Pennies From Heaven

There is a game called "Penny in a Bottle" that is played at baby showers. The host places a baby bottle, sans lid, in the floor and guests attempt to toss pennies into it. One wins the game by getting a penny into the bottle or closest to it. Some players who might be somewhat "good" at the game might make it harder by saying the one who gets the penny inside from the farthest distance wins. And the penny bottle is usually given to the expectant mother as a gift (after the guests have placed their spare change inside of course). This makes Birthright's latest fundraiser quite appropriate. It started on Mother's Day, but I just got wind of it recently. It ends on Father's Day. Individuals or groups are asked to fill a baby bottle with pennies. The resultant bottles are collected and the proceeds go to help Birthright deal with crisis pregnancies. For information about how to participate, please contact Sally Chardos at 803-781-7457 or birthrightofcola@bellsouth.net. And, if sending penny-filled baby bottles through the mail just doesn't seem feasible, visit the Birthright of Columbia (SC) website for more information about how to help.

Where do YOU draw the Line?

I recently got one of my older computers back up and running and then signed up for the 'net again (dial up, blech) so that I could go about spreading my opinion to all who deserve it, whether they need it or not. When I came back to the net, I quickly became rather disgusted. See, last time I was online with any frequency, I had high speed and cable, which entitled me to news, 24-7 to the point that it was nauseating and I was jaded. However, I knew what was going on everywhere at all times. I have just spent over a year with no access to the internet unless I was visiting with friends. I also only had access to the major non-cable networks for news. When I came back online and what I found was rather shocking. This is especially true when it comes to life issues. I was aghast when Phyllis Schlafly, a strong conservative lobbyist, just indicated that she 'had' to support McCain because the alternative was so awful. Granted, he has a voting record that makes him the enemy of NaRAL, but at the same time, he voted to fund embryonic stem cell research. That is not pro life. It is anti-abortion, to an extent anyway, but it is not pro-life in the true sense of the word and it might not be as anti-abortion as people think either. The sad truth is that very few people in the pro-life movement are truly pro-life. On the other hand, if they are, they operate under a delusion that hinders their goals. I will address the second issue first: 1. The answer to the problem does not HAVE to lie in Roe v Wade. Sure, the undoing of Roe, according to the decision itself, could be the outright issuance of a declaration that unborn persons are, actually, persons, with legal rights to protection just like the rest of the human race. However. The Supreme Court has in the past failed to recognise the basic right to life or Roe would never have happened. The right to life trumps all other rights; yet it was either ignored or made less important than the right to privacy by this ruling (legally speaking at least). The Supreme Court has a history of not being able to understand the Constitution; I doubt it can comprehend the idea of rights not listed by name, or the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, the whole idea that someone would be endowed something by a creator, rather than the government or the courts might somehow slip beyond the radar of these idiots. Not to say that we cant TRY to get Roe overturned, but that CANT be the only thing pro-life people do or we will fail miserably over and over again. 2. Helping the Mother, though nice, isn’t always helpful to the cause. Gasp. Let us consider this for a moment. The rights of the unborn and the desires of the mother who wishes to abort are at cross-purposes and are not always reconcilable. It would be great if I could walk into a Planned Parenthood Clinic and say 'Hey, if no one aborts, we'll give you all free healthcare and a wrinkle-free adoption process, I promise' and people would change their mind. But, I am not obligated to make that pledge in the first place. I know that sounds harsh and uncaring. It sounds that way because it isn‘t what we typically do, and it sounds that way because someone told us that being nice would end abortion. Make it easy for the mother to do the right thing and she will. Maybe, just this once, she might. But, we‘ve lost the plot here. It isn’t about making it easy to do the right thing, it’s about making people see that abortion is the wrong thing. Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy, and it does no one any good for those who know the truth to hide that fact. When a woman considers abortion, she is considering a murder. We do not give incentives for thieves to not steal or rapists to leave women alone, why should we concentrate on making things easy for a woman to let another human being live? Before I hear that it’s often crime victims that want to abort and I should be more compassionate, I’ll just say this here and now. If she was raped, or a victim of incest, then she needs help to deal with those things and I would not begrudge her that, EVER. But it still does not obligate me to ‘make it easy for her’ to avoid an abortion because being a victim of a crime does not entitle her to commit murder in the first place. I would not have the right to kill my doctor if I found out I had cancer, I would not have the right to kill a thief who stole my car and I do not have the right to kill my neighbour because I got raped last week. Circumstances where I will be inconvenienced and experience sadness, anguish and pain of the highest degree still do not entitle me to kill anyone. Therefore, it is a very nice thing to do when you make the choice to do the right thing easy for a woman in crisis, BUT if we cannot convince her that she was about to commit a very grave sin against another human being, then we have ultimately lost. She will return to her life believing that she wasn't wrong for wanting to abort, she was just 'better' or 'braver' for not doing so. The next time she or her friend faces an unwanted pregnancy, the option to kill is still available to her conscience and she might just act on it. We would win a battle, but we would have lost that war. 3. The answer is not political at all. Have you ever read some of the stupid laws they have on the books? Like it is illegal to tie an alligator to a fire hydrant or other such nonsense. Obviously, whatever drove the individuals who penned those laws is no longer an issue nowadays. Who in their right mind would tie an alligator to anything? Obviously, some numbskull did somewhere or there would not be a law about it. So what changed? Uh, we woke up one day and realised it was stupid. Now, what would be wrong with Roe remaining on the books and legal clinics shutting down for lack of business? Nothing at all. Yes, it would be nice if the entire populace of the US woke up one day and realised that unborn children, old people and the severely handicapped were indeed whole people with the same rights as the rest of us and passed a law to stop the murders. But, see, the law will never come until the world changes how it sees life in the first place. People have to WANT a law in order to enact one. Moreover, a state has to want an amendment in order to alter its constitution, and many states have to want an amendment to change the federal constitution. The problem with the pro-life movement is that it is busy collecting money to lobby people who dont care past the next election to make laws for people who dont 'get it' in the first place. Until people do GET IT, going that route is like rearranging furniture on a sinking ship. 4. The Answer is Inside. See, when it is ok for a teenager to shoot another teenager over 40$ or the colour of shirt they wear, then it will make no sense to him when his girlfriend does not want to abort the accident that they made. When it is acceptable for people to commit 'honour killings' on US soil and when it is fine for doctors to determine who has become a burden on society, it will never make sense to try to save a baby who will be an orphan with a host of medical issues. Life among the born in this world means very little, why would life among the unborn be any different? Now, here comes the hard part. The idea that perhaps we are not as pro-life as we would like to think we are. When you are confronted with someone who has committed an abortion in the past, under a ‘hard circumstance,’ do you soft-pedal what happened? Alternatively, do you make sure that they have duly repented and truly understand what has happened? Whenever I talk to a woman who has had an abortion, I am not going to rob her of her chance to truly repent. I never go out of my way to be ugly or belligerent; I save my verbal ugliness for the battle of worldviews that deceived her in the first place. However, I am honest, plain and as strong as I need to be to get the point across. There is such a thing as false grace. Grace is a gift from God, given to sinners who repent, where they bear no penalty for the sin(s) they have committed due to the sacrifice of Christ in their place. While there is a universal call to repent, grace is not given to everyone. Only those who actually do repent ever see it. God is perfect and knows best. We undercut our own efforts when we do not follow His example and instead hand out grace to anyone we meet just to avoid an uncomfortable situation. When we do not make sure that a woman aborting a baby (past, present, or future) knows that it is murder, then we cannot expect her to repent. She will keep on keeping on, believing that she is fine. We cannot overlook things just to be ‘kind’ to those who would sin against humanity in such a profound way. In the end, it is not kind, as the sinner never realises that he or she must repent in the first place and will end up in judgement. This might make me unpopular, but I am not put on this earth to be popular. Another thing about repentance - it needs to be preached from the pulpits in every bible-believing church. People need to know the truth and face it. But, unfortunately, too many churches are afraid to speak out. Why? If they do they will lose their tax exemption privileges. And heaven help us all if the pastor or the social issues committee of the church points out which candidates have taken a stand for life just before election day. Quite frankly living in fear like that is wrong. I’d rather be free and broke than a slave to the government and it’s secular agenda. Would you forgo your tax deduction on your tithe because your church is not tax exempt? Would you suggest to the deacons, elders or steering committee that the church should withdraw its tax exempt status in order to speak freely about social and moral issues that are up for vote? Would you risk being expelled or excommunicated for causing a problem if they did not agree? Would you be willing to be dismissed from your position at work because you refuse to discuss the ‘option’ of killing a child with a woman who discovered her unborn child had a severe birth defect? Would you defy a court order to withhold nourishment from a severely handicapped adult (like Terri Schiavo) and risk going to jail? What if your governor decided that he was not going to enforce Roe in his state? I know what would happen, the same thing that happened with the Ten Commandments in Alabama. Would he stand firm in the face of government troops? If he did, would he have the nerve to secede the Union? If he did, would you and all your pro-life state residents support him? Would you be willing to risk war or a Constitutional crisis of massive proportions in order to make things right? How far are you willing to go? Are you pro-life enough to be unpopular? To go to jail? To be unemployed? To go to war? Are you going to stop funding groups like the National Right to Life who is willing to settle for a ban on partial birth abortion or are you going to find someone who is not sold out to a singular party? Are you going to write the truth on the internet and stop allowing women to believe they actually have the right to choose? Or are you going to try to pack a clueless Supreme Court with judges who do not care about inalienable rights and continue to vote for people like Bush or McCain who only court your vote and deliver nothing? Where do you draw the line? (the pic is my own work and is copyrighted to me, do not take it.)

Watch This Video

I always liked Mel Gibson, something about the man's eyes. But that is not what this is about. Watch the video, there are important issues about human life floating around out there. Abortion and Euthanasia are not the only ones.

The Candidate....

Everyone either picks on Mitt Romney or likes to harp on the fact that everyone likes to pick at him. So he stated at one point that he was pro abortion and now states that he is anti abortion. Ok. He's also stated that he changed his mind. Even better. 1. Is this change of mind an absence of credibility? No, at least not on the surface of it. People change their minds all the time. I used to be a republican, now I'm a libertarian. I used to be on board with the President's policies in Iraq, now I'm not. I used to think the Union should have won the war for southern independence, now I believe the Confederacy was in the right. I am sure that everyone here reading this has changed their mind about something and it is not a lapse in credibility for it to happen. 2. Is this change of mind authentic? Only Romney and his hairdresser know for sure. Or something like that. 3. Is this change of mind truly pro life? It's probably not politically correct to say so, however most politicians who claim to be prolife really aren't. They may be "no totally fond of abortion and the moral crisis it presents us" but... are they willing as president to not enforce the illegal Roe v Wade decision made by the supreme court? are they willing to accept a state or group of states leaving the union over the issue? are they willing to truly protect the lives of all humans, regardless of their stage of life (ie people like Terri Schiavo)? If they are not willing to embrace these extreme positions, they are not truly prolife. I haven't seen a truly prolife candidate in years and I'm not holding my breath waiting to see another.

Who Said This?

I have a few quotes and I want you to tell me which one was spoken by a Right to Life Organisation.... and which was spoken by a politician.... “It’s always the proper time to do right. You continue to bring them out until it’s finally done. Persist on the goal, which is to ban abortion. That has always been the goal of the pro-life movement: ban abortion,” “With the governor that we have, I don't think there is any possibility of getting a ban passed”. If you thought the first was spoken by a prolife group and the second was spoken by a politician you' d be wrong. The first was spoken by an Ohio politician named Harrington. The Second was spoken by Ohio Right to Life, an affiliate of National Right to Life, spokesman Denise Mackura. It sounds to me like the pro life movement has moved from standing for right against all odds to trying to politicise and hedge their bets. I wonder if we were discussing killing 25 yr old spokesmodels we be putting up with this bull. No we wouldn't. The prolife movement therefore behaves as if it does not believe it's own teachings. Sad.

The Prolife Lie

The right to life movement has raised alot of money, and I do mean alot of money, and has spent large amounts of time lobbying to elect "prolife" politicians and getting so called prolife judges appointed to the bench. Parachurch and Christian family advocates also rally the faithful to support prolife legislation, groups, ect... You cannot fault the masses for being active. You can however, fault the majority of them for being stupid. That's right, downright, outright, boldfaced ignorant in the highest. Recently a bill was passed that said it was ok to deliver a child to the navel, rip it's legs off and let it die and pro life leaders such as focus on the family lauded it as a prolife victory. Like I said before, very few who claim to be prolife actually are, apparently, though I didn't expect to hear such excrement from Focus. Perhaps Dobson is getting senile in his old age. To hear someone outspokenly prolife...click here and hear what BOB ENYART has to say.

ProLife and the BC Pill

Anyone who knows me well knows that sometimes I take a very strong stand on the issues that I believe in. This is particularly true when it comes to the protection of innocent human life. Sometimes this makes me come off as abrasive and conceited, and that is not intended. However most of the time I believe that people are offended by me because I tell it like it is without trying to pad the issue. Don't get me wrong, there are proper times to be tactful, pleasant and soft or persuasive. These times include discussing the role of diet in your life, whether or not to drive the speed limit, whether your friend's choice of dates is acceptable, whether your friends choice of clothing is flattering or whether or not to leave the toilet seat up or down. They do not include defending the lives of innocent human beings against their own parents. Unless you are one who believes that any attempt to avoid pregnancy other than total abstainence is wrong, there are acceptable forms of birth control which should be available in society to all who need them. However, if life begins at conception (and the Bible makes it clear that it does), then any form of birth control which causes the body to expell the baby is not acceptable. These include the BC Pill, the patch and various forms of inserts. The last time I had this discussion, the other party got angry because I said the pill was abortafacient and therefore wrong. The arguement was that the pill did not DELIBERATELY cause miscarriage, therefore if it happened it was no worse than eating something that accidently caused one. Well, one point is that deliberately doing anything that you know puts the baby at risk is wrong. If you eat something that you know puts the baby at risk you are wrong and if you lose the baby then you are to blame. If you take medication that you know puts the baby at risk, you are wrong and if you lose your baby you are to blame. Just the same as if I put my child outside unsupervised and told him to play in traffic. Sometimes of course, you don't know that your child is in danger (or in the case of unplanned pregnancy that there is even a child in the first place). And I suppose this is one side of the BC issue. If you don't know that the pill is abortafacient and you take it, and then you miscarry you are not any more responsible for that child's death than if you trustingly gave your child medicine that a doctor prescribed and he accidentally died as a result. And perhaps there are people who would rather the mother be ignorant of the truth. I do not prefer that way of being. If they are ignorant and I have the truth and don't tell them, am *I* not responsible? And my stronger point is that the pill DOES deliberately cause miscarriages. It alters the lining of the uterus making it a hostile environment for implantation and that is a integral part of the way it works. And of course I don't just say this off the top of my head, I do have some proof. And, not all my proof is found in pro life resources. According to the PDR (Physician's Desk Reference), pills suppress gonadotropins. It first tries to inhibit ovulation and should that fail, cervical mucus is also changed so that the sperm have a hard time getting to the egg, and then it changes the endometrium so that a fertilized egg (baby) has a hard time with implantation. SO, if you end up pregnant while on the pill, all three mechanisms have failed, and of course sometimes they do (Before I knew better I used the pill, I also used a sponge and my exhusband was using a condom and we still managed to concieve my oldest son...). But if you are not pregnant and are on the pill, you may never know which of these mechanisms actually have prevented it. The first two ways of prevention are contraceptive and therefore acceptable, the last is abortafacient and therefore murder. The pro abortion crowd will tell you that the pill is not abortafacient, and perhaps your doctor might even tell you the same thing. The reasoning is that an "abortion" has not occurred until the egg is implanted. However, prolifers know that life begins at conception and the anti life definition is therefore flawed. So if you wish to find the truth ask "Does this medication seek to inhibit implantation of a fertilized egg?" You will find that the pill does, so does the patch, and implations as well. And now that you know, you are responsible for what you know. If you are on the pill, stop taking it. If you continue, and you miscarry, you are guilty. There is no reasonable excuse for ignoring this information, and there is no ethical reason for me to make it more palatable. Here are some resources for your consideration. They are not hyperlinked, the reason being that doing a search will also expose you to more information than a simple hyperlink will. The truth is out there, read it and believe it, then act on it. Randy Alcorn, Prolife Answers to ProChoice Arguments (Multnomah Publishers: Sisters, OR: 1992, 1994) 118. "Ovarian Activity During Low Dose Oral Contraceptives," published in Contemporary Obstetrics and Gynecology, edited by G. Chamberlain (London: Butterworths, 1988), 315-16. Oral Contraceptives and IUDs: Birth Control or Abortifacients?, Pharmacists for Life, November 1989, 1. Physicians' Desk Reference (Montvale, NJ: Medical Economics, 1998). Larimore WL. "The Growing Debate about the Abortifacient Effect of the Birth Control Pill and the Principle of the Double Effect." Ethics and Medicine: in review. DeCook JL, McIlhaney J, et al. Hormonal Contraceptives: Are they Abortifacients? (Sparta, MI: Frontlines Publishing, 1998).