pax
ONE love, blood, life
(NOTE TO MY FELLOW FYM MODS: Here's a thread to keep you busy while I'm away! Have fun! Bwahahahahaha!!! )
For my fall break from school, I'm going to an area of the South Bronx in NYC to do some service projects. Our team and the other teams (who are going to Camden and Philadelphia to do similar work) attended a commissioning Mass on Sunday, and the priest gave his homily about "Respect for Life"--surely a familiar theme to many Catholics.
However, as many of you may be aware, I'm somewhat pro-choice. Or at least I was. I'm not the sort of person who is swayed by one not-bad sermon on one average Sunday. But while listening to his homily, I couldn't help but think about abortion and what it really means. And what a society that allows abortion is saying about the value of human life. I've always countered that argument by saying that the life of the mother is just as valuable and meaningful as the life of the fetus, and who are any of us to decide which life means *more*?
But I've gotten to thinking that perhaps abortion also devalues the life of the mother. It says, "You cannot raise this child. Society does not want it. You, and your baby, are useless." That disturbs me. I still don't know how I feel about it, because I am not insensitive to the stories of back-alley abortions (which do still happen--maybe not as much in the U.S., but elsewhere) and postnatal infanticide. And I still feel that Roe v. Wade was such a hard-fought battle, and a landmark for the struggle for women to govern their own bodies and lives.
So my pro-choice self is fighting with my pro-life self. My hardnosed political scientist is at war with my touchy-feely Buddhist-Christian ethicist. I've always been opposed to the death penalty, so I'm not going to get into that as much. But I'm interested in seeing what Interland has to say--not specifically about abortion, really, but about the whole idea of "Respect for Life" and what it entails.
I'm outtie. See you Sunday.
For my fall break from school, I'm going to an area of the South Bronx in NYC to do some service projects. Our team and the other teams (who are going to Camden and Philadelphia to do similar work) attended a commissioning Mass on Sunday, and the priest gave his homily about "Respect for Life"--surely a familiar theme to many Catholics.
However, as many of you may be aware, I'm somewhat pro-choice. Or at least I was. I'm not the sort of person who is swayed by one not-bad sermon on one average Sunday. But while listening to his homily, I couldn't help but think about abortion and what it really means. And what a society that allows abortion is saying about the value of human life. I've always countered that argument by saying that the life of the mother is just as valuable and meaningful as the life of the fetus, and who are any of us to decide which life means *more*?
But I've gotten to thinking that perhaps abortion also devalues the life of the mother. It says, "You cannot raise this child. Society does not want it. You, and your baby, are useless." That disturbs me. I still don't know how I feel about it, because I am not insensitive to the stories of back-alley abortions (which do still happen--maybe not as much in the U.S., but elsewhere) and postnatal infanticide. And I still feel that Roe v. Wade was such a hard-fought battle, and a landmark for the struggle for women to govern their own bodies and lives.
So my pro-choice self is fighting with my pro-life self. My hardnosed political scientist is at war with my touchy-feely Buddhist-Christian ethicist. I've always been opposed to the death penalty, so I'm not going to get into that as much. But I'm interested in seeing what Interland has to say--not specifically about abortion, really, but about the whole idea of "Respect for Life" and what it entails.
I'm outtie. See you Sunday.