Like anyone else at Christmas time, after Christmas Eve dinner my family sits down to watch George Bailey try and lasso the moon, Clarence earn his wings, and Mary Hatch put together the perfect honeymoon.
But, I often wonder. There was such a difference in the world when George Bailey wasn't born. Mary grew to be an old maid. Henry drowned at 9, falling through the ice. The druggist, Mr. Gower, was arrested for poisening some little kid. The town was a moonopoly owned by old man Potter- nothing but shacks, bars and houses of ill-repute.
Such a big gap because of one person... and we're missing one-third of this generation. I'm not entirely sure how to explain how overwhelming that idea is. Food for thought, mostly.
It just amazes me that we'll never be the world we should, because 48 million people have been aborted. As Clarence said, "Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"
As we celebrate the birth of Christ, let's also celebrate the gift of life we've been given. And let's use that advantage to defend the right of others to live. It truly is a wonderful life.
Global warming. Whether or not you believe it's caused by man, or that it even exists, is up to you.
However, leaders seem to agree that the core of the issue is population growth. Our carbon footprints are causing the glaciers to melt, you know. China will probably be the first to bring up the topic, since they seem to have no qualms about the amorality of population control.
"The Chinese newspaper China Daily quotes Zhao saying that China's population program has made a great historic contribution to the well-being of society. China has reduced the number of births by 400 million since instituting its one-child "family planning" policies, and this has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions per year, Zhao continued." [lifesitenews]
China seems to think it's a "blind spot" which leaders don't like to discuss, but that "population and climate change are intertwined," and so it is a necessary discussion at this conference.
How will other world leaders react? Some may shy away from it. Most likely what will happen is increased spending for "family planning" andn pushing contraceptives.
My suggestion to the world? If you don't want people baby-making, stop selling sex like 25-cent suckers. If we didn't live in such a sex-driven world, a population boom wouldn't be occuring.
Think about it. 54.8% of children born to women between 20-24 are out of wedlock. [child trends databank] Teenage birth rates are higher than ever. Remove the scorn from bearing illegitimate children, and guess what? People are going to have babies. Tell people if they take a magic pill, they won't get pregnant. Show sex on TV and put it in music and advertisements and everywhere. People are going to start copulating like crazy. Sex is first and foremost for pro-creation, and some people find that out the hard way.
If people waited until they got married to reproduce, the birth rate would surely be affected. Maybe we should stress chastity and the idea that having sex leads to children. Maybe we shouldn't stuff sex in people's faces and inject it into society. If sex is portrayed as good and having children is bad, there's something seriously wrong with the world we're living in.
But I digress. Living in America I should have no reason to fear a one-child, one-family rule ever coming about. But it's not just about America. The freedom of women to reproduce all over the world may be affected because human life is just too costly for the environment.
I'm confused though. If we want to keep the environment protected for the future generation, shouldn't there be a generation to inherit it?
"The last patient I saw one day was 23 weeks pregnant. I performed an uncomplicated D&E procedure. Dutifully, I went through the task of reassembling the fetal parts in the metal tray. It is an odd ritual that abortion providers perform - required as a clinical safety measure to ensure that nothing is left behind in the uterus to cause a complication - but it also permits us in an odd way to pay respect to the fetus (feelings of awe are not uncommon when looking at miniature fingers and fingernails, heart, intestines, kidneys, adrenal glands), even as we simultaneously have complete disregard for it. Then I rushed upstairs to take overnight call on labour and delivery. The first patient that came in was prematurely delivering at 23-24 weeks. As her exact gestational age was in question, the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) team resuscitated the premature newborn and brought it to the NICU. Later, along with the distraught parents, I watched the neonate on the ventilator. I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother's uterus - but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable." Lisa Harris, abortionist
I was reading an article on a pregnant abortionist. She specializes, I think, in second-trimester abortions. She spoke of how, while preforming an abortion on a women just as far along as she is, the child inside of her started kicking for the first time. "Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes - without me - meaning my conscious brain - even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling - a brutally visceral response - heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics."
She stated that she, and most abortionists, agree with pro-lifers- that abortion is violent, gruesome, and murder. She said the pro-choice arguements made "don't accurately reflect the full extent of our experience of abortion and in fact contradicts an enormous part of it." She says, "anti-abortion discourse and imagery that may actually be more closely aligned to our experience but is based in values we do not share."
Translation? "We know it's a baby, we know it's a violent death; we just don't care."
She believes if the pro-abort front can accept that yes, it is a baby and it is violent, the movement will gain more stability. The child has no legal rights and thus the mother comes first. If they can accept this, then she believes they can regain much lost stability.
Maybe she's right. However, I believe an essay like this can help our cause. No one who truly knows that the fetus is a baby can rationalize abortion in a moral sense. For Lisa Harris, abortions have gotten harder to preform. "Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder."
We need to remember to pray for the conversion of abortionists and abortion clinic workers. This woman is truly confuse, and I'm sure others are as well.
Irene Vilar has written a memoir about her 15 abortions, and how she was an "addict," because it was her way to rebel against her husband. She would deliberately get pregnant just to abort, because her husband, 34 years her senior, didn't want children. [I still don't understand that logic.]
I honestly find it hard to believe she had 15 abortions and still gave birth to two healthy children. I think she might just be lying.
Even so, the pro-choicers are up in arms. Reading some of the comments on the article on her book, you can see that they hate a woman like this coming forward and telling such a tale with a smile on her face.
Looking at some of the comments, from "pro-choicers" I have to wonder.
15 abortions...I agree with the right to choose, but this is insane. I agree with Moggie Mumm, that it is all about money. DON'T LET HER MAKE A PROFIT OFF THIS, DON'T BUY THE BOOK!!!!!! WE REALLY DON'T NEED HER MEMOIR ON MOTHERHOOD!!!!!! - runaboutmare, Columbus, OH USA, 14/10/2009 8:20
"Total disgust with this story. I believe in a womans right to choose but 15 times is apalling when there are women out there that cannot get pregnant that could take the eventual children from those pregnancies and give them a wonderful life. She had a choice to take birth contol pills and not get pregnant we are lucky in the western world to have those choices and not be persecuted for them. Women the world over are dying for that right and she abuses it! There is no justification for 15 terminations what so ever You should not take abortion lightly and for it to be used as a form of birth control is apalling.
- Mrs Lilley, Manchester, 14/10/2009 7:13"
I am and always have been pro-choice but this woman has abused an option for women that so many fought long and hard for. It is not and was never intended to be a form of contraception.
I am appalled that the medial profession allowed her to have so many abortions. Weren't they alarmed that she was having way too many and that maybe she needed some psychological help?
And I do not see the point in her publicising her story as it isn't something to be proud of. Quite the opposite. - cymraeges, ozzieland, 13/10/2009 22:11
I wonder why one abortion is okay, why three abortions are okay, why five abortions are okay, but 15 is considered ridiculous and repulsive. Don't get me wrong, it is repulsive. But why must it be an outrageous number before someone draws a line? If it is just a blob of tissue, if it is not a life in the eyes of the pro-choicers, why should it matter how many times a piece of skin gets removed?
I think what really gets the pro-abortion movement in trouble with this woman's testimony is a lot of abortion rights supporters are asking, "If she couldn't be accountable, why wouldn't the abortion clinics be? Surely they'd have her medical history, and surely they would refuse to preform such a procedure after so many had been done. Surely there must be a limit." What? Surprised that abortionists don't have morals? Perhaps they are in it for the money, and not to help women? What a thought. No wonder pro-choicers are up in arms.
Jim Pouillon, with his walker and oxygen tank, constantly reminded townspeople of the gruesome truth that is abortion. He wasn't violent. He had been spit on. Doused in urine. Pelted with condoms. He didn't retaliate. He didn't fight back. He just stood with his signs, day after day, proclaiming the truth and witnessing to life.
Do I agree with using graphic pictures? Not necessarily. Though after being at the mill today, it brought a whole reality to what was happening. I looked at the grotesquely torn head of a beautiful baby on that sign, and it reminded me that I wasn't there for myself. Those women being escorted in were about to allow that same heinous thing happen to their child. I started to cry, honestly. I keep my eyes down and closed for longer than a standard blink, in an attempt to keep calm and stay focused on prayer.
Jim is an inspiration. Honestly, as much as I would like to claim I'd die for the pro-life cause, I'm not entirely sure if I would. I've never had a bad experience while pro-lifing. I really hope I have the strength that it wouldn't deter me from future endeavors. But I would not find a spot, every day, to stand and hold signs all day. I don't have that kind of dedication. Jim Pouillon did. Even with his emphysema and leg braces, he made the effort to get out and raise awareness in the community.
Drake, the gunman, did in fact murder him for this reason.
It's interesting to see the comments on newspaper's websites. I remember when Tiller was killed, even pro-lifers sent the message, "This is wrong. He's in our prayers." Pro-choicers, however, collectively said of Pouillon, "What do you think will happen when you provoke people all the time? He got what he was asking for."
Honestly, though, we need to stop pinning each other as malicious, mean-spirited, and cruel. Depending on which news source you referred to, Pouillon could sound like a total creep maniac, or he could be painted as a martyr and a saint.
The fact of the matter is there will always be crazies on both sides who will incite violence. Now, to be truly pro-life, you should also be pro-peace. Keeps you from hypocrisy.
At any rate, let's keep Jim in our prayers, as well as his gunman. Everyone needs prayers, not just the righteous. Pray for his gunman's repentance, all. Everyone needs salvation.
I went with Students for Life this morning to the mills in Pittsburgh. There was a good sixty of us, with maybe eight counsellors. We got a special blessing at Mass and were on our way. I broke my record of most consecutive prayers said, ever. I don't think I've ever spent four hours straight in prayer.
Anyways, I think they must be used to our presence there. No one really asked any questions, or made crass remarks. The Deathscorts didn't even bother us. Granted, I don't know how much they got in the way of the counsellors, but they didn't interrupt our praying or hymns.
I want to know what kind of people look at a mill, though, and think "This is a safe place." The two mills our groups were praying outside of today were very disconcerting. Peeling paint, scratched-up windows, cracking sidewalks. Located next to an empty storefront and a tobacco gallery. Most of the "pro-choice escorts," as the neon yellow t-shirts read, were male.
The clinic didn't seem very busy. At the Planned Parenthood in Metropolitan DC, there were women coming in every few minutes. During the course of the three hours I was at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, I only saw four or five girls go inside. I'm hoping that, by the time I'm a senior here, one of the two clinics will shut down.
Perhaps I'm behind, but Catholic Vote released two more Imagine the potential Ads.
I love them so much, I really do.
And one for the Moon Landing Anniversary...
These ads honestly just make me smile. It's hard to ignore the plain, simple truths in them. You can't call it slanted. They just present facts in a thought-provoking and hopeful way.
They don't say, "I'm right and you're wrong." They say, "Let me show you the truth. Think about it."
And that's what we have to do as pro-lifers. As soon as our argument shows frustration or a sense of superiority over the other side, they shut down and resent us. They won't listen.
That's why these commercials are so great.
They're just very calm and thoughtful and they open dialogue.
Dialogue is where it's at, guys. It's not an argument, it's not angry or aggressive, and it can't turn into a battle of the self-righteous.
Dialogue respects the dignity of the individual you are conversing with, and this is the key. You needn't respect their ideas, but you must respect them as a person, or you'll get nowhere. If you don't see the individual you are speaking to as an intellectual person searching for truth, you will come off as demeaning. A lot of people, especially with the topic of abortion, get hot-headed and passionate and they forget who they're speaking with and just start prattling off every pro-life statement or fact they can think of.
I've been there too. That's not dialogue. That's me angrily yelling my opinion at someone I've pre-judged as uneducated because they don't agree. [After all, would a person truly educated on this matter be pro-abortion?]
They either wind up walking away or yelling back and making assumptions about you. You did, after all, give them leave to do so, as you have judged them as well.
Dialogue. Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.
You may not get very far very quickly, but that's the thing - it's baby steps.
I like to think everyone is on a personal journey for truth. Maybe they're on the wrong path, but try to walk with them and convince them to join you on the right one.
If you yell from your spot and they yell from theirs, there is no walking going on. Respect them enough to listen, really truly listen, and respond, don't react.
And these videos? Send them along. Maybe to a fan of Run DMC, or to someone who reads Tolkien all the time. I bet they didn't know those people were adopted. And the segue into adoption in general, as an option for women in crisis pregnancies. Jack Nicholson was a rape baby, after all.
Dialogue. It's the only way you'll get somewhere with pro-choicers. You may not fully convert them, but perhaps they'll be open to social spending for CPCs or they'll be against tax-funding for abortion mills or maybe they'll believe abortion should at least have more restrictions. Every time they reconsider, we get closer to winning. It narrows their path and our arguement.
Stay calm, don't judge, pick your battles, and you may just claim some converts.
And please, send these videos on to someone who you think might consider them. You never know what will happen♥
