Remember to Pray Against the Health Care Bill...Being voted on today!

This video is so sad...as professed Pro-lifers compromise...

Article by Albert Mohler: This is LIFE We're Talking About~Abortion and the Health Care Bill

Ground Zero for the sanctity of human life is now the U.S. House of Representatives, where the Democratic leadership is pulling all the levers to come up with the 216 votes necessary to pass the Obama health care bill. While most of the nation seems preoccupied with the politics of the issue and the political machinations of the frenzied legislative process, the preeminent issue is abortion and the sanctity of human life.
While President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have insisted that the current bill is "abortion neutral," it is not. As Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for LIfe argues, the bill represents "the single greatest expansion of abortion since the 1973Roe v. Wade decision."
Some background information is in order. Federal funding for abortion is prevented by the Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress in 1976 in order to prevent taxpayer funds from paying for abortions. The concept behind the Hyde Amendment is simple and important. Abortion is a highly divisive issue, and the federal government should not require American citizens to violate their consciences by subsidizing abortions. Just a few months ago, the House of Representatives adopted language similar to the Hyde Amendment in the form of what became known as the Stupak Amendment, named for Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, who introduced the legislation.
The bill currently before Congress does not include the Stupak Amendment, not anything like the Hyde Amendment. When the President and congressional leaders insist that the current bill does not subsidize abortions, they mislead the American public.
The bill requires all Americans to purchase health insurance through qualified government-approved policies. The current version, based on the bill passed by the Senate, would require qualified plans to cover abortion only through a separate policy, paid for with a separate check or payroll deduction. Yet, as Dr. Yoest argues, this leaves plenty of room for American citizens to be coerced into financial involvement with abortion.
At the first level, this is true because the entire health care insurance system, complete with mandates to individual American citizens, would effectively reset the economy of scale, meaning that we will all, in effect, be subsidizing abortion services in an indirect subsidy. More directly, employees of companies that choose a policy with abortion coverage will be coerced into a direct subsidy -- required to pay what would amount to a abortion tax.
There is also the issue of mandated coverage through action of the federal courts. The Hyde Amendment became necessary because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in 1996 that abortion must be covered by Medicaid as a "mandatory" category of medical care. The Hyde Amendment is all that stands between that ruling and taxpayer funding of abortion.
The creeping coverage of abortions is what Dr. Yoest has in mind when she writes: "Without specific language prohibiting the practice, history has shown that the courts or administrative agencies end up directing government dollars to pay for abortions."
Beyond all this, the current bill lacks the conscience protections necessary to prevent medical personnel from being required to participate in abortions.
Why are the Democratic leaders so determined to exclude the Stupak Amendment from the bill? The most stunning and revealing explanation comes from Rep. Stupak himself. Consider this:
What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”
If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says. “I won’t leave the party. I’m more comfortable here and still believe in a role within it for the right-to-life cause, but this bill will make being a pro-life Democrat much more difficult. They don’t even want to debate this issue.
This language is nothing less than horrifying. "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more."
As James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal insists, this is nothing less than a call for eugenics. Where does this logic lead?
He writes: "In order to be effective, a policy of using abortion as a cost-cutting measure would have to aim at preventing the birth of babies with such pre-existing conditions. The goal would be not a reduction in the number of babies, but an "improvement" in the "quality" (narrowly defined in economic terms) of the babies who are born."
Americans may disagree on virtually every dimension of this health care bill, but there is now about far more than health care. As Rep. Stupak asserts, "This is life we're talking about." Unless adequate protections for the unborn are added to this bill, we are indeed witnessing a radical turn in this nation's moral character. Time is running out. The adoption of adequate protections for the unborn should be beyond debate.
Rep. Stupak's words bear repeating, over and over again. "This is life we're talking about."
_____________________________________
I have refrained from extended comment on the health care reform bills -- not because I do not have multiple concerns about the bills, but because I recognize that committed Christians can and will disagree over the political and policy issues involved. The trip-wire for me is the issue of human life. The current bill spells disaster when it comes to abortion. I cannot remain silent in this crucial moment where the sanctity of human life is at stake.
I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.
Charmaine Yoest, "Abortion and the Health Bill," The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, March 4, 2010.
James Taranto, "ObamaCare and Eugenics," The Wall Street Journal, Monday, March 15, 2010.
Robert Costa, "They Just Want This Over," National Review, "The Corner," Friday, March 12, 2010.

Click Here for the original article

The Scandal of Gendercide — War on Baby Girls By Albert Mohler

The reality has been known for years now, though the Western media have generally resisted any direct coverage of the horror. That changed this week when The Economistpublished its stunning cover story -- "Gendercide -- What Happened to 100 Million Baby Girls?"
In many nations of the world, there is an all-out war on baby girls. In 1990, economist Amartya Sen estimated that 100 million baby girls were missing -- sacrificed by parents who desired a son.  Two decades later, multiple millions of missing baby girls must be added to that total, victims of abortion, infanticide, or fatal neglect.
The murder of girls is especially common in China and northern India, where a preference for sons produces a situation that is nothing less than critical for baby girls. In these regions, there are 120 baby boys born for every 100 baby girls. As The Economist explains, "Nature dictates that  slightly more males are born than females to offset boys' greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale."
In its lead editorial, the magazine gets right to the essential point: "It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide. Women are missing in their millions--aborted, killed, neglected to death."
In its detailed and extensive investigative report, the magazine opens its article with chilling force. A baby girl is born in China's Shandong province. Chinese writer Xinran Xue, present for the birth, then hears a man's voice respond to the sight of the newborn baby girl. "Useless thing," he cried in disappointment. The witness then heard a plop in the slops pail. "To my absolute horror, I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail. The midwife must have dropped that tiny baby alive into the slops pail!"  When she tried to intervene she was restrained by police. An older woman simply explained to her, "Doing a baby girl is not a big thing around here."
The numbers of dead and missing baby girls is astounding. In some Chinese provinces, there are more than 130 baby boys for every 100 baby girls. The culture places a premium value on sons, and girls are considerd an economic drain. A Hindu saying conveys this prejudice: "Raising a daughter is like watering your neighbors garden."
Midwives even charge more for the birth of a baby boy. But the preference for a boy rises with both economic power and the number of children born to a couple. The imbalance of boys to girls is no accident -- it reflects a prejudice that runs throughout the societies where the abortion and killing of baby girls is considered both understandable and routine.
Add to this the widespread availability of ultrasound imaging services. Even though the governments of China and India have officially declared sex-selection abortions to be illegal, they persist by the millions. (And, interestingly, the magazine notes that Sweden actually legalized sex-selection abortions in 2009.)
This sentence from the investigative report is particularly horrifying: "In one hospital in Punjab, in northern India, the only girls born after a round of ultrasound scans had been mistakenly identified as boys, or else had a male twin."
In other words, even as the spread of ultrasound technology has greatly aided the pro-life movement by making the humanity of the unborn baby visible and undeniable, among those determined to give birth only to baby boys, in millions of cases the same technology has meant a death warrant for a baby girl in the womb.
There are multiple factors that lead to the preference for boys over girls. In China, the government's draconian "one child only" policy has led to both forced abortions and an effective death sentence for baby girls when a couple is determined that, if their children are to be so drastically limited, they will insist on having a son. As the magazine explains, "For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son."
Consider this:
In fact the destruction of baby girls is a product of three forces: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus. In societies where four or six children were common, a boy would almost certainly come along eventually; son preference did not need to exist at the expense of daughters. But now couples want two children—or, as in China, are allowed only one—they will sacrifice unborn daughters to their pursuit of a son. That is why sex ratios are most distorted in the modern, open parts of China and India. It is also why ratios are more skewed after the first child: parents may accept a daughter first time round but will do anything to ensure their next—and probably last—child is a boy. The boy-girl ratio is above 200 for a third child in some places.
The social consequences of this imbalance are vast and uncorrectable. China and India now face the reality of millions of young men and boys who have absolutely no hope of a wife and family. In China, these young men are called guanggun or "broken branches." Just consider this -- the 30 to 40 million "broken branches" in China are about equal in number to the total number of all boys and young men in the United States.
These young men represent a a looming disaster on the societal level. Young males commit the greatest number of criminal acts and acts of violence. Marriage has been the great taming institution for the social development of young males. Without prospect for marriage and a normal sex and family life, these multiple millions of unmarried young men are becoming a significant social challenge in China and India. Some observers even argue that this may lead to an increased militarism in the region.
Of course, the greatest disaster is personal for the young men and boys who face the future as "broken branches." The parents who insist on having boys are dooming their own sons to lives of brokenness, frustration, and grief.
And the future looks even more ominous for baby girls. Nick Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute points to "the fatal collision between overweening son preference, the use of rapidly spreading prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility." As the magazine adds, "Over the next generation, many of the problems associated with sex selection will get worse. The social consequences will become more evident because the boys born in large numbers over the past decade will reach maturity then. Meanwhile, the practice of sex selection itself may spread because fertility rates are continuing to fall and ultrasound scanners reach throughout the developing world."
While imbalances such as now found in China and India are unknown in the West, the practice of sex-selection abortion is found here as well. Indeed, there is no current law against the practice in the United States, where abortion is legal for any reason, at least in earlier stages of pregnancy. In reality, sex selection abortions happen here, too. After all, proponents of abortion in the United States infamously insist on a woman's unrestricted right to an abortion "for any reason, or for no reason."
The Economist is right to call this tragedy gendercide -- the targeting of baby girls for death and destruction simply because of their gender. The magazine deserves appreciation for its no-holds-barred report on this tragedy, and for forcing the issue to be faced. Furthermore, The Economistends its editorial with the right message, "The world needs to do more to prevent a gendercide that will have the sky crashing down."
Will reports like this awaken the conscience of the world to the unspeakable crime and global tragedy of gendercide? If not, what will it take? The blood of millions of murdered and missing baby girls cries out to the world's conscience. Will we hear?
________________________________________
I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.
"Gendercide," The Economist, March 6, 2010.
"Gendercide -- The Worldwide War on Baby Girls," The Economist, March 6, 2010. The extensive investigative report is available in the magazine's print editions but is available online only to subscribers.

To see the original article click here

Praise God for Those Who Take a Stand

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/

Tim Tebow

NewsNote: Mugged by Ultrasound by Albert Mohler

One of the most important books of the twentieth century was a memoir about an intellectual and moral conversion. The book was Witness by Whittaker Chambers, and in it he chronicled his abandonment of faith in communism. But Whittaker Chambers had not only believed in Communism -- he had been a Soviet spy. The brutal realities of the Soviet regime became too much for Chambers to ignore or deny, and thus he abandoned Communism and wroteWitness as his testimony. Even now, more than a half-century after its publication, the book makes for compelling reading.

The same is true for an article that just recently appeared in The Weekly Standard. In "Mugged by Ultrasound," David Daleiden and Jon A. Shields reveal a reality becoming more and more common -- abortion workers turning pro-life.

Abortion activists, they note, are usually detached from the actual process of abortion. Thus, they can hide behind arguments about a woman's "right to choose" or "reproductive freedom." But, as Daleiden and Shields explain, those who are actually performing the abortions cannot hide from the horrible reality, and some of them cannot handle the horror. Eventually, "a noteworthy number have found the conflict unbearable and have defected to the pro-life cause."

Daleiden and Shields trace some of these defections to two developments that changed the experience of providing abortions. First, the usual means of aborting second-trimester fetuses around the time of Roe v. Wade (1973) was saline injection. But, that is no longer the case. Those abortions are now done by "dilation and evacuation" (D&E), which involves the dismemberment of the fetus within the womb. For doctors and others involved in a D&E abortion, there is no way to escape the horrifying reality of that procedure.

They write:

Such studies are few. In general, abortion providers have censored their own emotional trauma out of concern to protect abortion rights. In 2008, however, abortionist Lisa Harris endeavored to begin “breaking the silence” in the pages of the journal Reproductive Health Matters. When she herself was 18 weeks pregnant, Dr. Harris performed a D&E abortion on an 18-week-old fetus. Harris felt her own child kick precisely at the moment that she ripped a fetal leg off with her forceps:

Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life.

Lisa Harris charged that the abortion industry had “not owned up to the reality of the fetus, or the reality of fetal parts." Amazingly, Harris remained in the abortion business, but she could not deny what she knew about the killing of the unborn

Daleiden and Shields tell of Paul Jarrett, a doctor who did leave the business after performing 23 abortions. Jarrett explained why: “As I brought out the rib cage, I looked and saw a tiny, beating heart . . . and when I found the head of the baby, I looked squarely in the face of another human being—a human being that I just killed.”

The second development that has changed the moral landscape of abortion is the ultrasound image. Bernard Nathanson, who at one time was performing more abortions than anyone else in the Western world, famously converted to the pro-life cause, largely prompted by seeing ultrasound images of unborn babies. Nathanson, who once aborted one of his own children, could no longer deny the reality. Daleiden and Shields make clear that Nathanson has been followed in this defection by others:

The most recent example is Abby Johnson, the former director of Dallas-area Planned Parenthood. After watching, via ultrasound, an embryo “crumple” as it was suctioned out of its mother’s womb, Johnson reported a “conversion in my heart.” Likewise, Joan Appleton was the head nurse at a large abortion facility in Falls Church, Virginia, and a NOW activist. Appleton performed thousands of abortions with aplomb until a single ultrasound-assisted abortion rattled her. As Appleton remembers, “I was watching the screen. I saw the baby pull away. I saw the baby open his mouth. .  .  . After the procedure I was shaking, literally.”

David Daleiden and Jon Shields have done a masterful job of explaining why these two developments have altered the landscape of abortion in America. The defection of so many abortion providers and of those involved in that industry is a story that must be told. At a very important level, this is truly heartening news in the midst of tragedy.

We must also see clearly that the revulsion toward abortion that marks these defections is based in truth -- the truth that the inhabitant of the womb is not a mere "fetus," but a baby. Paul Jarrett looked into the face of "another human being—a human being that I just killed." Joan Appleton "saw the baby open its mouth."

Similarly, the ultrasound image reveals the undeniable humanity of the baby within the womb. This remarkable technology saves lives -- just by revealing the baby in all of its humanity.

From a Christian perspective, the recognition of the baby's humanity must be traced to common grace and general revelation. The womb is revealed to be inhabited by a human being who deserves nothing less than our full protection and respect. The heart and mind cannot deny what the eyes have seen.

The late Irving Kristol once explained his own intellectual conversion as having been "mugged by reality." Daleiden and Shields get it just right when they describe these former abortion providers and workers as having been "mugged by ultrasound." May those muggings be multiplied -- and may they spread to the American public as well.

________________________________

I am always glad to hear from readers and listeners. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

David Daleiden and Jon A. Shields, "Mugged by Ultrasound: Why So Many Abortion Workers Have Turned Pro-life," The Weekly Standard, January 25, 2010.

The original article can be found here

How the States Define Life...

Accusing and Excusing for 37 Years

Alabama defines person to include an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.

Alaska provides that a defendant convicted of murder in the second degree or murder of an unborn child shall be sentenced to a definite term of imprisonment of at least 10 years but no more than 99 years.

Arizona define negligent homicide, manslaughter, first and second degree murder, and specifies that the offenses apply to an unborn child at any stage in its development. The law states that for the purposes of punishment, an unborn child shall be treated like a minor under 12 years of age.

Arkansas defines “person” to include an unborn child in utero at any stage of development. “Unborn child” means a living fetus of 12 weeks or greater gestation.

California defines murder as the unlawful killing of a human being or a fetus with malice aforethought.

Florida defines murder as the willful killing of an unborn quick child by any injury to the mother.

Georgia stipulates that a person commits the offense of feticide if he willfully kills an unborn child so far developed as to be ordinarily called “quick” by causing any injury to the mother of such child. The penalty for feticide is imprisonment for life.

Idaho declares that murder includes the unlawful killing of a human embryo or fetus under certain conditions. The law provides that manslaughter includes the unlawful killing of a human embryo or fetus without malice.

Illinois includes the following as criminal offenses: intentional homicide of an unborn child; voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child; involuntary manslaughter of an unborn child; reckless homicide of an unborn child.

Indiana defines feticide as the intentional termination of a human pregnancy with an intention other than to produce a live birth or to remove a dead fetus.

Iowa provides penalties for the nonconsensual termination or serious injury to a human pregnancy.

Kansas makes it possible to charge someone with murder, manslaughter, vehicular homicide or battery for killing or harming a fetus. It provides the definition of “person” for those specific crimes, including the definition of an unborn child that includes any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth.

Kentucky allows the state to charge an individual with a separate crime for terminating a fetus during the commission of an act that injures or kills a pregnant woman.

Louisiana defines feticide as the killing of an unborn child by the act, procurement, or culpable omission of a person other than the mother of the unborn child. State law defines “person” as a human being from the moment of fertilization and implantation and also includes a body of persons, whether incorporated or not. “Unborn child” means any individual of the human species from fertilization and implantation until birth.

Maine defines the crimes of murder, felony murder, assault, aggravated assault and elevated aggravated assault against an unborn child.

Maryland establishes that a prosecution may be instituted for murder, manslaughter, or unlawful homicide under certain conditions for an act or failure to act that causes the death of a viable fetus.

Massachusetts rules that a viable fetus is within the ambit of the term “person” in the vehicular homicide statute.

Michigan defines manslaughter as the willful killing of an unborn quick child by any injury to the mother of such child.

Minnesota provides penalties for an assault to a pregnant woman and subsequent harm to an unborn child.

Mississippi includes the death of a fetus in wrongful death statute as murder or manslaughter.

Nebraska defines murder of an unborn child in the first degree, murder in the second degree, and manslaughter.

Nevada defines manslaughter as a person who willfully kills an unborn quick child by any injury committed upon the mother of the child.

North Carolina states that any person, who in the commission of a felony, causes injury to a woman, knowing the woman to be pregnant, in which injury results in the miscarriage or stillbirth by the woman is guilty of a felony that is one class higher than the felony committed.

North Dakota defines the murder and manslaughter of an unborn child and provides penalties.

Ohio law applies to a person which includes an “unborn member of the species Homo sapiens, who is or was carried in the womb of another.”

Oklahoma defines unborn child as a human being.

Pennsylvania defines homicide of an unborn child. An individual commits criminal homicide of an unborn child if the individual intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or negligently causes the death of an unborn child.

Rhode Island stipulates that the willful killing of an unborn quick child by any injury to the mother of that child is deemed manslaughter.

South Carolina provides that a person who commits a violent crime that causes the death of, or injury to, a child in utero is guilty of a separate offense and that the person must be punished as if the death or injury occurred to the unborn child’s mother.

South Dakota defines homicide as murder in the first degree to include the death of a person or any other human being, including an unborn child.

Tennessee defines “another” and “another person” as a viable fetus of a human being when any such term refers to the victim of any act made criminal by the provisions of the law.

Texas defines an individual as a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.

Utah declares that a person commits criminal homicide if he intentionally, knowingly, recklessly causes the death of another human being, including an unborn child.

Virginia declares that any person who unlawfully, willfully, deliberately, maliciously and with premeditation kills a fetus is guilty of a Class 2 felony.

Washington declares that a person is guilty of manslaughter in the first degree when he intentionally and unlawfully kills an unborn quick child by inflicting any injury upon the mother of such child.

West Virginia recognizes an embryo or fetus as a distinct unborn victim of certain crimes of violence against a person, including homicide and manslaughter.

Wisconsin declares that any person who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn quick child; or causes the death of the mother by an act done with intent to destroy the life of an unborn child is guilty of homicide.

*****

On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, determined that abortion is a “right in the concept of personal ‘liberty’ embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras.” In the 37 years since Roe, 50 million unborn children have been killed in their mother’s womb–more than a 9/11 massacre for 13,514 straight days.

*****

“They show that the work of the law is written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Romans 2:15-16).

Note: The state laws are taken from the website of The National Conference of State Legislatures, Fetal Homicide Laws.

Original Post by Kevin DeYoung

The Right to Life

This is particularly important as our Nation is about to pass a "Health Care Bill" that will destroy life, both un-born and Old.

From Kevin DeYoung's Blog:

Why I Made a (Small) Year-End Gift to a Crisis Pregnancy Center, and You Should Consider Doing Something Similar

This is heart-wrenching. So be prepared. You may have heard something about this story, but the firsthand account is especially moving.

From the January 2010 issue of First Things, page 70 in Joseph Bottum’s “While We’re At It.” The comments at the end are mine.

*****

It’s hard to keep up the illusion of abortion as a positive good when the ugly reality of it is always lurking just behind the abstract idea. The wall of illusion came crashing down for Abby Johnson when, after working for Planned Parenthood in Texas for eight years, she witnessed an actual abortion on ultrasound. In a television interview, she explained, “It was actually an ultrasound-guided abortion procedure. . . . Any my job was to hold the ultrasound probe on this woman’s abdomen so that the physician could actually see the uterus on the ultrasound screen. And when I looked at the screen, I saw a baby. . . . I saw a full side profile. So I saw face to feet. . . . I saw the probe going into the woman’s uterus. And at that moment, I saw the baby moving and trying to get away from the probe. . . . And I thought, “It’s fighting for its life. . . . It’s life, I mean, it’s alive.”

After some additional questions, Johnson went on to say: “And then, all of a sudden, I mean, it was just over. . . . And I just saw the, I just saw the baby just literally, just crumble, and it was over. . . . I was thinking about my daughter, who’s three, and I was thinking about the ultrasound I had of her, and I was thinking of just how perfect that ultrasound was when she was twelve weeks in the womb. And I was just thinking, “What am I thinking, ‘What am I doing?’. . . . I had one one hand on this woman’s belly, and I was thinking, ‘There was life in here, and now there’s not.’”

And that was it. Any illusion Johnson had about what abortion really is was over. She quit her job and began working with the pro-life organization that protested at her former clinic.

*****

Abortion is not just one issue among many. We are not just arguing about different means to a shared end. We are arguing about the “right,” pulled out of constitutional thin air, to end a life. Abortion is the deepest social injustice because the human is helpless and innocent. It is the gravest tragedy because the procedure Abby Johnson describes is purposefully lethal and perfectly legal.

Lord, haste the day when the collective ignominy our nation feels toward slavery and racism will be felt concerning this evil as well.

And until that day, let every Christian light a candle and curse the darkness that makes its flame necessary.

Birth Control: The Pill

A Condensation of Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? by Randy Alcorn

"The Pill" is the popular term for more than forty different commercially available oral contraceptives. In medicine, they are commonly referred to as BCPs (birth control pills) or OCs (oral contraceptives). They are also called "Combination Pills," because they contain a combination of estrogen and progestin.

The Pill is used by about fourteen million American women each year. Across the globe it is used by about sixty million. The question of whether it causes abortions has direct bearing on untold millions of Christians, many of them prolife, who use and recommend it.

In 1991, while researching the original edition of my book, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments, I heard someone suggest that birth control pills can cause abortions. This was brand new to me; in all my years as a pastor and a prolifer, I had never heard it before. I was immediately skeptical.

My vested interests were strong in that Nanci and I used the Pill in the early years of our marriage, as did many of our prolife friends. Why not? We believed it simply prevented conception. We never suspected it had any potential for abortion. No one told us this was even a possibility. I confess I never read the fine print of the Pill's package insert, nor am I sure I would have understood it even if I had.

In fourteen years as a pastor I did considerable premarital counseling, I always warned couples against the IUD because I'd read it could cause early abortions. I typically recommended young couples use the Pill because of its relative ease and effectiveness.

At the time I was researching ProLife Answers, I found only one person who could point me toward any documentation that connected the Pill and abortion. She told me of just one primary source that supported this belief and I found only one other. Still, these two sources were sufficient to compel me to include this warning in the book:

Some forms of contraception, specifically the intrauterine device (IUD), Norplant, and certain low-dose oral contraceptives, often do not prevent conception but prevent implantation of an already fertilized ovum. The result is an early abortion, the killing of an already conceived individual. Tragically, many women are not told this by their physicians, and therefore do not make an informed choice about which contraceptive to use."[1]


As it turns out, I made a critical error. At the time, I incorrectly believed that "low-dose" birth control pills were the exception, not the rule. I thought most people who took the Pill were in no danger of having abortions. What I've found in more recent research is that since 1988 virtually all oral contraceptives used in America are low-dose, that is, they contain much lower levels of estrogen than the earlier birth control pills.

The standard amount of estrogen in the birth control pills of the 1960s and early '70s was 150 micrograms.

After the Pill had been on the market fifteen years, many serious negative side effects of estrogen had been clearly proven. These included blurred vision, nausea, cramping, irregular menstrual bleeding, headaches, increased incidence of breast cancer, strokes, and heart attacks, some of which led to fatalities.[2]

In response to these concerns, beginning in the mid-seventies, manufacturers of the Pill steadily decreased the content of estrogen and progestin in their products. The average dosage of estrogen in the Pill declined from 150 micrograms in 1960 to 35 micrograms in 1988. These facts are directly stated in an advertisement by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals and Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation in Hippocrates magazine.[3]

Pharmacists for Life confirms: "As of October 1988, the newer lower dosage birth control pills are the only type available in the U.S., by mutual agreement of the Food and Drug Administration and the three major Pill manufacturers."[4]

What is now considered a "high dose" of estrogen is 50 micrograms, which is in fact a very low dose in comparison to the 150 micrograms once standard for the Pill. The "low-dose" pills of today are mostly 20-35 micrograms. As far as I can tell, there are no birth control pills available today that have more than 50 micrograms of estrogen. An M.D. wrote to inform me that she had researched many pills by name and could confirm my findings. If such pills exist at all, they are certainly rare.

Not only was I wrong in thinking low-dose contraceptives were the exception rather than the rule, I didn't realize there was considerable documented medical information linking birth control pills and abortion. The evidence was there, I just didn't probe deeply enough to find it. Still more evidence has surfaced in subsequent years. I have presented this evidence in detail in my 115-page book Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? I will now summarize that research.

The Physician's Desk Reference (PDR)

The Physician's Desk Reference is the most frequently used reference book by physicians in America. The PDR, as it's often called, lists and explains the effects, benefits, and risks of every medical product that can be legally prescribed. The Food and Drug Administration requires that each manufacturer provide accurate information on its products, based on scientific research and laboratory tests.

As you read the following, keep in mind that the term "implantation," by definition, always involves an already conceived human being. Therefore, any agent which serves to prevent implantation functions as an abortifacient.

This is the PDR's product information for Ortho-Cept, as listed by Ortho, one of the largest manufacturers of the Pill:

Combination oral contraceptives act by suppression of gonadotropins. Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus, which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus, and changes in the endometrium which reduce the likelihood of implantation.[5]


The FDA-required research information on the birth control pills Ortho-Cyclen and Ortho Tri-Cyclen also state that they cause "changes in...the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation)."[6]

Notice that these changes in the endometrium, and their reduction in the likelihood of implantation, are not stated by the manufacturer as speculative or theoretical effects, but as actual ones. They consider this such a well-established fact that it requires no statement of qualification.

Similarly, as I document in my book, Syntex and Wyeth, the other two major pill-manufacturers, say essentially the same thing about their oral contraceptives.

The inserts packaged with birth control pills are condensed versions of longer research papers detailing the Pill's effects, mechanisms, and risks. Near the end, the insert typically says something like the following, which is taken directly from the Desogen pill insert:

If you want more information about birth control pills, ask your doctor, clinic or pharmacist. They have a more technical leaflet called the Professional Labeling, which you may wish to read. The Professional Labeling is also published in a book entitled Physician's Desk Reference, available in many bookstores and public libraries.


Of the half dozen birth control pill package inserts I've read, only one included the information about the Pill's abortive mechanism. This was a package insert dated July 12, 1994, found in the oral contraceptive Demulen, manufactured by Searle. Yet this abortive mechanism was referred to in all cases in the FDA-required manufacturer's Professional Labeling, as documented in The Physician's Desk Reference.

In summary, according to multiple references throughout The Physician's Desk Reference, which articulate the research findings of all the birth control pill manufacturers, there are not one but three mechanisms of birth control pills:

1. inhibiting ovulation (the primary mechanism),

2. thickening the cervical mucus, thereby making it more difficult for sperm to travel to the egg, and

3. thinning and shriveling the lining of the uterus to the point that it is unable or less able to facilitate the implantation of the newly fertilized egg.

The first two mechanisms are contraceptive. The third is abortive.


When a woman taking the Pill discovers she is pregnant (according to The Physician's Desk Reference's efficacy rate tables, this is 3 percent of pill-takers each year), it means that all three of these mechanisms have failed. The third mechanism sometimes fails in its role as backup, just as the first and second mechanisms sometimes fail. Each and every time the third mechanism succeeds, however, it causes an abortion.

Medical Journals and Textbooks

In an article in the research journal Contraception, Drs. Chowdhury, Joshi and associates state, "The data suggests that though missing of the low-dose combination pills may result in 'escape' ovulation in some women, however, the pharmacological effects of pills on the endometrium and cervical mucus may continue to provide them contraceptive protection."[7]

Note in some citations "contraceptive" is used to refer to an agent which in fact prevents the implantation of an already conceived child. Those who believe each human life begins at conception would see this function not as a contraceptive, but an abortifacient.

Reproductive endocrinologists have demonstrated that Pill-induced changes cause the endometrium to appear "hostile" or "poorly receptive" to implantation.[8] Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reveals that the endometrial lining of Pill users is consistently thinner than that of nonusers[9]—up to 58 percent thinner.[10] Recent and fairly sophisticated ultrasound studies[11] have all concluded that endometrial thickness is related to the "functional receptivity" of the endometrium. Others have shown that when the lining of the uterus becomes too thin, implantation of the pre-born child (called the blastocyst or pre-embryo at this stage) does not occur.[12]

The minimal endometrial thickness required to maintain a pregnancy ranges from 5 to 13mm,[13] whereas the average endometrial thickness in women on the Pill is only 1.1 mm.[14] These data lend credence to the FDA-approved statement that "changes in the endometrium reduce the likelihood of implantation"[15]

Dr. Kristine Severyn says:

The third effect of combined oral contraceptives is to alter the endometrium in such a way that implantation of the fertilized egg (new life) is made more difficult, if not impossible. In effect, the endometrium becomes atrophic and unable to support implantation of the fertilized egg.... The alteration of the endometrium, making it hostile to implantation by the fertilized egg, provides a backup abortifacient method to prevent pregnancy.[16]


Researchers have repeatedly and consistently pointed out this abortifacient effect of the Pill. To date, no published studies have refuted these findings.

Dr. Walter Larimore is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine who has written over 150 medical articles in a wide variety of journals. In two major medical journal articles, he has addressed the issue of the Pill's capacity to cause early abortions.[17] In 2000 Dr. Larimore and I coauthored a chapter on this subject in The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality, Reproductive Technologies and the Family.[18] In the same chapter, four Christian physicians present their belief that the Pill does not result in early abortions. We respectfully suggest that their case is not based solidly on the medical evidence. (In February 2001 Dr. Larimore was brought on the staff of Focus on the Family, as a broadcaster and "an ambassador to the public on medical ethics, procedures and practices.")

What Does This Mean?

As a woman's menstrual cycle progresses, her endometrium gradually gets richer and thicker in preparation for the arrival and implantation of any newly conceived child. In a natural cycle, unimpeded by the Pill, the endometrium experiences an increase of blood vessels, which allow a greater blood supply to bring oxygen and nutrients to the child. There is also an increase in the endometrium's stores of glycogen, a sugar that serves as a food source for the blastocyst (child) as soon as he or she implants.

The Pill keeps the woman's body from creating the most hospitable environment for a child, resulting instead in an endometrium that is deficient in both food (glycogen) and oxygen. The child may die because he lacks this nutrition and oxygen.

Typically, the new person attempts to implant at six days after conception. If implantation is unsuccessful, the child is flushed out of the womb in a miscarriage. When the miscarriage is the result of an environment created by a foreign device or chemical, it is in fact an abortion. This is true even if the mother does not intend it, and is not aware of it happening.

Despite all the research, including much more presented in my full booklet, there are those who insist that these contentions are incorrect and should not be taken at face value by those concerned about early abortions. In the case of the Pill manufacturers, those who say their FDA-approved assertions are false should, in my opinion, prevail upon the FDA to change their statements, and not simply ask people to disregard them.

Confirming Evidence

When the Pill thins the endometrium, it seems self-evident a zygote attempting to implant has a smaller likelihood of survival. A woman taking the Pill puts any conceived child at greater risk of being aborted than if the Pill were not being taken.

Some argue that this evidence is indirect and theoretical. But we must ask, if this is a theory, how strong and credible is the theory? If the evidence is only indirect, how compelling is that indirect evidence? Once it was only a theory that plant life grows better in rich, fertile soil than in thin, eroded soil. But it was certainly a theory good farmers believed and acted on.

Some physicians have theorized that when ovulation occurs in Pill-takers, the subsequent hormone production "turns on" the endometrium, causing it to become receptive to implantation.[19] However, there is no direct evidence to support this theory, and there is at least some evidence against it. First, after a woman stops taking the Pill, it usually takes several cycles for her menstrual flow to increase to the volume of women who are not on the Pill. This suggests to most objective researchers that the endometrium is slow to recover from its Pill-induced thinning.[20] Second, the one study that has looked at women who have ovulated on the Pill showed that after ovulation the endometrium is not receptive to implantation.[21]

Arguments Against the Pill Causing Abortion

I have received a number of letters from readers, one of them a physician, who say something like this: "My sister got pregnant while taking the Pill. This is proof that you are wrong in saying that the Pill causes abortions—obviously it couldn't have, since she had her baby!"

Without a doubt, the Pill's effects on the endometrium do not always make implantation impossible. I have never heard anyone claim that they do. To be an abortifacient does not require that something always cause an abortion, only that it sometimes does.

Whether it's RU-486, Norplant, Depo-Provera, the morning after pill, the Mini-pill, or the Pill, there is no chemical that always causes an abortion. There are only those that do so never, sometimes, often, and usually.

Children who play on the freeway, climb on the roof, or are left alone by swimming pools don't always die, but this does not prove these practices are safe and never result in fatalities. We would immediately see this inconsistency of anyone who argued in favor of leaving children alone by swimming pools because they know of cases where this has been done without harm to the children. The point that the Pill doesn't always prevent implantation is certainly true, but has no bearing on the question of whether it sometimes prevents implantation, which the data clearly suggests.

People also often argue, "The blastocyst is perfectly capable of implanting in various 'hostile' sites, e.g., the fallopian tube, the ovary, the peritoneum."

Their point is that the child sometimes implants in the wrong place. This is undeniably true. But again, the only relevant question is whether the Pill sometimes hinders the child's ability to implant in the right place.

Imagine a farmer who has two places where he might plant seed. One is rich, brown soil that has been tilled, fertilized, and watered. The other is on hard, thin, dry, and rocky soil. If the farmer wants as much seed as possible to take hold and grow, where will he plant the seed? The answer is obvious--on the fertile ground.

Now, you could say to the farmer that his preference for the rich, tilled, moist soil is based on theoretical assumptions because he has probably never seen a scientific study that proves this soil is more hospitable to seed than the thin, hard, dry soil. Likely, such a study has never been done. In other words, there is no absolute proof.

But the farmer would likely reply, based on years of observation, "I know good soil when I see it. Sure, I've seen some plants grow in the hard, thin soil too, but the chances of survival are much less there than in the good soil. Call it theoretical if you want to, but we all know it's true!"

Some newly conceived children manage to survive temporarily in hostile places. But this in no way changes the obvious fact that many more children will survive in a richer, thicker, more hospitable endometrium than in a thinner, more inhospitable one.

(In other publications and in a much more detailed fashion, we have discussed these and other lines of evidence, with hundreds of citations of many scientific studies, as well as researchers and experts in numerous fields. We encourage interested readers to look more deeply into these studies and arguments.[22])

Despite this evidence, some prolife physicians state that the likelihood of the Pill having an abortifacient effect is "infinitesimally low, or nonexistent."[23] Though I would very much like to believe this, the scientific evidence does not permit me to do so.

Dr. Walt Larimore has told me that whenever he has presented this evidence to audiences of secular physicians, there has been little or no resistance to it. But when he has presented it to Christian physicians there has been substantial resistance. Since secular physicians do not care whether the Pill prevents implantation, they tend to be objective in interpreting the evidence. After all, they have little or nothing at stake either way. Christian physicians, however, very much do not want to believe the Pill causes early abortions. Therefore, I believe, they tend to resist the evidence. This is certainly understandable. Nonetheless, we should not permit what we want to believe to distract us from what the evidence indicates we should believe.

I have mentioned my own vested interests in the Pill that at first made me resist the evidence suggesting it could cause abortions. Dr. Larimore came to this issue with even greater vested interests in believing the best about the birth control pill, having prescribed it for years. When he researched it intensively over an eighteen-month period, in what he described to me as a "gut wrenching" process that involved sleepless nights, he came to the conclusion that in good conscience he could no longer prescribe hormonal contraceptives, including the Pill, the Minipill, Depo-Provera, and Norplant.

Conclusion

The Pill is used by about fourteen million American women each year and sixty million women internationally. Thus, even an infinitesimally low portion (say one-hundredth of one percent) of 780 million Pill cycles per year globally could represent tens of thousands of unborn children lost to this form of chemical abortion annually. How many young lives have to be jeopardized for prolife believers to question the ethics of using the Pill? This is an issue with profound moral implications for those believing we are called to protect the lives of children.

This article is a very abridged version of one that appears in Appendix E of Randy Alcorn's book, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments(Multnomah Publishers, 2000) and has been reprinted with permission. While the basic argument is stated here, much of the documented evidence has been left out due to space constrictions. An even more thorough treatment (with 139 footnotes) of this subject can be found in Randy Alcorn's 197 page book, Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?(Eternal Perspective Ministries, 8th Edition, 2007). For more information, see http://www.epm.org/ or contact EPM at info@epm.org or 503-668-5200.

[1]Randy Alcorn, Prolife Answers to ProChoice Arguments (Multnomah Publishers: Sisters, OR: 1992, 1994) 118.

[2] Nine Van der Vange, "Ovarian Activity During Low Dose Oral Contraceptives," published in Contemporary Obstetrics and Gynecology, edited by G. Chamberlain (London: Butterworths, 1988), 315-16.

[3] Hippocrates, May/June 1988, 35.

[4] Oral Contraceptives and IUDs: Birth Control or Abortifacients?, Pharmacists for Life, November 1989, 1.

[5] Physicians' Desk Reference (Montvale, NJ: Medical Economics, 1998).

[6] The PDR, 1995, page 1782.

[7] "Escape Ovulation In Women Due To The Missing Of Low Dose Combination Oral Contraceptive Pills," Contraception, September 1980; 241.

[8]. Abdalla HI, Brooks AA, Johnson MR, Kirkland A, Thomas A, Studd JW. "Endometrial Thickness: A Predictor Of Implantation In Ovum Recipients?" Human Reprod 1994;9:363-365.

738 Bartoli JM, Moulin G, Delannoy L, Chagnaud C, Kasbarian M. "The Normal Uterus On Magnetic Resonance Imaging And Variations Associated With The Hormonal State." Surg Radiol Anat 1991;13:213-20; Demas BE, Hricak H, Jaffe RB. "Uterine MR Imaging: Effects Of Hormonal Stimulation." Radiology 1986;159:123-6; McCarthy S, Tauber C, Gore J. "Female Pelvic Anatomy: MR Assessment Of Variations During The Menstrual Cycle And With Use Of Oral Contraceptives." Radiology 1986; 160: 119-23.

[10]. Brown HK, Stoll BS, Nicosia SV, Fiorica JV, Hambley PS, Clarke LP, Silbiger ML. "Uterine Junctional Zone: Correlation Between Histologic Findings And MR Imaging." Radiology 1991;179:409-413.

[11]. Abdalla, et al., "Endometrial thickness"; Dickey RP, Olar TT, Taylor SN, Curole DN, Matulich EM. "Relationship Of Endometrial Thickness And Pattern To Fecundity In Ovulation Induction Cycles: Effect Of Clomiphene Citrate Alone And With Human Menopausal Gonadotropin." Fertil Steril 1993;59:756-60; Gonen Y, Casper RF, Jacobson W, Blankier J. "Endometrial Thickness And Growth During Ovarian Stimulation: A Possible Predictor Of Implantation In In-Vitro Fertilization." Fertil Steril 1989;52:446-50; Schwartz LB, Chiu AS, Courtney M, Krey L, Schmidt-Sarosi C. "The Embryo Versus Endometrium Controversy Revisited As It Relates To Predicting Pregnancy Outcome In In-Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer Cycles." Hum Reprod 1997;12:45-50; Shoham Z, et al. "Is It Possible To Run A Successful Ovulation Induction Program Based Solely On Ultrasound Monitoring: The Importance Of Endometrial Measurements." Fertil Steril 1991;56:836-841; Noyes N, Liu HC, Sultan K, Schattman G, Rosenwaks Z. "Endometrial Thickness Appears To Be A Significant Factor In Embryo Implantation In In-Vitro Fertilization." Hum Reprod 1995;10:919-22; Vera JA, Arguello B, Crisosto CA. "Predictive Value Of Endometrial Pattern And Thickness In The Result Of In Vitro Fertilization And Embryo Transfer." Rev Chil Obstet Gynecol 1995;60:195-8; Check JH, Nowroozi K, Choe J, Lurie D, Dietterich C. "The Effect Of Endometrial Thickness And Echo Pattern On In Vitro Fertilization Outcome In Donor Oocyte-Embryo Transfer Cycle." Fertil Steril 1993;59:72-5; Oliveira JB, Baruffi RL, Mauri AL, Petersen CG, Borges MC, Franco JG Jr. "Endometrial Ultrasonography As A Predictor Of Pregnancy In An In-Vitro Fertilization Programme After Ovarian Stimulation And Gonadotrophin-Releasing Hormone And Gonadotrophins." Hum Reprod 1997;12:2515-8; Bergh C, Hillensjo T, Nilsson L. "Sonographic Evaluation Of The Endometrium In In-Vitro Fertilization IVF Cycles. A Way To Predict Pregnancy?" Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand 1992;71:624-8.

[12]. Abdalla HI, et al., "Endometrial thickness"; Dickey, et al., "Relationship Of Endometrial Thickness"; Gonen, et al., "Endometrial Thickness And Growth"; Oliveira, et al., "Endometrial Ultrasonography As A Predictor"; Bergh, et al., "Sonographic Evaluation Of The Endometrium".

[13].The 5mm figure is from Glissant, A, de Mouzon, J, Frydman R. "Ultrasound Study Of The Endometrium During In Vitro Fertilization Cycles." Fertil Steril 1985;44:786-90. The 13mm figure is from Rabinowitz R, Laufer N, Lewin A, Navot D, Bar I, Margalioth EJ, Schenker JJ. "The value of ultrasonographic endometrial measurement in the prediction of pregnancy following in vitro fertilization." Fertil Steril 1986;45:824-8

[14].McCarthy, et al., "Female Pelvic Anatomy".

[15].Physicians' Desk Reference; Kastrup, Drug Facts.

[16] Kristine Severyn, "Abortifacient Drugs and Devices: Medical and Moral Dilemmas" Linacre Quarterly, August 1990, 55.

[17].Walter L. Larimore and Joseph Stanford, "Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and their Relation to Informed Consent." Archives of Family Medicine 9 (February, 2000); Walter L. Larimore, "The Abortifacient Effect of the Birth Control Pill and the Principle of Double Effect," Ethics and Medicine, January 2000.

[18] Walter L. Larimore and Randy Alcorn, "Using the Birth Control Pill is Ethically Unacceptable," in John F. Kilner, Paige C. Cunningham and W. David Hager (eds), The Reproduction Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), 179-191.

[19] Susan Crockett, Joseph L. DeCook, Donna Harrison, and Camilla Hersh, "Using Hormone Contraceptives Is a Decision Involving Science, Scripture, and Conscience," in John F. Kilner, Paige C. Cunningham and W. David Hager (eds), The Reproduction Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), 192-201.

[20].Stanford JB, Daly KD. "Menstrual And Mucus Cycle Characteristics In Women Discontinuing Oral Contraceptives (Abstract)." Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol 1995;9(4): A9.

[21].Chowdhury V, Joshi UM, Gopalkrishna K, Betrabet S, Mehta S, Saxena BN. "'Escape' Ovulation In Women Due To The Missing Of Low Dose Combination Oral Contraceptive Pills." Contraception 1980;22(3):241-7.

[22]. Alcorn, "Does The Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?"; Larimore WL, Stanford JB. "Postfertilization Effects Of Oral Contraceptives And Their Relation To Informed Consent." Larimore WL. "The Growing Debate about the Abortifacient Effect of the Birth Control Pill and the Principle of the Double Effect." Ethics and Medicine: in review.

[23]. DeCook JL, McIlhaney J, et al. Hormonal Contraceptives: Are they Abortifacients? (Sparta, MI: Frontlines Publishing, 1998).


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Abortion and the American Conscience

America has been at war over abortion for the last four decades. When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade, the court's majority attempted to put an end to the abortion question. To the contrary, that decision both enlarged and revealed the great moral divide that runs through the center of our culture.

Most Americans seem completely unaware of the actual contours of the abortion debate as it emerged in the early 1970s. In 1973, the primary opposition to abortion on demand came from the Roman Catholic Church. Evangelicals -- representative of the larger American culture -- were largely out of the debate. At that time, a majority of evangelicals seemed to see abortion as a largely Catholic issue. It took the shock of Roe v. Wadeand the reality of abortion on demand to awaken the Evangelical conscience.

Roe v. Wade was championed as one of the great victories achieved by the feminist movement. The leaders of that movement claimed -- and continue to claim -- that the availability of abortion on demand is necessary in order for women to be equal with men with respect to the absence of pregnancy as an obstacle to career advancement. Furthermore, the moral logic of Roe v. Wadewas a thunderous affirmation of the ideal of personal autonomy that had already taken hold of the American mind. As the decision made all too clear, rights talk had displaced what had been seen as the higher concern of right versus wrong.

Also missing from our contemporary cultural memory is the fact that many Republicans, as well as Democrats welcomed Roe v. Wade as the next step in a necessary process of liberating human beings from prior constraints. Yet, we now know that even more was at stake.

Tapes recently released by the Nixon Presidential Library reveal that President Richard M. Nixon, who had been considered generally opposed to abortion, told aides on January 23, 1973 (the day after the decision was handed down) that abortion was justified in certain cases, such as interracial pregnancies.

"There are times when abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white," said Nixon. President Nixon's words, chilling as they are, are also a general reflection of the moral logic shared by millions of Americans in that day.

As a matter of fact, one of the dirty secrets of the abortion rights movement is that its earliest momentum was driven by a concern that was deeply racial. Leaders such as Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, argued quite openly that abortion and other means of birth control were necessary in order to limit the number of undesirable children. As she made clear, the least desirable children were those born to certain ethnically and racially defined families. Sanger, along with so many other "progressive" figures of the day, promoted the agenda of the eugenics movement --- more children from the "fit" and less from the "unfit."

President Nixon, speaking off-the-cuff about the Roe v. Wade decision handed down just the day before, did register his concern that the open availability of abortion would lead to sexual permissiveness and a further breakdown of the family. Nevertheless, he carefully carved out an exception for interracial pregnancies.

Nixon's comment, made almost 40 years ago, was strangely and creepily echoed in comments recently made by Supreme Court associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In an interview published in The New York Times Magazine, Justice Ginsburg made her absolute support of abortion on demand unconditionally clear. She tied her support for abortion to the larger feminist agenda and lamented the passage of the Hyde Amendment which excludes the use of Medicaid for abortions. The Supreme Court upheld the Hyde amendment in 1980, surprising Ginsburg, who commented:

"Frankly I had thought at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion."

Justice Ginsburg's comments were made in the context of comments about her hopes for feminism and her anticipation of being joined at the court by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then about to begin confirmation hearings. The larger context of Justice Ginsburg's comments do not provide much assistance in understanding whether she was speaking of her own personal convictions or describing what was being thought by others at the time.

Of greatest importance is the fact that Justice Ginsburg's comments reveal the racial, economic, and ethnic discrimination that was at the very heart of the push for abortion on demand throughout much of the 20th century. Also revealed is Justice Ginsburg's virtually unrestricted support for a woman's right to an abortion. In the interview, she goes so far as to lament the fact that the language of Roe v. Wade mentioned abortion is a decision made by the woman and her physician. As Justice Ginsburg told The New York Times, "So the view you get is the tall doctor and the little woman who needs him."

The American conscience remains deeply divided over the question of abortion. Tragically, we have never experienced a sustained, reasonable, and honest discussion about abortion in the society at large. One step toward the recovery of an ethic of life would be an honest discussion about the actual agenda behind the push for abortion on demand. Proponents of abortion rights do everything they can to hide the ugliness of the agenda behind the comments made by President Nixon and Justice Ginsburg. Nevertheless, the truth has a way of working itself into view.

Just take a good look at the comments made by the late President and the current Justice. Furthermore, ask yourself why there is such racial disparity in abortion. Those comments turn more chilling by the day.

Original Article

A Life That Was Cut Short...Way Too Soon!

"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb"

Psalm 139:13

Dear friends,

This is a must read true story. Tolerating, endorsing, or supporting abortion is wrong and has lead to this tragic story of a little girl who was born alive and then murdered at an abortion clinic. After Shanice was born at 23 weeks her umbilical cord was cut so that she bleed to death and then was thrown in to the trash. This is no way to treat a human being, "a person is a person, no matter how small." I challenge you to read this story and let it move you to action on behalf of those who do not have a voice.

http://www.buffalonews.com/260/story/570428.html