Teen attitudes about sex are changing, and the news ain’t good.  Chuck Colson says that progress has stalled …”

… because contemporary sexual education and efforts to prevent teen pregnancy are constrained by two very bad ideas: the first is a strong aversion to telling kids that sex outside of marriage is wrong. … The other bad idea is treating teens like adults who, armed with “the facts,” will make the right choices. Any neurologist or social scientist or parent of a teenager will tell you that this isn’t so.

Read his full commentary and/or listen here.

Gov. Christie is pro-life, but that wasn’t always the case.  A few years ago, he was a pro-choice Republican.  But in the late 1990s, he accepted an invitation to meet with Morris Co. Right to Life President (now CBR director) Bill Calvin and CBR Executive Director Gregg Cunningham.  During this meeting, Christie saw prenatal development video and CBR’s graphic abortion video (Harder Truth, replaced now by Choice Blues).  He asked a lot of questions.  The impact of this meeting was reinforced later that year, when the first of his 4 children was born.

Fast-forward to 2009, when Christie put on his campaign website, “I am pro-life.  Hearing the strong heartbeat of my unborn daughter 14 years ago at 13 weeks gestation had a profound effect on me and my beliefs …”

The abortion video is the key.  I’ve seen it work, over and over again, with all kinds of people, in all kinds of settings.  I pledge to you that I will never endorse nor support any candidate for any office (below President) who will not first watch with me a graphic abortion video.  (Choice Blues is available on DVD and by streaming.)

In the video below, Gov. Christie is talking about the teachers’ union.  It’s not about pro-life, but it is awesome.  His strength gives me hope for America.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksLlAi3iIc

What do you think about Gov. Christie?  Please comment below.  And please send this link to your friends and ask them to comment as well!

Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 21. Former US Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, will speak at the Tennessee Right to Life banquet at the Knoxville Convention Center.  There will be a special reception at 5:00 pm with the dinner starting at 6:30 pm.  Tickets are available for both events.

Santorum was a pro-life champion in the Senate.  In addition to his position as Senior Fellow at The Ethics and Public Policy Center, he is also a columnist, radio host, and Fox News contributor.  He is considering a run at President.  A father of 7 children, he authored the 2005 best seller It Takes a Family.

For more information, contact Tennessee Right to Life, Knox County Chapter at trlknox@knology.net or 865.689.1339.

What do you think about Mr. Santorum’s chances to be elected President?  Do you think he should run?  Please comment below!

Truth truck redefined | pro-life pictures on display

Here’s an idea from our Florida Operations.  It only takes a few minutes to convert an old VW van to a life saving education project, suitable for any outdoor pro-life event.  Or even a drive down the road!  Mike Schrimsher tells us how to do it:

We used 3 “S” hooks (like are used at each end of a bungie cord) to hang the signs from the rain gutter on each side of the van and removed the center aluminum post from each sign because it created an awkward pivot point. Other than the 6 hooks at the top, there were only 4 points of contact with the van, the 2 side posts on each sign and we used foam pipe insulation as a cushion to prevent scratches from rubbing at those spots. We could have also used rubber-coated hooks to cushion the contact points in the rain gutters. Maybe next time. We completed the process with one long bungie cord stretched under the van and attached to the center of both bottom sign rails and 4 short bungie cords were used to attach each bottom sign corner to the underside of the van. The sign did not begin to budge at all, even at 45-50 mph.
The best part was it only took about 5 minutes to assemble and take down the whole contraption and everything fits inside the vehicle. It’s like the VW van and 4×8 GAP signs were made for each other.

Check out this video of a TV news report about our Canadian CBR pro-life colleagues.  They are in Lethbridge, Alberta.  The TV report actually shows the abortion pictures very clearly in this report.

More and more, we are seeing post-abortive women who embrace the use of abortion pictures to encourage others not to abort.  Such was the message from McKenzie Haun in this story.

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

Billboard challenge to church pastors.

There have been a number of pro-life billboards pop up in Knoxville over the past couple of months.  This is my favorite.  It’s at the junction of I-40 and I-640 (west end), visible from eastbound I-40.

It is clear to us at CBR that the church has ample resources to stop abortion.  Yet you’d be hardpressed to find more than one or two churches in Knoxville that initiate any pro-life activity.

Every year, “pro-life” churches in the Knoxville area spend multiple millions of dollars to improve the production value of our music on Sunday morning.  These same churches spend only a few thousand dollars to stop abortion, barely enough to salve the conscience.  We spend thousands of paid staff hours organizing hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours on elaborate music programming, but we spend almost zero staff hours organizing almost nothing to stop the killing.

I’ve searched the scriptures diligently, and I find no instance where God chastened His people because their music wasn’t good enough.  Yet God judged His own chosen people (Israel) because they were killing their own children:

[Because the inhabitants of Jerusalem have worshiped false Gods and burned their children in the fire as offerings to Baal] … I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies … and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. … I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters [in the siege].  (Jeremiah 19: 4-9)

Even as 1 in 5 women who aborts her pregnancy identifies herself as an “evangelical” or “born-again” Christian (which means 1 in 5 men are also aborting their children), the church does little or nothing to stop the killing, even among their own members.  If you want to stop the killing in your own church, check this out.  Or this.

You probably haven’t heard of Andrea Bocelli.  He plays piano and sings.  Apparently, he’s right popular in some parts of the world.  Probably not on the Opry.  Anyhow, his mom was advised to abort him many years ago.  They said he would be disabled.  He tells his story below and sings a bit.

Course, he ain’t no Ronnie Milsap, but he plays pretty good.  He ain’t from round here neither, and I can’t understand a word he says, so I asked my buddy Capt. James T. Kirk to bring his universal translator over to the house.  (You know, the one that makes Klingons and Romulans sound like they grew up in Kansas.)  Anyhow, the audio was broke, so all we got were subtitles.  Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QfKCGTfn3o

Gary Johnson and the photos that saved Suzanne's baby.

Got a voice mail today from Suzanne (not her real name), a grateful mother who saw one of CBR’s hand-held “Choice” signs.  She was on her way into an abortion clinic when she saw the two signs that CBR supervolunteer Gary Johnson displays at one of the clinics every Friday morning.

Gary has seen many moms turn around and leave the clinic after seeing abortion photos.  But this time, Suzanne walked over and thanked him for showing her the truth.  Gary gave her my number, so she called and left this message:

Fletcher, my name is Suzanne.  I was going to get an abortion today.  But I saw your pictures and I changed my mind.  So, I guess you helped save my baby’s life.  And you saved mine, too.  But I just want to say thank you for those pictures.  That was just horrible.  I couldn’t do it.  Thank you.  Please pray for me.

She was thanking Gary and me, and we are thanking you.  This is an eternal victory.  Because of your support, Satan was defeated in Knoxville today.  Suzanne’s baby was saved.  Thank you for supporting CBR.  And please pray for Suzanne and her baby.

To save more babies and moms like Suzanne, can I count you you to help?  Please click here to make a tax-deductible contribution!

There’s a very good article on our website by Gregg Cunningham, Executive Director of CBR:

Eternal Security for Infants: Illogical Indifference for Pastors

by Gregg Cunningham

One of the most common heresies committed by pastors who attempt to evade responsibility for defending life is to trivialize abortion on grounds that “aborted babies go to Heaven anyway.” Pastor Rick Warren, one of America’s most outspokenly pro-life clerics, made repeated resort to this argument when I challenged him to do more to fight abortion at Saddleback Church. Steve Douglas, now head of Campus Crusade for Christ, said the same thing in precisely the same words when I pressed him to do more to stop abortion. This bizarre theory is now endemic in the Body of Christ.  [more here]

UW sophomore and GAP organizer Marc Snyder debates with a fellow student over issues raised by the organization's display in Red Square. (Photo from the Daily of the University of Washington)

CBR is at the University of Washington with our Genocide Awareness Project.  You can read the story in the student paper here.

I’m always amazed at some of the incoherent responses to GAP that I read in student newspapers.  I’m slow to blame the students who are quoted, however, for several reasons.  First, I can tell you from experience that journalists don’t always get the quotes right.  I’ve been badly misquoted in the past, not out of malice, but because of a lack of journalistic experience and skill.  Second, as any car salesman will tell you, so many people resort to emotions rather than reason.  (That’s one reason we must use pictures, in addition to reason, to present the pro-life message.)  Third, so many of these students have suffered from lack of diversity all their lives.  The university has exposed them to the full range of political thought in America, from far left to extreme far left.  They’ve never been required to read “right-wing” documents like the US Constitution, the Federalist Papers, or anything else that might lead them to question leftist thought.  They are encouraged to read only left-leaning publications like Newsweek, NY Times, or even the far-left Huffington Post.

At the bottom of the story, there is opportunity for readers to comment.  For commenter Benny, click here for an article detailing when the medical community (and even pro-choice philosophers) say that human life begins.

I had to laugh at the suggestion that we pay for our campus work with the proceeds of lawsuits.  (Who say’s pro-life work can’t be fun?!)  I can assure you that we get zero funding from lawsuits.  We need your help, now as much as ever.  If only 20 people support our work as faithfully as you support cable TV, we can visit one additional campus every year.  If you are not supporting our work monthly, please sign up for a monthly amount equal to your cable TV bill!  According to Fr. Pavone, you will be saving lives like nothing the pro-life movement has ever seen!

Here is a story on internet censorship in Australia.  As it turns out, Austrailians are pursuing a policy that blocks not only porn websites, but also websites with “objectionable” political material.  Among those are CBR’s website and another website that features CBR’s abortion photos.

WARNING: this TV news story includes graphic depictions of porn websites that you wouldn’t see on American TV.  You can miss the porn images and see the part of the story that deals with CBR’s website and abortion images by going to the 31:45-to-34:30 segment of the story.  For the story, click here.

Some observations:

1. Abortion advocates know they can’t defend abortion in any population which has seen abortion.  So, they will simply ensure that the public doesn’t see it.
2. We should always be suspicious of government power.  Christians and pro-lifers offer unpopular messages, and there are many among us who would use the power of government to block those messages.  (Alinsky-ites like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi would stop at nothing to advance their agenda; if you doubt it, read Chapter 2 of their handbook, Rules for Radicals.)
3. Exercising raw bureaucratic power in Australia, they censored pro-life websites without even letting the pro-lifers know, much less giving them a chance to appeal.  (The Dems want to turn your health care, the internet, talk radio, etc. over to bureaucrats just like this.)
4. Note the anger directed at the pro-life campaigner: rocks being thrown, posters being torn down, etc.  People will always get more angry at us for showing the pictures of dead children than angry at the abortion doctors for killing the children.  That’s why we always videotape our pro-life activities and encourage you to do the same.
5. Mr. Grace’s campaign posters urged defense of unborn children but used photos of born children.  The whole problem is that the public doesn’t believe that killing an unborn child is the moral equivalent of killing a born child.  His campaign posters stated conclusions about abortion but the photos used on those posters did not prove the facts which support and even compel those conclusions.  We of course appreciate his use of abortion images on his website.

ProLifeOnCampus at Cal State Long Beach

CBR displayed the Genocide Awareness Project for two days at California State University at Long Beach for two days in May.  The photo to the right appeared on the front page of the student newspaper.  You can’t buy that kind of advertising!

Go to ProLifeOnCampus.com for more information.

It was a lively interview, to say the least.  Yesterday, I was interviewed by Stu Epperson on Truth Talk Live, a Christian radio talk show heard nationally.  The thesis of my presentation was that if you are not regularly (annually?) showing aborted-baby photos in your church (in an age-appropriate manner, of course), you are allowing babies to die that could have been saved.  Link to our page on TruthTalkLive.  For the interview itself, link to this page and click on “How Far Should We Go In Fighting For Life.”  You can also link to the Facebook page. 

One in every five women who aborts her pregnancy identifies herself as a born-again or evangelical Christian. That’s 250,000 abortions every year, just in the evangelical church alone. Add to that the hundreds of thousands of abortions committed on Catholics and other mainline Protestants who wouldn’t identify themselves using that term. Many are having abortions, not because they are evil, but because the truth of abortion has been hidden from them; and their pastors, elders, deacons, etc. are just as guilty of the coverup as Planned Parenthood.

What about rape? It’s one of the most popular questions they ask us. The question is often an attempt to prove that pro-lifers are either (a) insensitive “fetus lovers” who don’t care about women, or (b) ethically inconsistent, allowing abortion in some cases but not in others.  I’ve just written an article about it on our website.  Click here to check it out.

By the way, my answer consists of 6 steps, and I’m looking for an acronym that will help us all remember the 6 steps in the correct order.  (For example, SLED helps us remember size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependancy.)  Let me know if you think of anything!