Pro-life

Remember how upset pro-abortion types are at the idea that pro-life medical clinics perform ultrasounds without doctors? It didn’t matter to them if they were certified ultrasound technicians.

Well just to prove that their concern was only a tactic.

As states across the country are passing laws to restrict access to abortion, California lawmakers are considering a significant expansion of who would be able to perform the procedure in the state. Under a bill that passed its first committee hearing Tuesday, nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physician assistants would be able to perform what is known as an “aspiration” abortion, which is the most common abortion procedure and takes place in the first trimester of a pregnancy. [Source]

Of course they were also not upset about abortion telemedicine – abortion via teleconference performed by non-doctors.

Dystopian novels seem to be the hot thing right now considering The Hunger Games trilogy.

Though I have to wonder why we have to go to fictional stories to get our dystopian fill?  Imagine If fifty years ago somebody had written a novel of a future where we killed over a millions unborn each each year, judges overriding the people to institute same-sex marriage, Catholics loosing first amendment rights in the name of reproductive “rights”, a growing number of states  with assisted-suicide, increasing number of cases involving euthanasia where a blind-eye is turned, increased divorce rates and declining marriage rates along with sub-replacement population rates?  How would that novel have been received?  Probably would have been seen as imaginative fiction and as an unlikely dystopia. Slippery slope arguments becoming absurd.

Yet we are living in that dystopia also known as the Culture of Death.

So maybe we like dystopian novels that remind us of a different dystopia then the one we are living in?  The Hunger Games trilogy in some ways reminds me of the culture of death and involves some of the same attitudes.

In The Hunger Games kids are killing kids and not only it is alright according to the government, it is required.  We also have kids killing kids.  Many teenage mothers decide the only solution is to abort their children.  The government does not have a problem with this and they declare it as a right that must be supported by the taxpayer in the case of abortion-inducing drugs.  While The Hunger Games allows one of 24 tributes to survive, we have a much smaller percentage surviving the million-plus surgical abortions each year.

We also have our form of gladiatorial combat known as IVF.  When multiple embryos are implanted it is hoped that one will survive.  So there are plenty of “tributes” selected hoping that one will survive, if not just select some more “tributes” and try again. Or how about so-called pregnancy reductions? Again one is picked to survive the arena. Talk about Hunger Games, drugs making implantation difficult cause the embryo to starve to death.

In The Hunger Games we have the cruel President Coriolanus Snow wants to keep the status quo of gladiatorial combat among children.  In the dystopia we live in we also have a president who wants to keep the status quo of murdering children and not only voted for infanticide, but has been the greatest advocate of abortion to ever sit in the Oval Office.

We can look at The Hunger Games and be outraged by this future society, just as long as we don’t look too closely at our own.

While The Hunger Games trilogy is rather dark and gets darker as it goes, it is not without hope and the plot involves overcoming of the culture that generated the games.  We are also never without hope despite the darkness of our own culture.  God can bring good out of evil.  There should be a lot of good coming because we are certainly producing a lot of raw materials of evil for God to work with.  Thankfully though we are not living in the dystopian that would have resulted without grace.

I have come to the opinion that Obama can really best be described as the Planned Parenthood President.  You don’t have to look very far to understand how he administrates and it comes down to What Would Planned Parenthood Do (WWPPD).  It makes no difference between federal or foreign policy you find exactly the same key to understanding all actions.  Whether it was  pressure on Kenya to include abortion in their new constitution or the infamous HHS mandate it always comes down removing all limits on abortion.  There is none of the Clinton obfuscation of “safe, legal, and rare” since just legal is good enough. We already knew he was the most pro-abortion President in history from day one and so this comes as no surprise.

From just a political point of view the narrowness of the religious exemption in the HHS mandate makes no sense pragmatically for a president up for election. But if you are the Planned Parenthood President than it makes perfect sense.  Just use Planned Parenthood as a lens and everything becomes clear.

Headlines like Obama Admin OKs Using Aborted Babies’ Brains in Lab Tests are to be expected from the Planned Parenthood President. The Planned Parenthood President picked for himself what could also be called the Planned Parenthood Cabinet as the only litmus test for his administration seemed to be militantly pro-abortion and of course not paying their taxes.

You know it would be nice to write on a subject other than contraception.  But I guess it is Catholic Contraception Coverage month for Catholic media.

Vending machines at one Pennsylvania University doesn’t just dispense soda and snacks — it sells the morning-after pill.

At Shippensburg University, getting access to Plan B, the emergency contraception pill is as easy as getting a soda. Students can now buy the pill at a vending machine on campus.

“We had some conversations with them and did a survey of the student body and we got an 85 percent response rate that the students supported Plan B in the House Center,” said Dr. Roger Serr, Vice president of Student Affairs at Shippensburg.

The university does not profit from the sales. It pays $25 for one dose and that’s exactly what the student has to pay.

[Via Aggie Catholics]

I remember when I lived in Japan I was constantly amazed what was available in vending machines with everything from cough syrup, beer, to cheeseburgers. Leave it to the culture of death to dispense the possibility of death. The ultimate consumer society in that a fetus can be consumed by starving it do death and not allowing implantation in a product from a vending machine.

This culture simply drives me crazy in the many ways we attack life. I feel having to shout like Charleston Heston and instead of Soylent Green Shouting “Fetus, its people.”

This really should be called the “Mourning After Pill” since if you really knew what you did you would be in mourning.

Washington D.C., Feb 3, 2012 / 01:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has pledged to overturn the HHS contraception mandate that he says takes “particular aim” at Catholics.

“I stand with the Catholic bishops and all religious organizations in their strenuous objection to this liberty- and conscience-stifling regulation,” Romney wrote in a Feb. 3 Washington Examiner column titled “President Obama  vs. religious liberty”

If elected president, the former Massachusetts governor said, he would eliminate the mandate “on day one.”

“Such rules don’t belong in the America that I believe in.”

Sounds good, really how is what the Obama Administration that much different than what Gov. Romney did when he forced Catholic hospitals to administer Plan B in 1995.

“I think it’s, in my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape,” he added.

This was after he public conversion to the pro-life cause in forcing hospitals to administer a possible abortafacient. This was also just two days after he had taken the opposite position. This is purely big government in action getting involved in telling what medicines a hospital should provide. That it is okay to violate the consciences of Catholic health care workers to administer a drug when there is no certainty if a child had already been conceived and would be murdered by such a drug.

Though his pro-life conversion also includes murdering those as a result of rape, incest, danger to the life of the mother, and frozen embryos.

He really considers abortion an important part of his campaign that is why he has it listed prominently on his campaign site. Oh wait it is nowhere on his site under “Issues”. In fact he is the only GOP candidate that does not list the pro-life cause under his issues section.

I just don’t see Romney’s appeal to conservative voters. President Obama’s Achilles Heel is Obamacare and Romney’s is Romneycare. Sure there are differences between a Federal and a State program, but the individual mandates of both are from the same big government mindset. With the outcry even from liberal Catholics on the HHS mandate of contraception and sterilization coverage that is another Achilles Heel and one that Romney also shares.

The pro-life movement was elated by the news yesterday that Komen for the Cure decided to suspend any further grants to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Media outlets reported that the decision was based in part on the fact that the abortion giant is currently under investigation by Congress concerning misuse of taxpayer funds, fraud and potentially violating state abortion laws. The Associated Press reported that, “Under the criteria, no further grants will be allowed unless the pending House inquiry is resolved in Planned Parenthood’s favor.”

Austin Ruse, the president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (CFAM) tells LifeNews that the AP report is wrong and that the Komen funding is not a temporarily decision based solely on the fact that Planned Parenthood is under investigation at the federal and state level.

He told LifeNews.com that the official Komen statement announcing the decision does not mention that it is conditioned based on the results of the Congressional investigation and that it’s not a temporary change based on a change in how grants are allocated — pointing to the sentence in the Komen statement saying, “We also implemented more stringent eligibility and performance criteria to support these strategies.

“What you take from the Komen statement is that it is about a change in funding criteria which does not rely on the success or failure of an investigation. You can infer from this that the decision is long-standing and not temporary,” Ruse says. “Pro-lifers should be happy today that Planned Parenthood gets yet another black-eye. Susan G. Komen Foundation should be congratulated for making this important decision.”

Good news, but much work still needs to be done epecially when you consider this story about the Denver affiliate of Komen.

On Wednesday, the Denver affiliate of Susan G. Koman for the Cure released a statement on Facebook that said it has been granted an exception.

The Denver affiliate said it plans to fund Planned Parenthood for the grant cycle of April 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013, pending the grant review committee and board of directors’ approval of their grant application.

So if it is true they were granted an exemption from the national headquarters it means Komen affiliates giving to Planned Parenthood will probably continue to do the same.

Another thing to remember is that Komen actively denies any connection between abortion and breast cancer. As per their site:

Although there has been some debate in the past about the link between abortion (also called induced abortion) and breast cancer risk, research clearly shows no link between the two [450]. Since 2003, the Board of Scientific Advisors and Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), as well as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have agreed the scientific evidence does not support a link between abortion and breast cancer [451-452]. The NCI routinely reviews the evidence on this topic and continues to agree the evidence does not support a link between the two [453].

So while we can applaud this step taken by the national organization, it is not time to let the heat off of them.

Update: Never mind, apparently they flipped back to donating to Planned Parenthood. The culture of death goes forth.

In the aftermath of the decision by Health and “Inhuman” Services regarding mandatory contraception coverage with an ideologically narrow exemption I thought I had seen some rather strong statements from various bishops.

“The present secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, a bitter fallen-away Catholic, now requires that all insurance, even when issued privately, must carry coverage for evil and grave sin,” Bruskewitz wrote in the letter, which he instructed parish priests to read aloud to their congregations at Mass this weekend. [Source]

Runner up for muscular episcopate statements is:

Bishop David Zubik of the Diocese of Pittsburgh wrote, “It is really hard to believe that it happened. It comes like a slap in the face. The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, “To Hell with you!” There is no other way to put it.”

I would even give an honorable mention to Cardinal Mahoney:

“I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on the freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.”

None of this is surprising since from the start this has been the message from the Obama administration to Catholics. The very appointment of Kathleen Sebelius, the former governor restricted from receiving Communion from her bishop, was a slap in the face to Catholics. The latest ruling is totally consistent with the whole thrust of this administration – the abortion-at-all-costs administration.

Father Rutler in part writes:

…For a while, various Catholic leaders had hoped that they might reach an understanding with the Administration, and some even felt more at peace with the president’s assurances. But “peace for our time” only lasts until Poland is invaded.
…

At the time of the last presidential election, some may have thought that I overstated things in finding parallels with the dystopian world described in Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World, in which Julian Felsenburgh makes eugenics “a sacred duty.”

Since our Lord did not humiliate the frightened apostles by saying “I told you so” when he rose from the dead, I shall not say “I told you so” to any who underestimated the plottings of social engineers whose audacity is only an audacity of despair. [Source]

As noted by Fr. Rutler this was an “interim final rule”. If that isn’t a perfect example of bureaucratic relativism I don’t know what is.

In the meantime of course defenders of this ruling love to point out the high rate of contraceptive usage among Catholics themselves. This is certainly scandalous, but directing doctrine by practice is “nonsensus” fidelium. It is very nice to see the public outrage by bishops over this ruling and you can certainly wish there was even a greater outrage over the scandal of contraceptive use by Catholics. But we can’t go back in time to properly catechize the past and have had bishops and priests willing to speak out against the culture of contraception and the self-centered view of children as resource hogs that must be kept in check.

The real question is how can we catechize the present and upcoming generations in regards to the truth of human sexuality. It has often been noted, especially by Catholics, the symphonic nature of truth. The teaching of the Church in regards to marriage is interlinked with contraception, abortion, divorce, homosexual acts, etc. But what happens when you start leaving out instruments in a symphony? It is rather compatible to what has happened to marriage when “instruments” such as the teaching on contraception, abortion, divorce, homosexual acts have been removed or to extend the comparison – muted.

In the meantime regarding this rule of unjust law we can follow Bishop Olmsted’s recommendation. [PDF]

Therefore, I would ask of you two things. First, commit ourselves to prayer and fasting that wisdom and justice may prevail, and religious liberty may be restored. Pray the rosary asking Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Patroness of our Nation to intercede for us. Without God, we can do nothing: with God, nothing is impossible. Second, I recommend visiting www.usccb.org/conscience, to learn more about this severe assault on religious liberty, and how to contact Congress in support of legislation that would reverse the Administration’s decision.