Seeing with the Heart

"The beginning of life is so small, it can only be seen with the naked heart."

This thought came to me while I was helping my daughters on a pro-life poster contest. We were discussing how small a fertilized ova was, and I told them that you couldn't see it with the naked eye.

Some people, even armed with the most powerful microscopes couldn't see it as life. It takes a heart, open to life, to call a fertilized ova 'life'.

Audacity of Despair

I'd had secret fears of this for some time now, and now it's happened: Someone's killed an abortion practitioner.

After a 10-year respite from violent opposition to abortion, we've had an unwanted, unnecessary, and even detrimental event. Wasn't the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act supposed to stop all this?

It wasn't any law, regulation, or statute that prevented anti-abortion violence; hope to end abortion through legal process prevented violence. For the last 10 years, social conservatives hoped that legislation, Republicans, and conservative judicial nominations would end abortion.

Now, faced with a proven pro-abortion administration bent on negating the minute gains made over the last ten years, despair is creeping into the fringes. The more the Obama administration advances the abortion agenda, the more I fear that despair will drive more to immoral and illegal means of opposing abortion.

The Obama administration is doing nothing to assuage the fear and prevent despair. First order of business was to start funding overseas abortions again. Next, Obama moved to strike down conscience protections for people refusing to provide information on, deliver or perform contraceptive or abortive services. In every forum on the issue, he equivocates and dodges, spouting platitudes based on his read of the audience. I ignore his words and focus on the deeds, and they are no encouragement.

Still, to despair, and allow ourselves to justify violence as a means to prevent abortions is counter to the very principles that we base our opposition on.

And every time an abortion doctor is killed, the media lionizes the deceased and manufacture a martyr, and people who otherwise think abortion is repugnant become more sympathetic. Like every time Israel sends a missile strike into the West Bank to nail one Hamas leader, 10 more civilians join to take his place. It's a sure-fire way to lose the war.

By Extension, #71003

Some people criticise pro-life supporters as being hypocritical when it comes to the death penalty. 'Tis fair to expect a people that claims to believe in mercy to really extend it. I would, in turn, like to see abortion supporters be thoroughly pro-death, extending their logic about the unborn to capital offenders.

With that in mind, I give you: Pro-Choice Slogans for the Death Penalty.

Lethal Injection: Making sure every inmate is a wanted inmate.

My Prison, My Choice.

If you don't believe in Lethal Injection, don't have one.

Pro-law, Pro-order, Pro-death penalty

If you can't trust me with a lethal injection, how can you trust me with a life sentence?

Keep your defense attorney off my lethal injection gurney.

More submissions will be posted when you cough 'em up.

A Voice for the Voiceless

"My hand is not the size of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both."

- a slight alteration on the closing speach of Ponca chief, Standing Bear, at his trial requesting recognition as a human.

Standing Bear made the remark that his hand was a different color than that of the white judge before him. But the unborn can make no such remarks before a judge, and thus the genocide continues.

"My hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both." - Ponca chief, Standing Bear.

Personally, I Hate It

from CNN:

Giuliani donations to Planned Parenthood surface

I'm not sure whether the Left is jubilant that Rudy's really one of them, or that they've just scuttled his chances with religious conservatives. Not that he really had a chance with me to begin with, as I'm backing Sam Brownback or Fred Thompson.

Tuesday, in an appearance on conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's radio show, Giuliani said the donations were not inconsistent with his personal opposition to abortion because "Planned Parenthood makes information available" on other options available to pregnant women, including adoption.

When I'm personally opposed to something, the advocates of the offending concept do NOT get ONE RED CENT of my money. If I want to support adoption, or women's health services, I give money to Catholic charities and hospital organizations, NOT Planned Parenthood.

The former mayor has said that while he personally "hates" abortion, he supports a woman's right to make that choice. However, he has expressed support for a federal ban on late-term abortions, recently upheld by the Supreme Court, and he has also vowed not to lift a ban on using federal money to pay for abortions for poor women, something he advocated as mayor.

Wow, so he's "personally against" abortion, but supports it as an acceptable option for women, and he's changing positions relating to federal funding. Sounds like John Kerry all over again.

Holy Innocents, Matthew 25, and Abortion

The feast of the Holy Innocents was this week, and I was pondering not a few things about abortion, and how it's usually dismissed by the Social Justice crowd. Matthew 25 figures big into the Social Justice Gospel, as well it should for all of us, but let's apply it to the unborn as well:

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
"All the nations will be (gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;

and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;

naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'

"Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?

'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?

'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'

"The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'

"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;"

I know that the Left will instantly recoil from the thought of the unborn as one of the 'least of them', in an instinctive fear of acknowledging their horrific error. Abortion is the denial of our hospitality to Christ, a refusal to welcome him. A child, in his or her needs, acts in Personae Christi as a recipient of our love and charity. This also implies the inverse, that our hostility to, or neglect of, children will be held against us at the Last Judgment.

Pro-Life Petition @ Modern Commentaries

h/t Kasia
http://moderncommentaries.blogspot.com/2006/10/battling-ms-magazine.html

Abortion is bad, even most Democrats squirm when discussing it, so let's sound off in the face of shameless advocacy of this horrible practice. From a news article about the Ms. campaign:

Jones said she got an abortion 10 years ago _ enduring harassment from protesters when she entered the clinic _ in order to finish high school. She went on to become the first member of her family to graduate from college, and hopes at some point to attend law school.

"I wanted to do something bigger with myself _ I didn't want to be stopped by anything," she said in a telephone interview.

It's all about 'Me', isn't it?

LifeChain 2006

" Don't you have anything better to do?!?" a young woman shouted out her window, as she drove past. "No, not really" I answered in a more measured tone. This is the state of our discourse, on abortion, in this country. Christians stand by the side of the road with their signs, and liberals drive past with their middle finger thrust in the air. No, I really don't have anything better to do.

It's better than blowing up a clinic. Or shooting an abortion provider. I need to make a couple new signs for next year. Here are a couple suggestions, feel free to add more:

No Children...No Social Security.

Your Social Security Was Aborted...What Now?

Ask Europe About Depopulation.

Plank: Pro-Life Issues

From conception to natural death, the rights of all citizens of our nation should be vouchsafed by the government. Those whom cannot speak for themselves should have an advocate until such a time as they can speak for themselves.

- Abortion should be outlawed in all circumstances (save for a couple DIRE need cases?)
- Our elders are NOT a burden to society, and should be encouraged to continue living, regardless of their condition.
- Human life is not a disposable commodity, and so ethical considerations are to be the highest standards in medical research AND medical practice. (let's not be so quick to destroy embryos, and let's not approve drugs with grievous side effects in the fine print)

Anything else?

Dracula Sides With Scientists

In the movie VanHelsing, Dracula has captured Frankenstein's creation, much to the creature's distress:

"What are you complaining about? This is why you were made, to prove that God is not the only one who can create life. And now, you must give that life to my children."

Wow, sounds like the embrionic stem cell debate, in a nutshell, with the bloodsuckers insisting that embryos are created by Man, and thus can be disposed of according to Man's will.

Frankenstien's creation later says "I want to live." Can we let that be the embryo's a priori answer as well?

Must. Destroy. Embryos.

This whole debate over ESCR (embryonic stem cell research) is hilarious, people ducking under semantics, avoiding certain logical conclusions, and making the wildest claims. According to proponents, ESCR will make lame men walk, blind men see, crazy people sane, and fat people thin. To hear them tell it, ESCR IS JESUS IN A BOTTLE! Who are we pro-life christians to deny the return of Jesus? I'll stay vigilant and skeptical, thank you.

While ESCR pros keep calling embryos by their basic description of "cells" let them answer this: If these cells are so mudane as to not ponder the morality of destroying them, What other kinds of cells, when planted in the human womb, will continue growing into a human being? It's basic biology, gang, stop squirming and answer the question.

The 40,000 embryos in cold storage are like Godiva chocolates in a store window to these folks. The urge is too great. The embryos we've already destroyed didn't yield the results we were seeking, ergo, we need to detroy more of them. And after they've destroyed the 40,000, and have come up with nothing more, what then? Bokanovsky Process manufacturing? Do we let the embryo develop a bit more before destroying it, ".. after all, they're fair game at 2 days. Why not 2 weeks?" will be the reasoning.

And the whiners are making it sound like Dubya's outlawed the practice, rather than declining to fund the research with Federal $$$. If there's so much potential in ESCR, why aren't the major drug companies falling over themselves starting labs and awarding grants? What's more apparent is that the drug companies want the Gov't to fund the research, then the drug companies get to make the meds and treatments without all the up-front research investment in that shaky field. Win-win, right?

The President will get flak from Left and Right on this veto, but he's done what he believes is right. Sometimes, it seems that George is in a party of his own, neither Republican nor Democrat, and I feel that way sometimes as well. Have a good day.

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
And before you were born I consecrated you;
I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."

Zero Tolerance?

On the issue of communion, [McCarrick] said there was "no substitute for the local bishop's pastoral judgment and his vital relationships with Catholic public officials in his own diocese."

Yes, the bishop's pastoral judgment is the final arbiter of a catholic politician committing sacrilege at Mass, and giving scandal to the Church while in office. Let's just juxtapose this upon another situation...

On the issue of communion, [McCarrick] said there was "no substitute for the local bishop's pastoral judgment and his vital relationships with sex-offending priests in his own diocese."

Doesn't have the same cachet, eh? Now I would posit that defending the Faith is just as vital and important as protecting children from molesters, so why not paint a similar situation with politicians? First, from Article 5, Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People:

Diocesan/eparchial policy is to provide that for even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor*—whenever it occurred—which is admitted or established after an appropriate process in accord with canon law, the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state..

The diocesan/eparchial bishop is to exercise his power of governance, within the parameters of the universal law of the Church, to ensure that any priest or deacon subject to his governance who has committed even one act of sexual abuse of a minor as described below shall not continue in ministry.

Let's change some of the language, shall we:

Diocesan/eparchial policy is to provide that for even a single act of voting for or proposing legislation contrary to Catholic Teaching—whenever it occurred—which is admitted or established after an appropriate process in accord with canon law, the offending politician is to be Latae Sententiae under particular personal interdict and, if warranted, excommunicated..

The diocesan/eparchial bishop is to exercise his power of governance, within the parameters of the universal law of the Church, to ensure that any politician subject to his governance who has committed even one act of voting for or proposing legislation contrary to Catholic Teaching, as described below, shall neither continue to give scandal the the Church nor commit sacrilege against the Blessed Sacrament.

Ouch. Tough stuff, eh? Well, if violating the doctinal purity and discipline of the Church were viewed as grave as the abuse of minors, there would be more outcry to make politicians who claim to be Catholic actually behave so. But why would we want that? It's obvious that to be a successful politician, you need to worship the will of the people.

McCarrick said the church needs "more, not fewer Catholics in political life" and said that after one of the most challenging duties in his 30 years as a bishop, the task force was now disbanding its work.

Your Eminence, we still need them to be Catholic, and being Catholic entails being in full communion with Rome.

Working as intended.

To Margaret Sanger's posthumous satisfaction, Abortion is having it's intended effects:

Blacks comprise about 12 percent of the US population, yet Black woman are sold roughly 25 percent of abortions. (Strange, since Black women are more opposed to abortion than are their white sisters.) But most disturbing is this fact: Black women account for at least 50 percent of known abortion deaths. (Of abortion deaths identified by Life Dynamics, Black women accounted for 50 percent of deaths in which the race was known; a CDC study found the death rate among Black women to be even higher.)

This bears repeating: A young Black woman is twice as likely to be sold an abortion as a young white woman, and once she gets on the abortion table, she is at least twice as likely to suffer fatal complications as a white woman.
[Emphasis added.]

So, I hope that this gets shouted from the rooftops, all around america, so that black women can know how loved and cared for they are by the Pro-Choice lobby.

h/t Regular Guy