BALTIMORE (ChurchMilitant.com) - In his Silence Stops Now rally address on Tuesday, Church Militant contributor Dr. Alan Keyes warned the Church "is caught up in what appears to be a general offensive — an offensive of evil, an offensive of anti-Christ, anti-God human beings" who are attacking the conscience of humankind.
"We are here today because a great crisis has resulted in the Church from this offensive," Keyes observed. . . .
The only path to a restored nation is to inspire the people of this country to recall and reclaim the moral foundation of our republic.
Only then will we begin to see re-emerge a decent American politics, with God-fearing, accountable men and women standing for us in responsible self-government.
I hope you’ll consider joining me on their website, where I am contributing regular articles and videos dedicated to renewing the Christian understanding, the American understanding, of God-endowed rights and their attendant duties; to recognizing right and wrong in our individual and our national life. We explore the essential principles enshrined in our national charter, the Declaration of Independence and the laws and institutions that rely upon them.
Once again armored with the truth of our nation's Providential endowments, I am confident we can provide energy to our people to act as empowered citizens, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to our Posterity.
YOUR URGENT ACTION NEEDED: Hospitalized now for more than a month due to injuries sustained during TORTURE in hellish Iranian prisons, American Pastor Saeed Abedini sent out an Easter letter to his wife, Nagmeh.
He wrote:
On the Eve of Good Friday and Easter I was praying from my hospital room for my fellow Christians in the world.
What the Holy Spirit revealed to me in prayer was that there are many dead faiths in the midst of Christians today. That Christians all over the world are not able to fully reach their spiritual potential that has been given to them as a gift by God so that in reaching that potential, the curtain can be removed and the Glory of God would be revealed.
This means that we should not do things that we like to do (that God does not want us to do) and to do things that we do not like to do (but God wants us to do) so that He may be glorified.
We should also transform our dead faiths into living and active faiths through the resurrection of Christ which is an active and constructive love that is effective. Then we are able to experience the Glorious resurrection with Christ. A Glorious life with Christ starts only after a painful death (to self) with Christ.
Unless we work and pray unceasingly for Saeed Abedini's deliverance, this young pastor faces seven years of imprisonment and torture STILL before him…
This moving, insightful Easter message of faith and peace in the Resurrection of Christ and the Glory thereafter must not be Saeed's benediction – not at only 33 years old with a wife and two beautiful children awaiting him at home.
We agree in faith with Nagmeh Abedini that God is using her family for this ordeal to witness to those who suffer…
"The Lord has counted our family worthy enough to send Saeed to a dark place that he would be able to share with people who are in complete despair," Naghmeh Abedini told International Christian Concern.
Please, this Holy Season answer Naghmeh's plea that we call upon authorities worldwide to press the Islamic Republic for her husband's release.
"You know, my ultimate hope is in God," Naghmeh told the Christian Post. "God has given me continued hope to take it a day at a time. I know that with so many praying. I am grateful for all the people signing the petitions, ultimately the time Saeed is in that prison is not decided by the Iranian government. But it's appointed by God."
"I am very optimistic and hopeful that he will be freed soon. My prayer is that Jesus will be glorified from all of it, and people will know that it is God who has delivered Saeed. At this point there are no more options with the legal system in Iran – at this time, it has to be a miracle."
We should have heard by April 2 if Pastor Saeed Abedini was among 920 prisoners being "pardoned" by the Islamic Republic as a gesture for the Iranian New Year.
No word. Please pray for Saeed and other prisoners of conscience in Iran.
And BLAST Congress to make liberating this Christian martyr a TOP priority as we leave Lent behind and continue championing his freedom during our blessed Eastertide season of hope in Christ!
Imprisoned for nearly two years, American Pastor Saeed Abedini is AT LEAST out of his cell and again hospitalized in Iran for injuries sustained during torture and beatings for REFUSING TO CONVERT TO ISLAM. Foreign countries like Germany, the United Nations AND the European Union are calling for this American's freedom.
Importantly, Iran still has the perfect face-saving "excuse" to show a shred of humanity NOW by releasing Pastor Abedini – this is the Persian New Year and there is a strong cultural tradition of clemency as a year begins anew… a window of opportunity that is closing!
But we shall be sustained in faith, for it is our season of salvation – Easter and the celebration of the glorious resurrection of the Lord, Christ Jesus!
We need YOUR prayers for Saeed and his family, and YOUR voice in the call for Obama and Congress to STEP UP and pressure Iran to grant this martyred American's RELEASE now.
We are finally gaining some ground in international concern for Pastor Saeed Abedini as Iran exposes its TRUE character with their barbaric persecution of a man who was merely trying to build SECULAR, PRE-APPROVED ORPHANAGES…
We cannot let Pastor Abedini be forgotten and ultimately abandoned to die by the feckless, callous Obama administration – not while we have this perfect albeit fleeting chance to negotiate a "clemency" release that focuses on rescue and does not openly challenge the evil Ayatollahs. Help us campaign to have this husband and father of two home!
Pastor Abedini, a man whose only crime is being a CHRISTIAN in a Muslim country, could be sent back to prison AT ANY TIME and still without receiving the life-saving treatment he now needs after enduring beatings and torture at the hands of his captors.
Most recently, at a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, German representatives joined the United States to call for Saeed Abedini's release.
"When the president made it a priority, others are now speaking out more directly," Jordan Sekulow, executive director of American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) told Newsmax. "We very much appreciate a country like Germany speaking out, and the European Union has called for Saeed Abedini's release. To actually see someone mention someone by name — much of those statements [to the U.N.] are very generic, so that was good."
Sekulow says keeping Abedini's story alive and strong advocacy demands in front of politicians is CRITICAL to securing his freedom.
An ever-increasingly belligerent Iran MUST NOT get the upper hand when it comes to our fight to save Pastor Saeed Abedini – and Barack Obama MUST NOT give it to them!
American Pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been IMPRISONED SINCE THE SUMMER OF 2012 for his CHRISTIAN FAITH, was taken to a private hospital in Iran for life-saving surgery to address the chronic pain in his stomach resulting from numerous beatings in the notoriously hellish Rajaee Shahr prison.
Then, before he could receive treatment, he was suddenly pinned down and restrained WITH SHACKLES by Iranian guards and promptly dragged back to the prison! Now he is returned, again, to hospital care – but no one knows for how long…
WE ARE RACING THE CLOCK TO SAVE THIS CHRISTIAN!
PLEASE, keep YOUR petitions pouring into Washington and INSIST that diplomatic pressure to save Saeed Abedini continue – don't let Pastor Saeed be sacrificed to Obama's need to prop up his overly ambitious "nuclear deal" with the brutal Islamic Ayatollahs!
U.S. pastor Saeed Abedini, who is currently serving an unjust, brutal eight-year prison sentence in Iran, was given a "glimmer of hope" for clemency after the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif mentioned a possible reduced jail sentence.
But as Iran's cruel manipulation of the recent EU visit shows, if we do not soon secure Pastor Saeed's release, he risks being caught in the political "crossfire" of Congressionally imposed U.S. sanctions against Iran, which are necessary to protect Western interests and our democratic ally, Israel.
We need YOUR voice raised TODAY for Pastor Saeed's "clemency" from the brutal and unjust persecution of the Islamic regime of Iran!
These developments follow on YOUR tireless efforts aiding a broad coalition of decent conscience and Christian activism! We continue to support American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) attorneys, who are rightly charging the Obama administration with surrendering the fight for freedom for American pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been wrongly imprisoned in Iran FOR HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH since 2012.
In ongoing diplomatic negotiations, Obama has given Iran everything the brutal Islamic regime wants, and freedom nations have received NOTHING in return. Here is a recent tweet from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who said "Our relationship w/ the world is based on Iranian nation's interests. In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation's will."
Surrender appears to be exactly what this pro-Islam, pro-appeasement administration is doing – but with YOUR help, we will INTENSIFY OUR SUPPORT OF OUR BROTHER, SAEED!
Stop the surrender and help save this Christian martyr!
BLAST-FAX WASHINGTON YOUR PETITION LETTING THEM KNOW WE ARE PRAYING AND WORKING FOR SAEED'S RELEASE! DEMAND CONGRESS AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION STAND UP IN THE FIGHT FOR PASTOR ABEDINI'S FREEDOM…
Also, thanks to YOUR activism, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling for the release of Pastor Saeed, as well as all others "detained on account of their religious beliefs." NOW we must compel Washington to FOLLOW THROUGH!
The resolution is a statement of the sense of the Senate and does not hold any legislative power.
It was passed without opposition and reads in part:
"Resolved, that the Senate – (1) recognizes that freedom of religious belief and practice is a universal human right and a fundamental freedom of every individual, regardless of race, sex, country, creed, or nationality, and should never be arbitrarily abridged by any government; (2) recognizes that governments have a responsibility to protect the fundamental rights of their citizens; and (3) calls on the Government of Iran to immediately release Saeed Abedini and all other individuals detained on account of their religious beliefs."
The resolution was introduced by Senator James Risch of Idaho and co-sponsored by 11 other Senators, including Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida. A similar resolution, H.Res. 147 was passed 11/20/13 UNANIMOUSLY in the House.
Still, Congress must MORE aggressively insist the feckless Obama administration intensify pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran – for whom, as Sen. Ted Cruz wisely notes, "this abuse of an American citizen for peacefully practicing his faith, materially undermines any suggestion that they have moderated their oppressive policies."
While Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House have called for Pastor Saeed's release, and the U.S. House of Representatives held an emotional hearing that highlighted his persecution, MUCH more must be done – NO real geopolitical pressure has yet been applied AT ALL. Pastor Saeed's case has been argued before the United Nations, and more nations are becoming involved.
Today is the day we MUST ensure that Congress continues to push the Obama administration forward…
Loes Bijnen, a Dutch diplomat and human rights specialist in Tehran from 1999 to 2004, describes the Rajaee Shahr prison as a place where "political prisoners have to share cells with dangerous criminals like murderers, rapists and drug addicts who don't hesitate to attack their cell mates. They have nothing to lose: many of them are condemned to death anyway. Murders or unexplained deaths are a regular occurrence."
One gruesome image from Rajaee Shar showed some of 24 political prisoners hanged in a single day in 2009. To this day, no one knows their identities nor their alleged crimes.
CNSNews.com reports Bijnen quoted this excerpt from a letter smuggled out of the prison from an inmate serving a life sentence:
"This is a different world, much like the Hell depicted in movies, full of fire and smoke," the prisoner wrote. "A world filled with burnt, black, disheveled faces, naked bodies covered with sweat and red marks from the sting of lice. A world filled with torn trousers, scraps of which are used as belts; bare and filthy feet; clothes worn inside out and covered with lice; torn, mismatched slippers. A world in which you are exposed to polluted air, the extreme smell of putrid waste, overflowing sewage from toilets, the toxicity of dry vomit, infectious phlegm, and the body odor from bodies in close proximity, rarely given the opportunity to bathe – all coming to a climax with the smell of urine by those who are unable to control themselves."
CNSNews.com reports another alarming report on what Saeed Abedini can be expected to face based on an open letter written by Kurdish political prisoner Zanyar Moradi, smuggled out from the prison last January. Moradi claims that he and his cousin and co-accused, Loghman Moradi, had been tortured for nine months.
"They would beat us so hard that we could not walk, even today I still suffer from side effects of torture – my back is hurting and I have two fractured vertebrate. The torturers told us that if we did not confess to everything they told us that they would rape us and we just signed whatever they put in front of us. And now we are waiting for the hanging rope of death."
Saeed could soon be sent back to THIS: "Pastor Saeed has been placed in a 3m by 3m cell (approximately 10ft by 10ft) with five other inmates in the ward reserved for murderers and rapists," American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) Executive Director Jordan Sekulow wrote in a letter to President Obama, when urging him to speak out "directly and forcefully" to save the pastor's life.
Sekulow warns that Abedini's transfer to Rajaee Shahr "appears designed to afford the Iranian regime political cover should Pastor Saeed be either severely injured or killed by fellow inmates." Or by medical neglect…
Or by the regime's prison guards.
"I can only imagine the torment and anguish he is experiencing," his Boise, Idaho-based wife, Nagmeh, said in a statement. "He is truly defenseless in this prison – defenseless from the abuse and violence of other prisoners – defenseless from a radical government that continues to violate his rights."
We cannot allow Barack Obama to abandon our Christian brother. Not when his life can be saved by something so easily done as Congress and this administration TAKING ACTION to secure his freedom and safe return to his family!
Renewed Congressional sanctions against Iran are pending, and inevitable! You MUST help us secure Saeed's release before these are passed by the U.S. Senate and Iran's wrath is provoked against their American prisoners!
Congressional resolutions denouncing Saeed's unjust incarceration are all very well – but they have NO LEGAL FORCE. Our government MUST ACT.
The Obama administration is in a controversial strategic rapprochement with the Iranian regime TODAY. It should be in a position to negotiate Saeed Abedini's freedom, if his release were a priority to the Obama State Department…
Both chambers of Congress MUST turn up the heat on the feckless Obama administration AND the brutal Ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran. DEMAND Congress intensifies its pressure on Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to GET PASTOR SAEED ABEDINI RELEASED.
Pastor Saeed Abedini is relying on Americans like YOU to force Washington to listen and to take action.
We have NO respect from Iran right now! That's why we MUST turn up the pressure on Congress to NOT ASK but to DEMAND top-level support out of Obama's cowardly "diplomats" responsible for winning Pastor Saeed Abedini's release from Iran's evil Ayatollahs and their hellish Rajaee Shahr prison!
Whether or not Nagmeh Abedini ever reunites with her husband, or their two young children ever see their dad again, depends on CONGRESS HEARING FROM YOU – because clearly the Obama administration will not lift a finger for this pastor, and the U.N. cares nothing for persecuted Christians, either!
The survival of this innocent American countryman and brother in Christ rests with YOU and ME crying out for justice…
NOW is the time to redouble our efforts to DEMAND that Congress SPEAK UP, SPEAK OUT and TAKE ACTION! NOW is the time for Obama to INSIST on Iran's compliance with international norms of religious liberty and freedom from persecution…
"Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man." –Thomas Jefferson
Today is Palm Sunday, and devout Christians celebrate it as "Passion Sunday" to mark the triumphant entry into Jerusalem of Jesus, and his public emergence as the Messiah, Christ the King. The merchants of death in America are celebrating something else. Perhaps the ringing applause and thrill of media attention loosed her tongue, but triumphant Nancy Pelosi just could not restrain how she really feels about people who believe abortion is wrong. Proudly clutching Planned Parenthood's trophy as this year's Margaret Sanger "honoree," the former Speaker of the House smeared you and me:
"When you see how closed their minds are, or oblivious, or whatever it is – dumb – then you know what the fight is about," Pelosi said.
And in making this slur against 62 percent of all Americans, including many of the under-informed voters she panders to, the House Minority Leader did our nation's citizenry a great favor: In just a few words we see, ever more clearly, what the pro-abortion camp really thinks of defending the sanctity of life, of standing up for the rights endowed to us by our Creator, of preserving a vision of a better America for our children.
Well stated, Mrs. Pelosi, who calls herself an "ardent, practicing Catholic." Yet somehow the childhood schoolyard taunts of "I know you are, but what am I" and "it takes one to know one" echo here. Many in the pro-life camp feel very similarly about those, like Pelosi, who mindlessly clamor for abortion as what Pelosi clearly feels about US… disgust, revulsion and hopeless frustration.
That is the reason I am writing you today on behalf of the Faith and Freedom Foundation and the Personhood movement. I assure you that, without your prayerful and financial support, any hope for rational, Godly redirection of our nation's course will founder. The liberal penchant for calling good bad and bad goodwill only get worse unless and until life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are protected by a Human Life Amendment, with explicit guarantees enshrined into the U.S. Constitution, making it crystal clear that the personhood and natural God-given rights of all human beings, from conception to natural death, must be respected, protected and upheld.
America absolutely must be made to hear, to understand and to wholeheartedly embrace the Personhood concept! Let me tell you why:
When people fully comprehend Personhood, they know precisely why abortion must be abolished. And that, my friend, is the specific mission and heart-felt duty of the Faith and Freedom Foundation!
The fact that in nature and in law, we are concerned with "a human being" is absolutely foundational, because when the term "person" is linked to a being's humanity, it reflects the presence of a particular set of attributes uniquely bestowed upon all humans by our Creator.
These attributes are universally acknowledged in our nation's Founding principles – certain unalienable, natural, individual rights – such as the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
In other words, to be a person is to be intrinsically, inherently protected, regardless of material circumstance or accidental characteristics – yes, even in the womb – by a series of God-given and constitutionally acknowledged rights.
PERSONHOOD MUST BE ASSERTED, RECOGNIZED, HONORED AND RESPECTED!
We see an increasing hunger among the young to grapple with the moral crisis of abortion on demand, and understand its devastation at a deeper level than the schoolyard taunts of Nancy Pelosi. With your generous support, Faith and Freedom Foundation will do its absolute best to educate the American people against the stilted propaganda of arch liberals and the lies of Margaret Sanger's acolytes. The voting public must have the facts to navigate the pro-abortion lobby's heartless smears and demonic distortions, to see who really is "dumb."
Together, we must champion the truth at campuses and churches, over the back fence, across the dinner table, in forum posts, on the phone in order to rightly educate and thus sway minds.
Personhood IS the truth of our Creator's gift of life, of our essential human equality, of our unalienable rights before God and man – and it thus holds the key to ending our national crime of child killing!
In her acceptance speech for Planned Parenthood's Sanger Award, Mrs. Pelosi also remarked, "Whatever happens with the court … we must remember these battles will not be the end of the fight."
She is right about that! We who've battled faithfully since the U. S. Supreme Court gaveled its unholy verdict in Roe v. Wade, know exactly what this political, ethical and spiritual conflict is all about.
And we fully realize the outcome of this life-or-death battle cannot, MUST NOT be trusted to self-absorbed legislators or jurists who arrogantly legislate from the bench, who value corrupt politics instead of eternal Truth, who base their decisions on personal whims instead of the U.S. Constitution, as they've all sworn an oath to do.
As you likely know, this isn't the first misstatement on abortion by Rep. Pelosi, who is on record as saying: "I'm a devout Catholic and I honor my faith and love it… but they have this conscience thing." Asked why she refuses to support a bill banning late-term abortions, she said: "As a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me…. This shouldn't have anything to do with politics."
I can assure you that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a far cry from Nancy Pelosi's sick version. She makes Roe vs. Wade some kind of satanic doctrine. Pelosi would have you believe there exists a gray area about child killing in the Christian tradition until "maybe 50 years" ago, as if Pope Paul VI pulled his encyclical upholding the sanctity of life, Humanae Vitae, out of thin air instead of rightly codifying the doctrine and teaching of centuries of tradition, offered in the face of radical and novel cultural pressures:
"Over the centuries, the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition," Pelosi lied when asked about when life begins. "We don't know. And so I don't think anybody can tell you when human life begins."
Again, that, of course, is a bald-faced lie. Since its beginnings, Christianity has maintained a firm and clear teaching on the sacredness of human life. Abortion was rejected in the earliest known Christian manual of discipline, the Didache.
And early Church fathers likewise condemned abortion as the killing of innocent human life. A third-century Father of the Church, Tertullian, called it "accelerated homicide." Early Church councils considered it one of the most serious crimes.
In the blunt words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being, and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."
However, Mrs. Pelosi and her political hero, Barack Obama, would tell you that, as all truly enlightened progressives know, abortion is the answer to ridding society of pesky, "punishing" pregnancies, and their resulting bothersome children, while "freeing" women to live life whatever way they choose. And those who dare to disagree are "dumb," "oblivious" rubes and peasants who have "closed minds" to the wonders of infanticide – not to mention euthanasia (ObamaCare "death panels") – that await us at the other end of life.
Of course, you likely didn't hear Rep. Pelosi's insulting slander reported in mainstream media, which is unabashedly anti-life and anti-God. Instead of rightly taking her to task, Mr. Obama's lapdog press protects her and other blood-stained champions of abortion while keeping an eye out for ways to twist the words of pro-life proponents into character-assassinating onslaughts.
For the sake of thousands upon thousands of yet-to-be-born persons, not to mention the fate of the land we love, the Faith and Freedom Foundation will make sure such agents of death are exposed for the destructive consequences of their policies, and the dishonesty of their discourse.
The Foundation, however, must daily do battle against the well-funded demons of the culture of death – Planned Parenthood and the ACLU – in our defense of the unborn and the championing of the Personhood cause. As solely a grassroots-funded endeavor, we can only do what the generosity of our loyal supporters allows through their funding and engagement.
Don't relegate our life-saving endeavor to the sidelines of this cultural, political and spiritual warfare for a lack of funds. Make a stand with us on behalf of the most vulnerable and helpless person – the yet-to-be-born child. Speak up for those who have no voice, by sending YOUR advocacy into the halls of our Statehouses and the Congress, and financially supporting our untiring efforts to engage America in this great battle for life!
It's time for patriots, like you, to take the closing sentence of the Declaration of Independence to heart and "mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor" – for our posterity.
REMEMBER: It is God's gift that endows a child's life in the womb. According to our Republic's most foundational principles, every infant – whether born or not yet born – has an unalienable right to life endowed by the Creator God. And for us to usurp that gift of life, and the inviolable right which protects it, in contradiction of our nation's Declaration of founding principle, is utterly depraved and indefensible.
So as you consider my urgent plea, please pray this Palm Sunday, asking the Lord what He would have you do to support the Faith and Freedom Foundation's vital pro-life goal of Personhood, because Americans must be made to realize that our rights come from God. Minds must be changed so that our society grasps the truth that human beings don't have the right to take away that gift of life from any other person, including our tiny and most defenseless human beings soon to be born.
Keep Faith,
Ambassador Alan Keyes
Chairman, Faith and Freedom Foundation
LIFE-SAVING SIDEWALK COUNSELING
HANGS IN BALANCE AT SUPREME COURT
AS OBAMACARE TARGETS BLACK
INFANTS FOR ANNIHILATION
The relentless eugenicists pushing ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood continue to prey upon the poor and needy, hiding behind liberal "compassion" as they pile up their body count.
The New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Vital Statistics has again exposed the true, ugly face of racism in modern-day America: it is ABORTION, and it counts by race.
Yet another report CONFIRMING the black genocide that is underway in America, entitled Summary of Vital Statistics 2012 The City of New York, Pregnancy Outcomes, reveals that in 2012 more black babies were killed by abortion – 31,328 – in New York City than were born (24,758). Black babies killed comprised a staggering 42.4 percent of the total 73,518 abortions in the Big Apple, even though blacks including immigrant Africans and Caribbeans constitute but 25.1 percent of NYC's population.
That's 6,570 MORE ABORTIONS THAN BIRTHS OF BLACK CHILDREN, and closing on a rate of abortion double blacks' proportionate representation!
But that is not enough, and NOW, according to White House senior advisor Valerie Jarret, the Obama administration is making a "final coordinated push" to enroll blacks in free or subsidized ObamaCare abortion… in fact, Obama and Co. are making the enrollment of black Americans a "top priority" due to a "disproportionately low rate of coverage."
We Pro-Lifers do what we can, but a challenge seeking to restore our rights to counsel and pray in front of abortuaries hangs in the balance with the Supreme Court – which is NOT the People's Court.
Its majority is hyper-conscious of the good opinion of effete "elites" and the privileged with little concern for the perspective of common citizens – and virtually none for the innocent unborn.
Ever mindful of protecting "precedent" of terrible decisions, and absurdly careful of the liberals' feminist mantra of "women's health" over our natural, God-blessed Right to Life, the Supreme Court recently BLOCKED Arizona from enforcing a medical regulation that bans most abortions after 20 weeks.
The ban, based on irrefutable medical evidence of fetal pain, is trending across the nation in 12 states and the U.S. House so far, as a clear majority of Americans awaken to the excruciating torture and murderous evils intrinsic to abortion – and discover the PERSONHOOD of the unborn child. Thus will many of our citizens – despite our courts – embark on the long path to understanding the liberating truth and inescapable logic of standing tall for 100%, no exceptions protection of innocent life!
Sadly, the Supreme Court wouldn't even hear an appeal from Arizona on this incremental statute, as it rendered a decision worthy of Mengele that an outdated "viability" marker from Roe v. Wade of 24 weeks gestation was more important than stopping the excruciating mutilation and murder of innocent babes in the womb.
And now, another Supreme Court Court decision that is pending will profoundly affect whether or not our constitutionally protected right of FREE SPEECH applies to life-saving sidewalk counselors outside of abortion clinics!
But whatever the justices rule in this case, REMEMBER: it was the intent of the Founders that the SCOTUS render DECISIONS, not write LAW, not craft POLICY! The Legislature is the ONLY branch of government empowered by the Constitution to make law – and it is the Congress who MUST as lawmakers secure our inalienable rights to Life and to the Liberty to protect Life!
Named for Pro-Lifer Eleanor McCullen, a Massachusetts sidewalk counselor, this First Amendment challenge to the 2007 Massachusetts statute – making it a crime for speakers to "enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk" within 35 feet of an entrance, exit or driveway of a "reproductive health care facility" – will determine whether or not the abortionist agenda continues in the courts to trump our right to free speech, as well as the right to life of these unborn babies being carried to their murder scene.
As Wall Street Journal, liberal First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams explained, the case "presents the court with an opportunity to reconsider what may well be its most indefensible First Amendment ruling so far this century"…
That would be its 2000 ruling in Hill v. Colorado, in which it upheld a criminal statute prohibiting abortion-related speech around abortion clinics. After all, that's where Pro-Life advocacy is most critical, as it is most effective.
Peaceful and respectful practitioners such as Ms. McCullen believe that their duty is to offer support, information and practical assistance to pressured, often alone, women who feel that there is no other option but abortion. Sidewalk champions of life are often the last life-line for these women and their innocent offspring, and all too often the only voice and defender advocating for life over death… and now the pro-abortion Left is determined to utterly silence these sidewalk counselors.
Unsurprisingly, the American Civil Liberties Union has pivoted since its arguments in Hill more than a decade ago that the Colorado statute violated the First Amendment. The ACLU, once dedicated to the defense of civil liberties but today a partisan front for the radical Left, now says its position has "evolved over time" and argues that the Massachusetts law before the SCOTUS is CONSTITUTIONAL.
Since when did the Constitution become an "evolving" document and since when did our rights "evolve" or – better yet – disappear?
At the same time, we have yet to see petitioners for Green Peace or "gay marriage" being banned from the sidewalks of our cities or from the fronts of industrial complexes and coal power plants or our churches and Christian-owned businesses. I do not what has become of our fundamental principle of equality under law; as usual, what is sauce for the goose of conservatives is NOT sauce for the gander of liberals.
1. Whether the First Circuit erred in upholding Massachusetts' selective exclusion law under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, on its face and as applied to petitioners.
2. If Hill v. Colorado, 530 U.S. 703 (2000), permits enforcement of this law, whether Hill should be limited or overruled.
This case will either significantly help or undermine our fight to protect Faith and Freedom, Life and Liberty. Whatever the ruling, there is ever more vital work to be done on Capitol Hill to secure the rights and dignity of every human person among America's most vulnerable, born and unborn. CONGRESS has it well within its power to pass positive law confirming and bolstering the protections of every human person's inalienable right to life, AND our inalienable right to advocate on behalf of the unborn.
This year, as ObamaCare raises the stakes in our fight to save lives by funneling YOUR taxpayer dollars to subsidize abortion, fund Planned Parenthood, and empower the eugenics agenda and death panels of Obama's bureaucratic IPAB, it is critical that we raise our voices on Capitol Hill and DEMAND defense of PERSONHOOD and INNOCENT LIFE!
However the unreliable Supreme Court may rule regarding this one case of the ACLU's "evolutionary" interpretation of the U.S. Constitution – and our natural rights – OUR defense of the Personhood of every American infant will never waver!
For so many years, those who wish to deny God have tried to use science as a means to stifle moral opposition to child killing, and fund their blood-stained abortion mills with our hard earned tax dollars. All too often they have succeeded.
But the tides are changing. With widespread access to ultrasound images of human preborn children, no longer can abortion supporters persuasively claim the life inside a woman is just a clump of cells.
The good Lord has shown His hand and allowed cold hard science to confirm to those in confusion what we Christians already know – human life begins at conception. Psalm 139:16 – Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Under the radically pro-death Obama regime, for the first time since Roe vs. Wade more Americans identify themselves as Pro-Life rather than Pro-Abortion.
Gallup Polls consistently report this Pro-Life shift has been the trend since 2008, when the pervasively anti-life philosophy, and the eugenics and pro-abortion policies of the Obama faction started becoming publicly evident – and the ranks of Pro-Lifers continue to grow every day.
The extremism of abortion on demand is being rejected by the American people, even as the governing elites of Washington, DC do all in their power to force more child killing and eugenics upon the United States. The fact of the matter is, AMERICA IS Pro-Life.
Unfortunately, our government is too ideologically blinded to see the facts and too arrogant to care about the will of the people. Lobbyists line the halls of Congress to push pro-abortion legislation; faux Congressional "leaders" bury strong Pro-Life bills in committee and refuse to bring hard-hitting amendments up for a vote; governors veto state bills that have passed their legislatures or been affirmed by citizen referendum.
Barack Obama, on his first full day in the Oval Office, ended the Mexico City Policy I fought so hard for during the Regan Administration – and now your hard earned tax dollars are being used to murder the innocent unborn in foreign countries.
Despite ENDLESS talk that will intensify throughout this 2014 election cycle, Congress continues to give mass abortion providers, principally the notorious abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood, hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies each year; and most damning is the new Obama HealthCare bill, which will facilitate government insurance and Medicaid to pay for a vast increase in taxpayer subsidized abortions here in the United States. Tragically, even though late term "partial-birth" abortions were "banned" by Congress in 2003, the gruesome and barbaric practice of child-killing at any moment up to the instant of birth is still lawful in America and proceeds apace. New clinics that specialize in grossly inhumane procedures of late-term dismemberment of viable infants have opened in Nebraska, Iowa and Washington, DC.
Obama's Washington is even backing UN Treaties like Agenda 21, whose stated agendas are to cull and reduce global human population through various ghoulish means – including abortion. Clearly our elected officials are in fundamental violation of their oaths of office, and completely out of touch with the American public.
But you can help Faith and Freedom Foundation enlighten them. Answer the Life Survey and let us fax it to Washington. Let's make sure DC knows that the American people ARE AWAKE, ARE WATCHING and really DO believe it is their duty to protect and defend the unalienable right to life, including innocent pre-born life in the womb!
The truth is, recent developments in pre-natal science have led the way in changing the face of the abortion discussion. Thanks to high tech fetal heart monitors and the development of 4D Ultrasound, women can hear and see their unborn babies almost immediately.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now states unequivocally that a baby's heartbeat can be detected two weeks after conception. Brain waves are detected at 44 days. 4D Ultrasounds now make it possible for a woman to see that the "cells" inside her are actually, truly, clearly, a well-defined and beautifully formed child; complete with tiny heart beating; heads and fingers, knees and toes; kicking merrily in the womb even in the earliest weeks of pregnancy.
Such technology has also been effective in proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the unborn feel pain in the womb – giving important refutation to the vicious but ubiquitous falsehood of abortion purveyors that tearing the living unborn baby apart by vacuum suction or scalpel, or chemically scalding the baby to death during their barbarous abortion procedures "doesn't hurt, because the fetus feels no pain!"
Fetal heartbeat monitors and 4D Ultrasound are now so commonly used, that often a baby's "first picture," the one framed and kept in photo albums of family and friends, is one taken in the mother's womb. Ironically, it is technology, more than anything else that has changed the hearts of millions of men and women who stayed on the fence during the abortion debate these last 40 years.
Science has even changed the minds of many formerly hard line abortion proponents. Why? Because it is impossible to sustain the cold, dehumanizing lie of calling a child an insignificant clump of cells when you can see the infant sucking his thumb, and watch a tiny baby wiggling her fingers and paddling her feet in her mother's womb.
Another reason for the changed hearts could be the survival rate of increasingly younger premature babies. In America, we suffer under the most liberal child-killing regime in the developed world, permitting abortion essentially without restriction from conception to shadowy lines of virtual and now literal infanticide.
In most of Europe, current abortion law allows babies to be killed up until the end of the 24th week. Their pro-abortion forces for years have falsely claimed that "fetuses" up until that age are still just cell masses, who are not viable and do not feel pain.
But in Britain, Will Goddard was born at 22 weeks and Amelia Hope Burden born at 23 weeks. In Florida, Amillia Taylor was born at just 21 weeks. All the babies not only survived but are now healthy, thriving children.
So today, American pro-abortion forces shrewdly dodge discussion of any meaningful age or developmental criteria that might augur limitations upon abortion. Indeed, for quite some time, the pro-aborts who dominate Washington government policy in the US have not argued about viability, nor personhood – it is all about the rights of the woman, the "woman's right to choose" altogether irrespective of the humanity, the rights, and the targeted death of the baby.
In such a political environment, it is with wonder and joy that Pro-Lifers finally find ourselves in popular company among We the People, including a strong and ardent Pro-Life presence throughout the powerful Tea Party, Liberty, constitutionalist and patriot movements.
I take great encouragement from the emergence and rapid maturing of the Pro-Life Personhood movement, and am proud to play a small part in the tremendous energy and growth it is demonstrating across the nation despite its few short years of existence!
But in many ways most inspiring is the surge of young people taking up the cause. New websites, designed by "20 somethings" lead the charge in creating hip Pro-Life bumper stickers, events and apparel; 20-something Lila Rose, founder of the Mona Lisa Project and her young colleagues expose abortion clinics that violate the law and protect pedophiles; the Catholic 40 Days for Life Campaign is increasingly attended by high school students, and there has been a dramatic increase in College Campus Life groups. Praise God, it is actually becoming COOL among the young to be Pro-Life!
New and creative ways for those beyond college age to help the unborn are popping up everywhere. One favorite is Real Estate 4 Life, http://www.realestateforlife.org/FFF/ . RE4L is a nationwide network of Real Estate Professionals with international reach who donate a portion of each of their fees to the Pro-Life movement. It is a fine thing to do business with like-minded people, but it truly a blessing when those people back up their beliefs demonstrating the activism and sacrifice of Pro-Life vocationists. When buying or selling a home, land or commercial property, RE4L not only provides the reassurance of a qualified realty professional, but also the knowledge that you are supporting the unborn with every transaction. It costs you nothing, but pours much needed dollars into the Pro-Life movement.
You can support Faith and Freedom's Pro-Life work specifically by going to http://www.realestateforlife.org/FFF/ to learn more. If you are blessing your family with a new home or buying commercial property in the US, Canada or the United Kingdom, please make sure to visit RE4L first!
At the local level, through the Crisis Pregnancy Centers and counseling ministries, so many wonderful things are happening in the Pro-Life movement and many precious individual lives are being saved.
But at the national level, with the Obama/Reid faction setting government policy and dominating our government agencies, and the feckless and flaccid Establishment Republicans refusing to fight them, we are still in the hands of the most aggressive child-killing federal administration in American history, and Pro-Lifers must redouble their efforts.
The pro-abortion lobbyists will not relinquish their taxpayer funded blood money without a battle to the death. They are on Capitol Hill RIGHT NOW glad-handing the politicians with a view to the 2015 budget process, to ensure they continue to get a major piece of the taxpayer pie.
WE MUST DRAW THE LINE, EDUCATE CONGRESS TO THE CAUSE OF PERSONHOOD, AND AS WE CONTINUE THE LONG STRUGGLE TO SCOUR THE SCOURGE OF ABORTION FROM OUR LAND, TODAY DEMAND DEFENSE OF THE RIGHT TO LIFE AND AN END TO TAXPAYER FUNDED BLOOD MONEY.
As a Pro-Life person I thank you for your faithfulness on behalf the innocent unborn. Please remember them especially in your prayers every day we fight for justice in America.
Keep Faith,
Ambassador Alan Keyes
Chairman, Faith and Freedom Foundation
Faith and Freedom Foundation is a federally-authorized 501(c)3 tax-exempt, non-profit Foundation. Contributions to Faith and Freedom Foundation are tax deductible for federal income tax purposes.
Alan Keyes to America
He wrote:
This moving, insightful Easter message of faith and peace in the Resurrection of Christ and the Glory thereafter must not be Saeed's benediction – not at only 33 years old with a wife and two beautiful children awaiting him at home.
We are finally gaining some ground in international concern for Pastor Saeed Abedini as Iran exposes its TRUE character with their barbaric persecution of a man who was merely trying to build SECULAR, PRE-APPROVED ORPHANAGES…
An ever-increasingly belligerent Iran MUST NOT get the upper hand when it comes to our fight to save Pastor Saeed Abedini – and Barack Obama MUST NOT give it to them!
U.S. pastor Saeed Abedini, who is currently serving an unjust, brutal eight-year prison sentence in Iran, was given a "glimmer of hope" for clemency after the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif mentioned a possible reduced jail sentence.
Also, thanks to YOUR activism, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling for the release of Pastor Saeed, as well as all others "detained on account of their religious beliefs." NOW we must compel Washington to FOLLOW THROUGH!
Loes Bijnen, a Dutch diplomat and human rights specialist in Tehran from 1999 to 2004, describes the Rajaee Shahr prison as a place where "political prisoners have to share cells with dangerous criminals like murderers, rapists and drug addicts who don't hesitate to attack their cell mates. They have nothing to lose: many of them are condemned to death anyway. Murders or unexplained deaths are a regular occurrence."
CNSNews.com reports another alarming report on what Saeed Abedini can be expected to face based on an open letter written by Kurdish political prisoner Zanyar Moradi, smuggled out from the prison last January. Moradi claims that he and his cousin and co-accused, Loghman Moradi, had been tortured for nine months.
Saeed could soon be sent back to THIS: "Pastor Saeed has been placed in a 3m by 3m cell (approximately 10ft by 10ft) with five other inmates in the ward reserved for murderers and rapists," American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) Executive Director Jordan Sekulow wrote in a letter to President Obama, when urging him to speak out "directly and forcefully" to save the pastor's life.
Pastor Saeed Abedini is relying on Americans like YOU to force Washington to listen and to take action.
Today is Palm Sunday, and devout Christians celebrate it as "Passion Sunday" to mark the triumphant entry into Jerusalem of Jesus, and his public emergence as the Messiah, Christ the King. The merchants of death in America are celebrating something else. Perhaps the ringing applause and thrill of media attention loosed her tongue, but triumphant Nancy Pelosi just could not restrain how she really feels about people who believe abortion is wrong. Proudly clutching Planned Parenthood's trophy as this year's Margaret Sanger "honoree," the former Speaker of the House smeared you and me:
The fact that in nature and in law, we are concerned with "a human being" is absolutely foundational, because when the term "person" is linked to a being's humanity, it reflects the presence of a particular set of attributes uniquely bestowed upon all humans by our Creator.
In her acceptance speech for Planned Parenthood's Sanger Award, Mrs. Pelosi also remarked, "Whatever happens with the court … we must remember these battles will not be the end of the fight."
Again, that, of course, is a bald-faced lie. Since its beginnings, Christianity has maintained a firm and clear teaching on the sacredness of human life. Abortion was rejected in the earliest known Christian manual of discipline, the Didache.
The Foundation, however, must daily do battle against the well-funded demons of the culture of death – Planned Parenthood and the ACLU – in our defense of the unborn and the championing of the Personhood cause. As solely a grassroots-funded endeavor, we can only do what the generosity of our loyal supporters allows through their funding and engagement.
The relentless eugenicists pushing ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood continue to prey upon the poor and needy, hiding behind liberal "compassion" as they pile up their body count.
Ever mindful of protecting "precedent" of terrible decisions, and absurdly careful of the liberals' feminist mantra of "women's health" over our natural, God-blessed Right to Life, the Supreme Court recently BLOCKED Arizona from enforcing a medical regulation that bans most abortions after 20 weeks.
Sadly, the Supreme Court wouldn't even hear an appeal from Arizona on this incremental statute, as it rendered a decision worthy of Mengele that an outdated "viability" marker from Roe v. Wade of 24 weeks gestation was more important than stopping the excruciating mutilation and murder of innocent babes in the womb.
Named for Pro-Lifer Eleanor McCullen, a Massachusetts sidewalk counselor, this First Amendment challenge to the 2007 Massachusetts statute – making it a crime for speakers to "enter or remain on a public way or sidewalk" within 35 feet of an entrance, exit or driveway of a "reproductive health care facility" – will determine whether or not the abortionist agenda continues in the courts to trump our right to free speech, as well as the right to life of these unborn babies being carried to their murder scene.
This case will either significantly help or undermine our fight to protect Faith and Freedom, Life and Liberty. Whatever the ruling, there is ever more vital work to be done on Capitol Hill to secure the rights and dignity of every human person among America's most vulnerable, born and unborn. CONGRESS has it well within its power to pass positive law confirming and bolstering the protections of every human person's inalienable right to life, AND our inalienable right to advocate on behalf of the unborn.
But the tides are changing. With widespread access to ultrasound images of human preborn children, no longer can abortion supporters persuasively claim the life inside a woman is just a clump of cells.
Fetal heartbeat monitors and 4D Ultrasound are now so commonly used, that often a baby's "first picture," the one framed and kept in photo albums of family and friends, is one taken in the mother's womb. Ironically, it is technology, more than anything else that has changed the hearts of millions of men and women who stayed on the fence during the abortion debate these last 40 years.
But in many ways most inspiring is the surge of young people taking up the cause. New websites, designed by "20 somethings" lead the charge in creating hip Pro-Life bumper stickers, events and apparel; 20-something Lila Rose, founder of the Mona Lisa Project and her young colleagues expose abortion clinics that violate the law and protect pedophiles; the Catholic 40 Days for Life Campaign is increasingly attended by high school students, and there has been a dramatic increase in College Campus Life groups. Praise God, it is actually becoming COOL among the young to be Pro-Life!