Monday, April 18, 2011

Upcoming pro-life events

I went to the closing ceremony for the 40 Days for Life Campaign in Poway today.  I didn’t stay that long, because the folding metal chairs were quite uncomfortable.  They were similar to those in the nursing home where my dad was at a couple of years ago.  Those chairs were quite uncomfortable for both me and my mom when we visited Dad.  I tried to hide it as best I could, but he sensed something was off.  After he died I learned I had an old compression fracture of one of the vertebrae.

I did pick up some flyers about some upcoming events.  I had a CD containing articles on the Pill, but decided not to share it at this time. I’ve already given a number of people copies of this.  Apparently beginning in 1998, some pro-life doctors began to challenge pro-life’s position that the pill causes very early abortions, arguing that the child can implant in environments far more hostile than endometrial linings thinned by oral contraceptives, such as ectopic pregnancies.  I privately wondered about this discrepancy back in 1979, and when I first saw this work I began thinking I may have been on to something after all. Stuff I've been reading since then suggests most contraceptives, including IUDs and emergency contraception, seem to work at least primarily by preventing fertilization.  A notable exception may be when IUDs are used as emergency contraception. When I’ve taken part in vigils at the local Planned Parenthood clinic, they’d sometimes hand out literature saying the Pill causes early abortions, and it makes me wonder about younger people who would join our group for about a week or two, and then drop out.

These were things I didn't feel I could talk to my parents about when I was younger, even though they were pro-life, partly because I knew they had relied on the Pill after we kids were born.  I wish very much I'd been able to talk to them.  This knowledge compromised my ability to form a relationship, and it was compounded a few years later when I saw an article linking spermicides to birth defects. (A few years after that I saw another article saying that study had been flawed.)   I felt the best approach was to throw myself as wholeheartedly into pro-life activities as I could, while my parents were more concerned with my ability to find everyday work.  Efforts to do both proved unsuccessful.  When I was younger my dad and I were close, but over the years some things went horribly wrong, stemming in part from how I didn't feel I could talk to him about those issues.  At the end, his last words to me were to tell me to go to hell. 
And then there's the next day.

The next post dealing with my own activities is here.

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