Do twins have a special connection?  Stories of their almost psychic relationships are plentiful.  Like when my father and his identical twin brother accidentally booked into the same set of apartments in Rome, Italy.  One was booking from Vancouver, Canada, the other from South Africa, and they ended up in the same apartment block right across the hall from each other.  What are the odds?

Check out these two – the look they give each other is priceless.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7uIG8KYhg]

I heard Jason Jones share his story in person a few years ago. Today, you can read it here.

A friend came running in and said, “Jones, your girlfriend’s on the phone and she’s crying.” So I ran out, knowing that I wasn’t supposed to leave my station or answer the phone. But I picked it up, and she was crying, as I have never heard a woman cry before. Ever. The only way that I can explain it is that her soul was crying. And she kept saying over and over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It wasn’t me.” And then her father said, “Jason,” over the other line, “I know your secret, and your secret’s gone. She had an abortion.”

As soon as he’d said that word, a sergeant reached over my shoulder and hung up the phone. So I punched him. Another drill sergeant grabbed me, but he saw that I was crying, just saying over and over again, “He killed my baby! He killed my baby!”

Very early on in my pro-life journey, I didn’t think twice about the impact of abortion on men and the fathers of aborted children. Women and babies were at the forefront of my mind. And then I read something by Randy Alcorn where he described support groups for men whose children had been aborted. And I was floored. This was, sadly, something I had never heard of, nor considered. I think this is something we need to talk about more. I’d like to share men’s stories more frequently, and I will do so when I come across them.

Anyway. Today’s thought of the day.

Emily’s House is a new children’s palliative care facility in Toronto. I have been tracking with Emily and her mom through their blog for a long time. Emily has a rare, fatal neuro-degenerative disease called MLD. She has lived long past expectations in no small part due to the courageous, loving, nurturing care of her mother, Lindsey. In any event, as I have read Emily and Lindsey’s blog, I have become better acquainted with the concept of peace and oddly, even joy, in suffering.

This piece in the National Post continues on that theme.

Among other services, Emily’s House in Toronto provides 24/7 nursing care, “play therapy,” a place for family members to sleep and the services of a chaplain. Family or staff have even brought in cakes for baby Stephanie, lit candles and marked milestones that may never be. “We celebrate her birthday every month, because for us it’s a miracle that she’s still alive,” said Cherry, her mother. “It’s a great experience that we are here. It’s amazing.”

Once I get beyond the terrible grief and sadness it must be for parents to hold a baby who is palliative, I do stand in awe of these tiny, resilient souls.

It’s the Christmas season. This means that if you are experiencing any grief or sadness, the blaring of “It’s the most wonderful time…of the year!” in the grocery store is going to be all the more annoying.

But joy is to be found even in darkness and that is why I liked this article.

This article is a bit long, so you don’t need to read the whole thing. But what I’ve clipped below speaks to a problem I’ve seen around me. It is my experience that doctors are way too quick to prescribe anti-depressants. Friends who were unhappy for very good reason due to a sad/traumatic event in their lives have gone to counselors only to be referred to a doctor for a prescription. Once on these drugs, it can be hard to get off. It’s just another area to be wary of… unhappiness is allowed, or should be, is part of the human condition and can be overcome without drugs very often. I think anti-depressants should be reserved for unique and severe cases, not for people who are grieving, or otherwise sad or unhappy, when a good friend and some care and compassion might do the trick.

Psychiatric diagnosis—more overblown, all-inclusive, and shallow in the DSM-5 than ever before—has almost driven the word “unhappy” from the English lexicon. This is hardly surprising: according to the DSM, depression can be diagnosed after only two weeks. Among the thousands of patients who consulted me over a period of 15 years, only three whom I can recall ever used the word “unhappy” (and one was a prisoner, who told me, “I’m not happy in this prison, Doctor”). By contrast, thousands said that they were “depressed.”

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Faye adds: That was my experience too. In undergrad, someone very close to me got into a serious car accident and it looked like there would be brain damage of some kind. For days, I was a wreck and couldn’t stop crying. I went to the student health centre in the goal of seeing an M.D. to get a referral to one of the psychologists on staff to talk the thing through.

I got sent home with a sample pack of anti-depressants. And all I wanted to do was to talk to someone. I ended up wrestling through it on my own.

The dangers of artificial birth control aren’t often discussed. I think it’s important info to get out for women. Actually, it is getting out, but only slowly.

Brenner interviews Hunter Shkolnik, a lawyer bringing lawsuits against Merck. Shkolnik tells Brenner that Organon (the Dutch pharmaceutical company that created the device) launched into NuvaRing’s marketing with a scientist’s research study that had examined only 16 women using NuvaRing. That study, No. 34218, on the release of hormones in different birth-control delivery systems, was so outrageous, Shkolnik tells Brenner, that he felt it justified focusing his entire legal career on drug cases. Shkolnik tells Brenner that the summary prepared by Organon for the F.D.A. was attached to thousands of pages of backup, in which were buried the risks associated with blood clots. “This is a standard subterfuge used by Pharma,” he says. “You bury your bad news in one of 500 studies you have done on ease of use or lipid disorder. Then when the F.D.A. comes back to the drug company, the drug company can say, ‘You had it in your documents.’ If it isn’t in the 30-page summary, the F.D.A. is so understaffed it will never be noticed.”

Dr. Alveda King, niece of the great Martin Luther King, comments on the death of President Nelson Mandela.  You can read the full text here.

“President Nelson Mandela paid a heavy price to stand against apartheid while campaigning for human justice and human dignity. His message still resonates though his weary, battle worn body has gone the way of those gone before him,” she said. “Long may we remember his courage.”

However, John Smeaton, of the British pro-life group SPUC had this to say:

“May God rest Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa who died last night, but … leaders have a duty to stand up to public figures with  anti-life and anti-family records, however praiseworthy their record may be on other issues. The sanctity of human life and the dignity of the family are the foundation and guarantee of all other human rights.”

It is tragic that Mandella signed into law abortion on demand in 1996.

South Africa is the country of my birth and I have followed Mandel’s life with interest. But I have to recant my initial praise of him. I stood in his jail cell on Robben Island in 2005, and marveled at the resilience he must have had to withstand 27 years of imprisonment and hard labour.  Since his death, however, I have begun to learn more about this man.  He fought a brutal regime, but he also aligned himself with high ranking communists. His view on abortion and other social issues indicates that he had questionable values that in the end may tarnish his legacy.

Julie Desjardins joins us for part 2 of her interview. Today she’ll talk about her post-abortive recovery and healing, and what she would share with women considering abortion. Check out part 1 here.

Faye: Thanks for joining us again, Julie. Let’s pick back up where we left off yesterday. I understand from reading your blog that you regret the abortion. Is this something you felt immediately after undergoing the procedure? Or was it sometime later? How did you process the abortion?

Julie: Immediately after the abortion I was desperate to become pregnant again.  I remember thinking how strange that was but as I already mentioned, I wasn’t thinking very rationally at that time.  My boyfriend however did everything he could to prevent me from becoming pregnant again. 

I remember shortly after the abortion a maternity shop calling to say an order I had placed previously had come in. The recollection of how I felt is indescribable.  How can I describe what it is like to grapple with the reality that you deliberately paid for someone to suck your baby out of you.  The mind cannot handle that kind of torture. 

I don’t think I consciously dealt with it for very long before I had to suppress the memory.  No one other than my boyfriend and his mother knew about the abortion and I was living overseas in a country with no family or deep friendships. I stayed for another 18 months but ultimately the relationship ended and I returned to Canada. 

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As part of our new, on-going series of interviews with lovely pro-life women, today we’re interviewing Julie Anne Desjardins. Julie will share about her post-abortive journey, her faith and what healing means to her. Check back tomorrow for part 2.

Faye: Thanks for joining us today, Julie. We always start out our interviews with a few “get to know you” questions. Why don’t we jump right in? How do you spend your time?

Julie: I work as a registered nurse in primary care in northern Manitoba.  I am married to a wonderfully supportive and long-suffering man and we have a very active five year old who is the light of our lives who challenges even when we would prefer not to be challenged! 

A couple of years ago I read several books that inspired me to adopt a whole-foods, plant-based diet and I have become very passionate about good tasting, nutrient-dense food.  I love to talk about food almost as much as I love to eat it!  I am not a nutritionist or a recipe-creator but when I am passionate about something I tend to throw myself into it 110% so I started a small group on Facebook called Watch Your Mouth where we share ideas, recipes and links related to eating great unprocessed foods and plant-based foods. 

The only other passion in my life that trumps family and food would have to be my love for Jesus Christ.  He rescued me when I didn’t seem to be worth redeeming and I love Him because He first loved me.  At the end of August I started writing a blog called Dose Dependent: Real Life, Well Lived (dosedependent.me) where I write about faith and food.  I am also in the middle of creating and delivering a monthly series of messages entitled Faith & Food: Are YOU Getting Enough. 

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In answer to Andrea’s moratorium on slamming the feminists, I thought that I would mention another group of wonderful women that I had the honour of meeting in 2007 at a UN Conference on the Status of Women.  Concerned Women for America are well known and do some really great work.

Assuming that there is no moratorium on slamming the killer pills (aka RU-486) that the CMAJ is suggesting we legalize here in Canada, I went back into the archives to dig up some of their work.  This was following the legalization of RU-486 in the US. Here is a snippet:

Concerned Women for America, along with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Christian Medical Association, filed a Citizen Petition with the FDA on August 20, 2002. This legal document outlines the numerous violations the FDA committed in its approval of RU-486 and how these violations resulted in the injury and death of women.

1. RU-486 was approved under a special “restricted distribution” approval process known as “Subpart H,” reserved only for drugs that treat “severe or life-threatening illnesses.”  …drugs approved under Subpart H treat fatal diseases, such as cancer or AIDS, and can have serious side effects —considered acceptable when the alternative is death.
2. The FDA waived the “pediatric rule” with no explanation. Any drug given to adolescents must be tested on adolescents. Teenagers’ bodies go through rapid hormonal maturation; their bodies are different from adults. No one under 18 (or over 35) was allowed to participate in the RU-486 clinical trials. Yet the FDA did not limit the age of females to whom RU-486 could be given.
3. Complications reported to the FDA demonstrate that RU-486 is a serious threat to the health and safety of women. These include two fatalities and 20 other near-fatal complications including a heart attack, two cases of systemic bacterial infection in 15-year olds and several hospitalizations for hemorrhaging. The FDA and Danco sent a letter to physicians in April 2002 warning of the complications reported since the FDA approved RU-486. This alone would cause an ordinary drug to be removed from the market immediately.

For the sake of brevity, I only include three of the seven very serious violations that the document outlined.  To see the complete list go here.

Don’t ask how I stumbled across this quote from Joan of Arc, but I like it:

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.