Let’s see what the Bible says to us today about the sanctity of life and how this biblical approach affects the following policy issues that are especially impacted by our understanding of the value of life:

 

 

Abortion is wrong based upon God’s injunction not to murder human beings. An unborn child is a person with a calling and destiny ordained by God. In the eyes of God, killing an unborn child is just like killing an adult, because life begins at conception—a fact that even science confirms. Scripture makes clear that God acknowledges and has His hand upon the unborn (Job 31:15; Ps. 139:13–14; Isa. 44:2; Jer. 1:5). The sacrificial killing of children is also forbidden in the Scriptures. Molech, the national god of the Ammonites, was worshiped by people who presented their own children to him in ritualized murder. The nation of Israel was exhorted not to follow in the ways of the Ammonites and kill their children. The scripture below makes a specific reference to this practice.

 

 

While the church was slow to respond thirty-five years ago when the Supreme Court opened the door to legalized abortion in the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, Christians have since responded in remarkable ways. The nationwide network of crisis pregnancy clinics and homes for unwed mothers operate on the time of dedicated volunteers and the donations of engaged Christians reaching out to women in need. In 2004, Focus on the Family launched the Option Ultrasound Program (OUP), a project that provides ultrasound machines for these centers. As of November 2006 over 270 machines have been put in place, resulting in literally thousands of babies being saved as their mothers saw the remarkable images on the screen.

 

What if the church had initiated just a portion of these outreaches prior to the court’s decision in 1973? Could the decision have been prevented? We would like to think so. There also is no doubt in our minds that because of the church’s successful reaction to the legalization of abortion on demand, slowly but undeniably a culture of life is being reconstructed.

 

As Christians, we must continue to actively, boldly, and compassionately work to reduce abortions. We believe it’s possible to decrease the number of abortions by 50 percent over the next ten years. We should encourage more crisis pregnancy centers to open, especially in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. These centers are even more effective when they have sonogram equipment and more medical staff—a great opportunity for donations or funding by churches or individuals. Churches can also educate women about the risks associated with abortions, including the potentially heightened risk of breast cancer.

 

Harry feels strongly that the high number of black children aborted every day in our nation is a form of black genocide. He is especially grieved that he was not more vocal about abortion in the black community prior to the 1980s when some black clergy doubted white evangelical sincerity about abortion. The net result of this deception is that both black and white political leaders tolerated this crime against God and man for far too long. To help bring solutions to this problem, he, along with the High Impact Leadership Coalition, has begun encouraging black churches to prioritize this kind of outreach.

 

As Christians, we should also advance a cultural public relations campaign that shows that not only does the faith community care about unborn children, but we also care for mothers and their children once they enter the world.

 

In the policy arena, we should continue to promote abstinence until marriage as the standard. We should support the funding of abstinence programs available under Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the federal program that funds welfare. The movement also needs champions of abstinence in every racial category. We should continue to lobby for the elimination of state subsidies for abortion and to protect and enhance parents’ rights in the pregnancy-related decisions of their children.

 

Cloning is a new frontier in the pro-life battle. It burst into the news when Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996. DNA was taken from an oocyte (an unfertilized egg) of a Scottish Blackface ewe, and through somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, Dolly was created. Theoretically, human clones can be created using the same technology. If this thought repulses and horrifies you, you’re not alone. The United Nations has gone on record against human cloning, but strangely the United States has yet to pass a prohibition on the practice of human cloning. Our Congress has not even been able to agree to a ban on the Frankenstein science of human/animal hybrids made through cloning.

 

Here is why Congress has refused to prohibit human cloning. To ban human cloning would also ban what opponents of these ethical restrictions call “therapeutic cloning.” What’s the difference? Only that in therapeutic cloning, the embryo is made and then destroyed before it reaches a certain age, normally fourteen days—hence the name “clone and kill” that has been attached to this procedure. Keep in mind we are still talking about a human embryo that if given time and the right environment would become a full-grown human.

 

The compromises that have been offered are to set timelines by which the embryos have to be destroyed so that they cannot become a full-grown clone. That’s not much of a compromise. In fact, it is a slippery slope. If we as a society agree that it is OK to conduct research on human embryos up until they are fourteen days old because it may improve the quality of life for others, what is to stop us from redrawing that line to four weeks or four months? There are actually some who advocate allowing the embryos to fully develop and then harvesting the parts before birth.

 

As Christians we should support scientific advancements and celebrate the benefits they bring to the human race, but we must take the lead in insisting that science should not violate the principle of valuing life. Rather, we must control scientific advancements within a life-honoring ethical framework. Science unbridled from morality will take us places we don’t want to go, and we will only realize it too late. The fact that something can be done does not mean it should be done. We need to continue to push for a total ban against the cloning of human beings and the creation of human/animal hybrids through use of cloning or any other means.

 

On January 18, 2007, Noah Markham was born in Covington, just outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. Noah’s birth would not normally have made national news, but he was the youngest survivor of the devastating hurricanes that hit Tony’s home state in September 2005. On September 11, 2005, two weeks after Katrina hit New Orleans and left the city under water, seven Illinois conservation police officers and three Louisiana state troopers rescued Noah and fourteen hundred other embryos that had been frozen at Lakeland Hospital.

 

It is frozen embryos like Noah that are at the heart of the debate over stem cell research. In 2003, there were an estimated four hundred thousand frozen embryos in the United States. Most are the result of in vitro fertilization where multiple embryos are produced by parents to be used for fertility treatments; the “extras” are frozen for possible future use. Some of these frozen embryos have actually been adopted by infertile couples, giving birth to the name “snowflake babies.” The question lies with what to do with the four hundred thousand “excess” embryos that lie in wait within laboratories across the country.

 

The Left wants to use these embryos for research purposes. We strongly disagree. These are living beings who have identities in God’s kingdom. Tony shows pictures of over one hundred adopted “snowflake babies” at crisis pregnancy centers to help potential mothers understand the human face behind the embryo. Tony stood side by side with young children who began as snowflake babies at the White House. They watched as President Bush announced the first veto of his administration, his veto of a bill that expanded taxpayer funding of research on these frozen embryos. We applaud that President Bush has stood resolute on his commitment that taxpayer money should not be spent to conduct research on human embryos.

 

There’s another good reason to not go down the path of stem cell research. It’s ineffective! In the ten years that human embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) has been done, there have yet to be any successful treatments of any medical condition. In fact, ESCR is problematic in that the cells divide and multiply so rapidly that they create tumors. There are also problems of host rejection. There is, however, a successful and ethical alternative: adult stem cell research.

 

Adult stem cells are derived from umbilical cord blood as well as a variety of other sources. In many cases, adult stem cells are extracted from the body of the person being treated, which eliminates the issue of rejection that is so problematic in embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells have been successfully taken from various areas of the body, bone marrow being one of the most common. Adult cells have also been successfully used from the blood, kidneys, eyes, nasal tissue, and fat cells (no shortage there!). Blood and tissue from the umbilical cord are also sources of adult stem cells. At present, over seventy different types of medical conditions have been treated with adult stem cells, yielding remarkable success in many cases.

 

Presidential candidate Senator Fred Thompson summed up our views against embryonic stem cell research with a convincing argument that silenced even the liberals. The senator notes that seventy-three breakthroughs have been made in adult and cord blood research, while to date, there are “still no embryonic stem cell breakthroughs.” These breakthroughs are addressing major health concerns, such as ovarian and breast cancer, diabetes, and heart disease among others. With the success of adult stem cell research, Thompson believes it is only logical to “put out money where the breakthroughs are happening” and cease cloning embryonic cells.

 

We should be investing our resources in this kind of medical and scientific research that is not only effective but is also ethical in that it does not require the destruction of a human embryo. In this debate over human life, regardless of whether it’s abortion, embryonic stem cell research, or end-of-life issues, we must have a fixed reference point from which we do not deviate. That point is simply this: all innocent human life is deserving of our collective protection.

 

Research that involves the destruction or manipulation of embryonic human beings should be eliminated from universities. And higher institutions affiliated with religious institutions must understand the indictment they bring on our beliefs if they participate in research involving human embryonic cells. College alumni must take the time to find out if their alma maters are participating in morally suspect research. If an institution is using human embryos, its alumni should petition to halt such research.

 

The academic community should set standards that define the precious and unique nature of each human life. Congress should ban federal involvement in human embryonic stem cell research based on the fact that it destroys a human being. We can never approve the destruction of living human beings to preserve or promote the health of other living human beings in the name of science. We should also encourage the use of alternative sources of stem cells, such as adult stem cells, those from umbilical cords or placentas, or other new sources of reprogrammed skin cells by increasing federal funding for this type of research.

 

In a legal brief filed by Mother Teresa in a court case in New Jersey a number of years ago she wrote:

 

“I have no new teaching for America. I seek only to recall you to faithfulness to what you once taught the world. Your nation was founded on the proposition—very old as a moral precept, but startling and innovative as a political insight—that human life is a gift of immeasurable worth, and that it deserves, always and everywhere, to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect.”

 

The goal of life should not be to enrich and prolong our own lives at all costs, especially when that cost is the next generation. If we follow this path of cloning and embryonic stem cell research, not only will we become the first generation of Americans to fail to make sacrifices so that our posterity might prosper, but also we will commit to sacrificing our posterity in the pursuit of that elusive fountain of youth.

 

In a major meeting on Capitol Hill attended by a high-profile group of black and white urban clergymen, the head of one of the nation’s largest black denominations stood up and made a surprisingly transparent comment. He said that many black Americans feel as though white Christians have great compassion for the unborn but forget about children after they are born. His message was clear: many people of color feel that the religious Right fails to emphasize the “right to life” of young adults, prisoners, and the elderly. The leader’s statement was not an accusation against his white brothers but was meant to explain one of the many reasons unified action across racial lines is sometimes difficult. He was essentially saying, “Let’s broaden our battle to protect life at all stages so that our ‘good will not be evil spoken of.’”

 

To survive and thrive as a movement in the coming years, Bible-believing Christians must expand the discussion about the value of life. This “expansion” is not a euphemistic way to describe a new compromise. Rather, the expansion we’re calling for reflects the ever-changing moral challenges facing our nation.

 

One often-overlooked aspect of the life issue is child abuse and neglect. There were 2.6 million reports of child abuse filed in 2002 in the United States. Through the investigations that followed, about 896,000 children were identified as positively being victims of either abuse or neglect. This stunning figure amounts to more than 2,450 children who are abused each day. Of these cases, 60 percent of these children were neglected—the caretaker had not provided for their basic needs. Physical abuse victims amounted to 20 percent, sexual abuse victims were 10 percent of the total cases filed, and 7 percent were victims of emotional abuse.

 

Based on these statistics from 2002, an average of four children die every day as a result of child abuse or neglect in the United States. This amounts to nearly 1,400 kids per year. Compared to the 1.2 million children killed by abortion every year, this number may seem small, but even one child’s death because of abuse is too many.

 

Yet the immediate death statistics are not the whole picture of abuse. An abused young person suffers ongoing misery. Survivors of abuse may become depressed, withdrawn, violent, or even suicidal, and they may become abusers themselves. Abused children may also grow up to refuse discipline, use drugs, or run away from home. Child abuse inflicts long-term damage to the survivors and significantly impacts their quality of life.

God gives children to parents, and along with this gift comes the responsibility for shaping their children’s lives. Child abuse and physical neglect are crimes and should be treated as such. When a parent seriously harms a child through physical abuse or neglect, he or she should not be dealt with by social service agencies but by the criminal justice system. Treating child abuse as a crime not only restores justice but also provides the parent with due process, which is often lost in the administrative hearings of social service agencies.

 

There is another form of neglect we’ll point out, and we go again to the scripture from the Old Testament that we referenced earlier.

 

 

Does this scripture even remotely relate to modern life? Yes, in our view it does. God’s injunction against sacrificing children speaks to the experience of contemporary America. Every day, unborn children are sacrificed for the elusive promise of an education, economic security, or maintaining a reputation. But in less obvious ways even Christians are often tempted to “sacrifice” and neglect their children on the altar of personal convenience by not investing the time to properly raise them to know and follow the Lord. They either overschedule themselves or their children, or they work long hours out of concern for the economic future. They sacrifice time with and training of their children and so harm their souls and minds. This is a far cry from actually sacrificing children in the flames or criminally neglecting them, but the principle is the same. With the increase of two-income families, children are educated and socialized primarily by day-care facilities and school systems. Parents draw back and do not have as strong a bond with their children as in past generations.

 

The answer is to recognize this error and restructure our lives so that raising our children becomes a top priority. Our public policy should encourage this focus on our families through tax policies that make it easier for parents to leave the workforce and raise and educate their children. Both state and federal governments can encourage employers to adopt flexible work schedules where possible through business tax incentives and credits. The bottom line is that we must make our children a priority. As parents this may mean making financial sacrifices for a season with one parent leaving the workforce. It may mean no outside hobbies or activities beyond church, work, and family. Because every person and every family situation is unique, only you know what steps you need to take to give your family the attention God would have you give them. Whatever those steps are, we encourage you to take them, not just for the well-being of your family and your children, but also for the well-being of our country.

 

The church has a clear-cut opportunity to show our love and compassion to the nation. Will we discard these lives or disciple an overlooked generation?

The sanctity of human life includes preserving the quality of life of the weakest and most vulnerable among us. The fastest-growing population segment within the United States is people aged sixty and older. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has calculated that one out of every ten people in the world is sixty years of age or older. At the current rate, by 2050 this will grow to one out of five.

 

As the numbers increase, so does the abuse of the elderly. In Ohio, for example, there are more than forty reports of elder abuse each day.Who would abuse an elderly person? Surprisingly, it is not typically a worker in an institution but a family member. Elder abuse crosses all cultural and economic barriers. Most of the victims are females, seventy-five years or older, who live with family members and experience poor mental or physical health.

 

Stress has been determined to be a strong contributing factor to this kind of abuse. Many family members are under pressure financially due to the senior living with them. The demands of physical care combined with the continuation of career and family pursuits bring anxiety and overwork. This type of abuse includes giving improper or very little care to the person, keeping him or her in isolation, denying food or medication, verbal abuse, physical restraint or hitting, and misusing the person’s money or property.

 

The challenge to protect the unborn and to protect the elderly may seem to have only a casual connection, but a deeper look suggests they are more closely related than one might think. In 1916 Planned Parenthood was launched by Margaret Sanger with the aid of wealthy industrialists. The genocidal motivation behind Planned Parenthood was to prevent the unwanted and the unproductive from entering the population. Today, Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the world, having performed 264,943 abortions during its 2005–2006 fiscal year. The organization that had a 2005–2006 budget of $847 million also receives millions in federal tax dollars every year to help them in their task.

 

The idea of eliminating the potentially unproductive and unwanted is utilitarian. It does not consider what the person has to offer but only what they have to take of our allegedly finite resources.

 

It only stands to reason that the same utilitarian standard would be applied to the elderly. The aging baby boomers, who ushered in abortion on demand to accommodate their sexual liberation, will soon be entering their golden years only to come face-to-face with a generation who has grown up under this utilitarian view of life. How tragic that the policy of abortion on demand that many supported could soon be turned on them.

How do we care for our elderly and ill? Christians should offer to help those providing home-based health care and volunteer at nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and hospices. The church should model how the elderly are to be treated. We should promote laws that insure that ill and elderly people are given appropriate medical care and pass tax relief measures for families who must care for elderly loved ones and/or ailing family members.

 

The value of life continues to be the bedrock of the religious Right, and our principled voices must be heard on every issue that touches life. With a consistent voice, we can turn the tide of the culture of death in America so that life is again celebrated, nurtured, and affirmed in our private lives and our public policies at every stage.

 

In 2005 the right-to-life issue was thrust before the American people, this time not over the unborn but over the disabled. America watched as food and water were withheld from Terri Schiavo, a woman who had suffered from severe brain damage, until she died. The nation was gripped by the real-life drama as an estranged and divided family, the courts, and Congress wrestled over Terri’s right to live. Liberals immediately began to twist and distort the facts, paving the way for politicians and others to attempt to capitalize on the distortions of the truth. Tony was very involved in this issue. He worked closely with the congressional leadership at the time to seek a resolution that was within the limits of the law and provided due process for Terri Schiavo.

 

Here are the facts in Terri’s case. She was injured under suspicious conditions in February of 1990. Almost thirteen years later, in 2003, a Florida judge, George Greer, ruled that if Terri Schiavo were competent to make the decision, she would choose to end life-sustaining measures such as receiving food and water. Terri was not on mechanical life support, but she had to be given food and water. Under state law the decision that she would want food and water to be withheld from her had to be reached by the presence of “clear and convincing” evidence. Amazingly, this standard is less than is required in criminal cases, which calls for evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The evidence presented in Judge Greer’s court was little more than hearsay both in support of and in opposition to ending her life. Legal experts in support of saving her life argued that the Florida court had abandoned their “clear and convincing” standard and therefore failed to insure Terri Schiavo the due process she was guaranteed under the constitutions of both Florida and the United States. But Judge Greer issued a court order that no food or water be given to Terri Schiavo, which would thereby cause her death.

 

At this point Congress became involved, but its role was greatly misunderstood. Congress did not create a special law to save Terri Schiavo or interject itself into a family dispute between Terri’s husband and her parents and siblings. Congress, by a bipartisan majority, simply asked the federal court to review the evidence in the case to insure due process. However, the federal court rejected the request of Congress and did not issue a temporary injunction stopping the removal of life-sustaining food and water in order to review the evidence.

 

The case revealed something deeply wrong with our justice system: criminals are afforded more legal protections than the disabled. It also revealed something wrong with our culture: euthanasia is becoming more acceptable and even has the support of some states.

 

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word euthanasia means, “the act or practice of ending the life of an individual suffering from a terminal illness or an incurable condition, as by lethal injection or the suspension of extraordinary medical treatment.” Dr. Jack Kevorkian of Michigan popularized the practice of assisted suicide in the previous decade. More and more people in secular society seem to believe that it is appropriate for people with terminal illnesses to commit suicide or to be assisted to commit suicide. This is a logical outcome of the illogical idea that life is a choice made by man. If a mother, in consultation with her doctor, can choose to end the life of her unborn child, why can’t someone else in consultation with a doctor such as Mr. Kevorkian make the same choice for themselves or a disabled family member? With each concession we make in the value of innocent human life, we erode the foundation upon which all life stands.

 

Currently, there are no federal laws that specifically address the issue of euthanasia or assisted suicide. Proposals for these measures are determined at the state level. The District of Columbia and all fifty states include the prohibition of euthanasia under the homicide laws. Thirty-eight states prohibit assisted suicide through specific laws. Seven other states have banned assisted suicide under common law. The District of Columbia and four states do not have any specific laws banning assisted suicide, nor do they recognize the common law in terms of this issue. Oregon is the only state with laws that legalize assisted suicide.

 

In fact, Oregon voters approved the “death-with-dignity” referendum twice in four years. Many doctors have criticized this law because it puts physicians in direct conflict with their Hippocratic oath. In 2001, former Attorney General John Ashcroft attempted to stop the measure by saying the Oregon law violated the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) by allowing a physician to prescribe a lethal dose of medicine to end the life of a terminally ill person, which was not a legitimate use of the federally controlled substance. The State of Oregon challenged the attorney general in federal court. The case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court as Gonzales v. Oregon. The Family Research Council filed an amicus brief in the case supporting the attorney general’s position. Unfortunately, the Court decided in 2006 against the attorney general’s use of CSA.

 

The main arguments made by the proponents of euthanasia are that people do not want to endure unbearable pain, that they should have the legal right to commit suicide if they so desire, and that people should not be forced to remain alive against their will. Those against euthanasia argue that passing euthanasia laws would open the door for performing life-ending treatments on those who are not terminally ill. They also see euthanasia as being used as a means to contain health-care costs for the elderly. Additionally, there is concern that euthanasia may increasingly become used involuntarily for the elderly and disabled.

 

But at its base, euthanasia is a total rejection of the value and importance assigned by God to all human life. We only need to look to history to learn the danger of those who have utilized euthanasia. Only two countries currently have legalized euthanasia. Almost every society, whether religious or not, has made euthanasia a crime for thousands of years. Corrupt leaders and deceived authorities have blemished the human race through their indiscriminate killing of millions of “undesirables.” Nazi Germany and present-day Darfur alone have proven this to be true. We continue to bear the scar of these horrendous incidents on the human race.