A sacred choice?
The most recent Lakota Times included details from a press conference Oglala Sioux president Cecilia Fire Thunder held re: her plans to build an abortion mill on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The name of her mill will be Sacred Choices Clinic.
The Times also included an opinion piece from the writer who started it all, Tim Giago, when he printed Fire Thunder’s now infamous quote:
To me, it is now a question of sovereignty. I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.
There’s some major back-peddling going on.
Given Fire Thunder’s original statement, she flatly contradicted herself during the press conference by “repeatedly stat[ing] this was not a sovereignty issue, but about women and their rights.”
Could it be Fire Thunder threatened government funding and help by declaring her reservation was an island?
Giago attempted to rewrite history as well. He stated in his op ed:
Let’s stop for a minute and look at what Fire Thunder had in mind. First of all and foremost, she wanted a Planned Parenthood Clinic that would help the women of the reservation find treatment for the myriad of problems they face, problems that include rape, incest, teen pregnancies, AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and terrible spousal and boyfriend abuse. And, as a last resort, the opportunity to obtain an abortion in a case of rape or incest.
No, that’s not what she said. Abortion was her first thought, not her last. Fire Thunder could have launched a pregnancy care clinic way before now that would have addressed all the concerns Giago brought forth aside from abortion. No, abortion is her focus, also demonstrated by the fact she is devoting precious time to procure signatures for a referendum against the abortion ban.
Giago also attempted the logic that it’s better to kill children than risk their being born into poverty or adopted by non-Indians:
There are far too many children on Indian reservations that have been abandoned and left to be raised by their grandparents, or worse, left in the hands of social welfare agencies. Until the Indian Child Welfare Act came along these unfortunate children were often adopted out to non-Indians, especially to white church groups who then passed them on to members of their parish.
Also note that churches are apparently damned if they don’t and damned if they do:
The Times also included a great pro-life guest editorial by Thom Little Moon, countering Fire Thunder and Giago.
Hat tip: Stacy
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Consider:
The missing element in every human ‘solution’ is
an accurate definition of the creature.
The way we define ‘human’ determines our view
of self, others, relationships, institutions, life, and
future. Important? Only the Creator who made us
in His own image is qualified to define us accurately.
Choose wisely…there are results.
Many problems in human experience are the result of
false and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised
in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.
Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly
developed, and sensitive perception of diversity. Thus
aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enact-
ing internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends
itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. His title describes
his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall
that his other features are but vehicles of experi-
ence intent on the development of perceptive
awareness and the following acts of decision and
choice. Note that the products of man cannot define
him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-
making process and include the cognition of self,
the utility of experience, the development of value-
measuring systems and language, and the accultur-
ation of civilization.
The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,
customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of
his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity, the
creative process, is a choice-making process. His
articles, constructs, and commodities, however
marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idol-
atry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth’s own
highest expression of the creative process.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. The sublime and
significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean
fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of qual-
ity and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a
natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and
bestows earth’s title, The Choicemaker, on his
singular and plural brow.
Human is earth’s Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
nature and nature’s God a creature of Choice – and of
Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive
characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
foundation of his environments, institutions, and re-
spectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is orien-
ted to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the
universe.
Let us proclaim it. Behold!
The Season of Generation-Choicemaker Joel 3:14 KJV
– from The HUMAN PARADIGM
P.S. Who would choose cannibalism over life?