Family Coalition Party Moving Forward

I just came back from a Family Coalition Party meeting in Ottawa, where Phil Lees was speaking. Eastern Region just confirmed Tom Lavrisa as its new Regional VP, and we talked about team building. There's a new riding association that's being started up in Leeds-Grenville, and I'm working on getting one established in Ottawa-Vanier.

We also unveiled the new party logo (see above).

There will be another Eastern Region next month. I hope that the FCP supporters in the area can come down and take part in this renewed party.

Phil Lees, Leader, Family Coalition Party of Ontario

Yes, the fetus is a human being, and doctors believe it

From a textbook on ultrasound in obstetrics and gynecology (quoted in context of fetal behaviour)

The fetus is only a human being and is just as prone as a child or adult to have an accident, develop a disease, or suffer an iatrogenic problem". (P. 168)

The Catholic Reality

Stefan Jetchick:

Most Quebec Priests live in a pretty sheltered world. They sleep in a nice room in the Rectory, have their meals made for them, go to many meetings (and the other attendees are usually on the diocesan payroll, so nobody "rocks the boat"), etc.

We laypeople live in another world. We live in the trenches, on the front line. We often work with a boss and collegues who are Atheists or anti-Catholic. We are forced to pay large taxes on our small incomes, only to see our money be used by the Government to fund the killing of unborn children, homosexualist propaganda, compulsory State schools that try to rip Faith out of our children's hearts, etc. As if that wasn't enough, we are often "shot in the back" by "Catholic" Priests and Bishops who openly contradict the official teachings of the Church.

And I would add: these priests are often the useful idiots of this statist system that bites us back in the butt!

(I don't agree a DVD on the Latin Mass would be the answer, though. Sorry!)

Free Speech Victory for Bill Whatcott Against an HRC

In a decision released February 25, the 3-member court ruled that William Whatcott did not violate section 14(1)(b) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code by distributing flyers to oppose the teaching of homosexuality in Saskatoon’s public schools.

...

The Court set aside a Human Rights Tribunal Order that Mr. Whatcott pay $17,500 to four gay complainants who were offended by his flyers. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Code prohibits the publication of any statement which “exposes or tends to expose to hatred, ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of any person or class of persons” on the basis of age, race, religion, sexual orientation, and other grounds.

More here

Congratulations, Bill.

I wonder if this will be appealed.

Atheists Invited to Vatican Outreach Initiative

Are atheists going to buy this?

Vatican City, Feb 25, 2010 (CNA).- The Pontifical Council for Culture has announced that it is creating a foundation to focus on relations with atheists and agnostics. The president of the Council announced the initiative on Wednesday as a response to Pope Benedict's call to "renew dialogue with men and women who don't believe but want to move towards God."

Fr. Amorth, World's Best Known Exorcist , Says Vatican Clergy Among Satanists

I am beyond shocked. Fr. Amorth, the world's most famous exorcist, makes extremely disturbing allegations.


He says that there are practicing Satanists in the Vatican, including priests, bishops and cardinals.

He says that there are numerous bishops who no longer believe in Satan (although that's not a huge surprise for many of us).

If these allegations are true, they are extremely disturbing, and action should be taken immediately to depose these clerics.

If they are not true, Fr. Amorth is making outrageous accusations. I tend to trust Fr. Amorth. But this is all so shocking.

Here is the text of the article I read this morning on the French blog Bénoît et Moi. It is a translation of another article on an Italian blog, PaoloRodari.com. The excerpts are from Father Amorth's memoirs, in which he is interviewed by Marco Tossatti, a Vatican observer.

The French-to-English translation is a Google Translate that I will correct as I see the need.

---

Father Amorth, exorcist, the most famous in the world, publishes his memoirs.

An amazing article by Paolo Rodari (26/2/2010)

Obviously, the usual rationalistic Voltaireans will tap their thighs with laughter.

Personally, I believe in the existence of the devil in some form, it is obvious.

This does not makes me laugh.

I do not know if its manifestations may be those that are discussed here.

But I respect the beliefs of Don Amorth, who is these days to publish his memoirs, interviewed by the vaticanist Marco Tossatti:

"Father Amorth. Memoirs of an exorcist. My life in the fight against Satan" (Ed Piemme)

Here is a review of Paolo Rodari on his blog:

When an exorcist discovers he has much to do at Vatican
February 25, 2010

http://www.paolorodari.com/ ...
--------------------
- There are Satanists in the Vatican?

"Yes, even in the Vatican there are members of satanic cults."

- Who is involved? Is it simple priests or laity?

"There are priests, bishops and even cardinals."

- Forgive me, Father Gabriel, but how do you know?

"I know people who have been observing it, because they had the opportunity to observe it directly. And this is something that has been 'confessed' several times by the devil Even under obedience in the exorcisms.

- The Pope is informed of this?

"Of course, he was informed" But he does what he can. It is something terrifying. Keep in mind also that Benedict XVI is a German pope, he comes from a nation resolutely closed to these things. In Germany, in fact, there are almost no exorcists, and yet the Pope believes [in them]: I had the opportunity to speak with him three times before, when He was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He believes, and how! And he spoke explicitly in public several times [about this]. He welcomed our association of exorcists (in October 2005, BEM); [at the time] he also delivered a fine speech, encouraging us and praising our apostolate. And let us not forget that the devil and exorcism, John Paul II also spoke a lot about it. "

- While it's true what Paul VI said that the smoke of Satan entered the Church?

"It's true, unfortunately, because in the Church as there are followers of satanic cults. The details of the" smoke of Satan ", Paul VI spoke June 29, 1972. Then, as this sentence created a huge scandal, November 15, 1972, he devoted an entire speech to the devil, on Wednesday, with some very strong words. Of course, it broke the ice, lifting a veil of silence and censorship that has lasted too long but it had no practical consequences. It took someone like me-- who was a nobody-- to spread the alarm in order to get results.

Father Gabriele Amorth is now one of the most renown international exorcists. He exercises his ministry in the city of Rome. In his memoirs, collected by Marco Tosatti in "Father Amorth. Memoirs of an exorcist. My life in the fight against Satan" (Piemme) the complaint that he wants the Church to hear above all is [about]the church and its bishops:

"We have many priests and many bishops who, unfortunately, do not believe in Satan," he said. And again: "There are whole countries that have no exorcists: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal ... Many bishops do not believe in the devil, and even manage to say in public that Hell does not exist, the devil does not exist. And yet, in the Gospel, Jesus speaks extensively about, so we would almost say, either they never read the Gospel or they don' believe it! ".

Many bishops do not believe in hell, then. And indeed, the battle of the Father Amorth is on two fronts: against the old enemy and against the silence or disbelief in the Church:

"The Code of Canon Law states that the exorcist should be chosen from the cream of the clergy," he said. Yet this is not the case. Often, the best priests are assigned by the bishop to other tasks. And the few exorcists have little experience. This should be the opposite.

Everything should happen as it happened to Don Amorth: Cardinal Ugo Poletti had Fr. Amorth work alongside Father Candido Amantini , who was an exorcist for forty years at the Scala Santa.

Father Amorth said: [He taught me everything that I know.]

Father Amorth said further: "There are several episodes that were told to me by Father Candido. One day a priest told him clearly that he believes nothing of all this: the devil, exorcism and so forth. Father Candido said: "come one day to see." Father Candido said that this priest was standing with his hands in his pockets at the Scala Santa, and the exorcism took place in the sacristy, and he was there, looking almost with contempt. At some point, the demon turned to him and said you do not believe in me, but women, you believe, you believe in women, and how. The priest, walking backwards, ashamed, returned to the door and spun off. "

Don Amorth in his office receives hundreds of people every year. Among them, only a few are truly possessed. The majority simply has serious psychological and psychiatric problems. But there are people who are possessed. They appear to Father Amorth to be delivered. They do it voluntarily, even if the "presence" that has taken possession of their bodies does everything it can to make sure that the exorcism has no effect.

- How does possession happen?

Most people become so possessed after participating in black masses and satanic rituals.

Father Amorth said: "The main feature of the Black Mass was the contempt of the Eucharist. In a real Black Mass, a naked woman [who is a virgin] serves as an altar, and she is raped by one who holds the role of the priest and then by all others, then between them, everything is permitted. It becomes a real [free for all]. This is why many go to the black mass for the [after-mass].

Father Amorth has a method - which works sometimes and sometimes not - to recognize if someone is truly possessed: the holy water. He [told the story] a woman who asked to be exorcised. Don Amorth did not know if she was really possessed. Thus, he prepared on the table two glasses, one with running water and the other with holy water:

"I offered to drink tap water, she thanked me, and drank. A few minutes later I gave her another glass of holy water. She drank, but this time her appearance changed abruptly; from that of a scared child to an angry person. Pronouncing both in whispers and very loudly, as if a man spoke to her, she said "I think you're evil, priest!". Then began the prayer of exorcism and only an hour later, and once the ritual was completed, the delivery took place in the church. "

Keeping abortion a secret is a pro-life tactic?

In reponse to an article about AntiTheist Angie's live-tweeting her abortion, a commenter by the name of dick dworkin wrote:

keeping abortion in the closet

is an important tool in the rights war on choice.

That is news to me.

You mean all those women who talked about their horrible experiences with abortion through Silent No More, all those images of the bloody fetuses, The Silent Scream...it's all to keep it in the closet?

I absolutely want to demystify abortion and show it for what it is.

Because for some many women, it really and truly sucks.

And it kills an unborn child.

I absolutely want to demystify that. How come abortionists never do? How come no abortionist has decided he's had enough about the so-called lies of abortion and decided to record one on 3D ultrasound to quash, once and for all, refute all pro-life rhetoric about abortion being a violent killing of a human being.

The pro-aborts keep saying pictures of aborted fetuses are fake. All it would take to settle the issue once and for all is to take a camera into an abortion clinic and film everything live.

But nobody will do that. They know the truth. They know what we're saying is true. Even abortionists will tell you that the bloody fetus pictures are true.

St. John Damascene: Why God Allows Evil People to Be Created

From An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book IV):

God in His goodness brought what exists into being out of nothing, and has foreknowledge of what will exist in the future. If, therefore, they were not to exist in the future, they would neither be evil in the future nor would they be foreknown. For knowledge is of what exists and foreknowledge is of what will surely exist in the future. For simple being comes first and then good or evil being. But if the very existence of those, who through the goodness of God are in the future to exist, were to be prevented by the fact that they were to become evil of their own choice, evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God. Wherefore God makes all His works good, but each becomes of its own choice good or evil.

VIDEO: Debbie's Abortion Testimonial (Silent No More)

Liberty is equality's intractable opposite

In todayès The Guardian:

The mechanisms of modern government grow ever more intricate, but the guiding principles, and ruling dilemmas, stay the same. If you want to make people more equal you will have make them less free to forge ahead of – or fall behind – their fellow citizens. There is no way round this conundrum, no form of words in an act of parliament can resolve it, and we must each of us, in the end, decide which we want: more equality and less liberty; or more liberty and less equality.

I would add that all human beings are equal. Of course this should be respected.

But trying to make everyone equal in every sphere of society is bound to fail, and shouldn't be tried.

I also think that freedom cannot be entirely dependent on the state. It's not just a matter of statism. We must have a culture of freedom, and a culture that relies more on personal initiatives and civil institutions to change society, than on the state.

Debunking the myth that women do not earn as much as men

An excellent primer from Brian Lilley.

The reasons for men and women earning different annual incomes are many and they are complex. Some of the difference comes down to choice, stability over risk, the decision by many women to only seek part-time work, the difference between what is offered in wages and what is offered in generous public sector benefits. The [CLC] report offered up Monday by the activists examines none of this and instead looks at one number and comes to the conclusion that it is all due to discrimination. I do note they do not determine that women having 87% of nursing jobs is due to discrimination, and that too speaks to how serious this report is and how much attention policy makers should give to it. If we are going to have a serious discussion on this issue, let's start by looking at real numbers.

UPDATE

I noticed that my comments system wasn't working properly. I re-installed it. Please send me a comment!

And if it still doesn't work, send me an email.

VIDEO: Atheist talks about her abortion

Antitheist Angie talks about having a chemical abortion. I'm posting this for your reaction:



The thing why this doesn't work as well as "I regret my abortion" videos is that the latter show things can go wrong with abortion.

It suggests the service is defective.

Sure, some people go through abortion and nothing happens.

What if that person isn't you?

We ban and restrict the use of certain products on the same premise.

Take baby walkers. Or lawn darts. Or trans fats.

These things are banned because everyone suffered because of them.

But because a fraction suffered.

What the "I regret my abortion" theme suggests is that abortion is not this harmless, inconsequential operation. For millions of women, it has horrible, life-altering affects, even on women who agreed with it.

I've had a miscarriage at about 3 weeks. It wasn't horrible. I felt some mourning.

But there is something different about being the cause of your child's death. Your soul knows that. You can't run away from it. The reasons behind it also affect one's unconscious reaction. She says that she was afraid of pregnancy risks.

Do you know how rare it is to die of pregnancy?

People often think that in a "it's-you-or-me" scenario, one's conscience will never bother them. That's not necessarily the case.

Hawaii to become abortion law free state

How wonderful..

You can kill a Hawaiian fetus for any reason now.I'm sure the feminists are just jubilant. So what if a baby has to die in the third trimester? Women are empowered. That's all that matters.

Woman had over 200 grandchildren

And about 2000 living descendants. They lost count. Just wow.

H/T

History: it's all relative to black pro-aborts

Says Maame-Mensima Horne, a black pro-abort:

We need our allies from Planned Parenthood Federation of America to speak about the story of their founder, Margaret Sanger, and how black women worked with her to bring birth control into our communities.

Yeah, Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate the black population. Sheesh!

Jesus Fulfills the Jewish Law

For Lent, I have decided to read a passage from the Church Fathers every day.

Today, I decided to read St. John Chrysostom's Homily 16. He starts by quoting this passage:

"Think not that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets." (Matt. 5:17)

And then, being the genius that he is, thoroughly explains what it meant.

It's too subtle to explain it all in one blogpost.

But the law He fulfilled, not in one way only, but in a second and third also. In one way, by transgressing none of the precepts of the law.

(...)

This then was one sense in which He fulfilled it. Another, that He did the same through us also; for this is the marvel, that He not only Himself fulfilled it, but He granted this to us likewise. Which thing Paul also declaring said, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." (Romans 10:4) And he said also, that "He judged sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh." (Romans 8:3-4) And again, "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid! Yea, we establish the law." (Romans 3:31) For since the law was laboring at this, to make man righteous, but had not power, He came and brought in the way of righteousness by faith, and so established that which the law desired: and what the law could not by letters, this He accomplished by faith. On this account He says, "I am not come to destroy the law."

4. But if any one will inquire accurately, he will find also another, a third sense, in which this has been done. Of what sort is it then? In the sense of that future code of laws, which He was about to deliver to them.

For His sayings were no repeal of the former, but a drawing out, and filling up of them. Thus, "not to kill," is not annulled by the saying, Be not angry, but rather is filled up and put in greater security: and so of all the others.

Later on he writes:

He does not, you see, find fault with the old law, but will have it made stricter. Whereas, had it been evil, He would not have required more of it; He would not have made it more perfect, but would have cast it out.

The point being that the third way the Law is fulfilled is that by making it stricter, he safeguards from future sin AND he makes us holier, for disciplining ourselves to a higher standard.

It's very good. I encourage you to take a look if you need some spiritual reading.

Amanda Marcotte's reaction to the Mechelle Hall case

Mechelle Hall was the woman who threatend Leah Winandy with knife at an abortion clinic and eventually decided to keep the baby.

Uber Pro-Abort Amanda Marcotte's reaction?

Convincing unstable, violent women to have children, one crazy incident at a time. Good work, antis!

Had Mechelle Hall chosen abortion, she would have been uber-supportive. But she chose life, so now she's some potential child abuser. Way to be supportive of "choice", Amanda!

Aren't we supposed to "Trust Women"? Oh right, women are infallible except when they make decisions we disagree with.

And she linked to this blogpost from Salon.

Much like Abby Johnson's incredibly unreliable tale of converting from Planned Parenthood clinic director to antiabortion protester, this story plays to the anti-choice mythology that pro-choicers will convert if only they're exposed to the reality of abortion.

(...)

After the Abby Johnson yarn, any "pro-life" conversion story should be met with a healthy dose of skepticism

And what evidence is offered to refute the story?

Nothing!

That's right. They don't like what happened, so....itjustdidn'thappenthere!

That is so weak. It's another game of Lying Liars Lying their Lies. If you say it often enough, people will believe it.

Except when people look at the evidence.

Quebec Human Rights Commission Awards $7000 to Chinese Couple for Racist Aggression

The couple was walking their dog when some youth assaulted them (unprovoked apparently!), swore at them, spit on them and told them to go back to their own country.

It took three years to prosecute the case.

There is no report as to whether the youth were prosecuted by our criminal justice system. The sad part is that had they brought their case before a criminal law court, the kids would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist. The Human Rights Commission was their best bet to punish these youth. Well, actually, I suspect that since their families must pay, they're not really paying individually, are they?

But these kids almost certainly did not receive due process of law.

If they just fixed the criminal justice system and punished youth more harshly for such assaults, there would not be a need for this.

The Pro-Abortion Scandal in the Canadian Catholic Church Continues

As you know, for many months now, LifesiteNews and my friend John Pacheco have been assiduously following the Development and Peace story. Development and Peace, an organization created by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, gives money to pro-abort organizations (for non-abortion-related projects) thereby giving sustenance to pro-abort groups so that they can live for another day and promote abortion on the side.

But something has come to light that makes me realize why this is allowed to happen.

I was clicking around on the internet when I came upon the website of the Diocese of Trois-Rivieres.

It had several items listed under its pastoral category, including "women". So I clicked on that.

I did not anticipate this kind of overt association with pro-abort feminism.

The opening paragraph explains the purpose of this particular "ministry".

Through a feminist analysis, it encourages individual and collective action and contributes to other initiatives so to improve women's place within the Church and in society, and to create equal relationships between men and women.

Feminism. Puah!

Now, you might be saying to yourself: feminism doesn't have to be about abortion. (Never mind that the whole feminist infrastructure in Canada is pro-abort to the core, but whatever!)

Okay.

At the bottom of the website, it lists the Table [de] concertation du mouvement des femmes de la Mauricie (TCMFM). They explain that this ministry belongs to this hard-core pro-abort feminist coalition.

Imagine, a self-proclaimed Catholic ministry admitting openly that they associate with people who are seeking to violate a fundamental Catholic teaching-- that of the right to life.

How pro-abort are we talking about here?

On its documentation page, the TCMFM lists a newsletter issued by the FQPN-- Quebec's version of Planned Parenthood.

The newsletter denounces the 2009 March for Life and 40 Days for Life.

And oh, by the way, the head of the TCMFM, Maryse Lefebvre, works at the local abortion clinic ("Centre de santé des femmes de la Mauricie "). She's listed as an "intervenante en sante", which so far as I can tell, is a kind of nurse or "health care worker".

Get that. A Catholic Ministry that belongs to a group headed by someone who works at an abortuary.

And note-- it appears that abortions are all they do at this centre, according to the FQPN. They don't give out contraception. The Yellow Pages Ad doesn't list any other service. Quite fascinating. It even looks like the typical US abortion clinic. Non-descript building with no signage.

I did a little bit of investigative work. I figured out that Helene Dargis is involved with the "Women's ministry" in Trois-Rivieres, and I linked her signature to an online petition opposing Bill C-484.

Clearly a pro-abort.

And what is the punchline in this whole deal?

The head of the Diocese, whose Women's ministry works with a hard-core pro-abort group, Msgr Martin Veillette, is President of the Quebec Assembly of Catholic Bishops.

(And the Quebec Assembly of Bishops has its own network of women involved in "la condition feminine. How entrenched is pro-abortionism in the Quebec Church?)

Now if he's letting a pro-abort work under him, do you suppose he is going to be thorough in making sure that no money serves the interests of any pro-abort group?

I have reason to believe this is not the case.

How are we supposed to have an authentically pro-life agenda in this Church when the foxes are in the hen house?

Is it any wonder that Development and Peace, a group rooted in Quebec, has trouble understanding what the fuss is all about?

I will also note that many of the dioceses in Quebec have these feminist ministries, but they are strangely silent about the right to life. Hmmmm...

---

UPDATE: February 22

I did a little more digging. The website of the Assembly of Quebec Bishops lists Femmes et ministères (FM) as a group they consult on issues related to ministry.

FM overtly supports women's ordination.

Not terribly orthodox, is it?

If the Quebec bishops are so overtly aligned with feminists, is it any wonder they're not terribly gung ho to take fetal rights seriously?

They're so scared of potential terrorism...

That Planned Parenthood of Western New York plans an open house.

And they want you to bring the kids!

Yes, little tikes, come and see where your unborn brothers and sisters spent their last moments on earth. What a heartwarming reception!

The abortion clinics are always trying to eliminate the stigma of abortion by attempting to smother them with syrupy feel good family values.

It doesn't work. Everyone knows you kill prenatal human beings, Planned Parenthood.

Woman Live Tweets Her Abortion

So she claims.

Yeah, that kind of PR will do a whole lot of good to the abortion movement. Just what the world wants to hear about: a public abortion.

Here's an interesting tweet:

@mrsbeaver Which is why my BF is looking into vasectomy. I was using 3 kinds of BC & got knocked up anyway! #badluck #livetweetingabortion

Now, isn't contraception supposed to prevent abortion?

But wait! It FAILS! It didn't stop THIS ABORTION.

And she has a blog too.

Bias in the media

NY Daily News:

One of the media's favorite attacks against Palin revolves around her failure to tell Katie Couric what magazines and newspapers she regularly reads. The clumsy answer was an early flash point that led many to scoff that the Alaskan governor didn't read anything at all.

But guess who doesn't read very much either? That would be John Edwards, if you believe John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's new book "Game Change." According to their reporting, when a friend inquired if John Edwards read a particular tome, his wife, Elizabeth, apparently found the idea of her husband reading laugh-out-loud funny, saying, "Oh, he doesn't read books."

Yet this impression of her husband as an anti-intellectual "hick," as Elizabeth reportedly referred to him, never became a common undercurrent during his his 2004 campaign for vice president or his later run for President.

So why did Palin get painted so quickly as a bombastic dunce and Edwards escape without such a negative characterization?

It probably has to do with the fact that most members of the media bought Edwards persona. They liked his world-view.

They believed in his claim that there were "two Americas." So they didn't dig deeper to see if there was any substance beneath his shiny surface.

Palin was never given the benefit of the doubt, in large part because the world-view to which she subscribes is anathema to the one held by so many pundits and reporters."

H/T The Politics of the Cross

Quebec: Gay Tempest in a Teapot

Quebec Olympic broadcasters Claude Mailhot and Alain Goldberg are in hot water for making comments that were deemed "homophobic" by the Quebec Council of Gays and Lesbians (Le Conseil québécois des gais et lesbiennes).

The broadcasters were commenting on American figure skater Johnny Weir.

Alain Goldberg is reported to have said on air that it would not be wrong to criticize Johnny Weir's appearance. "He is wearing lipstick. He is dressed in a feminine manner. He tries to be as feminine as possible on the ice." He then added "he has the right to be that way, the right to be what he wants." And then he said "It's unfortunate because people think that all little boys who skate will become like him, so it sets a bad example."

Then Claude Mailhot said that, to be fair, Johnny Weir should pass a gender test, like the South African runner Caster Semanya. "I'd really like to see him pass that test!"

Claude Mailhot issued an apology later on. "It seems that when we spoke about clothing yesterday, it angered some people. If you felt criticized by that, we are very sorry."

The head of the Council Steve Foster said that it wasn't enough because people who tuned in to the apology would not understand the context. And he said that it was not a matter of clothing. The figure skater's masculinity was denigrated, and it was suggested that he should compete with women and that he was a disgrace to his sport.

Foster has contacted the consortium in charge of Olympic broadcasting Canada to express his anger. His organization is also looking to put forward a complaint to the CRTC

Now I didn't view these comments on television.

But it seems to me that the part about not wanting to give the impression to little boys that all male figure skaters grow up effeminate is true. Who wants their kid to grow up looking like a freak? I think Johnny Weir looks terrible in that picture (I didn't actually watch performance). Isn't the broadcaster allowed to think that he looks weird, and to speak him mind to that effect?

The gender test remark was somewhat insensitive. But so what? Should we censor everything that's insensitive? No.

I'm not mad that Steve Foster is upset about the comments. What I'm miffed about is that this guy wants to use the instruments of the state to make these broadcasters conform to his form of thinking.

I also dislike this attempt to make people's sense of aesthetics conform to an ideology.

Whether you are gay or straight, very masculine or naturally effeminate, putting on lipstick, and trying to be effeminate (or even more so if you already are) is disgusting to me.

Some men can't help being effeminate. That's okay. It's when they try to exaggerate that femininity. It's just ugly.

Now many people consider that opinion to be homophobic because it's based on what is deemed as an essentialist view of gender.

But you can't make people like what they don't. You can't feed people manure, call it honey and expect people to like it. A lot of people (maybe most?) would not consider the feminization of men to be very attractive.

This is not about clothes. This is about trying to force people to speak a certain way, even though their minds are thinking something else in order to satisfy a political agenda.

Pope Leo: God Uses Satan's Works to Thwart Him

In Sermon 62, Pope Leo the Great says of Satan:

[H]e inflicted a punishment on the Son of God, which was turned to the healing of all the sons of men. He shed righteous Blood, which became the ransom and the drink for the world's atonement. The Lord undertook that which He chose according to the purpose of His own will. He permitted madmen to lay their wicked hands upon Him: hands which, in ministering to their own doom, were of service to the Redeemer's work. And yet so great was His loving compassion for even His murderers, that He prayed to the Father on the cross, and begged not for His own vengeance but for their forgiveness, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34) ."

Condom Overload in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, February 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The flow of medical supplies waiting to be distributed to tens of thousands of earthquake victims in Haiti was delayed for weeks by a massive supply of condoms dominating the space of the main storage facility there, an eyewitness with insider information has told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN).

(...)

However, the glut of condoms at that same warehouse delayed the massive influx of aid pouring in from around the world, according to an inside source, and may have cost lives. The source reported that shipping containers of medical supplies were unable to be unloaded, sorted and distributed since an enormous supply of condoms clogged the facility till early February, when the condoms could be removed. The condoms were estimated to take up about 70% of the space in the 17,000 sq. ft. warehouse.

Condoms and abortions. That's what it's all about for progressives. Gotta have one's priorities straight, right?

Conservative Party, you're really starting to piss me off #roft

Every so often, I receive Conservative Party propaganda. Today, I got a letter from the party. The alleged author, Senator Irving Gerstein, wrote that he got a memo from Doug Finley this morning about the urgency to raise funds.

I mean, do they think people are that stupid?

I know it's a gimmick. But it's an insulting gimmick.

And now I got this video in my mailbox.

It's banking on Olympic boosterism to make supporters feel better. And recalling the legacy of Sir John A? You have nothing better to offer, Tories?

No, I don't feel good about anything right now, as long as there's a 56 billion dollar deficit and musings of a raise in the GST. Your leader has promised to squelch any fetal rights debate, an issue near and dear to my heart.

And you expect me to jump on your bandwagon because of some supposedly feel-good video?

Do you think I am that dumb?


Govern like Liberals, and I will not send you my money. When I see a balanced budget, lower taxes, less statism and more freedom for debate on the fetal rights issue, then I will send money.

Funny headline re: Ignatieff and abortion

The CBC actually wrote about it: Catholic Register takes on Ignatieff

I'm praying that some reporter will ask him for his reaction. Will he get defensive?

H/T: ProWomanProLife

Pope Leo the Great: Living for Christ

From Sermon 59:

Let us, then, dearly-beloved, confess what the blessed teacher of the nations, the Apostle Paul, confessed, saying, "Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) ." For God's mercy towards us is the more wonderful that Christ died not for the righteous nor for the holy, but for the unrighteous and wicked; and though the nature of the Godhead could not sustain the sting of death, yet at His birth He took from us that which He might offer for us. For of old He threatened our death with the power of His death, saying by the mouth of Hosea the prophet, "O death, I will be your death, and I will be your destruction, O hell (Hosea 13:14) ." For by dying He underwent the laws of hell, but by rising again He broke them, and so destroyed the continuity of death as to make it temporal instead of eternal. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22) ." And so, dearly-beloved, let that come to pass of which S. Paul speaks, "that they that live, should henceforth not live to themselves but to Him who died for all and rose again (2 Corinthians 5:15) ." And because the old things have passed away and all things have become new, let none remain in his old carnal life, but let us all be renewed by daily progress and growth in piety. For however much a man be justified, yet so long as he remains in this life, he can always be more approved and better. And he that is not advancing is going back, and he that is gaining nothing is losing something. Let us run, then, with the steps of faith, by the works of mercy, in the love of righteousness, that keeping the day of our redemption spiritually, "not in the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:8)," we may deserve to be partakers of Christ's resurrection, Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Gay Carnival “Prince” Denied Communion by Dutch Priest

I wish there were more courageous priests like this.

Woman Who Threatened Pro-Lifers With Knife at Abortion Center Keeps Baby

Duluth, MN (LifeNews.com) -- A woman who faces assault charges after she pulled a knife on two pro-life advocates who encouraged her not to have an abortion has decided against having the planned abortion. Mechelle Tallulah Hall has pleaded guilty to second-degree assault but she has also decided to keep her baby.

(...)

The newspaper reached Hall at home afterwards and she said she has decided to have the baby and that she is happy the Winandys were present to persuade her otherwise.

"Thank you for being there," she said. "If they weren't there, I probably would have gone through with it and regretted it for the rest of my life. It probably
would have gone the other way. I'm sincerely sorry for doing that to her."

You know, the feminists think that that baby should have died if the mother had wanted it to.

The snuffing out of that fetus is of no consequence. That precious meant nothing simply because that baby was not aware of what was going on.

It's just human life after all. No more valuable than a wart, right?

And if that life had to have been sacrificed for the mom, so what?

Hannah Arendt wrote about the banalization of evil. But there's also banalization of the good in this world, of making what is good and beautiful seem ho-hum.

You can't reach hearts intent on being hard and uncaring about the unborn. They can't care. Once you start to care about the unborn, you can only start to be concerned about what is done to the unborn. The things we do to the unborn, we don't even do to animals. But that is of no consequence to feminists. As long as women as empowered, the rest is details.

Comments glitch

There was a problem with the Gay Teens thread.

Intense Debate can get wonky sometimes.

Sometimes, depending on the circumstance, it starts whole new pages for comments that don't appear on the original page. I don't know what happened in this case.

In any event, here are some of the comments that didn't appear...

Audrey II @ BIG BLUE WAVE - Teens who identify as ... 10 hours ago · 0 replies · 0 points

Why bother posting something if you're just going to delete the comments people have and redirect links to it? That seems more like the actions of a propagandist who only wants to reach his/her compatriots, not those of a blogger who wants to participate in the marketplace of ideas and have his/her arguments evaluated on their merit.



Janus @ BIG BLUE WAVE - Teens who identify as ... 1 day ago · 0 replies · 0 points

Looks to me like somebody got tired of losing this one and just decided to delete the whole thing.



lastchancetosee @ BIG BLUE WAVE - Teens who identify as ... 2 days ago · 0 replies · +1 points

More like 50. Too bad, this was an interesting discussion.


timothygmd @ BIG BLUE WAVE - Teens who identify as ... 2 days ago · 0 replies · 0 points

Not sure what happened. There were about 20 posts, and now none.








I'm not sure what to do about this.

Quote from Pope Leo the Great

Today is Ash Wednesday. For Lent, I will endeavour to read the Church Fathers every single day, so you might expect some excerpts of what I've read on this blog.

Today I read Sermon 49 of Pope Leo the Great:

It is equally dangerous not to have what we want at all, and to have it in the fullest measure. There is a trap in the fullness of riches, a trap in the straits of poverty. The one lifts us up in pride, the other incites us to complaint. Health tries us, sickness tries us, so long as the one fosters carelessness and the other sadness. There is a snare in security, a snare in fear; and it matters not whether the mind which is given over to earthly thoughts, is taken up with pleasures or with cares; for it is equally unhealthy to languish under empty delights, or to labour under racking anxiety.

Michael Ignatieff's Abortion Talk Warrants More Scrutiny

My latest from No Apologies.

If he’s going to try to promote abortion around the world, then he should be made to answer some uncomfortable questions.

$219 000 of taxmoney spent to tell us what we already know

Winnipeg Free Press:

What you may not recall is that, according to the McCain-Coburn Stimulus Checkup, the recipients included:

$219,000 to the National Institutes of Health to study whether female college students are more likely to have casual sex when they are drunk;

And I wonder-- did they study how many used contraception, got pregnant and got abortions?

Pro-Life Tebow Ad Made Its Mark

LifeNews.com:

Barna conducted a national telephone poll with 1,001 adults from February 7 through February 10, including interviews on the evening the Super Bowl ad aired.

Among those who viewed the football contest, 43% said they had seen the Tebow commercial and 9 percent were able to recall the spot without prompting.


(...)

In total, 68 percent of ad viewers understood the ad's message or came up with a related theme that fit in with the point of the Tebow commercial.

Also, half of those polled who watched the ad correctly said it was intended to influence their views on abortion.

The ad appeared to have a significant impact with 4 percent of those viewing saying it caused them to reconsider their opinions on abortion.

4 per cent doesn't sound like much, but that's several million people. We don't know if it did change people's minds, but just the fact it made people think about abortion is significant.

The Barna poll also found Americans strongly supportive of the pro-life ad with 78 percent saying they felt the commercial presented a positive message to viewers and 75 percent saying the commercial was appropriate to show during the Super Bowl.

Just 8 percent of those polled claimed that the commercial was offensive. That shows Americans did not buy into the mantra from pro-abortion groups that CBS should not have run the pro-life ad.

We're winning folks. I don't know when fetal rights will be established, but it's invevitable.

Assisted Suicide as a Feminist Issue

Not that I expect them to take it up, but note:

When you visit a retirement home you will notice that women live longer than men. Very few men live in retirement homes because men die on average 6 years earlier than women.

When one considers the dynamic that exists within society, we find that many elderly people live alone, they feel abandoned, and they have financial resources that some of their children are quietly thinking are "wasted by the elderly" that could be passed to the next generation through death.

The reality is that society is experiencing an incredible growth in elder abuse and now we will tell the elderly, mainly our mothers, - Oh by the way, you could access your "freedom", your "choice" by through euthanasia - hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

What about the person who resents their mother because she has significant needs. It doesn't matter that mom changed their dirty diapers and fed and cared for her children and often delayed a career in order to care for her children, now that she needs care it is perceived as terrible that she expects so much of us.

Often our mothers continue to want the best for us, even after we have grown up. Would it not be easy to convince them that death is preferable than living with needs. These women will feel that by agreeing to euthanasia they are doing "what is best for her children". Choice, what a joke.

I can see the feminist response to this:

Mothers should try not to care so much.

You know, instead of trying to stop people into pushing their parents to pop themselves off.

Pro-lifers are winning in the US.

Washington D.C., Feb 12, 2010 / 08:07 pm (CNA).- A pro-abortion group’s 2009 report giving a “D” grade to the United States on abortion suggests pro-life progress at the state level. The report’s description of a murdered late-term abortionist as a hero may even be a sign of desperation, pro-life leaders say.

NARAL Pro-Choice America’s report, “Who Decides: The Status of Women's Reproductive Rights in the United States,” laments the decreasing number of abortion providers in the country. It claims various states enacted 29 pro-life laws but only passed 21 “pro-choice” bills.

According to the report’s analysis of governors and state legislators, states are pro-life by a 2 to 1 margin.

Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, told CNSNews.com that the report shows the failure of efforts to make abortion acceptable.

"They can't take the stigma out of abortion, even if the legality of it is protected," Fr. Pavone commented. "As a result, they face a shortage of practitioners."

I know, deep down, in my heart of hearts WE WILL WIN THIS. Someday. I don't know when. It could take twenty years, it could take a hundred.

Because abortion is completely illogical. The idea that the fetus is not a human being, and that this human being should not have legal protection is ridiculous. Consider all the mental gymnastics the pro-aborts must engage in and all the euphemisms they must rely on to distance themselves from the uncomfortable reality of abortion.

Consider how they must massacre the English language and substitute the word "pregnancy" for "fetus" when semantically that's incorrect.

Abortion kills a human being. It's as plain as day. People don't like the idea of killing innocent human beings. Feminists like to portray the availability of surgical abortion as a step forward; but in fact it was a step back. It harkens to antiquity, when infanticide was routinely practiced without a second thought. Killing small human beings was not a big deal-- after all, those children were the dad's property.

That's the same attitude feminists have today about these small human beings: killing them is no big deal. No one owes them anything. My body, my choice means my offspring is not my responsibility if I choose. Isn't feminist empowerment so heartwarming? Abortion gives a mom the power to keep a job, finish her education, keep a man-- and if another human being has to die to keep that woman in the rat race or guarantee her economic survival, what's that to her? It's just a little human being, nothing special about that. Her existence, her freedom, her empowerment, her aspirations "trumps" that little baby's life. So tough luck baby! You're smaller, less developed, less visible and less powerful. So you must be sacrificed for the mom's wants.

People can see through the feminist rhetoric. Feminism always pushes the fetus outside the picture. Pro-lifers try to see things from both sides. That's why pro-lifers will win. Feminism cannot resolve the thorny issue of the fetus except to pretend that there is no issue.

Teens who identify as gay more likely to commit suicide

The study found no increased suicide risk in teens who saw themselves as heterosexual, average age 16, regardless whether they reported same-sex attraction, fantasy or behaviour. But when kids identified themselves as GLB, then their risk for suicide attempts went up -- 2.2 times higher than heterosexuals.

And no, I'm not going to change my beliefs about homosexual behaviour just to make some kids feel better. If a person attributes their depression to society's disapproval of their behaviour, this is the problem. You don't need to have people like what you're doing to be happy.

I'm Catholic and a pro-life activist. A lot of people disapprove of what I do, and I don't care.

Columnist calls for forced sterilization of mothers of FAS children

It amazes me that there are doctors who think this is okay!

Dr. Gifford Jones writes in the Kingston Whig-Standard:

To me, good sense dictates that women who repeatedly drink to excess during pregnancy should be sterilized to end this medical and social tragedy. I've read tons of reports from organizations associated with this problem. Not a single one has suggested legislation to sterilize repeat offenders.

Many argue that individual rights prevent sterilization of these women. But surely there must be legislators who believe that an innocent fetus has more rights that an alcohol-sodden mother. For babies' sake, legislation should end this tragedy.

More The-ends-justifies-the-means thinking.

Well, what if you keep giving birth to, say, autistic children, or children with cystic fibrosis?

These lives are "destroyed" by "repeat offenders".

It costs enormoust amounts of money to treat these children. Let's just sterilize the women!

One of the misconceptions that people have of pro-lifers is that they think that women do not have a right to their bodies.

They do. The difference between pro-lifers and non-pro-lifers is that we think that the right to a woman's body doesn't give her the right to kill an unborn child, to whom she has a responsibility.

Is a woman who drinks during pregnancy being irresponsible? Of course. Should we sterilize her?

We don't sterilize people for being irresponsible.

Like what about deadbeat dads? If you impregnante a dozen women and don't pay up, should that dad be sterilized?

Where would it end?

Unfortunately, this could catch on. We are so immersed in a culture that beleives the ends justifies the means that it seems like the logical solution. We don't care much about respecting principles-- those are just abstract ideas. We like results. We don't want any more FAS kids who have to be taken care of.

Ottawa Pro-Lifers: Sign up for the Pro-Life Vigil Campaign

On February 17th, the 40 Days for Life Campaign will be held in 156 Cities across North America (and a few places elsewhere).

But one of those cities will not be Ottawa. It was felt that the winter weather made it difficult to adequately cover all the hours round the clock.

However, a new (Catholic) Ministry born of previous campaigns, Helpers of God's Precious Infants, now regularly does sidewalk counselling in front of the abortuary. The organizers of 40 Days in Ottawa have decided to focus on giving Helpers prayer support during the days that abortions are committed, that is to say on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

So you are strongly encouraged to take advantage of this Lenten time to register to pray and witness in front of the clinic.

We have to be there for prayer support folks. Please sign up!

Legal Abortion: Not necessary for a reduction in maternal mortality rates

According to a recent study on maternal mortality in Chile:

According Dr. Elard Koch, an epidemiologist on the faculty of medicine at the University of Chile, Chile's promotion of "safe pregnancy" measures such as "prenatal detection" and accessibility to professional birth attendants in a hospital setting are primarily responsible for the decrease in maternal mortality. The maternal mortality rate declined from 275 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1960 to 18.7 deaths in 2000, the largest reduction in any Latin country.

The reason?

According to Dr. Koch, "From 1960 onwards, there has been a breakthrough in the public health system and primary care" in Chile, with resources devoted to the development of "highly trained personnel, the construction of many primary health centers and the increase of schooling of the population.” Education appeared to be a primary factor in the country’s improved maternal health. Chile today touts a maternal health record comparable to those of developed nations.

Ignatieff's abortion stance DID NOT HELP HIM in latest poll

Results of the latest Ekos poll, as per this Reuters article:

Conservatives 31.0%
Liberals 29.0%
New Democrats 15.5%
Bloc Quebecois 10.3%
Greens 11.3 %

Ignatieff's abortion stance did NOTHING for him. In fact, it's very possible that his re-opening of the abortion debate alienated people from BOTH sides of the abortion divide.

Thanks Iggy!

As I said, it's not about maternal mortality

Joyce Arthur is just so upset about the fact that people say maternal mortality is not about abortion.

When one in eight pregnancy-related deaths is due to unsafe abortion, and seven women die every hour from an unsafe abortion, and most of their existing children die from lack of a mother, then abortion obviously has a hell of a lot to do with saving the lives of mothers and children in the developing world. Anyone who believes otherwise is either inexcusably ignorant about these deaths, or indifferent to them.

Well, why do women have abortions?

Because they are malnourished, sick, have no rights, and so forth.

But if they were well nourished, healthy and had rights, then they wouldn't feel the need for abortion.

And in the end, the reality is this:

If you don't want to die of abortion.

Then don't have one!

Watch her twist that sense of responsibility into some kind of accusation of misogyny. Women are just as intelligent and responsible as men. Except when they're not.

Oh wait, sorry, I see that Flanagan thinks we’re going to “start killing unborn babies” – which means he has no idea that abortion is already rampant in developing countries,

They're rampant in developing countries, but mostly illegal. But to Joyce Arthut, national sovereignty is just a petty thing after all. Canadians have a self-given right to push abortion on countries that don't want it.

Here's a rhetorical gem:

What’s astonishing is the Archbishop’s zero concern for women who die from unsafe abortion, the probable sorry fate that then awaits their existing children

Because everyone who opposes abortion cannot possibly care about women. It's so nice when you insist on seeing the world in (dare I say it?) black and white like that. That's worthy of a, uh, fundamentalist.

When confronted with the reality of the scourge of unsafe, illegal abortion, anti-choice people have an unfortunate habit of either placing their heads firmly in the sand, or foolishly disputing the numbers.

Women have abortions for a variety of reasons.

The point is that it is entirely within their power not to die of an illegal abortion.

Don't have one.


If poverty is the issue, address the poverty.

If health is the issue, address health.

If relationships are the issue, address relationships.

But it's not about poverty, health or relationships for feminists.

It's about abortion, period.

They give all kinds of reasons for it, to argue in favour.

Those reasons do not matter in the end.

The bottom line for feminists is that a woman should be able to have an abortion under any circumstance for any reason at all. Or none. On demand. Up to birth. No questions asked.

This whole maternal mortality thing is a false debate. It's a proxy war. Pro-lifers and allied pro-choicers are trying to improve maternal mortality by means that are universallly non-objectionable.

Joyce Arthur and her ilk are using this as a political staging ground to push their fetus-killing ways.

Killing babies to save mothers. That makes sense to them.

Maybe a burqa ban isn't such a bad idea...

An Arab ambassador said he decided to call off his wedding immediately after he discovered that his wife-to-be, who wears a niqab, was bearded and cross-eyed.

H/T Foolocracy

(And no, I'm not in favour of a burqa ban, but this does show the hazards!)

Abortion Not Part of Harper's Maternal Health Initiative: Conservative MP

Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), told LifeSiteNews that although Prime Minister Harper has consistently backed away from the abortion issue, his refusal to accommodate the promotion of abortion in his maternal health plan is a positive step.

Okay, I'm cynical. I bet Harper has an ace up his sleeve just in case the abortion issue gets too hot to handle. He has an abortion initiative sitting in Bev Oda's drawer waiting to be pulled out at a moment's notice.

Queen's Alive Tells is Like it Is on Leftist Verbal Inflation

Queen's Alive is the pro-life group at Queen's University. Its latest blogpost addresses the situation of the pro-life group at the University of Victoria:

Unless pro-lifers at UVic are chasing down pro-choicers, following them home, making obnoxious phone calls, or spamming their in-boxes, only a liar or an ignoramus could accuse them of harassment. Simply because you've seen a poster you don't like doesn't mean you've been harassed; what an astonishingly privileged world these people live in, when they believe their rights are being violated if they see or hear something with which they disagree!

Pro-choicers, listen carefully: human beings have rights, and we won't stop defending those rights because it makes you upset. If you don't like what we have to say, suck it up and oppose us in the realm of ideas; invite pro-choice speakers, put up posters, and present your argument intelligently.

I love their panache. It makes me think of a personal theme song of mine:

Eye of the Tiger
It's the thrill of the fight
rising up to the challenge of our rival.

Oh yeah, baby! Eye of the Tiger! :)

Feminist Sexism

Antonia Zebisias takes David Warren to task for his column opposing the idea of using abortion to improve maternal and child mortality rates.

David Warren writes:

I have before me a packet of cigarettes with a Health Canada message in capital letters that reads: "Cigarettes hurt babies." The text underneath this begins, "Tobacco use during pregnancy reduces the growth of babies." Since an accompanying photograph further shows a pregnant woman smoking, it was unnecessary to specify "unborn." Similarly, when we are discussing abortion, it is unnecessary to specify that the babies in question are "unborn."

To which Antonia replies:

Ah yes. Legal definitions by cigarette packet. As if the definition of personhood wasn't already settled in Canada.

She completely misses the point. Which is this:

Indeed, the refusal to use plain language, the substitution of euphemisms and rhetorical evasions, is an infallible indicator that a speaker or writer feels uncomfortable with the truth.

The government of Canada, which supposedly has settled the issue of the personhood of the unborn child (it has not!) uses its power to warn women against harming their (unborn) baby.

There is a lot of pretense when it comes to issues surrounding the unborn. Joyce Arthur says that society will never come to a consensus, i.e. that there can never be a consensus surrounding fetal personhood, therefore it shouldn't be settled (which is the case right now in Canada).

Antonia says the issue is settled.

I wish the poor choicers would get their story straight!

It's actually not settled. The Supreme Court referred the issue back to Parliament. But Parliament never acted on the issue of fetal personhood. There was a bill regulating abortion. But that's not quite the same thing.

Antonia Zerbisias and her like-minded allies are afraid to speak plainly the truth: that abortion kills a prenatal human being, and that this killing of a prenatal human being is supposed to be a means of reducing maternal mortality.

Well, that's the subterfuge. Feminists don't really support abortion as a means to save women from childbirth. After all, childbirth has been rendered pretty safe in this day and age.

They just want abortion, period. Regardless of whether it reduces maternal mortality or not.

David Warren is correct: Feminists skate around the issue. It's not about the unborn for them. It's an uncomfortable issue. Killing for the sake of female emancipation. Kind of touchy. Best to focus on "women controlling their own bodies." The ends justifies the means. Antonia never comes out and say it: even if a human being must die, so what?

Quite apart from the fact Warren will never get pregnant, never experience morning sickness, bladder pressure, swollen feet and weight gain, back pain, sleeplessness plus the feeling of being ripped apart by a watermelon at delivery, which, as we all know, is just like "sitting inside a car,'' isn't it special that he thinks that a fetus could survive on its own from the time of conception? That it need not be implanted in a uterus to develop? That it need not feed through an umbilical cord?

Tired old rhetoric. Since I have had three pregnancies and am still of child bearing age, it falls upon me to shore up the authority of David Warren's statement:

What David Warren said was true. So there.

But of course, a leftist would object to me for some other reason. I'm too privileged. Then I could find a poor single mother to agree to David Warren's message. A leftist would find some objection with her, too. She's not in a crisis situation. We could find a poor single mom in a crisis situation to agree to that statement, and the leftist would STILL find something objectionable...

See, among leftists, when people speak ideas that they do not agree with, they look to the characteristics of the messenger to find something objectionable to dismiss the statement. It's a kind of fallacy. David Warren could never be pregnant, so automatically, that statement is self-serving. He could never suffer the effects of his beliefs, so it must not be true.

Of course anyone with two brain cells realizes that that's bunk. But it's all about, power, identity and results for the left. The substance of a belief is far less important to them than the one who speaks it and the end result in their ongoing identity politics crusade.

Of course, she might also say: it's not true, therefore, the automatic explanation is that he's using self-serving rhetoric to keep women down.

Leftists always doubt the motives of those they oppose; because opposition to their "obviously" sensible beliefs must be explained somehow. It can't just be a question of disagreement. As in the days of the Inquisition, dissent must be due to some willful disbelief against the "obvious".

But it's the metaphor simile that grates. It merely reinforces the notion that these men -- since most of them are men -- who are always railing about how abortion is murder, never think of pregnant women as anything more than a vessel for the fetal payload.

What about women who rail that abortion is murder?

I consider myself much more than a "vessel" for fetal payload.

It's precisely the fact that I am a thoughtful, mindful, responsible human being that I should be responsible for another human life. Women ARE equal to men. That's why they should be both equally responsible for preserving the lives of unborn children.

Now why can't a man think that?

It has nothing to do with his identity. It has everything to do with the substance of the belief.

Which she never addresses. It's all about gender conflict. He's the big bad man with an idea she doesn't like, so her response is to condemn his statement based on his gender, not on its merits.

Sexism, anyone?

The Catholic Church Can't Buy PR Like That

Yesterday, the Oprah Winfrey show featured a report by Lisa Ling on REAL nuns living in a convent outside of Detroit.

The average age of the sisters was 26.

They looked happy to be there.

They were not old, boring and dying. They were quite alive.

I'm thrilled that Catholic women will see this and may consider a vocation as a nun. The Church couldn't have done a better job.

What I like about their stories is how they highlight that their worldly success didn't give them any satisfaction. These women are really liberated.

Catholic Writers Conference Online

Writers, editors, agents, and other publishing professionals from around the world are gearing up for the third annual Catholic Writers' Conference Online, which will be held February 26-March 5, 2010. Sponsored by the Catholic Writer's Guild, the online conference is free of charge and open to writers of all levels who register before February 15, 2010.

Website here

H/T.

They don't hear themselves talk sometimes

Peggy Cooke at Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome comments on one of the clients at her clinic:

One woman who had been harrassed on her way in stopped to talk to me as she was leaving. She wanted to know who she could write to about the abysmal situation in New Brunswick, so I wrote out a contact list for her - the premier, the minister of justice, the minister of health, the local paper, etc. She is a single mother of FIVE CHILDREN.

Okay, many people are too afraid to ask, so I'm going to ask it:

With the same man?

*Duck*

Now, I believe that every woman, regardless of her situation, has the right to make decisions about her body,

Let's see. What is it about the woman's parenting of five children that makes her have to re-affirm her decision to bear them all? It makes you wonder.

but if I had to hand out abortions on a merit basis, this woman would be right up there. I can't imagine raising five children on my own, and then being faced with another pregnancy. Yikes.

So, which of her kids should have been aborted?

And of course, you wonder if she actually decided to have one. She doesn't say.

Abortion takes a human life. Abortionist says so

IamDrTiller.com is a website that seeks to de-stigmatize the abortion trade.

By allowing them to remain completely anonymous. Yeah, that'll work! They're so proud of what they do,they won't stand by their stories.


"Dr Tiller" from Fayetteville Arkansas says:

No one, neither the patient receiving an abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at anytime, unaware that they are ending a life. We just don’t believe that a developing embryo or fetus, whose mother cannot or will not accept it, has the same moral claims on us, claims to autonomy and justice, that an adolescent or adult woman has.

So the mom (or doctor!) has NO RESPONSIBILITY towards protecting that human life?

Not the same moral claims? That's called discrimination.

Some human beings are more equal than others!

But hey, as long at the woman's personal autonomy isn't affected, who cares if another human being isn't taken care of and must die, right? How dare that prenatal human being inhabit her uterus! (As if it were his actions that put him there.)

And he uses the Bible to justify his calling:

Like multitudes before me and, I trust, multitudes to come, I eventually heard (Try as I might to avoid hearing it!) in that mother’s grief-filled declaration, “Oh God, Doctor, I was hoping it was cancer”, a still, small voice asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” to which I was at last compelled to reply, “here am I, send me

Here I am, Lord is ringing in my ears.

Hey, haven't you ever heard that even the devil quotes Scripture?

I suppose he doesn't understand that the Unborn Christ was Lord of the Universe, equally God and Man in the womb. I'm sure he wouldn't let such truths get in the way of his abortion ideology.

Dutch Euthanasia Society promoting euthanasia for people who are “tired of life”

Eugéne Sutorius, a leader of NVVE, a euthanasia lobby group in the Netherlands, is leading a new group of academics who are demanding the legalization of euthanasia for people who are not suffering or terminally ill but “tired of life.”

The group has launched a petition campaign whereby the hope to gather 40,000 signatures which is enough to have the issue debated in the Dutch parliament based on their citizens initiative legislation.

(...)


The petition is asking the Dutch legislature to approve euthanasia for people who are over the age of 70 and “tired of life.”

Yeah, don't treat your depression, change your thinking, find new values, volunteer, take up a sport, or do a host of things that could improve your mental health.

Just kill yourself!

And the liberals will be all over this, because autonomy is all that matters. Not In their minds: if they want the fast-food solution to their life's problems, well darn it, that's their business. After all, cheap compassion is easier than actually helping them.

Fetal Rights Court Victory in India!

NEW DELHI, February 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Delhi High Court has ruled that an unborn child can be considered equivalent to a minor child and has directed an insurance company to pay compensation of 250,000 rupees (about $5750 Canadian) to a man who lost his pregnant wife in a road accident a year and half ago.

(...)

"This court holds that an unborn child — aged five months onwards in the mother’s womb till its birth — is treated as equal to a child ... the fetus is another life in a woman and loss of the fetus is actually loss of a child in the offing," Justice Midha stated.

Yahoo! But of course Canadian feminists would promote the discriminatory idea that a fetus is not a human being in this case.

Being pro-life is not just about defending an idea

It's about defending people.

So often in the pro-life movement, we think of a faceless mass of ‘The Unborn’. They are some nameless entity that we feel it is our religious, moral, or civil duty to protect. Just this year, a friend’s sister-in-law lost her baby at 8 months of pregnancy. When the baby was delivered, she was physically perfect, but was strangled by her umbilical cord, a move none of the doctors could have predicted. Despite my pro-life convictions, I find that I have been moved 100 times more for the death of this child, through an unavoidable accident, than I have ever been for an aborted child.

An abortion is not the result of medical condition, an accident, or a tragedy. It is result of a society that has degraded the position of the unborn to such an extent that we don’t even stop to grieve their absence.

As pro-life supporters, we need to be conscious that we are not supporting some ‘idea’ or ‘collective’ – we are representing individual children, who become adults. They are endued with gifts and abilities that we haven’t had the opportunity to experience. For every child aborted, we should look with sadness and regret at someone who never had the opportunity to be. Just as we wonder what Emily would have pursued after high school, how Travis could have protected the disenfranchised, what that tiny baby’s first words would have been, so too we wonder what sex each of those children would have been, what colour their eyes would have been, what their names and occupations and gifts and talents could have been.

Abortion is a tragedy. It should never just be a statistic.

Every so often, when I consider the meaning of abortion, I break down and cry. You just have to. Otherwise you don't get it.

Doctors Warn Against the Womb Box

Grabbing a microphone, the couple take turns speaking to their fetus about their plans to decorate the nursery.

“It’s fun and exciting to think that by using this [high-tech device] that our baby can actually hear us,” says Savage, 34. “Obviously we know the baby can’t understand us, but it makes us feel like we’re getting a jump-start on the bonding process. Without a sound system, our words might be muffled.”

The Savages are among a growing number of New York parents hoping to build a stronger auditory connection with their unborn babies. A new wave of “womb boxes” — devices that amplify noises in the uterus — has recently flooded the market, including the Ritmo Advanced Pregnancy Sound System ($129.99), which launched two months ago. The Ritmo, a Velcro belt with speakers for an MP3 player, attaches to a mother’s waist and allows her to shop, clean, even dance while her kid listens to the latest Top 40.


(...)

But doctors are now warning against the potential hazards of a mother turning her womb into a boom-boom room. “This could be a hindrance to a baby’s sleep cycle,” says Dr. David Cabbad, a pediatrician at the Brooklyn Hospital Center.

(...)

In fact, the womb is actually a loud, chaotic environment that doesn’t need additional noise, doctors say. And because fetuses are asleep 90 percent of the time, sudden bursts of music could wake them up and potentially disturb their development.

Source

Somebody should do some research on that. If the unborn can listen and absorb music, it would help further the idea that they are human, too.

Link Love

I'm just giddy all over.

Dave Barry linked to my blogpost on the unfinished Giant Banana Art project that cost Canadian and Quebec taxpayers a grand total of $130 000.

Let me bask in the linklanche: Ahhhhhhh.

And sometimes it's not just the number of visitors, but the quality of the publicity that matters. :)

No slippery slope whatsoever

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A Russian journalist has sparked furor by suggesting that newborn children who are mentally disabled should be killed. Aleksandr Nikonov wrote an article titled "Finish Them Off, So They Don't Suffer," which called "post-natal abortion" an act of mercy.

Nikonov argues that the birth of a disabled child for many families would be an unbearable tragedy, “a hell”, and that “the killing of the newborn is in fact the same as an abortion."

Well, he got one thing right.

Unfortunately, it's his value judgement that's wrong.

Killing in the name of progress. Hm, where have we heard that before?

VIDEO: Tim Tebow Pro-Life Superbowl Ad

When I think that feminists collectively had a hissy fit over this, I can't stop laughing. It is so benign.



If the feminists had just kept their mouths shut, this would have passed under the radar and half the people watching would not have known what this was about. But thanks to feminist hysteria, more people watched this. Thanks a lot! Ha ha!

Harper: Fiscal Conservative or Debt Creator?

Pro-aborts: They're hanging themselves

SoCon or Bust:

They’re hanging themselves, and they’re even doing it in the pro-abort media. It’s absolutely delicious.

Anything that is remotely seen as pro-life – even an innocuous ad of a woman saying she was glad she made the right decision about her baby – is seen as “hate speech” by these lunatics.

Keep going pro-aborts, you’re doing a smashing job at completely smearing your own reputations and the “choice” rhetoric you’ve used for years.

And we don’t even have to say a word. We just need to sit back, enjoy the football game, and look forward to Half Time.

Stupid pro-abortion thugs who don't understand the meaning of their words

David J. A. Foster, a student blogger at the University of Victoria, reports that he has come across a petition calling for the indefinite suspension of the pro-life club Youth Protecting Youth. The petition, which was found in UVic’s students union building, goes farther than previous efforts by the University of Victoria Students’ Society to limit the club’s activities.

(...)

The petition asks the UVSS clubs council to consider a motion calling for the suspension of the group for “their repeated offensive actions.” These offensive actions, as described in a letter preceding the petition, include: use of GAP (Genocide Awareness Project) materials on campus and hosting the controversial anti-abortion activist Stephanie Gray on campus, who participated in a debate with a philosophy professor. “This is hate speech that caused harm to many people on campus, including but not limited to many women on campus who have had abortions,” the letter reads. “The images and the captions on the posters harassed women and tried to make us feel guilty about a choice that we have a right to make.”

Source

I hate this about the left.

It takes an emotionally charged phrase.

Then it makes it apply to their cause and situation.

Hate literature depicts a whole group as being evil, unworthy, inferior, disgusting, vile, not worthy of consideration or life.

An anti-abortion display is not hate literature. It says NOTHING about women as a whole.

But leftists count on the power of words, on the misattribution of a loaded buzz phrase to make their point, hoping that people forget its authentic meaning.

Posters don't harrass. Images don't harrass. Images don't make people feel guilty. That is a misattribution of intent. They make a picture mean ONLY ONE thing, and misattribute that intention.

In the grown up world outside ivory towers, that doesn't pass muster. People have all kinds of opinions on abortion. That opinion in and of itself is not "hateful".

And even if the GAP's purpose were to make a woman feel guilty for something she has a legal right to do, the fact it's a legal right doesn't mean there's no moral right to make one feel guilty! It's not harrassment to make people feel guilty. Leftists try to do it all the time. We have the right to hunt seal in this country, but leftists try to make people feel guilty about it.

Oh, and by the way...

According to everyone I’ve spoken to about the topic, GAP materials–which typically feature graphic images of abortions next to those of horrific events like the Rwandan Genocide–have never been used on UVic campus. Ever. Not by Stephanie Gray or anyone.

I hope the BCCLA goes to court. It's about time these Student Unions get their comeuppance. The Canadian Federation of Students is not a body that truly represents students. It extorts money from students and uses it to advance their ideological agenda.

Second Focus on the Family Ad on Tebow, Abortion to Air Before Super Bowl

In this second ad, Pam Tebow reportedly says "Both of our lives were at risk" when talking about her difficult pregnancy with Tim after suffering from dysentery and entering into a coma.

"They felt that was too much," Daly told USA Today. "So we dropped the line. We didn't fight them." The word "abortion" is never used.

Daly says this new ad is "an open discussion on the sanctity of human life -- not just the issue of abortion -- and he indicated it was made for less than $100,000 with "a bit of humor in it -- in fitting with the Super Bowl theme."

This second ad will reportedly air four times during the pre-game festivities and analysis before the Super Bowl begins.

Daly also told the newspaper that he appreciates those who credit Focus on the Family with supposedly creating a brilliant ploy to draw attention to the ad -- which some media experts say has received $10 million worth of pre-advertising buzz in terms of the media coverage it has received.

"I've seen this called brilliant marketing strategy," laughs Daly. "Well, I can assure you this was not something where we sat down to demonstrate brilliance."

I'm laughing, too.

The feminists have generated all this controversy and all this interest. Thanks ladies!

Pro-life is more and more mainstream in the United States. The movement to extend fetal rights is winning.

I suspect it will probably spill over into Canada.

Today's Gospel Reading

I really like 365 Days with the Lord. I've learned so much reading that blog. I like the tidbits of information it provides in relation to the Gospel reading of the day. For example, today's Gospel:

Compassion Of The Good Shepherd

Ancient Near Eastern texts traditionally depict the king as a king-shepherd who provides for the well-being of his subjects. In the Bible, Jeremiah uses this concept as a basis to rebuke the kings of Israel for their slackness in office (Jer 2:8; 10:21). The prophet then proclaims that Yahweh will give Israel new shepherds who will pasture the people with integrity (Jer 3:15). Ezekiel later takes up the theme, and also rebukes the kings and the other leaders of Israel for their neglect of the people (Ez 34:1-10). He proclaims that this time God will take the people, his flock, out of the charge of their human leaders. God declares himself the shepherd of the people (Ez 34:11-22; Ps 23; Is 40:11). The time will come, however, when God will give the people a shepherd of his own choice, another David (Ez 34:23-24).

In today’s Gospel, Mark (v 34) clearly sees Jesus’ relationship with the crowd that follow him as that of a shepherd and the sheep (cf also Mt 9:36-37). This compassionate disposition of Jesus makes him literally feed the crowd, like a shepherd feeding the sheep. Elsewhere, Jesus proclaims himself as the “Good Shepherd” who not only leads the sheep to green pastures, but also lays down his life for his flock (Jn 10).

Jesus’ words to Peter—“Feed my lambs” (Jn 21:15)—can be taken as the giving of a solemn charge to care for and to rule the community of believers in his name. Jesus, the Chief Shepherd (1 Pt 5:4), enters into a contract with Peter as a delegated caretaker. In accordance with the Semitic form of entering an agreement (Gn 23:3-20), Jesus stresses the terms of the agreement three times (Jn 21:15-17).

The apostolic tradition will later pass on this image of the shepherd who is “feeding the flock” as a metaphor for Christian leadership (1 Pt 5:1-4; Acts 20:28-29).

Love, to be true, must hurt

The Family Research Council's blog reproduced Mother Teresa's famous speech that she gave at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in 1979. She spoke the truth so simply:

It is not enough for us to say: “I love God,” but I also have to love my neighbor. St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don’t love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live? And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is not true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.

It hurt Jesus to love us. We have been created in His image for greater things, to love and to be loved. We must “put on Christ” as Scripture tells us. And so, we have been created to love as He loves us. Jesus makes Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the unwanted one, and He says, “You did it to Me.” On the last day He will say to those on His right, “whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me, and He will also say to those on His left, whatever you neglected to do for the least of these, you neglected to do it for Me.”

(...)

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

But you see, to feminists, that "hurt" is oppressive. That acceptance of personal responsability, of sacrifice, that rejection of doing what I want when I want, that's oppression. As far as they're concerned, that speech describing the true nature of love is patriarchal brainwash. Because it is a call to responsability-- for all of us-- towards the unborn child.