Slaughter of the Innocents

Planned Parenthood is a resource for women that provides, not just abortions, but NECESSARY, NECESSARY, NECESSARY birth control means, which can otherwise prevent abortions. I am personally grateful for Planned Parenthood as it allowed me anonymity, medical screening and an array of options in the way of birth control when I was 18. It helped me be responsible as a woman by offering me options in a dignified way. I don't feel abortion should be used as birth control, but if a woman is raped or has special circumstances, she should have a LEGAL option. Women need to have options - all options - and it is up to them to make correct decisions. Take away the options and problems will occur. It will not end abortions. It will simply increase botched abortions that harm or kill the woman or increase severe injuries women would take into their own hands to conduct, say, with coathangers.

According to a study done by Gilda Sedgh of the Guttmacher Institute in the US and colleagues from the World Health Organization, "Abortion accounts for 13% of maternal mortality worldwide. About 70,000 women die every year from unsafe abortions. An additional 5 million women suffer permanent or temporary injury."

A Planned Parenthood facility recently opened in Aurora, Illinois, outside of Chicago. There was much ado: local officials tried to gain conservative votes by trying to create legal red tape with regards to permits, etc. in order to prohibit the facility from opening. Thankfully, they failed and it opened. Prior, however, protestors from both sides of the fence showed up to make their voices heard. My friend took her son to a rally in support of the facility. People looked at her sideways. She said that Planned Parenthood allowed her options so that when she had properly prepared a loving home for a child that she could choose when to have a baby once she was GOOD AND READY. Some protestors were aghast - why, they never thought about it like that - they just thought it was an abortion factory, killing babies everyday. Ignorance knows no bounds.

The Church's pro-life stance is that it is so "pick and choose": it picks on clinics and chooses to ignore dire HERE AND NOW pro-life problems like the war in Iraq, which, I would think would be a most pressing matter. Perhaps the Church is silent here because the slaughter of the innocents in Iraq occurs where the "heathens" live and not in the U.S. where 'good Christian people' live. Who cares if EXISTING Muslim / Sunni / Shiite babies and children in another country are blown to bits, right? Politics have never stopped the Church from raising its hands to make a statement, but when it comes to voicing concern for Iraqi babies and children, you can hear the crickets chirping. Maybe if it were a "Catholic" nation, with Catholic babies and children getting killed by stray bullets and car bombs, they would raise their voices to protect the progeny of their Church. How obvious is their bigotry in such times as these. When they say "Life is Precious", they obviously mean only American / Christian lives. They are hung up on the potential, and ignoring the kinetic. Honestly, Christ would never promote such a stance.

This devastating photo shows just one of the casualties of the Iraqi war, which the Church chooses to ignore. They adamantly slam their fists for the rights of all the unborn -- no matter what the circumstances, rape, incest, doesn't matter --and then look away as live babies and children with actual feelings and hopes who happen to live in a country in turmoil are discarded to the wayside. I guess the Church thinks that once you are born, your life is less worth fighting for, eh? How can any Catholic proclaim themselves Pro-Life and then turn around and support war, an inevitable theater of the slaughter of innocents, without putting up a loud and visible fight for the lives of babies and children in the midst of those battles, too?