Terri Shiavo and the Unborn: Medical Care Denied

Denial of Truly Basic Healthcare
(note: not birth control, but actual healthcare)
Today is the International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Terri Schindler Shiavo and All the Vulnerable. It marks the anniversary of the day she succumbed to death not through being allowed to pass away at the natural end of her life but by being actively starved and dehydrated to death in a “healthcare” facility with the permission of our courts. Hopefully her story and others like it will fan the flames of love and protective instinct in all of us for the most vulnerable in our midst: the disabled, those in the womb, the enslaved and trafficked.

In her memory, here is a link to an excellent lecture on at least 10 reasons why persecuting these vulnerable groups is immoral, illogical, and at minimum lacking in compassion, empathy and inclusiveness. The first part of the talk masterfully juxtaposes the Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decisions to illustrate the faulty reasoning of slavery, abortion, genocide, and other forms of oppression. The rest goes over in detail several universal principles that are violated by abortion and related acts and why those of us who have been proponents or participants in any of those acts must open our hearts and minds to allow in truth. The talk is 1 hour and 20 minutes long, but I recommend starting at 12:17 of the recording because that is when the lecture begins. (Up to that point it is simply introductions to the audio, to the presenter, to the presenter’s book, method, etc.) http://instituteofcatholicculture.org/media/10_Universal_Principles_Fr_Robert_Spitzer.mp3

For those who have experienced oppression of the vulnerable, whether as victim, spectator or participant, my heart goes out to you. I have been in all of those positions as well. All I can offer is: be hopeful. Truth burns as it heals.

Viva la Verdad

Heartbreak is the eye of your heart snapping open after long disuse.

Someone commented on Facebook about my last blog post and said an argument, no matter how rational or logical, will not on its own alter anyone’s belief found in experience (“nor perhaps should it”).  While I do not believe this discredits the importance of reason and its capacity for helping us find truth or bring it more clearly into focus, I do agree with the statement.  It takes an openness of heart, requiring a near complete break for the particularly obstinate, before any truths can penetrate the defenses one has been using previously to block them.  This was and is certainly the case for me.  A heartbreak embraced can lead to a more accurate perspective and understanding of the lessons to be found in one’s experiences, past and future.  Once the most abused eye is open --often the heart’s, so willing to be misled in search of peace-- it can begin to see the reflections shining in the other two, the lenses of the mind and body.

Even in that scenario, it is almost dizzying to think how, with three eyes wide open --heart/faith, mind/reason, body/physical senses-- we are still incapable of knowing the full truth and wholly holding it with our human faculties.  It is both frustratingly overwhelming and oddly comforting how little I know and how little I will know over my lifetime.  In addition to poor choices I make, my ignorance is also made manifest to me even by something as simple and concrete as how many books there are to read and the impossibility of reading and contemplating them all in one lifetime, or how many questions I would like to ask people I admire and will never have the chance.  It is also obvious in how inadequately I may have understood a universal truth yesterday --like for example that compassion is better for us than its opposite, or that money does not buy happiness, or that we should “love our neighbors as ourselves”-- compared to after having an epiphany building upon it today.  And, that must demonstrate how rudimentarily I may understand a truth still, further epiphanies being possible if the past is any indication, and how much more there is to learn about it.  We are most definitely limited in our search for knowledge.  However, a person honestly trying to see is more joyful than one who is willfully blind: to that I can attest.

Over the years I have reflected on Viva La Vida by Coldplay whenever it is on the radio, harkening back to the devastation of my own false kingdom, years in the building upon carefully selected half-truths, the ruins of which I suddenly found my maimed self and family crawling over on a summer’s night in 2006.  Despite the French-revolutionesque beliefs expressed by the songwriters in interviews, what resonates in the lyrics for me is not that there is no authority but that man is not it; it is a turning away not simply from authoritarianism but also away from its mirror mistake, permissiveness.  For me the song unveils the decay that takes place when man –whether he be a literal king, a pope, a clerk or a housekeeper-- sets himself up as the ruler of his own pestilent, petty, dark inner kingdom, one inevitably centralized on deceit of self and others.  This in order to collect whatever baubles he sees as treasure, ever rusting and needing to be renewed in mockery of his satisfaction; we all have our preferred poisons, each seeming to we, the seductees, like a chalice of exotic wine untasted by lesser men.  I never want to rule such a world again.  I am not the Ruler.  Instead, I can only strive to be a good steward.  That is what my heart destruction left me with, the reality of this bare truth told to me over my lifetime in great novels, in the words of wise ancestors, and by my elders, this truth which until the wall of my heart gave way I had thought did not apply to me.  Man is not fit to rule himself and to be his own judge and jury.  He is not fit to warp and direct even his own conscience but rather to allow it to be set straight and true by God alone, and to follow it.

Centering one’s life on one’s own inner "culture of death" is not just an oxymoronic phrase but a plain-moronic philosophy when it comes down to it.  Love –infinite fulfillment-- is about living outside oneself for others: being a steward, not a tyrant.  Many moments of many days I lean towards tyrant; but I know now in my happiest moments I am in my proper role of steward.  When I give to others sacrifices of time and talent rather than horde them for my own gain until they rot; when I give and receive with a grateful heart, rather than selfishly take what I think I want; when I thank rather than self-congratulate; when I put myself last; these, paradoxically, are the times I feel most fulfilled and natural, like a bird taking to the sky.  And, that's the truth.

Down with the culture of death!  Viva la vida!

Viva La Vida
Songwriters: Guy Rupert Berryman; Jonathan Mark Buckland; Will Champion; Christopher A J Martin

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
"Now the old king is dead!  Long live the king!"


One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
Once, you know, there was never
Never an honest word
And that was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

Caution: Obscene Scientific Ignorance on Display in Georgia Democrats’ Protest Bill

First, a quick question to set the mood for this post.

I’ve aired my grievances about the lack of logic and cohesive thought of pro-choice arguments previously, but I just cannot leave the subject alone when I see a stunt like this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/22/georgia-vasectomy-ban_n_1293369.html

The gist of the story is:  HB 954 in the Georgia House moves to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy because we now know growing humans can feel pain at least by this gestational age.  In a sort of protest to this bill, Georgia House Democrats have proposed legislation –obviously, tongue in cheek-- that would seek to ban vasectomies.  Yasmin Neal proposed the farcical bill and states, “It is patently unfair that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women's ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States."

This would be brilliant politics if only the decision to have a vasectomy were somehow analogous to the decision to have an abortion.  But the analogy collapses when one gives it more than a nanosecond of consideration and leaves aside self-congratulatory smugness over aligning an unwilling universe to one's pet progressive ideology.  Vasectomies are meant to prevent pregnancies; abortions are meant to end already existing pregnancies.  A vasectomy is done to a consenting adult’s body (a potential father); an abortion is done inside a consenting adult’s body (the actual mother) to the body of a separate member of the species homo sapiens who is given no say in the matter (the embryonic or fetal human).  Therefore, the rough equivalent to a male’s vasectomy is not, for a woman, abortion, but rather tubal ligation.  Male sterilization vs. female sterilization, apples to apples.

There is an extreme minority fringe on the outskirts of any political movement, and the pro-life movement would be no exception.  Is it possible that some pro-lifer out there in the world would propose or vote for legislation to ban voluntary sterilization?  Hey, anything is possible.  But, that is so far off the map of mainstream pro-life issues you need NASA to find it for you.  Many people consider me a pro-life nut, particularly because I go so "fanatically" far as to use natural family planning to space children, rather than use artificial birth control.  However, even a nut like me would not be for banning voluntary sterilization.  I would not sterilize myself; I would not recommend it for anyone; but, it is your body, your choice.  I think smoking is bad for one’s health, too, but I do not think it should be illegal.  I might give you some unsolicited advice against smoking, but I would not push for a law to take your choice away.  However, when you start making a “choice” to disintegrate, decapitate, dismember or otherwise kill and treat as garbage a completely innocent human being it should be obvious you are no longer saying, “My body my choice,” but rather, “My body over your dead body.”

Abortion involves two bodies, not one.  At conception, a member of our species suddenly exists who did not exist mere seconds before:  his or her genetic code is not the mother's own; only half of it came from her; the DNA is complete and utterly unique.  Two haploid cells (each containing half of a human DNA strand), a sperm and an egg, met and formed a diploid cell (complete human DNA).  The organism is quite clearly and obviously NOT THE MOTHER.  Just as you and I once were, the organism is in the zygotic stage.  Is this zygote alive?  Yes.  It has metabolism, maintains homeostasis, grows, responds to stimuli –say it along with your high school biology teacher:  “If you mark this 'not alive' on your exam tomorrow I will place a big, red X on your answer because it will be WRONG.”  Now, what kind of zygote is it exactly?  A whale zygote?  Dolphin?  Cat?  No, that is genetically impossible.  If you are human, your offspring is human.  It is a human zygote; it is a member of the species homo sapiens just like the rest of us.  If you do not believe me, seriously, try this:  leave the zygote alone for a few weeks.  It will sprout arms and legs and a brain and heart and everything!  Whoa.  Pretty recognizable as a human, even to those without much knowledge of biology, embryology, genetics or the classification of life.

An embryo is, like you and I, a developing human being.  You and I will not stop developing in this life until we are dead.  Do we value people more based on what level of development they have achieved?  If someone kills a 3 year old is it less wrong than if they kill a 16 year old?  If a 20 year old is mentally disabled and will never get beyond a third grade reading level is running over that person less horrible than running over a 20 year old who has full reasoning capacity?  Does the size of an embryo make it somehow less human?  If so, then it logically follows that it is less wrong to murder a person with dwarfism than a person with gigantism.  Pro-choice philosophy sure is arbitrary.

Abortion simply does not make moral, scientific, legal, or intuitive sense.  Banning abortion is a reasonable position.  But, the bill in Georgia does not even go that far.  It merely asks that we not abort humans after 20 weeks’ gestation because we know they can feel pain at least by this age.  The fetus does not feel pain when his mother stubs her toe but does feel pain when being torn apart with a vacuum during abortion.  If that is not conclusive evidence that a 20 week old fetus is NOT his or her mother’s body I do not know what is.  So, I am baffled by pro-choice opposition to the bill.  They say abortion is "a woman's body, a woman's choice.”  But, at least by 20 weeks –and, if we are being honest, at the moment of conception-- the entity in a woman’s womb is demonstrably NOT HER.  And, to boot, the entity may actually be a female!  Do women only have rights once they exit the womb?  For the 500,000 or so females we have killed in America through abortion this past year, we have answered a resounding yes.  And the 500,000 or so males we have killed by abortion last year?  Yeah, no rights for them, either.

Final thought:  Current law in Georgia prohibits abortion after 24 weeks.  This little guy was born prematurely at 23 weeks’ gestation in Britain last year, survived, and went home with his parents when it was safe to do so:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8660450/Premature-baby-survives-after-doctors-advised-abortion.html  I guess according to Georgia pro-choice activists his parents had the right to kill him just before his mother went into labor if they had wanted to, and it would not have been any worse than a man choosing to have his testicles clipped to prevent sperm cells from exiting his penis.  A sperm cell and a premature human baby may as well be the same thing.  Move along, pro-lifers, nothing to see here.  Do not trust science or logic.  Trust Planned Parenthood.