Bill Nye, the Logical-Fallacy Guy?

A short piece on abortion, embryology, and basic logic.

Bill Nye's Unscientific Tirade on Abortion

Defending Unborn Infants from Predators

Women who survived abortions as infants testify before Congress in the links below:

Gianna Jessen

Melissa Ohden

I heard Ohden speak at an event last year and she was frank, truthful, and hopeful in the telling of her story.

One spiritual sub-story here is the lack of bitterness these women hold for those who abused them.

(A disclaimer: for these testimonies, I am linking to the site of a woman named Julie Roys who has published both of their testimonies, but I don't know her material otherwise so can't recommend the rest of her site.)

Listening to pro-abortion activists (cue Wendy Davis) feels like some kind of true-life "A Modest Proposal:" What to do with all these babies, coming from nowhere, mysteriously bestowed upon these autonomous women and men -- How will they be educated? How will they be fed and cared for? What to do, what to do here in our rich, populous, first-world nation? I have a proposal! Let's kill them all, and use their body parts for research! 

"Not Just the Pretty Babies"

Not Just the Pretty Babies

...Indeed, if the pro-life movement were so shallow as to feel compassion only for theoretical, abstract, pretty babies, or so sentimental as to think eliminating abortion would provide a fuzzy blanket and a happy ending for every child, it would be of little use to children or society. Being pro-life is about far more than can be captured in a well-lit Facebook image. It is about avoiding the many tempting promises of barbarity. Both sides in the abortion debate are aware the world is full of things that ought not to be. Babies should not be ill, dependent on tubes for survival, exposed to drugs or alcohol in utero, born into poverty in crime-infested neighborhoods, or rejected by their biological families.

Barbarians respond to the world’s brokenness by doing what seems necessary to protect either themselves personally or their group as a whole.

...the solution is not to eliminate...these babies while they are most vulnerable. Doing so is to fall into the understandably human, but absolutely wrong, logic that was used by a group of third-grade boys in my classroom when they asked why, since the Middle East is always fighting and wants to hurt America, we don’t just nuke the whole region to end the problem.

When It Seems Like There Is No Choice

Here is a short, poignant retrospective by Sydna Masse in the LA Times on her own abortion, her days as a pro-choice activist, and her conversion to pro-life activist.

Choice Killed a Part of My Heart

Masse is an old friend of my husband, and she now runs a healing ministry called Ramah International for women who have had abortions.

Ramah International

A second chance in north Dallas:

For local women in crisis pregnancies looking for real, living options -- women who want a hopeful, positive choice for themselves and their babies -- here is a link to a ministry which provides counseling, medical services, and adoption help. It is supported by local churches, including members of our evangelical church here in Texas. Did you know these kind of organizations are dotted all over the country?

Hope Crisis Pregnancy Center

And below is a link to ministry which helps single moms receive housing and career counseling and support in North Texas, founded by some dear friends.

Shiloh Place

Finally, here is a ministry that is one of my favorites, as it provides safe housing, food, transportation, and career counseling to homeless families, and helps homeless school kids stay in their regular school system through the process. It is a national group with local chapters. Local churches provide overnight housing, facilities, and hot meals in the church building.

Family Promise

There is hope and second chance for ALL of us. We all need a second chance (and a third chance, and a 77th chance), and God is the God of second chances!

These ministries and many, many others all across America provide real, wholesome, life-giving CHOICE and a second chance to mothers and fathers and children.

#lovewins #ifyou'renotababy

Crowing over Obergefell, Quiet on Nucatola

Scott Redd at sunergoi on clamor and silence in the cultural space. (Scott is my brother and the President of Reformed Theological Seminary's DC campus.)

But What about the Mammograms?

And here's one for those concerned that women in poverty won't get mammogram referrals if Planned Parenthood doesn't receive government funding:

Washington Post op ed:  The Tipping Point on Planned Parenthood

Straw Man at the Women's Clinic

And finally -- a few thoughts on the conversation as I have watched it play out on social media.

While I don't have statistics, it wouldn't surprise me if all or almost all of the funding and support for Crisis Pregnancy Centers around the country are received from Evangelicals, Catholics, and political Conservatives. I would also suspect that a hefty amount of funding and volunteer man-hours at relief and support organizations for families -- both nationally and internationally -- are also provided by the these same interests and by pro-lifers (like my own small evangelical church in Texas whose members provide significant funding and basic, human, boots-on-the ground support for both a shelter for single mothers and also a local homeless shelter) -- above and beyond whatever taxes they already pay the government. I also suspect that a significant number of foster and adoptive parents of needy children (children living in America and around the world) are pro-life Evangelicals, Catholics, and Conservatives. Just an anecdotal survey of my evangelical friends and the churches I know reveals adoption as a trend. It's hip to adopt, in these circles.

But whether or not my assumptions and experiences are true and typical (and of course there is need for continual dialogue within pro-life circles on how to better love mothers and fathers and children in need) at this moment, critiques of pro-life methodology by Democrats ring a bit hollow.

When Buchenwald and Auschwitz were opened, and the ashes and tales and bones clattered out, the story of that day was the not the degree to which the German resistance or the Polish resistance or any other anti-Nazi group could or could not have done more or done things a little differently, a little more strategically.

When Rosa Parks took her courageous stand on a regular bus on a regular day in the segregated south, the truth "clicked" in people's minds -- and the story of the day was not whether or not the black community in America could have done more.

In the 19th century, no one serious about slavery questioned whether or not that little Presbyterian woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, could have done more. "COULD she have squeezed out one more book in the same amount of time? If ONLY she'd done more. We'll have Deborah Wasserman Schultz, James Carville, and Cecile Richards in to discuss Stowe's failure to do more in our studio at 6:00!"

And likewise, whether or not religious pro-lifers and political conservatives can do more about abortion is not the story of the day today. Nor is whether or not Republicans (and Fox News talking heads, apparently)  do or don't help low-income women and children by not voting for Democrats.

The Story of This Day is the gruesomely glib, cool-headed, wine-sloshing, lip-smacking, sonogram-guided, cranium-removing traffic of human baby body parts by a group of powerful, educated professional women in America (whether or not their own pockets are lined). (Talk about having a price on your head!)

The ones to be corrected are the cheerleaders of these women, who are predominantly groups like: Democrats, atheists, agnostics, liberal feminists, unions, liberal Catholics, and mainline Protestants. Round up the usual suspects.

Will pro-life Democrats speak truth to power? Will they be heard by their party? One hopes the pro-life remnant that does exist in these circles -- they are there, I know and love some of them -- have a voice and are courageous and heard.

About a Boy

But Fox News (and I am not generally a Fox New apologist), with all of its round-the-clock media coverage of this gruesomely compelling story, is not to be blamed. Look to the other networks for their comparative silence.

Likewise, the story of the day is simply and obviously NOT the undercover sting operation to catch these doctors, lawyers, leaders, and researchers in the act of pushing a baby boy's bloody legs and arms around a glass pie dish, sifting through his parts, his little eye, his little head -- a baby boy they'd just killed intentionally.

As Redd says, above: folks, this one is not hard to figure out, or nuanced.

The story of the day is The Brutal Act itself.

Libertarian Revisits Abortion Rights

LINK here: "Why I Changed My Mind about Abortion" by Andrew Klavan

The whole article is worth reading, but here is the hook:

'Until quite recently, I was pro-abortion. I opposed Roe V. Wade — I thought it a dishonest decision that robbed the people of their right to settle the matter for themselves. But given the chance to vote on the issue, I would have voted for the greatest possible abortion access. While I myself live according to my conservative lights, I've never felt I have the right to impose those values on others...'

And here is one well-stated point about the public dialogue on abortion:

'Whenever I hear abortion spokespeople defend their position — and I mean, whenever I hear them — they seem to me determined to obscure the real issue. They talk about being “pro-choice,” but who among their opponents is anti-choice? They talk about “women’s health,” but what sinister constituency demands that women be unhealthy? They talk about “protecting a woman’s body,” but it’s not the woman’s body under threat, it’s the body of the baby inside her.'