Friday, April 27, 2007

Interesting Controversy


In spite of Bishop Henry's (Bishop of Calgary, Canada) strident and courageous denunciation of abortion and same sex marriage, he has withdrawn his support for the Centre for Bioethical Reform's photo display that depicts aborted babies and juxtaposes the images with photographs of Holocaust victims.

The Centre gives an explanation
of why they show these images. Simply, lives are saved and proabortion citizens become prolife.

The reasons given for objecting to these displays are that the images are too graphic.

How about the reality?

Another reservation is that the exhibition of the poor murdered babies' bodies violates the dignity they are entitled to.

They have been brutally murdered. Is is possible to violate them any longer? They are deceased.

Finally, we hear that the images are disturbing.

Well they are supposed to be. And if you find them personally disturbing be grateful that you have a shred of humanity left in you. And don't quell it.

The motto of the Centre for Bioethical Reform is "to make abortion unthinkable". They are going about it in exactly the right way. They are exposing the horror of abortion and communicating the humanity of the unborn child.

I have never heard it argued that displaying the victims of the Nazis violates their dignity. I have never heard the Holocaust museum denounced because it is too graphic. I remember seeing movies about World War II that showed the bodies in the Death Camps and lampshades made of human skin.

Can we say that the unborn deserve less than the honor accorded to them and the respect shown their sad suffering by giving them an opportunity to save the lives of their fellow brethren? What could be more dignified than that?

People who make the argument that the images of aborted children should never be shown I believe are lacking in courage- the personal courage to act upon the knowledge that we are sitting by and witnessing a large scale slaughter while we go about our comfortable lives. Maybe if these pictures are never shown we can ignore it a little longer.

The Prayer of the Lukewarm:

Oh Lord, let me live my pathetic little life,
Knowing that nothing will be required of me
That is too difficult, or will require sacrifice.

Let me look good, be popular and always have
Cable tv and a cell phone with lots of free minutes,
And a credit card with a really low interest rate.

If someone is suffering O, Lord,
Let me not be disturbed by images that
Might make me feel guilty, or helpless.

How about this Lord? I'll say a prayer for them
And really hope that they will be as awesome as me
And we can all live happily ever after. Amen.

6 comments:

Dust I Am said...

"The Prayer of the Lukewarm" should be printed at the back of every monthly missal distributed at Catholic Masses. Did you write it?

Athanasius said...

When I taught moral theology in Catholic high schools, I found that students simply did not want to see pictures of aborted babies, they did not want me to even draw on the board a picture of the surgical instrument that "doctors" use to perform D&C and D&E abortions, or a baby after a saline abortion. These pictures were "too graphic for them", but they went home to violent video games, violent movies, violent horrible literature, etc. Yet they will still maintain that abortion is good and fine, they just don't want to know anything about it.

It is just like that controversy over the Passion. It's too violent so you shouldn't go see it, but every other movie out of hollywood every other day isn't violent? The reality is, in good communist fashion, a ridiculous reason is trumped up as an excuse not to see the truth.

The Ferryman said...

I, for one, look forward to the day when abortion clinics are on every corner, kind of like Starbucks.

Whoa...is that a money-making brainstorm, or what?

Anyone want to forward me some start-up cash?

M. Alexander said...

Thanks Dust I am- I did write it.
Mary

Anonymous said...

Brava!
Mary, your most poignant, eloquent and totally reasonable post to date.
My compliments, and thank you for the boost as well as the reminder.

erin is nice said...

i don't believe we should contribute to the destruction of children's innocence, and that includes allowing them to see graphic images of abortion.