A Christmas Story

Professor Pete Tigchelaar at Calvin College (USA) has a story relevant to the Christmas season. For many years, Tigchelaar used a three-month old pre-born baby encased in plastic to explain pre-natal development in his biology class. One day a young female student asked if he still had the model. Tigchelaar said he did, and the student told him an interesting tale.

She said that many years before, her mother had been a student in the professor's biology class. Tigchelaar did not know it, but this student was three months pregnant at the time. The student had already been to a pregnancy clinic, where workers told her about the "products of conception" and the "contents of her uterus." She had made an appointment for an abortion the next day. But when she saw the foetus-with its fingers, eyes, outline of a liver, and other features-she declined the abortion and six months later delivered a girl. "I am that girl", explained the student. "Thank you for my life".

Tigchelaar still gets emotional when he tells the story. "In this season when we celebrate the birth of someone who came to give each of us eternal life," Tigchelaar says, "I am reminded that the unwed Mary would have been the perfect candidate for a similar procedure. I am thankful that her response was, 'I am the Lord's handmaid. Be it to me as you say.'"

In this Christmas season, let us remember and emulate the heroism of Mary in giving her unplanned baby the gift of life. Let us also remember and emulate the heroism of Joseph, who protected and nurtured mother and child through those difficult nine months and beyond. The heroism of these two individuals helped make the world a much richer place. No to abortion; yes to life.

Story from Calvin News, 18 December 2008

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at www.letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

This space has spent nearly 88,000 words defending human life from conception to natural death. But as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Some pro-life advocates believe that people will thoroughly reject abortion when they see what the procedure really does. With that principle in mind, Father Frank Pavone posted numerous photographs of aborted children on his website. View them at www.priestsforlife.org/images. Be warned that these are graphic photos. If you find these photos upsetting, consider whether the procedure that produced them really advances a society. No to abortion, yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

The Poverty of Abortion

Mother Teresa spent much of her life helping the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India. Mother Teresa's concern for the weak and poor extended to unborn children. Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, has this to say about her:

Reflections on the life and work of Mother Teresa characteristically focuses on her "love for the poor." She did love the poor. But her understanding of what poverty is was much deeper than that of most observers. To understand it, we need to appreciate her message about what human beings are called to do. We were made to love and be loved, she would often remark. To give and receive love is the calling and greatness of human beings.

The fundamental poverty, then, is to fail to give and receive love. That is why a society which throws away its children by abortion is poorer than one which does not have many material resources. The society that permits abortion fails in its calling to give love, to welcome the inconvenient person. To fail to love is poverty. To fail to love to the point where the other person is not even recognized as a person, and is legally destroyed, is poverty to the extreme. Abortion is this extreme poverty in action.

Mother Teresa picked up the dying from the streets of Calcutta with the same love with which she pulled women away from abortion facilities. Love is indivisible. It means making room for the other person, whether that person is in the street or in the womb. It means feeding that person, not just with food for the body, but with the recognition, attention, and compassion that their personal dignity demands.

May Swaziland never fall into the deepest poverty, a poverty which discounts the life of a child as a disposable burden. May the nation protect her greatest resource-human beings-from conception to natural death.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Homosexuality

Recently the Times has run news stories and opinion pieces about homosexuality. Before people decide that being gay is just another lifestyle choice that should be regarded as normal, they might consider these findings:
*According to the Gay Community News, "The statistics do point to the gay community, particularly gay men, as being most at risk of becoming alcoholics."
*The Archives of Sexual Behavior says "The levels of depression and anxiety in our homosexual subjects, whether HIV positive or HIV negative, are substantially higher than those found in representative general population samples."
*A 1978 study by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg, 18% of white gay men reported trying to kill themselves at least once; 3% of white heterosexual men said they had tried to commit suicide.

Significantly, the publications and individuals reporting these data are very much in favor of the societal normalization of homosexuality.

Mary Eberstadt wrote the following in a short article to First Things magazine in February 2004: "None of that evidence, of course, will suprise those who actually minister to homosexual persons from a traditionalist perspective. But this same evidence is almost entirely unknown, because culturally verboten [forbidden] throughout the secular world and particularly among our secular elites".

No one wishes gay men and women to suffer the afflictions documented above and elsewhere. Nevertheless, the push to normalize gay behaviour is rampant throughout what is commonly called the "mainstream media". Before we confirm that way of life for individuals, however, we would do well to consider if it is good for them. The statistics indicate that it is not.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion and Poverty

During a recent discussion about abortion, a thoughtful young man brought up this hypothetical (and perhaps not so hypothetical) situation. "Mr. Poglitsh, what if there is a girl who is pregnant; she has no job, no husband, no resources. Wouldn't abortion be better in this situation?" Wouldn't it be more compassionate, this young man was saying, to both the girl and the child with no future to have an abortion?

The first answer to the question of abortion in such a circumstance is "No", because it is always wrong to kill an innocent person. The child is not responsible for the hard circumstances; thus, an unborn child should not be put to death because of them.

A second answer comes by way of an anecdote. Consider this true situation. A husband and wife already have four children. The man has syphilis, the woman has tuberculosis. One child is blind, another deaf and unable to speak, another has tuberculosis, and the other has a deformity. The wife is now pregnant with a fifth child. Should she abort? Wouldn't it be better, for both the family and the child in the womb, for that child not to be born?

The mother did choose life for her son; he was Ludwig Van Beethoven, one of Europe's most celebrated composers. So the second answer to the question of aborting a child because of the hard circumstances is "No", because no one knows what good a child might do. Mother Theresa, the famous nun who worked among the poor of India, is credited with saying "The scientist who would have solved the AIDS problem has already been aborted."

Beneath the surface of the "abort because the child will have no future" argument lurks a threat to all of us. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that it would be okay to kill the child in the womb because the mother's circumstances were bleak and the future looked equally bad. Well, if killing someone due to poverty is now "okay", then why should it be the baby who dies? After all, lots of other people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and older have had their opportunities to enjoy food, clothing, and shelter; why not kill one of them and give the resources (job, home, car, etc.) to the expectant mother and her unborn child? Surely this is more "fair", as the previous owner has enjoyed these possessions for many years, and the life of the baby has just begun.

Of course this argument is morally reprehensible, but the logic leading from "abort due to poverty" to "kill the 40-somethings and share the wealth" is sound. Tragically, this logic is already working itself out in some nations like the Netherlands where, according to Dr. John Willke, "130,000 people die each year in Holland and over 20,000 are killed, directly or indirectly, by doctors. As many as half did not ask to be killed." Dr. Willke continues: "Hospitalized seniors are routinely visited by an organization that offers to oversee their case to prevent their doctor from killing them."

We must defend life from conception to natural death. Declaring some humans expendable to alleviate poverty puts everyone at risk. For the sake of our own lives and the lives of others-no to abortion, yes to life.



Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

The Good Samaritan

Abortion damages women and kills children. We can take courage, however, from Jesus' parable of The Good Samaritan. Father Frank Pavone of the group Priests for Life illustrates the parable in this way. "On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, a man fell in with robbers. A priest and a Levite came by, but did not stop to help. Despite their knowledge of the Law and Prophets, they walked right by. Why?

One of the reasons may be that they were afraid. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is a steep and dangerous road. At the time of Jesus, it had come to be known as the 'Bloody Pass'. Because of its numerous curves, it lends itself to attacks by robbers who can easily hide not too far from their victims. Perhaps the priest and Levite who passed by that man said to themselves, 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? Maybe the robbers who attacked him are still here. Maybe they're hiding just around the bend. This is a dangerous road. I better keep going.'

And then the Good Samaritan came along, and he reversed the question. He didn't ask, 'If I help this man, what will happen to me?' The Good Samaritan asked, 'If I do not help this man, what will happen to him?' And that's the question for us. If I do not address this evil, what will happen to the unborn? If I do not get involved, what will happen to those who are vulnerable, to those who are marginalized in our society, those who are oppressed, those who have no one to speak for them?"

Father Pavone's illustration applies to both the unborn and their mothers, because both are powerfully damaged by abortion. May we be like the Good Samaritan and ask ourselves "What will happen to this mother and child if I do not help them?" May we answer our own question by giving life-affirming support to women and children. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion and Women's Mental Health

Abortion advocates promote abortion as a solution to the problems generated by an unplanned pregnancy. With regard to abortion and his own daughters, US President Barack Obama has said "If they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
Doctor Priscilla K. Coleman, research psychologist at Bowling Green State University (USA), recently published the article "Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995-2009" in The British Journal of Psychiatry. She reviewed nearly 15 years of research examining abortion's effects on the mental health of the women who undergo the procedure. Her review encompassed 22 studies from 6 countries; taken together, the studies included over 800,000 women, 163,000 of whom had undergone abortion.
Her results? Subjecting the studies to rigorous statistical methods in order to draw meaningful conclusions, she found "that women who have had an abortion experienced an 81% higher risk of mental health problems of various forms when compared with women who had not had an abortion." In specific areas, women who underwent abortions suffered higher rates of alcohol use (110%), overall anxiety (34%), suicidal activity (155%) and depression (37%) than women who had not had abortions. Coleman also mentioned the common finding that women who carry a child to term have significantly lower suicide rates compared to the general population.
President Obama is right when he suggests that its a mistake to have a child outside marriage; the best situation is to save sex for marriage and to keep it in marriage so that children can be conceived and reared in an environment of support and love. Nevertheless, extensive research demonstrates that fixing the "mistake" of an unplanned pregnancy with abortion punishes the mother.
May Swaziland protect the well-being of her daughters and mothers by saving sex for marriage and keeping it in marriage. May the nation avoid the tragic "One dead child, one wounded mother" syndrome of abortion. No to abortion; yes to love and life.

Rudy Poglitshrpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion Among Other Issues

In considering abortion among other issues, some might say "Well what about unemployment, and inadequate housing, and poverty? Aren't these issues important also? Why then is abortion made to be more important than these other problems?"
Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, puts it this way. "We who are leaders in the pro-life movement do not say that abortion is the only issue. It is, however, the foundational issue....An example will clarify this. We are rightly concerned about the poor, and need to develop programs and policies to advance their rights and enhance their lives. Sometimes people are heard to say that offences against the poor are a more compelling to them than the abortion problem. Certainly, the problems are related, because a consistent ethic of life recognizes that human life is sacred always and everywhere, and that progress in any area of advancing human dignity means progress in all the other areas as well.
But to make a truly equivalent parallel between the plight of the poor and that of the unborn, one would have to imagine a policy whereby a) the poor were officially declared to be devoid of "personhood" under the [American] Constitution, and b) over 4,000 of the poor were put to death daily against their will [as is the case for the unborn in America]...It is one thing to assert that a particular policy does or does not advance the rights of the poor; it is quite another thing to assert that the poor have no right to exist."
Without the right to life, all other rights mean nothing. Any rights to food, clothing and shelter can only be enjoyed by the living; if a baby is killed by abortion, then she cannot enjoy these other goods.
The Catholic bishops said the following in 1998: "Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence, and injustice...Therefore, Catholics should eagerly involve themselves as advocates for the weak and marginalized in all these areas...But being 'right' in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life...If we understand the human person as the 'temple of the Holy Spirit'-the living house of God-then these latter issues fall logically into place as the crossbeams and walls of that house. All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house's foundation."
May Swaziland never adopt the abortion mentality, a mentality which denies the first and most important right-the right to life. May the nation respect the lives of all its citizens, from conception through all of life to natural death. No to abortion, and yes to life.
Rudy Poglitshrpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion and Holocaust II

Thank you, Mr. Editor, for a second opportunity to discuss the parallel between abortion and the Nazi holocaust. The goal of my first letter was to show the similarities between language used by Nazis to dehumanize their victims and the language used by abortion advocates to dehumanize the targets of abortion-namely, unborn children. Dehumanization of human beings using language makes it easier to kill them. I believe that the scale of death makes this a legitimate comparison. Worldwide, there are up to 40 million abortions per year. What other historical events can compare with death on this scale? Nazism killed approximately 6 million European Jews using dehumanizing language for cover; those 6 million represented about 60% of all Jews in Nazi-controlled territory in World War II. The Nazi death program started with dehumanizing language and authorizing others to make the decision to kill these "subhumans".

Women will rarely kill their living children. But a woman in a crisis situation can be very vulnerable to deception when the medical people and her society use inaccurate and dehumanizing terms like "products of conception", "blobs of tissue", and "blood clots" to refer to unborn children. Abortion clinics in the USA routinely refuse to allow a pregnant woman to see an ultrasound scan of the baby and fail to provide accurate information about the baby's developmental stage.

You said it was unfair to compare "Nazi Germany of the 30s to the later democratic ideals of the USA". Unfortunately, abortion laws in the United States were not a result of the democratic process. In 1973 the United States Supreme Court overturned all democratically-enacted laws protecting the unborn in all 50 states.

The point of drawing these parallels was to help Swazis identify and reject dehumanizing language when it is directed at the unborn. In recognizing the humanity of her unborn and then acting to protect them from abortion, the citizens of Swaziland preserve the future of their nation.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion and Holocaust

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines "holocaust" as "destruction or slaughter on a mass scale". According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (a pro-abortion agency), 115,000 abortions occur every day worldwide. The deliberate killing of over 100,000 innocent children everyday certainly sounds like "slaughter on a mass scale."

The language of abortion and that of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany bear uncomfortable similarities. Consider these examples:

"Only persons of 'German or related blood' can be citizens; this does not include Jews."-Reich Citizenship Law, 1935
"The word 'person', as used in the fourteenth Amendment (of the USA Constitution), does not include the unborn."-USA Supreme Court, 1973 ruling which legalized abortion nationwide

"The authority of physicians is enlarged to include the responsibility for according a 'mercy death [to] incurables.'"-Hitler's Euthanasia order, 1939
"The abortion decision in all its aspects is inherently and primarily a medical decision and basic responsibility for it must rest with the physician."-USA Supreme Court, 1973 ruling

"The Jewish-Bolshevik Commisars personify a repulsive yet characteristic subhumanity."-Dr. August Hirt, Nazi chancellor of Reich University in Stasbourg during World War II. In 1943 Hirt ordered the execution of 115 prisoners and planned to use their bodies in an anthropological display.
"For the first four and one-half months the fetus is subhuman and relatively close to a piece of tissue." Amitai Etzioni, 1976

The world has had enough holocausts. May Swaziland refuse to slaughter its own innocents, and instead give mothers and children the support they need to prosper. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Sex Ed in Form 1?

On August 10 the Times told us that "The Family Life Association of Swaziland has made sure girls from St. Anne's High School know where to get their reproductive health services and HIV/AIDS information". Later we were told the students were educated on "teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and HIV prevention". We also learned that these students were in Forms 1 and 2.

Girls just beginning their secondary school experience should not need reproductive health services. Form 1 and 2 students need a society that gives them the clear and consistent message to save sex for marriage and keep sex in marriage only. That simple behaviour would end almost all new HIV infections (over 90% of new HIV cases are contracted through heterosexual encounters), eliminate unwed pregnancies, and put young men and women on the road to strong character and lifelong marital happiness. If mothers and fathers, other adults, schools, and the media frequently and consistently encouraged young people to save sex for marriage and keep it in marriage only, and if these adults provided a good example of that behaviour, this would build strong individuals, strong marriages, strong families, and a strong nation.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Maternal Health and Abortion

People of good will desire mothers to have safe pregnancies and deliveries; no decent person wishes for a woman's pregnancy to cause her death. Unfortunately, abortion proponents regularly use the desire for safe pregnancies to advance legalizing abortion. They do this by stating that huge numbers of women die from illegal abortions or "complications of pregnancy and childbirth", then assert that legalized abortion would save these womens' lives.

The statistics of mothers dying of illegal abortions, however, are grossly exaggerated by pro-abortion organizations. A few examples:
*A 1989 CNN documentary said 6 million abortions take place in Brazil each year, and 400,000 women die from them. But the United Nations Demographic Yearbook for 1988 showed that 40,000 women between the ages of 15-44 died of all causes in that year.

*In Italy in 1983, abortion proponents claimed 20,000 women died of illegal abortions per year. The number of women aged 15-45 dying from all causes was in fact 11,500.

*At the United Nations' Habitat conference in Turkey in 1996, UNICEF claimed that 585,000 women died of pregnancy and childbirth-related causes each year. The United Nations Demographic Year Book for 1990 listed maternal deaths worldwide at about 6,000 per year.

Complicating this issue is the fact that in much of the developing world, the cause of people's death and even the sex of the deceased is not recorded. The United Nations Population Division issued a report "The World's Women 2005: Progress in Statistics" that said "more than a third of the 204 countries or areas examined did not report deaths by cause, sex and age even once." The report also said that “even where the deaths are derived from a civil registration with complete coverage, maternal deaths may be missed or not correctly identified, thus compromising the reliability of such statistics.”

We have cause do doubt, then, when the UNFPA tells us (as they did in the Times on 7 July) that 1,000 women die daily of "complications of pregnancy and childbirth" and that protecting "reproductive health and rights is fundamental to our collective future and sustainable development." 1,000 women a day is 365,000 women a year; that number falls into the same very high and hard-to-verify category described above. Remember also that in United Nations language, "reproductive health and rights" almost always includes abortion.

2007's "Women Deliver" conference in London claimed that 500,000 women a year die of pregnancy-related causes. A delegate to that conference said "With all this evidence that the number of maternal deaths and deaths from abortion is impossible to know, it is egregious that WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF and others build policy prescriptions – especially the highly controversial promotion of abortion rights – on virtually no data. Attention should be placed upon building good health care systems that not only provide decent care but provide registries of births and deaths so that sound policy to address maternal mortality can be made.”

Let us take this delegate's recommendation seriously. Let us love and care for both mother and child. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

To Save a Nation

Every day we read about Swaziland's financial woes and her efforts to get money to stay afloat. There are other ways, however, that a nation can sink: one of them is the disintegration of marriage and family. A Swazi friend recently told me stories of relationship chaos in the country. Story one: a man and a woman have a child together, then the father marries some other woman and the wife doesn't want the child around. The mother doesn't want the child, and so this daughter is left rudderless. Is it any wonder that this girl starts getting into trouble? She has never known the love and direction of her father or mother. She tells my friend, in as many words, that no one cares for her-so why should she care what she does? Story two: unmarried mom starts dating a man and introduces him to her daughter. Thing is, boyfriend and daughter are better "introduced" than mom knows, as they have a relationship that mom doesn't know about. Story three: A man stays in town with his live-in lover. Additionally, he marries a girl back in his home area. The "girl back home" knows about the woman in town, and when the man dies, the home girl comes to collect all the late man's possessions. "But we had a joint bank account, and children together!" protests the woman in town. "Irrelevant", replies the home girl's family. "You and he were never married. Give us all the stuff".

If you try to build a house with crumbling bricks, the house will fall. The family is the basic unit of society; if too many families disintegrate or never truly form in the first place, poverty, juvenile crime, teenage pregnancies, and the pain and heartbreak that accompany these ill-effects will multiply. As my friends' stories illustrate, these negative outcomes are already upon us.

Unlike Swaziland's current financial predicament, the resources to repair the marriage and family crisis are within reach. Saving sex for marriage, and keeping sex in marriage between one husband and one wife, is the way to increase love and security for generations. May men and women save sex for their one and only spouse. Doing so will multiply happiness and strengthen the nation.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Response to Single Lilly II

"My view of life...is very simple. Put simply, I believe that life is dolorously boring and hence has no meaning whatsoever".

So begins Single Lilly's opinion piece entitled "Teenage Abortion: Why It's Not So Bad". I suspect, however, that Ms. Lilly looks both ways before crossing the street and does not engage in drink-driving every Friday and Saturday night. Probably she eats three meals a day and does not juggle Homelite chainsaws while they are running. But if she really believes what she says, why wouldn't she close her eyes when crossing Gwamile on a busy Tuesday morning, or see just how many limb-dismembering Homelites she can keep in the air at once? Such actions certainly would relieve the boredom, and if they ended in her death, well, she's already said life has no meaning, so there'd be no loss.

In all likelihood Ms. Lilly engages in (and refrains from) a large number of behaviours which result in her continued survival and health. What we do always shows what we believe. We conclude, therefore, that Ms. Lilly believes life (hers at least) has enough meaning to act in ways intended to keep it going. Since Ms. Lilly's life is no more or less valuable than any other human life, let's see if abortion really is not so bad for the meaningful lives of women and children.

Ms. Lilly says "from what I've witnessed from close friends, abortion is usually a decision taken calmly, sanely and rationally". A couple of qualifiers deserve mention here. One, the women for whom abortion was a terrifying decision and experience probably aren't going to talk about it the way a sports fan talks about his favorite team or a young man talks about his new love. We naturally avoid discussion of events that hurt us. Consequently, Ms. Lilly has not heard much from the women for whom abortion was (and continues to be) a disaster. Two, the number of women Ms. Lilly has spoken to (specifically, her close friends) is relatively small, compared to all the women who undergo abortions. Her sample is not representative. What do representative surveys tell us about womens' experiences with abortion?

Dr. David Reardon of the Elliot Institute in America studies the effects of abortion on women. His website http://www.afterabortion.org contains oceans of research on the topic. Consider a few results of much larger surveys in Europe, Britain and the United States:
* 64% of women having abortions felt pressured by others.
* 52% felt rushed and 54% were not sure about the decision at the time.
* In a survey of women who sought help after abortion, 83% said they would have carried to term if they had received support from the baby’s father, their family, or other important people in their lives.
* 84% reported that they did not receive adequate counseling.
* 79% were not informed about available alternatives.
* 31% of women suffered health complications after abortion. 10% suffer immediate complications, one-fifth of which are life-threatening.
* Women have a 65% higher risk of clinical depression after abortion compared to women who give birth.
* 65% suffer multiple symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after abortion.
* Death rates from all causes are 3.5 times higher among women who abort, compared to women who give birth.
* 60% said “part of me died,” according to a survey of women who aborted.
* Suicide rates are 6 times higher for post-aborted women compared to women who give birth.

Clearly, the vast majority of women who undergo abortions suffer from them. Bearing in mind that we avoid discussion of painful experiences, the above results may under-represent the number of women injured through abortion.

The vast majority of us want to live rich and fulfilling lives. In our best moments, we also wish this for other people. Surveys of post-abortive women indicate that abortion is not the way to build those rich and fulfilling lives. Let us stand in solidarity and charity with women in crisis pregnancies; let us give them the love and support they need to take care of their unexpected children. The moms, the children, and we the helpers will all grow because of the experience.

Response to Single Lilly

Single Lilly's important piece ("Teenage Abortion: Why It's Not So Bad") helps explain why societies support abortion and why friends and family either "gently encourage" or forcibly push women into abortion.

Her closing paragraph reads "They [women who choose abortion], very kindly-and potentially at great risk to their lives-make what could be a problem for us all simply vanish. Personally, I don't particularly enjoy the sight of unhappy, malnourished children". Lilly clearly expresses a chilling vision of human relationships we are all tempted to indulge: "I don't care if you murder others or damage yourself, as long as those lethal actions keep me from having to deal with your problems." What are these "problems?" They are weak human beings-the young, the old, the sick, the disabled, the poor, even the depressed-who might bother us with their troubles or demands.

Consider this parable. Once upon a time a man saw a vision of hell. In it he saw a beautiful banquet table loaded with food. The guests sitting around the table had very long forearms, however, so that none of them could feed themselves. There were shouts, anger, and cursing as everyone tried to spoon up the delicious food only to find they could get it nowhere near their mouths. Then the man saw a second vision, this one of heaven. In heaven he saw the same banquet table and guests similarly deformed. In heaven, however, everyone took the food in their hands and carefully fed their neighbors until all were satisfied.

We can selfishly focus on our own needs while resenting the needs and demands of others; in doing so we create hell on earth. In the 1930's the United States suffered a great economic collapse which became known as the Great Depression. Several decades later a man named Studs Terkel interviewed hundreds of people who had lived through that time. He compiled his interviews into a fascinating book entitled "Hard Times". Terkel found that some people looked back upon those years with nostalgia saying things like, "It was so wonderful, everyone pulled together and helped each other through." Others looked back with horror, saying how awful it was and how people selfishly grabbed everything that they could get with no consideration of others. The challenge of the situation created opportunities for individuals and communities to grow in selfishness or to grow in love. Heaven or Hell.

Swaziland faces a similar challenge right now, and the same choice lies before all of us. When confronted with the needs of the weak and needy, are we going to wish that they would simply vanish, or hope that other people will do us a favor and make them vanish? When our family members, friends, and neighbors come to us with their needs, will our response show that we care and will do what we can to help them? I know a gogo who, several years back, was barely surviving. She took in, fed, and cared for a child who had fled his homestead because of an abusive second wife who didn't want to share food with him. The gogo and her grandson showed love because they believed that Jesus was giving them an opportunity in this boy to show love to God himself. Heaven or Hell--which one will we create here?

I hope that Single Lilly discovers the happy surprise that God fills the universe and our everyday actions with meaning and eternal significance, that Christ is present in the needs of others, and that in the adventure of love no one's life need be "dolorously boring".

What is best for the children?

This space has discussed the evils of abortion. But what about after birth? Children need love and training in addition to their right to life.

A good friend of mine named Steve Wood directs a Christian faith and family organization. Previous to his current job he worked with youth in a church. That job taught him that the key to children growing up in the faith and growing up well is the parents; specifically, the health of their marriage and their faith life were crucial in determining how the kids grew up and how they fared later in life. He says the following: "Covenant faithfulness in marriage-that is staying married-is the single most important key to parenting children and teens. In other words, stay married. That's it. You don't have to worry about 100 things. This is the one thing to focus on. Without this, you can go through every category of a child's well-being from psychological, educational, probability of drugs and alcohol, premarital sex, getting in trouble with the law and everything else, it's associated with homes where fathers aren't present. And homes with fathers who aren't present are a result of a broken marriage. Fathers don't leave their children in America by the millions because they get tired of playing ball with them in the yard. The reason fathers by the millions in America are separated from their children is because the marriage has broken. For men, marriage and fatherhood are a package deal. If the marriage goes, the fatherhood influence declines. After a decade, most kids just don't even see their fathers anymore after a divorce. So it's very critical that marriages are held together for the sake of the children, for their welfare."

After the gift of life, children need the gift of a mom and a dad living a happy marriage together. The best thing a father can do for his children is love his wife; and the best thing a mother can do for her children is love her husband. To put children first, may husbands and wives stay married and make the health of their marriage top priority. They, their children, and their grandchildren will benefit.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Two Birds with One Stone

Surveys consistently report ( http://www.ptm.org/01PT/JulAug/revenge.htm) that couples who saved sex until marriage and remain faithful within marriage enjoy the highest levels of sexual satisfaction. Remember that saving sex until marriage and sexual fidelity within marriage would slash the HIV rate almost to zero.

We have before us a two-fold golden opportunity. For those men and women who do not care if they early; who do not care if they leave widows, widowers, and orphans; who do not care if the bogogo have to rear larger and larger numbers of orphans at a time of shrinking financial resources; for those men and women who care only about good sex, there is an answer: save sex for marriage, get married, and keep sex between you and your spouse only, because couples who do that have the best sex. If this plan were followed, sexual (and marital) satisfaction would skyrocket, and the AIDS rate would plummet. Maybe this should be the next anti-AIDS approach: "Want good sex and plenty of it? Save it for marriage only". Everyone would benefit.


Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Who Speaks for Islam III

On 16 May AB Sule explained his understanding of Islam's relation to terrorism. His is a hopeful explanation, quoting Surah 2:256 from the Quran: "there shall be no compulsion in religion". Yet other Muslims can quote Surah 9:29, which says "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day...Nor acknowledge the religion of truth, (even if they are) of the people of the Book, until they pay Jizya (tribute tax) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." Surah 8:60 says "Strike terror (into the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies." Surah 9:123 says "O ye who believe! Fight the unbelievers...let them find firmness in you and know that Allah is with those who fear Him."
It is excellent that Mr. Sule says true Islam teaches "that in the sight of God, persecution, or making people constantly fear for their lives, is much worse than killing". But Christians in Muslim countries, and Muslims in Muslim countries who are found to have an interest in Christianity, still do fear for their lives. In late 2009 Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian, was asked to fetch some drinking water for some women she was working with. When she returned with the water, some of the other women refused to drink it because it was carried by a Christian (Bibi), and the other women considered the water unclean. An argument erupted then subsided. A few days later Bibi was attacked by a group of people. She was taken by the police for protection from the mob. In November 2010 she was sentenced to death for blasphemy. She remains in jail today, awaiting her fate.
In March of this year, five Iranian Christians were sentenced to a year's imprisonment for "crimes against the Islamic Order", and will be put on trial for blasphemy. The high school textbooks for 2010-2011 in Saudi Arabia include statements like these: "Jihad for the sake of God is a profitable trade and saves from painful punishment. It aims at spreading Islam and defending it and correcting the beliefs of people and directing them towards the worship of God Almighty. It also aims at preventing injustice and corruption and rooting out its origins from earth." "Jihad has three levels: . . . The third level: Jihad against the fighting enemies of Islam." "The Jews and the Christians are enemies of the believers, and they cannot approve of Muslims." "The struggle of this [Muslim] nation with the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills."
Consider the story of Achol Yum Deng, a Sudanese woman recently released from slavery in Sudan: "The war booty of a man named Adhaly Osman, Achol was threatened with death, gang-raped, genitally mutilated, forced to convert to Islam, renamed ‘Mariam,’ and racially and religiously insulted. She lost the sight in one eye when her master thrashed her face with a camel whip for failing to perform Islamic rituals correctly.” This young lady was recently ransomed through the efforts of John Eibner and Charles Jacobs, who have worked to free other Sudanese victims of slavery for the past 15 years.
We can all hope that many of Mr. Sule's fellow Muslims share his peaceful vision of Islam. We also earnestly hope that he and his like-minded coreligionists can convince Muslims who take a much more physically aggressive approach to Islamic propagation to change their violent ways.
Perhaps we can discern one sign of such a change. Two Pakistani officials (Governor Salman Taseer and cabinet minister Shabbaz Bhatti), who had made public statements opposing their country's anti-blasphemy laws, were recently murdered. Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Husain Haqqani, spoke these words concerning their deaths:
"Those who would murder a Salman Taseer or a Shahbaz Bhatti deface my religion, my prophet, my Koran and my Allah. Yet there is an overpowering, uncomfortable and unconscionable silence from the great majority of Pakistanis who respect the law, respect the Holy Book, and respect other religions.
"This silence endangers the future of my nation, and to the extent the silence empowers extremists, it endangers the future of peace and the future of the civilized world.
"We are all familiar with the haunting words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, written about pre-war Nazi Germany: 'First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.' "We cannot close our eyes, turn our backs and be silent about injustice and discrimination. When a Shahbaz Bhatti is murdered, and we remain silent, we have died with him.
"I recall the words of the great Rabbi Hillel, who said 2,000 years ago, 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? If not now, when?' "If we are silent, we allow evil to win.
"If we are not with others, what are we? "It is unacceptable.
"It is un-Islamic.
"And if I may use a term that has been abused, it is blasphemy."

Rudy Poglitshmailto:Poglitshrpoglitsh@live.com

more letters at http://letterstothetos.blogspot.com/

Who Speaks for Islam II

I have been mulling over a letter published in the 21 April edition of the Times of Swaziland. In it, AB Sule responds to "Stones" with a piece headlined "Other religions are dangerous". Mr. Sule's last comment stuck with me: "Our motto is: Love for all, hatred for none."
Does Mr. Sule mean that is the motto of Islam? Many Muslims live by that slogan. My life has been blessed by friendships with Muslims whom I enjoy and respect. But Mr. Sule's piece reminded me of a subject I have never seriously discussed with these friends.
Unfortunately, "Love for all, hatred for none" is not what comes to mind for many people when they think of Islam. Many people have legitimate concerns about the treatment of religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries. As Mr. Sule points out, one shouldn't judge a religion by the poor example of a few of its members. Nevertheless, religous minorities in many Muslim-majority countries have a hard time. Since I haven't read the Quran, perhaps Mr. Sule can explain if these situations reflect a true understanding of the teachings of the Quran or if they are the poor examples of a few misguided members.
Let us start with an hypothetical situation. Mr. Sule travels to Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, with a friend. The friend is carrying a New Testament, and wears a T-shirt with "Come to Jesus" printed across the chest. What sort of reception would the friend receive at the airport in Riyadh? According to Operation World (admittedly, a Christian publication), no Christians are allowed to even enter Mecca, Islam's most important city. Christian gatherings are not allowed for Saudis or expatriates, and Saudis who become Christians face the death penalty. All Saudis who have been found out to be Christians have been executed. Saudi Arabia has a religious police force (the mutawwa) to enforce the Islam-only rule. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace and biggest advocate of Islam around the world. Can I trust that they are closely following the Quran in their practices? It does not appear that the Saudi government's behaviour conforms to "Love for all (including Christians), hatred for none". Even now, two Indian Christians are in jail in Riyadh awaiting trial for their faith. One of them reports that he has been pressed to convert to Islam.
Let us consider the Islamic Republic of Iran. Again according to Operation World, Sunni Islam and Shi'a Islam are allowed, but "All other deviations or defections from Islam are severely handled" and "All Christian proselytism is forbidden". No Christian publishing or distribution of literature is allowed. Is this Quranic Islam, or is it not?
Afghanistan under the Taliban (prior to late 2001): men could not participate in international boxing events because the Taliban insisted all men grow beards, and beards are not allowed in international boxing. Men who took family photographs were beaten; according to the Taliban's interpretation of the Quran, this was unacceptable. The Taliban instituted the death penalty for anyone leaving Islam. According to Operation World, women were "banished from public life, forbidden employment, restricted to the home, denied education (for girls) and health services". As I have not yet read the Quran, I just don't know: is this Quranic, or not?
The following excerpt is from a man who grew up in Iran and became a Christian. His and many other conversion stories are available at www.answering-islam.org/Testimonies/index.html. Previous to this excerpt, he had been in conversation with some Christians: "When I went to my Qur'an class, I asked if Christianity was right. My teacher said, 'What?' He brought me in front of the class room (in the mosque not at school) and slapped me as hard as he could. I fell to ground with my whole face shaking. He asked some kids to go outside and get some sticks, dip them in water and then he hit me in the hands. He put pencils between my fingers and squeezed them until I could be only on one foot and I was jumping on it. He had me carry the heaviest kid in the class. I had to crawl around the room. After that he kicked me out of the class room." Later that day, this man related these events to his uncle. The uncle chased him out of the house while the man's grandmother urged the uncle to "kill him, kill him". The man became a Christian and eventually left Iran. Was the behaviour of this man's teacher and family in line with true Islam, or not?
Pakistan is an Islamic state (its official name is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and features "blasphemy laws". These laws state that "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine." Similar laws exist in other countries with sizeable Muslim populations, and the scope of actions considered violations of this law has broadened. According to Nina Shea and Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute (a group promoting religious freedom), "Muslim blasphemy has recently been defined to include: denouncing stoning as a human-rights violation (Sudan), opening girls' schools (Bangladesh), criticizing the Guardianship of the Jurists (Iran), petitioning for a constitution (Saudi Arabia), use of the word 'Allah' by Christians (Malaysia), rejecting an order for violent jihad (Sudan), praying at the graves of relatives (Saudi Arabia), translating the Koran into Dari (Afghanistan), accidentally tearing a calendar page containing a Koranic verse (Pakistan), naming a teddy bear after a boy named Mohamed (Sudan), urging that the Koran be understood in its historical and cultural context (Indonesia), teaching Shi'ism (Egypt), and calling for a ban on child brides (Yemen). Mob violence, intimidation, court trials and penalties accompany these cases.
"And once in place, blasphemy laws are nearly impossible to reform. This year in Pakistan, Governor Salman Taseer and cabinet minister Shabbaz Bhatti were murdered for opposing such laws."
With the above anecdotes in mind, many non-Muslims wonder if "Love for all, hatred for none" summarizes the teaching of Islam for Muslim-majority countries. I seek clarification: are the events mentioned above true expressions of the teaching of Islam?
Rudy Poglitshmailto:Poglitshrpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstothetos.blogspot.com/

Einstein, Intelligent Design, and a Safe Society

Leival Richards (24 April) paraphrases Richard Dawkins paraphrasing Albert Einstein (talk about an overextended supply line!) to the effect that primitive man was clueless as to cause and effect and thus invented the idea of a caring, loving God.

To understand how super-massive objects bend the path of light rays, read Albert Einstein's work. To learn how to harness the atom to produce enormous quantities of energy for peaceful (or bellicose) purposes, Einstein is your man. But when it comes to understanding what people believe about God, I must ask: how many in-depth interviews with "primitive men" did Mr. Einstein conduct (while simultaneously hypothesizing about the structure of the universe from his position at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University) before he reached his conclusions? Put another way, expertise in one field does not guarantee expertise (or even competence) in another. If you have toothache, do you visit a neurosurgeon? If you need a broken bone set, do you visit a dentist?

Mr. Richards takes issue with Intelligent Design, citing "dynamic climatic conditions and numerous extinctions" as two reasons (among others) proving there is no "omnipotent anthropomorphic engineer" for life on earth.

Once again, let's get a little perspective. If Mr. Richards were to pour honey instead of petrol
into the fuel tank of his automobile, his automobile would (predictably) cease to function in a short while. Would Mr. Richards then be justified in telling his auto mechanic "Because my car suffered a cataclysmic disaster, it is clear that no intelligence designed this car in the first place"? Of course not. Christians hold that God created a good world, but that we humans have freely chosen to sin, and that this sin affects not only our own lives but the functioning of the entire biosphere. Mr. Richards and anyone else interested in empirical, scientific arguments against blind evolution and in favor of intelligent design are referred to Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box and Michael Denton's book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and the rest of the so-called "New Atheists"-whomever they may quote for backup, including the genius Albert Einstein-are no help to decent folks who are not Christians but who want justice in the world. Why? If we are but complex biochemical reactors brought into existence by blind chance and not by any higher creative and moral power (which most people call God, and some people-including Jesus Christ-call God the Father), then we are not accountable to anyone for our actions. Our actions can never be good or bad, because there is no moral standard higher than another man's opinion by which to judge them. How could there be, since there is no moral judge above human beings? In the atheistic materialist mindset, to say "Murder is wrong" is no more consequential than saying "I prefer emasi to incwancwa". Atheists might object to this equivalence, and that is good-because it is not true. Still, that is the logical conclusion of their beliefs. It is no good for them to appeal to "common human decency", because someone could simply say "That is your opinion; I really want to rob that bank, or torture cats for entertainment, or kidnap children for profit, and you cannot tell me I am in the wrong. That would only be your opinion, and my preferences are just as legitimate as yours."

Observant readers see where this leads: the only way to keep order in a society where this line of thinking were to take root would be overwhelming force. No appeal to higher moral law would be convincing-only the ability to handcuff and throw into jail men who knock down children for amusement will keep such a society even partially safe. And heaven save us of the folks who hold that law is no more significant that personal opinion come into power. Does Mr. Richards believe this would be a positive development away from our "primitive" past?

Thankfully, God and His moral code do exist. I gently suggest Mr. Richards read two more books: More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell, which explains how the New Testament tells the truth about Jesus Christ's divine nature, His life on earth, and His claims on our lives; and Honey From The Rock by Roy Schoeman, which describes how some Jewish people-including some previously devout atheists-became Christians through the direct intervention of God Almighty. Not only will Mr. Richards find a suitable basis for a moral code to let him and the rest of us live safe and free lives, he may (hopefully) came to know the One who made him and can give him eternal life and joy.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion, regret, Easter, forgiveness

This week Christians remember Christ's entry to Jerusalem, His crucifixion and death on Good Friday, and His Resurrection on Easter morning. When we get honest with ourselves, each of us remembers things we've done that were wrong-whether they hurt other people or were simply dishonest. Jesus' death and resurrection takes away the punishment and grief of our sin and brings us into friendship with God the Father.

This space has documented the emotional, spiritual, and relational chaos that abortion visits on huge numbers of women. Perhaps someone reading this knows the grief of an abortion they cannot leave in the past.

Christ came to forgive and heal the victims of abortion. In his document "The Gospel of Life", Pope John Paul II wrote: "I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not give into discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercy is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life."

Any woman suffering the painful aftereffects of an abortion is encouraged, especially this week and weekend, to turn to Christ for healing. He came for each one of us, to take away the punishment and pain of those things we know we should not have done. He came to replace that pain with life and peace. God bless you.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Let Us Try Something Different

Last week the Times told us that under a proposed law, 12-year-olds would be able to buy condoms. That's hardly news; where I live, condoms are free at the shop and one can get condoms for free all over Mbabane. On the same page of that issue of the Times (1 April), FLAS employee Mancoba Mabuza weighed in on the side of comprehensive sexual information and reproductive health services for the youth. Mr. Mabuza mentioned access to "emergency contraceptives" (EC) for victims of sexual abuse. Too bad the FLAS communication officer didn't communicate that one way EC works is to cause abortion (by preventing the newly-conceived person from implanting in the mother's uterus), and that abortion in the case of rape or incest makes it easier for the male perpetrators to repeat their evil by destroying the evidence of their assault-namely, the baby.

Anyway, here's my point. AIDS continues to rage in Swaziland. Swazi youth have been inundated with floods of sexual education and contraceptive technologies for years already. Instead of continuing the deluge of technical sex information and devices to pre-teens, let's emphasize the positive benefits of abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage. Doing so would slash the HIV rate within a generation, and would greatly reduce the incidence of other sex diseases. It would allow pre-teens and teenagers to focus on age-appropriate activity-including their schooling and personal development-without the potentially hazardous distraction of sex. Ultimately, emphasizing sex saved for marriage will build stronger marriages and families. If young people get to know each other without the clouding, confusing factor of sex involved, they will be able to see the positive and negative aspects of their potential spouses more clearly and make a better choice. Then, when they do find that special someone and exchange their "I dos" at the altar, their marital embrace later that night-and every time after that-will be something special between just the two of them for the rest of their lives. Let's make saving sex for marriage, and faithfulness in marriage, the primary emphasis to fight AIDS and build the nation. Everyone will benefit.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

The Road Ahead

"Begin with the end in mind" says a proverb. Numerous abortion advocates and practicioners took up the abortion cause believing it would help women and children in the long run. Their first-hand experience with the procedure and its long-term effects, however, changed their minds. Bernard Nathanson helped legalize abortion in the United States in the early 1970s; but by 1979 he had begun to doubt how helpful abortion really was, and by the time of his death earlier this year he had become an ardent pro-life advocate. Anthony Levatino gave up performing abortions because he felt he had become a paid killer. Carol Everett ran a successful syndicate of abortion clinics until the volume of the killing, the falsehoods told to women with unplanned pregnancies in order to get them to have abortions, and the unhealthy relationships within the abortion business changed her mind. She too took up the pro-life cause. Joan Appleton entered abortion advocacy believing it would help women. Yet she became disillusioned and said "I didn't like what we were doing for women. If it was right, why were they suffering? What had we done? We created a monster and didn't know what to do with it." She also left the abortion industry.

These individuals actively promoted and participated in abortion, believing it would help women and children. They got out of abortion advocacy because they saw abortion ended up damaging women and children. May Swaziland learn from their mistakes. No to abortion; yes to love and life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Teach Your Children Well

On Monday 11 April the Times told us about an inyanga in Sithobelweni who does abortions for women young and old. A number of local citizens were quoted saying things such as "This is a bad practice", "This is evil" "This is a tragic situation" and "We hope the police will help us in this matter". These are good sentiments, because they reflect a concern for the youngest of all Swazi citizens.

Still, one must ask: what led these women to take such a drastic step, a step which in some cases led to their own tragic deaths? How could we, the fellow citizens of these women who found themselves unexpectedly pregnant, have helped these women avoid their terrible choice in the first place?

The old saying goes, "An ounce (or gram) of prevention is worth a pound (or kilogram) of cure". If a girl or young woman appreciates her own value and dignity, she is much less likely to seek the "approval" of fast-talking sugar daddies by giving them sex. Further, understanding the proper context and purpose for sex can prevent such tragic situations. How can young ladies gain such appreciation and understanding?

They must learn it from their elders. If the adults in children's lives practice and teach abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage (according to the state of life of those adults), Swazi children will almost automatically do the same. We learn by example. Young people copy, whether they intend to or not, the words and actions of their parents and other adults in their lives. Every mother or father who pays attention to their children knows this.

As far as a child is concerned, "love" is a four-letter word spelled "T-I-M-E". Parents dramatically increase their influence on their children by spending time with them. This love/time investment builds a bridge of trust between parent and child, and that bridge of trust allows example and teaching to flow from parent to child. As minutes become hours, and hours become days, and days become weeks, and weeks become years, parents will see in their children and hear from their very lips the values those parents have lived and taught. By teaching abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage, moms and dads inoculate their children (especially their daughters) from possibly destructive sex. These parents, by living out and teaching how to have a marriage of love and life, greatly increase the chances of their children enjoying healthy marriages themselves. And then, instead of having to arrest abortionists, lack of demand for their "services" will simply put them out of business.

No to abortion; yes to love and life.


Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

A Way Forward

There is much concern in the Kingdom about the government being able to pay salaries and bills in general. There is much talk about reducing the size of the civil service while keeping service levels high. This is a challenge to accomplish, but may I offer a way that it might be achievable?

Currently it is almost impossible to dismiss an employee, even if they do not work or are engaged in illegal or immoral activities. If a supervisor has a problem with an employee, there is almost nothing that supervisor can do. An investigation is made by the relevant ministry, but usually nothing is done. If the employee is dismissed, the case nearly always ends up in court- an expensive undertaking which the employer rarely wins. This demoralizes the rest of the employees and the supervisors and gives a bad name to all civil servants.

During this challenging time, SNAT and the labor unions might consider a "Three Strikes and You are Out" policy. In such a policy, if a headmaster or supervisor finds an employee's work unsatisfactory, they can report to the ministry and the person will be transferred to another location, department, or supervisor. A person has three chances to provide satisfactory job performance. No single supervisor can make a decision to terminate a civil servant's employment. If, after three chances, the employee is unable or unwilling to provide the nation with quality services, they would be dismissed from the civil service. They would not be allowed to file a case in the labor court against government.

Reports of sleeping employees in the various government offices would plummet, as would reports of teachers having sex with students. "Ghost employees" would vanish from government payrolls.

The nation might consider such a plan for the sake of the large majority of diligent, honest, hardworking civil servants whose names are tarnished by the few unproductive and immoral government employees.

Sincerely,
Ruth Poglitsh

Marriage and Money

Billboards around Mbabane have promoted "First World by 2022". Naturally we think of "first world" in terms of material well-being. With an eye on the future, are there connections between marriage and material prosperity? According to familyfacts.org, there are indeed. Some highlights from first-world research referenced at that site:
*Married couples made $12,500 more than couples who were living together unmarried.

*Married couples had a greater likelihood of getting rich (earning 10 times more than the poverty level) than unmarried people.

*Low-income married couples accumulate more money than unmarried low-income people.

*Marriage helps women economically. Women in this survey who were married were two-thirds less likely to be poor than unmarried women. Furthermore, the chances of being poor was the same for married women from disadvantaged families than it was for married women from non-disadvantaged ones. The authors of this study wrote, "The deleterious effect associated with a disadvantaged background is completely offset by marrying and staying married."

As Swaziland looks to attain first-world status, let her consider what the first-world has learned about marriage: strong and lasting marriages make for greater prosperity. It IS possible to have both love and money. May Swaziland work to build strong marriages and families on her way to first-world status.
Rudy Poglitsh
rPoglitsh@live.com

Abortion in Reality

Abortion proponents invariably advance their position with phrases like "reproductive rights", "freedom of choice", and "a woman's control over her own body". We can clarify the abortion debate by considering what really happens in an abortion. Read this excerpt from court hearings concerning a ban on a partial birth abortion in the United States in 2004.

Lawyer: Then you remove the fetus with the towel, you put it on the table, and you turn back to the woman to deal with the placenta, right?

Abortionist: That’s right.

Lawyer: If you can’t do that, you know you are going to have to crush the head, and so you take a clamp and you grasp the cervix to elevate it, and then your assistant there in the operating room will pull down on the fetus’s legs or back,
gently lowering the fetus’s head toward the opening of the vagina, right?

Abortionist: Right.

Lawyer: That is when you put two fingers at the back of the fetus’s neck at the base of the skull where you can feel the base of the skull, and then you puncture the skull with the scissors, right?

Abortionist: I usually can see it as well as feel it. But yes.

Lawyer: At that point you see some brain tissue come out, and you are 100 percent certain that you are in the brain, so you open the scissors to expand the hole, remove the scissors, and put the suction device in the skull, right?

Abortionist: Correct.

Upon learning what really happens in a partial birth abortion, Congress and the American people strongly supported the law banning this procedure. The law was upheld by the Supreme Court.

The abortion method called "D and E", meaning "Dilation and Evacuation", is the most common form of abortion performed after the third month of pregnancy. The United States Supreme Court described a "D and E" abortion in its 2007 decision "Gonzales versus Carhart":

The doctor grips a fetal part with the forceps and pulls it back through the cervix …, continuing to pull even after meeting resistance from the cervix. The friction causes the fetus to tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is pulled through the cervix and out of the woman. The process of evacuating the fetus piece by piece continues until it has been completely removed.

Whenever we get into a discussion of abortion, we can ask the question: Is it right to allow the killing of a baby through limb by limb dismemberment? The answer is obvious: of course not. Remembering the reality of abortion makes the finding an answer to the abortion question much simpler. It is never right to deliberately kill an innocent human being at any stage of life. Abortion is a particularly disturbing denial of the right to life, due to the age of its victims and the manner of the killing.

May Swaziland never accept abortion the way so many other "advanced" societies have. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Adultery and Abortion II

Thank you, Mr. Editor, for passing along Planned Parenthood's response to the bogus sex trafficking ring. Indeed the sex trafficking ring was a hoax; it would be wonderful if all sex trafficking rings were false. This does not, however, change the fact that Planned Parenthood nurse Amy Woodruff took the actors posing as pimp and prostitute seriously. Woodruff advised them on how to access abortions and contraception for teenage prostitutes, and on how post-abortive prostitutes could continue to encourage the sex business. Ms. Woodruff would have done very well to refuse any sort of conversation with the actors, and called the police right away. Instead, she gave advice to assist their evil activity.

After initially hinting the video was a hoax, Planned Parenthood fired Ms. Woodruff and released the following statement: "We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape this morning, which depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable". Planned Parenthood confirmed the video was credible by firing the employee who was at the centre of the controversy and publicly acknowledging the seriousness of what took place. This firing and the Planned Parenthood statement were not hoaxes.

Sadly, this is not the first time Planned Parenhood abortion clinics have been found facilitating the exploitation of women and children. Over a dozen similar undercover operations have found Planned Parenthood employees willing to take donations expressly for aborting black children, helping girls avoid laws mandating that their parents be told about an abortion, and giving false medical information in order to encourage women to choose abortion. Visit www.liveaction.org to hear and view these taped encounters.

The point is this: an inherently evil and destructive act (abortion) will naturally breed other evil acts. May Swaziland never tread the road of abortion, a road which leads to myriad other abuses of women and children. No to abortion; yes to life.


Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Adultery and abortion

In early February the pro-life group liveaction.org released an undercover video recorded at a Planned Parenthood clinic in New Jersey, USA. In it, a man pretending to be a pimp (someone who owns prostitutes) gets advice from Planned Parenthood nurse Amy Woodruff about obtaining contraceptives and abortions for the teenage prostitutes he pretended to own. If one of these teenage girls needs an abortion, the nurse suggests taking the prostitute to another facility because "their protocols aren't as strict as ours and they don't get audited the same way that we do". The clinic worker suggests the pimp say his prostitutes are students, so that they can receive contraceptives at a lower price: "If they're minors, put down that they are students-we want to make it look as legit (legal) as possible", said Woodruff. A pretend prostitute who came along with the pretend pimp asked how long after the abortion prostitutes could start sex acts for money. Woodruff said "minimum of two weeks". A further question was, what acts could a prostitute perform during that waiting period. Woodruff replied "Waist up, or just be that extra action walking by"-by which she meant be a living, breathing advertisement for sex with strangers in exchange for money.

The entire video is available at www.liveaction.org/traffick

As this episode shows, sexual sin and the shedding of blood go together. God declared this principle through Ezekiel, the Old Testament prophet, in chapter 23 verse 37 of Ezekiel's book: "For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands".

No decent society wishes its daughters to be exploited, abused, and killed in this way; yet this is precisely the exploitation, abuse, and killing legalized abortion brings. The solution? Men stay faithful to their wives and be the protectors of their daughters. For the unmarried, no sex before marriage, sex only with one's spouse after marriage. A life of faithfulness will build strong marriages and families and avoid the shedding of innocent blood. Yes to faithfulness, yes to love, yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Egumeni

Last Wednesday's Times told us about the Egumeni program of the Anglican Church. Egumeni will approach the HIV scourge by focusing on girls.

It's great to help the victims of the HIV plague, but I've been wondering: in addition to addressing the heavily-impacted girls and women, how about convincing men to become allies in this fight? Imagine if we taught our sons to save sex until they are married. Imagine if we taught young men to steer clear of situations where they would be tempted to have non-marital sex. Imagine 20- and 30-something unmarried men encouraging their sisters and female friends to stay virgins until marriage. Think about married men working hard to provide for their wives and children, and training those children to be daughters and sons of integrity. Imagine dads protecting their daughters' virtue. Swazi society would be positively transformed as HIV rates plummeted and girls and women felt loved, respected and protected.

It seems the overwhelming majority of NGO programs focus on girls and women, and again-they deserve our attention. Still, it seems that men are mostly left out of the picture; the most they get is a soccer league. If Swazi men would make virtue their modus operandi and passed that upright lifestyle onto other men, the young girls targeted by Egumeni would be safe almost automatically.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Human Persons and Abortion

Life begins at conception. Medical science increasingly corroborates this fact. What, then, can the abortion lobby say to keep abortion palatable? Since no one wants to say "I support killing babies", how can the taking of human life in the womb be made "okay" for those who wish to promote abortion?

One recent strategy is to invent a class of human non-persons. Some individuals at the highest academic levels-levels at which, all too frequently, common sense no longer dwells-suggest that the right to life comes from "morally significant traits". One current list of "morally significant traits" includes being able "to reflect upon ourselves as a continuous locus of consciousness", "to form and savour plans for the future", and "to dread death, and to express the choice not to die". Humans not possessing these traits are not persons in this scheme, and so have no inherent right to life.

Note first that anyone asleep possesses none of the traits on this list. I guess, according to some geniuses at major universities, we all shift from being human persons to human non-persons and back again each evening and morning. Would these individuals suggest that anyone asleep may rightfully be killed? Hopefully not-but as philosopher Peter Kreeft has observed, there is no idea so crazy that someone with a doctorate has not thought it.

More importantly, however, consider where this line of thinking takes us. If some individual or group of people can make a list of "morally significant traits" and define personhood (and with personhood the right not to be arbitrarily killed) according to that list, then no one (except maybe the list-writer) is safe. Anyone lacking one or some number of these all-important traits could be ruled a non-person, and their life would not deserve protection.

Tragically, this has been done before. Nazi Germany's killing spree began not with Jewish people, but with a program to make a perfect Aryan race. Near the end of the Third Reich, German doctors were full-blooded German children who wet the bed, had misshapen ears, or had learning difficulties.

Let us learn from the past and use common sense. Let all human life be protected from conception to natural death. No to abortion; yes to life.


Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Unworkable Marriages?

Last Wednesday's Times carried a story about Titus Mlangeni saying couples in Swaziland are stuck in "unworkable marriages". Mlangeni promised to spend his remaining time in the Law Society working for reform in Swazi family law, presumably making it easier for couples to end their marriages.

Marital dissatisfaction may indeed run high, and certainly marriage should not be a threat to life and limb. Still, most people want to be happily married. Wouldn't it be better to find ways to make unhappy marriages happier, rather than making it easier to end marriages?

Below is a 10-point list entitled "How To Keep a Christian Marriage Alive". It will work for Christian and non-Christian couples. Each spouse can read over the list every morning, and choose one of the items to practice through the day. I suspect that if couples put these simple ideas into practice, marriages will prosper. I know it works for my wife and I.

Research shows that couples greatly underestimate the pain and suffering that a divorce causes. Couples using this simple plan can restore their marriage to the "dream come true" they had on their wedding day. The spouses, their children, and society will benefit.

How To Keep a Christian Marriage Alive
1. Pray for your mate each day.
2. Express appreciation for each other.
3. Show respect to each other.
4. Do small favors.
5. Pray together.
6. Have fun together.
7. Develop mutual interests.
8. Forgive each other daily.
9. Listen to each other/Talk to each other.
10. Smile at each other.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Seeing is Believing

"A picture is worth a thousand words", says the old proverb. This proverb proved true for Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, USA. After volunteering and working for Planned Parenthood for eight years (in her final year she was the director of a clinic), Johnson was asked one day to assist in an abortion. She held the scanning wand in place so that the abortionist could see on a TV screen what he was doing during the abortion. Watching the dismemberment of a 13 week old baby in the womb changed her mind completely. Within a month she quit her job, the clinic, and the entire pro-choice movement. She is now a prominent pro-life advocate. You can read more about Mrs. Johnson at www.abbyjohnson.org. You can view photos of aborted children at www.100abortionpictures.com. Be aware that these are disturbing images.

This space has employed thousands of words to demonstrate that abortion is bad for women and children. Millions more words have been used to try to convince people that abortion is actually a good thing. Yet one unvarnished view of an abortion in process was enough to instantly convince a clinic director to become pro-life. Direct contact with abortion reveals that it is the killing of a child, and surely no decent culture wants to normalize the killing of its own innocent children. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion and the Negation of Love

The sexual act is meant to express the deep and life-long love between a husband and a wife. One natural and obvious result of that natural union is a child. This child, in physical appearance and behavior, reflects the unity and blending of his or her parents.

Should the child suffer abortion, obviously she dies. By killing the child, abortion also signifies the rejection of the unity manifested by the sexual act which produced the child. It comes as no surprise, then, that 22% of German women in a survey reported that their relationship with the father of the child ended within a year of the abortion. Many other surveys document similar breakups and relationship problems after an abortion.

Abortion destroys love and life. In this New Year, may we stand for the well-being of women, children and men by rejecting abortion at every turn. No to abortion, yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh

rpoglitsh@live.com