St. Joseph the Worker - The Laborer Is More Than His Work

     They say that necessity is the mother of invention but, as today's feast of St. Joseph the Worker shows us, sometimes measures taken for practical purposes can point to deeper truths.

Holy Family Father and Son, by Corbert Gauthier

     St. Joseph the Worker is a very recent addition to the liturgical calendar. Pope Pius XII, who wanted to present a Catholic alternative to the Communist celebration of May Day, instituted it in 1955.  Who better to counter the self-proclaimed "vanguard of the workers" than a great Saint who was also a laborer, a man known for his patience and perseverance, but also his piety?  As such, St. Joseph is also the ideal embodiment of the Dignity of Work.  He shows us that work is not simply something we do to survive, or that connects us to a certain economic class, but is an essential part of our humanity, a way in which we act, at least in a small way, as co-creators with God (see St. John Paul II's Laborem Exercens).
     At the same time, we can see that while a worker may be honored for his work, he is not defined by it.  Here the Catholic view stands in sharp contrast to the outlook of Marxism, where a working person's primary identification is with his class, and he finds meaning by working toward the "workers' paradise" of a fully communist society; since the realization of the workers' aspirations is the Greatest Good in this worldview, those who are seen as obstacles (such as members of the Capitalist Class) deserve to be extirpated.  Western market-driven societies have their own false anthropology in the phenomenon of the workaholic, whose whole life centers on his career, and who sees no meaning beyond it.  
     Christians, however, see our primary identification as adopted sons an daughters of God: equal in dignity (regardless of externals such as class, sex, race, etc.), called to love, and all of us part of the One Body of Christ.
     Now look at St. Joseph.  There have probably been carpenters more skillful than Joseph, or more productive, but none of them have feast days. We honor him today in his role of worker, but that's not why he is a Saint.  He's a Saint, and a great Saint, because he cooperated in God's great work of salvation.  Today's feast reminds us that we can all aspire to sanctity, even humble laborers, and that whoever we are, and whatever we do in this world, what we do for the Kingdom of God and who we are in the eyes of the Father is what matters in the end. 

(See also: "Fighting Dragons, Inside And Out" on Nisi Dominus)

What We Are Is More Important Than What We Have

     Which is more important, "is" or "has"?  In Gaudium et Spes,  the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World from the Second Vatican Council, we find the following: "Man's worth is greater because of what he is than because of what he has." This line grabbed my attention immediately, because it casts light on something that has stood out in my ongoing discussions ("Hey folks, let's dialogue!") with atheists and others who take a materialist view of reality.

     An interesting feature of these conversations with materialists is the fact that their worldview doesn't permit them to discuss what we are: their philosophical outlook only admits the importance of what we have. We have bodies, for instance, which have needs, and so on, but in this conception of the universe all we can be is matter, no different, in essence, than the matter that makes up a dog, a rock, or anything else; after all, if matter is all there is, how can we assign any value to an abstraction like "human worth"?  In the materialist world view, human worth is a mere sentiment (if such a thing itself can be said to exist), nothing more.

     In the Catholic Christian world view, on the other hand, humanity is something special, both because we are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27), but also because Christ sanctified humanity through the incarnation. As St. John Paul the Great said in his 1995 address to the United Nations:

As a Christian, my hope and trust are centered on Jesus Christ . . . Jesus Christ is for us God made man, and made part of the history of humanity. Precisely for this reason, Christian hope for the world and its future extends to every human person. Because of the radiant humanity of Christ, nothing genuinely human fails to touch the hearts of Christians.

     The materialists want to pull us down to the level of mere things; Jesus Christ promises to lift us up to fellowship with God.  That is why the future of humanity belongs, not to the champions of "matter", but to Christ and His Church.

(An earlier version of this Throwback post was published on 8 February 2015)

Life Sells Chips (or, Chips Sell Life)

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 in this 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 on lifesitenews.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 . . .   

Abortion Myth # 13

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.”

DON’T BUY THE LIE!

Essential Pro-Life Resources:

Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (link)  

The Elliot Institute (link)  

National Right To Life Committee (link)  

Care-Net (link)

The Nurturing Network (link)


To See The Entire Abortion Myths Series Click HERE 

St. Vitalis, Love & Human Traffficking

When a man dies, his life is revealed.

Call no man happy before his death,

for by how he ends a man is known.  (Sirach 11:27-28)

Back when I was new to the world of bloggery I published a post on St. Julia of Corsica which I called "St. Julia of Corsica - A Saint For Our Times." And, of course, she was a timely Saint. Interestingly, every time I write about another Saint, I find myself wanting to title the post the same way: "St. [Fill In The Blank], A Saint For Our Time", or " . . . A Saint For Today". It stands to reason, because sanctity, a reflection of the Eternal God, has a universal quality about it; every Saint has something that every one of us hoping to rest their heart in the Lord wants to find. At the same time, every Saint is a distinct individual, and sometimes by identifying with some of the unique aspects of a particular Saint's life, their sanctity seems a little less remote, and therefore a little more attainable, for ourselves. For just that reason we have Patron Saints and devotions to particular Saints.
It is also true that the unique stories of particular Saints illuminate specific problems or issues that are still with us today (which is another reason why we have Patron Saints). For instance, earlier this week (January 11th; the scripture quote above is from the same day's Office of Readings) we commemorated St. Vitalis of Gaza, who is venerated both in the Orthodox Churches and in the Catholic Church as the Patron Saint of both day laborers and "ladies of the night" (that is, handy-men and prostitutes: the reasons for both will be made clear below).  His hagiography [Here and Here] tells us that, around 625 A.D.,  when he was already advanced in years, he came to Alexandria in order to minister to the prostitutes.  His method, as described in the brief biography on Catholic.org, was as follows:

[A]fter obtaining the name and address of every prostitute in the city, he hired himself out as a day laborer, and took his wage to one of these women at the end of the day. He then would teach her about her dignity and value as a woman and that she did not deserve to be used by men as an object of their lust.

He followed the same routine every day, and he succeeded in rescuing a large number of women in this way.  Many fellow Christians misunderstood his motives, however, as he insisted that the women he helped not tell anybody about his role in their conversion, or the real reason for his nocturnal visits (presumably because these women - and their handlers - only let him in because they believed the he was a paying “customer": if they knew what he really wanted, they would have barred the door . . . or worse).  One righteously indignant young Christian, assuming the worst about Vitalis, struck him a blow to the head that resulted in his death.  Only then, freed from their promises of silence, were the women he had helped to save able to clear his name by their testimony.  

   There are a number of compelling angles to the story of St. Vitalis.  One is that yet again we have confirmation that “there is nothing new under the Sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  The scourge of prostitution is still very much with us and, as St. Vitalis understood fourteen centuries ago, it is a vicious form of exploitation that not only enslaves the body but sickens the soul.  Despite the push in some quarters today to whitewash prostitution with terms like “sex workers”, it is becoming more commonly recognized for the evil it is, and included under the broader heading of “human trafficking” (slavery, in other words).  Nonetheless, not only is prostitution still with us, but it is in fact worse, and more pervasive, than most of us realize.  I recently had the opportunity to hear a talk by Darlene Pawlik, now a pro-life and anti-trafficking activist, but formerly an exploited teen who was first “trafficked” on her 14th birthday and who remained under the control of various traffickers for the next several years . . . all right here in United States.  She was eventually saved by turning to Christ, and with the help of Christians who, like St. Vitalis, made it their mission to reach out to the victims of the “sex trade”.  There are in fact many groups today that similarly follow in the footsteps of St. Vitalis, both among Catholics and other Christians as well.

From  http://awakenreno.org/myths-and-facts-about-nevada-legal-prostitution/

    Another point that stands out in the mission of St. Vitalis is his desire to save one soul at a time, like the shepherd in Jesus’ parable (see Luke 15:4) who leaves behind the 99 sheep to recover the one who is lost.  St. Vitalis treated each woman as an individual, and talked to her about her life, and the salvation of her own soul.  He treated each prostitute as a thinking, feeling child of God instead of an object to be used, and he was therefore able to offer real Love, as opposed to the tawdry simulacrum of love they were used to dealing in.  I can't help but think, in a way, of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who also insisted on treating each human being like, well, a human being. Secular leftists such as the late Christopher Hitchens have criticized her for being an ineffectual sentimentalist: she should have been addressing "The Real Causes" of poverty (capitalism, inequality, etc.) instead of “merely” comforting the poorest of the poor in their distress.  There is certainly a place governmental and political action, but as Mother Theresa understood, laws can't save souls, and Christ didn’t suffer and die to save us from abstractions, or to establish a perfect political or economic system: he came to save us from sin, through the great outpouring of  His Divine Love on The Cross.

    His Love is still the only thing that can save us from sin.  That’s why so many of us have come to conversion through the example of others, or because of the loving attention of a Christian who, like Christ Himself, showed an interest in us, not as a means to an end, but simply for our own good.  Not all of us are called to start seeking out prostitutes, of course; as the death of St. Vitalis shows, that was and remains a risky undertaking, for a number of reasons.  We can, however, offer material assistance to those who are willing and able to take the risks (perhaps some of the groups linked above), and offer our prayers for their safety and success, and also for the salvation of the exploited women (and men) they seek to help.  We should certainly support appropriate laws to thwart traffickers and to help their victims. Finally, we can work and pray for our own continued conversion, that we recognize the seriousness of sexual sin, and how permissiveness in this area can help create an environment in which a soul-killing evil like the “sex trade” can flourish.*

St. Vitalis of Gaza, pray for us, and for all victims of human trafficking.


* I intend to address this last point in more detail in another post in the near future.

The Truth Is Our Ally In The Fight For Human Life

     “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 22^nd).  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)

Abortion Myth # 5

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)

DON’T BUY THE LIE!

Essential Pro-Life Resources:

Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (link)  

The Elliot Institute (link)  

National Right To Life Committee (link)  

Care-Net (link)

The Nurturing Network (link)

To See The Entire Abortion Myths Series Click HERE 

"It Is A Fearful Thing When Man Sets His Will Against The Will Of God"

(This Worth Revisiting this post was originally published in September, 2014. To enjoy the work of other faithful Catholic bloggers see Worth Revisiting Wednesday, hosted by Elizabeth Reardon at theologyisaverb.com and Allison Gingras at reconciledtoyou.com.)

"In today's Gospel we read of an unusual event: Our Savior weeps. Yes, the Son of God sheds tears. Whoever weeps must be either in physical or mental anguish . . This is the reason for the tears of Jesus, for the tears of God. . . . Tears for the misrule, the injustice and man's willful refusal of Him and the resulting evils, which, in His divine omniscience, He foresees and which in His justice He must decree. . . . It is a fearful thing when man sets his will against the will of God, and it is because of this that Our Lord is lamenting over Jerusalem."

The Lion of Muenster

Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen

The passage above is the opening of a remarkable sermon [full text here] delivered August 3^rd, 1941, in the city of Muenster in the German state of Westphalia. It is one of a series of sermons that summer by Bishop Clemens August von Galen harshly criticizing the policies of the Nazi government of Germany at the same time that Hitler’s Wehrmacht was thundering toward Moscow.  In his homily of August 3^rd, the Bishop of Muenster (dubbed the “Lion of Muenster” because of his outspoken bravery in the face of the Nazi tyranny) went on to say:

For the past several months it has been reported that, on instructions from Berlin, patients who have been suffering for a long time from apparently incurable diseases have been forcibly removed from homes and clinics. Their relatives are later informed that the patient has died, that the body has been cremated and that the ashes may be claimed. There is little doubt that these numerous cases of unexpected death in the case of the insane are not natural, but often deliberately caused, and result from the belief that it is lawful to take away life which is unworthy of being lived. This ghastly doctrine tries to justify the murder of blameless men and would seek to give legal sanction to the forcible killing of invalids, cripples, the incurable and the incapacitated.

"Who can have confidence in any doctor?"

Bishop Von Galen stresses that these people are not being put to death because of some crime they committed, or because they represented a threat of some kind:

No, these are not the reasons why these unfortunate patients are to be put to death. It is simply because that according to some doctor, or because of the decision of some committee, they have no longer a right to live because they are ‘unproductive citizens’. The opinion is that since they can no longer make money, they are obsolete machines . . .

He reminds his flock in forceful terms that murder is violation of God’s commandments:

. . .there are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one can release us and which we must fulfil even at the price of death itself. At no time, and under no circumstances whatsoever, may a man, except in war and in lawful defence, take the life of an innocent person.

But he also give a very common-sense argument against the destruction of the infirm, one accessible to people of all faiths, or no faith at all:

Here we are dealing with human beings . . . unproductive—perhaps! But have they, therefore, lost the right to live? Have you or I the right to exist only because we are ‘productive’?  . . .

Once admit the right to kill unproductive persons . . . then none of us can be sure of his life. We shall be at the mercy of any committee that can put a man on the list of unproductives. There will be no police protection, no court to avenge the murder and inflict punishment upon the murderer. Who can have confidence in any doctor? He has but to certify his patients as unproductive and he receives the command to kill.

Once the state, or a committee or, ahem, a panel created by the government has the power to declare one human life not worth living, then it can decree death for any one of us, because it will no longer recognize that we have an inherent right to exist. If it has the power to remove such people from their unwilling families, it will have removed one of the last meager checks on totalitarian tyranny. At the same time, it will necessarily corrupt the medical profession, because doctors will be transformed from healers to dealers in death.  Who indeed can trust his doctor in such a world?

The More Things Change . . . 

     I was reminded of Bishop von Galen’s sermon by this story [here], about a young mother whose disabled child has been taken from her by the state, which refuses to lift a Do Not Resuscitate Order (DNR) on the baby, even though the mother has not been declared unfit. A lower court has already sided with the state against the mother and her family. This case did not happen in Nazi Germany, however, but is taking place right now in my own State of Maine.  And, while it doesn’t involve active euthanasia, that is the direct killing of the child, forcing the unwilling family to stand by helplessly while “care providers” allow the child to die is not that far removed. Fortunately, a collection of advocacy groups including the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland have filed amicus briefs on the mother’s behalf, and are providing her with legal help in her appeal to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.  As recounted in the Fox News story, a brief filed by the group echoes the Bishop’s argument cited above [my bold]:

State officials, according to the attorneys on behalf of the girl's mother, have an interest in affirming the medical profession as one that heals and does no harm. "Allowing a physician to mandate that a mother agree to a DNR does not properly respect that duty," the brief continues. "The integrity of the profession depends on its ability to utilize the best practices, with the best information, to promote patient well-being. In contrast, a physician-mandated DNR would be fraught with uncertainty and risk."ADF Senior Counsel Steve Aden said the state is effectively arguing that the girl’s mother is unfit to make medical decisions for her child and called upon the state’s highest court to preserve the value of life.

The brief also argues forcefully for the rights of parents to control the care of their children.

Will We Become "Obsolete Machines"?

     There have been some positive developments in this case the past couple of days: Governor Paul LePage has said that regardless of the court’s decision, he will not allow the DNR order to be put into effect against the mother’s wishes (I’m not looking to make this a political ad, but I can’t help but point out that there are real consequences of electing candidates who are pro-life . . . or not).  That will help in this particular case, but the legal precedent will be set by the court – and even a favorable decision now can be overturned later.  And of course if LePage is re-elected (the oddsmakers don’t favor it), the next governor, regardless of political affiliation, is likely to act differently.  In future cases where the state removes a child from his or her parent, there is a good possibility that families here will be in the position described by Bishop von Galen: “We shall be at the mercy of any committee that can put a man on the list of unproductives. There will be no police protection, no court to avenge the murder . . .”  There is a persuasive argument that such committees are also mandated in the federal Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare).

     Bishop von Galen’s allegations were considered so shocking at the time that German authorities banned publication of his sermons, and allied planes dropped them in leaflet form onto German troops in the hopes of rousing their consciences against their government.  After the war, participation in the euthanasia program was one of the atrocities for which Nazi doctors were tried by the Nuremburg Tribunal [here].  And yet today respected public officials feel no shame about asserting the government’s right to remove those whose lives they consider “not worth living” from their families and allowing (or even causing) those people to die.  We need more von Galens, and not just in the pulpit (although assuredly we need them there);  we all need to find a little “Lion of Muenster” somewhere inside and roar in defense of human life.  Nothing else will prevent our slide into a society where none of us can trust our doctor, or be sure that loved ones won’t be taken away from us to be discarded like “obsolete machines.”

Note: Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on 9 October 2005; his feast day is March 22^nd.

Update: In late September 2014 the Maine Supreme Judicial Court dismissed the motion to lift the court's do-not-resuscitate order, saying the issue was moot since the Le Page administration made it clear that the order would not be enforced regardless of the court's decision.  Little Aleah Peaslee is still alive, although the order can still be enforced at a later date, and the power of the state to impose such an order against the will of the child's parents remains unchallenged.  

Governor LePage was re-elected in November of 2014 after receiving the largest number of votes ever in the history of Maine Gubernatorial elections.

Abortion Myth # 3

MYTH: "There are few psychological consequences of abortion; most women simply feel relief."

TRUTH:

- A study of the medical records of 56,741 California medicaid patients revealed that women who had abortions were 160 percent more likely than delivering women to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in the first 90 days following abortion or delivery. Rates of psychiatric treatment remained significantly higher for at least four years. (link)

- Approximately 60 percent of women who experience post-abortion sequelae report suicidal ideation, with 28 percent actually attempting suicide, of which half attempted suicide two or more times. (link)

-Over twenty studies have linked abortion to increased rates of drug and alcohol use. (link)

- Abortion is linked with increased depression, violent behavior, alcohol and drug abuse, replacement pregnancies, and reduced maternal bonding with children born subsequently. These factors are closely associated with child abuse and would appear to confirm individual clinical assessments linking post-abortion trauma with subsequent child abuse. (link)

- Post-abortion couples are more likely to divorce or separate. Many post-abortion women develop a greater difficulty forming lasting bonds with a male partner. (link)

- Women who have one abortion are at increased risk of having additional abortions in the future. Women with a prior abortion experience are four times more likely to abort a current pregnancy than those with no prior abortion history. (link)

- Some women experience all or some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (link)

-Some claim that having the "products of conception" removed in an abortion is no more traumatic than having a tooth pulled.  Yet many thousands of women belong to postabortion support groups such as Silent No More, Women Exploited By Abortion, and  American Victims of Abortion, or seek healing from programs like  Project Rachel and Rachel’s Vineyard.  Why don’t survivors of other "common medical procedures" need support groups?

 To read the testimonies of women scarred by abortion, see Silent no More,Women Exploited By Abortion, The Elliot Institute

Another extensive resource on the documented psychological effects of abortion can be found here.

DON’T BUY THE LIE!

Essential Pro-Life Resources

Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments (link)  

The Elliot Institute (link)  

National Right To Life Committee (link)  

Care-Net (link)

The Nurturing Network (link)

To See The Entire Abortion Myths Series Click HERE