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Dr. Sproul's Must-Read Book

In the two decades since this landmark book was first published, four different presidents have occupied the White House, seven justices have come and gone on the Supreme Court, and eleven sessions of Congress have held sway in the Capitol.

These federal magistrates have faced economic booms and busts. They have weathered terror attacks and foreign wars. They have witnessed the collapse of the Soviet empire and the rise of the al Qaeda menace. They have wrangled over corporate bailouts and health-care reforms. They have endured Tea Party protests, campaign scandals, personal embarrassments, and policy failures. They have been plagued on every side by mounting demands, frustrated expectations, declining resources, and diminished prestige.

Through it all, the divisiveness of the abortion issue has remained constant. The many and varied political turns of events during the past twenty years have done nothing to ameliorate it—much less, to resolve it. If anything, the divide over abortion has become more pronounced, more acrimonious, and more entrenched. While political gridlock on nearly any and every other issue ultimately has been overcome, no rapprochement on the issue of abortion is anywhere in sight.

Of course, matters have not exactly been helped by the fact that the politically protected international abortion business has grown into a multibillion–dollar industrial complex. Utilizing its considerable wealth, manpower, and influence, the abortion industry has proven itself adept at muscling its way into virtually every facet of modern life. It now plays a strategic role in the health and social-services community. It exerts a major influence on education, providing the majority of sex-education curricula and programs in both public and private schools. It carries considerable political clout through lobbying, campaigning, advocacy, and litigation. It is involved in publishing, broadcast media production, judicial activism, public relations, foreign aid, psychological research counseling, environmental policy-making, sociological planning, demographic investigation, pharmacological development, contraceptive distribution and sales, mass advertising, and public legal service provision.

As if that were not enough, the current Democratic administration in Washington—aided and abetted by the Democrat-controlled Senate—is the most ardently pro-abortion in American history. With a bevy of executive orders, appointments, and administrative policy changes—to say nothing of its 2,407-page monolithic, partisan “health–care reform” legislation, which removed the longstanding ban on federal funding of abortions in favor of a much more easily overturned executive order—the abortion industry has logged more gains during this administration’s short tenure than in the rest of its history combined.

Yet the great divide persists. Despite its obvious cultural clout, its cavernously deep corporate pockets, and its carefully crafted public relations efforts, the abortion industry has yet to prevail in the battle for the hearts and minds of most Americans. Public opinion polls conducted during the first year of the Obama administration found that 51 percent of Americans now call themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion, while only 42 percent call themselves “pro-choice.” In addition, the number of Americans who favor making it more difficult to obtain an abortion is up six percentage points in just five years. In 2005, 59 percent of respondents agreed it would be good to reduce abortions. Today, 65 percent take this view. One poll also found that 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 twelve percentage points among conservatives and six points among all Americans. Yet another poll found that 58 percent of Americans say abortion is morally wrong most of the time. Just 25 percent disagree, and the rest have 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 percent of men. Meanwhile, still another survey found a majority of Americans, 52 percent, think it is too easy to get an abortion in America. That's up seven percentage points from two years ago, when 45 percent thought it was too easy.

As a result, Dr. Sproul’s incisive analysis in Abortion: A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue is as relevant and necessary today as it was in the last decade of the twentieth century. Indeed, he points the way to the only possible resolution of this deeply emotional issue.

This is has always been an enormously helpful book. Now it has been brought completely up to date and is more useful than ever. It is my prayer that God may be pleased to use this book as a means to provoke the church to boldly stand for truth, justice, and mercy in the midst of this poor, fallen world.

The Abortion Atrocity

“Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity." George Bernard Shaw

Marco Rubio's Vision for America's Future

Mildred Jefferson: Pro-Life Stalwart

Mildred Jefferson, pioneer physician, teacher, reformer, mentor, and friend to an entire generation of pro-life leaders has gone home to be with the Lord at age 84.

Born in Pittsburg, Texas, in 1926, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a Methodist pastor, she was raised in the beautiful East Texas town of Carthage and graduated from Texas College in Tyler. She earned a master’s degree from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. Then, she went on to become the first African-American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and the first woman to be a surgical intern at Boston City Hospital.

Dr. Jefferson gained renown as a clinical professor of surgery at Boston University Medical School--and over the years was awarded honorary degrees by 28 colleges and universities.

She was one of the early, visionary founders of the modern pro-life movement. A tireless servant-leader, she helped to establish more than 30 pro-life organizations, boards, and committees including the National Right to Life Committee--of which she remained the at-large director to the day she died.

Her credo was unequivocal, "I am at once a physician, a citizen, and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged, and the planned have the right to live."

Dr. Jefferson was a dear and gracious friend to me, a ready counselor during the days when I first was researching and writing Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, and a faithful supporter of LifeNet, the organization we established together to stem the rising tide of RU-486 and other pharmaceutical abortifacients.

Though we mourn the loss of one of America's greatest heroes, we rejoice that Dr. Jefferson is now in the presence of her Savior, beholding the glory of the risen Christ.

The Komen Betrayal

It is sad that organizations ostensibly committed to very worthy causes align themselves with the insidious child-killing industry. But, that is just what the United Way and the March of Dimes have done for years. Now, add the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to that list.

As the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists, Komen is committed "to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures." Largely thanks to events like the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, the organization has become the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world.

Alas, it has also become a significant contributor to the abortion monolith, Planned Parenthood. Indeed, during the past five years breast cancer donors have, unbeknownst to them, poured nearly $4 million into the already bloated coffers of the organization responsible for more than a quarter of all the abortions performed in the United States and perhaps a third of all the child-killing procedures world-wide. Rather than focusing on saving lives, Komen has become a cozy partner with Planned Parenthood in the nasty business of snuffing out lives.

October is the month for breast cancer awareness, but it has become increasingly difficult for those who actually care about women's health issues to lend their support to the cause because of this brazen betrayal by Komen.

Making a Difference

January 22, 2011 marks the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. On January 3rd, the 112th United States Congress will open with newly elected representatives in the Senate and the House of Representatives joining the incumbents. This is an important opportunity to influence our nation’s leaders on the critical issue of abortion.

To coincide with both of these dates, Ligonier Ministries will send R.C. Sproul’s Twentieth Anniversary special edition of Abortion: A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue to every member of Congress. Won't you help? Ligonier's goal is to raise $6,000 to fund this effort. Every $10 donation will send a book to one of our representatives.

May God be pleased to use this resource, along with a letter from R.C. Sproul, to make an impact on the hearts and minds of our representatives in Congress.

A Lesson in Futility

Abortion Vote Alert!

There is a critical vote coming up regarding abortion in the US Senate, probably this coming Tuesday, September 21. It's a vote on the "National Defense Authorization Bill" and Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying an end run to get some "thank you gifts" and "election incentives" to his core supporters. How? By adding three very controversial amendments to this defense bill:

The first would allow abortions to be performed on any military base in the world, utilizing personnel, supplies, and facilities paid for with our tax dollars, which, under current law, has been prohibited since 1966; another provision in the law which would be changed prohibits the use of DOD funds for abortion except to save the life of the mother;

The other two amendments would repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy, which will impose open homosexuality upon the U.S. armed services, without waiting for the pending military report which is analyzing the effect of such a policy; and add a very controversial immigration rider, the so-called "Dream Act." This would legalize and offer a path to citizenship to some 2.1 million "young" illegal immigrants initially and then, by using chain migration, will legalize and offer a citizenship path to their parents which would then total 6.3 million.

So, what do any of these three amendments have to do with defense spending? Umm, well, nothing. Absolutely nothing--which epitomizes what is so, so wrong with our current Congress and why the upcoming election is so important.

But, before November we still have work to do--and fast. This week, in fact.

Senator John McCain plans to lead a filibuster against the bill. He needs 41 votes in order to sustain the filibuster, which is possible if all the pro-life Senators stick together and refuse to invoke cloture (a procedure to cut off debate and bring the bill to the floor for a vote) as Reid will request.

An avid supporter of the military, Senator McCain knows that the needed military funding can easily be provided with a continuing resolution minus these extremist maneuvers. If the amendments are voted on individually, grassroots pro-lifers would have to rally 51 votes to defeat each them--and it is not likely that we'd be able to muster them in the current Senate configuration. Thus, sustaining the filibuster (only 41 votes needed) is our only realistic chance to stop them in the Senate!

WHAT CAN YOU DO? Please contact your two US Senators and urge them, particularly if they have professed to be pro-life in the past, to stand firm with Senator McCain as he tries to keep this bill with its non-germane, politically-motivated amendments from coming to the floor of the Senate, where we would be forced to endure yet another pro-abortion debacle.

This is a huge diversion from the normal rules of the Senate and is a real desperation move by Reid to try and ram these "payback" amendments through before the Democrats stand to lose their majority in the November elections.

1-202-224-3121 is the Capitol main switchboard for all Senators.

Time is short--please flood the Senators with your phone calls. Be knowledgeable, polite, but firm in your request that they stand with Senator McCain and vote against cloture. It is probably our only way to stop these additions to the bill.

Planned Parenthood Celebrates Child-Killing

This week Planned Parenthood celebrated four thousand years of child-killing, child-sacrifice, and infanticide on one of its Twitter sites. If anyone ever had a shadow of a doubt, the organization's gleeful public endorsement of the lurid Four Thousand Years for Choice art project has sent the clear and unambiguous message to all the world that Planned Parenthood is hardly "pro-choice." It is now, it always has been, and it certainly intends to continue to be ardently, unapologetically, and apoplectically "pro-abortion."

Why Evangelism Among Muslims Is Vital

There Are More Of Us Than There Are Of Them

Judicial Activism and Prop 8

Judgment begins at the House of the Lord--not with Congress or California. We are where we are because the church is not acting like the church. We are what we are because the church is asleep in the light. The culture war is only a second or third order consequence of the great battle in the heavenlies. And in that battle, pastors, churches, deacons, elders, SS teachers, Christian dads and moms have simply been AWOL.

"Evidence" from the "Experts"

"Because the evidence shows same-sex marriage has and will have no adverse effects on society or the institution of marriage, California has no interest in waiting and no practical need to wait to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples." In the ruling of U.S. District Judge Vaugh Walker, one of only three openly gay federal judges, in the case of Perry v Schwarzenegger

Oh really Judge Walker? And what "evidence" is that?

The End of the World As We Know It

”It is not necessary to imagine
The world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities:
One is paperwork,
And the other is sentimental nostalgia.” Frank Zappa

Margaret Sanger's Racism

On this day in 1939, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood announced the organization’s new “Negro Project” in response to requests from southern state public health officials—men not generally known at that time for their racial equanimity. “The mass of Negroes,” her project proposal asserted, particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among Whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit.” The proposal went on to say that “Public Health statistics merely hint at the primitive state of civilization in which most Negroes in the South live.”

In order to remedy this “dysgenic horror story,” her project aimed to hire three or four “Colored Ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities” to travel to various Black enclaves and propagandize for birth control.

“The most successful educational approach to the Negro,” Margaret wrote sometime later, “is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

Of course, those Black ministers were to be carefully controlled—mere figureheads. “There is a great danger that we will fail,” one of the project directors wrote, “because the Negroes think it a plan for extermination. Hence, let’s appear to let the colored run it.” Another project director lamented, “I wonder if Southern Darkies can ever be entrusted with . . . a clinic. Our experience causes us to doubt their ability to work except under White supervision.” The entire operation then was a ruse—a manipulative attempt to get African Americans to cooperate in their own elimination.

The program’s genocidal intentions were carefully camouflaged beneath several layers of condescending social service rhetoric and organizational expertise. Like the citizens of Hamelin, lured into captivity by the sweet serenades of the Pied Piper, all too many African Americans all across the country happily fell into step behind Margaret and the Eugenic racists she had placed on her Negro Advisory Council.

Soon taxpayer-supported clinics throughout the South were distributing contraceptives to African Americans and Sanger’s science fiction dream of discouraging “the defective and diseased elements of humanity” from their “reckless and irresponsible swarming and spawning” appeared at last to be on the road to fulfillment. Planned Parenthood had its first real success in social engineering.

Sarti and Immolation

Born in Northern Ireland to a wealthy Presbyterian family, Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) became one of the best known missionaries of the first half of the twentieth century. Her ministry took her first to Japan, then to Ceylon, and finally to the Dohnavur province of India.

Although the brutal Hindu traditions of sarti and immolation—burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands—had been legally banned, to her horror she discovered that ritual abortion and female infanticide were still quite common. In addition, many of the young girls that she had come to work with were still being systematically sold off as slaves to the nearby pagan temples in order to be raised as cult prostitutes.

She immediately established a ministry to protect and shelter the girls. Although she had to suffer the persecution of various
Hindu sects and the bureaucratic resistance of the British colonial government, Carmichael built an effective and dynamic ministry renowned for its courage and compassion.

Sadly, many of her fellow missionaries in India—having partially accepted the presuppositions of Planned Parenthood’s Malthusian thought—believed that her effort to build an orphanage and school was actually a "worldly activity" that distracted her from the "saving of souls." To such accusations she simply replied, "Souls are more or less firmly attached to bodies."

Since her death in 1951, her Dohnavur Fellowship has continued to carry on ministries of evangelism, education, and medical aid among the poor and helpless. It remains one of the most dynamic Christian work on the Indian subcontinent.

Novakian Eleventary

"Always love your country--but never trust your government." Robert Novak

¡Felices Pascuas de Resurrección!

Señor Jesucristo
Tú eres el Autor de la Vida,
Quien murió y ahora vive para siempre.

Haz que aquellos que trabajamos y oramos
Para que los niños en el vientre sean protegidos Siempre, saquemos fuerza, confianza, y gozo
De Tu victoria sobre la muerte,

Porque Tú eres Señor por siempre y para siempre. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You are the Author of Life,
Who died and now lives forevermore.

May we who work and pray
That children in the womb may be protected
Always draw strength, confidence, and joy
From Your victory over death,

For you are Lord forever and ever. Amen.

Congressional Courage: Marsha Blackburn

Not Now. Not Ever

"Americans do not want a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care stuffed with tax hikes, Medicare cuts, taxpayer subsidized abortion, and giveaways to Washington special interests. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever." House Minority Leader John Boehner

Perversity Propounded

A brazen new report issued by the International Planned Parenthood Federation asserts that children as young as ten must be given extensive sex education, including an awareness of sex's pleasures, on the basis of essential "human rights."

Shamelessly redefining "right and wrong," "morality and immorality," the report, Stand and Deliver, specifically charges religious groups with perfidy in denying their young free access to comprehensive sexual programs and education.

A PDF of the full document may be found here:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25001940/IPPF-Stand-and-Deliver-sex-education-for-children

99 Balloons

No, Mr. President

Domestic Terror

A pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Center in rural eastern Arizona that serves a predominantly Native American population was severely burned in an arson attack just before Christmas. The Living Hope Women’s Center clinic will be forced to close indefinitely as a result of the fire that gutted the building. Pro-abortion terrorists are suspected--though arson detectives have yet to conclude their investigation.

Death and Taxes

"If Samuel Adams thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation." Tristan Gylberd

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."