Pot, Schizophrenia and Debating Animal and Human Rights
Should we be surprised? A recent study out of Denmark, published in JAMA Psychiatry, links ‘problematic’ use of marijuana with the development of schizophrenia. This link has been found before, and, with the legalization of ‘weed’ across many states, and all of Canada, we can only expect the incidence of mental disorders to rise.
But beyond, or perhaps underlying, the clinical, is the spiritual – Recreational drug use is sinful, and can be gravely so, putting one’s moral life, vocation, and eternal salvation at risk. As one aphorism had it a few decades ago, just say no.
And while on insanity, the House of Lords in Britain is debating a law that ‘prevent animal cruelty’, given them rights similar to humans, including the right to pain relief and anesthesia. More and more, animals are being considered ‘sentient’, a fraught term, which would link such rights to some sort of self-awareness and capacity to ‘feel’, not least pain. One may have some sympathy for such, at least for the higher animals, but the evil lurks in what is not being debated, namely, any such rights for the unborn. As Lord David Alton laments: If only all humans enjoyed similar defenses in English law. Alas, unborn children in the U.K. are left without such protections. When I inquired whether some of the bill’s safeguards might be extended to unborn homo sapiens, I was told that the bill had been cast in such a way as to prevent this.
This does not imply insanity, but rather deep and knowing moral evil, whatever their level of guilt. If animals can feel pain, surely unborn babies can as well, their nervous systems well developed by the twelfth week of gestation. But as Alton continues:
However, in the U.K., babies undergoing abortion at 20 weeks’ gestation “via surgical dilatation and evacuation”—described by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists as “where the foetus is removed in fragments”—are not provided with pain relief. Neither are babies aborted after 22 weeks through “foeticide, where potassium chloride is injected into the heart to cause immediate cardiac arrest.” Human Rights Watch has highlighted that potassium chloride is “excruciatingly painful if administered […] without proper anaesthesia.”
Of course, abortion is not wrong because it is painful – it would still be evil if if the children were anesthetized, or even in their presumed ‘pre-sentient’ stages of zygote and blastula – but its pain is an effect of its being wrong.
As bad as things are in our society, I’m surprised they’re not worse, given the diabolical ‘insanity’ what we’re doing to God’s littlest ones. At least in Britain, there are some laws governing this practice, but none in Canada – and our own Trudeau will brook not even the smallest of restrictions, nor even objections. How long before the Almighty smites the land with a curse, and one a lot worse than Covid? It’s high time we stand up to those complicit in such wholesale murder, and calling them, and abortion itself, for what they really are, as Pope John Paul II exhorted in Evangelium Vitae:
Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as “interruption of pregnancy”, which tends to hide abortion’s true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion. Perhaps this linguistic phenomenon is itself a symptom of an uneasiness of conscience. But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth. (58)
And as he continues:
The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. (ibid.)
And they’re all worked up about lions, tigers and bears, oh my. To say nothing of sheep and goats, whom God will separate in His own good time.
Deus, Salvator noster, miserere nobis!
But on a note of hope – there’s always hope! – the wheels are turning in America, at least, to overturn the infamous 1973 decision Roe vs. Wade. The moral mettle, such as it is, of the the justices on the Supreme Court will soon be tested.
A Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop
As a follow-up to my thoughts on Payette’s payout, here be a stark image of where are here in Canada. As the graph shows in, well, graphic terms, since 2025, the public sector has contributed to 95.5% of economic growth. The private sector – which funds the public sector, or is supposed to – has[…]Continue reading→
Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk
(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→
Presidential Pardon of Weronika Krawczyk
As a good news, follow-up to our story from Poland, of the persecution of Weronika Krawczyk for her pro-life views, we heard that she has been granted a presidential pardon. One might still wonder why one needs a presidential pardon for simply holding the long-held belief that the child within the womb is a child,[…]Continue reading→
Pope Leo and a Rosary for Peace
Pope Leo XIV has asked Catholics across the world to join him in a Rosary for peace today, at 18:00 Rome time (6 pm), which would be noon from where I write (EST). If you are able, whether at that time or another, and in whatever way you pray, to join in intercession with the[…]Continue reading→
Payette’s Payout
I was glancing through some headlines, and noticed a mention of Julie Payette – engineer and astronaut and sometime the Queen’s representative in Canada – which brought back vague memories. She was appointed Governor-General by Justin Trudeau in 2017. Ms. Payette resigned in 2021, amidst claims that she created a ‘toxic work environment’, with allegations[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Weronika Krawczyk and Injustice in Poland
Catholic Action in Poland has issued a formal statement appealing to the President of the Republic of Poland to pardon Weronika Krawczyk—convicted for warning other women against an abortion-performing gynaecologist. Catholic Action (AK) emphasizes that no apology is owed to a doctor who has performed numerous abortions and proposed others; furthermore, the organization considers the[…]Continue reading→
Three Easter Musical Gems: Bach, Palestrina and Byrd
A very blessed and glorious Easter! Christus surrexit vere, alleluia! As we begin this Easter Octave with the great Solemnity of Easter, music to lift the soul would be one of Bach’s Easter cantatas, composed during his time at Leipzig in the early 1700’s, for the six Sundays of this festive season, leading up to[…]Continue reading→
Saint Isidore of Seville, the Internet and Industriousness
Today, April 4th, muted this year by Holy Saturday, is the commemoration of Saint Isidore of Seville (560-636) a bishop and doctor of the Church during a tumultuous age, when civilization was crumbling, coming apart at its very seams, which may sound sort of au courant. Then again, the form of this world has always[…]Continue reading→
An Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday
The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is one of waiting, in silence, as the world wonders – anticipates – what will happen, after the death of Christ. We re-live this time each year in the anamnesis of our liturgy, and in turn look forward to the glorious re-creation of all things at the[…]Continue reading→