Pro-Life Bills?

Rick Perry has designated the passage of a sonogram bill as a "legislative emergency." As a result, the Republian-controlled Texas Legislature will rush through legislation that will require abortionists to show ultrasound images to pregnant women who seek abortions. Seemingly everyone is hailing this as a "pro-life" achievement. The reasoning is that more women will decide not to murder their children once they see the ultrasound.

My wife and I have two children, and we had ultrasounds done during each pregnancy. Honestly, to me, the images on the screen looked more like those of an old black and white television after all the stations had gone off the air than those of a baby. I fail to see how looking at these snowy sonograms would convince any woman of the humanity of her preborn child, especially after she has already bought into the lies spewed by the "pro-choice" propaganda machine.




The big problem with this legislation is that it further codifies abortion into law. We don't need more laws on abortion, we need fewer. In fact, we need to wipe out all abortion laws and simply define a person as a human being at every stage of development. The Texas Penal Code already defines a person in this way; it is the regulations on abortion, many of them passed as "pro-life bills," that keep abortion legal. Any bill that ends with some form of "and then you can kill the baby" should never be considered a pro-life bill.

The proper function of government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of each individual human being. This protection should apply to EVERY human being, without regard to stage of development or any other factor (race, gender, etc.). To exclude any class of human beings from this protection is a failure of this principle of proper government.

When will Texas have a legislator who is principled enough to vote against any bill with specifies a legal condition under which one human being may kill another innocent human being? Do we allow parents to murder their teenage children after forcing them to look at baby pictures of those teenagers? Of course not. A person is a person at any stage of development, from embryo to infant to toddler to adolescent, etc. And yet, the powers that be consider this sonogram bill to be a pro-life bill. It is sad that legislators today care more about their one hundred percent pro-life voting record from right-to-life organizations or their endorsements from Texas Alliance for Life than they do about true principles. And what good are those ratings and endorsements when they come from organizations which are defined by 38 years of failure?

If I were a state legislator, I would vote against these current bills and propose one of my own. My bill would eliminate EVERY abortion law and regulation in Texas and would simply define a person as a human being at every stage of development. Abortion would then be treated as any other form of murder. If one would reject the myth that Roe v. Wade gave women a "constitutional right" to get an abortion and really read the majority opinion of the case, especially Footnote 54, one would see that personhood legislation would not violate any mandate of that decision.

It is time for all Texans, but especially our elected officials, to re-evaluate their own principles and to take a stand on those principles. Life is the most basic of rights, and it applies to all human beings. Government has no place in selecting which human beings deserve to have that right protected and which don't...

2010

As I write this, the sun is setting for the final time on 2010. Personhood moved slowly forward this year. The ballot initiative in Colorado, Proposition 62, failed, but the number of yes votes increased significantly over the number of yes votes on a similar referendum in the 2008 election.

2011 will see another personhood amendment on the ballot in Mississippi, a state which has much more of a pro-life reputation than Colorado. Unfortunately, there is not a citizen ballot-initiative process here in Texas. Any constitutional amendment proposal must first come from the state legislature before appearing on our ballots.

The proper role of government is to protect the life, liberty, and property of each individual person. It is not up to the government to exclude any group of human beings from that protection, no matter that group's stage of development, age, race, ethnicity, religion, or disability. It is the mission of this blog to convince voters and officials that ALL human beings possess the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Happy 2011!

Christmas and Personhood

Looking back on this Christmas Eve morning, I realized that I started this blog exactly one year ago today. Throughout the past year, the frequency of blog posts varied, and that variation seemed to have a correlation to my level of disillusionment with the status quo in the pro-life movement.

From hearing the Christmas story this season, I am reminded that the first person on earth to recognize Jesus for who He was occurred when Jesus was still in the womb. And the person who recognized him was also still in the womb.

[39 ] In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, [40 ] and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. [41 ] And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, [42 ] and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! [43 ] And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? [44 ] For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. [45 ] And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
(Luke 1:39-45 ESV)

It's a beautiful story, and it is one of the most cited among those in the Christian pro-life movement. The personhood of children in the womb is illustrated with great clarity. Why so many people in this movement compromise with those on the other side and advocate allowing abortions in cases of rape or incest still escapes me. If a child in the womb is a person, then it is murder to kill that person, regardless of the manner in which that person was conceived. There seems to be a tremendous lack of reasoning in the general pro-life movement, and I believe that it is one of the reasons why the "legal" abortion industry is flourishing today.

Another problem in the pro-life movement is this perception among the general public that it is strictly a Christian movement. Even though I am a Christian, I recognize that the pro-life position and the Christian faith need not be so intertwined. The purpose of this blog is not to win people over to Christ. I'll let more qualified ministers and theologians write blogs for that. My main purpose here is to convince visitors to this page that neither the "pro-choice" nor the "pro-life with exceptions for rape and incest" positions have any logical, legal, or moral foundation.

We are fast approaching the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade court decision. The perceived pro-life party, the Republican Party, has seemed impotent to eliminate legal abortions. Instead, they push through bills which further codify abortion into law. Abortionists can now, by statute in many states (and soon in Texas), kill babies after showing the mothers of those babies an ultrasound.

I no longer consider myself a Republican. Lately, I have chosen to affiliate myself with the local Libertarian Party, not because they have a strong pro-life platform (they don't), but because a fundamental change in the philosophy of government is needed. I have become convinced that the Republican Party will never part with their old conventional ways, and that such change is more likely from a third party. And it just so happens that my views on economic issues and on the intervention of government into the lives of individuals fits quite nicely with the positions of the Libertarian Party.

I'll have future blog posts on libertarianism and personhood and why libertarians should embrace personhood coming soon in the new year. Until then, Merry Christmas!

Post-election Report, Christianity, and Libertarians for Life

It has been way too long since my last entry in this blog. Life has been busy; October seemed to go by in a blur.

Since I am the Republican Party Precinct Chair for my voting precinct, I spent all day on Election Day at the polling place serving as Election Judge. I arrived at 5:45 AM to begin setting up voting booths and equipment (and I did this the morning after attending Game 5 of the World Series). The polls opened at 7:00 AM and closed at 7:00 PM. As Election Judge, I was required to stay at the polling place the entire day. Of course, we still had a line of about fifty people at 7:00 PM, so we didn't actually shut everything down until about 7:45. I delivered the ballots, equipment, and paperwork to the county election station at 9:30 PM. The whole day left me exhausted, and I didn't watch a single minute of TV election coverage that night.

But we all know what happened. Rick Perry was re-elected governor, and Republicans won a majority in the United States House of Representatives and greatly increased their majority in the Texas House. I have mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, the defeat of pro-abortion Democrats is always a good thing. On the other, Republicans haven't done much except give lip-service to real pro-life issues for many years. The resistance of the Republican Party establishment and of supposedly pro-life organizations like Texas Alliance for Life to the personhood issue is still substantial.

Some of the "pro-life" bills that newly-elected legislators have been filing are disappointing. The most common are bills which prohibit taxpayer funded abortion, a move toward nullifying parts of Obamacare. What these bills tell the abortionists is that it's OK to go on murdering babies just as long as they don't take public money for doing it. Why can't we elect legislators with the guts to really take a stand against unconstitutional federal action, especially action perpetrated by the US Supreme Court over the past several decades?

Since the election, the race for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives has taken center stage. Joe Straus, Speaker for the last session of the Legislature, was elected to that post by eleven liberal Republicans and all of the House Democrats. Supposedly, the deal that Straus and his cohorts made with the Democrats included a stipulation that no "pro-life" bills would make it to the floor of the House.

I was listening to the Wells Report on the radio the other day, and Representative Leo Berman was on talking about the race for Speaker. I can't quote him verbatim, but he said something to the effect that he only votes for pro-life people because being pro-life indicates that the person believes in God. That statement got me thinking. Why is the pro-life movement perceived as an exclusively Christian one?

I am a Christian, and I love the Personhood USA organization. Personhood USA's message is that all human beings are persons, regardless of the stage of biological development, and should be recognized as persons by law. About the only criticism I have of Personhood USA is that they present personhood so closely tied to Christianity. According to the website, their mission is "to serve Jesus by being an Advocate for those who can not speak for themselves, the pre-born child." With a mission statement like that, those who are hostile to the Christian faith, for whatever reason, may not ever hear the philosophical and logical arguments in favor of personhood.

I've considered myself somewhat libertarian for a good many years now. In fact, I openly supported Kathie Glass, the Libertarian Party candidate for governor, over Rick Perry. The photo is of me and Ms. Glass.



I have never actually joined the Libertarian Party because of their horrible platform position on abortion. But it has been my view that government's only legitmate purpose was to protect each individual's right to life, liberty, and property. Beyond that, each individual should be free to live his or her life, provided that he or she does not infringe on others' rights to life, liberty, and property.


My libertarian leanings led me to the Libertarians for Life website. This organization makes purely philosophical and scientific arguments in favor of the recognition of preborn children as persons under the law.

To explain and defend our case, LFL argues that:

1. Human offspring are human beings, persons from conception, whether that takes place as natural or artificial fertilization, by cloning, or by any other means.

2. Abortion is homicide -- the killing of one person by another.

3. One's right to control one's own body does not allow violating the obligation not to aggress. There is never a right to kill an innocent person. Prenatally, we are all innocent persons.

4. A prenatal child has the right to be in the mother's body. Parents have no right to evict their children from the crib or from the womb and let them die. Instead both parents, the father as well as the mother, owe them support and protection from harm.

5. No government, nor any individual, has a just power to legally "de-person" any one of us, born or preborn.

6. The proper purpose of the law is to side with the innocent, not against them.

Conference Report

The Midwest Personhood Conference was a wonderful opportunity to meet with Personhood advocates from other states and to talk about strategy. Personally, I enjoyed meeting prolife leaders like Cal Zastrow, Rebecca Kiessling, Flip Benham, Gualberto Garcia-Jones, and Walter Hoye. Here is PersonhoodUSA co-founder Keith Mason's press release:

Pro-life advocates from ten states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wisconsin gathered in Wichita, Kansas last Saturday, September 11th for the Midwest Personhood Pro-life Conference.

The event sponsored by Personhood Kansas and Right to Life of Kansas featured representatives Keith Mason and Cal Zastrow from Personhood USA and Johanna Dasteel from the American Life League. Other participants included Gualberto Garcia Jones, Attorney and President of Personhood Colorado; Rev. Walter Hoye, leader of the California Human Rights Amendment Initiative Drive; Rebecca Kiessling, Attorney and International Pro-life Speaker; and the Rev. Flip Benham, National Director of Operation Save America.

The theme of the conference was answering the distortions and legal objections to personhood measures and focusing on the strategic significance of the movement in ending abortion.

Attendees from Colorado were pleased to report on their successful efforts to place a constitutional amendment on the November, 2010 ballot. Amendment 62 would define the word "person" to include all human beings from their biological beginnings.

More than a dozen in attendance traveled from the great state of Oklahoma. They utilized the opportunity to network with national personhood leaders and are excited to report that they will be launching a personhood initiative drive soon.

"We're grateful for the wonderful personhood leaders in attendance who were able to share both their legal expertise and their experience in working on successful personhood campaigns. The conference bore much fruit, and we go forth with a renewed spirit to pursue personhood measures, protect the preborn, and end the institution of abortion throughout the nation," said Keith Ashley of Personhood Kansas.

Mid-west Personhood Conference

The Midwest Personhood Conference is this Saturday, September 11 in Wichita, KS. I'll be attending, and I would love to hear from any other Texans making the trip. Just drop me a note at danielh41@yahoo.com.

Liberal "Rights"

I usually try to keep this blog limited to issues dealing with abortion and personhood, but most people who support prolife issues are also in opposition to same sex marriage. Some of the arguments made against the ruling in Federal District Court striking down Proposition 8, California's constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, might conflict with those made on behalf of the right to life of unborn children. Because of this, I am posting this, although I do so with some hesitation.

I agree that the ruling in this case is terrible. However, many of the arguments that I have heard in opposition to this ruling are not very well thought out. It is a fact that a majority of California voters approved this amendment, and it is also a fact that one solitary judge has overruled this majority. But these facts cannot be turned into the sole argument used against the ruling, that it was wrong for one judge to overrule a majority of voters like this. In fact, I would discard this argument altogether.

In a Virginia Commonwealth University Life Sciences survey from May 2010 (http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm), only 15% of respondents answered that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. 44% stated that abortion should be legal only in certain circumstances, such as in cases of rape or incest. 37% said that abortions should be legal and available in any circumstance. According to the Declaration of Independence, the right to life of all human beings comes from our Creator and is inalienable. It is not granted by the government and cannot be taken by the government. And, as the Declaration of Independence describes, government has been instituted among men to ensure that right. The fact that only 15% answered the survey in support of this ideal in no way means that the government should continue to allow abortions. Our country is not a pure democracy. If it were, fifty-one percent of the people could vote to enslave the other forty-nine percent. This is why opinion polls on abortion matter little to me. Legalized abortion is wrong. It is the denial of one of the most basic of rights, the right to life, to an entire class of human beings, and I will continue to fight for the protection of this right, no matter what polls say.

I realize that proponents of gay marriage are making a similar argument to the one I just made, that a majority of people cannot and should not vote to deny the rights of the minority. The flaw in their argument centers around their idea of "rights," a word that has been thrown around a lot lately. Everyone wants “equal rights” or “civil rights” or a “right to marry whomever.” But what constitutes a right in this country?

I return to that founding document of our nation, the Declaration of Independence. It says that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. These rights include the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are pretty self explanatory. Now that I have come into being, I have the right to continue being, the right to remain alive. That requires no obligation from anyone else. I have the right to liberty. I can go where I want, think what I want, say what I want. That also requires no obligation on the part of anyone else. And I have the right to pursue happiness. I don’t have a right to be happy, only to pursue being happy. Once again, this places no obligation on anyone else.

Our country’s other great document, the Constitution, contains the Bill of Rights. I’ve always viewed these as restrictions on government in support of those basic rights described in the Declaration. The government can’t limit what I write or what I say; it can’t prevent me from holding whatever religious beliefs I happen to hold; it can’t prevent me from bearing arms; it can’t search my home without warrant or probable cause to believe I have committed some crime, etc.

Liberals in government today are trying to inflict a whole bevy of “rights” on the people. They say everyone has a “right to healthcare,” a “right to own a home,” a “right to marry whomever they chose,” etc., etc. These are not rights. I do not have a “right to healthcare.” Is there someone obligated by the government to give me healthcare? What about that person’s right to liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc.? People do not have a right to own a home. The recent failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be indicators that some people should not be given mortgages. And yet, the government tried to obligate banks and mortgage companies into giving these bad loans. I saw a picture on Drudge Report yesterday of a young woman sitting dejectedly on a curb holding a sign which read, “A job is a right.”


I want to say to her, “No, a job is not a right. No one is obligated to give you a job. If you want a job, go out and make yourself marketable.”

And now liberals want to make marriage a right. No one has a “right” to get married. We do all have a right to pursue happiness, and this would include the choice of a life partner (if, of course, that life partner is willing). I found a woman who wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. The feeling was mutual. The two of us hold the same religious beliefs. We formed a union based on those beliefs (i.e., we were married by a Southern Baptist preacher). We did get a marriage license, and we did go register it with the county clerk, according to the law at that time, more because it is expected of us by those around us than because of anything else. Legally, we didn’t have to register with the State, and only because of current law does the State recognize the marriage. The marriage agreement was between my wife and me in accordance with our beliefs. Our marriage is recognized by the State and by other public entities, like our employers, our church, our doctors, etc. They are under no obligation to recognize the marriage other than their own policies and practices.

Throughout the history of this country, marriage has generally been defined as the union of one man and one woman. For this reason, marriages between men and women are recognized by all kinds of entities, both public and private. What proponents of same sex marriage want is to obligate those same entities to recognize “marriages” between persons of the same sex. The issue isn’t about allowing homosexuals to “marry.” They can already do that. This is about forcing local governments, private companies, and public institutions to recognize these marriages when, in reality, these entities were never forced to recognize heterosexual marriage.

The Bible is one of the oldest written documents in the history of the human species. I happen to believe that it is a gift from God and that it is His Word to us. Millions of other people believe the same thing. According to the Bible, acts of homosexuality are sins (Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27). Thanks to the relentless public relations campaign of those who tout this same sex marriage agenda, those of us who hold this belief are increasingly viewed as intolerant or hateful. This judge’s ruling, that we all have to recognize “marriages” of people of the same sex, will almost criminalize a belief in the Bible.

For example, the State of Massachusetts is one of the few that now recognizes same sex marriage. They also have a plethora of “anti-discrimination” laws on the books. The Catholic Church had been running an adoption service in the State, and, to comply with these anti-discrimination laws, Massachusetts ordered them to place adoptive children in homes with parents of the same sex. This, of course, goes against the beliefs of the Catholic Church on homosexuality, but, since these “marriages” were now recognized by the State, they were forced to treat them the same as heterosexual couples. Rather than fight a long and costly court battle, the Church decided to cease adoptions in Massachusetts (http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=42906).

The main reason for this post is not simply to argue about how wrong same sex marriage is but to demonstrate the need for care in making those arguments. We cannot contradict what we have said on behalf of our unborn children.