For many Christian conservatives, the number one voting issue is abortion. Under no circumstances will we vote for a “pro-choice” candidate, no matter how good that candidate’s other policies may be. Conversely, we will vote for a strong pro-life candidate even if that candidate does not line up with some of our other ideals. After all, we reason, what is more important than the shedding of innocent blood, especially the blood of babies in their mothers’ wombs?

And while it is true that having an abortion is not exactly the same as burning a baby on the altar of the god Molech, as the ancient Israelites used to do, it is certainly high on the list of things that God hates. For good reason are we grieved and outraged over it.

That is one reason why so many of us voted for President Trump. And that is one reason why so many of us voted against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden (and Kamala Harris). Abortion. That one word says it all.

But that leads to an important question. Other than voting for pro-life candidates every two (or four) years, what else are we doing to save babies’ lives? Other than expressing our moral outrage in tweets or comments, what practical difference are we making? If this is such a grave evil in God’s sight and if we are so burdened by it, what are we doing the rest of the year?

I remember speaking at a pro-life rally in Charlotte, North Carolina in conjunction with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. There was a fairly small crowd present, which only highlighted the degree of apathy in the Church on the subject. In fact, one might say that our degree of passion when it comes to voting against abortion is in inverse proportion to our degree of action when it comes to actually working for the pro-life cause outside of the voting booth.

But as I spoke at the small rally, rather than having a holier-than-thou feeling, I was struck with the opposite emotion, saying to those gathered, “For many of us, attending this rally once a year is the only thing we will actually do to save the lives of the unborn.” Most of us could hardly pat ourselves on the back.

To be sure, there have been countless thousands of pro-life workers who have given themselves to the cause for decades. They have endured ridicule and scorn. They have been arrested and attacked. And yet week in, week out, standing in front of abortion clinics, they have lovingly offered women (and men) a better way. “Choose life,” they have pleaded, with passion, regardless of the opposition they have received.

Others have served faithfully in pro-life clinics, offering alternatives to abortion and affirming the humanity of the child in the womb. Others have worked on the legal front, while others have lobbied politically. Still others have given themselves to prayer and fasting, spending many a sleepless night praying for the unborn and for the emergence of a culture of life.

Here in Charlotte, a powerful pro-life movement, called Love Life, was birthed by some Christian businessmen deeply burdened by the shedding of innocent blood. It quickly moved to other cities in North Carolina and has now been duplicated in other states and countries. As a result, many hundreds of babies are being saved and many families being formed.

But the truth be told, as dogmatic as we are when it comes to voting pro-life (and I’m with you in terms of taking that stand) most of us are often just as apathetic when it comes to actually doing something to save the lives of the unborn.

Does that not smack of hypocrisy? Does that not speak of superficiality? If we really are so burdened, why so little action? If this sin really is so ugly in God’s sight, why do we do so little to stop it outside of our periodic votes? If these unborn children are so precious and innocent, why do we hardly lift a finger to save their lives?

A recurring theme of the Bible is that talk is cheap and that actions speak louder than words. Or, to paraphrase the words of Jacob (James), “If you have so much conviction, show it to me by your deeds” (see James 2:18).

Our voting is certainly important, and there are many legislative victories being won even as we continue to fight to overturn Roe v. Wade. (See here for a grudging acknowledgment of this in Time Magazine.)

But if we really care as much as we claim to care about the unborn, and if abortion is as serious an issue as we claim that it is when we go to vote, then surely, for most of us, there is far more we can do to be pro-life.

Let us turn our passion into action and let us put feet to our conviction. Lives are hanging in the balance, and you and I can be the difference between life and death. Literally.

This article was originally posted at AskDrBrown.org

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By Matt Barber

The pro-aborts are losing. They know it, and they hate it.

As LifeNews.com reported in January: “CNN released the results of a new poll showing a majority of Americans want all or most abortions prohibited – a clear pro-life majority.”

Indeed, the winds of life are blowing free the foul stench of a pro-abortion culture of death.

This is why President Obama and his fellow pro-abort zealot, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, have unilaterally, arbitrarily and unconstitutionally forced, through Obamacare, every taxpaying American citizen to fund “free” abortion-on-demand.

This draconian overreach is in perfect keeping with the 2012 DNC platform, which, for the first time, admits without shame: “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to … abortion, regardless of ability to pay.”

Psalm 8:28 commands: “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.”

To be sure, there can be none more oppressed than the tens of millions who, over four short decades, have been – and will continue to be – slaughtered within the safe haven of their own mothers’ wombs.

With its 1973 Roe decision, the U.S. Supreme Court put the government’s official stamp of approval on mass murder. Since then, the battle lines have been drawn. This is war. They, “pro-choicers,” are the bad guys, while pro-lifers are the good guys. It really is that simple – that black and white. It’s good versus evil.

History will reflect as much.

To the unenthusiastic mother, politically motivated abortion violence is deviously portrayed as an acceptable escape from what may seem a desperate situation. To the innocent child, it is – without fail and without due process – execution by torture.

Consider the horrific practice of Partial-Birth Abortion, innocuously tagged “Intact Dilation and Extraction.” This is a practice so brutal and so needless that even the liberal American Medical Association (AMA) admitted that it is never necessary under any circumstances.

During a partial-birth abortion, the abortionist pulls a fully “viable” child – often kicking and thrashing – feet first from her mother’s womb, leaving only the top of her head in the birth canal. This is so the abortionist can technically claim to be performing an abortion, rather than committing murder.

He then stabs the child through the base of her skull with scissors, piercing her brain until her kicking and moving about suddenly and violently jerks to a halt. Next, he opens the scissors to enlarge the wound, inserts a vacuum tube and sucks out her brains, thereby collapsing her skull.

Her now limp and lifeless body is then cast away like so much garbage.

Appalling, isn’t it? Infanticide by any objective measure.

So, naturally, Mr. Obama, reasonable fellow that he is, agrees with the AMA, correct? He and other “pro-choicers” were the first to applaud the high court when it upheld a ban on this Hitlerian practice, right?

Wrong.

Barack Obama unbelievably called the Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Carhart part of a concerted effort “to steadily roll back the hard-won rights of American women.” In so doing, he revealed to the world that leftist support for abortion “rights” has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with science or “health care.”

Moreover, consider Mr. Obama’s opposition to the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” It passed both houses of Congress in 2002 with overwhelming bipartisan support. Born Alive very simply requires that when a baby survives an attempted abortion – when she is “born alive” – further attempts to kill her must immediately cease, and steps must be taken to save her life.

Yet, incredibly, this president, while serving in the Illinois Senate, vehemently opposed the bill’s Illinois twin. He complained that requiring efforts to save the live victim of a botched abortion is “really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.”

Barack Obama’s solution? Finish off the little pest.

So prepare for Obama and other pro-aborts to go utterly berserk now that Arkansas has passed the Human Heartbeat Protection Act. It requires that when an abortion is performed at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or if a mother’s life is in danger.

This is common-sense stuff. The human heartbeat has long been indisputable proof of life both within and without the womb.

Still, and not surprisingly, even as the state legislature was overriding the Democratic governor’s veto of the new law – SB 134 – the ACLU and other pro-abort radicals were vowing to challenge it in court.

Mathews Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, has vowed to preserve it: “If asked, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation, free of charge for the people of Arkansas, born and unborn,” he said.

“In keeping with medical advances, history and common sense, the Arkansas legislature has said that the life of a 12-week-old unborn child with a detectable heartbeat is protected under the law.”

And well it should be. SB 134 is just the beginning. Brave lawmakers in Arkansas have provided the template for other states to follow.

They’re on the right side of history.

Indeed, history has a way of repeating itself. The Roe decision was not the first time the U.S. Supreme Court has so disgraced our nation. Roe v. Wade represents the twin bookend to the Court’s shameful 1857 Dred Scott decision.

In Dred Scott the Court absurdly held that African-American slaves, even if emancipated, were not fully persons and therefore could never be considered U.S. citizens. Likewise, Roe v. Wade ruled that children in gestation are not fully persons and are therefore not entitled to their most basic civil right: life.

As with Dred Scott, Roe’s fate, I believe, is certain. It’s just a matter of time. History will eventually judge Roe v. Wade every bit as harshly as Dred Scott.

Call yourself “pro-choice”? Shame on you. You’re no better than a modern-day slave master. Dump the garbage and join the right side of history.

There’s plenty of room over here.

When a doctor hands your child a death sentence, and the family must make a decision about the future, nothing is more personal or traumatic. It is every parent’s nightmare, and increasingly it has become more common.

With all the blessings of testing and technology, comes with it, information that is not always welcome or accurate.

The closest brush I have had with this type of situation was through a close friend. I hadn’t heard from my friend Julie for several months, when she called, I could feel her pain through the line. She told me through tears, how she had just returned from her prenatal appointment. That afternoon the doctor informed Julie that her baby had Trisomy 13, a defect, he said, that would leave the baby so badly deformed he would not survive birth; if he did, he would not live but a few hours longer. He warned that the financial and emotional toll on the family would be devastating. There was obviously only one answer: abort the baby as soon as possible.

Due to the complication of being a few months into the pregnancy, the doctor offered to drive Julie across state lines to have the abortion. The pressure Julie and her husband experienced was intense.

This was not her first pregnancy. The experiences of having a child grow inside of her, then give birth and hold a miracle in her arms and to her breast, made the thought of losing this child unbearable but destroying him, unthinkable.

The couple drew a line in the sand; there would be no abortion. The compromise: there would be no medical intervention if the baby got into trouble during the birth process. After all, he was expected to die.

Another mother chose not to take the doctors advice, Pam Tebow, mother of Tim Tebow, the prize-winning quarterback for the University of Florida. Although, we don’t yet know exactly what his mother was told, we do know, what she was advised–to have an abortion.

This year’s Super Bowl Sunday will air a commercial of Tim’s mother’s story. Although no one has been able to see the ad, abortion advocates have come out in full force to decry the injustice this commercial will do to women’s reproductive rights.

Here’s the thing–Julie’s baby didn’t die. He didn’t even need the doctors to save him. The boy was born healthy. Her right to choose to ignore the doctors advice and give birth preserved Julie’s reproductive rights.

I purpose it’s time to take a stand on what it really means to have the right to choose and stand for real reproductive rights. The right to choose is a right to actually choose in favor of a child’s life.

Julie was told that there are no survivors of Trisomy 13. One would assume that the diagnosis of her son was wrong. Surprisingly, there are hundreds of other cases where the diagnosis was right, and the baby was born. They are wonderful examples of the joy that comes with life–if not only to their parents, to everyone they meet.

Are these children going to follow in Tim Tebow’s shoes? Probably not. But that does not make them any less valuable.

Pam Tebow’s story is a message to every woman being pressured to end a pregnancy that the doctor doesn’t want. It’s a message of hope, strength and courage, far greater than anything we will see played out on the field that day.

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NARAL Pro-Choice America, an infamous pro-abortion organization, is described by Fortune Magazine as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.” NARAL Pro-Abortion America recently published its annual Status of Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States report. According to this vehemently anti-life group, the United States received a “D” grade for so-called “reproductive rights.”

The report not only graded the nation but also graded states individually. The report card uses a point system based on a n assessment of governors, laws, access to contraceptives, access to abortions, spousal and parental consent, “post viability abortion restrictions” on abortions, state constitutional guarantees of abortion, “contraceptive equity” (a euphemism for state-subsidized contraceptives), and the codification of Roe v. Wadein state law.

The “D” given to our nation means that our federal laws tend to lean pro-life. Those of us who believe that life is sacred from conception to natural death look forward to the day that NARAL assigns the United States an “F.”

The report explains that both state restrictions and federal “anti-choice” laws determine the nationwide grade. These laws include the Federal Abortion Ban, signed into law in 2003 by President George W. Bush; the Federal Refusal Clause of the 2004 Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, which protects health care practitioners who oppose abortion; and abortion restrictions for U.S. military women.

This relatively good news, however, does not extend to the Land of Lincoln. In fact, NARAL lauds Illinois’ state constitution for providing “greater protection for a woman’s right to choose than the U.S. Constitution.” (The U.S. Constitution neither explicitly nor implicitly guarantees the “right” to abort an unborn baby.)

Additionally, NARAL lists our state’s top executive, Pat Quinn (D), as “pro-choice,” the Illinois Senate and Illinois House are listed as “mixed-choice,” however; the Illinois General Assembly is led by abortion supporters Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago).

NARAL enumerates several anti-life laws in Illinois, which include requiring health-insurance plans that cover prescription medication to provide the same coverage for contraception, requiring pharmacies to dispense birth control, and providing access to “family planning” to low-income women through Medicaid. The report also highlights the long-litigated case to enforce Illinois’ 1995 Parental Notification Act, which remains in legal limbo and unenforced.

The NARAL report underscores the unacceptable reality that Illinois’ laws and far too many lawmakers favor abortion. After the tabulation of points, NARAL ranks Illinois as the 19th most anti-life state in the nation — with North Dakota ranking 50th and California placing 1st in this dubious competition. NARAL also gave the state of Washington an “A+,” while Maine, Oregon, Maryland, and Connecticut received an “A.” States that received an “A-” are Alaska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.

The states that received a failing grade from NARAL, thus being the safest for the unborn, are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia.