Thursday, May 11, 2023

Abortion: An industry dependent on lies

No industry is more dependent on lies than abortion. What other industry today could even compete? Car sales? Politics? Illegal drug cartels or trafficking? Whichever it is, abortion is in that conversation.

Following is a multitude of lies advanced by the abortion industry. And the list isn't exhaustive. These are not obscure lies told by individuals with a negligible audience. These are lies pertaining to the fundamental premises of abortion. They are foundational. They are lies told by the abortion industry. They are lies told by politicians funded by the abortion industry. The are lies told by abortion influencers or media.

Lie #1: “My body, my choice”

The phrase “my body, my choice” is a common one among abortion proponents. The implication is that an abortion is merely a decision the woman makes about “her body.” But this is a lie. The baby’s body is not only philosophically but genetically distinct from the mother’s. A multitude of scientific papers acknowledge the individuality of new life at fertilization. For example: “Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.” (Signorelli J, Diaz ES, Morales P)

Lie #2: Fake embryo pictures

In October 2022, The Guardian posted outright fake pictures of a human embryo. It described the pictures as “tissue” or what a “pregnancy” looks like at various early weeks of pregnancy. However, the images only showed bits of gestational sac. The embryo was missing from the photos. The article quotes Dr. Joan Fleischman with MYA Network, the abortion business credited with the photos. Fleischman specifically said the internet and placards show human embryos with “human-like qualities.” However, she asserted, the fake pictures in the Guardian article—which showed only gestational sac bits—are “what it actually looks like.” A stir on social media followed, both from medical professionals, and from women who have experienced miscarriages and know first-hand that the images from The Guardian and MYA Network were fake.

The Guardian later attempted to explain the absence of the embryo with another false statement which was added to the article as a disclaimer: “This article was amended on 19 October 2022 to include the detail that at nine weeks the nascent embryo is not easily discernible to the naked eye.” However, The Guardian only added another false statement to their false article. At 9 weeks, the human embryo not only has human features, but is close to ¾ of an inch in size, or larger than many adult fingernails.

Rather than vanishing in shame, this lie is perpetuated, as recently as April 2023. Ted Lieu, congressman from California, was angered by the recent judicial decision that ruled the abortion drug mifepristone had not undergone proper FDA protocols when it was approved in 2000. Lieu tweeted one of the fake MYA Network pictures and included the claim: “Mifepristone is for abortions of less than 10 weeks. Below are pictures of pregnancies at 6, 7, 8, and 9 weeks.” When called out for sharing fake images, Lieu later doubled down by sharing another fake article from Insider, which claimed, among other lies, “There is no ‘heart’ at six weeks of pregnancy.” But the heart is known to develop as early as 3 weeks and can be observed beating by week 6. (See more on the heartbeat lie at Lie #8 below.)

Embryo at 7-8 weeks
(Credit: lunar caustic at Flickr)

The above photo is of an actual human embryo (7-8 weeks). The gestational sac, which can be observed surrounding the embryo, is only what The Guardian article showed.

Lie #3: "Abortion Saves Lives"
This phrase is commonly seen at protests, asserted by pro-abortion organizations, or even stated by abortion "doctors." This lie is obvious. Abortion ends a human life. "Abortion Causes Death" would be an accurate sign. Some claimants confuse treatment of ectopic pregnancy or other life-threatening diagnoses with abortion. See Lie #13. Others use incomplete data.

Illinois’ anti-pregnancy help Senate Bill 1909 (SB 1909) claims the “risk of death associated with childbirth is approximately 14 times higher than the risk of death associated with an abortion.” Again, the assertion dishonestly does not account for the baby variable, which results in 100% death for every completed abortion. 

The statistic is still specious even if only the life of the mother is considered. For example, a subsequent study Short and long term mortality rates associated with first pregnancy outcome looked at 463,473 women. The study states:

Previous population studies, however, have failed to control for complete reproductive histories. In this study we seek to eliminate the potential confounding effect of unknown prior pregnancy history by examining mortality rates associated specifically with first pregnancy outcome alone. We also examine differences in mortality rates associated with early abortion and late abortions (after 12 weeks).

They concluded: “Compared to women who delivered, women who had an early or late abortion had significantly higher mortality rates within 1 through 10 years.”

A 2020 study, Induced Abortion and the Increased Risk of Maternal Mortality, found similar results when more health information about the patients was factored. They summarize:

In Finland, where epidemiologic record linkage has been validated, the risk of death from legal induced abortion is reported to be almost four times greater than the risk of death from childbirth.

Lie #4: Late-term abortions aren’t real

Dr. Barbara Levy, vice president of health policy for the American College of Gynecologists (ACOG), stated:

The phrase “late-term abortion” is medically inaccurate and has no clinical meaning. In science and medicine, it’s essential to use language precisely. In pregnancy, to be “late term” means to be past 41 weeks gestation, or past a patient’s due date. Abortions do not occur in this time period, so the phrase is contradictory.

ACOG’s website also claims “late-term abortion” is “a biased, nonmedical phrase intended to appropriate clinical language in order to misconstrue the reality of patient care.”

First, ACOG is attempting to restrict a scientific use onto a term that is also native to legal language. This is a form of the fallacy of equivocation and is a basic error in contextual interpretation. It is disingenuous for ACOG to suggest there is legislation against a non-existent abortion type. When the term “late-term abortion” is used in legal documents, a gestational age typically accompanies it. For instance:

Second, Levy’s definition does not stand on universally held medical ground. For example, the McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine defines “late-term abortion” as “Any abortion performed after the fetus would be viable…” (With current medicine, babies have survived at about 21 weeks.)

A cursory search of medical and scientific studies reveal that use of "late-term" abortions is not restricted to ACOG's 41-week definition. For example:

Lie #5: Pregnancy Resource Centers are not "medical"
In 2022, Elizabeth Warren and several other senators sent a specious letter (PDF) to pregnancy help network Heartbeat International, Inc., and included the claim: "your organization and its affiliate CPCs are not legitimate medical providers." However, the facts refute this lie. The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates reports 1,400 out of their 1,600 affiliates are licensed medical centers. The Charlotte Lozier Institute report on pregnancy center statistics reveals 79% of pregnancy centers nationwide are "medical." Pregnancy Centers employ or have volunteers who are licensed medical staff, including nurses and sonographers. The report also states:

Medical pregnancy centers or clinics perform limited ultrasounds in accordance with specific standards and guidelines set forth by medical professional bodies, including the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM); Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN); the American College of Radiology (ACR); and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). `Under these guidelines a limited ultrasound may be performed to “confirm the presence of an intrauterine pregnancy,” which addresses the primary reason a woman visits a pregnancy center. 

Lie #6: Only 3-4% of Planned Parenthood's “medical services” are abortions

Abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood's annual reports regularly claim 3 or 4% of total "medical services" their affiliates provide are abortion. As we've established, abortion is not medicine. So that's a lie. And the 3-4% figure is also dishonest. This false statistic has been debunked since at least as early as 2012, yet they continued to mislead year after year in annual reports. The number is fudged by counting peripheral services received in each visit as equal to abortion, when abortion was the entire intent of the client's visit. So if a woman gets a pregnancy test before the abortion, they will count them each as 50% of the client's services received, even though the former may cost $10 and take a moment and the abortion—which is why she’s there—will take upwards of hours including recovery and could cost over $1,000. As a perspective to how deceptive this is, journalist Nick Lowry wrote, "Major League Baseball teams could say that they sell about 20 million hot dogs and play 2,430 games in a season, so baseball is only .012 percent of what they do."

Lie #7: Pregnancy is an illness

The abortion pill mifepristone was fast-tracked by the FDA in the year 2000. The Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 only permits “accelerated approval” of a drug if it is for “treating serious or life-threatening illnesses…” The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine pointed this lie out. In their November 2022 case filing against the FDA, they stated, “But chemical abortion drugs do not treat serious or life-threatening illnesses. Indeed, pregnancy is a normal physiological state that many females experience one or more times during their childbearing years.”

Lie #8: No heartbeat at 6 weeks

In October 2022, South Carolina Chief Justice Donald W. Beatty incorrectly asserted that a 6-week embryo’s heartbeat is “really not a heartbeat. It’s an electrical signal.” Associate Justice Kaye G. Hearn incorrectly described the heartbeat as “actually embryonic cardiac activity…a true heartbeat does not occur until all four chambers in the heart have developed.” The judges’ assertions amount to word games, a mere avoidance of using the term “heart.” Furthermore, scientific literature points to the onset of the heartbeat at the early end of the 4th week of pregnancy, or around day 22.

Jörg Männer’s 2022 paper in the Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease states: “the human embryonic heart starts beating at 21 to 23 days after fertilization.” And Männer specifically accounts for electric activity preceding the heartbeat:

The term “heartbeat” is used to describe “the regular movement that the heart makes as it sends blood around your body”. The above-mentioned observations suggest that, with regard to the embryonic heart, we should not speak of a beating heart before coordinated regular movements of its walls generate a unidirectional fluid flow within the vascular network of the embryonic cardiovascular system. In human embryos this functional state seems to be reached during CS-10. Based on data from macaque embryos, the post-fertilization age of human CS-10 embryos was estimated as 21 to 23 days

Some challenges to this figure only add 4-5 days, which means even conservative estimates acknowledge a heartbeat in the 4th week.

Other studies affirm this. Tan and Lewandowski’s paper published in Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy states: “The initiation of the first heart beat via the primitive heart tube begins at gestational day 22, followed by active fetal blood circulation by the end of week 4.” Oregon State University Anatomy & Physiology curriculum teaches the same: “The human heart is the first functional organ to develop. It begins beating and pumping blood around day 21 or 22…”

Directly addressing the misinformation put out by the South Carolina judges, Dr. Tara Sander Lee, PhD, director of Life Sciences for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, said, “A heartbeat at six weeks is scientific consensus based on published validated, objective, biological investigation, not a public relations campaign.”

Lie #9: Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) isn’t real

Abortion proponents have deceived the public about the possibility of abortion pill reversal. For example, a 2022 anti-pregnancy center article published in a science journal contains multiple inaccuracies, including the following: “Research has established that CPCs engage in abortion misinformation, including leading people to believe that medication abortions are reversible…” The American College of Gynecologists claims abortion pill reversal is “not supported by science.” Appealing to these kinds of lies, the state of Colorado is currently seeking to ban abortion pill reversal.

The fact is, so-called “medication abortions” are indeed reversible. This is indisputable. Over 4,500 lives have been saved for mothers who changed their minds after taking the first abortion pill by following the abortion pill reversal protocol. Abortion pill reversal replenishes the progesterone that the abortion pill depleted, thus giving the pregnancy a chance to continue. Dr. George Delgado, pioneer of the abortion pill reversal protocol, explains the process in a recent Edify video. Testimonials and photos of actual babies born after successful abortion pill reversals can be seen at Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Rescue Network.

Lie #10: The abortion pill is safe/“safer than Tylenol”

Dr. Serina Floyd, vice president of medical affairs and medical director of Planned Parenthood, claimed in a February 23, 2023 television interview that the abortion pill “is not dangerous at all.”

A Bloomberg “healthcare” journalist made popular the bad faith argument that the abortion pill mifepristone is safer than Tylenol because it “sends fewer people to the ER.” The most obvious problem with these claims is that they ignore the 230,000+ innocent lives ended by the abortion pill annually. Read here for a thoroughly sourced refutation of the Tylenol claim at LiveAction.

Additionally, the Bloomberg article must nonsensically lump ER visits from Tylenol due to overdose with mifepristone ER visits due to use as indicated.

In 2016, the abortion industry convinced the FDA to help keep mifepristone’s adverse effects secret by

changing the requirement for prescribers to agree to report to Mifeprex’s sponsor any serious adverse event associated with Mifeprex, including hospitalizations and blood transfusions…

Adverse effects have not been required reporting for some seven years. Doctors at the Charlotte Lozier Institute conducted a thoroughly sourced review of mifepristone’s dangers and adverse effects reporting.

The Bloomberg article also fails to account for how the abortion pill enables sex trafficking or relationship abuse. Students for Life has organized dozens of stories of the abortion pill drug slipped into women's drinks or other devious tricks. Tylenol does not have this unsafe problem. Unfettered distribution of the drug will only exacerbate this problem.

Finally, data often cited by abortion proponents on the safety of mifepristone is founded on circular illogic. Since reporting of adverse events from the drug are no longer required, abortion proponents cite data that does not account for the very adverse events they lobbied to have unreported. In a recent judicial case in Texas, the judge pointed this out:

Defendants maintain that “Plaintiffs offer no explanation for why it was impermissible to rely on the reported data.” ECF No. 28 at 33. The explanation should be obvious — it is circular and self-serving to practically eliminate an “adverse event” reporting requirement and then point to a low number of “adverse events” as a justification for removing even more restrictions than were already omitted in 2000 and 2016. In other words, it is a predetermined conclusion in search of non-data — a database designed to produce a null set.

Lie #11: Abortion is “healthcare/medical”

Politicians and abortion proponents loyally use euphemisms like “abortion care” and refer to the abortion pill as “medical abortion.” “Abortion is healthcare…A medical decision…” declared JB Pritzker, governor of Illinois in a January press release. Of course, this language is dishonest. Abortion is the opposite of medicine.

Currently, Google flags videos on abortion with the following false “Context” statement:

An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo or fetus and placenta from the uterus. The procedure is done by a licensed healthcare professional.

First, that the topic of abortion gets this special treatment by Google’s staff only adds to suspicion that corporations are compromised by the abortion industry. Secondly, Google’s statement is false because abortion never uses “medicine.” As we established, by definition, it’s false to call something medicine unless it’s end goal is to help correct something wrong with the body and pregnancy is not a disorder nor disease. Additionally, Google’s statement is false to claim abortion is done by a licensed healthcare professional, because abortion-backed politicians have changed laws in several states so a woman can obtain the abortion pill without ever seeing a doctor, leaving the woman to self-administer the abortion and deal with the aftermath at home.


Abortion is more akin to poison, which is medically defined as causing “structural or functional disturbance.” (See related article Birth Control is not medicine). In an abortion, the baby is terminated and the typical mother’s body, which was functioning correctly to sustain pregnancy, is artificially obstructed from that correct function.

Lie #12: Plan B is only contraceptive, not abortifacient

In December of 2022, the makers of Plan B One-Step lobbied the FDA to change its product label. The drug is colloquially known as the “morning after pill,” often taken by women seeking to prevent pregnancy after they have had intercourse.

Prior labeling admitted the pill could possibly work by preventing implantation after conception. This of course amounts to an abortion. The manufacturer lobbied the FDA in part because the change would make the drug easier to market:

[T]he applicant states… some consumers are hesitant to use a product that might affect postovulatory events, in particular implantation of the blastocyst.The applicant asserts that updates to the labeling are needed to make the labeling more accurate, to reduce consumer confusion, and potentially to reduce barriers to use of the legally marketed approved product.

As you can see, the impetus for the label change was in part based on marketability. ABC News helped market that motive in a headline: “Plan B gets new label by FDA to clarify it doesn't cause abortion.”

The FDA ultimately made the following label edit (underline was added and strikethrough was removed):

Plan B One-Step® works before release of an egg from the ovary. As a result, Plan B One-Step® usually stops or delays release of the egg from the ovary. Plan B One-Step® is one tablet with levonorgestrel, a hormone that has been used in many birth control pills for several decades. Plan B One Step® that contains a higher dose of levonorgestrel than birth control pills but and works in a similar way to prevent pregnancy. It works mainly by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary. It is possible that Plan B One Step may also work by preventing fertilization of an egg (the uniting of sperm with the egg) or by preventing attachment (implantation) to the uterus (womb).

Notice, however, the added text says the drug “usually” or “mainly” stops egg release. If that’s the case, the labeling still accounts for prevented implantation without explicitly saying so, and abortion proponents in the media are deceiving the public.

Regarding levonorgestrel’s effect on the uterine lining, the FDA’s memorandum says a “totality of the evidence” suggests there is no affect on the uterine lining.

However, a 2016 study by Peck, et al, specifically reviewed the mechanism of action for levonorgestrel’s post-fertilization effect. It reviewed at least five other studies that claim levonorgestrel has no effect on the uterine lining. Essentially, these studies were not conclusive because they did not account for the entire range of time the drug was typically taken. Peck concluded:

What these studies can say is that LNG, when taken 5–6 days following fertilization at the moment of implantation, does not affect its evolution. But this is not the typical time when EC is usually administered.

Furthermore, a group in one study did show uterine alteration.

[T]he “histologically normal” endometria from Durand's 2001 Group D in fact showed decreased glycodelin-A, a necessary endometrial implantation molecule.

Additionally, whether the lining of the uterine wall is affected by levonorgestrel may be irrelevant. The Peck study describes another mechanism the drug may cause to prevent implantation after conception. It states:

The tubal transport mechanism is essential for carrying the embryo to the uterus, so that arrival occurs within the narrow implantation window (days 20 to 24).”

In other words, altering the uterine lining isn’t the only way to prevent implantation. If the embryo doesn’t get there in time, it won’t matter how compatible the uterine lining is during the implantation window. The study cites two other studies that suggest levonorgestrel slows the speed at which the embryo moves through the fallopian tube:

The tubal transport of embryos is slowed down by either mechanism, and this would have critical consequences on their nesting, as the narrow window might have been passed. This effect, coupled with the shortened luteal phase, as discussed in the next section, could preclude successful implantation.

In reviewing the data, Anthony Campagna, PharmD, a clinical pharmacist stated:

The takeaway is that LNG-EC can, despite what the updated labeling claims, impair the implantation of a human embryo in a number of ways.

Thus, although the FDA and manufacturer of Plan B One Step ignore data, the drug does have the potential to act as an abortifacient just as the original labelling specified.

Lie #13: Treatment for ectopic pregnancy is the same thing as an abortion

A corporate media columnist wrote of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision:

“Do I abort this ectopic pregnancy to literally save my life or do I go to jail?” Question women in America now have to ask.

There are a couple lies packed in this histrionic statement. The first lie is the insinuation that Dobbs banned abortion and will send a woman to jail for procuring one. Dobbs did no such thing, but rather referred the matter back to the states.

The second lie in the statement is suggesting treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is the same thing as an abortion. Dr. Christina Francis offered the following clarification:

The treatments for ectopic pregnancy are not the same procedures used by induced abortions, which even Planned Parenthood admits. As a pro-life OB/GYN who’s practiced my entire career in hospitals that do not allow abortions, I have never been prevented from safely treating an ectopic pregnancy. In the rare but tragic situations where a pregnancy puts the mother’s life at risk, there are medical procedures for compassionately separating the mother and her baby and working to save both lives.  The only intent of an abortion is to produce a dead baby.  Women deserve to be empowered by medically-accurate information.

Dr. Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, an OB/GYN, confirmed the nature of a life-saving procedure like ectopic pregnancy:

A procedure to save the life of the mother is not an abortion. Even though sometimes the child dies as a result of that procedure, the death of the child was not the intent.

A month after Dobbs, Planned Parenthood fostered the misinformation by removing the following sentence from it’s website: “Treating an ectopic pregnancy isn’t the same thing as getting an abortion.”

Lie# 14: Abortion doesn’t cause depression/mental health problems

“It’s important for folks to know that abortion does not cause mental health problems,” said Debra Mollen, PhD, a professor of counseling psychology at Texas Woman’s University.

This assertion is false. A 2010 study, Late-Term Elective Abortion and Susceptibility to Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms, states:

In fact 12–20% of women with an abortion history meet the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD with considerably higher percentages of women experiencing some trauma symptoms, while not meeting the full criteria. Even when the full criteria are not met, the more PTSD symptoms present, the greater the risk of psychological impairment and suicidal ideation.

A 2018 study, The abortion and mental health controversy, accounts for abortion proponents who wish to dismiss mental health issues associated with abortion as pre-existing conditions:

When interpreting the data, abortion and mental health proponents are inclined to emphasize risks associated with abortion, whereas abortion and mental health minimalists emphasize pre-existing risk factors as the primary explanation for the correlations with more negative outcomes. Still, both sides agree that (a) abortion is consistently associated with elevated rates of mental illness compared to women without a history of abortion; (b) the abortion experience directly contributes to mental health problems for at least some women

Lie# 15: Abortion doesn’t increase risk of breast cancer

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) claim: “studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk.”

However, their assertion does not account for dozens of studies that say otherwise. An amicus brief was submitted for Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) by the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG). They note: 

Since 1957, at least 41 studies have shown a positive, statistically significant association between induced abortion and breast cancer. The reason for the association is straightforward given how the physiology of the breast changes during pregnancy.  Breast tissue mature enough to produce milk permanently resists cancer.  Abortion arrests growing breast tissue before it matures, trapping it in a cancer vulnerable state. 

The American College of Pediatricians, among other sources, describe the biology of why this happens. Essentially, lobules in the breast mature from type 1 and 2—which have more receptors that make them more prone to cancer, to type 3 and 4 after prolonged pregnancy—which have less receptors and are more immune to cancer:

The more receptors a cell has, the more responsive it will be to hormonal levels – and the more affected it is by carcinogens.

After a full term pregnancy, Type 4 lobules predominate, with more fully differentiated (mature) cells and less stem cells, a decreased number of hormonal receptors, a slower DNA copying time, and a longer resting phase – all of which decrease the likelihood that breast cancer will develop in these lobules.

It is known that after a woman gives birth, with or without lactation (including when the baby is given up for adoption), the Type 4 lobules regress to Type 3, but importantly, via epigenetics, these cells maintain the genetic changes that protect them from susceptibility to cancer.

Lie #16: Partial birth abortions “don’t exist”

In January, the state of Minnesota, by a vote of 69-65, passed an unbridled abortion bill. Among amendments to the bill that were rejected was a ban on partial-birth abortions. Yet, Senator Alice Mann, who supported the abortion bill, claimed the idea of partial birth abortion was “literally making stuff up.” She continued: “A child doesn’t come out partway alive and doctors kill it. It’s not a thing. It’s not a thing today. It’s not a thing tomorrow. It’s not a thing ten years ago.” She added that politicians should not “legislate things that don't exist in real life.”

You might ask yourself why she would be so adamantly opposed to inclusion of an amendment that she claimed would have no effect on the bill. 

But, of course, her false claim is exposed by the existence of survivors of abortion. In the early 1980s, the CDC estimated up to 500 failed abortions per year resulted in live births. Cases have persisted into recent years. The “DC Five” babies discovered in 2022 are suspected of surviving botched abortions because of their late gestational size and autopsy roadblocks (see pictures and story at LiveAction). Abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty to have murdered babies born alive, “breathing and moving” “by severing their spinal cords with scissors.” Abortionists admit how they kill a baby if born alive.

The Abortion Survivor Network estimates over 80,000 persons to have survived failed abortions since Roe vs. Wade. The network’s founder and director Melissa Ohden explained how most survived abortions occur:

[T]hey survive chemical abortions in the first trimester. They survive surgical abortions in the second trimester that may leave them with significant wounds found upon delivery, as was the case for survivor Hope Hoffman. They survive induction of labor in the third trimester with the intent that they won’t survive the preterm induction, or with the plan to leave the child to die if they do survive the delivery, as was the case with Sarah Zagorski and, sadly, as happened in the practice of the imprisoned Dr. Kermit Gosnell, where some babies were brutally killed by having their spinal cord “snipped.”


Monday, January 9, 2023

Think twice before saying "Those lies don't affect me"

Lack of critical thinking has led 21st century Westernism into one of history’s most barbaric and irrational societies.  How, one wonders, did a sizeable percent of the population come to lose the ability to distinguish something so basic as identifying a boy versus a girl? So far gone are some as to celebrate—much less turn a blind eye to—the mutilation of children, in and out of the womb, against every semblance of reason, science, or mite of common sense. And those in a position to stop it do not.

Revisit 1973. The legally and morally bankrupt Roe v. Wade decision asserted that a “person…does not include the unborn.” This was despite reason, the science of fetal development presented at that time, as well as the lack of legal grounds for Roe. Its reckless force was subsequently negated a half-century later at Dobbs. In mis-defining a person, Roe failed to account for the evidence, appealing instead to the behavior of more ancient generations when natal science was more obscure. Today, the science is even clearer as to the uniqueness and living quality of an individual person from the moment of conception. 

No industry is more dependent on lies than abortion. It is infected by a legion of dishonest euphemisms. Some acquiesced to its central lie that the unborn is not a life. Some did so under the pretense of it “not affecting” them. Many accepted the specious lie that abortion is “between a woman and her doctor” making a “medical” decision only about her. These lies before and since Roe have led to the bloody sacrifice of over 63 million innocent children and counting.

More recently, we saw the 2015 Obergefell decision, which redefined—without cause—marriage itself. The court incorrectly claimed that a “marriage” not only could occur between two people of the same sex but was “equal” to and the “same” as the marriage that occurs between a man and woman. The public was bullied or fooled into accepting the lie that a man could be swapped out for a woman and still have the “same” categorical arrangement. And, as with abortion, how many times did we hear someone justify their desire to go along with such an irrational idea by claiming the matter “did not affect them”? What two other people do is “their own business,” the masses said, oblivious to the Trojan Horse of malleable meaning they let through the door. 

The procession of the Trojan horse by Tieppolo
Detail from The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, ca 1760 (Wikimedia Commons)
 

The devil’s table was set. The truth was up for grabs, insofar as the masses understood it. If the meaning of a person was changeable on a whim, or if the uniqueness of a man and woman was changeable on a whim, what other things could the world’s overlords “change” without cause? The public was already brainwashed into staying out of any such debate unless they perceived an immediate personal impact. They were brainwashed, not only to ignore any immediate immoral harm occurring among others, but to avoid thinking of any other variables or trajectories that changing unchangeable definitions would beget.

And here we are. 

  • Many today don’t know what a boy or girl is. A supreme court justice famously played along by pleading ignorance as to what is a woman during her confirmation hearings. To foster this confusion, the American Psychological Association redefined “Gender identity disorder” to “Gender dysphoria.” The redefinition “shifted the emphasis in treatment from fixing a disorder to resolving distress over a mismatch.” Victims of this often-learned confusion include small children who haven’t the intellectual nor biological foundation to know otherwise. And it is no secret how many children have been coerced with lies to mutilate themselves in the name of denying the reality before them. A landmark lawsuit is currently ongoing in Cole vs. Kaiser Permanente on the damages caused after doctors are said to have denied her parents the option to treat her condition as a mental disorder. Many who now regret “gender transitioning” surgeries have expressed lack of care by the medical industry. Calling a boy a girl, or vice versa, is not only wrong, it is 180 degrees wrong. It is maximum wrongness.  It is a fruit of dishonest redefinitioning.
  • On a related note, the American Psychological Association also recently published a “guideline” that redefined masculinity. Their statement declared that boys raised by fathers to be traditionally masculine were a threat to society. It referenced the disproportionate number of violent crimes committed by males in the context of “socialization practices that teach boys from an early age to be self-reliant, strong, and to minimize and manage their problems on their own.” However, as clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson observed:

“[I]t’s...a lie, scientifically... To indicate, as the writers have, that it is the socialization of boys and men by men that is producing both a decrement in the personal mental health of males and females and a threat to the social fabric is not only to get the facts wrong, but to get them wrong in a manner that is directly antithetical to the truth. ... [I]t is this simple fact that is absolutely damning to the claims in the APA document. What kind of families produce violent young men? Fatherless families. The pernicious effect of fatherlessness is exceptionally well-documented. … If it is fatherless boys who are violent, how can it be that masculine socialization produces harm both to mental health and society?”

  • In a more strictly political example, the current U.S. Administration declared redefined the criteria of a “recession.” A recession was previously known as two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product. Despite this having occurred after the second quarter of 2022, an Administration official denied that a recession had begun, manipulating voters into believing their finances were in better shape than they were.
  • In 2022, two South Carolina judges attempted to redefine terms for the medical industry by denying the existence of a “heartbeat” in the unborn at six weeks gestation. They are obviously wrong, as multiple peer-reviewed studies reveal a baby’s heartbeat scientifically observable at an average of 110 beats per minute at six weeks. The judges attempted to redefine this observable pulsating phenomenon as something different than a heartbeat. The goal was to sanitize the idea of an abortion. 
  • In December, a Virginia restaurant attempted to redefine, among other things, the concept of “safety.” The Family Foundation had booked a private room at the restaurant. Less than two hours before their reservation, the restaurant called to say the Family Foundation was not welcome to dine there. The restaurant apparently had discovered that the Foundation was pro-life and pro-marriage. In a statement to the media, the restaurant said they refused service to the Foundation because allowing them to eat there would make the restaurant workers “unsafe.” Of course, this assertion may be best described as a hallucination. Whatever imaginary threat the restaurant owners perceived did not actually exist. The bigotry in their reaction was amplified when they stated they prided themselves “on being an inclusive environment for people to dine in” while simultaneously refusing to serve food to pro-life, pro-marriage patrons. Injustice against pro-life, pro-marriage individuals was justified by “redefining” danger. Indifference to these sorts of lies places innocent persons at greater risk in society.

These are but a miniscule sample of the redefinitions inverting reality, imposed on the masses daily. 

In the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nyssa pondered whether to remain silent in the face of lies. At first, he thought silence best. But, after discussion, he understood the injury that “succeeding” lies would cause:

I thought it right, indeed, in view of the continuous and varied effort of our enemies against us, to keep silence, and to receive their attack quietly, rather than to speak against men armed with falsehood, that most mischievous weapon, which sometimes drives its point even through truth. But you did well in urging me not to betray the truth, but to refute the slanderers, lest, by a success of falsehood against truth, many might be injured. (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trinity, ca 375 A.D.)

There is a devilish pressure to ignore societal lies on the grounds that they are someone else’s business. Yet lies unchecked are a virus. Lies beget lies. St. Paul warned about persistence in sin and how it leads to “greater and greater iniquity.” (Rom. 6:19) Endorsing lies is primarily an immorality and damages our very souls. For this reason alone, we should not accept them for ourselves nor others. As well, endorsing lies is also a blueprint for spreading more and more social sickness to every corner of the culture, from the elderly to the young to the unborn. We should not pretend lies as these are someone else’s business and do not affect us. Investment in lies as these have already produced untold poisonous returns to the masses.

Friday, August 19, 2022

Why the Vatican's survey on synodality is suspect

In anticipation of the vague "Synod on Synodality," various dioceses and Church outlets surveyed all walks of people, including lapse Catholics and non-Catholics. These survey results are to be sent to the bishops prior to the 2023 finale.

However, the content of the surveys brings the intent of the Synod into suspicion. For example, in multiple choice questions, the options offered lure the participant toward certain answers and issues. It gives the impression that certain issues are at the forefront of the participants' minds, when, if the questions had been left blank, the results would have likely been very different. One could say there is opinion-engineering taking place. 

For instance, in the survey promoted by Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin, there is a question asking which activities are "urgent for the Church to address..." The available choices are finite and include such politicized issues as "women's equality," "accompaniment to LGTBI people," and "ecology and environmental sustainability."

This would be like asking, "Is John's tie red or blue?" when his tie may be an entirely different color or he isn't wearing a tie at all. In this way, the synod surveys exhibit logical fallacies. They contain a form of the False Dilemma Fallacy (where options offered do not include the correct answer) or the Suppressed Evidence Fallacy (where relevant options are absent from the question).

Professor Cody Cooper commented on the survey: "[W]hy aren’t Traditional Latin Mass-goers or married Catholics with big families listed among the marginalized groups?" The absence of TLM from the survey is consistent with Pope Francis' continual antagonism toward TLM attendees. The absence of big families from the survey is consistent with Vatican figures trying to justify contraception. You see how the survey's questions and answers are loaded and steer participants to think and not think of certain matters. In a way, the gameplan is out in the open.

Many of the surveys closed on August 15. It was not hard to predict from there how the data would be manipulated. On August 16, the National Catholic Reporter (which promotes anti-Catholic heretical views) brandished the headline: "In synod reports, US Catholics call for women's leadership, LGBTQ welcoming." 

Thus, right on cue, heterodox Catholics frame the survey results as "US Catholics" having endorsed modern identity politics, and not other theological issues that were absent from the survey. Anyone following those two contemporary "issues" knows that women's "leadership" is language often used to launder the quest for women's "ordination" while "LGBTQ welcoming" is a concept used to launder the quest to declassify homosexual behavior as intrinsicallly disordered or to endorse same-sex unions altogether.

As Wendell Hull wrote for Crisis Magazine: "The synod brings the laity, and—by invitation—the whole world, into the process with full knowledge. The 'synodal fathers' will claim that the changes were demanded by the people." (emphasis mine) If efforts are made at this synod to undermine longstanding teachings of the Magisterium, those actions may be disguised as some "loving" move to serve the needs of "modern" people or other such euphemisms.

Even if the survey were short answer or blank essay questions where participants had to generate answers of their own accord, what is the current Pontificate's intention in surveying people unfamiliar even with basic theology in making theological decisions? Unless they want to see how catechized the world is? How many respondents for women's "leadership" can exposit the theology of the priest as sacramental bridegroom in Christ's stead? Or how many respondents fond of gay "marriage" can provide an anthropological defense that substituting a man for a woman in a marriage arrangement leaves it the "same" as a male-female marriage? We have yet to hear those answers from supposedly learned theologians, much less the average lapsed Catholic. Hull analogized: "Would a baseball team gather geishas for ideas on how to hit and catch?"

I recently finished reading Dr. Peter Kwasniewski's book True Obedience in the Church. In it, he reviews the theological and historical basis for defying unjust orders issued by clergy, including the Pope, if necessary. It is an issue I've recently researched myself, including the concept of a child who is otherwise bound to obey his parents, to defy an immoral parental order (cf. CCC#2217). It may be especially wise in the coming months to delve into the lasting theology of Catholic Tradition, that one might authentically identify when a clergyman, even a bishop or Pope, is resisting the sacerdotal grace available to him through his office. 

St. John Chrysostom taught that we will not be able to excuse ourselves from following corrupt teaching, even if those orders come from thousands of priests:

But even if it were the reverse, and you had corrupt teachers plundering and grasping at every thing, not even so were their wickedness an apology for you. For the Lover of mankind and All-wise, the Only-Begotten Son of God, seeing all things, and knowing the chance that in so great length of time and in so vast a world there would be many corrupt priests … but if you disobey the things spoken, even though you should show ten thousand corrupt priests, this will not plead for you at all. Since Judas also was an apostle, but nevertheless this shall never be any apology for the sacrilegious and covetous. (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 21 on 1st Corinthians, ca. 395 AD)

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

VIDEO: How the cherubim witness to Mary's Immaculate Conception

New 5+ minute video on how the cherubim angels witness to Mary's Immaculate Conception. Video is based on prior post How the cherubim witness to Mary's Immaculate Conception



See video on Rumble or YouTube.