March for Life 2014 : The turning tide ?

At this years March for Life in Washington D.C., amid freezing temperatures and wintry blasts, it really felt like the tide turning, that the scales of justice were tipping rightward, away from a withered, callous or indifferent national stance on abortion, or if you prefer more direct language, the deliberate killing of an innocent child while it's still in the womb. It was so encouraging to see such vitality in the movement that so many youngsters, teens and college-aged people from around the U.S.A. gather for Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, at the rally on the national mall and the march to the supreme court. The frigid weather did not seem to hold back the pro-lifers, which by some estimates was upwards of 600,000, an overwhelming amount of whom are from Catholic parishes around the country. The sad and pitiable contingent of pro-abortion demonstrators seems to have been dwindling every year and this year if wasn't the coldness of the weather, it may have been the cold-heartedness of their position which dampened their resolve. I saw a grand total of two.
It looked like there were more news network cameras than before. To my amazement, the news network CNN were  present. Their report was mostly fair,  even asking Jeanne Monahan, the leader of the March for Life,  about the 'changing of the tide' in national opinion and the legal advances in restricting abortion in 23 states and over 100 pending pieces of pro-life legislation. There was the usual reference to the pro-life demonstrators as 'anti-abortionist activists' -  a term made up recently by liberal, pro-abortion media outlets. And an absurd comment from Catholics For Choice (a term something like 'Jews for Hitler') about "support for choice remain[ing] solid" was left to hang mid-air in all it's euphemistic incompleteness. The New York times, supposedly a newspaper of record, forgot to give such a national event coverage sufficient coverage as I understand there was one photograph related to the event on page A17, while a comparatively pithy story about a resigning teacher in Seattle took today's front page. A washington times photo gallery report made 3 out of 10 pictures to feature pro-abortion demonstrators. I don't know where they found them, amidst the back-drop of 100's of thousands of pro-life marchers. Again, I saw only 2 !  According to the Breitbart 'Big Government' blog, from which the photo above was taken, a local news radio station said that the pro-abortion demonstration had been officially cancelled due to weather. Lila Rose, of pro-life group Live Action, responded "A little chilly for them? It is harder to fight for the dismemberment of children than it is to fight for their lives,”. His Holiness Pope Francis tweeted an encouraging tweet :

 "I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable"

While the president of the U.S.A., in a statement made yesterday on the 41st anniversary of the Roe Vs. Wade decision, who was probably quietly glad that his own mother chose life, was quick to "recommit"  the nation to "protecting a woman’s access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy...Because this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.". 
But not if you're a defenseless innocent little baby in utero, it would seem. Or a frightened and pressured woman for whom abortion is more likely than not to lead to depression or suicidal thoughts, infertility and prenatal complications and many other associated health problems. The term 'pro-life' means on behalf, or affirmative of , or in favour of, life. There's only, at worst, a small amount of rhetorical dishonesty in that. Where's there's life, it ought to be respected and it's dignity upheld, from the womb to the tomb. But 'choice' is meaningless without it's context. What are you choosing ? Why are you not saying what you are choosing, why is it hanging mid-air, without any justifying foundation. It's a sad day when we do not press people to define precisely what they mean and to press the point to the absurdity and darkness it very definitely entails.
Getting back to the two pro-choicers. I asked one of them, "Can you give me an argument which justifies abortion that does not also justify infanticide ?". Silence, then dismissal and then some talk about not wanting to engage in arguing in circles was my response. Silence again. And then, when I pressed for an answer, I was told that an only when born is a baby legally recognized as such and only then does it have a life to be defended. When, I asked, does the baby become a baby, 5 seconds before he comes down the birth canal ? 1 second ? What is it before then, if not a baby ? Silence. The horrible silence of a nation I pray will end, lest future generations ask of us what we did when this horrific holocaust was happening ? I think the answer can be found in a certain attitude so prevalent in America today. When I was relating the somewhat arduous conditions of the March for Life, cancelled transportations, frigid weather, etc. to a friend. He opined "I'm glad you got to do what you wanted to do". This seemingly live-and-let-live, each to his own, let people have their freedom attitude suffuses the liberal mentality. Oh, would that that latitude be extended to the baby in the womb...

Misrepresenting Pope Francis

The denizens of the journalistic depths came like piranhas to feed on the morsels of ambiguity issuing forth from a questionable translation of Pope Francis interview with Italian Jesuit newspaper La Civilta Catolica which was reproduced in the American counterpart, America magazine, a week and a half ago. We were told that there were bold changes coming down from the Vatican and that conservative Catholics (that is, actual Catholics) were in for a shock and that the Church was seen by the holy father to be "obsessed" with "talking about abortion, gays and small-minded rules". However, the media outlets, at least those interested in turning Pope Fancis into an echo chamber for modern errors relating to humanity, seemed either to not notice, completely ignore or not understand the meaning of the word "only", for the full quote from the article translation (translated by a committee of five, no less) ran thus :"We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. "So, we shouldn't "only" talk about these issues all the time. Yes, there is the matter of love of God, obedience and fidelity to Him, grace redemption, turing away from all sin, rejoicing in the salvific mission of the Church as a hospital for sinners and a museum, a living museum of saints, miracles, exorcisms, family, marriage and evangelization. Actually, if all of these things had their proper regard by society, then we would hardly have to make mention of the other issues, the issues the liberal media is desperate to twist the Church into giving assent to, and go with the flow, like a dead stick rather than standing firm like a living branch, to borrow G. K. Chesterton's vivid phrase. And just in case a clear restatement of Pope Francis' words in the interview were not enough, the very next day, September 20th, he gave a stirring denouncement of abortion in front of a large group of Catholic doctors : "In all its phases and at every age, human life is always sacred and always of quality. And not as a matter of faith, but of reason and science!"
"Every unborn child, though unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of the Lord, who even before his birth, and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world," he said. "And every old person, even if infirm and at the end of his days, carries with him the face of Christ. They must not be thrown away!"(taken from the Catholic News Agency http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1303991.htm)The liberal media outlets were strangely silent.

The Pelosi Effect

In these days of such duplicity and confusion, it's a wonder we don't clearly see the cracks as often as we should. Perhaps it's due to media bias. The cracks sometimes show themselves to be the chasms between self-delusion and reality, between lies and the truth. In order to maintain some face and composure under incisive questioning these days, a lot of work has to be done, to keep the dissonance of corrupting influences from showing their foul incoherence. It must be like keeping two counter-progagating positron/anti-positron storage rings from colliding their brains*. Every once in a while, when the right question is asked, the quarks fly.  At a press conference recently, Mrs. Pelosi was asked about the moral difference between aborting a child at 28 weeks (as some centers in Baltimore do) and bringing the child out of the womb at 23 weeks, stabbing him in the neck and killing him dead. This question comes at the time of the conviction of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell who performed the latter in his "house of horrors". Mrs. Pelosi firstly avoids the question completely and instead turns on the reporter, initially goading about deriving pleasure from asking the question in the first place (oh, would that Mrs. Pelosi derive some pleasure in answering it !).  She claims that the actions in the Philadelphia abortion mill were reprehensible because, in her reckoning, "those actions were reprehensible". Why ? Because, according to her, the abortionist "chose to disrespect a judgement made about her own body". But the difficulty with this is that Kermit Gosnell was exactly respecting what the poor and misguided women wanted. Their judgements made about their bodies (and the other body they were carrying) were entirely respected. I have no idea what Pelosi was trying to say here. If those actions were reprehensible, all abortions after 23 weeks of pregnancy are reprehensible. The only difference between what Gosnell did and what abortionists legally do, is that the baby was brought out into the light of day. Various ad-hominem attacks and self-contradictory claims of being a 'respectful Catholic' followed. Further absurd accusations of making abortion into a 'political' issue were raised, as if the Democrats don't use this issue to win over much of the electorate, specifically targeting women voters with flyers and propaganda material. The reporter was told by Mrs. Pelosi that he had an agenda and that he wasn't interested in getting an answer. What we learned, however, was that Pelosi wasn't interested in actually confronting the question. What is the difference between a pre-mature baby of 6 months in the incubator in the neonatal hospital facility and the aborted baby who ends up in a bucket in planned parenthood ? The contradictions of the pro-choice/pro-abortion cannot confront this question. For those who think that ascribing rights to a fertilized ovum is absurd, consider how absurd it is to maintain that a child in the womb can be killed up to some arbitrary gestational time-limit (24 weeks in most states). What happens to the child at that boundary to make it a human being, that would therefore forbid his abortion ? It's a critical boundary, getting it right is a matter of life and death. If it's not important to define it exactly, the limit can be re-drawn to justify infanticide. Whatever line is drawn in time beyond which it is considered a human being, there can always be a baby who develops faster and would have all the characteristics at 23 weeks (say) as another baby would have at 24 weeks. That life begins at conception is coherent, all the hallmarks of growing human life are there, and when left alone will grow as the human being we can easily recognize in ultrasounds and heartbeats. From conception, the growth is a matter of degree. If it doesn't, you have to somehow believe that the cells suddenly become a human being at 24 weeks, or some other arbitrary time which can be re-configured to justify infanticide.

* Thanks John Zmirak.

A Tale of two Catholics

Image Source : Getty
For those of you who caught the Vice Presidential debate on October 11th, you may have caught how both Mr. Biden and Mr. Ryan both professed to be Catholics. This flies in the face of the fact that their standings on abortion were at opposite poles. I am talking about their political standing, and as politicians, it's the only standing that matters. Mr. Ryan confessed that he believed life begins at conception and that his stance and beliefs on abortion were in line with the Catholic Church. This was a coherent position and a courageous expression of that standing. Then Mr. Biden made the amazing claim that, although he also believes what the Catholic Church teaches in this respect, that life begins at conception, but went ahead and said that he does not want to force his religious beliefs on others, and is politically in favour of abortion for all. But if you believe that life begins at conception, that makes abortion murder. Are we supposed to take from this that he sees standing up against murder, the deliberate killing of the innocent, the imposition of his own beliefs that he is talking and therefore something he is not willing to do ? I really hope not. If he doesn't stand up against the murder of the innocent, what does he stand up against ? Only in a post endarkenment, post-modern, relative-values world could this statement have been taken with muted acceptance. Only in such a world could there be such a double think, such a dissonance between what is said and what is believed and what is then acted upon, or otherwise. Well, does Mr. Biden hold his Catholicism cheap ? When it may cost Ryan political ground to make a courageous stand for the truth of what he believes, and act according to his conscience, it makes no sense for a man who claims to be the same thing, speak and act in direct discord with it. Not to speak out (especially if you're a politician) when given the chance against murder is to be complicit in it (which he may be materially, also). Still is he a good Catholic ? It's not really for me to say. He may become a better saint than any of us could be. But what he is doing is giving grave scandal, that a Catholic can somehow be pro "choice". And I would fear gravely, hearing the words of Jesus about scandal and the little ones, and the deep sea, and recant.

First the unborn, then the elderly - who will be next ?

The goodness of a society can be judged in many ways by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. When the 1973 Roe Vs. Wade Supreme court decision was passed, it sanctioned the persecution of the most innocent, voiceless and vulnerable citizens. It is the groups who that are weak who get persecuted first in a society which is dominated by the strong, wherein 'might is right'. But in a world where might is right, there is no place for love or what the Greeks would call 'Agape'. There is only raw power where those who are on the margins of society are pushed to the outer limits to make way for the relentless march of the well-to-do, healthy, go-getters, jet-setters and people who contribute. So this grim utilitarian picture of human personhood would be seen to make less and less room for the elderly. Being pro-life does not just consist in standing up for the voiceless unborn, but also for the aged. A society which starts to eschew a supernatural and metaphysically important understanding of human life will not see the importance and value of a human being as it nears its time to exit stage left on the stage of life.
So this brings us to the physician-assisted patient suicide H H 1468 bill which is currently pending legislation in MA. A bill of this kind has already been passed in Oregon and it's instantiation in legislatures across the country may follow in an infective invective against the aging elderly (yellow states have passed the legislation like Montana, Oregon and Washington, red have pending bills)):


Now the euphemism-generating language engineers have been playing with the phrase 'death with dignity', the only merit about which I can see is its alliteration, and which serves to establish the exact opposite. The legislation would allow doctors to give elderly patients with terminal conditions, apparently hopeless prognoses or painful quality of life the opportunity to end their own lives with a lethal dose of poison which their doctor can give them. I'm not sure how this con coexist with the Hippocratic oath to uphold the patients well being. Further, I can imagine a person who is heavily dependent on care-givers, relatives, and others feeling far worse about themselves when their doctor presents them with this option. It would lead to a complete eclipsing of their sense of value as human being and their dignity.
As Archbishop Cardinal Sean O' Malley said in an open address to the Boston Archdiocese : "a vote for [this bill] is a vote for suicide". Oregon passed this type of legislation in November 1994, and since then, the overall suicide rate has reached a level 34 %
higher than the national average (see Oregon's state website). Suicide is the number-one metric of human discontent and unhappiness and a clear indicator that we are not at a level of human flourishing that we should want for our future.
A common attempt at justifying physician-assisted suicide is to point out that it puts an end to the pain and suffering which a person might feel, psychological and otherwise, towards the end of their lives. But surely it is not for any of us to put a person out of their misery. When we allow the patient determine it, it's suicide. We put animals out of their misery, and we are not just animals, we are human beings. Today, with pet stores, pet psychologists and pet spas, it seems we are treating the animals we like as humans and the humans we find inconvenient are being treated like animals.

Steps of the Supreme Court, 23rd January 2012

Censoring one thing and doing another.....

In Germany, the Album "Butchered at Birth" by death metal band Cannibal Corpse was banned when it was released in 1991, however a year later a law was passed leading to the de facto legalization of butchering at birth, or close enough to. It is a twisted world out there.