my new mouse.

Currently, I'm trying to train myself to use my new mouse that I got. It's been almost three years since I've had a mouse with the computer that I use most often, and I keep forgetting that it's there. It's pretty convenient, though. And it's wireless so I can bring it with me without a hassel.

Today was a good day. I worked Monday from 12 noon until 5:00pm and then I drove down to Cranberry to my friend Sarah's house and spent the night. That was cool. Her mother is from the Phillipines and she cooked us Phillipino food for dinner and we watched a movie and then spent some time laying out plans for the missions trip this year. It's looking like it'll be really cool. I have high hopes for this trip.

Then late this morning (Tuesday) Stephen drove over to Cranberry and we went to lunch and headed down to Pittsburgh for a little bit and even met up with his friend Jude/Dave/Clark for dinner. It was nice to see Jude/Dave/Clark again - he's a really friendly guy. Then I came back here to a big, dark, empty house. It seems even emptier considering how full it usually is. Weird. At least spending the night at Sarah's was one less night alone. That's good.

I'm getting excited for the start of school. The band camp kids are all gone, so there's absolutely nobody on campus. It's weird to walk around and not have anybody there. But the football players come in later this week and we go back on Wednesday, so it's all good. Man, this summer has gone fast!!!!

free speech.

I was thinking a lot today about what country I would live in if I ever had to leave the United States.

No, seriously. I really was.

The day before yesterday I wrote a letter to Congresswoman Dahlkemper about the potential abortion clause in the new Health Care Bill. It worries me that I might have to pay taxes that will directly fund abortion. I'm Catholic. I can't do that. It's Catholic law.

This is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.⁷²

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.⁷³

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.⁷⁴

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.⁷⁵

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.⁷⁶

2272 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae,"⁷⁷ "by the very commission of the offense,"⁷⁸ and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.⁷⁹ The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."⁸⁰

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights."⁸¹

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human fetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual. . . . It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."⁸²

According to this, I can't fund abortion and still be a Catholic. The options are these:

1) Pay the tax.

2) Don't pay the tax; go to jail.

3) Leave the country.

Thus my thoughts about where I could possibly go if I was seeking political and religious assylum.

These thoughts were compounded today when I got a phone call from Stephen. He was telling me that he'd heard on the radio that Obama was calling for a list of all American citizens who are speaking out against the Health Care Bill. Two days ago, I sent an official letter to a United States Congresswoman. Surely, if such a list exists, (and it does, according to the White House's blog) I'm on it. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/08/05/white-house-draws-requesting-fishy-information-supporters-health-reform/

Apparently, (and I couldn't find any official documents to back up this next bit), people who are on this list are supposed to get a little more harrassed at airports when they're trying to leave or reenter the country. I guess they're worried about terrorist activity or something.