Archive for Culture of Death

War of Words – What’s In A Name?

Posted in American, Culture, Culture of Death, Politics, Pro-life with tags , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2010 by Joann

NPR staff memo quoted by La Shawn Barber in NPR Drops ‘Pro-Life for’”Abortion Rights Opponents’:

NPR News is revising the terms we use to describe people and groups involved in the abortion debate.

This updated policy is aimed at ensuring the words we speak and write are as clear, consistent and neutral as possible. This is important given that written text is such an integral part of our work.

On the air, we should use “abortion rights supporter(s)/advocate(s)” and “abortion rights opponent(s)” or derivations thereof (for example: “advocates of abortion rights”). It is acceptable to use the phrase “anti-abortion”, but do not use the term “pro-abortion rights”.

What’s in a name?  Barber points us to: “How the Public is Manipulated” which gives us a heads up and out of the sand noting:

  • It Makes a Pro-Abortion Assumption that the Debate is About Abortion Rights, Not Abortion
  • It Plays Word Games with the Word “Rights”
  • It Ignores the Fact That Abortion Can Exist Without Abortion Rights
  • It Assumes the Negative
  • It Ignores the Concept of a Right to Life
  • It Affirms the Concept of a Right to an Abortion
  • Barber makes some points of her own for the mainstream media:

    • Refer to abortion supporters as “right to life opponents”
    • Refer to gun control supporters as “gun rights opponents”
    • Refer to “hate speech” backers as “speech rights opponents”
    • Refer to racial preferences advocates as “constitutional rights opponents”

    Write me if she missed any.

    Blurring the Line Between Life and Death

    Posted in American, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2010 by Joann

    Terri Schiavo died on March 31st, a week from today.  Next week will mark the 5 year anniversary of that murderous action/event, indicating a turning point . Next week also begins Holy Week leading to Easter.  It also marks the beginning of Passover, starting Tuesday, March 30th.  It is a good time to consider: Are we to value human life by its utility or because God has have placed His life in us?  Passover is about God delivering His people from Slavery and setting them/us free for Life. Easter celebrates the victory of Life over Death, Christ’s victory. Terri’s death brings both into focus.

    Writes Dr. Daniel Eisenberg, M.D. in The Death of Terri Schiavo: An Epilogue:

    Blurring the line between life and death, and between medical data and morality, her death signifies a disturbing turning point for American society.

    Terri Schiavo did not die of PVS; she died of starvation and dehydration

    Terri Schiavo died on March 31, 2005, after lasting 13 days without food or water. Her life and death had a profound impact on the American psyche and brought to the forefront the unresolved debate regarding how we treat severely disabled people and who should be their surrogate decision-makers. There is reason to be disturbed by the role that physicians play in molding public opinion regarding end of life issues, because their expertise is generally in medicine and not ethics.

    A letter from a neurologist in complete disagreement with Dr. Eisenberg prompted him to respond:

    He (the neurologist) states:

    …I find myself in sharp disagreement with Dr. Eisenberg. The article refers to PVS as a “cognitively impaired” condition. In fact, there is no cognition whatsoever in someone who is in a persistent vegetative state. Modern aggressive emergency care developed over the last several decades, has allowed us to resuscitate patients with what would have been terminal hypoxic brain injury (what happened to Terri Schiavo). Unfortunately, the entire brain cortex becomes nonfunctional in these people and we are left with a functioning brainstem that allows for reflex eye movements, facial movements etc. PVS patients can even track a moving object in their field of vision because collicular function of the intact brainstem reflexively guides these eye movements. It is all too easy to imagine sentience in the PVS patient because, as humans, so much of our communication is nonverbal and cued by facial and eye movements.

    Dr. Eisenberg responds:

    His assessment of the persistent vegetative state is succinct and it is accurate. To the best of our medical understanding, we presume that a person in a persistent vegetative state has no cognition whatsoever. I never gave much credence to those who argued about the rehabilitation potential of Terri Schiavo. Not because I did not believe it to be true (I have no way of knowing), but because it really does not make a difference to outsiders like myself. CT scan results, Glascow Coma Scales, and following balloons are really only of interest to neurologists and family members who need to arrange for the best possible care for the patient.

    As a society, what we must concern ourselves with are two questions: What is the significance of being so terribly impaired that there is no cognition and how should such people be treated? It is here that the doctor falls woefully short in his analysis. While I am sure that his credentials are impeccable and his understanding of neurology is excellent, he completely misunderstands the role that physicians should play in society’s evaluation of end of life issues (as we will discuss) and he clearly does not appreciate where medical knowledge ends and morality begins.

    Neurologist’s letter continued:

    Nevertheless, the activity of our cerebral cortex is what distinguishes our very “humanness”. If the cortex is dead, then the human individual is dead. . . If the cortex is destroyed, personhood ceases. PVS is an abomination of life –in essence a human shaped colony of cells with no sentience — a glorified cell culture. . .Thankfully, I have not seen this irrational preservation of “life” at all costs in this situation since my training in the early 1970′s. . . Patients with PVS and end-stage Alzheimer’s disease routinely have IV’s and feeding tubes removed in the United States every day.

    Dr. Eisenberg responds:

    The opinions expressed above are very widespread in the medical community today. Variations of these views are espoused by many of the physicians with whom I have discussed this topic. For this reason, they cannot be lightly brushed aside. Please understand that the issue is not autonomy (which is an independent and important issue), but the definition of life. Is the cerebral cortex what makes us human and is it true that “if the cortex is dead, then the human individual is dead”?

    Of course not. My physician critic clearly has stepped beyond the bounds of medicine into the realm of philosophy, and that is the problem. As any physician knows, there is neither a state in America nor any sane physician in the world who would declare that someone who is in a persistent vegetative state is dead. If PVS really equals death then why bother pulling the feeding tube? Just bury the patient with the feeding tube still in place! The doctor’s comments are clearly hyperbole, and represent a very insidious type of bias that leads people to equate PVS with death.

    People want to feel “good” about the killing they allow whether by deeming a fetus ‘not a real living person’ or a person in a persistent vegetative state ‘as good as dead.’  In matters of morality, the doctor steps beyond the data and expertise of his training to play God.  Dr. Eisenberg asks “why the medical knowledge of the physician seem to translate into skill in evaluating the value of life?”

    Dr. Eisenberg reminds us:

    “The belief that medicine can determine which lives are worth preserving was an intrinsic part of the pre-Nazi German medical establishment (see “Why Medical Ethics“). In the late 1920′s and early 1930′s:

    “a number of prominent German academics and medical professionals were espousing the theory of “unworthy life,” a theory which advanced the notion that some lives were simply not worthy of living. . . If Mengele himself (an infamous physician who performed murderous experiments on live concentration camp inmates) became a cold-blooded monster at the height of his Nazi career, he certainly learned at the feet of some of Germany’s most diabolical minds. As a student Mengele attended the lectures of Dr. Ernst Rudin, who posited not only that there were some lives not worth living, but that doctors had a responsibility to destroy such life and remove it from the general population. His prominent views gained the attention of Hitler himself, and Rudin was drafted to assist in composing the Law for the Protection of Heredity Health, which passed in 1933, the same year that the Nazis took complete control of the German government. This unapologetic Social Darwinist contributed to the Nazi decree that called for the sterilization of those demonstrating the following flaws, lest they reproduce and further contaminate the German gene pool: feeblemindedness; schizophrenia; manic depression; epilepsy; hereditary blindness; deafness; physical deformities; Huntington’s disease; and alcoholism.

    I ask again: Are we to value human life by its utility or because God has have placed His life in us?

    Read more here.

    Bart Stupak Caved! Bye Bye Baby!

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Christ, Conservative, Culture, Culture of Death with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2010 by Joann

    “The Baby” SBA List Healthcare TV ad

    Praise Bart Stupak Now!

    Posted in American, Conservative, Culture of Death, Opinions, Politics with tags , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2010 by Joann

    Democrats Against Abortion » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog.

    Joseph Bottum directs us to Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List,who” has an op-ed in the Washington Post called “If Republicans Keep Ignoring Abortion, They’ll Lose in the Midterm Elections.”

    Dannenfelser writes:

    Republicans oppose President Obama’s health-care reform effort for many reasons: It will cost too much, it’s “socialist,” it’s big government at its worst. But they are letting Stupak and his fellow antiabortion Democrats lead on that issue. And the more the GOP ignores abortion and focuses on economic populism—taking up the “tea party” cause—the more the party risks leaving crucial votes behind in November.

    Bottum responds:

    That’s right—and yet, it isn’t. There are genuine reasons for pro-lifers to resist any move toward a nationalized health-care system. The iniquitous distribution of American healthcare is a scandal, but even the incomplete moves of the current plan create a system that no future bureaucracy or Congress will be able to resist using for purposes of social engineering. And, given the condition of social-elite opinion today, that will always mean increased government-sponsored abortion and euthanasia.

    Bottum further says:

    All of American politics has been corrupted by this murderous procedure, and, at present, the party platforms are clear enough. But pro-life forces should not want an America in which the great pro-life message is shoved off into one party. We shouldn’t want an America that squanders its religious exceptionalism by having a political party of believers and a political party of non-believers—a European-style division between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists. This is everyone’s issue, we must believe, and when Democrats such as Bart Stupak arrive, they ought to be celebrated.

    Choice – You Get To Choose

    Posted in Christian, Culture of Death, Defending Life with tags , , , , , , on March 4, 2010 by Joann

    The Real Meaning of Choice

    It is interesting to note that people advocating “choice’ in issues of pregnancy and life use ‘choice’ as a euphemism.  It sounds good and reasonable until you ask them to finish the sentence.  Choose what?  Spelled out in blood and guts, it’s neither good nor reasonable.

    Gardening and the Soul – 101

    Posted in Catholic, Christian, Culture, Culture of Death, Faith, Just Thinking Out Loud, Lent, My Journal, Nature with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 2, 2010 by Joann

    Lent means that spring is just around the corner.  Looking at my garden, it was obvious that it was in need of some serious tender loving care. All I had the energy for was to uproot a few of the hundreds of weeds, but I did begin. Immediately, a thought interrupted my picking. “Many souls are dead and don’t even know it.” Surprised by the seriousness of the pronouncement, I turned to the Lord,  “Why is that, Lord?”

    “Look at the weeds you’re uprooting; they look healthy and well, don’t they? Yet, you know they’re counterfeits; you root them up.  Many people no longer know what’s good for them.  They opened their soil to the world and allowed the world to decide what grew in them;  no questions asked!

    Empty places invite weeds.  Weeds take the place of authentic, productive life.  Soon they choke out the good by sheer  numbers and their greedy appetites.  Weeds look pretty good for a while.  It isn’t until you miss the flowers and the fruit,  that you notice something has gone awry.  In life, people are like gardens. Some are dying but still look good.  Sin like weeds is deceptive.  People are kept busy and entertained by counterfeit life.  Yet they are loosing ground to the world.  They are losing the reward of their time and effort.  Their work and play have no eternal end,  just transitory vigor and flash. It’s really death wrapped in greenery.

    This morning I weeded my entire garden. I also went to confession.

    Martin Luther King Jr. Would Weep

    Posted in Culture of Death, Defending Life with tags , on January 18, 2010 by Joann

    Arizona Rep. Trent Franks states the facts:

    “An astonishing 50% of African-American babies are killed by abortion,and nearly 80% of abortion clinics are deliberately located in or near predominantly minority neighborhoods.”

    Ultimately, Franks says “a minority baby is five times more likely to be aborted than a white child.”

    Planned Parenthood doesn’t need bullets to reach it’s targets. You have only to look at where they locate their clinics and count them to note the disproportionate number in minority neighborhoods as well as abortion numbers among minorities to realize PP’s aim.  Franks refreshes the American memory of the words of Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger when he recalls that the abortion industry’s biggest secret is that their entire movement was largely founded by eugenicists like Margaret Sanger who said:

    “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”

    Would Martin Luther King, Jr. weep?  The battle for civil rights continues as the weakest, the poorest and the youngest are disregarded and discarded daily and genocide goes on in the guise of “health care”.

    Manifesting the Bit by Bit and Hidden Evil

    Posted in Culture, Culture of Death, Just Thinking Out Loud, Pro-life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2010 by Joann

    Os Guinness in his discourse “Addressing the Question of Evil In An Age of Genocide and Terror” dialogues on the questions of evil: “Where on earth does evil come from? How are we to understand evil?” Guinness asks us to consider the possibility of magnifying evil in modern times:

    “The dreadful evil of the Final Solution was not carried out by monsters. Hitler was a monster.  Goring was a monster. Goebbels… They were monstrous. They didn’t carry any of it out. It was carried out by millions, and millions and millions of “good ordinary people.”

    “You could see how in a world of bureaucracy with division of labor and diffusion of responsibility and a distancing,.. people don’t actually see the effects of the decisions they make.   You can see how a modern world and its procedures and its way of doing things has made possible evil on a scale the world never imagined. (paraphrased)

    All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.- Edmund Burke

    On Not Judging the Man-Just the Record

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Christian, Conservative, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, In a nutshell, Just Thinking Out Loud, Media, My Journal, News, Opinions with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 31, 2009 by Joann

    For the record:  judging, discerning, and choosing are part and parcel of life.  From day one, our senses present the world to us and we’re off on the grand adventure.  All is recorded in the Book of Life from cradle to grave.  “Known but to God” can be recorded on every tombstone.  And so, now we come to the death of the “great man”, Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy.  What constitutes this greatness matters.  Of late, we have seen idols and iconic figures come to their respective ends.  To judge, to discern, to choose is human, wisdom depends on it. Society learns and survives by it.

    Let a merciful and just God judge the disposition of a soul.  I’m okay with that for myself and others.  What to make though, of hours and days and in some cases eons of public pronouncements and near cult worship.  Senator Ted Kennedy died and now the myth begins, or has it been spun like a cocoon about him throughout life?  For the butterfly to emerge, the cocoon must be broken.

    I’m of the opinion that God isn’t wowed by the Kennedy legacy and I’m certain all spin stops before His throne.  A face to face with God isn’t like Facebook, Twitter or even “Meet the Press”.  Men may flatter us, but the truth is that pride goes before a fall.  Before the Almighty, humility is the better garb.

    For my part, I see that Edward Moore “Ted” Kenned, had it all; life lived to the full. He got the chance as the youngest of nine children born to a Catholic mother who practiced her faith, not birth control, to experience family, faith, power, love, fun, sin and foolishness.  He got to make mistakes, ask forgiveness, build bonds of kinship and friendship.  He got to roar like a lion and cry like a baby. I see, too, that this gifted and blessed man, failed to find it in his heart or philosophy to support the unborn, the un-named also conceived by the will of  God, failed to grant them protection or welcome into the same life he so abundantly lived.  May these, the Holy Innocents,  now pray for him, their brother, offering the purest Innocent, the Lamb of God, to a loving Father who even Now, stoops to the lowly when they cry out for mercy.  Lord have mercy!

    Ignatius Press sticks to the facts and leaves the funeral fuss, fantasy, and lionization to press, popular myth romantics, and political agendas.

    Open Letter to Senator Tom Udall

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Catholic, Constitution, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, Government, In a nutshell, People, Political, Politics, Pro-life, Religion, Spiritual with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2009 by Joann

    My dear Senator Udall,

    You say, “I firmly believe that reproductive health care is a personal matter that should be left to individuals, their families, their doctors, and their religious counselors.” That sounds good, but in actuality it ignores the fact that a new life in already in this world, growing as we all do from day to day in this life.  Reproductive health care must begin with that new life in the womb, to nurture and provide a wholesome,supportive environment.  Your position, ignores each individual’s right to their own life.  Your position abandons your responsibility while giving to a doctor or a religious counselor a sacrosanct role. Mother, father, counselor, minister; none of these, has the authority to take a human life because tragic, untimely or inconvenient circumstances surround the new life coming into this world, and present in the womb.  It is not a question of choice.  We are not given the choice of taking another’s life.  When we choose to take a life, we kill what God has begun.  You do not have that authority, nor does a mother, father, doctor, priest or counselor.  Words do not change truth.  Truth is staring you in the face and your look the other way, when you support legislation that treats life as some material commodity rather than the holy gift of God that it is.
    In closing, I refer you to Archbishop Chaput’s words:
    “America is not a secular state. As historian Paul Johnson once said, America was ”born Protestant.” It has uniquely and deeply religious roots. Obviously it has no established Church, and it has non-sectarian public institutions. It also has plenty of room for both believers and non-believers. But the United States was never intended to be a ‘’secular” country in the radical modern sense. Nearly all the Founders were either Christian or at least religion-friendly. And all of our public institutions and all of our ideas about the human person are based in a religiously shaped vocabulary. So if we cut God out of our public life, we cut the foundation out from under our national ideals.”
    “As Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George said recently, too many Americans have ”no recognition of the fact that children continue to be killed [by abortion], and we live therefore, in a country drenched in blood. This can’t be something you start playing off pragmatically against other issues.”

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Christian, Conservative, Constitution, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, Government, In a nutshell, News with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2009 by Joann

    Americans United for Life is working hard getting the word out:

    With the Sotomayor confirmation hearings set to begin on July 13, we need “all hands on deck” to show the Senate and the nation that Judge Sotomayor’s radical record — including her longtime participation in a pro-abortion advocacy group — makes her unfit for the highest court in the land.

    Michelle Malkin writes Racism Rejected:

    President Obama applauds the decision as a victory for equality under the law. Not.The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

    SCOTUS Blog background here. More background here and here.

    Tom Goldstein: “Ricci result: Kennedy finds a violation of Title VII. An outright reversal 5-4…the plaintiff firefighters won. New Haven violated the law by throwing out the test.”

    Sotomayor = Not so wise now.

    Pvt. Long vs Dr. Tiller Murders – In Obama-speak

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, Government, Just Thinking Out Loud, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2009 by Joann

    Obama is said to be a master of the word and speech.  If this is true, then we must suppose his limp response to the murder of Pvt. William Long is very meaningful.  The President had at his disposal all the elegant and convincing verbage we have come to expect from him (whether he means it or not.) It is due from the Commander-in- Chief, when one of his troops is murdered. Contrasting Obama’s response with the response he gave when George Tiller, a late term abortionist (with much blood on his own hands,) was murdered; using words like “heinous” and expressing “anger” and “outrage,” Obama was quick to respond and dramatically vocal.  The absence of such sentiment, and the three day delay in any response, speaks volumes. We have to ask: Where do Obama’s loyalties lie?
    Obama’s passive voice, the dispassionate euphemism, the blameless, faceless, semantic nicety; that is a far cry from a cry of truth.  We get abstractions from a man avoiding the reality of a jihadist convert killing one of our troops, one of Obama’s own charges  serving loyally and dutifully. No calling out his killer here, just “a sensless” act.  By who? and why? we may ask?  Obama doesn’t seem to want us to notice that someone, a jahadist, pulled the trigger killing one soldier and gravely wounding another,  18-year-old Private Quinton Ezeagwula.

    Michelle Malkin puts it in words for all of Obama’s failure to react.
    The Anchoress writes:

    And yet, here we are, watching thousands of words being written about the grotesque murder of George Tiller, all of which dutifully identify his killer by name, race, religion and ideology, (Scott Roeder, white, Christian, anti-government, and anti-abortion) while the sad story of Pvt. William Long is quietly put to rest, with little-to-no-mention of the shooter:

    [NPR's] news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have “religious motivations.” She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian.

    The story about Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad grows more interesting by the day:

    A joint FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment…said officers found maps to Jewish organizations, a child care center, a Baptist church, a post office and military recruiting centers in the southeastern U.S. and New York and Philadelphia.

    And:

    An FBI joint terrorism task force based in the southern U.S. reportedly had been tracking Muhammad after he traveled to Yemen and was arrested and jailed there for using a Somali passport, an official told The Associated Press. The probe had been in its early stages and based on Muhammad’s trip to Yemen, ABC News reported.
    …At Tuesday’s court hearing, Deputy Prosecutor Scott Duncan said Muhammad told investigators that “he would have killed more soldiers had they been in the parking lot.”

    The press duly (and briefly) reports, then re-focuses on Tiller, and the evil “Christianists” who are all responsible for his murder. Meanwhile, Obama is keeping silence, even foregoing the perfect opportunity to memorialize his soldier.

    When George Tiller was murdered, Obama spoke out, and then he mobilized his justice department, to deploy guards at abortion clinics. Sort of like a Commander-in-Chief might do, if he feels his beloved country is under attack. When Pvt. William Long was murdered, Obama said and did…nothing.

    Focus On Life – Audacious Hope

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Culture of Death, Defending Life, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2009 by Joann

    Michelle Malkin rightly and vociferously condemns the murder of Late-term abortion doctor George Tiller.  Malkin quotes Princeton University professor Robert P. George:

    “Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence.”

    The area of abortion is already stained with the blood of millions of the unborn, adding to the bloodshed by taking any human life will not vindicate those lost to abortion or prevent the future from being likewise drenched in “little murders” as Archbishop Chaput of Denver writes.

    Malkin realistically warns that pro-choice and pro-choice forces will use this sad event to muddy the waters with rhetoric.  Malkin knows from experience what lies ahead:

    Prepare for the continuing redefinition of any and all sharp political disagreement as “hate” — a ruinous trend that inevitably comes back to haunt the hysterical accusers decrying “hate” the loudest.

    “Prepare for whitewashed hagiographies of Tiller’s career as an abortionist.

    Prepare for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s defenders to gloat about vindication.

    Prepare for collective demonization of pro-lifers and Christians — and more gratuitous attempts to tar talk radio, Fox News, and the Tea Party movement as responsible for the heinous crime.

    The only people is this country allowed to use “hate” speech on a regular basis is the Left when speaking of Christians, Pro-life advocates and any friend of Conservatism.  It is hard not to pick up the same brush and paint with flaming rhetoric.  However, ‘Life’ is at issue here.  It is precious whether possessed by the innocent and the heinous. Let’s not lose focus.

    “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” require self-knowledge and self-control.  They are goals and well worth suffering to achieve, not for one group, but for all.  Prayer comes before self-knowledge and self-control.  Pope Benedict XVI has and is working tirelessly with Peoples of all Faiths and all Nationalities to recognize and protect our common humanity. It is the work of a lifetime for all of us. Building a world of peace makes room for audacious hope in the true sense.  Hope lies in the human heart, and enables us to forgive the past to build a truly human future.

    Our Lady of Guadalupe – Defection of Latin Heart

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Catholicism, Christian, Conservative, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, Government, In a nutshell, Just Thinking Out Loud, Opinions, Our Lady of Guadalupe with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 28, 2009 by Joann

    How the world has changed. The Hispanic community used to care about Life issues.  I’m lost as to what “empathy” actually means in today’s Obama-speak. The GOP wants to please Hispanics and Hispanics want to please Obama and swallow his policies and now SotoMayor because she’s a Hispanic.  What price integrity?

    Hot Air covers the politics of it:

    GOP officials say they realize the party needs to improve its standing among Hispanic voters in order to have any hope of winning a national election, and they admit that trashing the first Latina nominee to the court could cement stereotypes or further alienate minorities…

    I’m trying to come to grips with the duplicity in the Latino community in regard to their recent voting history; their love affair with Obama to be concise.  How does the head come to be divided from the heart, or at least from who used to own their hearts.  People of Spanish decent in this nation have strongly held and loudly proclaimed devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  How this same people can live with that heart-set, while abiding a mind-set of choice and abortion flies in the face of integrity.  What has been the price of their defection?  Have they been won away from Our Lady of Guadalupe whose mantle they still claim as their own?

    Counting on Our Lady’s for favor, love and protection under the mantle of her Son, while secretly voting with the Enemy whose head she will crush defies both logic and presumes a certain gullibility on God’s and Our Lady’s part. Here’s the crux of the matter.  Our Lady of Guadalupe is the pregnant Mother of God.  Have Latinos abandoned her for politico advantage, monetary benefit, educational expediency, life style convenience, a “good” life apart from the heart of this very pregnant Virgin.  For under her heart is the womb and nesting place of Jesus.

    They have abandoned the heart of their Mother?  What else is one to think, when, while still blessing their homes and churches with her image, they none-the-less carry Obama’s torch and wave the banner of Choice.  Should her name be invoked as “Our Lady of Choice” or “Our Lady of Abortion,” for either of these, ‘choice’ or ‘abortion’ rank, by the hispanic vote, higher than the Infant she carried to term and into Life?  Poorly formed, ignored or silenced consciences, do not speak well for the once Christian people. In name only, may replace ‘In God We Trust’  as the banner over this proud inheritance.

    As God’s eyes watched over the Babe in Our Lady of Guadalupe’s womb, they now watch over choices we make in life and in death.  God’s eyes watch over the womb of our Nation, which is 1/3 empty.   Should Our Lady of Guadalupe, now the patroness of the Americas and Life, not look to the Latino as her particular people, having chosen them to announce her under that title?  She has carried them.  Will they no longer claim her by their actions, affiliations and votes. The choice they now make and live, they will carry into life, death and the hereafter, as all life’s choices tend toward eternity.

    Michelle Malkin cares about jurisprudence is anyone listening?

    Open Letter-Fr.Jenkins/Notre Dame by Arrested Women

    Posted in Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, President Obama, Religion, Spiritual with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2009 by Joann

    An Open Letter to Fr. John Jenkins
    President
    University of Notre Dame

    Dear Fr. Jenkins,We are writing this letter to you in hopes that you can clear something up for us.

    We are two Catholic women who reside in the State of Colorado. We made tragic mistakes in our younger years by having abortions. We came to the University of Notre Dame last Friday, May 8, to witness to the harm caused to us by our “choice.” We held signs that say “I Regret My Abortion”. We also gave our testimonies and prayed the Rosary with other Catholics who supported us.

    We did this in hopes of saving young women years of pain, shame and guilt. We did this because college aged women have the most abortions. We did this because we wanted these young women to know that women deserve better than abortion and that women can achieve the things that they want without having their babies killed. We did this because we believe in the fundamental right to life of all human beings who are created in the image and likeness of God which is a dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church.

    We have both attended Project Rachel and Rachel’s Vineyard retreats – both Catholic healing programs for those suffering from abortion. We then joined “The Silent No More Awareness campaign”, a program sponsored by a Catholic Priest – Fr. Frank Pavone.

    In all of these programs we were taught about the acceptance and mercy of God and our fellow Catholics. Also, in these programs we were encouraged to seek the counsel of a Catholic Priest – that they would help us to find redemption in the sacrament of reconciliation. We were also encouraged to share our stories so that the Catholic community and the greater community at large could hear first hand of the devastating effects of abortion.

    While speaking these truths on Friday we were issued a Trespass Notice by security officers hired by the University that in part states “The University has the right to tell us that we are not wanted on University property.”

    Imagine our shock after receiving this notice and being barred from speaking further, we were arrested and thrown in jail. We spent the day in a holding cell until we posted a $250 bond. As we now understand things, we are awaiting news as to whether the charges against us will be misdemeanor trespassing or a felony. This happened all because we wanted the students to know through our stories how devastating abortion is to women.

    We are confused, Fr. Jenkins. Why would a Catholic University bar Catholic women from speaking the truth about a fundamental Catholic teaching, under the signage of a healing program that is sponsored by a Catholic priest, while praying the Rosary? Yet, the University would welcome, honor and have a person speak at Commencement who is virulently opposed to this same fundamental Catholic teaching?

    Fr. Jenkins can you please explain this to us?

    We look forward to your response.

    Jane Brennan, MS
    Laura Rohling
    Centennial, CO
    www.motherhoodinterrupted.com

    Fr. Corapi – Notre Dame Video Message

    Posted in American, Christian, Conservative, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, Government, In a nutshell with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2009 by Joann

    Fr. John Corapi thanks signers to the petition at NotreDameScandal.com and urges Catholics to continue the fight for Catholic campuses. For more information on this scandal and to sign the petition visit http://www.notredamescandal.com/Signt…

    “A picture is worth a thousand words.  Which thousand words will be articulated to an already morally relativistic culture by the  picture of Mr. Obama receiving such honors from a  Catholic university. Metaphorically and morally it like shooting yourself in the foot but Notre Dame lives on.” Fr. Corapi

    Civil Rights At the Heart Of Abortion

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Christian, Constitution, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, President Obama, Pro-life, Religion, Spiritual, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2009 by Joann

    A question of truth, a question of conversion; the Anchoress asks can Obama be converted on abortion?  I ask, and I think posterity will ask, how can this black man, who knows the Black Man’s pain of Slavery, the history of popular resistance to change, who knows the history of  a Stephen Douglas ignoring an Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln who finally pricked Douglas into debate by clubbing him verbally, until, as Edward T. Oakes, S.J. says, “Douglas finally had to take notice of Lincoln’s ceaseless hammering away at Douglas’ ‘pro-choice’ platform (which said, in effect, ‘I’m personally opposed to slavery but can’t impose my choice on other states, including other Norther states.’),” not only ignore but side against so utterly defenseless a part of American humanity? ” How can such a man, now President of a country, founded on the principal that all men are created equal, now consent in his heart of hearts to  discriminate against the obviously created human person growing from day to day, as all men grow, just because he/she is still under the protection of a mother’s womb.

    How can this President, the citizen of the greatest free nation, ever, be content while people conspire to deprive the weakest most dependent members of their civil rights; when to steal or negate life, black,white, red,yellow, male, female,old or young, is intrinsically evil and morally wrong?  How can this be-gifted man standby, a blind, deaf, and mute creature, while this glaring, screaming, appealing and appalling issue of Civil Rights is left to cry in the arms of Lady Justice?

    The questions continue, nagging and still unanswered.  How can a professor, a teacher, a sworn defender of the Constitution, forget the cries of these similarly beleaguered, disenfranchised, these who endure discrimination, these forgotten and forbidden human beings? Is it simply that they have no power, but the power to be, while Obama,  himself, who knows the benefits of life, and the gifts of God and has sworn an oath in the Creator’s Name, forsake his power refusing just consideration? Could he not use his powers of rhetoric to acknowledge our posterity and his power of intellect to comprehend their potential? How can such a man claim his “pay grade” justifies the “choice” not to chose life or engage his own reason and heart and soul?

    The buck Mr. President not only stops here but demands you at least use the means you possess; ears, eyes and brain to watch a simple, state of the art and science, video of life in the womb. The thumb-sucking, kicking, jumping, hiccupping creature you see before you may well declare the reality; “I am here, now.  I am alive, unless you allow my life to come to naught.”

    What price freedom; what price honesty? History begs you not to hide behind polls and politics.  Don’t ask people with vested interests in the abortion industry, or who purchase human parts for research, who like slave owners count it lose if right prevails. Ask Martin Luther King, Jr. when you should stand for the civil right SIMPLY TO BE!

    Short Cuts That Undermine Who We Are

    Posted in Just Thinking Out Loud, News, Obama, Opinions, Political with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2009 by Joann

    “Short cuts that undermine who we are.” Those are words President Obama used at least twice on the 100th day of his Presidency.  Obama was speaking of techniques and procedures considered too torturous for enemy combatants. His objection to these procedures, that he considered them corrosive to our country’s character.

    It just so happens that ‘torture’ is a good word to use when describing abortion, also mentioned on your 100th day. For those who haven’t seen an abortion or read of the procedures, the fetus is violated, at whatever stage, whatever age, with or without pain.When ones life is stolen that is a violation.  The other victim seldom mentioned in an abortion is the mother/woman, who has been treated as a womb to be emptied.  She bears the scars for life while the national discourse is silent or simply frowns on admitting and speaking of this violation to the women and to our “national character”“Short cuts that undermine who we are” Can’t you see Mr. President your own duplicity in these words also spoken on your 100th day:

    The reason I’m pro-choice is because I don’t think women take that ? that position casually. I think that they struggle with these decisions each and every day. And I think they are in a better position to make these decisions ultimately than members of Congress or a president of the United States, in consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their clergy.

    So ? so that has been my consistent position. The other thing that I said consistently during the campaign is I would like to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that result in women feeling compelled to get an abortion, or at least considering getting an abortion, particularly if we can reduce the number of teen pregnancies, which has started to spike up again.

    ‘Short cuts’ whether arrived at by national legislation, medical intervention, consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their clergy are short cuts that still fall far short of moral rectitude and our national and human dignity.

    Some will never see their duplicity.  The Anchoress points to the Abortion is a blessing types with this and this.

    High Ground – High Rhetoric – Short Memory

    Posted in American, Christian, Conservative, Culture, Culture of Death, Defending Life, United States with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2009 by Joann

    In his third press conference on his 100th day in office,  President Obama stood by his conviction that torture is wrong, that water-boarding is wrong. Basically he said it was wrong making the argument that we don’t need it.  Obama claims the high ground in protecting sworn enemies of this country from harsh procedures. “It corrodes the character of a country.” Here is the text of exchange:

    OBAMA: Jake? Where’s Jake? There he is.

    Q: Thank you, Mr. President. You’ve said in the past that waterboarding, in your opinion, is torture. Torture is a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?

    OBAMA: What I’ve said ? and I will repeat ? is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don’t think that’s just my opinion; that’s the opinion of many who’ve examined the topic. And that’s why I put an end to these practices.

    I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

    I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, “We don’t torture,” when the entire British ? all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat.

    And then the reason was that Churchill understood ? you start taking shortcuts, over time, that corrodes what’s ? what’s best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country.

    However, this same man, President Obama, supports, allows and has helped restore and implement legislation that allows the arms and legs to be severed from the bodies of  pre-born infants not only in this country but around the world. (Harsh words, harsh procedures! Saline abortions are worse than corrosive, they are caustic, for the infant.)

    The pre-born children of this Nation are our future citizens.  Every fragment of their being was conceived and formed while their mothers breathed the air of American freedom and protection. Obama has in the past stood side by side with those who sanction collapsing the skulls of fully formed infants making sure they never draw their first breath.

    The key to his position may be one of pragmatism rather than morality.  Has he forgotten that he indicated that the destruction of his own future grandchildren was preferable to him rather than for his own daughters to bear his grandchild in an untimely manner;  His words on the subject, “if they make a mistake. I don’t want them punished with a baby.” This is part of what Obama calls teaching “morals and values to make good decisions.” This President hasn’t a moral leg to stand on.

    Amy Welborn here points to of OSV who wrote in Corroding the Character of Our Nation:

    “We have seen the tragic results of what happens when one life is considered less important than another. It’s unfortunate that the president can recognize that fact when it comes to terror suspects and prisoners of war but not when it comes to his own countrymen still in the womb. President Obama said in his press conference last night that he believes that the abortion decision is best left in the hands of women, who he believes struggle with what they choose to do. Well, we would hope that women struggle with the decision to end a child’s life, but the reality is that with each passing year people seem to become more and more desensitized to the plight of the unborn. Why? For the exact reasons the president stated: Over time, bad but easy choices corrode what’s best in a people.”

    Obama’s First 100 Days Counter to Glendon’s Life Work

    Posted in American, Anti-abortion, Catholic, Christian, Church, Culture of Death, Defending Life, News, President Obama, Religion, United States, Vatican with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 29, 2009 by Joann

    Elizabeth Lev, daughter of Mary Ann Glendon has responded to this written by Kaitlyn Riely at Politics Daily.  Riely,speaking of Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, says:

    “But Glendon has been trained in diplomacy. Shouldn’t being in the same place and engaging someone of an opposing view be right up her alley? Wouldn’t the better decision be to use her platform — or at least her proximity — to persuade Obama to change his views? Her diplomatic style seems to be less suited for U.S.-Vatican relations and more for U.S.-Cuba relations.”

    Reponse by Elizabeth Lev, Mary Ann Glendon’s daughter:

    “The Laetare Medal is the highest honor conferred on Catholics in the United States. For a Catholic, it has greater prestige than a Nobel Prize for a scientist or an Academy Award for an actor, as the award is given for career-long achievement, for “staying the course” in the words of St. Paul. It doesn’t just showcase a single discovery or film role.


    To renounce it, therefore, is not the lightest of matters. Professor Glendon has spent a month thinking, consulting, and given her deep faith, praying about this decision. (This, for those of you who don’t know, means asking God to help one put aside one’s own personal concerns and act in the way that will produce the greatest good). (Kaitlyn) Riely’s dismissive “thanks, no thanks” rendering of her decision, while pithy, is reductive.

    Professor Glendon was to have been honored for not only for her scholarship, but for her second career, her pro-bono work — ranging from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the great civil rights issues of the present day — namely, the defense of human life from conception to natural death. Her concerns range from the aging and dying population to the unborn to the well-being and dignity of every life, regardless of race, religion, or economic status. Her outstanding work in this field has earned her the respect of the most brilliant minds of the international community, regardless of whether they agree with her position. So again, to see her merely as “strongly anti-abortion” instead of as a tireless defender of the dignity of life, is to reveal not only a lack of understanding of the subject’s work, but also the writer’s real interest in this question.

    Furthermore, during his first 100 days in office, President Obama has worked tirelessly to undermine Professor Glendon’s lifetime of work; he is funding abortion out of the bailout package and planning to suppress the protection of conscience for health care workers.

    Your notion that her “training in diplomacy” might somehow ease this situation does not take into account that she has a five-minute acceptance speech and he will have a lengthy commencement speech. There is no “engaging” here. Diplomacy generally teaches that if you have a rapier and your opponent has a missile launcher, try not to engage.

    That Professor Glendon “did not like that Notre Dame was claiming her speech would serve to balance the event” is again facile and simplistic. What is there to like in being the deflector screen for inviting a profoundly divisive figure to give the commencement speech? What is likeable about a Catholic University named for the most important woman in Christianity exploiting a woman who has already dedicated her life to protecting the Church’s teaching by turning her into a warm-up act for a grotesque twist on a reality show?

    Finally, after 50 Catholic bishops condemned the university for its direct defiance in honoring a man in open conflict with the Church’s teaching, it is right that Professor Glendon let her silence speak louder than her five-minute allotment of words would have.
    Readers might be wondering how I know all this. Well, for one I am her daughter, but more to the point, I read her letter with the careful consideration it deserves.”

    Elizabeth Lev is an art historian and writer based in Rome, where all of her three children were born… more

    Michelle Malkin sums up Obama’s first 100

    Follow

    Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

    Join 44 other followers