Too tired and sick to come up with my own original thoughts, I’ve been searching the blogosphere to put my perimenopausal, pregnancy induced, progesterone enhanced mashed potato brain to good use. Here are the discussions I am having.
First with Bonnie as we finally get to the real gist of her series on contraception. She wants to use them, she wants Christians to agree with her. Sorry Bonnie, no can do!
She drops her trump card here:Elena, herein may lie part of the problem. I don’t believe that God has sanctioned any one denomination. I, personally, do not accept, hook-line-and-sinker, the totality of doctrines of any one of them. (I’ve actually got a bit of Catholicism in my background 🙂 ) This does not mean that I do not submit to appropriate authority, nor does it mean that I do not have tremendous respect and appreciation for traditions of faith which have been passed down through the generations and through churches. But I believe that in the judgment I will not answer to any denominational creed or tradition. I will answer to my Father in heaven, and Him only.
Holding back an ace myself:
Well that’s a discussion for another day. However, since the Catholic Church is the oldest branch of Christianity I think its position has much merit if it’s a search for truth that we’re after.
Moving on:
Jill, the Carrie Bradshaw wanna be over at Third Wave Agenda posts this article as proof of the merits of partial birth abortion. I sort of mentioned that the article doesn’t say exactly how the mom with the Trisomy 13 baby had her own life in danger, Jill lets loose with
well elena, i guess all i can say is that people who think like you are the exact reason the right to choose should be between a woman and her doctor. claiming that a serious threat to a pregnant woman’s life or health is a “flimsy excuse” is pretty disturbing, and i think it illustrates the anti-choice disregard for women’s lives pretty clearly. these women likely would have died or had serious health complications, and you say they’re making “flimsy” excuses? that’s almost as heartless as looking at a picture of a dead woman and shrugging her ordeal off to “bad choices.”
Sticks and stones Jill. Of course the only reasonable reply is:
And my question is what exactly are these serious health complications (Carrying a trisomy is Not a serious condition for the mother) and how is it that these “conditions” couldn’t have been treated adequately by more conventional modes of delivery. Those are the types of arguments this article totally glossed over.
The rest of your post is the usual descent into adhominem fallacy arguements… which also is neither compelling or persuasive.
Over on Steve Bogner’s blog, Talmida wants to know why I found this comment of hers insulting:
“It seems quite fair to compare the catholic church’s voluminous output of rules to that oral law.
Being fully primed now, my response:
OK granted I’ve got hormone surges that could light a Christmas tree right now. That said I am sick and tired of “Catholics” criticizing the great store and treasury of wisdom and always comparing the orthodox hierarchal church to the Pharisees.
It’s insulting.
We have a 2000 year history. We have had great popes, Doctors, scholars, saints… are we supposed to store all of that in a 20 page pamphlet? I think not.
On a happier note I was ready to jump out of my skin this morning waiting for my ultrasound. Once you’ve seen a dead baby in your body on ultrasound… well let’s just say it doesn’t get any worse than that. So I was prepared to see an empty egg sac, a deformed fetus, a blighed ovum, a little floating body with no heartbeat. Mr. Pete was ready to throttle me.
To my delight I saw none of that. I saw a very cute, very small little baby, with a very vigorous heartbeat, who even moved a little for us and made the technician giggle.
I don’t care what I have for dinner tonight – as long as it’s meat!!