It is a wonderful time to be a member of the leftist Death Cult. There were four major news items from the baby-killing department just this week. You probably heard about three of them. Maybe not the fourth.

First, the Supreme Court ruled that abortionists have the absolute God-given right to kill babies in unsanitary, unsafe and unregulated pseudo-medical clinics.

Second, the Supreme Court sided with a Washington state law that forces Christian pharmacists to dispense abortion pills.

Third, alleged comedian Chelsea Handler wrote an article in Playboy discussing her own abortion experience. She explained how she once had two abortions in the same year. She said she’s “grateful” for her abortions and she doesn’t “look back” or think at all about her two dead children. They would have been very financially inconvenient, she reasoned, therefore it’s a great blessing that they were violently destroyed.

As post-abortive women in denial often do, she compensated for her feelings of intense guilt by thumping her chest and congratulating herself. She insisted that she should be “applauded” for aborting her kids because she would have been a bad parent – which, by the way, is a bit like blowing up your kitchen because you’re afraid you might be a bad cook. Handler also pointed out that there are 7.3 billion people in the world, making it “smart” and “sustainable” to exterminate surplus babies. She ended her essay/murder confession on a triumphantly feminist note: “I’d love for somebody to try to tell me what to do with my body,” she declared. “I dare them.”

Unsurprisingly, the left was enamored with Handler’s tale of fetal destruction and bloodshed. They called it “incredibly honest” and “brave” and “bold” and  ”optimistic.” Her words were a “truth bomb,” they squealed. Her experience is “a demonstration of the importance of self-determination,” they cried. And so forth. You get the idea.

Now, keep all three of these stories in mind as we move to the fourth.

On Monday, right around the time that the Supreme Court was reaffirming a woman’s divine right to kill her baby, a judge in Ohio was sentencing a woman to life in prison without parole for doing exactly that. Emile Weaver, a former college student, now faces decades behind bars for killing her newborn daughter after giving birth to her in the bathroom of her sorority house.

The details are horrific but relevant to the discussion. Weaver became pregnant and apparently decided early on that she wasn’t going to keep the baby. She proceeded to spend her pregnancy drinking and smoking pot and playing dodge ball. She wasn’t worried about the child’s health because she knew she’d get rid of it eventually. One can assume that her unborn daughter – unaware that her mother’s womb was death row – suffered greatly as she awaited her execution.

For whatever reason, Weaver never aborted the baby while it was still inside her. She waited until she was born and placed her in a trash bag and tossed her outside. Seemingly quite satisfied with herself, she then calmly texted “No more baby” to the girl’s father. “Taken care of,” she continued to reassure him.

Weaver could have gotten as little as 20 years in prison, but the judge threw the book at her just like she threw her precious child into the trash. He decided not to give her the discount she may have expected as a young blond sorority girl. He elected to hand her the same sentence he’s probably handed other first degree murderers. Considering her callous premeditation and utter disregard for human life, it’s hard to argue with the judge’s decision.

But it’s even harder to ignore the connection between this story and the other three I outlined. Taken together, the questions they raise are obvious: Why is a woman sitting in prison for killing a baby in the same country that proclaims baby murder as the sacred right of all women? Why is Weaver branded a killer in the same country that brands Handler a hero? What are the actual moral and scientific differences between Weaver’s choice, which our culture considers criminal, and Handler’s choice, which our culture celebrates as empowering and liberating?

The answer, of course, is clear: There is no real difference. A couple of minutes is all that separates abortion from infanticide. If Weaver had simply been in a different place and gotten there a little earlier and used a different method to “take care of” her problem, she would be getting high-fives on Twitter rather than pat-downs at the big house. If that bathroom had been a clinic, if that trash bag had been a medical waste container, if the baby had been poisoned instead of suffocated, Weaver would be writing a self-congratulary essay for a feminist website rather than filing a motion with the court of appeals.

There are a million abortions in this country every year, and at least 11,000 late-term abortions. What Weaver did was a minute away from both of those statistics. If she’d just gotten around to carrying out her murderous plot one minute earlier, she’d be counted as another courageous feminist warrior, not as another inmate on cell block B.

We should note that there are people in this country who perform late-term abortions for a living. These champions of women’s rights were highlighted in a sympathetic documentary a couple of years ago. They’re invited to speak at colleges and feminist conferences. Yet they have, hundreds and thousands of times, done exactly what Weaver did, only they happen to (usually) do it while the fully-formed and developed child is in the womb. But so what? What difference does that really make?

Consider, too, that the penalties for performing illegal partial birth abortions – a method of abortion where the child is killed as it is in the process of being delivered – are quite minor. A doctor who kills a baby when almost its entire body is hanging outside of the mother’s birth canal faces the possibility of fines. Meanwhile, a woman who kills a baby a second after the head comes out of her birth canal faces life in prison. On what moral or scientific principle can we justify that sort of disparity? It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about this for even a moment that either that doctor is just as guilty as that mother, or that mother is just as innocent as that doctor.

Let’s go back to Handler’s heroic Playboy editorial. You recall that she offered three rationales for her decision to kill two children in a single year. Weaver could qualify under all three:

1. The world is overpopulated.

If the the mythological overpopulation of the Earth makes abortion “smart” and “sustainable,” surely it makes post-birth abortion just as smart and just as sustainable. In fact, it makes all murder smart and sustainable, especially the most efficient forms of it. Genocidal dictators, terrorists, and serial killers have done far more to solve the overpopulation problem than Handler. Why should she get all the credit? If Handler can be “applauded” for terminating two human beings in the name of environmental sustainability, surely Pol Pot deserves a standing ovation.

Weaver did not contribute as much to the depopulation effort as either Handler or Pol Pot, but pro-aborts should still be grateful for her modest effort. And they certainly shouldn’t support locking her in prison for it.

2. She would be a bad parent.

If the possibility of being a “bad parent” can justify abortion in the womb, obviously it can justify abortion outside of the womb. Weaver was a reckless, selfish, cruel and immature sorority girl. If she can’t make a claim to being a bad mother, or a potentially bad mother, nobody can. So if any woman can kill her child because of the potential of being a bad mother, why can’t she? Why should the return policy end at birth? As a matter of fact, why should it end at any point?

After all, a mother doesn’t really know what kind of parent she’ll be when the child is still inside her. She still doesn’t know a second or two postpartum. But what about a mother who has actually given it a go and realized through experience that she’s simply not cut out for this whole mothering deal? Why should she be forced to continue in the endeavor indefinitely? Why did Handler get to kill a kid because she might be a bad mother, but actual bad mothers can’t? Weaver gave birth to her daughter, looked in her eyes, and still felt no desire to care for her. Why should she be forced into it if Handler wasn’t? Again, what is the moral and scientific reasoning behind imposing motherhood on one woman but not on the other?

3. She can do what she wants with her body.

If Handler can kill her kids because it’s her body and she can do what she wants, why couldn’t Weaver? Remember, Weaver faced a stiffer sentence because she drank and smoked and played violent sports while carrying a baby in her womb. But she made those choices with her body, didn’t she? Shouldn’t pro-choicers be outraged that this poor woman is being persecuted for using her body as she saw fit? The baby didn’t even count as a legal person while Weaver was poisoning it with liquor and drugs. Why should it be held against her?

And after the child was born, Weaver still retained “autonomy,” did she not? She didn’t even kill the kid directly. She simply put it in a bag and refused to do anything for it. By pro-abortion logic, why should she be forced? Why should she be compelled to use her body to hold the child, carry it, feed it, clothe it, etc.?

Yes, she could have put her daughter up for adoption. She could have even surrendered her at a hospital rather than kill her. But that requires her to use her body, doesn’t it? She has to make phone calls, drive somewhere, probably fill out some forms. Worst of all, in the mean time she’d still have to provide some basic care, entirely against her will as a sovereign and independent woman. Newborn babies are very delicate and require immediate, hands-on attention. If they don’t receive that attention, they’ll die. The law requires a mother give that attention, but on what basis? The thing is just a few breaths removed from being an inhuman blob of cells. How important can it really be? And at any rate, how can an autonomous woman be turned into the thing’s slave?

How can we coerce a mother into physically – with her body – tending to the child if we cannot coerce her into simply remaining pregnant for a few months. I have it on good authority from virtually every woman I’ve ever heard speak on the subject that caring for a newborn is infinitely more difficult and demanding than being pregnant. Why should the harder job be required if the easier one is not? If a woman can be judge, jury and executioner of her unborn progeny, why should she lose that authority upon delivery? Why should her godlike powers over life and death end at her vagina? Why are feminists limiting themselves in this way?

Liberals should be outraged by Weaver’s conviction and sentence. She did exactly what millions of other women have done, and she did it for exactly the same reason. They ought to rally to her defense. They ought to be condemning this judge – this man judge – for daring to question the difficult choice a woman had to make. There ought to be #JusticeForEmile hashtags. Liberals ought to be taking pictures of themselves looking somber and holding signs that say “Bring Back Emile” and “Free Weaver” and “Emile’s Body Emile’s Choice.” Liberal politicians ought to be championing her cause. Hillary Clinton ought to be coming ferociously to Weaver’s defense, explaining how her oppression is an oppression of all women everywhere.

I just want liberals to be consistent. I want them to approach this issue with their eyes all the way open, which is something most of them have never done. I want them to accept the unavoidable reality that what happened in the sorority bathroom is the same as what happens in abortion clinics every day. They are identical situations. You cannot escape it it. You cannot deny it.

I want them to confront the awful fact that every argument they make in favor of abortion also applies to infanticide. I want them to see that the arguments are the same because the actions are the same. Then I want them finally to decide if they can really remain on the side of the argument that justifies, whether inadvertently or inadvertently, the first degree murder of infants.

And if they find that they can – if their conscience is so dead that they can actually take their abortion logic to its reasonable conclusion without wincing – then let them go out and make their case. But let them make it honestly for a change. Let them come out and show themselves. Let them become unabashed defenders of violence and brutality. If we cannot drive the Devil out of this country, at least we can strip off his mask.

This article was originally published in The Blaze.

Mainstream Media are master stagers, adept at slick productions edited to create the cultural scene, the public perception of their desiring.

In the world of stratospheric real estate, stagers move in furnishings and artwork, paint, light candles, bake bread or cookies — everything possible to touch the emotions of potential buyers and elicit a sale.

In the world of what poses as journalism, the authors and pundits selectively edit and present the news through the Leftist lens, such that Americans at large consume not facts, but ideologies.

If you had to ask John Doe on the street, “What issues are most important to Millennials?” their answers based on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, etc., would most likely be climate change, “choice,” LGBT and marriage equality issues, and marijuana legalization. Alas, John D. would be wrong.

Oh, Obama and his cohorts keep lambasting us with the “Climate Change is the biggest threat to mankind!” rhetoric.

Modern day climate and ecology tyrants exemplify Romans 1:

²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

The President is unable to utter the words “radical Islamic terrorism” in the same sentence and in that order. And yet, our POTUS recites ad nauseam the LGBTQ mantra of Pride! Does Pres. Obama realize his words confirm more verses in Romans 1?

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

President Obama proclaims “Islam is a religion of peace!” and the Islamic call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

The Left’s secular, Socialist indoctrination of America and her youth marches on, driven by education elites and the media.

And yet, despite this ever present Climate and Sexual Perversion Propaganda, millennials march to a slightly different beat.

A recent Ipsos study of 2016 election issue concerns which surveyed “1,141 adults age 18-34 from the continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii” returned strikingly unexpected results. Ipsos is a global market research company with worldwide headquarters in Paris, France.

Look closely at the chart below which lists the “most important issues for the next President of the United States to prioritize”:

Notice that Climate Change is number 9, Abortion number 13, Marijuana number 12 and LGBTQ issues number 13.

Those results are slightly heartening and would be more so were it not for MSM’s wholesale silence on the survey. All we hear in the ethernet and on broadcast news are the proverbial crickets of verboten knowledge.

Also of note, on page six of the report, 57 percent of the respondents either strongly or somewhat agree that “Terrorism fueled by religious extremism is a bigger threat than gun violence” and 58 percent either strongly or somewhat agree that “The government should protect the Second Amendment right of all Americans to buy guns if they want to.”

What this report and these results mean is there is hope!

With all of The Left’s high-powered marketing, glitzy Hollywood production, and monopoly of the broadcast news and education establishment, they still have not completely eradicated independent thought and values. Millennials do not quite yet walk in Progressive lockstep.

Conservatives and Christians, for the most part, are about 100 years late to the culture war Progressives (née Socialists/Marxists) have been waging via every possible societal gatekeeper.

What now?

Time to wake up. Time for each and every Conservative, every Bible-believing Christian to make haste and dive headlong into the fray. There are hearts and souls, and ultimately the future of our beloved nation in the balance.

We must use our time and our money to reach those whose hearts have not yet hardened to the truth of Psalm 32:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

We must remind each American of the precepts of the Founders, which were the precepts of the Bible. We must implement superior marketing to message the sanctity of life and natural marriage, and every other value we hold dear.

Conservatism is no fad, no flash in the pan. It is a time-tested worldview tempered by biblical principles, principles which, when acted upon result in life and abundant life for individuals, families, and nations.

Mainstream Media has staged its Progressive Production; time for Conservatives to shatter that evil facade and deliver the truth that could rescue not only Millennials, but all of America.

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Written by Casey Mattox

Whether you’re a painter, pastor, lawyer, or laborer (pro-life or pro-abortion), you work for Planned Parenthood. A portion of every paycheck goes to the world’s leading abortion business through the federal and state taxes allocated by your elected representatives and the unelected bureaucrats they empower.

For the fiscal year ending in June 2015 (just before the Center for Medical Progress videos were released), over $550 million of your hard-earned tax dollars went to Planned Parenthood.

But the states are taking the lead to end this forced partnership with “Big Abortion” and redirecting those funds to providers that better serve women and families.

Since the authenticated Center for Medical Progress videos were released showing Planned Parenthood officials bartering over the prices of baby body parts, 15 states have taken action to end or limit its taxpayer subsidies.

Here are just a few examples of what state legislatures and governors have done:

• New Hampshire canceled over $600,000 in annual state grants to Planned Parenthood.
• Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas moved to exclude Planned Parenthood from the states’ Medicaid programs “for cause,” citing its waste, abuse and potential fraud and the evidence of violations of the law and ethics demonstrated in the Center for Medical Progress videos.
• Wisconsin and Arizona have slashed the Medicaid reimbursement for certain drugs for entities like Planned Parenthood that receive them at artificially low rates under a federal government program, denying them windfall profits and making those funds available to more women and families.
• Ohio, Florida, Utah and Wisconsin have also eliminated Planned Parenthood from other federal and state grant programs administered by the state.

These actions have potentially eliminated tens of millions in annual taxpayer subsidies going to Planned Parenthood. This represents a small part of the hundreds of millions that it receives, but it is a solid start. And these efforts may at least cut into the $59 million in “excess revenue” the abortion outfit reported last year alone.

States have fought to defund the abortion industry before, but never has the effort to rid American taxpayers of their compelled support of Planned Parenthood been more purposeful and effective than the past several months.

Even Congress has heard the call to stop the flow of taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood. Just five years ago, an effort to defund Planned Parenthood garnered only 42 votes in the Senate. But moved by the evidence against Planned Parenthood and the fact that other providers are simply better public health options for women and families, in January, Congress actually placed a bill on the president’s desk slashing Planned Parenthood’s access to our tax dollars.

The bill wasn’t perfect, and it was of course vetoed by President Barack Obama, but the progress is real. A different president, one not beholden to an entity that alone has spent tens of millions of dollars to elect him and others who will defend their access to the public trough, would make the difference.

But just as the states are not waiting on Congress to pass laws limiting abortions after five months, when the unborn child can feel pain, they are also not content to wait on Congress to finally stop their citizens’ tax dollars from going to the abortion industry. Governors and state legislators have worked to redirect our tax dollars away from the abortion industry before, but in the last 10 months they have shown a new leadership that should encourage pro-lifers and any advocate of federalism.

No one ever said that eliminating taxpayer subsidies to the abortion market leader and a key political friend to Democratic candidates would be easy. Planned Parenthood has sued several states, and the ultimate success of some states in defunding it may rest on the election of a pro-life president who will support their authority to make their own decisions about their state Medicaid programs.

But the results of the last 10 months should give us hope that this is a fight we can win. We don’t have to keep sending our hard-earned tax dollars to support a billion dollar abortion business. And the leaders in that fight are outside the beltway.

This article was originally published at DailySignal.com.

Leftists in our leftist-controlled state are seeking to amend the “Health Care Right of Conscience” law so as to deny the right of conscience of medical professionals who oppose feticide, artificial contraception, and certain end-of-life protocols that intentionally and prematurely end lives.

Senate Bill 1564 (SB 1564) has passed both houses in Springfield, and as soon as Illinois Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) sends it to Governor Bruce Rauner, he will have 60 days to decide if he will sign it into law or veto it.

This law would, for example, compel medical professionals who oppose feticide to help women find abattoirs and doctors committed to the practice of feticide. And this law would undermine the free exercise of religion by forcing those medical professionals whose commitment to life derives from their faith—including those who work in pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.

IFI is hearing the usual irrational arguments from leftists about choice and the inability of society to agree on when the “product of conception” becomes human and/or is entitled not to be exterminated. Leftists say that because there is no consensus about when the product of conception between two humans becomes a human and/or deserves protection, the government should allow each individual to decide for herself. Ironically, leftists believe that each individual doctor should be legally prohibited from making a similar decision and acting in accordance with that decision.

A rational society cannot rationally encode in law the proposition that the product of conception between two humans is at once human and not human or at once deserving of the right merely to exist and undeserving of the right merely to exist. When leftists proclaim that every woman should have the right to decide whether to end the life of the product of conception between two humans that is growing within her, they must have concluded either that the life being nourished is not human–which is objectively false–or that it is undeserving of protection. To say it matters not whether feticide is practiced or not makes them sound eerily like Stephen Douglas who said he didn’t care whether slavery was voted up or down.

Some years ago, Northwestern University law professor Andrew Koppelman expressed his desire that abortion be rare. If the growing things being nourished by women’s bodies are not human or are so devoid of personhood as to be undeserving of constitutional protection, why wish their destruction to be rare?

If, as the left claims, there is uncertainty about when the product of conception between two humans becomes human, how ghastly it is to err on the side that presumes it becomes a person at birth (or at some other arbitrary point) and then one day discover they were wrong.

As a thought experiment, imagine a law that compelled Americans in the antebellum South who knew that African Americans were humans equal in all respects to whites to facilitate slavery. Oh, wait, we don’t have to imagine it. With the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Democrats sought–as they are seeking now–to force Americans to violate their consciences in the service of a grievous moral injustice that denies a group of weak, vulnerable humans their dignity, their freedom, and their rights.

Until the day when Americans restore moral sanity to our legal and cultural landscape by recognizing that the unborn have a right to be protected from the merciless and lethal assaults of abortionists, our laws should at least protect the rights of those who cannot, will not, and should not be forced to facilitate evil.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to Illinois Governor Rauner, urging him to uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois.  Ask him to veto SB 1564 and the tyranny it represents.

After you send an email, please also call the Governor’s office at (217) 782-0244 or (312) 814-2121. Once you’ve done this, please pray that Gov. Rauner and his staff will understand how coercive and unjust this legislation is.

Thank you!

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Written by Ericka Andersen

When faced with the reality of the abortion procedure, many people who are pro-choice change their minds instantly. A video put out by Live Action shows former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levantino describing and showing the process of a second-trimester (13-24 weeks of pregnancy) surgical abortion procedure. Dr. Levantino has preformed over 1,200 abortions and explains in detail how babies are ripped apart limb by limb in these procedures.

Live Action approached people on the street and asked them if they were pro-choice. To those that said yes, even up to the point of birth, they showed Dr. Levantino’s video of the procedure. After watching the video, the people who claimed to be pro-choice changed their minds on the spot. They admitted they were unaware of how developed babies are at this point in pregnancy and described the video as “inhumane.”

Watch the reactions here:

America’s views on life are changing for the better as science and technology reveal the fascinating stages of life babies progress through from the moment of conception. Videos like this one are helping to change the debate and show uninformed individuals what it is they actually profess to believe in when they say they support pro-choice policies. Seeing the reality of abortion on it’s face makes people — like those in this video — oppose it outright. Exposing the brutal inhumanity of the abortion procedure may be the most powerful way to change minds and stop this tragic holocaust of children. Here’s the abortion-procedure video the participants in the film were shown that changed their minds on the spot:

Article originally published at NationalReview.com.

It’s one of those issues that many lawmakers and perhaps even Governor Bruce Rauner don’t want you to think about. That is, state taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. But life activists are keeping Planned Parenthood on the moral and political radar with protests that call attention to the organization’s big abortion business which includes the harvesting and sale of aborted baby body parts. And just think, its all subsidized by your paycheck.

Written by Ralph Rivera

Another anti-family abortion-related bill, HB 887 (Amendment 1), passed out of the House Human Services Committee yesterday – the same committee that killed common-sense pro-life bills and a bill to protect students’ privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms (HB 4474), to name just a few.

Sponsored by State Representative Ann Williams (D-Chicago), HB 887 would amend various insurance codes, to keep a policyholder with a family plan from knowing that others are getting “sensitive health services” related to “reproductive health, including, but not limited to, family planning, maternity, abortion, fertility, transgender-related care, and HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infection services.”

If passed, this legislation would undermine the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act and limit the ability of parents to protect and raise their minor children as well as their adult children within the family insurance policy.

It requires health insurance providers to:

“permit individuals to request…communications of protected health information [e.g. abortions, transgender-related care] by alternative means or at alternative locations [e.g. mail, phone, or electronically].” 

“[A]ll protected health information…should be withheld by the health insurance provider or redirected to a specified mail or electronic mail address or specified telephone number…”

Proponents of this legislation have admitted that its intent is to keep policyholders from knowing what immoral procedures and “medical” services their premiums are being used for.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your state representative to urge him/her to oppose HB 887.

You can also call your state representative in Springfield during normal business hours.  The Capitol switchboard number is (217) 782-2000.

Written by Dr. Russell Moore

This year my organization joined with our Roman Catholic allies in filing a legal brief with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to uphold Texas’ laws regulating the abortion industry. That isn’t all that surprising. After all, Catholics and evangelicals have been working together for decades to uphold the sanctity of human life. What was surprising was that an opposing brief, filed by a Baptist church, argued that legal abortion is moral and just.

In a Baptist News Global article, the church’s senior minister Donna Schaper defended Planned Parenthood by saying that those of us who oppose abortion are “having a hard time dealing with women as moral agents and as adults.” I thought I recognized her name, and after I looked about I found that I had written about this pastor a decade ago, when she admitted that abortion is murder.

In 2006, Schaper wrote an article about the abortion she had. She wrote that her abortion was the right choice since she and her husband had young twins at the time. “Because women are mature sexual beings who make choices, birth control and abortion are positive moral forces in history,” she wrote. “They allow sex to be both procreational and recreational, for both men and women.”

What was striking to me at the time was that Schaper did not rely on the standard abortion advocacy arguments of the unborn child as a “clump of tissue” or a “mass of cells.” Instead, she called her abortion murder, and spoke of her unborn child as a child. She even named her “Alma,” which means “soul.”

“I happen to agree that abortion is a form of murder,” she wrote. “I think the quarrel about when life begins is disrespectful to the fetus. I know I murdered the life within me.”

“I could have loved that life but I chose not to,” she continued. “I did what men do all the time when they take us to war: they choose violence because, while they believe it is bad, it is still better than the alternatives.”

“When I made my choice to end Alma’s life, I was behaving as an adult,” the pastor concluded. “It was a human life. That’s why we named her, wanted her, but also knew we knew we did not want her enough.”

These words would be chilling coming from anyone. They are especially chilling coming from a pastor of a church. Add to the horror of it all that this church is named for the most beloved Baptist missionary couple of all time, Ann and Adoniram Judson. The Judsons sacrificed their very lives to take the gospel of life to those beyond the ocean. In the pulpit named for them stands a woman who speaks of violence to a defenseless infant in her womb, not in repentance but without apology.

The lessons to be learned here are not just one more reminder of what happens when doctrinal orthodoxy and ethical accountability are lost. We can see that all over the place. What is to be learned here, I think, is that the terms of the abortion debate are deeper than we think. We often assume that the debate is about when life begins. We marshal our scientific and philosophical and biblical arguments about the personhood of the unborn child. And we should continue to do so. But we should also remember that this alone will not end the debate, The problem, after all, is not one of information.

I suspect there are many who share this pastor’s views, though many would be loathe to say so publicly. They know the unborn child is just that: a child, a human being. They know that abortion is an act of violence. But they would rather this violence than the alternative. Behind that is a Nietzschean vision of morality, in which the will to power devours everything in its sight, especially the weak and the vulnerable.

To confront this, we must articulate and embody a different sort of universe, the one Jesus reveals and makes true. We must articulate and embody a kingdom where violence is not a sign of one being a “grown up,” a kingdom where one enters as a vulnerable child. When we refuse to define people in terms of their usefulness, when we bear witness to the image of God in all people, including the most vulnerable, we will find ourselves at odds with a world that sees power, and the violence that maintains it, as all that matters.

The Supreme Court will decide this particular case, of whether the abortion industry should be essentially self-regulating. But we should remember that, in the pile of briefs before them, there’s a church named for missionaries that stands, in its own words, on the side of violence. We must speak to those who hear in that sort of violence a kind of “good news,” a counter-gospel that is attractive to the spirit of the age. And we must hold out a witness for life and for peace and for justice, inside and outside the womb.

This article was originally posted at RussellMoore.com

It may not be surprising if you didn’t hear about a poll earlier this year from the Marist Institute for Public Opinion.  Had the results been the opposite of what they were, it likely would have been headline news across the nation for several days.

The poll found that a majority of Americans, even those who call themselves “pro-choice” favor public policies and laws restricting abortion.  This is a concept that seems foreign to the Obama Administration, which has appeared to use its power to promote and fund abortion in every way possible.

The national poll of 1,686 Americans found that 44 percent identify as pro-life while 51 percent identify as pro-choice.    The poll found that 81 percent of Americans, including 82 percent of women and 66 percent of pro-choice individuals, would legally limit abortion to only being legal the first three months of pregnancy. This eight in ten number has been consistent in this annual survey since it began in 2008.

A very interesting and encouraging finding was that 55 percent of Americans would agree that abortion ultimately does a woman more harm than good.  More than one-in-four (27 percent) Americans who identify as pro-choice share this view.  Additionally, six in ten Americans say abortion is “morally wrong,” including one-third of pro-choice Americans.  ( I am not  sure how you support something you say is morally wrong, but that’s very much a part of our postmodern, truth is relative, culture.)

Opposition to use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortion has consistently been high in various polls. The Marist poll found that 68 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.  Just over half (51 percent) of those who consider themselves pro-choice oppose tax-funded abortions.  Only three in 10 Americans (29 percent) support it.

The poll also touched on the issue of religious freedom, which is increasingly intermingled with the abortion debate. It found that 51 percent of all Americans believe health care providers should have the right to opt out of providing abortion services if they have moral objections.

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is poised to render a decision next year that will be its most significant ruling on the abortion issue in more than twenty years.  The SCOTUS has agreed to hear a challenge to a Texas law that establishes health and safety regulations for abortion clinics.

The Texas Legislature enacted the abortion regulation statute in 2013.  It required that all abortion clinics in the state meet the same medical operating standards as other outpatient surgery centers.  It also required that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic.

The Texas law gained national attention when a pro-abortion state senator named ngaged in a much-publicized filibuster in a failed attempt to block the law.  The ultraliberal media showcased Davis as a “courageous” advocate for women’s rights, despite the fact that she was opposing a law to protect women from the malpractice of shoddy abortionists.

The most significant provision of the Texas law mandates that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital.  This helps guarantee that an abortionist can continue to provide proper obstetric care to a woman who has suffered “complications” from her abortion when she is transferred to an acute care setting.

The central purpose of these types of laws is to ensure that facilities providing surgical abortions are adequately equipped to deal with medical emergencies in the same fashion as other ambulatory surgical centers.  Very few hospital emergency rooms are staffed with specialists in obstetrics.

The passage of the new surgicenter health and safety law in Texas resulted in the closure of a majority of the abortion clinics in that state.  The reason for that is simple.  Numerous abortion facilities in Texas and throughout the nation are “served” by out-of-town abortionists who fly or drive into town to perform abortions in assembly-line fashion during concentrated periods of time.  They then quickly leave town to their next killing field in another community.

These drive-by, fly-by abortionists have absolutely no physician-patient relationship with the women whose children they are aborting, and are unavailable to provide any kind of followup care to women after the procedure.  Women who experience botched abortions are dumped by abortion clinic managers at the nearest emergency room with no physician of record to provide information about their “surgical outcomes.”

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the key provisions of the law in June, stating that the regulations served the legitimate purpose of “protecting the health and welfare of women seeking abortions.”  Within weeks, the SCOTUS issued a stay of the ruling until they could decide whether to hear the case themselves.

The Court has now decided to do just that.  Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the four liberal justices on the SCOTUS in agreeing to take up the case.  The other four more conservative justices on the Court voted to allow the law to stand.

The last time the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on abortion was in 1992 in a Pennsylvania case known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.  In that decision, the SCOTUS reaffirmed the central holding of Roe v. Wade that a woman has a “liberty interest” to obtain an abortion without interference from the state prior to viability.

The Court upheld Pennsylvania regulations providing for informed consent by a woman seeking an abortion.  The justices established this legal principle: State regulations providing for the health, safety, and informed decision-making of the pregnant woman are constitutional so long as they do not create an “undue burden” on the woman’s choice, or erect “absolute obstacles” to her access to abortion.   The modern-day Court will now decide whether the Texas law satisfies that legal standard, or whether to establish new standards governing abortion clinic regulation.

Pray that the Justices on this Court understand their duty before God and man.

Support the work & ministry of Illinois Family Institute!

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is ramping up its campaign to use the courts to force all Catholic hospitals to provide abortions and sterilizations.

The strategy is clear: Use the anecdotal exception to destroy the general rule.

In the current scenarios, the ACLU is representing women who claim they need to be sterilized because of alleged threats to their health posed by future unwanted pregnancies, or they need to have access to abortion in case they have complications.

The women could utilize the services of another hospital. But instead, they are suing to force Catholic hospitals to perform the sterilizations or abortions.

The targets are the Ethical and Religious Directives for Health Care Services of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the First Amendment’s religious freedom guarantee.

On September 23, the ACLU of Michigan sent a demand letter to Genesys Hospital run by Ascension Health in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on behalf of a pregnant woman with a life-threatening brain tumor. The hospital denied her request for a tubal ligation at the time of her scheduled cesarean section delivery in October.

The ACLU says her doctors advised her to have the tubal ligation at the time of her C-section because another pregnancy would exacerbate risks posed by her tumor, as would another surgery after the delivery.

“Catholic bishops are not licensed medical professionals and have no place dictating how doctors practice medicine, especially when it violates federal law,” wrote ACLU of Michigan Staff Attorney Brooke A. Tucker, referring to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (1986), which requires hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it.

The ACLU and its state affiliate also filed a federal lawsuit on Oct. 1 against Michigan-based Trinity Health Corporation, which operates more than 80 hospitals around the country. The suit contends that the hospitals’ refusal to perform abortions puts women with troubled pregnancies at risk.

“This case has no merit,” Trinity said in a statement to ModernHealthCare.com. “The Ethical and Religious Directives are entirely consistent with high-quality healthcare, and our clinicians continue to provide superb care throughout the communities we serve.”

Catholic doctors treat mother and baby as two patients, not just one. This means preserving two lives in the course of treatment.

“What (the ACLU) is trying to do is force Catholic hospitals to relax their rules,” Health care law expert and Samford University professor emeritus Leonard Nelson told ModernHealthCare. “They would like Catholic hospitals to not have any particular religious orientation, especially when it comes to abortions.”

As Catholic health corporations, Genesys and Trinity are bound by Directive 53 of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which states:

“Direct sterilization of either men or women, whether permanent or temporary, is not permitted in a Catholic health care institution. Procedures that induce sterility are permitted when their direct effect is the cure or alleviation of a present and serious pathology and a simpler treatment is not available.”

And here’s Directive 70: “Catholic health care organizations are not permitted to engage in immediate material cooperation in actions that are intrinsically immoral, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and direct sterilization.”

In August, the ACLU threatened to sue Mercy Medical Center, a facility run by the Sisters of Mercy and part of Dignity Health, which operates 40 hospitals – 22 of which are Catholic – in California, Nevada and Arizona, according to CNSNews.

Rachel Miller, a 32-year-old attorney, was rebuffed by hospital officials after she asked them to sterilize her following a planned live birth. She said that going to another hospital 160 miles away for the procedure was a hardship. After the ACLU threat, hospital officials agreed to perform the operation.

Hard cases make bad law, and the ACLU is very obviously going out of its way to destroy the unique, religious character of Catholic hospitals.

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com.

Do not avert your eyes from the sickening, sanitized savagery that Planned Parenthood and the U.S. government through law and subsidies perpetrates against weak, vulnerable, innocent humans—and then rationalize.

In the 7^th video exposé of Planned Feticide Federation of America and the attendant filthy fetal tissue procurement business, phlebotomist Holly O’Donnell describes the day she participated in the mutilation of an aborted baby, whose stilled heart was jumpstarted by a ghoulish fetal tissue procurement technician (Jessica), who says, “Hey, Holly, come over here. I want you to see something kinda cool. It’s kinda neat.”

O’Donnell recounts how her colleague Jessica demonstrates the neat-o, keen-o Frankensteinian trick of fetal reanimation and subsequent mutilation:

[Jessica] said, ‘Hey, I wanna show you something.’ She has one of her instruments and she just taps its heart, and it starts beating….I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating….It had a face. It wasn’t completely torn up. Its nose was very pronounced. It had eyelids. And its mouth was pronounced. And since the fetus was still intact, she said, ‘Well, this is a really good fetus and we can procure a lot from it. We’re gonna procure brain….So, what you do is go in through the face.’

And she takes the scissors, and she makes a small incision [in the chin] and goes…a little through the mouth….And so, she gave me the scissors and told me that I had to cut down the middle of the face….I remember picking it up finishing going through the rest of the face and Jessica picking up the brain and putting it in the container….It was a male. And I remember picking him up…he was big. And I open the biohazard container….And I put him in…and he got stuck on the lid. His buttocks was (sic) in the air and his two feet were dangling out, and I remember having to pick each one of his feet up and put them in the container.

For the scientifically and morally ignorant among us—including Chris Cuomo—if the “tissue” has a human face, heart, brain, liver, thymus, and DNA, it’s human. Not even the purported “good” that the deaths or body parts of preborn human babies may provide to others justifies their murders and mutilations.

The central issue these videos raise is not government funding of Planned Parenthood. The central issue is the morality of legalized feticide. Although legalized feticide affects women more directly than men, it is neither solely nor centrally a women’s issue. It is centrally a human rights issue. The mutilated bodies of preborn humans contain their fathers’ DNA, and incipient human lives deserve the protection of all citizens—women and men alike. Men should never allow the presumptuous rebukes of feminist harpies intimidate them into self-censorship.

And let’s not forget that every year over half a million tiny, defenseless female humans are aborted. Their lives are extinguished and all their attendant—and subordinate—rights with them.

Columbia University Law School graduate Bethany Jenkins writes, “abortion says, ‘Your life for mine,’ but Jesus says, ‘My life for yours.’” Abortion is hellishly anti-life, anti-truth, anti-love, anti-compassion, anti-justice, anti-mercy, and anti-equality.

Take ACTION:  Please attend one of the Planned Parenthood protests this Saturday, and contact your U.S. senators and representatives urging them to defund Planned Parenthood.  Click here to view all #ProtestPP locations throughout the country.

In the greater Chicago area, our friends at the Pro-Life Action League are organizing a protest at the Planned Parenthood mega-center in Aurora, Illinois. Staff members of the Illinois Family Institute will join the League for this #PPSellsBabyParts protest. Please join us if you are able:

• What: Chicago Area #PPSellsBabyParts Protest
• Where: Planned Parenthood, 3051 E. New York St, Aurora IL (map)
• When: Saturday, August 22 at 9:00 a.m.
• Parking: Park at Our Lady of Mercy Church, 701 S. Eola Rd (map). Shuttles will run from OLM to PP from 8:30-11:00 a.m. Arrive early.

Signs will be provided for all who attend, and a flyer about this latest Planned Parenthood scandal will be distributed to passersby.

Please support IFI as we fight for liberty & work to advance the truth
about the sanctity of life & importance of marriage in our culture!

State Representative Scott Drury (D-Highwood) wrote this to a constituent who opposes HB 4013*, the bill that would remove all restrictions on taxpayer-funded abortions:

Thank you for your email.  As a devoted husband and father of two children, I have a deep understanding of how rewarding parenting can be.  However, not every pregnancy is planned or desired.  It is, therefore, vital that all women have access to safe reproductive health care without government interference.  Should the legislation you reference be called for a vote, I will support it.

Very truly yours,

Scott R. Drury

As indicated by the adverb “however,” it appears Rep. Drury believes that only planned, desired children will provide adults with rewarding experiences, and, to “progressives,”  personal pleasure and subjective desire are First Principles—the ultimate arbiters of morality. Not only do empowered Leftist women and other “progressives” want the absolute, unfettered right to act in accordance with their autonomous desires, but they demand that others pay for their actions—including even the killing of their children.

I would challenge the notion that someone who believes subjective desire and good planning trump the rights of the pre-born constitutes a “devoted father.” A devoted father sacrifices his desires and his plans for the good of his children—all of his children. Same goes for devoted mothers.

While Drury waxes noble about safe, reproductive healthcare, maybe he could address how safe abortion is for the other party involved—you know, the tiny, helpless, undesired, unplanned baby. Perhaps not every pregnancy is planned or desired, but every pregnancy necessarily means a second human life is present who deserves at minimum “government interference” to prevent its slaughter. If our government can’t be counted on to “interfere” when stronger humans seek to destroy the lives of the weakest among us, then the government has lost all moral authority and deserves to cease to exist.

What a sickening rationalization of selfish, regressive barbarism.

Remember, Rep. Drury, the babies you want to compel taxpayers to pay to kill didn’t plan to come into existence, and devoted mothers who don’t desire them, don’t have to raise them. No babies are truly unwanted even if their biological mothers don’t want them.

Take ACTION: First, please click HERE to send a message to your state representative to ask him/her to vote AGAINST this pro-abortion bill.

Please also email or call Rep. Durry’s office to politely let him know what you think about the use of taxpayer dollars for the destruction of pre-born human life.  His district phone number is (847) 681-8580 and his email is:  repdrury@gmail.com

Lastly, please forward this information to your pastors and/or church leaders and urge them to include this information in all church bulletins, newsletters, etc., as soon as possible.  Our state lawmakers return from Easter break next week, and HB 4013 may come up for a vote in the Illinois House anytime before the end of May.

* HB 4013 is sponsored by State Representatives Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago), Carol Sente (D-Lincolnshire), Ann Williams (D-Chicago), and Elizabeth Hernandez (D-Cicero).

SAVE the DATE:
“Islam in America: A Christian Perspective”
with Dr. Erwin Lutzer
May 7th

CLICK HERE for Details

From LifeSiteNews.com

“How do you sell an abortion? In the US it’s very simple: You do it through sex education,” former abortion clinic owner Carol Everett told participants at the Rose Dinner following the National March for Life on Thursday in Ottawa.

Everett, who ran a chain of four abortion clinics in Texas from 1977-1983 — where an estimated 35,000 unborn children were aborted before her dramatic conversion and departure from the industry — told about 430 participants at the dinner that she had a goal of becoming a millionaire by selling abortions to teenage girls.

“We had a goal of 3-5 abortions from every girl between the ages of 13 and 18, because we all work on a straight commission inside the abortion industry,” she said. With every customer, Everett became a little richer.

But in order to reach her financial goal, Everett said she first had to create a “market for abortions.” That meant convincing young people from the earliest age possible to see sexuality in an entirely different way than previous generations.

“We started in kindergarten. In kindergarten you put the children in a circle and you go around the room and you ask them all the same question: ‘What do your parents call your private parts?’”

“You know and I know that every family in this room has a different name for the private parts. So by the time you reach the third or fourth child it is clear to those children that parents simply do not know what they have. But we did. We said: ‘Boys this is what you have and girls this is what you have and don’t be ashamed of your private parts.’”

Everett explained how sex education at the earliest ages aimed at eroding in the children what she called “natural modesty.” Everything was calculated to “separate the children from their values and their parents.”

By third grade, children were shown explicit ‘how to’ diagrams of intercourse. By fourth grade, children were encouraged to masturbate, either alone or in groups of the same sex.

It was during the fifth and sixth grade that Everett herself supplied the missing link between sex-ed and abortion.

“My goal was to get them sexually active on a low dose birth control pill that we knew they would get pregnant on. How do you do that? You give them a low dose birth control pill that, in order to provide any level of protection, has to be taken accurately at the same time every single day. And you know and I know, there’s not a teen in the world who does everything the same time every day.”

Everett said that a girl on the pill who thought she was ‘safe’ typically had sex more frequently than those not on the pill.

“That pill did not work, and we could accomplish our goal of 3-5 abortions between the ages of 13 and 18,” she said.

Everett said that if the sex-education was done correctly, then when the girl becomes pregnant, she believes she has only one real choice.

“She’s going to call our clinic because she’s been told we’re ‘pro-choice.’”

In order to sell as many abortions as possible, Everett trained her employees to lead the distraught callers towards abortion as the only possible solution.

“When our telephone rang, we were ready. You see, we had trained the people to answer our telephones as telemarketers. They sold over the telephone. But we couldn’t call them telemarketers, that’s far too harsh. We called them telephone counselors. We trained them with a script designed to overcome every single objection. That’s what sales is, isn’t it? Overcoming the objection and filling the order, in this case the abortion,” she said.

The former abortion provider said she knew the sex-ed strategy was more than a success when a young woman visited one of her clinics for her ninth abortion.

“Abortion is a method of birth control in my country, a 45 percent repeat rate. And I dare say it’s also a birth control measure in your country,” she said.

Everett went on to describe what she called her miraculous journey of leaving the abortion industry and giving her life to God. In 1995 she founded the Heidi Group, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women experiencing a crisis pregnancy – named after one of Everett’s own children whom she aborted in 1973.

Everett warned parents not to ignore what their children are being taught in school regarding sex-education.

“Find out what they’re using to teach your children and grandchildren. For it is critical that we know because they shame those children and if those children are shamed by what they hear, they will not come home and tell you what they heard.”

“I would encourage you to go to your public library and to your schools and ask what they’re using for sex education,” she said.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a brief Wednesday that responds to the Obama administration’s defense of its abortion pill mandate in one of two major legal challenges the U.S. Supreme Court will hear on March 25. Alliance Defending Freedom and allied attorneys represent the Hahns, a Pennsylvania Mennonite Christian family, and their woodworking business in one of those cases, Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius.

The mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy financial penalties if the mandate’s requirements aren’t met.

“In America, we tolerate a diversity of opinions and beliefs; we don’t try to separate what people do from what they believe,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The Constitution guarantees the highest form of respect to the Hahns’ freedom. The government must prove why disregarding that freedom is somehow justified.”

According to the Alliance Defending Freedom reply brief, “the government contends that [the Hahns] harm the ‘freedom’ of third parties simply by not buying them abortifacients…. But that turns ordinary notions of liberty upside down. Citizens are already free to buy birth control for themselves and the government often subsidizes those purchases. Yet in the government’s view that is not enough. For the government, coercion is the new ‘freedom.’”

“Americans must be free to exercise their constitutionally protected liberties without punishment,” added Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “That at least includes freedom from government attempts to force them to pay for other people’s abortion pills.”

In January, numerous third parties filed briefs in both Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and The Becket Fund’s Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius case, which also challenges the mandate. The briefs filed in support of Conestoga Wood Specialties and Hobby Lobby outnumbered the briefs filed in favor of the Obama administration by nearly three to one.

The Hahns asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 against them. The decision conflicts with most other circuits and with the vast majority of rulings on the mandate so far. According to a dissent that Circuit Judge Kent Jordan wrote in that case, the mandate could cost the Hahns $95,000 per day if they don’t agree to live contrary to their Christian convictions.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are lead counsel in the case together with co-counsel Randall Wenger of the Independence Law Center and Charles Proctor III of the Pennsylvania firm Proctor, Lindsay & Dixon. They are two of nearly 2,300 attorneys allied with Alliance Defending Freedom.