ABORTION: THE AMERICAN HOLOCAUST

Ever since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 in the United States, abortion has become so very important. It now shapes the ideologies of political parties and elections. Electorates want to know if candidates are pro-life or pro-choice before they cast their votes.

Abortion perturbs many people, even though some see it as wrong, they still believe others can do it since they have a right to make a choice. Other people claim that even though abortion is terrible, it should be allowed in cases where conception arises from rape or incest or when the continued pregnancy would endanger the health of a woman.

This jaw-dropping video (180) shows that really there is no difference between murder and abortion. This video shows that there is no difference between what the abortionists and a murderer, Kermit Gosnell did and what Dr. Joseph Mengele did in the Nazi concentration camps back in the 30’s. They are the same thing though with different appellation, also there is no difference between the holocaust in Germany and the new holocaust in America, the only difference may just be that American doctors have set the world record by killing more people than Hitler did. This video calls us to have a 180 degrees turn and advocate that abortion should not allowed.

This video answers the questions, if abortion is any different from murder, if abortion can be justified under any circumstances, if abortion is different form the holocaust of Hitler, if abortionist are any different from Hitler, and if Hitler like any abortionist should be not be termed a criminal and subsequently put in jail.

Abortion unfortunately has been justified by some as a means to empower women to aim for the sky since they can control their reproductive life. A woman’s fertility has been seen more as a burden and an obstacle towards her achieving greatness. On the contrary rather than empower women, abortion has empowered male folk to continue to violate women in an aggressive manner making them worse of. Women deserve better than abortion, they deserve our love, patience and understanding to care for their children right from conception.

The Time For An Ideal

Nwachukwu Joshua

In our time more than ever before, the chief strength of the wicked lies in the cowardice and weakness of good men. –Pope St. Pius X

In our time more than ever before, the chief strength of the wicked lies in the cowardice and weakness of good men. –Pope St. Pius X

Today, the English community together with Christian folks most especially Catholics and Anglicans would be celebrating the anniversary of the death of one of their own. Thomas More alongside Bishop Fisher was beheaded 478 years ago for defending a truth which they held sacred. They were executed during the English reformation for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as the Head of the Church of England, also for defending the doctrine of indissolubility of marriage and for upholding the Catholic Church dogma of papal primacy. Though he was murdered on July 6 1535 but his feast day is celebrated on 22nd in the Catholic Church every year.

He is still recognized as one of the greatest among the lawyers, Christian humanists, and classical scholars of early sixteenth-century Europe. He was not only a lawyer, he was also a politician, and was elected to parliament at the age of 26.

That is why he is called “a man for all seasons.” In fact Emperor Charles V on hearing of the death of More said: had we been master of such a servant, we would rather have lost the best city of our dominions than such a worthy councilor, Jonathan Swift, the great Anglo-Irish writer, described him as “a person of the greatest virtue this kingdom [of England] ever produced. G.K Chesterton described More as the greatest historical character in British history.

In 2000, he was declared patron saint of statesmen. When Pope John Paul II named Thomas More as patron saint of statesmen in 2000, he cited More’s witness to the “primacy of truth over power” at the cost of his life. He noted that even outside the Church, More “is acknowledged as a source of inspiration for a political system which has as its supreme goal the service of the human person.”

In today’s world many persons welding power be it political, religious or economic, show an inept understanding of leadership, More is a shining example of what true leadership is.

The verb “to lead” means to be out in front, inherent in this definition is that the one who leads should know where the group is going. In rating the effectiveness of leader many consider his communication skills or dress sense. But these features though important do not scratch the essence effective leadership. What then makes an effective leader? Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas said it is virtue.

Alexander Harvard, a French-born lawyer and founder of the Harvard Virtuous Leadership Institute (HVLI), in his research quickly came to the conclusion that authentic leadership must be based on an authentic anthropology, one that includes aretology, the science of virtues. Virtue is a habit of the mind, the will, and the heart, which allows us to achieve personal excellence and effectiveness. Leadership is intrinsically linked to virtue. First, because virtue creates trust; second, virtue, which comes from the Latin virtus, meaning “strength” or “power,” is a dynamic force that enhances the leader’s capacity to act. Virtue allows the leader to do what people expect of him. The two major virtues needed from a leader are magnanimity and humility.

Magnanimity is the habit of striving for great things. Leaders are magnanimous in their dreams, their visions, and their sense of mission, as well as in their capacity to challenge themselves and those around them. Magnanimity is a virtue capable of setting the tone of one’s entire life, transforming it, giving it new meaning, and leading to the flourishing of the personality. It is the first specific virtue of leaders. Another very important virtue leader need is humility. A Humble leader knows when he doesn’t know the way and consults others.

We are leery of libertines, architects of world’s many injustices, despotism in Africa, and in the western, and the dictatorship of tolerance. Today, evil under the guise of tolerance has declared bestiality, homosexuality, trans-sexuality and access to contraceptives as fundamental rights. But rather than make human persons more human, these so called rigths will make into an animal.

In Nigeria, power is a means of personal enrichment. This has cost us not only proper economic development but also many innocent lives, snuffed out in auto accidents on bad roads, died in hospitals due to lack of medical equipment, killed in plane crashes, or killed in riots. Thomas More was known as an incorruptible judge and a man with professional prestige. Can this term ever be applied to any Nigerian leader? I think the answer is No.

I recall a comment made by a former minister of finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, when responding to allegations of accumulation of wealth by government officers quoted from the bible “to those that have, more shall be given…”

Nigeria will only become a great country when corruption is over throne, leadership enriched and spiced with virtues, when government officials point to the right direction in words and deeds. Though our current leaders have passed a plethora of anti-corruption laws and floated agencies, they are not marching their words with their actions.

It is not all bad news though, In the Nigerian judiciary, in recent times we have seen the desire for change under the reign of Chief Justice of Nigeria, Honorable Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar who is occupying a similar position with Thomas More.  Her determination to fight corruption in judiciary is evident to all.  We hope she wins the fight. We hereby challenge our leaders to fight corruption even if it costs their lives. If Thomas More could do it, they can also.

CONTINUE PRAYING FOR CRISTINA

Survey shows that the growth of the culture of death in this century is unprecedented in the history of mankind. More and more people have the power to decide arbitrarily and diabolically who should live or die, who has dignity and who has none. In this century, the unborn, the physically challenged, the elderly and the sickly are endangered more than they have ever been since the beginning of the world. Yet human life remains a gift from God which does not cease to be precious even when it is physical weak and limited.

When the suffering of another is brought up, many scoff and sneer: they prefer not to hear of it, they do not want to be reminded of pain. They lack empathy with the suffering. But blessed John Paul II disagrees with this awful attitude to suffering, in his words, “Suffering does not appear as a purely negative reality, but is a visitation from God, granted in order, to give birth to works of love toward neighbour, in order to transform the whole of human civilisation into a civilisation of love. The world of human suffering opens up the way to the world of human love.”

These words of Blessed Pope John Paul II seem to be comforting to Pericas’s household. Being Christians, not only did they understand the Pope’s word, they are struggling to live it. Their 11 year old daughter, Christina is suffering from an uncommon degenerative disease with a very long scientific name (Creutzfeldt-Jakob spongiform encephalopathy) which still baffles doctor. It makes her unable to talk or move her body.

Rather than kill her, as the today’s dictators of the culture of death would dictate, her parents, true to their Christian faith, see her as a gift from God, through which they can grow in love for one another and for their neighbour.

According to doctors, Cristina’s health is going to continue degenerating until she dies. But her parents are determined to carry the inconveniences and burdens squarely on their shoulders and they have done so for 2 years now.  Their faithfulness to their child is heroic, a consolation for the world’s suffering and forsaken, and a living proof of the dignity of every human life. They are teaching the world what love of neighbour truly is. Their actions tell us that true love of neighbour demands serving others and showing compassion to the sick regardless of personal cost, a demand more generally affirmed in words than in deeds by many. As we watch this video of this young girl and her courageous family, let us pray for them and try to turn our civilization from a culture of hatred and selfishness to a culture of love.

Lets continue praying for her, recent communication with her father Juan Pericas shows that she is making real progress. Meaning more prayers more progress. pray, pray, pray

A BLESSED EXPLOSION

For 40 years, governments in Europe and America have held that the world is over populated. They have pressured their counterparts in Africa and elsewhere to curtail the powers of parents to have more children, claiming that parents could not be trusted to plan their families, and that the governments should take over the task. They sank huge funds into population control propaganda with such intensity that today there is a genuine problem of under population in many places.

However, recent findings has exposed the foolishness of these overpopulation scaremongers whose views have contributed in no small way to a high number of aged persons amongst many populace without the corresponding high number of young people to support them.

Many countries have now realised this too late. They have usurped the power of planning the family from the parent; suddenly they are now panicking, and are trying to reverse the ominous trend.

One country particularly affected is Egypt. Under the rein of the tyrant Hosni Mubarak who was ousted with the revolution, Egypt, apart from funding family planning programs, also funded publicity campaigns to curtail a population growth that was blamed for crippling Egypt’s development.

 Mubarak advocated that couples should have maximum of two children and this was propagated by slogans such as: “Before you have another baby, secure its needs. According to Dr. Nahla Abdel-Tawab, the Egypt director of the non-profit Population Council, “The president himself used to talk about population increases and it was also in the newspapers, even in the speeches of the Prime minister.”

Thankfully, the new president Mohamed Morsi, seems to have changed all that. Since he came to power, the Egyptian government is no longer saying anything about the over population. Health officials also have “taken a starkly different view of climbing birthrates, presenting the problem as one of economic management – not the size of the population.

Now, population has seemed to vanish even from public discussion. Health workers said they were stunned when Dr. Abeer Barakat, an assistant minister for health who is responsible for family planning, made no explicit mention at a United Nations conference in December of population or family planning in describing the Health Ministry’s priorities.

Birthrate (births per 1000 people) in Egypt is rising to 32, a level not seen since 1991.  Last year, there were 2.6 million births in Egypt, bringing the population to around 84 million people.  Population experts and European countries are not comfortable with the silence of the government, and are fearful that the Egyptians would start mass-producing babies again as if they were senseless.

I think I like what Mohamed is doing. He is leaving the parents to make the decision themselves. This point was well captured by Marcus Roberts who said that “The people who rose up in a revolution only a couple of years ago and braved their previous government’s soldiers and policemen to topple Mubarak are not bereft of ideas about how to limit their family size without the government telling them to.”

I think we should stop over flogging this mythical issue of overpopulation and rather spend more time on solving other illness like polio, malaria and HIV.

“The real problem is administration,” said Hamid al-Daly, a representative of the ultra conservative Nour Party and a member of the health committee in Egypt’s upper house of Parliament. “The population is a blessing if we use it well, and a curse if we mismanage the crisis.”

Africa countries like Nigeria are also under pressure from America and Europe to curtail her population. But we will bless that explosion if it comes. I think is high time that Europe and America realise that we Africans love the cries of children, we also need the man-power to become the next world continent. We implore, our distracters in line with the United Nations charter to respect our sovereignty and lets us be.