The great value of the devastating Planned Parenthood videos is to be found in their implications. Moreover, these are implications that do not have to be carefully drawn out so that no one loses the thread of an obscure argument. These implications are most obvious — PP is merchandising baby parts, they are accommodating eager buyers with “less crunchy” ways of killing babies for cash, what is being done on these videos is plainly standard operating procedure in other PP clinics, and so on.
Here’s another implication. This Mengele-like ghoulishness was brought to you by the United States Supreme Court, an august body if ever there was one. Or at least that’s what it looked like at the time.
The thing about hubris is that you go up like a blazing rocket, and you come down like a stick. You can get away with a lot in the days of your ascendancy, but once the spell is broken there is no way to keep that stick in the air.
So I want everyone to fix it in their minds that we are dealing with a supply/demand function here. The supply was created by the Supreme Court in Roe, and given the wicked callousness of the people involved, the demand was sure and certain to come. These baby corpse merchants are solving a disposal problem that the baby corpse wholesaler called PP has, and they are providing additional (albeit very illegal) revenue. All this is happening over salad and wine lunches, and with it all on video we have now been confronted with the ethical horror of what we all have become.
But we didn’t “become” it all by ourselves. It was imposed on the states by the Supreme Court. Our culpability was in submitting to that outrage. The final authority that the Supreme Court has is moral authority, and when they imposed massive blood guilt upon us in Roe, we should have demanded that they not walk away from their true authority. We would have best honored the continuation of their authority by refusing to submit to that particular grotesque application of it.
And now the Supremes have just done it again, in the Obergefell decision. What could go wrong? Those who say we should simply submit to their blind determinations do not know how the world works. If we persist in wicked submmission, there will be a great many unpleasant discoveries waiting down the road for us. Those unpleasant discoveries will revolve around the fact that we have become a detestable people.
Here is what Justice Scalia said, in the conclusion of his Obergefell dissent.
“Hubris is sometimes to find his o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeith before a fall. The Judiciary is the “least dangerous” of the federal branches because it has “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm”and the States, “even for the efficacy of its judgments.” With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them – with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the “reasoned judgment” of a bare majority of this Court – we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.”
These cavalier lunches, eaten by merchants of baby parts, are bad enough. But how many salad and wine lunches were eaten by the Supreme Court justices when they were deciding to create an enormous supply for this new market? I hear that DC has a lot of nice restaurants.
Stay crunchy. Now this.
Did you see this one:
“Lamborghini? They really do cost an arm and a leg.”
I hope CMP has a plan for timing the video releases. One like this on the day before a vote to defund would be appreciated.
Doug, We would love to see your great articles on
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Friends, the reality is that this is exactly what slavery was about: Dehumanization of a people group for the convenience and lifestyle advancement of another people group(s). It’s the thing that people like William Wilberforce sought to extinguish from existence as he and his the other abolitionists watched the destructive forces of oppression at work in the world. Rewatch Amazing Grace but replace the concept of slavery with human abortion. Entire economies are built off of such injustices. Abortion, slavery, holocausts…. They have always been about one thing: the only logical outworking of the worship of “Mammon.” Like all other… Read more »
Equating slavery and murder is entirely unjustified by Scripture or tradition. Slavery is not intrinsically more “dehumanizing” than any other social system that provides for the lowest tier of society.
Slavery is not intrinsically more “dehumanizing” than any other social system that provides for the lowest tier of society. Why then did St. Paul, in his letter to the slave-holder Philemon, write (in v. 15) Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord. Here St. Paul states that one is better… Read more »
Thank you timothy, I think this will greatly help our conversations!
It’s a deep subject that needs a lot of discussion. The big issue to me is, when we call slavery dehumanizing, what are we comparing it to? Every society will have some people on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. Other approaches we’ve seen in the US for dealing with them include sweatshop labour and welfare payments. The former can be just as oppressive as the worst excesses of slave treatment, and the latter breeds irresponsibility and idleness — both can be dehumanizing. A Christian understanding of slavery will recognize the mutual obligations of master and servant; servants are… Read more »
We have lost something powerful in Christianity when we make it a religious immitation of the striving for individual autonomy seen in secular culture. Christianity is a religion for slaves, metaphorical slaves as well as literal ones. Christianity gives the promise of eternal reward that causes Earthly circumstances to fade in significance. I think of Dalits in India. They are bottom of the social ladder and live arduous lives. Hinduism provides hope for a better future through reincarnation, perhaps in a higher caste. Orthodox Christianity would teach to be the most God honoring untouchable you can be (perhaps even thanking… Read more »
I have read–and this is hearsay–that that verse is the beginning of the opposition to slavery by the Christian Church.
As to the “lowest tier of society” our Lord has quite a bit to say about “the meek, the poor…”, “least amongst you…” etc.
Thank you for granting the point of the gravity of Paul’s words. I am not the person to contribute to this conversation in any depth, so I will bow out here.
Thanks for stimulating questions. Grace and peace.
Nan, excellent insight!
Recommended reading…
http://bsullivan.org/top-10-new-marketing-slogans-for-planned-parenthood/#comment-4754
Someone asked me what happened to all those that said they would go to
jail over the HHS abortion mandate (Warren, Land, etc. etc.). Are Christian
businesses providing it? Are Christians opting out of it? Is that
outrage past? And is hashtagging and blogging about defunding PP vs. taking a loss
insurance wise/company wise or choosing a Healthcare Sharing Ministry more something akin to cheap grace vs. costly grace? Dunno.
(old news, i know…gotta figure out our 501c3 status these days…)
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-georgetown-u.-caves-to-hhs-mandate
https://mychristiancare.org/exemption.aspx
From one reformer to Pastor Wilson (and others): Let’s call for the IMMEDIATE government shutdown of Planned Parenthood centers that perform abortions. It’s a health and safety risk to the women who go there and a danger to everyone who cares about commoditizing human beings. They’ve now admitted to ethical violations–changing abortion procedures in order to save baby parts for sale–see the NY Times for Arthur Caplan’s quote (a noted liberal ethicist). States may take action to safeguard health and welfare of their citizens. The government shutters unethical medical practices and restaurants selling poisonous food immediately, without it even admitting… Read more »
I have one simple question when was the last time you ever so passionately called the church to adopt? When the church screams about abortion and remains silent about adoption we become hypocrites.
A, won’t work. I pastor a church with many adopted children growing up in it.
It wouldn’t be a valid criticism regardless. You don’t have to offer to assume responsibility for the life of a child to validate your objection to the taking of the same life.
It makes us look like idiots when we aren’t out advocating for orphans. These two subjects go together. They are both sanctity of human life issues.
I know a lot of evangelical and Catholic Christians who are passionate about adoption and who dedicate their lives to rescuing unwanted children. But Barnabas is right. If you want to murder your mother-in-law, I don’t have to be willing to give her a home in order to have a moral right to object to her slaughter.
Actually you are biblically commanded to take care of her. James 1:27
You are also assuming that the church does not do it’s part for adoption. What makes you say that? My experience is that is not the case. And are you saying that women go to abortion clinics because they have no adoptions alternatives. How many fallacious assumptions are you rolling into your condemnation of christians for a having an opinion on abortion? When I hear a statement like: I hate X but what about the lousy job Y is doing regarding Z….I start to doubt that person really hates X. And if s/he does, I’m pretty sure Y is even… Read more »
I worked at a crisis pregnancy center and this is what spurred on this thought of where is the church. Statistically if one family in every church in the us adopted out of foster care we would have no children waiting. Instead everyday children age out of the system and remain orphans but are no longer in the statistics. Where is the church? And what amount of time do we dedicate to this compared to other things? The answer we don’t. When I was extremely involved in the prolife movement I found that very few people actually adopted or foster… Read more »
I think that abortion is a great evil but I also think that widespread bastardy is a great evil. Society would benefit greatly were the welfare state diminished and restructured and unwed motherhood once again socially shamed. Those things can never happen if they are vetoed in the process of negotiating with terrorists.
It’s better to light a candle than…
If you want Christians to foster and adopt, encourage them, inform them, and enable them. Make a website with answers to common fears and objections about it.
Be frank about the difficult needs of many children: being older, or having disabilities.
Note down that some people who feel unsuited really are. List warning flags for them, so they don’t pursue fostering and adopting.
Link to the website when you post on a blog. Get friends to publicize fostering and adoption, in person, and on social media.
John I do that. Thanks for asking though. My original point was challenge DW to speak out about adoption as passionatley as he speaks about abortion. I speak at churches work on support systems and training and many other things related to adoption.
Yes, there are people who don’t care about or even think about orphans, and that is truly a sad thing. But there are a great many families who WOULD adopt a child IF: 1) It didn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars they don’t have, 2) It didn’t require a decade of time to accomplish, 3) It didn’t invite socialist workers, thought police, and other assorted carpetbaggers into their homes on a weekly basis, and 4) There wasn’t always the possibility that the birth mother would show up some day and press the Undo button. When THESE obstacles are removed… Read more »
We adopted for free through foster care and a child was placed in our home after 8 weeks. The pre process can be done in 3 months. no more excuses!
if you knew she was at risk and didn’t provide her a safe place I would say that is sin.
Yes, of course, but the principle remains the same. God expects us to behave charitably. He also expects us to refrain from murder. One is not conditioned upon the other. The would-be murderer doesn’t get a pass because Christians are unable or even unwilling to rescue his victim. We don’t excuse the kidnaper because no one stepped up to pay the ransom.
Jillybean I think you are missing the point we scream about abortion and yet are unwilling to house the unwed mother or adopt children in foster care. This is a comand and I am ask Doug kindly why he doesn’t speak about that atrocity passionately.
Another note, I’ve yet to meet a regenerate Christian who was unwilling either to consider adoption or foster care or to support in some way those who do.
^^Yes, exactly! This is definitely a “both-and” thing–A., if you want to ask Doug to write about adoption, fine and good, but I don’t see the point of saying he should write that post but not this one. We need all of it, and more of all of it. We could have a million adoptive parents lined up, and it wouldn’t matter if not a single birth mom chose life. Our collective conscience has been so calloused by the legality of abortion, and all the euphemisms surrounding it, etc., and that’s why it’s so important to speak about it on… Read more »
I didn’t ever say not to write this post. And there are 100,000’s of children waiting to be adopted right now! Look at heart gallery.com or adoptuskids.org.
I guess I inferred it from “screams about abortion” above. And I know, you’re right, it is heartbreaking. many in our church have adopted or fostered, and my husband and I are praying about fostering though we have 4 biological children. I’m not arguing with you about the need for it!!
Agreed we need it all I just have a problem with Doug always passionately talking about the world being wrong but never talking about how we can practically be the gospel in these situations. Preach the gospel always when necessary use words. I have found the church talks a lot but doesn’t “do” very much.
Well–I’m not a fan of that quote, as proclaiming the gospel always does require words (Faith comes by hearing). Of course Christians are called to action as well, James 2 etc. The fact is, this is a blog, and blogs use words–that’s just the nature of it. Doug as a Christian may be called to do certain things, Doug as a pastor to say certain things, but I don’t think he’s commanded to write about every aspect of Christianity ever on this blog. He seems to have a gift for using this platform to get us to think. Then you… Read more »
Will you pledge money to encourage Catholic adoption charities to continue working, even when facing financial penalties for not servicing same-sex couples?
How many were adopted through foster care? Also I am totally against abortion. And to be clear I am talking about your blog. The church is publically yelling about a lot of things and adoption in by one of them. I could get you your states statistics of you’d like.
Are you arguing that the government run program is somehow superior to a private Christian organization? I don’t understand?
No I am saying you don’t need tens of thousand s of dollars to adopt and that their are kids who are waiting to be adopted right now!
Actually you replied to the comment that Christ Church does have lots of adopted kids by saying, “how many were adopted through foster care?” How much adoption costs or what the wait time is had nothing to do with the post you responded to. You also have said that you are “simply asking” but within that question was an implication, to the church in general and Christ Church in particular, of being a hypocrite and an idiot (you added later). You proceeded to list off all the wonderful things you are doing for adoption, and well done sister or brother.… Read more »
i challenged Doug yes based on his blog post pattern. But I am also calling out the church as a whole. There is no reason there should be children languishing in the system. And there is no reason unwed mothers should struggle. The only reason this is happening os because the church isn’t stepping up and leaders aren’t speaking publically about it.
You know what? Nobody should have to struggle. Nobody should have to make the hard choices between buying groceries and paying the rent. But this is the world we live in. I have a lot of sympathy for unwed mothers. I have even more sympathy for married moms who have been abandoned by their spouses and who are working two jobs to put food on the table. I have huge sympathy for young married moms and dads who, struggling to pay the rent and buy the groceries, are reluctant to ask anyone for help. What I have no sympathy for… Read more »
Yes!
A,
You do realize any and all churches and/or non-profits which do not recognize SSM are going to lose their tax exemptions? And that donations to them will no longer be deductible?
So the cost of performing those activities – – such as running adoption agencies – – will rise by, say, 25%?
Kelly
Fostercare Fostercare Fostercare! Free free free!
A, Free? You mean tax payer funded, right? So it is free because we all give to it. And when it is state run that means that Jesus is not recognized as King… All I know about foster care are the anecdotal nightmares of open adoption I hear from my sisters at church, but I would hesitate on steering anyone away from the adoption organizations that worship our Lord, first.
So we shouldn’t rescue any children direct from the mothers who choose not to raise them, we should make sure they go through the foster system first?
Somebody’s got to pay for it, in any case. It’s not like there are no costs associated with non-foster care adoption, but direct adoption is magically more costly.
I know the point you are making, but I think it’s still a wonderful thing to bring kids out of the foster care system into Christian families. I have no love for the state-run system, but it is flooded with kids and not always kids who were given up at birth, kids who have suffered trauma and been removed from their homes, etc. I’ve watched families foster-to-adopt firsthand, and I believe it’s hard but worth it. I’m not agreeing with a lot of A’s points here, but I can understand why he wants to see these kids adopted out of… Read more »
I certainly think it is good to bring kids out of the foster care system, too. But the way A is arguing, the logic of it implies that a child who could be available without first going through the foster care system is a less worthy object of adoption than one in the foster care system. In reality, different people are called to different methods — pitting kids in foster care against kids available at birth is just foolish.
Yes, I had assumed A. mentioned foster care simply because it is an option for those who cannot afford to adopt through an agency, and an option that sometimes people fail to consider, even though there are many kids waiting. At first I had not read those comments as pitting one group against the other. I absolutely agree with you that different people are called to different methods, and both are important.
No I am responding to claims it takes years and acess to a lot of money to adopt which is false.
A, I was going to ask if you were (a) serious (b) knew or understood anything about the state-run foster systems but carole and Jane D did a superb job covering those points. However, there one bit of unfinished biz; the hit both secular non-profits and churches will take who refuse to recognize SSM. Those are global hits, and I’m not talking about geography. The ENTIRE institution will suffer. Of course the church as a body of believers did just fine in the catacombs. There’s ample historical record that persecution has ultimately strengthened the faith in every age. Pol Pot… Read more »
A., The Bible does not instruct everyone to adopt or foster. The Bible does exhort us, in many places, to care for and defend the fatherless. This is a HUGE area of ministry. Anyone who is doing good work in ANY part of it does not deserve to be called a hypocrite just because they’re not living up to your standards of what they should be doing in another area. You don’t get to be the judge of that. James 1:27 is happening at Christ Church. Think about Doug and Nancy’s teaching and writing on marriage and parenting. How many… Read more »
The Lord bless you, Valerie.
Hi Valerie,
Your comments have always tickled, enlightened and blessed me in one way or another, but I just want to mention how especially moving I found this one to be. Thank you very much for being so open.
Blessings,
carole
i simply asked Doug when he wrote this passionately about the call to adoption. Caring for orphans would include adoption yes??? Many women who face untimely pregnancies were victims of a fatherless home or an orphan. Is the crisis pregnancy center caring for the women after their children are born. Does someone provide childcare for the mom who carries and becomes a single mother? This is not just a Christ Church problem this is the greater Church. This blog contains a large amount of accusations and belittling and little to know encouragement on how to be the hands and feet… Read more »
Sorry, hon, but you really didn’t “simply ask Doug….” You asked a loaded question and followed it with an accusation. And you’ve followed with more here (ironically while criticizing this blog for making accusations).
Have you considered doing research before asking your questions? I’m sure the crisis pregnancy center has a website that would answer all of your questions and more.
Via moelane at http://moelane.com/2015/07/22/daily-signal-planned-parenthood/ is this list of 41 companies that directly finance PP. Adobe American Cancer Society American Express AT&T Avon Bank of America Bath & Body Works Ben & Jerry’s Clorox Coca-Cola Converse Deutsche Bank Dockers Energizer Expedia ExxonMobil Fannie Mae Ford Groupon Intuit Johnson & Johnson La Senza Levi Strauss Liberty Mutual Macy’s March of Dimes Microsoft Morgan Stanley Nike Oracle PepsiCo Pfizer Progressive Starbucks Susan G. Komen Tostitos Unilever United Way Verizon Wells Fargo Xerox Vox Day suggests a strategy from the successful #GamerGate campaign to gain allies and get results here: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2015/07/ppgate.html As for me,… Read more »