No one can use my body ...

No one can use my body without my permission.

This is the argument that, although the baby in the womb is human, they do not deserve the same rights as the mother because unborn babies have not become persons yet.

In this worldview, a person is not a person because they are human; you become a person through experience and thought.

Being human is not enough to be worthy of protection.

Therefore, since unborn babies are not persons, the woman has more rights than the unborn baby and she does not have to offer the child protection.

Babies in this scenario are often affectionately referred to as “parasites” because they are using the mother’s body without her permission.

We must recognize that the right to live doesn’t increase with age, size, location, or degree of dependence 

The moment we begin reasoning this way, consistency demands that anyone, from infants to the elderly, if dependent upon others for their survival, can be killed because they are inconvenient.

This faulty thinking often leads to pregnancy being portrayed as a condition to which the mother has not consented.

Of course, pregnancy is a natural consequence of sexual relations between a man and a woman.

These are overwhelmingly consensual acts 

No one is forcing women to get pregnant.

Therefore, the analogy is inaccurate from the beginning.

The mother and her child are not enemies. What is at stake in this scenario is the lifestyle of the mother over against the baby’s actual life.

The argument is based on the idea that if the woman doesn’t want the baby that came about as a result of her actions, she can conveniently dispose of the inconvenience if it gives her relief.

We live in a culture that wants freedom without responsibility.

Pax et bonum

OB-GYN Group Confirms Abortion Bans Don't Cause Higher Maternal Mortality

OB-GYN Group Confirms Abortion Bans Don't Cause Higher Maternal Mortality

Mayella Ewell's Abortion

When I was a teacher, one of my favorite books to teach was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I taught - and reread - the book multiple times, and I've seen the great movie repeatedly.

The movie was on last night, and, of course, I watched it.

It suddenly dawned on me that it provides parallels to abortion.

One of the villains - and one of the most tragic figures - in the book and movie is Mayella Ewell.

Mayella lives on a farm with her siblings and her drunken, abusive father. She is fearful, lonely, and obviously feels unloved. 

She's like too many young women who turn to sex to find love, and become pregnant. 

In Mayella's case, she seeks that love from Tom Robinson, a completely innocent Black man who helps her when he can, but has never made any kind of romantic overtures. He treats her well, something she has not experienced in her sad life 

One day she gets him in the house ostensibly to help with something, but then grabs him and kisses him.

In the South at that time, a White woman kissing a Black man was unthinkable.

He tries to get away, but just at that moment Mayella's father sees what's happening.

Tom does get away. Mr. Ewell beats Mayella.

Mayella now faces a desperate situation. If word got out about what she did she would be even more of a social outcast than she already was. And she risks her father's continued disapproval - which, he has already demonstrated, could include physical violence.

Again, her situation parallels that of so many young women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant as a result of choices they made.

In her desperation, and likely under pressure from her father, she accuses Tom of rape. Mayella needs to deny her own guilt. She needs to get rid of Tom,

In the South at that time, Tom, as a Black man, is viewed by society as somehow less human, maybe even not human. 

Similar to the way the unborn are viewed by many parts of our society today.

After a trial, at which Tom's innocence is made clear, Tom is nevertheless found guilty. He later panics and tries to escape, and is killed.

In effect, he is aborted.

Desperate woman fearing reactions and consequences seeks to get rid of the reminder of her choices and guilt, viewing that reminder as somehow less than human, resulting in the death of a innocent being.

So like abortion.

She is a victim as well - of those who are supposed to love her, of her society that's ruled by ignorance.

Just like so many women today when faced with unplanned pregnancies.

My message to pro-choicers: Don't be a Mayella Ewell, and don't treat women like so many Mayella Ewells.

Pax et bonum

Sigh - Margaret Coel At It Again

I had read a couple of the early Wind River Mysteries involving Father John O'Malley and attorney Vicky Holden.

They are interesting characters. He is a recovering alcoholic assigned to a reservation mission. She is an Arapaho who struggles with trying to balance her Native American roots and her functioning in a White world.

Early on, it was clear that they had romantic feelings for each other. He remains true to his vocation, but there is constant tension.

Okay. I can see that. It made me wonder if Coel, who identifies as a Catholic herself, had such an attachment or temptation. How many Catholic women fall in love with their unobtainable priest? 

That may have no basis in reality - I don't know enough about her to say it is true. But it is constantly there in the books.

I enjoyed them enough to be open to reading more of the books in the series. 

So when I happened to see one of the later books in the series in the library - Killing Custer - I decided to give it read. I was looking for something lighter, and a decent mystery fit the bill.

In this 17th book in the series they clearly still have feelings for each other  - Vicky most obviously. I'm not sure how much time has passed in the series' universe, but it logically has been years, and as I read this entry I kept thinking, come on, get over it.

And now Vicky, while still thinking about the priest, is nevertheless living with a guy. Sigh. The lack of morality in the secular world intrudes. 

 Meanwhile, Vicky and Father once again stupidly place themselves in a situation where their lives are in danger, and they are saved only by the grace of God and the novelist's pen. In all those years, after those 16 previous mysteries, haven't they learned anything?

I found that frustrating.

It was a decent mystery - though I did figure out who was behind the crimes about a third of the way through. To be honest, I found some parts of it a little implausible, and the book as a whole was disappointing. 

Interestingly, Coel only wrote three more books in the series. The twentieth book in the series, Winter's Child (2016), was declared to be the final one. Perhaps Coel herself found that she had stretched the characters as far as they could go. Or maybe it was a matter of her being in her late 70's by this point!

So I might check out Winter's Child to bring the series to a close. But I don't feel an overwhelming desire to read any of the other books at this point.

Pax et bonum

Memes!

Pax et bonum

The Woman Caught In Adultery

The Woman Caught in Adultery

John 7:53 Then each of them went home, 8:1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.”And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

When issues of sin and forgiveness come up, people like to cite this story. But many focus on the mercy and forgiveness, downplaying sin, and use the story as a way to attack someone who brings up sin or who says something is wrong. They frequently declare, "Don't judge" (forgetting that actually we are called to judge right and wrong), and often leave off the "and from now on do not sin again" part. 

I think they miss a couple of points.

First, Jesus did point out that she was a sinner. When He says "do not sin again," He is declaring that she did sin. 

True, He did not preach at her about her sin; He didn't have to. She was brought before Him - in some depictions she is either chased or dragged - by men who planned to stone her. The seriousness of her sin had already been made clear to her; she was facing death because of it. So there was no need for Jesus to beat her over the head with it. 

But he does bring up the fact that she did sin, and tells her not to sin again. It's a command, not a wishy-washy, "Well, try to sin no more." 

"Do not sin again."

So while the people who bring this up as an example of mercy and forgiveness, they are right. But if they leave out the sin part, and the fact that Jesus declared what she did a sin, they are watering it down.   

Pax et bonum

Hard Times Was Not Hard To Read!

I just finished Hard Times by Charles Dickens. I thoroughly enjoyed it! 

Indeed, I enjoyed it so much that I'm tempted to start another one as part of my hope to finish reading them all (though I have set no deadline for doing so).

Here's my Dickens' tally so far. The indented books are ones I own; the bolded ones are ones I've read.

     The Pickwick Papers (1836) 

     Oliver Twist (1837)
     Nicholas Nickleby (1838)
     The Old Curiosity Shop (1840)
Barnaby Rudge (1841)
Martin Chuzzlewit (1843)
     Dombey and Son (1846)
     David Copperfield (1849)
     Bleak House (1852)
     Hard Times (1854)
Little Dorritt (1855)
     A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
     Great Expectations (1860)
     Our Mutual Friend (1864)
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)

And some of the Novellas

     A Christmas Carol (1843)
     The Chimes (1844)
     The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
The Battle of Life: A Love Story (1846)
To Be Read at Dusk (1846)
The Haunted Man (1848)

The Hanged Man's Bride (1857

Pax et bonum