My whereabouts

I will be travelling, beginning tomorrow. So posting may (or may not) be erratic until the beginning of the New Year.

I'll try to get to the comments, though.

God Bless.

Vietnamese Blogger Could Face Death Penalty for Subversion

In the wake of economic troubles, the Vietnamese Communist Party has clamped down on dissidents in a bid to maintain its grip on power. Among those who have been arrested for daring to challenge Communist power is Nguyễn Tiến Trung, a human rights advocate.

Please sign the petition to obtain the release of Nguyễn Tiến Trung. The Facebook page is here.

Vietnam is a country that persecutes Christians. We should support those who would advance freedom because lives are on the line.

The Difference Between Pro-Choice and Pro-Abortion

Many supporters of legal abortion object to being called “pro-abortion”. They want to be called “pro-choice”.

They think it makes them sound like a woman SHOULD have an abortion every time she’s pregnant.

But I wonder if they’re unconsciously distorting the English language in their minds.

In the abortion debate, they focus on the word “choice”. Every time a woman is faced with a reproductive decision they want woman to have a “choice”.

Not necessarily an abortion.

Hence, in their minds, they are pro-choice, not pro-abortion.

Pro-lifers aren’t necessarily concerned about a pregnant woman having every imaginable reproductive choice available to women. For instance, they tend to be against surrogate motherhood. They tend to be against IVF. And so forth.

What pro-lifers care about is the act of abortion.

It’s an abortion debate, after all.

It’s not a choice debate.

Pro-lifers pray in front of clinics because abortion kills babies.

Pro-choicers escort clients because they want women to be able to have abortions.

The “choice” word is just a mask for the crux of the issue.

The debate is not over the fact that supporters of legal abortion are pro-choice, but pro-abortion.

What is the significance of “pro”? Does it mean that they support abortion every time?

Well, according to the definition of the prefix “pro” it doesn’t. One definition means “favoring : supporting : championing”.

They favour, support and champion abortion.

Therefore they are pro-abortion. But they are so focused on the “choice” aspect, that they can’t see that the word “pro-abortion” can mean more than they think it means.

Perhaps some genuinely are pro-choice and not pro-abortion. Consider this example.

I hate tobacco. I think smoking is a vile habit and kills people. But since it is an activity that people choose to engage in voluntarily, I oppose criminalization because I fear the repercussions of such an act (although I think it’s a total nuisance. Not to mention a health hazard for others.)

On cigarettes, you could say that I’m pro-choice.

By analogy, some people really are pro-choice on abortion. They want it legal strictly because they don’t like the consequences of criminalization.

Now, if I were to lobby the government for greater access to cigarettes; if I were to offer it as a good solution to people’s problems; if I derided anyone who opposed that personal choice with insults; if I went out of my way to get people their cigarettes and created a whole culture around this political cause—

Then I would be pro-cigarettes.

All the effort to push cigarettes, and make them seem okay, and eliminate the stigma of smoking belies the “pro-choice” label.

In the same way, when feminists want to improve access to abortion, when they try to argue in favour of the morality of abortion, when they try to eliminate its stigma, when they deride their opponents as misogynists, they are not merely pro-choice no matter how much they repeat it.

They are pro-abortion. They think abortion is a good solution that should be available to all women.

Here’s what I wonder.

Why don’t they just wear it?

Why don’t feminists ever say: “I think abortion is great because it liberates women from unwanted pregnancies. Safe and legal abortion is one of the greatest developments of the 20th century. Therefore I am pro-abortion and proud of it!”

How come they never say that?

Could it be that they unconsciously see something wrong with abortion?

Are they afraid to assume the logical choices of their consequences?

To be fair, there are a few abortion supporters who label themselves “pro-abortion”. But none of the big name feminists do, as far as I know. The majority don’t. It feels like they’re trying to be really politick with their labels. I suspect that in reality if they were to reveal their true feelings about abortion, they would break up that uneasy coalition of feminists, the medical community, liberals and casual supporters of abortion rights, who rallied around choice to allow for abortion to be legal, regardless of the moral or philosophical reasons behind it.

I think that’s why they don’t wear it.

Taking Pity

Yesterday, I watched The March of the Penguins on CBC. It is an award-winning documentary that depicts the life cycle of Emperor Penguins who live in the South Pole.

As you can imagine, life is very harsh in this frozen desert. Many penguins die of cold or starvation, including unborn chicks (a term that is used in the documentary.)

At one point, during a harsh winter storm, an egg escapes from under his father. It cracks open, and the baby freezes to death. It is a very poignant moment.

The fathers are all very hungry because they do not eat for four months straight in order to hatch the babies. They have one meal to give the baby while they wait for the mother to return to feed, and it's a milk-like substance they regurgitate.

The filmaker often tried to create a sense of pity for these penguins. The mothers are killed by sea leopards, condemning the baby to die (because it can't be fed). The babies try to follow the mommies as the latter march to get food (condemning them to die).

And so on.

It's only natural to feel sorry for these animals. Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't give the fathers a bucket of fish in the cold winter, if they had it?

I find it most interesting, because in my discussions on abortion, no one seems to take pity on the unborn child who is killed.

Now of course, penguins live in a harsh climate, and the high mortality rate is just the way things are. Penguins die from the cold and the hunt.

Taking pity could upset the balance of nature, some argue.

But aren't human beings called to rise above the harsh invisible hand of nature, that indifferently kills animals?

The big difference between animals and unborn children of course is that animals are TRYING to survive. Whereas humans kill their own unborn. No other category of higher animals are killed so indiscriminately. When it comes to cats and dogs, people will go to enormous lengths to find them new homes or help them medically. And when they do "terminate" them, it's usually because they're sick anyway.

Unborn children? They are killed with no questions asked.

I know that some animal rights types *do* feel some affinity for the unborn; feminists however, feel none. They simply do not care if the baby dies, and will never admit the slightest amount of pity for him. Because they know their movement rests on dehumanizing the unborn, guaranteeing the illusory autonomy they so ravenously crave.

I have noticed that feminists rarely challenge me on this point.

Pope Benedict XVI's Sermon from Christmas Eve Mass

Merry Christmas to all!

Given some of the conversations I've had around here concerning fetal rights, I thought this quote was particularly relevant:

The first thing we are told about the shepherds is that they were on the watch they could hear the message precisely because they were awake. We must be awake, so that we can hear the message. We must become truly vigilant people. What does this mean?

The principal difference between someone dreaming and someone awake is that the dreamer is in a world of his own. His "self" is locked into this dreamworld that is his alone and does not connect him with others. To wake up means to leave that private world of one's own and to enter the common reality, the truth that alone can unite all people.

Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another.

Here is the pope's sermon in its entirety. Thanks to Cyril for posting it on facebook.




Dear Brothers and Sisters!

"A child is born for us, a son is given to us" (Is 9:5).

What Isaiah prophesied as he gazed into the future from afar, consoling Israel amid its trials and its darkness, is now proclaimed to the shepherds as a present reality by the Angel, from whom a cloud of light streams forth: "To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:11). The Lord is here. From this moment, God is truly "God with us".

No longer is he the distant God who can in some way be perceived from afar, in creation and in our own consciousness. He has entered the world. He is close to us.

The words of the risen Christ to his followers are addressed also to us: "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:20). For you the Saviour is born: through the Gospel and those who proclaim it, God now reminds us of the message that the Angel announced to the shepherds. It is a message that cannot leave us indifferent.

If it is true, it changes everything. If it is true, it also affects me. Like the shepherds, then, I too must say: Come on, I want to go to Bethlehem to see the Word that has occurred there. The story of the shepherds is included in the Gospel for a reason. They show us the right way to respond to the message that we too have received. What is it that these first witnesses of God's incarnation have to tell us?

The first thing we are told about the shepherds is that they were on the watch they could hear the message precisely because they were awake. We must be awake, so that we can hear the message. We must become truly vigilant people. What does this mean?

The principal difference between someone dreaming and someone awake is that the dreamer is in a world of his own. His "self" is locked into this dreamworld that is his alone and does not connect him with others. To wake up means to leave that private world of one's own and to enter the common reality, the truth that alone can unite all people.

Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another. Awake, the Gospel tells us. Step outside, so as to enter the great communal truth, the communion of the one God. To awake, then, means to develop a receptivity for God: for the silent promptings with which he chooses to guide us; for the many indications of his presence.

There are people who describe themselves as "religiously tone deaf." The gift of a capacity to perceive God seems as if it is withheld from some. And indeed our way of thinking and acting, the mentality of today's world, the whole range of our experience is inclined to deaden our receptivity for God, to make us "tone deaf" towards him. And yet in every soul, the desire for God, the capacity to encounter him, is present, whether in a hidden way or overtly. In order to arrive at this vigilance, this awakening to what is essential, we should pray for ourselves and for others, for those who appear "tone deaf" and yet in whom there is a keen desire for God to manifest himself.

The great theologian Origen said this: if I had the grace to see as Paul saw, I could even now (during the Liturgy) contemplate a great host of angels (cf. in Lk 23 :9). And indeed, in the sacred liturgy, we are surrounded by the angels of God and the saints. The Lord himself is present in our midst. Lord, open the eyes of our hearts, so that we may become vigilant and clear-sighted, in this way bringing you close to others as well!

Let us return to the Christmas Gospel. It tells us that after listening to the Angel's message, the shepherds said one to another: "'Let us go over to Bethlehem' they went at once" (Lk 2:15f.). "They made haste" is literally what the Greek text says. What had been announced to them was so important that they had to go immediately?

In fact, what had been said to them was utterly out of the ordinary. It changed the world.

The Saviour is born. The long-awaited Son of David has come into the world in his own city. What could be more important?

No doubt they were partly driven by curiosity, but first and foremost it was their excitement at the wonderful news that had been conveyed to them, of all people, to the little ones, to the seemingly unimportant. They made haste they went at once.

In our daily life, it is not like that.

For most people, the things of God are not given priority, they do not impose themselves on us directly And so the great majority of us tend to postpone them.

First we do what seems urgent here and now. In the list of priorities God is often more or less at the end. We can always deal with that later, we tend to think. The Gospel tells us: God is the highest priority. If anything in our life deserves haste without delay, then, it is God's work alone. The Rule of Saint Benedict contains this teaching: "Place nothing at all before the work of God (i.e., the divine office)".

For monks, the Liturgy is the first priority. Everything else comes later. In its essence, though, this saying applies to everyone. God is important, by far the most important thing in our lives. The shepherds teach us this priority. From them we should learn not to be crushed by all the pressing matters in our daily lives. From them we should learn the inner freedom to put other tasks in second place however important they may be so as to make our way towards God, to allow him into our lives and into our time. Time given to God and, in his name, to our neighbour is never time lost. It is the time when we are most tr uly alive, when we live our humanity to the full.

Some commentators point out that the shepherds, the simple souls, were the first to come to Jesus in the manger and to encounter the Redeemer of the world. The wise men from the East, representing those with social standing and fame, arrived much later. The commentators go on to say: this is quite natural. The shepherds lived nearby. They only needed to "come over" (cf. Lk 2:15), as we do when we go to visit our neighbours.

The wise men, however, lived far away. They had to undertake a long and arduous journey in order to arrive in Bethlehem. And they needed guidance and direction. Today too there are simple and lowly souls who live very close to the Lord. They are, so to speak, his neighbours and they can easily go to see him.

But most of us in the world today live far from Jesus Christ, the incarnate God who came to dwell amongst us.

We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the manger. In all kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us again and again, so that we can manage to escape from the muddle of our thoughts and activities and discover the way that leads to him.

But a path exists for all of us.

The Lord provides everyone with tailor-made signals. He calls each one of us, so that we too can say: "Come on, 'let us go over' to Bethlehem to the God who has come to meet us."

Yes indeed, God has set out towards us. Left to ourselves we could not reach him. The path is too much for our strength. But God has come down. He comes towards us. He has travelled the longer part of the journey. Now he invites us: come and see how much I love you. Come and see that I am here.

Transeamus usque Bethlehem, the Latin Bible says.

Let us go there! Let us surpass ourselves! Let us journey towards God in all sorts of ways: along our interior path towards him, but also along very concrete paths the Liturgy of the Church, the service of our neighbour, in whom Christ awaits us.

Let us once again listen directly to the Gospel. The shepherds tell one another the reason why they are setting off: "Let us see this thing that has happened." Literally the Greek text says: "Let us see this Word that has occurred there." Yes indeed, such is the radical newness of this night: the Word can be seen. For it has become flesh. The God of whom no image may be made because any image would only diminish, or rather distort him this God has himself become visible in the One who is his true image, as Saint Paul puts it (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15).

In the figure of Jesus Christ, in the whole of his life and ministry, in his dying and rising, we can see the Word of God and hence the mystery of the living God himself. This is what God is like. The Angel had said to the shepherds: "This will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Lk 2:12; cf. 2:16). God's sign, the sign given to the shepherds and to us, is not an astonishing miracle.

God's sign is his humility.

God's sign is that he makes himself small; he becomes a child; he lets us touch him and he asks for our love.

How we would prefer a different sign, an imposing, irresistible sign of God's power and greatness! But his sign summons us to faith and love, and thus it gives us hope: this is what God is like.

He has power, he is Goodness itself. He invites us to become like him.

Yes indeed, we become like God if we allow ourselves to be shaped by this sign; if we ourselves learn humility and hence true greatness; if we renounce violence and use only the weapons of truth and love.

Origen, taking up one of John the Baptist's sayings, saw the essence of paganism expressed in the symbol of stones: paganism is a lack of feeling, it means a heart of stone that is incapable of loving and perceiving God's love. Origen says of the pagans: "Lacking feeling and reason, they are transformed into stones and wood" (in Lk 22:9).

Christ, though, wishes to give us a heart of flesh. When we see him, the God who became a child, our hearts are opened. In the Liturgy of the holy night, God comes to us as man, so that we might become truly human. Let us listen once again to Origen: "Indeed, what use would it be to you that Christ once came in the flesh if he did not enter your soul? Let us pray that he may come to us each day, that we may be able to say: I live, yet it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20)" (in Lk 22:3).

Yes indeed, that is what we should pray for on this Holy Night. Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, come to us! Enter within me, within my soul. Transform me. Renew me. Change me, change us all from stone and wood into living people, in whom your love is made present and the world is transformed. Amen.

Christmas Music Selection

I use a service called blip.fm, which allows one to play songs online.

I have gathered a number of Christmas songs which I like. You know, ones that aren't too jazzed up, and the singers can actually sing.

So Merry Christmas. I hope you like my songs.

A word about the new feedback system

Readers

You may not always feel like leaving a comment on each blogpost.

Please feel free to give feedback, first by rating each post-- you can just check off whichever reaction is closest to your feelings.

The second way you can give feedback without commenting is by rating comments that you like or dislike, as the case may be.

It makes for a more dynamic blog-- and it tells me something about the make-up of my readership.

Euthanasia: My Body, My Choice?

My latest column at No Apologies:

Personal autonomy is supposed to be the ultimate human right in our society. “My body, my choice,” right?

That is the moral veneer to mask the real nature of euthanasia. It worked for the abortion debate. Abortion supporters are not all feminists, but in the sixties they needed a credible reason to justify decriminalization. Feminism provided that front. For many abortion supporters, then, as today, the ethics are a moot point. They don’t care that women feel pressured to have abortion. In fact, many of them do the pressuring. The bottom line is that it’s legal. Not that it is undertaken voluntarily or for “weighty reasons”.

I would suggest that the same is true for euthanasia.

Please leave a comment! :)

VIDEO: Detroit in ruins -- new clip from Steve Crowder

Ugh. Just ugh. Detroit is a hole.

Oh those crazy extremist Christians

Winnipeg congregation targeted in mass-murder plot forgives teens

A Church of the Rock youth pastor continues to visit the boy on a regular basis while the boy was in custody at the Manitoba Youth Centre, said Hughes. The boy's parents have been present at his court hearings.

Hughes said he'd like both youths to become "healthy contributing members of the human race when their sentences are complete."

Religion is a force of evil in the world. If you overlook at all the good it does.

From the "well, duh" files

From the Quebec Institute of Research on the Obvious:

Moms less likely to work than dads in Quebec: study

Quebec tax dollars at work!

It really must be a slow news week.

Where I am

I'm very busy with Christmas preparations, so it's hard to get the time and mental energy to blog.

But please check out the sidebar!

What feminists sign on to

I wish I could show this post to every woman who decides that they are feminist.

Because I don't think many young women realize the meaning of feminism.

And I know what critics are going to say: that feminism is so diverse that it compasses a lot of contradictory opinions, etc etc.

In practice, feminism does boil down to treating female reproduction as a hindrance, and their own will as a form of absolutism.

Whatever streams of feminism that diverge from that point of view are marginal.

I don't care about marginal feminism.

I care about that mainstream of the movement that pushes wrong-headed ideas.

There's no pope in feminism to define what is orthodox, but there's a preponderance of thought that points to the idea that a woman's ability to have babies is a hindrance to her will.

Mark Richardson sums it up in a post in Oz Conservative:

De Beauvoir is concerned that the female body continues to matter, even though we make ourselves who we are, because it is potentially a "limiting factor for our projects" - and these projects require us to "grasp" the world with a strength of will.

Women are to be vital, independent, project pursuers. They are to be considered equal in their human stature when they exert the same "grasp" over the world as men. The female body, femininity, female sexuality and motherhood are all hindrances to this aim, which de Beauvoir thinks can be overcome in their effects by social engineering.

So existentialism effectively undermines the worth of a distinctive womanhood. In effect, women have to transcend their own femaleness, including their own female biology. What we usually think of as one of the most important sources of meaning in a woman's life - motherhood - becomes an impediment to meaning for an existentialist.

And I know that not all feminists are existentialists, etc. That doesn't mean the core idea isn't there in the mainstream of feminism:

In order for you to be truly fulfilled, truly free, truly equal, you must be able to control your reproduction and possibly even kill your unborn child. If you cannot, then you are a slave to your own biology and therefore, not equal.

That's why abortion is the supreme issue for the feminist, sometimes even to the detriment of others. In the mind of the feminism, if you don't have abortion, you don't have anything. There is no point in discussing pay equity, domestic violence, human trafficking, pornography, relations between men and women, etc etc, unless abortion is secured.

Because that's the first right. Everything else depends on it.

The Logic of "My Body My Choice": Mother Will Not Be Charged

Mother won’t be charged in newborn baby’s death

“In the state of Virginia as long as the umbilical cord is attached and the placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive the mother can do whatever she wants to with that baby to kill it,“ said Investigator Tracy Emerson. “She could shoot the baby, stab the baby. As long as it’s still attached to her in some form by umbilical cord or something it’s no crime in the state of Virginia.“

(...)

Emerson said the woman knew she was pregnant and had received prenatal care. He said the baby was full-term, due Tuesday. The medical examiner says the baby was born healthy. An autopsy is being performed. The baby’s body will then be released to the family.

Why are people upset? The woman was only exercising her reproductive choice. She has bodily autonomy, right? As long as the baby is attached, it's still part of her body.

And if that baby has to die in the name of reproductive choice, well tough luck, full-term "fetus"!

That's the logic of "my body, my choice!" If the fetus has to die for my sake, too bad! I decide and no one else matters!

No full-term abortions in this world. Sure.

UPDATE:

I just found this commentary from Diogenes on the same topic (same title, too!)

No one present at a birth and gazing at the emergent flesh -- not the nurse, not the doctor, not the recorder, not the father -- knows whether he's looking at a baby or looking at surgical waste. No one knows whether it’s a new patient, citizen, child (which he has to tend to), or whether it's a mass of superfluous tissue (which he has to dispose of). Until the arbitrary law arbitrarily kicks in, it's acey deucy: mother’s choice decides all.

Our society tolerates the gross incoherence of these legal fictions because the fictions themselves are necessary lies, necessary to the public justification of abortion. You'll notice that even the journalists find the business difficult to report without knotting themselves in contradictions. Of this case they write, "Because the mother and baby were still connected by the umbilical cord and placenta, state law does not consider the baby to be a separate life." They're saying, in short, state law does not consider the baby to be a baby.

Put that way, something looks wrong.

The abortion culture will implode under the weight of its own contradictions. Just like communism.

Gun pulled on pro-life counsellor in Aurora, Illinois

Police investigating claims off-duty Chicago cop pulled gun on anti-abortion activist in Aurora

Because of the conflicting statements, Aurora spokesman Dan Ferrelli said it will be up to Crile to decide whether to press charges. If she decides to proceed, the case will be turned over to the DuPage County state's attorney's office. Crile said she and her husband were still trying to decide whether to pursue a complaint.

Lone person vs. off-duty cop. Who do you think would win that court case?

Aurora police are not identifying the off-duty Chicago officer, but Ferrelli said a silver handgun was located in the vehicle and the officer did have his badge.

(...)

Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, said this is the first time any of his counselors claim to have been confronted by someone with a gun.

"In the past we've had people swerve a car or yell a verbal threat, but nothing like this," he said. "We've complained to police before, but Planned Parenthood won't tell police if there's somebody matching that description in their offices as if it's some kind of sanctuary."

PP shielding criminals? Gee, where have we heard that before?

Efforts to Boost Birth Rate Failing in China

Here's a clue:

In Shanghai, posters and leaflets telling people how to apply for permits to have more children have replaced anti-child propaganda, but, officials complain, the number of births in the city in 2010 is not expected to rise significantly.

Permits for babies?

The Post quoted Shanghai residents Wang Weijia and her husband who said that they had no intention of having another child. "We have already given all our time and energy for just one child. We have none left for a second," said Wang.

No problem! Just implement universal daycare!

The Abortioneers Blog...Entertainment for Pro-Lifers

I cannot believe people really believe this. Says Abortioneer Anti-Anti:

I help women.

I help women who ask for abortion services. Who want them. Who believe that abortion is the key to their futures, their successes, their happiness.

And all of a sudden, I'm the bad guy.

Waah! I kill human beings for a living and I'm the bad guy!

But wait, it gets better:

Women are smart. I repeat: women are smart!

Um. Not quite. Some women are smart. Some women are stupid. Some women are generally wise until pitted into a whirlwind crisis situation where they make hormone-driven emotionally-based decisions that do not reflect reality.

Women know what they want, what they need. They pursue it ruthlessly. A woman who wants an abortion wants an abortion. Is this unclear?

Sure. All those women want abortions. Except all those women pushed by their boyfriends/parents/friends into having one. Is this a case of Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

Can I help a woman by not respecting her desires?

Seriously? As if every single desire a woman has is naturally the right one? When did feminism turn into a cult of female infallibility (especially regarding abortion!)?

I understand now why the homeless and hungry become so enraged when do-gooders refuse to give them money, but offer sandwiches instead; it's not what they asked for, not what they want, not what would get them through the day! Do they care what I think is best for them? Do they care if what they want is completely contrary to what society tells them is good and wholesome? They don't! They might just really want that cigarette.

So if a homeless person wants to further shorten his existence by smoking another cigarette, well hell, it's our job to help them kill themselves.

And so, as Abortioneers, we help people. We help them all the time, and we improve lives. Whichever decisions women make, we help them by respecting those decisions.

Not matter how obviously wrong-headed or reluctantly made!

We respect who those women are, what they want, what they need, and from their own standpoints and not from our pie-in-the-sky pedestals in Abortionland.

Clearly. Stopping people from harming themselves and making stupid decisions is obviously pie in the sky.

I would never tell a woman who asked, begged me for help to access an abortion that she would be better off doing something else.

Imagine if every branch of medicine was run that way: "Doctor, I insist on having that gastric by-pass because I'm a woman and I know myself and this surgery will help me realize my hopes and dreams, and if you doubt my knowledge, my wisdom, my logic or my mental health, then you sir, are a misogynist!"

Here's a clue: What people want is not always right for them. You as a doctor have the responsibility of evaluating whether or not a procedure is good for a patient. Not the right, the responsibility. And if you have reason to believe that a given procedure is not the right one, then you have the duty to refuse to perform that surgery, and maybe even try to help the patient see the light.

Somehow, that's common sense in every other branch of medicine, except abortion. Because feminists perceive the refusal to perform a surgery as a form of paternalism, as if women are entitled to every single medical request they make, especially when it involves reproduction.

Funny, how the logic of "trust women" does not apply to "trust doctors" who have the education, experience and maybe even the wisdom of having performed such procedures to know when it is good, and when it is not.

Not that I'm saying abortion is ever good.

But a doctor cannot be blind to the consequences of the procedures he performs. He comes to know when it produces a good result, or a not so good result.

But most surgeons operate based on evidence, not on ideology.

Send the Pope your Christmas Greetings

Check out Pope2You.

Here's what I don't understand.

Why don't any Vatican officials (or their underlings) have blogs?

Wouldn't it be easy to evangelize if these Cardinals (or their secretaries) just blogged their thoughts?

Abortion is the Only Real Birth Control...Says Abortionist

At the Abortioneers:

Some pro-choice organizations even try to dispel "abortion as a birth control method" as one of those "myths" that antis like to drum up; the fact of the matter is, abortion really is the ONLY birth control method. Contraception ("birth control") prevents pregnancy; it doesn't "control" it. The only thing that actually controls whether or not a birth takes place is abortion. The other fact is - like it or not - some women do use abortion as their method of birth control.

Gotta love the honesty.

Personally, I don't see what all the hoopla's about. Big deal if a woman refuses contraception on the day of her abortion! So what if she gets pregnant and has an abortion again (gasp!)! Yes. You read that right. I am asking you, "so what?!"

Yeah! Who cares if abortion snuffs out a prenatal human life! Tough luck, fetus! There are no existential questions involved whatsoever. It's all very straightforward.

And it's my opinion that abortion may actually have fewer long-term and short-term side effects than most hormonal contraception anyway! (Double gasp!) Many women gain weight, experience mood swings, have crazy bleeding, get acne, stop wanting sex, deal with headaches, get bloated, become dizzy at times, experience sore breasts, and/or get nauseated at some point when taking hormonal birth control (obviously, this depends on the type of hormones used. And no, I am not anti-contraception). I don't know about you, but I get a little nervous when I hear the birth control pill adverts out there warn about stroke and heart attack if you smoke and are over 35. Newsflash: if you smoke and are over 35 and have an abortion, you're not at risk for stroke or heart attack.

Of course there are health risks associated with abortion. But whatever!

I think that when we say things like "abortion should be the last resort" or "women should get on birth control so they don't have to have another abortion," we're basically saying there's something intrinsically wrong with abortion.I'm saying there isn't.

Well looky here. An abortionist who's pro-abortion. Who wudda thunk?

I'm saying that if a woman wants to use abortion as her birth control method, then so be it. Let her. It isn't hurting her.

Is it me, or is that statement grossly misleading and maybe even irresponsible? Advoating surgery as birth control? Red flags anyone?

VIDEO: Minuit chrétiens by Nana Mouskouri

To me, this is THE definitive Christmas song. It makes me think of French Canadian Christmases, with Midnight Mass (well okay, ten o'clock), that collective experience of celebration, all eyes focused on Baby Jesus; and of course, my aunt's mini meat pies (REAL meat pies-- not the crap they sell in supermarket freezers). It harkens back to the days when my family actually waited until midnight Christmas Eve to open the presents (and it was so much fun, my brothers and my cousins altogether-- made for a long night though. I was out of it by 2 am.)

Watch the feminists argue for legalized 3rd trimester abortions in Texas

Man and mistress charged after alleged abortion, backyard burial in San Juan

SAN JUAN — Ruby Lee Medina’s mother said she already named her unborn grandson, who was due in March 2010.

Instead, baby Noel was born last week during an apparent backroom abortion. The incident was punctuated by the unborn child's father allegedly burying the fetus wrapped in a Christmas gift box in the back yard.

Watch the feminists tell speculate about some sob story surrounding this episode and how this woman "needed" to kill her seven month unborn child.

The woman in this story gets all the sympathy.

Attitude towards the child: Tough luck fetus! If you have to die so that a woman isn't charged, too bad for you!

Watch how they conflate abortion with infanticide. The woman in question may be charged with capital murder if it was found that the fetus breathed upon birth. Of course you can see the headline coming: Woman faces death penalty for abortion.

Never mind the baby breathed and is therefore a person by their own standard.

The woman was trying to "control her body". That's all that matters. If some baby has to be murdered in the name of that concept-- oh well.

And yes, I am horrified that this woman may be charged with capital murder. There's been enough killing. There's a suggestion in the story that the labour was "forced". She may be somewhat of a victim in all this.

Did you ever notice this about pro-Life protests?

The Netherlands:

The Lord Mayor of Amsterdam, Mr. J.H. Cohen, acknowledged the right of Cry for Life to stand up for the unborn in a public rally. In a letter to director Dr. L.P. Dorenbos, he promised a large police force would be available to prevent any opposition forces from preventing the march. This was a response to last year's march when the event was significantly delayed by physical confrontations resulting in the arrest of several pro-choice demonstrators. True to the mayor's promise, the police were out in force and effectively kept the 50 or so anti-life protesters followers from hindering the 2009 march.

When the police come out in force to a pro-life protest, it's to protect the pro-life protesters from the counter-demonstrators.

But we're the violent ones!

The Truth About Abortion

Abortion kills a human being. It's the truth.

Testing the new comments system, yet again

With proper apologies to all aggregators. Merry Christmas!:

UPDATE: So the way I organized the settings, one should not be able to access the Blogger comments any longer.

Leftists Lie about Sarah Palin...AGAIN

Brian Lilley:

Left-wing writers are delighting in the fact that Palin has agreed to raise money for a socialist abortion providing hospital and point to this as proof that she’s a hypocrite. In doing so America's left is hoping to score political points at home by dragging Canada and our healthcare system into their political debate.

Palin has agreed to speak at a fundraising event in Hamilton on April 15, 2010 to raise money for St. Peter’s Hospital and the Juravinski Cancer Centre. Are both of these facilities part of Canada’s public health care system? Yes they are, we don’t have much choice here, there is one private hospital in all of Ontario, and even that is part of the public system. Does St. Peter’s or the JCC provide abortions? Not quite.

The JCC provides cancer care, which includes chemotherapy and other cutting edge treatments but not abortions. St. Peter’s is a mostly palliative care hospital focused on seniors and also does not provide abortions; most of the hospital’s clients are well past reproductive years.

I have a question.

If public healthcare is such a hot idea, why should Sarah Palin even have to raise money?

Shouldn't public revenue be able to cover all the medical costs of running a hospital.

Guess not!

14-year-old faces fines and jailtime-- not for vandalism or doing drugs

But for running his own pirate radio station, without government approval. But he's still going strong.

This makes me think of when I was 15 and I started my own zine because no one would publish my poetry. Gotta love this guy's spunk.

Is the government really going to come down on a 14-year-old for running a radio station? I wonder...

H/T

New Jersey: $1.9M settlement in botched abortion

From the "Abortion is a shady business" file:

Metropolitan Medical Associates in Englewood, among the state’s largest abortion clinics, reached a $1.9 million settlement with a woman who suffered massive hemorrhaging, a coma, a stroke and a hysterectomy after she had an abortion at the facility in 2007.

How the hell do you botch an abortion so badly that a woman ends up in a coma?

The incident led to an inspection by the state, which shut the facility down for more than a month until improvements were made.

Who in their right minds would ever wanted to be treated there ever again?

Rasheedah Dinkins filed the suit in 2007 against the facility and two doctors, Keith Gresham, who was Dinkins’ attending physician, and Nicholas Kotopoulos, who assisted after Dinkins started to bleed excessively.

Dinkins, then 20, visited the clinic in January of that year for a second-trimester abortion. The Englewood clinic is one of only a few in the state to perform second-trimester abortions.

In coma three weeks

Hours after the procedure, Dinkins, back at home in Newark, became sluggish, then was unable to walk or talk. Her mother called for an ambulance, and, by the time it arrived, Dinkins had passed out.

At Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, doctors gave her transfusions and removed her damaged uterus. She suffered a stroke and her left lung collapsed from the severe blood loss. She needed a respirator and tracheotomy. Dinkins was in a coma for three weeks.

Newark Beth Israel filed a formal complaint with the state, saying it was concerned the abortion may have been done improperly.

Gee, ya think???

"We learned from the case that their volume of procedures was one factor that led to this problem," said Roseland-based lawyer Adam Slater, who represented Dinkins. "When you do too many procedures, you start to lose sight of the fact that these are all separate patients and separate procedures."

I.E. They were an abortion mill. You see where pro-lifers get the name?

Dinkins had "greater-than-expected bleeding, they couldn’t stop it, they eventually took extraordinary measures to stop it, and then they sent her home," Slater said.

Ah, the care and compassion. How do you not see a stroke, collapsed lung (???) and coma coming?

"They should have sent her to Englewood Hospital, which is less than a mile away, where they would have examined her and found she had a uterine rupture.

I'm no expert, but wouldn't that be the first suspicion? And wouldn't this have showed up on an ultrasound?

After the incident was reported, state inspectors found dirty forceps, rusty crochet hooks used to remove IUDs and a quarter-inch of dark red "dirt and debris" under an examining table in the Engle Street clinic.

Eeeeeew!!! Too cheap to buy new equipment, sterilize instruments and hire competent cleaning staff.

Wasn't Morgentaler disciplined for similar breaches?

The state let the facility reopen in March 2007.

Under the same management?

"However, there’s always inherent danger in any medical procedure," Capese said.

That's always what they fall back on, right? The woman ended up in a coma for goodness sakes-- that's not the typical danger you expect from an abortion, even a 2nd trimester one.

"The facility has an excellent treatment record, and they have served tens of thousands of patients without incident. That doesn’t negate the sympathy the facility has for any problems this patient may have experienced."

The proof is in the pudding.

Slater said Dinkins has made an "extremely good recovery" from her injuries.

I bet her fertility hasn't recovered.

The suit also named the National Abortion Federation, a group that Metropolitan Medical Associates belongs to.

NAF. Why am I not surprised?


Here's something I want to know. Abortionists have a reputation for being alcoholics and abusing drugs. Were these guys mentally compromised when they did this abortion?

There's a pattern with abortion clinics. They're always dirty and unhygienic.

VIDEO: Sarah Palin on the Tonight Show

So good. Watch all the way to the end.



Sarah Palin should just be on TV. She's a natural.

H/T.

UPDATE: To access the comments system, click on the title of the blog post, or on the time stamp.

Being open to life means never having to say you're sorry

The Abortioneers. Always good for a blogpost.

I was talking to a woman the other day who was distraught that she was pregnant and that she was further along than she thought. She was scared, didn't have the money, and didn't know what to do about it. She said what she and her husband did was irresponsible. I've heard this before. Why is what she did irresponsible?

What is the goal, here?

If the goal was to have sterile, then of course she was irresponsible.

What a stupid thing to do. If you want to be sterile, you have to take the means to be sterile.

The poster, Revolutionary Vagina asks:

My point is, why do we have to demonize sex so much?

We don't demonize sex at all.

You can have all the sex you like in this society. In fact, you're encouraged to do so.

It's unplanned pregnancy that is demonized.

I'm not sympathetic with the couple regarding abortion.

I'm very sympathetic regarding unplanned pregnancy.

Of course they did what was natural! Of course they should be doing it without contraception.

But what is supposedly totally natural is rejecting the new life within the mother.

This is the crux of demonization. It doesn't matter how much sex you have in this world. What matters is that you do not blindly get pregnant. That's what is demonized.

Because the whole point is not to create new life.

It's an evil. It's a burden. It hampers plans. It makes a person responsible for someone, when they were not prepared for it. It's of such little value that people put everything else ahead of it.

The whole culture of sterile sex logically leads to "irresponsible behaviour" and self-loathing. Because if you cannot bear the responsibility of new life, and you fail at avoiding it (and large numbers of women do) then you are not being responsible. If you used a condom, you should have used a Pill; if you used a Pill, it should have been an IUD. If you used an IUD, you should have had your tubes tied.

Being open to life means never having to say you're sorry for your pregnancy.

Gotta love what the abortionist says about abortion:

It stops a potential life.

A beating heart is stopped, but it's only a potential life.

Come on. Face the biological truth about what you do. Own it.

Attention Commenters

It appears that Haloscan is being discontinued on December 26th.

I will have to look into a new commenting system. I'm not sure what this will mean for us in the immediate future. But if you experience glitches and delays, at least you know why.

I will investigate.

UPDATE: I appear to have successfully added the "Intense Debate" system (how a propos for an abortion-related blog!). I am not sure how to handle moderation. So far, I've made it a requirement to register. Will I moderate all comments again? Hmmm....there's also apparently a reputation system.

I'll have to think about this.

2nd UPDATE: You are strongly encouraged to sign up with the Intense Debate System for optimal commenting.

3rd UPDATE: I have decided that, FOR NOW.. you do not need to register to comment...just because I'm still learning it.

TO ANSWER JANUS' CONCERN: I have added links to the Haloscan comments on blogposts that have active discussions.

So you have a chance to read and reply what was said to you.

You can reply in the Haloscan page, but it will be deleted in the future, and other commenters may not know that there are updates.

You may also use the new Intense Debate System to reply.

4th UPDATE: If you do not see the Intense Debate comments below, click on the title of this post.

Email me if you still have trouble.

Fascism reborn in Germany

Germany Jails Eight Christian Fathers for Removing Children from Sex-Ed Class

WESTPHALIA, Germany, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At least eight Russo-German families in Salzkotten, Germany, have suffered heavy fines and now their fathers have been sentenced to prison, because they have refused to send their elementary school-age children to mandatory sexual education classes.

(...)

Thornton states that unlike much of the American education system, German officials "view the children as belonging to the State, particularly during the time they are in school" and for that reason parents' beliefs and authority over their children takes second place to the interests and mandates of the State.

(...)

The fact that these children often outperform their counterparts in state schools has little bearing on the matter for Germany; the government's stated public policy is to suppress the existence of Parallelgesellschaften or "parallel societies" based on "separate philosophical convictions" through the education system.

Heil!

This is why militantly secular societies are anti-thetical to religious freedom and will always end up persecuting Christians. When religion is devalued, religious freedom makes no sense.

Their education system teaches that your body belongs to you.

Except when it comes to education. Then your a** belongs to the government.

The Youth Welfare Office or Jugendamt - an institution similar to Child Protective Services - acts as the government's chief intervening instrument, and when prison and fines do not bend Christian families into compliance, they recommend that these Christians lose parental custody of their children.

I don't expect Amnesty International or any other human rights groups to come to their rescue. The cause is not lefish enough. They're too busy trying to help the abortion industry.

And the thing that makes me laugh is that people are perfectly capable of getting along in society with sex education-- believe it or not! It's not worth all this fuss.

That's the nature of state control. Much ado about nothing.

Pakistani Muslims Denounce Terrorism

The article starts off rather well:

ULEMA and religious scholars at a seminar held by the Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman Memorial Society (MKRMS) has ruled in a joint declaration, "Not only the suicide attacks but all terrorist activities resulting in the loss of human life are Haram in Islam."

But, I think they're still somewhat in denial:

Dr Israr Ahmed said suicide attacks should be identified more as a social issue rather than a religious one as its prime causes were misery, poverty and deprivation of the people who were already on the verge of committing suicide due to their economic distress thus resort to earning money through suicide bombings and terrorist activities. He said the people carrying out these activities were not following any Islamic ideology.

Uh-huh. Like Bin Laden's was poor and deprived?

Bishop of Lahore Alexander John Malik said terrorism was not bound by any religious or territorial premise but instead it was a "political strategy" that was deployed by powers all over the world under different umbrellas of faith, caste, creed and race. He said the most important role of the ulema was to condemn all these acts in totality and should not by any means or hint justify these acts morally or as an act of vengeance.

A bishop got in on this. Good stuff.

He said true tribute to all those martyrs who lost their lives in these terrorist acts was to defy all these forces and defeat them in their evil ambitions.

I like the sound of that.

Now: will it actually mean anything? Hmmm....


UPDATE: For Haloscan Discussion, please go here.

Haloscan will be defunct after December 26th, 2009. You are encouraged to use the new commenting system.

Permissive Abortion Laws May Be Hazardous To Mothers' Health, Per New Report

Welcome, Antonia Zerbisias readers.

Here's one truth Antonia Zerbisias will never show about abortion.

C-FAM:

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) A new report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows that countries with restrictive abortion laws are often the leaders in reducing maternal mortality, and those with permissive laws often lag. According to the report, the pro-life nation of Ireland has topped the global rankings once again with the best maternal health performance.

(...)

Both Ireland and Poland, favorite targets of the abortion lobby for their strong restrictions on abortion, have better maternal mortality ratios than the United States. Ireland ranks first in the survey with 1 death for every 100,000 live births. In recent years Poland has tightened its abortion law and ranks number 27 on the list with 8 deaths per 100,000. In the United States where there are virtually no restrictions on abortion, the maternal mortality ratio is 17 out of 100,000 live births.

Other regions of the world show similar trends. The African nation with the lowest maternal mortality rate is Mauritius, a country with some of the continent's most protective laws for the unborn. On the other end of the spectrum is Ethiopia, which has decriminalized abortion in recent years in response to global abortion lobby pressure. Ethiopia's maternal death rate is 48 times higher than in Mauritius. South Africa has the continent's most liberal abortion laws and also a high maternal mortality ratio of 400 deaths per 100,000.

Chile, with constitutional protection for the unborn, outranks all other South American countries as the safest place for women to bear children. The country with the highest maternal mortality is Guyana, with a rate 30 times higher than in Chile. Guyana has allowed abortion without almost any restriction since in 1995. Ironically, one of two main justifications used for liberalizing Guyana’s law was to enhance the "attainment of safe motherhood" by eliminating deaths and complications associated with unsafe abortion. 


For Haloscan Discussion, please go here.


Haloscan will be defunct after December 26th, 2009. Please use the new commenting system to reply.

Switzerland: Man builds minaret to protest referendum vote

Within 20 minutes of its construction, the police were on to him.

Guillaume Morand is not Muslim. But he built a minaret over his business in Lausanne to protest the Swiss referendum vote that banned minarets. He considers that his actions sends a message of peace to Switzerland's Muslims.

The Swiss government is waiting for someone to lay a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights before acting on it. It is expected that the court would rule that this ban violates freedom of religion.

UPDATE:

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Can someone tell this nun to shut up?

HINSDALE, IL, December 10, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Sr. Donna Quinn of the Sinsinawa Dominican community, already notorious for volunteering as a clinic escort at a local abortion facility, has now come in out praise of the failure of the Nelson/Hatch/Casey amendment in the Senate, which would have restricted federal abortion funding. In addition, Quinn has described the Virgin Mary as "one of the first women in the New Testament to express Choice."

(...)

She furthermore noted the date of the amendment's defeat, the Catholic feast of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, as propitious. "I was reminded of being with men and women from the Unitarian faith tradition last year," Quinn said, "as they celebrated Mary who by her assent, they believed, was one of the first women in the New Testament to express choice."

*HEAD DESK*

Feast of the Immaculate Conception?

Did it not occur to her that the Feast is about one of the most pro-life feasts out there, as it underscores the personhood of Mary from conception?

Why, why, why is this allowed in the Church? How is this woman allowed to express support for the legalized killing of innocents?

"Faithful and respectful dissent is vital to the life of the church,"

She obviously fails to understand the point of the Catholic Church, which is to seek and defend eternal and immutable truths.

UPDATE:

For Haloscan Discussion: please go here.

Haloscan will be defunct after December 26th, 2009.

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Remember Abby Johnson, the PP Director turned Pro-Lifer?

She's been profiled:

Workers at all Planned Parenthood facilities are forbidden to use the word "baby," Johnson said. During her pregnancy Johnson began to see the disconnect between the philosophy of the ardent pro-choice movement and a woman's choice to carry a pregnancy to term. She quoted a liberal clergywoman as stating, "It's a baby when you decide you want to be a mother."

But there's no relativism whatsoever in the pro-choice movement.

"There is no spirituality in abortion. God is not present in the abortion facilities," Johnson said.

Nor is He welcome, she said.

"The people who work there don't have any kind of faith. You're kind of an outcast in the organization if you are a professing Christian."

Unless, of course, you think abortion is sacred. ;)

The rhetoric of Planned Parenthood plays upon that sense of compassion, leading its staff and volunteers to believe they are working in the best interest of women, Reynoso said. Johnson knew what abortion was on paper, he said, but had grown numb to its destructive nature until witnessing it on the ultrasound.

"It's the wolf in sheep's clothing," he said. "It sounds compassionate."

Women's health? Who would be against that?

It's a little different when you describe it as killing prenatal human beings for the sake of maintaining autonomy and (illusory) control over one's life.

UPDATE:

For Haloscan Discussion, please go here.

Haloscan will be defunct as of December 26th, 2009.

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Sarah Palin makes 'em laugh at the Gridiron Dinner

Does anyone else think that her wit is reminiscent of Reagan's?

UPDATE

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The difference between Viagra and Abortion?

Short Barbara Boxer: Waaaah.

"Why are women being singled out here? It's so unfair," Boxer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "We don't tell men that if they want to ... buy insurance coverage through their pharmaceutical plan for Viagra that they can't do it."

If Viagra were considered morally objectionable by millions of people, she might have a point. The issue of forcing Americans to pay for something they object to doesn't factor into her thinking.

If it'll make her happy, I propose an amendment to cut coverage of Viagra and any sexually related treatment for men in the Health Care Bill. Fair's fair.

Somehow, I suspect she wouldn't object if abortion was included, but Viagra was excluded.

Babies, babies and more babies

The results of TMZ's Funny Baby Face Contest.

Good for a laugh or two.

I'd like to contribute my own:

The problem with pro-aborts is that they don't understand their opponents and don't try to

because it's just too convenient not to.

So if mass-murder is occurring, anyone who would have tolerated the preemptive killing of Adolf Eichmann or Josef Mengele to impede the Holocaust should logically also embrace the vigilante execution of abortion providers to save many innocent lives.

Actually, I wouldn't have, at least, unless it was a war-time situation.

Or, if one accepts this Holocaust analogy but believes all killing is wrong (ie. the rare absolutist who would not preemptively have killed Hitler), then, at the very least, one should renounce one's citizenship in such a bankrupt nation, or refuse to pay one's taxes a la Henry David Thoreau, or -- as the Buddhist monks did to protest American atrocities in Vietnam -- set oneself aflame in the name of bearing witness.

Right, like moving to a new country is just a matter of picking up and leaving.

But as it stands, Christians have a duty to their nation to improve it and fight for the rights of others.

Pro-lifers in Canada have attempted to not pay taxes, and they had to pay them anyway.

Set ourselves on fire? That would be suicide. Not moral.

Yet the inevitable consequence of her inflammatory language is that fanatics like Paul Hill and Scott Roeder follow her astounding premises to their cold, unavoidable conclusions.

Under a completely different set of morals that we are not responsible for.

It's a little like saying that Quebec nationalist rhetoric caused the FLQ to kill Pierre Laporte, or Marx's rhetoric caused Che Guevara to kill his opponents.

Inflammatory rhetoric doesn't make people kill.

If you believe you can stop an ongoing holocaust, why shouldn't you gun down the doctors you believe to be perpetrating it?

Because there are other value at play. In the first centuries of Christianity, Christians were persecuted, but never did they argue that their enemies should be killed.

During the slave trade, those who fought slavery did so peaceably, leading slaves through the Underground Railroad.

John Brown was the exception that proved the rule of the peaceful nature of the abolitionist movement. He took those anti-slavery to their "logical" conclusion.

Should the abolitionists have shut up?

That sounds like a far more appropriate response to mass murder than touring the college

It sounds appropriate only if you're working on a certain set of assumptions.

We don't operate on those assumptions.

But don't actually try to find out why pro-lifers don't kill.

That might ruin your argument.

The piece boils down to "if pro-lifers don't act according to our moral assumptions, they're not really sincere.

What a self-serving argument.

The reality is that few (if any) sane people, however strong their views regarding the morality of abortion, sincerely believe that abortion clinics are like death camps.

Although I have never heard her speech,I can easily predict that Stephanie Gray's point would be that unborn children are killed because they are considered subhuman, just like Jews were killed because they were considered subhuman.

No analogy is perfect in every point. But the point is, abortion clinics serve to kill subhumans, and death camps served to kill subhumans.

But don't actually try to understand the analogy, it might ruin your argument.

They just say they are, because it's easier -- and far more dramatic -- than explaining what they really mean.

Well, I just explained it. It was fairly easy.

I have witnessed surgical terminations. I have also seen the mounds of human hair and baby shoes at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Most strikingly, I have heard first-hand horror narratives of deportation and starvation from elderly survivors, stories that my own relatives never survived to share. Any reasonable person who has any knowledge of the Nazi death machine should find the comparison of Planned Parenthood to Auschwitz-Birkenau an unacceptable affront to common decency.

Only because you do not understand the argument being made.

A Planned Parenthood is like a death camp because they kill unborn children because they are subhuman.

A death camp killed Jews et al. because they were subhuman.

The drama of the death camps does not diminish this argument. He's trying to make the emotionalism of the drama the measure of whether the analogy is valid, not the actual substance of the argument.

When will Abe Foxman stand up to this new generation of anti-abortion Holocaust misappropriators?

You can't stop people from making analogies from historical events. People can and do make analogies from horrible historical events: it doesn't mean the event was not horrific; it is a way of conveying a truth.

I assure her that it is not because we fear her ideas or public engagement -- but because some forms of argument are too repugnant to be indulged.

You go ahead and ignore her. She'll engage all the other people willing to listen to her. You can fail to understand what she says: her audience will know better and you won't reach them.

What Gray has no business doing is comparing the United States to Nazi Germany, or calling Plan B a modern-day Final Solution, or insisting that offering women reproductive options is the moral equivalent of massacring Jews. That is the sort of angry, empty rhetoric that gets innocent people killed and defiles the memory of others. It must stop.

It's only angry and empty to you because you've never actually understood what she's saying. I've heard her speak to the issue, and she's not angry or empty. She's not responsible for the morals of others, and she seeks to uphold the memory of others precisely because the horror of the Holocaust because she believes in the value of human life.

But completely ignore all that. Just engage in empty rhetoric of your own.

UPDATE: TO GET THE HALOSCAN DISCUSSION, PLEASE GO HERE. Will be defunct after December 26th, 2009. You are encouraged to use the new commenting system to reply, as there no more links to Haloscan's system.

No matter how much they try to gloss over it, nothing will change the reality

That abortion kills a human being.

Advocates for abortion think that if they just talk long enough and make one feel enough sympathy, they can make people forget the reality of abortion and get the public to accept it.

They are in denial. Which is fine by me.

No matter how many ways you square it, this is the reality of abortion:

All the excuses in the world do not erase this reality.

They think it's about women. They think the objection is really about letting women have their way, and that the argument about the fetus is a subterfuge.

But this is the reality. This is the price of women's empowerment.

Tough luck! is the response to the notion that a fetus has to die in the name of women's empowerment.

Oh sure, some people wish to honour that so-called "potential life. But actions speak louder than sentiments.

You do not kill whom you value. Creating an "honour" for this dead baby does not change that.

In their post-modern thought process, their moral judgement can accommodate that contradiction, because that's how they perceive reality: as something that is not necessarily logically consistent. It's all about what you think, not about what the truth is.

But that thought process cannot hold up to scrutiny. That's why the pro-abortion movement is losing ground. It's about power: "who decides". Power that is accountable to no one and is exercised in isolation, power that has no responsibility, power that has no principle except self-preservation and autonomy at any cost, including that of human life.

In their messed up heads, they say to themselves (unconsciously): Men exercise power that way, why can't women?

But as I often say: reality does not work that way.

Report: Over Two-Thirds of All Abortion Clinics Have Closed Since 1991

Says Operation Rescue

"We now have an accurate listing of every open abortion clinic in the country," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. "In 1991, it was estimated that there were nearly 2,200 abortion clinics in the country, today there are just 713. The pro-life movement has made significant strides exposing and closing abortion clinics and shifting public opinion toward the pro-life position. This has resulted in lower abortion rates."

I wonder if abortion supporters would concur with those numbers.

I also wonder about the greater use of chemical abortions. You don't need to be a surgeon to do these-- even a nurse could conceivably execute them. Are more physicians and nurses doing these abortions on the sly?

I also suspect that a smaller number of abortion clinics are doing more abortions.

So much for the perceived need to have an abortion clinic in every county.


UPDATE

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Gay Activists Denounce Zealotry...by Plotting Acts of Zealotry

Isn't that special...

A post appearing on GayBuzz.blogspot on Nov. 28 calls upon gay activists to punish Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Catholic Diocese of Oakland, Ca., for signing the declaration.

“It is time we let Bishop Cordileone know there are consequences for his actions,” the blogger states. “Is anyone up for a rally in front of the Oakland Diocese or a disruption of services? Let me know and I’m happy to help organize.”

Disruption of services? Doesn't he know that interfering with religious worship is against the law?

But okay, act like self-entitled fascists. It'll just make your cause just so much more appreciated. [/sarcasm]

H/T



UPDATE

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Big Blue Wave has been nominated

For the Pro-Life Blog Awards.

Thank you for your support!

Also: ProWomanProLife.

The Abortioneers crack me up sometimes

Be my guest:

O… a classmate and I are on a mission (an abortion mission) to bring up abortion in every class discussion. We managed to do it in statistics class AND in our theory class, where we strategically inserted statistics like “77% of anti-choice leaders are men, and 100% of them will never become pregnant,” during a discussion on gender and social movements. It has already become clear, that it makes some people “uncomfortable.” But HEY, get uncomfortable! Because watch out world, here we come!

Yeah, that's a great idea! Start a discussion and then tell all the men they can't have an opinion unless it happens to correspond to their own. Fabulous public relations!

And that bogus statistic about men being in charge of the pro-life movement. Completely made up. They've been saying it for at least 10 years now. But don't let accuracy get in the way of a good ideologically-driven discussion.

About 100% of abortions are fatal to unborn children. That's a good statistic to keep in mind.

To all those pro-lifers who voted for Obama

From the Politics of the Cross:

So you traded a lying, pro-war, anti-abortion president for a lying, pro-war, pro-abortion president. Nice going - a good example of the triumph of utopian stupidity over realistic, lesser-of-two-evils politics. Did you ever believe even half of that hopey-change stuff? Really?

The truth is, it's just easier to be anti-war than it is to be pro-life. That's what a vote for Obama was about.

The hierarchy of values matter.

UPDATE: For Haloscan discussion, please go here.

Haloscan will be defunct as of December 26th, 2009.

Please use the new commenting system to reply.

Benedict XVI greets sister of young murderer being considered for sainthood

I nominate this guy as a possible future patron saint of abortionists:

Jacques Fesch killed a policeman on February 25, 1954 in Paris after a frustrated robbery attempt. After his imprisonment he began a three year-long period in which he experienced a conversion leading him to write a series of profound spiritual letters. He was condemned to the guillotine on April 6, 1957 and on October 1 of that year he was executed.

Abortionists must learn that if the Church can forgive this guy, they can forgive anyone.

Ford Motor Company Trying to Save Fetuses

By designing a seat belt for pregnant women.

The number of unborn children lost in car accidents is relatively small compared to the estimated 40,000 people who die annually in collisions. Why is there so much effort being focused on this group?


This is actually a bigger issue than the child seat issue, which is something we are very focused on. It’s roughly four times the problem of children dying in car seats. And when you look at the 40,000 crash deaths, a lot of those are the fault of the person — they weren’t wearing a seat belt or they were drinking and driving. But if you are pregnant and get into a crash, there’s little you can do to protect your fetus.

From a design standpoint, you ask yourself, “What is the population I can help?” If someone is not wearing a seat belt, it’s hard to get them to wear it. If they’re drinking and driving, that’s another issue. But there are things we can do for people who are driving to work, wearing seat belts and getting into crashes. How do we design a better seat belt for that population? This is an area where we can make a difference.

Why I never trust conventional wisdom on controversial scientific issues

Mark Shea:

The vast majority of people who confidently hold forth on, say, the existence of gluons, or the expansion of the universe, or the various evidences for evolution, or the proposition that light is both a wave and a particle are entirely reciting hearsay they picked up from some Authority on the Discovery Channel or Popular Science.

In other words, they are behaving exactly like adherents of a religious system.

Whatever politically-driven "scientific knowledge" that the media pushes, I tend to not treat as dogma.

It could be true. It could also be not be true, and most people don't know any better.

Being educated in one special history-- I know that ordinary people typically have a superficial knowledge of any given field because people have a superficial knowledge of history. It's not that they're stupid, it's that they have other things to do. I passed high school science, and I have a passing interest in science, but don't ask me to comment on any scientific issue (with the major exception of pregnancy and fetuses on which I do read quite a bit.) I know enough to know that I don't know. I'm probably more scientifically literate than average (which is not saying much, so I'm not bragging) but I know that it takes a lot of investigation to truly come up with an independent opinion on any subject (instead of just relying on the authority of books and encyclopedias) and I just don't have time to learn everything, so I simply remain with no firm opinion on a number of questions.

But the media love an agenda, they love conflict, and they're liberally biased, so they tend to push scientific agendas. When political issues are dependent on scientific knowledge, it's not enough to depend on authority. A lot of people rely on what the experts say, and go with that momentum. That's not a very logical manner to proceed.

Politically, though, it can be an uphill battle to go where the facts lead you, because you often swim against the current.

Scientific information is also often "packaged" and when you unravel that package, there are lots of omitted details and points that go against the political agenda of the day.

So I don't get excited about a lot of scientific controversies. I know there's more to it than what is said in the media, but who has time to read beyond the headlines? Journalists tend to stick to the predominating narrative anyway. You really have to go to academic sources yourself to get the real story.

UPDATE

For Haloscan discussion, please go here.

Haloscan will be defunct as of December 26th, 2009. Please use the new commenting system.

NB pol says politically incorrect truth...

then apologizes.
Progressive Conservative MLA Carl Urquhart rose in New Brunswick's legislative assembly on Wednesday to apologize for writing on Facebook that girls had to make more babies to help the provincial economy.

Urquhart made the post on his Facebook page after Tuesday's budget that called for another massive deficit.

"Girls we need more babies or we will never be able to support our future," Urquhart wrote.

Poorly worded, but it's the truth. For all of Canada-- we need more children.

You need women to *want* babies for there to be more babies.

Liberal MLA Joan MacAlpine-Stiles, who served as a status of women minister in the Bernard Lord's PC government, said she found the comment "unspeakably offensive."

"To suggest to New Brunswick's young women that their only role in society and their only contribution to the New Brunswick economy is to have babies is demeaning and outdated thinking which flies in the face of everything this government and previous governments have done to promote equality for women," MacAlpine-Stiles said.

He DID NOT say or suggest that a woman's only role is to have children.

It was a poor choice of words.

But the substance of his statement is correct.

But don't acknowledge the truth and confront the issue or anything productive like that. Wouldn't want to get in the way of scoring cheap political points.

For once, I'd like for a politician to say something this true, this controversial and not kowtow to the purveyors of political correctness.

Addressing the Coathanger Argument

A bioethicist says it more articulately than I:

Regarding premise (b) During appears to think that if passing a law results in the death of large numbers of women then to pass such a law is to kill these women. This is false. It is an empirical fact that building motorways results in innocent people dying, yet it does not follow that a person who builds a road kills innocent people. It is also a fact that by allowing people to swim at beaches some people will drown yet in permitting people to swim at beaches the government cannot be said to have drowned these people. Even if it could be demonstrated that restricting feticide results in women dying it does not follow that such restrictions kill women.

During fails to distinguish between an action that foreseeably results in a person's death and an action that causes that person's death. Suppose that Parliament were to criminalise feticide and this led to a chain of events one of which was the death of a woman due to septic abortion. Somewhere in this chain, between the act of the legislature and the death of the woman, are the free actions of various people who choose to ignore or breach these laws. Parliament does not perform these actions; in fact they are done in defiance of Parliament's will and hence without Parliament's consent. Such actions include the choice of a woman to violate the law and procure an abortion and the choice of an abortionist to perform an abortion and to violate hygiene and safety standards. The death and injury that occurs is caused by these actions. It is the abortionist's decision, acting as an agent of the woman, to perform unsafe surgery that causes the injury to occur. These facts make it evident that Parliament does not cause such deaths. The actions of the woman and abortionist are un-coerced. They are free, voluntary actions and as such not caused by someone else. It follows immediately that they were not caused by the state. If they were not caused by the state, then the effects that follow from them were not caused by the state either. The suggestion that one causes the free (and hence uncaused) reactions of others to decisions one makes is far fetched.

The failure to distinguish caused and foreseen effects is illustrated well by Augustine. In contending with the consequentialists of his day, Augustine proposed the following example. Suppose a man approaches a woman and tells her that he will kill himself if she refuses to have sex with him. Does that mean that she is a murderer if she refuses?[5]

In other words: Don't want to die of an illegal abortion?

DON'T HAVE ONE!

New FCP Leader to be in Ottawa this Saturday

Mr. Phil Lees, New Leader of the ”Family Coalition Party” of Ontario will be hosting a Forum in Ottawa this Saturday, December 5, 2009 at Hintonburg Community Centre.

Mr. Lees has had much success in Hamilton, ON and will speak on IMPORTANT issues, as well as present his new PRO-LIFE strategies.

DATE: Saturday, Dec. 5/09

TIME: 1:30-4:30 pm

SPEAKER: Mr. Phil Lees, New Leader of the “Family Coalition Party” of Ontario

PLACE: Hintonburg Community Centre – “Laroche Room”, 1064 Wellington St. (near St. Francis Catholic Church)

FREE Tim Horton’s muffins, brownies and coffee.

ALL WELCOME

Family thankful for the time they had with child

People have this idea that if your child is born with a lethal handicap, his short life will be full of suffering and pain, and that these things should be shunned as much as possible, never pausing to think of the joy that love and sacrifice can bring.

This is the case of Baby Jayla, who suffered from triple X syndrome and a congenital heart defect.

She lived ten months.

The doctors pushed for termination. You know why they do that? Because it's so simple. It's all over in a couple of days.

With a congenital heart defect, you have to make an effort to save the baby's life. So many resources have to be spent.

Resources that could be spent on babies who will live.

That is the logic of our culture of death.

When the value of life is not absolute, there is a crude calculus that comes into play, that measures a child's worthiness by how healthy he is.

But feminists will tell you: there is no discrimination whatsoever. You can't discriminate against a non-person, right? All that matters is the mom's point of view. If a baby has to die at the 24th week of a late-term abortion, oh well, tough luck, kid. You don't matter!

Catholic TV Crew attacked at abortion demonstration in Vienna

Gee, lawless abortion demonstrators. Whodda thunk?