Five Stars Plus for the Missionary Position

REFLECTIONS ON FORTY DAYS or THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VIRGIL

Philip Ney MD 03//11

PERSONAL RESPONSE

What am I doing here? What is the matter with everyone? Can't they hear those screams? They must, but they are just chatting or pacing up and down swinging their rosary.

"Steve, hang onto me. I feel I'm about to do something foolish. I've got to run across the road and see if I can't stop at least one abortion."
"Do that and they will arrest you for invading the bubble zone."
"Good, come on Steve. We will burst their bubble."
"But we gave them our word for the duration on this 40 day vigil we would not go in that building."

Oh God forgive me for my fears. But you know I have other ways I'm trying to serve you in protecting preborn babies and I am right in the middle of some important work, like research and I can't do research from inside jail. I know I am suppressing my irrational, impulsive, God given instinct to rush over there and rescue mothers and babies. I know that by doing this, I am losing my humanity. You died to preserve my humanity.

Oh Lord, please don't let me lose my sensitivity and my humanity. Dear Lord please protect babies that are about to be murdered, mothers that are all going to be deeply damaged for life, fathers who are passive and angry, grandparents that will be embittered, siblings that will have existential guilt for the rest of their lives. Stop that abortionist. Shout truth into her troubled mind. Make these vigilantes serious in their prayers and demeanors. Help me to be a good example of praying. Etc.

EVIDENCE OF DEHUMANIZATION.

As a result of the rapidly creeping dehumanization of most people world wide there is:
i) Greater difficulty finding foster parents locally and internationally.
ii) Fewer volunteers for child oriented programs from summer camp counselors to Boy Scout leaders.
iii) Decline in regard and medical help for the handicapped,
iv) Deterioration in medical services for the elderly and mentally challenged.
v) Lighter sentences for those who abuse and neglect children.
vi) Use of children in dehumanized media, eg. child porn magazines.
vii) Greater fascination with violence and "snuff" movies.
viii) ETC.

God created humans to become His interesting friends. He made them a little lower than Himself and "crowned them with glory and honor" (Ps 8:5) Humans are the apex of His creation. He made them to live forever. Even after they "fell" He wanted them to survive and multiply. To survive He built into them instinctual drives of self and species protection. The best, highest of these instincts was to protect children. Without that instinct, humans would and will destroy their own species. Without their sensitivity to children in danger or hurting, humans are scarcely human. They are so much lower than they were designed to become, they are almost unrecognizable as humans.

The effects of dehumanizing are to make people:
i) Less aware of suffering. (The less you see and hear the less you are impelled to respond.)
ii) Less sensitive emotionally and thus less able to be empathetic.
iii) Better able to rationalize a non-response to another's pain or danger.
iv) A greater tendency to avoid knowing the details of the problem, eg. refugee camps
v) Increasing passivity in the face of almost every problem and challenge and thus greater immaturity.
vi) Greater self-centeredness, self-pity, hard and cruel.
vii) Automatic immobilization when a rapid response is in order.
viii) Increased underlying guilt and shame sometimes leading to depression.
ix) Greater desire for distraction from entertainment, travel, work, sex, drugs etc.
x) Increased splitting of belief and behaviour that decreases commitment and determination.
xi) Limited joy, peace and ability to worship God.
xii) Diminished ability to protest injustice and infringements. Although throughout history people have strongly protested unjust taxes, there is hardly a peep about having to pay taxes to fund unnecessary abortions in this country.
xiii) Avoid God but keep up spiritual appearances.
xiv) Probably the greatest damage related to dehumanization is that it leads so much easier enslavement.

THE PROXIMITY EFFECT.

You hear a child screaming from a block away and check to see if the parents or some one is nearby to respond. You think you see a person approach the child and assume they are there to help. You hear that screaming of a child in the next aisle when shopping. It is intensely piercing and distressing... You stop, peer around the corner and see a mother figure with a child in her arms. You hesitate to offer help. "She can probably cope and anyway it's not my business" you say to yourself and continue shopping.
Then in the parking lot, some careless driver is about to run over a child in a stroller right in front of you. Without thinking you hurl yourself in front of the car and pound on the hood. Everyone nearby acclaims you as a hero.

Your impulsive reaction is typical (used to be typical) of all good ordinary people when faced with a major threat to a child. It is a God given instinct. It has protected children in vastly different circumstances from war, disease, and genocide to abortion (at least it used to). The impulsive, reckless determination to save a child happens less and less partly because the distance and mostly because of progressive dehumanization.

If you inhibit your impulse to rescue a child in Somalia you are less dehumanized than if you inhibit the same, wonderful desire to protect a threatened child next door. You are more dehumanized if you rationalize your passivity in response to an innocent baby about to be murdered across the street than if you excuse yourself from sending a donation to dig a well for the 400,000 adult and child refugee camp in Somalia.

The closer you are to the distress, the more effort you use to stop yourself from doing "something desperate" to intervene and thus the more you damage your sensitivity and humanity. In spite of all the potential good that may come from "40 days", one side effect is to decrease the humanity of those attending the vigil. The only way I can think of countering that effect is to pray from your heart, with your own words, hard, and continuously.
The degree of dehumanization is proportional to:
i) The urgency of the tragedy
ii) The tenor of the appeal.
iii) The proximity to the situation.
iv) The frequency of exposure to the tragedy.
v) The sensitivity of the person.
vi) The rationalizations they use and share to excuse their non involvement.
vii) The capability to see and respond.
viii) The degree of lack of response
ix) The number of times they expose themselves to urgent appeals from present helpers.
x) The number of times God prompts them to do something.
Given all these factors, it is small wonder such a vast number of humans are dehumanized. For the media, research, pastors, priests, lecturers, missionaries constantly exposes them
Horrible situations and they mostly just sit and promise themselves and God that someday they will "certainly do something about this awful situation. There can be nothing as awful in God's sight than parents killing their own babies. It is so unnatural it can be considered a temporary insanity. And abortions are happening all over the world. And people know of friends and family who have contributed.
The major contribution to abortion is the murderer. The physician who for a good fee and for no other reason, cruelly dismembers a helpless child. The second greatest contributor is us. Yes us bystanders who do not react as the situation and our God given instincts demand. \
God help us. God forgive us. Yes, God saves us thru Jesus His Messiah if only people would listen and trust Him. Our salvation is all the more reason we must obey Him and prevent abortion.
I have reason to believe He is becoming very angry and impatient. I believe He coming back to earth soon.

HEALTH CARE SERVICES

The "bubble zone" was intended to prevent people from impeding access to "health care services." I would support that move if abortion was a bona fide, scientifically established and medically indicated health promoting procedure. The best evidence is that:
i) There are no benefits. Abortionists don't even feel they need to provide benefit when doing abortions.
ii) There is very large and growing evidence of harm some of which is impossible to remedied. Much like a child losing their innocence when their virginity is crudely taken from them, so those who have abortions will never again be able to hold an infant with the freshness of original motherhood. The damages associated with abortion include: poor bonding, more child abuse and neglect, depression, eating disorders, infertility, panic, sexual dysfunction, breast cancer, suicide, homicide, stroke, heart attacks, night mares, nagging regret, alienation from God, etc.
iii) Abortionists do not practice in good faith. They do not systematically follow-up their patients and so cannot know whether or not they provide them beneficial therapy.
iv) Abortionists do not offer the full range of less invasive and more reversible treatments first.
v) Abortionists do not obtain fully informed consent.

Most importantly abortionists do not assume the burden of proof to show that abortion is necessary, beneficial, with few side effects, etc. as described above. It is a lesser obligation to show harm. Abortionists and their supporters have never bothered to practice evidence based medicine because they felt secure in their political and judicial support.
Providing a procedure because someone asks for it is not medicine. It is quackery.
Since providing abortion is not a health service, "picketing" an abortion "clinic" to warn women of their likely damage, cannot be legitimately impeded.

DUTY TO WARN.

People in general and in particular, woman who had abortions, researchers and clinicians must take very seriously their duty to warn women and families. Every citizen has a duty to:
i) Observe for danger that may happen to others. ("I never saw that" has limited excuse value.)
ii) Alert and report e.g. child abuse and neglect. (Mandatory in most countries)
iii) Report damage to a bridge. The burden to warn is much greater for the expert, (civil engineer) than for the average driver.
iv) Tobacco companies must warn on the package of the hazards from smoking.
vi) Most professional associations have a duty to report on their colleagues who engage in poor practice.
vii) Seamen have a duty to report and advise of others who are practicing any type of navigation or seamanship that constitutes a hazard to navigation.
viii) People have a duty to report to the College of Physicians and Surgeons any physician who practices so poorly that their health was harmed or endangered.

Beyond the obligation to observe, alert and warn, there is an obligation to intervene if some tragedy is about to happen. You must restrain some drunk who, in his disorientation, is about to walk over the edge of a cliff to his death.

COLLUSION OF LETHAL COMPLICITY

The Bubble Zone serves the purposes of pro abortionists and prolifers alike. It allows both parties to carry on their business without interference from the other. I think that is why I have heard from 40 hour vigilators, "Now don't make too much fuss. They might make it harder for us." Very sadly this sort of statement allowed Hitler to take over the freedoms of Germans.
When we lose hard won freedoms, everyone soon becomes a slave.
Those who picket, counsel or do a vigil at an abortion clinic are assuming their civil, moral, legal and medical obligation to warn of a tax funded but illegitimate activity that only harms women.

CONCLUSION

Should there be Forty Days for Life, Vigils? Yes of course. But there needs to be some way people who have done that, can progress beyond it. Those who participate must ask God to prevent the loss of their humanity. They must truly fast and pray for God to forgive their not responding to the muffled cries of babies being aborted. They must plead with God to intervene, to get mothers and fathers to change their minds, to save babies and to heal our country from this massive stupidity.

REFLECTIONS ON FORTY DAYS or THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VIRGIL