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| US Army to draft 20 million men by Christmas |
| 05.26.04 (3:31 pm) [edit] |
Speaking in Tony Blair's UK constituency Sedgefield, President Bush told reporters recent terror attacks have not weakened his administrations determination.
"The appeasers would have us back down to these wicked evil men but that would only lead to more bloodshed...
We must fight these people and win, and I tell you, have no doubt, wherever terror is, we will be there to fight that war on terror."
"Barbarians have struck the very heart of our interests and those of our allies...
We know they will continue to strike and we will fight them wherever they are...
If that means having troops in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, England, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, .. if it means surrounding every embassy and every HSBC bank, if it means having soldiers defending every McDonalds restaurant in the world then that is what we will do."
The speech is seen as the preamble to next weeks announcements of a huge military recruitment drive.
We have obtained leaked reports of unprecedented plans to swell the ranks of the US army and the UK army by numbers necessary to defend UK and US interests around the world.
Initial estimates of numbers of soldiers required indicate that the US will need to recruit up to 20 million men by Christmas and a further 2 million a month as long as US foreign policy continues to piss everyone off.
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| Bush and Blair to go back to UN for new vote |
| 05.26.04 (3:25 pm) [edit] |
Sources close to the White House say that President Bush will today announce a new project for a U.N. resolution on Iraq that will endorse the sovereignty of Iraq's new government and provide for U.S.-led international forces to maintain security in the country.
Discussions on the resolution are at an advanced stage, the British Foreign Office said.
Since the US went ahead invading Iraq despite the lack of backing from the United Nations, many deduced that UN backing was no longer considered of any importance by the President, but Peter Steiner political strategist and foreign policy adviser to President Bush told us that anyone who is surprised is, Missing the point.
To say that the President doesnt care about the UN would be just as ridiculous as saying that he considers the UN important, he told us.
I think the government has serious doubts as to whether they can gain UN approval for anything to do with Iraq, but the general feeling is that its worth a shot
Of course if the motion is turned down then he will just go ahead anyway. I suppose you could say that he thinks the UN is important as long as it agrees with him.
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| Taken With a Pound of Salt |
| 05.25.04 (10:56 am) [edit] |
"Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) has begun targeting swing voters and disaffected Republicans in an effort to expand the election battleground, a strategy that includes emphasizing centrist themes on the campaign trail while privately reassuring liberal constituencies he is committed to their core issues." Washington Post, May 23.
Pick your metaphor: brain freeze; foot in mouth disease; failing to engage the brain before putting mouth into gear, etc., etc. Nary a week goes by that presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry doesn't say something so addlepated that it mystifies even his most loyal supporters.
I didn't get around last week to commenting on his flip-flop-flip on abortion and Supreme Court nominees. It wasn't until I read the opening paragraph from a story that appeared in the Post Sunday that the temptation became irresistible.
What are Post writers Jim VandeHei and Dan Balz saying? Pretty much what President Bush has been saying all along about Kerry. The junior Senator will say anything in a oafish effort to find voters. This includes, but is not limited to, abandoning supposedly carved-in-stone positions--and then denying he has done anything of the sort when he somersaults back to his original position.
Please understand that no one on the face of the earth really believes that there are ANY conditions under which Kerry would nominate to the Supreme Court a justice whoâd not pledged allegiance to Roe v. Wade. Kerry not only has promised as much on numerous occasions, last year he also told a meeting of Democratic Party leaders, "I am prepared to filibuster, if necessary, any Supreme Court nominee who would turn back the clock on a woman's right to choose or the constitutional right to privacy....The test is basic -- any person who thinks it's his or her job to push an extreme political agenda rather than to interpret the law should not be a Supreme Court justice."
Yet Kerry set off a mid-size storm last Wednesday when he told Ron Fournier of the Associated Press that he might, just might, nominate an anti-Roe justice, were he to become President. (The headline to the story was, "Kerry Open to Anti-Abortion Judges.")
Here's what was asked, and Kerry's response.
"Asked if they [potential nominees] must agree with his abortion-rights views, he quickly added, 'I will not appoint somebody with a 5-4 court who's about to undo Roe v. Wade. I've said that before.'
"'But that doesn't mean that if that's not the balance of the court I wouldn't be prepared ultimately to appoint somebody to some court who has a different point of view. I voted for Judge [Antonin] Scalia.'"
Buried in the double negatives was the following too-cute-by-half suggestion: he might name an anti-Roe justice if, after doing so, the Court still maintained a majority of pro-Roe justices.
As he has campaigned, Kerry's trademark position on issues is to here today, gone tomorrow, and back here again the day after. But in this case, we didn't even have to wait until the next news cycle before Kerry was flopping on his flip. No sooner had he boasted about voting for Justice Scalia as a sign of his flexibility than Kerry said that vote had been a "mistake"!
The next day--without saying so, of course--Kerry tacitly admitted that his original venture into fair-mindedness had been a mistake. In a statement issued by his campaign, Kerry intoned, "I want to make myself clear. I believe that a woman's right to choose is a constitutional right. I will not appoint anyone to the Supreme Court who will undo that right."
Much ado about nothing? In one sense, obviously yes. Kerry's joined at the hip to the Abortion Establishment.
But, in another sense, it means a lot. Reading the Washington Post analysis, this clumsily launched trial balloon is part and parcel of an audacious strategy of reinventing himself, again, pivoting on the truism that most people donât tune into politics until just a few weeks before the election.
For instance, if having Edward Kennedy as your point man carries a lot of obvious baggage among the 90% of the population who find the man to be a viciously partisan, way out of the mainstream hack, well, just put him in cold storage for a while. Never mind that the non-partisan National Journal has concluded that you have a voting record even more liberal than Kennedy's.
If ordinary people's teeth grind when they hear what the Post described as your "bombastic sound bites," try to curb your natural urge to lecture, scold, and admonish. Never mind that you are an elitist snob who thinks you are, even on your worst day, at least four and a half times smarter than just about anyone else on the face of the planet.
If most people have trouble with you making 400% support for abortion on demand a litmus test for appointment to the nation's highest court, then suggest in a muddled mess of a sentence that there might be an occasion when an anti-Roe justice might slip through. Never mind that this is patently false and discouragingly cynical.
Kerry is counting on late-arriving interest in presidential politics and short attention spans to make it possible for him to sound middle-of-the-road on the stump while giving private assurances to the likes of NARAL and Planned Parenthood that he buys into their whole agenda. What a guy.
It's up to pro-lifers to make sure that the American people know that there's a reason NARAL's Elizabeth Cavendish said, "This is not a time where we're going to pounce on John Kerry." They shouldnât. He is their champion, just as President George W. Bush is ours.
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| Straight From the Horse's Mouth |
| 05.25.04 (10:38 am) [edit] |
Radio talk show host and author Laura Ingraham is one of the most pleasant additions to the roster of unabashed pro-life advocates in many a year. Like author Ann Coulter and columnist Michelle Malkin, Ingraham is an unspoken pro-lifer who combines real insight with laugh-out-loud humor. It makes for great radio and is enormously helpful to the cause of unborn babies.
I did not see last Tuesday's edition of "The Today Show," but I heard a lot about it on Ingraham's talk show last Friday. What transpired is very instructive because The Today Show and objective journalism are like two trains passing in the night.
We mention the background of the guest, David Brock, only because it gives context to the questions co-host Katie Couric asked of him. For those who don't know Brock, once upon a time he made a career out of eviscerating liberal Democrats.
"And then somehow," as Couric described it, "you had what might be described as an epiphany, depending on your political views where you either went to the dark side or saw the light, depending on how people view your views now." In other words, Brock now skewers conservatives.
Couric gives Brock oodles of kudos and, of course, lots of valuable exposure to his latest hit job, "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy." The thesis of the book is that the Conservative Huns have stormed the Media Castle, and, having seized control, they're now the ones "setting the agenda."
Having said all that, what attracted Ingraham's attention and (because of her) mine was something wholly unexpected coming from Couric. Couric, we should remember, is a card-carrying member of the Media Elite who routinely goes tough on pro-lifers and throws bouquets to abortion advocates.
[This is not just off-the-cuff opinating. Bernard Goldberg reminds us in his book, "Arrogance," that Couric marched with Whoopi Goldberg at a pro-abortion rally. We didn't know this until Couric interviewed Goldberg who inadvertently spilled the beans. ]
But Couric asked the following of Brock:
"What about the allegation that liberals really do kind of control the mainstream media and, and the airwaves. You dispute that notion. But most people, I think, on the street would say the media it tends, tend to be more liberal than conservative."
Brock: "Right."
Couric: "Why is that perception out there, do you think? And, and aren't most people in journalism, primarily, except for say on Fox, and in certain conservative publications, aren't they for the most part, and of course the media is, are not monolithic-"
Brock: "Sure, right."
Couric: "-but pro-choice, you know, against prayer in school, probably favor affirmative action? I mean don't you think that's, that's fairly typical? And if so is it, why isn't it fair to say that liberals, sort of, are controlling the mainstream media?"
(Thanks, again, to the Media Research Center for transcribing the back-and-forth.)
Two things: First, Brock attributed this wide-wide-widespread idea to the aforementioned "Republican Noise Machine" which supposedly invented and marketed the idea of liberal bias. This is so silly it's best just to move on.
The second is more interesting. In its analysis of the Couric/Brock exchange, the Media Research Center observed, a lot of journalists, who see no bias in any mainstream media outlet, are magically able to see bias on the Fox News Channel. Couric may be the first to recognize bias beyond FNC."
It is unimaginable in the absence of talk radio, which is very open to the pro-life perspective, and Fox News, by far the dominant cable news channel, that Couric would have even broached the idea that most people feel the media is tilted to the Left. Competitive pressures and an insistence that the "mainstream media" is wildly out of touch with mainstream America IS having an effect.
To a lesser degree and for different reasons, NRLC is also affecting the media. In the process, the Movement has been the beneficiary of a fairer, more accurate picture of the abortion controversy. To take one example, brick by brick, NRLC singlehandedly dismantled the fortress of pro-abortion myths about partial-birth abortion, a citadel of disinformation created by the Abortion Establishment and fecklessly defended by the Establishment Press.
That doesn't mean that the litany of distortions, omissions, and gross misrepresentations are extirpated, that they won't ever again rear their ugly heads. It DOES mean, however, that it'll be far more difficult to get away the usual passel of lies and misrepresentations. When the cycle of repeats itself, pro-lifers can quickly go to www.nrlc.org and combat the lies by downloading the truth.
So, thank you Laura Ingraham. And, two cheers (I never thought I'd ever say that!) for Katie Couric.
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| Anti-Life Counteroffensive |
| 05.24.04 (5:04 am) [edit] |
To anyone who follows the inter-and intra-mural battles within and between various religious communities over medical ethics, it comes as absolutely no surprise that there has been a ferocious counteroffensive launched against the Pope's recent powerful statement that it is "morally obligatory" to feed patients diagnosed to be in a "persistent vegetative state."
(See June NRL News, page one, and TN&V at http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_... for full details.)
Since I am conversant with only a small segment of a vast literature, I am trying to be careful not to overgeneralize. But it is fair, I believe, to categorize in the manner that follows at least some of the criticism leveled against Pope John Paul's remarks to the International Congress on "Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas" held in Rome in March.
But in order to critique the critiquers, we need a very quick overview of what the Pope said. Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition wrote that Pope John Paul established two very important precedents by making this address on March 20.
"First, the pope effectively reinforced the human nature of all persons, no matter their state in life. He especially reinforced the humanity of people in a vegetative state..."
'Second, the pope stated that people in a vegetative state have the right to receive basic health care which includes nutrition and hydration. "
Therefore, Pope John Paul II makes it clear that to withhold or withdraw food and fluids from a person in a vegetative state who is not otherwise dying is euthanasia."
Critics have since stated (or broadly hinted) that the Pope either didn't really understand what he had said, was 'revising' traditional Catholic teaching, didn't appreciate the impact of his words 'in the real world,' or had been misunderstood!
(Before going any further, it's important to appreciate that the Pope was not breaking new ground.
His remarks were wholly consistent with the 1992 U.S. Bishops' Committee for Pro-Life Activities resource paper titled "Nutrition and Hydration: Moral and Pastoral Reflections," which recommended a strong presumption in favor of assisted feeding for patients in a PVS.)
As shown by the subtlety and breadth of Pope John Paul's remarks, intimations that he wasn't up to speed are blatantly false.
The Pope clearly is familiar with the latest science on PVS and with the heartbreak associated when patients lapse into a PVS. When critics offer a laundry list of 'shortcomings' attributed to the Pope (or to those who 'misread' him to be taking a strong pro-feeding stance), it's merely to mask their real objection.
Those who disagree with him are disappointed/angry because he is showing a preferential option to feed the vulnerable, with which some critics completely disagree. Moreover, it is very bad news for those who are adamant that it is acceptable to starve and dehydrate patients with radically diminished cognitive capacities when a man of the Pope's moral stature speaks out so explicitly.
Indeed, they know that one of the reasons they've able to succeed is that, previous to the Pope's address, there had been 'lack of clear and unambiguous guidance at the level of Church teaching,' as we wrote in the April NRL News.
This gap embolden many in Catholic theological circles to follow their own instincts--to counsel withdrawing all protection from PVS patients. Their argument goes something like this.
Patients in a PVS are in a 'terminal' condition, and it requires special justification to intervene to stop the 'natural dying process.' As Richard Doerflinger put it in his story for NRL News, 'By this account, simply sustaining life in a state of unawareness is not beneficial, because it maintains only a 'biological existence' that cannot pursue the higher 'spiritual purposes' to which earthly life is directed. Once a vegetative state is diagnosed as âpersistentâ and therefore unlikely to change, says this theory, there should be a presumption against assisted feeding. The ensuing death by dehydration is not euthanasia but only a natural death, resulting from the patient's inability to take food normally.â
The Pope took a dramatically different stance towards patients in a PVS. Because they had so much invested in their conclusion that it was morally acceptable to withdraw feeding, it's hardly shocking that there have been many âcreativeâ attempts to get around the Pontiffâs remarks.
In issues of protecting vulnerable life, when what's offered is making an already bad situation worse, typically that next step down the slippery slope is steeped in disguise and deception. That was true with abortion [from "hard cases" to abortion on demand]. And it's equally true with euthanasia.
But sometimes proponents of lethally pushing the envelope are pretty straightforward. Let me explain by first referring back to yesterday's edition.
The major conclusion was a simple one. Angered by the Pope's recent statement that it's "morally obligatory" to feed and hydrate patients in a so-called persistent vegetative state (PVS), critics have used a variety of stratagems to intimate either that he's not up to speed on the issue, is missing the boat entirely, or has been "misread" by those who believe that food and fluids are not "treatment," but examples of minimal care.
But as we have discussed many times, we knew PVS patients would only be the first target. If whether we feed is graded on a curve, and a certain cognitive capacity is required, then potentially millions of Americans would be in harmâs way.
This assault is not new. The offensive against people with, say, Alzheimer's has been gathering steam for years. It is now reaching the popular press more often, as a recent letter to the editor to America magazine and an article in the New York Times illustrate.
The magazine had run one of the more sophisticated attacks on Pope John Paul's message in its April 19 edition titled, "Must We Preserve Life?â The letter did the authors' argument one better (actually, one worse).
The letter writer was upset, not by the article's insistence that it's morally licit to withhold food and fluids. She was angered by a quote from the New Jersey Catholic Conference, included in the article. The conference wrote in 1987, "Today food and nutrition is withdrawn from someone in a persistent comatose state: tomorrow such care is withdrawn from someone suffering from Alzheimer's disease."
We learn that she is the executive director of a facility that "cares only for people with Alzheimer's disease and other dementing [!] illnesses." (Interesting choice of language, isn't it?)
Now nobody would disagree that end-stage Alzheimer's is devastating and very difficult on the family. What's scary in her letter is how effortlessly she segues from PVS to Alzheimer's (and, one might speculate, other "dementing illnesses"). By the time she finishes her letter, there is no essential difference between the two.
The condition of Alzheimer patients as they worsen mimics, in her view, the "normal dying process." Alluding to the Pope's remarks, she angrily writes, "Now we are being told that allowing these persons to progress to a dignified death must be stopped and we must insert tubes to keep them alive?"
Let me make a few comments. First, the economic costs of inserting a feeding tube are minimal. Those who do not want the patient fed this way complain about the ensuing costs: the patient must be cared for because she remains alive!
Second, when the quality-of-life arguments first began in earnest, the wedge used was how wrong it'd be to employ "high tech" care. Feeding someone by tube is about as "low tech" as it gets.
Third, many patients are already "terminally sedated." As a critic of this practice, Barbara A. Olevitch, Ph.D., explains, patients who are terminally sedated have "their mouths moistened" or are "given small amounts of liquid, dosed exactly to alleviate symptoms of thirst without meeting requirements for continued survival." They are also sedated..
Fourth, fortunately, there still is resistance to accepting that it's okay to starve a helpless woman or man to death. "There are people in my field who have legitimate concerns that we might be too eager to pull the plug," Dr. Christine Cassel, an expert in geriatrics, ethics, and end-of-life care and president and chief executive of the American Board of Internal Medicine, recently told the New York Times. "Just because someone has Alzheimer's disease doesn't mean their life has no value."
Fifth, and finally, the range of patients "eligible" to be starved and dehydrated to death has very broad parameters. It is by no means confined to the hardest of the hard cases--PVS patients and end-stage Alzheimer's patients.
Swept up are the "pleasantly senile," those with mental retardation, and those who are mentally ill. In fact there are moves afoot to deny treatment and to starve ANY patient whose judgment and ability to communicate are judged sufficiently impaired that she cannot competently speak for herself.
It is no accident that such thinking is first cousin to the mentality that undergirds assisted suicide. Let me conclude with this from a review of Wesley Smith's book "Forced Exit," which appeared in the magazine "First Things":
"Assisted suicide, Smith says, is only the opening wedge of an argument that will inexorably lead to involuntary euthanasia. Once it becomes licit for doctors to end their patients' lives for compassionate reasons in the case of terminal illness, what will stop that same compassion from administering death to those who, although not terminally ill, are suffering from intractable pain?
If there is in fact a constitutional right to die, how can it be denied to those who are comatose? And if deliverance by death is thought to be an appropriate beneficence for the senile elderly, why is it not equally appropriate for medically compromised children who face a lifetime of pain and debilitation? Indeed, why must one be a 'patient' at all? Why shouldn't all the arguments apply with equal force to those who are not ill, but have nevertheless been reduced by the vicissitudes of life to the point where they simply no longer wish to live?"
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| Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act |
| 05.24.04 (5:02 am) [edit] |
WASHINGTON -- On May 20, 2004, Senator Sam Brownback (R-Ks.) and Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ introduced a major new pro-life initiative, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (S. 2466, H.R. 4420).
"There are numerous laws to prevent cruelty to domestic and wild animals, but no law to prevent well-developed unborn children from suffering excruciating pain as they are torn limb from limb or crushed during abortions," said Douglas Johnson, who joined Brownback and Smith at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol announcing the introduction of the bill.
This bill would require every abortionist to provide, whenever a woman seeks an abortion past 20 weeks after fertilization, specified information about the capacity of her unborn child to experience pain during the abortion, after which the woman must either accept or refuse (by signing a form) the administration of pain-reducing drugs directly to the unborn child. The bill would apply to all abortions past 20 weeks, regardless of the method used.
The pain caused by the partial-birth method has been the subject of testimony during the ongoing trial before a federal judge in New York regarding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. For example, the Associated Press dispatch reported on April 7: "A type of abortion banned under a new federal law would cause 'severe and excruciating' pain to 20-week-old fetuses, a medical expert testified yesterday ⌠'I believe the fetus is conscious,' said Dr. Kanwaljeet 'Sonny' Anand, a pediatrician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. ⌠Anand said yesterday that fetuses show increased heart rate, blood flow, and hormone levels in response to pain. 'The physiological responses have been very clearly studied,' he said. 'The fetus cannot talk . . . so this is the best evidence we can get.'"
The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act contains a number of proposed congressional "findings" regarding the scientific evidence that unborn children would experience great pain during abortions at 20 weeks (and perhaps earlier). The findings also cite a number of existing federal laws that seek to diminish the suffering even of animals, such as restrictions on how livestock are slaughtered and restrictions on the use of animals in medical research.
In a Zogby poll conducted last month, the public supported "laws requiring that women who are 20 weeks or more along in their pregnancy be given information about fetal pain before having an abortion" by a 77-16 percent margin.
ACTION REQUESTED: Go to the NRLC Legislative Action Center, http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/ho... to send e-mails to your lawmakers, urging them to cosponsor the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. For those senators and representatives who are already listed as cosponsors, you can send already-prepared e-mails thanking them for their support for this important new pro-life initiative.
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| Blackmun's Crusade |
| 05.20.04 (5:16 am) [edit] |
The Blackmun Papers
Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
With Dr. Paul Schenck
The late Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the author of Roe V. Wade, left instructions that his entire private file,
consisting of more than 1500 boxes and 500,000 items spanning more than 60 years be made available to the public on the
fifth anniversary of his death. When that occurred in late March 2004, a relatively small number of lawyers, journalists and
researchers requested permission to review the files at the Madison Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
Priests for Life reviewed the contents of the entire file. Our pastoral
associate, Dr. Paul Schenck, personally read hundreds of
pages of Blackmun's notes, observations, draft opinions, memos from his staff, clerks and lawyers, and correspondence with
his friends, colleagues and the public.
What emerged was a dramatic portrait of a man on a mission. In an oral history given to one of his former clerks in the summer of 1995, Blackmun began revealing his true motives behind Roe V. Wade. In one telling sentence he says, "I think it (Roe) was right in 1973, I think it is right today. It's a step that had to be taken as we go down the road toward the full emancipation of women."
He then added, quoting Ambassador Sol Linowitz, "Do you want to be just another Supreme Court justice and be there for ten or fifteen years, write a few opinions and be forgotten, or do you want to be remembered?"
This was the first hint that Blackmun began with the idea that abortion had to become legal, and that he would play an
important role in bringing that about. What the Blackmun papers show is that the highly controversial finding of Roe v. Wade
was not the product of unbiased legal reasoning, but one man's crusade to make abortion abundantly available in the US.
In a personal history dictated shortly before he died, Blackmun observed that he was up against "The ancient attitudes of...
the Roman Catholic Church," and the Mormon Church, the Missouri Synod Lutherans, conservative Protestants, and most of the so-called Born Again Christians.
Attorneys, historians, and Constitutional scholars on both sides of the
abortion controversy admit that Roe was poorly reasoned. That's what happens when the focus is on an anti-religious crusade for social change rather than on Constitutional reasoning. ...
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| NO COMMUNION FOR PRO-ABORTION / HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE VOTERS |
| 05.14.04 (2:39 pm) [edit] |
A LETTER FROM BISHOP MICHAEL SHERIDAN OF COLORADO SPRINGS: NO COMMUNION FOR PRO-ABORTION / HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE VOTERS
A PASTORAL LETTER TO THE CATHOLIC FAITHFUL OF THE DIOCESE OF COLORADO SPRINGS ON THE DUTIES OF CATHOLIC POLITICIANS AND VOTERS
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
This coming November we Americans will participate in one of the most important national elections in recent history. The president, senators and congressmen who are placed in office by our votes will serve at a time in which issues that are critical to the very survival of our civilization will be at the top of the political agenda. As we prepare for these elections I consider it my duty as your bishop to write to you about these matters so that you might go to the polls this fall with a well informed conscience.
The Church teaches that man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. (1) Often we hear people claim that they are making decisions in accord with conscience even when those decisions defy the natural law and the revealed teachings of Jesus Christ. This is because of a widespread misunderstanding of the very meaning of conscience. For many, conscience is no more than personal preference or even a vague sense or feeling that something is right or wrong, often based on information drawn from sources that have nothing to do with the law of God.
The right judgment of conscience is not a matter of personal preference nor has it anything to do with feelings. It has only to do with objective truth. Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings. (2) All people have a grave obligation to form their consciences by adhering to the truth, precisely as that truth is found in the natural law and in the revelation of God. As Catholics we have the further obligation to give assent to the doctrinal and moral teachings of the Church because to the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls. (3) In other words, as people who profess the Catholic faith, we must have the mind of Christ in every judgment and act.
Among the many distortions and misrepresentations that prevail in the current debates about the relationship between religion and the social order (politics) is the assertion that faith and politics are to be kept separated. This, apparently, is based upon the American doctrine of the separation of church and state. In fact, the wall that separates church and state is the safeguard against both the establishment of a state religion and the imposition of sectarian religious beliefs and practices, such as particular denominational forms of worship or theological tenets. In no way does the American doctrine of separation of church and state even suggest that the well-formed consciences of religious people should not be brought to bear on their political choices.
The Second Vatican Council was abundantly clear on this matter. Nor, on the contrary, are they any less wide of the mark who think that religion consists in acts of worship alone and in the discharge of certain moral obligations, and who imagine they can plunge themselves into earthly affairs in such a way as to imply that these are altogether divorced from the religious life. This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age. Long since, the Prophets of the Old Testament fought vehemently against this scandal and even more so did Jesus Christ Himself in the New Testament threaten it with grave punishments. Therefore, let there be no false opposition between professional and social activities on the one part, and religious life on the other. (4)
When Catholics are elected to public office or when Catholics go to the polls to vote, they take their consciences with them. Pope John Paul II has consistently taught this as, for example, when he said that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life. (5) The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has declared that, in this context, it must be noted also that a well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals. (6) Anyone who professes the Catholic faith with his lips while at the same time publicly supporting legislation or candidates that defy Gods law makes a mockery of that faith and belies his identity as a Catholic.
In November we will once again have the privilege of exercising our most precious right as citizens the right to vote. Our choices will be made from among an array of candidates who take a variety of positions with regard to many important issues. In the midst of what could be a difficult and confusing exercise it is very important to remember that not all issues are of equal gravity. As men and women of good will we strive to achieve true justice for all people and to preserve their rights as human beings. There is, however, one right that is inalienable, and that is the RIGHT TO LIFE. This is the FIRST right. This is the right that grounds all other human rights. This is the issue that trumps all other issues.
The November elections will be critical in the battle to restore the right to life to all citizens, especially the unborn and the elderly and infirm. As a result of the pro-life efforts of countless Americans the number of abortions performed in our country is now declining for the first time since the appalling Supreme Court decision of 1973 that made it legal to kill our children. We cannot allow the progress that has been made to be reversed by a pro-abortion President, Senate or House of Representatives. Neither can we permit illicit stem cell research that makes use of aborted babies. Any movement to promote and legalize euthanasia must be halted. Our votes have the power to stop these abominations.
There must be no confusion in these matters. Any Catholic politicians who advocate for abortion, for illicit stem cell research or for any form of euthanasia ipso facto place themselves outside full communion with the Church and so jeopardize their salvation. Any Catholics who vote for candidates who stand for abortion, illicit stem cell research or euthanasia suffer the same fateful consequences. It is for this reason that these Catholics, whether candidates for office or those who would vote for them, may not receive Holy Communion until they have recanted their positions and been reconciled with God and the Church in the Sacrament of Penance.
In recent months another issue has reached the level of our legislatures. It is so-called same- sex marriage. Those who now promote this deviancy often present it as a human right denied homosexual persons and thus illegally discriminating against them. But, in fact, no one has a right to that which flies in the face of Gods own design. Marriage is not an invention of individuals or even of societies. Rather it is an element of Gods creation. It is God who created us male and female. It is God who joined man and woman so that they could be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Every civilization known to mankind has understood marriage as the union of a man and a woman for the procreation and rearing of children. And yet now, in 21stcentury America, there are those who would want us to believe that all people of all times have been mistaken about the true nature and purpose of marriage. No one can simply redefine marriage to suit a political or social agenda.
Once again, we must be clear about this matter. The future of our world depends upon the strength of the family, the basic unit of society. The future of the family depends on the state of marriage. The family father, mother and children reflects the nature of God Himself, who is a communion of selfless and self-giving love. For this reason marriage and family life cannot be whatever we want them to be. They are only and always as God has created them. As in the matter of abortion, any Catholic politician who would promote so-called same-sex marriage and any Catholic who would vote for that political candidate place themselves outside the full communion of the Church and may not receive Holy Communion until they have recanted their positions and been reconciled by the Sacrament of Penance.
The Church never directs citizens to vote for any specific candidate. The Church does, however, have the right and the obligation to teach clearly and fully the objective truth about the dignity and rights of the human person. These teachings, in turn, must inform the consciences of voters. By its intervention in this area, the Churchs Magisterium does not wish to exercise political power or eliminate the freedom of opinion of Catholics regarding contingent questions. Instead, it intends -- as is its proper function to instruct and illuminate the consciences of the faithful, particularly those involved in political life, so that their actions may always serve the integral promotion of the human person and the common good. (7)
Dear friends in Christ, I exhort you with all my heart to take courage and proclaim the Gospel of Life to those who will stand for elected office this fall. It is by your prayers and by your votes that politicians who are unconditionally pro-life and pro-family will serve our country. Conversely, if our voices remain silent or if, God forbid, we vote contrary to our informed consciences, we will see our country led down a short path to ruin. We want freedom for all, but there can be no freedom without truth. In the words of our Holy Father: When freedom is detached from objective truth it becomes impossible to establish personal rights on a firm rational basis; and the ground is laid for society to be at the mercy of the unrestrained will of individuals or the oppressive totalitarianism of public authority. (8)
Let us all pray for those politicians who claim to be Catholic yet continue to oppose the law of God and the rights of persons that, by the grace of God, they will be converted once again to the full and authentic articulation and practice of the faith.
Finally, I wish to affirm my brother bishops who have proclaimed the truth of these critical matters and who have admonished those Catholic politicians who place themselves at odds with the truth of God. May that truth which is the foundation of genuine freedom prevail in our country.
Given at the Chancery on this first day of May 2004, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
Most Reverend Michael J. Sheridan
Bishop of Colorado Springs
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| Police Agree to Investigate Abortion of Baby With Cleft Lip and Palate |
| 05.13.04 (12:01 pm) [edit] |
May 12, 2004
British Police Agree to Investigate Abortion of Baby With Cleft Lip and Palate
News that police in Hereforshire, England are opening a criminal investigation into the abortion of baby who was prenatally diagnosed to have a bilateral cleft lip and palate would seem to be unambiguously good news. Alas, that may not be the case.
Police in West Mercia initially stonewalled Church of England curate Joanna Jepson's request for a criminal investigation of the December 2001 abortion. Last December Rev. Jepson won permission from the High Court to challenge in court the police's refusal to prosecute the abortion, which took place when the baby was 28 weeks old. She had first sought the investigation in September 2002.
In theory, under the 1967 Abortion Act, abortion is allowed "only" through the 24th week, unless there is a serious threat to the mother or if the baby would be born with "a serious handicap," which is not precisely defined. Rev. Jepson, who was born with a congenital jaw defect corrected by surgery and who has a brother with Down Syndrome, said the abortion was an "unlawful killing" because in most cases a cleft palate can be cured by surgery, according to LifeSite.com.
The judicial review, at a minimum, has been put on hold. The London Telegraph described the situation this way: "A judicial review, due to start on May 24, has been delayed indefinitely under pressure from West Mercia Police, who have re-opened a criminal investigation into the case."
For her part, Rev. Jepson told reporters May 9, "I have had to agree to this because there is case law to say that the judicial review could not go ahead while an investigation is in process. At this stage, we feel it is necessary to co-operate. It is frustrating, but I hope this way means the issue is not going to be fudged by another investigation."
She added, "It is my undying hope that the police not only take into account the
surviving individuals involved in the case, but also the one whose life was
taken away," according to the Telegraph.
Last year, in explaining her actions, Jepson told the BBC, "I want to see a clarification of the law so that abortions do not take place for trivial reasons and so that discrimination against the disabled does not become widely accepted.We need to resist the belief that the value of human life lies in physical perfection and have a wider understanding of disabilities so that disability is not seen purely in negative terms."
Last week, the name of one of the two abortionists who agreed to the abortion, Michael Cohn, became public. He could be charged with willfully failing to meet the requirements of the Abortion Act, or, according to LifeSite.com, "Police could charge him under the Offenses Against the Human Person Act with a possible penalty of up to life imprisonment."
Just how troublesome the delay could be is clear from the Telegraph's account. "Although the review is provisionally expected to go ahead in September, concern is growing that it could collapse if police decide to press charges against Dr Cohn." That speculation is fueled by the idea that since the major reason the High Court agreed to the review was the failure of West Mercia police to investigate a potentially criminal act, the police decision to go forward "could be an insurmountable obstacle," the Telegraph reported.
This could mean, the newspaper wrote, "that the definition of a 'severe handicap'... will be left unclarified and subject to interpretation by individual doctors and parents."
While Jepson "welcomed" the police's decision to investigate, she also told the Telegraph, "This case has highlighted a grave injustice against babies deemed unfit to live because of an impairment." Jepson added, "We therefore look forward to the judicial review as this is essential to a wider redress of this discrimination in our society."
On Thursday we'll take a deeper look at this tragic and troubling case.
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| Disappointing But Not Unexpected |
| 05.13.04 (11:59 am) [edit] |
It's a pretty good rule of thumb, the one that says you can't always or even most of the time know how a judge may rule, based on his or her questioning. Sometimes, for example, when they seem to be most critical, they are just looking for you to provide additional support to buttress a conclusion they may already have reached in your favor
Then, again, there are instances when a judge's hostile predisposition is so obvious, there's not a lot of suspense. Such was the case with Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird and "Terri's Law."
For newcomers, this was the legislation passed by the Florida Legislature October 21, 2003, empowering Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene in order to reinsert Terri Schindler Schiavo's feeding tube. The feeding tube that sustained Terri, left severely brain-injured in 1990, had been removed six days prior at her husband's insistence.
In a long and tangled legal maze that goes back years, Judge Baird is a late entry. But his unhappiness with Terri's Law was plain to see.
So, last week when Baird ruled the law unconstitutional, Terri's attorney, Pat Anderson, told the Miami Herald that she was "not surprised, but, of course disappointed." Gov. Bush's office immediately said it would appeal the decision to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which had the crucial effect of ensuring that Terri is fed while the legal wrangling goes on.
The legal battle is now in its sixth year. According to the Associated Press, the case has "encompassed at least 20 judges in at least six different courts" and has drawn international attention. The primary bone[s] of contention are, what is her medical condition and what would Terri want done.
Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo, contends that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), and that, based on conversations with her prior to her collapse in 1990, would "not want to be kept alive with no hope of recovery," according to the Tampa Tribune. Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler vigorously deny she is in a PVS and "have testified [along with medical experts] she might respond well to experimental treatments" the Tribune reported. Along with other witnesses, the Schindlers flatly deny that Terri had said anything that would indicate she would not wish to be fed and hydrated.
In his scathing 23-page May 6 opinion, Baird said the law represented "unjustifiable state interference with the privacy right of every individual without any semblance of due process protection'' and improperly delegated legislative power to the governor, according to the Associated Press.
Ken Connor is the lead attorney for Gov. Bush. According to the Miami Herald, "Connor castigated Michael Schiavo and said that Gov. Bush deserved a chance to debate the facts of the case in a courtroom and to challenge the husband's motives in a courtroom."
He told the Herald, ''Make no mistake, the governor believes this is constitutional, the protection of the preservation of innocent life, the protection of the health care desires of the person who is at issue.'' Connor said. "The effect of this is to deprive the governor of his day in court. Michael Schiavo has run like a scalded dog from every effort to put him under oath.''
Although the case has been back and forth at many levels of the judiciary, Connor told the Herald "he expects the case will eventually be decided by the state Supreme Court and could even wind up in federal court if state judges continue to deny the governor's right to challenge Michael Schiavo's assertions that his wife wanted to die."
As lawyer Wesley Smith has observed, our culture "too often gives the benefit of the doubt to death in cases such as Terri's." What's needed is a presumption for life.
In Florida, Senate Bill 692 would create an explicit legal presumption in favor of providing tube-supplied food and fluids to cognitively disabled patients. This general rule would not apply for patients if it "would not contribute to sustaining the incompetent person's life or provide comfort to the incompetent person," or if the person explicitly rejected it in a written legal document known as an advance directive, or if there is clear and convincing evidence that the patient, while competent, gave express and informed consent rejecting it.
Terri's case is not only about one very vulnerable 40-year-old woman. It is a flashpoint in a much larger battle, one that we dare not lose.
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| A New Vision |
| 05.13.04 (11:57 am) [edit] |
"vast ignorance is not just a question of losing bits of information, retinal holes marring an otherwise excellent field of vision. It is something more like a retinal detachment, a whole field of pulling inexorable away toward blindness. Not only are the words gone, the bits of information, but the system in which the words made sense."
John Cavadini, Commonweal Magazine April 9, 2004.
Let me begin by making clear that Prof. Cavadini is not talking about abortion in this excerpt. He is critiquing what he describes as "religious illiteracy" and offering a remedy.
But from the second I read this paragraph, I thought of the light it shone on the profound changes we are witnessing, not only in the United States, but elsewhere. For the issue in both instances is the need to know (and then internalize) the "basics," and understand why they matter, in order that the learner can be an"effective agent of moral change."
For reasons that we've enumerated on many occasions, collectively, we are beginning to see abortion in such a dramatically different light it's almost as if our spiritual eyes have undergone surgical repair. Not so long ago, that would have seemed a pipe dream.
But there is a real reason we are able to reexamine the ethics of abortion. Thanks to you, as clouded as our vision became, the retina was never detached, to borrow from Cavadini's imagery.
By this I mean that the words were never lost. The vocabulary needed to describe (and therefore "see") the unborn as one of us remained available, ready to be employed when people were shaken out of their complacency.
And that, of course, is what is happening today, much to the chagrin of the Abortion Establishment. For both "hard" and "soft" reasons, the unborn, once no more than a hazy abstraction (at best), has come into sharp focus.
The ongoing, fervent debate over a very hard truthâ-abortionists lethally assailing 20+ week old unborn babies with an abortion technique so grotesque it chills your soul-- has quickened a recovery that had as one of its origins the softening effects of ultrasound technology.
We magnetically affix "baby's first picture" to our refrigerators, proudly showing our little ones off to anyone who enters our homes. Yet, as we are gradually discovering, much later in the developmental journey, abortionists jam surgical scissors into the back of the heads of these vibrant, living human beings and vacuum out their brains. There is a disjuncture at work here so radical that not even the all-exculpatory language of "wantedness" can obscure the incredible inconsistency.
But, note, in and of themselves, neither ultrasounds, which evince a cozy affinity, nor partial-birth abortions, which prompt something close to nausea, are enough. They are necessary but not sufficient ingredients.
They are vitally important first steps, precursors to visualizing the unborn, not as a kind of abstraction whom we either celebrate or annihilate, but as a fellow member of the human family. Put another way, ordinary citizens with no stake in this issue will not be pulled into our camp in overwhelming numbers so long as the unborn remains one of "them," rather than one of "us."
It is this appreciation for our common humanity that is the decisive step which can move us from a kind of benevolent neutrality into active participation on behalf of the unborn. To your credit, that understanding is beginning to dawn on more and more people.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about one determined pastor in Great Britain whose never-give-in efforts are shining light into a deep well of darkness.
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| Frequently asked Questions About Abortion |
| 05.12.04 (12:08 pm) [edit] |
Over the course of the years I have been asked many questions about life and abortion by many well-meaning people.
Today I still find that many good people are confused. They really believe they are doing the right thing - or, at least, the best thing - when they support, or encourage, an abortion.
Such is certainly the case with some parents who love a daughter and, as they put it, "don't want to see her life ruined by an unintended pregnancy."
I believe the same is true of a number of social workers and other advisers of the young, who believe that in promoting abortions they are performing a truly humane service, to the mothers of the unborn, to unborn babies whose lives they feel will not be happy (especially if they will be poor), and to society at large.
I received a letter recently, for example, from a set of anguished parents. Their talented young daughter is all set for college, but she has become pregnant. They tell me they are encouraging her to have an abortion because they don't want to see her career ruined. They say they are afraid abortion is a "sin," but that it would be a worse sin if their daughter couldn't go to college, "just because she made a mistake and got pregnant." I know many people feel that way.
Then there are those who honestly believe it is only "fair" to permit pregnant girls or women to decide for themselves whether to carry or to abort a baby.
They say: "A woman should have control over her own body. Nobody has the right to invade her privacy." They see free choice in all things as an essential characteristic of the American way of life, and regardless of how they, themselves, see abortion, they do not feel they have the right "to impose their beliefs on others."
There are at least three other kinds of people who consider abortion acceptable.
There are those who believe that a baby in the womb is not really fully human, that only with birth does the baby achieve this status.
Others believe that because the law permits abortion, it must be morally acceptable. Then there are those - and I believe they are many - who simply don't think about the subject at all.
They don't see it as a serious issue. It has never personally touched their lives. Or perhaps they deliberately refuse to think about it because they would only become further confused.
While one finds a certain number of Catholics holding various of these positions, it's probably necessary to add another category altogether for those who argue that they are good Catholics, but believe the Church is wrong in its position on abortion, or that the Church has no right to "dictate" to them on this matter.
I would distinguish this group from those Catholics who simply don't know or don't understand what the Church teaches or why.
One can be compassionate and understanding about all these positions, but sadly nothing changes the objective reality: abortion kills babies in their mothers' wombs. It pains me to say that, as I know it pains all people of good will, but it is the tragic reality. And there is another tragic reality that has nothing whatever to do with compassion, and that is that abortion is big business, netting hundreds of millions of dollars for abortionists.
I know that many are offended by the use of the word "killing." Actually, it is the word used in a famous editorial published in 1970 in the California Medical Association Journal:
"Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent.
The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or extra-uterine until death.
The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected." (Emphasis added.) (From California Medicine, 113:67, 1970.)
This editorial was not written to oppose abortion. It was simply an exceptionally frank warning to doctors that they had better adopt the new ethic and gear up for the brave new world of abortion ahead of them. As the editorial pointed out, some real twisting of words would be required to make people forget that abortion is the taking of human life. In other words, they would have to come up with another word for "killing," if they were ever to make abortion socially acceptable. But a change in words, unfortunately, does not change the reality.
In any event, it seems to me time to list some of the questions I have been asked about abortion, and to try to suggest some answers, recognizing that some may require lengthier and more complicated answers than space permits, and that there are many other questions that might be asked. Following that, I would like to propose some ways of helping to restore a sense of sacredness about the life of the unborn and indeed, of all human life.
1. What is abortion?
This can sound like a foolish question. But it is my experience that there are a number of young people who undergo abortions and do not understand what is happening to them. As a matter of fact, doctors who perform abortions generally prevent the woman or girl from seeing what is happening, and pro-abortion organizations have consistently resisted any legislation which would require that a young girl be told what an abortion is, or be required to wait even 24 hours before having an abortion.
The important thing, perhaps, is to emphasize what abortion is not. Abortion is not merely the removal of some tissue from a woman's body. Abortion is not the removal of a living "thing" that would become human if it were allowed to remain inside the woman's body. Abortion is the destruction of an unborn baby.
A new human life begins as soon as the egg has been fertilized. Science reveals without question that once the egg is fertilized every identifying characteristic of a brand-new human being is present, even the color of the eyes and the hair, the sex and everything else. Pregnancy is the period for this new human life to mature, not to "become human" -it already is. This is why the Church considers abortion the killing of a human being, and why the Second Vatican Council called it an "unspeakable crime."
The World Medical Association adopted in September 1948 the Declaration of Geneva: "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception; even under threat I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity." In October 1969 the International Code of Medical Ethics stated: "A doctor must always bear in mind the importance of preserving human life from the time of conception until death." Again in 1970 the World Medical Association reaffirmed its position by way of the Declaration of Oslo: "The first moral imposed upon the doctor is respect for human life as expressed in the Declaration of Geneva: 'I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the first moment of conception."'
In 1974 the Declaration on Procured Abortion (by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) stated: "Respect for human life is called for from the time that the process of generation begins. From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother, it is rather the life of a new human being with its own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already
" This declaration was ratified by Pope Paul VI, who confirmed it and ordered it to be promulgated.
When the Church uses the phrase "procured abortion" it means, in nontechnical terms, deliberately terminating a pregnancy at any stage before the child in the womb can live outside the womb.
2. Don't the majority of Americans support abortion?
Based on my experience, the majority of Americans do not support abortion on demand. For example, most Americans would not support abortion in cases where a woman does not want a baby of a particular sex. The majority of those who support abortion seem to limit that support to cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. Certainly there are polls which seem to suggest that the majority do favor abortion and abortion funding. Many who feel that if they are a minority they must be wrong can feel intimidated by these findings. We must remember, however, that the timing of a poll, the kinds of questions asked, who asks the questions, and who is asked, all influence the results. This has been demonstrated frequently in relation to polls on abortion.
Polls, however, whatever the results, do not determine what is morally right or wrong. If abortion is the taking of innocent life, it is wrong, no matter what the polls might say, or how many people might vote for it.
Despite some recent reports of psychological studies, I personally receive letters from all over the United States from women who have suffered the pain of an abortion, or who, in the moments shortly before having an abortion, came to see that abortion is the killing of a baby. These letters are deeply moving, and most end by encouraging me to continue to speak out, and to do whatever I can to help restore a sense of sacredness of the child in the womb.
Some feel that the right to be born is dependent on being wanted. They suggest that if a mother does not want her baby, the baby will be deprived of love, care and nurturing and may even be subject to abuse. Yet, how many unplanned children have been born to parents who initially did not want them, but whose attitudes changed completely to total acceptance and love? How many unwanted children have made enormous contributions to the world, as musicians, writers, doctors, entertainers, teachers, parents, or in other capacities?
Is an unborn baby to be denied the right to life because it is not wanted? Candidates for political office spend much campaigning time and often a great deal of money in trying to convince voters who don't want them to vote for them. Is an unborn baby to be denied even the opportunity to have someone plead with a mother to let the baby live, wanted or not? Is the unwanted baby to be denied the opportunity given to millions of refugees who have been admitted to the United States?
Mother Teresa of Calcutta is world famous for her concern for the poor, the abandoned, the dying, the homeless, the institutionalized, the forgotten. Far from seeing a solution to the problems of such in abortion, however, she startled the world by her address when she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. One of the most important statements she made is, "Today the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion."
For Almighty God there is no such thing as an "unwanted baby." Every one is made in His image and likeness and is uniquely part of the Divine Plan. If there is a woman anywhere who does not "want" her baby, I plead with her to nevertheless let that baby live. A great number of people want that baby as does the Church - we love that baby from the moment it is conceived.
For it was you who created my being,
Knit me together in my mother's womb,
I thank you for the wonder of my being,
For the wonders of all your creation. (Psalm 139)
3. Why do people in the pro-life movement want to change the law?
Some people argue that changing laws will not eliminate abortions. It is certainly true that a change of heart is more important than a change of law. What is forgotten, however, is that the law is the great teacher. Children grow up believing that if a practice is legal, it must be moral. Adults who live in a society in which what was illegal and believed to be immoral is suddenly declared legal, soon grow accustomed to the new law, and take the "new morality" for granted. In fact, many people seem to fear that if they don't support the new law and the "new morality" it has introduced, they will be considered undemocratic and "un-American."
It is amazing, for example, how smoking habits have been turned around. With the deluge of media advertising and the strict legal limitations put on smoking in places like New York City, many people now even feel embarrassed to smoke in public. Suddenly, with new laws in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, smoking is seen as less acceptable than ever before - actually immoral and irresponsible in the eyes of many. Now a law is being proposed that a state should divest itself of all investments in tobacco companies. There is no question: law and changes in law constitute a mighty force if there is a determination to enforce it.
I have no doubt that a change in the law would go a long way toward changing the attitude of Americans toward the rights of the unborn, at least over the long haul. It is effective regarding virtually every other issue. For example, in 1966 at the White House Conference on Civil Rights, then Solicitor General of the United States Mr. Thurgood Marshall (now a Justice of the Supreme Court) had this to say about the effect a change in law can bring about: "Of course law--whether embodied in acts of Congress or judicial decision--is, in some measure, a response to national opinion, and, of course, non-legal, even illegal events, can significantly affect the development of the law. But I submit that the history of the Negro demonstrates the importance of getting rid of hostile laws and seeking the security of new friendly laws . . . "Provided there is a determination to enforce it, law can change things for the better. There's very little truth in the old refrain that one can not legislate equality. Laws not only provide concrete benefit, they can even change the hearts of men, some men anyway, for good or evil.... The simple fact is that most people will obey the law and some, at least, will be converted by it."
There are those who argue that we can not legislate morality, and that the answer to abortion does not lie in the law. The reality is that we do legislate behavior every day. Our entire society is structured by law. We legislate against going through red lights, smoking in airplanes and restaurants, selling heroin, committing murder, burning down peoples' homes, stealing, child abuse, slavery and a thousand other acts that would deprive other people of their rights. And this is precisely the key: law is intended to protect us from one another regardless of private and personal moral or religious beliefs. The law does not ask me if I personally believe stealing to be moral or immoral. The law does not ask if my religion encourages me to burn down homes. As far as the law is concerned, the distinction between private and public morality is quite clear. Basically, when I violate other people's rights, I am involved in a matter of public morality, subject to penalty under the law.
Is it outlandish to think that laws against abortion might have some protective effect? It is obvious that law is not the entire answer to theft, arson, child abuse, or shooting police officers. Everybody knows that. But who would suggest that we repeal the laws against such crimes because the laws are so often broken?
4. If abortion were again declared illegal, wouldn't many women risk their lives in back alley abortions?
It should not be taken for granted that merely because an abortion is performed legally, it is performed under medically favorable circumstances, in sterile operating rooms, by expert physicians. Stories of "botched" abortions are sadly plentiful. That many abortions are carried out by highly competent doctors under clinical conditions as physically safe for the mother as in other forms of surgery cannot be questioned. But legality is no guarantee of safety or concern.
The question itself suggests that a pregnant woman must have an abortion for one reason or another. Obviously, there will always be people who will take their own route to try to solve their problems, but legalizing abortion has encouraged many women to follow the abortion route because it now seems respectable. They would never have considered an illegal abortion.
Who can do more than speculate about what might happen? If we turn to the pre-1973 record, even the highest estimates of abortion annually were but a tiny fraction of the million-and-a-half since 1973, the year abortions were legalized for the nation. I quote Dr. Bernard Nathanson, M.D., once the hero of the abortion movement, now firmly committed to the right of every unborn. In his book, Aborting America, Dr. Nathanson addresses the question of "back alley" abortions:
"The favorite button of the pro-abortionists is the one showing the coathanger, symbol of the self-induced abortion and the carnage that results from it, or the similar problem of botched illegal abortions done by 'back-alley butchers'. . .
"How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always '5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.' I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the 'morality' of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible. Statistics on abortion deaths were fairly reliable ... but not all these deaths were reported as such if the attending doctor wanted to protect a family by listing another cause of death. In 1967 the federal government listed only 160 deaths from illegal abortion. In 1972, the total was only 39 deaths. Christopher Tietze estimated 1,000 maternal deaths as the outside possibility in an average year before legalization; the actual total was probably closer to 500."
Are 1,000 deaths meaningless? Are 39? Of course not. One death is meaningful. But once again, the mothers involved could have chosen not to abort. Moreover, there is no guarantee that they would have survived legal abortions either.
Can there really be any doubt that legalization has multiplied the number of abortions almost infinitely beyond anyone's expectations? I go back to what I said above about smoking. Who could ever have believed that the day would come that smoking, such a widespread habit, would be so severely restricted by law-and in relatively such a brief period of time? Have the advertising campaigns and the governmental regulations reduced smoking? Remarkably.
God forbid that making abortion illegal would result in the death of even one woman. It seems to me that the way to avoid such is to help make life livable for every pregnant woman and help make her bringing her baby into the world a socially desirable event, in which she is praised rather than condemned.
5. Why did the bishops hire a communications firm? Don't we read and hear enough about abortion in the media?
I could answer this simply by quoting from a letter I received only one week ago. I am quoting verbatim.
"I am writing to express my appreciation of the decision of the American Catholic bishops to give financial support of up to $5 million to the pro-life movement. I was told this money is being raised to hire a professional media firm to 'get the truth out.'
"As a woman who has been through the abortion experience and who knows others who have been through it repeatedly, I am particularly aware and grateful. It is not something I would wish on anyone. Its repercussions are widespread, packed with emotion, and sometimes despair. This may be true to a greater or lesser degree according to the woman, her history, and/or her personality type. But the abortion experience is just one more hardening of the heart. Hardening my heart to my own flesh conditions me to do it to others and even justifies it in my mind. This is the kind of subconscious thinking, and feeling, and rationale that the abortion experience has the capability of fostering. Also, the woman may become almost hopelessly self-destructive through alcoholism, drug ad- diction or bulimia, to name a few. In addition, I wonder is it just a coincidence that aborted women I know have gone through tumultuous relationship after relationship and have had trouble initiating, developing, and sustaining happy, healthy, workable ones?"
"To get the truth out." That's precisely the reason. The fact is that we don't read and hear enough about abortion in the media. One of the most serious problems facing the pro-life movement is the way much of the press reports this issue. For the most part, for example, for whatever reason, the media have habitually used the term "anti-abortion," instead of "pro-life," for people who believe in the right to life for the unborn. Yet those who support abortion are labeled "pro-choice." Even to change the emphasis in terminology would be worth the effort of a professional communications firm.
I have given countless interviews to the media in an attempt to share with people what our efforts are all about, but have fallen short of the mark. I support the right of the media to make whatever editorial judgments they deem appropriate. But it is critical that our positions are really understood if they are to be reported evenhandedly and without bias.
Additionally we have to try to assure that pro-life news stories are not buried-in the middle of a newspaper, or as a 30-second sound bite in the middle of a newscast. Fairness in reporting on pro-life issues is imperative. Some courageous journalists-even some who disagree with the pro-life position-have made the effort to report in an unbiased manner. It is hoped that a professional communications campaign will encourage many more journalists to do the same.
For example, I have frequently repeated in public addresses, in writing and in press conferences, the offer I made in 1984 about any woman who is pregnant and in need coming to the Archdiocese of New York for free assistance. In the almost six years since I made that offer - during which time many women have been helped at great cost to the archdiocese- I have seen a reference to it only once in the secular press, and even then in only one newspaper. It is frustrating, to say the least, when the Church is constantly accused of not doing anything for women while programs such as this exist not only here in New York, but in similar efforts around the country.
What we believe about life is truly good news. I believe that every person has the right to know about that good news, to be given a fair representation of what we're about, and then to study our position and, hopefully, recognize not only the reasonableness of the position, but also the charity and love which it proclaims.
It would be unfair to suggest that the failure to get the word out is only because of the bias of the press. As a Church, we have not, in my judgment, broadly disseminated our belief that every human life is sacred because made in the image and likeness of Almighty God and that our concern for the unborn flows from this fundamental belief. If this is to change, and with it the hearts of all people of good will, we will have to improve our means of educating people, including more widespread preaching of the issue of human life. In the first instance we must concentrate on instructing Catholics about the principles regarding human life. In my experience, I have found people very responsive once they understand what it is we're talking about when we discuss abortion: the taking of an innocent human life.
In my judgment, most of the criticisms against the communications campaign are misleading and unfair. To insist, for example, that the monies to be used in communicating the message about life should be used for the poor, or to help women, to combat racism, etc. is to assert arbitrarily that human beings who are visible deserve support more than human beings who are invisible. Further, it is a rehash of the gratuitous assertion that the Church ignores other needs. (It is amazing, for example, to read that if the Church were serious about racism, it would put this money into that battle, instead of into abortion. The black bishops of the United States have called abortion genocide against blacks. What could be more racist than genocide?)
There are more than one and one-half million unborn babies put to death every year in the United States. If we spent two dollars to let the world know about each one, that would be three million dollars-the cost of the current contract with the communications company. Actually, the money is coming from a Catholic organization, and not from the Church or people at large. If it were coming from the Catholic people of the United States, it would mean less than six cents per Catholic!
I find most amazing of all, however, the objection to using modern means of communications. If we didn't have sound systems in our churches, hardly anyone would ever hear a homily. In printing religious textbooks we rely on the most clever graphics the publishers can find to get the message across. Prior to the year 1454 A.D., the Bible was available essentially only in rare manuscript form. Then came Gutenberg and movable type. Suppose the Church had said: "No way we are going to let the Holy Bible be published on such a modem invention"? The greater number of people in the world would never have had a Bible in their hands. Is it less important to spread the word on unborn babies? Are we not to use the best method we can find to publicize what is happening to them?
Our Lord never used a telegram or a fax machine. He never flew in an airplane or even rode in an automobile. Who is to say he would not do so were he walking the earth today?
Is it fair to demand that the Church not use newspaper ads, for example, to try to protect human life, when organizations like Planned Parenthood use them to promote abortion? I really suspect that from the very outset the announcement of the communications campaign was misinterpreted, intentionally or unintentionally. The campaign has been portrayed by its critics as an effort to elect or defeat candidates for political office. In no way is that its intention. It is not a political campaign. It is a communications campaign to publicize the truth about human life and abortion.
When our message is heard - the message of life and love for both mother and child I believe most Americans, whatever their religious persuasion, will want to join in commitment to the sacredness of every human life.
6. But do Catholics have the right to impose their beliefs on others?
Life is a right which must be acknowledged by a civil society as a given; it is never the concession of the state. Indeed, the state has as its primary purpose the defense of the lives of its citizens; Thomas Jefferson called it, "the first and only legitimate object of good government - the care of human life, and not its destruction." Those who are weakest or most defenseless have traditionally been given even higher degrees of protection. As former Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. said, quoting the truly noble words of Senator Hubert Humphrey, "The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, the handicapped." Human life must be protected from its inception until natural death; any other point which is determined by law is purely arbitrary and wrongly allows the state to take upon itself mastery over human life.
Those who accuse the Church of imposing its beliefs on others assume that the Church's teaching on human life has been created by the Church. Not so. All who accept the Ten Commandments, that is, Divine Law, know that it is never lawful, under any circumstances, deliberately or directly to take the life of any innocent human being. (This is one of the key principles, for example, in the tradition of "Just War"-it is never "just" to attack innocent civilians.) Unborn babies are innocent of any aggression against anyone.
Abortion is also forbidden, however, by Natural Moral Law, which governs all peoples, of all religions. The Greek playwright Sophocles, and the Roman official, Cicero, spelled out the universal character of Natural Law long before Christ. Our own Declaration of Independence was declared, not on the basis of a particular religion, but on the basis of Natural Moral Law. It appealed to "the Laws of nature and of Nature's God," and on this basis declared it self-evident that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that the first of these is the right to life.
To argue on the basis of Natural Moral Law takes us back to the question of whether the unborn is human. If it is human, it is in the very nature of things that we should not deliberately destroy it, just as it is in the very nature of things that we have no right to go around killing children already born. No one ever hears a woman who learns she is pregnant say: "I am going to have a fetus." She says: "I am going to have a baby." It would be "unnatural" for a mother to put her baby to death after birth. It goes against the very nature of things. If the baby is a baby before birth to destroy it is equally unnatural. Yet science today, and not only religion, reveals without reasonable doubt that an unborn baby is a baby. The other night I heard a woman arguing on television that it is "unnatural" to take the skin off an animal in order to make a fur coat. The program went on to talk about how cruel we are to raise foxes and minks for that purpose. Is it only the destruction of an unborn human being that is considered "natural"?
7. Isn't it un-American to deny people the right to choose?
No one has a right to choose to put an innocent human being to death. The use of ambiguous language and euphemisms has been tragically successful in switching the emphasis from "life" to "choice," so that those who are trying to defend life are accused of trying to deprive people of choice. The argument then becomes: "In a pluralistic society, what authority do you have to deprive me of my reproductive rights?" Reproductive rights, however, are not the issue; killing human beings is.
The Church understands that there are circumstances in which some people believe that abortion is the lesser of evils. They believe, for example, that it would be better to have an abortion if a baby will be born retarded or deformed; or if a mother is poor, or already has several children; or, as we noted above, if a young girl's education or career would be disrupted by a baby, or her reputation damaged. (Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, is quoted as saying, "the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it" (Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, by George Grant, Wolgermuth & Hyatt, 1988).
The Church recognizes that many hardships can occur with a pregnancy. But there is a fundamental principle which must always prevail: The end never justifies the means if the means are evil. In other words, no matter how difficult the alternatives, they can not justify the direct killing of an innocent human being. What kind of world would it be if it were not faithful to that principle? Where would the killing stop?
Many people reject capital punishment. Yet before capital punishment is administered to someone who is charged with a heinous crime like murder, he or she is first tried by jury and found guilty. Yet, many who reject capital punishment accept, support, and consider it a "right" to take the life of an innocent unborn baby, who has never had a trial, or been found guilty. To the Church this is inconsistent.
American laws deny the right to kill innocent human beings, or even various "endangered species, like certain fish, birds or animals. Why is it "un-American" to argue against the "right" to kill the unborn? The Church mourns the ravages of the environment, pollution of the air, the rivers and lakes and oceans, the poisoning of wildlife, the potential of nuclear war and an accompanying holocaust. But sheer common sense, if not mercy for the helpless, demands that a society address before all else the destruction of its own children.
Some people say abortion is a right because it hasn't been proved that the unborn is human. Even some who accept the fact that the unborn is fully human, however, insist that a woman's "right" to have an abortion prevails over the right of the unborn to live. For example, a recent poll found that 76 percent of the women questioned believe that abortion is murder, yet 55 percent of the women who considered abortion murder still assert that it is a woman's right. Can there really be a "right" to commit murder? Is it "un-American" to say that no one has a right to commit murder? (Incidentally, I neither use nor encourage the use of the term murder for abortion. Here I am simply quoting the word used in the poll.)
The same frightening inconsistency is at work in the euthanasia movement, with many people believing that the elderly, the cancer-ridden, the deformed, the retarded should be "put out of their misery," because their 66 quality of life" doesn't warrant their continuing to live. But unfortunately there is, at times, another subtle, anti-Catholic bias at work in this whole argument. Some people still believe Catholics are second-class citizens, who owe their allegiance to a foreign power (the pope), and are dangerous to the "American way of life." To such people, it is acceptable for non-Catholics, or Catholics who dissent from Church teaching, to do everything they can to promote abortion, including influencing public officials to pass pro-abortion legislation. Those who support "abortion rights" are considered perfectly American in using the media, advertising and other means to promote abortion.
Catholics and others convinced that the unborn has rights, and should be allowed a free choice - that is, to choose life - are branded, on the contrary, as "un-American." Is that fair?
6. But do Catholics have the right to impose their beliefs on others?
Life is a right which must be acknowledged by a civil society as a given; it is never the concession of the state. Indeed, the state has as its primary purpose the defense of the lives of its citizens; Thomas Jefferson called it, "the first and only legitimate object of good government - the care of human life, and not its destruction." Those who are weakest or most defenseless have traditionally been given even higher degrees of protection. As former Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. said, quoting the truly noble words of Senator Hubert Humphrey, "The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, the handicapped." Human life must be protected from its inception until natural death; any other point which is determined by law is purely arbitrary and wrongly allows the state to take upon itself mastery over human life.
Those who accuse the Church of imposing its beliefs on others assume that the Church's teaching on human life has been created by the Church. Not so. All who accept the Ten Commandments, that is, Divine Law, know that it is never lawful, under any circumstances, deliberately or directly to take the life of any innocent human being. (This is one of the key principles, for example, in the tradition of "Just War"-it is never "just" to attack innocent civilians.) Unborn babies are innocent of any aggression against anyone.
Abortion is also forbidden, however, by Natural Moral Law, which governs all peoples, of all religions. The Greek playwright Sophocles, and the Roman official, Cicero, spelled out the universal character of Natural Law long before Christ. Our own Declaration of Independence was declared, not on the basis of a particular religion, but on the basis of Natural Moral Law. It appealed to "the Laws of nature and of Nature's God," and on this basis declared it self-evident that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that the first of these is the right to life.
To argue on the basis of Natural Moral Law takes us back to the question of whether the unborn is human. If it is human, it is in the very nature of things that we should not deliberately destroy it, just as it is in the very nature of things that we have no right to go around killing children already born. No one ever hears a woman who learns she is pregnant say: "I am going to have a fetus." She says: "I am going to have a baby." It would be "unnatural" for a mother to put her baby to death after birth. It goes against the very nature of things. If the baby is a baby before birth to destroy it is equally unnatural. Yet science today, and not only religion, reveals without reasonable doubt that an unborn baby is a baby. The other night I heard a woman arguing on television that it is "unnatural" to take the skin off an animal in order to make a fur coat. The program went on to talk about how cruel we are to raise foxes and minks for that purpose. Is it only the destruction of an unborn human being that is considered "natural"?
7. Isn't it un-American to deny people the right to choose?
No one has a right to choose to put an innocent human being to death. The use of ambiguous language and euphemisms has been tragically successful in switching the emphasis from "life" to "choice," so that those who are trying to defend life are accused of trying to deprive people of choice. The argument then becomes: "In a pluralistic society, what authority do you have to deprive me of my reproductive rights?" Reproductive rights, however, are not the issue; killing human beings is.
The Church understands that there are circumstances in which some people believe that abortion is the lesser of evils. They believe, for example, that it would be better to have an abortion if a baby will be born retarded or deformed; or if a mother is poor, or already has several children; or, as we noted above, if a young girl's education or career would be disrupted by a baby, or her reputation damaged. (Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, is quoted as saying, "the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it" (Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, by George Grant, Wolgermuth & Hyatt, 1988).
The Church recognizes that many hardships can occur with a pregnancy. But there is a fundamental principle which must always prevail: The end never justifies the means if the means are evil. In other words, no matter how difficult the alternatives, they can not justify the direct killing of an innocent human being. What kind of world would it be if it were not faithful to that principle? Where would the killing stop?
Many people reject capital punishment. Yet before capital punishment is administered to someone who is charged with a heinous crime like murder, he or she is first tried by jury and found guilty. Yet, many who reject capital punishment accept, support, and consider it a "right" to take the life of an innocent unborn baby, who has never had a trial, or been found guilty. To the Church this is inconsistent.
American laws deny the right to kill innocent human beings, or even various "endangered species, like certain fish, birds or animals. Why is it "un-American" to argue against the "right" to kill the unborn? The Church mourns the ravages of the environment, pollution of the air, the rivers and lakes and oceans, the poisoning of wildlife, the potential of nuclear war and an accompanying holocaust. But sheer common sense, if not mercy for the helpless, demands that a society address before all else the destruction of its own children.
Some people say abortion is a right because it hasn't been proved that the unborn is human. Even some who accept the fact that the unborn is fully human, however, insist that a woman's "right" to have an abortion prevails over the right of the unborn to live. For example, a recent poll found that 76 percent of the women questioned believe that abortion is murder, yet 55 percent of the women who considered abortion murder still assert that it is a woman's right. Can there really be a "right" to commit murder? Is it "un-American" to say that no one has a right to commit murder? (Incidentally, I neither use nor encourage the use of the term murder for abortion. Here I am simply quoting the word used in the poll.)
The same frightening inconsistency is at work in the euthanasia movement, with many people believing that the elderly, the cancer-ridden, the deformed, the retarded should be "put out of their misery," because their 66 quality of life" doesn't warrant their continuing to live. But unfortunately there is, at times, another subtle, anti-Catholic bias at work in this whole argument. Some people still believe Catholics are second-class citizens, who owe their allegiance to a foreign power (the pope), and are dangerous to the "American way of life." To such people, it is acceptable for non-Catholics, or Catholics who dissent from Church teaching, to do everything they can to promote abortion, including influencing public officials to pass pro-abortion legislation. Those who support "abortion rights" are considered perfectly American in using the media, advertising and other means to promote abortion.
Catholics and others convinced that the unborn has rights, and should be allowed a free choice - that is, to choose life - are branded, on the contrary, as "un-American." Is that fair?
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| What Individuals can do to Fight the Cult of Death |
| 05.12.04 (11:56 am) [edit] |
Commit Yourself to Being the Face of the Pro-Life Movement
Before you offer a public witness, see yourself as others see you. Can others see your compassion and concern? Are they attracted to the values you communicate?
Educate Yourself on Pro-life Issues
Effective public witness requires that you know and understand the facts before you attempt to articulate them to others.
Engage in One-on-One Conversations
Be willing to be identified as pro-life in those many occasions of everyday life when you can offer a voice of compassion and promote a pro-life ethic among family, friends and co-workers.
Offer Pro-life Mentoring
Being a committed Catholic pro-life women can be a very lonely and frustrating situation in many professions. The expertise and support of pro-life mentors are a source of enormous encouragement and a stimulus to public witness.
Become Aware of Positive Alternatives
Knowledge of resources for alternatives to abortion, post-abortion healing, end of life care, and church support services is indispensable to bring the values of the culture of life to those in need of help. State by state listing of agencies providing alternatives to abortion can be found at Pregnancy Centers Online and from Birthright International in English, Spanish and French. A complete listing of Project Rachel services across the country is available from the National Office of Post Abortion Reconciliation and Healing.
Support Pro-Life Organizations
There are more than 4,000 pro-life organizations in the U.S. which you can support in their efforts to provide a wide range of pro-life activities including education, public advocacy, lobbying, political activity, alternatives to abortion, and post-abortion healing. A comprehensive listing of pro-life organizations in the U.S. and abroad can be found at www.prolifeinfo.org/organizations.html
[b]Research the Positions of Candidates[/b]
The law is a teacher of values. Learn how candidates who seek to represent you stand on the life issues. Exercise your right to vote and support candidates who are committed to building a culture of life. www.usccb.org/prolife/gospel.htm
Dialogue with Those Who Disagree
Articulating a reasoned and committed pro-life perspective to those unfamiliar or opposed to the values of a culture of life can offer thought-provoking challenges to their underlying world view. To read about and comment on a five and one-half year dialogue in Boston, consult http://www.publicconversation...
Public Speaking
Schools, religious education programs, alumni groups, church and women's groups are always looking for guest speakers with an important message. Consider how you could weave a pro-life message from your experiences and expertise.
Local Events
Participating in local pro-life activities provides opportunities for education, fellowship, and encouragement to build a culture of life. See WAL Calendar of Local Events.
Pray
Prayer is the singularly most important way to build a culture of life and give yourself the insight and courage to speak publicly and effectively with love and compassion.
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| Facts & Figures of Abortion |
| 05.12.04 (11:47 am) [edit] |
More than 40% of women of childbearing age in the U.S. have had at least one abortion. (Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute)
Approximately 40 million legal abortions have been performed in the US since Roe v Wade. (Source: Center for Disease Control, Alan Guttmacher Institute)
More than 1.2 million abortions were performed last year in the United States alone. There were 6.9 million live births for an abortion/live birth ration of 1 to 3. (Source: Center for Disease Control)
Nearly 2 million American couples are waiting to adopt a child. (Source: National Committee for Adoption)
47% of women undergoing an abortion last year, had already had at least one abortion. (Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute)
Hopeful sign: the most recent US government figures show a drop in both the number and rates of abortion. (Source: National Center for Health Statistics)
The rate of abortion among teenagers declined by nearly one third since 1990. (Source: National Center for Health Statistics)
No words are necessary to describe the beauty of human life before birth. To view a stunning presentation of prenatal development, visit the website of www.justthefacts.org
For more detailed facts and figures on abortion in the US, visit the website of Dayton Right to Life at www.dayton.righttolife.org/abortion/index.htm
For scientific references on the development of human life before birth, click here ( When Did Your Life Begin? By physician members of the Value of Life Committee)
To read basic Catholic teaching documents on abortion and euthanasia, see www.nccbuscc.org/prolife/tdocs/index.htm
Confused about the science of embryonic stem cell research debate? Read an article prepared especially for the WAL website by molecular geneticist Dr. Maureen Gilicinski. Do a Google search for Embryonic Stem Cell
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| The Abolition of Man II |
| 05.10.04 (12:04 pm) [edit] |
"For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please."
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
We believe that universal understandings of freedom and truth are "written on the human heart." America's founders also believed this to be true.
In 1776 John Dickinson, one of the framers of our Constitution, affirmed: "Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights.
They do not depend on parchments or seals, but come from the king of kings and the Lord of all the earth."
The words of the Declaration of Independence speak of the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," and proceed to make the historic assertion:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness ..."
Today, more than two centuries of the American experiment have passed. We tend to take these words for granted. But for the founders, writing on the brink of armed revolution, these phrases were invested not just with their philosophy but with their lives.
This is why they closed with a "firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence." The words of the Declaration of Independence illuminate the founding principles of the American Republic, principles explicitly grounded in unchanging truths about the human person.
The principles of the Declaration were not fully reflected in the social or political structures of its own day.
Then human slavery and other social injustices stood in tension to the high ideals the Founders articulated. Only after much time and effort have these contradictions been reduced.
In a striking way, we see today a heightening of the tension between our nation's founding principles and political reality.
We see this in diminishing respect for the inalienable right to life and in the elimination of legal protections for those who are most vulnerable.
There can be no genuine justice in our society until the truths on which our nation was founded are more perfectly realized in our culture and law.
One of those truths is our own essential creatureliness.
Virtual reality and genetic science may give us the illusion of power, but we are not gods.
We are not our own, or anyone else's, creator. Nor, for our own safety, should we ever seek to be. Even parents, entrusted with a special guardianship over new life, do not "own" their children any more than one adult can own another.
And therein lies our only security. No one but the Creator is the sovereign of basic human rights -- beginning with the right to life.
We are daughters and sons of the one God who, outside and above us all, grants us the freedom, dignity and rights of personhood which no one else can take away.
Only in this context, the context of a Creator who authors our human dignity, do words like "truths" and "self-evident" find their ultimate meaning. Without the assumption that a Creator exists who has ordained certain irrevocable truths about the human person, no rights are "unalienable," and nothing about human dignity is axiomatic.
This does not make America sectarian.
It does, however, underline the crucial role God's sovereignty has played in the architecture of American politics.
While the founders were a blend of Enlightenment rationalists and traditional Christians, generations of Jews, Muslims, other religious groups and non-believers have all found a home in the United States.
This is so because the tolerance of our system is rooted in the Jewish-Christian principle that even those who differ from one another in culture, appearance and faith still share the same rights. We believe that this principle still possesses the power to enlighten our national will.
We should praise those women and men who have a vocation to public office.
It encourages active citizenship. It also reminds us that, "The political community . . . exists for the common good: This is its full justification and meaning, and the source of its specific and basic right to exist.
The common good embraces all those conditions of social life which enable individuals, families and organizations to achieve complete and efficacious fulfillment".
In pursuing the common good, citizens should "cultivate a generous and loyal spirit of patriotism, but without narrow-mindedness. They must also be conscious of their specific and proper role in the political community:
They should be a shining example by their sense of responsibility and their dedication to the common good.
As to the role of the Church in this process:
The political community and the Church are autonomous and independent of each other in their own fields.
Nevertheless, both are devoted to the personal vocation of man, though under different titles. Yet at all times and in all places, the Church should have the true freedom to teach the faith, to proclaim its teaching about society, to carry out its task among men without hindrance, and to pass moral judgment even in matters relating to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.
The inviolability of the person, which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life.
Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.
The human being is entitled to such rights in every phase of development, from conception until natural death, whether healthy or sick, whole or handicapped, rich or poor. Moreover, if, indeed, everyone has the mission and responsibility of acknowledging the personal dignity of every human being and of defending the right to life, some are given particular title to this task: such as parents, teachers, healthworkers and the many who hold economic and political power.
We cannot simultaneously commit ourselves to human rights and progress while eliminating or marginalizing the weakest among us.
Nor can we practice the dignity of life only as a private thoughts. Americans must live it vigorously and publicly, as a matter of national leadership and witness, or we will not live it at all.
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| The Abolition of Man |
| 05.10.04 (11:53 am) [edit] |
"In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."
George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
Nations are not machines or equations. They are like ecosystems. A people's habits, beliefs, values and institutions int | |
