Pro-Life Advocates Urged to Renew Efforts Against Abortion After Election Loss

Life News ^ | 11/5/08 | Steven Ertelt

[floriduh voter]

“Love one another” as opposed to euthanize one another.

[wagglebee]

ALL human life is created in the image of God and His Handiwork is by definition perfect.

Thread by Caleb1411.

Babies Perfect and Imperfect

Our daughter was born at 5:22 p.m. on December 30, 2005. Two hours later, a nurse called my husband out of the room. When he returned, he took my hand and said, “They think Penny has Down syndrome.” As this news began to make its way into my consciousness, we heard shouts from the room next door. Another child had been born. “She’s perfect!” someone exclaimed about that other baby. “She’s perfect!”

Once we found out that Penny had Down syndrome, we had a hard time celebrating her birth. We didn’t open the bottle of champagne perched by my bedside. We were afraid to call our friends and family. We didn’t shout, “She’s perfect.”

In fact, those words haunted me. The medical language used for Down syndrome implies a special brand of imperfection: “disabled,” as if Penny were a defective piece of machinery that had been turned off; “retarded,” with all its connotations of stupid and subhuman; “abnormal,” like a cancerous growth. I found no comfort in these terms.

My faith didn’t help much either. Without even knowing it, my mind held a theological grid, a mental chart of how the universe worked. The only thing that chart told me about Down syndrome—the presence of an extra chromosome in every cell of Penny’s body—was that it was a manifestation of sin in the world. By that, I don’t mean I thought Down syndrome was immoral, but I did think that, because the entire cosmos was out of whack, bad things happened. Bad things, like malaria, and hurricanes, and extra chromosomes. And if having an extra chromosome was on par with disease and destruction and other things that are not of God, what did that say about our daughter?

My theology, at first, seemed to affirm the medical language. It seemed that, even by God’s standards, Penny was in another category of human being altogether—not merely “fallen,” like the rest of us, but defective, a mistake. And yet even in those early, dark hours of her life, Penny’s presence—her sweet face and tiny hands and warm body—knocked against my grid, jostled my presuppositions about human wholeness and human sin. I started to understand that Penny was a gift, a precious human being, a child with much to offer.

I began to reconsider my own theological presuppositions. And I wondered—Was Down syndrome a product of cosmic disorder? What did it mean for Penny, extra chromosome and all, to be created in the image of God? Could Down syndrome have existed in the Garden of Eden? Would Penny have Down syndrome in heaven? In other words, was Down syndrome a part of God’s good creation, or was it evidence of creation gone awry? I wasn’t the only one asking these questions. Amos Yong’s Theology and Down Syndrome, Thomas Reynolds’ Vulnerable Communion, and Hans Reinders’ Receiving the Gift of Friendship have all been published within the last year, and all consider theological questions surrounding both physical and mental disability. Together these writers provide a nuanced understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to anticipate a fully redeemed and restored, perfected humanity.

Before I read these books, and before Penny was in my life, I thought of perfection in largely individualistic and physical terms, as if one day God’s redeeming work would make us all little superheroes—strong, beautiful, intelligent, and incapable of making mistakes. These authors, however, recognize the full and even exemplary humanity of the individuals our culture calls disabled. They recognize the significance, both here and now and for all eternity, of “the least of these.” Yong explains, “The world, as created, is contingent, limited, and finite (as opposed to the divine infinitude). Yet contingency, limitedness, and finitude are not essentially evil, even if the human experience of suffering (and evil) is sometimes derived from these realities.”

In other words, from the moment of creation, human beings have been needy and dependent creatures. The initial sin of Adam and Eve was to attempt to become like God instead of accepting their inherent limitedness as humans. Rather than trusting God to direct and guide them within their natural limits, they tried to become autonomous individuals. As Reynolds writes, “Neediness, vulnerability, or lack of ability is not a flaw detracting from an otherwise pure and complete human nature. Rather, it is testimony to the fact that our nature involves receiving our existence from each other.” To think of the first humans in terms of dependence, need, and vulnerability makes me wonder whether Adam could have stubbed his toe, or whether he ever asked Eve for a backrub to relieve his sore muscles after a long day’s work. It helps me realize that human limitations didn’t arise when sin entered the world. Limitations existed already. It was brokenness—both within the moral and the natural order—that came with sin.

Just as Adam’s and Eve’s limitations constitute one aspect of their humanity, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ provide a portrait of humanity that includes vulnerability, weakness, and powerlessness. Scriptural references to Christ’s power in weakness abound: Think of the hymn in Philippians 2, or the image from Revelation of the saints worshiping “the lamb that was slain.” According to Yong, since Jesus experienced bodily disfigurement on the cross, “this Christologically defined imago Dei would thus be inclusive rather than exclusive of the human experience of disability.”

Reynolds makes a similar point: “His resurrected body continues to bear his scars as a sign of God’s solidarity with humanity. . . . It suggests that disability indicates not a flawed humanity but a full humanity.” It is true, and significant, that Christ comes to us in weakness, with limits, and with needs, and yet I wouldn’t claim Jesus is “the disabled God.” Christ’s physical suffering is imposed on him by humans, whereas disability often refers to congenital and genetically based physical problems. Moreover, he does not remain in this incapacitated state. The resurrected Christ bears his scars, but he does not retain his wounds.

Yong and Reynolds both go too far in arguing the solidarity of Christ’s suffering and human disability. And yet, the images of both Adam and Christ as limited and vulnerable allow us to conceive humanity in different terms from those I had on hand when I found out Penny had Down syndrome. At first, I could only see her extra chromosome as evidence of imperfection, as a series of limitations that were different and worse than my own human limits. I didn’t conceive of limits—hers or mine—as potentially good: gifts from God that enable each of us to admit our creatureliness, our need for one another, our need for God’s grace.

Early on, I had asked my mother whether she thought Down syndrome happened because of sin in the world. She responded gently, “The only evidence of sin I see is in how the world reacts to Penny.” I began to understand what she meant—that Penny is no more or less human than I am, no more or less born in sin, no more or less blessed, no more or less in need of redemption. When I think of Penny’s life to come only in terms of being fixed or healed, I miss the point of what it means for God to redeem and heal each and every one of us.

I have been asking the wrong questions all along. We know that heaven involves seeing God face to face. We know it involves love. We know it involves participation in community, in the body of Christ, within a multiplicity of gifts and abilities. We also know that, even once we are fully redeemed, our humanity includes limitations and dependence on one another. We don’t know what those limits will look like. We don’t know whether all of us will have good vision or be able to run marathons without feeling tired or be able to solve quadratic equations. Yong goes so far as to say, “I further speculate that people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, such as those with Down syndrome or triplicate chromosome 21—will also retain their phenotypical features in their resurrection bodies. . . . Thus, the redemption of those with Down syndrome, for example, would consist not in some magical fix of the twenty-first chromosome but in the recognition of their central roles in the communion of saints and in the divine scheme of things.”

With all that said, we also know that God promises to make us whole. So when the prophet Isaiah writes of a future when the blind will be healed, or when Jesus heals the paralytic, or when the author of Revelation envisions the new heaven and the new earth without any pain, I have to wonder where healing fits in my new understanding of Down syndrome and other disabilities. All three of the recent books imply that when we conceive of healing simply as miraculous cures for abnormal states of being—blindness, deafness, cognitive delays—we miss the point. They do not see the transformation of every physical limitation as a guarantee, or even as necessary for fulfilling our human potential, and they construe healing in a holistic sense, as the inclusion of all people, regardless of bodily or mental function, in communion with God. I can’t say what Penny’s redemption will look like, and I trust that God’s promise to make each one of us whole will include physical transformation. But part of the point is to remind ourselves about the full humanity of those with Down syndrome in this world. It took a lot of thought and prayer for me to agree with what my mother understood as soon as Penny was born: The evidence of sin is in our response to her, not in her extra chromosome.

For a long time, I was looking for answers to questions that were hardly worth asking, and I was trying to recreate my daughter according to a cultural standard of normalcy rather than according to a biblical understanding of full human life. We are created in the image of God, recipients of divine love and grace, and we bear the responsibility and privilege of extending love into the world here and now, and forever more.

Two and a half years after Penny was born, I don’t think of her as defective, or retarded, or abnormal. I think back to that first evening of her life, when I cringed at the words about the baby next door: “She’s perfect!” I still wouldn’t call Penny perfect. I wouldn’t call any human being, besides Jesus, perfect. I am well aware that Penny needs healing and redemption through Christ, as do I. And Penny’s nature, I hope and pray, will be redeemed through Christ as she becomes the whole person she was created to be. I suspect Penny’s whole person will include three twenty-first chromosomes, but only because any aspect of that extra chromosome causing separation—physical, emotional, relational—will be overcome.

Just recently, we started reading a book about Jesus together. We read the story of Jesus blessing the little children. Penny was fascinated. At the end, I told her that Jesus loves her just like he loves the little children in the story. And I asked her if she knows that she can talk to Jesus. Without hesitation, she nodded her head, folded her hands, and said, “Pray.” Now that I know what to look for, I glimpse perfection in Penny’s life nearly every day.

Amy Julia Becker, a master-of-divinity candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary, is a writer and mother in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Her first book, Penelope Ayers, will be published this fall.

[wagglebee]

A great expose of false pro-lifers by Jill Stanek.

Thread by me.

Jill Stanek: Counterfeit pro-lifers: A case of mistaken identity

I probably don't need to say much more than the Washington Post and USA Today wrote glowingly of a new "pro-life" plan. Red flags arise.

Last week USA Today editorialized:

Realism seems to have struck some ardent foes of abortion. After 35 years of trying to outlaw the procedure nationally while chipping away at abortion rights state by state, they have decided to add a new and sensible initiative. They'll work with the other side to reduce the number of abortions.

It's not that the opponents changed their minds or that they're any less committed to their cause. It's just that they have done the new math. And the numbers don't add up to more anti-abortion justices on the U.S. Supreme Court or a sea change on the issue among most Americans.

The new "pro-life" coalition is composed of Barack Obama supporters, and they're a little late with their Supreme Court math. Whatever. Smokescreen anyway...

[wagglebee]

There was a time when the "C" in YMCA and YWCA actually stood for something.

Thread by Sun.

YWCA Supports Freedom of Choice Act

The CEO of the Young Women's Christian Association said that the group is "pro-choice" and would support the Freedom of Choice Act, which President-elect Obama has pledged to sign into law.

[wagglebee]

This just gives, "ho, ho, ho" an entirely new meaning.

Thread by me.

Ad Showing Woman Seducing Santa Promotes Free Morning-After Pills and Condoms for Christmas

WARWICKSHIRE, U.K., November 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new advertisement from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), sometimes described as the “British Planned Parenthood,” depicting a semi-pornographic Christmas scene is being used to tout free morning-after pills and condoms for the Christmas season.

The ad shows the lower half of a man clad in "Santa" get-up grasping the rear of a woman in a mini-skirt whose leg is entwined around the “Santa” figure, set against the backdrop of a typical Christmas living room scene. "Santa only comes once a year ... but that's all it takes!" reads the ad, implying that the woman could get pregnant even if she only has sex with Santa once a year, without using contraception.

BPAS's website explains that they "recognise that Christmas is a time when people don’t think about contraception as a priority, but accidents still happen." In order to remedy the shortened holiday schedule of family planning clinics and pharmacies, BPAS will be providing a "Free Christmas Pack" containing a dose of the abortifacient morning-after pill, three condoms, a leaflet on "what your options are in case the pill doesn’t work" and another on general sexual health services...

[wagglebee]

"Plan B" has always been just a way to kill babies when "Plan A" fails.

Thread by me.

Survey: Plan B Drug More Available, Refused Less, But Abortions May Not Drop

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new national survey shows the Plan B drug, as known as the morning after pill, is more available across the United States following a 2006 FDA decision to sell it to adults over the counter. However, anecdotal stats from other places where it is readily available show it not reducing abortions...

[wagglebee]

Soon there may not be a choice.

Thread by me.

Canada Poll Finds Equal Number Would Choose Euthanasia or Palliative Care

Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) -- A disturbing new poll from Canada finds an equal number of respondents would choose palliative care over euthanasia at the end of their lives. The results find death is increasingly becoming an alternative for pain relief for patients, the elderly or disabled.

The Environics polling firm queried Canadians and found 44 percent would choose euthanasia and the same amount would choose palliative care. The final 12 percent were undecided...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Sun]

“Canada Poll Finds Equal Number Would Choose Euthanasia or Palliative Care
Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) — A disturbing new poll from Canada finds an equal number of respondents would choose palliative care over euthanasia at the end of their lives.”

This is so disturbing. It seems the antilifers are winning people over incrementally, but we pro-lifers can win them back.

[floriduh voter]

OH, CANADA

What people don't realize is that the decision to euthanize doesn't rest with the individual. These decisions will be made by strangers or relatives who don't like them very much.

Euthanasia is not a choice issue as presented. It is granting others the authorization to decide it's time for someone to go.

They don't have to be terminal, as you know. Maybe they have a real nice kidney or a real nice heart there... The profitability of transplantation is oft overlooked. The donor's donation is "free" but after that there's major profiteering including anti-rejection RX needed forever.

[floriduh voter]

A friend took a picture of Trig at a Tampa Bay McCain-Palin Rally. It's sweet. By the way, on December 3rd is Terri Schindler Schiavo's birthday. She was martyred on March 31, 2005 as you know.

www.terrisfight.org for streaming radio broadcast (radio program Lifeline is on today at 3:00 PM EST).

[wagglebee]

The culture of death continues to expand its evil realm.

Thread by me.

South Korea Supreme Court OKs Feeding Tube Removal, Euthanasia Worries

Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- The Supreme Court of South Korea has issued a ruling allowing the family members of a terminally ill woman to remove her feeding tube and take her off life support. The decision is opening up the Asian nation to concerns that the ruling could lead to assisted suicide or euthanasia.

The case apparently involved a family that did not have a dispute like the one that embroiled Terri Schiavo's family and her ex-husband.

The debate in the Asian nation is not so much over the case itself but the effects of it.

That's because lawmakers in the National Assembly have filed legislation that could take the decision further down the slippery slope.

Park Jung-woo, spokesman for the Life and Ethics Committee at the Archdiocese of Seoul, told the Korea Times newspaper that a patient choosing to withdraw his own treatment is one thing but removing treatment from someone else is different...

"We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will give you no rest."

[wagglebee]

Our great FRiend Steven Ertelt has a story/thread that exposes the lie that abortion doesn't lead to mental health problems.

New Study: Direct Link Between Abortion and Mental Health Problems

Washington, DC -- A new research study featuring numerous controls and a national data set finds a link between abortion and psychiatric disorders. The study directly contradicts the report the American Psychiatric Association released in August claiming abortion causes no mental health issues for women.

The research team found induced abortions result in increased risks for a myriad of mental health problems ranging from anxiety to depression to substance abuse disorders.

Ultimately, the authors write that abortion is directly "responsible for more than 10% of the population incidence of alcohol dependence, alcohol abuse, drug dependence, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and bipolar disorder" among all Americans...

[wagglebee]

Not only is abortion the number one cause of death in the United States, it is responsible for as many deaths as cancer, heart disease and strokes COMBINED.

Thread by MountainLoop

Abortion Now Number One Cause of Death in Spain

SPAIN, November 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Abortion is now the number one cause of death in Spain, and represents the most common type of violence against women in the formerly Catholic country, according to a new report by the international Institute for Family Policy (IPF).

The report, which was issued on the International Day of Violence Against Women, notes that Spain has one of the most liberal abortion laws in Europe, allowing women to kill their unborn child for "psychological" reasons at any time during their pregnancy.

Under Spain's practically nonexistent restrictions, abortions have more than doubled since the mid 1990s, climbing from 51,006 in 1996 to over 120,000 in 2007. The abortion rate is now approaching one in five pregnancies (18.3%), according to the report...

[wagglebee]

I question whether Doug Kmiec was EVER a pro-life conservative.

Thread by Salvation.

Doug Kmiec’s Departure from the Pro-life Movement

The more incredible the claim, the greater the number of column inches the liberal media devotes to making it. That’s why The Washington Post, on November 18th, gave over such a large swath of its front page to religion writer Jacqueline Salmon, who fantasizes at length about the “growing number of anti-abortion pastors, conservative academics and activists [who] are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions.” This, she would have us believe, is the future of the pro-life movement. The rest of us have given up, or are about to.

As Exhibit Number One for her argument, Salmon produces the now well-known Doug Kmiec, a conservative academic who teaches law at Pepperdine University. Kmiec early endorsed Obama for president, justifying his support for the abortion-minded candidate by claiming that legal efforts to restrict abortion have failed.

[wagglebee]

Just what we can expect from political correctness.

Thread by me.

A Painful, Disease-Ridden Death Isn’t So Bad if You’re Just a White, Heterosexual Male

November 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - I had an ethics teacher in high-school of a particularly volatile and appallingly (or delightfully, depending upon your perspective), politically incorrect sort. Indeed, he one day related to our class that while in university he discovered that there existed on his campus a black lesbian club. This my teacher found amusing. It also gave him an idea.

And so, being the roguish fellow that he is, he promptly marched off to one or another administrator’s office and announced his intention to start up a white, heterosexual male club, and could he please get the proper forms and when could he expect to receive his funding and where on campus could he post the signs advertising for membership?

Needless to say, his club never got off the ground (though I’m not sure he would have known what to do if it had).

It was a good story and has always stuck with me as an apt illustration of the broken-mindedness of the politically correct, who too often operate according to the principle that anything … absolutely anything, other than a white, heterosexual male is a good thing...

[wagglebee]

This needs to be repeated in churches across America.

Thread by me.

Calif. priest tells Obama supporters to confess

A Roman Catholic priest has told parishioners they should confess if they voted for Barack Obama because the president-elect supports abortion.

The Rev. Joseph Illo says his parishioners at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Modesto shouldn't risk losing their "state of grace" by receiving communion sacrilegiously. He delivered the message in a Nov. 21 letter and during mass...

[wagglebee]

A courageous young girl who decided not to compound one mistake with an even deadlier one.

Thread by me.

Teen's life changes when baby arrives

YULEE - At the beginning of her sophomore year at Yulee High School, Alyssa Gammons was a 15-year-old cheerleader whose biggest challenge was perfecting a back handspring. Her days were filled with the usual teenage things - school, homework, and hanging out with friends.

But midway through the 2007-08 school year, Alyssa's life was changed drastically by a positive pregnancy test.

"I lost it," Alyssa said. "All that ran through my head was, 'My life is over.' I cried and cried, because I didn't know what I was going to do and I didn't know how to tell my parents."

The next day, with a family friend at her side, Alyssa broke the news to them. Her father yelled, her mother cried and Alyssa sat silently on the couch with tears sliding down her cheeks. But her parents soon recovered from the shock and embraced her. They considered the options - abortion, adoption, or keeping the baby, and decided to keep it...

[Salvation]

Pray for an end to abortion and the conversion of America to a culture of life!

 

Please continue to pray to defeat FOCA!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!