Fellow Episcopalian Curtis Price blogs as Robbinsdale Radical. Earlier this week, he posted a letter he'd seen in the Rapid City Journal. He likes it; it just made me stare at the computer screen and shake my head. Just one of several ideas in it:
When a woman decides to bring a child into the world she is risking her life. One of the risks is being killed by the father. Did God turn his judgment over to 51 percent of the United States population to make life-changing decisions for every woman?
UPDATE: You need to read the whole letter, and also Perpetua's comments in this thread. The quoted paragraph is incoherent. The the first two sentences are about men who kill women to stop them from having a baby - a case in which the man was most likely insisting on abortion. The third sentence then blames this on pro-life people. It simply doesn't make any sense, unless the author is saying, "If you people would just let the men coerce their women into abortions, they wouldn't have to kill them."
As I posted yesterday, my wife and I just celebrated our 19th anniversary. These have not been easy years - it has taken the kind of durable and sacrificial love that the Bible describes. Throw in an autistic kid and the wear and tear has been extra.
That's because marriage - a commitment to which our Prayer Book (for now) assigns the primary responsibility for creating and nurturing new life - is not about two separate beings. It is about two becoming one. Yes, that's a "religious" view, but the letter writer asked a God question.
My wife and I decided together to stop having kids after Joey was born. This wasn't easy - we'd talked about having a daughter along with the two boys and my wife often joked about "having ten if we'd started sooner." But you know what? I didn't summon a mob of eeeeeeeeevil men to force a decision on my wife. Nor did I threaten to kill her, or any of the other sick slander that people use to justify abortion.
The reason marriage is a disaster in this country is because of the crappy raw material we bring to it. If we think of ourselves as individuals, or members of a "voting bloc" separate from and more important than our spouse, no wonder we can't share any kind of love worth the name. It's garbage in, garbage out. Lord, have mercy.
Finally, just as a point of fact, Curtis is an avid advocate of the Gay/Lesbian movement. The Dean of one Episcopal Seminary, a militant abortion advocate, is a lesbian. If the letter writer wants to talk about minorities dictating to majorities, how about same-sex attracted people trying to lecture the rest of us (and we are way more than 51%) on marriage, having children, family planning or much of anything else?
Man, I was enjoying Spring/Summer. Just got back in touch with the fact that we live in a fallen world. Siiiiiiigggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
7 comments:
Hi Tim,
My memory is that in some cities, the greatest health risk to a pregnant woman is murder by the father of the child. I think it is because the man does not want to become financially obligated to care for the child. I think in most cases the man is not married to the woman.
Hi, Perpetua - and this means that the victim most likely wanted the child and the man was pressing for abortion.
I agree. I think that is why the author of the letter wrote:
"When a woman decides to bring a child into the world she is risking her life. One of the risks is being killed by the father."
Ah - OK, I see your point. I probably should have posted the entire letter instead of just that paragraph. Her letter is a defense of abortion , saying that "pro-life" people are putting all the world's women at risk - her "math" is that the 51% of prolife Americans are forcing death on 52% of the world's population (women).
So the paragraph I'm quoting doesn't really fit the rest of her letter. It is a very different argument.
So I am left with the sense that she is just scattergunning some feminist talking points without a coherent view of what a healthy family should be.
Hi Tim:
I really appreciate your blog and the work you're doing.
I just wanted to weigh in on Curtis Price. These days it's hard to be 100% sure of what's going on with someone sexually, but I'm pretty sure he's not a homosexual. The last I knew, he was married (to a woman--sad that I should even see a need to clarify what used to be common sense).
He definitely is, however, an ardent promoter of homosexual causes and goals (so much so that one might automatically assume that he is in fact homosexual), in addition to abortion. Well, pick pretty much anything the Bible condemns and there's a good chance Curtis is for it, and vice versa. He's one mixed up dude.
Just wanted to clarify his "orientation," provided you don't know something I'm not aware of.
Keep up the good work and Christ be with you!
Bob
Thanks, Bob. I have corrected the post. Enjoyed and shared your Memorial Day pics from Arlington.
Thanks, and thanks for the link you posted to the Arlington pics. Arlington National Cemetery is an unusual place to visit: it inspires such sorrow on one hand, but such reverent appreciation on the other.
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