On my way to Pensacola.  Sunday, we are doing our Pro Life Training Academy in preparation for GAP at the University of West Florida Monday and Tuesday.  I’ll won’t be able to stay for the GAP, however, because of our big Celebrating Life event in Knoxville Monday night.

Speaking of Celebrating Life, we’re sold out!  How about that!  Hope to see you there!

This BBC report on the battle over abortion in Northern Ireland features pro-life activist Bernadette Smyth.

From the BBC report:

What makes the biggest difference to Bernie Smyth’s campaign is what turned her into a pro-life campaigner in the first place: pictures like these.

Check it out:

http://www.belowtheradar.tv/abortionwars.html

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JillStanek.com is a pro-life blog that is read world-wide.  Readers are burning up the comment lines on two recent postings featuring CBR:

1. My post, Use of graphic pictures not optional.  This post generated more than 100 comments.  Please go add your own!  This post was a good lead-in to this next one …
2. Jill’s post, Video: The most shocking 4-minute abortion debate you will ever see.  A new CBR video juxtaposes shocking, graphic abortion footage upon a soothing videothat was produced by the Northland Family Planning Centers, a chain of late-term abortion clinics in Michigan.  The Northland video describes abortion as an act of “courage.”  The CBR overlay displays the truth.  (Note: the link given here just goes to Jill’s posting, not the video itself.)

We already knew this, but now we have their own data to prove it.  Next time a pro-abort suggests that I hand out condoms instead of exposing truth, I will simply say, “Most abortion mothers say they used contraception during the month they got pregnant, but they got pregnant anyway.  They had contraceptives in their possession, and they either chose not to use them consistently or the method failed to work.  So how will it help stop abortions for me to give someone another condom if they won’t use the ones they already possess?

The student will scoff at the notion that aborting mothers were using contraceptions, because in their minds, contraceptives are 100% effective.  I will give them more rope by asking, “Are you really sure you want to challenge that?  Do you really want to say that I made it up?”  In a debate, you always want to use the data already reported by your opposition; they have no choice but to accept its authenticity.

Then I”ll whip out a copy of the Guttmacher fact sheet and say, “I ask again, why should I waste my time giving out birth control that people won’t use or won’t work effectively?”

GAP sign: abortion leads to premature births

From the Elliot Institute:

Children whose mothers had a previous abortion were more likely to be born prematurely, putting them at greater risk for problems such as low-birth weight (which has been linked to physical and developmental problems), epilepsy, autism, mental retardation and cerebral palsy.  A research team looking at data from 2002 estimated that prior abortions led to 1,096 cases of cerebral palsy among babies born prematurely that year.

(click for full article)

Here’s the new GAP sign we have been using to highlight this link:

Abortion leads to premature births

Pro Life on Campus at Kennesaw State University

The Kennesaw University Sentinel:

• The men behind the display

The University of Georgia Red and Black:

• Anti-abortion display an offensive spectacle (letter)
• Freedom of speech prevails in Tate Plaza
• Tate Plaza Abortion Display
• Abortion display offensive (letter)
• Abortions do not equal Holocaust
• Display violates University Code of Conduct
• Abortion display shows the truth (letter)

The Student Free Press

• A misguided call for censorship in UGA student newspaper

Georgia Right to Life President Dan Becker explains how unborn children are denied rights of personhood.

Great day at Kennesaw State University.  This is the 3rd largest university in all of Georgia.  We were priviledged to be joined by several of our friends from Georgia Right to Life who joined us for the entire day.

Speaking before Henderson/Buncombe Right to Life

Thank so much to the Henderson/Buncombe Right to Life for hosting me at the Henderson County Library on Saturday.  This Right to Life group is fired up and ready for more than just “business-as-usual” pro-life stuff.  I look forward to returning.

The title of my talk was “Lessons From the Past: How We Can Win.”  That’s the critical question, because winning is how the killing stops.  I got a good write-up in the Hendersonville Times-News.  My main points:

1. Reformers of history ended (1) the slave trade in Egland, (2) slavery in America, (3) abusive child labor in our factories, and (4) segregation in the South.
2. All of these movements used horrifying pictures to change people’s knowledge of the facts.
3. Successful reformers were willing to accept persecution.
4. They were not content to “reduce” injustice.  They worked tirelessely until they ended the whole boody mess.

I also challenged all present to change the world with only $10:

• Our movement is suffering from censorship.  Not the censorship of government.  It is the censorship of pro-lifers who will not help.
• We are praying that we can increase our campus visits from 6 schools/year to 20 schools/year.  Guess what that will cost.  I’ll tell you … $10.  That’s it.  $10 every month from 1,000 people.  If you have internet/cable TV, you can afford $10.  Please click here and give $10/month.  Your reward is in heaven.

Would you give $10 a month to stop this:

Aborted at 10 weeks - Would you give $10 to stop it?

Gregg Cunningham

In response to the arrest of brave pro-life students at Carleton University in Canada, we got an e-mail from a pro-life, Christian Carleton student.  She objected to the work of the arrested students on the grounds that showing photos of abortion is neither loving nor compassionate.  She wrote, in part:

If you can honestly say that you are upholding the greatest commandment, to love your neighbour, by holding up those graphic images then we clearly have a different interpretaion of this great commandement.

CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham responded:

Your references to Christian “love” are badly muddled.  Ephesians 5:11 commands us to “Expose the deeds of darkness.”

We aren’t calling women who abort “murders” and I challenge you to find one sign or document of ours which makes that accusation.  Women who abort invariably know they are doing something wrong, but they seldom know how wrong.  They are lied to about who their baby is and what abortion will do to both mother, and child and in that sense they are also victims of abortion.  Abortionists, however, are physicians.  They know exactly what they are doing.  They are unambiguous murders.

Nothing could be more cruel or un-Christ-like than for pro-lifers to help abortionists trick mothers by hiding the horror of the abortions into which they are being deceptively drawn.  That is a dark perversion of mercy which cannot fairly be called compassion.

That pretty well sums it up!

It should be noted that despite the suppression of freedom in places like North Korea, Canada, Iran, etc., pro-lifers in freedom-loving countries like the United States and Russia have routinely displayed GAP without government interference.

The university said that while the students could not display their signs in The Tory Quad, a busy outdoor location on campus, it welcomed them to erect their signs in Porter Hall, an indoor room.

Ruth Lobo, president of Carleton Lifeline responded: “They are trying to sound reasonable by providing an alternate location, but what they aren’t saying is that Porter Hall is a closed room that few students pass by or even know where it is,” she said.

Club vice-president James Shaw added, “Telling us we can protest but in a back room no one goes to, is like telling black people they are welcome to ride the bus as long as they sit at the back.”

The university has reportedly been saying that student groups aren’t typically allowed to have displays in the Quad. Lobo asked, “If the Quad isn’t bookable, why advertise it as bookable space for student groups? More importantly, the university has never communicated to us that this is its reason for denying us the space. We’re only hearing about it through media who call us for a response.”

Refusing to tolerate censorship, the students proceeded to walk to Tory Quad with their signs. Part-way to their destination, they were stopped by authorities, eventually amounting to at least 3 campus security personnel and at least 9 police officers. Four Carleton students were eventually handcuffed and arrested by Ottawa police and charged with trespass.

Shaw commented, “I find it disgusting that Ottawa police allowed themselves to be hired as thugs to do the university’s dirty work. Shame on them for participating in Carleton’s censorship of its tuition-paying students.”

For more information contact Ruth Lobo or James Shaw at 613-600-4791 (cell).

Please pray that God will protect and deliver these brave students.

Note: Here at PloC, we don’t ask you to get arrested. We only ask you to give $10 a month.  If 1,000 people give $10 a month, we can grow from 6 GAPs a year to 20 GAPs a year.

Other stories at Life Site News,  National Post, Canada NewsWire, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Sun, Maclean’s on Campus, and National Post.

Here’s a great video from our friends at the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.  Stephanie Gray presents medical information on the beginning of life. She also describes why it is illogical to hold the position that preborn children may be killed because they are smaller, less developed, more dependent, and/or simply living in a different environment than the rest of us.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH1jJiuYBpA

GAP at a Canadian university

Please pray for these brave students.  When it comes to freedoms that we take for granted, some Canadian universities are degenerating into Third World dictatorships.  The University of Calgary has already made it.  Here’s a press release from CBR Canada.

Students Risk More Penalties from University of Calgary for Defying Censorship

CALGARY – Despite warnings from the University of Calgary administration, members of the Campus Pro-Life (CPL) student group found guilty of “Non-Academic Misconduct” for having set up a pro-life display on campus this past April are once again displaying the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) on the U of C campus.

The controversial display compares abortion to past historical atrocities, such as the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. The display is scheduled to be set up between the MacEwan Student Centre and Science B buildings today (September 27th) and tomorrow (September 28th).

“The images are difficult to look at; admittedly, we don’t like looking at them either, but the images are only upsetting because abortion is upsetting,” stated CPL President Alanna Campbell.

After the display was previously exhibited last April, members of the group were charged and found guilty of a ‘Major Violation’ under Section 4.10 of the University of Calgary’s Non-Academic Misconduct Policy for “failure to comply with a Campus Security officer or University official in legitimate pursuit of his/her duties” by refusing to turn their display inward. Other major violations in this category include sexual assault, the use of explosives and firearms, and selling illegal drugs.

The guilty verdict was “a formal written warning” that if the students “fail to comply with directives of Campus Security staff in the future” it will “result in more severe sanctions,” wrote Acting Associate Vice-Provost Meghan Houghton, who was the sole decision-maker in the guilty verdict. More severe sanctions can include the possibility of expulsion. The University’s Appeal Board refused to hear the students’ appeal, and members of the student group will appeal the guilty verdict to the Board of Governors.

“This will be the tenth display of GAP on campus. We have always found that this display has a large capacity for healing, educating, and raising awareness,” said CPL Vice-President Cameron Wilson. “That makes this display, without a shadow of doubt, worth the cost that the university seeks to exact from us individually.”

The group has displayed its Genocide Awareness Project on the University of Calgary grounds, without incident, nine times since 2006. In 2006 and 2007, during the first four Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) campus displays, the University defended the students’ right to expression under the Charter, but in 2008 the University reversed its policy without explanation.

In 2009, the University charged six students with trespassing in relation to the display, but the Crown Prosecutor stayed these charges prior to a trial scheduled for November of 2009. Since then, members of Campus Pro-Life have been threatened with Non-Academic Misconduct upon each display, and the University has found eight students guilty of Non-Academic Misconduct.

“We believe in the effectiveness of the display and we believe in our right to display it. For these reasons, we will not give in to intimidation and will challenge all attempts at censorship. We are proceeding now just as we have in the past,” stated Peter Csillag, CPL Vice-President.

For further information, contact Club President Alanna Campbell at (403) 690-5217, Vice-President (External) Cameron Wilson at (403) 668-9624, Vice-President (Internal) Peter Csillag at (403) 465-1777, or lawyer John Carpay at (403) 619-8014.

7-week embryo

In recent weeks, we are seeing a kind of science denial by abortion advocates in Missouri that is normally the prevue of Darwinists.  The state legislature has recently passed a bill that actually recognizes the scientific fact that life begins at conception.

Senate Bill 793, which adds new regulations to the state’s 24-hour informed consent law for abortions, states that “the life of each human being begins at conception.”  It also declares that “abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”  (Source 1)  (Source 2)

As you can imagine, that law didn’t sit too well with pro-aborts.  So, taking a page out of the Darwinist playbook, they claimed that the scientific evidence (confirmed by many medical textbooks on prenatal development) isn’t really science at all.  It is religion.  I’m not kidding.

But of course, what else could they say?  After all, they can’t admit that the facts are true.  The implications of the facts are so horrifying, they must be denied, no matter what.

(Click here for a paper that summarizes statements from medical school textbooks, scientists, and even pro-abortion philosophers, all confirming that life begins at conception.)

People deny science when it challenges their own religion or some other deeply-held belief.  Did you watch “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”?  If you didn’t, shame on you.  BTW, if every child in your church doesn’t see it once a year, then shame on you.  (Yes, I said you.)

Anyway, in this movie, the great Darwinist Richard Dawkins is interviewed by intelligent design (ID) proponent Ben Stein.  The idea of an intelligent Designer/Creator is so horrifying to Dawkins, any evidence for it must be denied or ignored, no matter what.  Darwinists must pretend that such evidence isn’t really science at all.  It is religion.

But Dawkins has a problem because Darwinism can’t begin to explain how highly complex cells got here in the first place.  Cells are vastly more complex than was ever imagined, and Darwinism just doesn’t explain it.  So Dawkins has to speculate.  In a moment of candor not likely to be repeated anytime soon, he suggests that one possible explanation might be that space aliens planted cellular life here on Earth.  I’m not lying; watch the movie.

Lemme get this straight.  According to Dawkins, it’s entirely plausible that we all evolved from the protozoa that came from the bowels of some space alien who stopped off at Planet Earth for a potty break on his way to the Delta Quadrant.  But it’s NOT plausible that we were created by a Creator God.  Riiiiight.

And they say this stuff with a straight face.

FAB is indebted to Dr. Frank Joseph for this excellent essay.  Please comment below!

Debating Abortion on the political stage: Carly Fioriana blew it

Carly Fiorina had a golden opportunity to blow Barbara Boxer out of the water in their California senatorial debate, but she blew it.

An abortion question was asked by a member of the panel, and of course, Boxer went according to script. Said Boxer (paraphrasing and making it short), “I am for a woman’s right to choose.” Never saying the word abortion. “Women shouldn’t have to go to jail if Roe v Wade is overturned, and that’s what Fiorina wants.”

To begin with, this is a lie. Women would not go to jail. They didn’t before Roe and they won’t if Roe is overturned. Democrats just have to lie, just like they did in the 1960s when they said that 5,000 – 10,000 women died every year from back-alley, coat-hanger abortions. Even NARAL founder Dr. Bernard Nathanson now admints that it was a willful lie. The year before Roe, only 39 such deaths were reported to the CDC. Anyhow, only the person who kills the child (the abortion doctor) would be breaking the law and put in jail if Roe is overturned.

Fiorina did not call Boxer on this lie. She did say she is pro-life, but she never mentioned that Boxer not only supports the killing of unborn children, she supports this killing for the entire nine months of pregnancy. She even supports partial-birth abortions, which 75% of the American people oppose. According to polls, more people identify themselves as pro-life than pro-choice (to kill unborn children).

They each had 2 minutes for their final summations. In her statement, Boxer again brought up a woman’s “right to choose” and again falsely stated women would go to jail if Fiorina had her way and Roe was overturned. She kept pounding on that issue.

It seems that when Democrats are in a debate, they go for the throat. Maybe Republicans just don’t want to hurt the feelings of Democrats. I think they just don’t get it.

Fiorina should have mentioned that Boxer lied about women going to jail if Roe is overturned. She should have also said that women who do not have their child killed would decrease their risk of getting breast cancer and decrease their risk of drug and alcohol abuse as well as suicides.

She could have even mentioned that abortions increase the risk of premature babies in subsequent pregnancies, resulting in low birth weights. Such children are more prone to develop physical and mental problems, including cerebral palsy.

She could also have said that she favor’s a woman’s reproductive rights, but when reproduction is over, that is where she draws the line. She could have mentioned that Boxer even supported killing babies while they are being born, at which time they would suffer excruciating pain. As Boxer repeated over and over again what little ammunition she had, Fiorina should have mentioned this over and over again. Sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire.

Training prepares students to articulate and respectfully defend the pro-life position.

CBR Southeast announces a new page on Facebook that will focus on our pro-life apologetics training.

Our Pro Life Training Academy (PLTA) is an ourtreach primarily to Christian/pro-life college and high-school students, but even experienced activists will benefit from the training.

Pro-life youth are a critical group because they are the future leaders of the movement. More immediately, they wield enormous influence on their peers, particularly when they are trained and equipped.

Please go “Like” our new page at www.facebook.com/ProLifeTraining.

A full-day seminar prepares the student to articulate and respectfully defend the pro-life position, even before hostile audiences. Role-playing exercises allow the student to practice for real-life encounters.  For students ready to take the next step, CBR’s Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) provides a unique opportunity for on-the-job training (www.facebook.com/ProLifeOnCampus).

In addition to the training pro-life advocates, the PLTA unites pro-lifers behind common goals of education, training, and outreach. Community pro-life advocates host, promote, and participate in the training. Target audiences include college pro-life groups, Church youth groups, Christian high schools, pro-life agencies, and pro-life volunteers.

CBR and the local community stakeholders work jointly to fund community-wide training.