Athena:
Now that’s an interesting statement. My understanding of the whole pro-choice point of view was that the embryo/fetus was part of the mother’s body, and therefore, it was her choice to do with it as she wills. Now you’re telling me the mother, vis a vis the embryo/fetus is an outsider?..
Chaim Mattis Keller
–Rowan
Shopping is still cheaper than therapy. --my Aunt Franny
I believe that the definitive answer is “when the last kid graduates from high school and the dog dies.”
::d&r::
-Melin
Oddly enough, I tend to agree that the SDMB is a lousy place to be debating abortion (what are the odds of anyone reading my posts, slapping her heads, and saying “Oh wow, he’s right! And come to think of it, I could’ve had a V-8!”)… which is odd, since I’m probably the one most responsible for dragging it into this debate. I brought it up ONLY because I felt it was relevant to why so many leftists were so eager to embrace the Christopher Hitchens MT-was-a-con-artist thesis, not because I expected to win any converts here.
I repeat, ANY human being is fair game for criticism and for muckraking, especially if he/she’s a public figure (and MT certainly was that!). For that matter, right wing loonies who hated Martin Luther King had a right to seek and publicize scandals in his life. And the scandals were real enough- Dr. King was a lecherous womanizer, and his doctoral dissertation was largely plagiarized. Despite those REAL peccadilloes, however, Dr. King was undoubtedly one of the greatest men of the 20th century. And when one reads of his failings, one is less inclined to rage against Dr. King than to wonder why people felt the need to look for scandals in the first place.
Well, the answer is obvious: right wing loonies don’t hate Dr. King because of the scandals they uncovered- just the opposite! They looked for scandals because they already hated him! Why? Because of what he stood for, natch.
Similarly, I think it’s worth asking: WHY did Mr. Hitchens feel a need to go looking for dirt on the old gal in the first place? Obviously, because he ALREADY hated everything she stood for. His investigation turned up nothing of substance. Hitchens obviously knew that, or he’d have spent more time documenting real misdeeds and less time insulting here for being ugly and “butch.” And the left wingers who seized on Hitchens’ piece obviously hated MT before they’d read a single word.
Why did they hate her? I believe it’s because of her strong anti-abortion position. Every angry response to my previous posts confirms my suspicion.
Gentle Readers - I have taken the liberty of creating a new thread in GD dedicated to the abortion discussion.
http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000157.html
Please avail yourselves of David B’s excellent moderating services when further discussing this highly volatile subject.
Nickrz
GQ Mod for The Straight Dope
I’m glad that the abortion debate is going elsewhere, because I think that arguing whether MT was right or wrong about abortion is missing the point. She went out to help the poor because of her religious faith, and while I personally don’t agree with all the tenets of that faith, I don’t expect her to suddenly go against it to teach Indians about birth control or whatever. I find it pretty rich that all these armchair critics are sitting around criticizing her for what she failed to do when I doubt that any of them have done half as much for the poor as she did, whatever her shortcomings. That’s certainly true of Hitchens, who seems to spend most of his career ripping people to shreds. As one writer put it, the real problem with Mother Theresa is that she makes the rest of us look bad.
domina, I think the point is that it’s questionable whether Teresa really did do much for the poor, or whether by fighting birth control, denying them pain medications, etc., she was actually helping to make their situation worse.
Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.
What, was there a motherlode of birth control and medicine that would have reached them, but for her? We’re talking about people who were dying in the street here. I have trouble seeing how she made things worse.
WHOOSH! Right over your head, that one.
I’m not getting involved in that debate, domina; you’re entitled to your opinion. Just don’t insult people who believe otherwise by claiming they’re just p.o.'d that she didn’t believe in abortion.
Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.
OK, well I guess that’s the end of that conversation. FYI, I don’t agree with astorian that MT’s critics are all motivated by pro-abortion malice, nor am I motivated by anti-abortion feeling, for that matter. I am just not convinced, even given the accusations here, that the world would have been better off if MT had never lived. If it were guaranteed that some more liberal do-gooder would have taken her place, maybe so, but I don’t see any reason to assume that.
I don’t think the world as a whole would be any better or worse had MT not lived. I do believe that she did a lot for Catholicism, and as such, deserves all the accolades the church has heaped upon her.
I still stand by my opinion that Hitchens book is a not-to-be-taken-lightly caution to non-Catholics that if they want to help the poor, or provide top-of-the-line medical care to sick people in the third world, they are much better off giving to charities not associated with MT.
As for birth control in India; MT had a lot of influence on public opinion, but more than that: she controlled the flow of medical care in many areas.
Example: if X town in India has a Sisters of Charity (or whatever it was her order was called) clinic, and a secular organisation gives funds for another clinic, it’s going to be set up in some town that has no clinic at all. Town X has no chance of getting another clinic. The MT clinic in town X won’t dispense birth control or provide abortions; women in town X are therefore screwed.
–Rowan
Shopping is still cheaper than therapy. --my Aunt Franny
Rowan said:
I hope this doesn’t sound cocky, but I’ve never seen anything that could in any way be described as top-of-the-line medical care in the Third World. In my experience, Third World clinics are lucky to have an x-ray machine and a microscope. But, I’m no where near to having seen all of the Third World, so Rowan, if you know of an impoverished nation that really does have top-of-the-line medical care available, I would love to hear about it.
And so, my caviat to anyone considering donating money to a charity working in the Third World is don’t kid yourself into thinking your providing top-of-the-line anything. I don’t say this to discourage people from giving, but rather to encourage them. We all like simple feel-good gestures and that’s OK. But understand that giving $23 a month is not giving a kid a world-class education or access to the latest medical treatments.
Aside from a few major players, most charities do the best they can on very tight budgets, and while we should be diligent in weeding out fraudulant operations, we should cut the good one’s a little slack. It’s damned hard work, the pay sucks and the conditions are miserable 
“I think it would be a great idea” Mohandas Ghandi’s answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization