From 2013 to 2018 my local prolife group held signs opposing child murder at the corner of a highway and an avenue next to a state University campus. We were there every Sunday from 2-3 pm. We got lots of honks and waves from passing black people. We got the finger from college guys. College girls were quiet about it.
My thought is that the guys love "reproductive freedom'" because they can treat women as disposable semen receptacles. One click above condoms. And those quiet girls know it.
Maybe the ones who call an unborn child a leech are the ones who killed their own in abortion.
Love that you’re out there making a difference. Very telling reactions.
In this particular Twitter conversation it was a male using the term leech (though a couple of females used the term parasite.) It is much easier to justify killing if you can dehumanize the victim, as we have seen with various genocides historically (not just abortion).
I think it's very important that lay Catholic voices are heard in social media land, speaking the truth grounded in faith and science. We are the leaven. Otherwise the secular negativity is all that's out there. Social media is a forum where the truth needs to be spoken for the good of all. I so appreciate your writing!
Absolutely! The internet is the most accessible (and possibly most perilous) mission field we have. What a gift to be able to access souls worldwide; what stumbling blocks to our own progress in holiness lay in wait.
Thank you for this well written article. You articulated your thoughts beautifully. I have many friends who ended up developing Preeclampsia and nearly dying. They wanted their pregnancy and some were able to carry to term, birth the baby, but the baby rarely survived. Such a painful experience for all but I suppose we must atone for our sins in this way. Perhaps suffering is part of our human experience. Preeclampsia results in about 70,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year and yet I didn't hear about it until I lost three women in my life to it. Three women in my family died because they couldn't save the life of the mother without harming the development of the blastocyst. Of course, with the mother dying, the blastocyst stopped developing so we lost both. It was very hard but again, we prayed and understood this is nature and the natural order. I have also wonder about infanticide and why it was so common. Some consider infanticide different from "abortion" but I believe both are forms of it. Infanticide refers to the intentional killing of birthed infants. Historically, the rates of infanticide and infant abandonment (leave the born baby in a forest, bury alive, or place in a basket in the river, etc) was far higher. After all, we know the story well as that is what happened with Jesus! Of course, the mother abandoning the baby HOPES the baby survives but some consider abandonment a form of infanticide since there is no guarantee the highly dependent infant will find someone to protect him/her. Even though I have a strong faith, I struggle with the idea that reducing access to health care helps infants thrive due to my personal experiences with loss. Unfortunately during pregnancy there are many phases were the mother's life is at risk and it's difficult to save the embryo without the mother since we don't yet have a way to continue the development without the mother (though I believe there are some new advancements being made.) Due to the losses in my family I now understand the complications better and that in order to save the mother's life, there are times the development of the embryo must be halted because the alternative is the mother ides AND the embryo dies. Until we have a solid health approach to being able to allow the mother to pass on while still save the embryo in a medical womb, we must face the devastating circumstances of maternal death. I think protecting living birthed infants and women is my priority now but I understand why we must also advocate for the unborn.
Hi Caroline, Thank you for your very thorough comments! I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your family members. It is so tragic that our maternal mortality rates remain so high in the United States in comparison with other countries. I had never heard of preeclampsia developing so early in pregnancy before. Perhaps you mean "fetus"? ("Blastocyst" refers to a developmental stage that is prior to implantation, meaning that a pregnancy test could not register as "positive" yet; in other words, a woman would not be able to be aware of pregnancy at this time).
As to the story of Jesus, I think you must be referring to Moses, whose mother placed him in a basket on the Nile River. However, we should note that this was NOT infanticide, but quite the opposite! Moses's mother placed him in the basket to SAVE him from being murdered by the Egyptians.
It is also not historically accurate to say that mothers who abandoned their infants hoped those babies would survive. Abandoning infants, especially deformed infants, were abandoned to die in places such as Ancient Rome. It was in fact the radical teachings of Christianity about the dignity of every person that transformed the culture of the time and led to the popularization of notion of the sanctity of human life that, prior to his coming, was foreign to the culture.
I also would disagree with your assessment that there are "many" cases where the mother's health rests on the demise of the fetus. That is rarely, IF EVER, the case. In rare instances of ectopic pregnancy, it is true that the death of the embryo is often a side effect of the necessary treatment to save the mother. However, direct killing itself is not necessary nor is is morally acceptable. In many other instances in which the goods of mother and fetus appear to be in conflict, it is often the case that the infant can be delivered and the mother recover. The relative degrees of risk to both must be weighed in each set of particular circumstances, but the idea that ABORTION rather than early delivery is every NECESSARY for the health of the mother is pure propaganda.
From 2013 to 2018 my local prolife group held signs opposing child murder at the corner of a highway and an avenue next to a state University campus. We were there every Sunday from 2-3 pm. We got lots of honks and waves from passing black people. We got the finger from college guys. College girls were quiet about it.
My thought is that the guys love "reproductive freedom'" because they can treat women as disposable semen receptacles. One click above condoms. And those quiet girls know it.
Maybe the ones who call an unborn child a leech are the ones who killed their own in abortion.
Love that you’re out there making a difference. Very telling reactions.
In this particular Twitter conversation it was a male using the term leech (though a couple of females used the term parasite.) It is much easier to justify killing if you can dehumanize the victim, as we have seen with various genocides historically (not just abortion).
I think it's very important that lay Catholic voices are heard in social media land, speaking the truth grounded in faith and science. We are the leaven. Otherwise the secular negativity is all that's out there. Social media is a forum where the truth needs to be spoken for the good of all. I so appreciate your writing!
Absolutely! The internet is the most accessible (and possibly most perilous) mission field we have. What a gift to be able to access souls worldwide; what stumbling blocks to our own progress in holiness lay in wait.
Thanks for the kind words, friend!
Thank you for this well written article. You articulated your thoughts beautifully. I have many friends who ended up developing Preeclampsia and nearly dying. They wanted their pregnancy and some were able to carry to term, birth the baby, but the baby rarely survived. Such a painful experience for all but I suppose we must atone for our sins in this way. Perhaps suffering is part of our human experience. Preeclampsia results in about 70,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year and yet I didn't hear about it until I lost three women in my life to it. Three women in my family died because they couldn't save the life of the mother without harming the development of the blastocyst. Of course, with the mother dying, the blastocyst stopped developing so we lost both. It was very hard but again, we prayed and understood this is nature and the natural order. I have also wonder about infanticide and why it was so common. Some consider infanticide different from "abortion" but I believe both are forms of it. Infanticide refers to the intentional killing of birthed infants. Historically, the rates of infanticide and infant abandonment (leave the born baby in a forest, bury alive, or place in a basket in the river, etc) was far higher. After all, we know the story well as that is what happened with Jesus! Of course, the mother abandoning the baby HOPES the baby survives but some consider abandonment a form of infanticide since there is no guarantee the highly dependent infant will find someone to protect him/her. Even though I have a strong faith, I struggle with the idea that reducing access to health care helps infants thrive due to my personal experiences with loss. Unfortunately during pregnancy there are many phases were the mother's life is at risk and it's difficult to save the embryo without the mother since we don't yet have a way to continue the development without the mother (though I believe there are some new advancements being made.) Due to the losses in my family I now understand the complications better and that in order to save the mother's life, there are times the development of the embryo must be halted because the alternative is the mother ides AND the embryo dies. Until we have a solid health approach to being able to allow the mother to pass on while still save the embryo in a medical womb, we must face the devastating circumstances of maternal death. I think protecting living birthed infants and women is my priority now but I understand why we must also advocate for the unborn.
Hi Caroline, Thank you for your very thorough comments! I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your family members. It is so tragic that our maternal mortality rates remain so high in the United States in comparison with other countries. I had never heard of preeclampsia developing so early in pregnancy before. Perhaps you mean "fetus"? ("Blastocyst" refers to a developmental stage that is prior to implantation, meaning that a pregnancy test could not register as "positive" yet; in other words, a woman would not be able to be aware of pregnancy at this time).
As to the story of Jesus, I think you must be referring to Moses, whose mother placed him in a basket on the Nile River. However, we should note that this was NOT infanticide, but quite the opposite! Moses's mother placed him in the basket to SAVE him from being murdered by the Egyptians.
It is also not historically accurate to say that mothers who abandoned their infants hoped those babies would survive. Abandoning infants, especially deformed infants, were abandoned to die in places such as Ancient Rome. It was in fact the radical teachings of Christianity about the dignity of every person that transformed the culture of the time and led to the popularization of notion of the sanctity of human life that, prior to his coming, was foreign to the culture.
I also would disagree with your assessment that there are "many" cases where the mother's health rests on the demise of the fetus. That is rarely, IF EVER, the case. In rare instances of ectopic pregnancy, it is true that the death of the embryo is often a side effect of the necessary treatment to save the mother. However, direct killing itself is not necessary nor is is morally acceptable. In many other instances in which the goods of mother and fetus appear to be in conflict, it is often the case that the infant can be delivered and the mother recover. The relative degrees of risk to both must be weighed in each set of particular circumstances, but the idea that ABORTION rather than early delivery is every NECESSARY for the health of the mother is pure propaganda.