Below is a summary of “A Christian Manifesto” which is a very important book written by Francis Schaeffer just a couple of years before his death in 1984.
A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer
This address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title.
The January 11 Newsweek has an article about the baby in the womb. The first 5 or 6 pages are marvelous. If you haven’t seen it, you should see if you can get that issue. It’s January 11 and about the first 5 or 6 pages show conclusively what every biologist has known all along, and that is that human life begins at conception. There is no other time for human life to begin, except at conception. Monkey life begins at conception. Donkey life begins at conception. And human life begins at conception. Biologically, there is no discussion — never should have been — from a scientific viewpoint. I am not speaking of religion now. And this 5 or 6 pages very carefully goes into the fact that human life begins at conception. But you flip the page and there is this big black headline, “But is it a person?” And I’ll read the last sentence, “The problem is not determining when actual human life begins, but when the value of that life begins to out weigh other considerations, such as the health or even the happiness of the mother.”
We are not just talking about the health of the mother (it’s a propaganda line), or even the happiness of the mother. Listen! Spell that out! It means that the mother, for her own hedonistic happiness — selfish happiness — can take human life by her choice, by law. Do you understand what I have said? By law, on the basis of her individual choice of what makes her happy. She can take what has been declared to be, in the first five pages [of the article], without any question, human life. In other words, they acknowledge that human life is there, but it is an open question as to whether it is not right to kill that human life if it makes the mother happy.
And basically that is no different than Stalin, Mao, or Hitler, killing who they killed for what they conceived to be the good of society. There is absolutely no line between the two statements — no absolute line, whatsoever. One follows along: Once that it is acknowledged that it is human life that is involved (and as I said, this issue of Newsweek shows conclusively that it is) the acceptance of death of human life in babies born or unborn, opens the door to the arbitrary taking of any human life. From then on, it’s purely arbitrary.
It was this view that opened the door to all that followed in Germany prior to Hitler. It’s an interesting fact here that the only Supreme Court in the Western World that has ruled against easy abortion is the West German Court. The reason they did it is because they knew, and it’s clear history, that this view of human life in the medical profession and the legal profession combined, before Hitler came on the scene, is what opened the way for everything that happened in Hitler’s Germany. And so, the German Supreme Court has voted against easy abortion because they know — they know very well where it leads.
I want to say something tonight. Not many of you are black in this audience. I can’t tell if you are Puerto Rican. But if I were in the minority group in this country, tonight, I would be afraid. I’ve had big gorgeous blacks stand up in our seminars and ask, “Sir, do you think there is a racial twist to all this?” And I have to say, “Right on! You’ve hit it right on the head!” Once this door is opened, there is something to be afraid of. Christians should be deeply concerned, and I cannot understand why the liberal lawyer of the Civil Liberties Union is not scared to death by this open door towards human life. Everyone ought to be frightened who knows anything about history — anything about the history of law, anything about the history of medicine. This is a terrifying door that is open.
Abortion itself would be worth spending much of our lifetimes to fight against, because it is the killing of human life, but it’s only a symptom of the total. What we are facing is Humanism: Man, the measure of all things — viewing final reality being only material or energy shaped by chance — therefore, human life having no intrinsic value — therefore, the keeping of any individual life or any groups of human life, being purely an arbitrary choice by society at the given moment.
The flood doors are wide open. I fear both they, and too often the Christians, do not have just relativistic values (because, unhappily, Christians can live with relativistic values) but, I fear, that often such people as the liberal lawyers of the Civil Liberties Union and Christians, are just plain stupid in regard to the lessons of history. Nobody who knows his history could fail to be shaken at the corner we have turned in our culture. Remember why: because of the shift in the concept of the basic reality!
Now, we cannot be at all surprised when the liberal theologians support these things, because liberal theology is only Humanism using theological terms, and that’s all it ever was, all the way back into Germany right after the Enlightenment. So when they come down on the side of easy abortion and infanticide, as some of these liberal denominations as well as theologians are doing, we shouldn’t be surprised. It follows as night after day.
I have a question to ask you, and that is: Where have the Bible-believing Christians been in the last 40 years? All of this that I am talking about has only come in the last 80 years (I’m 70… I just had my birthday, so just 10 years older than I am). None of this was true in the United States. None of it! And the climax has all come within the last 40 years, which falls within the intelligent scope of many of you sitting in this room. Where have the Bible-believing Christians been? We shouldn’t be surprised the liberal theologians have been no help — but where have we been as we have changed to this other consensus and all the horrors and stupidity of the present moment has come down on out culture? We must recognize that this country is close to being lost. Not, first of all , because of the Humanist conspiracy — I believe that there are those who conspire, but that is not the reason this country is almost lost. This country is almost lost because the Bible-believing Christians, in the last 40 years, who have said that they know that the final reality is this infinite-personal God who is the Creator and all the rest, have done nothing about it as the consensus has changed. There has been a vast silence!
Christians of this country have simply been silent. Much of the Evangelical leadership has not raised a voice. As a matter of fact, it was almost like sticking pins into the Evangelical constituency in most places to get them interested in the issue of human life while Dr. Koop and Franky and I worked on Whatever Happened to the Human Race, a vast, vast silence.
I wonder what God has to say to us? All these freedoms we have. All the secondary blessings we’ve had out of the preaching of the Gospel and we have let it slip through our fingers in the lifetime of most of you here. Not a hundred years ago — it has been in our lifetime in the last 40 years that these things have happened.
It’s not only the Christian leaders. Where have the Christian lawyers been? Why haven’t they been challenging this change in the view of what the First Amendment means, which I’ll deal with in a second. Where have the Christian doctors been — speaking out against the rise of the abortion clinics and all the other things? Where have the Christian businessmen been — to put their lives and their work on the line concerning these things which they would say as Christians are central to them? Where have the Christian educators been — as we have lost our educational system? Where have we been? Where have each of you been? What’s happened in the last 40 years?
___________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Americans see the problem with the religious liberty violation at the leading edge of Obamacare implementation, according to a new poll released by Rasmussen Reports this week.
The poll shows that by a margin of 46–41, likely American voters support a religious exemption for churches, religious organizations, and businesses from Obamacare’s anti-conscience Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate. Sadly, the coercive dictates of the Obamacare bureaucracy don’t hold the same respect for conscience and religious freedom.
The Obamacare anti-conscience mandate, which forces almost all employers to provide and pay for coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, is accompanied by an offensively narrow religious exemption that effectively covers only formal houses of worship. Countless other employers—such as religious social service providers, schools, and business owners—are forced to pay for the mandated drugs and services regardless of religious or moral objections.
The consequences for non-compliance are steep. Hefty government fines—to the tune of millions of dollars for some companies—threaten not only employers’ religious freedom but their livelihoods.
Americans’ wariness over forcing employers to pay for mandated services in conflict with their deeply held beliefs is a concern shared by more than a few federal judges. Just last week, a fourth federal court halted enforcement of the anti-conscience mandate against a business owner. Tyndale House Publishers, one of the nation’s largest Bible retailers, won a preliminary injunction against the mandate that would have forced the for-profit company to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in its employee health plan in violation of the business’s Christian principles. Three other family-owned businesses—Hercules Industries, Weingartz Supply Company, and O’Brien Industrial Holdings—have also won preliminary injunctions against the mandate.
Many Americans—and certainly the more than 110 plaintiffs suing over the mandate—understand the offensiveness of the rule’s current, miniscule religious exemption. But concern over the mandate’s assault on religious freedom isn’t merely caused by the narrowness of this particular religious exemption. The root of the mandate’s disregard for Americans’ freedoms is found in the broader coercion of an invasive health care law that dictates what insurance companies must cover, what employers must provide, and what individuals must purchase.
Under a one-size-fits-all, government-controlled health care system, conflicts with religious freedom and individual liberty are only likely to increase.
In a separate Rasmussen poll from earlier this year, more than half of likely voters admitted they hadn’t personally felt any impact of the health care law, much of which won’t be implemented until 2014. Americans have yet to experience the full weight of Obamacare’s countless, liberty-crushing mandates that will crush individual choice in health care and place burdensome costs on businesses and individuals.
The anti-conscience mandate’s assault on religious freedom is only one of the first tastes of Obamacare’s coercive takeover of the health care system. The fact that almost half of likely voters recognize the need to protect employers’ religious freedom should signal greater concern for future dictates from a law that cedes discretion over personal health care decisions and consumer choice to unelected bureaucrats.
I attended the March for Life at the Capitol in Little Rock on January 20, 2013 and I noticed that there were several thousand people gathered at the pro-life event. My son Wilson even got his picture taken with some of the Duggar sisters.(Paul Greenberg’s speech was great.) The day before it was reported that around 300 pro-choice supporters had gathered. Notice the distorted story from KARK Channel 4 website that indicates that both marches had about the same amount of people in attendance.
In fact,the pro-life march in Washington on January 25 may have more people than President Obama’s inauguration. Paul Bedard noted, “The march, expected to attract tens of thousands more than the record 400,000 two years ago, could rival President Obama’s Inauguration Day crowd, propelled by the growing youth support of efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, which the president has embraced with open arms. Obama drew 1.8 million in 2009. Just 600,000 are expected January 21st.”
Protesters marched through downtown Little Rock Sunday for the 35th annual March For Life rally.
–>
By: Jocelyn Tovar, KARK 4 NEWS
Updated: January 20, 2013
Ending on the steps of the Arkansas State Capitol supporters gave speeches about overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision giving women the right to end a pregnancy.One right-to-life advocate said the effort is her calling.”When we went to the march in D.C. one year ago,” said Stella Wadley the President of the Benton County Pro-Life Chapter. “I asked my son, if a reporter asked you why you were here what would you say? And he said, ‘I would tell them I’m here because my mother didn’t abort me’… And I can’t say it better than that.”
Saturday hundreds of pro-choice advocates rallied on the Capitol’s steps.
____________
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article was much more objective.
Alexis St. Clair of Hot Springs listens to the program Sunday afternoon at the 35th annual March for Life at the state Capitol in Little Rock.
This article was published today at 12:49 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK — Gathered around the steps of the state Capitol on Sunday afternoon, anti-abortion activists were told their struggle to ensure a “right to life” resembles a struggle fought more than 150 years ago.
During a keynote address at the Arkansas Right to Life’s 35th annual “March For Life,” speaker Paul Greenberg, the editorial page editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, dubbed the landmark case that allowed abortion, Roe v. Wade, the most contentious Supreme Court ruling since the 1857 Dred Scott decision that held that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the territories.
“Then it was human slavery that was sanctioned. Today, it is the destruction of the most innocent,” Greenberg said.
Instead of America’s “peculiar institution,” which was slavery, Greenberg said the new title is “choice.”
“I haven’t been in a march like this since the Civil Rights day,” Greenberg told a crowd that state Capitol police estimated to range between 2,500 and 3,500. “We understand that life is the first and greatest of gifts and the prerequisite [for all others].”
On Saturday, 300 went to the same steps to celebrate Monday’s 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized abortion and expanded women’s access to health-care options.
On Sunday, the anti-abortion event drew thousands from across the state carrying banners, placards and American flags, and featured a variety of speakers and performers.
Kevin and Charlotte Butcher of Cabot went to the annual event in support of what they say is a “moral” imperative.
“I’ve always been pro-life,” Charlotte Butcher said. “For me, I was raised going to church when Roe v. Wade was passed, I remember talking about it with my mother and being concerned. And she was a nurse.”
They also took their 12-and 11-year-old daughters, Dara and Laura, who they said could learn from the 40-year old movement to end abortion in the country.
“The biggest lesson is the value of life, that life is valuable inside the womb and outside the womb,” Kevin Butcher said. “And [our kids] need to know that not all people think that way.”
After 40 years, and as Charlotte Butcher points out, more than 50 million procedures or “babies killed,” the Butchers don’t see the antiabortion movement going anywhere.
“I don’t think it ever will [lose steam] as long as we believe lives are being taken,” Charlotte Butcher said.
State Rep. Andy Mayberry, R-Hensley, a board member of the Arkansas Right to Life organization, spoke about proposed legislation in this year’s general assembly meant to curb abortions.
One such proposal, authored by Rep. Butch Wilkins, D-Bono, would authorize Arkansas to opt out of providing abortion coverage under the federal health-care law, a measure that has passed in 18 other states.
“There is no issue larger than protecting life,” Mayberry said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 01/21/2013
Print Headline: Activists march for ‘right to life’
Dr. C. Everett Koop I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 and that is why I posted this today Secular leaps of faith 39 Comments Written by Janie B. Cheaney August 15, 2011, 2:17 PM I’m willing to cut Ryan Lizza some slack. His profile […]
Dr. Koop was delayed in his confirmation by Ted Kennedy because of his film Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Francis Schaeffer February 21, 1982 (Part 1) Uploaded by DeBunker7 on Feb 21, 2008 READ THIS FIRST: In decline of all civilizations we first see a war against the freedom of ideas. Discussion is limited […]
Third-Party Payer is the Biggest Economic Problem With America’s Health Care System Published on Jul 10, 2012 by CFPEcon101 This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains that “third-party payer” is the main problem with America’s health care system. This is why undoing Obamacare, while desirable, is just a small first step […]
I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 in Little Rock and that is why I posted this today. This film really did fire up the pro-life movement worldwide. Whatever Happened to the Human Race? By Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D. (Fleming H. Revell […]
Dr. C. Everett Koop was appointed to the Reagan administration but was held up in the Senate in his confirmation hearings by Ted Kennedy because of his work in pro-life causes. I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 and that is why I posted this today […]
A young Dr. C. Everett Koop pictured below. Dr. C. Everett Koop and Dr. Francis Schaeffer both came together to write the book “Whatever Happened to the HumanRace?” and that book probably did more to fire up the pro-life movement than anything else. I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming […]
What Ever Happened to the Human Race? I learned so much from Francis Schaeffer and as a result I have posted a lot of posts with his film clips and articles. Below are a few. Related posts: Francis Schaeffer: We can’t possess ultimate answers apart from the reference point of the infinite personal […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 3) DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views concerning […]
These posts are all dealing with issues that President Obama did not help on in his first term. I am hopeful that he will continue to respond to my letters that I have written him and that he will especially reconsider his view on the following import issue. President Obama should be protecting unborn children!!!! […]
January 20, 2013 I attended the March for Life in Little Rock and heard Paul Greenberg tell how he became pro-life and he gives a lot of the credit to a young Baptist preacher in Pine Bluff named Mike Huckabee. Here is an earlier article written by Greenberg that tells the story.
WITNESS by Paul Greenberg LITTLE ROCK — Today’s column is drawn from Paul Greenberg’s remarks October 27th accepting the Human Life Foundation’s annual Great Defender of Life award: Life is just full of surprises.
What’s an old boy from Shreveport, Louisiana, doing talking at the Union League club in New York City? In a hall adorned with portraits of Mr. Lincoln and members of his cabinet during The War.
Our newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has got to be one of the few left in the country, if not the only one, that still devotes a full editorial page every January 19th to celebrating the birth of Robert E. Lee.
Yet here I am, improbably enough, and feeling as if I am among more than friends. Each of us has followed his own personal path to meet here tonight. Some came to the cause early; they were present at the creation of the Human Life Review in 1975. Others, like me, the slow learners, arrived late.
When Roe v. Wade was first pronounced from on high, I welcomed it. As a young editorial writer in Pine Bluff, Ark., I believed the assurances that the high court’s ruling was not a charter for abortion on demand, but a carefully crafted, limited decision applicable only in some exceptional cases.
Even Mr. Justice Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion, assured us that Roe would not grant blanket permission for abortion. He seems to have managed to fool even himself.
He certainly fooled me. I swallowed the line whole, and regurgitated it regularly in learned editorials. For years. Though it took more and more effort to rationalize that view of Roe every time. It can be a strain, sophistry. But editorial writers may develop a certain affinity for it.
The right to life need not be fully respected from conception, I earnestly explained. It grows with each stage of fetal development until a full human being is formed. (As if any of us are still not developing as full human beings.) I went into all this in an extended debate in the columns of the Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial with a young Baptist minister in town named Mike Huckabee.
I kept trying to tell the Reverend Huckabee that life is one thing, personhood quite another. He wouldn’t buy it. Though it’s an engaging argument. For a fatal while.
As if those of us who would confer personhood on others couldn’t just as easily revoke it.
Over the long course of history, whenever it has been decided that some category of human beings is less than fully human, and so their rights need not be fully respected, even their right to life, terrible consequences have followed.
That we in this time in this country have grown used to the consequences of Roe, that they are now part of the ordinary backdrop of American life, does not make those consequences any less terrible.
But only more chilling. Call it the banality of evil.
It is the oldest of temptations: Eat of the fruit of this tree and ye shall be as gods, having the knowledge of good and evil, deciding who shall live and who shall die.
Yes, I’d been taught by Mary Warters in her biology and genetics classes at Centenary College in Shreveport that human life was one unbroken continuity from life to death, and the code to its development was present from itsvery conception.
But I wanted to believe human rights developed differently, especially the right to life. As if we had not all been endowed with certain unalienable rights.
My reasons were compassionate. Who would not want to spare mothers the burden of carrying the deformed? Why not just allow physicians to eliminate the deformity? End of Problem.
I hadn’t yet come across Flannery O’Connor’s warning that tenderness leads to the gas chambers.
But one day, I don’t know exactly when, something happened. It always does.
Eventually. It just takes longer for some of us to catch on.
But I couldn’t help noticing after a while that the number of abortions in this country had begun to mount year after year-into the millions.
Perfectly healthy babies were being aborted for socio-economic reasons. And among ethnic groups, the highest proportions of abortions were being performed on black women and girls.
Last I checked, something like 37 percent of American abortions were being done on African-American women, though African-Americans make up less than 13 percent of the U.S. population.
Eugenics was showing its true face again. And it isn’t pretty.
Abortion had become just another method of birth control, of population control, of eliminating what the Darwinians of another fatal century called Surplus Populations.
With a little verbal manipulation, any crime can be rationalized, even promoted. Verbicide precedeshomicide. First dehumanize the other, then anything is permitted.
Vocabulary remains the Little Round Top, the decisive position, of every polemical engagement.
The trick is to speak of fetuses, not unborn children. So long as the victims are a faceless abstraction, anything can be done to them.
Just don’t look too closely at those sonograms. The way I studied the first pictures of my first grandson. Astounding. We are indeed strangely and wonderfully made.
By now the toll has reached some 50 million of those wondrous creations aborted in America since 1973. That’s not some abstract theory or philosophical argument.
It is a fact, and facts are stubborn things. Some even carry their own imperatives, moral imperatives that can be ignored only so long. So I changed my mind, and changed sides.
We’ve become very good at preaching to the converted, those of us who still believe in life. So good at it we may have forgotten what Martin Luther King Jr.
tried to teach us-that we have a hidden ally in the hearts of our opponents. And we must never cease appealing to it. They are not our enemies, but allies in waiting.
They have consciences. They may yet come around. I did.
All you people aren’t supposed to be here tonight, you know. Don’t you realize this issue was settled years ago, decades ago? Haven’t you heard of Roe v. Wade? Don’t you know we’re fighting for a lost cause? Abortion on demand is the law of the land. And always will be.
So we’re told. Just as a different generation of Americans was told that Dred Scott v. Sandford was the law of the land. The slavery question had been settled once and for all. All the states were nowgoing to be slave states. When it came to having any rights, Negro slaves were but chattel-property like any other. Case closed. To paraphrase my favorite line from a Ring Lardner short story: Shut up, they explained.
Those old-time abolitionists and Republicans and Free-Soil Democrats and Antislavery Whigs-whose portraits decorate these walls-were a motley crew, as variegated as we are here tonight. They, too, were fighting for a supposedly hopeless cause, that of freedom. As we fight for life. But they understood something the sophisticates of their time didn’t:
No good cause is forever lost.
Because no cause is forever won.
That’s the nature of politics. Of ideas. Of life.
We’re supposed to have vanished years ago, we pro-lifers.
We’re just holdovers from the past, living fossils, the remains of an earlier day, of an archaic way of thinking that once held life sacred. Why, we belong in some archaeological museum. We’re just a collection of dry bones.
Dry bones?
These bones live.
Reactionaries? You bet we are.
We have so many horrors to react against.
Maybe once in a generation a great issue arises-a watershed issue. One that can no longer be put off, compromised, blurred over. One that will no longer be denied.
But returns again and again. With the obdurate force of a moral conviction.
Slavery was such an issue.
Civil rights was such an issue, and it led to a second Reconstruction.
If the distinguished jurists of the U.S. Supreme Court thought they could end this discussion, they couldn’t.
We have only begun to fight. We have only begun to witness.
Will we prevail some day?
I have no idea.
But allow me to share a secret:
It doesn’t matter.
Win or lose this case or that case, this election or that election, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that we take a stand, that we testify to what we believe, that we bear witness.
Whittaker Chambers, when the long twilight struggle known as the Cold War was just beginning, was convinced he was leaving the winning side for the losing side of history. An old party man, indeed a Soviet espionage agent, he knew the iron Laws of History. Resistance was useless. The Party would win in the end. Big Brother would triumph. For ever and ever. It was inevitable.
But it didn’t matter. He would witness.
In 1982, another witness, Walker Percy, M.D. and writer, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times on the subject of abortion.
It was, of course, never published.
But it has been published many times since.
He called his imperishable little essay “A View of Abortion, With Something to Offend Everybody,” a title that is irresistible to any editorial writer worth his salt. Dr.
Percy ended his letter to the editor with a few words addressed to the opposition:
“To pro-abortionists: According to the opinion polls, it looks as if you may get your way. But you’re not going to have it both ways.
You’re going to be told what you’re doing.”
And that’s what matters. To bear witness.
Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. E-mail him at: pgreenberg@arkansasonline.com
Dr. C. Everett Koop I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 and that is why I posted this today Secular leaps of faith 39 Comments Written by Janie B. Cheaney August 15, 2011, 2:17 PM I’m willing to cut Ryan Lizza some slack. His profile […]
Dr. Koop was delayed in his confirmation by Ted Kennedy because of his film Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Francis Schaeffer February 21, 1982 (Part 1) Uploaded by DeBunker7 on Feb 21, 2008 READ THIS FIRST: In decline of all civilizations we first see a war against the freedom of ideas. Discussion is limited […]
Third-Party Payer is the Biggest Economic Problem With America’s Health Care System Published on Jul 10, 2012 by CFPEcon101 This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains that “third-party payer” is the main problem with America’s health care system. This is why undoing Obamacare, while desirable, is just a small first step […]
I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 in Little Rock and that is why I posted this today. This film really did fire up the pro-life movement worldwide. Whatever Happened to the Human Race? By Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D. (Fleming H. Revell […]
Dr. C. Everett Koop was appointed to the Reagan administration but was held up in the Senate in his confirmation hearings by Ted Kennedy because of his work in pro-life causes. I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 and that is why I posted this today […]
A young Dr. C. Everett Koop pictured below. Dr. C. Everett Koop and Dr. Francis Schaeffer both came together to write the book “Whatever Happened to the HumanRace?” and that book probably did more to fire up the pro-life movement than anything else. I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming […]
What Ever Happened to the Human Race? I learned so much from Francis Schaeffer and as a result I have posted a lot of posts with his film clips and articles. Below are a few. Related posts: Francis Schaeffer: We can’t possess ultimate answers apart from the reference point of the infinite personal […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 3) DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views concerning […]
These posts are all dealing with issues that President Obama did not help on in his first term. I am hopeful that he will continue to respond to my letters that I have written him and that he will especially reconsider his view on the following import issue. President Obama should be protecting unborn children!!!! […]
Washington’s chronic overspending is just like a junkie’s addiction to drugs. Unless the cycle of addiction is broken, our economic and unemployment situation will continue to suffer. Washington is out of time. To avoid hitting rock bottom, Washington must cut spending today. To spread this message, Washington Could Learn a Lot has created this video. Learn more at washingtoncouldlearnalot.com.
Update: Now, our economic situation has deteriorated even further. We are now approaching $15 trillion in debt and Congress has raised the debt ceiling 11 times in the past ten years.
Washington Could Learn a Lot is a project of Public Notice Research & Education Fund (PNREF). PNREF is an independent non-profit dedicated to educating the American people about economic policy and the principles of economic freedom.
Through our education and awareness projects, PNREF will explore the future consequences of public policies being enacted today.
_________________
President Obama c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
We got to lower spending and not raise taxes. It is sad to me that the left acts like they are taking up for the middle class but they know that the largest amount of money they can raise is from the middle class and they will eventually get around to raising taxes on them.
While I disagree with statists, I sometimes admire their discipline. They are very good at staying “on message.”
I am 100 percent confident, for instance, that they intend big tax hikes on the middle class, even though they would piously swear an oath to the contrary. Indeed, I suspect more than 90 percent of them secretly would like a value-added tax.
It’s not that they necessarily dislike ordinary people, but privately they understand that you can’t finance big government by taxing rich people.
So it makes sense that they want to screw the middle class, but it’s also obvious that they don’t want to admit this is their goal. As such, it’s always interesting and revealing when folks on the left slip up and admit their true intentions.
That plan will have to include tax increases beyond just the wealthiest households, although that is the right place to start. But what should happen next? …The best thing to do, once the economic recovery is solidly under way, is to simply let the Bush tax cuts expire and return to the tax structure that prevailed under Bill Clinton. …I’d urge Democrats to be forthright with the fact that we’re way below where we need to be in terms of revenue collection.
Bernstein, by the way, was a co-author of the infamous prediction that enacting Obama’s stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent.
…it’s impossible to tackle the federal debt by taxing only the wealthy. …the middle class is going to have to pay more…the only way to achieve tax reform with a reasonable increase in revenue is to reset everyone’s rates at Clinton-era levels.
Keep in mind, by the way, that these proposals are just the tip of the iceberg. Once tax rates are pushed back to 2000 levels, then the drumbeat will sound for additional tax hikes.
“The middle class is an easy target”
And, sooner or later, the left will push for its big goal of a value-added tax.
This is not a trivial threat. Obama, for instance, already has expressed support, saying that the VAT is “something that has worked for other countries.” Romney’s also untrustworthy on the issue, having left the door open to this European-style national sales tax.
But the main point of this post is to explain that class-warfare taxes on the rich are a real threat, but they’re also just the camel’s nose under the tent. The left’s real goal is to fleece the middle class.
There’s no way to boost the burden of government spending to European levels without mimicking European tax policies.
And the dirty little secret about European tax policy is that taxes on the rich are about the same on both sides of the Atlantic. The reason government is so much bigger in Europe is that they ransack the middle class.
______________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
Downtown Memphis, July 9, 2010, solo by Taylor G. Daniel of Germantown. This song was actually sung just a few miles away from where Redding originally recorded it in downtown Memphis at Stax Records.
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Over the years Otis Redding’s influence has just grown. As you see above his music is still being sung today.
Posted September 6, 2011 at 6:06 p.m., updated September 6, 2011 at 10:59 p.m.
Photo by Courtesy of Zelma Redding
Otis Redding with Otis III.
Photo by Volt RecordsOtis Redding was known as the “King of the Memphis Sound.” He came to Memphis in 1962 with Johnny Jenkins and the Pinepoppers. During a recording session at Stax, he asked if he could record a song he had written. The result was his first hit, “Arms of Mine.” Among the hits that pushed him to the top ranks of the recording industry were “Respect,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” “Knock on Wood” and his posthumous #1 single “(Sittin’ on the) Dock of the Bay”. Redding and five of the seven member Bar-Kays were killed in an airplane crash in Madison, Wisc., Dec. 10, 1967.
A new exhibit celebrating the life and legacy of soul music legend Otis Redding opens at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music this week.
“I’ve Got Dreams To Remember: An Exhibit from the Private Collection of Zelma Redding” will feature rarely seen personal items and objects, courtesy of Redding’s widow.
To mark what would have been Redding’s 70th birthday, a special opening event will take place at the Stax Museum from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Admission is free and the celebration is open to the general public.
Some of the pieces in the new exhibit were previously featured in an exhibit at Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon, including the red velvet graduation cap Redding wore on the cover of his famed Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul LP.
Others, including the two Grammy awards Redding won posthumously for the song “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” following his death in a 1967 plane crash, have never been on display before.
This is the second Stax exhibit of Redding items from his family’s estate. In 2007, the museum hosted “Otis Redding: From Macon to Memphis” marking the 40th anniversary of the singer’s passing.
“It’s been interesting to get to know the Redding family and work with them,” said Tim Sampson, communications director for the Stax Museum. “Otis Redding was so important to Stax.
“And so it’s important for us to keep showing as many sides of Otis as we can through these types of exhibits.”
“I’ve Got Dreams to Remember” will be on display through March 31, 2012, at the museum at 926 E. McLemore.
It is sad that my favorite group did not win a Grammy!! Kevin Winter / Getty Images After his duet with Rihanna, Martin joined the rest of his band for “Paradise” off Coldplay’s latest album, Mylo Xyloto. As expected, it was bombastic and over the top. But Coldplay’s strength is its live performance, and boy […]
Amy Winehouse wins a Grammy!!! Take a look. Amy Winehouse’s parents accept Grammy Late Amy Winehouse gets Grammy award for best pop performance by a duo for duet with Tony Bennett. Singer Tony Bennett and parents of the late Amy Winehouse Mitch and Janis Winehouse accept the award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Body […]
The “American Idol” contestant-turned-actress is getting positive reviews for her role in “Smash.” The singer plays an actress who is competing for the part of Marilyn Monroe in a Broadway show. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “‘Glee’ for grownups” and Entertainment Weekly calls McPhee “mediocre” but “very likable.” Great song: Uploaded by KatharineMcPheeVEVO on Nov […]
I think that Viva La Vida is their 4th best CD. It is balanced better than all of their albums. This CD had many songs that were very similar. Although this album has their only number one hit in the US, Viva La Vida. I loved “VIVA LA VIDA” “VIOLET HILL” “LIFE IN TECHNICOLOR” “YES” […]
I like this CD a lot mainly because of it rhythm and how it is the most relaxing of Coldplay’s albums. “YELLOW” “SHIVER” “DON’T PANIC” “TROUBLE” “SPARKS” are all great songs. I would have to say that Parachutes was a good song but it was too short. Altogether I would give this album a 9/10! However, this […]
This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference: My son Hunter Hatcher’s 1st favorite Coldplay song is ”Yellow.” Hunter observed, “First Coldplay song I ever heard. Loved it from the start […]
Uploaded by gwain30 on Jan 29, 2012 A review of the new Liam Neeson film, the grey, as iI say there may be some minor spoilers but nothing too drastic, enjoy and dont forget to comment, rate and subscribe ________________ Uploaded by ClevverMovies on Dec 5, 2011 http://bit.ly/clevvermovies – Click to Subscribe! http://Facebook.com/ClevverMovies – Become […]
(If you want to check out other posts I have done about about Steve Jobs:Some say Steve Jobs was an atheist , Steve Jobs and Adoption , What is the eternal impact of Steve Jobs’ life? ,Steve Jobs versus President Obama: Who created more jobs? ,Steve Jobs’ view of death and what the Bible has to say about it ,8 things you might not know about Steve Jobs ,Steve […]
Several members of the 70′s band Kansas became committed Christians after they realized that the world had nothing but meaningless to offer. It seems through the writings of both Woody Allen and Chris Martin of Coldplay that they both are wrestling with the issue of death and what meaning does life bring. Kansas went through […]
I appeared on CNBC a couple of days ago to discuss a new report which claims that some big U.S. companies “only” paid 9 percent of their income to the government.
While I’m a bit skeptical of the numbers (did it include the taxes paid to foreign governments, for instance, which can be substantial for multinational firms?), I confess I didn’t read the report.
So I focused on the best way of getting rid of corrupt loopholes while simultaneously boosting the competitiveness of America companies.
In other words, I said we should rip up the wretched internal revenue code and implement a simple and fair flat tax.
As is my habit, allow me to emphasize a few points from the interview.
It’s good to keep money in the productive sector of the economy because we shouldn’t feed the spending addiction in DC.
If tax rates are low, there’s much less incentive for companies to lobby for loopholes.
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
At the March for Life today my son Wilson Hatcher got his picture taken with two of the Duggar sisters.
We saw a lot of the Duggars today at the March for Life in Little on January 20, 2013. Here is an earlier picture of the Duggars.
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Big crowd at pro-life march in Little Rock today. I thought it was about 3000 or so people there. (KARK Channel 4 said only hundreds were there but that is a total lie!!!) I enjoyed the poem “Will you sing me a lullabye before I go” by Catherine Walsh and then a list of pro-life lawmakers in attendance was read and it included Allen Kerr, Ann Clemmer, Andrea Lea, Bob Balinger, Nate Bell, Mark Lowery, Andy Davis (not from Hot Springs), Andy Mayberry and David Sanders. Others were recognized such as Jim Magnus, Curtis Coleman, Jay Dickey, Susan Hutchinson and a letter was read from Tom Cotton.
Then Paul Greenberg gave the speech that went through his process of supporting Roe versus Wade decision in the early days then later becoming pro-life.
Mr. Greenberg compared the Roe v. Wade decision to the Dred Scott decision today at our pro-life march. Here he did that same in this article below from 1994:
by PAUL GREENBERG, The Houston Chronicle, April 9, 1994. This article is part of no violence period.
INDULGE me in a momentary historical fantasy. Suppose that Roger Brooke Taney had not gone down in American history as the principal author of what is now almost universally acknowledged as the worst decision in the history of American jurisprudence, Dred Scott vs. Sandford in 1857.
Suppose the country had been shaped in the image of Chief Justice Taney’s decision, which decreed that slaves could be carried anywhere in the union, and that Negroes could not be citizens under the Constitution, for they were “”regarded as being of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race … and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. ” These were not persons, according to the high court, but property.
Stay with me, this may take some imagination. Now suppose that, instead of these words exciting contempt and derision, and moral horror, they were thought to represent a bulwark of American rights, a new birth of freedom.
In that case, there might still have been those Americans who did not approve of slavery, and perhaps even demonstrated against it, but suppose they were outnumbered by far? Not by fervent disciples of human slavery, but by the mass of citizens who felt uneasy when the subject came up, and who themselves would never own a slave, but who did not feel they should interfere with another’s right to own one. Such a delicate question, they felt, should be left to individual conscience — not dictated by the state.
And finally, suppose that Roger B. Taney, full of years and honors, were to announce that he would retire at the end of the Supreme Court’s current term. What would some forgettable mediocrity of a president have said on that occasion? Would he have identified himself with the decision in Dred Scott? And would the departing chief justice have been hailed as the conscience of the court? Would the grand old man have explained at one point that, while not in favor of slavery personally, he had acted to protect the rights of others?
Too rich a fantasy?
Not if one listens to what is being said on the retirement of Justice Harry Blackmun, author of Roe vs. Wade, the Dred Scott decision of our time. Roe made it clear that the unborn child — fetus, if that term is more comfortable — has no rights that the state is bound to respect.
And like Dred Scott, Roe was handed down in the name of an individual right. Roger Taney’s decision in Dred Scott was based on the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Justice Blackmun based Roe on a vague right of privacy nowhere spelled out in the Constitution but “”broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. ”
Of course Roe does not condemn millions to a lifetime of slavery, but rather to no life at all — or, if one prefers, termination. (Euphemism is the first sign that an advocate feels queasy about what he’s really advocating.) At his press conference with Justice Blackmun this week, President Clinton repeated his support for Roe in his own forgettable way: “”I — you know, of course, that I agree with the decision and I think it’s an important one in a very difficult and complex area of our nation’s life. ”
It might be noted that James Buchanan, the forgettable president in 1857, was all for the decision in Dred Scott, too, exulting that it would make Kansas “”as much a slave state as Georgia or South Carolina. ” At last the slavery question was resolved and the agitation over it would end — just as Harry Blackmun’s opinion in Roe was supposed to end any dispute about abortion.
Speaking of his decision in Roe, Justice Blackmun once explained: “”People misunderstand. I am not for abortion. I hope my family never has to face such a decision. ” Roger Taney’s defenders in the more poisonous groves of academe explain that the chief justice wasn’t ruling for slavery, but only interpreting the Constitution. People misunderstood.
By all reports, Mr. Justice Blackmun is a nice man, and a baseball fan to boot. Chief Justice Taney doubtless led an exemplary private life and had his hobbies, too. And both handed down other, better decisions besides the single one that history will indelibly link to their names. Perhaps that is the essence of this fantasy: In a society that has lost its moral bearings, strange and terrible decisions can be made, and can come to seem quite ordinary, even praiseworthy.
Greenberg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and editorial page editor of the Little Rock, Ark., Democrat-Gazette.
Copyright 1994 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
Will you sing me a lullabye before I go?
Dear Mom and Dad, I want you to know
My young heart is beating, my eyes fill with tears,
I pray that your love will conquer your fears.
God knit me here, you are my lifeline,
Will you sing to me, sweet Mother of Mine?
If you do not want me, please give me away,
There are loving arms waiting that want me to stay.
You will think of me each day of your life,
And the doctor who tore me from you with his knife.
Why would you want us to suffer this pain?
If I’m lost forever, what would you gain?
My Daddy, Listen, can you hear my screams?
Help Me! I cry for you in my dreams.
A farewell lullabye, please sing to me, Dad,
The pain is so great and I am so sad.
My heart aches to see, to feel and to touch
The Mom and Dad who I love so much.
Will I never run, or sing, or play,
Or hear the kind things that mothers say?
I would love to see Grandmom and play with toys,
And hug my Daddy like most girls and boys.
To money and things my parents are drawn,
But when their arms long to hold me, I will be gone.
The tears of the Angels flood Heaven today
As I join fifty million souls who perished this way.
We are crying our hearts out and trembling with fears,
But ours screams for mercy fall on deaf ears.
Does anyone out there have compassion for me?
When you were sown in her womb, your mom let you be.
I am being tortured in this home that I know,
Will you sing me a lullabye before I go?
A stranger prays and sings on the street
For all the children they never will meet.
Someday in Heaven, I’ll find you to say;
Thank you for praying and singing that day.
As I lay there dying, I saw you weep,
With a sweet lullabye you sang me to sleep.
The Angels will carry me home when I cry
With millions of infants who pray in the sky
For the souls of the parents they yearned to kiss
And never will know the babies they’ll miss.
My Savior awaits my arrival today,
“Vengeance is Mine,” I heard the Lord say.
Your soul, Mom and Dad, you have defiled.
Oh Beg for God’s mercy for killing your child!
The Angels sing lullabyes at Heaven’s door
And play with the Babies, our tears shed no more.
Catherine Walsh
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Ronald Reagan was the greatest pro-life president ever. He appointed Dr. C. Everett Koop to his administration and Dr. Koop was responsible for this outstanding pro-life film below:
Ronald Reagan gave some great pro-life speeches.
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Jane Roe” or Roe v Wade is now a prolife Christian. She’s recently done a commercial about it.
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.
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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.
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 inRoev. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead,Roe v. Wadehas 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.
Dr. C. Everett Koop I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 and that is why I posted this today Secular leaps of faith 39 Comments Written by Janie B. Cheaney August 15, 2011, 2:17 PM I’m willing to cut Ryan Lizza some slack. His profile […]
Dr. Koop was delayed in his confirmation by Ted Kennedy because of his film Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Francis Schaeffer February 21, 1982 (Part 1) Uploaded by DeBunker7 on Feb 21, 2008 READ THIS FIRST: In decline of all civilizations we first see a war against the freedom of ideas. Discussion is limited […]
Third-Party Payer is the Biggest Economic Problem With America’s Health Care System Published on Jul 10, 2012 by CFPEcon101 This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains that “third-party payer” is the main problem with America’s health care system. This is why undoing Obamacare, while desirable, is just a small first step […]
I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 in Little Rock and that is why I posted this today. This film really did fire up the pro-life movement worldwide. Whatever Happened to the Human Race? By Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D. (Fleming H. Revell […]
Dr. C. Everett Koop was appointed to the Reagan administration but was held up in the Senate in his confirmation hearings by Ted Kennedy because of his work in pro-life causes. I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 and that is why I posted this today […]
A young Dr. C. Everett Koop pictured below. Dr. C. Everett Koop and Dr. Francis Schaeffer both came together to write the book “Whatever Happened to the HumanRace?” and that book probably did more to fire up the pro-life movement than anything else. I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming […]
What Ever Happened to the Human Race? I learned so much from Francis Schaeffer and as a result I have posted a lot of posts with his film clips and articles. Below are a few. Related posts: Francis Schaeffer: We can’t possess ultimate answers apart from the reference point of the infinite personal […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 3) DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political views concerning […]
These posts are all dealing with issues that President Obama did not help on in his first term. I am hopeful that he will continue to respond to my letters that I have written him and that he will especially reconsider his view on the following import issue. President Obama should be protecting unborn children!!!! […]
Life begins when the fetus is viable outside the womb, prior to that it is parasitical and lives at the discretion of the host.
I responded with this post:
It seems to me the real argument lies in the personhood of the unborn baby. (The best evidence pointing to unborn baby being human was given by my atheist friend Dr. Kevin Henke.) If it is just a piece of material that is lifeless then the pro-life crowd has no argument. However, if it is a person then the pro-choice crowd has no argument. (A great article on the Biblical passages against abortion are found in this link.)
My pro-life evidence lies in the lives of two of the most abortion supporters of the 1970’s. Why did they change to the pro-life view? Check out the links below for the answers.
“Jane Roe” or Roe v Wade is now a prolife Christian. She’s recently has done a commercial about it.
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I have often wondered why we got to this point in our country’s life and we allow abortion. The answer is found in the words of Schaeffer.
Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.
Below is a clip from the film series “How Then Shall We Live?”
Silent Scream, The Hand of God is “semi-autobiographical…for the study of…the…demise of one system of morality…and the painful acquisition of another more coherent, more reliable [morality]…[with] the backdrop …of abortion. p. 3.
“We live in an age of fulsome nihilism; an age of death; an age in which, as author Walker Percy (a fellow physician, a pathologist who specializes in autopsying Western civilization) argued, “compassion leads to the gas chamber,” or the abortion clinic, or the euthanist’s office.” p. 4.
“I worked hard to make abortion legal, affordable, and available on demand. In 1968, I was one of the three founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League. I ran the largest abortion clinic …and oversaw tens of thousands of abortions. I have performed thousands myself.” p. 5.
“The Hippocratic Oath states the following,
I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner, I will not give to a woman a pessary [a device inserted in the vagina, thought erroneously to initiate an abortion] to produce an abortion.
The oath is unambiguous on these matters.” p. 48.
“The World Medical Association meeting at Geneva, in 1948, in the aftermath of the revelations of the Nazi medical experiments, revised the oath marginally to include the pledge, “I will retain the utmost respect for Human Life from conception.”…in 1964 restated the theme : “The health of my patient will be my first consideration.” p.50. The unborn baby in an abortion procedure is not considered a patient.
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 34 years) and we were alone on a corner and the President was driven by and he waved at us and we waved back. Since the rally that President Reagan held was filled with thousands of people I assumed Jill and I were on the corner with many other people but when I turned around I realized that President Reagan had only waved to us two because we were all alone on the corner and I felt deeply honored.
My former pastor from Memphis, Adrian Rogers, got the opportunity to visit with President Ronald Reagan on several occasions.
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.
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
President and Nancy Reagan posing with Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen during a state dinner for Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. 10/8/85.
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, a leading pro-life advocate and convert to Catholicism, died at the age of 84 on Monday a week ago in his New York home, after a long struggle with cancer. The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Chapter 12 is titled To The Thanatoriums, an allusion the Walker […]
The pro-life position is very important to a great many of the freshmen members of the House of Representatives. As you can see above in the clip from the film series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, the unborn baby is a child, but we are treating many […]
When I think of the things that make me sad concerning this country, the first thing that pops into my mind is our treatment of unborn children. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president of the United States. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council recently had a conversation with him concerning the […]
Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians who lived here traded the 22 square miles of soggy Manhattan Island to the Dutch for $24.00 worth of cloth and trinkets. The newcomers founded a city, New Amsterdam at the edge of an empty continent. In the years that followed, it proved a magnet for millions of people from across the Atlantic; people who were driven by fear and poverty; who were attracted by the promise of freedom and plenty. They fanned out over the continent and built a new nation with their sweat, their enterprise and their vision of a better future.
For the first time in their lives, many were truly free to pursue their own objectives. That freedom released the human energies which created the United States. For the immigrants who were welcomed by this statue, America was truly a land of opportunity.
They poured ashore in their best clothes, eager and expectant, carrying what little they owned. They were poor, but they all had a great deal of hope. Once they arrived, they found, as my parents did, not an easy life, but a very hard life. But for many there were friends and relatives to help them get started __ to help them make a home, get a job, settle down in the new country. There were many rewards for hard work, enterprise and ability. Life was hard, but opportunity was real. There were few government programs to turn to and nobody expected them. But also, there were few rules and regulations. There were no licenses, no permits, no red tape to restrict them. They found in fact, a free market, and most of them thrived on it.
Many people still come to the United States driven by the same pressures and attracted by the same promise. You can find them in places like this. It’s China Town in New York, one of the centers of the garment industry __ a place where hundreds of thousands of newcomers have had their first taste of life in the new country. The people who live and work here are like the early settlers. They want to better their lot and they are prepared to work hard to do so.
Although I haven’t often been in factories like this, it’s all very familiar to me because this is exactly the same kind of a factory that my mother worked in when she came to this country for the first time at the age of 14, almost 90 years ago. And if there had not been factories like this here then at which she could have started to work and earn a little money, she wouldn’t have been able to come. And if I existed at all, I’d be a Russian or Hungarian today, instead of an American. Of course she didn’t stay here a long time, she stayed here while she learned the language, while she developed some feeling for the country, and gradually she was able to make a better life for herself.
Similarly, the people who are here now, they are like my mother. Most of the immigrants from the distant countries __ they came here because they liked it here better and had more opportunities. A place like this gives them a chance to get started. They are not going to stay here very long or forever. On the contrary, they and their children will make a better life for themselves as they take advantage of the opportunities that a free market provides to them.
The irony is that this place violates many of the standards that we now regard as every worker’s right. It is poorly ventilated, it is overcrowded, the workers accept less than union rate __ it breaks every rule in the book. But if it were closed down, who would benefit? Certainly not the people here. Their life may seem pretty tough compared to our own, but that is only because our parents or grandparents went through that stage for us. We have been able to start at a higher point.
Frank Visalli’s father was 12 years old when he arrived all alone in the United States. He had come from Sicily. That was 53 years ago. Frank is a successful dentist with a wife and family. They live in Lexington, Massachusetts. There is no doubt in Frank’s mind what freedom combined with opportunity meant to his father and then to him, or what his Italian grandparents would think if they could see how he lives now.
Frank Visalli: They would not believe what they would see __ that a person could immigrate from a small island and make such success out of their life because to them they were mostly related to the fields, working in the field as a peasant. My father came over, he made something for himself and then he tried to build a family structure. Whatever he did was for his family. It was for a better life for his family. And I can always remember him telling me that the number one thing in life is that you should get an education to become a professional person.
Friedman: The Visalli family, like all of us who live in the United States today, owe much to the climate of freedom we inherited from the founders of our country. The climate that gave full scope to the poor from other lands who came here and were able to make better lives for themselves and their children.
But in the past 50 years, we’ve been squandering that inheritance by allowing government to control more and more of our lives, instead of relying on ourselves. We need to rediscover the old truths that the immigrants knew in their bones; what economic freedom is and the role it plays in preserving personal freedom.
That’s why I came here to the South China Sea. It’s a place where there is an almost laboratory experiment in what happens when government is limited to its proper function and leaves people free to pursue their own objectives. If you want to see how the free market really works this is the place to come. Hong Kong, a place with hardly any natural resources. About the only one you can name is a great harbor, yet the absence of natural resources hasn’t prevented rapid economic development. Ships from all nations come here to trade because there are no duties, no tariffs on imports or exports. The power of the free market has enabled the industrious people of Hong Kong to transform what was once barren rock into one of the most thriving and successful places in Asia.
If you enjoyed that then take a look at the other segments:
PETERSON: Well, let me ask you how you would cope with this problem, Dr. Friedman. The people decided that they wanted cool air, and there was tremendous need, and so we built a huge industry, the air conditioning industry, hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous earnings opportunities and nearly all of us now have air […]
Part 5 Milton Friedman: I do not believe it’s proper to put the situation in terms of industrialist versus government. On the contrary, one of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary […]
The fundamental principal of the free society is voluntary cooperation. The economic market, buying and selling, is one example. But it’s only one example. Voluntary cooperation is far broader than that. To take an example that at first sight seems about as far away as you can get __ the language we speak; the words […]
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
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