NFP: Real Women’s Liberation

ChelseaContraception, Natural Family Planning, WomenLeave a Comment

This is a fabulous post from April of My Feminine Mind:
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I absolutely love Natural Family Planning. There are a lot of things that I love about it. The thing that stands out the most to me, however–the big, neon-sign, in-your-face-amazing thing about NFP is the ideology behind it. It begins with the premise that women are good. Because our bodies are good, we should not take what is wonderful and healthy and purposely induce a state of abnormality in it. Whereas contraception begins with the mentality that women’s bodies are flawed unless we give our bodies over to the medical and pharmaceutical industries to improve upon, NFP liberates women from this kind of negative self-talk.

…As the former queen of negative self-talk, (mixed in with some actual self harm) I firmly assert that NFP healed me from seven years of childhood sexual abuse. And I stand by my statement. I have written elsewhere about how profound and healing it was for me to experience pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. It was these experiences that taught me about my inherent goodness. But the thing is, after I experienced these epic journeys in self-discovery, if I then ignored all these lessons and began using contraception six weeks after my daughter was born (as my OB/GYN suggested) I would have been like a slave returning to her chains. Though motherhood initially broke through the great wall of my low self-esteem, NFP completely tore the wall down.

Read the rest!!

On This Anniversary of Humanae Vitae…

ChelseaContraception, SexLeave a Comment

HV-IMG.png…read it!

Go on. I dare you. What have you got to lose? Really. As Papal encyclicals go, it’s probably one of the shortest and easiest to understand:

The question of human procreation, like every other question which touches human life, involves more than the limited aspects specific to such disciplines as biology, psychology, demography or sociology. It is the whole man and the whole mission to which he is called that must be considered: both its natural, earthly aspects and its supernatural, eternal aspects. And since in the attempt to justify artificial methods of birth control many appeal to the demands of married love or of responsible parenthood, these two important realities of married life must be accurately defined and analyzed. This is what We mean to do, with special reference to what the Second Vatican Council taught with the highest authority in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today.

Read it.

Today is also the beginning of “Natural Family Planning Awareness Week.” More to come on that in a bit. For right now, though, read this post if you are interested.

Music for Your Monday: Life is Short

ChelseaDeath, videoLeave a Comment

If my car accident and injury taught me anything, it’s that life is short – too short to let important things go unsaid. So, please, take Garth’s advice:


Garth Brooks – If Tomorrow Never Comes by romans34

Related: For You Know Neither the Day Nor the Hour

More IVF Madness

ChelseaIVF, Reproductive Technology7 Comments

Jenny relates a story about a couple who “selectively reduced” the number of children that were successfully implanted. By “selectively reduced” I mean she had one of her three unborn children killed with an abortion at 20 weeks. As a result of the abortion one of the remaining two children died at 27 weeks. Then, after the now only child was born, they tried for another child, only to abort that one after an amniocentesis showed possible evidence of Down’s. This story, by the way, was shared by the mother at a support group for mothers who had miscarriages while carrying multiples – the majority of whom had resorted to IVF to conceive. Read her whole post here.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who finds this maddening!

Speaking of IVF. Yesterday Rebecca Taylor of Mary Meets Dolly was on a Catholic radio show talking to the host about the morality of embryo adoption, likely a follow-up to this post of hers a few weeks ago. Here on this blog, I have said that I thought embryo adoption is the best response to the hundreds of thousands of “left-over” embryos since being perpetually frozen, thrown in the garbage and/or used for their stem cells are all beneath their dignity as human beings. And it was my understanding that those who were opposed to embryo adoption did so because they thought it could encourage more IVF if parents knew there would be an “ethical” way get rid of the embryos they don’t end up using. But, it turns out that there’s a little bit more to the issue, at least among some Catholic theologians. Wrote Taylor:

There are two camps of Catholic thought on embryo adoptions with variations in each camp. There are those that believe embryo adoption to be immoral and those who believe it to be moral. It seems the dividing line depends on whether pregnancy is viewed as a part of the procreative process between a husband and wife or whether pregnancy is seen as a biological nurturing that is a necessity after fertilization has occurred.

Those who view pregnancy as part of the procreative process believe that it is immoral for a woman to be impregnated outside of the marital act, period. And those on the other side agree that sexual intercourse, conception and gestation all naturally go together, but, they argue that, with the natural process interrupted with IVF, pregnancy and gestation is turned into a biological necessity to save the life that has been created.

It’s a pretty fascinating debate that leads to other questions, depending on what side you are on. Read the whole thing, when you get a chance!

What Have I Been Tellin’ Ya?

ChelseaDisabled, Marriage3 Comments

Disabled people live very “normal”, happy, active lives – lives that include the joys of love, marriage, sex and babies…or they can when someone is willing to see the real person and not just the disability And we make very pretty brides, too! Check this gorgeous chick out:
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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A year after she was paralyzed in poolside horseplay at her bachelorette party, Rachelle Friedman knows one thing she would change about her life before the injury.

“I wish we had danced together more because I love dancing so much, and we didn’t do it enough,” she says of her soon-to-be husband. “Looking back, I would have done it every night.”

Friedman will finally make it down the aisle on Friday, marrying the man who has waited with her to exchange vows since the accident. She is wearing the same gown she chose for the first ceremony but with her father pushing her wheelchair down the aisle instead of walking her down it, arm in arm.

Also joining her will be the bridesmaid who shoved her into the shallow end of a pool on May 23, 2010 — causing a freak accident that changed their lives. The 25-year-old from Knightdale has stuck with her friend and refused to reveal her identity even as newspapers, television and Internet sites carried the story around the world.

“She was tragically hurt, mentally and emotionally. And I was tragically hurt, physically,” Friedman says on a day that a tailor is altering her strapless, simple wedding dress to fit her new, thinner, less muscular body. “It’s harder to deal with when you’re hurt emotionally sometimes than when you’re hurt physically.”

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Previous:
Disabled People Are “Sexy,” Too!
Surprise! People W/ Disabilities Can Have Babies and Be Good Parents

TOB for Teens: Middle School Edition!

ChelseaTheology of the Body, videoLeave a Comment

I knew this was in the works, but I wasn’t aware it was completed yet until I just got an email from Ascension Press about a training program for this series coming to Kansas City this August! Here is a video preview:

Looks great!
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According to the website, Theology of the Body for Teens: Middle School Edition answers questions such as:

Who am I?
Are there consequences to my actions?
What is the difference between love and lust?
How do I balance family, friends, school, God, music, TV, internet, texting, etc., in my daily life?
How can I discern my vocation to marriage, priesthood, or religious life?
How do I deal with bullying, gossip, peer pressure, pornography, divorce, etc?
Can I live my Catholic faith no matter how I messed up in the past?

Sounds like it’s really about giving them a good understanding of who we are as human beings and how we should relate to God and one another generally. Preparing them for a more detailed discussion about sex and the male-female relationship specifically at a more appropriate age. I like that.

Find out more.

Miracles in the Aftermath

ChelseaPro Life, videoLeave a Comment

There’s still a lot of suffering and recovery going on down South after this spring’s devastating tornadoes. But they’re counting their blessings in Tuscaloosa! Beautiful:

Related: WarTide!

TOB Tuesday: Healing the Person

ChelseaAddiction, Pro Life4 Comments

Last week I talked about drug and alcohol addiction and a community that brings life to suffering addicts. Yesterday I discovered an excellent article from Kevin Whelan at Catholic Exchange on how this community demonstrates the healing message inherent is John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it. (TOB19:4)

Drug and alcohol addiction, says Whelan, is bodily and spiritual death and very clearly attacks the ‘visible reality’ of the ‘mystery of God.’ Though he does not mention it specifically in this TOB writings, JP II taught in Ecclesia in America that such abuse “leads to the degradation of the person created in the image of God.” It does this, notes Whelan, by separating the body from it’s will since the addict gradually becomes driven by his addiction, not his will. The separation of the body from the will is spiritual death just as the separation of the body from the soul is mortal death.

community.pngWhat does this have to do with the Comunita Cenacolo that I mentioned last week? “Just as addiction ravages the whole person,” Whelan says, the Cenacolo community life “provides for the complete person.” And through personal outreach, labor, singing, dancing, discussions, payer, the sacraments, sports and performances the Theology of the Body is demonstrated in the daily life of the community.

That is to say: through these physical actions of the body, God makes Himself know to the addicts. The Invisible is made Visible through the physical!

But it is specifically their radical poverty that the members of Cenacolo best demonstrate the Theology of the Body and the healing of the complete person:

In community, the members own nothing themselves (just ‘the body and it alone’). In their total reliance on God to provide for them, the are taken back to ‘The Beginning’ where all we had was work, prayer, community and the joy of God’s recklessly abundant love. Removed from money, cars, television, cell phones and other trappings of the material life they have time to look at themselves (body and soul) and learn that God is seemingly in ecstasy at their mere existence.

Read the whole article and help out this wonderful community if you can!

Previous post:
From Death to New Life
Related:
Christ Still Raising the Dead

7 Quick Takes Friday

ChelseaPro Life1 Comment

7 quick takesOver the past month I have had several posts featured a few other blogs. I’ve linked to most of them here already, but since I noticed that there was 7, I thought I might as well do a little round-up here for a 7 Quick Takes Friday:

First, many thanks to the Archbold boys for giving me some space on their blog. I did four “guest posts.” I love those guys and their blog! It was an honor!:

1. Horror! Mom Kills Son in Womb to Spare Him Any Pain

2. Suffering, Love and the Paradox of the Cross

3. The Beauty of Human Weakness

4. IVF. A Modern Horror

While I was out of town, I was very surprised and tickled to get an email saying that American Life League‘s Judie Brown was requesting permission to re-print one of my posts a guest commentary for her “Straight Talk on Life” column. I’ve now had three of my posts (two from a few years ago) re-printed there:

5. The Difference Faith Makes Original here

6. Contraception: Morally Wrong in Every Circumstance Original here

7. How Can There Be Too Many Children? Original here

Bonus: if you never read it, back in February I wrote a column for the Patheos Catholic Portal: Refusing to Suffer is Refusing to Live

IVF is Evil

ChelseaIVF, Natural Family Planning, Reproductive Technology1 Comment

I’m more convinced of it now than I ever have been before. My rant (and final post) at Creative Minority Report this week:

On Wednesday (last week), Matt highlighted here at CMR two very disturbing stories involving IVF: Mom To Have Dead Son’s Baby and World’s First IVF Lottery. If that’s not enough to sicken you for one week, here’s another one I found from the UK Daily Mail:

    Dozens of women are aborting babies conceived by IVF because they have changed their minds about motherhood, figures suggest.

    Many are in their teens, twenties and early thirties, implying that numerous abortions were carried out for social reasons, rather than on health grounds.

    Relationship breakdowns, fears about motherhood and simple changes of heart are all likely to have played a part in the terminations.

    The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority statistics, released by the IVF watchdog through the Freedom of Information Act, have angered family campaigners who accuse the women of treating babies like ‘designer goods’.

    The revelation has also surprised fertility doctors who generally lose contact with patients after they become pregnant. Professor-Bill Ledger, a leading fertility doctor and member of the HFEA, said: ‘I had no idea there were so many post-IVF abortions – and each one is a tragedy.’

    He added: ‘These women can’t be surprised to be pregnant. You can’t have an IVF pregnancy by accident.’

    The statistics show that an average of 80 abortions are carried out in England and Wales each year following IVF treatment.

    In 2007, the figure was as high as 97 – with almost a third of the women aged between 18 and 34.

This stuff really infuriates me.

Read the rest