Get to Know: Shepherds College

Shepherds College is the country’s leading three-year post secondary educational program for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Test-tube boys may inherit fertility problems

Doctors have uncovered the first evidence that fathers of test-tube babies may be passing on their infertility to their sons. The results raise the prospect of a new and growing generation who may be less likely to have children of their own. Times Online

The Riddle of Consciousness

The assorted mystics, philosophers, theologians and, most recently, neuroscientists who have burned a candle searching for the essence of consciousness all started with a simple presumption: Consciousness must begin where unconsciousness ends. NYTimes

What Is a Life Worth?

Research on the cost-effectiveness of medical treatments pits our emotions against our pocketbooks. An analysis of genetic screening for an incurable, untreatable disease called spinal muscular atrophy shows that it would cost $4.7 million to catch and avert one case, compared with $260,000 to provide lifetime care for a child born with it. So here's the question: do we say, "[I]t is worth any price to spare a single child the misery of being unable to crawl, walk, swallow, or move his head and neck"—or do we, as a society, put on the green eyeshades and say, "No, sorry, we can't afford routine screening"? Newsweek

Technique enables scientists to easily make stem cells pluripotent

Tiny circles of DNA are the key to a new and easier way to transform stem cells from human fat into induced pluripotent stem cells for use in regenerative medicine, say scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Unlike other commonly used techniques, the method, which is based on standard molecular biology practices, does not use viruses to introduce genes into the cells or permanently alter a cell's genome. PhysOrg

Duggar Family Renting Former Home of Local Planned Parenthood Leader

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, the reality TV parents who recently grabbed headlines following the birth of their nineteenth child, are now renting a house once owned by the eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Duggars are the stars of the reality television show "19 Kids and Counting" - formerly "18 Kids and Counting" and "17 Kids and Counting" - that follows the everyday life of the conservative Baptist family. The family moved to be closer to the University of Arkansas for Medical Science, where Josie, their daughter born at 25 weeks' gestation December 10, continues to be monitored. LifeSiteNews

Apologetics site for young people

Stand to Reason launched a new website today designed to help Christian students form a confident Christian worldview and be able to explain it clearly and gracious to others. STR Place helps students "just think" about Christianity and has a variety of resources:

• Videos dealing with timely issues
• Articles providing clear, concise explanations
• A video blog answering questions
• Parent & teacher resources to support Christian students
• Online store with resources specifically for Christian students

Black America's future cut short

One out of two African-American pregnancies end in abortion. Does it matter? I was advised by a voice I respect that I'm walking into a minefield, that perhaps a white guy shouldn't be writing about black abortion. I drove to the Maple Street Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines to ask Rev. Keith Ratliff about it.

Ratliff, who is African-American and serves on the national board of directors of the NAACP, said, "Any caring individual has a right to write about life." He characterized abortion as a "silent genocide" in the African-American community.

Blacks represent 12 percent of the population nationally, but account for 36 percent of all abortions. Ratliff told me abortion is the biggest killer in the African-American community, topping cancer, heart disease, AIDS and homicide.Why talk about black abortion today? Here's why: This is Black History Month. Des Moines Register

Russian Journalist Suggests Infanticide for Disabled Newborns

Aleksandr Nikonov wrote an article titled "Finish Them Off, So They Don't Suffer," which called "post-natal abortion" an act of mercy. Nikonov argues that the birth of a disabled child for many families would be an unbearable tragedy, “a hell”, and that “the killing of the newborn is in fact the same as an abortion." He says depriving infants, who will never be able to take care of themselves, of life is “true humanism" and calls to give parents of such children a right to euthanize their newborns in the same way the elderly are killed in euthanasia. Now, Radio Free Europe reports that Snezhana Mitina, the Russian mother of a child with a developmental disability wants to sue Nikonov. LifeNews

Pink Ouija Board Targets Girls

A boycott has been launched against toymaker giant Hasbro and Toys R Us for making and marketing a pink Ouija board targeting girls as young as eight years old. The board's Toys R Us webpage has evidently been recently removed, however a glow-in-the-dark Ouija board is still available and is marketed for ages 8 and older. The product description suggests: "[L]et the OUIJA Board satisfy your curiosity in virtually endless ways. OUIJA Board will answer. It's just a game - or is it?" LifeSiteNews

President Obama May Have Two Supreme Court Picks Soon

ABC News reported top Obama administration attorneys are preparing background information on several potential nominees because they are expecting not one, but two retirements between now and when Obama runs for re-election in 2012. Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both strongly pro-abortion, are considered the most likely to step down from the Supreme Court in the next year or two. LifeNews

Pro-life groups defend support for Brown

Massachusetts Citizens for Life defended its pro-Brown campaign on several fronts. Although Brown labels himself pro-choice, he has a more pro-life record than many self-avowed "pro-life" lawmakers from the state. "What we're used to is people saying to us, I am pro-life, and then voting pro-abortion - badly. So here we have a fellow who says I am pro-choice, but he votes pro-life. Just looking at it from a practical point of view, we would prefer to have someone who said he was pro-life and voted pro-life." Brown has shown consistent support for abortion restrictions. "He says [abortion] is between a woman and her doctor, but he's willing to go in and hamstring the doctor." The possible negative aspects of supporting a pro-choice candidate was something they considered, but the immense danger of the health care bill ultimately outweighed other concerns. "[The health care bill] would be . . . the end of the pro-life movement. We're probably fixated on it - but I think it would have caused as many deaths as Roe v. Wade, and much less easy to undo."

Concerned Women for America also disagreed their support amounted to an abandonment of pro-life principles. "[P]ro-lifers were quite up front regarding Scott Brown, realizing that he considered himself pro-choice, but also that he had promised to be the 41st vote against a health care bill that would mandate tax funding of abortion. CWA "certainly didn't anticipate that he's going to be a strong pro-life vote," nonetheless backing Brown was no sell-out of pro-life principles. "It goes beyond political suicide to oppose him and thereby allow a hardcore, pro-abortion radical feminist to get in that office. It's more than political suicide because it would have lead to the deaths of untold numbers of unborn children." LifeSiteNews

Brain Scan May Foster Communication With Vegetative Patients: Experts Say Study May Reinvigorate Right-to-Life Debate

For the brother of Terri Schiavo, Wednesday's news that a team of researchers in England were able to use a novel scanning technology to establish limited communication with a man in a persistent vegetative state was bittersweet. A low percentage of vegetative patients are more conscious than once thought. Bobby Schindler said that while the test using functional magnetic resonance imaging likely holds promise for the families of minimally conscious and persistently vegetative patients, he wishes his sister had been afforded this technology before a court ruling allowed her husband Michael Schiavo to remove her feeding tube in 2005 leading to her death. ABC News

A Call for Biblical Authority—Live Webcast from the Creation Museum!

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, will soon offer his “State of the Nation” speech, highlighting how far the U.S. has wandered from its moral foundations, and calling Christians back to their biblical roots. “Many Christians have been duped into accepting a false idea: that there is a ‘neutral’ position they can take in regard to social issues. Some Christians even accept the myth that the U.S. Constitution declares that there should be a separation of church and state. They are hesitant to inject Christian beliefs into politics. God’s Word, however, makes it clear that there is no neutral position. God’s people need to unashamedly and uncompromisingly stand on the Bible and its absolute standards. We need to proclaim a Christian worldview and the Gospel, all the while giving answers for the hope we have.”

Ham’s webcast (his speech is not open to the public) will touch on social issues such as abortion, “gay” marriage, origins, and the role of religion in society. He will encourage Christians to know what the Bible says on these matters, and help them understand how to defend the biblical viewpoint in an increasingly hostile environment. AnswersLive

Writings and resources on race

Tragically much of our nation’s history is stained with the ugliness of racial discrimination and prejudice and, even more distressing, there was a day when many condoned these attitudes from church pulpits, twisting Scripture to justify their bigoted behavior and thought, rationalizing it was perfectly all right to own and/or abuse another human being. Yet racist thought and behavior denies the reality that each of us are created in the image of God. ERLC

Wiping out human variation

Two weeks after our daughter was born we saw a geneticist – a polite, well-manicured woman in a business suit who would confirm (or not) our paediatrician's suspicion that our child had achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism. Following the examination, she sat us down and began speaking in her best concerned-doctor tone of voice. "I want you to know," she said, "that there really wasn't anything you could have done about this."

What she meant – and what we instantly knew she meant – was that there would have been no way of, and no reason to, screen for achondroplasia ahead of time. No way to terminate the pregnancy and try again, and to hope for something that she believed, or that she assumed we believed, would be better. Guardian

Open secret about homosexual "marriages"

As the trial phase of the constitutional battle to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that, according to groundbreaking new research. A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. NYTimes

Christian Doctors Group Says Abstinence Study Conforms to What Parents Want

A new study shows how abstinence education is more effective than either comprehensive sexual education or teaching only about contraception. The results coincide with polling data showing parents favor teaching their children abstinence. Dr. David Stevens, head of the Christian Medical Association, said he appreciated the new study, published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine. "Science has finally caught up with logic and what parents have known for centuries by empirically demonstrating that equipping teens to abstain from sexual activity is an effective way to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases," he said. LifeNews

Group exposes media malpractice

LifeSiteNews, YouTube

Hijacking the Brain

In Wired for Intimacy, William M. Struthers of Wheaton College offers keen and strategic insights from neurobiology and psychology. Struthers does not leave his argument to neuroscience, nor does he use the category of addiction to mitigate the sinfulness of viewing sexually explicit material. Sinners naturally look for fig leaves to hide sin, and biological causation is often cited as a means of avoiding moral responsibility. Struthers does not allow this, and his view of pornography is both biblical and theologically grounded. He lays responsibility for the sin at the feet of those who willingly consume explicit images. LifeSiteNews

Answers in Genesis Conference - Jackson, MI

Carl Kerby will speak Sunday and Monday -- February 21-22, 2010 in Jackson, MI, at Grace Church and Cascades Baptist Church. Details of the event.

Over 30 States Push to Establish Personhood for Unborn

Three additional states have taken up the "personhood" cause in a push to guarantee the constitutional rights of the preborn. Iowa, Virginia and Kansas are now among more than 30 states pursuing personhood amendments – a move pro-lifers view as their best chance of ending abortion in the U.S. ChristianPost

A Pro-Life Commitment

Today, I pledge to uphold the biblical pro-life message in word and deed. As I fulfill the Great Commission, I will also do my part to preserve the sanctity of human life. . . .

View the entire pledge from Baptists for Life here, and download a PDF file

Pro-life ministry on the foreign field

Evelyn Stone, ABWE missionary in Lima, Peru, and BFL International Training Consultant, reports this for 2009: "Six people were baptized this year in the Living Hope Baptist Church of San Isidro. Five of them were saved through the New Life Prenatal Center counseling ministry. One couple who was saved at the Center was married in the church in February and baptized the next week along with their son and the bride's mother."

Comparing holocausts

The fury of the Haitian earthquake, which has taken more than 200,000 lives, teaches us how cruel nature can be to man. The Holocaust, which destroyed a people, teaches us that nature, even in its cruelest moments, is benign in comparison with man when he loses his moral compass and his reason.

After so much death, a groundswell of compassion and solidarity for victims — all victims, whether from natural disasters, racial hatred, religious intolerance or terrorism — occasionally manifests itself, as it has in recent days.

These actions stand in contrast to those moments when we have failed to act; they remind us, on this dark anniversary, of how often we remain divided and confused, how in the face of horror we hesitate, vacillate, like sleepwalkers at the edge of the abyss. NY Times