Now an article by Naomi Cahn and June Carbone in the left-wing publication Slate targets the right-to-life movement as the real villain in the rise of unwed motherhood. The authors come out point-blank and draw the conclusion—admittedly not illogical—that pro-lifers are to blame for unwed mothers.

It’s here that it would be nice for some consistency from the political Left. On the one hand, the pro-life movement is often portrayed as the modern-day equivalent of the Pharisees, obedient to the law, but lacking in mercy for anyone who dares come up a step short. Now, Cahn and Carbone seem to be pushing the notion that the problem in socially conservative communities is that they, in fact, are too merciful and shouldn’t be embracing these out-of-wedlock births.

Bristol Palin's embrace of her unborn child represented the best values of the pro-life movement.

The authors even cite the pregnancy of then seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin and go on to write—“Democratic women were appalled—mystified why anyone thought having a 17-year-old raise a child was a good idea.” Of course, no one ever said it was a good idea—but my guess is that Bristol’s child prefers being alive under a less-than-ideal arrangement.

The Catholic Church is, of course, the world’s foremost defender of the right to life. For years, left-wing critics seemed to think the Church wanted to brand every unwed mother with a scarlet letter. Now the critics seem to have reversed gears and decided that they’re angry that the pro-life beliefs of Catholics and other religious traditions is getting in the way of preserving the two-parent ideal.

But the reality is that the Church has always been the protector of those who believe in the ideal, even if certain circumstances in life have left us short of the mark. An embracement of the unwed mother is just a prominent example.

The article by Cahn and Carbone concludes with the observation “…a well-funded and influential anti-abortion movement contributed to the growth of single parenthood. Conservatives should at least start to be more open about whether this is a price they are willing to pay.”

Whether it’s Catholic conservatives or pro-life Catholic liberals, they answer must always yes, a thousand times yes, the protection of human life is eminently worth the price.

Dan Flaherty is the author of Fulcrum, an Irish Catholic novel set in postwar Boston with a traditional Democratic mayoral campaign at its heart, and he is the editor-in-chief of TheSportsNotebook.com

Sarah Terzo at LifeSiteNews, summarized the sad data. Some of the lowlights were that 83 percent of the women who suffered post-abortion trauma would have chosen differently had they not been advised otherwise by people, including their abortion “counselors.” Only 5 percent were even encouraged by their Planned Parenthood “counselors” to ask questions.

It’s yet another piece of evidence—as though more were needed—that Planned Parenthood’s alleged concern for women’s health is merely a public relations ploy, while the real game is to keep the money from abortions coming in. Abortion is a big business, and it’s one form of big business where the political Left has given its docile subservience.

The survey results seem to imply though, that the 83 percent who felt pushed into the abortion didn’t have it happen exclusively inside the doors of the Planned Parenthood. And it’s here that continued prayer and pro-life formation is required within the culture, because it’s fair to say that a friend or family member who advises abortion is often feeling the same fear as the expectant mother—not to the same degree certainly—but the same general outline of what will happen, what will become of the child, how will it be cared for.  It’s in these venues where the light of a Culture of Life has to break through more clearly and ensure the expectant mother never has a chance to be manipulated, lied to and exploited by the minions of Planned Parenthood.

I’m somewhat of an optimist on human nature, and I think that even in a movement that is, at its bottom, rank evil, only 10 percent or so of the practitioners really grasp what they’re doing. When it comes to the big business of abortion, those 10 percent are on the payroll at Planned Parenthood. Out there beyond the walls of the abortion mills, lie the other 90 percent, well-intentioned, but caught adrift in a culture that’s lost its moorings. Reach the 90 percent and the rest will be rendered irrelevant.

It is my contention that children have rights. Aside from the intrinsic right to life, children also have the right to be raised by their biological mother and father.

Proponents of same-sex unions argue that there is no real difference between children who grow up with parents of the same sex as opposed to those who grow up in a home with a mother and a father. However, as Lauren Hoedeman of CV pointed out not long ago, a recent study confirms that children appear most apt to succeed as adults when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father.

With the commercialization of “the pill” during the middle part of the 20th century, the biological reality concerning the consequences of sex was changed forever. Historically, human beings relied on sex to have children. Children were considered gifts from God created in His image within the confines of a lifelong relationship. They were viewed as the natural result of what has been called the conjugal act.

Now, humans – note the choice of “humans” as opposed to “human beings” – are more or less the end product of a scientist’s flow chart. Children are no longer the result of love between spouses, they are viewed as commodities that are to be bred (in-vitro fertilization) and destroyed (abortion) according to our desires.

When humans are made in the image of man, they lose certain rights and become means to an end. Just look at the sperm donor industry. It has been reported that one man is believed to have fathered over 150 children.

This past week I attended the Michigan-based Acton Institute’s Acton University. Acton University is a four day “exploration of the intellectual foundations of a free society” within the Judeo-Christian framework.

Ambassador Michael Novak is interviewed at Acton University 2012

This year’s event hosted over 800 attendees from 70+ countries and featured speakers from all corners of the globe. Some specialized in poverty, others in political theory, but consistent throughout the conference was the need to understand the human person within the context of Christian anthropology.

I agree with the Acton Institute and encourage you to visit their website. The week reminded me that even though we live in a world permeated by a truncated understanding of the human person and parenthood in particular, there are voices crying out in the wilderness who still fight for the traditional family unit headed by a mother and a father.

Stephen Kokx is an adjunct professor of political science and featured columnist at RenewAmerica.com. Follow him on twitter @StephenKokx

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross…
– Lepanto by G. K. Chesterton

I have sympathy for the sentiment Emily expresses. I do. I know it’s a lament shared by many Catholics when they look at the state of the Church now. It’s important we acknowledge past sins of omission — personal, pastoral, institutional. It’s important that we get our history straight.

But why? So we can better shape the future.

I agree that we can’t win this fight for the culture on the legislative or legal fronts alone. But these are important fronts we cannot afford to abandon. Culture isn’t just shaped by personal conversations and conversions. It’s also shaped by foundational structures such as law and government. That’s why Catholics need to be active warriors in the public square. The fight for religious liberty, after all, is a battle to preserve the right to have those personal conversations and conversions.

Basically I’m arguing that we need two specific things: optimism and priorities. Optimism because the resources at our disposal are immense. In addition to our human potential, we have Christ. So ultimately, we win. But to avoid the cost and unnecessary suffering which would result from a domineering state denying our religious liberty: we have to win this critical battle first. It’s the most important priority, because everything the Church stands for in public and everything the Church safeguards concerning the common good is premised on the right of the Church to be free to do so.

There is a time for sackcloth and ashes — it’s after the battle has been won. But when the innocent are threatened and the one thing standing in the way of government tyranny is the Church and the right of Christians to believe in peace and live out the truth, now that’s a time for swords and shields.

Pope Benedict XVI reaches to kiss a disabled child at World Youth Day.

Among the groups honored by an audience with the Holy Father during World Youth Day, was a group of sick and disabled youth from St Joseph’s Hospital. Like the seminarians, university professors, and women religious, the Holy Father wanted to remind them of their vital importance in the life of the Church. This may surprise some, after all, the disabled youth who greeted the Holy Father needed escorts to help them walk up to greet him, and often they were unable to communicate with words when they did. This did not stop the face of the pontiff from radiating a quiet joy as he embraced each one in turn, expressing his love for them.

Watching this moving scene, I was reminded of a similar moment in the chapel of the Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York, where, in 2008, the Holy Father had come to greet disabled children. One young lady with Down syndrome brought a picture to the Holy Father with her friend. She reached up to hug him, and realized her friend was excluded, so she snatched her up in a three way bear hug, which brought many of us watching to tears.

The disabled have many things to teach society, as the Holy Father affirmed in his remarks in Madrid. First, the suffering serve as a means by which the humanity of society is measured:

“A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through ‘com-passion’ is a cruel and inhuman society” (Spe Salvi, 38).

Sadly society most often rejects those who suffer:  ninety two percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted, and increasingly the elderly are victims of euthanasia. We want to eliminate the imperfect, perhaps hoping to convince ourselves that our lives will never contain such suffering. This is a futile hope; suffering will visit us all some day.

There is reason for hope, however; the Church contains the antidote for this lack of compassion in today’s culture.

Jesus and, in his footsteps, his Sorrowful Mother and the saints, are witnesses who shows us how to experience the tragedy of suffering for our own good and for the salvation of the world. These witnesses speak to us, first and foremost, of the dignity of all human life, created in the image of God.

St. Gianna Berretta Molla comes to mind; an Italian pediatrician who sacrificed her life for her unborn baby, refusing cancer treatments while expecting a daughter in 1961.

Where did she find the strength to give her life in that way? The Holy Father went on to say that God wanted to share with us his particular love for those who are suffering in His Passion.

Because the Son of God wanted freely to embrace suffering and death, we are also capable of seeing God’s image in the face of those who suffer. This preferential love of the Lord for the suffering helps us to see others more clearly and to give them, above and beyond their material demands, the look of love which they need.

Only by knowing Christ in a personal manner, the pontiff counseled, can we see beyond the ravages of disease on the body, and see the beauty of Christ in the soul of those who need our compassion. And, in helping them, we find our hearts healed and opened to God. In the end it is we who are indebted to them for what they have given to us.

In a mysterious yet real way, their presence awakens in our often hardened hearts a tenderness which opens us to salvation. The lives of these young people surely touch human hearts and for that reason we are grateful to the Lord for having known them.

So what do professionals and families of the disabled and sick give to society, according to the Pope? They build a “Civilization of Love” and become part of a “treasury of compassion” sorely needed by a society which too often “questions the inestimable value of life.” They become the healed rather than the healers. Their relationship with Christ and others is enriched, and, one person at a time, society becomes more compassionate.

I’ve seen this transformation occur in the lives of parents who were at first terrified by the news that their unborn child had Down syndrome. They recoiled at first, thinking only of the symptoms of the condition. However, if they knew Christ personally, and were given time to reflect, they began to see in the unseen child, a mere shadow on the sonogram, the divine image of Christ. Once the child was born, the bonds strengthen, and before long, those same parents who couldn’t imagine life with their special needs children, can’t imagine life without them.

It’s been one of the greatest rewards of my life to be one of those parents. I have a nine year old daughter Christina with Down syndrome. She has brought about a radical transformation of the hearts of her family and the community. I share this story, along with 32 others, in my upcoming book, A Special Mother Is Born.

What made it hard, I think, to start was my complete inability to grasp the moral universe where the people described in this article are coming from. Story after story of women who, having invested so much energy and money into getting pregnant in the first place, decide to kill off one of the twins they are carrying, supposedly so they can provide the surviving twin with a higher quality of life.

Welcome to the world Roe has created, I thought. A world where children simply do not matter. A world where the only thing that matters in the end is what adults want.

It’s probably too much to hope, but I can’t shake the desire to see in this story the beginning of the end of our protracted national tolerance for abortion.

Think about it — rewind the clock — can you imagine if Roe v. Wade had made abortion legal because one of the women described in this article desired to kill one of her unborn twins? Abortion was forced upon this country and made legal in all 50 states because of horror stories. Women who had been raped by their father. Women who would surely die in childbirth (their doctors testified) if they were made to carry the baby through until birth.

But these horror stories (and many of them were just that, stories) were not what Roe fixed. Roe gave us this: “coin toss” abortions, where one twin lives and one twin dies simply because one twin is closer to the abortionist’s needle.

This is another aspect of the world that Roe and legalized abortion-on-demand has given us: moral illiteracy. How else to describe journalists being able to write 5,000 words about Coin Toss abortions, complete with mentions of the “Mount Sinai Medical Center” and the “National Institute of Health” and never, not once, not even once, mention the one glaringly-obvious ethical question in the heart of the debate: “isn’t this murder?”

The author, who is careful to ignore (or maybe couldn’t even realize she was ignoring) this foundational question still manages to evoke the question as she describes the emotional trauma felt by some associated with this barbaric practice:

The doctors who do reductions sometimes sense their patients’ unease, and they work to assuage it. “I do spend quite a bit of time going through the medical risks of twins with them, because it takes away a little bit of the guilt they feel,” says Stone, the Mount Sinai doctor. Sometimes, she says, couples disagree about whether to reduce a twin pregnancy, and she encourages them to see a therapist so they can be at peace with whatever they decide.

Guilty? Therapy? Why would people harbor such feelings after undergoing a “reduction” surgery? Do people experience guilt and sadness after undergoing a stomach fat reduction? Something else entirely is happening here:

One of Stone’s patients, a New York woman, was certain that she wanted to reduce from twins to a singleton. Her husband yielded because she would be the one carrying the pregnancy and would stay at home to raise them. They came up with a compromise. “I asked not to see any of the ultrasounds,” he said. “I didn’t want to have that image, the image of two. I didn’t want to torture myself. And I didn’t go in for the procedure either, because less is more for me.” His wife was relieved that her husband remained in the waiting room; she, too, didn’t want to deal with his feelings.

Torture? Avoidance of dealing with feelings? How lost these people are!

“How do we help make these people less lost?” I wonder, and still struggle with. A part of me feels overwhelming sympathy towards these parents who are so blinded, so self-deluded in their choices. But another part of me is angry. So angry, because their choices — whether selfish, ignorant, or more likely, a combination of both — are killing children. Real children. Right now.

Imagine what will happen to these children, these siblings of aborted brothers and sisters, when they grow up. Most of the parents interviewed in this story say they intend to hide their choice to kill off one of their twins from their friends and family. Shame on them. Abortion has gone on for so long because the victim never has a chance to speak. These children who have survived the abortion of their twin (or twins) have a voice already – ours.

Let’s talk about the reasons given for Coin Toss abortions. The cop-out used by almost all the parents interviewed in this article is that they choose to kill one of their children to provide a better life for the surviving twin. They’ll be able to be better parents, they say, if they have to parent less children. There’s a word to describe this, and it refers to something found at the bottom of bull’s stall.

Because guess what? Life isn’t planned. And if these parents truly believed that the quality of life of their children was dependent purely on their ability to focus on them completely, then instead of daycare for their children they should do what the Romans did – leave them out in the forest to be eaten by wild animals. The only difference between infanticide, and abortion in these cases of “twin reduction”, is when the child is chosen to be killed, not why.

Pro-aborts always try to force pro-lifers to justify not allowing abortion in cases of rape and incest. As Rick Santorum recently demonstrated, pro-lifers have a beautiful response to this attack. The truth is on our side, even in hard cases.

It’s time for pro-lifers to turn the tables. We must force pro-abort zealots to defend twin reduction abortion. To defend Coin Toss abortion. This is what Roe has wrought. It’s time for them to own it. It’s time for us to own it. So that together as a nation, we can disown the destruction of innocent human life.

We can’t afford to let innocent life remain up to chance.

UPDATE: William Saletan at Slate gets so much right when he writes:

… the main problem with reduction [i.e., Coin Toss abortion] is that it breaches a wall at the center of pro-choice psychology. It exposes the equality between the offspring we raise and the offspring we abort.

… Reduction destroys this distinction [between wanted and unwanted babies]. It combines, in a single pregnancy, a wanted and an unwanted fetus. In the case of identical twins, even their genomes are indistinguishable. You can’t pretend that one is precious and the other is just tissue. You’re killing the same creature to which you’re dedicating your life.

… That’s the anguish of reduction: watching the fetus you spared become what its twin will never be. And knowing that the only difference between them was your will.

Perry spoke to pro-life Latinos in California Sunday.

Conservatives have been complaining for months that the current crop of presidential aspirants just isn’t that inspiring and they’ve been begging for another candidate to enter the race.

It now looks like Rick Perry is going to be that new candidate. Admittedly, the three-term governor of Texas would start with several strengths.

• Rick Perry has established a strong pro-life record in Texas. He signed a bill allowing women the right to see an ultrasound before getting an abortion. He has strongly denounced embryonic destructive research as “turning the remains of unborn children into nothing more than raw material.”
• As the governor of a big state, Rick Perry will be able to raise money for a presidential run very easily. In addition, it is rumored that Sarah Palin will endorse Rick Perry if he runs. This would instantly jumpstart his campaign, placing him instantly in second place, if not surpassing Mitt Romney as the frontrunner.
• And with the election likely to hinge on jobs, Rick Perry can brag that in 2008 (when the Great Recession started) Texas was responsible for 70% of all new jobs created in America. That statistic alone could win him the White House. People fleeing California and Michigan found work in Texas’ better business climate.

However, Rick Perry has an Achilles heel that he simply must address. It’s a problem that could very well cost him not just the Catholic vote, but also the evangelical vote, too.

In a word: Gardasil.

It was developed by Merck to prevent the human papillomavirus (HPV), the most commonly transmitted sexual disease in the United States. HPV is responsible for 70% of cervical cancer cases and 90% of genital warts. Merck’s treatment has been hailed as a major breakthrough.

In June 2006, the FDA gave the green light to Gardasil. The drug company went on a major lobbying effort to get state legislatures to add Gardasil to their lists of state-mandated vaccines.

On Feb. 2, 2007, Gov. Rick Perry signed an executive order making Texas the first state requiring that all 6th grade girls receive the Gardasil vaccine.

Tom Bevan noted that Rick Perry’s decision set off a firestorm:

The move generated a fierce public debate. Conservatives slammed Perry for promoting what they saw as an intrusion by the state into private health decisions of parents and their children. Some also complained that the mandate would encourage promiscuity among teenagers.

Many doctors, including Bill Hinchey, the president of the Texas Medical Association at the time, questioned the wisdom of rushing to mandate a drug that had been on the market for less than a year.

So why would Culture of Life Catholics and evangelicals have a problem with this?

Unlike other public health threats like meningitis, which spreads easily between people in close quarters, the only way a teenager will get HPV is from sexual intercourse. If they abstain, they are in no real danger in getting this virus which causes cervical cancer.

Obviously Merck wants to make a lot of money by making all of our daughters get the $120 shots. And I understand that sexually transmitted diseases have become a pandemic, one that we don’t talk enough about.

But if we force every daughter to get Gardasil, we have lost hope in the ability of our children to say no to hazardous premarital sex.

In effect, the very decision to give your daughter Gardasil tells your daughter: “I know you can’t say no.” This gives her the green light. She’ll think: “After all, Mom and Dad think I’m having sex anyway.”

But having the state mandate this is even worse. You establish a culture where young girls are resigned to becoming a sex object. It’s an assault on the dignity of young women.

Thankfully, the people of Texas said no to Rick Perry. Through their elected representatives, the Texas Legislature passed a bill with lopsided veto-proof majorities. Knowing that he couldn’t stop the legislation, Perry allowed the bill to become law without his signature. That means Texas does not require young girls to get this vaccine.

But this whole controversy from four years ago will come right back to page one if Rick Perry runs for president. What will he say to conservative parents in Iowa and South Carolina?

I think Rick Perry might be the best Republican presidential candidate in 2012, but to me his campaign will have trouble getting off the ground unless he recants his decision to force young girls to get Gardasil.

There is a way that Rick Perry could address this issue. He could say something like this:

The pandemic of cervical cancer is a major health threat. Because of this groundbreaking vaccine, it is now preventable. That’s why I sprung into action and added Gardasil to the list of mandated immunizations. While recognizing the public health threat of cervical cancer, many parents in Texas did not want the vaccine added to the mandatory list. Today in Texas we rely on educational efforts to let parents know the dangers of HPV and the opportunity to prevent it. I no longer support making the vaccine mandatory and I’m convinced our educational efforts are working here in Texas.

Such an answer would respect the authority of parents and the dignity of our daughters. It’s also an answer that would allow Culture of Life Catholics and evangelicals (as well as conservatives) to support his Rick Perry’s campaign. But if he doubles down and refuses to change his mind, I think conservatives and pro-lifers will lend their support to Pawlenty, Santorum or Bachmann instead.

If Rick Perry wants to run as a Tea Party conservative who rails against excessive government control, he has got to get Gardasil right. Mandating that all 11-year-olds get vaccinated against a sexually-transmitted disease represents a statist mentality when it comes to the fundamental need to reform the role of family in culture.

Yesterday I noticed some disturbing headlines such as “Company Uses Cells from Abortions to Test Artificial Flavors.”

A pro-life group has called for a boycott of food companies that maintain a business relationship with the guilty company, Senomyx.

They included food giants PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Campbell Soup, Solae and Nestle.

After contacting all the mentioned groups, Campbell Soup Company responded:

Juli Mandel Sloves, Senior Manager of Nutrition & Wellness Communications at Campbell Soup Company: “We are no longer in partnership with Senomyx. This fact was discussed during the Senomyx conference call with its investors earlier this month.”

Bravo!

{Update 2 – LifeSiteNews reports that Solae has severed ties with Senomyx as well!}

Now it’s time for Pepsi, Kraft and Nestle to follow suit.

In the meantime I’ll be purchasing Coca-Cola and Hershey products (well, after Lent ends) and avoiding Kraft products (which is tough, because they make a lot of products).

This is important to remember: whatever they tell you, there’s absolutely no need for Senomyx to use human embryonic cells for their research.

Here is the contact information for Senomyx and the food companies who they work with:

Kent Snyder, CEO
kent.snyder@senomyx.com
1-858-646-8300
Senomyx
4767 Nexus Centre Drive
San Diego, California 92121

Paul Bulcke, CEO
paul.buckle@us.nestle.com
1-800-637-8537
Nestlé USA
800 North Brand Boulevard
Glendale, CA  91203

Jamie Caulfield, Sr.VP
jamie.caulfield@pepsico.com
1-800-433-2652
PepsiCo, Inc.
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577

Irene Rosenfeld, CEO
irosenfeld@kraftfoods.com
1-800-431-1001
Kraft Foods/Cadbury Chocolate
Three Lakes Drive
Northfield, IL 60093

My thanks to Steven Ertelt for finding the contact info in the first place.

Together, we really can encourage these companies to keep ties only with research companies that honor human life and dignity at all stages.

Update – to thank Campbell Soup for making the right call on severing ties with Senomyx click here. Solae has also severed its ties with Senomyx.

“Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.  I am committed to protecting this constitutional right.  I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.  And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.” [WhiteHouse.gov]

Remember the context in which the President has chosen to re-re-recommit himself to unlimited abortion-on-demand:

In the wake of the findings that 41% of pregnancies in New York City now end in abortion.

In the wake of 53+ million children having been legally killed since Roe v. Wade.

In the wake of promising Catholics across the country that he was committed to “dialogue” on the abortion issue, when he clearly never intends to change his views.

In the wake of the unspeakable horrors committed by late-term abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia, an extreme method of killing the unborn (and in the case of Dr. Kermit, the born alive) which the President has previously defended unambiguously.

As hundreds of thousands of young people brave some of DC’s worst winter cold today on the national mall, we need to get serious about democratically removing those who are sitting in the warmth of the Oval Office and continue to carry on Roe’s lethal legacy.

On this topic, Dr. Morse writes today at the Public Discourse that pro-lifers are “Marching on the Right Side of History” and Bishop Finn preaches that “Law Should Protect Life.”

Many friends are also making this graphic their Facebook profile picture for the weekend:

Make a statement for the vulnerable unborn today!