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Why he is pro-life: "I believe we need to consistently oppose killing, from abortion to assisted suicide, and for me personally, that includes the death penalty and war. I believe everyone deserves the chance to live and make something of their life. After the worst days of my life, I know I am glad I am still alive to find a brighter day - and I believe that simple human right should be respected for everyone."
Elisa Cooper, Second Rock for Life Tour Age: 20 Home: Northern Virginia Email:ejcooper@liberty.edu
Interests: Making/studying/viewing art, traveling and experiencing new places like a local, all that is psychology, children and ministering to them, spontaneity, feeling small and weak in front of a mighty God and learning more about God
Favorite bands: House of Heroes, Anberlin, Copeland, Mutemath, Sufjan Stevens, Relient K, Mae, David Crowder Band
Interests: Pro-life apologetics, pro-life activism, feeding my ead, rock/metal/electronica, Kansas Jayhawk basketball, the great outdoors, conservative talk radio, watching Pixar movies with my boys
Why he is pro-life: "I cannot understand how anyone can reject the prevailing philosophical arguments, deny the theological certainty and ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence in favor of life. Human rights, including freedom, justice, and equality, are not reliant upon arbitrary differences such as gender, race, religion, nationality or AGE, but are instead based solely in our common HUMAN NATURE."
RFL needs your help to cover the cost of gas to all the festivals. Please donate to help keep the life-saving summer tour on the road! Donate at the Rock for Life Cause Facebook Page by clicking "Donate."
DEADLY HONESTY: A RESPONSE TO RH REALITY CHECK Posted: Friday June 26, 2009 at 7:06 am EST by Kortney Blythe
By Kortney Blythe
For those of you who don’t know, RHRealityCheck.orgis a radical pro-abortion web site mostly consisting of blogs/rants about abortion. They put out a weekly podcast, which mostly just attacks pro-lifers and spouts misinformation.
Now that I’m able to keep up with the happenings in the pro-death camp, I half-enjoy, half-despise reading their articles. On the one hand, it keeps me abreast of what the extremists are saying, but on the other hand, it is infuriating when they lie AND when they tell the truth.
Case in point: Two articles recently posted on the web site accurately reported things said by people on both sides of the debate. Ironically, their honesty revealed an even darker side of the pro-death camp.
The first article, written by user name “cpc_watcher,” discussed former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s appearanceon The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The author of this blog called Huckabee “a seasoned expert” in arguing for the pro-life side and worried because she didn’t think Stewart was a worthy opponent. Interesting. Are you worried that someone unschooled in “choice” rhetoric will reveal your weak justification for child killing? After spouting a few ad hominem (personal) attacks against Huckabee, the author admits that Huckabee “invoked biology to make his point.” Here’s his quote:
I believe life begins at conception, when 23 chromosomes from a male and 23 from a female create a unique DNA schedule that has never existed before, has an imprint that is unlike any that has ever been… Biologically and scientifically, it is irrefutable that that’s when life begins. Now, some would argue is it human life? But what else can it be? It’s not a dolphin; it’s not a stalk of broccoli. I mean it has to be human life because of the cellular structure…”
She finds this scientific response ironic because, in her mind, Huckabee is anti-medical science. How does she respond to his biological argument? “I was just short of yelling at my iPod, screaming at Stewart to refute his so-called ‘scientific facts’ right there on their air.” Now, make up your mind, cpc_watcher. Either he’s using scientific facts or he’s not. If not, then please correct him using logic, not emotions.
Abortion advocates depend on emotional appeals, misinformation and personal jabs to make their case. While conceding that Huckabee made “some very powerful… arguments against abortion,” that ellipsis (…) in the quote is where the author claims these arguments are inaccurate.
Her defense for this claim is that ACOG (the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) defines pregnancy as beginning only after implantation is complete, not at the actual biological beginning of a person, as Huckabee asserts. Unfortunately, she’s telling the truth. This fact is why doctors can legally deny that chemical birth control and emergency contraception can end the life of a child. In 1965, ACOG officially changed the definition of pregnancy, opening the door to a host of misinformation that, to this day, deceives well-meaning people into comfortably ingesting fatal chemicals.
The writer makes a few other ridiculous statements, such as “that a zygote is a human life because it will not turn into anything is especially frustrating… [and] full of holes; should we be treating Huckabee like a corpse? Because given enough time and biological process, he’s not likely to turn into anything else.” WHAT?! No one is claiming that a HUMAN zygote should have his/her personhood recognized because s/he will turn into a human, but because s/he already IS!
You may recall that many abortion supporters say that “no one likes abortion” and “everyone” wants to “reduce the number of abortions” because it’s an ugly procedure. Not so, says cpc_watcher. The only reason they really want to reduce abortion is because it’s “an expensive, no-fun medical procedure, something we should avoid not because the procedure is bad or wrong, but because prevention is, well, easier.”
This leads me to the second article. This one was written by Heather Corinna, a sex education activist who has had an abortion and worked in an abortion mill. Refreshingly, but also frighteningly, she writes about the common things “pro-choice” people say to abortion opponents, in an attempt to find common ground, that just aren’t true. As an activist and pro-life educator, I’ve heard these statements countless times from defenders of abortion. Keep in mind the myth and the response are both coming from a pro-abortion blogger. This is not an extensive list.
Myth #1: No woman wants to have an abortion. Corinna: “Many women, if not most, who choose abortion want to have one.”
She admits that many women feel pressure from those around them to make certain decisions regarding pregnancy. But, she proclaims, coerced abortions are “unacceptable.” Why, then, do abortion advocates fight, with voracious ferocity, laws that would regulate coercion?
Myth #2: No woman has an abortion casually. Corinna: “Some women DO have abortions in a way you or I might call or see as casual. For some women, having an abortion is not a big deal, is not upsetting, is not something she feels carries a lot of weight for her.”
This myth is one I heard quite frequently while doing activism on college campuses. Student A would snidely say myth #2. Then, a few minutes later a female college student, Student B, would pass by and say something to the effect of, “I had an abortion and I don’t regret it at all. I’m glad I did it.” Obviously, this response contradicts what student A just said. So, at least Corinna is honest. What’s sad is that any woman would let her precious child be ripped limb from limb and feel ambiguous or nonchalant about it. Only the seared conscience of a nation could result in women not mourning for their dead children.
Myth #3: If everyone had access to birth control and all the methods we had were 100% effective, all pregnancies would be wanted and we would have no abortions. Corinna: “Many women would still want and need abortion.”
This myth is along the same lines of the “you should be giving out condoms if you really want to end abortion” mentality. Thank you, Corinna, for pointing out that no matter how much birth control is out there, selfish people will still demand a “backup plan" in case they change their mind about wanting a child. Our society has become so self-centered that the very life of a child is given or taken at will.
Myth #4: Abortion is a bloody, ugly, brutal, painful procedure. Corinna: “Any surgical procedure usually involves blood. Most involve pain or discomfort… I have yet to see an abortion procedure I’d describe as brutal or violent.”
Corinna, you’re missing the point! You’re comparing necessary, ethical, lifesaving surgeries to the unethical, life-ending surgery of abortion. The blood involved in a lifesaving surgical procedure is your own blood, and you’re still alive when the surgery is over. The blood you saw when you worked in a mill was the blood of a separate person, and this person was dead after the surgery! The pain in an ethical surgery is only temporary and fades with time. Pain after an abortion is physical, psychological and spiritual, and it never goes away.
Saying you’ve never seen a brutal or violent abortion is like slave owners who said African Americans were happy being slaves. From the oppressor’s perspective, everything is copacetic. But if you look at it through the eyes of the victims, in this case the preborn children, it is nothing but brutal and violent. Like those who fought to outlaw slavery, we must be abortion abolitionists and keeping fighting until abortion is no more and personhood is legally recognized for all.
excellent excellent response. couldn't have said it better myself! what really touched me was the point that our society is so self-cenetered we can give or take the life of a child at will. SO TRUE and HORRIFYING!!!! A child's life means NOTHING to so many people..and that means your life and my life mean nothing either! no wonder so much violence persists in our culture. Sarah | June 28, 2009 9:02 am
(Make sure to tune in so you can hear Erik and Kortney comment on these news stories.)
Feature:
Erik interviews Darren Elder of The Wrecking
We also play two pro-life stories Erik collected from the road.
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I HAD TO KISS MY CHILD GOODBYE Posted: Tuesday June 23, 2009 at 1:40 pm EST by Erik Whittington
I had to kiss my child goodbye
Posted By Theo Purington on Jun, 23 2009
In October of 2006 I found out I was going to be a Father. My girlfriend of 6 months was pregnant with our child. Neither of us planned this pregnancy, or had even talked about ... Read
Watching this video, Choices, filled me with righteous indignation and prompted me to write this blog.
Not only because the video implies that abortion is a viable option for Christians, particularly if the baby has a “birth defect,” but also because it makes it seem as if telling a friend that you will “walk with her” as she kills her child is a loving thing to do. The loving thing to do is speak the truth, and the woman portrayed in this video should have followed Proverbs 31:8: "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves."
She makes the statement "This issue [of abortion] was more black and white for me before, because there wasn't a story, or a person or a face connected to it..."
Then, apparently, she never REALLY believed in the personhood of the preborn. If she had truly been opposed to abortion, the "face" of that precious "person" in the womb would have made abortion more than an “issue” and would have compelled her to love that child. Her love for ALL persons involved should have overcome her fear of losing her friends by voicing her disapproval.
When considering how to handle the situation, she asked herself, “What’s the most important thing to me in this relationship?” In other words, what’s more important - a baby’s life or a friendship? Her answer was “to have the relationship”. But in Proverbs 27:6, the Bible tells us, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” In other words, it is worth causing temporary tension in her friendship because, for heaven’s sake, a person’s life is on the line!
In the video, she said she used to think, “You’re supposed to choose life, no matter the cost.” But suddenly, when faced with an actual abortion situation, she reevaluated her stance. Why are people so quick to choose convenience and comfort over truth and boldness?Instead of consulting the Word of God about her struggle, she only did what “felt” right.
She forgot about Proverbs 14:12 (“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death”) and Acts 5:29 ("We must obey God rather than men!”). Had she convinced her friends to allow their child to live, the blessings for all involved would have been tremendous. One only has to watch this video to be reminded of the joy of caring for a child with a disability.
In this moving video clip, titled 99 Balloons”, one can see what happened when a couple chose to obey God and love their miracle baby. They were told he may not even survive to birth, but they left God in control and prayed that they might have the privilege of knowing him, even if only for a short time.
Every one of his 99 days alive outside of the womb were celebrated and cherished. This couple sacrificed for their child and considered him a precious gift from God. Despite the intense attention it took to care for baby Eliot, his dad called his feeding shift “the best part of my day”.
While the woman in the first video said she still struggled with the decision to support her friends’ “choice” to abort, admitting that she still goes back and forth wondering if it was right, there was no guilt or regret in the second couple’s decision to love Eliot until his natural death.
The first video didn’t say what the “severe birth defect” was that compelled the couple to end their child’s life, but you can’t get much more severe than Trisomy 18/Edward’s Syndrome, which is what Eliot had. And yet, look at what an impact his short, beautiful life had.
“An underdeveloped lung, a heart with a hole in it and DNA that placed faulty information into each and every cell of your body could not stop God from revealing himself through a child who never uttered a word. Not a pulpit, not a slick presentation, not a best-selling book, but a 6 pound boy with Trisomy 18 God found great pleasure to take a lowly thing in the eyes of the world and show truth.”
Jeff McLain, Tour Manager
Jake McDonnell, a.k.a. Wut the Metaphysical
Keith Ashley, RFL Kansas (Director)
Katie McLain, Long-time volunteer
