“What welled up in that dread moment?”
Fear. Burning like a core deep within, like a fire blazing.
“The deceiver wants you to think that is real. Yes, in an instant it consumes you, but you were calling out my name.”
Then I remembered your promises my Lord, to ask for anything in your name and it will be given.
And I knew the good and righteous life that this soul you’ve tied me to – should live.
His very life a gift from God.
You showed me a glimpse of the plans you had in store and
without touching,
without seeing,
without knowing, I let go.
It was yours Lord, totally and completely.
There was nothing for me to control.
There was no reason to fear at all.
For you are the Sovereign Lord
who truly reigns over us all.
In that instant, like a transition
from dark to light, the world changed.
Not the greater world.
Not those outside the experience,
but those of great faith inside.
Your Great Spirit Lord came rushing in,
It filled us Lord,
It filled our lungs,
It filled our hearts.
There was a peace, a tranquility.
The wind blew out the fire.
Then I heard cries of joy, the fear was gone.
Our lungs filled to sing your praises:
Blessed be the Lord God Almighty
By the grace and mercy of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ
In whose name we prayed, – and it was answered.
Inspiration faith
Last night, while searching through a “sister to sister” directory created by our church’s women’s ministry, I noticed that not one man’s name was mentioned. All the married women had anonymous spouses. Their children’s names were listed, but not the husbands.
When I mentioned that to my wife, Donna, she wrote it off to the editor keeping the focus on the “sister to sister” relationship. That quick explanation struck me as being wrong, not because it might be true, but that such behavior isn’t apparent cause for concern, even within a fairly conservative church that upholds traditional marriage of the unity of one man and one woman.
Call it a feminine blind spot.
So this morning’s news reveals British scientists are creating sperm cells from human embryos so they can treat infertility.
In another article, related to the Mark Sanford affair, Gallup finds that the most morally objectionable behavior in the United States is “married men and women having an affair”.
So we have a case of husbands ignored by women within a church, the male physiological function being replaced by scientists using the human offspring of other males, and the most reprehensible behavior is marital infidelity, while divorce is more morally acceptable than wearing fur coats.
Most women can’t see the problem. My own wife doesn’t see it, despite long discussions on the topic.
Again, from today’s news: even when a female author gets most things right – she still doesn’t see the problem.
Can you see it?
And to be fair – many men can’t see the problem either.
Morality men, Relationships, woman
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
“…we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
Barbara Curtis of MommyLife brought this to my attention:
The Americans Who Risked Everything by Rush Limbaugh’s dad.
Try reading through it aloud during today’s celebrations without getting choked up or shedding a tear.
God Bless America – and those who love her so.
Happy Independence Day everyone!
Inspiration freedom, patriotic
I believe the way we view life, as in “…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” profoundly shapes our worldview decision making. And it really comes down to only 2 possible views – either human life is expendable, or it is sacred, worthy of self-sacrifice. Our country was founded on the latter, but it is fast moving towards complete human expendability.
On Thursday, July 2nd, a meeting was held in the old Foster Town House, the oldest continuously operated public meeting house in the country. It was a great, even historic, example of how this country debates important issues. Congressman Langevin, being home in RI during the July 4th recess, wanted to hear from his constituents. Well, he got an earful.
I was called via robo-caller by the congressman to attend the meeting, and expected several hundred people to show. But short notice, and virtually no advertising made for a very small, but highly charged group of about 30 people. After the Congressman gave a brief overview of his recent efforts, the fireworks flew. (I regret not bringing my camera!)
Cap and trade (energy), the stimulus bills, exorbitant government spending, transparency and health care topped the issues. Everyone who desired got a chance to question the Congressman and air their grievances. Those present learned his primary concern was getting universal health care reform passed this year.
Accidently shot in the back at a firing range as a teen, Jim Langevin is paralyzed from the waist down. To a great extent, this experience has shaped his perceptions, colors his language and drives his ambitions. And while I applaud the many legislative successes he has made for the handicapped, I’m concerned about his ideas for the future, particularly health care and the moral implications of government oversight of each person’s life.
Our meeting eventually ventured into the public funding of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research (HESCR). The congressman considers himself pro-life, often voting against abortion, but given his injury, he expressed his own idea of what it means to be pro-life.
He suggested that excess embryos from IVF (in-vitro fertilization) procedures were only going to be discarded as medical waste. His take is, unless the “fertilized egg is implanted” it’s not going to be a child. To use these “fertilized eggs” for research that might prove beneficial to others is to be greatly “pro-life”, and he cited Sen. Orrin Hatch as a role model who held similar views.
Setting aside the Utah Senator, who is not my representative, I was perturbed by the congressman’s repeated references to “fertilized eggs” and the idea that embryos are not already children. Using the wrong term masks the moral implications of what is actually done, which is utilitarian destruction of human beings.
After the meeting, while I was speaking with one of his local aids, the congressman came over and we had a brief private conversation on this issue. Here’s what I conveyed:
“You keep referring to human embryos as fertilized eggs, but they are not eggs. Do you know how long they are fertilized eggs?” “No” “Once fertilization starts, they are fertilized eggs for about twelve hours. Let me illustrate this. Say you have an ice-cube, which represents the egg, and you put it into a glass, which is the womb, or the IVF “petri-dish”, and you fertilize it – add sperm or in the case of our ice-cube, add heat. When the ice cube melts, you no longer have an ice-cube, you have water. The same is true of the human egg, it’s gone after the completion of amphimixis – you now have a zygotic human being. But to take it one step further, imagine that the water started filling the glass on it’s own. That’s what human life does – grows on it’s own in the proper environment. So we really shouldn’t refer to human embryos as fertilized eggs.”
We continued the conversation on the topic of ESCR, but Rep. Langevin continued to refer to fertilized eggs, even after I showed him I was educated on the topic. I asked him if it was okay to have a utilitarian view of human life – to use other’s body parts without their permission, and he struggled with that briefly, but was saved by his assistant who declared it was time to go.
During our discussion I asked if he was familiar with Robert P. George – he wasn’t. It’s now a goal of mine to hand Jim Langevin a personalized copy of this book.
If scientific accuracy does not inform our moral decisions at the highest level of government, then I have little confidence decisons made will be in the best interests of the country. Debate is about drilling down until the solid truth is found, and building upon that.
The Congressman has some research to do about what it means to be fully human.
Human Rights HESCR, moral relativity
It’s been a while since I’ve actually wrote a blog post (as a blog post). I’d call it writer’s bloq, except that’s not really true – I’ve been writing and commenting over at Jill Stanek’s blog with some old friends.
Of course, I’ve also been following the impact technology has had on both getting the message out and suppressing it, as we recently saw in Iran. Apparently, the regime in Iraq waited until they identified the organizers using deep packet inspection, then sent goons in the middle of the night to take them away.
I started a post on the wayward South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, but the more I learned of what was going on, the more I realized there’s a little more info that’s needed for perspective.
I’ve been digging into technical stuff, exploring a collection of Internet apps, and helping Jill Stanek change over to a new design.
And with this particular post – I’m checking to see how scheduled posts work in WordPress. The Moveable Type update at Jill’s broke that feature, and while an easy fix, it poured a pile of error messages into the email server, which then kept serving them up. Ah, technology.
General blog
Mon 22 Jun 2009 – 20:39 – Okay – found it. Talk about strange. The bug was how a function was being passed by reference (as opposed to a variable) in custom PHP code that handled commenting in the iNove theme. Apparently this had to do with the 2.7.1 update. It’s amazing (and rather disconcerting) how a single line of code can break that much of both back-end editing and front end display. Not a very robust system. (So much for moving away from compilers into this run-time environment.) To be fair, the error message showed exactly where the problem was when I looked at the editing environment, but what doesn’t make sense is why it showed up now, and didn’t break when I initially installed 2.7.1. Back to business.
Mon 22 Jun 2009 – 20:39 – Issue is related to commenting, and how that’s handled.
Mon 22 Jun 2009 – 20:30 – Issue is related to the theme I use (which is a modified iNove). Substituted a theme for time being, until I can get to root of problem.
Apparently I’m having a problem with the main page of the blog. Trying to track down the source of the problem. Thanks for your patience.
General
I provided this testimony on June 4th at the RI State House.
Honorable Chairman and Esteemed Members of the H.E.W. Committee,
Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Chris Arsenault, and although I am a board member of CareNet, Rhode Island, a pregnancy resource center equipped with ultrasound, I’m here as a private citizen to present testimony in support of both H-5334, (aka “A Women’s Right to Know Bill”), and H-5555, (aka “The Fetal Ultrasound Bill”).
I’m a firm believer that just as this particular review process desires to see the full scope and consequences of the proposed legislation, and takes the necessary steps to reveal that information, so too does every person desire to understand the full extent of medical consequences for life-impacting surgeries.
I’m offering the patient’s view on knowing.
As a man, I can’t get pregnant, but I had hernia surgery a few years ago that sheds light on this legislation. Though the surgeon discussed with me and said he performed two different repair methods, I selected one based on my best understanding at that time. Through a mix-up the surgeon used the other method. Yes, my hernia was repaired, but the result was a longer, more painful recovery. Later, my own research showed the invasive procedure I initially chose was considerably more dangerous than the plug method performed on me. My post-op conversation with the surgeon clarified things, but revealed critical information I wish I knew at the initial consultation.
Each patient’s understanding of consequences for medical decisions requires timely, accurate and high quality information provided in easy to understand ways. This simplicity and clarity is crucial for patients making critical life impacting decisions. Such information should be free from any medical provider conflict of interest. We need to know – would we consent if we knew other information?
This question raises two important considerations:
- Both availability of information pertinent to our decision, and our understanding of it as patients, changes as we learn.
- We obtain second opinions on critical medical conditions to verify diagnosis, affirm course of treatment and to avoid any potential provider conflict of interest.
During consultations medical professionals don’t always convey critical information for decision making in ways patients immediately grasp, because half the problem is on the patient’s end. What are they paying attention to? What do they consider important vs what is being offered/suggested? Learning usually leads to more, often better, questions.
As for second opinions, I later learned the method I initially chose would take almost 6-8 times longer than the 10-12 minutes needed for the plug method. Overall, it was a more complex, expensive procedure. And, though qualified, the surgeon’s discomfort doing that procedure, (and the risk of medical liability and death), was much greater. As it was, he performed 3 other hernia plug surgeries scheduled immediately after mine. It appears there was a conflict of interest between what I desired and what was most valuable for the surgeon.
Abortion is much more consequential than a hernia repair. The fetus is the woman’s offspring – her child. While most everyone knows this, the average person may not know the gestational development of the child enough to fully understand medical risks, or comprehend the emotional health impacts associated with permanently denying the mothering of that child.
With abortion, there is an inherent conflict of interest between the life of the child and the motivations and purposes of the abortion provider with regard to the mother. My discussions with many post-abortive women (and men) indicate few considered this in the midst of their decision making.
Through CareNet’s reports and personal testimonies I’ve learned of the enormous positive impacts of Limited Obstetrical Ultrasound. One angry abortion demanding young man, while viewing the ultrasound, found he already was a father. He broke down and cried. I’ve met mothers whose first glimpse of their child’s humanity came through ultrasound imaging. I’ve seen the smiling faces of children who, had it not been for that ultrasound, and their mother’s knowing, would have been shredded into pieces.
The government’s responsibility is to protect the interests of patients where the consequences are greatest, and must fairly balance patients interests with those who provide medical care. Our purpose in legislation is not to amend the past, but to safeguard and secure the future, not only for those who walk into clinics, but also for those yet to be born.
I urge each member of the H.E.W. Committee to visit CareNet to learn more about how it provides critical, timely and complete information on a personal basis to those facing the irreversible consequences of life-impacting decisions.
Would we consent if we had more information?
Would we consent if we really knew?
The wisest advice is : First – do no harm.
Human Rights abortion, patients, right to know, ultrasound
I wrote this little story to illustrate the essentials of the Born Alive issue that surround Barack Obama.
Once upon a time there was a successful hit-man, who occasionally blundered during his killing. One day the hit-man was hired to terminate an innocent Bystander, because Bystander’s presence and long term relationship was not desired, and it was perfectly legal for hit men to kill innocent human beings like Bystander when they were hidden.
So the hit-man executed his killing technique, but in the process, Bystander did not die, but he was flushed out into the open. The Big Law of the Land said innocents in the open were to be protected.
The hit-man was now in a quandary: If the hit-man didn’t kill Bystander he’d be taken out by his client because he didn’t fulfill his Contract. On the other hand, now that Bystander was flushed into the open, the hit-man was to care for and tend to Bystander, so Bystander would be alive for a long, long time. What to do? Would the hit-man follow the law or save his own skin (and get paid and remain at the top of his game)?
Those who saw the innocent Bystander dying wanted to call for help, but were fearful of the hit-man, who told them to shut up. Bystander, now an out-in-the-open innocent, was suffocated by the hit-man, a clear violation of the Big Law of the Land.
Jill the Nurse did not shut up, and she told others that hit-men weren’t abiding by the Big Law, because the hit-men’s killing technique included flushing innocents out into the open, where it was easier for them to kill their targets.
Soon defenders of the Big Law stepped up to say hit-men couldn’t finish their job, after they had flushed their targets into the open. A law was added to the Big Law of the Land saying you must aid innocents who were flushed, but the law didn’t stop the flushing of innocents into the open by the Hit-Men. The new law needed local Teeth.
Baracko, a champion for Hit-Men International, stepped up to defend the Hit-men when local Teeth legislation was presented. That legislation said Hit-men must call in other specialists who must work hard to keep the hit-man’s target alive.
Baracko, in his contorted, but oh-so mesmerizing manner, wove a magical spell of “Words” to defend the hit-men, claiming that their honor and integrity must not be impugned, because, after all, they were Professionals™. He claimed that when killing, if innocents (like Bystander) were flushed into the open, that the hit-men would do the Right Thing®, meaning they would follow the law, and instead of killing their targets would suddenly begin to keep them alive at all costs.
And so the local legislators, many being close and dear friends of the hit-men, bought Baracko’s spell (using power money provided by Hit-Men International.) So they ignored the Big Law of the Land because it had no local Teeth and hit-men continued to kill innocent bystanders by flushing them into the open, then dispatching them in new and novel ways, including throwing them in black garbage bags with bleach then placing the bags out into the hot midday sun.
Over the course of time, and as a reward for his loyalty, Hit-Men International helped put Baracko, a renowned scholar of the Big Law of the Land, into the office of the Big Cheese. Proving that the Big Law of the Land can be ignored when lots of Money and Power can be obtained.
The End
Human Rights BAIPA
How to apply BioSLED – the best argument against abortion-choice against those who believe a mother’s “right to bodily autonomy” justifies abortion.
In abortion debates, some concede the pre-born are human beings, but they’ll say:
Abortion is justifiable, because the mother has the right to control how her own body is used.
Such arguments justify abortion by asserting that the mother’s right to her bodily autonomy is greater than her own child’s right to life during gestation, or even later.
All bodily autonomy arguments play on Dependency. They deny the intrinsic value of human beings by falsely assuming (”begging the question” -petitio principii) that the responsibility to be morally humane can have exceptions. They subvert the intrinsic value of the mother and the definition of motherhood by insisting that an act of violence against an innocent dependent human being is moral, humane and beneficial.
BioSLED Response: “Can you name one act of mortal violence inflicted upon a dependent human being which is moral, humane, beneficial and desired by the dependent?”
Who receives the benefits of the violence?
After live birth, is it okay to kill dependent newborns, toddlers, kids, teens?
Reasoning: Show there are no exceptions for violence against dependent human beings. This pits a person’s understanding of self-determination up against their own victimizing behavior. If someone genuinely believes in the goodness of humanity and self-autonomy, when they resort to violence to benefit themselves, they desecrate their own humanity and cruelly victimize others.
Killing is an act of commission, meaning the violence of abortion is a direct application of force (argumentum ad baculum) on the mother’s behalf, and the violence only happens because she is a mother.
Those who defend bodily autonomy violence provide a circular argument. They reject the notion of the intrinsic value of the dependent human child while at the same time demanding the intrinsic-value of the mother be upheld. Such inequality of basic human rights is the hallmark of discrimination.
Further, some claim the Environment – the natural location of the child in the mother’s womb, justifies the abortion, but admit bodily dependency ends when birth occurs. Others, like Peter Singer, and President Barack Obama, aim to sever relational dependency, to permit the killing of dependent newborns.
So the issue is not gestational dependency alone, but violence explicitly against a dependent. On this planet, we are all dependent upon each other to some degree. There are no exceptions to being humane with dependents.
For Legalists: Legalists place functionality above morality by falsely assuming human rights are granted by a government. The documented, legally demonstrable view is that human rights are endowed by a Creator (meaning they are intrinsic) and merely defended by a government. Some claim gestation is a special right granted to the pre-born by the mother but this rejects the notion that life is a right granted from outside of man’s control, and rejects the very process of motherhood by which all humans live. So it condones the use of violence against the very nature of human life itself.
Another variation, pregnancy as slavery, is invalid because pregnancy is a humane, survivable natural good, beneficial to all of humanity, while murder of posterity is not. Consent to intercourse was free-will consent to a dependent human being, as that is the natural purpose of intercourse. Demanding one uphold their responsibilities to other human beings, such as respecting the life you participated in creating, is a far cry from imposing situations upon human beings who had no choice in the outcome – which is precisely what those who demand abortion do to the unborn human beings.
So legally, the government is failing to uphold the very human rights they are incorporated to defend.
Human Rights abortion, autonomy, bioSLED
How to handle personhood arguments using BioSLED – the best argument against abortion-choice.
In abortion debates, one often hears:
“Abortion is okay because the fetus is not a person.”
Non-personhood arguments play on Level of Development. They deny the intrinsic nature of human beings by falsely assuming (”begging the question” -petitio principii) two components (body and person), instead of one. They justify abortion by asserting a “person” is not present at the time of an abortion by defining what it means to be a person.
BioSLED Response: “Can you prove to me you are a person without using your physical body in any way?” The other person won’t be able to.
Reasoning: Self-awareness doesn’t require communicating your own awareness to others. Yet body presence indicates you exist – your body is your means of communication. A test for intangible personhood which ignores the human body is an invalid test, because no natural human being can pass it.
Science tells us the pre-born are human beings, based on numerous established facts, such as embryological development, uniqueness of DNA and that life comes from life – the Law of Biogenesis. After amphimixis humans exist – they have human flesh and blood. Given a proper environment and nourishment they thrive.
Demanding the pre-born communicate at an advanced level of development is unfair because it smuggles in the idea that communication only occurs according to a presumed definition provided by the abortion-choicer.
The abortion-choicer imposes a conditional test of self-awareness they cannot pass, and assumes their own level of development is sufficient. So abortion-choicers discriminate against the pre-born due to their level of development, but use their own level of development as a definition of their humanity.
Placing the abortion-choicer back at the same level of development as the pre-born should alter their perspective, if they are intellectually honest, on what it means to be a human person.
For the Philosophers: Ontological vs Epistemilogical Statements
Ontological thoughts have to do with the metaphysical – existence/being/nature. Epistemological has to do with knowing – beliefs, opinions etc. We shouldn’t confuse these terms or switch their meanings. Descartes, no matter how much thinking he did, did not exist due to his thinking. He existed prior to his conscious thoughts and that existence was a pre-requisite for his ability to communicate his beliefs. “I think, therefore I am” is putting Decartes before the horse.
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Human Rights abortion, bioSLED