The Rights of the Born...

Read the article...

note the line: I said that this is the most intimate decision a woman makes, and she makes it all alone, in her deepest heart of hearts, sometimes with the man by whom she is pregnant, with her dearest friends or with her doctor — but without the personal opinion of say, Tom DeLay or Karl Rove.

Translation: without anyone supporting her emotionally or physically or financially to carry the child to term...

The elephant in the living room:

Abortion is NOT like taking out a tooth...It is something terrible for women...and the pro choice brittleness refuses to recognize this...

And this problem is not "Caused" by Bush or DeLay or the evil Papists. It is caused by a "pc religion" of "if it feels right do it" that is preached...

We live in a society where sexual activity is now considered outside the judgment of morality (quick: When was the last time that someone disapproved of the promiscuity of Hollywood?)...

But what is not discussed is why "people who must know that teenage girls will have abortions, whether in clinics or dirty backrooms." will not discuss WHY we allow society (film, tv movies etc) to fail to teach teenagers that promiscuity has consequences: both physical and emotional, and the most terrible emotional consequence is the pain of knowing one chose not to bring a child into the world...

The "elephant in the living room" never discussed is that sex cannot be merely fun, but has deeper meanings, and that we ignore these things to our peril...

But the answer is not the moralistic condemnation of hurting people, but to reteach what eros has to do with agape and the meaning of life...

"....Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive.

Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity.

This is hardly man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless.

Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness."

So the fruit of this is women who hurt...
who have HIV, chlamydia, herpes, gonorrhea, and sometimes secondary infertility...

Teenagers who think that they have to have sex on dates...(orgasm? what orgasm? many of these girls end up depressed and feeling unloved and exploited...then people wonder why feminists turn to lesbian relationships or seem to hate men)...

And marriage? We no longer pressure pregnant couples to marry, because divorce is so easy, and marriage is no longer a guarantee that the man will raise the child...indeed, as one teenager told me: I wanted the child, and my welfare will pay for it...so why should I ask the boy to pay for what I wanted?

Ummm...because he is the father? Ah, but we no longer recognize the link between sex and begetting...and then wonder why our boys remain boys until middle age...

The dirty little secret is that God, or evolutionary selection, bound the sexual act with bonding between a man and a woman...because God, or evolution, recognized that women who were pregnant or "suckling a child" could not support herself alone...

So in the past, a woman's family forced the man to support the child, by societal pressure or even threats of violence...or they found a husband for the woman...or the child was cared for by extended family...

Essentially, both biology and cultures emphasized this link... some men were promiscuous, but prostitutes or concubines or "second families" took care of this need...the family remained intact, and the children protected...

So we see both Muslims and conservative Christians/Hindus/Jews horrified by a western culture that ridicules religious beliefs and spreading an "in your face" promiscuity as normal...and we see Musilm riots and hell and brimstone preachers objecting to this ridicule of their beliefs and the pollution of western culture that glorifies many forms of obscenity...

But Ratz is right: We need to start at the beginning, and remind people that eros is beautiful, and that it is connected with agape and God's love for us...and that promiscuity is empty and meaningless and leads to despair...

And until we do, the abortion wars will continue...