Pro-Life (?)

Here's a depressing story:

Defying Mississippi's conservative reputation, women voters appeared to lead the charge against a ballot measure that sought to ban abortion, and could've made some birth control illegal and deterred doctors from doing in vitro fertilization.

Supporters of the so-called personhood movement, which defines life as beginning at fertilization, vowed to push for the amendment in five other states next year, even though this Bible Belt state may have been its best chance at success.

While there were no exit polls to determine how men and women voted, women for weeks sounded off on social networking sites. In the well-mannered South, where things like sex and abortion are rarely discussed in polite company, women attended a rally last month with signs such as "I love my IUD" and "Keep your public policy off my private parts."

Here's what folks need to understand. When we (Catholics) say "pro-life," it's not what other people mean when they say it. This vote explains that quite well. The non-Catholic pro-life movement has very little grasp on how abortion and things like contraception and in vitro are tied together. A lot of this is due to ignorance. Some is innocuous, but a lot of it is willful and/or self-inflicted. And when I say non-Catholic, I'm including people who just use "Catholic" as a label. Like this woman:

Kathy Sikes of Jackson, a Catholic and an abortion opponent, voted against it. The mother of three grown daughters believed it would pave the way for government intrusion into private medical decisions such as birth control. She said also she grew tired of receiving email from men asking for her support.

"All the men are the ones who said to vote for it," Sikes said, chuckling. "Well, why not? Nothing off their back. They have the fun and then the woman raises the child if the child comes."

Yeah, Kathy. That's just freaking hilarious.

It all boils down very simply. There are a lot of people who are allegedly pro-life, but only as far as it might affect their ability to get on the pill or aim for children on demand (many of whom will end up in a deep freeze or dead anyway). If a challenge to abortion jeopardizes a woman's sacred right to sterilize herself or commodify her children, then the abortion stuff is going to have to take a back seat. Dead babies are important, after all, but not that important.

We deserve whatever punishment God chooses to visit on us for these abominations.