It’s NOT a “women’s issue” it’s a “human rights” issue.

8 Comments

1. CAR says:

   2 March 2015 at 10:56 AM

   Agreed, Fr. Z. This is a human rights issue.

   Woman’s Choice–their mantra–the big lie. They have saying this one for many, many decades–If you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it. The 60’s & 70’s–The radical feminist movement used a bully-type effect to intimate others into believing this was a woman’s choice only and many backed off or stopped altogether. I fell into the same trap as many of my contemporaries believing that feminism meant lowering my standards. I can tell you that being post-abortive, who deeply regrets my abortion (over four decades now), don’t believe the big lie and start praying that others will do the same. Oh, how I pray & fast for their conversion of heart.
2. benedetta says:

   2 March 2015 at 11:18 AM

   This is a pretty old argument, actually advanced in the bra burning days of angry abortion based feminism, and I’m a little surprised to see that it is being rehashed lately. It smacks of a bit of desperation and an awareness on the part of the prodeath lobby and business interests that they are on the losing side of the truth in people’s hearts and minds.

   By the flawed reasoning of this argument, no father would have a legitimate or legal interest, or even a fatherly one, in his own child merely because of his male-ness. Further, by this argument in favor of “choice”, anyone not black would be excluded from participation in the Civil Rights Movement, or, anyone not Jewish excluded from participation in Resistance, etc…By the seriously absurd “reasoning” (and it is all irrational at its very core of course) this basically means that the “choicers” would prohibit anyone but Christians from defending those targeted for genocide/elimination in the Middle East. Which, when you think about it, is the sort of sad and outrageous assumption the secular msm is working from even now…
3. Fredi D'Alessio says:

   2 March 2015 at 11:39 AM

   Dear Father,

   Since this is a Catholic site, I’d like to propose to our fellow Catholics that they get behind The Gabriel Project, which is a ministry that not only assists pregnant mothers, but is also an ideal ministry to promote the culture of life.

   Here is a quote from a recent post on my blog (A Plea to My Readers):
   “With the vast amount of attention that I have given to the issue of abortion over the past decade plus, I have never come across a ministry having anywhere near the potential of building a culture of life as does The Gabriel Project.”

   Anyone reading that post will find links that will educate them about The Gabriel Project and how they can become involved. If I could accomplish what I did in the Archdiocese of San Francisco beginning in 2009, they certainly can do the same within their respective dioceses.

   Here is a reference for bishops and pastors: The Extraordinary Gabriel Project

   Sincerely yours in Christ,

   Fredi D’Alessio
   Initial coordinator of The Gabriel Project of the Archdiocese of San Francisco
   (recently retired, but still advocating for The Gabriel Project)
4. HeatherPA says:

   2 March 2015 at 12:23 PM

   Excellent, excellent line.

   “Pro-aborts don’t want men to shut up. Just the ones who don’t agree with them.”

   When I am able to finally rejoin the tiny group of mostly men who pray the Holy Rosary on Saturdays outside the “Margaret H. Sanger Planned Parenthood” in Corning, NY, within eyesight of the steeple of St. Mary’s Catholic Church where Mrs. Sanger received her first Holy Communion, I would like to make a small placard with that line written on it.

   It is a battle between Satan and the Blessed Mother. No less than that. I think that the priests who ask and receive permission to do exorcism prayers outside the clinics have the exact right plan of attack.
5. wmeyer says:

   2 March 2015 at 12:50 PM

   It has always been a human rights issue, and the humans whose rights are denied are the babies, born or unborn.
6. stephen c says:

   2 March 2015 at 9:14 PM

   Reading the comments on Father Zuhlsdorf’s blog often cheers me up because of comments like Fredi d’Alessio’s, and his Christian call to witness to, and support of, young women who, from a realistic point of view, have so often been disrespected and ignored in such a profound way. Let’s not forget the young men, though – anyone who is in a position to advise a young man has a Christian duty – (a duty that does not cost them a cent)to advise those young men to avoid pro-choice women, not just as potential wives, but even as dates or even crushes (good luck with that, or course, but maybe later they – the formerly young men – will later on remember the good counsel, and pass that good counsel on to their sons and daughters); not to mention a duty to advise intellectually gifted young men to avoid abortion-friendly institutions like the school that still calls itself (sacrilegiously) Notre Dame and, even more, schools like my beloved but ruined and ambitious alma mater Georgetown University (named, not unjustly, after a pro-slavery king, it would now seem), and even the military academies which are subjected to our militantly pro-abortion federal government; and a duty even to refrain from excessive praise (I am saying this in a very formal way, but anyone who has lots of conversations with men who like ideas can translate this to a more realistic register) for famous men (and women- let’s all pray for the soul of Margaret Thatcher) who are otherwise admirable but who, from uxorious motivations, from lack of piety, or even from just the regular selfish cold-heartedness that has been displayed by so many famous Americans from our first pro-slavery president (whose star has fallen quite far even in my short lifetime – and not such a bad thing, after seven or eight generations, the evil of slavery has finally caught up to the reputation of the practicioners) to our most recent string of anti-life presidents (and even their episcopal supporters – who will, in their turn, doubtlessly be a subject of embarrassment – combined, one hopes, with prayerful sorrow – to future generations). By the way, the Irish word for our Latinate term abortion is ginmhilleadh – “terrible ruination/destruction of conception” – much as I like Latin, the Irish have a better word for it.
7. JonPatrick says:

   3 March 2015 at 6:25 AM

   There is one way that abortion is a women’s issue, which the pro abortion crowd doesn’t like to talk about – the majority of babies aborted are female, due to the large number of sex selection abortions done in places like China and India.
8. Imrahil says:

   3 March 2015 at 7:40 AM

   Well.

   Yes, it is a women’s issue. [You have fallen into the trap.]

   Sure, the babies die unbaptized and all… but still, isn’t, somehow, the greater damage still being done to the women? They become murderesses. “To suffer evil is better than to commit it”, said Socrates, and what he meant is that it is also more pleasant (or less unpleasant).

   I do not say it in the tone of a telling-of. I say it in compassion. According to our Catholic doctrine, we are not utterly depraved to be fought down; we are good but inclined to evil. And so, giving in to seduction and committing sin is (I say it to be not misunderstood) sin; but that doesn’t mean it is not painful for the sinner. In fact, that’s precisely why it is painful.

   Not to mention that “after all, why don’t you just make your child vanish? you can” is an argument that a feminist should, and I guess would, be the last one to see gladly in the hands of an abusive or responsibility-shirking man.

   And not to mention what JonPatrick said.

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