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
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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
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
Saturday, February 18, 2012
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
Friday, February 3, 2012
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
Saturday, January 28, 2012
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
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
Monday, January 23, 2012
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
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
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
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