Friday, December 08, 2006

Even When Conceptions are not Immaculate...

We believe that Mama Mary was "conceived without sin". It doesn't mean that sex is perceived as sinful, for between a husband and his wife, this is a participation in the divine, a gift from the Creator to take part in creation. It is beautiful and miraculous. Mama Mary, however, did not possess original sin from birth, and she was chosen beforehand to be the mother of Jesus, the Son of God.

Some mothers-to-be, for a myriad of reasons, do not choose to let their babies see the light of day. Whether we like it or not, intentional abortion has become a solution, and the morality question is swept under the rug. Women have a choice what to do with their bodies, they say. I am a woman, and since I read from Scripture that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, I do choose what to do with my body - and that is to glorify who resides in it.

It is not time to judge, as I am not even a judge. Whether I like it or not, babies are aborted everyday. Given the right opportunity, I will do everything I can to stop this from being legalized in places such as the Philippines where it is still considered infanticide.

What made me cringe several times over was the news I read this morning. It occupied most of my prayer time and I was led to intercede and to ask others to pray with me, to offer mass intentions for today in this area.

This is the problem. I read in the Inquirer that Australia has lifted the ban on embryonic cell cloning for medical research. In therapeutic cloning, which was banned in 2002, the nucleus of a patient's skin cell is implanted in an egg. The new cell develops into an embryo from which stem cells are taken to grow new tissue. Do you know where the eggs are taken from? From aborted fetuses!

It makes me sick to think about this.
They surely crossed the line, to my mind, of what extent a life can be used or abused to take another life. They want to give hope to ailing patients, but the end does not justify the means!

If pro-abortion proponents are saying there is no "taking of life" or killing that occurs, how come life taken from the fetus can be used to save another life??? The moral questions abound, and movies such as "The Island" about cloning only scratch the surface. My limited mind can only scratch the surface.

I was left to pray. And since today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, I asked Mama Mary to pray for her children.

You can read the news from Australia's papers here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would like to point out a possible error in your post. The idea that Mary was exempt from the Original Sin was merely crafted by the Catholic Church in response to the questions against St. Augustine’s theology. His theology asserted that the virgin birth is necessary for salvation. This is because since the Original Sin entails passing this from one generation to generation, for Jesus to be the Lamb of God, Jesus had to be free of this inherited blemish. But in Augustine’s time, women were not believed to be genetic and material contributors to the birth of a child. It was believed that women merely nurtured the male’s “seed” to maturity. But when the woman’s role as a genetic contributor was understood, Augustine’s theology came into question. The Catholic Church handled this by asserting that Mary, too, was sinless by “Divine Intervention”. A convenient way to assure the theology of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Also, while I do understand your sentiments regarding abortion, I seem to fail to see your argument regarding your opposition to taking a life to save another life. You indicated that the “eggs” are taken from aborted fetuses. So if these are aborted, surely it means that they are dead already, right? So there really is no taking of life in this case. You seem to be equating the immorality of abortion to the immorality of Embryonic Stem Cell. These have separate moral issues.

Perhaps you are merely opposed to utilizing the “eggs” coming from an aborted (dead) fetus for medical purposes. If so, then are you also opposed to giving the internal organs of newly deceased humans to patients in desperate need of such to live? How about those who donate one of their kidneys to save the life of a loved one or even those who give blood? Are such acts immoral?

Now you may say that the fundamental difference here is that the fetuses did not have a choice whether their bodies may be donated for medical purposes or not, unlike mature human organ donors. But if denial or disrespect of choice is the determinant to gauge morality then wouldn’t this make God’s act of giving His only Begotten Son to us to be beaten, flogged, and killed – immoral? Even if we assume that God had indeed sacrificed His Son to wash our sins away neither you nor I consented to it. We had no say in it. It was solely His decision. We did not even ask for it. Yet given the powers we have attributed to this deity, it is ludicrous that one who has the capacity to create the universe and everything in it had to take on a human form, get a flogging and be crucified. But more than this it is scandalous to harbor the idea that the collective transgressions of a species had to be expiated through human sacrifice. Now this is smacking of the end justifying the means, which you claim to oppose as well.

Anyway, while your intentions may be good, I think it would be worthwhile to critically analyze your position. Merely going by what your religious beliefs tell you would be quite a sin to your intellect. As Gautama Buddha once said:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

Take care and God Bless.