Silent Night, Deadly Night
by Aaron D. Wolf
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
Just when I thought I’d seen it all, I discovered that Planned Parenthood of Indiana has deployed a new weapon in the War on Christmas—er, Holiday. Not to mention the War on Life—er, inconvenience.
There’ve been some real dingers lately in the War on Holiday. I just heard an ad on a sports-talk-radio station in Chicago that said, warm and gentle, “This Holiday Season, give your wife the gift of a vasectomy.” Talk about a lump of coal! At the Vasectomy Clinics of Chicago, Dr. Kiu Mostowfi will perform genital jihad on your jingle bells through elven magic. It’s “non-surgical,” which means “no frozen peas” and “I was back to work that afternoon.” The eager beaver in the Christmas radio spot did not mention Dr. Mostowfi by name, but that healer must be a man with a slow hand, because the ad’s effervescent Eugene the Eunuch ejaculated “And the doctor? WOW.”
Now comes Planned Parenthood to one-up Kiu the Castrator. “Looking for an unusual, yet practical gift this holiday season?” asks the press release. Well, sure! Who ain’t? “Give the gift of health this holiday season”! What’s more practical than “health”?
“Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN) is now offering gift certificates for services or the recipient’s choice of birth control method.” Now, of course the jolly elves at PPIN are careful not to use the a-word, but we know how the Sons of Sanger define “services” and “birth control.” To alleviate any doubts for the careful gift-giver, the Chicago Tribune confirms that “yes, they can be used to pay for abortions.”
Calm down, says PPIN’s queen bee Betty Cockrum, “Ninety-five percent of what we do is provide basic health care.” That makes me feel so much better, especially following this stunning attempt at downplaying infanticide: “We see 92,000 patients each year at Planned Parenthood of Indiana, and 5,000 of them opt for abortions.”
That number rings a bell. The Saviour Whose Virgin-birth we celebrate at “Holiday” would one day feed that many. Is 5,000 a small number or a large number? Well, it’s pretty large if you’re talking about feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes. What if you’re talking about murdering them with surgical instruments? Is that small potatoes?
The miracle of the Feeding of the Five-Thousand points to the sort of Christmas gift that the Christ-child brings: that of His Body and Blood. If you don’t want to feast upon those gifts, He says, you don’t want Him. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” That’s what puts the Mass in Christmas.
Now, instead, we “celebrate” Christmas by giving Rachel an abortion gift certificate. And Planned Parenthood isn’t weeping for Rachel’s children, which are no more. They are interested in a very different sort of body and blood.
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by Tom Piatak on 3 December 2008:
An outstanding post.
2 Comment by robert on 3 December 2008:
Aaron,
Thank you. This sounds like a society tired of life as they live it or know it, but not quite free from the urge to create more of it. I wonder why this is so?
3 Comment by Bruce on 3 December 2008:
Who’s filling THEIR stocking. I don’t know. Could it be…. SATAN CLAUS!!!
When I was a teen, Mom and Dad gave me Texas Chainsaw Massacre on VHS as a Christmas gift. Wrapped and placed under the tree with a little bow on it. No kidding.
4 Comment by Leo on 3 December 2008:
Noises emanate from the Obama camp that he will indeed push for passage of FOCA and proudly sign this demonic legislation.(FOCA would purport to federally prohibit what little the States have been able to do to slow down abortion in the shadow of Roe v. Wade).FOCA is not a gray area and it is not a damn penumbra.Support is EVIL and opposition is GOOD.Let’s see where so-called moderate Democrats flop down on this issue.
5 Comment by JD Salyer on 3 December 2008:
“Genital jihad”… priceless.
Setting aside the minor issue of mass-murder, what’s often perplexed me are birth-control pills, which don’t seem to make sense even on the terms of the people who use them.
How can people be so obsessed with Nature, health, the environment, all-natural foods and eating “organic”, blah blah blah, yet then go on to pump their bodies with a drug which works by warping and shattering one of their most basic biological rhythms beyond recognition?
6 Comment by woodcutter on 3 December 2008:
Very good post Aaron, Merry Christmas from your friends in Nova Scotia.
7 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 3 December 2008:
And to think I mistook Indiana as a bastion of relative conservatism compared to Illinois. PPIN must want to wipe out the excess negro population of Gary. The once pro-life Jesse Jackson ought to be proud of his erstwhile stomping grounds. It’s no secret that Margaret Sanger was a true blue racialist right down to her rotten core.
8 Comment by robert m. peters on 3 December 2008:
Had Planned Parenthood been around two thousand years ago, the organization would have posed one more temptation to the Virgin Mary and Joseph. However, God knew whom He had chosen: a godly woman and man who would listen to Him as He spoke through His angel and carry out His divine purpose.
Hopefully, those of us who today, two thousand years later, claim to be godly can be as faithful and resolute.
Dr. Wolf,
I appreciate your excellent post.
9 Comment by John Seiler on 3 December 2008:
And for the 2009 Father Frost Day (new name), Santa Obama will bring PP the gift of mandatory abortions for teenage girls, performed at in-school clinics operated by PP.
10 Comment by John Seiler on 3 December 2008:
Make that “Parent Frost Day.”
11 Comment by Bob Johnson on 4 December 2008:
John Seiler,
That has already been suggested by his on and off supporter Ted Rall, one of the most comtemptable men who have ever lived.
12 Comment by Bruce on 4 December 2008:
Modern abortionists aren’t abortionists because they want to wipe out the excess negro population and/or improve the human race. They’re abortionists because children are a burden to the radical individual freedom that gives their lives “meaning.”
13 Comment by George Ajjan on 4 December 2008:
The “War on Christmas” is passée. American conservatives have more important engagements with liberals, like the “War on Palin”.
So Christ fed a piddly 5,000. Big deal. Sarah Palin drew larger crowds than that campaigning for Saxby Chambliss.
George
ps
The above is sarcastic. Would those of you unaware now kindly untwist your undergarments.
14 Comment by Bob Johnson on 4 December 2008:
Damn straight Bruce.
Not that Sanger was justified in what she did, but at least she had far better motives than those you speak of.
15 Comment by Harry Colin on 4 December 2008:
A wonderful and witty post about a gruesome next step on our nation’s march to destruction. This kind of ghastly “outreach” would make Dr. Mengele cringe.
Seeing this reminds me of the old saw about an electorate getting the government it deserves. Now we have the ultimate abortion champion about to settle into the White House -and we see how quickly his eager acolytes start offering enticements to their sickening trade.
God help us – we apparently cannot help ourselves.
16 Comment by Ivan on 4 December 2008:
No, not “Parent Frost”, but “Legal Guardian of the Frimaire Solstice”.
17 Comment by robin on 4 December 2008:
Great pithy port! What a sad level our nation has sunken too!
Thank God there are still a good number of us that live according to God’s plan. I fear for this generation of children coming up as
life with be very hard for them. They will have to have strong Catholic parents to engrain their faith and help develop their
Catholic consience in such a way they avoid all this.
May God have mercy on us all!
18 Comment by Tom Flinn on 4 December 2008:
What a great idea, and I am so proud it came out of my native state of Indiana. Just imagine, the ultimate ANTI-CHRISTMAS present. Whereas Christmas celebrates the birth of the God-child, this gift celebrates the killing of a child. I wonder what carols will come from this to replace Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem, We Three Kings, etc? At least it reduces expenses. Instead of putting up another stocking we can take one down!!! To paraphrase, “My God, my God, why have we forsaken you?”
19 Comment by Matthew Rarey on 4 December 2008:
Is a vasectomy right for you? Haven’t a clue? Tune into Dr. Kiu! Listen to what this productive New American — dedicated to serving his unreproductive-oriented fellow citizens — has to say about his non-invasive procedure and whether it’s right for you. (Question: Can one take the “rubberband test” at home?)
http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/3708469
Thanks, Aaron, for proving that sports radio can serve productive ends: a very witty post that made serious points.
P.S. “The most serious charge that can be brought against modern ‘benevolence’ is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives, delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and expression.”–Margaret Sanger, who no doubt would be pleased at PPI’s holiday promotional.
20 Comment by J. Meng on 4 December 2008:
A well written description of a very unhappy and despicable situation. The latest statistsic I have found is that since 1973 there have been 50 million “legalized” abortions. This is one of the reasons a colossal divine chastisement is approaching this nation. I don’t know when its coming, but it is coming.
21 Comment by John Willson on 4 December 2008:
Aaron, this is breathtaking. Thank you.
22 Comment by Mark Higdon on 4 December 2008:
What is the one glimmer of hope in this apocalyptic narrative and commentary? It is that the Culture of Death is self-exterminating.
Much has been made by the co-opted and politicized MSPLM (Mainstream Pro-Life Movement) of how abortion stats are down. The Movement is inclined to credit this phenomenon to its constituents’ political “victories,” which consist mostly of “restrictions” on abortion. Which “legal” restrictions merely serve to validate and reinforce the lethal “logic” of Roe.
Giving credit where it is due, I allow that pro-life sidewalk counselors (who are not dependent on politics to ply their trade; and often face arrest, incarceration and torture as they do so) are capable of dissuading a few women from killing their pre-born in-utero.
However, my theory is that abortions are down mainly for one simple reason: A significant number of a generation likely to abort their own was never born because–you guessed it–they themselves were aborted or contracepted.
Comments? Bring them on!
23 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 5 December 2008:
Why is it that good must “tolerate” evil, but evil must stick it to the good at every turn?
Anyway, we can still proclaim families with only one or two kids as barren wombs which fail to be fruitful and multiply by meeting the 2.3 children required for a population’s replacement rate.
24 Comment by Bruce on 5 December 2008:
Taken literally, doesn’t the commandment (blessing?) to be fruitful and multiply (increase your numbers) mean at least three children?
25 Comment by Bruce on 5 December 2008:
For anyone who didn’t get the reference the article title is also the name of series of tasteless 80’s slasher flicks where Kris Kringle is a serial killer.
Axe-murders are scary but baby-murderers aren’t.
26 Comment by Aaron D. Wolf on 5 December 2008:
Bruce @24:
I think you’re onto something. Math aside, doesn’t it indicate that a society has the sickness unto death if it despises children? Folks have one or two and then say, “That’s enough!” Are diapers really that difficult?
Bruce @25:
Glad you got the reference and the point of the reference. Sometimes my titles are too clever by half. I’d originally called it “Santa Claus: Killer,” but then I remembered that awful movie.
27 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 5 December 2008:
And the good news just keeps pouring in for PPIN!
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/05/video-captures-abortion-coaching/
The video is also on YouTube
28 Comment by J. Meng on 5 December 2008:
From the other end of the Cult of Death spectrum, check out this bit of ugly news from Europe.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=14534
29 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 6 December 2008:
@28
“and not be blinded by prosperity.”
I love this guy! Why am I only hearing about him now? Oh yes, Luxembourg. I’ll be sure to include his duchy in my next European tour.
30 Comment by Jeff Anderson on 7 December 2008:
I’m often asked why my wife and I have five children. My response is simply, “We started too late.”
Hindsight.
I wonder if paradise is filled with the souls of children, eyes on fire, crying out to the Lord “How long?” Reckoning is a concept many of us have forgotten.
I believe we will be reminded.
31 Comment by Bruce on 8 December 2008:
Another thing that’s striking to me about some of my “2-kids then get vasectomized” friends and co-workers is their lack of desire to have a son. Don’t get me wrong. I love my daughter dearly and would be a happy man if God had given me all girls. But isn’t it normal for a man to want the things that accompany a son. Sharing of boyhood and later manhood, the joy of helping them grow into it, the continuity of a man’s patriline, etc. Those things don’t seem to mean much to them.