Defending CFC-FFL’s statement

Recently the Couples for Christ Foundation for Family and Life (CFC-FFL) recently came out with a statement calling for all Catholic Institutions to follow church teaching. The banner the post came with was dramatic to say the least but it summarized the idea of their statement very well.

"RESPECT, YES; PRIDE, NO

COMPASSION, YES; CELEBRATION, NO"

CFC-FFL then proceeded to explain church teaching using words found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church - a smart move if you ask me. It came with the controversial line which said, "Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.

I've mentioned this in another post. This statement always gets flak for using such strong words. But notice that it never calls homosexual people as disordered. I'll be the first to admit that I do a lot of disordered things - they're what we call sins. The statement simply says that homosexual acts (sex) are always wrong. It says nothing about the individual and in fact if you read on in the Catechism, it says that MUST love and have compassion for homosexual persons. Celebrating sinful behavior, however, should not be tolerated.

Some news outlets zero in on the claim made by CFC-FFL that the LGBT community is well accepted in Philippine society and that they're not discriminated against or persecuted. They actually have a point. This is not to say in any way that there are NO cases where discrimination and persecution happens. I know a few people who have been disowned for being gay.

But by and large, there are no barriers that our society has set up to prevent anyone in the LGBT community from doing what they want. I've asked a bunch of people about where discrimination happens on a societal level and I almost always get back two answers - bathrooms and stares from neighbors. And if you ask me, those aren't things worth legislating and can simply be shrugged off.

I'll admit that their statement could've been taken to be a bit harsh as it did use very strong language. But remember what kind of letter this is. This is a letter from CFC-FFL, a Catholic institution, addressed to Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU), another Catholic institution reminding them that as a Catholic institution, it is their duty to promote the church's teaching and not dilute it.

CFC-FFL is in NO WAY saying this should be policy. They're in NO WAY saying that pride marches should be banned. So, Rappler, no. Don't relate this to the current pride marches being planned right now in Manila. This has absolutely nothing to do with that. The CFC-FFL is simply calling out another Catholic institution to stand firm on Catholic teachings and I applaud them for it. As such, strong language was required of the statement. Anything less would've been disregarded. I'm glad they came up with their statement as I didn't even know AdMU had a pride march.

Now, I won't make any case today about homosexuality and why the church teaches what it does but as it stands, the Church most definitely does teach that "Homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered," and as such are immoral. As a Catholic Institution, AdMU must abide by this teaching together with everything else the church teacehs. Since AdMU has supported the celebration of homosexuality, it can be said that AdMU has played an important role in leading their students away from the Church, which a Catholic institution cannot and should not do.

I am disappointed in two groups. The first would be AdMU. They are the one of best Catholic Universities in the country and they (faculty, admin and priests!!!) decided to allow a celebration of homosexuality in their campus. As one of the best, they should always put Catholic values before anything else. If they give up their brand as a "Catholic" university, I'll stop talking but since they claim to be "Catholic" they have to BE "Catholic".

This march happened in (lol) March and I'm very disappointed that no bishop has ever spoken out against this. It's a full 3 months after that fact and it took a separate group, CFC-FFL, to call AdMU out. Bishops of Manila, stand up and call out what needs to be called out - all of it. Call out the killings that occur in your backyard and call out the dilution of the Catholic faith in Catholic institutions!

To my Catholic LGBT brothers and sisters, you will always have a place in the Church - ALWAYS. But pride marches is simply not something Catholics do and the reason is quite simple. Catholics should never be "proud" of what they are. Catholics should always strive to be better than what they are. Our goal is towards perfection in Christ - not settling and being proud of what we are today. Notice that the only "marches" or parades we have are usually just for saints and the Lord. That's because that is what we aim for. That is what we want to emulate and that is what Christ wants for us.

So I'll reiterate CFC-FFL's statement and add some more.

"RESPECT AND LOVE, YES; PRIDE, NO

COMPASSION AND UNDERSTANDING, YES; CELEBRATION, NO"

Manipulating Truths

This post may seem like a post about abortion though it's not. This phenomenon first came to my attention when Ben Shapiro from the Daily Wire brought it up. This happens when people from news outlets want to push forth a certain ideology. As such, everyone is prone to doing this. I may have done this as well and I'm simply not aware.

Some of the more liberal news outlets will sometimes call a child in the womb as a fetus, or an embryo, or a fertilized egg, or a clump of cells when talking about abortion. They try their very best to avoid using the terms baby, child, or son/daughter when the topic is about abortion but they will use these terms when reporting stories where the child is wanted (i.e., when a premature baby is born and lives).

They're also called a child or a baby even before they're born when the mother carrying the baby is planning to carry the pregnancy to term. This sort of hypocrisy is the type you'll find in several news outlets which clearly shows their biases.

The recent incident with a Chinese boat and Filipino fishermen for example has been called an assault by a prominent news outlet. However, when a similar incident occurred under a different president, they called it "likely accidental". Whatever the case is, whoever is liable should be held accountable. It's clear that this news outlet simply wants to make one incident sound more dangerous than another even though the incidents are very similar (the accidental one involved a Filipino fisherman dying).

This, however, should not be made to say we throw away everything a biased news outlet reports. In this case, we gather what is true and throw away the bias that has been injected into the news. I think, however, that news outlets or at least news reports should try their best to be consistent.

If they call similar incidents accidental one time and assault another time, it's a good bet they're trying to manipulate the facts to say what they want their readers to think. If they call the child in the womb a fetus or an embryo or a clump of cells one time and a baby other times, it's a clear indication there's something they wish to hide from their readers or a truth they themselves wish to hide from.

It's very obvious that language and words have an effect on our perception of different things. A solid example other than the ones I've mentioned would be using the word "fashionably" before the word, "late". Call a spade a spade. "Fashionably late" simply means late.

Another red flag when trying to spot these words that try to manipulate truth is to see how wordy they make the headlines or the news bits. Saying things like fetus instead of baby/child can throw off the truth while still being "technically" truthful.

I'll end this post with one such wordy headline which I can't believe was even worth being in the news. CNN has reported back in 2017, "Transgender man gives birth to boy." I think this can be simplified in one of two ways. One, simply don't report it. Two, "Woman gives birth," which is hardly a newsworthy bit of news, in my opinion.

Should we criticize people who evangelize?

Me and my friends were hanging out in the Terraces when this older Korean man approached us. We thought he might be a lost tourist who needed directions so we listened. The next thing he said was, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" That's not the kind of question you pose to a complete stranger so we were shocked. We answered, "Yes, of course!" He wasn't convinced though and continued to talk to us about reading the Bible and believing in Jesus and all that stuff. To cut him off, I had to fake a phone call and rush my friends away from the situation.

This instance made me think about people who try to evangelize other people to their religion. On one hand, I commend these kinds of people who go out to evangelize and spread their religion. I personally believe that if you think your religion is true and can lead to a happier life, you should most definitely share it with people.

I do understand, however, how many people find this kind of evangelization annoying. I have many Facebook friends who say they're atheist who complain about people trying to convert them. For this, I like to reiterate the point that a prominent atheist, Christopher Hitchens made once. He said that you truly believe that hell exists and you, as a Christian, do nothing to inform people of that, he wonders how much you hate non-believers to withhold that sort of information.

Imagine if you will, if I knew of a cure for cancer and I willingly chose not to divulge that information to anyone. You'd wonder how much of an evil person I am for not telling other people about his wonderful cure!

The same goes for evangelists who truly believe in their cause and want as many people to know about their religion as possible. Now, don't get me wrong. I still think some of them are very annoying. But I appreciate their effort as it shows me that this person cares for me enough that they want to make sure I don't end up in hell.

To my atheist friends, I'd ask you not be annoyed by (well) annoying evangelists. Everyone gets them whether they're Christian or not. Just know that the intention is almost always good and if you really don't want to listen to it for the 100th time, let them down calmly.

Now, should we criticize them? If we do engage them, we should criticize their points. Otherwise, we should still be thankful they're trying to evangelize.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation

Every Catholic knows about confession. Among the sacraments, it's only one of two that can be received repeatedly, the other being the Eucharist. Though I'll bet many Catholics don't even go to confession regularly. I, for one, had gone 2 or 3 years without going to confession. Another acquaintance of mine had gone 9 years without confession. I'd bet there are people who hadn't gone to confession in more than 15 years!

There's something strange about having to tell a priest your sins before being forgiven your sins. It does force us to question this method as surely an all powerful God doesn't need a priest to forgive our sins. I did question this and that's why there was a time I hadn't gone to confession in a long time. I mean, you could technically just go to God directly and be done with it in a few minutes. Why go through the hassle of finding a church, waiting in line, telling a complete stranger all the nasty things you've done, and pray a few prayers to get forgiveness?

I can't explain it fully - I think no one really can - but confession has an effect on people which is real and tangible.There have been countless stories of people feeling lighter when they come out of the confessionals. I can't speak for them. But I can speak for myself.

I had tried going 2 or 3 years without confession. I've tried doing rushed confessions and I've tried doing well thought out confessions with several days preparation. I've done confessions where I forgot a particular sin and I've done confessions where I purposely didn't disclose a particular sin.

You can call a confession a "good confession" if you disclose all mortal sins you are aware of at the time of the confession. You could make it even better if you prepare for it at least a day before (or the night before). And although there is no requirement for how many times Catholics should go to confession, people usually say once a year as a good benchmark.

As such, not all of my confessions were "good" and majority of them were probably rushed. What I noticed was whenever I leave the confessional after a good confession, I do in fact feel lighter. But when I leave the confessional after a "not good" or rushed confession, I rarely feel any change in myself.

My mind always tries to think about things in terms of science. I try to square this off with how confession works and if it has anything to do with some physiological property of our bodies but I'm left stuck. I'll admit I don't know much about psychology to know if there's any effect there as well.

There's something different about having the priest tell you you're forgiven your sins as opposed to simply asking God directly for forgiveness. Even though I don't understand it fully, I'm ready to claim that there does exist a real and tangible healing when one goes to confession.

If you find you haven't been to confession in a while, the door is always open. I find the priests in Redemptorist to be good at hearing confessions. And they have them almost everyday in the morning and in the afternoon. And there aren't a lot of people who go there. There are guides online but really, the priest can walk you through it no problem.

If you find yourself in a place where you're depressed or down, you might want to try and give confession a try. You might come out surprised. And if not, you lost nothing in the process.

Taking the Pro-life message a step too far

I've been critical of abortion and I think everyone should be. However, I'd like to take this time to criticize the pro-life movement (both here and abroad). For truth to prevail, lies on both sides of any issue have to be purged and this is what I aim to do here.

First of all, contraception is NOT ABORTION - not even close. If pro-lifers want to make the case that life begins at conception, then before conception, there would be no life and as such there is no life to abort (aka, NOT ABORTION). I will concede, however, that there are contraceptives that have an abortifacient secondary action to them. This means it will either prevent the fertilized egg from implanting or aim to kill it altogether. This should still be opposed. However, condoms do not fall into this category. As such, condoms are not murder. They're simply a contraceptive.

Secondly, don't count the unborn as part of the census. For legal reasons, they should count towards the census on the day they're born. This is completely in keeping with the pro-life stance as not even born babies are given all the rights of citizens of a state. My nephews, for example, aren't allowed to vote. The unborn, however, should be afforded all human rights (right to life, due process, etc.) but having he unborn registered seems very counter intuitive.

Next, pictures of aborted babies do not work. Live action has some animated videos which work much better. The bloody images can be effective but mostly, it can be construed to imply that the women who have had abortions are murderers. Let's stop the name calling and realize that no woman wants to have an abortion. It's a scary time for the woman and women (even those seeking abortion) should always be shown compassion and support.

Next, burning down abortion facilities or threatening abortionist's lives is an act of terrorism. The pro-life movement should be pro-ALL LIFE, even abortionist's lives. I personally, haven't seen many instances of these cases (The movie, Unplanned mentioned one) but it should be called out for what it is and that is an act of terrorism.

When pro-choice advocates tell us not to use religion, we'd better listen to them. The pro-life message is one where you simply do not need Bible verses to support it. Priests will often cite these in their homilies but I'd excuse them since they're preaching in a religious setting. When politicians do it, however, they sound like pastors and shouldn't be using religious reasons for being pro-life. My ears bleed when some politicians are asked this and they reply with, "It's in the Bible!" or "I can't support abortion as a (insert religious group here)".

Lastly, remember that there are two individuals in an abortion - mother and child - and care is needed for BOTH. A common trap for pro-lifers is to put the baby's rights above that of the mother. The true pro-life stand puts them on equal grounds. We shouldn't fall into the trap of pitting the child against her mother and vice versa. Remember both individuals always and you should be fine.

I'm sure there are more cases where pro-lifers will spread misinformation around and I'd want to be fair to all sides of the debate and call out what needs to be called out. This, I think, will make for healthier conversations on the topic of abortion.

The Violinist Argument

A Defense of Abortion proposes this thought experiment, which is now more popularly called the violinist argument.

"You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you."

I'll admit, when I first came across this, I thought that this guy has a point! The idea here is that while it would be a nice thing if you allowed yourself to be hooked up to the violinist, you're not obligated to do so as the violinist doesn't in fact have any right to use your kidney.

The relation is then made to a baby in the womb. When a mother chooses to carry the child, it would fall under that category of, "that was nice of her." and if she chooses to abort, it's simply her exercising her right to her own body (i.e., the baby/fetus doesn't have any rights to the woman's womb). This example aims to show that while it would be sad to see the child die, it wouldn't be an immoral choice. I heard about this thought experiment and I admit it has its merits as it is true that no one other than the person can be compelled to use their body or part of their body (even temporarily) to help another person out. In this case, it would be morally acceptable to unplug the violinist even if it meant certain death.

Where it fails, however, is to account for how the actions of the individual making the choice. You see, the act described above would more closely be related to a rape than anything else. Abortion due to rape is very slim (around 1-2% of all cases) and as such, we cannot base policy on a small chunk of the pie.

A more apt thought experiment would involve prior knowledge on the part of the individual whose kidney is being used. Say, for example, I knew that by visiting the Society of Music Lovers theme park, that there was a slim chance that (from the act of visiting the park) I could wake up the next morning with a famous violinist hooked up to my kidney. This changes the perspective a bit.

In this case, we have me, participating in an activity which could cause someone else to need my body in order to live. In other words, I had caused someone to require my body to live. Would it be acceptable still to unplug them?

Maybe that's something to think about.

Common Fallacies found in everyday interaction

Debates, online and otherwise, are happening left and right over issues and things we encounter in the news. Gay marriage and abortion have been in the news more recently because of pride month and some US states passing restrictions on abortion.

These topics, as well as others, can spark very heated debates and many times, we see the arguments go in directions we simply didn't mean to. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I do do some of these fallacies but I try my best not to. I won't be talking about formal fallacies or ones which show a deficiency in the reasoning.

I will be talking about the fallacies which derail the conversation or ones which aim to shut the conversation down. I'll admit to not knowing the names of all of these fallacies but when I do, I'll try. These fallacies we should really try to purge from our everyday interactions as to come up to more fruitful conversations.

1. "You're wrong coz you're stupid." - The good old ad hominem! Attacking a person's character does nothing to further your argument. This also turns the conversation into, "Is the person you're talking to stupid?" and you've got a derailed conversation. Ways to avoid if you are on the receiving end of such an argument is, "Even if I was stupid, it doesn't mean my argument is wrong." Of course on online forums, this might just go over people's heads so I say fold your cards and stop wasting time online.
2. "What qualifications do you have that you can say X?" - Kinda like the reverse of the appeal to authority but not quite. As an engineer, I get this a lot when I'm talking about things like history, biology, or philosophy. True, I don't have a degree in those things but I fill my free time learning about these fields. Also anyone can talk, at least on a shallow level about things like, law, policy, religion, science and history! I mean a few years ago, a thing called the internet was invented and we can learn a bunch of stuff on there! In case someone throws this at you, be honest and say whatever qualifications you have. You may be a history buff who happens to be a nurse or a very well-informed saleslady. This really shouldn't disarm you.
3. "I won't talk to you unless you have a degree in ______" - This is derivative of #2 and usually follows it when you say you have no expertise on the subject. I will say however, that you will find people who do have degrees in their field of expertise but nonetheless know nothing about the issue. A degree does not make one an expert. Also, the lack of a degree does not mean the person doesn't know what he's talking about.
4. "You're opinion doesn't matter because you're X" - This is a classic way people want to discredit you and your thoughts. Aside from this simply doesn't follow, it can actually be said to be discriminatory. It basically says that one group's ideas don't matter because of who they are or what they are. To counter this, show the inherent discrimination in their statement. Really, if it's a conversation worth having, one should be happy to accept all points of view.
5. "Fight me!" - This one is silly and really has absolutely nothing to do with any argument. It simply means the argument has gotten so heated that someone would want to be violent to prove a point (which still wouldn't be made). If this comes up, it's best to let things cool off or simply reject the offer outright. Never engage with this offer.
6. "Your view reflects how disconnected you are from people different than you." - I got this a while back and it actually reflects how much this person did not know me well enough. She saw my Facebook profile and twitter feed and assumed I'm disconnected from people different from me. Now, I'll admit that I'm pretty much disconnected from almost all people in my life except 10. This however, has absolutely nothing to do with any argument. When faced with this accusation, simply ask them how they know you're disconnected and then make a case where it's because you know people affected by the issue that you know you're right - don't lie of course.
7. "You're totally missing the point" - Not really a fallacy but one which could see a conversation spiraling out of control. It may be that both of you don't have your basic principles in line. Or one of you values one thing more than another. It's nice to see what they mean and you never know! You might end up changing your own mind on it.
8. "You're just being hateful!" - This is a more specific example of an ad hominem. Now, arguments should never be hateful and if you were, you must apologize. It becomes a fallacy when thrown around simply because you don't agree with them. This issue arises when someone assumes that their position is correct and all other positions are wrong. This should be avoided on all sides. I think it's safe to say that if you're both debating an issue, it's safe to say both of you have the greater good in mind. It may take a little reminder that both of you ultimately want what's best.
9. "So you support killing/raping/stealing/etc." - Drawing caricatures of other people's arguments then attacking that caricature (or straw manning) is common in debates. If that's done to you, a good way to respond would be to simply ask when you have supported such atrocious acts. They will normally go through their argument and you can spot the formal fallacy lurking in the shadows.
10. "Keep your religion out of policy making." - Unless you use solely religious reasons for your argument, this would most definitely be considered a fallacy. I've had numerous conversations with friends and acquaintances where they mention my religious bias when I had not mentioned any religious view. I'd agree that policy needs to be based on objective truths and solely religious beliefs. One must be careful when making arguments that may like they have religious origin.

That's all for this post. Conversations about important issues need to stick to the topic. Being sidetracked by other less important issues hinders the debate and what ends up happening is you have less time to tackle the root of the problem.

Ceasing to Believe in God

This post is not about myself. It's about a good friend of mine who has stopped believing in God. We met around two weeks ago. Over the course of our meeting, we talked about politics and he mentioned he regularly reads my blog which is rare among my friends.

Among the things he shared with me was that he no longer believes in God. I'll admit it did not surprise me because atheism seems like something very appealing to people slightly younger than I. He said that belief in God doesn't make one a better person as he know people who do believe in God that are not nice people. He's right in that sense though. There are many people who practice their faith on Sundays and forget about it for the rest of the week. Likewise, there are a lot of people who don't believe in God who are genuinely nice people!

I didn't go in depth into the logical reasons there are for belief in God - we didn't have that much time. But I did share something I consider to be a good practice whether one believes or does not believe in God. To demonstrate this, I'll go back to my college years where I posed a question to one of my old teachers.

I asked him, "What is the utilitarian purpose of monks praying in a monastery?" One could easily see the work of missionaries and see that what they do has some value to society. But the monks' prayers doesn't seem to do anything for people who don't believe in God. My teacher came up with answers like, "Monasteries can be a tourist spot which can generate income for the people." but the same can be said just about anything! He then proposed that monasteries provide an escape for people who are sucked into the problems for the world. They provide a nice place for calm meditation and reflection.

I was satisfied with the answer he gave me as no other place offers peace and tranquility the way a monastery does. An empty church can get close but seeing monks pray and be at peace does have a contagious effect on the people around them.

I told him that if he ever feels down and low, he can always go to an empty church and pray. As he doesn't believe in God, I told him he can reflect there. It's the peace and quiet in the church that can help with any sort of reflection. If one feels bored, he can always walk around and enjoy the art in the church - even small churches have artwork that easy to appreciate. Best of all, it's free!

My friend is a fallen away Catholic but I told him the doors are always open. Whether he wants to reflect or collect his thoughts in the churches, or go to confession, or hear mass on Sundays, no door will keep him out. We parted ways that night, I still a Catholic and him, still an atheist and both of us still respecting each other's views.

Civil Partnership = Marriage?

It's Pride month and as such, the push for same sex marriage or civil union has become a major talking point once again. The more popular movement now is the one to allow for civil union for homosexual or heterosexual couples. This move is more popular as the push for same sex marriage simply won't pass in a very conservative country like ours.

So upon reading HB6595, you get the feel that the author is trying to say marriage without saying marriage. So you basically have a created term, "civil union" being defined to be everything that marriage is and everything it comes with but sliding it under our noses as "not marriage". When you look at the terms being used, a civil union is basically a marriage which allows same sex couples to be included.

A civil partnership will grant all benefits and protections to spouses in a marriage. Adoption, child support and custody, property division, etc will also be included. Insurance, health and pensions benefits, labor standard benefits, and privileges, and a marital tax status. In the eyes of the government, you're basically married! A friend of mine asked on Facebook what the difference is between a civil union and marriage. I replied, "Nothing."

Now, I do agree that couples should have visiting rights in hospitals and prisons. On the other hand, I don't think it should be made into law that couples should have visitation rights. It think hospitals should be able to allow the patient to decide who gets to visit them if they were to fall ill, whether it's their spouse, partner, sibling or parent.

But what HB6595 wants to do is to essentially pass a civil union as a marriage. Look at them side by side and there is absolutely nothing different between a marriage and a civil partnership. The only other difference I can see is that a civil partnership requires that the couple is living together in the same house for two years prior.

HB6595 claims to be inclusive but it somehow excludes certain groups from getting a civil partnership. Three people, for example, cannot get a civil partnership. Though it's not mentioned but I would like to ask if this bill would allow for siblings to get a civil partnership. It does not allow for minors to get a civil partnership. No matter how you cut it, a civil partnership is defined a certain way so that certain groups of people are excluded. Just as marriage is defined in a particular way as to exclude certain groups of people from getting married.

HB6595 claims to not infringe on religious liberty but it actually does. While it's true that priests, imams or minister of any religious group or sect cannot be compelled to administer the ceremony, that doesn't actually end there. It does infringe on the public officials' right from declining to officiate a same sex ceremony even if it goes against their own religious beliefs. I understand that there must be separation of church and state but that road goes both ways. While one's religious beliefs should not interfere on matters of the state, the state should also not interfere on matters of one's religious beliefs.

A Civil Partnership law does indeed sound good in that it's more inclusive but sounds good does not always mean "good". I have issues with the bill and I think all the pertinent issues can be solved by means other than introducing a new law. A friend of mine lives with his boyfriend currently and he wants his possessions to go to him in case he passes away. I think that's noble but our laws don't allow for that. Family will always take precedence over partners in our laws.

I think it's about time we revisit this. I'd agree that assets of parents go to their children. However, the adult children (who don't have their own children) should be able to choose where their assets go if they were to die suddenly. Whether they wish to pass it on to a struggling sibling, or a friend, or their life partner.

I think that would be a better way to address this issue.

Dangerous Statistics - also fake news

Warning: Math ahead.

I wanted to talk about this because recently, I witnessed first hand how statistics can be manipulated to say basically whatever you want it to.

A friend of mine and I were discussing abortion and his argument was that if abortion is made legal, abortion rates will go down. I provided him the statistics for abortion in the United States which shows that following the legalization of abortion, abortion rates have gone up and have only started decreasing after 17 years and are still not at the same rate as it was when abortion was illegal. It must also be noted that 3 states have ceased to provide their own numbers on abortions which could mean a higher number for the raw number of abortions occurring.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States

We can see the abortion rates have a high of 364 and a low of 188 induced abortions for every 1,000 live births. This goes from around 15% to 26% of pregnancies ending in an induced abortion. Now, what shocked me was how my friend decided to use the numbers. He got the total number of abortions and divided it by the total number of women (pregnant or not).

Even at the peak in 1990 with 1.4M abortions but since he divided it by the total number of women, he comes up with a high of 1.04% abortion rate and a low in 1973 and 2015 at 0.39%. His argument goes that one must look at the total population (all women) to see if abortion is an issue that needs addressing. He further claimed that for the government to consider it a threat, it must at the very least have an incidence rate of at least 1% since abortion would be a medical procedure (this is erroneous but I went with it). I pointed out that in a 5-year window, you could easily come up to your 1% threshold to make it matter. Adding the abortions of 5 years divided by even the total population of the US (~380M) could easily break the 1% threshold he required.

He did something strange though. He said that to consider a 5 year window, you'd have to multiply the population by 5 as well. At this point, I knew he was either knowingly lying or had absolutely no idea how statistics work. And he even claimed to be a statistician! Anyone knows that in a 5 year period, your population doesn't increase to 5 times!

I questioned him why he would consider as the population, all the women in the US as opposed to just the women who were pregnant (i.e., live births when you removed further miscarriages). His reasoning was that since it's a women's issue, you have to take the total population.

The Guttenmacher Institute, which advocates for reproductive health and abortion rights, doesn't hide under that kind of faulty statistics (though I'll have to recheck that). Even when one considers only women, they say that 1 in 4 women will have an abortion before the age of 45. That's a long ways off from 0.39%! (See: https://www.guttmacher.org/united-states/abortion)

To challenge his reasoning, I countered that the total number of people diagnosed with HIV from 1986 to the present, in the Philippines is at around 40,000 (apparently it's at close to 47,000) and with a population of 108M, that would come out to an incidence rate of 0.0435%. I then asked him if he thought that HIV in the Philippines is an issue that does not need to be addressed because the incidence is so low?

This is where it gets scary. He then proceeded to say that for HIV prevalence, one would have to look at a specific population (sex workers, people who inject drugs, a specific age group, etc.) and you could arrive to a more significant number where you can't ignore it. I pointed out to him that where he would like to see it being an important issue, he reduces the population size and when he doesn't want it to be an important issue, he wants to increase the population size as much as possible.

What makes this scary is that this guy is educated. He has a master's degree and it bother me that educated people can use accurate data to come up with inaccurate conclusions. As they are educated, people will often take their word for it and proceed to spread this falsehood.

It's very easy to do but luckily, it's very easy to spot as well. People who manipulate data will try to hide their manipulation by citing accurate data. Whenever I see percentage rates thrown around, I know it has two components - percentage and base (remember your high school lessons?). It's usually in the base where they try to sneak in their deception.

Once you see certain qualifiers, which narrow down national issues or broaden more local issues, it may be prudent to look at the source. I'll demonstrate this with a popular statistic that Planned Parenthood, an abortion provider in the US, usually states.

They claim that abortion is only 3% of the services they provide. Why then are pro-life groups so keen on defunding Planned Parenthood when abortions are just 3% of their services? Notice that while pro-life groups are protesting against funding (money), Planned Parenthood responds with number of services.

When you take a closer look at the stats, Planned Parenthood includes as one of their services things like, pregnancy tests, issuing contraceptives, checking vital signs, all as individual services. So a $500 abortion procedure would be counted the same as a $10 pregnancy test. While the numbers are true, they're meant to mislead.

Be careful with statistics you see online. If you were to ask me for a rule of thumb, I would say that statistics that sound unbelievable are probably unbelievable. However, if you're able to find sources on both sides of an issue cite the same stats, you're most likely in the clear.

What the Catholic Church actually says about Homosexuality

A friend of mine recently posted this about same sex marriage. It’s an old article and one we need to review closely. The author of this piece agrees that a same sex union cannot be called a marriage as it contradicts the very definition of it. But he points out several other things which are problematic in that they don't reflect what the Church actually teaches.

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/18193

He has a problem with the Catholic Church calling these desires “disordered”. For context, I will lift from the Catechism of the Catholic Church the exact words used and what this really means.

CCC 2357-2359:

"Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

"The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

"Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”

Looking at what the Catechism says, we must clarify that it's the acts that are disordered. These acts would fall under the same category as pre-marital sex or having sex with someone else when you're married. All these are disordered.

Now, the author of the article then poses the question of how could God be the author of disorder? Disorder is the effect that sin has on the world. That's not to say people have disordered circumstances because of their own sin. It must be remembered that Jesus suffered the effects of sin even though He remained sinless.

Notice that the Catechism itself never says anything negative about the individual. That's because the individual may have attractions to people of the same sex but he will ultimately have the choice to act on his attractions. Just as anyone else could be attracted to someone of the opposite sex does not mean they have to act on it.

The author of the article then goes on to say that many people are gay and that even some priests and bishops are gay. Here, a distinction must be made. If by gay, they mean that some priests act on it and engage in sexual intercourse, then it would still be disordered (it actually doesn't matter whether it's a man or woman, it would still be disordered). But if by gay, he means that the priest or bishop is attracted to other men all the while still living a chaste lifestyle, then of course there's nothing wrong with that. He should, in fact, be someone everyone tries to emulate, gay or straight.

Bottom line is that the Church teaches that we must accept everyone (gay or straight, saint or sinner) with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Anyone who says otherwise isn't going contrary to the Gospel.

Should Catholics or Christians support gay marriage or civil unions? I would still say no. As to why, I'll save that for another time.