Their shapes are familiar to us. Four-sided stepped pyramids rising up out of the jungles and plains of the ancient Aztec Empire, the sites of blood sacrifice meant to appease the angry gods who were nothing more than an externalized expression of humanity’s worst fears and most primal impulses. These are the sites where the blood of innocents flowed freely in a ruinous cycle of anxiety, appeasement, and despair; where the insatiable maw of human weakness and the demonic was fed the lives of innocents, especially the virgins.
It was a society ripe for Christian evangelization. These people grasped the essence of blood sacrifice as atonement for sin. They no doubt rejoiced in the truth, that the one true God of the universe offered Himself as a final blood sacrifice for all of humanity’s sins. For the Aztecs, liberation from their blood-soaked past was indeed Good News. So it has been for their descendants for centuries.
Today, just north of the ancient Aztec Empire, a new stepped temple, six stories tall and offering 75,000 square feet of space is being completed in Houston Texas. It is a Planned Parenthood mega-abortion center, the largest in the world outside of China, strategically located at the point where four minority neighborhoods intersect. Three of these neighborhoods are 85% Hispanic and one is 80% Black American. Coincidence? Hardly. Close to 80% of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in inner-city neighborhoods among the very people Margaret Sanger and her fellow travelers in the Eugenics movement targeted almost a century ago.
Indeed, African-Americans comprise almost 12% of the population, but have 37% of the abortions. This is not an accident. It is the result of a fracturing of Christian Civilization, and the resulting descent into a pre-Christian demonic madness.
The ancients could be forgiven a certain ignorance that came with scientific illiteracy regarding meteorology. Looking at their arid land, they knew well their fate if the skies withheld their life-giving waters. Ignorant of God, they fashioned gods who resembled the traits they found most socially desirable amongst themselves that they would inculcate into their children. They then ascribed those traits to animals and carved them into totem poles. When the ancients worshipped the totem poles, they were doing nothing more than worshipping and externalized version of their own collective socially desirable traits.
In essence, they were worshipping themselves.
Today totem worship is rampant in Western civilization. Materialism and radicalized autonomy are the greatest goods and the prime reasons cited by abortion proponents for sacrificing our young. Our materialism and radicalized autonomy have created an arid spiritual landscape in too many lives and communities, as such autonomy is the antithesis of faithful submission to the loving will of God.
Once again the demonic preys upon our fears and whispers to us its requirement to be worshipped with blood sacrifice, with a newly instituted priestly class doing the demonic’s bidding.
Our attempts to stanch the bloodshed through legislative efforts is a good, but ultimately lagging indicator of lived faith in society. Education in how abortion harms women physically, psychologically and spiritually; evangelization that restores people to their lost dignity, and the refocussing of priorities that follow are what is needed most. Just laws will necessarily ensue.
It was the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ that ended human sacrifice all over the world. Here in the best garden of the world we have seen that faith badly corroded and its appalling consequences.
It isn’t enough to be anti-abortion. We must quench the arid American soil with the healing, life-giving waters of Baptism in a new evangelization. Then, those fears which drive so many to consume their offspring as the price of peace will be swallowed up in faith that a loving Father will take care of all our needs.
Coming Home 
A stunning visual comparison! Moloch’s insatiable appetite for the blood of innocents is manifested once again in the new world.
Our Lord sent Juan Diego and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico to draw people out of satan’s grip. In those times people were ignorant, oppressed, and fearful.
What excuse do we have today? We have had Christ in our communities and churches for hundreds of years. We have been abundantly blessed. We have had the graces of the sacraments and the freedom of expressing our faith in the public square. And yet we are losing our youth, our future, and our culture to the gods of materialism.
remember what Pope Benedict said in recent years about Europe and the demographic winter: he said that western society was a society without hope – manifest in it’s lack of children, the aborting of its future and the unwillingness to make room for children in our lives…..:(
Ah, there you go, that’s the take Erin Manning presented a month or so ago. There is something obscene about mass production of abortions, or devoting an edifice of this size to it. Of course it has nothing to do with sacrifices to hypothetical gods.
The general norm for pregnancy is, of course, to have a healthy baby. That is the norm in the overwhelming majority if pregnancies in the United States, and has been ever since Roe v. Wade. If there is reason to abort, it should be a private, individual decision between a woman and her gynecologist, and generally, the gyn or ob who has been following her should be the one to perform it, or to make a referral. Having centralized locations specializing in abortion takes it out of this context, and incidentally, makes a spectacle for those who object to focus on. Bad tactical judgement again.
There is something obscene about mass production of abortions, or devoting an edifice of this size to it.
Why? Why is it obscene, SJ?
If there is reason to abort, it should be a private, individual decision between a woman and her gynecologist, and generally, the gyn or ob who has been following her should be the one to perform it, or to make a referral. Having centralized locations specializing in abortion takes it out of this context
Why is that?
Is having centralized locations specializing in helping cancer victims obscene or inappropriate?
If you truly believe abortion is a service to women, then I see no reason that having a large place specializing in abortion should be offensive to you.
I already answered this question a couple of posts up the line, so I won’t repeat it all. It is rare for someone to have cancer and say “No, I want to keep this cancer.” I do think it is wrong to encourage a man to have prostate surgery when there is only a possibility of cancer, or when they man is likely to die of other causes long before the prostate cancer will be of significance. It is not on the same moral level, but there is a common element: don’t do medical procedures for the sake of generating revenue, unless the patient wants and needs it.
I view abortion as an occasional, and sometimes necessary, sideline of Ob/Gyn. Of course one reason that those who seek abortions must go to centralized, specialized facilities is that so few doctors or hospitals will perform them. I did know one doctor who would do them on an outpatient basis in her general medical practice, but in many areas, that is rare.
Actually, I do think medicine in general has too many specialized facilities, heart surgery here, cancer surgery there. Specialties have their place, but it is a patient who needs care, not an organ or a procedure. And, it generates a motive to find more people who can be induced to have cancer treatments — perhaps not necessary or indicated — or heart surgery, or whatever, rather than flexibly determining what IS necessary, and providing it.
Siarlys, Siarlys, I thought abortion was about a woman’s right to choose- not about what a doctor thinks is medically necessary?
If a woman makes a choice to have an abortion, no matter how many times or for whatever reason, it is her “right” in your eyes and therefore you should not consider it obscene. Is it really your business to critique the reasons why a woman chooses abortion?
BTW, just because it’s a natural process, it should be continued?
Its not the woman’s choice I find obscene. It is the presumption that she should make any particular choice, and that she should be encouraged to make the choice which would benefit the advertiser financially.
Choice includes your right to carry your pregnancy to term, even if the whole world thinks you should have an abortion.
Reread, “I view abortion as an occasional and sometimes necesary sideline of ObGyn…”
It is the presumption that she should make any particular choice, and that she should be encouraged to make the choice which would benefit the advertiser financially.
how is it any different from you presuming that women should make the choice to abort babies with disabilities, and encouraging women to abort such babies? Are you just jealous that Planned Parenthood makes money doing it, and you don’t?
Bethany, my dear sister in Christ, even though we can’t agree on exactly what Christ taught us, you have totally missed the point here.
I don’t PRESUME that a woman SHOULD make the choice to abort in response to a positive test for severe, debilitating genetic disabilities. I consider such a positive test to be a legitimate reason for HER to decide to abort, IF she chooses to do so. I am equally prepared to defend her right NOT to abort, if SHE chooses to carry the pregnancy to term, even in the fact of a doctor who urges her to abort.
Let me be very clear. A doctor certainly has a right and duty to present all the options available, and might even give their professional advice as to what the doctor believes is advisable. In my book, advice is given ONCE, then the advisor backs off and let’s the advisee make their own decision. Or, IF ASKED, the doctor may answer a question. Arguing with a patient, twice, three times, or more, trying to pull rank and saying “I’m the expert, do as I say” is also way beyond a proper advisory role.
Not being a doctor, my only possible hypothetical role would be this:
IF I were married, and my wife were pregnant, I would tell my wife that I believe it would be right to abort and start over. I won’t repeat here all the reasons I would give, I’ve told you those many times. Being more intimately involved, I might even press my opinon two or three times, while listening to her thoughts. BUT, ultimately, I would also back off and leave the decision to her. She is the one who would have to carry the pregnancy in her body — I can’t take that on for her. She is the one who would suffer any depression or remorse — I can’t free her of either. We would both have responsibility for any child she delivered, but that doesn’t give me a veto, only a right to offer her my thoughts. The choice is ultimately hers.
I’m not sure how I would make money off of any of this. Even if you can suggest a way, I don’t think I would pursue it.
siarlys, I said that you encourage women to abort. when you say that you would press your opinion to your wife that she should abort- EVEN if you have a disclaimer at the end, and say, “but it’s your choice”, you’re still encouraging her to abort.
And I do not understand how you can say with any seriousness that you do not presume a woman with a disabled unborn child should abort, when you have expressed exactly this same thing over, and over, and over again.
You have stated on multiple occasions that if a woman was to carry a child to term, knowing he/she had a genetic disease, that, in your mind is unbearably cruel and despicable, and wrong!
You really don’t think that this mindset is one which presumes that women should abort their disabled babies?
You could definitely make money doing exactly what you are doing. Planned Parenthood has many openings for people who do just what you are doing.
By making it sound like the woman has the choice, but simultaneously implying that she is a cruel monster if she doesn’t kill her baby for having a disease, you are doing exactly what these PP organizations do on a daily basis.
They give the woman the “illusion” of choice, while inserting their opinions about what the girl should do. The girl listens to their opinions and considers them to be authoritative, and therefore is many times coerced to do something she would not want to do.
They provide her with false and misleading information which leads her to believe that abortion doesn’t kill her baby- for instance, when Lila Rose posed as a young girl and asked, “Does it have a heartbeat?” The counselor used the technique of saying, “No, it has heart TONES, but the heartbeat doesn’t begin till much later” (something that was completely false). She was insistent that there was no baby until birth – why? Because she wanted to make sure that there was no emotional attachment from the mother to the baby- she wanted to remove whatever bond had already been there by providing false information about the development of the child (kind of like you did in your blog post which was supposed to have neutral advice for the woman, but instead advised her that there is no brain at 11 weeks, when the brain actually is present by about 3 1/2 weeks.)
Well, let us both thank God that I’m not interested in the position you say Planned Parenthood has for me. I can write persuasively for a variety of audiences, but not unless I am personally fully committed to the message I’m being asked to present.
You must have missed the last three times I wrote about the Sojourners contributor who described his and his wife’s decision not to abort after she contracted a severe rubella infection. I said that I consider that choice a cruel one. But I also said, all things considered, I believe it is a proper decision for the parents to make, and to live with the consequences of their decision. I do not, on the basis of my own sense that it is a cruel choice, presume to make that decision for them. I would not support a law which mandated that his wife have an abortion.
An honest pro-choice position really is different from advocating that everyone must do it my way. This man and his wife have the right to choose also. The first question is who has jurisdiction to make a decision. The second consideration is, what decision should that person make.
It does appear that some abortion clinic staff are uncomfortable with what they are doing, and are lying to patients rather than give a straight answer. That’s why I tried to work with the data in “101 Reasons…” If a woman asked me “Does it have a heartbeat?” or any number of other questions, I would say, hold it, you’re not ready to go ahead with anything. Let’s sit down and talk about exactly what is there. Then you need some time to think about it.
As you’ve noted, I would not present the facts the same way you would at a CPC. But if the clinic staff cannot sit down, present a sonogram, explain what is known about the stage of development, then accept whatever the woman decides, there is definitely something wrong. To me, this is not about pushing abortion as THE right choice, or denying abortion as NEVER the right choice. It is about the woman weighing what she will have to live with, one way or the other, and deciding what is right for her… up to a point. At some point, we all agree that there is a baby present — we just don’t agree on when, and why.
Again, you really don’t think that this mindset is one which presumes that women should abort their disabled babies?
Bethany, it is not my decision.
I speculate that you must think, if I consider carrying a ravaged fetus to term to be cruel, therefore I must consider it compassionate and humane to REQUIRE the woman carrying such a pregnancy to abort. If I understand you correctly, you would view preventing an abortion in almost the same terms you view preventing any kind of homicide, therefore you feel fully justified in forcing your decision that the baby must live, on a woman who seeks an abortion — whenever feasible, and I think within a framework of law. It might therefore make sense to you that I would enforce my view of what is right and compassionate on a woman, or a couple, who wished to carry their pregnancy to term.
I would not do that.
The parents of the fetus ravaged by rubella sincerely believed that the compassionate and upright choice was to carry their pregnancy to term. They may be right, for all that I know with absolute certainty. I would also say, I may be right, for all that they can know with absolute certainty.
Therefore, I believe the appropriate framework for the secular law, the civil law, the criminal law, is to back off.
I don’t want to impose my view on a couple who would sincerely weep and mourn and resent being forced to do what they believe immoral and robbing them of a cup they are fully willing should not pass from them, at least not by means of abortion.
Nor do I want the law to impose their view on a woman, or a couple, who sincerely believe that it would be an act of cruelty to knowingly carry a pregnancy to term, when the fetus from which it can grow has been so terribly damaged by an infection.
Not everything that is immoral can be effectively made illegal, and not everything that is legal is necessarily moral. When we can’t even agree on what is the appropriate moral standard, on what is compassionate and what is callous and self-serving, the law should back off.
Most bank robbers know darn well they are doing wrong. Ask a few of those who are in prison. They knew it before they were caught. On the other hand, when it comes to at least some abortions, we don’t even agree on what is the compassionate response. The parents who choose to carry a ravaged pregnancy to term will have many and significant consequences to bear as a result of their choice, they may even have painful moments when they face regrets, but nobody else is in any position at all to make that choice for them. Some have indeed never regretted their decision.
Bethany, it is not my decision.
And that wasn’t my question.
But it is the only honest answer I have to the question you asked. There are many occasions when a simple yes or no amounts to a lie. This is one of them. You want to know what is my presumption, or don’t I think my words amount to a presumption. And my answer to that is, its not my decision.
No, Siarlys, it wasn’t an answer to the question I asked at all. Read my question again. I said NOTHING about you forcing a decision on anyone. I asked about your mindset.
As an advocate for a viewpoint, it is understandable, tactically, that you are frustrated by my answer.
The most important lesson I ever learned about any debate is that the manner in which the question is framed controls the answers, or at least the meaning and the implication of whatever answer may be given. This is also a fallacy in poll-taking. If I ask “Do you favor spending an extra $30 billion on war materiel for fighting in Afghanistan?” the answer will be very different than if I ask “Do you favor budgeting to provide body armor and newly designed armored transport vehicles to protect our troops in Afghanistan?” There are more subtle ways to illustrate the point, with even more devastating differences in outcome, but that’s one I can pull out on short notice. Otto von Bismarck, accused by an Austrian diplomat of caving in to democracy, responded “I don’t care if they vote yea or nay, as long as I decide what they are voting on.”
So, you asked “you really don’t think that this mindset is one which presumes that women should abort their disabled babies?”
I re-set the question by rejecting the term “presumes.” There is no presumption. I do not presume that a woman should, or should not, abort her disabled baby. (Note, I also substitute the singular for the plural. It is an individual decision, each time, not a collective one for any and all women every time). I believe there are rational reasons for a woman to choose abortion. What I believe is of secondary importance. What is important is that each woman have the right to make that choice for herself, not because I say so, not because you say no, but because it is her choice to make. My mindset is irrelevant — it would be presumptuous of me to impose it on anyone.
You sincerely believe it should NOT be her choice to make, because you presume no woman should ever abort her baby. You are trying to paint me into a corner where I presume that a woman should abort her baby. That corner is not where I’m standing.
I note that with regard to Down’s syndrome, what horrifies you is that 93% of pregnant women with a positive test for this condition choose to abort. Apparently, a lot of women look at this in a way similar to what I have argued here. But it is an individual decision for each one of them. I think it is a sound, rational, compassionate, decision, but I make no presumption about how any given woman should decide. Those who have NOT chosen to abort are women who sincerely believe that is is both right and fulfilling for them to carry their pregnancy to term and raise the resulting baby, with all the limitations imposed by the genetic defect and the many symptoms of this disease. Well, they are precisely the women who should do so. It is their choice.
I re-set the question by rejecting the term “presumes.” There is no presumption. I do not presume that a woman should, or should not, abort her disabled baby. (Note, I also substitute the singular for the plural. It is an individual decision, each time, not a collective one for any and all women every time). I believe there are rational reasons for a woman to choose abortion. What I believe is of secondary importance. What is important is that each woman have the right to make that choice for herself, not because I say so, not because you say no, but because it is her choice to make. My mindset is irrelevant — it would be presumptuous of me to impose it on anyone.
Wanting to impose something on someone, Siarlys, and feeling that someone should do something are two totally different ideas.
I could PRESUME that people should not smoke cigarettes, but at the same time, NOT want to IMPOSE that presumption onto others by law.
It is not required in order to presume something that you would also impose it on others by law.
You have made it quite clear, by your own posts on your blog that you DO PRESUME that it is CRUEL NOT TO ABORT a baby who is disabled. Why deny it now?
pre·sume
/prɪˈzum/ Show Spelled [pri-zoom] Show IPA verb,-sumed, -sum·ing.
–verb (used with object)
1.
to take for granted, assume, or suppose:
“I presume you’re tired after your drive”.
The definition is consistent with the dictionary I looked in.
Your preceding argument is specious semantics, adding no substance to the content of this discussion. I decline to waste my time on it. Why are you so infatuated with symbols over substance?
Why are you so infatuated with symbols over substance?
Stop projecting.
Why are you so infatuated with ignoring questions and pretending you don’t understand what I’m asking?
(It’s not MY fault that you misinterpret my questions)
Do you live in California? If so, then it’s San Andreas fault.
[…] As in all of politics, follow the money. If one wishes to know why PP has set its sights on children down to 10 years old, read this article as well as this article. […]
Ignorance I believe like certain diseases can be contagious. My son has Down’s and is Gods greatest gift to me. I’ve learned a lot about my ownself taking care of Daniel. Use to when we would go shopping sometimes people would look at us funny and I allowed it to affect my life. Within myself I had to come to the place where if someone looked at me funny I just consoled myself with the fact that they were ignorant and kept on going. He also qualifies for help so when we go shopping his worker comes with us again the stares. Now I just ignore the stares realize that people are entitled to there ignorance as long as it doesn’t directly intefere with me or my son’s rights and I just keep on keeping on. I’ve noticed since I’ve made up my own mind that the stares have decreased. I think some of that is body language. I found out he had Downs’ when he was four months and for a whole day I mourned. I mourned for all the dreams I had for him that died. Occasionally I still mourn but most of the time I’m thankful that I’ve been blessed with a gift called Daniel who has brought me more healing than I’ll ever know what to do with.
Thanks Dr. Nadal. We live under the shadow of evil and every person of good will must reject abortion utterly, and let nothing that leads to it touch them.
Siarylis Jenkins. You say to me you do not want to be my brother in Christ if you think it is licit to directly kill innocent human beings – the image and likeness of God.
(or sister)
The moral compass reflects the heart of a culture towards humanity.
We who believe in a Biblical Triune God know we were created in His image for His glory. The enemy of our souls,
the father of lies lurks and seeks whom he can devour.
The horrendous lack of concern and dignity for our unborn shows us where America stands on values and principles.
Like the current situation of the couple in Minneapolis, MN who are on the internet making a mockery of the little life still in the mother’s womb. (she doesn’t even deserve that title, mother because she doesn’t want or value that wee child.)
PLEADING THE MERCY of Jesus and the forgiveness of a selfish, SELFISH country. Send your Spirit, Heavenly Father.
Thank you Myrtle for your selfless, deep love for Danny!!
NO PERSON should claim the title of being a child born again with the Holy Spirit (Christian) and vote for any candidate who is not willing to stand up against the evils of the destruction of little babies still unborn. You can not be Christian and not have the same mind set as your Heavenly Father.
This hits close to home for me. Some very dear friends adopted a beautiful African American baby girl. She came from one of the minority neighborhoods this killing center targets.
Gerard, thanks for this profound insight! The Good News of Jesus Christ shall in the end prevail for the innocent and penitent faithful.