Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
The Two Worst Pro-Life Witnesses This Week

The Two Worst Pro-Life Witnesses This Week

Last updated on: October 18, 2018 at 9:03 pm by Mary Pezzulo

The Two Worst Pro-Life Witnesses This Week 2018-10-18T21:03:39-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I am more than frustrated with my fellow Catholics just now.

First of all, I knew it was only a matter of time before people started appropriating the savage murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to score cheap rhetorical points. I was not at all surprised when one of the first culprits I saw was someone who would call himself pro-life, and a “secretary” of the increasingly alarming American Solidarity Party. At one point I thought the ASP sounded like a refreshing alternative to the two major parties, but it reveals itself to be more and more of a joke as time goes on. Still, my jaw dropped at the absolute crassness of this person’s facbook status.

The status read, “Liberals are understandably repelled by the killing and dismemberment of Kamal Kashoggi [sic]. Now if they could just feel that way about unborn children.”

First of all, you ignorant lout, his name is Jamal Khashoggi. Jamal. “Kamal” isn’t a name to my knowledge, and “Kamala” is a girls’ name from India. “Jamal” is a man’s name and it’s Arabic. It’s extremely common, not only for Arab people but also for African-Americans and I’m sure for other groups as well. It’s not even hard to spell. You can remember “Jamal.”

Secondly, shut up. It is not okay to respond to shock and horror at a barbaric murder by bringing up other hideous things we have to feel bad about. It’s not. Do you picket car accidents with signs that say “if only you also cared about abortion?” Would you visit your friend in the hospital after he’d been stabbed and say “how can you just lie there complaining when there are unborn babies to be saved?” Well, perhaps you do, but would a sensible person?

And that’s not the only nonsense I have seen from a man who calls himself a pro-life Catholic today. Several of my friends have been sharing the news story about a woman whose unborn baby had died in a tragic miscarriage. She needed medication to avoid surgery or sepsis because the miscarriage was not completing itself naturally, but the child was absolutely confirmed to be dead by her doctor. This was in no way anything like an abortion.

But the pharmacist reportedly refused to fulfill her prescription for the miscarriage medication. And he said it was because he was a “good Catholic.”

Yes, sometimes that medication, Misoprostol, is used in combination with another medication to produce an abortion, but this woman was not filling a prescription for that cocktail of medicines for an abortion. She was taking Misoprostol by itself for one of its other well-known purposes: to help expel the tissue from a miscarriage after the baby was already dead so that she would not have to get a surgery to prevent severe infection. Infections from an incomplete miscarriage can kill a woman, and have many times before. There are certain people whom I wouldn’t blame for not knowing that Misoprostol has several uses, most of which are 100% morally licit to a Catholic. One person I would never put on that list is a pharmacist. A pharmacist’s whole job is knowing about medications and what they’re for, and giving them to people when they present a prescription. He had no excuse for presuming the woman was trying to abort a baby. He especially had no excuse, because the woman reportedly told him that she had a miscarriage, but he refused to believe her. He wouldn’t give her the medicine; he wouldn’t even transfer her prescription to anyone else in case she was lying.

That man is anything but a good Catholic. That situation has nothing whatsoever to do with a Catholic’s obligation not to provide material cooperation with an abortion. This is just a case of an arrogant man who is bad at his job putting a woman’s life in danger because he refused to believe her.

I have expressed my shock, as a pro-life woman and a devout Catholic, at what insensitive, callous and dangerous things men who claim to be pro-life do, so many times, it seems futile to express it again. But I have to. I have to keep reminding everyone who will listen that what they’re doing is anti-life and wrong.

Personhood is not zero sum.

That’s not how it works.

The personhood of one vulnerable human being does not take away the personhood of another. Defending one human does not mean being crass or abusive with another.

I am morally certain that a human fetus has personhood. I am also morally certain that the personhood of that fetus does not rob her mother of personhood. Nor does it rob a Saudi journalist who was butchered for speaking truth to power, or a Guatemalan teenager in a cage in a United States detention facility, or a teenager who was sexually assaulted at a party, or a murderer on death row, or any kind of human being of their personhood.

Many pro-life people know this and live as if they know it, but the ones I see acting up in public don’t seem to.

There is nothing pro-life about a man denying necessary medication to a 35-year-old woman who is in danger of sepsis, just in case she’s actually lying. There is nothing pro-life about a ridiculously pompous self-important third-party politician making callous jokes at the expense of a man who was tortured to death. There can never be anything pro-life about disregarding the value of one human being because another type of human being also exists. It’s immoral in the first place. And, if unborn babies are truly all you care about: behaving in this way makes concern for the well-being of unborn babies look oafish and cruel. It makes objecting to tearing a baby apart look like a foolish and misogynistic thing.

It is not necessary to behave in this way.

My saying so won’t stop people from doing it, of course. But I have to say it anyway: stop.

(image via Pixabay)

Catholic Oppositional Disorder

New Pro-Life Movement

pro-life

Public face of Catholicism

abuse

American Solidarity Party

Previous Post

October 15, 2018

What I Wish Someone had Told me About Chronic Illness

Next Post

October 19, 2018 Anthony Esolen, the Irreal, and Sexual Violence

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Where was Paul when he had a vision of a man from Macedonia pleading for help?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Athens Corinth Philippi Troas