From National Geographic (h/t Wesley Smith):
Yet another example of ASCs providing ethical and successful results for patients.
God Chose the Weak to Shame the Strong
Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinth. 1:26-31)
I hope you’ll bear with me here. This Sunday’s Mass readings are still on my mid, especially the one from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians above. A few thoughts:
1. To the “wise and learned” of the world, life with a disability or terminal illness is not worth living. When a child is pre-natally diagnosed with various diseases parents are pressured to abort and assisted suicide is promoted as a way to escape pain and suffering. Enter Garvan Byrne. Terminally ill and handicapped from birth, young Garvan endured intense pain as he faced certain death at the tender age of twelve. Throughout all of the trauma, however, he remained hopeful and optimistic, finding peace and meaning in life that most healthy, able-bodied adults have never seen. In 1985, just a two months before he died, eleven year old Garvan recorded an interview with Mother Francis Dominica, the founder of one of the hospices he often visited. It has been uploaded to YouTube in three parts. If can, do yourself a favor and set aside about 20 minutes to watch all three, you will not regret it.
I don’t think it matters how handicapped you are or how sick. You always succeed in something. God gave us each a gift. –Garvan Byrne March 20, 1973 – April 16, 1985
2. Abortion is the ultimate war against the weak and here I think of abortion survivors like Gianna Jessen and Melissa Ohden. How in their cases God used an infant, the very weakest among us, to show their would-be assassins who really has power over life and death. Not only that, but now both of them are very outspoken, internationally known pro-life speakers – Gianna with her “gift of Cerebral Palsy” on top of everything – and have challenged many who see nothing wrong with the stronger dominating the weaker and deciding who lives and who dies.
“I didn’t survive so I could make everyone comfortable. I survived so I could stir things up a bit. And I have a great time doing it.” -Gianna Jessen
Another must see: Gianna Jessen’s Australian Manifesto
3. We recently celebrated the feast of the Presentation of the Lord – when a 40-day-old infant is presented in the Temple and recognized as the Savior of the world. An infant Savior! The paradox of this also makes me think of Christ crucified and the foolishness and weakness of God that is wiser and stronger than men (1 Corinth. 1:23-25).
4. Finally: “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.” These words of St. Paul, together with the beatitudes we heard from the Gospel according to Mark tell all of us to recognize our own weakness, the limits of our human nature, and have recourse to God, apart from Whom we can do nothing (John 15:5). We may not be physically poor in health, wealth or knowledge, but we can allow ourselves to be poor in spirit, detached from our own ego, so that the power of Christ may more easily dwell within us, strengthening us to carry out his will.
NJ Planned Parenthood Fires Pimp Helping Manager
The woman who was shown in the latest LiveAction undercover video offering advice to a sex trafficker on how to cover up sex abuse, statutory rape, minor prostitution, and human sex trafficking has been fired. From the story:
Tonight, Central Jersey Planned Parenthood fired the manager, identified in the video as Amy Woodruff, and beefed up security around its clinics.
“We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape released this morning, which depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable,” Phyllis Kinsler, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Central Jersey said in a statement released at 10:20 p.m.
“We have a zero tolerance policy for this kind of behavior, and the employee in the video was immediately suspended from her duties this morning and was terminated this evening,” Kinsler said. “We are fully committed to delivering high-quality reproductive health care to the women of our communities, complying with all laws, and upholding the highest ethical standards.”
Nice. But, that only solves part of your problems, Planned Parenthood. You’re still in the business of killing babies and, even without abortion, you are no real friend to women.
Planned Parenthood Gets Stung…Again
At this point, they’re really just stinging themselves.
Is it just me, or does it really sound like this woman has given advice like this – how to lie and get around the law for minors getting abortions – once or twice before. What’s truly amazing, however, is her willingness to give the “pimp” business advice on what the 14/15 year old girls can do to “make money” during the 2 weeks after their abortion when they can’t have sex:
Woodruff: Yeah, um, waist up.
Pimp: Waist up?
Woodruff: Waist up, or just be that extra action walking by. Because then they’re at more risk for infection, and you don’t want to do that….
Wow. It just makes you wonder, what the hell was she thinking?!
In response to the claims that the video is unfairly edited, LiveAction has made the full un-edited version available.
Planned Parenthood did, reportedly, notify authorities, but also admitted that the employee’s behavior in the video “violates PPCNJ policies, as well as our core values of protecting the welfare of minors and complying with the law, and appropriate action is being taken.”
Lest you think this is just totally out-of-the-ordinary for the abortion giant, in an investigation two and a half years ago in multiple states throughout the nation documents Planned Parenthood’s willingness to repeatedly violate mandatory reporting laws for statutory rape that protect children.
Oh, and, by the way, Planned Parenthood receives over $300 million from taxpayers every year.
TOB Tuesday: Understanding Celibacy
Fr. Kyle Schnippel has an article up at Catholic Exchange on Understanding Celibacy Through the Theology of the Body
In the early parts of his papacy, Pope John Paul II delivered a series of Wednesday catechesis talks on spousal love. Built on his reflections of the first chapters of the Book of Genesis and refined during his trips as a young priest and bishop in Cracow, these talks have been coalesced into a systematic series of theology, collectively known as the Theology of the Body…In many ways, Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body gives the theological underpinnings for the teachings expressed in Pope Paul VI’s 1968 Encyclical Humanae Vitae.
However, because of the broad scope of these teachings, there is also an application to the Church’s understanding of the theology of the priesthood, and of one particular aspect of the priesthood in the Latin Rite: celibacy. In fact, John Paul spent an entire section of his Theology of the Body on celibacy, for he saw spousal love and priestly celibacy as complementary; which raises the question of how these two seeming opposites are related.
To answer this question, we have to turn back to Humanae Vitae. In this document on the regulation of birth in marriage, Paul VI has as his basis the recognition that every person is called to a life of fruitfulness, no matter his or her vocation. For married couples, this is naturally through the begetting of children. However, some couples are either incapable of childbearing or are beyond the normal age of childbearing; they are still called to a fruitfulness of life. This also applies to single men and women, as well as to those in a consecrated state of celibacy: men and women religious, priests and bishops. We are all called to give life. John Paul II’s reflections in the Theology of the Body help each one, according to his or her state of life, to recognize that unique way that God makes this invitation.
Read more and see these previous posts.
Music for Your Monday: Love Child
From Diana Ross and the Supremes, a very popular song from 1968 about a young woman foregoing sex because she doesn’t want to risk creating an unwanted “love child.”
Today, instead of “This love we’re contemplatin’/Is worth the pain of waitin’/We’ll only end up hatin’/The child we may be creatin'” we have lyrics like “Let’s go all the way tonight/No regrets, just love/We can dance until we die/You and I/We’ll be young forever” (Katy Perry, Teenage Dream). After all, who worries about “Love Children” anymore? That’s what we’ve got condoms and abortion for!
Love Child lyrics:
Tenement slum
Ooh, ooh, ooh….aaaahhh
You think that I don’t feel love
What I feel for you is real love
In other’s eyes I see reflected
A hurt, scorned, rejected
Love child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Born in poverty
Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Take a look at me
Started my life
In a old, cold, run-down tenament slum (tenement slum)
My father left he never even married mama
I shared the guilt my mama knew
So afraid that others knew I had no name
This love we’re contemplatin’
Is worth the pain of waitin’
We’ll only end up hatin’
The child we may be creatin’
Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
(Scorned by) Society
Love Child
Always second best
Love Child
(Different from) Different from the rest
(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby
(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby
I started school
And a worn, torn dress that somebody threw out
(Somebody threw out)
I knew the way it felt to always live in doubt
To be without the simple things
So afraid my friends would see the guilt in me
Don’t think that I don’t need ya
Don’t think I don’t want to please ya
But no child of mine will be bearing
The name of shame I’ve been wearing
Love Child
Love Child
Never quite as good
Afraid, ashamed
Misunderstood
But I’ll always love you
Always love you
I’ll always love you
Always love you
Cool: Time Lapse Video of 2011 March for Life
From the AirMaria YouTube channel:
What a crowd!! According to the video description the time it took for the March to pass the camera was 1 hour 31 minutes – way to go pro-lifers!!
I like this reaction from someone on Facebook: “Somehow the NY Times missed 400,000 people marching in Washington DC.” It has to be a conscious effort on their part to deliberately NOT cover the event, or belittle its attendance year after year. Personally, that usually doesn’t surprise me as much as the lack of recognition from any of the major conservative talk show hosts (except Laura Ingraham, and Michelle Malkin always covers it on her blog). I’ve heard them make big deals out of Tea Party rallies big and small all over the country, but this is somehow never on their radar…
Recommended: Gov’t Looking Into Pro-Life Stealth Technology – Matt Archibold’s hilarious satire on the lack of March for Life coverage in the media:
The Pentagon is reportedly looking into how these pro-lifers essentially invade a city without anyone noticing. Their hope is to employ such capability to update their own stealth ground attack maneuvers.
7 Quick Takes Friday
Here’s a round-up of some stuff I’ve wanted to post, but haven’t gotten around to lately:
1. Outsourcing Pregnancy: Just Another Job? Jennifer Lahl comments on the modern business of baby making:
Pregnancy has been reduced to a “bits and pieces” brokered industry: sperm from a handsome Scandinavian stud, eggs from a beautiful Ivy League graduate, a womb-for-rent from a poor woman in India trying to provide food and education for her children, and brokers in the middle setting up the legal transactions to build a better baby the 21st-century way.
2. Sally’s Lambs – I don’t remember how I cam across this, but it’s a cute little website with resources to encourage and support birth moms facing unplanned pregnancies.
3. Is MTV’s ‘Skins’ ‘In Danger of Being Canceled’ – Taco Bell, General Motors and H&R Block all withdrew their advertising from the show, it lost half of its viewers by the second episode and some are questioning whether it might actually break child pornography laws. All in all things are not looking too great for the teen drama and I can’t say I’m all that upset about it.
4. Vermont Assisted Suicide Bill the Usual Loophole Scam – Wesley Smith on the push being made in Vermont to legalize assisted suicide.
5. Christian anthropology versus the Sexual Revolution – Peter Kreeft wonders “How does Christ revolutionize the Sexual Revolution?”
6. No More “Mental Retardation.” So? – an excellent column from Cause of Our Joy‘s Leticia Vasquez:
Given the choice, I would prefer my daughter to be called a “retard” and know that abortion of babies with Down syndrome had ceased.
7. The Man Who Loved Women Too Much – meet Harold Cassidy, the lawyer who’s crusading to advance women’s rights—by restricting access to abortion.
Bonus: Just as I finished a round-up of the latest adult stem cell research news, Dr. David Prentice notes an advancement in using cardiac adult stem cells to treat children with heart problems!
New Life in the Midst of Death and Devastation
This is a delightful story (via KJL, photo via army.mil). After trying to help deliver an Afghan woman’s baby for eight hours in northern Kandahar Province’s Khakrez District, it was determined that an emergency c-section was the only way to ensure that both mother and child would survive. Lacking the necessary surgical capabilities at their location, doctors had the woman, along with her husband and mother-in-law, flown to the closest hospital, which happened to be the Coalition-forces-run Kandahar Airfield Role III Hospital. There a healthy 5-pound, 12-ounce baby boy was born 45 minutes after landing.
Said Navy Cmdr. (Dr.) Michael Cackovic, an OB/GYN and periontologist with the KAF Role III Hospital which probably only treats wounded or dying soldiers:
“It’s the first time we’ve done this, and it is pretty amazing…After seeing all the traumas, seeing people who don’t make it, and then to have this life spring out of nowhere it’s a rewarding feeling.”
Cackovic said the operating room was crowded as nurses, doctors and other medical facility servicemembers moved in to help and look on. I can imagine! War is hell, but new life is hope!
The Story Behind the “Precious Feet” Pin
Long before Kermit Gosnell’s sickening collection of baby-feet kicked a nation, another pair of baby-feet inspired what is probably the most widely recognizable pro-life symbol ever (h/t Human Life Matters):
Most precious feet come with the explanation: “The exact size and shape of a baby’s feet 10 weeks after conception.”
Get precious feet material – pins, jewelry, stickers and candy – from Heritage House.