Rob Colquhoun

It’s a very good idea to presume that if you lost your argument what might be at stake. In the issue of reproductive choice and the legality of abortion, it is a matter of life and death. The pro choice position has the arrogance of presumption to make decisions for human lives by thinking they are not human lives. Pro choicers if wrong face the prospect that they murdering innocent human beings. Pro lifers on the other hand have an inconvenient birth with the potential to transform into joy. So while pro choicers are trampling on and providing the degradation of the sanctity of human life with the untold destruction of human life, pro lifers are tampering with ‘so called’ right to control one’s fertility (which surely you had prior to having sex if you were not raped). Pro lifers might if wrong damage the right to privacy and the freedom of individual choice, but don’t we live in a society that is far too individualistic and hedonistic anyway?The construction of pro life culture can only come about with a very serious examination and rectification of our culture starting with a universal and comprehensive education of our young people on living virtuous lives. Being pro life is being pro women, pro child and pro family. Being pro choice is being in favour of the murder of innocent lives.

1/ Fertility

2/ Body

3/ Sexual discrimination

4/ Masculinization

5/ Sexual harassment

            1/ How are women exploited in an area such as fertility? Who is confident of the full effects of drugs in fertility? Is ethics so involved in gynaecological issues? These are all questions that we need to wrestle with. There are many medical drugs that are used both in order to avoid pregnancy and also to bring women to pregnancy. Yet how emotionally damaging is it to have a cycle of IVF or to have an abortion? Where has the Hippocratic oath gone from the practice of medicine?

IVF is unnatural, risky and unethical. Making a woman behave like a battery hen is not morally right. IVF increases the probability of a pregnancy with complications. It treats a woman’s reproductive cycle like a machine and not a human person. The result is that many women feel emotionally scarred and damaged after such a process and the pressure and stress of artificially induced conception. Furthermore, IVF can result in the discarding of human embryos thus trivializing the sacredness of human life. It reduces the nature of sexual intercourse into something that can be replaced by biology in a Petri dish. Talk about a lack of romance! It is a medical process that should be avoided at all costs.

2/ Women are exploited by the use of the female body as an object to be worshipped in inappropriate circumstances. Lust is generated even by looking at women in a way to derive sexual pleasure from their looks and body. As Jesus says, “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matt 5:28). The admiration of beauty is not wrong, but a culture that worships beauty and will order all time, money and social organisation according to beauty has its priorities set out wrong. The use of cosmetic surgery for purely purposes of beauty shows how important some people value and worship beauty. To un-wrinkle your face for a few thousand pounds for the sake of what other people think of you and for your own self esteem is a disturbing phenomenon.

Furthermore, the worship of beauty creates a culture whereby those not considered beautiful are sidelined and ignored- encouraging deep psychological scars- encouraging problems such as anorexia, bulimia and self harm. This neurosis is the counter reaction to the worship of beauty that is not in accordance with appreciated all aspects of the human person. The healthy approach in reaction to the worship of beauty is to have full self acceptance to be oblivious to what other people think. The rejection of lust by both men and women will help to find a culture where beauty is not worshipped above the person that beholds it and where men and women encounter all of each other rather than just appreciate particular aspects of each other.

3/ A great deal of effort has been made on the political front to avoid sexual discrimination in recent decades. These efforts have been helped by CEDAW and implemented in our legal system. It has been great progress to move away from a Macho culture and to welcome women in all areas of life where they were once excluded. A true version of feminism is one that fully recognised the authentic dignity of women whilst not being male hating. The looking for equal numbers of men and women in various areas of work (50-50) is narrow minded because some types of work are more orientated for men and vice versa. In fact this kind of thinking shows perversity of the thinking of political correctness, that positive discrimination should be used in order to combat discrimination. This paradox exemplifies the ineptitude of the thinking of political correctness: that we should use the same method of unfairness in order to get rid of the unfairness that is already present in the system. The real issue at heart is finding a working environment that is family friendly and at the same time economically feasible and humanly possible. The attempt to juggle work and family life has been a precarious and difficult task for many women.

4/ One side effect of the integration of women into working environments has been the “ladette” culture that has happened. Unsure of their full position in a more male environment, some women have chosen to adapt exclusively male attitudes in order to survive in their environment. This can hardly be a great version of feminism! It is an insult to the dignity of women.

5/ The objectification and exploitation of women has very clearly happened through sexual harassment. A culture that uses sex as a commodity and object is one that will implicitly encourage sexual harassment. The legalisation of prostitution can only encourage and endorse such activity. The widespread use of pornography leads to attitudes of treating women like objects purely to gratify sexual desire. All these attitudes leads to a culture that relegates femininity to something which must be idolised and abused.

A new version of feminism. In reaction and in account of these cultural aspects that influence women it is necessary to have a new version which fully appreciates the dignity of women and all that women are capable of contributing towards society and the world. The dignity of motherhood must be upheld as a wonderful gift in a society that is hostile to family life. There should be a National Plan of Support for Childbirth, including increased public and private aid and the creation of health care centres for pregnant women, as well as increased tax breaks for families with children. Children are a tremendous gift to society that only women have the capacity to give birth to. The combination of being a mother and also working needs to be delicately and carefully managed in order to avoid problems. Women should not flaunt their beauty or be jealous of those who have greater beauty.

2 tasks remain are essential for helping others to renew/begin their relationship with God.

Showing the relationship between faith and reason

Showing how religion and science are buddies not enemies.

The first is re-establishing the relationship between Reason and faith. We need to show that faith can also be helped and encouraged, whilst is also compatible with reason, and in fact they complement each other. Many are encouraged to see that faith is some irrational, superstitious, irrational nonsense before they have openly considered its claims. As long as these two tenets remain apart in people’s minds it is much harder for them to embrace faith as what it really is.

The other classic myth that seems relentlessly present is the alleged war between religion and science. The latest debacle is that certain scientists have started pretending to be theologians and calling their theology science! What twits! We in fact need to show that there is no such war necessary because good religion ensures the proper and ethical use of science. The Catholic faith supports science only when it is support of the human person and not when it is used to manipulate the human person. There are so many ridiculous understandings about the relationship between religion and science that they all need to be debunked as soon as possible. I feel nauseous every time I hear them!

Consumption is a poor candidate for salvation. A consumer society is kept going by an endless process of stimulating, satisfying and re-stimulating desire. It is more an addiction than a quest for fulfilment (The Dignity of Difference, Jonathan Sacks, Continuum, London, 2002. p40).

Being consumers encourage our receptive buds to buzz but our willingness to give is usually compromised. As a child we can only receive before we learn to do things for ourselves. But through our journey to adulthood we learn to “put aside Childish things” as St Paul states, and learn how to give, to interact and to contribute towards society. If we cannot learn to grow from a receptive state to a giving state then we will not be able to develop into friends of Christ and children of God.

Contributors are there to build up the Kingdom of God in the many ways this is possible. Through the development of virtue, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us in our imitation of Christ. Contributors are there to help others, to increase the value of the gifts given to them (Mt 25:14-20) and to convert consumers into contributors themselves to make more labourers for the vineyard. (Mt 20:1-16). In this framework, a full understanding of the metaphysical nature of justice can be realised. As human justice is undeniably short of the full justice that every man deserves, God is the ultimate guarantor of Justice: he is the judge that will repay (Rm 12:19) and ensure that everybody reaps what they sow (Gal 6:7-9). This justice is realised in the fullness of time.

We must all ask ourselves: What am I taking, and what am I giving in my life to my family, friends and society?

Man creates barriers between himself and God intentionally. Even if we tried to stop sinning we are certain to stumble further in our mistakes. Sin ruptures the true relationship of man to God and ferments man’s heart in hatred towards his creator. Tertullian, the great 2nd /3rd century apologist, stated that “the first reaction to truth is disgust.” In our own pride it is easy to question God in his authority and desire for our lives. This can spill out into contempt for the truth that Christ brought to earth in his mission and ministry. We must continually bring our minds and hearts afresh to contemplate the mysteries of God and to purify our hearts towards the love of God. Our hearts become more like lead weights if we grow oblivious, like ungrateful children, to the blessings that God bestows on our lives.

Our souls are stained when we create obstacles to God by thought, word or action and also in what we do not do. Yet God the merciful father is willing to receive and re-receive the contrite man time and time again out of his overflowing goodness. When we are capable to believe in God and in his power it is a great travesty still to resist and to go against his will. Many who are ignorant of his power and goodness will be un-open to God remain so perhaps through no fault of their own.

What obstacles might we create against God reigning in our hearts? We may be un-open to his will, stubbornly resistant in our sins and thoroughly uncharitable to our neighbours. We may be fully complicit in structures of sin and co-operate in injustice. We may create barriers against the creation of new life or of healthy family life through our acts. Yet upon these foundational obstacles, when our hearts remain stubborn they construct layer upon layer of sin in our hearts, increasingly complicated to unravel. The creation of a temple and empire of sin wreaks great consequences not only for our own hearts but also for the world in which we live. We pollute not only ourselves, but those around us and we offend the majesty of God with our mistakes. But the good news is the father, full of mercy and bountiful in love is always willing to take us back if we would just renounce our stubborn wills and be open to his grace. Only the contrite and humble heart is the heart that can truly be reconciled with God.

When do our obstacles against God develop so far that they cement and ossify? God’s mercy is overwhelming. But our obstacles can prevent that mercy in situations which we cannot get out of. In a divorce, relationships that have been cemented by God can be obliterated without the hope of ever being reconciled. With due compassion on those who are in difficult marriages, divorce is able to harden the heart beyond boundaries that can later be reconciled. This kind of obstacle is reminiscent of an impenetrable cemented wall surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by machine gunners. But every wall is still penetrable for God. Certain acts such as murder cannot be revoked (bar a miracle) – these also sterilise our hearts from any relationship with God, as do all mortal sins.

We must be willing to break down these barriers, to destroy them and prevent even their construction before our hardness of heart stops God from entering our lives. If he cannot enter our life, all the more easy it is for us not to believe in a God we have no experience of. Through the changing of our swords into ploughshares (cf. Isaiah 2:4) we can learn to love and be loved rather than bring hatred and destruction into the world. Only then through the radiation of holiness in our own lives can we really help others renounce their self created obstacles.