A few minutes ago I switched on the TV and saw on Fox News an amazing commentary piece by Liz Trotta about “pro-choice”, “pro-life”, the ramifications of abortion.
Holy Cow!
Please keep your eyes peeled for the online video of that commentary.
UPDATE 21 Jan 1530 GMT:
Someone sent me the transcript:
Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. For the feminist left in 1973 it was a crowning achievement. Abortion, they concluded, was here to stay…enshrined in the nation’s law. You can be sure their aging saints will be available this week for interviews when the media, that loves abortion, trots them out for worship and remembrance.
Four decades later, however, there’s a note of whistling past the graveyard in the run-up to the anniversary. Even Time Magazine, or what’s left of it, said of the pro-abortion activists on its latest cover, “They’ve been losing ever since”. At the state level, they point out, anti-abortion or pro-life activists and lawyers have succeeded in winning important restrictions on the federal law – enough to make a roll back of Roe seem within reach.
Shame and stigma, their code words for how single mothers are regarded, are still part of the outmoded talking points, yet there’s talk of shedding the “pro-choice” label in favor of a more inclusive term that would cover gay rights and childcare. That is, if there are any children left to take care of….
The abortion debate still revolves around numbers and the motives of those collecting them. Nevertheless, there’s little change in the polls over the years. A majority of Americans say they don’t want Roe overturned, and at the same time, 47% say abortion is “morally wrong”. That’s ambivalence. Support for Roe does not mean that abortion supporters think the procedure is free of guilt.
How many abortions have been performed in the forty years since Roe is not disputed. In the United States more than 55 million babies have been surgically or chemically dissolved. Roughly one child per thirty seconds.
One is tempted to consider the deserved attention given to the slaughter in Newtown, Connecticut against the ‘business as usual’ holocaust of the unborn.
The arguments for abortion have not changed, emphasizing a woman’s right to control her own body – as if any of us but God really can. The activists of the 1970s and their younger versions still speak of “reproductive rights” and “public health”, myopically concentrating their focus on women, not the murder of children.
Perhaps this is why the abortion issue is still an unhealed wound in the moral life of the nation. It also makes it more difficult to argue for abortion when science, and its miracle of ultrasound, now allows us, and mothers, to get a look inside the womb to see a living breathing person. The activists have fought this mightily, a testament to their raw disregard for both mother and child.
Planned Parenthood, the motherlode of abortion providers, is under attack while American taxpayers pay for half its budget -$542 million dollars according to its latest annual report. Planned Parenthood insists that it exists to provide for the health of women. But privately, even its own members speculate that their real aim is to provide contraception.
There is a strong argument to be made for holding the radical leftists of the abortion movement responsible for the coarsening of our culture. Promiscuity, degradation of women, suicide, abuse of children born, contempt for morality and religion, rampant cynicism and vulgarity. When you hold life cheap, there is little to protect.
So when the marches start and the parade of abortion’s wonder women begins, who will remember the silent wail of 55 million children who died to make it more convenient for their mothers?
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A good non-religious medical site to pass on to others is: “ENDOWMENT for HUMAN DEVELOPMENT”. It’s videos and script show the development/growth of the human baby at each of its stages.
http://www.ehd.org/movies.php?mov_id=44
At 8 weeks and 2 days, ” touching the embryo elicits squinting, jaw movement, grasping motions, and toe pointing “.
At 9 weeks and 3 days, ” the fetus can also grasp an object, move the head forward and back, open and close the jaw, move the tongue, sigh, and stretch. Nerve receptors in the face, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet can sense light touch. In response to a light touch on the sole of the foot, the fetus will bend the hip and knee and may curl the toes. ”
The US President, plus all ‘Catholic’ politicians and others who support abortion or relativism – are supporting TORTURE in addition to the MURDERING of innocent children.
Dismemberment and burning with saline solution is torture.
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Father, I found a link that seems to have the transcript. Was this what you heard?
“Perhaps this is why the abortion issue is still an unhealed wound in the moral life of the nation. It also makes it more difficult to argue for abortion when science, and its miracle of ultrasound, now allows us, and mothers, to get a look inside the womb to see a living breathing person. The activists have fought this mightily, a testament to their raw disregard for both mother and child. ”
http://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/320601935/m/1250056113
I just so happened to be watching as well. Her commentary was fantastic. She couldn’t have been more articulate in illustrating the hypocrisy of the left and the horror of abortion.
I’m looking forward to seeing the number of 40 Days for Life participants in DC outnumber those in attendance of the President’s inauguration.
I saw her commentary also. Thanks for the link JoyfulMom.
I saw it also. I wanted to stand up and cheer her. God bless her.
We had our march for life today. The speakers were so encouraging. Young people are pro-life in numbers that are depressing the pro-choicers, and abortions per capita in our state and nationwide are going down. We had 400,000 less abortions in our state last year than in the years with the highest counts. Alleluia. Standing in the rain with a pro-life sign is so worth it. Let’s make this the greatest 40 days for Life ever. In my town we’re going from one day a week to three.
I sometimes thought of the musing that
well, we Catholics simply do not believe in the axiom of choice.
[The analogy is not quite accurate because the real axiom of choice, while indeed controversial, is not imaginable as untrue.]
Only issue I take is her last line, that the 55 million died to make it convenient for their mothers.
We need to add fathers. And often grandparents.
Acknowledging that fathers are sometimes kept in the dark or made to feel as if they have no right to an opinion on an abortion, I don’t believe this is usually the case. I read commentary from a woman in the pregnancy center field who I believe said that 80% of the women she talked to who were considering abortion did so after someone they loved told them it was the right thing to do. Doesn’t excuse the mother, but it’s not just the mom’s convenience that drives these acts.
Lisa P, I think your point is a strong one.
“myopically placing their attention on women,”. This was my biggest gripe about this whole conversation this past year. Where are the men who are willing to insist on parental rights for these unborn children? Their children. Since when was baby making between a woman and her doctor? Ok, women married to doctors… ;) I do not understand why so many people were willing to swallow that line of tripe.
Just read an article which was making the case that 9 of the top ten states for teenage births were “red” states. The author was going the direction of values based voters being all talk, with no more virtuous behavior. Just thinking, is the pregnancy rate so much higher, or just the birth rate? Is there more general family and community support for the mother and the baby?
PA Mom,
Yes, I agree, and on your article, that’s so obvious that it just makes me shake my head. Problem is that the author’s version of moral behavior *is* using contraception. When you’re through the looking glass, things really do look up when they’re down.
This issue gets my blood boiling. Liz Trotta has given a good commentary, but the issues are so much deeper and sinister. I want to know, I really want to know what (excuse my language) idiot first said that the developing embryo was a blob of tissue. I really want to know what made women (and men) so suddenly stupid so as to believe it. It was exactly this kind of nonsense science that, ideally, Vatican II, the pastoral Council that it was, was set up to try to prevent or, at least dismantle.
We have the most intelligent idiots in the history of mankind. I conclude this because so many people are going to college and, yet, so few of them can really reason. Planned Parenthood is an offshoot of the Eugenics movement. How all of this mess came about is fairly well understood. There was “negative” and “positive” eugenics. Abortion belongs to “positive” eugenics, which was the idea that only those children having positive traits should be allowed to live. Now, “positive” came to be broadened to the point where “positive” = positively wanted. Thus, abortion is a form of positive eugenics, sold under the lie of reproductive health.
Here are a couple of links for those who don’t know the connection between Eugenics and the Abortion Movement:
http://www.cmda.org/wcm/CMDA/Issues2/Other1/Genetics1/Ethics_Statements11/A_History_of_Eugenic.aspx
http://ed5015.tripod.com/BEugenics72Bergman73Potter77.htm
The best link, it seems, has become a part of the Dark Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Internet
The Chicken
On this Martin Luther King, jr. Day in the U. S., it is sad to think that the Civil Rights movement, that started out with such promise in the later 1950’s and early 1960’s, would become a cover for Feminism and Abortion by the end of the decade.
The chicken
Ah…what to say after reading that 55 million unborn children have thus far been aborted and by such means too. My heart is heavy and yet, I must hope and pray when all I want to do is not think, close my eyes, look away and seek to escape.
I cannot though. In good conscience I must stay awake and pray. I must acknowledge the great sin that is before us and wonder how much more is it going to take before America’s levy breaks?
Sure, folks are going to be celebrating in grand style tonight…a so-called renewal is coming as is being touted. I just read on Catholic News Agency that Mr. Obama is claiming “we need to move forward and redefine marriage…blah…blah…blah.”
I think I will reconsider my way of praying…I am going to pray for the lost babies not only here in the U.S. but the world over. I will pray for those who suffer from such a travesty and for those who promote it. SO much to pray for, I am feeling overwhelmed right about now and so small!
Perhaps, after all, this is a time of great grace in that as we see our way of life being stripped away, the Catholic Church under pressure to capitulate, Catholics betraying their faith in order to remain in good standing, perhaps, we will see many Saints raised up who will encourage us who are on the fence of comfort/complacency to step out, to do battle and to remember the battle is already won by Christ crucified.
I want never to forget dear Lord…help me to never forget nor to lose hope!
May the little ones who have been tossed aside be with you always.
May we never forget them as we strive to rise above our own wants.
Holy mother Mary, gather up those sweet babies and hold them to yourself.
I am rambling…please forgive me as this has been a very emotional day.
God bless all and thanks again dear Fr. Z for this wonderful blog of yours.
Cecily- I have to wonder if the reason that abortion numbers are down is because more women are chemically contracepting, or if attitudes have changed? How many women might say that they’ve never had an abortion, when in reality they have lost children they did not even know about due to blocked implantation? I hope that attitudes are changing, but I have a feeling that many women will find out in the afterlife that they have children that they didn’t even know they conceived who were not allowed to implant. Even if abortion is outlawed, if the pill is legal the killing will continue. We may actually be losing more children now to the pill than to abortion. I’d love to see someone work the math out on the estimated number of children lost to the various versions of the pill. In any case, I am happy to see a little bit of this issue covered on Fox. Sometimes I get the sense that they barely tolerate the pro-life conservatives.