Two added notes about women’s enjoyment of sex while using contraception:

1) Condoms require 20-24 steps to be used correctly.  Most of these steps (and especially the last few) take away from potential pleasure for the woman.  Some “youth advocates” try to market that number down to twelve, or worst of all, five.  No wonder they’re not being used properly.

2) Birth control can and often does lower a woman’s sex drive: check out http://www.epigee.org/guide/pill_sex.html among many, many sites that have documented this “phenomenon.”

So just out of curiosity to all the feminists who will read this article . . . if you’re not enjoying it (or at least as much as you could be), why are you doing it?

As a woman whose mother was encouraged to abort her, I offer a hearty, “BITE ME.” to any feminist who promotes abortion. Being a woman comes with certain natural gifts. I am able to give life both by nurturing a baby with in my uterus and feeding the baby when born. Nature gave me that role, not Gloria Steinem.

I also eat organic and refuse animal products treated with artificial hormones. Most of the women I know who agree with my eating habits pump themselves full of artificial hormones via the pill. Um, what?!?

I am also surprised at the number of feminists who - while also being vocal environmentalists - will not discuss the impact of the chemicals from the Pill and spermicides that enter the water system.  The EPA is keen on identifying these ‘endocrine disruptors’ which are causing sex changes in fish and amphibians as well as linked to the general lowering of fertility world-wide.  Don’t even think about asking them to investigate chemical contraceptions as that would annoy the very powerful pharmaceutical companies.  No, they are sticking the belief that is all due to farmland run-off.

“and occasionally deadly, procedure”

Fun fact: in the US, thanks to religious extremism, you are more likely to be killed or seriously injured if you’re a doctor who performs abortions or you’re one of their staff than if you’re the one having an abortion.

Sorry Jemima,
A life is taken with every abortion. I realize you don’t want me to call it a “baby”, so I will just call it the product of conception dies.

“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed…. The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity.”
[O’Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists “pre-embryo” among “discarded and replaced terms” in modern embryology, describing it as “ill-defined and inaccurate” (p. 12}]

re: “Fun Fact”—not true.  Far more women are injured (or die) from supposedly safe, legal abortions than abortion clinic workers (doctors or otherwise).  Because abortion centers aren’t regulated the same way hospitals or surgical centers are, they don’t have to show compliance with things like recovery and follow-up.  Many women don’t know for years after the initial insult that they can no longer conceive (something most of them are also not aware of as a possibility, since “informed consent” is also more of a *wink, wink, nod, nod* than an actual part of patient care).  Case in point: “Dr.” Kermit Gosnell (yes, just 1 doctor and his staff) of PA who seriously injured or killed hundreds of women (and their babies—even to point of committing infanticide)—far outnumbering those who have *ever* been the victim of supposed “religious extremism.”—And this was all supposedly “legal.”

@J. Cole: Can you give us a source for your statistic that “you are moer likely to be killed… if you’re a doctor”. I’ve heard about maybe a handful of deaths of abortionist doctors in the last 20 years, but at least that many woman getting an abortion die if not every year, then pretty close to it.

Bless you and your iron guts, Jennifer, for being able to read a word that Amanda Marcotte writes.  I don’t say this lightly or often: but the devil has a tight hold on that poor woman.  The things that she says and the way that she says them are so vile, so hateful, so ugly, so suffused with rage and bitterness, so lacking in any kind of joyful or positive vision.  It’s not just that I find her thinking in error. There are many many people who hold world views that I disagree with, such as the well-meaning liberal Protestants I’m surrounded by, but none of them are filled with such ugliness.

After reading Marcotte’s article, the point I was going to make is how *she* is far more guilty of distorting facts than Jennifer here.  She links to a statistic that “78,000 women die each year from illegal abortion”—failing to cite that this is worldwide, in countries where access to decent prenatal care is also severely lacking.  She also downplays the pain involved in abortion, citing the pain of childbirth.  Okay, let’s get something straight here: first of all, I know many women who experience childbirth virtually painfree, thanks to that little thing called an epidural.  Second, the process of childbirth is a natural, physiologic process—contrary to the violence done on the body through abortion by upsetting normal physiology.  The more appropriate comparison would be between women in the U.S. who die or are injured from childbirth-related consequences now vs. 40 years ago, since she also cites the number of abortion-related injuries between now and 40 years ago (therefore drawing the conclusion that legal abortion protects women).  Going through pregnancy with appropriate prenatal care is far safer than procuring an abortion in this country.
***
You want to talk about “women’s access to reproductive care?”  Try implementing programs which support and nourish a women through pregnancy, delivery, and breast-feeding instead.

Amen, Jennifer!  The only real choice supported by an abortion center is “MasterCard, Visa, or Discover?”  Once you walk in the door, the brainwashing and lies begin.  I encourage pro-“choice” folks to spend some time at http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/ and to listen to the voices of real women - voices stifled or ignored by abortion proponents.

Jennifer,

Thank you for writing this. As a mama, labor doula and birth educator, I have the privilege of working with mamas (and their families) throughout pregnancy and through postpartum. It is an honor to watch parents understand more about their child throughout their pregnancies and then observe those first few moments when they meet each other outside the womb for the first time.

I recently heard an L & D nurse explain that “no matter how many births you observe, it always gets you”. No words were ever truer.

I have had mom-clients who were students,immigrants attempting to acquire citizenship and leaving in poverty, married, unmarried, etc. All of their points in life have been cited as reasons worthy of abortion by a pro-choice supporter. How tremendously sad!

My heart aches for a woman who has procured an abortion. The violence inflicted upon her has the potential to debilitate her for the rest of her life as she understands the reality of this act; it is NOT freeing, enlightened or a sign of increased intelligence. Often it is an act of desperation and fear and chosen in haste with little, if any, transparency provided. How is this the better choice?

Pro-choice advocates: if you are so confidant that a fetus (coming from the Latin meaning “offspring”) is simply a group of tissues, then why the lack of transparency?

You are so brave, Jennifer, when you got to know that more irrational wrath will be forthcoming.

I love how when we say that women shouldn’t use birth control we are accused of thinking women are too stupid to make good decisions, yet when a woman’s birth control fails the same people will accuse her of being too dumb to know how to use it correctly.  You give me a form of birth control, and I’ll give you an intelligent person I am acquainted with who had it fail.  And not all of it can be attributed to user error (like the woman I know who got pregnant after a tubal ligation).  Not to mention that when using condoms you have to put a lot of trust that your partner knows how to use them correctly (ironic considering how many people have sex with each other without yet properly discerning if they are even worthy of trust). 

What Ms. Marcotte doesn’t get is that we don’t think women are stupid, we just think they are massively misinformed when it comes to contraception.  First of all you can look at all of the scientific errors and pertinent omissions that Dr. Miriam Grossman unearthed in the typical school sex education programs (starting at ever younger ages).  I bet Ms. Marcotte doesn’t even know that there are only on average five days per cycle when a woman can get pregnant or what her luteal phase is in her reproductive cycle.  It is not that she is dumb, but uninformed.

And Ms. Marcotte is wrong because “the contraception man” does come to the door and hand bags of contraception to children through the school systems.  This makes it easier for girls to get pressured into sexual activity.  Never mind that the early onset of sexual activity has been linked to the rise of bulimia, anorexia, depression, and suicide in teenage girls.

I am going to re-iterate what Erika Evans said, because I loved the way she phrased it.  Jennifer, bless you and your iron guts. (Thanks, Erika!)

I LOVED your entry, specially the last part: “In fact, I found that there is no organization in the world that loves, honors, and respects women more than the Catholic Church.” I agree with everything! Abortion does not protect women, only denigrates them. Also these feminists want women to do what they want with their bodies without any respect towards it, when a TRUE WOMAN respects the body God gave her.

I hope to read more from you :)

It is a misdirection of energy to say that the Church wants women to be uninformed.  Not true.  In fact, a devout Catholic who wanted to know all I could about my body, I was the most informed teenager of all my friends, whatever their faith.  Nobody - NOBODY—in my very religious family or my Catholic school EVER told me to stop getting knowledge.  The opposite was true: Every single one encouraged me to ask questions and to understand for myself.  Where did it get me?  I am a Catholic who calls herself a feminist, a critic of consumerism and an advocate for the rights of all vulnerable people all over the world.  I reject abortion as a solution to the very real and lingering problems of the oppression of women, even though I am sympathetic to why it seems like a good fix, it is not.

What was part of the foundation of this was the realization that birth control consumerism DOES treat women as if they are stupid; it just tells them to make choices to take their minds off these Annoying! Interrupting!  Decisions! and be “Worry-free with B.C!”.  Commercials for birth control do this all the time, but it is also the way that birth control is promoted in our culture = magical thinking all the way.  “Take this pill!  No pregnancy!  Insert this device!  No pregnancy!”  etc.  “Pregnant?  You didn’t want to be, so you don’t have to!  Pay me to take care of it for you so you can go back to consuming…and, particularly, so that you can be available for others to consume as well!!!”

Most women have no clue about the reproductive cycle.  At. all.  (Interestingly, the most informed women I ever knew were the ones who eschewed hormonal contraceptives for religious or, for a few, self-care/ environmental reasons.)

Now I believe this is a feminist ideal, to help women and men to be really well-informed about the biological processes involved in pregnancy.  But instead of talking about how we can advance THAT cause, Amanda Marcotte will chew up the scenery over the Church being the bad guy.  The Church that preaches to avoid consumerism. To reject materialist oppression of others.  To challenge anyone who makes a hierarchy of people.  To know all the science there is because it is part of Creation.  To make informed, thoughtful decisions based in reality and conviction.  To be skeptical, passionate, present and forgiving.  That bad, terrible, Church that made me the feminist I am.  ?

Jemima,

I too would like some evidence to back up your claim. Do you know how many abortion doctors in the United States have been killed by alleged “pro-life extremists” from 1973 to 2011?

Two. Dr. David Gunn and Dr. George Tiller. Dr. David Gunn’s murder was the FIRST documented assassination of an OB-GYN to prevent him from performing abortions (source: Encyclopedia of Terrorism, Harvey Kushner, 2003).

Do you know how many women have died in the United States due to “safe, legal abortion” from 1972 to 2003?

386 (source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5609a1.htm#tab19)

If you have any stats to the contrary, I’d be interested in seeing them.

After reading the post you linked and her (personal) attack of you, I can only surmise that Amanda’s respect for women only extends to those she agrees with.

LOVE this article. Whenever I hear of feminists talking about how the Catholic Church doesn’t “respect women,” and how in order to really “respect” women you need to be supportive of abortion, contraception, etc., I just have to laugh. I sure didn’t feel respected when my contraceptive-pushing gynecologist told me to “just take the pill” instead of finding a medical reason for my ovarian cysts, or when my OB laughed in my face when I told her I wanted to use NFP (so much for “choice”, huh ladies??). I sure do not feel respected or empowered when feminists tell me I should flood my body with synthetic chemicals or sterilize myself so that I can experience autonomous, consequence-free sex with strangers. 

Feminism is a lie.

Wow; I read that woman’s post.  I agree you have guts of iron.  She may be the angriest woman I’ve ever read, and she is totally out of tune with that.  I suggest we all adopt her as a special intention in our prayers.

I read Mrs. Marcotte’s article, and I have to say that it’s women like her who are still getting women disparaged as “hysterical” much more than women like you (scorpions notwithstanding). Her claims that she wasn’t angry were belied by her tone, and perhaps the article would have sounded intelligent if only she had foregone cursing the way I did when I was 12 or 13.

Like you, I’ve been there and done that with secular, pro-choice feminism,. I know most feminists mean well, but if they want more people to take them seriously, they should give up their righteous anger over the fact that not everyone agrees with them. Additionally, instead of funneling money into IPPF, whose results are dubious, at best, thaey should contribute to the many dozens of organizations that contribute time, money, and man hours to hospitals and real health clinics.

Women’s health in so many places is sorely lacking, and arguing that birth control and abortion are healthcare will not resonate with women who suffer and die from preventable diseases like malaria and dysentary every day, and who are forced to watch their children die similar deaths because the UN is more concerned with pushing condoms and abortion on people who have said they don’t want them, than providing necessary food, clean water, and vaccinations.

I’m sorry women’s lib. feminism, but come back to me when you’re serious about taking care of women.

Masterfully written.  I hope this goes viral.  I’m posting on my Facebook page and I also posted a link on my blog.

Here’s something else to consider.  When I started medical school (1977) breast cancer in women under 50 was very, very rate.  Noiw it’s very, very common.  No one will articulate this, but it absolutely MUST be related to the increase in long term use of hormonal contraception.  If post-menopausal hormone use increases breast cancer risk (it does) why can we not see that the same risk exists for contraception before menopause?  Contraception harms women in more ways than one.

I’m just going to go ahead and love everything that Christina and Barbara C just posted.

A great post, Jennifer!

I personally like the end of Amanda’s post with the thesis… Yes, obviously you (Jennifer) are sex-phobic…  You’re children must have been conceived through turkey basters.

Feminism is deadly. It does not build anything. It only tears down.

Feminism kills babies (abortion), kills families (divorce), and kills futures (single motherhood).

Divorce, abortion, and single motherhood are disasters that no sane person would want for their own daughter.

And yet Feminists were the greatest champions for those disasters.

um…ok, is she stupid? The only guys I have found to be gentlemen and actually never EVER said one “sexual/disrespectful/physical” comment to me are the ones living according to the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church (which has similar if not exact ideas concerning sexual morality). And these are the guys who get ridiculed…“aaaaaw, he’s saving himself? why is he gay?” or “what is wrong with you people? omg are you gonna stay a virgin that long?” Excuse me? when did it become wrong not to have sex with any guy who says “I love you” but is not ready to live with you, share with you, raise kids with you, and stick around???  If we wanna talk about real PRO-WOMEN feminism…. then the Catholic Church is the greatest feminist!!

There is a growing chorus of women against feminism.
Watch 74 videos by “Women Against Feminism”:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL616D23D1DE15D5A1

“I too would like some evidence to back up your claim.“Do you know how many women have died in the United States due to “safe, legal abortion” from 1972 to 2003?”

In the last ten years, around 5-10 women a year have died from abortion, almost always from complications from surgery. And bear in mind that some women are having abortions precisely because their lives are at risk. The idea it’s particularly risky as an operation is nonsense (around 35 children died following a tonsilectomy in 2008, for example).

Meanwhile, as is typical, you’re only counting doctors killed. Another six health workers have been shot, there have been 17 attempted murders, 150 assaults serious enough to put a health worker in hospital, 3 kidnappings, over 40 bombings.

But ... there’s no point arguing this one, is there? You’ve made up your mind, so you can make up the numbers, too. There’s no point engaging with this debate, and I’m sorry I tried.

Abortion is murder. Feminism claims to be “Pro-Choice” even though the Choice for Life has always been there! The choice they want is the Choice to Kill. Feminism has devalued human life by treating a “fetus” as disposable garbage.
Where is the BABY’S CHOICE in all of this? Nowhere.

Wow- I think I fully understand that what makes Amanda and her followers (I read some of the comments from her horrific blog post) so outright angry is the simple fact that one of their own has “defected” to the other side and is bringing up all the points that they know deep inside to be true but unable to come to grips with. There is something extra powerful about an ex-insider pulling back the curtain on the truth and addressing the things that Amanda and her friends hold to be so important in their lives- only to find Jennifer slam dunking these truths and realities in a very direct and in your face manner which does not beat around the bush in any way shape or form. I respect you Jennifer for all that you have said- I have been in some dark places in my life due to poor decisions and to actually get up and speak about what is right and what you thought to be right takes courage and I am left in awe at how well you present this information. One thing I have learned over the years is that the Catholic Church’s viewpoints actually take real time and effort and THOUGHT to understand sometimes- something that many many people in this world do not want to do! It’s easy to go with your first instinct on a policy like- “choice is a good thing” well yes sure it is however what are the consequences of that “Choice” My very very humble suggestion to Amanda and her followers is that they take a little more time to truly analyze these issues in the same way that Jennifer did and perhaps they will find out that there is much more than meets the eye.

I can relate to what you said about the ultrasound.  Seeing my daughter at 20 weeks shattered my pro-choice views forever.  When I found out that people were performing abortions on children even older than her, I not only wasn’t pro-choice anymore, but I became pro-life and have never looked back.

Shock of all shocks, when I went to a pro-life doctor with my 3rd pregnancy who had some amazing quality ultrasound machines.  At only 9 weeks old my baby was…A BABY!  With arms and legs and a heart, just doing jumping jacks and gymnastics in there (and she is still just as energetic at age 2!).

Words cannot even express how angry and disgusted and disappointed I am for being FLAT OUT LIED TO by pro-choice propaganda.  They want to talk about “choice” and “having a future” but they aren’t giving you enough information to make a choice.  They are treating you like a dumb cow.

Great post! I read Amanda’s post last week and it reminded me of so many of my friends from high school, college and grad school who are supporters of feminism. Of course the Catholic Church provides women with a voice and with the respect that they deserve, but I think for Amanda and so many other women, the truth isn’t seen for what it is because society circulates so many messages that push women to separate their sexuality from their ability to give life. Hopefully more women will realize what true feminists know and this is the reality that murdering our own daughters is not empowering to women. Thanks to Jennifer for the time you take to spread the truth about the Church. Blessings!

The catholic church only accepts women as virgins or mothers (Mary managed to get credit for both—nice work!) The catholic church hates women as sexual or independent people.
—
Basically, a woman is a vessel for hold a child until it is born. It is sinful to enjoy the process of making a child, and sinful to go through the motions without producing a child.
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Any woman who engages in sex outside of marriage, and actively prevents conception—or even if she is infertile—is a !@#$%. She will not be accepted unless she “repents” (as did Mary Magdalen) and stops being sexual.
—
Too bad for Christianity that people are not parthenogenetic—then we would all be virgin mothers.

Adrienne, care to cite Church teaching to back up your claims? Paragraph numbers from the Catechism where women who engage in premarital sex are called “!@#$%”, for example, or the passage that states that the Church “hates women as sexual or independent people”? I’ve never read a single Church teaching that says anything remotely like that so I’m curious as to your sources.

Jemima, once again, do you have a source to back up your statistics? I provided evidence to back up my claims; why is it so difficult for you to do the same?

“why is it so difficult for you to do the same?”

Not difficult, just pointless. I’m a medical statistician. I do this for a living. If I can demonstrate that tonsillectomies (one of the most routine and minor operations) kill far more patients than abortions, will you promise that every time someone says ‘abortion is a dangerous operation’ you’ll reply ‘no, while all surgery carries a risk, it’s actually one of the safest procedures’? No. You’ll just pretend that every abortion is a D&X, performed three weeks after the baby drew its first picture and that the only reason a woman ever has an abortion is that they’re to lazy to think about it and want to spend the money on make up and short skirts instead.

If there was any chance, at all, I could deflect one part of one person’s mind here one degree, I’d debate it. But it won’t. Your minds are made up, there’s no point explaining the origin of the term ‘propaganda’. It was my mistake to comment here, and I apologize.

God bless you and your family, Jennifer.

Adrienne, you have concocted an interesting fiction, but it doesn’t in any way resemble Catholic teaching on sexuality.  Pretty much every single statement is not only wrong, but completely and bizarrely wrong.

But Jemima, that’s not what’s under discussion. Jennifer called abortion an “occasionally deadly procedure”. She didn’t say HOW deadly in comparison to other surgical procedures, she just made the point that, sometimes, women undergoing abortions die, which is a provable fact by the CDC’s own stats.

You replied to that, “Fun fact: in the US, thanks to religious extremism, you are more likely to be killed or seriously injured if you’re a doctor who performs abortions or you’re one of their staff than if you’re the one having an abortion.”

So, what I take issue with is your assertion that MORE abortion doctors (and/or staff) have been killed by alleged pro-life extremists than there are women who have died due to complications from having an abortion. Those are the stats I’m asking you to back up, not anything about if abortion is safer as compared to other types of surgery. All surgery carries risk. You’re arguing an irrelevant point.

Also, I might add that a successful abortion is always 100% lethal to the innocent unborn child involved. That’s a death toll of around 40-50 million since 1973. It’s MUCH safer to be an abortion worker, an abortionist, or a woman undergoing an abortion than it is to be an unborn child, hands down.

Paul H:

—
Please explain.

Adrienne, you wrote The catholic church only accepts women as virgins or mothers (Mary managed to get credit for both—nice work!) The catholic church hates women as sexual or independent people. That’s not true. After making a comment to my priest, just YESTERDAY, about how some people wouldn’t consider DH & I a “real” family since we have no children yet, he actually looked hurt. He said, “You’re a family. You’ll be a bigger one when you have kids…but WHAT IF YOU DON’T? Not everyone does!” Hearing that from a PRIEST made me feel 100% better that DH & I have our reasons for not yet starting a family. Those reasons are for God, DH & I alone. So if DH &  I are a family, by process of a elimination, I must be a person too :)

I repeat—If you consider the fertilized ovum to be a living child, then Catholics should have funeral services for tampons and feminine napkins of married couples each month. After all, a miscarriage is a spontaneous abortion and a new soul is in limbo.

Hi Adrienne,

OK, I’ll explain:

Here is a URL where you can find the complete text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is the most authoritative single source for Catholic teaching on faith, morals, and worship:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

If you go to this catechism, or if you go to any other Catholic catechism (e.g., the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or the youth catechism “Youcat,” or the old Baltimore Catechism, or any other official catechism you care to check), and if you then look up the teachings on sexual morality, you will not find any teachings that are even remotely similar to what you typed in your comments.

Adrienne,

I do pray for the children may have died before we ever knew they existed. In a Catholic context, God only holds us responsible for what we know, not for what we don’t or can’t know. Married couples can’t know if a child dies before s/he implants in the womb.

As for “limbo” - Catholics, we hope that God is able to work outside his own sacraments in order to save those children who die without baptism. It’s true that limbo may exist, but it’s equally as possible that all of our children who have died without baptism, known or unknown, are in Heaven with Him.

Regardless, abortion is not a religious issue, it’s a human rights issue - see http://secularprolife.org. Just because miscarriages occur spontaneously does not give anyone the right to commit abortion, just as the fact that adults die of natural causes every day does not give others the right to murder adults.

Paul H:
—
It is a large document, and I bookmarked it for future reading, but it would take too long to read the whole thing and reply to you.
—
I did a search on the Virgin Mary and one of the passages I found is this:
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<quote> 507 At once virgin and mother, Mary is the symbol and the most perfect realization of the Church: “the Church indeed. . . by receiving the word of God in faith becomes herself a mother. By preaching and Baptism she brings forth sons, who are conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of God, to a new and immortal life. She herself is a virgin, who keeps in its entirety and purity the faith she pledged to her spouse.“170
—
508 From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. “Full of grace”, Mary is “the most excellent fruit of redemption” (SC 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.
</endquote>
—
If Mary is the perfect symbol of the church because she is both mother and virgin,  how am I wrong in my first statement? Mary is “made by god” to be the “redemption” for Eve, whose sin was independent thought (i.e., disobeying god). Mary is “made pure” in that she was forgiven at conception, bore Jesus without sexual union, and never had sex in her lifetime. It’s a tall order for any Catholic women to aspire to that ideal, but the church does not respect anything less.
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I didn’t find anything on “loose women” in a search. Can you direct me?

Do these people know any other way to get a point across besides resorting to personal attacks and potty mouth? I guess when the facts and life experience of many, many humans don’t fit your idealogy, this is where you go.

As a professional counselor and RN for many years, I can only say that women’s (and children’s) status in the world is not better because of feminist philosophy. We have families broken, and children devastated due to the “It’s all about me and what I want” philosophy that has individuals desperately seeking happiness in the sensual and material, without any consequences. Surprise, they are not finding it.
When we respect and revere nothing, we get: nothing. Ms. Marcotte doesn’t sound particularly joyful. When the criteria for adult decision making is “does this make me feel good?”, we are all in trouble, and so here we are.

Wow ... one of the best articles I have seen in a long time!  I’m going to make a regular read of your blog.  Thank you for the service and witness to Christ!

Adrienne,

Your comments are completely erroneous and demonstrate a lack of understanding and comprehension of the teaching of the Catholic Church.

If you honestly study the Church and still disagree with her, your opinion is respectable.

But while you continue to sit and wail in your obstinately uninformed squalor, we sadly can’t take you seriously.

Jennifer,

Bravo and Amen! I pray that your dear readers will join me in praying for those deceived by the Culture of Death, as St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Ephesians:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” -Eph. 6:12

OK, I agree, I don’t understand what you call “comprehension of the teaching of the Catholic Church.” Tell me why I should care?
—
The Catholic Church (via the POPE) tells me I am wrong to use contraceptives and I am ‘not pure” because I have sex and I am not married. I need something better than “because I said so” to convince me. Tell me why chastity is better?
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Why would it have been wrong if Mary became pregnant with Jesus in the human way? The Church is obsessed with sexual conduct, more so than any other advertising.

I was a barely 20 year old college student faced with an “umplanned pregnancy.”  The cultural message is that your only “choice” is to have an abortion if you want any kind of future for oneself. 
Thankfully, I had my baby, naturally born, struggled thru school, had (have) little money, have a wonderful family including my beautiful tween son.  These are all JOYOUS struggles compared to the lifelong sufferings of grief had I aborted my son.
If feminists were truly pro-woman, they would be saying “Yes, you can!” instead of “no, you can’t!”
Thank you, Jennifer, for this wonderful article!

Lisa asked, “Do these people know any other way to get a point across besides resorting to personal attacks and potty mouth? I guess when the facts . . . don’t fit your ideology, this is where you go.”

Yes. Verbal violence and vulgarity: The final refuge of those who know they’ve been beaten . . . and don’t want to admit it.

In my selfish nineteen and twenty years old I told my girkfriend to have two abortions and have seen nothing of her since about 1982.  I pray she is well.

Adrienne

You should care because to criticize a group of people who hold a set of beliefs with very little knowledge as to what those people actually believe is an act of bigotry.  It’s no different than if I were to attack Jews or Muslims because of what I heard someone say once that they believed.  You’re picking up and repeating ill informed third-hand information probably gleaned from Women’s and Gender Studies courses or Humanities courses, gleaned from Lit Crit or Social Theory texts which were never carefully examined and are now disseminated in academia as infallible truth.  Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray for example, whose critique of Catholic thought was completely wrong.  Irigaray says that Catholicism creates an opposition between body and soul, and associates “feminine” with body and sin and “masculine” with soul and holiness.  That is not Catholicism, but Gnosticism.  Catholicism believes that the body is sacred but also prone to concupiscence or self-destructive desires.  There is a corollary to this even in Freudian psychoanalysis (the death drive.) 

Catholicism teaches that sex outside of marriage (for both men and women) violates the purpose of marriage which is a complete and total self-giving and communion of the two spouses.  You can’t give yourself completely to someone if you are treating his or your own body as a means to pleasure alone. You can’t experience full and deep communion with someone if you haven’t bonded spiritually and emotionally first, and haven’t made a full and conscientious sacrificial commitment to that person.  If you have any intellectual honesty in you at all, then take the time to learn about what the Church actually believes and teaches with regards to sexuality. If you’re really interested in the subject I would suggest starting with the Theology of the Body, here’s an interesting article as a starting point. 
http://www.christopherwest.com/article2.asp
If you’re just here to troll so that you can get a little rush of personal satisfaction out of how morally and intellectually superior you are compared to us Papist Troglodytes then, well, no one’s stopping you from doing that either.

game, set, match to Ms. Fulwiler

Oh, Jen. Your graciousness brought tears to my eyes. There you go again, manipulating my feminine penchant for emotional reactions… (that’s a joke, all y’all!)

Barbara, your posts here are a joy.  Thank you for taking the time to speak the truth!

Adrienne - your comments regarding the Church expecting women to be *equal* to Mary are absolutely erroneous and miss the point entirely regarding the teaching of Mother Mary. Mary NEEDED to be free of sin in order to be the vessel to hold Jesus - the Son of God. Nothing perfect can come from something imperfect - hence Mary’s freedom from original sin. The Catholic Church does not expect mother’s to be virgins, in fact its quite the opposite if you would take the time to learn the Theology of the Body as taught by the Catholic Church. The Church teaches of the profound intimacy between a man and woman when they take part in the marital embrace and allow the possibility for a miracle to take place as a result of that act - the miracle of a new life. The Church teaches of the covenant of marriage as established by God of which the purpose is to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. God gives us the opportunity to share in a miracle every time we open ourselves to the possibility of new life. Its an amazing gift that He has given us - the participation in a miracle here on earth! God, our creator, is allowing us to experience the beauty of the miracle of creation. He wants man and wife to enjoy each other and love each other (as the supreme creator - he *MADE* it so that it would FEEL good for man and wife - hardly someone who wants us to remain ‘virgins’) and be open to the new life that comes from their action of intimacy together - it is the most intimate opportunity for a man and woman to ever share together. God asks us to respect Him, to respect one another and to respect ourselves. The act of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman as husband and wife achieves those three things.

Your quotes from the Catechism regarding Mary are taken out of context and out of a lack of understanding of the perpetual virginity of *Mary* and are not intended to imply or assume the perpetual virginity of married women.  I hope that helps explain. There are some wonderful courses on the Catholic Church’s teaching on the Theology of the Body. In fact, the Theology of the Body was one of the major themes of Pope John Paul II’s papacy. He gave 129 lectures on the topic during his Papacy. I encourage you and anyone wanting to understand more about the *why* behind the teachings of the church on this topic to research and read the lectures. It is far from being about control or lacking respect for women - if you read and study with an open mind, you may find its quite the opposite!

Adrienne:

“The Catholic Church (via the POPE) tells me I am wrong to use contraceptives…”

A careful evaluation of your own nature and dignity as a human being will tell you you are wrong to use contraceptives. That’s why the Church teaches you that as well.

What does the Pope have to do with it? He teaches what the Church has always taught, same as all our bishops (I hope).

“... and I am ‘not pure” because I have sex and I am not married. I need something better than “because I said so” to convince me. Tell me why chastity is better?”

Well, once you make your way through the catechism mentioned above, you’ll discover that you are also ‘not pure’ if you blaspheme God, declare as true something you know to be false, gossip, steal, or use vile language toward your neighbor like Amanda Marcotte’s. Like not fornicating, not doing those other wickednesses is better than doing them. It’s the way of love, and life. Helps to keep us out of Hell, too.

You could, alternately, take that careful evaluation of your own nature and dignity as a human being and determine that those things defile you. You don’t really need to take the Church’s word for it. Most of them are attainable to reason.

It’s sin, that Christ came to save us from. You surely didn’t think that sex would be the one important area of human life that wouldn’t furnish opportunities for wickedness, did you?

“Why would it have been wrong if Mary became pregnant with Jesus in the human way?”

It wouldn’t necessarily have been wrong, but Jesus Christ would not have been God incarnate if He’d had both a human father and mother, and we would still be in our sins.

“The Church is obsessed with sexual conduct, more so than any other advertising.”

Seriously?? Thanks for the laugh though; it’s good to know it’s not just us fundamentalist Christian wingnuts who can do frothing-at-the-mouth stupid.

Wait? We’re anti-woman? I thought we worshiped Mary! You guys have got to forward me those memos or else we’ll never crush the freedom of men with a renewed ecclesiocracy.

If any other organization tried to treat women as badly as the Catholic Church, they would be closed down.  In the next 10 years or so the RCC will either ordain women or they will have so few people left that they will barely be able to function.

The Laity is now better educated than the boys in Rome, who need to grow up and realize their opinions arenot taken seriously anymore.

Rick

Don’t quit your day job man, you suck as a prophet. Take a look at the photos from World Youth Day of the two million plus young people who showed up to tell the Pope “You’re awesome.” Take a look at the 400,000 “ninjas” who showed up to the March for Life in DC last year.  Catholicism is not only not dying as the Army of Greying Pantsuit-Progressives like to predict, it’s thriving on a level it hasn’t been since the 1950’s, and all of those young people are, like myself, deeply impressed by and supportive of the Church’s position on just about everything. 

The hippie/progressives are the ones who are dying.  They don’t see it, and they don’t see how much has changed.  They say we are “Stuck in the past” but they are.  They are the ones who think we are still living in 1970 and refuse to see that the Sexual Revolution has been a failure, that a society steeped in relativism and hedonism is a disaster, and the tide is turning as young people are starting to want something more than hedonistic pleasure and self-gratification.  It’s the progressives’ opinion which isn’t being taken seriously anymore. The Church will not change! It is not some vapid, meaningless institution that changes with whatever happens to be in fashion at any particular time.  It is outside of time! It rocks! It is true!  Progressives wither.

Amen, Barbara, well said.  And another great post, Jennifer; I appreciate the cultural fault line that your dialogue with Marcotte reveals.  Peabrain-potty-mouth may be flashy, but your arguments are solid—and you’re classy.  Well done.

Hi Adrienne,
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Thanks for your reply.  Yeah, it would take a very long time to read the entire catechism, and I certainly wouldn’t expect you to.  I’m Catholic and I’m serious about my faith, but even I haven’t read it from cover to cover.  :-)
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You asked, “If Mary is the perfect symbol of the church because she is both mother and virgin,  how am I wrong in my first statement?”
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Well, for one thing, you seem to be taking a number of things out of context, which perhaps is understandable, since you may not be familiar with Catholic theology and terminology.  For example, you seem to think that the statement that Mary “remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life” means that she must have remained a virgin.  We do believe that Mary remained a virgin, but that doesn’t mean that it is a sin not to be a virgin.
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You also asked, “I didn’t find anything on ‘loose women’ in a search. Can you direct me?”
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Now that’s a question I have never heard before, in regard to the Catechism!  :-)
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Seriously, I don’t think that there is any mention of “loose women” in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, or of “loose men” for that matter (or whatever would be the equivalent term for men).  However, there are at least two sections on sexual morality, namely the sections that discuss the sixth and ninth commandments.  Here are the URLs for those sections:
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http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a9.htm
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I would encourage you to read these sections (especially the one on the sixth commandment) if you would like to get an idea of the Catholic Church’s true teaching on sexuality.  However, you will need to keep in mind that Catholic theology sometimes uses words in different ways than we use them in everyday speech.  For example, in everyday speech, you might assume that the word “chastity” means abstaining from sex.  But in Catholic theology, “chastity” simply means following God’s law with regard to sex.  For example, a married couple having sexual intercourse would be practicing chastity.  But a man having intercourse with a woman who is not his wife would not be practicing chastity.

Hi Adrienne,
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To be honest, when I saw your original post, I didn’t think it was worth refuting your points one by one, because it sounded as if you were misrepresenting Catholic teaching deliberately.  But based on your more recent posts, I’m now thinking that I *might* have been wrong about that.  So let me give a quick rundown of your original points:
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“The catholic church only accepts women as virgins or mothers (Mary managed to get credit for both—nice work!) The catholic church hates women as sexual or independent people.”
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The Catholic Church teaches that sex is a wonderful gift that is reserved for marriage, that is a special bond to be shared only by a husband and wife.  If you feel that this teaching restricts your freedom, I can understand.  But it restricts your freedom no more than prohibitions on stealing or on lying.  It’s just that stealing and lying aren’t generally as much fun as, well you know.  Also, this teaching affects men and woman equally—women are not in any way being singled out.
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Furthermore, Jesus taught us to love our neighbors; this was one of His two great commandments.  So we should not hate anyone, whether man or woman.
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“Basically, a woman is a vessel for hold a child until it is born. It is sinful to enjoy the process of making a child, and sinful to go through the motions without producing a child.”
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This is absolutely not what the Catholic Church teaches.  Every woman is made in the image and likeness of the Almighty God, and is loved by Him more than any of us can imagine.  That is a far cry from being a mere vessel. 
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And it is absolutely not sinful to enjoy the process of making a child, for a man or for a woman.  The pleasure of sex is a great gift.  God made sex pleasurable because he wants us to do it; one of his first commandments to humanity in the Old Testament was to “be fruitful and multiply.”
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Furthermore, it is not sinful to “go through the motions without producing a child.”  As long as each sexual act within marriage is not artificially closed off to the possibility of procreation, then there is nothing sinful about that act.  It doesn’t matter if the woman is at an infertile time in her cycle, or if the man or woman is permanently infertile, or if the woman has reached menopause, or if the woman is currently pregnant.  In any of those situations, it is completely fine for a husband and wife to engage in sexual intercourse, even though it would be virtually impossible for procreation to take place.
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“Any woman who engages in sex outside of marriage, and actively prevents conception—or even if she is infertile—is a !@#$%.”
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The part about infertility I addressed above.  But you are right that a man or a woman who engages in sex outside of marriage or who uses contraception has engaged in gravely sinful behavior, according to Catholic teaching.  But that doesn’t make anyone a !@#$% (whatever word that is supposed to be).  Sin separates us from God, but God is always willing to take us back, and He still loves us even when we commit sins.  His mercy knows no limits—it is big enough for the most notorious sinner, if that sinner is truly contrite. 
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Furthermore, we are all sinners, every one of us, myself most certainly included.  The fact that I am Catholic does not mean that I am without sin.  A better way to say it would be that because I sin, I need to be Catholic.  :-)
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“She will not be accepted unless she ‘repents’ (as did Mary Magdalen) and stops being sexual.”
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Please see what I wrote above about repentance and forgiveness.  However, a person, whether a man or a woman, does not need to stop being sexual.  Being sexual is a wonderful thing, within the proper context, which is marriage.  As the saying goes, there is a time and place for everything, and marriage is the time and place for “being sexual.” 
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And one reason that sex is restricted to marriage is that sex often leads to babies.  Even if a couple uses contraception, there is still a chance, however small, that an act of sexual intercourse will result in pregnancy.  And so by teaching that sexual intercourse is reserved to married couples, the Catholic Church not only teaches God’s commandments, but also teaches common sense.  Because a baby will fare better with a stable family already in place, than being born to a couple who simply hooked up for one night.

Do you know how to make someone who is pro-choice angry?
Tell them that a woman “choose” to keep her baby.

God Bless you Jennifer

“Do you know how to make someone who is pro-choice angry?
Tell them that a woman “choose” to keep her baby.”

Does it make pro-choice people angry because they have a lower tolerance of basic grammatical errors?

Jennifer,
God was good to me. Kind and gentle. I lost my pro-choice status slowly at first. I was newly returned to my protestant roots and had questions about “choice” and life. It was hard for me to completely dismiss the feminist ideology that was standard issue of any “thinking” woman of my college years. I was also becoming increasingly interested in Catholicism. Just as I thought life was blossoming for me, I lost my “surprise” baby early in the first trimester. I saw this baby as a gift from God and to lose him or her was a bitter experience. And suddenly it hit me that as much as I had wanted this new life, others were discarding their babies on a daily basis. The precious nature of life suddenly hit me square between the eyes. I haven’t always had the skill to debate this question but from that moment, I knew in my heart that abortion, no matter how you dressed it up, was wrong. It goes beyond words, deeper than words. Keep up your work. I believe you and so many others are making progress in the fight for the sanctity of life.

Jennifer I like your classy response, especially when hers was so filled with unnecessary venom. I do have to disagree with you that women don’t think sex makes babies and that we lack the ability to seek out information.  This is what is first learned when sex is introduced.  No one gets there sex education from a magazine.  We really aren’t that stupid.  We also have access to the effects of abortion and all the horrible physical and psychological damaging aspects.  Now I do think laziness plays apart.  A lot of women take what the doctor tells them as gospel without being their own advocate.  What really bothers me is that when you look up birth control it is very difficult to find information about NFP (except for Fertility awareness method).  In order to get information you have to pay for a class, it really makes it more difficult and time consuming to make this an option.

@ Paul H:
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To be honest, I am here to provoke comment. You wrote:
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The Catholic Church teaches that sex is a wonderful gift that is reserved for marriage, that is a special bond to be shared only by a husband and wife.  If you feel that this teaching restricts your freedom, I can understand. But it restricts your freedom no more than prohibitions on stealing or on lying.  It’s just that stealing and lying aren’t generally as much fun as, well you know. Also, this teaching affects men and woman equally—women are not in any way being singled out.”
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Do you actually believe the desire for sex is similar to the desire to steal or lie? Or as joyful? Stealing and lying hurts people—sex gives pleasure, expresses love for another, and, incidentally, is necessary for procreation of our species. Maybe, in worse cases, it becomes addictive, as does drinking alcohol, but it is not as deliberately harmful (this does not include rape, which is using sex as a weapon in anger.) Whether you believe it was by God or by evolution, lust is part of our nature, as is hunger and fear. Without these emotions, our species would become extinct.
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The teaching may apply to both men and women in theory, but the church puts the burden on women to be virgins and mothers, and NOT BE A TEMPTATION TO MEN. This implies that women who act otherwise are at fault when men have sex outside marriage. I referred to Mary Magdalene earlier because I was staying with the New Testament, but this idea goes back to Genesis, when Eve tempted Adam with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Judeo-Christianity is not the only religion that relates sex with evil, but the Catholic faith blames woman for man’s “fall from grace” and now demands that she restrict her sexuality. Why did the virgin Mary had to be married (at least in name) to Joseph before she bore Jesus? If Jesus is the Son of God and she is still a virgin throughout her life, why didn’t she remain unmarried? Simply because a child is definite proof that a woman has had sex. The Catholic Church needs her to be the image of a Married Virgin Mother—not just a virgin mother because many other religions at the time had goddesses who were also virgin mothers.
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So the Catholic church demands women to strive to be like the Virgin Mary and not like Eve or Mary Magdalene (before she repented). But, like it or not, science has developed methods of contraception and genetically identifying a child’s father. Secular women are free to choose, and men can be held accountable, or cleared of a false accusation.
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I also resent, in general, the church’s paternalistic assumption that we would kill, steal, lie, and otherwise be totally immoral without it’s guidance. There have been secular laws to prevent and punish crimes long before Christians entered the scene. It’s real problem is a jealous god—the original sin was to disobey this god and the church has been against independent knowledge since its beginning.

Hey Jemima, regarding your comment below, it probably was just a spelling error or typo….not grammatical.  Chill!

[Posted by Jemima Cole on Tuesday,:
“Do you know how to make someone who is pro-choice angry?
Tell them that a woman “choose” to keep her baby.”
Does it make pro-choice people angry because they have a lower tolerance of basic grammatical errors?]

Hi Adrienne,

I think that if you could address your arguments and objections against what the Catholic Church actually teaches, Catholics would be more willing to hear you out.
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“Do you actually believe the desire for sex is similar to the desire to steal or lie? Or as joyful?”
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No, I didn’t say that.  You were concerned about being independent.  But being independent is an illusion.  In fact, everyone is dependent—on God and on other people.  And being Catholic means recognizing that having freedom to do things that are wrong is not true freedom—it doesn’t matter whether the thing that is wrong is extra-marital sex, or lying, or stealing, or gossip, or gluttony, or envy, or idolatry, or any other sin that you care to name.  In other words, there is not a separate level of severity that applies only to sexual sins.
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“The teaching may apply to both men and women in theory, but the church puts the burden on women to be virgins and mothers, and NOT BE A TEMPTATION TO MEN. This implies that women who act otherwise are at fault when men have sex outside marriage.”
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I see no evidence within actual Catohlic teaching to back up your claims.  In both theory and in practice, Catholic teaching on sexual morality applies to men and women both.  Neither sex is singled out.  And neither sex bears the blame for the sins of the opposite sex.  Also, no woman is expected to be both a virgin and a mother; I am not sure why you are stuck on this idea.
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“Judeo-Christianity is not the only religion that relates sex with evil”
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No, actually Christianity doesn’t equate sex with evil, at least if we are talking about Catholic Christianity.  (I can’t claim to know what every one of hundreds of Protestant denominations has ever taught on this.)  And I have provided evidence that it doesn’t.  You can’t provide evidence that it does, because there is none.
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“but the Catholic faith blames woman for man’s “fall from grace” and now demands that she restrict her sexuality.”
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No, the Catholic Church does not blame woman for man’s fall from grace.  And man’s fall from grace, or Eve’s role in that fall, has nothing to do with restrictions on sexuality—restrictions which again apply equally to men and to women.
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“Why did the virgin Mary had to be married (at least in name) to Joseph before she bore Jesus?”
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I don’t know that she did have to be married.  What makes you think that just because it happened that way, that it had to happen that way?
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“The Catholic Church needs her to be the image of a Married Virgin Mother—not just a virgin mother because many other religions at the time had goddesses who were also virgin mothers.”
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You are very stuck on this idea, and honestly I do not understand why, or where you are getting it from.
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“So the Catholic church demands women to strive to be like the Virgin Mary and not like Eve or Mary Magdalene (before she repented).”
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The Catholic Church encourages all of us, men and women, to imitate Jesus most of all, but also to follow the example of the saints, not the example of sinners.  We consider Mary to be the greatest saint, but there are many other saints as well, including many married women saints.
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“But, like it or not, science has developed methods of contraception and genetically identifying a child’s father. Secular women are free to choose, and men can be held accountable, or cleared of a false accusation.”
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You mention what is best for women (as you see it), and holding men accountable.  But you don’t mention anything about what is best for the children who are conceived in non-marital sex.
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“I also resent, in general, the church’s paternalistic assumption that we would kill, steal, lie, and otherwise be totally immoral without it’s guidance.”
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No, we would kill, steal, lie, and otherwise be totally immoral without God’s grace.  I don’t mean that every person would kill, or that every person would steal, etc.  But certainly the default state of humanity is to fall into very bad behavior pretty easily.  You may resent that this is true, but all you have to do to confirm this is to study history from almost any place and time, or simply pick up a newspaper.

@ Dave Miller:

Why would it make a pro-choice person angry? That’s what it’s all about.

@Adrienne, really the the pro-life message has never been to tell someone how beautiful it is to bring forth life. It is always telling women, “you know you really don’t have to go through with this pregnancy if you don’t want to.”

@ Barbara:
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“Catholicism teaches that sex outside of marriage (for both men and women) violates the purpose of marriage which is a complete and total self-giving and communion of the two spouses.  You can’t give yourself completely to someone if you are treating his or your own body as a means to pleasure alone. You can’t experience full and deep communion with someone if you haven’t bonded spiritually and emotionally first, and haven’t made a full and conscientious sacrificial commitment to that person.”
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You are assuming that marriage has a purpose other than keeping property within families. Not long ago, Christians arranged marriages, as some other cultures do today. Love and marriage have different purposes. You can love some one and not be committed to him/her—you don’t have to sacrifice everything.
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I know that is a foreign concept to you, because sacrifice is what Catholicism is all about. Sex is no different than any other pleasure-seeking behavior, except that it makes offspring. Marriage ensures that a particular man is the father of that offspring. The romance of “giving yourself completely” to another makes you feel better about it.

“You can love some one and not be committed to him/her—you don’t have to sacrifice everything.”

That’s a pretty cheap and shallow version of love, in my opinion.  I can’t imagine settling for such a pale version of love from a romantic partner.

“Hey Jemima, regarding your comment below, it probably was just a spelling error or typo….not grammatical.  Chill!”

My point is that there’s nothing there to make a ‘pro choice’ person angry if someone chooses not to have an abortion. If this was an ideal world, there would be no need for abortions, and I don’t think a single pro choice person could argue with that statement.

The point about choice is that it’s a choice, in the hands of the person making that choice.

This is tangential to Jennifer’s post, so I apologize in advance for interrupting the discussion, but I noticed there are a number of thoughtful, knowledgeable Catholics here, and I’m wondering whether anyone might be willing to offer some advice. This is hard to explain, but I recently stepped back from the Church after having been involved in it for about six years. I don’t know why, but I found myself feeling deeply uneasy and uncomfortable with the Church and needed to push it out of my life for a while. Some months later, I’d now like to take my time and slowly re-examine the Church from the outside, and decide whether to re-enter. Does anyone here know, say, of a forum where non-Catholics can discuss matters of faith with Catholics? It’d be nice if there were, like, a support group for on-the-fence Catholics! (Ha!) Are there books anyone would recommend, or… does anyone have any suggestions? This is kind of a daunting task and I don’t know where to start.

David,
Your thoughtful and sincere request really touched me and I am sure most of us have been in your shoes to some degree. As a new convert, I can give you lots of good books to read, lots of forums to discuss things with others. When you say you want to examine the Church, does that preclude attending Mass?

Contrasting Jennifer’s post with Amanda Marcotte’s, and the comments on each site, it is striking (but not surprising) the dramatic difference in world views.  For me, a vision of hell is spending eternity with the bitter souls represented on Ms. Marcotte’s site.  I have to surmise that hell for her would be yielding in the least to anyone other than her own self and desires.  But as Bob Dylan sang “You gotta serve somebody… it might be the devil or it might be the Lord…”  I pray that we all, including Ms. Marcotte, choose the Lord!

David,

You might check out the Catholic Answers forum (a huge Catholic message board with many good people who post there, including Catholics and non-Catholics).  Or check out Steve Ray’s Defenders of the Catholic Faith forum (which has many friendly Catholic converts who post regularly).  Here are the URLs for those sites:

Catholic Answers:

http://forums.catholic.com/

Defenders of the Catholic Faith:

http://forums.catholic-convert.com/index.php

If you post in either place asking for help or advice or support, I believe you will get some good replies.

Jennifer - Thank you for your kind reply. No, I haven’t been going to Mass lately, but I am not opposed to going, either. Perhaps you could let me know what books and/or forums you found helpful in your search?

Paul H - Thank you very much. I’ve bookmarked both those websites and will rely on them as a resource in the future.

Paul H:
__
I’m not the first to say it, but it is better to have loved and lost than to live with the psycho for the rest of your life.

David,

There is a program called “Landings” which you might be interested in.  You might want to contact your diocese to find out if there are any nearby parishes that offer it. 

The other thing you might do is go to a parish and ask a priest for some advice on someone in his parish that might be able to meet with you.

DB—
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Do you or do you consider sex to be sin?

Mary and Jesus are “without sin” because they are virgins. Mary had to be married to Joseph, or she would have been ostracized along with her b—son, and there would be no story for the new testament.

Paul H—
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Apparently I am mistaken and the Bible is not the holy book of the Catholic Church. That is the source of my information. I’m not going to read the catechism word for word, but I get the idea that the Church wants to be a parent to us and guide our every move and thought, because otherwise we would “fall into sin”, which we were born into and had to be Baptized in the first place. On the one had, we have free will; on the other hand, if we use our free will, we sin. In any case, the church has a real problem with women and independent sexuality.
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Contraception is a good way of preventing the conception of children in non-marital sex. (Don’t give me the lame argument that the pill aborts a fertilized ovum and kills the child—the Pope is also against condoms, which prevents the sperm from joining the ovum.) If we lived in perfect society, all children would be welcome and supported and single mothers and fathers would get enough support.
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I never really understood what you mean by “God’s grace”. It’s been established here and in other posts that both religious and non-religious people lie, steal, and immoral behavior. How is “God’s grace” relevant in any of this? Please explain.

“Apparently I am mistaken and the Bible is not the holy book of the Catholic Church. That is the source of my information.”
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No, you are not mistaken about the Bible’s central place in the Catholic faith, and you surely know that.  But evidently I draw very different conclusions from the Bible than you do.  For example, you wrote this:
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“Mary and Jesus are “without sin” because they are virgins.”
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I certainly have never found this in the Bible or in any Catholic catechism.  I mean, yes they are without sin, but not because they are virgins.  That is an unusual point of view that honestly I have not heard before, and I still don’t know where you are getting it from.
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“Contraception is a good way of preventing the conception of children in non-marital sex.”
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Except when it fails.
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“If we lived in perfect society, all children would be welcome and supported and single mothers and fathers would get enough support.”
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But it is very hard for all children to be welcome in a society where contraception is widely used.  Inevitably, contraception will fail in some cases, because no contraceptive method is 100% effective even when used properly, and because many people don’t always use contraceptives properly.  And people who were using contraception often are not ready to welcome a child—otherwise they probably wouldn’t have been using contraception.
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“I never really understood what you mean by “God’s grace”. It’s been established here and in other posts that both religious and non-religious people lie, steal, and immoral behavior. How is “God’s grace” relevant in any of this? Please explain.”
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Just look at the lives of the saints.  Or of Catholic converts.  For that matter, read Jennifer’s blog posts about changes that she has made since her conversion.  God’s grace brings about conversion of heart, so that a person who previously committed lots of big sins over time may commit fewer, smaller sins. 
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I am reminded of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s quote about hearing nuns’ confessions.  I believe he said that it is like being stoned to death with popcorn.  In other words, these women who have dedicated their entire lives to Christ find plenty of sins to confess, but they tend to be very small, almost insignificant things.

I have been reading the comments and I am so impressed at the clear,rational responses to Adrienne’s criticisms.

@ Adrienne- I am struck by a feeling of sadness for you.  You seem to desperately want to validate your position but, I think, do so violently and with malice because deep down, you feels the shaky ground you stand on.

No judgement on you- just wonder if you are being intellectually and emotionally honest? Could your own life situation be adding to your bias against the Catholic Church?

David - you’re welcome to join us over at the Little Catholic Bubble (http://littlecatholicbubble.blogspot.com). A lot of the commenters there (including myself) are former Protestants, and the blog owner is a revert to the Catholic faith.

Yall might be interested to see the comment by the writer “Andy1988” at the following h t tp:/ / www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/08/21/20110821phoenix-catholic-diocese-girl-servers.html#comments

Dear David,
You might give these websites a try: http://www.wordonfire.org/
http://www.whycatholic.org/
Also, these authors are very good: Dr. Scott Hahn, Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Patrick Madrid, Jimmy Akin, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II, Saint Thomas Aquinas…. The list is almost endless. 
Hope these help!
Also, you might want to think about Diabolic Oppression.  I know this sounds extreme but it seems no one today thinks that the devil and his minions work on us at all!  They do.  Diabolic Oppression is defined:
Diabolic Oppression - is a ransom discomfort. We must remember that symptoms and gravity differ greatly case by case. This oppression can strike health, job, affections, relationship with others, and so on. Its symptoms include unexplainable rages and a tendency to complete isolation. Oppression can affect both individual and groups (even very large groups).
As I stated, this sounds extreme but symptoms do vary case by case but it may explain your “deep uneasiness” with the Church.
Hope these are helpful and I will keep you in my prayers!!

@Carrrie:
—\
Stop playing the shrink—it is very arrogant of you to presume that I am unhappy in my life situation and taking it out on the church.
—
Don’t you think it possible that I’m angry at the church for what it does? Why do you think I’m ranting about it—-there is documented proof about abuse, cover-ups, the Magdalen Laundries, etc. There is documented proof that the church has opposed science and education that differs from its doctrines and this resulted in millions of needless deaths. There is documented proof of its support for witch burning/hanging and collaboration with Nazis.
—
Yet the Pope and his followers insist they know what is the moral path to salvation—and you assume I’m unhappy because I reject the church. Don’t feel sad for me—you are on the wrong path in that train of thought.

You’re right on the substance, Jennifer, but Marcotte does have a point with the data: first, as you cite, most of those who reported using contraceptives admitted to using them wrongly. Are they “intelligent, responsible people”? Probably not, given how easy it is to use contraceptives.

Second, you missed another point: the use of contraceptives referred to the MONTH in which the conception took place. A girl might have had sex with a man using a condom on one day of the month, then had other relations without any protection, got pregnant from one of these and was still counted as a “contraception user” in the survey.

If we’re going to defend the Church’s teachings, let’s do it in the best possible way. And questioning the safety of contraception, which is very well attested by many studies, is just not convincing at all; rather, it makes the Catholic position depend on dubious science.

Yes, there are effective, safe and simple contraceptives around. Many men and women use them all the time and don’t get pregnant. Let’s show them why the contraceptive mentality is bad even given this scenario. Then we’ll have a real case against contraception.

Paul H:
—-
“God’s grace brings about conversion”? Another circular argument to believe in god because it will bring god’s grace because god’s grace brings about belief in god. Makes no sense to me.
—
Gods were invented by humankind to deal with things they can’t understand and to deal with the certainty of death, and the uncertainty of everything else. Religion is the ultimate break with reality.
—
P.S. Most of my comments are from reading the Bible as mythology or, if you prefer, a work of literature. Some of its allusions and metaphors (parables?) ring of very good morals—others are vicious and oppressive to men and particularly to women. If any of you learn to think critically about your “sacred book” and the policies of your pope, you might get my points.

Well Adrienne,
I think you have made your positions quite clear and it seems obvious we are all done now. You must have better things to do than argue with people you disagree with so thoroughly. But I am sure I speak for the folks who’ve taken the time to talk with you that we do wish you well.
Jennifer

Adrienne -

While I agree with Jennifer regarding being all done now, I did want to take this quick opportunity to answer a question you asked me:
***
Do you or do you consider sex to be sin?
Mary and Jesus are “without sin” because they are virgins. Mary had to be married to Joseph, or she would have been ostracized along with her b—son, and there would be no story for the new testament.
***
To answer your first question - I consider sex outside of marriage to be a sin. I also consider sex within a marriage using contraception to be a sin - not the act of sex itself, but the act of using contraception. You can read any of the comments above explaining the intent of the covenant of marriage as outlined by the Church to understand why I believe that.

To answer your second question - Mary and Jesus are not without sin because they are virgins - this is not what the Church teaches. I encourage you to read: <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm>for an explanation of Immaculate Conception in order to understand why Jesus and Mary are without sin. You’ll find that there is absolutely NO reference to virginity. You may also want to read the following: <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm> regarding original sin. Original sin was NOT sex as many are mistakenly led to believe. To summarize - original sin was disobedience, not anything sexual.

You mentioned reading the Bible as mythology or fiction. Perhaps you might consider studying the Bible in this light: <http://biblestudyforcatholics.com/catholic-bible/study-information/111/timeline-adventure-story-salvation>

Not only does the study outline the literal and allegorical aspect of the Bible, but it ties it into the historical events of the time as well as how it is the basis for the teachings of the Catholic Church (and the importance of women in the history of the story of salvation!). As a Catholic convert, I used to question much about the Church and the Bible, but the more I learned the more I found a sound basis for the beliefs held by the Church.

As Jennifer said, I wish you well.

Peace and Blessings to you.

“Mary and Jesus are “without sin” because they are virgins.”

Whoa! Where do you get this stuff?!  You are woefully ignorant of theology and catechism… but it seems you are open to discussion and that’s why everyone here was willing to engage you.  (With apologies to Jennifer who says this discussion is done… I’ve been thinking about this wacky statement all night and feel compelled to answer.)

It has nothing to do with virginity, rather it’s that they were born without Original Sin.  That’s what Immaculate Conception means… it doesn’t mean conceived by a virgin… it means the child was conceived in an immaculate state of grace… without original sin.

Shall we go back to original sin for an explanation?  See… the fall of man, in the garden of eden…  that’s where original sin started.  Because Adam and Eve were so tempted by Knowledge… wanting to be like God… all men consequentially are born with original sin for which we must be redeemed.  The Blessed Virgin Mary was born free from sin.  That means she is incapable of lying or stealing or cheating or disrespecting her parents or any sin!  Not just sexual sin. 

by the way… The fall of man is not placed squarely on Eve’s shoulders either.  Adam was supposed to be there to protect her… where was he when the serpent was telling her lies?  She didn’t TRICK him into eating the fruit.  He knew it was from the tree of knowledge and ate it anyway… rather than take a stand to urge her not to.

God made woman the crowning glory of creation.  The Church recognizes that. 
That’s why the devil is so ticked off… God gave humans the ability to create life… and He did it magnificently through the creation of woman.  The fallen angel wanted so badly to be equal to God… and then God went and created woman… what a blow!!  That is why satan attacks woman through the modern means of abortion, contraceptive mentality… and thinking that it’s better to make $10,000 more a year rather than bear a child!

The Church is trying to teach the rest of the world that women ARE the crowning glory of creation. The Church wants to show us all that women should be respected for the divine gift we are blessed with.  That is why the church teaches we shouldn’t be afraid of our sexuality… we shouldn’t be afraid of pregnancy.

I always find it very curious when folks adamantly reject something that they know nothing about!  You know nothing about Catholic teachings… just half-truths and rumors that you have picked up over the years.  I would assume that makes you the same sort of person who bases her opinions about people on information from others rather than getting to know the person yourself and making up your own mind.  That’s dreadful.

That is why Jennifer Fulwiler is a former Atheist.  She decided that she should understand what she was rejecting… and in studying it, came to understand the truth.
May you be blessed with the same understanding.

Hi Adrienne,
.
You are clearly here only to argue for the sake of arguing, so I suggest that we wrap up this conversation soon.
.
“‘God’s grace brings about conversion’? Another circular argument to believe in god because it will bring god’s grace because god’s grace brings about belief in god. Makes no sense to me.”
.
I answered your question.  I did not make an argument—whether logical or illogical, valid or invalid, circular or non-circular.  If you want to debate about God’s existence, we could do that, though at this point I think it would be fruitless.  But I was not debating you, and I certainly was not attempting to present arguments or proof for God’s existence.  Again I was merely answering your question.
.
In conclusion, I’ll just repeat what I said in an earlier comment:  If you truly want to engage Catholics in intelligent, fruitful discussions, and if you are determined to oppose Catholic teaching, then I recommend that you direct your opposition toward WHAT THE CHURCH ACTUALLY TEACHES. 
.
By directing your opposition against strange theological ideas that no well-informed Catholic believes, and that the Catholic Church does not teach, you are not accomplishing what appears to be your goal—i.e., arguing against the Catholic faith.  Instead you are arguing against a fictional anti-sex religion that has very little (if any) similarity to actual Catholic beliefs.
.
And instead of anyone trying to refute your points, we are left mostly saying things like “no, the church doesn’t teach that,” or “no we don’t believe that,” or “where did you get that idea?”.

Tammy - you comment: Adam was supposed to be there to protect her… where was he when the serpent was telling her lies?

In the original Hebrew, the implication of the text is that he is right there!!!!  Yet he does absolutely nothing to help Eve in her argument with the serpent.  I think this is why God’s punishment to Adam was to make him head of the family.  He had failed in his primary role and God rightly punished him by making him responsible for the welfare of his family once they left Eden. Eve’s punishment, quite frankly, is much lighter and I think more profound, than his.  Yes the pain of childbirth is excruciating, yet almost immediately after the birth, the pain fades.  I think God wants us women to feel the pain as a reminder of God’s pain at the rebellion of His creation.  Yet God’s pain fades too especially when we repent and come back to Him.  We are the closest to God in likeness because of our ability to carry and bring forth life.  He wants us to feel and share in His pain and His joy too.  What an awesome gift!

LAJ— Thanks for that insight… I love it!

Tammy,
You’re welcome.  One caveat-I do not think women are better than men, just different.  Our roles are different therefore our gifts from God are different.  That is one reason I have such a problem with Secular Feminism.  We are not like men and should not even try.  Our biology determines our roles and why we cannot seem to understand and revel in it is beyond my comprehenshion.  It is so fulfilling to be the Spiritual heart of my family and my husband is the Spiritual head. It works. Why mess with it?

“Is contraception good for women?”—a more simple solution for women is to KEEP THEIR PANTS ON! Same goes for men, too! Poeple need to realize that sex=babies! Babies are not to be gutted and thrown away like unwanted trash just becuase they don’t want them!  You did the deed, suck it up and take responsibility for your actions!

I’m surprised that Planned ParentHood doesn’t pride themselves with “serving the communisty” with a banner that states “1 million abortions every year!”

This posting I applaud and glad to hear a woman speak about these topics and present the moral vs. the immoral thought-process of secularly-influenced yet mis-guided feminists. Jennifer, you are one classy woman!

and this quote from you column says it all:

“The Catholic Church, on the other hand, respects women enough to tell them the full truth about human sexuality and human life. It never discourages them from gaining more information about their own bodies. It trusts them to be able to handle the truth, even if it’s not convenient.”

Well, Paul H.
—
Yes, I enjoy a good argument, I always come to these sites hoping finally understand why people accept blind faith over real evidence. The grounds keep shifting most of the time, but I have conversed with one or two people who appreciate a good argument as well.
—
I guessed that you gave me the Church’s definition of “god’s grace” and I if that is what determines your faith, I’m still waiting to experience it. Unfortunately I think it will have something to do with brain damage, because I’m strongly opposed to faith on intellectual principles.
—
I’ve also dealt with people who have had “god’s grace”—an event that caused them to become actively devoted Christians/Catholics. It is obviously an emotional experience, like bonding with a teddy bear and refusing to let go.
—
There are other teachings that I have more confidence in—and I will leave you to yours.

Tammy,
—
God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the other saints, Angels, AND Satan are all fictional inventions of the Catholic church—many of the ideas are simply variations of gods from other religions.
—
A woman has the perfect right to choose to make an extra $10,000 a year—it should not have to be a choice based on whether she wants to bear a child or not. Satan should attack the corporations that don’t allow time off for child care.You Catholics are so into sacrifice you don’t know who the real enemies against families really are.

LAG - I hope my points did not suggest that I view women as better than men.  Like you, I just appreciate that men and women are different and our differences should be understood and appreciated.

I will say… that women SHOULD be protected.  Honored.  Respected.  The gift that God gave us (conception, pregnancy, childbirth) also makes us vulnerable.  That is why the advent of artificial contraception has done nothing but harm.  The contraceptive mentality has changed women’s concept of the natural order of things…  just look at women my age…  they’ve spent their whole lives trying NOT to get pregnant… then when they finally marry and WANT to get pregnant… it’s surprisingly difficult.

Then there’s my perspective as a 40+ single woman… my 20-something nephew is making babies with random women… and after I have lived chastely, still waiting for my husband to show up and make a family with me - it’s a real blow.

So distorted.

“We are the closest to God in likeness because of our ability to carry and bring forth life.”

“The Church is trying to teach the rest of the world that women ARE the crowning glory of creation.”

I must admit, I find statements like these frightening, particularly in today’s cultural climate. Isn’t it enough simply to respect women as human beings, without installing them as the latest Ubermensch? I thought the consensus view was that we tried viewing one sex as superior, and that it didn’t work.

Anyway, that’s one blight for me on a conversation that I otherwise appreciate. Thank you Patrick, JoAnna, and LAJ for your excellent suggestions. I will be using the several resources you’ve provided.

Best wishes all.

For David… Definitely check out Fr. Barron’s Word on Fire and CatholicCulture.org.

Just think, Jennifer… Adrienne is going on and on and on…. and David steps up and asks for direction from all those on this site who seemed to know and to LOVE their faith.  God works in mysterious ways!

I’m with all of those who say we should “all keep our pants on” unless we’re married AND chaste!

David,
I think you missed my follow up post. Here it is again.

Tammy,
You’re welcome.  One caveat-I do not think women are better than men, just different.  Our roles are different therefore our gifts from God are different.  That is one reason I have such a problem with Secular Feminism.  We are not like men and should not even try.  Our biology determines our roles and why we cannot seem to understand and revel in it is beyond my comprehenshion.  It is so fulfilling to be the Spiritual heart of my family and my husband is the Spiritual head. It works. Why mess with it?

David -I STRESS that I do not think women are better than men or vise versa.  God gave women the innate power within their biologies to nuture and give forth life.  This intimate connection to the power of creation is a very great responsibility as well as a great gift.  I think this gives us a certain insight into the mind of God in regards to the act of creation itself.  That is why I believe that women are to be the Spiritual heart of their families. Men have a different role as the Spiritual head of the family.  That charism is different from ours and as such we cannot complete understand it just as men cannot completely understand ours.  I am trying to put into words the difference between authentic Catholic feminism vs what secular feminism would have us believe which is that we should all be the same.

@ David -” “The Church is trying to teach the rest of the world that women ARE the crowning glory of creation.”
I must admit, I find statements like these frightening, particularly in today’s cultural climate. Isn’t it enough simply to respect women as human beings, without installing them as the latest Ubermensch?”

Please don’t misunderstand…  that is not to say that women are superior to men.  If you read further into what I wrote…  our ability makes us vulnerable and that must be respected.
All a man has to do to be better than a wretch is respect and protect women.
That is why a man and a woman together is perfect partnership.  If men are going to be defensive about it… they can have the childbearing and the menstrual cycle and we’ll go hunt animals. Wheee!

Tammy: I hear and understand that a pregnant woman is in a vulnerable position. It’s not my claim that women’s lives are easy. At the same time, if you ever had the chance, you might be surprised to learn what ‘hunting’ would cost you. If you are open to hearing the other side of the story, you might consider reading ‘Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say’ by Dr. Warren Farrel.

The statement, “Women are the crowning glory of creation” is a clear statement of feminine superiority. There is no way around it. You wrote, Tammy, that “all a man has to do to be better than a wretch is respect and protect women. That is why a man and a woman together is perfect partnership.” If I understand you correctly, man and woman go together because one needs protection (the woman) and the other provides that protection (the man). But this is a nice way of saying that one person (the woman) has intrinsic worth, while the other (the man) does not. The role of the masculine, in your view, is to protect that which matters fundamentally in human life: the feminine. The feminine is irreplaceable; the masculine is disposable. The feminine is worthy because it is feminine; the masculine has no worth of its own, but gains worth when it protects the feminine. Clearly, one sex is worth more, and is more important, than the other. “Women are the crowning glory of creation”... oh, yes, and those are their bodyguards.

This is why it makes me a little testy when you say, “If men are going to be defensive about [their assigned role as protector sex]... they can have the childbearing and the menstrual cycle and we’ll go hunt animals.” Am I wrong to read a bit of a flippant tone into this statement? Do you have any idea what the personal cost of being the bodyguard is? Do you really understand the trade you’re proposing? If you could become the hunter, the protector, I think you would be astonished to find how little you yourself, Tammy the human being, now matter to anyone. It would almost be as though you yourself don’t exist.

As Dr. Farrel says, women can’t hear what men don’t say, and there are good reasons for us men to keep our mouths shut about these things: no one wants to hear them. If what I’m saying seems exaggerated, well… in some ways it is. In other ways it’s not. It’s difficult to render and accurate and complete portrait of the inner life of the hunter in one comment. Anyway, Tammy, I get the impression you think that men have everything women have, just a little more. Ehh… that’s not true.

Along these lines, LAJ wrote that it fulfills her to serve as the spiritual heart of her family. I wonder: how many men are fulfilled by serving as the spiritual heads of their families? Or is it the case that their own fulfillment doesn’t really matter?

Finally, I just want to say that I do not in any way intend to minimize the sufferings of women, or to imply that women have no sufferings that are unique to their sex. What I am saying is that I think each sex would find it profoundly illuminating to walk a mile in the others’ shoes.

Jen, something I have always appreciated about your articles is how you keep out the vitriol even when provoked.  Instead you examine viewpoints and issues in a calm way, which lets me do the same.

Adrienne

I honestly don’t think you come here because you “love a good argument and want to understand why people would choose blind faith over evidence”.  If that were true you would carefully consider what the arguments Paul et. al. have given and then give appropriate refutations or questions to those points. If you really wanted to learn why people believe in God, or why they have faith, then you would ask questions that would fit that desire:  What evidence do you have that God exists? etc. 

No, your purpose here is for entertainment purposes only.  You come here for the thrill of a bit of indignation, for the little vitamin shot of superiority it gives you to think about how terribly wrong we are and how terribly right you are, how terribly forward thinking you are and how terribly backward we are, how unjust and oppressive we are and how just and humanitarian you are.  It’s dialectical pornography.  Afterward you can walk away from your keyboard satisfied and amused that you ‘dun zinged us conserva-freaks but good and told us what’s what.  You think you’re an original free-thinker unfettered by ideologies, ghost stories and taboos, except every argument you make is little more than unexamined, unquestioned Women’s Studies regurgitate, talking points, assumptions, bumper stickers, sound bytes and media zingers.  Nothing you have said resembles anything called thought, and is anything but free.  Now go back to your little college blog where you can nurse off the teat of your self-satisfaction with your fellow classmates who will all confirm how wonderful and intelligent and smart you are.  Not like us benighted Christians, nope.

Again, well said, Barbara.  Just for the record, Adrienne is not here to engage in enlightened discussion or to exchange factual information—I’ve read (and not responded to) far too many of her posts on Jennifer’s blog to fall for that deception.  She’s welcome to post wherever and whatever she wants, of course, but you’ve summed up well her posts and her motivation for making them.  I think it’s nice that people continue to engage with her (and Jemima Cole) in good faith, and it serves the purpose of showing those who may lurk here that there are, in fact, reasons not to believe her erroneous claims.  But I think it would be just fine to ignore both of them as well, or to quietly pray for them—as you point out, I think we’re seeing the fruits of some university educations today (as a college professor myself, I know what I’m talking about here!)

@David:  Lovely post about the role of woman—this woman appreciates your words.

Elizabeth: Please forgive me if my comments give you offense. That is not my intention.

The Catholic Church also has a long, inglorious history of taking advantage of young women who have carried to term outside of wedlock—telling them they are sinful, they are a poor example to their babies, and they will therefore not make good mothers, then coercing them into giving up their babies.  And they’ve done worse than that.  Look up the Louisiana Orphan Train on Google sometime.  Those kids didn’t wind up in happy whitebread suburban homes.  They were used for farm labor.

Geez, Mother Church—if you’re that hard up for cash, say something, I’ll put an extra dollar in the plate.  Human trafficking?  Really???

Get rid of the Catholic adoption agencies and I’ll believe it’s all about the babies’ lives, rather than the money the Church stands to lose.

David,

Frustration here!!!  You seem to think I do not care about the role men play and whether or not they are happy in that role. That could not be farther from the truth!  Just to let you know, the role of men or their worth was not germane to my point which is why I did not get into that aspect.
.
As for me not caring about the role men play and whether they are happy or not, I had to laugh.  I really did because of my history.  My husband and I have been married for 26 years.  For 13 of those years I was the “man” of the house.  I worked and my husband stayed home with our children.  The traditional roles had been reversed. I was doing my level best to be just like a man and my husband was doing his level best trying to stay a man and be a “housewife” at the same time.  We were both so miserable that we almost divorced.  It was only through the grace of Jesus that our marriage survived and we were not even practicing Christians at the time.  Our children were not brought up in any religion.  It is only in hindsight that we have recognized the grace God gave us during that incredibly difficult time.  And boy was it difficult!!!!!!  I did not rely on my husband for anything.  He had to rely on me for just about everything.  We both became resentful of the other’s role, seeing things in terms of “the grass is greener on the other side”.  And you know what it was!

It was only when we found the Church and started learning about the family that we came to understand our complementary roles.  Having lived my life as a “man” for so long I had lost almost all connection to the woman inside of me.  I have recently been studying authentic femininity and my remarks were directed toward that end and not about men or their worth.  A man’s worth comes from the same source as a woman’s worth; God.  They are of equal value.  Believe me, the changes my husband and I underwent did not come overnight nor was it a separate journey.  It has taken several years of learning who we are supposed to be to God, each other, our family and our community.  We learned together and I value him much more as a Catholic woman than I ever did as a secular woman.

@David:  I’m not sure if your last comment was directed at me, but I was being serious—I really appreciated what you wrote, and I was not offended—quite the opposite!

Posted by Adrienne on Wednesday, Aug 24, 2011 2:54 PM (EDT):Tammy,
—
“God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the other saints, Angels, AND Satan are all fictional inventions of the Catholic church—many of the ideas are simply variations of gods from other religions”

—Please leave this website..

Having only found this site a few days ago, I am aghast at the amount of energy people have to give this debate. Not that the debate isn’t vitally important but people aren’t giving off-the-cuff responses. You guys know your stuff! All of you, despite some of the anger that is here too, I applaud you all. David, you may be questioning, but you are extremely civil about it and I thank you for your respectful attitude, despite your problems with the Church. That is balm in Gilead. And someone said that Adrienne isn’t here for sincere reasons, maybe not, but she is here folks. She needs this somehow. She needs to vent her anger and frustrations and the Church is her target and you are the combatants. I don’t envy your role but I admire your energy. If any of you can do any extra reading, read about the Early Church. It will give you such a faithlift. Early Christians faced so many terrible things with complete serenity and that serenity converted many people. That’s my piece for today.
Jennifer (number 3, I think…)

Teddy,

My view is that we should not discourage anyone, including Adrienne, from commenting on this web site.  While her viewpoint is inconstent with Jennifer’s and (presumably) most of the rest of us, we may learn something from her.  Perhaps more importantly, she may learn something from us.

I find the comments from skeptics and non-believers to be helpful to me in talking to others about the Church. 

I also believe it is important never to give up on anyone.  My somewhat educated guess is that 10 years ago, Jennifer had far more in common with Adrienne than she did with most of those who now follow her web site.  Yet Jennifer now reaches more people than most of us will ever reach.  I would also note that many saints hated the Church before they became saints.  It is therefore well within the realm of possiblity that Adrienne could one day be a saint.

@ David,
forgive me. I had no intention of writing something that was to be taken as literature or even as a statement of faith.  I was just sharing a thought in a comment box.

Originally, I emphasized the “Women are the crowning glory of creation” for Adrienne’s benefit… to counter her idea that the Catholic Church wants to marginalize women and thinks women are only good for bearing children or being virgins.  BTW - I didn’t come up with the term.  I heard it in the Church.  And despite any hurt feelings it may cause, I agree with it.  Woman was the last creature created.  dum dah!

You may not believe this, but I do respect men’s position in the world.  I know it’s not easy.  You want to know how I know?  Because I have to do it.  I don’t have a man to protect me and care for me. 
I’ve had to earn all my own money, buy my own home, manage my car.  I have had to protect my own virtue… stand up to men who wanted more from me physically than they deserved considering they were not my husband.
I’ve been protecting myself for more than 20 years.  So forgive me if I have the impression that it’s not all that difficult.

My dad was a great example…  he would diagnose my car over the phone, provide me with sound advice… for work, for finances etc.  But he died last week… and now I have no protector.
My eyes were opened to the role of protector… when I had friend take care of somethings for me at home while I was away at my dad’s funeral.  Something unjust was going on with my property that my guy friend had to tend to.  It was something that I would have simply adjusted and forgot about… but my friend was incensed by this injustice, his instinct to protect me came forth and he was ready to do battle!  Knowing that made me feel special and loved. 
I had never had anyone who wasn’t my dad do that for me…  and so I may have a lot to learn about the role of protector. 
Hopefully, someone will finally step up and show me…. and give me the opportunity to be a divine woman for him.

Also David,  it’s not being pregnant alone that makes us vulnerable…. it’s the potential.  Women have to protect themselves from men who don’t respect that… men who are deceived by the contraceptive mentality that sex is no big deal… and why aren’t we having sex on the third date?!

Personally, I really got the short end of the stick on this.  In protecting my own vulnerability… I had to be chaste… and my chastity meant that 98% of men weren’t interested in pursuing someone who wasn’t going to put out.  Therefore I’m alone…  providing for myself and protecting myself.  Yay me.  Double edged sword there isn’t it?

I am my own spiritual head of my family… in search of a man willing to take over.
If I found a man who even wanted to show me his intrinsic worth… I’d have married him!!

Thankfully now, perhaps my dad can intercede with some saints and pull some strings to find my future husband!!

“Posted by Patrick on Thursday, Aug 25, 2011 10:08 AM (EDT):Teddy,

My view is that we should not discourage anyone, including Adrienne, from commenting on this web site.  While her viewpoint is inconstent with Jennifer’s and (presumably) most of the rest of us, we may learn something from her.  Perhaps more importantly, she may learn something from us.

I find the comments from skeptics and non-believers to be helpful to me in talking to others about the Church. 

I also believe it is important never to give up on anyone.  My somewhat educated guess is that 10 years ago, Jennifer had far more in common with Adrienne than she did with most of those who now follow her web site.  Yet Jennifer now reaches more people than most of us will ever reach.  I would also note that many saints hated the Church before they became saints.  It is therefore well within the realm of possiblity that Adrienne could one day be a saint.”

—My reply—yes, poeple are entitled to their opinion, but when you lash out with comments such as this woman did, I do not feel she can actually listen to reason or haave the sense to have a sensible conversation via these postings.  It’s bad enough on secular postings and throught the media we believers have to hear such things like “God is fictional”

The only way poeple with this mentality may learn the truth is if something in their life will trigger it.  You’ll just go round and round in circles within your postings and never get through…

Tammy, I applaud your choice to live chastely.  Recreational sex seems to be what everybody thinks is ok.  I actually had a young man tell me how he was disenchanted with women only wanting to have sex. He said he felt used.  I told him about the Theology of the Body and gave him a copy of it to read.  He has moved on so I have no idea if he ever read it but I hope he has.

Have you looked at Catholic online dating web sites?  Also, you might consider reading The Courage to be Chaste by Fr. Benedict Groeschel.  Keep resolute my dear sister.  Whatever God’s plan is for you is where you will find fulfillment.  It may be hard and not what you think you want but please keep your heart open to his promptings.  God bless you!

LAJ: Thank you for sharing your story and your perspective. Let me say first that it wasn’t my purpose to accuse you of not caring whether men are happy filling the role of provider. I meant, rather, that I’m not certain the Church as a whole, or our society for that matter, cares. In my experience, when men come up in either context, it’s to talk about what we’re not doing for everyone else - and that’s it. That is the sum total of our social discourse about men. After a long time, this really leaves an impression on a man. It has for me, anyway. The message, effectively, is that I myself don’t matter to anyone. I don’t know what other men think because they aren’t in the practice of letting us know. And that, I believe, is the nub of the problem: men aren’t talking. So many problems in our society would resolve for both men and women if men would just start talking. I’m not sure what it is that scares us so much opening our mouths and telling it like it is. Well, I do know - it’s an invitation for some pretty harsh rejection - but if just a few of us would have the guts to get the ball rolling… it would be that much easier for all of us to join the fray. How much happier we would all be for it! And how relieved this addled relationship between the sexes. Viva la revolucion?
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So again, I didn’t mean to criticize you personally, LAJ, or Tammy, for that matter, but to voice a complaint about the society. That was really the thrust of my comment. I was addressing Tammy more directly because her remark that ‘defensive’ men who are unhappy as providers could take childbirth instead upset me. She appeared to write off… my whole personal experience of life, and that of countless other men. Now maybe I misunderstood her; I don’t know. I may be a bit sensitive about these things because I’ve heard many, many women in my lifetime make these kinds of comments and bluntly, I am sick and tired of hearing them. I neither know nor care which sex suffers more. I’m just here to say that being a man isn’t a walk in the park as so many seem to believe. Again, I really wish we men would start talking.
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Now at this point, please allow me to take this discussion off the personal level. Both you, LAJ, and you, Tammy, have clearly suffered much, and also learned much from your experiences. (Tammy, your story in particular really wrenched my heart; there is a lot of sadness and disappointment in your story, but also a lot of courage and faith. I admire you for that. I haven’t done a great job persevering in my faith, so stories like yours really speak to me.) I don’t want to be in the position of evaluating or judging your experiences. I’m told that’s someone else’s job. Maybe you kind women will let me take the discussion back to the level of Church teaching where God, if he does exist, will show more patience with my haggling. (Judgment Day: “So… Dave. Why did you give Tammy a hard time?” “Uh… you know, Jesus, I had very good intentions.” “Yeah, well, you know what they say about good intentions…” ::gulp::)
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Going back to Church teaching, I do know that the Church teaches that men and women are equal in dignity, though they are not the same. At the same time, the Church also teaches that women are the crown of creation. Each thing or creature God made surpassed the last. So Adam was greater than the earth, the plants, the trees, the fish, the animals, and the birds. Everyone but PETA is okay with that. And following this principle, we know that Eve, whom God made after Adam, was greater than Adam. In fact, Eve was the greatest creature of all because she was the last one made. If we are going to break the ‘latest-is-greatest’ principle the moment that Eve steps onto the scene, well… I would really like to know why. Why is Eve getting cheated this way? She was the last on the scene - she’s got to be the best God did. How can we say otherwise?
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Maybe we would say otherwise because the Church also teaches that men and women are equal in dignity. Okay, but how is this consistent with the creation story? Adam was not of equal dignity to the animals who preceded him. How did he manage to obtain equality with Eve? If I were Eve I’d be kind of upset about this. I would, in fact, being the contentious person I am, stage a protest before the Gates of Heaven. “LAST IS FIRST! LAST IS FIRST! LAST IS FIRST!”
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Eve: Crown of creation. Equal to Adam.
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Then, too, the Church appears to teach - I’m not sure how firm a stand the Church takes on this matter - that the role of man is, roughly, that of life-protector; while the role of woman is, roughly, that of life-nurturer. As I said before, however, the protected is more precious than the protector. You do not risk your life to save something worth less than your life. The state is worth more than the soldier. The politican is worth more than the bodyguard. The god is worth more than the sacrifical lamb. And the woman is worth more than the man. This seems inconsistent with the claim that man and woman are equal in dignity. It seems to me, rather, that one is at least a little more dignified than the other.
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And isn’t it true? Isn’t woman a little more dignified than man? Do we not have the notion, somewhere in our Catholic consciousness, that women enjoy a more refined intimacy with God? Have not most of the canonized been women? Was not the greatest saint, and the most privileged of all human beings, Mary, the Mother of God? Sure, Jesus is man as well as God, but what did he do with his masculine body? Didn’t he destroy it for his bride? What does Jesus teach about weakness and vulnerability in relationship to God? What does Jesus say about the first and the last, or the Baptist about the mountains and the valleys? Somehow maleness does not seem all that equal to femaleness in the mind of the Church - despite her claim to the contrary.
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So these are some ways I find the Church difficult to understand in its teaching on the sexes. I find it fascinating to think about, but when I am Catholic, it is more than fascinating - it is difficult and sometimes even painful. What does it mean to be a man? What is my worth? Do I actually have any worth of my own or is my very disposability in the service of a higher good (the feminine) the source of my worth? Am I more like a jewel or more like toilet paper? What does the Church think of me? What does God think of me? We are starting to understand the feminine genius; is there also a masculine genius? If so, what is it? What do we men have to offer the world? And can the Church do more than rail on men for their poor performance? (Sorry, had to throw that one in there.)
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I don’t expect anyone to have great answers to these questions; I know the Church is always pondering, always praying, always mining it deposit of faith and its Tradition. But if anyone has any insights I’d love to know what they are.
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Sorry for the mega-long comment!

David,
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!  Understanding at last.. Whew.  Obviously my thick-skulled brain is having a tremendous senior moment.  Oh and I understand exactly what you mean and so does my husband!  Oh we have had many a rant on this very subject. If you look at recent history, you will note that it is the secular feminist who got the ball rolling in the denigrations of men.

Their goal was not necessarily unworthy (not the denigration of men but pulling women out of the stone age) but their mentality and methods leave a lot to be desired.  Just like with any situation, our society has over-reacted to a situation of injustice.  Instead of moving to the middle, which IS what the Church teaches, we have gone too far in the other direction.  This includes members of the Church herself.  Unfortunately, poor catechesis abounds and a lot of times you have to go find what comes out of Rome in musty old documents that have all the reading appeal of a dissertation on sanitation procedures.  And yes, you even have to correct Priests sometimes on what the Church teaches.  There is hope that this situation will be corrected.  The Pope has cleaned house within the Seminaries and our current crop of Priests are actually learning what our faith actually teaches.

I digress.  I suggest you go to www.thereasonforourhope.org and get Fr. Larry Richard’s book Be A Man! Becoming the Man God Created You to Be.  My husband is currently reading it and he tells me it pulls no punches as far as teaching Truth.  Give it a try. 

There are thousands of saints.  I have no idea of the ratio of men/women but I highly doubt that there is a huge gap.  We are all called to be saints.  Thank God for Purgatory!!!  You can go count them if you want.  Suggested website www.saints.sqpn.com.  Let me know what the numbers are if you do. ?

Oh, and nowhere can I find that Eve is taught as being the crowning glory of God’s creation.  Can you direct me to your source?  It does not state that in the Catechism or in any document out of Rome that I know of.  (Just FYI, if I think something I am being taught is not quite right, I go to Papal documents or a trusted source.  I made many errors in finding those trusted sources.  Even my daughter, who went through RCIA, would come to me and ask me about a teaching.  More than once I had to correct what was being taught)  I digress again because poor Catechesis is for another day but it does have bearing on what has seeped into the Church about men. 

You are asking some very deep questions that I am not equipped to answer.  But I do have another suggestion.  Study The Natural Law.  It should give some insights into our relationship with the rest of God’s creatures.  After all, we are a part of this world, even though we are superior to other creatures in the sense that we can think in abstract terms such as Theology, Philosophy, Science, and Mathematics.  You don’t see cheetah’s counting the number of zebra’s in the herd do you or discussing their equivalent to Freud’s take on cheetah psyche? 

Anyway, I’ve rambled long enough.  I think Fr. Richard’s book may answer some of your questions.  Good luck, God Bless and I will be praying for you David!

David,

Thank you for your understanding.  It is comforting to know someone can sympathize with the pain in my heart.

I understand what you are saying about the LAST is FIRST…  but let me point out, that is not what I said.  I did not say that woman was better than man.  I didn’t even suggest it.  Sure, I think that if woman was the last creature created… it’s pretty significant.  Not because she’s BETTER or more important… but because the creation of woman ties everything else together in a neat, pretty, miraculous bow!  With the creation of woman… FAMILY was created!  With the design of woman… the most intimate bonding experience was formed!  Woman contributes that which man lacks…..  which in turn man does for woman.  It’s such a beautiful completion.

It is why I get so frustrated with my friends ‘of the world’...  I want so badly to find and marry my mate… and people of the world say, “Ignore the pressure.  You don’t have to be married.  You can be independent.” 
Sure I can, but that is not what I want.  What I want is to honor God in a beautiful union.  To support and help a man who wants to support and honor me… as we both grow closer to God.

Meanwhile, I’ve worked my whole life,  created my own home… squashed my own bugs (or deliver them gingerly back to the outdoors)  watched everyone else have babies and raise them… and I’m missing out.  I want the connection to a man… to be a team.

Oh, let me get back on topic.  saying that woman is the crowning glory of creation, means that they are better than men…. is like saying the Queen of England is better than everyone else in that country.  It’s not true.  She may have some privileges…and a bit more attention… but she’s not better or more important than anyone else.

Bravo, Jen!  Ditto what Erika Evans said.

I give you all props for trying to reply to adrienne’s questions but I wouldn’t waste my time on someone who is not open to seeking the truth. That time and effort can be put into someone who is truly seeking for wisdom and truth.

Proverbs 1:7
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Proverbs 23:9 “Do not speak to a fool, for he will scorn the wisdom of your words.”

Matthew 7:6 King James Bible
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”

Thank you for your article.  I cannot STAND angry feminists!  Silly grrrrrls.

This is for David:
Has anyone mentioned Father Robert Barron? He has a you-tube channel that is all about answering questions people have about the Church and theology and such. He takes on the tough questions. He’s a philosopher of sorts and he knows his stuff. I try to catch his “Word On Fire” broadcasts. He’s very glad to talk to confused, upset or angry Catholics, Protestants, atheists. Matthew Kelley is also a great writer/speaker who reaches out to Catholics trying to answer questions of faith. I will look up the names of some of his books. Best regards,

LAJ: Thank you for your response. I noticed you referred to the problem of catechesis several times in your comment, and I agree with you wholeheartedly: catechesis really went down the toilet during the last few decades. A real bad mistake for the Church to make in a time of growing hostility to religious faith. Then again, I suppose we’ve been through this before. The beat goes on? Anyway, I’ve found that my favorite Catholic literature was usually written in the first half of the 20th century. The writing was much more substantive then, more thoughtful, more penetrating - or so it has always seemed to me. I guess those tough old sisters knew what they were doing after all. Much of the contemporary writing seems weaker to my mind in both thought and passion.
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On a more positive and hopeful note, our late Holy Father foresaw a springtime of the Church. From my own small vantage point I have to say, I think it’s coming! The young adults I know who are serious about their faith… well, they’re not joking around. They mean business! Maybe some will write books.
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Anyway, I thank you for your recommendations. You mentioned natural law: would you happen to have come across a good book on this topic? If anyone knows of one I’d appreciate the lead.
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And for that matter, is anyone familiar with Catholic literature related to the sexes? I know JPII dealt with the matter in TOB. Is there anything else out there? Surely thoughtful Catholics must have explored the subject…
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Thanks once again, LAJ. I’m sorry for the frustration. You’ve been very helpful and I appreciate your support.
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Tammy: I understand your meaning better now. Eve completes the picture. With her arrival, Adam and the whole of creation made sense and came to a newer and deeper fulfillment and joy. This makes sense to me. Also, I can relate to your desire for a meaningful, loving, and satisfying marriage… that connection you mentioned and growing closer to God together. I am single, but for personal reasons have been ‘off the market’ for a couple of years now. Still, looking from the outside, it seems hard to find a suitable partner. Narrow your selection, roll the dice, and hope for the best? I don’t know.
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Jennifer: Thank you for your recommendation. I’ve bookmarked Fr. Barron and will check him out. The YouTube thing is pretty cool. Maybe all the good Catholic lit is now on YouTube?
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Thanks again to all who responded to my comment. I appreciate your support and your help. Blessings all!

David…  so glad we see each other’s way of thinking!  Actually, you put my meaning into better words than I was able to. 

I was going to suggest writer Edward Sri… but then I realized that he wrote about JPII’s Love and Responsibility in Men, Women & the Mystery of Love (which is also good stuff)
For more TOB—Christopher West does a nice breakdown.

“Great point. Just look at those abysmal actual use rates! There are two possible explanations: The problem is with the women using the contraception; or the problem is with the contraception.”  That or education? Wait that would make it three possible explanations.  That would also explain why Catholic’s have a higher rate of abortions than Protestants and/or the national average. “Who encourages women to seek information?”  You also forgot to add in, “Encourages women use contraceptives so they don’t end up in an clinic”....

@ “Laura @ Show Me a Day”

Well, it’s pretty clear that you’ve never used a condom.

Don’t want AIDS? Or Herp? Or the clap? Let alone kids? Wanna be responsible and NOT pass any of that on if you already have it?

Then here’s your answer - 1) unwrap a condom, 2) roll it down a penis, 3) don’t keep using the same one once he’s ejaculated. So, only two points there, really, and both are obvious. If he’s a generous and caring lover it shouldn’t all be about the penetration, anyway.

As for the church respecting women, puh-lease, the ideal model of woman is a virgin mother. The entire approach to women is based on pleasureless utility. Let’s be honest, ALL judeo-christian-islamic religions hate women.

Do people like you, “Sneak” just troll around the internet looking for blogs and people to taunt? Why, if you feel the way you said you feel, would you even be here? Here? Really? You should be on a blog that extolls your ideals and virtues and explicit descriptions! Bon voyage and happy landings!

You’ve got the perspective of the pro-choice movement (and feminism) totally mis-characterized. You claim that the pro-choice among us consider a (female) baby of less than 36 weeks as “sub-human” and “not deserving of rights.” I don’t think that’s correct at all, and publishing an article based on this incorrect perception is irresponsible and disingenuous to your readers. I have little doubt that you could point to public comments made by this or that pro-choice person saying something offensive or extreme. However, the general consensus of the pro-choice crowd is this:

The woman or mother-to-be in question is the ONLY person who has the right to determine what should or should not be done with their unborn child.

If that woman wants to consult their priest, or rabbi, or emaan for advice, that’s their CHOICE. If they wish to consult their husband, friends, doctor, psychologist, mother, father, or anyone else, that’s their CHOICE. If the woman wants to see a picture of an aborted fetus before the have the procedure that is THEIR CHOICE, and it is NOT the role of the government to mandate that viewing. That is disrespectful on its face, as well as inits implications of women’s ability to make sound and rational decisions.

The fact is this: the conservative right-wing political groups (often motivated by their fundamentalist and evangelical christian faiths) claim to stand for “greater freedom” and less “government involvement in peoples’ lives”. But this issue puts them at odds with their “principles.” The anti-abortion legislation that have been proposed and recently signed into law fundamentally RESTRICT the rights and freedoms of you and me, the citizens of the country. The pro-choice angle is a pro-freedom viewpoint.

Not only is it a pro-freedom view point, but it is also, ironically, a SMALLER GOVERNMENT view point. In the most-extreme versions of these bills, the laws would imply that every single pregnancy must be registered, monitored, and the birth witnessed in order for the government to ensure that each pregnancy ends with a live birth. Talk about meddling in citizen’s private lives! And yes, some politicians have spoken seriously about that in the recent past.

As vulgar as you may think it is, and as horrified as you may feel about it, you do not have the moral right to tell any mother what to do with their unborn baby. Your faith in the bible does not give you or anyone else the right to dictate the actions of the people of this or any other country.

It sounds to me from the tone and content of your article that “respect” isn’t truly the central concern for you here. If you feel so opposed to the issue of legal abortions that you must speak out, then you owe it to yourself if not your readers to learn the other side’s point of view and represent it accurately. That would be truly respectful of the women in your audience.

I might add that if the only defense you have against a pro-choice agenda is to misrepresent that agenda—intentionally or not—then you have a losing argument. You can’t legislate faith and spirituality, and it’s unconstitutional to legislate religion in this country. All you have to work with is the ethical quandary, and that is ultimately up to individual women to decide their correct path.

You do not have to be religious in any fashion to understand the value of a human life. From a purely legal (and philosophical and ethical) standpoint, the “ownership” of another human life (especially the decision to arbitrarily end that life) is indefensible. That feminism had to put children up on an altar of death in order to “free women” is a complete wash, a slight-of-hand, a vast rearrangement of right and wrong, a boondoggle of such fantastic proportion that when abortion is again made illegal, we will look back on this period with utter and complete shame that society as a whole allowed a lie of convenience to be perpetrated on the most vulnerable among us.

Wow… with that kind of argument why bother stopping at killing the unborn? If I have been assigned legal guardianship of an invalid parent then I should also be permitted to decide to euthanize that parent? Or perhaps my year old child because they have become too much of a burden?

The point isnt who has a ‘right’ or a ‘choice’. The point is that life - that baby - inside the womb deserves the same protection as anyone of us outside the womb. Plain and simple. If you don’t believe that to be the case, then please explain why a life outside the womb is more valuable than one inside the womb.

If one inside the womb isn’t valued as a life in your mind, then perhaps you might tell mothers who lose their babies to miscarriage that they should just get over it - it wasn’t valuable anyway. And if you suggest that they can be upset because the baby was wanted, then I go back to asking why we should protect life outside the womb and call killing a life outside the womb murder. If your mother decided she didn’t want you when you were 3 months old and assuming she was a single mom - why shouldn’t she have the right to ‘choose’ to do what she wanted with you? She could have given you up for adoption - but why wouldn’t she have had the same right to leave you somewhere to die?

Sound harsh? Perhaps. But I fail to see where you can openly acknowledge that it is - in fact - a baby inside the mothers womb but still justify her right to kill it. You can use terms like ‘do what she wants’ with it - but you really mean her having the right to kill it. Perhaps we should just do away with murder laws for those who kill children or infirmed family members outside of the womb. I mean, it should be *my* choice shouldn’t it?

Finally, what about the fathers rights? Doesn’t he have a right since he provided 1/2 the DNA?

CelticAfro,
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How can you fail to miss the inconsistency in your position? A woman can only justify destroying the fetus inside her by denying its status as a human being, i.e., considering it ‘sub-human.’ And pro-choice advocates can only justify leaving, as a matter of public policy, this decision in the hands of individual women by suspending the question of the fetus’ humanity indefinitely (a proposition as outrageous and unethical as it is absurd) or concluding that the fetus is not, in fact, human. What other possibilities are there? You can: 1) believe the fetus is not a person, and thus justify destroying it; 2) believe the fetus is a person and therefore oppose its destruction as vehemently as you would any other person; or 3) lazily refuse to address the question at all. There are no other options! And please note that option 3, in its sheer moral and intellectual sloth, is really equivalent to option 1. If Jennifer is not correct to say all pro-choice advocates believe unborn children - as you call them - are “sub-human”, she should have added a second possibility: that they lack the moral vigor to address the question at all.
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The bottom line, CelticAfro, is that the human status of the fetus is no more a matter of private, subjective judgment than your status as a human being or mine. It is not for any woman, or man, for that matter, to privately determine the human status of any entity whatsoever. The question of the personhood of any entity, fetus or otherwise, is necessarily a question that belongs to the society, and not the individual. It is never the individual’s right to determine the humanity of another entity. And since the status of the fetus remains under dispute in our society, it follows of necessity that we must cease and desist all abortions at once. Otherwise, we risk sanctioning, as a people, the destruction of lives that may, in fact, qualify as human and personal. Simply to allow this phenomenon to go on while we as a people slowly make up our minds on the matter is pure laziness, and laziness of a particularly vile and atrocious nature. I am, for the sake of discussion, setting aside the objectivity of the question; it is not one that can be decided by consensus. Groupthink does not determine reality. Still, I am sure you can see the risk that we are facing as a people.
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It truly blows my mind that you can make this statement: “The woman or mother-to-be in question… has the right to determine what should or should not be done with their unborn child.” The operant word here being ‘child’.

Not to mention: there is an earlier point on the timeline where ‘choice’ also occurs, and that is the moment the man and woman ‘choose’ to have sex. I understand that we, the enlightened, the libertinous, the pleasure-driven peoples of this our Brave New World embrace the freedom of couples to copulate wherever and whenever they please, and far be it for me to spare anyone such a lofty and noble ideal; nevertheless, the short-sightedness of this position, especially related to the abortion question, has always astounded me. Does it not make more sense to carefully choose one’s sex partner, to prepare the conditions that would protect man, woman, and child (marriage), to base the relationship on mutual love, respect, and commitment (marriage), to obtain the full support of the community for said relationship (marriage), to learn to develop and appreciate the joy of sexual self-mastery and thus come to a finer appreciation of our humanity and the proper place of our sexuality - than to obstinately defend one’s all-important right to f*** at will? Isn’t one choice more intelligent, and more complete in its considerations (i.e., more wholesome), than the other?
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To think that *this* is what modern woman has come to prize as her noble lot in life! To screw whenever the mood hits her and then destroy the outcome - its real nature be damned. What a small and pitiful woman this is. The same, it ever fails to be mentioned, is true of modern man, and perhaps more so, if you, like me, believe the biologically inferior status of the male warrants his greater legal protection. Good luck, guys. Get ready for the freight train. Besides, you are depriving yourself of the joy of true family, true community, true fatherhood. Sad, sad world indeed.

“we will look back on this period with utter and complete shame that society as a whole allowed a lie of convenience to be perpetrated on the most vulnerable among us.”
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‘A lie of convenience’ - yes, so very well said.
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Ah, but that this world should ever come to pass. Who knows what will come of the West. I fear we are in for another Dark Age - no doubt a far worse and more brutal one than that which preceded it. The plot is in for some surprising twists indeed…

Final remark - this topic obviously has lit me up - the pro-choice advocate and the sexual libertine alike are fundamentally disconnected from their own humanity. They can no longer recognize and embrace that which is most vital and real within themselves. They would strip the human person - male or female, young or old, born or unborn - down to its bare minimum and make it an starving shadow of its former self: that is, a paltry and only bestially aware collection of fleeting desires and aversions that can recognize none of its own depth or meaning or vigor. The human person was meant for more than this.

Jenniffer rocks.

I also love to see the insecurity of the pro-abortion teens who need to come to this website, “refute” things about our faith that we never said, and then say that they love debate and logic :).

They wouldn’t attack straw men so much if they weren’t wrong and unsure.

@David and Db: I read your statements accusing me of being generally callous and lacking compassion. I don’t respect those comments because you don’t know me and how nice a guy I am in person. Please attack my argument, not my person. You’ve never met me, so try not to judge. Isn’t that one of the central tennants of Christianity anyway?

@Jennifer: There you go again with the over-inflated sense of righteousness and hyperbolizing the opposing viewpoint. There is no altar of any sort here, death or otherwise, and if you truly respect the women this article is intended for, you should not paint the opposing argument in such an emotionally misleading way. You are not doing your argument any credit at all, except with people who already agree with you.

That said, I agree completely that you don’t have to be religious to understand the value of human life, and I’m actually glad to hear you say that. There are too many people who don’t seem to undersatnd that non-religious people are capable of empathy, morality, and compassion.

I also completely respect the argument that an unborn child should be considered a human life. I just don’t believe that the rights and privacy of the mother should be sacrified for the sake of the rights of her fetus/child/baby while she is still pregnant, UNLESS SHE WANTS THAT. But still, my opinion, your opinion, and anyone else’s opinion on the matter here is fundamentally irrelevant, because it is ultimately the mother’s opinion (and the father’s, of course, if present) as to whether or not they are able and willing to bring a new life into the world.

I also completely agree with you and DB and David that we need fewer abortions in this country, but my view—and the pro-choice camp’s view—is that simply criminalizing abortion is NOT the right way reduce them. If we outlaw it, that will not stop women from having abortions, just as outlawing sex before marraige would never stop people from havin sex before marriage. Just like how criminalizing homosexuality has never prevented gay people from having sex with each other. Just the way prohibiting alcohol never stopped people from drinking, or crimilaizing cannabis hasn’t stopped people from using marijuana. We have seen the effects of prohibition play out time and time again. If we WERE to outlaw abortion, some women would still seek abortion srevices. Those women would turn to the black market for that service, which would put them at a MUCH higher risk of injury, infection, and death. Other women would attempt the procedure themselves, which would wind up with the same if not worse results.

I argue that the value of human life inside the womb IS EQUAL to that of human life outside the whomb, which is why I also argue for generous government assistance to the poor and working classes. Especially now, in 2011 with the whole recession and all.

I think we can all agree that pregancies are indeed best stopped before they even begin. What we need is better education (from parents and/or teachers, whatever actually WORKS), more access to contraceptives, and to teach our children that sexual relationships are meaningful and powerful, not something to be taken for granted and thrown away.

And why do I feel the need to point out that NOT EVERY sexual encounter is consensual? You accuse me of casually ignoring the value of the fetus (which I do not), but I don’t see how you three can casually ignore the very real need for abortion services for victims of rape and incest, not tomention the pregnancies that become dangerous to the mother AND the child’s health. Justifying every single unwanted pregnancy as basically “an error in judgement” seems cold to me, just as my position seems cold to you.

It seems to me that a primary motivation for the anti-abortion sentiment is, in fact, religion. That’s demonstrated pretty clearly in articles such as this one. My fear, and the fear of the liberal movement in general, is that the vehement push back against abortion rights is convincing lawmakers to make laws out of the sentiment, as advocated by you, the author of this article. This is tantamount to establishing religious texts as law, which directly violates the 1st amendment, and such laws will not stand.

Again, pregnancy is extremely personal, and neither you—a total stranger to this hypothetical mother—OR the government—local, state, or federal—have ANY place in dictating how or whether she is to go about seeing the pregnancy through, or not seeing it through. I understand that you hold strong religious convictions, but in America that cannot be the basis of a law.

Every law we make is imperfect. Sacrifices are made no matter how we phrase the language, and some people are going to be a victim of the effects of the law. Under the current system, that may well be the unborn child. But if we outlaw abortion, then the victims of the law would be the mothers who are victims of medical complications, or who are victims of rape. In the worst cases, the child itself could be the victim of an uncaring and resentful mother.

My whole point is that many of the situations where abortions become neccessary are in a very gray moral area, and it’s cruel to simply deny women the right to an abortion in every circumstance. It’s also impractical for the government to arbitrate every single pregnancy and decide “this abortion is warranted and that one is not”.

If we’re going to make this Black And White, then the REAL question seems to me to be: which approach is more compassionate, and which is more heartless? I think you know my viewpoint by now.

Nearly ROFL…congratulations are in order!
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...To Adrienne, on being a fine cherry-picker (a rather commonplace skill, though, if I may say so).  It took 55 minutes (probably considerably less, since the Borrimeo search is as quick as any, and there are only a few excerpts) to announce that she is far too busy to read the Catechism (the second most authoritative, thorough, and multifaceted document of the Church, next to the Bible—what, you were expecting the Reader’s Digest or Cliffs Notes version?).  Yet, she appears to have plenty of time to come back and repeatedly set up straw men for Paul et al. to knock down.
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...To Jemima, for needlessly bringing out the big guns.  Even I can give an opponent the benefit of the doubt when something is so obviously an accident; when I criticize grammar, it’s because a *professional writer*—not just any random com-boxer!—appears unacceptably sloppy, or because someone is trying to show off to make me look stupid and fails (sometimes spectacularly, as with one who butchered ‘australopithecus,’ which was a derogatory reference to me).  But then, they are usually the first to seize on it and cry, “Aha!  Proof that you no longer have any ground to stand on,” entirely missing the point.
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..To Sneak, for…well…having a whopping blind spot as concerns honesty?  If this is your idea of love and respect, I’m <strike>not remotely interested</strike> sure you’re a real catch. ;)
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Forgive my sarcasm; call it a challenge, to laziness.  As they say, apocryphally or not, the word is comprised of two characters in Chinese: ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity.’  Is there not also, as often in Shakespeare, a little humor embedded in the overall tragedy?

@ yeah right:  I recommend you look into the Ospedale della Pietà, among others.  This, you may or may not know, was the girls’ orphanage where Antonio Vivaldi was in residence.  The historical novelist Barbara Quick, speaking in an introductory way of her book ‘Vivaldi’s Virgins,’ notes that “the quality of this education was apparently so high that the Doge had to publish an edict promising excommunication to any parents who left their legitimate offspring in the scaffetta, hoping to have it receive its education and upbringing at the State’s expense.”
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@ celticafro: then why did they, in New York (NYC in particular has some of the most lax abortion laws and, not surprisingly, one of the highest abortion rates in the country) decide to put their noses into what crisis pregnancy centers can’t and must say, if they so vigorously object to being regulated themselves?  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?  Funny how all this ‘freedom’ tends to favor one side, namely, the industry where there’s actual money to be made…@Db: I believe you’ve articulated Peter Singer’s conclusions, which, repugnant though they are, are logically consistent.
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David: quite seriously, you’re a breath of fresh air.

celticafro, celticafro.  I am glad to hear you’re a nice guy.  No, we didn’t know that, and can’t necessarily take such things for granted, though we’d like to.  On the internet, you are what you write.  Sometimes I find this means I need to exaggerate.
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You speak of equality of woman and fetus, and yet you’re still exhibiting a preference for one over the other.  I used to think this way.  These days, I’m not too interested in picking sides.  And statistically, I’m not likely to be in that unenviable position: the circumstances of real life-and-death necessity are, fortunately, far from common, if you can believe the Guttmacher Institute, which has nothing to gain from the sort of information they’re putting out.  Even in cases of rape, which as a percentage of abortions are apparently far from common either even if underreported, you’ll find just as many who say that when they realized they’d answered violence against themselves with violence against their own, they ended up feeling twice victimized.
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I agree that one cannot “just” completely outlaw abortions.  To my knowledge, that sort of coup hasn’t been tried in at least 40 years, is generally regarded in a similar way by pro-lifers (i.e., maybe desirable, but not a true solution), and would not be accomplished by a reversal of Roe v. Wade either.  We get it.  That’s why there are pro-life crisis pregnancy centers hooking people up with everything from baby clothes to educational opportunities, in spite of being at a major disadvantage compared to an entity as moneyed and connected as Planned Parenthood.  Well, I’m heartened that we agree on the forest, if not the trees (my opinion is charity begins at home, not on Capitol Hill, but that’s a fair disagreement).
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We also agree on education (overall, that is—literacy tends to create a sense of opportunity and purpose) and the need to not trivialize sex.  Here’s where I get mystified: the continued insistence that the problem is access to contraceptives, in spite of manifest evidence to the contrary.  You can find that within this post; in the testimony, for instance, of Dr. Edward Green, who describes himself as a card-carrying liberal if there ever was one; in the New York Times, in an article earlier this year on NYC’s soaring abortion rate, though they don’t get around to admitting it until they actually interview women; in the real-life cases of women who got pregnant while using *more than one* form of contraception at the same time; and in the absurdly simple, absurdly obvious observation that contraception is almost universally accepted in U.S. culture and more available than ever, and yet the number of abortions every year remains over a million.
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Religion and philosophy: these are the chicken and the egg.  I was raised Catholic, but didn’t really awaken to it until I realized I objected to a political candidate mainly because of his position on abortion.  And this was when I still had some really misguided ideas.  In any case, I won’t abide being marginalized or disenfranchised because of it.  I am an American citizen and the democratic process, by which I might hope to influence the world I live in for the better, is my birthright as well as yours.
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Last thought: yes, trying to administer justice to a country of three hundred million does seem impractical, doesn’t it?  And yet we give it a go every day…

@celticafro - I don’t believe I once referred to ‘you’ in my response or used the term callous. I was pointing out that with the arguments you made, there is really no reason to stop at unborn babies.
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You made many many points about ‘rights’, ‘choices’, ‘freedoms’ etc… in your suggestion that:
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“The woman or mother-to-be in question… has the right to determine what should or should not be done with their unborn child.”
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As David pointed out, the operative word in that statement is ‘child’. Its an acknowledgement of the fact that the unborn inside the womb is a child. Period. Full stop. What I fail to understand in your discussion of smaller government, less intrusion etc… is why the unborn life should be any less respected than someone who has been born. Could you please explain why you believe this to be the case?
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On the one hand, we respect those innocent unborn lives by encouraging women to secure prenatal care. We tell them to eat well, take prenatal vitamins, not drink or smoke etc… in order to take care of the baby. We have an entire line of doctors who dedicate their lives to helping women have healthy pregnancies and deliver healthy babies. On the other hand, we have doctors who spend their lives doing everything in their power to use euphemisms like ‘tissue’ or ‘blob of cells’ etc… to avoid referring to the developing baby inside a mother’s womb as a ‘baby’ so that they can abort those babies. If, however, you asked any single one of those doctors whether what was inside the mother was biologically a live human being - they would agree with you.
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Furthermore, we have laws in this country that state that you are permitted to kill a baby inside the womb, but if that baby is fully outside of the mother’s womb and you kill it you will be subject to murder charges. What is the difference - because one breathes air and one breathes fluid? Why is it that the baby not yet born - but full term - can be killed inside its mother, yet killing the one just seconds into its life outside the womb would subject that same mother to murder charges? We know Dr’s perform partial birth abortions - which is about the most heinous thing someone could ever imagine doing to anyone much less an innocent child - and keep the babies partially inside the mother’s so that they will not be subjected to murder charges. If its up to the mother, then why not let her deliver and have the child be killed? The result is the same whether the child is inside or outside the womb - the child is dead. It doesn’t matter whether that baby is 4 weeks old inside the womb or 40 weeks inside or outside of the womb.
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So please, explain to me what the difference is for a baby inside the womb and outside and why a baby outside the womb should be protected by the law from death from a force other than that of nature, but why one inside shouldn’t also receive the same protection if, in fact, they are they same thing?
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I’m sure you are a very nice guy and I wasn’t judging or criticizing *you* so I am sorry if it came across that way (I was typing on an iPhone and trying to be brief - which can sometimes seem abrupt). I was trying to do exactly what you asked and look at the facts of your argument and point out that all the talk about freedom and rights of the mother ‘to do with as she pleased with her unborn child’ completely ignored the most fundamental point - the unborn child. Why is it that the mother should have the right to do what she wants with her unborn child, but would be considered an unfit mother for not providing adequate care for even her day or hour or even minute old baby? What is the difference?

“As David pointed out, the operative word in that statement is ‘child’. Its an acknowledgement of the fact that the unborn inside the womb is a child.”

I’m pretty sure it’s for ease of typing.  The main factor is that there is no reason to force women to be conscripted incubators by law.  That simple.

Until the point that the embryo can survive outside of the mothers body it is her choice.  At what point does it become neglect homicide when a woman falls down a set of stairs?  etc?

It’s a personal decision of the mother.  What gives you the right to impose your views on her body?  What gives anyone to right to interfere with her free will?

A baby cannot survive on its own outside the womb either for quite some time. Whether law or not… I’m asking why we - philosophically - differentiate between the two. I’m not trying to impose my views on her body, I’m looking at the fact that once a woman is pregnant there are two human beings to consider - two lives, the mother and the baby. So, yes, we protect the rights of the mother, but what about the rights of the baby. Again, I ask, what is it that differentiates between the life inside the womb and the life outside the womb in terms of the right of being protected?

@enness: I really appreciate your measured response. Thank you for taking the time to address my points without engaing int too much hyperbole. I will borrow your technique of a dash between my paragraphs for readability.
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It seems that my ultimate point has slipped by once again unnoticed. I will keep it brief this time. My point is that all of the lines we draw—“life begins at conception” instead of “when the heart begins to beat” or “when the fetus can feel pain” or “when the baby is born” or even “the moment the egg (or sperm) is generated”—are fundamentally arbritrary distinctions. Each culture or generation may draw entirely different distinctions based on a different set of values and/or rationalizations.
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By your logic, you can’t ignore the fact that individual cells are also considered to be alive. They require all the basic needs of a living complex creature. Therefor, can you stand by and watch a woman go through menstruation and expelling from her body a perfectly good human egg cell? What about men who masturbate? Are wasted sperm to be counted as genocide?
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Since these lines we draw are fundamentally arbitrary, then we cannot expect that they be made into law without causing the needless suffering of others. Any law has consequences like that, and it would be nice to think it worked otherwise.
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You think it’s cruel to allow the deaths of an unborn child. I agree, it’s not without moral consequences. I’ve never stated that otherwise.
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Jennifer, however, doesn’t seem to think it’s cruel to emotionally manipulate a woman in a traumatic situation—considering the abortion of her pregnancy—by forcing her to view graphic images of aborted fetuses, or forcing her to view the image of her baby in her womb.
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The key word here is “force.” That’s what the pro-choice movement objects to. You have every right, when you are pregnant and are considering aborting your pregnancy, to ask the doctor to show you an image of your baby in your womb, and to ask advice of any one you like.
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As Yeah, Right mentioned, you advocate the imposition of your point of view on other people. No one in the pro-choice movement seriously wants to impose abortions on anyone else. We are merely fighting for the option. You are fighting to close it off.

CelticAfro,
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“@David and Db: I read your statements accusing me of being generally callous and lacking compassion. I don’t respect those comments because you don’t know me and how nice a guy I am in person.”
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How bizarre! Nowhere did I accuse you of being callous or lacking in compassion. I never commented on your character at all. If you’ll go back and – you know – read what I actually wrote, you will find that I did, in fact, attack your arguments. You cannot seem to distinguish between an argument and an ad hominem.
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But since you brought it up, CelticAfro, I will say that your statements are callous, and they do lack compassion – for the unborn, which you have now explicitly recognized as having the same human value as you (perhaps you do not think you yourself have any value). And since you are the one making callous statements, yes, I do think you are a callous person. How else is it supposed to be?
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Moreover, it disgusts me to listen to a man congratulate himself for his personal qualities. ‘How nice a guy I am’ – ‘I’m such a nice guy!’ – ‘I’m so nice to everyone I meet!’ – Ugh!
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You aren’t a nice guy. Far from it. You are indifferent to the lives of the unborn, which makes you rather cruel, actually. You may think being ‘nice’ is a valuable quality, but I personally believe it is one of the most useless qualities a man can have. Be courageous, passionate, noble. Be merciful, kind, and tender. But nice? Niceness occasionally has its uses, like when you are meeting someone for the first time, but in many other circumstances it is nothing but a cover for superficiality and cowardice. How nice would you be, for instance, if someone murdered your mother right in front of you? Being ‘nice’ while lives are being destroyed suggests a cold-hearted indifference to the lives themselves. There is nothing ‘nice’ about that. It’s actually quite horrifying.
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Going back for a moment, you who claim to value debate have yet to respond to anything I actually said. At least where I’m concerned, there is no debate occurring here at all. Despite your lack of consideration, I will take a moment to respond to some things you said.
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“I also completely agree with you and DB and David that we need fewer abortions in this country, but my view—and the pro-choice camp’s view—is that simply criminalizing abortion is NOT the right way reduce them. If we outlaw it, that will not stop women from having abortions.”
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This is not actually a point I made, but of course I do believe that we need fewer abortions in this country. The best way I know to handle this is to examine another issue. Let’s take murder. Our having criminalized murder has not stopped people from murdering, has it? Should we, then, legalize murder? Of course not. Why? Well, I would advance two reasons. First, our having criminalized murder has, in fact, reduced the number of murders that occur. Second, a society that outlaws something makes a statement about it. What would our society be saying about murder if it permitted its citizens to kill one another at will? It would seem to say that murder is permissible. Put another way, our society would suggest implicitly that the lives of its citizens are of no consequence. Such is the position of the United States on the lives of its unborn. How else could it be, if the U.S. will not protect those lives? The position of the U.S. is that unborn children have no value as human persons. If it did consider them to have value, there is no way it would permit anyone to destroy them. But it does.
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You cannot say that something has the value you or I have and, at the same time, suggest that anyone has the right – the word you have used repeatedly – to destroy that something. This is a self-contradicting position. And you will note that it is for this reason that the abortion debate centers so much on the nature of that which is being destroyed, and whether it qualifies as a person. You are the first person I’ve met from your camp who states on the one hand that the fetus is a human person, and on the other, that it is okay to destroy the fetus. I’ve never heard this before because almost everyone realizes it is a logically and morally untenable position. I am dumbfounded that you cannot see this.
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Now, all this being said, you are right that criminalizing abortion is not enough. The pro-life movement agrees with you. It is for this reason that we have created pro-life pregnancy counseling centers designed to support women who want to give birth to their children. My own conviction is that most women do not want abortion, but abort anyway because they believe they have no other *choice* - there is that word you value – or perhaps because they do not hear anyone, really, affirming their desire for the life inside them, and against the cacophony of all their own fears and concerns, cannot bring themselves to affirm that desire themselves. And so I have always believed the best way to reduce the number of abortions – besides criminalizing it – is to support women in choosing life. A pregnant woman is one who is in a tender and possibly very difficult position; who would wish to leave her to the vultures? Only the heartless, of course. One of the keys to creating a culture of life is finding appropriate ways to support women who are pregnant. In that we agree.
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“My whole point is that many of the situations where abortions become neccessary are in a very gray moral area, and it’s cruel to simply deny women the right to an abortion in every circumstance.”
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Is the value of your life, or mine, ever a grey area? No. The question of the value of the fetus is never a grey area. It is a question that we answer as a society one way (valued as person) or the other (not valued as person). If the fetus is valuable as a human person, then it remains valuable as a human person regardless of the manner in which it is conceived. If it is not valuable as a person, then it never becomes so, regardless of the manner in which it is conceived.
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Rape is indeed a terrible crime. Yet it is logically and morally inconsistent to argue that a fetus is not a person merely because it was conceived by rape. On what grounds can rape alter the actual nature of the fetus? It is a sensitive subject, to be sure, but if the fetus is a person, nothing can justify its destruction. After all, you yourself are a person: assuming your innocence, what can justify destroying you? If you believe it’s okay to destroy a fetus because of rape, you must admit the possibility that it can be justifiable to destroy you, even when you are innocent. That is just a matter of logical consistency.

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Going back for a moment, you who claim to value debate have yet to respond to anything I actually said. At least where I’m concerned, there is no debate occurring here at all. Despite your lack of consideration, I will take a moment to respond to some things you said.
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“I also completely agree with you and DB and David that we need fewer abortions in this country, but my view—and the pro-choice camp’s view—is that simply criminalizing abortion is NOT the right way reduce them. If we outlaw it, that will not stop women from having abortions.”
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This is not actually a point I made, but of course I do believe that we need fewer abortions in this country. The best way I know to handle this is to examine another issue. Let’s take murder. Our having criminalized murder has not stopped people from murdering, has it? Should we, then, legalize murder? Of course not. Why? Well, I would advance two reasons. First, our having criminalized murder has, in fact, reduced the number of murders that occur. Second, a society that outlaws something makes a statement about it. What would our society be saying about murder if it permitted its citizens to kill one another at will? It would seem to say that murder is permissible. Put another way, our society would suggest implicitly that the lives of its citizens are of no consequence. Such is the position of the United States on the lives of its unborn. How else could it be, if the U.S. will not protect those lives? The position of the U.S. is that unborn children have no value as human persons. If it did consider them to have value, there is no way it would permit anyone to destroy them. But it does.
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You cannot say that something has the value you or I have and, at the same time, suggest that anyone has the right – the word you have used repeatedly – to destroy that something. This is a self-contradicting position. And you will note that it is for this reason that the abortion debate centers so much on the nature of that which is being destroyed, and whether it qualifies as a person. You are the first person I’ve met from your camp who states on the one hand that the fetus is a human person, and on the other, that it is okay to destroy the fetus. I’ve never heard this before because almost everyone realizes it is a logically and morally untenable position. I am dumbfounded that you cannot see this.
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Now, all this being said, you are right that criminalizing abortion is not enough. The pro-life movement agrees with you. It is for this reason that we have created pro-life pregnancy counseling centers designed to support women who want to give birth to their children. My own conviction is that most women do not want abortion, but abort anyway because they believe they have no other *choice* - there is that word you value – or perhaps because they do not hear anyone, really, affirming their desire for the life inside them, and against the cacophony of all their own fears and concerns, cannot bring themselves to affirm that desire themselves. And so I have always believed the best way to reduce the number of abortions – besides criminalizing it – is to support women in choosing life. A pregnant woman is one who is in a tender and possibly very difficult position; who would wish to leave her to the vultures? Only the heartless, of course. One of the keys to creating a culture of life is finding appropriate ways to support women who are pregnant. In that we agree.
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“My whole point is that many of the situations where abortions become neccessary are in a very gray moral area, and it’s cruel to simply deny women the right to an abortion in every circumstance.”
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Is the value of your life, or mine, ever a grey area? No. The question of the value of the fetus is never a grey area. It is a question that we answer as a society one way (valued as person) or the other (not valued as person). If the fetus is valuable as a human person, then it remains valuable as a human person regardless of the manner in which it is conceived. If it is not valuable as a person, then it never becomes so, regardless of the manner in which it is conceived.
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Rape is indeed a terrible crime. Yet it is logically and morally inconsistent to argue that a fetus is not a person merely because it was conceived by rape. On what grounds can rape alter the actual nature of the fetus? It is a sensitive subject, to be sure, but if the fetus is a person, nothing can justify its destruction. After all, you yourself are a person: assuming your innocence, what can justify destroying you? If you believe it’s okay to destroy a fetus because of rape, you must admit the possibility that it can be justifiable to destroy you, even when you are innocent. That is just a matter of logical consistency.

Shoot - I’ve messed up the posting. You have to read this comment first, and then the one immediately preceding it. Here’s the beginning of my response:
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CelticAfro,
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“@David and Db: I read your statements accusing me of being generally callous and lacking compassion. I don’t respect those comments because you don’t know me and how nice a guy I am in person.”
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How bizarre! Nowhere did I accuse you of being callous or lacking in compassion. I never commented on your character at all. If you’ll go back and – you know – read what I actually wrote, you will find that I did, in fact, attack your arguments. You cannot seem to distinguish between an argument and an ad hominem.
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But since you brought it up, CelticAfro, I will say that your statements are callous, and they do lack compassion – for the unborn, which you have now explicitly recognized as having the same human value as you (perhaps you do not think you yourself have any value). And since you are the one making callous statements, yes, I do think you are a callous person. How else is it supposed to be?
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Moreover, it disgusts me to listen to a man congratulate himself for his personal qualities. ‘How nice a guy I am’ – ‘I’m such a nice guy!’ – ‘I’m so nice to everyone I meet!’ – Ugh!
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You aren’t a nice guy. Far from it. You are indifferent to the lives of the unborn, which makes you rather cruel, actually. You may think being ‘nice’ is a valuable quality, but I personally believe it is one of the most useless qualities a man can have. Be courageous, passionate, noble. Be merciful, kind, and tender. But nice? Niceness occasionally has its uses, like when you are meeting someone for the first time, but in many other circumstances it is nothing but a cover for superficiality and cowardice. How nice would you be, for instance, if someone murdered your mother right in front of you? Being ‘nice’ while lives are being destroyed suggests a cold-hearted indifference to the lives themselves. There is nothing ‘nice’ about that. It’s actually quite horrifying.

CelticAfro writes: “You think it’s cruel to allow the deaths of an unborn child. I agree, it’s not without moral consequences. I’ve never stated that otherwise.”
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What are the moral consequences?

Yeah, Right writes:
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“I’m pretty sure it’s for ease of typing.”
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I’d have been inclined to accept this, except that CelticAfro later wrote, “I argue that the value of human life inside the womb IS EQUAL to that of human life outside the whomb.” He does not seem to understand the implications of this statement.
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“The main factor is that there is no reason to force women to be conscripted incubators by law.  That simple.”
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How silly. No one here is arguing that women should be ‘conscripted incubators by law’. You forget that the vast majority of women who conceive have also *chosen* to have sex. (For the Catholic position on those who conceive by rape, see my second response to CelticAfro.) This makes them not ‘conscripted incubators’ but ‘self-chosen potential incubators’ (I prefer the term ‘potential mother’, as it speaks far more adequately to the dignity of the position). We are asking these women to take responsibility for carrying the child to term on the grounds that the life inside them is, in fact, personal in nature, and therefore deserving of the protections accorded to all persons, including you and me.
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“Until the point that the embryo can survive outside of the mothers body it is her choice.”
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Am I clear, then, that you do not believe the embryo has the same value as you or me? That you do not believe it is a person?
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“At what point does it become neglect homicide when a woman falls down a set of stairs?  etc?”
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Umm… it doesn’t? She fell down the stairs; it was an accident.
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“What gives you the right to impose your views on her body?  What gives anyone to right to interfere with her free will?”
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If I walked up to someone on the street and said, “I’m going to kill you,” and a nearby police officer, having heard me, handcuffed me and threw me in the back of his car, he would be imposing his (or at least the society’s) views upon me, and interfering with my free will. Do you not agree he is right to do so in this circumstance? Why?
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In order for society to flourish, we must, under certain circumstances, impose our views on the bodies of others, and interfere with their free will. Only anarchists oppose this. The rest of us accept it, and in fact support it wholeheartedly, when we recognize that a wrong is taking place, or will take place barring someone’s intervention. Belonging to any formal society means accepting that none of us is totally free.
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What the pro-life advocate suggests is that the unborn child, like you and me, belongs to this formal society, and thus merits the protections you and I receive. Hence, the answer of the pro-life advocate to your question, “What gives you the right?” is: “The nature of that which is gestating.” The whole debate hinges on this question.
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It surprises me you even ask this question. As I said to CelticAfro, the fulcrum of the abortion debate is the nature of the unborn. Anyone who is familiar with the debate should know why we do not consider it the right of any woman to abort, regardless of the circumstances.

“Umm… it doesn’t? She fell down the stairs; it was an accident.”

So it’s just a matter of the correct charge?  Negligent Manslaughter, perhaps?  It works for automobile accidents.

“If I walked up to someone on the street and said, “I’m going to kill you.”

Apples to Oranges?  Your assuming the the fetus is capable of self-sustaining life, and by that virtue has the same rights as whole persons.  It’s not.  Any rights it has are wholly dependent on it’s host.

“What the pro-life advocate suggests is that the unborn child, like you and me, belongs to this formal society, and thus merits the protections you and I receive.”  Makes complete sense, when society can remove the fetus from the woman and continue it’s development you may have a point.  Until then it’s *inside* a womans body and she has the right to decide what happens to her body.

Hmmm.  I have triplet grandchildren who were micro-preemies, born at 24 weeks, and are doing quite well now at the age of seven. I have read of other children born even earlier who are alive and well.  Yet our current laws make it legal to kill unborn children until the moment of live birth (hello partial birth abortion) for the entire gestational period.  Using the reasoning of viability outside the womb, one must believe that abortions should be illegal at the very least during the second and third trimester.  But pro-abortion militants want to continue to keep it legal for the entire pregnancy, not even conceding to the obvious barbaric natuare of our what our current laws permit.  Situation ethics has run amok in our modern era.  Only when all life is respected at every stage, with we be a world at peace!!!  Those who show such willingness to snuff out human life for the convenience of others will reap what they sow.  Let us pray for one another as our entire world is and will continue to reap the fruits of this evil.

“I have triplet grandchildren who were micro-preemies, born at 24 weeks”

Right, Almost the 3rd trimester.  Huh Imagine that.  Next your going to tell us how many fetuses are aborted during the late 2 and 3rd trimester?  .01% are performed by the 24th trimester.  It’s nice to see that you support the forced incubator status for women, perhaps prostitution is next?  How about forced tubal ligation?  Where do we draw the line in what society feels comfortable telling others with to do with their bodies?

“It’s nice to see that you support the forced incubator status for women…”
.
Well, I don’t know about Mary, but I for one have a bumper sticker that says, “THERE’S NO OCCUPATION LIKE FORCED INCUBATION” and a t-shirt that says, “FORCED INCUBATORS ARE HOT” with a picture of an attractive woman (i.e., a prospective incubator) standing by an oven.

When a woman becomes pregnant and makes a ‘choice’ to abort her child, ultimately, she is placing more importance on the value of her own life than the life of her unborn child. And before someone jumps on me telling me that I’m being insensitive and judgmental - I am a woman who made that choice while in my early twenties by taking the morning after pill - an abortifacient. I know full well know that there was no reason I *couldn’t* have had the baby should I have been pregnant, I made the choice to not interfere with the progress of my life as *I* wanted it and decided that I *would* not have the baby. Big difference - hence, valuing my own life over what might have been the baby’s life growing inside me.
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Seems ironic, doesn’t it, to argue that the Church doesn’t *value* women etc… and then turn around and state that a woman should have the ‘right’ to *value* her own life over that of the her unborn child.

@David - love it.
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No one is forcing anyone to become an ‘incubator’ - we make the ‘choice’ to become a possible incubator each and every time we engage in a sexual encounter. Our bodies were designed to procreate as a result of sex and even with contraception (which is, by definition ‘to prevent conception’) there is *always* the possibility of conception (and apparently its pretty high given that a huge number of women seeking abortions are using multiple forms of contraception!).
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By choosing to engage in sexual activities with another we are always spinning the roulette wheel to see whether we end up pregnant or not pregnant.

@David: It’s difficult to have a debate with 3 people at the same time without taking up loads of space on this web page. Until now, I’ve been trying to take a more generalized response to the arguments at hand. Maybe that means I’ve gone a little off-topic, but none of what I have mentioned or “responded” to is irrelevant to what you have pointed out. But since you’re so desperate for my attention, I’ll respond to you.
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“How bizarre! Nowhere did I accuse you of being callous or lacking in compassion… But since you brought it up…”
-
Well now I certainly regret misinterpreting your earlier thinly-veiled character assassination by inviting such openly thoughtless judgement. I also regret that I did not point out my sarcasm when I made my “I’m nice guy” comments. So you probably will feel like I dragged you into making embarrassingly revealing personal judgements about me—your totally pointless rant about your vendetta against “niceness” paints you as a rather cruel and judgmental person, by the way, and I hope that’s just the outrage talking—but I believe you have just proven my point either way.
-
What I find frustrating about your side of this argument: 1) you have already arrived at a conclusion, and so nothing the other side says will sway you at any point. It’s a situation where pretty much anything we say to explain our position of wanting to protect women’s privacy and health and freedom to choose basically acts as evidence to our “evil” intentions—not that you said the word “evil.” 2) You, David, are personally willing to write off the humanity of others, and bypass your own religious teachings—that is, I’m assuming you are religious, so forgive me if I am wrong—to call us out for a lack of humanity and compassion in all areas of our lives just because of our view on this one issue, so you can continue your ad hominum attacks. That is a nearly omnipresent tendency on your side of the issue, and it makes it very difficult for me to believe that you truly consider the humanity in the situation if you are so quick to dismiss me because of one opinion. Humans are not made of black-and-white morality. Almost everything we judge to be good or bad include opposite consequences, and those judgements are subject to interpretation depending on race, class, culture, time-period, etc. You are being silly and intentionally dense if you do not accept that values changes every generation, and often within that generation.
-
So I am truly sorry that I have drawn out your bad side so much, but you clearly were just barely restraining yourself from making wild judgements about my character. I could tell from the tone of your initial comments that you have no patience for the opposing side, which is why I chided/cautioned you against judgement in the first place. Again, you merely proved my point. You don’t know me, you only know my view on once single issue. The only thing you ACTUALLY find wrong with me is my difference in priorities. I value the freedom of the mother over forcing her pregnancy to term, because it is none of our business in the first place. You value the right to life of the unborn child. It’s too bad you have to turn me into a monster in your mind and draw completely the wrong conclusions about my argument to sit comfortably with your position, rather then grudgingly acknowledge my position makes some amount of sense. You just made a lot of noise about me not listening to you, but you are doing exactly the same thing to me.
-
I make no bones that my argument can be considered cold, however you seem to feel that your position is not. You are not innocent of supporting a heartless public policy. My point is that both positions make sacrifices. Do you agree? If you do not, than you are just as guilty of a “lie of convenience” as anyone on the pro-choice side.
-
“You are the first person I’ve met from your camp who states on the one hand that the fetus is a human person, and on the other, that it is okay to destroy the fetus. I’ve never heard this before because almost everyone realizes it is a logically and morally untenable position. I am dumbfounded that you cannot see this.”
-
I never stated that a fetus is a person, but I did agree that the value of the life embodied by the fetus is valid. There is a difference. Either way, you claim that I am not aware of what you feel is a self-contradicting position. On the contrary, I understand that my position appears self-contradictory on its face, as I have attempted—and apparently failed—to make clear earlier. However, my argument has never been that “Unborn life = Born life, thus abortion = murder.” My argument has always been that no one has the right to choose abortion or otherwise except for the mother herself, so it is the up to the woman’s judgement as to whether it is or is not murder. Therefor I conclude that constricting abortion through criminalization, or de-funding organizations that provide the service, or slaughtering and demoralizing doctors who perform this service effectively makes the choice for them. This is a bad thing.
-
“Am I clear, then, that you do not believe the embryo has the same value as you or me? That you do not believe it is a person?”
-
I would advise you to see above, but perhaps I should just say it again:  I do not find my position contradictory. I totally understand how you can come to a different conclusion, based on your views, and I don’t necessarily disagree with them outright. However, where we differ is in the right to make the choice on an individual basis. I view pregnancy as a women’s health issue, and so what makes sense to me is this: the life of the fetus/unborn child is the responsibility of the mother, not society’s responsibility.
-
I find pregnancy to be a special case when compared to your examples of murder, etc. It is different on the basis that a pregnancy incorporates TWO bodies acting as one. That’s we are talking about. Two bodies that are inseparable before a certain point in the pregnancy. You cannot logically grant equal rights to a being that cannot be separated from another being. Therefor, I consider it to be a PERSONAL matter, and I feel the grandstanding on both sides undermines the point of both sides—the assertion that “our position is more just, and compassionate.” Holding abortion up as a symbol of “the modern wicked and sinful ways of our world” more-or-less undoes the attempt of framing anti-choice arguments as the morally superior argument. Both sides have encouraged it to become a political wedge issue, mainly to distract from other issues that are frankly more important and more pressing. This is the part the makes me sick, and is why this unmovable argument gets us all down so much. Politicians deliberately play up the religious nature of the issue, which makes your side feel morally justified in removing the rights ALREADY PROTECTED from woman all over this country. It also validates the sense that the ends justify the means, which our country has been exploring endlessly in a variety of ways for the last 10 years.
-
Since a fetus is—for all intents and purposes—inseparable from the mother, a pregnancy cannot legally be treated the same as a murder, or even the care-giving of an elderly person. That’s one of the gray areas i mentioned. The logical extension of your argument is embodied in the rhetoric used by lawmakers such as Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin, and transcribed in House Bill 1 (http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=31965). That is the kind of blatant disrespect of women and individual liberty from lawmakers that makes us lefties very concerned. This is the kind of ‘Blame the victim’ behavior that has risen out of the extremities of this argument—and that you have been attempting to justify with claims that “the majority” of women who have abortions chose to have sex in the first place, so they get what they deserve. The way I see it, the only logical AND humane way to treat pregnancy is as a women’s health issue, an approach which has been mostly successful in terms of educating women to the responsibility they carry and the choices they have when things doesn’t go as they had prepared. Are there still irresponsible women who don’t prepare themselves for the consequences? Sure there are. Should we punish every woman who simply had bad luck with choosing a boyfriend AND bad luck with their contraception? Should we punish the minority of women who were impregnated from a rape to satisfy your desire to clear your conscience? Plenty of those cases exist, and I feel it’s rather missing the point to argue which is in the majority or minority.
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I think that’s about all I have to say. We can continue demonizing each other back and forth. I think I’ve shown that, despite my outbursts of frustration and occasional lack of articulation, that I’m willing to recognize that you have a valid point. I’m sorry to hear that you do not recognize the need for abortion as valid overall, and a necessary evil to support a healthy society.

@David: I wrote a big long reply to you in particular, but it looks like this website’s computer thought it might be spam, so my response may take a while to show up. In it I address, among other things, my comments about my “nice-guy-ness,” so it’d be useful if you wait until that shows up before you jump on me about that again.
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@Db: I think you have hit the nail on the head. I, for one, don’t think you’re any more or less sensitive than anyone else in this discussion. But that right to make that decision is exactly what the pro-choice camp wishes to defend, the right to decide whether her life is more important than her unborn child, or if her child will be born into a situation that will make that child suffer needlessly.
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I’m glad I’ve had to opportunity to a) point out some of the inconsistencies on this side and b) attempt to explain my position more clearly. I’d rather tangle politely with a few of you than to sit back, listening to your *valid* points, and watch that freedom of choice be taken away—either by law, or by defacto elimination in the form of defunding organizations like Planned Parenthood—which despite Senator’s John Kyle’s outlandish claim does not spend 90% of its money on providing abortions—or by demoralizing and murdering the doctors who perform those services.
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Obviously, everyone here has the right to speak their mind. Jennifer has the right to make the logical somersaulting she did to justify her claim that the Catholic church “respects” women more than feminists do. I think that’s a rather conclusion-first, logic-last kind of bogus reasoning. Essentially, her argument is “they don’t want what I want, so they’re wrong” which I find so tiresome in that side of the issue. It would behoove her to demonstrate her claim of superior-morality-via-christianity by exercising patience with the other side instead of twisting words to paint her opinion in a more favorable light among the already-converted.

“No one is forcing anyone to become an ‘incubator’ - we make the ‘choice’ to become a possible incubator each and every time we engage in a sexual encounter.”
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Specifically this is a very good point. However, it is patently false to assume that no one WANTS to force women to become an incubator. I provided a link to some GA House of Reps. legislation in my currently-invisible reply to David. I’ll link to it here again, and it might be worth a look if you really think that no one on your side wants this sort of thing:
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This bill was introduced by Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin, and essentially labels a miscarriage as manslaughter. It chills my blood to think that people are a) serious about this nonsense, and b) casually supportive if it, and its implications. This bill exists, and it didn’t pass. But it’s sad that it even came up.
http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=31965

“Seems ironic, doesn’t it, to argue that the Church doesn’t *value* women etc… and then turn around and state that a woman should have the ‘right’ to *value* her own life over that of the her unborn child.”
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I don’t see what is ironic about this, actually. I never claimed myself that the church doesn’t “value” women. Jennifer asserted that the pro-choice side of this issue claims this. I will assert, however, that the Church has a long history of subjugating women, and continues to do so to this day, though much less than they used to—because it now vaguely realizes that they are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to wooing those who carry modern mainstream American values).
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On the contrary, I think it’s obvious that the Church very much values women. But I also think it’s a stretch for anyone to claim that the Church respects women more than Feminism does. But then again, that depends on your perspective, which is the whole point I’ve been trying to make all along, but neither you or David seems willing to listen to that. Maybe I’ve been rambling too much.

CelticAfro - If you’ve saved your ‘big long reply’ to your hard drive, you might try breaking it down and posting it here in smaller chunks. I received the same message from the Register when I tried to post my reply to you as one comment.
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The bill you linked would not have made miscarriage a kind of manslaughter. In fact, it states explicitly, on page 11, that a miscarriage will not be considered an act of murder:
.
“(2) ‘Prenatal murder’ means the intentional removal of a fetus from a woman with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus; provided, however, that if a physician makes a medically justified effort to save the lives of both the mother and the fetus and the fetus does not survive, such action shall not be prenatal murder. [Read specifically:] Such term [‘prenatal murder’] does *not* include a *naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a ‘spontaneous abortion’ and popularly as a ‘miscarriage’* so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event.” [Emphasis mine]
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The bill, if you’ll read it, did seek to make abortion illegal.
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Further, even if the bill had sought to make miscarriage a kind of manslaughter - a bill which I certainly would not support - even this does not show that there is anyone on the pro-life side who wants to make women into ‘forced incubators’ as you and Yeah Right claim. This phrase, ‘forced incubator’, is nothing but emotionally charged language that is utterly devoid of content. I challenge you to either support this charge or apologize for having misrepresented our cause.
.
I look forward to reading your forthcoming reply, but I must say, CelticAfro, at least where I’m concerned, you have indeed been rambling too much. Your comments are long on form and short on substance. You would seem to prefer to overwhelm your opponents with your sheer verbosity than to actually engage in a real debate about this issue.

“Jennifer has the right to make the logical somersaulting she did to justify her claim that the Catholic church “respects” women more than feminists do.”
.
Further, what is the logical somersaulting Jennifer does? I’d be interested to see you this spell this out in terms we can all understand.

I just find it strange that people here actually accept that the Church discourages the use of birth control while simultaneously endorses the outlaw of abortion.

All the while pretending this is a logical stance.  How about this?  Let women exercise free choice in what to do with their bodies.  If you don’t like it… teach your children to act and do differently, address a moral problem in a moral way.

@David: You are correct that the language does not turn miscarriage into manslaughter outright. But you fail to acknowledge or emphasize the part of this law that is troublesome. Using your quotes and emphasis:
-
“Such term [‘prenatal murder’] does *not* include a *naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a ‘spontaneous abortion’ and popularly as a ‘miscarriage’* so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event.”
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So the way the bill is worded, the burden of proof is essentially on the mother that there was “no human involvement” in the event of a miscarriage. How in the world is she expected to prove such a thing in a court of law in an environment so hostile to abortions in the first place? I know we like to feel that our justice system renders us “innocent until proven guilty,” but human nature unfortunately doesn’t work this way, and the wording of the bill certainly doesn’t assume that the hypothetical miscarriage occurs naturally rather through manmande means.
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And finally, that is just rich that you stand there, completely misrepresenting my opinion and basing all your hatred of you fellow man on such misconceptions, while simultaneously demanding an apology from ME AND YEAH RIGHT for misrepresenting YOUR position. I have been more than fair to your position throughout this argument, and you have given nothing to mine, merely out of a smug sense of superiority and entitlement. I don’t feel you deserve an apology for “misrepresenting” your side of the issue under the circumstances. If you can’t come to grips with the darker side of what you support then you may wish to challenge some of those on your own side.
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David, making abortion illegal under “any circumstance” as you have already advocated, or restricting access to abortion services by de-funding this or that organization, or making the abortion contingent upon some proof of necessity, or picketting, disrupiting, or outright killing abortion service providers is a de-facto implementation of forcing pregnant women to carry to term a pregnancy they clearly do not want, were not prepared for, or even tried to prevent. Yes, “forced-incubators” is an emotionally charged phrase. Don’t pretend that your side has no such equivalent.
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I find your defense of your position lacking in deference to mine. I am happy to try and put your argument on equal footing to mine for the sake of the debate. However you are not extending the same courtesy to me, even as you also try to overwhelm me with empty rhetoric and “sheer verbosity.” You ramble as much as I do, quite readily.
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Here is another link illustrating how far the proponents in culture war are willing to go: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/south-dakota-hb-1171-legalize-killing-abortion-providers?page=2

Okay, here’s my fabled reply to you, David:
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@David: It’s difficult to have a debate with 3 people at the same time without taking up loads of space on this web page. Until now, I’ve been trying to take a more generalized response to the arguments at hand. Maybe that means I’ve gone a little off-topic, but none of what I have mentioned or “responded” to is irrelevant to what you have pointed out. But since you’re so desperate for my attention, I’ll respond to you.
-
“How bizarre! Nowhere did I accuse you of being callous or lacking in compassion… But since you brought it up…”
-
Well now I certainly regret misinterpreting your earlier thinly-veiled character assassination by inviting such openly thoughtless judgement. I also regret that I did not point out my sarcasm when I made my “I’m nice guy” comments. So you probably will feel like I dragged you into making embarrassingly revealing personal judgements about me—your totally pointless rant about your vendetta against “niceness” paints you as a rather cruel and judgmental person, by the way, and I hope that’s just the outrage talking—but I believe you have just proven my point either way.
-
What I find frustrating about your side of this argument: 1) you have already arrived at a conclusion, and so nothing the other side says will sway you at any point. It’s a situation where pretty much anything we say to explain our position of wanting to protect women’s privacy and health and freedom to choose basically acts as evidence to our “evil” intentions—not that you said the word “evil.” 2) You, David, are personally willing to write off the humanity of others, and bypass your own religious teachings—that is, I’m assuming you are religious, so forgive me if I am wrong—to call us out for a lack of humanity and compassion in all areas of our lives just because of our view on this one issue, so you can continue your ad hominum attacks. That is a nearly omnipresent tendency on your side of the issue, and it makes it very difficult for me to believe that you truly consider the humanity in the situation if you are so quick to dismiss me because of one opinion. Humans are not made of black-and-white morality. Almost everything we judge to be good or bad include opposite consequences, and those judgements are subject to interpretation depending on race, class, culture, time-period, etc. You are being silly and intentionally dense if you do not accept that values changes every generation, and often within that generation.
-
So I am truly sorry that I have drawn out your bad side so much, but you clearly were just barely restraining yourself from making wild judgements about my character. I could tell from the tone of your initial comments that you have no patience for the opposing side, which is why I chided/cautioned you against judgement in the first place. Again, you merely proved my point. You don’t know me, you only know my view on once single issue. The only thing you ACTUALLY find wrong with me is my difference in priorities. I value the freedom of the mother over forcing her pregnancy to term, because it is none of our business in the first place. You value the right to life of the unborn child. It’s too bad you have to turn me into a monster in your mind and draw completely the wrong conclusions about my argument to sit comfortably with your position, rather then grudgingly acknowledge my position makes some amount of sense. You just made a lot of noise about me not listening to you, but you are doing exactly the same thing to me.
-
I make no bones that my argument can be considered cold, however you seem to feel that your position is not. You are not innocent of supporting a heartless public policy. My point is that both positions make sacrifices. Do you agree? If you do not, than you are just as guilty of a “lie of convenience” as anyone on the pro-choice side.
-
“You are the first person I’ve met from your camp who states on the one hand that the fetus is a human person, and on the other, that it is okay to destroy the fetus. I’ve never heard this before because almost everyone realizes it is a logically and morally untenable position. I am dumbfounded that you cannot see this.”
-
I never stated that a fetus is a person, but I did agree that the value of the life embodied by the fetus is valid. There is a difference. Either way, you claim that I am not aware of what you feel is a self-contradicting position. On the contrary, I understand that my position appears self-contradictory on its face, as I have attempted—and apparently failed—to make clear earlier. However, my argument has never been that “Unborn life = Born life, thus abortion = murder.” My argument has always been that no one has the right to choose abortion or otherwise except for the mother herself, so it is the up to the woman’s judgement as to whether it is or is not murder. Therefor I conclude that constricting abortion through criminalization, or de-funding organizations that provide the service, or slaughtering and demoralizing doctors who perform this service effectively makes the choice for them. This is a bad thing.
-

@David, continued:

“Am I clear, then, that you do not believe the embryo has the same value as you or me? That you do not believe it is a person?”
-
I would advise you to see above, but perhaps I should just say it again:  I do not find my position contradictory. I totally understand how you can come to a different conclusion, based on your views, and I don’t necessarily disagree with them outright. However, where we differ is in the right to make the choice on an individual basis. I view pregnancy as a women’s health issue, and so what makes sense to me is this: the life of the fetus/unborn child is the responsibility of the mother, not society’s responsibility.
-
I find pregnancy to be a special case when compared to your examples of murder, etc. It is different on the basis that a pregnancy incorporates TWO bodies acting as one. That’s we are talking about. Two bodies that are inseparable before a certain point in the pregnancy. You cannot logically grant equal rights to a being that cannot be separated from another being. Therefor, I consider it to be a PERSONAL matter, and I feel the grandstanding on both sides undermines the point of both sides—the assertion that “our position is more just, and compassionate.” Holding abortion up as a symbol of “the modern wicked and sinful ways of our world” more-or-less undoes the attempt of framing anti-choice arguments as the morally superior argument. Both sides have encouraged it to become a political wedge issue, mainly to distract from other issues that are frankly more important and more pressing. This is the part the makes me sick, and is why this unmovable argument gets us all down so much. Politicians deliberately play up the religious nature of the issue, which makes your side feel morally justified in removing the rights ALREADY PROTECTED from woman all over this country. It also validates the sense that the ends justify the means, which our country has been exploring endlessly in a variety of ways for the last 10 years.
-
Since a fetus is—for all intents and purposes—inseparable from the mother, a pregnancy cannot legally be treated the same as a murder, or even the care-giving of an elderly person. That’s one of the gray areas i mentioned. The logical extension of your argument is embodied in the rhetoric used by lawmakers such as Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin, and transcribed in House Bill 1 (http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=31965). That is the kind of blatant disrespect of women and individual liberty from lawmakers that makes us lefties very concerned. This is the kind of ‘Blame the victim’ behavior that has risen out of the extremities of this argument—and that you have been attempting to justify with claims that “the majority” of women who have abortions chose to have sex in the first place, so they get what they deserve. The way I see it, the only logical AND humane way to treat pregnancy is as a women’s health issue, an approach which has been mostly successful in terms of educating women to the responsibility they carry and the choices they have when things doesn’t go as they had prepared. Are there still irresponsible women who don’t prepare themselves for the consequences? Sure there are. Should we punish every woman who simply had bad luck with choosing a boyfriend AND bad luck with their contraception? Should we punish the minority of women who were impregnated from a rape to satisfy your desire to clear your conscience? Plenty of those cases exist, and I feel it’s rather missing the point to argue which is in the majority or minority.
-
I think that’s about all I have to say. We can continue demonizing each other back and forth. I think I’ve shown that, despite my outbursts of frustration and occasional lack of articulation, that I’m willing to recognize that you have a valid point. I’m sorry to hear that you do not recognize the need for abortion as valid overall, and a necessary evil to support a healthy society.

@David, continued:

“Am I clear, then, that you do not believe the embryo has the same value as you or me? That you do not believe it is a person?”
-
I would advise you to see above, but perhaps I should just say it again:  I do not find my position contradictory. I totally understand how you can come to a different conclusion, based on your views, and I don’t necessarily disagree with them outright. However, where we differ is in the right to make the choice on an individual basis. I view pregnancy as a women’s health issue, and so what makes sense to me is this: the life of the fetus/unborn child is the responsibility of the mother, not society’s responsibility.
-
I find pregnancy to be a special case when compared to your examples of murder, etc. It is different on the basis that a pregnancy incorporates TWO bodies acting as one. That’s we are talking about. Two bodies that are inseparable before a certain point in the pregnancy. You cannot logically grant equal rights to a being that cannot be separated from another being. Therefor, I consider it to be a PERSONAL matter, and I feel the grandstanding on both sides undermines the point of both sides—the assertion that “our position is more just, and compassionate.” Holding abortion up as a symbol of “the modern wicked and sinful ways of our world” more-or-less undoes the attempt of framing anti-choice arguments as the morally superior argument. Both sides have encouraged it to become a political wedge issue, mainly to distract from other issues that are frankly more important and more pressing. This is the part the makes me sick, and is why this unmovable argument gets us all down so much. Politicians deliberately play up the religious nature of the issue, which makes your side feel morally justified in removing the rights ALREADY PROTECTED from woman all over this country. It also validates the sense that the ends justify the means, which our country has been exploring endlessly in a variety of ways for the last 10 years.
-
Since a fetus is—for all intents and purposes—inseparable from the mother, a pregnancy cannot legally be treated the same as a murder, or even the care-giving of an elderly person. That’s one of the gray areas i mentioned. The GA House Bill 1 and the many others like it throughout the southern states is the kind of ‘Blame the victim’ behavior that has risen out of the extremities of this argument—and that you have been attempting to justify with claims that “the majority” of women who have abortions chose to have sex in the first place, so they get what they deserve. The way I see it, the only logical AND humane way to treat pregnancy is as a women’s health issue, an approach which has been mostly successful in terms of educating women to the responsibility they carry and the choices they have when things doesn’t go as they had prepared. Are there still irresponsible women who don’t prepare themselves for the consequences? Sure there are. Should we punish every woman who simply had bad luck with choosing a boyfriend AND bad luck with their contraception? Should we punish the minority of women who were impregnated from a rape to satisfy your desire to clear your conscience? Plenty of those cases exist, and I feel it’s rather missing the point to argue which is in the majority or minority.
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I think that’s about all I have to say. We can continue demonizing each other back and forth. I think I’ve shown that, despite my outbursts of frustration and occasional lack of articulation, that I’m willing to recognize that you have a valid point. I’m sorry to hear that you do not recognize the need for abortion as valid overall, and a necessary evil to support a healthy society.

Celtic,
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“Well now I certainly regret misinterpreting your earlier thinly-veiled character assassination by inviting such openly thoughtless judgement. … your totally pointless rant about your vendetta against “niceness” paints you as a rather cruel and judgmental person.”
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There was no ‘thinly-veiled character assassination’ in my initial reply. I still have no idea where you are getting this. My subsequent ‘rant against niceness’ may have been ‘totally pointless’ in your eyes but I thought then, and continue to think now, it was totally apropos of the discussion. I did miss your sarcasm. Still, when you say you believe the unborn child has the same value as you, and then go on, with apparent lethargy, to emphasize the ‘right’ of a woman to destroy this child, what I think is that you need some shaking: “Hello! Do you hear what you’re saying? You have just said this thing has the same value as you!”
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If I have been passionate and difficult it is only because this discussion admits no room to mince words and pussyfoot. There is something vital at stake here. One does not speak blithely when the lives of others hang in the balance. No, I don’t care about your feelings; I care about these very lives whose value we are debating. What if the value of your own life were the subject of ongoing public debate? What would you think then of calls for ‘patience with the opposition’ and the ‘necessity to respect opposing perspectives’? What if we could rewind to the old slave days and listen in on public debates for and against the human value of black slaves? What would you think upon hearing a white say to another, “Well, we must be patient! There is a divergence of views here,” while his black slave looked on with deep desire and hope in his eyes? If you could go back in time and debate a Nazi over the value of a Jew, and he, in the face of your passion, urged you to patience ‘for the sake of civilized discourse’, how would you reply? No, when something as vital as the value of human life is at stake – anyone’s human life – calls for patience strike me not as virtuous but dangerously oblivious (at best) to the matter at hand. It is only human to defend passionately that which is human. And lacking vigor warns, to my mind, of lacking awareness.
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Now you clearly do not believe the fetus has the same value as you, although you have said this is your position. Still, you too believe something important hangs in the balance. Do you not believe the pro-life advocate wishes to violate with cold-hearted indifference the bodily privacy of women? Do you care about women? Where, then, is your passion? Where is your vigor in defending women? I do not understand your reticence to name things bluntly as you see them. I am not afraid to hear you accuse me of terrible things. I am not afraid to get into a fight or ‘tangle’ to use your word. I rather expect you to speak passionately or else I question the depth of your concern. Again, would you have urged the bra-burning second-wave feminists to ‘calm down’ and ‘allow for the meandering pace of social discourse’? If you think I’m cruel, you’d have crumpled to hear their response! They’d have called you a misogynist pig and told you to burn in Hell. So much for civility!

(cont’d)

You may not be cruel, CelticAfro, but you certainly do not seem to grasp the import of the statement you made earlier: “I argue that the value of human life inside the womb IS EQUAL to that of human life outside the womb.”
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Anyway, moving on. You wrote, “You have already arrived at a conclusion.” Yes. But then, this seems true of you as well. Further: “…acts as evidence to our “evil” intentions.” No, I don’t think you intend to commit evil, but I do believe you are insensitive to the meaning of your own words, the words I’ve quoted repeatedly.
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“You, David, are personally willing to write off the humanity of others, and bypass your own religious teachings.” It is not inhumane to say another is cold and insensitive in his words. As far as the teachings of Christianity are concerned, it is not verboten to judge the moral character of either actions or persons. The passage does not say, “Do not judge”, but rather, “Judge not lest ye be judged” (Matt 7:1). If you read further through verse 5, the passage makes it clear that judgment, in fact, is expected. Jesus is calling us not to suspend judgment permanently, and thus live lives of total insanity, but to exercise care and humility in our judgments, for we too are sinners. Looking back over my earlier accusations, the only word I would take away is ‘cruel’. Cruelty implies malice, and I do not think you are malicious. But you are patently indifferent to the value of the lives of the unborn. Now that is a level of judgment I am prepared to accept from my Creator. I am sure you will counter that you are not indifferent to the lives of the unborn, but it’s hardly meaningful to say you are sensitive to their value when you at the same time would not prevent someone from destroying them.
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“That is a nearly omnipresent tendency on your side of the issue.”
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Oh, let’s be real here. It’s an omnipresent tendency on both sides of the issue. Your friends in the pro-choice camp hardly share your love for dispassionate discourse, minced words, and unruffled feathers. And you know what? I’m with them!
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“You are being silly and intentionally dense if you do not accept that values changes every generation, and often within that generation.”
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Values change to a limited extent. And in any case, what difference does that make? I don’t really get your point here.
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“The GA House Bill 1 and the many others like it throughout the southern states is the kind of ‘Blame the victim’ behavior that has risen out of the extremities of this argument—and that you have been attempting to justify with claims that “the majority” of women who have abortions
chose to have sex in the first place, so they get what they deserve.”
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“Blame the victim!” Good Lord, man! How bizarre is your way of thinking! Now you would convince me that women are ‘victims’ of pregnancy, as if they had nothing to do with it! This is preposterous! And you say that I’m extreme!
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“I make no bones that my argument can be considered cold, however you seem to feel that your position is not. You are not innocent of supporting a heartless public policy. My point is that both positions make sacrifices. Do you agree?”

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I am glad that you realize your argument is cold, though it chills me to the bone to hear you say this. And yes, I do understand that both positions make sacrifices: that is the nature of the case, when we are speaking of lives so intimately bound. And yes, I understand that I support a policy that is cold in a different way. Naturally, I am going to suggest to you that it is cold in the appropriate way, namely that I expect adult women to take responsibility for the adult choices they make. Using contraception does not absolve a woman of this responsibility: she uses it, or asks her boyfriend or husband to use it, knowing full well that contraception does not guarantee a pregnancy won’t occur.

(cont’d)

You may not be cruel, CelticAfro, but you certainly do not seem to grasp the import of the statement you made earlier: “I argue that the value of human life inside the womb IS EQUAL to that of human life outside the womb.”
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Anyway, moving on. You wrote, “You have already arrived at a conclusion.” Yes. But then, this seems true of you as well. Further: “…acts as evidence to our “evil” intentions.” No, I don’t think you intend to commit evil, but I do believe you are insensitive to the meaning of your own words, the words I’ve quoted repeatedly.
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“You, David, are personally willing to write off the humanity of others, and bypass your own religious teachings.” It is not inhumane to say another is cold and insensitive in his words. As far as the teachings of Christianity are concerned, it is not verboten to judge the moral character of either actions or persons. The passage does not say, “Do not judge”, but rather, “Judge not lest ye be judged” (Matt 7:1). If you read further through verse 5, the passage makes it clear that judgment, in fact, is expected. Jesus is calling us not to suspend judgment permanently, and thus live lives of total insanity, but to exercise care and humility in our judgments, for we too are sinners. Looking back over my earlier accusations, the only word I would take away is ‘cruel’. Cruelty implies malice, and I do not think you are malicious. But you are patently indifferent to the value of the lives of the unborn. Now that is a level of judgment I am prepared to accept from my Creator. I am sure you will counter that you are not indifferent to the lives of the unborn, but it’s hardly meaningful to say you are sensitive to their value when you at the same time would not prevent someone from destroying them.
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“That is a nearly omnipresent tendency on your side of the issue.”
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Oh, let’s be real here. It’s an omnipresent tendency on both sides of the issue. Your friends in the pro-choice camp hardly share your love for dispassionate discourse, minced words, and unruffled feathers. And you know what? I’m with them!
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“You are being silly and intentionally dense if you do not accept that values changes every generation, and often within that generation.”
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Values change to a limited extent. And in any case, what difference does that make? I don’t really get your point here.
(cont’d)

“The GA House Bill 1 and the many others like it throughout the southern states is the kind of ‘Blame the victim’ behavior that has risen out of the extremities of this argument—and that you have been attempting to justify with claims that “the majority” of women who have abortions
chose to have sex in the first place, so they get what they deserve.”
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“Blame the victim!” Good Lord, man! How bizarre is your way of thinking! Now you would convince me that women are ‘victims’ of pregnancy, as if they had nothing to do with it! This is preposterous! And you say that I’m extreme!
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“I make no bones that my argument can be considered cold, however you seem to feel that your position is not. You are not innocent of supporting a heartless public policy. My point is that both positions make sacrifices. Do you agree?”

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I am glad that you realize your argument is cold, though it chills me to the bone to hear you say this. And yes, I do understand that both positions make sacrifices: that is the nature of the case, when we are speaking of lives so intimately bound. And yes, I understand that I support a policy that is cold in a different way. Naturally, I am going to suggest to you that it is cold in the appropriate way, namely that I expect adult women to take responsibility for the adult choices they make. Using contraception does not absolve a woman of this responsibility: she uses it, or asks her boyfriend or husband to use it, knowing full well that contraception does not guarantee a pregnancy won’t occur.
(cont’d)

I won’t follow you line-by-line from here, because I simply disagree with your arguments. I understand that the life of the fetus is inseparable from that of the mother, at least until a certain point, but as I have already said, if the fetus has the same value as you and me, then as far as I am concerned, the mother only has the right to destroy it when the fetus itself is endangering her own life.
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You keep saying this is a moral grey area, but I think you are diluting and confusing a matter that is actually quite clear. Whenever someone says ‘human life’, I am no longer concerned about mere inconveniences. And for all the discomfort pregnancy involves, that is what they amount to: inconveniences. You may say they are great inconveniences. And I will reply, “Yes – but you have only modified the word ‘inconvenience’.” And yes, I understand some pregnancies involve even more than that. They can create real medical complications for women. No, I am not insensitive to that. It is just that even medical complications, short of those that are life-threatening, do not add up to the value of one human life. That is my bottom line and the bottom line of the pro-life movement, as your bottom line is what you consider the right of a mother to judge the actual character of that which is gestating inside her.
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You keep telling me I can’t understand anything you’re saying. I can. I just don’t feel the need to stroke you repeatedly and say, “Oh, yes, I can see where you’re coming from”, any more than I need you to perform the service for me. Of course we both see each other’s arguments to some extent. Who cares? What is the truth of the matter – that is the thing of real consequence here.
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I do not think it is easy for women to come into life bearing the biological tools necessary to give birth. But then, I don’t think it’s important that our lives be easy. I hear and understand the complaints of women who want to have the same sexual latitude that men have as a matter of biology. But then, I don’t think sexual latitude is a good thing anyway, and so have little sympathy for this complaint. And I hear and understand that pregnancy does not always come at the best time – sometimes it comes at a very bad time. Yet there is another life involved, and it came about because of a choice two people made, however much they also tried to prevent it (contraception). All the sensitivity and respect for women you seem to think I don’t have doesn’t add up to one human life.
(end)

“So the way the bill is worded, the burden of proof is essentially on the mother that there was “no human involvement” in the event of a miscarriage. How in the world is she expected to prove such a thing in a court of law in an environment so hostile to abortions in the first place? I know we like to feel that our justice system renders us “innocent until proven guilty,” but human nature unfortunately doesn’t work this way, and the wording of the bill certainly doesn’t assume that the hypothetical miscarriage occurs naturally rather through manmande means.
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How on earth do you reach the conclusion that the language undermines the presumption of innocence? How else should the bill have been worded? It seems clear to me that it remains the responsibility of the plaintiff to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the abortion was indeed spontaneous (a miscarriage) rather than deliberate. This bill is prone to human nature no more than any other law on the books. Should we simply stop passing laws at this point? LOL!
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“And finally, that is just rich that you stand there, completely misrepresenting my opinion and basing all your hatred of you fellow man on such misconceptions, while simultaneously demanding an apology from ME AND YEAH RIGHT for misrepresenting YOUR position.”
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Um… how did I misrepresent your position? This is just getting funny.
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David, making abortion illegal under “any circumstance” as you have already advocated, or restricting access to abortion services by de-funding this or that organization, or making the abortion contingent upon some proof of necessity, or picketting, disrupiting, or outright killing abortion service providers is a de-facto implementation of forcing pregnant women to carry to term a pregnancy they clearly do not want, were not prepared for, or even tried to prevent. Yes, “forced-incubators” is an emotionally charged phrase. Don’t pretend that your side has no such equivalent.
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Ah, okay. I understand the term now. Still, it is a ridiculous term. Unwitting pregnant women are forced incubators like I’m a forced laborer when my boss threatens to fire me for not coming into work every day.
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I find your defense of your position lacking in deference to mine. I am happy to try and put your argument on equal footing to mine for the sake of the debate. However you are not extending the same courtesy to me, even as you also try to overwhelm me with empty rhetoric and “sheer verbosity.” You ramble as much as I do, quite readily.
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I think I have been quite rational, if also wordy. Your complaint seems to be that I’m not nice. Too bad. And no, I don’t want to put your argument on equal footing to mine. I think I’ve made the reasons why quite clear.
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CelticAfro, I think your manner of argument is bizarre. This is my last response to you. You may have the last word if you wish.

Oh, I do have another thing to say, on the sensitivity question. If a female friend approached me and confided that she were pregnant, and let’s say she were also scared and uncertain what she should do, and were debating whether to keep the child or abort it, believe me, I would have tremendous compassion for her. It’s a difficult situation. But apart from listening to her and supporting her, I would also ask her to imagine what it would be like to see the first ultrasound, or hold the child in her arms for the first time. I would encourage her to bravery in the face of the loved ones’ opposition. I would front whatever money I could afford for her first expenses. I’d help her find ways around the obstacles to giving birth, wherever possible. I would do everything I could imagine to support a friend in this position. And if after all she chose to abort, I would be deeply sad, but I would still be her friend.
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I am not insensitive to women in this position. I know that it’s hard. But as I have said before, there is something else on the line, too, something that continues to have more value on its own than almost all the opposing considerations put together: the life of the child.

David says: “Well, I don’t know about Mary, but I for one have a bumper sticker that says, “THERE’S NO OCCUPATION LIKE FORCED INCUBATION” and a t-shirt that says, “FORCED INCUBATORS ARE HOT” with a picture of an attractive woman (i.e., a prospective incubator) standing by an oven.”

The above seems to reflect a very immature and insulting attitude toward women. David cannot seem to have a rational and intelligent conversaton on this blog on this issue because it is beyond his comprehension.  I am praying for David and all whose ideas regarding women and man’s dignitiy have been stunted by our culture and radical feminism.  Both have done nothing but degrade woman for decades now. Until people like David understand it they will fight those who are on the front lines trying to help women who are being chewed up and spit out by the culture. Let us pray for one another.

It was sarcastic humor, Mary, poking fun at the idea that the pro-life movement seeks to turn women into ‘conscripted incubators’.

I’ve just spent pages defending the pro-life movement, so I’m at a loss to understand why you think I’m fighting ‘those who are on the front lines trying to help women.’

Thanks for the last word David. I appreciate that.
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But I will not say anything else. I’ve spent far too much energy on this conversation. Good bye for now every one, and be well.

Sorry David.  You must understand that I met guys when I was in college who said those things and meant it!!!!  So, yes, I took you literally.  Mea culpa.

No problem at all, Mary. Thanks for your apology. Like I said, I was just trying to show how silly was the notion that we on the pro-life side are trying to turn women into ‘conscripted incubators’ - ‘Oh, yeah, we sure do, and I’ve even got the bumper sticker to show it! Hyuk hyuk hyuk!’ - sarcasm. I agree with you and I do not at all support a culture that strips women of their dignity.

“Posted by Sneak (a man who loves women) on Friday, Sep 2, 2011 6:39 AM (EDT):Don’t want AIDS? Or Herp? Or the clap? Let alone kids? Wanna be responsible and NOT pass any of that on if you already have it?

Then here’s your answer - 1) unwrap a condom, 2) roll it down a penis, 3) don’t keep using the same one once he’s ejaculated. So, only two points there, really, and both are obvious. If he’s a generous and caring lover it shouldn’t all be about the penetration, anyway.

As for the church respecting women, puh-lease, the ideal model of woman is a virgin mother. The entire approach to women is based on pleasureless utility. Let’s be honest, ALL judeo-christian-islamic religions hate women.”
—my reply? how about people started keeping their pants on and their legs closed?  I know so many people that have used condoms and were on the pill and STILL, the woman got pregnant!  Using these devices are not full-proof…..

“The entire approach to women is based on pleasureless utility.”—No, the women of the Catholic church are depicted as loving, strong, compassionate, had working and are fantastic role models:  Check out Mother Teresa, St. Therese, St. Maria Goretti, St. Rita, St. Joan of Ark If the church indeed looked at women as PLEASURABLE, wouldn’t you think that would be sexist?  We are talking church here, not the playboy mansion!

I agree with Fulwiler’s points on abortion and contraception, but she omits (perhaps because of space limitations) the full impact of Catholic doctrine and its practical implications for women.  Who is the one consistent role model held up for Catholic women?  Mary!  Meek, docile, accepting of everything, never any opinions or thoughts, because it isn’t important for women to think or speak.  I actually had a priest tell our parish that, “Motherhood is the highest calling for women.”  Since when does the Catholic church get to decide that for half the population of Earth?  I constantly hear the message that the only calling women are suited for is motherhood:  physical, spiritual or psychological.  That’s it.  That is an extremely narrow and unimaginative view of women’s potential and gifts.  For those of us who do not have children we are apparently not fulfilling the one and only calling we have in life dictated by a bunch of men?  I’m don’t believe in female ordination, but if the Catholic church is that threatened by women doing something other than having babies, it’s no wonder they’re losing us.

I attend mass regularly, but I only go now because it is a mandate, not because I feel spiritually fed or part of any community.  The fact is I am never acknowledged because I don’t have a husband and children with me.  If this is what the Church believes is right for women, then I’m beginning to doubt that the Church is right for me.

Perhaps no one can be angrier, sadder, more hostile than a man or woman who is involved with someone sexually who will not commit to a true life together—especially if that person is also raising a child on their own. They hurt for themselves and their child(ren) and can so easily become defensive about their situation that they do not even realize the root of their anger. It’s easily then misdirected at those who ARE living in the commitment of marriage and the moral values of those couples and their church too. A special prayer for you who may be in that former category.

I have 4 rhythm babies.  You now know how old I am.  I wouldn’t be without any one of them and I am against abortion.  I would like to see the age of women in this study who had abortions.  I will bet they are young.  Morality is the missing factor,  Today I would limit my family but my husband would have a vasectomy.

Feminism is not based on the natural femininity of women. That is why it teaches women to give up their own femininity and behave like men. Feminism is not for women who are really feminine.

It’s OK if you’re against feminism (it’s a free country) as long as you’re OK with me being against the Catholic Church. We can just agree to disagree about which one is more evil…

“If you assume that the thousands of women we’re talking about here were intelligent, responsible people, then this indicates that there is a huge problem with contraception—something the Church has said all along.”

That is a faulty assumption.  Women are frequently neither responsible nor intelligent when it comes to sex. Men are even worse. (How many men have gotten into trouble by “thinking with their penis”?)

Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology at Duke University, has written a series of books about how people are far from responsible and intelligent. For example, people make poor decisions when sexually aroused. In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to make the irrational decision to forgo the condom because sex feels better without one. That’s also the reason why pulling out doesn’t work. Relying on preventing pregnancy by making the correct decision in the heat of the moment is a sure strategy for failure.

This is also what causes most NFP “failures”.  The couple must take active steps to avoid physical intimacy on the fertile days or they are likely to “cheat”. If the “cheat”, unplanned pregnancy is the likely result. The NFP couple has the unpleasant choice of deliberately avoiding physical intimacy in the marriage and frequent unplanned pregnancies. This is why NFP is NOT “marriage building” for most couples, despite what advocates may claim. Perhaps if you want a large family, but for those who don’t it’s a disaster.

Birth control pills are not used in the “heat of the moment”, but have their own user problems. Many women experience unpleasant side effects with the pill. The unpleasant side effects make them less likely to take them regularly and more likely to become pregnant. Furthermore, if the woman is emotionally ambivalent to avoiding pregnancy (even if she rationally knows that this is the best course of action) she is less likely to take birth control properly.

This is not just women and avoiding pregnancy. People will avoid taking lifesaving medication if the side effects are bad enough. It is human nature.

When the irrational decision to not use contraception properly meets the cold reality of unplanned pregnancy, that is when abortions happen.

The problem is not with contraception, per se, but with specific methods of contraception.  Instead of focusing on short term solutions that leave room for user error, those who want to reduce the number of abortions should promote set-it-and-forget-it methods like the IUD (hormonal or copper), the shot, or implants.  For those who do not want any (more) children, sterilization is probably the best option. With these methods, the decision to procreate is made calmly and rationally in a doctor’s office and not in the heat of passion.

I dissagree with some of you. CONDOMS DO NOT CAUSE ABORTIONS. CONTRACEPTIVES WERE NOT ONLY CREATED TO STOP UNWANTED PREGNANCIES BUT PREVENT THE SPREAD OF HIV/AIDS AND STDS and I have a couple relatives who are Doctors. In the perfect world, there would be no need for contraception, but we don’t live in a perfect world. In heaven, there is no need for contraception because there is no sex, no disease, no poverty, no rape, no loans, no bills, no mortgages to be paid, no school tuitions to be paid, no vacations and extracurricular activites to be paid for, no clothes/personal belongings to be paid for, no crime, no sex trafficing, no illness.I think it is easy for the Church to label all forms of contraceptive “evil” including condoms, because Catholic Church leadership is male run and only focuses on power and control over its believers and does not care what the opinion of married couples/medical professionals and women have on this issue. Back in the day, women had few rights and no contraception therefore they had large families in educated societies, women have more rights and power and therefore can make the concious decision when and how many children they will have and the method of contraception they will use. The countries that don’t use contraception and countries with high birth rates are often societies that degrade women, where women do not have access to education, where they are treated as property and used for the bearing of children and not just any children male children.In places like Pakistan, India women are burned to death for not delivering male babies. In these societies, from Africa/Middle East to parts of Asia/parts of Central/South America poverty is rampant, so is prostitution, child sex trade, hunger, and worst of all FEMALE INFANTICIDE is present.

Women in Western societies, are simply too educated to say no to contraception. It has nothing to do with being anti-life. For example, I do believe life begins at conception and I do believe in the sanctity of marriage and I believe people should be married before they have sex; henceforth, I am a 26 year old virgin and all my relationships have been sexually pure, so don’t go assuming women who are pro-contraception have no morals and are pro-abortion. Being open to life to me and the Sacrament of Matrimony means 1 man 1 woman only, no extramarital affairs or affairs prior to marriage, means being faithful, loving and caring. Means working things out and being there for each other through thick and thin. However, open to children means simply if God gives you a child you will not terminate it- whether it is healthy or special needs, whether it is a girl or a boy, but carry through the pregnancy it does not mean every sexual act must lead to a pregnancy nor does it mean that couples cannot decide when and how many children they will have.

Another problem I have with Catholics who claim NFP works is some of them are sterilized(had vasectomies, tubes tied) so they don’t need contraception anymore and pretend how they are so sorry they tied their tubes when in fact most of them deep down are not sorry at all!!!! Using a condom doesn’t change the function of the body but sterilization sure does!!!!! Also, we have old males trying to tell married women what to do with their bodies when they never had spouses of their own, don’t even know what it is like to have and raise a family. Assume stuff,prayers they chant and their interpretation of Sacred Scriptures and texts, based on the books they read and pretend they are above everyone else and in some cases some even act as if they are above God.When infact if they deeply cared about Women and Children in the Church, they would be more understanding and would get rid of the pedofiles in our church instead of hiding them and stop this thinking that through prayer somehow they will stop doing what they are doing. There is much great hypocrisy in the Church today and much Evil and most of it comes from Church policy/leadership.

Catholic women do use contraception and will continue to do so atleast in the western world. Contraception doesn’t have to mean abortion, since we all very well know CONDOMS don’t cause abortions. I think it is hypocritical of people to group the condom with the pill. The Pill can harm a women’s body,but a condom cannot(there are sythetics ones for those allergic to latex). The Pill manipulates the hormones of a women’s body, the condom does not. NFP doesn’t work for marriage building since couples avoid intimacy for the purpose of not having children. NFP works for familes who want a lot of children. NFP only works if males pull out and the women has a 100% regular cycle which most women don’t. NFP forgets to see the reasons and medical benefits for people to use contraception- there are diseases,health conditions where people cannot have children(BECause they could die having children).

Hello. Jennifer, thank you for providing this platform for differing views. For transparency sake, I’m agnostic, formerly Episcopalian.

The difference in value between a human zygote (a fertilized egg) and a newborn baby is vast. If there were a fire in an in vitro fertilization lab, and I had to choose between saving the newborn baby of my lab colleague and saving dozens of human zygotes in a petri-dish, I would choose the baby. In fact, if there was no newborn baby, but there was some risk to myself from the fire, I would not be concerned with those human zygotes, even knowing that someday several might be implanted in a woman’s womb. I would save myself. I believe, most people would make the same decision. 

Why? Because a human zygote is not a human being, it is not a person. It carries unique human DNA, true, but so do human skin cells. Human DNA does not equal a human being: we know this. Intuitively, we understand that something “more” is required to turn a zygote into a human person. And that “more” is the contribution of an actual human being, a woman: the blood pumping from her heart, the oxygen pumping from her lungs, her very life’s essence enriching the environment in which the zygote develops and then turns into embryo and then finally into fetus, a human being with the inalienable right to exist.

To say that a zygote is a human person, worthy of the same rights as a newborn infant, is to say that a woman’s contribution to the process of creating a human being is not important, it’s negligible. The equation “human zygote equals human being” profoundly diminishes women.

Zygotes become human beings within the womb. It’s a process. Many die along the way: at least 50% never even reach the uterus. Those that survive and implant themselves in a woman’s womb slowly, but surely take on more and more of the characteristics that make us human beings.

Many people will argue what qualifies us as human beings having the inalienable right to exist. For some, it’s conception; for others, a beating human heart; for others, a functioning human brain; and yet, for others, it’s the ability to survive without having to use the life support system of another human being.

I fall into that latter category. 24 weeks. That’s the cutoff point. Women should be able to elect to have an abortion until the fetus is able to viably survive outside the womb. I’m pro-choice until viability. After 24 weeks, abortion should only be legal if a medical panel determines that the fetus has severe birth defects or has died; or, if a medical panel decides that continuing a pregnancy would severely threaten the life of the mother. In this latter case, if doctors can deliver the fetus vaginally or via ceasarean operation without severely endangering the mother, they should be required to do so.

The “Pro-choice until viability” stance recognizes the profound contribution that women make in turning human zygotes into human beings. It affirms women’s humanity and worth. It also affirms the worth of the viable human fetus. It declares that at a certain point in pregnancy, a viable fetus becomes a human being, a person, and its inalienable right to exist trumps a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body. 

That’s not to say that society should take a neutral stance on abortion before 24 weeks. Women should be strongly encouraged to use abstinence or birth control instead of abortion to limit their unwanted pregnancies. Sex education and birth control should be widely available. Abortion clinics should be required to offer (NOT force upon!) women information on the development of the zygote/embryo/fetus within their wombs; local homes that care for pregnant girls and women; free or low-cost health care during pregnancy (if it exists!); and local adoption agencies and services. Also, adoption should be made easier, and those who adopt should be rewarded with huge tax cuts, especially people who adopt “unwanted” children.

Jennifer, my views are probably not shared with most of your readers, and I hope I haven’t offended anyone.

Again, thank for the platform.

Regards to All

Jennifer, you are a true feminist, please do not say otherwise. We need to correct this error that those who work to separate women from their fertility and promote such a misogynistic act as a good thing are who are the feminists. We should find our voice and state it loud and refuse to be bullied into silence by those who promote counter-femininity as feminism.
You are a true feminist, as am I, as is Dr. Janet Smith, Abby Johnson, the many persons who teach and promote NFP, those who work in life centers and pregnancy counseling centers, and countless others. Anyone who denies that our fertility is something we should work to suppress. We promote respect for our full femininity. We deny that our fertility is something we need to be cured of.
Our fertility cannot be separated from our femininity. It is impossible for those who attempt to do so to be real feminists even though they have stolen the name. If one supports any abnormal alteration to the design of our bodies in relation to fertility, they are going against femininity and identifying themselves as feminists is therefore a lie.
It may take 2 or 3 generations to do so, but we must work to correct this abuse of this word “feminism” and clarify the difference between this false feminism which has been accepted today and real and true feminism, for this false use of the word gives an erroneous impression that such people support and promote the dignity of women, that the things which they support lifts women up, when much of what they support keeps women in chains. Therefore this false use of the word “feminism” as is found to be accepted today works to keeps us as women is society from true equality.
True equality requires the respect and recognition of the dignity of the whole person. For women, this includes our fertility.

Fun fact that I DARE any Pro-Choice advocate to disprove. (They can’t because Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life will confirm this, as will “Jane Roe” herself).  Norma McCorvey, (Officially once known as Jane Roe of Roe Vs. Wade), NEVER had an abortion! HA try that one out for size Pro-Choice advocates; I DARE you!

Teresa - anyone who knows how to use Wikipedia can see that - so what’s your point? I mean, I’m used to religious people using pointless facts as counterarguments, but I’m failing to see any relevance in the statement you’ve made. Does that mean that the truth about “Jane Roe” falsifies the claims of all other pro-choicers? If that were the case, I can think of thousands of religious nuts who undo your belief system daily!