(Prolifer)ations 9-28-10
by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN
- Secular Pro-Life describes a young girl’s social networking site post, celebrating getting an abortion after a drunken party. Self-professed abortion rights advocates express such a strong distaste for her cavalier attitude that they wish her great harm.
- Bryan Kemper reports reactions to the March for Life Berlin:
… [T]he pro-aborts were lining up beside us screaming the most foul and sexual things at the pro-lifers. They were holding the crosses upside down, waiving rubber sexual organs and throwing condoms filled with water at us….
This march was so significant because Europe has been in a post-Christian culture for many years and this was a renewal of young Christians taking a stand and shining the light of Christ in the streets.
- SoapboxFive discusses the recent attempts to discredit CPCs and the mixed messages pro-aborts give to women:
We’ve been led to believe a contradiction. On one hand, we’re told women who seek abortion services are “empowered,” (who needs to know those pesky biological facts about fetal development?), and on the other hand, women are “victimized” by those sly, evil, and nasty CPCs…. But you really can’t have it both ways.
- The Passionate Pro-Lifer is encouraged that a Notre Dame administrator (coincidentally dismissed in a recent “restructuring”) will be allowed to give testimonial that past protesters (gay rights and anti-ROTC activists) protested on campus without permits and without charges filed, which contradicts the president’s previous statement that protesters received equal treatment. Charges were brought against pro-life protesters at Obama’s graduation speech last May.
- Christina at Real Choice tells the unfortunate story of a woman who died from an undetected, ruptured ectopic pregnancy following an abortion. Christina writes, “The pain and nausea associated with an ectopic pregnancy are often mistaken for ordinary post-abortion symptoms, and are ignored until the tube ruptures and the woman’s life is in danger.”
- ProWomanProLife notes a recent U of OR study being lauded by pro-aborts which showed teens do not have depression and low self-esteem following abortion. Aside from the fact that such a small sample size is often labeled “insignificant” when the results back pro-life views, PWPL points out pro-aborts will do anything to advance the theory of a “procedure that is quick, painless (both emotionally and physically for the women), and accessible with as little emotivism as possible…” and warns us, “these teenagers will one day be deciding what to do with all of us when we’re seniors.”
- Pro-Life Action League critiques the language of a Time article regarding the “importance of the first 9 months.”
- Coming Home remarks on the great blessings of special needs children, stating, “Love sees that which narcissism and fear obscure.”
- Wesley J. Smith reveals one of his pet peeves: calling contraception a “right.” Smith writes, “But should birth control be considered a basic right akin to the rights to life, speech…? Is access to birth control really so central to the minimum level of human existence that everyone should be legally required to have access to it? Nope.”
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.
Is access to birth control really so central to the minimum level of human existence that everyone should be legally required to have access to it?
I don’t think this is the right question to be asking. After all, we’ve only had integrated schools for a few decades, but I’m sure we all agree that racial equality is a right. Despite horrific discrimination, African Americans living prior to the civil rights era nonetheless managed to preserve a vibrant culture. I can’t say that they were living in a way that was below the “minimum level of human existence.”
I found Wesley J. Smith’s article to be quite interesting.
I have two main points in response.
Firstly, I’d like to think that we are far enough ‘up’ Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that we are at a stage where such factors become legitimate rights, subject to personal choice. We are far removed from a position of ‘minimum level of human existence’.
Secondly, he questions the ‘right’ to contraception in light of the beliefs of part of the religious establishment. Yet there are parts of that same religious establishment whose doctrines are incompatible with other, already accepted and recognized rights such as women voting.
Instituting it as a ‘right’ does not make it compulsory.
So people should be denied the right to use contraceptives? Why is it that so many anti-choicers are adamant about making contraceptives illegal ? I’ve never been able to comprehend such blind stupidity. Don’t they realize that contraceptives have prevented countless surgical abortions since they were invented?
The problem is that anti-choicers tend to be prudish,puritanical Christians who are aghast at the idea of any one having sex for anything but procreation. But what business is this of theirs? They also want it both ways.They insist that no woman ever have an abortion, yet want to deny them the right to use something that can prevent the need for abortions.
(And please don’t give me that poppycock about pills being able to “Kill babies”. ) A cell or a handful of them is no more a baby than one of the nuts and bolts which go into making a car is a car in itself. How ridiculous can you get?
And what do anti-choicers do all the time? They use a lot of propaganda and wildly exaggerated stoires about how dangerous contraceptives are, despite the fact that there are many other pills which people take routinely for all kinds of ailments and conditions which are much more dangerous.
I was just watching a ridiculous program on EWTN last night with Johnnette Benkovic and a Catholic woman gynecologist who was offering all sorts of misinformation about contraceptives and Benkovic accepted all of this hooey with blind enthusiasm.
Of course this Catholic physician’s Catholic beliefs color her attitudes toward contraceptives.
Of course,this is not to condemn Catholics in general;I’m just pointing out how false her claims were.
Now I’m not saying that it’s alright for people to live an irresponsibly promiscuous lifestyle, but it’s still totally unrealistic to expect every one to have sex only within marriage even if they have never been married. People should be careful and exercize caution and restraint.
But contraceptives must always remain legal and easily available.
“I was just watching a… program on EWTN last night with Johnnette Benkovic and a Catholic woman gynecologist”
Alright, Robert! Good stuff, ehh?
Hey, we actually have a music question for you on the “Sunday extra: Zachary’s views on abortion” thread. We mention you by name, so just search for your name, if you want.
birth control pills also can cause cancer such as Breast Cancer when used for a long time. Periodic abstinence won’t kill someone. If they can’t have some self control for a few days a month, then they have some serious problems.
Quite sad the stuff from Berlin about the pro aborts….such nasty stuff. :(
I’d say that access to contraception (I would include the knowledge and basic equipment necessary to practice fertility awareness methods) is in the same category as formal education, as rights go. It isn’t needed to live a basic existence, but it is needed in order to go beyond basic existence and really start making decisions about how to shape our lives — and isn’t that what humanity is about?
“but it’s still totally unrealistic to expect every one to have sex only within marriage even if they have never been married”
it’s also unrealistic to expect bullying to totally stop in high schools but we can and should continue to educate and raise the bar, not lower it.
The contraceptive mentality has greatly lowered the bar. Abortion has put the bar darn near on floor.
Why oh why Praxedes, is there a propensity to make invalid comparisons such as yours?
There is NO comparison between consensual sex and bullying. At all.
I would compare the expectation that sex only occur within marriage with refusing to use electricity.
Contraception and abortion have not lowered the bar, they have raised the opportunities, choices and equality within modern society.
yes – many more opportunities – especially if one wants to contract a STI or become sterile because of that.
Or how about the women hurt by hormonal contraceptives? I personally know of two of them – one who now needs a double lung transplant due to blood clots in the lungs and another woman who suffered a stroke when she was under 25.
My family have been personally affected by hormones, and I am lucky to have any children – and they do not know what will happen when my population gets into menopause.
Most people make the decision that these are safe and ok – and in many ways they are not. The other objection is that once it’s thought of as a right – it’s payment will be mandated.
And 2 further points: the hormone contraception is considered a class 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and what about the additional environmental impact due to all the hormones entering the environment and changing species and habitats? Water treatment plants do nor normally filter out the hormones before emptying the water into the environment.
Natural methods (safe, very inexpensive and very effective: NFP – Natural Family Planning). It works – my husband and I have used this method for nearly 18 years now…works great – even through women’s changing cycles.
Anyone who’s pushing hormonal contraceptives as a one-size-fits-all method is negligent and irresponsible. That said, many women do take them in good health, and for those of us who can’t, other methods exist. It’s hardly a choice between the Pill and NFP/FAM.
I doubt that most of those who strongly support all things contraceptive have ever given serious consideration of the merits of avoiding contraception. Such a thought is completely anti everything they know about sex and having the “freedom of choice”
and “control over their bodies” to do what they want.
Why are we so certain that utilizing contraceptives is a necessary pre-condition to living an independent lifestyle? Is it possible to be sexually responsible and at the same time not use contraception? Are the two concepts mutually exclusive? Can we not stretch our imaginations far enough to even consider the possibility that a healthy and happy life and full appreciation of our sexuality could actually be possible without the pill or some derivation of it?
Ah, if we want to eradicate abortion why do we not embrace contraceptives? Because if you look around you it is easy to see why. Abortion and contraceptive use has risen together in the last 60 years. Never before in human history has there been so much contraception. Never before has there been so much abortion. Contraception doesn’t prevent abortion. It contributes to the abortion-is-acceptable mentality that has sickened our world. A couple that uses contraception feels entitled to barrenness. When the contraception fails, they feel entitled to an abortion to kill their child.
It’s bad for the planet, it’s bad for our species. Why is it so hard for choicers to embrace the idea that children are the living future of our species, not a blight? Why did prenancy and childbirth become so demonized? It’s just plain crazy.
According to the CDC data, abortions – both numerically and rates – have been falling for about the last 15 years.
Cranium’s 5:35: Is that why you keep arguing with us? Because you’re upset about that?
No ninek! Not at all. I’ve stated why I am here on previous occasions.
Perhaps the term ‘devil’s advocate’ is a reasonable descriptor ;-)
Robert B.,
I have non-procreative sex all the time – with my husband. It is extramarital sex I have a problem with. Not all pro-lifers are Christian, and not all pro-lifers have a problem with extramarital sex.