JONI EARECKSON TADA KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT 2016 CALGARY DISABILITY CONFERENCE

ACTIVE PARENTING AND GRANDPARENTING WITH A WHEELCHAIR

Parenting can be daunting but it becomes more complicated for a wheelchair user. But it can be done with great success.  No obstacle is insurmountable with innovative thinking. And there are many agencies in most communities to teach techniques for parenting to wheelchair users. 

My children were 7 and 5 years old when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was determined to continue to be an engaged parent and stay active in the lives of my children. We sold our wheelchair inaccessible house and built a barrier free home close to schools, shopping and my church.

My barrier free home

The first 15 years with my disability were what the medical profession calls exacerbating-remitting MS. This meant there were wild fluctuations in impairments that affected a variety of physical functions but my legs and right arm took the biggest brunt of attacks.  My family's willingness to adapt (both physically and emotionally) required great flexibility and creativity. They met each challenge with resolve, tenacity and perseverance to help me live and thrive in my new disability realities. 

Me and grandchildren

Seeking new ways of adapting is crucial to active parenting and grandparenting with a disability. Be innovative in reducing or eliminating barriers. Be an active parent or grandparent despite disability. I have continued to be actively engaged in the lives of my children and grandchildren from their births to the present. They are indispensable ingredients for my life with dignity. I have used every tool at my disposal to stay engaged in their lives.


Below is a short YouTube video featuring a young mother, Jennifer Sexton (26) of South Carolina and her innovations to accommodate her needs. Click on image or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vlXrMRiw1A  (2:51)

MARCH FOR LIFE 2016, WASHINGTON DC

2015 U.S. National March for Life
in the streets of Washington DC

The Executive Director of the Life Issues office for Archdiocese of Washington, Christa Lopiccolo, asked LaRee and me to address the Adult Rally and Mass for Life on the morning of January 22, 2016, national March for Life in Washington DC.  

The 2016 Rally is on “the primary themes/issues facing us this year are: the Year of Mercy, our 25th anniversary of our Project Rachel Ministry, and the assisted suicide battle we are facing in Maryland and the District of Columbia.”  Ms Lopiccolo’s said her reason for asking LaRee and me to speak is that we "have the unique capacity to address all three topics in one presentation!” 

LaRee and me

LaRee and I were humbled and honored to accept the invitation. We hope to see all our American pro-Life friends on January 22nd in Washington on the occasion of the 2016 March for Life. Let us plead for the sacred gift of life and celebrate that sacred gift at every stage at state of life.

A link below is to the Archdiocese of Washington's short video of last year's Youth Rally and Mass, National Right to Life March in the nation's Capitol .

http://youthrallyandmassforlife.org/about/past-events/2015-event-recap/

Hope to see you in Washington! I am available to address these issues in your area or community. EMAIL CONTACT: HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca 

Mark

ABORTION AND EUTHANASIA: THE NEW DARK AGE

The "honourable"
John Turner ushered
           Canada's 1969
               abortion law

People often think of Canada's abortion synonymous with the Supreme Court ruling of 1988. But the Supreme Court struck down the Canadian abortion law enacted in 1969. The 1969 Justice Minister was the “Honourable” John Turner. In May of that year he stood in the House of Commons and assured a reluctant Parliament that:

“The bill has rejected the eugenic, sociological or criminal offence reasons. The bill limits the possibility of therapeutic abortion to these circumstances: It is to be performed by a medical practitioner who is supported by a therapeutic abortion committee of medical practitioners in a certified or approved hospital, and the abortion is to be performed only where the health or life of the mother is in danger.”[1]

It was an evil ruse: Once the bill became law it did not limit abortion to certain circumstances, it allowed abortions in any circumstance. There were people who warned this would happen. One written brief submitted to Canada’s Parliament back in 1967 warned that abortion acceptance would make Canada step backward in time:

We would enter a second Dark Age where human life counted for little…When we find ourselves killing off our unwanted babies, why not our old people, our crippled, our blind and our sick? Why not all inmates of prisons and mental institutions? …

All abortion, in fact, is human sacrifice. If not to appease our anger, it is the sacrifice of an innocent life to our own comfort and convenience, our social and economic position or perhaps a woman’s peace of mind or physical well-being… To legalize abortion is to give official sanction to it and therefore encourage it not only in some circumstances, but whenever someone thinks it convenient.[2]

They were decried, their voices shouted down. Abortion advocates discounted them as alarmists and religious kooks, … but the kooks and alarmists were right.  The bill did not limit abortion. It encouraged abortion. It played into the logic of human darkness.

In the year that Canada’s abortion bill passed into law (1969) there were 268 abortions in the entire country. The ink was barely dry on the legislation legalizing abortion and the law was being flouted. Within twelve months, the number of Canadian abortions spiked over 4,000 percent to 11,152! In 1972, the official number of abortions in Canada jumped further to 37,299.[3]  The tight narrow guidelines were rarely if ever met.  The number of abortions in Canada increased dramatically and unrelentingly. (By 1982, things got so bad in Canada that abortions outnumbered live births in Canada’s largest city of Toronto![4])

 I had a discussion with a retired Canadian physician whose medical practice was its peak during the 1960s and1970s. He could not remember any request for abortion ever being refused by a hospital abortion committee. He recalled that in his experience, all requests for abortions were simply rubber-stamped.

No abortion law tolerated

Canadian abortion advocates were not happy with any law or even theoretical restrictions. They wanted no law, no appearance of restrictions to abortion, regardless of how ineffective or phony Canada’s legislation might have been. They wanted abortion on demand! In 1988, the abortion lobby got its wish when Canadian Supreme Court struck down Canada’s abortion law. Abortion advocates literally danced in the streets. (Since then, there has been no law restricting abortion in Canada. It is legal to have an abortion for any reason, or no reason at all, during all nine months of pregnancy.)

America follows suit

          By the time of America’s infamous 1973 Roe verses Wade abortion decision by the United States Supreme Court, Canada had had its abortion legislation for nearly three and a half years. By that time, its rate of abortion increased over 13,000 percent! All America had to do was look north to Canada, with a fraction its population, for an indication of what lay in store for the US.  

But sadly the human carnage that was occurring north of the 49^th parallel was exactly what American “progressive” secularists had been conniving to get for years: unrestricted abortion. They knew that permissiveness toward abortion would result in wild increases in abortion rates, and that's what happened.

           

Former abortionist and abortion rights activist, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, wrote about this in his 1983 book The Abortion Papers: Inside the Abortion Mentality.[5] He wrote that during the 1960s groups like the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) claimed, without documentation, that there were more than a million illegal abortions in America annually. Actual demographic studies on that time showed an average of 98,000 illegal abortions annually between 1940-1967.  By any standard, misstating the number of abortions by 902,000 annually is an exaggeration of monumental proportions!

More than 57 million abortions have occurred in America since Roe v Wade in 1973. 

According to Paul Belien of The Brussels Journal there are 40 million abortions performed in the world each year.[6]  The Canadian kooks who spoke against abortion, forty years ago, were right.

“We would enter a second Dark Age where human life counted for little…When we find ourselves killing off our unwanted babies, why not our old people, our crippled, …”

We have entered that New Dark Age. The next assault on the sanctity of human life they predicted  is about to begin in Canada in 2016. Canada's Supreme Court struck down Canada's assisted suicide law. The religious kooks were right! 

---

Notes
[1] Hansard, May 6^th 1969, pp.8397-8.

[2] Taken from, Alponse de Valk, Morality and Law in Canadian Politics: The Abortion Controversy (Montreal. P.Q., Canada: Palm Publishing, 1974), p. 51. Out of print. See House of Commons Committee Proceeding minutes -- Abortion, November 8, 1967, Appendix “F,” pp.168ff..

[3] Government of Canada. Statistics Canada, Therapeutic Abortions, 1981, Minister of Supply and Services 1983, Catalogue 82-211, P.120.

[4]“Abortions outnumber live births in Toronto,” Toronto Globe and Mail, June 17^th, 1983.

[5] In the mid-1979s, Dr. Nathanson renounced his abortion activities and advocacy. He became vehemently opposed to abortion and pro-Life advocate, and later became a Christian.

[6] Paul Belien, “EU to Catholic Doctors: Thou Shalt Abort,” The Brussels Journal, 27 December 2005. 

JOHN MICHAEL TALBOT: THE JESUS PRAYER

John Michael Talbot speaks about the Jesus Prayer. To introduce you to this wealth of information about this powerful prayer, I want to introduce you to the first 5 parts of a 10 part series. The last fiv segments by John Michael Talbot can be accessed on YouTube. When you've finished Part 5 it will naturally lead to the next and so forth.

(Part 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqV98quMQPg

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3da9cQxmqiU

Part 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-9l0QKaDPE

Part 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEVXFNuI4_c

Part 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqDqRiKLnfM

U.S. CONGRESSMAN BRILLIANTLY EXPOSES PLANNED PARENTHOOD BARBARITY

U.S. Congressman
Randy Forbes

Member of Congress Randy Forbes grills Caroline Fredrickson of the American Constitution Society about Planned Parenthood's barbaric way of obtaining baby organs. Congressman Forbes is brilliant! Below is a short clip of Mr. Forbes' brilliantly challenging Planned Parenthood defender Caroline Fredrickson, who is reduced to parroting old tired abortion mantras. 

[Click on image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDkzhZ9YrNk ]

CHILDHOOD'S SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES

"From our own childhoods we remember that before our elders thought us capable of "understanding" anything, we already had spiritual experiences as pure and momentous as anything we have undergone since. ... From Christianity itself we learn there is a level -- in the long run the only level of importance -- on which the learned and the adult have no advantage at all over the simple and the child." -- C.S. Lewis