Flower

Archive for February, 2017

A mother’s loss

We must consider the feelings of those who are post-abortive, but also the lives of those who are pre-abortive (and especially their children).

We must consider the feelings of those who are post-abortive, but also the lives of those who are pre-abortive (and especially their children).

by Jacqueline Hawkins

“I was raped and had an abortion at 14, and these pictures traumatize me,” a young woman at UNC Charlotte told me, with anger in her eyes and an edge to her quiet voice.  She had been standing with a sizable group of angry (but polite) students who did not like our message.  When the group dispersed, she stayed to speak with me.

There was really only one thing I could or wanted to say to her: “I’m so sorry for what you’ve gone through and for the loss of your child.”

She wasn’t visibly shocked, but I could tell that she wasn’t expecting my response.  I proceeded to gently tell her that in this whole abortion mess we have to weigh preserving the feelings of those who were touched by abortion in the past with the lives that could and would be saved today and in the future.

In return she told me that she wasn’t sorry or regretted her abortion. “Not every woman regrets her abortion,” she insisted quietly.

Even if that is the case, I told her, the abortion doesn’t make women unpregnant, it makes them mothers of dead children.  Parents who have lost children, whether by abortion or car accident or miscarriage, should have sympathy and condolences for their loss.

Seeing that she was at least somewhat receptive to what I was saying, I gently told her that although people may not regret their abortions early on, that regret could still emerge later on.  Having other children, not being able to have children, or realizing certain landmarks for a dead child (such as birthdays) often sparks deep regret in post-abortive parents.

It is worth every effort to stop abortions, both for the sake of the children and for the sake of the parents.

When she left, she didn’t look happy, but she seemed satisfied with the response I gave her.  Please pray for her and other post-abortive parents.

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

Gems at University of North Carolina Charlotte, Part 2

CBR volunteer Laurice Baddour stands with a Rwandan man in front of the Rwandan genocide picture.  He gave the display two thumbs up!

CBR volunteer Laurice Baddour stands with a Rwandan man in front of the Rwandan genocide picture.  He gave the display two thumbs up!

Here are some more beautiful gems from GAP at UNC Charlotte (UNCC).  This is a continuation of Gems at UNC Charlotte, Part 1.

Grandma’s reaction.  An outraged young man shouted, “I want verification of these photos!” We gave him our verification documents. “Oh, that doesn’t count; that information is not from a local doctor!!!” he concluded.  In response, a wise older woman told Jane,  “What idiocy.  That young man is coming from guilt.  Why else all this anger?  I am taking pictures of your photos to show my 18-year-old grandson before he goes off to college.  As Christians, we don’t believe in abortion, but you can hear the word all you want, but hearing is nothing like seeing!  This is real!!”

Making Planned Parenthood decent.  After the young woman signaled her support for abortion at our poll table, Jane engaged her in conversation.  At the end, she concluded, “Let’s just keep PP open on the side that does women’s health care and close down the abortion side!”  Hey, if they just do mammograms, pap smears and adoption referrals, that’s fine by us!

22 years in and she can’t imagine …  “My parents wanted me to abort my baby, but I just couldn’t!”  She recounted how it changed her, made her mature, and made her sacrifice.  Now she has a 22-year-old son and cannot imagine her life without him. “I would love to be here and tell these students that if I can be a teenage mom, anyone can be.  Yes, it made me grow up faster than I wanted, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.  I want so much to tell them not to be afraid.”

A helping hand sees the hope.  Another student chimed in that he has volunteered at a nearby pregnancy resource center.  He has seen many college-age students face the challenge of an unplanned pregnancy with hope and determination, once they hear about the options, services, and programs that can help.  He wanted to get involved with the student group to bring more displays and information to the campus.

Don’t tell them what to do…just make them not want to do it…  A 30-something  man considered abortion evil, but a necessary evil.  He considered killing anything evil but sometimes it had to be done.  He didn’t like our shock tactics.  Jackie explained that our goal is to change public opinion so that abortion was an unthinkable evil for everyone.  The light bulb went off in his head and he suddenly liked what we were doing.  He came from the standpoint that we couldn’t tell people what to do in the laws, but we could inform them so that even if it was legal they wouldn’t want to do it.  [Note: Just to be clear, we want laws against abortion.  As it is with slavery, we want abortion to be unthinkable for civilized people, but we still need to laws that will restrain uncivilized people.]

From pro-abortion to sign me up!  CBR volunteer Laurice Baddour asked a young woman if she was pro-abortion or pro-life.  She responded that she was pro-abortion, however she was willing to listen.  After speaking for no more than 15 minutes, the young woman thoughtfully admitted that she was now pro-life.  Laurice wanted to push the envelope.  Would the young want to get her new pro-life feet wet in the pro-life club on campus?  YES!  And with that Laurice signed her up.  In 15 minutes, a pro-abortion-turned-pro-life student committed to being a pro-life on Campus activist.  [Note:  Not all students who pledge to pro-life activism actually follow through with their commitment.  That is why we are thankful for you, because you make our work possible, not with your words, but with your deeds.  Thank you!]

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

Gems at University of North Carolina Charlotte, Part 1

With one press of a button, her social media friends will see the pictures.  Not only that, but probably their friends and their friends’ friends.

With one press of a button, her social media friends will see the pictures.  Not only that, but probably their friends and their friends’ friends.

The University of North Carolina was a deceptively quiet school. There were no huge protest groups and things seemed pretty uneventful.

The one exception was the barricade jumper who spray-painted one of our signs.  (He has since been forced by the Court to pay restitution to CBR.)

We had many, many positive interactions on this campus.  So many, we can’t cover them all in one post!  Here is Part 1.

A day when we won’t come back.  “I met you 6 years ago.  I am glad you guys came back, but I would be glad if you don’t come back again.  That would mean we have ended abortion!” said a young man in a wheelchair with considerable and permanent physical disabilities.

Power of the pictures.  Cody was amazed.  “Wow!  This just amplifies what I believe.  It makes it so much more important, you know, and like, brings it from the back of my mind to the forefront.  Thank you!”

Understanding casual murder.  Angie told Jane that she worked in a hospital lab with “products of conception”—slides made from babies dead in the womb from natural causes.  As she puffed on a cigarette, she lamented, “Seeing this when it’s a casual ‘choice’ is really different.  This is so sad.”

Seeing is believing is outlawing.  Bobby told us, “You see it and it really becomes real.  It makes you think maybe it should not be legal for sure.  So different than I thought.”

If they can get the milk, …  A UNCC administrator came by the display.  She said, “I marched with my parents in the 70’s and I can hardly believe we are still fighting this battle.  My 27-year-old son told me recently, ‘Mom, why do we guys need to get married when the girls give us what we want for free?’  And I say, ‘girls, wake up!’”

She can do anything!  “I was pregnant and thought about abortion for a second.  It did cross my mind.  And I was having some problems with my fiancé at the time, so I talked to my mom.  She said, ‘You can’t do that. You won’t be able to live with yourself.’  So I didn’t.  I stayed in school and had my baby, and things are great with my fiancé now.   Having a baby while in college is not easy, but now I feel like I can do anything.”

More to come.  Stay tuned for Part 2.

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

Pro-Life on Campus at Old Dominion University

Hampton Roads volunteers came to watch and pray, but it wasn't long before we found them speaking with crowds of students!

Hampton Roads volunteers came to watch and pray, but it wasn’t long before we found them speaking with crowds of students!

A brave student opened the door for GAP at Old Dominion University (ODU), and because of you, we walked in.  Special thanks to Knights of Columbus councils in the Hampton Roads community, who $upported the effort in a big way.  In addition to finances, locals provided housing and meals for our traveling team.

To prepare KOC members and other local supporters for combat in the trenches, we held our Pro-Life Training Academy (PLTA) at the St. Benedict’s Church.  Several PLTA students engaged large groups of students, articulating and defending the pro-life movement like pros!

ODU had about 6 out of 10 moonbats.  Crowds fluctuated throughout each of the days. Towards the end of Day 2, the crowd grew larger and angrier, led by a few very loud students.

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

Pro-Life on Campus at Virginia Commonwealth University

High moonbat rating but many opportunities to engage students with open minds.

High moonbat rating but many opportunities to engage students with open minds.

We returned to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) during our Fall 2016 tour.  VCU has the reputation for being the most leftist school in the state of Virginia and it showed. On a scale of 1 to 10 moonbats, this school scored an 8.  (This is a close second to UNC Greensboro, which earned a 9.)

Throughout the first day there were massive crowds around the site.  We hypothesized that they were whipped into a frenzy, with it being Halloween and a week before the election which would, they thought, destroy Constitutional government and forever silence anyone who would dare to question their leftist utopia.

On Day 2, there was a sizable protest group.  They, like their rape-culture-perpetuating counterparts at UNC Chapel Hill, demeaned and degraded women in an effort to get their point across.  Even the cowed males in the protest group held signs that said “Get out of my p****”.

Press coverage:

You can read about our 2012 visit on the FAB here and here.

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

Pro-aborts perpetuate rape culture at UNC

The protest group that would soon serenade us with audio porn.

The protest group that would soon serenade us with audio porn.

by Jacqueline Hawkins

Pro-aborts routinely cheapen sex, devalue woman, disregard human life, and lower the human species to the level of animals enslaved to sexual urges.  These are all facets of the free-sex and abortion-on-demand worldview.

We hear bits and pieces of this worldview all the time, often in the form of unstated assumptions (e.g., sex is a right), but sometimes, all of the parts coalesce, creating a stark and grotesque display.

Until the end of Day 2 at UNC Chapel Hill, the protesters had been rather docile.  But now more of them gathered and threw something of a party as we were packing up to leave.  They brought out stereo speakers and blasted loud music.

The music was kind of fun at first, mostly about partying and having fun.  But as we continued, things took a decidedly darker and more pornographic turn.  As the speakers blasted “f*** you, b****” over and over, the protesters, most of them women, danced to the beat.

So much for affirming and respecting women.

But it got worse.  One of the songs, which could only be described as 100% pornographic, described sex acts to a pulsating beat.

With the audio-porn, girls with open shirts exposed their bras and revealed vulgar body-painted messages.  Free condoms and lubricant were practically thrown at passersby.  The protesters shouted things like “Get lit for lube!” and “Take a condom and call me if you’re cute!”

At a very basic level, all of this whips people up into a sexual frenzy, which affects both men and women.  Men (or, more precisely, males) want to cash in on the implied promises.  Women want to be the object of desire, like their fellow co-eds going shirtless at the protest.

Combine this with alcohol, which is not in short supply on campus, and you have created a sexual predator’s paradise.

Because if you argue that people can’t control their sexual urges, and if you seriously justify killing human beings to preserve the “right” to sex without responsibility, and if you whip people into a sexual frenzy, how much of a leap is it for an inebriated sexual predator to take advantage of a drunken coed?

Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.

Assaulted by Molech at the March for Life

by Nicole Cooley

a - Molech

Abortion is child sacrifice. (Click for a larger image.)

As part-time staff for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), I knew Molech would appear at the March for Life (MFL) this year.  Marching with my oldest sons and pro-life friends from church, CBR’s latest MFL exhibit assaulted our eyes and our ears like nothing I’d ever experienced.

Unlike my CBR colleagues, I didn’t know what to expect.  I was unprepared for the horrific Molech exhibit, just like everybody else.  We had no idea what we were marching into.

Combined sign panels produced an image of a priest of Molech holding two screaming babies about to be placed in the outstretched, red hot arms and hands of the huge brass idol.  The image was 12 feet high and 24 feet wide.  I saw an aborted baby’s hand, blinked, and read the words, “Abortion is Child Sacrifice.”  Then, another larger-than-life portrait, this one depicting Satan. This image was 15 feet high.  My eyes looked away after a brief glance.  Meanwhile, my ears recoiled from the sound of babies crying from CBR’s speakers on both ends of the exhibit.

A short time later, CBR’s Maggie Egger interviewed me on camera.  She asked, “Is abortion child sacrifice?”  My answer flowed easily, recapping my personal history of rape and abortion, and for the first time making the connection, with my own words, that I had sacrificed my child in order to be healed from rape.  Believing a lie from my pastor who urged me to abort, I learned the hard way that abortion would not help me heal, but would compound the trauma and make healing infinitely more difficult.

In the days following the March, I rapidly struggled to make sense of it all.  Perhaps more so than most, because Facebook acquaintances demanded an explanation, one that I didn’t have at first. In the early hours of Sunday morning, God woke me with the thought, “You have now marched to the altar of Molech.”

After searching the Scripture for references to Molech, and finding an article by Gregg Cunningham on the topic of child sacrifice, I began to understand.  Had CBR not assaulted me, I doubt I would have ever done so otherwise.  Even with the fourteen revisions of Gregg’s article in my email archives, nothing had compelled me to dig further until the MFL.

As a result of marching to Molech, I now have a deeper understanding of abortion as Biblical child sacrifice.  I do not relish the path to this insight; I’m ashamed it took that much to make me want to really study Biblical child sacrifice for myself.  I previously knew about Biblical child sacrifice on an intellectual level.  Now my heart understood as well.

Consider this: Simon Sebag Montefiore, international best-selling author of the history text Jerusalem, says:

Most dreadful of all, … [Manasseh] encouraged the sacrifice of children at the roaster — the Tophet — in the Valley of Hinnom, south of the city [of Jerusalem].  Indeed “he made his own pass through the fire….”  Children were said to be taken there as priests beat drums to hide the shrieks of the victims from their parents.  (Vintage Books, 2011, p. 44)

Those of us who participated in the MFL this year have now seen Scripture revealed as plainly as possible.

God’s people in the Old Testament eventually tore down the altars to Molech at Tobeth (2 Kings 23:10).  It’s far past time for His people in the United States to do the same to our altars to Molech, most notably our largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.  Instead of trying to justify their existence through Planned Parenthood’s imaginary “good” services, it’s time to tear them down once and for all.  Eliminating over half a billion dollars in federal funding will be a great start towards that goal.

I’m told the MFL is supposed to be a celebration of life instead of a funeral for the lost.  The other side doesn’t fear our celebration of life.  They do fear our real mourning for the over 58 million lives lost to abortion, because that passion could mean their own demise.  Which view would motivate pro-life people more to make a difference in the coming year for life?

Nicole Cooley is a CBR Project Director and a FAB contributor.

a - Display - 475

TownHall: The Taste of Crow, and Other Random Thoughts

In case you missed it, I posted an op-ed piece in TownHall soon after the historic Trump election win.  It is all still relevant.

The Taste of Crow, and Other Random Thoughts

I was wrong.  Surely Republicans would never nominate Donald Trump for President. Because surely he had no chance of winning. But they did, he did, and crow never tasted so good!

Uneducated racists. When they voted Democrat, they were “blue collar working men.” When they vote Republican, they are “non-college-educated white men.” In other words, uneducated, racist, bitter clingers.

Ding-dong, the witch is dead! Trump showed Republicans they need no longer fear the media hacks and their mockery, dishonesty, and hypocrisy. Trump pushed back. Hard. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and call the media out for being the crooked liars they are. They cranked up their attack machine, but it didn’t work. Let’s hope conservatives have learned their lesson and never forget it.

We’ll show you! In 2008, John McCain won Missouri by only 0.1%. But …

[Link to entire article here.]  Please share it to your Facebook page!





You are currently browsing the Fletcher's Blog blog archives for February, 2017.