MADISON — On Monday, Aug. 24, pro-lifers will join the nationwide efforts to protest Planned Parenthood’s barbaric practice of aborting babies and selling their body parts.
“In the wake of the horrific videos exposing this practice, now is the time for people of faith to stand up and demand an end to the nation’s largest abortion provider,” said Laura Karlen of Madison‘s Vigil for Life.
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When one considers the many ways countless human beings are treated like cheap disposable products — from children exploited by pornographers, to young sweatshop workers exploited by wealthy corporations — it’s hard to imagine how much worse it can get for the poor and vulnerable.
But dismembering and vacuuming babies out of their mother’s wombs, and then selling their body parts, is as low as it gets.
Legislative hearings are valuable means of educating the public. During a June 2 hearing in the State Capitol for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (companion bills Senate Bill 179 and Assembly Bill 237), those present learned about a little-known but invaluable program known as perinatal hospice.
The bills would protect unborn children at and after 20 weeks from painful abortions and would require that families be informed about perinatal hospice. (Governor Scott Walker signed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act into law on July 20.)
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In 1978, Charles E. Rice, a former professor of law at Notre Dame Law School made this prediction in his book Beyond Abortion: The Theory and Practice:
“The abortion of the future will be by pill, suppository, or some other do-it-yourself method. At that point the killing of a baby will be wholly elective and private. We have, finally, caught up with the pagan Romans who endowed the father, the pater familias, with the right to kill his child at his discretion. We give that right to the mother. But it is all the same to the victim.”
MONONA — Some of the best ideas come from prayer. When we really listen and open our ears, mind, and heart to God, his message can bring us closer to him and help others.
This very thing happened recently for nine-year-old Lucia Matenaer.
After nightly family prayers during Christmas break, she excitedly ran to her parents with an idea.
To the editor:
Describe, if you can, how you would feel holding a baby that was scheduled to be deliberately killed?
I’ve been blessed to have held many babies: ill, injured, battered, healthy, and the homeless. But beyond description is holding a baby who was scheduled to be killed via abortion or seeing their photo.
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In my capacity as theologian, teacher, and culture commentator, I’ve been reading articles on ethical matters for years and have grown relatively inured to the expression of even the most outrageous points of view.
But a few years ago, I came across a piece that was so shocking that I was compelled, as I read it, to put the magazine down several times and just shake my head in disbelief.
It was an article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine called “The Two Minus One Pregnancy,” dealing with the phenomenon of “reducing” (love the Orwellian language) a pregnancy from two children to one.
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On March 3, 2013, I received a telephone call from a pretty distraught gentleman who was waiting in his car in the Planned Parenthood parking lot while his girlfriend had her abortion consult appointment.
Curtis kept referring to abortion as “intrinsic evil,” yet he felt that abortion was the only option to hide the fact that he had premarital sex.
Curtis had recently come to the Catholic faith and held a position on a board and was involved in prison ministry. He couldn’t imagine his peers knowing of his choice to engage in premarital sex.
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When I taught religion at Beloit Catholic High, I invited pro-life speakers to give talks. I especially remember a pro-life doctor who described the tragedy of aborted babies. During his talk, he wept. Each tear convinced us that he truly believed that unborn babies were persons. Aborting them was destroying human lives.
Tears flowed from the eyes and hearts of committed pro-lifers when on January 22, 1973 in the Roe v. Wade decision the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Their ruling made it legal for mothers to abort their unborn baby.
In no. 2270 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church it says, “From the first moment of existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person . . . among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.” The Church’s position, which recognizes the individual as human from conception until death, is supported by natural law.
Last fall, a couple leaving the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Madison stopped at the driveway to tell the sidewalk counselor with Vigil for Life that they were going to keep their baby.
Vigil for Life volunteers didn’t know if this couple had come to the clinic for a pregnancy test or for an appointment for an abortion. In any case, these parents chose life for their baby.
In an email named “Baby Saved,” sent to volunteers after that incident, Bette Weisshaar, then director of Vigil for Life-Madison, said, “That’s why we’re out there — to pray for a change of heart, for God’s graces to show them a way other than abortion. Our prayers on the sidewalk are offered for parents, that they will choose life for their babies . . . and that’s exactly what happened today! Praise God!”
