created by the Pennsylvania Family Institute
Friday, 12 April 2013
Friday, 5 April 2013
Discouragement
For me, one of the most discouraging things about being pro-life is seeing what other people think of the abortion issue and how cavalier or celebratory they are with regards to issues surrounding the grossly misnamed "reproductive freedom" issue. I just can't understand how someone, even someone who supports abortion in most cases, can be happy about the fact that abortions occur at all. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, is it not a tragedy when someone decides that they aren't able or don't want to help their own family live? Mom's having abortions because they can't afford their children, or because they found themselves in a situation where they don't want to be attached to the father, or because their family or partner is not supportive of any choice other than abortion, or because they aren't given the resources necessary to raise a special needs child.
The fact that abortion happens is not a good thing. This is our culture refusing to help mothers and children in need, and pushing a "quick fix" solution towards moms who find themselves in less than ideal circumstances. The existence of abortion is a tragedy.
Which is why things like this make me so sad:
Free abortion for all women - yay!! This isn't about killing our children, no, this is about having freedom! This isn't about helping women and children escape their circumstances, no, this is about having rights!
How do you convince people that they support something that has caused the deaths of billions of people? How have we gotten to the point where this is even something that has to be done?
Sometimes this world is just so discouraging.
At least things like this really highlight how necessary it is for those of us who are pro-life to speak up and engage our peers. It can be so difficult to do sometimes, but it is so, SO necessary!
Thursday, 4 April 2013
Failed Abortions and the Washington Post Commentaters
I just came across this article from the Washington Post, about the appalling youtube video where a Planned Parenthood representative claims that any decisions regarding care towards an infant born alive after a failed abortion should be up to the medical practitioner, the mother, and her family. In other words, abortionists should not be required to provide basic or lifesaving care for an infant born alive after an abortion attempt.
Chilling.
But what I really wanted to point out was the reaction this article received in the comments section. Beyond the usual "Republicans only care about your right to life from conception to birth!!!" vitriol (I find it odd that no one seems to recognize the ridiculousness of these rants considering this issue in question deals with a baby after birth), a lot of people are expressing disbelief that such a situation could ever happen at all. For instance, OldUncleTom writes:
"I would be very surprised to see any legitimate case of an infant born alive not receiving care. This line of questioning sounded very hypothetical, and agenda-driven."
AnnabelleLee16615 says:
"There was no proof of this [infants born alive and left to die] occurring, no examples provided, this was an agenda driven attack by a group of Republicans looking to earn points for denying women health services."
and
"When and where are these live births occurring after botched abortions? Most states don't allow abortions after 24 weeks. Babies born at less than 24 weeks of gestation tend not survive. This seems like a disingenous line of questioning designed to inflame the base, not address a real concern."
Curwood writes:
"One might question 'botched abortions" ...and if here are actual proof of babies being born ... that far along developmentally... and who would pay for the 100 of thousands it takes to keep any preemie alive."
These people seem to be forgetting Kermit Gosnell, who is facing the death penalty for allegedly "deliver[ing] live babies and then deliberately sever[ing] their spinal cords, killing them." (from the Toronto Star).
I really do wonder where people get their information regarding late term abortion practices. And I wonder how these people can live with themselves, for instance: "who would pay for the 100 of thousands it takes to keep any preemie alive" as a reason in support of dismissing this rare (but not unheard of) event.
Never mind that I like to think the "100 of thousands" of dollars it took to keep me alive after I was born premature were worth it ... tell me to my face that I should have been left to die because keeping me alive is too expensive.
Seriously, abortion advocates, if even only one baby who is born (and is therefore considered a live human being by the law) is left to die or is deliberately killed by a doctor, then it is an outrage and even if you support abortion up to birth, YOU SHOULD BE PROTESTING AGAINST THIS PRACTICE.
Chilling.
But what I really wanted to point out was the reaction this article received in the comments section. Beyond the usual "Republicans only care about your right to life from conception to birth!!!" vitriol (I find it odd that no one seems to recognize the ridiculousness of these rants considering this issue in question deals with a baby after birth), a lot of people are expressing disbelief that such a situation could ever happen at all. For instance, OldUncleTom writes:
"I would be very surprised to see any legitimate case of an infant born alive not receiving care. This line of questioning sounded very hypothetical, and agenda-driven."
AnnabelleLee16615 says:
"There was no proof of this [infants born alive and left to die] occurring, no examples provided, this was an agenda driven attack by a group of Republicans looking to earn points for denying women health services."
and
"When and where are these live births occurring after botched abortions? Most states don't allow abortions after 24 weeks. Babies born at less than 24 weeks of gestation tend not survive. This seems like a disingenous line of questioning designed to inflame the base, not address a real concern."
Curwood writes:
"One might question 'botched abortions" ...and if here are actual proof of babies being born ... that far along developmentally... and who would pay for the 100 of thousands it takes to keep any preemie alive."
These people seem to be forgetting Kermit Gosnell, who is facing the death penalty for allegedly "deliver[ing] live babies and then deliberately sever[ing] their spinal cords, killing them." (from the Toronto Star).
I really do wonder where people get their information regarding late term abortion practices. And I wonder how these people can live with themselves, for instance: "who would pay for the 100 of thousands it takes to keep any preemie alive" as a reason in support of dismissing this rare (but not unheard of) event.
Never mind that I like to think the "100 of thousands" of dollars it took to keep me alive after I was born premature were worth it ... tell me to my face that I should have been left to die because keeping me alive is too expensive.
Seriously, abortion advocates, if even only one baby who is born (and is therefore considered a live human being by the law) is left to die or is deliberately killed by a doctor, then it is an outrage and even if you support abortion up to birth, YOU SHOULD BE PROTESTING AGAINST THIS PRACTICE.
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Quote of the Week: "God holds the keys to life and death - not men"
I've had a long absence, but now that my life finally seems to be less busy, I will be posting here a bit more :)
As many of you are aware, I am a HUGE fan of the American organization Secular Pro-Life. I'm such a huge fan, that I have spent much of my time wishing and praying that such an organization existed in Canada, so that I could join them. I am a Catholic, but I am extremely wary of using solely "religious" arguments against abortion because I know that for someone who isn't Christian (and actually for many Christians), the Bible holds absolutely no weight, and if we only focus on Bible quotes and eternal damnation, then we aren't convincing the abortion lobby of anything and lives will continue to be lost. Anyway, this tension between the "religious" and "secular" is often on my mind.
"I had one explanation for why abortion is wrong: Revelation 1:18. God holds the keys to life and death - not men. That was good enough for me, but it didn't go very far in public debate. [...] Because I had framed abortion in such narrow, spiritual terms, I had almost no capacity to demonstrate its injustice. And so I stayed quiet. All these years later, it's ironic that I so often condemn abortion on scientific grounds while my opponents defend it on pseudo-religious grounds. I argue that abortion kills a living human being; they argue that they're not yet persons. I argue that there is no debate regarding the biological beginning of human life; they argue there is more to being human than biology. I argue that embryos and fetuses are just as human as we are; they argue that they don't have a soul (even if they call it something else). [...] [I]t can actually be easier to argue against abortion from biology than from the Bible."
- Michael Spielman (from his self-released book: Love the Least (a lot))
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
You HAVE to read this
link
Seriously, this is an awesome post about where to draw the line on abortion.
Read. Share. That is all.
Seriously, this is an awesome post about where to draw the line on abortion.
Read. Share. That is all.
Sunday, 6 January 2013
Chimeras and their impact on the pro-life movement
Hi Everyone!
This is my first post in awhile. First off, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope everyone had as an amazing holiday as I did.
Sadly, it is now time to head back to school.
This blog post will be short, and it is mostly to ask my fellow pro-lifers what they think of an interesting biology experiment I read about recently (scroll down to #14 to read about it. Also, read the rest of the article, a lot of it is really cool!).
Here's the quote:
"While all the donor cells were from rhesus monkeys [the cells were used to create baby chimera monkeys], the researchers combined up to six distinct embryos into three baby monkeys. According to D. Mtalipov, 'The cells never fuse, but they stay together and work together to form tissues and organs.' Chimera species are used in order to understand the role specific genes play in embryonic development and may lead to a better understanding of genetic mutation in humans."
From my understanding of this blurb, what happened is sort of like the reverse of twinning? Do you think this has any impact on a complete pro-life philosophy, where we maintain that we are individuals at the moment of conception when we are (however briefly) still single-cell embryos? For that matter, do you think identical twins have any impact on this same pro-life philosophy?
I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!
I haven't thought too deeply about this yet, but my first impulse is to maintain that distinct (from the mother) human life begins at conception, regardless of whether it develops from a single embryo into multiple embryos or vice versa, and so the mother still does not have any right to end what nature has started.
Another (possibly really stupid) question for hard-core biologists - is it possible that what happened with the chimera monkeys could happen frequently in nature (i.e.: two eggs are both fertilized at once and instead of having fraternal twins, the embryos work together to form a single developing baby?)
Aside: If you have the background to understand more about chimeras, please enlighten us in the comments!
Cheers!
This is my first post in awhile. First off, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope everyone had as an amazing holiday as I did.
Sadly, it is now time to head back to school.
This blog post will be short, and it is mostly to ask my fellow pro-lifers what they think of an interesting biology experiment I read about recently (scroll down to #14 to read about it. Also, read the rest of the article, a lot of it is really cool!).
 |
| Baby monkeys!!!! |
Here's the quote:
"While all the donor cells were from rhesus monkeys [the cells were used to create baby chimera monkeys], the researchers combined up to six distinct embryos into three baby monkeys. According to D. Mtalipov, 'The cells never fuse, but they stay together and work together to form tissues and organs.' Chimera species are used in order to understand the role specific genes play in embryonic development and may lead to a better understanding of genetic mutation in humans."
From my understanding of this blurb, what happened is sort of like the reverse of twinning? Do you think this has any impact on a complete pro-life philosophy, where we maintain that we are individuals at the moment of conception when we are (however briefly) still single-cell embryos? For that matter, do you think identical twins have any impact on this same pro-life philosophy?
I would LOVE to hear your thoughts!
I haven't thought too deeply about this yet, but my first impulse is to maintain that distinct (from the mother) human life begins at conception, regardless of whether it develops from a single embryo into multiple embryos or vice versa, and so the mother still does not have any right to end what nature has started.
Another (possibly really stupid) question for hard-core biologists - is it possible that what happened with the chimera monkeys could happen frequently in nature (i.e.: two eggs are both fertilized at once and instead of having fraternal twins, the embryos work together to form a single developing baby?)
Aside: If you have the background to understand more about chimeras, please enlighten us in the comments!
Cheers!
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
A Quick Hello and Update :)
Hello everyone,
So my blogging has been VERY very sparse lately. I really apologize, but I have been going through a lot in the past few months. Long story short, there has been a lot of negativity in my life for a very long time - negativity over where I am (grad school can do that to you - I try not to worry about this), negativity over missing home, and negativity in how I see the world. So a few months ago I decided to take some control. I took a look at my life, and tried to figure out where my awful feelings were coming from.
One thing that I noticed was that for awhile now, a new view had started creeping into my consciousness. I started seeing everyone around me in a new light. Instead of loving them for who they were, and taking them as they are right now, I started focusing way too much on the wrongness of their views. And lets face it, I'm at a Canadian university, which means that pretty much every single person I meet is pro-choice. It really takes a toll on you, and a toll on how you can relate to others, when you stop seeing people as flawed and instead see them as wrong. So I stepped back from my blog, and I stopped spending ages reading pro-life news (though I've stayed pretty active on my Twitter account). And I finally realized that I wasn't seeing other people as wrong per se, but I was actually seeing myself that way and was comforting myself by thinking "Well, at least I don't think that abortion is a good thing". And why was I telling myself this? Because, in all honesty (and I am very ashamed of this, which is perhaps why it took me so long to admit to myself), other than this blog and the odd debate with a friend or family member, I don't really do much to forward the pro-life cause. I don't attend rallies. I'm not part of my school's pro-life group. I've never gone to March For Life. I don't volunteer at a Crisis Pregnancy Centre. But as soon as I realized that I was actually feeling awful about myself, I started being afraid. And the more I thought about being pro-life the more terrified I became. Every time I met someone new I was worried that they would hate me because I am pro-life - and this is strange, because I have never, ever in my life before this point cared about what others thought of me. This part of the negativity was coming from the pro-choice side of the debate and all the blame and anger and terror that I see there. I was starting to view the average person, who is only pro-choice by default, as a pro-choice activist and someone who would immediately start hating me if they knew my views. So I knew I had to take a break from all of this - both to get myself in line, and to get my views of the people around me back to a healthy and normal place.
Therefore, my absence.
My other sources of negativity I can't do much about. I need to finish my degree before I decide what to do with my life, and I'm stuck far from home until I finish my degree. I think my main worry here is that I love doing my PhD and I LOVE the work that I do, but ultimately my goal in life is to be a stay at home mom - and after spending so much time reading pro-life blogs I've become exposed to how sahm's are treated by the mainstream, and I've started feeling as if my friends and family would never accept my life's choices once I started a family, even though I have told them that I want to stay at home with my kids and everyone has seemed supportive of it (but really, I secretly think that they have lost their respect for me because I'm degrading myself by one day aspiring to be a homemaker). So you see, again, a source of negativity that I thought had to do with my circumstances, but instead has to do with reading too much on the internet.
So, as I said before, I decided to take charge. I stopped blogging - or at least blogged much less. I focused more on school. I made a commitment to go to church at least twice a week, and I have mostly kept it. Things are looking up. My next step, once I have all these new habits down, is to start volunteering again. And once that has happened, I will start blogging regularly again. Hopefully by that point, I will have my life under control and I will be a strong person so that imersing myself in the pro-life movement won't take such a toll to the point that I am no longer able to sympathize with those who's minds I am trying to change. And maybe then I will be braver and more able to speak with eloquence and compassion about why abortion is wrong.
Oh, and unless I'm stuck working on an experiment, I will be at the March for Life this year. Hopefully I get to see some of you there!
Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know why I've been away for so long. You have all been so amazing, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your comments, follows (both here and on Twitter), retweets, and prayers. Thanks and I will be blogging lightly again within the next week or so, so see you all then!
Love,
Me :)
So my blogging has been VERY very sparse lately. I really apologize, but I have been going through a lot in the past few months. Long story short, there has been a lot of negativity in my life for a very long time - negativity over where I am (grad school can do that to you - I try not to worry about this), negativity over missing home, and negativity in how I see the world. So a few months ago I decided to take some control. I took a look at my life, and tried to figure out where my awful feelings were coming from.
One thing that I noticed was that for awhile now, a new view had started creeping into my consciousness. I started seeing everyone around me in a new light. Instead of loving them for who they were, and taking them as they are right now, I started focusing way too much on the wrongness of their views. And lets face it, I'm at a Canadian university, which means that pretty much every single person I meet is pro-choice. It really takes a toll on you, and a toll on how you can relate to others, when you stop seeing people as flawed and instead see them as wrong. So I stepped back from my blog, and I stopped spending ages reading pro-life news (though I've stayed pretty active on my Twitter account). And I finally realized that I wasn't seeing other people as wrong per se, but I was actually seeing myself that way and was comforting myself by thinking "Well, at least I don't think that abortion is a good thing". And why was I telling myself this? Because, in all honesty (and I am very ashamed of this, which is perhaps why it took me so long to admit to myself), other than this blog and the odd debate with a friend or family member, I don't really do much to forward the pro-life cause. I don't attend rallies. I'm not part of my school's pro-life group. I've never gone to March For Life. I don't volunteer at a Crisis Pregnancy Centre. But as soon as I realized that I was actually feeling awful about myself, I started being afraid. And the more I thought about being pro-life the more terrified I became. Every time I met someone new I was worried that they would hate me because I am pro-life - and this is strange, because I have never, ever in my life before this point cared about what others thought of me. This part of the negativity was coming from the pro-choice side of the debate and all the blame and anger and terror that I see there. I was starting to view the average person, who is only pro-choice by default, as a pro-choice activist and someone who would immediately start hating me if they knew my views. So I knew I had to take a break from all of this - both to get myself in line, and to get my views of the people around me back to a healthy and normal place.
Therefore, my absence.
My other sources of negativity I can't do much about. I need to finish my degree before I decide what to do with my life, and I'm stuck far from home until I finish my degree. I think my main worry here is that I love doing my PhD and I LOVE the work that I do, but ultimately my goal in life is to be a stay at home mom - and after spending so much time reading pro-life blogs I've become exposed to how sahm's are treated by the mainstream, and I've started feeling as if my friends and family would never accept my life's choices once I started a family, even though I have told them that I want to stay at home with my kids and everyone has seemed supportive of it (but really, I secretly think that they have lost their respect for me because I'm degrading myself by one day aspiring to be a homemaker). So you see, again, a source of negativity that I thought had to do with my circumstances, but instead has to do with reading too much on the internet.
So, as I said before, I decided to take charge. I stopped blogging - or at least blogged much less. I focused more on school. I made a commitment to go to church at least twice a week, and I have mostly kept it. Things are looking up. My next step, once I have all these new habits down, is to start volunteering again. And once that has happened, I will start blogging regularly again. Hopefully by that point, I will have my life under control and I will be a strong person so that imersing myself in the pro-life movement won't take such a toll to the point that I am no longer able to sympathize with those who's minds I am trying to change. And maybe then I will be braver and more able to speak with eloquence and compassion about why abortion is wrong.
Oh, and unless I'm stuck working on an experiment, I will be at the March for Life this year. Hopefully I get to see some of you there!
Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know why I've been away for so long. You have all been so amazing, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your comments, follows (both here and on Twitter), retweets, and prayers. Thanks and I will be blogging lightly again within the next week or so, so see you all then!
Love,
Me :)
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