April 2010 Newsletter
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A very fruitful trip to Montana included a pro-life talk to 350 high school students.
On March 20th, the day before the House of Representatives passed a health care bill that includes massive taxpayer subsidies for abortion, I was in Billings, Montana speaking at a pro-life conference.
This conference, sponsored by the two Catholic dioceses in Montana, was attended by more than 800 people, and it would have included hundreds more, except that the event was sold out and organizers had to turn people away because there wasn't enough seating room. The energy and enthusiasm of the crowd was contagious, and I came away reminded that there is growing strength, self-confidence, and renewal in the pro-life movement.
I share these thoughts because I'm struck by the dichotomy between what we see happening in Washington, D.C. and what is happening in "real America," where polls show more and more Americans are becoming pro-life, fewer women are having abortions, and fewer doctors are willing to perform them. The gulf between the values of our political leaders and those of the people they're supposed to be representing is larger than ever.
During the conference, I spoke about our founder Fr. Robert Spitzer's "Ten Universal Principles," which are part of the Life Principles curriculum that we teach at Healing the Culture. The Ten Principles are divided into categories: three Principles of Reason; three Principles of Ethics, three Principles of Justice and Natural Rights, and one fundamental Principle of Identity and Culture.
We always start our presentations with the "Principles of Reason" because many people in our culture have been so powerfully victimized by "moral relativism" that they have literally forgotten how to reason through moral and ethical issues.
So, for example, we teach the "Principle of Non-Contradiction," which says that something cannot both "be and not be," at the same place at the same time in the same respect.
To illustrate this point for high school students, we show them that you cannot have a "square-circle," because a square has four inscribed right angles, whereas a circle has no right angles. So the nature of "square" excludes the possibility of "circle."
During the health care debate, the President and certain leaders of Congress insisted that the health care bill passed by the Senate does not include funding for abortion, while every major pro-life organization insisted that it does. The principle of non-contradiction tells us that they cannot both be right. While in Montana, I shared this principle with 350 high school students. I explained how some states have laws which charge you with a crime if you injure a pregnant woman and cause the death of her unborn child; yet these same states have other laws which permit abortion. One law treats the unborn child as a person, while the other law treats the child as a non-person - violating the principle of non-contradiction. An unborn child cannot both "be a person" and "not be a person" at the same place and time, and in the same respect.
The Principle of Non-Contradiction along with the other nine principles form a solid and very compelling argument for the pro-life movement. Throughout my presentation, most of the students were nodding in agreement as we walked them through the reasons why abortion should be illegal. At the end of the presentation, a large group of students gathered around me, and a young girl said, "I'm a debater. We debate frequently on the subject of abortion in competition. I've never heard anyone use arguments as good as yours. I couldn't even think of a single argument against them." The other students agreed. This kind of response among young people bears witness to the fact that the Life Principles not only makes intellectual sense, but also speaks to their hearts.
One of the more important things we do at Healing the Culture is to train others how to use our highly effective pro-life curriculum in their own sphere of influence. For every person we train, there is the potential to reach several others and sometimes even hundreds of other people with a message that converts hearts. So I made sure that part of our busy agenda in Montana included training sixty high school teachers in how they could bring the Life Principles lessons into their classrooms. The most common response I heard following the training was, "It's about time!" They loved the philosophy of human rights, the definition of the human person, and the Four Levels of Happiness.
Thanks to your financial partnership, we were able to provide the people of Montana with free resources, including a CD on physician-assisted suicide, and a recording of a talk on the Ten Principles. They will be using these materials to educate themselves more deeply in our program, and to share them with others.
We also sent free training manuals to the pre-med students at the University of Notre Dame last month. These materials helped the students learn how to see terminally ill people as human beings with intrinsic dignity, and encourage them to reject the "solution" of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.
All of this wonderful mission work was accomplished last month because of your generosity. Will you please continue your commitment to help us in our work by sending us a contribution today?
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation. All gifts are gratefully accepted and wisely used, whether you send $10, $25, $50, $250, or more.
Please keep us in your prayers, and feel free to call us if you have any questions. Our phone number is (425) 481-6563. Thank you and God bless you!
Camille Pauley
President
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