John Piper writes a pro-life article with broad appeal to everyone

Unborn baby scheming about pro-life apologetics

Previously, I have held Pastor John Piper accountable for expressing opposition to same-sex marriage in ways that would only be persuasive to Christians. I didn’t like the way that he would not use arguments outside the Bible to argue against same-sex marriage, so that non-Christians would also be persuaded. I wanted him to have arguments and evidence to offer people who are not conservative evangelical Christians. I also disagreed with him for doing the same thing on the issue of abortion.

Well, something changed. And now I guess it’s time for me to eat crow.

Take a look at his new reasons for opposing abortion:

4. Being small does not disqualify personhood.

The five-foot-eight frame of a teenage son guarantees him no more right to life than the 23-inch frame of his little sister in her mother’s arms. Size is morally irrelevant. One inch, 23 inches, 68 inches — does not matter. It is morally irrelevant in deciding who should be protected. We know what we are doing in killing the smallest.

5. Not having developed reasoning does not disqualify personhood.

A one-month-old infant, nursing at his mother’s breast, does not have reasoning powers. But only a few dare argue that infanticide is therefore acceptable. Most know better. Outside and inside the womb the infant cannot yet reason, but is a human person. We know what we are doing.

6. Being in the womb does not disqualify human personhood.

Location or environment does not determine a right to life. Scott Klusendorf asks, “How does a simple journey of seven inches down the birth canal suddenly transform the essential nature of the fetus from non-person to person?” We know what we are doing.

7. Being dependent on mommy does not disqualify personhood.

We consider persons on respirators or dialysis to be human beings. The unborn cannot be disqualified from human personhood because they are dependent on their mother for food and oxygen. In fact, we operate on the exact opposite principle: The more dependent a little one is on us, the more responsibility we feel to protect him, not the less. We know what we are doing.

(Those last four observations, #4-7, were summed up by Scott Klusendorf under the acronym SLED: Size, Level of development, Environment, Degree of dependence — none is morally relevant for the definition of human life.)

8. The genetic make up of humans is unique.

The genetic make up of a human is different from all other creatures from the moment of conception. The human code is complete and unique from the start. Once that was not known. Now we know.

9. All the organs are present at eight weeks of gestation.

At eight weeks of gestation all the organs are present. The brain is functioning, the heart pumping, the liver making blood cells, the kidney cleaning the fluids, the finger has a print. Yet almost all abortions happen later than this date. We know what we are doing.

10. We have seen the photographs.

The marvel of ultrasound has given a stunning window into the womb that shows the unborn, for example, at 8 weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. Watch this four-minute video of the developing unborn child. We know that they are children.

Now note that he makes those arguments to non-Christians, and he has even more arguments to make to Christians:

For Christians who believe the Bible, we could add at least ten more reasons why we know what is happening in abortion, and why it is wrong. But the aim here is threefold.

1. To make clear that we will not be able to defend ourselves with the claim of ignorance. We knew. All of us.
2. To solidify our conviction to resist this horrific evil.
3. To intensify our prayer and our preaching toward gospel-based soul-renovation in our land, because hardness of heart, not ignorance, is at the root of this carnage.

He’s not changing really, he’s adding more to what he already had said, by targeting a new audience, while still addressing the old one. It’s a both-and. It’s a win-win.

Scott Klusendorf and Life Training Institute

Pastor Piper credits some of his arguments to Scott Klusendorf in his article. Mr. Klusendorf is the top pro-life debater in the world, in my opinion. I recently wrote about an interview that Scott did with Brian Auten of Apologetics 315, too. And I also posted a debate that he did with Nadine Strossen.

You’ll remember that I picked Scott’s “Life Training Institute” as my charity of the year for 2012. I really recommend LTI if you are looking for a charity to support. Scott is the William Wilberforce of our age, and that goes for all pro-lifers who can make the pro-life case to anyone, not just Christians.

If you’re looking for a good pro-life book, check out Scott’s “The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture”.

• The paperback version is here
• The Kindle version is here

And he has a new book out as well, called “Stand for Life: Answering the Call, Making the Case, Saving Lives”:

• The paperback version is here

Filed under: News, Abortion, Bioethics, Christianity, Culture, Ethics, Faith, John Piper, Morality, Pastor, Politics, Pro-Life, Public Policy, Social Issues

Brian Auten interviews pro-life debater Scott Klusendorf

Unborn baby scheming about pro-life apologetics

Scott Klusendorf is the director of the excellent Life Training Institute, and he’s been interviewed by Brian Auten on Apologetics 315.

Details of the interview:

Today’s interview is with Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute. LTI is the first place to look for excellent resources to get better equipped to defend the pro-life position. Scott talks about defining abortion and its terms, the issue of the debate, the legal history of abortion, defending the pro-life view using science and philosophy, the four pillars of the pro-life argument, answering a litany of objections to the pro-life position, the right and wrong use of emotional appeals, taking on the right tone in the debate, how to get better equipped, and more.

Grab the MP3 file here at Apologetics 315.

The article Scott mentions “How to Defend Your Pro-Life Views in 5 Minutes or Less” is worth the read, and it’s a good summary of some of the points he makes in the lecture.

If you like this interview, please be sure and buy the best basic book on pro-life apologetics – Scott Klusendorf’s “The Case for Life“.

And there is actually a full transcript, and here’s an excerpt:

BA: Great stuff. Now I want you to go into these pillars if you will of defending the pro-life position with science and philosophy, and in your web site prolifetraining.com one of the things that you provide is sort of a four point acronym, some would say sled S-L-E-D. Can you lay out what those main pillars are and their relevance to the issue?

SK: Well as I mentioned a moment ago, pro-life advocates argue that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a developing human being, and we defend that claim using science and philosophy. We use science to determine what kind of thing the unborn is, and we use philosophy to show that there’s no relevant deference between the embryos we once were and the adults we are today that would justify killing us at that earlier stage of development. Scientifically, as I mentioned just moments ago embryology text books worldwide indicate that from the very beginning you and I were distinct living whole human beings. You can’t see that I’m doing this right now, Brian, but at the moment I’m picking cells off the back of my hand. These cells, which we call somatic cells, contain my entire DNA and coding. But you don’t thing I just committed mass murder by sending a couple hundred of those puppies hurling to their deaths on the floor in front of me. And the reason is, you know that these cells though they contain my DNA and coding are merely part of a larger human being, me. They are not distinct whole living organisms the way that you were when you were an embryo. The way I was when I was an embryo. In other words, there is a difference in kind between each of our bodily cells and the embryonic human beings we once were. That’s what science teaches us; that’s what the science of embryology lays down for us.Philosophically, we argue using that SLED acronym that you mentioned a moment ago that there’s no difference between that embryo we once were and the adult we are today. The adults we are today that justify killing us at that earlier stage of development and as Steven Schwarz points out, the differences between that embryo and the adult that you are today are one of size, level of development, environment and degree of dependency. Think of the acronym SLED and you will remember those four differences. Size, yeah you were smaller as an embryo, but since when does body size determine the rights that you have. Shaquille O’Neal, the seven foot two basketball star with the Boston Celtics, is a foot taller than I am, but he doesn’t have a greater right to life simply because he’s bigger.

Level development? Sure, we were less developed as embryos but since when is a matter of principal does that mean we can kill you? Two-year-old girls are less developed than twenty-year-old young women. We don’t think though the two year old girl has less to a right to life simply because she can’t function at the level that the twenty year old can. Level of size, I should say level of development. What about environment; where you are located there is the letter “E” in that SLED acronym. You were once in the womb now you’re out but sense when does were you are determine what you are? When you walk from your living room into the studio to do this interview. You changed location but you didn’t stop being you. When I jump on an airplane and fly from Atlanta to London’s Heathrow airport. I get off the plane I’m in a new location, but I’m the same being as I was when I left Atlanta. If that’s true how does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change me from non-human, non-valuable thing that we can kill? To a valuable human being that we can’t kill. And the answer is, if I wasn’t already human and valuable I’m not going to get there by changing my address. And then finally, degree of dependency—yes we depended on our mother for survival but sense when does dependency on another human being mean we can kill you? Conjoined twins depend on each other for survival and unless one of the twins is killing its partner we don’t go ahead and slit the throat of both twins simply because they can’t live independent of each other. Size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency, think “SLED” those are the only four differences between that embryo you once were and the adult you are today. And the pro-lifer would argue that not one of those four differences justifies killing you at that earlier stage.

You can see Scott in a debate about abortion right here.

And if you like that interview, I have some more things for you to read from Dr. Francis Beckwith.

Learn more by reading

Frank Beckwith is the author of “Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice“. He wrote that book for Cambridge University Press, a top academic press. But before Cambridge University Press, Beckwith wrote easy-to-understand essays for the Christian Research Journal.

Here are four essays that answer common arguments in favor of legalized abortion.

• Part I. The Appeal to Pity
• Part II. Arguments from Pity, Tolerance, and Ad Hominem
• Part III. Is The Unborn Human Less Than Human?
• Part IV. When Does a Human Become a Person?

I have a copy of Dr. Beckwith’s previous book “Politically Correct Death”, which I read bit-by-bit on my lunch hours 10 years ago. Excellent stuff.

Filed under: Podcasts, Abortion, Apologetics, Baby, Christian Apologetics, Debate, Debater, Evidence, Feminism, Francis Beckwith, Francis J. Beckwith, Human, Human Being, Human Person, Life, Life Issues, Life Training Institute, Logic, LTI, Person, Personhood, Pregnancy, Pro-Life, Reason, Scott Klusendorf, Social Issues, Unborn, Unborn Child

Economist Walter Williams blames school violence on secularism and moral relativism

Economist Walter Williams

My two favorite economists are Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell. Both are conservative or libertarian. Both of them happen to be black. But neither is especially outspoken about religion. But imagine my surprise when I read this CNS News column on gun violence in schools by Walter Williams, who I always thought was the more libertarian of the two.

Look:

When I attended primary and secondary school — during the 1940s and ’50s — one didn’t hear of the kind of shooting mayhem that’s become routine today. Why? It surely wasn’t because of strict firearm laws. My replica of the 1902 Sears mail-order catalog shows 35 pages of firearm advertisements. People just sent in their money, and a firearm was shipped.

Dr. John Lott, author of “More Guns, Less Crime,” reports that until the 1960s, some New York City public high schools had shooting clubs where students competed in citywide shooting contests for university scholarships. They carried their rifles to school on the subways and, upon arrival, turned them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach and retrieved their rifles after school for target practice. Virginia’s rural areas had a long tradition of high-school students going hunting in the morning before school and sometimes storing their rifles in the trunks of their cars that were parked on school grounds. Often a youngster’s 12th or 14th birthday present was a shiny new .22-caliber rifle, given to him by his father.

Fathers? Children don’t grow up with fathers any more, 42% of the time. And why not? The feminists told us that men are evil, and that marriage is sexist. And the socialists told us that rewarding single motherhood was a good idea, because it makes women who don’t bother to get married before having sex more equal to those who do bother to get married first. But fatherlessness is a huge factor in criminal behavior, as I showed before.

Dr. Williams continues:

What explains today’s behavior versus yesteryear’s? For well over a half-century, the nation’s liberals and progressives — along with the education establishment, pseudo-intellectuals and the courts — have waged war on traditions, customs and moral values. These people taught their vision, that there are no moral absolutes, to our young people. To them, what’s moral or immoral is a matter of convenience, personal opinion or a consensus.

During the ’50s and ’60s, the education establishment launched its agenda to undermine lessons children learned from their parents and the church with fads such as “values clarification.” So-called sex education classes are simply indoctrination that sought to undermine family and church strictures against premarital sex.
Lessons of abstinence were ridiculed and considered passé and replaced with lessons about condoms, birth control pills and abortions. Further undermining of parental authority came with legal and extralegal measures to assist teenage abortions with neither parental knowledge nor consent.

Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society. These behavioral norms — transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings — represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works.

The importance of customs, traditions and moral values as a means of regulating behavior is that people behave themselves even if nobody’s watching. Police and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct so as to produce a civilized society. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. The more uncivilized we become the more laws that are needed to regulate behavior.

Many customs, traditions and moral values have been discarded without an appreciation for the role they played in creating a civilized society, and now we’re paying the price. What’s worse is that instead of a return to what worked, people want to replace what worked with what sounds good, such as zero-tolerance policies in which bringing a water pistol, drawing a picture of a pistol, or pointing a finger and shouting “bang-bang” produces a school suspension or arrest.

See, now that’s a smart libertarian. Smart libertarians understand that liberty depends on people being aware of the design of the universe, and the objective moral obligations imposed by that design. If we don’t promote institutions and people that help us to explore the design of the universe, then we are going to have to rely on big government to regulate us instead of regulating ourselves. What we’ve done instead is make impossible to speak about the reality of God and the reality of objective morality in schools, or in any other public place, for that matter. Hearing about God and morality is just too offensive to people who want to put their own selfishness above the moral law.

Similarly, libertarians should not be pushing for promiscuity, abortion and same-sex marriage, either. Intact families are necessary for raising the next generation of citizens to be well-adjusted, law-abiding and productive. Marriages are more stable when the participants are chaste and/or abstinent for a period of time early in the relationship. And children do better when raised by a mother and a father, and less well in other arrangements. Either we feel an obligation to control our own desires and make a plan for marriage success, so that we can provide children with a stable nurturing environment, or the government will have to control the anti-social behavior of fatherless children.

Thomas Sowell has posted a more traditional argument against gun control, in the extremist left-wing UK Guardian, of all places.

Filed under: Commentary, Community, Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Fiscal Issues, Gun Control, Gun Violence, Guns, Libertarian, Libertarianism, Liberty, Marriage, Moral Relativism, Morality, Objective Morality, Religion, School, School Shootings, Shooting, Social Issues, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams

Life News: The top 10 reasons for pro-lifers to vote for Mitt Romney

From Life News.

Here’s the list:

1. Roe v. Wade
2. Supreme Court
3. Obamacare
4. Obama’s HHS-Abortion Mandate
5. Vice President
6. Planned Parenthood
7. Mexico City Policy
8. Pro-Life Bills
9. UNFPA, Forced Abortion
10. Abstinence, Stem Cell Research, International Abortion Promotion, Etc

Here’s the one that was on my mind today (Monday):

7. Mexico City Policy: The Mexico City Policy is a less-well-known method of revoking taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. During his first week in
office, Obama overturned the policy and sent tens of millions in tax money to the International Planned Parenthood organization to promote and perform abortions in other nations. One of the life-saving actions Mitt Romney will take immediately if he becomes president is to reinstate what is called the Mexico City Policy.

And related to that:

9. UNFPA, Forced Abortion: In 2009, the Obama administration sent a $50 million check to the United Nations Population Fund. That’s the pro-abortion group that has been accused of supporting and working in concert with Chinese family planning officials pushing women into forced abortions. That will change if Romney is elected. Romney has said he would undo that funding, saying, “I will reinstate the Mexico City Policy to ensure that nongovernmental organizations that receive
funding from America refrain from performing or promoting abortion services, as a method of family planning, in other countries. This includes ending American
funding for any United Nations or other foreign assistance program that promotes or performs abortions on women around the world.”

If Romney is elected president, this one will be done on day one. He will do it.

Obama’s full record on abortion is compiled up at Life News. You can read it, but be prepared to scroll through pages and pages of evil. He is a pro-abortion, pro-infanticide, pro-sex-selection-abortion radical.

Filed under: News, Abortion, Barack Obama, Conscience, Election, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Pro-Abortion, Pro-Life, Social Issues, War on Women, Women, Women's Issues

Paul Ryan’s views on foreign policy and social issues

Rep. Paul Ryan

We all know that Paul Ryan is conservative on fiscal issues. He’s the man with a plan to stop overspending and solve the debt problem. But where does he stand on other issues?

Here’s an article from the liberal Washington Post about Ryan’s foreign policy views.

Excerpt:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave a speech Thursday to the Alexander Hamilton Society in Washington. If one is looking for clues as to Ryan’s interests beyond chairing the House Budget Committee, a speech, as he put it, to “a room full of national security experts about American foreign policy” would merit attention.

…Ryan delivered an above-the-fray talk on the subject of American uniqueness (a less loaded term) and the myth that American decline in inevitable. He posited, “Our fiscal policy and our foreign policy are on a collision course; and if we fail to put our budget on a sustainable path, then we are choosing decline as a world power.”

Ryan contends that the debt crisis is not a bookkeeping problem or even simply a domestic problem; it is about maintaining our status as a superpower and about American values.

[...]He plainly is not with the cut-and-run set on Afghanistan. “Although the war has been long and the human costs high, failure would be a blow to American prestige and would reinvigorate al-Qaeda, which is reeling from the death of its leader. Now is the time to lock in the success that is within reach.” Nor can he be accused of wanting to “go it alone.” “The Obama administration has taken our allies for granted and accepted too willingly the decline of their capacity for international action. Our alliances were vital to our victory in the Cold War, and they need to be revitalized to see us through the 21st century.”

As for China, he bats down the idea that we should go along to get along… He’s clear that China has “very different values and interests from our own.”

And finally on defense spending, he rejects the sort of penny-pinching isolationism of Jon Huntsman or Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.).

According to On The Issues, he’s solid on military spending:

• Rated 22% by SANE, indicating a pro-military voting record
• YES on $266 billion Defense Appropriations bill
• YES on deploying SDI
• YES on emergency $78B for war in Iraq & Afghanistan
• YES on continuing military recruitment on college campuses
• YES on restricting no-bid defense contracts

He’s solid on counter-terrorism:

• NO on Veto override: Congressional oversight of CIA interrogations
• NO on requiring FISA warrants for wiretaps in US, but not abroad
• YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent
• YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight
• YES on allowing electronic surveillance without a warrant
• YES on removing need for FISA warrant for wiretapping abroad
• YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms’ warrantless surveillance

And supports military intervention against Islamic terrorists:

• Strengthen sanctions on Syria & assist democratic transition
• Sanctions on Iran to end nuclear program
• YES on authorizing military force in Iraq
• YES on declaring Iraq part of War on Terror with no exit date
• NO on redeploying US troops out of Iraq starting in 90 days
• NO on investigating Bush impeachment for lying about Iraq

I agree with him on all of that. But how is he on social issues?

Excerpt:

Ryan, the top Republican on the Budget Committee who has a strongly pro-life record, talked about the place social issues have in the election in an interview with CNBC last week.

“We will agree to disagree on those issues,” Ryan said last Monday on CNBC. “But let’s rally around the tallest pole in our tent

Ryan also released a statement today that LifeNews.com received saying pro-life issues are not on a list of menu items that have to be given up during the election season.

“Healthy debate should take place within the Republican Party on specific policies, but it is a false choice to ask which natural right we should discard

“All planks – economic liberty and limited government; keeping our nation secure; championing America’s founding truths and the dignity of every human person – are rooted in same timeless principles, enshrined in our Founding and the cause of our exceptionalism,” Ryan added. “The American family must remain at the core of our free society, and I will remain ever-vigilant in its defense.”

Conor Sweeney, a top Ryan spokesman, told LifeNews.com today that Ryan doesn’t agree with the “truce” on social issues Barbour and Daniels have advocated.

“Paul Ryan rejects the false choice that our natural rights to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ are a menu of options,” he said, adding that Ryan has been “calling upon his colleagues to defend the sanctity of life.”

He also pointed to comments Ryan made in a Weekly Standard interview rejecting the “truce” language and putting him outside the Daniels-Barbour circle.

“I don’t see it quite the same way [as Daniels],” Ryan said in June, “we don’t need to ask anybody to unilaterally disarm.”

“I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” Ryan continued. “You’re not going to have a truce. Judges are going to come up. Issues come up, they’re unavoidable, and I’m never going to not vote pro-life.”

Here’s his voting record on pro-life issues:

• Rated 0% by NARAL, indicating a pro-life voting record
• Rated 100% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-life stance
• Prohibit transporting minors across state lines for abortion
• Bar funding for abortion under federal Obamacare plans
• Congress shall protect life beginning with fertilization
• Prohibit federal funding to groups like Planned Parenthood
• Grant the pre-born equal protection under 14th Amendment
• YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion
• YES on banning partial-birth abortions
• YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad
• YES on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes
• YES on funding for health providers who don’t provide abortion info
• YES on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life
• YES on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime
• YES on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions
• NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research
• NO on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines

And he is also a strong defender of traditional marriage:

• Rated 0% by the HRC, indicating an anti-gay-rights stance
• YES on banning gay adoptions in DC.
• YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage
• YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman
• YES on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation
• NO on enforcing against anti-gay hate crimes

Tough on crime:

• Rated 30% by CURE, indicating anti-rehabilitation crime votes
• YES on more prosecution and sentencing for juvenile crime
• NO on funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons.
• NO on expanding services for offendors’ re-entry into society

Favors school choice:

• Rated 8% by the NEA, indicating anti-public education votes
• NO on environmental education grants for outdoor experiences
• NO on $40B for green public schools

And an increased role for families and churches:

• YES on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations
• YES on treating religious organizations equally for tax breaks
• NO on instituting National Service as a new social invention

So definitely not just a fiscal conservative. He’s conservative across the board. And STRONGLY so.

Female readers of the Wintery Knight blog may now swoon.

Filed under: News, Afghanistan, Church, Civil Society, Counter-terrorism, Crime, Faith-Based, Family, Favor, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Law and Order, Military, Military Issues, National Security, Oppose, Paul Ryan, Peace, Pro-Family, Pro-Life, School Schoice, Security, Social Issues, Tough on Crime, Traditional Marriage, Voucher, War