Jenny,
I just stumbled across your blog, while looking for news of the March for Life. What a breath of fresh air! I am so inspired by your writing!! Thank you, thank you, for speaking the truth about our dignity as women.
Blessings,
Joan
SALHA, how do you know that Jenny isn’t Pro Life in an all encompassing way? These are all important Pro Life issues. Maybe are aborting the precious people who will be the ones to solve these terrible issues that plagues our society.
I am Canadian. That means we have access to universal health care (as flawed and dilapidated as it may be at times) including surgery, cancer treatment and the horror of abortion on demand . Our tax dollars pay for our children’s education up to the post-secondary level and after that is subsidized in part by tax revenue. In some provinces child care is also heavily subsidized. Our tax dollar also pays for dental care for our children. Our government recently implemented new child tax credits to help families. BUT WOMEN ARE STILL HAVING ABORTIONS , so don’t believe for one minute the argument that better funding equates to more willingness to carry a child to term.
It doesn’t stop there – a few days ago I read an article written by a non-Christian physician who stated that our health care system is in jeopardy due to the large numbers of baby boomers entering old age, many of whom may develop dementia. His remedy was a signed consent from these seniors to euthanize them when their condition worsened, before it became too costly to keep them in long term care facilities. It isn’t a far stretch of the imagination to envision those in mental health facilities or those in rehab being urged to sign on the dotted line to legalize their murders, also.
If we who uphold the sanctity of life for all human beings from the moment of conception to the time of natural death don’t take a stand, who will? I don’t comment on other country’s politics or leaders, but the truths of our Catholic faith are universal. There may be many forms of implementing those truths, some more effective for one country than another, but don’t assume throwing money at the problem is always the only solution.
Hi Jenny,
Over the past week or so I’ve been doing a lot of reading about how the pro-life group is only pro-birth. I also see in your comments section several comments accusing you and others like us of this same fallacy. Do some pro-life people fit this narrative? Sure. However, for those pro-choice people who want to make some progress in understanding the pro-life cause I would highly recommend reading this article: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/01/2380/ It is an overwhelmingly false claim to say that pro-life people are only pro-birth. Facts, my friends.
Thank you, Mark, well said. I’m not so sure pro-choice people actually want to make any progress in understanding the pro-life cause because of those with whom I’ve had discussions on the subject, at the heart of their value system they don’t value any life other than their own. That may work well for them – for a time – until they are in a position where someone else devalues their life and wants to pull their plug.
First, a child has a right to life. Period. So when people put together the laundry list of where SOCIETY (never the parents) fails to provide for the child, they think they have closed the argument that a child has a basic right to life. That is false. A child has a right to be born. To flip that around, no one has the right to kill an innocent person incapable of making their own defense for life, whether an infant in the womb, an aging person, a person who has physical or mental limitations. The justification for killing an innocent human being is quite a narrow one: self-defense. In CCC 2273 it states it this way: The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.
Whether or not a society offers any other protections to the life of a person is something that will flow directly from that most basic right, not the other way around. The people who make this silly argument that pro-life people are really just “pro-birth” are basically saying (1) You have to put everything in place first before we will agree that an unborn child has the most basic human right, the right to life, and (2) Unless you can prove that as an individual you accept and agree with every point on our political shopping list of what social benefits must be put in place first and unless you also fight for those publicly we will never believe you are truly pro-life.
Well, I think it is easy to see where this line of thought comes from. What these people tend to miss in their argument, which is often aimed at pro-life Christians, is that if people follow Jesus Christ, they are not just going to follow him on the 5th commandment. They are going to follow him in MT 25:31-46. It is not a political mandate, but one of love.
I had to go ahead and remove all of the off topic and baiting comments that had accumulated here in the past couple days while I’ve been sick, so sorry if this thread is a little disjointed now. I appreciate every one of you going to bat and providing thoughtful, nuanced and honest responses to what was probably not a truly open mind.
16 Comments
Joan Marie
Jenny,
I just stumbled across your blog, while looking for news of the March for Life. What a breath of fresh air! I am so inspired by your writing!! Thank you, thank you, for speaking the truth about our dignity as women.
Blessings,
Joan
Chrissy
SALHA, how do you know that Jenny isn’t Pro Life in an all encompassing way? These are all important Pro Life issues. Maybe are aborting the precious people who will be the ones to solve these terrible issues that plagues our society.
Jean
I am Canadian. That means we have access to universal health care (as flawed and dilapidated as it may be at times) including surgery, cancer treatment and the horror of abortion on demand . Our tax dollars pay for our children’s education up to the post-secondary level and after that is subsidized in part by tax revenue. In some provinces child care is also heavily subsidized. Our tax dollar also pays for dental care for our children. Our government recently implemented new child tax credits to help families. BUT WOMEN ARE STILL HAVING ABORTIONS , so don’t believe for one minute the argument that better funding equates to more willingness to carry a child to term.
It doesn’t stop there – a few days ago I read an article written by a non-Christian physician who stated that our health care system is in jeopardy due to the large numbers of baby boomers entering old age, many of whom may develop dementia. His remedy was a signed consent from these seniors to euthanize them when their condition worsened, before it became too costly to keep them in long term care facilities. It isn’t a far stretch of the imagination to envision those in mental health facilities or those in rehab being urged to sign on the dotted line to legalize their murders, also.
If we who uphold the sanctity of life for all human beings from the moment of conception to the time of natural death don’t take a stand, who will? I don’t comment on other country’s politics or leaders, but the truths of our Catholic faith are universal. There may be many forms of implementing those truths, some more effective for one country than another, but don’t assume throwing money at the problem is always the only solution.
Mark
Hi Jenny,
Over the past week or so I’ve been doing a lot of reading about how the pro-life group is only pro-birth. I also see in your comments section several comments accusing you and others like us of this same fallacy. Do some pro-life people fit this narrative? Sure. However, for those pro-choice people who want to make some progress in understanding the pro-life cause I would highly recommend reading this article: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/01/2380/ It is an overwhelmingly false claim to say that pro-life people are only pro-birth. Facts, my friends.
Jean
Thank you, Mark, well said. I’m not so sure pro-choice people actually want to make any progress in understanding the pro-life cause because of those with whom I’ve had discussions on the subject, at the heart of their value system they don’t value any life other than their own. That may work well for them – for a time – until they are in a position where someone else devalues their life and wants to pull their plug.
jeanette
First, a child has a right to life. Period. So when people put together the laundry list of where SOCIETY (never the parents) fails to provide for the child, they think they have closed the argument that a child has a basic right to life. That is false. A child has a right to be born. To flip that around, no one has the right to kill an innocent person incapable of making their own defense for life, whether an infant in the womb, an aging person, a person who has physical or mental limitations. The justification for killing an innocent human being is quite a narrow one: self-defense. In CCC 2273 it states it this way: The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.
Whether or not a society offers any other protections to the life of a person is something that will flow directly from that most basic right, not the other way around. The people who make this silly argument that pro-life people are really just “pro-birth” are basically saying (1) You have to put everything in place first before we will agree that an unborn child has the most basic human right, the right to life, and (2) Unless you can prove that as an individual you accept and agree with every point on our political shopping list of what social benefits must be put in place first and unless you also fight for those publicly we will never believe you are truly pro-life.
Well, I think it is easy to see where this line of thought comes from. What these people tend to miss in their argument, which is often aimed at pro-life Christians, is that if people follow Jesus Christ, they are not just going to follow him on the 5th commandment. They are going to follow him in MT 25:31-46. It is not a political mandate, but one of love.
Jean
Jeanette, thank you!
Jenny Uebbing
I had to go ahead and remove all of the off topic and baiting comments that had accumulated here in the past couple days while I’ve been sick, so sorry if this thread is a little disjointed now. I appreciate every one of you going to bat and providing thoughtful, nuanced and honest responses to what was probably not a truly open mind.
Laura
Amen!