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
Saturday, September 24, 2011
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
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
Saturday, September 3, 2011
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
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