Fetal pain is not something often mentioned when people are discussing abortion. Yet, the truth is, the preborn baby does feel pain and wants to avoid it. Today’s commentary focuses on what the preborn baby goes through as he faces the end of his life.
In the state of Nebraska, the Abortion Pain Prevention Act has just become law http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LB1103.pdf. Celebrations have ensued not only in the state but among pro-life, pro-family leaders at the national level.

The subject of fetal pain, and the manner in which political operatives within the pro-life movement have handled it, have always been a source of interest and sorrow for me. Now is the perfect time to examine the so-called “fetal pain” proposition from a perspective that is not often discussed—the perspective of the preborn child.

First of all, this human being who is growing within his mother does feel pain. We have known this since the early days of the pro-life movement when Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., created the video, The Silent Scream, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjNo_0cW-ek&feature=fvw in 1984. The film is a chilling presentation of how gruesome and heinous the act of abortion truly is. The narration by Dr. Nathanson is so matter-of-fact and clinical that one is shocked into realizing immediately that this man—who was an abortionist and oversaw the killing of thousands—is now telling the world the truth. The video shows a 12-week-old preborn child, seen via ultrasound, who does all he physically can to escape the needle that is destined to kill him.

The gut wrenching truth presented in this video was applauded by then President Ronald Reagan http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/dsouza200406100844.asp who hosted a showing at the White House. Reagan was grateful for Dr. Nathanson’s effort to finally show the world the truth about what abortion does to the child.

Writer Fitz Barringer described Nathanson’s video this way, http://www.unc.edu/cr/features/the-silent-scream.html

As the suction device enters the womb, for instance, the child, clearly in fear for his life, begins to move violently away from the instrument. After watching the horrific image for several seconds, Nathanson remarks, “There is no question; this child senses the most mortal threat imaginable.”

When the suction device begins to tear the child apart, Nathanson pauses the video and points to the child’s open mouth. “Now we can discern the chilling ‘silent scream’ on the face of this child, who is now facing eminent extinction,” he says.

Today, by contrast, Nebraska’s Abortion Pain Prevention Act states, http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LB1103.pdf “At least by twenty weeks after fertilization, an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain …”

So what happened to those eight weeks between what we knew in 1984 and what today is the state law in Nebraska? I have no idea, but what I do know is that the bill is supported, at least in part, because some pro-life strategists argue that pro-abortion organizations http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10101813.html “can’t risk taking Nebraska’s fetal pain ban all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, for fear that the new line of demarcation for abortion under Roe will be pain instead of viability…”

This statement represents the crux of the problem. It occurs to me that pro-life strategists have already moved the line from the 12 weeks established by Dr. Nathanson to 20 weeks, and are now arguing that some sort of a “line of demarcation” is a goal. Not so!

Pro-life people have worked in the trenches for more than thirty-five years to achieve an end to the killing, not a “line of demarcation” that allegedly intimidates the pro-aborts. They must be laughing in their beer at this!

Preborn babies are human beings regardless of their age, regardless of their nerve endings, regardless of lines of demarcation. If the pro-life movement could unite behind the simple truth that a preborn baby is a baby from the beginning of his biological development, everyone could stop all the posturing and get to work.

What these babies need is total protection, not phony victories that establish lines beyond which people may not be killed—unless, of course, they are anesthetized first.

Listen to their cries, their screams, and imagine their tears. How can we not do everything within our power to save each and every one of them?

© Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

Planned Parenthood continues to increase its abortion numbers, all the while maintaining that it aims only to serve women’s needs. With deadly numbers and with services being funded by our tax dollars, the insinuation of this organization into nearly all aspects of reproductive life should spark outrage. To stop this frightening trend, we must all take action and stand for this no more.

Cecile Richards, the current president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), has repeatedly claimed that the root cause of abortion is unintended pregnancy. She tells her audiences that this is why Planned Parenthood emphasizes contraceptive services and other reproductive health choices for its clients—including underage teens. Richards explains that, in this way, PPFA is contributing to a decline in the surgical abortion rate.

Obviously Richards not only does not admit that a human person dies during an abortion, but she fails to explain that most of the popular—and lucrative for Planned Parenthood—birth control methods can also act to abort children. Such details are not of interest to the queen of Planned Parenthood’s misinformation machine.

Richards has defended her organization’s commitment to http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/national-leadership/cecile-richards-4676.htm improving women’s health while repeatedly failing to provide the public with facts—including an honest answer to this question: “Why is it that Planned Parenthood promotes surgical abortion as part of its overall reproductive health program?” Richards and her co-workers labored tirelessly to ensure passage of the http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/national-leadership/cecile-richards-4676.htm Obama health care reform law; her henchmen were already in place within the Department of Health and Human Services, paving the way for even more tax dollars to be poured into the PPFA steam engine. Clearly PPFA will stop at nothing to acquire further enhancements for its efforts to drive unsuspecting teens and young women through its door for birth control. And when that fails, Planned Parenthood is most willing, of course, to provide a helping hand by offering surgical abortion, as the organization is well known for being among the best creators of a permanent clientele. That revolving birth control door always provides the abortion back-up, which is why too many gullible clients become the mothers of dead children—children killed by the very reproductive health services Richards claims help curtail surgical abortion.

But now, thanks to the efforts of Jim Sedlak http://ww.all.org/article.php?id=5249 and Rita Diller http://ww.all.org/article.php?id=5252 of American Life League’s Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP), we have the facts and are exposing the horrendous specifics that Richards and her cronies have long denied.

One such startling statistic, taken from Planned Parenthood’s records, is that between 1973—when the United States Supreme Court decriminalized surgical abortion in America—and 2008, Planned Parenthood has facilitated the direct killing of 4,987,817 http://www.stopp.org/wsr.php?wsr_dt=20100915 preborn children. Yes, nearly five million dead babies!

That gruesome number accounts for more than 25 percent of the children killed by abortion in the USA.

Planned Parenthood claims that its abortion business represents less than three percent of its total services. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/AR08_vFinal.pdf Since nearly 40.6 percent of its total income is received from abortion services, it is obvious that it again has chosen to deny the obvious, obfuscate the truth and play on the heartstrings of the unaware by appealing to the average person’s concern for the poor and downtrodden while raking in the blood money.

Based on the dubious distinction of being a not-for-profit charity that has garnered more than $152 million from this slaughter, it is perfectly clear that Planned Parenthood is committed to increasing its abortion business at all costs, even if it means deceiving the public.

If this information disturbs you, then please get involved in stopping the deadly business Planned Parenthood is conducting with your tax dollars. Find out what you can do locally and sign a petition to cut off government funding for Planned Parenthood by visiting the STOPP web site today. http://www.stopp.org/article.php?id=4912

Children’s lives and souls depend on your action. Please do not delay.

© Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

Denial of the truth may be easier for some people when thinking about Catholic values. But regardless of whether truth is faced or denied, what the truth is does not change. Disregarding the truth to assuage guilt or make one’s actions fit into a mold that will alleviate distress from one’s conscience is still disregarding the truth. And when the truth is blurred, lives are lost.

When is an act of abortion anything less than the direct murder of a preborn child? The answer to this question is never.

When is the use of a contraceptive method anything less than a defiant act against God which tells Him that He need not get involved in your life by giving you the gift of a child? The answer to this question is never.

When is the direct assault on a human embryo for the purpose of removing his stem cell anything less than killing him? Never.

Each of these questions is based on a fact that is emphatically denied by those who continually fashion the culture of death in America. But what’s truly sad is that, all too frequently, these facts are also rebuffed by those who profess to be part of the pro-life response to pro-death forces. This sort of confusion in messaging derails much of the pro-life public outreach—not to mention confounding those citizens who are looking to us for leadership, education and guidance.

So why does this sort of mixed-up communication occur?

There are varied answers to that question, but there is a simple fact that transcends whatever explanations one may hear. That is quite simply that the truth about abortion, contraception and stem cell research is not fungible—it is what it is. And deny it or waltz around, its nature will not change one iota. There is, after all, just one truth.

For more than forty years we have been striving to understand why individuals shrink from making bold statements of fact like those embodied in the questions posed at the beginning of this article. Until we happened upon an encyclical written more than one hundred years ago, we had no real answer.

In his encyclical Sapientiae Christianae (On Christians as Citizens), Pope Leo XIII challenged the Christians of his day with words that seem to apply more today than they did 115 years ago when he wrote them. http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/L13SAPIE.HTM

To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: “Have confidence; I have overcome the world.”[13] Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

Strong words, but necessary for those of us who are striving not to please the powerful of this world or help others feel comfortable with a little bit of killing. Strong words, but necessary to share the love, the mercy and the justice of God with one and all. This is accomplished by witnessing to others that only in truth can one find genuine peace of mind and heart.

To be pro-life is, after all, to be courageous.

Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

I have followed the history of certain abortion practitioners over the years because it troubles me that the mainstream media consistently avoid the horror stories often resulting from their “clinical” activities. Lest we forget, these are people with medical degrees who make their living killing preborn persons and maiming their mothers.

Among those who should have been put behind bars long ago is a man by the name of Steven Brigham. Brigham has operated abortion facilities in Pennsylvania, http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20100721_More_trouble_for_abortion_doctor__this_time_in_Pennsylvania.html Florida, http://www.christianliferesources.com/?news/view.php&newsid=1531 New Jersey, http://www.peopleforlife.org/press/pressrelease010301.html New York, http://www.peopleforlife.org/newyorkdiscipline2.pdf California, Georgia and, most recently, Maryland. http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-abortion-doctors-20100903,0,1653384.story .

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20100721_More_trouble_for_abortion_doctor__this_time_in_Pennsylvania.html Brigham’s medical license “has been revoked, relinquished, or temporarily suspended in five states,” and that was before it was reported that he’s now in trouble in Maryland, where he has no license to practice.

Most of the reports detailing Brigham’s http://www.peopleforlife.org/brigham.html filthy clinics, his passion for retaining baby body parts in jars and the like have been removed from the Internet. While you might think this is because of the possibility of offending some folks, I think the intent is to bury the nauseating information that has plagued this man wherever he goes in his quest to end the lives of preborn children.

The most recent incident, which occurred in Maryland and left a young girl in critical condition, could turn out differently. Only time will tell. Brigham’s http://wjz.com/health/abortion.botched.2.1895727.html abortion business was located in Elkton, Maryland, which is close to the nation’s capital. It appears from the reports we’ve seen that Brigham practiced with another abortionist, Nicola Riley. http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view.bg?articleid=1279278&srvc=rss.

These two abortionists’ practices have been shut down by the Maryland Board of Physicians. The Associated Press reported, http://gazetteonline.com/blogs/news-hawk/2010/09/05/2-abortion-drs-ordered-to-stop-after-maryland-injury “The state Board of Physicians ordered Dr. Steven Brigham to stop practicing medicine without a license in Maryland and suspended the license of Dr. Nicola Riley. Police raided one of Brigham’s offices in Elkton looking for medical records, and found dozens of late-term fetuses in a freezer at a clinic.” Also suspended is George Shepherd Jr., “an obstetrician-gynecologist who helped run [Brigham’s] five Maryland clinics,” according to the Baltimore Sun. http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-abortion-doctors-20100903,0,1653384.story

Moreover, in the wake of the botched abortion in Maryland, New Jersey officials filed documents on September 8 to suspend Brigham’s license. His license was previously suspended for three years in New Jersey, “the only state where he is currently permitted to practice medicine.” http://m.philly.com/phillycom/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=vKJHRLbv&full=true#display

Brigham’s medical offense, however, was that he perforated the uterus of an 18-year-old patient. Brigham owns “about 15” abortion mills, http://m.philly.com/phillycom/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=vKJHRLbv&full=true#display claims he only “supervises” http://wjz.com/health/abortion.botched.2.1895727.html abortions in Maryland instead and comes to the attention of state authorities periodically for deeds which, if perpetrated by any other type of medical professional, would have resulted in serious jail time years ago.

Sadly, however, if Brigham’s luck holds, he will remain unknown as far as the national media is concerned. And he, along with other ghouls masquerading as doctors, will continue to facilitate the killing of preborn children while maiming the mothers of the children they kill for profit. That’s the way the abortion industry works in America these days.

When writing about Brigham, National Catholic Register blogger Matthew Archbold told his readers, http://www.ncregister.com/blog/abortionists-kept-aborted-babies-in-jars

I used to think that the abortion industry were simply capitalists who allowed their greed to override their humanity. I used to think that maybe it was just feminism run amok and that cooler heads would eventually prevail. I used to think that pro-lifers were simply up against the extreme of secularized logic. Over the past few years, though, I’ve come to believe that it’s more than that. It’s worse than that. We’re immersed in a culture with a death fetish. Our fascination with death is boundless.

Our culture increasingly sees humanity as the problem. We elevate animals in order to grant them human rights and increasingly view humans as animals.

Archbold, who also wrote that “hate has become so commonplace that it has lost the power to surprise me” is among the most insightful young writers I have encountered. He has seen the enemy for what it truly is. This is an enemy who despises God and loathes human persons for a wide variety of reasons.

Until society sees this truth, the nation’s “death fetish” is likely to continue.

Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

Paula Gianino, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis region, is having a real problem with the effort to achieve legal recognition of personhood for all human beings—born and preborn. She has come to the conclusion that pro-personhood Americans don’t believe in “the right to safe, legal abortion.” http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_e847eb82-8194-5fa8-bdef-0ef71ba74bcb.html

Of course, she’s right, since those of us who understand basic biology and human embryology know that direct abortion kills a living human being. http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_01lifebegin1.html Apparently, Gianino missed that chapter in her Biology 101 class.

She writes that a recently approved informed-consent law in Missouri http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Ethics-abortion-remain-at-end-of-Missouri-Legislature-93769874.html “is intended to add more distress, costs, burdens and barriers to abortion. It will create unnecessary delays and increase mid-trimester abortions (which has happened since the first waiting period law was passed).” http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_e847eb82-8194-5fa8-bdef-0ef71ba74bcb.html

It’s this sort of rhetoric that helps proponents of abortion salve their consciences as they consistently deny that the act of abortion takes the life of a human being. The focus of such hyperbole is on the female, the expectant mother, who is never referenced as an expectant mother because abortion enthusiasts don’t admit that a child is growing inside his mother. Gianino wouldn’t write that abortion itself distresses and burdens the child in the womb to death, because she doesn’t believe it.

Gianino tells the reader, “An embryo and the fetus, for most of its nine months in utero, is not separate from the woman. It is completely dependent on the woman for its growth and development. Anti-choice groups disregard the woman entirely; the woman’s life, health and future do not matter. Elevating the status of the fetus over that of the woman is dangerous and dismissive of women, trivializes the issue and strips women of their integrity and humanity.”

First and most importantly, the preborn child has to depend on his mom for nutrition and housing, but so does a newborn infant. I never met a newborn who could lead a life of total independence. Why doesn’t Gianino give this little fact some thought? Just because the preborn child needs his mother in order to survive shouldn’t give anyone license to murder him.

Further, if pro-life Americans didn’t care for the expectant mom and want to do everything we could to assist her and her baby throughout her pregnancy and beyond, if she needs it, we wouldn’t be living up to our pro-life principles. We care deeply for each of these moms and their children, which is more than proven by the numerous pregnancy resource centers run by pro-lifers worldwide. http://www.heartbeatinternational.org/

This outpouring of unconditional love is also the reason why it’s pro-life people who minister to the post-abortive moms. http://www.rachelsvineyard.org Once she realizes that the actions she took have resulted in her being the mother of a dead child instead of a living, breathing bundle of joy, she can suffer numerous problems and even life-threatening illness. http://www.cirtl.org/syndrome.htm Pro-lifers are there for her because we care.

Stripping women of their integrity and humanity is precisely what happens every time a Planned Parenthood employee or any “reproductive health” specialist, for that matter, ignores the human personhood of the baby and the expectant mom’s real needs, focusing instead on getting rid of the “problem pregnancy” by requiring payment for and then committing an abortion.

Integrity begins with honoring the truth, and respect for humanity begins with recognition of motherhood and the fact that two people are involved in that pregnancy—mother and child.

So, if Planned Parenthood’s standard euphemisms are correctly translated, you’ll see that Gianino tells the truth when she writes, “Anti-choice groups never have worked with us on much-needed prevention programs for family planning or sexual health education. They openly oppose such bills and do nothing to address unintended pregnancy.”

If a pro-life American were to sidle up next to someone who promotes the killing of preborn children by denying their personhood, that would be an act of hypocrisy. I don’t know a single pro-life person who’s willing to do such a thing. We can’t help it that folks like Gianino refuse to recognize motherhood as a blessing but instead promote “reproductive choice” and a woman’s freedom to choose to kill her child.

Until such ideologues understand truth for what it really is, we have nothing to talk about.

An “unintended pregnancy” is a baby, and intended or not, that baby was planned by God. Our job is to affirm him and his mom, not betray her trust with falsehood.

No—we won’t sit down with folks who ignore undeniable facts. What we will do is keep struggling against the purveyors of death and destruction until every last one of them is out of business.

 

WesternFront America

The relationship between a patient and physician is one that has long been both protected and sacred. Patients are taught to trust their physicians—for they are learned and should have the patient’s best interests in mind one hundred percent of the time. A new trend in medicine allows the doctor and patient to converse from afar. But what happens when that doctor prescribes a dangerous medication and then sends the patient home to fend for herself—alone in her home?

Merriam-Webster defines telemedicine as http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/telemedicine “the practice of medicine when the doctor and patient are widely separated using two-way voice and visual communication (as by satellite or computer).”

Note that the proper definition references medicine and explains how a doctor and a patient communicate. This definition has nothing whatsoever in common with the latest development in Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) practices. When Operation Rescue www.operationrescue.org refers to “telemed” it is not talking about congenial conversations between physicians and their patients, but rather http://www.operationrescue.org/page/3/ “remote-controlled dispensing of abortion drugs.”

Operation Rescue has been at the forefront of exposing this dastardly practice since day 1, and it was its initial report that explained what this business is really all about. http://www.operationrescue.org/archives/special-report-telemed-abortions-endanger-women-and-drive-up-insurance-costs/

A telemed abortion is abortion via a teleconferencing service similar to “Skype.” Patients are put in a room where an off-site abortionist appears on a computer monitor and explains the medical abortion procedure to them over an Internet hook-up. After the brief teleconference, the dangerous abortion drug RU486, also known as Mifepristone and Mifeprex, and its counterpart, Misoprostol, are prescribed. The drugs are then administered to the patient by a nurse or “clinician” who may or may not be licensed. The patient presses a button on a computer screen that opens a box containing the abortion drugs. The patient is never physically examined by the medical doctor prescribing the drugs—or any other, for that matter—and never sees the abortionist again.

The so-called telemed abortions have received a great deal of attention on the internet but, as usual, Planned Parenthood is slightly ahead of the curve and is doing everything it can to protect its lucrative internet-abortion trade. According to Cecile Richards, http://iowaindependent.com/34656/qa-with-cecile-richards-of-planned-parenthood president of PPFA, “It’s an incredibly important option for women who decide to terminate a pregnancy.”

Most recently, http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7385 Planned Parenthood’s Iowa affiliate has gone to court attempting to block Operation Rescue’s request for full disclosure of information relating to telemed abortions.

It should be obvious that such a practice, even if it did not involve the direct killing of a preborn child, would be more than slightly dangerous to the second patient who is involved—the expectant mother. But somehow this fact has not occurred to anyone—including the Iowa Board of Medicine which, according to Operation Rescue, is cozy with Planned Parenthood. So much for the Hippocratic Oath http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_classical.html and its tenet, “first do no harm.”

The implications of such a practice, in view of the Obama health care reform law, are staggering. The actual rate of aborting preborn children could escalate faster than anyone might imagine. As Stop Planned Parenthood International (STOPP) reported http://www.stopp.org/article.php?id=6758, Cecile Richards has said that PPFA’s goal for telemed abortion is that the practice will go nationwide by the year 2015. She explained to the Iowa Independent that PPFA is http://iowaindependent.com/34656/qa-with-cecile-richards-of-planned-parenthood “the single biggest provider of reproductive health care in America and, again, I think because of the new health care law that is only going to grow. We are thankful for the support whether in Cedar Rapids or anywhere else in America.”

The irrefutable evidence indicates that telemedicine which, on its own, is an excellent breakthrough for those in society who are ill, is going to take a left turn. Rather than being used to assist the suffering, it is going to be used to inflict suffering and death on the unsuspecting preborn child and his mother.

PPFA is going to employ the practice to create yet another path through which countless numbers of preborn children will be chemically massacred as “clinicians” collect their fees while ignoring the tragic consequences, which are legion and very well documented. http://www.straight-talk.net/abortion/consequences.shtml

This “business as usual’ attitude among so-called reproductive health professionals should give every American pause. Reproduction used to occur in factories; health used to deal specifically with the well-being of individuals. Today’s perspective, however, is quite different.

The current reproductive health industry specializes in debilitation, deception and death, and we must speak up if we are to protect both women and children from this travesty.

© Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

For those of us who value human life in all forms, it is difficult to comprehend those who devalue life or who would even go so far as to intentionally hurt others or put their lives in jeopardy. The sanctity of life should not only be respected, but protected. And it truly saddens us when we hear of situations in which someone acts violently upon his misguided beliefs about life.

James Jay Lee’s fifteen minutes of fame http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_minutes_of_fame , which actually lasted four hours, ended with his death. http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/7866862/us-discovery-channel-hostagetaker-is-dead-report/ The entire nation was glued to the news reports as one man set out to make sure people heard what he had to say, regardless of what he had to do. The man who took hostages at Discovery Channel’s headquarters in Maryland this past Wednesday http://abcnews.go.com/US/gunman-enters-discovery-channel-headquarters-employees-evacuated/story?id=11535128 was someone whom the environmental/animal rights movements would perhaps not want to associate with, but whose public web site statements said a great deal about the mentality of those who hold human beings in disdain.

Prior to his death, Lee was making outrageous demands and waving his gun at hostages. Acting like someone whom one might describe as deranged seemed to be his claim to fame. But his philosophy emanated from a theology we know as gnosticism. While it is clear that Lee had a penchant for the absurd, the same could be said of most of those who embrace a gnostic perspective.

Gnostics believe that human procreation is an “evil deed.” They are opposed to babies and subsequently have a disturbing attitude toward human persons. In the framework of gnostic theology, what we might perceive as sexual ethics http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_121gnosticism1.html simply does not exist. It is due to this distorted perspective on human beings that men and women like Lee foster a hatred of human persons that is fundamentally at odds with all we understand about nature, the natural law and, of course, God Himself.

In Lee’s posted “manifesto” dated July 18, http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/documents/leemanifesto.pdf he recommended that people get on with their lives without “giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution.”

He embraced the tenets preached by Darwin and Malthus, and clamored about overpopulation as the worst problem anyone could possibly conceive. Again, for those not fully aware of the population control philosophy, it is grounded on the theory that a baby would be better off never having been born. Lee was simply echoing the babble of those he admired. What is most troubling in this case is that the disdain Lee apparently felt toward his fellow human beings seemed to have no bounds.

He further confirmed my analysis of his mental state by chiming in with the likes of Professor Gary Francione— http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/ the animal rights leader who wants the law to recognize animals as persons. Lee opined http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090103911_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010090103923 “nothing is more important than saving animals: The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.” He adds: “The planet does not need humans.”

James Jay Lee was not operating in a vacuum. Quite the contrary, individuals with similar viewpoints, though apparently not as radical or physically violent in their behavior as Lee, are making statements that convey this same diabolical hatred toward the human person. One such individual is Professor David Marsland, a sociologist and health expert who is encouraging the sterilization of those who are mentally and morally “unfit.” http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10083101.html

According to reports on Marsland’s statements, “He dismissed possible objections based on human rights, saying that, ‘Rights is a grossly overused and fundamentally incoherent concept … Neither philosophers nor political activists can agree on the nature of human rights or on their extent.’”

Clearly, the nature of the human person is of no consequence to these individuals who, along with world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking, http://slatest.slate.com/id/2265955/?wpisrc=newsletter conclude that God has nothing to do with man’s existence, the universe or all that has evolved since the beginning of time.

While we find it difficult to understand such attitudes, we are aware that the warped perspective that guides a fellow like Lee toward such dramatic tactics is a vile force that is alive and well in our world. It is powerful and cunning, pervading so much of what we hear and see; it is the influence of the evil one himself. His name is Satan.

The curative antidote is love personified—His name is Jesus Christ.

© Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

It should be remembered that it was candidate Barack Obama, who said when addressing “reproductive rights,” http://www.rcrc.org/issues/election08_obama.cfm “A woman’s ability to decide how many children to have and when, without interference from the government, is one of the most fundamental rights we possess. It is not just an issue of choice, but equality and opportunity for all women.”

In the intervening two years, a great deal has happened to not only cement those views into public policy but force American taxpayers to fund this deadly agenda, regardless of their religious or moral views on abortion. His message is that there is no fundamental right to life.

Architects of the culture of death such as the National Women’s Law Center salivate over and are emboldened by Obama’s fascination with “reproductive rights.” When the news came out that http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703908704575433714132688140.html “Wisconsin is pushing to expand a controversial program that uses federal Medicaid funds to provide free birth-control pills, vasectomies and other forms of contraception to low-income people, an effort made possible by the federal health-care overhaul,” the NWLC went ballistic because the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Richard Doerflinger observed that such a proposal is guided by “a very dismissive view of women.”

The NWLC was pleased to immediately attack the USCCB, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/aug/10082010.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=@sacnsint suggesting it was out of touch with women and was using its influence to further oppress them. Clearly, truth is not part of the NWLC game plan.

In reference to the same program, Matt Sande, legislative director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, an American Life League Associate group, pointed out, http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/wisconsin_considers_plan_to_expand_family_planning_program_to_teen_boys “Providing free, taxpayer-funded birth control to 15-year-old boys and girls behind parents’ backs is horrible public policy, and we urge the finance committee to block expansion of this offensive program.”

Indeed, Sande and Doerflinger are right. Contraception is dangerous to women, deadly to preborn children and destructive to the human family, each member of which possesses human rights that should be protected by the federal government. Instead, the Obama administration has made a full-time practice of doing all it can to drive wedges between human persons and their rights.

Recently, the pro-death and badly misnamed Catholics for Choice has taken aim at the same teachings of the Church that so enraged the NWLC this week. In an article titled “Religious Freedom & Catholic Health Care,” it opined, http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/healthcare/religiousfreedomcatholicheathcare.asp

Unfortunately, Catholic health care institutions do not provide women with all basic and essential reproductive health services. Catholic health care in the US is regulated by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (the Directives), which were issued not by doctors, ethicists or regulatory authorities, but by the nation’s Catholic bishops. These directives forbid services that contradict church [sic] positions, namely, prohibiting reproductive health options such as:

· abortion

· contraceptive sterilization

· in vitro fertilization and

· prescribing or dispensing contraceptives and contraceptive devices such as IUDs and diaphragms, emergency contraception, and condoms.

It is pitiful that our nation has reached a place where anyone and everyone can take aim at the Catholic Church, her bishops and her teachings while being in complete agreement with the radical agenda of the most anti-life president we have ever had.

Since when is killing a child or polluting the body of a teen with artificial hormones a “service”?

If American Catholics cannot persevere under the guidance of Church teaching because the government is controlling health care, then where are we to go?

My recommendation is that we go in protest to the Congress and to the American people, because this president’s idea of human rights is killing our future.

© Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

The hypocrisy of the current administration never ceases to amaze me— or, I should say—frighten me. There are a few things about President Obama that I simply cannot, for the life of me, figure out.

But perhaps among the most crucial is his apparent double standard when it comes to concrete-and-mortar buildings versus babies.

When Obama hosted a White House iftar , http://www.startribune.com/photos/?c=y&img=1vtobama081410.JPG described by the Associated Press as “the meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk fast for Muslims during the month of Ramadan,” he pointedly opined that the American principle of religious freedom dictated that plans to build a mosque at Ground Zero should be allowed to move forward. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/08/obama-ramadan-iftar-remarks-text.html

Subsequently, Obama claimed http://www.indianagazette.com/articles/2010/08/15/news/doc4c67699bbd9c1749137779.txt that he was not actually endorsing the idea of building the mosque at Ground Zero but merely reminding the audience that all people have a right to religious freedom that dates back to our nation’s founding. He said the government should “treat everybody equally.”

Oh really? Then why don’t you treat everybody equally, Mr. President?

What about those human embryonic people whose lives are at risk right this very minute because your administration will fight the recent federal court ruling that halted government funding of embryonic stem cell research? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/24/white-house-look-avenues-circumvent-block-embryonic-stem-cell-studies/

Don’t these individual human beings have any rights in this nation? Of course, those of us in the pro-life arena know the answer to that question already. It’s no, they do not.

We know that the Obama administration is absolutely committed to killing the preborn in every way possible, including those deserted embryonic children currently languishing in IVF laboratories nationwide. It’s apparently a matter of personal interpretation when one is addressing the rights we Americans take for granted, including the right to life and to freely express our religious convictions publicly and privately.

This brings up another interesting point about how the Obama administration perceives the human person. It has become painfully clear that, when it comes to teaching young people how to develop self-respect and save sex until marriage, the administration wants no part of it. Recent headlines tell that story too.

It has been reported nationwide that the Obama administration plans to cut funding for abstinence education as it drives toward giving more and more money to those purveyors of porn and promiscuity most people know as Planned Parenthood. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-05-11-abstinence-only_N.htm While the Office of Management and Budget suggests that abstinence-only programs funded between 2001 and 2009 have not exhibited an outstanding success rate, we understand the political motivation for not providing credibility to any program that doesn’t create a willing customer base for Planned Parenthood. That’s just how things go when the fox is in charge of the hen house, isn’t it?

Right now, as a matter of fact, http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100823/pl_yblog_upshot/longshot-lured-by-new-grant-some-states-reject-abstinence-only-funding four states have rejected any money for abstinence-only education programs because if they do request funding for abstinence-only programs, the state has to pay $3.00 for every $4.00 of federal grant money. But … if they apply for funding for the “comprehensive sex education” program known as the Personal Responsibility Education Program, this doesn’t require any funding from the state government.

Hold out that kind of a carrot to financially strapped state governments and watch the rush to get it!

PREP offers students the chance to learn all about contraception, the government’s version of abstinence and how to consider the needs of homosexual students. As the news report said, “Educators following PREP guidelines are not allowed to adopt a moral tone about waiting for marriage to have sex.”

And there it is, folks. What now passes for “religious freedom” is as relative as the morally relativistic opinions of Obama and his administration. The Obama “tone” is all about so-called tolerance, so-called compromise and genuinely godless government. This may not come as a surprise to many who read this, but, to my mind, it’s a sad statement on the times in which we live.

Gather up your children, affirm your love for every citizen’s rights—a love that has always set us apart as Americans—and get involved, because I’m here to tell you that religious freedom is now an endangered idea—depending, of course, on whose horse you’re riding these days.

© Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America

Is religious freedom truly a freedom afforded to all Americans? If government cannot step in and tell us how or what to believe, can it tell certain denominations how to run its businesses? Shouldn’t the rights of a religious-based organization be protected? Our country was founded on the principle of religious freedom, but can this freedom still be found?

Religious freedom is a phrase being bandied about today for all the wrong reasons. Not all legal defense teams or media types are causing it, but there is a smattering of confusion about it in the public eye these days.

I checked with a few friendly legal sources to see what religious freedom should mean. The Thomas More Law Center, for example, says it affirms http://www.thomasmore.org/qry/page.taf?id=38 “the right of Christians to publicly practice their religion and freely express their religious beliefs. Our Founding Fathers fought for a nation built on a foundation of religion and morality.”

The Alliance Defense Fund tells those visiting its web site that religious freedom is under attack in America today, explaining that the American Civil Liberties Union’s http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/ReligiousFreedom “targeted attacks on religious freedom are more serious and widespread than you may realize. In courtrooms and schoolrooms, offices and shops, public buildings and even churches…those who believe in God are increasingly threatened, punished, and silenced.”

And the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which recently announced a new project http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/1355.html to provide free defense to religious hospitals against government-ordered abortion, stands on this principle: http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/82.html “Freedom of religion is a basic human right that no government may lawfully deny; it is not a gift of the state, but instead is rooted in the inherent dignity of the human person.”

Here we have three consistent statements from legal groups that have not only talked the talk but have walked the walk. And I am positive that all would agree that when it comes to the media and the Obama administration, religious freedom does not mean the same thing for all religious organizations or groups. It appears to depend on whose agenda is being defended when decisions are made to discriminate against religious bodies or embrace their ideologies.

For example, when the “ground zero mosque” became a bone of contention in the media, President Obama boldly defended plans to build the mosque saying http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/13/obama-mosque-defense “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable.”

Oh really? Isn’t this the same president whose administration has made it clear that health care reform equates with taxpayer financing for abortion and abortive birth control? This is why Cardinal Francis George stated in his March 23, 2010, letter to Congress, http://www.usccb.org/healthcare/cardinal-george-healthcare-statement.pdf “We as Catholic bishops have opposed its passage because there is compelling evidence that it would expand the role of the federal government in funding and facilitating abortion and plans that cover abortion.”

Indeed, it appears that the White House has a skewed view of religious freedom when the subject is Catholic principles that prohibit abortion and contraception. For example, in South Carolina, the Obama Administration went after Belmont Abbey College for refusing to cover birth control in the health insurance policy it provides employees. And while, at this juncture, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has ruled that the policy is discriminatory, the college has vowed to fight that ruling tooth and nail. http://www.osv.com/tabid/7621/itemid/5264/Ruling-College-discriminated-against-women-by-not.aspx

What’s occurring in South Carolina is not an isolated incident. In Wisconsin, and several other states, Catholic dioceses are being forced by law to provide birth control in their insurance policies as well.

http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/article_0b904262-a4e4-11df-bde9-001cc4c002e0.html While diocesan spokesmen have said that employees who avail themselves of the contraceptive benefit could be terminated, it does not take a Rhoads scholar to figure out how quickly the government would pounce on the Church upon learning of the first firing!

And that’s the irony, isn’t it? The media is up in arms over a mosque that is, to many Americans, an offense to every family affected by the tragedy of September 11, 2001. But the same media is eerily silent when Catholic health care institutions, Catholic educational facilities and other such entities are roundly discriminated against by pro-death government policies.

Religious freedom is an American principle that is being pulverized by the same political and media machine that has, for more than 30 years, protected the so-called woman’s “freedom of choice.” These death merchants have forgotten the one simple truth spoken by Pope John Paul II (Veritatis splendor #96): “There can be no freedom apart from or in opposition to the truth, the categorical—unyielding and uncompromising—defense of the absolutely essential demands of man’s personal dignity must be considered the way and the condition for the very existence of freedom.” http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html

Religious freedom? No! Slavery to evil? Yes!

Judie Brown

 

WesternFront America