LIFE DIGEST: Pastor calls for Democrats to ‘resist’ abortion
- Aug 26, 2008 - 4
Los Angeles pastor Charles Blake interjected a discordant note into an Aug. 24 interfaith religious service that served as the first official event of the Democratic National Convention.
He denounced abortion.
“Surely we cannot be pleased with . . . millions of terminated pregnancies,” the presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ said at the service in Denver, according to the Rocky Mountain News. “Something within us must be calling for a better way. If we do not resist at this point, at what point will we resist?”
Those comments elicited a “smattering of applause,” Dallas Morning News writer Wayne Slater reported.
It was a different story when Blake turned his criticism toward pro-life Republicans.
“Others loudly proclaim their advocacy for the unborn, but they refuse to recognize their responsibility and the responsibility of our nation to those who have been born,” Blake said, according to the Rocky Mountain News. “They are presently and historically silent, if not indifferent to the suffering of our inner cities.”
The pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ received a standing ovation, according to both newspapers.
Blake also urged presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama to “follow through on his promise . . . to reduce the number of abortions,” according to the Rocky Mountain News.
The Democrats’ proposed platform, which will be voted on during their convention that concludes Aug. 28, says the party “strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.” It says the party also “strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child” through health-care and other programs.
Doesn’t matter when unborn life begins, Pelosi says
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi seemed to do nothing for the Democrats’ attempts to put a kinder, gentler face on their abortion advocacy when she said on the Aug. 24 telecast of NBC’s “Meet the Press” a woman’s right to an abortion trumps an unborn baby’s rights, regardless of when his life begins.
The congresswoman from California made the assertion when host Tom Brokaw asked her what she would tell presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama if he asked her about the beginning of human life. A video of a recent Obama comment on the rights of the unborn was shown on “Meet the Press” before Brokaw’s question.
In the video, Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., asked Obama at an Aug. 16 forum that included Republican presumptive nominee John McCain, “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?”
Obama replied, “Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is, is above my pay grade.”
Brokaw asked Pelosi, “If he were to come to you and say, ‘Help me out here, Madame Speaker. When does life begin?,’ what would you tell him?”
Pelosi said, “I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make the definition. . . . We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.”
The Roman Catholic Church teaches life begins at conception and opposes all abortions.
Land: Democrats’ platform still ‘extremely pro-choice’
Richard Land commended the Democratic Party for taking “a step in the right direction” but said its platform still strongly endorses abortion rights.
The Democrats’ proposed platform, which will be voted on during their convention that closes Aug. 28, says the party “strongly and unequivocally supports” abortion rights, including for women who are unable to afford one. It also, however, says the party “strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support and caring adoption programs.”
The proposal, however, no longer contains the assertion abortion “should be safe, legal and rare” that was in the 2004 platform. It also does not include a conscience clause that acknowledges Democrats disagree on the issue. Such language was removed in 2004.
“I’m glad that [Democrats] want programs to support women having their children,” said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, according to Baptist Press. “That’s a step in the right direction. We have supported legislation in the Congress — put forward by Democrats for Life and others — that would essentially do those things.
“But then [writers of the platform] turn around and take out the language in the previous platform that said their goal was to make abortion safe, legal and rare,” Land said. “So what the right hand gives, the left hand takes away. This is far from a pro-life platform. It is still an extremely pro-choice platform plank. This is a distinction without a difference. One who is taken in by this is being gullible in the extreme.”
Stem cells created from wisdom teeth
Japanese scientists have dealt another blow to the drive for destructive embryonic stem cell research.
Researchers from Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology announced Aug. 22 they had created stem cells with the properties of embryonic ones from wisdom teeth. The teeth were from a 10-year-old girl.
The development establishes another means of producing the most powerful stem cells without harming a donor. Extracting stem cells from an embryo for research results in the destruction of the five- or six-day-old human being.
“This is a significant step in two ways,” research team leader Hajime Ogushi told the news service Agence France-Presse. “One is that we can avoid the ethical issues of stem cells because wisdom teeth are destined to be thrown away anyway.
“Also, we used teeth that had been extracted three years ago and had been preserved in a freezer. That means that it’s easy for us to stock this source of stem cells.”
Stem cells are the body’s master cells that can develop into other cells and tissues, giving hope for the development of cures for a variety of diseases and other ailments.
Embryonic stem cells are considered “pluripotent,” meaning they can develop into all of the different cell types in the body. Non-embryonic, or adult, stem cells typically have been regarded as “multipotent,” meaning they can form many, though not all, of the body’s cell types. Studies in 2007, however, showed adult skin cells can become “pluripotent.”
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
Further Learning
Learn more about: Life, Abortion, Stem-Cell Research, Science, Bioethics
4 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Aug 27th, 2008, at 8:32am, Warren McBee wrote:
I once heard the late Adrian Rogers say in a sermom, to the effect that if God did not judge America for the millions of living babies whose lives were terminated in abortion, He (God) would have to appologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. As harsh as this may seem, I believe he was correct. In watching the TV special with Rick Warren and the presidential candidates, I found my answer to the question of the greatest moral failure of this nation would be so-called “situational ethics”. Nothing is absolutely wrong and nothing is absolutely right. Abortion was the first national manifestation of that misguided belief system. As moral values decline, and the value of human life declines, we should be called to an awakening that situational ethics is the greatest moral failure of this country and the greatest hoax accepted by this country.
In God We Trust…
2 On Aug 27th, 2008, at 9:40am, Rick Morgan wrote:
Amazing that “an ardent, practicing Catholic” can be so out of touch with the very obvious teaching of the Catholic church. I listen to a Catholic owned radio station and every time there is a prayer given over the air it is concluded with a prayer for the end of abortion.
3 On Aug 27th, 2008, at 1:01pm, Lee wrote:
The Catholic Church should do more to publicly voice their dissent with all the politicians who are using them as a crutch during this political season on the abortion issue. Multiple politicians are citing their Catholic faith followed by ambiguous justifications for abortion. Where’s the outrage? We live in a world of communication and the attempt the Catholic Church has given this week is shameful. There should be articles in every newspaper in this country and every news website possible. Tell the country publicly what the punishment is for those who lean on their faith publicly to mislead the American public about Abortion. This slapping of the wrist is a tragedy!
4 On Aug 28th, 2008, at 5:21am, joel wrote:
When it comes to abortion all we hear about is the mothers right. Of course we all know life begins at conception but for you dems that think the mother has a right to choose may I ask you what about the father? When does the father have a say. After all if he was good enough for the woman to sleep with then why doesn’t he get a say. Maybe fathers ought ought to sue them for murder.