Posted on 05/10/2006 2:36:17 PM PDT by Borges
Lawrence Lader, a writer who so successfully marshaled his literary and political efforts in support of abortion rights that Betty Friedan, the feminist author, called him the father of the movement, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 86.
The cause was colon cancer, his wife, Joan Summers Lader, said.
Mr. Lader was a major voice in the abortion debate for four decades, becoming a lightning rod for its critics as well as a beacon for its proponents. He wrote influential books and articles on the subject, organized ministers to refer women wanting abortions to doctors as well as referring 2,000 himself, helped found what was long known as the National Abortion Rights Action League and helped win New York State's repeal of abortion restrictions in 1970.
He unsuccessfully sued the Internal Revenue Service to end the Roman Catholic Church's tax exemptions on the ground that its opposition to abortion had veered into the political arena. He successfully challenged some restrictions on the drug RU-486, known as the morning-after pill, and arranged to manufacture a version of it in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
One must - though it goes against my natural bent. I am going to need all the mercy I can get on the Last Day.
Bet it's hot where he is....
"May his soul burn in hell."
I suspect there's been a special place reserved for him there for some time now.
I will hope for all the mercy I can get too but I do take some comfort in Hyde's hope.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, now a Catholic and a pro-life champion, was responsible for a quarter of a million abortions through his New York abortion mill before the miracle of his conversion. He had been brought up in a faithless home but was of Jewish ancestry. Dr. Nathanson was an original board member of NARAL, resigning long before he became a pro-lifer or a believer because he said that listening to Lader speak of Catholics was like personally smelling the smoke from Auschwitz.
None of us is enhanced by the eternal damnation of another. In truth this is probably the only really rational argument against the death penalty is that we must recognize even the Lawrence Laders of this world as God's beloved children, that God created him to know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world and to be happy forever with Him in the next but that God is just as well as merciful and that execution removes from the guilty some opportunity for repentance, penance and reconciliation with a heavenly Father always willing to forgive.
At the Last Judgment, we will know Lader's fate and our own. He knows his eternal status for good or for ill as we post.
Pray also for the late Amy Boissoneault who was loved by Atomic Dog. She was especially devoted to the ministry of Fr. Norman Weslin. She died of cancer at a horridly early age (or God simply wanted her home more quickly than we can imagine), having spent herself in service to the Lord and His cherished unborn. She was a beloved client, a moral heroine, and a spiritual warrior.
The world is now a better place. He won't be missed.
We can always hope he did that. But it's unlikely.
It must really suck to be him right about now.
My gut reaction was to offer a prayer for his soul. I know some Christians do not practice prayers for the dead, but for those who do, I strongly encourage you to pray for the soul of this man.
258th. trimester self-abortion. Out of idle curiosity, in which circle of Hell would Dante have placed this creature?
btt
True enough, but failure to execute too often puts killers back on the street to kill again. Then it is their victims who are denied an opportunity for repentance and reconciliation with God.
I guess that's fitting. Shame it wasn't 86 years earlier.
That's the first thing I though of we I read it too.
I wonder if he wants a glass of ice water?
If you mean that then you're a better Christian than I could ever hope to be.
Personally, I hope hell is so hot his flesh drips off him like hot wax. And then, do it over again and again. I hope satan takes that abortion hose and drives it into his brain and sucks it out. Maybe do the flesh dripping off one day and brain sucking the next. For eternity. Millions and millions of babies murdered.
May God forgive me for my anger toward this creature.
Another mass murderer dead. Is there something here I am supposed to be concerned about.
Perhaps the only sounds he will hear forever are the screams of the innocent babies be torn apart.
In other words, the guy was a Communist. And he has cheapened human life in the United States in much the same way his compatriots in Eastern Europe cheapened human life there. No wonder he is a hero to the gang at the New York Times!
For a relatively brief period of time, about twenty years ago, I was opposed to the death penalty on that basis. One night, then living in Connecticut, I was watching a New York City news telecast that covered the mass murder of something in excess of ten (14, I believe) women, children and infants in Brooklyn or the Bronx in a storefront converted to a residence. The victims were the family members of some Dominican Republic native narcotics dealers. The perps were rival narcotics dealers. The youngest victim was a six-month old infant machine-gunned while crawling through broken glass, debris and his/her mother's blood. I pondered the news story for about ten seconds and realized that a society that refuses to impose the death penalty on the perps of such crimes (NY had no death penalty at the time) has little business existing.
The infant could not have even been a witness against the perps. The infant's murder (and probably the rest of the murders) was pure, shocking, gratuitous, unadulterated evil of a sort that requires death as a penalty. I have not wavered on the death penalty since. I do think that the perps of such murders would be quite well advised to seek the forgiveness of their Heavenly Father before execution. They have plenty of time to repent.
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