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.
Psalm 105 (106)
They mingled themselves with the peoples,and learned to do as they did.They served the same idolsuntil it became their undoing.They sacrificed their own sonsand their daughters to demons.They poured out innocent blood.The blood of their own sons and daughterswas sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.Their blood polluted the land,and their actions defiled them.They devoted themselves to whoring.The Lord blazed out in anger against his own people,He detested his own chosen race.He gave them into the hands of foreigners.They were conquered by those who hated them.
These words from today’s Office of Readings, I find frightening in light of our society. We are blessed by the knowledge that God, who is near to us, has blessed us, giving us His Son and sending us His Holy Spirit. Sinners get to live as saints should they so desire. What does our society reveal about our desires.
What does our society testify about us as a people? Gifts, even gifts of God, can be squandered by prodigal sons and daughters. His greatest gift, life, we subject to pluralistic debate and countermand by man-made law. ‘Choice’ is elevated above conscience and morality and enshrined as a god to be fed by money-making mills. Is this license the best we can do with the gift of life in a land of freedom and liberty?
Facts about fetal pain.
More facts about fetal pain.
Facts about maternal pain.
This is the part of Obama’s speech at the Notre Dame commencement that I found interesting:
“But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived.“
Who, indeed, do we recognize in the disturbing graphic image of an aborted child, if not ourselves? Unfortunately, this poor one and the millions of other unknowns will never know “love of family” or “fulfillment of a life well-lived” to quote President Obama. Known but to God, they witness to the cold reality of a heart-dead age, that now scoffs at those who protest the dying of the unborn. The sensitivities of this Age are roused not by the reality of abortion, flesh and blood, but by images that witness to the loss of generations. In truth, the unborn are born, but not in the way that God intended. They are born, burned by saline, curated, crushed. They come forth without breath or cry. We see and hear them always before us in our future reckoning.
President Obama makes pretty speeches that belie the horror underlying benign sounding words such as Choice.
For pithy Michelle Malkin has the pithiest summation by Greg Mueller.
Our President seems bent on shaming America before the world with pictures. Not for the faint of heart, but here are the pictures that should shame the President and the world.
Priests for Life reports:
Baby Body Parts
Priests for Life has known for some time of the grisly trade in baby parts taking place in abortion facilities throughout the nation. Through the efforts of our friends at Life Dynamics, Inc., the details of this trade have come to light. You may obtain from Life Dynamics (1-800-401-6494) copies of the actual order forms used. Some of the forms request that there be no abnormalities. Many mistakenly think that abortions in later stages of pregnancy are performed only in cases of fetal abnormality.
Fetal tissue wholesalers are companies which place employees in abortion clinics to harvest tissue, limbs, organs, etc. from aborted babies. This material is then shipped to researchers working for universities, pharmaceutical companies and government agencies. Although it is against federal law to sell human tissue or body parts, these organizations have devised a system to circumvent this restriction. Technically, all fetal material they harvest is “donated” to them by the clinics. However, they do pay a “site fee” to the clinics for the right to access the tissue. The tissue is then “donated” to the researchers who in turn pay the wholesalers for the cost of retrieval. Profit is realized by the wholesalers’ ability to set their own retrieval fees.
As to the harsh realities of keeping our country safe, the Gateway Pundit says Fox reports:
The release of the photos along with Obama’s decision last week to release CIA memos has federal agents feeling dispirited.
Jake Tapper reported:Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs “prurient” and “reprehensible,” Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
“They should have fought it all the way; if they lost, they lost,” Lowenthal said. “There’s nothing to be gained from it. There’s no substantive reason why those photos have to be released.”
Lowenthal said the president’s moves in the last week have left many in the CIA dispirited, based on “the undercurrent I’ve been getting from colleagues still in the building, or colleagues who have left not that long ago.”
“We ask these people to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong,” Lowenthal says. “They don’t believe they have that cover anymore.” Releasing the photographs “will make it much worse,” he said.
Along the same lines of disclosures that hurt our country, Michelle Malkin points to the Rasmussen report in her, “Public to White House”:
Results from the latest Rasmussen poll show a public more in tune with Dick Cheney than George Soros:
Fifty-eight percent (58%) believe the Obama administration’s recent release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangers the national security of the United States. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 28% believe the release of the memos helps America’s image abroad.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of voters now believe the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights when national security is at stake. But 21% say the legal system is too concerned about protecting national security. Thirty-three percent (33%) say the balance between the two is about right.
This reflects a significant shift over the past couple of years. In several surveys conducted during 2008, Americans were fairly evenly divided as to whether our legal system worried too much about individual rights or too much about protecting national security…
…Forty-six percent (46%) of voters disagree with Obama’s decision to close the prison camp for terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, while 36% agree with the president’s action. Support for the decision has fallen since the president announced it in January.
Ed Morrissey says more:
Instead of the headlines being about what the Bush administration sanctioned, they became about Nancy Pelosi’s denial and then non-denial of her knowledge on waterboarding interrogations, the success of the interrogations in preventing an attack, and Obama’s lack of testicular fortitude in sticking with his original position to let sleeping dogs lie. Small wonder that he began backtracking in earnest yesterday when meeting with Congressional leaders.
Now we have confirmation that Obama planned this all along as a political attack against a man who hardly matters on the national political scene any longer – or at least he didn’t until Obama decided to pick a fight with him. Just as with his strange attack on Rush
Who is St. Joseph? Scripture says little about this man and yet we honor him with titles such as Patron of the Universal Church and Patron of a peaceful death. The Bible simply calls him “just.” Mt 1;19 All we actually need to know is that Joseph is God’s choice.
God knows a man as he actually is in his heart of hearts from the moment God calls him by name, before he is conceived in the womb, until God calls him to Himself. Every moment, every thought, every movement of the heart, nothing hidden or forgotten, and, knowing all, God chose Joseph. He chose Joseph for Mary. He chose Joseph for Jesus. Knowing Joseph’s heart, God called Joseph “just” which means right with God.
Our generation places little value on “just.” It has no glitz. Give us “world renowned” and “phenomenally successful.” “Just” is just so unimpressive. If “just” were only as common as it sounds.
Today’s celebration will go unnoticed and unreported by the world, but the courts of Heaven ring with Joseph’s name this day. Jesus and Mary embrace him, sharing with saints and angels, their memories of his obedience to the Will of God, his humility, his protective care, his kindness and the sacrificial love that reigned over their home and their life together. Who remembers St. Joseph? God remembers St. Joseph. The God-Man remembers St. Joseph, and called him “Abba”, no doubt.
Be Holy! 