Category Archives: Pro Life

Women at War or War on Women?

In regard to the recent post by Cammy about the military’s offer to freeze the sperm and eggs of soldiers, I feel the need to comment if only to give myself a brief blog item to send to others who are better qualified or better positioned to raise an alarm about this.

In vitro fertilization (IVF), as a means of human reproduction, is an evil use of medical technology which is forbidden by God’s laws. That is not my opinion. That is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Here is a link:

Church teaching on In vitro fertilization

That’s one of the great things about being Catholic. You don’t have to agonize over every moral dilemma that comes along (and new ones come along at a breathtaking pace these days). You don’t have to make all decisions based on your own very imperfect intelligence, knowledge, feelings and judgment. Some things have already been decided for you. Save yourself the effort and the grave danger of getting it wrong. Believe what the Church teaches and live by it.

Here is the link to the recent speech by Defense Secretary Ash Carter outlining the new programs to “support our military families.” Many good Catholics who are strongly pro-llfe and pro-family still hold the American military and government in high esteem. I beg them to read Mr. Carter’s speech carefully and then get back to me.

Force of the Future

The Force of the Future apparently requires the Family of the Future. Within the past year or two we have seen several rapid fire developments. Women can not only join the military but they are now able to engage in combat. They may even be required to register for the draft and forced to fight for the American Empire in the near future. Furthermore, in order to make all this more palatable, the Pentagon will now assist and encourage women to freeze their eggs and then provide the IVF technology to let potential moms serve the State first, and postpone having a family to a more convenient time. Evil on top of evil on top of evil. The military is not merely reflecting the evil in society, it is here acting as an innovator of evil in the cultural realm and it has specifically targeted young women and is now waging war against femininity and natural law.

Where are the Catholic priests and bishops, the Catholic fathers and grandfathers? Who will stand up to this? 

Please readers, if you find examples of Catholic voices that condemn this atrocity let us know about it.

Doug Fuda

 

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid!

Gradually the truth about the enormity of the evil which the U.S. has unleashed upon the world is penetrating the consciousness of Americans. We need to have a national conversation about what has happened and perhaps the passage of time and the breathtaking collapse of American government illusions about the “success” of its Middle Eastern policies have given us an opportunity to reflect.

Here is an another example of the evidence which is mounting that our government leaders had numerous warnings about the dangers which they chose to ignore:

South Africa Told Bush, Blair That Iraq Had No WMDs

According to the author of a new book, in 2003 both South African President Mbeki and former President Nelson Mandela tried to warn Bush and Blair that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The Guardian reports that

“He [Mbeki] warned that the wholesale removal of Saddam’s Ba’ath party could lead to a national resistance to the occupying coalition forces. But with huge military deployments already under way, Blair’s mind was clearly made up.”

And here’s the latest from Mike Flynn, former head of DIA. Flynn expresses regret in an interview over the invasion of Iraq. He describes U.S. policy and actions variously as a “mistake,” a “strategic failure,” a “huge error.” Flynn says that “History will not be and should not be kind with that decision.”  A Catholic looking at the story without blinders on might well conclude that it was pure evil, not just a mistake, and that this evil U.S. policy led directly and inexorably to the rise of Islamic State.

Want to know where ISIS came from? Take some time and watch and read this report from the Guardian about what was happening in Iraq from 2004-2006.

“Petraeus and Steele would unleash this local force on the Sunni population as well as the insurgents and their supporters and anyone else who was unlucky enough to get in the way. It was classic counterinsurgency. It was also letting a lethal, sectarian genie out of the bottle. The consequences for Iraqi society would be catastrophic. At the height of the civil war two years later 3,000 bodies a month were turning up on the streets of Iraq — many of them innocent civilians of sectarian war.”

Is it possible for an entire nation to repent for its sins? We need to find out fast because that is the only possible chance for saving America. Being an optimist by nature, I think it can happen if Catholics lead the way. But the surest way to short circuit the process is to advocate a new American all out war and invasion to “degrade and destroy” ISIS. Do you think that might be what the “Father of Lies” has prescribed for the world at this time? The Army of the Head Choppers against the Army of the Baby Choppers. Be afraid, be very afraid! But pray all the time, be Catholic all the time, and never give in to despair.

Addiction and Recovery

The following was written by Paul Nyklicek, a Catholic, husband, father, psychotherapist and frequent visitor to CAM. We thank him for this contribution to our blog.

****

Recovery is the most natural response to any state of addiction. Addiction is a process of diminishing returns. It is a downward spiral into destruction and dehumanization. In active addiction one loses one’s sense of real identity and a kind of false identity takes its place. Who you are and what you have is never enough. There is a persistent desire for “more” in the pursuit of a satisfaction that is never realized.

At this point it is not necessary to pose the question as to whether, as a society, we are addicted to violence. It is painfully obvious that we are. The question is: How many different ways is our violence manifested? If we really stop and think about it we come up with quite a long list. If we view violence in its various forms as an addictive “drug” (it doesn’t take that much imagination to see this) then it is apparent that the corporate media serves as the ubiquitous “dealers” for the general population. In some form or another, violence is dispensed like Halloween candy to eager trick-or-treaters on a continual basis. The corporate media consistently presents violence as the problem started by the Bad Guys and as problem-solving when perpetrated by the Good Guys. The “product” is presented, packaged, and sold in the most seductive possible way to make the point that one is either stupid or a loser or both if you don’t buy what they are selling. Who wouldn’t want to feel the exhilaration of dominance, desirability, and superiority?

If you are a modern, sophisticated consumer you accept the Establishment’s framing of reality. This is a framework that extolls the “virtue” of fighting and killing for the “just cause” of Our Side. It extolls the “virtue” of committing state-sanctioned murder in the proclaimed defense of Our Way of Life and our “freedom”. We must kill Them over there so They can’t kill Us over here.

This is a framed reality that depicts Us as the innocent victims and Them as the inhuman psychotic killers who cannot be reasoned with and therefore must be exterminated. In this way the Home Team is justified in getting the job done by any means necessary.

Collateral damage? That’s just the cost of doing business.

And this is a very big business. A lot of people are making a lot of money from this “drug”. How much money do weapons manufacturers make every year? How much money is made from the sale of violent computer video games? How much money does Hollywood make from its war movies, its comic book superhero movies, and its crime dramas? How much money do television networks and their advertisers make from all their programs depicting “good-guy vs. bad-guy” stories where someone has to die in spectacular fashion? This is “must see TV”!

Yes, these “drug dealers” are making quite a killing. Violence is a kind of methamphetamine for the human ego. This “narcotic” deludes a person into believing that he or she has a god-like power to control others or the environment and is entitled to do so. This is true of an individual ego, a national ego, and true of the ego of a corporation. In each case the ego becomes so “super-sized” that the person, nation or corporation equates themselves with God. Believing in our own entitlement and in our own “benevolence”, any means to the “sanctified” end is justified. In this way any killing, maiming or institutionalized oppression is standard operating procedure.

What if we choose to be modern, sophisticated people who do not accept the framed reality as marketed by the Powers That Be? What if we recognize the “Halloween candy” as the addictive drug it really is? What if we admit our own addiction to violence in its many forms? What if we decide that enough is enough and that we need to stop it here and now?

Just as All the King’s Horses and All the King’s Men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again after his fall, there is no Magic Politician who will make us whole and healthy. There is no Enchanted Political System that will save us from ourselves. All of us fallen addicts need to put ourselves back together again. It’s our responsibility. In our active addiction to violence we have forgotten who we are and if we are to recover we must start remembering who we are. We need to re-member ourselves. We need to put ourselves back together again. We need to be more of who we really are.

As addicts, we need to continually recover from this particular addiction. In this recovery process we can become free of our delusions of righteous omnipotence. We can let go of the fantasy that we are Zeus administering justice by hurling thunderbolts from the top of Mount Olympus. Instead we can be real human beings. We can embrace what is real and genuinely good about ourselves. We can reclaim our birthright as people of honest love.

It’s time to find out what this kind of recovery looks like.

–Paul Nyklicek

 

Planned Parenthood and the US Government — Partners in Crime

LargeRonPaul

[this article by Ron Paul contains important lessons for Catholics and all pro-life folks. I made a couple of paragraphs bold because they are particularly relevant to both the anti-abortion and the anti-militarism cause — Doug] 

Politics Is Not the Path to Pro-Life Victory
by Ron Paul

During my time in Congress, I regularly introduced legislation forbidding organizations that perform abortions from receiving federal funding. The US Government should not force taxpayers to subsidize an activity they believe is murder. Thus, while I was horrified by the recently released videos showing Planned Parenthood officials casually discussing selling the organs of aborted babies, I am glad that the reaction to these videos has renewed efforts to end federal funding of abortion.

My experience in Congress does not leave me optimistic that federal funding of Planned Parenthood will be ended this year, however. This is not just because the current US president is pro-abortion. When I started my efforts to end taxpayer support of abortion, I was shocked to find out how many Republicans, including some self-described “pro-life” leaders, were unsupportive of, and sometimes hostile to, my efforts.

Most pro-life politicians preferred to add language to funding bills prohibiting federal funds from being used for abortions, rather than denying federal funds to abortion providers. This approach does not stop US taxpayers from subsidizing abortions. The reason is that money is fungible. Giving Planned Parenthood $100 to use for non-abortion activities allows it to spend an additional $100 of its non-government funds on abortion.

Foreign interventionists in both parties were particularly hostile to my efforts to eliminate federal funding for international organizations that performed or promoted abortions. This is a foolish policy that gives people around the globe another reason to resent the US government.

Planned Parenthood may have abandoned the explicitly racist and eugenic views of its founder Margaret Sanger, but the majority of its abortion “services” are still provided to lower-income and minority women. Every day nearly 2,000 African-American babies lose their lives to abortion, a rate five times higher than the Caucasian abortion rates.

I support the black lives matter movement. I have long advocated an end to the drug war, police militarization, and other threats to liberty that disproportionately victimize African-Americans. However, I wish some of the black lives matter movement’s passion and energy was directed to ending abortion. Unborn black lives also matter.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to permit, fund, or even outlaw abortion. Therefore, efforts to make abortion a federal crime are just as unconstitutional as efforts to prohibit states from outlawing abortion. A Congress that truly cared about the Constitution would end all federal funding for abortion and pass legislation restricting federal jurisdiction over abortion, thus returning the issue to the states.

While passing legislation may help limit abortion, the pro-life movement will never succeed unless it changes people’s attitudes toward the unborn. This is why crisis pregnancy centers, which provide care and compassion to women facing unplanned pregnancies, have done more to advance the pro-life cause then any politician. By showing women they have viable alternatives to abortion, these centers have saved many lives.

One factor hindering the anti-abortion movement’s ability to change people’s minds is that too many abortion opponents also support a militaristic foreign policy. These pro-lifers undercut their moral credibility as advocates for unborn American lives when they display a callous indifference to the lives of Iraqi, Iranian, and Afghan children.

Libertarians who support abortion should ask themselves how they can expect a government that does not respect the unborn’s right to life to respect their property rights. Therefore, all those who wish to create a society of liberty, peace, and prosperity should join me in advocating for a consistent ethic of life and liberty that respects the rights of all persons, born and unborn.

Copyright © 2015 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. 

Here is the link to the original article:

Politics Is Not the Path to Pro-Life Victory

Before Roe v. Wade…

Before Roe v. Wade,

….there was the Eugenic Protection Act.

World War II is often called The Good War and is widely accepted by Catholics as being the best modern example of a “just war.” But what should we think when a just war is fought with unjust means? Or has evil results?

When I was a kid, my friends and I (all boys, of course) were infatuated with WW II. Many of our fathers had fought in that war and Hollywood promoted it endlessly in exciting movies about heroic American and Brit efforts to defeat “the Krauts and the Japs.” We saw every movie and TV show and even knew the details of the fascinating weaponry that was employed by the American infantrymen, whom we emulated in our play.

But all of us kids were Catholics, and I’ll never forget how one day that made us different. In grammar school a nun told the class about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how Catholic morality condemned those acts of war because the American decision makers had deliberately targeted non-combatants and the innocent. At one point we were even assigned to read John Hersey’s book, Hiroshima, and that was the beginning for me of a lifetime of skepticism about war and the U.S. Government.

The bombings were and still are the two greatest single acts of terrorism in history. But the aftermath of the war also brought into the world another instance of targeted killing of the innocent. It is a lesser known episode but it has had an ongoing worldwide impact which is arguably a greater threat to mankind than the advent of nuclear weapons.

In 1948, during the time of the American post-war military occupation, Japan legalized abortion. The enabling law was called the Eugenic Protection Act and, according to a book written in 2011 by Mara Hvistendahl, it was allowed and encouraged by the occupying force, under Supreme Commander General Douglas MacArthur. Continue reading

Christians and the Pro-Life Ploy

Christians and the Pro-Life Ploy

A classic essay by G.C. Dilsaver. Don’t miss it. Here is an excerpt:

“…The Christian single-issue advocates are in effect, if not always in intent, minimalists and compromisers. What they are urging is what a functional conscience with but the slightest sense of natural law and moral rectitude would urge. These single-issue Christians fail to see the bigger picture, the essence of the evil itself, because they compartmentalize their faith. It is safer than living that faith out in its totality and it is safely political and issue-oriented rather than dangerously militant and prophetic. Being pro-life becomes militant and prophetic, it becomes heroic and a personal encounter with Christ Crucified, most especially for those who endure a pregnancy that is somehow tragic. But for most of us being pro-life remains an issue, even the banner issue of our conservative politics and our Christian faith.

But Christianity can’t be reduced down to issues or politics. It isn’t liberation theology nor neo-conservatism nor dispensationalism, all of which fall under the category of a semi- or anti-Christianity. Not only is Christianity not merely political, it is not merely moral. You can’t reduce the faith down to a moral code much less one moral position, no matter how serious that position is. To do so does irreparable damage to that faith and, as such, best assures the defeat of the moral position one advocates.

Means and Ends

In traditional Christian morality a good end never justifies an evil means, and even if it did an evil means never procures a good end that lasts. A strikingly relevant case in point was the Fascist government in Italy. Mussolini’s state banned abortion, birth control, and homosexuality activity. As a Catholic I hold these things as intrinsically evil and their curtailment good. However, supporters of Italian fascism, even those who supported it primarily for the advancement of these moral issues, are responsible for facilitating a cataclysmic evil. This evil culminated in Catholics sheepishly submitting to national conscription and participation in an unjust and horrifying war. In addition, it led to the subsequent weakening of Catholic culture, morals, and faith in Italy and to the final eradication of European Christendom. The result now being a de-Christianized Italy that fully accepts those very moral issues some sought to address by compromising with the fascist regime. If even a fraction of the effort and sacrifice that was squandered by Italian and other Catholics in World War II had instead been brought to missionary efforts the world would be looking at the rebirth of Christendom rather than its demise.

Moral decadence always comes in the wake of war…”

Continue reading here.

 

 

Go Nebraska!

Shout out to my home state!

“A growing coalition of liberals, religious groups, and libertarian-minded conservatives overcame more traditional…Republicans” in Nebraska: and abolished the death penalty.

Here’s hoping that similar coalitions can form a new antiwar movement. Everything that Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty has to say about this barbaric practice can be said about our “wars”:

“It’s not pro-life because it risks innocent life. It’s not fiscally responsible because it costs millions…At the end of the day, it’s another big government program that’s really dangerous and expensive but doesn’t achieve any of its goals.”

Quotes from How Nebraska Abolished the Death Penalty, The Atlantic, May 27, 2015

good life