I emerged from a self-imposed moratorium on secular news (for Advent) to discover the untimely death of Benazir Bhutto, who was courageous, focused, and a defender of unborn life. She was not martyred for this specifically, but a victim of the brutish politics that holds most of the world, still, in a crucible of violence and injustice.
Islamabad, Pakistan (LifeNews.com) -- The world mourned the loss of assassinated Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto on Thursday, but her death was more than a setback for those hoping for democracy in this war-torn nation. Bhutto was a member of an international pro-life women's movement that understood abortion causes medical, mental health and other problems for women.
When Bhutto was the prime minister of Pakistan, she helped lead a delegation to the 1994 Cairo population conference that confronted abortion advocates looking to make abortion an international right. "I dream ...of a world where we can commit our social resources to the development of human life and not to its destruction," she told the United Nations panel at the time.
Bhutto was one of only two women to address the conference. Instead of telling women in nations where population growth is an issue that they should kill their offspring, Bhutto told world leaders that the best solutions is "tackling infant mortality, by providing villages with electrification, by raising an army of women."
Unfortunately, collaboration with the United Nations is always going to undermine any aspirations to defend the unborn, since the Cairo conference linked development dollars (electrification and education) inextricably to contraceptive quotas. There was a magnificent religious front forged at that conference between Christians and Muslims, neither of whom wanted the poverty addressed through the eradication of the poor. Of course, it came down to language, and the UN was terribly clever in the way that it refused to define the terms of the document, even in the final stages, so that in the end many well-meaning delegations had to sign off on nebulous wording that was twisted after their planes were in the air.
Prayers for the soul of this valiant woman, who never lost touch with the essence of motherhood and its value for the community.
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.