Written by Anne Reed

For those of who have fought for the reversal of Roe v. Wade for years, it has seemed, at times, like a giant too powerful to topple. But the landscape is changing. As little David stood with five smooth rocks in hand, one made its way to the slingshot. Maybe, just maybe, a similar rock is prepped and ready in our day. Now.

Politically speaking, the divide between abortion supporters and opponents is as wide as the east is from the west. With the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the air has become increasingly volatile as the real-life prospect of overturning the 1973 landmark decision that legalized abortion nationwide is coming into view.

Also remarkable is the timing of a new film Roe v. Wade, produced by Alveda King, niece of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. The movie is currently under production and is causing quite a stir.

A number of cast and crew members have quit, citing the pro-life slant or confusion caused by the privacy requirements concerning the script. You would think it was being produced by President Donald J. Trump himself the way the liberal, agenda-driven mainstream media is going after it – thus the great need for confidentiality.

Tucker Carlson of Fox News put his finger on it when he asked director Nick Loeb a rhetorical question during a recent interview:

“If you try to make a film that doesn’t celebrate that Supreme Court decision as a watermark in the advancement of the human race, I think you’re going to run into some trouble, don’t ya’ think?”

Well, that was a mouthful.

I always find it amusing when the left refers to the court case as “Roe” for short as they make their rabid pro-abortion case – as if Roe herself was making their case. Not so. Ms. Roe (Norma McCorvey), who died last February, longed to see the case overturned. She wrote two books detailing the behind-the-scenes manipulation and lies, and her new life as a Christ follower and pro-life activist: I am Roe (1994), and Won by Love (1998).

The liberal media is working hard to discredit the Roe v. Wade movie – anything to keep the truth buried in the dark. But in the midst of the fierce attacks, the producer and director are determined to show on the big screen the back alley manipulating that brought the infamous case to the Supreme Court and to its perceived final victory.

Let’s just look at one article published by Yahoo News from The Cut as an example. The writer went so far as to link a story from Jezebel.com, an internet site sharing a name with King Ahab’s wife, the biblical supermodel of rebellion and wickedness. While the site attempted to paint Martin Luther King, Jr. as pro-abortion, Alveda clarified that while her uncle never supported abortion, his wife did, as did Alveda herself in her early years. Alveda now openly shares about her past abortions, as well as her transformation from darkness and death to light and life.

The Yahoo article criticized the movie for including Center for Medical Progress investigative video footage exposing Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby organs and its eerily calloused contempt for human life. Of course, the author of the article is sure to remind her readers that Planned Parenthood “vociferously and repeatedly denied” the actions portrayed in videos that were, by the way, provided in their entirety on YouTube.

The writer also claims the film will likely be rated R because of “several graphic scenes depicting aborted fetuses,” including one showing “a dozen buckets of tiny fetuses and baby parts” found in an abortionist’s hotel room during a police sting.

It is baffling that abortion proponents find it morally repugnant to show “graphic” actual images of aborted fetuses. If it is merely a clump of cells, a parasite, contents of pregnancy, or whatever else they choose to call these precious human lives, then why is it so offensive to show?

I could go on…and on.

Before directing the film, Loeb was best known for his custody battle over frozen embryos shared with former girlfriend, Sofia Vergara. He was approached by the director/screenwriter of Roe v. Wade who explained that a 1989 made-for-TV movie about Roe v. Wade didn’t really lay out the truth surrounding the case.

When Loeb read the script, he was shocked.

“Everyone in America has heard of Roe v. Wade, but no one really knows the true story of what led up to that,” he explained.

He then went on to read about 40 different books and the bios of others linked to the story, like Norma McCorvey. And he became determined to make the truth known.

For more information about the movie, go to roevwademovie.com by clicking here.

This article originally posted at AFA.net.

A majority of Americans including many mainline Christians support legal abortion, but many religious conservatives say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those religious conservatives are now hoping that Roe v. Wade will be overturned in light of President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a practicing Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court. They’re optimistic that having a fifth conservative on the bench could lead to a reversal of the 1973 landmark case that made abortion a constitutional right. Kavanaugh gave a speech last year in which he praised former Chief Justice William Rehnquist for dissenting in Roe v. Wade.

A Pew survey last year showed that 57 percent of Americans support legal abortion, while 40 percent believe it should be illegal in most or all cases. A Pew 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that evangelicals tend to oppose legal abortion while people in mainline Protestant churches, as well as Jews, atheists, and agnostics, tend to support it. While Catholics are divided, the Roman Catholic Church continues to speak out against abortion.

Sixty-six percent of Southern Baptists are opposed to legal abortion, compared to only 8 percent of Unitarian Universalists and 18 percent of Episcopalians. Other religious groups with a high percentage opposed include Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christians affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

In a January 2018 news release, Pew reported:

Among those who do identify with a religion, the majority view about abortion among members of a particular group often mirrors that group’s official policy on abortion. This is the case with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) and the Southern Baptist Convention – both churches oppose abortion, as do most members of those churches. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Unitarian Universalist Association, and Reform and Conservative Judaism, for example, all support abortion rights, in line with most of their adherents.

There are, however, cases where the views of a church’s members don’t align with its teachings on abortion. For instance, while the Roman Catholic Church is an outspoken critic of abortion, U.S. Catholics were divided on the issue in the 2014 survey, with 48% supportive of legal abortion and 47% opposed.  (See chart HERE.)

In June 2017, the Southern Baptist Convention at its annual meeting denounced Planned Parenthood and called on Congress to fully defund it. The convention passed a resolution that called out the “immoral agenda and practices of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, especially their role in the unjust killing each year of more than 300,000 precious unborn babies, its use of particularly gruesome illegal abortion methods, and its profiteering from harvesting unborn babies’ tissues and organs.”

By contrast, representatives of mainline denominations have been vocal in support of legal abortion. This past March, 68 faith leaders in Iowa wrote a letter published in the Des Moines Register criticizing a bill in the state legislature that would make it illegal for a woman to get an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. The letter said in part:

Every person has the right to their own personal and religious beliefs and to live their life how they determine is best for them. The government does not have the right to infringe on the freedoms or privacy of Iowa women based on those religious beliefs. Every woman deserves to consult her values, faith, and doctor when making a decision about her body and her pregnancy. Any law that strips a woman of her faith and tries instead to legislate her values for her is immoral.

Republican state lawmakers in Iowa were able to pass the fetal heartbeat bill despite objections from Democrats. No Democrats supported the bill. It was signed into law by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, but a judge blocked it from taking effect July 1 as a result of a lawsuit filed by abortion activists.

The Chicago Tribune has reported that more out-of-state women have been coming to Illinois for abortions because of less restrictive laws compared to those in surrounding states. The overall number of abortions had dropped, however, but is now on the rise, an increase attributed to a state law passed last year that expands taxpayer subsidies for abortions. Under the new law, which took effect January 1, Medicaid recipients and state employees and their dependents covered by state employee insurance can get taxpayer-subsidized abortions.

Read more:  Illinois Taxpayer Funded Abortions Increase at Least 274 Percent in First Six Months of 2018

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It is only because of concerned citizens like you that we are able to continue promoting pro-family values in the Prairie State.

Change does not happen overnight, but bit by bit. And that slow steady change, inch by inch, ushers in new norms which might have been deemed wholly abhorrent if introduced overnight.

Gradual change sears and scars the conscience until the shocking is no longer shocking, but tolerated and barely noticed.

Our culture began it’s slouch toward Gomorrah decades ago: our corporate conscience severed from the tether of biblical mores year by year.

Good people in America have been living good and godly lives, raising their children, paying their taxes, going to church and contributing to their towns and communities. Too many Americans, blissfully ignorant of the radical, evil changes taking place, now face unfathomable perversity where they live.

It’s past time to wake up and do something.

Consider the word of the Apostle Paul to the Romans (emphasis mine):

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

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. ²⁹They 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. (Romans 1:18-31)

Indeed, we are living in a Romans 1 world.

And a huge, publicly funded purveyor of “every kind of wickedness,” Planned Parenthood, is not content to murder over 300,000 preborn babies each and every year. The evil organization has now partnered with another radical group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — a virulently pro-homosexual organization, to force “comprehensive sex education” on every public school in every state.

In 2015 hints were given that this perverse program was in the works:

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation announced plans this month to launch a coordinated campaign to bring LGBTQ-inclusive sex education to queer youth across the country. These efforts are likely to include digital resources for LGBTQ youth, LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum plans, and efforts to kick start renewed national conversations on the value of sex education that reflects the needs of all young people.

The program called “Get Real” has been in the development for years, long before 2015.

Over fifty years ago, in 1964, the medical director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Dr. Mary Calderone, founded the “Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States” (SIECUS). Whenever you see or hear the name SIECUS beware.

What were the goals of SIECUS?

Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education — Kindergarten — 12th Grade

• It provides accurate information about human sexuality, including growth and development, anatomy, physiology, human reproduction, pregnancy, childbirth, parenthood, family life, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual response, masturbation, contraception, abortion, sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted infections.

• It helps young people develop healthy attitudes, values, and insights about human sexuality by exploring their community’s attitudes, their family’s values, and their own critical thinking skills so that they can understand their obligations and responsibilities to their families and society.

• It helps young people develop communication, decision-making, assertiveness, and peer-refusal skills so they are prepared to create reciprocal, caring, non-coercive, and mutually satisfying intimacies and relationships when they are adults.

• It encourages young people to make responsible choices about sexual relationships by practicing abstinence, postponing sexual intercourse, resisting unwanted and early sexual intercourse, and using contraception and safer sex when they do become sexually active

Let’s think on that for a moment and let it sink in. “Doctor” Calderone endeavored to force sex ed on children, beginning in Kindergarten, which included information about masturbation, contraception, abortion, sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS. And you can be sure, with her relationship to Planned Parenthood, should the perverted sex indoctrination lead to pregnancy, abortion would be offered up as an “innocuous” remedy.

Now, over half a century later, Planned Parenthood’s brainchild, “Get Real” is in the schools. This “comprehensive sex education” course includes all manner of breath-taking activities.

Megan Fox writes at PJ Media:

Sex education in public schools has gone off the deep end. Gone are the days of handing out birth control and practicing putting condoms on bananas. These days your kid is more likely to come away from school with more sexually deviant knowledge than single gay dudes in New York City, thanks to Planned Parenthood’s comprehensive sex ed program that has somehow made it into public school curriculums. These programs teach dangerous and violent practices like BDSM, asphyxiation, gender-bending, anal sex, and let’s not forget “rimming,” which can saddle your kid with nasty parasitic infections.

That descriptive paragraph should stun the sensibilities of any parent, any adult, with a modicum of integrity and sound conscience. But there’s more.

Live Action, the pro-life organization founded by Lila Rose, captured video of a Planned Parenthood worker advising a fifteen year old girl on where to find good information on experimenting with sex in every perverted permutation, including (prepare yourself to be shocked) “bondage/sadomasochism, including gagging, whipping, defecation, emulating pornography, and going to sex stores to ‘get educated.’ ”

The Human Rights Campaign, if your are unfamiliar, claims to be the “largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization, HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are ensured of their basic equal rights, and can be open, honest and safe at home, at work and in the community.”

Reality check: every American is “created equal and endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The HRC goal is NOT the equality we share as created beings, but rather endorsement of any and all sexual perversions as normal. To that end, the HRC intends to indoctrinate children from the age of 5 with information that, in previous decades, would have been considered unthinkable.

Again, we are living in a Romans 1 world.

Further, after decades of saturation with more comprehensive and more repugnant “sex ed” programs, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported in 2017 that sexually transmitted diseases were at an all time high.

So from the advent of Planned Parenthood (founded by infamous eugenicist and racist, Margaret Sanger) and the inception of SIECUS, to the collaboration of sexual deviance advocate organization, HRC, “comprehensive sex ed” has come a long, long way and is intended to taint America’s children and herd them on a broad path to individual and societal destruction.

Parents across the nation are awakening, the result being the #SexEdSitOut movement, with kids being pulled out of public school on Monday, April 23.

Take ACTION:  There is also a correlated “Declaration” to sign which says, in part:

We, as concerned parents and community members, are sick of the sexualization of our children! We say NO to graphic, gender-bending, promiscuity-promoting sex education for our kids.

. . .

We will not stand for our tax money being used to promote sexual liberation, deviance, and gender confusion to our precious kids. In protest, we stand together with those parents pulling their children out of public school on April 23rd for the sex ed sit out.

But conservatives and Christians across this nation must do more that sit out one day: parents and others must demand that public money, taxpayer money, not be used for such abhorrent instruction in the government schools.

Each family must decide to take a stand to protect their children, even if that means ultimately removing students from public schools permanently.

As for Planned Parenthood, HRC and SIECUS?

Luke warns, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”

Three 1,600 pound millstones coming up.

Worldview Conference May 5th

Worldview has never been so important than it is today!  The contemporary culture is shaping the next generation’s understanding of faith far more than their faith is shaping their understanding of culture. The annual IFI Worldview Conference is a phenomenal opportunity to reverse that trend. This year we are featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet on Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

[Last] month Governor Butch Otter signed a law making Idaho the fifth state to mandate that women getting a medical (drug-induced) abortion be told that the abortion may possibly be stopped after the first dose if the woman changes her mind about having the abortion. This abortion reversal process  involves taking the hormone progesterone to counteract the first abortion drug mifepristone and before taking the second drug misoprostol 36-72 hours later that causes expulsion of the unborn baby. There is now a website at www.abortionpillreversal.com for information on abortion reversal that includes a hotline phone number at 1-877-558-0333.

The first abortion reversal  was performed by Dr. Matthew Harrison in 2007 and by 2015, he claimed that more than 213 babies had been saved. Although not always successful, abortion reversal has resulted in hundreds more babies alive today. Last December, the California Board of Registered Nursing finally notified Heartbeat International that it can now grant continuing education units (CEUs) to nurses who study the life-saving process known as Abortion Pill Reversal.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups are not pleased.

As I wrote in my February 16, 2017 blog “Are Mail Order Abortions Coming?” , medical abortions rates now rival surgical abortion rates while abortion clinics are closing at a record pace because of factors like “economic difficulties”, “a generally hostile atmosphere and declining demand”. Thus, the medical abortion procedure has become more appealing to groups like Planned Parenthood and now there are even efforts to provide more medical abortions by telemedicine even though a 2014 study found more complications with medical abortions than surgical ones.

THE PROMOTION AND CHANGING CRITERIA FOR MEDICAL ABORTION

In a disturbing March 27, 2018 Medscape article “Medical Abortion in Very Early Pregnancy” (password protected),  Peter Kovacs, MD, PhD touts a study that allegedly shows medical abortion is now safe even “as soon as early pregnancy is diagnosed” and even before an ultrasound can show if the unborn baby is developing outside the womb. This abnormality is called an ectopic pregnancy and, if not detected early, can result in life-threatening complications and surgery.  Ectopic pregnancy occurs in 1-2% of  all pregnancies.

But as even Dr. Kovacs admits:

“Under well-controlled conditions using sedation and appropriate pain control, surgical termination of pregnancy is associated with minimal bleeding or pain. However, it can be associated with surgical complications (trauma, heavier bleeding, infection), which can lead to further interventions.

Medical abortion can be more painful because the products of conception have to be expelled from the uterus, and it is accompanied by prolonged bleeding. Still, medical abortion obviates surgical complications and is significantly cheaper.” (Emphasis added)

He recommends  “(A)propriate patient selection (no increased risk for or symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, appropriate follow-up to confirm successful abortion, patient compliance)” as obviously important. (Emphasis added)

CONCLUSION

Planned Parenthood tells women that having a medical abortion (at home, of course) is just “kind of like having a really heavy, crampy period” with large clots and that “(a)ny chills, fevers, or nausea you have should go away pretty quickly”.

And that:

“People can have a range of emotions after having an abortion. Most people feel relief, but sometimes people feel sad or regretful. This is totally normal. If your mood keeps you from doing the things you usually do each day, call your doctor or nurse for help” along with numbers to call for “free, confidential, and non-judgmental emotional support after an abortion.” (Emphasis added)

But two things Planned Parenthood does not tell women about is medical abortion reversal and the availability of real assistance with a problematic pregnancy including crisis pregnancy centers that now outnumber abortion clinics in the US.

Women need-and have a right-to know about both these alternatives.  It’s up to all of us to make sure as many women as possible know this.

Read more:

Study finds reversal of mifepristone safe, effective

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com

Life is so precious, and the right to life recognized as a “natural” or God-given right, so much so that it was codified in our Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Note that the “right to life” is given preeminence: without life no other right is necessary. And “unalienable” further emphasizes the untouchable nature of that right: mankind was gifted life by its Creator — the Lord God Almighty — and no man or government can take that right away except in the case of a proven capital crime.

Indeed, within each man and woman is the longing to live as well and as long as possible on this earth, in spite of hardship or physical pain. Even terminal patients, given adequate pain-relieving drugs, don’t wish to hasten death, but to live every moment to the fullest.

Joni Eareckson Tada, paralyzed and a quadriplegic since a diving accident in 1967, speaks to the issue of disability versus death following the release of the awful movie, Me Before You:

In light of the fact that California’s new physician-assisted suicide law goes into effect tomorrow (Thursday, June 9), following closely on the heels of the newly-released film, Me Before You, I wanted to sound an alarm about this egregious legislation and the glamorization of it.

In the movie, the quadriplegic says to his loved one, “I don’t want you to miss all the things someone else can give you.” Instead, he took away everything she wanted from him – his love and the essence of who he was – when he decided to end his life. Not only does this movie glamorize assisted suicide; it conveys the distinct impression that marriage to someone with quadriplegia is too hard, too demanding and sorely lacks the joys of typical marriage.

Regardless of whether or not in the context of a marriage, the taking of one’s own life or enabling a loved one with a disability to do so is never the answer. All life is created in the image of God and worth our greatest efforts to preserve and protect, and He alone is the one who should order the length of our days.

Some will assert that pain is an adequate reason for euthanasia, and yet, pain specialists state that properly administered drugs can provide at least good relief in 97% of all cases.

The final reason people may consider suicide is depression. And yet, depression can be alleviated via properly prescribed medicines and/or sound counseling. Thus suicide is a permanent “solution” to a temporary situation or mindset.

Scripture admonishes us to choose life:

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

So, with all the advances in pain meds and availability of rock solid counseling, why is the teen suicide rate soaring?

In a USA Today article, “Teen suicide is soaring. Do spotty mental health and addiction treatment share blame?” authors Jayne O’Donnell and Anne Saker write:

The suicide rate for white children and teens between 10 and 17 was up 70% between 2006 and 2016, the latest data analysis available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although black children and teens kill themselves less often than white youth do, the rate of increase was higher — 77%.

A study of pediatric hospitals released last May found admissions of patients ages 5 to 17 for suicidal thoughts and actions more than doubled from 2008 to 2015. The group at highest risk for suicide are white males between 14 and 21.

Experts and teens cite myriad reasons, including spotty mental health screening, poor access to mental health services and resistance among young men and people of color to admit they have a problem and seek care.

In other words, the experts have no idea.

And yet, for decades the “experts” have been telling students in government schools that they are the by-product of mere chance.

Author Frank Peretti sums up the abysmally depressing instruction:

Kids, welcome to Biology 101. We’re going to learn lots of fun things in this class. We’re going to learn how…we’re going to cut up frogs and we’re going to pick flowers. We’re going to learn about pistils and stamens and all kinds of fun things.

But the first thing you need to know, boys and girls, above all else is that YOU are an ACCIDENT!

You have absolutely no reason for being here! There is no meaning, no purpose to your life!

You are nothing but a meaningless conglomeration of molecules that came together purely by chance billions and billions of years ago.

All the dust and the gas in the galaxy floated around for who knows how long and they bumped into each other and said, “I know! Let’s be organic! So they became organic. And they became little gooey, slimy things, you know, swimming around in the primordial soup.

And they finally grew little feet and they crawled up on the land and they grew fur and feathers and became higher forms of life. And they finally became a monkey and the monkey developed into an ape, and then the ape decided to shave. So he shaved and became what you are today.

From goo to you by way of the zoo!

Add to that thoroughly gloomy “naturalist” teaching the Pew chronicled “Nones on the Rise” and you have a recipe for mental and spiritual utter despondency.

Pew Research reported:

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.

In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).

. . .

The growth in the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans – sometimes called the rise of the “nones” – is largely driven by generational replacement, the gradual supplanting of older generations by newer ones.

You may have heard Mainstream Media touting that “religion is dying.” But that’s not the story at all. Rather, affiliation in mainline Protestant and Catholic denominations is dying.

So we have several generations of youth taught from the earliest grades that they are nothing more than the result of a cosmic accident in school and receiving zero countermanding instruction in the home or in church.

That is a recipe for depression.

Add to that the disdain for life itself demonstrated by Planned Parenthood and every pro-abort in America, the implication being you’re an accident of nature, and if you in any way inconvenience your parents (who are also, by the way, just accidents of nature), then they will happily kill you before you’re born in the most painful way imaginable. And they may even allow Planned Parenthood to sell your poor little, mangled body parts for research to save other lives.

That, by the way, is a total enigma: why bother to do research to save lives of people who are an accident of nature and somehow, by random chance, managed to escape the abortionist’s butchery and were actually born!

The real question should not be “Why the high teen suicide rate?” but rather, “Why aren’t more teens taking their lives given an education and society that tells them they are an accident, that life means nothing, and that there is no hope after this life on earth!”

King David wrote:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:14)

Which brings us back full circle to our Declaration of Independence, written by the Founders who believed and were informed by the Bible. Those Founders knew what King David knew — that the Creator of the universe designed and breathed life into each person, that life is worth living because of the hope we have in God.

Again we look to the uplifting words of David:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God. (Psalm 42:11)

That is the hope we must share with the youth, and other generations of America. That is the remedy for the epidemic of suicide and depression.

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Having worked for a member of Congress in Washington, D.C., and for state legislators here in Illinois, I can vouch for the fact that most elected officials care about what you think. No, really, they do. Even when they go against what is the clear majority opinion, they at least are aware of the potential consequences of their actions.

While they often do things we’d rather they not do, if a large number of their constituents voice a particular opinion on an issue, office holders ignore it at their own peril and are more likely to take the right action.

Those you elect need to regularly hear from you via letter, email, or phone call. And when obvious pressure is being put on them by interest groups to go against the will of the people, they especially need to hear from you. It doesn’t matter if they’re a lowly state representative or the leader of the free world.

President Donald Trump needs to hear from the pro-family community on three immediate concerns:

1. So-called “transgendered” individuals should not be allowed to serve in the U.S. military.

2. Chai Feldblum, who believes that the LGBT agenda is more important than our God-given and constitutionally protected religious liberty, should not be re-nominated to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

3. Planned Parenthood should be defunded immediately.

Regarding #1, federal courts are attempting to block the president from fulfilling his constitutional duty of being the Commander in Chief of our nation’s armed forces. President Trump is within his power to ignore the court, since the judicial branch has not been granted authority over how the military is to be run. Unfortunately, Trump has chosen to allow the matter to proceed through the courts.

Because of that, openly “transgendered” people (men pretending to be women, or women pretending to be men) are enlisting. President Trump needs to hear from the pro-family community today. The military does not exist for social policy experimentation. And those suffering from gender dysphoria, a recognized mental illness, should not be allowed to serve. (Read more HERE.)

News reports are that President Trump has renominated Chai Feldblum, #2 on our list above, to serve another five-year term as a commissioner on the EEOC. This is not a small mistake by the president, and he needs to hear from you and be encouraged to withdraw the nomination immediately.

The Daily Caller has reported that Feldblum has “regularly advocated for the supremacy of LGBT rights over religious liberty,” and has endorsed polygamy and defended infringing religious liberty to advance the LGBT agenda.

Feldblum’s extremist views have been thoroughly demonstrated over many years, even to the extent of stating that she was “not sure whether marriage is a normatively good institution.” (Read more HERE.)

Regarding #3, when Republicans took the reins of both the U.S. Congress and the White House last year, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading killer of unborn babies, should have stopped receiving federal dollars to carry on its evil business. Instead, in one of the GOP’s biggest failures so far during the Trump years, approximately $500 million of the hard-earned tax dollars of Americans continues to fund Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills. (Read more HERE.)

One old expression in politics is that in order for some politicians to see the light, they have to feel the heat. Pro-family conservatives need to regularly turn up the temperature on their elected officials, and this includes the person working out of the Oval Office.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send an email to the Trump administration or call the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111 and politely but firmly express your view that President Donald Trump 1) should not allow “trans”-identifying people to serve in the military, 2) should withdraw the nomination of Chai Feldblum, who is so far out of the mainstream that she should not be serving at the EEOC, and that 3) should lead the charge to defund the organization responsible for the largest number of deaths every year in America: Planned Parenthood. They should not receive another dollar from taxpayers.

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has issued a policy regarding allocation of $260 million for the Title X family planning program.

Americans United for Life attorney Deanna Wallace told OneNewsNow that the federal program is designed to provide for women what many existing organizations do not do.

“It emphasized not only the department’s focus on funding programs dealing with a broad range of life-affirming planning – such as preconception care, natural family planning and fertility care – but they also make it clear that none of that funding would be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning,” Wallace informed.

OneNewsNow has previously reported that Planned Parenthood services and the number of their clients have been dropping every year for some time – and their clinics reach a limited number of people … compared to the need.

“Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer prenatal care, they don’t offer infertility care, [and] they don’t offer well[ness] woman visits for the vast majority of Americans, so we think this funding should be rerouted to those comprehensive centers that can actually offer woman a lot more,” Wallace insisted.

The all-encompassing centers to which Wallace refers would essentially be the many thousands of local, federally qualified health clinics – ones that could provide vastly more efficient and varied assistance that Planned Parenthood does not offer women.

Read more HERE.

This article was originally published at OneNewsNow.com

As a nurse threatened with termination for refusing to participate in an unethical health care decision years ago, I have a special interest in conscience rights for health care professionals.

Over the past several decades, new threats to conscience rights have widened from refusing to participate in abortions to other deliberate death decisions like withdrawal of feedings from people with serious brain injuries, VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking), terminal sedation and physician-assisted suicide.

Thus, I am pleased that the Trump administration recently announced the new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division  in the department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to enforce “federal laws that protect conscience and the free exercise of religion and prohibit coercion and discrimination in health and human services”. The division specifically mentions “issues such as abortion and assisted suicide (among others) in HHS-funded or conducted programs and activities” and includes a link to file a conscience or religious freedom complaint “if you feel a health care provider or government agency coerced or discriminated against you (or someone else) unlawfully”.

Predictably, both Compassion and Choices and Planned Parenthood immediately condemned the new department.

In a recent fundraising email, Compassion and Choices states that:

 “This office (OCR) is not about freedom; it’s about denying patient autonomy. Under their proposed rules, providers are encouraged to impose their own religious beliefs on their patients and withhold vital information about treatment options from their patients — up to, and including, the option of medical aid in dying. And your federal tax dollars will be used to protect physicians who make the unconscionable decision to willfully withhold crucial information regarding their care from a patient and abandon them when they are most vulnerable.” (Emphasis added)

Planned Parenthood is just as adamant and includes other issues in their reaction:

“OCR is an important office within the HHS that’s meant to protect health care for marginalized communities, including LGBTQ people and underserved women. But the creation of the new “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” paves the way for discrimination against people for a variety of reasons — be it their gender identity, sexual orientation, or decision to access a safe, legal abortion.” (Emphasis in original)

A SHORT RECENT HISTORY OF FEDERAL CONSCIENCE RIGHTS PROTECTIONS

In response to declining numbers of doctors willing to do abortions in the 1990s, efforts began to mainstream abortion into the health professions such as requiring abortion training for OB/GYNs, shifting training and practice into teaching hospitals and  integrating abortion into regular health care.

The National Abortion Federation along with Medical Students for Choice, pushed for change and in 1995, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education ruled that OB/GYN residency programs must include abortion training or lose accreditation.

That was overturned the next year with the Coats Amendment passed by Congress but  efforts to marginalize pro-life medical professionals continued, especially with newly passed physician-assisted suicide laws and well-publicized withdrawal of feeding tube cases like Terri Schiavo’s.

In 2008, the Christian Medical Association compiled a list of dozens of real-life cases of discrimination in health care, including doctors, medical students, nurses and pharmacists.

That same year, President Bush strengthened the HHS rules protecting the conscience rights of doctors and nurses to refuse to perform abortions.

In 2011, the Obama administration dismantled key provisions of the Bush administration conscience rights rules.

That same year, 12 New Jersey nurses faced firing for refusal to participate in abortion and had to rely on groups like Alliance Defending Freedom to bring a  lawsuit defending their rights. They were finally vindicated in 2013.

Right now, Wisconsin is considering a physician-assisted suicide bill that states a doctor’s refusal to prescribe the lethal drugs or refer the patient to a willing doctor “constitutes unprofessional conduct”.

Obviously, conscience rights cannot depend just on litigation, conflicting state laws or professional organization positions like the American Medical Association’s  or American Nurses Association’s that don’t vigorously defend conscience rights.

As explained on the Dorsey Health Care group website ,

“In January 2018, OCR announced a proposed rule to strengthen conscience-based protections for individuals and entities with objections to certain activities based on religious belief and moral convictions.”

“OCR now proposes to return much of 45 CFR part 88 to its 2008 Bush-era form, adding a requirement that certain recipients of HHS funds certify they comply with conscience protection laws and notify individuals of their rights thereunder”, enhance investigative and enforcement abilities and expands its enforcement authority to more conscience-protection laws than the 2008 or 2011 iterations. It will also “handle complaints [both formal and not], perform compliance reviews, investigate, and seek appropriate action,” including terminating funding and requiring repayment. OCR states “that a more centralized approach to enforcement of conscience protections is necessary in part due to rapidly rising complaints.” (Emphasis added) Comments on this proposed rule can be submitted by March 27, 2018.

CONCLUSION

Health care professionals with pro-life views have been under attack for decades. It’s more than just not being “politically correct”; the very existence of such health care professionals threatens the appropriation of health care by groups dedicated to promoting abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia as civil rights.

Without strong conscience rights protections like a successful Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, they will succeed in making health care termination-friendly.

But in the end, enforcement of the most basic civil right of health care professionals to provide care for patients without being required to participate in life-destroying  activities should not be determined by politics or popularity polls but by the acceptance of the universal principle of respect and protection for human life.

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com

Written by Walker Wildmon

When I was in high school, I sat next to a young lady in class who quietly mentioned to her friend that she’d had an abortion. At the time I didn’t completely grasp the heartache that she must have been experiencing though I could see the pain in her eyes. The only other detail I remember is that she said it was physically painful. It was a haunting conversation.

In March of 2017, it was reported that Planned Parenthood executives were making as much money as some professional athletes. To be specific, Planned Parenthood’s CEO, Cecile Richards, receives over $950,000 a year in compensation. For those who don’t know, Planned Parenthood is America’s largest abortion provider. Planned Parenthood was subsidized by over $543,000,000 in taxpayer dollars last year, according to their own 2016-2017 annual report. The report also revealed that Planned Parenthood performed 321,384 abortions with only 3,889 adoption referrals. This is a shocking number. Planned Parenthood is portrayed by the media and liberals as vital to women’s healthcare.  What this reveals is that Planned Parenthood is not only committing cruel and evil acts, its bosses are well compensated for providing them.

One claim you’ll hear regarding abortion is that it is only a small percentage of what Planned Parenthood provides. From a biblical perspective, this is a non-starter. Killing as many as one child is one too many. More than 321,000 abortions cannot be defined as a “small percent” of Planned Parenthood’s work. Nonetheless, in the early months of his presidency, President Trump offered to allow Planned Parenthood to keep its federal funds if they would cease performing abortions. Their executives denied this offer claiming abortion was vital in order for their organization to continue. You’d think if abortion was such as small part of what Planned Parenthood does then its leaders wouldn’t mind ceasing the practice in order to keep the federal funds coming in. But Planned Parenthood is absolutely committed to killing babies and misdirecting that reality by referring to it as women’s healthcare.

Under virtually no scenario is abortion the provision of healthcare. We must not grant validity to such a falsehood. Ending the life of a child is anything but healthcare as women often suffer emotional and physical harm from having an abortion.

A recent poll showed that 58 percent of likely voters oppose government subsidizing of Planned Parenthood. Even with the majority of Americans feeling this way, Congress has repeatedly failed to end the taxpayer funds to those who carry out the barbaric act that is abortion. Although I’m angry that Congress is complicit in this, I believe that abortion is likely to be ruled on at the Supreme Court in our lifetime. If the court were to hear a pro-life case, it is likely that it would overturn Roe v. Wade. Especially if President Trump adds another judge to the Supreme Court.

Over 1,000 babies’ lives are ended each day in Planned Parenthood facilities across America. This is terribly wrong.  At a minimum, we should stop sending our tax dollars to such an organization.

America will be judged by God for the way we treat the most vulnerable among us. Whether it be the elderly or infants. My prayer is that this generation will be remembered as the one that not only ended the taxpayer funds to abortion providers but ended the horrific practice altogether.

This article was originally posted at AFA.net

Heroism is usefully defined as an act of selflessness — sacrificing oneself for the life of another. Medal of Honor recipients perform acts of true heroism, often giving their life to save their brothers in arms.

But what is the opposite of heroism? What would you call an organization and its leader who brag about killing the most innocent among us and killing in a barbaric, painful manner for selfish reasons?

Planned Parenthood and its leader, Cecile Richards, are responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of babies annually and brag about just that.

Found within the Planned Parenthood Annual Report, a quote by President Cecile Richards:

We are here today to thank generations of organizers, troublemakers, and hell-raisers who formed secret sisterhoods, who opened Planned Parenthood health centers in their communities, and demanded the right to control their own bodies.

Cecile Richards
Women’s March 2017

Breathtaking! Ms. Richards is proud of generations of “organizers, troublemakers, and hell-raisers who formed secret sisterhoods, who opened Planned Parenthood health centers in their communities, and demanded the right to control their own bodies.”

Of course women should have the right to protect and control their own body. But should not the innocent child in the womb have the same right to life written in our Declaration of Independence and admonished in the Bible?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence)

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. (Deuteronomy 30)

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. (Jeremiah 1:5a)

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14a)

Scripture is abundantly clear that we face a battle between death and life. Jesus said: “…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) We’re told to choose life.

But Cecile Richards boasts about her abortions and her agency that chooses death for millions of babies — over seven million, six hundred thousand unborn children murdered through Planned Parenthood alone since Roe v. Wade.

Richards wrote in a 2014 Elle column:

I had an abortion. It was the right decision for me and my husband, and it wasn’t a difficult decision. Before becoming president of Planned Parenthood eight years ago, I hadn’t really talked about it beyond family and close friends. But I’m here to say, when politicians argue and shout about abortion, they’re talking about me—and millions of other women around the country.

And in an Katie Couric interview Cecile expands:

It was a decision my husband and I made. It was a personal decision. And we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life. And we decided that was as big as our family needed to be. It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that.

Let those words sink in.

“It was a decision my husband and I made.”

“And we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life.”

“And we decided that was as big as our family needed to be. It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that. ”

It was just a decision. Like whether to have cable or dish network, whether to have beef or chicken for dinner. No big deal.

And think about Richards comment “we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life.” How must those children feel? They are only adored because they happened to be number one, two and three. Had they been number four or more, they would have been killed. That’s a pretty calloused and capricious selection process.

Further, Cecile and her husband, Kirk Adams (who was vice president of the Service Employees International Union, and is now executive director of the Healthcare Education Project in New York), made that choice — a married, power couple. There was no hardship and no threat to Cecile’s life. Just the virulently selfish decision to use abortion as birth control. By any other name that would be called wickedness.

Looking on page 31 of the Annual Report, we see the total abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in 2017:

That’s 321,384 babies whose lives were ended at Planned Parenthood abortion mills in 2017. Consider that taxpayers contribute $500 million per annum to that vile organization, and try not to lose your cool.

Richards deceitfully explains that federal tax dollars do not go toward abortions, but that’s a misleading argument. The government money received by Planned Parenthood is fungible and frees up their other resources to promote their abortion services, lobby state and federal lawmakers, pay rent and the electric bill among other things. The notion that taxpayer money does not fund their abortion services is a ruse.

We should review the inception of Planned Parenthood to understand the true nature of this organization. Most worthy entities have great beginnings, such as the Ivy League Schools which were founded as seminaries. Over the decades, the original intent has degraded and the universities transformed into centers of Progressive propaganda, in direct opposition to a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Unlike the Ivies, Planned Parenthood was founded by an evil eugenicist, Margaret Sanger. As I wrote in 2014:

The real Margaret Sanger espoused sinister motives for advancing birth control and abortion: she fully endorsed eugenics for the betterment of race and society.

Sanger was a Darwinist who embraced a utilitarian view of human life, and proposed to rid our nation of the criminal element and “inferior races” through abortion and breeding programs.

And as noted in the 2016 article, “Planned Parenthood, An Unnecessary Evil“:

The original intent of Planned Parenthood has been veiled with a facade of honorable work, but the truth is despicable to the core.

Planned Parenthood’s predecessor, The American Birth Control League, was founded by Nazi-inspiration Margaret Sanger, the godmother of modern eugenics, in 1921.

So, this behemoth baby-killing business had a nefarious founding and mission, and an anti-biblical, anti-Christ goal of convincing teenaged and older females to choose death rather than life.

And notice, the “other services” touted so frequently by abortion-lover Richards have been dwindling as the main cash crop — killing the unborn and then selling the baby body parts — has increased.

As written at the Daily Wire by Paul Bois:

Feminists love to throw out the “but Planned Parenthood provides other valuable services” line when discussing the organization’s lucrative war against the unborn in the practice of abortion.

It turns out, according to the organization’s 2016-17 Annual Report, those “other services” have been steadily dropping since 2008 while their abortions remain stable, making it PP’s most reliable revenue stream — other than the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars it receives from the government, of course.

As noted by LifeNews, Planned Parenthood’s revenue has increased since 2009, from $1.1 billion to roughly $1.4 billion in 2017. That Planned Parenthood’s overall services have decreased rather increased makes this all the more puzzling. LifeNews provides a summary of the report’s findings:

In 2008, PPFA affiliates were seeing 3 million patients a year. Today, they see only 2.4 million—a huge drop of 20%.

PPFA’s highly publicized ‘cancer screenings’ fell by almost 2/3rds–from 1,830,811 in 2009 to just 660,777 in 2016.

What about contraception services? They dropped from 3,868,901 in 2009 to 2,701,866 in 2016—a 30% tumble.

How about their much vaunted (but barely existent) prenatal services? From 40,489 in 2009 to just 7,762 in 2016—a decline of more than 3/4s.

Bottom line: Planned Parenthood is a vile organization that should be defunded and its president, Cecile Richards, should be out of a job.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send an email or fax to your U.S. lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, urging them  to defund Planned Parenthood. Let them know that you strongly believe that businesses which profits from the wholesale killing of babies and the (illegal) selling of baby body parts should be shuttered and never receive another penny of taxpayer money.

More ACTION:  Please pray that our state and nation will repent from supporting this moral, political, and financial evil. Pray that your “pro-choice” family members, friends, and neighbors will finally understand that abortion is barbaric and indefensible in every situation — not just when tax dollars are being spent to support it. Pray that our state and nation will mourn the legalization of abortion, which has eradicated 60+ million innocent lives.

Spread the word! Ask your friends to speak out to their federal lawmakers also by forwarding this email or by posting it on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #DefundPP.

Be heroic! Take a strong stand in defense of the unborn! Join Illinois Family Institute in its battle to call for the complete defunding of tax dollars for Planned Parenthood!

March for Life Chicago!

Join thousands at March for Life Chicago 2018 as we come together from across Chicago, the Midwest and the U.S. to defend, protect and celebrate LIFE this Sunday at the Federal Plaza from 2 PM to 4 PM.  For more information, click HERE.

Our goal is to serve as a visual and vocal reminder that the people of Chicago and the Midwest stand for LIFE.  We come together to change perceptions in a society that thinks abortion is the answer. We call upon religious, civic and community leaders to renew every effort to build a nation and culture dedicated to protecting life at every stage and eliminating the violence of abortion. Our women, men, children and families deserve better than abortion!

Join us and choose life and blessing for our nation and the unborn!

Last year at this time, 2ndVote scored Macy’s low partly because of its practice of donating to Planned Parenthood and matching donations from its employees – but 2ndVote spokesperson Robert Kuykendall has an update.

“Macy’s reached out to 2ndVote and told us that the company is no longer donating any kind of money to Planned Parenthood, the world’s largest provider of abortion,” he explains.

Since 2ndVote started scoring corporations, AT&T, Coca Cola, Ford, and Xerox also stopped funding the abortion conglomerate – and Kuykendall says that’s largely due to exposing the companies’ practices and urging consumers to apply pressure. But there’s more work to be done, he says.

“If you’re doing business with American Express, with Allstate, with Patagonia especially – Patagonia gives tens of thousands of dollars to Planned Parenthood every year – a portion of your dollars is going to the largest provider of abortion services,” he informs. “So we want people to be informed; and secondly, we want people to engage those companies.”

And that, he says, is by consumers voicing their concerns to the companies and spending their money elsewhere. That’s what 2ndVote is all about – the first vote is in an election, and the second vote is taking consumer spending away from offending corporations.

Read more about 2nd Vote HERE.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to urge your U.S. Representative to defund Planned Parenthood.

This article was originally posted at OneNewsNow.com

Once upon a time in America, society demanded civility and honored women and motherhood.

But honor seems to have been tossed by the wayside in this modern era and exchanged for a cheap view of the female sex.

What happened to so utterly change the widespread estimation of the “fairer” sex?

First, we must understand that our nation’s mores were built upon a biblical worldview. We read this in Proverbs:

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. (Proverbs 31:30)

He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
And obtains favor from the Lord. (Proverbs 18:22)

The Founders — many of whom were devout Christians and the rest of whom believed in a Creator and respected biblical Christianity — envisioned a country of free men and women and families devoted to one another, worshipping freely.

During the years when Americans adhered to the original worldview of the first settlers and Founders, individuals were treated with respect. Each person was acknowledged as created by God and thus intrinsically valuable.

Women were protected and honored. Pregnant women were protected and honored. Mothers were respected and honored.

But with the twentieth century came some wholly destructive changes.

In 1921, Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which became Planned Parenthood in 1942, and ushered in the radical notion that babies in the womb had no intrinsic worth. Their worth was determined by their usefulness to society.

Sanger convinced many women that motherhood was not a blessing and that some people by virtue of their mental abilities or race were not worthy of life. This was a monumental lie based on a Darwinist worldview.

Planned Parenthood’s nefarious founder accepted and promoted the philosophical assumptions of “materialism“:

a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter.

Sanger’s philosophical beliefs contributed to the erosion of the view of mankind as the height of God’s creation, replacing it with a “utilitarian” viewpoint. Utilitarianism deems people worthy of life based on their capacity to contribute to society.

In the span of twenty years many Americans were persuaded that people were not intrinsically valuable because God created them, but rather, a person’s value was dependent upon their utilitarian value.

Next came Hugh Hefner and Second-wave feminists like Helen Gurley Brown and Gloria Steinem who persuaded men and women that sex apart from marriage and procreation was fine and dandy. Throw off the chains of old thinking and embrace your sexuality!

Helen Gurley Brown convinced several generations of women to engage in sex outside the safety of a loving marriage. Ms. Brown taught young women, enamored of Cosmo and the free love mantras of the day, that the sole goal of sex was orgasm and pleasure.

Counter that with God’s wondrous idea: sexual intimacy was to be the height of oneness between a man and wife, and the means of procreation. Marriage was intended to be a safe place, a refuge, where a loving husband and wife could raise children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

But indeed, if humans are not wondrously created by a Creator but, instead, are merely biologic units, then sex is no different than any other biological activity.

Hugh Hefner with his slick Playboy magazine indoctrinated decades of men of all ages with the lie that unrestrained sex is a terrific recreational activity and women’s bodies are the intended venue. Playboy perpetuated the view of women as playmates.

If a man believes that women are good for a thrill, like a ride at Six Flags, he is less likely to consider her character and heart important. He becomes concerned only with her body.

Hefner was a proponent of the “if it feels good do it” movement and convinced millions of men to throw off  archaic, puritanical ideas about womanhood and sex.

It was a very short step from nullifying mankind’s intrinsic value to sex with no restraint.

Add to that horrendous mix of immoral indoctrination the radical feminist movement. If Cosmopolitan magazine was the “bible” of free love, sex and orgasm for the single girl, Gloria Steinem was the prophetess of the sexual revolution.

Steinem founded Ms. magazine in 1969, which happily harmonized with Cosmo, further disseminating the dogma of free love and sex without the tedious tether of marriage.

The devotees of Brown and Steinem–who were once college radicals burning bras, protesting the Vietnam War, rebelling against parental authority, and belittling the institution of marriage–are now ensconced in America’s halls of academia teaching malleable young minds.

We now know what happens when you teach a nation that people have no intrinsic value, that women are mere means to pleasure, that women should want unfettered sex whenever and however, and that humans in utero are disposable.

Women in 2017 are beginning to realize that they’ve been sold a rotten to the core bill of goods.

In 2017, America has been forced to reckon with the consequences of almost a century of humanistic, unbiblical, immoral ideology. Free “love” is neither love nor free. It’s hedonism and it’s costly.

Women are objectified. Sexually transmitted diseases proliferate. Unwanted pregnancies terminated by abortion result in, not only murdered babies, but severe depression in women. Men, being denied their rightful duty and purpose to protect women and children, are emasculated and devalued.

How can we turn this around? How can we once again teach the amazing worth of each man and woman, boy and girl?

How can we teach men that women are not playmates to use but, rather, persons created in the image and likeness of God?

How can we turn back the clock to a time when men honored women–a time when men would stand when a lady entered a room?

America can change only if we as a nation turn to the principles that first made us great: God’s principles.

America can become a safe place once more for women and babies if we teach the transcendent truth that “all men [and women] are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Americans can realize the great heritage of our nation if we repent and acknowledge the words of the Psalmist:

Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!

End-of-Year Challenge

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $160,000. That’s right, a great group of IFI supporters are colluding with us to provide an $80,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2018!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

In yet another ethically repugnant judicial decision, Texas district court judge Lee Yeakel struck down a Texas abortion law (SB 8) that prohibits 2^nd trimester “dismemberment abortions” in which live humans are dismembered prior to death and then sucked out of their mothers’ wombs in pieces.

The law, passed by both the senate and house and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, would have permitted dismemberment of humans in utero as long as they were killed first by “injecting a chemical called digoxin into the woman’s abdomen; injecting potassium chloride directly into the heart; or inserting instruments through the cervix to cut the umbilical cord.” As barbaric as those methods are, they are less barbaric than death by dismemberment.

Dismemberment would violate every state’s laws on permissible ways to euthanize animals, and yet a Texas judge and Planned Parenthood barbarians prefer to dismember live humans rather than euthanize them first in more “humane” ways.

No compassionate, civilized human endorses killing tiny humans in the womb by any method, but until that legal right is eradicated, compassionate, civilized humans should seek to prevent the unborn, whose bodies have pain receptors by 10 weeks gestation, from experiencing the prolonged torment of having body parts ripped off one by one.

“Progressives” argue that requiring doctors to kill babies before they dismember them is ineffective and unsafe (Clearly, they’re referring to the safety of the mothers). So, here’s what a 2008 study reveals about the digoxin method of killing babies terminating pregnancies:

Intrafetal digoxin injection at a dose of 1.0 mg is safe and effective for fetal demise prior to pregnancy termination in the second trimester.

In testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, Dr. Maureen Condic, associate professor of neurobiology, adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and director of human embryology instruction for the medical school and of human neuroanatomy for the dental school explained the timetable of brain development as pertains to pain perception:

The earliest connections between neurons in the… (regions of the brain involved in… pain perception) are detected by 37 days post sperm-egg fusion and are well established by 8-10 weeks…. Connections between the spinal cord and the thalamus, the region of the brain that is largely responsible for pain perception in both the fetus and the adult, begin to form around 12 weeks and are completed by 18 weeks.

An article on fetal surgery for spina bifida, which is performed between 19-25 weeks (i.e., the 2^nd trimester), recommends the administration of pain medication to babies:

[I]t is not known definitively when fetuses can experience pain. Therefore, it seems prudent to provide analgesia during fetal surgical procedures.

This argument parallels one of the central arguments against abortion: If, as many on the Left claim, no one knows when life begins (or when “personhood” begins), then isn’t it prudent to provide protections against being killed to the unborn who are indisputably the product of conception between two humans, who are living, who have human DNA, and whose DNA is distinct from that of the women in whose bodies they are developing?

Yeakel wrote that the “State’s legitimate concern with the preservation of the life of the fetus”—an interest which he believes begins at birth—is subordinate to the “right” of a woman to have an abortion, which in Yeakel’s view is “absolute.”

Further, he concludes that “the State’s legitimate interest in fetal life does not allow the imposition of an additional medical procedure on the D&E—a procedure not driven by medical necessity.” He’s right. Requiring the expedient death of babies prior to dismemberment is not a medical necessity. It’s a moral necessity incumbent on even semi-civilized humans.

Pro-dismemberment-choicers object to the indelicate term “dismemberment abortion,” which lacks the euphemistic euphony of “dilation and evacuation” (D&E) upon which their anti-culture, anti-maternal savagery depends. Just as the movement to normalize deviant sexuality relies on language butchery, so too does the baby-butchery movement. “Dismemberment abortion,” though not technical medical language, is truthful plain-speaking that everyone understands, and linguistic clarity advances the cause of moral clarity.

One of the features that distinguishes humans from animals is our capacity to make moral choices—free decisions not driven by instinct. But some choices humans make render them less like humans and more like animals:

[M]other bears, felines, canids, primates, and many species of rodents—from rats to prairie dogs—have all been seen killing and eating their young. Insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds also have been implicated in killing, and sometimes devouring, the young of their own kind.

Humans find this behavior repellent in animals and then rationalize and celebrate it in humans.

Immediately after Yeakel’s decision was issued, Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, making it the third state to have a dismemberment ban pending in an appellate court. Many believe this case will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Let’s pray for wisdom at all judicial levels.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Pro-Choicers-Choose-Live-Dismemberment.mp3

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In an ethically incomprehensible decision, Texas district court judge Lee Yeakel struck down a Texas abortion law (SB 8) that prohibits 2^nd trimester “dismemberment abortions” in which live humans are dismembered prior to death and then sucked out of their mothers’ wombs in pieces.

The law, passed by both the senate and house and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, would have permitted dismemberment of humans in utero as long as they were killed first by “injecting a chemical called digoxin into the woman’s abdomen; injecting potassium chloride directly into the heart; or inserting instruments through the cervix to cut the umbilical cord.” As barbaric as those methods are, they are less barbaric than death by dismemberment.

Read more…

America was founded as a beacon of light, a refuge to those who only wanted to worship the God of the Bible as they saw fit. Our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, were infused with biblical precepts and a presumption of a Creator and His transcendent Truth.

For over 200 years this experiment in liberty flourished, lighting the world with the light of Truth and Righteousness.

At times during our nation’s history, Americans en masse veered toward the broad path to destruction. And at every departure from upright and moral living, a preacher or prophet of sorts would proclaim the words of God’s inspired Book, people would repent, and our national character would be righted.

God told Israel the truth, which still applies today:

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deuteronomy 30:19

But in the twentieth century, culture-changers assaulted our society, teaching people to exchange the truth for lies, with cascading and calamitous results. The following have deceived people to choose death, rather than life.

Margaret Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966), a nurse and proponent of birth control and eugenics, inspired the Nazis with her notions of breeding and forced sterilization to weed out the less than desirable races. “Nurse” Sanger was the Founder and first president of Planned Parenthood.

As I wrote in 2014:

…she formed the organization, American Birth Control League [est. 1921], which would eventually become Planned Parenthood [est. 1952].

And like the modern day organization, cloaking its true agenda in palatable verbiage such as “family planning” and “choice,” Margaret’s goal was far more evil than the respectable facade she presented.

. . .

Sanger was a Darwinist who embraced a utilitarian view of human life, and proposed to rid our nation of the criminal element and “inferior races” through abortion and breeding programs.

Thanks to Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood has cruelly slaughtered approximately 300,000 pre-born children a year since Roe v. Wade, or about 13.2 MILLION total.

Thanks to Sanger, life has been cheapened, and sexual intimacy divorced from the God-ordained, relationship of marriage.

Sanger pushed America to sow the seeds of destruction and the devaluation of life with abortion and a utilitarian view of human life.

Subsequently we’ve reaped the harvest of catastrophic and crippling depression in generations of women.

Alfred Kinsey (June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was a biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and a sexologist. He is known as the “Father of the Sexual Revolution” and founded the famed Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Kinsey shook the nation with his books, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).

These books revealed to a shocked and somewhat titillated population things they had never known about themselves: That between 30-45% of men had affairs, 85% of men had had sex prior to marriage, that a staggering 70% of men had slept with prostitutes, and that between 10 and 37% of men had engaged in homosexual behavior.

Alfred Kinsey’s studies, in retrospect, paved the way for hedonistic depravity. And how did Kinsey obtain the findings reported in his books?

Kinsey himself was a pervert and a sex criminal.

For example, where did he get all of his data on the “sexual behavior of children”? The answer is nothing short of chilling. Dr. Judith Reisman (whose research has since been confirmed time and time again) explained in her groundbreaking work Sex, Lies and Kinsey that Kinsey facilitated brutal sexual abuse to children as young as two months old, to get his so-called research:

Kinsey solicited and encouraged pedophiles, at home and abroad, to sexually violate from 317 to 2,035 infants and children for his alleged data on normal “child sexuality.” Many of the crimes against children (oral and anal sodomy, genital intercourse and manual abuse) committed for Kinsey’s research are quantified in his own graphs and charts.

. . .

The Father of the Sexual Revolution was a sado-masochistic bi-sexual sex criminal who facilitated the sexual torture of infants and children.

Thanks in large part to Alfred Kinsey, sexual deviancy and pedophilia were heralded as normal, and any and all sexual activity divorced from the God-ordained, relationship of marriage.

Kinsey taught America to sow the seeds of depraved sexual activity without the good and protective constraints of the previously held Judeo-Christian worldview.

Subsequently our nation has reaped the harvest of lives ruined, marriages wrecked, and all-time high venereal disease — now called Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

More than two million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported in the United States in 2016, the highest number ever, according to the annual Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Increases in STDs are a clear warning of a growing threat,” said Jonathan Mermin, M.D., M.P.H., director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. “STDs are a persistent enemy, growing in number, and outpacing our ability to respond.”

An epidemic accelerating in multiple populations—impact growing in women, infants, and gay and bisexual men.

Timothy Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and writer. He was an enthusiastic advocate of LSD and other psychedelic drugs. Leary’s famous quote “turn on, tune in, drop out” affected a generation of rebellious youth in, for the most part, the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Leary’s disciples turned onto drugs, tuned into sex, rock and roll, and dropped out, in many cases dropped dead, including: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Cole (The Association), Gram Parsons (The Byrds), Tommy Bolin (Deep Purple), Gregory Herbert (Blood, Sweat & Tears), Keith Moon (The Who), Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols), Lowell George (Little Feat), and more.

Thanks to the influence of Timothy Leary, a generation or more of Americans chose to escape life via drugs, and became enslaved by LSD, heroin, barbiturates, and other dangerous substances. Thousands of young Americans followed Leary’s direction into an untimely death.

Timothy Leary cajoled Americans to sow the seeds of escapism and societal anarchy and substance abuse.

Subsequently America has reaped the harvest of crime, ruined lives, and death.

Helen Gurley Brown (February 18, 1922 – August 13, 2012) was an author, publisher, and businesswoman. She pushed women in America to throw off their sexual inhibitions. Brown’s book, Sex and the Single Girl (1962) “encouraged women to become financially independent and experience sexual relationships before or without marriage.”

Brown gained further prominence as the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan magazine from 1965 – 1997. Continuing her mantra of sex without boundaries, Cosmo under HGB “set itself apart by frankly discussing sexuality from the point of view that women could and should enjoy sex without guilt.”

To this day Cosmopolitan is known for its edgy (aka immoral) sexual agenda and in September of this year alone reached over 32 million readers.

Thanks to Helen Gurley Brown, millions of young women were led to believe that sexual intimacy can and should be enjoyed without the burden of marriage and fidelity.

Ms. Brown deceived teen girls and women to sow the seeds of wanton, narcissistic sexuality.

Subsequently American women reaped the harvest of babies out of wedlock, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, and ruined lives and marriages.

Hugh Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American businessman, magazine publisher and playboy. He rejected the Christian faith of his parents in exchange for a life of rampant sexual conquest. “Hef” was Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Playboy magazine. Wikipedia describes Playboy:

Playboy is an American men’s lifestyle and entertainment magazine. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner’s mother. Notable for its centerfolds of nude and semi-nude models (Playmates), Playboy played an important role in the sexual revolution and remains one of the world’s best-known brands, having grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

After his death in September of this year, many in the world were lauding Hugh, such as frequent Playboy model and one-time Playmate of the Year, Jenny McCarthy, who gushed:

[Hugh was] the most good-hearted, caring, generous, supportive friend, and mentor…his zest for life was contagious

McCarthy tweeted:

But what is the truth?

The truth is that Hugh Hefner disseminated the lies that women are playthings (i.e. Playmates), objects of men’s desires and lust, and tools for gratification.

Contrast that with God’s admonition for love within marriage:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Ephesians 5:25

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:33

Thanks to Hugh Hefner, pornography became commonplace in America and women were stripped, not only of their clothing, but of their intrinsic worth. Thanks to Hef, sex became a meaningless pastime, a means to a few moments of physical pleasure, rather than the height of intimacy between husband and wife and a means of procreation.

God created sex to be beautiful and meaningful. Satan, the great liar who loves to offer counterfeits, twists it into a vile, animalistic act.

Hugh Hefner and Playboy magazine led our culture to sow seeds of dehumanizing women, and separating sexual intimacy from the safe, loving environment of true marriage.

And subsequently America has reaped a culture teaming with sexual users and predators. Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey and the other users in Hollywood and elsewhere didn’t happen in a vacuum, or by accident.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Galatians 6:7

If we repent, as individuals, and as a nation, we can re-light our beacon. But Americans must follow Truth and Life. We must choose Blessing not Cursing. We must reject the false promises and evil teaching of Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey and Timothy Leary and Helen Gurley Brown and Hugh Hefner and others.

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Proverbs 14:12

If Americans choose Truth, then we’ll reap blessing and life and life abundantly.

But only if we choose Truth.

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