Teen Guest Blogger: Margaret Ohmes

Abortion Is Wrong!

I believe that abortion is wrong not only because of my religious beliefs but also for medical reasons. I do not think that you are solving anything when you put your life at risk while you take the life of an innocent child(http://www.abortionfacts.com/effects/effects.asp). Post-abortive women often go through great emotional trauma after they have had their abortion(http://www.abortionfacts.com/PAS/PAS.asp). They feel guilty and shameful about the child that they killed. Many of them commit suicide because of their grief. My family and I have a friend who had an abortion when she was nineteen. She said she started to drink because that gave her relief. She said that she still misses the baby that she never had.

In the year 1973 abortion was legalized in the United States of America with the Roe vs. Wade decision. Before this doctors were allowed to perform abortions only when the mother's life was at risk. Records have shown the total abortions done at two different hospitals prior to 1973, St. Luke Hospital and Cornwell Hospital, was 1. If this was a legitimate concern you would expect to find a significant number of legal abortions before 1973. This evidence points to the fact that abortions are unnecessary, especially now that our medical knowledge is so much more advanced.

The law “except to save the mother” really is a contradiction. Post-abortive women are at risk of breast-cancer and heart trouble due to the hormonal aftereffects of abortion. In fact abortionists themselves say that there is no medical indication for partial-birth abortion, a grisly procedure that involves turning a viable baby so that she is born in the breach position and killing her while her head remains in the birth canal (Editor's note: During a partial-birth procedure if a baby accidentally births herself during her struggles and is then killed, it is considered infanticide). There is no such thing as an abortion to save the mother. It is never necessary to kill the child to save the mother. A pro-life doctor I read said, “Doctors who do abortions are oxymorons.”

My religious reasons for opposing abortions is that you are directly disobeying the Sixth Commandment “Thou shall not murder” (Deuteronomy 5, 1-21). No matter how you look at it you are killing a baby. Also in Genesis the Lord commands Noah “have many children so that your descendants may live all over the earth” (Genesis 9, 1). I want to know how are we obeying God when we are killing children daily?

I think that it is as bad as murdering when you vote for a ‘pro-choice’ official (governor, mayor, president, etc.) because you are practically killing those babies killed by the laws they pass or allow to stand. Jessie Romero a lay evangelist probably said it the best, “When you vote for a ‘pro-abortion’ official you have the blood of those babies on your hands.”

I hope that by writing this people will realize the horror of abortion. For those who have had one remember that God is love and that he will forgive the repentant heart.

An Especially Good Fish Recipe

From prep to plate 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

4 Summer Squash sliced
2 Zucchini sliced
1 red bell pepper diced
1 red onion sliced
1 pound fish (a light white such as haddock or pollock)
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 packet coconut creme powder
2 Tbs peanut oil (or equivalent)
dash tyme
salt and pepper to taste
splash red (yes red!) wine
juice from 1 lemon
juice from 1 lime
2 sprigs fresh parsley finely chopped
2 sprigs fresh cilantro finely chopped

Directions: Heat oil in pan, fry fish 2 to 3 minutes each side. Fish is done when it flakes easily with a fork. Remove fish and set aside. Toss in vegetables and other ingredients. Saute quickly on medium high heat until the squash reaches desired consistency. Add water or milk as needed if sauce becomes too thick. Place vegetables on a plate and top with the fish.

Presentation: Serve vegetables topped with fish on a bed of rice, noodles, or spinach. Add a sprig of parsley and a slice of lemon or lime for garnish.

You pick them side dish suggestions: Black-eyed pea salad. Three bean salad. Corn on the cob. Fresh baby carrots. Cucumber and tomato salad.

Under Construction

Our Garden of Holiness has produced it's first fruits: a very sweet and talented young lady will premiere as guest blogger next week! She's a singer, a sewer, a homeschooled gal. Tune in next week to find out what's on her mind!

A Life Worth Living

I can't tell you how many times someone has said to me, "I'd rather be dead than like..." someone like my son. Of course, they said this before I or they were aware of his disease, so they meant no offense (other than the offensiveness of the statement itself). By now some of those people have no doubt heard the diagnosis. I wonder if they will recall those words and feel a little flutter of shame or guilt or some unnameable emotion when we see each other again.

Some will not even remember. A few will be so embarrassed they'll probably let the acquaintance drop. It's human nature. I can see that. One maybe two will be repeating themselves on the issue, wishing death on themselves (and by logical extension on my son) and they will feel themselves very compassionate. They will, of course, be careful not to extend such brute compassion into the path of this mother. They were duly and politely informed where I stood on the issue long before it became personal.

This subject shall be taboo. Yet here I go, writing again. I'm the type to poke at a wound. I want to feel if there's fever in it. Is there something festering that needs to come out? There is so much under the surface.

I read books, the web pages, the parent forums and the fear is palpable. What if my son/daughter never becomes productive? What then? What if nothing we do ever fixes this? What will you people do to my baby after I'm gone? It's a valid fear after all: in the secular world a person's worth is measured by their utility. The Nazis' "useless eaters" idea was not a new one nor was it vanquished by their defeat.

Overall I find my reading depressing. So many of the experts and self-appointed experts are adamantly insisting on one treatment or another. The tone is so strident you can hear the underlying harmonics of "Please believe! If you believe, then I'll know I'm believing in the right thing." There is safety in numbers, after all.

But I'm not in that crowd. After my initial round of emotions I realized my autistic son was still my son with all his same traits, the lovable ones as well as the obnoxious. After all, nothing fundamentally changed with the diagnosis. What I mean is this: autism is merely a label for what we had already seen. It comes as a confirmation and revelation rather than as a thief in the night.

I can only imagine how my life would have been turned upside down if his diagnosis had been something along the lines of a terminal brain tumor. From one moment to the next, the world would have been completely different. The worst would have happened and nothing would have been the same again.

Autism? It might not be curable. It might not be pleasant all the time, but we have our boy. He's exactly who he is and exactly who we love.

And it isn't fatal. At least it isn't now: unless those with the philosophy that some lives aren't worth living get carried away again.

Related posts:

http://gardenofholiness.blogspot.com/2009/06/mommy.html

http://gardenofholiness.blogspot.com/2009/04/into-silence.html

"Mommy"

Today you have said it for the first time. "Mommy." I am so proud of you, my big guy, my little man.

You give me so much more than words. You have taught me how ungrateful I have been. I became a mother, expecting so much. Each child's voice was music I knew I would hear as a matter of course.

Then God said, "Not yet. Not now. Wait."

For close to four years I have waited for you. I have longed for you to come out to play. Oh, my sweet boy, my love for you is so wrapped up in all the things I wait for.

Thank you for letting me see.

You are my blessing, like each breath, each moment, and day from each child is a blessing.

You show me how beautiful it is to be a Mommy. You show me what a gift each word, look, and sigh is. You amaze me.

I thank God for you, such a gift! I could not know this without you, my son!

Related Posts:

http://gardenofholiness.blogspot.com/2009/04/into-silence.html

http://gardenofholiness.blogspot.com/2009/06/life-worth-living.html