This is an interesting development regarding the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research as reported by World Magazine:

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked government rules on embryonic stem cell (ESC) research funding, a blow to the Obama administration which by executive order had lifted Bush-era restrictions and a victory for pro-lifers fighting to stop the destruction of human embryos.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted the preliminary injunction because he held opponents of Obama’s executive order had demonstrated they are likely to succeed at trial. Lamberth’s injunction is also important in that it rejects the government’s legal rationale for getting around federal law explicitly forbidding the use of taxpayer dollars to destroy a human embryo.

Last year I wrote a series of posts on the ethical implications of embryonic stem cell research. Here are the links if you want some more information on this subject:

    • Scott Klusendorf on Embryonic Stem Cell Research
    • Alternatives to Embyronic Stem Cell Research
    • They’re Going to Die Anyway

I would also direct you to Joe Carter’s excellent A Brief Primer on Stem Cell Research.

I know, more politics. But if not now, when? Charmaine Yoest in the Wall Street Journal provides a clear and succint explanation of why the health bill in its present form will lead to federal funding of abortions and how the White House can easily prevent this from happening.

It’s now becoming clear that Barack Obama is willing to put everything on the table in order to be the president who passes health-care reform. Everything, that is, except a ban on federal funding for abortion.

Last September, the president promised that “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.” Yet the legislation most likely to move forward in Congress would be the single greatest expansion of abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The White House knows how to turn Mr. Obama’s September commitment into legislative action … Only adding a so-called Hyde Amendment to the health-care reform bills would fulfill the president’s promise to protect Americans from subsidizing abortion … Similar amendments have been added to health-care bills ever since [1976]. Without specific language prohibiting the practice, history has shown that the courts or administrative agencies end up directing government dollars to pay for abortions …

Over the past year, language similar to the Hyde Amendment was crafted by Reps. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) and Joe Pitts (R., Pa.) and inserted into the health-care bill that passed the House. When asked about the Stupak-Pitts Amendment in November, Mr. Obama talked around the issue. He said that “there is a balance to be achieved that is consistent with the Hyde Amendment.” When asked if Stupak-Pitts struck this “balance,” the president replied “not yet.” That’s an odd reply. The question of abortion funding doesn’t have any Zen to it: The funding is either prohibited or it’s not …

The president’s latest proposal mirrors legislation that has passed the Senate, which doesn’t include a Hyde Amendment, and would inevitably establish abortion as a fundamental health-care service … The president’s plan goes further than the Senate bill on abortion by calling for spending $11 billion over five years on “community health centers,” which include Planned Parenthood clinics that provide abortions.

With one simple step the White House can keep its promise to keep federal funding of abortions out of the health bill. So why won’t the White House take that step? (HT: Denny Burk and Vitamin Z)

Related posts:
    • The Sanctity of Human Life in the Womb (Sermon from Psalm 139)
    • Barack Obama on Health Care Then and Now

Click here for more posts on the subject of abortion.

Focus on the Family’s 30-second Super Bowl ad featuring 2007 Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow is stirring up attention all over the place — and it hasn’t even aired yet! Focus on the Family Vice President for Pastoral Ministries H.B. London shares the inside scoop:

Would you believe all the commotion and publicity the 30-second Super Bowl® ad sponsored by Focus on the Family has received?

By our estimates — and they are pretty accurate — the pre-Super Bowl hype of the “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” ad has registered to date 2,265,490,170 impressions. That is “billion” with a “B.” Amazing!

The interesting thing about all of this is that no one in the media has seen the ad. And, unless there is a big leak before Sunday, no one will see it until it is shown during the Super Bowl pre-game show and the first quarter of the game itself.

Another interesting phenomenon is that, even those in the liberal media who have opposed us before — and disagree even now with most of what we stand for at Focus on the Family — are defending our right to run the Super Bowl ad.

On February 2, 2010, The Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins wrote, “I’m pro-choice and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I’ve heard in the past week, I’ll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the ‘National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women all the time’ (referring to the group NOW). They aren’t actually ‘pro-choice’ so much as they are pro-abortion.”

She continues, “If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.”

Interestingly enough — a little inside stuff here — our Super Bowl ad never mentions abortion. Also, as we have reported in other columns, not one dollar was spent from our regular operating expenses at Focus on the Family to underwrite the cost of the “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” ad.

You can read the Sally Jenkins article mentioned here: Tebow’s Super Bowl ad isn’t intolerant; its critics are. And don’t forget to watch for the commercial during the Super Bowl on Sunday. It will air twice: once during the pre-game show and then again during the first quarter.

This message takes a close look at the Hebrew text of Psalm 139 in order to affirm the sanctity of human life in the womb. I had the privilege of preaching at Plantation Community Church Sunday for National Sanctity of Human Life Day. The message was called The Sanctity of Human Life in the Womb, taken from Psalm 139:13-16.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Click “►” button to listen to the message | Length: 29:08
Click here to download the MP3. (Right-click; Save Target As)
Click here for the full manuscript.

Here is a brief outline of the message:

Five reasons why we should affirm the sanctity of human life in the womb:
    1) God has ownership rights as Creator. (13a)
    2) Human life should be treated with special reverence and awe. (13b-14)
    3) God designed the womb as a place of nurture and protection. (15a)
    4) God personally fashions the baby in the womb. (15b-16a)
    5) God has a plan for each child’s life even before the child is born. (16b)

What can you do?
    1) Pray concerning the problem of abortion.
    2) Vote for people and policies which affirm life.
    3) Support mothers in crisis and those who give them aid.

Note: Click on the Sermons tab at the top of the blog for this and other messages.

The power of an ultrasound:

Planned Parenthood has been a part of Abby Johnson’s life for the past eight years; that is until last month, when Abby resigned. Johnson said she realized she wanted to leave, after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure. “I just thought I can’t do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that’s it,” said Johnson. …

According to Johnson, the non-profit was struggling under the weight of a tough economy, and changing it’s business model from one that pushed prevention, to one that focused on abortion … Johnson said she was told to bring in more women who wanted abortions, something the Episcopalian church goer recently became convicted about. …

Johnson now supports the Coalition For Life, the pro-life group with a building down the street from Planned Parenthood. Coalition volunteers can regularly be seen praying on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood. Johnson has been meeting with the coalition’s executive director, Shawn Carney, and has prayed with volunteers outside Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has now filed a restraining order against Johnson contending that the organization would be irreparably harmed by the disclosure of certain information.

HT: First Thoughts

Click here for more posts on the subject of abortion.

Gretchen Naugle shares a troubling story about what happened two years ago when she went for a 4-D ultrasound appointment.

The specialist doctor called me in after the ultrasound to go over the findings. The first words out of his mouth to me were “Well you will have to come in tomorrow for your abortion because of how far along you are.” I was utterly shocked and devastated. All I could do was mutter “What??????” He then proceeded to tell me that my baby had more “markers” for down syndrome and it didn’t look good. I was more shocked that his automatic assumption was that I would abort my baby. I almost couldn’t comprehend what he was telling me in that office. All I wanted to do was run as far away from that man as possible.

Gretchen’s daughter was born several months later with no physical problems.

Whereas I have spoken out freely against abortion on this blog in the past, I thought it was important to share my view on this weekend’s murder of Dr. George Tiller. Dr. Tiller, who built a reputation for his willingness to perform late-term abortions, was shot and killed Sunday while serving as an usher at his church. Although details have not yet been released, it is most likely that he was killed because of his work in the abortion trade.

Murder is not pro-life. It is wrong to take the life of the unborn child in the mother’s womb, and it is wrong to take the life of the late-term abortionist who takes the life of the child in the womb. There is no justification for murder. Pro-life leaders across the nation have rightly denounced Sunday’s murder as an evil deed that stands directly opposed to the values of the pro-life movement. Please pray for the family of George Tiller even as we continue to work and pray for the protection of human life within the womb.

Question: If President Obama’s policies are supposed to reduce abortions (as my pro-life Democrat friends keep telling me), then why is NARAL Pro-Choice America celebrating Obama’s first 100 days in office?

Related:
President Obama’s Statement on the 36th Anniversary of Roe v Wade
See also Kevin DeYoung: Does Rhetoric Reduce the Number of Abortions?

Today we are continuing our series of posts on the ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR). One of the arguments raised in favor of using leftover embryos in fertility clinics for research is that they are going to die anyway. So why not put them to good use saving lives? Scott Klusendorff in his interview with Crossway Publishers offers the following interesting thought experiment to help us see what is wrong with this argument.

There are moral considerations that call into question “they’re going to die anyway” argument. Suppose you oversee a Cambodian orphanage with 200 toddlers that are abandoned. The facility cannot care for them any longer. Water levels are critically low and food supplies are exhausted. It’s only a matter of time before starvation and disease set in. A scientist has offered to take the toddlers off your hands and use them for grisly medical research designed to cure cancer. He confronts you with the hard facts: Many of these children will die soon and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it, so why let all those organs go to waste? Nonetheless, you refuse. You could never, even for a moment, consider turning the kids over to the scientist on grounds that “these kids are going to die anyway so let’s put them to good use.” True, given your impoverished circumstances, you are powerless to save them, but you would never be complicit in actively killing vulnerable human beings, which is what ESCR does.

Related posts:
    • Scott Klusendorf on Embryonic Stem Cell Research
    • Alternatives to Embyronic Stem Cell Research

Yesterday I posted part of an interview with Scott Klusendorf, author of The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture. Here is a later part from the same interview where Scott talks about some of the alternatives to Embyronic Stem Cell Research (ESCR). The bottom line is that there are positive ways to continue stem cell research without destroying human embryos in the process.

Not only is embryonic stem cell research immoral, but it may be unnecessary. First, numerous peer-reviewed studies indicate that adult stem cells are more effective at treating disease than previously thought. Unlike embryo stem cell research, we can extract these adult cells without harming the donor. Critics of the pro-life view, like the late actor Christopher Reeve, insist that these adult cells won’t work. However, the evidence suggests just the opposite. So far, adult stem cells are outperforming their embryonic counterparts.

Second, new research suggests we can pursue embryo cell treatments in morally acceptable ways. Altered Nuclear Transfer (or ANT) is one new technology which seeks a morally acceptable means of producing pluripotent stem cells (the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells) without the creation and destruction of human embryos. Instead, researchers will use biological entities that have some of the properties of embryos, but are not living organisms. In 2007, researchers in Japan and the United States, using slightly different methods, successfully coaxed ordinary adult skin cells to function just like pluripotent embryonic ones. This remarkable breakthrough demonstrated that pluripotent cells can be obtained without destroying human embryos. This should come as thrilling news for everyone in the cloning debate intent on using embryo cells.

Here is an interesting video clip from Oprah where Doctor Oz proclaims the stem cell debate closed and explains the benefits of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Research (IPS Cell Technology) to Oprah and fellow guest Michael J. Fox. This new technology takes skin cells and makes them embryo-like, thus avoiding both the moral problems of destroying embryos for research as well as the practical problems involved with using embryonic stem cells, such as the risk of tumors in the recipient. (Video length: 3:13)

Related posts:
    • Scott Klusendorf on Embryonic Stem Cell Research
    • They’re Going to Die Anyway

Crossway has a good interview with Scott Klusendorf on the subject of embryonic stem cell research. Scott is the author of the new book: The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture. This is an important topic for Christians to study, especially during these times when government policy is working to change the laws in this area. Here are the first three questions and answers:

1. What are stem cells and why are scientists eager to use them in treating disease? Stem cells are fast growing, unspecialized cells that can reproduce themselves and grow new organs for the body. All 210 different types of human tissue originate from these primitive cells. Because they have the potential to grow into almost any kind of tissue—including nerves, bones, and muscle, scientists believe that the introduction of healthy stem cells into a patient may restore lost function to damaged organs, especially the brain.
2. Why is stem cell research focused, at least in part, on embryos? Human embryos have an abundant supply of stem cells which scientists are eager to harvest in hopes of treating Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other illnesses. The practice of securing these early cells is known as embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). The problem is that you must destroy the embryo to secure its stem cells.
3. Does that mean Christians should oppose all stem cell research? Absolutely not. Pro-life advocates agree that we should save lives. We also support funding stem-cell research. But, we’re opposed to one kind of stem-cell research that requires destroying defenseless human embryos so that other humans may (allegedly) benefit. That’s immoral.

Be sure to visit Crossway for the rest of the interview.

Related posts:
    • Alternatives to Embyronic Stem Cell Research
    • They’re Going to Die Anyway

This is Sanctity of Human Life Week; Sunday was Sanctity of Human Life Sunday; and today marks the 36th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Here are a number of links from around the web relating to abortion and the sanctity of human life.
______________________________________________________________

The 5-Minute Pro-Lifer. Scott Klusendorf explains how to defend your pro-life views in five minutes or less.

Richard Barcellos shares the following statistics on abortion. “From 1973 to about 2000 there were an estimated 38,000,000 (that’s 38 million!) abortions. That’s about 4,000/day, 173/hr., and roughly 1 every 20 seconds! In 2008, there were roughly 1.2 million abortions in the U.S. Ten years ago there were 1.6 million. But at 1.2 million/yr., that’s still 100,000/month; 23,076/wk; 3,296/day; 137/hr.; and 2.28/minute. Now count to 60.”

The Truth about Roe v. Wade. Read the sworn testimony of Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”) as she recounts what really happened in the Roe v. Wade case back in 1973. (HT: Between Two Worlds)

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). During his campaign Obama said he would sign The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) if he became president. FOCA is a radical piece of legislation that would eliminate current restrictions on abortion and prevent states from enacting similar protective measures in the future.

• You can read more about FOCA here: What Is the Freedom of Choice Act?
• You can sign a petition against FOCA here (I did): Fight FOCA.
• Here is an interesting article on how FOCA would impact the Catholic Health Care System.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama. Pastor Ron Jones posted this open letter to Obama asking him to reconsider his views on abortion. (Ron Jones is pastor of Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Virginia, where thousands of people worship each weekend from the Washington D.C. area, many of whom are Pentagon leaders, White House officials, and members of Congress.)

Russel Moore explains “Why I Hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.”

I hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday because I’m reminded that we have to say things to one another that human beings shouldn’t have to say. Mothers shouldn’t kill their children. Fathers shouldn’t abandon their babies. No human life is worthless, regardless of skin color, age, disability, economic status. The very fact that these things must be proclaimed is a reminder of the horrors of this present darkness.

Dr. R.C. Sproul presents a free-to-watch six-part video series on abortion, covering the topics: 1) What Are the Key Issues? 2) How Sacred Is Human Life? 3) When Does Life Begin? 4) What Is the Relationship of Church and State? 5) What About Those Who Demand Their Rights? and 6) What Is Your Verdict?

Click here for more posts on the subject of abortion.