It’s incredibly awkward when you’re in an important worldview conversation with a friend, and you don’t know what to say. You can’t figure out the right facts or convincing words to combat their argument, and worse, the conversation ends with you questioning your own beliefs.

First Peter 3:15 says “…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” Though this verse is speaking about sharing the gospel, the principle – always being prepared to make a defense with gentleness and respect – applies to anything we believe.

The Sanctity of Life is one area in which it’s especially important to be prepared. This video about the abortion pill from Live Action is a good starting place to build practical knowledge for your next conversation. Check it out and share the video!

As the debate over abortion rages, with the U.S. Supreme Court poised to possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 pro-abortion ruling, I find myself wondering: How can anybody claim that God is in favor of abortion? But some do. Or how can they claim that the issue is important, but not really that important?

‘It’s About Abortion’

Francis X. Rocca wrote for The Wall Street Journal (6/13/22) on the ongoing split between Catholic bishops on the issue of “Abortion Politics.” The issue is: Should Catholic politicians who are strongly pro-abortion, such as Nancy Pelosi, nonetheless receive Communion?

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco thinks Pelosi should not receive it. As Bishop Michael Barber of Oakland puts it, “because it’s really not about Communion, it’s about abortion, the killing of a child in its mother’s womb.”

In contrast, Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego claims also to oppose abortion, but his view (as characterized by Barber) seems to be, that “it’s not wrong enough that you need say or do anything about it or interact with the politicians who are publicly promoting it.”

Christian Leaders Who Support Abortion

This debate is not among Catholics alone. A few weeks ago the Associated Press (5/20/22) wrote an article highlighting professing Christian leaders who claimed their faith demanded that they support abortion.

They quote Kendra Cotton of the Black Southern Women’s Collective: “We know that Christianity supports freedom, and inherent in freedom is bodily autonomy. Inherent in Christianity is free will. When people talk about the body being a temple of God, you have purview over your body, there is nothing more sacred.” Than what — being able to abort your own baby?

Obviously, what is ignored here is the sacred nature of the unborn child created in the image of God. In Psalm 139, David describes how we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” even in utero: “You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

“Thou shalt do no murder” is the 6th Commandment. That directly applies to abortion, the deliberate taking of a human life, albeit in the womb (hidden from view).

Meanwhile, it would seem that the vast majority of Christian leaders in the conservative denominations are clearly opposed to abortion — thankfully.

And why shouldn’t they be? We know more today, scientifically, about the humanity of the unborn baby than the Supreme Court did in 1973, when they gave us Roe v. Wade.

From Planned Parenthood to Pro-Life

When women see a sonogram of the unborn, they often become pro-life.

Abby Johnson, author (with Cindy Lambert) of the book, Unplanned, was the Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year in the late 1990s. The very next year, at her own clinic for which she served as the manager, she quit shortly after witnessing the sonogram of a 15-week old preborn child being aborted. The poor kid didn’t have a chance.

Today pro-life Abby helps medical workers transition out of the abortion industry into other jobs through her outreach, And Then There Were None.

Other Excuses for Abortion

Another commandment is that we are not to tell lies. But we often forget that Roe v. Wade was built on a series of lies, e.g., that “Jane Roe” was raped. She was not. Well, if you favor killing unborn babies, why would you have a problem telling lies?

Another commandment forbids adultery. Sometimes abortions are committed to cover up the sin of adultery. Abortion could be viewed as violating at least three of the Ten Commandments.

When Abraham Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address, he brought out the issue of God and slavery. Speaking about the two sides in the Civil War, he said, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged.”

He goes on to point out, “The prayers of both could not be answered — that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’”

An Act of Violence

And we would ask today: How can any true Christian accept the direct violence of dismembering an unborn child simply because the mother has been deceived to think this is her only choice in the matter?

Every abortion is an act of violence no matter how sterile it may be presented in the media. Lila Rose of Live Action has documented that violence.

Those who claim God is on the side of the abortionist are not only supporting a terrible evil; but they are likely violating the Third Commandment by taking the name of the Lord God in vain.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

In a stunning December 20, 2018 New York Times article  titled “Planned Parenthood Is Accused of Mistreating Pregnant Employees”, former employees of the $1.5 billion dollar ($543.7 million in government grants and reimbursements) organization assert that they were discriminated against because of their pregnancies.

The New York Times has long been one of the staunchest supports of Planned Parenthood as a great champion of “reproductive choice” through abortion, so it is ironic that their article paints a terrible picture of how the organization treats its own employees when they make the reproductive choice to have a child.

The New York Times interviewed several current and former employees of Planned Parenthood who described discrimination that violated state or federal laws against pregnancy discrimination by declining to hire pregnant job candidates, refusing requests by expecting mothers to take breaks and in some cases pushing women out of their jobs after they gave birth.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking story was that of  Ta’Lisa Hairston, an employee who became pregnant but later started battling high blood pressure that threatened her pregnancy. However, her multiple medical orders stating she needed frequent breaks  were ignored by management. Her hands swelled so much that she couldn’t wear the required plastic gloves and her doctor ordered bedrest. When she returned with orders not to work over 6 hours, she worked a much longer shift and few days later had to have an emergency C-section at 34 weeks. She resigned after repeated calls urging her to return to work before her guaranteed 3 months under the Family and Medical Leave Act was up.

Dr. Leana Wen, the new head of Planned Parenthood, says that the organization is looking into the allegations and will be “conducting a review to determine the cost of providing paid maternity leave to nearly 12,000 employees nationwide.”

While the New York Times article admits that “most Planned Parenthood offices do not provide paid maternity leave”, it counters that “(d)iscrimination against pregnant women and new mothers remains widespread in the American workplace.” The Times also blames “conservative lawmakers (who) routinely threaten to kill” Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding, making the organization’s financing “precarious”.

THE REAL TROUBLE WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Planned Parenthood tries to downplay its’ role as the largest provider of abortion in the U.S. by touting  services like breast cancer screening (without mammograms), birth control pills and devices, pregnancy tests, etc. to low-income women even though the reality is that there are many more places, such as federally qualified community health centers (which do not provide abortions) that provide more comprehensive health care services than those offered by Planned Parenthood.

But the larger problem is that it is hard to reconcile two completely opposite philosophies: an unborn child is nothing more than tissue that can be removed by abortion if a woman so chooses vs an unborn child is a living human being deserving of protection. Planned Parenthood is firmly on the side of the first philosophy.

Thus, as Live Action found when it contacted 97 facilities at 41 Planned Parenthood affiliates, it is almost impossible to find a Planned Parenthood clinic that offers prenatal care as well as abortion, not to mention Planned Parenthood’s current campaign to encourage women to “Shout Out Your Abortion”.

So it perhaps it should not be a surprise that a pregnant employee who wants her unborn baby might pose a challenge in a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com.

The national pro-life organization Live Action has just released a bombshell video that darn well better be the final nail in the coffin of Planned Parenthood—a coffin brimming with baby corpses.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, in a futile effort to persuade the public that the pro-death organization she heads is all about women’s “health,” has publicly stated that Planned Parenthood provides prenatal care. In so doing, she clearly suggested and the gullible public believed that all Planned Parenthood facilities provide prenatal care. Surprisingly, that’s not what Live Action found in its undercover investigation.

Of the 97 Planned Parenthood facilities Live Action contacted, only 5 provided prenatal care. Live Action’s short video provides persuasive evidence that Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards lied through her pearly whites.

Here’s a sampling of the responses featured in Live Action’s video:

Tempe, AZ: “Planned Parenthood offers abortions, so they don’t offer prenatal care.”

Albany, NY: “No Planned Parenthood does prenatal care, hon.”

Farmington, NM:“We don’t offer prenatal care at Planned Parenthood…We specialize in abortions. You know that’s what our ultrasounds are for, to see how far along the, um, patient is.”

Elizabeth, NJ: “We do birth control, things like that—terminations.

Cornell, NY: “We tell you you’re pregnant, and then we offer…to do the abortions.”

Merrillville, IN: “No, we don’t do prenatal services. I mean it’s called Planned Parenthood. I know it’s kind of deceiving.

Dallas, TX: “We only offer termination services.”

Ironically when the undercover patient asked where she could receive prenatal care, the Planned Parenthood operative recommended Care Net, the type of crisis pregnancy center that “progressives” accuse of not caring about women and babies.

Racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood, and today’s money-sucking  organization bears the morally corrupt values of its founder. While blacks comprise 12 percent of the population, they comprise 28 percent of abortions, a statistic that would please Sanger who was hell-bent on ridding the world of blacks:

We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities.  The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

In Sanger’s proposed “baby code” she recommended the extermination of those deemed unfit:

[F]eeble-minded persons…those afflicted with inheritable disease, and others found biologically unfit by authorities…should be sterilized or, in cases of doubt, should be so isolated as to prevent the perpetuation of their afflictions by breeding.”

Which populations do “progressives” today exploit to promote abortion as an act of compassion? Don’t death merchants talk about feticide as a compassionate act for babies with tragic physical anomalies? Aren’t children with Down Syndrome—in earlier, less enlightened times referred to a “feeble-minded”—being aborted in numbers that should offend and outrage all decent people?

Cecile Richards is an attractive corporate mask that conceals incomprehensibly evil acts, and where there is evil, there is deception.

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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.