I’m happy to say that way before it began to be “fashionable”, our diocese’s Respect Life Director saw the connection between contraception and abortion, and began to take action in the form of consistently promoting the Church’s teachings against contraception, and continually supporting NFP.

I’m also happy to have attended Joe Scheidler’s conference (Pro Life Action League) of a few years ago, “Contraception Is Not the Answer.” Recordings of the talks at this conference would make a good Christmas present for any pro-life person.

Regarding Terri’s comment about men expecting their wives to be “gatekeepers”, in teaching NFP we always emphasize the three most important factors for NFP success: teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. Husbands and wives should learn the method together, and cooperate together on a daily basis to chart, interpret, and mutually decide what to do about what they observe.

Greece and Rome can be excused for their abandoning of traditional values which led to their demise. Fides, Pietas, Virtus, Faith/Trust, Duty, Virtue were the values of Republican Rome. Gloria, Bonos, Fama are also included in their list of values, but I don’t have exact translations, so I will leave them for others.

We don’t have the option of being excused because we have their collapse to learn from & return to our original values.

Roman faith was important to their success, it was just given to a false set of gods. They began well before Jesus brought a new & true message. This is a disclaimer to avoid dicussing their paganism.

Abortion is necessary to destroy the United States as it destroyed Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece earlier. Not only was abortion an established part of Greek society, so was infantcide. Only one family in 100 raised a girl, usually girls were exposed and left to die from the elements because the parents did not want to pay a dowry.

The United States is much larger than those two world powers, of their time, combined. Abortion has become part of our culture 36 years ago & 50 million babies unborn.

Abortion is only one of the attacks on our values, the combined goal is the destruction of the US & Western Civilization.

Another article today is the opposition to conservative media. Anything standing in the way of the Left’s goal of the destruction must be removed. If 50 million babies can be killed to achieve this goal, what is free speech.

I agree that about the pro-life/anti-abortion distinction. So many people just don’t get it. I’ve also heard that pro-lifers just care about the unborn child and not the woman involved. My niece sidewalk counseled in Washington DC at the Planned Parenhood clinic there during March for Life and Inauguration Weekend last year. She told me, “The main observable difference between the pro-lifers there and the clinic escorts was that the escorts really seemed to care about the women.” WOW! I told this to my local pro-life circle and many of them were infuriated. I was attacked and it was implied that I was somehow sympathetic to the pro-choice side. It was an honest observation, more than just an opinion.

NFP really needs to be presented in a positive light, for the freedom it brings and its inherent beauty in respecting and reverencing the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of human sexuality. I’m trying to educate myself more on Theology of the Body. I think it is the Good News our culture needs in order to embrace life and reject death. I think the only way we’re going to convert the pro-life community is through grassroots outreach, one on one, prayerfully and gently. That is the best way to begin.

Another aspect that needs to be addressed within the community of NFP users is that too often men expect their wives to be the gatekeepers with when to have sex and they harbor self-pity for being “deprived”. I’ve seen too much of this in my own limited experience.

ALL can lead by making NFP education more prominent on its website and in its messages. Judie’s thoughts are spot-on and I hope that ALL will be able to implement some positive changes.

And because so many “pro-life” people and “pro-life” sympathizers are using contraception, it becomes something of a taboo to talk about it. The NFP-oriented, outspoken individual risks starting a family arguement or loosing a friend, who may in fact be a very good side walk counselor despite his/her contraceptive practices. And I remember getting a letter from one pro-life group that admited that they don’t talk about contraception much because when they did send out a letter to their regular contributors about the evils of contracpetion, they got lots of angry letters back and donations went down.

It isn’t just the Abortion Industry, it is also the Pro-life Industry. People make their living at being Pro-life. Don’t tell me there is not money, profit, and livelihood involved in it. That isn’t a criticism; it is simiply reality.

People often invest their very emotional lives in it as well. Some years back, I read an article about a mother who was very into being Pro-Life, so much so she put her young children in full time day care so she could devote her time to doing Pro-life work (I believe it was mainly volunteer work; like she wasn’t pulling in an income from it that would put a roof over their heads or food on the table).

And all I could think of was, okay, that certainly is a ringing endorsement to have children–have them, and then put them in day care because caring for them takes you away from your job. Pro-abortion types frequently tell the pro-lifers that we only care about unborn children, but don’t care about what happens to them once they are born. I can see that in this woman’s actions–she seemed to be saving the children she could not see, while ignoring the ones right in front of her. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, but that was my gut reaction to the news article, which was supposed to be a glowing review of this woman and her work.