Effects of Abortion

"Julie" speaks truth ("Abortion Should be a Personal Choice", 22 November) when she says "choosing to abort a child is a deeply difficult psychological choice that haunts women for the rest of their lives". In fact, research shows that many women (64% in one study) feel pressured into abortion. Problems multiply after the procedure. Studies find higher rates of suicide among post-abortion women (600% higher in two studies from Finland), higher probabilities of depression (65% in one American study), and greatly elevated rates of drug and alcohol abuse (500% higher in one study). Physical problems, including sterility and perforated uteruses, also come along with abortion. Indeed, abortion is hard on women. Julie is right that abortion can bring a "personal hell", physically and psychologically and spiritually.

Julie says that she would never have an abortion herself. That is good. She continues: "but my choice should not be inflicted on others." If you have the 22 November copy of the Times nearby, look at the photo in the centre of Julie's letter. It has a photograph of "A foetus sucking his/her thumb in the womb". The choice of abortion is always "inflicted on others"-namely, the child growing in her mother's womb. Abortion aims to kill that child. Abortion is an extreme form of inflicting a choice on others.

Julie says "there are millions of unwanted children who grow up to be unfeeling adults as they have never been cared for-no one loved them." In fact, the United States has a list one million couples long of husbands and wives who want to adopt a child. Approximately one million children get aborted in that country each year. I suspect that most, if not all, unplanned pregnancies could be absorbed by loving couples eager for a child. There are unplanned pregnancies; there are no unwanted children.

Let us spare women and children the trauma and death of abortion. Let us give women life-affirming support in crisis pregnancies. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh via e-mail

Here is some stuff we worked up but did not put in the letter to the Times.
Julie makes some interesting points, but I am not sure how valid some of them are.  For example she says, "I believe in a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body and no one should interfere with that right."  Now that seems to make a lot of sense until you think about other situations.  What about if you have a woman with two healthy kidneys.  For some reason she decides that she wants to cut out one of them and throw it into the garbage can.  Is that a "right" that everyone would acknowledge?  For her to excercise that right, can she force a doctor to do an unnecessary operation to remove that kidney?  What about the doctor's right to only do things that help her patients?  If someone wants to kill themself we don't say, "Oh, they have a right to choose what happens to their own body."  We restrain them and keep them from harming themselves.

Julie also says that a woman should have a right to an abortion but "she should also be ready to take on the personal hell that abortion can bring.  The karma associated with taking another life is a massive burden."  I appreciate that Julie acknowledges that abortion is the taking of another's life, but I don't see how that should make it legal.  On page 7 of the same paper (22 November, Thursday) a judge sentenced a man to jail for 35 years for killing one woman and raping another.  If we applied the same idea that Julie is advocating, we would have to say that murder and rape will bring you personal hell and bad karma, but we should not restrict someone else from doing them.  We should make it legal, but just encourage people to know that they will suffer a personal hell if they choose to excercise their right to murder or rape someone else.

Julie is afraid that an unplanned child will become an unloved child who will become a menace to society.  But abortion contributes to unloved children.  Many women who have had abortions suffered difficulties bonding with the children that they later have.  The guilt and personal hell that Julie refers to affects not just the woman, but all of her children.  A good friend of mine said that he felt his own life was so arbitrary because he knew that his mother had aborted a sibling.  "It could have been me."  This did not contribute to him growing up feeling loved or safe.

If someone wants to harm themselves and another person, the loving thing to do is to prevent the harm. 

Killing for Financial Convenience

Zombodze Emuva MP Johannes Ndlangamandla gave his full-throated support for legalizing abortion in Thursday's issue of the Times. He said "I'm ready to argue my point and see what others say." Fair enough.

First off, abortion hurts women. Reams of evidence attest to this fact. Babe Ndlangamandla should visit www.afterabortion.org and read what he finds there. Women suffer physical, mental, social, and spiritual harm from abortion.

Second, human life begins at conception, when egg meets sperm. That is a scientific fact. Abortion, therefore, kills a human being. Legalized abortion means a nation has decided it is ok to kill some individuals because they are unwanted. In Babe Ndlangamandla's case, he suggests legalizing the killing of unwanted preborn children because they become OVCs and then financial burdens. This is killing for money, which is the job of an assassin. Surely it is unSwazi to behave as an assassin, to kill for money.

The answer is support for women with unintended pregnancies, and not subjecting them to the trauma of abortion in order to kill children. May Swaziland continue to display the best of African hospitality and generosity by supporting women and children through unplanned pregnancies. May the kingdom choose life instead of death. No to abortion, yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
via email
more letters at www.letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Abortion: A War on Women

In 2003 Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, late founder of the Institute of Women's Studies at Emory University (USA), wrote an article entitled "Abortion: A War on Women". How could she claim that abortion  is actually an attack on women when its supporters frequently present it as a human right and something necessary to set women on equal footing with men.   Highlights from her article follow:
"We need not linger over the evidence of many women dead from hasty, botched, or unsanitary abortions, although we know there are enough to make one cry."

"We do...have studies that point to a link between abortion and breast cancer. The precise nature of the link still invokes heated debate, but is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss its existence out of hand."

"The devastating emotional consequences of abortion are beginning to be even more widely documented. Women who have had abortions are at high risk for serious and lasting depression, and they are more likely than women who have not had abortions to suffer drug or alcohol addiction or even to commit suicide."

"Not all women can bear children, and not all women wish to do so, but the potential to do so lies at the core of being a woman. By trivializing and even denigrating women's ability to bear children, legalized abortion has stripped women of their dignity as women; it has shredded the primary tie among women of different classes, races, ethnicities, and national origins; it has seriously diminished women's prospects for a lasting marriage; and it has exposed them to unprecedented levels of sexual exploitation. Welcome to the brave new world of freedom, ladies-and gentlemen."

"Legalized abortion begins as a war against women, whom it tells that in order to be worthy, they must become like men.  Perhaps worse, in severing the binding tie between women and the children they conceive, legalized abortion dismisses women from the company of responsible persons who are capable of sacrificing a piece of their freedom for the good of others-especially the children who embody our future."

On a positive note, Fox-Genovese says: "we must first acknowledge the importance and justice of women's participation at all levels in the worlds of work, politics, and the arts. We do not aspire to return women to subservient domesticity-much less deprive the world of their considerable talents...Our challenge is to turn the clock forward by offering women new visions that do not pit their lives against the lives of their children in a Darwinian struggle for survival."

She concludes: "The life issues, which begin with abortion, are emerging as the most important issues of our time, and women are their front-line custodians. It remains to be seen whether we will rise to the challenge."

May Swazi women and men, and all people of goodwill, protect women from the assault of abortion. No to abortion; yes to life.

Obama's Attack Ads

In the past two weeks the Times of Swaziland has reported on Obama's charges that Mitt Romney is a "corporate raider" and will be "outsourcer in chief" if he gets elected. "I think voters entirely, legitimately want to know what exactly is his business experience" Obama was reported as saying in the 17 July Times of Swaziland. Team Obama has continually insinuated, and reports in the international news section of the Times of Swaziland have aided and abetted, allegations that Romney violated business law and shipped American jobs to China and Mexico.

Independent research website factcheck.org finds Team Obama's charges misleading, stating "after reviewing numerous corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, contemporary news accounts, company histories and press releases, and the evidence offered by both the Obama and Romney campaigns, we found no evidence to support the claim that Romney — while he was still running Bain Capital — shipped American jobs overseas." In another place, Factcheck says "in this particular case the Obama campaign failed to support its claim that Romney personally 'shipped jobs to Mexico and China.'” Factcheck quotes a former president of one of Bain's companies saying: "By the time Romney left Bain, Stream’s call centers had grown from just a few hundred people in Massachusetts to approximately 5,000 employees across the United States. Stream was not ‘shipping jobs overseas,’ but creating thousands of jobs for American workers in places like Massachusetts, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas." Team Obama also insinuates Romney continued to direct Bain operations (and thus carried out offshoring activities) after he left the company in 1999 to direct the Salt Lake City winter Olympics. From the Factcheck report: "Late on July 1, the Obama campaign issued a formal objection to this article, claiming that Romney remained at least a 'part time' manager of Bain after February 1999. We strongly disagree. Both Romney and Bain have stated repeatedly that Romney 'has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way' since leaving to head the Olympics. Romney stated that twice on official federal disclosure documents, where a falsehood could draw a federal felony charge and possible fines and prison time if convicted. A contemporary news account describes Romney as working 16-hour days on the Olympics." Steve Pagliuca, a partner at Bain, says “Due to the sudden nature of Mr. Romney’s departure (to lead the Salt Lake City Olympics), he remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999. Accordingly, Mr. Romney was reported in various capacities on SEC filings during this period.” Read the entire report at http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-outsourcer-overreach/, under the title "Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach".

What happened to the Barack Obama who promised "hope and change", who could "bring people together", who said "yes we can", who invoked "one United States of America"; a politician who, in the words of one reporter, was treated in some circles as "Obamessiah"? It looks like that was election-season sloganeering, and its now back to partisan politics as usual.  Why would Obama descend to mounting viciously unfair attacks on his opponent? Consider this: after 3 1/2 years as president, and overseeing the growth of American national debt to over $15 trillion ($15, 000,000,000,000), American workers are no better off now than when Obama took power in 2008. Having proven himself  incapable of re-energizing the economy, Team Obama has resorted to, as the Times called it on 17 July, "character assassination". After all, calling someone a "corporate raider", "outsourcer pioneer", or suggesting Romney has skeletons in his SEC closet is simply that-namecalling. Romney's campaign is correct to state that such behaviour is "beneath the dignity of the presidency."

Obama's character assassination campaign, though reproachable, makes political sense. After all, Obama has enjoyed a free hand with American taxpayer money, yet has not generated any sort of economic comeback for the American worker. Romney, on the other hand, has extensive business experience and numerous business successes. With polls consistently indicating Americans' biggest concern is the economy, put yourself in Obama's shoes: you'd also want to deflect attention from your own spectacular failures on the most important issue, and paint your opponent as a greedy, shady, job-destroying villain. Barack Obama's extraordinary political career proves he's very good at getting elected, but his time in the White House has shown him atrociously bad at living out the unifying and noble ideals that he presented to the American public during the previous election.

It is time for hope, change, and honesty in the White House. Romney for USA president, November 2012.

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

Wait for the Best

Recently my wife and I were discussing marriage, and we struck upon this idea: the best way to defeat your enemy is to convince him to not even fight. What does this realization have to do with marriage? It is this: modern western culture tells young people that no one can wait until marriage for sex, so you might as well try it now. An additional, quieter message is that marriage isn't that great, and so sex before marriage is as good as it will get.

These two messages are complete lies. Tragically, these lies discourage young people from embarking on the struggle for sexual purity and the quest for a truly good spouse.

Fortunately, with effort and self control, anyone can save sex for marriage. And though there are lots of weak and unhappy marriages, there are lots of happy and healthy ones, too. A successful and fulfilling marriage is possible. I know this from my own marriage, and from the marriages of many of my friends.

Young men and women CAN be married happily ever after. Young people, ask God for the courage to save sex for marriage, and for direction to a good spouse. Read the Bible, especially the whole of Ephesians chapter 5, and read the book Love and Marriage: Questions Young People Ask by Bruce and Carol Britten, available in Christian bookstores. This book discusses why and how to stay sexually pure and how to prepare for and build a great marriage.

Young people: do not believe the lies that sex can't wait, and that marriage isn't that great. Don't allow yourself to be defeated before the battle begins.  Make the effort to stay sexually pure, and to find that good spouse and build a great marriage. In doing so you will benefit yourself, your spouse, your children, and the entire nation.

Rudy Poglitsh

Safe, Legal, and Rare?

Former USA President Bill Clinton used this phrase to express his abortion position. He stated that he wished abortion to be safe for the women, legal, and to take place only very rarely.

Abortion is still legal in the United States, and 1,200,000 abortions took place in 2008. Legal yes, rare...no. How about safe for women?

Dr. Warren Hern, a leading American abortion doctor, told the 18th Annual Meeting of the National Abortion Federation: "I have to say this: There's a lot of crummy medicine being practiced out there in providing abortion services, and I think that some of the stuff I see coming across my desk is very upsetting...We have to do this right or we shouldn't do it."

The state of New York (USA) legalized abortion in 1970. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a medical doctor instrumental in legalizing abortion in the state, was challenged with preparing a recently-opened abortion clinic for inspection. The administrator of the clinic told him that the doctors there were "atrocious...sadists, drunks, incompetents, sex maniacs, thieves, butchers, and lunatics...half of them don't even wash their hands anymore before doing an abortion...they refuse to use masks or caps, and their mustaches are dragging into the suction machines." Nathanson then toured the clinic and, according to the book Lime 5, found it "chaotic, crowded, inadequately lighted, ill-equipped, poorly run, poorly staffed, dirty, and operating with no back-up emergency hospital". Nathanson did manage to improve standards at the clinic in time for the inspection. After one incident-free abortion performed for the state inspector, the clinic received approval. Unfortunately, the next woman who underwent an abortion at the clinic suffered a perforated uterus and was rushed to a local emergency room. Nathanson himself grew increasingly disillusioned with abortion and became a pro-life advocate.

The problems at the clinic Nathanson so briefly improved continued. In 1988 a 19-year-old woman died after an abortion at the clinic. That same year health department inspections concluded the clinic regularly put its patients at "continuing and serious risk" by using "procedures and equipment that were grossly irresponsible and in contravention of accepted medical practice". The 1988 inspection listed over a dozen other deficiencies at the clinic, including expired emergency medicines, a lack of hand-washing sinks in the examination room, and no staff qualified to give anaesthesia.

Such is the state of abortion in the most medically-advanced nation in the world. It is hard to imagine that health care systems in developing nations like Swaziland would provide vastly better abortion care.

Instead, let us support mothers and children in life-giving ways during pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. Let us work for healthy moms and children. No to abortion, yes to life.

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

Early Feminist Voices

In accord with their human dignity, many individuals and groups see the need for Swazi women to participate in civic life alongside men. American women were not allowed to vote (a right sometimes called "suffrage") until 1920. A number of American women led the charge to give women the vote. What did these early champions of womens' rights have to say about abortion?

Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906, and president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and driving force of the women's suffrage movement-"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to her crime!"-in Anthony's newspaper The Revolution

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who worked with Susan B. Anthony for 50 years to get women the vote: regarding prostitution and the "murder of children either before or after birth": "For a quarter of a century sober, thinking women have warned this nation of these thick coming dangers, and pointed to the only remedy, the education and enfranchisement of woman...We believe the cause of all these abuses lies in the degradation of women." in The Revolution, 5 February 1868

Victoria Woodhull, first female presidential candidate, 1870: "The rights of children as individuals begin while they yet remain the foetus."

Last off from Susan B. Anthony: "All the articles on this subject that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty, and never include man in any plans for the remedy." -July 8, 1869

May all of us-both men and women-stand with these forward-thinking women in their defense of both women and children. No to abortion; yes to love and life.

read more at www.feministsforlife.org/history/foremoth.htm

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

Womens' Health After Abortion

I recently sampled statistics on womens' health after abortion. Here are some chilling facts:
*Post-abortive women are five times more likely to say they abuse drugs or alcohol than women who deliver their children.
*A study from New Zealand reports "Approximately 42% of women with a history of abortion had experienced major depression in the last four years-nearly double the rate of women who had not been pregnant, and 35% higher than women who had live births".

*A study conducted in Finland found suicide rates among post-abortive women were six times higher than for women who gave birth to their children.

This is but a tiny sample of the documented negative effects of abortion on women. Visit www.afterabortion.org for more information.



Swaziland is beginning to see the importance of protecting and promoting women's well-being. Abortion threatens the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of women. Abortion has no place in the effort to uplift women. Instead, let us support women through difficult pregnancies and circumstances, that they and their children may prosper in life.



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

Preventing Teenage Pregnancy

Friday's Times carried a full-page article entitled "Preventing Teenage Pregnancy". Teen pregnancy is indeed a serious issue, as we all know many aspiring girls drop out of school due to pregnancy. Teen pregnancy is also a leading cause of poverty. Contraception, however, will not end unwed pregnancies. Why?

Like every other man-made device, contraceptives fail-even when used perfectly correctly.  But they generally are not used perfectly. As contraceptive use increases, those failure rates translate into more unintended pregnancies. This is an empirically-demonstrated fact; visit http://www.lifenews.com/2012/02/17/studies-birth-control-contraception-dont-cut-abortions/ to learn more.

Less-known, but vitally important, is the connection between contraception and HIV. From a report published in April 2010: "More than 50 medical studies, to date, have investigated the association of hormonal contraceptive use and HIV/AIDS infection. The studies show that hormonal contraceptives—the oral pill and Depo-Provera—increase almost all known risk factors for HIV, from upping a woman’s risk of infection, to increasing the replication of the HIV virus, to speeding the debilitating and deadly progression of the disease."  

When I first read about this, I hoped it wasn't true, so I contacted a leading HIV researcher who I have come to know.  He has been involved in HIV research since the early days.  He told me that "a link between hormonal contraception and increased risk of contracting HIV emerged in the EARLIEST studies of HIV risk factors... Usually, those early studies offered no interpretation of the associations that they were finding ...and then, even the association itself stopped being reported."  He says the reason was that so many of the early HIV researchers like himself had been heavily involved in promoting contraceptives and no one likes to publically say that their previous advice was bad.

The last thing teenage Swazi girls need at this time is a pill that makes them more susceptible to HIV. Read the full report at http://catholicexchange.com/2010/04/26/129702/ 

So if the technologically-driven pharmaceutical approach to curbing teenage pregnancy won't work, what will?

Let fathers and mothers train their children in chastity. Let us teach, by example and word, the value of saving one's sexual debut for the wedding night. As a boy or girl grows from childhood through adolescence to full maturity, the discipline and character they develop through channeling their energies away from sexual activity and into life-enhancing activities (school, sports, helping at home and in the community, etc.) will profit them greatly when they do get married. Fathers and mothers need to walk their children through those difficult years of puberty; doing so will not only help our children for the rest of their lives, it will cause our hearts to swell with pride when we see them living upright, meaningful, fulfilling, happy lives.

Ultimately, a young man and woman who save themselves for each other on their wedding night can look forward to a lifetime of disease-free, worry-free sex. Let us not short-change and insult our youth by telling them they can't wait until marriage for sex. With our help they CAN wait, and they can fill that waiting period with healthy and character-building activity that will help them have great marriages. The last line of Friday's article had it exactly right: "The word 'NO' works wonders and saves lives to the present day". That NO to premarital sex opens the doors to many YES replies to good things before marriage, and to a life-long, dream-fulfilling "I do" to a husband or wife at the altar. Swazi youth deserve as much.

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

Conservation

I teach high school biology and recently our class discussed conservation. Conservation means protecting the natural resources (air, water, soil) of the nation, so that the country remains healthy and strong.

It strikes me, however, that the greatest resource of any nation is its people. A nation consists of its people; if the people vanish, so does the nation. Furthermore, the health and vitality of a country depends primarily on its citizens, not its natural resources. Countries like Singapore (4% the size of Swaziland) have no natural resources, yet their people make such countries vibrantly successful.

A grave threat faces Swaziland's citizenry-AIDS. Yet the Swazi nation can protect her most precious natural resource by saving sex for marriage only. Keeping sex exclusively in marriage will make AIDS a distant, painful memory,  will increase marital satisfaction, and will provide a healthy environment for raising the next generation of children.

For the preservation of Swaziland's greatest natural resource-her people-may the nation save sex for marriage, and keep it there. Doing so will prosper the nation.

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

Mother Teresa on Abortion

I write on my first-born daughter's 10th birthday. What a gift she has been to us! I am grateful that God gave her to us.Many people remember the sacrificial love Mother Teresa gave to the people dying on the streets of Calcutta, India for decades. Less well-known (except in the United States) is the speech she gave at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC in 1994. The following is a quote from that talk.
"I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free
time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child
he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion."
Let us choose the path of love, even when it hurts. Let us respect and help women and their children, born and unborn. To foster peace and love in the world, no to abortion and yes to love and life.
Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Top 10 Ways to Keep a Marriage Alive

I am so excited that a dear former student of mine is getting married, that I thought I would share with you some advice I gave to them.

I found this list at a friend's house many years ago. I read over the list each morning, and whichever one catches my attention, I try to do it that day. My marriage is great, and this list has helped us.

Here's the list. Try it yourself, and start making a happier marriage-and a healthier country.

1) Pray for your mate each day.
2) Express appreciation for each other.
3) Show respect for 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.
10) Smile at each other.

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

Ephesians chapter 5

Today I learned that a dear former student of mine will get married this year. I hope we can attend the wedding. My wife and I have been married for 11 wonderful years. At our wedding, we read the following scripture from Ephesians chapter 5: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands." I trust most adults reading this letter have heard this scripture at a wedding, and have heard it expounded upon, perhaps with great enthusiasm. I will not expound upon it here, because I want to go on to the next verse, which was also read at our wedding. It says, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her". I wonder, How many times has this verse been read and preached upon at weddings with equal enthusiasm?

How did Christ love his church? I am Catholic, and when I attend Mater Dolorosa I get my answer when I walk in the door and look at the front of the church: Jesus went willingly to the cross and died for his beloved church. He sacrificed himself, so that his church would come to life.

This is what husbands are called to do. And paradoxically, just as Jesus rose from the dead after his crucifixion, so will we men, and our marriages, and our children, spring to unexpected new life when we willingly surrender ourselves for our wives' good. I am not a perfect husband, by any stretch of the imagination. But I do know that when I sacrifice for my wife, new life springs forth.

Examples:

I love soccer, and have a number of matches on video. I could happily watch match after match in the evenings. Instead, I leave those videos on the shelf to talk and play with the family. This brings us emotionally closer to each other. Again, a (small) sacrifice on my part makes my wife, my children, and myself prosper.

We live in the country, and a Saturday trip to Mbabane presents me with the chance to get a lot of things done. If I take some of my children, I will get much less accomplished and I won't get to do all the things I'd like to. But if I do take them with me, they have a marvelous time, and my wife gets a break at home. When I make that sacrifice, my spouse and my children are happier-and they radiate that happiness back onto me. A sacrifice from me brings greater joy and life to all.

After the birth of our fourth child, I asked my wife what  more I could do to support her now that she had additional responsibilities.  She said that in the evening, when it was time to cook,  the baby was often fussy and she get frustrated under the pressure of cooking dinner coupled with the demands of a crying baby. I said that I could cook dinner, and have done that for the last two years.  My wife can take care of our children or have some time to herself  after a very busy day.  When dinner is served, she is rested and happy, not frustrated and irritable.

If the soon-to-be husband of my former student loves his bride as Christ loved his church, he too will experience the life and happiness that springs from small sacrifices. I will encourage him to do so.

This space usually discusses pro-life issues, specifically ending abortion. Were men to love their wives and girlfriends as Christ loved his church, I suggest that the desire for and number of abortions would fall nearly to zero. This is so because a boyfriend would save sex with the one he loves until marriage-that is respecting and sacrificing for her; and a wife who unexpectedly found herself pregnant would reflect on all the loving sacrifices her husband had made for her, and know that he would continue to do so to provide for this new one. Abortion would drown in a sea of loving sacrifice. Let us build a culture of love and life; let us men take the lead in sacrificial loving action.

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

Fetal Pain

We all know children feel pain more acutely than adults. Parents know the experience of treating a child's mildly scraped knees as if, judging by the tears and shouts of our little ones, they were life-threatening injuries. How far back in life does the ability to experience pain reach? And what bearing does this have on the abortion issue?

Nurse Barbara Willke and her husband, Dr. John Willke, explain that unborn humans feel pain from 8 weeks after conception. They write: "What is needed is 1) a sensory nerve to feel the pain and send a message to 2) the thalamus, a part of the base of the brain, and 3) motor nerves to send a message to that area. These are present at 8 weeks." Referencing a 1980 British Medical Journal article entitled "What the fetus feels", the Willke's continue: "Try sticking an 8 week old fetus in the palm of his hand. He opens his mouth and pulls his hand away. A more technical description would add that changes in heart rate and fetal movement also suggest that intrauterine manipulations are painful to the fetus." Naturally, ability to feel pain continues for the rest of a child's time in the womb and into post-birth life.

Concern that children not suffer unjust pain features more and more prominently in Swaziland's public discussions. Let us take one step to ensure children do not suffer unjust pain and punishment by making sure no child experiences the excruciating and inescapable pain of a life-ending abortion. No to abortion; yes to life.

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

Easter

"I just have no words to describe what I went through when I woke up from the anaesthetic [after the abortion]. I cry as I write this. I wanted to slice myself up, to get a gun and blow my head off."

"I was in shock for two weeks after the abortion. I didn't talk about it and carried on life as normally as I could. But the veil of denial lifted and I sobbed uncontrollably for days...For five years after, I continued to have periods of sobbing that lasted hours."

"On returning home from the hospital [after the abortion], I could not stop crying. For three days I felt if I killed myself I could catch up with my baby and have it back."

So speak many women after their abortions. These and other mothers suffer deep and long-lasting regret from ending the lives of their babies. In this Easter season, however, there is hope. Consider this woman's testimony.

"When I was so ill with depression and guilt [after my abortion] I was continually confronted with one particular scripture: 'And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.' (Romans 8:28) I had a difficult time believing that this colud apply to something as destructive and devastating as my abortion. After all, my baby had died and I was completely shattered, unable to function in a normal manner...[Eventually] God began to patiently show me how this scripture could be fulfilled in my life. First, I began to recognize that the pain I was experiencing had given me insights on suffering, sin, and forgiveness. It also gave me a great desire to live in obedience to God; in fact, my depression was the catalyst for both myself and my husband to come to know the Lord...I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not thankful I had an abortion. But I am extremely grateful that God has used such a tragedy to bring me to Him and to teach me. I am very grateful that He has used this to ultimately make me a stronger person..."

In this Easter season, let us remember that God turned the unjust and cruel death of Christ into a glorious resurrection three days later. He can also relieve and reverse the sorrow of abortion. God turned the pain and death of Good Friday into the everlasting joy of Easter Sunday. God invites all women who suffer from grief from their abortions into his forgiveness and healing. Turn to him for healing, hope, and wholeness.

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

A Consistent Ethic of Life

Some might wonder, "Poglitsh, don't you think our world has problems other than abortion? Consider war, hunger, disease, poverty, lack of clean water, lack of education opportunities, sex discrimination, racism, lack of good housing, etc. Don't these things matter?"

Absolutely they do. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, a Roman Catholic prelate, worked tirelessly on numerous issues of human suffering. He popularized the term "consistent ethic of life", a term meaning that human life ought to be respected at all stages and in all circumstances. Before his death from cancer in November 1996, Bernardin addressed the threats of modern warfare to human life, opposed the death penalty, spoke against violence in the middle East and Ireland, dedicated a facility to the care of AIDS victims, participated in an anti-pornography group, and as cancer began to affect his own life, began a ministry to cancer victims. Cardinal Bernardin valued human life, and acted to promote human advancement against all manner of insults.

Here is what the Cardinal said in 1989: "Not all values, however, are of equal weight. Some are more fundamental than others. On this Respect Life Sunday, I wish to emphasize that no earthly value is more fundamental than human life itself. Human life is the condition for enjoying freedom and all other values. Consequently, if one must choose between protecting or serving lesser human values that depend upon life for their existence and life itself, human life must take precedence."

We need not, and should not, promote one human good and ignore others. Let us advance human development in all its aspects, beginning with protecting the right to life. With the right to life secure, we can work for human betterment in all other areas.

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

Abortion's Lethal Logic

Blob of tissue; products of conception; clump of cells. Abortion advocacy applies such phrases to make abortion seem to be less than the killing of a human being. Much of the modern Western world has accepted these dehumanizing terms and consequently legalized abortion.

When the United States legalized abortion in the early 1970s, parents knew little about the status and development of the unborn. Since that time, medical research has shown that a newly-conceived human being is far more complex-and human-than a "blob of tissue".

The problem is, abortion is an entrenched cultural dynamic in the western world even as science continually reaffirms the humanity of the unborn. How can societies which have legitimized abortion continue the practice when those societies know those unborn entities are no mere "clumps of cells"?

The latest rhetorical technique is to say that born infants are not persons in the way that you, Mr. or Ms. Reader, are, and thus may be legitimately killed, even after birth.

Authors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva recently published a paper entitled "After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?” in the London-based Journal of Medical Ethics. Consider these quotes from their paper: "Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a 'person' in the sense of 'subject of a moral right to life.' " "The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual." The authors conclude this way: "what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is [permissible], including cases where the newborn is not disabled”.

In countries where a child can be aborted at any time during the pregnancy-and such countries do exist-their conclusion means that any infant could be killed for any reason after birth.

Two observations are in order: 1) Though the thought of killing born babies should make all sane, decent people shudder, the logic of these authors is flawless. If it is legitimate to kill someone who is unborn, why is it not legitimate to kill them after they are born? Why should a child's right to life begin at birth? It is only a change of location-a change of only a few centimetres-which differentiates between a child which, under the laws of so many countries, may be legally killed, from a child which may not be legally killed. Why should a few centimetres matter?

2) The right to kill a person has moved from the womb to the outside world. The authors assert that it is “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”. This very confusing sentence means that being a "person in the morally relevant sense" is now the criteria for a right not to be killed. Who will decide who is "morally relevant"? What traits must an individual possess to qualify as "morally relevant"? Should the "moral relevance" argument win the day, everyone under the official or practical power of the "experts" is in mortal danger-because the "experts" may draw up any arbitrary set of standards to decide who is relevant, and those who fall outside those standards will become expendable.

Our only protection against a death sentence from an "expert" is to protect all human life. Let public opinion follow science: human life begins at conception. Let behaviour follow biological fact: human conception begins with sexual activity. Let sex be saved for marriage so that all new human life enters the world in the context of love and life-long committment.

Article at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html#.T1BQUf8_LUs.mailto

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

Safest Sex

The reproductive health section of Friday's Times of Swaziland spoke about safer sex. It explained that improper planning for safer sex can cause embarrassing or even life-changing events, and went on to describe recent advances in and continuing challenges to preventing HIV transmission.

Without ignoring the plight of the HIV-positive, let's also help the younger generations by promoting Safest Sex: no sex until marriage, and sex only with husband or wife after marriage. Safest sex requires neither devices nor technical training: just coaching and self-discipline to avoid sex before marriage, and sound support from peers and elders during courtship and marriage. A man and a woman who save sex for their wedding night can look forward to decades of disease-free, joy-filled sexual pleasure with each other. Trading a few years of character-building abstinence for 20, 30, or 40 years of no-technology, worry-free, mutually-satisfying, relationship-building, and extremely-safe sex is a very good bargain. It is the safest bargain. It is Safest Sex.

Away with pre- and extra-marital sex and all their negative effects (disease, broken hearts, broken marriages, abortions); up with Safest Sex and all its positive effects (self-control, faithfulness, health, joy, love). Individuals, couples, families, and the nation will benefit.



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

Contraception and Abortion

The firestorm over Obama's controversial mandate forcing institutions to provide services they object to provides a teachable moment. Specifically, Obama has mandated that all employers, including religious ones, provide health care coverage that includes sterilization and abortion-causing drugs.

Besides the very important issue of the mandate's violation of the freedom of religion-that is, government's forcing institutions and individual businesses to pay for things they object to-and besides the very important issue of calling abortifacient drugs "contraception"-when in fact these drugs cause the death of newly-conceived human beings-let us address the important issue of contraception's connection to abortion. Does widespread access to contraception lead to fewer abortions? Is it true, as Democrat abortion-supporting USA senator Barbara Boxer says, "broadening access to birth control will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions"?

Logically, one would think "Yes". If a couple, or sexually-active partnership (not much love in that phrase, is there?) were not ready for a child, contraception would prevent the conception of a baby that the not-yet-ready couple might otherwise abort.

But the lived experience of several decades indicates otherwise. As the availability of contraception increases, adolescents and others not ready for children have more sex. Because contraceptives, like every other man-made object, occasionally fail, some couples find themselves with unplanned pregnancies. And as children were never a part of such couples' plans, abortion is the next option.

Here is what the Supreme Court of the United States of America said in 1992: "in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraception...for two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail."

Consider these demonstrations of the contraception/abortion link:
"In Sweden, between 1995 and 2001, teen abortion rates grew 32% during a period of low-cost condoms, oral contraceptives and over-the-counter emergency contraception."

In Spain, a ten-year study found "[C]ontraception use increased by about 60%, the abortion rate doubled. In other words, even with an increase in contraception use, there weren’t fewer unwanted pregnancies, there were more."

The Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, found "simultaneous increases in abortion rates and contraceptive use in the United States, Cuba, Denmark, the Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea."

Witness these prominent individuals in family planning institutions on the contraception/abortion link:

Malcolm Potts, director of Planned Parenthood in the 1970s: "As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate…"

Alfred Kinsey, famous sexologist, in 1955: "At the risk of being repetitious, I would remind the group that we have found the highest frequency of induced abortions in the groups which, in general, most frequently uses contraception."

Judith Bury, British abortion advocate: "“…women…have come to request [abortions] when contraception fails. There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision [availability] of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate.”

Lionel Tiger, sociologist, in 1999: "With effective contraception controlled by women, there are still more abortions than ever…[C]ontraception causes abortion.”

Contraception would seem a good way to prevent unintended pregnancies and the consequent tragedy of abortion. Empirical data indicate just the opposite. What, then, should be done? Let couples in love save their sexual debuts for their wedding night, so that all their children may enter the world within the bond of a loving marriage. Let these couples practice Natural Family Planning, a method which allows a husband and wife to space the births of their children without any sort of artificial intervention (visit ccli.org for more information). Let faithfulness, love and life prosper.

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

Obama's Contraceptive Push

Monday's fair treatment of Obama's controversial contraception edict ("US Catholic Bishops oppose Obama birth-control plan") needs just a few clarifications. First, the context: the US government is, for the first time in its history, making a list of services that must be included in every health insurance policy. The Obama administration's list mandates 100% coverage for birth control methods and "Plan B" and "ella" drugs, which cause newly-conceived children to be expelled from the womb. As these drugs cause abortions, it's no wonder the Catholic Church does not provide them to employees. The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a very serious sin. It also teaches that it is a very serious sin to assist in an abortion. Obama's ruling insists that religious institutions provide a "service" that the church believes puts the user and the provider in danger of damnation. Moreover, many non-Catholic Americans perceive Obama's move as trampling Constitutionally-protected religious freedom-a freedom defining American civil life since its founding. Even if Obama did exempt religious organizations from his edict, nothing protects the conscience rights of business owners who object to supplying abortion-causing drugs to their employees via health care coverage.

Second, the article says "his compromise [means] religious employers would not have to offer free contraceptives for workers, shifting the responsibility to insurers." But in fact, insurers are business people; they do not provide goods or services for free. They will, as any good business would, respond to Obama's demand to provide "free" contraceptives by raising the fees those religious employers pay to the insurer for coverage. Congressman Chris Smith explained Obama's "compromise" this way: "It states, for example, that religious employers 'will not' have to pay for abortion pills, sterilization, and contraception, but their 'insurance companies' will. Who pays for the insurance policy? The religious employer."

The end of the article says "The regulation at the center of the controversy requires religious-affiliated groups such as charities, hospitals and universities, not churches themselves, to provide employees with coverage for birth control as other health insurance providers must do." One must assume that the author meant that religiously affiliated groups must provide the same coverage as other EMPLOYERS must, since religious-affiliated groups are employers but not health insurance companies.

Throughout the world, church-affiliated hospitals and clinics on university campuses offer health care services as part of their ministries. Many churches, including the Catholic Church, believe their health-care outreaches are a way of extending Christ's healing hands to the sick, injured, and poor. Catholic hospitals and university clinics wish to retain this healing outreach. Forcing Catholic institutions to provide life-denying and sometimes killing drugs opposes this Christ-like outreach.

Americans have traditionally insisted that the Federal Government keep its hands off of religious charities so that charities can serve people while following the dictates of their consciences. We don't know the outcome of this battle, but let us hope that freedom and tolerance prevail.

Rudy Poglitsh
more letters at www.letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Journalistic Integrity

Monday's "news" article about US President Obama's current political fortunes was a source of amusement and sadness. Amusement, because one could easily believe his re-election campaign team wrote it; and sadness, for the very same reason. Journalism's highest and noblest calling lies in its objective treatment of individuals and events. Such treatment allows readers to see two or more sides of an issue and then draw their own conclusions. The international news page of the Times has, sadly, preferred full-throated boosterism to objectivity when it comes to Obama. The Times, and journalism generally, suffers for it.

The Times could have, over the past five years, mentioned things like:
*Obama won his 1996 campaign to be the Democrat candidate for Illinois state senator by having all the other candidates removed from the ballot;
*Obama pushed his 2010 health care reform act through Congress despite the fact that a majority of Americans opposed it;
*Obama's spending habits have amassed a federal debt of $15 trillion, a amount of money almost equal to the gross domestic product of the country and putting every American household in debt to the tune of $128,300 (about one million Emalangeni);
*Obama's Democrat party took a "shellacking" (his own word) in the November 2010 mid-term elections, a defeat generally attributed to voter dissatisfaction with Obama's first two years;
*Obama recently denied permission to build a pipeline to carry Canadian crude oil across the United States-a job that would provide thousands of US jobs in a job-starved time;
*Time magazine's Mark Halperin, commenting on Obama's pipeline decision, said "I think it is reflective of the fact he has not brought the country together on controversial issues which he promised to do.”
*ABC News reported on-line that the "tick off" between Arizona governor Brewer and Obama ran the other direction-with Brewer pointing a scolding finger at the president. Brewer was reportedly annoyed at the president for not taking seriously her concerns about border control (Arizona is a border state) at an earlier meeting between them.

Instead of mentioning such newsworthy details, Monday's Times gave us the headline "President Obama More Popular". Readers of Swaziland's "newspaper of record" will recognize this pattern in the Times. Expressing enthusiasm for a candidate or elected official is part of the election process, and has its place in the opinion section of a newspaper; but the news sections of a journal like the Times should carry clear-eyed reports and balanced analysis, not endorsements.

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

Beginnings and Endings

Everyone reading this newspaper escaped death by abortion. The question is, will we escape death by euthanasia? As the killing of unborn children becomes acceptable in so many "advanced" cultures, the pressure to take the lives of the elderly, or injured, or very ill, or the simply inconvenient (in terms of effort and money required to assist their daily living) grows. Once the right to life is violated in its beginning, it is only logical that the right to life will be violated towards its end. Put another way, if you can kill people when they are very young, why can't you kill them when they are very old? This dynamic is already present in the Netherlands, where citizens who don't want to be killed when they are in the hospital can hire individuals to help protect them from hospital staff.

When we protect the lives of the unborn, we protect everyone's lives-including our own. Let us build a culture of life, where everyone's life is respected from conception to natural death.

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

Abortion and Coercion

"I don’t think women make these [abortion] decisions casually. I think they — they wrestle with these things in profound ways, in consultation with their pastors or their spouses or their doctors or their family members."

These are the words of a USA presidential hopeful during his election campaign in 2008. This man was half right; many women deliberate seriously about having an abortion. But far too often, the individuals closest to these internally-conflicted women do not offer supportive consultation.

One would hope and expect that the facilities performing abortions-ultimately the most important people in a woman's decision to abort-would sympathetically and supportively consult with such women in this life-changing decision. Former abortion clinic employees report that they do not. From Catherine Anthony Adair: "In 1997, I began working at a Boston Planned Parenthood clinic as a young, idealistic college student who strongly believed in what I had been told about the organization, that I would be helping other young women access safe and affordable health care. My time there was not spent providing prenatal care to pregnant women, providing counseling or basic health care services or educating women about reproductive health. Instead, I spent my days urging women to terminate their pregnancies. My superiors constantly reminded me of our abortion-centered business model: abortion first, everything else came second. I began to recognize their emphasis on performing abortions each time a woman would express concern or have second thoughts about having an abortion. When I notified management, though, they told me not to worry and encourage her decision to move ahead with the procedure." Adair continues: "In fact, clinic workers would purposefully avoid providing information on fetal development, what the child looked like, the child's anatomical development and the pain he or she could feel...There is no counseling, no care, no waiting and no discussion. Once a pregnancy is confirmed, it is off to termination."

Says Carol Everett, once an owner of several abortion clinics: "I'm sure you're seen those [telephone] numbers advertised which say 'Problem Pregnancy' , 'Abortion Information', or 'Pregnant'? When a young girl finds out she is pregnant, she may not want an abortion, she may just want information. But when she calls that number that's paid for by abortion money, what kind of information do you think she's going to get? Remember, they sell abortions. They don't sell keeping the baby. They don't sell giving the baby up [for adoption]. They don't sell delivering the baby in any form. They only sell abortions."

Laurel Guymer, former abortion clinic worker from Australia, recalls co-workers telling her "this is a business" when Guymer tried to help women who changed their mind and didn't want the abortion: "What if they said 'no' when entering the operating room? In this instance I felt compelled to reassure them that they don't have to go through with it and walked them back to the changing room. This was not welcomed by my colleagues at the clinic. I was reminded that this is a business and that any slowing in the production line costs money."

The clinics directly responsible for performing abortions would, hopefully, take a woman's abortion decision so seriously that they would help these women "wrestle with it in profound ways". Instead, the clinics see abortions as a money maker, and the more money (and abortions) the better. We have every reason to believe that, should abortion become as acceptable in Swaziland as it is in so-called advanced western countries, women here will suffer the same strong pressures to abort.

Women already confused and uncertain about their next step due to unexpected pregnancies should not suffer pressure to abort, yet widespread legalized abortion will bring such pressure. The solution? Save sex for marriage, keep sex in marriage only, and parents cherish and protect the natural result of their marital embrace. In this way we build a culture of life and love. No to abortion; yes to love and life.

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

Ubuntu

Children are conceived through the intimate togetherness of a man and a woman. Each of us spent the first 9 months of our lives in intimate connection with our mother as we developed in her womb. These two profound connections-father with mother, and mother with child-are the fountainheads of human life. Without these connectons, civilization perishes.

Abortion violently shatters the mother-to-child connection. In contemplating abortion, one or both parents view the unborn child as an obstacle blocking their progress, and decide the death of the child is the way to remove the obstacle. According to current research, some 64% of abortions involve coercion-meaning the mom really didn't want the abortion, but others forced her decision. Neither the view of a child as an obstacle, nor the (often coerced) decision to abort a child, coincide with the spirit of "ubuntu"-a Xhosa/Zulu word defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English as "a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity." "Abortion", says Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, "rests on enmity where there should be welcome." Father Pavone continues:"We end abortion when we help mom and dad to trust that the child is not an obstacle to their fulfillment. Rather, both child and parents find their fulfillment in giving themselves to each other in love."

Swazis are known as friendly, welcoming people. May Swazis preserve this reputation by extending kindness, compassion, and hospitality-ubuntu-to all members of society. Let us lavish special care on those moms with unplanned or difficult pregnancies, that they may extend ubuntu to the children still developing within them. No to abortion; yes to ubuntu, yes to life.

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