WTF?!

New year.

New blog title.

New president.

New blog post.

Man alive, I love convenience! Think of all the wonderful things it has done for us. We are more impatient, more selfish, more sedentary, more helpless, more diseased, more heavily insulated with adipose tissue, and on top of it all, most of us are more in debt.

We are a nation of convenience.

It is convenient for us to order fast food, rather than go home and cook a meal with our families. It is convenient for us to send our factory work to other countries rather than pay fair wages and employ our own citizens. It is convenient for us to drive five blocks to the store rather than walk. It is convenient for us to cheat on our spouses rather than work to maintain the sanctity of marriage. It is convenient for us to end a life rather than fight for one to thrive.

Why don't we fight?

Why do we simply tolerate?

If a crazed woman made her way into a neonatal intensive care unit and murdered all of the babies, it would be considered a horrible, sick crime. The woman would be imprisoned for life, and the world would scorn her.

And yet...

Somehow we tolerate a society where it's respectable for a woman to choose to stop the very life that grows inside her.

It is convenient. It is convenient to end the life of someone who cannot fight back rather than attempt to change the life of someone who can.

I've heard many arguments for abortion over the years, and I still have yet to hear one that justifies the murder of a baby, a life filled with hope. As tempting as it might be for some at this point, I'd ask that you'd please refrain from petty arguments about when life begins. We all still contain the same strand of DNA that was formed upon our conception, what is there to argue about?

If you are getting ready to throw down the rape card, which accounts for less than 1% of all abortions, shame on you. When a man ruins a woman's life by raping her, will it make her feel better to ruin someone else's life? Will it help her sleep better at night to extinguish the life that grows inside her. Will she stop having nightmares if she kills her own child? Do you honestly believe that by ending one life, you save another?

Many people whom I respect often bring up the point that it's unfair to bring a child into the world under bad circumstances, into broken homes or impoverished situations.

Is fighting to keep abortion legal and making it more easily accessible the right solution?

Why don't we fight for chastity? Why don't we fight to encourage young men and women to wait until they are married to have sex? Why don't we fight to build families and relationships based on faith? Why don't we fight for our children to maintain good morals? Why do embrace promiscuity and applaud selfishness?

I think it is time that we change our approach. Instead of fueling a media which is only interested in glorifying unhealthy relationships, we need to start taking responsibility for the society we build.

Our networks are full of immoral programs that lack even the slightest hint of substance because we allow it. Why don't we change the channel?

Teenage girls are heading to school in low cut tops, showing off the cleavage they don't even have yet so they can gain attention they most certainly do not need. As parents, why don't we say no?

The film Zack and Miri Make a Porno made $36,832,669. How can we justify that much money going to something of that nature?

Our society is the way it is because we not only allow it to be that way, but we contribute to it everyday.

Stop.

If you don't want a young woman's life to be burdened by having a baby when she is only 15, then work towards a society in which that is not the norm. Currently approximately 1,000,000 teenage girls become pregnant each year in the U.S.

Stop looking for the easy way out.

Abortions don't solve problems; they don't bandage or mend. Abortions are salt to the wound of a society that desperately needs to heal.

We live in a culture where people stand in assembly and applaud a man that promises his first act as president will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). Somehow we find this heroic.

Never mind the fact that FOCA will basically allow unrestricted unregulated abortions. Even pro choice people can't support that...right? I mean, seriously? Removing requirements that abortionists be licensed physicians and eliminating health and safety regulations for abortion clinics? This should set off little alarm bells in every rational person's mind. RING DING DING! No restrictions and regulations? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that go against the goal of many pro choice people? Aren't you trying to ensure the health and safety of women? This doesn't sound very healthy or safe.

FOCA will also prohibit bans on abortion after viability, repeal the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, remove any need for parental notification and consent for abortion, and attack conscience rights, forcing physicians to perform abortions even if it is against their own morals and values. I'm sorry, but if you have a conscience, I don't understand how you could support something like that. I invite you to enlighten me.

Today, Wednesday January 28th, is What the FOCA Activism Day. Start living a life of inconvenience, innocent lives depend on it. Our president promises us a time of a change, let's make sure it's the right change.

"The true test of the American ideal is whether we’re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life’s big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams."

-BARACK OBAMA, speech, Jun. 4, 2005

With all due respect, Mr. President, you meant live too right? "...at the very least, everyone has a chance to live, work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams"

Because that's the chance you were given. Not choice, chance.


What the FOCA?!


*Special thanks to Kenric Feldpausch for giving my nephew a voice.