SBA: Reclaiming the Human Center of the Abortion Debate--Check out our brand new web video “Reclaiming the Human Center of the Abortion Debate.”
As I’ve told you before, this is our 2013 theme here at the SBA List, and most especially today as we commemorate the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The footage you’ll see in the video is from the Congressional briefing we hosted last week where we explored how abortion affects children, mothers, and our communities. In the video, you’ll see inspirational testimonies from Abby Johnson, who recounted her experiences working for Planned Parenthood; Rebecca Kiessling who told her story how she was conceived in rape and targeted for abortion; Dr. Alveda King who examined how the abortion industry targets the African American community; Georgette Forney, who shared her testimony as a post-abortive woman who is “Silent No More;” and finally, Melissa Ohden who bravely talked about how she survived a failed abortion.
PLEASE WATCH:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dawFw_fPCw8&list=UUweaynfcfOijvB8icPqU3sQ&index=1
The Anguish Of Abortion: What They Won’t Tell You--Last week, graphic autopsy images were released of a woman dying from a legal abortion. Her mother insisted the photos be made public. The story broke my heart. As 18-year-old Marla Cardamone lay in her casket prior to viewing, the funeral director suggested to Marla’s mother, Deborah, they close the casket so people would not see Marla’s disfigured face. Deborah Caramone told him to leave the casket open. She hopes to expose the lies of the abortion industry and wants people to understand that abortions are not always ‘safe and legal’. In order to do this,she bravely chose to show her daughter’s bruised and swollen face, caused by abortion-related complications. Marla died at a Pennsylvania hospital, and Deborah Cardamone vowed her daughter would not be forgotten.
Showing posts with label Roe v Wade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roe v Wade. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Abortion battle rages 40 years after Roe decision. Protests planned in Washington
Forty years ago, a poor, anonymous, pregnant woman called “Jane Roe” stepped forward to attack a Texas state law banning abortion.
She and her attorneys succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalized a woman’s right to abortion, overturned countless state laws and unleashed a cultural and political war so enduring that weeks after abortion supporters triumphantly swept pro-choice President Obama into a second term of office, Catholic prelate Donald W. Wuerl felt compelled to publicly lament, “What is the spiritual climate in our country that allows this culture of death to prevail?”
More than 1 million abortions are performed each year in the United States, and an estimated total of 54 million pregnancies have been terminated since 1973 (THAT IS MORE THAN 54 MILLION CHILDREN MURDERED), according to Guttmacher Institute data. But the moral and political questions surrounding the issue remain as unsettled in 2013 as they were 40 years ago Tuesday, when the Supreme Court issued its 7-2 decision.
Abortion wars are under way in court and state legislatures over the “Obamacare” health care reform, and record numbers of abortion-regulating measures have been enacted at the state level in the past two years.
CONTINUED: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/21/abortion-battle-rages-40-years-after-roe-decision/
She and her attorneys succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalized a woman’s right to abortion, overturned countless state laws and unleashed a cultural and political war so enduring that weeks after abortion supporters triumphantly swept pro-choice President Obama into a second term of office, Catholic prelate Donald W. Wuerl felt compelled to publicly lament, “What is the spiritual climate in our country that allows this culture of death to prevail?”
More than 1 million abortions are performed each year in the United States, and an estimated total of 54 million pregnancies have been terminated since 1973 (THAT IS MORE THAN 54 MILLION CHILDREN MURDERED), according to Guttmacher Institute data. But the moral and political questions surrounding the issue remain as unsettled in 2013 as they were 40 years ago Tuesday, when the Supreme Court issued its 7-2 decision.
Abortion wars are under way in court and state legislatures over the “Obamacare” health care reform, and record numbers of abortion-regulating measures have been enacted at the state level in the past two years.
CONTINUED: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/21/abortion-battle-rages-40-years-after-roe-decision/
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Diane Rufino: ABORTION: Where Conscience Meets the Womb
February 29, 2012
A baby is never a mistake, even if the mother’s conduct was.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about our country’s stand on abortion and what the issues are on both sides. As we all know, abortion is the voluntary, or calculated, intentional termination of an embryo or fetus. I understand that reasonable people can debate when life actually begins and I understand that religion teaches that life begins at conception. Yet I somehow feel there could be some room for common ground in the very early stages of a pregnancy. But once there is a heartbeat, it would be impossible for me to imagine any reason why that living being should be terminated, absent an urgent dire threat to the mother’s life. Yet as it stands now, abortions performed prior to the third trimester are legal in this country, thanks to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. [The decision essentially states that since a fetus is not a human being and therefore has no rights, including any that are protected under our Constitution, the woman's right to control her fertility and reproduction ability naturally outweigh any possible rights of the developing fetus for the first two trimesters. With respect to the third trimester, the state may have an interest in protecting the life of the unborn and so it can regulate, but NOT when the woman's health - either physical or mental (including stress) - becomes an issue. So Roe also shows great tolerance for the abortion of a baby that is ready to be born].
Pro-life groups believe in the sanctity of all life. They believe, as Ronald Reagan wrote so eloquently in 1983, that to diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn – diminishes the value of all human life. They believe that God is the giver of life. They believe that the embryo or fetus is “alive” and thus abortion is tantamount to murder. To them the question is not when human life begins, but rather ‘What is the value of human life?’ “The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.” (Ronald Reagan)
Since the decision in Roe v. Wade, which stands for the legal fiction that a fetus is not a human being, more than 20 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is well over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars. In 1982 the nation watched as a court in Indiana allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” because the child had Down’s Syndrome. The death of the tiny infant Baby Doe tore at the hearts of Americans because the child was undeniably a human being – alive. He was born mentally retarded and with an incomplete esophagus. He laid helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The parents wanted to deny it a simple medical procedure to fix his esophagus so he could eat and they sued for the right to let him die. This time the issue before the court was not whether Baby Doe was a human being, but rather whether parents had the right to choose to terminate the life of their baby when it was handicapped or whether the state could step in and try to save its life. They sided with the parents. If Baby Doe received such little compassion from the courts, how do those who haven’t had the opportunity to enter the world stand a chance?
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who in 1969 was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), later renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League, helped make abortion legal. He provided statistics to the Supreme Court in Roe to help support that decision. He was also the former director of New York’s City’s Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, the largest abortion clinic in the world at the time. In the late 1970′s he turned against abortion to become a prominent pro-life advocate, wrote Abortion America, and produced the powerfully revealing video, “The Silent Scream.” He later admitted that the statistics he presented to the high court were intentionally misrepresented. As he wrote: “We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures. We succeeded because the time was right and the news media cooperated. We sensationalized the effects of illegal abortions, and fabricated polls which indicated that 85 percent of the public favored unrestricted abortion, when we knew it was only 5 percent. We unashamedly lied, and yet our statements were quoted by the media as though they had been written in law.”
Dr. Nathanson also wrote: “I believe with all my heart that there is a divinity of existence which commands us to declare a final and irreversible halt to this infinitely sad and shameful crime against humanity.”
Roe v. Wade and the continued devaluation of the unborn continues to prod the moral conscience of Americans.
Pro-lifers understand that they can’t fully appreciate all abortion decisions nor the wrenchingly difficult dilemmas presented by their particular situations – such as those made by an ill-informed 16-year-old who made an impulsive decision or was coerced, or a college student who has an education ahead of her, or an unwed mother who can’t afford to feed or take care of another child, or a woman who has had non-consensual sex, but they don’t believe the solution lies in a deliberate act of destruction of human life. They don’t believe an otherwise viable and living fetus should be killed because of inconvenience – or for any other reason, for that matter. There are options and resources. There is education and common sense. There is a lifestyle built on decent moral values, discipline, and priorities.
Pro-choice groups, on the other hand, believe that a woman should have access to whatever health care she needs and that she should have control over her own body. Of course, as Ronald Reagan once commented: “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion is already born.” Finally, there is the issue of state intervention and to what degree the state should have a say in a pregnancy.
There are some women (pro-choice) who believe that they have a fundamental civil right to have complete control over her fertility and therefore she should have the freedom to decide whether she wants to continue or terminate her pregnancy. Others simply want the right to an abortion to undue something they aren’t capable or ready to deal with. Some have a change of heart and want to postpone having a baby until a future time. As Frederica Mathewes-Green explained: “No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.” Yet we all know that abortion is often performed with less consideration than that. It is often a woman’s choice of birth control…. birth control after the fact. Sometimes many months after the fact.
Pro-choice for women means no-choice for men.
Career women overwhelmingly side with the pro-choice view. Women who consider themselves pro-life have typically been stereotyped as church-going women and those who are stay-at-home wives and mothers. They are often portrayed as not really needing the option of an abortion. In 2008, my husband and I attended a rally at East Carolina University for John McCain. Sarah Palin was the speaker. Although most of us thought the event would be mobbed by Obama supporters in protest of Ms. Palin’s visit, there were no such mobs. In fact, the only protesters we saw were those who stood across the street carrying plenty of signs calling for the right of women to have an abortion if she chooses. As we were walking on the campus to the event, we saw a woman walking out of one of the University buildings, wearing a nice tailored suit, and asked if we were walking in the right direction. She made a snide comment about Sarah Palin and as we continued on our way, she shouted this to me: “You can’t be a successful woman if you don’t support abortion rights.” Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected in today’s world, the innocent unborn might need to be sacrificed? Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected, a woman must knowingly set aside the laws that God asks us to respect? Is that what it means to be successful? I don’t think so.
In fact, I have these few words to say to those career women who so lightly sacrifice the fruits of their womb for a chance to be a player in the business world: Please don’t think there is a comparison between a good job and giving life. Jobs are fleeting and merely ‘positions’ that are temporarily held by one person or another. They either consume you for a business purpose or they consume you for some selfish egotistical gain. A child is a legacy; a permanent bond; a life-long friend…. A reason to live life to the fullest every single day of your life. When I finished graduate school, when I was in my 20s and into my early 30s, I planned for a life of great accomplishment. I was going to be a great scientist. I was going to help understand the molecular basis of cancer and maybe find a cure. There was nothing inside me urging me to get married and start a family. In fact, at that point in my life, I didn’t want children. And I was hoping I would find a man who would want the same. But God knew better. He knew more about my heart than I did. And he blessed me with a child right after I got married. I admit I was scared. I had no maternal instincts whatsoever (but was great with animals) and wasn’t sure I would know what to do. But the minute I saw my daughter’s beautiful face and helpless body, I was hooked. I knew that I was meant to be a mother. I instantly knew there was no greater meaning to life than having a child. I knew I would love this child every minute of my life. When I saw her fragile tiny, red, wrinkled body and the way she was so uncoordinated and didn’t know how to do the simplest of things, I knew I wanted to care for her and keep her safe and comforted for as long as I was able to do so. By the time I left the hospital, I had already circled the dates I would try to conceive my next child. And only in having children of my own was I able to appreciate the depths of the unconditional and eternal love my own parents have for me. And that is the true meaning of life. It is the true circle of life. And like a circle, the love between parents and children are never-ending, just as God’s love is for all of us.
To any woman unsure of her lot in life, I would offer this heartfelt advice: Don’t make the mistake of thinking a career or anything else of such material worth is more valuable than the life-long love you experience and the life lesson you learn from being a parent. My biggest regret in life was not being able to start having children earlier, while I was younger, so that I could have had more of them before it was too late. While all of my friends were dating and getting married, I was still trying to figure out what degrees I wanted and so I got married much later.
PLEASE CONTINUE READING:
http://ncrenegade.com/editorial/abortion-where-conscience-meets-the-womb/
A baby is never a mistake, even if the mother’s conduct was.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about our country’s stand on abortion and what the issues are on both sides. As we all know, abortion is the voluntary, or calculated, intentional termination of an embryo or fetus. I understand that reasonable people can debate when life actually begins and I understand that religion teaches that life begins at conception. Yet I somehow feel there could be some room for common ground in the very early stages of a pregnancy. But once there is a heartbeat, it would be impossible for me to imagine any reason why that living being should be terminated, absent an urgent dire threat to the mother’s life. Yet as it stands now, abortions performed prior to the third trimester are legal in this country, thanks to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. [The decision essentially states that since a fetus is not a human being and therefore has no rights, including any that are protected under our Constitution, the woman's right to control her fertility and reproduction ability naturally outweigh any possible rights of the developing fetus for the first two trimesters. With respect to the third trimester, the state may have an interest in protecting the life of the unborn and so it can regulate, but NOT when the woman's health - either physical or mental (including stress) - becomes an issue. So Roe also shows great tolerance for the abortion of a baby that is ready to be born].
Pro-life groups believe in the sanctity of all life. They believe, as Ronald Reagan wrote so eloquently in 1983, that to diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn – diminishes the value of all human life. They believe that God is the giver of life. They believe that the embryo or fetus is “alive” and thus abortion is tantamount to murder. To them the question is not when human life begins, but rather ‘What is the value of human life?’ “The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.” (Ronald Reagan)
Since the decision in Roe v. Wade, which stands for the legal fiction that a fetus is not a human being, more than 20 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is well over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars. In 1982 the nation watched as a court in Indiana allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” because the child had Down’s Syndrome. The death of the tiny infant Baby Doe tore at the hearts of Americans because the child was undeniably a human being – alive. He was born mentally retarded and with an incomplete esophagus. He laid helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The parents wanted to deny it a simple medical procedure to fix his esophagus so he could eat and they sued for the right to let him die. This time the issue before the court was not whether Baby Doe was a human being, but rather whether parents had the right to choose to terminate the life of their baby when it was handicapped or whether the state could step in and try to save its life. They sided with the parents. If Baby Doe received such little compassion from the courts, how do those who haven’t had the opportunity to enter the world stand a chance?
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who in 1969 was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), later renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League, helped make abortion legal. He provided statistics to the Supreme Court in Roe to help support that decision. He was also the former director of New York’s City’s Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, the largest abortion clinic in the world at the time. In the late 1970′s he turned against abortion to become a prominent pro-life advocate, wrote Abortion America, and produced the powerfully revealing video, “The Silent Scream.” He later admitted that the statistics he presented to the high court were intentionally misrepresented. As he wrote: “We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures. We succeeded because the time was right and the news media cooperated. We sensationalized the effects of illegal abortions, and fabricated polls which indicated that 85 percent of the public favored unrestricted abortion, when we knew it was only 5 percent. We unashamedly lied, and yet our statements were quoted by the media as though they had been written in law.”
Dr. Nathanson also wrote: “I believe with all my heart that there is a divinity of existence which commands us to declare a final and irreversible halt to this infinitely sad and shameful crime against humanity.”
Roe v. Wade and the continued devaluation of the unborn continues to prod the moral conscience of Americans.
Pro-lifers understand that they can’t fully appreciate all abortion decisions nor the wrenchingly difficult dilemmas presented by their particular situations – such as those made by an ill-informed 16-year-old who made an impulsive decision or was coerced, or a college student who has an education ahead of her, or an unwed mother who can’t afford to feed or take care of another child, or a woman who has had non-consensual sex, but they don’t believe the solution lies in a deliberate act of destruction of human life. They don’t believe an otherwise viable and living fetus should be killed because of inconvenience – or for any other reason, for that matter. There are options and resources. There is education and common sense. There is a lifestyle built on decent moral values, discipline, and priorities.
Pro-choice groups, on the other hand, believe that a woman should have access to whatever health care she needs and that she should have control over her own body. Of course, as Ronald Reagan once commented: “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion is already born.” Finally, there is the issue of state intervention and to what degree the state should have a say in a pregnancy.
There are some women (pro-choice) who believe that they have a fundamental civil right to have complete control over her fertility and therefore she should have the freedom to decide whether she wants to continue or terminate her pregnancy. Others simply want the right to an abortion to undue something they aren’t capable or ready to deal with. Some have a change of heart and want to postpone having a baby until a future time. As Frederica Mathewes-Green explained: “No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.” Yet we all know that abortion is often performed with less consideration than that. It is often a woman’s choice of birth control…. birth control after the fact. Sometimes many months after the fact.
Pro-choice for women means no-choice for men.
Career women overwhelmingly side with the pro-choice view. Women who consider themselves pro-life have typically been stereotyped as church-going women and those who are stay-at-home wives and mothers. They are often portrayed as not really needing the option of an abortion. In 2008, my husband and I attended a rally at East Carolina University for John McCain. Sarah Palin was the speaker. Although most of us thought the event would be mobbed by Obama supporters in protest of Ms. Palin’s visit, there were no such mobs. In fact, the only protesters we saw were those who stood across the street carrying plenty of signs calling for the right of women to have an abortion if she chooses. As we were walking on the campus to the event, we saw a woman walking out of one of the University buildings, wearing a nice tailored suit, and asked if we were walking in the right direction. She made a snide comment about Sarah Palin and as we continued on our way, she shouted this to me: “You can’t be a successful woman if you don’t support abortion rights.” Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected in today’s world, the innocent unborn might need to be sacrificed? Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected, a woman must knowingly set aside the laws that God asks us to respect? Is that what it means to be successful? I don’t think so.
In fact, I have these few words to say to those career women who so lightly sacrifice the fruits of their womb for a chance to be a player in the business world: Please don’t think there is a comparison between a good job and giving life. Jobs are fleeting and merely ‘positions’ that are temporarily held by one person or another. They either consume you for a business purpose or they consume you for some selfish egotistical gain. A child is a legacy; a permanent bond; a life-long friend…. A reason to live life to the fullest every single day of your life. When I finished graduate school, when I was in my 20s and into my early 30s, I planned for a life of great accomplishment. I was going to be a great scientist. I was going to help understand the molecular basis of cancer and maybe find a cure. There was nothing inside me urging me to get married and start a family. In fact, at that point in my life, I didn’t want children. And I was hoping I would find a man who would want the same. But God knew better. He knew more about my heart than I did. And he blessed me with a child right after I got married. I admit I was scared. I had no maternal instincts whatsoever (but was great with animals) and wasn’t sure I would know what to do. But the minute I saw my daughter’s beautiful face and helpless body, I was hooked. I knew that I was meant to be a mother. I instantly knew there was no greater meaning to life than having a child. I knew I would love this child every minute of my life. When I saw her fragile tiny, red, wrinkled body and the way she was so uncoordinated and didn’t know how to do the simplest of things, I knew I wanted to care for her and keep her safe and comforted for as long as I was able to do so. By the time I left the hospital, I had already circled the dates I would try to conceive my next child. And only in having children of my own was I able to appreciate the depths of the unconditional and eternal love my own parents have for me. And that is the true meaning of life. It is the true circle of life. And like a circle, the love between parents and children are never-ending, just as God’s love is for all of us.
To any woman unsure of her lot in life, I would offer this heartfelt advice: Don’t make the mistake of thinking a career or anything else of such material worth is more valuable than the life-long love you experience and the life lesson you learn from being a parent. My biggest regret in life was not being able to start having children earlier, while I was younger, so that I could have had more of them before it was too late. While all of my friends were dating and getting married, I was still trying to figure out what degrees I wanted and so I got married much later.
PLEASE CONTINUE READING:
http://ncrenegade.com/editorial/abortion-where-conscience-meets-the-womb/
Monday, February 20, 2012
The Social Reformer’s Definition of Life: Demeaning the ‘Sanctity of Life’ for an Enhanced ‘Quality of Life’ (Roe v. Wade, revisited)
“One day, I walked into an operating room, to just be an observant, which we would do generally, as a medical resident. It was the 1960′s and abortion was still legal. They were performing this hysterectomy, which was a caesarean section. And they lifted out a fetus that weighted approximately 2 pounds, and it was breathing and crying and struggling to breathe. And it was put in a bucket and set in the corner of the room, and everybody in the room just pretended that they didn’t hear it. Soon the crying stopped. And the baby died. And I walked out of that room a different person. That same day in the OB suite, an early delivery occurred and the infant boy was only slightly larger than the one that was just aborted. But in this room everybody did everything conceivable to save this child’s life. My conclusion that day was that we were overstepping the bounds of morality by picking and choosing who should live and who should die. There was no consistent moral basis to the value of life under these circumstances. Some people believe that being pro-choice is being on the side of freedom. I’ve never understood how killing a human being, albeit a small one in a special place, is portrayed as a precious right.” (Ron Paul, Liberty Defined, pg. 1 and the Natural Right Convention 2007)
On Monday, January 23, thousands of pro-life supporters marched on Washington DC in the freezing rain to show their lend their voice to those who have no voice of their own – the unborn. In the struggle for rights and recognition, those most fragile and innocent among us look to those with a conscience and a heart to speak for them. Doctors and lawyers have let them down. Politicians have let them down. And in too many cases, their very mothers have let them down. But in the end, in the tribunal that mattered most (except in the kingdom of heaven, of course), the exalted Justices of the Supreme Court let them down. They minimized them, just as the others have. Next year, January 22, 2013, will mark the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which held that abortion is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution under an implied right to privacy and thus established the notion of abortion-on-demand. The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court announced nationalized abortion law, prohibiting states from deciding on the matter, and leaving the unborn defenseless.
CONTINUED:
http://ncrenegade.com/editorial/the-social-reformers-definition-of-life-demeaning-the-sanctity-of-life-for-an-enhanced-quality-of-life-roe-v-wade-revisited/
On Monday, January 23, thousands of pro-life supporters marched on Washington DC in the freezing rain to show their lend their voice to those who have no voice of their own – the unborn. In the struggle for rights and recognition, those most fragile and innocent among us look to those with a conscience and a heart to speak for them. Doctors and lawyers have let them down. Politicians have let them down. And in too many cases, their very mothers have let them down. But in the end, in the tribunal that mattered most (except in the kingdom of heaven, of course), the exalted Justices of the Supreme Court let them down. They minimized them, just as the others have. Next year, January 22, 2013, will mark the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which held that abortion is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution under an implied right to privacy and thus established the notion of abortion-on-demand. The 1973 U.S. Supreme Court announced nationalized abortion law, prohibiting states from deciding on the matter, and leaving the unborn defenseless.
CONTINUED:
http://ncrenegade.com/editorial/the-social-reformers-definition-of-life-demeaning-the-sanctity-of-life-for-an-enhanced-quality-of-life-roe-v-wade-revisited/
Friday, January 20, 2012
JOIN THE MARCH FOR LIFE, January 23, 2012, Washington, DC
This week is the 39th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the wrongfully decided Supreme Court decision that tragically legalized abortion and has since resulted in over 50 million innocent lives being taken away. On Monday hundreds of thousands will gather in Washington, DC for the March for Life: a powerful march for the day when all life will be respected.
Can you join me and many other Americans at this year's March for Life? Click here for more information.
If you are not able to attend, please take a moment to pray on Monday for the safety of those traveling long distances to the March for Life, pray for the pro-life movement's efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and pray for those considering having an abortion.
For those attending, we would love to post your best pictures of the March for Life on our Facebook page! So be sure to take some pictures and send your favorites to media@lfrusa.com
Can you join me and many other Americans at this year's March for Life? Click here for more information.
If you are not able to attend, please take a moment to pray on Monday for the safety of those traveling long distances to the March for Life, pray for the pro-life movement's efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and pray for those considering having an abortion.
For those attending, we would love to post your best pictures of the March for Life on our Facebook page! So be sure to take some pictures and send your favorites to media@lfrusa.com
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
MESSAGE FROM SENATOR RAND PAUL
January 17, 2012
Dear Friend,
For 38 years, nine unelected men and women on the Supreme Court have played God with innocent human life.
They have invented laws that condemned to painful deaths without trial more than 56 million babies for the crime of being "inconvenient."
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling forced abortion-on-demand down our nation's throat.
In the past, many in the pro-life movement have felt limited to protecting a life here and there -- passing some limited law to slightly control abortion in the more outrageous cases.
But some pro-lifers always seem to tiptoe around the Supreme Court, hoping they won't be offended.
Now the time to grovel before the Supreme Court is over.
Working from what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, pro-life lawmakers can pass a Life at Conception Act and end abortion using the Constitution instead of amending it.
That is why it's so urgent you sign the petition to your Senators and Congressman that I will link to in a moment.
You see, while the national media has talked a lot about the impact of economic issues on this past election, the untold story is just how well pro-life candidates did.
So it is vital every Member of Congress be put on record.
And your petition will help do just that.
Signing the Life at Conception Act petition will help break through the opposition clinging to abortion-on-demand and get a vote on this life-saving bill to overturn Roe v. Wade.
A Life at Conception Act declares unborn children "persons" as defined by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, entitled to legal protection.
This is the one thing the Supreme Court admitted in Roe v. Wade that would cause the case for legal abortion to "collapse."
When the Supreme Court handed down its now-infamous Roe v. Wade decision, it did so based on a new, previously undefined "right of privacy" which it "discovered" in so-called "emanations" of "penumbrae" of the Constitution.
Of course, as constitutional law it was a disaster.
But never once did the Supreme Court declare abortion itself to be a constitutional right.
Instead the Supreme Court said:
"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins . . . the judiciary at this point in the development of man's knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."
Then the High Court made a key admission:
"If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case [i.e., "Roe" who sought an abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."
The fact is, the 14th Amendment couldn't be clearer:
". . . nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."
Furthermore, the 14th Amendment says: "Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
That's exactly what a Life at Conception Act would do.
But this simple, logical and obviously right legislation will not become law without a fight. And that's where your help is critical.
You see, it will be a tough fight, but I believe with your signed petition it is one we can win.
Please click here to sign your petition right away.
http://nationalprolifealliance.com/rlac_petition.aspx?pid=pu2&npla=I1ABAC12I
Dear Friend,
For 38 years, nine unelected men and women on the Supreme Court have played God with innocent human life.
They have invented laws that condemned to painful deaths without trial more than 56 million babies for the crime of being "inconvenient."
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling forced abortion-on-demand down our nation's throat.
In the past, many in the pro-life movement have felt limited to protecting a life here and there -- passing some limited law to slightly control abortion in the more outrageous cases.
But some pro-lifers always seem to tiptoe around the Supreme Court, hoping they won't be offended.
Now the time to grovel before the Supreme Court is over.
Working from what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, pro-life lawmakers can pass a Life at Conception Act and end abortion using the Constitution instead of amending it.
That is why it's so urgent you sign the petition to your Senators and Congressman that I will link to in a moment.
You see, while the national media has talked a lot about the impact of economic issues on this past election, the untold story is just how well pro-life candidates did.
So it is vital every Member of Congress be put on record.
And your petition will help do just that.
Signing the Life at Conception Act petition will help break through the opposition clinging to abortion-on-demand and get a vote on this life-saving bill to overturn Roe v. Wade.
A Life at Conception Act declares unborn children "persons" as defined by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, entitled to legal protection.
This is the one thing the Supreme Court admitted in Roe v. Wade that would cause the case for legal abortion to "collapse."
When the Supreme Court handed down its now-infamous Roe v. Wade decision, it did so based on a new, previously undefined "right of privacy" which it "discovered" in so-called "emanations" of "penumbrae" of the Constitution.
Of course, as constitutional law it was a disaster.
But never once did the Supreme Court declare abortion itself to be a constitutional right.
Instead the Supreme Court said:
"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins . . . the judiciary at this point in the development of man's knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."
Then the High Court made a key admission:
"If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case [i.e., "Roe" who sought an abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."
The fact is, the 14th Amendment couldn't be clearer:
". . . nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."
Furthermore, the 14th Amendment says: "Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
That's exactly what a Life at Conception Act would do.
But this simple, logical and obviously right legislation will not become law without a fight. And that's where your help is critical.
You see, it will be a tough fight, but I believe with your signed petition it is one we can win.
Please click here to sign your petition right away.
http://nationalprolifealliance.com/rlac_petition.aspx?pid=pu2&npla=I1ABAC12I
Monday, May 9, 2011
OPINION: Townhall.com--Dr. Mike Adams
Personal Liberty 101
http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2011/05/09/personal_liberty_101/page/full/
“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question of whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of its life. And that is nothing but murder.” – Dietrich Bonheoffer.
Over the course of the last two weeks I have had conversations with two men who claim to be conservative but who also steadfastly defend a woman’s right to choose abortion. In both cases, the self-proclaimed conservative asserted that the government has no right to tell a woman what to do with “her” body. One went so far as to say that a government that could outlaw abortion could also re-institute slavery.
Support for a so-called constitutional right to abortion is completely at odds with conservatism. In fact, when you hear a “conservative” claiming to support abortion rights you can be certain that the individual simply does not understand basic conservative principles. In all likelihood the pro-abortion-choice “conservative” adopts the label because of self-interest. Perhaps he makes good money and does not want to pay high taxes. What makes a person human does not necessarily make him conservative.
When you suspect you are talking to a pseudo-conservative there are usually two questions you can ask that will either confirm or disconfirm your suspicions immediately.
First and foremost, it is important to ask the self-proclaimed conservative the following: “Do you believe in the inherent ‘goodness’ or ‘perfectibility’ of mankind.” If you hear a “yes” you are talking to a liberal. If you hear “Did you mean to say ‘person-kind’?” you are talking to a feminist. (So end the conversation as quickly as possible!).
If you hear the right answer to question one, you can move on to question two: “Does man get his rights from other men?” If you hear a “yes” you are talking to a liberal. If you hear “Did you mean to say ‘persons’” you are still talking to a feminist. (I thought I told you to end the conversation as quickly as possible!).
Roe v. Wade was (and is) a deeply flawed ruling because it is predicated upon the notion that man can grant rights to man not granted to him by God. The distinction between the first, second, and third trimesters was not based upon any long-standing legal doctrine. Nor was it based upon solid and reliable medical evidence. It was simply based upon identity politics.
Harry Blackmun, author of the majority opinion in Roe, once said “I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.” That was from his opinion in a death penalty case. But Blackmun also said that our “Constitution compels abortion on demand.” That basic human rights should be assigned in such an arbitrary manner does lend credence to Blackmun’s characterizations – made in a different context - of the Justices as “eccentrics” and “prima donnas.”
The authors of our Declaration of Independence - as well as the Framers of our Constitution – had a very different view of the origin and assignment of basic human rights. Lest we forget: “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 - To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”
Medical technology has come a long way since 1973. It has told us what we knew in our hearts all along; namely, that abortion, regardless of the trimester in which it is performed, constitutes a deprivation of life initiated by our Creator.
Ultrasound technology allows us a better view of the target of the procedure known as abortion. It takes little intelligence to understand that something that is moving (and growing) is indeed alive. Technology also shows us that a new heart is beating within a month of conception. Surgical abortions are not even performed until 6 to 7 weeks into the pregnancy.
This issue is important as the conservative movement seeks in future elections to make inroads among blacks, Hispanics, and younger voters. It is important because all three of these groups have something in common: They are clearly pro-life on the issue of abortion.
Younger voters are moving in the direction of life simply because they are the first generation to grow up with basic access to and familiarity with ultrasound technology. With the help of this younger generation, which now responds to opinion polls, the country passed the 50% mark in opposition to abortion just two years ago.
So it would be politically disastrous for the conservative movement to compromise on abortion. We are in the enviable position of being out in front on an issue that is consistent with both our political goals and our deeply held principles. Leave it to the opposition to argue that men have endowed us with an unalienable right to stop a beating heart.
Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.
http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2011/05/09/personal_liberty_101/page/full/
“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question of whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of its life. And that is nothing but murder.” – Dietrich Bonheoffer.
Over the course of the last two weeks I have had conversations with two men who claim to be conservative but who also steadfastly defend a woman’s right to choose abortion. In both cases, the self-proclaimed conservative asserted that the government has no right to tell a woman what to do with “her” body. One went so far as to say that a government that could outlaw abortion could also re-institute slavery.
Support for a so-called constitutional right to abortion is completely at odds with conservatism. In fact, when you hear a “conservative” claiming to support abortion rights you can be certain that the individual simply does not understand basic conservative principles. In all likelihood the pro-abortion-choice “conservative” adopts the label because of self-interest. Perhaps he makes good money and does not want to pay high taxes. What makes a person human does not necessarily make him conservative.
When you suspect you are talking to a pseudo-conservative there are usually two questions you can ask that will either confirm or disconfirm your suspicions immediately.
First and foremost, it is important to ask the self-proclaimed conservative the following: “Do you believe in the inherent ‘goodness’ or ‘perfectibility’ of mankind.” If you hear a “yes” you are talking to a liberal. If you hear “Did you mean to say ‘person-kind’?” you are talking to a feminist. (So end the conversation as quickly as possible!).
If you hear the right answer to question one, you can move on to question two: “Does man get his rights from other men?” If you hear a “yes” you are talking to a liberal. If you hear “Did you mean to say ‘persons’” you are still talking to a feminist. (I thought I told you to end the conversation as quickly as possible!).
Roe v. Wade was (and is) a deeply flawed ruling because it is predicated upon the notion that man can grant rights to man not granted to him by God. The distinction between the first, second, and third trimesters was not based upon any long-standing legal doctrine. Nor was it based upon solid and reliable medical evidence. It was simply based upon identity politics.
Harry Blackmun, author of the majority opinion in Roe, once said “I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.” That was from his opinion in a death penalty case. But Blackmun also said that our “Constitution compels abortion on demand.” That basic human rights should be assigned in such an arbitrary manner does lend credence to Blackmun’s characterizations – made in a different context - of the Justices as “eccentrics” and “prima donnas.”
The authors of our Declaration of Independence - as well as the Framers of our Constitution – had a very different view of the origin and assignment of basic human rights. Lest we forget: “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 - To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed …”
Medical technology has come a long way since 1973. It has told us what we knew in our hearts all along; namely, that abortion, regardless of the trimester in which it is performed, constitutes a deprivation of life initiated by our Creator.
Ultrasound technology allows us a better view of the target of the procedure known as abortion. It takes little intelligence to understand that something that is moving (and growing) is indeed alive. Technology also shows us that a new heart is beating within a month of conception. Surgical abortions are not even performed until 6 to 7 weeks into the pregnancy.
This issue is important as the conservative movement seeks in future elections to make inroads among blacks, Hispanics, and younger voters. It is important because all three of these groups have something in common: They are clearly pro-life on the issue of abortion.
Younger voters are moving in the direction of life simply because they are the first generation to grow up with basic access to and familiarity with ultrasound technology. With the help of this younger generation, which now responds to opinion polls, the country passed the 50% mark in opposition to abortion just two years ago.
So it would be politically disastrous for the conservative movement to compromise on abortion. We are in the enviable position of being out in front on an issue that is consistent with both our political goals and our deeply held principles. Leave it to the opposition to argue that men have endowed us with an unalienable right to stop a beating heart.
Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.
Monday, December 20, 2010
by Diane Rufino, Dec. 15, 2010
Abortion: Where Conscience Meets the Womb
http://forloveofgodandcountry.wordpress.com/
Back in October, I received an email from Patriot Update which listed the 11 enemies of “Life” in the U.S. Congress – those who voted for, or supported – the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion in American history. They wanted to use our hard-earned tax dollars to pay for insurance coverage for abortions, a procedure that too many find offensive to their conscience. The 11 representatives listed in the email were: Baron Hill (IN-9), John Boccieri (OH-16), Chris Carney (PA-10), Paul Kanjorski (PA-11), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-3), Tom Perriello (VA-5), Alan Grayson (FL-8), Bob Etheridge (NC-2), John Spratt (SC-5), John Salazar (CO-3), and Joe Donnelly (IN-2). Of these 11, only Joe Donnelly was re-elected on November 2, and he managed to keep his seat by only 1% of the vote. It would seem that Americans have grown a conscience.
Then I remembered something I read in a Princeton University magazine. According to a Gallup Poll conducted in May of last year, 51% of Americans call themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion and 42% consider themselves “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of adults in this country have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.
It is said that a conscience without God is like a court without a judge.
It got me thinking about our country’s stand on abortion and what the issues are on both sides. As we all know, abortion is the voluntary, or calculated, intentional termination of an embryo or fetus. I understand that reasonable people can debate when life actually begins and I understand that religion teaches that life begins at conception. Yet I somehow feel there could be some room for common ground in the very early stages of a pregnancy. But once there is a heartbeat, it would be impossible for me to imagine any reason why that living being should be terminated, absent an urgent dire threat to the mother’s life. Yet as it stands now, abortions performed prior to the third trimester are legal in this country, thanks to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. [The decision states that since a fetus is not a human being and therefore has no rights, including any that are protected under our Constitution, the woman's right to control her fertility and reproduction ability naturally outweigh any possible rights of the developing fetus for the first two trimesters. With respect to the third trimester, the state may have an interest in protecting the life of the unborn and so it can regulate, but NOT when the woman's health becomes an issue. So Roe also shows great tolerance for the abortion of a baby that is ready to be born].
Pro-life groups believe in the sanctity of all life. They believe, as Ronald Reagan wrote so eloquently in 1983, that to diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn – diminishes the value of all human life. They believe that God is the giver of life. They believe that the embryo or fetus is “alive” and thus abortion is tantamount to murder. To them the question is not when human life begins, but rather ‘What is the value of human life?’ “The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.” (Ronald Reagan)
Since the decision in Roe v. Wade, which stands for the legal fiction that a fetus is not a human being, more than 20 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is well over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars. In 1982 the nation watched as a court in Indiana allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” because the child had Down’s Syndrome. The death of the tiny infant Baby Doe tore at the hearts of Americans because the child was undeniably a human being – alive. He was born mentally retarded and with an incomplete esophagus. He laid helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The parents wanted to deny it a simple medical procedure to fix his esophagus so he could eat and they sued for the right to let him die. This time the issue before the court was not whether Baby Doe was a human being, but rather whether parents had the right to choose to terminate the life of their baby when it was handicapped or whether the state could step in and try to save its life. They sided with the parents. If Baby Doe received such little compassion from the courts, how do those who haven’t had the opportunity to enter the world stand a chance?
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who in 1969 was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), later renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League, helped make abortion legal. He provided statistics to the Supreme Court in Roe to help support that decision. He was also the former director of New York’s City’s Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, the largest abortion clinic in the world at the time. In the late 1970′s he turned against abortion to become a prominent pro-life advocate, wrote Abortion America, and produced the powerfully revealing video, “The Silent Scream.” He later admitted that the statistics he presented to the high court were intentionally misrepresented. Dr. Nathanson wrote: ” I believe with all my heart that there is a divinity of existence which commands us to declare a final and irreversible halt to this infinitely sad and shameful crime against humanity.”
Roe v. Wade and the continued devaluation of the unborn continues to prod the moral conscience of Americans.
Pro-lifers understand that they can’t fully appreciate all abortion decisions nor the wrenchingly difficult dilemmas presented by their particular situations – such as those made by an ill-informed 16-year-old who made an impulsive decision or was coerced, or a college student who has an education ahead of her, or an unwed mother who can’t afford to feed or take care of another child, or a woman who has had non-consensual sex, but they don’t believe the solution lies in a deliberate act of destruction of human life. They don’t believe an otherwise viable and living fetus should be killed because of inconvenience – or for any other reason, for that matter. There are options and resources. There is education and common sense. There is a lifestyle built on decent moral values, discipline, and priorities.
Pro-choice groups, on the other hand, believe that a woman should have access to whatever health care she needs and that she should have control over her own body. Of course, as Ronald Reagan once commented: “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion is already born.” Finally, there is the issue of state intervention and to what degree the state should have a say in a pregnancy.
There are some women (pro-choice) who believe that they have a fundamental civil right to have complete control over her fertility and therefore she should have the freedom to decide whether she wants to continue or terminate her pregnancy. Others simply want the right to an abortion to undue something they aren’t capable or ready to deal with. Some have a change of heart and want to postpone having a baby until a future time. As Frederica Mathewes-Green explained: “No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.” Yet we all know that abortion is often performed with less consideration than that. It is often a woman’s choice of birth control…. birth control after the fact. Sometimes many months after the fact.
Pro-choice for women means no-choice for men.
Career women overwhelmingly side with the pro-choice view. Women who consider themselves pro-life have typically been stereotyped as church-going women and those who are stay-at-home wives and mothers. They are often portrayed as not really needing the option of an abortion. In 2008, my husband and I attended a rally at East Carolina University for John McCain. Sarah Palin was the speaker. Although most of us thought the event would be mobbed by Obama supporters in protest of Ms. Palin’s visit, there were no such mobs. In fact, the only protesters we saw were those who stood across the street carrying plenty of signs calling for the right of women to have an abortion if she chooses. As we were walking on the campus to the event, we saw a woman walking out of one of the University buildings, wearing a nice tailored suit, and asked if we were walking in the right direction. She made a snide comment about Sarah Palin and as we continued on our way, she shouted this to me: “You can’t be a successful woman if you don’t support abortion rights.” Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected in today’s world, the innocent unborn might need to be sacrificed? Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected, a woman must knowingly set aside the laws that God asks us to respect? Is that what it means to be successful? I don’t think so.
In fact, I have these few words to say to those career women who gladly sacrifice the fruits of their womb for a chance to be a player in the business world —
Just like Jesus was born to save those who believe, my children saved me. They saved me from a selfish, loveless life dominated by a career that often chews you up and spits you out. When I finished graduate school, when I was in my 20s and into my early 30s, I planned for a life of great accomplishment. I was going to be a great scientist. I was going to help understand the molecular basis of cancer and maybe find a cure. There was nothing inside me urging me to get married and start a family. In fact, at that point in my life, I didn’t want children. And I was hoping I would find a man who would want the same. But God knew better. He knew more about my heart than I did. And he blessed me with a child right after I got married. I admit I was scared. I had no maternal instincts whatsoever (but was great with animals) and wasn’t sure I would know what to do. But the minute I saw my daughter’s beautiful face and helpless body, I was hooked. I knew I would love this little child every minute of my life. When I saw her fragile little body and the way she was so uncoordinated and didn’t know how to do the simplest of things, I knew I wanted to care for her and keep her safe and comforted for as long as I was able to do so. By the time I left the hospital, I had already circled the dates I would try to conceive my next child. And only in having children of my own was I able to appreciate the depths of the unconditional and eternal love my own parents have for me. And that is the true meaning of life. It is the true circle of life. And like a circle, the love between parents and children are never-ending, just as God’s love is for all of us.
To any woman unsure of her lot in life, I would offer this heartfelt advice: Don’t make the mistake of thinking a career or anything else of such material worth is more valuable than the life-long love you experience and the life lesson you learn from being a parent.
The way I see it, the killing of an innocent viable fetus is utterly and fundamentally it is opposed to everything we stand for as a nation guided by Natural Law and memorialized under Christian values. The right to life is the foundation of every other human right that we hold so dear in this country. We hold vigils, we protest, and we march for the rights of violent criminals. We claim to be a compassionate society. We claim it is too inhumane to put to death, albeit painlessly, those who violently took the life of other human beings. Yet we support the violent murder of the live unborn. Our compassion stops at the womb. Winifred Egan noted: “What an irony that a society confronted with plastic bags filled with the remains of aborted babies should be more concerned about the problem of recycling the plastic.”
As Glenn Beck recently noted on his show: You can do jail time for killing an eagle’s egg, but you are protected for killing a human child in the mother’s womb. In our country the Bald Eagle is federally protected. And not just the living bald eagle but also the egg sitting in the nest. Anyone who tries to remove the egg or destroy it can be prosecuted by federal law. The only plausible explanation for criminal prosecution is that the taking of the egg or destruction of it prevents a bald eagle from being born. I have a question: How much more important is a child than an eagle?
We have an admirable history in this country of standing up for the inherent rights of human beings. We saw the injustice of enslaving Africans and treating them as property, and we fought a devastating Civil War to correct that injustice. When we realized that women were treated as property and were degraded, we fought for their dignity and equality. Yet the most vulnerable of all in our society – our unborn children – are still being treated as property to be disposed of as we see fit. I am baffled by the ambiguity… we can’t commit to defining the unborn as a “human being” yet we call a woman “mother” or “Mom-to-be” upon the moment of conception and throughout her entire pregnancy we consider her to be “with child.”
I have a Christian friend Bryan who ponders the reasons we mistreat others and the reasons for it. He is right that it is easier to marginalize a person or group of people when we diminish their worth and demean their inherent value. We already see how people dehumanize those persons that offend them or that stand in their way ideologically and politically. It is in this way they can mistreat them, strip them of their dignity, their worth, their property, and their lives. We saw the Nazis do this to the Jews and the Japanese do this to the Chinese during World War II and the years leading up to it. The U.S. did it to the Indians when the settled with West, the KKK did it to the blacks, and we do it today with the unborn under the guise of “woman’s choice.”
I remember an interview that Sean Hannity did with a young woman named Gianna Jessen, an abortion survivor. I remember listening to what this miraculous woman had to say, which she did so very gracefully and eloquently, and having my eyes swollen with tears. Her message is the one people need to talk about.
On Sept. 15, 2008, Gianna addressed a crowd at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, in Victoria, Australia. She spoke on the eve of the debate that was to take place as to whether to de-criminalize abortion in Victoria and this is what she said:
“I’m adopted. My biological mother was 17. So was my father. My biological mother was 7½ months pregnant when she decided to go to Planned Parenthood, which is the largest abortion provider in the world. They counseled her to have a late-term saline abortion which is a procedure where a saline (salt) solution is injected into the mother’s womb, where the baby ingests it. The baby is burned inside and out and the mother is then able to deliver a dead baby within 24 hours. But to everyone’s great shock and surprise, I didn’t arrive dead, but alive. I was born on April 6, 1977 in a Los Angeles County abortion clinic. What’s fantastic about his, about the perfect timing of my arrival, is that the abortionist was not on duty yet. So he wasn’t even given the opportunity to continue on with his plan for my life – which was death. And I know that I am in a government building, and a beautiful one it is at that, and I love your country as well as my own, but I know that in the age we live in, it is not at all politically correct to say the name Jesus Christ in places like this. It’s not politically correct to bring him into these types of meetings because his name can make people so terribly uncomfortable. But I didn’t survive to make people comfortable. I survived so I can stir things up a bit, and I have a great time doing just that.
So I was delivered alive, as I said, after 18 hours. I should be blind, I should be burned, I should be dead. And yet I’m not. Do you want to hear a fantastic vindication? The abortion doctor had to sign my birth certificate. So I know who he is. And it also says in my birth records, for any skeptic listening, ‘Born during saline abortion.’ They didn’t win. I’ve done some research on the man who performed the abortion on me and his clinics are the largest chain of clinics in the US; they gross over $70 million each year. I read a quote from him several years ago: ‘I have aborted over a million babies. I consider it my passion.’ I tell you these things because we are involved in an interesting battle in the world. It is a battle between life and death… of good and evil. What side are you on?
A nurse called an ambulance and had me transferred to a hospital, which is absolutely miraculous. Generally, the practice at the time in my country, and up until 2002, was to end the life of an abortion survivor – by strangulation, suffocation, leaving the baby there to die, or throwing it away. But on August 5, 2002, the extraordinary President Bush signed into law the ‘Born Alive Infants Protection Act’ to prevent that from occurring anymore.
I’m hoping to be hated by the time that I die so that I can feel God about me and understand what it was like to be hated. I mean, Christ was hated…truly hated by those whose existence he threatened. Like me. It’s not that I look forward to being hated and I already know that along my journey, I’m already hated. I’m hated because I declare life. I declare: ‘You didn’t get me. The Silent Holocaust didn’t win over me.’ And my mission, ladies and gentlemen, among many things, is this: to infuse humanity into a debate that ignores it… to infuse humanity into a debate that we have compartmentalized. We have removed our emotions from the debate. Do you really want that? How much are you willing to take and how much are you willing to risk to speak the truth, in love and graciousness, and to stand up and at least be willing to be hated? Or at the end of the day, is it all about you?
And so, after I was born, I was placed in an emergency foster care home where they decided they didn’t like me very much. I don’t know how they could not adore me right from the start. What was wrong with those people? But they didn’t like me. They couldn’t learn to love me. You see, I’ve been hated since conception, by so many…. but loved by so many more, and especially by God. I’m his girl. You don’t mess around with God’s girl. I have a sign on my forehead that says: ‘You better be nice to me because my Father runs the world.’
After I was placed in the mean home, I was taken out of the mean home and placed into a new home – a beautiful home… Penny’s home. And Penny said that by this time, I was 17 months old, 32 pounds of dead weight, and diagnosed with what I consider the gift of cerebral palsy, which was caused directly by the lack of oxygen to my brain while I was trying to survive. How I am compelled to say this: If abortion is merely about women’s rights, what were mine? There were no radical feminists standing up and yelling about how my rights were being violated that day. In fact, my life was being snuffed out in the name of women’s rights. And, ladies and gentlemen, I would not have cerebral palsy had I not survived what I did, so when I hear the appalling, disgusting argument that we should have abortions because the child just might be disabled… Ugh… The horror that fills my heart.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are things that you will only be able to learn from the weakest among us and when you snuff them out, you are the ones that lose. The Lord looks after them, but you are the ones who will suffer forever from their loss. And what arrogance… what absolute arrogance in the argument that has been made for so long in this human place that we live in that the stronger should dominate the weaker. That they should determine who lives and who dies. I can’t believe the arrogance in that. Don’t you realize that you can’t even make your own heart beat? Don’t you realize that all the power that you think you possess you really possess none of it. It is only the mercy of God that sustains you – even when you hate him.
So they looked at my dear Penny and they said: ‘Gianna will never be anything,’ which is always encouraging. But Penny decided to ignore them and she worked with me three times a day. To make a long story short, I was walking by 3½ with a walker and braces, and I stand up here today before you with a mild little limp and without a walker and without braces. I fall gracefully sometimes and very ungracefully other times, but I consider it all for the glory of God. You see ladies and gentlemen, I am weaker than most of you, but this is my sermon. What a small price to pay to be able to blaze through the world as I do and offer hope. And I think in our misunderstanding of how things work, we misunderstand how beautiful suffering can be. I don’t suggest that you willing sign up for it, but when it comes, we forget that God is in control and He often has a way of making the most miserable thing beautiful.
I have met my biological mother. I have forgiven my biological mother. I am a Christian. She is a very broken woman. She came to an event that I was having two years ago. She showed up unannounced and said: ‘Hello, I’m your mother.’ It was a very difficult day and yet, as I was sitting there, I kept thinking: ‘I don’t belong to you. I belong to Christ. He loves me. I’m his girl and he treats me like a princess.’
So, ladies and gentlemen, you have an opportunity. But for just one moment, I’d like to speak just to the men in this room: Men, you are made for greatness. You are made to stand up and be men. You are made to defend women and children and not stand by and turn your head when you know murder is occurring and do nothing about it. You are not made to use women and leave them alone. You are made to be kind and great and gracious and strong, and to stand for something. Men, listen to me… I’m too tired to keep doing your job.
Women, you are not made for abuse. You are not made to deny your worth and your value. You are made to be fought for.. forever.
So now is your moment…. What sort of people are you going to be? I trust incredible. I trust, men, that you will rise to the occasion. To the politicians listening, particularly to the men, I would say this: You are made for greatness. Set your politics aside. You are made to defend what is right and good. This fiery young girl will stand here and say: ‘Now is your moment. What sort of man do you want to be? Are you going to be a man obsessed with his own glory or a man obsessed with the glory of God? It’s time to take a stand, Victoria. This is your hour. God will assist you. God will be with you. You will have the opportunity to glorify and honor Him in 2008.’
I will just end with this. Some of you might be slightly annoyed that I keep talking about God and Jesus. But how on earth can I walk about, limping, through this world and not give all my heart and my mind and my soul and my spirit and my strength to the Christ who showed me mercy and gave me life. So if you think I’m a fool, it’s just another jewel in my crown. My whole intent in living here is simply to make God smile.
I hope some of this makes sense. It just came from my heart. May God bless and keep you.”
Wow. Imagine living your life knowing you weren’t wanted, and even worse, that of all the options available, death was the most convenient.
Simply put, the abortion of a viable fetus is the thoughtful premeditated decision to take the life of another human being. Out on the streets we call it first-degree murder – a capital crime.
God created us and gave us the gift of life. He gave us our free will and fundamental liberties yet set limits on them. We know these limitations from reading the Bible.
In this country alone, we acknowledge that our fundamental rights and liberties derive from God and his benevolent nature. And only those fundamental rights are the ones protected by the Constitution. The right to take the life of a viable fetus would never be a right granted by our Creator.
Instead of conforming their behavior to God’s expectations, it is much easier to deny the role that God has played in our founding. It is much easier to take the watchful eye of God out of society and all reminders of his laws. Instead of people looking to God’s law and conforming their behavior accordingly, they live their lives as a complete free-for-all and then seek to invalidate God’s law to absolve themselves of their immoral acts.
Mother Teresa once asked: “If we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”
I may not know the precise moment when life happens, but it is indeed miraculous — that moment when the miracle of life occurs, like a switch being flipped, when life all of a sudden infuses a mass of cells. Unlike all other living things which man has been granted “dominion over,” only man shares that special bond with God for he is blessed with a deep and quick intelligence, foresight, a complex memory, advanced reason, and profound wisdom. And so we know God loves us. This is why we are supposed to always respect and celebrate this bond we have with God.
So what happens when a woman is carrying a viable fetus and wants to abort that unborn child? She presents quite a dilemma to God, doesn’t she. On the one hand it is her body. Yet on the other hand, she was created to be able to bring children into the world. And still on the other hand, there is the fetus, the growing child, who, although has been miraculously infused with life only asks for a few short months of shelter and support in the mother’s womb. While God indeed loves all his children, we know from the Bible that He has a particular bond to those who are helpless. He wants us to do what he would do.
Mother Teresa once said: “There are two victims in every abortion: a dead baby and a dead conscience.” She also commented: “It’s a shame that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
I was thinking about what this country stands for – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. There is one thing for sure when it comes to our Founders – they meant what they wrote and they wrote what they meant. Words mattered to them and the order of words mattered. The sentence structure dictated the exact meaning. “Life” is listed first.
What happened to our nation’s foundation? What happened to the “innate rights of human beings,” defined by those 7 words – “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” – that our Founders worked so hard to embrace and protect in our Constitutional and to engrain in our national fiber? A living fetus living inside a woman’s uterus has no rights under our laws or Constitution yet homosexual men have the fundamental right to sodomy. California says there is a fundamental right to marry a same-sex partner, in contradiction to both the laws of nature and the Bible. According to Roe v. Wade, women have the fundamental right to an abortion on demand (up until the last trimester) yet according to Judge Roger Vinson, the district court judge for the Northern District of Florida in the case of the 20 states against Obamacare (Florida v. Sebelius, Oct. 14, 2010), there is no fundamental right in general for a person to determine his or her own medical treatment. Where is our collective conscience? Where is our moral compass pointing these days? Why is it so important that women have the right to terminate a life inside them without condition?
Our society is so uptight about religion in anyplace other than within the church walls or in the home where no one has to know about it. They cry “Wall of Separation” to demand that religion be removed from the sphere of government and absent from the thought process. Religion and morality have no place in the legislative process or in the halls of justice, they cry. Yet the “Wall of Separation” equally demands that government can’t support a position that denies God’s law. Government may not endorse religion or promote religion over non-religion, yet every decision either has to fall on one side or another, doesn’t it. Every decision is someone’s moral judgment or reflects someone’s view of religion/non-religion. Obama and Nancy Pelosi want Obamacare to cover abortions. They refused to include language preventing government funding for abortion. Well, that’s a moral and religious stand. Government is endorsing an absence of religion. Government currently funds Planned Parenthood, the largest national supplier of abortions. Again, that’s a position that has the government supporting non-religion.
We all sense that our country is on the verge of being overwhelmed by the many complicated issues, challenges, and crises it faces. The results of November 2 were the result of such a sense of urgency. We know that when men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry and so many others guided us towards independence and founded this great country… despite their personalities and their varying individual religious beliefs, they acknowledged that the success of their fragile endeavor rested firmly on the grace of God. They invoked the blessings of Divine Providence in government and for over 100 years we prospered greatly. And then we took God out of national life and then ignored him in making our laws.
We are going to need to ask God’s help and His divine providence if we are to pull through the crises – moral, political, and Constitutional – that we face. But first we need to let Him know that his laws are still in our hearts and minds. And the compassion and loyalty we seek from Him is the same we show to our fellow human beings. As Pope John Paul II said: “America you are blessed . . . . The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless. If you want equal justice for all and true freedom and lasting peace, then America, defend life.”
In closing, I want to share something that touched me when I read it:
“Elegy To The Unborn” by Dr. James R. McLane
One starlit night
As I gazed into the heavens
I knew each star was created by God.
The ocean of stars above me
Spoke of the sea of humanity
Around me and I realized,
I too was created with purpose.
I was created to be born alive
To run and play, to laugh and cry
To work and to grow old.
But most of all
To show love amidst hatred
And to bring hope in despair.
Each one of us was created
With this purpose
And our mother’s womb
Became our passageway,
Our first universe.
From the moment of conception
The light of God breathed forth
An immortal soul,
A new human being of untold value.
As the beauty of the stars shone
I cried for my fellow man,
For millions of unborn babies
Had been crushed by humanity
And discarded as garbage.
Let us turn to the glory of Jesus
So all mothers and their unborn
Might be embraced by humanity
To bring glory unto God.
FURTHER READING:
See: Ronald Reagan, “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” The Human Life Review, Spring 1983. Reference at: http://old.nationalreview.com/document/reagan200406101030.asp
http://forloveofgodandcountry.wordpress.com/
Back in October, I received an email from Patriot Update which listed the 11 enemies of “Life” in the U.S. Congress – those who voted for, or supported – the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion in American history. They wanted to use our hard-earned tax dollars to pay for insurance coverage for abortions, a procedure that too many find offensive to their conscience. The 11 representatives listed in the email were: Baron Hill (IN-9), John Boccieri (OH-16), Chris Carney (PA-10), Paul Kanjorski (PA-11), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-3), Tom Perriello (VA-5), Alan Grayson (FL-8), Bob Etheridge (NC-2), John Spratt (SC-5), John Salazar (CO-3), and Joe Donnelly (IN-2). Of these 11, only Joe Donnelly was re-elected on November 2, and he managed to keep his seat by only 1% of the vote. It would seem that Americans have grown a conscience.
Then I remembered something I read in a Princeton University magazine. According to a Gallup Poll conducted in May of last year, 51% of Americans call themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion and 42% consider themselves “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of adults in this country have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.
It is said that a conscience without God is like a court without a judge.
It got me thinking about our country’s stand on abortion and what the issues are on both sides. As we all know, abortion is the voluntary, or calculated, intentional termination of an embryo or fetus. I understand that reasonable people can debate when life actually begins and I understand that religion teaches that life begins at conception. Yet I somehow feel there could be some room for common ground in the very early stages of a pregnancy. But once there is a heartbeat, it would be impossible for me to imagine any reason why that living being should be terminated, absent an urgent dire threat to the mother’s life. Yet as it stands now, abortions performed prior to the third trimester are legal in this country, thanks to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. [The decision states that since a fetus is not a human being and therefore has no rights, including any that are protected under our Constitution, the woman's right to control her fertility and reproduction ability naturally outweigh any possible rights of the developing fetus for the first two trimesters. With respect to the third trimester, the state may have an interest in protecting the life of the unborn and so it can regulate, but NOT when the woman's health becomes an issue. So Roe also shows great tolerance for the abortion of a baby that is ready to be born].
Pro-life groups believe in the sanctity of all life. They believe, as Ronald Reagan wrote so eloquently in 1983, that to diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn – diminishes the value of all human life. They believe that God is the giver of life. They believe that the embryo or fetus is “alive” and thus abortion is tantamount to murder. To them the question is not when human life begins, but rather ‘What is the value of human life?’ “The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.” (Ronald Reagan)
Since the decision in Roe v. Wade, which stands for the legal fiction that a fetus is not a human being, more than 20 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is well over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars. In 1982 the nation watched as a court in Indiana allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” because the child had Down’s Syndrome. The death of the tiny infant Baby Doe tore at the hearts of Americans because the child was undeniably a human being – alive. He was born mentally retarded and with an incomplete esophagus. He laid helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The parents wanted to deny it a simple medical procedure to fix his esophagus so he could eat and they sued for the right to let him die. This time the issue before the court was not whether Baby Doe was a human being, but rather whether parents had the right to choose to terminate the life of their baby when it was handicapped or whether the state could step in and try to save its life. They sided with the parents. If Baby Doe received such little compassion from the courts, how do those who haven’t had the opportunity to enter the world stand a chance?
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who in 1969 was a co-founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL), later renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League, helped make abortion legal. He provided statistics to the Supreme Court in Roe to help support that decision. He was also the former director of New York’s City’s Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, the largest abortion clinic in the world at the time. In the late 1970′s he turned against abortion to become a prominent pro-life advocate, wrote Abortion America, and produced the powerfully revealing video, “The Silent Scream.” He later admitted that the statistics he presented to the high court were intentionally misrepresented. Dr. Nathanson wrote: ” I believe with all my heart that there is a divinity of existence which commands us to declare a final and irreversible halt to this infinitely sad and shameful crime against humanity.”
Roe v. Wade and the continued devaluation of the unborn continues to prod the moral conscience of Americans.
Pro-lifers understand that they can’t fully appreciate all abortion decisions nor the wrenchingly difficult dilemmas presented by their particular situations – such as those made by an ill-informed 16-year-old who made an impulsive decision or was coerced, or a college student who has an education ahead of her, or an unwed mother who can’t afford to feed or take care of another child, or a woman who has had non-consensual sex, but they don’t believe the solution lies in a deliberate act of destruction of human life. They don’t believe an otherwise viable and living fetus should be killed because of inconvenience – or for any other reason, for that matter. There are options and resources. There is education and common sense. There is a lifestyle built on decent moral values, discipline, and priorities.
Pro-choice groups, on the other hand, believe that a woman should have access to whatever health care she needs and that she should have control over her own body. Of course, as Ronald Reagan once commented: “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion is already born.” Finally, there is the issue of state intervention and to what degree the state should have a say in a pregnancy.
There are some women (pro-choice) who believe that they have a fundamental civil right to have complete control over her fertility and therefore she should have the freedom to decide whether she wants to continue or terminate her pregnancy. Others simply want the right to an abortion to undue something they aren’t capable or ready to deal with. Some have a change of heart and want to postpone having a baby until a future time. As Frederica Mathewes-Green explained: “No woman wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg.” Yet we all know that abortion is often performed with less consideration than that. It is often a woman’s choice of birth control…. birth control after the fact. Sometimes many months after the fact.
Pro-choice for women means no-choice for men.
Career women overwhelmingly side with the pro-choice view. Women who consider themselves pro-life have typically been stereotyped as church-going women and those who are stay-at-home wives and mothers. They are often portrayed as not really needing the option of an abortion. In 2008, my husband and I attended a rally at East Carolina University for John McCain. Sarah Palin was the speaker. Although most of us thought the event would be mobbed by Obama supporters in protest of Ms. Palin’s visit, there were no such mobs. In fact, the only protesters we saw were those who stood across the street carrying plenty of signs calling for the right of women to have an abortion if she chooses. As we were walking on the campus to the event, we saw a woman walking out of one of the University buildings, wearing a nice tailored suit, and asked if we were walking in the right direction. She made a snide comment about Sarah Palin and as we continued on our way, she shouted this to me: “You can’t be a successful woman if you don’t support abortion rights.” Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected in today’s world, the innocent unborn might need to be sacrificed? Am I to believe that in order to be successful and respected, a woman must knowingly set aside the laws that God asks us to respect? Is that what it means to be successful? I don’t think so.
In fact, I have these few words to say to those career women who gladly sacrifice the fruits of their womb for a chance to be a player in the business world —
Just like Jesus was born to save those who believe, my children saved me. They saved me from a selfish, loveless life dominated by a career that often chews you up and spits you out. When I finished graduate school, when I was in my 20s and into my early 30s, I planned for a life of great accomplishment. I was going to be a great scientist. I was going to help understand the molecular basis of cancer and maybe find a cure. There was nothing inside me urging me to get married and start a family. In fact, at that point in my life, I didn’t want children. And I was hoping I would find a man who would want the same. But God knew better. He knew more about my heart than I did. And he blessed me with a child right after I got married. I admit I was scared. I had no maternal instincts whatsoever (but was great with animals) and wasn’t sure I would know what to do. But the minute I saw my daughter’s beautiful face and helpless body, I was hooked. I knew I would love this little child every minute of my life. When I saw her fragile little body and the way she was so uncoordinated and didn’t know how to do the simplest of things, I knew I wanted to care for her and keep her safe and comforted for as long as I was able to do so. By the time I left the hospital, I had already circled the dates I would try to conceive my next child. And only in having children of my own was I able to appreciate the depths of the unconditional and eternal love my own parents have for me. And that is the true meaning of life. It is the true circle of life. And like a circle, the love between parents and children are never-ending, just as God’s love is for all of us.
To any woman unsure of her lot in life, I would offer this heartfelt advice: Don’t make the mistake of thinking a career or anything else of such material worth is more valuable than the life-long love you experience and the life lesson you learn from being a parent.
The way I see it, the killing of an innocent viable fetus is utterly and fundamentally it is opposed to everything we stand for as a nation guided by Natural Law and memorialized under Christian values. The right to life is the foundation of every other human right that we hold so dear in this country. We hold vigils, we protest, and we march for the rights of violent criminals. We claim to be a compassionate society. We claim it is too inhumane to put to death, albeit painlessly, those who violently took the life of other human beings. Yet we support the violent murder of the live unborn. Our compassion stops at the womb. Winifred Egan noted: “What an irony that a society confronted with plastic bags filled with the remains of aborted babies should be more concerned about the problem of recycling the plastic.”
As Glenn Beck recently noted on his show: You can do jail time for killing an eagle’s egg, but you are protected for killing a human child in the mother’s womb. In our country the Bald Eagle is federally protected. And not just the living bald eagle but also the egg sitting in the nest. Anyone who tries to remove the egg or destroy it can be prosecuted by federal law. The only plausible explanation for criminal prosecution is that the taking of the egg or destruction of it prevents a bald eagle from being born. I have a question: How much more important is a child than an eagle?
We have an admirable history in this country of standing up for the inherent rights of human beings. We saw the injustice of enslaving Africans and treating them as property, and we fought a devastating Civil War to correct that injustice. When we realized that women were treated as property and were degraded, we fought for their dignity and equality. Yet the most vulnerable of all in our society – our unborn children – are still being treated as property to be disposed of as we see fit. I am baffled by the ambiguity… we can’t commit to defining the unborn as a “human being” yet we call a woman “mother” or “Mom-to-be” upon the moment of conception and throughout her entire pregnancy we consider her to be “with child.”
I have a Christian friend Bryan who ponders the reasons we mistreat others and the reasons for it. He is right that it is easier to marginalize a person or group of people when we diminish their worth and demean their inherent value. We already see how people dehumanize those persons that offend them or that stand in their way ideologically and politically. It is in this way they can mistreat them, strip them of their dignity, their worth, their property, and their lives. We saw the Nazis do this to the Jews and the Japanese do this to the Chinese during World War II and the years leading up to it. The U.S. did it to the Indians when the settled with West, the KKK did it to the blacks, and we do it today with the unborn under the guise of “woman’s choice.”
I remember an interview that Sean Hannity did with a young woman named Gianna Jessen, an abortion survivor. I remember listening to what this miraculous woman had to say, which she did so very gracefully and eloquently, and having my eyes swollen with tears. Her message is the one people need to talk about.
On Sept. 15, 2008, Gianna addressed a crowd at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, in Victoria, Australia. She spoke on the eve of the debate that was to take place as to whether to de-criminalize abortion in Victoria and this is what she said:
“I’m adopted. My biological mother was 17. So was my father. My biological mother was 7½ months pregnant when she decided to go to Planned Parenthood, which is the largest abortion provider in the world. They counseled her to have a late-term saline abortion which is a procedure where a saline (salt) solution is injected into the mother’s womb, where the baby ingests it. The baby is burned inside and out and the mother is then able to deliver a dead baby within 24 hours. But to everyone’s great shock and surprise, I didn’t arrive dead, but alive. I was born on April 6, 1977 in a Los Angeles County abortion clinic. What’s fantastic about his, about the perfect timing of my arrival, is that the abortionist was not on duty yet. So he wasn’t even given the opportunity to continue on with his plan for my life – which was death. And I know that I am in a government building, and a beautiful one it is at that, and I love your country as well as my own, but I know that in the age we live in, it is not at all politically correct to say the name Jesus Christ in places like this. It’s not politically correct to bring him into these types of meetings because his name can make people so terribly uncomfortable. But I didn’t survive to make people comfortable. I survived so I can stir things up a bit, and I have a great time doing just that.
So I was delivered alive, as I said, after 18 hours. I should be blind, I should be burned, I should be dead. And yet I’m not. Do you want to hear a fantastic vindication? The abortion doctor had to sign my birth certificate. So I know who he is. And it also says in my birth records, for any skeptic listening, ‘Born during saline abortion.’ They didn’t win. I’ve done some research on the man who performed the abortion on me and his clinics are the largest chain of clinics in the US; they gross over $70 million each year. I read a quote from him several years ago: ‘I have aborted over a million babies. I consider it my passion.’ I tell you these things because we are involved in an interesting battle in the world. It is a battle between life and death… of good and evil. What side are you on?
A nurse called an ambulance and had me transferred to a hospital, which is absolutely miraculous. Generally, the practice at the time in my country, and up until 2002, was to end the life of an abortion survivor – by strangulation, suffocation, leaving the baby there to die, or throwing it away. But on August 5, 2002, the extraordinary President Bush signed into law the ‘Born Alive Infants Protection Act’ to prevent that from occurring anymore.
I’m hoping to be hated by the time that I die so that I can feel God about me and understand what it was like to be hated. I mean, Christ was hated…truly hated by those whose existence he threatened. Like me. It’s not that I look forward to being hated and I already know that along my journey, I’m already hated. I’m hated because I declare life. I declare: ‘You didn’t get me. The Silent Holocaust didn’t win over me.’ And my mission, ladies and gentlemen, among many things, is this: to infuse humanity into a debate that ignores it… to infuse humanity into a debate that we have compartmentalized. We have removed our emotions from the debate. Do you really want that? How much are you willing to take and how much are you willing to risk to speak the truth, in love and graciousness, and to stand up and at least be willing to be hated? Or at the end of the day, is it all about you?
And so, after I was born, I was placed in an emergency foster care home where they decided they didn’t like me very much. I don’t know how they could not adore me right from the start. What was wrong with those people? But they didn’t like me. They couldn’t learn to love me. You see, I’ve been hated since conception, by so many…. but loved by so many more, and especially by God. I’m his girl. You don’t mess around with God’s girl. I have a sign on my forehead that says: ‘You better be nice to me because my Father runs the world.’
After I was placed in the mean home, I was taken out of the mean home and placed into a new home – a beautiful home… Penny’s home. And Penny said that by this time, I was 17 months old, 32 pounds of dead weight, and diagnosed with what I consider the gift of cerebral palsy, which was caused directly by the lack of oxygen to my brain while I was trying to survive. How I am compelled to say this: If abortion is merely about women’s rights, what were mine? There were no radical feminists standing up and yelling about how my rights were being violated that day. In fact, my life was being snuffed out in the name of women’s rights. And, ladies and gentlemen, I would not have cerebral palsy had I not survived what I did, so when I hear the appalling, disgusting argument that we should have abortions because the child just might be disabled… Ugh… The horror that fills my heart.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are things that you will only be able to learn from the weakest among us and when you snuff them out, you are the ones that lose. The Lord looks after them, but you are the ones who will suffer forever from their loss. And what arrogance… what absolute arrogance in the argument that has been made for so long in this human place that we live in that the stronger should dominate the weaker. That they should determine who lives and who dies. I can’t believe the arrogance in that. Don’t you realize that you can’t even make your own heart beat? Don’t you realize that all the power that you think you possess you really possess none of it. It is only the mercy of God that sustains you – even when you hate him.
So they looked at my dear Penny and they said: ‘Gianna will never be anything,’ which is always encouraging. But Penny decided to ignore them and she worked with me three times a day. To make a long story short, I was walking by 3½ with a walker and braces, and I stand up here today before you with a mild little limp and without a walker and without braces. I fall gracefully sometimes and very ungracefully other times, but I consider it all for the glory of God. You see ladies and gentlemen, I am weaker than most of you, but this is my sermon. What a small price to pay to be able to blaze through the world as I do and offer hope. And I think in our misunderstanding of how things work, we misunderstand how beautiful suffering can be. I don’t suggest that you willing sign up for it, but when it comes, we forget that God is in control and He often has a way of making the most miserable thing beautiful.
I have met my biological mother. I have forgiven my biological mother. I am a Christian. She is a very broken woman. She came to an event that I was having two years ago. She showed up unannounced and said: ‘Hello, I’m your mother.’ It was a very difficult day and yet, as I was sitting there, I kept thinking: ‘I don’t belong to you. I belong to Christ. He loves me. I’m his girl and he treats me like a princess.’
So, ladies and gentlemen, you have an opportunity. But for just one moment, I’d like to speak just to the men in this room: Men, you are made for greatness. You are made to stand up and be men. You are made to defend women and children and not stand by and turn your head when you know murder is occurring and do nothing about it. You are not made to use women and leave them alone. You are made to be kind and great and gracious and strong, and to stand for something. Men, listen to me… I’m too tired to keep doing your job.
Women, you are not made for abuse. You are not made to deny your worth and your value. You are made to be fought for.. forever.
So now is your moment…. What sort of people are you going to be? I trust incredible. I trust, men, that you will rise to the occasion. To the politicians listening, particularly to the men, I would say this: You are made for greatness. Set your politics aside. You are made to defend what is right and good. This fiery young girl will stand here and say: ‘Now is your moment. What sort of man do you want to be? Are you going to be a man obsessed with his own glory or a man obsessed with the glory of God? It’s time to take a stand, Victoria. This is your hour. God will assist you. God will be with you. You will have the opportunity to glorify and honor Him in 2008.’
I will just end with this. Some of you might be slightly annoyed that I keep talking about God and Jesus. But how on earth can I walk about, limping, through this world and not give all my heart and my mind and my soul and my spirit and my strength to the Christ who showed me mercy and gave me life. So if you think I’m a fool, it’s just another jewel in my crown. My whole intent in living here is simply to make God smile.
I hope some of this makes sense. It just came from my heart. May God bless and keep you.”
Wow. Imagine living your life knowing you weren’t wanted, and even worse, that of all the options available, death was the most convenient.
Simply put, the abortion of a viable fetus is the thoughtful premeditated decision to take the life of another human being. Out on the streets we call it first-degree murder – a capital crime.
God created us and gave us the gift of life. He gave us our free will and fundamental liberties yet set limits on them. We know these limitations from reading the Bible.
In this country alone, we acknowledge that our fundamental rights and liberties derive from God and his benevolent nature. And only those fundamental rights are the ones protected by the Constitution. The right to take the life of a viable fetus would never be a right granted by our Creator.
Instead of conforming their behavior to God’s expectations, it is much easier to deny the role that God has played in our founding. It is much easier to take the watchful eye of God out of society and all reminders of his laws. Instead of people looking to God’s law and conforming their behavior accordingly, they live their lives as a complete free-for-all and then seek to invalidate God’s law to absolve themselves of their immoral acts.
Mother Teresa once asked: “If we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?”
I may not know the precise moment when life happens, but it is indeed miraculous — that moment when the miracle of life occurs, like a switch being flipped, when life all of a sudden infuses a mass of cells. Unlike all other living things which man has been granted “dominion over,” only man shares that special bond with God for he is blessed with a deep and quick intelligence, foresight, a complex memory, advanced reason, and profound wisdom. And so we know God loves us. This is why we are supposed to always respect and celebrate this bond we have with God.
So what happens when a woman is carrying a viable fetus and wants to abort that unborn child? She presents quite a dilemma to God, doesn’t she. On the one hand it is her body. Yet on the other hand, she was created to be able to bring children into the world. And still on the other hand, there is the fetus, the growing child, who, although has been miraculously infused with life only asks for a few short months of shelter and support in the mother’s womb. While God indeed loves all his children, we know from the Bible that He has a particular bond to those who are helpless. He wants us to do what he would do.
Mother Teresa once said: “There are two victims in every abortion: a dead baby and a dead conscience.” She also commented: “It’s a shame that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
I was thinking about what this country stands for – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. There is one thing for sure when it comes to our Founders – they meant what they wrote and they wrote what they meant. Words mattered to them and the order of words mattered. The sentence structure dictated the exact meaning. “Life” is listed first.
What happened to our nation’s foundation? What happened to the “innate rights of human beings,” defined by those 7 words – “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” – that our Founders worked so hard to embrace and protect in our Constitutional and to engrain in our national fiber? A living fetus living inside a woman’s uterus has no rights under our laws or Constitution yet homosexual men have the fundamental right to sodomy. California says there is a fundamental right to marry a same-sex partner, in contradiction to both the laws of nature and the Bible. According to Roe v. Wade, women have the fundamental right to an abortion on demand (up until the last trimester) yet according to Judge Roger Vinson, the district court judge for the Northern District of Florida in the case of the 20 states against Obamacare (Florida v. Sebelius, Oct. 14, 2010), there is no fundamental right in general for a person to determine his or her own medical treatment. Where is our collective conscience? Where is our moral compass pointing these days? Why is it so important that women have the right to terminate a life inside them without condition?
Our society is so uptight about religion in anyplace other than within the church walls or in the home where no one has to know about it. They cry “Wall of Separation” to demand that religion be removed from the sphere of government and absent from the thought process. Religion and morality have no place in the legislative process or in the halls of justice, they cry. Yet the “Wall of Separation” equally demands that government can’t support a position that denies God’s law. Government may not endorse religion or promote religion over non-religion, yet every decision either has to fall on one side or another, doesn’t it. Every decision is someone’s moral judgment or reflects someone’s view of religion/non-religion. Obama and Nancy Pelosi want Obamacare to cover abortions. They refused to include language preventing government funding for abortion. Well, that’s a moral and religious stand. Government is endorsing an absence of religion. Government currently funds Planned Parenthood, the largest national supplier of abortions. Again, that’s a position that has the government supporting non-religion.
We all sense that our country is on the verge of being overwhelmed by the many complicated issues, challenges, and crises it faces. The results of November 2 were the result of such a sense of urgency. We know that when men like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry and so many others guided us towards independence and founded this great country… despite their personalities and their varying individual religious beliefs, they acknowledged that the success of their fragile endeavor rested firmly on the grace of God. They invoked the blessings of Divine Providence in government and for over 100 years we prospered greatly. And then we took God out of national life and then ignored him in making our laws.
We are going to need to ask God’s help and His divine providence if we are to pull through the crises – moral, political, and Constitutional – that we face. But first we need to let Him know that his laws are still in our hearts and minds. And the compassion and loyalty we seek from Him is the same we show to our fellow human beings. As Pope John Paul II said: “America you are blessed . . . . The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being, but especially the weakest and most defenseless. If you want equal justice for all and true freedom and lasting peace, then America, defend life.”
In closing, I want to share something that touched me when I read it:
“Elegy To The Unborn” by Dr. James R. McLane
One starlit night
As I gazed into the heavens
I knew each star was created by God.
The ocean of stars above me
Spoke of the sea of humanity
Around me and I realized,
I too was created with purpose.
I was created to be born alive
To run and play, to laugh and cry
To work and to grow old.
But most of all
To show love amidst hatred
And to bring hope in despair.
Each one of us was created
With this purpose
And our mother’s womb
Became our passageway,
Our first universe.
From the moment of conception
The light of God breathed forth
An immortal soul,
A new human being of untold value.
As the beauty of the stars shone
I cried for my fellow man,
For millions of unborn babies
Had been crushed by humanity
And discarded as garbage.
Let us turn to the glory of Jesus
So all mothers and their unborn
Might be embraced by humanity
To bring glory unto God.
FURTHER READING:
See: Ronald Reagan, “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” The Human Life Review, Spring 1983. Reference at: http://old.nationalreview.com/document/reagan200406101030.asp
Friday, April 2, 2010
Liberty in Action: First Private Lawsuit Challenging ObamaCare Filed in Mississippi
Liberty in Action: First Private Lawsuit Challenging ObamaCare Filed in Mississippi
Posted By K. Douglas Lee On April 2, 2010
Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a class action lawsuit today, Good Friday 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare” and a variety of other less polite euphemisms.
We believe that the PPACA is DOA for several equally important reasons, but only one of which has received much attention. Most folks know by now that Congress has invoked the Commerce Clause to justify this massive expansion of governmental power. Our “Good Friday” Complaint spends many pages discussing how Congress has clearly exceeded the limits of its power under the Commerce Clause. I strongly urge you to read the entire Complaint. What I really want to point out, though, are some things you probably don’t know, and definitely will not like — even if you consider yourself a “Liberal.”
Consider for a moment that you have now been commanded to enter into a contract with an insurance corporation, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not. Yes, there are many who actually choose to be uninsured. For most, it is simply an economic decision that often works out to the uninsured’s economic advantage. Not always, of course, but that’s the beauty of liberty — you get to make the decisions, and live with the good or bad that comes of them.
Now that you realize that a dictate has been handed down, compelling you to contract with an insurance corporation or else, consider what you have to do. It’s not like you can go to a vending machine, swipe your debit card and pull out a policy. You still have to apply. True, they cannot turn you down, but so what? You still have to give a big, scary, mean corporation a lot of private medical and psychological information about yourself and your family. Then, forever after, the insurance corporation’s bureaucrats will gather this private information without even bothering to let you know. As our Complaint states:
Moreover, compelling Plaintiffs to enter into a private contract to purchase insurance from another entity will legally require them to share private and personal information with the contracting party. Specifically, by requiring Plaintiffs to abide by the Act’s individual mandate, Congress is also compelling Plaintiffs to fully disclose past medical conditions, habits and behaviors. Not only will the insurer be privy to all past medical information, Congress’s individual mandate will, by necessity, allow the compelled insurer access to Plaintiffs’ present and future medical information of a confidential nature. If judicially enforceable privacy rights mean anything, then private and confidential medical details certainly merit Constitutional protection. Plaintiffs should not be forced to disclose the most intimate details of their past, present and future medical information.
Do you have an STD? How many abortions have you had? How about a sexual dysfunction? Did your father or mother have cancer? Do you have a birth defect? Have you ever been prescribed drugs for a mental condition, such as anxiety or depression? There are many reasons people have concerns over their medical privacy. The desire to keep one’s medical history private is universal.
Privacy, choice, and Roe v. Wade
Medical privacy is so important that we have enshrined it as fundamental right in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution — just ask the Supreme Court, which even allows women to kill unborn children in order to protect their constitutional right to medical privacy.
If you want health insurance badly enough, you’ll probably choose to give up your medical privacy rights to an insurance corporation. But perhaps you are indifferent to buying health insurance in the first place, and really, you don’t want it in writing anywhere that you’ve had two abortions, or eat Viagra like popcorn. You’ve decided that it would just be better to pay for your healthcare directly and avoid the entire insurance hassle. What’s wrong with this choice? Nothing, if you believe in the concept of liberty.
Forcing citizens to enter into a contract to buy insurance is a bit different than requiring them to buy a loaf of bread. Congress cannot conceivably be said to have the power to force you to buy a loaf of bread, even though that would indeed have some effect on interstate commerce. Think about how much more egregious a denial of liberty it is to force people to contract with an insurance corporation. Those contracts create rights and obligations for both parties, but guess who gets to write the contract? Hint: insurance corporation lawyers. It’s an actual contract that you will actually be forced to sign by your government. You will not have any bargaining power to alter the contract; it’s not even a “take it or leave it” situation, it’s “take it or face the legal consequences.”
Which brings us to another important but poorly understood issue: Just what are the consequences? Exactly how will the mandate will be enforced? Unfortunately, this is something that none of us really know. Congress states outright that there will be a “penalty” assessed for citizens who disobey their command. These lawbreakers will have to pay an amount that will be assessed as a tax. Yes, we all know Congress has the power to tax, but remember, Congress itself has called this tax a “penalty.” As we explain in our Complaint,
Central to the definition of penalty is the “idea of punishment” – “[p]unishment imposed on a wrongdoer . . . in the form of imprisonment or fine. Though usually for crimes, penalties are also sometimes imposed for civil wrongs.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1153 (7th ed. 1999).
Yes, you wrongdoers who decide to go without insurance will be punished by the federal government. You will have to pay a special tax that applies only to wrongdoers like you. The Complaint points out that this “constitutes a capitation and a direct tax that is not apportioned among the states according to census data,” which is unconstitutional in itself. But this does not make great bedtime reading, so I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s a tax that they cannot make you pay.
A plain reading of the individual mandate shows that Congress first sets forth a penalty for failure to buy insurance, then says that regardless of anything written anywhere else in any other law, there can be no criminal penalty:
‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In the case of
any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed
by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any
criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
Then, to make it even very difficult (perhaps impossible) to civilly enforce the penalty/tax, Congress denied the government any power to file liens or levy any wrongdoer’s property:
‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary
shall not—
‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property
of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the
penalty imposed by this section, or
‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to
such failure.’’.
If the feds cannot levy or lien you, then what can they do to get your money? Write scary letters to you? Just what happens to the authority of the federal government when people laugh at these scary letters?
What indeed. We have demanded in our Complaint that if the government has some trick up its sleeve, that we be told what it is. If we are to be punished for not buying something, we deserve to know ahead of time what that punishment might be. That’s not just an old American tradition, it’s a constitutional principle.
The alternative, of course, is for the feds to admit that there is no enforcement mechanism. Consider what that means for a minute: the pièce de résistance of the PPACA is the individual mandate. Without an enforcement mechanism, the individual mandate fails; without the mandate, the entire legislative act fails utterly.
If the government admits, or the federal judiciary declares, that there is no enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate, millions will be free to ignore it. We believe, though, that the lack of an enforcement mechanism makes the individual mandate unconstitutional for reasons that we will discuss further with the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
A call to service
We’ve got Mississippi covered. Now we need for you to do your part to take back your liberty. This lawsuit can be filed in every state in the greatest nation on earth, and it should be. Wherever this abomination applies, there is at least one federal court, often many. Find them, take our lawsuit, change the names and file it. Add to it if you have more arguments. If you are serious about doing so and need information, we are easy to find.
We have much more to say about the unconstitutionality of this abominable act of Congress, and we’re looking forward to your comments. God bless America!
Full Complaint: http://biggovernment.com/kdlee/2010/04/02/liberty-in-action-first-private-lawsuit-challenging-obamacare-filed-in-mississippi/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
Posted By K. Douglas Lee On April 2, 2010
Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a class action lawsuit today, Good Friday 2010, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare” and a variety of other less polite euphemisms.
We believe that the PPACA is DOA for several equally important reasons, but only one of which has received much attention. Most folks know by now that Congress has invoked the Commerce Clause to justify this massive expansion of governmental power. Our “Good Friday” Complaint spends many pages discussing how Congress has clearly exceeded the limits of its power under the Commerce Clause. I strongly urge you to read the entire Complaint. What I really want to point out, though, are some things you probably don’t know, and definitely will not like — even if you consider yourself a “Liberal.”
Consider for a moment that you have now been commanded to enter into a contract with an insurance corporation, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not. Yes, there are many who actually choose to be uninsured. For most, it is simply an economic decision that often works out to the uninsured’s economic advantage. Not always, of course, but that’s the beauty of liberty — you get to make the decisions, and live with the good or bad that comes of them.
Now that you realize that a dictate has been handed down, compelling you to contract with an insurance corporation or else, consider what you have to do. It’s not like you can go to a vending machine, swipe your debit card and pull out a policy. You still have to apply. True, they cannot turn you down, but so what? You still have to give a big, scary, mean corporation a lot of private medical and psychological information about yourself and your family. Then, forever after, the insurance corporation’s bureaucrats will gather this private information without even bothering to let you know. As our Complaint states:
Moreover, compelling Plaintiffs to enter into a private contract to purchase insurance from another entity will legally require them to share private and personal information with the contracting party. Specifically, by requiring Plaintiffs to abide by the Act’s individual mandate, Congress is also compelling Plaintiffs to fully disclose past medical conditions, habits and behaviors. Not only will the insurer be privy to all past medical information, Congress’s individual mandate will, by necessity, allow the compelled insurer access to Plaintiffs’ present and future medical information of a confidential nature. If judicially enforceable privacy rights mean anything, then private and confidential medical details certainly merit Constitutional protection. Plaintiffs should not be forced to disclose the most intimate details of their past, present and future medical information.
Do you have an STD? How many abortions have you had? How about a sexual dysfunction? Did your father or mother have cancer? Do you have a birth defect? Have you ever been prescribed drugs for a mental condition, such as anxiety or depression? There are many reasons people have concerns over their medical privacy. The desire to keep one’s medical history private is universal.
Privacy, choice, and Roe v. Wade
Medical privacy is so important that we have enshrined it as fundamental right in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution — just ask the Supreme Court, which even allows women to kill unborn children in order to protect their constitutional right to medical privacy.
If you want health insurance badly enough, you’ll probably choose to give up your medical privacy rights to an insurance corporation. But perhaps you are indifferent to buying health insurance in the first place, and really, you don’t want it in writing anywhere that you’ve had two abortions, or eat Viagra like popcorn. You’ve decided that it would just be better to pay for your healthcare directly and avoid the entire insurance hassle. What’s wrong with this choice? Nothing, if you believe in the concept of liberty.
Forcing citizens to enter into a contract to buy insurance is a bit different than requiring them to buy a loaf of bread. Congress cannot conceivably be said to have the power to force you to buy a loaf of bread, even though that would indeed have some effect on interstate commerce. Think about how much more egregious a denial of liberty it is to force people to contract with an insurance corporation. Those contracts create rights and obligations for both parties, but guess who gets to write the contract? Hint: insurance corporation lawyers. It’s an actual contract that you will actually be forced to sign by your government. You will not have any bargaining power to alter the contract; it’s not even a “take it or leave it” situation, it’s “take it or face the legal consequences.”
Which brings us to another important but poorly understood issue: Just what are the consequences? Exactly how will the mandate will be enforced? Unfortunately, this is something that none of us really know. Congress states outright that there will be a “penalty” assessed for citizens who disobey their command. These lawbreakers will have to pay an amount that will be assessed as a tax. Yes, we all know Congress has the power to tax, but remember, Congress itself has called this tax a “penalty.” As we explain in our Complaint,
Central to the definition of penalty is the “idea of punishment” – “[p]unishment imposed on a wrongdoer . . . in the form of imprisonment or fine. Though usually for crimes, penalties are also sometimes imposed for civil wrongs.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1153 (7th ed. 1999).
Yes, you wrongdoers who decide to go without insurance will be punished by the federal government. You will have to pay a special tax that applies only to wrongdoers like you. The Complaint points out that this “constitutes a capitation and a direct tax that is not apportioned among the states according to census data,” which is unconstitutional in itself. But this does not make great bedtime reading, so I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s a tax that they cannot make you pay.
A plain reading of the individual mandate shows that Congress first sets forth a penalty for failure to buy insurance, then says that regardless of anything written anywhere else in any other law, there can be no criminal penalty:
‘‘(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.—In the case of
any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed
by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any
criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
Then, to make it even very difficult (perhaps impossible) to civilly enforce the penalty/tax, Congress denied the government any power to file liens or levy any wrongdoer’s property:
‘‘(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.—The Secretary
shall not—
‘‘(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property
of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the
penalty imposed by this section, or
‘‘(ii) levy on any such property with respect to
such failure.’’.
If the feds cannot levy or lien you, then what can they do to get your money? Write scary letters to you? Just what happens to the authority of the federal government when people laugh at these scary letters?
What indeed. We have demanded in our Complaint that if the government has some trick up its sleeve, that we be told what it is. If we are to be punished for not buying something, we deserve to know ahead of time what that punishment might be. That’s not just an old American tradition, it’s a constitutional principle.
The alternative, of course, is for the feds to admit that there is no enforcement mechanism. Consider what that means for a minute: the pièce de résistance of the PPACA is the individual mandate. Without an enforcement mechanism, the individual mandate fails; without the mandate, the entire legislative act fails utterly.
If the government admits, or the federal judiciary declares, that there is no enforcement mechanism for the individual mandate, millions will be free to ignore it. We believe, though, that the lack of an enforcement mechanism makes the individual mandate unconstitutional for reasons that we will discuss further with the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
A call to service
We’ve got Mississippi covered. Now we need for you to do your part to take back your liberty. This lawsuit can be filed in every state in the greatest nation on earth, and it should be. Wherever this abomination applies, there is at least one federal court, often many. Find them, take our lawsuit, change the names and file it. Add to it if you have more arguments. If you are serious about doing so and need information, we are easy to find.
We have much more to say about the unconstitutionality of this abominable act of Congress, and we’re looking forward to your comments. God bless America!
Full Complaint: http://biggovernment.com/kdlee/2010/04/02/liberty-in-action-first-private-lawsuit-challenging-obamacare-filed-in-mississippi/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo
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