from the Yes on 1 Campaign

Pro-abortion activists have been circulating fundraising emails making the following claims, all of them false.  Please know the facts and speak out in support of Amendment 1.

When They Say:  “Amendment One is an unprecedented power grab by the Tennessee state legislature to take away women’s right to choose.”

You Say:  Amendment 1 restores to the people our right to debate and decide what policies are appropriate with regard to abortion, just as we do on any matter of importance.  The Amendment specifically states “the people retain the right… to enact, amend or repeal statutes regarding abortion.”  Even in the most difficult of circumstances, proponents of Amendment 1 trust the conscience and common sense of Tennessee’s people to do what is right and fair.

When They Say:  “It is from a Republican legislature whose senators voted unanimously to ban abortion with no exceptions, not even to allow a woman to save her own life!”

You Say:  Since 1973, there has never been a vote to ban abortion in Tennessee, period.  Amendment 1 enjoys bi-partisan support and was placed on the ballot by super-majorities including the Democratic Leader and Democratic Caucus Chairman. In total, 39% of House Democrats voted in support of Amendment 1 during final legislative passage in 2011.

When they Say:  “It is a deceptively worded constitutional amendment, designed to confuse and mislead voters, and all of us will be voting on it this November.”

You Say:  Amendment 1 returns the Tennessee Constitution to neutral after a 2000 ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court which claimed a broader right to abortion in the Tennessee Constitution than Roe v. Wade or the U.S. Constitution. It restores the rights of Tennesseans to decide what abortion law should be in our state rather than leaving policy decisions to the Judiciary.

Brent Boles, MD

by Brent Boles, MD

The debate regarding abortion has always been an emotional and highly charged discussion. The people of Tennessee are not served well, however, by opinion pieces such as “Abortion amendment bad news for women,” June 4.

Nor are we served well by recent full-page advertisements that compared Amendment 1 supporters to the Taliban and wrongly implied that a state can ban the practice of abortion under Roe vs. Wade. So what would serve every Tennessean well? The truth.

The fact that most people in Tennessee do not realize is this: 14 years ago, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood regarding the laws enacted by the duly elected legislators of Tennessee and claimed that the state constitution contained a “fundamental right to abortion.” As a result, several meaningful restrictions and regulations on the abortion practice were struck down, and the enforcement of new legislation regarding abortion is certain to be similarly ruled as violating this newly identified “right.”

Our state now ranks third in percentage of abortions performed on out-of-state residents, with about 1 in 4 abortions sought by women and girls from elsewhere because it is easier to obtain an abortion here than in any of the eight states bordering Tennessee.

A recent opinion writer stated that passage of Amendment 1 will give carte blanche to all future politicians in regard to abortion. The reality is that Planned Parenthood vs. Sundquist gave carte blanche to the abortion facilities in our state that now operate with no oversight by the state of Tennessee. Women who went to get a manicure today entered a facility that is probably better regulated than some abortion facilities here.

States bordering Tennessee have stronger laws to protect the health and safety of women and girls by requiring that abortion providers offer accurate information about risks of the abortion procedure through an informed consent process. They provide short waiting periods so that every woman is assured enough time to weigh the information provided and to guard against coerced abortions. Our neighboring states also insist the enforcement of common-sense safeguards such as requiring that abortion providers submit to the same state health inspectors that regulate hospitals, surgery centers, nursing homes, restaurants, and even hair salons.

Women and girls in Tennessee do not have these safeguards because the Tennessee Supreme Court took the matter of abortion policy out of the hands of the people and gave all authority on the matter back to abortion providers. The end result of Planned Parenthood vs. Sundquist is that the people are left with no ability to regulate abortion in any meaningful way.

Voting yes on Amendment 1 will allow the people of Tennessee to debate and deliberate what common-sense policies are appropriate in our state regarding abortion. It will allow Tennesseans to once again protect the lives and health of women and girls as is being done in each of our bordering states.

……………………………….
C. Brent Boles, M.D., is an Ob/Gyn in practice in Murfreesboro and is active with the Yes On 1 campaign.  This op-ed was published by The Tennessean on June 16, 2014 (link).

Lincoln Brandenburg talking with a UNC student
(Click to enlarge.)

by Mick Hunt

“Leftists claim to be the voices of tolerance and diversity; however, the universities they control are the most intolerant and monolithic institutions in American life.  Their notion of diversity is to cover the range from extreme leftist to downright nasty leftist.”  (FAB)

In my experience UNC offered the largest reaction against GAP when we previously appeared in 2005. (But see the positive article on our 2005 GAP on page 13 of the Carolina Journal.)

Then, some 200 students and faculty members surrounded the display with their backs turned away from it, symbolically rejecting its truths, while additionally preventing others from seeing it for themselves. Had they kept this up for longer than 10-15 minutes, police might have taken action, as would have CBR. As it was, we took advantage of the situation by placing our handmade signs throughout their midst, signs that said, “Face the Truth. Choose Life.” After their protest broke up, many of the students stayed to talk with us and view the display.

This past spring (March 31 & April 1) the “pro-choice” response was different. The drum beating and dancing—that sort of thing—we’ve seen the like of it before, but this time our opponents offered something more alarming: Meanness.

Someone at UNC lit our brochure on fire.
(Click to enlarge.)

I’ll list incidents that I personally witnessed.

 A visiting alumnus shouted at CBR’s Georgia State Project Director Lincoln Brandenburg, called him a number of coarse names and shook his finger in Lincoln’s face. Later, without provocation, he challenged me to a fight and offered to hit me across the head with a baseball bat. When I reported this to campus police, they said I need to fill out a warrant for his arrest. I told them they needed to stand closer to him in case he tried to hurt someone.

 Two male students stood along a busy sidewalk, wearing black wetsuits (supposedly condoms) while holding signs featuring explicit, hard pornography and an absurd, filthy “scientifically inaccurate” slogan.

 A black female Planned Parenthood representative mocked a black male student for being a “30 year old undergrad.” (He responded by saying he had served two tours in Iraq.)

 When one of the co-presidents of the student organization that hosted us was standing in front of our display while holding a CBR “Choice” sign, a group of “pro-choice” students surrounded her to pose for mocking pictures, like she was some sort of inanimate object. This was so insulting and I felt bad for her. She is from Asheville and I know her family.

 The worse incident of all is described by Edie Benchabbat, CBR Project Director for North Carolina:

“Emily is co-president of the pro-life club at UNC-CH. She was holding a choice sign and the pro-aborts surrounded her and scared her. Someone from CBR noticed and came to her aid. I was on the other side of the quad so didn’t know what happened. I walked back to get more brochures and noticed her sitting down on the ground behind our display with knees bent and hunched over. She was trembling and crying. I went to her and held her to make her feel safe. She told me what happened. We prayed together. 2 other women joined me and we prayed for her. After 20 minutes, she was settled and ready to go out again with someone around her.”

The meanness I’ve described is only one aspect of doing GAP, probably the hardest part. GAP is always intense, but not often as bad as this. UNC has been the worst that I remember. It wasn’t only the specific incidents, but the entire atmosphere. In summary, we should never believe that it will be easy being a part of transforming our culture into one that values and respects the lives of preborn children.

Next time: Changing lives at the University of North Carolina.

Mick Hunt (Meredith Eugene Hunt) is a FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the southeast and elsewhere.

Masked male students at UNC try to distract and misdirect people from images of aborted children with banner, drums, and absurd ad hominems.

“Pro-choice” NCSU students tried to block the view of GAP until campus police stopped them.

by Mick Hunt

In Part 1, I wrote about how abortion clinic escorts use misdirection and distraction, which are among the tools of stage illusionists as a way of controlling the audience’s attention.  These same tools are also at the heart of “pro-choice” rhetoric.

Ad-hominem attacks against pro-lifers are obvious, and a trained debater won’t be sidetracked by them, but virtually every women-centered question or statement is also misdirection.  The real issue is not whether we should care about women.  Everyone knows we should.  The real issue is about caring for pre-natal children.

My answer to many questions is, “We should treat pre-natal children the same as we should treat born children.”  Or, “Whatever problem you pose with a pregnancy and a pre-natal child, we should find a solution that is, in principle, no different than if the child were born.”

To a large extent, even the scientific debate over when human life begins is misdirection and distraction.  My philosopher-carpenter friend, John S., wrote recently in a letter to a state official, “Questions like ‘when does life begin’ or ‘what is a person’ are exercises in playing dumb.  We know when life begins—it begins at conception (fertilization).  We know what a person is—it’s a human being.”

The answer then is not so much in talking about abortion, but in acting as if abortion is murder.  The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) is a powerful appropriate indirect response to the gravity of abortion.  It’s really not debate, but a presentation of facts through imagery.  GAP is a statement of the obvious to people who are distracted.  Any contribution to debate we make has more to do with interpreting the images for people who are confused.

GAP creates problems for abortion-choice supporters. In the face of evidence of the gruesome violence, “pro-choice” rhetorical engagement is a losing proposition.  GAP compels either acquiescence, active resistance, or a dilution of our effort.  Since the activists don’t intend to quit, they must issue propaganda and organize protests.  They spread propaganda through social media and campus publications.

We see resistance in most schools, but I’d like to focus for now on the campus of the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, and at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Raleigh.

At Chapel Hill, abortion supporting students lined up in front of the GAP display with signs and helium balloons.  A couple of masked male students tapped on snare drums for endless hours.  A Planned Parenthood representative stood on a wall overlooking the scene and shouted meaningless patter about condoms and filing complaints with the Dean of Students.  At NC State, the abortion “counter protest” took a further step by attempting to block the view of the GAP display and form a complete wall of bodies and signs.

The portrayal of the victims of abortion through GAP helps distracted and misdirected people attend to the real issue of abortion.  And if GAP is so effective that abortion supporters must turn out in force to distract people from seeing the images, then shouldn’t we do GAP even more often?

Mick Hunt (Meredith Eugene Hunt) is a FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the southeast and elsewhere.

Silent No More on campus.  Shirts say, “I regret my abortion: Please ask me about it.” When you come and open yourself up to college students, you can help them in ways the rest of us never can.

Tyler, a young man at Oakland University was angry at us.  His girlfriend had been raped and had an abortion.  He told us that when she saw the GAP display, she was quite upset and unable to do anything but sit in her dorm room and cry.  He wanted me to remove the GAP display, and he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less.

I probably didn’t handle it correctly.  I’m human, too, so I fumble the ball sometimes.  But in the final analysis, Tyler really didn’t need to hear from me.  He needed to hear from somebody he could listen to.  He needed to from a woman (or man) who could relate to the pain of having aborted a child.  Maybe he needed to hear from you.

We must show the truth, because everyone, including women who have been raped and are pregnant, need to see the truth before it’s too late.  We were too late for this couple, but not for others.

But we also need to show compassion.  If you have experienced abortion, please join our team.  Please go with us, so you can explain to folks like Tyler how God loves us in spite of our sin.  You can explain how God can forgive us and heal us from abortion, just as He can forgive and heal us from any other sin.  You can tell them that you know this is true, because you’ve been there.

One post-abortive rape victim told us, “When you talk, I want to punch you in the face.”  If you are post-abortive yourself, I’m willing to bet you will get a different response.

My new friend (I hope) W. Russell responded to an FAB post earlier this week.  He (or she) wrote:

I think you are making a big mistake by linking the pro-life cause with religion. There are people out there like me that are prolife but want nothing to do with religion. Not to mention the fact that “Darwinism” (btw, there is no such thing) has nothing to do with abortion. I am an atheist, believe in evolution, and am pro-life. Why do you want to write me off as an enemy to your cause. You say the biggest treat to children is the belief in evolution and abortion. No, the biggest treat to children is ignorance and the lack of respect for human rights, every human’s rights. One can believe that every human being, born and unborn is deserving of life without believing in a deity. The pro-life cause needs all the support possible. Don’t exclude people because they don’t have the same beliefs as you. If you do, you are just as ignorant as the people who support abortion.

This is my reply (with a few edits):

Thanks for your comment. I wholeheartedly agree with much of what you said. For example, you said, “One can believe that every human being, born and unborn, is deserving of life without believing in a deity.” You are of course correct. Many atheists agree with us on the right to life.

You said we should not link the pro-life cause with religion. There is some truth in that. For example, we should be able to argue against abortion without appealing to our religious beliefs. With our Pro Life Training Academy, we do exactly that. We train people to talk about spiritual matters only with people who are open to that discussion. When an atheist asks us why we oppose abortion, we don’t say he must adopt a new moral code before he can become pro-life; we simply ask him to apply his current moral code to everyone equally, including the unborn. We assume that he opposes killing born people, and usually he does.

You said, “The pro-life cause needs all the support possible. Don’t exclude people because they don’t have the same beliefs as you.” You are again correct, and I am happy to work beside you to end injustice, including the injustice of killing unborn children, no matter what else we may disagree about.

But I don’t agree with you that just because we disagree on something important, I have “[written you] off as an enemy to [our] cause.” It only means that we disagree on some things and agree on other things.  I have many friends in the pro-life movement, and I disagree with almost all of them about religious matters that we consider important.

It is unrealistic to expect that Christians will quit being Christians when they take up the cause of ending injustice. We Christians fight injustice for two reasons. First and foremost, we are commanded to do so by our Creator.

Second, Christians believe that all of us (including you and me) are created beings, and we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these is the right to life. If there is no Creator, then we all evolved from the earth. We are simply a cosmic fluke, mere dust that happens to be animated for a short period of time before we return to dust. And if that is true, then what is the basis for any kind of morality? How can one clump of animated dust say what is moral and what is not moral for another clump of dust?

And are all clumps of animated dust to be treated equally? What is the basis for declaring that human lumps of dust have a greater status than non-human lumps of animated dust (e.g., animals)? Or even non-animated lumps of dust (e.g., rocks).

If we claim greater moral significance for ourselves than for dogs or rocks, because we are more evolved, then who is to say that some of us humans aren’t more evolved than others, and therefore entitled to greater rights?

That’s why I believe Darwinism to be a dangerous philosophy … because it ultimately leads to the conclusion that there is no objective morality, there is no basis for equality, and there is no imperative to treat anyone with human dignity. Any moral code is only a tool to promote self interest, and it can be discarded by those in power as soon as conditions make a different moral code more profitable.

I know that you have a different basis for your beliefs that there is a moral code we are all bound to follow, that we all have a right to live, etc. And I respect that. I just don’t agree with it. I welcome you to the table of respecting the unalienable rights of all people; I just got there through a different door. That doesn’t mean that I have written you off as an enemy, nor does it mean I don’t welcome your support.  It just means we disagree.

But before I close, it is my duty to say that I am concerned for your eternal soul. It is my hope that you will live abundantly, not only for a few years on this earth, but eternally in the world to come. I hope you won’t be angry to know this.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16-18)

On final note about Darwinism (the notion that all life forms evolved as a result of random, unguided, naturalistic processes). Speaking as somebody with a science background, I believe the claim that science has made a conclusive case for Darwinism, as opposed to the alternative theory that life is the result of intelligent design, is a classic example of begging the question (i.e., assuming the proposition you claim to be proving). Darwinism does not prove man evolved via naturalistic processes; it assumes man evolved via naturalistic processes. Big difference. But, that’s another topic for another day.

GAP is a venue for Christians to openly share truth.

Sometimes we focus so much on the antics of those who oppose us, we forget to report on the many pro-life students who support our presence on campus.  They are so thankful that they are not alone.

“Thank you!  I am glad you are here!”

“I’m glad those other students [finally] have something to be upset about.”

“If you support this, why don’t you want the advertisement?”

“Why are these people saying you should leave campus?  It is just [the truth]!”

“These are just pictures.  If you are upset, that’s good.”

“This is stirring up conversation; this is good.”  (Christian dining hall employee)

Young Christians believe the truth (at some level), but they don’t know how to answer the full-frontal assault that is the atheistic campus culture.  The modern church has never taught them how to articulate and defend the Christian Faith with logic and reason, so they fear the Faith is illogical and unreasonable.  What a tragedy.

The most effective evangelical organization on campus is often the College Republicans, because those kids know how to articulate the truth without fear.

The two biggest threats to our children … your children … are Dawinism and abortion.  Darwinism is an assault on the intellect; abortion is an assault on the flesh.  Yet the typical evangelical church (e.g., your church) does almost nothing to address these threats.

For example, have the youth at your church seen the movie, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed?”  No?  That’s a scandal.  And if you have never watched it yourself, that’s a scandal, too.

Anyway, the intellectual needs of young Christians has been ignored by the modern church, but when we show up with GAP, they don’t feel so alone.

We have never seen a more striking confirmation of our comparison of abortion to other forms of genocide.  The top image (below) was taken at George Mason University.

By comparing an abortion victim (who possesses arms and legs and fingers and toes, just like the rest of us) to an “ejaculation,” they are using the same kind of dehumanizing language that was employed by Nazis, Hutus, slave-holders, and many others.

Very interesting article by Sarah Terzo summarizing reporters’ comments after actually seeing abortion.  Reading her piece reminded of an article written by Dr. Richard Selzer years ago, entitled What I Saw at the Abortion.  He talked about the effect of actually seeing an abortion:

And it has happened that you cannot reason with me now.  For what can language do against the truth of what I saw?

More about that in a minute.  First, here are some of the best quotes from Ms. Terzo’s piece:

I felt a profound and unmistakable kinship with the foot and hand in the tray, a kinship so strong it was like the rolling of the sea under my feet.  (Harper’s Magazine author Verlyn Klinkenborg)

But the nurses, medical assistants, and doctors who worked inside procedure rooms … knew that an eleven-week-old POC harbored tiny arms and legs and feet with toes.  (author Sue Hertz, who spent a year observing abortions a busy abortion clinic)  [FAB: POC = products of conception]

I have seen this before. The face of a Russian soldier, lying on a frozen snow covered hill, stiff with death and cold. … A death factory is the same anywhere, and the agony of early death is the same anywhere.  (author Magda Denes)

Having seen what I saw, I cannot for a moment abide the disingenuousness of those who argue that a fetus is not human, or those who convince themselves that abortion is not killing.  (Newsday reporter B.D. Colen, who witnessed a 2nd-trimester D&E abortion)

As I left the operating room, I shook my head in an attempt to get the horrible vision out of my head. I couldn’t. It was there; it would always be there: a little hand…a little rib cage.  (former medical student)

Read the entire article here.

In 1976, Dr. Richard Selzer was a surgeon at Yale University.  In January of that year, he authored an essay entitled “What I Saw at the Abortion,” which appeared in, of all places, Esquire Magazine.  In this piece, he described witnessing a prostaglandin-injection abortion performed at 24 weeks gestation.  Referring to the spirited fight put up by the preborn child in the defense of his own life, Selzer concluded:

Whatever else is said in abortion’s defense, the vision of that other defense will not vanish from my eyes. … And it has happened that you cannot reason with me now.  For what can language do against the truth of what I saw?

Indeed, what can lying words and sophistry do against undeniable truth?

One of my nieces asked me a few weeks back how ObamaCare would be different from the status quo of health care in America.  Good question.   Certainly the status quo isn’t optimal.  But it’s still the best health care system on the planet.  And ObamaCare will make it much worse.  Here’s a partial answer to her question.

The status quo is this:

1. If somebody needs medical attention, they can show up at the emergency room, the hospital is legally required to render assistance, and the cost is borne by the paying customers, and
2. Low-income people can apply for and receive needs-based assistance from Medicaid or one of its state substitutes, e.g., TennCare.

I have some second-hand experience with health-care delivery to a low-income person.  A friend of mine did not have insurance to cover needed cancer treatments.  He received the treatments anyway, as needed, and now he pays a little bit each month toward his bills.  He will never completely pay off those bills, but he will do what he can.  He is thankful for the life-saving medical care he received.  He has since qualified for Medicare.

I’m not arguing for the status quo.  I believe that for most Americans, the dominance of the third-party payers (either the Government for those on Medicare or insurance companies for everybody else) has driven the cost of health care much higher (in fact, many times higher) than it should be.  There are two big reasons for this.

1. First, there is zero cost competitiveness in the health-care delivery system.  If I wanted to look for a low-cost provider, I couldn’t do it.  The system wouldn’t let me.  When our son was one year old, we were told (falsely, it turns out) that he needed a test to confirm reflux disease, but they wouldn’t tell me what it would cost.  I needed to know, because insurance coverage for his condition was limited under a preexisting condition clause.  But they still wouldn’t tell me.  Is there anything else we buy where the supplier steadfastly refuses to tell us the cost before we buy it?  They get away with it because too few people have the slightest motivation to even ask, “What will it cost?”
2. Second, the nearly universal customer disinterest in the cost of medical care means that most of us will buy as much of it as is offered.  I have myself purchased several unnecessary and overly expensive tests because (a) the tests were offered and (b) I had no incentive to pass them up.  I guarantee that I would not have had those tests had I been required to put down a 20% co-pay.  We must find a way to reinstate cost incentives/competition back into medical care, but still provide health care to people who truly cannot afford to pay.  By health care, I mean health care, not wealth insurance for people who choose to forego health insurance premiums in order to purchase beer, cigarettes, cable TV, cell phones, etc.

Now, back to your question.  Here are just a few of the ways that ObamaCare will be different from the status quo:

First, it will hasten our decline into financial insolvency.  We don’t have the money in the Federal treasury to pay for it.  We know it will cost hundreds of billions of additional dollars to implement, and it does nothing to reinstate cost incentives back into the system.  Let’s step away from health care and look at the big picture.  Every election cycle, one political party makes it a point to claim that an ever-growing number of Americans are entitled — entitled, mind you — to a laundry list of free stuff.  Each election year, the number of “entitled” people grows larger and the list of free stuff gets longer.  And who is going to pay for all that “free” stuff?  It is to be paid for by an ever-smaller, ever more despised — despised, mind you — group of producers.  Can this continue?  Consult your own common sense.  If you need an example, see what’s been happening to Greece.

The ever-smaller group of producers couldn’t keep up with all of the Government spending even during the good economic times.  In the early to mid 2000s, the Government revenues were setting record levels, and we still had deficits.  During the more normal times, we have no hope of keeping up with spending.  And even less hope during the inevitable recessions that cycle around.  The cost of ObamaCare will only grow our debt even more, making our next recession even deeper and more painful.

As much as we would like to wipe away every human need in this country, there is simply not enough money to do it.  In the 1960s, it was estimated that if we “invested” 60 billion dollars into poverty programs, that poverty could be wiped out.  Trillions of dollars later, I could argue that the problem is worse now than then.  In fact, the Government instituted expensive programs that actually made poverty worse.  I have no reason to believe that ObamaCare won’t make health care worse than it is now.

Second, the implementation of ObamaCare will reinforce the belief that some people are “entitled” to the wealth created by others.  Without any incentives to limit their medical “needs,” they will demand more and more “free” services … “free” to them but not to those of us who will be paying the bill.  What is President Obama’s plan to deal with all the new demand for limitless health care?  Hire new doctors?  No.  His plan is to hire 10,000 new IRS agents.  (The CBO has said that the IRS would spend $0.5 billion to $1.0 billion to enforce the ObamaCare law.)

Third, it will create a new bureaucracy to administer all the rules.  The law itself was 1,000 – 2,400 pages (depending on who’s counting and what’s counted) of stuff that few, if any, members of Congress even bothered to read.  The final regulations will be tens of thousands of pages.  In fact, bureaucrats had generated 13,000 pages of new regulations as of July 2012, and they’re not done yet.  Who will be tasked with making sure all those regulations are complied with?  Just to simply stay out of jail, medical providers will be forced to hire additional compliance staff.  (Medical providers are already being forced to hire new staff to meet the ObamaCare electronic medical record requirements.)  Of course, the Government will have to hire their own army of enforcement officers.  After all, what good are regulations if they are not enforced?  And guess who will pay for all of that!

Fourth, you mentioned that you have yourself benefitted from the ObamaCare law, because it forced your parents to pay for the cost of your insurance for more years than would otherwise have been the case.  There was no net benefit here; there was only a shift in the costs from one person to another.  Plus, it only reinforced the idea that Government action could create “free” stuff for your benefit.  If you are getting “free” stuff, then others will line up to receive it as well.  I’m not criticizing you for taking advantage of the free stuff that you will eventually have to pay for — with interest payments and bureaucrat labor costs added on, you and perhaps your children will be forced to pay for it many times over — but I’m merely pointing out that “free” benefits aren’t really free at all.  You will pay dearly.

Fifth, ObamaCare drives up costs by mandating that all insurance coverage includes everything imaginable, even free contraceptives.  (The very idea that the guy down the street should be forced to pay for my contraceptives is foreign to me.)  The Government is deciding that you should have an unlimited list of free services, and they make it palatable for you by pretending that somebody else will actually pay for it.  Apply the same kind of thinking to your auto insurance policy.  Imagine that you could buy car insurance that paid for every imaginable automotive expense, including oil changes, new tires, minor repairs, major repairs, etc.  Would you buy it?  No way!  You would never buy that policy because it would be prohibitively expensive.  It would be great for the automotive repair shops, because you and all your friends would be lined up around the corner, demanding that the scratch on your door and the little rust spot on your fender be fixed, but this would drive up the cost of insurance so high, you would not buy it (unless you were forced to do so by law).  A free person acting in a free market would almost always choose a reasonably-priced automobile insurance policy to cover only the catastrophic losses, and accept personal responsibility to pay for everything else.  Most people would agree to pay for such nonsense only if they were forced to do so under threat of incarceration.  It is just as true for health insurance; the only way they can force this system upon us is to (a) lie to us by saying that “somebody else” is actually paying for it, and (b) force us to pay for it under threat of incarceration.  That’s what all those new IRS agents are all about.

Sixth, ObamaCare forces people — employees are people, too — to purchase abortions and contraceptives, a clear violation of conscience for many Americans.  People shouldn’t have to choose between closing their businesses (i.e., firing their employees) and violating their consciences.

Seventh, when this is all over, it will create a gigantic transfer of wealth to the abortion industry.  At $450 per abortion, the industry generates revenues of roughly $550 million (not including premiums for late-term abortions).  I’m convinced that ObamaCare will be manipulated to force that number up to more than $7 billion. (Link here for an explanation.)  Keep in mind that the abortion industry sells abortions at $450 apiece, not $5,472 apiece (the cost of a similar non-abortive procedure), because abortions, unlike every other medical procedure, are paid for directly by the consumer and thus are subject to the normal pressures of consumer economics.  When cost competition in the abortion market is gone, prices will rise accordingly.

Eighth, the cost burden to employers will incentivize them to hire fewer people, thus increasing the unemployment rate.  Who pays for that?  The greatest burden will fall on minorities and young people, because they suffer the greatest rates of unemployment.  But we will all pay a price, because the fewer people working, the more the rest of us have to pay to keep the ship of state afloat.  Worse than the financial cost of unemployment is the human cost: unrealized personal growth and development.  People who are not working lose the opportunity to learn, grow, and increase their value to some future employer.  They are stuck.

Ninth, by decoupling bad behavior from its costs, you only incentivize more bad behavior.  There will never be any shortage of human needs around us.  Some are due to circumstances beyond people’s control, but most are the result of bad behavior.  In this case, bad behavior can include laziness … simply deciding not to work and letting somebody else pay the freight.  When you make it easier for people to leave the ranks of the producers and join the ranks of the “entitled,” you can be sure that more of them will do it.  We all pay for that.  We all lose.  Such people lose their self-respect.  Their children learn dependency instead of self-sufficiency.  We lose their participation in the economy.  Our culture degrades.  We see the victims of degraded culture all around us.

Bad behavior also includes health-destroying activities like drug abuse, overeating, drinking, smoking, etc.  If we really wanted to improve the health of American citizens, perhaps we should spend the extra money (the trillions of dollars of money we don’t have) on programs designed to improve moral fitness.

Anyway, that’s all I have for now, just off the top of my head.  I suspect I have just scratched the surface.

Your loving but fearful uncle,

Fletcher

What does Christianity like in a culture that tolerates this?

Great piece by Rolley Haggard over at BreakPoint takes a sober look at the modern Church’s response to abortion:

• The Question That Will Define Us: What Does Christianity Look Like in a Culture That Kills Its Children?

Excerpt:

You remark to yourself that the Christians of this present generation could have spoken up, but they didn’t.

They could have regularly and passionately preached against this horrific evil, but they didn’t.

They could have prayed and marched and held vigils day and night, but they didn’t.

They could have voted and lobbied and advocated and cried aloud without ceasing, but they didn’t.

They could have written letters and held signs and stood outside abortion clinics day in and day out, but they didn’t.

They could have made it clear to their elected leaders, their neighbors, and perhaps most importantly to themselves, that here is an unspeakably great evil that cannot, that must not be tolerated. But they didn’t. By and large they didn’t.

And by their not doing what they could have done about this great evil, they committed an even greater evil, because they knew better than to let it happen and they let it happen anyway.

Link to full piece here.

Maggie Egger

CBR Project Director Maggie Egger shares a story from her recent GAP excursion to the University of South Florida

What about rape?

She was staring intently at the pictures when I approached her and asked what she thought of abortion.  She said “I’ve never really thought about it.  I don’t really have an opinion.”

I’d heard that so many times already that I already had my next question prepared.  “Well, can you maybe think of a hypothetical situation where you would think it was okay?”

She thought for a moment and then said, “In the case of rape, I think it would be up to the woman what she want’s to do.  I guess that would be the only time I would say it would be okay if that’s what she decided.”

I then gave her this hypothetical rape situation:  A married woman has consensual sex with her husband on Monday and then is violently raped on Tuesday.  She discovers she’s pregnant.  After discussing it all with her husband, they decide to continue with the pregnancy because there’s a possibility that the baby is her husband’s.  She gives birth, and then has a paternity test done.  They find out that the father is actually the rapist’s and not her husband’s.

I asked “Would it then be okay for her to kill the month-old infant?”

She replied, “Of course not!”

Then I countered, “So, what is the difference between the month-old infant and the 6-week embryo that makes it okay to kill one and not the other?”

That lead us to a discussion of fetal development and when life begins, as well as the harmful effects that abortion has on women, especially women who have already suffered the trauma of rape.

The conversation was slowing down a bit and she went back to looking at the pictures in front of her.  So I just came out and asked her again, “So what do you think about abortion?”

She paused for a minute, looked at the pictures again, looked at me and said, “Ya know, I guess there is no good reason to do that.”

Indeed.

“Now is a bad time.”

“How can I convince my pastor to engage on abortion?”

We hear that question all the time.  We have all asked that question, and we are down to only one answer, but we’ll need help doing it.  If you will help, please contact us.

Abortion cannot be outlawed in America without the massive involvement of Christians, both individually and corporately.  Christians, however, are massively uninvolved in this struggle.  After decades of futile attempts to mobilize the church, we see tokenism at best and indifference at worst.  We and many of our pro-life colleagues have tried in vain to establish a dialogue with countless Christian leaders who have ignored or rejected our requests for meetings.  The few who would meet with us have often temporized interminably or explicitly refused to adopt effective pro-life programs.

They might say that their church is “not ready” to deal with abortion in a meaningful way.  By “meaningful,” I mean showing abortion images, like Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor did recently.  The pastor’s willingness to simply show truth saved at least one baby that Sunday morning.  That’s what I’m talking about.  Anything less delivers babies to be killed, and we can prove it.

But most pastors don’t get to that point.  In fact, they aggressively avoid any discussion of it.  They are afraid.  Early in my pro-life career, I would contact “pro-life” pastors in Knoxville.  No more.  Here is the typical progression:

1. Pastor:  The timing is bad.   We’ve got Thanksgiving and Chistmas coming up, and we are busy with lots of stuff.  Please call back after the first of the year.
2. I’d call back.
3. Pastor:  We’ve got the Sweetheart Banquet coming up, and that’s a big deal at our church.  I’m tied up with that.  Please call back in late February.
4. I’d call back.
5. Pastor:  Our big Easter Cantata is coming up, and everybody is tied up with that.  Please call back after Easter.
6. I’d call back.
7. Pastor:  The timing is bad.  Everybody is gone for Spring Break.  We’ve got a mission trip coming up.  Folks are out of town.  Call back after that.
8. I’d call back.
9. Pastor:  It’s almost the end of the school year.  Our programs until then are set, so it’s too late to talk about abortion this year.  Please call me back at the beginning of the next school year, and we’ll do something.
10. I’d call back.
11. Pastor:  We’ve got a lot of stuff going on at the beginning of the school year.  And then it’s Fall Break soon and then Fall Festival after that.  Everybody is busy with that.  Call back after that.
12. I’d call back.
13. Pastor:  Woah!  The timing is bad.  We’ve got Thanksgiving and Chistmas coming up, and we are busy with lots of stuff.  Please call back after the first of the year.
14. I didn’t bother any more.  I’d rather be surrounded by a dozen screaming pro-aborts than to be burdened with one more apathetic and cowardly Christian “leader.”

The bottom line is this:  Babies are dying in the man’s church.  If he really cared, wouldn’t he do everything possible to save those babies’ lives?  Wouldn’t he beg every pro-life activist in this city to help him save the children in his own church?

But with your help, we can break through this apathy.  If you will help, please contact us.

The historic church response to injustice has been half-hearted and ineffective.

“Pro-life” Christian leaders routinely say abortion kills 1.2 million children every year in America, that it is a modern-day “holocaust” of epic proportions.  But has the response been anything more than ineffective half-measures, at best?  Is that a surprise?  Not if we look at how the Body of Christ responded to genocide against Jewish people and countless other crimes against humanity.  To our eternal shame, the church has often been more concerned with saving face than saving lives.  We can hear the heartbreak in the writings of reformers:

1.  What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,  Frederick Douglass, 1852 (TeachingAmericanHistory.org):

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery.  The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well of commission.

2.  Abolitionism and American Religion, McKivigan (Taylor and Francis, 1999):

… [E]xamination … [of evangelist Charles Grandison Finney’s] … theology and his antislavery activities reveals not only a firm commitment to abolitionism, but also a conviction that Christian indifference to slavery impeded the great work of spreading the gospel.

3.  Indifference of the Church to Child Labor Reform, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, 1910 (Sage Publications/American Academy of Political and Social Science):

… [I]t is a matter of no little surprise … to find the Church named among the forces described as antagonistic to child labor reform … [despite] what such a rich and powerful institution as the Church might do in the education and inspiration and direction of public opinion …

4.  International Handbook of Violence Research, Heitmeyer and Hagan (Springer, 2003) V. Coexisting with Violence:  The Bystanders, pp. 157 – 158:

Only a small minority of [German] Protestant Christians openly rejected the persecution of the Jews.  The weak resistance to the National Socialist persecution of the Jews was particularly apparent in the relative failure to assist Christians of Jewish descent, who, irrespective of their religious beliefs, were fully subjected to the persecutions …
* * *
… Germany’s Catholic bishops were unable to find the resolution to protest publicly against the persecution and murder of the Jews.

5.  Becoming Evil:  How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing, Jim Waller (Oxford University Press, 2002) author interview, Whitworth Today, Whitworth.edu, “Failing to Meet Christ’s Highest Ideals?”, Spring 2007, speaking of the response of religious institutions to the Holocaust, Rwandan genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina:

… [G]enocidal responses include sins of omission (silence and denial) and sins of commission (accommodation and active participation in killings).  In the Holocaust, church hierarchies followed their own narrowly defined best interests …  Such interests were best advanced by silence and denial, rather than by protest or heroism.

6.  The Anthropocentric Predisposition of Revivalism, inlightoftruth.com, J. Seth Wallace, 2004:

Even recently, years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Reinhold Niebuhr urged Billy Graham to preach more about racism in a country where revivalism prospered in the midst of this great sin that was as prevalent among the “born again” as those who were not.

7.  Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963:

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

… I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward.  I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings.  Over and over I have found myself asking:  ‘What kind of people worship here?  Who is their God?  Where were their voices … when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons …?’

8.  Message of the Month, R. C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries, April 2007:

Of the books that I’ve written, over fifty, the one that went out of print the fastest was the book I wrote [titled] The Case Against Abortion.  … [Y]ou couldn’t give it away.  And we would ask pastors, “why won’t you use this series?”  And we heard the same answer again and again …  “We can’t do that.  It will divide our church.”  Because our churches are as divided on this question as the nation is.

The church often seems preoccupied with other matters during times of great injustice.  Like the priest and Levite in Christ’s parable of The Good Samaritan, our inclination is to focus on our own agendas.  Of course, Christians say God has called them to these priorities.  But that assumption means one of two things concerning abortion:  Either (1) God doesn’t care enough about this slaughter to call His church to make it a high ministry priority or (2) He does care but His church is ignoring His call.  The priest and Levite might well have felt pity for the beating victim, but the Good Samaritan took pity on the beating victim.  James 2:16 says, “If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?”

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.  Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.  (Martin Luther,1483-1546).

CBR volunteers show what “family planning” looks like to NEA delegates.

On Monday morning, July 1st, delegates of the National Education Association’s (NEA) annual assembly were in for an eyeful as they made their way to the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

CBR volunteers from all over Georgia stood at the intersection of Andrew Young International Boulevard and Marietta Street with CBR’s handheld “Choice” signs, which depict images of early-term aborted fetuses. Our group’s positions were adjusted throughout the morning to adapt to changing traffic patterns.

CBR was working alongside other pro life organizations, including Georgia Right to Life (GRTL) and Pro Life Educators of America (PLEA), to bring a message to the NEA: adopt a neutral position on abortion.

“We are not asking the NEA delegates to do a one-eighty and change our union’s abortion position and activism to being pro-life,” said Bob Pawson, Director of PLEA and  NEA member, “We are asking that our union be verifiably neutral and totally non-involved regarding abortion. And stop hiding their advocacy behind euphemistic language such as ‘reproductive freedom’ or ‘all methods of family planning,’” Pawson said.

CBR works to effectively dismantle such euphemisms. While other pro life advocates used text signs to exhort the NEA to neutralize it’s pro-abortion position, the graphic pictures we used showed exactly what certain methods of “reproductive freedom” and “family planning” do to unborn children (and future students).

The Truth Truck made several rounds in front of the CNN News Center in Atlanta.

NEA members were also shown the true meaning of these genteel phrases by billboard-sized abortion images on CBR’s “Truth Truck.” Our truck made rounds in the Georgia World Congress Center vicinity throughout the mornings and afternoons of July 1 and July 2, insuring that as many NEA delegates as possible would be exposed to the brutality that their union’s official resolution currently supports.

“Normally, in America’s news media, when citizens hear or read press reports about teacher unions and picketing, it is the union DOING the picketing; usually demanding more money. This event is one of those unusual instances in which the NEA Teacher Union is the TARGET OF PICKETING; ironically, by NEA members, taxpayer-parents, and students. The very constituencies which the NEA leadership touts itself as supposedly serving,” said Pawson.

While we received some of the usual irate responses, several passersby paused to observe and ask questions about the images. One driver, a young African-American woman, rolled down her window to address one of our volunteers when stopped at the traffic light:

“Excuse me, is that a real picture?”

“Yes, it is”

“Awe.” She was audibly saddened by what she saw.

Much conversation was overheard among pedestrians regarding abortion and the NEA’s stance on abortion. While some doubted that the NEA took a pro abortion stance, others indicated that they were previously unaware of the fact before encountering the message being shown to them. Pro life NEA members in particular expressed appreciation of CBR’s message and our assistance in reforming the teacher’s union.

For more on the NEA’s position, please see http://www.grtl.org/?q=NEA-pro-abortion-tendencies

Submitted by: Lincoln Brandenburg

Live Action has just released the next installment of their Inhuman series.  This one focuses on late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart.  Press release here.  More links here.  Entire series here.

The video below captures Carhart explaining to a patient on how he will kill her “baby” (his term).

Patient:  I feel it moving now.

Carhart: After 20 weeks, it should be. … Within an hour of the injection [into the baby’s heart], you shouldn’t feel it moving anymore.

Patient: What do you use to break [the baby] up [into pieces]?

Carhart: A pickaxe, a drill bit … (laughter).