Abortion and the Abortionists

                           Abortion and the Abortionists

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/26/19

               

            This past week my wife received a mail-out from Planned Parenthood.  It included a membership card and an appeal for money.  My wife did not solicit the information, has never been a member of Planned Parenthood and most certainly never will be.  She doesn’t believe in “terminating” unborn babies or in the ridiculous claim that doing so is a part of “reproductive health.”

            This appeal came at a wrong time for us.  Our youngest son and his wife are expecting their second child in July.  It’s a girl.  When I look at our beautiful daughter-in-law in her third trimester, I think of Governor Northam of Virginia (a doctor!) who defended letting babies die after birth.  He has paid no political price.  After a brief stir, things are back to normal for Northam.

            I think also of Joe Biden who recently said if he is elected president, he would do everything within his power to maintain “abortion rights.”

            Abortion “rights”?  The “right” to get rid of a baby?  Just what is abortion?  How is it done?  Why is it done?  We know the answers to these questions.  Abortion ends the life, horribly so, of unborn babies.  And that is a “right”?  God forbid.  There is no separation of the abortionist and abortion supporters.  They are all accomplices.

            Abortion is done in different ways, and they are all barbaric.  Why is it done?  That’s the most important and revealing question.  It is not done mostly because of rape.  It’s done out of convenience, because people don’t want the baby they have produced.  Regarding rape, I’m glad that the black actress and Christian singer Ethel Waters, the result of rape, wasn’t aborted.

            Reading through the mail-out also made me think about Stacy Abrams, Nancy Pelosi, the National Organization of Women, and many others, all of whom are complicit with the infamous Dr. Gosnell.  The whole picture makes me sad and angry.  Where is our respect for the wonder, the mystery, and the sacredness of life?  Are abortionists and their cheerleaders not bothered at all by the brutal act of dismemberment or suction?

            What a philosophical dance to toy with the word “viable.”  What a moral judgment to “decide” when human life is human life.  It is akin to the euthanasia argument that says “quality of life” is the determining factor in whether or not assisted suicide should be permissible.

            How did abortion become the centerpiece of the Democratic Party?  How can any woman who is carrying a baby allow it to be killed?  How did so many American and European women become hostile to the thought of pregnancy and motherhood?

            Our modern culture wants no limitation on sex.  Now we can – or so we think – choose our sex, change our sex, reduce sex to entertainment only, and simply rid ourselves of the undesired result of sex.  One chief aim of liberalism has been to free man from nature and nature’s God, particularly regarding sexuality.

            But more and more Americans are speaking out against abortion, with little help from Congressional conservatives.  Eleven state legislatures have already passed “heartbeat bills” that virtually end abortions in their states.  The persistent work of Concerned Women of America (which dwarfs the NOW), the Family Research Council, and other pro-life groups is paying off.  It’s no longer a fight between activist organizations.  Ordinary citizens are apparently telling their state legislatures how they feel.

            The movie “Unplanned” has revealed much about Planned Parenthood.  Its main true character, Abby Johnson, had risen from volunteer to clinic manager.  Upon witnessing an abortion for the first time in her own clinic, she left Planned Parenthood and began to give speeches that advance the pro-life position and uncover the details of Planned Parenthood’s evil.  I suspect witnessing an abortion might change Abrams, Pelosi, and anyone else.  But how likely is it that they or any of us will ever witness one?  Enjoying bloody murder and raunchy sex on the screen, we withdraw from depicting the act of abortion.

            And just why has our federal government continued to give money to Planned Parenthood?  Perhaps because members of Congress have never witnessed an abortion either, or because there has been no effective groundswell against the murderous act.  But that is changing and changing fast.

            The letter my wife received states there are nearly 20 abortion cases that are one step away from the Supreme Court.  Yes, the letter was a fund-raising effort, but it also revealed a real fear of the changing wind at the state level.

            Technology is opening many eyes, but it was observation that changed Abby Johnson.  I pray that many other Planned Parenthood employees and supporters will be changed as well.

Roger Hines

5/22/19

           

             

Is our Language getting to be a Mess?

                                   Is our Language getting to be a Mess?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/19/19

So …, if global warming doesn’t do us in, repetitive or prissy words and phrases will.  That said, at the end of the day we’re talking about an existential threat to the nation.  I mean, the way we’re throwing around repetitive, prissy words these days, who can understand anybody?  Like, what’s wrong with plain words?

            So … another thing.  About the two words “existential threat.”  I used them in the paragraph above just to see how it would feel.  I can tell you I feel awful for doing it.  I know what a threat is, but every time I hear somebody on television say “existential” threat, I screw up my face a little bit and sit there, praying that the word will soon die.

            But it’s not dying.  Last week I heard it 5 times during a 10 minute conversation between a cable news anchor and a member of Congress.  Speaking of conversation, “let’s have a conversation.”  That’s another jewel that’s going to drive some of us to insanity.  The first time I heard it was when Hillary Clinton was announcing her candidacy for president via video and concluded by saying, “So … let’s have a conversation.”  Ah, was it Hillary who in-artfully initiated the “So …” craze as well? I’m ready for a conversation on how to kill off “Let’s have a conversation,” as well as on “We can have that conversation.”

So …, back to “existential.” I’m sure it refers to existence, so am I right to assume that an “existential threat” is a threat that threatens our existence, say, like the sun itself, since it’s supposed to burn us up in about 12 years?

Another word is “issue.”  I have an issue with the word “issue.”  Talk about abuse.  It used to mean “topic,” as in the issue of inflation, slavery, or the misuse or overuse of certain words.  Today it means anything you want it to mean, but typically people use it when they mean problem.  So …, I don’t have an “issue” with arthritis; I have a problem.  Believe me.

Not to offend members of the therapy generation, but I’m also skittish about the word “bonding.”  Look, I’ll befriend you, support you, defend you, give you a little money, or hug your neck, but please don’t require that we “bond.”   Let’s just become the best of buddies and leave it at that.  I didn’t say I was against touching.  I’m not.  I’ve been around hundreds of teens and young adults who, I firmly believe, were not touched enough.  But they didn’t need any “bonding.”  They needed a little more attention and loads of encouragement.

Speaking of the therapy generation, may I never make light of depression or any other such emotional needs, but our heightened emphasis on therapy is an indication that many of our emotional needs have been manufactured.  According to Dr. Peggy Drexler, a New York-based research psychologist, today’s 20-and 30-somethings are turning to therapy more frequently and far sooner than their age group in any previous era.  With such changes come the changing language and new words.  “Self-care” and “life coaches” are now very much with us.  And what do life coaches recommend for self-care?  Bonding.

As for clichés, don’t get me started.  Let’s just “bring to the table” all of them we’ve ever utilized (that means “used”) and “put them to bed.”  Then let’s start with “a level playing field,” avoid “mixing apples with oranges,” and do our best to “change the culture” at our workplaces.  Truth is we just need to have a funeral – I mean, “memorial service” – for all the pretentious language any of us have ever used.  That done, we should all have “closure.”

Closure can never arrive, though, for those who insist on saying “firstly” for “first.” Or “hopefully” for anything.  “Hopefully” should be shot at daybreak.”  It is a cheap, non-think convenience that is right up there with “issue,” and I do have a problem with it.  Not an issue.

I don’t mean to sound like a language stickler.  The people I grew up around used clear, understandable English.  They busted many a verb, but they still knew how to speak plainly and respectfully.  I understand that language, like dress, is social adaptation.  You put it on or take it off, depending on the occasion.

But you always, always avoid saying something like “Never end the life of a water bird that can lay ovoid bodies composed of the precious yellow metal” when all you mean is “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.”

Roger Hines

5/8/19

 

Why I Still Love the South

                               Why I Still Love the South

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 5/12/19

            I’ve always believed I would make a good Yankee, mainly because every place in the North I’ve visited, I’ve liked.  Pristine Wisconsin won my heart during a college summer job that carried me all over the state. 

            If Boston has any alleys that aren’t clean and shiny, I must have missed them.  All of the ones I have peered into were as clean as the streets.  Portland, Maine had me even before I walked through the house of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Oh, those seafood restaurants and the friendly locals who frequented them.  In Chicago at the world famous Moody Church, I observed that the auditorium full of congregants was about one-third black, one-third white, and one-third Asian.  That was nice.

                        Unlike other regions of the nation that are quite happy with who they are, too many leaders of the South have succumbed to the smearing of the South-hating Southern Poverty Law Center and to Hollywood’s portrayals of the South.  Former Emory University professor Boyd Cathy recently wrote, “A South whose leadership cannot or will not say a good word about Robert E. Lee is in serious decline, if not already dead.”

            How sad that in the South we now have virtually no political leaders who will defend the South from the slings and arrows thrown her way.  How many Southern governors, mayors, or community leaders have resisted the numerous attacks on Southern monuments?  Indeed, how many of them have led the way in getting rid of them?

Robert E. Lee was no more imperfect than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln.  Lee was a man of honor.  Like many of our founders, he owned slaves.  Unlike many other slaveholders of the era, he treated them kindly.  Who is defending this good man from the onslaughts of those whose aim is the cultural cleansing of the South?

            Recently presidential candidate Joe Biden used a stump speech opportunity to bring up Jim Crow laws and to claim that Republicans will take us back to Jim Crow.  How productive, how healing was that?  Has Biden visited Atlanta lately, or Charlotte?  Or Mississippi, the state that has more elected black officials than any other?  Biden’s remarks were pure bigotry, the rattling of old bones.

            Before the Civil War, the South was leading America, providing the fledgling nation with its first, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson), not to mention its supreme debaters of all time, Calhoun and Clay.  Of that stellar quartet (Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and John Jay) who transitioned America from a loose confederation into a nation, two were Southerners.  The nation’s eleventh president, James K. Polk, who extended America’s territory across the continent from sea to sea, was a Tennessean. In fact, all of the nation’s land mass beyond the 13 original states was acquired by Southern presidents.  Since 1900 the South has provided 5 presidents.

            Because of the tragic racial events in Charlottesville, we can count on one hand the Southern political leaders who will remind the nation of the South’s virtues and contributions.  It’s even harder to identify those who will defend the South against cultural cleansing.  Fearing the media, they keep quiet.

            In 1930 twelve Southern men of literature, most of whom were professors connected with either Vanderbilt University, Yale, or University of the South, penned the book, “I’ll Take My Stand.”  Dubbed “the Nashville Agrarians,” these men held forth on what the South has lent the nation.  Long before “green” was in vogue, they argued for the value of agriculture and against the evils of excessive industrialization.  No silly dreamers, these historians/novelists/poets invoked the simpler values of family, home, tradition, and community.  They decried the forces of materialism, love for power, and all compulsions of society that mediated against strong families and communities.

            If the Agrarians were alive, they would speak out against the false piety of those who point fingers at Southern monuments.  They would defend those who won’t sell their land to corporations simply because they love their land, and would rebuke Southerners who cave to the South’s critics.

            The Agrarians were not “sufferers from nostalgic vapors.”  They foresaw the cultural breakdown of hearth and home we are now seeing on the 6 o’clock news.  They knew that the South had much to offer.  Would that more Southern leaders today could be so positive instead of allowing themselves to become shameful deniers of their heritage.

            I’m proud of the South for its self-reckoning, its racial healing, and its genuineness.  And I’m still proud of Robert E. Lee.

Roger Hines

5/8/19