When the killing of human beings becomes a pre-meditated methodical policy — put forward as a public good — massive slaughter results, and can be called a “holocaust.”
History puts a face on leaders who considered mass murder a political “good” — leaders like Adolph Hitler of Germany, Mehmet Talaat of Turkey, Pol Pot of Cambodia, Mao of China and Joseph Stalin of Russia.
But what about American leaders responsible for our own ongoing holocaust: abortion? History has yet to put a face to them, but those who value the sanctity of human life are obligated to ferret them out and hold them responsible.
This is the latest in an occasional California Catholic Daily series, “Faces of the American Holocaust,” in which we put faces to those behind the mass murder of innocents in the U.S.
American Civil Liberties Union
By R.J. Grace
In 1997, Margaret Crosby, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, argued before the California supreme court that a 1987 California law that required a child under the age of 18 to have written permission from her parents before she could get an abortion was a violation of her right to privacy. The court agreed. Ever since that day a child that cannot be given an aspirin in school without a note from her parents can walk into a Planned Parenthood facility and have her unborn child destroyed without saying a word to her parents.
Keeping in mind the fact that any child under the age of 18 who is pregnant has been the victim of rape, this means anyone who rapes a child is now, and has been since 1997, afforded a degree of protection as a result of ACLU’s work.
Under the banner of “reproductive rights” the ACLU has argued again and again against laws proposed by elected representatives that would make it necessary for any child under the age of 18 to get her parent’s permission before being able to get an abortion. In Illinois, ACLU lawyers are currently challenging a 1995 Illinois law that also requires parental notification before a child can get an abortion.
Probably the most infamous case they are involved in today is the lawsuit they filed against the U.S. government to cut off funds to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – funds used to aid and assist women who have been sold into slavery. Since 2006, the federal government, through the department of Human Health and Services, has given the U.S. bishops money to fund their efforts to help women who have been rescued from human trafficking. The bishops provide health care, housing, food, job training and other assistance to these women in need. The ACLU demanded that the government stop funding this work because the bishops will not recommend or provide abortions and contraception to them.
All across the country, the ACLU joins forces with Planned Parenthood to stop laws that are pro-life. In 2011, they sued the governor of North Dakota after he signed a law that would have required a 72-hour waiting period before having an abortion. The ACLU sued the state of Kansas in 2011 after a law was passed that would have prevented state Obamacare health exchanges from including abortion in their plans. The ACLU argued that this created a barrier to women who wanted access to abortion. A Kansas judge did not buy the argument from the ACLU and let the law stand.
In July of 2012, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona for passing a law that prohibited abortion beyond 20 weeks of pregnancy. Even though the law contained exceptions in order to protect the life of the mother, the ACLU labeled the law as “extreme and dangerous” for the mother.
The ACLU is actively involved in promoting the spread of contraception to children in schools. In 2007, in what they call an “Historic Victory for Sex Education”, the ACLU waged an “intensive advocacy campaign” in California that resulted in the California Department of Education adopting “…its first-ever set of K-12 Health Education Content Standards”. These standards included “essential information” on “sexual orientation, contraception, and other important topics critical to the health and wellbeing of young people in California.”
Since the law was passed, the ACLU has been aggressively waging a battle with school boards that resist the new law and have programs in place that emphasize abstinence. In 2008, the Fremont Unified School District had a sex-education program in place that taught abstinence to the children. The ACLU stepped in and made them abandon the program and replace it with a program in line with the new California law. Abstinence was replaced with condoms and books such as My Two Moms.
The same fight was taken to the school districts in Sonoma County in 2009, where they also had an abstinence curriculum in place. They were required to replace their curriculum with contraception and same-sex lessons. In a note of irony, ACLU staff attorney Margaret Crosby was quoted as saying, “California law requires that sex education be based in public health science, not ideology…”
ACLU attorneys have been at the forefront of the efforts to overturn Proposition 8 as well as in the efforts to overturn the ban on performing abortions at military hospitals located overseas.
OK — this is good, as far as it goes. What efforts are being made to take this message mainstream? CCDaily is a very good blog site but much more is needed to bring this story out to the People Magazine crowd. I guess because the ACLU stood up once or twice for some First Amendment cases, and likes the free immigration issues so beloved by our bishops, that the Catholic Church refuses to take them on in any meaningful way. Save your collection dollars and find a group that does so, and give your money to them. Plus, send a note to your bishop saying what you are doing. There will be hell to pay for the failure of confronting the ACLU now.
The 2007 action by the ACLU mentioned here has most likely also been the impetus for moving Planned Parenthood onto certain school campuses providing the full measure of reproductive services to students on campus, during school hours.
The ACLU and their trained instigators within the education system couldn’t do all these things without being aided and abetted by legislators who author bills protected partnerships between schools and planned parenthood mandating these outcomes.
Remember this come November 6th.
But guess who is a close ally with the ACLU in California? The California Catholic Conference of Bishops (CCC). Despite the fact that there have been only 13 executions in the state since 1978, the Church has joined forces with its ostensible arch enemy in a huge effort to ban the death penalty. I just read on the website for the Catholics Mobilizing Network an interview transcript of and interview with the Executive Director of the CCC, Ned Dolejsi, in which he talks about a meeting he and others had with the Editorial Board of the leftie Sacramento Bee to promote Proposition 34 on the Nov, 6 ballot. (You will never see him promoting pro-life activities.) And guess who was on the editorial panel the Bee was interviewing?: Natasha Minsker, a very prominent and long-time ACLU official. Dolejsi describes Misker as “leader of our Campaign”. I would urge readers to look up Minsker and read about her years of anti-life, anti-Catholic, and pro- Culture of Death activities. “When you lie down with dogs…..”.
The ACLU has as one of its covert strategies, the removal of parental rights in favor of the state. People have to realize, admit and deal with this truth; the state, run by “Progressive” legislators, wants to control the raising and education of YOUR children.
They will use any ruse they can to remove your parental rights in an incremental manner, one “minor” court decision or law at a time. If parents don’t recognize and fight this trend, they will lose all parental control. They want your kids. Are you going to just give up without a fight? So far they have made excellent progress. If you care – get off the couch and do something before it’s too late.
Any any Bishop who works with the ACLU gives them status in the eyes of many Catholics, who think their Bishops are always right.
This also gives SCANDAL.
‘The ends never justify the means’ – St. Thomas Aquinas.
(This is why we must have the CCC – to insure accuracy vs personal opinions. Even the personal opinions and personal actions of some Bishops.)
Who is funding the ACLU ?
Rome is burning while Bishops fiddle.
CCC: ” 2221 The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation.
The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.
The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. “
Yes, the ACLU is orchestrating the Moloch ritual of sacrificing children to idols. Bishops who hob nob with these molesters become molesters.
Praise and donations to Thomas More Law,ACLJ,Liberty Counsel,Alliance Defending Freedom,and any oyher groups that are fighting and winning against ACLU in the courts.
I’m repeating myself,but repitition is an essential part of good pedagogy..
Read Paul Kengar’s book “The Communist” on Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s mentor. Paul Kengar has also discovered letters that tie the early roots of the ACLU to Communism.
Why is the ACLU the Face of this Holocaust allowed to co-sponsor events with the Diocese of Orange Calif. at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Santa Ana, Calif. Why have our very own shepherds invited the wolves in to destroy their very own flocks?
Money? Tyrannical power? Darkened consciences resulting in worldliness?
Catherine and JLS, what unites them is SOCIAL JUSTICE. Like other loaded words such as ‘diversity’ (the mixing of good and evil) and ‘tolerance’ ( the acceptance of evil as a good), social justice is just a catch phrase for worldly ambition and reward under the guise of good works and charity. As Catholics we’re called to works of charity that stem from a deep love for our Lord and our fellow man, to bring honor to Him and Him alone. (and the right hand isn’t to know what the left hand is doing…if we’re rewarded for doing good here on earth, we’ve had our reward already).
For the Catholic bishops to invest their time, talent and treasure on the death penalty instead of ending abortion, ridding the clergy of homosexuals, and cutting their de facto employee status with the govt, is tantamount to straining at gnats while swallowing camels. It is disgusting to have leaders whose behavior is so ridiculous
Yes JLS I feel the same, it is all disgusting. God have mercy on us all.
When will CA Bishops start promoting the reading of the CCC, rather than violating it ? ? ?
CCC: ” 2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically non-existent .”
The teaching of the Church does not OUTLAW the death penalty completely.
Perhaps some CA Bishops starting their own religion is why they refuse to openly and actively promote the reading of the “CCC 2nd Ed”.’
These CA Bishops were the same who violated the CCC (and th law) in allowing Catholics to encourage ILLEGAL immigration which is contrary to Church teaching. Immigrants are required to “obey its laws” (host country), CCC 2241.
JLS, your post of Oct 10, 2012 at 11:43 am says it all. Good Job !
Is this the same organization our bishops made common cause with to abolish the death penalty?
Strange bedfellows, indeed!
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