Thursday, January 30, 2025
Secular Pro-Life March for Life roundup
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Secular pro-lifisim
I get the impression a lot of religious types who are pro-life think that the two are inextricably linked. Now on a deep level that may be right (or not) but one of the important things I've learned is that movements, or organizations, should be single purpose. If you can save lives with someone, that person should be your ally for that project, full stop.
When you tell them that they can’t be Democrat and pro-life, just like when you tell people they can’t be atheist and pro-life or feminist and pro-life or whatever other lines you’re drawing, you’re weakening our numbers. You’re weakening our ambassadors. You’re weakening our reach into groups that are not already prone to opposing abortion.
Labels: prolife
Friday, December 30, 2022
Fr Pavone is just Pavone
Looks like he's finally been disciplined for his behavior.
Regardless of your opinion on his activism, the priest swears to obey his bishop, and Mr. Pavone was not.
Father Frank Pavone, a well-known pro-life activist and national director of the organization Priests for Life, has been dismissed from the clerical state for “blasphemous communications on social media” and “persistent disobedience of the lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop,” CNA has learned.
Regardless of your opinion on his activism, the priest swears to obey his bishop, and Mr. Pavone was not.
Monday, January 25, 2021
Culture of Death
Apologies for my inexcusable absence, but I've been busy being angry on the internet. This also makes me angry, via Apples and Roses.
In short, a hard-working Polish man had a heart attack, sustained bad brain damage, and fell into a coma. Although he is by no means brain dead, his wife agreed with the hospital to cease life-sustaining treatment. As he could breathe on his own by December 15, that meant ceasing such basic care as clinically assisted nutrition and hydration until he was good and dead. So much for the corporal works of mercy.I've seen this repetedly in the hospital - simple things like hydration and food are now considered invasive medical care to be withdrawn when people are judged not worthy of life. We are living in a dark time and it is getting darker. Read there rest of the article and do what you can to fight it.
However, the man's birth family, including his mother, objected to his being starved and dehydrated to death, and his aged widowed mother went through two-thirds of her life savings to stop this. Eventually the devoutly Catholic family turned to a British Evangelical Christian legal charity called Christian Legal Centre, the same people who fought for the life of Catholic Alfie Evans.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
When Prolife articles stop being meaningful
If you are Catholic and look around on Catholic or pro-life news sites, unfortunately you will come across many articles like Judie Brown's on Catholic Lane which offer the boilerplate defense of pro-life values without engaging in meaningful intellectual discussion on today's pro-life movement and the present moment we face as a society.
Here is my comment, or response to Brown's article:
Here is my comment, or response to Brown's article:
There is a danger in reducing a person's view point to a single quote. I agree that this quote Brown highlights in the opening paragraph, appears contradictory and problematic. How can we ascribe value to human life and yet life have intrinsic value? Perry says both. It would have been better if Brown had linked to the article in which Perry stated this to get the full context, instead of another opinion piece on LifeNews.com. When I eventually clicked my way to Perry's original article, and another article on CRISPR written for the Nation, it becomes clear that Perry does believe that all human life has intrinsic worth. Yet he is pro-choice. I agree this is a difficult stance to defend and I do not agree with Perry. Yet it is important to see where he is coming from, perhaps more so than to attack the idea that one could be a father of someone with Downs Syndrome and yet prochoice. Brown attacks repeatedly the idea that we can "ascribe" value to human life. This is certainly true from a Catholic perspective. However, Perry is writing for a secular audience, and unfortunately, the world we operate within does indeed ascribe more value to some human lives than others, whether or not it is our place to do so. When Perry says "I’ve spent many years now asserting the need to re-order how we ascribe value to diverse human lives," I think it is precisely the devaluing of the lives of people with Down Syndrome he is fighting against. Perhaps he should have phrased it differently, and instead of "we" he could have said "people." While in truth we cannot ascribe value to human life, sadly this is something society does through all sorts of systems (imprisonment, abortion, euthanasia, inequalities in education, access to health-care, etc.) Perry in his articles goes on to support what he calls "neurodiversity" and indeed goes on to explain how people with Down Syndrome can contribute to economies and lead happy lives and help make families and marriages stronger. And yet, based on his writing, he does not seem to make human worth contingent on how we contribute to economies or make our families happy. Perhaps the statement we need focus on here is the point of commonality between Church teachings and Perry's views: "My son might not participate in the capitalist economy, live independently, or speak (he might also do all of these things!), but his value as a human is intrinsic."
Brown's article should focus on how can someone who has a son with Down Syndrome and believes human life has intrinsic worth, still be prochoice. She takes his quote totally out of context and does not look deeply into this man's beliefs, which is easily done by reading a few of his articles. He places the basis of his pro-choice stance in the idea of bodily autonomy. People with disabilities have a very long history of having their bodies controlled, from forced sterilizations, forced medications and procedures, to the ultimate control: euthanasia or termination. Perry stands in solidarity with some people in the disabled (or differently-abled) community: this long history of bodily control that has only very recently been overturned in very modern human history (and is still not fully overturned on a global scale) fears prevention of abortion as another way to force or coerce control over their bodies. Of course not everyone in the disabled community is on the same page with this belief. Many are prolife. Even if you disagree with Perry's stance, there is value in seeing the roots of his perspective to more authentically engage in meaningful dialogue about his beliefs.
A more interesting article would be to look at Perry's prochoice stance as rooted in disabled rights and the fear of control over the bodies of disabled people. The key word here is "fear." When our beliefs and actions are coming from a place of fear, then this is the larger problem. If a mother wants to terminate a pregnancy out of fear that the disability will be too much to bear, the problem is the fear driving the mother. If disabled people are prochoice because of fear of society legislating control over their bodies, again the problem here is the fear driving them. As a society we need to overcome the basis of this fear by being so supportive of differently abled people, and so supportive of people with these diagnoses, that it takes the fear away. We need to have abundant services, medically and otherwise, for people with disabilities. We need a social safety net for such people, access to healthcare, employment, education, counseling, etc., so that life is not viewed as a sentence, but a well-supported, meaningful existence.
Perry points out in his essay the hypocrisy of some Republican pro-lifers who would make it impossible to terminate a pregnancy based on prenatal diagnosis, but who cut funding for special education and disability services. (Source: https://www.thenation.com/a...
We need to spend more time understanding where people like Perry are coming from and building from our common ground: respect for all human life as having intrinsic worth. I think that from there we can see how Perry is doing right by drawing attention to the slashing of services to disabled people. There is a common ground all Catholics should come together over: supporting individuals and families with disabilities.
We should focus on building a strong society to support and love such individuals, with easy access to strong services. We should focus on getting accurate information out to families facing a prenatal diagnosis on Down Syndrome and perhaps putting them in touch with other families with children with Down Syndrome, rather than scaring them with a diagnosis and pressuring them into abortion. We need to work on our genetic counseling and health practitioner counseling, so that families aren't making decisions from a place of fear.
Fear is our enemy. A poor prenatal diagnosis is most pregnant women's worst fear. As a society we need to offer them and their children options for hope and support.
Not to mention it is morally problematic to outlaw abortions based on prenatal diagnosis, when morally speaking, no abortion should be legal. It seems to me that the prolife movement is getting desperate. Faced with the difficulty of overturning Roe v. Wade and making abortion illegal, the prolife movement today focuses on chipping away access in select places and in select cases. A woman who faces a poor prenatal diagnosis, can simply say the abortion is for other reasons, not for the diagnosis, and still have her abortion. This kind of legislation solves nothing, but allows pro-life legislators to put a false feather in their cap that they have "done something" to support the movement. A more meaningful pro-life moment would be one that engages in dialogue with parents like Perry to see what they could do to be more supportive of families raising children with Down Syndrome and other life-long disabilities.
Labels: prolife
Monday, April 10, 2017
Feelings over facts, peak denial, etc.
Another day, another ridiculous "we don't really know when life begins" hot take, this time from Slate author Elissa Strauss:It's pretty gross.
Labels: prolife
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Who else does this describe?
Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists).You could say the same thing about Planned Parenthood and their friends . . .
Labels: prolife
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Another reason to run Jimmy Van Bramer out of office
As if I needed another one.
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who allocated $750,000 of city funds toward the new center, said, “the borough of Queens is better and safer today because Planned Parenthood is here.”No, abortion is not really about hope. It's really about killing.
“This is one of the most beautiful buildings in my district,” he added. “It is so full of light, and air, and color, and it’s really all about hope.”
Labels: local, New York, news, politics, prolife
Amnesty International on the wrong path, again
Although they concede that the girl's condition is stable, Amnesty International claims that the girl must have an abortion to save her life, and that Paraguayan authorities are refusing to "grant her right to a safe abortion." Amnesty International is running emotionally compelling advertisements on social media and urging people to sign a petition directed to a panel that is considering the girl's case.Indeed.
There's something fishy about this.
Labels: prolife
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
Best Secular Prolife graphics of 2014
My fave - "Memo to people who think that because I'm anti-abortion, I must also have something against sex: Nope! I think sex is great! I just don't love sex literally more than life itself.
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
A law that I agree with on policy grounds, but oppose on legal grounds
The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act. Seems like a home run:
Kiessling is also on the board of directors of Hope After Rape Conception, which is fighting a crucial battle to reform child custody laws. A majority of states have no laws preventing rapists from obtaining custody or visitation of the children conceived through their violence. Absent such laws, a mother choosing life after rape faces the horrifying prospect of an 18-year co-parenting relationship with her rapist. Very understandably, people in that impossible situation are under tremendous pressure to abort.but
The RSCCA rewards states that protect survivors from custody claims with federal grant money, which will hopefully speed along the process of getting appropriate legislation enacted in all 50 states.So they're trying to get Congress to use grant money to prod states to legislate. Bad bad idea. I will probably be writing to my state legislators to support state action on this matter, and to my congressmen to oppose federal action on this matter.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Politics and laws are always downstream from culture
If you want to stop abortion, you need to start by changing hearts, not changing laws. Students for Life seems to have that one down.
Labels: prolife
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Pregnancy is not always a walk in the park
In quiet hallways and private corners, I’ve made my confession to trusted friends. Guilty and ashamed, but seeking solace, I have admitted the truth: I hate being pregnant. Now, in the throes of my sixth round of this freely chosen misery, I have decided to speak openly. We religious types rarely, if ever, publicly address the real burden that pregnancy puts on women. Instead, we jump ahead to the value of the life she carries. Unless we find ways to acknowledge this aspect of the experience of women, our defense of the truth that every human life has value risks ringing false.
Labels: prolife
Monday, December 08, 2014
Life without parole - not so great
Kenneth E. Hartman, who is serving life without parole in California, agrees with such an assessment—and for that reason, strongly opposed the referendum to replace capital punishment with life without parole. Hartman runs, from prison, a campaign called the Other Death Penalty Project, on the premise that a sentence of life without parole amounts to “a long, slow, dissipating death sentence without any of the legal or administrative safeguards rightly awarded to those condemned to the traditional forms of execution.”
“Though I will never be strapped down onto a gurney with life-stopping drugs pumped into my veins,” Hartmann has written, “be assured I have already begun the slow drip of my execution [which] won’t come to full effect for 50, maybe 60 years.” Like William Blake in New York, he states: “I have often wondered if that 15 or 20 minutes of terror found to be cruel and unusual wouldn’t be a better option.”
Ending abortion, Seraphic style
In England and Wales in 2011 there were 189,931 feticides and in 2010 338,790 babies were born to unwed mothers. If we assume that all the dead fetuses were created out-of-wedlock (a mighty big assumption) and a comparable number of babies were born to unwed mothers in 2011, that gives us roughly half a million babies carried by unwed mothers in 2011. But in 1911, there were only 38,000 babies born to unwed mothers in England and Wales. Even given the differences in population (from 36 million to 56 million), that's quite a jump, especially when you consider that birth control was illegal and hard to get in 1911.
So here's the thing. As long as sex is touted as The Best Thing in the World, Something That Everybody Should Do As Soon and As Often As They Possibly Can, there is going to be feticide because birth control methods don't work. Possibly they don't work because large numbers of people don't actually use them, or don't use them 100% of the time, but that's beside the point. The point is that large numbers of people--especially young women--have bought the idea that sex is The Best Thing in the World, Something That Everyone Should Do As Soon and As Often As They Possibly Can. Newsflash: in 1911, most young unmarried women were not having sex. They weren't having sex because everybody--doctors, clergy, parents, government, friends, artists--told them not to.
Labels: prolife
Sunday, December 07, 2014
Democrats trying to rebuild as a prolife party in Alabama
Sounds like a worthwhile project to me.
Honestly, it’s not as farfetched as some might think. If you stretch the meaning of pro-life to mean more than pro-birth (as it should be) then the Democratic Party is by far the more pro-life party. Democrats consistently support causes that seek to sustain and protect life through anti-violence and anti-poverty efforts, whereas our Republican counterparts are “pro-life” until the point of birth. They seek only to pass measures to restrict access to abortion, and then expect everyone to fall in line with their particular moral ideology rather than seeking to sever the root causes of abortion–issues such as economic desperation and a lack of access to healthcare.
Pro-life Democrats are virtually impervious to any Republican talking point. By openly advocating an anti-abortion stance, they sweep the rug right out from under the GOP coup-de-grâce, and thus open the door to real dialogue with the voters.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Free speach is only acceptable if it is the right speach
I would’ve thought that the one place in Britain where you could agree to disagree amicably would be Oxford University. But I was wrong. For instance, I’ve discovered that you’re only allowed to debate abortion there if a) you’re a woman and b) you’re all for it. Any other approach to the subject is liable to attract a mob….One hopes that at some point we stop paying for people to spend four years in an echo chamber being told how great they are.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Dignity is what you make of it
Brittany Maynard bought into the lie of far too many in our age: that hers would be a "sensible and admirable" death with dignity.
What, and my Mom didn't die with dignity? Just because she didn't choose to avoid the loss of her hair, the pain, the suffering, the crumbling of her insides?
Saying that Brittany Maynard chose to "die with dignity" insults every person who's ever fought to live through cancer or any illness, and lost that fight. It implies that my Mom was less than dignified in her death.
Labels: prolife
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Pro-choice thinking about pro-life
The article from Secular Pro-Life itself is fairly interesting, but this comment gets to the heart of the issue, and the same applies to each side thinking about the other, often.
It reminds me of a few weeks back, on Atheist analysis, when they had Emily Letts and others in for discussion. Emily rattled off a list of things she thought the pro-life movement was: anti-sex, slut shaming, woman hating, promoting gestational slavery, not compassionate, etc. She said (paraphrased) that she couldn't understand why anyone who cared about people could possibly be against abortion, but that she was certain that her own video, along with other actions, were going to turn our cultural sentiment.
This flabbergasted me. You don't know why people hold the beliefs they do, but you think to be able to convert them? There is no doubt that the pro-life movement has individuals that express each of those elements, but the strongest glue that holds the vast majority of pro-lifers together is respect for the life of the individual. I wanted say, I get it. I get that she didn't think the fetus had any moral worth. I get the fact that many pro-choicer activists barely even think of the fetus when it comes to abortion, either because they rationalize that it is not human, or they rationalize that physical dependence in this one case only warrants the withholding of rights. I understand that concept. But take away that premise for a moment, since most people, even many people who fall on the pro-choice side, recognize the humanity of a fetus. You are never going to get an overwhelming majority of people be okay with a carte blanche power to kill their fellow human beings at will. You may be able to carve out exceptions that most are comfortable with. Many less active pro-choicers are pro-choice not because they love abortion, but because they fear a greater evil by poorly developed and implemented policies that fail to have the flexibility needed for special cases (and I'm very sympathetic to that stance!). But you are never ever going to get a vast majority of people to hold the view that killing a large swath of human beings without some sort of checks or oversight is okay. Because people like Emily Letts do not understand that, they will fail in their mission.
Labels: prolife
Monday, October 27, 2014
As seen on SPL
Justifications for Abortion are Inherently Ableist.
Recently, certain disabled pro-choicers have started to protest the ableist language and ableist assumptions about a disabled person’s quality of life used by the pro-choice movement in order to promote late-term abortion.
Labels: prolife
