Just show up

One of my favorite conversations from a television show came from one of my favorite shows, Sports Night, the show about those who produce a Sportscenter-type program. In one episode we find out that something will soon happen that one on-air personality, Casey, would not like very much. His on-air partner, Dan, repeatedly asks Casey what he will do about the situation, what his battle plan is. Eventually, exasperated by the repeat questioning, Casey gives in and says that he is going to use Napoleon's battle plan. Upon further questioning from Dan, Casey explains that it is a two-part plan: "First, we show up. Then, we see what happens." Dan decides that this means that Casey has no plan.

Urgent: Please sign the Petition!

Please take a moment to read and sign this petition!

Establish the St Anne Center for Reproductive Health

Wait a minute! This is a blog about ending abortion. Why am I asking you to sign a petition for a reproductive health clinic?

Because this is no ordinary reproductive health clinic. The top-of-his-field reproductive endocrinologist behind the St. Anne Center is a pro-life, faithful Catholic who wants to make available to couples an approach to infertility that respects both them, the children they hope to have, and the laws of God.

Tomorrow morning, he will be proposing the establishment of the St. Anne Center and this petition will help demonstrate that Chicago needs a clinic to aid faithful couples who are facing the heartbreak of infertility but are not willing to sacrifice 30 children to gain one.

You think I’m exaggerating? According to data from Britain, 

The figures, revealed by Britain’s Health Minister Lord Howe in response to a request from Lord Alton, show that over 30 embryos are created for every live birth through IVF.

Now, I've never seen the numbers for the entire US (though one study of one fertility clinic over four years showed 7.5% embryos made it to birth), but what I do know is that assisted reproductive technology in the US is less regulated than in Britain and the rest of Europe. The CDC reports 47,102 live births from IVF in 2010 (61,561 babies, since multiples are frequent). You do the math.

That's as least as many babies as there are dying from abortion each year.

And then remember that some of those 1.2 million abortions each year are the direct result of IVF.

“If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn’t have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there’s a natural order, then you don’t want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner — in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me — and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control.”

 Meanwhile, science is advancing all the time...but you wouldn't know it by the way fertility "medicine" is practiced in this country. Actually diagnosing the problem and treating it directly, returning a woman (or man) to fertility (read: health), rather than pumping a woman full of hormones that can cause dangerous side effects? Allowing babies to be conceived in the safety of their mothers' wombs rather than conceiving them in a dish, tossing the "abnormal" ones (or ones of the wrong gender or genotype) in the trash and either freezing the rest (most never to be thawed, certainly not successfully) or dissecting them for their stem cells), and then maybe "reducing" a few as late as 24 weeks because you can't be bothered with twins? Nah...

It will likely be us pro-lifers who lead the way in showing that there's a better, healthier way to approach treating infertility, but we can't do it unless we have places to receive treatment and courageous doctors who are willing to buck the trends.

So please sign the petition to establish the St. Anne Center for Reproductive Health! In the short term, you'll be opening up a moral option for infertile couples with pro-life convictions, and in the long term, you'll be helping to build a stronger culture of life in Chicago!

Thanks and God bless!!!

Irish Festival for Life

Sorry for the silence from the blog as of late! We may not have said much here, but we continue to be present, praying in front of Planned Parenthood every Saturday morning from 10 am to noon. Come out and join us while the weather is nice! We'll be out there tomorrow morning because PP doesn't take a break for the Memorial Day weekend and neither do we.

I also want to spread the word about an event that's coming up next week: the Irish Festival for Life on Sunday, June 3 from 2 - 5 pm at the Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 North Knox Ave in Chicago.

Right now, Ireland’s pro-life ethos is under severe attack. A recent European Court ruling is insisting that Ireland change her pro-life laws to suit the European abortion regime – against the will of most Irish people. Behind the scenes, an international network of wealthy and powerful organizations are forcing abortion into Ireland, and they are very close to succeeding. 

However, we are fighting back for life!  The Thomas More Society (TMS), a national pro-life public interest law firm have just recently helped establish an American organization called Life House Ireland. Its mission is to make “friends for Life” between pro-life American and Irish people to ensure that Ireland stays pro-life, abortion-free and returns a culture of life to Europe and beyond. Life House Ireland is urgently marshalling support in America for the Life Institute in Ireland who are spearheading the campaign to block this attack. (Read more and register for this FREE event...)

Hope to see you there!

Joy in the morning

I am very much not a morning person.  First for the purposes of school, and now work, I have gotten very good at tricking myself out of bed - putting the alarm across the room from my bed, getting a coffeemaker with a timer so I wake up to the delicious scent of go-juice, packing my bag the night before so that in my dawn stupor I do not accidentally leave the house without something vital - all useful.  There is also the fact that my cat regards me as his personal butler, and is not above eating my hair to encourage me to get up and provide additional kibble.  Nevertheless, no amount of prep is going to improve my mood when the rosy fingers of dawn poke me in the eyes once again.  So it’s good to start the day with something positive, and this is especially important when the morning’s activities include praying outside an abortion clinic.

The last few Saturdays, I have been making it to daily Mass.  My parish is literally less than 10 minutes from my front door at a relaxed walking pace, so you might think I would have tried it sooner.  Alas, no.  Previously, Saturday was my only day to sleep in, and I guarded it jealously.  After I started praying in front of the clinic, I figured  getting up for that was early enough.  What I failed to consider is that I prepared for almost every other aspect of my presence there - showering, season-appropriate clothing, comfy shoes, plenty of coffee.  Even a bag so I could run by the farmer’s market afterwards.  Physically, I was ready to go.  But temperamentally, I was often anxious, grumpy, resigned, etc.  Sure, I was giving up my Saturday mornings, but I wasn’t being a cheerful giver.  Starting the morning with Mass helps a great deal towards starting the day in gratitude.

It also often gives me something to think about.  For instance, the word that stuck with me last Saturday was “delight”.  The idea that we are supposed to bring delight, joy, and wonder to the people in our lives can seem a difficult task at the best of times, and even more so at Planned Parenthood.  And it seems especially hard these days - after a period of relative slowness, there seems to be a recent increase in business.  We are seeing more and more women stagger out of there, in obvious physical pain, in some cases needing to be helped into their cars.  Is this increase due to the Rockford clinic shutting down in January?  A new abortionist, perhaps, or less time being allowed for recovery?  We will probably never know, but every time I see this, it puts a major dent in my cheerfulness.  But while grief certainly has its place in abortion, that place may not be there.

For these women come to this place already in despair.  They have decided that there is no joy in the new life growing within them - not for themselves, not for someone else.  They do not want to wonder about the future of their unborn children - they only want to protect their present.  Delight is excluded by the darkness of fear.  If we don’t bring delight, joy, and wonder to that place, there won’t be any at all. 

For those who would say that abortion is a serious problem, and we need to be serious about it, I say yes to the first and no to the second.  I suspect many of these women already had someone in their lives sit them down and tell them, “This is serious!  You need to take care of it!  What about your future?”  They already think that things will only be OK if they go on as they were before their little stranger made his or her presence known.  We can say that while continuing their pregnancy may well be terrifying, there is also to be found “Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief”*

I am not sure how we may delight these women.  But perhaps it starts with being delighted to be there.  We got picked to play!  We get to fight!  This is our city - let us go out there armed to the teeth with joy! 

* J.R.R Tolkien.

Hi world

Hi, everybody!  For those of you who were reading the 40 Days emails, I’m sorry I took so long to get started here, but I am going to try to challenge myself to be a regular poster.  This is my first time blogging - I hardly ever even comment on the blogs I read - but maybe I have a unique voice I ought to share with the world.  Or maybe you will simply find out just how far down the rabbit hole in my brain goes.  Let’s find out together!

I have a somewhat literal mind.  I understand figures of speech, and use them myself, but I can’t help picturing the phrase in my head. For instance, “figures of speech” makes me see sentences sashaying down a runway being photographed by the literati.  It has made for a few awkward moments over the years, as my interlocutors had to wait whilst I was lost in my inner visions, but it also makes listening to advertising and political speech a hoot.  Because of this quirk, I have always found the phrase “a woman’s right to choose” slightly odd.  Women, as well as men, have always had the ability to choose, as a function of being sentient entities.  Even my cat makes choices.  He often chooses to do things like lick my venetian blinds and eat carpet fuzz, so clearly rationality is not a necessary component in choice.

Of course, choice is nearly always constrained.  I can “choose” to grow wings and fly, for instance, but I can’t make that happen by willing it.  Our ability to choose is often contingent on physical realities, the past history of our own lives, and the choices of others.  Perhaps what is meant is the ability to not so much choose, but select - to have the power to actually have something one desires. If this is the intended meaning, this is really not much better.  I can select any number of physically possible options - start loudly singing “Never Gonna Give You Up”*  while I sit in my cube at work, go around dressed as a rubber chicken, shave my head and paint it purple, and so on indefinitely.  But I don’t do any of these things, not because I am constrained by my ability to select them, but because of the reactions of other people.  I want them to keep employing me, keep being willing to spend time with me, not run away when they see me coming. 

Indeed, some of the things I could choose to do are so negatively regarded as to be labeled crimes.  For instance, I could yank the iPod off the twit with the cheap ear buds who is forcing me to listen to his wretched taste in music whilst pressed right up against me on a crowded rush-hour train.  I could smash it into a thousand tiny pieces and then strangle him with the cord, screaming with pent-up rage, until they drag me off his lifeless form…ahem.  I beg your pardon. I meant to say that while I could choose that, I won’t, for among many other reasons it is illegal, and he and his tinny tunes aren’t worth a trip to jail. But usually legality is not the decisive factor - there are plenty of things that are legal that are not socially acceptable (witness all the financial nonsense of the last decade that has resulted for the most part in a handful of fines and wrist-slaps), and some things that are socially acceptable that are illegal (jaywalking, downloading TV shows, etc.)  Day-to-day, we make most of our decisions not based on what is legal, but what is socially acceptable.

So what seems to be wanted here is not just the ability to choose an option, or the ability to really have that option, but the ability to have that choice approved by society.  What is wanted is for this particular choice to be regarded as not simply legal, but socially acceptable.  What is wanted is for society at large to regard deliberately causing the death of an unborn child at the choosing of the mother as…fine.  Not maybe the best option.  Not what you might choose.  A difficult choice made in a difficult situation, and who knows what we would do when faced with such pressures.  It’s…ok.  There are many who would like us to make that assessment about abortion.  A handful of people want more, want abortion to be regarded as a blessing or a badge of honor.  But for the majority of those who support “a woman’s right to choose”, it’s just…fine.

One of the reasons we go out there is to show that there are those who do not think abortion is acceptable.  This may be interpreted as judgmental, as forcing our assessment of their perfectly legal action on them.  I can see that.  But we know by personal experience that for many of the women who come for an abortion, it’s not fine.  They already perceive what they are doing as wrong.  They just don’t see another option, or feel that they have no support to make any other decision.  Ironically, we go out there in part to offer them a whole multitude of choices.  Would they like to keep their baby?  We know people who can help then get housing, medical care, education, diapers.  Would they prefer to have someone adopt their child?  We can help them pursue a variety of different options, all along the spectrum between a traditional closed adoption and the newer open adoption process.  They can choose the adoptive parents, the amount of contact they wish to have with their child going forward, and many other factors.  Do they just need a friend to give them the courage and guidance to become a great mother?  We can help them find a mentor who will walk with them through the pregnancy and beyond.  We offer then them the support for their actual preference that the people around them can't or won't.

The thing about choosing death is that it is choosing an end.  It is choosing the cessation of choice.  When you choose life, you choose possibility.  You choose choice. 

*I do apologize for any inadvertent mental rick rolling.

Support Pro-Life Causes in May!

May is the month of Mother’s Day. It’s also the month that the Catholic Church dedicates to Mary. Therefore, it’s no surprise that May offers us many opportunities to celebrate and support motherhood and life! Please consider supporting one or all of these worthy causes!

The Women’s Centers of Greater Chicagoland

Mother’s Day Flower Sale

The weekend of May 12-13 at a parish near you

Flowers are a Mother’s favorite! Many parishes in the Chicagoland area will be selling beautiful bouquets of fresh flowers after all Masses. Proceeds will be used to help young women facing a crisis pregnancy situation and in need of assistance.

For information on flower sale locations or to volunteer to help sell flowers, click here.

Heather’s House Party

Eats, Drinks, Music and Celebrating LIFE!

Thursday, May 17, 6-9 pm at Butterfield Country Club, Oak Brook, IL

The Aid for Women Auxiliary invites you to their annual spring fundraiser to benefit Heather’s House, Aid for Women’s New Residential Program.

Featuring a silent auction of spring and sports-themed items.

For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

Students for Life of Illinois

Angels of Life Banquet

Saturday, May 19, 6:15 pm at St. Petronille Banquet Hall, Glen Ellyn, IL

Join Students for Life of Illinois for a semi-formal (21+) reception and dinner featuring a talk by Gianna Jessen, the abortion survivor on whose experience the movie October Baby was based. She is an inspirational woman who lives with overwhelming joy in spite of her physical disability from the failed abortion.

The event is free to attend. A free-will donation will be collected.

Space is limited! To register, click here.

Divine help: the archangel Raphael

This is an artist's rendition of the archangel Raphael. Raphael, along with his winged compatriots Michael and Gabriel, is held in many traditions to be one of the archangels; indeed, though we have no real knowledge of how many archangels there are, these three generally get most of the attention.

Most of what is generally accepted about the archangels comes from the Bible. Michael gets some great publicity from that whole book of Revelation (or, as they called in days of yore, Apocalypse), doing his thing and leading the armies of God (making him someone we should consider requesting God send to help our fight against abortion, at least the spiritual side of it). Gabriel, of course, gets street cred from Luke (the gospel writer, not the aspiring Jedi), explaining to Mary, the mother of Jesus, that, well, Jesus would occur. Raphael, though, is a slightly more interesting case.