Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Editorial from Washington Times]

If you want to know Barack Obama’s real views on abortion, you should meet registered nurse Jill Stanek.

Mrs. Stanek worked at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois from 1993 to 2001. When she worked in the hospital’s Labor and Delivery Department she saw that babies who survived abortion attempts were left to die alone in supply rooms. They could linger for as long as eight hours, without medical care, without even the dignity of a warm blanket or a soft touch. Their tiny bodies were then dumped in the trash. Mr. Obama’s spiritual mentor served on the board of the hospital. Mrs. Stanek went on a public crusade to protect these children.

At a 2001 Illinois legislature hearing, Mr. Obama questioned Mrs. Stanek. She insisted that children needed medical care if they were born alive. Mr. Obama said: “Ms. Stanek, your initial testimony last year showed your dismay at the lack of regard for human life. I agreed with you last year and we suggested that there be a Comfort Room or something of that nature be done. The hospital acknowledged that and changes were made and you are still unimpressed. It sounds to me like you are really not interested in how these fetus [es] are treated, but rather not providing absolutely any medical care or life to them.”

Mrs. Stanek replied: “What the hospital did was try to make things look better. What it really is, is that the baby is still dead.”

In committee testimony, Mr. Obama said it was sufficient to give “comfort care” to a baby that is born despite all the efforts to kill it. “Comfort care” means giving the infant a warm blanket and permitting the baby to be held by someone as it dies. This is the most Mr. Obama could find in his heart to provide - a warm blanket for a child grasping for life. Mrs. Stanek told The Washington Times that Mr. Obama showed callousness when he questioned her in committee testimony: His inability to grasp that babies born alive need medical care was disturbing.

Despite all the details Mrs. Stanek provided in her testimony, Mr. Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act in the Illinois legislature in 2002 - a bill that would give legal protection and medical assistance to a baby born from a botched abortion. Mr. Obama stated that he feared the bill could undermine Roe v. Wade. When a similar bill was put to Congress, other lawmakers had better sense and bigger hearts: The Born Alive Infants Protection Act passed the Senate with a vote of 98-0. It was signed into law by President Bush on Aug. 5, 2002. Infants born alive are now recognized as legal persons with full rights.

Mr. Obama even voted against banning partial-birth abortion - a radical procedure - in the Senate, in October, 2007. Since 2005, he has a 100 percent rating on pro-choice votes by NARAL, a leading, national pro-choice organization.

There is no doubt that Mr. Obama wants not only to uphold existing abortion laws, but a more radical view. At an address before Planned Parenthood on July 17, 2007, Mr. Obama said: “The first thing I will do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.” He received a standing ovation. FOCA was introduced in Congress in November 1989 by Rep. Don Edwards, California Democrat. The legislation has since been a focal point for staunch pro-choicers. The bill would codify the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, into law in all the states. This would overturn state laws that have been passed to limit or delay abortions. Contrary to Mr. Obama’s pledges to reduce the number of abortions, he really wants to make them easier to get - while overriding state and federal laws.

Mr. Obama wants to uphold an abortion policy that has a disproportionate impact on blacks. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research, finds that 13 percent of the U.S. population is black, but 37 percent of all abortions are performed on black women and teens: Blacks are 4.8 times as likely as whites to have an abortion. A vote for Mr. Obama is, in effect, a vote that permits the disproportionate elimination of blacks in America.

Read more here.

[From me]

I’m not going to call Senator Obama a liar like the Times but what he said there is much different than what he told Pastor Rick Warren this summer.  It is truly sad that anyone would be for the elimination of life.

What do you think?

I’m really struggling with trying to understand how people who say they are followers of Jesus Christ can justify being for abortion.  Can someone show me from the Bible how you arrived at that decision?  I don’t want to hear it is complex or I’m personally against it but who am I to tell a woman about her body. What about the unborn baby’s choice? I want to know how a follower of Jesus Christ can justify taking an innocent life?  I’m not talking about those outside the faith, I’m talking about those who claim Jesus as the leader of their life.  From the Bible, how do you justify abortion?

I’m not trying to pick a fight.  I just don’t get it.  I don’t see how killing a life honors God.  I can’t grasp how many believers think it is no big deal.  Please help me understand your thinking.  I won’t bash your view, I just want to try to get it.

What do you think?

Here are two stories from a “Journalism Major” California State University in Sacremento, CA named Briana Monasky. It is scary to think people have such little use of the English language and think it is OK to use profanity and ugly language to get their point across. 

Here is her first Article. [The State Hornet]

The 2008 presidential campaign has been a major interest and concern for me, as it should be for any college student with the ability to exercise their right to vote their conscience.

The Republican pick for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, is appalling and offensive to any woman - no, any human being - with a brain and an ounce of self-respect. Palin is no feminist. Her policies on abortion and sex education make me hope I never have a daughter that could be affected by them.

This is a woman who cut sex education funding in Alaska and ended up with a 17-year-old knocked up by a hockey player. Beyond that, Palin and other Republicans preach abstinence-only sex education campaigns that don’t work. Remember that string of pregnant girls in Massachusetts? Those girls complained on national television that they couldn’t get birth control. What a nation we live in.

In Palin’s release regarding the pregnant teen, she said that she and her husband were “proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.” I suppose that must be true considering her policy on abortion. Palin is vehemently pro-life. In fact, she is committed, along with McCain, to overturning Roe v. Wade. She doesn’t approve of abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

That may be my main issue with Palin, the first female candidate for this position. This should be monumental. I should be incredibly proud to finally see a woman on the stage. Instead, I am ashamed that my country is letting her run. When I hear that women are pro-life I simply don’t understand. Beyond that, as a victim of sexual assault I consider it devastating to think that a woman may have to carry a child to term conceived from an act of hate. I hope her dad rapes her and she has to carry that child to term. I bet you she wouldn’t. I bet she’d grab a coat hanger herself and take care of it.

Read more here.

Then she tries to justify herself here:

Words are powerful. Believe me, I get it. I am a journalism major with a capital ‘J.’ However, to think that in any way, shape or form I could actually literally mean harm upon Sarah Palin is ridiculous. Were you joking with all of these comments and letters? You had to be. No one could really think I would mean that, right? Apparently not. Apparently I need to clarify what I meant.

As the sister of a stand-up comedian, I think vulgarity can be useful to demonstrate a point, whether it be humorous or shocking. In this case, I was simply saying that Palin, under a tragic circumstance such as rape, and worse, the incestuous variety, would not choose to carry the child to term. Did it come across well in the piece? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Absolutely not.

Perhaps I should enlighten all of the people who were kind enough to make comments (17 so far) on the website or wrote letters to the editor. I do not mince my words. There is no brunoise involved.

I understand quite well the complexity of the abortion issue. It seems that half the people want the option, and the other half consider it a done deal once that egg is fertilized. That has nothing to do with my column. To be honest, the fact that I centered the piece around the issue was a bad idea in the first place. No matter what my statements were, someone was bound to end up angry. I focused on the sex education and abortion because of the buzz around Bristol’s pregnancy. These reasons are not the only ones that urge me to not agree with Palin.

All anger aside, I stand behind the statements I made about her. One line lacked eloquence, but it was supposed to. To take what I said and somehow attribute it to who I am as a person is equally offensive. To question whether I am, in fact, a victim of sexual assault is inexcusable. Anyone who went through what I did would feel the same. Furthermore, to infer that I am in any way an emotionally unstable person is reaching. I am up front about my experiences. I may have joked about the subject matter, but believe me: I take sexual assault seriously.

My only regret comes from the disappointment in realizing that you all got so hung up on one sentence that you missed the whole point; so hung up that you accused me of fabricating a personal experience that will haunt me forever. I am not trying to work out my issues on paper, simply trying to open your eyes to people’s policies by comparing them with parts of who I am.

Read more here.

[From me]

Ms. Monasky is that what they are teaching you in journalism school?  Your own candidate said that families were off limits.  You are just an angry misguided young woman.  You are obviously too young to know that every word you say has meaning. What you said was offensive and instead of apologizing you try to justify yourself. People with integrity learn from their mistakes, apologize, change and move on.  Those with an axe to grind will make excuses for their behavior and try to make others feel bad. I hold no ill will towards you.  In the past I probably would have said some ugly things about you but I just feel sorry for you.  I will pray that God will change your angry spirit.

What do you think?

[Earned Media]

On Wednesday, August 27, police officers brutally arrested two teenage girls, ages 15 and 17, near Senator Obama’s Denver hotel. The young women, Julia Giacopuzzi and Jayne White, were writing messages in sidewalk chalk on the public sidewalk when the police officers rushed in and violently arrested the girls without warning or provocation. 

The girls are members of the pro-life youth organization Survivors, and were in Denver during the Democratic National Convention to call attention to Senator Barack Obama’s pro-abortion position as part of A Prayer for Change. 

Throughout the DNC, the youth of Survivors were using sidewalk chalk throughout the city of Denver with the permission of City Attorney David Fine and Denver Deputy Chief of Police John Lamb. It was understood by the young women that sidewalk chalk was an accepted medium, and they were given no warning by the police before being cuffed and dragged away.

Jayne White, age 17, was rushed from behind by a police officer and pushed face-down on the ground. He slammed his knee into the back of the young woman’s neck as she lay on the concrete without resisting. The officer forcefully pulled her arms behind her back and cuffed her. 

Miss White states, “I was peacefully sidewalk chalking when I was forcefully pushed to ground by a police officer from behind. As I was being cuffed on the ground, the police officer pushed his knee into the back of my neck. I was pulled roughly off the ground and taken away. I was given no warning to stop and was completely shocked when I was arrested. My back was throbbing from his knee.”

Julia Giacopuzzi, age 15, was surprised by a police officer twisting her arms behind her back and using them to lift her off the ground to be handcuffed.

Miss Giacopuzzi comments, “As I was sidewalk chalking, I was rushed by a police officer without warning and lifted up off the ground and was cuffed. I was then dragged by the police into the Westin Hotel.”

Read more here.

[From me]

I’m very pro-life but I’ve been critical of many of the protests I’ve seen.  But I don’t get how you can be arrested when you got permission for writing on a sidewalk with chalk.  My daughter writes on our driveway all of the time.  When you have wackos out to assassinate Obama, why are the police concerned about a couple of girls writing in chalk?  They look like real threats to national safety.

Also, why hasn’t the national media picked up on this?  Where is the ACLU?

What do you think?

I ran into Gwen Smith again today.  She is so funny and talented.  Today she has a devotion on Crosswalk.com.  It is a devotion about pain, trials, bad decisions—but most importantly–GOD’s Grace! Gwen asked me to read some of the responses she is getting this morning–sad, tragic and heart wrenching to say the least.  Gwen has such a unique and needed ministry.  I encourage you to read and pray that God will use this today.

[Crosswalk]

Today’s Truth
“Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” Psalm  34:5

Friend to Friend
I remember the phone call to my college boyfriend. Through sobs, I managed to tell him I was pregnant. There was a long pause on the other end of the phone…and then came the speed round of questions and comments: “What are we going to do? Do you think we should get married? Oh, my gosh…oh, my gosh…what are we going to do? Do you want to have this baby? What are we going to do? What about volleyball? What will your parents say? What will my parents say? Oh, my gosh!”

Read the rest here.

[From me]

There are people like this in our churches every week.  There are people who have struggled like this who aren’t in our churches who need to know it is safe for them to come.  What are we going to do to make them feel welcome?