Content, Shmontent.

Time for the third-lowest form of blogging: a link without commentary! (Just above YouTube videos and Lolcats.)

This has been circulating the pro-life blogosphere. An abortionist describes aborting an 18-week fetus while she herself was 18 weeks pregnant:

With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg. Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick - a fluttery "thump, thump" in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a "thump, thump" in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes - without me - meaning my conscious brain - even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling - a brutally visceral response - heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life. Doing second trimester abortions did not get easier after my pregnancy; in fact, dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder.

The article is an interesting read.

QFT: "I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother's uterus - but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable."

Her world view is somewhat depressing. Dare I call it pagan? Her idea that denying a woman an abortion is violence against her, but performing the abortion is horrible violence against the baby.... It's as if violence is an unavoidable truth, an evil to which there is no alternative, and that we live in a world with no hope of ever achieving peace. There is something very sorrowful about that. But I suppose that's what a world without Christ is. As Tolkien understood it in The Lord of the Rings, prior to the incarnation, there was never any hope of lasting peace. "Only a fool's hope."

Ok that was, in fact, commentary. Fifth-lowest form of blogging (above baby pictures).

And Yet—Somehow—Life Goes On.

I think the stoics had it right when they said that if you wanted to be happy, you could not let external events affect you. It makes sense; if your happiness depends on factors entirely beyond your control, how could you ever achieve it?

This is particularly true for elections. I was mildly upset for a little while after the 2006 election, when the Republicans, apparently tired of running the legislative branch of government, succeeded in giving it away to their opposition. Eventually I realized that it didn't matter if the rest of the nation disagreed with my political or social beliefs. I don't require a majority referendum to validate what I know to be the truth.

With this election, obviously the greatest loss is in the cause for the defense of human life, given Obama's track record of being the single most pro-choice member of the senate, going so far as to oppose legal rights for newly born infants, and boldly standing up for his vote against the ban on the single most barbaric procedure ever devised by man.

The judges that Obama will appoint are going to set the pro-life cause back decades, and we will undoubtedly be feeling their effects for years after.

But, ultimately, this civil rights battle won't be won in the courts, but in the hearts and minds of the people across this great nation. And it is constantly being fought and won on a daily basis, judging by polls and statistics. The abortion ratio continues to fall, even under pro-abortion presidents, and each new generation is more pro-life than the previous. According to a 2003 Gallup poll, 72% of teens believe that abortion is morally wrong, and fewer teens than adults believe it should be allowed in all circumstances (19% vs. 26%). And as the Baby Gap widens, this shift will likely continue. Any philosophy that frowns on procreation is unlikely to survive.

My next concern was over economics. Considering Obama's proximity to the people who, if not caused, then severely contributed to the current financial situation, and considering his outright socialism, I was worried about financial security.

But it's times like this that we should thank God for our Papa, Benedict XVI, who reminds us, "we are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing. All these things that appear to be real are in fact secondary. Only God's words are a solid reality."

And he is right (of course). What is money? Does it make me happy or lead me to God? If not, why should I be concerned about it, then?

While a national election may seem far more "big picture" than burnt toast, it is important to remember that in the biggest picture, which is that of God, they are both as dust. And in that big picture view, it doesn't matter who wins the election; His is the final victory.

But perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind, even in the midst of darkness, is St. Thomas Aquinas' insistence that "God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good." What that greater good is, how it will come about, and when, are questions we may not ever fully understand the answers to until God reveals them to us in the next life.