Men getting "the snip" seems to be very common in NZ.
It's sad, really. They go from being full men, being capable of begetting, to half-men.
As a Catholic, I believe it is a grave evil to do this to yourself. But then, grave evils seem to be par for the course here in NZ.
It's sad, really. They go from being full men, being capable of begetting, to half-men.
As a Catholic, I believe it is a grave evil to do this to yourself. But then, grave evils seem to be par for the course here in NZ.
Interesting role reversal. On the previous thread I gamely defend breastfeeding on behalf of breastfeeding mothers everywhere, and here you are keeping the rusty blade from making eunuchs of us all :-)
ReplyDelete"They go from being full men, being capable of begetting, to half-men."
ReplyDeleteI don't think that my perception of self, my maleness, my masculinity, are tied to procreation. Snipped I am, and yet Man I remain.
Do you think that a man born sterile, ie according to god's plan for him, is a half man? If not, why not?
And in waht way is a simple medical procedure a "grave evil"? Is there any biblical evidence to support your stance?
"They go from being full men, being capable of begetting, to half-men."
ReplyDeleteI don't think that my perception of self, my maleness, my masculinity, are tied to procreation. Snipped I am, and yet Man I remain.
Do you think that a man born sterile, ie according to god's plan for him, is a half man? If not, why not?
And in waht way is a simple medical procedure a "grave evil"? Is there any biblical evidence to support your stance?
LRO,
ReplyDeleteThose who are born sterile have not made the choice to alter themselves, therefore there isn't that lack in them.
Consider the man who chops off his own leg so that he won't get sent to war (an extreme example, I know, and very unlikely). There is something lacking in him, that he won't go off and defend his own country, and would rather damage himself than fulfil what his duty is. The man whose leg was amputated through no fault of his own may be physically lacking in the same way, but not mentally.
What you do to yourself physically reflects your state of mind and soul.
Therefore, I would not consider the sterile man a half-man in the same way, unless he demonstrated the same characteristics that one who voluntarily neuters themselves does.
This simple medical procedure is a grave evil because you hold back a part of yourself from your wife (or did) when you have sex. The sexual act is not just for pleasure - it unleashes the powers of creation, and is a holy act, something sacred, something that should not be profaned by contraception. Contraception, too, changes the language of love from selflessness to selfishness, so it is almost as abhorrent.
As Peter Kreeft so eloquently says in The Liberal Arts and Sexual Morality
Our culture has pretty much lost the very concept of sinning against the being, against the truth, of what we are, and against the very being of love, the nature of love, and against the very being of sex, the nature of sex, the objective meaning of sex. Sexual sins like sodomy, adultery, fornication, contraception, and masturbation are wrong not simply because the laws of the Church or society forbid them, or simply because they are not psychologically mature, and not even simply because they hurt other people (they always do, but sometimes it is easy to see how they do and sometimes it is not). They are wrong because they sin against truth, against being, against reality; because they lie about the nature of love, that is, about the nature of God, and about God's image, man. They contradict the design of the Designer who created sex in His own image. Remember that Genesis 2:7, Scripture's first mention of "the image of God," immediately connects it with sexuality: "And God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him: male and female created He them."
Both truth and love are sacred because they are what God is. When the Word of God made man in His own image, He made man male and female and designed the sacred door of sex as the way He Himself would continually enter the world to perform His greatest miracle, creating new eternal souls. For an eternal human soul capable of marriage-like union with God forever is a far greater thing than all the galaxies, which are deaf and dumb and die.
Is there any Biblical evidence to support my stance?
YES.
It is there.
But, it takes faith. If you don't have that, you won't see it.
Aquinas says, "No man can live without joy. That is why, deprived of spiritual joys, he must go over to carnal pleasures."
Vasectomy is a very effective form of contraception; I was snipped on a Tuesday morning about ten years ago and played football on the Saturday, I was back engaging in congress two days after.
ReplyDeleteI am frankly amazed anyone would de-cry its use and call it “evil” when a couple decide they decide they don’t want to have any more children and the easiest way to achieve this is for the man to under-go a half-hour procedure.
It seems backward thinking, Edwardian to be kind, medieval to be pointed.
But as a non-Catholic only half-a-man, plus an atheist to boot, I also don’t get why your ‘enlightened’ doctrine also supports (a.) rape victims who fall pregnant having to carry their attackers child to full term (b.) the denial of fertility treatment to childless couples (c.) the banning of condoms in places like Africa (d.) cessation of stem-cell research.
By the way, being nosey, how many children do you have LM?
Kind regards.
Paul.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteBe amazed, then.
Obviously, you didn't read my comment to LRO, or if you did, you didn't understand it.
I will try and help you understand, however.
In case a) the child is innocent, and should not be given a death sentence for his or her father's crime against his or her mother.
b) Fertility treatment is a euphemism for IVF, which creates embyos in a test tube for implantation. The act of love that creates children is bypassed. Excess embryos are collateral damage. As each human being is infinitely valuable, this process reduces those tiny babies to "products". In other words, dehumanises them. Playing and using human lives in this way is evil. The infertile couple ought to adopt rather than go this route.
c) condoms encourage risky behaviour, and reduce sex to pleasure only. Same argument as my anti-contraceptive argument above. You may have to read it again, but slowly and with more thought in order to understand it.
d) See b) for the immorality of using human beings as products.
The number of children I have is well known to readers of this blog. I have two.
Its genetic suicide when people with high IQs do it and those with low ones don't.
ReplyDeleteUsing your rationale I can boast three off-spring which means - I’m more of a man than your husband then – currently neutered or not(?)
ReplyDeleteOr has your hubby got some kids on the side I don’t know about that bumps his total on Gods begatting score-board upwards?
Or is the full-time score Canterbury Atheist 3 Lucia Maria’s Old-Man 2?
That would be one for the books.
Most bottom-feeding benefit receivers in this country have two or more brats so they are clearly following Catholic doctrine in a way you can only dream about.
By the way I don’t consider rapists are fathers and recreational sex rules (you may want to try it?)
All the best.
Paul.
Murray,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree.
Paul,
You are not using my rationale at all. Again you demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of what I have written here on this thread.
Using my analogy of the man who will chop his own leg off in order to avoid doing his duty - you are the man who chopped his leg off, crowing about all the stuff you were able to do before you mutilated yourself. It doesn't matter what you did beforehand, how many children you had before the snip - as of this moment (and including the last ten years) you refuse to have any more, thus denying your own manhood.
When rapists create children, they become fathers. It's a biological fact, regardless of whether or not we acknowledge them as such. And those children do not deserve to die because of the crime of their father.
As to what I have or haven't tried - I spent 20 years as an ex-Catholic.
That’s where you are wrong LM – I do understand – completely – remind me it is medieval Europe, right?
ReplyDeleteI understand completely that a man and a woman who love each other and can’t have children naturally should be denied the chance to conceive their own child according to the world you live in.
I also understand fully a rapist is a father because he conceives a child in the officially approved fashion and the victim of his heinous crime should suffer twice by having the ‘blessing’ of looking after his brat!
Equally I understand that men or women that choose to employ contraception are selfish for not wanting to have child after child – when you ironically have just two and clearly don’t practice what you preach (or don’t/didn't have much of a sex-life!)
I now understand men who “have the snip” are not even proper men – de facto eunuch’s – and we should style our lives on say those poster-boys of manhood - Catholic Priests.
I mean to say if a Catholic priest life of abstinence is not the grandest-form any male could take of denying ones manhood – what is?
A middle-aged man with 3 kids and vasectomy or a Catholic Priest?
Gotta shoot.
Paul
Paul, what defines you as a man?
ReplyDeleteAn interesting conversation.
ReplyDeletePaul, you seem to think that a child of rape should be put to death because the mother doesn't want to look at the "brat"
Except that would not be the case for some mothers who can see the intrinsic value of the life they carry, even in terrible circumstances.
Here's a story from a child conceived by rape who is very grateful to be alive, and her mother is fine with it now (although at the time, was told to seek an abortion by well meaning people that think as you do)
--Snip--
According to the research of Dr. David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, co-editor of the book Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About Their Pregnancies, Abortions and Children Resulting From Sexual Assault, and author of the article "Rape, Incest and Abortion: Searching Beyond the Myths," most women who become pregnant out of sexual assault do not want an abortion and are in fact worse-off after an abortion. So most people's position on abortion in cases of rape is based upon faulty premises:
1) the rape victim would want an abortion,
2) she'd be better off with an abortion and
3) that child's life just isn't worth having to put her through the
pregnancy.
I hope that my story, and the other stories posted on this site, will be able to help dispel that last myth.
I wish I could say that my birthmother was with the majority of victims and that she didn't want to abort me, but she had been convinced otherwise.
However, the nasty disposition and foul mouth of this second back-alley abortionist, along
with a fear for her own safety, caused her to back out.
Conceived In Rape
There are many stories to reflect on from mothers who regret abortions, (for example) so your default assumption that the child should automatically be damned for the sins of the father, seems rather, err, medieval.
With one seriously disabled child and a high probability of another having the same condition- I disagree.
ReplyDeleteGotta shoot.
ReplyDeletePaul
Isn't that out of the question now Paul?
Paul,
ReplyDeletea) To add to what Zen said re: Victims and Victors book - in the book "192 women reveal the seldom-heard truth: most women who become pregnant through rape or incest don't want to abort!"
I guess no one asked them before, they just assume, but
"Based on the largest survey ever done of women who became pregnant through sexual assault, Victims and Victims reveals that: Nearly 80 percent of the women who aborted a pregnancy conceived in sexual assault reported that abortion had been the wrong solution."
In Quebec recently, the Bishop there gave a controversial speech in which he said all abortion was wrong, including in the case or rape, which of course was met with huge howls of protest. However, a woman from there (Canada) who was date-raped and had an abortion agrees with him.
"I wish I had heard his message when I was a teen and was raped and then aborted my daughter,” she said. “I am deeply grateful to the Cardinal for proclaiming the truth that abortion, even in the case of rape, rather than helping the victim of rape, actually adds a second victim – the unborn child.” [...] "Abortion did not fix anything. It killed my daughter Sarah Elizabeth and killed a part of me," she said. "Abortion did not liberate me. It enslaved me to a living hell.”
"I just want the Cardinal to know that he is truly being a shepherd and a herald of the truth, the truth given in love, because it is the truth that sets us free. I want Cardinal Ouelett to know just how healing it is when priests and religious speak the truth. It may be hard to take, but like a surgery, it hurts, but then it liberates, and then healing can come."
I have nothing else to add to what Lucia said on (b)
c) Condoms for Africa -
‘We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.”
So notes Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, in response to papal press comments en route to Africa.
“The pope is correct,” Green told National Review Online Wednesday, “or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments. He stresses that “condoms have been proven to not be effective at the ‘level of population.’”
“There is,” Green adds, “a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates. This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction ‘technology’ such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by ‘compensating’ or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology.”
Green added: “I also noticed that the pope said ‘monogamy’ was the best single answer to African AIDS, rather than ‘abstinence.’ The best and latest empirical evidence indeed shows that reduction in multiple and concurrent sexual partners is the most important single behavior change associated with reduction in HIV-infection rates
'Nuff said.
d) For from the cessation of stem cell research, the Vatican has gone into partnership with Neostem, a company doing adult stem cell research.
So you're completely wrong there. The Church is only against stem cell research on aborted babies.
More -
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to say that the results aren't as good for adult stem cell research then you would be wrong. As pointed out in a NZ Herald article last year, doctors in NZ are making huge strides in the area -
Surgeons are preparing to insert stem cells into a dozen disabled New Zealanders in a bid to help them walk again.
"I now believe it will be in my lifetime that people will go into hospital with a spinal injury and walk out a few months later just as though they'd experienced a broken leg,"' Spinal Cord Society chairwoman Noela Vallis said tonight.
[Spinal Cord Society spokesman Tony Edmonds] said at least a dozen New Zealand labs were researching non-embryonic adult stem cells for conditions such as brain injury and arthritis.
The procedure involves extracting nerve tissue from a volunteer's nose and inserting this into the injured area of the spinal cord.
Ms Vallis said the procedure offered no controversy over the source of cells because it involved a transfer of the patient's own cells.
"It's similar to a skin graft, so there is no need for complex anti-rejection drugs," she said.
"While doctors in other countries have actually made a start with these procedures, we have made use of the delays here, to continue studying the behaviour of human cells in our lab," she said.
"We are probably ahead of other countries in this knowledge."
So, while other countries are mucking about with embryonic stem cells, NZ has jumped ahead it seems.
I think the athiest is trying to prove my point.
ReplyDeleteps, that should have read above "Far from the cessation of stem cell research, the Vatican has gone into partnership with Neostem, a company doing adult stem cell research."
ReplyDeleteSo, yes, the Church doesn't condemn stem cell research as a whole - only if it is morally wrong (in the case of experimentation on aborted babies), and has gone into partnership with a company.
The Vatican issued a communique on Tuesday announcing a joint initiative with an international bio-pharmaceutical company to raise awareness and expand research of adult stem cell therapy.
Neostem Inc. and the Pontifical Council for Culture will combine the efforts of their respective foundations, the Stem for Life Foundation and STOQ (Science Theology and the Ontological Quest) Foundation, to advance research and explore the use of adult stem cells in regenerative medicine.
Fr. Tomasz Trafny from the Council for Culture remarked in a May 19 press release, "Considering the potential implication of scientific investigation, medical applicability and the cultural impact of research on adult stem cells, we view the collaboration with NeoStem as a critical effort."
Thanks, Fletch, for the extra information supporting my points!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome :)
ReplyDeleteI thought your analogy re: the man chopping off his own leg was very apt. I hadn't heard that before.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteYou said "I understand completely that a man and a woman who love each other and can’t have children naturally should be denied the chance to conceive their own child according to the world you live in."
You understand only what you want to understand. The rest ... trivial details.
What about the fact that the man and the women who "love each other" allow a greater number of children than can possibly be born to be created in this process. That those that are chosen to be implanted run the risk of selective abortion should too many survive, in order to get that wanted child. That the siblings who are not implanted are frozen, and maybe eventually destroyed.
The man and woman hardly "love" in such a scenario. They just want a child, and the others who get sacrificed along the way are just casualties of their desire.
In the world I would like to live in, children would not be created and discarded in this way.
You say "I also understand fully a rapist is a father because he conceives a child in the officially approved fashion and the victim of his heinous crime should suffer twice by having the ‘blessing’ of looking after his brat!
So children are only children of their father, while as the woman is what? Just an incubator? Are your children only yours, not your wife's?
And then you say "Equally I understand that men or women that choose to employ contraception are selfish for not wanting to have child after child – when you ironically have just two and clearly don’t practice what you preach (or don’t/didn't have much of a sex-life!)
Are they are only reasons you can think of as to why I only have two? Such a lack of imagination. After the age of 26, fertility for women declines very fast. I'm over 40, and didn't come back to the Faith until 4 years ago. Prior to that, I was an idiot most of the time as well.
As for your comments on Catholic Priests - they live a life of sacrificial service, without the perks that husbands get. While as you want the perks and not the sacrifice.
But then, it may not be too late. Vasectomies can be reversed ...
Fletch,
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah, I made that up about the leg. Totally self-inspired. Thought it was the best way of illustrating the point.
Oswald, I can sympathise.
ReplyDeleteI grew up with a severely autistic brother. I remember him being able to talk up until the age of 3, and then his speech vanished. There was a definite regression that I don't believe was purely biological - something caused it.
Because I'm concerned that the same possible genetic weakness has been given to me, I've not vaccinated both my boys, as I figure autism is worse than any diseases they may get. So far, they've had nothing worse than chicken pox.
If it helps, my brother was the second child (I was the first). The 3rd child is schizophrenic, the 4th was a girl and normal, the 5th is just anti-social and my youngest brother is an angel, and in my opinion, well worth the risk.
So, perhaps it is just as well there is an 'escape clause'
ReplyDeletere. the genesis of some of these issues of progeny.
Clones, perchance.
Boganette, I'd be fascinated to hear what you regard as "normal" then.
ReplyDeleteOf course mental illness isn't "normal"...that's why it's called "mental illness", you fool.
Mental health is the norm. Departure from it is therefore regarded as not the norm ie abnormal.
There, not so difficult, is it?
So someone with an illness isn't normal? Someone with poor health is abnormal? Please. I have no doubt that Lucia's sibling's illness is probably made worse if she's telling them they're not normal. This is why a lot of people with mental illnesses don't have access to the treatments they need - because they don't have supportive family members.
ReplyDeleteJeez don't you assholes have some biblical quotes about acting Christ-like or some shit? Being a judgemental prick who calls people with illnesses abnormal isn't Christ-like. Especially when it's your own family.
"So someone with an illness isn't normal?"
ReplyDeleteNo, they're not. That is, they don't conform to the norm, which is good health.
If a person with mental illness were to be regarded as "normal" then what on earth would be the point of treating them? To make them more normal?
That boganette has grounds for regarding a mental condition as normal.
ReplyDeleteIt's barking.
Schizophrenia can't be cured KG. I know your understanding of mental illness is zero but most people who aren't morons know that mental illnesses are managed not cured.
ReplyDeletePeople will illnesses are given assistance when needed through treatment to help them with the difficulties they can often face...oh fuck it. You're too much of a wanker to understand this.
And Ciaron - no Satan is my hero. I work in a clinic giving dudes vasectomies in his honour.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThen your bed is made,
ReplyDeleteenjoy eternity in it.
Hahaha thanks :)
ReplyDeleteBoganette, you are assuming far too much, and your vitriol is undeserved.
ReplyDeleteYou could try reviewing the context of this conversation before you decide how Lucia acts with her family.
Did you even try to understand what exactly the discussion was about before you pronounced judgment?
It seems quite possible you have an illness or close family in that situation and you are transferring an assumption of behaviour that isn't there.
This in particular:
I have no doubt that Lucia's sibling's illness is probably made worse if she's telling them they're not normal. This is why a lot of people with mental illnesses don't have access to the treatments they need - because they don't have supportive family members.
You don't have a clue what help has been sought and what they each have to cope with. So why be so hostile given you don't actually know the situation?
Mentioning that her brother is severely autistic in this thread does not follow she goes home and screams "you are autistic" at him, for example.
Jeez don't you assholes have some biblical quotes about acting Christ-like or some shit? Being a judgemental prick who calls people with illnesses abnormal isn't Christ-like. Especially when it's your own family.
Quesiton: If some-one is severely austistic, are we obliged to call them "normal" in your world? Is that not avoiding the truth? Do you see where that gets you? Think it through.
Abortion on the grounds some-one is severely normal?
Abortion on the grounds that a mother might feel normal?
Brilliant. I presume you might see the evil in that stance. You might end up a Catholic yet.
well, reading this thread has significantly increased my understanding of metal illness.
ReplyDeleteLol!
ReplyDeleteYou can't screen embryos for mental illness or Autism you weirdo. And I can't be Catholic - it's not possible.
ReplyDeleteThis is all rather simple. I don't think people with a mental illnesses are abnormal. You do. But then you're Catholic. So...there you go.
"You don't have a clue what help has been sought and what they each have to cope with. So why be so hostile given you don't actually know the situation?"
If you believe that people with mental illnesses aren't "normal" and you believe members of your own family aren't "normal" based only on an illness they have that they can't control (and you put this on a public blog!) then yes, there's going to be issues there.
You'd have to be a fool to think otherwise.
Either way we're not going to agree. I just hope that any of you with family members who have mental illnesses have access to the support they need. They don't need family members attacking them for illnesses they can't control (again if you're willing to do it on a public blog I imagine the person your insult is aimed at knows they're considered abnormal).
And you're proving my point by hinting that I have a mental illness. Calling someone 'mentally ill' isn't an insult. The only people who would consider it an insult are those who think people with mental illnesses are less than human. Or abnormal. Or those like KG who have no understanding of the struggles people with mental illnesses go through. You have to really lack compassion for others to think it's funny to label someone mentally ill. And that's called a full circle.
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ReplyDelete"Or those like KG who have no understanding of the struggles people with mental illnesses go through."
ReplyDeleteI take back my description of you as offensive.
You're simply stupid.
I have a very real understanding of those struggles, you arrogant clown, having had a mother who was severely mentally ill and one sister who inherited the condition.
There's much more to my knowledge of mental illness than that but I see no need to give a vicious little potty-mouth any more information than that.
If you can't refer to me with some honesty then kindly leave my name out of your comments--you make me feel unclean when you use it.
It is very simple Boganette. I think people that are Schizophrenic or autistic are not normal, that's why they have an illness or a condition, which is there to varying degrees approaching, err, normal.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do not use "not normal" as an insult and do not interpret it to mean they are anything less than human, and that this would somehow entitle them to less love or respect.
Yet you assume that anyone who uses this term would immediately treat an autistic person (for example) as anything less than human, or for that matter, any different from a normal person.
You on the other hand, want to redefine the term normal and treat any-one who doesn't use the term in the way you mean it and understand it to scorn and vitriol.
I'm no more labeling some-one mentally ill as you are when you describe them as "mentally ill". Why suggest they are mentally ill? What's the big deal with that given the way you feel about it?
Remember the context of this conversation? I don't think so as you haven't referred to it even after I pointed out that it was very relevant.
The context is acknowledging that living with special needs children is a real handful. It's not a normal life, and it's silly to pretend it isn't.
Consider the way I have used "normal" in the above sentence. There is no need to get upset, as it doesn't imply anything negative about the people concerned, just the reality of the situation. Unless you make it otherwise.
Boganette,
ReplyDeleteThis post is about vasectomy, and my comment that you have taken such exception to, was a response to a long-time commenter. It was a personal comment, and having grown up with a number of close and extended family members with various problems, I'm not as dainty you might like me to be with my words describing their problems.
I do take exception to your accusations, however, as you don't know me, or my family or the individuals involved, as such, have no idea what you are talking about.
For instance, my brother did not develop schizophrenia until he was an adult, so your accusations that he grew up with me telling him he was not normal are just a result of your fevered imagination and have no basis in reality at all.
Any more comments directed at me in such a manner where you just make shit up will be deleted.
To finish this thread off, I'd just like to highlight what Boganette said on vasectomies:
ReplyDelete... Satan is my hero. I work in a clinic giving dudes vasectomies in his honour.
I think that comment really points out who benefits when it comes to men being able to have sex without consequence. And it's not the side of good.
Lucia's definition of a real man = any guy who can get her pregnant.
ReplyDeleteGood to know . . .
Somehow I don't think you'd ever have a shot Danyl.
ReplyDelete"Somehow I don't think you'd ever have a shot Danyl."
ReplyDeleteYou never know. She may have a fetish for cardigan-wearing androgynous types:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/sbs/staff/staff_technical/mclauchlandanyl/mclauchlan_danyl.aspx
Point taken.
ReplyDeleteI'm a real man where it counts: in my vas deferens.
ReplyDelete