(My family and I are heading out to march today. The weather in Little Rock is overcast and pleasant. Come out and join us.)
Bill O’Reilly Interviews Jehmu Greene About Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad about Tim Tebow
I got these quotes from someone off the internet that lives in England. The funny thing is the video is put to music and the song they picked won a grammy for an Arkansas band that lives in Little Rock. Here is the video clip.
Thou shall NOT kill Exodus 20:1
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb Psalm 139:13
Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you” Jeremiah 1:5
I was cast upon thee from the womb; thy art my God from my mothers belly Psalm 22:10
Abortion is advocated only by people who have already been born Ronald Reagan
If we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people to not kill each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but, rather, to use violence to get what they want Mother Theresa
“In modern Britain the most dangerous place to be is in your mother’s womb. It should be a place of sanctity. Edward Leigh, Conservative MP
Only half the patients who go into an abortion clinic come out alive Author Unknown
“There is no difference between a first, second or third trimester abortion or infanticide. It’s all the same human being in different stages of development. I finally got to the point I couldn’t look at those little bodies anymore” Dr Arnold Halpern
Even as early as 12 weeks a baby is totally formed. He has fingerprints, turns his head, fans his toes and feels pain. But we would say ‘It’s not a baby yet. It’s just tissue, like a clot'” Dr Cathy Sparks
“The doctors would remove the foetus and lay it on the table, where it would squirm until it died. They all had perfect forms and shapes. I couldn’t take it. No nurse could” Joyce Craig
Even though our counselors see six week babies daily, with arms, legs and eyes that are closed like newborn puppies, they lie to the women. How many women would have an abortion, if they told them the truth? Carol Everitt (Abortion Clinic owner)
“I have never known a woman who, after her baby was born, was not overjoyed that I had not killed it” Dr Aleck Bourne
“I hated putting babies in strainers and rinsing them off and putting them in zip-lock bags” Eric Harrah
“They are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t want to have an abortion Dr Randall
“We tried to avoid the women seeing the foetus. They always wanted to know the sex, but we lied and said it was too early to tell. It’s better for the women to think of the foetus as an ‘it’ Norma Eidelman (Abortion Clinic worker)
“Now, the baby I aborted was eleven weeks old, and can you imagine what this did to me when I saw this baby with the hands and face, sucking his thumb? And they told me it was a cluster of cells!” Carole K (State Director of Women Exploited by Abortion)
“My heart got callous to against the fact that I was a murderer – but that baby lying in a cold bowl educated me as to what abortion really was” Dr David Brewer (Former Abortionist)
R-Elkins
Senate District 35
Served three terms in the House; In his first term but second session in the Senate
Committees: Public Health; State Agencies
Special connections: Retired businessman who co-sponsored the measure, approved by voters, to have the Legislature meet every year
How to reach him: E-mail: pritchardb@arkleg.state.ar.us. Cell phone: 479-601-5546. Senate in-session number: 501-682-2902
What you should know: Considered a leading legislator on drug courts and other measures to treat substance abuse. Chaired task forces on substance abuse and was designated by the House and Senate public health committees to write the legislation setting up the state’s system for funding drug courts.
His priority: Expanding the adult drug courts and finding money for juvenile drug counts, and money for substance treatment in general. Beyond that, “Killing bad legislation” and paying special attention to the budget.
Biggest concern this session: Whether serious, needed programs of all kinds survive the tight budget.
Obama finds himself answering for a vote he made back in the Illinois state Senate. See Barack Obama’s exclusive interview with CBN New’s David Brody, and what he says about his views on abortion and the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond to pain. But how many Americans are aware that abortion techniques are allowed today, in all 50 states, that burn the skin of a baby with a salt solution, in an agonizing death that can last for hours?
Another example: two years ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a Sunday special supplement on “The Dreaded Complication.” The “dreaded complication” referred to in the article — the complication feared by doctors who perform abortions — is the survival of the child despite all the painful attacks during the abortion procedure. Some unborn children do survive the late-term abortions the Supreme Court has made legal. Is there any question that these victims of abortion deserve our attention and protection? Is there any question that those who don’t survive were living human beings before they were killed?
Late-term abortions, especially when the baby survives, but is then killed by starvation, neglect, or suffocation, show once again the link between abortion and infanticide. The time to stop both is now. As my Administration acts to stop infanticide, we will be fully aware of the real issue that underlies the death of babies before and soon after birth.
Our society has, fortunately, become sensitive to the rights and special needs of the handicapped, but I am shocked that physical or mental handicaps of newborns are still used to justify their extinction. This Administration has a Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who has done perhaps more than any other American for handicapped children, by pioneering surgical techniques to help them, by speaking out on the value of their lives, and by working with them in the context of loving families. You will not find his former patients advocating the so-called “quality-of-life” ethic.
I know that when the true issue of infanticide is placed before the American people, with all the facts openly aired, we will have no trouble deciding that a mentally or physically handicapped baby has the same intrinsic worth and right to life as the rest of us. As the New Jersey Supreme Court said two decades ago, in a decision upholding the sanctity of human life, “a child need not be perfect to have a worthwhile life.”
Whether we are talking about pain suffered by unborn children, or about late-term abortions, or about infanticide, we inevitably focus on the humanity of the unborn child. Each of these issues is a potential rallying point for the sanctity of life ethic. Once we as a nation rally around any one of these issues to affirm the sanctity of life, we will see the importance of affirming this principle across the board.
Malcolm Muggeridge, the English writer, goes right to the heart of the matter: “Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.” The sanctity of innocent human life is a principle that Congress should proclaim at every opportunity.
It is possible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We need only recall that in Brown v.Board of Education the court reversed its own earlier “separate-but-equal” decision. I believe if the Supreme Court took another look at Roe v. Wade, and considered the real issue between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic, it would change its mind once again.
As we continue to work to overturn Roe v. Wade, we must also continue to lay the groundwork for a society in which abortion is not the accepted answer to unwanted pregnancy. Pro-life people have already taken heroic steps, often at great personal sacrifice, to provide for unwed mothers. I recently spoke about a young pregnant woman named Victoria, who said, “In this society we save whales, we save timber wolves and bald eagles and Coke bottles. Yet, everyone wanted me to throw away my baby.” She has been helped by Save-a-Life, a group in Dallas, which provides a way for unwed mothers to preserve the human life within them when they might otherwise be tempted to resort to abortion. I think also of House of His Creation in Catesville, Pennsylvania, where a loving couple has taken in almost 200 young women in the past ten years. They have seen, as a fact of life, that the girls arenot better off having abortions than saving their babies. I am also reminded of the remarkable Rossow family of Ellington, Connecticut, who have opened their hearts and their home to nine handicapped adopted and foster children.
The Adolescent Family Life Program, adopted by Congress at the request of Senator Jeremiah Denton, has opened new opportunities for unwed mothers to give their children life. We should not rest until our entire society echoes the tone of John Powell in the dedication of his book, Abortion: The Silent Holocaust, a dedication to every woman carrying an unwanted child: “Please believe that you are not alone. There are many of us that truly love you, who want to stand at your side, and help in any way we can.” And we can echo the always-practical woman of faith, Mother Teresa, when she says, “If you don’t want the little child, that unborn child, give him to me.” We have so many families in America seeking to adopt children that the slogan “every child a wanted child” is now the emptiest of all reasons to tolerate abortion.
I have often said we need to join in prayer to bring protection to the unborn. Prayer and action are needed to uphold the sanctity of human life. I believe it will not be possible to accomplish our work, the work of saving lives, “without being a soul of prayer.” The famous British Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, prayed with his small group of influential friends, the “Clapham Sect,” for decades to see an end to slavery in the British empire. Wilberforce led that struggle in Parliament, unflaggingly, because he believed in the sanctity of human life. He saw the fulfillment of his impossible dream when Parliament outlawed slavery just before his death.
Let his faith and perseverance be our guide. We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value in the life of others, a value of which Malcolm Muggeridge says:. . . however low it flickers or fiercely burns, it is still a Divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives ever so humane and enlightened.”
Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.
Part 3 On 1/30/84 Ronald Reagan talks about abortion, religion, and life to the National Religious Broadcasters.
33rd ANNUAL MARCH FOR LIFE:Little Rock Sun 2pm begins at Capital and Louisiana Streets
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Today I have a profile of St lawmaker Gilbert Baker. This is from Ballotpedia.
Gilbert Baker (b. September 5, 1956) has been a Republican member of the Arkansas State Senate since 2001. He represents the 30th district.Baker was Chair of the Faulkner County Republican Party from 1997 to 1999.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
The case against abortion does not rest here, however, for medical practice confirms at every step the correctness of these moral sensibilities. Modern medicine treats the unborn child as a patient. Medical pioneers have made great breakthroughs in treating the unborn — for genetic problems, vitamin deficiencies, irregular heart rhythms, and other medical conditions. Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?
The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.
What more dramatic confirmation could we have of the real issue than the Baby Doe case in Bloomington, Indiana? The death of that tiny infant tore at the hearts of all Americans because the child was undeniably a live human being — one lying helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The real issue for the courts was not whether Baby Doe was a human being. The real issue was whether to protect the life of a human being who had Down’s Syndrome, who would probably be mentally handicapped, but who needed a routine surgical procedure to unblock his esophagus and allow him to eat. A doctor testified to the presiding judge that, even with his physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a “non-existent” possibility for “a minimally adequate quality of life” — in other words, that retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty. The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.
Federal law does not allow federally-assisted hospitals to decide that Down’s Syndrome infants are not worth treating, much less to decide to starve them to death. Accordingly, I have directed the Departments of Justice and HHS to apply civil rights regulations to protect handicapped newborns. All hospitals receiving federal funds must post notices which will clearly state that failure to feed handicapped babies is prohibited by federal law. The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion.
The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence.
Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. Some have said that only those individuals with “consciousness of self” are human beings. One such writer has followed this deadly logic and concluded that “shocking as it may seem, a newly born infant is not a human being.”
A Nobel Prize winning scientist has suggested that if a handicapped child “were not declared fully human until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice.” In other words, “quality control” to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.
Obviously, some influential people want to deny that every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist that a member of the human race must have certain qualities before they accord him or her status as a “human being.”
Events have borne out the editorial in a California medical journal which explained three years before Roe v. Wade that the social acceptance of abortion is a “defiance of the long-held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status.”
Every legislator, every doctor, and every citizen needs to recognize that the real issue is whether to affirm and protect the sanctity of all human life, or to embrace a social ethic where some human lives are valued and others are not. As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the “quality of life” ethic.
I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future. American was founded by men and women who shared a vision of the value of each and every individual. They stated this vision clearly from the very start in the Declaration of Independence, using words that every schoolboy and schoolgirl can recite:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We fought a terrible war to guarantee that one category of mankind — black people in America — could not be denied the inalienable rights with which their Creator endowed them. The great champion of the sanctity of all human life in that day, Abraham Lincoln, gave us his assessment of the Declaration’s purpose. Speaking of the framers of that noble document, he said
:
This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on. . . They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.
He warned also of the danger we would face if we closed our eyes to the value of life in any category of human beings:
I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?
When Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and property to all human beings, he explained that all are “entitled to the protection of American law, because its divine spirit of equality declares that all men are created equal.” He said the right guaranteed by the amendment would therefore apply to “any human being.” Justice William Brennan, writing in another case decided only the year before Roe v. Wade, referred to our society as one that “strongly affirms the sanctity of life.”
Another William Brennan — not the Justice — has reminded us of the terrible consequences that can follow when a nation rejects the sanctity of life ethic:
The cultural environment for a human holocaust is present whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as less than human and therefore devoid of value and respect.
As a nation today, we have not rejected the sanctity of human life. The American people have not had an opportunity to express their view on the sanctity of human life in the unborn. I am convinced that Americans do not want to play God with the value of human life. It is not for us to decide who is worthy to live and who is not. Even the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade did not explicitly reject the traditional American idea of intrinsic worth and value in all human life; it simply dodged this issue.
The Congress has before it several measures that would enable our people to reaffirm the sanctity of human life, even the smallest and the youngest and the most defenseless. The Human Life Bill expressly recognizes the unborn as human beings and accordingly protects them as persons under our Constitution. This bill, first introduced by Senator Jesse Helms, provided the vehicle for the Senate hearings in 1981 which contributed so much to our understanding of the real issue of abortion.
The Respect Human Life Act, just introduced in the 98th Congress, states in its first section that the policy of the United States is “to protect innocent life, both before and after birth.” This bill, sponsored by Congressman Henry Hyde and Senator Roger Jepsen, prohibits the federal government from performing abortions or assisting those who do so, except to save the life of the mother. It also addresses the pressing issue of infanticide which, as we have seen, flows inevitably from permissive abortion as another step in the denial of the inviolability of innocent human life.
I have endorsed each of these measures, as well as the more difficult route of constitutional amendment, and I will give these initiatives my full support. Each of them, in different ways, attempts to reverse the tragic policy of abortion-on-demand imposed by the Supreme Court ten years ago. Each of them is a decisive way to affirm the sanctity of human life.
Ed Garner is a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, representing the 41st District since 2007.Garner is the owner of Mama’s Manna Bakery, and has previously worked for Stephens, Incorporated, Lasater and Company, and TJ Raney and Sons.
He is a member of the Maumelle Chamber of Commerce, and the Pulaski Heights United Methodist Church.[1]
Issue positions
Garner did not provide answers to the Arkansas State Legislative Election 2008 Political Courage Test. The test provides voters with how a candidate would vote on the issues if elected.[2]
A Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption. This comes from a collection of audio commentaries titled “Reagan in His Own Voice.”
I just wanted to share with you one of the finest prolife papers I have ever read, and it is by President Ronald Wilson Reagan.
I have a son named Wilson Daniel Hatcher and he is named after two of the most respected men I have ever read about : Daniel from the Old Testament and Ronald Wilson Reagan. I have studied that book of Daniel for years and have come to respect that author who was a saint who worked in two pagan governments but he never compromised. My favorite record was the album “No Compromise” by Keith Green and on the cover was a picture from the Book of Daniel.
One of the thrills of my life was getting to hear President Reagan speak in the beginning of November of 1984 at the State House Convention Center in Little Rock. Immediately after that program I was standing outside on Markham with my girlfriend Jill Sawyer (now wife of 25 years) and we were alone on a corner and President was driven by and he waved at us and we waved back.
My former pastor from Memphis, Adrian Rogers, got the opportunity to visit with President Ronald Reagan on several occasions and my St Senator Jeremy Hutchinson got to meet him too. I am very jealous.
Take time to read this below and comment below and let me know what you thought of his words.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators — not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973 is a good time for us to pause and reflect. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars.
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.
As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority inRoe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead,Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “. . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.
Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to head the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”
Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.
Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.
What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother?I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
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I remember when President Carter and candidate Reagan debated in 1980 and the subject of abortion came up. Reagan said that if you were on a dusty area and you found someone laying down would you bury him without knowing for sure if he is alive or not? It is the same with the case of abortion.
R-Rogers
House District 96
Freshman
Committees: Judiciary; State Agencies; Children and Youth.
Special connections: Member of the Benton County Quorum Court until her swearing-in at the House.
How to reach her: House in-session number: 501-682-6211. On weekends, call her home number: 479-636-3982.
What you should know: Has a background in education. Was a secondary science teacher, elementary teacher and counselor before starting a family.
Her priority: “To serve my constituents to the best of my ability.”
What she’s least looking forward to: “The politics of politics.” Campaigning and public policy is one thing. The wheeling and dealing to get a majority of votes is something else.
Part 1 of 2 Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor speaks at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, Victoria. Australia – on the eve of the debate to decriminalize abortion in Victoria.
Gianna’s visit was sponsored by the Ad Hoc Interfaith Committee.
Gianna Jessen is an abortion survivor. She was intervewed on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, where she shared her personal story and also commented on Obama’s voting record. As an Illinois state senator, four times he voted “no” on the Illinois Born-Alive Infant Defined Act, which would protect babies born alive after failed abortions.
There is a lively discussion at the end about whether or not Obama, by his vote, was in fact denying born babies (abortion survivors now outside the womb), the right to live. Pay attention especially to Alan Combs who tries to defend his pro-life liberal president.
Sean Hannity show with Gianna Jessen
Did you see how difficult it was for Alan Combs to defend his liberal president from the charge of infanticide. Logically there is no escape but he tried the best he could. President Obama was so intent on protecting Roe v Wade that he had to endorse a form of infanticide in order to protect Roe v Wade.
Liberals must acknowledge that hospitals are required to save lives. However, if a hospital is paid to perform an abortion and they botch the job then they must turn from trying to snuff out a life to trying to save it again. How ironic.
Part 2 of 2 Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor speaks at Queen’s Hall.
R-Rogers
House District 94
Freshman
Committees: Education; City, County and Local.
Special connections: Former school superintendent, university professor and classroom teacher.
How to reach him: In-session House number: 501-682-6211. On weekends, “use my home number:” 479-636-2619.
What you should know: “I have no problem being aggressive. No one every claimed I wasn’t.”
His priority: Constituent service. “I’ll be learning the ropes this term and will really concentrate on that. I don’t really have a laundry list of what I’ve got to do. I didn’t approach it that way.”
His biggest fear: “I’m like every other person I’ve talked to here. We’re real concerned about the economy. We really won’t know what we’ll be able to do until the March or April revenue forecast. But I’m an optimistic person. There’s a dark cloud on the horizon, but it’s not a big cloud yet.”
Mike Huckabee interviews Abby Johnson who is an Ex-Planned-Parenthood Employee who left the organization after witnessing 13 week old fetus fighting for its life on an ultrasound monitor. To anyone who still thinks that a fetus is just a clump of cells, listen to this woman’s story and tell me that this doesn’t make you question your belief just a little bit.
I have often wondered if Max Brantley has stopped to consider that if an unborn baby is a human being, then the most anti-woman position ever would be supporting abortion rights. In fact, in China there are today 120 boys for every 100 girls because 70% of all abortions in China are unborn females.
Though I’d been with Planned Parenthood for eight years, I had never been called into the exam room to help the medical team during an abortion, and I had no idea why I was needed now. Nurse-practitioners were the ones who assisted in abortions, not the other clinic staff. As director of this clinic in Bryan, Texas, I was able to fill in for any position in a pinch, except, of course, for doctors or nurses performing medical procedures. I had, on a few occasions, agreed at a patient’s request to stay with her and even hold her hand during the procedure, but only when I’d been the counselor who’d worked with her during intake and counseling. That was not the case today. So why did they need me?
Today’s visiting abortionist had been here at the Bryan clinic only two or three times before. He had a private abortion practice about 100 miles away. When I’d talked with him about the job several weeks before, he had explained that at his own facility he did only ultrasound-guided abortions — the abortion procedure with the least risk of complications for the woman. Because this method allows the doctor to see exactly what is going on inside the uterus, there is less chance of perforating the uterine wall, one of the risks of abortion. I respected that about him. The more that could be done to keep women safe and healthy, the better, as far as I was concerned. However, I’d explained to him that this practice wasn’t the protocol at our clinic. He understood and said he’d follow our typical procedures, though we agreed he’d be free to use ultrasound if he felt a particular situation warranted it.
To my knowledge, we’d never done ultrasound-guided abortions at our facility. We did abortions only every other Saturday, and the assigned goal from our Planned Parenthood affiliate was to perform 25 to 35 procedures on those days. We liked to wrap them up by around 2 p.m. Our typical procedure took about 10 minutes, but an ultrasound added about five minutes, and when you’re trying to schedule up to 35 abortions in a day, those extra minutes add up.
I felt a moment’s reluctance outside the exam room. I never liked entering this room during an abortion procedure — never welcomed what happened behind this door. But since we all had to be ready at any time to pitch in and get the job done, I pushed the door open and stepped in.
The patient was already sedated, still conscious but groggy, the doctor’s brilliant light beaming down on her. She was in position, the instruments were laid out neatly on the tray next to the doctor, and the nurse-practitioner was positioning the ultrasound machine next to the operating table.
“I’m going to perform an ultrasound-guided abortion on this patient. I need you to hold the ultrasound probe,” the doctor explained.
As I took the ultrasound probe in hand and adjusted the settings on the machine, I argued with myself, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to take part in an abortion. No, wrong attitude — I needed to psych myself up for this task. I took a deep breath and tried to tune in to the music from the radio playing softly in the background. It’s a good learning experience — I’ve never seen an ultrasound-guided abortion before, I told myself. Maybe this will help me when I counsel women. I’ll learn firsthand about this safer procedure. Besides, it will be over in just a few minutes.
I could not have imagined how the next 10 minutes would shake the foundation of my values and change the course of my life.
I had occasionally performed diagnostic ultrasounds for clients before. It was one of the services we offered to confirm pregnancies and estimate how far along they were. The familiarity of preparing for an ultrasound soothed my uneasiness at being in this room. I applied the lubricant to the patient’s belly, then maneuvered the ultrasound probe until her uterus was displayed on the screen and adjusted the probe’s position to capture the image of the fetus.
I was expecting to see what I had seen in past ultrasounds. Usually, depending on how far along the pregnancy was and how the fetus was turned, I’d first see a leg, or the head, or some partial image of the torso, and would need to maneuver a bit to get the best possible image. But this time, the image was complete. I could see the entire, perfect profile of a baby.
It looks just like Grace at 12 weeks, I thought, surprised, remembering my very first peek at my daughter, three years before, snuggled securely inside my womb. The image now before me looked the same, only clearer, sharper. The detail startled me. I could clearly see the profile of the head, both arms, legs, and even tiny fingers and toes. Perfect.
And just that quickly, the flutter of the warm memory of Grace was replaced with a surge of anxiety. What am I about to see? My stomach tightened. I don’t want to watch what is about to happen.
I suppose that sounds odd coming from a professional who’d been running a Planned Parenthood clinic for two years, counseling women in crisis, scheduling abortions, reviewing the clinic’s monthly budget reports, hiring and training staff. But odd or not, the simple fact is, I had never been interested in promoting abortion. I’d come to Planned Parenthood eight years before, believing that its purpose was primarily to prevent unwanted pregnancies, thereby reducing the number of abortions. That had certainly been my goal. And I believed that Planned Parenthood saved lives — the lives of women who, without the services provided by this organization, might resort to some back-alley butcher. All of this sped through my mind as I carefully held the probe in place.
“Thirteen weeks,” I heard the nurse say after taking measurements to determine the fetus’s age.
“Okay,” the doctor said, looking at me, “just hold the probe in place during the procedure so I can see what I’m doing.”
The cool air of the exam room left me feeling chilled. My eyes still glued to the image of this perfectly formed baby, I watched as a new image entered the video screen. The cannula — a strawshaped instrument attached to the end of the suction tube — had been inserted into the uterus and was nearing the baby’s side. It looked like an invader on the screen, out of place. Wrong. It just looked wrong.
My heart sped up. Time slowed. I didn’t want to look, but I didn’t want to stop looking either. I couldn’t not watch. I was horrified, but fascinated at the same time, like a gawker slowing as he drives past some horrific automobile wreck — not wanting to see a mangled body, but looking all the same.
My eyes flew to the patient’s face; tears flowed from the corners of her eyes. I could see she was in pain. The nurse dabbed the woman’s face with a tissue.
“Just breathe,” the nurse gently coached her. “Breathe.”
“It’s almost over,” I whispered. I wanted to stay focused on her, but my eyes shot back to the image on the screen.
At first, the baby didn’t seem aware of the cannula. It gently probed the baby’s side, and for a quick second I felt relief. Of course, I thought. The fetus doesn’t feel pain. I had reassured countless women of this as I’d been taught by Planned Parenthood. The fetal tissue feels nothing as it is removed. Get a grip, Abby. This is a simple, quick medical procedure. My head was working hard to control my responses, but I couldn’t shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.
The next movement was the sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the baby started kicking, as if it were trying to move away from the probing invader. As the cannula pressed its side, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that it could feel the cannula, and it did not like what it was feeling. And then the doctor’s voice broke through, startling me.
“Beam me up, Scotty,” he said lightheartedly to the nurse. He was telling her to turn on the suction — in an abortion the suction isn’t turned on until the doctor feels he has the cannula in exactly the right place.
I had a sudden urge to yell, “Stop!” To shake the woman and say, “Look at what is happening to your baby! Wake up! Hurry! Stop them!”
But even as I thought those words, I looked at my own hand holding the probe. I was one of “them” performing this act. My eyes shot back to the screen again. The cannula was already being rotated by the doctor, and now I could see the tiny body violently twisting with it. For the briefest moment the baby looked as if it were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then it crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes. The last thing I saw was the tiny, perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube, and then it was gone. And the uterus was empty. Totally empty.
I was frozen in disbelief. Without realizing it, I let go of the probe. It slipped off the patient’s tummy and slid onto her leg. I could feel my heart pounding — pounding so hard my neck throbbed. I tried to get a deep breath but couldn’t seem to breathe in or out. I still stared at the screen, even though it was black now because I’d lost the image. But nothing was registering to me. I felt too stunned and shaken to move. I was aware of the doctor and nurse casually chatting as they worked, but it sounded distant, like vague background noise, hard to hear over the pounding of my own blood in my ears.
The image of the tiny body, mangled and sucked away, was replaying in my mind, and with it the image of Grace’s first ultrasound — how she’d been about the same size. And I could hear in my memory one of the many arguments I’d had with my husband, Doug, about abortion.
“When you were pregnant with Grace, it wasn’t a fetus; it was a baby,” Doug had said. And now it hit me like a lightning bolt: He was right! What was in this woman’s womb just a moment ago was alive. It wasn’t just tissue, just cells. It was a human baby. And it was fighting for its life! A battle it lost in the blink of an eye. What I have told people for years, what I’ve believed and taught and defended, is a lie.
Suddenly I felt the eyes of the doctor and nurse on me. It shook me out of my thoughts. I noticed the probe lying on the woman’s leg and fumbled to get it back into place. But my hands were shaking now.
“Abby, are you OK?” the doctor asked. The nurse’s eyes searched my face with concern.
“Yeah, I’m OK.” I still didn’t have the probe correctly positioned, and now I was worried because the doctor couldn’t see inside the uterus. My right hand held the probe, and my left hand rested gingerly on the woman’s warm belly. I glanced at her face — more tears and a grimace of pain. I moved the probe until I’d recaptured the image of her now-empty uterus. My eyes traveled back to my hands. I looked at them as if they weren’t even my own.
How much damage have these hands done over the past eight years? How many lives have been taken because of them? Not just because of my hands, but because of my words. What if I’d known the truth, and what if I’d told all those women?
What if?
I had believed a lie! I had blindly promoted the “company line” for so long. Why? Why hadn’t I searched out the truth for myself? Why had I closed my ears to the arguments I’d heard? Oh, dear God, what had I done?
My hand was still on the patient’s belly, and I had the sense that I had just taken something away from her with that hand. I’d robbed her. And my hand started to hurt — I felt an actual physical pain. And right there, standing beside the table, my hand on the weeping woman’s belly, this thought came from deep within me:
Never again! Never again.
I went into autopilot. As the nurse cleaned up the woman, I put away the ultrasound machine, then gently roused the patient, who was limp and groggy. I helped her sit up, coaxed her into a wheelchair, and took her to the recovery room. I tucked a light blanket around her. Like so many patients I’d seen before, she continued to cry, in obvious emotional and physical pain. I did my best to make her more comfortable.
Ten minutes, maybe 15 at most, had passed since Cheryl had asked me to go help in the exam room. And in those few minutes, everything had changed. Drastically. The image of that tiny baby twisting and struggling kept replaying in my mind. And the patient. I felt so guilty. I’d taken something precious from her, and she didn’t even know it.
How had it come to this? How had I let this happen? I had invested myself, my heart, my career in Planned Parenthood because I cared about women in crisis. And now I faced a crisis of my own.
Looking back now on that late September day of 2009, I realize how wise God is for not revealing our future to us. Had I known then the firestorm I was about to endure, I might not have had the courage to move forward. As it was, since I didn’t know, I wasn’t yet looking for courage. I was, however, looking to understand how I found myself in this place — living a lie, spreading a lie, and hurting the very women I so wanted to help.
And I desperately needed to know what to do next.
This is my story.
She was never supposed to make it out of the womb, but today, Melissa Ohden is happy and healthy, having survived her own abortion… The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN
Today I have a profile of the St lawmaker Davy Carter.
Arkansas House of Representatives District 48
The Committee to Elect Davy Carter P.O. Box 628
Cabot, Arkansas 72023
On the issues
Government Spending
I am convinced now more than ever that our government is headed in the wrong direction, and that we must act now to change the direction of our country. According to at least one federal source as of the date of this letter, our outstanding federal debt is $9,199,982,987,385.15, which works out to be around $30,000 per U.S. citizen. As Ronald Reagan once stated, “we don’t have a trillion dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion dollar debt because we spend too much.” We have no choice but to stop wasteful spending. I pledge to reduce wasteful spending.
Family Values
I sincerely believe that the American family is under attack. It is under attack by a small number of Americans that have attempted to make it politically incorrect to love your wife, to love God, to pray in school, to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, and to protect the lives of unborn babies. I pledge to support the American family.
There are people all around you who have been affected by humanism. Abortion is one of the results of humanism. Nevertheless, we can befriend those who are considering abortion and speak into their lives with love and truth. There may be those who say hateful things to us when we do that but it is worth it.
We personally know several people who have told us that their mother wanted to get an abortion, but later changed her mind. I am thinking of one lady that we knew from our Sunday School class who told us that she was in the parking lot of an abortion clinic and changed her mind. Now that she has two beautiful children she can not believe she even considered it.
My wife Jill befriended a lady that was visiting our church around 15 years ago. The lady shared that she was pregnant and her muslim boyfriend was pressuring her to get an abortion.
Jill prayed with her and the lady gladly met with a Christian doctor that Jill recommended. The doctor offered his services totally free throughout the remainder of the pregnancy and even said he would take care of all the expenses involved. The lady was thrilled. However, soon after the lady was taken to the abortion clinic by her boyfriend and had the abortion. She later contacted our pastor and told him how rude the people at the church were to her.
Planned Parenthood gives their workers several talking points and one of those points is that the unborn baby does not feel pain until the 28th week. Take a look below at these facts:
Fetal Development; From conception to birth;
Day 1: fertilization: all human chromosomes are present; unique human life begins. Day 6: embryo begins implantation in the uterus. Day 22: heart begins to beat with the child’s own blood, often a different type than the mothers’.
Week 3: By the end of third week the child’s backbone spinal column and nervous system are forming. The liver, kidneys and intestines begin to take shape.
Week 4: By the end of week four the child is ten thousand times larger than the fertilized egg. Week 5: Eyes, legs, and hands begin to develop. Week 6: Brain waves are detectable; mouth and lips are present; fingernails are forming. Week 7: Eyelids, and toes form, nose distinct. The baby is kicking and swimming.
Week 8: Every organ is in place, bones begin to replace cartilage, and fingerprints begin to form. By the 8th week the baby can begin to hear. Weeks 9 and 10: Teeth begin to form, fingernails develop. The baby can turn his head, and frown. The baby can hiccup.
Weeks 10 and 11: The baby can “breathe” amniotic fluid and urinate. Week 11 the baby can grasp objects placed in its hand; all organ systems are functioning. The baby has a skeletal structure, nerves, and circulation.
Week 12: The baby has all of the parts necessary to experience pain, including nerves, spinal cord, and thalamus. Vocal cords are complete. The baby can suck its thumb.
Week 14: At this age, the heart pumps several quarts of blood through the body every day. Week 15: The baby has an adult’s taste buds. Month 4: Bone Marrow is now beginning to form. The heart is pumping 25 quarts of blood a day. By the end of month 4 the baby will be 8-10 inches in length and will weigh up to half a pound. Week 17: The baby can have dream (REM) sleep.
Week 19: Babies can routinely be saved at 21 to 22 weeks after fertilization, and sometimes they can be saved even younger. Week 20: The earliest stage at which Partial birth abortions are performed. At 20 weeks the baby recognizes its’ mothers voice. Months 5 and 6: The baby practices breathing by inhaling amniotic fluid into its developing lungs. The baby will grasp at the umbilical cord when it feels it. Most mothers feel an increase in movement, kicking, and hiccups from the baby. Oil and sweat glands are now functioning. The baby is now twelve inches long or more, and weighs up to one and a half pounds.
Months 7 through 9: Eyeteeth are present. The baby opens and closes his eyes. The baby is using four of the five senses (vision, hearing, taste, and touch.) He knows the difference between waking and sleeping, and can relate to the moods of the mother. The baby’s skin begins to thicken, and a layer of fat is produced and stored beneath the skin. Antibodies are built up, and the baby’s heart begins to pump 300 gallons of blood per day. Approximately one week before the birth the baby stops growing, and “drops” usually head down into the pelvic cavity. Sources Used: Bergel, Gary (Produced by NRLC) “When You Were Formed in Secret.” 1998. Flanagan, Geraldine Lux. Beginning Life. The Marvelous Journey from Conception to Birth. New York: DK Publishing Inc., 1996. Hopson, Janet L. Fetal Psychology. Oct. 1998. 07 Jan 2003. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/tul/psych… Internet Sources: “Fetal Development.” 07 Jan 2003. http://www.w-cpc.org/fetal1.html. Video from the public domain.
Stephanie Malone was born and raised in Rogers, Arkansas. After graduation from high school, she attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and graduated with a degree in journalism.
November of 2000, she moved to Fort Smith to take the job of Communications Director with the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce. While working at the Chamber Malone received numerous national awards for her publications, she was also active in the recruitment of several businesses to the Fort Smith Region. After working at the chamber for six years, Malone worked for an ad agency in town before taking her current job as marketing director for the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority.
She just completed her freshman year as a State Representative for District 64 (House profile). She currently serves as Vice Chair of Aging & Legislative Affairs – House Child and Youth Subcommittee and is a member of the House Public Transportation Committee, House Public Transportation and Rail Subcommittee, Aging Children and Youth Legislative Committee, Military Affairs House Committee and is a non-voting member of Revenue and Tax Committee.
Malone is a member of: Sebastian County Republican Committee, Young Emerging Leaders, Noon Exchange Club, the Junior League of Fort Smith, an honorary member of the Military Officers Association of America and a board member of Abilities Unlimited. She is the recipient of the 2009 John Paul Hammerschmidt Leadership Award and received the honor of being nominated to the American Council of Young Political Leaders. Most recently she was named as the Arkansas Business Journals, “40 under 40”, which a list compiled from across the state of business and political people to watch.
Malone’s parents, Mike and Debbie, live in Van Buren, Arkansas. Her mother was recently reappointed by the Governor as a commissioner on the early childhood development commission. Stephanie’s uncle is John Boozman, the current U.S. Congressman for the third district of Arkansas. Her late uncle, Fay Boozman, served as a State Senator before being named state health director, a position he served until his death.
Science Matters #2: Former supermodel Kathy Ireland tells Mike Huckabee about how she became pro-life after reading what the science books have to say.
My good friend Dr. Kevin R. Henke is a scientist and also an atheistic evolutionist. I had a lot of discussions with Kevin over religious views. I remember going over John 7:17 with him one day. It says:
John 7:17 (Amplified Bible)
17If any man desires to do His will (God’s pleasure), he will know (have the needed illumination to recognize, and can tell for himself) whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking from Myself and of My own accord and on My own authority.
I challenged Kevin to read a chapter a day of the Book of John and pray to God and ask God, “Dear God, if you are there then reveal yourself to me, and I pledge to serve you the rest of my life.”
Kevin did that and he even wrote down the thoughts that came to his mind and sent it to me and these thoughts filled a notebook.
Kevin did not become a Christian, but I am still praying for him. I do respect Kevin because he is an honest man. Interestingly enough he told me that he was pro-life because the unborn baby has all the genetic code at the time of conception that they will have for the rest of their life. Below are some other comments by other scientists:
Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic): “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”
Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School): “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”
Dr. Alfred Bongioanni (University of Pennsylvania): “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”
Dr. Jerome LeJeune, “the Father of Modern Genetics” (University of Descartes, Paris): “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”
Back on April 27, 2009 Fox News ran a story by Hollie McKay(“Supermodel Kathy Ireland Lashes Out Against Pro Choice,”) on Jill Ireland.
It’s no secret that the majority of Hollywood stars are strong advocates for a woman’s right to choose whether or not she wants to terminate a pregnancy, however former “Sports Illustrated” supermodel-turned-entrepreneur-turned-author Kathy Ireland has gone against the grain of the glitterati and spoken out against abortion.
“My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science,” Ireland told Tarts while promoting her insightful new book “Real Solutions for Busy Mom: Your Guide to Success and Sanity.”
“What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there.”
However Ireland admitted that she did everything she could to avoid becoming a believer in pro-life.
“I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time,” Ireland argued. “I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue.”
Around 1993 my wife Jill and I peacefully walked the streets of Little Rock with Rev Flip Benham who was working with Operation Rescue at the time. We held pro-life signs up and heard some moving stories those two days that we participated.
We could tell that Rev Benham was a man of prayer. He believed in it and practiced it often. Little did we know what the events of the next couple of years would be.
Roe v Wade case was actually about a lady named Jane Roe, but the lady’s name was actually Norma McCorvey. Wikipedia puts it like this:
In 1995, Norma McCorvey was working at a clinic in Dallas when Operation Rescue moved in next door. She allegedly struck up a friendship over cigarettes with Operation Rescue preacher Flip Benham, who incorporates his Christian belief with his stance against abortion.
Norma McCorvey said that Flip Benham talked to her and was kind to her. She became friends with him, attended church and was baptized. She surprised the world by going on national television to say that she now believed abortion was wrong.
Norma McCorvey had been in a lesbian relationship for years, but she eventually denounced lesbianism as well after her conversion to Christianity. Within a few years of her first book, Norma McCorvey had written a second book, Won By Love: Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, Speaks Out for the Unborn as She Shares Her New Conviction for Life.
Today I have a profile of St lawmaker Missy Thomas Irvin.
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Missy Thomas Irvin, State Senate Nominee, District 10
Melissa (Missy) Thomas Irvin is the Republican candidate for Arkansas State Senate, District 10. Missy and her husband, Dr. John Dawson Irvin have lived in Mountain View for 14 years. They have four children, Allyn, Hennely, Josie, and Ike. The are members of First United Methodist Church of Mountain View. Missy is a committed, common-sense conservative. She is seeking the office of State Senator to better the lives of her friends and neighbors and to make sure her children don’t have to deal with the after- effects of wasteful government spending.
Click here to find out the latest news from the Missy Thomas Irvin for State Senate CampaignMelissa (Missy) Thomas Irvin, of Mountain View. Filed for the Arkansas State Senate race for District 10 as a Republican candidate on Monday, March 8th. Missy and her husband, Dr. John Dawson Irvin, have lived in Mountain View for 13 years. They have four children, Allyn, Hennelly, Josie and Ike. They are members of First United Methodist Church of Mountain View.
Ms. Irvin grew up in Little Rock, attending Mt. St. Mary Academy. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, communications and dance from Randolph – Macon Woman’s College in Virginia. She attended the University of Reading and Oxford University in England during her college career. She has worked as a news editor for KATV, Channel 7 News and as Marketing Director for Tipton & Hurst, Inc. of Little Rock.
After moving to Mountain View, she worked for Stone County Ironworks, eventually becoming the Advertising and Marketing Director, as well as a product developer for the SCI line and their larger clients, such as LL Bean. Irvin has worked as an independent graphic designer and marketing consultant for private clients. She worked with Calico Rock Ironworks in marketing and product development. She then worked as an Adjunct Professor of Dance for Hendrix College for 5 years, serving as Director of Dance her final year.
Ms. Irvin’s political campaign reaches back to the days of Ronald Reagan, working in his presidential campaign in Arkansas. After high school, Irvin volunteered for Sheffield Nelson’s first campaign for Governor, and then worked in his second campaign as Special Events Coordinator and Assistant Finance Director in 1994. In 2000, Irvin served as campaign manager for her brother, Bob Thomas, who ran for the United States House of Representatives against then U.S. Representative, Vic Snyder. She has on several occasions lobbied the state legislature on behalf of rural health care and physicians.
Currently, Missy works with her husband in his medical clinic. Her extensive volunteer activities include coordinating the first three years of the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life for Stone County, coordinating “After Dark in the Park.” with the Ozark Folk Center and supporting the Music Roots program. She serves on the health advisory committee for the Mountain View School District and has served as a parent representative for the school in the implementation of the new EAST program.
She currently serves as president of the Mountain View Youth Soccer Association, as a vice-president for the Arkansas State Soccer Association, and IS a AAA registered volunteer soccer coach. She is a member of P.E.O., and past president of DK. She is very active in her church. In 2008, Irvin received a Presidential Award for her volunteer work in the community.
Ms. lrvin’s father, Dr. Jerry Thomas is a graduate of Batesville High School. Her grandfather, Ivan, was a gunsmith in the area long ago. Her uncle Jack Thomas, was the knife maker at the Ozark Folk Center and was a long time resident of Mountain View. “Even though I grew up in Little Rock, this area is the land of my fathers. I grew up coming to the creek and the square. I am passionate about the people of this district, and am ready to continue to work at the next level where I believe I can be a strong voice and advocate for our district’s health care providers, our school districts and our municipal and county Missy Thomas Irvin | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS) Music Lyrics | Download from WordPress Themes
I used to write letters to the editor a whole lot back in the 1990’s. I am pro-life and many times my letters would discuss current political debates, and I got to know several names of people that would often write in response letters to my published letters. One of those individuals was a Dr. William F. Harrison from Fayetteville. Later I found out from reading an article by David Sanders that Dr. Harrison was an abortionist. Dr Harrison died from leukemia on September 24, 2010. Here is a post from Jason Tolbert from July of 2010:
KFSM in Fayetteville is reporting that abortist William Harrison is closing the doors to his abortion clinic in nothwest Arkansas for health reasons. In an ABC News story a few year ago, Harrison said he had performed over 10,000 abortions and was comfortable with the taking of life.
I now write a column for Stephen Media in a spot once held by conservative David J. Sanders who is currently running for the Arkansas House of Representatives. Sanders shadowed Harrison in his abortion clinic and wrote of series of columns on the experience. I think these are prehaps Sanders’ best work…
Harrison is sure that what he does is right, but he confessed to the enormous costs that come in his line of work. There were threats against his wife and children and staff. He commented that if he “had known” everything – the threats, the risks – that would take place over the years, he might not have decided to provide abortions.
Some years ago, a 16-year-old daughter of a close friend of the family had gotten pregnant. “Their Baptist minister had advised her parents that she shouldn’t have an abortion and that (if she did) she would regret it the rest of her life. But had I had the choice, at the time, I would have advised (the mother of the teenager) to have that child aborted,” he said as he stared at his desktop.
“Well, she had her baby. She’s as smart as a whip,” he said. Now, years later, that baby is grown and about to finish her doctorate at the University of California at San Francisco.
I asked him if that sent chills up his spine. His response: “Absolutely.”
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Today I have a profile of St lawmaker Ruth Whitaker.
Ruth Whitaker (b. December 13, 1936) has been a Republican member of the Arkansas State Senate since 2001. She represents the 3rd district.Whitaker is a former Alderman of the City of Cedarville. She worked as a Secretary for the Arkansas State Republican Party from 1992 to 1994.
Whitaker earned her BA from Hendrix College in 1958.
Whitaker has worked as a Political Advisor and a Community Activist.
R-Elkins
The Daily Hatch 