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Posts Tagged ‘Right to Life’

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“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice, for they will be satisfied.”

In 07 Observations on 2016/07/29 at 12:00 AM

While the Church has a duty to call attention to the temporal problems of the world that have a moral dimension, it is not her role to solve them.  Hers is to satisfy peoples thirst for the restoration of the relationship essential to man by applying the merits of Christ’s life and death through the Sacraments so as to give man the ability to love God and live in union with him.  The Church is involved in guiding souls to freedom from eternal death from the claws of the devil and from the seductions of the flesh.

The lay members of the Church in particular have a responsibility to try to see that society’s laws and customs are in accord with the teachings of Christ in education, the home and the workplace.

Each woman has an obligation to make her environment more Christian and to pray for the legislators, government officials and business leaders to solve the major problems that confront society today.  While justice is an essential component of resolving problems, it is charity/mercy that is the main component.  Mercy/charity enrich and make justice effective.

No Christian woman who hopes to live her faith cannot in political action ever support ideologies or groups which propose false and distorted views of mankind or the dignity and nature of the person or just plain sin

All the fundamental principles of the natural law God implanted in man’s nature must be respected, supported and defended.  This means standing firm against contraception, sterilization, abortion,  euthanasia, divorce, same-sex unions, and for religious and academic freedoms and property rights.

What is due to a person in justice cannot be considered charity.  What is due to a person is a demand of justice.  Each person is another Christ and this is particularly so in the case of the weak, the defenseless and the needy.  Our hearts need to have compassion for the pains of the injustices that afflict others.

One acknowledges God’s presence in another individual by treating that person with both justice and charity.  Each person’s dignity and greatness is derived from God who gives the soul its spiritual reality and who gives meaning to every person’s life.

How can one judge progress in society and science?  Very simply: by how the dignity of the person is acknowledged in word and deed.  Man is not an economic entity or gadget.  He is neither merchandize nor tool but a member of a society with God given rights  for the protection of which is the main purpose of laws and governments.

An aspect of justice which is very much ignored in our times is the right to one’s good name.  Gossip has become a media staple.  Sins by unbridled tongues included envy, negative criticism, slander, calumny; all of which are acts of defamation, whether spoken, broadcasted by the media or printed as well as e-mailed or texted.

Justice towards others in thought and deed must proceed from our hearts if we are to live harmoniously with others.  We must beware of partial truths, flawed simplifications, hasty judgments and empty words.  At all times we must be open to having our opinions calibrated to truth.

Beware of excessive curiosity and of any intrusion into the private lives of others particularly now that the Internets parades before us the lives and follies of others.  Also, beware of false zeal which conceals hypocrisy.  When you are with others, beware of falling into making rash judgments of others, gossiping, making false deductions and accusations or revealing the flaws of others that detract and diminish others’ view of them.  Be instead actively committed to denounce unjust accusations made of anyone.  Reject any type of falsehood in word or cheating in actions.  Do not be a gossip or spread rumors.  Be scrupulous in respecting others rights to their good name, their property and their possessions.  You are your brother’s keeper.

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What does this tell your heart and mind?

In 07 Observations on 2015/01/16 at 12:00 AM

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Little bundle of joy Leo David Hargreaves could just be the cheeriest baby in the country, according to his parents.

Not only does the five month-old smile all the time, he’s been smiling since before he was born.

A 4D ultrasound scan, taken when Leo’s mother, Amy Cregg, was 31 weeks’ pregnant, clearly shows him grinning from ear-to-ear.

Miss Cregg, 24, and her partner Leighton Hargreaves, of Church, Accrington Lancashire, say that baby Leo has continued to wear a perma-grin since he was born on June 30.

Modelling companies, and Next, the high-street fashion chain, have already been in touch with the couple to express an interest in signing-up Leo’s winning grin.

Miss Cregg, a rehabilitation support worker, said: “Leighton and I were absolutely shocked – even the people who did my scan were amazed.

“I’ve been walking in the park and had people come up to me and say, ‘What a gorgeous baby!’

But Miss Cregg and Mr Hargreaves, a painter and decorator, say there’s no rush to put pen to paper.

Baby Leo has worn a perma-grin since he was born on June 30 (MEN Syndication)

“I’d be interested in doing modelling, but only when Leo’s older.”

The 4D scan – which captured gender, growth and the weight – was taken at Babybond Ultrasound Direct clinic in Burnley.

A spokesman for the clinic said: “Our sonographer who scanned Amy and her gorgeous baby was overwhelmed at her smiley baby throughout the entire scan.

“I think we can safely say that Amy’s baby has been the smiliest baby we’ve ever seen.”

 

The Telegraph

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“Culture of Death”

In 07 Observations on 2014/01/24 at 12:00 AM

While the climate of widespread moral uncertainty can in some way be explained by the multiplicity and gravity of today’s social problems, and these can sometimes mitigate the subjective responsibility of individuals, it is no less true that we are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin. This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable “culture of death”. This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favoured tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of “conspiracy against life” is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States.

Source: Pope John Paul II Evangelium Vitae #12

For the whole article, please go to   http://www.vatican.va/index.htm

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The Undefeated: A New Pro-Life Generation Rises in California

In 07 Observations on 2013/11/06 at 12:00 AM

BY PETER JESSERER SMITH 

With a priority to translate the message of life into Spanish, the state’s young pro-lifers are social-media savvy and have fresh ideas.

Students for Life of America’s “Pregnant on Campus Initiative” webpage.

– Students for Life of America

LOS ANGELES — A new generation of pro-life leaders is rising in California, and they have set their sights on creating a pro-life California by building a pro-life movement that has fresh new ideas, social-media savvy and is truly bilingual.

California is the most populous state in the United States, with 38 million people, 15 million of whom identify as Latino. It’s also the state that accounts for the most abortions of unborn children, 17.7% of the total U.S. abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. And it is the state where the abortion industry is getting ready for a rapid expansion.

The California Legislature passed two bills that expand abortion access in the state — allowing nurses and midwives to perform first-trimester, vacuum-aspiration abortions and changing building codes to allow those abortions to occur in primary-care clinics.

But despite these legislative losses, young pro-life leaders are seeking to build a new movement that brings the pro-life message to people in California in fresh, engaging ways. They are social-media savvy, but also make it a priority to translate the pro-life message into Spanish as part of their outreach to the growing Hispanic community.
Changing Youth With the Pro-Life Message

“This generation is amazing, and they going for it,” said Casey Tesauro, West Coast regional director for Students for Life of America (SFLA).

Tesauro, 25, said that the pro-life students she works with are “definitely fearless,” but they generally take a different approach to educating their peers and others about abortion than the previous generation did. They are much more focused on dialogue and building relationships in order to change hearts and minds.

“The idea of dialogue is really popular with this generation,” Tesauro said. Rather than arguing, the approach seeks to find common ground for a discussion and understand where the other person — possibly a post-abortive mother or father — is coming from. “We encourage our students to really focus on listening to the person.”

Students for Life has two major initiatives that Tesauro is helping chapters bring to their campuses to further the dialogue toward a culture of life. She said that, over the next two weeks, the “Planned Parenthood Project” will come through more than 40 college campuses and inform them about Planned Parenthood’s abortion business and how it profits from their age group.

Tesauro explained that all the material Students for Life gives to students on campuses is taken from Planned Parenthood’s annual report.

“One thing we are seeing with this Planned Parenthood Project is students don’t like being taken advantage of, especially by a big business,” she said.

But a long-term project for chapters, Tesauro said, is the “Pregnant on Campus Initiative.” Planned Parenthood aggressively targets for abortion single, college-age women. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 58% of women having abortions are in their 20s, and 85% of women having abortions are unmarried. So Students for Life chapters are advocating that their colleges and universities make themselves friendly to women who are pregnant and friendly to families, by building diaper-changing stations, offering lactation rooms, providing housing for student mothers and their families and changing school policy toward pregnancy.

“We want to tell her that she doesn’t have to choose between an education and having her child,” Tesauro said.
New Media Savvy

But the new, younger pro-life leadership is also tapping into the vast potential of new media and social media to connect audiences with the pro-life message.

But they also admit they are playing catch-up, because the pro-life movement has not kept up with Planned Parenthood’s pace in taking advantage of these new-media tools to engage the culture.

“I think that there has been a lack of sufficient response to how fast everything is moving in the state of California,” said Jonathan Keller, Right to Life of Central California’s executive director.

According to a 2013 Pew research study, 72% of Americans are engaged in social media, while 80% of Latinos — who equal California’s non-Hispanic white population — also use social-networking sites.

Keller, 30, said that God has blessed his group with “a very pro-active, very media-savvy and social- media-savvy staff.” He’s the second-oldest member of his staff — the newest hire being the 35-year-old Hispanic outreach director, Michael Salinas.

Keller said they conduct large-scale community outreach in the central valley region of the state, but new media and social media are critical to those efforts. The Right to Life group has dual Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts to engage with a local audience and larger statewide and national audiences. They have a television program called Life Report: Pro-Life Talk. Real-World Answers that broadcasts on the local Catholic television and radio stations, but is also available for free on iTunes and YouTube.

But he said that if the pro-life education message is going to translate into pro-life civic action, then the pro-life movement needs to take a lesson from President Barack Obama’s election success (and Mitt Romney and John McCain’s failure) to be strongly present in the digital environment. Keller pointed out that Obama’s concerted effort to reach out to youth through social media inspired them with a cause and turned them into passionate activists who manned phones and walked precincts.

“I think they [McCain and Romney] failed to adequately grasp how fast the world is changing when it comes to social media and being able to converse with the up-and-coming generation,” Keller said.
A Bilingual Message

The next generation of pro-life leaders in California realizes one thing: The pro-life movement must speak English and Spanish to get the message into the Latino community and all of California.

Astrid Bennett Guttierez, spokeswoman for Hispanics for Life (Hispanos Pro Vida) and co-host of EWTN’s The Catholic View for Women, explained that her Los Angeles-based group was trying to create a pro-life Hispanic grassroots.

“It’s not so much that [Latinos] accept abortion, but they’ve never really thought about it,” she said.

Gutierrez pointed out that neither the Catholic Church, nor the pro-life movement can afford to ignore the need to make websites and educational materials easily accessible in Spanish. She also noted that Latino youth born in the U.S. are preferring more and more to speak Spanish, and that Planned Parenthood is heavily engaged in marketing itself to the Hispanic community and expanding its access.

To counter those efforts, Hispanics for Life has been working through the Respect Life Office of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to establish chapters in almost 300 parishes, Gutierrez said. They are also working with Priests for Life to re-catechize the Latino community and awaken them to the reality that the abortion industry is an even greater priority than the important issue of immigration reform.

Gutierrez said that Hispanic culture is “more visual,” and graphic images of abortion have proved key for Hispanics having “a frank and open discussion about abortion,” which is not always the case with other populations.

“When Hispanic people find out [the truth] about [abortion], they are so surprised. They are shocked,” Guttierez said.

Keller said Right to Life of Central California has grasped this reality, and they are getting the pro-life message into the Hispanic community. He said Michael Salinas, their Hispanic outreach director, will be translating all their materials into Spanish, including the website.

Students for Life’s Tesauro also said she has spoken with many student activists at California campuses who are committed to being leaders in the Latino community and getting them connected with the pro-life message.
‘The Pro-Life Generation’

And these efforts to get the pro-life message into Spanish and engaged with Latinos may prove critical to breaking the stranglehold of Planned Parenthood on the Democratic Party in California, where Latinos form a large constituency.

Keller said that one of his organization’s “primary goals” is to reach out to the Hispanic community and help them “connect the dots on abortion” and demand lawmakers represent their pro-life values.

Tesauro said she firmly believes that the youth “are the pro-life generation,” and she has hope that the youth will make the difference in California.

“I really am hopeful,” she said. “Because every time I visit a college, I walk off that campus feeling more hopeful and encouraged that abortion will end.

Peter Jesserer Smith is a Register staff writer.

National Catholic Register

09/23/2013

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Day of the Unborn Child Passed by Lawmakers

In 07 Observations on 2013/09/26 at 12:00 AM

 
Lawmankers said the South-American country’s pro-life constitution inspired the law, which celebrates the unborn child’s right to life and adoption.
– Petr Kratochvil

SANTIAGO, Chile — The Chilean House of Representatives has approved a new law with a vote of 59-27 that establishes March 25 as the “Day of the Unborn Child and of Adoption.”

Although the proposal was granted initial approval on May 14, the congressional Human Rights Committee then introduced a modification to instead call it the “Day for Pregnant Women and Adoption.” The request was declared inadmissible by the president of the House of Representatives.

Sen. Jaime Orpis of the Independent Democratic Union party sponsored the measure to set aside March 25 as the day to honor the unborn and adoption in Chile. Orpis said the idea was to protect human life from the moment of conception. The day coincides with the Catholic Church’s annual liturgical celebration of the Annunciation, when Jesus Christ was miraculously conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

Rep. Jorge Sabag of the Christian Democratic Party said the law “is nothing more than the consequence of Article 19 of the constitution of the republic, which guarantees the right to life for all persons and that the law shall protect the life of the unborn.”

The law points to other countries that also remember the unborn on March 25 in order to highlight the value of life, to condemn attacks against defenseless human beings and to promote the reversal of laws that enshrine abortion.

The law states, “To protect the life of the unborn is to recognize the right to life of every human being, even against the will of their own progenitors. In this way, no one can dispose of the life of another.”

National Catholic Register 9/12-13

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“Wholeness of Vision” on Abortion by Thomas J. Ashcraft

In 07 Observations on 2013/08/01 at 12:00 AM

It will take more than windbag senators and coy judicial nominees to determine what the settled law on abortion should be.  A just answer will only be found by listening to people who have passed through this life and learned how to deal wisely with pregnancy when it arrives as unwelcome news.

Sheldon Vanauken (1914-1996) taught history and literature for years at Lynchburg College in Virginia.  He is best known for his book “A Severe Mercy,” first published in 1977 and still in print.

It tells the story of Vanauken’s love for his wife Jean Davis, known as Davy, their experience together at Oxford University where they became friends of C.S. Lewis, their conversion to Christianity, and Davy’s early death from a mysterious liver ailment in 1955.  A lyrical and deeply touching book, it is impossible to read with dry eyes.

Although full of details about the couple and their life together, “A Severe Mercy” omitted a major event from Davy’s youth.  Vanauken related it in a 1990 article entitled “Discovery:  Finding that Long-Lost Someone,” published by the New Oxford Review where he served as a contributing editor (www.newoxfordreview.org).

Two years after the death of her minister father when she was 14 years old, Davy, as Vanauken tells it, “running a bit wild . . . found herself pregnant.  There was nothing to do but tell her mother, who, along with her older sister, stood by her.  All this, of course, is an old, old tale among womankind.”

Davy had the baby, whom she called “Marion” and always remembered as blue-eyed and beautiful, and gave her up for adoption.  Davy was then “sent to a good prep school for girls.”  During her marriage to Vanauken, “Davy continued to remember her daughter with love, her daughter growing up — somewhere.”

After Davy’s death and the publication of “A Severe Mercy,” Vanauken wondered about “little lost Marion” and how much she would learn about her mother by reading the book.  He began to search for her but encountered the usual hurdles in the adoption world.

In 1988, however, the adoption agency finally consented to tell “Marion” (her adoptive parents had given her a different name) of Vanauken and his book about Davy.  While Vanauken was trying to decide how to contact Marion, Marion dialed him up on the phone “wild with excitement.”

“Found at last,” Marion later wrote.  “Incredible, choking joy!  Thanksgiving.  Yet sadness also — sadness that I could not touch her, hold her, and be held.”

On “A Severe Mercy,” Marion wrote to Vanauken: “At once thrilling and scary!  My heart pounding.  Almost breathless with discovery, unable to sleep till I’d read every word.  Excited beyond belief, sobbing, my pillow wet with tears.  Seeing my mother as a young woman loving the things I loved — beauty, dogs, sails in the wind, music.  I had been starving for this — and now the book.  I loved her love for you and your sharing and the incredibly wise things you did to protect your love.  And the piercing beauty of Christ coming into your lives.”

After high school Marion had become a nurse.  She later met and married a physician.  They had three children and lived in the San Francisco area.  One daughter had Davy’s smile.    Having experienced the loss of his wife and discovering much later his wife’s grown daughter and her own family, Vanauken acquired a unique understanding of what is meant by those asserting the “right to choose.”

“To see abortion right-side-up I must see,” he wrote, “not only the frightened 14-year-old Davy with a likely candidate for abortion in her belly but also the warmly alive Marion and her family.  This has been shown to me.  Having seen, how could I now say: ‘What a pity she couldn’t have an abortion in those benighted days!’

“To kill Marion now would be unthinkable, but it was Marion — no one else — when Davy was 14 and scared.  I can sympathetically feel for Davy then, but I know Marion and her children, too.  Surely both must be known or imagined for wholeness of vision.”

Vanauken concluded:  “John Donne, hearing the tolling of the passing bell, recognized that the bell tolled for him, for the death of any man diminished him.  Davy had only the poignant memory of the little lost Marion, yet she would have been diminished if abortion had deprived her of that memory. . . .   It seems to me that just this one abortion would have left a hole in Creation.”

And what of 33 years of Roe v. Wade?

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Tom Ashcraft is a Charlotte lawyer.  

Published, The Charlotte Observer [www.charlotteobserver.com], 1-21-06

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Christmas story says bodies matter, even microscopic ones By Colleen Carroll Campbell

In 10 Colleen Carroll Campbell on 2011/12/30 at 9:11 AM
The Vatican made headlines with its release of Dignitatis Personae (Latin for “The Dignity of the Person”), which updated Catholic teachings on bioethics and reaffirmed opposition to the cloning, killing and manipulating of human embryos.

Critics have blasted the document as proof of the church’s inexplicable fixation on embryos. They ask: Why devote such energy to defending the rights of a microscopic dot? Why throw up roadblocks to the Brave New World of biotech advances — including the detection and destruction of genetically flawed embryos in pursuit of so-called designer babies — to save infinitesimal entities no one will miss? What’s with the embryo obsession?

Read more: http://www.colleen-campbell.com/P-D_Columns/PD081225Body.htm

Colleen Carroll Campbell is a St. Louis-based author, former presidential speechwriter and television and radio host of “Faith & Culture” on EWTN. Her website is www.colleen-campbell.com.

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Holy Innocents

In 13 History on 2011/12/29 at 9:11 AM

If the Jews had to get Pilate to sentence Jesus to death because only the Romans could impose the death sentence, how was Herod able to slaughter the innocents?

Suetonious wrote that the Romans so feared a prophesied king who would rule the world that when Herod notified the Emperor of that the Magi had come searching for the KING, the Emperor ordered that all babies born in the entire Roman Empire that year were to be put to death.

Herod was the only provincial ruler who did it.  The rest of the empire did not because they considered the law immoral because they believed in the right of the child to live.

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The New Victims of Discrimination.

In 07 Observations on 2011/09/09 at 6:06 AM

By Linda Granzow

I recently attended the movie, “The Help”, which is set in Jackson, Mississippi at the height of civil rights unrest. Pitting a young white woman, Skeeter, whose conscience is finally opened to the reality of the discrimination against blacks, against her long-time friend, Hilly, whose lifestyle and aspirations hinge on the status quo, the author portrays the intense division that occurred in this country when people began to question and fight for what was right, not what was merely legal.

It is difficult to watch the way injustices can be committed against a particular group of human beings just because of race or religion or identity. At the time, it was “legal” to discriminate against blacks and to treat them as something less than fully human. When we look back at that time period, we are appalled that something like that could have ever been tolerated—that a cultural and societal mindset could have ever trumped the natural law of the dignity of every human person. Barbaric acts of torture and murder were committed by one group of human beings against another. This is also what happened in Nazi Germany against the Jews and in Rwanda against the Tutsis and this is the same action that has been happening since the early 1970’s against unborn babies.

It is “legal” in this country to discriminate against an unborn baby and withhold the basic civil right to life, treating the baby as something less than fully human. Whether living inside or outside of the mother’s womb, a baby is a human person. Even so, a cultural and societal mindset currently exists that trumps the natural law of the dignity of every human person. Barbaric acts of torture and murder are committed at the whim of one person against another, and what could be more appalling or unnatural than for a mother to commit this act against her own child? It contradicts the very nature of motherhood in which a mother would do anything to protect or save her child from danger.

Someday, people will look back at this time period and will be appalled that something like this was ever tolerated. During the 1960’s, it took great courage by whites and blacks alike to break the societal mindset and fight for the civil rights of the black people. It will take great courage now to break the current cultural mindset and fight for the civil rights of the unborn. The intense division in this country will continue until the consciences of more people are finally opened to the reality of abortion and they unite to reverse what is merely  “legal” in a fight for what is right.

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Ancient Rome on Right to Life

In 13 History on 2011/04/09 at 2:42 AM

If the Jews had to get Pilate to sentence Jesus to death because only the Romans could impose the death sentence, how was Herod able to slaughter the innocents?

Suetonius wrote that the Romans so feared a prophesied king who would rule the world that when Herod notified the Emperor of that the Magi had come searching for the KING, the Emperor ordered that all babies born in the entire Roman Empire that year were to be put to death.

Herod was the only provincial ruler who did it.  The rest of the empire ignored the edict because they considered the law immoral, believing in the right of the child to live.