It's All About Priorities

A couple of weeks ago, I talked to someone at Church about Amnesty International (AI). He said that he supported them in their fight for justice around the world.

During our conversation, I remembered that AI was now a pro-abortion lobby group according to lifesitenews.com (1 2 3).

So, this last Sunday, I gave a printout of the above articles (and a couple more) to him. He said that he didn't believe it (as in, "I don't believe these papers"). I said that I knew he wrote letters for AI, but I assumed he did not contribute money to them. I was wrong, he did support them monetarily. I responded, "By giving money to them, they can use your money for their pro-abortion lobby."

As you can imagine, he tried to explain his reasons for contributing to them. When you get down to it, his main point was that he does not use a "litmus test" for determining to which charities he contributes: he looks at the organization as a whole. His bottom line: if AI supports abortion, they do so many other good things that they deserve his (monetary) support.

When he was done expressing his views, I said that I look at the numbers: it comes down to priority. The total abortions carried out worldwide in one year (42 million; 210 million in five years) was more than the total number of people that were exterminated by A. Hitler in all his German concentration camps (about 21 million in 5 years; there are about 2 times more abortions in one year worldwide that were killed in WWII concentration camps over five years).

What I didn't tell him was that if an organization pushes abortion, that entity would be disqualified by me. The same goes for political candidates.

Until we (those OTAAAC) start putting our priorities in stopping abortion (monetarily and politically) instead of the economy, war, poverty, etc., we won't see this most brutal institution come crashing down.

I'm not saying that the other causes are not important, I'm suggesting that if an organization is for abortion, they should not get monetary or political support by those OTAAAC.

Period.

Hearing for Maryland Personhood Amendment

This Friday, 13 March 2009, there will be a hearing regarding the Maryland Personhood Amendment, House Bill 925 at 1 p.m. If you cannot make it to the hearing, may I suggest that you call your representative and a delegate closest to your district on the "HEALTH & GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE" to voice your support for the amendment (to be a ballot initiative).

If you do not know who your Maryland Delegates are, see this website.

(One of my Delegates co-sponsored this bill. (Thank you God!) Another of my Delegates (she was a nurse; perhaps "Do no harm?") is on the HEALTH & GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE).

Label for Life

We've all heard of racism, sexism, ageism, speciesism (speciesism is illogical), etc.

I've been trying to come up for a label for those who discriminate based on a person's stage of development (those still not born after conception). The best I came up with until today was developmentism. It just doesn't work.

Then, today, it came to me: stageism (not stagism; hard "g").

What do you think? Do you have any better ideas? (I think it should be one word, preferably three syllables.)

Church Attack in Connecticut

In Connecticut, they want to take over the Roman Catholic Church.

See the bill. From the actual bill:

Statement of Purpose:

To revise the corporate governance provisions applicable to the Roman Catholic Church and provide for the investigation of the misappropriation of funds by religious corporations. (emphasis added)

See the (video, etc.) response of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport.

The reasons for introducing the bill are obvious: kill a major entity against same-sex "marriage" and abortion. Also, it makes people consider the very un-Catholic idea that the Church is a democracy. The Church is not a democracy (unlike the Episcopal Church, Quakers, etc.): the (Arch)Bishop, accountable to Rome, is ultimately in charge. (The pope is ultimately answerable to the Holy Trinity.)

Pray for this country that has forgotten its Constitution (in so many ways) and ideas of the Founding Founders.

An Exclamatory Opinion

Last October or November (2008), someone in the choir that I’m in came over to ask about my baby. I said that he was doing well and was starting to stand up on furniture. After a little reminiscing about her children, she said that her daughter was having difficulty having children and was going about trying to get in vitro fertilization (IVF).

I don’t know how it happened, but the Holy Spirit must have prompted me to immediately, I mean immediately say, “That’s unethical!” She is not typically a very emotional person, but she got quite a jolt by that exclamatory opinion. I was quite surprised too.

She said something like, “Oh?!” I then went into my little explanation.

I didn’t initially say that zygotes and embryos were human persons. Instead, I asked if she knew anything about IVF. She said nothing but the obvious. I said that they make extra embryos than needed, place more than one into the mother (usually three, I thought), and keep the others frozen. I said that’s why there were so many multiple births going on recently (this was way before the octoplet affair this year). My conclusion was that since they will probably destroy the “extra” embryos, it was unethical since human persons are destroyed (I didn’t know at the time that there usually is also selective reduction (killing of one or more of the embryos) done in the mother after implantation). (I did also say that human life created outside marriage was unethical since it created many problems, but very few agree with that.)

I suggested that her daughter adopt (what does my adopting have to do with killing children?). She then said, “Do you plan to adopt?” I said yes. She asked if my wife was agreeable. I said that she was the one who really wanted to (I also do, but women are more motherly).

At the end, she asked me if I was Catholic (Yes!). She then said I was entitled to my opinion, and we haven’t talked about it since (She left the choir after last semester).

I didn’t think of it before, but today’s executive order to lift the ban on federal dollars (my tax dollars!) for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) reinforces the truth that IVF is unethical. From First Things blog:

So is Obama’s decision good not only for science. [sic] It’s also good for ethics. Why? Because this country produces and destroys countless human embryos every day in the name of fertility medicine [with IVF].
…
Of course, Dr. Caplan isn’t calling for a coherent ethical approach to science—for how can a denial of the intrinsic value of human embryos be coherent?—he’s calling for consistency. Unfortunately, he’s right. Denouncing the production of human embryos for science while silently looking over the problems of the fertility industry [IVF] creates a hypocritical double standard.

So, IVF is unethical for the same reason ESCR is. Namely, both destroy human persons in their most innocent and venerable stage of development (developmental discrimination; shouldn’t our first (half) African American president realize this?). Further, both have viable and ethical alternatives, for IVF, it is adoption, for ESCR, it is Adult SCR. Neither adoption nor Adult SCR destroys human persons.

Bottom line, it’s not about politics versus science, it’s about ethics versus militant relativism (Pope Benedict XVI).

To Be Silent No More

WARNING: Some of the material below is graphic and gruesome.

This week, I received my issue of Life Report from Maryland Right to Life, Inc. In it there was an article entitled, "A Woman Remembers: The Choice" by Mrs. Kelly Stauffer.

At 13, Ms. Staufer was pregnant. She went to get an abortion and was "hooked up to [an IV] that [was] meant to put [her] in a 'twilight' state of consciousness." However, the drugs did not work and she remembered it all.

On the fourth day, as I lay on an examination table, my baby began to kick frantically ... more than she ever had before. I didn't realize what was about to happen but somehow she must have known. The doctor entered with a large needle that he shot into my abdomen. After that I never felt my baby move again ...
...
When it was my turn I was surprised to enter a small room with what seemed to be a toilet. I was told to sit on the toilet, lean on the nurse, and push. So I did. I pushed my dead baby into a toilet.

The years that followed were dark. I was depressed ofter suicidal. I felt so guilty and helpless. I tried to numb my pain anyway I could.

Finally I found help through a Rachel's Vineyard retreat. I got involved in the group Silent No More and began sharing my testimony anywhere I could in an effort to break the silence and expose the lie that abortion is good for women.

During reading this testimonial, it reminded me of the analysis I did of the Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban. I will never forget one quote from an abortion nurse about the intact D&E procedure (WARNING: this is very graphic).

'Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms—everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus. . . ."'The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall. "'The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby went completely limp. . . . "'He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used.'

Do those who are PAAAC read and see what selective abortion really is? (Spontaneous abortion is hard enough, believe me.)

I would encourage those who need more case evidence that women and children deserve better than abortion to go to the Silent No More testimonials page. I especially found these testimonies from abortion survivors informative.

If you (woman or man) have been hurt by abortion, I encourage you to submit your testimonial to the Silent No More Campaign here.

Radically Real Racial Reconciliation

Over at the Blog of Bill Moyers Journal (liberal), they asked the following questions:

Can Americans Speak Frankly about Race?
What do you think?
In America, can people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds speak their minds about race with equal frankness? Why or why not?
Do members of some racial groups have more insight into racial matters than members of other groups, as McWhorter interprets Holder to mean? Explain.
What do you think can be done to help improve racial relations and discourse in America?

I answered the last question. As of this posting, they haven't yet approved my answer (I posted it at about noon today). In any event, it's below.
---------

One thing that can be done to help improve racial relations in the United States is to stop exterminating racial minorities through womb-lynching by organizations like Planned Parenthood.

If America realizes that the lynching of African Americans never stopped but actually skyrocketed in number, we can come even closer to racial reconciliation (the percentage of blacks aborted is substantially higher than the percentage in the population of America at large).

We must confront the beliefs of the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger. In 1929, she wrote the following.

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." (emphasis added)

There is already radically real racial reconciliation happening in the pro-life movement. Black, Whites, Asians, and all races have come together, like the original abolitionists, to proclaim that like African Americans, preborn humans are also persons made in the image and likeness of God that have a right to life from conception.

Visiting My Senior U.S. Senator's Office

I've been wanting to write about this for a while.

On 24 October 2008, I had a chance to talk to a staff member of Senior U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland at the Hart Building in Washington, D.C (I am not a lobbyist and do not represent any entity other than myself as a Marylander and as an American). You can see the PowerPoint presentation that I presented to the staffer (in printed slides) below.


The PowerPoint was in reference to (1) specific Bills of the 110th Congress (as shown in slides) and (2) references that were used for additional facts. (The actual texts of (1) and (2) are here. The references are all copyrighted and belong to the copywriter as referenced on the article. Most of them have referencing URL's (under Fair Use).)

Regarding the actual meeting, I talked too much about the bills that I had on the slides before the Freedom of (Abortion) Choice Act (FOCA). I only had a few minutes to talk about FOCA and related information (Note to those visiting Staffers personally: ask how many minutes you have and time yourself).

I am a real BIG proponent of term limits for all government officials (especially federal ones). Otherwise, the elected officials get too powerful due to the insider trading with the big interest groups (especially big abortionists/porn traders/EMILY's List and Big Defense Contractors (Lockheed and Northrup etc.)).

Regarding the Enumerated Powers Act, as a citizen I would like to know why Congress thinks it has the power to do what it does. I would like to call them out on a bill if its unconstitutional.

The first of the two main points I had about FOCA was that Roe v. Wade ("Roe") had been superseded in substantial part by Pl. Par. v. Casey (505 U.S. 833, 1992) (“Casey”). The main point I had was that having an abortion was no longer a "fundamental right" as Roe had stated (and was reiterated in FOCA), but instead was an action that was reviewed under the "undue burden" standard (not for "fundamental right"). Therefore, FOCA was unconstitutional since the Supreme Court, that interprets the US Constitution, ruled that abortion was not a "fundamental right" (as FOCA would have legislated).

The second point I had was that the initial premise by the Warren Court that abortion laws were a recent development in law was indeed false. Therefore, if Roe was reviewed under new evidence by a lawsuit of FOCA, Roe may be overturned under stare decisis (as I understand it, I am not a lawyer). This new evidence was of a primary source book on the history of abortion law, namely, Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History (“Myths”) by Joseph Dellapenna.

The zinging conclusion the book makes is the following.

“It is time that the Court took seriously its own premise that the constitutional status of a claimed right to abort is to be tested against history and traditions of this nation. The accumulated wisdom relating to abortion teaches us that the prohibition of abortion was always viewed as the protection of emerging, yet real, human life — a concern only made more certain by the continual growth of medical knowledge of gestation during the last two centuries.” (p. 1084)

The other slides are pretty much self explanatory.

May I suggest joining the personhood movement. There have already been two victories (1 and 2).