What About Polygamy in the Bible?

What About Polygamy in the Bible? - Answers in Genesis: The Bible records many instances of polygamy in the Old Testament, involving even some of the patriarchs of Israel. As we look at Scripture, none of these arrangements matches the structure of marriage given by God from the beginning.

Get to Know: The Center for Public Justice

The Center for Public Justice | The Center for Public Justice: The Center for Public Justice is an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to public policy research, leadership development, and civic education. With a distinctive Christian-democratic perspective, we help citizens, policymakers, and government respond to the call to pursue justice for all.

Like, a Virgin?

Touchstone Archives: Like, a Virgin?: What happens when one potential spouse has remained free from fornication and the other hasn’t? How much of a sexual past, if any, would doom a potential marriage?

Biopunks Tinker With The Building Blocks Of Life

Biopunks Tinker With The Building Blocks Of Life : NPR: There's a group of amateur scientists that believes anyone with the ability and a few spare parts can start tinkering with the building blocks of life. They call themselves biopunks, or biohackers.

'It's an ethic; it's an ideal,' says journalist Marcus Wohlsen. He's written a new book about the movement: Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life. 'This very raw idealism, this very strong belief in science, this very strong belief in technology. This very strong belief that anybody who wants it should be able to have access to both of these things.'

Do Presidential Bioethics Committees Shape Science Policy?

GEN | Analysis & Insight: Do Presidential Bioethics Committees Shape Science Policy?: When President Barack Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues reconvened May 18, the agenda included the Guatemalan governments’ investigations into the intentional infection of people from 1946–48 by the U.S. Public Health Service during research on sexually transmitted diseases. It’s a far cry from the original issue for which the president formed his commission last year—the ethics of synthetic biology research. In taking up the protection of human subjects in clinical trials, the current commission has come full circle, returning to a topic that several of its predecessor panels also grappled with.

Paving the way for Title X

The Family in America: When Margaret Sanger launched the American Birth Control League in 1921, she faced fierce resistance not only on the part of the Catholic church but also among all varieties of American Protestants, including fundamentalists and modernists of the northern denominations. The Episcopal church’s position was typical; the Lambeth Conference of Bishops of 1908 and 1920 had delivered warnings against the use of contraception as well as the false teaching that the conjugal act was an end in itself. In essence, the foe that Sanger would need to split was not a Catholic one; it was the widely shared Christian consensus against birth control that not even the Reformation had breached.

Genomic Medicine Combined with Adult Stem Cells Cure AIDS?

Genomic Medicine Combined with Adult Stem Cells Cure AIDS? » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: Two areas of uncontroversial medical research may have combined to create a cure for AIDS. The first is genomic medicine. The second, adult stem cells.

What’s Good? Wherefore Ought?

What’s Good? Wherefore Ought? « Public Discourse: "What seems right also seems good, and if it did not, it would not seem right; indeed, it could not be right at all. Thus, the good and the right seem correlative and inseparable in experience, though we can parse them out upon reflection. So, how to understand the twofold character of our moral experience: What’s good? Wherefore ought?"

The Rapture That Wasn’t

The Rapture That Wasn’t - Dennis Prager - National Review Online: Religious doomsdays that don’t pan out harm only the doomsayer. Leftist ones also harm scientists, and science.

The Daily Spurgeon: His eyes are upon us

The Daily Spurgeon: His eyes are upon us: Seven times in his words to the churches, he says, “I know thy works.”

“The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.”

U.S. House blocks ObamaCare funds for teaching abortion

U.S. House blocks ObamaCare funds for teaching abortion to new doctors | LifeSiteNews.com: The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to ban federal funds for teaching abortion techniques to medical students at public health centers. The House voted 234-182 for the amendment proposed by pro-life U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC). Thirteen Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the bill, while ten Republicans voted with Democrats against it. (See roll call here.)

GOP House to defund UNFPA after You-Cut vote

GOP House to defund UNFPA after You-Cut vote | LifeSiteNews.com:"House Republicans are introducing legislation to cut federal money to a United Nations population control agency after online voters selected it on the GOP’s You-Cut site. The GOP intends to cut federal funds spent toward the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which the GOP says will save taxpayers $400 million over ten years. You-Cut is a weekly program sponsored by GOP House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (VA) in which several federal programs are selected for cutting, and online voters decide which one to pick.

Bishop warns of threat to society without the Bible

Bishop warns of threat to society without the Bible | News | The Christian Institute: At a symposium on the Bible, Rt RevdRichard Chartres, who gave the sermon at last month’s Royal Wedding said: “The economy and politics must have ground beneath them. In Britain that ground has been biblical since our earliest days – and you do not sacrifice that without sacrificing much of what has been built upon that ground.” The Bishop also commented that concepts such at dignity and tolerance would be “very difficult to sustain without a Christian ground.”

CHBD: Scandal of Bioethics conference

Historic Abortion Ban Passes Alabama Senate

Historic Abortion Ban Passes Alabama Senate - Christian Newswire: The Alabama Senate Bill, SB301, passed the Senate 23-7. Last minute changes to the bill changed it from a personhood bill, which would have banned all abortions, to a ban of all surgical abortions and many chemical abortions. If the bill passes the House, it will be the first time in state history that all surgical abortions will be outlawed since Roe v. Wade.

Activist Confronts Culture of Death in Azerbaijan

Pro-Life Activist Confronts Culture of Death in Azerbaijan | LifeNews.com: Azeris adore babies, and stare with incomprehension at anyone who says that they do not want children, yet three out of four Azeri pregnancies end in abortion. This nation also suffers from the highest sex imbalance among newborns in the world due to sex-selective abortions. Abortion is simply a way of life here. There is no controversy over it, and questioning it is met with the same reaction as if you ask why people eat or sleep. This is the result of decades of living under the most anti-life regime in history. Evil is at first resisted, then tolerated, then accepted and finally becomes banal, just part of everyday life.

Oprah and God

Oprah Winfrey's farewell episode was appropriate for the woman whose remarkable emotional genius captured a large audience, but whose pseudo-Christian philosophy proved a source of confusion and frustration for conservative Christian America. While apparently espousing Christianity, Winfrey has also promoted New Age spirituality and homosexuality, and sided with the abortion lobby.

During the final show Wednesday, the famous host credited “my team and Jesus” for her success. She signed off with the statement, “To God be the glory” - but not before she addressed one final word to critics regarding her broad use of that name. “For all of you who get riled up when I mention God and you want to know which God am I talking about, I’m talking about the same one you’re talking about,” she said. “I’m talking about the Alpha and Omega, the omniscient, the omnipresent, the ultimate consciousness, the source, the force, the all of everything there is, the one, the only G-O-D. That’s the one I’m talking about.” LifeSiteNews

Genetics journal reveals dark past

Genetics journal reveals dark past - USATODAY.com: ' Three generations of imbeciles is enough,' thundered Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in the 1927 Buck vs. Bellcourt decision, legalizing forced sterilizations nationwide.

A triumph of the 'eugenics' movement, which aimed at breeding 'better' humans, the decision was embraced by dozens of states, from Virginia to California, leading to more than 60,000 forced sterilizations by the 1960's. The sterilizations were aimed at ensuring no offspring for poor people exhibiting 'feeblemindedness, epilepsy, criminality, insanity, (and) alcoholism,' among other 'unfit human traits,' in the words of Yale historian Daniel Kevles.

Marriage reduces childhood poverty by two thirds

Marriage reduces childhood poverty by two thirds: study | LifeSiteNews.com: A paper entitled "Marriage and Economic Well-Being," shows that married couples are better off economically than persons in any other family structure. The paper reports that only 5.8 percent of married families were living in poverty in 2009.

Charitable Organizations and their Positions on the Life Issues

| ALL.org: American Life League researched organizations to learn their current positions on the following:

• Fetal tissue, cell or organ use when that tissue is acquired from direct abortion done at any time during nine months of pregnancy
• Human embryo research and/or experimentation
• Human embryonic stem cell research and/or experimentation
• Human cloning

Skin cells 'turned into neurons' by US scientists

BBC News - Skin cells 'turned into neurons' by US scientists: Unlike other approaches, the process did not involve the reprogramming of the skin cells into stem cells, but rather the direct transformation of skin cells into neurons.

Marius Wernig, an assistant professor of pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, was one of the researchers. 'We showed that it is possible to convert human skins cells directly into nerve cells which look and behave like nerve cells which usually only exist in the brain. It was known that it was possible to change a specialised cell back into a stem cell, what's called an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS), but it was not known whether a specialised cell could be pushed into another direction, other than backwards.'

A 21-Week-Old Baby Survives and Doctors Ask, How Young is Too Young to Save?

A 21-Week-Old Baby Survives and Doctors Ask, How Young is Too Young to Save? – TIME Healthland: Last month, a baby girl widely considered the most premature European baby ever to survive left a German hospital and headed home. Frieda Mangold was born more than four months early, at 21 weeks and five days. She weighed a smidge over a pound.

Her twin, Kilian, succumbed at six weeks to heart and intestinal complications, but Frieda slowly soldiered on. Her doctor at the Fulda Children's Clinic, Reinald Repp, said there was “no indication that she will not be healthy,' and described her survival as a “medical miracle.”

Yet what exactly constitutes a medical miracle is unclear. Any premature baby is at risk for complications — the tiniest of the tiny even more so. News of Frieda's birth and her tenaciousness after five months of neonatal intensive care has raised an issue that is discussed in medical circles out of clinical necessity, yet rarely reaches beyond hospital confines: how young is too young to save?

France set to uphold curbs on embryonic stem cells

France set to uphold curbs on embryonic stem cells | Reuters: France looked set on Thursday to maintain its curbs on human embryonic stem cell research after the conservative government fought off a parliamentary bid to liberalize the country's bioethics law.

Gov't lying about abortion funding?

Gov't lying about abortion funding? (OneNewsNow.com): Jim Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League, reports that Brookings documents that in the fiscal year 2001, for example, the federal and state governments financed over 186,000 abortions at a cost of $576 apiece. 'This is really interesting because all this year, we've been told that no government money goes to pay for abortions, and yet it has for years,' Sedlak notes. So the report 'puts a lie' to the government's ongoing statements.

Group Straddles Line Between Religion and Planned Parenthood

Group Straddles Line Between Religion and Planned Parenthood | News - Indiana Public Media: The Indiana Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is pro-religion and pro-choice. Interim president Carolyn Meagher sees the protest signs as a scare tactic.

“I think those [graphic abortion] signs are there to shock and scare people, to make people feel shame and guilt about decisions they may make about their childbearing,” Meagher said. “And I think when the extreme faction wants to show pictorial images, I think they’re trying to shame and scare people and make people feel guilty, and like they’ve created a sin, and what they’re doing is wrong.” Meagher said her group attempts to represent not a majority view, but that of several pluralities which she thinks aren’t as incompatible as some may think.

Social Conservatives to Play Major Role in 2012 GOP Primary

Social Conservatives to Play Major Role in 2012 GOP Primary | LifeNews.com: Evangelical Christians represented a majority of 2008 GOP Primary voters in 11 of the 29 states in which exit polls were conducted. In Iowa and South Carolina . . . evangelicals provided exactly 60 percent of the vote. In 10 other states, including many outside the Deep South, evangelicals represented between one-third and 46 percent of the vote.

"Illegal" Babies Abducted by Chinese Population Control Officials

"Illegal" Babies Abducted by Chinese Population Control Officials | Population Research Institute: This practice of child abduction has recently been confirmed by the Chinese government. According to a report in the Caixin Century magazine, authorities in the southern Chinese province of Hunan have begun investigating a report that population control officials had seized at least 16 babies born in violation of strict family planning rules, sent them to state-run orphanages, and then sold them abroad for adoption. “Before 1997, they usually punished us by tearing down our houses for breaching the one-child policy, but after 2000 they began to confiscate our children,” the magazine quoted villager Yuan Chaoren as saying.

Two genders, one image

FRC Blog » Two genders, one image: Two genders, one humanity, one divine image stamped upon it. The two genders of humankind are biologically complementary and designed, in the context of marriage, to multiply the race. Without such a distinction, human sexuality would be reduced to painfully absurd categories.

Chapel to open opposite North Dakota’s only abortion clinic

Chapel to open opposite North Dakota’s only abortion clinic: devoted to prayer to end abortion | LifeSiteNews.com: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fargo will open a prayer chapel in the vicinity of North Dakota’s only abortion facility – with the sole purpose to serve as a place for prayer to end abortion.

Vatican Cardinal warns of ‘silent apostasy’; says Catholic charities must evangelize

Vatican Cardinal warns of ‘silent apostasy’; says Catholic charities must evangelize | LifeSiteNews.com: In an address to the General Assembly of Caritas International today, Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Vatican dicastery dealing with the church’s charitable institutions, stressed that the main mission of all Church groups, charitable groups included, was to bring people to Christ. “Today, dear Friends, the tragedy of modern mankind is not lacking clothing and housing. The most tragic hunger and the most terrible anguish is not lack of food,” he said. “It’s much more about the absence of God and the lack of true love, the love that was revealed to us on the Cross.”

Chris Spielman talks to Ohio State University students about abortion

Spielman tackles issue of abortion at pro-life event - Campus - javascript:%20idleCursor(); - The Lantern - Ohio State University: Stefanie Spielman was on a medication during one of her earlier battles with cancer when the doctor informed her that she was pregnant with her fourth child. She was told no child had ever lived after birth when the mother was on this particular medication, and that she could either go off the medication and try to have the child, or have an abortion.

After prayer and discussion with his family, Spielman said he placed the decision in God‘s hands, though his initial reaction was to protect his wife. With the family's faith, Stefanie went through with the pregnancy.

'I'm happy and humbled to say that baby girl is playing softball tonight as a beautiful, bouncing 8-year-old,' Spielman said. 'The moral of the story is this: I believe we change people's hearts, minds and souls not through hatred or intimidation. Like you, I hate the act of abortion, but we have no right to hate a single person.'

What Is the Right Spirit of Correction?

What Is the Right Spirit of Correction? - Answers in Genesis: "Are we defending according to the authority of God’s Word if we defend arrogantly? Galatians 6:1 says we should correct an erring brother with a spirit of gentleness. Gentleness! Has the word “gentleness” ever appeared to you as being authoritative? When the Word of God tells us to do something with gentleness, it says so with full authority. Defending the Christian faith from error within is vitally important, yet we are commanded to do so in a winsome, gentle manner.

Parents of “genderless” baby criticised for parenting methods

Parents of “genderless” baby criticised for parenting methods | LifeSiteNews.com: Parents of 4 month-old Storm decided before the baby was born to keep their child’s gender a secret as a “tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation." David Stocker and Kathy Witterick of Toronto have chosen a lifestyle for themselves and their three children that takes their own liberal upbringing to a new level. Criticized by family and friends, they believe they are challenging social and conventional norms in a progressive and positive, although difficult, way by the very approach they take to their lives and raising their children.

Albert Mohler commentary: The Myth of the Genderless Baby

More Highlights from the Gallup Poll: Americans Becoming Much More Anti-Abortion

Americans Becoming Much More Anti Abortion » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: Since 1994, Gallup has also asked those who think abortion should be legal under certain circumstances to say whether it should be legal in “most” or “only a few” circumstances. On this basis, Americans are rather conservative in their stance on abortion, with 61% now preferring that abortion be legal in only a few circumstances or no circumstances. By contrast, 37% want abortion legal in all or most circumstances.

AUL analysis

Evolution and Logical Fallacies - Free Audio Download

Evolution and Logical Fallacies - Audio Download - Answers Bookstore: In addition to reviewing numerous logical fallacies, Dr. Lisle gives examples of how evolutionists often use fallacious arguments in arguing for their position. Learning to recognize these fallacies provides a whole new opportunity for defending the faith and arguing for the truth of creation.

Abortion and the State of America

Abortion and the State of America | The Effective Pregnancy Resource Center: If man is the crown of creation made in the image of God but fallen from grace in rebellion against His ultimate authority, then every man, atheist and believer alike must be protected as image bearers. This has ramifications on how we view not only ourselves but also how we treat one another, what we believe to be right and wrong (think abortion, euthanasia, etc), how we raise our children and the beliefs we instill within them. To stifle the belief that we are made in the image of God is to remove the invisible protection afforded by the expectation that belief requires of others to speak and act on behalf of those that cannot do so for themselves.

Tennessee: House OK puts abortion measure on 2014 ballot

Tennessee: House OK puts abortion measure on 2014 ballot | timesfreepress.com: State House members today approved a referendum allowing Tennessee voters to decide in 2014 whether the state constitution protects abortion rights. The vote was 76-18 to approve Senate Joint Resolution 127, which is intended to nullify a 2000 Tennessee Supreme Court ruling and give state lawmakers the ability to impose some restrictions on abortions allowable under federal rulings.

Outlawing Abortion: Making the Case for an Incremental Approach

Outlawing Abortion: Making the Case for an Incremental Approach | LifeNews.com: One abortion is one too many. On this all pro-lifers agree. Gerard Nadal has been party to this discussion with several pro-lifers from around the country; here he explains the incrementalist’s position and its internal logic.

Americans Still Split Along "Pro-Choice," "Pro-Life" Lines

Americans Still Split Along "Pro-Choice," "Pro-Life" Lines: Americans are closely divided between those calling themselves 'pro-choice' and those who are 'pro-life,' now 49% and 45%, respectively, in Gallup's 2011 update on U.S. abortion attitudes. This is similar to a year ago, when 45% were 'pro-choice' and 47% 'pro-life.' However, it is the first time since 2008 that the 'pro-choice' position has had the numerical advantage on this Gallup trend. Nevertheless, 51% say abortion is "morally wrong," while only 39% say it is "morally acceptable.

Still, as LifeNews notes, "By a 24 percent margin, 61-37 percent, Americans take the pro-life view that abortions should either be legal under no circumstances or legal only under a few circumstances."

Free PDF book: Charismatic Chaos by John MacArthur (Portuguese)

Charismatic Chaos (Portuguese) (5/24/2011): This book was published in Portuguese by Editora Fiel in Brazil. Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource. Click the image to open a PDF document containing the publisher information.

Fertility doctor 'deceived IVF parents'

Pele fertility doctor 'deceived IVF parents' - Telegraph: Roger Abdelmassih is on the run from police after being convicted of sexually assaulting or raping 39 female patients at his clinic. New evidence gathered by police and public prosecutors suggests that many of the 8,000 babies born after IVF treatment by him and his team may not be the biological children of the couples raising them.

IVF clinics charging 'scandal'

Winston calls for action against IVF clinics in charging 'scandal' | News: IVF clinics in London are 'cashing in' by overcharging patients who want to store frozen embryos, according to a top fertility doctor. Clinics are advised to use one embryo at a time to reduce the health risks connected to multiple births, but couples desperate to conceive often choose to freeze embryos for future use.

Lord Robert Winston, the fertility treatment pioneer, said that some clinics were taking advantage of these 'one at a time' regulations. He revealed that one clinic charged £915 for embryo freezing plus £325 for storage in liquid nitrogen which 'costs a few pence a liter'.

Senate blocks radically liberal, pro-abortion judge nominee

Senate blocks radically liberal, pro-abortion judge nominee | LifeSiteNews.com: For the first time since President Obama took office, the Senate GOP has managed to block one of his federal court appointees, defeating the radically pro-abortion University of California-Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu. Liu is so liberal even former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel thought his record was too controversial for appointment.

Veto looms over Minnesota late-term abortion ban

Veto looms over Minnesota late-term abortion ban | LifeSiteNews.com: The Minnesota Senate has approved a bill that would limit late-term abortion to 20 weeks on the basis of fetal pain; however, Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton is almost certain to veto the measure.

Billion dollar babies of the human genome

Billion dollar babies of the human genome - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences: The Human Genome Project deciphered the entirety of the human genetic code in just over a decade. Though science and medicine will take some time to sift through all of this information and make hay of it, the project, which cost US taxpayers nearly 4 billion dollars, has already had a tangible impact on the US economy by jumpstarting the booming genomics industry.

Along with all of the supporting suppliers and technology companies, the industry has spawned hundreds of thousands of jobs and helped drive a total economic impact of nearly $800 billion, according to a study released May 10.

Get to Know: Creating Access for All

Creating Access for All (Access): Imagine you are preparing to attend your local church. You envision your family becoming involved only to discover your family is not welcome in your House of God. How can this be? For many of the 54 million persons with disabilities in the United States, this is reality. Most churches do not embrace those impacted by physical, emotional, or intellectual disabilities.

One in 5 persons has a disability in the United States. The question then is...what do we need to do to remove the existing barriers permitting access for all to God and His love?

Romney Health Care Speech at Center Doing Embryonic Research

Romney Health Care Speech at Center Doing Embryonic Research | LifeNews.com: Mitt Romney will present his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare in a speech at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center at a time when the university is under criticism from pro-life groups for performing and promoting embryonic stem cell research.

First IVF Clinic in Nation With In-House aCGH Embryo-Testing Technology

PRC Is First IVF Clinic in Nation With In-House aCGH Embryo-Testing Technology -- LOS ANGELES, May 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --: Pacific Reproductive Center, a southern California fertility medical practice founded in 1996, announced today that it is the first private in vitro fertilization clinic nationally to open an on-site laboratory with breakthrough technology – microarray comparative genomic hybridization – for analyzing human embryo chromosomes within 24 hours. The technology brings unprecedented levels of new hope for intended parents facing chronic infertility, repeated miscarriages, and increased risk of birth defects. Now scientists at PRC will be able to analyze all 23 chromosomes in an embryo within 24 hours. Historically, geneticists have had success in locating some genetic abnormalities in embryos but not in all chromosomes.

Editor: In other words, they'll be more effective weeding out "defective" embryos.

Nation's Second Participant Enrolls In Human Embryonic Stem Cell Trial

Nation's Second Participant Enrolls In Human Embryonic Stem Cell Trial: Researchers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago recently enrolled their first subject in a national clinical research trial of a human embryonic stem cell-based therapy for participants with a subacute thoracic spinal cord injury. This is only the second enrollment nationwide in the study sponsored by Geron Corp. Northwestern is one of five sites currently open for subject enrollment. The trial will enroll up to 10 subjects nationally.

Few 'evangelicals' believe Jesus is the only way

According to a Pew Forum study, only 36% of evangelical Protestants can say with confidence, "My religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life," while 57% think many religions have the answer.

Editor: Can you even be an evangelical and think that?

Most Say Homosexuality Should Be Accepted By Society

Most Say Homosexuality Should Be Accepted By Society - Pew Research Center: While the public is divided over same-sex marriage, a majority of Americans (58%) say that homosexuality should be accepted, rather than discouraged, by society. Among younger people in particular, there is broad support for societal acceptance of homosexuality. More than six-in-ten (63%) of those younger than age 50 -- 69% of those younger than age 30 -- say that homosexuality should be accepted. Far fewer of those ages 50 and older (52%) favor societal acceptance of homosexuality.

Sudden Death for a Challenge to Federal Funding of Human Embryonic Stem-Cell Research

Sudden Death for a Challenge to Federal Funding of Stem-Cell Research | Health Policy and Reform: The case now returns to Judge Lamberth for decision. Because the appeals court opinion strongly supports current NIH guidelines as consistent with Dickey–Wicker, it will be difficult for Lamberth to do other than rule in favor of the NIH. However he decides, his opinion is likely to be appealed again, but since the case would go back to the Court of Appeals, whose views on its merits are now abundantly clear, it is reasonable to conclude that for all practical purposes the legal challenge to the NIH guidelines is over.

Related: Human Embryonic Stem-Cell Research under Siege — Battle Won but Not the War

Adult Stem Cells Touted as Curing AIDS

Adult Stem Cell Success: Cells Touted as Curing Man's AIDS | LifeNews.com: As we approach the 30th anniversary of the discovery of HIV, the AIDS virus, the story of the “Berlin Patient” is captivating. Timothy Ray Brown has experienced a functional cure of his AIDS due to a targeted adult stem cell transplant.

Gay journalist: Let’s face it, we want to indoctrinate children

Gay journalist: let’s face it, we want to indoctrinate children | LifeSiteNews.com: While gay activists usually deny that they want to indoctrinate children one activist says, “let’s face it—that’s a lie. We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it. Why would we push anti-bullying programs or social studies classes that teach kids about the historical contributions of famous queers unless we wanted to deliberately educate children to accept queer sexuality as normal?”

“Evolution Made Me Do It!” No Excuse For Powerful Men’s Cheating Ways

“Evolution Made Me Do It!” No Excuse For Powerful Men’s Cheating Ways » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog Time magazine blames scandalous behavior on evolution.

First U.S. Patient Enrolled In Stem Cell Transplantation

First U.S. Patient Enrolled In Stem Cell Transplantation: In this study, individuals randomized to receive stem cells will have their stem cells harvested from their own bone marrow in the operating room while they are under anesthesia. After the bone marrow cells are harvested, doctors perform the bypass procedure. The cells are simultaneously processed to separate stem cells from bone marrow. After performing the bypass, the surgeons then inject the stem cells into the subject's heart, and the procedure is complete.

Our constitution: How many know it?

Nat Hentoff: Thomas Jefferson often insisted that the ultimate guardians of our rights and liberties are We The People. But when many Americans are largely ignorant of the Constitution, an imperial president -- like George W. Bush or Barack Obama -- can increasingly invade our privacy; and now, with Obamacare, ration our health care and -- for some -- our very lives.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's Apologists Are a Narcissist Clique

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's Apologists Are a Narcissist Clique - The Daily Beast: The aftermath of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest puts the French [so-called sophisticated] approach in a different light. Rather than evidence of liberality, the silence that protected Strauss-Kahn seems like a conspiracy allowing a powerful man to prey on powerless women.

Women, do you know what guys think about modesty?

UN Calls for Population Control as Global Birthrates Decline

UN Calls for Population Control as Global Birthrates Decline | LifeNews.com: Last week the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs released a projection that the world population will reach 7 billion on October 31 of this year. The UNFPA used this as an opportunity to call for more family planning services in order to decrease fertility rates worldwide. This is a not so subtle call for more population control.

This is a false alarm. Birthrates are already dropping worldwide. Many countries have fertility rates that are well below replacement rate.

Peril, promise in induced stem cells

Peril, promise in induced stem cells - USATODAY.com: 'Science, in the very act of solving problems, creates more ,' wrote educator Abraham Flexner, the father of the modern medical school. No fool, Flexner. Consider the latest problems that medical researchers face with one scientific solution — induced stem cells.

Bartolo Colon's stem cell procedure nothing new

Bartolo Colon's stem cell procedure nothing new - David Epstein - SI.com: Judging from the blogosphere it seems the use of stem cells to treat the Yankee pitcher is being characterized as the potentially nefarious aspect of the treatment. If stem cells open a new can of worms, then it should have been opened a long time ago. And we'd better add a bunch of other players who have had a stem cell procedure to the scrutiny list.

Editor: Why is it that a writer for Sports Illustrated can more accurately describe the differences between adult and embryonic stem cell research than most science reporters in the mainstream media? Kudos David Epstein!

Zurich voters reject ban on suicide tourism

Zurich voters reject ban on suicide tourism | Reuters: Voters in Zurich overwhemingly rejected on Sunday proposed bans on assisted suicide and 'suicide tourism' -- foreigners traveling to Switzerland to receive help ending their lives.

The Swiss Evangelical People's Party, which had supported the bans, said it regretted the outcome but was pleased it had prompted so much discussion.

Nice Guys Finish First

Nice Guys Finish First - NYTimes.com: The story of evolution, we have been told, is the story of the survival of the fittest. The strong eat the weak. The creatures that adapt to the environment pass on their selfish genes. Those that do not become extinct.

In this telling, we humans are like all other animals — deeply and thoroughly selfish. Yet every day, it seems, a book crosses my desk, emphasizing a different side of the story.

"I am here to wonder at it"

Ernst Haeckel: "Nature . . . is eternal unity in manifold manifestation. The great is little, and the little is great, and everything after its kind. . . . I am here to wonder at it."

Five Signs the Pro-Life Cause Is Winning

Five Signs the Pro-Life Cause Is Winning: Interpreting polls and laws and cultural trends, the author finds five reasons to believe that we have reached a tipping point on the abortion issue.

Editor: The author only takes the American scene into account. I think he would come to some different conclusions if he looked worldwide, where developing countries are far behind whatever lead we may have on the abortion issue.

What to Wear and Not Wear

True Woman | What and What Not to Wear: In 1 Timothy 2:9, the Lord provides three guidelines that help Christian women figure out what and what not to wear: “She adorns herself with respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control.” Let’s examine these three guidelines to help us ensure that our looks are in good order, properly arranged, and ready to display Christ.

Related: Christian modesty is simply a refusal to show off, out of love for God and one’s neighbor.

There's one born every day

Dana Milbank: Donald Trump made [fools], first, of Republican primary voters. The man who campaigned for abortion rights and universal health care in his last whimsical campaign suddenly proclaimed himself to be anti-abortion and anti-Obamacare -- and conservatives bought it. An April CNN poll found Trump tied for first place in the Republican presidential field.

Seeds of compromise on personhood

Conflict Of Interest: From the foundation of the United States of America, our leaders have repeatedly and deliberately failed to understand that personhood is intrinsic to being human. Starting with the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, here is a brief history of decisions, at the highest level of our government, that legalized 'wickedness in high places,' 1 legitimized man's inhumanity to man and licensed licentious behavior.

The Three-Fifths Compromise was a deal between Southern slave states who wanted to preserve slavery and the Northern states who wanted to preserve the union, where three-fifths of the population of slaves would be counted for enumeration purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives. The three-fifths compromise is found in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America. Even today, compromise is a legislative model embraced by both the Pro-Abortion and Pro-Life movements.

My daddy's name is adoption

BioNews - My daddy's name is adoption: Elizabeth Marquardt testified before the Australian Senate: 'But I also want to make clear that - even with openness - the problems [allegations that donor-conceived children are more prone to social and legal trouble] do not completely go away. There seems to be something else about knowing that the person who raised you also deliberately denied you your other parent before you were even born'.

To those who know about donor conception, the words 'deliberately denied you your other parent' are striking. They seem to allege a wrong. This is no accident of wording, but a foreshadowing of Marquardt's agenda of condemning all donor conception on the grounds that it denies the child access to his or her biological parents. This might be a respectable position, if Marquardt didn't simultaneously praise adoption, despite the end result being the same.

Prayer for Louisiana pro-life initiative

Home Page A friend writes to request prayer for house bill 587 in the State of Louisiana. "There is a committee hearing next week on the bill and it would ban all abortions in the state. Please pray for the representative John Labruzzo, the leaders, the lawyers, the process and of course the unborn. We have a website for the bill hb587forlife.com . Thank you."

Debt and the Birth Dearth

Debt and the Birth Dearth | Acton Institute: A number of important trends were revealed by the latest Census data, but none more important than the dynamic between demographics, economics, and morality. Yet the connection between the birthrate and American debt has been overlooked, in part because the nearly 10 percent increase in U.S. population from 2000 to 2010 hides the underlying drop in birthrate to its lowest levels in nearly a century.

On “the Unborn,” the Media, and the Conscience

FRC Blog » On “the Unborn,” the Media, and the Conscience: The mass media can't help itself. In ordinary stories, the personhood of the child pops up in the simple reportage of stories of the day. However much the pro-abortion movement has sought to shape the language of popular culture and public education, the fact that the little ones in the womb are, in fact, people, keeps intruding itself into public discourse.

PA House passes bill that would tighten abortion-clinic rules

Pa. House passes bill that would tighten abortion-clinic rules - Philly.com: A bill that would impose strict inspection and operating regulations on abortion clinics passed 148-43 after two days of fiery debate over issues cracked open this year by a grand jury's revelations of horrific conditions inside a Philadelphia abortion clinic that went uninspected for years. The House proposal's fate is unclear in the Senate, which is working on a bill that is viewed as less onerous to facilities that perform abortions.

Missouri Sends Post-Viability Abortion Ban to Pro-Abort Gov

Missouri Sends Post-Viability Abortion Ban to Governor Nixon | LifeNews.com: Should the bill become law, it requires abortion practitioners to determine if the unborn child is viable and if the baby is determined to not be viable the abortion practitioner would have to issue a report to the state health department indicating so and explaining why. The Senate made a few last-minute changes making it so two doctors not affiliated with the abortion practitioner must certify a danger to the life of the mother before an abortion can be done.

Letters to the Editor Count Twice . . . and Multiply!

Letters to the Editor One letter costs nothing yet reaches hundreds of readers or viewers while also influencing policymakers, pundits, reporters and editors. You'll reach many compassionate, interested people with one letter. You can change hearts and minds, inspire action, or give hope and options to those already hurt. One letter to the editor is considered to represent the views of hundreds of others who share similar views, but didn't take time to write. Politicians, policymakers, media and media watchdogs take note of new, respectfully presented and factually supported information.

Who invented bioethics?

Rijeka Declaration on the Future of Bioethics The textbooks say that there are two contenders, both Americans: Van Rensselaer Potter, an oncologist, and Sargent Shriver, a benefactor of the Kennedy Institute. They independently coined the term in 1970. However, it appears that they were trumped by a German pastor and philosopher, Fritz Jahr, by decades. In 1927 Jahr published an article entitled "Bio-Ethics: A Review of the Ethical Relationships of Humans to Animals and Plants" in the German magazine Kosmos. He wanted to extend Kant's categorical imperative to all forms of life, not just humans. He wrote: "So that the rule for our actions may be the bio-ethical demand: Respect every living being on principle as a goal in itself and treat it, if possible, as such!"

Reprogrammed cells trigger immune reactions in mice

Reprogrammed cells trigger immune reactions in mice : Nature News: Cells that have been reprogrammed to grow into different types of tissue might be rejected by the body — even when they are transplanted into the individual from whom they are made, researchers report in a study published today in Nature. It will shake up the regenerative-medicine field, because until now, most scientists have assumed that reprogrammed cells made from an individual's own tissue could be safely transplanted back into the same person.

So now we're all earthlings?

Risky Rescue: Saving Pets From Japan Exclusion Zone

Risky Rescue: Saving Pets From Japan Exclusion Zone : NPR: The owners of the Japan Animal Rescue shelter say it's their philosophy that humans and dogs should be treated as equally as possible.

Editor: Human unexceptionalism run amok.

AUL successes in the states start rolling in | Americans United for Life | AUL.org

AUL successes in the states start rolling in | Americans United for Life | AUL.org: Americans United for Life has had several successes in the last 24 hours as state legislatures hit crunch time where bills are either passed or passed over for the year.

Early evil: The legalization of abortion in Russia, 1920

Article: On November 20, 1920, the nascent Soviet government released what it termed a simple “public health announcement.” The statement, a missive intended as law, proclaimed a new, fully-funded program for women: legalized abortions, available free of charge at state-run hospitals. By keeping abortions high and the birth rate low, Soviet leaders and their sycophants hoped to keep more women in the labor force, economically viable and controlled by the state. The legalization of abortion in the Soviet Union emerged as but one important facet of a systematic extermination program of a theologically-grounded social morality . . . with disastrous results.

Mothers, parents urged to get help as heartache reveals dark side to surrogacy

Mothers, parents urged to get help as heartache reveals dark side to surrogacy | News.com.au: A mother's torment at handing her biological baby over to a gay couple has highlighted the pitfalls of surrogacy without psychological counselling, experts say. The woman, dubbed 'Rosie' to protect her identity, conceived the boy using sperm from one of the men, after agreeing to be a surrogate, but is struggling to cope after relinquishing the child to the couple.

Social Involvement without the Social Gospel

Social Involvement without the Social Gospel – Baptist Bulletin: Some Regular Baptists fear a social gospel for the wrong reasons. The danger does not come from churches providing a community-wide food pantry for the poor or helping single mothers find employment. Rather, the hazard sets in when we let our theological guard down by not aggressively applying the doctrines of our faith to the social crises of our day. If churches are to create compassionate social ministries in their communities, they must have a robust theology actively functioning as boundary lines. If not, the social gospel will eventually do away with the good news that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”

As long as people distort the doctrines of the Christian faith, there will be a social gospel. Yet believers do not need to be wary of church-based compassionate social ministries that may compel a pagan world “by [our] good works which they observe, [to] glorify God in the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12). Rather we should fear the consequences of ignoring sound doctrine and refusing to apply our theology to the social issues that plague our world.

Related: A Neighborhood Missionary

Pastor Uses Parable To Defend Abortion

Pastor Uses Jesus Parable To Defend Abortion | Blogs | NCRegister.com: In an article reflecting on Easter, Reverend Matthew Westfox of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice took one of Jesus’ parables out of context to force a pro-abortion defense. He did so in an article on his reflections on Easter. He wrote:

A pro-life stance cannot concern itself only with the life of the woman. In the parable of the sower, Jesus reminds us that seed alone does not bring about new life — that all aspects of the conditions into which the seed are cast must be suitable to sustain life. If there is not enough light or too many weeds or other circumstances that make the ground unfit, the seed will not grow. The story reminds us that respecting and honoring life means doing all we can to create the conditions that will allow life to flourish — while at the same time respecting and accepting that some conditions are not suitable to sustaining life. We do no service by trying to force life into places where the ground is not right.

Editor: The parable is, of course, not talking about unborn human life at all. Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 8:11 that the seed is the word of God, and the point of the parable is new life in Christ resulting from the sowing of the word in good soil.

Too many customers?

Too many customers? | LifeSiteNews.com: Several years ago, Steve Mosher went toe-to-toe with Buffet — and won. The occasion was the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. He had introduced a resolution designed to stop company funds from being spent on population control and abortion campaigns. "I told them how the Population Research Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making the case for people as the ultimate resource. The population bomb was one of the myths of the 20th century. Our long-term problem is not going to be too many people but too few."

Human trafficking of snatched ‘illegal babies’ reported in China

Human trafficking of snatched ‘illegal babies’ reported in China | LifeSiteNews.com: According to a report, family planning “enforcers” in the Hunan city of Shaoyang have seized at least 20 children over the past ten years. The children were supposedly born in contravention of China’s one-child-policy birth quota, and were sold to a local child welfare center for about 1,000 yuan ($154), who in turn listed them as orphans available for overseas adoption at $3,000 each. Some of the children now live in the U.S., the Netherlands and Poland and have never met with their Chinese parents since being seized and sold for adoption.

Creation: Science Confirms the Bible Is True - FREE Video Download

Creation: Science Confirms the Bible Is True - Video Download - Answers Bookstore: In this new video, Creation: Science Confirms the Bible is True, astrophysicist Dr. Jason Lisle (Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder) systematically dismantles Darwin’s claims and shows that the very things Darwin used to propagate his ideas actually undermine them! Dr. Lisle also refutes the dating methods most commonly used to support the evolutionary timeline (billions of years). This video clearly shows that God’s Word is the final authority in all matters on which it touches—science included!

Why they do it

FRC Blog » Why they do it: We keep thinking we will “learn something” in delving into the twisted psyches of vicious killers. Observing “anniversaries” of mass shootings, employing the term “massacre,” and calling them the biggest, the worst, the most only incites hate-filled and violent killers.

Fetal development: How the face forms

‘Stop thinking of her as a person’

‘Stop thinking of her as a person’: a page from Planned Parenthood’s dating playbook | LifeSiteNews.com: On their Facebook page yesterday, Planned Parenthood posted a New York Times op-ed written by a young man as he fights to overcome his solid moral upbringing. He's advised to stop thinking of his girlfriend as a person.

Abortion is ‘worse than ordinary murder’

Abortion is ‘worse than ordinary murder’ says Korean bishop | LifeSiteNews.com: Bishop Gabriel Chang Bong-hun of Cheongju, Korea explained during a sermon on the country's first Sunday of Life that abortion is worse “because it is committed by the parents of the victim and the medical staff that is supposed to protect life. It is a brutal crime against a defenseless human being and must be condemned without question.”

Antiabortion bills: Measures flood state legislatures

Antiabortion bills: Measures flood state legislatures - latimes.com: The measures now under consideration in dozens of states reflect advances in technology and a political cycle that has reempowered a reliably antiabortion bloc — conservative Republicans — on the state and federal levels.

Europe's largest stem cell clinic shut down after death of baby

Europe's largest stem cell clinic shut down after death of baby - Telegraph: The clinic had come under increasing scrutiny following the death of an 18-month-old boy in August last year. The child, who was from Romania, was injected in the brain with stem cells but suffered internal bleeding. The treatment involved taking bone marrow from patients, harvesting stem cells from the bone marrow and then reinjecting those stem cells into other parts of the body.

Killing off marriage?

Killing off marriage? Dr. Ablow reports — you decide | LifeSiteNews.com: Dr. Keith Ablow (psychiatrist and a member of the Fox News Medical A-Team) thinks that marriage is “a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people.” It's a "dying institution" — and he celebrates its death.

Choice, autonomy and eugenics: Thoughts on preconception genetic testing and screening

BioNews - Choice, autonomy and eugenics: Thoughts on the HGC's report on preconception genetic testing and screening: "Although prenatal diagnosis will mean that some pregnancies do not continue to term, no couple making this decision would want to be labelled as having rejected a child. Couples in this no-doubt difficult situation are using prenatal diagnosis to choose not to raise a child with a particular condition, not to avoid having a particular child."

Editor: Another example of a difference without a distinction?

Free download: Try Before You Buy sexual purity brochure

Is saving sex for marriage just an unattainable and unrealistic biblical ideal? Or is it true wisdom from God? Stand to Reason is making this helpful brochure by Greg Koukl available for free download.

The Top 10 Resources for Digital Evangelism Month

The Top 10 Resources for Digital Evangelism Month | Evangelism.net: This month is Digital Evangelism Month and this coming Sunday, May 15th, is specifically Internet Evangelism Day. Here are ten resources that can help us reach those in our online spheres of influence.

Editor: I can't vouch for the quality of these sites.

A doctor explains why he quit doing abortions

Testimony of Dr. Paul Jarrett, Former Abortion Provider: "After studying science, I had come to an agnostic position with respect to God. Without a foundation of absolute truth, and under the influence of my peers, and based on my own experiences, I decided to do what was right in my own eyes and perform first trimester abortions for poor women at Wishard. I would be a good soldier and do my duty. A doctor's duty, I believed, was to do everything in his power to fix what was wrong with his patient. I believed in applying this medical solution of abortion to a societal problem of unwanted pregnancy."

Stem Cells and “Reasonable Interpretations”

Stem Cells and “Reasonable Interpretations”: Determining congressional intent may seem like a long reach from interpreting divine providence, but in the final analysis they both call on the most sincere and consistent exercise of flawed human judgments. Two recent examples, both involving embryonic stem cell research, remind us that science is creating new challenges for the moral life that we must confront in spite of these all-too-human limitations.

Editor: It seems ironic somehow that this writer is pleading human frailty while arguing in favor of human exploitation.

Stem Cell Trial Gets $25 Million

Spinal Cord Injury Stem Cell Trial Gets $25 Million Award From CIRM: A human embryonic stem cell Phase I Trial for patients with spinal cord injury is to get a $25 million award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. This is the first clinical trial based on cells derived from human embryonic stem cells that has been approved by the FDA, and also the first time CIRM has funded stem-cell derived therapy research. The trial is run by the Geron Corporation.

Born in the USA

Youngstown News, Born in the USA: Laurie Thompson is about as American as it gets. The same cannot be said for the 14-week-old twins in her gently protruding belly. Conceived with a donor’s eggs, they are the children of a same-sex couple from Spain who turned to Thompson because paid surrogacy is illegal in their country.

Calling animals 'pets' is insulting, academics claim

Calling animals 'pets' is insulting, academics claim - Telegraph: Animal lovers should stop calling their furry or feathered friends “pets” because the term is insulting, leading academics claim.
Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.

Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest. The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue.

Editor: Can animals be insulted? Is it an insult to call them "animals"?

Dennis Howard crunches abortion numbers

Which is worse? A slave population that grew by 466% in the 70 years between 1790 and 1860, or the genocidal slaughter of 4.67 times as many Blacks in the last 40 years as lived in these United States in 1860. Surely, that wasn't what Abraham Lincoln had in mind. 

The ethnic breakdown of this total includes: 34,085,480 Whites, 17,183,630 African Americans, and 2,562,490 "Hispanic or Other."

The total of 17,183,630 Black abortions is 69.7% of the under-40 Black population and 43.1% of the total Black population. Both are devastating percentages, especially when you realize that 61.8% of all Blacks are under 40. No doubt about it, this is a younger population that is being devastated by abortion. For comparison, White abortions account for 26.25% of the under-40 White population and just 13.8% of the total White population. Conflict of Interest

Make abortion unthinkable . . . in 3 steps

http://strplace.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/make-abortion-unthinkable-in-three-steps/

John MacArthur: Who Is a Murderer?

Who Is a Murderer? (4/29/1979): The Pharisees said if we don't murder we're righteous. Jesus said your righteousness has to exceed that. Not murdering is not enough. . . . And Jesus gives them a teaching here about murder that's literally shocking, it is devas­tating, and it affects them in three ways, and it affects us the same three. It affects their view of themselves, God, and others. What Jesus is going to say is so dra­matic it'll shatter all of their comfortable categories. They had convinced themselves because they didn't kill anybody they were holy, they were righteous. Jesus blows that concept to bits.

Can the World Feed 10 Billion People?

Can the World Feed 10 Billion People? - By Raj Patel | Foreign Policy: The world's demographers this week increased their estimates of the world's population through the coming century. We are now on track to hit 10 billion people by 2100. Today, humanity produces enough food to feed everyone but, because of the way we distribute it, there are still a billion hungry. One doesn't need to be a frothing Malthusian to worry about how we'll all get to eat tomorrow. Current predictions place most of the world's people in Asia, the highest levels of consumption in Europe and North America, and the highest population growth rates in Africa -- where the population could triple over the next 90 years. There are, however, plans afoot to feed the world.

Profane speech disqualifies Trump

Dennis Prager: "The audience's reaction is even more important — and more distressing — than Trump's use of the word. Had there been booing, or had someone who invited him arisen to ask that he not use such language, or had some of the women walked out, the good name of the Republican Party and of conservative values would have been preserved. But if Republican women — and I emphasize both the party and the gender — find the F-word used by a potential candidate for president of the United States amusing, America is more coarsened than I had imagined."

Editor: Trump was speaking to a gathering of GOP women's groups in Las Vegas.

Abortion killed entire generation of students

Abortion killed entire generation of students, says candidate for university president | LifeSiteNews.com: There’s a troubling reason for the low number of domestic applications to major universities in the United States, says professor Krzystztof Silwa, a candidate for the presidency of the of University of Puerto Rico: the applicants have been killed. “Do you know what is happening in the United States? In 1973, they established legal abortion. More or less 50 million abortions have been committed or done in the United States, which means that they have killed an entire generation in the United States,” Silwa told the university’s Search Committee. “At the moment we don’t have students. We are asking for them to come almost on our knees,” he added.

New Hungarian Constitution recognizing life ‘from conception’ signed into law

New Hungarian Constitution recognizing life ‘from conception’ signed into law | LifeSiteNews.com: Last week, Hungarian President Pal Schmitt signed a controversial new constitution into law that includes a provision for the protection of unborn life “from conception” and the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. While the new constitution easily passed in the Hungarian Parliament by the governing majority, it was without any participation from the smaller opposition party who walked out before the vote. The Council of Europe, UN staff and non-governmental organizations are also questioning its legitimacy.

Does the Bible teach that life begins at conception?

Does the Bible teach that life begins at conception?: God reveals to us in His Word that not only does life begin at conception, but He knows who we are even before then (Jeremiah 1:5). King David said this about God's role in our conception: 'For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb . . . your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.' (Psalm 139:13, 16).

Churches in clash over embryo call Churches in clash over embryo call.

Churches in clash over embryo call - The West Australian: A call by West Australia's chief medical officer to allow the creation of embryos using genetic material from three people has polarised WA's two major church groups. The Anglican Church has supported a submission that politicians need to consider changing the law to allow medical experts to create embryos free of some genetic diseases. But the Catholic Church urged parliamentarians to reject the move.

Feds suing more pro-life activists

The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has taken a harder line against anti-abortion activists accused of trying to block access to clinics, suing at least a half-dozen of them under a federal law that lay mostly dormant during the Bush administration. Government records obtained by The Associated Press show that in slightly over two years, the Obama Justice Department has filed six lawsuits under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, mostly to seek injunctions and fines. That compares with just one such lawsuit during the entire eight years of George W. Bush. MSNBC

Social change Planned Parenthood-style

Celebrate Life Magazine: Just when you think you’ve heard it all, the news from Planned Parenthood gets even worse. Its recent sex educators’ conference paints a picture so repulsive that it cries out for God’s justice to rain down. PP has also embarked on a brazen campaign to destroy innocent children’s first and last line of defense: their parents’ God-given impulse to protect them.

Christian Band, Texas in July, plays for Planned Parenthood

Christian Band, Texas in July, plays Tack Action Concert Tour that benefits dangerous pro-abortion website promoting the cover up of a child rape of a runaway by Planned Parenthood. « Social Justice Begins in the Womb – Daily Pro-life Updates from the BK Lounge: Several popular bands including the Christian rock band Texas in July are playing a benefit tour for the pro-abortion sex education site, sexetc.org. This is a so-called ‘sex education’ website providing “sex education for teens by teens.” The site promotes abortion, speaks out against crisis pregnancy centers as well as promoting LGBT support for kids. It also provides “how to” information for teens to engage in homosexual sex acts.

Unintended Consequences — The Cost of Preventing Preterm Births after FDA Approval

Unintended Consequences — The Cost of Preventing Preterm Births after FDA Approval of a Branded Version of 17OHP | Health Policy and Reform: At a time when so many people are working to deliver on the promise of the “affordable” aspect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, can there be any justification for driving up the cost of an available medication from about $300 to $30,000 — about a 100-fold increase — with minimal added clinical benefit? Tragically, such a startling escalation will result from the Food and Drug Administration approval of a new version of an agent for preventing preterm birth.

A difference without a distinction

Mark's Blog: "I recently heard a guest on a political talk-show trying to defend taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood by saying that we should worry less about abortion and concentrate on helping people who are 'already here.' For those of us in the pro-life movement, it's an argument we've heard regurgitated a million times before. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it's complete nonsense. The biological reality is that the unborn are already here."

Obama threatens veto on bill ending taxpayer funded abortion

Obama threatens veto on bill ending taxpayer funded abortion | LifeSiteNews.com: The Obama administration has threatened a veto of HR3, set for a House vote Wednesday that would ensure an end to taxpayer funding for abortion in all parts of the federal government. “The Administration will strongly oppose legislation that unnecessarily restricts women’s reproductive freedoms and consumers’ private insurance options,” said the White House in a statement. “If the President is presented with H.R. 3, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.”

News from Baptists for Life of Wisconsin

Gene Green, executive director, reports: "We rejoice in the Lord for the precious souls that are saved almost weekly at one of our four Baptists for Life of Wisconsin pregnancy care centers. There were 65 professions of faith in 2010 at these centers and 14 are being discipled in the Word of God and now attend a local Independent Baptist Church like yours. We are currently working with pastors in two other areas for potential new pregnancy care centers."

Should pro-life Christians rejoice over the death of Osama bin Laden?

A blogger posed a query about whether it's a contradiction to be pro-life and hail the death of a killer, and here's my comment:

It’s not a contradiction to feel satisfaction — not joy — when justice is carried out. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.” (Genesis 9:6) This passage states that it’s for the very reason that human beings are made in the image of God — the sanctity of human life — that capital punishment is proper. It is not a denial of the sanctity of human life, but the ultimate defense of it.

Rendering justice is the proper role of government, not individuals. It’s never to be carried out gleefully, but soberly, with fear. “It is appointed to a man once to die, and afterwards face judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27) Death isn’t the worst fate; falling into the hands of God is.

I would also add that our satisfaction should contain a note of sadness, too, because bin Laden's death does not bring back those we lost. There's a sense of finality, but it's always tempered by reality.

The pro-life garment is seamless, but not in the way that some propose. Capital punishment is not a violation of the biblical sanctity of human life ethic but its profoundest expression. Being pro-life does not mitigate against all killing; being a pro-life Christian means we view death as an end but not THE end.

Thoughts?

Rep. Ron Paul writes about abortion

Rep. Ron Paul announces his presidential exploratory committee; writes about abortion – In the Arena - CNN.com Blogs: "On one occasion in the 1960s when abortion was still illegal, I witnessed, while visiting a surgical suite as an OB/GYN resident, the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately two pounds.

"It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice.

"Soon the crying stopped. This harrowing event forced me to think more seriously about this important issue.

"That same day in the OB suite, an early delivery occurred and the infant born was only slightly larger than the one that was just aborted.

"But in this room everybody did everything conceivable to save this child’s life. My conclusion that day was that we were overstepping the bounds of morality by picking and choosing who should live and who should die.

"These were human lives. There was no consistent moral basis to the value of life under these circumstances."

Black leaders differ on abortion

On Monday, April 11th, 2011, Mayor Gray along with six city council members were arrested on Capitol Hill. They were demanding that Congress re-institute the availability of U.S. Taxpayer dollars to kill unborn Black children while at the same time demanding that Congress kill federal funding of school choice which rescues Black children from failing public schools.

Over the past decade the D.C. Mayor and City Council have failed to collect "$347.4 Million" in Medicaid reimbursements. According to Washington Examiner's Harry Jaffe, "the inability to collect Medicaid funds is neck and neck with the public school system's miserable record of educating our children for scandalous government dysfunction." Medicaid which is only available to low-income individuals and families makes it possible for low-income individuals and families to get the health care they need. However, according to TBD's Amanda Hess, "28 women who had scheduled Medicaid-Funded Abortions at a District Planned Parenthood clinic today have been left without a means to pay for the [abortion] procedure." According to D.C. Abortion Fund President Tiffany Reed, D.C. City Councilman Jim Graham personally pledged $250 to help pay for medicaid abortions and even pulled an "All-Nighter" in hopes of drumming up enough donations to cover one day's worth medicaid abortions (i.e., about 28procedures) for one Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. Conflict of Interest

Washington, D.C., a city that is 52.7 percent African-American, has one of the highest abortion rates in the country. There are 265 abortions for every 100 live births, according to Guttmacher Institute statistics.

Responding to Mayor Gray’s street theater, a coalition of 10 African-American pastors from D.C. and the suburbs composed an open letter to the mayor.

The letter also promises a cooperative effort by the pastors to open a new pregnancy center in Washington, using private funds, “so that women have life-affirming and healthy alternatives to abortion.”

These Guttmacher statistics ought to shock: The number of black babies in the United States killed by abortion between 1973 and 2010 was 17.24 million. That’s a rate of 574,000 per year. Compare this to the number of blacks killed by lynching in America between 1864 and 1968 (4,946, or 47.7 per year). LifeNews

May/June prayer calendar now available!

Download our May/June prayer calendar and join us praying for pro-life ministries around the world.

Eric Hoffer: Human Exceptionalist

Eric Hoffer: Human Exceptionalist » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: When you assert that humans are just another animal in the forest, only one part of nature–rather than to a degree separated from and above it–when you create the “rights of nature” or the moral worth of animals to be coequal with those of humans, you fundamentally dehumanize us. When you dehumanize, you shatter human exceptionalism. When you shatter human exceptionalism, you subvert the necessary foundation that undergirds universal human rights and human freedom.

Q: What’s the truth about “races”?

Ken Ham answers: When I first moved to the USA 24 years ago, I was shocked at the racism and prejudice I observed in certain churches in some parts of the country. This sort of racism and prejudice was mainly centered around the shade of one’s skin—dark and light. I was also amazed that the American church has not been leading the way in recent times in dealing with racism. Then I began to realize more and more that so much of the church had compromised the book of Genesis or had ignored its history, and they concentrated on moral and spiritual matters pertaining to the New Testament and largely pushing the Old Testament aside. I now understood why the church was not leading in this important area. Download One Race, One Blood free!

Ban lifted on funding for embryonic stem cells

Ban lifted on funding for embryonic stem cells - Health - Cloning and stem cells - msnbc.com: Opponents of taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research lost a key round in a U.S. appeals court Friday. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the court of appeals in Washington overturned a judge's order that would have blocked federal financing of stem cell research. The judges ruled that opponents are not likely to succeed in their lawsuit to stop the government funding. The White House praised the ruling.

Does God whisper?

The notion that each Christian can receive personal revelation from the Almighty was novel in times past. Nowadays, though, listening to Christians talk about it, the experience appears to be ubiquitous. Virtually everyone seems to be “hearing from God” in some fashion these days—pastors, writers, worship leaders, even the regular folks at our weekly Bible studies—so the basic idea must be right.

But is it? Must I “hear the voice of God” in order to know what He wants from me, as the author above suggested? Is this what Jesus meant by, “My sheep hear My voice,” or what Paul meant by being “led by the Spirit”? And what if I hear nothing but silence when I listen? Does this say something about my spiritual well-being? Am I living a substandard Christian life if I don’t have a hot-line to God? Addressing those concerns and more like them is so important that Greg Koukle is making them the focus of the next three issues of Solid Ground.