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Baptist Support Sought for 'Yes on 1'
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CLICK ON GRAPHIC TO GO TO WEBSITE!
YES ON 1 IS NOW ON FACEBOOK!
By Lonnie Wilkey, 4/15/2014, editor, Baptist and Reflector
BRENTWOOD - The state of Tennessee has become a destination for women intent on having an abortion.
According to information provided by "Yes on 1," Tennessee is the third leading state in the nation in providing abortions to women who live outside the state. In addition, one out of every four abortions in Tennessee are on out-of-state women.
Yes on 1 is a non-profit organization established to educate Tennessee voters about an upcoming amendment on the Tennessee ballot on Nov. 4, said Myra Simons, president of Yes on 1.
The effort is called Yes on 1 because there will be four constitutional amendments on the state ballot in November and the one dealing with abortion is the first one listed.
In 2000, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled 4-1 on a decision (Planned Parenthood of Middle Tennessee v. Sundquest) which gives a broader right to abortion in the Tennessee State Constitution than was even found in the U.S. Constitution, Simons said.
"If Roe v. Wade fell tomorrow, abortion would still be legal in Tennessee due to this ruling in 2000," Simons said.
As it stands now in Tennessee, there is no informed consent, no waiting periods, and no inspection of abortion facilities, Simons said.
Tennessee is currently one of 16 states with a so-called right to abortion interpreted within the state's constitution.
Simons noted that the eight states which surround Tennessee all have restrictions on abortion which causes women in those states who desire an abortion to come to Tennessee.
The only way to overturn the 2000 Supreme Court decision is through a Tennessee Constitutional Amendment, Simons noted.
She said efforts have been made ever since the initial ruling to get an amendment on the ballot, but efforts failed until 2008 when the Tennessee House of Representatives reached a pro-life majority.
The Tennessee House and Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution 127 in 2009 and 2011 which placed the following Amendment 1 on the 2014 ballot:
"Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion. The people retain the right through their elected state representatives and state senators to enact, amend, or repeal statutes regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest or when necessary to save the life of the mother."
Simons said that voting yes on Amendment 1 "will enable us to enforce legislation restricting abortion and putting in place protective laws for women seeking abortions."
Despite what opponents of Yes on 1 are saying, the amendment does not make abortions illegal in Tennessee, Simons stressed.
"We can't make abortions illegal because of Roe v. Wade," she said. "But we can restrict them."
Simons and her organization have been seeking the support of Tennessee Baptists in this effort. She recently spoke at the Missions Get-Together in Gatlinburg which was sponsored by Tennessee Woman's Missionary Union.
Tennessee Baptists have already spoken in favor of "Yes on 1."
At the Summit in Chattanooga last year, Tennessee Baptists overwhelmingly adopted a resolution in support of the passage of Amendment 1 to the Constitution. |
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The "best argument for abortion" was just completely demolished
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If you don't know who Matt Walsh is by now, you are really missing out. He got an email from someone saying he was afraid to take on the "best pro-choice argument", clearly, he's not afraid.
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Dear Matt, ever since I first read your blog I knew you were a cowardly fake. It wasn't until I started reading some of your anti-choice articles that my suspicions were truly confirmed. You spend a lot of time picking the low hanging fruit. You attack the weakest abortion rights arguments while ignoring the glaring weaknesses in your own position.
If you had the guts or the brains you'd try to respond to the most important abortion rights argument... bodily autonomy or bodily integrity. This means that we have the final jurisdiction over our own bodies. Nobody can claim a right to our body that goes above our own right. Nobody can use our bodies without consent. We cannot be forced to donate organs or blood to someone else. A fetus must survive on a woman's body so the woman has a right to withdrawal her consent and her body at any time.
This is the pro-choice argument that no anti-choice fanatic... especially one as stubborn and simpleminded as you... could ever possibly dispute. If you still don't understand, try to imagine this hypothetical...
Imagine that you wake up one morning in a hospital bed. In the bed next to you is a famous singer. He is unconscious and all of these tubes are connected from him to you. A doctor comes in and explains that the singer became sick and you are the only person with the right blood type to match his. They need you to remain hooked up to him until he recovers... they tell you it should only take nine months. Until then, he needs to use all of your organs... your kidneys, liver, lungs, everything... just to survive. If you unplug yourself, he will die. So do you think you are obligated to stay plugged in? Does he have a right to live off of you like this? Should you be FORCED to stay connected to him?
That's what situation the pregnant woman is in. Instead of harping on all of these irrelevant issues, I wish you'd be brave enough to address it from this angle. It is immoral to require a woman to sustain a fetus and it is moral for a woman to make a decision with her body based on what is right for her. How can you argue against this?
But I guess your blog is more about preaching to the choir than actually being intelligent and bold in your writing. What a shame.
-Rachel
Here's my answer:
Dear Rachel,
You're right. You win. I have no response. I can't think of any reason why you're wrong about any of the points you raised.
Well, I can't think of any reason - except for, like, ten reasons. So I'll start with five reasons why that hypothetical is flawed, and move on to five additional reasons why your overall argument is flawed.
Here we go:
1. Your analogy is flawed because it presupposes that the relationship between mother and child is no more significant, and carries with it no more responsibility, than the relationship between a person and some random stranger in a hospital bed.
This is absurd. If we're trying to make this hypothetical as close to pregnancy as possible, shouldn't the sick singer (or violinist, according to the original iteration of this hypothetical) at least be your child? Your argument doesn't work because the fact that your child is your child, and not some strange adult from across town, is precisely the point. Hidden cleverly in this hypothetical is the insinuation that one cannot agree that an unborn child has a right to his mother's body, without agreeing that anyone in the entire world, in any context, for any reason, at any point, for any period of time, has a right to a woman's body.
Nice try, Rachel.
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Forward this email to a friend
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Alabama Supreme Court doubles down on pro-personhood ruling
by Josh Craddock
- Tue Apr 22, 2014 14:03 EST
April 22, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Last Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling that reaffirmed the state's protections against chemical endangerment "for all persons--born and unborn." This decision marks a major victory for the pro-life cause around the country, as the legal framework of abortion begins to crumble.
The case centered on Sarah Janie Hicks, who knowingly used dangerous and illegal drugs while pregnant. When the baby was born, the child tested positive for high levels of drugs and Hicks was charged with violating Alabama's chemical endangerment statute.
Pro-abortion lawyers argued that the term "child" in Alabama law excludes the unborn, but the Alabama Supreme Court rejected that reasoning and doubled down on their pro-personhood Ankrom v. State decision from last year. They upheld Hicks's conviction in an 8-1 decision.
Chief Justice Roy Moore's concurring opinion was especially dazzling, written especially "to emphasize that the inalienable right to life is a gift of God that civil government must secure for all persons--born and unborn."
"Under the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," Moore wrote, "states have an obligation to provide to unborn children at any stage of their development the same legal protection from injury and death they provide to persons already born."
Chief Justice Moore then
recites a litany of legal, historical, and scriptural precedents that "attest to the sanctity and personhood of unborn life" in order to support the court's conclusion. In a thinly veiled criticism of the United States Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence, Justice Moore analyzed the judgment at Nuremberg to ascertain the role of courts in overturning "settled" judicial opinions that contravene the "higher law" that protects the right to life.
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Canadian aborted babies incinerated in Oregon waste-to-energy facility to provide electricity
by Peter Baklinski Wed Apr 23, 2014 13:06 EST
VICTORIA, British Columbia, April 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The British Columbia Health Ministry has admitted that the remains of babies destroyed by abortion in B.C. facilities are ending up in a waste-to-power facility in the United States, providing electricity for residents of Oregon.
The province's Health Ministry said in an email to the B.C. Catholic that "biomedical waste" shipped to the U.S. to be incinerated includes "human tissue, such as surgically removed cancerous tissue, amputated limbs, and fetal tissue."
"The ministry understands that some is transferred to Oregon. There it is incinerated in a waste-to-energy plant," the email stated.
The ministry said that contractors handling the province's "biomedical waste" follow "health and safety protocols, as well as federal, provincial, and local regulations."
Kristan Mitchell, executive director of the Oregon Refuse and Recycling Association, told the B.C. Catholic that the "biomedical waste" likely ends up at the Covanta Marion waste-to-energy facility in Oregon since it is the only facility that uses waste to power the grid. The facility confirmed that it still receives and incinerates B.C. medical waste.
The power facility, located in Brookes just off the I-5, burns waste in two massive boilers at a temperature of about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat transfers into water tubes, which creates steam to drive turbines. The turbines generate electricity.
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