Family & ProLife News Briefs for Catholics May 2018

Cherishing Every Life from Beginning to End

Reasons to Be Pro-Choice?

Recently, NY Times columnist & Catholic Ross Douthat wrote about ‘abortion extremists’ among his liberal friends. Abortion supporters responded in letters to the editor (NYT, 4/15/18). Some of their key points are paraphrased here together with a Catholic response by your editor.

  • Pregnancy exacts a heavy price on women in the U.S. Many die in childbirth; if she keeps her baby and is single, she is more likely to be unemployed; giving up a baby for adoption is heart-wrenching; it is better to have the right to abort the baby. Catholic Response: to reduce deaths during childbirth, pregnant women need better health care and services, not the killing of her baby. Single moms do face greater economic hardships. The Catholic Church provides much needed services to help such women including maternity homes, food banks, hospital services and more. And the Church promotes strong marriages through marriage preparation classes. Killing an unborn baby (“terminating a pregnancy”), like any killing, cannot be justified for economic reasons.
  • Government ban on abortion has its own real dangers. Catholic Response: The notion that regulating abortion will cause women to seek an illegal “back-alley” procedure is a myth. A 2012 study, e.g., reveals that outlawing abortion in Chile not only saved children, but advanced women’s health. Of course, pro-abortionists ignore the real danger to millions of pre-borns who have been “terminated” legally.
  • Pro-choice advocates want to choose reproductive outcomes for themselves & let others choose what they want. Catholic Response: Using misleading terms like “reproductive outcomes” is not helpful. What is really happening is the destruction of a tiny developing human being. The time to choose one’s reproductive outcomes is before one gets pregnant. Abortion destroys a separate living human being.
    [The remaining arguments will be covered in the next issue.]

Radical Pro-abortion Culture War Failing

Outgoing Planned Parenthood (PP) President Cecile Richards just published a book detailing her lifetime of pro-choice activism. The book claims pro-abortionists are “transforming the culture” so they can “quit apologizing for abortion.” 3,547,123 is the number of abortions committed at PP since 2006 when Richards became its president. Ten years of public opinion research shows that Americans consistently support significant restrictions on abortion. This year’s Marist poll on abortion found that more than 75% of Americans would limit abortion to — at most — the first three months of pregnancy. A majority of Americans (56%) said they believe abortion is morally wrong. Love is winning! 52% of respondents, and 52% of women, said having an abortion will more likely cause harm to a woman’s life than good. Likewise, 78% said that our laws can protect both the well-being of women and the lives of the unborn rather than choose between them. The poll makes clear that much of what Planned Parenthood advocates falls far out of the mainstream. For example, 63% of Americans support banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is at risk, while just 33% oppose such a ban. Most Americans also oppose the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for elective abortion procedures – another position PP embraces that places them in a minority. In truth, there is a consensus in our culture on abortion: Americans support major rollbacks on abortion. That’s because the pro-life movement is winning hearts and minds on this issue. [March for Life President Jeanne Mancini on Fox News, 4/3/18]

There’s Nothing Funny About Abortion

beyond crass … almost beyond belief.


“There is nothing in the least bit funny about abortion. Not for the baby’s mother. Not for the baby’s father. Not for the abortion workers. And, above all, not for the baby, who is brutally terminated in the womb.

There is nothing funny about the remains of abortion (clinically called the ‘products of conception’). Nothing funny about the severed parts of tiny humans – little hands and little legs and little eyes. Nothing funny about Planned Parenthood making money off these dismembered babies.

There is nothing funny about the after-effects of abortion. Nothing funny about the grief and guilt experienced by many a mother (and father). Nothing funny about the women who are unable to conceive after an abortion. Nothing to laugh at, at all.

Yet in the midst of a vulgar, over-the-top ‘comedy’ routine at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, Michelle Wolf (right) decided to joke about abortion.

This was beyond tasteless. Beyond crass. It almost beyond belief.

Speaking of Vice President Pence, she said that he is ‘very anti-choice. He thinks abortion is murder, which, first of all, don’t knock it ’til you try it – and when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you’ve got to get that baby out of there. And yeah, sure, you can groan all you want. I know a lot of you are very anti-abortion. You know, unless it’s the one you got for your secret mistress.’

Perhaps Wolf was right to raise the issue of hypocrisy. There have been conservative politicians who allegedly urged their mistress to have an abortion. Perhaps some corrupt preachers have done the same.

But to joke about abortion itself. To joke about using violent means to dislodge a little baby from its mother’s womb – how does one respond to this? To repeat her words: ‘when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you’ve got to get that baby out of there.’

How would we respond if she decided to joke about the Holocaust? ‘You better get those ovens super hot! There are a whole lot of Jewish bodies to burn!’

How would we respond if she decided to joke about slavery? ‘How many Africans can you cram into the belly of a ship? Don’t worry about overcrowding. You can toss the extras overboard!’

How would we respond if she decided to joke about human trafficking? “You know why selling people is so much better than selling drugs? You can only sell drugs once.”

We would be horrified with such ‘jokes.’ From the left to the right, we would say, ‘Off limits! There’s nothing to laugh about here.’

And anyone who was idiotic enough to crack such ‘jokes’ would be universally panned, if not banned.

Why, then, is it OK to joke about abortion? About a decision that is terribly painful for many mothers to make. About a gruesome procedure that slices up or burns up or sucks out a helpless human being from the sanctuary of its mother’s belly.

Wolf has been rightly criticized for her savage attack on Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. But Ben Shapiro was correct to tweet: ‘The worst part of Michelle Wolf’s garbage performance last night wasn’t her nasty riff on Huckabee Sanders. It was that dumpster fire abortion joke. But few were as offended by her literally celebrating baby killing as they were by her knocking eye shadow.’

One of the side-effects of abortion is that it desensitizes a culture. As Mother Teresa famously said, ‘Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother.’ And it kills the conscience of the nation.

If you wanted any proof for that, look no farther than the White House correspondents’ dinner, where a comedian thought it funny to crack a joke about abortion on live national TV. And look no farther than the wide-scale absence of outrage on the left in response to her ‘joke.’

Personally, I would love to see the day when Michelle Wolf becomes a passionate pro-life ally. She wouldn’t be the first to make a radical turn.

But for the moment, what we have is shame and woe. Shame for aborting more than 55 million babies. Disgrace for mocking their agony.”

Article created by Dr. Michael Brown on askdrbrown.org