“If they make a mistake, I don’t want to punish them with a baby.”  Senator Barack Obama uttered these words recently at a Democratic presidential campaign rally.  He was referring to his two young daughters, both under 10 years old.  I could not believe what I heard but was not surprised since Senator Obama has made it very clear that he is very pro-abortion.  Sean Hannity did a fine piece on  the Hannity & Colmes TV show.  Click here to see this YouTube video.  If you do not already know Obama’s position on abortion he is so pro-abortion that, as an Illinois state senator, he voted three times against a bill to protect babies who survive a partial birth abortion.  Let me say it again, because this is breathtaking, if a baby survives a partial birth abortion, that is, it is delivered alive, Senator Obama voted to kill it anyway.  Click here to read this amazing story.

Last Sunday, I held a newborn baby in my arms after visiting a good friend in the hospital who had just had a new baby.  My wife asked me if had ever held a newborn and I had to say that I could not remember that I had. If you’re a mother or a father, you can understand the wonder and awe when you look at that tiny little person.  I don’t know how to describe the feeling but you immediately think of God and the wonder of His creation. I could not help but reflect on what Senator Obama said “that he would not punish his daughter with a baby.”  What insanity! 

When it comes to abortion I often think that I must be from a different planet when I hear nonsense, such as described earlier by Senator Obama.  Good and intelligent people, in their right mind, do not see that an unborn is as human as you and me. Science sees it, the Christian Church sees it, Judaism and Islam see it, but they don’t. How can this be?  The logic is not there. I must be from a different planet.  In the Bible, the Prophet Jeremiah warns his people with these tragic words: “Hear this, you foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear” Jer. 5:21.  Jeremiah also warns Israel of the impending doom if they fail to follow the Lord they would lose their country – and they did. The Babylonians conquered Israel and took the Israelites into exile in 587 BC during Jeremiah’s time. 

This year is an election year in the United States. We’re electing a new President.  The President will appoint judges.  If we elect Senator Obama we will get judges who have his philosophy on abortion – killing them at will, even if they survive a partial birth abortion. No one who is pro-life will even be considered for a judge.  A judge will be on the bench for up to 40 years or more.  Our fellow human babies lives are at stake.  Those of us who understand that the unborn is a precious, helpless human being with all the rights of a person must fight to protect them with all that we can do.  As a soldier in war, we fought to the death for the lives of our fellow soldiers.  We can do no less for the unborn. Our God expects no less.  One of the most important things we can do is to vote for candidates that are pro-life and will act to protect the unborn.  

To vote for a candidate, such as Senator Obama is to cooperate with murder and evil.  This is not such a spectacular claim.  The Catholic Church makes a very similar claim in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes” (2271). The Bible is also filled with prohibitions against killing the unborn: “Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed” (Deut. 19:10).  The influential Christian writings of the First Century AD, known as the Didache, specifically mentions the prohibition against killing of the unborn: “do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.” 

In our legal system if you cooperate with a crime you are as guilty as the party committing the crime.  It is my opinion that God will hold us to the same standard when it comes to abortion.  I may be wrong but can you afford to take the chance that it is not?  Eternity is at stake.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Lake Arrowhead, California for a four-day rest and relaxation with my wife and six other friends.  This weekend has been a yearly event for the last 15 years.  We usually just relax and enjoy a few days away from home, reading, eating, enjoying nature, and chatting.  I read two books on this weekend; one of them was a very compelling book by Star Parker called Uncle Sam’s Plantation.  This is a story of a black woman who rose, like a phoenix, from the ashes of despair, poverty, abandonment, welfare, sex addiction, drug addiction and every thing else you could think of that is not good.  When you read stories such as these you expect that the next thing to happen is that the person will come to a violent end of some kind.  This is not the case with Star Parker.  Her story is one of the most compelling that I’ve ever heard of.  She recounts how she had no less than four abortions, countless sexual encounters and a life of crime.  She overcame all of these and is now a successful businesswoman, writer and speaker. 

The most compelling part is how, after she overcame all the odds she would tell her story to others in her own community and would be shouted down. On a TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, all the guests, including Ms. Winfrey, criticized her heavily for not toeing the victimhood line.  They would have none of her victory from being a “victim.”  If it was not that I’ve heard this type of reaction before, I would be stunned at the reaction she got.  I first heard Star Parker speak at the Values Voters Convention in Washington DC in October of 2007.  Her talk was so powerful and inspiring that she had over 2,600 people on their feet by the time she finished.  Uncle Sam’s Plantation is full of inspiring stories about the black experience and how one can overcome any odds.

One of the things most perplexing to me as I read this book was how, for hundreds of years, for example, an entire nation (the United States) could ignore an entire ethnic group such as Black Americans and call them less than human.  I kept scratching my head to try to enter into the psyche of these people.  The Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott decision in 1857 ruled that blacks were not persons but property.  In the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision in 1896 the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not on the same level as whites as persons and approved racial segregation.  In 1973 in Roe vs. Wade the Supreme Court struck again, saying that the unborn were not only not persons but had no legal rights. 

I often drive my wife nuts with how many times I bring to her attention how I cannot understand how our own friends who go to church with us and are decent and good Christian people can deny the same rights to the unborn, but they do without a blink.  They do this even though science has confirmed that life starts at conception, that the church has had this policy for over two thousand years.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church goes so far as to state that abortion is such a grave evil that anyone who cooperates with it should be excommunicated from the church.  Yet, these good and faithful Catholics ignore this as if they don’t see it.  Is anyone home?  Apparently not.

It is a sad state of the human condition that you can get used to whatever suits you at the time.  Slavery suited the American people for over 200 years.  Good Christians would regularly go to church and think nothing of having slaves or approving of slavery as if was just a common habit and not a dignity of life issue with deep moral consequences.  

In Biblical times when the Israelites were freed from their 400-year captivity in Egypt, God told them to go to the Promised Land and eliminate the Canaanites who practiced child sacrifices and other abominations.  God specifically told the Israelites that He was not giving them the Promised Land because they deserved it but because the Canaanites were so evil.  The Canaanites would throw living infants into the fire as a fertility rite, hoping that this would bring them a good harvest.  Apparently, this practice was justified in the minds of this culture.  The Canaanites were also idol worshipers who worshiped the pagan god Baal instead of the one true God.

I cannot understand, and I guess will never understand, how a human being can be so calloused as to look another human being and say either you are not human or we consider you less than human and we can kill you.  Is anybody home?  Apparently not.