#and they keep bringing up all of Messi’s penalties but he was LITERALLY involved in every other goal that Argentina scored

[getting-messi]

Your post is so right. All this because Argentina scored 4 penalties out of 15 goals as if France didn't score 4 penalties out of 14 goals in 2018. But there's no way a country with underdeveloped football like Argentina and horrible chemistry and sub-par players and clearly no desire to win and very little support would ever win against such grand European giants fair and square 😁.

I HATE interacting with people like that online in general so I don't usually, but it honestly pisses me off so much even though I know people like that will never change their minds.

I ABSOLUTELY get you sis, but anytime I see a dumb take, I just look at my lock screen of Messi lifting the World Cup and I’m like🤩🥰🥰🥰🤪

Like truly no one can ever say anything about Argentina or Messi ever again, like I’ll be dancing and celebrating about this FOREVER!

But the fact of the matter is, Argentina improved every match since losing to Saudi. They struggled against Mexico but won due to moments of brilliance. They were even ended with Australia but still pulled through, they FOUGHT hard against Netherlands but their composure is what made them win, and they were playing COZY against Croatia.

Like even without the penalties (which were all fairly given - like don’t make stupid mistakes in the box if you don’t want a penalty?) Argentina played smarter and better throughout the tournament. True champions.

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

Better Together: 10 Unlikely Horror Duos

When it comes to horror and all the subgenres within it, unlikely situations are ironically expected to occur. Most of the time we’re given characters that are blatantly different for the sake of representing  opposites: good and bad, funny and serious, logical and insane. Audiences don’t anticipate these representations to get along, let alone band together to make it to the end. When it comes to the following list of films, no matter how crazy the situation these characters find themselves in, the biggest shock is who winds up teaming up with who.

There really is nothing sweeter than two unlikely characters finding each other in the face of menace and evil. Sometimes those characters are the faces of menace and evil, but that still counts. From catfights and bromances to villainous allies, nothing says ‘I love you’ quite like ‘I hate you’ first. Here’s the Top 10 Unlikely Horror Duos:

  10. Ellen Ripley and Jones the Cat in Alien

In space no one can hear you scream, except the feral starship cat. After a terrifying unknown alien being destroys all of her fellow crew members, Ripley finds solace in the Ginger Tom cat, Jones. She’s not much of a cat person at first, but when you’re left alone in space with a big, slimy, lethal monster of an alien and the harmless feline, you’re gonna choose the cat to keep you company.

  9. Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent in Fright Night

An adolescent boy-who-cried-wolf and a washed-up, geriatric late night star don’t exactly scream ‘power couple’, however Charley and Peter are able to bond over their knowledge of one thing: the realm of horror. The two reluctantly pair up to stop the evil vampire, Jerry, who’s just moved into Charley’s quaint suburban neighborhood. They’re both misunderstood, underestimated men on opposite sides of the age spectrum, but in the end Vincent’s wisdom, Charley’s bravery, and their combined courage puts Jerry to sleep for good

    8. Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp in Death Becomes Her

It’s no secret that women tend to view one another as enemies, especially when it comes to a man. Madeline and Helen are two women obsessed with two things: eternal beauty and Ernest. These leading ladies will stop at nothing to declare themselves as the only woman in Ernest’s life, even if that literally means physically destroying one another in the process. However, when they realize who the real enemy is (hint, it’s always the adulterer) and join beautiful, flawless girl power forces they are able to serve up a lethal dose of justice. Madeline and Helen’s relationship proves that two heads are better than one and women can coexist is peaceful harmony happily ever after… forever.

  7. Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers in Scream

No one really likes exploitative, nosy, meddlesome news reporters, especially Sidney. However, we see her relationship with the woman broadcasting her mother’s dirty laundry, Gale Weathers, Top Story and author of the Woodsboro Murders, go from punches (sorry, Gale, people don’t forget) to final female survivor stardom. The unlikely duo are able to team up for four installments of the Scream franchise, each time bringing down the man or woman behind Ghost Face respectively.

  6. Arnie Cunningham and Christine in Christine

He was a boy. She was a car. If Stephen King’s Christine taught us anything it’s that love is love. Arnie is the quintessential nerd, totally unfit to be riding around in the red hot 1958 Plymouth Fury he’s lovingly named Christine. However, through a lot of tantrums and a Grease-worthy new look, Arnie overcomes the loser archetype and turns into a full-on villain. A perfect fit for the sleek, devilish ride. No shitter could ever understand the bond between a man and his metal, even if it drives away all of his loved ones or drives over them (oh, the puns). Arnie + Christine 4 Ever.

  5. Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Agent Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs

Classic love story: Good girl meets bad boy. I know the relationship between the intelligent, yet sadistic cannibal Dr. Lecter and earnest rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling isn’t exactly love, but there is something there between them and the plexiglass. Starling must find it in herself to resist Lecter’s invasive psychotherapy all the while coaxing information out of him to catch another murderer at large. A man like him is the epitome of evil to her in the beginning, but over time, and a lot of indirect therapy sessions, Starling begins to soften to the doctor’s odd charm. Lecter begins to trust the young agent, feeding her more and more information on how to catch the real (other) bad guy. Able agent and educated psychopath: a force to be reckoned with.

  4. Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees in Freddy Vs. Jason

Bad guys need love too! What better horror frenemy-slash-bromance (another pun) example could there be? Freddy haunts his victims in their sleep, Jason stalks them while they’re awake. Teenagers of Elm Street and Camp Crystal Lake beware! Here things get kind of messy what with dimensional lines being crossed and a penalty flag thrown here and there. Friendly competition eventually turns into a testosterone-fueled battle royale. What starts out as a carnage war between the two heavyweight champs of horror turns into a fleeting on-screen bromance. Freddy and Jason figure out that teamwork will ultimately take care of those pesky teenagers once and for all, but then it’s back to their respective corners again until the referee calls them back to the field.

  3. Thomasin and Black Phillip in The Witch

The strong-willed, final girl will surely triumph over Satan and his imps by the end of this new-age, witchy tale, right? Wrong. Thomasin and her family are cast out to live in the New England woods where witches and their familiars run amok. Mounting paranoia and evil eventually turn the family inside out leaving Thomasin with the most prominent familiar of all: an ebony billy goat appropriately named Black Phillip aka Satan incarnate. The animal and its evil eye torment Thomasin up through the end of the film. However, like any bad influence, Black Phillip is able to completely isolate Thomasin and coax her inner-witch to prevail. She, in turn, is unable to turn down the devil’s temptation and gives in. It winds up being a match made in Heaven… well, in this case it’s a match made in Hell.

  2. Lydia Deetz and Adam and Barbara Maitland in Beetlejuice

A typical ghost story usually involves the dead antagonizing the living and that does happen in this story, but not in the way you think. Simple couple Adam and Barbara Maitland are new members the afterlife and find themselves at odds with the eccentric nouveau riche family that has moved into their house. Despite their best efforts and befriending the family’s strange daughter, Lydia, Adam and Barbara recruit help from a wild, zany, sinister spirit (I won’t state his name here). When things get out of hand (with the spirit whose name I won’t state) and the family is put in jeopardy, the dead protect the living girl they have grown fond of and ultimately bring down the baddest of baddies (again, it’s best not to state his name).

  1. Tallahassee and Columbus in Zombieland

Tallahassee is edgy, quick, rough, and brave. Columbus is quiet, reserved, cautious, and a “bit of a bitch” as Tallahassee would say. Both are not exactly social, easy-to-get-along-with types of people. When a zombie virus brings about the end of civilization, these two guys are left Twinky-less and dependent on one another for survival. All bets are unexpectedly off, especially when they meet the clever and independent Wichita and Little Rock. Of course the (anything but) damsels find themselves in zombified distress calling on the two opposites for help. Brains and brawn combine to rescue the girls and show that bromance is the real deal. Together they learn that isolation from the world is meaningless whether it’s populated with people or the undead.

  The horror genre can teach us all a lot of things, but one of it’s more light-hearted themes is that in the end together is always better, no matter how unlikely the duo.

The post Better Together: 10 Unlikely Horror Duos appeared first on Nightmare on Film Street - Horror Movie Podcast, News and Reviews.

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[crisisshmrisis-blog]

Moral Confusion in the Pro-life Camp: A Response

[A photo of tiny plastic babies/fetuses on a sidewalk]

This seems to be a photo from an anti-abortion protest, where they place flags (or in this case tiny plastic fetuses, I guess) that represent x number of fetuses aborted per year. It really just brings to mind those pictures and sculptures of fetuses created by pro-life groups that inaccurately portray what embryos and fetuses look like – like this one that seems to keep cropping up on Facebook (and apologies for linking to the Daily Mail): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2551660/Christian-mayor-inflames-Norway-abortion-debate-posting-picture-fake-12-week-foetus-palm-hand.html and http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/12weekfetus.asp.

It seems that pro-lifers are not-so pro-life. According to a recent Gallup poll, 46 percent of Americans identify as pro-life, but only 18 percent say that abortion should be “illegal in all” circumstances. So what accounts for this moral confusion?

We start off strong, with accurate references to a well-respected polling company. So 46% of Americans identify as pro-life (“with respect to the abortion issue” – so we’re ignoring end-of-life issues, the death penalty, etc. – things that any good pro-life Catholic should also be concerned withh). This question was asked directly after a question regarding the legality of abortion, in which case 50% of respondents said abortion should be “legal only under certain circumstances,” and 18% said that abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances.”

With this, Mr. Nicoll has implied that pro-life should equal a belief that abortion is illegal in all circumstances.  Anyone who believes in exceptions is not truly pro-life.

There are a lot of talking points today about the exceptions for abortion – before a certain number of weeks, before the first trimester, in the case of rape or incest, if there’s some kind of horrific and/or painful condition the baby will be born with, or if the pregnancy would risk the mother’s life. I presume Mr. Nicoll is going to address these below. So here we go.

For one thing, the ease with which we rationalize morality down.

“Rationalizing morality down” is apparently a cause of moral confusion. I honestly had to Google this phrase because it isn’t quite clear. My best guess at Mr. Nicoll’s intention with this sentence is that we let us talk ourselves out of a hardline approach to abortion. And it’s easy, apparently.

It goes something like this: Imagine an exceptional circumstance to a moral issue and subject it to a moral calculus until what is morally prohibitive becomes morally acceptable, if not commendable.

“Imagine an exceptional circumstance to a moral issue” – okay, this seems feasible. Since we’re talking abortion, I’ll imagine a young girl about ten years old who has been raped by her father and is pregnant. There are definitely physical risks to someone so young carrying a pregnancy to term, and we’ll add in the probable mental health risks (especially if she’s grown up in a strict religious environment where she believes that she is at fault/her value as a human being is tied to her purity) which could lead to trauma down the road, if not being suicidal. Since I’m imagining an exceptional circumstance, let’s throw in some genetic predisposition to depression (which equals a risk of suicide) and horrific life circumstances where she has no family or societal supports for her pregnancy, childbearing, or child rearing. Let’s go, Mr. Nicoll.

“Subject it to a moral calculus” – I’m really not positive what this means, but I’ll imagine doing some calculations with my moral exceptional circumstance.

“Until what is morally prohibitive becomes morally acceptable, if not commendable.” Okay, so abortion is morally prohibitive. But in this circumstance, it becomes morally acceptable (for the imaginary reasons enumerated above). And then commendable. I think Mr. Nicoll is implying that I’m then going to apply this acceptability to all cases of abortion. But he doesn’t make that step (yet, at least.) Although maybe we did that with our calculus. Who knows? So right now, we’re at a point where we’ve moved from morally prohibitive to morally acceptable, under said exceptional circumstances. I feel okay with this right now.

In the abortion rights debate, those exceptions are rape, incest, and health of the mother—circumstances with high empathy quotients, especially when imagining a wife, daughter, sister, or oneself as a victim. People who poll pro-life, yet support some form of legalized abortion, have concluded it would be too difficult, unloving, or cruel for a woman to bear a child under those conditions.

Okay, here we’ve got three reasons to allow exceptions: rape, incest, and maternal health. Which apparently appeal to people due to their “high empathy quotients,” which I assume is a fancy way of saying that they inspire a lot of empathy (versus something like a gender-selective abortion). And these self-proclaimed pro-lifers fall for these traps of empathy. They let their feelings take over, which is foolish – that’s what I’m getting from this. They can’t imagine going through it themselves, or counseling a wife, daughter, family member, or friend through a pregnancy born of rape or incest (situations in which, I would imagine, the trauma continues for nine months or more), or a pregnancy where they might literally die.

Mr. Nicoll doesn’t seem to have much empathy for people in these situations. He has not yet offered a compelling argument for why they should be forced to continue with these pregnancies. Not only are we against abortions in these circumstances, we’re also looking down from our high horse at those who do have empathy and sympathy for people in said circumstances.

Often their reasoning follows an alluring Golden Rule logic: “loving neighbor as self” means sparing him from any consequence I would want [my wife, daughter, sister, myself] to be spared from.

“Consequence” seems like a harsh word to me. It seems to sort of imply that these women and children brought these unwanted pregnancies via incest or rape on themselves. Or maybe it’s a wanted pregnancy, but the mother, again I’m going to put this in italics, might literally die.

Further tipping the scale is that with a million abortions per year, nearly everyone knows a friend, neighbor, coworker, or family member who has had one. Thus, a person who deems abortion in the abstract as morally wrong, can be less inclined to be so when circumstances are real and close to home.

I can’t find any polls or statistics on this exactly, but I’d imagine most people aren’t casually bringing up their abortion with co-workers at the water cooler or with family over Thanksgiving dinner. Just because people are having abortions doesn’t mean they’re talking about it. Sure, you might know or be acquainted with someone who has had an abortion. But do you know about that person’s abortion? Probably not.

But say you do. And then when you look at the circumstances that are close to you and understandable in the context of your life (“real and close to home”), it makes sense. It seems acceptable. This is basically how human understanding works. It’s easy, easy, easy to form strong opinions in the safe vacuum of the abstract. But when we throw in the complications and messiness of real life, it gets harder to make black-and-white decisions. Isn’t there some kind of blessed, beautiful humanity in the people who can empathize with their fellow human being amidst their struggles?

But let’s examine the calculus.

Oh, Jesus H. Christ, now we have to do math again.

Consider the case of a child conceived in rape or incest. Is ending the life of the child a lesser evil than having the mother carry him/her to term? Granted, the post-traumatic consequences to the mother can be painful and prolonged, but the victimization of one person never justifies victimizing another who, in this case, happens to be the most vulnerable and voiceless person involved.

Okay, so Mr. Nicoll believes that life begins at conception. We’ve got one life in the uterus, and another life with the uterus carrying this other life.

“The post-traumatic consequences to the mother can be painful and prolonged, but…” I think both the pro-choice and the pro-life crowd can agree on this one. So why doesn’t the pro-life crowd put some effort into community mental health services, geared toward vulnerable women? And I don’t mean flinging diapers and prayers at vulnerable women. I mean some serious, licensed, accessible clinical therapy geared towards women who have experienced trauma surrounding pregnancy. If you’re going to legislate that a woman carry a pregnancy to term despite the ongoing trauma, and claim to care about both lives equally, then you’re just going to have to put your money where your mouth is.

“The victimization of one person never justifies victimizing another…” Well, Mr. Regis the-world-is-cut-and-dry Nicoll – here’s a quandary. If abortion victimizes the child for the benefit of the mother, and the birth of the child victimizes the mother at the benefit of child – where do we go from here? We seem to have hit a brick wall with our black and white moral compass.

Oh, you don’t see the birth of the child as the continued victimization of the mother. The “painful and prolonged” post-traumatic consequences aren’t continued victimization. Just a consequence for the mother to suffer. (And if you had to suffer these horrific post-traumatic consequences, Mr. Nicoll? I’m sure in the vacuum of the abstract, you say you would suffer them humbly and honorably for the sake of your child. But when it’s real life? I’m not making assumptions, but it would get a whole lot harder.)

How about maternal health? Is abortion justified to save the life of a mother?

So we have two lives here. If the mothers’ is at risk, it’s my understanding that the other life generally is too - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/19/abortion-mother-life-walsh/1644839/. Medicine has advanced, and viability outside the womb has increased. But it’s not perfect – not perfectly advanced enough to match Mr. Nicoll’s cut-and-dry morality. So if the abortion is not justified, and the fetus is not viable, then we lose two lives? That seems unreasonable.

Ironically, in a book promoting legalized abortion, Dr. Alan Guttmacher, past president of Planned Parenthood admitted, “Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and, if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save, life.” And that was in 1967!

Preeclampsia affects about 3.4% of pregnant women in the U.S. (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/preeclampsia/conditioninfo/Pages/risk.aspx). Not a large percentage, but you are the one who dragged us down this “exceptional circumstance” rabbit hole, Mr. Nicoll! The Mayo Clinic states that “if you have preeclampsia, the only cure is delivery of your baby.” Modern medicine is advancing. We are looking for ways to avoid even having preeclampsia in the first place. But it still can happen. And if it occurs before the fetus is viable? Well then, looks like Alan Guttmacher has his foot in his mouth.

The doctor would find no argument from former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop who once stated, “In my 36 years in pediatric surgery I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life.”

I presume that C. Everett Koop, a pediatric surgeon, would not have been called in to situations where abortion was medically necessary. We’re talking low numbers anyway (“exceptional circumstances,” remember?), so maybe he never came across such a situation. But even if such a medically-necessary abortion took place in the same building as C. Everett Koop, he might not have known. He would only have been present in the case of fetal abnormalities or birth defects that he could correct or in cases where he could save the life of the child.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that abortion is necessary to preserve a mother’s life.

Alright, let’s go.

If a mother is willing, as nearly all mothers are, to assume some, if not significant, personal risk for the welfare of her post-partum child, how could she deny her enwombed child the same consideration? The child in both cases is a genetically complete and unique human being; they differ only in stage of development, as a newborn from a toddler, a toddler from a teen, a teen from an adult.

Oh, no we already talked about this. I’m miles ahead of you Mr. Nicoll. If the pregnancy is such a risk to the woman, and not viable yet for delivery, that baby is probably not going to make it either. Two lives versus one. Or we’re trading one life for one life. And if all lives are equal, well oh dear. Aren’t we at a brick wall again. If there is a case in this cut-and-dry, black-and-white world that you imagine, where a woman knows that if she continues with the pregnancy, she will die, but her child will live, guaranteed, sure, she may be more likely to “choose life,” as you call it (versus risking her life for a child who very well may not survive at all). But if we’re trading exactly one life for another, shouldn’t the person who is giving her life have a say? It’s a difficult moral quandary. But if you say no in all circumstances, then you’re sentencing a woman to death for the mere fact that she was unfortunate enough to wind up with a risky pregnancy. Which seems like a difficult moral quandary to me.

Then again, all this concern over “women’s health” neglects the very real and serious health consequences to women from abortion.

Oh no.

For example, an analysis of 22 studies, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, involving over 800,000 participants found that post-abortion women had “moderate to highly increased risk of mental health problems” that included substance abuse and suicidal behavior.

Correlation is not causation. Perhaps the reason that the woman felt she needed to have an abortion was her mental health status (hey, pro-lifers, put your money towards real, effective, accessible mental health services for women!), or other circumstances in her life that caused the substance abuse and suicidal behavior. These women likely had the substance abuse and suicidal behavior (or at least other circumstances leading to these situations) prior to the abortion. Sure, the surprise/unwanted pregnancy and abortion could exacerbate these. But I’m not going to believe that the abortion caused these problems, as you suggest, unless there is cold, hard data documenting the causation, not just correlation.

Concerning the physical consequences of abortion, the best documented ones include significant increased risks of premature birth in future pregnancies, uterine bleeding, and breast cancer.

Given that you cited Americans United for Life, I’m not going to believe you. Here’s an article that cites a real scientific study about how abortion does not cause premature birth in future pregnancies - https://www.babymed.com/abortion/modern-abortion-does-not-increase-risk-preterm-birth. And another article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15603101. Uterine bleeding also occurs after childbirth (http://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=postpartum-hemorrhage-90-P02486), but I don’t see you arguing against childbirth. And here’s what the American Cancer Society has to say about that breast cancer claim - https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/medical-treatments/abortion-and-breast-cancer-risk.html. (In short – “breast cancer risk is increased for a short time after a full-term pregnancy…Induced abortion is not linked to an increase in breast cancer risk…Spontaneous abortion is not linked to an increase in breast cancer risk.)

Despite the medical facts concerning women’s health and the personhood of the child in utero, courts over the last four decades have denied the child its right to life, while declaring the woman’s right to abort “sacred ground.” So sacred, that her choice is to be free from restriction or personal consequence, even over the objections of the child’s father, and even if the cost of her choice must be borne by individuals and organizations against their religious beliefs.

“Courts…have denied the child its right to life.” What you’re doing here is villainizing the courts, despite a different foundational belief about what exactly an embryo or fetus is, and what right it might have. The courts who have made such decisions clearly do not see the fetus in utero as an individual human being with constitutional rights. If they did, they would probably make other decisions. So stop vilifying people for making decisions based on their belief system and educate them. And educated them with sources other than organizations with a pro-life bent. Because nobody is going to believe those.

“Personal consequence” has been addressed above, at least in terms of those exceptional circumstances. And, as a pro-life writer, I don’t think you should be referring to children as “consequences.” That sounds sort of punitive. And if you call them consequences, then definitely nobody is going to want them.

Regarding the child’s father – this does get tricky. If the courts don’t regard the fetus as an individual human being with rights, what rights does the father have to the growing thing that is inside the mother’s uterus?  I do, personally believe, that if the father can demonstrate his willingness to care for the child and pay for the medical bills for the woman, there should be some sort of system set up for him to be able to have the rights to keep and raise his child. But while the fetus is growing in the mother’s uterus? It gets tricky and we’re weighing one person’s rights against another. It’s basically a landmine. If anyone has a good answer to this, let me know please and thank you.

Prior to Roe v. Wade abortion was legal in most states to save the mother’s life. Given the rare to non-existent instances in which that would be a legitimate concern and the fact that only about one percent of abortions involve rape and incest, according to the “pro-choice” Guttmacher Institute, the ruling should have had a negligible effect on abortion incidence. Instead, less than six years post-Roe, the number of abortions doubled from over 600,000 to over 1,200,000.

This is not them main point of study by the Guttmacher Institute says. The study simply cites the reasons that women have abortions, which are a lack of financial or social stability (the father being out of the picture, or barely in the picture) or obligations to children the woman already has.  I’m not sure where the 600,000 number comes from. From a basic Google search, I cannot find anything and Mr. Nicoll does not link anything. I will note that any numbers about abortion from pre-Roe v. Wade have to be taken with a grain of salt. People who had abortions prior to its legalization were not exactly reportion their abortion to the CDC. So it’s hard to have accurate numbers.

It was the result of expanding the health “exception” to include any physical, psychological, emotional, familial, or stage of life consideration deemed pertinent to the mother’s well-being. Under that broad definition, the reasons women give to abort—again, according to the Guttmacher Institute—include: a baby would interfere with my education or employment or dramatically change my life; I don’t want people to know I had sex; I’m not ready for a (another) child; I’m not married; I can’t afford a baby.

Mr. Nicoll implies that the increase in abortions after Roe v. Wade have to do with the expansion of “exceptional circumstances.” That from abortions in the case of the risking of a mother’s life, we make abortion okay for someone who would be inconvenienced by a child. I’m not sure where Mr. Nicoll draws this conclusion. He offers no data to support this, and just seems to draw it from thin air.

It seems as though these women had abortions because of the reasons presented by their own lives and circumstances – not due to some kind of calculus they did on moral reasoning. Can’t have a child due to financial reasons, other familial obligations, or a lack of paternal or general familial support? These seem to be home-grown reasons – not calculated from a moral exceptionalism standpoint.

Speaking of a condition in his time, Blaise Pascal observed, “[You] make a rule of exception … from this exception you make a rule without exception, so that you do not even want the rule to be exceptional.” In our time, what was once intended to be an extraordinary procedure to save a woman’s life has become a billion-dollar industry to save her from any inconvenience.

Here we go again with math, with Blaise Pascal. And assuming that we make a general rule out of an extreme circumstance. As discussed above, I don’t think that’s what’s happened.

Given that the pro-life movement is primarily made up of Christians, double-mindedness in the camp can be placed squarely on the doorstep of the Church.

Again, making assumptions. The Church is to blame, because her people are the ones in the pro-life camp. Could it not be that our blessed and/or cursed humanity does not allow us humans to fall into your strict pro-life camp, Mr. Nicoll. Because the pro-lifers all fall under one umbrella, the umbrella is to blame?

It is not that Scripture and Church tradition have nothing to say in the matter. To the contrary, when the psalmist wrote, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me,” he was three millennia ahead of medical science in acknowledging when personhood begins.

“From the time my mother conceived me,” does not necessarily mean from the time that the sperm fertilized the egg. It really could be interpreted as from the time that my mother thought of having a child. Let’s not make assumptions here.

As to church tradition, the sentiments of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi notwithstanding, the Church has always held that abortion is murder. In the second century alone, there were over twenty admonitions against abortion (without reference to exceptions) by early church fathers—like this from Tertullian: “In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb…To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth.”

Okay, your beef is with the Catholic Church here. Yes, the Catholic Church is against abortion. This does not require argument.

The problem is that abortion, seldom (if ever) is given any airtime in churches. If the war on children is to end, that must change. The teachings of scripture and tradition must be placed front and center and made clear, not in a single sermon or sermon series, but throughout the church year from the pulpit, Sunday School curricula, and home study groups to remove the moral confusion that divides the pro-life camp and sustains a genocide claiming the lives of 56 million children worldwide, every year.

Oh no, abortion is not given sufficient airtime in churches. I feel like it really is, but I guess not. A priest telling a congregation that abortion is wrong is not going to convince people who feel real empathy and sympathy for their fellow human being that abortion should not happen in extreme circumstances. But if the Church were to provide funding for clinical therapy for women with pregnancy-related trauma and resources beyond diapers and baby formula for women who wanted to continue their pregnancy but lacked the support and finances? Goodness knows what could happen!