AUTHENTIC UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

My thoughts about abortion and humanity of prenatal life:

Just because she is not visible doesn't mean she does not exist. Just because she may not be unwanted by her parents does not mean she is undeserving of love, care and protection. Here is a truth: She is part of the human family and has a right to be here, inclusion, and rise to her full potential in life. 

This is the essence of the alienable right to life. Abortion robs this first and highest inalienable right from a child for the happiness of the child's parents. Authentic universal human rights are never gained for one at the expence of another.

Can anybody tell me why this should not be true?

Mark

HEARTH AND HOME CHRISTMAS GINGERBREAD APRON

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. How could it not be, I'm married to a traditionalist. My wife, LaRee, begins Christmas preparations about now, at about the same time as firewood is being piled against the house for a cold Canadian winter: The cozy family warmth of hearth and home: That is LaRee's specialty. 

For more than 43 years of marriage, I have looked forward to each Christmas -- the aroma of gingerbread and shortbread baking in the oven, the smell of pine bows spread along the fireplace mantle, the sound of crackling wood burning in the fireplace. It may be cold outside but our home and hearts are warm and snug. As the snow comes down, we settle into a gentle time of comforters, sweaters and piping hot chocolate.

LaRee is an artisan par excellence! She has started spending more time in her sewing room creating unique gift offerings for an upcoming Christmas Fair.  For example, last night she sewed a matching apron set for a little child and her doll.  (LaRee has the heart of a mother/grandmother.) There will be little children wearing their 'gingerbread apron' to help parents or grandparents bake Christmas goodies. Indeed, every little girl needs an apron for herself and her favorite doll in the kitchen.

CHRISTIANS IN A CULTURE OF DEATH

I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1984. In the early 1990s a Canadian woman with ALS tried to introduce to Canada a thin edge of a deadly wedge of physician assisted suicide. Sue Rodriguez was an active campaigner from her wheelchair. "Whose body is this anyway?!" she said. I remember her saying that she wanted the option of having assistance in her suicide ... and by extension, for people with incurable illnesses and serious disabilities. 

The Canadian  media jumped on the hearse bandwagon and pushed for the nation's law against assisted suicide to be struck down, under the guise of news. Columnists decried the cruelty of a law that prohibits assisted suicide for those who can't do the deed by their own hand due to disability. Some media boneheads even went so far as to say if able-bodied people had a right to commit suicide, why not the disabled? Huh? Just because there was no law against suicide did not mean there was a right to suicide. 

I remember thinking to myself "Sue Rodriguez does not speak for me!" -- and so I decided to write a one page letter to Canada's Justice Minister. It was the early 1990s when people still wrote letters and mailed them. Remember that? My one page letter turned into an 18 page position paper. Canada's Parliament asked that a Senate committee be struck to study the issue of legalizing assisted suicide. They invited me to appear before them. I did and pleaded with the senators not to recommend legalizing assisted suicide for people like me. Happily the Senate did later issue a report recommending against assisted suicide because the nation was not ready.*


It began more than 20 years speaking across North America against assisted suicide and for creating environments of support, welcome and inclusion for people with serious diseases and disabilities. I have been espousing Christian outreach to counter despair and defeat that leads people to give up on life; the incurably ill and disabled are indispensable members of their communities.  We need to lift them up even if they want to be put down.

This is counter to Canada's 21st Century death affirming culture. Self-described "progressives" advocate the freedom to choose abortion for unwanted preborn children. They espouse assisted suicide for suicidal sick and disabled people but suicide prevention for the healthy an able-bodied. Apparently that's "progressive": I call it regressive, going back to previous barbaric dark ages when the weakest and most vulnerable were killed. 


And so Christians are clearly in a minority, swimming against the current of prevalent thought. We espouse the sanctity of every human life while Canadian officialdom espouses the choice to kill one's self or our unwanted unborn children. Let me remind you that throughout history Christians have been at odds with the world in which they lived and were persecuted to the point of death. If the world hated Christ, we should expect to be hated too. Our real citizenship is not here. 

Stand up for the kingdom of heaven and God's love for every human being. Witness to the salvation of Jesus Christ. Let your candle of faith and action be a light in the darkness. 

Mark
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* The coarsening of Canada's collective conscience to accept medical killing of the disabled and incurable ill would take another 20 years. Medical assisted suicide was legalized in Canada in June 2016.

THE BLESSED SACRAMENT GIVES A FORETASTE OF FUTURE GLORY

At the conclusion of his brilliant essay, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Lewis was right:  The holy Eucharist bears the body of Christ and your neighbour bears the image of God.

Your neighbor may not behave in ways that show the sacredness within him or recognize the Blessed Sacrament for what it is but that does not alter the truth that C.S. Lewis stated with the penetrating precision of a surgeon’s scalpel.

The most ordinary people in the world are not ordinary. The image of God put within each person makes them special in the eyes of God – and that is how we should see them too. God’s love extends to every human life beginning at conception and that divine love continues to burn bright regardless of the person’s state or stage in the life spectrum, and beyond. God wants every human life to spend eternity with Him. He made provision for that through his only Son.

It is this knowledge of God’s love that has sustained me throughout more than thirty years of chronic and degenerative disease. Even when I doubted my own value, God did not. Even in my darkest days God’s love for me burned bright.  Just knowing this was enough. To receive the body of Christ under the species of the bread was a comfort beyond description.  There were times during vicious attacks of multiple sclerosis, when my body seemed little more than a carcass ― my Saviour gave me His body in the Most Blessed Sacrament. It was (and is) enough.

Pope Benedict XVI said "The celebration and worship of the Eucharist enable us to draw near to God's love and to persevere in that love." (Sacramentum Caritatis" ("The Sacrament of Charity")). I have experienced the truth of the Pope’s exhortation even at my lowest and sickest points.

As far as the second “holiest object presented to your senses” that Lewis mentioned, this is why I have dedicated much of my adult life to the pro-Life cause. Since my early life I was taught that human life is sacred; there are ways it should be treated and ways it must not be treated. One person’s advantage must not be gained on the back of another, and killing is the worst assault against human dignity.

I believe in the interdependence of the human family more than independence of individuals.  I believe in community not unfettered personal autonomy and my Catholic faith supports this conviction. The pages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church declare the Glory of God for his Church, our faith in Jesus Christ that has come to us down through the centuries and the Apostolic traditions all proclaim and the innate dignity of each human being.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have been charged with task of taking our Christian hope to a lost and hurting world. Never underestimate the gospel of love. It was love that ultimately drew me to the Catholic Church. The perfect love of Christ is unlike any other love we encounter in our world. Jesus told his followers, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15.12)

The way we love one another with a Christ-like love starts by meeting people at their need or actively supporting those who do.  We must meet lost and hurting people, in a spirit of love and gentleness, remembering always that Jesus came, suffered and died for them too. Many people  have never known true love and Christ is the source of love. 

It does not matter to our outreach that they may not yet be able to receive Christ’s love. Those who seriously seek God will find him. Our Lord said, “Everyone who asks, receives; all who seek, find; and the door is opened to everyone who knocks.” (Luke 11.10). As their fledgling faith grows they will be able to receive more of Christ’s perfect and divine love. It is that way for us all.

I am increasingly convinced that only when we who are followers of Christ enter eternity and stand face to face with Him, we will know as we are known. Only then will we finally be able to accept the completeness of love that Christ wanted to give to us our whole life.  

The Blessed Sacrament is a foretaste of that glory of Christ in his Father’s Kingdom to which he referred at the Last Supper. Everything will be holy. 

SUPPORT CAMPAIGN FOR WHEELCHAIR VAN

In my work against euthanasia and assisted suicide, and for life with dignity, it is important that I have reliable, comfortable wheelchair accessible transportation. In over 20 years of advocacy for life-affirming inclusion of people with incurable illness and severe disabilities, I have logged literally thousand of miles on my 19 old van. It's getting hard to even find parts. 

My problem is that I live on a modest disability pension. A GoFundMe account has been started to purchase me a new wheelchair accessible van. The cost of conversion doubles the cost of a van: the floor must be lowered to accommodate my electric wheelchair, the suspension altered, lift installed, wiring changed, locking mechanism installed to secure my chair for me to drive, etc. The estimated cost is $77,000. 

Helping to raise funds for a hospice

Many individuals from across North America who support my disability ministry have generously donated $25, $50, or $100 to support this campaign. Donations can be sent to the GoFundMe account here . https://www.gofundme.com/2rnxyktc or send contributions to my wife LaRee Pickup, 4417-51 Street, Beaumont, AB., Canada, T4X 1C8 or email bank e-transfers to laree@shaw.ca .

 Calvary Community Church in Edmonton, Canada, contributed $1,000. Would your church, pro-life group, or business consider matching their generous contribution? 

Thank you for your consideration.

Mark

GOD CAN FULLY TRANSFORM LIVES

Things designed for good can be used for bad purposes. Art in its proper context captures images of beauty in the world or perverted to promote evil such as pornography. Books can teach and enlighten while others promote falsehoods or hatred.

Sometimes that which is life affirming in one context can be life denying if misused in another context. A drug originally intended to try to save life can also be used to kill.

For example, my doctor put me on the drug called methotrexate for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. My immune system is over-active and the methotrexate moderates my immune system. That is only one purpose of the drug. Methotrexate is actually a chemotherapy drug used to inhibit cell division in the treatment of leukemia, breast and lung cancer, head and neck cancers and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In the treatment of MS and cancer, methotrexate is used to preserve r enhance life. Unfortunately, methotrexate is also used to induce early abortions – precisely because it interferes with cell division.

Otherwise good people can be corrupted to commit terrible evil. They may succumb to do evil by the temptation of money or ideology or lust or acclaim. There are a multitude of vices or circumstances to tempt well-intentioned people to do wicked things. That is the bad news about humanity.

DIVINE TRANSFORMATION

The good news is that God can transform the worst people into saints. History is replete with examples of both. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, "No character, regardless of the depths of its vice or its intemperance, is incapable of being transformed through cooperation of divine and human action into its opposite."
We see this plainly when people with medical knowledge use it to perform abortions or engage in euthanasia. Medical knowledge should only be used to heal or preserve life. Every doctor who performs abortions abandons the proper intent of medicine and the Hippocratic tradition.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson (1926-2011) was a successful obstetrician-

Dr. Bernard Nathanson

gynecologist who became an abortionist. In 1969, he co-founded the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion. By his own admission, Nathanson was responsible for 75,000 abortions.

A GREAT CATHOLIC MOMENT

By the mid-1970s, he changed his views on abortion, ceased performing them and became profoundly pro-life. In 1996, this one-time atheist was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church. Prominent Opus Dei priest Father John McCloskey said Nathanson's conversion was "one of the great Catholic moments of the 20th century in the United States."

Although Nathanson knew he was completely forgiven, until his death, he seemed tormented by the realization and memory of the great evil in which he had been involved and promoted. Yes, God forgave Bernard Nathanson completely, but did Nathanson completely forgive himself?

To the end of his life, Nathanson worked to stop what he had previously worked to establish – widespread abortion in America. I pray that he fully allowed the redemptive work of Christ at the cross to free him.

Nathanson's last 15 years should have been lived in the liberty and freedom Christ offers. All that passed before was forgiven in his Confession, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and washed away in the waters of Baptism.

Such a dramatic change of heart is what the cross can achieve. As Fulton Sheen reminded us, there is no character so bad that he or she is incapable of being transformed by God into its opposite. That should be cause for great rejoicing for us all.

One day when I was a child I asked my father why we call the day that Jesus died Good Friday. After all, Christ went though the most horrible torture, crucifixion and death. My father responded, "It may have been bad for Jesus but his death was good for us."

He was right. Christ died that we might live. The most horrible death of our Lord on the cross settled the human problem of evil, sin and alienation from God so that we could have forgiveness and have eternal life.

LET YOUR SIN GO

Is there some sin that you have confessed, yet you have not forgiven yourself? Have you taken something that was intended for good and used it for evil – such as sexuality?

Confess it, repent and look forward. Let your sin go.
If God has forgiven it, who are you to keep remembering it? Forgive yourself and let God fully transform your life to be a new creature in Christ.

MIKE PENCE AND PROTECTING AMERICA'S VULNERABLE

USA Today newspaper for October 4^th 2016 carried the front-page headline “VP debate hinges on wooing women: Reports on Trump's behavior put Pence in precarious position as he seeks their vote”. Reporter Maureen Groppe wrote with a disparaging tone:

“Pence drew national attention after backing what he called a “trailblazing” anti-abortion bill. The law, which a federal judge put on hold, made Indiana the second state to prohibit a woman from seeking an abortion if her fetus is diagnosed with a disability such as Down’s syndrome. It also prohibits abortions based on the gender or race of a fetus and would require the remains to be interred.”

Trying to protect disabled children or trying stop prejudice against girls is a bad thing? Good and decent people believe it is exemplary to protect a Down syndrome baby from being killed for no other reason that she/he has a disability -- or any other reason. It is absolutely right to support measures against the barbaric practice of gender based abortions [translation: baby girls] or race.  

Now I know it’s not PC to say this but it's a fact that certain cultures value boys more than girls, and some cultures place little value on daughters at all.  Since when did being a girl or having a disability warrant death?! Governor Pence’s actions should not be decried, they should be applauded!

I have spent decades trying to promote disability inclusion and welcome for the disabled.  Since the 1970s, I have espoused an inclusive world where females are not discriminated against in any facet of life.  I want my daughter and granddaughters to rise to their fullest potential … but never at the expense of another life.

Pro-life Mike Pence

Notice how reporter Maureen Groppe couched Governor Pence’s affirmation of the most vulnerable human lives as “antiabortion” rather than pro-Life.  I suspect the intent is cast his affirmation of every life in a negative light.  It didn’t work with me. Mike Pence's actions as Governor illustrate he is principled and civilized.  He truly believes in the universal right to life  -- as stated in the United Nations Declaration of Universal Human Rights -- which the US was instrumental in creating back in 1948. Universal human rights should apply to all human life. That's why it's call "universal". Universal human rights do not exclude any lives, such as pro-abortion Hillary Clinton espouses.

Some readers will object to me calling Hillary Clinton pro-abortion. They would say she’s pro-choice. What choice does she support? The choice to kill one’s unwanted child still in the womb. She believes that a child’s human rights only begin after birth, as though there’s some sort of bar-mitzvah in the birth canal.  (Beware of people who don’t finish their sentences.)

We need to finally pull back the curtain on the barbarism of abortion. It is not enlightened.  It is new age Molech.  

Donald Trump has his faults – and they are many – but he’s a better alternative than Hillary. Why do I say that? With Donald Trump as President he will have a Christian pro-Life Vice-President who may be able to moderate some of his more outlandish tendencies. Already Trump has invited pro-Life Catholic Rick Santorum into his circle of influence. Trump has said he will appoint Pro-Life judges to the Supreme Court and uphold the Hyde Amendment.  

Pro-abortion Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton will appoint abortion ideologues to the Supreme and strike down the Hyde Amendment. She will surround herself with stone-hearted people just like herself.  She is unfit for public office because she will not protect the youngest in the American family: Its unborn. She supports assisted suicide. That is why she must not be elected. There are some issues that disqualify someone from America’s vote and and this is one. Being in favour of abortion and vowing to expand it through groups like Planned Parenthood, and their hideous activities, makes Hillary Clinton unworthy of America’s highest office.

The United States of America had a history of protecting people who could not protect themselves.  It seems to me America must return to that noble nature.  It begins at home by electing the person who is most likely to stop the abortion holocaust that is polluting the land. Hillary Clinton with expand the abortion holocaust. The killing must stop!

God is patient but He does have his limits.  Do not elect Hillary Clinton. Return to America's noble and life affirming conscience.