strategy

This was sent to me by a friend when she saw that I started a pro-life group on facebook. As of right now, I am stripped of my facebook priveleges, and since this info is meant to be shared, I'm giving it to you until I can share it with those on facebook. I like the strategy of argument presented here. I think it is the most effective way to persuade and respect. Hope it's helpful.

Suppose that you have just five minutes to graciously defend your pro-life beliefs with friends or classmates. Can you do it with rational arguments? What should you say? And how can you simplify the abortion issue for those who think it’s hopelessly complex?

Here’s how to succeed in three easy steps:

1) Clarify the issue. Pro-life advocates contend that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. This simplifies the abortion controversy by focusing public attention on just one question: Is the unborn a member of the human family? If so, killing him or her to benefit others is a serious moral wrong. It treats the distinct human being, with his or her own inherent moral worth, as nothing more than a disposable instrument. Conversely, if the unborn are not human, killing them for any reason requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled.

In other words, arguments based on “choice” or “privacy” miss the point entirely. Would anyone that you know support a mother killing her toddler in the name of “choice and who decides?” Clearly, if the unborn are human, like toddlers, we shouldn’t kill them in the name of choice anymore than we would a toddler. Again, this debate is about just one question: What is the unborn?

At this point, some may object that your comparisons are not fair—that killing a fetus is morally different than killing a toddler. Ah, but that’s the issue, isn’t it? Are the unborn, like toddlers, members of the human family? That is the one issue that matters.

Remind your critics that you are vigorously “pro-choice” when it comes to women choosing a number of moral goods. You support a woman’s right to choose her own doctor, to choose her own husband, to choose her own job, and to choose her own religion, to name a few. These are among the many choices that you fully support for women. But some choices are wrong, like killing innocent human beings simply because they are in the way and cannot defend themselves. No, we shouldn’t be allowed to choose that.


2) Defend your pro-life position with science and philosophy. Scientifically, we know that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Leading embryology books confirm this. Prior to his abortion advocacy, former Planned Parenthood President Dr. Alan Guttmacher was perplexed that anyone, much less a medical doctor, would question this. "This all seems so simple and evident that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn't part of the common knowledge," he wrote in his book Life in the Making.

Philosophically, we can say that embryos are less developed than newborns (or, for that matter, toddlers) but this difference is not morally significant in the way abortion advocates need it to be.

Consider the claim that the immediate capacity for self-awareness bestows value on human beings. Notice that this is not an argument, but an arbitrary assertion. Why is some development needed? And why is this particular degree of development (i.e., higher brain function) decisive rather than another? These are questions that abortion advocates do not adequately address.

Put simply, there is no morally significant difference between the embryo you once were and the adult you are today. Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not relevant such that we can say that you had no rights as an embryo but you do have rights today. Think of the acronym SLED as a helpful reminder of these non-essential differences:

• Size: True, embryos are smaller than newborns and adults, but why is that relevant? Do we really want to say that large people are more human than small ones? Men are generally larger than women, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve more rights. Size doesn’t equal value.
• Level of development: True, embryos and fetuses are less developed than you and I. But again, why is this relevant? Four year-old girls are less developed than 14 year-old ones. Should older children have more rights than their younger siblings? Some people say that self-awareness makes one human. But if that is true, newborns do not qualify as valuable human beings. Six-week old infants lack the immediate capacity for performing human mental functions, as do the reversibly comatose, the sleeping, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease.
• Environment: Where you are has no bearing on who you are. Does your value change when you cross the street or roll over in bed? If not, how can a journey of eight inches down the birth-canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from non-human to human? If the unborn are not already human, merely changing their location can’t make them valuable.
• Degree of Dependency: If viability makes us human, then all those who depend on insulin or kidney medication are not valuable and we may kill them. Conjoined twins who share blood type and bodily systems also have no right to life.
  

In short, it’s far more reasonable to argue that although humans differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature.

perception.

I have not really been wanting to eat these last couple days. I have been eating because I know I need to. I have had a very difficult time focusing. I can't concentrate on anything for any profitable length of time. I have been having very huge emotional swings. I am very happy, then something will happen or someone will do something and I will become enraged. Then I need to fight myself to stay calm and not verbally attack people. I want to be left alone, I've been distancing myself from the people around me. And I have been too apathetic towards my schoolwork. Honestly, few people if anyone sincerely cares about their schoolwork at my age. I want to do my best, but when I sit down to do something I can't concentrate and I find myself convincing myself that my effort is worthless, pointless, a waste of my life, no one really cares, it doesn't matter, so many excuses and lies that I begin to believe and even act on. I want my teachers to yell at me. They trust me too much. They are allowing me to just kinda float along, passing, but not the way I could be or should be. I want them to scare me into working. That's the easiest way out: being scared into action. I think it would require something more to do something out of devotion or discipline instead of fear. It is more difficult to live with myself and my choices. I can ignore other people and what they have to say. I can't shut myself out. It is more difficult to push myself into action because that would mean that I actually care about what happens to myself in the long run. I don't know if I actually do, but I should if for no other reason than the people who love me want to see me happy and reaching my potential. If I can't motivate myself for them, I am being selfish. It's that simple. Yet there is so much more to it.

I am surrounded by people who believe in a part of me that I cannot see. They believe in my abilities or a part of my personality or character. It is so scary. Again, it would be so much easier to just be totally apathetic. To care is to feel and experience. To care is to be alive. Pain is inseparable from life. Work is inseparable from truly abundant life, what life is supposed to be. Humility is inseparable from love in its truest sense.

I wanna wake up kicking and screaming
I wanna wake up kicking and screaming
I wanna live like I know what I'm leaving
I wanna know that my heart's still beating,
it's beating, it's beating, it's beating,
I'm bleeding.
~ Awakening, Switchfoot

Life is fraughtless when you're thoughtless
Those who don't try never look foolish
Dancing through life, mindless and careless
Make sure your where less trouble is rife
Woes are fleeting, blows are glancing
When you're dancing throug life.
~ Dancing Through Life, Wicked


This sort of thing has happened to me before. I would say that it has something to do with the weather, but it is very early in the season. The sun has not been too scarce. I should have enough Vitamin D in my body to last me at least into December.


I have a tendancy to pick up on people's flaws sometimes, like they become very noticeable to me. Sometimes the flaws make me angry, but there is nothing I can do. I wonder how there can still be good in people. At these times I need to remind myslef that they have value simply because they are human. Just because I, for the moment, can see no value in a person does not mean that they have none. They are still loved, and more than they or I can ever know, even if they are the worst kind of person imaginable. Maybe I need to change my perception. Maybe I need to learn to see the good in people better. I cannot altogether forget the flaws - that would be completely naiive and even suicidal. But maybe I need to see the person hiding behind the flaws.

I love being surprised by people when the last person I would expect to say something encouraging or truthful comes out with a profundity or expresses appreciation for something I may not have even noticed. To me, it is nothing short of a miracle that anyone, including myself, possess any capacity to experience, identify, or understand any part of the truth. Everyone has flaws and weaknesses and problems. Maybe these burdens somehow make us strong. Maybe we can best experience beauty in suffering, in honesty despite pain. Maybe beauty and suffering are inseparable. Maybe our burdens can somehow become our strengths. Maybe our crucifixions somehow lead to life of a more abundant kind. Maybe what we cannot see is the most real.

The most evil thing and the most beautiful thing that has ever transpired in human history are the same event.


"Just as drowning cannot be equated with swimming, neither is mere existance the same as abundant life."
~ Jon Foreman


More Than It Seems
by Kutless

Is my imagination running away,
or is all this really happening to me?
Am I a prince in a faraway land filled with fantasy?

Where is reality and
what are the actions that will define who I am?
I am holding onto the visions I've seen of what I could be.
It's what I should be.

More than it seems, these dreams inside
blur reality's line.
If I could believe the dreams aside
I am capable more than it seems.

Passing through darkness into my own world
Will I be more than when I left?
Never letting go of the lessons I learned,
this will make a change,
a change within me.

More than it seems, these dreams inside
blur reality's line.
If I could believe the dreams aside
I am capable more than it seems.

This time I won't run away.
I found the strength to face life's long days.
This time I won't run away.

More than it seems, these dreams inside (show me the way to these dreams)
blur reality's line. (till there's nothing left of me)
If I could believe the dreams aside (show me the way to these dreams)
I am capable more than it seems.

Till there's nothing left of me,
show me the way to these dreams.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Daisy
by Switchfoot

Daisy, give yourself away
look up at the rain,
a beautiful display
of power and surrender
giving us today
when she gives herself away

Rain, another rainy day
comes up from the ocean
to give herself away
she comes down easy
on rich and debt the same
when she gives herself away

let it go
Daisy, let it go
open up your fists
this fallen world
doesn't hold your interest,
it doesn't hold your soul
Daisy, let it go

Pain, give yourself a name
call yourself contrition,
avarice of blame
giving isn't easy
neither is the rain
when she gives herself away

Daisy, why another day?
why another sunrise?
who will take the blame
for all redemptive motion
and every rainy day
when He gives Himself away?

let it go
Daisy, let it go
open up your fists
this fallen world
it doesn't hold your interest
it doesn't hold your soul
Daisy, let it go

let it go
and you let it go
let it go
let it go, go
let it go

form of cowardice

I have felt like a jerk all week. I am not sure why. It is not a pleasant feeling. Maybe it's because it is so easy for me to lie to myself, which makes it much easier for me to lie to other people. I hate deception. I have never thought lying to oneself was a huge offense, but maybe it is just because it means the truth is not given due reverence. And it is telling yourself that you can't handle the truth so you don't feel like you are, it is a form of cowardice. Maybe that's why I feel like a jerk. Not to mention the fact that I don't feel like I've tried my hardest in everything. I don't think I could have done more or better, I have tried my hardest, but something inside is turning on me in anger. I don't know what I did, or didn't do, or what triggered this. I have been very stressed all week, too. There has been a lot on my mind, it feels like everything is happening at once. I try to take it as it comes and not worry about what is not mine to handle yet. I've been frieking out easily as a result. The week has taken its toll. And it has left me feeling like a jerk.
Here I sit typing this out, as if anyone cares. If I didn't need to deal with it, I wouldn't care. Great. I should go. I feel like there is so much more to say. Oh well. Good night.
peace
sarah

"Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
Filths savor but themselves. What have you done?
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
send quickly down to tame [these] vile offenses,
it will come:
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
like monsters of the deep."
~ W. Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4 Scene 2

"...more power..."

" ...more power than the atomic bomb. "

I only post articles that make me tear up. That includes this one.
I think this writer is very powerful, not because of his writing skills, but because he is completely honest and always poses a question.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
I don't think you'll regret it.
peace to you
sarah

P.S. : The title of the article is "Goodness Precedes Greatness: A Call For New Heroes in Troubled Times".

love letter

September 29, 2009

To everyone in my life who has ever given me a battle and stood by me as I fought it:

I want to tell you that you have hurt me, scarred me, affected my life and changed the way I see things. You have taught me things I've never wanted to know. You've all become a voice that sounds like myself to me now, but it isn't me. I can't shake it away. I will carry that with me forever. Your remarks, your complaints, your swearing, your standards. It slows me down and I would be much better off without it. You've made me doubt my own strength. You've made me weak. Because of you I've done things I haven't wanted to do. Because of you, I didn't do things I've felt I had to. I blame my shortcomings on you, not me, because I could not have brought them on myself alone.

I want to tell you I have cried myself to sleep many times because you are a part of my past. I want to tell you I've hurt other people because I'm afraid of you, because you made me afraid of myself. You hurt me and made it seem like it was my fault, that it was inevitable. I bought it. You make me afraid of myself. You've told me I'm inadequate in every way. Between yourselves, I've been told that I'm weird, lazy, mediochre, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not good enough, not perfect enough (for whom?), knowing that I would change myself so I wouldn't fit your words. I've felt controlled by you, and sometimes I still do. I don't know if I can tell whether the people around me are friends or foes. I'm afraid they're like you. I second guess them always.

Here's some cliche, but it's true: I tried to change myself for you, because I wanted you to accept me. But I couldn't accept myself like that because I felt lost inside myself. I still don't know who I am or what I want. It would have been better if you had just come right out and rejected me to my face than to barely tolerate me as you did/do. The voice I hear inside myself is mine. The words are not. You've confused me to my core. I have wished I could go back many times, so I could choose different people, or to tell you off, or myself off so I could allow myself to feel everything, or I would walk away, or I would kick and scream and cry and curse until you could hear and see the struggle you've put inside me. I want to change the choices I've made because of you. I want to tell you that your drama, tv, hair, shoes, purses, your things are not worth me, and I would be much better off if I had never known you. I want you to know that these are transparent disguises you use to hide yourself from the world. You'll deny it. I know you will. The only person you are really hiding yourself from is yourself. I can see through your glitter. You'll have to face yourself one day. I want you to know that how you grow and what you learn about yourself and other people because of your Prada things, and what you do with them is where they get their value. They don't give you value, as you seem to believe. What you do doesn't give you your worth. You give what you own and what you do value. Get over it. You've been shallow, insensitive, and selfish, and I feel sorry for you.

* * *

I've read that there are three lies everyone must overcome:

1) I am what I have.

2) I am who other people say I am.

3) I am what I do.

* * *

I want to tell you that you've hurt me, scarred me, affected my life and changed the way I see things. You have taught me things I've never wanted to know, taken me places I've never wanted to be, made me listen to things I've never wanted to hear. You've all become a voice that sounds like myself to me now, but it isn't me, my words, they're yours. And I am sick of it. Somehow, though, now that I never see you, or will not listen to you, depending on who you are, I look back and see struggles and pain and the theft of personal integrity. I'm thankful. That sounds ridiculous. Laugh if you want, see if I care. I'm thankful because when I am forced to wrestle you in my mind, I feel like I'm fighting myself. I learn who I am and become proud of it. I'm thankful to you because you have told me who I don't want to be. I'm thankful to you because you have forced me to fight the three lies you hold true. I'm thankful to you because without you I would never have heard things I've never wanted to hear, I would've never gone to places I've never wanted to be, I wouldn't have acted the way I acted, I wouldn't know the things I've never wanted to know. Thanks to you I've seen both sides, and looking back, I understand them. And I know where I stand, seemingly alone sometimes. I could not have done that myself. By hurting me, by offering me resistance, you've given me a reason to reject you and everything you stand for, a way for me to grow. Thank you for giving me these battles, because I've grown from them, and I'm not done. Thank you to everyone in my life who has given me a battle and stood near me as they watched me fight it. You've helped me become strong by showing me I'm weak.

peace to each of you.

sarah

"I couldn't love people without first being hated."

~Stephen Christian

an article

a link

(your choice)

A Franciscan Benediction



May God bless you with discomfort

at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships

so that you may live deep within your heart.



May God bless you with anger

at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people

so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.



May God bless you with tears

to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war

so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them

and turn their pain into joy.



And may God bless you with enough foolishness

to believe that you can make a difference in the world,

so that you can do what others claim cannot be done

to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.



Amen.

* * *

I'm going to begin with a fact I hope you know is true and I'm going to ask you to continue reading. Please know that my intention is not to offend anyone, merely to stimulate thought, conversation, and maybe even a different pattern in action, all in an honest, truthful way. If you find a peice of information posted here to be invalid, please point it out and ask me to address it in the "comments" section. Here I go.



Abortion is legal in the United States.

Before I continue, I think abortion should be defined, just so we're on the same page.


abortion: induced termination of a pregnancy with destruction of the embryo or fetus (link to thefreedictionary.com)
pregnancy: the condition of carrying developing offspring within the body
embryo: an unborn animal or human being in the early stages of development, in humans up to approximately the end of the second month of pregnancy
- something in an early stage of development
fetus: In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo

I would like to point out that the word "development" is very common in these defintions concerning human life before birth, which means that there is something or someone being developed. When, at any point before death, is any human being not developing in some way? The human body is constantly changing and renewing itself, replacing old cells with new cells, looking to improve itself. A poster of a flower in my old science classroom reads: "Growth is the only evidence of life".

Reworded, abortion can be defined as the induced termination of the development of an unborn human being. But, still, a human being.

So now it is understood that this conversation or rant (your choice) is going to be about the life and death of human beings.

I have asked myself many times how a nation, a community founded with the following beautiful and true ideas and goals in mind, could allow things such as, but not limited to, abortion to legally occur within these borders.

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

~The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America,1787

(don't know why it did that. sorry. highlight to see the entire excerpt.)



"We hold thses truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

~The Declaration of Independence, 1776

This last bit means to me that the majority of voting American citizens prefer that abortion is legal, or they are ignorant of it. Which astounds me.

I don't know how many people have ever read or heard the modern version of the Hippocratic Oath (the oath doctors and physicians have taken for centuries before receiving their Medical Degrees). The following is an excerpt from it which I found particularly interesting.

"I will follow the method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievious. I will neither prescribe nor administer a lethal dose of medicine to any patient even if asked nor counsel any such thing nor perform the utmost respect for every human life from fertilization to natural death and reject abortion that delibierately takes a unique human life."

(the entire excerpt is a link to the source)

For the record, many women suffer from an emotional disorder called Post-Abortion Syndrome (link for more info) after they have an abortion. And abortion often results in sterility for a long period of time, if not life. But few people know this because few people are told this, and people working in abortion facilities would certainly never tell you this. One guess why (hint: it begins with a "$").

* * *

Where is our sense of honor? Where has the value of our word gone? How can we allow ourselves to be pacified as we sit and surf the internet, knowing that the unborn are being murdered (by various methods, all of which cruel) everyday, unprotected and unwanted? How can the majority of Americans, whom I want to believe are basically good, allow these monstrosities to progress into such dark territory - sacrificing the innocent and defenseless to evil? What kind of animal would do this to the young of their own species, besides humanity?

To be clear, I realize that America is far from the only nation in the world to allow abortion. Some countries even insist on abortions to be performed (God help us if and when that darkest of days is ever reached here). I have been repeating that I cannot believe Americans would consent to abortion because Americans are the ones who take freedom of speech for granted, who express their thoughts and feelings how and when they want to. And for the most part, I'm hearing silence on this subject and seeing a general darkening of human action here as people dodge arguments instead of entering a civil, productive conversation. It is painful, especially in the moments when one feels like a lone Crusader, fighting for what you believe is right though you may be the last fighter for the truth in the face of the world with all its deceptions. Which is when I need to remember my family and friends and that I'm not alone, I'm part of a community. That is more than the aborted can say.

* * *

PLEASE NOTE: I have included the following links because I believe that they contain valuable information, necessary for exposing the truth. However, they might contain graphic information and/or visuals, as abortions are not merely another medical procedure.

This sentence is a link to a neutral website describing different methods of abortion.

This sentence is a link to the Planned Parenthood page offering information on abortion.

(Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America)

This sentence is a link to a pro-life website providing information on abortion.

This sentence is a link to a medical website (reccommended as an informational resource in the embryology unit of a Human Anatomy and Physiology, Continued course last school year), outlining human development after conception and before birth.

* * *

Above, I have not looked at the issue of abortion as a religious issue, because I think people tend to forget that it's a human issue, not one exclusively for religious activists. It is for everyone. There is a question here of morality. This is a human issue. That means it affects all people, personally or indirectly. I have examined abortion above through a scientific lense, because scientific study is a pursuit of truth. Since I believe my religion contains the fullness of the truth, science cannot stand without it.

The religion I believe in tells me human life begins at the moment of conception and that all human life has diginity because God created it and willed it to live and gave it life, and even died for it. Because He loves it. People are not supposed to kill people. They are supposed to love people, if for no other reason than God loves other people. I've heard the argument that God gave us free will, so why shouldn't we use it? God gave us free will because He wants us to love Him. If we did not have free will, we could not love; love is a choice, freely given and freely received. We, humanity, are asked to choose life.

"But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?" (Luke 23: 28, 29, & 31)

I believe that the scientific evidence supports the religious truth that human life begins at the moment of conception. (If I haven't mentioned this yet, there are 46 chromosomes in every human cell (somatic cells), except the reproductive cells (gametes, ie sperm/egg cells) where there are 23. When the sperm cell penetrates the egg cell at the moment of conception, the two cells literally become one cell with 46 chromosomes. This cell is called a zygote. The zygote divides many times to become the many cells found in the human body.) And I also believe the human conscience naturally rightly judges that homicide is morally wrong.

* * *

If you have read all the way down to here, congratulations are in order.

Thank you.

As I said before, comments, questions, and arguments are welcome.

peace to you

sarah

* * *

do you remember when

we were way back then

you held the world

inside your hands

when you told me

love was the strongest stuff,

your strength

was innocence

~Innocence Again, by Switchfoot