I would add that Trump is not widely expected to win. The latest batch of polling shows Trump barely ahead of Biden, and not much different than it has been for much of the year. A squeak-by advantage well within the margin of error.
Perhaps that is good news, and shows social and Christian conservatives saying enough. Maybe Christians and others who value the Life movement are saying , they have debased themselves and held their noses for eight years. But they will not simply act like sheep and push the appropriate button as Trump moves to diminish opposition to one of the most critical moral crises in modern history.
Trump was never a conservative by any stretch. The Left portrayed him, as it does all enemies, as a far right neo-Nazi misogynistic racist. But in honesty, Trump in many things has been left of center, especially regarding animal pleasures. Why the sudden party platform shift, I don't know. I do know I've heard little push-back from conservatives - social, Christian, Catholic or otherwise. And nothing will play up to the 'lie of the pro-life movement' more than standing by as that movement is chipped away at by the GOP while handing over votes in due order.
It might just be time that we accept the end of the Christian era and a new phase in the history of the Faithful. It's not time to compromise the Faith to stay loyal to a party that has never really wanted us in the first place, and increasingly is making that clear under the leadership of Donald Trump.
Choose God and choose life. Embrace the Gospel. Flee the hellish culture of death that sees life as important only when expedient. Carl Olson chose well:
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day,
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose
life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God,
obeying his voice, and clinging to him; for that means life to you and length
of days... "
Whew. I have never seen our polling location this busy. Not even in the most voted on election in human history in 2020. And issue in question has been in Brit papers, Euro news and of course the US national press. It's about - Issue 1. The only issue on a midterm August special election ballot. And it was a madhouse. In our little corner of voting world, it's the first time we have ever had to wait in line.
What's the issue? Let me 'splain. A couple years ago, coming out of the lockdowns when the School Board Battles were taking off, a bunch of transgender activists went to our statehouse and tried to play the 'save our trans kids from parents' card. The local press jumped on the story and ran with it in the same way: if we let parents interfere, then what choice will our children have but to kill themselves? And we can't have that!
Fortunately, a GOP dominated state government didn't let it see the light of day. And in the midterms, when the GOP underperformed in several states, Ohio gushed red over almost the entire state in a conservative tsunami. Same as with Florida, where the issue of sexing up our kids, surgically altering them, and keeping parents in the street seem to be winning issues for Republicans.
Well, after that the SCOTUS dropped the Roe bomb and ushered in the new Terror - at least to hear the Left. Sadly, the Pro-Life movement seemed content with resting on its laurels for a while as the pro-abortion rights movement prepared to storm the beaches. The first big warning shot came in Kansas when Kansas voters struck down a much underreported attempt to enshrine pro-life policies in the Kansas constitution.
Being Buckeyes, we realized the same can't happen here. First, as soon as the abortion rights movement began pushing an amendment for abortion, conservatives effectively tied it to the same push we saw with the transgender activists only months earlier. Which isn't altogether unfair if you think on it. Second, the GOP moved to change our constitution to make it harder to amend the constitution in the first place. Finally we made darn sure to get the word out, even if Issue 1 itself was a little late in the promoting.
What is Issue 1? Right now, Ohio is one of the few states where the state constitution can be amended with a vote of 50% plus 1 on citizen and legislature-initiated referendums. Plus, currently to get an amendment push going, you need only obtain signatures from half of Ohio's counties. This issue, Issue 1, would require a 60% vote to amend the constitution, and would require signatures from all 88 counties in order to get the proposal to move forward.
Naturally, its' really about abortion, transgender activism, parent's rights, and basically the growing rift between the Left's vision for America and those who don't accept that vision. The pro-abortion movement already has an amendment enshrining abortion rights on the November ballot. What will be required to get the constitution amended will therefore depend on what happens today.
For me it's very simple. Do we want pagan America, where life is precious or dirt cheap when certain people at certain times decide so? Or is life precious and we work in our state's priorities accordingly? Obviously, no matter how people articulate it, they get this is important. That's why for the first time since we've been voting in our cavernous poling place we had to wait in line in the middle of the day. We'll see.
The reason for her proposal? Apparently it's bad when women are dissuaded from aborting their pregnancies. Because, you know, nobody is actually pro-abortion:
The centers, also referred to as pregnancy resource centers, claim to provide comprehensive women's heath care - while their true, and often religiously-inspired, mission is to halt women from going through with an abortion.
Once again, we are reminded that while some doctors, intellectuals and scientists fled from, or bravely resisted, the Nazi Party in Germany, most happily stayed and did the Party's bidding. After all, we know Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers never encourage women to have abortions. That's why they aren't unethical. Thus says the ethics of the AMA.
I especially like the subtle assumption that the real deal breaker and scary quote should be the 'religious' part of the centers' missions. Yep. When did we used to think that scholars and scientists and doctors are perforce objective seekers of truth and goodness and good will discourse? Are we past that yet?
Anyhoo, Ms. Warren puts the lie to the old 'pro-abortion activists care about women and babies' talking point. Like most things liberal, they care - when convenient. The moral grounding of post-war liberalism is that it's true only if convenient, and people matter only if convenient. Hence the MSM attempts to assure Americans that hope is around the corner and things could always be worse where the economy is concerned - because a liberal Democrat is in the White House. Or the monthly ignoring of the horrible rates of murder within the American black community. Again, doesn't help the narrative.
The funny part is that this also shows the lie of the pro-abortion activists who insist abortion opponents don't care about women or babies. By calling these centers out, it shows the world that someone may actually care about and work for the well being of women and children, even if they oppose abortion. They just don't do so in accordance with the Left's dogmas.
Yet for the Left, that last part is enough and all that matters. If you saved a million babies from starving, it would be as filthy rags if your charity failed to align with secular liberal dogma. I'm shocked at how many Christians appear to have warmed up to this little sleight of hand. And yet, a brief survey of Church history should make me wonder why I'm shocked.
Yep. Succinct and true. We allowed, if not encouraged, America's womenfolk to abort over 60 million pregnancies in the course of a few generations in order to sustain our modern sex and drugs culture. And we did this despite the rise of AIDS and tens of millions of lives otherwise lost or ruined to our unchecked debauchery. Of course women were already aborting pregnancies before Roe, and those numbers had been increasing. They increased pretty much in line with our post-war acceptance of a post-Christian era that would see whatever good lessons we tried to learn from WWII corrupted by the promise of a rampant narcissistic world. A world where life ends when I say so, but my life never ends because everything is everyone else's fault. A paganized message oddly embraced by no small number of Christians.
Bishop Barron gets to the point, nonetheless, and reminds us of the horror we've lived through. A horror that, unlike a Second World War, has been easily ignored by so many. And unlike the Second World War, where the world at least tried to learn a lesson or two, even now we're seeing millions fight to make sure we learn nothing at all from our abortion culture. We're seeing them fight to keep piling on the bodies of aborted babies to sustain a cultural decadence that has piled on its own bodies by the tens of millions.
They say the very existence of the Jewish people is proof of God's existence. If that's the case, then the very fact that our post-Christian society still exists is more than ample proof of this God's longsuffering grace.
I have no clue who Mr. Horn is. I think I've heard the name. But I saw multiple reactions against this, especially from leftwing Catholics all about gun control and government policy as our only hope.
In fairness to them, however, they are right in saying Mr. Horn is wrong. Those who have said gun violence is a pro-life issue are spot on correct. Even if they run with it to push political agendas and ignore the obvious social and spiritual ailments we are watching bear fruit in our society, they are right about that.
Anything that involves aiding, preserving and saving the lives of God's children is a pro-life issue. That doesn't mean, however, that it follows Gun Control is a pro-life issue. Nope. That is a vague term representing one possible solution. Or maybe it isn't a possible solution. Or maybe there are policies that fall under 'gun control' that are worth looking at, while others are not. But a given political solution is not necessarily pro-life. Something we need to understand. Politicians may enjoy equating their particular party with the Thrice-Holy, but we Christians should avoid such leaps. Thus:
If you think the problem is with only one party, you're the problem.
I have been pleasantly surprised that many pro-lifers are expressing the notion that “the real work starts now.”
It's likely you've spent too much time taking pro-abortion talking points at face value. Because the false pro-abortion narrative that abortion opponents don't care about anyone (including even the unborn) is a boldface lie. I've not been in a church since I became Christian that didn't do what it could to help the unborn, the born, the mother and, sometimes when they're really crazy, the father as well.
Just once I'd like to see someone repeating that lie provide actual stats showing that pro-life activists don't care, or care less than pro-abortion activists. Oh, and that doesn't include the old slick trick of assuming liberal economic and social policies are the only path to salvation, so anyone who disagrees must hate poor people and minorities.
BTW, I don't care for this sort of thing either:
Unfortunately, I’ve also seen some self-described pro-lifers celebrating the news in a triumphalist and callous way.
Triumphalism? Over the possibility of hindering the wholesale mass slaughter of unborn children (Biden's words)? Please. As if the other side is all about humility and modest discourse. To my eyes, it's the usual 'Gee, I must find something bad to say about the opponents of death.' That always strikes me as the first step toward entering the modernity camp of death and debauchery. Plus, if I'm going to be triumphalist or callous in my reaction to something, let it be over the possibility of saving innocent life.
Nonetheless, the old 'of course the Left can fire verbal nukes at dissenters, but how dare you fire a pea-shooter in return' template is another way of saying we're really on the side of the nuke shooters. I don't think the faithful should do what we call wrong just to win. I do think, however we should be honest about what we're fighting and stop acting like tea cosies and lace napkins are the appropriate response to an assault by Tiger tanks.
If the good Dr. Gabriel actually wants the forces of good to succeed, then please stop embracing the usual approaches of failure that have defined so much of the children of light over the last many generations. That couldn't help but be a good place to start.
I read that and thought just how many miserable failures those who have stood on the side of Life and Truth have endured. When did we allow the world the upper hand in the abortion debate? When did we allow the pro-abortion activists to frame the narrative so that the above story seems like some freakish exception to the rule, rather than the decent, common sense choice it was?
This weird idea that if we give people more money, they'll stop sinning, is one of the most stupid in our world today. And that's a world we're people insist men can have babies.
You don't need more money, you need to do the right thing. Poor or rich. Nothing wrong with helping people and finding ways to reach out a charitable hand. But believing that she had every right to abort her child because she was poor, or excusing such an act because she was poor, is propaganda from the pits of Hell. That so many Church leaders appear to accept the premise is why her story comes off as some oddity, rather than run of the mill common goodness.
God bless this young woman. Note how God was able to work through her choices to elevate her and bless her. If she would have accepted the New Prolife Catholic idea that her finances and situation in life make aborting her child completely understandable, how different would her life - and the world - be for it?
Of course not. By now, insisting that the current vaccines will Stop the Spread or End Covid is like insisting the moon is made of cheese. As I said here, when more people in the ICU with Covid have been vaccinated than are unvaccinated, it's time to pull the ripcord on the sales pitch. That is true even if they manage to find just the right stat that keeps the narrative alive.
By now medical pros are admitting there needs to be a different approach to the vaccines than the current one, along with reports showing that other measures for fighting Covid may have done more harm than good. You just can't keep screaming 'GET THE SHOT NOW!' and not sound like Trelane at the end of The Squire of Gothos.
That Mark chose not to pray with the marchers despite disagreements, but attack them with unchristian vitriol and character assassination, along with his his usual broadsides against his typical bogeyman villains, is a shame. Such is "apologetics" in the Internet age I suppose.
Mark's version of being authentically New Prolife:
Mark is, sadly, not alone. Echoing the Left's general premise that it's impossible not to be a leftist and not be a stupid racist, one of Mark's old Patheos mentors chimes in with similar thoughts:
Note the condemnation of someone daring to suggest Catholics should not be partisan thralls. Heh. That's always made me laugh, the old 'Stop being divisive and conform to my party!'. Note also that there is nothing Ms. Keating said that that suggests she claims Pro-Life means pure and sinless living. Putting words into people's mouths being another old favorite. I'll assume that he also sees no racism, impoverishment or oppression on his particular side of the tracks? Hard to say. I doubt saying it would do any good anyway.
FWIW, I was sent this picture while getting ready to post this:
It's our former priest, braving wind chills in the single digits to pray for an end the extermination of unborn babies by the tens of millions to slake our lust for an endless drugs and sex culture in the age of AIDS. I don't normally post pics of non-family who we know, just because. But it was a wonderful shot of devotion to God's abiding care for the least of these. As for me and my house, we'll gladly side with our former priest's Catholicism rather than that thing Conway and Shea call Catholicism.
Laura Klassen is an underappreciated gem in the fight for life. Brash and sassy, she's willing to say what no man could say, and what few people in general are willing to say. Thank you Christian leadership.
Initially she made a splash with several videos mocking the pro-abortion rights talking points we've come to accept as gospel truth. \
Ouch.
But she's moved on by making sure time and effort goes to helping expectant mothers and new mothers and their babies. Of course it's a lie that pro-life advocates don't care about the mom or child after birth. Are there any stats or research to suggest this is true? It doesn't matter. It's something pro-abortion rights activists say as if it's a mantra.
I don't know tech stuff, and can't link to her Facebook page but by this. I don't know if it will get you there or not. But you can get to her FB page and go from there. Click the links and you'll see a way to help these, and other, babies and moms. It's not just giving money, but purchasing needed items for the individuals in question. From what I can tell, in this case the only thing needed that hasn't been taken care of is a small freezer.
This isn't being done just to stick it in the eye of abortion rights allies. After all, most post-orthodox Christians allying with pro-abortion activists thrive on simply ignoring inconvenient people like Ms. Klassen anyway. I've gone to several New Prolife Catholic sites to see how they address Ms. Klassen's work, and have yet to find a single reference.
This is just about helping if you can. It's what we should do. And that's why we do it, as well as fight for life.
If you mean march for Life, then I believe they would be thrilled. I don't think many would care about the skin color of marchers for life.
Now, if you would have people out marching only for the lives of certain skin colors, then I'd like to think most Catholics - if not most people - would shy away from that. Especially if the justification for such a segregated approach to a march for life was suspect at best.
And more courageous than most who wear the label 'pro-life advocate.'
The Pro-Life movement, which is not a heresy, has certainly got its work cut out. We live in an age where old understandings of human life and its value are being overturned by forces with no concern about human life or its value at all, unless it befits the individual in question. Hence the nations banning capital punishment are generally the same ones falling over themselves to broaden abortion rights, suicide rights, and flirting with euthanasia for the worst of these. Those who align with this modern culture of death are left with repeating the lies and slanders used by pro-abortion activists against those who would protect the least of these.
One lie is that pro-lifers don't give a rip about poor mothers or starving babies. As much as I've asked for stats to back up that claim, I've never had anyone provide me with the data to prove it. And as if to make sure that lie is shown for the BS it is, Ms. Klassen does yeoman's work making sure mothers-to-be of any stripe are taken care of and new mothers and new babies are cared for to the best of our abilities.
So for instance:
I don't know how to link to the Amazon page. Here is a link to her Facebook account, and perhaps you can go from there. It might be a widow's mite. But it's nice for Christian allies of the pro-abortion movement to remember Christ was rather silent on Rome's various measures used to maintain the Pax Romana. He did, on the other hand, have great praise for that widow who gave what she could to the cause. So as we celebrate that birth of births, here's a chance to help other births that are precious in the eyes of God, even if they rank lower in our modern godless nation.
And just because these little gems say what most religious leaders are scared to say, here's another reminder of Ms. Klassen's fine (and witty) work for life:
Laura Klassen is a small, shining star in the darkness of our current era of death. If the WHO is to be believed, the number of abortions performed in the last 50 years across the world - assuming numbers are more or less consistent year after year - would top 1.5 billion. Let that sink in. That's STEM for you folks. That's our modern era. That's the era that made the first half of the 20th Century that included two industrial world wars and the holocaust the more pro-life half of the century.
We all know the lion's share of the abortions is to support the modern women's movement and the sex and drugs revolution that opened the gate to over 40 million dead from HIV/AIDS, tens of millions dead from recreational drugs, not to mention endless millions upon millions of lives wrecked and ruined by STDs, broken homes and relationships, skyrocketing suicide and drug dependency rates ... need I go on?
It's probably not a stretch to say in the last half century we have caused more slaughter, death, suffering and misery than any period in human history - perhaps than all the periods of human history combined - all in order to get high and laid. Quite an accomplishment for the most educated generation that has ever lived.
Yes, that is our legacy. That is what future ages will look back upon and judge. If there is any justice, they will judge us as mercilessly and ruthlessly as we spend our time judging those who came before us. This is also what God no doubt sees. I would like to think He looks past the clever arguments courtesy of our snappy undergrad diplomas, past our Netflix and our latest smartphones, past our Facebook postering and media punditry, and sees the souls of hundreds of millions of murdered, aborted and dead innocents laid upon the altar of our libidos.
Now, it takes a certain golly-gee-wiz to have this as your generational accomplishment and yet see yourselves as the intellectual apex of cognitive evolution and the moral and ethical hub of godlike perfection around which the universe will forever turn. In fact, so vast is the yawning chasm between the high opinion we have of ourselves and the cataclysmic disaster we have visited on the world and the future, you know there has to be some pretty creative BS involved in our reasoning and rationalizations behind it all.
For instance, you have the abortion culture that casts a long shadow over unprecedented loneliness, hopelessness, regular mass killings and school shootings, drug addiction and suicide among even our children as young as ten years old. In America, our womenfolk alone have aborted over 60 million pregnancies just to prove what giving women equality will accomplish. Most sexed up men with no particular religious commitments approve this development. This is what the godless and the modernists defend, promote, blame others for, or excuse.
The most shocking thing, however, are all of those who outwardly condemn this and even say it's bad, but then fully support the theories, ideas, policies, whimsical fairy thinking and idiocy that has brought us here. More to the point, they actually support those who openly and proudly support this culture of death and blasphemous debauchery.
How do they do this? How do they insist, for instance, that they are 'whole life' this or 'new prolife' that and yet throw themselves in an alliance behind the forces, movements and people who are entirely dedicated to this era of holocaust for sex?
Well, among other things, they lie. Or at least they accept the lies of the Father of Lies who is no doubt behind these developments. They accept the premises behind the abortion culture, the feminist culture, the godless culture of hedonism and narcissism that has brought us to the top of Mount Carcass. They repeat the lies whenever they need to justify their allegiance with such an openly naked assault on the sanctity of God's creation.
One of the most common lies is that those outraged at the carnage we are witnessing really don't care. In fact, they don't care about the unborn at all. They just hate women. Or perhaps they do care about the unborn and don't merely use them as human shields, but they certainly don't care about children and babies or mothers or anyone once they are born.
This is largely political rhetoric of the old 'not God but only our party's horses and chariots can save us' mentality. You can't possibly care if you don't support our obviously infallible solutions. But whatever, it's an effective way of putting those who look across the almost two billion lives cut short by our sex drives on the defensive.
It's a lie of course. There is actually quite a body of stats and studies suggesting that when it comes to charity, giving, helping others and devoting oneself to the least of these, those who fall in line with the anti-abortion movement - conservatives, Christians and yes, pro-life Americans - are among the most giving and caring there are.
I'm willing to dismiss such studies and concede that, in the end, it likely doesn't make much difference which groups people belong to. Chances are that abortion activists, liberal Democrats and atheists are as giving and caring of babies, mothers, poor people and others as conservatives, Christians, and pro-life Americans, and vice versa. I'm willing to concede that point.
There is therefore no reason for anyone - pro-abortion, New Prolife Catholic, or even pope - to assume that merely questioning the political and socioeconomic policies of certain political parties negates the goodness of people or makes it likely they don't care about anyone but themselves. Fact is, there is no real or factual reason to believe a person against abortion is any less giving or willing to help others - including babies and moms - than anyone else. Unless you believe it is only the horses and chariots of a single political movement and nothing else that can truly save, it is a false accusation.
Assuming not, then we must concede that the oft repeated mantra that 'they oppose abortion but don't care about moms or babies' is simply a lie. Plain and simple. And Ms. Klassen is one of the most visible examples out there to show the lie. Though she's known for her clever and quirky videos that take pro-abortion arguments and shove them back down the abortion culture's throat with a candle on it, in truth much of her industry is centered around helping pregnant moms and new moms and their babies. Just like conservatives, Christians, Americans and anti-abortion activists I've known have done for years.
She has a public platform, and is able to gather help from a wide variety of sources when she isn't fighting being shut down by the Tech Empire. May God bless her efforts and all who have repeatedly risen to the occasion when she has called out for help for struggling moms or children. There are many ways to help many people, and if allowed to go about our ways, most people will rise to the occasion. Heck, sometimes those who are giving don't even go to church! I'd like to think that's the beautiful spark of the Divine in all of us.
But if God ever breathes life into this valley of bones and rotting corpses that our modern era of STEM and educated celebrity worship has accumulated, it will be through the works of those like Ms. Klassen. Sadly, at times it is Christians, believers, even the ones committed to stopping the abortion era carnage that she runs up against the most. They won't be the ones future generations who survive our age will remember fondly.
Ms. Klassen going where most brave defenders of life's sanctity fear to tread.
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many bones in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Ezekiel 37.1-3.
Ah, consistent pro-life ethic. That's a phrase tossed about, usually by Catholics who cleave unto the Left of the political center. What it typically means is that you can't be pro-life and also challenge the horses and chariots of the Political Left at the same time. Like many things in the progressive camp, it's a slick way of herding the conversation along a one way road. You either agree, or you're not pro-life.
Now, the hirlairty is that those doing so are as often as not fully supportive of a political movement that defines itself by promoting and supporting the Sexual Revolution, the abortion culture, and increasingly such goodies as embryonic stem cell research (remember that?), legal assisted suicide, post-birth abortions (AKA infanticide) and even dipping their toes in the pool of euthanasia. Add to that its embrace of modern racism and racial based evaluation of human worth, and you wouldn't think there is much pro-life there.
But the NPLCs are able to pull upon the secular, progressive belief that there are no sinners but that corrupt and oppressive social structures make it so. Therefore, if anyone does have abortions, indulge in sexual deviancy, rape, pillage, murder - it must be the fault of 'The Man' (things valued by Conservatives). And it's only the horses and chariots of the Political Left that can possibly save us from The Man.
That's a brief look at how they do it. What it boils down to is a radically inconsistent pro-life ethic disguised as anything but. The real strange irony in all of this is that one of the frequent targets of the NPLCs is a young lass named Lila Rose. Ms. Rose exploded on the national stage for going undercover and exposing the murderous profiteering of Planned Parenthood. Almost overnight, good Faithful Catholics decided that the best thing to do was fret over the dishonest means necessary for an undercover operation that discovered the evils beneath Planned Parenthood's murderous industry, than focus on the evils beneath Planned Parenthood's murderous industry.
Since then, she has largely been ignored, or occasionally blasted, for daring to suggest things like undercover work is acceptable, or that you can't be prolife and support a party whose platform is dedicated to falling on the sword and throwing the least of these under the bus so that abortion can be santificed and expanded in all possible ways. Go figure.
Anyhoo, I find Ms. Rose, far more than most Catholics who try to bake that Kosher Ham of Leftist Catholicism, to be authentically and consistently pro-life. That doesn't mean I agree with her all the time, or even her approach to things. One doesn't need to agree with me to pass the 'righteousness' test. I look at why she says and does what she says and does, and hold it up to other things she's stood for and against. And in that, she's far more authentic and reliable than many of her NPLC critics.
So here are a few tweets of hers I saw populate on another site that illustrate the point.
Yep. Trump is not my cup of tea. I get that he is the one bulwark against the pseudo-communist juggernaut, but that still doesn't mean he's not a fistfull of problems. Continuing to blame everyone else for failing to cut such funding is no different than Obama blaming everyone else for his anemic recovery. I get why it's happened. I'm certainly not inconsistent or stupid enough to say since Trump failed to eradicate funding of Planned Parenthood, I'll therefore support the party prepared to throw the least of these out the window and hold America hostage to ensure funding of Planned Parenthood. That's like saying FDR, having failed to eliminate the Holocaust, I'll now support the Nazis who have perpetrated the Holocaust. So she's right here.
But notice she goes after Trump where it is due, but then observe:
Again, she doesn't fall for the 'fed up with FDR, I'm now a Nuremberg Catholic all the way' approach. She sees the evil and the culture of death on the left side of the aisle just the same. For many Catholics, it's hard not to see their trashing of Trump as merely the excuse to support the party of death they so long deplored.
And then, she also does this:
God bless that poor woman.
One of the worst things Pope Francis ever said was his 'who am I to judge' dodge where gay sex is concerned. The Sexual Revolution will certainly go down in history as one of the greatest human tragedies ever visited upon mankind in all of history. Abortion aside, the body count is beyond comprehension. Add to that the genocide level slaughter of the abortion culture that is needed to sustain the revolution, and it's unlike anything we've ever seen. And it isn't just sex. It's the drugs, the party, the debauchery, the selfish apathy that became sanctified during this time.
I must say the Orthodox are better at calling this one out than Catholics, or even Christians in the West in general. Afraid they'll say meanie things to us (or perhaps enjoying the fringe benefits of the revolution), we're rather tepid about calling it out. Given the suffering, carnage, misery and loss attributed to this Party till you Die revolution, our lack of stalwart opposition is shameful, and hardly consistently pro-life. Even Pope Francis deserves a smack on the hands for giving this a pass when he's so prepared to brutally judge other sins that are usually associated with thinking above the waistline.
But Ms. Rose gets it right. Again, I'm not saying I always agree with her. And sure, we can discuss her methods. But compared to the dumpster fire inconsistencies of so many of her Catholic critics, I'd say she is a far cry more consistently pro-life than many of them are close to being.
So news broke across the MSM that Norma McCorvey, aka Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade fame, was really in it for the money. That is, she was always pro-choice, but was paid on the sly by those rascally pro-life types to say she was pro-life. And so she lied for money. This revelation comes from a pro-choice activist documentary. As far as I know, this is the first time anyone has made this claim about the late pro-abortion turned pro-life activist. Donald McClarey, who had the chance to meet Ms. McCorvey, has a good unpacking of this here.
A couple things leap out at me. First, it's my contention that there are two types of people in the world. There are moronic jackass fools and lunatics who keep their collective heads up donkey butts, and then there are those who maintain a tremendous amount of skepticism when it comes to modern documentaries. Modern scholarship is bad enough. Documentaries today (think Michael Moore) are seldom anything but propaganda pieces meant to advance agendas, often by selectively focusing on molehills of exceptions to the exclusion of the mountain range of evidence behind the molehills.
That a pro-abortion advocate would be the one to break this massive bit of news is the first thing to give me pause. Especially since a massive influx of people who met, worked with and knew Ms. McCorvey have come out to refute the documentary. Given the lack of credibility that modern documentaries have in my mind, I'm willing to believe those who knew her personally over an activist documentary maker.
Second, I notice, as is pointed out a The American Catholic, that the press is all over this. I had no idea that Ms. McCorvey had become a pro-life advocate until the Internet. It was on largely conservative and pro-life Catholic sites that I was informed of her transformation. When it happened, I don't know. I can't recall the press making a big deal of it when her change of heart occurred. I did hear stories involving her, and it was sometimes mentioned that she was now for the pro-life cause. But usually that was reported as a dashed-off afterthought.
The fact that almost overnight the press has jumped on this and is hitting it with headline news reminds me of those times that press has coordinated with the Democrats or other left-wing causes to advance an agenda or a strategy. I'm not saying this was part of some vast, coordinated strategy. But it reminds me of just how selective the press is, and how that selectivity always swings in one direction.
For that reason, I follow my usual approach to things. That is, assume the majority witness or the traditional interpretation until overwhelming evidence is presented to do otherwise. Given the majority of those who knew her, and the press coverage that she had that took her at her word, plus the fact that I would have to believe she was a vile liar willing to screw all side for a buck all that time, I'll take the easier interpretation. That is, she became pro-life, all who knew her knew she was because that what she was, and a single pro-abortion activist "documentary" producer might not be the most credible source for changing that cloud of witnesses.
UPDATE: I've been informed that Mark Shea has weighed in on this and has, as can be expected, taken the documentary's version at face value. That should surprise nobody, as one of Mark's favorite targets is the orthodox pro-life movement based on historical Christian understandings of life and eternity, vs. the new pro-life movement which is based more on modern, secular and oft times Marxist worldviews. As I said, the documentary means nothing to me since I know how easily such productions can manipulate and twist things. See Triumph of the Will for an excellent example. Nonetheless, it does show a difference between those who accept the premises of the modern secular paganism of our age and traditional Christians who don't. That is, the difference between the view that the person comes first and pro-life means anything that might hinder *MY* life, versus the historical approach that concede things in this world and the next to which I am beholden, and reminds me that I am not the alpha and omega of all that matters.
Here. This is in response to the brave lawmaker Brian Sims, who displayed his courage by browbeating an old woman and threatening teenage girls. Good for them. Perhaps the forces of good and life are beginning to stand.
BTW, it's worth noting that barely any major news outlets have covered this story. Imagine some linebacker sized pro-life advocate doing the exact same thing to pro-abortion activists. How much would you like to bet that some of the national news anchors would have their desks at this rally? Such is our ministry of lies and propaganda, fast becoming one of the great threats to life and freedom in our age.
UPDATE: The link won't go to a live update now since the protest is done. It appears that over 1000 people turned out! Woohoo! That is with only days to prepare. It's this sort of thing from the Left that is helping galvanize people. You have the loony things, such as a school banning valedictorians because of the mental stress it places on kids, to a town in Australia banning Mother's Day because gender simply no longer exists. That's annoying and rage inducing. But the move to legally punish Christians, conservatives, white people, men, and anyone who challenging the Leftist State, while assaulting freedom and liberty, is beginning to awaken people.
This is promising. There's a long way to go, and even those like Rod Dreher, who see it clearly, can't resist falling into the trap of 'I'm sure we're just as bad, let's compromise.' Nonetheless this is something. This clouds of darkness and death won't stop unless it is stopped. And people of good will, standing for virtue, life and freedom will need to be the ones who stop it.
With John Kasich out of the way, the Ohio Republicans have been able to pass the heartbeat bill. Hurrah! Kasich, of course, it the living embodiment of why we have Trump. That brand of 'screw conservatives, from now on where the liberal Democrats go, I will follow.' And no, it isn't because of Trump. Kasich began that swing to the left long before we imagined a Trump primary contention. In fairness, Kasich had passed restrictions and common sense regulations on abortion, but in the later years of his term he began to drag his feet over multiple issues near and dear to conservatives, including this particular legislation.
Anyhoo, Kasich had vetoed similar bills before. But Mike DeWine (who I'm not necessarily a fan of), promised he would sign such a proposal into law. We were there when the Senate voted on its version. After several more weeks, it made it through the checks and balances and has been signed by our new post-Kasich governor.
I have no doubt that our courts will stop this. Lawsuits are already flying like mosquitoes. I've come to realize that's not the point. The reasons abortions are down is disputable, but what isn't disputable is that more and more young people oppose abortion. As my second oldest said, it's because now we're fully into the abortion era when we realize a massive chunk of the classmates we could have had were never able to exist. That's a big thought to think.
And every time pro-life champions say 'Heartbeat bill', the pro-abortion champions have to say 'we don't care, it's our life to define and terminate because women!' Even if it is a loss in the courts, I do believe it's having a positive result.
By Steven Greydanus. I've written before that I take Deacon Greydanus's reviews with more than a grain of salt. When someone rates the epic masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia at an A-, compared to the cinematic dung-heap of celluloid excrement called Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace at a B-, I have all I need to know that I'm dealing with a critic of the millennial era.
Long and short, he seems to give Unplanned a thumbs up for its tech specs, and considers it a bit above most faith based movies. But he also seems to have a problem with faith based movies in general, especially because they often preach to the choir (memo: must look at his reviews of Hollywood topical films that clearly do the same thing to various Leftist gay rights, feminist, secular and other groups).
He also appears to wish more of the movie would have unpacked the seedy underbelly of the pro-life (or as he also calls it, the anti-abortion) movement. He's pleased that there are several scenes depicting the worst elements of anti-abortionists. Nonetheless, it appears he would have preferred more.
He does mention the disturbing elements of Ms. Johnson's testimony, though he also continually points out that they are from a post-conversion POV, and that apparently casts a shadow over what could have been a better approach. Perhaps. I've not seen it, I can't say.
The thing that struck me is just how the review is one part 'it shows abortion is bad' and three parts 'it doesn't do enough to point out the flaws and evils of those who oppose it.' This is one reason among a legion of them that orthodox Christianity is losing, dying and dwindling except in a few parts of the world where they don't appear to take that approach.
Those who would somehow try to find common ground with a movement that has made it clear it hates the Faith and wants it destroyed are pissing into a tornado. Yet all they seem capable of doing is pointing at other believers and insisting 'of course you hate Christians because, no doubt, all those other Christians over there just aren't up to the proper standards.'
Pretty over the top title for this post it would seem. And yet, what part of it is wrong? The Left has thrown its hat behind infanticide. And don't give me 'it's only babies who can't live or will be horribly deformed.' That's what infanticide was: killing children deemed unable to be cared for, or sickly, handicapped, terminally ill or some other similar impediment. The killing of healthy babies was typically reserved for human sacrifice cultures which ranged from Asia through Europe, Africa and the Americas (but not, it should be mentioned, within the Judeo-Christian heritage).
So yes, in addition to embracing suicide and pushing euthanasia, the Left has gone full infanticide (we won't discuss its embrace of racism, sexism, discriminating against Christians and embrace of history's most disastrous economic theory). So what happens when a film is produced challenging this moral stance? The Left does what it does best: if it can't ban, it moves to suppress and censor anything to do with the film to keep it hidden from view.
That is exactly what has happened. Here I Googled to see the latest news and noticed, just as no major Network would run ads for the film, no major news outlet was mentioning it or its surprising box office performance. This, by the way, despite being given an "R" rating. Likewise, there are plenty of stories buzzing about regarding Twitter removing its accounts and reviewers being blocked from various movie review sites.
I've said for years that the Left is not the only monstrous evil in the world. Heck, it's not the only one here in America. But it's the one fully embraced by many of the powers that be in our nation. It's promoted by the safeguards that should protect us from such sin: the press, education, the arts and especially religion. And among those who see it for what it is, there is limp-wristed resistance at best, always seeming to wrestle with the dilemma of how to resist the obvious, and yet not give up that cushy editorial job suffering for Jesus on six figures a year.
But bravo for the filmmakers. They will suffer the slings and arrows from the usual Leftist arsenal of 'you suck, you're an idiot and moron, you hate women or minorities' or similar rhetorical devices. They will be scorned and hated like someone trying to do a revival of Tevye the Dairyman in 1930s Germany.
So prayers for the brave producers and contributors to this film, as well as the woman of courage whose story inspired it. They will receive the full hatred from the side of infanticide, including those who have apostatized themselves and now fully endorse the movement dedicated to killing those innocents they speak so much about. But those behind the movie will also receive half-hearted support, or even trivial digs and attempts to justify avoidance, from those who would claim fealty to life and the Gospel, but aren't ready to give up their comfortable living among the altars of Moloch.
Yep. By now you've seen. A bunch of vile Trump supporters with white skin assailed a group of peace loving Native Americans and mocked them because that's what people with white skin who haven't been cleansed by the saving blood of the Political Left do.
Except that's not how it happened. The Native American in question is now giving a different take. Initially he said he was approached, now he's saying he approached the group to diffuse the situation since nearby Black protesters were taunting and mocking the students (memo: can we look into the Blacks mocking the marchers?). Now, why he thought getting up into the faces of the students while beating a drum would diffuse anything might be a Native American thing, but even taking that, I have yet to see or hear what these students were accused of.
The poor boy at the center of the storm did nothing at all but stand there and smile (passive resistance anyone?). And yet, conservatives (always quick to lick up the spittle of the Left in order to curry favor), the Catholic Church and the March for Life were all quick to condemn. He is a political enemy of the Left, he has white skin - do we need to know anything else?
Even now, the school is hunkering down and telling the press as of today (days after the event), that it's willing to consider expulsion; destroy the lives of the kids: the Left says so. Meanwhile the Archbishop and the March for Life immediately denounced the white skin teens as the racists they are. In fairness, the March for Life site I saw has pulled the post (though an apology would be better).
By now we know it didn't happen as initially reported. Add this to the growing list in the last couple weeks of false news stories and lies promoted by the press in order to attack the Left's opponents and foment new forms of racism, bigotry, prejudice and discrimination. That so many who call themselves pro-life, much less Christian, are so quick to fall in line behind this evil and oppression just reminds you why we've seen the sad events of history that blemish the Faith's witness.
God protect the teenager who was born with white skin, and dares to offend the Political Left. God have mercy on those who will take down the swastikas and replace them with whatever symbol of hate and evil that will keep them in the good graces of the beautiful people who get invited to all the best parties. And of course, God protect us from the day's evils, and keep us from being swept up in them.
