On the question of life

On the question of life.


I've been thinking a lot about this issue of life after yesterday, when I posted an article about Krispy Kreme Donuts making a “freedom of choice” donut, and people went ballistic (including myself, in the end.)


The Freedom of Choice Act is no laughing matter.

Put into play by Senator Barbara Boxer, a woman who it has been my personal displeasure to interview several times and an advocate of every type and style of immorality imagineable, the big story is that Obama intends to sign the Act as his “very first thing” in office.

Hmmm.

This particular act, above all others that have been presented so far, is an absolute nightmare for persons who support the right to life.

Why? Because it does four big things:


First, it allows minors to receive abortions without parental consent if necessary.

Second, it prevents people from hearing options other than abortions--- it basically begins the process of removing people who might intercept the abortion idea by throwing out some possibilities that include letting the baby live.

Third, it overrides any state laws which we have fought LONG and hard for that promote life.

Fourth, it forces doctors to become abortion providers EVEN IF THEY DISAGREE With the procedure on moral grounds! It also forces private hospitals to provide abortions, likewise, if they disagree with abortion on moral grounds and yet receive aid from the government! Crazy.

Thus, the passing of this act would be a plague to our nation and do NOTHING to promote LIFE--- all it does it promote abortion and make abortions easier to acquire.


But this blog isn't about the FOCA.

It's about what it means to be pro-life.

As my best friend pointed out the other day, many Christians (and most of the vocal variety) are pro-life when it comes to babies, but pro-death when it comes to things like the death penalty. Which is inconsistent, and I'll get to that later.

More importantly, and more devastatingly, I think, I frequently come across persons who call themselves pro-life and yet act as if they are pro-abortion.

For instance, people who say they are “pro-life” for themselves but wouldn't want to
“prevent” another person from making the choice themselves. Thus, they vote pro-choice.

Or they vote pro-life, but verbally praise, support, or advocate pro-choice candidates or projects. Publically.


The problem with this goes far beyond the fact that it is an inconsistency and a lack of willingness to actually take a stand for what they believe in. The problem is that this is occurring because the person has not recognized that abortion is, indeed, an atrocity. Rather, it is something they choose not to do or endorse based on an idea that they, you know, can't deny that the bible says it's wrong, or maybe just feel that personally it's not something they can do (or go through again.)


These are the people I want to address in this blog because I am devastated when I encounter this kind of wishy washy pro-lifeyness. Jesus Himself said that “because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16)


I'll spare you the details of what occurs during an abortion, because we've all seen the pictures and read the horror stories. If you haven't, you need to.


Quite honestly, I personally believe you should see the photos of late term abortions first, because it is so easy to “Talk” about without picturing what we are really talking about.

You can see those here: http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/photosassorted/index.htm


First and second trimester abortions can be seen here: http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/monica/monica/Photographsofabortedbabiesatvariousstagesretrievedfromdumpsters/footof16weekabortedbaby.html


I will also spare you the bible quotes. We've all heard it-- He knit us together in our mother's womb, He knows the plans He has for us, He brought us to life, etc etc.


What I WILL say, however, is this:


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


Why are you pro-life?

What is it about the issue that makes you pro-life? Do you do it because someone you respect SAYS you should do it? (your parents, your church, your husband, your God?) What about the issue do you not yet understand? Why are you not HORRIFIED when you think of those beautiful, tiny, precious, helpless little souls being butchered, sucked out, annihilated, obliterated, cut...murdered? What will it take to get your heart into the issue and not just your head? Will it take meditating on the pictures I've posted above every day? Will it take sitting in on one yourself? Will it take you being introduced to someone like the deacon at our church? He was an aborted baby.

He somehow survived and the nurse who was present, a Catholic, was asked to take him (“it”) somewhere to die. She baptized him, secretly, and stayed with him, giving him an opportunity to live. The result of the abortion procedure left him extremely fragile. Every single day of his life is a mystery, because he never knows if each breath is his last. And yet, He loves God, and He encourages others. He should not, by any right, be standing with us each day. And yet, He lives. Is He thankful? You better believe it. Bad health and all.


I think about the violence that an abortion does not only to a baby we are here to protect and nurture, but to a mother as well.


Those of us who practice NFP (natural family planning) notice a certain amount of consistency in the way our bodies are created. We know that we want sex most when we are ovulating, and thus fertile. We know that as we learn our fertility cycle and how to recognize the signs, we are changed. We become closer to our husbands. We become more aware of the mystery and beauty that constitutes “life.” Most importantly, we become more aware of our sexual functionality.


Being pro-life does NOT start with being anti-abortion. Being pro-life begins with a proper understanding of our very dignity as human beings-- with the purpose of sex and of our reproductive ability.

“be fruitful, and multiply,” Scripture tells us, and yet in this fallen world, we wonder... “how can we afford that??”

“Children are a blessing,” Scripture tells us, and yet in this world of double income homes and daycares, daytimers and drive throughs, where teenagers are a threat to our own lives, we ask ourselves... “Really?”

It doesn't take much to begin to see the big picture.

I'll summarize:

God created us in His image.

He created us to MARRY US.

He created us to LOVE in the same way He loves in perfect unity with the Son and the Spirit.


Sex has both a procreative function and a unity function. Neither can be ignored. Thus, just as the orgasm is a “fingerprint” that allows us to see what life in perfect union with God will be like, the experience of childbearing is, also, a “fingerprint” that shows us something profound about life with God.


An openness to life, in it's fundamental state, means to be willing to accept whatever life God may bring our way with joy. Personally (And the whole of the Catholic Church's teachings on the matter agree with me here) I believe that begins with trusting God. Am I saying we should all have families that look like the Duggars? No, I am not. (although personally, I'd be stoked!)


I am saying that IF life should come our way, we should welcome it, and that we should do NOTHING to prevent the possibility of life conceiving.... nothing at all, because if it happens, it's a blessed miracle each and every time.


We live now in a world where the contraceptive mentality is prevalent.
We want food without the calories. We want sex without the babies. We want the stuff on credit. We want, we want, we want. We want what WE consider a benefit without allowing for the possibility that our CREATOR, the one who made us, might know better than us what IS and what ISNT a blessing.

When we practice NFP (which should really only be done if the circumstances are DIRE and grave to cause you to HAVE to choose to “hold off” on allowing life a chance) we notice that every passing period because a small time of grieving. We experience our fertility, month in and month out, aware, watching the seasons of our life pass and being made more and more aware of just how inherently WRONG what we are doing is!


Those of us who practice NFP and have HAD a baby see our periods as a little time to mourn. Another month went by, and my egg went unused. I think about the life that could have been. In many ways, it's my openness to that possibility that makes me pro-life when it comes to abortion. I've learned to thank God for life. For the miracle of life. Allowing someone to butcher that amazing, special creation--- now THAT is tragic.


Those of us who practice NFP notice how much more we want the sex when we are fertile. It's a natural method that allows you to recognize the natural patterns of the body... everything in the married woman wants the husband when fertility peaks. We are like cats in heat. And yet, when using NFP to prevent a pregnancy, we realize that we cannot have what we want without accepting the possibility of life. And so, we long for the sex because we long for the life that comes from the love and pleasure. Like our period, it's almost a time of mourning.


True celebration of life is found in openness to life. And it is in that celebration that we find the beginnings of a reason to hate abortion and everything it stands for. Because abortion repesents death, the end of life, the breaking of the beautiful flowering FAITH that blossoms when there is a hope of life in the womb.


In our culture, the contraceptive mentality pervades even our careers and our hobbies-- we want things to be fast and not invasive. We want the ease of the internet without the inconvenience of having to talk face to face. We want to be entertained and not entertain ourselves. To me, everything about contraception screams “selfishness” because the bottom line is that you aren't willing to give ALL of yourself, only that part which you feel you can handle.


To me, we women all somehow know this inherently, naturally, without having to think about it because I guarantee that like me, you've sat in the gyno chair waiting for your pap smear year after year in a paper gown, freezing, staring at the same stinking posters-- first the ones that show you how a chart with images of STDs and facts about them. I know that like me, you've squirmed as you noticed that each little box ended with the words “More common in women.” “Can be fatal in women.” “Men not affected.” To avoid thinking on it, you avert your eyes to the other side of the wall, where you find the birth control chart.

You squint at each method, thinking “I'd probably forget to take that every day,” or “eww, I am NOT putting ANYTHING there,” or “I don't know, I'm kinda freaked out about needles.”

Then the gyno comes in, and before you know it you're out the door again, BC method in tow. Probably, if your gyno is anything like mine was, a couple extra “morning after pills” thrown in for good measure. Just in case. And why not? you think. You're an educated, smart, interesting woman. Definitely not made for being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, right? And yet EVERY instinct you had in that place was telling you that something was wrong, that your body was something more, and better, and different than what those charts were telling you it was for. But you consider the options--- being a “breeder,” or being content... and you think, no way.

Yes, I know plenty of women who say they “just can't be like that.”

They don't really enjoy their children, they don't really like being stay at home moms, and they don't really feel fulfilled when they are surrounded by two foot tall monsters.

They can relate to those women who want the choice to NOT have their kids because they've been there themselves. They can relate to those women who don't want to have their babies for fear of raising them in a bad lifestyle or not being able to give them what they deserve because they have been there themselves. And so have I! I wasn't born a homeschooling, apron-wearing, “dinner's on the table, sweetie” kind of person. I allowed God to mold me into that person. I took steps to ensure that I was working towards being a woman who heard and listened to God's voice alone.

I have never loved every step of the way, it has been painful and difficult.
But looking back ,the joy I experience from the result is unending!


If it seems impossible in your situation, look at your situation. What can you do differently? Little by little, I'm noticing how being committed to my faith means more than just homeschooling or going to daily mass or praying more. It affects every decision I make, and in my mothering, which is the most amazing and powerful evangelism, I find myself thanking God for every opportunity to remove something ungodly from my home--- for us, it's been movies to books to radio shows, clothing to toys, learning to need less and to give more-- even if it's just to each other. No one has to look like Holly Homemaker. We aren't here to be cookie cutters of one another. But it's obvious that certain things add to our holiness and our spiritual growth and other things detract. If you're a woman, think about what that means in your own life. What can you do without? What should you change? What would be a REAL sacrifice that God might be calling you to- the kind that breeds blessing?


Being pro-life starts with removing yourself from the contraceptive mentality and takes you all the way to allowing natural death, whatever that means. It's gaining a reverence for life because JESUS WAS HUMAN, FULLY HUMAN, and in our humanity and our “aliveness” from conception

until natural death mean we are given a depth of dignity that words cannot adequately express.


Meditate on these things and see if you should truly call yourself “Pro-LIFE.”


Ask yourself what pro-lifeness means, truly means, and how you can better conform to that meaning.

The Church of Christ should always be playing offense, not defense. We know the world is dark, and evil. We are the salt of the earth... therefore it is our job to preserve goodness, shining light in the dark places. We cannot sit idly by while people butcher children. We must fight with everything we've got against the darkness-- not in the form of PEOPLE, but in the form of the demonic reality that abortion represents--- using spiritual weapons: prayer, the word of God, the sacraments.

We must be willing to be molded and changed into the woman God would have us be, and not allow the so-called feminists in the sixties to tell us they know better than our CREATOR what is and isn't good for us.


Abortion isn't wrong because “God says so.”

Abortion is wrong because it deprives a person of human dignity. Abortion is wrong because it cuts short a life that represents faith, hope, and love. Abortion is wrong because it spiritually harms people, wounds us, and leaves us sick and lost and condemned. Not because “God says so,” but because we have lost faith in the one thing that matters.

How DARE abortionists celebrate Christmas?

Christ came to be with us in the form of an impossible, unwanted, and inconvenient pregnancy. Christ was among us in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The PERSON, John the Baptist, responded with Joy in the Holy Spirit while in the womb to the PERSON of Christ in the womb.

The Lord of all came to us as a baby, the most beautiful thing in all of creation: a being which brings to us Faith, Hope, and Love. No wonder Satan hates babies. No wonder Satan is hard at work destroying children as fast and as early as he can.


Our humanity is not irrelevant. It is NOT better for a baby to be born and not experience humanity-- that is a protestant nonsense that doesn't hold up theologically. Humanity is not a curse. It is a gift. And if you know that, then you could never, never, never support another person's right to abort.


Life begins with God. And in His care we place our lives.... from conception until natural death.