Notes: Tuesday, February 5-Monday, July 22, 2019 (part 3 of 3)

7. The latest bioethical offences from Australia's political duopoly

7.1 A Labor Federal Government would work to increase access to contraception and abortion, most notably by ensuring that "Commonwealth-State hospital funding agreements will expect that termination services will be provided consistently in public hospitals."

See the Media Release "LABOR’S PLAN TO SUPPORT WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS", Wednesday, March 6, 2019, issued jointly by The Hon. Tanya Plibersek M.P. (at the time, Deputy Leader of H.M.A. Opposition and its Shadow Minister for Education and Training and for Women) and The Hon. Catherine King M.P. (at the time, Federal Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) and available at their respective websites:

http://www.tanyaplibersek.com/media_release_labor_s_plan_to_support_women_s_reproductive_rights_wednesday_6_march_2019

https://www.catherineking.com.au/2019/03/05/labors-plan-to-support-womens-reproductive-rights/

Labels: A.L., abortion, contraception

7.2 "Women will have greater choice around IVF services with the NSW Liberals & Nationals Government providing up to a $500 rebate for pre-IVF fertility testing and greater access to lower cost treatments", whereby "the NSW Government will provide lower cost IVF treatments for around 6000 women through services at Royal Prince Alfred, The Royal Hospital for Women and Westmead hospitals"; and there will be "a partnership with UNSW for the first statewide fertility preservation service for young cancer patients at The Royal Hospital for Women."

Those quotations come from the press release "MAKING IVF MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR WOMEN", Saturday, March 9, 2019, downloaded from the website of The Liberal Party of Australia's New South Wales Division:

https://nsw.liberal.org.au/candidates/gladys-berejiklian/news/articles/MAKING-IVF-MORE-ACCESSIBLE-FOR-WOMEN

Labels: I.V.F., L.P.A., Nationals

8. St. Thomas Aquinas against the doctrines of original liberty and original equality

See note 92 at the end of the article "The Corporate Idea and the Body Politic in the Middle Ages", by Anton-Hermann Chroust, in The Review of Politics, Vol. 9, Issue No. 4, October 1947, pp. 423-452:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-politics/article/corporate-idea-and-the-body-politic-in-the-middle-ages/0B226F3CF3CB5272E74E7655C48EE5D2

This is the relevant section of that note:

Compare St. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica I, quaest. 96, art. 3 Google Scholar: “We must of necessity admit that in the primitive state there would have been some inequality.…” See ibid, quaest. 96, art. 4: “… a man is the master of a free subject, by directing him either towards his proper welfare, or the common good. Such a type of mastership would have existed in the state of innocence between man and man, for two reasons: first, because man is by nature a social being, and thus in the state of innocence he would have led a social life. Now a social life cannot exist among a number of people unless under the direction of one to look after the common welfare; for many, as such, seek many things, whereas one attends only to one.…” See also Summa contra Ceniiles[ sic] III, 81
[italics, bold type, and hyperlinks in the original, my square-bracketed interpolation]

Labels: Democratism, liberalism, morals, politics, St. Thomas Aquinas

9. Dr. Gosbell on ancient Christian (and pagan) attitudes to abortion and infanticide

See the A.B.C. Religion and Ethics article ""As long as it's healthy": What can we learn from early Christianity's resistance to infanticide and exposure?", by Dr. Louise Gosbell, Wednesday, March 13, 2019:

Warning: That article is headed by a picture which could scandalise some readers:

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/early-christianitys-resistance-to-infanticide-and-exposure/10898016

Labels: abortion, Fathers, infanticide, morals

10. 24% of mothers in couple families in Australia were unwaged in 2016, down from 32% in 1991.

My immediate source for the information in that headline is Figure 2 of the Australian Institute of Family Studies research summary "Fathers and work: A statistical overview", by Dr. Jennifer Baxter, May 2019:

https://aifs.gov.au/aifs-conference/fathers-and-work

(The ultimate source is the Australian Population Census customised reports, 1991–2016, according to Figure 2's caption.)

Labels: demography, family, social trends, work

11. On the morning of the 26. ult., The Duke of Cambridge "officially opened the Albert Kennedy Trust new Services Centre" in London.

See the Court Circular of that date. According to akt's "our history" webpage, akt is the "world’s first ever service for homeless LGBT youth":

https://www.akt.org.uk/our-history

and according to its "duke of cambridge visits akt" webpage, that official opening involved "the first visit to a lgbtq+ youth charity by a member of the royal family":

https://www.akt.org.uk/news/duke-of-cambridge-visits-akt

Labels: G.L.B.T., William Cambridge

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent, A.D. 2019

Notes: Tuesday, February 28-Tuesday, March 20, 2012

1. "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?", by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva:

http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full.pdf+html

(That U.R.L. came to my attention via this True Catholic thread.)

See also "An open letter from Giubilini and Minerva":

http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/03/02/an-open-letter-from-giubilini-and-minerva/

(That came to my attention, indirectly, via this AQ comment.)

And in Mr. Bolt's opinion piece on that Journal of Medical Ethics article, he mentions some cases of late-term abortion.

Labels: abortion, infanticide, morality

2. "Six specialised teams, each with a doctor, are criss-crossing the Netherlands to carry out euthanasia on patients at home whose own doctors refuse to do so."

http://www.smh.com.au/world/euthanasia-units-at-work-20120301-1u5sx.html?skin=text-only

Labels: euthanasia

3. "Rick Santorum and the Kingship of Christ"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41106

Labels: Church and State, Confessional State, morality, political science, Social Reign of Christ

4. "BENEDICT AND THE JEWS"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41083

Labels: B'nai B'rith, Freemasons, Jews

5. "Statistics Canada reports the prevalence in the country of homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals to be 1.5% of the population."

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/this-lent-development-peace-teaches-that-10-of-the-world-is-homosexual

(That came to my attention via this AQ thread.)

Labels: demography, G.L.B.T.

6. "The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the prohibition of adoption to non-married couples is not discriminatory, because it applies to both heterosexual and homosexual couples equally[, and] has also ruled that homosexual “marriage” is not a right under the European Convention on Human Rights"

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gay-marriage-not-a-right-prohibiting-gay-adoption-not-discrimination-europe

(That web-page came to my attention via this True Catholic thread; there is also an AQ thread about it.)

Labels: E.C.H.R., G.L.B.T., marriage

Reginaldvs Cantvar
20.III.2012

Notes: Tuesday-Wednesday, December 14-15, 2010

1. A good letter (1.1) to The Australian on abortion and infanticide and a bad (but significant) letter (1.2) to the same paper on euthanasia

1.1 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/is-keli-lane-a-victim-of-celebrity-culture/story-fn558imw-1225971154237 (the second of the letters)

1.2 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/pain-free-dignity/story-fn558imw-1225971157866

Excerpt:

Those who sanctify human life above all other [sic] and who persist with the myth that dying from a terminal disease can be dignified are wrong.

What an insult to the many people who have courageously and dignifiedly obeyed the natural law's prohibition of euthanasia.

2. Leo XIII. on religious error as "the main root of all social and political evils"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35120
(second-last sentence of the last paragraph in the quote block in the thread-starter)

3. Bizarre justification for womenpriests

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35109
(nicely refuted in the first comment after the thread-starter)

4. Mr. Rabich on the difference between identity and behaviour (in connection with 'gay rights')

http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/12/14/christian-adultery-conference/
(second of the thirteen combox comments)

5. Council of the European Bishops' Conferences communiqué regarding the 2nd Catholic-Orthodox Forum (Rhodes, Greece, October 18-22, 2010, main theme: "Church and State Relations: from Historical and Theological Perspectives")

http://www.ccee.ch/index.php?&na=4,1,0,0,e,126134,0,0,
(brought to my attention by Mr. Schütz in this comment of his at his blog)

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Ember Wednesday in Advent, A.D. 2010

The latest from MgS: Her Honour hands down the sentence for the Tiller assassin and, by her logic, encourages abortionites to carry it out

http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2009/05/fetus-fetishists-strike.html

Having shot herself in one foot in her post railing against my “misquoting”, “deliberately misunderstanding”, “intellectual dishonesty” and “typically circular reasoning” (when in fact she was wrong on all four points!), MgS has now taken out the other foot with an extravagant but muddle-headed denunciation of “fetus fetishists” (!) who, in MgS’s addled brain, “[d]irectly or indirectly … are responsible for [the killing of late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller]”. And in the course of doing the very thing that she so floridly condemns (and not only doing that, but going further than almost anyone in the pro-life movement would correspondingly dare to go), she makes a rather revealing statement that shows that her opposition to the death penalty (and to torture, apparently) is (are) a sham. Read her post and then read these comments of mine (here, because I suspect that she won’t be publishing them at her blog):

***

"So, I see that Randall Terry is out flapping his gums about how George Tiller was a mass murderer - as if that justifies some nutcase gunman shooting him in church."

Mr. Terry implies no such thing; the non sequitur is entirely your own (two wrongs don't make a right).

"He's not - he's a vigilante, a murderer and a criminal ... and a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller. [...]It is time to recognize that [the "fetus fetishists'"] judgmentalism is giving the worst society has to offer the license to kill."

This is truly vintage MgS. Few can shoot themselves in the foot as artfully as you can. In the second quoted sentence you denounce "fetus fetishists" for giving murderers a "license to kill" because of their denunciations of abortionists(despite the fact that two wrongs don't make a right). But in the first quoted sentence you go much further than a mere denunciation of Dr. Tiller's assassin--you prescribe the punishment of which you adjudge him deserving. So if someone from the pro-abortion movement were to assassinate the assassin, are you then guilty, and all the more strongly than the anti-abortion movement, of handing out a "license to kill"? By your logic the answer is an emphatic 'yes'. (But of course the pro-abortion movement is only comfortable killing defenceless babies, so I'm sure you've no need to worry about someone acting on your advice.)

Now knowing how dense you are, I suppose I'm going to have to spell out the logic there for you like I've had to do on other occasions, so here we go, step by step:

1. You think that the denunciation of abortion makes the denouncers directly or indirectly responsible for the killing of abortionists.
Proof: "Directly or indirectly, they are responsible for what happened in Kansas today."

2. You have denounced the assassin (rightly, of course), but have also gone one step further and prescribed the punishment that he ought to face.
Proof of your denunciation: "[the assassin is] a vigilante, a murderer and a criminal"
Proof of your sentencing of the assassin: "[the assassin is] a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller."

3. Now if denunciation of an action incurs reponsibility for acts that are intended to stop, or even just to punish, that action, then a fortiori, denunciation of a vigilante, coupled with the pronouncement of what amounts to an extra-judicial sentence for that vigilante (and as shown in 2., you have done both these things), incurs responsibility for any attacks on that vigilante (by 1.). So if someone from the pro-abortion movement decides to act on Your Honour's sentence, then you are responsible for that act. Q.E.D.
4. And furthermore, this process turns into a vicious cycle that can only be brought to an end once all denunciations of vigilanteism cease. But of course, the cycle can be avoided altogether simply by acknowledging that two wrongs do not make a right!, and hence he who denounces something as wrong incurs no responsibility for those who try to remedy that wrong with another wrong.
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[Second part (too many characters for one comment)]

"The Fetus Fetishists ..."

Have we been elevated to that encyclopedia of fetishists, the D.S.M., yet? We haven't? Oh well, there's always next edition. I'd better start lobbying for our inclusion in that august tome, that way you'll have no choice but to respect our feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings!

"last I checked the pro-choice lobby doesn't go around murdering doctors in cold blood."

Yeah, the pro-abortion lobby would never choose prey who could respond with proportionate force or take evasive action. And shooting is sooooo passé--the pro-abortion lobby likes to be a bit creative; never in my darkest nightmares could I have come up with the idea of killing babies by slicing their heads opening and sucking their brains out by vacuum suction (keeping the head three inches inside the mother's body, of course, so as to preserve the illusion of your all-important 'biological dependence'), but that's just another day at the office for courageous men (are there many female abortionists?) like Dr. Tiller.

"It's things like this that make me downright furious most days ..."

You poor thing. It must be terribly draining to be a standard-bearer for the angry Left.

"When we hear politicians musing about introducing abortion controls ..."

Good to be reminded of what you stand for: a completely uncontrolled power of life and death of mothers over their children, whether born or unborn up to the equivalent of nine months gestation, unrestricted with respect to both the timing of the abortion and its method.

Now let's conclude by reflecting a little on what you said about the punishment that the assassin deserves:

"the wingnut who shot Dr. Tiller [is] a man who deserves to be treated far worse than how he treated Dr. Tiller."

Now how the assassin 'treated' Dr. Tiller was to shoot him, and you want to see the assassin treated "far worse" than mere shooting. So it seems that MgS, that staunch opponent of that wicked practice, the death penalty (which you labelled "murder"), is now advocating not only the death penalty, but presumably the death penalty preceded by some kind of torture (and a particularly excruciating torture, it would seem, since the assassin's treatment has to be "far worse" than a quick kill). Thank you, MgS, for proving beyond all doubt that the only thing giving your ethics any consistency is your own tastes and preferences. How pathetic.

(This time I really don't expect you to publish this comment--it's possibly even more ego-deflating than the one where I refuted that post you did raging against me, and you're already "furious"--but I'm publishing it at my blog, where you're welcome to comment; I'm certainly not afraid to defend my opinions in open, mature discussion.)
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***

Do consider paying MgS a visit and letting her know what you think of her opinions and the quality of her blogging.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Ember Wednesday of Pentecost, A.D. 2009

Mr. Obama snubs annual American March for Life, sheds light on his own, and America’s, rationale for permitting abortion

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/abortion-protesters-lose-presidential-seal/2009/01/23/1232471590633.html

The Sydney Morning Herod ran an interesting little article on Saturday, reporting on how the new American President, Mr. Barack Obama, has snubbed the annual March for Life:

For eight years, marchers had been greeted by a message from President George Bush, who supported their cause and appointed two Supreme Court justices sympathetic to it.

In contrast, Mr Obama issued a statement yesterday reaffirming his support for a woman's right to choose to end her pregnancy.

Even more interesting, though, was what that statement had to say, by implication, about why Mr. Obama upholds the supposed ‘right’ to kills one’s own unborn children:

Roe v Wade, the statement said, "not only protects women's health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters".

Fascinating. The paterfamilias’s right to privacy within and sovereignty over his own household was, of course, the basis for many ancient societies’ tolerance of infanticide, commonly by exposition e.g. tethering the infant to a post in some hostile environment and leaving him or her to die. One might have expected such an ‘advanced’ society as America’s to have moved on from this kind of (dare I say it, MgS?) absolutism, especially since that country’s very Constitution lists man’s rights, in descending order of priority, as being to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. (Note that, as should be well-known, I abhor that liberal and Masonic document, but of course I will uphold one person’s right to life against another’s right to privacy in such “family matters” any day.) A right to privacy clearly comes under either liberty or the pursuit of happiness (both of which the Americans misconceive, though), which are, according to the Americans, subordinate to the right to life, so one might have thought that, when there is a question of a conflict between one person’s very right to life and another’s right to mere privacy, a rigorous investigation would have to be made into whether or not the person is, indeed, entitled to his or her continued earthly existence. Apparently not, according to the august judges in Roe vs. Wade.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. John Chrysostom, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, A.D. 2009

On an abortion method that I had never previously imagined

http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/article.php?classID=3&subclassID=7&articleID=4921&class=Features&subclass=Cardinal
His Eminence The Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney reports that

Medicare pays for [second trimester] abortions under the heading of “Management of second trimester labour”. This is interpreted to cover both brutal partial birth abortion, which is banned in the United States, as well as the induction of labour in which many babies are actually delivered alive and simply left to die. This was the terrible fate of 47 unborn children who were aborted after 20 weeks in Victoria in 2005.
(my emphasis)

This calls to mind the ancient pagan practice of ‘exposition’, whereby (and, as appalling as it will sound, I am not making it up) unwanted children would be tethered to some post and left to die by exposure to the elements. One can only agree with Professor Romano Amerio in Iota Unum when he writes that the legitimisation of abortion means that the contemporary West has sunk to a lower level than some of the great pagan societies of antiquity. Whenever you hear the secularists pleading, on the grounds of 'compassion', for the latest Human Right of the Month and feel tempted to sympathise, think of the forty-seven babies left to die.

Reginaldvs Cantvar