Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 8:05am

Abortion and Christmas

Hattip to Matt Archbold at Creative Minority Report.  Comedian Steve Crowder gets serious in the above video, looking at the havoc that abortion wreaks on the population of kids with special needs. He is correct that such children and adults tend to be abstractions until you get to know them, and you then realize that each one of them is unique, just like the rest of us.  As my family approaches our second Christmas without our beloved Larry, that is a truth that rings home with me.  In my memories of him his autism hardly enters in as a drawback.  What I tend to recall are things like the artistic way he would arrange food on his plate when he made his snacks, his ability to always know what the date was without reference to a calendar, his habit of playing certain scenes in videos over and over again on his computer as he saw and heard things that obviously eluded me, his snickers when he realized one of his siblings was in trouble, his impromptu midnight strolls without telling anyone, the way he would always circle around the house to go in the backdoor, etc.  My life was immeasurably richer for his presence and is immeasurably poorer for his absence.  At Christmas time let us renew our commitment to end abortion, that robs us all of encountering so many people who, in the most unlikely ways, could light our own path through this Vale of Tears.  A babe born in a stable 2000 years ago irrevocably changed for the better the path of mankind, God’s majestic way of underlining for us that each life is a precious gift, and usually not just to the recipient of life.

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Pat
Pat
Wednesday, December 3, AD 2014 9:16am

‘that robs us all of encountering so many people who, in the most unlikely ways, could light our own path through this Vale of Tears. A babe born in a stable 2000 years ago irrevocably changed the path of mankind, God underlining for us that each life is a precious gift, and usually not just to the recipient of life.’

So sorry for your loss. Thank you for staying strong enough to help others in untold ways. I saw this saying at a blog out of Italy (Mundabor), and, being half descended from missed Italians and teachings out of the kitchen, thought I’d share.
‘In Italy we say that the devil makes the pans, but not the lids; meaning with this that in all devil’s works there is an incompleteness, an imperfection, some missing part that allows good souls to detect the evil, and contributes to the work of Providence, which ensures the ultimate defeat of Satan’s evil works.’

Philip
Philip
Wednesday, December 3, AD 2014 10:05am

Steve Crowder’s testimony is beautiful and I pray that at the very least one soul, one mother contemplating abortion is moved by this 6 minute outreach. That the mother will give life a chance.

Christmas is giving life a chance.

Without Christ we can choose our babies sex. Without Christ we can kill our neighbor because of his skin color.
A life without Christ is the freedom to open the gates of hell and share in the misery of fallen man.

With the Christ child we have Love.
A power unequaled in Satan’s arsenal.
This love is pure agape love. A love which doesn’t count the cost nor asks for anything in return.
Oh if only folks could embrace this love.
The world would change forever.
The gates of hell would be forever locked containing the agents of deception. If only.

Phillip
Phillip
Wednesday, December 3, AD 2014 1:37pm
Tom M.
Tom M.
Wednesday, December 3, AD 2014 5:57pm

Beautiful reflections Donald. Growing up I had a neighbor who was mentally retarded and, as kids, we didn’t always appreciate the love and laughter he brought to the entire neighborhood.

DJ Hesselius
DJ Hesselius
Wednesday, December 3, AD 2014 9:40pm

From the article to which Philip linked: “And how will women who refuse screening be regarded? Will families who ‘choose’ not to abort when ‘abnormalities’ are discovered be seen as socially irresponsible?”
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The answer is Yes, absolutely. Such women (and their families, husbands, boyfriends, etc) would most definitely be considered irresponsible. I am quite confident making that assertion because that is pretty much what I thought back in college some 25 years ago, and I would probably have belonged to the Young Republicans club if I had known of its existence on campus.
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With a little help from Rush Limbaugh, I finally became pro-life, but I wonder if God gave me two children who would have been placed in special education had they been enrolled in public school in order to make certain I learned my lesson.

@FMShyanguya
Thursday, December 4, AD 2014 3:44am

@Donald R. McClarey Thank you!

@FMShyanguya
Thursday, December 4, AD 2014 3:58am

Thinking out loud: perhaps the supposed screening is just a cover.
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When a friend of mine and his wife were expecting their second child (they now have four children), the first question from the wife’s ob gyn, ‘a nice pleasant lady’, was whether they wanted to keep the child. They said yes. They were then asked whether they wanted the amnio testing done. After asking what it was for and how it was conducted, my friend rejected the testing.
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Me thinks it is a racket.

Guy McClung
Admin
Thursday, December 4, AD 2014 6:01am

Each person, every person can be an “everlasting splendour”. If you make the effort and take the time, you can and will see the splendor in everyone.

CS Lewis: [from THE WEIGHT OF GLORY] “. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinarypeople. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations,
cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of
a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and
exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we
are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that
kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have,
from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no
presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for
the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence
which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

A Cloney
A Cloney
Thursday, December 4, AD 2014 9:07am

Thank you for this post! Your son lives with the author of life Who understood that Larry’s “job” here was done … What a blessing for you & your family! Merry Christmas!!

DJ Hesselius
DJ Hesselius
Thursday, December 4, AD 2014 3:49pm

“Thinking out loud: perhaps the supposed screening is just a cover.”
.
Ob/Gyns carry very heavy malpractice insurance, and there have been several “wrongful birth” lawsuits–where the couple would have aborted their “defective” child if only they had known.
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My brother-in-law was the only doctor in this one large, rural area of Texas willing to do deliveries–he was a family doctor and not an Ob/Gyn. All the other physicians were retired or refused to do deliveries. This was wearing him down, so he decided to move the family to Sunny L.A. About the time of the move, when insurance was being changed over, he was without some portion of his malpractice insurance, but did this one delivery anyway because no one else was willing. He followed all the standard procedures, but something minor went wrong, and the patient took my brother-in-law/sister’s down payment on their new home in L.A. to cover the “pain and suffering.”
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Some time after, my brother-in-law said that a lot of what doctors do is CYA (“cover your assets”) medicine–stuff driven by insurance companies, both health insurance and liability insurance.
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If the couple is offered pre-natal screenings and either refuse it, or else do not abort if Down’s or some other trouble is found, then I would imagine that it would be difficult later to sue the physician. Physicians are people too, with families and expenses and the like; if they are apt to be driven into poverty because of a wrongful birth lawsuit, then it becomes fairly easy to see why these “search and destroy” missions are carried out. Or, alternatively, why in many areas of the country, physicians simply refuse to go into Ob/gyn.

Philip
Philip
Friday, December 5, AD 2014 5:06am

Guy McClung.

Neighbor as Christ. In all the endeavors of man the most excellent is seeing Jesus in neighbor and serving him.

Guy Mcclung
Admin
Friday, December 5, AD 2014 6:35am

Philip-right on! The Apostle John in his gospel says “no one has seen God, the only -begotten Son has revealed Him.” (Jn 1:17,18). A very limited few got to see the Son, in the flesh; and we get to see neither the Father nor the Son. But St. Paul tells us we can know God through His creations – the best of which is the person next to you in line at the store; the guy driving the car that just cut you off on the freeway (and perhaps gave you some spiritual direction indicating the way to heaven with one of his fingers); the lady whose bag of groceries pops open in the wet parking lot; the person you decide to help with $5 even though you worry she is off to buy drugs or Pagan Pink Ripple. Jesus is revealed in all these folks and with the eyes of faith and hope and love and humility you can see Him.

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