Rachel Weeps for her Children & Twitter Ignores Pro-Life Trend

by Susan Fox

 “Twitter can block my hashtag, but they cannot block my prayers.” (Esmeralda Kiczek)

Dec. 12, 2014 – Today I am Rachel who weeps for her children and yet they are no more.

Twitter ignored this tragedy, joining the ranks of the worshippers of Moloch, the ancient god of child sacrifice.

Twitter blocked the hashtag #Pray2EndAbortion from trending publicly on its Top Ten Feed. On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn, the hashtag #Pray2EndAbortion snagged 30,078 tweets by midnight Mountain Time, according to Topsy Analytics. It was clearly in the top ten tweets in the U.S.A., but it was virtually invisible on the Twitter Trends feed.

This is ironic as the Twitter co-founder Evan Williams has bragged about Twitter -- the worst performing stock in 2014* – saying, “Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It’s this real time information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter—important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter.”

Yet “important stuff” occurred on Twitter Dec. 12, and the company suppressed the information on its Trends Feed. They blocked some pro-life tweeters from continuing participation in the pro-life Twitter Storm, alleging they had hit their 1,000-tweet limit. 

“Do you believe in free speech or in censorship? Regardless of your opinion on issues, I hope you believe in free speech. I was shut down on Twitter during this event,” one pro-life tweeter, Molly Harrison, fumed on Facebook regarding the 2014 pro-life Twitter Storm.

Dr. Brian and Esmeralda Kiczek, who started The End of Abortion Movement, announced that prolifers united to trend  #Pray2EndAbortion on Dec. 12. Starting at 1 p.m. EST they tweeted the hashtag 13,000 times, but Twitter ignored their achievement. Instead #Rocktalk trended with only 8,000 tweets. I don’t even know what #Rocktalk is about, except that it apparently appears on TV.  This is 2014. Who watches TV anymore? That’s so 1950s.

“Is Twitter blocking hashtags that differ from their views?” the Kiczeks asked. “Even though Twitter claims that their mission is: ‘To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barrier.’ So, the question is why was #Pray2EndAbortion blocked from trending?” 

LifeNews.com, another powerful advocate for human life,  is experiencing the same treatment from Facebook. "Facebook is making groups like LifeNews pay money to reach our own readers. At the same time, it is making it easier for the pro-abortion media to have their news stories show up in your timeline at Facebook," said Steven Ertelt, LifeNews Editor. 

Dr. Brian & Esmeralda Kiczek

The Kiczeks are no stranger to persecution from Twitter. Last year, they organized the successful #PraytoEndAbortion Twitter Storm that trended #1 in the U.S. and #5 in the world. Yet their main accounts, some with as many as 39,000 followers, were blocked from appearing in any hashtag stream, including #PraytoEndAbortion, and they were forced to open new accounts in order to continue to stand up for life.

Actually, this is a very good sign! For a servant is no greater than His Master:  “Remember my word that I said to you: If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also. (John 15:20)

“Twitter can block my hashtag, but they cannot block my prayers,” Esmeralda Kiczek said in a YouTube video she created with her cell phone. This is Esmerada Kiczek's cell phone video demonstration of #TwitterDiscrimination  Her End of Abortion Movement encourages people to pray the Rosary daily for the intention “the end of abortion, contraception, euthanasia, and for religious freedom for all."

The world hates us and that’s good news! Because “the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matt.10:22) And despite difficulty the Kiczeks and numerous other pro-life Tweeters, whose accounts were also blocked last year, are standing firm to the end, patiently opening new accounts when the old ones are rendered useless. “It’s important for me to stand up for life. Children are worth fighting for. Raise your voice against #TwitterDiscrimination,” Mrs Kiczek said.

Oh, but it would be so nice if the world agreed with us. But the persecution of the #Pray2EndAbortion hashtag, the Kiczeks, the pro-life tweeters and and really all who witness for the pro-life movement began long ago in the history of ideas.

Poor aching modern man has completely lost his identity. He is like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, standing there in bright ruby red shoes, unaware that all he needs to do is click his heels and he’ll be home.

Pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, who witnessed and participated in the beginning of Western thought, said, “Being is, non-being is not.” So entered the concept of reality onto the stage of man’s thought about 500 B.C.

And such thinking found a home in Christianity, which did a Vulcan mind meld with Greek philosophy culminating in the brilliant and rational thinking of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas blessedly assumes that reality exists and can be perceived through the senses. Later philosophers like Rene DesCartes will spend nauseating hours worrying about proving the existence of reality, something Parmenides took for granted. “I think therefore I am” was DesCartes best attempt to prove he existed. That’s something that I simply take for granted.

But prior to the Reformation, three ideas entered the thought of man – univocalism, voluntarism and nominalism. The people who run Twitter are nominalists. They don’t recognize reality. They believe they can make reality whatever they want.

Univocalism blurred the distinctions between God and man. While Parmenides saw the reality of existence, God told Moses, “I AM WHO AM.” God is Being In Himself. Man is created and owes his being to God.

But univocalism remade God in man’s image. Modern Twitter Atheists totally get this. They created a god that is a vile parody of themselves. Then they reject him and their own self-created form of Christianity. I reject this imaginary form of Christianity as well. Twitter Atheists and I are on the same page on this one, except they don’t realize they are rejecting their own distorted view of themselves.

Voluntarism asks, "Is God bound by anything?" Answer according to voluntarists, “No.” This form of thinking arose out of Islam, and found a home in Lutheranism and Calvinism. But thanks to a courageous 13^th century Franciscan, Blessed Duns Scotus, the Catholic Church taught that God cannot will that which is contrary to His Nature, His own goodness.  

Hence right is right and wrong is wrong. It doesn't change. The Calvinistic images in early American sermons of God holding a hapless sinner over the fires of hell and deciding willy nilly to fling him in there or not are false. The same thinking permeates Islam. Even Mohammed did not know if he was going to enjoy 72 virgins (his version of heaven) or suffer in hell for all eternity. In Islam, only those “martyrs” who kill non-Muslims are assured of heaven. This, of course, means the “blessed” suicide bombers of 9/11/2001.

Voluntarism establishes an ethic rooted solely in the will of man. And with nominalism, the individual no longer needs a church, a tradition or an authority to be sanctified and come to knowledge of the truth. Ever hear anyone tell you “I read the Bible. I pray in the woods. I don’t need a Church, a building, an institution.” They have reduced the Living Church Christ founded on the rock of Peter to a cold lifeless building or a walk in the woods!

Nominalists believe that knowledge of things resides solely in the mind of man, and not in the thing itself. So you might wonder, if I look at my computer and see a mouse, is my computer a mouse? No that’s not how it works. But if I look at my unborn child and see a blob of cells? Well that is nominalism.

 

A newly "married" couple
after a same-sex "marriage" ceremony
with adopted daughter

Man cannot even recognize his own offspring any longer. And while there is something called the institution of marriage, if I look at my same sex relationship, and decide it is the same thing as marriage, then it is. This great darkness – nominalism – clouds the mind of the U.S. Supreme Court and forms the basis of the 1973 Roe v Wade and recent decisions legalizing same sex “marriage.”

The last three popes have spent a lot of money on ink just to try and convince modern man that he is a person made in the image and likeness of God, who is Being in Himself. And in fact man’s own children – born and unborn -- are made in the image and likeness of God. God is love. He is no blob of cells, my friend.

I tweet at these atheist humanist nominalists: “Dear Mr. Blob, if an unborn child is a blob of cells, what are you?” Answer: “A blob of cells.”

Blob of Cells?

Well blobs of cells don’t get funerals. And blobs of cells don’t matter. And blobs of cells can be murdered at will. And people who stand up for blobs of cells are hate mongers. They are interfering with the convenience of a useful blob of cells, the family member wanting the unborn or elderly dead. Yes, I am certain that Twitter feels justified in censoring an important pro-life voice on their twitter feed because  pro-lifers by being “anti-choice” are hate mongers. This is upside down thinking.

  

Sadly on one abortion link I found a loan officer, who survived a failed abortion, and still calls herself “pro-choice.” Why? “My mother had her reasons same as every other woman in the world,” Emily said, dismissing all pro-lifers with these words,  “Unless you people have gone through an unplanned pregnancy where the father left you to deal with it all on your own, all while trying to push your way through college classes and two jobs, you have no place to talk about this subject.”

“Dear Emily,” I responded, “The failure in your situation is the heartless human race! If there were people willing to help you dear, you would not have killed your unborn child. How blessed you are to have lived through your mother's poor choice. Shouldn't you offer the mercy that God extended to you to others -- like your own unborn children? I had two miscarriages. And I still grieve. If they were alive, Raphael would be 28 and Christina would be 24. I am Rachel who weeps for her children, yet they are no more.”

But for me, Raphael and Christina are people. Emily doesn't believe that. Unborn blobs of cells can be killed because they have no utilitarian purpose -- at the moment. But we don’t run around killing healthy adults because they serve our utilitarian convenience. An unborn child, a handicapped or elderly person does not serve our convenience. Hence we have the right to kill them, i.e. “end their suffering.” 

So we have the philosophical law of non-contradiction contradicted. In the same hospital, one child aborted before birth struggles for breath abandoned in a bucket in the hallway, while another prematurely born child is given the best medical care and lives. One elderly person’s life is saved, and another is starved and dehydrated to death. Nominalists believe that knowledge of things resides solely in the mind of man, and not in the thing itself. Hence human life and marriage can become whatever you define it to be.

Fascinating that on the day of the 2014 Pro-Life Twitter Storm, Life News came out with a piece: “Unborn babies feel anger and joy, Psychotherapist’s Study Says.” In fact they do. And they also reported Friday that a pro-abortion study admits that thousands of women are hospitalized every year from botched abortions.

But the good news is that despite the blindness of nominalism, abortions decreased by 6 percent in the United States between 2000 and 2009. The number of abortion clinics continues to decline due to a reduction in demand for abortion.  Operation Rescue released a report that showed that over two-thirds of the nation's abortion clinics have closed in the past 18 years.

Can we thank courageous pro-life witnesses like the Kiczeks and numerous individuals who tweeted pro-life messages during the Twitter Storm Dec. 12? Yes, we can.

Matthew Reynolds tweeted this Dec. 12 

 “I felt cheated when I learned that the hashtag #Pray2EndAbortion was not allowed to trend (on Twitter). It makes me more determined for the next time,” said pro-life tweeter Matthew Reynolds.  Another young tweeter asked me, “Did you ever find out if they’re going to set a date for another Twitter Storm? #WeWillNotGiveUp #TwitterDiscrimination.”

I am a Christian realist. Blessed Duns Scotus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict are all Christian realists.  We believe that God is Being in Himself, all good, all knowing, eternal and infinite. And He made the creature man in His own Image. God is love. Man has the capacity for great love.  We believe in universals like one, holy Catholic Church, established by Christ to be His Holy Living Presence in the world until the end of time.

My computer is not a mouse. No matter what I think, it is a computer.  I exist and have value whether I can think or not. God is not made in my image. I am made wonderfully in His Image. And my marriage is not based on a “feeling” but a mutual decision blessed by the Church that Christ founded when He said, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”

And I tell you, my friend, my unborn child is not a blob of cells. He is also a person made in the image and likeness of God, who actually experiences joy and sorrow in the womb. My life has value until natural death no matter how inconvenient my suffering is for those around me.

And I echo the feelings of my Twitter priest friend, “God – if need be – please take away my freedom, but never let me worship Moloch or any of his progeny.” And I would include Twitter, which in the ignorance and blindness of nominalism, has decided, “Thou shalt not kill – unless you are inconvenient, old or unborn.”

  

*According to the CNNMoney’s Tech 30 Index.