Faith

From an opinion piece of the same title by Kathleen Parker, originally printed in the Orlando Sentinel and reprinted here in the Chicago Tribune:

Britain's Sunday Times reported that more than 20 babies had been aborted in advanced stages of gestation between 1996 and 2004 in England because scans showed they had clubfeet. Had these parents never heard of Dudley Moore, the British actor who also had a clubfoot? Another four babies were aborted because they had extra digits or webbed fingers, according to the same story. In 2002 a baby was aborted at 28 weeks because of a cleft palate. Last year, a 6-month-old fetus was aborted when ultrasound revealed that part of a foot was missing, according to the Times. One doesn't have to believe in the supernatural to wonder what might have been. . Since abortion was legalized in 1973, estimates are that some 50 million of them have been performed in the U.S. Of that number, relatively few have been owing to fetal defects, compared with lifestyle concerns, according to a 2004 Alan Guttmacher Institute study. While it may be intellectually easier to justify aborting a fetus in cases of severe abnormalities, terminating a pregnancy because of easily corrected imperfections should disturb our sleep. If parents can be moved to abort their babies because of smallish flaws, how long before designer babies become the norm--or abortions are performed when babies have the wrong eye color or are the wrong sex? The list of accomplished people with birth defects, meanwhile, is long. Two born with clubfeet are Kristi Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olympic champion figure skater, and U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868), who helped draft the 14th Amendment and the Reconstruction Act. Imagine what our cultural conversation would have been without Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish existentialist philosopher--a hunchback with uneven legs. Or Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, the 17th Century Mexican dramatist, who also was a hunchback and wrote some 20 dramas, including "La Verdad Sospechosa." Translated, "The Suspicious Truth" is an apt title for the argument that reproductive choice always trumps all other considerations, or that any and all birth defects conscribe a child to a life not worth living. If we don't want to grant life to those afflicted with small deformities, where do we set the bar for "good enough"? More important, perhaps, what is the cost to our humanity--not to mention the poet's soul--when the imperfect have no place among the living?

From an AP story of the same title from last month:

The Vatican issued a sweeping condemnation Tuesday of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so threatened as in today's world... However, the document did not mention an ongoing debate within the Vatican on whether the Roman Catholic Church could permit condoms to battle AIDS in a particular circumstance - when one partner in a marriage has the virus... The document did not break any new ground but summarized traditional Vatican positions... It reaffirmed the famous 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae" that stated the Vatican's opposition to contraception. Since then, it said, couples "have been limiting themselves to one, or maximum two children." "Never before in history has human procreation, and therefore the family, which is its natural place, been so threatened as in today's culture," said the 57-page document. It also condemned in-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and the use of embryos. "The human being has the right to be generated, not produced, to come to life not in virtue of an artificial process but of a human act in the full sense of the term: the union between a man and a woman," the document said.

From an entry of the same title in the MoJo Blog by Paige Austin:

A new report from the Center for American Progress says that religion and morality are deeply important to the vast majority of American voters-but with different political implications than one might think. While more than two-thirds of voters report praying at least once a day and over half say they attend religious services weekly, only a minority of them think that their own religion's teachings ought to shape public policy. More surprisingly, most respondents said that the values behind religion should underlie broader debates on poverty and hunger, homelessness, and government corruption. Yet fewer than half think the same about hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage.

From an article of the same title by David Haldane in the LA Times:

Like Catholic priests everywhere, Bishop Peter Hickman dons a white tunic each Sunday to celebrate Mass in a sanctuary laden with incense and crosses. Unlike most, he'll often have lunch with his wife and children afterward. "Marriage promotes growth," says Hickman, 50, who has fathered five children, been married three times and divorced twice. "People who've never been married have a hard time knowing themselves." Marriage and children aren't the only things separating Hickman from nearly all Roman Catholic clergy. The church he has pastored for more than 20 years, St. Matthew in Orange, operates much like any other Catholic church, and offers what appear to be the same sacraments. Yet it ordains female, married and openly gay priests, recognizes divorce, accepts birth control and premarital sex, blesses same-sex unions and, most important, rejects the authority of the pope... Fueled by the church's sexual abuse scandal and increasing demands for full participation by women, gays and others, the independent Catholic movement has gained momentum in the last several years. After starting out three years ago with seven parishes representing about 1,700 people, Hickman said, the Ecumenical Catholic Communion now comprises 23 parishes serving nearly 3,200 people in California, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, Minnesota, Florida and New York... ...there are more than 300 independent Catholic congregations nationwide serving at least 5,000 people. That's a tiny percentage of the country's estimated 60 million Catholics. But the number is growing rapidly...

From an AP article of the same title by Andrew Welsh-Huggins:

The Episcopal Church is poised to apologize for failing to oppose slavery, but making up for its 19th century inaction won't come without 21st century controversy. At its national convention beginning June 13, the church is expected to approve a resolution expressing regret for supporting slavery and segregation. A second resolution is more controversial: It calls for a study of possible reparations for black Episcopalians... The church is struggling over whether reparations would be a meaningful gesture 141 years after the Civil War ended. Reparations could mean anything from cash payments to college scholarships.

The article doesn't detail why the Episcopal Chruch is feeling this guilt. On a related topic, the documentary "Traces of the Trade" sounds interesting. According to an Episocopal News Service article by Daphne Mack, it "...tells the story of the DeWolf family, the largest slave-trading family in US history and also a prominent part of the Episcopal Church in Rhode Island."