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Posts Tagged ‘abortion’

Contraception Switcharoo, or Pregnancy is a Disease

10 Feb

The President and Kathleen Sebelius, director of Health and Human Services, just announced a switcharoo.

Obama’s healthcare law declared that employers have to include contraception services on their insurance plans.  Obama and Sebelius just explained why: preventative treatment. Preventing a disease is cheaper than dealing with the consequences of the disease.

Yes, the Obama view is that pregnancy and children are a disease to be prevented. This isn’t new, as he previously said that he didn’t want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” if they “made a mistake” and got pregnant.

The president just announced a change in how the law is implemented, so that insurance will pay for the cost, so religious institutions won’t have to.  Nothing changed. Nothing.

Contraception is still required to be available on every plan. Americans that provide health insurance policies to employees, are legally bound to be paying for a plan that provides contraceptive services, many of which are abortive in nature.

Obama’s announcement of who pays for it changes nothing, for 2 reasons:

  1. Like all companies (think oil companies, banks, etc.), insurance companies’ costs are paid for by consumers. If the cost of providing insurance increases, premiums have to increase in order to pay for the costs.
  2. Sebelius, on an interview immediately following the press conference, said that offering contraceptives has no cost associated with it. That is, the insurance company won’t have to pay any increased costs.

This means that nothing at all has changed about employers having to pay for contraception. Nothing has changed, in our government’s pursuit of preventing the disease known as children.

 
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Posted in Politics

 

About the open letters about Planned Parenthood funding.

21 Oct

I recently posted open letters to Kohl’s and Staples asking if they support Planned Parenthood. Kohl’s replied that they do not, and I’m still waiting to hear back from Staples.

What is my purpose in writing these letters and figuring out if these large companies where I spend money are financial-backers of abortion?

It’s an interesting struggle, figuring this out, and I’d love any thoughts you have to contribute to a discussion of this kind.

What’s the point of me writing to Kohl’s (who confirmed within 1 business day that they do not donate to Planned Parenthood)? If a clothing store supports Planned Parenthood, I may be able to buy the same clothes from another source. I can’t, however, go without pants altogether. That would be showing the world something, but it wouldn’t be showing them Jesus.

Am I responsible for what Kohl’s, Staples, or other companies do with their money? To answer this, I think about Jesus’ command that the people of Israel pay their taxes, and this money was used to oppress them as well as wage war against others. Jesus didn’t put the responsibility for Rome’s crimes on the people paying taxes. There is no indication that Jesus thought that by paying their taxes they were guilty of Rome’s crimes.The responsibility of the people was to be law-abiding citizens, and to live at peace with all people as far as it was up to them.

So what is our personal responsibility today? The direct application is that we should pay our taxes as required bylaw. A more general principle about money is that we are supposed to be good stewards. Unlike taxes, buying products is not required by law, it it discretionary. (Except for healthcare under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid plan.) That is, while we need clothes, we aren’t obligated by law to buy our clothes from a specific store. Every dollar spent is a vote in favor of who you’re giving the money to.

For a long time I avoided WalMart because of horrible customer service. I avoid Casa Bonita because the food is awful. I avoided The Sharper Image because it was expensive. I walk out of movies and get my money back if it’s overly obscene (Anchorman, Super Bad), a mockery of the very book it’s supposed to based on (The Runaway Jury) or a comedy that’s not funny at all (Napoleon Dynamite). These are all understandable, and I’m adding another category to this list: stores I’ll avoid because of what they do with their profits.

My goal isn’t to start a boycott to shut a place down or put people out of work. My goal is to take the personal responsibility that is given me in being a good steward of the money which God has put me in stewardship.

Do I bear personal responsibility for what someone else does once I give them my money? No. But I do bear responsibility for giving it to them in the first place. Why give my money to a place that supports crimes against humanity when there’s another option?

I’m willing to go to one store over another to save $5. But am I willing to spend the $5 extra if that less of the money that leaves my stewardship is then used for evil? Is $5 worth more than a human life? (Certainly of the $5, perhaps a few cents will be used as a donation to Planned Parenthood and pays for a tiny fraction of an abortion. But by going down this road, we’re making an argument that supporting a certain percent of evil is fine, or else you’ll end up calculating a price tag on a human life. I don’t think that following that logic will lead us to a good place. I think it’s safer to base the argument on good stewardship.)

Would you buy coffee from Al Qaida if it were cheaper than Starbucks? Hopefully you answer “No, because I’d be sponsoring evil just to save a few dollars on a latte.”  I’m proposing that this is the same reasoning we should be using whenever we spend the money under our stewardship.

An investor takes someone else’s money and invests in companies. Good investors will research what they’re investing in to make sure it’s worthwhile. They do their research before investing. And while the investor isn’t responsible for a CEOs decisions, they are constantly watching these companies and the people who lead them to make sure it’s still a good way to invest this money that others have put under their stewardship.

Why would we consider stewardship of God’s stuff less important than an investor’s stewardship other people’s investment funds?

I’m not arguing for making your own clothes from cotton grown in your backyard to avoid the chance of some of someone else being a bad steward. I’m not arguing that you bear personal responsibility for what Microsoft or Starbucks, Mardel’s or Chik-fil-a does with their profits. Perhaps in the future I will make those arguments as I explore these issues, but today I am simply arguing the following:

It is worth the time to learn about where you’re investing God’s money, and choose the options that contribute least to evil according to the information you are able to obtain.

 
10 Comments

Posted in Politics, Reason, Spirituality

 

Open letter to Staples about abortion support

19 Oct

This is a copy (without my full name and address) of an email I just sent to Staples.

Dear Staples:

I shop at Staples for office supplies, computer supplies, and have chosen staples as my source for purchasing very expensive equipment.

I read today (here: http://www.lifenews.com/nat6623.html) that Staples financially supports Planned Parenthood.

Like more Americans, according to Gallup, I believe that abortion is morally wrong because it is taking the life of a human (by scientific definition).

Because Planned Parenthood is in the business of promoting and providing abortions, I naturally have moral objections to my money being used to fund them.

Is it true that Staples supports Planned Parenthood? What is the nature of this support? Does a portion of my every purchase go toward funding Planned Parenthood? Is it a matching program where the Staples corporation matches contributions made by employees?

Please respond as soon as possible as whether I shop at Staples in the future depends on your response.

I am also posting this letter publicly online and will post your response as well.

Thank you for your time,

SecondJon

 
16 Comments

Posted in Culture, personal, Spirituality

 

Open letter to Kohl’s about abortion support

18 Oct

This is a copy (without my full name and address) of an email I just sent to Kohl’s department store’s community relations department.

Dear Kohls community relations:

I shop at Kohl’s for my clothes, shoes, towels, and other things. I am a Kohl’s card holder. We frequent Kohl’s for myself, my wife, and my children.

I read today (here: http://www.lifenews.com/nat6623.html) that Kohls financially supports Planned Parenthood.

Like more Americans, according to Gallup, I believe that abortion is morally wrong.

Because Planned Parenthood is in the business of promoting and providing abortions (which according to science is taking the life of a human) I naturally have moral objections to my money being used to fund abortion.

Is it true that Kohls supports Planned Parenthood? What is the nature of this support? Does a portion of my every purchase go toward funding Planned Parenthood? Is it a matching program where Kohls matches contributions made by employees?

Please respond as soon as possible as I need some new jeans, but whether I shop at Kohls in the future depends on your response.

I am also posting this letter publicly online and will post your response as well.

Thank you for your time,

SecondJon

 
21 Comments

Posted in Culture, personal, Spirituality

 

Why Breast Cancer (part 2)

12 Oct

Last night I asked the question:

Why does one disease that causes 2% of deaths every year get more attention than all other causes of death?

Breast cancer ribbons are on license plates, political buildings, food products, and apparently even football player uniforms. But it causes 2% of deaths. The leading cause of death kills 20 times as many people. That leading cause of death – that which kills more humans in America is abortion.

All things being equal, we should put our most effort into fighting the leading cause of death (abortion) – 20 times the effort we put into breast cancer awareness. For every breast cancer ribbon, there ought to be 15  heart disease ribbons. For every “I love boobies” bumper stickers, there should be two “I love people who don’t remember me” bumper stickers to promote Alzheimer’s disease which kills nearly twice as many people every year.

But we don’t – we don’t walk twenty miles against abortion for every one mile we walk against breast cancer.

So something is not equal. What are the factors?

Last night I speculated that one factor was the sexualization of culture. It’s about breasts, so we care. I also wrote that we wrongly tend to get our self-image and confidence as a man or woman based on our physical appearances, and for a disease to attack one very clear symbol of being a woman is for the disease to attack our frail self-view.

But I missed what may be the biggest factor.

This morning a friend read my blog post on Facebook and wrote

…Cancer also moves people because it is scary – there may be some ways to reduce your risk, but it is not nearly as preventable as say heart disease which is the #1 killer. We know that diet, exercise, maintenance of an appropriate BMI, etc..will drastically reduce risk of heart disease and stroke but there is no such “simple” formula for breast cancer prevention. It affects women of all ages, races, socioeconomic status and is very likely to significantly affect one of your loved ones (and mine)…

By the numbers, we all have more loved ones affected by heart disease and other killers than breast cancer, but about what makes it different from other diseases, I think she was right. Cancer is different than many diseases because they can be prevented. It’s a sneaky indiscriminate killer. It’s not a gang member that shoots you because you’re in the wrong part of town late at night. Like the flu and Alzheimer’s disease, it’s the killer that breaks into your home at night when you’re sleeping. These non-preventable diseases are scarier (though the argument could be made that it’s the preventable ones that need more awareness so people can prevent them).

Breast cancer can affect any adult woman, regardless of many factors, including health. It’s not a “fatty disease,” which could have been prevented or limited if someone kept themselves more attractive. It’s not a disease that only affects old people.

So why do we care more about deaths caused by breast cancer than anything else, including other non-preventable diseases like Alzheimer’s and the flu? From this perspective, because we value the lives of the people affected more than we value the lives of those killed by other causes. We value the lives of pretty young women more than the lives of fat old men.

The message we communicate by the emphasis on breast cancer is thus:

  • Your life is more valuable if you are a woman, and less valuable if you are a man.
  • Your life is more valuable if you are young, and less valuable if you are old.
  • Your life is more valuable if you are skinny, and less valuable if you are overweight.
  • Your life is more valuable if you are a mother, and less valuable if you are a father.
  • Your life is more valuable if you are an adult, and less valuable if you are aren’t born yet.

Perhaps this is incorrect – leave a comment and let me know so we can figure out this riddle: why does the 2% killer get more attention than everything else.

Again – I’m not downplaying breast cancer, or breast cancer awareness. I’m just trying to figure out the disproportionate attention which seems to communicate that the 2% of people who die of breast cancer are more significant than the other 98% of humans who die every year.

 
8 Comments

Posted in Culture, Reason

 

Our obsession with breasts: breast cancer month

11 Oct

Breast cancer is not the number one killer in America. It is not the number one killer of women.

All cancers, as a category, are the #3 killer, below heart disease, which is #2. But breast cancer kills less people than stroke (cardiovascular disease), chronic lower respiratory diseases, accidents (unintentional injuries), Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, nephritis-nephrotic syndrome-and-nephrosis, and even the flu, according to the CDC.

Despite all of these other causes of death killing more of our loved ones than breast cancer, it’s the disease that gets the most attention. The capital building here in Denver has a big pink ribbon on it, as do cars on the street, and food packaging in every grocery store.

I’m not questioning people’s desire to have a cure for diseases. I’m questioning why one disease trumps so many others which together are 50 times as fatal.

It seems that this is our proud-as-a-peacock display of the objectification of women. We care more about breast cancer, even though it’s only the cause of 2% of deaths in America, because it’s about breasts. Promotional material has gotten more honest, at least, like the “boobies” bumper sticker I took a photo of recently. [Post continues below.]

"Boobies" bumper sticker

It’s understandable that we use our bodies as part of our self worth, and that’s another reason it’s significant. We value our bodies to the level of idolatry, and judge our self-worth as men and women by things that set us apart from each other, particularly in sexual ways. This self-view is something Christians are supposed to fight against as it is contrary to what the Bible teaches. Jesus taught that one’s life is more important than any individual body part (Matthew 5:29-30,6:25), and Paul taught that the marks of true femininity was not in appearance, but in character and good deeds (1 Timothy 2:8-10). (The same is true of men, who are supposed to stand out spiritually and in prayer, lifting holy hands in praying for their authorities without anger or disputing.)

Obviously men like breasts for primal, cultural, and primarily sexual reasons as well. Perhaps that really is what it all comes down to for many people – we support breast cancer research more than anything else because heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t make us think of sex.

I hope we have a cure for breast cancer soon. I also hope we have a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes, and other killers. I am troubled that a disease that ranks so low on the list has taken over because the over-sexualization  of our culture.

Please leave comments if there’s reasons I’m unaware of that this 2% killer trumps all others. I’d be interested to learn the answer to this riddle.

Oh – and what is the number one killer in America? Abortion is the number one killer in America. For every 1 woman that dies from breast cancer, 20 babies are aborted – and this only includes legal abortions that are are reported. Twenty.

 
10 Comments

Posted in Culture, Reason