# 1355 (9/21) "House Passes Bill to Hold Planned Parenthood Criminally Liable for Harvesting Aborted Babies Still Alive"

"HOUSE PASSES BILL TO HOLD PLANNED PARENTHOOD CRIMINALLY LIABLE FOR HARVESTING ABORTED BABIES STILL ALIVE" - Steven Ertelt, Sept. 18, 2015 | http://www.lifenews.com/2015/09/18/house-passes-bill-to-hold-planned-parenthood-criminally-liable [AS I SEE IT: It's incredible that we live in a time when such a bill as this is necessary. Can we really believe America is a place where God would continue to bless much longer? - Stan]
  
The House of Representatives today[last Friday] approved a pro-life bill that would hold the Planned Parenthood abortion business criminally liable for harvesting body parts from aborted babies who are technically still alive. The center for Medical Progress has released 10 videos catching and exposing Planned Parenthood officials selling aborted babies and their body parts. One of the most shocking videos caught the nation’s biggest abortion business harvesting the brain of an aborted baby who was still alive.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, sponsored by pro-life Congressman Trent Franks would make failure to provide standard medical care to children born alive during an abortion a federal crime. It would also apply stronger penalties in cases where an overt act is taken to kill the abortion survivor. Under the pro-life bill there is also a civil right of action for mothers of children who survive an abortion to hold the abortion provider accountable.

Congressman Chris Smith implored the House to pass the bill. “Undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress have again brought into sharp focus that some babies actually survive abortion,” the New jersey congressman said. ”

Dr. Savita Ginde, Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains says “sometimes we get—if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure—they are intact…”  that is, Madame Speaker,  born alive. Breathing, crying, gasping for air. One fetal tissue broker describes on the video watching a “fetus …just fall out.” And left to die.”

“We have a duty to protect these vulnerable children from violence, exploitation and death. Humanitarian due diligence requires that born alive babies be taken to a hospital to obtain care and enhance prospects of survival,” Smith added. “Abortion clinics have no incentive whatsoever to save the child. Abortion clinics do not have neonatal intensive care units—they are in the business of killing babies, not saving them.”

“The Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 3504), authored by pro-life champion Trent Franks simply says any child who survives an abortion must be given the same care as any other premature baby born at the same gestational age.  This legislation builds on the landmark Born Alive Infant Protection Act of 2002 authored by Steve Chabot by adding important enforcement provisions,” he concluded.

The House voted 248 to 177 for the bill with 239 Republicans voting for the bill and 5 Democrats joining them. No Republicans voted against the pro-life bill while 177 Democrats voted against it. One member voted present.

A po-life sneator says he will introduce the Senate version of the bill on Monday. Senator Ben Sasse told LifeNews.com that he will introduce companion legislation in the Senate when Congress resumes its work on Monday.He said: “If this isn’t the most non-controversial sentence in American politics, it’s time to check our national conscience: newborn babies must receive care and attention. Societies are judged by how we care for the vulnerable and surely anyone with a heart— regardless of where they stand on the abortion debate— should be able to agree that our laws should protect newborns. I’m grateful that a bipartisan majority of the House stood up for babies and I look forward to introducing companion legislation in the Senate next week.”

Despite passage of the bill, the Obama administration says President Barack Obama would veto the measure. The position statement explaining the opposition to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act says the pro-life bill “would impose new legal requirements related to the provision of abortion services in certain circumstances, which would likely have a chilling effect, reducing access to care.” As pro-life Congressman Chris Smith explains, this has Obama on record once again opposing care for babies born alive who survive abortions. Obama clearly either believes that killing babies after they are born is a reasonable part of an abortion or he fears that abortion companies like Planned Parenthood would stop doing abortions before they would be willing to comply with a requirement to save the babies that survive them.

“Late yesterday the President demonstrated that his subservience to Planned Parenthood is absolute and without question,” said Smith. “Blindly following the orders of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the country, the President issued an extreme unequivocal statement that he would veto the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that simply says a child that survives an abortion must be given the same care as any other premature baby born at the same gestational age and forbidding acts of lethal violence against such babies.”

Smith told LifeNews.com: “We are talking about babies that have been BORN ALIVE and are separate from their mothers,” Smith said. “Yet President Obama’s extreme obsession with promoting abortion doesn’t stop with killing unborn children. Even abortion survivors are not safe from this President and Planned Parenthood.  Can we not treat these tiny infants as a person—as patients? According to the Abortion President and the largest abortion provider in the nation, the answer is a resounding NO.

Smith continued: “These extreme statements demonstrate just who we are dealing with in the White House, but the question remains. Will Members of the House and Senate follow the lead of the abortion giant, Planned Parenthood? Or will they at least draw a line at infanticide and vote for a law protect abortion survivors and ensure people like Kermit Gosnell who kill babies who survive abortions are prosecuted and brought to justice?” ...

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

"House Votes to De-Fund Planned Parenthood After it Sells Body Parts From Aborted Babies:" - Steven Ertelt, Sept. 18, 2015   | http://www.lifenews.com/2015/09/18/house-votes-to-de-fund-planned-parenthood-after-it-sells-body-parts-from-aborted-babies/
"The House of Representatives voted today [FRIDAY] for legislation that would temporarily de-fund Planned Parenthood while an investigation continues into it s sale of aborted babies and their body parts."

"What Life Looks Like at 18 Weeks" - Kelsey Harkness / September 21, 2015; http://dailysignal.com/2015/09/21/what-life-looks-like-at-18-weeks/
"A debate over life is commencing this week...Watch the video at this weblink to see life at 18 weks ...and hear from both sides in this contentious debate."

# 1354 (9/20) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "Dare To Be A Daniel?"

"DARE TO BE A DANIEL?" - Marvin Olasky | Sep 15, 2015;
http://townhall.com/columnists/marvinolasky/2015/09/15/dare-to-be-a-daniel-n2051865/page/full

WWJD bracelets were useful in their time and could still be helpful now, but “What would Jesus do?” ran into the problem of all hypotheticals: On those political issues that Jesus left to the Caesars and would-be Caesars, we’d have to guess.

That’s why a better bracelet formulation might be WDDD: What did Daniel do? Amazingly, Daniel of the Bible for at least 66 years, from 605 to 539 B.C., was a Babylonian public servant who really did try to serve a strange public while remaining true to God. He faced down two death threats and saw his friends survive a third.

I’d like to write about Daniel in several columns, beginning this month when WORLD is running some articles about education. After all, Chapter 1 of Daniel’s memoir shows his traumatic entry to nonbiblical higher education: Militants from an enemy land pulled Daniel from his hometown, Jerusalem, and forcibly enrolled him in a three-year immersion program in Babylonian culture and language.

Daniel’s response conveyed both acceptance of God’s plan for him and resistance to his captors. He obviously studied hard and gained, through God’s grace, “learning and skill in all literature and wisdom” -- yet he declined to eat the rich food and wine offered in the dining hall, and instead lived on vegetables.

It’s possible Daniel abstained from meat for dietary reasons (although he apparently ate it later) or because it would have been sacrificed to idols (but vegetables were as well). Reformation-era commentator Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575) offered a better explanation: that “the king should not entice him by this sweet poison.” John Mayer (1583-1664) similarly noted the temptations of “dainty and delicate keeping” and said Daniel’s example shows “it is no part of felicity in respect of worldly things to have the wherewithal to eat and drink daily of the best.”

Today we might refer to “golden handcuffs,” where individuals get used to a certain standard of living and don’t want to lose it. Westminster Theological Seminary professor Iain Duguid points out in his commentary on Daniel that if Satan can “instill in us a sense of dependence upon the material comforts that make up our way of life ... then he can far more effectively draw us away from the Lord.”

Free of dependence on King Nebuchadnezzar’s largesse, Daniel and his three friends aced their oral exams: “In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters.” That academic success soon became a life-or-death matter: Chapter 2 describes the king’s maddening dream of statues and his threats to kill all his advisers, including Daniel, unless they gave him details of the dream and its meaning.

Daniel used his stellar academic record to gain a hearing with the king, and then let the captain of the king’s guard take credit by telling Nebuchadnezzar, “I have found among the exiles from Judah. ...” Daniel did not take any credit: “There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries ... this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have.” Daniel interpreted the dream as a prophecy of government decline from gold to silver to bronze to iron to an unstable mix of iron and soft clay. (Progressives love to talk of biological and social evolution, but ruinous mutation and devolution are more frequent.)

Ironically, Chapter 3 shows how Nebuchadnezzar turned Daniel’s identification of his reign as golden into an assault on religious liberty: The king ordered construction of a golden idol 90 feet tall. Daniel’s three friends -- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego -- practiced passive resistance: They did not destroy an idol as they would have been obliged to do within the borders of Israel, but simply refused to bow to it when everyone else did. They did not run away. They did not hide. They also did not fight back. They told Nebuchadnezzar that God could rescue them, but they did not know if He would.

How different that is from our current fight or flight tendencies! These three chapters of Daniel, and the three I plan to discuss in a subsequent column, teach us much and also leave us with a question: Where was Daniel while his friends walked into a fiery furnace?

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

Marvin Olasky is editor-in-chief of the national news magazine World. For additional commentary by Marvin Olasky, visit www.worldmag.com. 

# 1353 (9/19) PRO-LIFE SAT: "TODAY is My GENday"

 "TODAY is My GENday" - by Stan M. Yonashiro. [NOTE: This is basically a re-posting of what I first wrote on my GENday 3 years ago.] 

Never heard that term before? Well, I first came up with the term around my birthday three years ago. So what do I mean by a GENday?

     Well, if you know anything about me, you probably know that I am MOST passionate about the on-going American Holocaust against the unborn conducted through abortion for more than 40 years now. I've spoken out for the sanctity of human life and against abortion in various forums since 1989, the year I risked getting arrested for blocking the entrance to 7 different abortion clinics and spent 3 days in jail for one of those actions. (I described that in 2 previous blogs.) I've also helped raise funds for more than  a dozen times for local pregnancy resource centers as well as speak out for Life in non-verbal ways every chance I get.

     Well, several years ago, I read an article that made aware that we actually celebrate the birth of Jesus – Christmas – but that in reality that’s NOT when God actually entered our world physically as a human being. Think about it. Jesus actually CAME into our world the day he was CONCEIVED in Mary’s womb. (How wild is it to realize that technically the Son of God dwelled  inutero for 9 months?) And so, in truth, we should be celebrating the day He was conceived, NOT the day He was born, because by then He had already been in our world for around 9 months!

     It's incredible to realize that if Jesus had entered the world  today, as an "unplanned pregnancy" He could have been aborted. But in the Jewish society of over 2,000 years ago, they knew that the unborn was a person, that it was a  precious life even without sonograms.(Note the reference to "the baby" in Elizabeth's womb in Luke 1:41.) Sadly, too many today abort their unborn children because they are somehow convinced that the unborn is not really a person until they are born.

     But because life DOES begin at conception – as the Bible, and now sonograms, make clear – I believe that esp. we who are pro-life need to regularly note not just our BIRTHdays but also the day we were conceived. By doing this, we remind the world that the day of our conception is when life begins, and because of that it is from THAT day that all life  becomes too precious to be considered aborting.

      But then, how does anyone know the day when they were conceived? Well, I believe that we can presume that we were each conceived approximately 9 months previous to our birth day - or the date 3 months after our birthday. And so, since my  birth day is June 19th, my day of conception would have been around Sept. 19th (the previous year).Yes, this does then make me  9 months older than if I were just marking my birthdays, a thought that some might not want to think about.

     Then, why call it a person’s "GENday"? Well, I’ve been trying to figure out what to call that anniversary of my day of conception and have finally decided that since Genesis in the Bible is called the “book of beginnings," GENday (a shortened form of "Genesis Day") would be a good term for (about) the day each of our lives actually began! 

     And so, beginning two years ago, I now ONLY celebrate my GENday, Sept. 19th and no longer celebrate my birthday. Of course, I will always be thankful to my Mom for giving birth to me. But I want to help others note that each life begins at conception - not on the day of our birth - and that therefore each life needs to regarded as sacred and protected from that day. 

     Will the idea of celebrating our GENday ever catch on with those who profess to be pro-life? Well, I’d like to believe it might, at least I do pray it might. If YOU consider yourself pro-life, will YOU consider celebrating YOUR GENday from now on? Of course, you would still be free to ALSO celebrate your birthday. So, actually, celebrating  your GENday will give you another day to PARTY each year. And is there any of us that cannot use another reason to celebrate something each year?  Cool, huh? 

       I know... you might be thinking that this is a bit much. But then, I think it's a simple way for all who say they stand for the sanctity of all unborn life, to help the world to understand this Biblical –as well as scientific – truth that life begins at conception, not birth. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We Must Reawaken Society’s Appreciation of Unborn Babies Killed in Abortions" -  Maria Gallagher, Sept. 15, 2015| http://www.lifenews.com/2015/09/15/we-must-reawaken-societys-appreciation-of-unborn-babies-killed-in-abortions/

# 1352 (9/18) "Radical Islam Post 9/11: 'They Have Tentacles Everywhere' "

"RADICAL ISLAM POST 9/11: 'THEY HAVE TENTACLES EVERYWHERE'" - By George Thomas, September 12, 2015;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/September/Islam-Post-911-They-Have-Tentacles-Everywhere/

[Last] Friday marked the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. Fourteen years after terror was unleashed on our shores, the threat posed by radical Islam continues to grow around the world.

According to CBN News Terrorism Analyst Erick Stakelbeck, al Qaeda and its affiliates are still plotting death against the enemies of Islam. "Al Qaeda has actually expanded its reach since 9/11 and is present in more countries today than it was on 9/11 when we were attacked," Stakelbeck said. Radical Islam is stronger and in more countries than ever before. CBN Terrorism Analyst Erick Stakelbeck tells us why.

Unlike in 2001, experts say the terror threat today is more pervasive, as terrorists -- often operating in small cells or as lone-wolves like the Boston Marathon bombers -- are driven to murder and mayhem in the name of Islam. Stakelbeck says ISIS, unlike any other terror group, has mastered the call to jihad.

"ISIS, among the younger generation of jihadis, especially here in the West, ISIS is the cool thing," he explained. "They are so active on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, they are everywhere, ISIS is a phenomenon." That phenomenon continues to gobble up vast swaths of territory in the Middle East, leaving behind a reign of terror and tears.

"We're fleeing from ISIS and the Syrian regime," one refugee said. "Even before yesterday, ISIS entered our village so we had to flee." Formed in 2013, ISIS has quickly become a virulent, wealthy, transnational terror organization that is constantly recruiting. And now a U.S. official told the BBC they're also using chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria.

"They have tentacles everywhere," said Robert Spencer, author of The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS. "People don't know that they are not just in Iraq and Syria, where they already control the territory the size of Great Britain."

"But because they claim to be the only legitimate government among Muslims all over the world, the caliphate, they also have territory in Libya and they have gotten the allegiance of other jihad groups in Nigeria, the Philippines, Yemen, all over the world," he said.

Remember when President Barack Obama referred to ISIS as the 'JV' team? Well according to revelations this week by The Daily Beast intelligence officials were altering reports on ISIS to fit the president's assertion that the United States was winning the war against them and other terrorists in Syria and Iraq. "He wants to give the portrayal that ISIS is on the run and that limited U.S. airstrikes are having a great effect on ISIS, but meanwhile the facts on the ground say otherwise," Stakelbeck said.

Meanwhile ISIS and al Qaeda remain deeply opposed to one another, with al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri just this week releasing a tape blasting ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.Still, the two groups remain committed to their mission against their enemies.

And, not to be outdone by ISIS, al Qaeda is out with its latest magazine, issued days before today's 9/11 anniversary. In it, the group calls for more lone-wolf attacks and assassination operations against some of America's richest men, including Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, and Warren Buffett.

As America remembers the horrific scenes of 9/11, authorities are still concerned about another major terror attack, as well as those 'lone-wolf' operations. They also worry about the possibility that such attacks -- like those in Paris this year and elsewhere -- could become more and more common. And like 9/11, they would be carried out in the name of Islam.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

# 1351 (9/17) CONSTITUTION DAY - "What Happens When Americans Stop Revering the Constitution?"

"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AMERICANS STOP REVERING THE CONSTITUTION?" - Arthur Milikh/ September 17, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/09/17/what-happens-when-americans-stop-revering-the-constitution/

On Constitution Day, we offer our gratitude to the framers of the Constitution while honoring the document they produced. (Photo: istockphoto)

National holidays are about gratitude. On Veterans Day we honor veterans by offering our gratitude for their service and sacrifice. On Thanksgiving we offer our appreciation, as Washington explains in the first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, to God and nation.

Today, on Constitution Day, we offer our gratitude to the framers of the Constitution while honoring the document they produced.

The Founders
     Having such a holiday makes America unique: rather than elevating our founders to the status of saints or trusting in hearsay reports about their deeds, we look upon them as statesmen of remarkable genius. While other nations often embellish their mythical origins, our records are open, and our founders require no mythology to demonstrate their superiority.

Comparing what occupied Founders’ minds and ours is helpful. At stake was founding a great nation—the first of its kind—that protected natural rights, established commerce and scientific innovation, all of which would lead to unprecedented prosperity. In carrying this out, much of the world has followed in their footsteps, with varying degrees of success.

On the 228th anniversary of the Constitution’s birthday, we might remember our great fortune to have had a group of geniuses at the helm of our state, while asking ourselves if anyone would be capable of writing the Constitution anew.

The Constitution
     Jefferson called the work of our Founders “unquestionably the wisest Constitution ever yet presented to men.” Its ingenuity and depth is sometimes difficult to fully appreciate because we are so thoroughly engrossed and formed by the order it created. Many Americans tend to believe that the key elements that define our nation are spontaneous and natural, but they were established by the Constitution.

For example, the Constitution established the conditions for our nation’s many miraculous works—not the least comes from technological innovation and the progress of science. In Article 1 Section 8, the Constitution secures intellectual property rights which enkindles both the ambition for innovation and delivers on the promise of wealth to individual innovators and inventors. By creating these conditions, the Constitution spreads the entrepreneurial spirit. A telling example of this was seen in the 1990s, when the inventor of the M-16, Eugene Stone, met the inventor of the AK-47, Mikhail Kalashnikov. The former flew in on his own plane; the latter could barely afford a plane ticket to Moscow.

Another example is free markets, which work only with the establishment of respect and protection for property rights by sufficient governmental force, combined with sufficient limits on that force.

But these are only two among many possible examples of how to rediscover the specific means by which it has secured “the blessings of liberty” that we enjoy today. James Madison did not think that all citizens would clearly understand every theoretical aspect of the Constitution. In fact, the workings of the “wisest and freest governments,” Madison writes in Federalist 49, do not require perfect understanding of all citizens, but the government’s “stability” depends on reverence for it.

What happens when this reverence is lost?
     In our time, preserving reverence is still an issue, but too much stability has become the direct obstacle. As Tocqueville predicted, it will not be revolutions that threaten our constitutional order, but the centralization of an administrative state which will silently take more and more freedom away from citizens while subverting the Constitution in the process. The modern administrative state’s disregard for the Constitution’s separation of powers and careful system of checks and balances not only subverts our Constitution but perhaps more importantly diminishes its respectability. Oddly enough, in such circumstances, only public outcry originating in reverence for the Constitution could remedy these trends.

By celebrating the past, national holidays aim to unify a people’s sentiments. But, as Lincoln observes, the further we stray from the events we honor, “like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time.”

How do we do this with our Constitution? Perhaps by recalling that the Constitution does not operate of its own accord; that it does not rule providentially over us. Its operation requires understanding and reverence. This can come only from knowledge of the benefits it has bestowed upon the American people, which we attempt to safeguard by celebrating it nationally, at least once a year.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

Arthur Milikh is assistant director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation.

"James Madison, Self-Government and the Importance of Self-Control" - Colleen Sheehan / September 17, 2015; http://dailysignal.com/2015/09/17/taking-measure-of-our-liberty-james-madisons-aspiration-for-self-government/
"Here’s What Chipotle and Boy Scouts Have to Do with the Constitution" - Kate Scanlon / @scanlon_kate / October 20, 2014;http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/20/heres-chipotle-boy-scouts-constitution/

# 1350 (9/16) "All Lies On Planned Parenthood"

"ALL LIES ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, September 10, 2015;http://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20150910/all-lies [AS I SEE IT: As has been shared in earlier posts (such as Monday's #1348), the debate that has gone on in the House committee investigating Planned Parenthood is well worth time on nightly news programs. But tragically the mainstream media has pretty much censored all coverage of the hearings. If you ever wondered whether there was any bias in the media, the lack of coverage by ABC, NBC, CBS, and I assume PBS on this should finally convince you. - Stan]

As revealing as David Daleiden's undercover videos are, they're exposing a lot more than Planned Parenthood. The summer scandal is also pulling back the curtain on where several politicians stand. As the first House hearing proved, a number of Democrats seem perfectly content -- if not proud -- to support a group nonchalantly carving up tiny humans for dollars.

Yesterday, their allegiance was on full display, as they doggedly defended an organization whose grisly side business has yet to affect its lucrative relationship with American taxpayers. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) desperately hopes to change that, inviting women who survived the excruciating procedure Planned Parenthood profits from, to testify. "Do not tell me these are not children," pleaded Gianna Jessen. "A heartbeat proves that. So do I."

As she shared, Jessen's mother tried to abort her seven months into pregnancy -- and failed. Gianna was told later that "a bucket of formaldehyde in a utility closet" was meant to be her fate until two nurses intervened and saved her life. "Planned Parenthood is not ashamed of what they have done or continue to do," Gianna said. "But we will have to give an account, as a nation, before God, for our apathy and for the murder of over 50 million children in the womb. Every time we falter in courage as individuals and fail to confront this evil, I wonder how many lives have been lost in our silence... How many children have died and been dismembered, and their parts sold, for our ego, our convenience, and our promiscuity? How many Lamborghinis were purchased with the blood of innocent children?"

While the rest of the room was taken aback by her emotional testimony, Democrats sat almost passively -- until it was time to defend Planned Parenthood. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee was one of the most militant, insisting that the idea that life has value is old-fashioned. "It's a new America," he insisted after a heated exchange. "We are not going back to [Dwight Eisenhower's] America." Then, as liberals are wont to do, he tried to twist the discussion into something it wasn't: a hearing to overturn Roe v. Wade. "It's about abortion, period. For me, Planned Parenthood is part of my DNA. It's one of the finest organizations in this country. It helps women, women of color, poor women, and it gives them a choice."

Organizations that brag about the butchery of innocent children are not "fine" -- nor are they helping women. And while Democrats want desperately for Americans to believe that Planned Parenthood is the only option for women's health care, the reality is (as ADF's maps show) far different. As Goodlatte himself pointed out, there are more than 13,000 health clinics in the country that aren't under investigation for criminal activity -- and more importantly, provide compassionate, honest, and proficient care to women in need. The idea that Republicans are fighting to take those services away is a prime example of how the liberals lie and distort the truth.

"The dollar amount [for women's health care] will be exactly the same..." Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) explained. "It will go to other organizations that are not involved with what looks like criminal activity." No one is advocating that women lose care -- they're advocating that they get better care. And that doesn't include risky procedures, manipulated to produce a better "harvest."

An example of those procedures was at the center of an extremely eye-opening exchange between Goodlatte and the Democrats' witness, Priscilla Smith, who was asked if she thought the "dilation and evacuation" abortion is "humane." She responded that, yes, "for a fetus, a pre-viable fetus, a D&E procedure is a very humane procedure." A stunned Goodlatte replied, "...Your view of humanity and mine are very different." And that, on a very fundamental level, is the problem. This debate is about a lot more than Planned Parenthood or even a half-billion taxpayer dollars. It's about the inherent dignity and worth of each God-created life. A dignity, many Americans believe, is worth fighting for.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

# 1349 (9/15) "Kim Davis Makes the VVS Honor Roll!"

"KIM DAVIS MAKES THE VVS HONOR ROLL!" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, September 14, 2015; http://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20150914/kim-davis-vvs

The President's party never met a law it didn't want to ignore -- until Kim Davis came along. Now, after years of swatting away legal statutes like political gnats, liberals are suddenly demanding that Christians respect the process they've spent the last several years dismissing. Keep in mind this is the administration that gave us Attorney General Eric "In contempt of Congress" Holder and Lois "I plead the 5th" Lerner." Both followed the example of President Obama who refused to enforce the Federal Defense of Marriage Act because he thought it was unconstitutional.

For an administration synonymous with "lawlessness," this sudden call to play by the rules is as comical as it is hypocritical. As columnist Cameron Smith quipped, "It's nice to see so many Democrats and liberals produce eloquent remarks and social media posts about America being a nation of laws. I knew it was only a matter of time until they came around."

After bypassing Congress on illegal amnesty, ObamaCare subsidies and exemptions, abortion policy, executive appointments, IRS targeting, and religious censorship, who are liberals to lecture about executing the law? Asked about the controversy, the same White House that openly defied the federal marriage statute insisted, "No public official is above the law." No one, apparently, except the President.

Others are saying Kim Davis is trying to impose her religious views on the rest of society. Kim Davis isn't imposing the law -- she's opposing it. And according to the Bill of Rights, she is well within her boundaries to do so. Kim isn't ordering her office to stop issuing marriage licenses permanently. She's simply asked that, as a Christian with strong religious convictions, her name no longer appear on them. And for that, she was jailed.

On her first day back at work this morning, Kim choked back tears. "I am here before you this morning with a seemingly impossible choice, which I do not wish on any of my fellow Americans," she said. "My conscience or my freedom." Kim is trying to do her duty to Kentucky and God. And in a nation with a robust First Amendment, those goals should not be mutually exclusive. (Princeton's Robbie George spoke eloquently to this while I filled in for Bill Bennett on "Morning in America" today.- https://soundcloud.com/family-research-council/robbie-george-remarks)

"Some on the Left say that you must do every aspect of your job, despite your beliefs, or resign," Heritage's Ryan Anderson wrote in the New York Times. "But this has never been the practice in the United States. We have a rich history of accommodating conscientious objectors in a variety of settings, including government employees. Do we really want to say that an otherwise competent employee must quit or go to jail if there is another alternative?" When a Muslim flight attendant was suspended for not serving alcohol on a plane, she was not only treated with sympathy and respect -- but quickly reinstated. Why the accommodation for her and not Kim Davis?

"If a Christian has to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples -- or bake cakes for their weddings -- why shouldn't a Muslim flight attendant have to serve cocktails?" Julia Duin asked. (http://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2015/9/9/non-alcohol-serving-muslim-flight-attendant-gets-respectful-media-treatment) Good question. If Governor Steve Beshear (D-Ky.) can take the words "husband" and "bride" off marriage licenses, why not Kim Davis's name? For now, she -- and Americans like her -- wait anxiously to exercise the same freedom of belief the other side already enjoys. Drawing strength from Kim, clerks and magistrates across Alabama, Oregon, Mississippi, and Texas continue to hold the line on religious freedom, as the march to strip Christians of their rights moves to other states.

In honor of that courage, FRC is proud to announce that we'll be presenting our second "Cost of Discipleship Award" to Kim at next week's Values Voter Summit. One year after we honored a mother imprisoned for her faith in Sudan, no one imagined an American woman would be next. On Friday night, we'll not only praise Kim for her stance but pray for the nation we've become.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]