Good Morning!
Winston Churchill predates the modern-day abortion debate, but he would appreciate and approve of the persistence of the pro-life movement. He once said:
“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”
We begin with a word from Jim Daly on the point pro-lifers will make once again today in Washington:
- Why We Still March for Life
Focus on the Family president Jim Daly writes:
I’m in Washington, D.C,. today for the annual March for Life – the world’s largest gathering of individuals committed and dedicated to saving and protecting the most innocent among us.
Back on January 22, 1974 – the one-year anniversary of the horrific and ill-fated Roe v. Wade decision – Washington lawyer Nellie Gray led a morning of lobbying and an afternoon demonstration of over 20,000 people on the Capitol steps. In response, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood declared:
“The Right to Life people have not accepted the Supreme Court decision and continue to press to resist it, subvert it and to turn it back.”
Planned Parenthood has been wrong about countless things, but they were right then (and now) about our refusal to accept the killing of pre-born children. Nearly a half-century later, our movement and dedication to this injustice has only strengthened and grown. From 20,000 demonstrators on that cold January afternoon in 1974, the March each year has consistently drawn hundreds of thousands.
Even amidst the bitter cold and snows of a Washington winter, why do we continue to “press to resist it,” “subvert it” and campaign to “turn it back”?
Here are just some of the reasons why:
We march each January because the movement and moment gives voice to those who have no voice at all.
We march because it’s always right to fight and try to right a wrong – and it’s always wrong to stay silent when the rights of others are being trampled.
We march to call attention to the injustices of the last half-century and put those who champion the unfettered killing of babies on the defensive.
We march so that a future generation of women will not be enslaved to live lives of regret.
We march because we believe abortion is erasing the future and eliminating boys and girls who would grow up to become men and women who would cure cancer, invent life-saving technologies, solve impossible problems, compose symphonies and help create a more beautiful culture and society.
We march to show the world there is a better way. We march to remind the world every child is a wanted one, and every child will someday mean the world to somebody.
We march to make a difference and proclaim that life is better than death.
We march because doing something is better than doing nothing.
If you can’t be in Washington tomorrow, I hope you’ll join us virtually. Click here to watch and participate wherever you might be.
For all its nearly 45 years, Focus on the Family has played a crucial role in this long and tenacious campaign. It’s a privilege to labor and partner alongside stalwarts like my friend Jeannie Mancini, who heads up the March for Life. If you think your support for pre-born life puts you in rare company – think again. You’re not alone.
As I told a reporter last week, we cannot predict or guarantee the outcome of the pending Supreme Court case – but if we pray and work towards a culture of life, we can deserve the outcome when the day of rejoicing comes.
RELATED:
Largest Pro-life Event in the World Today
From The Daily Citizen:
The world’s largest pro-life event is taking place this Friday, January 21, 2022, in Washington D.C. The March for Life is an annual rally and march marking the anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion nationwide. This year marks the 49th March for Life.
The rally will be held in Washington D.C. on the National Mall. Christian artist and songwriter Matthew West will perform at the pre-rally concert from 11 am-12 pm ET. The rally begins at noon and features many well-known advocates for life including:
- Kirk Cameron, Actor & Producer
- Julia Letlow, United States House of Representatives (LA-05)
- Toni McFadden, pro-life advocate and founder of Relationship Matters
- Lisa Robertson, Duck Dynasty
- Mike Schmitz, host of “Bible in a Year” podcast
- Katie Shaw, Down Syndrome Advocate
- Chris Smith, United States House of Representatives (NJ-04)
- George Schuberg, student speaker – Christendom College
- Kristen Waggoner, General Counsel – Alliance Defending Freedom
- Rachel Young, Registered Nurse
- His Eminence, Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, Orthodox Church
- Cissie Graham Lynch of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Following the rally, around 1 pm ET, attendees will march from the National Mall to the steps of the United States Supreme Court to demonstrate their support for protecting the life of preborn babies. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign will share testimonies outside the Supreme Court after the march.
RELATED:
I quit Planned Parenthood and march for life. More abortion clinic ‘quitters’ join me every year
From Fox News:
Looking into the vast crowd at my very first March for Life 12 years ago was terrifying. I had left my job as a Planned Parenthood clinic director only three months earlier and basically became overnight famous within the pro-life community.
I had just undergone a radical conversion after witnessing the destruction of a 13-week-old fetus during an ultrasound-guided abortion. At the March for Life in Washington, D.C. there will be several former abortion workers in that big crowd, people who dispensed abortion pills to women maybe in that same crowd or held their hand as they laid on the table or coerced them into something they knew was wrong.
I was wary heading to that first March for Life because I was on the opposing side of these people for years. I had angrily protested against them. I had said mean things to them, especially the people who prayed on the sidewalk outside my clinic. Would they judge me? Would they shove everything I had said back in my face? Even worse, would they say I wasn’t worthy of redemption, that abortion workers should be hated and despised for what they did?
It didn’t exactly go the way I had expected. At that first March for Life, many people had heard my story of seeing the ultrasound and walking out of the clinic. Women were coming up to me and they were literally falling on me crying and sharing their stories of abortion regret.
RELATED:
What it Means to Be Pro-Life
From the Wall Street Journal:
Pregnancy resource centers have existed since before the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade nearly 50 years ago, but their numbers have soared since abortion on demand was declared a constitutional right. Between 2,500 and 4,000 centers exist nationwide, supporting millions of pregnant and new mothers every year. Many if not most are faith-based.
What motivates the people who run and volunteer at these organizations? Love, hard as that may be to believe in these cynical times. Over the years I’ve met staff and volunteers driven by a deep affection for mothers and children. Being pro-life isn’t an abstract concept; it’s deeply personal and inherently connected with those they serve. They believe that every life, every soul, has worth and value. While people from a range of religions are involved, Christians are motivated by Christ’s words from the Gospel of Matthew: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Such centers are likely to become even more prominent with time. Along with everyone participating in the March for Life, their staff and volunteers are hoping and praying the Supreme Court overturns Roe in the Dobbs case later this year. Such a decision would empower states to restrict abortion and protect unborn life—something that 61% of Americans support, based on new Marist polling sponsored by the Knights of Columbus—and that means more mothers and children will be in need of love and support. Pregnancy resource centers will be there.
- Blackburn, GOP Call for Answers on Federal Abortion Funding
From The Daily Signal:
Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is leading Republican lawmakers in calling on the Government Accountability Office to explain what kind of federal funding Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are receiving.
In a letter sent Tuesday, the lawmakers reminded the Government Accountability Office that the agency has prepared several congressionally requested reports in the past on federal funding for Federally Qualified Health Centers, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly known as Marie Stopes International), and four other domestic abortion providers.
The domestic abortion providers specified in the letter are FBA Women’s Health, American Women’s Services, All Women’s Health Center, and Whole Women’s Health.
“What we are asking GAO to do is to give us a report showing where this funding has gone from 2019 through 2021, and of course, what we want to see is the money trail on this,” Blackburn told The Daily Signal in a phone interview ahead of Friday’s annual March for Life and the anniversary on Saturday of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
“We know that these Planned Parenthood chapters, many times at their facilities, they will get the money, money is fungible, and while they say it is not used for abortion, it is used for other health care services,” the Republican senator added. “Still, it is all in that same pot of money.”
- We Are Betraying Our Children
From National Review:
‘We betrayed our children,” a public-school teacher writes plaintively in a moving and despairing essay published today in Common Sense, Bari Weiss’s essential newsletter-cum-op-ed page. The teacher is correct as far as she goes, but the betrayal is ongoing. We are betraying our children every day, all across this country. To be blunt, we are abusing our children, on a mass scale, in a way we all would have considered unthinkable in 2019.
In “I’m a public school teacher. The kids aren’t alright,” an Ontario pedagogue named Stacey Lance describes the slow-motion decay of the spirits of her young charges as they head into a third year of scientifically uncalled-for, unreasonable, ineffective, and panic-driven restrictions that amount to the creeping sabotage of millions of childhoods, yielding no apparent benefit whatsoever.
If you live in a hard-hit area — and who doesn’t? — you may have noticed that everyone is getting Covid regardless of vaccination, that Covid doesn’t care if you wear a mask, and that this is true even in the most mask-obsessed precincts of our society, such as the New York City public schools, where 100-percent masking has been the norm for this entire school year and where children are discouraged from even socializing at lunch for a few minutes by adults who have spent the entire school year free to spend as many evenings as they please in restaurants among hundreds of unmasked fellow diners chatting noisily.
Along with measurable crises — learning loss and sharp rises in teen suicide and suicide attempts — is a lesser condition of prevailing anxiety. Children’s natural exuberance has been stamped out of them. Extroverted children have become timid and hesitant. Friendships have been severed. Kids are hollow and shrunken. “Overlooked has been the deep shame young people feel,” writes Lance. “Our students were taught to think of their schools as hubs for infection and themselves as vectors of disease. This has fundamentally altered their understanding of themselves.”
- Supreme Court Liberals Form Predictable Voting Bloc, Defying Framers’ Intent
From The Daily Citizen:
If you don’t regularly pay attention to the U.S. Supreme Court, its oral arguments and decisions, you can’t be faulted for not noticing something that is striking to those of us who do. The three so-called liberal justices – Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – rarely disagree with each other and vote so consistently together that typically only one of them writes an opinion, which the other two join.
That’s not a good thing, and I’ll explain why.
The justices on the conservative wing of the court – comprised of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – have been, contrary to dire prophecies of the mainstream media and liberal politicians, much more apt to cross the ideological aisle and/or disagree with each other’s reasoning than the court’s liberals. Even when they ultimately reach the same vote, some of the disagreements among the conservative justices are substantial, and evidence an independent thought process that is mostly lacking on the other side of the court.
- NCAA adopts new policy for transgender athletes
From Politico:
The NCAA has adopted a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes, bringing the organization in line with the U.S. and International Olympic Committees.
Under the new guidelines, approved by the NCAA Board of Governors on Wednesday, transgender participation for each sport will be determined by the policy for the sport’s national governing body, subject to review and recommendation by an NCAA committee to the Board of Governors.
When there is no national governing body, that sport’s international federation policy would be in place. If there is no international federation policy, previously established IOC policy criteria would take over.
“Approximately 80% of U.S. Olympians are either current or former college athletes,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a release. “This policy alignment provides consistency and further strengthens the relationship between college sports and the U.S. Olympics.”
The NCAA policy is effective immediately, beginning with the 2022 winter championships.
NCAA rules on transgender athletes returned to the forefront when Penn swimmer Lia Thomas started smashing records this year. She was on the men’s team her first three years, but she is competing for the women this season after transitioning.
- Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case of Government ‘Interpreting’ Church Doctrine
From The Daily Citizen:
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an important religious freedom case involving a local government’s foray into interpreting church doctrine. The case concerns a church in Virginia and its designation of who its “ministers” are. You need four justices to agree before the high court “grants cert,” another way of saying that they will hear the appeal. So, in a case involving a government entity second-guessing a church’s own designation of its ministers, it’s shocking that the court couldn’t muster four votes to take on this case.
New Life in Christ Church (New Life) in Fredericksburg, Virginia hired Josh and Anacari Storms, a married couple, to teach and spread the faith to college students in the community. The church provided the couple with a residence on church property and then applied to the city for a local property tax exemption because the residence was being used for a parsonage.
The Fredericksburg city government denied the exemption request after researching church doctrine, saying that New Life’s new pastors did not fit the Presbyterian Church in America’s definition of “minister.” The church disagreed with the city’s determination and attempted to explain why the couple did fit the definition of “minister,” but to no avail.
- Dave Ramsey: We must teach kids the RIGHT way to handle money, right now
From Fox News:
Dave Ramsey is a straight shooter about money matters. That’s part of the reason — combined with his wisdom forged with experience — that millions of people listen to him on the radio every week and read his books. In his newest book, “Baby Steps Millionaires,” he lays out clear steps for anyone to take when it comes to getting out of debt and building wealth — including young people.
“Money is not good and money is not bad. It’s amoral,” Ramsey, CEO of Ramsey Solutions in Tennessee, said to Fox News Digital in a telephone interview on Tuesday, Jan. 18. 2022. “It’s like a brick. You can build a hospital with a brick — or you can throw it through a window.”
Ramsey added, “But what money does do with adults and with kids — including with grown kids — is it magnifies who we are, the good and the bad. So if you raise great kids to become great adults — people of character, people of integrity, people of emotional and psychological and spiritual maturity — then money won’t ruin them. But if you raise brats, money will ensure that they are major brats.”
Here are other top takeaways from a new interview with him.
- Redeeming Love Captures a Beautiful Story of Unconditional Love – But with Surprisingly Provocative Imagery
From Plugged In:
This ain’t your average Hallmark movie.
The biblical story of Hosea and his unfaithful wife, Gomer, helps us realize just how horribly we stray from God. Gomer’s prostitution represents the waywardness of Israel. More broadly, this story convicts us by suggesting that we, too, follow in Gomer’s rebellious footsteps when we choose sin over God’s faithful love, like a woman choosing to return to prostitution over the commitment to her husband.
Redeeming Love, based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Francine Rivers, loosely retells this story. We don’t get many details in Scripture regarding Gomer’s heart motivation. But emphasis is clearly placed on Gomer’s repeated unfaithfulness and her stubborn inclination to reject Hosea’s faithful love.
Redeeming Love isn’t the first Christian movie to try to depict a biblical story using a gritty, realistic approach regarding the sinfulness of man. Many of us have sat through the gut-wrenching and visceral scenes of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Likewise, the 2018 movie Unplanned, which deals with the subject of abortion, forces viewers to face the grim reality of that subject.
However, we would be remiss if we didn’t reiterate just how much sensual content this movie contains. We don’t want to knock Redeeming Love for its realistic approach. But we question how necessary it was to the plot to show the audience two long and intimate sex scenes, as well as several other scenes that include partial or near nudity. The average viewer certainly could’ve figured out what was going on without the need for such detailed sexual depictions.
Redeeming Love captures the beautiful story of what unconditional love truly looks like, especially when our sins may be too difficult for us to bear. Unfortunately, this poignant portrait of unconditional love also strays repeatedly into such provocative images that it might cause some who wrestle with pornography or sexual sin to stumble themselves.
9. ‘God Stayed Close in Those Times’: TobyMac Shares Painful Journey With Grief After Son’s Death
From CBN:
Christian recording artist TobyMac is sharing how his life has forever changed since the tragic death of his son Truett Foster McKeehan.
Truett died at home in Nashville, TN on Oct. 23, 2019, from an accidental drug overdose.
During a six-minute video, TobyMac revealed that his family continues to process the grief and loss felt by the 21-year-old’s untimely passing.
“To me, grief comes in waves. Some days it hits you really hard. Other days, I can’t say it’s ever stayed off of me but I can’t say that it hasn’t beat me up some days. Let’s put it like that,” the artist said in a video released by Joy 99.1 FM.
“It comes in waves and you know, the truth is, I didn’t know grief really. I just felt like everything was beautiful and perfect until the last few years,” he explained. “And then when I lost Truett or when we lost Truett, everything changed. I met grief in the fiercest way.”
10. Bethel Park football coach cancels workout, assigns team to shovel snow for neighbors
From ABC Pittsburgh:
When Bethel Park High School football coach Brian Delallo tweeted a change to his team’s workout, he didn’t expect all the attention.
“Due to the expected severe weather, Monday’s weightlifting workout has been cancelled. Find an elderly or disabled neighbor and shovel their driveway. Don’t accept any money – that’s our Monday workout.”
“This is just something, one of the many traditions we have that we have kept going,” Delallo said.
Delallo said the shoveling workout started with the previous coach, more than a decade earlier, but he thinks he may have been the first to tweet it.
He said his players quickly saw the tweet and Delallo said by early Monday they were already out shoveling and sending photos.
“He wanted us getting in some sort of workout and what better workout than shoveling driveways,” said Braedon Del Duca, a junior who plays guard and tackle for the team.
That’s what you call a good coach. Hope you have a great weekend!
