Guilt by Association

It's hard to know where to start sometimes. And, sometimes it's all so overwhelming that we have a hard time starting at all. That's how I've felt lately. As you can see, none of us ladies have put anything here since January! Good intentions...anyway. I've been ruminating and just thought I would exercise my demons by putting them down here. The murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller was wrong and definitely not something a person who is pro-life would commit. However, all the MSM runs on about is the pro-life connections of the killer. The killer is not pro-life. Period. If one is pro-life, one does not kill. All people involved in the pro-life movement are not killers by association. It amazes me how agenda driven our media has become. Words mean so much and they are used so provokingly by the media. The young man who lost his life at the Army recruiting office was killed by a Muslim extremist. Where's the outrage? Where are all the stories about this? Are all Muslims now evil, as the MSM would have us believe all pro-life people are evil? What about the deranged hate-filled man who opened fire at the Holocaust Museum? Oh, I see, somehow his evil is different. The MSM has linked him to all conservatives!!! So, it's really conservatives who are evil and to blame! It's so ridiculous. It fails every test of logic and sanity. But, we are exposed to this day after day and, unfortunately, a lot of folks are buying into it. George Orwell was prophetic. I suggest everyone read 1984 when you get the chance.

Did you know that there were upwards of 300,000 people at the pro-life march in Washington, D.C.? Do you think the New York Times even bothered to report it? Please do not try to tell me that the nation's largest newspapers are not biased. I attended the pro-life march in Atlanta. It turned out to be a beautiful day, decent weather, and lots and lots of pro-life folks peaceably gathered to protest the unjust killing of innocent lives. We are obliged to speak for the most innocent victims of violence who cannot speak for themselves. We are obliged to let the mothers know that they will pay an unspeakable price for this decision. Women suffer. Babies die. As a society, we are greatly diminished.

The Church ladies have been a bit remiss lately on keeping up with this blog. Understandably. Life gets busy and it's hard sometimes to sit and gather the thoughts. Right now, I've had too many thoughts that are just plain negative. As a Catholic, I know that our ultimate hope rests in God, but things are looking a bit bleak for those of us who believe passionately in the sanctity and dignity of life. I'm trying to have hope for the U.S., but I don't see that there will ever be social justice for a nation that continues to make it a priority to kill its own children and, as of today, to once again export the evil of abortion to other nations. The pro-choice side tries to tell us that we're helping women by exporting death. We're not helping women. We're helping to kill babies and wound women. At this particular time in our history, it is reprehensible that we would actually be subsidizing the abortion industry. The government should be paring down unnecessary spending in every single way it can. It's an insult to drunken sailors to say that our congress has been spending like drunken sailors, because congress is supposed to be sober and responsible. BTW - Joe Biden is not Catholic. He is a dissenting Catholic. He is not in communion with the teachings of the Catholic Church. He doesn't even seem to understand what those teachings are. I'll stop now before I become uncharitable.

Who is crying out for the women?

Rhonda asked me to post this today...something she wrote. I thought it was quite good.

I wonder what would happen if those of us who are staunchly pro-life quit fighting to overturn Roe v. Wade, and spent all of our time and money and effort towards exposing abortion as the social injustice to women that it is.

The problem is, most pro-life people see abortion in only one dimension: the baby. They don't recognize -- to the same degree -- the other victim: one who still lives, one who still suffers, one who is alive but who is destroyed.

The baby must be saved. But we forget that the woman must be saved first -- for she holds the key to life. As co-creator with the Creator, she has the free will to obey or not.

And in many cases, she will not. "Let's face it," say the proponents of maintaining Roe v. Wade, "Women are going to have abortions; they might as well have access to safe ones." But they go no further. Except to become activists in serving the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. All good things.

And they are right when it comes to abortion. It is a matter of the heart, and they recognize that no law will hold a woman from doing the wrong thing if she so desires.

But they miss the grave injustice -- the social injustice -- of women who are exploited by the abortion industry.

Just consider this:

400,000 teen girls have abortions each year. Over 60% of them are coerced by a boyfriend, step-parent, or other predator. Who is saving these girls?

Women who have had abortions have a higher rate of broken marriages and other relationships than those who have not. They are in the highest-risk category for suicide during their first year post-abortion. Women who have had abortions have a higher rate of drug and alcohol addiction, than those who have not. They are at the highest risk to develop breast cancer under the age of forty -- the most aggressive breast cancer with the lowest survival rates.

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, believed in eugenics -- reducing the numbers of the "unfit" -- particularly blacks. She was known to have said, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population. . . ."
Is it mere coincidence that African-American women make up 13% of the U.S. female population, but account for 36% of all abortions? Among white women, 165 abort out of every 1000 births. Among black women, 491 abort out of every 1000 births. Fifteen million African-American babies have been aborted since Roe v. Wade. Fifteen million!

Is it just environment that causes such disparity between white and black women's abortion statistics? Or are Margaret Sanger's goals being fulfilled by all who turn their backs on women?
Why are these social justice issues ignored? Who is crying out for the women?

No one.

Except those who know and understand the suffering that women go through, post abortion.

When these women have the freedom to tell their stories, to cry out because no one was there to save them, when they can reconcile themselves to God -- they will finally raise up and save their little sisters in Christ.

They are the silent victims. They can't be heard above the clamor and din of the arguing between sides who can no longer hear one another.

Further reading:
www.afterabortion.org
Forbidden Grief, Dr. David Reardon
World Magazine, Urban Battleground

God's peace,

Rhonda

Catholic Democrats....HUH?

President of Catholic Democrats, says this: his organization "is thrilled that Sen Obama has been elected to the highest office in the land today, and that Sen. Biden will be our first Catholic vice president." Further, his group "argued all along" that Obama and Biden "were the candidates that best reflected our Catholic values of hope, personal responsibility and care for the common good."

Well, that's all fine and good, but doesn't our Catholic Church tell us that we cannot vote for a pro-choice candidate unless there are portionate reasons??? There are not portionate reasons here - John McCain was asked when life begins, and he had 2 words to say...."at conception." What does Sen. Obama say? He says (paraphrasing here) that it is above his pay grade to make that determination. How can a Catholic, in good conscience, vote for a man who supports abortion?

Ok, I know...the election is over, and and we all have to support our president-elect while still maintaining our morals and values. The pro-life movement must continue to grow - poor, defenseless babies need to be protected. No matter who is president, our faith and personal responsibility to live as Christ commanded is priority. Let us ask Him.....He who knew us in the womb....to have mercy on us. God bless!!!

Terri

FAWNING

Did "fawning" media elect Obama? See for yourself.... or maybe you already did. I haven't been able to read the paper the last several months because the liberal bias was so strong....stronger than ever!

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Election2008/Default.aspx?id=313370

At this point, though, we cannot change the election outcome; however, we can support our new president the best we can while continuing to uphold and live the morals and teachings given to us by Christ.

"But among all things maintain peace of heart which surpasses every treasure. For maintaining this peace nothing is more effective than to renounce one's own will and to set in its place the will of the Sacred Heart...". Saint Margaret Mary Alocoque

A letter that came to Bardeen...

I’m sending this message to a large group of people who I know to be Catholic/Christian. I must confess that there are parts of me that don’t want to send it, because I don’t want to offend anyone or make them uncomfortable. However, sometimes in life we are called to stand up for something we believe in even when it is not popular, not for our own good but for what we believe is best for society and for the souls of our brothers and sisters. Please read this note with that in mind, and know that I write this humbly, as a sinner, and with love. Exactly one week ago tonight I was driving home from a meeting and barely missed hitting two deer crossing a busy street near my home. Glad to have slowed down to let them pass, I suddenly noticed that there were two more waiting to cross behind my car. I flashed my lights at two people in an oncoming car to warn them of what they couldn’t see. Keeping my eye on the situation in my rear view mirror, I saw the car that had passed me stop suddenly and I realized that it might have hit one of the animals. So I turned around to see what happened and if anyone needed help and learned that two teenage girls had indeed hit one of the deer, a doe. Along with those girls and a few other drivers who stopped, we watched the young deer writhe in pain and struggle to stand for a long minute or two. And then it died. The girls cried, and I and the other drivers felt horribly sad. The mother deer and the others were long gone and did not return. I called the police and animal control, waited for a while with the dead animal and the girls, consoling them, and finally left. This story is not spectacular, but I assure you that it is completely true. It happened on October 23rd, and it made me think about how hard it was to watch a young, innocent creature die, and without its mother. Later that night as I was putting my 10 year old boys to bed, one of them asked me “dad, if the election doesn’t go the way we want, is abortion going to become legal?” I was a little stunned, and then had to sadly explain that it was already legal, and that more than 3,000 babies died each day by abortion. Telling him that Santa Claus didn’t exist was much easier. He then asked why anyone would have an abortion, and I explained that some women become pregnant and then decide that they don’t want to have a baby, so they get rid of it. He then declared, “If I were a woman and were pregnant, I would never do that. I mean, if I didn’t want the baby, I would give it,” he struggled for the words, “to an orphanage.” His brother in the upper bunk then said, “I wouldn’t even do that.” Well, today I find myself thinking about abortion. And for some reason I’m thinking about the ultrasound images we see of unborn babies in their early stages. The fingers, the faces, the very baby-like images that twenty and thirty years ago were not nearly so clear. And I cannot help but feel that abortion is terribly, terribly wrong. Yes, our churches tell us so. And yes, many doctors now tell us so. But in our hearts, I think that all of us who honestly think about that dying deer, about the questions and reactions of my ten year old sons, and about those ultrasound images, know that it is wrong. Politicians who call themselves pro-choice often say that they are personally against abortion, but they don’t want to impose their morality on others. They almost always claim that rather than making abortion illegal, they want to discourage abortion through other means. Whether this makes sense is certainly debatable, because if something is morally wrong and bad for society, keeping it legal is almost always the wrong approach. But it is possible that a politician or a voter is sincere in their interest to eradicate abortion through non-legal means. However, when a politician vows to take steps to increase abortion, anyone who finds abortion morally wrong, pro-choice or not, has a moral obligation to stand up and disagree. And, I think, to avoid voting for that person. Because if a candidate does not believe that the most innocent life is sacred, a Christian certainly cannot believe that he or she is truly concerned about life when it comes to anything else. Here is where this gets political, but my motivation for pointing this out is not about political parties or winning or losing elections. It is about the most critical moral issue of our time, one that will plague our nation and our society for many years and demand an answer to the question “where were you when this all happened?” Barack Obama has already promised that on his first day in office he will sign FOCA, the Freedom of Choice Act. What will this do? It will make it impossible for states to require girls/women seeking abortion to get parental consent, speak with a counselor, or get an ultrasound of their unborn baby. It will also make it impossible to ban partial birth abortion. And for those who don’t know – and so many people don’t know – partial birth abortion is horrific. It is the procedure in which a late term unborn baby is pulled partially from his or her mother’s womb, scissors are inserted into its brain to scramble the contents, while the child goes into spasm and jerks in horrible pain. Then the baby is then vacuumed from its mother’s womb. There is no doubt that the impact and intent of FOCA is to prevent anything from happening that might make a women reconsider or be restricted in having an abortion. It is by far the most aggressive action since the Roe vs. Wade decision. Finally, it simply cannot be ignored that on two separate and unequivocal occasions, Barack Obama voted against providing medical care to babies who were born alive after botched abortions. I am writing to implore you to consider the abortion issue as the most foundational issue of our culture and our time. When you look at any society, you can judge so much of where it is headed by how it treats its most innocent and vulnerable people. And there is no one more innocent and more vulnerable than an unborn child. Many people will say that war or poverty or medical care are just as important issues, and just as much related to “life”. However, each of those issues involves far less clear moral imperatives. For instance, there is an argument to be made that there are “just wars” (think about WWII and the need to stop the Nazis, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War), and there are some poor people who are poor because of their own bad decisions and refusal to work hard (what percentage I don’t know, but it is not insignificant), and there are health care issues that are not clearly fundamental rights (elective cosmetic surgery and care for self-inflicted problems from smoking or chronic over-eating). In other words, war, poverty and medical care have gray areas that can be debated in terms of what is good and what is evil. Some wars are certainly wrong. Many poor people are poor through no fault of their own. And many sick people need and deserve care regardless of their financial means. But there are gray areas. Abortion, on the other hand, is not really debatable. No child wants to be aborted. Every abortion is the pre-mature and unnatural ending of a human life. I heard someone say recently that all people are born pro-life, and have to learn to be pro-choice. Finally, think about that ultrasound image of an unborn child, and the teary eyes of the mother and father seeing their first glimpse of their son or daughter. Now ask yourself if it makes any sense to worry about that baby if there are complications during pregnancy. To pray for him or her during that time. To do surgery on him or her to improve the chances of survival. Of course it does. And then we must ask ourselves if it makes sense to let another unborn child be purposely injected with saline solution so that it will burn and die, or to have its arms and legs and face and hands chopped into pieces and vacuumed from the womb, simply because his or her mother decided he or she didn’t deserve to be born. How can we treat these two equal and innocent creatures so differently, one as a life worthy of prayer and concern and tears, and another as disposable property? There is no logical or moral way to explain this, not to a ten-year old, a teenager or an adult. Yes, this is uncomfortable. Yes, this is controversial. But what it is not is political. It is about life. It doesn’t matter whether you are a liberal or a conservative, a democrat or a republican, a man or a woman. What does matter is whether you believe in God, and that He created us in His image. Because if you do, then it is hard to see abortion as anything but morally wrong. I don’t write this to you out of superiority or condescension. I am a sinner like everyone else. And I fear taking an unpopular stand just like anyone else. But in this case, out of love, I had to let you know how I feel. God bless you and all of us, and the unborn children who depend on our courage.