The "University" of Kalgary

I can't say it any better than Ezra Levant did — in serving notices of trespass to student members of Campus Pro-Life, the University of Calgary administration merits condemnation, not just from its alumni, but from everyone who believes that a university has a special duty to protect free speech and foster honest debate about controversial issues. As someone who grew up under the military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, I still remember how one of my childhood friends was tortured and then murdered by that odious regime. Alas, Canada seems to be rapidly devolving towards a 21st-century tyranny of the morally relativistic Left, and this idiocy by the university administration is just more evidence of the accelerating suicide of the West. Today the police knock on doors of university students who are trying to raise awareness about a legitimate public policy issue. Tomorrow, what? Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. 

Life: Imagine the Potential

The US Election Just Got More Interesting

Some people think Sen. McCain picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to woo Hillary Clinton supporters disenchanted with Sen. Obama's failure to name Sen. Clinton as his running mate. It's probably not that simple, but one can't help wondering if indeed gender was indeed a major issue in this case. Is the American public truly ready to accept a woman as its potential next president? Perhaps, perhaps not.

One thing is clear: the US Republican Party is trying to differentiate itself clearly from the Democrats on pro-life issues, and Gov. Palin's pro-life stance seems pretty obvious. For one thing, she said about her youngest child Trig, who was diagnosed in utero with Down Syndrome:

We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed.

OK. Now if that doesn't bring into stark relief the difference between a pro-life and a pro-choice (really pro-death) position, I don't know what does. Regardless of your politics, the pro-death position is really no different in principle from the "useless eaters" philosophy that led to the Holocaust. And this should make us think carefully: what do "pro-choice" people really believe? That some human lives (e.g. theirs) are more valuable than others (in this case, unborn children). This should be clear. Don't let the arguments about "a woman's right to choose" fool you. A right to choose what, exactly? To kill her unborn child. In other words, murder.

God Keep Our Land...

Glorious and free? For now, only in dreams. It is now unacceptable to express one's most deeply held moral convictions in the public square — the politically correct totalitarianism in the water supply has led to a curious reversal of logic that Orwell would have understood only too well. The Mayor of Truro, Nova Scotia, refused to fly a gay pride rainbow flag because of his moral convictions, and he was predictably pilloried in the mainstream media as a homophobe. Now, let's imagine that the local Aryan Nations chapter had asked the good Mayor to fly a Nazi flag to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday — would his refusal have raised a similar outcry from the chattering classes? Not likely, you say, because the Aryan Nations and National Socialism are morally disordered, whereas homosexuality is not. Oh, really? On what basis can we make this, ahem, fine distinction? That the Nazis persecuted and murdered homosexuals? (They did.) Not so fast.

The backstory may seem a tad more complex than it appears, but it's not, really.

Where to begin?

Let's start with Biology 101 — our species propagates through sexual reproduction. Therefore, long-term human survival depends on adequate numbers of healthy offspring, in the proper gender ratio. But in our time, children (in general, and in many cases girls) have come to be regarded as an unwelcome inconvenience, such that some men are even willing to undergo vasectomies so they can buy mobile phones, and others express (misguided) sympathy and understanding for those who strike such Faustian bargains (read the comments on the linked vasectomy article to see how much children are disliked in contemporary Western culture). Do the math: Labour shortages would not be as severe if 100,000+ Canadians weren't being aborted each year.

I blame this sad state of affairs (pun intended) on the contraceptive mentality of the West.

Most everyone here assumes that if a woman wants to have a baby, all she has to do is stop taking the Pill (why did she start in the first place?) And if she doesn't want to have a baby and gets pregnant anyway, what then?

She kills her unborn child and then asks her partner to get his tubes tied?

Is this what's meant by "glorious and free"?

So, with the intrinsic connection between sexual intercourse and procreation so thoroughly sundered in the popular mind, it becomes much easier to justify not only contraception and abortion (two branches of the same evil tree), but even the oh-so euphemistically-named practice of "selective reduction" based on, among other things, gender preference. Of course, it then also becomes easy to justify non-procreative sexual relationships, such as (by definition) between same-sex partners — who then loudly insist on being accorded the same social and legal status as a traditional family with husband, wife, and child(ren) — despite the glaringly obvious fact that their aberrant orientation more or less consigns them to genetic oblivion.

There was a time when homosexuality was (correctly) classified as a mental disorder. Now it is flaunted as merely another lifestyle choice — what's next, bestiality or coprophilia? Things are indeed getting much worse, and much more rapidly. But there is hope yet.

This brings us back to the embattled mayor of Truro. If you'd like to express support for his courageous stance, write him. The really sad part of the story is that he's just being true to his (morally sensible but increasingly unpopular) convictions — which, by the way, are ultimately informed by the very same ethos enshrined in the words of our national anthem, O Canada.

Being glorious and free is not about being gay and proud of it.

It's about seeking (and upholding) the truth — because only the truth will make us free.

Once Upon a Cell

Many of the arguments advanced by "pro-choice" people and those who support embryonic stem cell research are based on the idea that embryos (or fetuses) are not human beings, with the rights that human beings enjoy under the law (including the right to life).

In a way, it's easy to see why the preborn child, especially in the earliest stage of development, is not commonly regarded as a human person (with the rights accorded to persons). When we utter the word "person" most people would immediately conjure up a mental image of a bipedal example of Homo sapiens — probably an adult. But clearly, teenagers, children, toddlers, and babies are also persons. They're just at different stages of development. And so we have to ask: what about the preborn, at any stage of development?

Fr. Tad Pacholczyk writes:

Embryos, of course, are remarkably unfamiliar to us. They lack hands and feet. They don't have faces or eyes for us to look into. Even their brains are lacking. They look nothing like what we are used to seeing when we imagine a human being. But they are as human as you and me. When we look at a scanning electron micrograph of a human embryo, a small cluster of cells, sitting on the point of a sewing pin, we need to ask ourselves a very simple question: "Isn't that exactly what a young human is supposed to look like?" The correct answer to that question doesn't depend on religion or theology, but on embryology. Embryos seem unfamiliar to us on first glance, and we have to make an explicit mental effort to avoid the critical mistake of disconnecting from who we once were as embryos.

Isn't it interesting that everyone who advocates the destruction of embryos, whether through abortion or embryonic stem cell research, was once an embryo? This reminds me of the T-shirt with the two embryos on it, with one saying to the other: "It may be hard to believe right now, but we'll be pro-choice someday."

Choice?

The issue of whether the public display of graphic abortion images is morally licit is not simply a matter of individual taste, nor is it merely an instance of disrespect for the remains of human persons. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC has plenty of graphic images of dead people. Is the public display of these images a sign of disrespect towards the deceased? I think not. Does it cause some people viewing the images to become emotionally distraught? Likely. That is by design — the displays are meant to afflict the comfortable. And those who choose to view the displays have a further choice: how they will take their knowledge and use it to try to reduce the incidence of this kind of injustice. It need hardly be said that some choices have profoundly evil results. Abortion is clearly one of those choices, because it is the deliberate, willful destruction of an innocent human person.

So why are we so reluctant to publicly acknowledge the truth of what abortion does? Why do we recoil from the idea of displaying images of abortion's ghastly results? If we object to the public display of such images, we should logically object to the display of other images that also portray grave injustice, whether it is the torture and murder of Jews, blacks, or any group that has been stripped of personhood, of human dignity.

Fr. Frank Pavone, the current national director of Priests for Life, would be well aware of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about giving human remains due respect, and yet he also asserts that in order for people to be galvanized into opposing abortion, they have to see what it does to the unborn child. We have had in utero images of fetal development since the Swedish medical photographer Lennart Nilsson published his pathbreaking book A Child is Born, more than 40 years ago, but that did not stop the U.S. Supreme Court from effectively declaring unborn children to be non-persons (i.e. Roe vs. Wade) in 1973. Now, more than 46 million slaughtered Americans later, can we say that showing beautiful photos of unborn children has been effective in stemming the tide of this present-day holocaust? The data suggests otherwise.

One definition of insanity is: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. It's time to "Think Different" about exposing the truth about abortion. The current "soft" approach of showing beautiful babies in utero hasn't worked for the last 34 years.

You can read more about Fr. Pavone and his work at Priests for Life.

U of C GAP 2007

GAP Volunteers
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

The University of Calgary Pro-Life Club sponsored the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) exhibit on March 19 and 20. Just like last year, onlookers stopped by and engaged GAP volunteers in friendly debate about abortion. Most of the pro-choice arguments were the usual cliches: what about in cases of rape, what about overpopulation and climate change, who will take care of these unwanted children, etc. Many people refused to acknowledge that unborn human beings are legal persons, entitled to full protection under the law. This is what it has come to in our day and age — comparisons have to be made to the Holocaust, to slavery, and to modern genocide (e.g. Rwanda), in order to stir public debate about Canada's unrestricted access to abortion in every trimester. Unlike in the U.S., abortion in Canada is taxpayer-funded. Such a deal. And we dare to sing "God keep our land glorious and free" in our national anthem? What for? So we can murder more babies?

Fighting for the Most Vulnerable

Today marks the beginning of a long weekend here in Alberta, Canada — Monday being Family Day. I set aside Saturday morning to photograph my friend, Stephanie Gray, who needed a new headshot for her official bio. Let me tell you just a little bit about Stephanie: She's Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform, a pro-life organization that educates the public about what abortion is — the legalized murder of unborn children. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to understand this, or if they do, it's only at a vaguely notional level, which allows them to remain largely indifferent to the fact that in Canada their tax dollars are paying for unrestricted access to abortion in every trimester. As if this grossly immoral misuse of public money isn't tragedy enough, I reflect on the fact that two of the world's wealthiest men, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, give vast sums of money to various organizations that promote abortion. I'm not making any of this up. In 2003, American Life League tallied contributions to Planned Parenthood from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and came up with a total of $31,567,108 — which may not seem like a lot compared to the total philantrophy attributed to them. But let's look at this another way: according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the average cost of an abortion in the U.S. is $372; do some basic math, and the Gates contributions as of 2003 represent 84,858 abortions. Think about it: 84,858 people aren't with us today in part because the world's wealthiest couple thought it was a good idea to give money to organizations that murder the unborn. And it's not like this was even an original idea — see Bill Moyers' 2003 interview with Bill Gates:

When I was growing up, my parents were almost involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that. And so it's fascinating. At the dinner table my parents are very good at sharing the things that they were doing. And almost treating us like adults, talking about that.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go. So I always knew there was something about really educating people and giving them choices in terms of family size.

Good grief, it's bad enough that Microsoft Windows is already installed on over 90% of the world's personal computers, but to think that every time I pay for a Microsoft product I help to fund the murder of unborn children makes me sick to my stomach. And I even went to the trouble of getting Microsoft-certified on Windows XP. Sigh.

There are alternatives to Microsoft products, you know. If you're so inclined, try Linux, or if you want something that's much less of a hassle, get a Mac. Please. Either way, you'll have far fewer problems with viruses and other malware. I played with Windows 1.0 in 1985, I've installed and configured it for other people starting with 2.0, and I've been using it regularly myself since Windows 3.1. My involvement with Windows ends with XP and 2003. No Vista for me.

Now, if you're from Canada and you've read this far, why not join the fight to end abortion?

What's the Real Problem Here?

At a recent education reform conference in Austin, Texas, Apple CEO Steve Jobs criticized teacher unions, blaming them for refusing to fire incompetent teachers in public schools. He was applauded loudly several times during his speech. Jobs admitted that his pointed criticism of the teacher's unions may have cost Apple some business in the state of Texas. Meanwhile, at the same venue, Michael Dell asserted that unions were originally created to protect employees from abusive employers. Curiously, Mr. Dell neglected to mention that some former Dell employees are suing his company for witholding their just wages.

These men were both right about problems with schools as these are currently organised, but they both also missed a much larger issue: contemporary mass compulsion schooling (note that I don't use the word education) is itself dysfunctional in many ways. How so? Consider John Taylor Gatto's assertion (and remember, he taught in New York City public schools for 30 years and was awarded New York State Teacher of the Year at the end of his career):

I want to open up concealed aspects of modern schooling such as the deterioration it forces in the morality of parenting. You have no say at all in choosing your teachers. You know nothing about their backgrounds or families. And the state knows little more than you do. This is as radical a piece of social engineering as the human imagination can conceive. What does it mean?

One thing you do know is how unlikely it will be for any teacher to understand the personality of your particular child or anything significant about your family, culture, religion, plans, hopes, dreams. In the confusion of school affairs even teachers so disposed don’t have opportunity to know those things. How did this happen?

Before you hire a company to build a house, you would, I expect, insist on detailed plans showing what the finished structure was going to look like. Building a child’s mind and character is what public schools do, their justification for prematurely breaking family and neighborhood learning. Where is documentary evidence to prove this assumption that trained and certified professionals do it better than people who know and love them can? There isn’t any.

Think carefully about what Gatto wrote, and then watch Ken Robinson's 2006 speech on creativity and education. You'll wonder why we've so readily accepted the way schools label children and even insist that they be medicated for the sake of managing the classroom environment. Many parents, hungry for the quick fix so they can get on with getting on, accept the diagnosis without too much protest. Forget behavioral modification, which takes patience, effort, and time — all of which are in increasingly short supply these days.

Can you say — massive abdication of parental responsibility? See, I knew you could. Should we be surprised? Hardly. After all, we've already decided as a culture that children are essentially disposable. But that's something most people won't admit, either.

Therein lies another tragedy — the corruption and death of the soul of Western civilization. As Mother Teresa observed: "When a mother can kill her unborn child, what is left of the West to save?"

What, indeed?

Oh, we certainly need educational reform — more urgently than ever. But this won't happen for as long as we don't see the kind of social reform that is only possible when people are angry or disturbed enough about the status quo to actually do something about it. A friend wrote to me in January 2003:

I took a position in the Histopathology lab of the Foothills Hospital. On my first day of training they took me over to a dozen buckets of abortions and told me they were to be dissected daily and prepared for processing. For the next 8 months I had to look without deception or illusion at the way our culture regards the gift of life. This experience woke me up out of my complacency like a hammer over the head and I began to pray and seek God and ask for a revelation of truth. It led me back to the Catholic Church that I had left at the age of 20. I experienced a deep conversion but when I returned to the Church I was horrified to discover droves of people who go to Church but believe like the world and are indifferent to the grave sin of the culture.

Meanwhile, do we still have functioning consciences? Then we should be silent no more.

More on this later.

Life Chain 2006

DSC_8957.JPG
Originally uploaded by victorpanlilio.

October 1, 2006 was grey and overcast. Nonetheless, almost 400 people showed up to hold signs telling the simple truth of what abortion does. I'm saddened that the number of participants is significantly down from the previous two years, but this only underscores the fact that we need to do more to get people to think about what abortion really is — mass murder, perpetrated against the most vulnerable human beings: unborn children. As Mother Teresa observed, "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."