Quick Takes: More life updates....

-1-

So many life changes lately (you're going to want to read #4), but one that has left me heartbroken is the closing of my younger kids' little Catholic school. We were like family, and now we will all be scattered. I can't even really talk about it.

Surveying all my options, I've decided that beginning next month I will be doing what I said I'd never do again...homeschooling! And you know what? I'm actually getting pretty excited about it! I always say, I can do anything for a year. So, one year at a time, and we'll see what God has in store as we go along.

I will be using Catholic Heritage Curricula, if anyone wants to know. It is clean and simple, which is just my style.

-2-

This fall was to be the first time in 23 years that I would have had no one in the house during the day. I'm not gonna lie; I was looking forward to those many hours alone. Instead, I will have more people in the house than I did last year, and right as I am starting a masters degree program! I dreamed of a quiet, empty house to get my work done and papers written (instead of typing away at night, like I'm doing now, and never getting quite enough sleep). I even dreamed I'd have tons more time for blogging. Ha ha, I am just laughing at God's funny ways. Okay, God, I am sure you know what you are doing! Jesus, I trust in you.

-3-

About five months ago now, my daughter's fiancé (now husband) injured his back. It's been a terrible ordeal, which brought with it a change in his Navy orders among other things. He was able to get through the wedding last month with grit and grace and a transcendent joy, but soon he will be undergoing back surgery to relieve his pain, as months of physical therapy has not done the trick. Would you wonderful people offer a quick prayer for him, his surgeons, and his new bride? We would be most appreciative!

-4-

Aaaaaaaand, since it's already Facebook official, I am ecstatic to announce that the newlyweds are... drum roll, drum roll, can you guess?? ...expecting a baby!!!!!!

YES, I am over the moon, and so are they! And yes it was very quick, just like her older sister, who also conceived a honeymoon baby! I guess it's a tag team thing? Older daughter gets married; nine months later, younger daughter gets married. Older daughter has a baby; nine months later younger daughter has a baby. Thank you for prayers, and for sharing in our joy! It's been a whirlwind of emotions and I am still trying to catch my breath! Thanks be to God for all of it. Including...

-5-

...this:

Here's what I said on Facebook:

The girls' room now stands stripped and mostly empty. Soon to be transformed into a guestroom. My feelings alternate between melancholy and anticipation. It occurs to me that that is the state of every soul as we work our way through this world to the next, no?

In the end, everything really is theological. And it all has meaning at the level of our souls. I am going to miss my daughters terribly. Neither one will be living within driving distance. But there can be found great joy in suffering. It's what we know as Catholics, it's what the saints have taught us, and it makes everything okay.

-6-

Johanne requested more pictures of my adorable and perfect granddaughter Felicity, so here are a few....

She was still pretty skinny and new here, Little Miss Frog Legs, 

being held by one of her many proud uncles!

"Back off, paparazzi!" 

(She was actually sleeping in this suspended animation. Or else she is a mime.)

Hey, what's wrong with a cardigan in July in Phoenix? 

She'll outgrow it by fall, and it's just too cute not to wear.

Wait... you wanted a photo with her eyes open? 

It's tough to get, but here you go. 

She's at her first girls' lunch! 

Isn't she a sweetie pie and the best baby in the world??????? Grandma thinks so!!!

-7-

As many of you know, I reserve Quick Take #7 for the promotion of adoption, mostly special needs and international adoption. Today I want to share with you an amazing series of blog posts by a huge friend of the Bubble (and now a personal friend), Annie, who is in China adopting two precious babies. 

She writes beautifully, her descriptions of the regions are riveting, and her photographs are so good that I will be using them with my children for homeschooling. Check it out, and praise God! Infertility is a heartbreak beyond words, and yet look at what the Lord has done for this beautiful family of (now) seven:

Enlarge Thy Tent

(You didn't miss the centipedes on a stick, did you??)

+++++++

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my first on-time Friday Quick Takes in I don't know how long! Have a great weekend, and thanks to Jen for hosting! 

Answering Michelle: I don't think you want all babies aborted

After my last post, Michelle (a friendly young atheist) left a comment which deserves a whole post in response. Her words are in red, and my comments are in black.

To those saying that the Obama administration views pregnancy as a disease: 


Before you go on, let me just say that it's hard not to conclude this. If fertility/pregnancy is not a disease, disorder, illness or pathology, then why are health insurance companies now forced to provide free contraception and morning-after pills to all? What "disease" is being "cured" or "prevented" if not pregnancy? This should elicit a short medical answer, not a long philosophical one like the one you are about to give….


consider this rough analogy. Most of you have probably seen the show Extreme Home Makeover, where families in need are given a fancy new house (and I think sometimes a car as well), one that even the richest families would probably be lucky to have. 


Yes, I used to love that show! "Bus driver, move that bus!" (Screams, excitement, tears!!) Good times watching with the family. :)


It's a feel-good sort of show, and you're always left with the impression that despite all of their problems, their lives are finally looking up and everything is going to be fine.

Yes, that's the illusion that "feel good" TV shows leave us with. We Americans like to "feel good", and it sells. Definitely an hour of escapism (and envy!).

But think about the taxes and the maintenance the house will require that they probably can't afford, and how the money spent on the house could probably have better gone towards addressing whatever problem (medical, financial, whatever) was originally plaguing them.

Yes, exactly! Building folks a big house and and providing lots of material things cannot solve the underlying problems that families in crisis face. Thank goodness there are real people in real life who do provide real help, every single day: Catholic Charities, the Societies of St. Vincent de Paul, crisis pregnancy centers, Catholic hospitals and shelters, etc. Real help, real solutions.


Saying that Obama's insistence on contraception means he necessarily considers pregnancy to always be a disease (and babies to always be a punishment)

Did I say "always"? I don't think I did. There are plenty of babies that Obama does not see as "punishments". And then there are the others. For example: 


Obama thinks these baby girls were worthy of love and life. 
Obama thinks that this this baby girl was not.

He celebrates the "wanted" babies while ardently supporting the legal killing of 53 million other "unwanted" babies. Heck, he even notoriously voted more than once to let born babies die alone and without care should they survive a late-term abortion. (This was no mere academic exercise for him, as he knew from first-hand testimony what was occurring in his own state.)

In the pro-"choice" world, there are plenty of valuable children, worthy of love and life. But there are plenty of children with no value, who are worthy of neither love nor life. 

So, for Obama, I'm guessing that pregnancy is not a disease when it's wanted, and babies are not a punishment when they are wanted.

Wanted = Good
Wanted = Valuable

is the same as saying that I'm heartless for recognizing that getting a big new house is not always the best thing for a family.

Not the same thing at all. Look...

These are not heartless:


"It is not good for this family to get a big new house."
"It is not good for children to be conceived out of wedlock."
"It is not the best thing for this drug-addicted battered woman to raise a child."


But this *just might* be considered heartless:


"Because this is not a good time for this woman to have a child, the child must die."

See, the "not heartless" statements don't imply or necessitate that someone has to die as a solution to the unfortunate situation. But the "heartless" statement does. Big distinction.

Just as big new houses are, under the right circumstances, a wonderful thing, so are babies.

Michelle, are you really comparing houses to babies?

Catholics don't believe that houses have the same moral standing, rights and dignity as human beings. I hope you can see that distinction.

Say a teenage mother's conservative parents would disown her if she gave birth out of wedlock,

Whoa, wait. Why do you make "conservative" parents the heavy? I know plenty of conservative parents, and I have seen how they react when children come to them with news of an unplanned pregnancy: Many tears, but also love and support for child and grandchild. I also know several liberal mothers who coerced or forced abortion on their pregnant daughters. So, why not just say "parents"? Sorry, but that is a pet peeve, as if conservative parents are heartless meanies while liberal parents are kind and loving. 

ruining all her chances of a healthy, normal life thereafter

Seriously? Ruining all her chances of a healthy, normal life, thereafter? Utterly, totally hopeless? How on earth can one possibly know or predict such an outcome? We can't predict that outcome anymore than we can predict someone being hit by a car tomorrow and being paralyzed for life. And even that scenario wouldn't equate to a "ruined" life. But, okay, let's go with your impossible hypothetical:

- is the baby still a wonderful blessing?

Yes.

If the baby's born to a drug addicted mother who can't and won't even provide for the baby's most basic needs?

Yes. Please get the mother help, and if she truly can't care for the child (who already exists!), then it's time to help her with an adoption plan.


If the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother?


Yes. (Ask Becky how she feels about that one, since she's going through it right now.)


I know, it's not a black-and-white moral standpoint, and what constitutes good circumstances for a baby will change from person to person.


Right, but you're not talking about good circumstances for conception, you're talking about killing a baby. I think Nicole C. got right to the heart of it:

I get so tired of hearing the argument surrounding good and bad circumstances to "have a baby", when what we're really arguing is acceptable circumstances to have an abortion. Please remember, when a woman is pregnant, she already HAS A BABY. As Mark Crutcher would say, "The question is, will she have a live baby or a dead one?" 

So, you see, I think you are confusing two different things.

I get it, Catholics don't like that sort of moral ambiguity.

Actually, it's more that Catholics "don't like" the willful killing of innocent human beings. What you call "moral ambiguity", I would call "attempting to justifying an immoral act".

Sometimes, "moral ambiguity" = "moral relativism"

But saying that pregnancy is either always a blessing or always a curse, or a baby is always a gift or always a punishment, is silly at best.

I never once put it in those terms, that liberals think pregnancy is "always a curse" or babies "always a punishment". So, I am not sure where you are getting that? 


However, it's not "silly" to believe that all babies are a blessing. They are. They are all equally valuable, and they are all worthy of love and life. To hold any other position is dangerous -- to say the least.

Please, give us some credit and don't ascribe such simplistic ideas to liberals/pro-choicers/whoever.

I never did ascribe those ideas to you or other pro-"choicers". Like I said, I have no idea where you are getting that. Of course you love and cherish some babies.

If I were to get pregnant at this point in my life, it would undoubtedly be an enormous punishment.

Who would be punishing you? The baby? And what would the punishment be for? I truly don't even understand this statement.

At the same time, though, my cousin recently had a baby and I was excited about the baby the moment I heard my cousin was pregnant.

Because in your mind, the baby had that elusive quality that made him valuable and worthy of love: "Wantedness"

Or was it something else that made the baby worthy of your love? I'm interested.

It's not an "either you love babies or you want them all dead" sort of thing,

Right, and I never said that, so we are good.

and I'm offended every time someone suggests that liberals think babies are worthless drooling monsters that all should have been aborted.

I'm glad that's never been said to you here, then. Has someone elsewhere said these things to you? That you think all babies should be aborted? That's outrageous if so.


I'm on vacation and won't be commenting after this (blame icky Internet Explorer that won't let me post, plus the fact that abortion debates always, always, always turn ugly whenever I get involved).

It's not exclusive to your involvement, Michelle. Abortion debates necessarily include discussion of the actual act of abortion, which by its very nature is horrifically ugly. The stuff of nightmares, really. So yes, abortion debates are never pretty. We are discussing the willful killing of innocent children, some of whom are shredded in the womb, some of whom are dismembered, and some of whom are burned alive with saline, and some of whom are stabbed in the neck and have their brains sucked out while still living. Most of whom are thrown out as garbage, labeled "medical waste". Ugly, indeed. 


But did you think the reality of abortion could be sugarcoated? I realize that's what the "choice" and "women's rights" euphemisms are aiming for: Pleasantness. Our own atheist commenter MaiZeke has said with confidence, "Abortion involves only one person: the woman."  How it eases the mind to believe this, when it's the "non-person" being extracted and eviscerated. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and we can sleep well at night, because there is no "person" being killed in an abortion. Just a pregnancy being "terminated".

I hope my points made sense, even if you don't agree. 

Some of them didn't make sense, which is why I wanted to flesh them all out here and give you a chance to respond. Thanks for you willingness to dialogue honestly, and I hope to hear from you after your vacation!


Blessings to you, Michelle! I've always enjoyed our discussions.





.

An open letter to abortion rights advocates

Dear abortion rights advocate:

I want to take this opportunity to introduce you to three precious human beings. These little people were born prematurely to a mother, Michele, who mourns the loss of her children. They lived only a short time outside of her womb. 

First, there are the twins, Nicholas and Sophia:

Nicholas

Sophia

Nicholas was born at nearly 16 weeks, and he lived for 55 documented minutes. Sophia was born 15 days later, at 18 weeks. She lived for 5 minutes. They were both loved and baptized.

Next, I'd like you to meet their brother, Alexander. Today is his birthday. He would have been two years old. He was born at 17 weeks, and he lived for 5 minutes. He was strong, and kicked against his father's hands. He, also, was loved and baptized.

Alexander

Now, dear abortion rights advocate, I know that you work very hard to make sure that children just like these are dehumanized and denied the right to life. 

And yet I wonder: Does it strike you as you look at their pictures that these tiny people are not "blobs of tissue"? I challenge you to look at these babies and then publicly (in the comment box) deny their humanity. Tell me, or tell their mother (who is reading this), that they had no human dignity and no right to life. Tell their mother that they are not her children.

Oh, wait.... You know that their mother loved them, so you would never publicly deny that they are her babies? It's only if she had not wanted them that they would go from being beloved children to being "products of conception"? If she had chosen to abort these very same little ones (that's what fetus means, you know, "little one"), you would have supported her right to have them dismembered, scraped out, and tossed in the trash as medical waste, correct? So, if I'm understanding you, it's "wantedness" that gives a human being value? Help me understand. 

Or perhaps you want to claim that these children (or those of like age and size) are a "part of the woman's body" and therefore not people? But hang on a second.... What about those fingers you see laying across Alexander's little chest and under his chin? Whose fingers are those? Are those his mother's fingers, or do those fingers belong to Alexander? They are attached to hands. Which are attached to wrists. And look at those ears, attached to a beautiful head! Whose body is that? Is it hard to say?

Well, what about Sophia's perfect nose and eyes, right there on her pretty face? And the elegant lines of Nicholas' fingers, arms, biceps? To whom do these parts belong? I know for a fact that their mother has her own fingers, her own nose, her own chin and eyes and ears and face and arms and biceps. You believe a woman has a right to control her own body, but are you sure these parts don't belong to someone else's body?

May I ask, do you see yourself as "more human" than they? Can there possibly be degrees of humanity? It seems to me that one group of people getting to determine the humanity of another group of people leads to, well, inhuman things. Check your history on that. And tell us why you get to determine who belongs in the human family and who does not. Do you call those shots because you are bigger and stronger than Nicholas, Sophia and Alexander? But that would mean that "might makes right" which makes you an oppressor of the weak. If not, show me how.

Oh, but you say that babies that age are not viable, and that they cannot live independently outside of their mother's womb. Their complete dependence on their mother makes them undeserving of human status. An interesting argument, but can you name any born baby who can live independently? Aren't all babies totally dependent on others? I haven't met one yet that isn't.

One day medical technology (maybe an artificial womb?) will be able to save babies as small as Nicholas, Sophia and Alexander. It's only a matter of time, and you and I both know it. What to do then, when the threshold of "viability" gets lower and lower? Will a baby attain human rights earlier, simply because technology is better? How does that work, exactly? Please explain.

Perhaps you think it's wrong to bring emotion to this debate by posting the pictures of these little lost babies. These are real pictures of real babies at a stage of human development when lives have no legal protection. When they are totally vulnerable and at your mercy. Looking at their pictures may bring up strong feelings. You bet it's emotional. I feel a lot of emotions when I look at these little ones and think of abortion. Remember, I've never said that emotions do not accompany truth, only that emotions do not determine truth.

It's true, dear abortion rights advocate, that I have asked a lot of questions. I want to hear your answers. Please answer even one or two, because I cannot wrap my mind around how you think as you do, and I want to understand.

Sincerely,

Leila

A note of profound gratitude to the babies' mother, Michele. No human being created will ever be the same as Nicholas, or Sophia, or Alexander. They were irreplaceable and unrepeatable, just like every baby lost either by natural causes or the violence of abortion. Nicholas, Sophia and Alexander never had a voice, but they are speaking loudly now.