Cate Flanagan in TIME Magazine:
There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery in this country as the collapse of marriage. It hurts children, it reduces mothers' financial security, and it has landed with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the nation's underclass.
Two lovely links within that article:
Let Mr. Kellemeyer show you how it's done:
For instance, I began to realize that the assertion, “I can have sex without wanting a child” was logically absurd. It’s like saying, “I can eat ice cream all day without wanting to get fat.” Sure, you can. But what does your "want" have to do with it? The biological reality was going to hit you either way.I thought it was a good analogy, but I quickly discovered a flaw. Having sex was different from eating cupcakes all day. Every time I ate a cupcake, I added calories to my body. Every time. But it is not the case that every act of sex creates a child. The analogy wasn’t perfect.
I gnawed on that for awhile.
And I began to see… something
Something I didn’t expect.
Ultimately, it was this point - the point that sex does not always create children – that converted me back to the Faith.
This is what I saw.
Precisely because sex does not always create children, yet it always holds the promise of creating children, that sex stands for something greater than itself. Because sex is designed to produce children, yet does not always produce them, the act is transformed from a simple biological action into… there was no other word for it… poetry.
Because sex contains not a hard reality, but only a future promise, it becomes a promise, the promise of the man to the woman "I will be with you always, even if this does produce that for which it is designed."
And by this act, the man gives himself not just to the woman, he gives himself primarily to the not-yet-conceived child.
It was the poetic biology of the thing that snared me.
In the end, Ladies, real men are so much more appealing than punks who think women are good for one thing only.
This gem must have been written by 17-year old men for 17-year-old men, or at least the perpetual 17-year old men. The author, Isabella Snow, claims to be a woman, but for the life of me, I cannot imagine a woman selling out other women like this. Let's dissect this, shall we? C'mon, it'll be fun!
Dealing With An Uwanted Pregnancy
An unplanned and unwanted pregnancy can dramatically affect an otherwise loving long-term relationship. Some men rejoice, but others simply aren’t ready to be fathers. If they discussed the possibility and specifics at the start of the relationship, he may hope she’s going to stick to the original plan and terminate the pregnancy. And she might -- but for some women, getting pregnant can start clocks ticking and make them suddenly want to be mothers, despite previous agreements.
Guess what? They are mothers.
Prenatal prep: If possible, have this conversation at home while sitting together on the sofa.
Who writes this stuff? Got it? Sofa! Like the waiting room at the doc's office-bad. Dining room table-bad. Might bring to mind family dinners. Oh, don't do that thing where you get all your bros together and all gang up on her with you. She might catch on that this isn't about her. Taking her to Dave and Busters or Hooters-not good. She doesn't even like that place, Try Red Lobster and let her order what ever she wants. Even dessert. Chicks dig that kind of thing. That is if you can't do the whole "sofa thing".
When you’re ready to share your opinion, you’ll want to use a calm, steady tone. You’ll also want to take care with your word choice; pregnant women tend to feel like they’re carrying someone, as opposed to something, even if she is just a month or so pregnant.
Because they are.
Toss words like “it” around too many times, and she’s going to start feeling like she needs to defend “it” from you.
::snort:: Do this, Mr. Tool, and you're done. Take a long walk on a short pier. Fact is, if this is your intent, no matter how many crab legs at Red Lobster you buy, if you are asking her to kill her child so you can carry on doing who knows what...There are very few things that give women strength like love for their children. That pull you had on her, gone.
If you want her to really listen to you, paraphrase her own word usage.
Manipulate! The ends justify the means. Manipulate to get your way and what you want!!!
This is not the time to sugarcoat your true feelings. If you don’t want to be a father, you have every right to come out and say so.
Even though that was not what you were saying when you took the actions that made it possible to create this pregnancy.
Fatherhood will last for the rest of your life; if you’re not going to be able to cope with that, you need to make it clear so she can factor it into her decision-making process.
Let her know you totally plan on abandoning her and your child. Set the record straight. Be a man-er, well, you know a Bro (let's not go too far and use the 'm' word).
When giving your opinion, use phrases like “I need” instead of “I want.” This will be easier for her to process on an emotional level, and will also sound less demanding.
Again, manipulate her into to doing what you want, not what she wants!
A new baby means significant life changes: Food, diapers, medical care -- these things cost money you may not have. Who’s going to care for the baby while you’re working? Will you have to move to a new home? Will you have to sell your Harley and get a station wagon?
...
(This is a horrible article)
Take care that you don’t come across as whiny.
Because you're whining.
If you feel the need to make strong declarations, use words like “can’t” instead of “won’t.”
Even though "can't" means it's impossible and the truth is you simply "won't". Manipulate. Lie. Do what you gotta do, Bro.
If you’ve followed all of these steps and your woman decides to have the baby anyway, this does not mean you’re required to get married or move in together. You’ll probably want to provide for your child regardless, but if you’ve been clear about your intentions from the start, you are not obligated to contribute beyond what your conscience and the law expects of you. This was her decision, not yours, and the bulk of the responsibility is now hers.
After all your hard work, you still don't have to do the right thing just what the law forces you to do, which isn't much, so buck up little camper. Life ain't over. And you know what? You can use tales about how you take care of your kid to lure in the next woman. It works
.
I actually cannot believe there are articles such as these this day. Feminists, regardless of pro-life or pro-choice should be all over this. This article is not Dealing With an Unplanned Pregnancy. it's How to Get Your Girl to Do What You Want When You Can't Be Bothered. Disgusting.
Or realistically, what can we do?
Via Jill Stanek:
From the LA Times, June 25:President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.
Read that again. Obama was subtly promoting euthanasia...
In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."
He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."
Please go read the Raving Theist's reaction about the president's statement at Dawn Patrol:
I have been part of the pro-life movement for five years now, and yes, I have "profound differences" with the pro-choice ideology and the devastation wrought by the abortion industry. But never have I remotely considered murder as an acceptable tactic.The people I have worked with in helping abortion-minded women are the most compassionate and gentle I have even met. None of them have even engaged in or endorsed violence. The President's patronizing admonition that "Americans" -- i.e. pro-life Americans -- should not let their passions turn to homicide is deeply insulting. Far more people have been shot to death over parking disputes and fender benders than abortion differences, but the President does not mount the national stage to caution drivers to hold their guns in check every times such an incident occurs.
Dedicated pro-lifers all understand the hypocrisy in taking a life in the name of protecting life.
It's all about the photo op; the President got what he wanted. And as for "dialogue", what has Notre Dame as an institution done to clearly speak up for life, particularly in the actions-that-speak-louder-than-words line?
In a letter to Notre Dame's Class of 2009, the university's president, the Rev. John Jenkins, stated that the honors for Mr. Obama do not indicate any "ambiguity" about Notre Dame's commitment to Catholic teaching on the sanctity of human life. The reality is that it was this ambiguity that the White House was counting on; this ambiguity that was furthered by the adoring reaction to Mr. Obama's visit; and this ambiguity that disheartens those working for an America that respects the dignity of life inside the womb....With its billions in endowment and its prestigious name, Notre Dame ought to be in the lead here. But when asked for examples illuminating the university's unambiguous support for unborn life, [University spokesman] Mr. Brown could provide only four: help for pregnant students who want to carry their babies to term, student volunteer work for pregnant women at local shelters, prayer mentions at campus Masses, and lectures such as a seminar on life issues.
These are all well and good, but they also highlight the poverty of Notre Dame's institutional witness. At Notre Dame today, there is no pro-life organization -- in size, in funding, in prestige -- that compares with the many centers, institutes and so forth dedicated to other important issues ranging from peace and justice to protecting the environment. Perhaps this explains why a number of pro-life professors tell me they must not be quoted by name, lest they face career retaliation.
The one institute that does put the culture of life at the heart of its work, moreover -- the Center for Ethics and Culture -- doesn't even merit a link under the "Faith and Service" section on the university's Web site. The point is this: When Notre Dame doesn't dress for the game, the field is left to those like Randall Terry who create a spectacle and declare their contempt for civil and respectful witness.
This gem comes via The Dawn Patrol:
This beautiful reflection from First Things comes to us via Amy Wellborn about the Notre Dame Scandal. Still the internal story is so lovely:
You see, I was three months pregnant.That March, I had gone—alone—to a local woman’s clinic to take a test. The results were positive, and I was so numb I almost didn’t grasp what the nurse was getting at when she assured me I had “other options.” What did “other options” mean? And what kind of world is it that defines compassion as telling a young woman who has just learned she is carrying life inside her that she has the option to destroy it?
When I returned to campus, I ran to the Grotto. I was confused and full of conflicting emotions. But I knew this: No amount of shame or embarrassment would ever lead me to get rid of my baby. Of all women, Our Lady could surely feel pity for an unplanned pregnancy. I recalled her surrendered love to God’s invitation to become the home of the Incarnate Word. “Let it be done to me according to thy word,” she had said. In my hour of need, on my knees, I asked Mary for courage and strength. And she did not disappoint.
My boyfriend was a different story. He was also a Notre Dame senior. When I told him that he was to be a father, he tried to pressure me into having an abortion. Like so many women in similar circumstances, I found out the kind of man the father of my child was at precisely the moment I needed him most. “All that talk about abortion is just dining-room talk,” he said. “When it’s really you in the situation, it’s different. I will drive you to Chicago and pay for a good doctor.”
I tried telling him this was not an option. He said he was pro-choice. I responded by informing him that my choice was life. And I learned, as so many pregnant women have before and since, that life is the one choice that pro-choicers won’t support.
Still, I count myself lucky. I was raised by a mom and dad who marched for life—and who walked the walk when I needed them. However much I may not have wanted to embarrass them with my pregnancy, amid my troubles I always knew I had a priceless gift: a family that would welcome into their hearts the life that God had put in my womb.
It is a common and familiar story. People such as Fr. Jenkins do not understand that while they think they are not stepping on toes and being judgmental, they are not supporting the girls who look to the Church for comfort and support who choose to follow the Church's teaching.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/archbishop_hughes_to_boycott_x.html
This breaks my heart. As abortion has become something of a "civil right", it has become rather impossible to maintain both a Catholic identity and "black" one. They are almost mutually exclusive.
St. Katharine Drexel, pray for us.
(April 3) - A healthy woman's desire to kill herself when her terminally ill husband dies -- a plan she intends to carry out with the help of a Swiss assisted suicide group -- has ignited a new right-to-die controversy.[more]
Sadly, though, reality is that easy access to abortion not only destroys human life, but also threatens to turn “liberated” women and their bodies into objects men can use and discard at whim......Though Gunther had no ethical objections to abortion, she did not want one. She was coerced into choosing abortion, an agonizing decision that negatively affected her emotional and physical health for years afterwards, not because she was a “modern, liberated woman,” but because she was an embarrassingly weak and vulnerable woman, one who wanted desperately to hold on to her man.
The ready option of abortion made Gunther’s unexpected pregnancy “her problem” and one she clearly needed to “take care of” if she had any hope of salvaging her relationship with her boyfriend.
The truth, which came out after I’d expressed my desire to keep the baby, was more simply stated: “If you go through with this,” he said, “I want nothing to do with it.” But I still wanted something to do with him, and I thought if I were to deal with “the problem” the way he wanted me to, we could go back to the way we were. On the day of the abortion I kept envisioning myself getting up off the table at the last moment before the procedure. I knew what I was doing was wrong, not ethically, but personally, spiritually wrong.
She did go through with the abortion. And he broke up with her anyway.
People much smarter than me have word it better than I ever could.
In is letter regarding Barak Obama at Notre Dame (posted on American Papist), Charles F. Lennon Jr. Executive Director, Notre Dame Alumni Association writes:
Rather, the University has invited the President to campus for what he’s done for racial equality, and for his stands on poverty, health care, immigration, education, infectious disease, and seeking peace. These are causes dear to the heart of Notre Dame, and he has elevated these causes and made them his own.
Sigh. As stated on Jill Stanek:
African-Americans comprise 12% of the US population but disproportionately 32% of all abortions, according to Guttmacher. PP's founder, Margaret Sanger, was an anti-black eugenicist. Most abortion mills are located where the majority of blacks live, in metropolitan areas (87.5% - see Cenus Figure 2). According to Guttmacher, 95% of all mills are located in metropolitan areas.
Oddly, pro-life black Catholics don't seem to agree with Mr. Lennon. On Twitter, Alan Keyes tweets:
Obama's moral stature comes from exploiting race, yet his pro-abortion stance repudiates the black American heritage.
Yesterday, Matt C. Abbott of RenewAmerica has a letter from Fr. John J. Raphael, SSJ:
'I have spent eighteen years working with blacks and whites, Protestants and Catholics, to bring more African Americans into the pro-life movement. During the last two months the Obama administration has already begun to aggressively roll back the gains made in defense of life over the course of the last fifteen years.'I have written two articles which attempt to show how the historical significance of the first African American president is emptied of its meaning if this same president refuses to embrace the rights of the unborn. I share them with you if you are interested in considering the devastating impact of these pro-abortion policies on the African American community in light of this historic election:
http://www.nbccongress.org/features/bridge-01.asp
http://clarionherald.org/pdfs/2009/02_07_09/page15.pdf.
'As an African American and a priest, as a principal of a Catholic high school and a member of the Admissions Advisory Board of the university, I cannot adequately express in words how deeply this action offends those who are committed to carrying out the task of Catholic education and witnessing to the Gospel of Life in the context of a Catholic school. Even if the university chooses to cooperate with certain policies of the president that are not contrary to the teaching of the faith, the conferral of this type of public honor is wholly gratuitous and incongruous with the mission of any Catholic institution...
If we really want to address the race issue, let's address it in it's fullness. If not, then you are just using the fact that Obama's blackness as an excuse to pat yourself on the back for appearing so hip-which is pretty racist.
HT:Jill Stanek
Abortions, Vasectomies Increase as Economic Woes Continue
Doctors and clinics are reporting that many women are choosing abortions and men are having vasectomies because they cannot afford a child.Planned Parenthood of Illinois clinics performed an all-time high number of abortions in January, many of them motivated by the women's economic worries, said CEO Steve Trombley, who declined to give exact numbers.
Planned Parenthood apparently is feeling no pain.
While I certainly think finances ought to be weighed when making choices for your family, it's never reason to eliminate a child-a person-who is already here. I can understand of course, how those who believe in abortion feel panicked. Being pro-life doesn't immunize a person from the worries of daily responsibilites. But I think as a society, we have come so far away from what are necessities, and what are desires, many Americans do not understand the difference. Contraception and abortion has allowed for us to put children in the category of new cell phones.
Related:
