Real Victims of the Gay Bullyboys

by Austin Ruse
Crisis Magazine

Her essay at Public Discourse has more than 48,000 Facebook shares and 2,600 Tweets. It is the anguished cry of a woman, a wife and a mother who has been deserted by her husband who took her children with him into that dark gay world.

Janna Darnelle, a pseudonym, tells the story of her ten-year marriage disintegrating when her husband decided he was sexually attracted to men. She says, “In an instant, the world that I had known and loved—the life we had built together—was shattered.”

Janna says she tried to get him to stay, appealed to him as a matter of vows and of honor and of fatherly responsibility. She and her children, though, had become “disposable … being gay trumped commitment, vows, responsibility, faith, fatherhood, marriage, friendships, and community.” We discover later, on a gay website, that her husband was a Christian pastor, but more on that in a minute.

She says the judge legislated from the bench and tried to right all the wrongs against gays historically on the back of her and her children. She says the judge told her husband, “If you had asked for more, I would have given it to you.”

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Austin Ruse is president of C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute focusing on international legal and social policy. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of C-FAM.

On Hobby Lobby: Where Ginsburg and Alito Go Astray

by Joshua Schulz
for Crisis Magazine

As a faithful Catholic with moral objections to forced Christian complicity in both abortion and contraception, I had many reasons to rejoice in the Supreme Court’s majority decision in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby written by Justice Alito. Unfortunately, the Court’s reasoning was not one of them. Two premises in the majority’s argument were especially troubling: first, the Court’s assertion of the legal inscrutability of moral and religious beliefs, and second, its assumption of the Government’s claim that contraceptives and abortifacients are necessary for women’s health and well-being. Contrary to the first premise, I agree with dissenting Justice Ginsburg that we can judge such cases on their merits and that the Court’s justification for refusing to do so is both weak and dangerous. Against Ginsburg, however, I would argue that examination of the second premise reveals serious conceptual confusion about what constitutes medical care. Moreover, the fact that we can detect such confusion is evidence, contrathe Court, that we can offer principled arguments for limited government that do not require liberal premises about the inscrutability of moral and religious beliefs.

Let’s begin with what we might call the Inscrutability Doctrine. The Court distinguishes between religious and secular grounds of argument, holding that religious but not secular arguments are legally inscrutable, or outside the ken of the Court (38). Indeed, the Court asserts that a major methodological mistake in the arguments of both HHS and Ginsburg is that they overstep this boundary, “in effect tell[ing] the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed. For good reason, we have repeatedly refused to take such a step” (38). No reason for this refusal is given. In practice, the consequence of theInscrutability Doctrine is that “religious” plaintiffs are under no burden to offer evidence of the rationality of their beliefs, but only of the “sincerity” with which they are held, whatever that means—and that those who disagree with “religious” positions cannot offer evidence of the irrationality of such beliefs.

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Joshua Schulz teaches moral philosophy in the Catholic intellectual tradition at DeSales University in Center Valley, PA. He earned his doctorate in philosophy from Marquette University in 2010.

What’s Behind Pelosi’s Attack on Archbishop Cordileone?

by Anne Hendershott for
Crisis Magazine


Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the U. S. House of Representatives Minority Leader, and one of the most powerful Catholic politicians in the United States, has recently warned the Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, the Archbishop of San Francisco, to cancel his plans to speak at the June 19 National Organization for Marriage march on the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Calling the event “venom masquerading as virtue,” Pelosi urged Archbishop Cordileone to stay away from the event, and “join us in seeking to promote reconciliation rather than division and hatred.”

Pelosi has partnered with other self-described Catholics including California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, and progressive Catholic activists like Fr. Ray Bourgeois, Marianne Duddy Burk, Mary Hunt, and Jeannine Grammick in protesting in a letter the Archbishop’s appearance at the pro-marriage rally.

And, while the parade of progressive politicians and Catholic dissidents is not surprising, Catholics should be much more concerned about the real power behind Pelosi’s attacks on the Archbishop.


UPDATE - Archbishop Cordileone's Response to Nancy Pelosi

    Use this link  to read the Archbishop's response to Pelosi and other critics of the March for Marriage. 




Anne Hendershott is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Veritas Center at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. She is the author of Status Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education; The Politics of Abortion; and The Politics of Deviance (Encounter Books). She is also the co-author of Renewal: How a New Generation of Priests and Bishops are Revitalizing the Catholic Church (2013).

Is There a “Right” to Birth Control?

by Joe Hargrave
for Crisis Magazine

 The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday from opposing legal counsel on the HHS contraception mandate cases. The media consensus appears to be that the justices were hard on the mandate and appear likely to issue a narrow ruling exempting “closely-held” corporations, which both of the plaintiffs are, while leaving open the question of whether or not publicly-traded corporations have First Amendment rights. The distinction is relevant since closely-held corporations are directly operated by their owners and are fairly limited in the number of shareholders they typically have, while public corporations have hundreds or thousands of shareholders. The smaller the group of ultimate decision-makers, the stronger the case that a corporation can in fact exercise religion.

Of course conservative Catholics and Protestants, along with other members of our society that value natural law morality and individual liberty, are hoping that the court rules in favor of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties. A victory on First Amendment grounds would certainly allay widespread concerns that religious liberty in the United States is at death’s door. Elane Photography’s case, which may also be heard by the Supreme Court this year, would certainly benefit from a Supreme Court ruling establishing the religious rights of businesses. There would be cause for relaxed breathing, if not jubilation, should a tide of court rulings firmly put the brakes on the “progressive” juggernaut smashing its way through traditional America via the lower courts—especially after the Supreme Court’s ruling on DOMA and California’s Proposition 8 (though in fairness, the ruling was not devastating for social conservatism).

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 Joe Hargrave is an adjunct professor of political science at Rio Salado Community College in Tempe, Arizona.

The Health Benefits of Not Getting Pregnant

by Richard Becker
Crisis Magazine 

I guess you can’t argue with science.

In case you haven’t heard, various studies claim that not having a baby is considerably safer than having a baby. Epidemiologically and statistically, they argue, the risks of pregnancy and childbirth are greater than the risks of contraception, or even abortion. But people keep having babies, so what’s the deal? Obviously, family planning advocates have done a lousy job getting the word out.

From a public health perspective, I suppose, it’s a simple “do the math” thing: Too many kids already strain the resources of our healthcare system, our government, and the environment, and now we have scientific proof that not having babies is actually healthier and safer than having them. So just stop already! It’s for your own good!

Life Brings With It Many Dangers

That got me thinking. There must be plenty of other common human activities that are fraught with statistical risk which aren’t receiving the attention they deserve. I’m musing about all this while munching on a bagel, with a cup of coffee at the ready, and then it dawns on me: Eating! Now there’s a risky activity!

Think of all the choking hazards involved in swallowing, or the possibility of inhaling your latte as you laugh at a Vine on your tablet. What’s more, think of all those folks scalded by their hot beverages, probably daily. AND IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW BIG YOU MAKE THE WARNING ON THE CUP, ordinary folks, caught up in the rush of daily existence, will still disregard how hot their coffee is and spill it in their laps.

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 Richard Becker is a husband, father of seven, nursing instructor, and religious educator. He and his family reside in South Bend, Indiana.

Buffalo’s New Bishop Confronts Politician’s Duplicity on Abortion

by Anne Hendershott

Faithful Catholics in Buffalo were discouraged to read in their local paper late last month that their allegedly pro-life Catholic senator Tim Kennedy (D-63^rd District) intends to vote in favor of New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo’s expansion of abortion in the State.  Kennedy won his seat in 2010 by running as a pro-life candidate ousting then-Senator Bill Stachowski—a Democrat with a strong pro-life record.

Claiming that his position on abortion has “evolved” after much thought and prayer, Kennedy joins a long list of self-described Catholic politicians like Governor Cuomo himself who claim that they are “personally opposed to abortion,” yet would never stand in the way of those who choose abortion.

Kennedy has already won accolades from New York’s progressives who are already making him a hero much like they made New York State Democratic assemblyman George M. Michaels a hero back in 1970 when he changed his vote to break a legislative tie by voting in favor of legalizing abortion in the State. In that important vote—legalizing abortion in New York long before Roe v Wade—Assemblywoman Constance Cook had forced a bill to repeal New York’s anti-abortion laws. The New York State Senate passed the bill 31 to 26.  But, when it moved to the Assembly, the vote resulted in a tie: 74 to 74.  That would have been a defeat, but Michaels, a Democrat who represented a district that with a 65 percent Catholic majority—in the days when all Catholics were pro-life—changed his vote from “no” to “yes.”

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Anne Hendershott is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Veritas Center at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. She is the author of Status Envy: The Politics of Catholic Higher Education; The Politics of Abortion; and The Politics of Deviance (Encounter Books).

I Fight on Contraception Hill

by Austin Ruse
Crisis Magazine 
 

Contraception is one of the great scourges not just of our time but of all time. In two ways it sets men and women against their creator. First, because they choose disobedience over the clear teaching of the Church. Second, it says no to the creative work of our Lord. Both of these put their souls in jeopardy.

Contraception is also the font of many of the deadly social pathologies of our time; the sexual revolution, pornography, divorce and family breakdown, abortion and the mainstreaming of same-sex arrangements including what seems like an inevitable change in the social and legal definition of marriage.

This is why I have dedicated much of the past twenty years to fighting contraception. If you were to do a site search on my organization’s website you would see a few hundred stories about the evils of contraception. What’s more, my organization has been a leader all these years in fighting the spread of UN-style family planning around the world. Oftentimes my staff members are the only ones from the pro-life world at UN meetings where such things are discussed. You could say I have been dying on contraceptive hill for decades.

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 Austin Ruse is president of C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute focusing on international legal and social policy.

Birth of Twins Highlights Evil of Abortion

by Arland K. Nichols

In what has become an annual ritual on January 1, the mainstream media shared the unique story of twins born on different days and different years. This year, ABC News highlighted Lorraine and Brandon Begazo who were born in Washington, D.C., three minutes apart, but in different years. A rare occurrence and feel-good story, it will eventually become a neat bit of trivia that at the very least serves as an icebreaker in social settings.

But might the rare event of twins being born on different days provide more than just trivia?

Consider Maria Jones Elliot who, pregnant with twins in 2012, went into preterm labor and gave birth to her daughter, Amy, 23 weeks into pregnancy. Amy was a tiny 1 pound 3 ounces and was immediately whisked off to NICU in order to save her life. Unexpectedly, contractions stopped and Amy’s twin sister, Katie, decided she wasn’t ready to be born! While tiny Amy fought to survive, her twin sister was doing very well in Maria’s womb where she continued to mature and grow. Eighty-seven days later Katie was born with a clean bill of health! These beautiful twin sisters are recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as twins with the most days between births.

Putting aside the feel-good elements of the story, consider for a moment the status of these sisters under the law in America. While Amy was recognized as a human being whose life was protected and worth fighting for, in most states her twin sister would be considered a mere fetus with no rights—a potential victim of abortion.

Here we see plainly the ruthless arbitrariness of abortion: one twin could legally be killed but the other is protected by law. Is location so determinative? This common-sense example is indicative of how laws that leave any unborn child unprotected are discriminatory and assume a fanciful and contrived essential difference between living human beings.

The science, after all, could not be clearer; the union of two human gametes brings into existence a whole and unique member of the human species who is undergoing organized and self-directed development and growth. So the question then becomes, does this human being possess rights as do all other human beings? And what do we owe this human being? Is it even remotely sensible that one twin is protected by her mother, the law, and by the wider human community while the other twin is left unprotected?

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 Arland K. Nichols is the Director of Education and Evangelization at Human Life International. He is the executive editor of the Truth and Charity Forum.

Is Contraception the Hill We Want to Die On?

by Austin Ruse

Using artificial contraception to avoid pregnancy is a mortal sin, according to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

While only the Catholic Church maintains this teaching on contraception, it would be a better world if everyone did.

Paul VI was a prophet when he told the world that great societal evils would follow upon the widespread use of contraception: a loosening of morals, an objectification of women, family breakdown and all the rest of the pathologies that have visited us like furies.

Many of us also hold that contraception also leads inevitably to abortion. After all, according to national statistics, 94 percent of the women getting abortions have  used contraception at some point in their lives. Meaning they know what it is and how to get it.  Contraception is a promissory note that is cashed by abortion when it fails.

Contraception was made a constitutional right in this country by the Supreme Court in two cases, Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird. Griswold gave married people the right to use it and the decision was based on the sanctity of marriage. Eisenstadt kicked over that rationale by making it a right for single people, too. And then came the deluge.

According to the United Nations the US has one of the highest incidents of contraceptive use in the world. Anybody who wants it can easily get it, including abortifacient “contraceptives” like Plan B that are now available over-the-counter. Bowls of condoms adorn the entrances of clubs and the desks of school administrators. A month’s supply of the pill can be had for as little as nine bucks a month at your local Wal-Mart. And the Obama administration has now made it federal law that all women get it for free.

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Austin Ruse is president of C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute focusing on international legal and social policy.

Birth Control is Not Healthcare

by Marie T. Hilliard

Dr. Malcolm Potts, first medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, in a piece late last month in the Los Angeles Times¸erroneously blames the Vatican for denying the Little Sisters of the Poor the alleged health benefits of hormonal contraception.  In fact, the Little Sisters of the Poor are challenging in court their real oppressor, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is mandating that employers violate their consciences by providing all of their employees’ contraceptive, abortifacient and surgical sterilization coverage in their health plans.  We are grateful that the Sisters are taking this courageous stand for religious liberty, which may, in the long run, benefit all persons who believe in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  Although the positions of the Vatican are always based on sound science and truth, the challenge by the Sisters to the HHS mandate is their own initiative. Indeed, their decision has much more to do with religious liberty than the flawed arguments contained in Dr. Potts’ column.

For starters, when Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical, Humanae vitae, he did so after reviewing both the majority and minority reports of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control of 1966.  Humane vitae is a profoundly prophetic document since it foresaw the inevitable societal abuses of women and the family from the widespread use of contraception, including high rates of divorce and illegitimacy.  All one has to do is go to Planned Parenthood’s own website to see the statistics on unplanned pregnancies.  This is especially true for college age students who are the “beneficiaries” of the HHS mandate.  In fact, the “rates of unintended pregnancy and unintended pregnancy ending in birth [is] highest among women ages 18 to 24.”

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 Marie T. Hilliard, Ph.D., RN, is the Director of Bioethics and Public Policy at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. She holds an MS in Maternal Child Health Nursing, an MA in Religious Studies and a degree in Canon Law.

Pro-Life Lessons for the Defense of Marriage

by Rachel Lu

I’ve never been to the March for Life. It’s on my bucket list. I love looking at the pictures, because it inspires me to see all those well-bundled people, cold but smiling, feeling good despite the grimness of the occasion they have gathered to commemorate. They ought to feel good. They stand as representatives of one of the most remarkable political and social movements of the last century.

In legislative terms, the pro-life movement has of course been less successful than we might wish. Abortion is still very obtainable in this country, though there can also be little doubt that the movement has saved millions of lives. And in other ways, the achievements of the pro-life movement are enormous. Working with young people, I am regularly impressed by the number whose moral sensibilities have been formed in very large measure by the pro-life movement. Where the world too often showed them selfishness, indulgence and a callous disregard for the interests of the weak and innocent, the pro-life movement has taught our youth about self-sacrifice, honor and the immense value of a human being. The courts, the media and the academy have tried again and again to declare the movement dead. It isn’t.

That is the first lesson we can learn from the pro-life movement as we turn our attention towards the much-younger fight for marriage. It’s never over until one side decides to give up. The second lesson is that fighting the good fight isn’t necessarily futile even if the objective is achieved incompletely or not at all. Social movements have the power to change and shape whole societies. There’s a reason why they tend to be remembered long after the economic squabbles have been forgotten. They change the way we see the world. They alter us on the level of character. Social movements have the power to shine a bright light on our greatest social failings, helping to grow the conscience of a nation.


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March On!

by Sean Fitzpatrick

 

For forty-one years America has grown sick under the shadow of legalized abortion. For forty-one years Americans have gathered at the nation’s capital to march in protest. For forty-one years, over forty-one million American babies have been butchered before they could even be born. Abortion is perhaps the single most egregious evil in the history of the human race; and in America, not only is it regarded as commonplace but as common sense.

“It’s about acting responsibly,” says an ad for an over-the-counter, morning-after abortifacient called Plan B – One Step, which also sports the slogan “Helps Prevent Pregnancy.” It is well beyond the pale of comprehension how truth in advertising—by some logic or magic—no longer applies when it comes to abortion. Lies are acceptable when they are convenient. Deception in advertising is permissible in order to give people the power of choice—the power to choose between life and death, to be a parent or an executioner. Any other advertisement that portrays a falsehood seems bound to lay bare its fiction. “Fantasy, do not attempt. Cars can’t jump on trains.” Nevertheless, the basic, irrefutable scientific facts that accompany the biological condition that Plan B – One Step alters is simply not a prevention. It is an abortion. In a sense, abortion is birth control—so why not treat it like one? “Emergency contraception,” they call it.

Has the world gone mad? Sadly, incurably so. And, of course, anyone who thinks this of the world will be labeled as the lunatic.

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Sean Fitzpatrick is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College and the Headmaster of Gregory the Great Academy. He lives in Scranton, PA with his wife and family of four.

Every Life Matters

By Michelle Fritz

Today in Washington D.C. millions of people are expected to participate in the annual March for Life.  They come from all around the country and the world to stand up for the sanctity of life in the womb.  They will bundle up to protect themselves from the frigid temperatures; they will raise their signs and their voices.  They will stand in solidarity for life.  What a beautiful show of God’s ultimate love, protecting the innocent and those without a voice of their own.  It is what God calls all of us to do.


There are many arguments for keeping abortion legal.  I am not capable of addressing all of those arguments in one article, but I can talk about one reason people often cite when arguing that abortion should be kept legal.  Many argue that when a mother’s life (or the child’s life) is in danger abortion should be a viable option.  They say that a mother should not have to risk her life, especially if she has other children who rely on her.  They say that her life is more important than the child’s life.  Oh, how wrong they are!

I know, I know, you are probably thinking that it’s easy for me to say a mother should risk her life for her child when I am not in that situation.  The truth is, it is easy to say that while I am not pregnant or risking my life.  However, going into my last pregnancy I knew I was risking my life by even being pregnant.  My previous pregnancy ended in a catastrophic uterine rupture, and I was told that if I ever got pregnant again I would not only greatly risk my life, but it was almost guaranteed that my baby would die, too.  While I recovered from my emergency c-section, the doctor impressed upon us over and over again that I should never, never get pregnant again.  Those words pierced my heart like a finely sharpened dagger.  But I knew he was right.  I couldn’t risk my life for another pregnancy, because I had so many who needed me here.  My husband and I were diligent, within our faith guidelines, in our efforts to avoid pregnancy.  After all, there was no way I would put my life at risk on purpose when I have ten other children who rely on me, and who desperately need me in their lives.  Still, a mere five and a half months later, despite all our intense efforts to avoid pregnancy, I found myself expecting again.  To say I was terrified is be a gross understatement!

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Michelle Fritz is a cradle Catholic, married to her high school sweetheart Mike for the last 22 years. She is an ecletic homeschooling mom of 11 children. In addition to her children on earth she is a mother to 12 saints in heaven. She is active in the prolife community and is dedicated to protecting all children, both born and unborn. Michelle is a regular writer at Catholic Sistas, a website dedicated to sharing the truths of our faith through personal stories and article that stress adherence to the teachings of the Church. She loves Apologetics and learning all she can about our beautiful Catholic faith. 

President Obama’s Faithful Helpers

by Anne Hendershott

President Obama’s decision to close the Vatican embassy—moving the ambassador and his staff into shared office space in the building housing the U. S. Embassy to Italy—is viewed by many, including several former ambassadors to the Vatican, as yet another attempt by the Obama administration to further marginalize the influence of the Holy See.

While the Obama administration cites security concerns in an email to the Daily Caller (after the September, 11, 2012 attack on our embassy in Benghazi, Libya) as the reason for the closure, James Nicholson, the ambassador to the Vatican from 2001 until 2005, described the move as a “massive downgrade of U.S.-Vatican ties … an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican,” telling a writer for the National Catholic Reporter that the move is “turning the embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy.”

Nicholson’s sentiments were echoed by other former ambassadors to the Vatican including Francis Rooney, Mary Ann Glendon, Raymond Flynn and Thomas Melady.  And although current Ambassador Kenneth Hackett, a recent Obama appointee, defended the move by suggesting that other countries operate under a similar space-sharing arrangement, former Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon dismissed such a defense saying that the importance of the relationship between the U. S. and the Vatican “merits its own location and profile.”

The criticisms of the embassy closure have come from former ambassadors from both sides of the political aisle.  While Glendon, Nicholson, Rooney and Melady were appointed by Republican presidents, Raymond Flynn, one of the most vocal critics of the closure, was appointed by President Clinton.

In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Flyn said “it’s not just those who bomb churches and kill Catholics in the Middle East who are our antagonists but it’s also those who restrict our religious freedoms and want to close down our embassy to the Holy See…. There’s no diplomatic or political benefit to the United States.”

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 Crisis Magazine began in 1982 as a response to the crisis of faith in the Catholic Church and soon broadened it’s purview to include the crisis to faith in the public square. While signs of hope have been observed in recent decades thanks to the effective and inspired leadership of Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI, much remains to be done. Indeed, Pope Francis reminds us of this often.

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Of Philanthropy and Population Control: An Open Letter to Bill Gates

by Richard Becker

God bless you, Mr. Gates. You made a pile of dough, and now you’re trying to spread the love—like your foundation’s efforts to fight disease and poverty throughout the developing world. You’re making possible tremendous change for the good—keep it up! The world admires and applauds you.

Here’s the problem, though: In addition to underwriting tons of initiatives that directly and indirectly address disease and poverty, the Gates Foundation seems inordinately interested in “family planning”—a euphemism, as I’m sure your know, for birth control.

That’s a problem because people might get the idea that the two things are connected—the fighting disease and poverty thing on the one hand, and the family planning agenda thing on the other.

Take your recent Wall Street Journal article about polio eradication in India. What you and your foundation have done and are doing there is magnificent, and your commitment to underwriting such important work is truly edifying. But you let the cat out of the bag with this opening statement:

Our foundation began working in India a decade ago, at a time when many feared that the country would become a flashpoint for HIV/AIDS. Since then, we have expanded into other areas, including vaccines, family planning and agricultural development [emphasis added].

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 Richard Becker is a husband, father of seven, nursing instructor, and religious educator. He and his family reside in South Bend, Indiana.

Fecundaphobia: On the Fear of Large Families

by Rachel Lu

The pharmacist was eyeing me strangely, and it was making me nervous. I glanced down at my clothes, then surreptitiously ran my tongue over my teeth. Then I noticed his eyes moving between me, my prescription, and the baby who was sitting on my hip. Suddenly I understood. Based on my prescription, he knew that I was pregnant. He was shocked that I was expecting another baby when I was already the mother of an eight-month-old.

It was a “welcome to the club” sort of moment. I had heard from the parents of large families about the stares, the snide remarks, and the subtle (or not-so-subtle) reminders that science has found a solution to all this excessive fertility. I thought I would need a larger number of children to be honored with that particular brand of public disapprobation, but it turns out that even two is enough if you space them right (or rather, wrong). What would the pharmacist have thought if he knew that I also had a 2-year-old at home?

I’m sure the effect will amplify if God blesses us with more offspring, but shepherding even three small boys (the eldest is not quite four) through public places is a bit like having a car covered in bumper stickers. People readily view my family as some kind of bold statement, and many feel a need to offer a rebuttal. Many of the comments are positive, and I must gratefully acknowledge that a good portion of the public is still inclined to be generous to harried moms. People hold doors for strollers, or call out after me if a shoe or jacket has fallen unnoticed on the path behind us. Good-natured older women have twice let me go ahead of them in grocery lines, observing with compassion that the whimpering child in my arms is probably ready for his nap. These gestures are hugely appreciated, and it’s certainly heartening to see that there is still a good supply of pro-family sentiment in America.

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 Rachel Lu, a Catholic convert, teaches philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota where she lives with her husband and three boys. Dr. Lu earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at Cornell University.

God, Man, and Abortion: A New Summons to Hope

by Edward Short

Many good things distinguish Redeeming Grief, Anne’s Lastman’s gripping testament to the dehumanizing havoc wrought by abortion. It is the work of a woman who has devoted over seventeen years of her life to helping thousands of fathers and mothers heal from the wounds of abortion. It is an unsparing analysis of the way abortion destroys not only unborn children but the very fabric of the family. And it is the fruit of conversion: Mrs. Lastman has come to her courageous testament after two abortions of her own, which she was only able to survive, as she says, because of “the mercy of God” and her own “profound rediscovered love for him.”

That contrition should be the foundation of so much of Mrs. Lastman’s testimony puts her in lively company. One thinks of the great English defender of life, Aleck Bourne (1886-1974), who, despite initially agitating for the legalization of abortion, went on to found the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, and Dr. Bernard Nathanson (1926-2011), an abortion doctor for many years in New York, as well as an architect of the American pro-abortion lobby, who became one of the most ardent and heroic of pro-lifers.

In addition to these splendid pro-life converts, Mrs. Lastman’s career evokes that of an even more illustrious figure. “You can depend on this as worthy of full acceptance,” St Paul told St Timothy, “Christ came into the world to save sinners. Of these I myself am the worst. But on that very account I was dealt with mercifully, so that in me, as an extreme case, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, and that I might become an example to those who would later have faith in him and gain everlasting life.”

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The Curious Controversy Over Natural Family Planning

by Thomas Storck

When I entered the Church early in 1978 there was little enough discussion of natural family planning or of the Church’s teaching that use of contraceptives violated the law of God.  The Couple to Couple League had been founded just a few years earlier, and NFP was not a subject even written about much in the Catholic press, but when it did get noticed by orthodox journalists or writers, it received favorable attention.  But perhaps it is fair to say that it was seen at the time by most Catholics who had even heard of it as something a bit on the extreme side.  Use of NFP was definitely associated with being in the orthodox “wing” of the Church, perhaps even a bit hyper-orthodox, for the vast shift among Catholic couples to contraceptive use which took place in the early and mid-1960s was long over.

Now one of the, to me, most curious things that has arisen in the Catholic Church in the United States since, roughly I guess the early 1990s, has been a vocal, albeit probably not very large, anti-NFP movement.  Not surprisingly the Internet has facilitated this and perhaps allowed it to appear larger and more important than it really is.  This anti-NFP group consists not of the modernist, pro-contraceptive Catholics, who have never been supporters of natural family planning, but of those who claim the mantle of orthodoxy in their opposition to a method of child spacing sanctioned by popes since Pius XI.  I know that my claim that NFP has papal sanction will be hotly disputed by some critics.  Rather than repeat what I have written elsewhere, I invite readers to consult my 2006 article in Homiletic & Pastoral Review that provides appropriate quotations from papal teaching.  In this present article I want to discuss not the morality of NFP but the phenomenon of the opposition to it.

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 Thomas Storck is the author of three books relating to Catholic social teaching and political thought. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Caelum et Terra, the New Oxford Review, and The Chesterton Review, where he sits on the editorial board. An archive of Mr. Storck’s writings can be found at www.thomasstorck.org.

When Do Humans Begin to Feel Pain?

By James D. Agresti

The U.S. House Of Representatives recently passed a bill that would restrict abortions starting at 20 weeks after fertilization, or the stage of development shown in the picture below. Formally called the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” the legislation has stirred debate over when humans begin to feel pain. The act passed with 97% of Republicans voting for it, and 97% of Democrats voting against it. President Obama has issued a veto threat.

The bill states “there is substantial medical evidence that an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain at least by 20 weeks after fertilization, if not earlier.” However, Dr. Stuart Derbyshire, the director of Pain Imaging at the U.K.’s University of Birmingham and a frequently cited authority on this issue, has affirmed that humans cannot truly feel pain until one year after birth. Contrastingly, Dr. Maureen Condic, an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley, recently testified before a congressional subcommittee that humans feel pain “in some capacity” starting “from as early as 8 weeks of development.”

In sorting out these conflicting assertions and others on the continuum between them, there are certain scientific facts about human development that provide a basic foundation for understanding this issue:

• In the 6th and 7th weeks after fertilization, the brain’s “cerebral hemispheres and cerebellum are developing.” [Gray's Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Medicine and Surgery]

• By 7 weeks, pain “sensory receptors appear in the perioral [mouth] area.” [New England Journal of Medicine]

• By 10 weeks, “All components of the brain and spinal cord are formed, and nerves link the stem of the brain and the spinal cord to all tissues and organs of the body.” [Encyclopedia of Human Biology]

• By 12 weeks, “the fetus sucks its thumb, kicks, makes fists and faces, and has the beginnings of baby teeth.” [Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications]

• By 14 weeks, “Limb movements, which occur at the end of the embryonic period (8 weeks), become coordinated….” [Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects]

• By 16 weeks, “Eye movements begin.” [Embryology: Board Review Series]

• By 18 weeks, pain sensory receptors spread to “all cutaneous [skin] and mucous surfaces….” [New England Journal of Medicine]

• By 20 weeks, the fetus “now sleeps and wakes and hears sounds.” [American Medical Association Complete Medical Encyclopedia]

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 James D. Agresti is the president of Just Facts, a nonprofit institute dedicated to researching and publishing verifiable facts about public policy.

 

Choice and Repercussion

by Donald DeMarco

Jean Bethke Elstain, an author I greatly admire, made an astute observation when she remarked that “much that comes parading through town under the banner of ‘choice’ is actually a new set of constraints and compulsions.”  “Parading” is an appropriately descriptive word since this new attitude toward choice does not come to us through a wise and thoughtful tradition. Rather, it comes whistling into town with much clang and clatter, but with little substance. “More and more women,” she goes on to say, “testify that the ‘choice’ to abort post-amniocentesis if they are carrying a ‘defective’ child is nearly irresistible:  they become ‘bad mothers’ by carrying a child to term rather than aborting it!  ‘Choice’ and ‘constraint’ always go hand-in-hand.”  She penned these words nearly 25 years ago (Chronicles, October, 1989). In retrospect, she appears prophetic.  Her words are truer today than they were a quarter of a century ago when she first wrote them.

Choices are not without consequences. Bad choices can have unhappy repercussions. Nature cannot be mocked with impunity; it has a way of striking back.  Overeating brings on indigestion.  Immoral choices are followed by guilt and regret.  In the web of life, choice is not free from a multitude of things that are not directly chosen but nonetheless do reverberate.  A thief in the night may think that all he is doing is obtaining his loot.  But his action puts the whole town on alert.

Joyce Arthur, coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada complained when actress Nicole Kidman announced to the press that she was “thrilled” at being pregnant.  Ms. Arthur wants pregnant women to be less positive about their pregnancies:  “It certainly shows any young woman watching these movies or following these celebrities that the best option is to have the baby and it glorifies that choice.”  The choice to abort brings with it a prohibition of any public display of maternal joy.  One choice annuls another.  We must not glorify choices.  We want to make all choices perfectly free of any outside influence.  This would mean, incidentally, the logical end of commercial advertising. Nonetheless, this is a strange request coming from an organization that has done everything it could to influence the choice of abortion.  The choice for abortion, indeed, as Elshtain has remarked, does bring with it a considerable array of constraints and compulsions.

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 Donald DeMarco, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow of Human Life International and a contributing editor of the Truth and Charity Forum. He is Professor Emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, CT.