Never, Give Up Bryan Anderson

Two years ago, a bomb in Iraq took his legs and an arm. Now Bryan Anderson needs a hand that won’t break all the time when he’s skateboarding or, someday, holding his kids. And is it too much to ask that wheelchairs start looking a little cooler? As Anderson and other veterans push the technology, the technology responds.

Very cool story about a guy who could have called it a life, but instead refused to give up and is now an inspiration to people like me.

Give it a read if you’ve got the time.

Michigan Girl’s Birthday Wish Comes True

At her seventh birthday party, Amber Birdsall thought the huge gift box wrapped in pink paper likely hid a pair of bicycles.

She was wrong. Inside was something she wanted even more — her stepfather, a soldier who had been deployed overseas.

”This is way better than bikes,” Amber said.

I just love stuff like this!

Dustin Carter Inspires

Just listen to Dustin himself, “It could be worse.” The guys doesn’t have an ounce of quitter in him. Awesome!

Whatever Is True, Whatever Is Noble…

One of the huge blessings of attending a “mega” church is that we are not only blessed with great pastors, musicians, singers, etc., we also get some of the best talent in the country as guests. Today, Chip Ingram spoke at Southeast on this topic: “Think Great Thoughts.”

The key verse is Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

That’s tough in today’s media saturated society where messages of greed, lust and pride are assailing us from every direction.

I thought it worthwhile to highlight this rare story. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find and promote more stories that bring light to those around them.

Baby gets first emergency living donor liver transplant at Cleveland Clinic

If you find a story like this, please send it in and I’ll share it with our audience.

Elmo Wants to Kill Your Child

Uh… are we supposed to believe this lady? How did the toy know the boy’s name?

APHA Sells Our Health for Politics

Yet another organization to fall by the wayside of politics of money and power.

Straying from its mission to “protect all Americans… from… serious health threats,” the American Public Health Association (APHA) is throwing its weight behind a list of radical pro-abortion policies, including a repeal of the partial-birth abortion ban. The announcement came after APHA’s Governing Council met last year to determine its position on a wide range of “health initiatives” that included everything from promoting global warming awareness to opposing a U.S. attack on Iran. Although the organization has existed for 136 years and receives a healthy sum of taxpayer dollars, this latest declaration is further proof that APHA’s leadership is more interested in raw political advocacy than advances in public health. [link]

After all the data stating otherwise, they have the audacity to come out and publicly support partial-birth abortions and say it’s perfectly healthy?!? Unbelievable.

Find Your Change at First30Days

A local friend has helped launch a new Web site designed to help people going through a major life change. It’s called First30Days.

Loaded with great stories and expert advice, this site can be a great help to those struggling with the stress that inevitably comes when “life happens.” It’s currently in beta so check it out!

1,000 Places To See Before You Die

1,000 Places is a great site. Love the concept and the execution. And I don’t even like to travel.

Lost Bags, Lost Souls

A visually interesting story told of two young men and their trip to ski Kang Yatse.

Roe v Wade IQ Test

Have you taken the Roe IQ test? I did. They said:

You got 9 out of the 12 questions correct for a 75%.

That result puts you in the 78th percentile when compared to everyone who has taken the test.

One I missed, where I over-estimated the total numbers. It’s only 40-49 million babies since 1973, or 1.28 million a year. I also guessed that abortions due to rape or incest was 2%-5% but the answer was under 1%. I also guessed the wrong Supreme Court justice naming Scalia instead of Ginsburg.

I haven’t posted about this in some time, so it’s likely a good idea for my newer readers to see the most compelling argument supporting life that I’ve ever heard. Spread the word.

Unborn vs. Newborn: Which is Human?

[Adapted from Reaching Hearts and Minds on Abortion by Scott Klusendorf a professor of Bioethics. The SLED acronym was developed by Stephen Schwarz in The Moral Question of Abortion (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990) pp. 17-18.]

After some preliminary discussions…

Pro-Life: “Do you think that newborns are persons?”

Pro-Choice: “Yes, of course. Everyone does.”

Pro-Life: “What are the differences between fetuses and newborns?”

Pro-Choice: “There are many, important differences.”

Pro-Life: “If we look at those differences to see if they are morally relevant then we can answer the question if it’s morally permissible to kill fetuses and not kill newborns.”

Pro-Choice: “Sounds reasonable.”

Pro-Life: “As it turns out, unborns differ from the newborns in just four ways which I pose are not relevant to its status as a human being. Those four ways are Size, Level of Development, Environment, and Degree of Dependency. The acronym SLED is a helpful reminder of those differences.”

• Size: “The unborn are smaller than the newly born. But does size have a correlation to human rights? Men are generally larger than women, does that mean they deserve more rights? Is Shaquel O’Neal more of a person than Hillary Clinton simply because he is larger? Clearly size is not an criteria for determining whether something is a person.”
• Level of development: “True, the unborn are less developed than newborns, but this too is morally irrelevant when it comes to assessing humanhood. A newborn is less developed than a toddler. A toddler is less developed than an adolescent. An adolescent is less developed than an adult. But all are considered equally human.”

  Is a child of four, for example, less of a person because she has not yet developed her sexual organs? Is a retarded child whose brain function is less than his classmate still not equally human? These absurd conclusions follow from defining persons based on what they can do rather than what they are.

  If you follow that line of thinking, we’re creating newer robots that can behave like people. Are they considered persons? If personhood is only a developing, gradual thing, then we are never fully human because we continue to grow intellectually and emotionally. As Albert Schweitzer said at age 70, ‘I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.’

  It follows, then, that the ability to perform human functions is not a necessary condition for human personhood. People who are unconscious do not have the present capacity to perform personal acts. We don’t kill them because of it. Nor should we kill the unborn.

• Environment: “True, the unborn is located in a different place, but how does a change in location suddenly change a non-human entity into a human one? Did you stop being human when you walked from your house to the car? From the kitchen to the den? Clearly, where one is has no bearing on who one is.”

  A child in the incubator of her mother’s womb is no less a child than the one being sustained by neonatal technology. I know, for example, of a baby girl named Rachel who was born at 24 weeks gestation. At the time of her birth, she weighed less than a pound and could fit into the palm of your hand. The hospital staff worked heroically to save her life and now she is a healthy toddler.

  But let’s assume that instead of saving baby Rachel’s life at 24 weeks, the doctor came into her room and killed her while she was resting in her father’s hand. We would consider that an outrage, wouldn’t we? But do you know that the same baby can be killed through legalized abortion through all nine months of pregnancy simply because she is located six inches away in her mother’s womb?

  Ladies and gentlemen, you do not stop being human simply because you have a different address.

• Degree of dependency: “If viability is what makes one human, then all those dependent on kidney machines, heart pace-makers, and insulin would have to be declared non-persons. There is no ethical difference between an unborn child who is plugged into and dependent upon its mother and a kidney patient who is plugged into and dependent upon a kidney machine.”

  Siamese twins do not forfeit their right to live simply because they depend on each others’ circulatory systems.

  We can take this a step further. Imagine that you are stranded in the woods one freezing night in January, but you have plenty of warm clothing. While searching for help, you encounter a lost toddler wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

  Scantily dressed, he will freeze to death within the hour if no one helps him. Realizing this child depends totally on you for his survival, you promptly excuse yourself from having any moral obligation to him. In fact, you go one step further. You feed him to the wolves because, after all, he cannot survive without you. Obviously, you wouldn’t do that. Neither would any abortion advocate I know.

  In fact, the most strident defender of abortion would do exactly as you or I would do in that situation: She would pick the child up and wrap him inside her own jacket, using her own body to sustain him. She would remain with him all night if need be, despite inconvenience or hardship until he was delivered safely to his parents. She would protect the child precisely because he depends solely on her for survival. It would not matter that he was an unwanted intruder or an uninvited guest.

  And yet when it comes to the woman’s own unborn offspring, the moral logic of abortion advocates is that she has no responsibility to the child precisely because it depends on her for protection. In other words, he can be legally killed because of his need. This is absurd.

Pro-Life: “We can see, then, that the unborn child differs from a newborn child in only four ways—size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency—and none of those differences are good reasons for disqualifying it as fully human.”

Pro-Choice: “You know, I’ve been listening to you pro-lifers for 30 years. I’ve had people shove rosary beads at me, tell me I was going to burn in hell, and even had evangelicals praying for my soul. But this is the first time I have ever heard one of you right-to-lifers explain why you believe what you believe. I guess I will have to give it some thought.”

RU-486 Abortions Up

Even though the overall number of abortions are down, this particular trend isn’t good.

According to an article in today’s Washington Post, abortions by RU-486, the chemical alternative to surgical abortion, have risen 22 percent a year and are now responsible for 14 percent of the total abortions performed in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. For nearly eight years, FRC has documented the health risks surrounding the abortion drug–and the list continues to grow.

Still pro-choice groups are promoting the drug, even while concerns about the health of the mothers.

In spite of the outcry from both medical and conservative groups, all of which caution that the drug seriously endangers women’s health, more than 840,000 U.S. women have been persuaded to use RU-486 as part of a broader political agenda that is claiming women and children as its victims. There are at least 1,000 documented reports of side-effects from taking RU-486, ranging from infection and hemorrhaging to ectopic pregnancies and even death, yet more than half of abortion traders are now offering RU-486 as an option. [link]

Very scary stuff. Expectant mothers can’t trust the information they are getting from some organizations. They know who they are.

Abortion Case to Appear Before China High Court

China has a horrendous track record in the realm of human rights. In fact, they’ve crossed the boundary into megalomania. But now there appears to possible be a crack in their great wall. For the first time, the country’s highest court has agreed to hear a woman’s case that contains the following, grisly details.

Jin Yani, who violated Chinese law by becoming pregnant five months before she wed, was ready to deliver her baby when family planning officials appeared at the couple’s door. They escorted her to a local abortion center, where her unborn child was given a lethal injection and later removed from the womb. Jin lost so much blood as a result of the procedure that she was hospitalized for six weeks and, in the seven years since, has been unable to conceive.

It’s reprehensible what the Chinese government has done to literally millions of their own citizens. Someday, judgment will come to those responsible. But for now, I would welcome a bit of reason amongst the irrational mandates.

A Rare Thing on the Internet, Complete Transparency

It’s not a common thing to find the complete telling of one’s soul. If you’re up to it, you might want to read Andy Olmsted’s posthumously posted thoughts.

One point is ironclad, “…while you’re free to think whatever you like about my life and death, if you think I wasted my life, I’ll tell you you’re wrong. We’re all going to die of something. I died doing a job I loved.”

Well said Andy. May God bless your legacy.

Major Dork Takes Tennis Ball to Family Jewels

We’re talking 1cm or more to the left and this guy is coughing up blood. What a tool! If there’s one thing I know, Americans will applaud stupidity. Oh yeah. [via Deadspin]

Celtics Misjudged as ‘White’ Team

I’ve got to say that I think J.A. Adande’s piece on ESPN is big. The very same message coming from a white author would (incorrectly) be disregarded but since it’s coming from Adande, people will read it. And they should!

Check out these Boston Celtic firsts:

The Celtics were the first NBA franchise to draft an African-American player — Chuck Cooper in 1950.

Why didn’t Spike Lee know this?

They became the first NBA team to send an all-black starting lineup onto the floor.

Seems like something someone should remember.

The Celtics made Russell the league’s first black head coach.

All this should be unnecessary as the team had a whole legion of great black players. For today’s African-Americans to label the Celtics as a white man’s team, makes one wonder if reasonable race relations will ever arrive.

Me? I used to hate the Celtics because I was always a Sixers fan. Well, that was until Rondo arrived.