The occasional, often ill-considered thoughts of a Roman Catholic permanent deacon who is ever grateful to God for his existence. Despite the strangeness we encounter in this life, all the suffering we witness and endure, being is good, so good I am sometimes unable to contain my joy. Deo gratias!


Although I am an ordained deacon of the Catholic Church, the opinions expressed in this blog are my personal opinions. In offering these personal opinions I am not acting as a representative of the Church or any Church organization.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The "Fruits" of Abortion

Surprise, surprise! Today Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb) caved in under the pressure exerted by the Senate Democrat leadership and will now support the Senate's "health care bill" even though it does not explicitly prohibit government funding of abortions. Of course I and all my pro-life friends hoped that he would remain committed to the principles and values he supposedly holds so dear. How naive of us. We should have known that Senator Nelson is, first and foremost, a politician. Accordingly, he, like all career politicians, will do whatever is necessary to protect his political career. In this instance the senator sold his vote (and his soul) for $45 million of federal funds. Of course, there are undoubtedly other goodies, as yet not public, heading the senator's way for hopping aboard Harry Reid's train to political oblivion. I will step out on a limb here and predict that the people of Nebraska will toss Nelson out of office in 2012.

That being said, we can now forget about Senator Nelson. For a while he was a shining star, a man of principle who apparently refused to compromise on the right to life. But, by joining the other 59 Senators who will support this ridiculous, monstrous, deficit busting bill, he has made himself irrelevant. He is just another unprincipled, opportunistic politician among many others.

The evil fruits of abortion, however, can also be found well beyond the halls of the Capitol. The following opinion piece by Deacon Keith Fournier (written on December 16 before Senator Nelson's capitulation) tells another story. It's worth a read. (Deacon Fournier's columns are published by Catholic Online.)

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Abortion is America’s Shame: Dead Baby under the Christmas Tree
By Deacon Keith Fournier
12/16/2009
Catholic Online

'Apparently they cleaned up the fetus and they placed it inside a gift box under the Christmas tree’. (San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – All US News reports are fixated on efforts to push a “Heath Care Reform” package through the Senate before Christmas. The threat by Senator Joe Lieberman to hold the legislation hostage unless the so called ‘public option” is removed has now given way. He has backed down. The President held one more “persuasion” session with Democratic Senators Tuesday to keep the pressure on. From most insiders playbooks it looks like some form of legislation will clear the Senate before the Nation pauses to remember a baby born in a manger.

Senator Ben Nelson, who fought hard to amend the legislation to ensure that no tax dollars would be used to pay for abortions, is under extreme pressure to fold his cards. Rumors are circulating that he will vote with those who want such a barbaric practice to be funded with tax dollars. I do not believe it. I pray that he has the courage to withstand the increasing pressure.

Some “inside” sources claimed on Tuesday that he is being threatened with closure of an air force base and others that he is being offered a “blank check” in the way of funds to bring home to his constituents. Are these claims true? No one knows for sure. However, that is how the game is played in Washington, DC. After all, children in the womb are not recognized as having a Right to Life in this Nation. That is so even though the American founders insisted that such a right was endowed by a Creator and inalienable.

While the myriad of talking heads on television news shows crow on saying nothing in so many words, a shocking story out of San Juan Texas puts the entire deadly affair in perspective. The Associated Press reported on Tuesday, December 15, 2009:

Fetus found in gift box, Texas couple charged

“Authorities allege a south Texas couple put an aborted 7-month-old fetus in a gift box under a Christmas tree after trying to flush the remains down a toilet. Thirty-one-year-old Ruby Lee Medina and 37-year-old Javier Gonzalez are jailed on abuse of corpse and tampering with evidence charges. Bond is set at $20,000 each. A woman at the San Juan city jail says she can't say whether either has retained an attorney. San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez says police found the fetus inside the woman's trailer home Thursday after an anonymous tip. Gonzalez says police believe the woman used pills to induce an abortion, then called an ambulance and said she didn't know where the fetus was. Gonzalez says the couple first tried to flush the fetus, then cleaned it up and put in the gift box….”

The horror of this act brought me back to May 8, 2006 when a mother named Tammy Skinner of Suffolk, Virginia killed her own child with a gun and was set free by a Judge. On Feb. 23, 2006 she called police from a car dealership and told them that she had been shot in the stomach and pushed out of her car. Police found blood in Skinner’s red compact car, and a gun. Tammy was carrying her baby within her; a little girl who was to be delivered that very day. Later, Tammy changed her story, claiming that the father of Baby Girl Skinner had killed her. Finally, she told the authorities the truth - she had shot herself in the abdomen with the intention of killing her baby.

Tammy had two other daughters. However, she simply did not want this one. So, she killed her with a gun. She was charged with inducing an abortion. However, since she actually fired the gun herself, Judge James A. Moore decided that she could not be so charged because abortion is legal in America throughout all nine months under the holding of Roe v. Wade. Her lawyer, known for his “civil rights” work- and for his representation of the People for the Ethical treatment of Animals (PETA)- argued at a preliminary hearing that the charge of inducing an abortion or miscarriage is intended for use against a third party and did not apply to a mother who shoots herself to commit an abortion.

In the United States Baby Girl Skinner had no rights; mother Tammy had them all. She also had a “right” to kill. Given the state of the law, the other human person involved, the one who died as a direct result of the gunshot, Baby Girl Skinner, had no voice and no legal standing. She, along with all children in the first home of the human race, their mothers’ womb, had been reduced to the status of property. The charge of inducing an abortion was dismissed. Tammy Skinner had also been charged with using a firearm in a felony. However, that charge was not prosecuted because it must occur during the commission of a specific felony in Virginia. Tammy’s intentional killing of Baby Girl Skinner was not a felony. It was viewed as an extension of her “right” to take the life of her own child as long as the baby was still in the womb. She was convicted of filing a false police report and ordered to pay the cost of the police investigation, $750.

If someone else had shot Tammy Skinner and her daughter on the day she was to have delivered, they could have been prosecuted. However, Virginia’s fetal homicide law did not apply to the mother. It referred to killing “the fetus of another.” One of the Commonwealth’s Attorneys, Phil Ferguson, said: “We are dealing with a woman who, by her own hands, killed her child on the day of its birth…This was a nine-month fetus, clearly in the realm of viability. Whether it meets legal tests to constitute criminal conduct – we’re reviewing and exploring our options.” Tammy Skinner’s attorney, who recognizes the civil rights of animals and fish, did not concern himself with the preeminent natural and human right to life of Baby Girl Skinner. He said he was happy with the decision stating: “It was clear to me, and clear to the judge, that you cannot convict when an expectant mother does this,”

Now, 31 year-old Ruby Lee Medina and her 37-year-old accomplice Javier Gonzalez are being held on “abuse of corpse and tampering with evidence” charges in Texas. Let’s see what happens. The case is no different than the Skinner case. The “super right” to decide whether to kill a child in the womb seems to trump every other true right such as the Right to Life. Cases such as these two reveal the fangs on the evil face of legal abortion on demand in our Nation. The Senate will soon pass legislation which, in the name of “health care”, will allow our tax dollars to fund the killing of children in the womb through surgical dismemberment and chemical destruction. Every procured abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, the killing of our neighbor in the first home of the whole human race.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of a child who was born in a manger because there was no room for Him in the Inn, another child was killed before he or she could join us for Christmas. This killing was willful and intentional. It was done by his/her mother through a self ingested deadly chemical weapon which she swallowed. This little baby was delivered dead, wrapped in a box and placed under a Christmas tree. When we hear or read of such horrors we still react. That is because there is still some shred of conscience left in us. If we begin to fund this practice with tax dollars, perhaps even that last remaining shred will disappear.

Abortion has become America’s Shame. We have allowed the growth of a culture which views human persons as products - commodities to be disposed of if inconvenient. We have put in place a legal and political system which promotes and protects the evil. The Dead Baby under the Christmas tree cries out for justice and mercy. Abortion is not health care because killing is not healing.
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What will become of our country?

Pray, brothers and sisters...pray!

God's peace....

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