“I was nearly aborted, but I escaped, I must give my baby the freedom to live.”

The night before her abortion, ‘Jackie’ stayed up all night, and kept asking herself if she could go through the abortion. "My boyfriend has lived with someone else for three years, and has been seeing me on the side. I can’t have a baby whose father lives with another woman." In the early morning, she looked at the dawn and thought "I must go through the abortion, it would be very inconvenient for my boyfriend if I have this baby. His girlfriend will hate me for having his baby..."

For the millionth time ‘Jackie’ studied the abortion forms that her doctor had given her. She asked herself: "What if my mother had got these forms and aborted me?"

Going to the clinic, she saw some people standing outside, and thought that the clinic was busy; lots of women were coming out... As she got closer, she saw that they were praying, and thought: "This is my sign. People are praying that I won’t have the abortion. They are praying for my baby..."

Jackie came to our centre for detailed counselling and to make plans for the help she would need to keep the baby. At the start of our time together, she said, ‘I might still have the abortion. It doesn’t feel right having five kids on my own, with no father around.’ We talked about her own family background, and how her father had been a very mercurial figure, coming home for times but living with other women when he felt like it. Jackie’s mother had still had ten children by him – “twice as many as I’ll have if I keep this one” – said Jackie. Jackie had been her mother’s tenth pregnancy, conceived before her father left them for good.

“My mother was really desperate when she was having me, she had nine small boys at home, and my father had beaten her. She was bringing us up on her own with so little money. She nearly aborted me when she was heavily pregnant with me, but she trusted in God and asked God that I would be the child that would look after her. When she was dying, I was the only one with her.” This was very painful for Jackie to talk about, but she conceded, “I can go to the clinic, and get someone else to get rid of the baby, but if I don’t walk in there, the baby will live. You can pretend it’s not you that’s doing the abortion because the doctor signs the forms and the nurse knocks you out, because you’re still the mother who is handing over your baby. I was nearly aborted, but I escaped, I must give my baby the freedom to live.”

May we ask your continued prayers for ‘Jackie’.

Mary O'Regan

I'm Keeping My Baby Because I Am Getting the Help I Need

‘Annabelle’ had phoned marie stopes' abortuary on Whitfield Street, and made an appointment for an abortion. 'It’s a week from Christmas…everyone else is getting their mince pies and getting their Christmas tree ready and here I am preparing for an abortion', thought Annabelle.
Walking along the roads that led to the abortuary, Annabelle felt a profound, dark foreboding, she had that strong gut feeling that said, Don’t do this. An old friend walked alongside her, her friend had said nothing when Annabelle asked her to come with her to the abortuary. But now she turned to Annabelle and asked, ‘what’s wrong? You’re meant to be going to the clinic.’
Annabelle felt herself go leaden and heavy and almost crying, she said to her friend, ‘but I wish that I didn’t have to do it. If I just got some help instead of an abortion, I wouldn’t think of the abortion again.’
Her friend looked confused. ‘I know, but the place that we are going to only does abortions. It’s not like you can go in there and ask them to give you help with rent instead of an abortion. But I suppose we don’t have to go there…’ Annabelle imagined lying down on the cold operating table while outside people were bustling down the street with bags of Christmas presents for their children at home.
Annabelle turned the corner and as she approached the building, someone tried to speak to her and handed her a blue help leaflet. Annabelle didn’t really hear what they were saying; she was lost in her own thoughts. Her friend, who was now perplexed at bringing Annabelle to the abortuary, spoke to someone who was praying outside the clinic and said sadly, ‘If she got the help she needs, she wouldn’t have the abortion.’ Annabelle read the blue help leaflet given to her by the pray-er, and walked out of the ‘clinic’ with relief washing over her.
Annabelle has come to speak to us about her needs, and she says that her friend felt wrong that she wasn’t able to give her practical advice or financial help when raising the baby on her own. In many ways this is all too typical of the friend or family member who accompanies a girl to an abortion, the friend or family member may never have been taught the evil of abortion, and may feel powerless to help the pregnant mother. Monsignor Reilly corroborates this after spending years outside many abortion clinics all over the world, from Russia to New York to Ealing. The friend or family member is still doing something entirely immoral, but like Monsignor Reilly advises, they often know not what they do, and we must meet them with the same compassion that we meet the pregnant mother.
Like so many of the women who come after getting the blue help leaflet, Annabelle keeps the leaflet safely in her handbag and when she is describing how she left the clinic, she holds up the blue help leaflet and says, ‘I got this and I left marie stopes.’

Mary O' Regan

When Everyone Thinks Its Their Right To Tell You To Abort

‘My grandmother asked me when I had my third child, if I had used contraception and said that, to her, I seemed kind of slow for getting pregnant a third time. It’s not as if I was a single mother – my husband earned good money and here I was – being lectured on why I didn’t prevent my baby girl coming into my belly in the first place!’ exhaled ‘Michaela’.

In recent years, Michaela and her husband have separated. Michaela cites a key reason being that she is from a Christian background while he was brought up in a Muslim home. ‘Sahid’ has not practised as a Muslim since leaving Iraq, and Michaela has never really practised her Christian faith – she said that they just used to write the word on forms. Michaela is from a post-communist country. She and her husband had a civil wedding when she was heavily pregnant with their first child.

Michaela was very upfront that her husband had put her under strenuous pressure to abort her first child. ‘If you were a Muslim wife, you would do what I say and abort it. How can I stay in a marriage with you if you won’t even act like a Muslim wife?!’ was the line that her husband used with her.

Michaela suspects that her husband ‘Sahid’ saw his own father put his mother under pressure to have abortions when Sahid was a child. But Sahid gets cross and defensive if she asks him whether this really happened and says something like, ‘Why should I tell anyone whether my mother had an abortion?’ This is rather contradictory in that Sahid put his wife under pressure for months to have an abortion, but is very hush-hush as to whether or not his mother had an abortion.

Michaela found life very lonely and friendless when her husband moved out and went to another part of London. She knew it wasn’t advisable to get involved with anyone else but she became friendly with a man nearby and the relationship became sporadically sexual. ‘But we weren’t together a lot, so I thought that I wouldn’t get pregnant. And each time I was with him, I said that it wouldn’t happen again.’

We met Michaela when she was very set on aborting the child that she had conceived with this "friend". Her appointments for abortions have come and gone, and she has not made any new appointments for an abortion. When I met her she felt very compelled to tell Sahid, who she calls ‘my ex-husband’, about the baby, but has now decided that for the time being, she won’t tell him that she’s pregnant with a fourth child; ‘He would still think it his right to tell me to abort this baby, and there’s no way that I can spend whole months being told to abort. Maybe I will wait till I’m 24 weeks before telling him.’

I’ve known Michaela for nearly three months now, and while she knows very little Christian doctrine, she still sometimes thinks and speaks as someone of Christian heritage. She wasn’t going to dabble in Islam; ‘I can’t just pretend to be a Muslim wife, and have an abortion because his faith might want that of me.’ And lately her conversation has been peppered with Christian symbols, ‘Every newborn is like a piece of heaven. There’s a time when you feel the angels surround you and mind the baby.’

Mary O'Regan

Be a Friend of St Agnes

Join in prayer to St Agnes from January 13th to January 21st this year and become a friend of St. Agnes.

Collect: Almighty, eternal God, you chose what the world considers weak to put the worldly power to shame. May we who celebrate the birth of St. Agnes into eternal joy be loyal to the faith she professed. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

"Christ made my soul beautiful with the jewels of grace and virtue. I belong to Him whom the angels serve. -Saint Agnes

Name Meaning: pure one; chaste; lamb
How she died: beheaded and burned, or tortured and stabbed to death, or stabbed in the throat (sources vary); 21 January 254 or 304 @ Rome (sources vary)
Patronage: affianced couples, betrothed couples, bodily purity, chastity, Children of Mary, Colegio Capranica of Rome, engaged couples, gardeners, Girl Scouts, girls, rape victims, virgins

The Vatican Corrects Erroneous Interpretations of the Pope's Words on Condoms

Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
On the trivialisation of sexuality
Regarding certain interpretations of “Light of the World”
Following the publication of the interview-book Light of the World by Benedict XVI, a number of erroneous interpretations have emerged which have caused confusion concerning the position of the Catholic Church regarding certain questions of sexual morality. The thought of the Pope has been repeatedly manipulated for ends and interests which are entirely foreign to the meaning of his words – a meaning which is evident to anyone who reads the entire chapters in which human sexuality is treated. The intention of the Holy Father is clear: to rediscover the beauty of the divine gift of human sexuality and, in this way, to avoid the cheapening of sexuality which is common today.
Some interpretations have presented the words of the Pope as a contradiction of the traditional moral teaching of the Church. This hypothesis has been welcomed by some as a positive change and lamented by others as a cause of concern – as if his statements represented a break with the doctrine concerning contraception and with the Church’s stance in the fight against AIDS. In reality, the words of the Pope – which specifically concern a gravely disordered type of human behaviour, namely prostitution (cf. Light of the World, pp. 117-119) – do not signify a change in Catholic moral teaching or in the pastoral practice of the Church.
As is clear from an attentive reading of the pages in question, the Holy Father was talking neither about conjugal morality nor about the moral norm concerning contraception. This norm belongs to the tradition of the Church and was summarized succinctly by Pope Paul VI in paragraph 14 of his Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae, when he wrote that “also to be excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.” The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought. On this issue the Pope proposes instead – and also calls the pastors of the Church to propose more often and more effectively (cf. Light of the World, p. 147) – humanly and ethically acceptable ways of behaving which respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meaning of every conjugal act, through the possible use of natural family planning in view of responsible procreation.
On the pages in question, the Holy Father refers to the completely different case of prostitution, a type of behaviour which Christian morality has always considered gravely immoral (cf. Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, n. 27; Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2355). The response of the entire Christian tradition – and indeed not only of the Christian tradition – to the practice of prostitution can be summed up in the words of St. Paul: “Flee from fornication” (1 Cor 6:18). The practice of prostitution should be shunned, and it is the duty of the agencies of the Church, of civil society and of the State to do all they can to liberate those involved from this practice.
In this regard, it must be noted that the situation created by the spread of AIDS in many areas of the world has made the problem of prostitution even more serious. Those who know themselves to be infected with HIV and who therefore run the risk of infecting others, apart from committing a sin against the sixth commandment are also committing a sin against the fifth commandment – because they are consciously putting the lives of others at risk through behaviour which has repercussions on public health. In this situation, the Holy Father clearly affirms that the provision of condoms does not constitute “the real or moral solution” to the problem of AIDS and also that “the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality” in that it refuses to address the mistaken human behaviour which is the root cause of the spread of the virus. In this context, however, it cannot be denied that anyone who uses a condom in order to diminish the risk posed to another person is intending to reduce the evil connected with his or her immoral activity. In this sense the Holy Father points out that the use of a condom “with the intention of reducing the risk of infection, can be a first step in a movement towards a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.” This affirmation is clearly compatible with the Holy Father’s previous statement that this is “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.”
Some commentators have interpreted the words of Benedict XVI according to the so-called theory of the “lesser evil”. This theory is, however, susceptible to proportionalistic misinterpretation (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor, n. 75-77). An action which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed. The Holy Father did not say – as some people have claimed – that prostitution with the use of a condom can be chosen as a lesser evil. The Church teaches that prostitution is immoral and should be shunned. However, those involved in prostitution who are HIV positive and who seek to diminish the risk of contagion by the use of a condom may be taking the first step in respecting the life of another – even if the evil of prostitution remains in all its gravity. This understanding is in full conformity with the moral theological tradition of the Church.
In conclusion, in the battle against AIDS, the Catholic faithful and the agencies of the Catholic Church should be close to those affected, should care for the sick and should encourage all people to live abstinence before and fidelity within marriage. In this regard it is also important to condemn any behaviour which cheapens sexuality because, as the Pope says, such behaviour is the reason why so many people no longer see in sexuality an expression of their love: “This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man’s being” (Light of the World, p. 119).

Posted by Mary O'Regan

Picture borrowed from here

Let's Take Positive Action to Help Ireland Stay Abortion Free

Let's lift the phone and send e-mails to help Ireland. The ruling from the European Court of Human Rights is 'binding' but we must remind the Irish political leaders that they can and should ignore the ruling to enact abortions laws. And that they must, simultaneously, cut the strings that this foreign court has tied them up in.

Contact the the following leaders today and tell them that the government must ensure that the ruling from the European Court of Human 'Rights' does not open the door to legalised abortion in Ireland.

Contact details:

Mr Brian Cowen, TD,
Office of An Taoiseach,
Merrion Street,
Dublin 2.
Tel: 01-6194020 / 4021 / 4043, Fax: 01-6764048
http://www.blogger.com/taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie

Mr Enda Kenny, TD,
Tucker Street,
Castlebar,
Co. Mayo.
Tel: 094 9025600, Fax: 094 9026554
http://www.blogger.com/enda.kenny@finegael.ie

Mr Brian Lenihan, TD,
Minister for Finance,
Constituency Office,
Laurel Lodge Shopping Centre,
Dublin 15.
Tel: 01-8220970, Fax: 01-8220972
http://www.blogger.com/brianlenihantd@gmail.com

Mr Leo Varadkar, TD,
37A Main Street,
Ongar,
Dublin 15.
Tel: 01-6183819, Fax: 01-6184125
leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie

Mary O'Regan

Editor's note: And let's pray and FAST so that our action will bear fruit.

Ireland: Pro-death Activists Disdain Democracy

‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ Case What is it about pro-abortion activists and their total disdain for democracy?
Abortion is ‘completely illegal’ in Ireland, at this moment in time. But will this all change at 11am today?
Shortly, we are expecting that the oddly named European Court of Human “Rights” will pass down a judgment that may instruct Ireland to legalise abortion.
The title of the court case is ‘A,B,C Vs. Ireland.’ This basically means that three women, who will not reveal their true identities, are demanding in a Strasbourg court that Ireland disregard her pro-life laws and allow abortion-on-demand. Pro-life young people have gathered outside the court during court proceedings so that their pro-life voices may be heard. One poster reads ‘Ginmhealladh Sin Dúnmharú’. This is Irish for ‘Slaughter of the conceived human is killing.’
Pro-abortion activists are claiming that pro-lifers are not sympathetic to the women who have taken this court case over the last five years (the case started in July 2005 according to the court’s Statement of Facts). My sympathies are with the three ladies, because firstly they are mothers of dead children. They seemed to have suffered great panic during their pregnancies. One felt that she wouldn’t ‘cope’ if she had another child, another was worried about how she would continue her cancer treatment and the third was worried that the pregnancy would be ectopic. They are staking their case on the basis that their fear and worries would have been eased if they had got abortions in Ireland.
But I am an Irish woman, and I resent that these women are using a far-flung court, to impose their wishes that social abortion become widespread and lawful in Ireland. The women may have been through a lot, but they are in contempt of democracy. Has it not occurred to all those who have orchestrated this case that the Irish people have rejected legal abortion down through the centuries? And that in recent decades the Irish people voted down abortion in three referenda? Do the people who voted against abortion suddenly cease to have any say on what happens in their country? All born and unborn citizens are being dictated to by a court that has no respect for our laws and our sovereignty.
What if the court instructs Ireland to legalise abortion? The court cannot enforce its judgements, and cannot at this time of writing, (but this may shortly change) impose penalties on Ireland for not making abortion legal. The current Irish political class may ignore the court’s rulings.
There is something else about which we must be vigilant – there is an election in the offing in Ireland. The Irish are expected, en masse to ‘boot out’ the politicians who they hold responsible for the pitiless Irish recession. But in turn, they are expected to vote in ‘fringe parties’, socialist parties and horror-of-horrors Labour which, according to their party manifestos, have bigoted pro-abortion policies. Sigh. Sursum corda and our Rosary beads for Ireland.

Mary O' Regan

Divine Interference: Phone Problems Lead to A Heaven Sent Christmas Present

We must give thanks for the baby saved from abortion who is to be born this Christmas. One mother will get a beautiful Christmas gift this year – she will give birth either on Christmas day or the days after.
But some months ago, ‘Maria’ had been adamant that abortion was her ‘only option’ and that she had to abort ‘as soon as possible.’ She had been with a man much younger than her, and when she told him she was pregnant he vamoosed, saying that she had to give him proof that he was the father. ‘Maria’ was having difficulty getting an appointment at an abortuary, because sometimes her phone wouldn’t connect her and she didn’t understand the "clinic’s"abortion-bookers when she rang. Maybe it was the angels intervening. She had no trouble getting through to us, and said that she wanted to talk it over, but was going to get the abortion anyway.
Maria said that she didn’t feel at all ‘ready’ to be a mother, and that the pregnancy put her ‘under pressure’. We discussed the abortion complications, and Maria was seemingly okay with everything: ‘I knew already that there was a risk of infertility, my sister couldn’t have a child after her late-term abortion, but it’s a chance that I’m willing to take.’
One thing was really playing on her mind – according to her own calculations the baby would be born on Christmas day.
‘I’m not ready to be a mother, but here...in here...there...is creating a new one...that will come on Christmas day.’ I told her that this was accurate based on the conception date that she gave us. Hearing this, she burst into tears, and while coughing back sobs she managed to utter,
‘every Christmas, I will remember the baby, the baby that I aborted. I don’t think that I can face Christmas anymore.’
‘Well, you’ve done nothing, you haven’t aborted the baby and you needn’t abort the baby. You don’t have to. We’re here to support you. We’ll help you have the baby at Christmas time. You don't have to spend every Christmas of your life regretting the death of your baby’ I said. Maria didn’t change her mind that day, but she accepted a Miraculous Medal and said, ‘Oh Jesus’ mother, this [motioning to her womb] would come at the same time as Jesus.’
A month later, Maria decided to forget all about having the abortion. From this year on, and every Christmas for the rest of her life, Maria will celebrate the baby’s birth and Our Lord’s birth at the same time.

Mary O'Regan

If I Were Not Catholic, I Would Still Oppose Condoms.

It’s been a heady and confusing week. Many rumours have surrounded a remark made by Fr Lombardi, purportedly saying that Pope Benedict may be in favour of female prostitutes using condoms. (Editor's note: Let's not be led astray by hearsay remarks with no real authority behind them, and for our comment on the Holy Father's words, see here) This remains to be clarified. But it does seem rather unusual for a Pope who has, over many years, been so outspoken against condoms. Many Catholics are in a quandary about what to think and do; many are asking themselves if they should be in favour of condoms. After all, all the media outlets have bombarded us with reports that the Pope has ‘permitted’ use of condoms, complete with lots of opportunistic ‘arguments’ about why the Pope would be in favour of condoms. The media doth protest too much.
There will always be groups and individuals who will try and twist a priest’s or a Pope’s words to fit an agenda. But we need to hold true to the facts. Nothing has changed in Church teaching. We cannot promote condoms, OK, well maybe as a wet suit for a mouse, poor mouse!
Much as I loathe The Guardian, their motto is ‘comment is free, facts are sacrosanct.’ Telling people that they will be ‘safe’ if they use condoms is a comment, but factually it is leading them into a fool’s paradise.
From an objective viewpoint, were I not Catholic, I would still be against condoms for social as well as scientific reasons. Anyone, from any religion, and any culture, should be aware of the ineffectiveness of condoms. One study found that the AIDS virus was several times small than the holes in the latex, allowing it easily to pass through. In fact the comparison was that the AIRS virus could slip through a hole in the latex as easily as a dime through a basketball hoop.
Just this week, in our centre, we were helping a young teenager, let’s call her ‘Reena’. Reena has been a child prostitute and is now pregnant. She told me that she used condoms ‘every time’. Now, I’m not very bright, but if she got pregnant, did her ‘clients’ give her any diseases? Have her ‘clients’ got any diseases from her, of which they are unaware?
The emotional cost of Reena’s time on the street is untold. When I first met her, I thought she was over thirty, her face has such a lined, weary look of shame and indignity. Was a condom meant to save her from this? She was never told there’s no condom for the heart.

Mary O'Regan

Birth Mothers Don't Want Homosexual Couples As Adopters

Very occasionally, women who are in crisis pregnancy, will discuss and consider adoption. In my experience it is sometimes more common for younger women, especially ‘under age’ teenage girls to think about adoption. In a previous job, when I was helping pregnant girls aged 13 – 17, they would often enquire about adoption, but just as quickly say that they didn’t want their baby to go to homosexual couples. Here in London, when a pregnant lady broaches the possibility of adoption, she is more hesitant, but nonetheless will have the gut reaction that she does not want her baby to go to a homosexual couple. But outside of our centre, who is listening to these women?
In the debate on who should be entitled to adopt children – gay/lesbian couples or a heterosexual family – why aren’t the voices of women who do not want their children to go to homosexual ‘unions’ ever heard? This includes a woman in crisis pregnancy or a woman who for whatever reasons has her child taken from her by government bodies. Might this be a plausible reason why the biological mothers are kept gagged – because if it were more widely known that they did not want their children going to homosexual ‘unions’ that the pro-homosexual adoption lobby would lose their trump card? After all, the lobby groups that support gay adoption talk about it being a ‘right’ to adopt a child, but what right is left to the biological mother? Does she not have the right firstly to freedom of speech where she can say that she does not want her child to go to a homosexual couple? And secondly, does she not have the right to decide that her child who is her flesh and blood ought not to go to a homosexual couple? This talk and bluster about so-called ‘rights’ is very selective –so much so that the rights of ‘the mother of origin’ aka the biological mother are often forgotten altogether.

Mary O'Regan

The Importance of Praying for Palin

Of all pro-life politicians the world over, Sarah Palin has got guts. Throughout the 2008 presidential election, she was candid about her pro-life views and this wasn’t just to get ‘the pro-life vote’. Prior to running as vice president, when she was a little-known governor of Alaska, she said no to an abortion for her unborn son. In her autobiography, "Going Rogue" she told her story about learning that her unborn son had Down’s Syndrome, and how abortion was presented to her as ‘the quick and easy solution.’ She went against the tragic trend of aborting a child with a disability, and now that she is so high-profile and has two and a half million fans on Facebook, she is a great example to other women.
In the past weeks, Sarah Palin spoke at a pro-life even organised by Heroic Media. She said that she is ‘unapologetically pro-life’ and that ‘choosing life may not be the easiest path, but it’s the right choice.’
Palin is now considering running for president in 2012. We have reason to hope that she might secure the Republican nomination, according to the American Associated Press Gfk poll 79% of self-proclaimed Republicans favour Palin as presidential candidate.
While we will not have a vote in the US presidential election, we have time to pray and win graces from Heaven for Sarah Palin. For one thing, I will be requesting of my parish priest that he offer a Mass for Sarah Palin, that she is able to run as president, and that she is successful in her bid.
(Click Heroic Media for their website.http://www.heroicmedia.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HM_HOMEPAGE )

Mary O' Regan

Pope Benedict XVI's Vigil for All Nascent Human Life: Extraordinarily Important says Dr John Wilkes

Pope Benedict’s call to every diocesan bishop worldwide to simultaneously lead a Vigil for All Nascent Human Life has been recognised by leading pro-lifers to be extraordinarily important.
“Strong support for Pope Benedict’s appeal to the world’s bishops could not be more important," Dr John Wilkes said recently at the International Right to Life Federation meeting in Ottawa. Dr. Wilkes has authored several pro-life books, among them ‘Handbook on Abortion’, which is considered a classic pro-life text. ‘Handbook on Abortion’ is one of the bestselling books against ‘legal’ abortion ever published.
“Given the scale of the worldwide crisis, no-one could possibly argue that the vigil cannot be supported because of other priorities or because of other events being held in support of life at other times of the year” said Dr Wilkes. Dr Wilkes put side by side the carnage of World War II and the massacre of innocents by abortion. “According to one calculation, 55 million people were killed during the second world war...Tragically; these killings in the most deadly war in human history were a mere prelude to the tragic drama played out for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st.” The Guttmacher Institute currently estimates about 42 million abortions take place annually.
Dr. Wilkes has encouraged all Catholics and pro-lifers across the globe to support the vigil: “Let all who believe in prayer, pray for a great outpouring of grace on our bishops which impels them to respond generously to this call.”
A new website called “Yes! For Benedict” gives us the opportunity to send a message to the Pope in our own language. You can participate by clicking here. http://www.yes-for-benedict.net/

Mary O' Regan

Men Can be Victims of Contraceptive Mentality Too

Men are also victims of the contraceptive mentality
‘It’s his entire fault that I’m pregnant!’
‘We thought the vasectomy was a hundred percent, that there was no chance that I would ever get pregnant’ sighed ‘Connie’. ‘Tut! Tut! Some guarantee against pregnancy the snip turned out to be!’ This past week, ‘Connie’s’ boyfriend ‘Gabriel’ went to the GP who told him that a vasectomy is not always one hundred percent... Connie put on the doctor’s nasally voice and sneered, ‘Vasectomy is approaching one hundred per cent, but even if your partner has been sterilised by vasectomy there is still the smallest chance of pregnancy.’
Connie is furious because she is much further along in her pregnancy than she thought. ‘Do you really think that I’d be thinking about having an abortion if his ****** sperm hadn’t got my egg?’
When we discussed the abortion complications and how women can feel very angry with their men folk afterwards, Connie almost yelled, ‘I want to kill him now! I know after the abortion, I’ll want to brain him completely! It’s his entire fault that I’m pregnant!’
I suggested to Connie that she sounded as if she wanted to punish Gabriel.
‘Yeah, but what’s so wrong with that? I’ve already been so cross with him...and...’ Connie put her fist inside her hand.
When I mentioned that often women want to break up with their boyfriends after an abortion, she clicked her tongue and said,
‘I’m not going to forget that he got me pregnant. I doubt we’ll be a couple in a few days. He doesn’t have to go through an abortion, and I can’t forgive him for putting me in this situation. I know the doctor said that the snip isn’t always foolproof, but it’s my boyfriend’s entire fault.’

Mary O'Regan

£80 to be Prodded and Ignored at Marie Stopes

‘The Marie Stopes staff made me feel like such a guinea pig’ said ‘Irene’ who came to us after a young man gave her a blue leaflet with Good Counsel's phone number on it during 40 Days for Life.

‘I paid at least 80 pounds for a consultation, and all they did was scribble some notes on a sheet, and tell me to lie down for a scan. Two people stood over me – a man and a woman – I don’t know who they were or what their jobs really were. The woman was new and didn’t know what to do. She kept prodding me with the ultrasound stick thing. Going back and forth with the stick and not picking up anything. The man would try to instruct her, and she would move the stick or the rod thing over me again. She never asked me if I minded that she pressed me with the scanning rod....The man and the woman talked to each other as if I wasn’t there...The man said to the woman that I was gone past a certain number of weeks. I felt so nervous at this stage that I felt that I couldn’t speak. The woman gave me a stare and said, ‘So it will be...surgical...for you.' The second that I heard the word ‘surgical’ my head swam with anxiety. I tried to point at the rod and ask if, please, they would show me the scan. I was completely ignored. I got down from the table, and they said a few things to me that didn’t really register. I just said that I was going home...Later I read the blue leaflet over and over again. Then I plucked up the courage to come here for an appointment.’

Irene stayed for many hours talking about why she has been considering abortion. She is living with her boyfriend and as he’s from a strict Muslim family, he keeps it a secret that he lives with her. When she told him that she is pregnant he turned to her and said, ‘you shouldn’t even be living with me. You led me into sin by sleeping with me. Now you’re in sin because you’re pregnant. I can’t help you now.’ Her boyfriend has told her flatly that he won’t promise any money. And now she has even less money after giving Marie Stopes a whopping 80 quid for them to prod her.

Irene has been assured of the help that we offer, and has said that now she wants to keep the baby. We ask for your continued prayers for her.

Mary O' Regan

The Nasty Irony: How Abortuary Executioners Treat People Who Help Them Kill, And How They Treat Pro-lifers Who Help Women

Outside of my work for Good Counsel, I work as a journalist, and recently I was formally interviewing a type of social worker. I was trying to get a picture of how this woman helps the mothers and babies on her caseload. Her answers were all very unclear and when I would ask something like, ‘so what do you suggest to girls who think that they might be pregnant?’ She would waffle and say, ‘oh it would depend on the type of girl. How I would advise each individual girl on how to find out if they are pregnant is not a matter for discussion.’
‘Right. But if they are pregnant, do you recommend abortion?’ I asked this very polished woman who was immaculately dressed in a suit.
‘Well...I mean...I shouldn’t answer that’
‘It’s a general question, is the answer yes or no?’
‘Well...But! It’s not as if I tell them to have an abortion. I might take them to the clinic and help them through it. If they don’t want that child, I will help them...not to be pregnant anymore...’ She told me that she doesn’t want her family or friends to ever know that she cajoles girls into abortion. She forced a smile and told me that the staff at the abortuaries welcome her when she accompanies a pregnant mother to their killing chambers.
This in itself also pinpoints a nasty irony. Abortuaries become possessed with anger when pro-lifers stand outside their buildings and offer an alternative to abortion. One unfounded accusation is that pro-lifers are trespassing. But abortuaries are very welcoming when anyone sweeps a girl into an abortuary and sweet-talks the girl through an abortion. Why isn’t the smooth-talking social worker (who I interviewed) ever called a trespasser?

Mary O'Regan

Congratulations Archbishop Burke!

On November 20th Archbishop Burke will receive the red hat from Pope Benedict. The name ‘Burke’ is a long established Irish name and means ‘strong fort’ or ‘fortified settlement’. How appropriate for one of the most dynamic archbishops of the age!
Archbishop Burke has already won the reputation of being a ‘pro-life champion’ and a ‘defender of the unborn.’ As recently as this month, during the Human Life International Congress in Rome, Archbishop Burke received rapturous applause when he noted that Catholic politicians who shore up abortion laws must repent in public.
Archbishop Burke has been very outspoken in the past about the failings of his fellow bishops. In Rome this month, Archbishop Burke turned our attention back to Humanae Vitae “A most tragic example of the lack of obedience of faith, also on the part of certain Bishops, was the response of many to the Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae of Pope Paul VI, published on July 25, 1968. The confusion which resulted has led many Catholics into habits of sin in what pertains to the procreation and education of human life.”

You may personally congratulation Archbishop Burke here.

Mary O'Regan

Counselling ‘Audrey’ in the Presence of An Abortionist

Continued from Yesterday

‘Audrey’ clapped her hands and gave me a huge hug.
‘I have never been so moved in all my life! Remember the way the baby’s beating heart appeared on the screen! Let’s celebrate with nice food.’
I let her tell me her new worries while eating bowls of berries in a trendy cafe. Behind Audrey a middle-aged woman came out of the Ladies and sat down with a gent. Was it...it couldn’t be...but it was her. I knew the middle-aged woman to be an abortionist who some time ago had tried to convince me that ‘Abortion helps lower the rates of certain undesirables in society. By encouraging so many unwanted children you are making my society worse!’

As Audrey merrily ate her berries and chatted brightly about how ‘My baby’s heart is a miracle’, I could see the abortionist sip tea. The abortionist and her friend were decorated in their religious symbolism.
Audrey stopped eating and a frown came over her face and she sighed,

‘But you know I’ve been reading on the internet that baby’s can die in the womb during pregnancy and I think it would be better if I had an abortion before the baby dies.’
‘There are always a lot of ifs and buts in life, and anyone of us could be taken by God any second. But we know for a fact that your baby is alive today, at this very moment.’
I pulled out a baby model from my bag and Audrey got her scan pictures and started holding them up to the light. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the abortionist's eyes examine us, and her mouth formed a silent scream.
Audrey was oblivious to the doctor’s stare and put the scan results next to the baby model. Like a lot of pregnant mothers Audrey found the baby model very calming, and put it next to her cheek. Audrey said to me that she would love to see the bigger ultrasound picture of a ten week old foetus. I handed it to her, and she turned around and held it up to the light in the dim cafe where she could see it better. The abortionist got a full view of it, she was only two and a half metres away from us, and I could barely hear her friend asking her what had suddenly caused her fright. Quite rudely, she pointed in our direction and kept pointing. The friend looked over in our directions, and gave us a look that would have melted Everest. Audrey was too fascinated by the baby model to notice the abortionist, or hear her and her friend talking about how much they hated ‘anti-abortionists’. The doctor’s friend smoothed his religious garment.
I said arrow prayers of ‘Jesus and Mary I love You save souls!’ Amazingly for me, I didn’t start to shake. Normally, I am a very nervous person and counselling a panick-prone Audrey is one thing, but to have an abortionist mocking us... I consider it an answer to a prayer said some time ago. A while ago, the abortionist had told me ‘You prefer foetuses to women!’ I remember praying at Our Lady’s altar that this abortion doctor would see that foetuses are human and as many are girls, they will grow up to be women. That prayer was being answered then and there as she saw Audrey lift up different pictures of little unborn babes. I made myself forget that the doctor was there.
Audrey and I discussed her baby’s future in detail, till Audrey said, ‘Oh I can’t wait to hold my baby in my arms and take his pulse!’
That evening Audrey said ‘That clinic would have just stopped my baby’s heart beating for their own financial gain’, and cancelled her abortion.

Mary O' Regan

“Look at his beautiful little heart"

‘I’m absolutely terrified’ shrieked ‘Audrey’ as we sped through central London on the way to her doctor’s appointment.
‘What if the baby is not growing in the womb? What if there’s something wrong with my hormones and my hormones are harming the baby? What if the baby’s implanted outside my womb? And what if the baby doesn’t have a heart? Most of all, I’m convinced that the baby’s dead!’ ‘Audrey’ felt very alone in her pregnancy and is very far from home. Audrey’s fears about the baby were crowding her mind and because she thought her hormones were negatively affecting the baby, she had booked an abortion for the coming days.
Audrey had asked me to attend her doctor’s appointment and scan with her. The doctor is a rugged Celtic type, and while occasionally a bit gruff, he patiently explained to her that her hormones were not damaging her baby. Audrey was still very agitated when she lay down for her scan, her fists were clenched and her face taut with stress. A shadow appeared on the scan, and then the beating silhouette came into focus, the doctor announced,

‘Look at that beating heart! You’re a bit further in the pregnancy than you had thought.’
‘Aw! Amazing! Look at his beautiful little heart! Beautiful heart!’ said Audrey and tears of joy sprang from her eyes. Audrey was mesmerised by the gently pounding heart, and asked if the baby was definitely in the right place.
‘The baby’s in the womb all right and at this stage looks like he’s doing very well. Your risk of miscarriage is getting lower all the time.’
Audrey was ecstatic leaving the doctor’s office but still wanted to discuss if she should cancel her abortion. To be continued tomorrow...

Mary O' Regan

Ironside's Comments Bring Out the Worst in Our Pro Death Media

A beautiful, severely disabled little girl, born to one of the Mothers Good Counsel serves.

"If I were a mother of a suffering child, I would be the first to want - I mean a deeply suffering child - I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face," said Virginia Ironside, when she spoke on the BBC. Ironside is a journalist who is a sort of agony aunt for The Independent. She also added, "And I would with any suffering thing."
It’s appropriate that her surname ‘Ironside’ sounds so hard and unfeeling. Many phoned into the BBC to say how horrified they were by her ‘advice’, and GP Peter Evans, a member of the Christian Medical Fellowship said that deciding who ought to live or die is “very dangerous.” But Ironside has had the usual suspects as her supporters. Namely The Guardian defended Ironside's unlawful counsel as “valid” and “brave.” The fact that some other journo has gone on the Beeb and stated her support for infanticide of the disabled allows the Guardian to show it’s true colours. Let’s put Ironside’s hypothesis to the test. Imagine what Ironside would have said to Christy Brown’s parents, as a toddler Christy could not speak and barely moved. Doctors had diagnosed him as mentally disabled – this turned out to be false when after years of close attention from his mother he became a famous painter and author. Now that Ironside has labelled all children who are ‘deeply suffering’ as only fit for being smothered, would she care to get in touch with Stephen Hawking and tell him what her advice would have been to his mother? In the meantime she might like to tell a huge number of highly acclaimed people with autism, that yes thanks for your contributions to art, music and maths, but really your parents should have smothered you. This is the cold reality of Ironside’s notions. It’s a horrendous crime to advocate murder of any infant, which could incite an evil act.
If followed it will rob our world of so many gifted, irreplaceable people.
More details of Ironside's comments may be found at
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100505.html

Mary O'Regan

Sanctimonious Chatter When Lives Are Treated As Rubbish Every Day

I was horrified reading the news reports on the baby who was abandoned on board a flight from Bahrain. The little boy was discovered when airplane staff saw a rubbish bag moving. He was found in the rubbish bag wrapped in tissue. He has since been named George and doctors say he is in good health despite the trauma of being discarded by his mum.

Perhaps, we can’t judge why his mother took this grim step, she may have panicked and did this against her instincts and better nature. People are lambasting the baby’s mother with judgmental tones, ‘How could a mother ever do such a thing?’

An ironic note was struck when one politician said "I was simply outraged, no infant should be treated that way." This is sanctimonious chatter and not true to reality. Infants are treated far more savagely every minute of the day here in Britain when they are dismembered by abortion. Often these infants are as independent as baby George in that they can survive outside the womb. But pro-abortion opponents still charge pro-lifers with this old subterfuge; ‘if there isn’t easily available abortion, more babies will be abandoned!’

Instead we should acknowledge that there will be more abortions and more babies abandoned if pregnant women cannot get practical and appropriate help. Firstly, emotional support is most essential so that they can avoid a situation where they will panic and do something rash such as aborting or abandoning their baby, which can be a panicked response. Further help in the form of medical and financial help and accommodation might be critical to save them from dire straits. But instead, in our society at large, has the irresponsible de facto policy of ‘offer abortion, don’t offer any necessary help, and so women feel cornered into an abortion.’ When women, against the odds, decide to keep their baby, society rejects them with a sigh and a mock them with, ‘they should have had an abortion’. So much for ‘choice’!

Mary O' Regan