“Paul VI’s genius proved prophetic: he had the courage to stand against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to exercise a ‘brake’ on the culture, to oppose present and future neo-Malthusianism.” Pope Francis

 CONTRACEPTION and ABORTION

 William Newton, Ph.D.

 

 Contraception Changes Our View of Life

In an attempt to lampoon Catholic attitudes toward childrearing, the British comical ensemble Monty Python have a scene in one of their films (The Meaning in which the father of a very large group of ghetto—dwelling children tells us in song precisely why he is the father of so many. The song has the memorable refrain in which the father assures us that “every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great, if one sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.”

This leans in the direction of suggesting that Catholics oppose contraception because it is a crime analogous to murder—the idea that every sperm (as well as every child) is sacred points in this direction.” It is clear from the quotation above from Evangelium vitae that John Paul II, at least, does not equate contraception with murder, because he says abortion and contraception are different in nature and not just different in degree of seriousness.

Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that contraception is an essential part of a culture that is ambivalent, at best, about the generation of new life—it is antilife in a different way than abortion is antilife but, at the very least, it leads to the general idea of pregnancy as something to be guarded against as a potential disaster.

Now, once this seed of doubt about the goodness of new life is planted and nurtured in the mind of a people, then the doors to abortion have been unbarred (if not opened); and as sure as day follows night, abortion will become law. Contraception turns pregnancy into a disease, opening up the way to drastic “curative” measures.

The antilife atmosphere nurtured by contraception goes a long way toward explaining why when countries permit contraception they very quickly follow up with laws permitting large-scale abortion. Just eight years separate the legalization of contraception and abortion in the United States (1965 and 1973); seven years in Britain (1961 and 1968); eight in France (1967 and 1975). Ireland held out longer, thirty-five years (1978 to 2013). I suspect this is a record but perhaps has something to do with the fact that Irish women could abort their babies in Great Britain. The point is that once contraception is legalized, its antilife inner character begins to do its work—the writing is on the wall. Of course, for many countries liberalized contraception and abortion come as a package under the euphemism of “reproductive health rights”.

The antilife character of contraception is perhaps even more starkly evident in the acceptance of the morning-after pill, which sometimes works not by preventing pregnancy but by destroying a newly conceived human being. So-called emergency contraception is a testimony to how contraception “naturally” extends its inner logic toward abortion. Here is where the antilife essence of contraception spills over most directly into the antilife practice of abortion, since no longer is any effort made to separate these two realities.

Another way that contraception changes attitudes toward human life is that it engenders an exaggerated and ultimately despotic desire for power over the origins of human life. As John Paul II points out, to decide for contraception is to take the stance of an arbiter rather than a minister with regard to one’s power to transmit human life.

In accepting contraception, mankind becomes forgetful that his role in the

transmission of human life is one of partnership with God. After all, the mother and father can only contribute the material part of every new human being; the spiritual element must come directly from God. In Humanae vitae, Paul VI reminds couples about this very point several times by using the word “munus” (meaning “mission” or “office”) to describe the task assigned to spouses. If the task of transmitting human life is understood as an office bestowed upon the parents, the notion of collaboration with God is better preserved.

But contraception fools us into thinking that we are in charge of the whole process of generating human life. This, in turn, leads to the perception that since we alone create a child, we alone can decide when we shall and shall not exercise this power. It gives the impression that we are the gatekeepers of human life. This totalitarian and autocratic notion of our power over the origins of human life easily leads to despotic attitudes with regard to unwanted and unplanned human life, as regards either pregnancies or the destruction of spare embryos resulting from in Vitro fertilization.

Contraception Changes Our Notion of the Human Person

A few years ago, a colleague of mine told me a story about an experience of his own son at school. My colleague’s wife was expecting their sixth child, and their eldest son had announced this happy news to one at his friends at school. This friend, on returning home to his own family, asked his mother why they might not also have a new baby brother. The mother told her son that they would not be having any babies because she, the mother, had had one of those operations “like you give to rabbits” to stop that unfortunate type of thing happening.

To my mind it is significant that this mother explained things in terms of the fact that she had had an operation that had also been given to the pet rabbit in order to stop it from breeding. It strikes me that this explanation has embedded in it yet another powerful effect of the contraceptive culture—namely, the blurring of distinction between humans and animals. It is not too much to say that one of the very distinctive aspects of human beings is that they can control themselves in matters of sexuality—they can harness their sexual desires and integrate them into higher forms of love.

This is, by my reading, the central thesis of Karol Wojtyla in Love and  Responsibility, where the pope-to-be explains that human beings are able to bring reason to bear upon their sexual drive and thereby use it as raw material for self-sacrif1cing love. Contraception is a discouraging phenomenon because it suggests that this is not really possible—in this way it conflates the difference between humans and animals in matters of sex. Something similar goes on in some forms of modern sex education. The View is taken that young women (and young men) are no more capable of developing virtue than are rabbits; so it is better just to give them some pills in order to chemically neuter them.

But this conflation of what is human and what is animal has implications for life issues. When techniques proper to the farm (such as neutering) are deemed suitable for human beings, then destructive forms of artificial fertilization are likewise seen to be acceptable. Here we can also see a logical link to euthanasia, because animals are routinely “put down” either when they are no longer useful or when they are sick and suffering.

In his 1994 Letter to Families, John Paul 11 touches upon a more subtle, but no less significant, shift in the attitude toward the human person that is brought about by contraception. This is closely tied to what the pope calls the reoccurrence of Manicheanism. By this he means an exaggerated dualism in which the body is estranged from the person, being seen more like a mere tool or vehicle.

John Paul II believed that this exaggerated dualistic anthropology is implicit within a contraceptive mentality. His argument is as follows: when a couple engage in sexual intercourse and at the same time intentionally render  themselves sterile (as they do by contraception), they are at one moment  seeking to give themselves to each other for the sake of communion, and at the same time seeking not to give (or receive) something important—namely, their fertility. This only makes sense if the couple believe that the body (of which fertility is an important characteristic) need not be included in the personal communication because it is not really part of the person.

The body is seen as a kind of tool used by the person to achieve union, but not part of the person and part of the personal gift of self that is inherent in sexual intercourse. In short, John Paul II is pointing out that contraceptive sex implicitly operates on the basis of an exaggerated dualistic anthropology.

Hence, the anthropology underlying contraception subtly but profoundly distorts our view of the human person and, thereby, removes a formidable psychological obstacle to abortion. It can translate into a belief that while a human body might well be present in the womb of the mother—by which is meant that matter of a human type is present—a human person is not present because, on account of the underlying contraceptive anthropology, the human body and the human person are radically distinct.

Contraception Contributes to a Change in Our Views of the Purpose of Science

It is instructive to consider two of the candidates for the ten inventions that changed the world, mentioned earlier. Penicillin and hormonal contraception stand side by side historically, because they were created within ten years of each other, in the first half of the twentieth century However, what separates these two is, for our purposes, more interesting than what unites them. While both give to mankind a power over himself (over his body), one, namely,  penicillin, fights against disease and promotes health and hence is clearly ordered to the true good of man, whereas the other, contraception, seeks to frustrate the operation of a healthy faculty, rendering it inoperative. As noted above, contraception treats fertility as though it were a disease.

This difference is very significant. Lauding hormonal contraception as one of the greatest achievements of mankind represents a quintessentially modern view of science. It sees progress as a task unconstrained by the question of what is really good for mankind. It is a manifestation of what Benedict XVI liked to call technocracy—meaning the ideology that what is possible is by that fact good.

The key point is this: contraception embraces a notion of science and progress as the search for power unconstrained by the question of the good. This philosophy of science has obvious and disastrous effects when it is applied to other life issues. It inevitably leads to a totalitarian claim over the origins of life itself, which manifests itself not just in abortion but in illicit forms of artificial procreation, cloning, and embryo experimentation—according to the logic of technocracy, as these technologies become possible, they become good.

Contraception Changes Our Moral Outlook

The final “game-changing” aspect of contraception is the way that it helps shape a culture’s basic moral outlook. In order to understand how contraception shapes the moral culture, it is necessary to focus on what is called the  connection of the cardinal virtues. According to Saint Thomas, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance are so related that there cannot be growth in one without growth in the others, and, likewise, weakness in one is a weakening of all.

It is on account of this that, elsewhere, Aquinas can argue that the thing that more than anything else undermines prudence is intemperance (and especially sexual intemperance, namely, lust). As Josef Pieper notes, the “will-to-pleasure prevents [the unchaste man or woman] from confronting reality with that  selfless detachment which alone makes genuine knowledge possible”.

We need now to factor in an insight of John Paul II concerning contraception—namely, that contraception contributes significantly to the problem of intemperance. This is, in fact, perhaps the major complaint levelled at contraception by John Paul II in the Theology of the Body.

For him, contraception is not so much antilife as antilove, in the sense that it promotes concupiscence understood as sexual intemperance. It does this because it totally removes from sexual relationships the need for self-control, and in a postlapsarian world this is a recipe for lust.

Hence, contraception fuels intemperance in cultures that accept it, and intemperance distorts and obscures our moral vision. The upshot of this is that intemperate persons and cultures see the world differently from temperate persons and cultures. This accounts for the disconcerting fact that unchaste cultures cannot see what is entirely obvious to the chaste—they even fail to see the humanity of the unborn child. It is not even a matter of bad will—intemperate cultures simply cannot see it. because they are blinded by their intemperance.

Or even worse, the unchaste are not able to see beauty. They cannot see it because the appreciation of beauty demands the appreciation of something “for its own sake”. This is not possible for a person or a culture that is fixated on consumption—which is at the heart of intemperance.

Only the pure can see beauty, so only the pure can see the beauty in and value of every life.

And finally, only the pure can see God. Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). To have a pro-life view of the world, one cannot do without this purity of heart. The ultimate reason to respect every human life, no matter how small or compromised it might be, is that every human life is stamped through with the image of God; however, only the pure in heart can see this, because only they can see God.

Let us note here that all this points to a wider issue. I am taking contraception as a major contributor to intemperance in our culture, but it is not the only one——there is pornography, lurid music, various forms of immodesty, and consumerism. To the extent that these fuel intemperance, just like contraception they cloud our vision of the truth, and they are, therefore, elements of the culture of death.

A second way that contraception disturbs our moral compass is by way of undermining the notion of moral absolutes. John Finnis makes this point explicitly in his definitive work on moral absolutes. He notes that “the formal attack on the moral absolutes emerges, among Catholics, in response to the problem of contraception“: and that in its wake has come the denial of the moral absolutes of killing innocents (abortion), of telling lies (deceiving the public in matters of state security), of marital intercourse as the only legitimate form (masturbation, homosexual unions), of procreation as the result of marital intercourse (artificial forms of procreation and embryo freezing).

His point is that contraception is the soft underbelly of moral absolutes. It seems a less serious issue than abortion and homosexual acts, for example. People are much more prepared to admit that there might be special cases in which married couples might do a little evil (use contraception) for the sake of the good, such as the good of marital intimacy. But once this is accepted, the horse has bolted.

What I am arguing here is that the widespread acceptance of contraception, especially among Catholics, fatally undermines the opposition that can be mounted against abortion by the only organization that can mount a global challenge to the culture of death. This is because along with the acceptance of contraception comes the implicit acceptance of consequentialism and the denial of moral absolutes.

This fatally undermines effective opposition to abortion, to euthanasia, to embryo experimentation, and so on. After all, the moral analysis that would justify contraception—namely, consequentialism—can certainly also justify these other elements of the culture of death in many cases.

There are, no doubt, other important connections between contraception and abortion (and other antilife activities) that I have not touched upon here. There is, for example, the legal connection, most evident in the case of the United States where the law permitting abortion is built upon a case law permitting contraception. There is also undoubtedly a demographic connection—namely, that contraception contributes to a top-heavy population that stokes the flames of euthanasia.

Here, however, I have chosen to focus more on the psychological effects of contraception and how they have helped to bring about a cultural revolution that has itself ushered in the culture of death. One might say that as a mind-warping phenomenon the contraceptive pill is more powerful than a tablet of LSD. The latter only changes one’s perception for an evening—~the former has changed the minds of a whole culture and a whole generation.

I have been following closely here the teaching of John Paul II. However, on one thing I would humbly beg to differ. The late pontiff says that contraception and abortion are “fruits of the same tree”. I would suggest that another way of articulating this relationship would be to think of contraception not so much as the fruit of this tree but its rotten root—abortion, euthanasia, and embryo experimentation are the rotten fruits.

Historically, contraception has predated these other evils, but this is only  because these other crimes pre-exist in the logic of contraception, which inevitably takes time to unfurl.

In conclusion then, I do not believe that the pro-life movement can be indifferent about the issue of contraception. In some way, it has to address the root of the culture of death. Every gardener knows from bitter experience that if the root of the weed is not entirely destroyed then it grows back and often with a vengeance.

We need to set the axe to the root of the culture of death, and this root is contraception.

Taken from the chapter written by William Newton in the book IS HUMANAE VITAE STILL RIGHT by Janet Smith  2018

There is no law against a man biting off his own nose, unless it be a law of nature; nor even any police regulation against his hanging himself up by the hair or whiskers to talk to his friends and family in greater discomfort. There are penalties for suicide but, though I have no suicidal habits myself, I fancy they must be rather hard to apply; since they could only be sharpened into the legal and logical paradox of hanging a man to cure him of wanting to be hanged.

The majestic legislative mind of man does not commonly concentrate specially on forbidding things that nobody would normally want to do. Most probably, there never would have been any laws at all, except against things that men do quite naturally and even passionately want to do. Men punished murder precisely because there are such a large number of persons whom it would seem quite natural, and almost necessary, to murder. Men forbade theft because it is so utterly obvious that any fool could see it, that some property is in the wrong hands, and that anybody might think it would be better applied in his own hands; any fool could see it, any fool could say it, and the law was made because any fool might do it. There was a third commandment, against stealing not only our neighbour’s ass, but our neighbour’s wife, on which it would now be indelicate to dwell, because all the fools have done it.

Now about this, the Modern Mind has passed through two stages, and I do not know which is worse; for the Modern Mind is rather a weak mind. In the nineteenth century, roughly speaking, all respectable people seemed to suppose that nobody could be tempted to murder or theft or adultery, if he was really respectable. They thought these temptations only came to a curious remote tribe of monsters, called the Criminal Class. We were solemnly told that every criminal must be a lunatic; when in fact there is hardly a healthy or sane man who gets through forty-eight hours without some temptation to commit some such crime.

Then suddenly the Modern Mind discovered this and (not being a very strong mind) instantly slumped into the opposite extreme. Like most moderately intelligent people, I read detective stories in preference to modern novels; but even in detective stories I find this queer rudimentary reason creeping up. Even in crime stories there is now some comprehension of crime; that is, of the fact that we are all criminals. And now the whole weakness is working the other way; many recent murder stories are actually justifications of murder. The moment a refined respectable gentleman realizes that he might want to kill somebody, he jumps to the conclusion that this person ought to be killed. The fact that Aunt Jane is obviously a nuisance, that Uncle William is becoming a terrible bore, that Cousin Hildebrand stands between us and the really sensible family solution, is beginning to look more and more like a real reason for doing them in. That is why, in my own country, some are proposing what is called Euthanasia; at present only a proposal for killing those who are a nuisance to themselves; but soon to be applied progressively to those who are a nuisance to other people. As it applies by hypothesis to an almost moribund or partially paralyzed person, the decision will presumably rest with the other people.

It all began, of course, with stealing our neighbour’s wife as well as his ass; because she was more of an ass than the ass. If we want to know how this allowance for exception ruins or replaces the rule, the best example is divorce. Those who first urged it, urged it quite honestly as an extreme exception. They did really mean to apply it only to somebody married to a homicidal maniac. It has come to mean that a leading literary man told me on a platform in New York that no man could remain married to a woman who said, “Right-O.” I thought he might have avoided being married to a woman who said, “Right-O.” It has come to the point when a man advertises his desire to be divorced from a woman, only because he has forgotten her name. How jolly it will be when the sanctity of human life has reached the same stage as the sanctity of marriage! When men do not even remember whom they have murdered, as this gentleman could not remember whom he had married. Is it not time we reasserted the principle, known to primitive men, that the things we desire to do are the things we may be restrained in doing; and it is because we are all criminals that we had better be discouraged from crime?

(From The American Review, Feb. 1937)

The amendments to the IVF Act has long been a forgone conclusion. Those of us who have been closely following the unfolding events that impact on life and the family have been well aware of this for some time.

Malta’s traditional respect for life and the family started unravelling with the divorce legislation.

The pattern of what followed has happened elsewhere. But the astonishing rapidity and depth of the changes in Malta have been simply breathtaking.

This has, no doubt, been due to the current leadership of the Labour Party. Because of its overwhelming majority at the polls, it has steamrolled its agenda without any qualms whatsoever.

Unfortunately, the Labour Party controls the allegiance of a sizeable section of the electorate who live on a diet of constant partisan propaganda coupled with a tribal attitude to political development. The party leadership is also totally amoral in exploiting special interest groups if this translates into votes, knowing that its hard-core supporters will not question the impact on the common good.

This plays into the hands of determined lobbies such as construction speculators, illegal boathouse owners, hunters and trappers, etc. This does not imply that the Nationalist Party were immune to such temptations, but not to such a degree.

Meanwhile, political power has intoxicated the likes of Chris Fearne who, with almost messianic zeal, shamelessly boasts about the impeccable social and democratic credentials he and his government uphold. He even had the effrontery to brag that widespread consultation led the government to make adjustments to the originally proposed amendments on IVF.

Malta is now saddled with a new form of totalitarianism, which has its roots in atheistic ideology

We must not be fooled by our country’s external trappings of democracy. The modus operandi of this government has been brazenly determined by the logic of power in every aspect of our country’s management. Yet, Fearne would have us swallow the nonsense that his government is inspired by the power of reason.

His article (June 20) is a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak.

The excellent editorial of the Times of Malta (‘Moral anarchy has set in’, June 22) tears to ribbons such pretentious claims.

The Labour Party’s capitulation to the agenda of the powerful LGBTQ lobby has been staring us in the face for a long time.

It explains why the legislation of surrogacy will be the next on the list. No doubt we will once again be subjected to the well-honed charade of fake debate, dialogue and consultation.

One need only refer back to the disgraceful legislation on the morning-after pill with the blatantly dishonest claim that it was simply a contraceptive. The management of the parliamentary debate was scandalous, with pro-life spokesmen being interrupted and cut short. This in sharp contrast with the time allotted to Anthony Serracino Inglott who was allowed almost 50 minutes to claim that MAP is solely a contraceptive.

Sadly, even on such a grave issue as IVF, the heartfelt plea of Malta’s President for a leisured and serious analysis for what is at stake fell on deaf ears.

Serious, detailed and scholarly representations by civil society, the public demonstration defending life, not to mention the numerous interventions by academia, the medical profession, etc. and even numerous appeals in the media were totally ignored.

What we are now experiencing is a travesty of democracy. As Fr Robert Soler said so eloquently in his article (May 5), we are being faced with the option of the strong. He concluded his article by saying: “The 2012 law [Embryo Protection Law] would be shamelessly deformed, its noble original purposes totally debased.” 

Malta is now saddled with a new form of totalitarianism which has its roots in atheistic ideology. With cunning and deceit, our core values that underpin the sanctity of life and the family are being gutted out.

In her landmark book Global Sexual Revolution, German sociologist Gabriele Kuby exposes this insidious and sinister strategy, which is sweeping across Europe.

Under the guise of bestowing life and unlimited freedom, the very foundations of authentic democracy and freedom are being destroyed.

Klaus Vella Bardon is deputy chairman of Life Network Foundation Malta.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180714/opinion/travesty-of-democracy-klaus-vella-bardon.684315

It’s done. The Bill has passed and as expected Parliament was united in its opposing stand on the IVF law amendments as proposed by the government. Once again, a matter of national concern was spun into a political football and the intelligence of people was severely and perversely challenged. To those supporting the government’s stand, there was no need for deliberation, as their conscience was laid to rest by the soothing rants scripted by ministers Chris Fearne and Helena Dalli.

Another section of society remains bewildered as it attempts to comprehend why a visiting lecturer at the University of Malta and a doctor of law, systemically ignored the scientific facts demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that a human embryo is composed of the same 100 per cent DNA of born human beings.

In an extremely simplistic (and mostly unrealistic) explanation, a human embryo becomes an unborn human foetus when it successfully attaches itself to the uterus of the woman and incubation starts. It is at this stage that it gains momentum in development, leaving no further room for debate on what it is and what goes on from this first phase onwards.

In the part-time lecturer’s mind and mouth, the human embryo is still, however, no more than a bunch of cells, forgetting that his own body is composed of the same chemical elements of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus making him not much different from it, albeit being born and still alive. Let us face it. The discussion has been purposely degenerated to cell level. As in any pro-abortion debate, unborn human life must be treated as an object and as a composition of cells. This strategy distorts reality and places a human embryo and a human foetus at par with a plant seed, cancer cells or a tumour. It is only in this manner that any deliberate termination of unborn human life becomes consciously justifiable.

Yet no-one expects to see a medical professional deliberately mishandling embryos on their way to being implanted simply because they are deemed a bunch of cells. They are medically not treated as a cancer. No patient receives chemotherapy to remove any residual cells that might have been left in the body. On the contrary, an IVF client receives all medical care possible to prepare for the implant well in advance to give the best possible chance for that embryo to attach itself and develop into a human foetus, making the argument about whether these embryos are human beings or not totally irrelevant.

The matter must be related to choices. Many people talk about giving the women choices, talk about women’s reproductive rights and attempt at all costs not to involve men, forgetting one fundamental issue.

It is the medical professional who decides what is implanted in the woman and therefore any talk of a woman’s right to her own body ends with this fact

The reality of choices has also a hard landing. In the first instance, it takes a man and a woman to create an embryo. Therefore, as 50 per cent shareholders in the deal, men have every right to voice concerns, opinions and emotions on such a delicate matter. In the second instance, the couple undergoing IVF are not in control of the situation. They simply do not have a choice. They are at the mercy of the medical professional, who decides which embryos are most viable and which are not.

It is the medical professional who decides what is implanted in a woman and therefore any talk of a woman’s right to her own body ends with this fact. There is no right, but an invasion of the most intimate woman’s inner core, in both the emotional aspect as well as the physical realm.

These characteristics of IVF treatment have to be treated with respect. It is this human intervention which creates a highly debatable and controversial situation. The mere fact that IVF is an artificial process is already deemed borderline and ethical and science is steadily moving away from such issues. The Pope Paul the VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction works relentlessly in assisting infertile couples in a multitude of ways, which are far more beneficial and long-term than the present IVF procedure in use in Malta.

The institute works on the cause of infertility and addresses the issue and not the symptom. This in itself is far more ethical, humane and dignifying for the couple undergoing IVF and removes all doubt and ethical matters related to human embryo handling. So how come Fearne and Dalli did not consult with such an institute and consider the alternatives?

The stark reality is that this charade has nothing to do with children, nothing to do with improving the chances of success for IVF couples. These were just clichés used by the Prime Minister to cover himself, his team and appease the people’s sentiments.

These amendments were delivering an electoral promise made to the Malta Gay Rights Movement and there was absolutely no option but to pass the amendments as they were. Resolving heterosexual couple infertility problems would have not addressed the same-sex couples’ desire to bear children. There was no space for ethical consideration and there was no requirement of any regard for the children born from such procedures.

The wording was carefully scripted by Fearne and Dalli, in that they insisted this is about giving any prospective parents a better chance to bearing children.

Whether same-sex couples should have the same rights to bear children as heterosexual couples is a matter of personal opinion, but the matter of regard towards children should have had universal consensus. The whole messa in scena was rotten at the core, as it saw the interests of the adults once again, placed ahead of the interests of children, using the same children as marionettes in the hands of the puppet master.

May those MPs who voted in favour of these amendments find inner peace and feel that they can sleep at night knowing what they created.

As a side note, I just look forward to the day that the Catholic faith is removed from the Constitution and that the Church and State indeed separate. I just cannot stand watching hypocritical MPs attending Mass and then setting their faith aside to appease their electoral manifesto, especially when it comes to dealing with the most vulnerable in our society.

Steve Pace is a strategic thinker.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180713/opinion/ivf-the-last-act-steve-pace.684256

Did you miss our video? Click on the link below to check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML7P16_Kk4w&app=desktop

http://www.jrsmalta.org/content.aspx?id=419380#.WzyZUdIzaUn

On June 24, the Catholic Church celebrated the feast of the birth of St John the Baptist. This festivity offers us a good opportunity to reflect on the extraordinary experience of those who are expecting a child as well as of those who were blessed with the advent of a new child.

As the friends of Elizabeth and Zacchary rejoiced on learning that Elizabeth was pregnant, so I rejoice with expectant parents for accepting to cooperate with God the creator by conceiving a child. It is very positive that in a society “suffering from a period of dramatic sterility”, we still have married couples who are open to life.

The conception of a child is a great mystery. In contemplating this mystery man cannot but bow in deep reverence and awe. Science can explain the process of conception but it can never explain why at one particular moment in time a new life is conceived. Every conceived child is an act of God’s love.

 As Pope Francis writes: “Every child growing within the mother’s womb is part of the eternal loving plan of God the Father: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you’ (Jer 1:5). Each child has a place in God’s heart from all eternity; once he or she is conceived, the Creator’s eternal dream comes true… A pregnant woman can participate in God’s plan by dreaming of her child. For nine months every mother and father dreams about their child… Once a family loses the ability to dream, children do not grow, love does not grow, life shrivels up and dies” (Amoris Laetitia).

Every conceived child bears the message that God still has faith in humanity. Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man (Tagore). Children are always a unique and irreplaceable gift even in tough circumstances.

There were times when I stood in wonder witnessing the happiness of parents who have just learned that they are to bear a child. A few weeks ago I was at Ta’ Pinu and I met a couple whose eyes radiated joy. They told me that they had been to the shrine to confess for berating God for not giving them a child. They had been trying to conceive for a long time but with no success. Sometime after their pilgrimage, the mother was pregnant. Now they were again at the feet of Our Lady to thank her.

We should hold you parents in great esteem. You have chosen that your love be open to a new life and indeed in some cases to more than one life. As we know nature at times can be generous and one act of love can yield more than one life. I am aware that when a couple first learns that instead of one child they will be having twins, they are at first taken aback. This was not in their plans but then the parents embrace all the lives conceived.

I personally know a number of parents who have undergone this procedure and have some of their embryos waiting in a freezer. These parents experience a great regret

No parent will ever think of keeping one child and abandoning the other. The parents know that these are flesh of their flesh and bone of their bones. Above all else they know that all human life is sacred and we cannot tamper with it. We know that parents grieve when nature rejects life in a miscarriage.

 It is difficult at times to help the mother come to terms with the fact that she has lost her child even if the pregnancy was still in its early stages. At present I am accompanying a couple who after waiting for a long time to conceive, the mother is now expecting. But unfortunately according to medical staff’s diagnosis the child has a very scarce chance of being born alive. I can attest to the martyrdom this couple, especially the mother, are going through knowing that their conceived child will probably not live.

The account of Elizabeth and Zacchary reminds me of those couples who are faced with the problem of infertility. I can understand their pain and grief. They not only are unable to have their wish come true but the gossip of others throws upon them a sense of shame, as happened in the case of Elizabeth (Matthew 1,25).

May I express my gratitude to the people of science for their work, in helping these couples, while respecting the principles of ethics and morals. In fact, I appeal to science to continue its research thus providing these couples with a ray of hope. Since today we have several points of view regarding what ethics is all about, I recommend, especially to Christian couples, that they seek scientific solutions in the light of the teachings of Christ.

These married couples usually seek medical advice when faced with the problem of infertility. Therefore I appeal to the doctors, especially Christian doctors, to give counsel and to propose solutions which respect human life and which do not put at risk this same life.

If it happens that in our pluralistic and albeit dogmatic context, Christian doctors and nurses find themselves in conflict with their personal principles they can always invoke the right of objection of conscience.

Some parents who have had recourse to science to conceive a child suffer the same dilemma of those parents who grief their unborn child I referred to above. Science helps these parents conceive more than one embryo in the laboratory, leading to the implantation of some of them and the freezing of the rest.

I personally know a number of parents who have undergone this procedure and have some of their embryos waiting in a freezer. These parents experience a great regret because they feel as if they have abandoned their children. A mother told me that she dreams of them but cannot see a way of releasing her children from this prison. These situations imply heavy psychological and moral dilemmas and we pray to God to help us.

I am grateful to all expectant parents because it is really uplifting to see young couples who are open to life despite today’s challenges. These couples are the heralds of the good news of human life and the beauty of family life. At the same time, I urge all to show solicitude and stay near those couples who are suffering because of issues related to life.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180703/opinion/heralds-of-human-life-bishop-mario-grech.683421

It appeared to start off well. In the heat of the debate on the controversial amendments to the Embyro Protection Act, President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca stood up and told politicians to slow down and think it well. The issues being discussed were extremely serious, concerning life itself.

The government appeared to listen. It pretended to make changes. Altruistic surrogacy was pulled out of the Bill to be presented at a later stage and the anonymity previously proposed for gamete (sperm and egg) donation was partially lifted. Those were not the only problems, perhaps the most controversial. There still remained embryo freezing, which inherently puts the life of a number of frozen embryos in danger. That did not change.

Embryo freezing was voted for unanimously by all government MPs with the Opposition, significantly, all voting against.

The President comes from the Labour fold. A former social policy minister, she took her leftist, social thinking to the presidency. She was not alone in being against the Bill. Former foreign minister George Vella, another Labour stalwart, was vociferous against the amendments.

Labour’s old guard are clearly alienated from Labour’s new thinking. The pseudo-liberal agenda that has helped the party win so many previously Nationalist-leaning votes often does not go down well with the party hardcore. But impressive electoral successes have muzzled any internal dissent.

The parliamentary vote in favour was uncompromising but it was hardly based on values, considering the Bill devalues life. Labour sells and people like Ms Coleiro Preca and Dr Vella find themselves out in the cold from the party they helped to build.

Yet, Ms Coleiro Preca is also the President. She raised expectations when she sounded the alarm on the amendments. It gave pro-life activists hope. They found a sympathetic ear in the Office of the President but, in the end, the President signed the Bill.

The President made clear she signed the Bill solely out of loyalty to the Constitution meaning she did not agree with it. She said she sought ethical, moral and legal advice and, after long reflection, decided to sign the new law. She made clear the Constitution did not confer upon her legislative functions except that of assenting to Bills. Of course, this was not any Bill.

Saying she is not one to shirk her responsibilities, the President said the challenge society was facing was to protect the weak, “including vulnerable embryos”. The island’s moral fibre was at risk if society disrespected human life and any stage of development. She said all that and signed the Bill.

Truly, the President could not have stopped the Bill, or even change it. She did stand up, an unprecedented event, to speak up for the voiceless. That is all to her credit. But then she signed and the only thing that Health Minister Chris Fearne, who piloted the Bill, would say was that it was the President’s opinion, nothing more.

President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici said he would not sign something that went against his conscience. Ms Coleiro Preca did not go that far. She says she had a duty to sign but conscience is a duty too. Public figures enjoy the public’s trust because the people know that, at the end of the day, they would abide by their conscience.

And the President signed the Bill.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180629/editorial/and-then-she-signed.683064

Stand up for our embryonic fellow. Now is the time. More are hearing the anguished cry of our fellow embryonic human beings and discerning it to be the cry against inhumanity. Fore-planned embryo-freezing isthe cardinal criterion for inhumanity. Renounce it.

This was laid out in my article (May 18): the embryo is denied inherent humanity, declared to be “a blob of cells” of nicht-menschen status; the withdrawal of human status could be effected at any stage of life; the non-human being, is vulnerable to becoming a medical cobbler’s plaything; with eugenics, the human race becomes the plaything.

To those who deny the humanity of the embryo, I say the onus of proof of their hypothesis lies with them. They are to show incontrovertible proof of the (non-existent) “becoming human” point. All the scientific papers amount to nought when pitted against the reflection and logic of truly great minds and souls down the ages.   

Those who hide behind the diaphanous veil of “I don’t know” must heed the precautionary principle: when in doubt as to whether human or not, treat as human. “Do no harm” should have been branded on the medical student, as also “When in doubt, desist”.

I appeal to the goodness and nobleness of those in whose hands this matter of such monumental importance lies. Your legacy is in your hands.

Are you to be remembered for embryo-freezing, the heinous attack on a fellow human being? A human being is what the embryo is, whether you acknowledge it or not.  

It takes true greatness and leadership to admit to one’s error and change course.

Failure to do so is followed, sooner or later, by the downfall. Helicopter flying has an analogy. (I am a former military helicopter pilot too).

One can find oneself in an (air) updraught and enjoy the lift. Should this updraught be a powerful thermal the pilot must exit. Otherwise the helicopter, having been pushed high up into vortices and turbulent airflow, drops down in a dangerous downdraft.

Satan is like that. Dance with the Devil and he will drop you (and damn you). They say a feature of Hell is Satan’s mockery. 

Abortion is not round the corner; it is there before us, staring us in the face in all its evil ugliness. Abortion is what Hippocrates specified as ethically forbidden. Hippocrates had us take an oath.

The medical butchers (fellow members of the surmised Rogue College of Medical Cobblers and Butchers) are salivating in anticipation of opening up ‘abortoirs’ for their practice of scraping/sucking tiny human beings out of the womb and out of this world.

What an exquisite expression of care and ‘charitas’ of the sacred art of medicine. It is not so at all, not even for the mother involved. The honest and good woman involved will admit to “something dying in her”; her physical, psychological and spiritual milieu having been adulterated.

Screwtape (C S Lewis, The Screwtape Letters) must have held a banquet to celebrate the ‘victory’ in the Irish Republic. Children were celebrating the killing of children. Contemplate that. Coming to think of it, the breaking of cover must have alarmed the tacticians. Scenes like these could well alert deniers of the truth to the evil nature of the overarching strategy of the evil empire.

It is under test that one shows one’s true worth. Now is the time to prove your true worth. Save Malta’s soul

What a foul, putrid odour of necrosis emanates from the body of the Maltese nation. This nation, once Catholic, courageous and confident, repelled the evil empire in the form of Ottoman Islamism, Italian/German/French fascism and our nation rejected French tricoleur Jacobinism.

Among those who heroically did their duty in World War II were two doctors, who are the post-war predecessors of the prime minister and the minister of health. They would, without doubt, have been utterly appalled that the evil they resisted is coming to pass.

On June 5, 1958 (Corpus Christi, I believe) I received my First Holy Communion in Wales, and my maternal grandfather was buried in Malta. Relativism had not yet then taken root in the Catholic world. My grandfather, a surgeon, but first and foremost a doctor, would have been appalled at today’s situation. Relativism has taken root. Situation ethics is the common currency. Morals are “adulterated”. Faith is fading fast.

Faith and morals are conjugally related. So that an erosion in morals leads to an erosion in faith, and a lack of faith brings on an implosion of morals. You cannot give of what you do not have. You can only give of the type and quality that you do have.

If yours is a pick ’n’ choose morality and faith then that is what you pass on. You lack credibility and that is what the other will perceive in you.

The scandalous rebellion against, and rejection of, Catholic moral doctrine sets the pattern, derision and division, confusion and chaos, contradiction and civil war.

Nevertheless, there are today, by the grace of God, genuine, faithful and heroic clergy and laity who do pass on the true faith.

The situation report is a tale of lack of leadership. The situation is grave, but not hopeless. Be of stout heart and know that the stones will proclaim God’s truth and that good will triumph in the end. Satan is a liar and a loser. Will you end up with the winners or losers? Your destiny is in your hands. It is your choice.

Reject the lie. Embryo-freezing is not pro-life. For in pro-creating human beings you insult and assault the life of some of them. Every procurer of IVF babies must face the fact that she is the reason why some of her embryonic sons/daughters will be frozen, insulted and assaulted.

Now Malta, stand up for the embryonic human being. Some will ask: what can I do? The answer is… pray, promote, preach and petition.

Pray earnestly, and with faith, for our nation. Pray especially for all those involved in promoting/propagating/ pressing through Parliament and voting for the legalising/decriminalisation of embryo-freezing and its signing into law: that they desist.

To these I appeal. Stop and turn. Abdicate worldly office. Abandon worldly chattels and acclaim.

Be courageous. The courageous may suffer but one physical death and then gains glory. The coward suffers a continual stream of psychological and spiritual deaths day by day by day and are driven down into despair.

I would rather die standing than live on my knees.

Now Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, now is your chance for greatness. Renounce embryo-freezing as a procedural practice. Repeal the Act.

Now is the test that our St George Preca alerted us to. It is under test that one shows one’s true worth. Now is the time to prove your true worth.

Save Malta’s soul.

Peter Micallef-Eynaud is a medical doctor and a moral theologian.

Ref: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180629/opinion/standing-for-embryonic-fellows-peter-micallef-eynaud.683063