So when is a person a person?

When a friend and I went up to take part in the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil recently we ended up having a very interesting conversation with a pro-choice advocate in which we had a short debate about when precisely life began. It's a question that divides many but, from what I have experienced, no two people who maintain that life begins at any moment other than conception can agree on when precisely it starts. Some say it's when all the organs develop, some when there is a heartbeat, some say it's during the third trimester, some when the baby is actually born. And the thing is their understanding, their opinion will change depending upon the circumstances. To the woman considering aborting a child at, say, 20 weeks its "just a clump of cells", to the woman excitedly announcing she's 5 months pregnant its time for congratulations as she's carrying a baby. And now, alas, there is this from Planned Parenthood in the US.



I think the bit that highlights the utter hypocrisy, utter lunacy of this organisation's endorsement of post-birth abortion is when Ms. Snow (Planned Parenthood's representative) is asked;

Representative: "Along the same lines you stated that a baby born on a table as a result of a botched abortion that that decision should be left to the doctor and the family? Is that what you're saying?"

Ms Snow: "That decision should be between the patient and the health care provider."

Representative: "I think that at that point that the patient would be the child struggling on the table. Wouldn't you agree?"

Ms Snow: "That's a very good question, I really don't know how to answer that. ..."

Her response sums up the whole debate on abortion; when is a life a life? When is it 'acceptable' to take a life? At what point is a baby a baby? Under these circumstances a child is not even a child when born alive; his or her heart is beating, he or she is breathing, he or she is probably crying but it's not a baby and it's 'acceptable' for that life to be ended if the woman, the doctor and the family say so.

Life begins at the moment the egg is fertilised; that fertilised ovum will continue to divide and grow, it has human DNA and, all being well, it will continue to grow and thrive and be born. He or she is a person at the second they are born, he or she is a person five minutes before they were born, he or she is a person at every point in the pregnancy. All of us were created equal, all of us have equal dignity. One thing that really hits home writing this post today; Good Friday is that we are powerfully reminded that Christ came to restore this fundamental dignity as children of God. No one can strip us of that. It is never right to take a life.

Watch and pray...

On Friday night a Vigil of Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament was held at our church (St John's RC in Horsham) for pro-life intentions and to mark the ending of the 40 Days for Life prayer campaign.  We began with the usual Friday night Stations of the Cross, using some Stations specifically written with pro-life causes in mind.  This was followed by Mass and then silent prayer before the exposed Sacrament until midnight, when Fr Richard closed the evening most beautifully with solemn Benediction.

It was a privilege to be able to spend this time quietly with Our Lord in the darkened church.  In the background we could hear Friday night revelry going on (our church being in a town centre location) and for a while we were accompanied by a, thankfully muffled, electric guitar soundtrack but none of that could really impinge on the sacred time and place in which we were caught up.  It was a time of kairos, a time when the eternal breaks through into the temporal... and a fitting preparation for the time of prayer before the reposed Blessed Sacrament that many of us will be spending on Holy Thursday night, as we stay with Jesus during His time of agony in the Garden.

There weren't so awfully many of us (though a fair few - an enormous, enormous THANK YOU to you all for coming!) and we were only there for a little time... but I firmly believe that Our Lord deposits each of our prayer offerings, great or small, into the spiritual treasury of His Church, whence they can be drawn upon by others as blessings in their time of need or used to forge weapons for the spiritual battle in which humanity is caught up. We can't know on this side of the grave how many babies may be saved from abortion or post-abortive women healed of their grief and guilt through our prayers, but we can know that prayer is the absolutely vital foundation on which all our pro-life efforts must be based.

A big thank you to Katherine for organising the evening, to Fr Richard and to all who supported us in any way, including the boy and his dad (I'm so sorry I don't know your names) who kindly came back into church at midnight so that the lad could assist at Benediction.

Wishing all readers many blessings and graces during Holy Week.

Perfect babies

I have just read this brilliant post on Ignitum Today on "perfect children." If you haven't already seen it you really must. I've posted the link below:

http://www.ignitumtoday.com/2012/07/18/92-and-perfect-babies/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

That statistic that 92% (which I'm assuming is just for the USA although I doubt it'll be little different for the UK) of babies diagnosed with Down's Syndrome are aborted is not only shocking but horrifying. Like the post's author I find it staggering that people can honestly believe that no life is better than a difficult one. Her story will, for many, raise questions as, obviously, in her case the conclusions drawn from the tests that were done were found to be inaccurate and for how many more children was this true? But regardless of whether the vast majority of children who were diagnosed with Down's syndrome did or did not have it it doesn't change the horror of the situation. So, so many children have been killed because people can't face the thought of bringing a child with a disability to term, there is a deep fear that the life that child will live will simply be unlivable, that they will be unlovable, that the lives of the parents will become too hard, that they won't have enough support and that it is cruel to bring a child with that kind of disability into the world. But, when faced with these sorts of fears and statements, I would always ask; "aren't we the ones with the disability?" After all it is we who are imposing the view that all life that is not 'normal', not 'average', not 'the same' as yours and mine is not worthy of existence. Is it not us who are so blind that we cannot even consider that someone with a different quality of life, with different abilities can still live a worthwhile life by simply living. And instead of pulling them and their families down with everything they can't do should we not try to maximise and emphasise what they can and pour our efforts into making that possible? Instead of spending billions on abortion spend billions on improving their quality of life and help them to live as full a life as we are able?

All of us, every, single one, is created in the image and likeness of God. Our innate dignity as human beings is founded in this. And that dignity, that expression of the image and likeness of God shines though the poor and sick and disabled and elderly just as much as through fit and healthy and young and wealthy. We need to see beyond the end of our own existence and truly appreciate the life of others. Yes, it may be different, but it is the beautiful, wonderful, awesome mystery of life just the same.

Back to Basics: 1. From conception until natural death

Every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2319.)

This is one of the most frequently quoted phrases by pro-lifers, one you've more than likely heard or read before. The Church has a lot to say about the sanctity of human life, she proclaims it boldly in fact, and it all stems from this one little sentence. In these 34 words more is said about the wonderful gift of life, its meaning and purpose than often meets the eye. And for some it also raises a lot of questions. I have tried to address some of the more frequently asked ones...

When does life begin?

Before I answer this question I'd first like to ask you one...when do you think a person becomes a person?

a) At birth
b) At 24 weeks
c) When there is an audible heartbeat and organs are forming
d) At conception

We asked this very question to our parish's confirmation candidates a few weeks ago and, whilst most of them answered d), there were some who thought c). There is a lot of conflicting opinion about precisely when human life begins; read different books, visit different websites and you will be told very different things. Part of the reason for this is that people often use strange, alien terms to refer to an unborn child during the various stages of development (e.g. zygote, foetus, embryo and many others) which dehumanise it and desensitise us to what it is too. But the fact is that a person is a human life from the very first moment, from the point of conception that zygote is an unborn child. Yes, he or she doesn't have arms or legs or a head yet but not being fully formed yet doesn't make them any less of a human being, in the same way that a toddler is no less a person than an adult purely because they haven't finished growing. A fertilised ovum will always result in a child growing in the womb of the mother, there is no point at which it suddenly becomes human having not been so before.

What does the Church have to say about life beginning at conception?

The Church has always believed that human life starts from the moment of conception. Until 1751 New Years Day in the English calendar was not January 1st but March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation when the angel Gabriel announced to Our Lady that she was to become the mother of God (Luke 1:26-38). Our ancestors, along with the rest of the Body of Christ, recognised that Jesus' life on earth began long before his birth on December 25th. His incarnation began in the womb of the Virgin Mary, he became man at that moment, was fully human from that point onwards. The same is true of each of our lives; we are fully ourselves, totally human from conception. And because of this we have the same right to life as any other person. (CCC 2323)

What does it mean to be "created in the image and likeness of the holy and living God"?


Scripture and tradition speak at length about our innate dignity as human beings. That word, 'dignity', is one often thrown around, twisted and warped to mean a whole host of different things in a wide variety of contexts. But our true dignity stems from our being created in the image and likeness of God (CCC 1700), we are given a special gift, a unique honour in creation in that we resemble the divine. And this image and likeness, this dignity, is expressed in all of us, it is what makes each of us truly equal with our neighbour, none of us have more dignity than someone else. This image and likeness is expressed through the sick, elderly, disabled and dying, the toddler and the unborn child just as much as it is shown in the young, the fit, the successful and the healthy. Nothing can ever change this, no set of circumstances, no other person can ever alter the fact that we are made in God's image and that we are loved and cherished by him more than we could ever hope to fathom. And because we all share the same innate dignity we all have the same right to life. Just as no one can stop you from being created in God's likeness so can no one take away your dignity and your inviolable right to exist.

This is an immense and beautiful gift given to us by our Father in heaven, our lives are not something that we can create or bestow upon ourselves or others but something that we have been entrusted with.

What is 'natural death'?

Our lives are a gift from God from the moment of conception and this carries on until the moment we die. Because our lives are not our own (man does not have full dominion over his life, he cannot control when he comes into existence and only has limited control over his mind, body and spirit) they are not ours to end prematurely. Our human existence is directed towards doing the will of God and we do this through the big and small, major and minor events of every day right up until we breathe our last breath. In living the life that God has ordained for us and dying when he chooses we offer him our full obedience (CCC 1011), we set our worldly desires and will to one side and set our eyes on the things of heaven.

But as bleak as this may sound to some death is not a negative, nor is living out our full life. In living a full life (i.e. a life not cut short) we are given the invaluable opportunity to carry our very own Cross, to walk with Christ, to journey with him towards the Father, to grow in love and holiness for God and our fellow man. And because of Christ's triumph on the Cross at Calvary death is not the end but only a gateway into life, life with God for all eternity (CCC 1010). It is something that we should look forward to and prepare ourselves for through a regular reception of the sacraments.

That being said it is not something that we can or should hasten. Suffering is something that is as painful to watch as it is to endure but that does not mean that there is no value in it, that a person's life in those times of darkness and pain is less worth of having than yours or mine. We are called to love our neighbour, to care for them as we would have others do to us (Mark 12:30-31), to try and ease their discomfort through the means at our disposal (e.g. pain medication etc.) but not to perform so-called 'mercy-killings' as, due to our innate dignity as human beings, that person is still created in the image and likeness of God right up until the end and we have no right to say when a life becomes 'worthless' or 'too hard to endure'.

Don't we have the right to an abortion or the right to die?


There is a notion that we have the "right" to an abortion or the "right" to die as and when we choose, some even refer to them as "human rights." Human rights were created and given international recognition after the Second World War to ensure that never again would the rights of our fellow man be violated in such a dreadful way. These rights are there to protect our lives, to keep our right to life from being threatened by others. We, to name but one example, have the right to live free from the threat of torture, something designed to keep us safe and well.

Abortion and assisted suicide/assisted death can never be "rights" as they fundamentally undermine our right to life, they purposely seek to destroy it and this is totally contrary to what human rights were created for in the first place. Abortion, assisted suicide and assisted death are attacks and violations of our dignity as human beings, they destroy that life which has been freely created and freely given and are not a "right" and can certainly never be the correct course of action to take.

Although I tried to think of a poetic conclusion to draw this post to a close it unfortunately didn't quite come together. So instead I leave you with the same quote I opened with and hope that you will see more in those 34 words, understand better the Church's need to proclaim the Gospel of Life than you perhaps did to begin with.

Every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred because the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2319.)

Back to Basics

At our last group meeting we were discussing how there are many misconceptions about what it is to be pro-life. The Church has a lot to say when it comes to the sanctity of human life, as does our secular society and as a result we are constantly bombarded with different messages, conflicting information and it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction, truth from lie. So we and decided that we would have our very own "Back to Basics" sessions here on the blog. We will gently and gradually explore each of the core pro-life issues in the hopes that it will help us to grow in the Gospel of Life. Please do follow our various articles and feel free to post comments, ask questions or suggest a topic of your own!

Our right, their wrong

Never the twain shall meet?

'Twas not my intention to blog just now - sat down at the computer to do something completely different! - but I came across an exchange between the Guardian newspaper and SPUC which I thought threw up some good points about the whole debate between pro-choicers and pro-lifers, so decided to post it up.

You can read the exchange for yourself at Revealed: what children are being told about abortion (no hint of melodrama there) and here on John Smeaton's blogsite (where he reports that the Guardian has published SPUC's response to its article).  Essentially it centres around a presentation given by a SPUC speaker at a secondary school in Comberton, which I assume we can take to be fairly typical of the school talks generally given by SPUC.  This particular talk was disclosed to the Guardian by a group of ladies known as Feminist Action Cambridge who were so shocked by its contents that they nearly had to resort to their smelling salts, with Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association, galloping up on his charger to proclaim that "It is deeply disturbing that anti-choice groups are so easily able to enter schools and present these damaging fictions... the government should be more pro-active in preventing groups that persistently make false claims of this nature from having access to vulnerable children, especially in schools."

Let those of us who are not regular Guardian readers, with due fear and trembling, find out what those nasty black-cloaked people at SPUC have been peddling to our innocent youngsters.

Now to be fair, a major concern of the Guardian seems to be that SPUC's talk made a clear link between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer.  Whilst carrying a first pregnancy to full term does seem to confer a protective effect against breast cancer, the link between abortion and an increased risk is much debated with various studies reaching different conclusions (although the Guardian only quotes one study, which reaches the conclusion that suits it, i.e. a study co-ordinated by Cancer Research UK and published in the Lancet which concludes that abortion does not increase the risk).  In this I think there is a lesson to be learned by pro-lifers.  We must be careful about the statistics we use and the claims we make.  The link between abortion and breast cancer may or may not have been made as clearly in SPUC's talk as the Guardian claims, but at the least the topic seems to have been presented in a way that begs a particular interpretation, whether or not this was the speaker's intention.

Whilst pro-lifers will have a passion for truth and love of life that they long to put across, it is important not to get carried away but to do so with calm rationality.  Being sure of the strict accuracy of one's facts is vital so that, in all justice, we can give a fair hearing to the opposition's point of view without distortion. I can remember myself being put off pro-life work at one stage because it seemed to be gushing with "rivers of blood", riddled with "anti-life conspiracies" and the like... Thankfully the language used seems to have moderated these days.

Of course we may not ourselves be treated with the same justice.  Emma-Rose Cornwall from Feminist Action Cambridge retorts in the Guardian's article, "SPUC's supposed concern for zygotes is a poorly concealed desire to see women forced back into their 'god-given' roles as mothers and housewives, and simultaneously to punish what they perceive as promiscuous sexuality."  Eh??!!  Oh well, maybe Emma-Rose had taken too big a whiff of those smelling-salts.

The fact is that between those who are "pro-choice" and "pro-life" there lies such a huge gulf that the former see statements as appalling which the latter would regard as true and self-evident.  The Guardian quotes a few shockers from SPUC's talk as the denouement of its article:

The 1967 Abortion Act
"What the [abortion] act did was effectively make unborn children a class of non-person. In other words, they didn't have a right to life."
Abortion and disability
"This was an act that gave greater rights to protect people with disabilities... and this is a good thing. But we have a strange situation where on the one hand we do everything we can to help people with disabilities after they're born but it is legal within the Abortion Act to do abortion for disability right up until the birth of the baby."
Women's reproductive rights
"There are certain things as a society we decide are unacceptable, we don't have a right to do. So for example, if somebody were to beat up an old lady, we wouldn't say that's their right to do that. I would say... I would say without the right to life all the other rights become irrelevant."

And the Guardian's problem is...?

OK, again, to be fair, the allusion to beating up old ladies was I think a misjudgment, because it leaves the speaker open to the accusation that he/she is comparing women who have abortions to muggers of old ladies. But other than that, these are statements with which I would wholeheartedly agree.

The Guardian also objected to the fact that children were told abortion can be harmful to women, either physically or mentally.  We cannot brush under the carpet the fact that it can - more often the latter than the former perhaps.  There are countless testimonies given by women who have had abortions which support the claim that after abortion many women do indeed experience trauma, and ongoing, even lifelong regret.  Whether this can be accurately described in psychiatric terms as "a form of post-traumatic stress disorder" (which SPUC's speaker did) I don't know; but there is no justification to complain when children are warned that yes, regret and depression do happen.  The Guardian also seemed to find it shocking that it was suggested to the young people that giving birth to a baby after rape might be allowing "something positive" to come out of the experience.

Enough.  As Anthony McCarthy of SPUC said in his reply to the Guardian, "Supporters of abortion may not like to hear such things, but do they have a right to stop schoolchildren hearing them?"  This incident is indicative of the huge gulf between the pro-life and pro-choice perspectives: we each call the other's right, wrong; and the other's black, white.  It will take calm, dignity, integrity and much prayer to bridge that gulf.

(SPUC have a briefing note about "Abortion and Women's health" which you can download here.)

Sticks and stones

Thanks to Annie at the Arundel &
Brighton Latin Mass blogsite

"Hate" is a word I try to avoid using, but in certain contexts it's the only one that fits.  I hate the storms of invective and vitriol that rage every time certain topics are debated, those topics being anything to do with Christianity, the pro-life movement or gay rights.  It's not that I deny anyone the right to have a different opinion than myself on any of these subjects.  I can understand that they are sensitive areas in which there is a lot of potential for personal hurt and upset.  But why must people be gunned down for expressing their opinion?  Sometimes it doesn't matter how courteously the opinion has been expressed or whether the speaker's motivation is to defend what they see as a truth relating to the common good, rather than a personal predilection.  The very fact that it has been expressed, and that it disagrees with the current social ethos or even just the hearer's own opinion, is apparently justification for the release of a horrible whirlwind of anger, acidic words and even personal insult.  What happened to civil debate?

It was a lily-livered disinclination to put myself in the path of any of this vitriol that led me to step back from pro-life work for many years.  It took a good nudge from God and the illness of my daughter to make me realise I couldn't keep silent just because I didn't want to be called any nasty names.  Even so I believe, I hope, that my motivation is to positively promote the sanctity, the beauty, the preciousness of human life and its innate dignity, not first and foremost to engage in criticism.  That involves answering those who see certain things differently; but it shouldn't require shouting anyone down.  In case that makes me sound holier-than-thou, I admit that the futility of abrasive rhetoric and hot-headed indignation is a lesson I've had to learn the hard way over the years!

Bump Babies Beyond posts well on this topic today and mentions a Conservative MP, David Burrowes, who received a death threat and hate mail after speaking out in support of traditional marriage.   The Archbishop of York also received "racist and threatening messages" when he did the same, sparking a police hate crime investigation.  It's not good enough.  We've got to stop dealing with each other this way, not least because we're never going to see the arguments clearly through a fog of hatred and vitriol.

I was beginning to get utterly discouraged when I came across this inspiring message from the late and great, Blessed Pope John Paul II on the Sisters of the Gospel of Life blogsite.  And suddenly I remembered why I am doing my bit for pro-life!

“To be actively pro-life is to contribute to the renewal of society through the promotion of the common good. It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop.” (Pope John Paul II, "The Gospel of Life", n.101)

The pro-life DNA of marriage

“Gay marriage” is of course a hot topic of the moment, with David Cameron actively backing its legalisation and online campaigns both for and against being launched (see button on our own sidebar).  It is a topic pro-lifers must take seriously, because like the fundamental right to life, it concerns our very nature and identity as human beings.  That’s not for a moment to say that gay people are anything less than human: of course they are no different from heterosexuals in their personhood and dignity.  But a gay relationship cannot be equated with a heterosexual one and called a marriage.  They are essentially different beasts.

The purpose of sexual intercourse is not only for procreation, but procreation is an essential dimension of it, as the Catholic Church teachers teaches when it states that the unitive and procreative aspects of sex must not be artificially separated.  That’s why, in order to answer man’s deepest need for companionship and intimacy, God created a woman.  Their relationship – not a petri dish or artificial insemination – is the loving, sexual context in which children were intended to be conceived and born.  Over the millennia this committed, fruitful, life-giving relationship of two biologically and psychologically complementary persons came to represent first God’s relationship with His people Israel, and then Christ’s relationship with His Church.  Finally it was raised to the dignity of a sacrament, a vehicle of grace and a participation in the internal relationships of the Holy Trinity (which the human family mirrors).  In marriage between man and woman, then, we can read the spiritual as well as biological DNA of the human person, his nature, his dignity and his relationship to His creator.  It’s what we’re all about on a multitude of layers.

Sexual activity between a same-sex couple is something different.  It cannot be procreative and thus cannot co-create with God.  There is no biological complementarity to reflect the initiatory love of the Creator with the receptive love of His creatures (even if the couple assume roles).  Should children be desired – and this is particularly important from the pro-life point of view – then they will have to be conceived by artificial means (which at the very least will mean conception outside of the act of marriage, and at worst can mean IVF treatment with consequent loss of embryonic life).  In short, sex between two men or two women is just a different thing altogether.

 

One does not need to rely on religion - which of course will not bear weight with everyone - to protect the traditional definition of marriage.  Marriage, defined as the “voluntary union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others for life” (Hyde v Hyde 1866), has been a constant of human societies in all ages and all parts of the world.  Our own British society was founded on it and until recently held together by the familial bonds resulting from it. This is recognised by the UN Declaration of Human Rights in article 16 which allows that the family, headed by a man and a woman, “is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”.  Gay marriage will tend to undermine that because it cannot give rise to a family with the usual natural network of extended relationships around it; blood aunts and uncles, grandparents and so on.

The civil partnerships into which gay couples may legally enter bestow virtually identical legal rights to marriage already, so there is no practical reason to  redefine marriage in order to include them.  A gay relationship may be loving and stable, but it is a partnership, not a marriage.

Christian Medical Comment carries an excellent post which brings together 24 articles on the legalisation of same-sex “marriage” in the UK.  I am indebted to it for the definitions of marriage and family quoted above, and it is a mine of useful information and arguments to draw upon when debating this foundationally important topic with those inclined to support “equality in love”.  Do go over and read.

I have posted before on the difficulty of separating out the ethical wheat from the darnel in so many of the situations the modern world presents to us.  That isn’t to say the basic moral principles aren’t clear, but they are entwined with so many other hurts, challenges and considerations that they can be hard to tease out.  Coaxing the knots apart can be a very painful process and this whole debate is a case in point, because we are asking homosexual people to make a sacrifice, even if for the sake of receiving greater blessing and even if it is one we also ask of some heterosexual people, for example priests, religious and unmarried singles.

Being gay is not a sin (although it is a mis-orientation, a particular sharing in the state of disorder each and every one of us suffers from in one way or another); loving someone is not a sin; but the genital expression of that love is a sin outside of marriage, because it constitutes a distortion of what sex is meant to be for and about... and homosexual love can never constitute a marriage.  This is a hardship for those with same sex attraction.  However much we point out that our society gives too much weight to sex as the only means of complete human fulfilment, however much we draw attention to the myriad other types of loving and intimate relationships there are other than sexual ones and point out that celibacy can have positive value, it remains a hardship.  I think it was Michael Voris who said that homosexuals who remain celibate for love of Christ and His Church are “moral giants” amongst us, carrying a heavy cross, and I wholeheartedly agree.

One of the unhappiest aspects of this whole scenario is that, it seems, either you support “gay marriage” and active gay relationships generally, or you are labelled homophobic, unjust and a hater of gay people.  You are allowed no leeway to say “I love and respect my gay brothers and sisters just as I love and respect anyone else, but I believe that gay sex is wrong”.  That will simply arouse anger, disbelief and accusations of hypocrisy or arrogance.  I find that understandable... but very, very sad.