Pro-life

His Awesomeness Archbishop Chaput

Groups, trade associations and publications describing themselves as “Catholic” or “prolife” that endorse the Senate version — whatever their intentions — are doing a serious disservice to the nation and to the Church, undermining the witness of the Catholic community; and ensuring the failure of genuine, ethical health-care reform. By their public actions, they create confusion at exactly the moment Catholics need to think clearly about the remaining issues in the health-care debate. They also provide the illusion of moral cover for an unethical piece of legislation.

“I will trade you a mess of healthcare pottage for the birthright of the unborn.” Groups like the Catholic Health Association have decided that the immoral Senate bill is now acceptable and should be supported. Whatever their motives are their reasoning is deeply flawed in supporting this bill and pretending that it does not pay for abortion.  These modern Esau’s are making a bad deal for something they assume to be a good.  Esau at least gave away his birthright which was his own to give.  The modern Esau’s give away somebody else’s birthright.  The Archbishop is exactly right about the faux moral cover they provide which helps to give pro-abortion politicians some credence – this is pure cooperation with evil.

…The long, unpleasant and too often dishonest national health-care debate is now in its last days. Its most painful feature has been those “Catholic” groups that by their eagerness for some kind of deal undercut the witness of the Catholic community and help advance a bad bill into a bad law. Their flawed judgment could now have damaging consequences for all of us.

Do not be misled. The Senate version of health-care reform currently being pushed ahead by congressional leaders and the White House — despite public resistance and numerous moral concerns — is bad law; and not simply bad, but dangerous. It does not deserve, nor does it have, the support of the Catholic bishops in our country, who speak for the believing Catholic community. In its current content, the Senate version of health-care legislation is not “reform.”  Catholics and other persons of good will concerned about the foundations of human dignity should oppose it.

Exactly right – funding of abortion is not reform.

Kathryn Jean Lopez

Back in December Sister Carol Keehan was upset by a report in the New York times that the Catholic Health Association is split with the USCCB in regards to the health care bill.  Yet the USCCB has not supported the Senate Bill and the CHA has never released any statements condemning it.

Which brings us up to date with Sister Carol Keehan supporting the current bill.  She pulled off almost all of the Democratic talking points.  Horror story of someone not covered – check.  Bill does not fund abortion – check.  We need something now, no starting over – check.  People opposing bill are not really pro-life – check.

Now what has changed with the Senate bill that funded abortion since then.  The answer is of course nothing.  The whole thing about the reconciliation trick Obama and Pelosi have cooked up is basically to have the Congress vote on the Senate bill since they know they don’t have the votes for a new Senate bill.  This is the same evil bill. Rep. Bart Stupak has pointed to places in the bill that do indeed provide funding for abortion.  Democrats constantly say there is no such funding, but will support no amendment to the bill explicitly saying so.  Their tactic has just been to deny it hoping a lie repeated often enough will be believed.

Sister Keehan in her good will towards wanting to provide healthcare for all has become blind to the obvious ramifications of this bill and the fact that federal funding of abortion will increase abortion regardless of her opinion about the bill.  Her argument of not letting the perfect be an enemy of the good does not apply to a bill that is not good, but supports evil.  She seems to have zero concern for this possibility.   There is certainly nothing to prevent a faithful Catholic from supporting the idea of Federal Health Care.  That is a prudential matter in deciding what is best way to provide for our neighbor. Though I think it is difficult to advance this argument without even considering subsidiarity.  Supporting this bill though goes beyond a prudential decision into cooperation with evil.

She asks “For us as Catholics it’s very hard to be pro-life when we don’t give many many mothers who are pregnant care. Or we don’t give pediatric care, well baby care or sick baby care to children. We have nine million uninsured children in this country. That’s not pro-life.”

Sister Keehan urges Congress not to table the bill. What ticks me off is that she’s using the same ridiculous argument that Congressman Patrick Kennedy used by questioning whether opponents of Obamacare are truly pro-life. And he got into trouble with his bishop because of it. Wonder if the same will be true for Sister Keehan [Creative Minority Report].

Not exactly good to hear a nun make the same argument as pro-abortion supporters. I also though of Patrick Kennedy when I first saw this story on Twitter.

Catholic hospitals have always been in the forefront of helping the poor and as Catholics we should be supporting truly faithful Catholic Hospitals and helping them to grow to help their communities and to provide for the poor. That is really the answer and not behemoth government which has never made anything more affordable take on the job. Sure if you lived in the small country of Malta with such a large Catholic population you can pull off government health care that is responsive to the needs of the people. Other circumstances we should mainly be working at the community, city, and state levels to spread Christ love for all and helping to provide healthcare to our neighbor.  The Catholic Church invented the hospital in the first place.

Oh by the way the Obama Administration is about to strip conscience protections enacted under President Bush. CHA in a release sees no problem with this, giving the party line that there were already Federal conscience protections before. They don’t seem to ask why if these are repetitive why they even go through the motion and the effort to repeal them if they add absolutely nothing. Pro-aborts were against these added conscience clauses and that should tell us something.

The story today of abortionist Kermit Baron Gosnell whose clinic was shut down last night which had blood on the floor and fetuses in jars is rather scary.  Even scarier though is the information Matthew Archbold came up with on this doctor.  Only an abortionist could have a history this checkered and not be in jail.

Meanwhile some states try to have Crisis Pregnancy Centers shutdown or show special signs while the criminal organization called Planned Parenthood once again subverts the law.

I think Focus on the Family totally pwnd* Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and abortion supporters with their ad that never even mentions abortion or a choice to chose life. While some pro-lifers will be dismayed that the commercial seemed to not address the topic directly other than pointing to a URL with the full story, it still gets the point across. All the free publicity ahead of time made it so that the majority of the people will know what the ad is referring to so all the outcry only helped the pro-life side. These groups seem even sillier to objecting to the ad now then they were at first. I don’t know if Focus on the Family planned to punk abortion groups in this matter – if they did brilliant.

*pwned A term developed from gaming for “totally owning” somebody, the pwn in the spelling is a common misspelling of “own” when fingers are misplaced on the keyboard.

Pro-abortion groups pre-reaction to to the ad was stupid enough, but the AP takes this stupidity to another level.

And a commercial by conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, perhaps the most anticipated ad of the night, hinted at a serious subject although it took a humorous tone too. Heisman winner Tim Tebow and his mother talk about her difficult pregnancy with him and how she was advised to end the pregnancy–implying an antiabortion message–but ended with Tebow tackling his mom and saying the family must be “tough.

Good thing that reporters have editors to fact check things – oh wait they totally got wrong both ads that appeared.

Being both a Catholic pundit and living in Gator country by contract I am required to comment on the Im Tebow Superbowl ad. A lot of pixels and ink have already been spilled over this so I will spill some more.

Those who support legal abortion often chaff at being called pro-abortion – the much prefer pro-choice. No doubt they believe this is the case, but in reality there are few if any who see abortion and not having an abortion both a morally neutral acts of exactly the same weight. After all what was the last time you saw a Planned Parenthood Maternity Ward or a NARAL Home for Unwed Mothers.

The fuss over the Tim Tebow ad really proves this. The ad presents one side of choice so what is the big deal to them? A mother talking about the decision to choose life is not exactly controversial since all of our mothers did exactly the same thing.

The obvious reason they hate they so much is that it shows the reality of “choice” the existence or the snuffing out of a human being. Over the years more and more people whose mothers considered abortion and decided against it have been talking about this fact. They are survivors of a “choice”. There is also the case of abortion survivor Gianna Jessen who lived despite the attempt to abort her. The pro-abortion side is upset that they can’t run similar ads. In fact they have been able to find zero aborted babies willing to film a Superbowl or any other ad for them. They can’t even find people who want to take their mothers to task for having them. Those that each day regret their mothers did not abort them.

Tim Tebow does not represent a tissue mass or any other ecumenism euphemism for a child in the womb, but the normal consequence of not stopping life while in the womb. A Heisman Trophy winner is present because he mother choose life over the doctor’s suggestion. Though Joy Behar said he could just as easily have become a “racist.” Great idea Joy Behar – we should kill all children to prevent such an occurrence. Seeing Tim Tebow and hearing this story can remind us of the 50 Million individual persons who did not survive their mother’s choice.

The abortion industry and abortion supporters have always been about minimizing or hiding reality. Women are told across the world falsehoods about the stages of the child in their womb. Terms are used to describe this that have no bearing on the reality. Over and over Ultrasound has been called a weapon because it helps to visualize reality. Laws requiring that women be properly informed about the life in the womb and presented with factual medical and scientific information about this are blocked time and again by the pro-abortion crowd.

A mother choosing life is polarizing and divisive. What a sick culture we live in.

A rather odd fact is that Planned Parenthood is responding to this ad by having two men, an ex-footbal player and a Gold Medalist, talking about women’s rights being respected. Now could you imagine the outcry of a pro-life ad involving two men talking against abortion? The pro-abortion crowd would go crazy criticizing it for being so out of touch and not being able to speak for women.

Though I guess Planned Parenthood could get lots of men who favor abortion to do commercials for them. They could speak how abortion saved them from being trapped in a relationship. How abortion enabled them to maintain their lifestyle of treating women as objects and to keep pretending their was not natural consequence of sex. Predatory males certainly love legal abortion. In the meantime pro-abortion supporters want to remain to keep their head in the sand and to deny that a women’s choice determines if a person will continue to live or not. Tim Tebow should just go away and not remind them of the consequence of “choice”.

For us who are pro-life it reminds us to pray for those mothers in difficult situations that are considering abortion as a solution and to help them in every possible way that we can.

Remember when Bishop Roger P. Morin of Biloxi, Miss called numerous concerns about CCHD “outrageous claims” and he said CCHD does “not ever grant funds to any group that is specifically involved in any activity contrary to church teaching” and furthermore, it has “zero tolerance” for groups that receive funds and then become involved in “any activity contrary to the church’s social or moral teaching.”

Well guess what? Outside groups continue to do the work that the USCCB should have done in the first place in looking at groups that receive money from CCHD. It continues to be obvious that those involved in CCHD at the USCCB have not done their due diligence in making sure groups receiving money were not problematic. It took me very little research to find groups that were still receiving money from the USCCB involved in providing contraception. The websites of CCHD supported organizations are not exactly secret.

Rob Gaspar at Bellarmine Veritas Ministry has dug more deeply into the CCHD relationship to the Center for Community Change (CCC).

In “Sleeping with the Enemy,” Michael Hichborn at the American Life League has also uncovered more disturbing facts about CCC. Hichborn also chronicles the personal involvement of the USCCB’s John Carr, Executive Director of Justice, Peace, and Human Development. Carr oversees the CCHD.

OSV has a response:

In response to my questions, Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of the U.S. bishops’ media relations office has:

1. CONFIRMED the American Life League’s assertion that the bishop’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development gave $150,000 to CCC in 2001. But it CLARIFIED that during the time he served on the CCC board, his office at the bishops’ conference did not then have jurisdiction over CCHD (contrary to American Life League’s claim about conflict of interest). And it says CCC has not received any funding since.

2. CLARIFIED that Carr left the CCC board in 2005 (American Life League said 2006). It said his previous work for CCC was “a few months” after leaving the Carter administration, which ended in 1981. He was part of a group trying to work with block grants. “He then went to work for the Archdiocese of Washington as Cardinal Hickey’s secretary for social concerns.”

3. NOTED that the pro-abortion and pro-gay-rights “activities highlighted in ALL e-mail campaign took place long after” Carr left the CCC board.

So it looks like the conflict of interest charges are false. But much more important is that enter for Community Change is still being promoted on the USCCB site and CCC partners are still receiving money. There can be little doubt that these groups supported providing abortion in the health care plan and there is also a lot of support for the radical LGBT agenda.

It is sad that so-called social justice groups serve one small aspect of social justice while promoting intrinsic evils in the guise of social justice. That people working at the USCCB have supported these groups is much worse. This is formal material cooperation with evil. The issue about Carr is just a side-line and not what is really important in this story.

Today is the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case legalizing abortion, and droves of women are prepared to face rainy weather to support their positions during the annual Washington, D.C., demonstrations. But there will be one major difference with the demonstration route this year–it’s shorter.

“The organizers are getting older, and it’s more difficult for them to walk a long distance,” says Stanley Radzilowski, an officer in the planning unit for the Washington, D.C., police department. A majority of the participants are in their 60s and were the original pioneers either for or against the case, he says.

So this raises the question: where are the young, vibrant women supporting their pro-life or pro-choice positions? Likely, they’re at home. “Young women are still concerned about these issues, but they’re not trained to go out and protest,” says Kristy Maddux, assistant professor at the University of Maryland, who specializes in historical feminism.[reference]

Well forget the can’t find any young women there comment for the time being. The March for Life was a actually 3 blocks longer. Though the length of a march is a new metric I was not aware of. I guess we have to get ready for the March for Life Marathon next year if we are to be taken seriously.

Also kind of funny is that this feminist professor is that she thinks women have to be trained first to be able to protest against abortion. If sign holding and chanting was so hard there would be no liberal protesters.

Pro-abortion Washington Post columnist Roberty McCartney apparently at a totally different March for Life observed the following.

I went to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn’t it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What’s more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn’t going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future.

How wrong I was. The antiabortion movement feels it’s gaining strength, even if it’s not yet ready to predict ultimate triumph, and Roe supporters (including me) are justifiably nervous…

I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march. It suggests that the battle over abortion will endure for a long time to come.

Actually we really need to pass health care now. Obviously Newsweek is not providing any money for optometrist care. Their poor reporters having to write nearly blind and all. In fact if this Newsweek reporter were to look at this page of pictures she could find no “vibrant young women”, though she sucks at Where’s Waldo? also.

Today we recognize the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which affirms every woman’s fundamental constitutional right to choose whether to have an abortion, as well as each American’s right to privacy from government intrusion. I have, and continue to, support these constitutional rights.

I also remain committed to working with people of good will to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and families, and strengthen the adoption system.
Today and every day, we must strive to ensure that all women have limitless opportunities to fulfill their dreams.

All women except the ones terminated in the womb.

So we have a right to privacy to kill our children, but conscience protection – not so much. With abortion rates skyrocketing in his home state of Illinois we know exactly what the second statement of his paragraph means – nothing.

Phil Lawler says much better what I tried to write on Scott Brown.

In a Commentary piece yesterday I offered my analysis of the shocking Senate election in Massachusetts. It was, I am convinced, a long-overdue manifestation of independence on the part of the state’s voters, who have been held in thrall for years by liberal ideology and Kennedy mystique. That’s progress.

It was also a reminder that American voters, even in true-blue Massachusetts, resent the idea that their representatives in Washington might ignore their wishes and enact a sweeping federal policy- like health-care reform, in this case- despite heavy public opposition. With the arrival of Senator Scott Brown on Capitol Hill, the unpopular plan is apparently dead. That’s progress, too. (As C.S. Lewis pointed out, when you realize that you’re headed in the wrong direction, the best way to make progress is to turn back.)

However, I hope no one who read my analysis concluded that political sanity has returned to Massachusetts. We have a long, long way to go before a healthy political climate is restored. Consider:

Senator-elect Brown is not pro-life. On the issue of health-care reform his vote may benefit the pro-life position; the state’s largest pro-life group saw that as reason enough to endorse his candidacy. But Brown did not appeal for pro-life support, did not use pro-life arguments, did not mention pro-life issues. On the contrary, while his opponent Martha Coakley made her unswerving support for abortion the #1 issue in her campaign, Brown did his best to dodge the issue. He may now suspect that he won despite the support of pro-lifers, and liberal journalists will encourage him toward that conclusion. Republican consultants will tell their candidates to imitate Brown’s campaign strategy, avoiding the abortion issue. Already the new Senator from Massachusetts is being touted as the ideal GOP candidate: populist in approach, patriotic, conservative on fiscal questions, and silent on social issues. In the long run, the upset in Massachusetts is more likely to benefit the “big tent” Republicans than the pro-life movement.

Liberal ideology is alive and well- and dangerous! Although Brown was an attractive candidate and Coakley was a dud, 47% of the voters still chose the Democratic candidate, whose appeal was fully sympathetic to the ‘culture of death.’ In one of America’s most heavily Catholic states, nearly half of the electorate backed a candidate who suggested that faithful Catholics should not work in hospital emergency rooms. Fortunately Coakley was not elected to the Senate, but she remains Attorney General. The state’s top law-enforcement officer sees no problem in suggesting that religious freedom must bow before the needs of the abortion industry.

The Church remains silent. The majority of voters in Massachusetts are not registered in any political party. These independent voters swung the election for Scott Brown, demonstrating that they have finally escaped the magnetic force of the Kennedy family. But what will replace that influence? There’s an old common-sense principle in politics: You can’t beat somebody with nobody; you can’t beat something with nothing. For 45 years Ted Kennedy offered a vision of what the political system should accomplish, and Massachusetts voters embraced that vision. When Martha Coakley put forward a very similar vision, the voters rejected it. But Scott Brown had no compelling vision. The Republican Party- in Massachusetts, at least- has no vision at all. And politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Someone will provide a new vision: a new model for politics. Who will it be? As I explained in my book The Faithful Departed, the Catholic Church was once, not too very long ago, the dominant force on the local scene, and set the agenda for discussion of public issues. But for more than a full generation now the Catholic influence has been waning, and Church institutions have been co-opted to serve the purposes of a secular liberal ideology.

If ever there was a time for a genuine Catholic revival in Massachusetts, now is that time. But it won’t be easy; we have miles and miles to go.