From natural conception to natural death

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dr. Alveda King

Yesterday being Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as a family we watched Dr. King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech.  After we watched it, I asked the kids (those old enough) to write their own "I Have A Dream" speech.  Israel wrote about how he wished countries would treat each other more kindly and respect people that are different, especially China and Mongolia.  Meg wrote about how she wished people wouldn't look for peace apart from Jesus and how they shouldn't put "peace signs" (which mean peace apart from Jesus.  Did you know that?) on purses and phones.  Luc wrote about how he wished babies and children would be safe.

I think Dr. King would agree with all of these dreams.  Certainly his niece, Dr. Alveda King, does.  She writes via Priests for Life, "If financial pressures cause us to stop loving our neighbors, to think only of ourselves, we have lost much more than money," added Dr. King. "If we stop giving to charity, cease donating our time to help others, or, in the extreme, abort a baby for financial reasons, we literally sacrifice the eternal for the temporary.... As my uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, 'The time is always right to do what is right'."

Can I Live?

It begins....

Today, one day after the historic Roe v. Wade decision, President Obama lifted the Executive order put in place by President Bush, that bans the federal funding of abortions abroad.

I guess he promised change and he's following through.

Now your hard-earned tax dollars will fund the slaughter of babies in third world countries.

Remember The Silent

My friend in Melanie, a pro-life activist in Mongolia, wrote a good piece today that goes along with what I posted yesterday. Please check it out! Her perspective is very good.

Remember The Silent

Not a Happy Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision on Roe v. Wade. Since that flawed ruling over 50 million children have died.

It's interesting that today of all days I've been having a thought-provoking, albeit heartbreakingly sad, conversation with a reader about abortion. You can follow the conversation through the comments on the Being Pro-Life post and the Q and A: Politics post.

Being strong pro-life advocates, there are a few things we hear quite a lot. The first is that Roe v. Wade will never be overturned so basically "move on" already. The second is in essence, "If you say you are pro-life, stop talking about abortion and actually help someone."

So, you wanna go there, let's go there.

On the first point, why is the fact that there is a long standing atrocity being committed a reason to reconcile ourselves to it? We refuse to acknowledge an atrocity and not speak out about it. Remember this picture?

(Click on the picture for the post about it.)

I just refuse to be one of those people. If choosing to be aware and outspoken makes me a fanatic, I gladly don the title.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice,
but there
must never be a time when we fail to protest.


- Elie Wiesel

Have you seen the movie Amazing Grace--about the life and legacy of William Wilberforce? It's amazing how single-minded he was in his attempts to end the slave trade. The Slavery Abolition Act passed a month after he died.

Surely he must have heard a thousand times that slavery would always be legal, that it always had been legal and that he was beating a dead horse to propose ending it year after year after year. And yet he persisted and said, "Let us not despair; it is a blessed cause, and success, ere long, will crown our exertions. Already we have gained one victory; we have obtained, for these poor creatures, the recognition of their human nature, which, for a while was most shamefully denied. This is the first fruits of our efforts; let us persevere and our triumph will be complete. Never, never will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name, released ourselves from the load of guilt, under which we at present labour, and extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonour to this country." speech before the House of Commons, 18 April 1791

While we are still addressing the first thing, it should be noted that in no way do we feel our cause is hopeless. We believe that Jesus said to "make disciples of nations." For so long we have read "nations" as "souls." But, nations means nations. A country can have a reformation and a great returning to the truth. William Wilberforce and his campaign for a societal reformation is proof of that. He championed animal cruelty laws, anti-prostitution laws, free colonies in Africa and so much more! Like Wilberforce we are contending to see our nation move to revival and from revival to reformation.

If it happened in the past, it can happen again!

Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew
them in our day, in our time make them known...He stood, and shook the earth; he
looked, and made the nations tremble. Hab. 3:2,6

We see glimmers of hope in the world. Germany's Constitutional Court ruled in 1993: “ the unborn child is entitled to its rights to life independently of acceptance by its mother; this is an elementary and inalienable right that emanates from the dignity of the human being.” (Mother Theresa brought this to the U.S. Supreme Court's attention in a letter you can read here.)

On the second point above, our reader asked, "it's all well and good to not want people to have abortions but what kind of help is available to them when they do keep them? I'd love to know what activities you involved with, that you support that give women the emotional and financial support they need to have their babies?"

Now this is certainly not the first time we have been called on the carpet on this point. Not that long ago another reader commented, "this issue frustrates me when talked about with christians because all of a sudden its the most important issue in the world... and it shouldn't be that way, besides that it is NOT changing any time soon if ever and there are much better ways to spend our time and energy and money and prayer than trying to make abortion illegal. if you think its so bad then start a counseling center for women thinking of having one, start a class about what happens during one and what women go through a lot of times after wards... that will make an actual difference. it makes me furious that all people talk about is the 'innocent babies' what about the women?"

First of all, I find this argument fascinating. The discussion is about the inalienable rights of each person to life. From the way this challenge is presented one cannot believe in said right unless you run a crisis pregnancy center! When in actuality the right exists whether or not anyone chooses to acknowledge it. My being involved in pro-life efforts is completely beside the point.

However, since we are going there.....

As with most actively pro-life people that I know, we put action to our convictions.

~We founded and still fund a ministry called Mother-to-Mother. Testimonies of some of the mommies we've help can be read here and here. Basically, we provide food, vitamins, nutritional counselling and prenatal care to needy women in Mongolia--where the abortion rate is three times the birthrate.

~I am a childbirth educator and offer my services for free or for discounted rates for women in need.

~I have done post-abortion counselling with women dealing with post-abortion trauma.

~When I was a teenager I had a yearly baby-shower for local crisis pregnancy centers. We had a full-fledged baby shower, but all the baby things and maternity clothes were donated to the local center.

~We make regular financial donations to pregnancy support centers in our area of Southern California.

~I've been in life-chains, delivered cold drinks to sidewalk counselors, attended prayer meetings, provided interventions and counselling for young women considering abortion, gave a shower and a wedding for a young girl who decided to keep her baby and get married instead of aborting (her family abandoned her, so my family did the whole wedding).

~I've written and called politicians.

~And I've always voted pro-life.

And I don't think that any of this is in anyway extraordinary. Most of the pro-life people I know do the same sort of things. Many people I know have done even more for the cause. They've adopted babies. (We want to and plan to after Gana gets out of seminary.)

Our hearts break for the babies that have been slaughtered in the name of convenience. They are God's hopes and dreams that have been sacrificed. Our hearts break for the women and men who are so broken and still hurting from the abortions they chose for their children.

It's not a matter of caring for this issue or that issue. God doesn't ask us to choose between caring for victims of war or victims of abortion. He simply issues a very straightforward call:

Open your mouth for the speechless, In the cause of all who are appointed to die. Proverbs 31:8

On this anniversary of Roe v. Wade, pray for an end to abortion.

My young philosopher

My son, Israel, has some deep thoughts sometimes.

Tonight during our Advent devotions we were talking about the little town of Bethlehem, about Jesus being born, and about how Herod was fearful of Him and so ordered the babies to be killed.

Israel interrupts the devotion and says, "Mom, I have something I need to tell you. When God decides to make a baby, He creates the baby and puts the baby in the mother's tummy. And when He does He says His dreams for the baby, like, you know, 'You will be a great man' and stuff like that. But when someone goes to the doctor and has the baby killed--what's that called...um...oh yeah, abortion--they don't just kill a baby, they kill God's thoughts and dreams, too."

How tightly is too tightly to hug a kid?