No, Mr. President

From JT's blog:

The President’s statement on the Roe v. Wade anniversary:

Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.

I am committed to protecting this constitutional right. I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.

And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.

Albert Mohler calls this “one of the most revealing—and tragic—statements made by any political figure in our times.”

John Piper responded to a similar statement by the President a few years ago:

Help Send R.C. Sproul’s Book on Abortion to Congress

This sounds like an exciting opportunity from Ligonier Ministries:

January 22, 2011 marks the 38^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. On January 3rd, the 112th United States Congress will open with newly elected representatives in the Senate and the House of Representatives joining the incumbents. This is an important opportunity to influence our nation’s leaders on the critical issue of abortion. To coincide with both of these dates, Ligonier will send R.C. Sproul’s Twentieth Anniversary special edition of Abortion: A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue (Reformation Trust Publishing, November 2010) to every Congressional representative. Will you help?

Our goal is to raise $6,000 to fund this effort. For every $10 that you donate, you send one book to a representative. It is our hope that this resource, along with a letter from R.C. Sproul, will make an impact on the hearts and minds of our representatives in Congress.

Read more here.

You can read the first chapter online for free.

(Via JT)

Seatbelts and the Sanctity of Life

On Randy Alcorn's blog, I saw this commercial advocating the importance of seat-belts:



I imagine that very few (if any) people are offended by this ad, though it advocates restricting a person's choice to not wear a seat-belt. Our government requires drivers to wear seat-belts, and failure to comply is a punishable crime. I do not know anyone who finds it morally repugnant that our government hinders the person's "right to choose" on this matter.

The government can indeed, and does, tell people what to do or what not to do with their bodies. So in the discussion on abortion, it will not do for the advocate of choice to simply say, "I do not believe the government can tell a person what to do with their bodies."

Our seat-belt laws makes this clear as can be.

Seventeen Years Later...Still Waiting for Answers

The sermon, Being Pro-Life Christians Under a Pro-Choice President, is just as relevant now as it was seventeen years ago, when it was originally preached by John Piper. In it, Piper mentions eight ways that a Pro-Life Christian can honor a Pro-Choice president. The seventh way is "Expecting Straightforward answers":

We will honor you by expecting from you straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We would not expect this from a con-man, but we do expect it from an honorable man.

For example, are you willing to explain why a baby's right not to be killed is less important than a woman's right not to be pregnant?

Or are you willing to explain why most cities have laws forbidding cruelty to animals, but you oppose laws forbidding cruelty to human fetuses? Are they not at least living animals?

Or are you willing to explain why government is unwilling to take away the so-called right to abortion on demand even though it harms the unborn child; yet government is increasingly willing to take away the right to smoke, precisely because it harms innocent non-smokers, killing 3,000 non-smokers a year from cancer and as many as 40,000 non-smokers a year from other diseases?

And if you say that everything hangs on whether the fetus is a human child, are you willing to go before national television in the oval office and defend your support for the "Freedom of Choice Act" by holding in your hand a 21 week old fetus and explaining why this little one does not have the fundamental, moral, and constitutional right to life? Are you willing to say to parents in this church who lost a child at that age and held him in their hands, this being in your hands is not and was not a child with any rights of its own under God or under law?

Perhaps you have good answers to each of these questions. We will honor you by expecting you to defend your position forthrightly in the public eye. You have immense power as President of the United States. To wield it against the protection of the unborn without giving a public accounting in view of moral and scientific reality would be dishonorable. We will honor you by expecting better.

Read all eight, so that you aren't tempted to sin in doing #7.

Tebow Ad: Update

Last month after the Super Bowl I posed the question of whether the Super Bowl Ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mom was a lot of hoopla over nothing. Would a 30-second ad that didn't even mention abortion or the pro-life cause make any kind of impact?

Based on the testimony in this article, the answer is a resounding "yes"!

Pro-Choice Journalist on the Tebow Super Bowl Ad

(Via Justin Taylor)

From a pro-choice journalist writing in the Washington Post: “If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.”

Right on, Sally. Now can we talk about the plausibility of your position?

You can read her whole piece here. It's worth your time!

The Pro-Life Generation

I guess I am still in Sanctity of Life Sunday mode (and why shouldn't I be, since almost 10,000 babies have been murdered in abortion clinics around this nation since I preached on Sunday morning?). This post from Gene Veith's blog was an encouragement to me:

The pro-abortionists are worried. Journalist Robert McCartney, one of their number, explains why:

I went to the March for Life rally Friday on the Mall expecting to write about its irrelevance. Isn’t it quaint, I thought, that these abortion protesters show up each year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, even though the decision still stands after 37 years. What’s more, with a Democrat in the White House likely to appoint justices who support abortion rights, surely the Supreme Court isn’t going to overturn Roe in the foreseeable future.

How wrong I was. The antiabortion movement feels it’s gaining strength, even if it’s not yet ready to predict ultimate triumph, and Roe supporters (including me) are justifiably nervous.

As always, we in Washington enjoy an up-close view of the health of various causes because of the city’s role as the nation’s most important setting for political demonstrations. In this case, I was especially struck by the large number of young people among the tens of thousands at the march. It suggests that the battle over abortion will endure for a long time to come.

“We are the pro-life generation,” said signs carried by the crowd, about half its members appearing to be younger than 30. . . .

Activists who support abortion rights conceded that there’s less energy among young people on their side of the debate.

“Unfortunately, I feel my generation is a little complacent,” said Amanda Pelletier, 20, co-director of the abortion rights group at American University. “It just doesn’t seem to be a very hip issue.”

via Young activists adding fuel to antiabortion side – washingtonpost.com.

Mugged by Ultrasound

On Sunday in my sermon I mentioned that 70-90 % of abortion-minded women choose life if only they see an ultrasound of their baby. That's a pretty amazing statistic.

Along those lines is an interesting article that I came across via Kevin DeYoung's excellent blog. Here's a quote from the article:

Many abortion providers have been converted by ultrasound technology. The most famous example is Bernard Nathanson, cofounder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the original NARAL. By his own reckoning Nathanson performed more than 60,000 abortions, including one on his own child. But over time he began to fear he was involved in a great evil. Ultrasound images pushed him over the edge. “When he finally left his profession for pro-life activism, he produced The Silent Scream (1984), a documentary of an ultrasound abortion that showed the fetus scrambling vainly to escape dismemberment.”

Read the whole thing.

Abortion and Adoption

Yesterday I preached on the subject of abortion (you can download the sermon here), while earlier in the service an adoption ministry was introduced to the church.

In this video, Russell Moore explains how the two fit together:

50 Ways to Help Unborn Babies and their Mothers

Compiled by Randy Alcorn

The Pain of "Choice"

Ignorance abounds in our nation on the subject of abortion. We can do something about that ignorance by simply getting educated via stories like this, and spreading the word:

What's Wrong with this Picture?

Have you ever seen this bumper sticker?Here's the problem. A pro-life advocate makes a moral claim that he/she believes is objectively true: that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. The advocate of abortion-choice responds by turning that objective truth claim into a preference, like preferring chocolate ice cream to vanilla.

But this misses the point entirely. Being pro-life isn't about what I like better, it's about what is true. I don't oppose abortion because I find it distasteful; I oppose it because it violates rational moral principles.

So this bumper sticker, no matter how passionately it is slapped onto someone's car, is really irrelevant to the abortion debate. It treats the unborn like an ice cream flavor instead of a human being.

Imagine a bumper sticker that read, "Don't like slavery? Then don't own one!" Are we ok with that as a society? Then we shouldn't be ok with one for abortion either.

Don't Forget to Groan, 1/4

This video certainly made me groan. It also made me cry:

11 Reasons All People Know Abortion is Wrong

From a sermon by John Piper:

1. In Minnesota the Fetal Homicide Law makes a person guilty of manslaughter or worse if he kills the baby in a mother's womb - unless the mother agrees with the killing. Who is willing to live with the moral implications of making a person's "being wanted" the criterion of its right to life?

2. There is an inconsistency between doing fetal surgery on a baby in the womb to save life, and at a similar stage of development, killing a baby down the hall.

3. A baby can live on its own at 23 or 24 weeks. Yet pro-choice people say it can be killed even at and beyond this age if the mother will be distressed by its live birth more than its abortion. What morally significant factor will prevent them from saying that two babies at 23 weeks - one born and one unborn - may both be killed because of a mother's distress?

4. A baby's living without an umbilical cord (that is, outside the womb) is not the criterion of human personhood and the condition of the right to life. We all know this because our own living on a respirator or dialysis machine would not jeopardize our own personhood. The source of food and oxygen does not determine personhood.

5. The size of a human is irrelevant to human personhood. We know this because we do not make a one-month-old baby outside the womb vulnerable to killing even though it is so much smaller than a five-year-old. Littleness is irrelevant to personhood.

6. Developed reasoning powers are not the criterion of personhood. We know this because a one-month-old baby outside the womb does not have these powers either, yet its life is not in jeopardy because of that.

7. Scientifically we are human beings by virtue of our genetic makeup. The human code in the chromosomes is there from the start. We are utterly different from monkeys or rats or elephants as soon as the chromosomes of egg and sperm meet.

8. At eight weeks, all the organs are present - brain functioning, heart pumping, liver making blood cells, kidney cleaning the fluids, fingerprints formed, etc. Yet almost all abortions happen later than this date.

9. Ultrasound has given a stunning window on the womb that shows the unborn at eight weeks sucking a thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. We can see the amazing pictures in Life Magazine or various books or Web pages.

10. There is a principle of justice that, when two legitimate rights conflict - say the woman's right not to be pregnant, and the baby's right not to be killed - the right that should be limited is the one that would do the most harm.

11. The Word of God says, "Thou shalt not kill." But many abortionists admit they are killing baby humans. Bill Long, who used to do abortions at Midwest Health Center for Women told me over lunch some years ago that he knew he was "killing babies." Those were the abortionist's words. But he said it was a lesser evil; women must have "reproductive freedom."

Fighting for Life

Last week I mentioned the story of a woman in Texas who resigned from her position at Planned Parenthood after she watched an ultrasound of an abortion. Here's more on the story from an interview Abby Johnson (the former Planned Parenthood employee) did with Mike Huckabee:



I praise God for this woman's testimony. Please join me in praying that it reaches a wide audience.

"I Can't do this anymore"

That's what a director at Planned Parenthood facility in Texas recently said, who resigned her position after watching an ultrasound of an abortion.

Watch a news clip of the story here.

Why Abortion is Different

Courtesy of Gene Veith's blog:

David Koyzis writes that, yes, there are many political issues that we should be concerned about. But abortion is not just one of many. It is qualitatively different:

Not all issues necessarily have the same import or significance – something the language of morality may mask. In fact, there is a qualitative difference between abortion and the cluster of issues touched on above. In the case of the latter, no one disputes that the environment must be protected; the current debate revolves around how best to do so. Some favour a market-oriented approach, while others are convinced that government must play a central role. Again no one denies the desirability of furnishing the best health care to all citizens. Disagreement arises over whether this is best done through private or public insurance plans.

Abortion is different. Here the quarrel is not over the best way to protect the unborn; it is precisely over whether to do so at all. Those believing women should have the right to terminate a pregnancy hold this position despite the presence of the vulnerable child. Those who believe that the unborn deserve protection do so because of the child’s presence. This fundamental disagreement over what is at stake is what sets the abortion issue apart from most others. Proponents of the so-called consistent life ethic generally fail to comprehend this. Such bishops as Denver’s Charles Chaput are right to make a fuss over Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. Abortion is not merely a private opinion; it is a clear matter of justice that needs to be addressed head on.

Read the whole thing here.

Mohler on the future of Down Syndrome

Whenever I read or listen to Al Mohler, I am reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew 16:

"When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times."

One of the things I love about Mohler is that not only he is a great interpreter of the Scriptures, but he is an excellent interpreter of the times. In this article, he powerfully expresses his concern about the decrease in the number of babies being born with Down Syndrome.

Mohler's conclusion:

The fact that 92 percent of women who are told that their unborn child carries the high risk of Down syndrome choose to abort the baby should shock us all. What does that say about our devaluation of human life and human dignity? This can only mean that these women see a child with Down syndrome as not worth having — and the baby as a life not worth living.

Dr. Skotko points to the new tests just around the corner and sees a collision coming. Given his important research, we had better see a moral crisis looming. The Culture of Death is gaining momentum before our eyes. Who will be next in line to be considered unworthy of life?

Choosing Thomas

I didn't enjoy watching this. But when it was over, I was glad that I did. It made me grateful for the promise that in Christ, one day all things will be made new.

I can't imagine that you'll enjoy watching it either. But please watch it anyway. It's important that we remember to groan.

Good Message...Poor Delivery

I created a YouTube account today just to leave a comment on this guy's video:



Here's what I wrote to him:

I wholeheartedly agree with your message, but it's lacking one thing:

Tears.