an every day emergency

Unless they're lying to me (which, sadly, I've learned I shouldn't put past them), the Planned Parenthood at 3255 E. Main Street performs abortions on Wednesdays and Fridays. So yesterday, I pulled up to park along a side street* and pray in front of their building- and immediately noticed a police cruiser parked in the alley behind.

Some abortion mills hire police to be there all day, every day, barricading their fortress of death in what appears to be a kind of unholy alliance. But I had never seen a police at this Main Street location before; and largely due to the fact that Planned Parenthoods, including this one, are purposely (and, arguably, discriminatorily) located in poor areas with high crime rates, I wondered: Did something just happen here? Is it safe to be here alone?

I readily admit, I say a quick prayer for my own safety any day I go to pray at an abortion clinic for a few reasons: 1) they're typically in bad areas, 2) I'm a young woman, 3) I'm doing something public and controversial, and 4) even the most peaceful pro-lifers have been assaulted before. The combination makes me feel a bit vulnerable, to say the least. So yesterday, still sitting in my parked car, I called my boyfriend Tommy to see if he could either join me or offer me some advice. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hey, are you free to come pray with me at the Planned Parenthood near Bexley? There's a police here and I'm wondering if it's safe."

Tommy: "I wish I could, but I'm about to go help my Uncle Frank move boxes to his new house. I'm sorry."

Me: "That's okay. Any idea why there might be a police?"

Tommy: "I don't know... (Pause) Someone probably died there."

His response took me by surprise, but my heart immediately dropped because he was right; he wasn't trying to make a joke or be sarcastic. Of course, I don't think Tommy really thought the police cruiser was there for that reason, and I hardly imagined it was, either; but he was trying to make a point. People die at abortion clinics. Someone probably did die there that morning. In fact, if all went according to plan, more than one someone probably did. The truth was, multiple people were scheduled to die at the Bexley Planned Parenthood on the morning of Friday, May 28, 2010. That's why I had come there in the first place.

Needless to say, I decided to stay and pray. I tried, pretty unsuccessfully, to remain prayerful as a few honking cars drove by and a clinic worker came outside to smoke a cigarette. I smiled at her genuinely. She didn't smile back. Meanwhile, a woman and young girl, possibly a mother and daughter, walked out the doors and towards their car. The girl looked like she had been crying. I wondered what had happened. But if these small distractions weren't enough to divert me from prayer, I was definitely distracted by the time a loud siren began to squeal. A Columbus Fire Department station is located right across the street from Planned Parenthood, and it seemed an emergency was transpiring.

My thoughts began to wander as I switched my prayer (or, by that point, lack thereof) from one for the women and children inside the clinic to one for the person or persons on the other end of that ambulance route. I thought, "The worst that could happen is someone will die. The squad will not get there fast enough, or the injury will be fatal, or the heart attack will be too severe, and they will not make it." I prayed, "Please, God, don't let that happen."** As I stood there with my imagination running rampant, death seemed like this horrible, heart-wrenching, worst-case scenario. It was the most tragic outcome I could think of.

And then it occurred to me that for millions of unborn children in America, death was not the worst-case scenario or the most tragic outcome; it was the status quo.

If a baby is "expelled" from her mother after an abortion and comes out alive, the procedure is labeled a botched abortion. In other words, the abortion failed. The goal was to kill the infant, and here we have this screaming, kicking little girl, and we're terribly upset and at a loss for what to do. An abortionist's job is to dismember, suffocate, or burn with saline solution an unborn child to the point where she is definitively killed. That's what he gets paid for; that's when he has succeeded. If the child comes out any way other than dead and cold, the abortionist blew his mission that day.

My thoughts had me heavy-hearted. I became increasingly horrified at the reality that tiny human beings just 30 feet away were suffering their status quo: enduring their violent death. Anyone who has ever seen a picture of an aborted fetus knows that abortion is violence. It is undeniable; it is so obvious.

I left the clinic yesterday morning with an army of emotions, but mostly anger. Our nation's highest Court made abortion-on-demand an elaborately protected right, and because of that, no one was there to help those vulnerable children dying at 3255 E. Main Street. If I felt vulnerable being there, I wondered how they must have felt as they watched a suction tube or scalpel enter their previously placid home and felt their limbs and body thrashing around. At least if something happened to me, someone would call 911. Someone would come to my aid. But the unborn children in that Planned Parenthood had no emergency squad coming to their rescue yesterday. No one was rushing their bloodied bodies to the hospital to be treated and spared. Nobody cared. The reality was, the ambulance I had just seen thirty minutes before would never even have thought to come to that clinic***. I had watched it pass right by, leaving those children alone to die their scheduled deaths without any concern at all.

If we, as Christians, do not go to these death camps to pray and testify to life, we are little better than the people committing the killings inside. I'm not saying I go as often as I should, or even nearly as often as I should; we should all be convicted to do more. But the fact that innocent human beings, fearfully and wonderfully made by God, are lined up to die there week after week should be reason enough for each of us to leave the comfort of our homes, of our safe neighborhoods, of our political correctedness, and, at the very least, be with them at their hour of death.

Police and paramedics aren't going to do it for us.

Vita Pro Omni!

* Pro-lifers, you may already know this, but always be sure to park elsewhere if you are praying or picketing at an abortion clinic. Do not step onto their property. Stand on the sidewalk, in a location highly visible to people entering the clinic, to people already inside, and to cars driving by. More than the fact that you could technically be arrested for trespassing on clinic property, we want to be as polite and pleasant as possible in our interactions with abortionists and clinic workers. We will never win this battle through expressions of aggression or anger; even if we could, we shouldn't.

** Of course, followed by, "But, Your will be done." Gotta pray that part even when I don't want to. :)

*** Even though within its walls emergencies are habitual and premeditated.

boos for boonin

Ethika Politika shared a video yesterday of an abortion debate at Pomona College between Dr. Patrick Lee, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Dr. David Boonin, University of Colorado. In it, pro-choice Boonin argued that while fetuses may have a right to life, that is not to be equated with them having a right to life support. To try to explain this, he gave an analogy involving a patient in dire need of a bone marrow transplant. You are to imagine that you are, by mere chance, the only matching donor in the world for this particular patient, and thus wake up one morning to find yourself attached to a cumbersome marrow-drawing machine. You are told you must remain attached to this tubal contraption for nine months or else the patient will die. After describing this scenario, Boonin suggested that you are in no way morally required to remain connected. If you are feeling especially selfless and would like to stay attached to keep him alive, you certainly may, but you are not morally required to do so. Thus, Boonin argued, it follows that a woman is not morally required to "provide life support" to her unborn child for nine months, and can ethically choose to abort him or her if she so chooses.

A few moments before, Dr. Lee had put forth a straightforward, simple, and secular defense of the pro-life position. He used no fancy analogy or hypothetical. All he needed to do was explain that the unborn is a human being according to undisputed biological and embryological evidence, and pair this with the argument that there is no relevant difference between a 'human being' and a 'human person', since even a human being without, for instance, the immediately exercisable capacity for rational thought is still, by his nature, a rational being (different from animals and insects). On the other hand, if immediately exercisable capacities are what grant humans a right to life, Lee argued, then newborn infants should have no right to life either, since in their present state they are no more rational than a puppy or kitten. Likewise, persons in a temporary coma can ethically be killed on the spot. But these extreme consequences do not seem correct to almost anyone on either side of the debate, and thus it seems the possession of a rational nature is adequate for the right to life.

The problem with Boonin's argument wasn't that it was strange and Lee's wasn't... although, come to think of it, it was really strange. I've always been intrigued by what, to me, is a glaring weakness in the kinds of “sophisticated” pro-abortion arguments that philosophers like David Boonin and Judith Jarvis Thomson defend (hers is the famous 'unconscious violinist' argument); namely, that their substance is nothing more than a totally bizarre scenario. Whereas pregnancy is absolutely normal (so normal, in fact, that it is the means by which every one of us got here), Boonin and Thomson draw out hypotheticals that are nearly inconceivable. If you watch the Pomona video, you will see that throughout the debate, Boonin kept feeling forced to manipulate variables of his bone marrow story in hopes to make it look more similar to the case of unwanted pregnancy. And Lee didn't even have to point out the dissimilarities; Boonin already knew they were there (largely due to pro-choice philosophers who, Boonin said, had pointed them out to him before). But as much as I give Boonin credit for his valiant efforts to "fix" his oddball story, it was still just that: an oddball story. And he still sounded silly- not intellectual- when telling it.

For example: at one point during the question-and-answer session, Boonin started describing a scenario where “you do a fun activity and the fun activity leads it to being the case that you can then keep me alive." He explained, “if you engage in this fun activity, some weird change in your bone marrow will take place and then you’ll become an appropriate match." What? This was his attempt to make his hypothetical more parallel with the fact that sex is an enjoyable activity, but come on... I don't mean to pick on Boonin, but he is one of the leading philosophers in defense of abortion today, and this is his central argument?

I have not even discussed the actual flaws in his reasoning; for an argument does not necessarily fail just because it is weird. But indeed, Boonin's argument does unravel philosophically since there are several morally relevant differences between his bone marrow hypothetical and a woman's unwanted pregnancy. These differences include, but are not limited to, the material act (abortion as a direct killing and refusing bone marrow as an allowing someone to die), special responsibilities (parents possess certain natural responsibilities for their children that random bone marrow partners do not possess for strangers), and fairness of trade (the burdens of pregnancy, while difficult, are in no way proportional to death).

Needless to say, by the end of the debate (if not before), the audience seemed to have turned on Boonin. Lee did not have to point out the flaws in Boonin's argument; he had pointed out most of them himself. And when the question-and-answer session finally rolled around, every cross-examining student save one wanted Boonin to explain himself. Although he appeared to be the one putting forth a sophisticated argument that night, Boonin had somehow remained on the defensive virtually the entire time. Students afterward wanted to know why certain parts of his scenario didn't match up, or how the implications of his argument wouldn't just as easily justify slavery... I almost felt badly for him.

I can't tell if Boonin just feels obligated to "stick to his guns" since he has written so extensively in defense of abortion and is now well-known in that field, or if he truly believes his position is correct. I would naturally assume the latter, but from some of his own comments in this debate, it seems he is aware of the many weaknesses of his argument. At any rate, if bizarre-o scenarios about unplugging transplant tubes, unique sperm donor agreements, removable pace-makers, and "weird change[s] in your bone marrow" (all of which Boonin referenced in this video) are what a sophisticated pro-choicer is trying to foist, it looks like even the most unsophisticated pro-lifer has nothing to worry about.

Vita Pro Omni!

pro-life love

Today, my friends Heidi and Tim* will become husband and wife. In the Catholic Church, the promises they make at the altar are the same ones Christ makes to each one of us. When lived authentically, Heidi and Tim's marriage is meant to reflect the most intimate union between Christ and His Bride, the Church[1].

The couple vows that their love will be free, total, faithful, and fruitful. God loves us freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully, and these attributes actually have a direct link to the pro-life charism. Let's briefly look at each one:

Free No one has coerced Heidi or Tim to get married. Tim has not paid Heidi to be his wife; Heidi has not manipulated Tim to be her husband. The couple is freely choosing to enter the Sacrament of Matrimony without any obligation to do so- they rather want to do so out of love.

Total Heidi and Tim will promise today to give themselves to the other unreservedly and completely: physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. No corner or segment of their lives will be held back from the other. They will love each other with no strings attached: a gift of total self-donation.

Faithful Marriage is a sacrament of fidelity, just as Christ is faithful to each of us. The couple will vow to be faithful to one another- that is, to love and cherish exclusively that one other person until death, no matter how their feelings might change.

Fruitful A married man and woman share life-giving love: physically, as the foundation of a family (and also society) when they have children, promising to receive any and all children as a gift and not a burden; and spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, too, as their love gives birth to blessings and growth in these personal areas.

But when Heidi and Tim say "yes" to loving each other in these ways at the altar today, that is only the beginning. They will renew these vows with their bodies every time they become one flesh. Pope John Paul II made this clear: "Indeed, the very words 'I take you to be my wife + my husband can be fulfilled only by means of conjugal intercourse"[2]. Sexual intercourse is the most complete and perfect gift of free, total, faithful, and fruitful love that a husband and wife can enact. Every time a couple has sex, they are renewing their wedding vows and taking in a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb[3]. In fact, the Catholic Church holds sex in such high regard that a couple is not technically married in the Church until they consummate their marriage on their wedding night.

I have presented secular arguments against artificial contraception before, but from this kind of theological perspective, one can see why its use is wrong. It turns the four wedding vows on their heads, and especially offends the vow to share life-giving, "fruitful" love. It also hinders the mutual self-gift of intercourse from being "total", as it withholds one's natural reproductive capacity. The body speaks a language, and a wife using the Pill, however well-meaning, still says: "I give all of myself to you, except my fertility." Likewise, a husband using a condom, even with good intentions, nonetheless communicates something like: "I will give you most of myself, but not my fatherhood."

Marriage is a great challenge, but a beautiful one. I am thankful to Heidi and Tim for their wedding promises today. They are living witnesses of free, total, faithful, and fruitful love: pro-life love. And on their wedding day, I would like to share with you a powerful quote by Pope Benedict XVI:

"Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 17:33), as Jesus says throughout the Gospels (cf. Mt 10:39; 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25). In these words, Jesus portrays his own path, which leads through the Cross to the Resurrection: the path of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and in this way bears much fruit. Starting from the depths of his own sacrifice and of the love that reaches fulfilment therein, he also portrays in these words the essence of love and indeed of human life itself."

Vita Pro Omni!

*Heidi and Tim are pictured to the left in all of their adorable glory.

[1] Eph 5:31-32

[2] January 5, 1983

[3] CCC n. 1642

dualism: a do or a don't?

I don't usually choose to link to other sites, since that information is already available on the web. But I've recently joined forces with the Center for Morality in Public Life as a columnist and have been appreciating and learning from the group's research and commentary.

Last week, John Paul Nunez, a guest contributor to the Center, wrote about body-self dualism, or the "separation of one's self from one's body in which the conscious self merely inhabits or uses the body"[1]. In talking with pro-choice friends, I have found that this concept is often assumed, but not justified, in their logic. Click here to read more.

Vita Pro Omni!

[1] John Paul Nunez, Body-Self Dualism in Current Ethical Debates

blood money

"It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers." -Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director

Vita Pro Omni!

moral relativism: "feet firmly planted in mid-air"* (part 2)

Back in March, I promised to complete at a later date a two-part post presenting and then refuting the view of moral relativism. Looks like that later date is today.

Just to recap, in part one, Francis J. Beckwith shared with us a couple of things. First, he explicated what moral relativism is in the first place. In his words, it is "the view that when it comes to questions of morality, there is no absolute or objective right or wrong; moral rules are merely personal preferences and/or the result of one's cultural, sexual, or ethnic orientation"[1]. He went on to present several arguments used to support it; namely those "from cultural and individual differences." The basic contention among these arguments is that, because there are so many diverse cultures and such a vast array of moral beliefs among individuals, there can't possibly be such a thing as universal morality. Beckwith responded to this false claim with two arguments which he delineated in detail: relativism does not follow from disagreement, and disagreement counts against relativism. Click here to read those arguments.

But there is a second genre of arguments used to support moral relativism; they can be summarized as coming "from tolerance." These are probably the arguments I hear the most, and I suspect my friends who are moral absolutists encounter them often, too. Arguments from tolerance are wildly popular in America today, utilized to defend all kinds of moral atrocities, but especially abortion.

Beckwith writes:

Argument from Tolerance

Many people see relativism as necessary for promoting tolerance, non-judgmentalism, and inclusiveness, for they think if you believe your moral position is correct and others' incorrect you are closed-minded and intolerant. They usually base this premise on the well-known differences of opinion on morality between cultures and individuals. So, the moral relativist embraces the view that one should not judge other cultures and individuals, for to do so would be intolerant. There are at least four problems with this argument, all of which maintain that tolerance (rightly understood) and relativism are actually incompatible with each other.

Tolerance supports objective morality, not relativism

Ironically, the call to tolerance by relativists presupposes the existence of at least one nonrelative, universal, and objective norm: tolerance... [I]f everyone ought to be tolerant, then tolerance is an objective moral norm. And therefore, moral relativism is false. Also, tolerance presupposes that there is something good about being tolerant, such as being able to learn from others with whom one disagrees or impart knowledge and wisdom to that person. But that presupposes objective moral values, namely, that knowledge and wisdom are good things. Moreover, tolerance presupposes that someone may be correct about his or her moral perspective. That is to say, it seems that part of the motivation for advocating tolerance is to encourage people to be open to the possibility that one may be able to gain truth and insight (including moral truth and insight) from another who may possess it. If that is the case, then there are objective moral truths one can learn.

In addition, tolerance presupposes a moral judgment of another's viewpoint. That is to say, I can only be tolerant of those ideas that I think are mistaken. I am not tolerant of that with which I agree; I embrace it. And I am not tolerant of that for which I have no interest (e.g., European professional soccer); I merely have benign neglect for it. (That is, I don't care one way or another.)

Relativism is itself a closed-minded and intolerant position

After all, the relativist dogmatically asserts that there is no moral truth. To illustrate this, consider a dialogue (based loosely on a real-life exchange) between a high school teacher and her student Elizabeth. The teacher instructs her class, "Welcome, students. This is the first day of class, and so I want to lay down some ground rules. First, because no one has the truth about morality, you should be open-minded to the opinions of your fellow students." The teacher recognizes the raised hand of Elizabeth who asks, "If nobody has the truth, isn't that a good reason for me not to listen to my fellow students? After all, if nobody has the truth, why should I waste my time listening to other people and their opinions? What's the point? Only if somebody has the truth does it make sense to be open-minded. Don't you agree?"

"No, I don't. Are you claiming to know the truth? Isn't that a bit arrogant and dogmatic?"

"Not at all. Rather I think it's dogmatic, as well as arrogant, to assert that no single person on earth knows the truth. After all, have you met every single person in the world and quizzed them exhaustively? If not, how can you make such a claim? Also, I believe it is actually quite the opposite of arrogance to say that I will alter my opinions to fit the truth whenever and wherever I find it. And if I happen to think I have good reason to believe I do know the truth and would like to share it with you, why wouldn't you listen to me? Why would you automatically discredit my opinion before it is even uttered? I thought we were supposed to listen to everyone's opinion."

Relativism is judgmental, exclusivist, and partisan

This may seem like an odd thing to say as the relativist would like you to think his viewpoint is nonjudgmental, inclusivist, and neutral when it comes to moral beliefs. But consider the following.

First, the relativist says if you believe in objective moral truth, you are wrong. Hence, relativism is judgmental. Second, it follows from this that relativism is excluding your beliefs from the realm of legitimate options. Thus, relativism is exclusivist. And third, because relativism is exclusivist, all nonrelativists are automatically not members of the "correct thinking" party. So, relativism is partisan.

Tolerance only makes sense within the framework of a moral order, for it is within such a framework that one can morally justify tolerating some things while not tolerating others. For tolerance without a moral framework, or absolute tolerance, leads to a dogmatic relativism, and thus to an intolerance of any viewpoint that does not embrace relativism. It is no wonder that in such a climate of "tolerance" any person who maintains that there is an objective moral order to which society ought to subscribe is greeted with contempt.

The "tolerance" of moral relativism either condones barbarism or is self-refuting.

As I pointed out above, some moral relativists embrace tolerance because they believe that such a posture is appropriate given the diversity of moral and cultural traditions in the world today. Humanist author Xiaorong Li points out the fallacy in this reasoning:

But the existence of moral diversity does no more to justify that we ought to respect different moral values than the existence of disease, hunger, torture, and slavery do to justify that we ought to value them. Empirical claims thus are not suitable as the basis for developing moral principles such as "Never judge other cultures" or "We ought to tolerate different values." ...

What if the respected or tolerated culture disrespects and advocates violence against individuals who dissent? When a girl fights to escape female genital circumcision or foot-binding or arranged marriage, or when a widow does not want to be burned to death to honor her dead husband, the relativist is obligated to "respect" the cultural or traditional customs from which the individuals are trying to escape. In doing so, the relativist is not merely disrespecting the individual but effectively endorsing the moral ground for rape, torture, and murder. On moral issues, ethical relativists cannot possibly remain neutral- they are committed either to the individual or to the dominant force within the culture.

Relativists have made explicit one central value- equal respect and tolerance of other ways of life, which they insist to be absolute and universal. Ethical relativism is thus repudiated by itself.

Let's be intellectually honest when it comes to evaluating moral relativism. If it is what one is using to justify abortion, but meanwhile it doesn't make sense, there is too much at stake in the debate to hold onto it for the sake of holding onto it. If a viewpoint is flawed, give it up.

Vita Pro Omni!

* Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl wrote an insightful book on this topic that I would recommend called Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air

[1] Francis J. Beckwith, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (p. 3)

our first home

Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of the Susan B. Anthony List, passed on a beautiful story to me last night. She wrote:

While serving the poor in Calcutta, Mother Teresa once found a young boy on the streets and brought him back to Shishu Bhavan- one of the homes she established for impoverished and disabled children. There, the boy was given food and clean clothes- but he ran away! The next day, again the boy was brought back to Shishu Bhavan, and again he ran away. Three times, the boy ran away, until on the third day, one of the Sisters followed him.

"Why do you keep running away from home?" the Sister asked when she caught up to him. The boy pointed to a tree, under which a woman was standing, cooking a simple meal of food she had found in the garbage. "But this is home," he said. "This is where my mother is."

So simple. So beautiful. "Our mothers are our first home."

A mother's love for her child is powerful... strong... miracle-working. I have experienced this love firsthand through my own mother, and remember, in particular, how important her love was to me as a little girl. On my first day of kindergarten, I didn't want to leave my mom. She knew that I might get homesick, so she gave me a little picture of she and I together (left) to put into the clear front pocket of my Barney backpack. I would look at that picture throughout the day because it made me feel better; I was looking at my home... my mommy.

Love is the reason we stand for life. Abortion is the complete opposite of love, as, in Marjorie's words, it breaks down the door to our first home. And because it is impossible to separate the well-being of a mother from that of her child, we know that for every one of the 115,000 children suffering from abortion every day, there is a mother somewhere, suffering, too. When we destroy motherhood, we destroy love.

Today, on Mother's Day, thank your mom for choosing life. Thank her for her strong love that protected you when you were among the most small and helpless in society. And may each of us be strengthened in our resolve to protect all unborn children who are small and helpless just like we were.

I love you, Mommy.



Vita Pro Omni!

rock on, lia

This girl seriously rocks. Despite threats of disqualification if she went through with her topic, Lia took first place in her school's speech contest when she defended the rights of unborn children. Since then, nearly one million people have heard her voice.

Minds have been changed. Lives have been saved.

Vita Pro Omni!