Tom HoeflingThe "pro-life" "Republicans" in the U.S. House, at the behest of the National Right to Life Committee, are slated to take up a bill today that would codify permission for certain professional killers to murder paraplegics, or to kill any person for that matter, if they are first given enough morphine to make sure that they don't feel any pain. Okay, not really. But they are offering legislation that is just as capricious, illogical, unreasonable, unconstitutional, and immoral. They are forwarding the "Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" (H.R. 1797). This legislation recognizes the personhood of the child in the womb, and then specifically allows abortionists to kill them, if the child has not yet reached a certain stage of human development. But the constitutional criteria is not whether or not someone can feel pain. It is whether or not they are a PERSON. "No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law." - the Fifth Amendment
"No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." - the Fourteenth AmendmentI will never support any politician who supports the codification of this sort of lawless law. I have so pledged, as has everyone I most closely associate myself with politically. Every argument in favor of this bill is Utilitarian, not moral or constitutional, by the way. And I am not a godless Utilitarian. I am a Christian. And Utilitarian fixes don't work anyhow. Not only are they wrong, in the long haul they always prove to be an abject defeat, not a victory. Because to buy into them, you have to first surrender all of the moral, constitutional, and legal principles that argue against the heinous practice of killing babies.
 Rep. Tom Shaw of Iowa Radio Iowa By O. Kay Henderson A group of Republican legislators has introduced legislation that would make all abortions illegal in Iowa and any doctor who performs an abortion in Iowa would face murder charges. “What the bill does is it defines what a person is,” says Representative Tom Shaw, a Republican from Laurens who is the bill’s lead sponsor. “We put it right underneath our murder statute. This is in keeping with Roe v Wade where Justice Blackman said that if the state ever defined the fetus to be a person, then, of course, it would have all the protections of the 14th amendment. ...” *excerpt* “We just kind of sat down and thought, ‘We’re making this way too hard. We should be following what the Supreme Court said in their opinion,’” Shaw says. “And so the bill just merely defines who a person is and it defines a person from the moment of conception when the zygote is formed until natural death.” *excerpt* “...we should not determine whether a person’s life is worth living based on their age or their stage of biological development,” Shaw says.
CNS Michael W. Chapman The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in a case on Friday that “unborn children are persons with rights that should be protected by law.” The case involved two women who had been charged under a “chemical endangerment” law because they had ingested illegal drugs—one, cocaine, and the second, methamphetamine—while pregnant. … In its concluding remarks, the Alabama Supreme Court said: “The decision of this Court today is in keeping with the widespread legal recognition that unborn children are persons with rights that should be protected by law. Today, the only major area in which unborn children are denied legal protection is abortion, and that denial is only because of the dictates of Roe.” … Read this story at cnsnews.com ...
1 707.1 Murder defined.
2 1. A person who kills another person with malice
3 aforethought either express or implied commits murder.
4 2. “Person”, when referring to the victim of a murder,
5 means an individual human being, without regard to age of
6 development, from the moment of conception, when a zygote is
7 formed, until natural death.
8 3. Murder includes killing another person through any
9 means that terminates the life of the other person including
10 but not limited to the use of abortion-inducing drugs. For
11 the purposes of this section, “abortion-inducing drug” means a
12 medicine, drug, or any other substance prescribed or dispensed
13 with the intent of terminating the clinically diagnosable
14 pregnancy of a woman, with knowledge that the drug will
15 with reasonable likelihood cause the termination of the
16 pregnancy. “Abortion-inducing drug” includes the off-label
17 use of drugs known to have abortion-inducing properties,
18 which are prescribed specifically with the intent of causing
19 an abortion, but does not include drugs that may be known to
20 cause an abortion, but which are prescribed for other medical
21 indications.
22 4. Murder does not include a fetal death as defined in
23 section 144.1 or the spontaneous termination of pregnancy as
24 defined in section 144.29A.
25 Sec. 9. REPEAL. Sections 232.5, 702.20, 707.7, 707.8,
26 707.8A, 707.9, and 707.10, Code 2013, are repealed.
27 Sec. 10. REPEAL. Chapters 135L and 146, Code 2013, are
28 repealed.
29 Sec. 11. SEVERABILITY. If any provision of this Act or
30 the application of this Act to any person or circumstances is
31 held invalid, the invalidity shall not affect other provisions
32 or applications of the Act which can be given effect without
33 the invalid provisions or application and, to this end, the
34 provisions of this Act are severable.
35 Sec. 12. EFFECTIVE UPON ENACTMENT. This Act, being deemed
-5-
LSB 1246YH
1 of immediate importance, takes effect upon enactment.
2 EXPLANATION
3 This bill defines “person” in the context of the victim of
4 the crime of murder to be an individual human being without
5 regard to age of development, from the moment of conception,
6 when the zygote is formed, until natural death.
7 The bill provides that murder includes killing another
8 person through any means that terminates the life of
9 the other person including but not limited to the use of
10 abortion-inducing drugs, and defines “abortion-inducing drug”.
11 The bill also provides that murder does not include a fetal
12 death as defined in Code section 144.1 or the spontaneous
13 termination of pregnancy as defined in Code section 144.29A.
14 The bill makes conforming changes throughout the Code to
15 eliminate any reference to allowing abortions or terminations
16 of pregnancy in keeping with the definition of “murder” under
17 the bill.
18 The bill amends the termination of pregnancy reporting
19 section (Code section 144.29A) to only include the reporting of
20 spontaneous terminations of pregnancy.
21 The bill amends a Code section relating to unfair employment
22 practices (Code section 216.6) to eliminate references to
23 disabilities caused or contributed to by legal abortion.
24 The bill amends a Code section relating to discrimination
25 relating to health insurance abortion coverage (Code section
26 216.13) to eliminate the reference to abortion coverage.
27 The bill strikes and repeals Code provisions that relate
28 to allowing abortions under certain circumstances. The bill
29 repeals Code section 232.5 (abortion performed on a minor —--
30 waiver of notification proceedings), Code section 702.20 (the
31 definition of “viability”), Code section 707.7 (feticide),
32 Code section 707.8 (nonconsensual termination —— serious
33 injury to a human pregnancy), Code section 707.8A (partial
34 birth abortion), Code section 707.9 (murder of a fetus aborted
35 alive), Code section 707.10 (duty to preserve the life of the
1 fetus), Code chapter 135L (notification requirements regarding
2 pregnant minors), and Code chapter 146 (abortions —— refusal
3 to perform). The bill also makes conforming changes to strike
4 references to Code provisions stricken or repealed in the bill.
5 The bill provides for severability of any provision
6 or application of the bill that is held invalid from the
7 provisions or applications of the bill which can be given
8 effect without the invalid provisions or application. The bill
9 takes effect upon enactment.
 “We must obey God rather than men!”—Acts 5:29
Now that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied Hobby Lobby’s application for an emergency injunction protecting them from Obamacare’s HHS Mandate on abortion and birth control, Hobby Lobby has decided to defy the federal government to remain true to their religious beliefs, at enormous risk and financial cost.
Hobby Lobby is wholly owned and controlled by the Green family, who are evangelical Christians. The Greens are committed to running their business in accordance with their Christian faith, believing that God wants them to conduct their professional business in accordance with the family’s understanding of the Bible. Hobby Lobby’s mission statement includes, “Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company … consistent with Biblical principles.”
The HHS Mandate goes into effect for Hobby Lobby on Jan. 1, 2013. The Greens correctly understand that some of the drugs the HHS Mandate requires them to cover at no cost in their healthcare plans cause abortions.
Today Hobby Lobby announced that they will not comply with this mandate to become complicit in abortion, which the Greens believe ends an innocent human life. Given Hobby Lobby’s size (it has 572 stores employing more than 13,000 people), by violating the HHS Mandate, it will be subject to over $1.3 million in fines per day. That means over $40 million in fines in January alone. If their case takes another ten months to get before the Supreme Court—which would be the earliest it could get there under the normal order of business—the company would incur almost a half-billion dollars in fines. And then of course the Supreme Court would have to write an opinion in what would likely be a split decision with dissenters, which could easily take four or six months and include hundreds of millions of dollars in additional penalties.
This is civil disobedience, consistent with America’s highest traditions when moral issues are at stake. The Greens are a law-abiding family. They have no desire to defy their own government. But as the Founders launched the American Revolution because they believed the British government was violating their rights, the Greens believe that President Barack Obama and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are commanding the Greens to sin against God, and that no government has the lawful authority to do so.
The Christian tradition of defying government commands to do something wrong goes back to the very birth of Christianity. When the apostles were ordered not to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone, the Book of Acts records: “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.’”
Eleven of the twelve apostles—including Peter—would lose their lives for the sake of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ; only the apostle John died of old age. They were determined to obey God’s will at all costs.
This issue of civil disobedience is never to be undertaken lightly. The Bible teaches Christians to submit to all legitimate governmental authority (e.g., Romans 13:1), and so a person can only disobey the government when there is no other way to obey God.
But here in America, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and in its First Amendment it protects against a government establishment of an official religion and separately protects the free exercise of religion. On top of that, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to specifically add an additional layer of protection against government actions that violate a person’s religious beliefs.
The HHS Mandate is a gross violation of the religious beliefs of the Green family. The issue before the courts here is whether the Greens religious-liberty rights include running their secular, for-profit business consistent with their religious beliefs. In other words, is religious liberty just what you do in church on a Sunday morning, or does it include what you do during the week at your job?
The Greens are now putting their fortunes on the line to do what they believe is right. The courts should side with them, affirming a broad scope of religious liberty under the Constitution and RFRA. And the Supreme Court should resolve this matter with dispatch in their favor.
Millions of Christians across the country feel exactly the same way as the Greens. The Obama administration has issued a statist command that is a declaration of war on people of faith who object to abortion, and civil disobedience could break out all over the country unless the courts set this matter right—and quickly.
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