Thank You for a Great Year

We’ll continue our review of the top developments of 2004 early next week – as we prepare for the coming battles of 2005.

But today, the last day of 2004, I wanted to spend a little time with you reflecting on our blessings. This has been a tough year in many ways for the pro-Life movement. It was a long string of battles, beginning with the lawsuit against the State of Idaho, dealing with the hostile atmosphere created in the Legislature by Speaker Bruce Newcomb; from there we went into primary contests around the state, then the annual Yard Sale, production of our Informed Consent booklet and the general election.

Now we prepare for the 2005 session.

I am grateful for my family and a handful of righteous men who have stood with me through the adversity and difficult decisions. I am grateful to the Boards of Idaho Chooses Life and Idaho Chooses Life Alliance – they and their families have sacrificed much over the year to help support the work. They are a great blessing to me and to the people of Idaho.

The donors and volunteers and prayer warriors sustain this ministry – and I ask the Lord’s great blessing upon them all.

I can assure you that we would never have made it through this long year without your support. I am encouraged by the emails and phone calls you make throughout the year. You are the great backbone of the pro-Life movement. I invite you to pray about deepening your involvement and commitment to the battle in the new year – we could certainly use more of your talents and time in the great struggle of our time.

And we are all blessed by the Lord’s grace in our lives. Like the patient father, he allows us to help Him mow the lawn. As difficult as it seems sometimes – being a part of His work is a great privilege.

May you and your family have a new year rich in God’s blessing!

Top Story #4: Partial Birth Abortion Trials

WorldNetDaily carried a story regarding testimony by abortionists in the trial. Jay Sekulow, with the American Center for Law and Justice, is quoted as saying,

“The testimony of these abortion providers unlocks the door to a secret
world of tortuous death that includes dismemberment and decapitation of
unborn children whose lives are taken by partial birth abortion.”

Testimony in the trial reveals that the abortionists must often separate the head of the unborn child from its body; it is the largest and most difficult portion of the baby to remove.

As horrific as this picture should be to our listeners, it is not the worst news coming from these trials. While there is undoubted merit to the national ban on Partial Birth Abortions – the great flaw in this strategy is also being displayed. The most common method of abortion in the second trimester is not partial birth abortion – but “Dilation & Evacuation”. There are some 140,000 such abortions performed in America each year. One media outlet has described this procedure as “less controversial” – even though it is arguably even more gruesome than PBA.

An abortionist testified at the New York trial that during an D&E abortion, the child is dismembered and does not immediately die after its limbs are pulled off. Often the baby fights for its life until the head is crushed inside the womb with forceps.

This is the America we have become. No one has the right to say any longer, “We didn’t know what was happening”. Now the question of posterity will be, “Why didn’t they act?”

Top Story #5: Thomas More Center Takes RTL to Task

The Thomas More Law Center this week blasted National Right to Life for its strident campaign to defeat the Abortion Ban nearly enacted in South Dakota this year. Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center accused National Right to Life of betraying preborn children.

Thompson went on to say, “It is one thing for National Right to Life to disagree with the timing of a bill banning abortions. It is another thing for them to…kill the ban – it is a betrayal of the unborn and the pro-life movement. When is it the wrong time to do what is right? Right to Life has lost the moral authority to lead the pro-life cause.”

Those are very strong words, words born out of great frustration. We have had a major dose of our own problems with the Idaho chapter of Right to Life this year. Within days of our filing suit against the State because of its failure to provide women with basic information about abortion and the many agencies willing to help with adoption or expenses – Right to Life couldn’t wait to get to a microphone to defend the Department of Health & Welfare for its criminal failure.

Suddenly politicians had all the cover they needed to shift the topic around, obscure the facts, and dodge responsibility.

And I’m sure you’re already bored with the saga of our struggle with Right to Life over the sell-out language of SB1321.

I’ve argued before that the pro-life community should welcome the extraordinary work in South Dakota. While it is admittedly unlikely that the Supreme Court is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, I see no particular downside to challenging the status quo. We have accomplished precious little in over 30 years at the national level. The pile of the dead and wounded continues to build. How much worse could it get?

We pray great blessings on Richard Thompson and the folks at Thomas More. The national pro-Life movement is in desperate need of more such leaders of integrity.

Top Story #6: Idaho’s Parental Consent Law Struck Down

We’ve been talking about the infamous decision by three liberal judges in San Francisco to strip you of your right to care for and protect your daughters. They ruled that Idaho’s Parental Consent Law was unconstitutional. These three Clintonites determined that Planned Parenthood knows best; that strange doctors, who abort babies to become millionaires, are better able to judge what is best for your teenage daughter than you are.

This decision highlights the radical agenda of the 9th Circuit, which has styled itself as a leftist oligarchy. But the whole history of this case demonstrates problems even with the federal bench in Idaho. Several years ago, an Idaho district judge ruled that the Constitution prohibited the notification of parents in cases where their daughter was hospitalized for an emergency abortion. He also said it was unconstitutional for a judge to investigate claims of incest or sexual abuse.

What is this if not group insanity? And it might be merely lamentable if these folks had not usurped dangerous power.

Long term, we must force our Congressional leadership to act. In the short term, we must ensure that Idaho teenage girls get crucial information about abortion.

Idaho Chooses Life has produced an Informed Consent pamphlet which talks about the key risks of abortion. It is free of charge. If you are considering abortion; or if you know someone who is – please call us today. 208-344-8709. No questions asked. We’ll simply mail you a free copy of this vital information. Or send us an email at director@IdahoChoosesLife.org.

Top Story #7: The Passing of Ronald Reagan

It is appropriate to reflect on the Reagan legacy to the pro-Life movement. Aside from the Proclamation – which we believe was the first public pronouncement by a sitting President against the horrors of Roe v. Wade – there is much to commend the presidency of Ronald Reagan. He was the first to try and stem the flow of American tax dollars to support Planned Parenthood’s international program of death. And he signed the Hyde Amendment into law – which still stands as a protection against the use of federal tax dollars to pay for abortion-on-demand.

In addition, Ronald Reagan published a booklet while in the Oval Office entitled, “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation”. The essay is a powerful call to action and hope in battling the scourge of abortion.

For these accomplishments and others, Ronald Reagan deserves the title, “First Pro-Life President” – at least in the age of Roe.

But there is a troubling legacy to the Reagan Presidency which must also be acknowledged, if only to draw our attention to the structural problems confronting the pro-Life movement.

Ronald Reagan’s appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court were less than salutary. He promoted William Rhenquist to Chief Justice. Rhenquist has always been the “Rock of Gibraltar” on the Supreme Court. And, he appointed Antonin Scalia to the court in 1986, another stalwart of conscience and reason.

But he also appointed Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor to the bench. They have both played crucial roles in defending the Roe regime.

In a recent guest opinion, former Chief of Staff William Clark wrote that one of the things Reagan regretted most about his presidency was that circumstances and politics prevented him from making more progress in restoring protection for preborn human beings.

Undoubtedly Reagan was referring to the deals cut around the appointment of O’Connor and Kennedy. Perhaps the President was deceived by these folks into believing that they shared his firm grasp of truth. Perhaps he was forced into horse-trading with pro-abort Republicans and Democrats. Or perhaps Republican operatives, who consider themselves to be “Masters of the Universe”, simply persuaded the President that the party couldn’t really fulfill its promise to America.

That struggle continues to this very day.

On This Most Special of Nights

For almost 30 years, Calvin College biology professor Pete Tigchelaar has had a three-month-old fetus, encased in plastic, that he uses in his human biology classes. He’s always thought of it as a learning tool. That changed when a student in one of his classes asked if he still had it.

Intrigued, Tigchelaar said he did and invited the young woman to his office for further conversation. There he asked why she was so interested. The answer was amazing.

The young student told him that a generation earlier, her mother had been a student in one of his classes. Unknown to Tigchelaar, this student was three months pregnant on the day he had shown the tiny baby to the class, with its tiny fingers, facial features, including eyes.

She had already visited Planned Parenthood, and been told about the “product of conception”. But after his class, the student knew she had more than a “problem” living within her. She cancelled her scheduled abortion and went on to deliver a healthy baby girl.

“I am that girl,” the student then informed a stunned Tigchelaar. “Thanks for my life.”

The biology teacher was silent with emotion. He remembers telling the girl in a halting voice simply that she was beautiful.

“Even now,” he says, “I can barely tell the story without breaking up.”

“In this season when we celebrate the birth of someone who came to give each of us eternal life,” Tigchelaar says, “I am reminded that the unwed Mary would have been the perfect candidate for a similar ‘procedure’. I am thankful that her response was, ‘I am the Lord’s handmaid. May it be to me as you say.”

Blessed be the Name of the Lord! And may He richly bless you and your loved ones on this most special of nights.

Top Story #8: SB1321 Defeated by Legislature

I thought you’d appreciate a review of the major pro-Life stories from 2004. Here is top story #8 – originally broadcast on March 22nd:

The Idaho Legislature has finally disbanded. I will have more to say about their pathetic legacy in days ahead, but I’d like to bring you up to speed on SB1321. As you well know, we have talked of little else for many weeks now. I am relieved to report that your vigilance, your prayers and your support proved effective. The bill, which purported to strengthen Idaho’s ‘right to know’ law, was defeated Thursday afternoon in the House Health & Welfare Committee.

Make no mistake: there is no “victory” in the defeat of SB1321. We have simply been able, with your help, to stop a bad piece of legislation from becoming law. That leaves us pretty much where we were at the start of the year: Current law needs to be vigorously enforced by the Department of Health & Welfare.

I am still hopeful that we can find a way to make sure Idaho’s daughters get the information to which they have been entitled for over twenty years. With about seventeen abortions each week in Idaho, we have a serious problem that demands leadership.

There are several legislators deserving particular recognition for their heroic defense of the highest pro-life principles. Senator Gerry Sweet and Representatives Henry Kulczyk, Peter Nielsen and Bill Sali are sterling examples of self-sacrifice. They took the time to find the truth about SB1321.

In this very difficult battle to defend innocent babies – and their often unsuspecting mothers-- we need warriors whose hearts have been touched by tragedies around us – not politicians primarily interested in advancing their careers on the backs on innocent babies.

Top Story #10: RTL Endorses Bob Ring for Reelection

With the year coming to a close, I thought you might appreciate a review of the major pro-life news stories of 2004. Here is Top Story #10 – originally broadcast on May 21st:

In a most amazing turn of events, Right to Life of Idaho has endorsed pro-abort Bob Ring for re-election in Caldwell. In a mailing to constituents, Bob Ring tried to explain his many failures to protect preborn children. He repeats his claim to be “pro-Life” - despite the fact that he supports using your tax money to fund Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider.

Ring supports paying Planned Parenthood to counsel our children about sex and sexual morality.

Ring opposed our legislation – supposedly endorsed by Right to Life in 2003 – which would have guaranteed babies in the womb insurance benefits, created by President George Bush. And he voted for a bogus “informed consent” bill this year, which would guarantees that the Abortion Industry would continue lying to women and girls about the health risks of abortion.

Bob Ring supports using embryos and aborted baby parts for medical research. And he would not support any legislation which conflicts with Roe v. Wade.

And yet – Kerry Uhlenkott of Idaho Right to Life provided Bob Ring with a letter of support to use in his re-election. Against a 100% pro-Life challenger, Gib Nelson! It is nearly too dispiriting to consider, but this is only another confirmation that this organization has lost sight of its purpose.

They join their colleagues at Cornerstone Institute in helping deceive Caldwell families about Bob Ring and his true value system.

As a result of their weakness, Bob Ring will return as a member of the House Health & Welfare Committee.

As an update for our readers: We have learned that Rep. Ring told the Idaho Women’s Network this summer that he “opposed” any efforts to “further restrict a woman’s access to legal abortion”. He also answered their candidate survey by telling this radical feminist organization that he supports increased funding for Planned Parenthood’s “family planning” services.

You can expect Rep. Ring to continue his pursuit of a radical pro-abortion agenda for Idaho families – with the apparent blessing of Idaho Right to Life.

Kerry Calls for “Softer Image” on Abortion

I know that I should find up-beat stories – now that we have opened Christmas Week, the highlight of a season celebrating the Gift of Life. I’m working on being nice - but you know, undue temptation must also be taken into account.

Senator John Kerry told a group of Democrat Party leaders that Democrats must soften their image on abortion. He reportedly even told the gathering that Democrats need to do more to reach out to pro-Lifers.

According to Newsweek, his statements shocked many in the room; National Abortion Rights Action League president Nancy Keenan claims that there was an audible gasp.

I bet.

Okay. In the spirit of Christmas, let’s stop there and enjoy the moment. The most significant element of this news story is, I believe, its acknowledgement by the Democrat presidential candidate that being associated with a radical abortion politics is hurting his party. In other words, the power of the pro-Life cause is obviously growing; Kerry’s comments confirm polling data showing that his pro-abort record cost him the presidency. That is all to the good. That part of the story is truly something to celebrate.

What is outrageous about the story is that Kerry is not suggesting a reversal on key policy positions in order to woo pro-Lifers. He is not expressing repentance for defending Partial Birth Abortions with his last breath; he is not proposing to co-sponsor legislation which would uphold state laws requiring parental consent for abortions. One would hope in vain for any evidence that Kerry has changed his heart about setting-up killing factories in order to harvest stem cells for researchers at Harvard and their elite beneficiaries in Hollywood.

Kerry is talking spin, image. There is not a shred of evidence that his heart has suddenly softened toward the innocent who are brutalized in the womb – the very place which ought to be the safest in the world.

So that’s it. Hopefully I can treat you to less cynical news in the days ahead.

An Update on Planned Parenthood

A New Jersey high school student made national news this week by publicly demanding that Planned Parenthood be barred from her school. As things stand now, Planned Parenthood teaches a mandatory, two-day seminar for every freshman on sexuality. The presentations include discussion of contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases.

According to the student, Claire Moore, Planned Parenthood employees also discussed abortion with the fourteen – and fifteen-year olds. These kids were encouraged to seek abortion if contraception failed.

The student believes that this tax-supported agency is delivering an immoral message, and doing a great deal of harm to vulnerable children.

This effort at corrupting America’s youth is, no doubt, paid for by the US Congress under the Title X program. And, according to the organization’s 2003-04 Annual Report, the percentage of Planned Parenthood’s budget coming from you and I is increasing. Congress gave Planned Parenthood $265 million last year – about 33% of its total budget.

The annual report also suggests that the organization is becoming even more radically oriented toward abortion as the “only” choice: the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics increased by 6.1% over the year before. Abortions accounted for $105 million in income.

At the same time- for every 138 babies killed at Planned Parenthood clinics, just one woman was referred to an outside agency for adoption by this nefarious organization.
This is a damning piece of evidence for officials and so-called pro-Life organizations in Idaho that continue to press the Legislature for Planned Parenthood to administer the proposed informed consent law. There is no doubt that Planned Parenthood is an organization animated by just one objective: to kill preborn children.

That radicalization may account for a decline in private donations this past year.

California AG Backs Down

We reported to you last week about the very troubling edict from California’s Attorney General regarding school districts and the rights of parents. Last week he issued an official Opinion declaring that children had a right to leave school without parental notice or permission – if they were seeking personal medical care. That includes abortion, of course. But it would also mean treatment for drug or alcohol abuse, treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases, counseling, or just about anything else.

This leftist radical believes that strange adults – doctors, Planned Parenthood employees, school counselors, teachers or anybody else in the “helping” professions – are in a position to know what happens with a kid for whom they have no real responsibility. The people with the most invested, the people with an eternal duty – the child’s parents – why, in the new wonderland of California liberalism, they don’t even have the right to know there’s a problem.

I wish I could tell you this kind of insanity was limited to California. But it is not. It is central dogma in courts and leftist circles across the nation – liberate the children!!

I can tell you that all hope is not lost. Apparently there are enough sane people left in California that the Attorney General has found it necessary to reverse course.

This week, AG Bill Lockyer announced during a radio interview that state law has suddenly become more “ambiguous”. At least that was his take after he received hundreds of phone calls at his office in Sacramento from outraged parents. Even some school board members got in on the act.

Now school districts are free to adopt their own policies on the matter. That is at least some progress.

Additions to the Tower of Babel

Scientists announced the completion of a new story in their drive to rebuild the Tower of Babel this week: Monkey embryos have been cloned for the first time, and their stem cells were sucked into a test tube. While the stem cells did not stabilize into a permanent culture – scientists were hopeful that they could so one day soon.

Aside from the technical questions of cloning a species somewhat similar to humans, scientists were excited by the idea of being able to use stem cell therapies in monkeys to see if any practical treatments are theoretically possible for human beings. If successful, this next step would dramatically turn-up the heat on politicians to throw big money at the magical promise of curing all human disease in our lifetime.

Not that much more pressure from the bio-tech industry seems necessary: I’ve read that Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison wants to make sure her state gets in on the action. So do politicians in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and other places.

Meanwhile, others in this nefarious drive to destroy human life are selling a new deal: They want the right to go in and harvest stem cells from babies stuck in frozen limbo as a result of sloppy practices at fertilization clinics. Some 400,000 embryos wait in frozen storage across the country. Scientists from Columbia University argued before the President’s Council on Bioethics that these babies were going to die anyway: why not use them for some “humane” purpose?

In a related development, Maryland attorney Rudolph Palmer is fighting a legal battle to gain some legal protections for these forgotten little ones. Just last week, a federal appeals court dismissed Palmer’s class-action lawsuit on behalf of frozen embryos in fertility clinics. The trial judge in the lawsuit dismissed the original suit, saying that President Bush’s policy on embryonic stem cell research already served to protect them.

Real Heroes

Ben Stein – an iconoclast media, legal and financial figure – has been preparing a weekly newspaper column for some years. He calls it “Monday Night At Morton’s”. I don’t get around much to such places, but apparently this Morton’s is a famous steakhouse in Hollywood frequented by the rich and powerful figures of our modern culture. Most weeks, Stein shares his conversations with movie stars and such.

He has just written his last column. He says that he has lost interest in writing about the self-absorbed icons of our stage and screen: “A man who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.”

Instead, writes Mr. Stein, “a real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit… or the soldier who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.”

Amen.

This is a season to think about such – heroes, blessings and family.

Mr. Stein’s column got me thinking about heroes. They are all around us; people like Joe Scheidler from Chicago – whose whole life has been spent battling the evil of abortion. He’s faced jail, bankruptcy; he and his wife have had to take out a second mortgage on their home to fend off vicious legal attacks from Planned Parenthood.

Another hero that comes to mind is Judie Brown – who was just honored for her twenty-five years at the helm of the American Life League.

Or legislators like Bill Sali and Gerry Sweet – who serve as the defenders of preborn children, as the conscience of the Idaho Legislature.

And what of the many saints in the pro-Life movement who give many hours manning the Pregnancy Centers around Idaho? These are people worth knowing, needful of our prayers and our acknowledgment of their great contributions to our lives and community.

Abortion Scandal at the United Nations

There has been a lot of talk recently about scandal at the United Nations. Kofi Annan and the Iraqi madman, Saddam Hussein, had a nice thing going. Money and weapons and some major political chits changed hands. So what if a few tens of thousands of people were being tortured? So what if people in Iraq were unable to eat properly or receive medical treatment with the money flowing through the upper echelons of the United Nations?

Since the topic of scandalous behavior at the United Nations is on the plate – perhaps it’s a good time to look into other, even darker, machinations at the international bureaucracy supported by you and I.

Christians in the tiny nation of Malta are up in arms over the continued United Nations campaign to liberalize the abortion laws of that socially conservative nation. Catholic bishops there issued a public letter condemning the U.N.’s effort: “Abortion is and remains the murder of innocent persons, whatever the reason behind it,” they said.

Malta is one of just six nations in the world to prohibit all abortions.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee is also going after the preborn children of Chile and Poland.

Christians in Poland are also upset that the U.N. is seeking to re-impose a socialist agenda in that nation – since it was only in the 1990s that Poland was able to reassert its pro-Life values after decades of Communist-inspired war against babies in the womb.

Some politicians in Poland welcomed the help from the international community in their drive to legalize abortion there for any reason during the first trimester.

One must wonder how the battle for human dignity, for human rights, was hijacked by the Abortion Industry. In a world where massive hunger, genocide, illiteracy and basic medical care are major problems – how did the campaign to extinguish the next generation become such a high priority for the thought police at the United Nations?

How can human rights be advanced by simply deleting a whole portion of us from the human family?

If you’re a parent – this story should worry you a great deal.

The other night I had a chance to watch former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on the O’Reilly Factor. It was a fascinating interview. While not directly about abortion, the discussion went to the core of America’s abortion crisis.

Ostensibly, O’Reilly and Gingrich were talking about Christianity – the Left’s concerted, obsessive attack on Christmas and everything to do with Jesus in the public square. But Gingrich’s explanation of American history and the central role of faith in our very form of government interested me very much. Gingrich explained that European governments are based upon a notion of its citizens as creatures of the state – humans as protoplasm, without inherent rights. American government has historically been understood to be a compact between sovereign human beings, endowed by the Creator with rights. To use Gingrich’s terminology – we “lend” the government this power.

The attack on preborn children as having no inherent value is a major part of the Left’s attack on our nation’s foundations. Soon, some judge will declare that we exist at the pleasure of the federal government.

And for our listeners in Southwest Idaho – We will be holding our annual Christmas Dinner and Auction tomorrow night, Friday, at 6pm. We are honored to have Lt. Governor Jim Risch as our Special Guest Speaker. This is a tremendous event – in which we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus by banding together to defend the little ones in our midst who face the Death of the Innocents. If you’d like tickets – give me a call at 344-8709.

For those of you outside the Boise area – please pray for the success of this event. It is our major fundraiser to prepare for the fast-approaching legislative session. And, of course, if you are moved – you can participate in this effort by sending a gift. Only by banding together can we be effective at advancing the truth of who we are, why we are here, and why it is so essential to defend the least among us.

Stripping Our Kids of Parental Protection

If you’re a parent – this story should worry you a great deal.

Under a new opinion issued by the California Attorney General, school districts and their officials can not inform parents if their children leave the school during the day for medical treatment. That “treatment” includes psychological counseling, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases or abortion.

So you call to talk with your kid. The school district informs you that your child may not be in school at that moment, and that you have no right to learn where they might be.

This opinion is the result of political pressure from Planned Parenthood and the California Education Association. It is the new frontier in the “privacy” wars. And it presents a tremendous threat to parental authority. The opinion builds upon laws passed by the radicals running the California Legislature – which has passed several “emancipation statutes” that empowers children to manage their own health care.]

A news report from WorldNetDaily indicates that a number of parents are up-in-arms; but so far, there does not appear to be a general uproar in the sun-drenched state.

What makes this story relevant to Idaho parents is its value as a warning. There is a close working relationship between the Abortion Industry and the Education Empire which greatly affects the welfare of our children. Many bureaucrats in public education believe in the socialist vision of a world made better through the emancipation and indoctrination of children. And sexual “liberation”, not economics, is at the heart of the modern socialist vision. The modern architects of a new world order understand that traditional morality can most effectively be undermined by the destruction wrought through premature sexual activity.

And these issues tie directly into our long battle to establish and protect Idaho’s Parental Consent Law for abortions. That law is now jeopardized by the radical judges running the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals – close allies of the Abortion Lobby. Idaho’s Attorney General has appealed their ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court; with your prayers, perhaps our children can retain legal protection.

A Crucial Test for Senate Republicans

We pondered yesterday the question which every pro-Lifer ask themselves from time to time: Will legal abortion ever end? And what will it take to make this happen?

An important step in that long battle will be faced in January: Will the Republican leadership in the United States Senate make crucial rule changes to avoid Democrat filibusters over President Bush’s nominees to the federal bench.

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), led by Jay Sekulow, has prepared two research memos for the Republican leadership on their prerogatives as they reorganize the Senate next month. “The Senate must stand in support of the Constitution and put judicial filibusters off limits,” says Sekulow.

According to lawyers at the ACLJ, the Senate can modify its rules by a simple majority vote at the beginning of the new congress. It can modify the rules governing filibusters – the practice of debating a measure or nominee to death. A narrow version of the proposal would change the rules by allowing a simple majority of senators to end the filibuster of judicial nominees.

The presidential victory of George Bush produced a highly unusual event – gains for the party in Congress. The Republicans now have 55 members in the Senate. That is not enough to end filibusters under current rules – which require 60 votes. Beyond the problem of being five party votes short – there are clearly a number of “pro-choice” Republicans in the Senate Caucus.

They can be expected to bolt when the crush comes.

So, perhaps the crucial decision for America will come around this matter of Senate rules. Are Republicans serious about ending abortion – ever? Or will they continue their delicate minuet with American voters?

The Beginning of the End?

Columnist Jack Wheeler writes in the WorldNetDaily that we are entering the “beginning of the end” of legalized abortion in America. He blasts Democrats for the “space talk” of seceding from the Union in the wake of President Bush’s re-election, and reminds readers that it was the Democrats who led the last secession movement.

At the core of that last effort was a righteous fury to defend the South’s “peculiar institution”. Democrats defended to the death their “moral right” to own human beings as personal property; Democrats of the 1860s defended their prerogatives to treat their property in any manner they chose. They ripped the nation apart in a mad drive to legitimize slavery as a matter of personal choice. After all, they argued – if Yankees didn’t like slavery, they didn’t have to own slaves.

Democrats even pressed the federal government and courts into their service – demanding the use of police force to protect their property rights.

Sound anything like familiar? Aren’t today’s Democrats involved in the same kind of moral defensiveness over abortion? Do they not invoke high-sound moral terms to justify the murder of preborn children as a matter of private right? And if Christians don’t like abortion – well, then, they don’t have to get one. We even see the use of police force to protect abortionists from being made “uncomfortable” by the peaceful protests of pro-Lifers gathered to pray outside clinics.

Mr. Wheeler argues that the 2004 election has produced a “teachable moment” for Democrats and the nation: We must articulate the horrible equation between abortion and slavery, and the inherent value of every human life.

It is difficult to say where we are at in the battle for our culture – but there is no doubt that the “peculiar institution” of abortion will end.

Russia’s Abortion Plight

From time to time we like to look in on the practice of abortion in other nations around the world. Russia is of particular interest to me – because it was in this former Communist nation that the modern institution of abortion began in 1920. And it is Russia which has paid the heaviest price for the practice of wholesale baby murder.

We have reported in previous editions that President Putin has publicly addressed some of the severe social consequences of abortion, even speaking to the Russian Parliament a few years ago about abortion being a leading cause of that nation’s economic plight. He followed that speech by calling on the national legislature to tighten restrictions on the practice.

I am saddened to report that these once hopeful signs have so far failed to produce much change in Russia’s abortion culture.

Moscow News is carrying an article which reports that abortions still outnumber live births by some 2-to-1. The columnist writes that if you are a Russian woman who has never had an abortion, you are a “statistical non-entity”. The Rand Corporation believes that Russia has the highest abortion rate in the entire world – higher even than Communist China, with its one-child/forced abortion laws.

In 1970, Russia was blessed with 1.9 million live births; but cursed with approximately 4.8 million abortions. Today, that number has declined to about 2.85 million abortions each year. This is an astronomical death toll – so large that only the Lord has the ability to grasp the human carnage.

Abortion continues as the preferred method of birth control among Russian women. This is even more tragic given other Rand Corporation data which finds that abortion is related to more than one-in-four maternal deaths. With many women having dozens of abortions during their reproductive years – the practice of abortion in Russia amounts to some bizarre form of self-mutilation.

But the question we must ponder is whether, in another forty years, America will demonstrate the same indifference to new life and women that Russia displays today. Or will we find the path to repentance while it is still possible?

Abortion: A Plain-Sight Conspiracy

We began a discussion in yesterday’s update about the disinformation campaign conducted by the Abortion Lobby over some forty years. The “poll” by the Associated Press, which purports to show that a vast majority of Americans want George Bush to appoint pro-abortion justices to the Supreme Court, is just a recent example.

Given the fact that George Bush was clear about his pro-Life values – how can we make sense of this liberal propaganda in the face of a national election which reaffirmed Bush’s leadership? I mean, if the AP numbers were correct, then we should be faced with the imminent disaster of watching John Kerry take the oath of office.

But the disinformation campaign goes well beyond such obvious manipulations by media elites. The public’s whole view of abortion has been shaped by misleading, or even false, information for decades. Bad news has been hidden; the tragedies kept private.

Take, for example, a report from Dr. David Reardon on the way abortion-related deaths are kept by our own government: In 1989, the Center for Disease Control reported that only 12 maternal deaths occurred in the United States that were related to abortion complications.

But the CDC did not report the death of Erica Richardson, a 16-year Maryland girl who bled to death following a botched abortion. In fact, there were three other maternal deaths in Maryland that same year from abortion – but the CDC showed zero fatalities in that state. A similar phenomenon has documented for that same year with the data from southern California.

There is a plain-sight conspiracy to mislead Americans about the tragedy of abortion. Women do not get straight information about the risks they are taking.

So the grinding destruction of humanity continues.

AP “Poll” Seeks to Create Public Opinion

The Associated Press is pushing a story on the public, claiming that a new poll found 59% of Americans want President Bush to appoint Supreme Court justices that would be loyal to the Roe v. Wade regime established by court edict in 1973. The poll was paid for by the Associated Press itself. These media elites would have us believe that only 31% of Americans want new justices to support the abolition of abortion.

These numbers contradict common sense and a wealth of other polling data which show a majority of Americans describing themselves as “pro-Life”. In fact, a Wirthlin poll taken right after the presidential election found that 55% of Americans were pro-Life.

One explanation for the stark disconnect behind the AP’s numbers is the wording of the question. People taking the survey were told that Roe v. Wade legalized abortion only in the first trimester of a pregnancy. Like it or not – many people seem to think that abortion is “less bad” the earlier it is in the pregnancy, as if a baby is less of a human baby at one month than it is at eight months.

The pollsters working for the AP stacked their question by taking advantage of this prejudice – and intentionally mislead people about the stark fact that abortion is legal in America until the baby manages to escape the womb. Let me say it again: Roe v. Wade allows abortion until the live birth of the baby – which is why partial birth abortions are such a problem for most Americans.

But the AP polling raises deeper questions about America’s abortion swamp.