Real Feminists on Abortion

Here are what early feminists had to say about abortion:

Women... sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection... either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast if off when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity.
Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's suffrage movement leader (1873)

Every woman knows if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.
Victoria Woodhull, first woman to run for US President (1875)

And what does the modern, liberated feminist say?

"It's essential to make your own decision. No one else has the right to tell you what to do. Listen to your own heart.

[...]

Once you have made your decision, believe in yourself for making a good decision. Abortion is the right of every woman."

- Feminist Women's Health Centre

But what kind of a decision, a "choice" is abortion? Again, I quote Victoria Woodhull:

"Abortion is only a symptom of a more deep-seated disorder of the social state. It cannot be put down by law. Normally the mother of ten children is as healthy, and may be as youthful and beautiful, as a healthy maiden. Child-bearing is not a disease, but a beautiful office of nature. But to our faded-out, sickly, exhausted type of women, it is a fearful ordeal. Nearly every child born is an unwelcome guest. Abortion is the choice of evils for such women."

Planned Parenthood's Own Statistics Prove Them Wrong

The Curt Jester posts a link to an article by Bill Beckman, current executive director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee:

A headline in the October 15th Chicago Sun-Times reads, 'Planned Parenthood is not the enemy in abortion fight.' Such a statement could have come straight out of Planned Parenthood's own marketing plan. Unfortunately, the facts do not support the perception Planned Parenthood wants to create with this marketing message.

In 2006, the Guttmacher Institute (research arm of Planned Parenthood) rated the states on the effectiveness of their state-funded birth control distribution programs. States such as New York and California were rated excellent while Nebraska was rated poor. Which of these states do you think have high abortion rates? Remember, Planned Parenthood claims that better access to birth control will reduce abortions. Well, New York and California are among the states with the highest abortion rates while Nebraska has low abortion rates. Thus, Planned Parenthood's own statistics demonstrate the failure to achieve their claimed results.

In 2005, the Guttmacher Institute, in a study on unplanned pregnancies, noted that 53 percent of women who have unintended pregnancies used a contraceptive method during the month they got pregnant. Of those unplanned pregnancies, 47 percent end in abortion, 40 percent are carried to full term, and 13 percent end in miscarriage. Whether this is due to usage failure or method failure, it shows that artificial contraception is largely ineffective in preventing unplanned pregnancy and abortion.

Humans... are... a disease, Mr Anderson

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.

"The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child."

- The Australian, May 07, 2007 12:00am

These guys never follow their own advice and commit suicide. It's always some kid that has to die for their theories.

via Mark Shea

Freedom of "Choice": The Death of Freedom

I have taken the liberty to republish here in its entirety a recent letter from Paul Kokoski in Ontario, Canada to the Pravda. It should give advocates of the "pro-choice" movement much food for thought:

Where is the most dangerous place in the world to live? Is it Iraq, or perhaps Sudan? No, it is in the mother’s womb. More people are murdered through abortion than through any other source. A few days ago Mexico became one of last holdouts to fall under the spell of this evil that is gripping the world.

On a superficial level, we may be convinced that legalized abortion has not really changed much in our private lives and in the life of our societies. It all takes place in the silence of an operating room which ensures the woman’s safety. And it is as if the foetus that will never see the light of day had never existed.

However, the recognition of the sacred character of human life and of its inviolability - a principle admitting no exceptions - is not some trivial little problem or a question that may be considered relative, in view of the pluralism of opinions we find in modern society. There are no "small murders". The respect for every human life is an essential condition if a societal life worthy of the name is to be possible. When man’s conscience loses respect for life as something sacred, he inevitably ends by losing his own identity.

Today, in many people's consciences, the perception of the gravity of abortion has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception.

To claim the right to abortion and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others.

This is the death of true freedom.

Polish Rally Urges Abortion Ban

Finally, some good news from Europe!

Thousands marched through the Polish capital, Warsaw, today calling for a total ban on abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

3,000 people at the rally agreed that it should not be offered even when the pregnancy threatens the mother's life.

A "pro-choice" rally elsewhere in the city drew a paltry thousand people.

This is truly refreshing, especially since after one nation after another in Europe succumbed to the evil, modern concept of "freedom of choice" - the latest being Portugal.

It is a good thing to see people standing up for all that is right.

May this action by the Polish people inspire their Slav brothers over in Russia to do the same.

Portugal Chooses Death

Prime Minister Jose Socrates has said abortion will be legalised in Portugal despite the turnout for a referendum being too low to be legally binding.

Turnout was about 40%, far less than the 50% required, but of those who did vote, 59.3% backed a proposed change to the current law.

- BBC News, 12 February 2007, 01:42 GMT

In the words of a commentator, Portugal has "gone down the toilet".

The murderers have achieved their goal in Portugal.

If past trends in other European nations are any indication of what is to be, abortion rates in Portugal will soar in the first years after decriminalization, possibly leading to demographic collapse in a nation with already very worrisome birth rates.

With Portugal out of the way, only three countries remain in Europe stand in the way of death: Ireland, Poland, and Malta.

We remember the words of Father Seraphim Rose:

And we must be crucified outwardly, in the eyes of the world; for Christ's Kingdom is not of this world, and the world cannot bear it, even a single representative of it, even for a single moment. The world can only accept Antichrist, now or at any time.

No wonder, then, that it is hard to be a Christian - it is not hard, it is impossible. No one can knowingly accept a way of life which, the more truly it is lived, leads the more surely to one's own destruction.

Prayers for Portugal's Abortion Referendum

Rorate Caeli has invited all readers and their families to pray a novena for life to Our Lady, beginning on Our Lady's Saturday following Candlemas (February 3) and ending on February 11.

Before full communion is restored between our Churches, it is not yet common for the Orthodox to pray alongside Catholics. Yet, on this day, I humbly ask my readers to join the Catholics as they pray for right to life to remain protected in one of its last bastions in Europe.

The novena is not familiar among us Eastern Christians, so use the prayer of your choice.

"Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does."
Tertullian, Apology 27, AD 210