International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Seven decades ago today, Soviet forces were rolling through Poland, uncovering some of the worst inhumanities of the Third Reich and some of the greatest abuses of the Jewish people.  On January 27, 1945, they came into Auschwitz…a name that has become synonymous with evil and human suffering…where they liberated nearly 7,000 prisoners still in the camp.  Nazis had forced some 60,000 to march west just days earlier and the world would come to learn that at least 1.1 million people were killed there.

We should remember the Holocaust for its history.  Now seventy years distant, time has worked some of its effect.  The movies, the pictures and the stories have perhaps calloused us a bit to the great horror of this epochal nightmare.  We must work to make sure this history still haunts us and moves us to the resolve of “never again.”  Stories like those of today’s Washington Post are very helpful at achieving this goal.

The IHRA is also committed to this.  In reaffirming the Stockholm Declaration today, they declared:

The unprecedented character of the Holocaust will always hold universal meaning for us. We are committed to remembering and honouring its victims, to upholding the terrible truth of the Holocaust, to standing up against those who distort or deny it and to combatting anti-semitism, racism and prejudice…

We should remember the Holocaust for its anti-Semitism.  Adolf Hitler’s maniacal obsession in obliterating the Jewish race is instructive.  In the final days of Germany’s war effort, troop trains gave way to the trains carrying Jews to the gas chambers.  The nation of Iran, the Palestinian state and a multitude of terrorist organizations are committed to the deaths of Jewish persons and the destruction of the nation of Israel.  Stephen Spielberg, in his remarks today at the Auschwitz memorial said:

“If you are a Jew today, in fact if you are any person who believes in freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, you know that like many other groups we’re once again facing the perennial demons of intolerance.”

We should remember the Holocaust for its spirit.   The spirit behind the Holocaust was hatred and violence.  And this spirit lives on and is too seldom checked.   Dr. Josef Mengele was the doctor who performed some of the worst experiments imaginable on human subjects at Auschwitz, most notably on identical twins.  Mengele was able to escape to South America where he lived in Argentina for its “no extradition” policy.  Mengele became an abortionist in Buenos Aires, transporting his violence towards Jews outside the womb to babies within the womb.  In America, 57,000,000 babies have been aborted since its legalization.  Our nation’s abortion chambers have turned out systematic death with such ruthless effectiveness that many of Hitler’s “Final Solution” Nazi planners would find impressive.

When several hundreds of people rioted in Ferguson, Missouri to protest the Grand Jury exoneration of Officer Darren Wilson, the national news media ran non-stop coverage.  When nearly a quarter of a million people marched peacefully in Washington DC at this past year’s March for Life, the national news media was silent. 

Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group, have killed nearly 2,000 Christians and burned numerous churches in Nigeria with little resistance from the world.  And again.  We know more about the New England Patriots deflating their balls than the suffering of those Nigerian Christians. 

We definitely need to remember the Holocaust.  Let us remember the victims of one of the world's worst eras, and let us not forget that such evil continues. 

Remembering Roe v. Wade

We remember it well.  The date is etched in every pro-life person's mind.  We know it as well as December 7, 1941 or 9/11.  January 22, 1973.  The day the Supreme Court of the United States offered its Roe v Wade decision and foisted upon America, abortion on demand.  They ignored history.  They ignored science.  They ignored morality.  And they ignored constitutional continuity.  They invented a new right.  The right to privacy.

Justice Byron White, one of two dissenting justices (William Rehnquist was the other) stated it well in his dissenting opinion:
"I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the court's judgment. The court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes."

Now, forty two years later, we have experienced over 57,000,000 deaths of unborn children as well as countless deaths of pregnant mothers at the hands of a greedy, profit-driven, money making abortion industry.  The mental anguish of women (and men) exploited by abortion and the subsequent culture of violence created by Roe is another telling hallmark of this heinous case.

Roe v. Wade made it legal to destroy a developing baby within the womb of its mother during all 9 months of pregnancy.  By sanctioning the legal killing of innocent babies, the Supreme Court also slaughtered the noble dignity of a once great nation. 

In many ways, we have accomplished much.  In my own state of Missouri, I remember occasionally picketing the abortion provider Planned Parenthood near 46th & Troost in Kansas City.  It no longer provides abortions.  Neither does Columbia; nor does Springfield.  Planned Parenthood of St. Louis if the only abortion provider in Missouri.  Just one clinic.  But one clinic too many.

Abortion is still a vibrant and functioning part of the American culture.  While most abortionists prefer to keep their trade rather private, there is still little shame on the part of many in advancing this barbarism.  The President didn't bat much of an eye in his State of Union speech on Tuesday with his smoke and mirror gobbledygook.


We still may not agree on a woman's right to choose, but surely we can agree it's a good thing that teen pregnancies and abortions are nearing all-time lows, and that every woman should have access to the health care she needs.


By "the healthcare she needs" the President means the Obamacare fiasco forcing religious entities as well as private citizens to pay for women's abortions.  And no, that is not a good thing.  It is not good for the developing baby or even the mental and physical health of the mother; it is not a good thing for person's of pro-life conscience, and it is not a good thing for our nation.

The Republican party, once the unashamed advocate for the unborn, abandoned this week, legislation that would have protected babies in the fifth to ninth months of development from the pain of an abortion.

So let us remember today.  Let us remember the decision that ended dignity in America.

Joe's Laughing...But America Isn't

I know virtually everyone in America has commented on the Vice President Joe Biden's debate performance last night. You can read one of my favorite stories here.

I really was starting to wonder if the Joker had pulled this trick on Biden in the green room.

But in all seriousness, nothing was funny about last night's debate.

It isn't funny that Iran is in the process of acquiring nuclear capability. Nor is the Vice President's ostrichian approach that "they [Iranian leaders] have to take this highly enriched uranium, get it from 20 percent up. Then they have to be able to have something to put it in. There is no weapon that the Iranians have at this point."


"AT THIS POINT", Mr. Vice President?  Just what do you think they are doing with the uranium they have acquired? And just how many Israeli parents put their children to bed each night with a great heaviness toward their future welfare?

And it is far from humorous that four American diplomats serving their country in Libya are dead; that four wives had to watch you snicker and that orphaned children and heart-sick parents and siblings of these men along with every other patriotic American had to listen to your semantic dance of refusing responsibility.  The present administration sought to cover up this assassination because of their horrendous foreign policy and cozy relationship with Muslim, American-hating governments of the Middle East.  It isn't funny that President Obama invited Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi to meet with him in New York but refused to meet with America's long time ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

And there is no humor in America's jobless rate, President Obama adding $5 trillion in new debt, giving kickbacks to his friends in Solar Energy, and dozens of other things.

And certainly, Christian organizations are not laughing about Obamacare's requirement that they provide contraception, in spite of their religious convictions to the contrary.  In spite of your lie during the debate:

With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy -- any hospital -- none has to either refer contraception. None has to pay for contraception. None has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.

Christian organizations are not laughing, sir.  They are suing!  They are suing to preserve their constituional rights and their God given rights against an Obama administration bent on crushing those rights.

And I assure you that I am not laughing when in the name of Christ and His church you say:

I -- I do not believe that -- that we have a right to tell other people that women, they -- they can’t control their body. It’s a decision between them and their doctor, in my view.

You forgot, Mr. Biden, that third person which you liberals love to ignore.  That person which faith, AS WELL AS SCIENCE, tells us is a living, growing, developing baby.  A human being who proably has as big a grin on their face as you did throughout most of last night's debate.  At least until a death-dealing abortionist invades their life and starts hacking away at their limbs with a scapel or crushing their small, fragile bones with forceps. You are a part of all that is wrong with America, and not many Americans are laughing.

 

Abortion Still Going Strong

January 22, 1973 was a Monday. I would have gone to kindergarten that day at James Elementary School where Mrs. Katherine Askew would have taught me the basics of phoenics and reading. Unless, of course, it snowed a lot that day (I’m from Kansas City). Then I would have gone sledding down Indian Mound. Certainly unknown to me and probably to my parents and so many others on that day, was that miles away in Washington D.C., the Supreme Court of the United States was making public its decisions in two legal cases, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton which would change the history of our country by effectively legalizing abortion upon demand.

As I reflected on this, I wonder how many things are radically altering our country’s future. How many things, seemingly benign, are setting us up for God’s judgment? For nearly 40 years, the United States of America has legally allowed the killing of innocent, developing babies within their mothers’ wombs. Abortion remains the only “medical” (barbaric) procedure that doesn’t require informed consent. While many states are trying to change that, for the most part, an abortionist will perform the live-ending procedure without giving the woman any information.

How abortion can end in our country is beyond my imagination. But it is not beyond my prayers.

Claire’s Despair

"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood


Yesterday, Senator Claire McCaskill (Democrat—Missouri) was in Springfield and had a brief interchange with reporters. Among several comments she gave, she addressed the House of Representative’s recent vote to defund Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider. As reported by The Fuse, she said:

“As to Planned Parenthood, they are not allowed to ever perform an abortion with any federal dollars. The money they’ve cut is for birth control and contraception. That does not make sense to me, because we need to be preventing unwanted pregnancies. That’s how we prevent abortions. So, it sense [sic] backwards to me that we would cut the money for birth control and contraception in the name of reducing abortions. Those two don’t mix. I think we need to make sure women have access to birth control and contraception so that we don’t have unwanted pregnancies.”

At the heart of this issue, Senator McCaskill fails to share most Missourians (and Americans) disdain for an organization that brutalizes women and pre-born babies through abortion. Masking her complicit embrace of abortion, she advocates the “educational” arm of Planned Parenthood.

Could you imagine our senator’s response to this hypothetical? An organization in the United States brutally ends the developing life of puppies. These puppies die painful deaths and some of their remaining body parts are even sold to research facilities. We discover that this organization receives federal money. Yet, miracle of miracles, none of that federal money actually goes to killing puppies. The puppy-killing organization actually educates about spaying and neutering dogs. That’s how they use their federal money. Would Claire be advocating we keep federal money going to the puppy-killing organization?

The fact remains that Planned Parenthood is a dark, violent and immoral organization. And despite Senator McCaskill’s skillful distraction, most Americans know it and are repulsed by our forced funding of such an organization.

Abortion Myths Still Strong in America

This week marks the 38th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which made abortion legal in America. Legal during the entire 9 months of a woman’s pregnancy. Millions of Americas have died through abortion, a term that has become a common part of America’s vocabulary, but a term that too rarely reminds us of the violence that it causes.

While abortion has its cold hearted advocates, most Americans prefer another option. However, these same Americans, who know in their heart there is something inherently wrong with the practice, have bought into one of the biggest lies of the abortion movement—the so-called “right to choose.”

Because Americans value individual freedom, it’s been an easy sell. I wouldn't have an abortion myself, they say, but what right do I have to tell someone else how to live? It certainly sounds very American. That was partly why we fought the War for Independence. British monarchs from London telling us how to live in Boston, Philadelphia and everywhere else up the colonial seaboard? So this abortion lie ties in easily to our entire heritage.

But Americans have forgotten to ask the ‘why’ question. Why wouldn’t you have an abortion yourself? Is it mere preference, similar to a beach lover not taking a vacation to the Alaskan tundra? Or is it something more? Maybe you wouldn’t have an abortion because it’s immoral. There is a vast difference between saying ‘I wouldn’t eat sushi myself, but who am I to interfere with another’s right to do so’ and saying ‘I wouldn’t physically abuse my children, but who am I to interfere with another’s right to do so’.

If abortion is a safe procedure, with no serious mental, physical or emotional problems for the woman to consider; if it is not illegal or immoral; if it is not killing a human being or an offense against society and our Creator, then why would you not have an abortion?

Walter Hoye Sentenced for Abortion Protest

Walter Hoye’s sign was simple: “Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help.” But because his sign was a protest against America’s multi-million dollar abortion industry and because he is living in modern America, where human life is no longer valued and God no longer reverenced, he was destined for trouble.

On May 13, 2008, Pastor Hoye was arrested for allegedly violating a newly enacted law (a “bubble zone”) that places burdens and obstacles on abortion protesters who wish to protest this moral atrocity. Interestingly, Hoye was subsequently a party to the legal challenge asking the new law be ruled unconstitutional. As an African American pastor, he feels especially called to this ministry of protest and runs Issues4Life Foundation.

Strangely enough, no “clients” made any complaints. The prosecutor filed charges based solely upon the testimony of the director of Family Planning Specialists (the abortuary in question), Jackie Barbic. The prosecutor also named a couple of escorts as victims.

During the trial in January of this year, defense cross-examination revealed that one escort never mentioned her alleged intimidation to the police or the district attorney until after the district attorney had already filed the charges against Rev. Hoye.

Yes, you read that right. Oakland’s DA first filed charges against Walter Hoye and then suggested to the ‘escort’ that perhaps she was intimidated. Fortunately, the court dismissed this charge because of the misconduct of the prosecution.

You can see Walter Hoye’s peaceful protest here. The prosecution wasn’t aware of this rebuttal evidence that showed Mr. Barbic’s perjured testimony. It also shows a rather tenacious ‘escort’ who was the one doing the intimidating. Still, the jury found Walter Hoye guilty.

Allison Aranda, Staff Counsel for Life Legal Defense Foundation, who is representing Rev. Hoye said regarding the January verdict: “After speaking with several jurors after the verdict was read, it is clear that the court's failure and outright refusal to instruct the jury regarding the key elements of the crime led to the erroneous conviction of Rev. Hoye,”

And so, because he exercised his constitutional rights of free speech and protest on May 13, 2008, and because he followed his conscience before his God, yesterday he found himself on the 5th floor of the Alameda Superior Court building in Oakland where he was sentenced by Judge Stuart Hing with 30 days in jail and a $1,130 fine.

"This is a deliberate attempt to silence the Church and its prophetic role in protecting the innocent lives in our community and especially Black babies," said Pastor Stephen Broden of Dallas, Texas. "Pastor Hoye represents a legacy of resistance by Black preachers to injustices perpetrated on the beloved community. Prenatal murder of Black babies by the abortion industry should be resisted by every black pastor across this country."

Columnist Star Parker writes:

"...beyond the troubling details of this trial and conviction, circumstances surrounding the case convey the realities of our deeply confused and lost nation.

Abortion clinics such as Family Planning Specialists strategically locate to optimize their deadly business. This means in poor black neighborhoods.

A search of the 94607 zip code in Oakland where this facility is located shows that the population is 50 percent black, the median household income is 40 percent that of the median household income in the state of California while 30 percent earn below the poverty line and 58 percent of households with children are single parent households.

The poor black kids from the broken families and communities there go to failing public schools in Oakland where half of them drop out.

In these failing public schools, it is prohibited to teach the most important thing that these children could possibly hear. That there are absolutes in this world -- that there is right and there is wrong.

As religion and tradition have been purged from public life in America, the most immediate victims have been the weakest and most vulnerable.

California deals with this problem by subsidizing it. Every poor girl that goes to Family Planning Specialists gets her abortion paid for by California state insurance, Medi-Cal.

This fiscal year Medi-Cal will spend $52 million dollars of taxpayer funds paying for abortions of poor young women. This while Governor Schwarzenegger has announced an anticipated deficit of over $40 billion and tens of billions from the federal government in the new trillion dollar "stimulus" package will be sent to bail out the state.

The stated purpose of the Oakland ordinance, which may send Walter Hoye to jail, is to protect 'right of privacy." "Right of privacy" of teenage girls not old enough to vote, but who can get a state paid for abortion without informing a parent.

Yet the first amendment of our constitution no longer protects the freedom of a pastor to peaceably stand in front of an abortion clinic and tell these lost young women there is another way.

Something is wrong in America today. Very, very wrong.

Indeed. The wrong moral wrongness of America has been accelerated through this persecution of this brave patriot. Let us pray for Walter Hoye and his family. And let us pray for our drifting nation.

North Carolina Professor--Abort Babies with Down Syndrome

North Carolina’s The News & Observer wrote this story on University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biology professor Albert Harris who believes down syndrome babies should be aborted.

“In my opinion, the moral thing for older mothers to do is to have amniocentesis, as soon during pregnancy as is safe for the fetus, test whether placental cells have a third chromosome #21, and abort the fetus if it does. The brain is the last organ to become functional.”

Evidently, the good professor has been making the comment for several of his 35 years of teaching at UNC-CH. For whatever reason, the comment gained some publicity this year.

Maybe it’s because of Lara Frame. She is a senior anthropology and Spanish major who is taking Harris’ Biology 441 class. She also has an 18 year old brother, who happens to have Down syndrome.

"Biology is not an opinion subject," said Frame. "It's a facts-based subject. And though abortion is legal, it's not a fact that you should abort every baby with Down syndrome. If this had been a philosophy class, I wouldn't have said anything."

Frame, who wrote this letter to the editor, makes quite a point. Why is a biology professor making (immoral) philosophical arguments in his biology class? Has Peter Singer started a fan club? Rather, I think, this is further evidence of the strengthening of America’s culture of death.

Like Singer (a tenured professor at Princeton University), Harris is from a reputable school and is allowed to make extreme comments without any correction.

The heart of Professor Harris’ problematic thinking is simply this: how can we qualify what life is worth living? Down syndrome children may lack a certain chromosome that most humans have, but that hardly is evidence that they must die.

If Harris wants to make a biological argument, then he cannot stop with abortion. If Down syndrome children should morally be put to death inside the womb, then they should morally be put to death outside the womb.

But the fact is, putting Down syndrome children to death within the womb (or any other baby for any other reason) is reprehensible and immoral.

Interestingly, Harris doesn’t make a biological argument (at least within the news article). Rather, he relies on a subjective argument—that is ruins families. "I know somebody who had a child like this, and it ruined their life," Harris said. I wonder if we dialed up this family whether they’d have the same opinion. Frankly, every family I’ve ever known with a Down syndrome child, in spite of the difficulties they’ve endured, know they’ve been enriched by some of the most delightful humans that have ever graced our planet.

Me? I’ll take a Down syndrome person over a tenured biology professor any day of the week.