I attended the Walk for Life in Balboa Park January 21. We walked a mile around a section of the Park near Sixth and Laurel, and there were some tables from about forty local organizations there. I recognized people from Life Perspectives, 40Days for Life, and Culture of Life Family Services. There were a few speakers at the event, including a couple of post-abortive women. There was also the annual vigil at Grape and Harbor the next day, but I left early because of the combination of heavy rain and lower back problems.
I’ve often felt divisiveness has been a major reason why pro-life hasn’t achieved many victories, and have discussed it here and here. It continues to raise its ugly head, as I found out a few days ago.
I’ve run a few pro-life pages on Facebook over the years, among them Pro-Life Discussions. We had disagreements with one of the editors over the vaccines, and had to get rid of her. Somehow she was able to get reinstated, not as editor, but as admin, and in that position she busted the rest of usdown to editor, including those who were running the page practically since its inception. It was a stab in the back that Pro-life has never needed.
I just wrapped up another fall 40 Days for Life, this time by going to the closing ceremony in Chula Vista. There was the wrapping up for East County two days earlier, and between those two days was my annual Lifewalk at de Anza Cove.
What’s still up in the air are my upcoming medical procedures. I was supposed to have a radiofrequency ablation procedure for my esophagus, but the hospital was apparently not set up for that procedure, so they’ll have to do it at Grossmont instead, and they need to make sure I have the coverage for that. Grossmont was where my dad died.
There are things I haven’t told many people about the circumstances of his passing. As I’d mentioned earlier, I’d gotten back into pro-life after far too long an absence. I started taking part in the Saturday morning vigils just after the Grape and Harbor vigil of January 2009. At the time I was also closing at a restaurant, and initially wasn’t working Saturday nights, but the other driver asked me if I would start working those nights. I agreed to despite some misgivings, figuring I would be able to rest up between the morning vigils and closing up the restaurant at nights. I asked the other driver if he would go back to working Saturday if there turned out to be problems, and he said he would. I was naive enough to believe him, and my dad paid the price for that, because right after that he went to the nursing home.
I just wrapped up another fall 40 Days for Life, this time by going to the closing ceremony in Chula Vista. There was the wrapping up for East County two days earlier, and between those two days was my annual Lifewalk at de Anza Cove.
What’s still up in the air are my upcoming medical procedures. I was supposed to have a radiofrequency ablation procedure for my esophagus, but the hospital was apparently not set up for that procedure, so they’ll have to do it at Grossmont instead, and they need to make sure I have the coverage for that. Grossmont was where my dad died.
There are things I haven’t told many people about the circumstances of his passing. As I’d mentioned earlier, I’d gotten back into pro-life after far too long an absence. I started taking part in the Saturday morning vigils just after the Grape and Harbor vigil of January 2009. At the time I was also closing at a restaurant, and initially wasn’t working Saturday nights, but the other driver asked me if I would start working those nights. I agreed to despite some misgivings, figuring I would be able to rest up between the morning vigils and closing up the restaurant at nights. I asked the other driver if he would go back to working Saturday if there turned out to be problems, and he said he would. I was naive enough to believe him, and my dad paid the price for that, because right after that he went to the nursing home.
I attended another kickoff vigil in Miramar for the start of another 40 Days for Life fall campaign earlier tonight. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go to the El Cajon kickoff vigil two days earlier, as I had to work. There were I guess about 30 people there, and I noticed the Pregnancy Care Clinic right next to Family Planning Associates. After the vigil I took some adventurous roads off of 56 ending with 67 from Poway to Lakeside.
Back to the matter at hand. The next major pro-life event will be the October Life Chain this coming Sunday, and around November will be the Lifewalk by Life Perspectivesaround de Anza Cove and the closing vigil for the 40 Days, followed in January by the candlelight vigil at Grape and Harbor.
I’m not sure how many of those events I’ll continue to be able to go to. My gastroenterologist has said I have some dysplastic changes to my esophagus, and has recommended a radiofrequency ablation procedure, which from what I gather is a microwaving of the bad tissue, and he has prescribed codeine for after the procedure. Also, my hernia is almost certainly para-esophageal, meaning I’ll need surgery, and the surgery in question is a major procedure. So far I haven’t gotten word on whether the coverage has been approved for either of these.
I attended the Life Choices Poway fundraiser last Thursday. David Daleiden, who helped expose Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal tissue and organs, was on of the speakers, and at the end of the event they gave a tribute to Bob Sheridan, who founded Life Choices.
In my last post, I mentioned that I didn’t feel I could go to the 40 Minutes for Life vigil anymore with the move to Vista. Apparently others have felt that way, because I found out at the fundraiser that they’re no longer having that.
I’ve tried to go to the Saturday morning vigils in El Cajon as much as I can. I probably won’t be able to go June 4, as they’re having a memorial service for my neighbor Prudence, who passed away following lung cancer and heart failure. The main reason I had made plans to move to Lakeside was to facilitate getting away from a boss I knew I needed to get away from. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to do this before he "got" me. Prudence more than anyone had made the sense of defeat bearable.
Well it’s the end of another 40 Days for Life Spring Campaign. It wasn’t that active, and it officially ended Sunday, March 20. I’ve always considered it to end with the Good Friday Stations of the Cross in San Diego, which was on March 25 this year.
I’ve unfortunately had to stop going to the 40 Minutes for Life every fourth Sunday at 7 pm. With the move from San Marcos to Vista getting down and back is much more difficult from Lakeside. I’m pretty bummed about this, because a couple years ago I had a boss who went out of his way to keep me from going to pro-life events. AFAIK he didn’t know I was into that, but about the only days he would have me work were days I specifically asked off. I was mentioning to a couple of co-workers that I was looking elsewhere, and maybe it got back to him, idk, but a day or two later he unexpectedly called me in on a day when I wasn’t really up for working, and it affected my performance that night. As a result I had to look for work with the stigma of being unemployed, and by the time I found another job and was starting to get the hang of it some of my doctors were having questions about my health.
As usual, I attended the 40 Minutes for Life vigil in San Marcos. There’s also a possibility I may be working for GrubHub in July, though I have a couple of doctor’s appointments.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I lost my dad in 2009 to a very severe form of Parkinson’s disease that doesn’t respond to the medication Parkinson’s normally responds to. I recently found out some details of my dad’s passing that weren’t pretty, though I’d read enough to have had a good idea. He had gone into septic shock, possibly because of mesenteric necrosis, and had been rushed to the hospital.
I’d made the mistake of not visiting him that day. My back was bothering me, and the chairs at the nursing home were quite uncomfortable, and I was scheduled to work that night. From what I’d heard he was pretty much out of it, and I didn’t feel it would have been productive to visit him that particular day. Any other day that might have been the right call. My sister Catherine was the only one who was there that night. Dad deserved better. As for my back, I found out after he died that I had an old compression fracture of one of my vertebrae.
Well, it’s the close of another 40 Days for Life campaign. The Miramar and El Cajon people had the closing ceremony Saturday, May 28 at the Holy Cross Cemetery in San Diego–that’s the blue dome one often sees driving on 8. The San Marcos people had their closing ceremony the following evening at Dr. Kung’s clinic, where we’ve also ran the monthly 40 Minutes for Life. I consider the spring campaign to end when they’ve also had the Good Friday Stations of the Cross as well–this will be April 3 at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in San Diego.
I found the most activity to be at the El Cajon clinic, though others have related that Saturday mornings at Miramar can be quite busy. We also got a chance to hear Alveda King and Walter Hoye speak at St. Michael’s Parish in Poway. I took Scripp’s Poway Parkway to 67 to get home. (I’ll often cruise winding roads after pro-life events.)
I’ve been trying to attend as many of the 40 Days for Life vigils as I can. This morning I attended on at the El Cajon clinic, and as is the custom, someone was handing out miscellaneous flyers to those who drove into the lot. I had a chance to look through a few of them. One of them was “What a Woman Should Know about Birth Control”. In addition to claiming hormonal contraceptives cause abortion, which I’ve discussed elsewhere, the brochure also cited a study alleging that spermicides can cause birth defects. This was a 1981 study which I remember very well, and I remember how a few years later that study was shown to be flawed. As was the case with hormonal contraception, this had affected my relationship with women, including pro-life women, so much that I eventually came to wonder if it was wise to have even gotten involved in pro-life. When I learned the study was flawed, I tried to get back into pro-life, but learned someone who had treated me badly a few years earlier was also getting back. It was the last straw at that time. I withdrew from pro-life for a couple years after that, and when I returned I discovered there were some changes in pro-life.
—
“Love can be seen as the answer, but nobody bleeds for the dancer”–Ronnie James Dio (July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010)
And so begins another 40 Days for Life Campaign. As usual, I attended the kickoff vigils at both El Cajon and Miramar. It was noted at Miramar that they were only able to save a small portion of the babies whose mothers were coming in for abortions. A different perspective, however, was provided by Shawn Carey, one of 40DFL’s original founders when he spoke at our vigil at the El Cajon clinic. He spoke of Planned Parenthood’s former director Abby Johnson who has become pro-life, and who has admitted that the "no-show" rate increases by 75% during the campaigns. I also attended the monthly "40 Minutes for Life" in San Marcos, which is held on the fourth Sunday of each month.
One of the first pro-life activists I read about when I got involved in pro-life more than 30 years ago was Dr. John C. Willke. I recently learned of his passing.
—
"Love can be seen as the answer, but nobody bleeds for the dancer"–Ronnie James Dio (July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010)
Robert' blog 
