Waking Up: "Gentle Abortions"?

Stacy Trasancos at Accepting Abundance has an excellent post entitled, “We Need to Wake Up: ‘Gentle Abortions. No pain. No memory.’”

Stacy brings our attention to this ad (and others like it):

The gruesome stories coming out of the Gosnell abortion mill in Philadelphia are horrifying, disgusting, almost unbelievable. I weep, literally, at times, when I think about the reality of these atrocities. And Stacy rightly points out that it is unlikely that the Gosnell-type atrocities are simply an anomaly – see her reasoning and conclusions in her post.

But I am almost as horrified by other implications of the kind of advertising Stacy has reported.

“No pain. No memory.” No…conscience?

It is the lack of conscience that is allowing abortion (and other immoral acts and ways of thinking) to continue to exist in society. Stacy is right: we do need to wake up. In particular, we need to wake up the conscience in each of us; we need to make it fully aware, not just half-baked. We need to re-learn how to think critically. (No, my dear liberal thinkers, “critical thinking” does not equal “judging”. It means logical thinking that is not cluttered with emotional baggage and intellectual double-speak. It means recognizing – and announcing – that the emperor has no clothes.)

Before we take a look at the issue of conscience, let’s take a critical look at the claims made in the little ad posted above: “Gentle abortions. No pain. No memory.” Let’s take one claim at a time.

First: “gentle abortions.” Ahem. This is an oxymoron. The truth is that even if the abortion is committed while the mother is under general anesthesia, it is not “gentle” to anyone concerned. How can killing a child be “gentle”? We’ve all seen the pictures and read the descriptions: killing an unborn baby is dirty business; it is violent and disgusting. Period. Is it “gentle” for the mother? Well, I have had surgery under general anesthesia, and I would not consider it gentle. I think being “put under” takes a big toll on one’s body and mind. It’s not like taking a nap, for heaven’s sake.

Second: “no pain.” NO PAIN? Come on. The baby will experience pain! End of story. As for the mother, there may be no physical pain experienced while she is under general anesthesia, but you may rest assured that there will be psychological pain. After all, she’s choosing to deaden her mind and body so that she won’t be aware of what’s happening while it’s in progress. But she knows ahead of time what is going to happen, and she will know afterwards what she has allowed to happen. There will be psychological pain. There may be physical pain, too, depending on what actually goes on in the surgery that kills her baby. All those women who’ve experienced “botched abortions” can probably attest to that.

Third: “no memory”. Really? There are stories, of course, of people who have awareness during surgery even under general anesthesia. The number of confirmed, undisputed cases of this kind of awareness is extremely small. But the mind is pretty darn powerful, and, personally, I have no doubt that people do or can have some awareness during general anesthesia, and the incidence of it will be underreported in the literature because of the nebulousness of the experience. It’s a difficult phenomenon to study. But apart from the idea of “no memory” of the actual surgery, obviously there will still be the memory of what was done. The mother will remember that she has killed her baby.

Now let’s return to the issue of conscience. In my view, it all comes back to our conscience – or lack thereof. These days, society’s collective moral reasoning skills seem to have all but disappeared. Our “collective unconscious” seems to have no “collective conscience”.

The idea of conscience is, I think, vastly misunderstood by many. A general comment made by those who take issue with any particular Church teaching is: “I have a right to follow my own conscience.”  They use this paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to support this belief:

1782    Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions.  “He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience.  Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters.”

But there are many other paragraphs that define what a well-formed conscience is; paragraph 1782 merely defends a person’s right to be wrong. In other words, yes, “free will” allows you to follow your conscience; however, if your conscience is erroneously formed, you have simply exercised your right to make a mistake. Consider the very next paragraph in the Catechism:

1783    Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings. (emphasis added)

We live in a world that saturates us with printed material, visual images, and sound bytes that necessarily have an impact on how we think. American society in particular has come to revere “personal rights” in the form of moral relativism (“It may be right for you, but it’s not right for me”). Well-meaning people may try to follow their consciences, but the fact is, even if we seek to form a good conscience, we can still err (duh…we’re human!):

1786    Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them. (emphasis added)

1790  A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience.  If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed. (emphasis added)

Scripture itself warns us that it is not easy to form a good and pure conscience that is in accord with the will of God, and that it is easy to go astray.  For instance, 1Timothy 4:16 advises us to “Watch your life and doctrine closely.”  And 1Timothy 1:19 tells us that “By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith.”

I was surprised by the news that two women have pled guilty to third degree murder charges in the Gosnell case, and it made me wonder about what might be going on in their minds. Did they “wake up” and realize that what they had done was wrong?  More and more we are seeing abortion workers realizing the error of ways, and consequently leaving the abortion industry and in some cases sharing their testimony with the world. Their consciences were not dead after all!

Is the case with those women who have pled guilty to murder in the Gosnell case? Are they finally listening to a conscience that had been lulled to sleep in the abortion mill? I hope so. Because that give me hope – hope that the American public can actually recover from the moral laxity that pervades this nation. It gives me hope that our consciences can be renewed, and that we can overcome the moral relativism that is destroying the family in our society.

[A few of the above paragraphs are taken from my paper “Conscience and the Obedience of Faith”, in the February 2008 issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review. You can read it here thanks to Catholic Culture.]

Rachel Weeps

"A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." (Matthew 2:18, also Jeremiah 31:15) 

What we are doing to our children is unfathomable...

In Iraq, this report says, children of Christians are killed and displayed as if crucified in order to terrorize and torment the parents and force them to leave the country. What sort of mind a) conceives of such a vicious plan; and b) actually puts it into action? Who could do such a thing to a child?

In China, women are dying along with their unborn babies as abortions are forced on those who are pregnant without the necessary permission. There are plenty of stories of these atrocities from LifeSiteNews. The agony of these women and their families as their children are destroyed is unbearable to consider, yet we must confront it.

In the US, there are certainly many abortions that are coerced if not physically forced (though I believe there are accounts of the latter as well). Many other abortions are consented to by women who have bought the lie that "it's just a blob of cells", but who afterwards discover the truth, or recognize what they knew in their hearts was true, and then suffer the anguish and guilt of knowing they killed their own children.

All of this is horrendous and incomprehensible if you take even a couple of minutes to think it through. If you can't conjure up mental pictures, just do a google search online, and you'll find plenty of evidence of the horrors we are visiting upon our children.

That's not the end of it, though. These examples are all about physical harm - deplorable and disgusting and horrifying, of course. But what about spiritual harm, and even spiritual death? Is society not visiting that harm upon our children as well? Think about sex education at increasingly young ages, for instance. What is accomplished by this? How does it teach our children to think about sex? And now, of course, the homosexual political agenda is thrown into the mix, and we have children thinking about sex and becoming convinced that they are "gay". We have them exposed to contraceptive thinking early on;perhaps even more insidious is the information they are given on  how to prevent disease as well as pregnancy when they are having sex  - which is presented to them as their right and as something they should desire, and should be allowed to experience.

And of course there's homosexual marriage to consider. What does this issue say to our children? What is a marriage? What is a family? If parents are not actively teaching their children the answers to these questions - answers that up till fairly recently were so well-known and accepted that no explanation was needed, because most people were living examples of them - then their children will be indoctrinated into the liberal world view of "anything goes".

All of this exposes our children to spiritual harm, if not death. Their unformed consciences are battered by untruths which, in many cases, their parents are at a loss to combat, perhaps not even knowing what lies their children have been exposed to. And the more the lies and immoral lifestyles are played up in the media, the more numb a child's conscience will become, until finally there is no hope of resuscitation.

Rachel weeps - not just for the physically harmed children, but for the spiritually harmed children, too.

And I suspect Rachel weeps for the contracepted children as well. I know I do. But that's another story.

Ode to Nancy Pelosi

This "ode" was written in 2008, but most of it still holds true. Some things, apparently, just don't change.

We notice that Nancy Pelosi,

Has theology weak as Jello-si,

She quotes from Augustine

But must take a dustin’

From those who are in the know-si.

Nancy's no longer the Speaker,

And her theology is really much weaker

Than she’d like to admit;

It’s giving her fits,

But it hasn’t made her much meeker.

Communion’s important, she’s announcing,

As the Church’s teaching she’s renouncing.

She wants to receive;

She says she believes.

But the Bishops gave her a trouncing. (We wish they would renew their efforts!!!)

We witness amazing contortion,

Not to mention doctrinal distortion,

When Nancy comes in

With her version of sin,

And her political stance on abortion.

“Abortion just might not be wrong

If the woman’s not too far along.”

Roe v. Wade preaching

Replaces Church teaching

As Nancy’s political song.

Abortion is wrong – she must know!

But with her record, it sure doesn’t show.

She’s Catholic, she said,

But her faith must be dead.

Nancy: you’ll reap what you sow.

Sacrificing our children: Gardasil, parental rights, and the homosexual agenda

What incredible nonsense this is! Well, we are talking about California, after all, but still: kids can be given vaccinations without parental consent, but now the under-18 crowd is banned from using tanning beds. Governer Jerry Brown says parents have the ability and responsibility to make good choices for their children...but then he takes away the right that such a statement implies!

I'm talking about the new law in California which "allows children as young as 12 to receive vaccinations and other medications to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, including the human papilloma virus (HPV)." See the National Catholic Register story here.

Of course, the primary vaccination we're talking about here is Gardasil, which purports to provide protection against cervical cancer. According to the NCRegister article, "William May, chairman of Catholics for the Common Good, told CNA in September that the HPV vaccination of teenagers would likely end up squandering resources, as well as undermining families. As May explained, 73% of teenagers who sign up to receive the Gardasil vaccine never complete the series of three shots, which must be received over the course of three months at a cost of $120 each."

The Gardasil farce is all about money.

But the larger issue, of which Gardasil is only a part, is that of the undermining of parental rights. And that's part of the Culture of Death.

Satan is intent upon convincing us to sacrifice our children. He's got us doing that in various ways, and he's moving ever forward with his diabolical plan. Abortion is the prime example, of course, and is running rampant in this country. Even though Planned Parenthood seems to be on the defensive at the moment, the Obama administration is frantically backing up that mega abortion provider, and trying to undo everything the pro-life movement accomplishes. The battle is hot and heavy.

But there are other ways to sacrifice children: we can sacrifice them on the altar of sexuality. We are seeing children sexualized at earlier and earlier ages, with sex education aimed at even kindergarteners in some countries. The government conspires to provide birth control without parental consent to children who have reached physical sexual maturity. The message is: "You're going to want to have sex, and why shouldn't you be able to?" We have seen evidence of this mentality in the UN's agenda for the sexual "rights" of children, as well as Planned Parenthood's websites aimed at teens and even pre-teens. The strategy seems to be this: Sexualize the children and provide artificial contraception that is programmed to fail at some point (not to mention being harmful to women's health, as in chemical birth control methods), and you can guarantee enough abortions to fund your whole operation and create a nifty profit besides. The video "Blood Money" cuts to the heart of the issue.

This is all directly related to the homosexual agenda. Initially, the intent is the sexualization of children; close on the heels of that abomination comes the homosexualizing of children. And if you can't make a child believe he or she is "gay", then at least make him or her believe it is okay for others to be "gay" - so okay, in fact, that "gay" people are entitled to all manner of special treatment, and we must never ever "bully" them by insinuating in any way that their behavior is immoral. In California, the public schools will soon be teaching from a homosexualized curriculum - mandated by the state. Homosexuality is being "normalized" at an alarming rate. The combination of sexualizing and homosexualizing children will probably make California a prime target for moves to lower the age of consent for sexual behavior. This way of sacrificing our children is less bloody than abortion, but it, too, is deadly. The homosexual agenda is not about tolerance at all; it is about control of the minds and bodies - and ultimately the very souls - of children.

Thank God that Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles has at least made a statement against the law. More has to be done, though. Words are cheap. Too many Catholics are accepting of homosexuality and they vote accordingly. Where is the catechesis that helps the faithful to understand that homosexual behavior is gravely sinful, that it is wrong, that it is harmful? "Catholic" politicians have largely played into the hands of the homosexual agenda, and the bishops have been a little remiss in their efforts (or lack thereof) along these lines - both in general catechesis and in the disciplining of  politicians who claim to be Catholic but refute Church teaching on this issue and others.

Well, we might wait a long time for our pastors to show enough backbone to truly fight all these diabolical forces. In the meantime, parents, do a little innoculation of your own: innoculate your children with the whole series of three anti-world shots: the one that prevents pre-marital sex, the one that prevents homosexuality, and the one that prevents illogical, relativistic "moral" thinking. Where can you find the vaccine? It's all right there in your Catholic faith. Learn it. Live it. Teach it.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7:

Eruntque verba haec, quae ego praecipio tibi hodie in corde tuo, et inculcabis ea filiis tuis et loqueris ea sedens in domo tua at ambulans in itinere, decumbens atque consurgens.

And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt tell them to thy children, and thou shalt meditate upon them sitting in they house, and walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising.

Some good posts on other blogs

I've discovered that The Pulp.It is a great resource for current blog posts on interesting issues. Check it out. The Pulp.It has listed a couple of my entries, and I am appreciate that!

Remember Fr. Rodriguez in Texas? I was wondering what was going on with his situation. Go here for a report.

Jimmy Akins' article points out the illogic of the Obama-style thinking on contraception and abortion.

I really enjoyed Pat Archbold's description of a priest who just doesn't get it when it comes to the new translation.

There's lots more out there. These are just a few.