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Newsletter Spring 2009
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From The Presi dent’s Pen By Aaron Hankins.
Right to Life: Merely a Religious Issue?
There are those who feel that the Right to Life issue is merely one of a religious nature. They subjugate this issue to the realm of religion for two main purposes: one, so that one’s view of abortion would be solely a matter of religious preference and two, so that the abortion debate is no longer a valid topic of political discussion. While the Right to Life movement consists largely of those who are motivated by the Christian faith, the Right to Life issue must not be confined to the church and must be at the forefront of political debate.
As Christians we know that the Bible is the ultimate authority of Truth and that scripture is clear on the issue of Life: Life is sacred because God creates man in His own image.
Yet, regardless of your religious preference or religious affiliation, the main question that must be answered in the abortion debate is: when does life begin? Basic science, both biology and embryology, proves that life begins at conception. Thanks to modern technology, the vital signs of life in a newly conceived child are evident almost immediately. At 3 weeks the baby’s heart begins to beat. That is well before the woman even knows she is pregnant and long before she even begins to consider having an abortion.
Even middle school students and middle school health teachers know that life begins at conception. The first thing you learn in health class when covering the subject of sex and human development is that fertilization results when a male sperm penetrates a female egg. At the moment of fertilization a tiny zygote is formed with 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 from the father creating a new and unique individual with its own distinct genetic code. There is enough information in this tiny zygote to control human growth and development for the rest of the child’s life.
Life begins at conception. This is not a matter of faith. This is a matter of fact. Therefore abortion, regardless of how far along the woman is, always ends the life of a child.
Now that we know that scientific facts prove that Life begins at conception we must also understand that nothing is as relevant and pertinent to the state of our nation today as the Right to Life.
The Right to Life is the most important political issue because it sheds light on the central question in politics: what is the role and purpose of government? The primary purpose of government is to protect innocent life. Thomas Jefferson stated, “The chief purpose of government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all.”
Our Founding Fathers understood that our rights, particularly the Right to Life, are unalienable and are endowed by our Creator. They are not granted by the whims of government regimes but are to be secured by law. Our Founding Fathers understood clearly the results of a society that no longer respects life. When our government fails to secure life for all, the end result is tyranny.
The Right to Life issue is not just a religious issue, but is the most important issue of our time. It is the most important political, moral and economic issue that Americans must deal with in order to restore our nation’s moral foundations and fix our nation’s broken government. Restoring the sanctity of Life is the solution to returning to self-government, individual liberty and our Constitutional Republic that our Founding Fathers gave us at the conception of this American experiment.
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B C R T L
PO BOX 1613
COLUMBUS, IN 47202
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By Their Fruits... Timeline 1933 By Tony Hillen :
Humanist Manifesto I
This portion of our timeline is not specifically about an individual but about more of a shift in thought. Humanism makes no bones about its sinister and evil intentions. Those intentions being a radical change for America (and ultimately the world) away from the Judeo/Christian heritage that our nation was founded upon. It's no surprise that the 15 tenets of Humanist I(1933) start with atheistic evolution:
Tenet One -- Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created
Tenet Two --- Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process
Interested parties can read the rest of this nonsense at their leisure. It is, of course, found easily at the library or on the internet. We wanted to make a couple of points about this marker in the history of our country. The first point is that it has only been eight years since the Scopes trial (1925) and that John Dewey (whom we have already studied) is a leader/signer of this insidious work. Dewey is famous for his connection with Columbia University, the alma mater of Barry Obama! The second point is that the Humanist Manifesto would serve as a guide to many of those who were (and are) influential in higher education. It was only a matter of time until this leaven of the GOD haters would filter down to all public education in the US. Pro-lifers should be reminded that, at this writing, 1933 is only 76 years ago!
Support all alternatives to public education!!
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More Abortion Centers Nationwide
LifeNews.com reports that Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business, has increased the number of centers that do abortions. The report indicates Planned Parenthood is increasingly relying on the dangerous mifepristone (RU 486) abortion drug.
The leading pro-abortion group has been consolidating its abortion and family planning centers and local affiliates to cut costs. By the end of 2008, the total number of Planned Parenthood centers dropped to 844, which are down from the 855 in 2007. But Planned Parenthood has cut its total number of centers providing non-abortion services. The number of abortion facilities is in the rise. It jumped from 287 to 295.
Planned Parenthood wants to change its image from an abortion business to a women's health care outlet. The numbers make it clear that more of its resources are going into doing abortions.
A source close to LifeNews.com reports that "After collecting and looking through the data on Planned Parenthood clinics across the U.S., it is clear to see that Planned Parenthood is increasing its abortion business and has closed down many express clinics”.
The most recent Planned Parenthood annual report also confirms that it is doing more abortions and providing less help for pregnant women.
A report compiled in April 2008, shows that Planned Parenthood did 289,750 abortions, an increase over the 264,943 abortions it did during the 2005-2006 fiscal year.
The number of abortions is larger than the number of clients receiving prenatal care -- which totaled just 11,058. That number is almost a 20 percent decline from the 2005-2006 total of 13,261. The number of Planned Parenthood adoption referrals is also miniscule and continues to drop.
The adoption and prenatal numbers are also surprising given the increase in the total number of clients at Planned Parenthood. The pro-abortion group had 3.14 million customers in 2006-2007, which represented a 2.5 percent increase or almost 80,000 more customers than the year prior.
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The Freedom of Choice Act: No Freedom, No Choice
By Dr.Hans Geisler,M.D.
That the culture of death understands the seductive power of well chosen words is amply illustrated by the appellation given the new legislation, intended to abrogate all advances made since 1973 to place any regulations whatsoever on an unlimited access to abortion, the Freedom of Choice Act. Once again, the forces of secularism, materialism, utilitarianism and death arrayed against the pro-life cause have been well-served by their propagandists. Anyone would think that the words “freedom of choice” would signify a real choice. However, as we know, exactly the opposite is true. To be pro-choice in our culture means to be pro-death. In the same way, embryonic stem cell research, which has never produced a single positive result in the treatment of any human injury or disease, is almost always addressed in articles and lectures as just “stem cell research.” Such carefully selected words inevitably lead many of us, since the majority of us usually are fairly superficial listeners or readers, to confuse the very real distinctions which exist between adult and embryonic stem cell research. This error, in turn, paves the way for us, as voters, to ratify ballot propositions or other measures, which fund only embryonic stem cell research and not adult stem cell research, although adult stem research is the only type of stem cell research able to claim any success in treating human disease or injury.
FOCA, the acronym for the Freedom of Choice Act, is an excellent example how the forces, embracing a culture of death, have, once again, in a devilishly brilliant move, used carefully nuanced words to describe legislation intended to give the general populace, and in particular, health care providers and other health care entities anything but real freedom of choice. Congressional passage of FOCA will allow civil penalties to be levied against any health care facility or provider who, as a matter of conscience, does not either perform abortions or refuses to refer anyone seeking an abortion to an abortion provider. Strict interpretation of this legislation, if passed by Congress and signed by the incoming president, will lead to annulling the freedom of conscience granted by our constitution to all pro-life physicians and hospitals. One is hard pressed to imagine the havoc such legislation will wreak upon an already fragile U.S. healthcare system. The impact of FOCA, according to Americans United for Life, will do away with “state and federal legal protections for individual healthcare providers who decline to participate in abortions” and rescind “legal protections for Catholic and other religiously-affiliated hospitals that, while providing care to millions of poor and uninsured Americans, refuse to allow abortions within their facilities.” These protections for pro-life physicians, other health care providers and hospitals, by the way, have just been granted by the outgoing Bush administration.
If Catholic and other physicians and health care providers, who feel that they cannot, in good conscience, practice under a healthcare system which takes away their ability to abstain from performing or referring for abortions, discontinue the practice of medicine, nursing, pharmacy or whatever their healthcare related profession has them doing, what effect will this have? Catholic hospitals, according to a 2006 survey, accounted for 12.5% of all U.S. hospitals, 15.1% of all U.S. hospital beds and 15.6% of all U.S. hospital admissions. What will be the outcome if these admissions suddenly need to be accommodated by a hospital system with 15.1% fewer beds? Will the public and private hospitals and health care facilities in the country, which do not shrink at referring for or performing abortions, be able to handle such an abruptly increased load of approximately five and a half million admissions for which they are unprepared? What consequences will be suffered by these and other patients as a consequence of such a sudden overload?
Those questions will become practical realities if FOCA is signed into law. The practical consequences, arising from such a diminution of hospitals and health care providers, do not even take into account the moral, ethical and constitutional questions posed by FOCA. As Catholics, opposed to abortion under any circumstance, it is our duty to make our voices heard in a matter which has assumed such importance both as a moral issue and one which subverts the intentions of the Founding Fathers of our republic. The Catholic bishops of the United States have begun a campaign to stop FOCA. We must follow their lead and help in any way we can. Please, join the battle now.
Reprinted by Permission
Dr. Geisler graduated Cum Laude from Xavier University in 1955 and from Stritch School of Medicine of Loyola University in Chicago in 1959. He went on to practice as an OB-Gyn for 40 years, specializing in Gynecological Oncology. Dr. Geisler worked at Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York from 1963-1965, and was the Senior Resident in the Department of Surgery for one year. Dr. Geisler serves on the Board of Directors for the Culture of Life Foundation and Institute in Washington D.C., has served as the Medical Director of Oncology at St Vincent Hospital and Health Center, and won numerous awards and recognitions for his work including “Who’s Who in the World”.
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Reprinted by Permission
Dr. Geisler graduated Cum Laude from Xavier University in 1955 and from Stritch School of Medicine of Loyola University in Chicago in 1959. He went on to practice as an OB-Gyn for 40 years, specializing in Gynecological Oncology. Dr. Geisler worked at Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York from 1963-1965, and was the Senior Resident in the Department of Surgery for one year. Dr. Geisler serves on the Board of Directors for the Culture of Life Foundation and Institute in Washington D.C., has served as the Medical Director of Oncology at St Vincent Hospital and Health Center, and won numerous awards and recognitions for his work including “Who’s Who in the World”.
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The Right Representation by Brian Jasper
During February in the Indiana House of Representatives we witnessed the consequences of what happens when we lose elections. State Representative Jackie Walorski introduced an amendment to a bill that would cut off the funding that Planned Parenthood takes in each year through the state budget and various state programs. The liberals who control the House deemed that the amendment was not germane to the bill and killed it as soon as Rep. Walorski finished speaking. I watched as Rep. Walorski defended her position and argued for the relevance of the amendment. She was a valiant warrior in defense of the right to life but it was to no avail. Without control of the House the effort was in vain. Elections have consequences. But we can still effect change.
Short of waiting two years to win back the House, we can still influence our representatives. At the March for Life and Rally in January we heard State Senator Greg Walker tell us that if our state legislature hears from just five people on an issue it’s considered a hot topic. There are so few people who bother to get involved that just five people are considered to be a ground swell. When US Congressman Mike Pence was in Columbus for a town hall meeting recently, he gave a similarly disturbing testimony. Representative Pence said that if the U.S. Congress hears from just ten people on an issue it’s considered to be a hot topic. While these figures are staggeringly low and represent failings on various levels, the fact remains that we can have a voice in our government.
It is your responsibility as a Christian to advance the kingdom. One way to do that is to influence the people who make the policies bring glory to God. Don’t make the mistake of thinking someone else will call or e-mail or write a letter. When you are made aware of a need you have now become responsible to do something about it. Below is a list of our representatives in the Indiana State Legislature. They need to hear from you!
Also, in an effort to help keep you informed and educated about issues similar to the right to life, I have put together a small list of organizations (at right) who lobby for and defend conservative values in our state. Most of them have e-mail alerts which I encourage you to sign up to receive. All of them give analysis and insight into legislation. Several of them even propose legislation to protect and defend our values. Use their information to help influence our governing bodies for the cause of Christ.
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Getting At The Root: by Tony Hillen
I can't remember the first time I heard the word trophy used in conjunction with something or someone. I think it could have been in the 80's and the construction I recall was of a trophy wife. This meant that the man (husband) was a huge success in life with a good job, nice car(s), strong investments and the crown jewel of his achievements was his trophy wife. This lady possessed great beauty and social grace. She could even be athletic, within limits. And, in keeping with our modern, progressive society, we now have our first trophy President of the United States. The husband in this trophy relationship is our ultra-liberal news media.
Notice how the new president is not being reported on (or about) but is being displayed (proudly), stroked, polished, protected, guided and above all, loved. We can read about the new president being a great dancer, great athlete and a tremendous public speaker. This is because these news media.
liberals I mention, are largely responsible for his election. This is not to say that there weren't plenty of shenanigans surrounding the election because certainly there were. However, for the point of our article, we now know what is coming in the future regarding our new president and his media following. First, he MUST succeed in everything he does because their pride is at stake and they cannot allow failure. Second, promises made BEFORE the election will now be revisited and modified because this is the only thing that can be done. Any reasonable person will understand and feel great empathy for the new leader. Thirdly, the true ideals of Barack Obama will finally come into view. Who would have ever thought that Bill Clinton (of all people) would rightly characterize Barry as a "Chicago thug."
Take heart, Dear Readers, for JESUS (the JESUS of the Bible) is still in control and prayer changes things. Keep this in mind as you observe our first trophy president at work.
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This web-site is provided and funded by Seven Baskets Ministries. We invite you to visit their web site for links to wonderful Christian sites and more information about Seven Baskets
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