Hello Baby!

So, I've got all the kids and I've bought a -ahem- crapload of diapers. My questions is when do I get the free iPad?

h/t Aggie Catholics

The Cost of Catholicism

Rolled up to my neighborhood Catholic pharmacy this week only to be greeted with this ominous sign.

"Divine Mercy Care, the parent organization of the DMC Pharmacy announces that the DMC Pharmacy will close permanently effective 6:00 p.m. March 4, 2010 due to financial difficulties."

So Divine Mercy Care and Tepeyac will continue to exist and care for OB/GYN needs, but the only 1-of-7 pro-life pharmacies in the U.S. will close permanently. I have become personally acquainted with Robert Semler and his wife, Pam over DMC Pharmacy's too-short run. They are top-notch caring people and their service to our community will be sorely missed -- by me and my family in the immediate future.

The larger Catholic and pro-life community will miss them as well, but not until much later (perhaps when all their real choices have dried up). I believe that DMC Pharmacy did not succeed at this time because people -- and specifically Catholics -- failed to care.

A number of people were excited at the inception of the pharmacy and gave time, talent, and treasure. However, the ordinary pew-sitter failed to patronize the store, failed to transfer their prescriptions, failed to see the extra-ordinary chance at building a sustained Catholic culture and presence in the shadow of our nation's capital.

With who-knows-what on the verge of passing in the health care reform legislation (mandatory subsidization of abortion, absence of conscience clauses, government "management" of costs and procedures) this is particularly bitter.

Surely the recession played a part, even though the prices were very competitive. But the "it's too far" or "not convenient enough" or "that's nice, but" excuses are the real culprits. The business was growing, but not fast enough to make it. Dr. John Bruchalski said in his letter that DMC Pharmacy was an idea "ahead of its time".

I sympathize, Dr. B., but if not now, when?

Two Approaches To Abortion With RU-486

You knew it was coming. You hoped it wasn't, but in a society as debauched as ours, it is hardly surprising.

[ABCNews] Angie Jackson says nothing is off-limits on Twitter, not even the details of her abortion [to] chronicle her experience taking RU-486, commonly known as the abortion pill, in an attempt to "demystify" abortion for other women.

Already the mother of a 4-year-old son with special needs, Jackson, who lives in Tampa, Fla., with her boyfriend, said that after a difficult and life-threatening first pregnancy her doctors advised her to not get pregnant again.

"I had made a decision when my son was born to try to not get pregnant again, and if that failed I'd planned that I would get an abortion if I needed one," Jackson said.



"It's not that bad. It's not killing a child." she says in her YouTube post.

I'm not sure what is mystifying about the abortion drug, unless it's the idea that it's either safe, painless, or doesn't kill a child. One has to be willfully ignorant to gloss over the basic science and purpose of RU-486.

Jackson adds, "I'm not trying to ignite a culture war, I'm just offering one person's personal experience and true story."

Here is where the story starts to unravel. Jackson's Twitter handle is "AntiTheistAngie" -- not atheist, anti-theist. She signs off her posts, "Hope everyone has a Godless day". People who are "not trying to ignite a culture war" don't throw grenades. I don't believe in little green men, but I don't spend much time and energy trying to debunk those who do.

It would be easy to be simply incensed, but I am actually moved to pity. How does a person get that far removed from reality; the conscience that dulled? According to the article, Jackson is a self-professed atheist who says she grew up in a fundamentalist cult and survived sexual abuse. Any one of those things would have long lasting and damaging effects; she has the trifecta. Jackson's stated goal is to "demystify" (and even encourage) abortion in other women, which is the real tragedy.

As long as we are "demystifying", here is a gripping counterpoint from Catholic blogger and one of our favorites, the Mom, at Shoved To Them. Her experience shows the grim reality of the abortion drug RU-486, but also the grace and healing that comes from knowing God and acknowledging the humanity of each and every person. This is both heart-wrenching and grace-filled at the same time.

I wanted to write about my own experience taking Mifeprex, the abortion drug known as RU-486. Our baby had died at some point during the previous week.

[...] Really, I just wanted them to give me the drugs and let me go home. I didn't want to spend 24 hours on the maternity ward listening to the cries of other people's healthy babies and wait for my own heartbreak to begin. I have been in labor a few times and thought it was reasonable to think that I would know when to come to the hospital. I was told I could bleed to death. I stayed.

Labor began for me about 3 hours after I took the first dosage. It was administered both orally and vaginally. Within the first hour, I understood why I couldn't have gone home. I began to pass blood clots. They came in steady succession as if on a string. They ranged in size from the size of a chicken's egg to as large as my fist. Every time I moved another clot would become loose and come out. I thought I was hemorrhaging; I thought I was going to bleed to death. It was horrific. I forgot why I was there for a while and just sat on the bed crying and shaking in fear that my 4 living children would grow up without me. I have no idea how much blood came out of my body. I stopped counting clots at 20. After 20, it just didn't seem to matter any more. I asked the nurse if my experience was normal and she assured me that this was what an RU-486 abortion looked like and that I was fine.

Our daughter's body was delivered four and a half hours after the first contraction. She was the size of my hand. She was smooth and shiny and pink with perfect fingers and toes. Heartbreakingly small and achingly perfect. Our midwife wiped her clean and laid her on a blanket before handing her to me. I have never seen such agony as I saw on my husband's face when he heard her whisper, "It's a girl." His face looked like it folded in on itself. Our baby was really and truly dead. Somehow it didn't seem real until we held her in our hands and looked at her through our tears.

It wasn't over yet. I still had to deliver the placenta. It took another two hours for it to let go and come out of me. The doctor who was supervising kept coming by to check and ask "Is it out yet?" in a strangely cold voice. I later learned from my midwife that she performed abortions herself and was deeply disturbed by our pain. She told our midwife to get us out of the hospital as quickly as possible because we were upsetting the staff, and that she didn't understand why we were crying over something which was little more than a tumor in medical terms.

I can not imagine being 14, at home, trying to hide this from my mother, and having this experience. My brain can't even get to that place of fear. A child, scared and alone, passing blood clot after blood clot, thinking you're bleeding to death, but afraid to tell in case you aren't. And then, delivering that impossibly small body. Perfect, lifeless, and undeniably human. What does a little girl do when her body hurts that much, and her mind fears that much, and her baby lies dead in her hand? How is this okay?

I am not sure what the answers are, but I do know that women deserve better than to be treated this way. Our bodies and our minds deserve better protection. People can chant and scream about the rights of women, but I know that women and girls have a right to something better than this. They have a right to something better than abortion.

Like she said: Women Deserve Better.

Woman With Knife Cancels Abortion

I'd like to think the best about this situation, and not that it was a ploy to get less jail time.

[DNT] Mechelle Hall dabbed tears from her eyes Tuesday as she pleaded guilty to second-degree assault for brandishing a knife and threatening a woman who urged her not to get an abortion.

“Thank you for being there,” [Hall] said. “If they weren’t there, I probably would have gone through with it and regretted it for the rest of my life. It probably would have gone the other way. I’m sincerely sorry for doing that to her.”

It seems that if women felt they had better options, there just might be less abortions.

The NFL And Abortion

Next Sunday we'll hear a lot about two things: the winner of the Superbowl and the Superbowl commercial featuring Tim Tebow, star quarterback of the Florida Gators and Heisman Trophy-winner.

The 30 second ad will be the heartwarming story of how Pam Tebow ignored doctor's advice to abort her baby when she contracted amoebic dysentery and delivered a healthy son who has grown up to be a star on and off the field. The ad, which hasn't been released, is being billed as more pro-life in the best sense of the word as opposed to anti-abortion.

Whether the ad ever sees the light of day is irrelevant at this point. The message has gone out far and wide thanks to the radical feminazis' paroxysms of outrage over at NOW and NARAL. The nation is talking, having that dialog that anti-science abortion groups have tried to prevent. The increased use of ultrasound technology makes clear that the subject of an abortion is a human baby and not an inert clump of cell with "heart tones".

Despite active attempts to hide the truth and a relentless barrage of "pro-choice" messages by almost every mainstream media outlet, a majority of the people in the country today consider themselves "pro-life", according to Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey. And increasing numbers of those people are the young, who will determine the future of the country. This is hardly surprising, since abortion advocates can't be expected to reproduce in appreciable numbers; they literally kill off their point of view.

Tim Tebow is not the first football star to come out in support of the pro-life cause. Giants co-owner Wellington Mara made a short video in 1989, "Champions For Life," in which members of the 1987 Superbowl Champion New York Giants spoke out against abortion.



That was twenty-two years ago. Now the next generation's turn to step up and speak out has come. That is exactly what twenty-two year old Tim Tebow is doing.

You can thank his mom.

News Skew As Usual On March For Life

It should hardly come as a surprise that the major news outlets have largely ignored - again - one of the largest (and recurrent) protests in Washington D.C.

A quick look at indexed news articles does not show any major news organization hits for the March For Life until near the bottom of the first page of hits (NBC Washington), and then only to note that traffic will be difficult as a result of tens of thousands of marchers. (Estimates from the actual event put it near 300,000.)

Surprised? Didn't think so.

The Washington Post had a link in the Local / Metro section that redirected to the Religion section. It definitely wasn't "above the fold". The article wasn't particularly biased when it correctly reported that

Few counter-demonstrators were visible along the route, but some gathered in front of the Supreme Court.

but the accompanying video was heavily skewed to give the impression of a lot more counter-demonstrators and show a "balanced" report. (Example: the still for the video shows a "Keep Abortion Legal" sign holder.) In keeping with the Post's political leanings, the article titles used the "anti-abortion" appellation vs. the "pro-life" language.

Then there are the active truth twisters like Newsweek who assert that there are no young women attending the March for Life. No, I'm not linking to them.

They can skew all they like or try to create news blackouts by not covering it, but still - somehow - hundreds of thousands of people show up every year to protest abortion.

Pro-Life Demonstrator Murdered

A peaceful pro-life demonstrator was murdered outside a school by a drive-by shooter. The victim was an elderly man with an oxygen tank.

Read about it here, here, here, and here.

Where's the outrage by liberals, the media, Planned Barrenhood? Where's the FBI and Secret Service protection for all the grandparents praying on the corner? This statement by PP is kinda lame:

"We want to be very clear that we have no idea if this was related to his views, but Planned Parenthood would never condone any sort of violence against anyone, regardless of their views," said Lamerand.

Yeah, right, I forgot -- they're just in it for the money. After the public tar and feathering of all the peaceful pro-life crowd following the abortionist Tiller's murder, you'd think PP could muster up a little better response.

And yeah, the old guy with the oxygen tank WAS murdered for his views:

[CMR] It's now confirmed that Drake killed Pouillon because he was "offended" by his pro-life message, according to Connected Michigan.

One thing you can bank on: whatever the radical left wing nuts accuse conservatives of, you can be sure it was in their own hearts first.

Targeting Conscience

I opened up my Arlington Catholic Herald today, since it always comes in the mail on Thursday, to see what's going on in the Diocese, and I see this headline on page 2: Pro-life pharmacy targeted by proposed law.

Now, it states that the bill was introduced into the Virginia House of Delegates as a "general bill" (Virginia House Bill 2373) by delegate David Englin from Virginia’s 45^th district requiring "pro-life" pharmacies to put a sign in the window proclaiming that they don't sell contraceptives or abortifacients. But a quick search will reveal that DMC Pharmacy is the only one in Virginia. That means they were specifically targeted as an individual business -- which is illegal (I think) or ought to be.

Nation-wide there are only 7 publicly confirmed "pro-life" pharmacies, but the radical foaming-at-the-mouth types would have you believe it's an epidemic where you won't be able to get an aspirin if your doctor doesn't believe in it.

Other than the obvious religious bigotry, I have a personal reason for being incensed: I shop there. I know the pharmacist, Robert and Pam Semler, personally. (Nicer people you will not meet.) My family and friends go there precisely because they are pro-life. As Robert Semler said,

"We're not threatening anybody. We're just trying to serve a niche market of like-minded individuals."

And believe me, this is a tiny store; there are several other national pharmacies within two hundred yards of this one, including a KMart and a CVS. I don't sue Giant if they don't carry Pistachio ice cream (they don't, I looked); I don't draft legislation against Target because they have one check out line without candy in it -- some parents prefer that line. It's the same thing here: people will patronize businesses that have (or explicitly lack) things they want. Others go somewhere else. It's that simple.

Unfortunately, this is a small dose of a growing threat to personal conscience and values. Opponents worry they won't be able to kill the right people if doctors and health care providers are allowed to exercise their own freedom of religion (aka conscience).

The price of freedom: eternal vigilance.