“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Four month and six month old human fetal skeletons, displayed At the Federal Civil War Medical and Military history Museum, in Silver Spring, MD. Display can be found in new more current segment of the museum’s historical displays.
Mary Catherine was an abandoned new-born, found in Antioch and buried by Ca. Right to Life and Birthright of concord, at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Lafayette, Ca. along with 24 other pre-born babies.
SB 24, a bill that would force student health centers at all University of California and California State University campuses to offer abortifacient drugs beginning in January 1, 2023 passed the Senate Health Committee Wednesday on a vote of 7-3.
According to Jenni Fink, “There are 10 campuses within the University of California system and an additional 23 comprise the California State University system.”
Introduced last December by pro-abortion state Senator Connie Leyva, Senate Bill 24 is her latest attempt to ensure that so-called medication abortions are available through the first ten weeks of pregnancy.
“SB 24 is an important step toward ensuring the right to abortion is available to all Californians and that our college students don’t face unnecessary barriers,” Sen. Leyva said in a statement that appeared on her website
Her previous bill (SB 320) was vetoed by pro-abortion former Governor Jerry Brown in late 2018. His reasons had nothing to do with the ethics of abortion but rather that there was no need.
“According to a study sponsored by supporters of this legislation, the average distance to abortion providers in campus communities varies from five to seven miles, not an unreasonable distance,” Brown wrote in the veto letter. “Because the services required by this bill are widely available off-campus, this bill is not necessary.”
Brown’s successor, Gavin Newsom, has previously said he would sign such a bill.
Funding, particularly start-up costs, was always an issue but proponents have worked around it.
“The College Student Health Center Sexual and Reproductive Health Preparation Fund would provide $200,000 grants to each public university student health center, as established in the bill,” Fink wrote. “The grant’s intention is to cover the costs of medication abortion readiness and permits for several expenses, including the purchase of equipment, facility and security upgrades and training staff members.”
Opponents have seen the proposal in a far different light. Their instinct is not to take the child’s life but to help the mother navigate an unplanned pregnancy at the same time she is attending school. According to the Daily Titan, the student newspaper at California State University, Fullerton, Cameron Brewer, who was then the new president of Students for Life,
opposes the bill. Brewer said that any campus health resources should be used to help women who are pregnant, need help with child care and give information about adoption.
“It’s (the pill) more traumatic for women. It’s way easier to access without thinking about it, and the side effects can be more severe. There should be more instruction on the adoption process,” said Brewer.
Naturally, in all the promotion for chemical abortifacients at student health centers not a syllable about the thousands of complications and even deaths.
The latest FDA latest update tells us that as of December 31, 2017, the deaths of at least 22 women have been associated with the use of the two-drug abortion technique.
Student health centers at public universities in California “do not offer abortions of any kind, instead referring women to off-campus clinics,” according to Melody Gutierrez of the San Francisco Chronicle.
California Right to Life Committee, Inc 2872 Ygnacio Valley Rd. #243 Walnut Creek, Ca 94598 (925) 899-3064 callifeadvocates.org/blog
SB24’S REAL PURPOSE
Camille Giglio
4/16/2019. Walnut Creek. Ca. Do you know anyone who still believes that Planned Parenthood and friends care one little bit about women with unplanned Pregnancies or violent sexual mates or sexual inequality? You can quickly dispatch those beliefs by telling these people about Senator Connie Leyva’s California bill, SB24 Student Health Centers; Medication Abortion.
AB 24 which passed its first hearing on April 4 in the Senate Health Committee, would, among other things, provide $200,000.00 per school to prepare exam room space in their school clinics and employ nurse practitioners whose sole duty would be to dispense RU486 to female students.
It would also create a new advisory board staffed by the members of the California Status of Women…and girls… Commission to manage the Fund of both private and public dollar donations and grants solely for this.
SB 24 is not about health care or education or equal justice for women. It’s about getting inside education department and setting up abortion as something no different than dispensing an aspirin. It’s a profitable business. What business doesn’t want to expand?
The 2014 goal of a group called ACCESS, was full of expanding access to abortion. It has been their battle cry since Roe v Wade and is still ongoing. In their minds there are never enough young women having abortions or enough nurses and doctors trained to provide this service according to their mission and goal. Does any business set a limit on who can buy their product? Bills hoping to further market abortions pops up consistently in legislation often without success. This year is different. The Democrats, esp., pro abort Dems control the votes.
Today’s legislative term, 2019, is carrying yet another such bill, SB24, Student Health Centers: Abortion by Medication, by Sen. Connie Leyva. She is the current PP abortion enabler in the legislature who is proposing yet another method to open up more avenues to access to abortion.
SB 24 was heard on April 4 in the Senate Health Committee and recorded for public listening. You can watch the hearing by going to our blogsite for California Right to Life.
AB 24 includesrequiring California universities and colleges (roughly about 35 campuses) to accept $200,000.00 each to set up facilities within the student health centers for nurse practitioners to dispense RU486, the notorious morning-after pill. The bill invites private donations but it is obvious who or what source would eventually be providing the funding.
Sen. Shannon Grove, one of the two Republican members of this committee, Sen. Stone being the other one asked some specific questions on the credentials of those who would be dispensing the pills and on procedures that would be followed should a student experience health or emotional problems surrounding the potential expelling of a dead baby at inconvenient times and places. None of these questions were answered because they have no answer no plan.
Sen. Holly Mitchell brushed away those concerns by saying that those were discussions more appropriate for other committees such as finance. She wished to discuss policy issues.
As she talked it became clear that the policy she wished to discuss was one of equal justice or making medication abortion, of any type and for all, available on every university and college campuses as well as private colleges as a future goal.
Interestingly she never said the stronger more binding words “must be” introduced on campuses. She said, instead “ought to be.” This casual phrase indicates no forceful need, just a whim. It is a further indication that she and her abortion cohorts in the legislature care little to nothing for the health and emotional safety of our students. They care only about their exalted philosophy which goes something like; since abortion is legal and physical or mental harm is very minimal – according to their figures – then why isn’t medication abortion one of the offerings?
It doesn’t matter how much it costs, how much it harms the woman’s reproductive system or their emotional stability. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t cost effective or efficient. It is a type of abortion procedure and we, the pro abort women and men of this august legislative body now have the control of the legislature and the minds of the legislators to be able to do anything we want.
They are approaching it like the business that it really is, not a service or a compassionate choice. That’s all advertising! They particularly cited figures that said that the procedure most often used to obtain an abortion was a suction machine anyway. What she didn’t say was that a suction abortion following a medication abortion is often required because of uterine infection from incomplete abortion by medication.
The bill will next be heard in the Senate Education Committee on April 24. Note the relevance of the date – 24 as in SB 24. Also the name RU486 is a reference to the date this pill was put on market, April 1986.
WHERE DO YOU CALL:
Senate Education Committee, 916-651-4105. Leyva herself is Chairman. Please encourage everyone you know to call and call your own state senator who will vote on SB24 when it comes to the Senate floor.
CALIFORNIA RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE, INC. 2872 Ygnacio Valley Rd. #243 Walnut Creek, CA 94598 callifeadvocates@gmail.com 925-899-3064
TO:
Honorable Richard Pan, Chairman
Senate Health Committee
FROM:
Liz Froelich, Legislative Analyst
DATE:
March 27, 2019
RE:
(SB 24 Leyva) Public Health: University Health Centers: Abortion
POSITION:
OPPOSE
CRLC must adamantly oppose the inclusion of medication abortions or any form of abortion procedures at publicly funded California institutions of higher education.
SB24 is a rerun of SB320 from the previous legislature. It was rightly vetoed by then Governor Jerry Brown as not necessary. He stated that accessibility and availability were NOT problems for college students.
SB 24 reiterates the myth that a medication abortion is a safe medical procedure while claiming that it is an accepted health care component for reproductive health.
CRLC vigorously objects to these assertions. Abortion is not health care for either the pregnant woman or the preborn girl or boy.
For the continued good health of women students in California we demand a NO vote.
California Right to Life Committee, Inc 2872 Ygnacio Valley Rd. #243 Walnut Creek, Ca 94598 (925) 899-3064 callifeadvocates.org/blog
STOP AB 624-FREE TAXPAYER ADVERTISING FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD AND OTHERS
April 10, 2019. Walnut Creek. This term’s stable of bills on healthcare and education are now quickly moving through the legislature with little to no opposition from the church, the Republican office holders or the state.
Bills dealing with the social, emotional, academic, mental health and workforce training of students has flooded the health and education agendas of the state. The goal is the re-ordering of the idea of family. Our future as citizens of California may become more of a mandate for being primarily non-voluntary partners of the state rather than parents and primary educators of the children they bore.
AB 624, ID cards and Student Health Resources. This bill will place hotline phone numbers on the backs of student ID cards paid for with taxpayer education dollars.
The bill Passed the Assembly Education Committee on Party line vote and now moves to the Assembly Higher Education Committee. Hearing date in late April. There are 3 Republicans and 9 Democrats on this committee, Asm Gabriel himself being one of them.
PLEASE BEGIN CALLING TODAY - THIS HIGHER ED COMMITTEE AND EXPRESSING YOUR OPPOSITION TO PASSAGE OF THIS BILL. Phone: 916-319 3960.
All you need to do is state your position on AB 624 and the area in which you live. Pass on this information to others, including your Bishop or church leaders. Ask them to speak to the parishioners urging them to step up to protect their children’s physical, emotional, and spiritual health by defeating this bill. They don’t record names, just the numbers who call.
Make no mistake, today’s legislators, including some Republicans, believe that parents are accountable to the state for the end result of raising children.
Today, Governor Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Seibel Newsom, is leading a demonstration around the Capitol in support of AB624 by Assembly member Jesse Gabriel (D-San Fernando) entitled Pupil and Student Health: Identification Cards (D-San Fernando).
Planned Parenthood gave Gabriel $4,400.00 for his 2018 election Campaign. This is chump change, but he, in return, is attempting to give all of California’s children to Planned Parenthood to show his appreciation by using student ID cards are free advertising for all the groups who support him and work with Planned Parenthood.
Following the media and Planned Parenthood driven hysteria regarding the state of children’s mental and physical health, the Democrats are calling for placing hotline phone numbers on the back of student ID cards for mental health counseling groups, domestic violence groups, sexual assault groups, etcThey apparently believe that this will fulfill the mandate in socialized medicine for “healthcare-for-all.”
This will include Charter Schools, private schools and beginning with 7th grade level students by June 2020. This is free, to them, advertising paid for with education dollars derived from taxpayers.
This is a misuse of our children, a misuse of taxpayer funds, misuse of educational opportunities for students, and a dangerous re-formation of beliefs and values being modeled for our children.
It’s a deliberate move to drive a wedge between children and parents, turning the children to the state for guidance and support while the parents pay for all of this in the misguided belief that our children are getting an academic education.
Only three pro life organizations are opposing this: The California Catholic Conference, Faith and Public Policy and our organization. This is a Planned Parenthood bill. Googling Assembly member Jesse Gabriel’s name and that of Planned Parenthood brings up glowing press releases by PP for the great work of Asm Gabriel. He was elected to the Assembly late last year. He received glowing endorsements and generous donations for his Campaign from statewide well-known very progressive elected officials as well as by members of Planned Parenthood’s PPAC – it’s political support arm.
This legislative term, more than the usual number of bills are being put together in packages due to overlapping similarities. For instance: To be heard in the Assembly Health Committee:
States the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would increase in-school support services to pupils in order to break down barriers to academic success. Enacts the school-Based Pupil Support Services Program Act, under which grants and matching funds are awarded by the State Department of Education to local educational agencies.
One of the supporters is the California School Nurses Organization – CSNO. This is an affiliate of the national school Nurses Org. which has a public policy statement supporting birth control for students.
This sounds like it might be good, but really, it is a tool for merging the departments of health and education. Education is now health care and health care is now part and parcel of education delivered through the easiest access, the school house.
Please add this phone number – Assembly Health Committee - to your list to call and OPPOSE. Phone: 916-319-2097. Chad Mayes, Republican from San Bernardino area, is the V. Chairman of this committee. He needs a reminder that he is a Republican not a duplicate of the Democrats.
His phone number is 916-319-2142
TOMORROW, FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 8:30 Mass at Queen of All Saints Church, Concord, followed by a Rosary Procession to Planned Parenthood five county headquarters one block away. Try to come.
Queen of All Saints church, 2390 Grant St. Planned Parenthood, corner of Grant and Pacheco Sts. Free Public Parking garage on Salvio at Grant.
Note: We were called by an Aide in Asm Gabriel’s office, Abram Diaz, attempting to urge us to remove our opposition to Gabriel’s two other school mental health services bill – ab166 MediCal Violence Preventive Services, Also in the Assembly Health Committee ;hearing date 4/23: and AB 666 Pupil Mental Health: Model Referral Protocols Awaiting hearing in Assembly Appropriations Committee.
California Right to Life Committee, Inc. 2872 Ygnacio Valley Rd 243, Walnut Creek, Ca 94598 925-899-3064.
California Right to Life Committee, Inc 2872 Ygnacio Valley Rd. #243 Walnut Creek, Ca 94598 (925) 899-3064 callifeadvocates.org/blog
CALIFORNIA WANTS TO TURN COLLEGE HEALTH CLINICS INTO ABORTION CENTERS – SB24.
Camille Giglio.
4/13/19. Walnut Creek, Ca. Senator Connie Leyva, (D-San Bernardino) grateful recipient of $15,700.00 in campaign donations from Planned Parenthood for her recent re-election, wishes to repay this generosity by turning California college campuses and clinics into branch offices of Planned Parenthood.
Senate bill 24, is titled Student Health Centers: Abortion by Medication.
The bill Requires each student health care service clinic on a California State University or University of California campus to offer abortion by medication,i.e. RU486 formerly called the “morning after pill.Further the bill requires the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls to administer the College Student Health Center Sexual and Reproductive Health Preparation Fund. Also created by this bill.
The bill will be heard on April 24, 2019, in the:
Senate Education Committee – 916-651-4105 The bill has already passed the Senate Health Committee chaired by Richard “vaccinate-them-all” Pan.
Ms Leyva is chairman of that committee of 7 people; 5 Dems and 2 Reps. outside the womb.
The fact that Ms Leyva has chosen the Status on Women and girls committee to manage and oversee a fund design specifically to pay for the abortions and deceptively give money to her true interest, the S.O.W. committee It’s all about doing special favors for the groups that support her, it is not about the female students whose lives will be placed in peril by abortions that will occur in the dorm, on a date, in the car, in the all-persons bathrooms. Etc.
The state legislature has initiated a new means of contact between citizens and the legislators. It’s called a Legislative Portal and is a requirement that anyone wishing to write to a legislator or committee must do so in a specific manner referred to as a portal.
Here is the route to completing the registration: https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov. Once the letter or communication is sent it automatically goes to every member of the particular committee in which the bill is located at that time as well as remains in the committee. If there are no amendments to the bill the letter follow the bill to the next committee. THESE LETTERS MUST BE SUBMITTED 8 DAYS BEFORE THE HEARING DATE OF A BILL.
You may notice if you visit your state Assembly or Senate Representative’s online website you will see something similar. The main drawback here with this method – sending directly to the legislator- is that if one is not a resident of that legislator’s district the communication is rejected.
Two years ago three Counties were assigned the job of piloting this program. Beginning in January it was activated for all counties. Hundreds of organizations, groups. etc, have signed up but this was unknown to pro life groups until the last month or so.
Become an advocates not the same as a lobbyist or an official employee of an organization. One can still call in to a legislator or a committee to register a position, but name and group will not be recorded, only the number of callers will be shown. Also some committees are requiring a handwritten signature on all letters. They claim that all this makes contact easier and is more quickly disseminated to committee members (all of whom now have iPads) saves money and time for the employees and is more efficient for the letter writer. It’s still dependent upon the legislator actually reading anything.
Here are some other bills which we are following:
US Senate S 1122, Tina Smith (D-MN) School Based Mental Health Programs Access.
Has not had it’s first hearing. Awaiting hearing date in the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee – H.E.L.P.
Amends the Public Health Service Act; revises and extends projects relating to children; provides access to school based comprehensive mental health programs.
AB922, Autumn Burke, (D-L.A.), Requires individuals who provide human oocytes for research to be compensated for their time, discomfort, and inconvenience in the same manner as other research subjects, as prescribed and determined by a human subject research panel or institutional review board. Establishes the Research Participants Undergoing Ometocyte Retrieval for Medical Research Purposes Bill of Rights.
AB875, Buffy Wicks (D-Contra Costa/Alameda), Pupil Health: In-School Support Services.
SUMMARY: Updates the Healthy Start Support Services for Children Grant Program, previously administered by CDE, and identifies potential funding sources for the program. Specifically, this bill:
Critical need (undocumented) of Healthy Start Support Services for Children
Community centers as a place to dispense this “service.”
Bring in Community organizations to dispense the services and government agencies to fund he services
Hire paraprofessionals and community coordinators to provide family support, education and resource information. (in other words, promote attendance and provide tax payer funds to community orgs. Awaiting hearing date in Education Committee
AB480, Rudy Salas, (D-Kings Co.) Mental Health: Older Adults.
Establishes within the Department of Aging an Older Adult Mental Health Services Administrator to oversee mental health services for older adults. Prescribes the functions of the administrator and its responsibilities, including, but not limited to, developing outcome and related indicators for older adults for the purpose of assessing the status of mental health services for older adults, monitoring the quality of programs for those adults, and guiding decisionmaking on how to improve those services. In Senate Judiciary Committee. Hearing 4/23/19 Asm Health Committee.
PRAYERS AND PHONE CALLS NEEDED TO YOUR LEGISLATORS.
“The bigger problem is not that this language has been lost by some great cataclysm… Our moral language has been intentionally destroyed.”
Tsze-lu said, “The ruler of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government. What will you consider the first the to be done? The Master replied, “What is necessary is to rectify names.” (Analects of Confucius)
At the beginning of his now-classic work After Virtue, Alasdair Maclntyre asks us to imagine that future society in our civilization has collapsed. (Not too difficult to do.) The remnants of our scientific knowledge would perhaps remain in textbooks and other resources, and these would be carefully preserved and taught. At the same time, the whole scientific infrastructure that allowed the content of the sciences to have truth and coherent meaning would be gone. The scientific nomenclature would become a body of opinion which might correspond with reality, but might not. It would be what later generations could make of it.
Maclntyre’s thesis in After Virtue is that this imaginary post-apocalyptic view of the sciences serves as an accurate image of the present state of moral discourse: "The hypothesis which I wish to advance," he writes, "is that in the actual world which we inhabit the language of morality is in the same state of grave disorder as the language of natural science in the imaginary world which I described." The problem is not then that we know what is right but fail to do it, the timeless problem of men everywhere. Rather, we no longer know the words to express the moral dimension of our experience.
In the Catholic school where I teach, I never cease to be impressed at the impoverishment of my students’ moral vocabulary. Many, for example, do not know the word gluttony. For them, the only "eating disorders" they know are psychological, not moral e.g. bulimia, anorexia. Neither do they know fornication, having grown up with less judgmental terms like pre-marital sex or cohabitation. Correspondingly, few will know words such as woo or court. The whole language of courtship is a blank to them. One year, when I asked students for a synonym for "winning a woman’s love honorably," a boy guessed "seduce" - probably because it was the only educated sounding word for that kind of activity he knew.
Many students can simply forget these things, even after they have been taught. But this task is rendered vastly more difficult by the countervailing trends in the larger culture. Christian morality has long ceased to inform our shared moral discourse. My students must feel that they are learning a foreign dialect. But of course, the bigger problem is not that this language has been lost by some great cataclysm, as Maclntyre’s scenario suggests. Our moral language has been intentionally destroyed.
The words we use shape our perception of the things we experience. When I was a boy, only ecologists used words like wetlands and rainforest. Ordinary folks used words like swamp and jungle. The language was changed to change our views about those things. Saving a rainforest sounds lovely - but who wants to save a jungle? Likewise, saving wetlands sounds considerably nicer than saving a swamp. This revision of language is particularly evident in everything connected with the Sexual Revolution. Sodomy became homosexual and then gay. Prostitutes are mere sex workers. Living in sin is cohabitation and so on. Perhaps most notoriously, a baby is now a fetus, who is terminated in an abortion. Before Roe v Wade, only physicians used words like fetus or zygote. (It is hard to imagine someone asking a pregnant woman "Are you feeling your fetus kicking?")
These distortions are not so subtle, but others are, Sex has been replaced by the word gender. Many might feel that gender in fact might be better to use, since it does not carry the possible innuendo that sex does. But "gender" was a word that formerly was only used in grammar to describe nouns, e.g. masculine, feminine or neither. Gender is cultural. The word for "sun", for example, in some languages is masculine, while in others is feminine. These are cultural perceptions, not facts. Sexual differences on the other hand are natural. Male and female are biological realities that have a natural basis. By replacing sex with gender we have turned human sexuality into a cultural construct. (As I write, Facebook lists 58 possible "genders" for its users’ profiles, including gender questioning, gender fluid and non binary1).
Closely allied with the word gender are the words role and norm. People once considered the respective duties or tasks of men and women, especially as husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. If gender is a cultural construct, all these duties no longer have a natural basis - they are created. Hence, our modern age borrows from the language of theatre to describe the roles of spouses and parents. No actor is naturally related to his role _ he may play many characters, good or bad, young or old. Similarly, men and women are not then seen as living out natural differences, but interpreting, even inventing, a culturally derived script.
Norm is a term borrowed from the realm of sociology. Norms are standards derived primarily from common practice. They are not prescriptive, establishing what people ought to do, but descriptive, stating what in fact most people choose to do. Hence, normal is not synonym for natural; indeed, cultures may create all manner of practices contrary to nature. And certainly, normal is not a synonym for moral, unless one believes that morality is mere opinion, free from a natural basis. Together, gender, role and norm collectively undermine any natural basis for family life as various arrangements contrary to nature are considered equally choice-worthy.
Another important shift, again subtle in its effect, has been the replacement of specific words such as love and friendship with generic words like relationship, Relationship fuzzes over the distinct ways in which people relate for the sake of making these relationships a purely creative project. Unlike "love" which makes demands, relationships become whatever those involved want them to be.2 Similarly, the word partner is used where, once upon a time, wife or spouse or mistress or lover would have been more appropriate. Again, the goal is to have a generic word that puts a multitude of moral conditions all on the same level. As Allan Bloom succinctly remarks, "All relationships have been homogenized in their indeterminacy."3
Without doubt, the most pernicious word in our contemporary moral discourse is value. Just as norm is taken from sociology and role from drama, value is a word borrowed from economics. Value expresses the comparative worth of a good or service in a system of free exchanges. Value may imply some objective basis for this worth, as in the "labor theory of value," which insisted that the value of a commodity was related to the amount of exertion that someone would give to obtain it. Even so, this basis still demanded a market, that is, a group of people who were willing to exchange and so validate this "value." Market values are not simple statements of fact, and they certainly do not tell us what things should be worth more than others. "Values" state rather what most people believe the worth of things to be, expressed in terms of free exchange.
One of the first, if not the first philosopher to import the language of values into moral discourse was Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche denied an objective moral law based on human nature. Rather, Nietzsche insisted that morality is created from different elements within society. In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche describes this process: "the noble, powerful, higher-ranking, and higher-thinking people who felt and set themselves and their actions up as good, that is to say, of the first rank, in opposition to everything low, low-minded, common, and vulgar. From this pathos of distance they first arrogated to themselves the right to create values, to stamp out the names for values." (chap.2)4 Simply put, the nobler elements of society see themselves as good, and hence their moral language is first and foremost self-affirming.
On the contrary, those who were ruled and dominated, the slaves of this aristocratic society create different "values." On the bottom of the social ladder, they could only resent their place, and create a form of morality in which that lowliness has its own "goodness." As Nietzsche explains, "The slave revolt in morality begins when the ressentiment itself becomes creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of those beings who are prevented from a genuine reaction, that is, something active, and who compensate for that with a merely imaginary vengeance." (chap.l0) For Nietzsche, the Biblical morality of the Jews is the very paradigm of "slave morality." Dominated by the empires around them, the Jews turn their very victimhood into a virtue - the weak are "beloved of God," the powerful are "evil."
Most people who speak of "moral values" are completely unaware of this Nietzschean background. Yet it is important to note the implicit consequences of the word "values," namely 1) morality is not based on a natural law which is universal for all men; 2) rather, morality is a free creation in response to natural drives and social circumstances; and finally 3) moral judgments therefore only provide psychological information about the people who hold them, but do not tell us how people should act.
By contrast, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, and the Christian tradition that appropriated their moral insights along with biblical revelation, know nothing of "values." They speak rather of virtues, habits of the soul that perfect man’s nature, raised further by the gifts of sanctifying grace. Virtues are grounded in human nature, while values arise from human creativity. Yet so pervasive is the language of values that even Church documents today will speak of "authentic values" or the "proper hierarchy of values." As Allan Bloom observes, "Even those who deplore our current moral condition do so in the very language that exemplifies that condition."5
The replacement of virtues by "values" is the root and foundation of the confusions that pervade our modern language. The various ways in which the Sexual Revolution has sent words like fornication and sodomy into oblivion, and made family arrangements a matter of social invention by terms like gender and role would be unthinkable if not for the previous uncoupling of morality from nature. Centuries ago, Confucius insisted on the rectification of names. "If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success." Our language no longer reflects the moral realities of human life, but rather the revolutionary aspirations of the post-Christian world. If we are to recover the moral understanding we once had, we must recover the language that embodied that understanding. C. S. Lewis put it best when he observed "Men do not long continue to think what they have forgotten to say."6
2. The tendency toward abstraction in language in democratic societies was well explained by De Tocqueville: "Men living in democratic countries are, then, apt to entertain unsettled ideas, and they require loose expressions to convey them. As they never know whether the idea they express to-day with be appropriate to the new position they may occupy to-morrow, they naturally acquire a liking for abstract terms. An abstract term is like a box with a false bottom: you may put in it what ideas you please, and take them out again without being observed. (Democracy in America, pt.II, chap.16, "The Effect of Democracy on Language").
3. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, Simon & Shuster, New York, 1987, p.132.
4. The relation between "language" and "power" has never been better illustrated than by Lewis Carroll in Alice’s exchange with Humpty Dumpty:
‘I don’t know what you mean by "glory",’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t - till I tell you. I meant "there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!"’
‘But "glory" doesn’t mean "a nice knock-down argument",’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.’ (Through the Looking Glass, chap.6 "Humpty Dumpty")
DR. ARTHUR HIPPLER is the former director of the Office of Justice and Peace for the Diocese of La Crosse. He is currently teaching at Providence Academy in Plymouth, Minnesota. He is the author ofCitizens of the Heavenly City: A Catechism of Catholic Social Teaching(published by Borromeo Books) and has written forThe Wanderernewspaper and theBellarmine Forumwebsite and magazine. Dr. Hippler received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College.
Dr. Arthur Hippler at CCSC 2015 — “In Search of The Whole Child”
California Right to Life Committee, Inc 2977 Ygnacio Valley Rd. #243 Walnut Creek, Ca 94598 callifeadvocates.org/blog (925) 899-3064
INFANTICIDE
2-7-2019, Walnut Creek, Ca. THANK YOU President Donald Trump for using your air time during the State Of the Union address’ closing remarks to urge the Congress to pass legislation prohibiting third trimester abortion. Please take the time to Thank him here.
The bill to accomplish this objective is US Senate bill 311 by Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, the Abortion Survivor Bill of 2019. See below for more information on this important bill.
The recent demand for post-birth abortion, i.e. infanticide, created such outrage following the passage of the New York legislation, the Reproductive Health Act, followed closely with an equally egregious,
but defeated abortion bill in Virginia by Delegate Kathy Tran, (D) awakened the public to the truth about abortion.
It was Va. Governor Ralph Northam’s cold and calculating delineation of the procedure for premie or born-alive abortion intended babies that shocked the general public into raising a loud protest against the bill. Northam, a neonatal intensive care doctor, didn’t even bother with the often used phrase: it’s for the health-of-the-mother. He said it was good economics.
Contact your state and Congressional representatives, request meetings with your pastors and ministers. Firmly encourage them to lead the way, to begin speaking directly to the legislators and to the faithful in the pews about the Constitutional, economic and cultural dangers of continuing to exterminate populations in this country. Specifically, speak to the Catholic Bishops of America, including your own Diocesan Bishop. Remind him that he has been called to lead and shepherd his people, not sit back and make excuses for the Governors’ and legislators’ beliefs and actions.
PROTECT THE INFANT SURVIVOR OF ABORTION.
During President Trump’s State of the Union address he asked the Congress to vote out Senator Ben Sasse’s USS 311, Care of a Child Who Survivors Abortion, submitted to the Senate on 1/31/19. Sasse is requesting that the bill be fast-tracked.
He had previously on 1//15/19 submitted USS 130, Abortion Survivors Act, prior to the annual Washington, D.C. March for Life, but the Congressional Democrats tabled that bill.
We urge you, our readers, to call your US Senators and state your support for this latest bill.
We also request that you call our California Senators even though they are hardcore pro aborts, they need to hear from us.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D) D.C. Office: 202/224/3841 NorCal District office: 415/393/0707 SoCal: 310/914/7318
In reality, the practice of aborting babies throughout the third trimester of abortion is not new.
California skirts around the truth of abortion up to an including post birth abortion. Two California legislators, Cristina Garcia, (D) and Monique Limon both submitted Resolutions acknowledging California’s position on late term abortion and even post birth abortion. These Resolutions both passed quickly following opening of the 2019 term.
Here is the important paragraph within the bill:
[]…Urges the President of the United States and the United States Congress to express their support for a woman’s fundamental right to control her own reproductive decisions, as well as their support for access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare, including the services provided by Planned Parenthood.
There is little to no difference in the phrase “right to control” one’s own reproductive decisions to the statement by Va. Governor Northam when he claimed that the live aborted baby’s right to live was up to the mother and the doctor in consultation.
Further, saying that the services to be obtained included those of Planned Parenthood, clearly shows that the legislature and the Governor (Gavin Newsom) acknowledge abortion on demand in California throughout the full nine months of pregnancy and beyond.
CODE WORDS:
California gets around the reality of abortion by using code words. CRLC believes that the reworking of the two words health care into one word – healthcare, is code for the involvement of Planned Parenthood and all its services.
Palliative care, i.e. Keeping the patient comfortable , meaning the removal of food and water and medicines is CODE for a slow form of assisted suicide In which a patient receives only pain killers, thereby losing their appetite and desire to be active. This is a form of so-called patient care promoted by a doctor Ira Byock who is supported by many within the USCCB – United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Another Code is the phrase concerning any medical need to deliberately birth a child prior to approximately 24 or less weeks because of a need to protect the “health of the mother” which may or may not have any real connection to the specific mother’s actual pregnancy-caused health condition is another reference to stepping back from direct active care of a patient and letting it die from attrition or natural causes.
That phrase, mother’s health issues is often followed immediately by the hospital offering the parents Pediatric palliative care especially for a baby suspected of having any level of life threatening or disabling health care needs.
This is the reference used by Va. Governor Northam, meaning that the mother and/or father can discuss if the child’s life should be saved. If the parent(s) should be for providing only comfort – wrapping the baby in a nice warm blanket – the baby will not be resuscitated or have it airway, cleared. The baby will suffocate.
With this disrespect for life by elected officials, coupled with an attitude of apathy on the part of the citizenry for continuing the lives of the “unwanted” babies and elderly what do you suppose is going to be offered by legislators In the way of healthcare legislation? Who or what is going to stand up for life?
Here’s what New York’s Cardinal Dolan thinks:
This links to a Cardinal Dolan YouTube interview dated 1/28/19. This was after NY announced its latest abortion legislative vote. And was aired prior to Virginia’s dastardly vote. See how Dolan treds water trying to save himself from public criticism for unwillingness to confront the powerful NY politicians.
This second link is to a WSJ commentary page containing what we are invited to believe was actually written by Cardinal Timothy Dolan on 2/7/19 entitled Abortion’s Dred Scott Moment. This was also printed in our local East Bay Times on 2/8/19,
In the YouTube video Dolan deflects criticism from his failure to conduct himself as the shepherd of his flock and tosses the blame to the faithful flock. That’s like the shepherd telling the sheep to go form a partnership with the wolves; working together to feed the hungry.
Cardinal Dolan’s suggestion that we, not the Bishops, should be the ones to confront our elected officials is the same poor excuse for doing nothing that the church has been offering for decades.
The faithful in California alone would amount to a huge advocacy for life. Instead we are subjected to once a year Walks down city streets blocked off from the public and on which no public official is confronted. Yet, every year there are planned activities by religiously affiliated groups to walk the halls of the capitol for sanctuary cities, mandated government provided vaccinations of all children, Early release for some prisoners and so on. Not that these are bad things. they are good. But if the church would lead its faithful on the truly basic moral issues of marriage, family and life, there might not be so much need for all these other financially wasteful trips. All they do is give legislators the opportunity to say, well, we listened when the citizens came here to speak to us, so we are giving them what they want which, apparently legislators are interpreting to be that we want some form of Socialism which contains abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and palliative care.
I, personally don’t know if its good that the media is now talking about the advancing idea of accepting Socialism or not. I do know it’s scary. With the deliberate denial of a moral basis for laws, only science, it’s no wonder schools, parents and quickly created non-profits are beginning to advocate for schools becoming mental health clinics rather than academic laboratories. Do we really want the government to set the standards for what is mental health? I hope not.
Please share this report with friends, family and social groups. WE so appreciate your continued adherence to the life issues. We are all tempted to just let it all go, it’s getting too big. But, the children are important, We love our children no matter their age. Your voices, your enthusiasm, your prayers and actions remain the one protection we can offer to humanity.
SPEAK UP FOR LIFE.
PS: We had a phone call from an Oklahoma woman on this year’s Roe v Wade Anniversary. She was desperately looking for help in trying to save her brother’s life from being terminated by doctors who insisted they had done all they could for him and it was time to let him die. The brother, age 64 was a patient in Mercy Hospital in Redding, Ca.
Unfortunately the call came too late. The doctors, despite the patient’s requests to be kept alive, removed his life support, moved him out of ICU and into a private room where he died the next morning.
California right to life Committee, Inc. 2977 Ygnacio Valley Rd #243, Walnut Creek, Ca 94598. www.callifeadvocates.org/blog. Click on this link to our website and follow us throughout the year.
California Right to Life Committee, Inc 2977 Ygnacio Valley Rd. #243 Walnut Creek, Ca (925) 899-3064 callifeadvocates.org/blog
California Legislator Declares Killing an Unborn Baby is a Fundamental Right for Women
1/22/2019. Walnut Creek, Ca. Today on the 46th Anniversary of Roe v Wade The California Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson, (D), opened the Judiciary Committee hearings by announcing that this Committee would be using the Non-binary, sex neutral gender-nonspecific pronoun designations such as them, they, theirs, rather than he, she his, her’s during all the committee hearings.
Further, Their first action was to give obeisance to Planned Parenthood as they vote 6-0 (one “not voting” by V. Chairman Andreas Borgeas (R), to approve Sen. Connie Leyva’s (D) Senate Resolution, SR7, Women’s Reproductive Rights. This Judiciary committee of 8 members has only one Republican on it.
Sen. Leyva proceeded then to introduce a Representative of Planned Parenthood to give the supportive statement.
Chair Jackson, following opposing statements by two Prolife representatives, proceeded to give her own personal thoughts on abortion as a fundamental right. Here is a link to the Senate hearing,
Does The Word “healthcare” have a hidden meaning?
The original rendition of Leyva’s Resolution contained a reference to abortion as health care (notice the space between the two words.)
The amended rendition of the Resolution had exed health care out and replaced it with healthcare.
It caused me to wonder if the abortion industry is now using the merged words as a silent signal to their followers that when they use the term a “woman’s Reproductive rights blah, blah, they signaling to their supporters that they mean abortion?
According to media savvy friends the proper use is health care, but as words begin to have certain meanings for the citizens they begin to change and become health-care (or, Pro-life) and gradually work their way into a merged one word.
Perhaps you have noticed that our opponents use pro life or pro-life, but never prolife, because they know that the one word merge signifies positive protection for innocent human life.
Let me know if you observe this change in the language.
January 22nd Not Just About those babies in the womb?
I recently told you about hearing a Catholic priest on Relevant Radio, castigate pro-lifers for their narrow focus on babies in the womb rather than the immigrants or homeless, etc.
Well, it’s happened again. This time it is a notice in my church bulletin. A request for prayers for the unborn in Recognition of the Anniversary of Roe v Wade was followed by this thought:
Pope Francis has said that respect for life is not just about the unborn child in the womb, but also about the least of our brothers and sisters. Yes, it is even about the undocumented resident alien who has no voice but ours.
The frustration I have regarding that statement is that January 22nd is dedicated to Right to Life Issues, abortion, contraception. Bringing in other issues is an attempt to divert attention from the growing politically charged demand to use death for babies or ill and disabled patients it is not a day to bring in other issues.
It’s very likely that Pope Francis’ words are being distorted by the media and left-leaning groups, but it is also apparent that many Christian people are using that distortion themselves for their own agendas, including members of the clergy.
I ask you, isn’t the preborn child the ultimate example of the illegal alien at the gate begging to come into a haven of safety and protection? The spotlighted thousands of immigrants have all kinds of voices and groups and politicians calling for their right to come across that border - be it the womb or the wall - into the protective arms of our Constitution. The preborn baby who already is in the United States in his mother’s womb is to be killed ruthlessly and his or her body parts are to be sold to the highest bidder. New York has just passed some tremendously evil legislation authorizing the deliberate slaying of a child who accidently gets born during an abortion.
I ask: who is the most voiceless in this country?
It is now the preborn child but the elderly and disabled are soon to be added to this classification of unwanted, too expensive, worthless eaters and the best we have to offer them is death.
In the last two years our office has received a growing number of phone calls from family members desperate to save their loved ones from being removed from life support in hospitals. One such call came early this morning from a woman who is trying to save her brother, in Redding, California, who has been removed from life support by doctors who claim they can do nothing more for the patient.
Republicans in Congress have a packet of prolife bills.
Here is a package of bills in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate on issues supportive of the right to life. The legislators really need your vocal support urging them to move the bills forward. These are all brand new bills introduced on Jan. 17, just prior to the March for Life held in D.C.
USHR 660 Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) Health Information and Supporting Incentives.
USHR 634, Jeff Duncan (R-SC ) Abortion Consent.
USHR 661, Virginia Foxx (R-NC) Abortion Assistance Prohibition This amends the Foreign Assistance Act.
USHR 671, Robert Latta (R-Oh) Unlawful Disposal of Fetal Remains. Amends Title 18 U.S. Code.
USS183, James Lankford, (R-OK) Health Services Providers. Amends the Public Health Services Act, prohibits governmental discrimination again those who do not engage in abortion.
USHR 652, Earl Blumenauer, (D-OR). Medicare All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (FINAL) Regulation. THIS IS NOT A PROLIFE BILL.
It is entitled Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, or PACE.
GET OUT NOW. This is the title of a very well written book on the subject of Why you should pull your child from public school before it’s too late. Written by Mary Rice Hasson and Theresa Farnan. It explains very clearly all the problems of today’s social/emotional (rather than academic) schooling.
This will be a year in which you are absolutely going to be needed for opposing )or supporting) legislation. PP is entrenched in schools, and Assisted Suicide groups are entrenched in hospitals
The opening hearing of the 2019 California Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Hannah Beth Jackson. (D) Chairman, in which the first order of business is to vote on Senate Resolution 7, Reproductive Heath Care by Sen. Connie Leyva, (D). Sen. Leyva proceeded to then introduce one of the Sacramento area Planned Parenthood representatives to address the Committee on the bill. There were also two Representatives of the Pro-Life Community to speak in opposition to the Resolution. The Resolution was approved by a 6-0 vote. with one abstention by Republican Andreas Borgeas.
Take away God, all respect for civil laws, all regard for even the most necessary institutions disappears; justice is scouted; the very liberty that belongs to the law of nature is trodden underfoot; and men go so far as to destroy the very structure of the family, which is the first and firmest foundation of the social structure.
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