Eloquent statement by a Franciscan Brother against the "March for Life"

[ehrnst]

While he doesn't support Roe, he points out the hypocrisy, futility and self-serving nature of a bunch of White people getting on a bus for 2 days in January, and thinking that's what Christianity means.

"Try something new if you are really serious about reducing or ending abortions.

Perhaps caring for young adults who become pregnant, taking care of unwed mothers, offering good school systems for the children who are carried to term and brought into this world – all of these would be good places to begin.

Perhaps those, mostly white, marchers would do well to consider the racial, gender, ethnic, socio-cultural and economic issues that undergird the abortion questions in this country. It is never, never as simple as “good” versus “bad,” “pro-life” versus “pro-death,” and so on.

Perhaps I would be more sympathetic to the movement to parade through the streets of Washington, DC, in protest of a forty-year-old Supreme Court decision if I was more convinced of the sincerity of the protesters to do what it is they claim they want, which, if they are truly Christians, demands so very much more of them than getting on a bus for a two-day road trip each January."


http://datinggod.org/2012/01/23/why-i-do-not-support-the-so-called-march-for-life/

[Ecumenist]

1. Preach it, Dear Brother, PREACH!!.

If they really meant something serious, they would provide suppport for those children they want born and for the mothers they wasnt to force those children to term. I have always said that. The so-called "March For Life" Is all for show. They don't REALLY care about those "babies".

[ehrnst]

2. "Pro-life" from the moment of conception until the moment of birth

Or in Santorum's case, the moment of ejaculation to the moment of birth.

[Zalatix]

3. Bah, what if the pro-life movement really did all that? Let's stop being dishonest here.

If pro-lifers

started screaming at the Tea Partiers about welfare, then went and voted out candidates that cut welfare

started million person protests against the death penalty and war

started fighting for workers' rights, animal rights and shouted down / voted out every Republican who opposed the Environmental Protection Agency

adopted every unwanted child out there

made sure every poor pregnant woman was decked out in Versace and rollin' in a Bentley to small-group mommy flights on a Gulfstream jet to her Goldman-Sachs job interview where pro-lifer executives waited to give them cushy jobs



Nobody here would stop bashing the pro-life movement. If you did you'd be a fool because their hypocrisy isn't the main problem here. Anyone wanna guess what is?

[ehrnst]

4. I wouldn't stop bashing the pro-forced childbearing crowd

But, if all "pro-lifers" took the advice of this monk, and DID the work that reduced the need for abortions instead of trying to overturn Roe, then I could respect their actions.

The real problem I have is that they think that the problem is Abortion - not the fact that many pregnancies are unplanned, and conditions for many women make them unable to have another child now, even if they wanted one.

So long as they think childbearing should be legally forced, then I will have issues with them. I will bash them for their lack of enthusiasm for the hard work of changing the cultural roadblocks to planned childbearing so long as they do so.

I think that's what this Brother is pointing out - that while he has moral issues with abortion, he will not be part of the hypocrisy and superior self -congratulatory orgy that this March is.

My (departed) Mother-in-law believed that abortion was wrong - that you had a moral obligation to continue a pregnancy that results from consentual sex. She did not, however, think that it should be criminalized, because women would be harmed getting illegal abortions. When I told her that she was actually pro-choice, and not "pro-life" in the political sense, she was surprised.

She also did volunteer work with at-risk kids. I would not "bash" her in any way for her ideas on a sexually active woman's moral obligation to childbearing - because she was not one of those who would participate in these type of marches.

[Ecumenist]

5. I'm sorry, Zalatix, I STRONGLY disagree. NOONE has the right, no matter what they

do otherwise, to force women to carry a pregnancy they are neither willing nor able to carry. That would not change my feeling about that. There are many people who take the positions that I velieve in BUT they are Racists. Being black that a deal breaker. Just as being a gender facist is for me.

[Zalatix]

7. Wait, what? Did you read what I said?

"Nobody here would stop bashing the pro-life movement. If you did you'd be a fool because their hypocrisy isn't the main problem here. Anyone wanna guess what is?"

How did you take THAT as me supporting forcing women to carry a pregnancy?

[ehrnst]

8. To be fair, it was somewhat unclear

I needed to read it a few times.

My take was: Those who like what this monk said were of the same mind as this monk - and would not have problems with the Anti-Choice movement if they worked to make life better for women and children.

Yes we would, so long as they were fighting Roe. I can agree with this monk that they have some hypocrisy to bash - and I'm happy that a devout Catholic has seen the rampant racism, misogyny and narrowness in the Catholics that have fixated on abortion.

But, no, my problem with the pro-forced childbirth crowd doesn't stop there.

I can also think that if there was a waiting list for every unwanted infant, and our economic crisis was over, that these people are still WRONG for saying that women should be criminalized for not wanting to have a baby.

[Ecumenist]

9. Oh, I'm sorry, I misread your post. 2 hours of sleep, So sorry.

[Zalatix]

10. Nooo problemo, happens to me sometimes, too!

[BlueDemOhio]

6. Try something new if you are really serious about reducing or ending abortions.

I think a lot of people say that. If you want to end (many) abortions, then allow people to move up economically so that there are options. Things like childcare, reduced/free college, etc.