Why Are "Catholic lawmakers hostile to abortion even when more moderate on other social issues?"

Before I say anything, I want you to click on the link below.  I want you to look at the green number that appears at the top of the page.  First see how many millions are listed there, then notice how quickly that number is going up?

http://www.worldometers.info/abortions/

When I opened the page it at 13,336,610.  It goes up by about 3 every second.

A law recently passed in Kansas limiting abortions

These are statistics for clinical murder.

The counter shows how many human beings are being murdered around the world every second - not total of murders, but only those murdered clinically, in a nice, safe, clean sterile setting that makes these murders seem like a "medical procedure."  This clean, clinical murder is called "abortion."

The total is the number of abortions that have taken place this year - since January. That's less than 4 months.  In less than 4 months, well over 13 million babies have been intentionally murdered in clinics.

That means that in less than 2 months, there were over 6 million clinically murdered babies.

According to the same webpage, the WHO reports that there are between 40 and 50 million abortions per year. That means that in less than 2 years, there are more than 75 million clinically murdered humans.

a precursor to abortionists

Why 75 Million Murders?

Why do I highlight the numbers 6 million and 75 million?  Well, about 80 years ago, a man took over the parliament of a prominent and very advanced European country.  He proceeded to start a program that led to and arranged for the clinical and systematic cold-blooded murder of over 6 million innocent people.  This program also lead to the deaths of 75 million people in the war which most people would consider the worst catastrophe in human history.

This man is an icon of evil; his actions and the way of thinking that led to those actions are unquestionably condemned by all reasonable humans.

Yet, the same number of cold, systematic, clinical murders that he committed in about 6 years was committed in the first two months of this year in the name of "choice" and "rights."

Of course, we're comparing planned, clinical murders in a handful of nations to those in the whole world .  So to make the comparison more fair, let's compare only to the U.S.  According to the WHO, there are about 3000 abortions a day in that country. That means there are 6 million every 5.5 years.  That means in the U.S. alone, abortion is outdoing the holocaust in a lesser period of time.

The same total number of people that died in horrendous 6-year war that evil man started have been murdered in abortions in only the past 2 years.  Both these numbers are world-wide.

A monster, because he made abortion look as dirty as it really is

The Holocaust of Our Progressive World

World War II and especially Hitler's Holocaust were horrible atrocities which should have never happened.  The numbers above show that abortion is an even greater atrocity - at least by 3x.

Abortion is the Holocaust of our modern, progressive, middle-class world.

Like the Holocaust, comfort, ease and - most importantly - the fear of shame or public humiliation for speaking out against it, make us quite us quite content to allow it to carry on quietly out of sight in safe, sterile clinics where it won't make us feel bad or guilty.

Unlike Hitler's atrocities, which eventually brought almost every other super-power nation against it, there is only one single nation in the world that has taken a decisive stand against abortion (Chile).  All other either endorse it as a "fundamental right" (increasingly more common) or turn a blind eye to it.

Many people are upset by what happened with Dr. Gosnell.  A few people are upset because he was murdering babies.  Most people are upset only because he wasn't as clean and clinically sterile as he should've been and - worst of all - that he let his filthiness spill out into the public eye to make us uncomfortable.

Like the brainwashed middle-class of central Europe in WWII, we are willing to turn a blind eye for the sake of comfort - we just want to be sure that it's kept comfortably clean and out of our sight.

Alberto Giubilini, advocate of "after-birth abortions"

The Final Solution

Post-birth abortion is not only a monster looming in the future used as a scare tactic by pro-lifers.  It is a common and accepted practice - even if it has not yet been given official legal approval.

It is already common practice for babies born live after botched abortions to be (a) left to die or (b) killed by the same techniques used in abortions.  This not a freak abuse limited to monsters like Gosnell.  In Canada, the government has reports of this happening to almost 500 babies in 10 years.  These are only the reported cases.  (In Canada, there is no legal requirement to report an abortion.)

Planned Parenthood practices both techniques (a and b) mentioned above.

The academic groundwork to justify "post-birth abortions" legally has already been laid by "credible" academics in influential places.  The justification is that a baby can be killed by the same techniques used in abortions “when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion."  They use the term "after-birth abortion" rather than "infanticide" "to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus … rather than to that of a child."

(see http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-04-08/opinions/38362423_1_viable-babies-abortion-survivor-planned-parenthood)

Marc Thiessen - a critic of "post-birth abortion"

Basically, killing a baby just after birth can be justified by the exact same arguments used in favour of abortion. And these academics are right; there's no reasonable way you can justify that a baby is a conscious human being 1 minute after the leaving the mother completely if you did not recognize that status 2 minutes earlier when part of her was still inside her mother.

Currently, there are scientists studying the question whether a 2-month-old baby is a conscious human or not - and even a 5-month-old.  People should be paying much more attention to these studies, because if the "scientific consensus" answers the above question with "no" then we will soon be having academics, and then doctors and judges, talking about something like "pre-consciousness abortion" to describe a process for clinically murdering babies that are several months old.

Unlike the case with pre-birth abortions, for "post-birth abortions" we don't even need renegade doctors who want to be heroes. Planned Parenthood is already doing that quietly, behind the scenes, on public money and with public approval (given through silence.)  All it will take to implement this "final solution" is a couple of Supreme Court judges who want their names to be recorded in history as the fearless leaders of justice who overturned their nation's laws for the sake of "progress."


Saving a Mother's Live?

And the big question - how many abortions are procured to save a mother's life? This is after all, the end-all wildcard pro-choice argument that makes all pro-lifers shut up and be entirely ashamed of ever even thinking that abortion should be banned.

Reasons for abortions

In a U.K.study, 0.006% were in direct response to save a mother's life (i.e. she was dying and the abortion saved her), and another 0.37% were due to risk of the mother's life (i.e. it was unsure if she would've died or not, but the risk was high.)

That means, of the 13 million babies clinically murdered since January, probably only 78,000 - worldwide - were in direct response to the immediate threat of death for the mother.

Abortion is not right in any situation, but the point here is legal abortion has nothing to do with saving mothers' lives. 99.994% of abortions are carried purely for a matter of personal preference or convenience, justified on the assumption that the baby is not in fact a human.  This lends itself very nicely to post-birth abortion arguments.

(*U.S. stats will list 2.8% as "maternal health concerns." This does NOT indicate danger or even risk of death, but "health" in a far broader context. "Danger of death" does not show up on stats - I'm assuming because the cases are so rare.)

Me, holding my babies minutes after they were  born.
They were humans then, just as they were 8.5 months
before, at the moment of conception.

Some More Stats

• Worldwide, there are 125,000 abortions per day - that's the entire population of Waterloo, ON, or Playa del Carmen, MX, murdered every day
• In the US there are over 3000 abortions every day - that's the population of the township I live in
• That's a total of about 20% of all babies in the U.S.
• In Canada, there is one abortion for every 3 live births; that's 25% of all babies

So ...

I couldn't name a worst atrocity than this one. Go back to that counter again - http://www.worldometers.info/abortions/. Every time that number turns over, imagine a person in nice clean clinic, having surgical scissor being jammed up through her neck into her brain, or having her spinal cord severed, or being burned in chemicals or cut to pieces alive - of course, in each case this person is nicely sedated and muffled to ensure that other people in the room don't feel uncomfortable about the process - they might see her squirm a little, but doctors and scientists can reassure us that that's just an non-conscious reflex. Pleasant thought, isn't it?

Back to the Main Question

Why, then, is that "Catholic lawmakers in particular are often hostile to abortion rights even when they are more moderate on other social issues"?  Tara Culp-Ressler at ThinkProgress.org points out this fact as though it's absurd, some sort of silly contradiction.

I hope the numbers and comparison I shared above answer this questions satisfactorily. Abortion is not simply another "social issue."

I Don't Celebrate Earth Day - and This is Why

Earth Day - With Earth above humans

There is a whole bunch of new holidays that governments and international organizations have put into place that I simply couldn't care less about, one way or another.

Earth Day  is not one of these.  While I care a good deal about nature and the environment, I specifically choose NOT to celebrate Earth Day.  Why?

What is Earth Day?

Earth Day is a celebration of environmentalism.  The idea is to highlight and inspire people to start good ecological habits, do something to care for the environment or promote environmentalism, etc.  And as far as these actions themselves are concerned, I agree with them and believe they are good.

The Problem with Environmentalism

However, the problem I have with Earth Day is that its purpose is to promote environmentalism.  Environmentalism has problematic current within it - and I would say it's a strong one, although it runs below the surface in many cases - to place the environment and earth above and beyond humans themselves.

In extreme cases, the point is obvious. For example, I once read somewhere that fanatical environmentalists would rather procure an abortion than cut down a tree. Once I told a truly fanatical environmentalist (vegan and obsessed with animal rights to the extreme) about the death of a person; his answer was, "Good, another meat-eater dead."

Those are extreme cases and not worth dwelling on. But even in fairly non-fanatical environmentalism, I believe this same basic problem defines some basic assumptions and it is seen as normal that the care of nature should take precedence over the quality of life of humans.  The earth and protecting basically becomes an end.

This basic error is the reason I don't celebrate Earth Day.

Healthy Care for Nature

In a healthier view of caring for nature, it is a means rather than an end in itself.  We care for nature primarily because it is good for us.  Destroying nature will have (and has had) horrible consequences on the quality of human life.

His Holiness Benedict XVI, an open advocate of
protecting nature as a means, not an end.

However, since the purpose of caring for nature is to improve human life, we must also be prepared to use and adapt nature responsibly for that purpose when it is available.

Now, some people who celebrate Earth Day will probably object at this point and say that they agree with me. "You can believe that and still celebrate your view of caring for the Earth."

No, in fact, I can't. And this leads me to my last point.

No Room for God

Earth Day does not include God. It does not recognize Him, name Him or acknowledge Him.

"But can't I say that caring for God's creation is praising Him?"

You sure can, but that's not what Earth Day is about.  If it were, then somewhere, on all the pages of the official organizers of Earth Day, we would see the words "God's Creation."

Thus, it not only promotes a movement that puts nature above humans, but one that puts God's Creation above God.  This is, in fact, the root of the previous problem.  God created the universe to glorify Him.  He specifically created the Earth to be subservient to human beings, His children.  He created it to glorify Him, and part of this is to serve us.  We are given care of the Earth, together with use of it and command of it.

Now, if you take God out of the picture (as all Earth Day write-ups do)  then the reason for making care for nature a subordinate means to improve human life is greatly weakened and lines are blurred.  It is no longer necessary to make this distinction clear.

"I'll celebrate Earth Day to praise God, but you can do it to worship the earth and wish death upon meat-eating humans if you like; as long as we plant some trees together ..." Not a healthy message to put out there.

There are many, many Christians who care for the environment. Some of the most enthusiastic people I have known have been devout Christians.  So why is God excluded from Earth Day, then? As far as I can guess, the organizers wouldn't want to distract people of the matter of highest importance (environment) from one that to them is of secondary importance (God.)  They mention the improvement of quality of human life in passing, but not as a main point; they know they can safely mention it without risking removing the Environment as the end, the #1 item.

Replacing the Importance of Pascha (Easter)

On another point, I'm also distrustful of this holiday displacing Easter.  Easter, (or, by its correct name, Pascha) is the greatest celebration of the Christian year.  It is the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ, the most important event in history, the defeat of death and the victory of Christ bring us eternal life.

But isn't Easter is only 2 days - or 3 if you want to count Good Friday?

In the Western tradition, which includes most Christians I know, Paschatide (or "Easter Season") includes the 50 days after Easter - which makes sense since it is the most important festivity of the year. Earth Day almost always falls after Easter, so right in the middle of these 50 days of joyous celebration.  Easter is, in fact, a feast of renewal, of springtime; from what I've read, early Christian writings connected the renewal of nature in spring to the Passover, to the Resurrection, and even to the Creation.

I wouldn't begrudge Earth Day one simple day the 50 of Paschatide, but as the website for Earth Day Canada points out, "In Canada, Earth Day has grown into Earth Week and even Earth Month to accommodate the profusion of events and projects" (http://www.earthday.ca/pub/about/history.php.) So, now people are taking a full 30 days of Easter's 50 to devote an environmentalist cause that specifically excludes the mention of God?

I prefer to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ.

If Earth Day were to give due place to God and even mankind over nature, I would also not hesitate to mix the two holidays.  But I cannot justify mixing the holiday which has been the most important celebration of God's mercy since Israel left Egypt with a month-long celebration that excludes Him altogether.

Caring for nature - our gift from God to care for and use

I'm not anti-fanatical

So, now, just for the record, I'm not a fanatic against Earth Day.  I wouldn't look down on a family or individual for participating.  I`m sure many many people participate with best of intentions - even best of Christian intentions, participating with the purpose of glorifying God and serving the betterment of human life.  I did not discourage my son from participating in the school events or being excited about it.  I only took time to sit down and talk to him and make sure he know why we celebrate and protect the Earth.  I was sure that first God and then humans held their proper place.

My family recycles, saves water, reduces garbage, reuses containers, shops local (as often as our budget allows us) and uses cloth bags, among other such items. But we don't do it to serve the Environment as a end in itself.  We do it primarily because the Earth is God's creation, and secondarily because humans will be able to live better as a result.

If I knew Christians who celebrated Earth Day, I would express my doubts about this day, but I won't go on any crusade against it.  It's not important enough - at least not yet. (If I live to see an "Earth Day Easter Celebration," that might change.  In 2057, the Western Easter is on April 22.)

North America's Ugliest City

Abandoned homes in Detroit

 Before my wife had been to the northern regions of this continent, and we were living in Mexico City, we were once talking with a group of Mexicans, and one American.  In a common display of self-pity combined with the pride of bragging rights, they were going on and on of the poverty, danger and ugliness of the slums of Mexico City.  We Anglo North Americans simply had no idea, coming from places where everyone has money and everything is well-maintained, the poor are fed, etc., etc.

I objected.  "I know a city that is far worse than any part of Mexico I've been to."  When I named the city, the American (who had grown up near to it) agreed fully.

A chorus of "Oh, that's not possible" and "You probably don't even know the bad parts of Mexico City" followed.  With the witness of my wife (who had shown me the dirtier side of the city) I then proved that I had been to dingy neighborhoods that even these Mexicans had not been to nor would dare enter.

Even my wife had her doubts that the city in question could really be uglier and less safe than the slums of Mexico City.

On Saturday, she travelled to Detroit and upon her return wholeheartedly and emphatically agreed with my judgement.

"I've never been anywhere that felt so eerie," she told me. "Besides being ugly, run down, dirty and vandalized," she pointed out, "it is abandoned and quiet, in scary way."

These are precisely the points I had described to the Mexicans five years ago.  My wife remembered my description, and her doubts that such a place could really exist, especially in the city that had once been the second most prosperous in the United States - a fact which I had made her well aware of.

Michigan Central Station, which looms over the Mexican community

Even the poorest and most dangerous slums of Mexico City, there is life.  Some are sprawling residential neighborhoods where there is not a tree to be seen on grey hillsides covered with half-built, unpainted and unfinished concrete-block houses.  Despite the poverty, the streets are full of people and neighbors are talking to each other, children are playing, and there is, despite everything community and happiness.  "It's a Wonderful World" may even come to mind. Others are  thriving and bustling markets, where you can keep safe so long as you know which corners not to turn, and know to give up your valuables readily, should anyone request them of you.

Detroit, on the other hand, is devoid of life.  The city speaks of a great place now abandoned.  Beautiful classic homes, which would be worth over a million in Toronto, only 4 hours away, are crumbling.  Many have been bulldozed to create empty lots.  Classic high-rises are skeletons with broken windows completely ravaged of all vaguely valuable and possibly removable items. Yet, the eerie part is that you don't feel it is "empty" but more that there is something there, hidden - something that you don't want to find.  The petty theft you may encounter in parts of Mexico City can be a frustrating and keep you on your guard, but the worry of it is nothing compared to the intense anxiety you feel in the abandoned streets of Detroit to "get the hell out of there."

Locals reinforce the feeling by staying off the streets.  The stores and restaurants of the Mexican Village, for example, are full and busy.  They are comfortable and safe places.  Yet, none of these people will walk around to enjoy the sunny day outside seeing the city. (I will write more about the Mexican Village during the week.)

Even though my wife saw the newer, nicer, friendlier Mexican Village that now enjoys a solid cash flow to keep up nice stores and even homes (as opposed to run-down neighborhood of disorganized shops and decaying buildings that I got to know in the 1980s) she pointed out that you still feel that eerie abandonment.

The restaurant which has been a favorite of my family for decades

Yet, despite all this, this eerie and abandoned city is very intriguing. "Some day," asked my wife, "could we go back just to walk around and take pictures?" (Photographers forget about discomfort when taking pictures.)

And I have to admit, I've always wanted to just go walk around or at least just drive around, and look at the collapsing homes and abandoned high-rises from a century ago.  The wonder of how people could abandon and destroy something that was once so beautiful baffles me and intrigues me.  Seeing these homes makes me wonder what they would/could look like now under other circumstances.  (Although, exactly who is inside those homes now or what they are doing, I choose not to think about.)

I've heard there are some historic churches that have been beautifully kept up.  Perhaps visiting those would be a safer approach, and would likewise satisfy my wife's photographic needs.

And Now for Chrome ...

In the Beginning...

For a brief time in my teenaged years I used Netscape. At some point, I changed to Mozilla/Firefox and I never looked back.  I was a solid convert.

Internet Explorer never cut it for me, and it still doesn't.  Like so many things Microsoft comes out with, their user-friendliness makes no sense to me and I fumble over it all the time.

When Chrome was released I tried it briefly.  I could never find what I wanted to do (bookmarks, history, settings, etc.) and I had actually been quite happy with Firefox, so I just uninstalled it.  I had only tried it on the excitement of a new thing from Google, and the recommendation of a friend.  Later again, the same friend reassured me it had improved even more.  But basically, my contentedness with Firefox left me with no desire or need to try anything else.

Disillusionment

But that has changed.  A few months ago, my laptop (an under-performing mini from Acer that really isn't fit for Windows 7) started getting bogged down to the point where I couldn't even shut it down properly.  I found some online fixes, including registry and graphics adjustments.  They helped a lot, but not completely. Although it had stopped freezing up, it still slowed down to the point where I would have to waste half an hour closing everything and shutting down (that's how slow it was) and restarting to make it work properly.

And then came the shocking realization.

Could it be that some service or function of my dear Firefox was causing the problem?  I had realized that the slowdowns only happened when Firefox was running.  In fact that had always been the case, but for months I just assumed that it was the internet activity, and not Firefox itself.  But even after the registry and graphics fixes, the pattern just became that much more clear.

Just today, it struck me; for the second time in a week, Firefox was running like a tricycle on mud road, taking a good 20 minutes to open pages.  In good faith, I assumed that we were having internet problems.  (Even this morning, I still readily and undoubtingly blamed Bell Canada without even considering Firefox.) Then my wife sent me a message over Skype. She was upstairs in the same house on the same internet connection.  No problems. (With crawling twin babies, and two other young children, it's easier than trying to come downstairs in person.)  I opened Internet Explorer to finish something off before restarting.  No problem.  Could it really be?

The Big Move

Quickly coming to the (shocking, life-changing, devastating yet fully liberating) realization that it was becoming increasingly apparent that Firefox was probably the main culprit all along, and still disliking Internet Explorer, I quickly downloaded and installed Chrome, hoping to retrieve some work that had been unsaved when Firefox starting "spinning its tires."  No luck.  Firefox had cost me an hour of work this morning. (Yes, I know, you're supposed to save every few minutes but in this case it was clearly the case of Firefox.)  And how many hours of frustration and searching the internet for improvements to make Windows 7 faster had Firefox already caused me?

I did a few blog posts on Chrome, downloading and uploading pictures, everything moving rapid and easily, while Firefox was still chugging away in the background.  So, I knowing the drastic measure I had to take, I opened the task manager and forced Firefox to close.  I authorized Chrome to transfer the settings from Firefox, and - here it is - for the first time (in nearly a decade?) I uninstalled Firefox with the intention of doing so permanently.

Is This the End?

Earlier in the evening I briefly considered changing the description of this blog to say:

"... an expat writes of his escape to Mexico and then back to Canada, a spiritual journey, a change in web browser and many discoveries in unexpected places in life."

 But the emotional pain is still to deep.

Firefox has let me down.

But so far, with 6 hours of using Chrome, all is well, not a single slow down or even delay or glitch.  In the past few months, this is a record.

(And just so you know that I'm not all that emotional about all of this, here's a good laugh:)

Back on Facebook, and Now on Chrome

So, I'm back on Facebook and now using Google Chrome.  To completely unrelated pieces of new, but I'll just lump them together here since they're both about internet usage.

Facebook

In seven and half months that I was gone, I can't say I missed it much.  I never found myself with any urge to browse Facebook or see what other people were posting, liking or commenting on.  Most of this is that I had more than my internet fill with a few blogs and online newspapers.

I opened my account again for a couple practical reasons:

• It really is easier to keep in touch with, find and get in contact with people who live in other places, and see pictures of friends and family that are not nearby.
• It's a great way to spread the word about news, work and businesses, and related to that:
• With my wife starting up work in photography again, I thought it would help.

So, I'll have to see if I get hooked again, or if I can manage to limit my time an use it only as a tool and an occasional distraction.

I've also changed to Chrome, but what I wrote about Chrome and my abandonment of Firefox was so long that I decided to put in a separate post - tomorrow.

A Beautiful Easter Hymn I Recently Discovered

O Filii et Filiae, (O Sons and Daughters, in English).  Listen:

On Sunday, I was looking for a traditional Easter hymn to sing for my children and I found this one.  We are learning it in English and Latin.  The tune is absolutely beautiful!