Plan B
Finally some free time to write. I envy my fellow bloggers who can somehow manage to post every day, even several times a day. That is a luxury I currently don't possess.
Living in Portland, Oregon if I want to read a daily newspaper, I'm subjected to The Oregonian or as my father calls it "that liberal-commie-pinko-rag." In all fairness, their editorial board has mellowed a bit over the last year as their circulation has dropped. I believe they're trying to boost readership outside of the core area where John Kerry gained nearly 80% of the vote in the last presidential election, and having a "W" bumper sticker was a sure way to get treated rudely in traffic. Once one gets outside of Portland, the politcs are a bit more moderate.
I was pleased this morning to see that my letter to the editor was actually printed. You can read it by clicking here. I was responding their editorial expressing their outrage over Plan B, the latest abortifacient to be approved by the FDA, having to be located behind the phamacists counter. They went so far as to actually say this move would bring back those often referenced back-ally abortions.
As a human being, I believe contraception is evil. When one thinks about one's own existence, often the consideration stops at one's parents. We know that Mom and Dad had to have sex to have us. What often gets missed is how many hundreds, perhaps thousands of sexual unions, un-contracepted, that had to take place in order for us to exist. If just one of our ancestors had decided to contracept, we cease to be. Notice, I haven't even brought God or the Catholic Church into the equation. Not yet.
Who gave us the right to decide who will come into existence tomorrow or a thousand years from today? The future is literally at stake each time we purposefully engage in a sexual union and proactively prevent the logical, designed outcome of that union. To take such a cavilier attitude towards the reproduction of humanity by granting oneself the right to choose the composition of future generations, is nothing short of an arrogant exercise in playing God. This is why Catholics who practice the faith, don't contracept, and consider its use to be diabolic.
Damn my Baby Boom generation for embedding the lie into our culture that sex is a simple pleasurable, physical experience focussed on the "me." Damn it for convincing the culture that sex was limited to the here and now. Our generation has indeed profaned the second greatest gift God has given to humanity; the first being His very self. And shame on our Bishops in the United States and Europe who have been silent for too long on this issue. The fact that some 75 to 80 percent of Catholics in the United States use contraception is a sinful failure in catechesis and direction. The flock deserves better shepherding.
These words sting. They sting me for I, too, am guilty as charged. I regret not having learned at an early age, what the true meaning of my sexuality really is. It hasn't been until the last few years as I 've studied John Paul II's, Theology of the Body, that I've gained clarity on this issue. And this insight, this new way of viewing the world and my place in it, makes my 20/20 hindsight a bit hard to stomach.
PlanB. It's touted as a noble alternative by the medical community and Planned Parenthood. But what never seems to get much light in the arena of public opinion is that the reason one resorts to Plan B, is because Plan A was a failure. Rather than perpetuate a bad plan and have a backup in reserve; why not spend all of our efforts perfecting Plan A? And that perfection would be nothing short of a fuller, deeper, and more Christ-like view of this awsome gift of sexuality. That is what we must teach our children. With that kind of Plan A in place, Plan B in simply not needed.
Living in Portland, Oregon if I want to read a daily newspaper, I'm subjected to The Oregonian or as my father calls it "that liberal-commie-pinko-rag." In all fairness, their editorial board has mellowed a bit over the last year as their circulation has dropped. I believe they're trying to boost readership outside of the core area where John Kerry gained nearly 80% of the vote in the last presidential election, and having a "W" bumper sticker was a sure way to get treated rudely in traffic. Once one gets outside of Portland, the politcs are a bit more moderate.
I was pleased this morning to see that my letter to the editor was actually printed. You can read it by clicking here. I was responding their editorial expressing their outrage over Plan B, the latest abortifacient to be approved by the FDA, having to be located behind the phamacists counter. They went so far as to actually say this move would bring back those often referenced back-ally abortions.
As a human being, I believe contraception is evil. When one thinks about one's own existence, often the consideration stops at one's parents. We know that Mom and Dad had to have sex to have us. What often gets missed is how many hundreds, perhaps thousands of sexual unions, un-contracepted, that had to take place in order for us to exist. If just one of our ancestors had decided to contracept, we cease to be. Notice, I haven't even brought God or the Catholic Church into the equation. Not yet.
Who gave us the right to decide who will come into existence tomorrow or a thousand years from today? The future is literally at stake each time we purposefully engage in a sexual union and proactively prevent the logical, designed outcome of that union. To take such a cavilier attitude towards the reproduction of humanity by granting oneself the right to choose the composition of future generations, is nothing short of an arrogant exercise in playing God. This is why Catholics who practice the faith, don't contracept, and consider its use to be diabolic.
Damn my Baby Boom generation for embedding the lie into our culture that sex is a simple pleasurable, physical experience focussed on the "me." Damn it for convincing the culture that sex was limited to the here and now. Our generation has indeed profaned the second greatest gift God has given to humanity; the first being His very self. And shame on our Bishops in the United States and Europe who have been silent for too long on this issue. The fact that some 75 to 80 percent of Catholics in the United States use contraception is a sinful failure in catechesis and direction. The flock deserves better shepherding.
These words sting. They sting me for I, too, am guilty as charged. I regret not having learned at an early age, what the true meaning of my sexuality really is. It hasn't been until the last few years as I 've studied John Paul II's, Theology of the Body, that I've gained clarity on this issue. And this insight, this new way of viewing the world and my place in it, makes my 20/20 hindsight a bit hard to stomach.
PlanB. It's touted as a noble alternative by the medical community and Planned Parenthood. But what never seems to get much light in the arena of public opinion is that the reason one resorts to Plan B, is because Plan A was a failure. Rather than perpetuate a bad plan and have a backup in reserve; why not spend all of our efforts perfecting Plan A? And that perfection would be nothing short of a fuller, deeper, and more Christ-like view of this awsome gift of sexuality. That is what we must teach our children. With that kind of Plan A in place, Plan B in simply not needed.
posted by David Jackson | 9:57 AM
1 Comments:
Plan B is supposed to be sort of like the reserve chute when sky diving. If main chute malfunctions you are suposed to get a 2nd chance at life. I am all for 2nd chances in life, and 3rds, and 4ths, etc... But Plan B is not another chance at life. It is not a secondary chute by which we might save ourselves frmo certain death. It is more like a pocket size back alley dressed up in drug store labelling, which rather than saving us from ourselves when our main chute fails, from our poor choices, from our lack of self control, from our fear of true self giving and self sacrifice, instead parades as a mockery of all that is capable of being true and good in us. It pretends to be love in a bottle. Now, there may be times that pretense is a good thing, like pretending that that tie was a great father's day gift, or pretending that that newlywed's blackened first attempt at garlic bread was tasty.
But it is really no time to pretend when you are falling 120 MPH through the sky, and you can see the ground coming up at you, and your main shute has failed to open. When you reach up and cut those lines, and you have the choice to pull that secondary chute handle, you do it, and you expect another chance at life.
Well, when the woman who had sex outside of marriage finds out she is pregnant, and she is free-falling in her own tears, when she is afraid of admitting the mistake she has made, when she is afraid of what the father might tell her when he finds out, when she is afraid of talking to him about it, as she becomes more and more afraid of her own isolation, when she is afraid of the social stigma of becoming an un-wed mother, of getting fat, of feelign morning sickness, as she speeds to the ground at 120 MPH, she has already pulled the main chute, and it is not opening.
This is when she turns to the father of her child, if she can. This is when she turns to her doctor, if she has one. This is when she digs up the courage to admit her situation to her own parents, if they will listen. You see, all these people are capable of loving her, of being the 2nd chute that has a chance to save her life, and the life of the unborn baby within her.
Plan B is no such friend. Plan B is to pretend that this event never happened, that the chute did not fail. And in exchange for a soft landing, all the woman has to do is sign over the life of her first born son or daughter, or maybe this is her 2nd or 3rd or even 4th. Well, that is what Plan B proposes anyway. And then life will be happy ever after.
But, it does not work that way. She pulls the Plan B rip-cord and she watches as the live baby is ripped from her womb, limb by limb. And at some point, the reality of her 2nd choice slowly overshadows her. And she is standing there, alone, safe on the ground, the truth of her reality becomes clearer and clearer, to the point that she realizes that the ground was only an illusion.
Plan B was a hallucination, a trap, a temptation which tasted sweet in her mounth, which has grown sour in her womb. And she realizes that she is still free-falling, and has never actually stopped.
And in a moment of decision, she calls out, to anyone who might actually hear her, to anyone who might actually truly love her. She calls for her parents, but, they think she should sleep in the bad she has made for herself. She calls on the father of their now dead baby, and he does not see the point in getting involved again with that.
And she wants to call upon her doctor, but, she can never trust her doctor to help her ever again. And finds herself all alone, except for One.
And after all her own attempts to stop herself from free-falling to the ground have failed, she begins to speak in mournful and sorrowful tones...
Mother Mary, she asks, do you still love me? Would you please ask your Son to forgive me? And could you convince my parents to forgive me as well? And could you ask the father of my dead child if could reconsider his love for me? And could you accept into your arms the soul of my dear child whom I did not take care of for the few short months he was entrusted to my care? And Mother Mary, could you please help my former doctor to learn once again how to help people when they are in need? And help find for me the grace which only God can give me to continue on in this life, and to make reparation for this act of selfishness and despair which still haunts my soul?
You see, if only the poor woman was aware of Plan A. And if only Plan B had even a remote connection with the love and forgiveness which she was in such desparate need of.
Mindful of His Mercy,
Gene
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