Another Exception to Abortion??
A friend sent me an online Time Magazine article this morning by Jon O’Brien, the head of Catholics for Choice. She accompanied the article, which you can read here, with this note, “Even as I get older, I am always learning and most of the time still getting shocked and saddened at the sickening stance of ppl in the world. I am praying for this author, that he may realize life is precious-no matter what.”
The article starts with this line, “Many women don’t have the ability to postpone pregnancies even if they wanted to.” Well, Mr. O’Brien, that is just false. Women can and do postpone pregnancies, all the time. Even the most remote places of the world likely have knowledge of what causes pregnancy and they can avoid that activity. But that’s not really what this article is about. What Mr. O’Brien really wants, is for all women to be able to have access to what he and many others erroneously call “healthcare”. That is to say, he wants women to have access to birth control and even abortion. He even wants Pope Francis to allow it.
See, Mr. O’Brien believes the Church’s prohibition on contraception is wholly political and the Pope should put an end to the politics and be more pastoral and allow women to take birth control or get abortions. How is it pastoral to allow women to take a medication that will prevent their bodies from functioning properly or kill their own babies?
Why does Mr. O’Brien think the Pope should lend his support to the acceptance of birth control and abortion? The zika virus epidemic. There is a claim that the zika virus leads to microcephaly and because of this, he believes women should have access to birth control so they can postpone pregnancy and for those already pregnant, to allow access to abortion. He admits in his article that it, “has not yet been proven that the zika virus causes microcephaly” and that, “lifting the ban on birth control won’t be sufficient to meet the needs of women in regions suffering from the zika epidemic.” So why should Pope Francis allow something that is not going to help? Mr. O’Brien seems to think that if these women in South America simply had access to birth control and abortion, their lives would be much better.
Throughout his article he tells us that “faithful Catholics” around the world use and approve of modern contraception; and that these same “faithful Catholics” recognize that abortion, like contraception, is part of the continuum of women’s healthcare” and that it’s time the Church stop being so political and start giving the world what he perceives it wants. The old, “well everyone else is doing it” argument.
What Mr. O’Brien did not say speaks volumes to me. Not once in his article did he mention Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. He also never mentioned the sin of abortion, which is the murdering of the most innocent among us. Many birth control methods act as abortifacients, which cause the death of conceived human persons. “Thou shalt not kill.” The Pope did not make this commandment up, it came directly from God.
In Matthew 19:8-9, we hear, “He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” Do we think Jesus would take the killing of babies in the womb less seriously? Mark 12:30 we hear Jesus say, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
“The Lord sets before us life and death, and asks us to “choose life” by obediently taking up Christ’s cross of death. ‘Without a ‘dying’, without the demise of what is simply our own, there is no communion with God and no redemption.” Pope Benedict XVI
Let us join my friend in praying for Mr. O’Brien so that, “he may realize life is precious-no matter what.”
