Monument to the unborn sparks controversy

[Phemie]

A new monument dedicated to “unborn children” is causing some controversy in Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove.
The monument sits outside St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church.
Carmen MacKenzie wrote a letter to the town council expressing concern.

“Aside from the obvious esthetics, I find the content of this monument to be very inappropriate,” MacKenzie wrote in her letter, which was made public through a recent council meeting.
“Each person is entitled to their personal opinion on the controversial subject of abortion, but the general public should not have the opinion of a particular group on view whenever they travel through their community.”

cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/08/22/nl-unborn-children-monument-822.html

 

[_Abyssinia]

Should not be controversial

 

[jmjconder]

Wonder if this writer would object to any monument that honors all innocent people who have died or been killed. I think not. Seem to be about abortion.

 

[Hokomai]

I can see why this would upset people with an emotional attitude to an emotional issue, but the church is obviously within its rights to allow it to be built. I wonder about the death-centred message with the ‘tombstone’ theme though. If the message is pro-life, it makes sense for the imagery to be also. but I am impressed that they included mention of miscarriages (the vast majority of unborn ‘children’ who die).

 

[CaptFun]

A new monument dedicated to “unborn children” is causing some controversy in Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove.
The monument sits outside St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church.
Carmen MacKenzie wrote a letter to the town council expressing concern.

“Aside from the obvious esthetics, I find the content of this monument to be very inappropriate,” MacKenzie wrote in her letter, which was made public through a recent council meeting.
“Each person is entitled to their personal opinion on the controversial subject of abortion, but the general public should not have the opinion of a particular group on view whenever they travel through their community.”

cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2012/08/22/nl-unborn-children-monument-822.html

“We are NOT amused .…” The Red Queen from Wonderland

I can almost hear this woman sniffing her outrage – “obvious esthetics” harrumph!

Right to life - down. Free speech and expression - next up.

And yet somehow the “general public” SHOULD have HER particular opinion representing them as they … seem unconcerned about what is “on view” … and unless her motion is seconded – don’t think the monument is “controversial” especially resting as it does outside of a Church (whose views on the subject are well known).

 

[Gordon_Sims]

How shocking that a lot of the comments are saying that the Church shouldn’t be allowed to voice Her opinion. Why is it that liberals always call for their right to be heard, but then want to claim that dissenting opinions don’t have a right to be voiced?

 

[jmjconder]

How shocking that a lot of the comments are saying that the Church shouldn’t be allowed to voice Her opinion. Why is it that liberals always call for their right to be heard, but then want to claim that dissenting opinions don’t have a right to be voiced?

Well said - and unfortunately - how true!

 

[mountee]

How shocking that a lot of the comments are saying that the Church shouldn’t be allowed to voice Her opinion. Why is it that liberals always call for their right to be heard, but then want to claim that dissenting opinions don’t have a right to be voiced?

How true.

 

[Phemie]

I can see why this would upset people with an emotional attitude to an emotional issue, but the church is obviously within its rights to allow it to be built. I wonder about the death-centred message with the ‘tombstone’ theme though. If the message is pro-life, it makes sense for the imagery to be also. but I am impressed that they included mention of miscarriages (the vast majority of unborn ‘children’ who die).

I’ve only ever seen tombstones when the KofC put up these monuments – after all, these children have all died.

 

[Hokomai]

I’ve only ever seen tombstones when the KofC put up these monuments – after all, these children have all died.

Yes by they are not being erected for the same reason as a tombstone. They are being erected to communicate something. This is clearly aimed at the public not at those who already share the Kts views. It is bad communication.

 

[Nelka]

The monument should stay.

Satan must hate it!

 

[Hokomai]

The monument should stay.

Satan must hate it!

If the monument works as intended, and fewer children die as fetuses, embryos or zygotes, would that not make Satan happy, because he has a much better chance of luring a born person to hell? And all those unborn children, the Church hopes, go to heaven.

 

[sedonaman]

… It is bad communication.

It might be a lot of things, but bad communication is not one of them. It is good communication because it’s obviously effective at getting its message across, otherwise there would be no reaction.

A lot of folks are offended by the woman’s letter. In fact, your posts offend me. So there you have it: why is her offense entertained but theirs and mine are not even considered? Are some more equal than others?

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“Anyone who is aware of the high degree of selectivity of Leftist indignation, and of how they remain utterly impassive in the face of any injustice that doesn’t serve to further their agenda, keeps their complaints in perspective.” – Author Unknown

 

[irishpatrick]

If the monument works as intended, and fewer children die as fetuses, embryos or zygotes, would that not make Satan happy, because he has a much better chance of luring a born person to hell? And all those unborn children, the Church hopes, go to heaven.

We do not KNOW where souls from the aborted go, we can only hope that they attain the fullness of the Beatific Vision of God in Heaven. We must also take into account the souls of those doing abortions, and the souls of those who have had abortions done.

 

[dnb239]

If the monument is on private land, paid for by private money, maintained by private money (etc), and no public funds are used in any way, what right does anyone have to say anything about it.

The mere thought that this woman or anyone else would complain about it, says that she expects the council to do something about it – tear it down, make it illegal, etc.
That’s the part that truly free thinking people should be afraid of. If that genie is let loose from its lamp –eventually, no one is safe to have any opinion.

The problem with the complainer(s) is that they don’t want to have to think about the topic (abortion). There may be many reasons. But the main point is that they want to conduct their lives without having to think about, nor address the real issue that abortion is.

The problem with abortion is that the issue in every country was never decided based upon “when human life begins.” It also wasn’t decided upon any ideal that defines what human life is. It was based upon what people want. And frankly, people just don’t generally volunteer to take on what they view as work. In fact we avoid it whenever possible. Some people just don’t want children. Though they do want to enjoy what creates them. Humanity used its emotions to decide the answer to the abortion issue as opposed to its reason.

Anyone with a thinking mind can easily and quite naturally come to the conclusion that life begins at conception. If it doesn’t begin at that point, then when does it begin? Yes, you can call it a fetus, zygote, or any other name. In reality, is that any different than saying pre-pubescent, child, middle- aged, adult? Don’t all of those terms simply describe a phase or growth level of human life? Just because it can be called a fetus does not change its humanity. We can lie to ourselves, justify it to others, but in the end we all know that this practice is just wrong.

When one person willfully ends the life of another human we call that murder. It’s just that simple. Nothing any one can say or do will alter those facts.

By using those “critical thinking skills” anyone can reason through the issues. Abortion makes no sense. It simply exists because some people don’t want to struggle with the obligation or reality that pregnancy and childbirth represent.

I have been very fortunate in my life to have produced four children, all still alive and doing well. Unfortunately, there were also two miscarriages as well. I for one, do think about the children that didn’t survive. No, I didn’t know them at all. I didn’t spend time getting to know them, raise them, and there wasn’t a long attachment. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t want them and love them just the same. Yes, they are very missed. The bewilderment of what could have been often leaves me feeling a little empty.

Anyone whom has spent time with a woman that has gone through an abortion knows that she too, goes through a grieving process. Regardless of how the loss of the child came to be, the physical and emotional issues for women are comparatively the same between abortion and miscarriage. The poignant difference is that a choice was made in one of them. That choice can and generally will leave the woman at some point feeling culpable. The obvious potential for guilt just prolongs the period of the time that the woman stays in the denial phase as well as the self-blaming phase of the grieving process.

I would like to think that the monument may help those women going through the natural grieving process to find counseling or other help by knowing that others do care.
As a Catholic, the monument makes sense. The book of Maccabees tells us that we can and should pray for the dead. That we can help affect their final outcome. This has been the Judeo-Christian practice in the orthodox religions for many hundreds of years prior to Jesus Christ. It appears the monument is erected and dedicated to the dead – unborn, for whatever reason.

Yes, we should be reminded to pray for them as well.

The hopeful the good that can come from this is that some women may seek grievance advice and that the rest of us will be reminded to pray for so many innocent and deserving fellow human beings.

The only potential for harm I see is that some people may feel compelled to think about something they’d rather avoid. Now there’s a real tragedy – making people think.

 

[Dale_M]

Ms. MacKenzie:

Each person is entitled to their personal opinion on the controversial subject of abortion, but the general public should not have the opinion of a particular group on view whenever they travel through their community."

Doesn’t that happen with every billboard displayed near a roadway? Does it matter if the topic is political or concerns a cultural controversy?

 

[10gr8kids]

The problem with the complainer(s) is that they don’t want to have to think about the topic (abortion). There may be many reasons. But the main point is that they want to conduct their lives without having to think about, nor address the real issue that abortion is.

I have been very fortunate in my life to have produced four children, all still alive and doing well. Unfortunately, there were also two miscarriages as well. I for one, do think about the children that didn’t survive. No, I didn’t know them at all. I didn’t spend time getting to know them, raise them, and there wasn’t a long attachment. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t want them and love them just the same. Yes, they are very missed. The bewilderment of what could have been often leaves me feeling a little empty.

I would like to think that the monument may help those women going through the natural grieving process to find counseling or other help by knowing that others do care.
It appears the monument is erected and dedicated to the dead – unborn, for whatever reason.

Yes, we should be reminded to pray for them as well.

I have lost eight children to miscarriages, and I too like the idea of someone giving affirmation to their lives. Like you said, for whatever reason, some people do not want to think about the truth, and anything that makes them think about it is a nuisance. The truth is that when a child is conceived they are real, not just potentially real. They are living and growing. I have seen my children’s heartbeats on ultrasounds, watched them grow, and then held them in my hand after they died. When someone says that abortion should be legal, I hear “Your child’s life had no meaning, they were no more than your imagination. Your tears and grief were for nothing”

 

[MJE]

This controversy exposes the success the abortion industry & media have had in controlling the words used in this battle. For example, the term “pro choice” is so benign; gives almost a noble connotation to the phrase. The graphic pictures (of aborted babies) stirs up wild rage.
If they believed in their heart of hearts that abortion was good and necessary they would dismiss these Catholic’s as loons or fanatics.

 

[gus]

Yes by they are not being erected for the same reason as a tombstone. They are being erected to communicate something. This is clearly aimed at the public not at those who already share the Kts views. It is bad communication.

So you detertimed the reason the mememoral was erected.
How clever of you.
If you actually knew anything as opposed to assume everything. You mind come closer to truth.
I know I was one of you at one time.
In fact the abortion issue is the reason I escaped from athesism.

Just for your information the Catholic position on the unborn
is that they are complete human beings desearving of all
rights as any other human.
Especially the right to life.To forget them is not acceptable
They deserve and require a memorial.
A non biased look at this issue free from your brainwashing will say this is the reasonable posisition.
Once you say I’m wrong and the church is right the wisdom of
these many so called controversially positions the Church holds will amaze you.
That’s why the Church is the only only institution reconizable one generation to another.

 

[sedonaman]

This controversy exposes the success the abortion industry & media have had in controlling the words used in this battle. For example, the term “pro choice” is so benign; gives almost a noble connotation to the phrase. The graphic pictures (of aborted babies) stirs up wild rage.
If they believed in their heart of hearts that abortion was good and necessary they would dismiss these Catholic’s as loons or fanatics.

A pro-abortion editorial appearing in the September 1970 issue of California Medicine contains a revealing statement on lying in the service of killing:
“Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everybody knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but the taking of a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected.” [Emphasis added]
And from the USCCB:
Roe v. Wade effectively rendered the definition of human personhood flexible and negotiable. It also implicitly excluded unborn children from human status. In doing so, Roe helped create an environment in which infanticide – a predictable next step along the continuum of killing – is now open to serious examination. Thanks ultimately to Roe, some today speculate publicly and sympathetically why a number of young American women kill their newborn babies or leave them to die. Even the word “infanticide” is being replaced by new and less emotionally charged words like “neonaticide” (killing a newborn on the day of his or her birth) and “filicide” (killing the baby at some later point). Revising the name given to the killing reduces its perceived gravity. This is the ecology of law, moral reasoning, and language in action. Bad law and defective moral reasoning produce the evasive language to justify evil. Nothing else can explain the verbal and ethical gymnastics required by elected officials to justify their support for partial-birth abortion, a procedure in which infants are brutally killed during the process of delivery. The same sanitized marketing is now deployed on behalf of physician-assisted suicide, fetal experimentation and human cloning. Each reduces the human person to a problem or an object. Each can trace its lineage in no small part to Roe.

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“You can say anything if you have your own private language.”