Letters To The Editor
Come now, Susan Cahill, and Let Us Reason Together
The magnitude of the irony left me breathless: Susan Cahill, who has killed with her own hands thousands of human beings, while doing untold damage to the unborn children’s parents, says the “attack” on her property was “an attack against women, families and human rights.” That human life begins at conception is not philosophy or theology but undisputed scientific fact…Unborn children are no less human than Susan, you, or me. Isn’t it therefore reasonable that human rights should equally apply to the unborn? Local prolife individuals and organizations, do we carry collective guilt for this damage to property as Susan and her husband suggest? Looking at the numbers alone (in the US since 1973: hundreds of millions of prolife advocates, over 55 million murdered unborn children vs eight murdered abortionists), it is clear we are not advocates of violence. In my over 30 years of prolife work, I have never heard any advocates for the unborn promote violence. Susan will continue to milk the victim role. Reasonable people will continue to have reasonable and balanced perspective…hmm…thousands of innocent human lives methodically destroyed in Kalispell vs one act of destruction of property… Come now, Susan, “and let us reason together… (Isaiah 1:18).”
Abortion is Never Necessary to Save the Life of the Mother
Even the most staunch prolifers like me would think choice was appropriate in a case where there was the option of only saving one: the child or the mother. Fortunately, as far as I can ascertain, such cases don’t exist. I have put a challenge out there for someone to find me a case where abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother, and no one has answered the challenge with a case. Everett Koop, prior US Surgeon General, when he was a pediatrician for 38 years (at the bedside for many high risk births), states he never saw a case where abortion was necessary to save the life of mother. In answer to my challenge, people have brought up the fact that women die from pregnancy or during childbirth. Those are rare in this country, and they are not examples where abortion would have saved the life of the mother. If the woman dies in labor, chances are the child is old enough to survive, doesn’t need to be killed. The more common complications of pregnancy like eclampsia and preeclampsia occur after 20 weeks when the child is viable (ie. Can survive outside the womb). My challenge remains open…AND, even before Roe V Wade, taking the life of the child is such a situation was legal…
Regarding conception from rape and incest…Some people consider this an acceptable situation for destroying the innocent unborn child. Killing innocent people is never a solution. AND, it doesn’t help the mothers…In my profession as a physician, I have known women who had abortions done to their babies conceived under rape/incest (they were preteens or teens at the time), and it did not help them. Later in life, when they conceived under better circumstances and studied the life of the unborn, they realized they had killed their innocent baby—it is easier for them to forgive the perpetrator of the crime against them than has been for them to forgive themselves.
In calling thousands of people across the state, several interesting patterns have emerged. One is that most people who consider themselves prochoice are usually against late term abortions and abortion for birth control (possibly what you refer to as wanton abortion)—done because the child was conceived at an inconvenient time. At least 97% of abortions are done for birth control, to end the life conceived at an inconvenient time in the mother’s life. In other words, they support abortion rights for the < 3% where they consider abortion acceptable, even though they’d be against the 97% killings that occur. I’m wondering if that is your stand.
At MPLC for the reasons stated above, we want abortion outlawed, without exception. In terms of the amendment we seek, it simply states that unborn children are persons. It would be up to the legislative branch to iron out the details in law.
CHALLENGE FOR ABORTION RIGHTS ADVOCATES: MAKE YOUR SUPPORT MORALLY and INTELLECTUALLY SOUND
The pro-abortion agenda cannot withstand moral or intellectual scrutiny. Arguments for abortion skirt the issue of what abortion is and disparage abortion opponents. Those are their only options since killing innocent humans isn’t defendable.
Arguments for abortion fall into seven categories: 1. autonomy is the highest virtue: a mother’s right to choose trumps her child’s right to not be torn apart limb from limb, 2. certain lives are not worth living/certain lives are more valuable than others; destroy those unworthy or less worthy 3. a way to combat over population—kill those who can’t defend themselves, 4. too much economic cost of giving birth to and raising unwanted children—every child a wanted child, every unwanted child a dead child. 5. Victims of rape and incest who get pregnant must be allowed to abort. Otherwise, they are doubly traumatized. As though the knowledge that you killed your own child isn’t traumatizing. We cannot predict with certainty how a post abortive mother will handle the trauma of abortion, but we do know with 100% certainty, their child is dead. 6. Until we have created an environment, a culture so wonderful, where mothers don’t choose to kill their unborn children—laws need to support their right to kill. Apply that one to other crimes to see the obvious absurdity. We don’t say, rather than making child molestation, human trafficking, rape etc illegal, create the cultural environment where these crimes don’t occur. 7. I am personally against abortion, but I don’t have a right to tell someone else what to do. Apply that one to other murder, rape, etc and it is clearly nonsensical.
The methods of disparaging prolife individuals fall into three categories of describing us as: 1. anti-choice religious extremists imposing their narrow religious beliefs when they support equal protection under the law for all humans, 2. busy-bodies who can’t seem to mind their own business when they see innocent humans being destroyed, 3. hypocrites because they are praying and working to end abortion but not spending equal time and energy fighting all wars, fighting all discrimination, raising unwanted children, supporting mothers with an unwanted pregnancy—as though anyone has time to do all that.
Why have these nonsensical proabortion arguments taken hold? Because for the last 70 or so years our government-run schools have taught altered history, promoted Secular Humanism and slammed Christianity. Ours is an educational system that doesn’t teach HOW to think but WHAT to think. Government-run media solidifies the agenda, entrenching the dumbing down of our people. You can have high intelligence and advanced degrees, but if you don’t know how to think logically, you will fall prey to nonsense if bomb-barded with it often enough by charming media moguls and teachers you are taught to respect.
The Judeo-Christian world view states that God is sovereign. We are answerable to Him, and our life and rights come from Him. Every human life is sacred and of utmost value because God made it so. Human dignity is based on the sanctity God has given it irrespective of intelligence, level of education, physical abilities, whether or not your parents want you and/or can afford you, etc. While humans have this intrinsic dignity, they are also depraved in need of a redeemer and the rule of law. There are temporal and eternal consequences for our actions and the actions of our government.
Our country’s founding documents and the writings of our founding fathers reveal the Judeo-Christian world view is the one on which this country was built. Even the two least religious of our roughly 250 founding fathers—Jefferson and Franklin—promoted Christianity, prayed for Divine Providence and guidance, and saw the critical importance of God, religion and morality in government. Our founding fathers knew the reality of human depravity and our tendencies that require rule of law. No matter the lofty claims of the large variety of ideologies promoted throughout history, humans have managed to make an appalling mess of them.
Secular humanism and Darwinian evolutionary theories have been imposed on us, bringing degradation to our species and devaluation of the individual. We need to shift back to our foundational principles. Laws help advance and protect what a society values. Laws and judicial opinions that support killing innocent humans need to be emphatically opposed. Since we need laws and laws inevitably impose morality, it is prudent to promote laws based on reason and uncompromised reverence for the dignity and worth of each human person. I invite you to support CI 102 Personhood Amendment. You will have an opportunity to sign the CI 102 petition at the June 8th Primary polling places. Promote the dignity of all humans and equal protection under the law.
Abortion Advocates: Research What You are Supporting
In the Billings Gazette article 1/31/2010. I was quoted accurately: “Most pro-choice advocates don’t know what they’re supporting.” Proabortion leaders were quick to give supporting illustration of my statement. Stacey Anderson, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Montana said, ”I think people who are pro-choice understand that they believe in individual autonomy…It’s a basic human rights issue.” Allyson Hagen, staffer of Senator Baucus and executive direction of Montana NARAL said, “It’s about supporting women’s ability to make private reproductive health care decisions…The basic question goes down to who decides who gets to make these medical decisions…”
These pro-abortion leaders, in their statements, make no mention that these private medical reproductive decisions involve the destruction of a human being. No mention of the damage done to women, physically emotionally and spiritually through abortion. They call it a “human rights issue” when they promote destruction of innocent human life. They pander to people’s rightful desire for autonomy without mentioning it is the autonomy to kill another human being—autonomy not allowed by laws that protect your life and mine.
When we testified in Helena, these proabortion leaders heard the testimonies of women exploited and damaged by abortion, their coercion by Planned Parenthood workers. They know abortions are done through all 9 months of pregnancy provided there are abortionists willing to butcher the larger babies. They heard about the stages of development of unborn children, the arguments for protecting all human life, that aborted children feel pain. The evidence suggests these women do in fact know what they are supporting.
There is hope for Stacy and Allyson. Other hard-core pro-abortion leaders have become prolife. To name two: Recently, former Planned Parenthood leader Abby Johnson and in the 1970s Dr. Bernard Nathanson owner and operator of the largest North American abortion clinic and cofounder of NARAL. Both joined the prolife ranks after seeing an ultrasound guided abortion and the “silent scream” of the ravaged unborn child.
What about the typical rank-and-file “prochoice” advocate? If they heard the testimonies mentioned above and witnessed an abortion so they know what they are supporting, I firmly believe the majority would see that the power of the jargon about women’s rights, self autonomy, private medical decisions, etc dissolves when exposed by the light of truth: abortion destroys innocent, helpless, defenseless human beings. That’s why I call it the ultimate human rights issue.
PACIFIST WAR PROTESTOR SUPPORTS KILLING OF INNOCENT UNBORN CHILDREN
Betty Lovelady is a caring person. She states in her 11/23 letter she is a pacifist war protestor and adamantly against capital punishment, believes in loving her enemies and caring for widows and orphans. How fascinating she cannot answer “yes” to being prolife on a robocall because she supports the legal right to kill innocent unborn children based on their being only “potential human beings.”
In 2009, it is remarkable Betty does not know unborn humans fulfill the strictest scientific criteria and dictionary definition of human being; that has been known for decades, before 1973 Roe v Wade. They are developing human beings, not potential human beings. What is more astounding is she doesn’t recognize the obvious logical inconsistency and hypocrisy of protesting war yet considering us sick that protest the killing of defenseless unborn children.
Betty writes about the “scars, both physical and emotional, of many unwanted children who would have been better off never to be born…” In other words, “Every child a wanted child” morphs to “Every unwanted child a dead child,” in her mind.
As a physician with 75% female patients, most of which have been of child-bearing age sometime between 1973 and now, I have heard testimonies from hundreds of women who have had abortions, including some who got pregnant as a result of incest and rape. Most have healed from the harm done to them by others, but the physical, emotional and spiritual scars remain from destroying their unborn children. I have never met one woman who, faced with challenging circumstances and considering abortion, regrets they decided to give birth.
There is no question: abortion exploits and trashes women and kills babies. Adamantly opposing abortion is the only humane and logical stand.
WHO REALLY STANDS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS?
The irony would be comical if the subject matter weren’t so serious and the outcome so tragic: the irony of a Human Rights Network aggressively promoting the destruction of innocent, defenseless human life.
Travis McAdam is the executive director of Montana’s Human Rights Network. In his 12/16/09 letter to the MTStandard against Personhood Amendment efforts, he says “right wing ideologues” (referring to leaders of Montana ProLife Coalition) want to insert their “religious views” into the Montana Constitution by bringing “due process” and “legal counsel” to the “fertilized egg.” He uses time-worn phrases to dehumanize unborn children, disparage opponents, and avoid addressing the issue.
I refer the reader to our website www.montanaprolifecoalition.org to find out what we stand for and google Bukacek DailyInterlake Sunday Nov 8 to see how an innocent person responds to false accusations.
Regarding the Montana Catholic Conference “refusing to help” us…We have the support of the largest US Catholic prolife organization (American Life League), the largest Catholic international prolife organization (Human Life International), renowned Catholic legal organizations (including Thomas More Law Center), Montana Catholics for Life, and in my experience, the majority of Montana Catholics. We also have the support of Montana Assemblies of God, Lutheran Missouri-Synod, Personhood USA, Central Montana Right to Life, and American Right to Life, to name a few.
Why this support? Because the designation of personhood to the unborn is obvious to the open-minded and compelling to true advocates of human rights. It is not ideology but science that human life begins at conception, and there is no other logical basis for personhood than being a member of the human race.
Mr. McAdam claims by fighting for the rights of defenseless unborn humans we are wanting to insert religious views into Montana’s constitution. It is true governments and cultures that place supreme value on human rights and the dignity of each person are usually of the Judeo Christian ethic. We make no apology for that. However, defending the innocent is common decency, not religious dogma, and any “human rights” organization that doesn’t recognize this need operates at a pinnacle of hypocrisy.
Mr. McAdam got one thing right: We will continue to push personhood constitutional initiatives like CI 102 until they are successful. As long as the slaughter of innocents continues, we will be their voice and fight for their rights
ABORTION EXPLOITS WOMEN AND KILLS BABIES
Dr. James’ Armstrong’s 7/26 letter to the editor was full of his typical silliness that imposing religious belief is a bad thing in opposing legalized killing of innocent, voiceless, defenseless humans. Yep, governments and cultures that place high value on human rights and dignity are generally of the Judeo Christian ethic. We make no apologies for that. There is further foolishness when he writes Karen Trierweiler’s letter is the sort of thing that provokes a mad man like the one who murdered George Tiller. To introduce a bit of reality…As Karen and millions like her write letters, picket, counsel, testify, and pray for the end of abortion throughout this country, there have been four abortionists murdered since the 1973 Roe v Wade unconstitutional monstrosity. Contrast this to over 50 million unborn babies killed over the same 36 years. Dr. Armstrong says Karen’s words were harsh and abusive against Susan Cahill, our local abortionist. Of course Dr. Armstrong is sensitive about this topic, having killed thousands of unborn children himself and mentoring Susan to do the same. When Karen speaks of George Tiller’s exploitation of women, that undoubtedly struck a tender cord as well for Dr. Armstrong. I have known hundreds of mothers harmed by abortion. I have never met one woman who, faced with challenging circumstances and considering abortion, regret that they decided to give birth. Abortion exploits women; many die, millions are left with emotional, physical and spiritual scars. I hear and read their testimonies. Pretty harsh, that four foot nine inches tall Karen Trierweiler’s “desire that abortion becomes unthinkable because each and every life is seen as that precious…”
CAN BOTH SIDES CLAIM HIGH MORAL GROUND?
One of the fascinating findings in studying the abortion debate is that both sides, though diametrically opposed, claim high moral ground. This is exemplified by those whose support for abortion rights is based on the importance of privacy, choice, and women’s rights, and concern about the emotional and financial impact of unwanted children. It is exemplified by the other side by those who believe that the right to life of unborn humans must trump these other rights.
If you value logic and consider it is critical for meaningful discussions, then the law of non-contradiction must be applied here. It is logically consistent to value human life, privacy, women’s right to choose, and wanted children. What cannot be true, and maintain logic, is that both pro-abortion and anti-abortion views involve high moral ground.
So take a closer look at this alleged high moral ground. The right to choose, the right to privacy, financial security are all fine things to support. But note that these same arguments have been utilized to defend nearly all violations of human rights—whether slavery, the Nazi holocaust, child pornography, child labor, you name it. Society recognizes that some rights are higher than others, and the human right to life has been historically considered basic and foundational. The comparison between the unborn child’s right to life and these other rights cannot be considered equal. Any civilized society restricts an individual’s freedom to choose whenever that choice would harm an innocent person. The one-time choice of abortion robs someone else of a lifetime of choices and prevents him/her from ever exercising their rights.
So how do people come to believe they are intellectually sophisticated and maintaining high moral ground by promoting something that is intellectually and morally untenable? There are many methods that have proven to be highly successful. One method is the use of distortion of facts (another word for lies) about abortion to create emotional abhorrence for the way things were prior to 1973. There is talk about “back alley abortions” done with coat hangers when the reality is, as stated by Planned Parenthood, 90% of abortions in 1960 were done by medical personnel by methods similar to what they use today. There is also a great deal of emotion created when it is insisted that we have a clause allowing abortion when the mother’s life is in danger. This is more smokescreen because not only is that situation extremely rare (read non-existent) in this country, but abortion was legal prior to 1973 for cases where it would be done to save the mother’s life. The same is true for investigating miscarriages (smokescreen used in Amanda’s letter where she bore false witness against Rick Jore). As the CI 100 Personhood Amendment brochure (view www.Life 2008.org) reads, “Women that had miscarriages were never in danger of prosecution before Roe v Wade, and they wouldn’t be if Roe was overturned.”
The most powerful method for believing in their high moral standing is to artificially separate abortion from killing because killing innocent humans is still abhorrent to most of us in this nation, including most rank-and-file “pro-choice” advocates. This separation is done using words promoting good things like choice and privacy while ignoring the fact that those “tough medical decisions…made between doctor and patient” involve killing a baby. Try replacing “Every child a wanted child,” with “Every unwanted child a dead child,” and see if you still feel good about your position.
Furthermore, “prochoice” proponents are vehemently against showing photos of aborted babies. They consider it a distasteful, dirty tactic and a cheap trick. It is a tremendous irony that it is not considered appropriate to show pictures of a baby killed by abortions but it is considered appropriate to do nothing to stop the killing of those babies in the pictures. If the distasteful truth shown in pictures is too horrible to look at, perhaps it is too horrible to condone. If people actually looked at these pictures and allowed the truth to settle in, it would end the debate about abortion. Once it is clear that abortion is nothing but the killing of children, it is impossible for most people to imagine they are assuming high moral ground in defending it.
Once we grant that the unborn are human beings, persons, it should settle the question of their right to live. Personhood has an inherent value—a value that comes from being a member of the human race, created in the image of God. However, you don’t have to be a member of a particular religion to know it’s wrong to kill innocent human beings, or to believe that the quality of a society can be defined by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable members. To think of personhood otherwise, we must reject information that contradicts our beliefs and actions. That is called denial. You cannot reject the inherent value of human life and simultaneously affirm the values of freedom and human rights that distinguish the United States of America.
That’s why I consider abortion to be the ultimate civil rights issue in this nation and urge your support of CI 100, the Personhood Amendment. To quote the late civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
IT’S THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSINESS TO PROTECT HUMAN LIFE
I was persuaded by the “pro-choice” arguments until I became pregnant with my first child. Reproductive rights is an appealing slogan. A woman’s right to privacy and freedom of choice sounds fair and logical, even lofty. Many of us have a natural resistance to government or anybody interfering in our lives. It is easy to be persuaded if you do not seriously consider the rights of the unborn child.
When pregnant with my first child, I took perfect care of myself. One day it struck me how completely dependent this child was on what I do to my body. While pregnant, I can optimize my nutrition or not. I can drink alcohol and take illicit drugs. I can even destroy this life within me if I choose to. From that day of awakening and for the rest of my life, I will support laws that protect that most vulnerable helpless member of our human family. Based on the core source for laws that protect your life and mine, it is no less imperative that the life of the unborn child be protected. The fact that they cannot speak for themselves compels us to speak out for their rights.
There are self-righteous, love-lacking supporters of both the “pro-choice” and “pro-life” standpoints. On the “prolife” side, there are also many of us who are well aware of our own weaknesses and mistakes and have tremendous loving concern and compassion for pregnant women in difficult psychosocial situations. This does not impact our stand that it should not be a legalized personal decision to destroy an unborn child any more than it should be legal to snuff out your life or mine.
It is a strange concept that protection of human life is considered government interference.
DIVERSITY IS GOOD
Diversity of belief and respecting that diversity–these are good things. Nevertheless, an argument can be easily made that diversity should have legal limits to its expression. I don’t know anyone who admits to having a high regard for rape, child-molestation, genocide, apartheid, or slavery. The latter three have been sanctioned by governments and large sections of populations, and those that designed, perpetrated, and encouraged these crimes felt justified. It is obvious that these expressions of diversity are crimes against humanity because they infringe on such fundamental human rights.
Our most basic laws protect human life. In our nation, the only subpopulations whose lives are not protected by law are the innocent unborn child and the imprisoned death-row finalist.
It is not relevant nor my place to judge anyone’s intentions. I believe many, if not most, staunch pro-choice advocates are well-intentioned, caring, human rights advocates who are delusional in thinking the world is a better place if we make it a legal choice to destroy unborn children.
The promotion of respect for diversity is made complex by the definition of respect. I want always to show respect in the sense of being considerate and kind. Respect in the sense of having high regard I cannot give to a view that promotes destruction of human lives. During a medical school debate about abortion, a colleague said to me, “Diversity of opinion is what makes the world go around”. To this I replied, “Not for the aborted unborn child. Their world stops.”AnnieBukacek
PROTECTION TO START FROM CONCEPTION
I want to summarize a basis for protecting human life from conception.
a Biblical basis: Thought of by God from eternity, woven by God in our mother’s womb, an unrepeatable and unique image and likeness of God, every human life is precious in God’s sight and of inestimable worth. This core level value of each human being transcends the tinsel we tend to use to define our worth.
a rational basis: From conception, we have complete human genetic composition, are alive, and fit the dictionary definition of human life, human being, and person. “Unalienable rights” promoted in our Declaration of Independence (its author Thomas Jefferson, a non-Christian deist), Constitutional Amendments, and laws are based on the “self-evident” specialness of the human species and the equality of human persons. The legalization of abortion irrationally removed these rights from unborn humans. This is unsettling in itself, and it sets a gravely dangerous precedent when humans are protected only if they measure up to certain standards of development and independence, physical perfection, usefulness and convenience.
It is commonly said that nobody has a right to impose their morals on anyone else. This view is hailed as tolerance of diversity, but it lacks rational substance. It cannot be reasonably applied to abortion since by it a mother imposes her morals on her child. Common sense dictates that individual liberties must be limited if they impose on others’ basic rights. We do not tolerate diversity expressed in rape, child molestation, armed robbery, etc. All lawmaking imposes morality, since all laws declare one behavior right and another behavior wrong.
Since we need laws and laws inevitably impose morality, it seems prudent to promote laws that are based on consistently rational thought and uncompromised reverence for the core dignity and worth of each human person.
BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR STAND AGAINST VIOLENCE
Two historical figures that I admire greatly are Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Against all odds, they brought long overdue societal changes by persistent insistence on a nonviolent approach. I enjoy reading about those battles in the Old Testament where the pivotal points for victory were nonviolent means such as negotiation and discussion, righteousness, praise and worship, prayer, or blowing a trumpet. The fact that Gandhi and King were both murdered and that the majority of battles in the Old Testament were won violently illustrates the complexity of the issue.
It would be a small minority in our culture that thinks violence is the preferred way to settle differences. For a given situation, the differences of opinion regarding war most likely revolve around how to bring about that greatly desired peace.
For several decades, the leaders of anti-war protests in this country have tended also to support the right to kill unborn children. It is a dramatic inconsistency, intellectually and morally, to protest killing in war yet consciously and just as passionately support the killing of over a million unborn children per year in the U.S. I appeal to your tender hearts of compassion and your morality that pushes for justice and non-violence, to support the rights of the unborn. How we respond to this weakest among us tests our humanity and challenges the depth of our commitment to equality. Hundreds of thousands of those unborn killed yearly in this country have the nervous system maturity to feel the pain of dismemberment, mutilation, chemical burning, and having their brains sucked out. You cannot begin to bring about peace when you, yourselves, are promoting violence.
It’s always an honor and a blessing to speak on behalf of the unborn, and the warm response of pastor Greg and this congregation is greatly encouraging and appreciated. Pastor Gregg explained the Personhood Amendment so well that I needn’t say much more. The humanity of the unborn is not just a theological doctrine but is a known scientific fact. The human genome, the genetic material that each of us has at conception is complete, intact, and specific to our species. Nothing will be added to it as we develop. Being a member of the human species has been the basis for personhood in this nation, and the designation of personhood brings with it the right to life. That’s why establishing the personhood of the unborn is pivotal to overturning Roe v Wade. What’s pivotal for me, and the main reason I am a prolife fanatic is that the willful destruction of unborn children destroys the image of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit in its most pure form. The petition drive we bring to you today is an effort to get the personhood of the unborn established in Montana, and we are grateful for your enthusiastic involvement.
AVOID REALITY AND REASON AND ALL WILL BE WELL
Denial of reality is a common thread in the following tactics that have been successful in the momentum toward our nation’s destruction: ignoring the rules of mathematics in order to prop up the Big Bang theory of “creation” (the mathematical probability is nil that this universe came about by random chance), disregarding the foundational scientific laws of thermodynamics in order to sustain theories of random beginnings and humans evolving from single celled organisms ( law #1 and #2: energy can neither be created nor destroyed; all systems tend towards increasing disorder and disorganization), ignoring the preponderance of scientific facts that point to a Designer in order to promote the theory of evolution, and rewriting history as an attempt to keep God out of our government/legal system (ignoring the writings of the founding fathers that make it clear that our nation was founded on Theism).
Along the same lines but new to me, demonstrated in Darrell Goodwin’s 1/18/08 letter to the editor, is the tactic of supporting abortion rights by stating that definitions of human being and person are “fluid, not static.” Apparently, Mr. Goodwin merely needs to believe or wish something to be so, and it is so. If something comes to his consciousness that doesn’t fit with his belief system/agenda, he changes a definition, rewrites history, and simply closes his eyes and that nagging reality disappears. Astounding that reality adjusts according to his wishes, to his belief system! More amazing is that this approach to reality is embraced by such a large segment of our population.
Mr. Goodwin no doubt considers it “emotional” and inflammatory to call “pro-choice” proponents pro-abortion, but has no difficulty calling abortion rights a sweet-sounding term like “reproductive liberty.” To shamelessly utilize more dictionary definitions and scientific facts, I will state with absolute certainty: Abortion is killing/slaughtering unborn human children/babies, human beings, persons. It is undeniable, based on science, that we are human beings at conception based on being a live organism that has the distinctively human genome—the entire genome that we have until we are no more. Anyone that is unaware of the stages of development of the human embryo/fetus, I recommend going on line for a politically neutral source such as Parents.com, Pregnancy.org, Paternityangel.com. While viewing these children, understand that the unborn is thought to be capable of feeling pain by the time most pregnant women find out they have an unwanted pregnancy, and recognize that throughout the nine months of pregnancy it is legal in this country to destroy them, without anesthesia, by ripping apart/shredding their bodies by suction, curette, or larger scalpel. Throughout the gruesome history of man’s inhumanity to man, tearing off limbs has been one of the most cruel means of torture, and this is how we are destroying the youngest and most helpless members of our human family.
Many individuals that embrace “pro-choice/pro-abortion” ideology are caring people who think their view is making the world a better and more just place by promoting free choice and women’s rights. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I choose to believe Mr. Goodwin may fall into this category. However, good intentions, denial, flight from reality, altered definitions and other verbal gymnastics/hyperbole do not change the truth of what abortion is, and that reality is knowable by the reasoning, rational person. No ideology promoting the destruction of innocent human life can possibly bring us any closer to justice or equality; quite the contrary. Those slaughtered babies were not offered choice, justice, or equality, and by legalizing their destruction we degrade the value of our own humanness. How stunning Mr. Goodwin’s evasion of reason and reality and how fascinating his summon to protest a ProLife rally whose purpose was to promote the value, dignity, and protection, of innocent human life. THANK-YOU, EDITOR! Annie Bukacek 755-7785 (W)
REALITY CAMOUFLAGED BY “PRO-CHOICE” PHRASES
I appreciate Susan Cahill’s letter to the editor. It illustrates well the way “pro-choice” advocates have persuaded many people with good morals and intellects to believe in something that cannot withstand moral or intellectual scrutiny.
1)Susan’s use of phrases such as “terminate a pregnancy” diverts attention from the human life that is terminated. It has been critical to the pro-choice cause to use slogans such as a woman’s right to choice and privacy with no mention of the life destroyed by these choices and private decisions.
2)Susan describes women who have had abortions as heroes for standing up against “self-righteous bigotry”–suggesting that it is wrong and judgemental to stand firm in protection of human life. Common sense dictates that individual liberties should be limited when they infringe on another individual’s liberties such as the right to life. I have little room for judgmental thoughts because I am filled with loving concern and compassion for women who have had abortions and for those like Susan Cahill who perform abortions.
3)By mentioning a biblical term, Susan intimates that there is a specific theology behind the prolife stand. Separation of Church and State was never intended to leave God out, but to avoid the consequences of having one dominating dictating Church theology that does not represent the people. Most people in this nation still believe in a personal God in Whose image we are made, and it is right for our laws to reflect that.
Individually and collectively, we need sound intellectual and moral principles, as well as great outpouring of love for all members of our human family. AnnieBukacek
ROOTED AND CONSUMED IN LOVE
At the pro-life rally this year, we will pray for a focus on love for all members of our human family. We are each created in God’s image, each with special gifts and unique roles and circumstances in which to use those gifts. God loves the abortionist as much as He loves the unborn child. If we find ourselves unable to love and forgive, let us be mindful that that is not God’s way.
This emphasis on love does not soften our stand that abortion is an abomination and a heinous crime against humanity. We will continue to rally, picket, write letters, make speeches, distribute educational materials, and work to change laws so that the unborn are once again protected in our nation. We will not stop speaking frankly about what it is that abortion does–the indisputable fact that it destroys innocent human life. We pray that these worthy actions of the pro-life movement be deeply rooted in Godly love.
Lack of love and excess of arrogant judgement toward fellow-humans promotes a spiritual vacuum that contributes to the drive for women getting abortions and for abortionists performing them. We want to counter that with an outpouring of love, especially for those in the various areas of our lives that we find most difficult to love. Nothing less will do; nothing less is likely to be effective in our battle to protect the lives of the unborn.
Our desire is to be consumed with this kind of love, and all things are possible with God. We hope you’ll join us 1/21/01 at the pro-life rally in humble, hopeful prayer for individual and collective achievement of this goal.
PROBLEMS WITH THE PRO-CHOICE HARD LINE
Ellen Goodman’s article “Pro-life hard line is cracking” was about stem cell research calling into question the stage where protection of human life should begin. This protection question seems far more thorny for the abortion rights hard liner.
Dr. Martin Haskell says he developed partial birth abortions because dismemberment abortions (tearing off arms and legs) on the larger fetuses “were very tough. Sometimes it was a forty-five minute operation.” His description of the more efficient procedure: “Reassessing proper placement of the closed scissors tip…the surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents. With the catheter still in place, he applies traction to the fetus, removing it completely from the patient.”
One of his nurses testified, “The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction.”
The House and Senate voted to ban partial birth abortions. President Clinton vetoed this ban as unconstitutional, resulting in thousands of the procedure being done legally each year including in the ninth month of pregnancy. By this, Mr. Clinton promoted a “logical” consequence of abortion rights. The head remains in the birth canal when the brain is sucked out because to fully deliver the child and then destroy it would be considered murder. If a portion remains inside the mother, it is her private right to have it killed.
I believe most abortion right advocates are caring people lulled and deceived. If the reality of partial birth abortion beckons you to support protection of the unborn child at some point in development, (there is evidence that an 8-week unborn child can feel pain), I hope you’ll question the validity and origin of the abortion rights view that is fashionable yet cannot withstand moral or intellectual scrutiny.
SHEDDING INNOCENT BLOOD SHOULD NOT BE REWARDED
Our society plummets further when it starts giving prestigious “achievement awards” for destroying the lives of our most innocent fellow humans. I am referring to the recent article about Susan Cahill’s winning the “risk taker category” at a “Women Changing the World” ceremony.
I too appreciate the rare quality of taking risks for one’s beliefs. However, I cannot view it as noble or just when suicide bombers, abortionists, and others destroy innocent human lives as a core portion of that risk-taking. According to Proverbs 6:17, one of the seven abominations detestable to God is “hands that shed innocent blood”. By performing abortions under the guise of “pro-privacy” and “reproductive rights”, Susan Cahill and “her mentor Dr. James Armstrong” have killed thousands of children in the Flathead Valley. Susan calls her office a “happy healing place” where this grisly activity occurs.
No matter how heinous the crime, no matter how long its duration, the perpetrator who turns from it can reap the benefits of our God who perfectly combines justice and mercy and Whose loving compassion knows no bounds. A good thing about Susan’s returning to the Valley is that she will become the recipient of an increase in focused prayer for her. Having violent thoughts, words or actions against Susan Cahill or her property is wrong and will only serve to fuel her cause. It will take voluminous fervent and loving prayers to pierce through darkness so dense that actually convince herself that she is slaughtering innocents for a good cause.
ABORTION DOES NOT EMANCIPATE WOMEN
Jo Ann Nieman’s 12/17/05 letter implies that individuals who oppose abortion rights are also against women’s rights. She couldn’t be further from the truth. She states that, “A ruling body, composed mainly of men, decides the fate of the entire female population of the country.” “The arguments always revolve around the welfare of the embryo or fetus involved. This is the prime subject of the discussion, never the woman.”
Her letter brought to my mind an article I had read from USA TODAY 9/27/05. Being a steadfast and passionate women’s advocate, I was drawn to this article entitled “Global war on women” that was about the U.S.-led campaign on terror being also a battle for women’s freedom: “The greatest social revolution in history is underway all around us: The emancipation of women….”
I felt encouraged and uplifted by the article until it referred to the struggle to overturn Roe v Wade “as an attempt to turn back the clock on women’s freedom.” It said, “Opposing such a reversal isn’t a matter of thinking abortion admirable, but of accepting the magnificent revolutionary principle that no man has a right to tell any woman what she can or can not do with her body.”
Jo Ann suggests that the right to abortion serves as a vehicle for women’s emancipation if we focus on the pregnant woman and give less focus to or completely disregard the other life involved. Yet, how we respond to this weakest among us tests our humanity and challenges the depth of our commitment to equality. In spite of massive efforts to hide what abortion is, the woman knows or will figure it out at some point. Whatever life burdens she already carries, having an abortion further saddles her with having killed an innocent, helpless, and fully human being. A fleeting and feeble “freedom” indeed!
From conception, we have complete human genetic composition, are alive, and fit the dictionary definition of human life, human being, and person. “Unalienable rights” promoted in our Declaration of Independence, Constitutional Amendments, and laws are based on the “self-evident” special-ness of the human species and the equality of human persons. The legalization of abortion irrationally removed these rights from unborn humans and allows a mother to impose her morals on her child to the point of death.
Since we need laws and laws inevitably impose morality, it seems prudent to promote laws that are based on consistently rational thought and uncompromised reverence for the core dignity and worth of each human person. Liberation for women (and men) is not meaningful unless these basic conditions are met, and that’s why abortion is counteractive to it. Join us in the struggle for equality—come to the Prolife Rally 1/21/06 starting 2pm at Depot Park.
MATRICIDE OCCURS EVERY 23-30 SECONDS
The 4/17 AP article about matricide was deeply troubling. It mentioned briefly the “horrific case” of Lashanda Armstrong’s suicide/matricide in the Hudson River. It stated such cases “go against everything we intuitively feel about the mother-child bond,” but they occur “every few days, at least 100 times a year.”
Most troubling in the article is its disregard of the fact that mother’s are complicit in the death of their sons and daughters every 23-30 seconds when an abortion is performed. And the same poverty, stress, mental or physical illness, inconvenience, lack of emotional support, coercion, etc that leads to abortion leads to matricide of children born. The illogical distinction is made intentionally by some with political and media power, and there are many reasons why many people accept it. To name three: The child in the womb can’t speak and is unseen except by the abortionist reassembling the body parts of the dead child. Prolife individuals have been vilified, and the right to equal protection under the law has been misrepresented as an imposition of religious fanaticism.
If the mother-child bond is real, doesn’t it stand to reason abortion has a horrific impact on the mothers? Testimonies of post abortion maternal trauma abound. Post abortion women have written letters to this newspaper about consequent PTSD, suicidal tendencies and attempts, substance abuse, etc. Many mothers have healed and know that they are forgiven when they repent and turn to the Lord. Even some of those who know they are forgiven continue to have deep regrets. For those who think they have nothing to repent of…in other violent crimes against humanity, what do we usually think of the perpetrator who has no remorse?
The mother-child bond IS real, and abortion leaves at a minimum three victims—one dead, and two parents wounded. Then there is the degradation of society that occurs when any innocent segment of the population is considered disposable. The reality must be acknowledged—that abortion is premeditated murder of innocent humans. Its “legalization” must be seen as comparable to the Nuremburg Laws of Nazi Germany and abolished as those laws were abolished.
Black Genocide Perpetrated by the True Anti-Choice Extremists
It is understandable that Stacy C. James would want to twist the truth as she defends her organization in a March 8, 2010 Bozeman Chronicle guest column entitled, “Don’t be swayed by anti-choice extremists.” As chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Montana, Ms James has a lot to hide.
In a brief blush of honesty, she admits that the founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenicist and that her views were wrong. She does not clarify that a large portion of Ms Sanger’s eugenics writings and activities were leveled at blacks. Ms James states that the reason so many black babies die in abortion is that they don’t have access to “preventive services” aka contraception. That deception flies in the face of the fact that over 90% of Planned Parenthood Clinics are in minority neighborhoods.
36 percent of women who get abortions in this country are black, yet black women comprise only 6 percent of the U.S. population. 60 percent of pregnancies of black women end in abortion. Abortion is the number one cause of death in black communities. Clearly, Ms James’ organization has remained loyal to its racist roots.
There are many sources available for information about abortion as black genocide. There are the writings of black leaders Dr. Alveda King (niece of Dr. Martin Luther King), Walter Hoye (leader of the personhood movement in California), Clenard Childress (cofounder of www.blackgenocide.org) and others, I urge you to watch the Frederick Douglas Foundation sponsored documentary ”Maafa21 Black Genocide” that exposes the agenda. On the website www.montanaprolifecoalition.org , there is information regarding blacks, Hispanics and native Americans as targets for abortion
It is no mystery why pro-abortion organizations use deception in their communication. That is their only option. Racism is not acceptable to the majority of Americans. Killing innocent unborn humans is not something that can withstand intellectual and moral scrutiny. An estimated 60% of mothers who abort are coerced into it, and those butchered unborn humans had no choice whatsoever. It is the promoters of abortion who are the true anti-choice extremists.