Audio: Roe v. Wade Oral Arguments

ChelseaAbortion, Roe v. WadeLeave a Comment

This is pretty fascinating, if not also very chilling (h/t Stacy Trasancos).

Stacy highlighted a key exchange between Roe attorney Sarah Weddington and a few of the Justices (beginning at 20:37 in the second audio file):

weddington.pngJustice Harry A. Blackmun: But tell me why you didn’t discuss the Hippocratic Oath.

Mrs. Weddington: Okay.

I guess it was– okay, in part, because the Hippocratic Oath, we discuss basically the constitutional protection we felt the woman to have.

The Hippocratic Oath does not pertain to that.

Second, we discuss the fact that the state had not established a compelling state interest.

The Hippocratic Oath would not really pertain to that.

And then, we discuss the vagueness jurisdiction.

It seem to us that that, that the fact that the medical profession, at one time, had adopted the Hippocratic Oath does not weight upon the fundamental constitutional rights involved.

It is a guide for physicians, but the outstanding organizations of the medical profession have, in fact, adopted a position that says the doctor and the patient should be able to make the decision for themselves in this kind of situation.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun: Of course, it’s the only definitive statement of ethics in the medical profession.

I take it, from what you just said, that you’re—you didn’t even footnote it because it’s old.

That’s about really what you’re saying.

Mrs. Weddington: Well, I guess you…it is old, and not that it’s out of date, but it seemed to us that it was not pertinent to the argument we were making.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun: Let me ask another question.

Last June 29, this Court decided the capital punishment cases.

Mrs. Weddington: Yes, sir.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun: Do you feel that there is any inconsistency in the Court’s decision in those cases outlying the death penalty with respect to convicted murderers and rapists at one end of lifespan, and your position in this case at the other end of lifespan?

Mrs. Weddington: I think had there been established that the fetus was a person under the Fourteenth Amendment or under constitutional protection then there might be a differentiation.

In this case, there has never been established that the fetus is a person or that it’s entitled to the Fourteenth Amendment rights or the protection of the constitution.

It would be inconsistent to decide that, after birth, various classifications of persons would be subject to the death penalty or not but, here, we have a person, the woman, entitled to fundamental constitutional rights as opposed to the fetus prior to birth where there is no establishment of any kind of federal constitutional rights.

Justice Harry A. Blackmun: Well, do I get from this then that your case depends primarily on the proposition that the fetus has no constitutional rights?

Mrs. Weddington: It depends on saying that the woman has a fundament constitutional right and that the state has not proved any compelling interest for regulation in the area.

Even if the Court, at some point, determined the fetus to be entitled to constitutional protection, you would still get back into the weighing of one life against another.

Justice Byron R. White: And that’s what’s involved in this case, weighing one life against another?

Mrs. Weddington: No, Your Honor.

I said that would be what would be involved if the facts were different and the state could prove that there was a person for the constitutional right.

ultrasound.jpgJustice Potter Stewart: Well, if it were established that an unborn fetus is a person within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, you would have almost an impossible case here, would you not?

Mrs. Weddington: I would have a very difficult case. [Laughter]

Justice Potter Stewart: You certainly would because you’d have the same kind of thing you’d have to say that this would be the equivalent to after the child was born.

Mrs. Weddington: That’s right.

Justice Potter Stewart: If the mother thought that it bothered her health having the child around, she could have it killed.

Isn’t that correct?

Mrs. Weddington: That’s correct.

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger: Could Texas constitutionally…did you want to respond further to Justice Stewart?

Did you want to respond further to him?

Mrs. Weddington: No, Your Honor.

I’ve Had a Difficult Life — And That’s Okay

ChelseaDisabledLeave a Comment

lizzie.jpgLizzie Velásquez is a 24 year old American woman who was born with a very rare disease (shared by only one other person in the United States) that doesn’t allow her to gain weight. She has been bullied most of her life, including being labeled the “World’s Ugliest Woman” in an internet video that received over a million views and thousands of vile comments.

Now Lizzie is an author and motivational speaker. Many of you may recognize her from a video of her TEDX talk in Austin last month that immediately went viral.

For the most part, her speech is a motivational pep-talk for those who have been bullied or with low self-esteem. But it also sends a powerful message to the culture of death, specifically those who justify killing in order to spare someone a lifetime or period of suffering some disease or disability.

“I’ve had a really difficult life — but that’s okay” -Lizzie Velásquez.

Personally, the past fourteen years of my life have not been easy. But that doesn’t mean they have been “too hard” to take, or that joy has eluded me. I’m still a human being, I’m still alive, and my life still has meaning and infinite value despite my challenges and limitations.

Of course we should never want anyone to be sick or live with terrible disabilities and incurable diseases. Nevertheless, there is a lot of good that can come from facing our fears and accepting and overcoming life’s hardships. These are the things that help build our character and strengthen us as persons. Experiencing adversity provides and elite (and extensive) education in the practical living-out of those valuable virtues: humility, patience, courage, and perseverance.

Suffering is a great spiritual teacher, as well. Reminding us that we are creatures and totally dependent on God, it teaches us humility and self denial so that the power of Christ may more easily dwell in us (2 Corinth 12:9-10).

What defines you as a person?

This is the crux of Lizzie’s talk. She asked the audience to consider what defines them: their backgrounds? Friends? Families? She reminds them that if they can find happiness within, and be the drivers of their own lives, the bullies will always lose.

The cult of normalcy asserts its power over the week, deciding who gets to live and who must die, by defining people largely based on their abilities or lack there of. Those judged to fall short of their arbitrary, utilitarian standards are defined by those differences and cast aside as having lives not worth living.

“Only God can judge.” We hear that phrase thrown around so much from pseudo-Christian progressives (often to justify all manner of perverse and sinful behavior). Thankfully, we know God doesn’t judge human life in the same utilitarian terms as the cult of normalcy. In fact, Windley-Doust reminds us that, Jesus Christ, the messiah, God incarnate, “has consented to a way of limitation, of embodiment that can be bound, injured and killed as the way to define ‘the man.’” Therefore,

“When we see or experience limitation, even impairment, we should not think, ‘behold, the monster,’ but rather ‘behold, the man’ (John 19:5). The incarnation of Christ and his passion is the ‘norm,’ not anything defined by the cult of normalcy.”

We are human beings not human doings. Our lives are defined, not by how we look or what we can or cannot do, but who we are. And who we are, all of us, is children of a loving God. A God who loved us so much that he became a man himself, suffered and died, showing us that every human life, even when it is subject to pain, is infinitely blessed and valuable and worth living.

Pain and suffering should never be a reason to end someone else’s life…or your own. What the cult of normalcy doesn’t understand is that these are part of “normal” human existence. A culture that expects life to be lived to its fullness must be able to embrace and make peace with—even find joy in—the normalcy of human suffering.

Thank God for New Life!

ChelseaCruz, Cute Baby BloggingLeave a Comment

Say hello to my little nephew, Cruz Alexander Underwood! Born January 14 at 12:49 am. He’s 7 lb. 5 oz. of absolute perfection!

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I couldn’t be more proud of my baby sister. Can’t wait to see this little guy in person and smother him with auntie kisses.

People often say that it’s not fair to bring a child into such a cruel world with all it’s war, poverty, violence and disease. Last year Unilever tried to help ease those fears in a few expectant parents by reminding them of some of the amazing advancements and opportunities we have now that never existed before and why “there has never been a better time to create a brighter future.”

Thank God for new life! The world may be a scary place, but new life is new hope for a better and brighter future. Welcome, baby Cruz! You already make this world a better place.

My Nephew is On His Way!!

ChelseaCruz, Pro LifeLeave a Comment

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Prayers please! Just got word that my baby sister is headed to the hospital in labor with my nephew.

A Prayer to St. Gerard for Safe Delivery

O great Saint Gerard, beloved servant of Jesus Christ, perfect imitator of your meek and humble Savior, and devoted child of Mother of God, enkindle within my heart one spark of that heavenly fire of charity which glowed in your heart and made you an angel of love. O glorious Saint Gerard, because when falsely accused of crime, you did bear, like your Divine Master, without murmur or complaint, the calumnies of wicked men, you have been raised up by God as the patron and protector of expectant mothers. Preserve Caitlin from danger and from the excessive pains accompanying childbirth, and shield the child which she now carries, that it may see the light of day and receive the purifying and life-giving waters of baptism through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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I feel baby!! Cruz was moving around for aunt Chelsea on Thanksgiving — thankful to be alive. Thank God for new life!

Breeders

ChelseaReproductive Technology, Surrogacy1 Comment

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The Center for Bioethics and Culture, producers of the award-winning Eggsploitation and Anonymous Father’s Day, will be releasing a new documentary later this month. Breeders: A Subclass of Women? explores the important issue of surrogacy, talking with surrogates, physicians, psychologists, and activists across the political and ideological spectrum.

Pay attention, ladies. Porn is not the only industry commodifying women. Biotechnology is a “women’s issue” if ever there was one.

breeders.pngFrom the video description:

Surrogacy is fast becoming one of the major issues of the 21st century—celebrities and everyday people are increasingly using surrogates to build their families. But the practice is fraught with complex implications for women, children, and families. What is the impact on the women who serve as surrogates and on the children who are born from surrogacy? In what ways might money complicate things? What about altruistic surrogacy done for a family member or close friend? Is surrogacy a beautiful, loving act or does it simply degrade pregnancy to a service and a baby to a product? Can we find a middle ground? Should we even look for one?

Early buzz for the doc:

Breeders dares to go where few documentaries have dared yet to take us and where the assisted reproduction/family building industry really doesn’t want us to go: the dark heart of surrogacy where women with less financial means are treated like vessels and the children created are products made to fit the adult needs. For anyone who doesn’t want to believe that “modern family building” involves contracts, injections, donors, lawyers and payments changing hands, a strong dose of reality and compassion could be salvaged by watching this film.
Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy, writer, speaker, activist on adoptee rights, and organizer of the Adoptee Rights Coalition. She blogs at Musings of the Lame

Great documentaries move the viewer with simple facts, delivered in first-person accounts. Breeders accomplishes this. It offers the facts about the market for eggs and wombs from the lips of the sellers, while it overwhelms you with the human consequences of a trade in human beings.
Helen M. Alvare, Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law

Jennifer Lahl’s eye-opening interviews with surrogates, doctors, psychologists, and advocates across the political spectrum explain why surrogacy is either illegal or far more limited in other industrialized countries. Two NOW officials weigh in on the commodification of the financially strapped women who become surrogates and the widely ignored increased risk of maternal death in gestational surrogacy. Surrogates describe medical and emotional nightmares for themselves and the children involved; one who was allowed to visit the child to whom she’d given birth when the little girl was five months old describes finding that the until then constantly collicky infant did nothing but sleep peacefully on the surrogate’s chest the whole time she was there. Until then, she says, “I at no point in time thought about how it would affect her.” Perhaps most sobering, though, are the words of a young woman who was the result of such an arrangement: “Most of the consideration is for the adults” who can afford to effectively buy their children, she says, exploiting both the women hired to bear them and the children whose “foundation of existence is a contract, and money.”
Melinda Henneberger, Washington Post

Breeders is a fascinating film that highlights the many tensions between women’s status, the free market demands of the fertility industry, and the fragmentation of women’s fertility and reproductive labor. This is a must-see film for all those who care about women and human rights.
Hedva Eyal, Medical Technologies Policy Researcher and feminist activist, Israel

TOB Tues: Must Read TOB Column

ChelseaTheology of the Body, TOB TuesdayLeave a Comment

TOBOver at Catholic Exchange, Kevin Tierney, (who is also one of my Catholic Lane editors) has been writing a column on the Theology of the Body since last July. Some excellent stuff you should check out:

What Theology of the Body is Really All About
Is Mary Missing from the Theology of the Body?
The Treasures of Blessed John Paul II
The Incarnation: Going Beyond Our Past
Theology of the Face
Self-Control and Theology of the Body
The Eucharist and Theology of the Body
Victory Over Vice
Dignity & Theology of the Body
Theology of the Interior Body
Theology of the Body, Holiness & Honor
Shame & Theology of the Body

Sperm Donor Recalls Meeting His Donor-Daughter Decades Later

ChelseaIVF, Sperm Donation3 Comments

All Narelle Grech from Australia knew of her father was that his code name was T5, he was brown-haired and brown-eyed with O-positive blood type. “When I was a teenager, I carried that information around with me on a scrap of paper, the way other kids carried a photograph of their dad,” she said. “It was my way of keeping a link to him because I had nothing else.”

Born in 1983, Narelle started searching for her biological father fifteen years ago. That search became even more urgent when she was diagnosed her with advanced bowel cancer in 2011, a disease which doctors said might kill her within the next five years. The disease is genetic and she didn’t get it from her mother’s side. Shortly after her diagnosis, Grech has also discovered that she has eight half-siblings created with her biological father’s sperm: “Each one may be a genetic time bomb waiting to go off and it’s probable that they don’t know anything about it.”

Narelle was finally united with her biological father in February of 2013, she passed away just one month later at the age of 30. Last October Ray Tonna was a guest on an Australian talk show to discuss his experience with anonymous sperm donation. In this teaser video for the episode, he recalls what it was like meeting his daughter for the first time:

IVF advocates desperately want us to believe that biology is irrelevant when it comes to “family,” but Narelle and Ray, along with the the testimonies of countless other donor conceived children, prove otherwise. Just look at these faces.

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Children having half their identity deliberately withheld from them is one of my biggest IVF pet peeves. What makes it even worse is that, when they finally start seeking out their biological heritage and questioning the way they were conceived, many of them are told to “get over it” and just be thankful they’re alive.

Related:
News Flash: It’s Not Just Eggs and Sperm That You’re “Donating”
Shocker: A Biological Connection is Important to Kids, Too
Sorry, Cryokids, This is The New Normal. “Get Over It.”
A Promise Wrongly Made
Anonymous Donor Daddies: The Kids Aren’t Alright

Mary, Mother of God

ChelseaReligionLeave a Comment

Happy New Year and, more importantly, a blessed solemnity of Mary the Mother of God!

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Andrea Solario, Madonna With the Green Cushion

[W]hy does the Roman liturgy celebrate the Octave of Christmas as the Feast of Mary the Mother of God? Because this paradoxical phrase strikes at the very heart of Christmas. The songs we sing and the cards we write extol the babe of Bethlehem as Emmanuel, God-with-us. He is so with us that after Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin of Nazareth, the Divine Word can never again be divided from our humanity. What God has joined, let no man separate.

Read more.

“Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed” (Lk. 11:27) Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of death. Amen.

Russia Chooses Life

ChelseaPro LifeLeave a Comment

Steven Mosher has some good news out of Russia where the average woman can be expected to have as many as seven abortions in her lifetime:

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning abortion advertising. Some members of the Duma (the Russian state assembly), are talking about going even further and banning the procedure itself. The Russian Orthodox Church, whose numbers are swelling with converts and “reverts,” is weighing in as well. One Orthodox prelate called abortion a “mutiny against God.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Read more for some history on how abortion was forced on the people of Russia and how the Population Research Institute has played a role in bringing Russia back to life.

Our Bridegroom is Here!

ChelseaPro LifeLeave a Comment

Merry Christmas from sunny South Florida!

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Like the shepherds and Wise Men before us: ‘May you seek Christ. May you find Christ. May you love Christ.’ (-St. Josemaria) Peace and love to you all!!