A comment that caught my attention (in a discussion of Margaret Sanger's self-description about her unfitness) was "I love me too much to try to love another human being." I would say that it was precisely because she did NOT love herself that she felt unfit to love another.
Remember the Great Commandment: "Love the LORD your God with all you heart, with all your mind and with all your strength." This is what enables one to love oneself; not loving God devolves into loathing oneself. Loving God enables us to go on to "love one's neighbor as oneself."
I am amazed how the story of Margaret Sanger does not disgust those who advocate the "pro-choice" position. It is a false idea about freedom that beguiles people to adopt such wrong-headed agendas.
Have any of you ever heard of "the American Baby Code" that allegedly was drafted by Margaret Sanger and published in 1934 in AMERICAN WEEKLY magazine? The following appeared in a blog at http://awashingtondccatholic.blogspot.com/2008/12/american-baby-code.html
Article 1.
The purpose of the American Baby Code shall be to provide for a better distribution of babies. To assist couples who wish to prevent overproduction of offspring and thus to reduce the burden of charity and taxation for public relief and to protect society against the propagation and increase of the unfit.
Article 2.
Birth control clinics shall be permitted to function as services of government health departments or under the support of charity, or as non-profit, self-sustaining agencies subject to inspection and control by public authorities.
Article 3.
A marriage license shall in itself give husband and wife only the right to a common household and not the right to parenthood.
Article 4.
No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for parenthood.
Article 5.
Permits for parenthood shall be issued by government authorities to married couples upon application, providing the parents are financially able to support the expected child, have the qualifications needed for proper rearing of the child, have no transmissible diseases, and on the woman’s part no indication that maternity is likely to result in death or permanent injury to health.
Article 6.
No permit for parenthood shall be valid for more than one birth.
Article 7.
Every county shall be assisted administratively by the states in the effort to maintain a direct ratio between county birth rate and its index of child welfare. When the county records show an unfavorable variation from this ratio the county shall be taxed by the State…. The revenues thus obtained shall be expended by the State within the given county in giving financial support to birth control…..
Article 8.
Feeble-minded persons, habitual congenital criminals, those afflicted with inheritable diseases, and others found biologically unfit should be sterilized or in cases of doubt should be isolated as to prevent the perpetuation of their afflictions by breeding.
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A strategy of finding agreement is allegedly that of President Obama: "How can we apply common-sense, common-ground approaches to difficult problems so that we can move the ball forward, so that we can start to change the dialogue away from just those things we disagree on to those areas where we do agree?"
This quote is from an article in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020501506.html?hpid=moreheadlines) reporting on "the creation of a new White House Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which will make abortion reduction one of its priorities."
I hope to discuss in class this article about President Obama's strategy to fundamentally reshape one of the nation's most intransigent political stalemates.
What should be the goal of debate about abortion - perhaps the sharpest, most divisive wedge issue in the country?
"the morality and legality of abortion"
vs.
"the reasons [women] might choose the procedure"
... "ardent supporters [may] think he is compromising too much"
... "antiabortion allies who have aligned themselves with him [may] end up feeling betrayed."
LABELS -
pro: family-planning proponents, abortion rights activists, women's health advocates, reproductive rights advocates
con: abortion opponents, antiabortion activists, conservatives, "pro-life movement"
"White House Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships … will make abortion reduction one of its priorities." Let us pray that this will be so.
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