Spirit and Life® readers will be well aware of the ongoing campaign to legalize abortion on demand in the Caribbean nation of Jamaica. Our valiant pro-life friends in Jamaica have just informed us that they need prayer this coming week as the abortion issue comes before their Parliament.
Details at Island Breezes.
News flash: having the Olympics in Beijing really is turning out to be a bad idea. First there is the fact that they are um, Communist, then there's that disgusting One Child Policy complete with forced abortions, their disproportionate capital punishment rates, they eat cats and dogs. And guess what? They hate black people too. OK, I know the last one seems almost laughable compared to the other crimes against humanity, yet it seems like the one people might stand up and notice the most.
Seriously though, why do we do as much business as we do with them? This country is a like a delicious sundae of immoral joy. Every opportunity people try to give them to prove "hey China is not that disgusting, they say "yeah we are, watcha gonna do about it?"
Well nothing apparently. We just continue to support them economically.
Dawn Eden links to this wonderful article from America Magazine about a woman's intellectual journey from being a pro-choice atheist to a pro-life Catholic. I recommend it, it is an enjoyable read.
Some of the comments made me chuckle. Take for example comment #73 by Tricia Harrigan:
73. OK, abortion is killing a baby; agreed. Not to be
done. But contraception? why is that wrong? Must
one have a baby a year? We were well on that
path, when our third child was born before our
eldest was three years old. We tried the rhythm
method and almost lost our marriage. The scars
remain. Our fourth child was born by choice, and
then I took the pill, which had just become
available. This was the time of Vatican II; we had
great hopes that the church would listen to the
faithful and come to a less 'all or nothing'
approach to marriage; a commission was appointed to
study marriage and eminent Catholic leaders like
the Crowleys from Chicago were on it. But when the
group presented its conclusions, they were the
wrong ones, i.e. they did not echo the church's
position, so they were dismissed. What after all
did married people know? So we don't listen to
celibates on the subject of marriage! A
grandmother of 10, married 50 years.
By Tricia Harrigan on July 6, 2008 at 6:11 PM
I don't know where to begin. This sounds so Diocese of Albany and so that 60's generation. This is the generation whose philosophy is closing Churches left and right and watering down the faith.
I suppose I could go on about the abuses of folk music Masses, and stupid "cool" homilies about Bravo TV shows etc. etc, but I will stick to the topic at hand. I don't understand this woman's philosphy. I don't understand my parents or my grandmother or my in-laws. I don't get being Catholic except in regard to the birth control issue.I totally get how having another child when you are not planning on it is a struggle. But it seems like every time you make a choice to do something right, the immediate consequences seem very difficult compared to the alternative. However, the long term good makes life better.
I don't get fighting the Church on this issue. It makes no sense to me to say "I am certainly Catholic and I agree in the Church's wisdom on everything...except this. This is just dumb." Do they think the Church is being cute and sentimental but doesn't really mean it on this issue? I used to think they thought they were championing some cause or helping people by saying "you must go on birth control" but all that has happened is the opposite: it has turned people who desire to follow Church teachings and have more than 2 children into a pariah.
People always fall back on the economical reasoning-people should not have too many children that they cannot afford. That sounds logical and makes sense, but I think the philosophy behind this thinking has more to do simply with selfishness. Somewhere in this generation, or the one before, selfishness became a virtue. I cannot tell you how many times I hear people of that generation say things like "I enjoy my things", "this belongs to me", "I need my time", "I deserve This". It's like a mantra, and they are used as excuses for reasons why they do not have to come visit their grandchildren on special occasions, or help with families or whatever, as well as simple random declarations of their life mission statements. It baffles me why people are not embarrassed to make such proclamations. If I was simply too tired to attend an important event, I would at least make an excuse. My mother-in-law just two days ago told us we are not worthy to make the 3 hour trip to visit. She has better things to do. For the life of me, I cannot understand how this is fulfilling. I don't think it is. One of my girlfriend's mother used to tell her constantly she should have been aborted. Growing up, everyone but her mother took care of my friend, her grandparents, neighbors, after-school programs.The woman dated, partied, finished school and obtained many graduate degrees, and acted in shows. Now that she is grown and her mother is in her fifties, her mother announced to her that her daughter "stole her youth away". I wish I could say this is so weird and was just her, but it is not. Maybe to this extent yes. Not sure, my husband was a "we should have aborted you" child yet his parents invested no time or effort into raising him. They claim all the time they did, the sacrificed so much. It is OK to say that because it "would have been the right thing for me".
I am so glad to have many Catholic friends in my generation, who in the very least, abandoned folk music Masses. If I had to sit around with my friends and talk about how great that generation was because of Woodstock and liberation theology, I would lock myself in my closet and never come out.
In the comboxes below, DRF comments:
What about the women and girls who are forced to continue pregnancies that they do not want? What about the women and girls who are subject to violence just for getting pregnant in the first place? Murder is already illegal. Doctors having sex with their patients is already punishable. Holding a gun to your daughter's head is already a crime. Recriminalizing a necessary medical procedure is not the way to solve these problems.
Welcome DRF, thanks for stopping by. You make some valid points.
The focus of the site is not about making abortion illegal.The focus of this site is to show how what was supposed to be a women's right has become more of another method to control and abuse women. While I am pretty sure it attracts and is most likely written by (although I really am just speculating, I don't want to make that assumption) many pro-lifers who believe abortion is murder, the message here is about the fact that many women are being coerced psychologically and even violently into aborting against their will. If you are pro-life or pro-choice, coercing women into abortion is unacceptable. Am I correct in believing that pro-choice means just that, it is a women's choice what to do, and that choice should not be limited to abortion OR if she decides on abortion, she should feel it is totally her decision?
Many of the examples given are of the violent aspect of coercion into abortion, and may seem extreme, but as Peony blogged about before, homicide is becoming the leading cause of death of pregnant women. She also linked toto this WaPo article about this scary trend. It is a slippery slope, once one type of abuse becomes common, people become desensitized, and what you see is a step worse the next time around. Murder aside, I can say that many of the women I know who had abortions had people around them pressing hard on them to have abortions. I know a few women who opted not to abort, such as myself, who had tons of pressure to abort, but for some reason they held fast to their decisions, perhaps realizing the people who were pressuring them were not going to be around to pick up the pieces.
The abortion issue is a complex one, and there are many areas we can agree on and contribute equally to. Helping pregnant women in need doesn't have to be "anti-choice"; acknowledging and helping women through Post Abortive Stress Syndrome should not to be limited to pro-lifers (nor does pretending it doesn't exist further the choice cause, and in the case discussed here, women should not be forced into abortion.
As a matter of fact, the site states:
Compassionate Americans on all sides will want to know ... about these injustices and risks to women. People on all sides are ready to open the door to healing after decades of:
* Unwanted abortions,
* Coercion or even force from all sides,
* Deceptive or negligent counseling and medical practices,
* Coercive, often systemic negligence,
* Risk to teens, including coercion, sexual molestation, and injury
* Risks to all women, ranging from pregnancy-related discrimination and coercion to health risks and post-abortion trauma and death
* Domestic violence toward pregnant women, which can lead to homicide, the leading killer of pregnant women
* Post-abortion issues, including:
* grief
* trauma
* physical injury, including infertility
* 6-7 x higher suicide rates
* 3.5x higher risk of death in abortion's aftermath (3)
Interesting, but sad, website.
Coercion is significant. It comes "from all sides." It can escalate to violence, even homicide –– the #1 killer of pregnant women.
* A husband jumped on his wife’s stomach to force an abortion ...
* A mother forced her daughter at gunpoint to go to the abortion clinic
* Outside a parking ramp, a mother was forcibly injected by a physician –- the baby’s father – with an abortifacient drug ...
* Discrimination against pregnant employees or renters
* Violence against pregnant mothers
* Homicide is the leading killer or pregnant women.
* Learn more by downloading Forced Abortion in America,
which includes the single-page Forced Abortion fact sheet
HT: Ashli
Pansy and Peony: The Two Sleepy Mommies
