"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
Joe and Jill Biden at Mass
The quote above is often attributed to communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky. There is no record of his actually having said it, but it's widely repeated because it pithily sums up a terrifying truth about the relentlessness of war. In an age when a large and influential segment of the population wages political warfare on all who seem to stand in the way of their urgent drive to replace reality as it is with a vaguely envisioned utopia, we can amend that to "You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you."
For a long time now the Catholic bishops in the United States have dabbled in politics, mostly in a manner that we would call "virtue signaling" today: a statement about nuclear war in the 1980s, expressions of concern about capital punishment in the 1990s, some hand-wringing about immigration in more recent years. All issues with legitimate moral dimensions, it's true, but all likewise issues on which serious Catholics can have legitimate differences of opinion. In none of them were the bishops confronting Catholics or others who were clearly advocating anything directly contrary to the moral law, or promoting an intrinsic evil. And for what it's worth, none of them are areas in which Catholic bishops have particular competence.
Over the same stretch of time there has been another issue looming, one which is indeed a matter of intrinsic evil, about which there is no room for prudential judgment, and which is very much within the competence of the episcopacy: abortion.
Today, the 4th Day of Christmas, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which commemorates the slaughter of all male children in Bethlehem under two years old by King Herod's soldiers. Herod had learned from the Magi that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem, and feared that this Messiah would depose him. As it happened, the Messiah (Jesus) escaped, and Herod went to his eternal reward (whatever that may have been) while Jesus was still an infant. You can read my post on the Holy Innocents (and Holy Innocence) HERE at Nisi Dominus.
Massacre of the Holy Innocents, Ludovico Mazzolino
My post on the other site explores the ramifications of this terrible event in more detail, including its reflection in the modern day abortion industry and our pornified culture. Here I would like to focus briefly on the connection of the Holy Innocents to an article on Lifesitenews.com [Dec. 23rd, 2016], “Pro-life Christmas carolers save six babies in Orlando, more in other areas by touching hearts with their singing”. The article details some amazing rescues, not only in Florida, but across the country:
Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler described for LifeSiteNews how three different couples turned around and walked away from abortion this year as carolers sang outside Family Planning Associates abortion center in San Bernardino, California.
A compelling feature of the story is that the Christmas Carols themselves seem to have been the decisive factor in changing the minds of people who had come to the clinics intent on aborting a child:
. . . At least one couple was greatly moved by the hymns.
“What impressed me about this report is they actually stopped to tell the caroler group that they changed their mind,” Scheidler stated.
“The couple told them, ‘It was because of your caroling that we decided to keep our baby,’” he said. “The singing was the only thing that happened to change their mind.”
A group in Illinois reports similar results:
"We're having a baby! We changed our minds," a woman called out joyfully to Northwest Families for Life group caroling Tuesday, December 20, in conjunction with Pro-Life Action League’s “Peace in the Womb” Caroling Days in Wood Dale, Ill.
When they met the couple at the car, the group’s co-founder, Maria Goldstein, told LifeSiteNews, the man said to them with a big smile on his face, "Thank you. You're doing a great job!"
“What exactly was the "great job" we did?” Goldstein said. “We didn't counsel them on the way in; we didn't talk them out of the abortion; we weren't able to show them pictures of developing babies.”
“All we did was show up, pray, and sing,” she continued. “Maybe they heard our carols inside and felt God tug at their hearts. I guess that really is a "great job!" We got to bring the power of God to this dark place. God is good.”
God is indeed good. These stories of the babies saved by carolers cast an interesting light on both the Nativity of Jesus and today’s Feast of the Holy Innocents. The Incarnation and Nativity came about because, while our efforts are necessary - “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17) - they are not sufficient. In the end, we can’t save ourselves, or anyone else, all by ourselves: only the power of God can do that. In the Life Site story, the Holy Spirit working through sacred Christmas songs changed hearts that were not moved by human arguments.
The fate of the children killed by Herod’s soldiers in Bethlehem likewise illustrates this point. Nobody was able to save them from unjust slaughter, they were too young to have any intellectual knowledge of God, and, since Jesus himself was still a baby, baptism was not available to them. And yet the Church assures us that these little ones did not die in vain, and that they enjoy the reward of Heaven (you can read a short, concise explanation here). They were beyond the help of human agency, but “with God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). If we do our part, God will do the rest.
An interesting aside: at one time, the story of these poor murdered children itself inspired a large number of songs. The best known today (the only one, to my knowledge, that is still regularly performed) is The "Coventry Carol" (lyrics below), dating from the 16th century. The spare, hauntingly beautiful rendition in the clip below is performed by Valeria Mignaco and Alfonso Marin.
1. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child. By, by, lully, lullay.
2. O sisters, too, how may we do, For to preserve this day; This poor Youngling for whom we sing, By, by, lully, lullay.
3. Herod the King, in his raging, Charged he hath this day; His men of might, in his own sight, All children young, to slay.
4. Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee, And ever mourn and say; For Thy parting, nor say nor sing, By, by, lully, lullay. Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child, By by, lully lullay.
One of the constants of the current Pontificate is that we can rely on the secular press (and, sadly, some ostensibly Catholic outlets as well) to misrepresent what Pope Francis is saying, particularly when it comes to his unprepared comments. Remarks that can be interpreted in such a way that they seem to support the current secular enthusiasms will be presented in that way, while utterances that contradict the spirit of the age will be downplayed or ignored. We've seen it happen again with some of the Pope's comments during his recent trip to Mexico; the post below is a throwback to last year (February 22nd, 2015), after a papal trip to the Phillipines. Yet again, the real Pope is much more Catholic than the Pope depicted in the news media. .
Who would have guessed that the Pope is Catholic?
It’s funny that Pope Francis is the most quotable of Popes . . . except when he’s not. A few weeks ago, when he appeared to criticize couples who were ‘irresponsible” in having children “in a series”, dismissing the idea that, “in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits,” it was big news. More recently, when he said that “Not to have children is a selfish choice,” and suggested that a culture that “views children above all as a worry, a burden, a risk, is a depressed society,” well, where was the news media? Where are the “Spirit of Vatican II” Catholics who trumpet every reference to rabbits and every off-the-cuff “who am I to judge” remark? Yes, it was reported (mostly in non-U.S. outlets), but given very little play and quickly forgotten, especially compared to the hullaballoo surrounding some other comments from this Pope.
Not that any of this is a surprise, of course. Since the revolt against the Church’s teaching on contraception that erupted into public view at the issuance of Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, reproduction and sexuality have been Ground Zero in the culture of dissidence that exists within the Church. Not coincidentally, those are also the issues that animate the drivers of cultural trends in the secular world as well. The “news” media is a major component in the Spirit of this Age, and so it is happy to run with anything the Pope says that could further its agenda, especially if it can be spun to undercut Catholic moral teaching on their favored issues.
It may be hard for some of us to believe just how important this last point is to the promoters of the new sexual ethic. They quite correctly see the Church as the main obstacle in their way. The Popes agree. In his encyclical letter Casti Connubii(“Of Chaste Marriage”), published in response to the abandonment by the Anglican Church of the age-old Christian ban on contraception, Pope Pius XI describes:
. . . the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her . . . (Casti Connubii, 56)
If this description was true in 1930, when Casti Connubii was published, how much more so today? Not only are the moral ruins around us more widespread than ever, but there is a visible group of people who identify as Catholic actively working to pull down the Church into that debris. Pope Francis’ remarks on the selfishness of sterility are most unwelcome both to this set of Catholics, and to the media, not only because he is contradicting their agenda, but specifically because he is re-stating long-standing Catholic teaching. These comments give the lie to the mythical Pope Francis who is freeing the Catholic Church from its judgmental and puritanical past. And we can’t have people think the Pope really is Catholic, can we?
If you want to sell something, what better place than the most-watched television program of the year? That, as those who follow American football or American pop culture could tell you, would be the Super Bowl, the National Football League’s annual championship game. Small wonder that advertisers spend millions of dollars for a single 30 second ad during the broadcast. Most often these ads are for things like beer, cell phones, cars, insurance, etc., but sometimes something a little different shows up. Six years ago, for instance, Focus on the Family ran a pro-life ad featuring the mother of college football star Tim Tebow, which created a lot of discussion about the cause of life and, as I detailed inthis post last week, saved at least one life.
Freddy Carstairs appearing in Doritos Super Bowl Ad (image from youTube)
A Super Bowl ad promoting human life made waves again last night . . . but not in quite the same way as the Tebow ad did. The commercial in question was advertising Doritos tortilla chips. In this one, we see a mother happily looking at an ultrasound image of her late-stage unborn baby on a monitor; the mother then turns to her husband, who is contentedly munching on Doritos. To the mother’s increasing annoyance, the father waves one of the salty snacks in front of the screen, where we can see the unborn baby reaching for the chip. Finally, the exasperated mother grabs the chip from her husband’s hand and hurls it at her feet, at which point the unborn baby on the monitor, apparently eager to eat the chip, appears to dive for the “exit”, at which point the mother goes into labor.
First of all, it’s a pretty sure bet that this ad is not intended (certainly not by Frito-Lay, the producer of Doritos) to make a pro-life statement. According to an article that ran a couple weeks ago onlifesitenews.com, the creator of the ad, an Australian filmmaker named Peter Carstairs, came up with the idea when he saw ultrasound images of his unborn son Freddy (who was born last year). There is no indication that Carstairs was looking to make a pro-life statement; he did find the concept funny. Frito-Lay chose Carstairs’ ad, no doubt because it tested well, and was unusual enough to stand out from the the welter of weird and ridiculous ads striving to make an impression upon Super Bowl viewers.
Ultrasound baby reaching for chip (image from Youtube)
And make an impression it did, in some cases positive, in some . . . less so. Apparently, NARAL PRo-Choice America (formerly the National Abortion Rights Action League) found this tortilla-affirming commercial to be guilty of the shameful “antichoice tactic of humanizing fetuses” (see article here), demonstrating yet again that pro-abortion fanatics cannot abide any suggestion that unborn humans are, well, human. That’s why they insist on using dehumanizing terms like “fetus”. That is also why they despise ultrasound, because sonograms make unavoidably obvious the already irrefutable scientific fact that unborn babies are not just “clumps of cells”, but little people. Their objection to this particular commercial is not so much that the “fetus” is doing things that an unborn baby can’t do, but that the ultrasound image is being shown at all. That’s why they fight tooth and nail against laws mandating that women seeking abortion first be shown an ultrasound of the “product of conception” in their womb: because ultrasound changes minds, even ordinary ultrasounds of unborn humans doing ordinary things. As I detail in my post “The Truth Is Our Ally In The Fight For Human Life”:
The abortion providers can only argue that simply requiring them to show truthful, unaltered pictures of what (or more accurately, as the images show, who) is being aborted will dissuade some of their customers. A federal court, in striking down one of these laws in North Carolina, said in its decision [according to pro-life attorney Howard Slugh] that the law “explicitly promotes a pro-life message by demanding the provision of facts that all fall on one side of the abortion debate.” Notice that the law does not require the suppression of “facts” that fall on the other side of the debate: it simply requires that the mother know all the facts before undergoing abortion, and the facts happen to be pro-life. And so the abortionists are reduced to asking the court to help them hide the plain, incontrovertible truth. As Slugh notes:
All these sources agree that the more a mother knows about her child, the less likely she is to abort him. This is not because ultrasound images are misleading or politicized; it is because they supply a mother with truthful information necessary for making an informed choice.
Champion of Human Life?
Last night’s silly little Doritos ad, has (most likely unintentionally) reminded millions of people about the truth of human life in the womb. I doubt that Frito-Lay was trying to make a pro-life statement with their ad: they probably saw it as just a funny take on an everyday experience that would help them sell chips. It’s quite possible that, if they determine that the unfavorable attention from abortion promoters is hurting the bottom line, they may issue an apology and pull the ad from the internet (if YouTube doesn’t do it first). Let’s hope not; we shouldn’t allow the abortion industry and its apologists to silence the Truth. It might even be worth buying a bag of Doritos . . .
This coming Sunday, as Americans and those who follow American football will know, is “Super Bowl Sunday”, when the National Football League has its annual championship game. Since this sporting event typically has a larger television audience than any other program, advertisers pay enormous amounts of money for advertising time during the game. Over the years they have concocted increasingly bizarre commercials in order to catch the attention of that massive audience: twenty years ago an ad featuring an alligator and some frogs stealing a case of beer to the tune of Bob Marley's "Jammin'" [here] was a big hit; this year there will be an ad for ketchup and mustard [here] featuring dachshunds running around wearing hot dog buns (I'm not sure how appetizing most people will find it); over the past few decades there have been countless commercials that have gone as far as possible to employ the old advertising maxim, "sex sells" (sorry, no link to those). The curious result has been, at least in years when the action on the field hasn't been particularly arresting, most of the chatter the next day is about the ads and not the game itself. Interestingly, the most discussed commercial six years ago was not bizarre at all: it simply showed a mother talking about her son [here] (o.k., he does appear to tackle her at the end, but that’s pretty tame for a Superbowl commercial). The mother was Pam Tebow and her son, Tim, had just compiled one of the most spectacular college football records in memory (which, unfortunately, would not translate into comparable success as a professional). The reason why this ad was more controversial that all those others ones filled with innuendo and grotesquery is that it was a pro-life ad. Mrs. Tebow was talking about why she did not follow doctors’ advice and abort the baby who later became one of the most celebrated college athletes ever. That, apparently, was shocking.
Avita Grace Wood
Now, a few years later, comes the story of another child, Avita Grace Wood, whose life was saved by the same commercial. Her mother, Susan Wood, had agreed to abort the unborn Avita, at the insistence of her boyfriend, the child’s father. After seeing the Pam Tebow commercial, however, Susan changed her mind and chose life (full story here). As in the case of the numerous accounts of women who chose not to abort because of 40 Days for Life and other pro-life efforts, we are reminded that our faith, prayer, and witness can change hearts and save lives. We just need to keep moving the ball down to the field. (This Throwback is an updated version of a post that was first published as part of my Sunday Snippets post on 1 February 2015)
I'm re-posting "Abortion Myth # 13" today on the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, which made abortion-on-demand the de facto law of the land. Legal abortion is often presented by its supporters as necessary for women's rights; that claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny: MYTH: "Legalized abortion is necessary for the protection of women’s rights."
TRUTH: Abortion demeans and exploits women.
-Pregnancy is a natural, healthy state for women; it is the most significant difference between women and men. Treating pregnancy like a disease implies that there’s something wrong with the nature of women's bodies and therefore with simply being a woman. The group Feminists for Life says in their Debate Handbook:
When women feel that a pregnant body is a body out of control, deviant, diseased, they are internalizing attitudes of low self-esteem toward the female body. These attitudes contradict the rightful feminist affirmation of pregnancy as a natural bodily function which deserves societal respect and accommodation.
-It is also natural for women to want to protect and nurture their children; to destroy their own children when they are most in need of protection violates an essential part of women's nature.
Mother and Child, by Frederic Leighton
-Abortion denies the most basic right, the right to life, to hundreds of thousands of unborn women every year.
-Most women who abort do so because they believe they have no choice: many are coerced, and they are often abused and threatened with violence, with loss of employment or educational opportunities, or with other adverse consequences if they don’t abort (see http://www.theunchoice.com/coerced.htm ). Shouldn't we protect a woman's right not to be forced to kill her own children?
-Legalized abortion empowers irresponsible men, because it enables them to exploit women sexually without having to accept the responsibilities of fatherhood. -Pro-abortion activists fight strenuously at every turn against laws requiring women be given information about abortion and its alternatives. What about women's right to make informed choices?
-The original feminists (Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, for instance) opposed abortion on the grounds that abortion was a crime against women as well as their children. Alice Paul said “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.”
Friday of this week, January 22nd, will be the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe
v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, which voided the abortion laws of all 50 states. In light of
that, I'm re-publishing this Worth Revisiting post from January 23rd of last year. To enjoy the
work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth
Reardon at theologyisaverb.comand Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.
"He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there
is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and
the father of lies." (John 8:44)
The March For Life In Washington, January 22nd, 2015 (Washington Times Photo)
The Father of Lies
As we mark the ugly anniversary of Roe vs. Wade this week, it is only appropriate that we take a look at “Old Scratch” himself, the Devil. In John’s Gospel our Lord tells us everything we need to know about the Devil: “He was a murderer from the beginning”, and “He is a liar, the father of lies”. And what is his first lie, the Big Lie that is still his primary murder weapon? “You will not die . . . you will be like God, knowing good and evil”. (Genesis 3:4-5) There will be no eternal consequences, Satan tells us, we can decide for ourselves what is good and evil, we aregods. For this reason he is called “the Devil”, from the Greek διάβολος (diabolos), which means “slanderer, perjurer, false accuser, and can also mean “deceiver, one who misleads”. It derives from the verb διαβάλλω (diaballo), whose original meaning is “drive through”, or destroy. Satan seeks to destroy us, eternally, by using falsehood and deception to separate us from God.
A Unique Set of Prayers
I got to thinking about all this the other day due to a comment from my Lovely Bride. She had just run across this article [here] from the National Right To Life News, detailing certain pro-abortion "prayers" that are being circulated by our old friends at Planned Parenthood, and she couldn’t help but think of the observation of C.S. Lewis (and many others) to the effect that Satan can’t create anything on his own, all he can do is mock and falsify God’s creation. I think she has a point. PP calls their campaign by the inelegant title “40 Days of Prayer For Women Everywhere”, an obvious mockery of 40 Days For Life. Here is a sample of a few of the Planned Parenthood “prayers”, from the NRTL News article:
“We give thanks for the doctors who provide quality abortion care"
“We pray for a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility.”
“We pray for all the staff at abortion clinics around the nation. May they be daily confirmed in the sacred care that they offer women.”
“We give thanks for abortion escorts who guide women safely through the hostile gauntlet of protesters.”
“We pray for women who have been made afraid of their own power [of choice, i.e. abortion] by their religion. May they learn to reject fear and live bravely.”
National Right To Life News notes that these “prayers” were composed by a group calling itself “Faith Aloud”, and that “Infamous late term abortionist Dr. Leroy Carhart is a member of the board.”
"To Whom It May Concern . . ."
My first reaction on reading this was: do these people really believe that God will surround their butchery of unborn babies made in His image and likeness with “a cloud of gentleness”? That this butchery could be in any sense called “sacred care”? That the Lord would smile upon their request to separate women from their (most often Christian) religion? Well, maybe they don't, because these petitions are not actually addressed to God, or to anyone else for that matter. Is it due to a lack of faith, or perhaps a realization that a just and loving God would not be likely to answer prayers such as these? Whatever the case may be, these are the same people who mocked the words of the Heavenly Host with “Choice on Earth” Christmas cards (in Planned Parenthood newspeak, “choice” always means “abortion”); these are the same people who thought it a generous gesture after the terrorist attack on 9/11 to offerfree abortions to pregnant widows of men who died in the World Trade Towers. This macabre mockery of religious faith has been a part of the pro-abortion industry/movement for a long time, and it isn’t limited to that movement’s flagship enterprise: immediately after the Roedecision in 1973 a group calling itself the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR) was founded, which soon, recognizing that the truth in this case was a rather unlovely thing, removed the explicit reference to abortion and changed their name to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. And the ugly truth about abortion is the reason for the euphemisms and the bizarre, phony prayers: if they’re honest, they lose, and so they must pretend to be something they’re not.
Spiritual Hosts of Wickedness in Heavenly Places
The Anti-Christ taking orders from his boss
So how do we go about combating the Powers of Darkness? St. Paul tells us to take on “the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:13) and “pray at all times in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18) “that utterance may be given me in boldly proclaiming the Gospel” (Ephesians 6:19). So, let’s see now, lies, mockery of God and sacred things, death; who does that sound like? Could it be…? Yes, you know where this is going. Now, I’m not saying that the people at PP and their fellow travelers in the abortion industrial complex are Satans themselves: I’m willing to believe that most of them think they’re doing the right thing, and that they’re on the side of the angels. The problem is, they are on the side of the fallen angels, whose army is commanded by the father of lies himself. I am again reminded of the words of St. Paul: “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly place” (Ephesians 6:12).
The battle agains the Spiritual Hosts of Wickedness, then, calls for a two-pronged strategy: first prayer and reliance on God, next a bold proclamation of the truth. That’s why, before the March for Life in Washington and our local marches, we attend Mass or a prayer service. We need to remember that, and remember that this isn’t simply a matter of politics, it’s a matter of Good and Evil, the God of Truth and the father of lies. Let’s make sure we stay on the right side.
“We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” Thus spake Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority in the U.S, Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision in January, 1973, the 43rd anniversary of which will be observed next week (January 22nd). And so the era of virtually unlimited abortion in the United States burst upon the nation in a flurry of obfuscation and falsehood. There never was, in fact, any question of when “life begins”, certainly not on scientific grounds: the only question was whether all human life was deserving of protection, or only certain lives. For more than four decades now, the abortion industry and its apologists have relied on verbal smokescreens like Justice Blackmun’s to provide just enough cover that Americans can avoid the ugly truth about abortion.
It’s getting harder all the time to keep the charade going. In 1973, ultrasound was not yet commonly used by obstetricians in the United States, and so for the vast majority of Americans unborn babies remained invisible, out-of-sight . . . and therefore fairly easy to dismiss. Not anymore. Virtually all expectant mothers have pictures of their babies in the womb long before the birth, pictures that have become increasingly clearer and more life-like. If it looks like a baby, squirms like a baby, gives a “thumbs up” like a baby (see photo above), well, what can one conclude? Of course, women who go to abortion clinics are unlikely to be offered such pictures, even if an ultrasound is performed, because women who see an ultrasound of their unborn baby are much less likely to abort [see here].
3d ultrasound image of baby in utero
from website of 1st Glimpse 3D/4D Ultrasound
Howard Slugh, an attorney, addresses the ultrasound issue in an article [here] in National Review Online called “The Life-Affirming Power of Ultrasound”. He discusses in particular the growing number of state laws in the U.S. that require the abortionist to perform an ultrasound and to show the images to the mother of the unborn baby. There are some interesting features to the legal battles over these laws. First of all, even though abortionists deny that ultrasounds change minds, they “in fact have conceded the point in lawsuits challenging mandatory ultrasound laws”, which they have been fighting tooth-and-nail to stop.
That’s not the only revealing thing about the abortionists’ legal arguments. “No one” Slugh tells us, “asserts that the images are misleading or that the laws require additional pro-life commentary.” The abortion providers can only argue that simply requiring them to show truthful, unaltered pictures of what (or more accurately, as the images show, who) is being aborted will dissuade some of their customers. A federal court, in striking down one of these laws in North Carolina, said in its decision that the law “explicitly promotes a pro-life message by demanding the provision of facts that all fall on one side of the abortion debate.” Notice that the law does not require the suppression of “facts” that fall on the other side of the debate: it simply requires that the mother know all the facts before undergoing abortion, and the facts happen to be pro-life. And so the abortionists are reduced to asking the court to help them hide the plain, incontrovertible truth. As Slugh notes:
All these sources agree that the more a mother knows about her child, the less likely she is to abort him. This is not because ultrasound images are misleading or politicized; it is because they supply a mother with truthful information necessary for making an informed choice.
It’s good to bear this in mind as we work to protect life: truth is our ally. We should continue to publicize the truth by educating and informing our fellow citizems, by participating in pro-life events over this next week, and by supporting pro-life laws such as the ones mentioned above that give women more access to full and accurate information. But more than that, we should also be sure to pray to the Lord of Truth, that He continue to open our eyes and those of our fellow people to the Truth of the humanity of the unborn, and to the sanctity of all human life.
(An earlier version of the Throwback Thursday post appeared under the title "The Truth Will Out" 16 January 2015)
We are approaching the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, which in "an exercise of raw judicial power" (as Justice Byron White called it in his Roe dissent) cancelled out the abortion laws in all fifty states and short-circuited the democratic process to impose de facto abortion on demand on the United States. It seems like a good time to republish this Worth Revisiting piece, first published in October of 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.comand Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.)
One thing that comes up when I am discussing the existence of God with young skeptics is the idea that faith (not just belief, but trust in God) is much more conducive to human flourishing than the alternative. We see how Faith can change lives and transform people, and when we embrace it ourselves, our faith is confirmed by similar changes in our own lives.
In spite of the empirical evidence, it’s still a tough sell. Militant atheism is a bit trendy these days, due in large part to the success of prophets of nothingness such as insect biologist Richard Dawkins (whom I previously discussed here). Many people, and particularly young people (as I said, it's kind of trendy) have become enamored of the atheist worldview, and are always demanding “proof” - in this case, that faith supports life, and life abundantly, while atheism does not.
The proof is there for those with eyes to see. This past weekend (Oct. 2014), for instance, I attended our state Right To Life convention with my lovely bride and two of our sons. The Keynote speaker was a man named George Michael Lane who wrote book called A Different Kind of Perfect, about his daughter Amy. Amy has Down's Syndrome. In his talk, Lane described his struggle of conscience when he and his wife Thea received an in utero diagnosis of their daughter’s condition. He wrestled mightily with the temptation to seek an abortion, but he was finally convinced by his parish priest to put his trust in God, who forbids us to take innocent life.
Lane’s life since has been abundantly rewarded. Amy is a beautiful young woman who plays the viola, has an encyclopedic knowledge of musicals and old movies, and infectiously spreads love through her family and beyond. We spoke at length with Amy after the talk and can confirm that she is as delightful as her proud father claims she is. She is a living reminder to us that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
Which brings us back to the aforementioned Dawkins. I couldn’t help but think of the last time I had heard of him in the news. This past summer, in response to a woman who was wondering what she would do if her child were diagnosed before birth with Down’s Syndrome, the esteemed insect biologist tweeted back: “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.” No Amy for him.
All I can say is that it’s a good thing George Lane went to a priest for advice, and not to Richard Dawkins. And whose world would you rather live in: Amy’s, or Dawkins’?
MYTH: “Most abortions are wrong, but they should be allowed in cases of abnormal fetus.”
TRUTH:
-People with disabilities are human beings, enjoying full human dignity and the same right to exist as the rest of us.
-
-Families who are expecting a handicapped child need support, not an abortion! Studies indicate that women who abort for genetic reasons have a high incidence of suffering grief, guilt, shame, and depression. The actual incidence of of depression following “selective abortion” for genetic reasons may be as high as 92 percent for mothers and 82 percent for fathers among those studied. (The Post-Abortion Review, July-Sept. 2003, Elliot Institute, link)
- -There are lists of families willing to adopt babies with any serious medical condition including spina bifida and down syndrome.
- -The belief that society is better off without the “genetically inferior” was the credo of Nazi Germany, where thousands of people were exterminated solely because they had disabilities.
- -There are numerous support groups for families with special needs children, among them CHASK (Christian Homes and Special Kids) and NATHHAN (National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network); NATHHAN also provides a list of further resources (link)
