Paul Ranalli: Why I am not an abortion doctor

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/02/07/paul-ranalli-why-i-am-not-an-abortion-doctor.aspx

Some of the comments at the end are outrageous. It seems now in Canada there is no question that abortion involves killing a person, they're debating it like war- whether its just or unjust.

I don't know if that would be good or bad. It is obviously unjust. Maybe it is actually a step in the right direction?

lewis love

Love is not affectionate feeling,
but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good
as far as it can be obtained.

tons of chester

This chapter made me literally "lol" more than once, so I will share it :cD

G.K. Chesterton's essay from Tremendous Trifles, entitled "On Lying in Bed":

On Lying in Bed

Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a coloured pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling. This, however, is not generally a part of the domestic apparatus on the premises. I think myself that the thing might be managed with several pails of Aspinall and a broom. Only if one worked in a really sweeping and masterly way, and laid on the colour in great washes, it might drip down again on one's face in floods of rich and mingled colour like some strange fairy rain; and that would have its disadvantages. I am afraid it would be necessary to stick to black and white in this form of artistic composition. To that purpose, indeed, the white ceiling would be of the greatest possible use; in fact, it is the only use I think of a white ceiling being put to.

But for the beautiful experiment of lying in bed I might never have discovered it. For years I have been looking for some blank spaces in a modern house to draw on. Paper is much too small for any really allegorical design; as Cyrano de Bergerac says, "Il me faut des géants." But when I tried to find these fine clear spaces in the modern rooms such as we all live in I was continually disappointed. I found an endless pattern and complication of small objects hung like a curtain of fine links between me and my desire. I examined the walls; I found them to my surprise to be already covered with wallpaper, and I found the wallpaper to be already covered with uninteresting images, all bearing a ridiculous resemblance to each other. I could not understand why one arbitrary symbol (a symbol apparently entirely devoid of any religious or philosophical significance) should thus be sprinkled all over my nice walls like a sort of small-pox. The Bible must be referring to wallpapers, I think, when it says, "Use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do." I found the Turkey carpet a mass of unmeaning colours, rather like the Turkish Empire, or like the sweetmeat called Turkish Delight. I do not exactly know what Turkish Delight really is; but I suppose it is Macedonian Massacres. Everywhere that I went forlornly, with my pencil or my paint brush, I found that others had unaccountably been before me, spoiling the walls, the curtains, and the furniture with their childish and barbaric designs.

. . . . .

Nowhere did I find a really clear space for sketching until this occasion when I prolonged beyond the proper limit the process of lying on my back in bed. Then the light of that white heaven broke upon my vision, that breadth of mere white which is indeed almost the definition of Paradise, since it means purity and also means freedom. But alas! like all heavens, now that it is seen it is found to be unattainable; it looks more austere and more distant than the blue sky outside the window. For my proposal to paint on it with the bristly end of a broom has been discouraged--
never mind by whom; by a person debarred from all political rights-- and even my minor proposal to put the other end of the broom into the kitchen fire and turn it to charcoal has not been conceded. Yet I am certain that it was from persons in my position that all the original inspiration came for covering the ceilings of palaces and cathedrals with a riot of fallen angels or victorious gods. I am sure that it was only because Michael Angelo was engaged in the ancient and honourable occupation of lying in bed that he ever realized how the roof of the Sistine Chapel might be made into an awful imitation of a divine drama that could only be acted in the heavens.

The tone now commonly taken toward the practice of lying in bed is hypocritical and unhealthy. Of all the marks of modernity that seem to mean a kind of decadence, there is none more menacing and dangerous than the exultation of very small and secondary matters of conduct at the expense of very great and primary ones, at the expense of eternal ties and tragic human morality. If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics. Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met Ibsenite pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic acid. Especially this is so in matters of hygiene; notably such matters as lying in bed. Instead of being regarded, as it ought to be, as a matter of personal convenienceand adjustment, it has come to be regarded by many as if it were a part of essential morals to get up early in the morning. It is upon the whole part of practical wisdom; but there is nothing good about it or bad about its opposite.

. . . . .

Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before. It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanisms may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle. A man's minor actions and arrangements ought to be free, flexible, creative; the things that should be unchangeable are his principles, his ideals. But with us the reverse is true; our views change constantly; but our lunch does not change. Now, I should like men to have strong and rooted conceptions, but as for their lunch, let them have it sometimes in the garden, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the roof, sometimes in the top of a tree. Let them argue from the same first principles, but let them do it in a bed, or a boat, or a balloon. This alarming growth of good habits really means a too great emphasis on those virtues which mere custom can ensure, it means too little emphasis on those virtues which custom can never quite ensure, sudden and splendid virtues of inspired pity or of inspired candour. If ever that abrupt appeal is made to us we may fail. A man can get use to getting up at five o'clock in the morning. A man cannot very well get used to being burnt for his opinions; the first experiment is commonly fatal. Let us pay a little more attention to these possibilities of the heroic and unexpected. I dare say that when I get out of this bed I shall do some deed of an almost terrible virtue.

For those who study the great art of lying in bed there is one emphatic caution to be added. Even for those who can do their work in bed (like journalists), still more for those whose work cannot be done in bed (as, for example, the professional harpooners of whales), it is obvious that the indulgence must be very occasional. But that is not the caution I mean. The caution is this: if you do lie in bed, be sure you do it without any reason or justification at all. I do not speak, of course, of the seriously sick. But if a healthy man lies in bed, let him do it without a rag of excuse; then he will get up a healthy man. If he does it for some secondary hygienic reason, if he has some scientific explanation, he may get up a hypochondriac.

j-j-j-jenners

Today is swell.

Wakers occurred at 7:30, class was lightless at 8am. It was actually sort of fitting since it was Global Warming and I really felt like we were making contribution to the cause. 9:30am Moral Philosophy we discussed the Good and human actions. Stimulating.

I was kind of starving so I went straight Patriotward in hopes of procuring a bowl made of bread filled with stew. Alas, there was none to be had. After shedding a great many tears, I stopped tear-shedding. Then, I got a wrap. A BLT Ranch Chicken wrap on a jalapeno wrap with some tater chips. Yeeeeus.

Upon my return to my residatory, I had the astonishing realization that I lacked the usual labor to which I am accustomed. I therefore snuggled beneath my lovely microplush blankies, and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Then sleep came and I became covered in sweat. To be honest, it was sort of gross.

When I awoke, I attempted to make my physical appearance more presentable to the worldly audience (for the celestial beings don't care much for that sort of thing). I met Mr. Wyatt Seth Jordan Wheeler at his own residatory and we went Westminsterward. I didn't really feel like teaching but we reviewed the chapter then I gave them a lesson in Metaphysics. I explained the concepts of substance and accidents and applied it to the Eucharist. They were totally into it, my young philosophers. (can I get a "Amen"??)

The ride home was spent with our young Theodore singing and a-talkin and a-planmakin with Miss Erica. Dinner was had and it was yummy. Upon returning to my dormidence, I was contacted by Miss Jennifer Quarterson who summoned me to her chamber of rock where we....well, we rocked.

In probably 10 minutes I will leave her room and make for the chapular at Pangertonborningson. Cool.

Come Holy Spirit!!

the clinic

Geeze. Talk about rough.
You think you understand the reality of something, but then you get a little closer and it shows you've got a lot to learn.
Watching woman after woman-girl after girl to be more accurate- go in there one by one, not being able to stop them...it's such a big deal. It hurt me and all I did was pray outside.
There were so many images that came to mind being there.
One was of the babies as wrongly accused prisoners carried to their executions in the cages of their own mothers' wombs, escorted by clinic workers under the guise of false compassion.
What a bunch of bullshit.
The other image- actually it seemed pretty literal, came as a counselor and an escort walked on either side of a woman to the door of the clinic- like the image of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Unfortunately (worse than "unfortunately") she listened to the devil this time.

I've got tons of thoughts and reactions from this, but they'll need sorting out before being committed to the page.

In any case, I'll definitely be doing that again.

___________________________________

in other news, I am now convinced:

j&m catholic underground

what a joy overload!

http://ustream.tv/channel/catholic-underground

so far on this screen i have seen br. andrew, dennis dibenidetto, and patrick hughes. i'm about to see judd and maggie too. whooooooa. weird. cool.

what a hard question

I have for you a perhaps unexpected question, but one with which I've recently been presented. Perhaps its providential that its been brought to mind now since I'll have my first experience outside an abortion clinic tomorrow. Anyway I want to know what you'd say if someone asked you this (and the questioning goes like this):
Do you think abortion should be legal or illegal?
-Illegal
So if abortion became illegal, what should happen to women who get illegal abortions?
(most people on the video just said "i don't know")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6t_tdOkwo

I honestly don't know either, but I see it as a valid question. We've got to think through the consequences of our actions, right?

I've got a few thoughts on it, one of which is that we still have laws against suicide even though they are unenforceable and carry no penalty under the law. Another is that perhaps it should be the abortionist who is punished instead of the woman, but that doesn't seem entirely fair considering so much in our society contributes to women feeling like they have a need to kill their children and to try to put all the blame on one person doesn't quite seem accurate (though it is definitely the most concrete example of culpability, the doctor being the immediate agent cause of the abortion).

Another thought- it seems that the primary objective of the prolife movement is not the criminalization of abortion, but the widescale eradication of abortion as the deliberate killing of an unborn human. I think that frames the question a little differently. It's not as if the goal will be met if abortion is made illegal and nothing else in society changes.

Thoughts?