Preventative Care and the Slippery Slope

When complaining about my swollen ankles and lack of sleep, my very wise younger sister reminded me that pregnancy is not a disease.  There is nothing that could be more true.  Giving life to children, even if you get pain drugs and have a c-section, and then feed the child with formula, is the most natural thing in the world.  But the Department of Health and Human Services says women in the United States need to be provided contraception and abortion services as preventative care. 

I've always assumed preventative care was designed to prevent an actual disease or infirmity, like watching what you eat so that you don't get diabetes or heart disease.  Preventative care means getting tubes for your children's ears if they have a tendency to get ear infections, or a tonsillectomy when they get too many sore throats.  Preventative care does not mean stopping the procreation of the human race.

If we are really concerned about prevention, how about preventing blood clots?  Blood Clots can kill.  Blood clots caused by birth control are a problem, and not just for women who smoke.  Some people have a genetic propensity for clots, some of which have not been mapped by the Human Genome Project.  Feeding these women hormones, willy-nilly, as either emergency abortion drugs or as contraception,  (especially without testing women to find out if they have a tendency to clot) or even as regulatory care for those with irregular cycles, can cause serious health problem, and even death.  I spent a lot of time in pain and in hospital because I took contraceptive hormones for menstrual irregularities, while not being sexually active.  I know one personal story is not proof, but what are we trying to prevent?

So this is not about preventative health care.  That much can be proven.  It is about preventing birth.

Who is most likely to give birth these days?  According to the most recent census data that I can find the women who give birth are black, Hispanic or Asian, under 29 years of age, with less than a college degree.  They earn less than $35,000 a year.  They are likely to be unemployed, or not in the labor force.  (leshttp://www.census.gov/compendias)

When I see these statistics, it looks to me like the federal government is trying to tell stay-at-home moms that their situation is pathological.  So, tell the undereducated mom that having children is the source of all her problems, and give her birth control to stop that problem. 

We've done this in concert with the United Nations for years.  We've told women all over the world that what they do at home is not valuable.  They need to be paid for sewing shirts and making shoes and running friers and soda makers in order to receive a paycheck, and then their lives will have meaning.  If you aren't making money, sweetie, you are too stupid to understand your own oppression.

I know people blame this on feminists.  I do too.  The best things I've ever done are care for my home and family.  Really, do those feminists believe in choice, or only the choices they choose?  The Obama administration seems to want to create separate bathrooms and drinking fountains for women and children who want a future. 

Thank God for the USCCB and Cardinal-elect Timothy Dolan.  It really is about time that Catholic bishops understood the attacks on the basic family unit.  I'm sorry they didn't get it when Catholics couldn't find jobs at corporations that didn't contribute to the culture of death.  I'm sorry they didn't get it when we couldn't find an ob/gyn who wouldn't suggest birth control.  I'm sorry they didn't get it when every prenatal test was designed to encourage abortion for any anomaly. 

At least, at the moment, facing the Alamo, they seem to understand.  I do want to ask, how could they not see this coming?  How could they look out into the church on Sunday, seeing and hearing fewer children every year, and not understand that the people of the Body of Christ were under attack? 

A few addressed the problem.  Far more buried their heads in the sand.

This has been a slippery slope for a long time.  Now we need to climb back up, regardless of the slime that will impede us.

It will start in the parishes with the very thin and fashionable mothers who send their children to school so that they can work, work-out, and turn the care of their children over to someone else.  You know who I mean. 

Are you going to be in this fight?

Hopeless and Hopeful

As I saw the brief clip from ABC's interview with Newt Gingrich's ex-wife,  I thought, "This is hopeless.  How can this man be rising in the polls?"  His fuzzy, to be kind, math about wins, losses and electability is really a PR ploy that we have seen many times before; say it often and loudly and people will believe it is true.  Remember the one about Obama being a Constitutional Scholar?  Or how about the one where Obama wanted an open dialogue with Catholics about freedom of conscience issues?  And then there was the one about no federal funds to Planned Parenthood being used for abortion...

Integrity matters.  Newt is not young enough to make this all sound like wild oats.  He is the one who should drop out.  If he's slimy enough to speak for family values while conducting a 6-year affair and calling his wife to ask for an open marriage while in bed with his soon-to-be third wife, why should we believe anything he says in public?!?!?!?!?

Rick Santorum has won Iowa.  Romney, who Jonah Goldberg described as "Spock reading love poetry," won New Hampshire.  Huntsman, Perry, Cain, Pawlenty, and McCotter are all gone.  Paul remains the crazy coot in the room.  Tonight CNN hosts another debate, with the last four standing.

I'm begging Rick Santorum to stick to his guns and fight for the presidency.  I've given him all I can afford now, and will give more in the future, God willing.  He is the only consistent man of integrity left in the race.

Romney can talk all he wants about losing to a Democratic legislature while he was governor of Massachusetts.  The fact is, he is not powerful or persuasive enough to win against a liberal legislature.  He's cold, pretty and weak.  We cannot risk that in the presidency.

Come on people, put your money, prayers and votes behind the truly good man in the race.  Vote for Rick Santorum!!!

What is the Value of a Life?

Read Amelia's Story.

Why call it at 23%?

So I'm watching the results in New Hampshire.  How can they say Mitt has won when only now 25% is reporting?  I hate the election coverage.  Take no prisoners.  Hold out for Santorum to be at least third.  If he is, as the defacto winner in Iowa, he can still be voted for by those of us with later primaries and caucuses.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.  Why do two states get so much power?  Could it be a lazy media?

Rick Santorum Must Be Everything He Says He Is

You know this kind of job existed.  When I think about doing this kind of work, I think, yuck.  But I guess it is important on some level.

Does this kind of scrutiny keep good people from running for office?  Sure.  I know I couldn't stand up to it, not that I'd be anyone's candidate anyway.  Does it get rid of people who shouldn't run?  Probably, but in the case of Obama, not always.  Does this kind of thing fly in the face of the liberal mantra ?  Only if you believe there is a real right to privacy.

That's the catch.  If you believe there is a right to privacy, then it must apply to all actions not just the killing of children.  If there is true privacy, no single person can be forced to expose his/her scandals, peccadilloes, addictions, habits, felonies...  You name it.  The government could not share that information either.

Think about a world where you can't find the school or employment records of a potential employee.  Think about a world where you can't get a credit history for someone who wants a loan.  Think about a world where insurance companies can't use actuarial tables because they can't collect data.  All of these things are a result of a right to privacy.  But of course none of these things have happened.

Why doesn't the right to privacy exist for anything except the killing of babies.  Oh, that's not really true.  It also exists for any woman who accuses a man of rape.  That's called a rape shield law.  (I'm exposing my anti-feminist side here.)  So some things get to be secret, others do not.

After reading the above article, I was struck by the different reactions I would have to a productive day of work, that this man can clearly not have.  I come home smiling, stories to tell.  I do a happy dance.   I celebrate.

Can someone who works to expose the blistering puss of an underbelly ever really be happy?

This is Why Santorum Could Win!

Don't listen to Karl Rove or the Republican Machine: A Winning Message? | The Weekly Standard

What if Gabriel Santorum had Lived?

If you have ever lost a loved one, especially a child, you know how much you wish you could hold them one more time.  What if in holding young Gabriel, the Santorums had had this experience:

Mother's Love Revives Baby

I'm sure someone would still find a way to criticize the Santorums for being too determined.

Using the Catholic Name

Like many of you, when I heard that the Archdiocese of Detroit told Michael Voris to stop using the word Catholic in his videos, I thought, "Really?  A bishop goes after him?  What about the Kennedys, Kerry, Biden, Pelosi, Sibelius..."  And since I use Catholic in my blog name, could this happen to me?  (Ever self-centered, don't you know.)

At my core I'm a Catholic.  I'm a mom, wife, sister, daughter, teacher, friend, cook, writer...  But coloring and lifting up all of that is my Catholic faith.

I have watched many episodes of the Vortex by Voris.  His style can be a bit annoying, and his hair is rivaled only by Tedd Kopple and Donald Trump.  But he is clearly a Catholic, and trying to do his best to share the orthodox faith as he understands it.  He's more Catholic than some of the lay people who have served as parish ministers or even spiritual directors. 

He's also very critical of pastors, bishops and clergy when they don't stand up against the powerful for the church.  Coming into an election year of such great importance, we need our clergy to exercise free speech and protect our freedom of conscience.  I was looking forward to Michael Voris being a voice for those who need it now.  (I was also hoping he would buy a comb and get a haircut.)

If Iowa is any indication, a real Catholic, Rick Santorum, has a chance to be our president.  If that happens, and I know it's a big if, people like Voris and I may have less to rant about.  But why would a bishop go after Voris?

The answer has to be his criticism of the bishops.  I have sometimes wanted to show a Vortex episode to my son, but it was too critical of the clergy for me to do so.  I want him to respect our priests.  But maybe, he's getting old enough that he could understand that some bishops and priests have really failed the faithful.

Phillip Lawler's The Faithful Departed showed us the dirty underbelly of a chancery that was far more interest in political favors than Catholic faith.  If Santorum becomes president, I don't think he'll be listening to Jesuit dissidents like the Kennedys did.  He'll probably rub some of the old guard bishops the wrong way.  I hope he isn't told to go light on his faith.  He hasn't done so yet.    But would a bishop ever tell him to not use the name Catholic in referring to himself?  No one has done that to a Kennedy, Pelosi, or Biden, but if a bishop tells Michael Voris he  can't call his show Catholic, who knows?

Playing with Dead Babies

On Christmas Eve, I stopped by our parish for a brief happy birthday to Jesus.  As I prayed to the Blessed Mother, I thought of what a wonderful gift she has been given, to feel her new-born Son in her arms every Christmas.  This is how she appears to visionaries on Christmas, holding her Son in her arms.

Nothing compares to the joy of holding a child in your arms for the first time.  Smelling the downy head, feeling the little fingers curl around yours, kissing the soft cheek.  This is as close to heaven as I can imagine on earth.

But if you are Rick and Karen Santorum, you know another side of this joy.  You know, and I can only imagine, the pain of giving birth to a dying child.  You rush through the pain of the aftermath of childbirth to give your child a chance to meet the other members of the family.  You cradle the dying body, with all of the same sweetness of the joyous experience of birth, but you know it will not last.

You struggle through your tears to do what is right for your dying newborn and for the older children.  They meet.  They say hello.  They caress the baby.  They say good-bye.

This is the experience that Alan Colmes called crazy;  “Get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two-hour-old baby when it died right after child birth home and played with it so that his other children would know that the child was real."-Alan Colmes, emphasis mine.

Rich Lowry tried to stop Alan Colmes from making a complete ass of himself, but Colmes was far more concerned about being interrupted than stopping himself from describing the most gut-wrenching moment of a parent's life as "play".  Pundits and broadcasters have made big mistakes in referencing female basketball players, using the 'n' word, creating false documents...  But to refer to a deeply painful loss of a child as 'play' should be enough reason for a person to live with duct tape permanently over his mouth.

Simply firing Colmes really isn't enough.  His comments are consistent with a view of life that thinks of the very young and vulnerable as valueless, unless they are being torn apart as embryos for experimentation, or packed into jars in abortuaries like gruesome trophies.  That's what serial killers do.  They line up body parts in freezers and jars, and fondly recall how the victims screamed and fought while being killed.

That's how these two serial killers were indicted:
"WASHINGTON — Authorities say two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder, an unusual use of a law that allows for murder charges in the death of a viable fetus. Dr. Steven Brigham, of Voorhees, N.J., was taken into custody Wednesday night and is being held in the Camden County jail, according to police in Elkton, Md. Authorities also arrested Dr. Nicola Riley in Salt Lake City and she is in jail in Utah. Each is awaiting an extradition hearing." -- By Associated Press, Published: December 30

You see, after killing these babies, they put the little bodies in jars and freezers and kept them.  Why would they do that? Why does a serial killer keep evidence?  I guess on some level I'm grateful that they do because now the evidence exists for their conviction.  But the notion of keeping these trophies is beyond my comprehension.  

This is not play.  This is DEADLY serious.  The doctors will  hopefully go to jail.  And Alan Colmes should lose his job.  Duct tape on the mouth is recommended, but unenforceable.