"building" healthier families

This morning I was reading more about a (fairly typical) pro-choice initiative called the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP). Here's some of what they had to say:

"Through training, advocacy and mentoring programs, RHAP helps family physicians and other clinicians make birth control and abortion a part of routine medical care... RHAP builds healthier families."

In other words, according to RHAP, you "build" a healthier family either by:

1. not building a family (i.e. artificially sterilizing one or both of the parents) or

2. building a family and then killing the youngest member of it (i.e. procuring an abortion).

RHAP is typical of countless other "reproductive health" organizations across this country. Why do we stand for any of them?

Vita Pro Omni!

an ethic of love

Tommy Piolata recently wrote a short, but beautifully insightful, article for Heartbeat, St. Louis University's pro-life publication. I have received his permission to share it with you here:

Vita Pro Omni!

An Ethic of Love

by Tommy Piolata

Often, when there is ethical talk, what follows are words such as rights, obligations, duties etc. However, such language misses the heart of ethics. I once read a homily by Pope Benedict XVI in which he rightly identifies the nucleus of ethics as love. Where there is love, there is authentic morality. Thus, I think it is a rather unfortunate reality that moral-talk is saturated with words such as rights and duties. What happened to love? Where is talk of the good? I’m pro-life not because of some power-political language regarding rights and property, but because ethics is about love, the good, and happiness.

My being pro-life is not rooted in some sort of moral obligation that I perceive, or some sort of Kantian duty that I ought to follow. My being pro-life is rather discovered in the fabric of a credo: that I believe in love. I believe, above all else, that the fulfillment of the human person is founded in the form of love, which is always for the happiness of the other. I believe that happiness is a good, and hence, an ethic that dismisses and disrupts the happiness of mothers and children is far from a moral good.

I’m pro-life because I want to fall in love with the way of love. And it seems so apparent to me that to adhere to an ethic of love I should stand up for an injustice that dehumanizes women and places a façade upon their womb, that refuses to listen to a child’s cry and annihilates him because he is “inconvenient” and small, that oppresses mothers into believing their bodies are not sacred and their children not children. I’m pro-life because I believe in love and charity; and it is a grave injustice, anything which as its aim is the destruction of human personality, human development, human happiness.

Lastly, we live in a world of interconnectedness—hence the importance of love! There is no such thing as the radically separate individual. Instead, as Mother Teresa once remarked, we belong to one another. So, to be completely honest with the abortion issue and consider it as is, I see the pinnacle of segregation, that is—to borrow the words of Martin Luther King Jr.—“it substitutes an “I-it” relationship for an “I-thou” relationship.” Locate for me love, when the womb becomes a trashcan and the child an “it.”

sobering statistics

Planned Parenthood, by far the leading abortion perpetrator in America, has finally released its 2008 annual report. They performed 134 human abortions for every 1 adoption referral. I realize abortion is the most lucrative part of their business, but you'd wish they'd be at least a little bit embarrassed by that extraordinary bias.

Adoption is always the better option. Ours is not the right to choose who will get a chance at life and who won't. What if my mother had chosen to abort me? What if your mother had chosen to abort you? The fact is, with Planned Parenthood around, none of us is safe.

Vita Pro Omni!

pro-life 101

"There are more people working full-time to kill babies than there are working full-time to save them."

Stephanie Gray from the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform has a job I'd love to take on someday. Watch her video for articulate, reasoned, and unemotional pro-life apologetics.

Vita Pro Omni!

just an afternoon chat

This afternoon I had a great conversation with Jody*, an employee from Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia, and with Brittany* and Amber*, some girls from the William and Mary chapter of VOX (Voices for Planned Parenthood). They were all three sitting in our Student Center offering the morning-after pill at a reduced price as part of their EC (emergency contraception) Day on campus. So when I walked by their table on my way to get a Quiznos sub for lunch, I stopped, said hello, and started talking.

Although I made it known from the start that I disagreed with their organization and their EC sale (Brittany asked me later whether I was a member of Students for Life, to which I replied yes and invited her to drop in on a meeting sometime-- I'll be visiting VOX's meeting next week), my goal in approaching them was not to argue. I wanted to talk. I hoped they would get to know me as an approachable face from the "other side" here on campus. I asked a lot of questions. I listened for a long time.

I did ask Jody when she thought life began. She said viability. I asked her what the fetus was prior to viability. She paused and stammered and finally laughed, saying, "It's hard to explain." As she was struggling for an answer, I felt a sense of sympathy for her. It was clear she had been lied to about the entire issue-- to the point where she, a woman who deals with pregnancy for a living, couldn't even explain what a fetus was.

I decided to change the course of the conversation a bit, and asked Jody what it was like to work for Planned Parenthood. I asked her about the kinds of conversations they have with girls who come in with unplanned pregnancies. I asked her if it ever made any of the nurses sad or uncomfortable to see fetal remains after an abortion. She hesitated. Finally, she looked up and said, "It's hard, you know... well, I shouldn't use the word hard... I don't know. It's just, I have kids of my own and..." (she glanced down at her 6-month-pregnant belly) "...it affects some nurses more than others."

Though only about 45 minutes long, my conversation with Jody, Brittany, and Amber reminded me that we are all more similar than we often think. We all understand the intrinsic value of human life and feel a sense of sadness in destroying it. It may be possible to numb ourselves from that sadness for awhile, but no one can stay detached forever. If we engage these conversations, I think people will awaken to their natural senses-- and choose life over death.

Be loving. Be brave.

Life will win.

Vita Pro Omni!

*Names have been changed

what women deserve to know

I shared via Facebook the fact that Missouri abortion clinics recently added several basic, informational stipulations. Women now receive a brochure containing the words, "The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being."

Many people asked me where I had read that information. It can be found here.

Vita Pro Omni!

darling darrs

My fabulous friends Allie and Jordan Darr recently welcomed a second little one into their family: Luke Cosmas.

Luke was born on August 13 at 3:20 pm, and weighed 7 lb, 11 oz. He was 19 inches long.

Both Allie and little Luke are doing wonderfully. Vincent loves being a big brother.

Jordan, meanwhile, loves having another little man following in his footsteps... ;)

Vita Pro Omni!