Childermas

Often called Childermas, this day on the Christian calendar has traditionally been celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Innocents. It is a day which solemnizes the slaughter of the children of Judea by Herod the Great following the birth of Christ.

It has always been the focus of the Christian’s commitment to protect and preserve the sanctity of human life—thus serving as a prophetic warning against the practitioners of abandonment and infanticide in the age of antiquity, oblacy and pessiary in the medieval epoch, and abortion and euthanasia in these modern times. Generally set aside as a day of prayer, it culminates with a declaration of the covenant community’s unflinching commitment to the innocents who are unable to protect themselves.

Virtually every culture in antiquity was stained with the blood of innocent children. Unwanted infants in ancient Rome were abandoned outside the city walls to die from exposure to the elements or from the attacks of wild foraging beasts. Greeks often gave their pregnant women harsh doses of herbal or medicinal abortifacients. Persians developed highly sophisticated surgical curette procedures. Chinese women tied heavy ropes around their waists so excruciatingly tight that they either aborted or passed into unconsciousness. Ancient Hindus and Arabs concocted chemical pessaries--abortifacients that were pushed or pumped directly into the womb through the birth canal. Primitive Canaanites threw their children onto great flaming pyres as a sacrifice to their god Molech. Polynesians subjected their pregnant women to onerous tortures--their abdomens beaten with large stones or hot coals heaped upon their bodies. Egyptians disposed of their unwanted children by disemboweling and dismembering them shortly after birth--their collagen was then harvested for the manufacture of cosmetic creams.

Abortion, infanticide, exposure, and abandonment were so much a part of human societies that they provided the primary literary liet motif in popular traditions, stories, myths, fables, and legends. The founding of Rome was, for instance, presumed to be the happy result of the abandonment of children. According to the story, a vestal virgin who had been raped bore twin sons, Romulus and Remus. The harsh Etruscan Amulius ordered them exposed on the Tiber River. Left in a basket which floated ashore, they were found by a she wolf and suckled by her. Romulus and Remus would later establish the city of Rome on the seven hills near the place of their rescue. Likewise, the stories of Oedipus, Jupiter, Poseidon, and Hephaistos, were all victims of failed infanticides.

Because they had been mired by the minions of sin and death, it was as instinctive as the autumn harvest for them to summarily sabotage their own heritage. They saw nothing particularly cruel about despoiling the fruit of their wombs. It was woven into the very fabric of their culture. They believed that it was completely justifiable. They believed that it was just and good and right.

The Gospel therefore came into the world as a stern rebuke. God, who is the giver of life (Acts 17:25), the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9), and the defender of life (Psalm 27:1), not only sent us the message of life (Acts 5:20) and the words of life (John 6:68), He sent us the light of life as well (John 8:12). He sent us His only begotten Son—the life of the world (John 6:51)--to break the bonds of sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54-56). For God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

We've All Won the Nobel Booby Prize

How do you win the Nobel Prize in just 12 days? Well, according to political pundit, columnist, and blogger Tommy De Seno over the last decade, the only discernible requirement has been to be "critical of George W. Bush--see Al Gore, Mohamed El Baradei, and Jimmy Carter."

But, even by that standard, Barack Obama's giddy cheerleaders in Oslo have broken new ground. The deadline for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize nominations was February 1. The president took office just 12 days before that--on January 20.

So, what did the Celebrity-in-Chief do in those first 12 days in the White House? What did he do to deserve the accolades of the Nobel Committee? According to his own published White House schedule, he essentially threw some parties, skipped church, threw some more parties, had a few meetings with his staffers, made a couple of speeches, skipped church again, ordered the release of federal funding in order to export America's abortion holocaust to the rest of the world, threw some more parties, and watched the Super Bowl.

No really. That's about it. And for that, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here's how De Seno recounts this prize-winning record:

January 20: Sworn in as president. Went to a parade. Partied.

January 21: Asked bureaucrats to re-write guidelines for information requests. Held an “open house” party at the White House.

January 22: Signed Executive Orders: Executive Branch workers to take ethics pledge; re-affirmed Army Field Manual techniques for interrogations; expressed desire to close Gitmo (how’s that working out?)

January 23: Ordered the release of federal funding to pay for abortions in foreign countries. Lunch with Joe Biden; met with Tim Geithner.

January 24: Budget meeting with economic team.

January 25: Skipped church.

January 26: Gave speech about jobs and energy. Met with Hillary Clinton. Attended Geithner's swearing in ceremony.

January 27: Met with Republicans. Spoke at a clock tower in Ohio.

January 28: Economic meetings in the morning, met with Defense secretary in the afternoon.

January 29: Signed Ledbetter Bill overturning Supreme Court decision on lawsuits over wages. Party in the State Room. Met with Biden.

January 30: Met economic advisers. Gave speech on Middle Class Working Families Task Force. Met with senior enlisted military officials.

January 31: Took the day off.

February 1: Skipped church. Threw a Super Bowl party.

So there you have it. The short path to the Nobel Peace Prize: Party, go to meetings, skip church, release federal funding to pay for abortions in foreign countries, party some more.

To which De Seno simply adds: "Good grief."

It looks like we've all just won the Nobel Booby Prize.

Nobel Logic

Sima Samar: women's rights activist in repressive, war-torn Afghanistan. No Nobel.

Dr. Denis Mukwege: founder of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu and champion of Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence. No Nobel.

Handicap International and Cluster Munition Coalition: a coalition aimed at cleaning up cluster bombs and land mines around the world. No Nobel.

Hu Jia: a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government,currently serving a three-and-a-half-year prison term for "inciting subversion of state power." No Nobel.

Wei Jingsheng: another a human rights activist who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist totalitarian regime. No Nobel.

Barack Obama: novice American politician best known as the multinational abortion industry's favorite patron. Nobel Peace Prize.

The logic of this can only be summarized thusly: "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Goo goo ga joob."

Once Upon a Time

Louis Jennings was a pioneer in American journalism. The editor of the New York Times during the last decades of the nineteenth century, he helped to build the reputation that paper--ultimately making it the premier daily in the entire nation. He was also a committed Christian and a stalwart in the struggle for life.

On this day in 1870, Jennings began a crusade against abortion on the editorial pages of his paper that ultimately lead to the criminalization of the procedure in every state in the Union. He understood the power of the printed page and utilized it expertly. He knew only too well that it would be necessary to provoke a public outrage over the issue, not simply a stiffening of legislation that might go unenforced.

It was his leadership, and the national visibility of the Times that ultimately swayed both the legal and the medical establishments to publicly denounce abortion as murder--ultimately outlawing it in every state and territory in the land.

Of course, that was all long, long ago.

The Obama-Effect

It is not just the International Olympic Committee that President Barack Obama is having a hard time convincing these days. A new Pew Research Center Poll released today shows support for legal abortions has dropped precipitously since just last year. The poll joins a handful of others from earlier this year confirming there is a growing shift towards the pro-life perspective, largely exacerbated by Obama’s extremist position on abortion and his unprecedented action to dismantle legal protections for women, children, and families.

A majority of Americans now identify themselves as "Pro-Life." In addition, the number of Americans who favor making it more difficult to obtain an abortion is up six points in just two years.

In 2005, 59% of respondents agreed it would be good to reduce abortions. Today 65% take this view, an increase of six points.

And more than three-quarters--some 76%--continue to favor requiring minors to obtain the permission of a parent before having an abortion. 

The Pew poll also found fewer Americans, and fewer pro-life advocates are willing to compromise on abortion by finding some "middle ground." Indeed, support for finding a middle ground on the abortion issue is down 12 points among conservatives and six percent among all Americans.

Michael New, a political science professor at the University of Alabama, says the trend is very clear in the pro-life direction, as evidenced by the polling results. "This is consistent with other surveys released this spring by groups like Gallup which show that an increasingly higher percentage of Americans are willing to describe themselves as Pro-Life," he said.

All this is very bad news for a president and his administration--having seen his push for dramatic and radical change stymied at every turn. But then, that may well be good news for all of the rest of us.

Pro-Lifer Murdered

An pro-life activist has been shot and killed this morning across the street from Owosso High School while students were getting off buses at the beginning of the school day. According to local new reports, the victim, James Pouillon, has long been known in the small Michigan community between Flint and Lansing as the "abortion sign guy."

According to Owosso Police Chief Michael Compeau, Pouillon, 63, was shot several times by a 33 year-old male driving by in a car. The shooting took place shortly after 7:30 AM and caused officials to place the high school in lock-down.

It will be interesting to see if the President of the United States will issue any sort of statement on this murder--just as he did when the infamous late-term abortionist George Tiller was killed earlier this year.

James Pouillon, a retired auto-worker at the Flint Buick plant, was a dedicated pro-life protester whose life was largely devoted to quietly, gently, but resolutely standing in the gap for the unborn. He was a familiar figure on the streets of Owosso, where he staged silent prayer protests for a portion of each day almost every weekday during the last ten years. May God be pleased to raise up many more faithful witnesses of the truth like him. After all, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

Acton's Maxims

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Lord Acton

“There is no worse heresy than the idea that an office sanctifies the holder of it. " Lord Acton

“The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the party that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.” Lord Acton

A Partisan Kleptocracy

"If there is any enduring lesson to be learned from the present shenanigans in Washington, it is that the first impulse of modern politics is to establish a Kleptocracy, a protection-racket for partisan power, the end of Lex Rex." Tristan Gylberd

The Lion of the Senate?

Once upon a time, long ago, and far away (in 1971, prior to Roe v. Wade), Ted Kennedy was actually pro-life. He wrote:

“While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized—the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old."

He then asserted:

“On the question of the individual’s freedom of choice there are easily available birth control methods and information which women may employ to prevent or postpone pregnancy. But once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire."

Finally, he concluded saying:

“When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception."

Of course, immediately after the infamous Roe decision, Kennedy reversed his position. He became the Senate's most ardent defender of abortion on demand. Over the course of nearly four decades, he was responsible for the widest expansion of the pro-death, child-killing agenda in American history.

Alas, the man many are now lauding as the "Lion of the Senate" was anything but the principled, courageous defender of the least and the last that he first set out to be.

Human Life Is

A Whiff of Totalitarianism

What Plays in Peoria

Paying for the Ever-Widening Holocaust

President Barack Obama has made it mandatory for every American taxpayer to participate in his massive escalation of the Abortion holocaust by opening up a new federally-funded market for body parts.

That is the gist of "new ethics rules" the president mandated for the National Institutes of Health this past week. Obama reversed protections that prevented the funding of new stem cell research destroying human life.

Ironically, such research has yet to help even a single patient, unlike adult stem cell research--which has helped patients with more than 100 diseases and medical conditions and which the Bush administration supported with hundreds of millions in federal funding.

Thus, while opening the door to the purposeful creation and destruction of human life for scientific experimentation, the new guidelines simultaneously divert funds away from that research which has already proven to be so beneficial.

Obama-Care's Diabolical Take-Over

Obama-Care portends far more than simply scrapping the world's most successful and sophisticated health care system. It also promises the most aggressive assault on the sanctity of life since Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, and the other infamous 20th century Eugenicists, Socialists, and Revolutionaries launched the current movement of Modern Ideological Liberalism.

With Obama-Care, powerful abortion industry lobbyists and Washington, D.C. bureaucrats have launched a massive effort to mandate taxpayer-funded abortions as part of their proposed trillion-dollar health care takeover. This abortion industry power-grab is attempting to:

- Impose one of the cornerstones of the "Freedom of Choice Act" (FOCA) by stealth.

- Force taxpayers to fund a huge abortion industry bailout--something the majority of Americans oppose, and certainly cannot afford in these tough economic times.

- Mandate that virtually every American be forced into a health plan that includes abortion coverage.

- Require honorable medical providers to violate their consciences and perform abortions--or risk losing their jobs.

According to the New York Times an "administration official refused Sunday to rule out the possibility that federal tax money might be used to pay for abortions under proposed health care legislation."

Put bluntly, these Obama-Care provisions could lead to the largest abortion expansion since Roe v. Wade. It is yet another designer-disaster waiting to be foisted upon an unsuspecting people.

It is dangerous. It is destructive. It is diabolical. And it must be stopped.

Roundtable Healthcare Briefing

Eugenics at the Court and the Times

The story was first reported by the New York Times in an interview of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The justice's blithe comments about using abortion to control unwanted segments of the population were shocking, creepy, scandalous, and brazen.

Not surprisingly, her Eugenic-tone created shock-waves just about everywhere--well, just about everywhere except in the mainstream media. As Damian Thompson pointed out in the London Telegraph, "The mainstream media have completely ignored the story about one of the most powerful people in the country essentially endorsing Eugenics.... What the heck is going on here? What are we to make of the media’s complete silence on this issue? They don’t see a little Eugenics between friends as a big deal? They thought it was taken out of context?"

He goes on to assert, "As the large metropolitan newspapers die, they’re wondering why. This is why. You might think the New York Times might want to trumpet its exclusive. But the mindset of that pompous, prickly, boring, self-regarding publication is so overwhelmingly liberal that it didn’t even realise it had a story on its hands."

Of course, none of this is really news. As Linda DeMerle has observed the Left has never abandoned its historically cozy ties to the "scientific racism" of Eugenics pioneers like Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger. It's just the same ol' same ol' repackaged for modern consumption.

Alas, judging by the Sotomayor hearings, we moderns continue to consume it with abandon.

Making Tax-Paid Abortions Permanent

Last week, members of a Senate committee voted for an amendment to make permanent, President Barack Obama's overturning the Mexico City Policy. That is the order that stopped sending taxpayer funds to groups that promote and perform abortions in other nations.

Obama reversed the Mexico City Policy in January and polls after that showed a strong majority of Americans opposed his taxpayer-funded abortion agenda.

Not content to rely on Obama's opening of the abortion-funded floodgates in other countries, members of the Senate proposed an amendment to the State, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill to make the move federal law.

The move is important because it would make it so a pro-life president could not restore the Mexico City Policy and its tax-funded abortion limits. Instead, Congress would have to approve a new law overturning the amendment.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, offered the pro-abortion amendment along with Democratic Senators Pat Leahy, of Vermont, Barbara Mikulski, of Maryland, Pat Murray, or Washington, and pro-abortion Republican Susan Collins of Maine. On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed the amendment to permanently overturn the Mexico City Policy on a 17-11 vote.

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, said the vote "is just going to create a really big fight" and pro-life groups will plan an all-out effort on the Senate floor for a vote on an amendment to delete the pro-abortion language. Brownback and other pro-life lawmakers may go as far as launching a filibuster against the State, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill of the language making the abortion funding federal law is not removed.

The pro-life policy had been in place during the entirety of the Bush administration and Obama rescinded it on his first week in office.

A February Gallup poll found strong majority of Americans are upset that Obama would send their tax money overseas to perform and promote abortions. It found 58 percent of Americans opposed Obama's pro-abortion decision while just 35 percent supported it and 7 percent had no opinion.

Breaking down the new poll further, Gallup asked respondents to state their opinion on seven major actions President Obama has taken since becoming president. Overturning the Mexico City Policy engendered more opposition than any of the other actions and it had the lowest level of support.

The pro-abortion move also evoked the least support from Democrats and the most opposition from Republicans and independents. While 59 percent of Democrats supported the move, it came in last among the seven total issues on which Gallup surveyed. Only 8 percent of Republicans backed overturning the limits as did just 33 percent of the independent voters surveyed -- with opposition higher about this action than any other Obama has taken a president.

ACTION: Contact your two U.S. senators and urge strong opposition to the Lautenberg amendment against the Mexico City Policy. Urge lawmakers to remove the amendment from the State, Foreign Operations Appropriations bill and to vote against the bill if it is not removed. Go to www.Senate.gov for contact information for your senators.

Odd Company

Now or Never

In its first editorial five decades ago, The National Review urged thinking Americans to stand athwart history yelling “Stop!” Several weeks ago, The Weekly Standard told those of us concerned about the current mad rush toward Socialism, Globalism, and Amoralism, “Don’t Wince. Fight.” Clearly, it's now or never.

True Patriotism

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president." --Theodore Roosevelt

Marxism

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying all the wrong remedies." --Groucho Marx

Never Thought About It? Are You Kidding?

President Obama's Supreme Court nominee has said that she has "never considered whether an unborn child has any rights."

No really. I am not making this up. The person our president wants to serve on the nation's highest court says that she has never really given any consideration to the single most bedeviling civil rights issue of her generation. Oh my! What an admission!

In a conversation with Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, Sonia Sotomayor also called into question the applicability of the Second Amendment. And while that is certainly disturbing news, the fact that this sitting federal judge, a confessing Catholic, has such a rigid, closed, ideological worldview that she has never even thought through the issue of abortion is stunningly horrific.

Sotomayor is either lying or evasive or irresponsible or all three together.

Not surprisingly, DeMint now questions whether the nominee has what he believes is required of a Supreme Court nominee--an "unwavering commitment to the Constitution and equal justice for all Americans." Umm, well, yeah. I guess so. Let's just hope there are enough other Senators who display a modicum of epistemological self-consciousness to stand steadfast in opposition to this nomination.

Bad Choices

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received Planned Parenthood’s highest honor—the 2009 Margaret Sanger Award in Houston on March 27, 2009 at a gala, which took place just a few blocks from the construction site of America’s largest-ever abortion facility. Clinton was lauded as a “champion of women’s health and rights throughout her public service career.”

Planned Parenthood is of course, an organization whose founder Margaret Sanger embraced ideological Eugenics and targeted “the unfit” for “extinction.” Recently, Planned Parenthood has been involved in serial statutory rape cover-ups, fraud, and has petitioned for the construction of abortion clinics under false pretenses.

Its very name, the Margaret Sanger Award, is a tribute to a woman whose whole life’s mission was to “build a race of thoroughbreds” and "eliminate human weeds." Planned Parenthood’s long campaign to promote unregulated abortion on request, celebration of sexual libertinism, Eugenic racism, and revolutionary human callousness is, according to the Family Research Council, "the worst foreign policy message our nation could send."

Agreed. Alas, now the insidious organization has crowned the Secretary of State as their anointed messenger.

A Sad Day

In the Scripture text I preached from this morning--in Matthew 5 and its parallel passage in Luke 6--Jesus exhorts us to love enemies, to bless those who curse, to do good to those who hate, and to pray for those who persecute. In other words, we who were once at enmity with God ourselves are now to love as the Father loves; we are to love others just as He has loved us.

Thus, as you might well suppose, I am deeply grieved that late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller was murdered this morning in Wichita--and that his family, his church, and his community were all subjected to the horror of such unwarranted violence.

This is a very sad day for us all--for the pro-life movement, for the church, and for the nation.

Are Obama and Sotomayor Out of Step?

For the third time in a month, another public opinion poll has been released demonstrating that a majority of the American public is pro-life. Two weeks ago it was the Gallup poll that got the headlines, as it was the first time in that poll's history that it showed over half of the public as holding a pro-life position. Then last week, there was a Fox News poll, indicating the same thing: more Americans are pro-life than "pro-choice".

The third poll, this one from Rasmussen, should put to rest exactly how most Americans feel about the issue. The survey actually asked a different question than the others and found that 58 percent of Americans say abortion is morally wrong most of the time. Just twenty-five percent disagree and the rest had no opinion.

The poll found women are more strongly pro-life than men with 64 percent of women asserting that most abortions are morally wrong, a view shared by just 51% of men. Meanwhile, another Rasmussen survey question found a majority of Americans, 52 percent, think it is too easy to get an abortion in America. That's up seven percent from two years ago when 45 percent thought it was too easy.

The two important points to take away from this are first, that the pro-life position is indeed a majority position in this country, and second, that the pro-life position has been gaining momentum at precisely the moment President Obama seems to be steering his administration in the opposite direction--witness his nomination of a radical judicial activist and career left-wing pro-abort, Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

This Is How It Ends

"The court of appeals is where policy is made." --Sonia Sotomayor, Radical Judicial Activist and Obama's Supreme Court Nominee

"So, this is how Democracy ends: with thunderous applause." --Senator Padme Amadala, Character in Star Wars III

No, Mr. President

Pro-Life America

A new Gallup Poll, conducted this past week, has found that 51% of Americans now call themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and only 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of US adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995. The results, obtained from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50% were pro-choice and 44% pro-life.

QOTM: Quote of the Month

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

Candid Camera

A hidden video has captured a conversation between a Planned Parenthood abortion counselor in Memphis coaching a 14-year-old to lie to a judge about her 31-year-old boyfriend.

Tennessee Code 37-1-605 requires health professionals to report suspected cases of sexual abuse of minors to law enforcement immediately.

The Planned Parenthood counselor tells the young girl on camera, “Look, if we keep this conversation I’m gonna have to talk to my manager and yeah, [your boyfriend]’s gonna get in trouble,” but promises, “I’m not gonna tell anybody, ok?” She adds, “And please don’t say that I told you this.” When the girl tells the counselor she thinks her boyfriend will get in trouble if her parents find out, the counselor advises her to lie about the man’s age when speaking to a judge in order to obtain a bypass of Tennessee’s parental consent law for abortion: “Don’t mention it. Just say you have a boyfriend 17 years old…whatever.”

The video sting operation was conducted by the nonprofit organization Live Action. It is the fifth installment in Live Action’s “Mona Lisa Project,” a nationwide undercover investigation that documents Planned Parenthood’s repeated noncompliance with state mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse of minors. Tennessee is the third state to be implicated in the controversy, along with Arizona and Indiana.

Despite the mounting evidence of Planned Parenthood's institutionalized indifference to statutory rape and sexual abuse of children, no criminal charges have been filed.