a few days. Virtually no abortions are done for medical necessity, yet they take precedence over procedures which save lives. We've all heard horror stories of people who were waiting months or years for a life-saving procedure, but because there were so many waiting, their health was jeorpardized. Some have even lost their lives. Part of the reason for this is lack of facilities, many of which are being occupied for abortion. If a hospital has 4 operating rooms but one is in almost constant use for abortions, then only 3 remain to perform life-saving procedures. Freeing up this additional room would allow 33% life-saving operations. Many people will object to this logic by saying if someone was rushed to the hospital and had to be operated on, an abortion would wait. I'm not talking about acute medical conditions. I'm talking about waiting lists for very important non-elective procedures which are bottle-necked by abortion.
3) Also, if people having an abortion had to pay for their own, that would free up almost $100 million to use on other programs. There is much good that can come from that much money. Perhaps we could hire more doctors and further reduce wait times. Remember, an abortion is by definition an elective procedure. The only exception is the almost non-existent possibility of a mother's life being in danger. But even without legal abortion, this option was always available. Pregnancy is not a disease, it is the normal functioning of a female body. An unborn baby is as natural in a woman's uterus as anything else.
The costs mentioned above are only financial, and do not include moral, social, personal, and other costs. Let's stop using hard-earned tax payer dollars to fund the killing of children.
Showing posts with label Pro-life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pro-life. Show all posts
Friday, November 27, 2009
Hats off to the governor of Rhode Island
The governor of Rhode island has come out in support of the Catholic Church and Bishop Tobin who were unjustly criticized by Representative Patrick Kennedy and later lambasted by screwball Chris Matthews. The Rhode Island Governor made many of the points I did in my previous blog, that the Church has the right to do what it did and that Rep. Kennedy's comments were false and out of place. The Governor also criticized Chris Matthews for his rude behavior with the Bishop.
Kennedy accused the Church of an inconsistent pro-life ethic for not supporting the health care bill. But if the health care bill provides funding for abortion, then the health care bill is not pro-life, and thus cannot be supported. In fact, it would be very anti-life to support a bill which provided federal funding for abortion, since right now the funding is not provided.
Here is an excerpt from the article on this:
But he left no doubt who he thought was in the right when he defended the bishop’s public comments about Kennedy on both local talk radio and in a round of national TV appearances. Along the way, Bishop Tobin said he was “very concerned about the congressman’s increasingly erratic and unpredictable behavior,” and “praying for him.”
Carcieri said: “I think the Bishop had no choice … because if you go back to how this all started, it was basically Congressman Kennedy making pretty outrageous statements about the Catholic Church” and the church’s position on “protecting the sanctity of innocent human beings. So I think the bishop had no choice except to come back and defend the church, which I think he did very well.”
For the full article, please go to http://www.projo.com/news/content/Carcieri_takes_sides_11-26-09_L5GJE3A_v12.38acfd1.html
Kennedy accused the Church of an inconsistent pro-life ethic for not supporting the health care bill. But if the health care bill provides funding for abortion, then the health care bill is not pro-life, and thus cannot be supported. In fact, it would be very anti-life to support a bill which provided federal funding for abortion, since right now the funding is not provided.
Here is an excerpt from the article on this:
But he left no doubt who he thought was in the right when he defended the bishop’s public comments about Kennedy on both local talk radio and in a round of national TV appearances. Along the way, Bishop Tobin said he was “very concerned about the congressman’s increasingly erratic and unpredictable behavior,” and “praying for him.”
Carcieri said: “I think the Bishop had no choice … because if you go back to how this all started, it was basically Congressman Kennedy making pretty outrageous statements about the Catholic Church” and the church’s position on “protecting the sanctity of innocent human beings. So I think the bishop had no choice except to come back and defend the church, which I think he did very well.”
For the full article, please go to http://www.projo.com/news/content/Carcieri_takes_sides_11-26-09_L5GJE3A_v12.38acfd1.html
Friday, November 20, 2009
I cannot support Monte Carlo this year
Monte Carlo is an annual event for MUN's School of Medicine. It raises money for charity and in the last 32 years has raised almost $1 million. I went to this event in 2007, and it was a lot of fun. This year however, they are sponsoring Planned Parenthood. By going, others support them, but not necessarily at the level of personal culpability. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the world. They not only provide abortion, they promote it, as a healthy alternative. No mention is made of the humanity of the child. I think others in good conscience should consider boycotting this event until Monte Carlo revokes its support of this organization.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Another University Pro-life group squelched
In a move that's deja vu all over again, another university pro-life group has been banned in Canada. Violating freedom of speech, the university concocted a story to have a pro-life group banned from campus, while claiming to take no position on abortion.
This happened at McGill University. A group of pro-life students had gathered in a room. They compared abortion to a holocaust. If one believes life begins at conception and millions of babies are being killed through abortion, then this is indeed accurate. In any event, this was not public, but private and people were totally free to join. The meeting was stormed by pro-abortion protesters. Ironically, it wasn't the protestors who stormed the peaceful meeting who got in trouble, but the group who was having the meeting. Ironic, but not unexpected. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
Check out the biased CBC article below:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/18/montreal-ssmu-pro-life-choose-life.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g4:r3:c0:b28951690#socialcomments
This happened at McGill University. A group of pro-life students had gathered in a room. They compared abortion to a holocaust. If one believes life begins at conception and millions of babies are being killed through abortion, then this is indeed accurate. In any event, this was not public, but private and people were totally free to join. The meeting was stormed by pro-abortion protesters. Ironically, it wasn't the protestors who stormed the peaceful meeting who got in trouble, but the group who was having the meeting. Ironic, but not unexpected. Whatever happened to freedom of speech?
Check out the biased CBC article below:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/11/18/montreal-ssmu-pro-life-choose-life.html?ref=rss&loomia_si=t0:a16:g4:r3:c0:b28951690#socialcomments
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Believe it or not, Ted Kennedy was once pro-life
Ted Kennedy, who recently passed away, spent about the last 30 years defending a pro-choice agenda, however prior to about the time of Roe v. Wade, Ted Kennedy was Pro-life. Click the link below to read the story about it and see the letter he wrote speaking of his pro-life convictions:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/08/on-abortion-a-once-catholic-te.html
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/08/on-abortion-a-once-catholic-te.html
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
The Roe of Roe V. Wade has a video
Jane Roe, the pseudonymous name of the woman in the landmark court case which legalize abortion is indeed pro-life now. In fact, she has never had an abortion. She is now Catholic. Check out her video:
Monday, June 15, 2009
Anti-catholicism once again rears its ugly head
I just had to post this great article by Michael Coren. I saw it in The Interim, Canada's pro-life newspaper. I searched for it online and found it on The National Post website. I am posting it from there onto my blog. Here it is:
Michael Coren: Anti-papal hypocrisy spreads faster than AIDS
Posted: March 31, 2009, 7:30 AM by NP Editor
Michael Coren, Full Comment
The attacks upon the Roman Catholic Church in the last two weeks following the Pope’s comments about the dangers of condom use in Africa in the attempt to prevent AIDS have been an extraordinary lesson in applied ignorance and the survival of prejudice. Talk-radio hosts who have long callously and naively blamed Africans for all of Africa’s sufferings suddenly become champions of the continent. Doctors and academics who have shown no previous concern for the plight of Africa are instantly transformed into experts and partisans. It is enough to make one weep. The weeping, however, should be for Africa rather than a bunch of anti-Catholic hypocrites.
Some context first. AIDS had smashed its way through Africa for almost two generations before many people in Europe or North America had even heard of it. It was killing poor black people many miles away and nobody matters less to the wealthy whites than poor blacks many miles away. It was only when the disease was brought into the male homosexual community of the United States that the likes of Elizabeth Taylor became so emotional on television and numerous actors, politicians and public figures made AIDS one of the most fashionable causes in modern times.
Indeed, AIDS is a fascinating case-study in itself in that, while politicized statistics and agenda-driven activists try to tell us otherwise, AIDS in the West is still largely a concern for gay men and intravenous drug-users. Remember the dramatic announcement from Canadian health officials that the AIDS rate had doubled in the mainstream community in one particular area? It had. From one person to two. But it is the suffering itself rather than the nature of the sufferer that should motivate us. Problem is, this philosophy was not applied when it was Africans rather than Californians in need.
That, at least, was the attitude of the Western elites — the very people now condemning the Roman Catholic Church. Yet it was the Church that was in Africa caring for people with AIDS when Hollywood and the Western media were more concerned with puppies and kittens. Even today, almost half of all Africans with AIDS are nursed by people working for the Roman Catholic Church. A Church, by the way, that has also called for all African debt to be forgiven and for a radical redistribution of wealth from north to south.
None of this is mentioned when Pope Benedict is attacked for his condemnation of the condom fetish. If we read the man’s statements, however, what we see is a sophisticated deconstruction of Western double-standards and a thoughtful critique of the failed attempt to control AIDS.
First, it’s not working. In countries where condoms are state-distributed, free and ubiquitous AIDS has not been controlled and is often spreading. Second, even where AIDS is less of an issue, such as in North America, the increased availability and use of condoms has coincided with an annual increase in STDs and so-called unwanted pregnancies. Third, one failure of a condom to work — and the failure rate is significant if not overwhelming — is not a mere mistake but a death sentence. Fourth, condoms enable promiscuity rather than encourage abstinence. And sexual activity is about more than mere intercourse; a cut finger or a small body wound can allow infection to occur.
Fifth, how dare we treat black people as if they were children. They are capable of self-control and all over Africa, most successfully but not exclusively in Uganda, there are elaborate, empathetic and extraordinarily successful abstinence programs that emphasize humanity rather than lust — a philosophy that runs directly contrary to the sexual gratification cult so favoured by some of the people in the West now so apoplectic at Pope Benedict’s comments.
Of course, there is more to this anti-papal neurosis than television comedians making jokes about celibate clergy and commentators assuming that they know far more about reality than a priest who has worked in an African city slum for forty years. Conventional wisdom has it that Africa has a population problem and that Africans can become “more civilized” if they have fewer children. It’s an organized and sometimes quite sinister campaign. Africa is, if anything, underpopulated and the problems of the continent have far more to do with Western greed, colonization, resources exploitation and arms sales than with family size. The Church has spoken out on these issues for decades and was, for example, one of the leading voices at the United Nations that persuaded the multinational pharmaceutical companies to make their anti-AIDS drugs generic and thus affordable in the Third World.
Paradox and lack of understanding rules the day. We applaud an obscenely wealthy American actress when she takes a black baby from Africa, but forget that the Hollywood values she epitomizes encourage loveless sex and treating one another as sexual objects rather than distinct individuals — the precise phenomenon that encourages the spread of AIDS. More than this, the solution to children living in poverty in Africa is not to remove the children but to remove the poverty. But there is never a camera crew around for that sort of thing.
It appears these days to be open season on Pope Benedict XVI. In that he leads an organization that is supposed to be a mirror held up to the world to reflect society’s failures and absurdities, the man must be doing a great deal right.
National Post
Michael Coren is an author and broadcaster.
Michael Coren: Anti-papal hypocrisy spreads faster than AIDS
Posted: March 31, 2009, 7:30 AM by NP Editor
Michael Coren, Full Comment
The attacks upon the Roman Catholic Church in the last two weeks following the Pope’s comments about the dangers of condom use in Africa in the attempt to prevent AIDS have been an extraordinary lesson in applied ignorance and the survival of prejudice. Talk-radio hosts who have long callously and naively blamed Africans for all of Africa’s sufferings suddenly become champions of the continent. Doctors and academics who have shown no previous concern for the plight of Africa are instantly transformed into experts and partisans. It is enough to make one weep. The weeping, however, should be for Africa rather than a bunch of anti-Catholic hypocrites.
Some context first. AIDS had smashed its way through Africa for almost two generations before many people in Europe or North America had even heard of it. It was killing poor black people many miles away and nobody matters less to the wealthy whites than poor blacks many miles away. It was only when the disease was brought into the male homosexual community of the United States that the likes of Elizabeth Taylor became so emotional on television and numerous actors, politicians and public figures made AIDS one of the most fashionable causes in modern times.
Indeed, AIDS is a fascinating case-study in itself in that, while politicized statistics and agenda-driven activists try to tell us otherwise, AIDS in the West is still largely a concern for gay men and intravenous drug-users. Remember the dramatic announcement from Canadian health officials that the AIDS rate had doubled in the mainstream community in one particular area? It had. From one person to two. But it is the suffering itself rather than the nature of the sufferer that should motivate us. Problem is, this philosophy was not applied when it was Africans rather than Californians in need.
That, at least, was the attitude of the Western elites — the very people now condemning the Roman Catholic Church. Yet it was the Church that was in Africa caring for people with AIDS when Hollywood and the Western media were more concerned with puppies and kittens. Even today, almost half of all Africans with AIDS are nursed by people working for the Roman Catholic Church. A Church, by the way, that has also called for all African debt to be forgiven and for a radical redistribution of wealth from north to south.
None of this is mentioned when Pope Benedict is attacked for his condemnation of the condom fetish. If we read the man’s statements, however, what we see is a sophisticated deconstruction of Western double-standards and a thoughtful critique of the failed attempt to control AIDS.
First, it’s not working. In countries where condoms are state-distributed, free and ubiquitous AIDS has not been controlled and is often spreading. Second, even where AIDS is less of an issue, such as in North America, the increased availability and use of condoms has coincided with an annual increase in STDs and so-called unwanted pregnancies. Third, one failure of a condom to work — and the failure rate is significant if not overwhelming — is not a mere mistake but a death sentence. Fourth, condoms enable promiscuity rather than encourage abstinence. And sexual activity is about more than mere intercourse; a cut finger or a small body wound can allow infection to occur.
Fifth, how dare we treat black people as if they were children. They are capable of self-control and all over Africa, most successfully but not exclusively in Uganda, there are elaborate, empathetic and extraordinarily successful abstinence programs that emphasize humanity rather than lust — a philosophy that runs directly contrary to the sexual gratification cult so favoured by some of the people in the West now so apoplectic at Pope Benedict’s comments.
Of course, there is more to this anti-papal neurosis than television comedians making jokes about celibate clergy and commentators assuming that they know far more about reality than a priest who has worked in an African city slum for forty years. Conventional wisdom has it that Africa has a population problem and that Africans can become “more civilized” if they have fewer children. It’s an organized and sometimes quite sinister campaign. Africa is, if anything, underpopulated and the problems of the continent have far more to do with Western greed, colonization, resources exploitation and arms sales than with family size. The Church has spoken out on these issues for decades and was, for example, one of the leading voices at the United Nations that persuaded the multinational pharmaceutical companies to make their anti-AIDS drugs generic and thus affordable in the Third World.
Paradox and lack of understanding rules the day. We applaud an obscenely wealthy American actress when she takes a black baby from Africa, but forget that the Hollywood values she epitomizes encourage loveless sex and treating one another as sexual objects rather than distinct individuals — the precise phenomenon that encourages the spread of AIDS. More than this, the solution to children living in poverty in Africa is not to remove the children but to remove the poverty. But there is never a camera crew around for that sort of thing.
It appears these days to be open season on Pope Benedict XVI. In that he leads an organization that is supposed to be a mirror held up to the world to reflect society’s failures and absurdities, the man must be doing a great deal right.
National Post
Michael Coren is an author and broadcaster.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Thanks Mr. Obama for ruining my birthday!
Mr. Obama, the most pro-abortion, anti-family president in the history of the United States has declared June, my birthmonth, as LGBT pride month. That's right, not just one day, or even a week, but an entire month.
He has issued a press release marking the "event". In it, he presents gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people as hard working Americans with good values who want to improve the country, who have been harrassed endlessly by conservative zealots bent on destroying their lives. He recalls an event 40 years ago when members of the LGBT community were harrassed, an event which he says had become "all too common". He says members of the LGBT community have made and continue to make lasting contributions to the fabric of American society. The specific example he gives is their fight against AIDS and HIV. He also says he will continue to fight for gay civil unions, the ability of LGBT people to adopt children, and to support LGBT "families" and "seniors". Obama sees these words as politically advantageous, but at what cost? Let me analyze this move on Obama's part in light of Catholic teaching.
Catholic teaching proclaims that the intent of marriage is to express the love of Christ and to raise children in a healthy environment. The marriage between a man and a woman is the only way to ensure the proper complementarity necessary for a child's growth. There is no such complementarity when both "parents" are of the same sex. Children naturally have the right to be raised by their parents. A gay couple can never give this option. There are circumstances where a child cannot be raised by his own parents, but this is the exception which society should work to prevent, rather than the rule. Artificially creating a "family" unit which does not involve both parents may seem politically advantageous, but it is not fair to a child. Some children are raised in foster homes. Many peopel are aware of the terrible circumstances many children must suffer in these situations. Many children go to sleep at night asking "Where's my mommy and daddy?" but the assumption has always been that if both parents came through and took the child back, that would be a victory for everyone. By making gay marriage "acceptable" as just one of many options, we take away the impetus to move toward natural families. It's the same as if we are fighting a disease for which there is no known cure. We must make those with this disease feel comfortable but always with the idea that some day we may find a cure and they can live without it. The disease in this case represents a child without his parents. But the LGBT movement for gay marriage is basically like saying this is not a disease anymore and no cure is necessary. We must stop looking for a cure because we do not acknowledge this as a disease. But guess what? Admit it or not, the disease remains. On top of all of this, there are other moral issues involved. If a gay couple wants a child of their own, they must be artificially inseminated (in the case of a woman). If a gay male couple wants a child of their own, one must illicitly use his sperm to produce an embryo. Creating babies in a test-tube, or outside the bond of true marriage is immoral. Not only that, many embryos are often destroyed in these procedures. Gay "families" always involve at least one form of immoral behavior. They cannot exist outside this context.
On the surface, the words of Obama do not sound too bad. They just seem to be asking people not to be discriminatory to people who are in the LGBT community, and on this note, the Catholic Church would agree. She says we must treat all people with love and respect, regardless of their behaviors. We must love and respect people from the LGBT community, but we must also keep in mind that they are doing something sinful, and that loving someone does not entail approving of all of their actions. But Obama is not just asking us to respect all people, he is making people who disagree with LGBT activism look like bigots and ignorant harrassers, who are just afraid of people who are different from them. This is a popular tactic being used by gay activists. Anyone who speaks out against gay marriage, homosexual behavior, gay adoption, or any other issue are simply labeled as a bigot and dismissed. But this doesn't happen for any other group. If I campaign against child sex slavery, I am not labeled a bigot, even if I may not be involved in this whole scene. I would say 99% of people who disagree wtih gay marriage and gay adoption have no phobia of gay people whatsoever. If I meet a gay person, I do not run away in fear. I see them as a person and treat them with respect. But that doesn't mean I can't engage in a debate about whether gay marriage or gay adoption is right. I can also say a war is not justified even if I am not IN the war. I can say theft is immoral, even if I am not a thief or even if I have never had anything stolen by a thief. This is a fallacy that often crops up in the debate about gay marriage and abortion.
A popular slogan of the National Organization of Marriage is Gay and lesbian have the right to live as they choose, but they do not have the right to change marriage for everyone. And that's exactly what's at stake. The fight against gay marriage is not about not letting gay people live as they wish, it's about the impact it is having on our lives. I believe in the parents' natural law right to teach their own children. Therefore, if a gay person teaches his adopted child about gay marriage, then there's not much I can do about it (although in this case, since the child is not naturally his, you could argue he has less right to teach this child). But that's not what's at stake. What's at stake is what everyone else is allowed to do. The gay rights lobby is not satisfied with gay people living as they wish and straight people living as they wish. No, they want to change legislation so that people not only have to accept gay people, they should be forced to speak about gay marriage as though it is equal to marriage between a man and a woman. How?
Well, if gay marriage becomes legal, as well as gay adoption, as it is already in some places, a public school cannot legally say marriage is when a man and a woman fall in love and get married and have children. Now they must say marriage is when two individuals, be they a man and a woman, two women, or two men fall in love and are united by the state authority. Then when speaking about children, they can no longer just present a natural child birth, involving sex between a married couple which results in a child being conceived and eventually born. Now, they must present the act of having children as any number of possibilities. Anything from natural conception and birth to a process involving masturbation, in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, selective reduction (i.e. abortion), adoption, and possible payments at various stages of this process. This teaching will not be optional, but forced on the population.
People who have presented the constant teachings of the Church, the Church to whom Western civilization owes everything, have been persecuted. In Canada, a priest was charged for speaking against homosexuality. Never did he incite hatred or cause violence. Rather, he presented the constant teaching of the church on the issue and said it is incompatible with Christianity. In Massachuttsetts, the largest adoption agency in the state was the Catholic adoption service. A gay couple went there to adopt a child, but the organization refused because it felt that complying would be immoral. The Catholic agency which has helped thousands of families adopt needy children made a compromise and said they would refer gay and lesbian couples to other adoption agencies who actually provide adoption to gay couples. The gay lobby was not happy with this and pursued the Catholic organization in court. The actions of the Catholic organization were deemed discriminatory and they were shut down. Gay rights lobby 1, countless families and children 0. You see, the gay rights lobby is not satisfied with protection to believe what they want. They want to use the law to force everyone to accept their lifestyles.
Ultimately the only thing Obama's decision to make June the month for LGBT people will do is cause more and more harrassment against people who want to express their view that marriage is between a man and a woman. The persecution has already begun and will continue to get worse. Obama is a major catalyst in all of this. He wants people who defend traditional marriage to feel like bigots and LGBT people to feel justified in feeling like victims and people who need to fight for whatever they want.
The most ironic part of Obama's official White House letter is the last part where he marks the date as "the year of the Lord 2009". If Obama really believed Jesus is our Lord, he would never try to sabatoge the institution of marriage which Christ elevated to a sacrament.
He has issued a press release marking the "event". In it, he presents gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people as hard working Americans with good values who want to improve the country, who have been harrassed endlessly by conservative zealots bent on destroying their lives. He recalls an event 40 years ago when members of the LGBT community were harrassed, an event which he says had become "all too common". He says members of the LGBT community have made and continue to make lasting contributions to the fabric of American society. The specific example he gives is their fight against AIDS and HIV. He also says he will continue to fight for gay civil unions, the ability of LGBT people to adopt children, and to support LGBT "families" and "seniors". Obama sees these words as politically advantageous, but at what cost? Let me analyze this move on Obama's part in light of Catholic teaching.
Catholic teaching proclaims that the intent of marriage is to express the love of Christ and to raise children in a healthy environment. The marriage between a man and a woman is the only way to ensure the proper complementarity necessary for a child's growth. There is no such complementarity when both "parents" are of the same sex. Children naturally have the right to be raised by their parents. A gay couple can never give this option. There are circumstances where a child cannot be raised by his own parents, but this is the exception which society should work to prevent, rather than the rule. Artificially creating a "family" unit which does not involve both parents may seem politically advantageous, but it is not fair to a child. Some children are raised in foster homes. Many peopel are aware of the terrible circumstances many children must suffer in these situations. Many children go to sleep at night asking "Where's my mommy and daddy?" but the assumption has always been that if both parents came through and took the child back, that would be a victory for everyone. By making gay marriage "acceptable" as just one of many options, we take away the impetus to move toward natural families. It's the same as if we are fighting a disease for which there is no known cure. We must make those with this disease feel comfortable but always with the idea that some day we may find a cure and they can live without it. The disease in this case represents a child without his parents. But the LGBT movement for gay marriage is basically like saying this is not a disease anymore and no cure is necessary. We must stop looking for a cure because we do not acknowledge this as a disease. But guess what? Admit it or not, the disease remains. On top of all of this, there are other moral issues involved. If a gay couple wants a child of their own, they must be artificially inseminated (in the case of a woman). If a gay male couple wants a child of their own, one must illicitly use his sperm to produce an embryo. Creating babies in a test-tube, or outside the bond of true marriage is immoral. Not only that, many embryos are often destroyed in these procedures. Gay "families" always involve at least one form of immoral behavior. They cannot exist outside this context.
On the surface, the words of Obama do not sound too bad. They just seem to be asking people not to be discriminatory to people who are in the LGBT community, and on this note, the Catholic Church would agree. She says we must treat all people with love and respect, regardless of their behaviors. We must love and respect people from the LGBT community, but we must also keep in mind that they are doing something sinful, and that loving someone does not entail approving of all of their actions. But Obama is not just asking us to respect all people, he is making people who disagree with LGBT activism look like bigots and ignorant harrassers, who are just afraid of people who are different from them. This is a popular tactic being used by gay activists. Anyone who speaks out against gay marriage, homosexual behavior, gay adoption, or any other issue are simply labeled as a bigot and dismissed. But this doesn't happen for any other group. If I campaign against child sex slavery, I am not labeled a bigot, even if I may not be involved in this whole scene. I would say 99% of people who disagree wtih gay marriage and gay adoption have no phobia of gay people whatsoever. If I meet a gay person, I do not run away in fear. I see them as a person and treat them with respect. But that doesn't mean I can't engage in a debate about whether gay marriage or gay adoption is right. I can also say a war is not justified even if I am not IN the war. I can say theft is immoral, even if I am not a thief or even if I have never had anything stolen by a thief. This is a fallacy that often crops up in the debate about gay marriage and abortion.
A popular slogan of the National Organization of Marriage is Gay and lesbian have the right to live as they choose, but they do not have the right to change marriage for everyone. And that's exactly what's at stake. The fight against gay marriage is not about not letting gay people live as they wish, it's about the impact it is having on our lives. I believe in the parents' natural law right to teach their own children. Therefore, if a gay person teaches his adopted child about gay marriage, then there's not much I can do about it (although in this case, since the child is not naturally his, you could argue he has less right to teach this child). But that's not what's at stake. What's at stake is what everyone else is allowed to do. The gay rights lobby is not satisfied with gay people living as they wish and straight people living as they wish. No, they want to change legislation so that people not only have to accept gay people, they should be forced to speak about gay marriage as though it is equal to marriage between a man and a woman. How?
Well, if gay marriage becomes legal, as well as gay adoption, as it is already in some places, a public school cannot legally say marriage is when a man and a woman fall in love and get married and have children. Now they must say marriage is when two individuals, be they a man and a woman, two women, or two men fall in love and are united by the state authority. Then when speaking about children, they can no longer just present a natural child birth, involving sex between a married couple which results in a child being conceived and eventually born. Now, they must present the act of having children as any number of possibilities. Anything from natural conception and birth to a process involving masturbation, in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, selective reduction (i.e. abortion), adoption, and possible payments at various stages of this process. This teaching will not be optional, but forced on the population.
People who have presented the constant teachings of the Church, the Church to whom Western civilization owes everything, have been persecuted. In Canada, a priest was charged for speaking against homosexuality. Never did he incite hatred or cause violence. Rather, he presented the constant teaching of the church on the issue and said it is incompatible with Christianity. In Massachuttsetts, the largest adoption agency in the state was the Catholic adoption service. A gay couple went there to adopt a child, but the organization refused because it felt that complying would be immoral. The Catholic agency which has helped thousands of families adopt needy children made a compromise and said they would refer gay and lesbian couples to other adoption agencies who actually provide adoption to gay couples. The gay lobby was not happy with this and pursued the Catholic organization in court. The actions of the Catholic organization were deemed discriminatory and they were shut down. Gay rights lobby 1, countless families and children 0. You see, the gay rights lobby is not satisfied with protection to believe what they want. They want to use the law to force everyone to accept their lifestyles.
Ultimately the only thing Obama's decision to make June the month for LGBT people will do is cause more and more harrassment against people who want to express their view that marriage is between a man and a woman. The persecution has already begun and will continue to get worse. Obama is a major catalyst in all of this. He wants people who defend traditional marriage to feel like bigots and LGBT people to feel justified in feeling like victims and people who need to fight for whatever they want.
The most ironic part of Obama's official White House letter is the last part where he marks the date as "the year of the Lord 2009". If Obama really believed Jesus is our Lord, he would never try to sabatoge the institution of marriage which Christ elevated to a sacrament.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Anti-abortion or pro-life?
If you are used to listening to the mainstream media to get all your news, you may be quite familiar with the term anti-abortion. In Christian circles, the term pro-life is preferred. What’s the difference, and why is one preferable?
I believe pro-life is the only accurate word to describe those who, in part, denounce abortion, and there are several reasons. First of all, someone could be at the same time anti-abortion, but nonetheless still not pro-life. For example, they could be against abortion, but for euthanasia. In that case, they would be anti-abortion but not pro-life.
Anti-abortion is a stupid term because pro-lifers are not against abortion just because it is abortion. They are against abortion because it kills an innocent person. If landmines were set up in schools and children walked on them and were being killed, pro-lifers would protest this as well. Would they then be called anti-land-miners? Of course not. If knives were being used to murder young people, would those who protest this occurrence be called “anti-knifers”? No, they would not. In fact, they may actually be all for knives and even be a professional chef who uses them all the time. Therefore, we are not against the “procedure” of abortion, rather we are against what the abortion does. We are opposed to anything which causes the death of innocents.
Of course, there is a lot more to calling pro-lifers “anti-abortion” than simply a mistake in semantics. Calling someone anti-abortion first of all makes him or her against something rather than for something. All of a sudden, you have pro-choice and anti-abortion forces. No one is against choice, are they? Choice is always a good thing, right? But look at those other people, they are against something. Who are they to tell me I’m not allowed to do something? How dare they! But if we change the terms around, our side sounds a lot nicer. Let’s call them pro-life and anti-life. If you hear these names, you think, oh pro-life, that’s good, they are FOR life, from conception to natural death. They want to promote human dignity. That’s a good thing. But this other group is called anti-life. Obviously they do not like life, at least not lives which they deem to be less valuable. Hmm, I wonder if I will be a target for their anti-life campaign? I think this group should be stopped.
After “Dr.” Tiller was killed, there were many articles that came out about his murder. Of course, he killed thousands of children from his abortion mill. Why not check out several articles from the main stream media and see how many call pro-lifers “anti-abortion”, then divide this by the number of times they call pro-choice groups “anti-life”. Oh wait, you can’t divide by zero.
I believe pro-life is the only accurate word to describe those who, in part, denounce abortion, and there are several reasons. First of all, someone could be at the same time anti-abortion, but nonetheless still not pro-life. For example, they could be against abortion, but for euthanasia. In that case, they would be anti-abortion but not pro-life.
Anti-abortion is a stupid term because pro-lifers are not against abortion just because it is abortion. They are against abortion because it kills an innocent person. If landmines were set up in schools and children walked on them and were being killed, pro-lifers would protest this as well. Would they then be called anti-land-miners? Of course not. If knives were being used to murder young people, would those who protest this occurrence be called “anti-knifers”? No, they would not. In fact, they may actually be all for knives and even be a professional chef who uses them all the time. Therefore, we are not against the “procedure” of abortion, rather we are against what the abortion does. We are opposed to anything which causes the death of innocents.
Of course, there is a lot more to calling pro-lifers “anti-abortion” than simply a mistake in semantics. Calling someone anti-abortion first of all makes him or her against something rather than for something. All of a sudden, you have pro-choice and anti-abortion forces. No one is against choice, are they? Choice is always a good thing, right? But look at those other people, they are against something. Who are they to tell me I’m not allowed to do something? How dare they! But if we change the terms around, our side sounds a lot nicer. Let’s call them pro-life and anti-life. If you hear these names, you think, oh pro-life, that’s good, they are FOR life, from conception to natural death. They want to promote human dignity. That’s a good thing. But this other group is called anti-life. Obviously they do not like life, at least not lives which they deem to be less valuable. Hmm, I wonder if I will be a target for their anti-life campaign? I think this group should be stopped.
After “Dr.” Tiller was killed, there were many articles that came out about his murder. Of course, he killed thousands of children from his abortion mill. Why not check out several articles from the main stream media and see how many call pro-lifers “anti-abortion”, then divide this by the number of times they call pro-choice groups “anti-life”. Oh wait, you can’t divide by zero.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Help Stop Abortion in Canada
A friend of mine sent me an email indicating we can now directly contact those in government here in Canada in a simple way and tell them to make legislation to end abortion and protect life. I encourage everyone who can to do so. Here is the email he sent me:
End 40 Years of Abortion, Email all MPs with just 2 clicks
May 14, 2009 is the sad 40th anniversary of abortion in Canada. Now is time for the Members of Parliament to have their email inboxes flooded by us calling for legislation to protect life and end abortion! http://www.contactmps.com/ is a new free resource for us pro-life Canadians where we can send an email to all MPs with just two clicks.
Help make http://www.contactmps.com/ a grassroots success. Use and it share it with others today!
Kindly forward the above note to all pro-lifers in your address book, place it in Church bulletins, put it on pro-life blogs/websites, tell your friends, etc...
This website will stay in operation after the May, 2009. So keep visiting to send more letters!
Finally, a news story about a fetus in Canada who is NOT aborted!
Doctors in Toronto have successfully performed heart surgery on a baby still in the womb. The baby, named Oceane, is doing very well. This is a really great thing for medicine and humanity. A couple of interesting questions arise. First, if an unborn baby is not a person, what was being operated on, a "lump of tissues", and if the mother had decided that instead of operating on the baby, she would rather kill him, how can both decisions be seen as equal? If she could have killed this child and that would be "acceptable", then how could saving her life be a good thing? In other words, if something is good, then the opposite cannot also be good. Or, if one thing is acceptable, then the opposite cannot be good, or very good.
Obviously, the whole point is that abortion is never good. If abortion was good, then saving a child in the womb's life would be bad. I hope stories like this continue. They are edifying for two reasons. First of all, people who read this story are touched by the tiny life. Secondly, this confirms that even unborn children are full human beings in need of our care.
For the full article, please go here:
Monday, April 27, 2009
Catholic thoughts on Nadya Suleman (aka Octomom)
Nadya Suleman is the lady who received fertility treatment and gave birth to 8 children. She was not married at the time, didn't have much money and already had 6 children. She now has 14 children. She has been called Octomom (perhaps it is sometimes spelled Octamom). This name makes her sound like some alien species, mutant, or X-Men character. She has become the object of ridicule of many people who say she did the wrong thing. But how would her actions square with Catholic teaching? We know that the world and especially the media are rarely aligned with the Church in their thinking. So what would the church say concerning the Nadya Suleman case? I believe her story has good and bad elements.
First of all the bad. The Catholic Church is firmly against in vitro fertilization, or the creation of embryos outside the womb of the mother. That's because it contradicts the natural design established by God for how babies ought to be conceived and born. Babies are designed by God to come into existence within the marital embrace in the marital act. He did not design babies to be products of a science laboratory with a scientist fusing together sperm and egg. Therefore the use of embryos in this fashion is gravely wrong. Also, this procedure often destroys embryos. More are created than are needed and because of this, the embryos are often left frozen indefinitely or they are disposed of (usually without a funeral or without the destroyer being charged with murder). So we know that Nadya used fertility treatment that may have destroyed embryos. Society at large has no problem using in vitro fertilization. They view it as a means to an end and in a Machiavelian world like our own, any means is acceptable as long as the end seems desirable. Now, what about the rest of her situation?
Once the embryos were implanted in her uterine, eight clung to the uterine lining and survived. Nadya decided to keep them all. In other words, she did not selectively reduce or murder any of the eight. Strangely, this is where a lot of the world seemed upset. They called Nadya irresponsible, not for having fertility treatment or even for having eight or more embryos conceived, but rather they were upset that she wanted to keep them all. Society said it was irresponsible not to murder some of her children. The Church would disagree strongly, of course. She, the Church, would urge Nadya to keep caring and loving the eight babies in her womb, regardless of how they were conceived. The Church views every child equally and as a gift from God, even those born by in vitro fertilization.
Therefore, the Church and society have disagreed on two points. One point the Church may agree with society is whether she should have had more children in the first place. Since she already had 6 children, it was probably not a great idea for a jobless, husbandless woman of little means to seek out more children than the 6 she already had to support. The Church first of all says people ought to be married before they involve themselves in the act of procreation. But even when they're married, they should practice planning when it comes to children. People should not have more children than they can properly afford. This does not mean every child must have a car when they're 16, and go to the top university and have the best life imaginable. It just means that every child must receive basic care and attention. If someone is unable to supply this, they should probably wait a little while to attempt having another child.
It's a really great thing that Nadya decided to keep all eight of her children. Imagine having to tell, for example, the 6 she decided to keep that they were the lucky ones to have survived and that two of their brothers and sisters didn't make it because they were selectively reduced. That would be very sad and would leave the others asking where their other siblings are and why they themselves are alive but their brothers or sisters are not.
Let us pray that the world heads the words of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, "Of Human Life", where he says in the opening statement:
"The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships."
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Obama's Ironic Words
I've been writing a lot about Obama recently, even though I'm Canadian. There are two reasons. First of all, our most important influence comes from the United States. Secondly, life issues affect the human race, not just Canadians or Americans. Over the coming weeks, I will hopefully analyze some of the policies of other countries, many of which are even more extreme and dangerous than America's with Obama in the White House.
The irony that I am speaking about is something Obama said. While at the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama said:
"There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being".
This, I think, is an example of Obama's doublespeak. Who is more innocent than the unborn? Remember, these are not blobs of cells, these are full human beings, whose eye colour, height, complexion, hair colour, etc. is already determined. By the time nearly all abortions occur, the baby's organs are already developing and he has a heart beat and brain activity.
So when Obama says no God would condone the killing of innocent people, who exactly is he talking about? Perhaps he refers to the innocent handicapped people? Well, that can't be true either because Obama said his worst political decision was to allow Terry Shaivo to continue to receive food and water.
Part of what makes Obama famous is that he tries to say what he thinks people want to hear. You may say all politicians do this, but I have never met a politician who alters his message so dramatically from one place to another. For example, there are pro-life politicians. If you ask them if they support the right to life for everyone, they will of course agree. Now, if a pro-abortion person asks what they think should happen if a rape victim gets pregnant, they will not suddenly abandon their pro-life stance and say "I'm pro-choice now." They would perhaps talk around the issue and say they believe that is a very tough situation and we must do everything we can to help them out, etc. but they wouldn't just change what they said in the past to suit the situation, which as you can see Obama does frequently.
There are a couple of equally horrendous ways which we could take what Obama said that would not make him duplicitous. First, perhaps he does not believe that a baby 5 minutes before birth is human, or even that a baby who is partially out of the womb is human. Only when the smallest pinky toe escapes the birth canal is the person in question a member of humanity. Prior to this, according to Obama, this entity must be a non-human. That defies natural logic.
The other possible way of reconciling what Obama said with him being consistent is to consider that perhaps he believes God would never condone the killing of an innocent person, but that Obama really doesn't care what God thinks. This would probably be worse than the first possibility. If this is true, then this is pride. To know and understand what God wants and to purposely contrive against it is a serious crime. It is the definition of sin. And to be that clear about it makes it all the more scandalous.
I do not think it is possible that he does not believe in God. The reason is that if he didn't, why would he even bother mentioning God in the first place? It's not like Obama has a lack of vocabulary. He could have said "no civilization" would condone the taking of innocent human life, or "no society" or "no moral people", but he didn't. He specifically said God. Of course, with his record of doublespeak, perhaps Obama doesn't really believe in God, but says he does because he doesn't think Americans are ready for an atheist president. On a side note, I do not think anyone truly does not believe in God. They may refuse to acknowledge God, or ignore God, but I think deep down everyone knows God.
At least one priest has spoken up against these words of Obama. American priest, Father Hugh W. Cleary, Holy Cross superior general in Rome, has issued a letter to Obama urging him to reconsider his stance on life issues. Holy Cross is the order under which Notre Dame was founded in Indiana in 1842. Let us pray and work together with Fr. Cleary to bring Obama to an understanding of the sanctity of life.
Here is an article about the letter written by Fr. Cleary: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0901461.htm
Monday, April 06, 2009
Obama's Accidental Good Effects
I've spoken several times on this blog about Obama's strong propensity toward the culture of death and how he and his administration have been implementing laws which attack the sanctity of life more and more each day. But, there are possibly some good things which may come out of this, none of which are specifically intended by Obama or his administration.
Recently Obama was invited to speak at Notre Dame University, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, which also is Catholic. Many were outraged by this decision to allow such a proponent of the culture of death to speak there. People say the invitation should be revoked. However, let's look at the good it is causing. First of all, many Catholics are having their voices heard. So often, Obama is portrayed as being this "new vision" and hope for the country. He is cast in a certain media glow which aims to show him as someone who came to selflessly save the country. His speaking at Notre Dame and the ensuing backlash, though, cannot be ignored. People will see why many do not like the policies he has been espousing. They hear from the other side. This is a great chance for the voices of the pro-life side to be heard.
Many bishops and prominent people are protesting Obama's speaking at the university named after Our Lady. Any time Obama's speech is talked about in the media, they are required to talk also about the protests. This will at least make people pause for a few seconds and wonder if Obama is doing as much good as the media would lead us to believe.
Obama may also be contributing to the sense of worth of black people and other minorities. As we know, the black community is often afflicted very seriously by the scourge of abortion. Unfortunately that was the goal of many of the original birth control advocates, like Margaret Sanger. She wanted to reduce the number of black people in the country and she felt birth control and sterilization were good methods for that. Many black people feel they are put down and oppressed by others. They feel they cannot do well in their lives. Many live in despair and often get involved in risky relationships and become pregnant out of wedlock. They feel they have no choice but to have an abortion. There is a prevailing racism which is contributed to by all people in the country, including all races. With Obama's win, he shows people of his ethnicity that anyone can make it and be very successful. People often say "you can be President someday" as the highest of goals. Now that people know this is open to everyone, they will feel less oppressed. With less oppression they feel more responsible and would be less likely to have an abortion, which is often done because of a hopeless feeling.
Obama is doing other good things as well, including trying to help the environment, attempted to reduce war and conflict, etc. This article is meant to show that God allows things to happen, and that in the darkest times, the light shines all the brighter. God sometimes allows evil to happen so that even more good can come from it. We can never overlook the mass genocide of abortion, nor can we ignore euthanasia, suicide, embryonic stem cell research, homosexual "marriage" and other parts of the culture of death, but it is important to sometimes be thankful for good things in society and our lives.
Recently Obama was invited to speak at Notre Dame University, one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, which also is Catholic. Many were outraged by this decision to allow such a proponent of the culture of death to speak there. People say the invitation should be revoked. However, let's look at the good it is causing. First of all, many Catholics are having their voices heard. So often, Obama is portrayed as being this "new vision" and hope for the country. He is cast in a certain media glow which aims to show him as someone who came to selflessly save the country. His speaking at Notre Dame and the ensuing backlash, though, cannot be ignored. People will see why many do not like the policies he has been espousing. They hear from the other side. This is a great chance for the voices of the pro-life side to be heard.
Many bishops and prominent people are protesting Obama's speaking at the university named after Our Lady. Any time Obama's speech is talked about in the media, they are required to talk also about the protests. This will at least make people pause for a few seconds and wonder if Obama is doing as much good as the media would lead us to believe.
Obama may also be contributing to the sense of worth of black people and other minorities. As we know, the black community is often afflicted very seriously by the scourge of abortion. Unfortunately that was the goal of many of the original birth control advocates, like Margaret Sanger. She wanted to reduce the number of black people in the country and she felt birth control and sterilization were good methods for that. Many black people feel they are put down and oppressed by others. They feel they cannot do well in their lives. Many live in despair and often get involved in risky relationships and become pregnant out of wedlock. They feel they have no choice but to have an abortion. There is a prevailing racism which is contributed to by all people in the country, including all races. With Obama's win, he shows people of his ethnicity that anyone can make it and be very successful. People often say "you can be President someday" as the highest of goals. Now that people know this is open to everyone, they will feel less oppressed. With less oppression they feel more responsible and would be less likely to have an abortion, which is often done because of a hopeless feeling.
Obama is doing other good things as well, including trying to help the environment, attempted to reduce war and conflict, etc. This article is meant to show that God allows things to happen, and that in the darkest times, the light shines all the brighter. God sometimes allows evil to happen so that even more good can come from it. We can never overlook the mass genocide of abortion, nor can we ignore euthanasia, suicide, embryonic stem cell research, homosexual "marriage" and other parts of the culture of death, but it is important to sometimes be thankful for good things in society and our lives.
Friday, April 03, 2009
The culture of death becomes obvious when you put the pieces together
In a previous article, I spoke of all the things Obama was doing or planned on doing which would go against life, including eradicating all abortion laws in the United States with the passing of the "Freedom of Choice Act", allowing federal funds for a dead-end (pun intended) pseudo-science which has yielded exactly zero cures called embryonic stem-cell research, saying that his worst decision was supporting Terry Schaivo's right to life, and the list goes on. But you don't need to stop looking once you reach Obama. Just look at his cabinet ministers. They too are promoting the culture of death like never in our history. When you start to put them all together, you start to see the deceit and lies these people are perpetuating, and you start to realize the true goal - the destruction of humanity.
A few days ago, a member of Obama's administration, "Dr." Nina Vsevolod Fedoroff said there are too many people on Earth. At first she said we need to keep reducing the population growth, etc. When a reporter asked if she thought there were too many people on Earth, she responded in the affirmative. I wish I was there. I would have asked her, "Nina, you say there are too many people on Earth. Would you like to eliminate yourself?" See, it's easy to say "there are too many people on Earth", but people are real flesh and blood, they are not numbers, they are not statistics. This whole mentality is fooled up. She believes there are not enough resources to sustain the population. Well, then we need to increase resources. If there is too much pollution, we need to cut back. If there is unclean water, we need treatment plants. It is a fallacy to say that because there are bad things happening in the world, and they happen to involve people, automatically there are too many people. That's like saying 20 million people in Europe died because of the bubonic plague, out of a population of 100 million. Now, how could we have reduced the death toll? Well, if there were only 50 million people, only 10 million would have died! So our solution is to reduce the population. Or you could say in a town of 100,000 people, there are 100 murders per year. How do you reduce the number of murders? Reduce the population to 50,000, then there should only be around 50 murders per year. This logic is fallacious.
As for not enough resources, that is another scare tactic. Thomas Malthus, in the 1800s predicted a global catastrophe, where there would be widespread famine and people would be dying all over the place because there would surely not be enough food. He felt he was on the brink of this. In his day, the population was just over 1 billion. Now it is over 6 times that much, and yet the United States alone has enough food to feed the entire planet.
We know that the earth is not overpopulated. Are there issues on the Earth? Absolutely! Too much pollution, too much starvation, too much suffering, perhaps, but reducing our numbers is not a solution! Some people think that only when there are no more people on Earth will things be how they should. Well, God has a different opinion. He created us unique out of all the animals. Some may say we are like chimpanzees, but chimpanzees will customarily go to a rival group, take a young one, and rip it to pieces and eat it. This is common. We are not monkey or apes or animals. We are human beings, created uniquely by God. Animals and plants are here for our well-being and to serve us. We of course must love the planet, but not hate ourselves.
Fr. Frank Pavone wrote a wonderful article on this subject for "This Rock" Magazine. I will post it here in its entirety, including a link to it:
Planet Un-Parenthood
The Myths of Overpopulation
By Fr. Frank Pavone
Well, it didn’t quite happen as they feared.
In 1798, Rev. Thomas Malthus, one theoretician of overpopulation, predicted that by 1890 the world would have standing room only. Nearly two centuries later, in the 1970s, media reports cautioned that by 1990 we would need to build huge artificial islands in the middle of the ocean to handle the earth’s population.
Apparently, we’re doing better than that.
Yet some don’t seem to learn from the facts, and we still hear today about the "problem" of "overpopulation." This supposed problem, which as we will see below is contrary to fact, is used as a justification for killing people by abortion and for state interference with the authentic, God-given reproductive freedom that belongs to families and couples.
The ongoing myth of overpopulation is actually a cluster of myths, some statistical, some philosophical, and some spiritual.
"Having Babies Is Selfish"
Toni Vernelli of Somerset, England, aborted her child and eventually had herself sterilized at age 27. Why? She wanted to reduce her "carbon footprint" and help save the planet.
Her boyfriend, to whom she is now married, saw things the same way, and presented her with a "Congratulations" card.
"Having children is selfish," Toni said. "It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet . . . Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of overpopulation."
Sarah Irving feels the same way: "I realized that a baby would pollute the planet—and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do."
Not everyone has drunk so deeply of the overpopulation myth as these two enthusiasts, but they remind us that the myth does have an impact on our culture and needs to be counteracted.
The Hype
There has been a war of ideas regarding overpopulation for centuries. But around 1970, a publication by Rev. Malthus was met with renewed interest. Malthus, a British economist, wrote Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Essentially, he became alarmed at the difference between arithmetic growth (2 – 4 – 6 – 8) and geometric growth (2 – 4 – 8 – 16). Here is his central thesis:
The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometric ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetic ratio. By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence.
Other population alarmists jumped on the bandwagon at various times. In 1972, Paul Erlich, author of The Population Bomb, warned that 65 million Americans would die of starvation by 1985. That same year, Planned Parenthood World Population circulated an article titled "The Human Race Has 35 Years Left: After that, People will Start Eating Plankton. Or People."
The prize for hysterical projections, however, goes to Princeton demographer Ansley Coale, who said we are experiencing ". . . a growth process which, within 65 centuries and in the absence of environmental limits, could generate a solid sphere of live bodies expanding with a radial velocity that, neglecting relativity, would equal the velocity of light" ("Increases in Expectation of Life and Population Growth," Proceedings of the International Population Conference, 36).
The Reality
The reality, however, is different.
The population of the world doubled from 3 billion in 1960 to 6 billion in 2000. However, this growth was not because we were reproducing so fast, but because we weren’t dying so fast. Thanks to advances in modern medicine, the death rate dramatically slowed during this time.
As for the worldwide fertility rate, it was actually falling throughout the period. In 1960 it was an average of 6 children per woman; by 2002 it was just 2.6. Around 2.1 is the replacement level, that is, the number of children that each couple needs to have to maintain the population. (The extra one-tenth accounts for those who do not have children).
Another way of describing this change in the fertility rate during the time that the world’s population doubled is that we were adding 2.1 percent to the world’s population each year, but by 2002, it dropped to increments of only 1.2 percent.
The United Nations publishes population analyses. When projecting what population growth is likely to be in the future, the United Nations illustrates different versions of what may happen, known as "variants."
According to its "medium variant," the UN projects that the world population grow to 8.9 billion by 2050, and will then level out at 10 billion.
However, the "low variant"—which is usually the correct one—shows a leveling out at 7.3 billion in 2040.
Once the population levels out in this way, it will begin to decline. It will never double again.
As population expert Steven Mosher points out, the United Nations’ low variant is not highlighted in the UN reports; rather, it is buried in the details. Moreover, the medium variant, which projects a higher population, is based on a totally unexplained (and unrealistic) assumption, namely, that all countries, over the next half-century, will reach a "fertility floor" of 1.85 children per woman. The assumption, in other words, is that fertility rates won’t fall lower than that. In reality, however, fertility rates in many countries have already fallen lower than this imaginary fertility floor. Since modern societies are typically between 1.1 and 1.6 in fertility rates, a floor of 1.35 seems more likely.
The world population growth rate, therefore, has slowed steadily since 1960. Medical technology, reducing infant mortality, has led to agrarian families no longer feeling that they needed numerous children. Increased wealth has caused the birth rate to decline and the marriage age to increase. The global trend toward longer life spans seems to be slowing.
Life expectancy has increased, and when that happens, the population swells. But eventually everyone dies. Population in a nation whose birthrate is below the replacement level may also swell because of immigration, and this has been the case with the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Where starvation in the world is present, it isn’t caused by a lack of food. Studies consistently show the world has and can produce enough food for the present and future population. As Randy Alcorn observes, starvation occurs due to a combination of many factors, including natural disasters, wars, a lack of technology, the misuse of resources, waste, greed, government inefficiency, and failure to distribute food properly. Indeed, the problem we find in many places is not overpopulation as such, but overconcentration.
Never before have fertility rates all over the world been in such widespread free-fall for such a long period of time. Most Western European countries are now experiencing economic problems that their governments attribute to population reduction.
UN population experts have declared that the very existence of some nations has now been endangered by a decline in the numbers of children that families are having.
According to Dr. Joseph Chamie, former Director of the Population Division of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
Very low fertility levels lead not only to population decline, but also to rapid population ageing. These changes in size and structure have significant social, economic, and political consequences for these countries and regions. And these consequences need to be addressed today, not tomorrow. (Statement to the Commission on Population and Development, 32nd session, March 1999)
(Mis)anthropology
Brian Clowes, director of research for Human Life International, points out that population controllers don’t want world population to just level off at zero population growth. They want it to continue to go down until it reaches one or two billion, and then have a global one-child policy.
At the heart of their thinking is not only mathematics, but an erroneous anthropology, a distorted view of the human species. According to this view, there is nothing special about the human species, nothing distinctive that sets us apart from animals. Therefore, decisions about our own welfare must involve considering the welfare of all the "other" animals. Some see us as even inferior to those animals and, in fact, as a cancer on the world. "We must cut out the cancer of population growth," said Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb.
Abortionist Warren Hern expresses this view in the following way:
The human species is a rapacious, predatory organism displaying all the characteristics of a malignant tumor . . . One of the main characteristics of a cancerous growth is that it resists regulation. Growth is not controlled . . . The ideas that provide the philosophical underpinnings of human destructiveness are found most vividly in the Judeo-Christian ethic, which purports to sanctify man’s mastery over nature. This tradition has suppressed and scorned the significant biological fact that man is an animal like many of his other fellow creatures, holding instead that he is God’s gift to creation—the flower of the universe. (February 1990, address to the University of Colorado at Boulder)
Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood, had a similar problem with the Christian ethic of charity and therefore opposed helping the poor.
At times, I have received pro-abortion correspondence that expresses a relief and even a joy in the staggering numbers of surgical and chemical abortions that occur around the world, because they reduce the population. One wonders whether such people dare to express the same relief and joy when they hear of tsunamis and earthquakes. After all, those too reduce population.
Indeed, population alarmists will rarely if ever be heard expressing a readiness to put their own lives aside for the good of the planet. Rather, it’s always someone else who has to go. G.K. Chesterton put it well when he wrote, "The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him, whether he is part of the surplus population; or if not, how he knows he is not" (Introduction to A Christmas Carol).
The Moral and Spiritual Myth
As we have seen, the population problem in our day is not overpopulation, but rather declining population, as well as unequal distribution of resources. But even if there were an alarming overpopulation problem, the population controllers put forth a key moral error, which is that we could kill people to solve the problem. Because the end never justifies the means, and because killing the innocent is an intrinsic evil, no circumstances could ever justify killing people—born or unborn—to obtain relief from overpopulation, even if that scenario were as bad as some of the outlandish quotes we have seen would have us believe.
Moreover, the mentality of the population controllers reflects a spiritual myth: that human happiness and fulfillment can be found by pushing the "other" out of the way. This, indeed, is the mentality that fuels abortion and euthanasia, as well as population control. The "other" is seen as a threat that must be eliminated, rather than as an opportunity to give oneself away in love, that the other may grow. Precisely in that self-giving ("This is my body, given for you…") does the Christian see fulfillment, rather than in the myth that I am liberated only when the other is killed ("This is my body; I can do what I want").
Ironically, often the very people whom elite population controllers despise or, alternatively, profess that they want to help, show us the way to fulfillment. In her speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on February 3, 1994, Bl. Teresa of Calcutta shared the following story containing a key lesson from the poor and the hungry:
I had the most extraordinary experience of love of neighbor with a Hindu family. A gentleman came to our house and said: "Mother Teresa, there is a family who have not eaten for so long. Do something." So I took some rice and went there immediately. And I saw the children—their eyes shining with hunger. . . . And the mother of the family took the rice I gave her and went out. When she came back, I asked her: "Where did you go? What did you do?" And she gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also." What struck me was that she knew—and who are they? A Muslim family—and she knew. I didn’t bring any more rice that evening because I wanted them, Hindus and Muslims, to enjoy the joy of sharing.
The Freedom to Reproduce
Has the reduction of population through abortion, contraception, and sterilization made the world better? No, we’ve ended up, as Steven Mosher points out, materially poorer, less advanced economically, less diverse culturally, and plagued with incurable diseases and many that are curable but ignored. Security isn’t better, nor is the environment better protected.
Indeed, the abortion industry is the only sector of the economy that doesn’t create wealth but destroys it, leaving us all poorer. Abortion destroys human capital, the ultimate resource.
Yet population controllers push forward with an agenda that seeks to reduce the world’s population to dramatically low levels. The effort to do this leads to government policies like the "one-child policy" in China, which punishes couples who conceive a second child.
Parents have a fundamental right to control their reproductive system and determine the number and spacing of children. Pro-abortion groups would be surprised to know what the Church really teaches in this regard. They have hijacked the term "reproductive rights," but the Church really believes in such rights, which, of course, need to be exercised in such a way that couples never distort the meaning of human sexuality by impairing their fertility, nor ever kill their offspring, born or unborn.
Therefore the Church opposes any government plan to try to control fertility by placing limits on parents’ God-given right to procreate and educate their children. Population control policies exhibit, in Mosher’s words, a "technocratic paternalism," which subjugates family and individual fertility to the wishes of the state.
Can We Recover?
Many European countries have had policies in place for a long time that seek to raise the birth rate. When I worked at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family in the late 1990s, documents often came across my desk from the United Nations regarding the crisis of under-population and the various proposals to reverse the falling fertility rates in so many nations. Such proposals include, for instance, monthly financial payments from the government to families with more than a certain number of children.
But Mosher points out that many of these policies ignore the dynamics of the natural family and instead favor gender and marriage-neutral policies (for instance, policies that would give fathers incentive to leave the work force by allowing lengthy time away from their job). Instead, he says, the state should empower couples to reach their desired level of children, and reforming taxes is a key part of the solution. High taxes stress the family, diverting resources away from where they are needed to encourage family growth.
Pope John Paul II summarized in The Gospel of Life both the problems with population programs and some of the more reasonable solutions.
Today an important part of policies which favor life is the issue of population growth. Certainly public authorities have a responsibility to intervene to orient the demography of the population. But such interventions must always take into account and respect the primary and inalienable responsibility of married couples and families, and cannot employ methods which fail to respect the person and fundamental human rights, beginning with the right to life of every innocent human being. It is therefore morally unacceptable to encourage, let alone impose, the use of methods such as contraception, sterilization, and abortion in order to regulate births. The ways of solving the population problem are quite different. Governments and the various international agencies must above all strive to create economic, social, public health, and cultural conditions which will enable married couples to make their choices about procreation in full freedom and with genuine responsibility. They must then make efforts to ensure greater opportunities and a fairer distribution of wealth so that everyone can share equitably in the goods of creation. Solutions must be sought on the global level by establishing a true economy of communion and sharing of goods, in both the national and international order. This is the only way to respect the dignity of persons and families, as well as the authentic cultural patrimony of peoples. (Evangelium Vitae, 91)
Toward an Ethic of Hope
I mentioned the reports about de-population that came across my desk when I worked at the Vatican. They often described proposals by nations to increase their fertility rates. One of those proposals stood out above all the others: Instill hope in the people.
That is at the core of the Culture of Life, because it is at the core of the gospel. And it is the key to undoing all the myths about "overpopulation." Hope is what gives us the strength to say "Yes" to life. Hope looks at the world and looks at the future and says, "Yes, we can welcome more children here," because, as Pope John Paul II wrote, "Life . . . is always a good" (EV 31).
At the turn of the millennium, the world’s population hit 6 billion. Population alarmists lamented that fact. But an international group of leaders issued a statement that reflected instead the joyful hope that should be shared by us all: "We are grateful that Baby Six Billion has come into the world. Baby Six Billion, boy or girl, red or yellow, black or white, is not a liability, but an asset. Not a curse, but a blessing. For all of us" (Population Research Institute statement, October 11, 1999).
Here is a link to the article: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2008/0812fea2.asp
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Feast of the Annunciation (Christ's Incarnation)
Today, March 25th, is the Feast of the Annunication, or the Incarnation. It is when God tells Mary that she is with child through the workings of the Holy Spirit and will bear a son, and his name will be Jesus the Christ. This is a very important feast which takes on more significance during our day and age. The Church recognizes that Christ came into this world in human flesh 9 months before his birth, which we celebrate on December 25th. We recognize this same fact for all people. Although we have a date of birth, we actually come into existence around 9 months prior to this at conception.
Christ's conception is not celebrated as the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception is actually a feast for Mary, the Mother of God (the Theotokos). It is called Immaculate because she was preserved from the stain of original and actual sin throughout her life from the moment of conception. Of course, we believe she was able to be saved from sin by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Christ is everyone's Savior, including Mary's. Christ's conception, of course, is immaculate by its very nature, but it is not refered to that way. We usually speak of the Virgin Birth in the case of Christ.
This is a day for Pro-life thoughts and action. Mary treasured Jesus from the moment of his conception and protected him, with the help of St. Joseph. We must protect all human life from the first second of existence as a small person, otherwise known as an embryo. The fact that the universal church honors Christ's conception shows her respect for life at all stages.
Today is not a Holy Day of Obligation, but that does not lessen its signifcance. Let us pray today for an end to abortion. In your prayers, remember Jesus as a small embryo waiting to come into the world. Even then he is God. And remember that all human life whether they are 30, 100, or not even born are equally valuable. Also remember those who suffer from physical and mental handicaps. They too are children of God and must be given full respect and dignity.
Christ's conception is not celebrated as the Immaculate Conception. The Immaculate Conception is actually a feast for Mary, the Mother of God (the Theotokos). It is called Immaculate because she was preserved from the stain of original and actual sin throughout her life from the moment of conception. Of course, we believe she was able to be saved from sin by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Christ is everyone's Savior, including Mary's. Christ's conception, of course, is immaculate by its very nature, but it is not refered to that way. We usually speak of the Virgin Birth in the case of Christ.
This is a day for Pro-life thoughts and action. Mary treasured Jesus from the moment of his conception and protected him, with the help of St. Joseph. We must protect all human life from the first second of existence as a small person, otherwise known as an embryo. The fact that the universal church honors Christ's conception shows her respect for life at all stages.
Today is not a Holy Day of Obligation, but that does not lessen its signifcance. Let us pray today for an end to abortion. In your prayers, remember Jesus as a small embryo waiting to come into the world. Even then he is God. And remember that all human life whether they are 30, 100, or not even born are equally valuable. Also remember those who suffer from physical and mental handicaps. They too are children of God and must be given full respect and dignity.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Embryonic Stem Cell destruction and Euthanasia: Evil Sisters
A few days ago, United States President Barrack Hussein Obama announced that he would allow public funding to destroy embryos for research. This fruitless research, which has yielded no results, is the last frontier (or perhaps the beginning of the last frontier) for mad scientists bent on breaking all boundaries.
Human life is sacred. This is a truth that has been affirmed by almost all religions, especially those which are more than 100 years old. There are many instances of medical codes which forbid the destruction of human life, including embryos through abortion. Not surprisingly, none of these codes indicate abortion is alright.
An embryo has all the DNA it ever will. To put it crudely, just add water. In other words, with basic nutrition and water, a tiny embryo will grow to be an adult person. All the DNA is present at the moment of conception. We do not say that a small child is not human because it has not fully developed yet. Therefore, there is a beginning, and that beginning is fertilization.
For the sake of convenience, people started having abortions. The convenience came first, the explanations later. Now they have moved into a new frontier. The frontier of harvesting people in order to find cures. During the holocaust, people were used in experiments for the benefit of others. They were put through many tortures in order to ascertain scientific information. But this was morally reprehensible. The same arguments for this could be used to justify embryonic stem cell research. Many say the embryos will be destroyed anyway, so why not use them for something beneficial? Well, these people in the Nazi holocaust were going to be slaughtered anyway, so why not use them to advance scientific knowledge.
Well, that's what Josef Mengele did, who was known as the Angel of Death. He killed many innocent people to conduct his experiments.
Many will not worry that embryos are being sacrificed. They cannot be seen and they dont "look" human. But even if someone is cruel enough to say this, there is another evil sister to this whole mess. When human life is devalued at any stage, it is devalued in all stages. People are now trying to legalize euthanasia, and this is absolutely terrible.
Ask 1000 people this question: There is a man, 32 years old. He says he is in a lot of suffering. He lost his job, his wife left him, his children hate him. He is now homeless and addicted to alcohol. He says he wants to end his life. Would you give him a loaded gun if it was legal? How many would say yes? I would estimate 5 to 10 percent, and that would be a lot.
Now let's say this: A person is terminally ill. Their life is very sad. They can't see an end to their suffering. Their family does not want to take care of them because they are too much of a burden, and they do not feel loved. They would rather not live. They say you have no right to tell them they cannot die as they please. They ask for help in ending their own life. Would you help them or deny them their request? In a recent poll, 80% of Canadians said they would help in a situation similar to this one. That's shocking! These are the same situations. They just have slightly different circumstances.
Nobody is born with a desire to kill themselves. This develops because of things that happen to them throughout their lives. But when we stop valuing life, we start looking at life in a utilitarian way. We start to ask about people's utility, and not their worth as human beings. We start to ask what they can do for us. We become like animals or robots.
We must all try to elevate our being upward, not toward animal behavior. We must truly become more human. Jesus Christ is the only way to get there.
Human life is sacred. This is a truth that has been affirmed by almost all religions, especially those which are more than 100 years old. There are many instances of medical codes which forbid the destruction of human life, including embryos through abortion. Not surprisingly, none of these codes indicate abortion is alright.
An embryo has all the DNA it ever will. To put it crudely, just add water. In other words, with basic nutrition and water, a tiny embryo will grow to be an adult person. All the DNA is present at the moment of conception. We do not say that a small child is not human because it has not fully developed yet. Therefore, there is a beginning, and that beginning is fertilization.
For the sake of convenience, people started having abortions. The convenience came first, the explanations later. Now they have moved into a new frontier. The frontier of harvesting people in order to find cures. During the holocaust, people were used in experiments for the benefit of others. They were put through many tortures in order to ascertain scientific information. But this was morally reprehensible. The same arguments for this could be used to justify embryonic stem cell research. Many say the embryos will be destroyed anyway, so why not use them for something beneficial? Well, these people in the Nazi holocaust were going to be slaughtered anyway, so why not use them to advance scientific knowledge.
Well, that's what Josef Mengele did, who was known as the Angel of Death. He killed many innocent people to conduct his experiments.
Many will not worry that embryos are being sacrificed. They cannot be seen and they dont "look" human. But even if someone is cruel enough to say this, there is another evil sister to this whole mess. When human life is devalued at any stage, it is devalued in all stages. People are now trying to legalize euthanasia, and this is absolutely terrible.
Ask 1000 people this question: There is a man, 32 years old. He says he is in a lot of suffering. He lost his job, his wife left him, his children hate him. He is now homeless and addicted to alcohol. He says he wants to end his life. Would you give him a loaded gun if it was legal? How many would say yes? I would estimate 5 to 10 percent, and that would be a lot.
Now let's say this: A person is terminally ill. Their life is very sad. They can't see an end to their suffering. Their family does not want to take care of them because they are too much of a burden, and they do not feel loved. They would rather not live. They say you have no right to tell them they cannot die as they please. They ask for help in ending their own life. Would you help them or deny them their request? In a recent poll, 80% of Canadians said they would help in a situation similar to this one. That's shocking! These are the same situations. They just have slightly different circumstances.
Nobody is born with a desire to kill themselves. This develops because of things that happen to them throughout their lives. But when we stop valuing life, we start looking at life in a utilitarian way. We start to ask about people's utility, and not their worth as human beings. We start to ask what they can do for us. We become like animals or robots.
We must all try to elevate our being upward, not toward animal behavior. We must truly become more human. Jesus Christ is the only way to get there.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Nancy Pelosi misrepresenting Catholic teaching on abortion
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the house in the United States, 3rd in line for the presidency, if the president and vice-president died, misrepresented the Catholic Church a few days ago on the news. She claimed she is an ardent Catholic and that the Catholic Church has debated when life began over the centuries and haven't made a decision. She said only in the past 50 years or so has there been any real decision on these issues. However, this statement is completely wrong. The Church has never, in its 2000 year history been pro-choice. It has always been pro-life, and has defended the right to life to all persons from the moment of conception.
Even St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, who believed life began several weeks after conception, still believed that abortion at any time, even right after conception was totally wrong and immoral. Now that we know more about science and when life began, we are even more emphatic. No Church Father has ever held a pro-choice stance, and no official document has ever supported it.
To back up my claim, I will quote several Church Fathers on the subject:
The Didache
"The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child" (Didache 2:1–2 [A.D. 70]).
The Letter of Barnabas
"The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. . . . Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born" (Letter of Barnabas 19 [A.D. 74]).
The Apocalypse of Peter
"And near that place I saw another strait place . . . and there sat women. . . . And over against them many children who were born to them out of due time sat crying. And there came forth from them rays of fire and smote the women in the eyes. And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion" (The Apocalypse of Peter 25 [A.D. 137]).
Athenagoras
"What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers?
. . . [W]hen we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it" (A Plea for the Christians 35 [A.D. 177]).
Tertullian
"In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed" (Apology 9:8 [A.D. 197]).
"Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery.
"There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of embruosphaktes, [meaning] "the slayer of the infant," which of course was alive. . . .
"[The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive" (The Soul 25 [A.D. 210]).
"Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does" (ibid., 27).
"The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion [Ex. 21:22–24]" (ibid., 37).
Minucius Felix
"There are some [pagan] women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your [false] gods. . . . To us [Christians] it is not lawful either to see or hear of homicide" (Octavius 30 [A.D. 226]).
Hippolytus
"Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!" (Refutation of All Heresies [A.D. 228]).
Council of Ancyra
"Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees" (canon 21 [A.D. 314]).
Basil the Great
"Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not" (First Canonical Letter, canon 2 [A.D. 374]).
"He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it dies upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees" (ibid., canon 8).
John Chrysostom
"Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication. . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?—where there are many efforts at abortion?—where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with his laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine" (Homilies on Romans 24 [A.D. 391]).
Jerome
"I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother. . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder" (Letters 22:13 [A.D. 396]).
The Apostolic Constitutions
"Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for he says, ‘You shall not suffer a witch to live’ [Ex. 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. . . . [I]f it be slain, [it] shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed" (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3 [A.D. 400]).
Even St. Thomas Aquinas, a Doctor of the Church, who believed life began several weeks after conception, still believed that abortion at any time, even right after conception was totally wrong and immoral. Now that we know more about science and when life began, we are even more emphatic. No Church Father has ever held a pro-choice stance, and no official document has ever supported it.
To back up my claim, I will quote several Church Fathers on the subject:
The Didache
"The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child" (Didache 2:1–2 [A.D. 70]).
The Letter of Barnabas
"The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. . . . Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born" (Letter of Barnabas 19 [A.D. 74]).
The Apocalypse of Peter
"And near that place I saw another strait place . . . and there sat women. . . . And over against them many children who were born to them out of due time sat crying. And there came forth from them rays of fire and smote the women in the eyes. And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion" (The Apocalypse of Peter 25 [A.D. 137]).
Athenagoras
"What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers?
. . . [W]hen we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it" (A Plea for the Christians 35 [A.D. 177]).
Tertullian
"In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed" (Apology 9:8 [A.D. 197]).
"Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery.
"There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of embruosphaktes, [meaning] "the slayer of the infant," which of course was alive. . . .
"[The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive" (The Soul 25 [A.D. 210]).
"Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does" (ibid., 27).
"The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion [Ex. 21:22–24]" (ibid., 37).
Minucius Felix
"There are some [pagan] women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your [false] gods. . . . To us [Christians] it is not lawful either to see or hear of homicide" (Octavius 30 [A.D. 226]).
Hippolytus
"Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!" (Refutation of All Heresies [A.D. 228]).
Council of Ancyra
"Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees" (canon 21 [A.D. 314]).
Basil the Great
"Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not" (First Canonical Letter, canon 2 [A.D. 374]).
"He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it dies upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees" (ibid., canon 8).
John Chrysostom
"Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication. . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?—where there are many efforts at abortion?—where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with his laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine" (Homilies on Romans 24 [A.D. 391]).
Jerome
"I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother. . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder" (Letters 22:13 [A.D. 396]).
The Apostolic Constitutions
"Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for he says, ‘You shall not suffer a witch to live’ [Ex. 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. . . . [I]f it be slain, [it] shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed" (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3 [A.D. 400]).
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
July 23, 2008: The slaughter of children made easier in Canada
Another defeat was made today for the lives of countless thousands. Canada, a bastion of pre-born murder, has made access to the early-stages abortion pill even easier. The pill I am referring to is Levonorgestrel, marketed as Plan B, and colloquially known as the "morning-after pill". This pill causes the woman's body to produce a high level of hormones which prevents implantation of a fertilized egg.
It is important to remember that the egg is already fertilized, a person has been conceived. A living person will be murdered with this pill, yet people call it the morning-after pill. First of all, what does this mean, the morning after what exactly? Obviously, this refers to the morning after "unprotected" sex. Perhaps it refers to a morning after a one-night stand, or a fling, or possibly a "committed" relationship. But the only thing this relationship is committed to is the image of the two partners, and nothing, not even the life of another human being, trumps that commitment.
The decision by Canadian "courts" is devastating. The holocaust of innocent children will continue to expand. Thousands will die. One of the sadest things is that this "product" is being marketed as a form of birth control. It should be considered abortion at least. People who are not aware of what they are doing could be unknowingly killing their very own child, and for what? Convenience?
People may not care about unborn children, but how we treat them indicates how we feel about everyone else. We should care for them the most because they are innocent. If we do not care for the most vulnerable in our society, who will we care for? Every day, that question is being asked, because every day, our culture of death finds new victims. First it is the unborn, then it is the unable, then it is the undesired. We are living in a society where your value as a human person is determined by how everyone else feels about you. This is truly a sad situation.
Let us pray for Canada that it may protect its most vulnerable, that it stands on guard for its citizens. Young and old, weak and strong, rich or poor.
It is important to remember that the egg is already fertilized, a person has been conceived. A living person will be murdered with this pill, yet people call it the morning-after pill. First of all, what does this mean, the morning after what exactly? Obviously, this refers to the morning after "unprotected" sex. Perhaps it refers to a morning after a one-night stand, or a fling, or possibly a "committed" relationship. But the only thing this relationship is committed to is the image of the two partners, and nothing, not even the life of another human being, trumps that commitment.
The decision by Canadian "courts" is devastating. The holocaust of innocent children will continue to expand. Thousands will die. One of the sadest things is that this "product" is being marketed as a form of birth control. It should be considered abortion at least. People who are not aware of what they are doing could be unknowingly killing their very own child, and for what? Convenience?
People may not care about unborn children, but how we treat them indicates how we feel about everyone else. We should care for them the most because they are innocent. If we do not care for the most vulnerable in our society, who will we care for? Every day, that question is being asked, because every day, our culture of death finds new victims. First it is the unborn, then it is the unable, then it is the undesired. We are living in a society where your value as a human person is determined by how everyone else feels about you. This is truly a sad situation.
Let us pray for Canada that it may protect its most vulnerable, that it stands on guard for its citizens. Young and old, weak and strong, rich or poor.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Hippocratic Oath Not Alone in Condeming Abortion
The Hippocratic Oath, written in the 4th century BC by the Father of Medicine Hippocrates, is an oath that all Western doctors took until very recently. It tells how doctors should care for their patients. It says a physician should not abuse his patient, physically or sexually, he should not take too much money, he should keep his patients' information private, etc. For years this was practiced by doctors. One of the imperatives of the Oath was to not commit abortion.
But the Hippocratic Oath is one of several world-wide medical oaths taken by doctors and physicians. What was their stance on abortion?
The Seventeen Rules of Enjuin, a Japanese Oath from the 16th century states: "you should not give abortives to the people."
The Oath of Asaph, the oldest known Hebrew medical oath, dating to the 6th century, states: "Do not make a woman [who is] pregnant [as a result of] of whoring take a drink with a view to causing abortion"
After the world realized the atrocities of Nazism, the Declaration of Geneva was drafted in 1948. Part of this document stated: "I WILL MAINTAIN the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity."
The International Code of Medical Ethics was put together the following year in 1949, and read: "A doctor must always bear in mind the obligation of preserving human life from conception."
As you can see, Hippocrates was not unique in his statements against abortion.
But the Hippocratic Oath is one of several world-wide medical oaths taken by doctors and physicians. What was their stance on abortion?
The Seventeen Rules of Enjuin, a Japanese Oath from the 16th century states: "you should not give abortives to the people."
The Oath of Asaph, the oldest known Hebrew medical oath, dating to the 6th century, states: "Do not make a woman [who is] pregnant [as a result of] of whoring take a drink with a view to causing abortion"
After the world realized the atrocities of Nazism, the Declaration of Geneva was drafted in 1948. Part of this document stated: "I WILL MAINTAIN the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception; even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity."
The International Code of Medical Ethics was put together the following year in 1949, and read: "A doctor must always bear in mind the obligation of preserving human life from conception."
As you can see, Hippocrates was not unique in his statements against abortion.
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