A long four years
- Feb 15, 2009 - 1
As expected, one of the first actions of newly-inaugurated U.S. President Barack Obama was to begin the process of dismantling federal restrictions on abortion that had been put in place by his predecessor, pro-life President George W. Bush. He began the process by rescinding the Bush executive order known as the Mexico City Policy.
The Mexico City Policy mandated that organizations must attest they would “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations,” before receiving federal funds. The idea was simple enough—Americans should not be going abroad with taxpayer money to promote baby killing as a birth control method and the answer to unintended pregnancies.
It’s one thing to support the killing of 50 million babies in this country since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 struck down all abortion restrictions during all nine months of pregnancy. That’s awful enough, but pro-lifers rightly believe the export of this American Holocaust around the world will only compound our responsibility for the shedding of innocent blood (Jeremiah 22:16-17).
No matter. Each one of us will now be paying for abortions around the world, whether we like it or not. Abortionists were predictably elated at the new flood of federal funds coming their way.
“With the stroke of a pen, President Obama has lifted the stranglehold on women’s health across the globe,” crowed Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America—the leading abortion provider in the U.S. and the annual recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funds.
“His repeal of the global gag rule ends eight long years of policies that have blocked access to basic health care for women worldwide. No longer will health care providers be forced to choose between receiving family planning funding and restricting the health care services they provide to women.”
Richards, like all abortionists, has to carefully couch her words to avoid the truth about abortion. Thus, she must use soothing phrases like “access to basic health care,” and “family planning funding,” when she is actually talking about abortion and the deliberate taking of a human life.
The President’s newly-approved U.S. Secretary of State, who will oversee the international distribution of those abortion funds, happens to be one of the most rabid living supporters of abortion. Her appointment was no accident—Hillary Rodham Clinton will no doubt ensure every penny is used for its intended, bloody purpose.
“President Obama was the most radically pro-choice candidate of a major party in American history and pledged to Planned Parenthood that he would never back down on this issue,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“Unfortunately, his executive order overturning the Mexico City Policy may just be the first step in his fulfillment of that campaign pledge to his radical pro-abortion supporters.”
It is indeed just the first step. Obama has also pledged to sign the so-called Freedom of Choice Act (there’s that soothing language again), if the U.S. Congress passes it and sends it to his desk. The Freedom of Choice Act would write into federal law the right to an abortion, in case a future U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized all types of abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy.
The Freedom of Choice Act would also prohibit steps the states have taken to regulate abortion, such as parental notification laws and bans on partial birth abortion in which a fully-formed baby is delivered and then killed by a scissors jab into the brain.
In addition, Obama is expected to rescind other Bush executive orders and allow taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research, which destroys nascent human life in order to acquire the stem cells. A Bush executive order withholding funds from the United Nations Population Fund, because of that organization’s support for forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations, is also expected to fall.
It’s going to be a long four years—and possibly eight years. Are we ready to stand up and be counted in these crucial battles? Time will tell.
This article is reprinted from the January 29, 2009, issue of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
Further Learning
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1 On Feb 16th, 2009, at 11:08am, James E Reeves wrote:
The pendulum of opportunity is swinging the other way now and as a Christian of over three score and two years I share this wisdom, history has a way of informing us as we live through difficult times, that too many good men are doing nothing therefore evil triumphs. More good men have to be cultivated into great statesmen for God and country today and the old mindset of letting the devil rule politics be disdained.
Our churches need to have political classes for those young men and women interested in becomming a real statesperson for God and country.
Our future is already secure in Christ but we don’t have to be the tail when God said for us to be the head.
Your brother,
james