The Human Difference

« The Human Difference Commentary Magazine: It is only fitting that modern biotechnology should be raising anew ancient questions about man’s standing among the animals. The trouble is, however, that modern biology has also left us bewildered about how to think through such questions, precisely because it has left us bewildered about man himself. At the very moment when our technological cleverness is increasingly enabling us to blur the boundary between man and the other animals, we lack the clarity of the ancients about what sets man apart.

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Human Personhood Begins at Conception

Print an Article: Human Personhood Begins at Conception: The personhood of the fetus, is triply crucial. It is crucial for abortion, abortion is crucial for medical ethics, and medical ethics is crucial for the future of our civilization.

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Baptists split on NC gay marriage ban

Associated Baptist Press - Baptists split on NC gay marriage ban: The Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated Baptist State Convention of North Carolina was one of several faith groups who backed the amendment under an umbrella campaign called Vote for Marriage NC.

More progressive Baptist voices, meanwhile, said the amendment was about more than just marriage. Opponents cited larger issues including religious liberty and unintended consequences the amendment might have on people like single mothers. Three Baptist organizations -- the Alliance of Baptists, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America and the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists -- opposed the amendment in an unprecedented joint campaign titled “Many Voices, One Love.”

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Sex and the Seamless Garment

Sex and the Seamless Garment | First Things: Both supporters and critics of the “consistent-ethic-of-life” have made the same mistake Cardinal Bernardin did in his original lecture: limiting the debate to abortion and social justice issues. This ignores the entire dimension of human sexuality, which is so critical to God’s plan for humanity. The same Gospel that calls us to seek peace and help the poor, the sick and the persecuted, also enjoins us to live morally pure lives, and not sin sexually. The consequences of sexual immorality, like neglect of the poor or militarism, are devastating, and profoundly damage our culture and souls.

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Chen Guangcheng Documented 7,000 Forced Abortion Cases

Chen Guangcheng Documented 7,000 Forced Abortion Cases | LifeNews.com: Almost every Chinese family has been impacted in some way by the loss of a loved one because of the one-child per family policy. Virtually everyone in China is missing a son or a daughter, or a brother or a sister because some Communist Party hack found out that their wife or mother was pregnant with an “illegal” second or third child, arrested them for the “crime” of being pregnant, and took them in against their will for an abortion.

Chen documented 7,000 such cases, taking down the names and addresses of those women who were victimized, as well as the particulars of the officials who committed these crimes.

Latest: Chinese authorities tighten restrictions on blind activist’s extended family in his rural town

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Nazi eugenics ‘still alive’

Vatican newspaper says Nazi eugenics ‘still alive’ - The Washington Post: Proponents of euthanasia and aborting chronically ill fetuses use the same arguments that were once used by the Nazis to promote their eugenics program of mass extermination, according to the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper. "Contempt for imperfect human life, over estimation of the abilities of science” are “still firmly present in our time,” and this shows that “eugenics is still alive and has not been wiped out together with the Nazi past."

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Blinding us with science journals

Blinding us with science journals: A competitive university culture that discourages the sharing of knowledge has led to the publication of many flawed and fraudulent studies.

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Here's one I made earlier

Daily Mail: Making organ donation a thing of the past - the British lab growing human spare parts.

Get to Know: Relationships Under Construction

Curriculum: Relationships Under Construction, RUC, is written to be part of a community-based abstinence program that is multi-faceted. RUC can stand alone but is even more effective when a community-based plan is implemented.

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Ben Carson's creationist views spark controvery over commencement speech

Ben Carson's creationist views spark controvery over commencement speech - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post: Nearly 500 professors, students, and alumni of Emory University signed a letter expressing concern that Carson, as a 7th Day Adventist, believes in creationist theory that holds that all life on Earth was created by God about 6,000 years ago. It rejects Darwin’s theory of evolution, which is the central principle that animates modern biology, uniting all biological fields under one theoretical tent, and which virtually all modern scientists agree is true. The letter’s authors are not seeking to have Carson disinvited. Instead, they say it was written to raise concerns about his anti-scientific views.

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No, Bioethicists Can’t Ride to the Rescue

No, Bioethicists Can’t Ride to the Rescue » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: The bioethics movement had ambitions to influence life and public policy well beyond its sphere of influence in medicine and health-related laws and regulations.

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Sorry, We Started Debating Without You

Sorry, We Started Debating Without You. | Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform: Shockingly, it turns out that increasing amounts of Canadian young people aren’t buying the philosophically inept and scientifically bankrupt worldview of an outdated pro-“choice” movement.

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Support the Big Tent of the Democratic Party

Petition I Support the Big Tent of the Democratic Party: If your a pro-life Democrat, sign here to support more inclusive language on abortion in the Democratic Party platform.

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De-Funding Planned Parenthood Helps Poor Women Get Health Care

De-Funding Planned Parenthood Helps Poor Women Get Health Care | LifeNews.com: Planned Parenthood tirelessly claims that without its facilities, low-income women will be doomed and unable to obtain affordable health care services. Just the opposite is true: not only is defunding Planned Parenthood and reallocating said funds to Federally Qualified Health Centers more economically beneficial, but it will allow more low-income women and families to obtain truly comprehensive health care.

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Chen: Thugs beat my nephew ‘ruthlessly’

Chen: Thugs beat my nephew ‘ruthlessly’ | LifeSiteNews.com: Meanwhile, Chinese officials have told him they would help him complete the forms needed to obtain a passport and enter the United States on a student visa, “I don’t know if they are actually doing that,” Chen said.

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Did God create life on other planets?

Did God create life on other planets?: Those who believe life evolved on the earth usually see it as virtual ‘fact’ that life has evolved on countless other planets. Discovering life on other planets would in turn be seen as confirming their evolutionary belief. But even many Christians think, ‘God must have created life elsewhere, otherwise this enormous universe would be an awful waste of space.’ In my experience, this seems to be the major underlying reason why people think that there must be other life 'out there'. However, our thinking should be based on what God said He did (the Bible), and not what we think He would, should or might have done.

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GOP foiled as funds flow to Planned Parenthood

GOP foiled as funds flow to Planned Parenthood - Washington Times: Newly empowered Republicans in states across the country are pushing to kill public contracts with Planned Parenthood, only to find their efforts blocked by the Obama administration and federal courts.

In New Hampshire, the administration circumvented officials by awarding a $1 million grant directly to the nation’s largest provider of abortion services after state officials blocked a grant to the organization.

Every federal district court that has ruled so far has sided with Planned Parenthood. That has helped the administration, which has threatened to cut off states’ Medicaid funding if they refuse to work with the organization.

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Unborn visitors must register for White House tour

No Birth Certificate Required | Washington Free Beacon: The White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child—still residing in utero—must be counted as a full human being when its parents register for a White House tour, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

White House Visitors Office director Ellie Schafer sent an email to a Capitol Hill staffer Tuesday morning explaining the process for registering an unborn fetus for a White House tour:

We have received a number of calls regarding how to enter security information for a baby that has not yet been born.

Crazy as it may sound, you MUST include the baby in the overall count of guests in the tour. It’s an easy process.

Related: Critique of NRLC Press Release “A studied effort to miss our point”
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What Churches Can Do to be a Meaningful Witness Against Abortion

CBR / What Churches Can Do to be a Meaningful Witness Against Abortion: 8+ suggestions

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Southern California Pastor Calls Children a Liability and Endorses Birth Control

Southern California Pastor Calls Children a Liability and Endorses Birth Control: Last week, in his week-day podcast and radio show "Pastor's Perspective" on K-WAVE, Chuck Smith, founding pastor of Calvary Chapel and respected evangelical leader in Southern California, came out with a plug for birth control, calling children a liability and -- more out there still -- attempted to back it up with Scripture

Related: Pastor Chuck Smith Stuns Radio Listeners by Encouraging Woman to Abort

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Pro-life centers to open in southeast Queens, upper Manhattan

Pro-life centers to open in southeast Queens, upper Manhattan  - NY Daily News: A group of clergy and anti-abortion activists from across the city are planning to open up pro-life centers in neighborhoods with high rates of abortions. The Leadership Coalition is slated to open the New Beginnings Center of Hope in Jamaica, Queens, by the end of the year. It will offer counseling, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and adoption referrals. The group plans to open a similar pregnancy support center in Harlem in 2013.

Related: NYC abortion ratio by zip code

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Science proves life begins at fertilization

ANNE JOSEPH: Science proves life begins at fertilization » Standard-Times: Because of science and advances in our knowledge about DNA, we now know that at the moment of fertilization, a new and unique human DNA sequence is established that is different from both the mother's DNA and the father's DNA. Hence, we now scientifically know that any new life within the woman's body is in fact not the woman's body tissue. Because of DNA studies we can now know that the decision to have an abortion is not "just" a matter of a woman making a decision about her own body (the way that she would decide to undergo breast reduction or have liposuction).

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President Obama Refers to Abortion at First Re-election Rally

President Obama Hits Romney Directly at First Re-election Rally - ABC News: “We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood, or taking away access to affordable birth control,” he said.

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Both Chastity and Contraception: A Sacred Compromise?

Both Chastity and Contraception: A Sacred Compromise | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction: "Encouraging contraception is hardly the first, best, or only way to respond to premarital sex that may lead to unintended pregnancy, but it is a valuable tool in the abortion reduction toolkit."

Editor: Just as there's no such thing as being "a little bit pregnant," there's no such thing as 99% pure. As one commentator on this article wisely noted (just in case anyone's asking), God's will is clear on this: "Abstain from sexual immorality" (1 Thess. 4:3).

The Church cannot compromise on this biblical issue. We do, and we lose any moral authority we might have. We lose the power of purity. And we mislead people into thinking sin doesn't hurt.

The author begs the questions when she says that the abstinence message has been handed down in a way that stifles conversation or ignores reality. So, okay, let's do a better job presenting the message of purity, but let's not turn "love" into a condom.

Oh, by the way, studies show that contraception doesn't bring the abortion rate down.

Related: 
How can we prevent abortion?
Why churches shouldn't push contraceptives to singles

Should we boycott China?

Got this email this morning, probably in response to all that's been in this space about Chen Guangcheng:

When are the anti-abortion church groups going to realize the way to stop State-mandated abortions in China is to BOYCOTT China's goods and importers (no more Walmart) to economically get them to change on their one-child policy. As an added plus it would create US jobs.

Here's my reply: 

Thank you for writing. I agree that pro-life Christians should boycott entities that promote or profit from abortion, but more as a moral decision than as a tactic of change. Boycotts may result in change, and that would be all for the good, but I can’t be certain that a boycott of China, for instance, will get them to abandon their one-child policy.

Baptists for Life is founded on the belief that the only means of real change is transformation of individual human hearts through salvation in Jesus Christ. China is a dark, godless country. It’s not just a matter of policy, but of its leaders being under the influence of the Enemy. So, while I believe it’s right not to invest in China, we ought not put our hope in the power of the dollar. We need to pray for change in China, and for the persecuted Chinese Church (Hebrews 13:2).