|
Post by maolsheachlann on Nov 25, 2019 10:39:54 GMT
Just noting that yesterday's IRISH TIMES had a review of a book on HOW THE EIGHTH WAS REPEALED by Ailbhe Smyth and a couple of her cohorts, which amongst other things remarked on the importance for their campaign of changing the focus from rights to healthcare". Here's another example of placing healthcare before rights (just saying): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment Meanwhile, pro-lifers don't seem to be planning anything of the sort. This will ensure that the pro-choicers' version of events is the one accessible to future generations and will shape their view of it, and that by not analysing what went wrong we will condemn future pro-lifers to make the same mistakes over and over again. But ultimately "what went wrong" is unknowable-- we only have different opinions. I mean, people are still arguing about the reasons for World War One or the fall of the Roman Empire. Personally, I don't think the pro-life movement in Ireland was really at fault in any way-- it simply faced insuperable conditions. Or rather, you could say that "what went wrong" was deeper social realities, like the introduction of television.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Nov 25, 2019 23:08:43 GMT
I'm actually inclined to agree with you to a certain extent - we were defeated by long-term social trends. The point is that we still need to understand what those trends WERE - too many pro-lifers IMHO are inclined to live in a little world of their own and assume (for example) that their prayer-group is more representative of Irish society than is actually the case. Worse, there are some very dodgy conspiracy theories doing the rounds. (I do believe much of the pro-choice campaign was elite-driven, but we have to understand where these elites came from in the first place.) Even acknowledging the long-term trends we still have to examine whether we could have responded differently. There's a reason why many armies make a point of organising and writing up official histories of their campaigns - so that they can assess their performance and make sure the lessons of experience are not forgotten.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Nov 25, 2019 23:25:47 GMT
Donald Clarke's take on UNPLANNED is fairly predictable. A couple of points that come to mind: He jeers at the film emphasising the financial side of the US abortion business and the icy "queen bee" executive, but doesn't note the depiction of workplace cameraderie among the clinic employees - the film's most effective bit IMHO. (I might add that the "queen bee" is initially portrayed as a glamorous role model for her subordinates; only slowly do her true colours become apparent.) Most Hollywood-style films use one template/plot model, and UNPLANNED is modelled on the "corporate whistleblower" genre. I might add that Mr Clarke's unhesitating acceptance of the view that Planned Parenthood is beneficial leads him to dismiss out of hand the possibility that some of the flaws depicted might actually exist. A really nasty little touch from Mr Clarke is the suggestion that the reference to George Soros as a donor to PP is the sort of thing Mel Gibson might go in for - in other words, that it's anti-semitic. What he doesn't mention is that (a) Soros is in fact a major PP donor; mentioning this might be anti-semitic but is not necessarily so, in the same way that mentioning the actual career of Meyer Lansky is not necessarily anti-semitic, though of course both can be misused by anti-semites- in the same way that criticising certain Irish public figures doesn't make someone anti-Irish (b) in the very same sentence of the script Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are mentioned as big donors - neither of them are Jewish. The whole purpose of the reference is to state that PP is Goliath to the pro-lifers' David; that it can afford expensive lawyers and crush the whistleblower by tying her up in lawsuits. www.irishtimes.com/culture/protesting-against-art-even-an-anti-abortion-film-is-not-a-good-look-1.4046205
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 8, 2019 20:26:18 GMT
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 8, 2019 20:39:16 GMT
A commentator for whom I had and still have some respect (not least because they took on the responsibility of a large family and have faced the sadness of seeing children lose their faith) recently stated that the action of the doctors in the Savita case was correct and that it is never allowable to induce a child before viability to save the mother's life, even if the alternative is that both mother and child will die. This is IMHO quite horrifyingly ignorant of basic Catholic moral theology (not least the principle of double effect) and risks unnecessary deaths. (I agree that women should in some instances be willing to risk their lives for the sake of their child, but this should not be made harder than necessary. Remember St Gianna Beretta Molla was canonised for showing HEROIC - that is extraordinary - virtue.) Now the same commentator is arguing that Natural Family Planning should not be used for family limitation, and that poverty is not a good reason to have fewer children because doing so shows lack of trust in Providence. It should be borne in mind that parents have responsibilities towards the proper upbringing of their existing children, and that prudence is a cardinal virtue and presumption is a sin against the Holy Ghost. I am not naming the commentator out of respect, but I wish they would stop making such pronouncements - they are undercutting their own true and courageous statements on other matters by this excessive and dangerous rigorism.
|
|
|
Post by Young Ireland on Dec 8, 2019 22:24:01 GMT
A commentator for whom I had and still have some respect (not least because they took on the responsibility of a large family and have faced the sadness of seeing children lose their faith) recently stated that the action of the doctors in the Savita case was correct and that it is never allowable to induce a child before viability to save the mother's life, even if the alternative is that both mother and child will die. This is IMHO quite horrifyingly ignorant of basic Catholic moral theology (not least the principle of double effect) and risks unnecessary deaths. (I agree that women should in some instances be willing to risk their lives for the sake of their child, but this should not be made harder than necessary. Remember St Gianna Beretta Molla was canonised for showing HEROIC - that is extraordinary - virtue.) Now the same commentator is arguing that Natural Family Planning should not be used for family limitation, and that poverty is not a good reason to have fewer children because doing so shows lack of trust in Providence. It should be borne in mind that parents have responsibilities towards the proper upbringing of their existing children, and that prudence is a cardinal virtue and presumption is a sin against the Holy Ghost. I am not naming the commentator out of respect, but I wish they would stop making such pronouncements - they are undercutting their own true and courageous statements on other matters by this excessive and dangerous rigorism. If the person I am referring to is the same person as you are, it's ironic that they quote Casti Connubii, when that encyclical specifically permits NFP in all but name. See here: "Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved." In fairness, I think the commentator has a point that NFP *can* be abused and that simply treating it as "Catholic contraception" is not the right approach, the problem is that it is taken way too far and they end up condemning NFP per se, which is clearly not the mind of the Church.
|
|
|
Prolife.
Dec 10, 2019 20:05:48 GMT
via mobile
Post by annie on Dec 10, 2019 20:05:48 GMT
A commentator for whom I had and still have some respect (not least because they took on the responsibility of a large family and have faced the sadness of seeing children lose their faith) recently stated that the action of the doctors in the Savita case was correct and that it is never allowable to induce a child before viability to save the mother's life, even if the alternative is that both mother and child will die. Wasn't it an untreated UTI which went on to become sepsis which killed both Savita and her unborn baby? Early and aggressive antibiotic treatment could have saved them both. Leaving a shivering woman beside a broken radiator wasn't the optimum treatment of a patient either. Our health system has broken down.
|
|
|
Prolife.
Dec 10, 2019 20:37:37 GMT
via mobile
Post by annie on Dec 10, 2019 20:37:37 GMT
Just noting that yesterday's IRISH TIMES had a review of a book on HOW THE EIGHTH WAS REPEALED by Ailbhe Smyth and a couple of her cohorts, which amongst other things remarked on the importance for their campaign of changing the focus from rights to healthcare". Here's another example of placing healthcare before rights (just saying): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment Meanwhile, pro-lifers don't seem to be planning anything of the sort. This will ensure that the pro-choicers' version of events is the one accessible to future generations and will shape their view of it, and that by not analysing what went wrong we will condemn future pro-lifers to make the same mistakes over and over again. Without reading the book, I believe the 100 year anniversary of the giving of the vote to (some) women was chosen as the year to aim for when having the vote for overturning the right to life of our unborn children. The colour palette used by the pro-aborts, was the same as those used on the literature of the pro aborts. The artistic community, the university campuses, the trade unions, the gardai, the president and his wife, the taoiseach, the prospective employers Google and Facebook, RTE, etc etc were all lined up and virulently against the right to life of our unborn children. The 'repeal' jumpers with their black backgrounds and the large red hearts with repeal in white script written across it burned themselves into the national consciousness. The latter image recalled both the trademark of Avonmore creameries and the outline of a baby's head and feet. Maranatha.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 14, 2019 21:52:27 GMT
I agree - there was a definite use of the image of the suffragette by the campaigners, and it tied into a narrative of agelong female oppression which women's studies and radical groups have been developing for some time. (I'm not saying that there was no basis for this - the excavators did good work in digging up a lot of the nastier aspects of our history and society and we need to come to terms with these things instead of closing our eyes to them. What I'mtalking about is the use to which these things were put.) The question of how the artistic community, trade unions etc came to be so overwhelmingly aligned with that side is another question, and one that goes back decades. Two features seemed to me to have been very prominent in the other side's campaign addressed to women: (1) The fate of Savita Halapanavar and the message "Your life could be in danger" (2) A reaction against the idea of "those people telling us what to do with our lives" - I never quite grasped the force of the "pro-choice" slogan before seeing that. One thing they both have in common is a reaction (going back decades and not merely female by any means) against the idea that you can have duties without explicitly choosing to take them on - duties to parents would be an example. There is a revealing passage in McGahern's MEMOIR in which he describes a priest explaining to him that McGahern cannot have responsibilities towards his father for bringing him up because McGahern did not ask to be born. This seems to me to be exactly the wrong way round (though it would be accurate to say that he no longer had such responsibilities because his father had forfeited them by his cruel and oppressive behaviour) and it leads straight to the positive view taken in McGahern's novel THE PORNOGRAPHER of the narrator's decision to refuse responsibility after a woman has a child by him.
|
|
|
Prolife.
Dec 17, 2019 16:00:14 GMT
via mobile
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Dec 17, 2019 16:00:14 GMT
I see a spat has broken out between Peter Boylan and RTÉ. In his book, In The Shadow of the Eighth, Boylan rails against the famous Claire Byrne show and said, without much self-awareness, that RTÉ welched on a commitment to allow him respond immediately to a commitment to respond criticisms. As of that engenders open debate. He has other remarks about the programme which sound more like the presumption of deference of a preconciliar bishop. Claire Byrne has sent him a solicitor's letter.
I quite liked John Monahan telling him he needed to go back to school, after reading a brief passage from Boylan's book on pre-natal development.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 21, 2019 20:27:24 GMT
The PHOENIX picked up on this. If what he says is correctly stated, Dr Boylan seems to have difficulty with the concept of "debate". I must read his book sometime, when it appears secondhand or in the remainder bins. Meanwhile,when buying Christmas cards, it is painful to remember that I can no longer buy those from the National Children's Hospital and similar institutions.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jan 14, 2020 23:29:06 GMT
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 1, 2020 23:46:20 GMT
quillette.com/2020/02/26/an-alternative-feminist-perspective-on-abortion/This discussion of the latest pro-abortion campaign in Argentina, complete with refusal to debate the substantive issues while hyping the threat of illegal abortion to women's lives, sounds sadly familiar. I don't believe there is a centrally directed conspiracy BTW - I believe there are transnational pro-abortion networks which share resources and campaign tactics with each other, and which use international publicity to promote the trope "Does Country X really wish to remain an isolated haunt of barbarians, opposed to progress and modern civilisation?" Margaret Atwood's tweet reproduced in the article is a case in point.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Mar 21, 2020 18:22:06 GMT
Two pieces of sad news. Congressman Dan Lipinski, one of the very few remaining pro-life Democrats in the US House of Representatives, has been defeated in the Democrat primary for his Congressional seat. Word is that some of his older supporters didn't turn out because of the coronavirus. New Zealand has passed legislation basically decriminalising abortion and treating it as a healthcare issue - abortion on demand.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Apr 2, 2020 1:01:25 GMT
|
|