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Life Lines for January 1, 2012
Written by Jeanne Strubbe
Life Ministry Coordinator
Salem Lutheran Church, Jacksonville
A new year always holds the promise of great things to happen in the coming year. It’s a time that we all make resolutions for the coming year and usually we fall short of the promises that we make to ourselves.
But, this year, I am asking each person who reads this article to include a very special New Year’s resolution. I ask that you make a promise to yourself to become more involved in the fight against abortion. How much you do is up to you of course, but the most important thing you can do is pray for an end to the killing of the unborn.
The life of every human being, from conception through each stage of development to natural death, is sacred, deserving of respect and worthy of legal protection.
We have had some victories in our fight, but the battle is far from over. 2012 begins 40 years of legally killing the unborn in our nation. It is a law that didn’t go through the legislative process, but was decided by seven men in black … justices of the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973.
Illinois Valley Lutherans for Life will host a film viewing on Sunday, January 22, 2012, beginning at 4 p.m. at Salem Lutheran in Jacksonville, IL.
Please mark your calendar and plan on attending this event. The film is “Blood Money” and exposes the abortion business in our nation. Babysitting will be provided for children 6th grade and younger.
The time is now to learn how you can help in the battle for the unborn.
"The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion … [And] if one is burdened with the blood of another, he will be a fugitive until death; let no one help him" (Proverbs 28:1,17).
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Life Lines for January 8, 2012
Written by Jeanne Strubbe
Life Ministry Coordinator
Salem Lutheran Church, Jacksonville
On December 21, 2011, the Lord took my good friend, Paul Koschmann, home to heaven. I know there are many people who mourn the loss of this wonderful man and at the same time, we rejoice that he is in heaven with Jesus. Paul was many things to many people, but to me he was an “adopted” father and a role model in the pro-life movement. He never wavered from his principles on life issues and fought to educate everyone on the evils of abortion. Yes, 2011 brought us the loss of a dear loved one, but also brought about many positive results in the fight to end abortion.
January 2011: Kermit Gosnell and his staff were indicted on murdering 7 almost-born infants and 1 woman in their horrific abortion facility in Philadelphia.
January 2011: A youth organization lead by a former SFLA intern, Lila Rose, took their undercover work exposing Planned Parenthood a step further, releasing 7 videos of Planned Parenthood facilities, some that even receive federal taxpayer funding, aiding actors who were posing as human sex traffickers.
February 2011: The pro-life movement united in the “Expose Planned Parenthood” campaign, calling on Congress to de-fund Planned Parenthood of all taxpayer dollars. For the first time in our nation’s history, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to federally de-fund Planned Parenthood.
May 2011: The Gallup organization released a poll showing that for the first-time since they began polling on abortion, America is now pro-life.
August 2011: The Guttmacher Institute reported for the first 6 months of 2011, states enacted a record number of pro-life laws, more than 80, more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. All of these laws will reduce abortions, and they enjoy broad support with more than 60% of Americans supporting these laws.
September 2011: For the first time in it’s history, the U.S. House of Representatives launched a formal investigation into Planned Parenthood’s practices.
October 2011: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protect Life Act, a bill voicing the will of the people not to fund any abortions.
Strides have been made, but the battle rages on. Since 1973, our nation has allowed the killing of nearly 55 MILLION babies in the womb. We need to stop this horrific act of violence against the unborn NOW!
Attend the viewing of the 55-minute film “Blood Money” at Salem Lutheran Church, Sunday, January 22, 2012 and show your support for the sanctity of human life.
If my people, who are called by my name, and humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14
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Life Lines for January 15, 2012
Written by Jeanne Strubbe
Life Ministry Coordinator
Salem Lutheran Church, Jacksonville
The abortion industry is full of evil people. One of the latest ones to emerge into the public eye is Steven Chase Brigham, who was arraigned in Cecil County, Maryland, on Friday, January 8, 2012 on an 11-count murder indictment.
The abortion practitioner was charged with murder in the deaths of viable unborn children in a two-state operation aimed at avoiding late-term abortion laws. Brigham was then released on a $500,000 bond and ordered to have no involvement in any manner in performing abortions as a condition of his release.
An accomplice of Brigham, Nicola Riley, has been charged with a 3-count murder indictment.
It appears that Brigham operated a secret late-term abortion clinic located in Elkton, Maryland. The fact that Brigham had no license to perform abortions in that state didn’t stop him from killing for profit.
He hired Riley to do late-term abortions there and at his abortion clinic in Baltimore. Brigham would start the late-term abortions at his office in New Jersey, then caravan the laboring women to Elkton where the abortions would be completed.
The clandestine abortion scheme was discovered after a woman suffered a life-threatening botched abortion in August 2010. When police raided the Elkton abortion clinic, they discovered the remains of 35 aborted babies, one of which was 33 weeks gestation.
After the horrible discovery was made, an investigation revealed that Riley had lied about her criminal background to gain licensure in three states. At the time of their arrests, Brigham and Riley were banned from doing abortions in any state.
It also appears that Brigham is no stranger to causing problems with his abortion clinics. Brigham has had his medical license suspended in other states for killing and injuring women in botched abortions.
The latest revelations into the evil practices of Brigham are only the tip of the iceberg into the botched abortions, endangerment to women, unclean facilities, using expired drugs and unsterilized instruments on women and lack of patient monitoring to name a few.
The lack of regulation and oversight into the abortion industry is truly shocking.
Hopefully when Brigham and Riley have their day in court, they will be locked away for a very, very long time. But, one has to wonder if that will really happen.
Proverbs 17:15. Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent, the LORD detests them both.
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Life Lines for January 22, 2012
Written by Jeanne Strubbe
Life Ministry Coordinator
Salem Lutheran Church, Jacksonville
Thirty-nine years ago today seven men in black made a decision that had a devastating effect on life in this country. Justices Harry Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Chief Justice Warren Burger, William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis Powell and Potter Stewart all agreed in favor of the suit commonly known as Roe v. Wade and made abortion legal in the United States. The dissenting justices were William Rehnquist and Byron White.
Roe v. Wade is the historic Supreme Court decision overturning a Texas interpretation of abortion law and making abortion legal in the United States. The Roe v. Wade decision held that a woman, with her doctor, could choose abortion in earlier months of pregnancy without legal restriction, and with restrictions in later months, based on the right to privacy.
The decision also invalidated all state laws restricting women's access to abortion.
Justice Blackmum indicated that a pregnant woman may indeed be carrying a human, but it is still not considered a person with its life protected by law. (Sound familiar? Take a look at the 1857 Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision authorizing slavery. In that case, it was decided that blacks had roughly the same rights as mules since they are "human-but-not-citizens.")
Science has taken away the doubt of when life begins and anyone who has viewed a sonogram of a pregnant women knows that they are seeing a tiny human life, living and growing inside the mother. Despite this, those who support abortion still like to dwell on the line that “no one knows when life begins.”
The truth of the abortion debate is that very few people will change their minds about the subject. You are either in the camp that abhors the thought of slaughtering the unborn that takes place on a daily basis in this country, or you support the killing of the unborn under the guise of choice.
No matter where you stand, the fact remains that over 55 MILLION babies have been killed in the womb over the past thirty-nine years since the United States Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade (1973) and accompanying Doe v. Bolton (1973) decisions legalized abortion at any time during pregnancy and for any reason (such as age, fear of pain, or family size).
Some might not realize that in the Doe v. Bolton decision, the Court defined "health" to include not just physical health, but also psychological, mental and emotional health. The Court cited age, familial circumstances and anything relevant to the woman’s general feeling of well being as reasons that would justify a late-term abortion, thus overriding what Roe v. Wade had decided was a legitimate state interest in protecting the unborn after viability.
The Court stated: The medical judgment [for a late-term abortion] may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age—relevant to the well being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.
This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment. And it is room that operates for the benefit, not the disadvantage, of the pregnant woman.
But, there is a big problem with the above “justification” of abortion. There is no attending physician … the “physician” in the vast majority of cases, never even sees the patient (pregnant woman) until he walks into the room to kill her baby. So the idea that the law is in place to make it possible for a woman and her doctor to make the decision is another lie put forth by those who are pro-abortion.
That fact to me personally is indefensible, but our government has chosen to allow the killing to continue. If the time is not now to stop killing 3,000 babies a day, then when?
The time for ending slavery came about in our nation when a strong man stepped up to lead the country. Will we once again be blessed with a strong leader who will initiate an end to the killing of the unborn? I wonder.
Psalm 119:73 - Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.
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Life Lines for January 29, 2012
Written by Jeanne Strubbe
Life Ministry Coordinator
Salem Lutheran Church, Jacksonville
God and abortion come face to face this year with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973, falling on a Sunday. People will gather to worship the Lord and Author of Life on the day when, thirty-nine years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively took the right to life away from the defenseless unborn and declared the right to murder them constitutional.
Since then, over 54,000,000 little lives have been slaughtered under the death cry of “the right to choose.”
Many would say I exaggerate the importance of the convergence of Roe v. Wade and Sunday. They maintain there is no connection. Their oft repeated mantra: “Abortion is political and the Church exists to proclaim the Gospel not to be ensnared in politics.” This flawed and deadly reasoning is precisely why the carnage of abortion continues.
The killing of little boys and little girls at any stage of development for any reason is a travesty. Killing little boys and little girls created and gifted by God, purchased by the blood of Jesus, and children God desires to call into an eternal relationship with Him is a travesty against our Triune God.
Therein lies the connection. Abortion is not just a choice that destroys life. It destroys life precious to God.
Add to this the immeasurable guilt and regret an abortion choice eventually brings to the hearts of those involved in that choice and you have a set of circumstances that compels the Church of Jesus Christ to speak and act. You have a mission field tailor made for the proclamation of God’s law and especially the proclamation of His life-changing Gospel.
For the Christian, abortion is at its core idolatry, a failure to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” We choose the death of the helpless to deliver us from a difficult situation rather than trust in God “my help and my deliverer” (Psalm 40:17).
But the Church dare not merely pound her pulpits and demand, “Trust God, choose life” as if trust in God is something we can conjure up if we just try hard enough. Time and time again the Scripture associates help from God with salvation from God. “Help us, O God of our salvation” (Psalm 79:9). Those who profess Jesus Christ as the source of their salvation must be led to see and trust that the God who saved them from sin is the source of their help and will never abandon them.
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32 ESV)
Because God’s love for us was demonstrated on the cross, we can confidently trust that nothing “in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39b ESV). Christ’s Church has a responsibility to help her people connect this wonderful promise to the life issues.
Our prayer at LFL, is that the Church will make this connection, not just this Sunday, but frequently Sunday after Sunday. We stand ready to help and equip the Church to connect and apply what she is already proclaiming, the Gospel, to these issues of life and death. It is the Gospel that truly changes hearts and lives.
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Life Lines for February 5, 2012
Written by Jeanne Strubbe
Life Ministry Coordinator
Salem Lutheran Church, Jacksonville
Today is Super Bowl Sunday … the Crown Jewel in the world of football fans. Normally, I tune in to the game only for the clever commercials because I am not a fan of the game.
This year, the commercials will be as clever as they have been in past years, but with a twist. Republican, Pro Life believer, Randall Terry, put his name on the Democratic presidential ticket in several states, with only one goal in mind. Terry will air graphic abortion ads during the Super Bowl game in an effort to bring the shameful truth of what happens in the killing centers throughout our country.
It seems there is an FCC Telecommunications Act that directs stations to air ads for candidates for federal office without altering their content.
Terry has chosen major markets in OK, CO, KY, and MO so far. He hopes to raise enough money to air the ads in at least two dozen markets where they would have the most impact.
David Lewis who is hoping to upset Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s Ohio seat and Angela Michael (Small Victories Ministry), challenging Rep. John Shimkus, will be running similar ads in their districts.
It was just two years ago that the Tim Tebow, sponsored by Focus on the Family, aired during the Super Bowl game. Mrs. Tebow had a choice and she made the choice that was God-pleasing. Those who support the right to kill babies in the womb think the only choice is to abort the baby. All other choices don’t matter to them.
I applaud the efforts of these folks for attempting to expose the very real act of abortion and confronting those who support the choice to kill with the truth.
Terry stated, “We’re trying to jolt people back into reality.”
Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, had the following to say, "We don't show these pictures to make friends or be popular," he said, adding that while some people are moved by intellectual or religious arguments, "others will be persuaded by seeing for themselves the injustice."
Terry isn’t looking at the primary election with any illusions of beating Barack Obama. His ultimate goal is to “create the debate over whether a Christian can ethically vote for Obama. I know that we will prevail. I know we will make it a crime to kill unborn babies."
Terry’s tactic is extreme, but I believe we are at a tipping point in the future of our nation and it will take extreme measures to overcome and rise above the level to which our society has sunk.
(I do not anticipate that the ads will be aired in our area. Obama will win Illinois in the primary, even if he is caught having lunch with a known abortionist.)
"Let us not be weary in doing good; for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good..." Galatians 6:9-10
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