Yesterday I attended the funeral mass of a fellow rescuer – that’s what we called members of Operation Rescue, “the largest peaceful civil disobedience movement in American history.” We would sit and pray in front of abortion “clinics” in numbers sufficient to block the entrance in order to prevent the deaths of unborn children scheduled to the aborted. Since we refused to move, we had to be carried (or dragged) away. As our numbers increased the punishments became harsher, and many rescuers spent weeks and months locked up for their trouble. Jim, quiet, gentle, loving, totally harmless, was such a man. God rest his soul.

It came to mind during the mass that the next day was Mothers’ Day, and that I had written a poem on Mothers’ Day in 1992 when I was in the Erie County Jail in Buffalo NY. Though I’m not much of a poet, I offer what I wrote that day in memory of and as a tribute to those who cared enough about the unborn to lay down their lives (after a fashion) for the most helpless and vulnerable among us. Read the rest of this entry »

Abortionists, you know, hide behind euphemisms. They would never say, “Kill your unborn baby.” Rather its “investigate your medical options,” “dispose of the products of conception,” “terminate the pregnancy,” and “exercise your freedom of choice.”

I recently read a chilling story about a hypothetical organization which would, for a fee, enable parents to do away with their unwanted child, up to age 9, or, as they so nicely phrased it, “Terminate the latent maturity of a youngling.”

A woman, they said, should have the freedom to determine what is to be done with the products of her body. Should she come to the agonizing decision that the youngling was not of the desired quality, was not developing satisfactorily, or was a career impediment, the Reproductive Control Association would neatly and discretely dispatch the youngling and even arrange for its personal belongings to be removed and the room redecorated and turned into a hobby center. Read the rest of this entry »

On April 13, 2008, a “Compassion Forum” was held at Messiah College (PA) to discuss the moral issues that divide our nation. Presidential candidates Senators Clinton and Obama accepted the invitation to participate. Senator McCain declined. It was not a debate. Clinton and Obama were individually questioned about the role religion played in their lives with regard to various moral questions. The full text of the forum can be found here.
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Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in the United States today and celebrate his birthday at the White House tomorrow. (They won’t say if they’re having a birthday cake for him!) The 81-year-old pontiff is widely recognized as a brilliant theologian and a gentle yet strong spiritual leader. In his address to his Brothers and Sisters in the United States a few days ago he said: “I am coming, sent by Jesus Christ, to bring you his word of life.” I know of no organization that speaks out more strongly in defense of human life than the Catholic Church and it is expected that Benedict may have things to say about abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality. Abortion and euthanasia are obviously deadly, and homosexual acts are both sterile and hazardous to health.

I read in Christian Newswire on April 11 that the Pope knows first hand what happens when a society refuses to defend the most defenseless of its citizens. “As a boy of fourteen, Joseph Ratzinger [now Benedict XVI] had a cousin who had been born with Down’s Syndrome, only a bit younger than himself. In 1941, German state “therapists” came to the boy’s house and probably informed the parents of the government regulation that prohibited mentally handicapped children from remaining in their parents’ home. In spite of the family’s pleas, the representatives of the Nazi state took the child away. The Ratzinger family never saw him again. Later the family learned that he had ‘died,’ most likely murdered, for being merely ‘undesirable,’ a blemish in the race, and a drain on the productivity of the nation. This was Joseph Ratzinger’s first experience of a murderous philosophy that asserts that some people are disposable.”
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The story stuck in my mind. It seems a young couple always wanted to visit Italy. They made reservations, bought guide books, learned a little Italian. Finally the long anticipated day arrived and their plane landed at at the airport. In Holland!!! “But this wasn’t our plan,” they cry! “We weren’t prepared for this!”

They cannot go back so they buy new guide books, struggle with a new language, meet new people. It is not what they had expected at all. They look around and eventually find that Holland has its own beauty–-tulips, Rembrandts, windmills. But they still wish they had landed in Italy.
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1. This morning on my e-mail I read that Google, the world’s largest internet search engine, is being sued by a Christian lobbying and education organization, the Christian Institute, a UK registered charity. The Institute had wanted to advertise on Google’s AdWords with an ad reading: “UK abortion law: news and views on abortion from the Christian Institute. http://www.christian.org.uk.” The company told the Institute, “Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain ‘abortion and religion-related content.’”
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It seems to be a little known fact that one of the best ways to reduce a woman’s risk of having breast cancer in her later years is to have a baby while she is young. There are many factors that are reputedly related to the development of breast cancer, including family history, obesity, hormone therapy, birth control pills, alcohol consumption, radiation, and amount of exercise, but among these nulliparity is a very important one.

Nulliparity? You haven’t heard of it? Surely you don’t have that! In layman’s terms, nulliparity simply means that you have never borne a child. Having a full-term baby at an early age turns out to be one of the best cancer preventives. Now at last we can understand something that has long been noted: that nuns have a higher breast cancer incidence than the rest of the female population.
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