Interspersed within Fr. Frank Pavone's article (in block quotes) condemning the election of Barack Obama below are a few of my brief comments of disagreement and frank astonishment at the extreme degrees of unreason in the opinions to which his thought processes lead him.
(Fr. Frank Pavone is the founder and CEO, or whatever he is officially called, of one of the most radical, uncompromising antiabortion organizations on earth, "Priests for Life," and the Vatican's "Vicar of Life," or some such title.)
Frank, I don't believe you are as stupid as you come across. Your high level of basic intelligence is demonstrated by your impressive facility with language, both written and spoken, if by nothing else apparent to me. However, intelligence is no guarantor of honesty and reason any more than it ensures that its possessor will be compassionate, truthful, knowledgeable, or understanding - or that s/he will be especially adept, or adept at all, at distinguishing truth from fantasy, delusion, and myth. Nor free from neurotic obsession or worse. In fact, intelligence, perhaps more often than not, contributes to the intractability of strong opinion, even of delusion, by enabling the mental confabulation of elaborate "justifications" and specious "proofs" of unfounded beliefs and behaviors and their psychic origins, both known and unknown, or, if you will (well, whether you will or not), conscious and unconscious.
No, I don’t believe you to be stupid, so I must attribute your bizarre political philosophizing to irrationality and willful ignorance.
You are profoundly and obviously wrong if you really believe that all these chauvinistic and off-the-walls statements of yours are sensible and true. Either that or you are profoundly a liar, for the purpose, one can only surmise, of indoctrinating ("brainwashing," if you will - well, whether you will or not) the masses of those people under the guidance of you and your ilk, conditioned as they are by years of guilt, shame, and fear into denigrating themselves and investing in you and your ilk the power of "Father" over them, with direct lines to "God" and tickets to "Heaven."
A Grave Mistake and an Abiding Hope
by Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life
Americans have made a grave mistake in electing Barack Obama to the presidency.
That you can look at the nation and the world and still believe that after the destruction to both wrought by eight years of your men Bush and Cheney is truly astonishing.
Yet America herself remains great and is not a mistake, which is why so many of her citizens will continue, with even greater energy and determination, to defend her founding principles.
I agree. I will certainly continue to do all I can to oppose the medieval robed tyrants you represent. A lot of "energy and determination" was poured into the American Revolution that created the possibility of establishing that unmistaken national experiment in government. Here is an excerpt from a letter from one founder of this nation and its constitution to another:
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush in 1800:
____________________________
I promised you a letter on Christianity, which I have not forgotten. On the contrary, it is because I have reflected on it, that I find much more time necessary for it than I can at present dispose of. I have a view of the subject which ought to displease neither the rational Christian nor Deists, and would reconcile many to a character they have too hastily rejected. I do not know that it would reconcile the genus irritabile vatum who are all in arms against me. Their hostility is on too interesting ground to be softened. The delusion into which the X. Y. Z. plot shewed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U. S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me, forging conversations for me with Mazzei, Bishop Madison, &c., which are absolute falsehoods without a circumstance of truth to rest on; falsehoods, too, of which I acquit Mazzei & Bishop Madison, for they are men of truth.
____________________________
So, you see, "lying pamphlets" and "absolute falsehoods without a circumstance of truth to rest on" like those deluged upon the world by you and those of your ilk (and now, of course, lying TV shows like yours, lying web sites like yours, as well as lying books, magazine articles, videos, films, etc.) are an old story in this unmistaken nation's history. But the question persists in my mind: Are these venues of communication and miscommunication composed of deliberate lies or psychopathological failures to comprehend? Or, I feel sure, a deep-seated, indoctrinated fear of comprehending, such as that imposed on the sheep of your flock?
The man elected to the Presidency said during the campaign that he does not know when a human being starts to have human rights.
During the staged interview with Rick Warren he said that knowing when "human life" begins (obviously the reference being to when a woman should by law have the right to be or not be pregnant) "is above my pay grade." This is a laudably honest statement that reflects humility, knowledge and understanding, not your closed-minded and arrogant specious belief, so it is predictable that you would condemn it.
Frank, you really need to realize that no matter how fervently you believe that you know what you merely believe, you merely believe it - and that you are at least just as likely to be wrong as anyone else who relies merely upon mere belief.
The central questions in this raging controversy are [1] at what point in development would it be reasonable and just to consider the developing fetus to have attained sufficient attributes and characteristics of personhood to be fully included in the social contract of rights and legal protection of those rights that binds us all and [2] when should the developing fetus be granted a legally protected right to life independent of the consent of the woman in whose body it resides and out of whose body it cannot live? This would have to be somewhere between two molecular helices of DNA sharing a common cell membrane at conception (for which there is, by the way, no "moment," but a process that takes place over hours) and the birth of a baby, normally about 38 weeks later.
But when? When morally? When legally? At what point in time should the line be drawn? The answer to such questions cannot be found in strictly scientific fact or expert medical opinion, since such disciplines are properly essentially mechanistic, objective, and morally neutral in relation to the objective nature of factual reality. The question requires its answer not just from accurate knowledge and understanding of objective scientific fact, but from the inevitably subjective philosophical, religious, political, and legal considerations of how beliefs about the moral and ethical significance of those facts should be adjudicated by law in a free and pluralistic society.
Various factual considerations, all with superimposed moral and legal substance, must enter into this determination: [a] sentience (determined by the progressive capability of the developing fetal brain for conscious awareness and intentional behavior), [b] independent viability (the ability of the fetus to live on its own apart from the woman's body), [c] the will and state of health of the pregnant woman, and [d] the health of the fetus. I think the point, of necessity subjectively determined and inevitably arbitrary to a large extent, at which all these considerations would be reasonably balanced is the junction between the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, or at about 24 to 26 weeks gestation. At this point, contrary to the sensationalized misinformation common in "pro-life" propaganda, the developing fetal brain is still developmentally at least several weeks short of sentience, and it is extremely rare for a fetus earlier than this stage to survive physical separation from the mother's womb, or birth, with even the most advanced neonatal care.
I personally support the legality of late term (third trimester) abortion only in those cases in which the fetus is discovered to have severe anomalies incompatible with survival or meaningful life outside the womb, in cases in which the life or health of the pregnant woman would be seriously jeopardized by continuation of the pregnancy, and in some cases of rape or incest in which women’s awareness of being pregnant is occasionally delayed by psychological denial related to their post-traumatic mental states and, of course, then only if freely chosen by the particular pregnant women involved.
How can one govern from that starting point of ignorance?
Well, we are emerging from eight years of exactly that – of your men Bush and Cheney and all their henchmen, from a starting point and ending point and every point in between of extreme ignorance and dishonesty. My conclusion is that one can not govern well in that condition. The evidence supporting that conclusion is all around you, Frank, the world over. Open your eyes. See! (P.S.: Abortion in this country and around the world decreased during the Clinton administration and increased under Bush/Cheney.)
Governing is about protecting human rights;
Yes, that is one thing governing is about. Like protecting the human rights of women, teenage girls, and those of their families to be pregnant and have children only when desired by them.
to do it successfully, you have to know where they come from, and when they begin.
Nobody "knows" that, Frank, as I attempted to explain briefly above. It is a matter of opinion, not fact; of believing, not knowing.
The President-elect has already failed that test miserably.
Au contraire! He has told the unvarnished truth. (I realize it is a sine qua non and raison d'etre requirement of your massive church cult to avoid and deny that. Unvarnished truth, that is.)
The American people do not share Barack Obama’s extreme and offensive views on abortion.
You "know" that HOW? Admittedly, I am astonished that after 30 years of the deluge of extreme lies and distortions and inflammatory rhetoric from you and your ilk all but a few of the American people still support abortion rights, but the majority yet do. I'm convinced that the vast majority would, and openly, if not for the massive efforts by you and your ilk to frighten and deceive.
The coming four years will see a widening gap between the people and their President on this fundamental issue. As Americans come to know how extreme his position is, the intensity of the struggle to protect these children will only increase.
Seriously, Frank, don't you realize that yours is the extreme position? That it is you who has devoted your life to depriving a whole class of U.S. citizens (women and teenage girls), as well as all those throughout the world of various citizenships, of the basic human right to agency over their own bodies and their contents?
The pro-life movement has made significant gains in the courts and in the law in these last eight years. For the next four, the movement will work to prevent the erosion of that progress.
Progress? Hardly, unless you want to transform this country and the whole world into a reality slasher movie.
Remember:
Following are some examples of what REALLY hurts women and teenage girls and what "pro-lifers" REALLY stand for:
The World Health Organization has estimated that in those parts of the world in which abortion is illegal, about 70,000 thinking, feeling, often desperate women and teenage girls die every year from illegal attempts to abort unwanted pregnancies. That is more than one every 10 minutes DEAD because they are prohibited by law from accessing a reputable legal clinic for safe, legal, professional abortion care. Many times that number are seriously injured and maimed for life.
In addition, every minute, night and day, no holidays or weekends off, around the world
• one woman dies of complications of pregnancy and childbirth (every minute),
• ten teenage girls undergo unsafe illegal abortions (every minute),
• thirteen infants under twelve months old die (every minute),
• fifty seven people contract an STD (every minute),
• eleven people are infected with HIV (every minute),
• and the already-burgeoned-beyond-the-planet's-capacity-to-sustain human population increases by one hundred fifty more people (every minute), all sanctioned, encouraged, and even enforced by our callous right-wing-dominated government through international interference with and withholding of funding from worldwide reproductive health and comprehensive sex education programs, all with the vigorous support and reinforcement of the Roman Catholic Church and other extremist religious organizations (certainly including Islamic fundamentalism) bent upon ideological world domination.
Let's not forget the women brutalized and incarcerated by law enforcement in those countries in which the Roman Catholic Church has pushed for and won the criminalization of abortion and achieved that mercilessly cruel piece of "God's will on Earth be done." In countries such as Chile and El Salvador women having not only induced abortions, but spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), are routinely subjected to police investigations and interrogation, arrested, and incarcerated. Many women having natural miscarriages are so afraid of such persecution and prosecution that they avoid seeking medical care in such situations, and some (many I would think) die.
That is what so-called "pro-life" voters and politicians stand for, and they won't stop until they succeed in creating conditions in this country mirroring those in the Third World and in Chile and El Salvador in the examples above. Or until we stop them at the polls.
Does anyone really not see an unbroken continuation of the "Holy Inquisition" in such barbaric atrocities perpetrated upon all who don't strictly comply with the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church (as well as of all those "heretics" and "apostates" of those other fundamentalist dogmas from Southern Baptists to fundamentalist Muslims, all of whom have taken lessons from the "Holy Inquisition" of the Roman Catholic Church)? As with that famous rose, an Inquisition by any other name - or a prettier name – or no name at all – is still an inquisition.
(Is this one of the things you love so much about Bush/Cheney, Frank - that they revived some of the old torture techniques from the "Holy Inquistion?")
In the United States we are vastly more fortunate. Almost 4,000 women every day obtain professional abortion care in the United States that is legal, professionally provided, and therefore extremely safe. Approximately 40% of all adult women in the country have had an abortion. 40%. Maybe your sister - the teenage girl next door or down the street (yes, no matter how perfect her Sunday School attendance or how diligently and sincerely she prays) - your daughter your best friend's daughter - your wife - your mother - your teenage son's girlfriend! (Oh, but wait, you don’t know about such things because you eschew marriage and practice the quaint perversion of celibacy – as far as anyone thus far knows anyway.) You just aren't likely to hear about it because they fearfully keep it secret. It's one of those taboo subjects most people don't feel free to discuss. You are very good at scaring people. Nor do many people want to hear about it, preferring to bolster their comforting false belief that it just couldn't be so by screening out and denying factual knowledge of it.
Abortion was not always so safe in the United States, because it was illegal in most states here, too, until January 22, 1973, when the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in the case of Roe vs. Wade. Prior to that momentous decision, which declared unconstitutional, and therefore unenforceable, all state laws prohibiting abortion, the statistics in the U.S. were similar to those quoted above for illegal abortion forced underground in the third-world, and many major U.S. hospitals were forced to provide entire (and often overflowing) wards for the victims of injuries from illegal abortion attempts – those who didn’t wind up in morgues.
Even so, and tragically, there are today those willfully ignorant and misguided persons and their narrow and uncompromising political, legal, and religious organizations in this country who are zealously struggling to throw history into reverse and turn back the clock to those horrific times. They strive to recreate the blood bath and the wrecked lives that existed prior to Roe vs. Wade as one especially pernicious plank in their ardent campaign to transform our free society into a religious tyranny motivated by much the same sort of fervent and uncompromising beliefs that moved other religious fanatics of a different religious persuasion to guide large airliners full of people into large buildings full of people on September 11, 2001. (I'm merely connecting the dots.)
I do not fail to recognize that the Roman Catholic Church, along with its many and varied offshoots including Christian Protestantism, as well as all other religions, are, in word and in deed and in many ways, the sources of an enormous amount of good and comfort (which is not always good in the long run) in our world, nor do I fail to respect and appreciate that contribution. However, no human and no human institution, religion, or philosophy is infallible, perfect, or above criticism - and nothing is more contrary to, and irreconcilable with, the fundamental ideals and principles of the United States of America than attempts to force upon others dogmatic religious beliefs and philosophies about what to think and how to behave. Such efforts by any religion, or by any corruption of it by misguided followers, inevitably spawn fanatical fundamentalist extremism that is indistinguishable from any other form of uncompromising religious fanaticism, such as the militant Islamic fundamentalism that is also responsible for such horrific human suffering among millions and has declared jihad, or "holy war," against the United States and the entire modern world. With our whole world being torn apart, as it has been throughout recorded history, by the extremes of misguided religious fervor, it is my fervent hope that we will at long last see the lesson in this and overcome not only Islamic fanaticism, but the fanaticism that sprouts from all other religions as well.
Our survival and the survival of our freedoms and our way of life depend upon overcoming these anachronistic barriers to acceptance and cooperation, now more than ever before, in this age of global technological interconnectedness and interdependence through rapid transportation, trade, and instantaneous worldwide communication - and the ability to massively kill and destroy.
It would be a serious mistake for people to think that this election means the pro-life movement has no political power. All politics is local. Political power is about people. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was once told that given the political realities, civil rights legislation would be impossible to pass. "We’ll just have to see about that," he replied. And the civil rights movement was born, stirring the hearts of the people to lead the nation to the victory of justice.
Reminiscent of the reproductive rights movement. I have been a devout and committed activist in both.
So it is with our movement.
Yes, but only through the magical looking glass where everything is its reverse.
The vast majority of Americans are pro-life. They will fight abortion on the local level, opening pregnancy centers and closing abortion mills, activating their Churches and educating their children, proclaiming the message in the media and demonstrating in the streets. The pro-life movement is winning this battle in the hearts and minds of the American people, as opinion polls show and as the shrinking number of abortion mills and abortion providers prove.
Political races are always a swinging of the pendulum. As soon as you win, you begin to lose, and as soon as you lose, you begin the ascent again to winning. In the next two election cycles (2010 and 2012) the pro-life movement will make up for political ground lost in this one.
It is all right to be disappointed at the end of an election season, but one must never walk away. Amidst disappointment is abiding hope in America, where everything remains possible, and where a new chapter of the pro-life movement has just begun. The efforts that were made, and the sacrifices endured in this election season made a difference, and we will build on that difference to see another day when the work and the ballots of pro-life people will dismantle the Culture of Death. We will keep marching toward that pro-life America we seek, and won’t stop until we get there.
This, tragically, is quite possible. But don't forget that pendulum, Frank. Surely you don't expect it to stop swinging at that point, do you? As the extinguished and ruined lives of millions of women and teenage girls and their families (disproportionately far more among the poor and disadvantaged) mount, as they inevitably will if you have your way (deny it all you will), especially with the state of the economy and national security after eight years of your man Bush, the counterforce on that pendulum will also mount. It will swing back - and forth - as its arc of swing is progressively dampened by the inertia of weakened fanaticism, slowed and eventually stopped in a position of rational and reasonable compromise, which I believe to be the pro-choice position.
The extremes are forced abortion on one end of that swing and forced pregnancy on the other.
I am not aware of any political pendulum in this country swinging anywhere near forced abortion, nor of anyone anywhere near advocating that, and see only your extreme forced pregnancy agenda exerting any force that swings the pendulum away from the middle position of pro-choice, in a decidedly un-American and unreasonable effort to impose your religious dogma onto all others.
It might take a long while and swing a bloody path through avoidable misery, suffering, and death brought about through the efforts of you and your ilk, but with the growing enlightenment of the American people, it seems inevitable that the pendulum will eventually come to rest over the midpoint of pro-choice. That’s what pendulums do. At that point you and your ilk will justly not only be irrelevant, but the object of quite reasonable and well-deserved revulsion, ridicule, and outrage.
In the meantime, as the thwarting of your flaming obsessive bigotry progressively frustrates you, I counsel you against hijacking airliners and flying them into buildings. We have good evidence that that doesn't really provide the results religious fanatics seek.