All,

Don't know if you happened to catch it, but on CNN tonight there was a piece wherin an ACLU lawyer was addressing the recently observed plight of women seeking abortions and being unable to get their Apple / Siri tablets to provide them with abortion center location addresses. Everyone's angry with Apple and its software crew for inhibiting the ability to get such information. Big storm brewing for Apple to deal with.

The device returns a message that it was unable to locate any centers nearby.

LOL

Did you know that Steve Jobs was adopted?

He had told someone, who's doing a bio on him,
"I'm glad I didn't end up being an abortion."

Yes, Apple had responded to the issue, saying that "Siri" is still in Beta testing and there are bugs being worked out. Iow, it's nothing to do with Apple taking a stand re. abortion.

All,

This week’s World Over Live on EWTN, airing again Sunday 400 EST and Monday
10 AM & 10 PM EST had an excellent reporting segment regarding the assault on Freedom of Conscience protections by the Obama administration.

Chris Smith a Congressional Rep from NJ and Monserrat Alvarado give a potent look at what is currently underway in our country. Ms Alvarado is part of a group at www.becketfund.org currently involved in a lawsuit on FOCA issues and religious freedom.

Worth hearing.

Pop-pop

Tonight at 10 EST on public TV in NJ; and perhaps if syndicated, in your state as well, there is to be a debate on “Would the world be better without religion”. A minister and a rabbi will debate two secular atheists.

‘The times they are a changin’ …. and you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’.

Interesting topic – especially so for Christmas week. (or should I say Holiday week or simply Economic Harvest week).

He is here. He is a python. Squeezing incrementally with our daily exhale. Can you not feel his pressure? Have you not already in the past in some ways adjusted to it?

Squeeze on Christmas, squeeze on religion in the public square, further squeezing on Freedom of Conscience (despite the presence of law), squeezing on Religious Liberty (despite the presence of law). Worship soon to be allocated to the status of smoking in public. Maybe our churches, as with the Coptic Christians these days in Egypt, will be forced to have their crosses removed as public displays will not be tolerated in a proud and free country comprised of a tolerant majority protecting its people from being forced to tolerate religious practices. An informed public (thank you media) will be changing existing laws to preclude discrimination by religious folk who want to refuse abortion, gay marriage, and being silent about the significance of morality on human well being – and that other kind of freedom.

More and more Christians becoming the public; becoming the boiling frogs of the third millennium. Alas, many within our own families.

The remnant must grow ribs of steel and minds attuned to seeing and hearing the flute player controlling the serpent.

Gasp!

On the bright side, the court did rule in favor of those New Jersey nurses who refused to participate in abortions:


http://www.lifesitenews.com/ne...011&utm_medium=email

Great news. THANKS, Shasha! I might well have missed the outcome. Thanks for the link.

Nice to have the law on one's side.

I hope the Belmont Abbey situation turns out as well. And I pray the Lord keeps Rep Chris Smith around for a good many years. He does a great job in these trenches. Few are so effective and determined.

FYI. The python won the TV debate on 'Whether the world would be better off without religion.'

Rebecca Keissling, attorney and pro-life speaker, says she owes her life to the pro-life activists in Michigan who worked to keep abortion illegal, even in cases of rape. Her mother had been raped at knife-point by a serial rapist. Her mother made a few unsuccessful attempts at back-ally abortions, which had been set up by the rape counselor. The abortionist had apparently so mistreated her mother that she ended up not going through with the procedure, so she gave Rebecca up for adoption. Rebecca was raised in a Jewish home, but converted to Christ following her first visit to Church. She has beautiful testimony on her website.

http://www.rebeccakiessling.com/videos.html

Also, recently her testimony apparently caused Rick Perry to convert to a pro-life position, without rape as an exception. (Some suspect he is not genuine about this conversion but just trying to win over more voters).

http://www.rebeccakiessling.co...change-of-heart.html

That's an inspiring testimony, Shasha, and the kind of story that causes many women who've had abortions to wonder just what might have been had they acted otherwise.

It seems the abortion issue has been strong on your heart lately. Prayers for your work in this area, which, as you noted, is getting punted around in the political sphere as we approach another election.

Thanks, Phil. I appreciate your prayers indeed!

Yes, I have been gripped by this subject...heavy in my heart, and getting more and more clear in my mind.

Do you know what Mother Teresa said about abortion at the National Prayer Breakfast at the White House in 1994?

“...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 - ...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. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.

That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.”

Mother Teresa was not merely a compassionate humanitarian and high-powered social worker. She was not rendering her humble opinion before the leaders of our country that day. I believe she was speaking revelation from God.

This woman had made of herself a complete donation to God. Jesus spoke to her on that famous train ride, the moment she describes receiving the “call within the call” to move from her work as a teacher to tending to poorest of the poor in the streets. Jesus sat next to her on that train and told her “Come be my light.”

When Mother Teresa announced to the world that the greatest destroyer of peace and love is abortion, she was speaking in that Light.

Notice, she did not say “The greatest destroyer of love and peace is poverty .” She could have said that, right? She knew the ravages of poverty better than anybody perhaps.

She did not say “The greatest destroyer of love and peace is terrorism.... or crime or the unequal distribution of wealth, or global warming!"

Mother Teresa ended her speech encouraging America to defend the weakest of the weak, the unborn, and in so doing we will be honoring the American foundations of justice. Following her speech, she received a long, standing ovation by everyone there--except the Clintons and their entourage.

Shasha, that's a powerful statement from Mother Teresa! I do remember her speaking at the White House now that you mention it.

This is such a heavy topic, isn't it? I don't know that we can expect much more push-back from the legal and political spheres, however. I've become cynical about that. Even with permissive laws, however, people don't have to have abortions, and so it makes more sense in this current environment to work on the prevention side of the issue (similar to what's been done in the field of substance abuse, which is another area that I've taken some strong stands). The larger issue is sexual morality, which is an area where, unfortunately, the Church has lost some credibility. Nevertheless, it must be addressed, especially with young people, who are exposed via a vast array of media to very permissive standards.

Right, you can't talk about abortion without the glaring larger issue of sexual morality. Abortion is the most bitter fruit of sexual immorality.

In fact, my take is that abortion is the tragic convergence of the two most vexing problems of our human make-up:

sex and aggression.


I'm trying to track down a quote by Freud for this piece I'm writing on my conversion. I'm nearly, but not quite, positive Freud said:

The lovers are so enthralled with their own sexual gratification that they don't even care about the product of their union."

He was a keen observer of human pathology.

There’s a vital political aspect to abortion as well. And I can’t remember which author wrote about this. (It may have been W. Cleon Skousen.) But this gist of it is this:

The most basic of our rights is our right to life. All other rights stem from that and are simply different aspects of it, including our right to property, free speech, freedom of religion, etc. For instance, to be able to keep the fruits of one’s labor is to be able to own one’s life in a very fundamental way (thus slavery and high taxes are immoral).

The very nature of unalienable, god-given rights (rights that exist because we are, and are not given to us by government) is about things owned by us. Such rights are our property. And a violation of the greatest one (the right to life) means the assault on the rest of them is far easier.

So beware the politician (for example) who is “pro choice” and yet says that he or she will restrain government from impinging on your other rights. If he or she can’t defend the most basic one, then there is little reason to believe that he or she will protect the lesser ones.

Brad,

I really like your last paragraph on being wary of prochoice politicians.

Christians last week commemorated the Feast of the Holy Innocents – slaughtered by a political authority with an agenda. These past 40 years Holy Innocents (to the tune of >50 million in the U.S. alone, not to mention countries that follow our example and the U.N. which endorses our agenda in this regard) have been and continue to be slaughtered via the enabling of political authority and political sanction!

Interesting isn’t it, how many Christians are now prochoice. If they recalled the first time they had heard or read the story of the Holy Innocents and the reaction that they had back then – and I bet their kids still have – you would wonder how they’ve matured(?) to where they now are.

Interesting too, that one hears in Christian circles so much about orthopraxy and orthodoxy as if orthodoxy were the less important (and often is innuendoed as disruptive, as a speedbump on the road to world peace and human liberation?).

There are many in our world and unfortunately within our denominations with a strong and zealous orthopraxy that march to the beat of a flawed orthodoxy – like Ms. Sebelius who addresses the NARLs regarding her and their being at war against prolifers. (Though we truly are aren’t we?).

A Christian might get a real feel for why Christ would want to vomit the lukewarm from His mouth.

Interesting too … that some Christians speak of mankind’s radical solidarity despite the evidence of radical non-solidarity. Ask a slaughtered Innocent whether he/she would believe adults are in radical solidarity. Aiyee!

Pop

Brad,

I don't think most pro-aborts think of the unborn baby as a human being deserving of protection like a born person. So your above logic, that the basic right to life is the foundation of the others, doesn't really apply to their way of thinking. The statistic 50 million aborted children doesn't register because those lives don't 'count.' The pre-born aren't attributed the right to not be killed like born persons.

Our church just hosted a pro-life conference. Dr. Monica Miller was one of our presenters. She is infamous/famous for showing the reality of 'pro-choice' by sharing graphic pictures of aborted babies. She has retrieved dismembered as well as whole babies from garbage dumpsters and given them a funeral.

In my intro of Dr. Miller, I shared with the audience this piece from a eulogy she gave of 721 aborted babies.

“We are gathered here today to perform the seventh corporal work of mercy, to bury the dead. Ironically, the last work of mercy—to bury the dead— is the first kindness shown to these little ones killed in the abortion mills.”

http://www.prolifesociety.com/...rt/startup/home.aspx

Pop-pop,

Dr. Miller gave a great presentation:

"Voting For Life: Why the Defense of Life is Preeminent."

She covered some good ground about why Christians are morally compelled to vote for pro-life candidates.

If I can get her summary points, I'll post them up here.

quote:

I don't think most pro-aborts think of the unborn baby as a human being deserving of protection like a born person. So your above logic, that the basic right to life is the foundation of the others, doesn't really apply to their way of thinking.

Oh, I totally agree, Shasha. In order to feel good about abortion, first one has to dehumanize the fetus. Granted, when it is a week old or so, then it is no stretch to think of it as just a “bag of protoplasm,” or whatever the typical euphemism is.

But prenatal pictures of the fetus — even at as little as 4 weeks — speak for themselves. Whatever that thing is, it’s clear that it’s not a mere “bag of protoplasm.”

Whenever war or mass murder happens (and this is true even in good and justified wars), in order to kill people it is usually first necessary to dehumanize them. All of the leftist regimes last century did so, including Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Pol Pot. Together they are responsible for approximately 100 million murders outside the womb, so to speak.

quote:

The statistic 50 million aborted children doesn't register because those lives don't ‘count.’

That’s another good observation, Shasha. A quote often attributed to Stalin is, “One death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic.” Whoever actually originated this idea surely knew the truth of it.

Guess what? This year again at the National Prayer Breakfast the pro-life issue came up in a rather interesting way.

My pro-life friend, Jill Stanek, brought this to my attention. Watch the speech by Eric Metaxas, keynote speaker at the Breakfast, in this video at 35:35. This guy has an amazing testimony of finding Christ. He wrote biographies on Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer.

Jill writes:
"Do yourself a favor. End your week by watching this speech. It’s a soaring inspiration to pro-lifers, with the bonus that President Obama was forced to hear it.

Backdrop, from National Review ...
That’s how devastating was the speech given by a little known historical biographer named Eric Metaxas, whose clever wit and punchy humor barely disguised a series of heat-seeking missiles that were sent, intentionally or not, in the commander-in-chief’s direction….

But Metaxas’s most blistering attack, albeit sheathed carefully in good humor and rapier wit, was still to come, for next on his agenda was his careful but dogged determination to link previous attitudes among churchgoers toward slavery and Nazism with those of some present day churchgoers toward abortion. Surrounded by three of the most powerful supporters of the right to choose, Obama, Vice President Biden, and former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – two Catholics and a Protestant – Metaxas said:

“Wilberforce suddenly took the Bible seriously that all of us are created in the image of God, to care for the least of these.”

After carefully describing the inhumane treatment of both Jews and Africans by those claiming to be Christians, he asked then answered a question:

“You think you’re better than the Germans of that era? You’re not,” adding: “Whom do we say is not fully human today?”

http://www.nationalreview.com/...metaxas-mark-joseph#

Whoah! bummer...

I was just watching the CSPAN video and was pasting it into the post above when it suddenly got removed! Jill says maybe it was deliberately removed. Stay tuned...

Well, here's the audio version of Eric's presentation. Very humorous, lively, and deeply inspirational!!

http://www.blubrry.com/thepubl...prayer-and-religion/

I would recommend Metaxas' biographies of Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer as deeply relevant to pro-life concerns.

I've posted a link to Archbishop Chaput's review of the Bonhoeffer biography somewhere here, but I think the Wilberforce book is most pertinent in regards to pro-life efforts. While I wasn't really keen on the writing style Metaxas sometimes used in Amazing Grace, he draws a vivid picture of Wilberforce's long, drawn-out, often discouraging fight against the slave trade in England. It's good food for thought.

Well, thanks so much Ariel (I can't bring myself to add the controversial "X" because you're still the same gal to me )

I'll search up Archbishop Chaput's review. Let me know what you think of Metaxas speech if you get to listen to it...I think the media deliberately pulled the video.

Metaxas, yes, it's very interesting and encouraging to me to meet people who are on-fire 'born-again' Christians, but also smart, sensitive, admittedly broken, and intellectual--all in one package. He says Jesus came to him in a dream.

I'm going to listen to Metaxas' speech later this evening, Shasha. I'll be sure to post my thoughts on it.

That was quite an article from the National Review. Thanks for finding and posting it.

Ariel,
I was particularly moved by Metaxas' point that genuine Christians are called to love those who do not see the unborn as human. However, many 'pro-choicers' don't dispute the humanity of the unborn. They deny them a right to live if the mother chooses to kill her baby.

So...it's harder for me, personally, to love those who take that immoral stance. Again, it's this idea that in some cases abortion proponents seem motivated by a lack of maturity while in other cases, there is a more stark lack of integrity and humility about the killings.

In any case, I liked Metaxas because he didn't come across as contemptuous or self-righteous at all, which was refreshing, although I wonder how much he was hiding behind his charming humor.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Shasha,

OK, the CSPAN video is back. Go to 35 minutes.


http://www.c-span.org/Events/P...kfast/10737427883-1/


Better to watch this than to listen to the audio.

I gotta say, I truly felt a pang of sadness and pity for President Obama when he gave his speech following Metaxas at this National Prayer Breakfast. As I've joined my parish in praying for Obama every Sunday at Mass for the last few years, I really do feel some kind of heartache for him.