Tag Archives: culture of life

May God have mercy on our souls.

Today, New York state passed a landmark law protecting unlimited preborn infanticide… or abortion, as it’s more commonly called. The bill, which goes under the euphemistic “Reproductive Health Act” effectively allows for abortion at any time for any reason, and removes abortion from the state criminal code.

It’s a sad, sad day in Mudville.

The law, aimed at protecting access to abortion in the event that Roe v Wade is overturned, is nauseating. I won’t go into it here, but you’re welcome to read the text of the bill HERE. Matt Walsh, professional teller of truths, also has a spot on op-ed, You Can’t Give A Lethal Injection to Criminals in New York but You Can Give It to Infants

At this point, the abortion issue has become a part of a larger problem. The world, and western nations in particular, have a cultural sickness. We live in a world that celebrates death and is nonchalant (at best) about life. Suicides, murders, and general tragedy dominate news media for days at a time. Positive stories involving children and families are seen as “fluff” and “feel good” rather than a goal. The traditional nuclear family is the exception, not the rule. Fatherless families, children born out of wedlock, siblings with multiple fathers or mothers, and rampant, no-fault divorce are the new normal.

Overturning abortion is a noble and lofty goal, but it will mean nothing if we cannot get to the root of the problem. We need to challenge ourselves to change our thinking, to see motherhood and fatherhood as joyful callings rather than heavy burdens. We need to recognize pregnancy as the miracle that it is, and not an inconvenience at best, or a disease at worst.

How can we do this? Support.

We need to nurture a culture in which a loving father is the norm. We need to get away from the Homer Simpson stereotype of fathers being lazy, stupid, and worthless. How many times on television and in movies do we see a father figure as the hero? How many young boys can watch television and say, “I want to be like him!” Instead, we get the bumbling idiots -loving fathers, perhaps, but idiots just the same. Homer Simpson, Phil Dunphy (Modern Family), Bob Belcher (Bob’s Burgers), Hal Wilkerson (Malcolm in the Middle) are just a few that come to mind.

As Chris Rock said, “A n**** will say some shit like, “I take care of my kids.” You’re supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What are you talking about?” What kind of ignorant shit is that?”

Instead of devaluing fatherhood, we need to elevate it. Paternal leave. Nor referring to time spent with the kids as “babysitting” or “stuck with the kids”. No more commercials where Dad has no idea how to care for his own child and is desperate for Mommy to come home. Dads matter. One of the most beautiful illustrations of this concept can be seen in “soldiers come home” video compilations. If you can make it through those without crying, you should call your psychologist. Should socioeconomic proofs be more your thing, look up statistics involving absentee fathers, crime, poverty, and soaring abortion rates in the black community since the 1950s.

Motherhood deserves its own admiration. The Mommy-Wars need to stop. For mothers that choose to or must work outside the home to provide for their families, childcare needs not to be so prohibitively expensive, nor should it be the responsibility of the tax payer. Mothers who choose to be stay-at-home moms should likewise be supported in their choices.

The last giant issue is adoption. Did you know that adoption in the United States can run families tens of thousands of dollars? We often hear that adoption is the solution to abortion, but how can it be at that cost? How many couples are desperate to have children, but are unable to conceive and unable to adopt because of the outrageous financial burden? When an abortion costs around $300 and adoption $37,000, are we surprised when there are 638,169 abortions (2015) to the 135,000 adoptions? (Including the roughly 670,000 in foster care).

Bottom line: Before we can change the laws, we need to change our culture. Otherwise, what’s the point?

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Dear Reactionary

Earlier this week, I did something I never expected I would do. At least, not spontaneously.

I’d had a doctor’s appointment for something extremely routine after I got out of work. This particular provider is a specialist and I had to travel to nearby Big City to see him. Nearby to this office is the local Planned Parenthood. I knew this more as academic fact than anything, though I knew a few people who went and stood outside to simply pray or distribute literature once in a while.

On my way home, I had to drive past the building complex where PP is located. Outside, in the rain, was a middle-aged man carrying a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe and an elderly woman with a sign that said “Abortion Hurts” with a picture of a young woman and the name and number of a local pregnancy crisis center. I don’t know what possessed me, but I pulled into the parking lot, got out, walked over, and asked if I could join them.

They asked nothing of me beyond my name, if I was familiar with the 40 Days for Life campaign (I am) and if I was affiliated with any church. I stayed with them, and another woman eventually joined us, for about 45 minutes. It was rush hour, and there was a lot of traffic at the 3-way intersection where we stood. The reactions we got from people were interesting. Many people honked horns or waved. Many would not make eye contact. One woman leaned on her horn, flipped us the bird, and screamed at us. I can only guess what she was saying, because she didn’t roll down the window. So because letter-writing is so popular these days…

Dear Woman,

I will not pretend to know your story, or why you chose to make the remarks to us that you did. I could presume to know, considering that you were pulling out of the Planned Parenthood patients’ parking lot, just as you may have presumed to know our stories as we stood in front of the sidewalk of that same building. The thing is, neither of us knows the other, so both my silence and your actions are moot points.

What we cannot deny is what goes on in the building behind us. We cannot be okay with what is done to women and their children within those brick walls. We can no longer allow “reproductive health” or “choice” to be euphemisms for pain and murder.

What I can no longer do is stand aside and let these things slide. Please look beyond the politics to what you are supporting. Those people on the street are waiting for you with open arms and open minds and open hearts.

From,

Another Woman

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You Ought To Be Ashamed of Yourselves

There is a very, very disturbing trend overtaking the nation right now. It is rearing its ugly head in social media, print, “performance art”, news media – pretty much everywhere one looks. It’s something that has been building slowly for the last thirty years or so, and I am afraid it will only get worse before it gets better.

It goes back to language. Some groups of people have, over the years, been determined to take a word “back” and make it theirs in order to take the harshness or sting out of it. Black people are perhaps the most famous for doing it with the “n” word. Women, more recently, have done it, if somewhat more quietly, with “bitch” and “slut”, especially after Rush Limbaugh called out Sandra Fluke for being, well, a slut.

Definition of SLUT (courtesy of Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

1 chiefly British : a slovenly woman
2 a : a promiscuous woman; especially : prostitute; b : a saucy girl : minx

If you have to get on national television to beg for someone else to pay for your contraception because you’re having that many sexual relations with that many partners, then yes, let us call a spade a spade. Your partners aren’t blameless, either. Unfortunately, the English language is devoid of a colloquialism of equal bite.

So which word is it this time, and why?

Shame.

1 shame (noun)
: a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done something wrong

: ability to feel guilt, regret, or embarrassment

: dishonor or disgrace

For whatever reason, the hysteria du jour of the Feminazis is to remove the “shame” and “stigma” from having an abortion. Women are writing letters to their unborn children and telling those babies, “sorry, not sorry, but I’m killing you next week”, writing near-romantic poems about their baby girls whom they paid a “doctor” to rend limb from limb. They are putting these out there and begging society for our seal of approval so that they won’t feel ashamed any longer.

They want us to be okay with the fact that they killed their children.

In a way, this is how I know there is still hope. If we were a society completely and 100% devoid of any moral fabric, we would not be seeing, or hearing, these stories. There would be no need, as there would be no shame. Going to murder your child would be like any other routine office procedure, like getting a flu shot. There would be no sorrow, no regret. The fact that there is gives me hope. The fact that there people like Wendy Davis sawing off the branch she’s standing on shows me how desperate these progressives are, those who hold up abortion to be a holy sacrament.

Ladies, there is a reason you feel shame.

There is a reason you feel sorrow.

There is a reason you feel regret.

To those ladies, I say this:

Dear friends:
You were given a precious, irreplaceable gift, and you chose to destroy it and throw it away. I am sorry you made that choice. For many of you, I’m sure it was a difficult and painful choice to make, and that, more than anything, is the validation you are seeking. Not that it was okay that you killed your child, but that you hurt, too. I am not judging what you did, for judging indicated forming an opinion. I am simply observing a tragic fact. The shame of what you did may never go away completely, for grief for a loved one never goes away completely. It is, however, possible to heal. There are many, many places and people who are waiting for you with open ears, open arms, and open hearts.

Much of what you have been told by those in the pro-abortion movement regarding pro-lifers is wrong. We do not and will not hate you for what has happened in the past. We want to help you to move past your past. To help you to heal. To show you that there is a better way than anger, pain, and grief. To introduce you to the beauty of life instead of the darkness of death. We are everywhere. Rachel’s Vineyard is a good place to start, as are any local churches or synagogue, crisis pregnancy centers, or simply Google “pro-life” and your zip code.

 

There is a reason for feelings. There is a reason shame has always been associated with having an abortion. One would have to have some sort of psychosis not to. Enough is enough. It is time to embrace what has happened and do what we can to stop any more from occurring.

Can you love people into truth? Absolutely. I think the better question is: are you willing to? Are you willing to look past their sin and see the creation that God made? Are you willing to reach out with mercy and love instead of anger and condemnation? Are you willing to just meet people where they are and care for them no matter how far they are from where you want them to be? Can we attempt to love like God loves? -Abby Johnson

 

 

 

 

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The Unintended Victim

The straw that finally broke the camel’s proverbial back was the following article:

http://liveactionnews.org/what-you-call-a-rape-exception-is-an-innocent-child-worthy-of-life/

Thirty-plus comments and several angry people later, I decided that in the interest of keeping friends, maybe a blog would be a better idea. For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time the idea has crossed my mind. Anyway, the article was written by a woman who discovered in her late thirties that her birth mother was the victim of rape, who had been beaten and left to die by the side of the road by her rapist: the rapist who was, incidentally, the writer’s father. The rape victim, upon learning she was pregnant as a result of the crime, attempted to terminate the pregnancy. The abortion failed, and the child that resulted was the writer of the article.

My Facebook wall became a very heated battleground involving the rights of rape victims, the rights of children, and whether or not it was right to further punish a woman who had been raped to endure a pregnancy, labor, and delivery. In one corner was the pro-abortion crowd. In the other, the pro-life crowd. Attempting to referee was me, who was friends with all the people posting. It got ugly.

Our culture has a problem. We view things as too disposable. Cameras. Paper towels. Plastic bags. Cell phones that we upgrade every two years. Marriages had a 50% divorce rate last time I saw the statistics. Take a look at that. The man or woman we promise to love and cherish, forsaking all others, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, is served papers the moment that hot new secretary catches our eye, or the dashing young pool boy. We hear the laments, “He’s not the same man I married!” No kidding. People change. They grow. They grow old, and we hide our elderly away in nursing facilities so we don’t have to see them. When once we would have taken our aging parents into our homes, we leave them in hospital-like facilities and hope they die quickly so they don’t spend our inheritance on medical care, room, and board.

Children, once the pride and joy of a family, are brushed aside as quickly as possible. Dropped in daycares as mere newborns, from there to nursery school and after school programs, pre-K, full-day kindergartens, and more after school activities than one can count. Enrichment camps each school vacation week and a variety of overnight camps each summer ensure that working parents don’t have to worry about taking time off to be home with Johnny and Suzy.

Those are the ones allowed to live. Others, for whatever noble or ignoble reason you can make up, are rent limb from limb in their mothers’ wombs, extracted a piece at a time. Still more are burned to death by saline or other chemical injection. Up until 2003, it was entirely legal for a full-term baby to be half-delivered, only to have a pair of scissors puncture his skull and his brains removed via vacuum. That particular barbaric act is known as partial-birth abortion, or “intact dilation and extraction” in legal terms. It’s infanticide. A doctor (and I’ll use that term loosely) who performs such an atrocity faces only a fine and up to a two-year prison sentence. To put that into perspective, premeditated first-degree murder (which would be the non-abortion equivalent) generally carries a sentence of anywhere from 25-life, sometimes with the chance of parole, to the death penalty. Just let that sink in for a minute.

Meanwhile, you get these kids who, through no fault of their own, have a father who committed one of the worst crimes imaginable against another, and a mother who has to bear that trauma. Being only a few cells large at this point, it’s not like you can say much in your defense. One might hardly blame a woman for wanting to erase any trace of what she suffered.

The sins of the father shall not be visited upon the son.

This is why our culture needs to change. Not only to become a life-affirming culture, but a culture in which we stop throwing away value. The value of what we make and more importantly, the value of who we are. That family on the corner working and struggling to make ends meet, but Mom and Dad manage to have a sit down dinner with everyone at least once a week? Yes! Paint them a banner! (Literally or metaphorically.) Joe and Jane have grown apart from each other and separated for a while, but decide to go for marriage counseling? Yes! It will be hard, but what a way to honor your vows. Sam rearranged  things at the office so he can work from home, and help out his widower father? Good for him! It will be a sacrifice, but how much more comfortable will Dad be, and how much will their relationship grow? Claire and Frank already have three kids and surprise! Claire is expecting again? And she’s keeping the baby! Yay! More sibling playmates, even numbers around the table (for the OCD among us), and that many more hugs, kisses, and refrigerator art pieces.

Somebody spiked Julia’s drink at a party and she got raped? And she just found out she’s pregnant because of it? And she’s keeping the baby and giving him or her up for adoption? Or even keeping the child to raise on her own? That child is still 1/2 her, after all.

Somebody give that woman a medal.

That is the culture we need. A culture of mutual support. Not a culture of mutual trashing of what we have.

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