Would You Say That to My Face?

ChelseaAbortion, Disabled2 Comments

My latest for Catholic Lane is (finally) up. In it I expand on some thoughts I’ve shared here before on the message that eugenic abortions send to those living with disabilities. I begin:

In recent decades, America has made many wonderful advances in protecting the rights of people with disabilities and including them in society. Gone are the days of forced sterilization and institutionalization. Now we have laws making disability discrimination illegal and most public places handicap accessible. Children with special needs are able to get an education in most public school districts and, when one isn’t available or doesn’t meet a child’s specific needs, some states, like Oklahoma, even offer scholarships for those children to attend a private school that will. On top of all that, advancements in medicine and technology are also helping us live longer, more independent lives.

All that progress, however, is currently being undermined by the now standard practice of killing unborn children diagnosed with various diseases and disabilities. This brilliant poster from Feminists for Life of America (below) echoes something I’ve said many times about these “eugenic” abortions.

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Recently, RH Reality Check’s Vyckie Garrison wrote an article in which she called eugenic abortions “moral” and “compassionate” and then also claimed that she fully supports the “hugely important” disability rights movement. Sorry, Vyckie, you can’t have it both ways. As I explain:

Whether you mean to say it or not, advocating for abortion for unborn children with various diseases and disabilities in an effort to “spare them a life of suffering” (among other things) suggests that one must be perfect in mind and body in order to have a fulfilling life, which sends a message to those of us poor fools living with disabilities outside the womb that you do not think that our lives are worth living.

It strikes me that the people like Vycki who have given themselves the privilege of deciding which disabilities are unbearable or “incompatible with life” have little to no first-hand experience with disability themselves. Read the rest – as I go on to explain how those who would kill disabled unborn children to “spare them a miserable life” are actually projecting onto those children their own fear of hardship and suffering.

TOB Tues: Space Probes and Springsteen

ChelseaTheology of the Body, TOB TuesdayLeave a Comment

Cool. Here is an excerpt from the first chapter of Christopher West’s forthcoming book Fill These Hearts: God, Sex and the Universal Longing
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CHAPTER 1: THE UNIVERSAL LONGING

Everybody’s got a hungry heart.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

In 1977 NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 to explore the galaxy. A golden record called The Sounds of Earth was affixed to each of the twin spacecrafts— a message from earth to anyone out there in the universe who might be listening. It contained both music and the sound of a human heartbeat.

Annie Druyan served as the creative director of NASA’s famous Voyager Interstellar Message (VIM) Project. Along with Carl Sagan and a few others, she was entrusted with the task of coming up with earth’s message to the rest of the universe. Reflecting on the experience in a 2009 interview, she recalled,

The first thing I found myself thinking of was a piece by Beethoven from Opus 130, something called the Cavatina Movement … When I [first] heard this piece of music … I thought … Beethoven, how can I ever repay you? What can I ever do for you that would be commensurate with what you’ve just given me? And so, as soon as Carl said, “Well, we have this message, and it’s going to last a thousand million years,” I thought of … this great, beautiful, sad piece of music, on which Beethoven had written in the margin … the word sehnsucht, which is German for “longing.” Part of what we wanted to capture in the Voyager message was this great longing we feel.

A song of human longing launched into space … It’s all the more poignant based on the Latin root of the word “desire” (desidere — “from the stars”). It’s as if NASA’s scientists were saying to the rest of the universe: “This is who and what we are as human beings: creatures of longing.” And hidden in that basic “introduction to who we are” seems a question for extraterrestrials, almost a test to see if we can relate to them: Do you feel this too? Are we the only ones? Are we crazy?

Perhaps even more we wanted to say to any other intelligent life out there, “If you feel this longing, this ache for something too, what have you done with it? Have you discovered anything that can fill it or cure it?” As Annie Druyan relates, “We were hoping that, you know, maybe things like passion and longing … are not just limited to our narrow experience but might be something … felt on other worlds.”

And how best to communicate that longing we feel? Music. “We thought that the vibrations of the music would speak for us in ways that the machine itself and maybe the pictures and the other things that we had to offer wouldn’t,” explained Druyan.

Read more.

A description of the book from West’s website:
Fill These Hearts blows the lid off the idea of Christianity as a repressive, anti-sex religion and unveils the hidden truth of life- that the restless yearnings we feel in both our bodies and our spirits are the very cry of our hearts for God. Coming Jan. 8, 2013. Start the journey.

I Don’t “Believe” Life Begins at Conception…

ChelseaFetal Development1 Comment

I know it does.
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Rebecca Taylor explains more:

I don’t know how many times I have heard it. Well-meaning Catholics who say, “As a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception.” I have decided that my mission in life is to correct this miscommunication because it is that very line that lets everyone who is not Catholic dismiss everything we have to say about stem cell research, cloning and reproductive technologies.

We Catholics do not “believe” life begins at conception, also called fertilization. We instead know that it does because it is a cold hard fact of nature that a new, distinct, human organism, identifiable by his or her unique DNA, is created at the completion of fertilization. That is not a belief. That is a fact.

A fact bolstered by embryology:

“Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.” (O’Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, p. 8 )

Even a secular children’s book on human reproduction from my local library is clear:

“But nine months before, when you first began, you were just one little cell, even smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence. Half of this cell came from your mother’s body, and the other half came from your father’s body.”

Read more.

A reader writes: “I cannot imagine a more eloquent statement of the subject. Rebecca’s article is amazing. I hope other readers pass it on.” Indeed it is and I hope you will pass it on as well!

The Supreme Adventure

ChelseaPro Life1 Comment

Stole this from Ignatius Press’ Facebook page:

“The supreme adventure is being born. There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap. There we do see something of which we have not dreamed before. Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush. Our uncle is a surprise. Our aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a bolt from the blue. When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.”

—G.K. Chesterton, from his essay “On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family”. Collected in the book “In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton.” Available in softcover and e-book.

Every child conceived has a right to this adventure.

The Catholic Church Embraces Science and Those Struggling with Infertility

ChelseaInfertility, IVF, Natural Family Planning, Reproductive TechnologyLeave a Comment



pregtest3_1.jpgIn case you missed it the first time around, I’ve re-published my article The Catholic Church is No Enemy of Science or the Infertile over at Ignitum Today:

Because of her opposition to third party reproduction, the Catholic Church is often accused of being anti-science and insensitive to those who suffer the pain of infertility. Last year’s CNN Belief Blog op-ed from Sean Savage calling on the Catholic Church to reverse her opposition to IVF is a good example of the anger that is generally directed towards the Church on this issue.

Sean and his wife Carolyn, who consider themselves to be faithful Catholics, made headlines when the fertility clinic they were working with accidentally implanted Carolyn with another couple’s embryo. Sean wrote:

“Instead of support, the church branded us in a very public way with the apparently shameful letters IVF. Why couldn’t the church recognize our journey for what it was – an affirmation of the sanctity of life?
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Carolyn and I would have been happy to save thousands of dollars and a decade of emotional ups and downs by conceiving the “old-fashioned way,” but that wasn’t possible. We turn to medicine for a litany of medical maladies and impairments, but infertile Catholics are supposed to avoid treating a medical condition which prevents them from building or expanding their family?”

In his article he pulled several passages form Domun Vitae, the 1987 document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation, including this one, which he called “ironic”:

“Scientists are to be encouraged to continue their research with the aim of preventing causes of sterility and of being able to remedy them so that sterile couples will be able to procreate in full respect for their own personal dignity and that of the child to be born.”

What Sean and much of the rest of the world do not understand is that the Church’s rejection of IVF is not a rejection of the use of science to treat infertility. In fact, because she so desperately wants to support those who suffer from infertility, the Catholic Church has helped develop very effective reproductive medicine that also respects the rights of every human being.

Continue Reading >>>>>>>>>>>

This can’t be talked about enough. The assisted reproduction industry is out of control and not only are innocent human lives paying the price, but real, effective fertility medicine is being limited as well.

See You After Thanksgiving!

ChelseaPro Life1 Comment


There are a few stories that I was going to try to post on today, but I’ve got a busy couple of days ahead of me…and I’m sure most of you do as well! Even if you’re just going to relax this Thanksgiving, I’m sure you’ll be visiting with family and NOT browsing the blogosphere. At least I hope you won’t!

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I’ll catch you all on the flip side!

The Strange Case of Savita Halappanavar

ChelseaAbortionLeave a Comment

JC Sanders has the best analysis of this whole mess I’ve read yet:
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The facts are not all in just yet—in fact, very few facts have really been made available at all. This is perhaps strange, given the passage of nearly two weeks between Mrs. Halappanaavar’s death and the time at which the news of said death broke. What we know, nearly three weeks after her death, is that she died of septicemia in the hospital of Galway University—a state institution—about a week after checking into said hospital with complaints of severe pain. She was miscarrying at the time that she checked in—and was leaking amniotic fluid—though the baby was still alive. His heart was still beating.

The Halappanavars allegedly asked for an abortion. Though not being exactly well-versed in the difference between an abortion and the termination of a pregnancy as an unintended side-effect, we might well assume that she only wanted the staff to induce labor knowing that the 17-week-old baby would most likely suffocate to death shortly after the delivery. We are told that she was told by the (strangely anonymous) staff that Ireland is “a Catholic country” and so abortion could not take place. We know that not only was labor not induced, but no treatment whatsoever was given for septicemia, including antibiotics, for two days.

There’s much, much more. Read it.

TOB Tues: Eschatological Man Meets Historical Man

ChelseaPro LifeLeave a Comment

In John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, he compares and contrasts the three states of man; “Original Man,” mankind before the Fall or first sin, “Historical Man” man after the Fall, (our current state,) and “Eschatological Man,” man following Christ’s second coming, (our life in heaven).

Using the text-to-speech animation website xtranormal, TOB speaker Bill Donaghy imagines a meeting between Historical Man and Eschatological Man. A little chat on chastity can go a long way. Watch Eschatological Man work his magic!

Eschatological Man Meets Historical Man
by: BillDonaghy

Is Your Spouse Your “Best Friend”?

ChelseaMarriage4 Comments

“Today I’m going to marry my best friend!”
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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that announcement or something similar to it (“today my best friend asked me to marry him,” etc…) on Facebook. That’s why I was so intrigued to read this article from Marjorie Campbell on why she’s glad her husband is NOT her best friend:

I need to get this off my chest: my husband is not my best friend. He’s never been my best friend and never will be. I experience some envy of the young brides and long-married wives who contentedly call their spouse “my best friend.” Facebook has a site called “My Husband Is My Best Friend” with over 170,000 “likes”! I don’t doubt that some husbands are capable of female-friendly friendship. But mine is not and, well, his relation toward me is not anything I recognize as friendship, not in terms I understand. I am not complaining. For me, not being best friends is the cornerstone of our marriage – and I love my marriage just the way it is.
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Husband is a verb – “to manage, especially with prudent economy” – that describes mine better than the noun. Just calling him spouse, partner or companion says nothing about him. He could call me the same, his “spouse or partner or companion,” as if we are just alike, friends who got married. Husband, in its verbiage, works better by hinting there is difference between us. In my marriage, it works especially well because my husband wears his tendency to manage, direct and control all things with pride and tenacity. He is stereotypical “male” in this way – the kind of overbearing Alpha male that caused my own mother to comment “I’ve never cared for men like that.”

Read the whole thing.

What do you think? Is your fiancé or spouse your best friend? Do you think that is important for marriage or are some couples just “lucky” that way? Does it all depend on your definition of friendship?

God’s Strength and the Beauty of Human Weakness

ChelseaPro LifeLeave a Comment

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God’s real strength is not mere human strength—it is not a matter of physical, mental, or intellectual abilities, useful though they may be. God’s strength is made perfect in man’s weakness, as St. Paul says.1 We are invited to let ourselves be visited in our littleness, our poverty, our weaknesses, to receive a new strength: the strength of trust and faith.

Father Jacques Philippe’s words here from his latest book The Way of Trust and Love – A Retreat Guided by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, remind me of a post I wrote several years ago on The Beauty of Human Weakness.

I’m only half a chapter in to this book and I love it already. How could I not? It’s Fr. Jacques writing about St. Thérèse. Two of my favorite spiritual authors in one book!