Hate Mail

I wrote recently on the Generations for Life blog about the hate mail we get on a regular basis at Pro-Life Action League/Generations for Life/Families Against Planned Parenthood.

As you might guess, with all the attention recently surrounding the fight against the Abortion Fortress of Aurora, we’ve been seeing far more hate mail—which is almost always sent anonymously—than usual.

Like this:

[Message from You Suck A** (burninhell@stupidrepublicans.com)]

you people are f***ing losers and should burn in hell for harrassing women

You Suck A**

And:

[Message from PRO LIFERS ARE A JOKE!!! (f***you@lickmya**.com)]

you should be ashamed of yourselfs lying to the masses about abortion and pregnancy and getting youth involved if you hated abortion so much you;d be handing out condoms not lies !!!! i hope there is a hell so you all can burn in it! god does not promote hate and lies. you are using his name in vain. get real jobs you losers!!!

PRO LIFERS ARE A JOKE!!!

And:

I hope your own 12 year old daughter gets raped and pregnant so that then you can deal with this situation from a reality perspective.

Now, the temptation we feel is to respond to hatred with hatred of our own. And it's hard to imagine anything more vile than telling someone you hope their 12-year old daughter gets raped.

But, as I recently said in a comment on a post on the Generations for Life blog, we as pro-lifers must resist this temptation. We can't stoop to the level of hating anyone. Period.

Bryan Kemper of Stand True illustrated this point brilliantly in a recent commentary titled "Loving compassionate pro-life vs. Angry anti-abortion".

It begins:

The title of this commentary should seem like a no-brainer for Christians. It is so clear from scripture that we must love our enemies and have compassion on others. While we must take a stand against evil and share the truth, it has to be done in love.

Read the whole thing.

Speaking of anonymous messages, over the weekend an anonymous comment was posted on my Trotting Out the Same Tired Old Talking Points post from a couple of weeks ago, in which I wrote:

Ah, yes, because everybody knows that making contraception more widely available is the answer to preventing abortion, right?

Right?

Mmmm...not so much.

The anonymous commenter said:

Actually...it does

http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2007/10/11/index.html

First, although I allow them, under normal circumstances I find the practice of posting anonymous comments really, really annoying—and not a little dastardly. At the very least, sign a pseudonym at the end of your comment. Sheesh.

The link pointed out by the anonymous commenter is a news release from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of the Wal-Mart of the Abortion Industry) trumpeting the already infamous "compilation of estimates based on estimates", which pro-life bloggers had begun to vet as soon as it was released two weeks ago. (See more hole-poking of the study here.)

Those who believe in the Creed of Contraception and the Sacrament of Abortion can kick and scream and yell and shout all they want about how the former helps prevent the latter, but in the grand scheme of things, it, um, doesn't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Recently, I responded thusly to an e-mail that came to the Pro-Life Action League from someone asking about failure rates for the Pill:

Statisticians who assess the effectiveness of contraceptives use the term "perfect use" to describe the ideal conditions under which the lowest possible pregnancy rates can be achieved. For the pill, with "perfect use", the pregnancy rate is, as your doctor said, around 1%.

However, the term "perfect use" is, for all practical purposes, useless. It's merely a theoretical concept that offers a false sense of security. How often does "perfect use" occur? Rarely? Ever?

On the other hand, "typical use" is a much more accurate gauge of a given contraceptive's failure rate. Even the Alan Guttmacher Institute—the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the U. S., and one of the largest providers of contraceptives as well—acknowledges with "typical use", the pill has an 8% failure rate.

This statistic also appears on the same page from the AGI's website:

"Fifty-four percent of U.S. women who had an abortion in 2000 were using a method [of contraception] in the month they became pregnant."

They then say that this doesn't mean that contraceptives fail 54% of the time, and then say that these women apparently didn't use their contraceptives "perfectly".

Of course they didn't use them perfectly, because in all likelihood, no one uses them perfectly.

Chastity? Purity? Is There a Better Term?

Sunnyday, an e-friend of mine mine from the Philippines who blogs at This Is Not a Job for Superheroes, recently sent me a link to a good article—well, really more of an interview—between (husband) Greg and (wife) Lora Tan Garcia, the latter of whom recently wrote a book on chastity titled Keep Love Real.

Here's a snippet from the interview with Lora:

[Q:] Going back to difficulties with chastity for women, what is their struggle?

[A:] I think all women believe in chastity, especially Filipinas. It just hasn’t been offered in a nice package yet. They believe you have to be a liberated woman to find a man because of media. TV characters don’t get STDs. So, I guess they conform because they think that it is what works. Also, chastity is such a biblical term, so it turns people off.

[Q:] So what do you want to name it then?

[A:] Wala! I have been searching and “purity” sounds so holy. I guess that is why I wrote the book as an attempt to help my friends since chastity is the forgotten virtue...

This is an issue I have talked about with many others who also speak to kids about sex, dating, relationships, abstinence, etc.—what to call the topic under which we address these issues?

I know many people who agree with Lora that "chastity" unfortunately has somewhat of a negative connotation.

But is "purity" an improvement? I'm not so sure, as it's not a term that resonates with teenage guys.

Personally, I'm still inclined to favor, albeit not without some reservations, the term "chastity".

The Gospel According to Alfred Kinsey

The newest entry in Mark Shea's "Show me a culture that despises virginity and I'll show you a culture that despises children" category links to an article out of Norway that begins thusly:

Norwegians woke up Tuesday morning to news that a respected Oslo pre-school teacher, backed by child psychologists, thinks children should be allowed to openly express their own sexuality, not least through sex play and games in the local day care centers known as barnehager, or kindergartens.

It goes on to quote a "well-known pre-school educator" who says children should be able to:

look at each other and examine each other's bodies. They can play doctor, play mother and father, dance naked and masturbate.

But their sexuality must also be socialized, so they are not, for example, allowed to masturbate while sitting and eating. Nor can they be allowed to pressure other children into doing things they don't want to.

The cruel irony is that these same so-called children's advocates fail to grasp the painfully obvious reality that the non-establishment of boundaries will inevitably lead to children pressuring other children to do things they don't want to do.

These Things Take Time

The story of the absolution of the Knights Templar is a fascinating one.

What I cannot suffer, however, are cutesy attempts to editorialize about it by the MSM. This AP story, for example, begins thusly:

VATICAN CITY - It's not the Holy Grail, but for fans of "The Da Vinci Code" it could be the next best thing.

The implication (Intended? Unintended? My money is on the former) is clear: This historical development amounts to a vindication for those who believe all that crap DVC says about the so-called real history of the Catholic Church.

Seems to me it's rather impossible for this to serve as some sort of "See! I told you so!" moment for the disciples of DVC, for the simple fact that the Vatican is not, um, eliciting the services of albino Opus Dei assassin monks to keep the papers relating to the Templars a secret. Or anything else nefarious like that.

On the contrary, the Church is forthcoming about the matter.

Let's Talk About Planned Parenthood

Earlier this week on the Generations for Life blog, I wrote about Planned Parenthood's disgustingly cynical and condescending attitude toward pro-life teenagers.

Last week on GFL, I wrote about Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area's connection with the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), a group that has featured pornographers and strippers at their annual fundraiser the past two years.

In that post, I mentioned that PP/CA and ICAH have formed a a coalition whose goal is to strip all funding of abstinence education for Illinois schools and require them to use so-called comprehensive sex education programs instead.

Yet Planned Parenthood calls itself a "trusted health care provider", and says it "has always made the health and safety of teens one of its top priorities" by, for example, providing contraception to teens and sponsoring and promoting "comprehensive" sex education programs.

Trusted health care provider, health and safety of teens, top priorities...

So they say.

On Wednesday, October 17th, I'll be giving a talk on the physical, emotional, and spiritual dangers of "comprehensive" sex education programs. The title of my talk is, simply: Don't Trust Planned Parenthood.

It will be held at St. Peter's Church in Geneva, IL, 1891 Kaneville Road (see map here) at 7:00pm.

My talk is open to high school age students.

At the same time, and at the same church, Patricia Bainbridge, chairman of Human Life International and the Respect Life Office Director for the Rockford Diocese, will be giving a talk on Planned Parenthood to adults.

A flyer with more information on the talks is available here [PDF].

Trotting Out the Same Tired Old Talking Points

In this entry posted Monday on the Aurora Planned Parenthood blog, Steve Trombley was quoted as saying:

But we know that the services we provide at this center will do more in one day to prevent abortions than our opponents will do in a lifetime of protesting.

This "We do more in one day than they do in a lifetime" talking point seems to be a personal favorite of Trombley's, as he said pretty much the same thing when he was interviewed by a local news station on August 25:

We believe that health center will do more in one day to prevent abortions than those protesters will do in a lifetime.

Ah, yes, because everybody knows that making contraception more widely available is the answer to preventing abortion, right?

Right?

Mmmm...not so much.

Words Can't Describe How Pathetic the Cubs' Performance Was in the 2007 NLDS

But this picture more or less sums it up:

The Herd of Independent Thinkers in the Mainstream Media Continue to Act Like, Well, a Herd of Independent Thinkers

After I read this article, "CBS Portrays Abstinence Club Teens Murdering to Keep Secret their Sexual [Activity]", I found myself feeling like the mosquito at the nudist colony:

I simply don't know where to begin.

This Blog Is Banned in China

At least, according to this site, it is. So is my work's website/blog, Generations for Life.

I guess I can't say as I'm surprised.

Remind me again why we're not boycotting the 2008 Olympics?



HT: Shoved to Them

On the Air Tonight

I've been asked by Stephanie Wood to be a guest tonight (Thursday) on Next Wave Live, a program for Catholic young adults on EWTN Radio.

I'll be on around 8:15pm central time.

You can listen live here.

Trouble with a Capital "T" and That Rhymes with "P" and That Stands for Planned Parenthood

Nearly three hours ago, the nation's largest abortion provider's largest abortion clinic opened in Aurora, IL.

Kyrie, eleison.

I haven't the time to summarize all the events that have transpired in the past 24 hours, so rather than duplicate the efforts of others, I'll simply refer you to said efforts of others; to wit, Jill Stanek's blog and the Families Against Planned Parenthood blog (the latter of which is the blog of—among others—my co-worker, Eric Scheidler, who has been spearheading our efforts at the Aurora site these past two months).

The latest development in the story comes courtesy of our attorney, Tom Brejcha of the Thomas More Society Pro-Life Law Center, via Jill, and concerns an appeal of the granting of the occupancy permit filed by fellow pro-life attorney Peter Breen. The appeal was filed with the Aurora Zoning Board of Appeals at 9:58 this morning, two minutes before the Abortion Fortress was scheduled to open.

Brejcha writes:

TMS was acting on behalf of nearby property owners who are aggrieved by the violation of their rights to have notice and a public hearing on a proper application for a special use permit, which PP never applied for, let alone obtained.

We also filed on behalf of the Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood, other members of which are affected property owners and citizens of Aurora.

Thus Peter accomplished the filing before 10 a.m. when PP said that it would open for business pursuant to the occupancy permit.

This filing, legally speaking, is supposed to trigger an automatic "stay" of the decision by which the permit was granted.

Whether the decision was made by the zoning administrator or by the mayor or by other officials remains to be seen. No finding was made to the effect that any emergency would occur if the stay were honored, and the law provides that absent such a finding the stay of any further proceedings pursuant to the challenged administrative action will be effective immediately.



Again, we are testing whether Aurora will follow the law or fudge it. We're shortly to send copies of the appeal to the lawyers for Planned Parenthood and Aurora's Corporation Counsel and outside counsel.

The thrust of our appeal is rather simple and straightforward: to test whether the rule of law still applies in Aurora, as elsewhere. That is, the question is whether the city is to be run by executive fiat, where the Mayor can read out of the law those provisions that he finds politically or otherwise inconvenient... or whether those entrusted with jurisdiction to make proper planning and zoning decisions in accordance with state law and city ordinances should make those decisions on the merits, without bending the law to suit the demands of cash-rich special interests....




The only rationale I've seen so far for the other side is the zoning administrator's rather flimsy suggestion that the "non-profit" and "charitable" use category in the zoning code is somehow ambiguous (he never explains how it is so), whereas the medical office category is more specific and clear. But if there ever was a "non-profit," it's the massive tax-exempt entity called Planned Parenthood -- a charity and, as such, the beneficiary of millions of dollars in tax-exempt donations as well as government largesse.



And, of course, if our appeal is somehow brushed aside we'll most certainly have "exhausted our administrative remedies" and we'll then proceed to court to seek judicial relief.

Oh, BTW, remember those full-page ads I mentioned a few weeks ago—the ones in which Planned Parenthood accused us of having a "well-documented history of advocating violence against both persons and property, as well as other related criminal activity"?

Yesterday, Brejcha filed a libel lawsuit on our behalf against Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area.

On Breastfeeding in Public

Taking a cue from CourageMan, today I begin what may (or may not, I suppose) become a regular feature on Lunch Break: posting entries that originally were comments of mine on (in?) other blogs' comboxes.

Yesterday at Catholic Dads, Matthew from Play the Dad? No, Be the Dad! posted an entry on breastfeeding in public titled "Obscene? Indecent? Scandalous? Nope!" that I think was very much on target.

I posted this comment:

Some very good points here, Matthew.

I may be shooting from the hip on this one, but I'm of the opinion that nursing in public is often perceived to be indecent because it is (and has been for quite some time) done relatively rarely, thanks to the recommendations of the Herd of Indepdendent Thinkers who decided in the middle of the last century that the idea that babies should be fed formula somehow marked a crowning achievement for human civilization.

I say "relatively rarely" in reference to the portrayal of women's breasts exclusively as sexual, which is surely the norm in our pornified culture.

In essence, then, to the modern mind, the "real"—i. e., the belief that women's breasts are primarily for nursing her children—has been replaced by the "counterfeit"—i. e., the belief that women's breasts are primarily, if not exclusively, sexual.

(As an aside: Much the same can be said of contraception and its impact on people's attitudes toward sex. To the modern mind, the "real"—i. e., the belief that openness to having a child is an essential component of sex—has been replaced by the "counterfeit"—i. e., the belief that contraceptive sex is the norm.)

It follows that those of us who believe the opposite—that the real is actually the counterfeit and vice versa—are often considered daft.

My sense is that were public nursing to be done ubiquitously, this wacky popular notion that it is indecent would wane.

Get 'Em Before They're Gone!

HT: Mark Shea

It's Gonna Happen

For fear that the Curse of the Billy Goat has not yet been broken, I've been reluctant to say publicly what I've been wanting to say for a few months now, but John Kass's column yesterday in the Chicago Tribune has served as a kick in the pants for me. Titled "Note to Cubs fans: Go all in or pack it in", it begins thusly:

All right Cubs fans. It's time to decide. Are you all in? Or are you out?

It's the last week of the season. The Cubs are fighting to get into the playoffs. No more hiding. No more wussification in the Cubs nation.

Are you in? Or not?

I ask this not as a White Sox fan who, like my Sox brothers and sisters, has been where you are now. I ask as Mr. Predictor, co-founder of the proposed Chumbolone Museum of Grant Park and dean of the new University of Chumbolone.

Don't be a chumbolone, Cubs fans. Believe in these Cubs.

Remember June? Cubs fans were in the fetal position, cursing Jacque Jones, damning Carlos Zambrano, giving Lou Piniella the finger for not knowing anything about baseball.

It was mass hysteria, and I could have fanned the flames of self loathing. Instead, I channeled Mr. Predictor. And what did Mr. Predictor tell you back in June?

That the Cubs would win this thing. They'd win it, they'd win it, they'd win it.

Now, in the last week of the season, don't take a turn to negativity town. You can still get on the bus, but the door closes Sunday afternoon.

I was able to get on the bus yesterday afternoon before the door closed. I'm all in.

Why not? After all, my "other team" (the team I've rooted for since childhood, the team that played its home games mere miles from the house I grew up in -- the Minnesota Twins) has been in a free fall for the better part of two months now, and will now be lucky to finish above .500.

So I now add my voice to the chorus of voices that have been proclaiming since late July, seemingly against all odds: It's gonna happen.

One of the Best. Paintings. Ever.

In honor of today, the feast of St. Matthew, behold Caravaggio's The Call of St. Matthew:



If you've never seen the original, add it to your own personal List of Things I Must Do Before I Die. It's in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, which is home to two other [!] Caravaggios as well, both of which also feature St. Matthew.

Planned Parenthood Aurora's Opening Delayed Again!

U. S. District Court Judge Charles Norgle has just ruled against Planned Parenthood's demand to let them open the largest abortion clinic in the country before the City of Aurora's investigation into Planned Parenthood's dealings with the city is completed.

So for now, the Abortion Fortress of Aurora remains CLOSED.

Huzzah!

Today

...is the feast of St. Januarius.

I've always been intrigued by this custom:

It is also well known and is the plain fact, seen even unto this day, that when the blood of St. Januarius, kept dried up in a small glass phial, is put in sight of the head of the same martyr, it is wont to melt and bubble in a very strange way, as though it had but freshly been shed."

It is especially this miracle of the liquefaction which has given celebrity to the name of Januarius, and to this we turn our attention. Let it at once be said that the supposition of any trick or deliberate imposture is out of the question, as candid opponents are now willing to admit. For more than four hundred years this liquefaction has taken place at frequent intervals. If it were a trick it would be necessary to admit that all the archbishops of Naples, and that countless ecclesiastics eminent for their learning and often for their great sanctity, were accomplices in the fraud, as also a number of secular officials; for the relic is so guarded that its exposition requires the concurrence of both civil and ecclesiastical authority. Further, in all these four hundred years, no one of the many who, upon the supposition of such a trick, must necessarily have been in the secret, has made any revelation or disclosed how the apparent miracle is worked. Strong indirect testimony to this truth is borne by the fact that even at the present time the rationalistic opponents of a supernatural explanation are entirely disagreed as to how the phenomenon is to be accounted for.

What actually takes place may be thus briefly described: in a silver reliquary, which in form and size somewhat suggests a small carriage lamp, two phials are enclosed. The lesser of these contains only traces of blood and need not concern us here. The larger, which is a little flagon-shaped flask four inches in height and about two and a quarter inches in diameter, is normally rather more than half full of a dark and solid mass, absolutely opaque when held up to the light, and showing no displacment when the reliquary is turned upside down. Both flasks seem to be so fixed in the lantern cavity of the reliquary by means of some hard gummy substance that they are hermetically sealed. Moreover, owing to the fact that the dark mass in the flask is protected by two thicknesses of glass it is presumably but little affected by the temperature of the surrounding air. Eighteen times in each year, i.e. (1) on the Saturday before the first Sunday in May and the eight following days, (2) on the feast of St. Januarius (19 Sept.) and during the octave, and (3) on 16 December, a silver bust believed to contain the head of St. Januarius is exposed upon the altar, and the reliquary just described is brought out and held by the officiant in view of the assembly. Prayers are said by the people, begging that the miracle may take place, while a group of poor women, known as the "zie di San Gennaro" (aunts of St. Januarius), make themselves specially conspicuous by the fervour, and sometimes, when the miracle is delayed, by the extravagance, of their supplications.

The officiant usually holds the reliquary by its extremities, without touching the glass, and from time to time turns it upside down to note whether any movement is perceptible in the dark mass enclosed in the phial. After an interval of varying duration, usually not less than two minutes or more than an hour, the mass is gradually seen to detach itself from the sides of the phial, to become liquid and of a more or less ruby tint, and in some instances to froth and bubble up, increasing in volume. The officiant then announces, "Il miracolo é fatto", a Te Deum is sung, and the reliquary containing the liquefied blood is brought to the altar rail that the faithful may venerate it by kissing the containing vessel. Rarely has the liquefaction failed to take place in the expositions of May or September, but in that of 16 December the mass remains solid more frequently than not.

A miracle? Not a miracle? Who knows? (Well, except for Him, of course...)

But an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.

Aurora Planned Parenthood Will NOT Open Tomorrow!

Huzzah!

From the Aurora Beacon:

Planned Parenhood's Aurora center will not open on Tuesday as legal wrangling continues. A federal judge Monday set another hearing for Thursday to address issues by both sides in an ongoing lawsuit.

Hands down, the best line from the story about the non-opening of Planned Parenthood's ginormous Abortion Fortress tomorrow is this:

Planned Parenthood President and CEO Steve Trombley counted the judge's ruling as a victory for Planned Parenthood saying that it is clear the judge took the issue seriously.

Um, if you sue the city to force you to open on a particular day, and if the judge in the case does not rule that the city must allow you to open on that particular day, how can that possibly be considered a victory?

Opposition to Planned Parenthood Getting Stronger Every Day

Saturday's Jericho March finale at the Aurora Planned Parenthood site was a great success, with an estimated 1,000 people walking, singing, playing instruments, and, most of all, praying for the "Abortion Fortress" not to open.

We got some good media coverage, too:

• See ABC News Channel 7 video here


• See Fox News Channel 32 video here


• See WGN News Channel 9 News video here


• See the Chicago Tribune story here

Here are a couple of slide shows from the Jericho March finale:

Planned Parenthood Sues the City of Aurora

Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area is suing the City of Aurora to allow it to open next Tuesday.

A copy of the lawsuit is here [PDF].

Keep an eye on Jill Stanek's blog for developments.