Luminous
A Catholic Woman and Her Thoughts on Life, the Universe, and Everything
Monday, July 20, 2009
The Twisted Logic Underlying Abortion

The Twisted Logic Underlying Abortion
By:
Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D


July 2009

 

Many influential people and institutions in our society, including Hollywood and the mass media, strongly support abortion. To justify their position, however, they must adeptly defy logic and ignore certain obvious facts.

One example of this side-stepping is the oft-repeated argument for abortion that it's all about a woman's body. As actress Amy Brenneman, who starred in the TV show Judging Amy, once put it, "Unless a woman really has sovereignty over her own body we really haven't come that far."

The obvious flaw in this argument was cleverly exposed a few years back by supermodel Kathy Ireland (who used to favor abortion) during a televised interview: "Some people say, 'Well it's a woman's body; it should be her choice. There's a 50% chance the baby she's carrying is a male child, and he would have a penis. Women don't have penises. So it's residing in her body; it is not a part of her body." While it should go without saying that babies have their own bodies, abortion advocates seem all too ready to tiptoe around the obvious to promote their agenda.

That tiptoeing is also evident whenever a breaking news story about the murder of an abortionist grabs the headlines. After someone recently gunned down Dr. George Tiller, the late-term abortionist in Kansas, almost every major media outlet extolled the genuine tragedy of his death, while tiptoeing past the tragedy of the 60,000 deaths that Tiller himself had coordinated within his clinics.

Several TV commentators, however, immediately perceived this double standard. Ann Coulter, for example, satirically mentioned, "This one random nut who shot Tiller . I don't really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203 rd trimester." She then argued: "I am personally opposed to shooting abortionists, but I don't want to impose my moral values on others."

Coulter also couldn't resist exposing the faulty moral logic behind so much pro-abortion rhetoric and sloganeering, as in: "If you don't believe in abortion, then don't have one," to which she replied: "If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, then don't shoot abortionists." Perhaps no one has so clearly summarized the deadly logic of the pro-abortion position as Mother Teresa, when she declared in her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize speech: "If a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between."

The moral chaos of abortion often begins when advocates feign not to know when life begins. George Jonas, in his cleverly entitled essay Thoughts from an Ex-Fetus, observed how advocates must "pretend not to realize that life is an autonomous process, a continuum from zygote to old-age pension, a self-elaborating force that begins when it begins and keeps growing unless it's vacuumed out first.. They must pretend not to see that if a fetus were not alive, it wouldn't have to be killed."

Perhaps the most plausible explanation of why abortion advocates will so readily defy logic and ignore the obvious came from writer Dale Vree. He had been invited to a "living-room discussion" on abortion back in 1989 which included six prominent pro-lifers, six prominent pro-choicers, and one or two undecideds.

Vree expected that the heart of the debate would hinge on when life began, but it didn't. It didn't even turn on the hard cases - rape and incest. When one of the radical feminists argued that abortion is simply about the right to make choices, one of the pro-lifers replied that the choice was made back when the woman agreed to have sex. Then one of the pro-choicers finally blurted out: "We're pro-sex and you're anti-sex," meaning, according to Vree, that "they're for lots of sex in lots of forms while we pro-lifers feel it should be limited to heterosexual marriage.. They made it abundantly clear that they're committed to the sexual revolution, and that revolution will wither without the insurance which is abortion and this is their bottom-line concern."

This indeed appears to be the crux of the matter, the central concern that has motivated radical feminists, Hollywood, and many other advocates of abortion to sacrifice untold millions of unborn babies since the early 1970's. George Jonas zeroed in on this same bottom-line explanation: " We invent euphemisms, such as 'choice' for killing, and sophomoric dilemmas, such as pretending not to know when life begins, to ensure that nothing hinders Virginia's quest for Santa Claus. No obstacle must interfere with her goal of self-fulfillment -- least of all an issue (as it were) of her healthy sexual appetite."

In the final analysis, this stands as probably the single greatest tragedy of our time, that the unordered and inordinate sexual desires of men and women have been allowed to twist the most rudimentary moral logic to the point of death for so many of our children.

 

 

 

Originally printed in the Catholic Herald – 7/15/2009

http://www.catholicherald.com/opinions/detail.html?sub_id=10671


Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in neuroscience

from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard.

He is a priest of the diocese of Fall River, MA, and serves as the Director of Education

at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

Thursday, July 02, 2009
Obama Administration Calls for Universal Access to Abortion at UN
 

Friday Fax
July 2, 2009| Volume 12, Number 29
C-FAM SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVES RESEARCH DONATE

Dear Colleague,

The Obama administration that claims to want to reduce the need for abortion and to reach common group with pro-lifers has called for universal access to abortion at the UN this week.  This is so controversial that it has placed a UN negotiation in a huge fight and broken apart the European Union.

We also report on the World Health Organization and their monkeying around with maternal mortality numbers to make it seem that maternal mortality is on par with the top killers in the world like cancer and heart disease.

Their purpose in raising maternal mortality to such a high level is to make abortion legal and available. Abortion is their answer to maternal mortality. There is no other reason than ideological ones for the attempt by the WHO to politicize health numbers.

Spread the word.

Yours sincerely,


Austin Ruse
President


   
   
   
   
   
     

Obama Administration Calls for Universal Access to Abortion
at UN Meeting

By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  At United Nations (UN) headquarters this week, the Obama administration continued its push for ever increasing access to legal abortion around the world. The Obama team has introduced language that has thrown a high level negotiation into a roil. The US proposal calls for "universal access" to "sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning." The document under consideration will culminate in the 2009 Annual Ministerial Review, which convenes next week in Geneva. The sticking point for many delegations and what has driven apart the usual solid European bloc is the use of the word "services" in the context of "reproductive health."   Read more

Recent WHO Report Presents Skewed Data to Advance Abortion Agenda
 
By Elizabeth Walsh

(WASHINGTON, DC – C-FAM)  In its recently released annual report on the state of global health, the World Health Organization (WHO) presents statistics that misleadingly appear to place maternal mortality on par with other global killers like malaria and HIV/ AIDS. This new approach contradicts other WHO reports where maternal mortality does not even make the top ten of global killers, ranking somewhere lower than car accident fatalities  Read more


www.c-fam.org

Editor in Chief – Austin Ruse
Managing Editor – Piero Tozzi
Assistant Managing Editor – Hannah Russo
Chief Correspondent – Samantha Singson
Contributors – Susan Yoshihara / Katharina Rothweiler

Send subscription updates to
hannah@c-fam.org



 

Copyright © 2009 Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.




Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Pass It On: Light of My World
 

Friends of Madonna House
Pass It On #60

Light of My World

by a Madonna House Staff Worker

"All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower." (John 1:4-5)

Jesus Christ is the shining bright light of the world. Jesus is the maker of history, the freer of slaves, the healer, the great lover of man. Jesus is as personal as he is cosmic.

These words may mean little or nothing to us unless, like St. Paul, we are assailed by the light of the living, risen Son of God, unless our hearts are stung and burned by the touch of God's life. There is life which is far more than life. There is joy beyond all imagining. There is, right now, this minute, hope and light and healing for us who are flat on our faces in the muck and mire of our broken humanness.

To all of us who are unhinged in a world which seems utterly dark and without any anchor in reality; to us who are sick, tired, disgusted, assailed by anxiety and fear; to us who long and thirst after goodness and truth; to us on the verge of despair from the emptiness of our search—to us are addressed the living words of Jesus: "Come to me all you who labor and are heavily burdened and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn of me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Then you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light" (Matthew 11:28-30). "I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; he will have the light of life" (John 8:12).

Jesus knows how confused, tired, and cynical we are. He says exactly what he means and he does just what he says he will do. God is not glib; he is active. He makes himself absolutely available. He tells us who he is and promises that by knowing him we will know light, truth, freedom and abundant life.

Some of us feel that these are wonderful words—but for others—for holy people. Not for us! Yes, what about us who are afraid of death, afraid of our neighbors, afraid of darkness? What about us who are fat and ugly, ashamed and embarrassed? What about us who are mad and hostile and hateful? What about us who are never sober? What about us who have needle scratches up and down our arms? What about us who have our faces in the gutters and our bodies in pain? Yes, what about us hypocrites and phonies, us liars and thieves, us deceivers? Is there hope for the likes of us? How can anyone so without hope and life think that good things could come to him?

In the eyes and minds and hearts of men it is not possible. But God is God and not man, and his love is poured forth on all men without exception or discrimination. It is precisely to us who think little or nothing of ourselves that he is most especially addressing himself. It is precisely to us who suffer the most hideous, embarrassing, and neurotic maladies that the living Gospel of Jesus is proclaimed. "I have not come to call the just, but sinners." (Matthew 9:13)

I am one of those sufferers. I am one of those who have come right up against the wall of despair but who, in that position, have come to know the embrace of the resurrected, alive, powerful Jesus Christ. Being so identified with trouble and negative attitudes, I can state with conviction to the point of folly that God comes to the poor, the afflicted, and the lowly, to heal, to re-fashion, and to console. Out of my personal bondage the Lord called me, and slowly, with his words, he cracked open my heart and there came forth his own love. Having known the touch of mercy and the healing God gives, I know to whom he speaks. I can testify that his word is always love, and his promise is always life. My response is to cleave to his word and his promise so tenaciously that my identity is found only in God's life, in my relationship to him.

When we have known God's life, we desire, as he desires, to speak about it, to proclaim it, to bear his message of love to the ends of the earth. God has swooped down upon us, the afflicted, the sinners, and the lowly, only to set us back into the world so that we can help set his world on fire with love.

I am thoroughly convinced that the Kingdom of God is being established here and now. The Kingdom of God is the Light of the world shining in and through the hearts of those touched by his love.

— Adapted from Coming Home

Recommended Reading

Click here for more informationLiving the Gospel Without Compromise

By Catherine Doherty

In this hard-hitting book, Catherine Doherty brings unique wisdom and clarity to the dilemmas and anxieties of the modern world. She turns the insecurity and fear of the world on its head, showing you how cultivating "holy insecurity" could be your most reliable path to genuine peace. She writes movingly about numerous matters that today's secular society ridicules and caricatures: sacrifice, renewal, community, stewardship, and more. She explains how you can learn to overcome your fear and live with danger, all with joyful (but never naïve or unrealistic) faith and hope in Christ. Click here for more information.

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