A buddy of mine has a pro-choice wife. Very pro-choice. In fact, she seems almost obsessed with raising the subject any time I see her.
This past weekend I stopped by my buddy’s house to pick him up. We were taking the kids out to Valley Forge to toss a softball around. My three oldest girls all joined softball this year so they’re obsessed with learning how to play.
His wife decided to come with us. Grrr…eat!
So the kids are in the middle of a field. They’re chasing each other but they’re wearing baseball gloves so that kinda’ counts as practice, right?
I found myself standing next to the wife and she, inevitably raises the recent contraception controversy with the Obama administration. My buddy just rolled his eyes. I said I didn’t think it was a contraception issue at all but a religious liberty issue.
She smiled and said that she knew I was against abortion but that I couldn’t possibly be sooooo medieval as to be against contraception. I pointed out my five kids in the field and said, “What do you think?”
Then she advised me that the Catholic Church would be sooooo popular if they only changed their mind of abortion and contraception. She said it makes Catholics look angry all the time.
Shortly after that, a car drove slowly by. Guy was obviously a tourist. As he passed, he tossed out a cigarette stub. As much as I can’t begin to understand why folks think it’s OK to throw cigarette stubs on the road, I especially don’t understand it at a place like Valley Forge. Well, she flipped out. She starts yelling at the guy. “Hey! Hey!” She actually starts trotting after the car, yelling. The guy clearly heard her because he flipped her the bird.
The kids all stopped and watched. Her two kids seemed a bit embarassed. My kids seemed utterly shocked but tried to look away. My buddy and I were a little weirded out because she’s chasing down a dude in a car and if he gets out it’s us who are going to have to deal with him. And we’ve got our kids here too.
She comes back and rants about the guy for a while. I told her that environmentalists needs to drop the whole cigarette stub issue because it just makes them look angry.
Hey, my buddy thought it was funny.
April 18, 2012 at 7:23 pm
@ Anonymous 12:50 pm: Yes, as a matter of fact, the Catholic church cares for, feeds, clothes, shelters, and educates more children than any other institution in the world. Please, give us your children. We want them and we will love them.
April 18, 2012 at 7:52 pm
The "Catholic Church" consists of all of us faithful. Some of us support maternity homes, donate to or work on St. Vincent de Paul donations, Catholic Relief Services or children's homes in Haiti or other poor nations. Do those who criticize the Catholic Church think that it consists ONLY of ordained clergy?
TeaPot562
April 18, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Well being that people that are pro-abortion will have less children than a catholic who doesn't believe in contraception, the catholic will vastly outnumber those who are pro-abortion eventually.
April 18, 2012 at 9:44 pm
That is flippin hilarious man!
April 18, 2012 at 10:06 pm
I am always happy to see people make the exception for rape.
My grandfathers mother was a rape victim and he was the son of that rape. The resulting souls comprise my family and my extended family.
Thank you dear God for allowing a terrible evil for the greater good.
April 19, 2012 at 1:00 am
And if the Jews and early Christians had just eased up about worshiping the Emperor, they would've been much more popular in Rome.
It's somewhat depressing how many people think "If you'd just capitulate, we'd stop persecuting you" is actually an argument.
PS. RE: rape-exceptions for abortion, how about if we just kill rapists, instead?
April 19, 2012 at 4:25 am
Couldn't help but wonder if this is the same buddy whose wife you made mad by walking her down the road of 'when does abortion become "killing a baby,"' or something along those lines…
April 19, 2012 at 6:39 am
Ha ha ! Good one.
I get peeved when I read the credits at the end of a movie and it states, "No animals were harmed during the shooting of this movie" or words to that effect. Hey… what about all those stunt-men (and women) who regularly get injured in the line of duty. You don't hear about THAT do you? Same ol', same ol'
April 19, 2012 at 8:52 am
Very Funny! Oh to be so quick witted and clever.
April 19, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Something I cannot understand, and have never understood: why is it that prochoice people keep calling that growing entity within the the woman, a 'fetus', and then, poof, suddenly it's a baby after the 5th month? What was it before? Why isn't what is created within, a human from the first moment it was created? If it is not human, then what is it–cancer? It's the poof moment that gets me, like magic, after the 5th month, it's a baby. It is so illogical to me.
Another thing I never get: why do these so-called prochoicers say: 'its my body; it's my choice' when it is as obvious as the nose on one's face, that a renter is now within the body. Imagine if an apartment builder owner said: 'It's my building; it's my choice what to do with it' and then demolishes it. So what if there are renters living within, is the logic, the guy who owns the building can do what he wants with it. We'd all rise up in horror and wrath if an apartment owner did such a thing, yet, no one sees the same sort of illogical thinking going on with the 'prochoice' people and their stand on abortion.
As to rape and a resulting pregnancy, omg, I cannot imagine the horror of having to carry to term the baby, yet, it is a baby. That baby didn't ask to exist. Imagine the mindset of a girl so impregnated and the terror and anger she would live with all her life, and yet, it is a baby. Still, I cannot see killing that baby…
On the other hand, contraception seems like a thing of conscience for a woman. I am 72; I have never been pregnant. Yet, I watched my sister, married, with 4 children, become haggard, gaunt-eyed, exhausted raising those kids with her husband. It did something to her personality and made her, strange over time. It was a burden beyond her ability it seemed to me. Her way of adjusting to it was to become a pathological liar, to ignore serious problems with the kids, to have affairs.
Somewhere, somehow, conscience has to come into play and decide: what do I do that is best for my sanity and my ability to do my duty. Not all women, I have noticed (as a teacher over 37 years) can have a multitude of children and be all the better for it. Some wither, some go nuts, some just plain lose touch with reality.
The pressure is too much. So was it for my sister.
April 19, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Thank God that man didn't get out of the car.
April 19, 2012 at 8:03 pm
Hey, all those liberal "Christian" churches who gave up on Christ to support the modern culture are soooo popular. Just ask the Anglicans who have watched their influence diminish and their congregants opt for Catholicism or agnosticism.
April 19, 2012 at 8:13 pm
To Anonymous whose sister supposedly could't handle 4 children:
Blaming the kids for your sister's "strange" personality seems a bit presumptive. I've met many childless men and women who are weird. Heck, look at all those Hollywood hags without children.
As for your argument about contraception being a matter of conscience for a women, what about the man? Isn't sex kinda a two-person deal, at least the kind that needs contraception? Aren't lying, stealing, cheating, murder, etc. matters for the conscience? Should the Church stay silent on those?
April 20, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Randon thoughts: If we take the DNA of the mother and the DNA of the "product of conception", we will find that we have two distinct human beings. People get out of jail in this manner why does noone mention this for the baby to aave its life?
When egg and sperm meat inside the mom she IS a mother and he IS a father-not a mom-to-be, nor a father-to-be.
April 20, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Also, a woman pregnant with a male is not a hermaphrodite for nine months.
Virtually the only logically, though obviously not morally, valid argument for abortion is, basically, the ancient world's "Power of the Father"—you know how Greeks and Romans exposed infants and honor-killed their children well up into adulthood? Yeah, that.
Did you know that, until Christianity came along, Roman girls didn't have first names, just the feminine of their clan name?—Julia, Claudia, etc. are the names of clans (Julius Caesar's first name was Gaius). Yeah, Romans traditionally only ever had one daughter, and left any later daughters to the wolves. The lucky ones were found and raised by brothels.