Children Deserve Birth

2008-12-13T11:42:00.000-08:00

This site is dedicated to the promotion of sidewalk outreach ministry worldwide:

EVERY HOUR
OF EVERY WEEK
OF EVERY YEAR
AT EVERY KILLING CENTER
WHEN IT IS OPEN FOR "BUSINESS"
UNTIL ABORTION IS ABOLISHED
BECAUSE
ALL OF GOD’S PRECIOUS
CHILDREN DESERVE BIRTH

There is no better cause on earth than to defend the absolutely defenseless!

"The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor! He or she is weak, defenceless, even to the point of lacking that minimal form of defence consisting in the poignant power of a newborn baby's cries and tears. The unborn child is totally entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying him or her in the womb."
{Pope John Paul II ~ Evangelium vitae}

"Being unwanted is the worst disease that a human being can ever experience." ~ "Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."
{Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta}

Monsignor Philip Reilly, founder of the Helpers of God's Precious Infants, deliberately called the unborn child, an infant, because the word 'infant' literally means 'not able to speak'. The name of his apostolate is descriptive then of our calling to speak on behalf of the unborn whose lives are unjustly threatened but who cannot speak for themselves.

photos

2008-12-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

"The Work of His Hands" Copyright 2004 Gary B. Clark
Image used with permission. www.GaryBClark.com

Consider this image as an artistic conception intended
to make the point that life begins before birth.
Click here for more commentary on the image.

Image used with permission.

3-D ultrasound images taken of the development of a fetus (clockwise from upper left) at 7, 9, 13, 16, 23 and 35 weeks.

Precious Gabriela

Scheduled to die Feb 19, 2003 ~ born Oct 10, 2003
Thanks be to God, Creator of us all
About Gabriela

JPII

2008-12-13T11:40:00.000-08:00

“I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors, which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.”

Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life

There Is Hope After Abortion

We decided to keep our baby

2008-12-12T18:10:00.000-08:00

We decided to keep our baby

“We decided to keep our baby” are the sweet words I heard today while prayerfully awaiting the next opportunity to reach out to a woman or couple outside an abortion center in San Francisco. While standing next to the entrance of the abortion center, I noticed a young man in the passenger side of a car attempting to get my attention. A woman was at the wheel and there were several cars ahead of and behind them waiting for the traffic light to turn green.

Assuming the young man was seeking directions, I walked toward the curb to assist him. Then I heard him say those six glorious words and what God, the author of all life, wanted me to know. Only He knows how often parents who were planning to abort their child had a change of heart and mind. We are blessed whenever He enables us to be instrumental.

Seven months had passed since I had reached out to this couple at this same abortion center. In less than two more months they will be cuddling their precious son because they made the right decision.

This Christmas they will have a son wrapped in his mother’s womb to present to the Christ Child and what could have otherwise been a time of terrible mourning for them will instead be their most joyous Christmas ever.

40 HOURS FOR LIFE
EVERY WEEK
OF EVERY YEAR
AT EVERY KILLING CENTER
UNTIL ABORTION IS ABOLISHED
BECAUSE
ALL OF GOD’S PRECIOUS
CHILDREN DESERVE BIRTH

position on events conducted at abortion centers

2008-12-11T17:24:00.000-08:00

A necessary word about events conducted at abortion centers:

Children Deserve Birth (CDB) encourages sidewalk outreach at abortion centers, however, the intent of the outreach endorsed by CDB is about trying to save a child from certain death and his/her parents from certain harm, one family at a time, it is not about trying to close down an abortion center or to end abortion. (An exception would be the type of prayer vigil conducted according to the method of Monsignor Philip Reilly's Helpers of God's Precious Infants.)

The various other street activities, which are also very important forms of pro-life activism, can be easily and more effectively conducted on any street in the nation seven days a week. They need not be conducted at abortion centers to be effective. In fact they can be even more effective when locations are continually changed to reach even more people (literature exposing Planned Parenthood’s dirty business can be handed out to many passersby and signs can expose them as well). There is much missionary work available at places other than abortion centers. There are many pro-abortion people available to evangelize on any street in the nation. These other forms of activities do not compliment sidewalk counseling, which CDB believes should take precedence over all other activities outside abortion centers. Passersby may have a lot of life remaining ahead of them, but for the child that is being brought there to be slaughtered, it’s a matter of life and death right there and then and that child’s parents are facing dire consequences right there and then.

Therefore, when authentic outreach to parents contemplating or planning abortion is intended, CDB is opposed to the use of signs and images including on one's clothing.

The following resources are recommended for current and potential pro-life activists to peruse and reflect over:

Poll on sidewalk counseling

2008-05-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Poll on sidewalk counseling

Dear Visitor,

I've decided to take a poll to determine the level of interest there is in seeing an increase in this particular form of pro-life activism (known to most people as sidewalk counseling*).

It is my hope that we may be able to clear up any confusion some people may have about sidewalk counseling and possibly undo any damage that may have been caused by past experiences or hearsay. I also hope to determine how much support there may be in helping to promote this form of pro-life activism.

The number of people presently engaged is disappointingly very small. I continue to wonder what the reason for this is and I'm hoping that your input will help us improve the situation. My interest is in seeing a consortium of individuals engaged in this form of outreach 40+ hours per week, every week of the year, at every child-killing center in the world.

So I present to you the following questions even if you personally are unable (for whatever reasons) to become directly engaged in such activism:

What is your opinion of this kind of outreach?
How important do you think it is relative to other forms of pro-life activism?
How important do you think it is relative to other forms of Christian activism?
How would you describe it to others?
Have you ever been engaged in it and if so, in what way and for how long?
If you were once engaged and are no longer, why did you discontinue your involvement?
What positive and negative impressions or experiences have you personally had or heard of from others?
What would you like to see done differently?
What could be done to cause you to become involved?
From whom or where have you received most of your information about this kind of outreach?
What is it about that source or resource that causes you to trust its information and advice?
What are your concerns regarding this type of outreach based on your personal experiences or the testimony of others?

Consider copying and pasting the poll questions into an e-mail to "cdb @ prolifeamerica . com" and adding your respective comments beneath each question.

*Note:
Sidewalk counseling is "reaching out" to mothers and fathers, who are contemplating or planning abortion, to offer them information that they have a need and right to know. It is conducted by way of conversation and literature. It is done with love and out of concern for unborn children who are in danger of being deprived of their God-given right to be born into the world and for their parents, especially mothers, who are in danger of being severely harmed in numerous ways.

Sidewalk counseling is conducted on public sidewalks outside abortion facilities on days that abortions are being committed and/or days when pre-abortion evaluations or pregnancy tests are provided.

Parents may be offered information about where to go for free pregnancy tests, counseling and practical assistance, as well as fetal development, adoption, abortion procedures, risks and side effects, and post-abortion counseling and healing.

Sidewalk counseling is about saving a child from certain death and his/her parents from certain harm, one family at a time.

Thank you for your consideration and input.

Children Deserve Birth advocate

You Are Not Alone

2008-01-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

You are not alone if you have had an abortion.

You are not alone if you are faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

California Pro-life Events

2008-01-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

California Pro-life Events

San Francisco Bay Area Outreach (Sidewalk Counseling)

Sacramento Helpers of God's Precious Infants

San Diego Helpers of God's Precious Infants

Bay Area Killing Centers

2008-01-12T18:20:00.000-08:00

Bay Area Killing Centers

Choice Medical Group
2107 Ofarrell Street, San Francisco

Planned Parenthood
1650 Valencia Street (at Mission), San Francisco

UCSF Women's Health at Mount Zion
2356 Sutter Street, San Francisco

Kaiser Permanente
“SF Kaiser has great 1st and 2nd trimester abortion training available at a joint clinic they share with UCSF.” (Submitted by a 4th-year medical student, 2/12/03)

Women's Health/Option Center
1001 Potrero Ave., San Francisco

St. Luke’s Women’s Center
Dr. Laura Norrell
1580 Valencia St. #508
San Francisco

California Pacific Women's Care Clinic
Davies Campus, San Francisco

Family Planning Specialists Medical Group
Eastmont Mall 7200 Bancroft Ave., Suite 210, Oakland

Planned Parenthood
2970 Hilltop Mall Rd., # 307, Richmond

Planned Parenthood
101 Broadway, Richmond

Planned Parenthood
1357 Oakland Blvd., Walnut Creek

Planned Parenthood
2185 Pacheco St., Concord

Choice Medical Group
2485 High School Ave., #227, Concord

Planned Parenthood
130 Ryan Industrial Court, Suite 115, San Ramon

Forrest Smith MD
1393 Santa Rita Rd., Pleasanton

Choice Medical Group
1895 Mowry Avenue, Suite 116, Fremont

A Pro-Choice Clinic
1290 B St., # 305, Hayward

Planned Parenthood
1866 B Street, Hayward

Planned Parenthood
604 E. Evelyn Ave., Sunnyvale

Planned Parenthood
35 Baywood Ave., San Mateo

Planned Parenthood
225 San Antonio Rd., Mountain View

Planned Parenthood
5440 Thornwood Dr., # G, San Jose

Planned Parenthood
3131 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose

Planned Parenthood
1691 The Alameda, San Jose

Planned Parenthood
San Jose-Mar Monte Community Clinic Clinic 2470 Alvin Ave., #80, San Jose

Choice Medical Group
2365 Montpelier Dr., San Jose

Abortions in Marin

Planned Parenthood
141 Camino Alto, Suite 1, Mill Valley

Marin Specialty Surgery Center

505 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Greenbrae

Abortions are performed at all three of Marin's hospitals: Marin General, Novato Community and Kaiser Permanente Medical Center. The county clinic refers women seeking an abortion to Planned Parenthood.

Kaiser provides nonsurgical abortions for women up to their ninth week of pregnancy using the chemical mifepristone. Kaiser limits surgical abortions in Marin to women in their first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Kaiser imposes its limit because abortions performed later in a pregnancy require more expertise.

According to a spokeswoman for Marin General and Novato Community hospitals, the vast majority of abortions in Marin are done in physicians' offices or at Planned Parenthood's San Rafael clinic. Doctors perform abortions at Marin General and Novato Community when their patients require a general anesthetic.

Bay Area Pregnancy Resource Centers

2008-01-12T18:12:00.000-08:00

Bay Area Pregnancy Resource Centers

First Resort San Francisco, Oakland, Redwood City

Alpha Pregnancy Center San Francisco

Pregnancy Resource Center of Marin Novato

Comment on image

2008-01-12T17:33:00.000-08:00

Because some visitors may object to the use of this provocative image, I think an explanation is in order. The comment below the image states: Consider this image as an artistic conception intended to make the point that life begins before birth. I think that comment along with the image's comment, "When did you say life begins?", helps to make the point that whomever created this image desired. Used with these comments, the image shouldn't convey any wrong impressions. If the "artist" had drawn a caricature rather than manipulated a photo, I doubt anyone would find it objectionable. I don't see an artistically different message either way.

I see relevance for the use of the image on this site because of the underlying theme of the site as is stated under its title, CHILDREN DESERVE BIRTH:
The occupant of a pregnant woman's womb is not a "product of conception" or "blob of tissue" or "wad of cells" - she/he is a "person". That person has "the right to life". That "life" already exists and no one has a right to exterminate it. In other words: Children Deserve Birth

I believe the image is being used properly in this context.

Editor

2008-01-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

A Constitutional Right to a Birthday?

By Martin Scott

When the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence more than 200 years ago, they clearly spelled out that all persons have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and that these inalienable rights come from our "Creator."

They would be shocked to see how a series of rogue Supreme Court Justices trampled the Constitution and divided our nation over one word: life.

A bipartisan coalition of the Georgia General Assembly adopted several life saving laws for unborn babies over the past three years, and now is the time to clearly define who has the right to life.

Article one of the Georgia Constitution states, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property…." The Human Life Amendment (H.R. 536) declares the dignity of human life from the mother's womb throughout all phases of life, without regard to age or race.

In an era where human life has become cheapened and people seem to be more concerned about mistreatment of animals than humans, it is time to evaluate our core principles. It is time to take a stand and defend innocent human life.

Throughout the world we are seeing challenges to the dignity of human life, and it's not just the brutal, gruesome, secret surgical procedure of abortion. We live in an age where bio-technical advancements outpace the political will for ethical restraint.

Oregon has legalized suicide. Cloning, genetic engineering, and trans-humanism are turning fictional Franken-science into reality. Margaret Sanger's eugenics philosophy runs rampant as Planned Parenthood annually snuffs out the lives of millions of future artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, doctors, nurses, teachers, and even lawyers.

Georgia must protect the human rights of unborn babies, elderly retirees, disabled children and adults, as well as sick patients who simply need a caring heart and helping hand.

The Human Life Amendment, in and of itself, does not specifically criminalize any act. Its enactment would not automatically overturn Roe v. Wade. It would, however, proclaim the dignity of all human beings within the confines of our state constitution.

The amendment could provide a platform for future legislative, executive, or judicial action on behalf of innocent persons.

Since 1980, the Republican Party platform has called for a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It comes as no surprise that Washington politicians could not get it done.

The year 2007 marked the 200-year anniversary of the beginning of the end of slavery in Great Britain. Perhaps our young nation could have used a diplomatic, yet uncompromising voice akin to that of William Wilberforce, but Providence granted us Webster, Clay, and Calhoun.

The antebellum triumvirate kept us out of war for a time with continuous compromise and regulation of slavery, but both sides largely avoided the obvious question: the personhood of the African.

Our nation struggled for nearly 100 years over the matter of the personhood of the African-American slave before our most tragic war. Today, after 35 years of Roe, and nearly 50 million unborn American lives lost, we should take our lesson from history. We should glean from the example of peaceful Wilberforce.

We must provide constitutional protection for all persons, including unborn children.

The bi-partisan pro-life coalition in the Georgia House made history by introducing a Human Life Amendment to the state constitution in 2007, progressing out of the abortion-regulating strategy of the past. Now, other states have followed.

And, while the amendment begins in the legislature, ultimately, the people of Georgia will decide via referendum whether to acknowledge the personhood of all human beings.

Georgia House Rep. James Mills says, "All babies have a right to a birthday." And no matter what Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, or other left-wing outfits may claim, this amendment is not about restricting family planning.

This is a peaceful and positive movement to restore respect for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans, starting right here in Georgia.

www.personhood.net

Martin Scott, a state representative from Rossville, is the chief sponsor of the Human Life Amendment in the Georgia House.

2007-12-13T10:16:00.001-08:00

The War in the Womb

We will never see an end to war in this world until we end the war in the womb. Perhaps our loving and merciful God will help us end poverty and war if we help Him end the war in the womb. This is not a State or National issue; it is a Global issue. We must not only fight against the culture of death in our own country, but wherever it persists beyond our borders as well. Below is yet another report of the persistent efforts to impose international abortion rights. Notice, again, that the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) are among the strategies proposed by abortion proponents.

I believe that we need to advocate for a new MDG, making it the first and fundamental goal. It should emphatically charge the worldwide community to respect and protect every human being's right to life from conception to natural death.

Read:
UN Conference Lays Out Strategy for International Abortion Rights

The Good Samaritan

2007-09-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

The Good Samaritan

Luke 10: 25-37

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered right; do this, and you will live." But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back’. Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed mercy on him." And Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."

Let us follow the example of the Good Samaritan, locate the abortion centers near our homes or along the roads we travel and, as Jesus said, "Go and do likewise."

Gabriel Project

2007-09-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

What Is the Gabriel Project?

Through The Gabriel Project, parishes embrace each pregnant woman who comes to them as their daughter, sister, and friend. Using signs, pamphlets, car decals and a toll free hotline, we make it known that help is available. When a woman calls for help, the phone-line volunteer contacts The Gabriel Project Coordinator, who is a parishioner of the Church closest to where she lives. A trained mentor, one of the parish’s Gabriel Angels, is assigned responsibility for ongoing contact with the mother throughout her pregnancy and somewhat beyond. The parish community assists with unconditional love. Through them, mothers receive the spiritual, material and emotional support needed during pregnancy.

Parishes often seek out ways to make themselves visible to the community and to be recognized as caring Christians who not only pray for their neighbors, but also extend them a loving and helping hand. The Gabriel Project is a marvelous way to show the community that your parish cares about pregnant women in need and that there is no reason for any mother within its boundaries to contemplate abortion.

To learn more visit The Gabriel Project.

Serious Thoughts on Sidewalk Counseling

2006-08-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

Serious Thoughts on Sidewalk Counseling

Are you considering becoming engaged in sidewalk counseling, but hesitating because you have some unresolved questions or concerns? Perhaps there isn't a group in your area doing sidewalk counseling that you could join, so you're looking for a like-minded partner before you get started. Or perhaps there is an opportunity to join others in your area, but you would prefer to use a different approach.

If you fit into one of the above categories, this article was written for you. To be sure though, it is essential to distinguish between what sidewalk counseling is and is not. Sidewalk counseling is "reaching out" to mothers and fathers, who are contemplating or planning abortion, to offer them information that they have a need and right to know. It is conducted by way of conversation and literature. It is done with love and out of concern for unborn children who are in danger of being deprived of their God-given right to be born into the world and for their parents, especially mothers, who are in danger of being severely harmed in numerous ways. It's not about trying to close down an abortion mill, it's about saving a child from certain death and his/her parents from certain harm, one family at a time. Sidewalk counseling is not picketing, demonstrating, preaching, displaying signs or images, evangelizing passersby or the abortion center's staff, guards or escorts. And although, for people of faith, prayer is essential and should always accompany sidewalk counseling, it in itself is not sidewalk counseling. (People of faith can be most effective if their demeanor is that of a prayerful contemplative while awaiting the next outreach opportunity. And it is natural for some people of faith to evangelize those who are contemplating or planning abortion.)

You may encounter certain circumstances at some locations that make it impossible to conduct sidewalk counseling. In that case you may decide to engage in one of the other aforementioned street activities. However, if counseling, even if only by means of handing out literature, is at all possible, you should avoid any action that has the potential of deterring those to whom you reach out from accepting what you have to offer.

Serious thought must be given to what may ultimately be conveyed by your words and attitude and any tools such as signs, images or displays you may be considering using. One must rigorously attempt to discern what will more likely produce positive results in the majority of cases while painfully realizing that what will be good for one may be harmful for another and vice versa.

The ultimate responsibility to discern what may work best in your particular environment is yours. The goal here is to guide you in reflecting very seriously and thoroughly (as though someone's life is dependant upon your discernment) on your intentions and on the techniques you may be considering.

What about the use of signs?

Some people may feel that signs are absolutely necessary. Those who are not counselors may desire to use them because they feel that they personally have to do or say something.

When someone decides to go to the killing center to hold a sign or image, they are immediately successful as soon as they step in front of the building. They're doing what they came to do. Sure, they would like to see turnarounds, but as far as their individual effort is concerned, they are fulfilling their role. The counselors, however, have to force themselves to feel that they are successful just by showing up and attempting to reach out to women/couples. And it is true that that is success, because each attempt to reach out is an act of mercy and true failure would have been to stay home. Still, counselors don't feel the same level of fulfillment of purpose as the others may feel because they want to be successful in getting each person to at least accept the literature they offer even if they fail to engage them in conversation or see turnarounds.

There can be no certainty that signs will be read by those you are attempting to counsel. They may be completely ignored, thereby not producing any positive results while possibly having a negative impact. Whether or not they are read, their presence will preannounce your planned intervention and disapproval of abortion. This could result in your offer to counsel to be abruptly rejected.

Might it be possible that a sign that reads, "Abortion hurts women" would produce better results than one reading "Abortion kills children"? If that were true, wouldn't that imply that the presence of any pro-child signs or images could be detrimental in cases where a sign reading "Abortion hurts women" would be beneficial? Would that be the result in the majority or the minority of cases? Would it simply be wiser to eliminate the risk and not have either type of sign?

What about the use of images?

You know the expression: a picture is worth a thousand words. So you must reflect heavily on what message a given image might convey.

You should also be aware that rather than having the so-called ability to convey a thousand words, a picture might actually convey a single (and possibly negatively perceived) message that comes across a thousand times louder, like a SHOUT.

Pictures of children, dead or alive, may suggest to the mother that you are present only to defend her child, not to protect her. So when you reach out to her with "we can help you" or something similar, your words may fall on deaf ears. You can't expect her to open her mind and heart if your own appear to be closed.

Whatever words or images you use, if their message is perceived as "please let us help you", they're much more likely to produce positive results than "please don't kill your baby". It's not only what you say or display that's important, but how what you say or display is perceived.

As with the case of signs, images preannounce your planned intervention and disapproval of abortion, which could result in your offer to counsel to be abruptly rejected.

If you feel inclined to use images, you must give very serious thought as to what effect they will have before you commit to using them. If you think they would produce positive results, do you think that would be true in more than fifty percent of the cases? Do you think they could be so effective as to eliminate the need for sidewalk counseling? If you had to choose between sidewalk counseling without the presence of any images or using images without attempting to do any sidewalk counseling, what would be your choice?

You will hear opposing viewpoints from others especially with regard to graphic pictures of aborted children. Think about the message you are hoping to convey with an image. Can it truly be delivered? Is it compatible with what you hope to accomplish through conversation or literature? Is there even a slight chance that the image could do more harm than good? Could it deter some of those to whom you reach out from accepting your literature or allowing you to speak to them? Is it worth the risk?

Do you believe that a graphic picture of an aborted child truly conveys what abortion really is? Do you believe that a child who was aborted by means other than surgery is any less dead? Or do you believe that no matter what type of killing procedure is used - whether it mutilates the child or not; whether it is perceived as a brutal and barbaric act of violence or not - a life is exterminated; someone’s future is eliminated; a person is deprived of its very existence in the physical realm? Do you believe that that is the reality of abortion?

If your motivation for using images of aborted children is to personalize the child in the parents' minds, compare these images with others that you have seen and determine for yourself which, if any, best accomplishes your goal. Also read What Abortion Really Is. What if the child had been killed by a lethal injection before its body was mutilated for removal from the womb? Should one be more devastated over the mutilation of the dead child's body or over the death of the child itself?

What about the use of other displays?

Once you are engaged in a counseling session, fetal models and images of fetal development can be very helpful, but if noticed beforehand, they will preannounce your planned intervention and disapproval of abortion, which could result in your offer to counsel to be abruptly rejected.

Would being present without any signs, images or other displays be more or less beneficial than being present with them? Or is the benefit vs. detriment factor equal in both scenarios? This is important to discern, again being painfully aware that what will be good for one may be harmful for another. In the end we must put our own personal preferences aside (what we wish would be most beneficial) for the benefit of the majority of affected children and parents.

The mothers and fathers to whom you wish to reach out should be able to feel confident that you are sincerely there for them and their child, not to make a public statement about your position on abortion. If your real or perceived intent of being there is to make such a public statement, you may be very successful in doing so, but you may not spare many or any families the horrors of abortion. At least not those who are facing those dire consequences right there and then.

[If you would like to learn how to best utilize a "life exhibit", contact the New York Helpers of God's Precious Infants .]

Conclusion

Nothing stated above is meant to imply that the use of signs, images or other displays do not produce positive results. They have and they will. The question is, are they a benefit in the majority of cases?

Neither is there any intent to belittle any of the other mentioned forms of street activity. They are indeed very important forms of pro-life activism. However, they can be easily and more effectively conducted on any street in the nation seven days a week. They need not be conducted at abortion centers to be effective. In fact they can be even more effective when locations are continually changed to reach even more people. There is much more missionary work available at places other than abortion centers. There are many more pro-abortion people available to evangelize (four out of five in my area of the county) on any street in the nation. If they are to be conducted at abortion centers, however, they should not be present during a time when someone is attempting to sidewalk counsel. They do not compliment sidewalk counseling, which should take precedence over all other activities outside abortion centers. Passersby may have a lot of life remaining ahead of them, but for the child that is being brought there to be slaughtered, it's a matter of life and death right there and then and that child's parents are facing dire consequences right there and then.

The only activity that complements sidewalk counseling is prayer. On days that abortions are being committed, a counselor that is person of faith should be in a continuous state of prayer.

When a prayer group accompanies the counselors, the participants should maintain a strict discipline of prayer. There should be no unnecessary discussion with the public, or with one another. It is essential that the women arriving for an abortion see a praying people, not a protesting people. Therefore no one should be carrying signs or pictures with the possible exception of a single holy image, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe, among the group.

The prayer group should be positioned some distance away from the counselors and the abortion center's entrance and be together in one place as a unit where they will not be a distraction or threat to the anyone's privacy when they are speaking with a counselor. They should be positioned at the side of the walkway to allow pedestrians to freely pass by. They should conduct themselves in a reverent prayerful manner praying in a low tone or silently.

COMMENT:

This reflection was written on June 3, 2007. On that same day, pro-life leader Sue Lopez of San Diego, California read it and replied to me via e-mail with some comments and questions. On May 15, 2008 I received a very encouraging e-mail from her. She wrote about some changes she had made to her sidewalk counseling ministry based on this reflection. She reported on the very positive results those changes had effected. I encourage you to read the following excerpts of her comments:

Just wanted to let you know that we no longer use any signs or life displays (and haven't for the past several months) in working at the mills, thanks to your suggestion...we have nothing except some holy pictures/statues in front of the prayer warriors. It has been amazingly successful and so many more people talk to the sidewalk counselors now, mostly probably because they are caught off guard...thank you so much for the suggestion, we are making good use of it...(feel free to share).

Update March 30, 2009 (comment from Terry):

I am a sidewalk counselor in San Diego and worked with Sue Lopez. When I first began to counsel I used images (nothing graphic) but the longer I was out there, I felt led by the Holy Spirit to use HIM and nothing else and Sue concurred with my decision. By the grace of Holy Spirit more lives were saved. I still do not counsel with signs or fetal development pictures and have found both to get in the way of the Holy Spirit as He does not need them to save the unborn. I sidewalk counsel without signs, without pictures, without any pro-life clothing, etc.

Let Us Love The Unborn

2006-08-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

Come, let us love the unborn generations,
And guard their right to live upon this earth,
Lest human deeds, by stealth or conflagration,
Snuff out all life and put an end to birth.

Come, contemplate the sadness of extinction:
A wasted earth, with empty sky and sea;
No mourners to lament its desolation,
No voice, no words, no thought, no eyes to see.

The precious seed of life is in our keeping,
And if we plant it, and fulfill our trust,
Still yet the sun will rise on joy and weeping,
And shine upon the unjust and the just.

All we can do is live our human story
Of good and bad, achievement, love and loss,
Then hand it on to future shame or glory,
Lit by our hopes, and leavened by a cross.

We cannot stifle knowledge or invention.
The ways divide, the choice forever clear:
To drift, and be delivered to destruction,
Or wake, and work, till trust out matches fear.

Come, let us guard the gateway to existence,
That thousands yet may stand where we have stood.
Give thanks for life, and praising our persistence,
Enjoy this lovely earth, and call it good.

Written by Brian Wren copyright 1983 Hope Publishing Co.

DISCIPLINE

2006-08-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

DISCIPLINE FOR SIDEWALK OUTREACH AND PRAYER (Children Deserve Birth)

Dear friend of the unborn, we welcome you and are delighted to have you join our sidewalk outreach and prayer ministry. Because it is critical that we be united in thought, word, and deed, we ask that you please read the following explanation of our adopted discipline. We ask everyone who desires to participate in our ministry to adopt and adhere to the following discipline in its totality.

We go to the abortion sites in pure prayer and, by way of "sidewalk counseling"; we offer practical help to the distressed mothers coming there for abortions.

Our approach is centered on prayer and the conversion of mothers, fathers and abortionists. We go with the mindset of Christ Jesus, with love and with hope to save lives and souls.

By reaching out with love, prayer and practical assistance, we hope to help parents accept and protect the life they have conceived so that their child may be born and loved and that they will not be harmed by the numerous dangers of abortion and be deprived of a lifetime of love from their child.

We follow the way of Christ Jesus, using the overwhelming power of love and prayer, not anger or confrontation.

We believe it is essential that our witness be peaceful, prayerful, and constant. No scorn, abuse or picketing, because scorn and ridicule close off a channel of grace to the very people who need it the most; the mother seeking the abortion and the abortionist who commits it. Therefore we prohibit all forms of demonstration.

We bring only love and prayers. No judgments, conversations, debates, quarrels, signs, pictures, displays, nor any words or images on our clothing.

No one is permitted to stand on any portion of the abortion facility's property or block its entrance or the path of anyone, including passersby, on the sidewalk. Driveways must also remain clear.

We strive to maintain a Christ-like demeanor. A public witness employing true gentleness requires incredible strength. It calls for selfless love and sacrifice. The way of Christ is to use the overwhelming power of love. We must go to those promoting the Culture of Death and let them see in us the face of Christ Jesus. The people who are in darkness must see a light. They must see love, not anger or confrontation. God prizes their souls as highly as each of ours. Christ Jesus shed his blood that they might be saved. No one has ever been won over by abuse and scorn.

The counselors will address the parents as they make their way to the abortion center. They will offer them information about where to go for free counseling and practical assistance, as well as fetal development, adoption, abortion procedures, risks and side effects, and post-abortion counseling and healing. It is surprising that the mother often has not been given much factual information about what happens in an abortion or about the alternatives to abortion. She probably has never been to a pregnancy help center where she would have learned about her child's biological development in her womb, and been helped to understand the details applicable to the various abortion procedures. If the mother decides to go in to see the abortionist anyway, she will be reminded that we will pray for her and be outside waiting if she, like others before her, changes her mind while she is inside and comes back out again. If she proceeds with the killing of her child, we pray for her conversion and healing.

We love the unborn children who are brought there that day. These children have been rejected by their parents and are doomed to die. Through our love, prayers and the efforts of the counselors, we hope many mothers will be converted and choose birth for their children. But for those children who will die, we offer the only human love they may ever encounter in their short lives. We recognize them as our brothers and sisters, welcoming them into the human family. We embrace them spiritually. We stand with them when they die. Our loving presence for the children at the hour of their death comforts the Heart of God because they belong to Him.

We hope for ourselves to become closer to God through experiencing the mystery of his Cross. We deny ourselves comfort and go to experience what Calvary is like. We more clearly realize Christ Jesus' personal love for each one of us, and know the joy of having responded to his call. We offer prayer and penances, and abandon all to God. We see that it is God's power and love which overcomes the evil of abortion and softens the hearts of those who participate. It is the road of relying purely on the power of God’s grace to convert hearts. It is the road of allowing oneself to be a channel of his Grace by one’s presence and witness.

Whether or not a prayer group accompanies the counselors, a strict discipline of prayer is to be maintained. No unnecessary discussion at all is permitted – with the public, or with one another. It is essential that the women arriving for an abortion see a praying people. The only ones who should speak are the designated counselors. They must be allowed to counsel without interruption. No one should yell out or otherwise interfere with their attempts to effectively communicate with whom they are speaking. Every second is critical and what may sound clear to you will only be a confused noise to the women if several people are attempting to speak out.

If a prayer group does accompany the counselors, they must be positioned some distance away from the counselors and the facility's entrance and be together in one place as a unit where they will not be a distraction or threat to the anyone's privacy when they are speaking with a counselor. They must be positioned at the side of the walkway to allow pedestrians to freely pass by. They must conduct themselves in a reverent prayerful manner praying in a low tone or silently. They must not call out to anyone nor hold signs or pictures with the possible exception of a single image of Our Lady of Guadalupe among the group.

The prayers provide spiritual and moral support for the counselors and give their personal love to God's infants who will die that day. They carry on a most important spiritual battle. Before a mother is able to physically abort her child, a 'spiritual abortion' must take place within her heart. By the time she arrives at the abortion center, she will have already rejected her child. This 'spiritual abortion' must be overcome by spiritual means before the mother can change her mind about the physical abortion. By their sacrifice and prayer the prayers call upon the grace of God that is needed to reverse the 'spiritual abortion' while at the same time the counselors are working to prevent the physical abortion of the child.

They pray in a spirit of reparation for their own sins, the sin of abortion, and particularly for the deaths that will occur that day. They pray for the women going into the abortion center, for the abortionists and their staff, for the neighboring community, for the legislators, for the religious leaders of the nation, and for all who, through indifference, do nothing to try to stop abortion.

All participants must resist temptations to talk unnecessarily with one another, respond to remarks or ridicule from bystanders, passersby, or the abortion center's staff, engage in conversation or debate with anyone, and be distracted by surrounding activity.

Our discipline, with the exception of a "life exhibit", is modeled primarily after that of the Helpers of God's Precious Infants. Much of the above explanation has been adapted from Msgr. Philip Reilly’s literature.

Taking Abortion Seriously

2006-08-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

Taking abortion seriously: A philosophical critique of the new anti-abortion rhetorical shift
By Francis J. Beckwith, PHD

Since its genesis in the mid-1960s, the movement against abortion rights (or the "pro-life" movement) has made its case in the public square as well as the courts by emphasizing the humanity of the fetus.1 Its leaders, both popular and academic,2 have maintained that if the fetus3 is a member of the human community, then all the moral obligations and rights that apply to other members of the human community apply to the fetus as well. In order to establish the first half of this conditional premise, pro-lifers have made a case for the fetus's humanity, arguing that the insights of science combined with philosophical reflection lead inexorably to the conclusion that the fetus is a human person.4 Pro-lifers then argue that our legal framework ought to reflect that conclusion by protecting the fetus from unjust harm, which would include, among other things, a prohibition of almost all abortions.5

Recently, however, some pro-life leaders have questioned this strategy.6 They maintain that the humanity of the fetus and the immorality of abortion are not really in dispute among a vast majority of the American populace, whether one's self-description is pro-life, pro-choice, or somewhere in-between.7 Given that, they suggest that the pro-life movement change its rhetorical strategy: instead of merely calling for society to fulfill its moral obligation to protect prenatal persons, the pro-life movement should stress the alleged harm abortion does to women, and for that reason, offer to meet the material and spiritual needs of the pregnant woman who sees abortion as an evil, though necessary, alternative. This shift, proponents believe, will result not only in making abortion rare, but also in making American culture more pro-life.8

I will argue that this new rhetorical strategy (NRS) is flawed in at least three ways: (1) its supporters hastily interpret the public's "moral" condemnation of abortion as consistent with objective morality9 and a pro-life view of the fetus; (2) it may nurture and sustain the moral presuppositions that pro-lifers typically have argued allow for abortion; and (3) it rests on an interpretation of social science data that can be challenged.

None of my comments, however, should be interpreted as a discouragement or criticism of works of mercy performed by those intending to ease the burden of women with unplanned pregnancies. These works should be commended and encouraged. My concern in this essay is with those activists who suggest that such works replace, rather than merely supplement, moral argument and ethical justification.

Because this critique of NRS is philosophical, it will focus on the veracity of premises, the validity of inferences as well as the coherence of conceptual claims of proponents of NRS. In addition, this critique should be seen as largely intramural. That is, since its focus is on a rhetorical strategy whose proponents believe will best change the minds and hearts of their fellow citizens to think more pro-life, my comments and criticisms presuppose the correctness of this goal for the sake of argument. Although the moral and legal question of abortion is an appropriate topic for scholarly debate, it is not the purpose of this paper to take a moral or legal position on abortion qua abortion.

Polling data have consistently shown that a vast majority of people see abortion as wrong, even morally wrong, and they often describe it that way, using words and phrases like "tragic," "a difficult dilemma," "something I would never do," and "a horrible choice." David Reardon, an NRS proponent, points out:

[N]early 80 percent of the public will now admit that abortion involves the destruction of a human life, even though many in this group still believe abortion should be legal. In fact, studies show that at least 70 percent of aborting women believe what they are doing is morally wrong, or at least deviant behavior.10

Nevertheless, both in practice and public discourse many relegate abortion to a question of personal preference, something they do not do when it comes to behaviors they consider serious moral wrongs, such as spousal and child abuse, torture, and human slavery.11 For example, imagine the public's reaction to a politician who said the following: "I am 'personally opposed' to owning a slave and torturing my spouse but if someone thought it consistent with his 'deeply held religious beliefs' to engage in such behaviors it would be wrong for me to try to force my beliefs on that person." A politician having said that would be considered a moral monster. Yet, such language is perfectly acceptable when discussing abortion: "I am 'personally opposed' to abortion but if someone thought it consistent with her 'deeply held religious beliefs' to have an abortion it would be wrong for me to try to force my beliefs on that person." It is clear that even though a vast majority of Americans see abortion as morally wrong and believe that it is the taking of a human life, it is not clear that many in that majority actually consider it a serious moral wrong.

The New Anti-Abortion Strategy: Presentation and Critique

It seems, then, that until the American populace judges abortion as a serious moral wrong, rather than as a mere moral wrong, their opinion on the legal status of abortion will not likely shift in a pro-life direction.12 Yet, supporters of NRS maintain that their strategy can make abortion rare and thus shift public opinion without directly addressing the question of whether abortion is a serious moral wrong.

A. NRS and the Humanity of the Fetus

Frederica Mathewes-Green, a proponent of NRS, argues: "Pro-lifers will not be able to break through this deadlock by stressing the humanity of the unborn... [T]hat is a question nobody is asking. But there is a question they are asking. It is, 'How could we live without it?' The problem is not moral but practical: in this wrecked, off-center world, where women are expected simultaneously to be sexually available and to maintain careers, unplanned pregnancies seem both inevitable and catastrophic."13

But if Mathewes-Green is correct about people's view of the fetus (and there is good reason to believe she is not correct), then far from demonstrating her point, she has shown us that those who support abortion rights and yet concede the full humanity of the fetus and the moral wrongness of abortion are either sociopaths (i.e., they willingly and without conscience permit and sometimes engage in what they know to be a serious moral wrong), morally untutored (i.e., the pro-life movement has not carefully explained the logic of conceding the full humanity of the fetus), or do not really appreciate the logical problem of asserting that one has a moral right (i.e., abortion is morally permissible) to do a moral wrong (i.e., abortion is morally impermissible).4 But this is as far away from a practical problem as one could imagine. A practical problem is something like this: how can we make ends meet on only one paycheck. A practical problem is not: if only society's expectations were modified, I would not have to kill my unborn offspring. This is a deeply moral problem that reveals something about a person's character. After all, even if NRS results in reducing the number of abortions (and there is no reason to suppose that it would), it may have the unfortunate consequence of sustaining and perhaps increasing the number of people who think that unless their needs are pacified they are perfectly justified in performing homicide on those members of the human community, who pro-lifers believe, are the most vulnerable of our population. It is difficult to imagine that any reflective pro-lifer would think society would be morally better off in such a state of affairs.

Relying on a study commissioned by the Caring Foundation, a pro-life group that produces television spots that try to address the concerns of pregnant women, NRS defender Paul Swope writes:

When a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, her main question is not "Is this a baby?" -- with the assumed consequence that if she knows it to be so she will choose life. Women know, though often at the subconscious level, that the fetus is human, and that it will be killed by abortion. But that is the price a woman in that situation is willing to pay in her desperate struggle for what she believes to be her very survival. Emphasis on babies, whether dismembered fetuses or happy newborns, will tend to deepen the woman's sense of denial, isolation, and despair, the very emotions that will lead her to choose abortion.15

Her central, perhaps subconscious, question is rather, "How can I preserve my own life?" The pro-life movement must address her side of the equation, and do so in a compassionate manner that affirms her own inner convictions. Without stigmatizing or condemning, pro-lifers must help a woman to reevaluate what she perceives the three "evils" before her.16

Of course, all that Swope says about women considering abortion can also be said of Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who, in an attempt to please a boyfriend who did not want children, plunged her car into a lake with both her two young boys buckled in. Perhaps she is now reflecting in prison: "That is the price in that situation I was willing to pay in my desperate struggle for what I believed to be my very survival." Thus, if one were to apply Swope's analysis of abortion to infanticide, one would have to conclude that if there were less condemning and stigmatizing of parents who kill their infants, there would be fewer Susan Smiths. However, if Swope is mistaken about what women contemplating abortion think of the moral status of their fetuses, then there is no analogy.

The study cited by Swope "suggests that women do not see any 'good' resulting from unplanned pregnancy. Instead they must weigh what they perceive as three 'evils,' namely, motherhood, adoption, and abortion."17 But Swope's inference is hastily drawn, for he does not entertain the possibility that the reason why these women choose only to kill their fetuses (if they choose to abort) rather than their already born children, if they have any, suggests that he and Mathewes-Green are mistaken about "the question nobody is asking" After all, if the pregnant woman thought of herself as a mother while contemplating pregnancy termination, rather than seeing motherhood like she sees adoption or abortion (which Swope himself admits is the case), a state of affairs that may or may not occur in the future, perhaps abortions would be as rare as Susan Smith-type occurrences. But they are not. Thus, it seems reasonable to infer that NRS supporters are mistaken. That is to say, pregnant women seeking abortions generally do not see their fetuses on the same moral plane as they see either themselves or their already born children.

B. Social Science or Moral Philosophy?

One can question whether the research done by NRS proponents are examples of good social science, and whether the inferences they draw from these data are warranted.

In her Real Choices Project, Mathewes-Green set out to discover the practical reasons why women had abortions, then based on those findings, she believes, pro-lifers can then try to meet the needs of women in crisis pregnancies so that the number of abortions can be reduced. The project collected its data from postabortion listening groups as well as a survey distributed to 1,860 pro-life pregnancy centers. Pro-choice groups were invited but declined to participate. Only 10 percent of the surveys were completed and returned.18

It is doubtful whether such a study will result in accurate information about most women who have abortions. First, the surveys were distributed to pro-life pregnancy centers, institutions whose clients may not be representative of all women who receive abortions. Second, the women who attended the listening groups were most likely more hurt and more highly motivated to share their experiences than those women who had abortions but chose not to attend such groups because they may not have suffered as significantly (or at all) in comparison to the participants.

Swope confidently infers from the Caring Foundation study that "the pro-life movement's own self-chosen slogans and educational presentations have tended to exacerbate the problem, as they focus almost exclusively on the unborn child, not the mother. This tends to build resentment, not sympathy, particularly among women of child-bearing age."19 Swope attempts to justify this ambitious conclusion by appealing to both the data that resulted from this study as well as one of the study's objectives. Of the latter, Swope writes:

One objective of the research was to answer a question that has baffled prolife activists for some time. How can women, and the public in general, be comfortable with being against abortion personally but in favor of keeping it legal? Because pro-lifers find it morally obvious that one cannot simultaneously hold that "abortion is killing" and "abortion should be legal," they have tended to assume that people need only be shown more clearly that the fetus is a baby. They assume that if the humanity of the unborn is understood, the consequent moral imperative, "killing a baby is wrong," will naturally follow, and women will choose life for their unborn children. This orientation has framed much of the argument by pro-lifers for over two decades, with frustratingly little impact.20

Several problems with this objective come to mind. (1)The pro-life argument is not that abortion is wrong because it kills a baby, but rather, abortion is morally wrong because it kills a human person who is not yet a baby but still a fully human person. For the pro-lifer, the term "baby" is like the terms "adult" and "adolescent." It merely labels a particular stage in human development. If Swope is right about the pro-life argument, then the argument itself, ironically, may be the reason it has apparently not worked: since it is obvious to most people that a fetus is not a baby (a label we ordinarily assign to newborns not preborns), a woman seeking an abortion, thanks to this "pro-life" argument, can have the abortion without believing she is killing a bonafide member of the human community. She likely knows that abortion is killing something, but thanks to a confused premise of this "pro-life" argument, she knows what is being killed is not yet a baby, because she knows on independent grounds that a fetus is not a baby (just as she knows an infant is not an adult). For the term "baby" is typically associated with a postnatal human being who is named, cuddled, brought home and sometimes christened, none of which is experienced by the typical fetus. Thus, in most people's way of looking at things, a fetus is not a baby. (2) It is unclear how Swope knows that the traditional pro-life argument has had little impact. It may be that because of the cultural, legal, and moral condition with which the pro-life movement has had to work, it has done remarkably well, and its impact has been extraordinary. Perhaps the presence and activism of the prolife movement has kept certain segments of the public (e.g., evangelicals, conservative Roman Catholics) largely pro-life, and for that reason, the movement has a fighting chance to change the minds of people over the next 40 to 50 years. Swope does not have counterfactual knowledge of how the world would have been if the pro-life movement had not emphasized fetal humanity from its genesis. Swope cannot, therefore, possibly know what he claims he knows.

Swope cites data that apparently show a shift in abortion attitudes in specific geographical locations throughout the United States after the Caring Foundation's television ads were broadcast (These television ads attempt to address the "three evils" cited by Swope by trying to persuade viewers that not having an abortion is in the pregnant woman's self-interest.21). Although an analysis of the accuracy of the data is important, I want to focus on Swope's claim that he can infer from the data that the population surveyed are becoming more pro-life.

Swope speaks throughout his essay about those interviewed having a "prolife sentiment," holding a "pro-life position," and moving in a "pro-life direction." Yet, he never defines precisely what these phrases mean and how one could know that someone's beliefs are consistent with them. Consider, for example, the following statements:

a. Abortion is immoral
b. Abortion should be illegal
c. The fetus is as much a human person as an ordinary adult or infant.
d. The fetus is human.
e. Abortion is generally not good for women.

Suppose someone provided the above answers to a Caring Foundation pollster inquiring about that person's moral and legal view of abortion. One interpretation of these answers is that they are confirmation of a "pro-life sentiment." Yet, they are all consistent with some version of a non-pro-life viewpoint. As evidence of this, consider a'-e' in which each statement in a-e is coupled with a nonpro-life sentiment (in bold lettering) that is consistent with the apparent pro-life statement with which it is paired:

a' Abortion is immoral, but it ought to remain legal.
b' Abortion should be illegal, but not because the fetus is a human person, but because it will likely be psychologically harmful to the woman.
c' The fetus is as much a human person as an ordinary adult or infant, but that is my personal religious belief and it would be wrong for me to force that belief on others.
d' The fetus is human, but not fully human like an ordinary adult or child who has a right to life. Thus, abortion ought to remain legal.
e' Abortion is generally not good for women, but not because the fetus is a full human person, but because the abortion disrupts something what is natural and good for the expectant mother. Even so, abortion should remain legal.

Thus, what Swope interprets as a "pro-life sentiment" may not be pro-life at all, for those giving the answers may be judging abortion as bad or wrong under the assumption that moral judgments are merely personal, relative, and subjective, a view that seems to be in ascendancy these days.22 For example, a typical pro-lifer or traditional moralist (which could easily be a supporter of abortion rights)23 assumes that when a person says "X is morally wrong" he means that "X ought not be done by anyone including myself." Yet, for the relativist, "X is wrong" may mean "X does not please me" or "X is not something I would do" or "I would prefer that others not do X, but who am I to judge?" In sum, it is nearly impossible for one to interpret a person's answers as consistent with a "prolife sentiment" unless one has knowledge of the person's background beliefs (e.g.., Is she a moral relativist?), worldview commitments (e.g., Are all humans persons or do some have more personhood than others?), and/or level of ethical sophistication (i.e., Does she really know what it means to say something is morally wrong? That is, does she understand the logic of morals and apply it consistently?).

There are several general problems with Swope's defense of NRS. First, perhaps Swope's approach seems to bring out apparent pro-life sentiments in the populations he studies because the pro-life movement's historical emphasis on fetal humanity has made Swope's message much easier to receive. Thus, the impact of the Caring Foundation's ads may be largely the result of a culture having heard in other venues what Swope thinks has had virtually no impact.

Second, even if Swope's approach "works" in terms of reducing the number of abortions, it does not follow that the culture is becoming more accepting of the pro-life perspective. That is, Swope's emphasis on appealing to the pregnant woman's self-interest to persuade her not to have an abortion may result in nurturing and sustaining a philosophical mindset that is consistent with abortion's moral permissibility even if abortion may actually become rarer in practice. According to Swope:

Using language and imagery that will attract rather than alienate, the pro-life movement must show that abortion is actually not in a woman's own selfinterest, and that the choice of life offers hope and a positive expanded sense of self.24

Although an appeal to self-interest may persuade some women not to have abortions, it is not clear how the choice not to abort under that pretense is equivalent to moral conversion and intellectual assent to the pro-life perspective. After all, if a 19th-century American slave owner chose to free his kidnapped Africans because he was persuaded to believe that it was not in his self-interest to continue owning them, such an act, though good insofar as sparing the slaves a tremendous indignity, would not be equivalent to the slave owner being converted to the belief that no person by nature is property and thus ought not to be owned by another. It would be, in other words, wrong to conclude on the basis of the slave owner's act of liberation that he had become a converted abolitionist. Since the pro-life position, as we have seen, is based on the belief that fetuses are full members of the human community and ought not to be killed by anyone without justification, being persuaded not to have an abortion would not be equivalent to moral conversion and intellectual assent to the pro-life perspective.

Moreover, there are clearly some cases where abortion may be in the pregnant woman's self-interest.25 Given his emphasis on self-interest, Swope has no principled argument against that sort of abortion. Nurturing an apparently unprincipled self-interested populace does not seem consistent with what pro-life activists would conceive as a pro-life culture, even if it results in fewer abortions. After all, Swope and his allies admit that what is doing much of the moral work in the minds of women contemplating abortion is self-interest. Given that admission, it is not clear why they see that as a character trait to massage rather than as an impulse that needs to be disciplined by the exercise of moral judgment. Since the pro-life position affirms that one ought not to have an abortion in virtually every circumstance even if you judge it to be in your self-interest, it seems counter-intuitive for the defenders of NRS to want to provide a cultural environment hospitable to the moral primacy of self-interest.

Third, Swope (along with Mathewes-Green and Reardon)26 admits that women who have abortions oftentimes rationalize what they are doing. Given that, how can Swope and his allies trust these women to give an adequate selfassessment of their own reasons for having an abortion, when these proponents of NRS admit that these reasons are the result of the rationalized deliberations of self-interested moral agents?27

It seems, then, that the findings of social science, without the resources of moral philosophy, are not an adequate ground on which to base the pro-life cause. At the end of day, it is probably the case, as I noted earlier in this paper, that the proponents of NRS are mistaken about the public's opinion of the fetus. It is likely that many people believe that the fetus is human (in some primitive though incomplete sense), but not fully human; they see abortion as a moral wrong, but not as a serious moral wrong. Ironically, the data cited by Swope, Reardon, and Mathewes-Green28 seem to indicate this as well: a majority of Americans believe abortion is killing as well as morally wrong, yet they believe it should be legal. But this does not tell us whether Americans believe abortion is a serious moral wrong (i.e., unjustified homicide). After all, there are many moral wrongs (e.g., adultery, lying to friends) that many people believe should not be prohibited by law. It is likely that they think the same about abortion.

Conclusion

NRS supporters seem to be saying that the only way to persuade the general public that abortion is a serious moral wrong is for the pro-life movement to show that many women suffer (either psychologically, physically, or both) as the result of the process of choosing as well as having an abortion, and that pro-lifers deeply care about and have compassion for these women.29 Such a strategy may very well result in fewer abortions, but it is not clear that it will result in the cultural change of mind, the intellectual assent and moral conversion, that pro-lifers desire. After all, from a strictly moral point of view, abortion is not a serious moral wrong just because the woman suffers and/or because it is not in her selfinterest to have an abortion. For many abortions do not result in gratuitous suffering or harm to the women who have them, and clearly no pro-lifer would want to say that those abortions are morally benign.30 In addition, doing good may require that one suffer more than if one did either evil or no good at all. That is, suffering may or may not accompany the committing of a serious moral wrong, and sometimes suffering accompanies that which is morally obligatory or permissible or has no moral aspect whatsoever. It seems, therefore, that the proponents of NRS confuse "feeling good" with "doing good."

References

1 See the essays by pro-life, pro-choice and moderate thinkers in parts V and VI of Louis P. Pojman and Francis J. Beckwith, eds., The Abortion Controversy 25 Years After Roe v. Wade: A Reader, 2nd ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998)

2 See, for example, Randy Alcorn, Pro-life Answers to Pro-choice Questions (Eugene, OR: Multnomah, 1992); Hadley Arkes, First Things: An Inquiry Into the First Principles of Morals and Justice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), chs. 16, 17; Francis J. Beckwith, Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993); Patrick Lee, Abortion and Unborn Human Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996); Stephen Schwarz, The Moral Question of Abortion (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990); and Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke, Abortion: Questions and Answers, rev. ed. (Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing, 1988).

3 I am using the term "fetus" in the popular sense as synonymous with "unborn." I am not using it in the technical sense of referring to the last stage in prenatal development after zygote and embryo. In other words, I am using the word fetus to refer to the unborn entity at all stages of its development prior to birth.

4 Examples of this approach are Beckwith, Politically Correct Death; Lee, Abortion; Dianne Nutwell Irving, Philosophical and Scientific Analysis of the Early Human Embryo (PhD dissertation, Philosophy Department, Georgetown University, 1991); J.P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae, Body and Soul (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000); and Schwarz, The Moral Question of Abortion.

5 There are some who challenge the claim that the nature of the fetus is what is doing, or ought to be doing, the moral work in the disagreement over abortion. (For defenses of this perspective, see Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion," Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 [1971]; Frances M. Kamm, Creation and Abortion: A Study in Moral and Legal Philosophy [New York: Oxford, 1992]; Eileen McDonagh, Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent [New York: Oxford, 1996]; Lawrence Tribe, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (New York: Norton, 1990), ch. 6; and David Boonin-Vail, "A Defense of 'A Defense of Abortion': On the Responsibility Objection to Thomson's Argument," Ethics 107.2 [January 1997]. For replies to this perspective, see Francis J. Beckwith, "Personal Bodily Rights, Abortion, and Unplugging the Violinist," International Philosophical Quarterly 32 [1992]; Lee, Abortion, chapter 4; Keith Pavlischek, "Abortion Logic and Paternal Responsibilities: One More Look at Judith Thomson's Argument and a Critique of David Boonin-Vail's Defense of It," in The Abortion Controversy; and John T. Wilcox, "Nature as Demonic in Thomson's Defense of Abortion," The New Scholasticism 63 [Autumn 1989]). Although this is an important and influential perspective, it fall s outside the scope of this essay. For the focus of this discussion is the prolife movement and its call for ultimately making most abortions illegal. In order for the pro-life movement to accomplish this, it must directly respond to the conditional challenge put forth by Justice Harry Blackmun in Roe v. Wade: "The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a 'person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the wellknown facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment."(Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113, 157-58 [1973]). Consequently, the political and legal reality is that fetal personhood is doing all the moral work, even though some moral philosophers and legal and political theorists argue that it does not and/or should not.

6 See Paul Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," First Things 82 (April 1998); Frederic MathewesGreen, Real Choices: Offering Practical, Life-Affirming Alternatives to Abortion (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1994); and David C. Reardon, Making Abortion Rare: A Healing Strategy for a Divided Nation (Springfield, IL: Acorn Books, 1996).

7 I use the labels "pro-life" and "pro-choice" out of courtesy to those who prefer this self-description of their stance on abortion. Although in some contexts they are rhetorically powerful labels, they are not really very informative about either perspective. After all, the pro-choice advocate does not deny that human persons have a right to life. He just believes that this right to life is not extended to fetuses since they are not human persons and/or they are not entitled to the use of the pregnant woman's bodily resources. The pro-life advocate does not deny that people have the liberty to make choices that they believe are in their best interests. She just believes that this liberty does not entail the right to choose abortion since such a choice conflicts with the life, liberty, and interests of another human person (the fetus), which is defenseless, weak, and vulnerable, and has a natural claim upon its parents' care, both pre- and post-natally.

8 See Reardon, Making Abortion Rare, especially chs. 1-3. Reardon, for example, writes: "The solution to this bad publicity [for the pro-life movement] is to always-ALWAYS-place our arguments for the unborn in the middle of a pro-woman sandwich. Our compassion for the women must be voiced both first and last in all our arguments, and in a manner which shows that our concern for woman is a primary and integral part of our opposition to abortion." (Ibid., 26).

9 "Objective morality," the opposite of moral relativism, is the view that there exist unchanging moral truths that apply to all persons, in all times, and in all places. For a critique of moral relativism and a defense of moral objectivism, see Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory P. Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998). For a classic defense of moral relativism, see Ruth Benedict, "A Defense of Moral Relativism," in Do the Right Thing: A Philosophical Dialogue on the Moral and Social Issues of Our Time, ed. Francis J. Beckwith (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1996).

10 Reardon, Making Abortion Rare, ix. Although it is not entirely clear from the text, the statistics cited by Reardon seem to come from two sources he sites elsewhere in his book: (1) A 1990 Gallup poll of over 2,000 adults conducted by social scientists James Davison Hunter and Carl Bowman (See James Davison Hunter, Before the Shoot Starts: Searching for Democracy in America's Cultural War [New York: The Free Press, 19941, 93), in which they found that "77 % of the public believe abortion is the taking of a human life, with 49% equating it with murder. Only 16% claim to believe that abortion is only a 'surgical procedure for removing human tissue.' Even one-third of those who describe themselves as strongly pro-choice concede that abortion is the taking of a human life" (Reardon, Making Abortion Rare, 188). (2) A March 19, 1989 Los Angeles Times "poll that found that 65% of those who favor legalized abortion and 74% of those who have had an abortion, believe abortion is morally wrong" (Ibid.)

11 A 2000 poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times seems to reflect this, even though the numbers seem to be drifting in an anti-abortion direction:

Despite the increasing level of discomfort with the high court's ruling-43% of current survey respondents express support for Roe, compared with 56% in 1991-the poll shows continued opposition to a constitutional ban on abortion.

Individual opinions about abortion are rife with ambivalence, the poll suggests. Many respondents express positions that on their surface appear to contradict each other but, upon exploration, reveal two strong but competing sets of feelings....

More than half of those surveyed say abortion should either be illegal in all circumstances or legal only in cases of rape, incest or when a woman's life is in danger. At the same time, more than two-thirds say that, regardless of their own feelings on the subject, the highly personal decision to obtain an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.

Even more striking, while 57% of respondents say they consider abortion to be murder, more than half of that group agree that a woman should have the right to choose an abortion.

(Alissa J. Rubin, "Americans Narrowing Support for Abortion Times Poll: Results reveal a conflicted stance-they think it's murder yet lean toward leaving the choice to women. Still, support increases for limiting the procedure's availability," Los Angeles Times [June 18, 2000]. As found at www.latimes.com)

12 It should be noted that a telephone survey-conducted in mid-1998 by Princeton Survey Research Associates for the pro-choice Center for Gender Equality-shows an apparent pro-life shift in the opinions of American women. According to one author, this poll "found that 53 percent of American women favor prohibiting abortion either altogether or with exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. A lot of people were shocked by this finding. They shouldn't have been. It's consistent with polls pro-life groups have been doing for years; a Christian Coalition poll taken the same week had an identical result." (Ramesh Ponnuru, "Not Dead Yet: The Pro-Life Movement is Winning," National Review [17 May 1999], as found at www.nationalreview.com/feature/feature.html). The number of 53 percent is an 8 percent shift away from a pro-choice sentiment in a poll done two years prior. According to Diane Colasanto of Princeton Survey Research Associates, "The changes on abortion are pretty dramatic." The president of the Center for Gender Equity, Faye Wattleton, in a a teleconference with reporters, said, "We find some of the findings very disturbing." (From the Jan. 28, 1999 edition of The Pro-life Infonet, an online daily compilation of pro-life news and educational information maintained and edited by Steven Ertelt [ertelt@pro-life.org]. It is sponsored by Women and Children First [www.pro-life.org/wcfl.)

13 Mathewes-Green, Real Choices, 32.

14 For a philosophical analysis of the question of whether one can have a moral right to do a moral wrong, see Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), chs. 3 and 4; Arkes, First Things, chs. 1-4.

15 Swope is Northwest Project Director of the Caring Foundation.

16 Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," 33

17 Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," 32

18 See Mathewes-Green, Real Choices, 11-26.

19 Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," 33

20 Ibid., 31-32.

21 Here are some examples of these ads (from Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," 33-34):

[A woman is in front of a nice house, raking leaves. She says good-bye to her daughter, then turns to the viewer.] "I was sixteen when I found out that I was pregnant with Carrie. I wasn't married and I was really scared. You know, some people today think that I should have had an abortion, but it never occurred to me that I had that choice, just because it wasn't convenient for me. Hey, I'm no martyr, but I really can't believe I had a choice after I was pregnant."

[A woman rises from her bed, the clock showing 3:00 am. She goes to the window, staring into the black, rainy night. She stands silently, as a female voice speaks.1 "They said you wouldn't be bothered by a voice calling for you in the night....There would be no trail of cereal through the house, no spills or stray toys. The clock ticks. All is calm. And you realize, there is still a voice. If you've faced the pain of an abortion, call 1-800 ......

[A young woman sits by a fireplace, facing the camera.) "You know, I used to be pro-choice, and then something happened to me-I had a baby of my own. When I was pregnant I finally realized that all this little kid was trying to do was make it, just make it, just like all of us. So I haven't figured it all out yet, but why, when I wanted the baby, it was my baby, and why I didn't, it was something else? Think about it."

22 Professor Marianne Jennings, director of Arizona State's Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, writes that "today's college students, trained as moral relativists, are perplexed at best by universal rules. Among Americans in the 18-34 age group, 79% believe that there are no absolute standards in ethics, according to a survey conducted in 1997 by Lutheran Brotherhood, an insurance company. A recent poll of M.B.A. students conducted by a pair of business professors found that 73% would hire a competitor's employee to obtain trade secrets. The same survey found that only 60% of convicted criminals would do so." (Marianne M. Jennings, "Business Students Who Hate Business," The Wall Street Journal [3 May 1999]: A22). For a philosophical critique of moral relativism, see Beckwith and Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air.

23 Take, for example, Louis P. Pojman, a defender of abortion rights as well as a strong critic of moral relativism. See Louis P. Pojman, " The Case for Moral Objectivism," in Do the Right Thing; and Louis P. Pojman, "Abortion: A Defense of the Personhood Argument," in The Abortion Controversy.

24 Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," 35

25 See the personal stories of women who believe that legal abortion is a benefit to them and others: Ellen Messer and Kathryn E. May, Back Rooms: Voices from the Illegal Abortion Era (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1994; reprint of 1988 edition by St. Martin's Press); and Suzanne T. Poppema, MD and Mike Henderson, Why I Am an Abortion Doctor (Amherst, NY. Prometheus, 1996) This poses a problem for the NRS supporters: why don't pro-choice stories count against the pro-life position? After all, if persuading people of the wrongness of abortion is contingent upon the personal liability to the aborting woman, on what nonjudgmental grounds could the NRS supporters say that an abortion is wrong if the woman and her physician claims that it benefits her?

26 See Mathewes-Green, Real Choices, especially 11-60. Reardon calls this rationalization "self-deception." See his essay, "Women Who Abortion: Their Reflections on the Unborn," in The Silent Subject: Reflections on the Unborn in American Culture, ed. Brad Stetson (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 143-146 As we have seen, Swope admits to this rationalization when he writes that aborting women see before them three evilsmotherhood, adoption, and abortion-and oftentimes see the latter as the best way to preserve the self, their highest good. Of course, if Swope is correct that these women "know" that abortion is killing a human person, the aborting woman's reasoning does not result in moral justification for the abortion, but is merely an attempt to rationalize a serious moral wrong. But given that, it is not clear how Swope knows that these women are giving him correct information about their decision making, for they may be again engaging in rationalization while being interviewed by Caring Foundation researchers.

27 In fact, Mathewes-Green dismisses the testimonies of women who have had abortions when those testimonies do not fit her theory. She writes: "Becky says that if she had known the facts of fetal development, of how the baby grows in the womb, that would have stopped her. If she had only known that it was really her baby in there, she would have done anything to give it life. The other women agree vociferously. Knowledge of their unborn children would have weighted to one side of the scale more than anything the other side could present. The pain of years of grief now resolved, these women have bonded with their longdead children, and the maternal urge to protect one's offspring is strong. They cannot imagine anything standing in the way of bringing those children to life. I am impressed with the light in their eyes, the healing won after such piercing pain, and the wholeness these women now seem to show. But, at the same time, I question whether their viewpoint is prevalent among women at the beginning of the journey, those just now considering abortion. I am skeptical of the belief that the facts of fetal development alone will be convincing in most cases. I wonder whether, given the original desperate situations, it would have even been sufficient for those women who face them now." (Mathewes-Green, Real Choices, 42-43). It seems that Mathewes-Green is missing the key moral premise presupposed in her discussion with these women: killing persons without justification is wrong. What Becky is saying is that if she had been fully informed of her unborn child's personhood, she would not have had the abortion. That is, she, like the other women, understands the logic of morals. But if not for the moral premise and what follows for its practical application, the facts of fetal development would have made no difference, just as the facts of human anatomy would have not influenced the decision-making and subsequent, now infamous, actions of O.J. Simpson, Susan Smith, and Ted Bundy.

28 See Swope, "Abortion: A Failure to Communicate," 31-32; Reardon, Making Abortion Rare, ch. 2; and Mathewes-Green, Real Choices, ch. 1.

29 1 am not implying by this that pro-lifers currently lack compassion and/or do not engage in acts of mercy in support of women in crisis pregnancies. I am simply restating the position of NRS supporters.

30 Reardon asserts that "because every abortion hurts a woman, as well as her child, we can defend every unborn child by defending the best interests of the mother, knowing that her best interests are never served by abortion." (Reardon, Making Abortion Rare, 13). Putting aside the ambiguity of the term "best interests" (which Reardon interchangably uses with "self-interest"), it is difficult to know how such a claim could ever be proved empirically or even whether it is prima facie morally correct from a pro-life perspective (e.g., abortion to save the life of the mother, as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, seems morally unobjectionable to most pro-lifers). Yet, in another context, when chiding the abortion industry, Reardon condemns self-interest: "Abortion counseling is biased by financial self-interest, paternalism, psychological need, and social concerns which extend beyond the personal needs of the individual patient." (ibid., 79). Evidently, if a woman owns an abortion clinic, her self-interest should be condemned and thwarted so that the good may be pursued (i.e., making sure that abortions do not occur at that clinic), but if that very same woman is contemplating having an abortion at that very same clinic, her self-interest should be nurtured by pro-life counselors so that the good may be pursued (i.e., making sure she does not undergo an abortion at that clinic).

Francis J. Beckwith is Associate Professor of Church-State Studies (tenured), Baylor University, where he teaches courses in the departments of philosophy and political science as well as the Institute of Church-State Studies. A Fellow and Faculty Affiliate in Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR), he served as Associate Director of Baylor's Institute of Church-State Studies from July 2003 until January 2007.

Source: http://homepage.mac.com/francis.beckwith/EM.pdf

Posted here with the author's kind permission.

Ultimately a Life is a Life

2006-08-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

Ultimately a life is a life, no matter expedient definitions
by Bishop Robert Vasa

A number of years ago I was introduced to a philosophy book which continues to be a source of challenging reading for me.It is not the kind of book that one picks up and reads leisurely over a weekend and then sets aside forever. It is one that needs to be read and reread, chewed on, digested, grappled with and implemented. The title is Healing the Culture by Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, now president of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. The subtitle is "A commonsense philosophy of happiness, freedom and the life issues."

I suspect all of you who are regular readers of this column will come to the immediate conclusion that my reference to this work at this time is directly connected to Jan. 22, 1973. In that you would be entirely correct.

The book is about life, human life, not only the biological elements of that life, but especially the metaphysical elements.

Now I must confess that I never thought I would ever use the word metaphysical in any of my writings, but the introduction to Father Spitzer's book has given me the courage to do so. What is meant by the word "metaphysical"? Father Spitzer gives a very commonsense working definition: "Metaphysics seeks to understand the ground, indeed, the ultimate ground of reality."

It is an in-depth exploration of that upon which we stand and most often take for granted. It is an examination of that which is beyond the physical. It is a quest to understand what a thing, or a person, really is.

Father Spitzer uses the example of an acorn, and I think it is a very good example. A skilled artist can certainly produce a nearly perfect replica. This replica would look, weigh and feel like an acorn but clearly it would not be an acorn.

We understand that there is some innate and intangible quality of an acorn, a part of what might be termed its is-ness, that differentiates the real acorn from its artistic imitation. The artistic imitation acorn could be planted and watered, but it would never grow to be an oak tree; it would not ever even sprout! This is simply because it is not an acorn.

A real acorn by contrast possesses within itself, as a hidden and intangible part of its present reality, an internal and hidden life principle that if allowed to properly develop can grow to be an oak tree. As Father Spitzer notes: "There is not only a power to act within the acorn; there is also a power to direct development in a systematic, intelligible way toward a perfection that has not yet been realized. This power, and even the information necessary to direct it, must be real now in order for development to occur now."

Hopefully, we know the difference between a real acorn and the artistic representation of one. The more important question, with a most unfortunate answer, is whether we, or others in our culture know the difference between a real embryo (what or who, he or she really is) and the politically determined declaration of what or who he or she seems to be.

Again as Father Spitzer notes: "The seeming unreality of intrinsic dignity, personhood, and inalienable rights (now completely dependent upon our generous collective will) led to the declaration that the personhood of the embryo is an irrelevant question. Embryos and persons did not seem real outside of our collective declaration. Therefore, we needed to consult some experts to find out whether or not we should declare human embryos to be persons.

When the experts declared that personhood was a very confusing term (not having any real correlate) and subsequently decided that we should not declare human embryos to be persons (because it seemed to reflect our political will), we eradicated the reality of both personhood and embryo in one fell swoop."

The collective declaration, made for all of us by the Supreme Court on Jan. 22, is the equivalent of declaring that an acorn (a real acorn and not the fake artistic representation) is not already a participant in and a member of the oak family.

Such declarations, no matter how well intentioned, have no power to change the internal, intrinsic, metaphysical reality. A thing is what it is. A person is a person even if the Supreme Court says that he or she is not.

The problem with a culture that focuses on external appearance, what a thing appears or seems to be, is that we lose very quickly a reverence or respect for the true depth and beauty and dignity and mystery of the thing perceived. Father Spitzer uses the example from Time magazine of February of 1993 that proclaimed that even love was a "biological affair."

The claim was that love, apart from the wondrously challenging, freely chosen and given expression of care for another, was really simply a combination of evolutionary roots, brain imprints and biological secretions.

As Father Spitzer comments: "Hence, we were all relieved to learn that love is a chemical, because chemicals, after all, are visible, tangible, and even analyzable by various scientific instruments. Whew. We rescued the reality of love.

Unfortunately, we had to undervalue seriously what love is and its worth in order to restore it to reality." Such is the world or culture cut off from its true metaphysical moorings.

The Supreme Court justices made declarations on Jan. 22 but in doing so they changed nothing of the metaphysical realities. The acorn they declared not to be an acorn is still an acorn.

The right to privacy, which they declared to supercede a right to life of a pre-born, still stands as necessarily subservient to that child's right to life.

The value of the life of the pre-born child, which they declared to be somehow inferior, in reality, to the value of the life of the mother, still has a value, though not civilly recognized, equivalent to the value of the life of the mother.

Human life still begins when it begins irrespective of whether the Court accurately declares or recognizes when it begins or not -- it has its own reality.

There is a metaphysical reality in the midst of which we all live, and we can either be in contact with that metaphysical reality and try to live in accord with it, or we can choose to live in a quasi-fictitious, fantasy world of our own creating where things mean exactly and only what we declare them to mean and where things are exactly and only what we declare them to be.

In such a world, despite abundant declarations to the contrary, a real acorn would still grow and an artistic imitation acorn would not.

This electronic newsletter may be duplicated, reproduced or retransmitted only in its entirety. Excerpts used for the purposes of quotation must be attributed explicitly to Bishop Robert Vasa and the Catholic Sentinel. Contact us at (503) 281-1191 (Portland area) - (800) 548-8749 (outside Portland) Email: info@sentinel.org

San Diego Helpers

2006-08-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

Helpers of God’s Precious Infants

San Diego

Click here to enter

Postfertilization Effect of Hormonal Emergency Contraception

2006-08-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Annals of Pharmacotherapy: Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 465–470.

Postfertilization Effect of Hormonal Emergency Contraception
Chris Kahlenborn, Joseph B Stanford, and Walter L Larimore

OBJECTIVE: To assess the possibility of a postfertilization effect in regard to the most common types of hormonal emergency contraception (EC) used in the US and to explore the ethical impact of this possibility.

DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SELECTION: A MEDLINE search (1966–November 2001) was done to identify all pertinent English-language journal articles. A review of reference sections of the major review articles was performed to identify additional articles. Search terms included emergency contraception, postcoital contraception, postfertilization effect, Yuzpe regimen, levonorgestrel, mechanism of action, Plan B.

DATA SYNTHESIS: The 2 most common types of hormonal EC used in the US are the Yuzpe regimen (high-dose ethinyl estradiol with high-dose levonorgestrel) and Plan B (high-dose levonorgestrel alone). Although both methods sometimes stop ovulation, they may also act by reducing the probability of implantation, due to their adverse effect on the endometrium (a postfertilization effect). The available evidence for a postfertilization effect is moderately strong, whether hormonal EC is used in the preovulatory, ovulatory, or postovulatory phase of the menstrual cycle.

CONCLUSIONS: Based on the present theoretical and empirical evidence, both the Yuzpe regimen and Plan B likely act at times by causing a postfertilization effect, regardless of when in the menstrual cycle they are used. These findings have potential implications in such areas as informed consent, emergency department protocols, and conscience clauses.

Please click here to read the entire paper.

The text below is only an extract of the section titled SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS:
The evidence to date supports the contention that use of EC does not always inhibit ovulation even if used in the preovulatory phase, and that it may unfavorably alter the endometrial lining regardless of when in the cycle it is used, with the effect persisting for days. The reduced rates of observable pregnancy compared with the expected rates in women who use hormonal EC in the preovulatory, ovulatory, or postovulatory phase are consistent with a postfertilization effect, which may occur when hormonal EC is used in any of these menstrual phases.

This interpretation of the cited literature has important ramifications, given the polarizing opinions about EC use. For example, many state laws contain conscience clauses in which medical personnel (e.g., physicians, pharmacists, nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners) cannot be forced to participate in, or refer for, any surgical or drug-induced abortions. Therefore, evidence in favor of a postfertilization effect may have legal implications for healthcare providers who either prescribe or have objections to prescribing these agents.

Emergency department protocols could also be impacted by evidence of a postfertilization effect. For example, emergency departments of Catholic hospitals usually allow either no use of hormonal EC in their rape protocols or limited use (i.e., preovulatory use of hormonal EC). Catholic hospitals that do allow hormonal EC use prior to ovulation may wish to reassess their policies given the findings that EC use does not consistently stop ovulation and has the potential of causing a postfertilization effect even when used prior to ovulation. Most large secular hospitals have fewer limitations on the use of hormonal EC as part of their rape protocols. Nevertheless, evidence of a postfertilization effect from use of hormonal EC is important to physicians who must make a moral decision about prescribing or referring for a drug that can cause an early abortion.

There are potential limitations in our conclusions. Because no controlled trials have been done with women using EC, our conclusions are based on the existing data of case series with historical controls. However, these are the best available data for hormonal EC use. In addition, we have assumed, based on our discussions with physicians and laypeople across the country, that a significant number of physicians and patients would be concerned about a possible postfertilization effect. Although some evidence does exist to support our assumption, further research is needed. Nevertheless, the principle of informed consent would state that it is important to inform women who may use hormonal EC about this possible effect so that they can choose based on the best available data.

Regardless of the personal beliefs of the physician or provider about the mechanism of hormonal EC use, it is important that patients have information relevant to their own beliefs and value systems. It has been suggested to us by some that postfertilization loss attributed to hormonal EC use would not need to be included in informed consent until it is either definitely proven to exist or proven to be a common event. However, rare but important events are an essential part of other informed-consent discussions in medicine, primarily when the rare possibility would be judged by the patient to be important. For example, anesthesia-related deaths are rare for elective surgery; nevertheless, it is considered appropriate and legally necessary to discuss this rare possibility with patients before such surgery because the possibility of death is so important. Therefore, for women to whom the induced death of a zygote/embryo is important, failure to discuss the possibility of this loss, even if the possibility is judged to be remote, would be a failure of informed consent. Furthermore, based on the data reviewed in this article, it seems that a postfertilization effect is probably more common than is recognized by most physicians or patients. This is particularly true because in the studies done to date, women have been more likely to request treatment after intercourse that occurred near the time of ovulation than after intercourse that occurred earlier in the cycle.

Some have suggested to us that an overemphasis of possible postfertilization effects might make women choose not to use EC and therefore increase the incidence of unplanned pregnancies. Both of these views fail to acknowledge the value of a woman's right to make decisions based on informed consent. During informed-consent discussions, overemphasis of any single possible risk may not result in appropriate informed consent; however, failing to mention a possible risk would be a failure of adequate informed consent. Therefore, discussion of a potential postfertilization risk should occur and should be kept within the perspective of the available medical evidence.

Proper informed consent requires patient and physician comprehension of information, the disclosure of that information, and the sharing of interpretations. If a postfertilization mechanism of hormonal EC use violates the morals of any woman, the failure of the physician or care provider to disclose that information would effectively eliminate the likelihood that the woman's consent was truly informed.

Finally, there is in our view a potential for negative psychological impact on women who value human life from conception onward, and have not been given informed consent about hormonal EC use, and later learn of the potential postfertilization effects. Their responses could include disappointment, guilt, sadness, anger, rage, depression, or a sense of having been violated by the provider. To assume that all patients will not care about a postfertilization effect is not supported by the literature.

Reaping the Whirlwind of Abortion

2006-08-11T21:38:00.000-07:00

Reaping the Whirlwind of Abortion

Bishop Doran 8/10/2006

I want to touch on this matter before we get too close to the November madness. As human beings, as citizens of a “first world country,” as Americans, and as Catholics, most importantly, we have to take count of the circumstances in which we live. We know that the only creatures of God that outlast time are those created having intellect and will. All other things, with the passage of time, break up or break down.

Many of the issues that confront us are serious, and we know by now that the political parties in our country are at loggerheads as to how to solve them. We know, for instance, that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people.

The seven “sacraments” of their secular culture are abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation. These things they unabashedly espouse, profess and promote. Their continuance in public office is a clear and present danger to our survival as a nation.

Since the mid-1940s we have been accustomed to look askance at Germans. They were protagonists of the Second World War and so responsible for fifty million deaths. We say, “How awful,” and yet in our country we have, for the most part, allowed the party of death and the court system it has produced to eliminate, since 1973, upwards of forty million of our fellow citizens without allowing them to see the light of day. They have done their best to make ours a true culture of death. No doubt, we shall soon outstrip the Nazis in doing human beings to death.

I do not think that we should spend a great deal of time in lamentation over the children whose lives have been snuffed out by the barbaric practice of therapeutic abortion. They passed from their lives quickly in this world and have gone into the hands of the Lord of Life and Mercy for all eternity. We must make it clear too, that many who have sought to have practiced on themselves therapeutic abortion are in many instances driven to it by persons heedless of their welfare, or by well- meaning but inept parents or guardians who regard abortion as a solution and not as what it is — an immense problem. There are some, I think few, largely given over to immoral lives who regard abortion as a good, but their number is not great.

What we have to remember is that violence breeds violence. When we tolerate unjust attacks upon the tiniest innocents among us, we habituate ourselves to violence. And so we have allowed these barbaric practices to corrupt our laws, our medical practice, and even our ordinary lives. How accustomed we have become to the immense loss of life in our wars throughout the world! Those who have killed millions under their mother’s hearts cannot be expected to balk at a mere few thousand killed in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Somalia, in Darfur, in Bosnia, in Madrid, in London, in Baghdad, in Beirut, in Washington, in New York. The violence of abortion coarsens the lives of all of us.

Once it was said, “... for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) So we see the rise in the number of predations among youth, even among the youngest, the rise of domestic violence. We speak of road rage as a common thing. It is true what the theologians have said, that sin darkens the intellect, and weakens the will.

Having sown the wind of abortion we now reap the whirlwind. This appears in every quarter of our culture and on every day. And that just from the first of the “sacraments of death” of our secular human culture.

The toleration of sexual perversions among inverts, widespread contraception, easy access to “no fault” divorce, the killing of the elderly, radical feminism, embryonic stem cell research — all of these things defile and debase our human nature and our human destiny. Should we cry out with the prophet “To the mountains, ‘Cover us,’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us’” (Hosea: 10:8), lest other peoples see and, God forbid, imitate us?
I ran across, in one parish, prayers of the faithful with the intention that “we pray for those who work and demonstrate for the cause of life and the unborn, the aged and the defected, that they may persevere in spite of the ridicule they receive sometimes, even from pastors and priests.” I shudder to think that might be true. We know from the sad experience of recent years that some Catholics (even among priests) are so warped and perverted from their Catholic vocation, that they are capable of enormities. But, they should know that it was no prelate or bishop or pope that said, “Suffer the little children to come to me and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14). The Invisible Head of the Church will one day come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire, particularly those who have either by acts of omission or commission, destroyed innocent human life.

It is the duty of every Catholic to support the work of the parish Pro-Life directors and commissions and to work for the extirpation from our society of all those who in any way foster or promote these things. I wholeheartedly endorse the activities of our Pro-Life Office in the sure and certain knowledge that divine justice will not allow those who act against human life to prosper.

These unholy sacraments of our secular culture are the seeds of the destruction of our nation.

Think for yourself: what nation that kills its young, perverts marriage, prevents new life, and destroys the family, kills those deemed useless, makes the war of the sexes into a real war, and manipulates the genetic basis of human nature, can long endure?

Whatsoever You Do

2006-08-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

"Whatsoever You Do..."

Speech of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the National Prayer Breakfast, Washington, DC, February 3, 1994

On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand: "Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was sick and you did not visit me." These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?" And Jesus will answer them: "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto me!"

As we have gathered here to pray together, I think it will be beautiful if we begin with a prayer that expressed very well what Jesus wants us to do for the least. St. Francis of Assisi understood very well these words of Jesus and His life is very well expressed by a prayer. And this prayer, which we say every day after Holy Communion, always surprises me very much, because it is very fitting for each one of us. And I always wonder whether 800 years ago when St. Francis lived, they had the same difficulties that we have today. I think that some of you already have this prayer of peace - so we will pray it together.

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. where there is hatred let me sow love, where there is injury let me sow pardon, where there is doubt let me sow faith, where there is despair let me give hope, where there is darkness let me give light, Where there is sadness let me give joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not try to be comforted but to comfort, not try to be understood but to understand, not try to be loved but to love. Because it is in giving that we receive, it is in forgiving that we are forgiven, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Let us thank God for the opportunity He has given us today to have come here to pray together. We have come here especially to pray for peace, joy and love. We are reminded that Jesus came to bring the good news to the poor. He had told us what that good news is when He said: "My peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." He came not to give the peace of the world which is only that we don't bother each other. He came to give the peace of heart which comes from loving - from doing good to others.

And God loved the world so much that He gave His Son - it was a giving. God gave His Son to the Virgin Mary, and what did she do with Him? As soon as Jesus came into Mary's life, immediately she went in haste to give that good news. And as she came into the house of her cousin, Elizabeth, Scripture tells us that the unborn child - the child in the womb of Elizabeth - leapt with joy. While still in the womb of Mary, Jesus brought peace to John the Baptist who leapt for joy in the womb of Elizabeth.

And as if that were not enough, as if it were not enough that God the Son should become one of us and bring peace and joy while still in the womb of Mary, Jesus also died on the Cross to show that greater love. He died for you and for me, and for that leper and for that man dying of hunger and that naked person lying in the street, not only of Calcutta, but of Africa, and everywhere. Our Sisters serve these poor people in 105 countries throughout the world. Jesus insisted that we love one another as He loves each one of us.

Jesus gave His life to love us and He tells us that we also have to give whatever it takes to do good to one another. And in the Gospel Jesus says very clearly: "Love as I have loved you." Jesus died on the Cross because that is what it took for Him to do good to us - to save us from our selfishness in sin. He gave up everything to do the Father's will to show us that we too must be willing to give up everything to do God's will - to love one another as He loves each of us. If we are not willing to give whatever it takes to do good to one another, sin is still in us. That is why we too must give to each other until it hurts.

It is not enough for us to say: "I love God," but I also have to love my neighbor. St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love your neighbor.

How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?

And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.

It hurt Jesus to love us. We have been created in His image for greater things, to love and to be loved. We must "put on Christ" as Scripture tells us. And so, we have been created to love and to be loved, and God has become man to make it possible for us to love as He loved us. Jesus makes Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the unwanted one, and He says, "You did it to Me." On the last day He will say to those on His right, "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me," and He will also say to those on His left, "Whatever you neglected to do for the least of these you neglected to do it for Me."

When He was dying on the Cross, Jesus said, "I thirst." Jesus is thirsting for our love, and this is the thirst of everyone, poor and rich alike. We all thirst for the love of others, that they go out of their way to avoid harming us and to do good to us. This is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts.

I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them into an institution and forgotten them - maybe. I saw that in that home these old people had everything - good food, comfort- able place, television, everything, but everyone was looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on the face. I turned to Sister and I asked: "Why do these people who have every comfort here, why are they all looking toward the door? Why are they not smiling?"

I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people, even the dying ones smile.

And Sister said: "This is the way it is nearly every day. They are expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten." And see, this neglect to love brings spiritual poverty. Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried. Are we there? Are we there to be with them, or do we merely put them in the care of others? Are we willing to give until it hurts in order to be with our families, or do we put our own interests first? These are the questions we must ask ourselves, especially as we begin this year of the family. We must remember that love begins at home and we must also remember that "the future of humanity passes through the family."

I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given to drugs. And I tried to find out why. Why is it like that, when those in the West have so many more things than those in the East? And the answer was: "Because there is no one in the family to receive them." Our children depend on us for everything - their health, their nutrition, their security, their coming to know and love God. For all of this, they look to us with trust, hope and expectation. But often father and mother are so busy they have no time for their children, or perhaps they are not even married or have given up on their marriage. So the children go to the streets and get involved in drugs or other things. We are talking of love of the child which is where love and peace must begin. These are the things that break peace.

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.

And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.

And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion which brings people to such blindness.

And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere - "Let us bring the child back." The child is God's gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things - to love and to be loved. In this year of the family we must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way that our world can survive because our children are the only hope for the future. As older people are called to God, only their children can take their places.

But what does God say to us? He says: "Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand." We are carved in the palm of His hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us.

I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption - by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: "Please don't destroy the child; we will take the child." So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: "Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child." And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child - but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said. "Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me." By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.

Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.

From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy.

I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning.

The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception.

In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.

I also know that there are great problems in the world - that many spouses do not love each other enough to practice natural family planning. We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love. And this is what happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion.

The poor are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning and said: "You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people to teach us natural family planning because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other." And what this poor person said is very true. These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich.

When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. But a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person who has been thrown out of society - that spiritual poverty is much harder to overcome. And abortion, which often follows from contraception, brings a people to be spiritually poor, and that is the worst poverty and the most difficult to overcome.

Those who are materially poor can be very wonderful people. One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the Sisters: "You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks worse." So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face.

She took hold of my hand, as she said one word only: "thank you" - and she died.

I could not help but examine my conscience before her. And I asked: "What would I say if I were in her place?" And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said: "I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain," or something. But she gave me much more - she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face. Then there was the man we picked up from the drain, half eaten by worms and, after we had brought him to the home, he only said:

"I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die as an angel, loved and cared for."

Then, after we had removed the worms from his body, all he said, with a big smile, was: "Sister, I am going home to God" -and he died. It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man who could speak like that without blaming anybody, without comparing anything. Like an angel - this greatness of people who are spiritually rich even when they are materially poor. We are not social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of some people, but we must be contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we are touching the body of Christ and we are always in his presence.

You too must bring that presence of God into your family, for the family that prays together, stays together.

There is so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice, are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do.

If we are contemplatives in the heart of the world with all its problems, these problems can never discourage us. We must always remember what God tells us in Scripture: "Even if a mother could forget the child in her womb - something impossible, but even if she could forget - I will never forget you."

And so here I am talking with you. I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people first. And find out about your next door neighbors. Do you know who they are?

I had the most extraordinary experience of love of neighbor with a Hindu family. A gentleman came to our house and said: "Mother Teresa, there is a family who have not eaten for so long. Do something." So I took some rice and went there immediately. And I saw the children - their eyes shining with hunger. I don't know if you have ever seen hunger. But I have seen it very often. And the mother of the family took the rice I gave her and went out. When she came back, I asked her: "Where did you go? What did you do?" And she gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also." What struck me was that she knew - and who are they? A Muslim family - and she knew. I didn't bring any more rice that evening because I wanted them, Hindus and Muslims, to enjoy the joy of sharing.

But there were those children, radiating joy, sharing the joy and peace with their mother because she had the love to give until it hurts. And you see this is where love begins - at home in the family.

So, as the example of this family shows, God will never forget us and there is something you and I can always do. We can keep the joy of loving Jesus in our hearts, and share that joy with all we come in contact with.

Let us make that one point - that no child will be unwanted, unloved, uncared for, or killed and thrown away. And give until it hurts - with a smile.

Because I talk so much of giving with a smile, once a professor from the United States asked me: "Are you married?" And I said: "Yes, and I find it sometimes very difficult to smile at my spouse, Jesus, because He can be very demanding - sometimes." This is really something true.

And there is where love comes in - when it is demanding, and yet we can give it with joy.

One of the most demanding things for me is traveling everywhere - and with publicity. I have said to Jesus that if I don't go to heaven for anything else, I will be going to heaven for all the traveling with all the publicity, because it has purified me and sacrificed me and made me really ready to go to heaven.

If we remember that God loves us, and that we can love others as He loves us, then America can become a sign of peace for the world.

From here, a sign of care for the weakest of the weak - the unborn child - must go out to the world. If you become a burning light of justice and peace in the world, then really you will be true to what the founders of this country stood for.

God bless you!

Invitation to Christians

2006-08-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

Invitation to Christians

Each of us is called to represent Christ to others and to be his instrument of love, mercy, and peace. Although each of us may encounter different ways of embracing that calling, all of us should open our minds and hearts to a multitude of opportunities. Each of us should reflect on how we represent the mind and heart of Christ with regard to the sanctity of life and the evil of abortion. Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me... Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. (Mt 25:40,45)

What makes abortion so abominable is that it kills. No matter what procedure is used nor whether it is surgical or chemical, a life is snuffed out. Someone’s future eliminated. A pre-born infant, child, adolescent, adult - a person - is deprived of its very existence in the physical realm. Can any deed be more anti-Christian?

Unfortunately, there are a great many places throughout this land, which we continually ask God to bless, where his precious infants are put to death in horrific numbers and in horrific ways. These killing centers present us with daily opportunities to represent Christ with the intent to save lives and souls.

We can be defenders of God’s precious infants as we pray for them and their parents. We can pray for the conversion of their parents that they will say "yes" to the life created by God and entrusted to their care. We can offer counseling and practical assistance to parents. We can pray for the conversion of the abortionists and their staff and all who support them in any way. We can pray for the conversion of those who live or work in the area or who pass by and who are anti-life or ambivalent. We can pray for God's forgiveness and mercy.

For those babies who will die, we can remain with them at these modern day Calvarys, as Mary and John did at the foot of the Cross, and offer what might be the only human love they will have encountered during their very short lives. We can pray that God be with them before and during the time of their death, and that, in his Blessed Triune Name - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - and with the tears of Our Lady of Sorrows, He baptize them and carry the sacred souls of these Holy Innocents to Heaven.

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, I invite you to learn about the various defense of the unborn ministries that you can join or support, and I pray that you may be open in mind and in heart to "listen to Him" and defend the unborn.

Children Deserve Birth Advocate

Gabriela

2006-08-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

Precious Baby Gabriela
Scheduled to die Feb 19, 2003 ~ born Oct 10, 2003
Thanks be to God, Creator of us all

On February 19, 2003, during our second presence at one of Planned Parenthood’s numerous killing centers, Gabriela's mother chose birth for her. The mother, a young Spanish-speaking woman, had felt helpless before she encountered us on the sidewalk attempting to speak to her and to offer help. It was difficult to communicate with her, but because of our Christ-like demeanor (we maintain a prayerful and peaceful presence and strictly prohibit all forms of demonstration) she was able to see that we were there with love and that we desired to help her.

She had prayed that someone would help her because she truly wanted to have her baby, but before her encounter with us she did not know to whom she could turn for help. So going on the "advice" of the child’s father who had abandoned her and their child, she had made an appointment to terminate the life of her child that day. On her way to the killing center she turned her prayer for help into a prayer for forgiveness for what she was about to do - which she believed was a necessary evil. Through the grace of God she found out before it was too late that it was not necessary after all, and God snatched her and her child away from "Planned Victimization" - from those who had told her that her unborn child was a blob of tissue.

It wasn’t long before she cheerfully and confidently found herself being escorted to a pregnancy help center. Various organizations and benefactors provide the assistance that we offer to these mothers. At the forefront of these resources are the indispensable local pregnancy help centers with their dedicated staffs.

I wish you could have seen the joy on this young mother’s face or could have heard the joy in her voice as she related to us that she truly wanted to have her baby and how grateful she was for all the help being offered to her in answer to her prayers. As I drove her home that afternoon, I told her she would sleep like a baby that night - without pressure and fear - unlike what the previous night must have been for her. With a sweet smile and peace-filled heart, she concurred.

I hope this story conveys the message that Sidewalk Counseling is an important part of the pro-life movement. Our presence is one of contradiction to Planned Parenthood and all of the other child-killing organizations.

Earlier that same day a nasty woman told us that we were doing a disservice to the women who came there. She was speaking out of ignorance. If anyone tells you that Sidewalk Counselors do a disservice to women, share the fact that you know otherwise.

Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me... Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me. (Mt 25:40,45)

Children Deserve Birth Advocate

Quotations

2006-08-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

Quotations

You shall not kill.
God the Father

See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven…So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
God the Son

America, your deepest identity and truest character as a nation is revealed in the position you take towards the human person. The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless ones. The best traditions of your land presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves. If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then, America, defend life! … Every human person - no matter how vulnerable or helpless, no matter how young or how old, no matter how healthy, handicapped or sick, no matter how useful or productive for society - is a being of inestimable worth created in the image and likeness of God. This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival - yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn.
Pope John Paul II

A people which kills its own children is a people without a future.
Pope John Paul II

The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor! He or she is weak, defenceless, even to the point of lacking that minimal form of defence consisting in the poignant power of a newborn baby's cries and tears. The unborn child is totally entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying him or her in the womb.
Pope John Paul II

As far as abortion is concerned, it's part of the fifth, not the sixth, commandment: "Thou shalt not kill!" We have to presume this is obvious and always stress that the human person begins in the mother's womb and remains a human person until his or her last breath. The human person must always be respected as a human person.
Pope Benedict XVI

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.
Mother Theresa

Being unwanted is the worst disease that a human being can ever experience.
Mother Theresa

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?." Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?." But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?." And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Confessions of Abortionists and Staff

2006-08-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

The Truth About Abortion:
Confessions of Abortionists and Staff

"After an abortion, the doctor must inspect these remains to make sure that all the fetal parts and placenta have been removed. Any tissue left inside the uterus can start an infection." Dr. Bours squeezed the contents of the sock into a shallow dish and poked around with his finger. 'You can see a teeny tiny hand' he said."

~Abortion clinic worker quoted in Is the Fetus Human? "The Abortion Conflict: What it Does to One Doctor," by Dudley Clendinen, New York Times Magazine Aug 11 1985, p. 26

" It [the fetus] is a form of life...This has to be killing...The question then becomes, 'Is this kind of killing justifiable?' In my own mind, it is justifiable, but only with the informed consent of the mother."

~Abortionist quoted in Democrat and Chronicle 7/5/92

"We were hiding from the women some of the pieces of truth about abortion that were threatening....It is a kind of killing."

~Former clinic administrator, Charlotte Taft, From The Dallas Observer, 3/18/95

"I have never denied that human life begins at conception. If I have a complaint about our society, it's that we don't deal with death and dying. Do we believe human beings have a right to make decisions about death and dying? Yes we do, and those decisions are made every day in every hospital."

~ One worker's quote, from the book, Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic, by Peter Korn

Sue Hertz, author of Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion's Front Line, documents what she saw in and at one busy abortion clinic:"It was easy to shrug off an aborted pregnancy as nothing more than a sack of blood and globs of tissue-as many pro-choice activists did- if one never saw fetal remains, or products of conception (POC) as they were known in medical circles. But the nurses, medical assistants, and doctors who worked inside procedure rooms...knew that an eleven week old POC harbored tiny arms and legs and feet with toes. At twelve weeks, those tiny hands had tiny nails. Although the fetal head was too small at this stage to withstand the evacuation machine's suction, pieces of face-a nose and mouth, or a black eye...were sometimes found in the aftermath...Later abortions spawned even more gruesome fetal remains...the head did not come out whole during the evacuation, but the legs and arms and rib cage made it through intact. The hand of a second trimester fetus, as a Pre-term doctor described it, seemed big enough to shake."

"The counselor/medical assistants (CMAs) met regularly to discuss their feelings about their work...Inside a procedure room, facing the contents of the uterus, there was no denying what abortion was."

"During the procedure, Doris [Merrill] would offer her hand for the patient to squeeze, or if the abortion were particularly painful, a notepad for the patient to bite...Doris knew what [Dr. Waldo Fielding] was doing at the end of the examination table as he poured over the legs and ribs and hands, but she chose not to look. It wasn't that Doris ignored the truth, but rather that her commitment was to the woman, not the fetus... Waldo removed from the glass jar cheesecloth sack which caught the fetal parts, dumping the parts into a basin at the end of the table, between [the patient's] feet. Two legs, two arms, two fists, a skull, a backbone, a placenta. 'We've got it' he announced."

~ Caught in the Crossfire: A Year on Abortion's Front Line by Sue Hertz, New York: Prentice Hall Press, 1991

"Remember, there is a human being at the other end of the table taking that kid apart. We've had a couple of guys drinking too much, taking drugs, even a suicide or two."

~ Dr. Julius Butler, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, as quoted in The Crime of Being Alive: Abortion, Euthanasia, Infanticide, by Melody Green and Sharon Bennett

"Arms, legs, and chests come out of the forceps. It's not a sight for everybody."

~ Abortion provider, Dr. William Benbow Thompson

"If I see a case...after twenty weeks, where it frankly is a child to me, I really agonize over it because the potential is so imminently there...On the other hand, I have another position, which I think is superior in the hierarchy of questions, and that is 'who owns this child?' It's got to be the mother."

~Dr. James MacMahon, who performs D & X abortions, "It's Just Too Late: Third Trimester abortions are an Outrage and an Insult to the Human Race," by Nat Hentoff, July 27, 1993 Pittsburg Post-Gazette

"Never. I would never look down. Some of the nurses watched as he removed the tissue, but I never looked. If I looked, I would never be able to work there [the clinic] again."

~Carlean Turner, Kansas City, on D&E abortions Articles of Faith: A Frontline History of The Abortion Wars, by Cynthia Gorney (New York: Simon& Schuster, 1998)

"This can burn you out very, very quickly...not so much by the physical labor as the emotional part of what's going on. When you do an ultrasound, particularly if you have children, and you see a fetus there, kicking, moving, living, doing things that your own child does, bringing its thumb to its mouth, and things like that—it's difficult. Then, after the procedure, sometimes we have to actually look at the specimen, and you see arms and legs and things like that torn off...It does take an emotional toll."

~Dr. Ed Jones, who had worked at a Planned Parenthood Clinic for 4 years, as quoted in the book Abortion: Debating the Issue, by Nancy Day (New York: Enslow Publishing, Inc., 1995)

"Is abortion murder? All killing isn't murder...."
~Don Sloan, MD, abortion provider, author of Abortion: A Doctor's Perspective, A Woman's Dilemma. Quoted in "Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints," edited by Tamara L. Roleff

"It is when I am holding a plastic uterus in one hand, a suction tube in the other, moving them together in imitation of the scrubbing to come, that woman ask the most secret question. I am speaking in a matter-of-fact voice about 'the tissue' and 'the contents' when the woman suddenly catches my eye and says 'How big is the baby now?' These words suggest a quiet need for definition of the boundaries being drawn. It isn't so odd, after all, that she feels relief when I describe the growing buds bulbous shape, its miniature nature. Again, I gauge, and sometimes lie a little, weaseling around its infantile features until its clinging power slackens."

~ "We Do Abortions Here," by Sallie Tisdale (an abortion worker), Harpers Magazine, Oct. 1987, p 68.

"Counselors are just to give the appearance of help. [They] think of themselves as company for the women."
~Abortion counselor

"I have never yet counseled anybody to have the baby. I'm also doing women's counseling on campus at Albany State, and there I am expected to present alternatives. Whereas at the abortion clinic you aren't really expected to."

~Abortion counselor, excerpted from Rachel Weeping and Other Essays About Abortion, James Tunstead Burtchaell, editor, New York: Universal Press, 1982

"Vital signs should be observed regularly, and a Doppler [for listening to the fetal heartbeat] inaudible to the patient should be used at intervals to determine the presence or absence of fetal heart tones.. This [informed consent] is a controversial area, but most professionals in the field feel that it is not advisable for patients to view the products of conception, to be told the sex of the fetus, or to be informed of a multiple pregnancy."

~ Abortionist Warren Hern in Abortion Practice, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1984, pgs 145, 304

"They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn't want to have an abortion."
~Former abortion doctor, Dr. Randall, "Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet" by David Kuperlain and Mark Masters in Oct., New Dimensions magazine.

"When discussing the sonogram, you are supposed to tell the client that it is a measurement as far as the pregnancy is concerned, but not a measure of the fetal head or anything like that."

~Rosemary Petruso, on her training to be an abortion counselor. Her story appeared in the St. Louis Review and was also quoted in "Women Exploited: The Other Victims of Abortion," Paula Ervin, editor, Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1985

"Sometimes we lied. A girl might ask what her baby was like at a certain point in the pregnancy: Was it a baby yet? Even as early as 12 weeks a baby is totally formed, he has fingerprints, turns his head, fans his toes, and feels pain. But we would say 'It's not a baby yet. It's just tissue, like a clot.'"

~Kathy Sparks told in "The Conversion of Kathy Sparks," Gloria Williamson, Christian Herald Jan 1986 p 28.

"In fact many women will come to me considering abortion, and I have been personally told that I am to turn the monitor away from her view so that seeing her baby jump around on the screen does not influence her choice."

~Shari Richards, quoted from The John Ankerburg Show, 3/7/90

Sylvia Hampton worked in an abortion clinic. She acknowledged the truth about fetal development if directly confronted, but tried to redirect. In her own words:
"Sometimes, they [the partners of those having abortions] would say 'Have you ever seen the abortion afterward?' and I would say, 'Yes, I have.' Then they would say, 'Well, what does it look like?' And I would say, 'Well, it depends on the stage of the pregnancy.' 'Does it have little feet and a heartbeat?' And I would say, 'Yes, at the early stages it does. But you have to have a magnifying glass to see it.' And that's beside the point. The point is that this is a developing embryo that is going to become a child, a teenager, an adult. Is this what this woman wants? Is this what this woman is ready for?....' I would kind of put it back on them: Yeah, it is a developing human being, but why isn't she carrying it to term? And then they would start to talk about that."

~Sylvia Hampton, quoted in "Articles of Faith"

"I have seen hundreds of patients in my office who have had abortions and were just lied to by the abortion counselor. Namely 'This is less painful than having a tooth removed. It is not a baby.' Afterwards, the woman sees Life magazine and breaks down and goes into a major depression."

~Psychologist Vincent Rue quoted in "Abortion Inc.," by David Kupelian and Jo Ann Gasper, New Dimensions, October 1991, p 16

"I was totally uninformed of available alternatives to abortion. I never recommended adoption or keeping the child. Furthermore, I was completely unaware of the medical facts, including the development of the fetus. I received no training in factual matters—my job was just to keep women happy and make sure they went along with an abortion."

~A quote from a former abortion clinic counselor, ProLife Answers to Pro Choice Arguments, by Randy Alcorn
"If you can't sell abortions over the phone, you will not last."

~Hellen Pendley, former owner-director of an abortion clinic, as quoted in The Ex-Abortionists: Why They Quit, by Mary Meehanan

"I can remember...the resident doctor sitting down, putting the tube in, and removing the contents. I saw the bloody material coming down the plastic tube, and it went into a big jar. My job afterwards was to go and undo the jar, and to see what was inside. I didn't have any views on abortion; I was in a training program, and this was a brand new experience. I was going to get to see a new procedure and learn. I opened the jar and took the little piece of stockingnette stocking and opened the little bag. The resident doctor said 'Now put it on the blue towel and check it out. We want to see if we got it all.' I thought, 'That'll be an exciting hands-on experience looking at tissue.' I opened the sock up and put it on the towel, and there were parts of a person in there. I had taken anatomy, I was a medical student. I knew what I was looking at. There was a little scapula and an arm, I saw some ribs and a chest, and a little tiny head. I saw a piece of a leg, and a tiny hand and an arm, and you know, it was like somebody put a hot poker into me. I had a conscience, and it hurt. Well, I checked it out and there were two arms and two legs and one head and so forth, and I turned and said 'I guess you got it all.' That was a very hard experience to go through emotionally."

~Dr. David Brewer, "Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet,"by David Kuperlain and Mark Masters in Oct, New Dimensions magazine

"I got to where I couldn't stand to look at the little bodies anymore."

~Dr. Beverly McMillan, when asked why she stopped performing abortions.

"I have been there, and I have seen these totally formed babies as early as ten weeks...with the leg missing, or with their head off. I have seen the little rib cages..."

~Debra Harry

"We all wish it were formless, but its not...and its painful. There is a lot of emotional pain."

~Abortion clinic worker, quoted in "The Ex Abortionists: They Have Confronted Reality," Washington Post April 1, 1988, p. 21

"I was for abortion, I thought it was a woman's right to terminate pregnancy she did not want. Now I'm not so sure. I am a student nurse nearing the end of my OB-GYN rotation at a major metropolitan hospital and teaching center. It wasn't until I saw what abortion really involves that I changed my mind. After the first week in the abortion clinic several people in my clinical group were shaky about their previously positive feelings about abortion. This new attitude resulted from our actually seeing a Prostaglandin abortion, one similar in nature to the widely used saline abortion.this method is being used for terminations of pregnancies of sixteen weeks and over. I used to find rationales. the fetus isn't real. Abdomens aren't really very swollen. It isn't 'alive.' No more excuses...I am a member of the health profession and members of my class are now ambivalent about abortion. I now know a great deal more about what is involved in the issue. Women should perceive fully what abortion is; how destructive an act it is both for themselves and their unborn child. Whatever psychological coping mechanisms are employed during the process, the sight of a fetus in a hospital bedpan remains the final statement."

~Quoted in The Zero People: Essays on Life, by Jeff Lane Hensley, editor. Ann Arbor: Servant Books, 1983

"At least 80 percent of the women would try to look down at the end of the table, wondering if they cold see anything which is why our doctor always went in with the scalpel first. Once the baby was already cut up, there was nothing but blood and torn up tissue for the woman to see. When a later abortion was performed, workers had to piece the baby back together, and every major part-head, torso, two legs, and two arms-had to be accounted for. One of our little jokes at the clinic was, "If you ever want to humble a doctor, hide a leg so he thinks he has to go back in." Please understand, these were not abnormal, uncaring women working with me at the clinic. We were just involved in a bloody, dehumanizing business, all of us for our own reasons. Whether we were justifying our past advocacy (as I was), justifying a previous abortion (as many were) or whatever, we were just trying to cope-and if we couldn't laugh at what was going on, I think our minds would have snapped. It's not easy trying to confuse a conscience that will not stay dead."

~Excerpted from Won By Love by Norma McCorvey

"I wanted to be the world's best abortionist, for the good of my patients. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. So, after I met each patient, reviewed the medical information gathered by my nurse, examined the patient and performed the abortion, I would then carefully sift through the remains to be sure all the parts were accounted for. I had to find four extremities (two arms and two legs) a spine, a skull, and the placenta, or my patient would suffer later from an incomplete abortion...My attention was so focused on my perceived patient that I managed to deny that there were, in fact, two patients involved-the expectant mother and a very small child...I had to wonder, how can having a child be so wrong for some people that they will pay me to end its life?"

~Former abortionist Dr. McMillan, "How One Doctor Changed Her Mind About Abortion," Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs

"I walked in the laboratory every day. I saw dead babies every day for three years. If I could see fifty, I was so happy. Because, you know what? That meant I was really gonna' have a good bonus in my paycheck."

~Clinic worker Hellen Pendley, quoted by Mary Meeham in "The Ex-Abortionists: Why They Quit" in The Human Life Review

"Clinic workers may say they support a woman's right to choose, but they will also say that they do not want to see tiny hands and tiny feet....there is a great difference between the intellectual support of a woman's right to choose and the actual participation in the carnage of abortion. Because seeing body parts bothers the workers."

~Judith Fetrow, former clinic worker from San Francisco, quoted in "Meet the Abortion Providers III" from a taped conference in Chicago 4/3/93

"Abortions are very draining, exhausting, heart-rending. There are a lot of tears. Some patients turn on you...I do them because I take the attitude that women who are going to terminate babies deserve the same kind of treatment as women who carry babies...I've done a couple thousand, and its been a significant financial boon...the only way I can do an abortion is to consider only the woman as my patient and block out the baby."
~Abortionist quoted in M.D. Doctors Talk About Themselves, by John Pekkanan

"So when I went back to doing abortions and saw the fetus on the ultrasound, I recalled the early days of my pregnancies, when I found out I was pregnant and saw the baby on the ultrasound, and it really felt like this is a baby, a very real and potential being. Now, I do feel that this is a potential person and it does not have a life of its own outside of the mother, but I also am really aware that when you're ready to embrace a pregnancy, you can embrace it from the very moment you conceive or are aware that you are pregnant. Faye Wattleton said recently, 'I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the women's body, and therefore ultimately her choice.'I believe that very firmly. You look at the ultrasounds and there's a fetus with a heartbeat and then after the procedure, there's the fetus, usually in pieces, in a dish. It was alive one moment and it's not the next. I don't believe it's a painful experience for the fetus because its nervous system is not 'wired' so that it can feel pain at that point. I don't believe, as some anti-abortion people would have you believe, that there's a 'silent scream. 'But it's very clear to me that it's killing a potential life. And I found that hard at first. "

~Anonymous, quoted by Camille Peri

"Nobody wants to perform abortions after ten weeks, because by then you see the features of the baby, hands, feet. It's really barbaric."

~Abortionist quoted in M.D. Doctors Talk About Themselves, by John Pekkanen, p 93

"In testimony Wednesday in St. Louis Circuit Court, [abortionist] Crist said that it is not uncommon for second-trimester fetuses to leave the womb feet-first, intact and with their hearts still beating. He sometimes crushes their skulls to get the fetuses out. Other times, he dismembers them."

—Jo Mannies, "Abortion Doctor Gives Graphic Testimony Describing Abortion Procedure," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 25, 2000

"But when I look in the basin, among the curdlike blood clots, I see and elfin thorax, attentuated, its pencilline ribs all in parallel rows with tiny knobs of spine rounding upwards. A translucent arm and hand swim beside."

~Sallie Tisdale, Author of "We Do Abortions Here," October 1987, Harpers Magazine

"Abortion is killing the fetus....Human life, in and of itself, is not sacred. Human life, per se, is not inviolate."

~Abortionist Dr. Smith, as quoted in "The Abortionist," by Leo Wang, Berkeley Medical Journal, Spring 1995 Edition

"No one, neither the patient receiving an abortion, nor the person doing the abortion, is ever, at anytime, unaware that they are ending a life..."

~Abortion provider William F. Harrison, MD, FACOG, from the essay "Why I Provide Abortions," 1996.

"I found much distress in the clinic, but it involved not only the women. I saw the pain of the babies who were born burned from the saline solution used for late-term abortions. I saw the bits of feet, bits of hands, the mangled heads and bodies of the little people. I saw pain and felt pain."

—One-time clinic worker Paula Sutcliffe in "Precious in My Sight," Pro-Life Feminism: Different Voices, Gail Garnier-Sweet, editor

"From May to November 1988, I worked for an abortionist. He specializes in third trimester killings. I witnessed evidence of the brutal, cold blooded murder of over 600 viable, healthy babies at seven, eight and nine months gestation. A very, very few of these babies, less than 2%, were handicapped...I thought I was pro-choice and I was glad to be working in an abortion clinic. I thought I was helping provide a noble service to women in crisis....I was instructed to falsify the age of the babies in medical records. I was required to lie to the mothers over the phone, as they scheduled their appointments, and to tell them that they were not 'too far along' Then I had to note, in the records that Dr. Tiller's needle had successfully pierced the walls of the baby's heart, injecting the poison that brought death...one day, Dr. Tiller came up the stairs from the basement, where the mothers were in labor. He was carrying a large cardboard box, and ducked into the employees only area of the office so that he wouldn't have to walk through the waiting room. He passed behind my desk as I sat working on the computer, and he turned the corner to go around a short hall. He called out for me to come and help him. The box was so big and heavy in his arms that he couldn't get the key into the lock. So I unlocked the door for him, and, pushing the door open, I saw very clearly the gleaming metal of the crematorium-a full-sized crematorium, just like the one's used in funeral homes. I went back to my computer. I could hear Dr. Tiller firing up the gas oven. A few minutes later I could smell burning human flesh. Mine was the agony of a participant, however reluctant, in the act of prenatal infanticide."

~Luhra Tivis on her experience in the abortion business, as quoted in "Where is the Real Violence?" Celebrate Life, Sept/Oct 1994

To begin, I must say that until yesterday, Friday, July 2, 2004, I was strongly pro-choice. I am a pre-medical student, and being very scientific, I understood that the mass of cells that forms the fetal body is not often capable of survival before 24 weeks in the womb. I am also somewhat liberal, and I believed that every woman should have the right to choose what she did with her body and one that could potentially be growing inside of her.

This summer, I was accepted into a pre-medical program in NYC in which we are allowed to shadow doctors and see all sorts of medical procedures. When given the opportunity to see an abortion, I did not hesitate to accept the offer. It was something new, edgy, and exciting that I had never seen. When I entered the operating room, it felt like any other I had ever been in. On the table in front of me, I saw a woman, legs up as if delivering a child although she was asleep. Next to her was a tray of instruments for the abortion and a vacuum machine for suctioning the fetal tissues from the uterus. The doctors put on their gowns and masks and the procedure began. The cervix was held open with a crude metal instrument and a large transparent tube was stuck inside of the woman. Within a matter of seconds, the machine's motor was engaged and blood, tissue, and tiny organs were pulled out of their environment into a filter. A minute later, the vacuum choked to a halt. The tube was removed, and stuck to the end was a small body and a head attached haphazardly to it, what was formed of the neck snapped. The ribs had formed with a thin skin covering them, the eyes had formed, and the inner organs had begun to function. The tiny heart of the fetus, obviously a little boy, had just stopped—forever. The vacuum filter was opened, and the tiny arms and legs that had been torn off of the fetus were accounted for. The fingers and toes had the beginnings of their nails on them. The doctors, proud of their work, reassembled the body to show me. Tears welled up in my eyes as they removed the baby boy from the table and shoved his body into a container for disposal. I have not been able to think of anything since yesterday at 10:30 besides what that baby boy might have been. I don't think that people realize what an abortion actually is until they see it happen. I have been tortured by these images—so real and so vivid—for two days now...and I was just a spectator. Never again will I be pro-choice, and never again will I support the murder of any human being, no matter their stage in life.
~This is from a medical student who withheld his name, Sat, Jul 3 22:29:15 2004

From Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic by Wendy Simonds. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996. This work by a pro-choice author included a chapter on how to repel 'antis' (anti-choicers). However, there was also a chapter on how clinic workers emotionally deal with 'aborted tissue.' Here are some quotes:

"You're going from dealing with people to dealing with what most people here at the Center consider a real hurdle, to do sterile room, because you have to deal with the actual abortion tissue. And for some people, that's really hard. They can be abstractly in favor of abortion rights, but they sure don't want to see what an eighteen-week abortion looks like."

"It's just—I mean it looks like a baby. It looks like a baby. And especially if you get one that comes out, that's not piecemeal. And you know, I saw this one, and it had its fingers in its mouth...it makes me really sad that that had to happen, you know, but it doesn't change my mind. It's just hard. And it makes me just sort of stop and feel sad about it, the whole necessity of it. And also....it's very warm when it comes into the sterile room because it's been in the mother's stomach. It feels like flesh, you know..."

"It's going to be weird now because you're going to see the sono. You're going to see the heart beating-little hearts, you know-and then, all of a sudden, you're going to put his cardiac medicine in it to make it stop—to kill it. So you're going to see the exact moment when you kill the fetus. I won't kill it, the doctor will kill it...and, I mean, it might be more humane...[if] the fetuses do feel something, why not kill it, you know, fast, [rather] than rip its leg off?"

"I feel some sadness [about abortions] and I think part of the problem is that we don't talk about that...we don't talk about it as much as we think about it...somehow your pro-choice stance is compromised by saying the word 'baby.'...We don't allow ourselves to say or think that word...."

"At nine weeks...you start seeing fetal parts. And by the second trimester it's, you know, it's a baby, and by eighteen weeks it's definitely a baby. And by like, you know, twenty-two weeks, you go in and you watch someone do a sonogram, and you're like, "Oh my." There it is just moving, moving around. And it's really hard because I always thought of abortion in terms of just the woman, just her body."

"You're looking between the woman's legs; you're seeing, you know, what the doctor's doing. And it's what a lot of people would call kind of, I guess, gruesome—that's not really the word because—it's identifiable. I mean, when he...takes the forceps and pulls out a foot, you can see the foot, and my reaction- because I feel so strongly that women who want to have a twenty week abortion should be able to have that- but I mean when I look and was just like, you know, my first reaction was, you know, I was pretty horrified."

"So by it looking like a baby, you're associating it with yourself because...you used to be a baby, you used to be a fetus."
"...when you're, you know, putting a fetus's feet in over its head in a baggie, there's just this brief moment of "This could have been me," which I fundamentally believe is okay. She should have the right to choose..."

"...it looks like a baby. That's what it looks like to me. You've never seen anything else that looks like that. The only other thing you've ever seen is a baby...You can see a face and hands, and ears and eyes and, you know...feet and toes...It bothered me real bad the first time..."

"The destruction I can't deny....I wish we lived in a world where abortion didn't have to exist."

"You know, we still say "products of conception." Well, why don't we say it looks like—you know, a twenty-week fetus looks like a baby. Why can't we say that in public? Because that's what the antis say, you know."

"I think the tough part was seeing actual pieces of fetus being removed. And in the beginning, yes, I remember looking, standing behind this woman's shoulder [as she performed an early second-trimester-abortion] and thinking, "I can't do this...There's something emotionally upsetting about this. Features are discernible; you can count five fingers on a hand and five toes on a foot. You know, all the organ systems are formed. You know, you can see ears as structures, and the nose and eyes as structures...I have gotten to the point now that because I've been doing this work five months, four months, I look at it a little differently. I don't see the same things that I did. And, honestly, when I sit down to do one of these now, I am watching to be sure that I'm getting everything that I need to get. It's 'Do I have two lower extremities? Do I have two upper extremities? Is there a spine? ...and the skull?...It does become a bit routine after a while. I don't fear it."

"I hate it when people put it together to look like a baby. I hate that...I don't want to look like it when it's like that because it's like a broken doll, and that grosses me out.

From the author: "Many health workers told me they 'never look at the face' when processing tissue."

"I do think abortion is murder—of a very special and necessary sort. What else would one call the deliberate stilling of a life? And no physician involved with the procedure ever kids himself about that...legalistic distinctions among "homicide," "justified homicide," "self-defense," and "murder" appear to me a semantic game. What difference does it make what we call it? Those who do it and those who witness its doing know that abortion is the stilling of a life."

~ Dr. Magda Denes, PhD, "Performing Abortions," by Dr. Magda Denes, PhD., Commentary Magazine, October 1976, pages 33 to 37

"You have to become a bit schizophrenic. In one room, you encourage the patient that the slight irregularity in the fetal heart is not important, that she is going to have a fine, healthy baby. Then, in the next room you assure another woman, on whom you just did a saline abortion, that it is a good thing that the heartbeat is already irregular....she has nothing to worry about, she will NOT have a live baby...All of a sudden one noticed that at the time of the saline infusion there was a lot of activity in the uterus. That's not fluid currents. That's obviously the fetus being distressed by swallowing the concentrated salt solution and kicking violently and that's to all intents and purposes, the death trauma. ..somebody has to do it, and unfortunately we are the executioners in this instance..."

~Abortionist, Dr. Szenes

"And then to see, to be with somebody while they're having the injection when they're twenty or twenty-four weeks, and you see the baby moving around, kicking around, as this needle goes into the stomach, you know."

~Susan Lindstrom, M.S.W.

"I look inside the bucket in front of me. There is a small naked person in there, floating in a bloody liquid- plainly the tragic victim of a drowning accident. But then perhaps this was no accident, because the body is purple with bruises and the face has the agonized tautness of one forced to die too soon. I have seen this face before, on a Russian soldier lying on a frozen snow-covered hill, stiff with death, and cold."

~Dr. Magda Denes, PhD.

"We know that its killing, but the state permits killing under certain circumstances."

~Dr. Neville Sender, abortionist

"Even now I feel a little peculiar about it, because as a physician I was trained to conserve life, and here I am destroying it."

~Abortionist

"You know there is something in there alive that you are killing."

~Another abortionist interviewed by Dr. Magda Denes, PhD.

"I went up to the lab one day and on the pathologist's table I saw what I thought was a little rubber doll until I realized it was a fetus. I got really shook up and upset and I couldn't believe it. It had all its fingers and toes, you know, hands and feet. I never thought it would look so—real. I didn't like it."

~Planned Parenthood employee quoted in Dr. Magda Denes' book, In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital, New York: Basic Books, 1979

"I am walking out the back door, and I see a plastic jar of tissue and blood waiting to be sent to the path lab, and in the plastic jar a tiny perfect white hand. That flat palm reaching up through a wine-red wash of blood. Why does that stay with me?"

~From the book Past Due, by Anne Finger, published by The Seal Press, 1990

"We had one saline born alive. I raced to the nursery with it and put it in an incubator. I called the pediatrician to come right down, and he refused. He said, "That's not a baby. That's an abortion."

~A New York nurse, as quoted in The Ambivalence of Abortion, by Linda Bird Francke

Compiled by Jean Marie Catherine Heimann
Weblog: http://catholicfire.blogspot.com

More at http://clinicquotes.com

What Abortion Really Is

2006-08-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

What Abortion Really Is

As the caesarean incision was made,
before the abortionist broke the water,
I could see the baby moving
underneath the sack of membranes.
My mind exclaimed "My God, that's a person!"

And when the water was broken
a pain pierced my heart,
like the time when I first assisted in a suction abortion.

And when he delivered the baby,
I couldn't touch it.
I wasn't much of an assistant.
I just stood there.

The reality of what was going on
finally began to seep deeply into
my calloused mind and heart.

They took that little baby
that was making little sounds
and moving and kicking,
and set it on a table
in a cold, stainless steel bowl.

And every time I would look over
while we were finishing the surgery,
I would see that little person
kicking and moving
in that cold, stainless steel bowl.
Kicking and moving
less and less
as time went on,
in that cold, stainless steel bowl.

When we were finished I went over to the baby.
I watched as it struggled to take tiny breaths.
Its tiny chest was still moving.
Its tiny heart was still beating.
In that cold, stainless steel bowl.

Then I really hurt inside.
Then I began to realize what abortion really is
and how stainless it isn’t for my own poor soul.

The above was adapted from the extract, which follows the comment below.

Comment:

Although the author of the testimony presented in the extract below, after assisting at his first suction abortion, recognized that the severed body parts of the victim were those of a person he eventually became desensitized to this reality. It wasn't until he witnessed the agonized movements of his first non-mutilated aborted baby, as it struggled to survive outside its mother's life-nourishing womb, that he sufficiently recognized a human person in this rejected, abandoned, defenseless, dying innocent victim. Enough so that he finally came to his senses and recognized what abortion really is.

No matter what type of killing procedure is used - whether it mutilates the victim or not; whether it is perceived as a brutal and barbaric act of violence or not - a life is exterminated. Someone’s future eliminated. A pre-born infant, child, adolescent, adult - a person - is deprived of its very existence in the physical realm.

All of us must come to the realization that all intentional killing of human life is barbaric unless in legitimate defense.

We all must come to sufficiently recognize the human person in everyone who is victimized, rejected, abandoned, and defenseless in the worldwide community. This cannot be accomplished if we do not firstly recognize and protect the most defenseless among us – the unborn.

Read on.

Extract from WorldNetDaily.com March 23, 2004

In a special edition on abortion last year, WND's monthly Whistleblower magazine profiled several medical doctors who explained why they quit doing abortions. One of them, David Brewer, M.D., who performed abortions for 10 years as a military physician in Ft. Rucher, Ala., described his medical-school abortion training this way:

I can remember … the resident doctor sitting down, putting the tube in, and removing the contents. I saw the bloody material coming down the plastic tube, and it went into a big jar. My job afterwards was to go and undo the jar, and to see what was inside.

I didn't have any views on abortion; I was in a training program, and this was a brand new experience. I was going to get to see a new procedure and learn. I opened the jar and took the little piece of stockinet stocking and opened that little bag. The resident doctor said, "Now put it on that blue towel and check it out. We want to make sure that we got it all." I thought, 'That'll be exciting – hands-on experience looking at tissue.' I opened the sock up and put it on the towel, and there were parts of a person in there.

I had taken anatomy. I was a medical student. I knew what I was looking at. There was a little scapula and an arm; I saw some ribs and a chest, and a little tiny head. I saw a piece of a leg, and a tiny hand and an arm and, you know, it was like somebody put a hot poker into me. I had a conscience, and it hurt. Well, I checked it out and there were two arms and two legs and one head and so forth, and I turned and said, "I guess you got it all." That was a very hard experience for me to go through emotionally.

Here I was with no real convictions, caught in the middle. And so I did what a lot of us do throughout our life. We don't do anything. I didn't talk with anybody about it, I didn't talk with my folks about it, I didn't think about it. I did nothing. And do you know what happened? I got to see another abortion. That one hurt too. But again I didn't do anything, and so I kept seeing abortions. Do you know what? It hurt a little bit less every time I saw one.

Then I got to sit down and do an abortion. Well, the first one that I did was kind of hard. It hurt me again like a hot poker. But after a while, it got to where it didn't hurt. My heart got calloused. I was like a lot of people are today -- afraid to stand up. I was afraid to speak up. Or some of us, maybe we aren't afraid, but we just don't have our own convictions settled yet.

One particular abortion changed Brewer's life.

I remember an experience as a resident on a hysterectomy (a late-term abortion delivered by caesarean section). I remember seeing the baby move underneath the sack of membranes as the caesarean incision was made, before the doctor broke the water.

The thought came to me, "My God, that's a person." Then he broke the water. And when he broke the water, it was like I had a pain in my heart, just like when I saw the first suction abortion. And then he delivered the baby, and I couldn't touch it. I wasn't much of an assistant. I just stood there, and the reality of what was going on finally began to seep into my calloused brain and heart.

They took that little baby that was making little sounds and moving and kicking, and set it on the table in a cold, stainless steel bowl. And every time I would look over while we were repairing the incision in the uterus and finishing the Caesarean, I would see that little person kicking and moving in that bowl. And it kicked and moved less and less, of course, as time went on. I can remember going over and looking at that baby when we were done with the surgery and the baby was still alive. You could see the chest was moving and the heart beating, and the baby would try to take a little breath like that, and it really hurt inside, and it began to educate me as to what abortion really was.

The Ultimate Test of America's Greatness

2006-08-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

The Ultimate Test of America's Greatness
The Condition for Her Survival

An official departure ceremony for John Paul II was held at the Detroit Airport on 19 September 1987. In the presence of Vice-President George Bush and other dignitaries, the Holy Father delivered his farewell message.

Mr. Vice President,

Dear Friends, dear People of America,

1. Once again God has given me the joy of making a pastoral visit to your country - the United States of America. I am filled with gratitude to him and to you. I thank the Vice President for his presence here today, and I thank all of you from my heart for the kindness and warm hospitality that I have received everywhere.

I cannot leave without expressing my thanks to all those who worked so hard to
make this visit possible. In particular I thank my brother bishops and all their collaborators who for many months have planned and organized all the details of the last ten days. My gratitude goes to all those who provided security and ensured such excellent public order. I thank all those who have worked to make this visit above all a time of fruitful evangelization and prayerful celebration of our unity in faith and love.

I am also grateful to the people of other Churches and creeds and to all Americans of good will who have accompanied me, in person or through the media, as I traveled from city to city. A particular word of thanks goes to the men and women of the media for their constant and diligent assistance in bringing my message to the people, and in helping me to reach millions of those with whom otherwise I would have had no contact. Most importantly, I am grateful to all those who supported me by their prayers, especially the elderly and the sick, who are so dear to the heart of Jesus Christ.

As I leave, I express my gratitude to God also for what he is accomplishing in your midst. With the words of Saint Paul, I too can say with confident assurance "that he who has begun the good work in you will carry it through to completion, right up to the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil 1:6-7). And so I am confident too that America will be ever more conscious of her responsibility for justice and peace in the world. As a nation that has received so much, she is called to continued generosity and service towards others.

2. As I go, I take with me vivid memories of a dynamic nation, a warm and welcoming People, a Church abundantly blessed with a rich blend of cultural traditions. I depart with admiration for the ecumenical spirit that breathes strongly throughout this land, for the genuine enthusiasm of your young people, and for the hopeful aspirations of your most recent immigrants. I take with me an unforgettable memory of a country that God has richly blessed from the beginning until now.

America the beautiful! So you sing in one of your national songs. Yes, America, you are beautiful indeed, and blessed in so many ways:

- in your majestic mountains and fertile plains;

- in the goodness and sacrifice hidden in your teeming cities and expanding suburbs;

- in your genius for invention and for splendid progress;

- in the power that you use for service and in the wealth that you share with others;

- in what you give to your own, and in what you do for others beyond your borders;

- in how you serve, and in how you keep alive the flame of hope in many hearts;

- in your quest for excellence and in your desire to right all wrongs.

Yes, America, all this belongs to you. But your greatest beauty and your richest blessing is found in the human person: in each man, woman and child, in every immigrant, in every native-born son and daughter.

3. For this reason, America, your deepest identity and truest character as a nation is revealed in the position you take towards the human person. The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless ones.

The best traditions of your land presume respect for those who cannot defend themselves. If you want equal justice for all, and true freedom and lasting peace, then, America, defend life! All the great causes that are yours today will have meaning only to the extent that you guarantee the right to life and protect the human person:

- feeding the poor and welcoming refugees;
- reinforcing the social fabric of this nation;
- promoting the true advancement of women;
- securing the rights of minorities;
- pursuing disarmament, while guaranteeing legitimate defense;

…All this will succeed only if respect for life and its protection by the law is granted to every human being from conception until natural death.

Every human person - no matter how vulnerable or helpless, no matter how young or how old, no matter how healthy, handicapped or sick, no matter how useful or productive for society - is a being of inestimable worth created in the image and likeness of God. This is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition for her survival - yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weakest and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn.

With these sentiments of love and hope for America, I now say goodbye in words that I spoke once before (7 October 1979): "Today, therefore, my final prayer is this: that God will bless America, so that she may increasingly become - and truly be - and long remain - one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".

May God bless you all.

God bless America!

John Paul II

Helpless Unborn

2006-08-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

Prayer for the Helpless Unborn

Heavenly Father, in Your Love for us,
protect against the wickedness of the devil,
those helpless little ones to whom
You have given the gift of life.

Touch with pity the hearts of those
women pregnant in our world today
who are not thinking of motherhood.

Help them to see
that the child they carry
is made in Your Image
as well as theirs -
made for eternal life.

Dispel their fear and selfishness
and give them true womanly hearts
to love their babies
and give them birth
and all the needed care
that a mother alone can give.

We ask this through Christ Jesus,
your Son, Our Lord,
Who lives and reigns with You
and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever.

Amen.

Fetal Development

2006-08-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

Click here to view ‘Science for Unborn Human Life’ - An objective, fact-based report describing the day-by-day development of the unborn child, with each fact sourced by a reference to the scientific and medical literature.

A 3-D ultrasound image taken of the development of a fetus (clockwise from upper left) at 7, 9, 13, 16, 23 and 35 weeks:

Images of Fetal Development:
Baby at seven weeks - Image 1
Baby at seven weeks - Image 2
Baby at seven weeks - Image 3
Baby at eight weeks - Image 1
Baby at eight weeks - Image 2
Baby at eleven weeks
Baby at twelve weeks - Image 1
Baby at twelve weeks - Image 2
Baby at twelve weeks - Image 3
Baby at twelve weeks - Image 4
Baby at three and a half months - Image 1
Baby at three and a half months - Image 2
Baby at three and a half months - Image 3
Baby at three and a half months - Image 4
Baby at four months - Image 1
Baby at four months - Image 2
Baby at five months - Image 1
Baby at five months - Image 2
Baby at five months - Image 3
Baby at six months

The Fruits of Sidewalk Counseling

2006-08-11T13:16:00.001-07:00

The Fruits of Sidewalk Counseling:
Lives and Souls

On this particular day at least one child was allowed to live, at least one mom was spared from making a tragic mistake and suffering the many consequences - physical, emotional and spiritual, and one woman began the healing process just one year after aborting her child rather than what could have been decades later. All, thanks be to God.

A mom to whom I had given literature upon her arrival and came out of the killing center shortly after, said "You are so right" and that she couldn't go through with the abortion.

Shortly after, the Holy Spirit and I reached out to a young woman who had come there to find out if she was pregnant. I explained to her why I was there and what was contained in the literature that I had given her. I recommended that she have her pregnancy test done at a nearby pregnancy resource center and offered to drive her there and take her home afterward. She accepted my offer, but it was only 9:00 and the PRC wouldn't be open until 10:00. I was concerned that I might lose her, especially since she had come by bus and it was raining steadily. Because I was alone on that morning, leaving with her at that time would have meant abandoning the other moms who would be arriving shortly. It had been a typically busy morning already. I pointed out to her that the Amtrak station was just up the block. I asked her to go there where she could sit comfortably and read through the literature that I had given her while I remained here for another 45 minutes to help other women just like her. She agreed and at 9:45, as I started to make my way to the train station, I was relieved to see her returning to meet me.

As we chatted for a couple of blocks during our walk to my car, she confided that she had aborted a child one year earlier at this same killing center. She had read through the literature while at the train station and learned the facts about abortion. No, it's not just a "blob of tissue" and yes, there are side effects and risks and other consequences. She said that previously she did not have a clue. Now, knowing the facts, she was regretting that abortion.

She was sad and upset that none of the staff had informed her of the facts at that time even in the least way. That came as no surprise to me. My state doesn't have an informed consent law and these baby killers aren't the least bit so-called pro-choice. There is only one "choice" that is able to satiate their hunger for money.

I consoled her as best I could in both practical and spiritual terms and told her that the staff at the PRC would be able to counsel her further and that I would also put her in contact with a minister, which I did as soon as I arrived home.

While we were driving to the PRC she received a phone call during which she found out that she had been granted a four-year scholarship to NYU. I tried to assure her that if she were pregnant, God would provide just as He had with her scholarship.

Her pregnancy test turned out negative, but I am certain that she would not have aborted her child had she been pregnant.

I asked her if anyone was there last year reaching out to her as I had done today. No one was. Perhaps she had gone on a day or time of day that no member of our tiny team of sidewalk counselors as able to be there.

Judging from her receptiveness on this day, I have no reason to believe that she wouldn't have been as receptive last year had someone been there for her and her child. Her child would be alive today and she would not be wounded.

This disturbs me very much and I hope that it disturbs you as well because your help is desperately needed!

If you have any spare time or are able to reprioritize your commitments, I implore you to be concerned enough about these poor victims – mothers and children – to make yourself available to them. We have both a civic and Christian responsibility to come to their aid. Considering all of the ways in which God is being offended in our time, can there be any doubt that we are living in a time of Divine Mercy? By participating in sidewalk counseling you can be an instrument of God’s love, mercy and peace.

Be not afraid.

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."
(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Children Deserve Birth Advocate

Sidewalk Counseling

2006-08-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

Sidewalk Counseling

Sidewalk counseling is the offering of information to mothers and fathers, who are contemplating or planning abortion, that they have a need and right to know. It is conducted by way of conversation and literature. It is done with love and out of concern for unborn children who are in danger of being deprived of their God-given right to be born into the world and for their parents, especially mothers, who are in danger of being severely harmed in numerous ways.

Sidewalk counseling is conducted on public sidewalks outside abortion facilities on days that abortions are being committed and/or days when pre-abortion evaluations or pregnancy tests are provided.

Parents may be offered information about where to go for free pregnancy tests, counseling and practical assistance, as well as fetal development, adoption, abortion procedures, risks and side effects, and post-abortion counseling and healing.

Some groups incorporate other forms of street activities with their sidewalk counseling ministries such as picketing, demonstrating, preaching, displaying signs or images, and witnessing or evangelizing passersby or the abortion facility's staff, guards or escorts. However, in its purest form, sidewalk counseling is about saving a child from certain death and his/her parents from certain harm, one family at a time.

In fact, the term "sidewalk counseling" was devised to counter the media characterization of a group of pro-life advocates in California as demonstrators. This group had set aside their signs and all other external evidence of demonstrating and organized their efforts to be the most effective means of reaching and speaking with people in order to offer alternatives to abortion.

See 'Serious Thoughts on Sidewalk Counseling' for an in-depth reflection on this subject. Also see 'The Origins of Sidewalk Counseling'.

Prayer for Mothers to Choose Birth

2006-08-11T13:15:00.000-07:00

Prayer for Mothers to Choose Life

Jesus, Beloved Savior, You are the Light of the World. Those who follow You do not walk in darkness. Please give all pregnant women your Light and your Grace that they might see their way through this difficult decision and be guided my your Light alone.

Dear Savior, guide them as they weigh the alternatives and help them to keep the needs and rights of others clearly in view.

Come Holy Spirit and help them with this difficult decision. Give them wisdom and understanding, patience and courage that they might know and abide by the Will of their Heavenly Father. That their decision in this matter leads them further along the path toward Him rather than away from Him.

Heavenly Father, who has given us the great gift of life, bless and guide all pregnant women that they might respect and cherish the gift of life growing within them. Help each mother to accept her child as an irreplaceable gift from You. Bless all babies yet unborn. Watch over them as they grow and develop in the embrace of their mothers’ wombs. Form them and shape them that they might be born healthy. Grant that they might be welcomed at birth with tender love and deep joy.

O most loving Triune God I ask you to bless those babies who are unwanted and will never be born. Baptize them in your Blessed Triune Name and with the tears of Our Lady of Sorrows. Welcome them into your loving embrace that they might find their home in You. Amen

Mother’s Prayer to Choose Birth

2006-08-11T13:14:00.001-07:00

Mother's Prayer to Choose Birth

Jesus, Beloved Savior, You are the Light of the World. Those who follow You do not walk in darkness. Please give me your Light and your Grace that I might see my way through this difficult decision and be guided my your Light alone.

Dear Savior, guide me as I weigh the alternatives and help me to keep the needs and rights of others clearly in view.

Come Holy Spirit and help me with this difficult decision. Give me wisdom and understanding, patience and courage that I might know and abide by the Will of my Heavenly Father. That my decision in this matter leads me further along the path toward Him rather than away from Him.

Heavenly Father, who has given us the great gift of life, bless and guide me and all pregnant women that we might respect and cherish the gift of life growing within us. Help each of us to accept our child as an irreplaceable gift from You. Bless my pre-born baby and all babies yet unborn. Watch over them as they grow and develop in the embrace of our motherly wombs. Form them and shape them that they might be born healthy. Grant that they might be welcomed at birth with tender love and deep joy.

O most loving Triune God I ask you to bless those babies who are unwanted and will never be born. Welcome them into your loving embrace that they might find their home in You. Amen

My Life Depends On You

2006-08-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

My Life Depends On You

Mamma, please don't hurt me;
I'm helpless and so small.
If you don't choose to keep me safe,
then I've no one at all.
I'm not a thing to be destroyed -
in private, secretly.
I'm growing here beneath your heart,
I'm real, I'm yours, I'm me!

Perhaps your heart is troubled,
filled with fears or filled with shame.
But Mamma, try to understand;
I'm not the one to blame!
I've never, ever hurt you,
so you've nothing to forgive.
Why should I have to die
before I've had my right to live?

If you can't keep me, Mamma,
it's all right, I'll understand.
But please let someone else reach out
to take my tiny hand.
So many childless couples would
be happy as can be,
If they could but adopt and love
a little one like me.

Remember that when you were just
as small and frail as I,
your mother didn't make the choice
to have her baby die.
You had your chance to live,
so, please let me have my chance, too.
I can't escape; I can't cry out...
My life depends on you!

Your preborn child
~~
S.M.E. Sisters of the Precious Blood
5400 Fort Hamilton Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11219-4037

Inside An Abortion Mill

2006-08-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

"It Was Horrible, Horrible!"
A First-Hand Account of What Goes on Inside a Chula Vista Abortion Clinic

Reprinted with permission from San Diego News Notes P.O. Box 84507, San Diego, CA 92138-4507
BY MIGUEL VÁZQUEZ
January 2005

Yeni is a medical assistant and receptionist at the Clínica Médica para la Mujer de Hoy, an abortion clinic in Chula Vista. She's taking care of a customer, a very thin young Mexican, 28 years old, and of disheveled appearance. He's come to get information. He smiles nervously all the while. Yeni deals with him coldly. In Spanish, she greets him, "Hi, good afternoon."

Customer: "Is this where you do abortions?"

Yeni: "Yes."

Customer: "How much does it come out to? She's got about two-and-a half months."

Yeni: "If it hasn't been over three months, the cost is $300. The doctor's not coming in today. He won't be available until Saturday of next week, but what you don't want to happen is for it to go over three months."

Customer: "It's a little over two months."

Yeni: "You can come in a week from this coming Saturday. Come in with the patient and it'll be $300. Do you know her blood type?"

Customer: "No."

Yeni: "No? Well then, if it turns out her blood type is negative, there will be an additional $75 charge. Okay, I'm going to give you a number for you to call in case you want to make the appointment later on since we don't have a doctor right now. But if you want to make the appointment next week, this is the number for the clinic."

Customer: "I can make the appointment by phone?"

Yeni: "Uh-huh. You can make the appointment by phone, but for a week from this Saturday. This coming Saturday you won't be able to do it because we've got a lot of patients."

Customer: "Is it safe?"

Yeni: "It's very safe. It takes five minutes for the termination."

Customer: "Five minutes?"

Yeni: "Five Minutes."

Customer: "Is there any treatment, afterward?"

Yeni: "Yes, she needs to come back in two weeks for a checkup to make sure she's doing okay. We will prescribe medication for pain, and an antibiotic. It's very safe, but she needs to follow the treatment and come back in two weeks, okay?"

Customer: "Yes. Thank you."

Yeni: "Have a nice day."

This young man was her last customer for the day. It's almost dark outside, and the clinic is about to close. Yeni is staying to tidy the reception area. She agrees to an interview next week away from the clinic. What follows is her testimony from that interview.

"I started working at the clinic in 2002. I had just graduated as a medical assistant. I had applied at a lot of places, but I didn't get a job because I didn't have any experience. Then someone told me that Sonia, an acquaintance of mine, needed someone. When I talked to her, she made it clear that it had to do with a clinic where they do abortions, but that they do other things, too. My goal was to gain at least six months' to a year's experience in the medical field. Sonia told me to go to the clinic to try to help out the doctor, and that if I couldn't take it, it was no problem, they would have me do something else. I didn't like the idea, even though having an abortion isn't something I'm unfamiliar with. I myself had an abortion a year before. Sonia had the same thing happen to her, though it wasn't as voluntary as mine. Her parents took her to get the abortion.

"I agreed to try it out," Yeni continued. "The first time I helped the doctor, I almost fainted. I couldn't see, and I couldn't hear. I was overwhelmed by the blood and the girl's screams. They took me out of there and I told Sonia that I couldn't do it, but they advised me to try it once more. By the second abortion I found that I could deal with it. The weeks went by, and even though the job is ugly, I was learning a lot about medicine.

"I made up my mind to withstand the work at the clinic until I got a little experience I could apply somewhere else. Then came the abortions of babies who were five or six months, and it became impossible for me to continue. After three months, I resigned. But the pressure to pay my bills, all my debts, and my situation as a single mother, forced me to go back to work at the clinic.

"To this day, I have left and returned three times," she said, but added, "I myself can't believe that I'm here for the money. That's what is so absurd. I make $8.50 an hour here. But because I wanted a career as a medical assistant, I stayed."

Yeni checked a small notepad where she has made a few notes for the interview. In this little notebook she has written important points she wants to mention, "So," as she put it, "that it can be of use to someone."

She then continued her account. "At first I thought most of the patients would be young, single mothers, but it's not that way. The great majority are married women; say around 29 years-old, the typical woman who doesn't want another child. The ones who are separated, or don't have a man in their life, also come to us. We hardly get really young ones. I think that younger girls appreciate becoming a mother more than the ones who are on their second or third pregnancy.

"We get patients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. On average, five or six women come in each day. However, since the doctor hasn't been able to come in until tomorrow, which is Saturday, we'll be getting 16 patients," she said.
Yeni then explained what her work entails.

"Basically, what I do is to assist the doctor in the terminations [abortions]. After the patient fills out the forms and waits for her turn, I lead her into the private room where the procedure is carried out. I tell the patient to take her clothes off from the waist down. I tell her where she needs to sit and ask her to wait for the doctor.

"As soon as the doctor arrives, he has her lie down for the ultrasound to see how many months she is pregnant. If the baby is less than three months, the abortion can be done the same day.

"The doctor sits in front of the patient. The patient is lying there conscious — as if she were about to give birth. I hand the doctor the local anesthesia and I hand him the instruments as needed. I am seeing everything.

"Our doctor is quite old. He's 84 and uses an antiquated method." (The doctor to whom Yeni is referring is Dr. Phillip Rand. On Sept. 29, the California Medical Board suspended his license to practice medicine, noting that Rand is "incapable of practicing medicine safely.")

"First he puts the mirror in place. Then he measures the depth of the uterus. Next he opens the neck of the uterus with a dilator to make it easier. Then he introduces a small rod with an abrasive ring at the end. The ring isn't sharp, but the scraping hurts a lot of women and they cry or scream.

"When the baby is less than three months, the baby disintegrates completely. When the doctor feels that the baby has been dislodged completely, he introduces something similar to a straw. The exterior opening of the straw connects to a vacuum. Then he vacuums up everything that has broken apart. All that he vacuums goes into a jar. You see blood, and bits and pieces of tissue that look like chopped meat. It all comes out in pieces.

"This is the procedure for eight weeks or less, " she said. "When they're about 12 weeks, then the doctor takes the baby out with forceps. He takes the baby out in pieces. He checks each part and he places each one in a tray down below. When he finishes the procedure, I have to drain everything. We drain it to separate body parts from blood. We place all the parts in a jar that goes to the laboratory.

"It's impressive how well-defined they are. You can't believe what you are seeing. You see perfect little hands, tinier than those of a Barbie doll. You can see intestines, tiny ribs, their little faces, and their tiny squashed heads. You can distinguish among the parts if the baby was a boy or girl.

"It makes me so sad to see the jars. It's very hard for me to do all this. To see all that falls on the floor, or for example, to remove a tiny foot from the instruments. A girl who worked here told me that she came home with a tiny foot stuck to her uniform, close to her shoulder. She, of course, hadn't noticed until her husband told her."

Yeni continued getting off her chest what happens inside the clinic: "When the patient is less than three months pregnant, we have to prepare her so that she can come back the next day when she is dilated. The really large terminations are impressive. I have seen three fetuses come out whole. In one instance, you could see the little hand coming out of the uterus. The little hand was moving. But the most impressive thing was the baby that came out breathing. That time, the doctor got sick.

"The girl lived in Tijuana. They put dilators in her for two days. The baby was five and a half months. She didn't have a car and came walking to the clinic. Then it seemed like she was going through labor. When the doctor started to work on her, the baby came out without any help. The child came out breathing and died right there. After a minute, he changed color. He turned purple. The assistants felt very bad. They didn't want to put him in the receptacle. The doctor had to do it. All of us were very affected by it.

"Later, I saw the doctor in his office. His gaze was lost and fixed on the wall. Afterward, he was on the phone with someone telling them what had happened."
Yeni pauses. She wants to continue talking, but it's as if she has a lump in her throat. The interview took a bitter and sad turn.

"Since a few days ago," she said, "a substitute doctor has been coming in. He's younger and has a different technique. He doesn't scrape the uterus, he just uses the vacuum. Last Sunday, he couldn't take it any more because we did some rather large terminations — around four months. He used a technique I hadn't seen. He divided the ultrasound screen in two parts and used an apparatus during the entire procedure. Usually, what you see with the ultrasound is the child sucking his finger, or playing, but on this occasion when the doctor began vacuuming, you could see the baby was moving as if he hurt because it was pulling him or tearing something off. It was horrible, horrible.

"During the procedure, I feel as if they were doing it to me. I want it to finish quickly. I don't want to see it, and yet I have to see it. It's as if it were a penance for the abortion I had myself. With every patient I relive the same thing, and I feel the same thing. It's as if they're doing it to me again. It's as if it were so that I never forget, that I never forget what happened. And it hurts. Every day I wake up thinking, 'I have to go work there again.'

"When I started working at the clinic, Sonia and I made up our minds to help people. We were going to try to persuade them not to get an abortion. We often tried to secretly do a good deed. We'd ask the girls, 'Are you sure?' We would tell them to think it over carefully. Sometimes we would tell them it was going to hurt them terribly. We scared them. A few here and there would regret it and not go through with it. We even helped a few of them, who arrived under pressure from their mother or their husband, to escape out the back door.

"But this attitude of helping out was off and on for short periods of time. This is because you see how, when a patient has made up her mind, there's not much you can do. That has discouraged us. What's more, I would tell the ones who got an abortion, 'Be careful; make sure you don't have to go through this again. Look at me; I did it and it has really affected me.' According to me, I was providing them with therapy. That has passed in me. I don't feel sorry for them, as I did at first. Now they make me angry.

"In most of the cases we handle there is no really pressing need. We used to ask them what their situation was, but I don't ask them any more because they're the same dumb responses. I'm angry that they come to get an abortion so unashamed, joking, and laughing. One that was in the reception area told me, clowning around, 'Kick me, why don't you, so it comes out.'

"When I did it [had an abortion], I was totally in shock. I can't justify it, but here I see almost all of them come in as if they were getting a facial. They're very selfish. One 38-year-old woman told me, 'It's either the baby, or it's my daughter's quinceañera (A traditional Mexican debutant party for 15-year-old girls). It's not my daughter's fault that I got pregnant.' Some of them have gotten mad at us because they're seven months pregnant, and we can no longer do it. We have had women who come in as patients and later bring their daughter. We have patients who come back here in three months. There's one patient who has had eight abortions. Even the doctor said the tenth one will be free. Another one came because she was going to get married and wanted the abortion before the honeymoon.

"One woman was afraid and said, 'Oh my God, please don't let it hurt, don't let it hurt.' Sonia answered, 'Ma'am, you leave God out of these things.'

"Others ask, 'How did it come out?', like they want to see it. I don't answer them. I only say to myself 'Don't worry, the baby came out in pieces. What do you want to see? The baby in pieces?' After the abortion, they'll ask, 'Can I go to a party? Can I drink alcohol?'

"I can't help being angry — at the patient, at the doctor, and at myself. It's useless to be here. We aren't doing anything good. I'm very mad at myself. I feel wasted away. I feel as if I'm not the same person."

At another time in her life, Yeni was part of a youth group at a Tijuana parish. Imbedded in her mind are many happy moments, innocent and full of hope. One recent event has made her think long and hard about the meaning of her life.

"Three days after it opened, we went to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Believe me, it was very hard. When we saw how they beat Jesus and the instruments they used, we compared it to the instruments the doctor used. I saw everything we did in the clinic in that movie — so much blood spilled. I couldn't stop crying in the theater. I also saw the devil portrayed as a fetus. I wanted to die. The following day, I told Sonia that we had to stop working at the clinic. She also saw the movie and we remembered that in the picture they said 'He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.' We were very afraid because just a few months before, the manager of the clinic was killed by her husband. We felt something was going to happen to us because of what we were doing", she said.

"Before my abortion, and before working here, I wasn't afraid of death. Whenever I thought of the day God would come for me, even while knowing I have sinned, with all of my sins, I wasn't afraid. Now, I live with that fear. I feel that I don't want to die because I wonder how I would face God if I should see him. I don't have peace.

"Last week, I visited my brother and wanted to hug my nephew. The child was crying almost hysterically. My sister-in-law said the child was scared because he felt I have the devil inside because I kill babies for a living. I was really angry at my sister-in-law, but I felt it was true to some extent."

Yeni wants to leave her present situation and has started to take the first steps.

"A few days ago, I went to see a guy from the church group that I used to go to. He told me that he was happy that I worked for God and that I was doing well. I felt as if I were choking! I told him I worked at something that I had to leave before I can get closer to God again. He told me to talk to a priest, but I'm afraid. I can't see how I can in all conscience walk into a church. I know the trouble that I'm in. I know the situation I'm in, and what it is I need to do.

"I applied for a job where they take care of the elderly in San Diego. I told the woman who interviewed me about the type of work I do at the clinic, and I pleaded with her to help me get out of here. I told her my hope was with this new job. She was very kind, and she said she would do all she can. No matter what happens, if I don't get the job, I'm going to look for a job in whatever I can. It doesn't matter if it's not as a medical assistant. I'm fed up with the situation here.

"Sonia also had an interview somewhere else. It is for a totally different job. She told me that when she was walking back from her interview, she was telling God, 'My dear God, please, you don't want me to return to the clinic. Give me this job. Please give it to me.' She also told me, 'You'll see; they're going to give us those jobs.'

"We're both sick of our jobs, but for one reason or another, we're still here. I agreed to talk to La Cruz because I think it's necessary that people know the horrors that we have experienced here. Both of us feel a great need to do something good to start compensating God for everything we have done in this job."
Yeni said she wanted to make one important comment before concluding the interview:
"I want to add that some religious groups deliver pamphlets to women before they enter the clinic. I've seen that they look at those pamphlets that show the formation of a baby week after week. Some reconsider and leave the clinic. They are few, but sometimes it happens."

Yeni and Sonia left their job at the clinic a week after this interview, which was conducted on September 27, 2004. The woman who was their supervisor is considering resigning, as well. She has told this to the coordinator of one of the two prayer groups that get together in front of the clinic. They continue to pray for the clinic to be closed permanently.

Peace

2006-08-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is error, truth;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; and
where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying to ourselves that we
are born to eternal life.
Amen

Gospel of Life

2006-08-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

O Mary,
bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
to you do we entrust the cause of life:
Look down, O Mother,
upon the vast numbers
of babies not allowed to be born,
of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women
who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick killed
by indifference or out of misguided mercy.

Grant that all who believe in your Son
may proclaim the Gospel of life
with honesty and love
to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace
to accept that Gospel
as a gift ever new,
the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives
and the courage to bear witness to it
resolutely, in order to build,
together with all people of good will,
the civilization of truth and love,
to the praise and glory of God,
the Creator and Lover of life.
Amen.

Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life

Human Lives, Human Rights

2006-08-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

Human Lives, Human Rights

by Archbishop John J. O'Connor
October 15, 1984

"…we affirm as an incontestable and sacred principle, respect for every form of human life, life that is awakening, life that asks only to develop, life that is drawing to a close; life especially that is weak, unprovided for, defenseless, at the mercy of others."

Following is the prepared text of Archbishop John J. O'Connor's October 15 address, sponsored by the Institute on Human Values in Medical Ethics of New York Medical College with Flower Hospital, at Cathedral High School in Manhattan.

A Nation's Enduring Heartache

Let me start by telling you the story of the man who puzzled his daughter when he told her that the day he had his heart attack was the happiest day of his life. Then he explained why.

"It is very simple, my child," he said. "I have witnessed so much death and suffering and survived it all. At times I wondered if I had a heart at all. This heart attack reassured me that I indeed have one. For how can a man without a heart have a heart attack?"

The story is my favorite among the Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust told by Professor Yaffa Eliach of the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College.

The pain of the heart attack was reassuring to the man because it proved to him that he had not been hardened to human suffering by the experiences he had survived. He still had a heart!

There is a great deal of pain in our country today. I am not happy about it, but I am encouraged by it. I am encouraged to believe that there is deep pain throughout the land in respect to a number of crucial problems. I believe, further, that this profound and pervasive anxiety is rooted in the reality that as a people we do have a heart--an enormous heart, a warm and generous heart, a heart that is experiencing a gnawing pain, an enduring heartache, if not an outright spiritual and emotional heart attack.

Our Unease Over Injustices

We know that we are doing so many things right as a nation, but we know, too, or we feel, a vague uneasiness and, at times an acute anxiety, that we are doing some things wrong -- terribly wrong.

We know there is something wrong as we pass the bag ladies, the bagmen in the streets. We know there is something wrong about gentrification that flushes lonely, elderly people out of homes and apartments with absolutely no place to go. We know there is something wrong when drugs control and destroy our neighborhoods, when we can't build prisons fast enough to meet the demand. We know there is something wrong when the most incredible pornography is defended as freedom of speech, when child abuse reaches horrifying proportions, when people are disenfranchised or exploited because of where they were born, or their sex, or the color of their skin. We know there is in the sexual exploitation and violence that Father Bruce Ritter deals with every day right here in Manhattan, and in the hopelessness of the burned-out buildings in cities all over the country. We know there is something wrong in Central America, in the Middle East, in the north of Ireland, in Cambodia and in Poland, in much of the vast continent of Africa, and elsewhere in the world. We know there is something wrong, something terrifyingly wrong, about the arms race, and about the horrifying potential of nuclear weapons.

And all of this knowledge and more pains us, because we are basically a good people, a good and kind and merciful people. And the pain comes in knowing that we are doing some things terribly wrong and in either not truly wanting to right them, or in not seeming to know how to right them. So, many of us -- a great many of us -- do what is very understandable: we try to forget the problems, to busy ourselves with a thousand legitimate preoccupations, to hope that someone else will solve the problems, or that they will simply go away. Like the bag people. We didn't put them on the streets. We don't want them on the streets. We can't understand why they are on the streets, we disbelieve how many are on the streets, we wish they would go away, or someone would take them away. But in the meanwhile, particularly as we hustle to our own homes on bitter winter nights, we, pass them by, and we know they are there, and the knowing pains us, because we know simultaneously that somehow, there has to be a better way.

National Anxiety Over Abortion

I am deeply concerned that it is this kind of uneasiness, this same kind of anxiety, this same kind of pain that we feel as a nation, knowing that we lose 4,000 lives every day through abortion. And that's a large part of the answer to the question people ask me all the time: Why is this front-page news all over the country? Why are people talking about it all over the world? No single statement by any one bishop--no series of statements by all the bishops combined -- could have created the depth and the breadth and the intensity of feeling about this if it hadn't been there all along, stirring down inside us, gnawing at our hearts. You can't make an issue out of a non-issue. This one was there, long before a single bishop said a single word.

We know, somehow, whatever our religious persuasion, that there is something wrong when one and a half million unborn human lives are taken every year in our beloved country. We know that, whatever the reason, there must be a better way. We know that this magnificent country, with its incredible resources, its ability to put a man on the moon, the skill to transplant hearts, the heart to give our lives for the oppressed all over the world -- this marvelous country must surely have a better answer to the violence of poverty, than to inflict the violence of death on the innocent; it must surely have a better answer for the lonely, confused, frightened young woman, the teenager, the 10- or 11- or 12-year-old pregnant girl, than to destroy the new life within her. Our nation must surely have more to offer a bewildered family than the money to help pay for a daughter's abortion. Our society must, surely must, have more support for the woman torn with conflict over a pregnancy than to point her toward an abortion clinic.

Is this simply a religious perspective? Is my grief over abortion born merely of what I have been taught as a Catholic? I can't believe that. I know that millions of Jews, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslims, people of many other religious persuasions and people who profess no religion at all, grieve as I do over this destruction of life.

Abortion: The Destruction of Life

Or is abortion not the destruction of life? Are we, in fact, not putting babies to death?

If we are not destroying human life, of course, then our concern, our anxiety, our pain over abortion virtually disappears. There is a dramatic difference between removing 4,000 pieces of tissue each day from the bodies of 4,000 women and taking the lives of 4,000 babies.

Human Life Before Birth: Medical Evidence

What is abortion, then? Can we face that question honestly? Can we raise it without rancor, without accusation, without judgment or condemnation of anyone? Surely it is a crucial question. Surely it deserves an answer. One of the very reasons I wanted to give this talk to an audience composed largely of medical people, is that I believe that you, in particular, must ask and answer this question honestly. I turn to you and to your medical colleagues for what you and they have to say. I do not ask you or them to speak from religious beliefs. I do not ask you or them to determine at what point the unborn becomes a human person. I ask you and them to speak from your common sense experience of human life and from the scientific evidence you observe.

I turn, for example, to Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the well-known Jewish obstetrician-gynecologist who identifies himself as an atheist. Doctor Nathanson's background is fascinating. By his own admission, he presided over 60,000 abortions in the first and largest abortion clinic in the Western world, the clinic he directed. He now calls those abortions 60,000 deaths. Here are his own words:

Some time ago -- after a tenure of a year and a half I resigned as director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health. The Center had performed 60,000 abortions. . . . I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.

There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy, despite the fact that the nature of the intrauterine life has been the subject of considerable dispute in the past.

Electrocardiographic evidence of heart function has been established in embryos as early as six weeks. Electroencephalographic recordings of human brain activity have been noted in embryos at eight weeks. Our capacity to measure signs of life is daily becoming more sophisticated, and as time goes by, we will doubtless be able to isolate life signs at earlier stages in fetal development.

Doctor Nathanson now spends a large part of his life pleading against abortion, not because of a religious conversion, but because of the evidence yielded by ultrasound scanning, intra-uterine surgery, in vitro fertilization and other advances in science and technology. Dr. Nathanson previously used the impersonal term "alpha" to describe what he now calls "the person in the womb." Scientific findings have convinced him beyond a shadow of a doubt that "prenatality is just another passage in our lives -- lives which commence with fertilization and end with death."

Dr. Nathanson is far from alone. Indeed, the American Medical Association itself urged strict laws against abortion more than a century ago, simply because the scientific evidence said that human life begins at conception. In 1871, the AMA told its members that a fetus becomes animated long before quickening. Quoting from Archbold's Criminal Practice and Pleadings, it said this: "No other doctrine appears to be consonant with reason or physiology but that which admits the embryo to possess vitality from the very moment of conception." No statement by the AMA in more recent times has contradicted the position it took then.
In our own day, miracles of modern science confirm what we have known all along -- that life exists in the womb. Reporting on an article by Dr. Mitchell S. Golbus called "Healing the Unborn," the 1983 Medical and Health Annual of the Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Prenatal medicine is now beginning to he able to intervene, before birth, to alleviate, and even cure conditions that previously would have severely compromised the fetus. This promises survival for thousands of threatened lives.... The concept that the fetus is a patient, an individual whose disorders are a proper subject for medical therapy, has been established."

But sadly, all of our new knowledge seems to have taught us very little. A famous article in the journal called California Medicine, written in 1970, concedes that life is present before birth, but warns physicians that if they want people to think that abortion is morally acceptable, they'll have to come up with a brand new language. Semantic gymnastics, they call it.

This was surely the attitude Sir William Liley had in mind when he lamented the direction that too many in the medical world and society in general have taken. Sir William, of the faculty of the Postgraduate School of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the University of Auckland, listed a series of developments that gave us new insights into the miracle of life before birth, and then continued:

For a generation which reputedly prefers scientific fact to barren philosophy, we might have thought this new information would engender a new respect for the welfare and appreciation of the importance of intra-uterine life.

Instead, around the world we find a systematic campaign clamouring for the destruction of the embryo and fetus as a cure-all for every social and personal problem. I, for one, find it a bitter irony that just when the embryo and fetus arrive on the medical scene there should be such sustained pressure to make him, or her, a social nonentity.

Human Life Before Birth: Everyday Evidence

Some evidence, however, does seem to make a profound impression on many medical and lay people as well. That's what happened when Congressman Lawrence J. Hogan saw some startling pictures, as he told a congressional subcommittee on constitutional amendments:

Until a few years ago, I did not think much about abortion. It did not mean very much to me. I somehow equated it with birth control.

My brother, Doctor William Hogan, who. . . is with me today, and is an obstetrician, had been trying to discuss abortion with me, but I kept putting him off saying that it was not a popular political issue.

Finally, one day he came to my house and showed me some color pictures of what unborn babies look like. I saw what some people call a chemical reaction, sucking a thumb. I saw perfectly formed human babies just a few weeks from conception. I saw the pictures of the 21 week old fetus, a little girl, who survived out of the womb. I saw other little babies who did not survive. Some were scalded red from saline solution which flushed them from the womb. I saw others torn apart from the machine. I could see a little foot and a little hand. I was stunned. I was shocked. And I was bitterly ashamed.

I did not know what I really thought abortion was. I just did not think very much about it. But, certainly I did not think we were killing babies. How could I have been so stupid?

It' we are not killing babies in abortion, what are we doing?

When discarded fetuses are found in the trash, why are we horrified? Why do we rebel when our highest court tells us that the matter of when life begins is constitutionally irrelevant? In the light of all that, we know, and in the name of sheer common sense, is it not because we are profoundly convinced that the unborn child is human? What can we possibly say except that we are putting to death 4,000 human beings every day - one and a half million every year.

Isn't there something wrong with this? Where does it all stop?

The Agony of Decision

I know there are those who sincerely believe that abortion is an evil, but that not to have an abortion might be even worse. I know it, and my heart goes out to them. I know there are women and parents and young girls who are frantic about a pregnancy. They don't know which way to turn or what to do. They're under enormous pressure. Who can condemn them? Who can fail to understand all they're going through? Their abortions are still tragic; their babies are still put to death. But they think they're doing the right thing. Do I condemn them for feeling that way? No, never. I would do anything I could to help them pick up the pieces of their lives after an abortion.

The same is true of families, of parents who might abhor the idea of abortion, but when their own daughter is pregnant, believe that unless she has an abortion her life will be ruined. There can be no question of the grief they feel, the conflict that rips at their very hearts, the deep suffering they endure in coming to a decision that an abortion is the only way.

But is it? Is it the only way? Is it the best answer we can come up with after these many centuries of civilization? What does it do to the woman herself, the young girl, the family?

I wish there were time to read to you some of the letters I have received from women who have had abortions, or from families that encouraged or urged or even pressured them to do so. I am speaking of women and of families of all religious persuasions and of none. Many suffer for years. My own heart aches for them. I try to respond to the best of my ability, to offer them whatever help I possibly can. But in some cases, I fear, the wound never seems to heal. In my view, the tragedy in every such case is at least doubled: an innocent baby has been deprived of life, a woman has been deprived of peace of mind and heart, sometimes for the rest of her life. Indeed, in every such case there are at least two victims, the baby and the woman herself. In many cases, the fathers of the baby aborted, the families involved, suffer terribly as well.

It is inevitably the woman, however, who is confronted most immediately and intimately with the terrible conflicts that can accompany a pregnancy and with the anguish of decision. We have no sympathy with the man who judges a woman's dilemma glibly, or who detaches himself from the reality of the conflict and the suffering involved. Nor can we respect the man who walks callously away from his own obligations when confronted with a woman's unplanned pregnancy. Such, of course, is not always the case. It can happen that the father of an unborn baby who is deliberately aborted can suffer deeply.

One of the most poignant stories I have ever read was by a former CBS correspondent. Writing in the Los Angeles Times in March of 1976, he describes his joy when his wife told him she was pregnant, and his shock and fury when she told him she had already talked with several friends, had a doctor's name and intended to have an abortion. Shouting and pleading followed, with his wife insisting it was her body and should be her decision alone. Finally be drove her to the doctor's office and waited in the car.

He tells the story 20 years later. Why? Because suddenly and unexpectedly he passed the corner of the doctor's office, and it all came flooding back, and he found himself wondering over and over what might have been. By the time he arrived at his meeting, the tears were flowing and wouldn't stop.

"Whatever sort of person the lost one might have been," he writes, "I feel even now that we had no right to take his/her life."

"Religion has nothing to do with my feelings. It is a gut response -- still so strong that it overwhelmed me" some 20 years later.

Even now I find myself wondering about my first child that never was and I wonder, too, about others in my shoes. How many men share my haunted feelings about children who might have been, but were denied. Why are we, the fathers who never were, so reluctant to talk about such feelings? If it all so painful for us, how much worse must it be for the women who nurture and then give up the very fact of life itself?

A sad story? Of course it is, and there are countless stories like it. I know that your hearts go out, just as mine does, to all those whose lives have been so tragically touched. I do not repeat the story to reawaken bitter memories or to revive buried guilt. On the contrary, I believe as profoundly as I believe anything in this world, that God wants nothing more than to forgive whatever mistakes we have made, and pleads with us to let Him do so.

A Plea to the Medical Profession

But what of the future? Can we do more? Of course we can, all of us. And here I appeal particularly to you in the medical profession. I ask boldly that you help in at least three ways.

First, very simply, I ask you to think about the Hippocratic Oath. Ask yourself with absolute honesty what abortion really is. Test what is done to the unborn against the Hippocratic Oath many of you once took. You remember how it used to go: "I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a pessary to a woman to produce an abortion." And you know that the words about abortion are now so frequently omitted. Why? Why?

Secondly, teach us what we must learn about taking care of the whole person--the entire family, physically and emotionally. Teach us far, far more than we have been willing to learn to date about the critical importance of decent housing, of security in our streets, of the destructiveness of drugs. Teach us that good medicine requires that people need jobs, and meaningful jobs, to be able to hold their heads high, to feed, to clothe, to educate their children. Teach us that poverty is dangerous to our health, that malnutrition in mothers breeds disabilities in children. Plead for daycare centers, increased numbers of facilities for the handicapped. Raise your voices precisely as medical professionals to plead for a just social order indispensable to effective medicine. Teach that abortion is what it is, without pretense, but help bring about circumstances which will help a pregnant woman recognize that there is a better way for her than to have her own child destroyed.

Teach us above all, however, that you of the medical profession recognize the absolutely crucial role you play in regard to the entire issue of abortion. The overwhelming number of the 4,000 abortions carried out every day are carried out by members of the medical profession. What enormous power is yours, what leadership for life you could provide! Do you consider abortion your responsibility, whether or not you personally have ever been involved in or would be involved in an abortion? As the Holy Father reminded us recently when he spoke to a group of anesthesiologists, the responsibility extends to everyone in the medical field. For whatever my personal opinion is worth, I am convinced that the medical profession could change the entire picture of abortion in America and the world. Such is your influence, your prestige. Such is our dependence on you as nurturers and guardians of human life.

And thirdly, here is a request as direct as I can make it; if it's needed to save the life of an unborn child, give your medical services without cost. I do not know how many abortions are performed free of charge, but I would like to believe that you and your colleagues would be willing to deliver live - and free of charge, where necessary - every baby that would otherwise be aborted. I am certain that many of you do this already, but I urge you to make it widely known that you want to go out of your way to help, at no cost to the pregnant girl or woman in need.

And I appeal to you, our hospital administrators, boards and staff to provide free of charge, when necessary, all the medical care required for both mother and child.

My appeal is extended to those in the legal profession, as well, to assist women and families without charge, when necessary, to learn what federal or state or city funding may be available to them, and to help them in adoption processes, should they choose this route.

The Commitment of the Archdiocese

I can assure all of you, as I appeal to you, and can assure every single or married woman facing an unplanned pregnancy, that the Archdiocese of New York will give you free, confidential help of highest quality. Here are just some of the services the Archdiocese will provide, whatever your religious affiliation. It makes no difference whether you are Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim or any other religion, or of no religion at all, or single or married--and your confidentiality will be completely respected.

You will get help with medical care and you do not have to worry about the bills. If you have medical insurance, you may be able to use this. If you choose adoption, the adopting family is responsible for your medical bills. If you wish to keep your baby, your social worker will help you get Medicaid. There is no fee for our services to you.

Our social workers will make arrangements to meet you close to your home. They travel widely throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. If you live in another state, we will help you get service from another agency or arrange for you to come to New York whenever possible.

If you cannot live at home during your pregnancy, other living arrangements can be made for you. The social worker we will provide you will suggest to you a variety of arrangements. You can choose the one best for you.

If you decide to keep your baby, your social worker will locate medical services, community resources, financial aid and support services to help you.

If you choose adoption, you will have a choice about the family with whom your baby is placed. Your social worker will give you profiles of approved couples on the waiting list. She will discuss these with you, but you make the selection. Let me say it simply and straightforwardly. The Archdiocese of New York is prepared to do everything in its power to help you and your unborn baby, to make absolutely certain that you need never feel that you must have an abortion.

A Plea to Those in Public Service

I have appealed to you members of the medical professions, to those of you in the legal profession and to those of you who may personally experience an unplanned pregnancy. May I now address all who hold or who seek public office, and ask this: Commit yourself unconditionally to a just social order for all--to decent housing, to jobs, to the end of all discrimination, to the ultimate ending of the arms race. Do these things not for political gain, but out of respect for all human life. I've heard it said that those who plead for protection for the unborn are obsessed with a single issue. But what is that issue other than life itself? No one in public life would dare admit to being a racist or a warmonger. But suppose someone did? Would we be accused of obsession with a single issue if we challenged that position? And is any value that is threatened anywhere greater than life itself?

Advocates for Change

Why, then, is it argued that questioning a candidate about abortion is somehow unfair or unethical? Must a candidate or in office holder explicitly support abortion? Of course no! He or she is free to tell the world: "I am not only personally opposed to abortion, but I intend to do everything I can within the law to bring about a change in the law. I do not believe that the right to privacy overrides the right to life of an unborn child." There's nothing constitutional about that. You have to uphold the law, the Constitution says. It does not say that you must agree with the law, or that you cannot work to change the law.

What do we ask of a candidate or someone already in office? Nothing more than this: a statement opposing abortion on demand, and a commitment to work for a modification of the permissive interpretations issued on the subject by the United States Supreme Court. It will simply not do to argue that "laws" won't work, or that "we can't legislate morality." Nor will it do to argue, "I won't impose my morality on others." There is nothing personal or private in the morality that teaches that the taking of unborn life is wrong.

Abortion: Beyond Politics

And so I plead with you above all for the most innocent, those who have no voice of their own to cry out for your protection. Your personal belief is not an issue with me, nor are your politics. Whether you hold political office or aspire to such, whatever your party, my appeal is precisely the same. I speak to elect no candidate, to reject no candidate. There are critical needs in our society. All must be addressed on a continuing basis. None will go away overnight regardless of who holds public office, at whatever level. Some needs are so crucial that they require absolutely the best leadership this country can provide. It is neither my prerogative nor my desire to determine who those leaders are to be. But I am passionately convinced that no need is more crucial than to protect the rights of the unborn. I can but pray that those who are chosen to lead us will do everything possible to protect those rights, for such, in my judgment, is the indispensable step in protecting the rights of all who cannot protect themselves--and one day that can be any one of us.

In a speech last April at Mount Saint Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill quoted the truly noble words of Senator Hubert Humphrey that could be read as an ominous warning as well: "The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and handicapped."

Abortion and the Law

Since 1973 some of the finest scholars in the United States have argued that the Supreme Court decisions were not solidly based on the Constitution, and one Supreme Court Justice who dissented, from the majority called the abortion decision an act of "raw, judicial power." In other words, the will of seven justices was imposed on an entire nation.

A Decree Against the Consensus

Given this reality, when charges are so loosely made that those who plead for a recovery of legal protection for the unborn are trying to impose their will on the majority, it is apparently forgotten that virtually every state in the union had some kind of protective law which was swept away by the Supreme Court. If we are going to argue that law must reflect a consensus, we must admit that there was a strong, national consensus against abortion on demand before the Supreme Court issued its decree that the unborn is "not a person whose life state law could legally protect."

There are those who argue that we cannot legislate morality, and that the answer to abortion does not lie in the law. The reality is that we do legislate behavior every day. Our entire society is structured by law. We legislate against going through red lights, selling heroin, committing murder, burning down other peoples' houses, stealing, child abuse, slavery and a thousand other acts that would deprive other people of their rights. And this is precisely the key: law is intended to protect us from one another of private and personal moral or religious beliefs. The law does not ask me if I personally believe stealing to be moral or immoral. The law does not ask me if my religion encourages me to burn down houses. As far as the law is concerned, the distinction between private and public morality is quite clear. Basically, when I violate other peoples' rights, I am involved in a matter of public morality, subject to penalty under law.

Is it outlandish to think that laws against abortions might have some protective effect? It is obvious that law is not the entire answer to abortion. Nor is it the entire answer to theft, arson, child abuse, or shooting police officers. Everybody knows that. But who would suggest that we repeal the laws against such crimes because the laws are so often broken?

Teaching Function of Law

Of course we need far more education, and speaking in this high school auditorium I call upon our school administrators and teachers to carry out this responsibility. Of course we need far more love and respect and reverence for human life. Of course those churches that believe abortion to be sinful have the obligation to teach their adherents. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops testified before the Senate in 1981: ". . . we have no intention of asking the government to take over our own task of teaching moral principles and forming consciences." The testimony went on to argue, however, that the law has a critical teaching function. On this basis, too, we would appeal to those in public life who could do so much to help achieve modifications in the current laws.

Every American is brought up, ideally, to respect the law. We know that some individual laws are good, some bad, some just, some unjust, but it's the concept of law that we respect. We know laws are necessary because we are all weak human beings, and while we may chafe under laws that are personally inconvenient to us, we know we must have laws or have chaos. It is one of our proudest traditions that bad laws can be changed. There is no better example than the Slave Laws. And while many blacks still suffer in our country, and are still far from enjoying all the human and civil rights due them by both moral and civil law, the reality is that if the 1857 Supreme Court decision in the famous Dred Scott case had been allowed to stand, they would still be legally slaves, non-citizens, forever unable to become citizens. In 1857, it was not enough for people of good will to call slavery wrong; it was absolutely essential that they call the law wrong, and worked to change it.

Consequences of Abortion Mentality

We need only look at the mentality that has developed under current laws in recent years. An assistant district attorney argues in the case of the smothering of a newborn by her grandmother: "This is what you might call a two-minute abortion because the baby was unwanted." A Nobel Prize winner has suggested that parents should be given a period of three days after the birth of a baby to determine whether the baby should live or die. Physicians are asked to determine by amniocentesis and other means the sex of the unborn so that an abortion can be performed if the sex is not acceptable to the parents. We hear of trafficking in fetuses which are sold nationally and internationally for commercial purposes such as the manufacture of cosmetics. The judicial trend since 1973 has even allowed a court's ordering abortion for a mentally retarded or incompetent woman.

Why maintain laws against child abuse when abortion--the most violent form of child abuse in society--is protected as a right? Why have laws against racism when--as the ten black Roman Catholic bishops of the United States recently charged -- liberal abortion policies amount to another form of subjugation of poor black people.

Deeply as we feel the pain of the individual, and aware as we are that many, many women have abortions because that seems to them their only choice, we cannot, we must not treat abortion as though it were a matter of concern only to an individual woman or man or family. We are already seeing cruel signs of what an abortion mentality can mean for all society.

Again we ask how safe will the retarded be, the handicapped, the aged, the wheelchaired, the incurably ill, when the so-called "quality of life" becomes the determinant of who is to live and who is to die? Who is to determine which life is "meaningful," which life is not? Who is to have a right to the world's resources, to food, to housing, to medical care? The prospects are frightening and far too realistic to be brushed aside as "scare tactics."

Father Hesburgh of Notre Dame phrases the issue well. "It is difficult to explain how a moral America, so brilliantly successful in confronting racial injustice in the '60s, has the most permissive abortion law of any Western country, recognizing virtually no protection for unborn human beings. . . ."

A Call for Change

So we must change the laws. This is one reason why I am encouraged by Governor Cuomo's calling for a task force to "take our highest aspirations and most notable pronouncements about life and seek to convert them into working laws and policies." I applaud such an objective vigorously as long as it, is indeed pointed toward changing the current laws, as long as we forthrightly recognize that a task force, can but recommend. We continue to look to our highest elected officials for leadership in bringing about those changes in current laws and policies so critically needed to protect every human life at every stage of its existence.

False Charges of Abortion Advocates: A Response

There is strong resistance by some to any change in the laws to make them less permissive or to reduce the possibility of "abortion-on-demand" (for that is the real issue). Some costly advertising campaigns are designed to discredit the "pro-life" movement.

Some pro-abortionists convey the impression that "masses" of women would die undergoing "back-alley" abortions if abortions were illegal. We are informed that this is not supported by figures issued by the United States Government before 1973 nor following the 1979 cutoff of Medicaid funds for abortion.

Certainly rape is always a frightening possibility and a crime to be abhorred in every way. It is understandable that many would feel that an abortion should be justifiable if a woman or a young girl becomes pregnant through rape. We in no way minimize the horror and trauma of rape. Obviously, whether we are speaking of a thousand cases or one case, a woman's life, a family's future, can be virtually destroyed. But as we have asked before, will violence against an unborn child compensate for the violence against the woman raped, or will it, in many cases, simply increase her suffering? Is it at least possible that bearing a child, however conceived, and either rearing it or offering it for adoption to the hundreds of thousands of couples pleading to adopt, might bring, even out of the tragedy or rape, a rich fulfillment?

Permit me to read you just one of the letters I have received from women who have been raped.

Twenty-two years ago I was raped. I had no home at this time. Some sisters took me in when I became ill.

I could not give my daughter what she needed when my own life was so hard, so I let her go (for adoption).

Sixteen years later - without even knowing her name I found my daughter. My daughter and I are close friends. She is now married.

I tell you all of this because no matter how life was conceived, we are to stand firm in being thankful for the gift of life no matter what tragedy is connected with it.

Yes, it was a horrible experience to be raped. Yes, it was I who felt like the bad person. Yes, there was worry if my child would be healthy. Yes, I had no idea how I could take care of my baby. Yes, I was ashamed to be seen - so young and not married.

Still, I suffered through this nightmare that deeply affected me rather than have an abortion because of my deep reverence for all living creatures created by God. I wasn't a Catholic at the time and yet I knew what the truth was, and still is. I had taken, my child's life before she was born, there wouldn't be a daughter telling her friends that she is proud of me for being just me.

The charge that the "pro-life" movement considers abortion a political decision, rather than personal and medical, is equally misleading. Certainly the lives of its future citizens are of concern to the "body politic." Appropriate political activity is both a right and duty for every citizen. It is precisely concern for the personal that prompts us to exercise our right and duty to use the political process to try to bring about legislation that protects the right of every person, including the unborn. This is a far cry from asking our politicians to tell us what is morally good for us. We have no more desire to see politicians determine what is moral and immoral than we have to see such abortion decisions forced upon medical doctors.

There is also the implication that the "pro-life" movement sees "birth control" and abortion as equal evils. These are, of course, grossly untrue. Abortion destroys life already conceived.

Again, while anything is possible, and therefore some groups or individuals somewhere may be attempting to have all contraception declared illegal, this is not the intention of the "pro-life" movement, whatever may be proposed by individuals within the movement. And it is certainly not an intention approved by the bishops.

Nor is the "pro-life" movement dedicated, as some critics imply, to a world without sex and the legitimate, joys it can bring to those who engage in sexual activity responsibly in marriage. The Church teaches very explicitly that married couples need not intend to conceive a child to enjoy the sexual relations of marriage, and those of our acquaintance in the "pro-life" movement share this belief. They see the sexual as beautiful, sacred, meaningful, joyous. They would add what some others might deny - that it must also and always be responsible.

Much of the argument of pro-abortionists is based on the assumption that the right to be born is dependent on being wanted. How many unplanned children have been born to parents whose attitudes changed completely to total acceptance and love? How many unwanted children have made enormous contributions to the world, as musicians, writers, doctors, entertainers, teachers, parents, or in other capacities?

But beyond such questions lies an even more basic one: Who can claim the right to be wanted? Does the Constitution guarantee such a right? Could the Congress legislate that babies are to be wanted by parents, or that a husband is to be wanted by his wife, a wife by her husband? When we speak of Equal Employment Opportunity we don't argue that employers must personally want to hire given individuals. The law requires only that individuals not be refused employment because of a characteristic unrelated to the nature of the job, such as color. Is anyone arguing seriously today that an employee has a right to be wanted? Hardly. But certainly an employee has a right to life!

Is an unborn baby to be denied such a right? Is an unborn baby to be denied even the opportunity to have someone plead with a mother to let the baby live, wanted or not? Is the unwanted baby to be denied the opportunity given to millions of refugees who have been admitted into the United States?

Finally, we deeply regret any allegations that in arguing for the protection of the unborn, or in questioning the positions held by others, any of our bishops have encouraged violence in any form, or have invited attacks on property. First, such charges take the spotlight off the basic violence of the deaths of 4,000 unborn every day. Secondly, in any movement involving millions of people, the possibilities of reprehensible activity on the part of a minority--particularly a very small minority--are obvious. Such activity is to be abhorred. It has no place in a true "pro-life" movement. We reject it completely. Violence is not the answer to violence.

Responsibility of Catholic Bishops

I come finally to the questions that have been raised about the involvement of the bishops of the United States in the matters at hand and the allegations of undue intervention in the political process, including even the charge that in a programmed and conspiratorial fashion, the bishops, or some of us, are trying to destroy the so-called wall between Church and State; that the bishops are "perilously close" to threatening the tax-exempt status of their churches, or even more crudely, that the bishops are simply lusting for power.

Long and Consistent Tradition of Addressing Social Issues

What is actually going on? The bishops have been saying substantially the same thing about abortion for years. Likewise, for years the bishops have been challenging the state on a broad spectrum of laws and policies, economic, racial, social, military. Most recently the challenge was addressed to issues of war and peace, with the widely publicized formulation of the pastoral letter, The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response. While much was made in that letter of nuclear war, even more was made--and has been little noted--of the causes of war, injustice, oppression, economic and other forms of violence and exploitation and indignities against the human person. It was not by accident that the bishops included in that document on war and peace the following:

No society can live in peace with itself or with the world without a full awareness of the worth and dignity of every human person, and of the sacredness of all human life. When we accept violence in any form as commonplace, our sensitivities become dulled… Abortion in particular blunts a sense of the sacredness of all human life. In a society where the innocent unborn are killed wantonly, how can we expect people to feel righteous revulsion at the act or threat of killing noncombatants in war?…

What would those who criticize our speaking out during an election campaign have us do? Were those holding or seeking public office expressing explicit support for racism, for drug abuse, for pornography, for rape, for nuclear war, would we be expected to remain silent? Or would we be damned for doing so? Obviously, no one in or seeking office is calling for any of these. Are we to remain silent, then, on the question of abortion, if we are convinced that it is the taking of human life? Why would we be free to indict racism - indeed, be generally applauded for doing so - but damned for indicting abortion? Why would we not be "imposing our morality" on others if we opposed rape, but "imposing our morality" on others when we oppose abortion? What a strange democracy it would be that would encourage bishops to cry out their convictions as long as these were popular, but to remain mute when so ordered!

Welcome in the Marketplace: Right and Duty of Bishops to Speak

In his speech previously mentioned, Speaker O'Neill referred to the letter on national economic policy being drafted by the Catholic bishops of the United States, predicting that it will have "a dramatic impact on public debate in our country," He cited critics who "say the Church should stay out of economic issues ... argue that religious concerns have no place in the market place ... that the only thing that matters in the business world is personal drive and ambition; that the only thing that matters in the affairs of man is force of arms," and he replied: "I believe that we who share Christian values have a responsibility to put those values into action--whether those values are popular or not, whether they are fashionable or not, whether they are high in the polls or not."

As one who argued strongly on Labor Day of this year that the bishops have a long tradition of addressing economic issues and the right and the obligation to do so, I am personally grateful to Speaker O'Neill for his statement and applauding efforts to put values into action, whether or not they are popular, fashionable or high in the polls. In the same address, he stated that "We must protect those people who cannot, protect themselves." I must assume that the Speaker would want to include all people, certainly those least able to protect themselves, the unborn, and would want to welcome the bishops into today's debate on this issue of critical public policy, as well.

I am grateful, too, for a letter from Governor Cuomo to the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1983, in which he praised the bishops' pastoral letter on war and peace. As a member of the committee of bishops that formulated the pastoral I am proud of the Governor's words:

It would have been easy to compromise your position so as to offend no one. You chose instead to tend to your duties as shepherds, to teach the moral law as best you can. You can do no more.

Our Church has sometimes been accused of not having spoken out when it might have. Now you, our bishops, show the courage and moral judgment to meet this issue of nuclear holocaust with a collective expression of where the Church in America stands.

The pastoral letter on war and peace, of course, made much of a fundamental principle of moral law that we can never, under any circumstances for any reason, deliberately and intentionally attack the innocent. Since the pastoral explicitly referred both to innocent civilians who must be protected in war, and to the innocent unborn who must be protected in their mothers' wombs, I must assume, also, that the governor would have intended to include our protection of the unborn in his praise of the pastoral letter. I know, of course, that the governor welcomes the bishops into the debate on the subject. He has said so, loudly and clearly.

My Obligation to Speak

I feel an obligation as a citizen to address issues of critical moral import whenever opportunity is given me to do so within the framework of our political system I have another obligation, however, that I can delegate to no one. The primary teacher of Catholic doctrine in any diocese is the bishop. As Archbishop of New York I have the responsibility of spelling out for our Catholic people with accuracy and clarity what the Church officially teaches about all human life, the life of the unborn, and abortion. I have simultaneously the obligation to try to dispel confusion about such teaching wherever it exists, however it has been generated, regardless of who may have generated it. It is easy to dismiss a bishop as narrow, rigid, ultraconservative, unfeeling, lacking in theological training or understanding, anti-feminist, or guilty of a thousand other alleged charges for presenting this teaching exactly as it is, rather than as some might like it to be.

Church Divided?

But let no one be mistaken about the unanimity of this teaching on the part of the bishops. Those who would seek divisiveness between or among bishops do not understand the principles on which we stand. Those who would seem to suggest, for example, that the "consistent ethic of life" approach so well articulated by my good and valued friend, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archbishop of Chicago, differs in what it has to say about abortion from what some others of us are saying, including myself, simply do not understand Cardinal Bernardin, or me, or our mutual unconditional commitment to the life of the unborn and to life at every stage of its existence.

Those who would try to derive comfort from the "consistent ethic of life" approach, by interpreting it to suggest that an office holder's or a candidate's position on abortion does not matter, so long as positions on other life issues are acceptable, miss the point of Cardinal Bernardin's argument altogether. Indeed, they distort the very essence of his argument.

Teaching Clear and Unequivocal

So what does the Church really teach? Catholics the world over recognize the authority of the Second Vatican Council. Its teaching is as clear and unambiguous as anything could possibly be. "God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to human beings the noble mission of safeguarding life, and they must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes."

Pope Paul VI left no doubt. In his words: "To attack human life under any pretext whatsoever and under whatever form ... is to repudiate one of the essential values of our civilization. In the very depths of our consciences--as each one of us experiences--we affirm as an incontestable and sacred principle respect for every form of human life, life that is awakening, life that asks only to develop, life that is drawing to a close; life especially that is weak, unprovided for, defenseless, at the mercy of others."

The bishops of the United States have been equally clear and unequivocal. In 1970 they stated: "Our defense of human life is rooted in the biblical prohibition, 'Thou shall not kill'… The life of the unborn child is a human life. The destruction of any human life is not a private matter, but the concern of every responsible citizen."

Pope John Paul II has stated forcefully: "It is the task of the Church to reaffirm that abortion is death, it is the killing of an innocent creature. Consequently, the Church considers all legislation in favor of abortion as a very serious offense against primary human rights and the Divine Commandment, 'You shall not kill.'"

The Declaration on Abortion issued by the, Vatican's Sacred Congregation of the Faith and promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1974, declared: "It must be clearly understood that whatever may be laid down by civil law in this matter (of abortion), one can never obey a law which is in itself immoral, and such is the case of a law which would admit in principle the liceity of abortion. Nor can one take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it. Moreover, one may not collaborate in its application."

Who Speaks for the Church?

So speaks the Church. What do I mean here by "the Church"? I mean what the average individual means when he or she asks: "What does the Catholic Church teach?" Such a question is not intended to ask what occasional theologians may speculate, or what any group of individuals who form organizations have to say, or what one finds in letters to the editor or on Op/Ed pages. Indeed, it is sometimes these speculations and accusations and claims that lead people to ask: "What does the Catholic Church really teach?"

It has ever been the belief of the Church and is no less so today, that we must turn to the bishops, the teachers of the Church, when we seek to discern the truths of our Faith. The Second Vatican Council stated it simply and clearly: "By virtue of the Holy Spirit who has been given to them, bishops have been constituted true and authentic teachers of the faith. . ."

'Church teaching on abortion is quite clear, regardless of allegations that it has changed through the years. Speculations on such questions as when the soul enters the body have changed, as scientific knowledge has accrued. Church penalties for abortion have changed. The teaching about the grave immorality of abortion itself has never changed.

We hear a great deal about opinion polls and are frequently told that Catholics seem to approve of abortion in about the same percentages that other people do. There are several things wrong with such statements. Polling results depend in part on the knowledge of the persons polled; ignorance concerning the real nature of abortion and many of the so-called facts surrounding abortion is appalling. Unfortunately, some ignorance and confusion even seem to be provoked. The main issue, however, is that polling results depend primarily on the way the questions are asked. Who would be prepared to ask, for example, "Under what circumstances would you feet justified in putting your unborn baby to death?" The fact is, that in poll after poll, only 25 percent of those polled support abortion on demand. Much abortion advertising would have us believe that an overwhelming majority would favor it. Even were such the case, however, Catholic teaching on morality is simply not determined on the basis of polls.

I recognize the dilemma confronted by some Catholics in political life. I cannot resolve that dilemma for them. As I see it, their disagreement, if they do disagree, is not with me; it is with the teaching of the Catholic Church.

CONCLUSION

A Plea to Those of Good Will

I beg leave to add one further plea--that all women and men of good will try to open their minds and hearts to at least the possibility that we are unjustifiably taking 4,000 innocent human lives each day, regardless of whatever conclusions they may hold to the contrary. I plead for the understanding that it is not the national effort to protect the unborn that is divisive; it is the destruction of the unborn that is divisive. And I plead for honest and open dialogue toward the goal of saving human lives. As Father Hesburgh of Notre Dame has observed: tragically, in essence, we may never come again to an agreement in our land that all abortion should be declared illegal, and some may passionately believe that exception should be made in cases of rape, of incest, or truly grave threat to the actual physical survival of the mother. Whatever we may believe about such exceptions, however, we know that they constitute a fraction of the abortions taking place, so that at the very least we can come to grips with what is the real and the frightening issue of the day: abortion on demand.

The Power of Love

And so I come to the end of this long address this personal--pilgrimage, if you will--fearing I have said so little of what must yet be said, and that I have said virtually nothing of what, in the final analysis, alone makes everything understandable--the indispensable power of love. Before leaving a recent visit to Flower Hospital, now the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center, I told the director of the hospital that I really need not give a speech at all. I need but ask the world to visit that hospital, to see, not merely what doctors and nurses and staff are doing for their helpless patients, but what the helpless patients are doing for the doctors, the nurses and the staff.

The love those helpless ones generate in those who serve as their arms and legs and eyes and ears and tongues is more beautiful to behold than the most magnificent work of art in our own Metropolitan Museum. Except that such love is not a museum piece. It is vibrantly alive, pulsating through the corridors of that hospital and through the very being of those medical professionals and staff, women and men, literally giving their own lives every day, that the least of God's little ones may not only live, but that in the depths of their beings, far removed from our sight and unfathomable by the most sophisticated techniques that science can devise, they, the helpless, may, in turn, love and teach us to love, who need so desperately to learn how.

And thus it can happen through the creative power of God's own mysterious love for each one of us, of whatever color, or creed, or background, or sex, or personal beliefs--thus the miracle can happen in the strange design of that God who writes straight with crooked lines--that every child in this world, born or unborn, wanted or unwanted, with or without limbs or hearing or sight, nurtured lovingly, or horrifyingly battered, abused and neglected, becomes not only what Mother Teresa of Calcutta calls something beautiful for God, but someone extraordinarily beautiful for every one of us, their brothers and sisters in the Lord.

I AM GOD, THERE IS NO OTHER

2006-08-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

I AM GOD, THERE IS NO OTHER

You who mislead My People

by perverse and wicked laws

that rob the innocent of life,

I ask you to give pause -

When I require your soul

and strict accounting you must give,

do you plan then to tell your God

who should and should not live?

Shall I be swayed by clever phrase,

such as "the right to choose"?

Shall mortal mind for God define

the plan of life to use?

Will loud applause support your cause

as you approach My throne?

Will votes and fame surround your name?

No man, you'll stand alone.

O foolish and deluded ones,

your eyes no longer see

how far you've wandered from the truth,

how far you've strayed from Me.

You've made a law unto yourselves,

you've lost your sense of sin.

No longer do you listen to

the guiding voice within.

To quell abroad the tide of strife

you go to foreign shores,

yet work out laws to kill your own

at home - behind closed doors.

I ask you how in judgment's hour

you'll manage to explain

the loathsome act of suctioning out

a living infant's brain?

And will you then, O mighty man,

dare justify to Me

your laws that kill (and help to kill)

the Sick and Elderly?

You leaders of My People

and all who tear apart

the Moral Law inscribed by Me

on every human heart,

I warn you now, come back, repent,

take heed and mark this well:

The Hand that opens Heaven's door

holds, too, the keys to Hell.

What you have done to others

shall be meted out to you,

And those who dare to close life's door

risk finding Mine closed, too.

You who would lead My People then,

delay not to discover

Your "platforms" must uphold My Law. . .

I AM GOD, THERE IS NO OTHER.

~~~~~~~~

S.M.E.

Sisters of the Precious Blood

5400 Fort Hamilton Parkway

Brooklyn, NY 11219-4037

Fundamental Reproductive Right

2006-08-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Fundamental Reproductive Right Is the Right to Be Born

Catholic Doctors on a Disabilities Treaty

Here is a statement regarding the International Treaty on Disabilities given to the U.N. General Assembly by the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations..

Mr. Chairman, the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, FIAMC, is the premier organization of Roman Catholic physicians in clinical practice, research, teaching and bioethics.

The FIAMC supports all efforts to ease both the suffering of the disabled and the medical, social and proximate causes of disability. The good purpose of this work should never be moved by a false sentimentality to remove the victim rather than the causes. Mr. Chairman, we respectfully disagree that the treaty does not articulate new rights. With respect to Article 25a and reproductive rights it is not a question of new rights but new possibilities by new technologies. We have, for example, the ability to study the 3-day-old embryo for chromosomal translocations or polysomy, marking these for termination.

We agree with the Holy See delegation, while this is a convention on rights and disabilities, reproductive rights is a wide open term (and a contradiction). The law is not dispositive here, rather the defining reality is medical and biological, and reproductive rights will continue to expand as technology provides.

Accordingly, the FIAMC delegation opposes any linkage of reproductive rights, so called, to the prevention, treatment or politization of disabilities. Likewise FIAMC opposes any and all definitions of pregnancy which would link it to maternal disability. The fundamental reproductive right is the right to be born. Life itself is the preeminent good beyond any contingencies or circumstances for "He made all things that they may have being" (Wisdom 1:14).

Particular concern is raised against any intra or extra utero screening be used to mark new human beings for termination. This is a heinous offense against humanity, the new life, and all of those disabled living heroically and joyfully, even in suffering, and those who with compassion and love care for them. All of these techniques and interventions are to be used on behalf of new life, not its frustration.

A society which seeks to reduce suffering by abortion or by euthanasia of a disabled newborn, or at any time thereafter, will devour itself. In truth the human condition ultimately finds each and every one of us disabled, physically, emotionally or psychologically.

We must first preserve and then serve the lives of "the least in ability" because neither life nor love, or usefulness and purpose are denied in disability.

Joseph Mauceri Delegate FIAMC United Nations, New York Endorsed by President of FIAMC, José-Maria Simon
AUG. 20, 2006

Source: http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=93512

Saving Lives and Souls

2006-08-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Catholic Pro-Life Committee 2
Catholic Pro-Life Committee 1
Persevering Students Help Close Abortion Facility
Saving four babies at the brink
Stranger's words gave mother-to-be strength
From the Front Lines in Marin
Here in New York City, by Msgr. Reilly (Lent 2003):
Last Saturday as people prayed [outside of the abortion mill where I normally pray and counsel each day], in spite of inclement weather, many escorts and a more than normal police presence, God showed His power by using Rose Diaz's six hours of sidewalk counseling, Mike Marino's three hours of counseling and my own two hours of assistance to bring about the miraculous results of twenty-one women out of thirty-six leaving the abortion mill still pregnant.
A note from our friend at a wonderful pregnancy help center in San Francisco (2/19/03):
Just within the past hour we had a client come in for baby clothes. She had an abortion scheduled at … and she said that she couldn't go in because someone talked to her on the outside and gave her a brochure to read. The brochure included our Pregnancy Center address … Anyway, she decided not to have an abortion; and it turns out that she's having TWINS! According to her, she was going to take the life of what she thought was one baby and (in her words), "Instead God blessed me with two babies." She lives with her grandmother but other than that she is alone in this pregnancy. We invited her back for any help we can give her. THANK THE LORD! … Thank you and those who sidewalk counsel with you, for your faithfulness. We pray more than anything that these women, along with their babies, would come to Christ.

When God Asks

2006-08-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

When God asks us:

"Why did you kill my babies?"

How will you answer Him?

"It was the woman's right to choose."
"It was the law."
"It wasn't my problem."
"It wasn't my responsibility."
"It wasn't a real baby."
"It was going to ruin her life."
"It wouldn't have been a person until it was born."
"It was a mistake."
"It was inconvenient."
"It was best for the family."
"It wasn't the right time."
"It was politically correct."
"It wasn't my business, it was hers."
"It wasn't a baby, it was a blob."
"She couldn't take care of it."
"She had no one to help her."
"She was in school."
"She's was too young."
"She's was too old."
"The father ran away."
"The fetus wasn't perfect."
"The father refused to pay for it."
"The family didn't want it."
"The mother's life was in danger"
"There was no money."
"There was no other choice."
"I didn't kill your babies, they did."
"I wouldn't have done it, but ..."
"I'm only one person, what could I have done?"

Or will you be among those who can answer:

"I tried my very best to stop it."

Our Name

2006-08-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

Children Deserve Birth

Why "Children" rather than "Babies"? Because, for some, "children" may more effectively connote the "personhood" of the young life in the womb and the vitality of that person as well.

Why "Birth" rather than "Life"? Because the unborn child is already alive and awaiting her/his birthday.

So these three little words make three profound statements:

1) The occupant of a pregnant woman's womb is not a "product of conception" or "blob of tissue" or "wad of cells" - she/he is a "person".

2) That person has "the right to life".

3) That "life" already exists and no one has a right to exterminate it.

Read What Abortion Really Is. Also see Right to Life Act.

Death2

2006-08-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Appearances

2006-06-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

Appearances

While I was waiting for one of the killing center's victims to exit the car she arrived in, I noticed her putting on lipstick. My first thought was that she might be one of those cold-hearted ones. Then when she got out and I saw the way she was dressed, I was even more concerned. She had a lot of skin showing and tattoos. I approached her in the same way as I do everyone. She listened intently with a quizzical look. I noticed that she was looking at the logo on my jacket seemingly trying to determine what it was. Then she asked if I was a father. Yet another thought crossed my mind. I figured she would soon be telling me that this is none of my business. I replied with "yes I am a father" and went on to explain why I was giving her literature and why she should go to the pregnancy resource center that I was recommending. She responded with "thank you father" as she extended her hand to shake mine and then turned to walk toward the entrance of the building. It was then that I realized she thought I was a priest. I stood there a little stunned over that as I watched her enter the killing center.

After a while I noticed her standing in the parking lot. I called out to her asking if she was thinking about it. It was difficult to hear her because of our distance and the street noise, but we managed to converse for a little while. I told her to come and talk to us, but she didn't come over. I asked her if she prayed and recommended that she go for a walk and pray. I told her that she would get the right answer if she asked the question. She said that she had given birth to a child once before and that her life was messed up and that she wasn't very healthy. I told her that whatever problems she had, she could be helped. I also told her that if she couldn't raise her child, someone would adopt her child. Thinking that she might be concerned about the child’s health, I said that no mater what was wrong, no matter how bad things were, there would be no justification for taking the child's life. I also told her that if she had had an abortion in the past, the people at the PRC could help her to heal. She said "thank you father" and our conversation ended.

I walked over to my partner and after commenting that she was very pretty, I felt that I had to tell her that. I called out to her and asked if she had looked in a mirror lately. I told her that if she did, she would see a beautiful face and realize what a beautiful child she was carrying. Shortly after, she went back in.

After a while she came out again and I thought she was leaving. I asked her what she was thinking. She said "well I'm not in there anymore, I'm out here, what do you want to talk about" or something like that. I asked if she had read any of the literature and she said that she had read it all. I asked if she had any questions, but she didn't. I emphasized that she needed to go to the PRC. She said that she didn't have any money. I told her that everything would be free including prenatal care for the first six months of her pregnancy. She told me that she would be homeless if a friend hadn't taken her in. I told her that the PRC might be able to help her with housing. I also told her that what they couldn't help her with, my wife and I and my friends would.

She had been dropped off and I had taken public transportation so we didn't have a car to go to the PRC. I suggested we that begin walking and try to flag down a cab along the way. She, with all that skin exposed, was cold so I gave her my jacket to wear. As soon as we began to walk, I informed her that I was not a priest and explained that I was a father of a child in Heaven who had not survived an ectopic pregnancy. I pointed out that abortion doesn't make parents non-parents; it makes them parents of a dead child. She seemed to understand.

When we got across the street I said that I should have given my partner my remaining literature packets. She said to go ahead and even offered to run back and give them to him. I went ahead and did so as she waited for me.

As we continued our walk we talked about our faith. We also talked about post abortion syndrome and the need of healing. She said that she was in need of such healing. She revealed that she had been pregnant with twins a year ago and that one of the babies had died without her knowing for a while. Tragically, after she found out about the death of her child, she aborted the other twin.

Before we knew it we were at the PRC. Although I always try not to judge by appearances, I succumbed once again on this day. Fortunately I was reminded to try harder in the future and never to underestimate the Holy Spirit.

Children Deserve Birth Advocate

temp

1990-10-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

"The Work of His Hands" Copyright 2004 Gary B. Clark
Image used with permission. www.GaryBClark.com

Consider this image as an artistic conception intended
to make the point that life begins before birth.

Image used with permission.

A 3-D ultrasound image taken of the development of a fetus (clockwise from upper left) at 7, 9, 13, 16, 23 and 35 weeks.

Precious Gabriela

Scheduled to die Feb 19, 2003 ~ born Oct 10, 2003
Thanks be to God, Creator of us all
About Gabriela