Mary Kochan publishes the question many I know were pondering in the last few days:
In the wake of the horrifying deaths of 20 young school children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting at Newtown, Connecticut, there is one question that we must ask. We must ask it while the horror is fresh and we must ask it when the process of grief has eased our shock and pain and we must ask it the next time and all the days in between now and the next time.In what way did those children differ from the unborn who are slaughtered in this country by the thousands every day in abortion clinics SUCH THAT the former deserve the protection of the law and latter do not?
The piece is stark and relentless in its reasoning. The first two comments below the article express discomfort with the thesis, saying that her comparison "[trashes] the experience so disrespectfully" (experience, it would seem, meaning grief). But Mary is not trashing the national absorption over this particularly wretched act, but rather doing the exact opposite: she is reminding us of the grief we owe concerning the innocents slaughtered daily. It's not that the grief in Newtown is prone to politicisation, but that the commensurate acknowledgement of the children aborted daily is startlingly absent.
This needs to be said. Nothing is cuter than a kindergartener, but cute is not a criterion for human dignity. There are empty chairs nationwide in every grade that could have been filled by those whose only differentiating feature was that they were unwanted by their mothers.
Our grief for those suffering in Newtown is well nigh overwhelming. But the same should be said for the daily loss of life in our midst. We aren't seeking to diminish that suffering, but adding to it our grief for those who never make the evening news.
They scarcely waked before they slept,
They scarcely wept before they laughed;
They drank indeed death's bitter draught,
But all its bitterest dregs were kept
And drained by Mothers while they wept.
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.