TOPIC: 12 Year Old Christian Girl Repeatedly Raped by Muslims

Article from christiansunite.com

A 12-year-old Christian girl, Shaheena Masih, was kidnapped and raped by four Muslim men on Easter Day in the city of Lahore, Punjab province, Pakistan, according to an April 23 report from the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance.
Shaheena stayed home from an Easter prayer service at a local church, Kings Revival Church, in order to take care of her ailing father. At approximately 10: 00 a.m., her father asked her to go out and get him some juice. On her way to a shop, she was kidnapped by four armed men who placed a handkerchief on her mouth until she was unconscious and flung her into a car. The men took her to a factory and locked her in a room, where she was repeatedly raped by the four men over the span of two days.
During one of the attacks, one of the perpetuators reportedly said to the others, "Don't hesitate to rape a Christian girl. Even if she will die, no one will get us. Her poor parents cannot pursue us." They eventually left Shaheena at a brothel run by a Muslim lady, who later dropped her off on a street near her home.
One of the attackers, Mohammed Safdar, was caught by police after they raided the factory. Under interrogation, he implicated the others. Only after pressure did the police register a case against the attackers. They [the police] are now being pressured to drop the charges and Shaheena's family has been threatened if the case proceeds. [Another confirmed Muslim rapist is named Mohammad Naseer.]
You can read more details of Shaheena's story (and lack of action by the police) on BosNewsLife and the Christian Persecution Blog.

Ask God to give Shaheena healing from the emotional and physical scars of the assault.
Pray that authorities will prosecute the offenders to the full extent of the law.
Pray for Shaheena and her family as they will struggle with the ability
to exhibit God's love to their persecutors.
For more information on persecution in Pakistan, click here.

The Sope-Bocks: I would personally like to get my hands on these four scumbags. The police wouldn't need to worry about an arrest or a trial, I can assure you. Raping a 12 year old girl is rotten enough. Raping her because she is a Christian is just beyond vindictive and cruel. Disgusting pigs... I spit on them -- and want to stomp their devilish brains out!
You should know that Shaheena's life in Pakistan will ALWAYS be difficult as the culture will consider her tainted -- even though she had nothing to do with her demise. Please pray for Shaheena and her family -- and that the police will get off their scared little carcasses and do the right thing.

TOPIC: CWA: 'Hate Crimes' -- Unequal Protection Under the Law
Article from christiansunite.com / Concerned Women of America
"Hate crimes" bill H.R. 1592, which is on the fast track to passage in Congress, will officially give homosexuals and cross dressers special elevated status in society based upon their chosen sexual behaviors and/or wardrobe. Under H.R. 1592, the victims at Virginia Tech would officially be considered less valuable to society than homosexuals and cross dressers who are the targets of insults, intimidation, simple assault or other "violent acts."
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees "equal protection under the law" for all citizens -- regardless of their sexual preference. "Hate crimes" legislation flies in the face of the 14th Amendment. Such legislation would require the government to invest more resources in the investigation and prosecution of crimes against homosexuals than it would the victims at Virginia Tech.

It is an irrefutable fact that H.R. 1592 would treat certain citizens unequally from others. Concerned Women for America (CWA) asks Congress to grant equal government resources, concern and respect to the victims at Virginia Tech and their families as they do to the demands of liberal homosexual activists by reaffirming the precepts of the 14th Amendment and voting NO on this dangerous and discriminatory piece of legislation.

"If Seung-Hui Cho's horrific actions were not an act of 'hate,' then what where they?" asked Matt Barber, Policy Director for Cultural Issues with CWA. "All violent crimes are 'hate crimes.' By H.R. 1592's definition, Cho's actions would have constituted a 'hate crime' except for the fact that he targeted his victims with the wrong kind of bias. In this case, Cho 'perceived' his victims to be 'rich kids.' However, under H.R. 1592, 'rich kids' are not a specially protected class like homosexuals, so Cho's crime is second tier and would be considered less egregious.
"The FBI's latest statistics show that there were zero 'hate crimes' murders committed against homosexuals or those perceived to be homosexual in 2005; yet we already know of thirty-two so-called 'hate crimes' murders committed against perceived 'rich kids' in a single day. But under H.R. 1592, those 'rich kids' would be denied the same protections and justice as homosexuals. The whole 'hate crimes' concept really places logic and reason on its head," concluded Barber.

Concerned Women for America is the nation's largest public policy women's organization.

OnThisDay: April 27th
1773 - British Parliament passed the Tea Act (eventually lead to Boston Tea Party on December 16)
1838 - Fire destroyed half of Charleston, SC
1937 - US Social Security system made its first benefit payment
1942 - Belgium Jews were forced to wear stars
1961 - NFL officially recognized Hall of Fame in Canton, OH
1965 - R.C. Duncan patented "Pampers" disposable diaper
1989 - Beijing students took over Tiananmen Square in China
1994 - President Richard Nixon buried in Nixon Library in California

TOPIC: Election 2008 - Fair & Balanced Coverage?

Don't hold your breath! The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC), along with their socialist cousins (MSNBC and CNN) will be banging the drums loud and hard for liberal candidates. What ever happened to the days of Walter Cronkite -- the days when the news was reported without editorializing, without the evening anchor controlling 100% of the content and without bias that smells as bad as Michael Moore's armpits?
BTW, if you're a very left-leaning person, the cartoon above shows a caricature of Mr. Moore leaning to the left. You may not be able to see that as the drawing may look like Moore is "straight up". LOL!

Addendum: 5.10.07: U.S. Launches Probe of Moore's Trip to Cuba

TOPIC: Stop Glamorizing Guns and Their Use in Popular Culture
Article from christiansunite.com
Morality in Media President Robert Peters had the following comments in response to the many news stories pointing a finger at the availability of guns as the underlying cause of the Virginia Tech and similar senseless shootings:

• "Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in North Central Illinois I often felt left out when friends went hunting for rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, deer and more.

• "My dad never took us hunting, even though his father had hunted and even though we had a rifle in the home that he taught us how to use when I was in grade school. After my grandfather passed away when I was in college, we also had a shotgun and handgun in the home.

• "Fist fighting among kids was common, but never once did any of us (or our parents) use a gun to shoot someone else. To my knowledge, the community I grew up in was not atypical.

• "Not surprising, my own growing up experience makes me wary of those that point a finger at the availability of guns as the underlying cause of the dramatic increase in gun-related murders.

• "The depiction of guns back then in films and TV also had an impact on us. I still have a picture of my older brother and I with our cowboy six guns and holsters; and I still have fond memories of playing war in the woods with our toy rifles and my favorite gun, a plastic carbine.
  

• "But I think I am on safe ground in saying that we didn't grow up fantasizing about shooting other human beings in real life just for the sake of shooting them or for exacting revenge.
  

• "How then do we explain why so many young people today use guns unlawfully?
  

• "One obvious part of the explanation is the decline of religion and, along with that, the decline of morality. There is nothing more basic to morality than, 'You shall not kill.'
  

• "I think another part of the explanation was the abandonment in the 1960s of the Hays Code that governed the film industry for three decades. Among the Code provisions was one that regulated the depiction of murder. Murder was to be presented in a way that would not inspire imitation. Brutal killings were not to be presented in detail. Revenge was not to be justified.
  

• "Broadcast television helped further desensitize youth to criminal violence; and the advent of cable TV and home videos brought the unedited, amoral deadly violence of Hollywood directly into home. Hardcore rap lyrics also extol criminal violence, including use of guns.
  

• "And today, video games provide youth with on-hands instruction in how to kill.
  

• "Without question, the increased availability of weapons designed to take human life has contributed to the increase in mayhem, but typically supply follows demand, and what has helped create the demand for such weapons is a popular culture that glamorizes their use.
  

• "All this is not to say that society shouldn't restrict the sale of guns and perhaps prohibit the sale of some guns altogether. Even assuming that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of citizens to keep weapons (as I believe it does), reasonable regulation should still be permissible.
  

• "It is to say that we would have much less to fear from the availability of guns, if we would stop glamorizing their use in popular culture. On the latter point, I recall seeing a statistic that less than 5% of New York City police officers ever fire their guns. You'd never know that from popular culture depictions of life as a major city law enforcement officer."

Based in New York City, Morality in Media works to promote standards of decency in media.

TOPIC: OUCH! My toes are sore...

I was all smiles, laughing at Jeff Larson's TheBackPew comics -- until I saw this one. Frankly, I sometimes find myself spending more time on "projects" than on the work at hand. Ephesians 6: 6-7 (and this cartoon) remind me that we should all work as though we were employed by the Lord -- not just for our supervisors (while they're watching). We need to show good faith effort at all times. THANKS for the reminder Mr. Larson -- and Mr. Paul (the writer of the letter to the Ephesian church).

Article by christiansunite.com

Care Net, an organization that supports more than 1,000 pregnancy centers in North America, applauded the landmark Supreme Court decision Wednesday upholding the federal partial- birth abortion ban. Specifically, Care Net noted the Court's statements regarding the potential for an abortion to negatively impact a woman's emotional health.
Care Net President Kurt Entsminger said, "Abortion does hurt women. Our pregnancy centers see the effects every day in the faces of clients who have had a past abortion. We agree with the Court:

... when a woman experiences a partial-birth abortion, when she learns of the details of how her partially-born child was barbarically killed, she could be faced with grief 'more anguished and sorrow more profound' than ever dreamed of in her worst nightmares. For the sake of the dignity of human life, for the sake of the emotional sanity of women facing unplanned pregnancies, this procedure has no home in a civilized society."

Sadly, whether abortion harms women is currently being challenged in the media. The New York Times Magazine and CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" have both questioned whether the emotional devastation that some women experience after an abortion is real or may require professional counseling attention. However, in its decision, the Supreme Court stated that it can be concluded that "some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained...Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow." The Court also stated that the more a woman knows about the humanity of her unborn child who was aborted, the greater the agony: "It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form."
"That's why our centers provide medically-accurate information about abortion procedures," Entsminger said. "When pregnancy center clients are fully informed about their choices and about abortion procedures, nine out of ten will decide to carry their pregnancy to term."

QOTD: None but the Lord himself can afford us any help from the awful workings of unbelief, doubtings, carnal fears, murmurings. Thank God one day we will be done forever with "unbelief." -- Andrew W. Pink

TOPIC: What's in the News Today?
I decided to offer Sope-Bocks readers a smathering (a Southern word) of websites that offer news and information on a daily basis. Here are just a few for your consideration -- featuring April 19, 2007:

• Democracy NOW! (Democratic news biased towards liberals)
• News Busters ("Exposing and combating liberal media bias")
• Trader Mike (Stock Market recap for each day)
• Business Report (A no-nonsense look at international markets & business news)
• DailyTechRag (Daily news from the world of technology)
• Security Incite (Daily security news from the IT arena)
• The JoyStiq (Mostly news for gamers)
• 10 Favorite Gizmodo Posts (From the readers/writers at Gizmodo - "a gadgets weblog")
• dcist (On the lighter side... a blog featuring a "Photo of the Day")
• SearchCap (Information on the top searches of the day)

TOPIC: YOU Do the Math...

I love this TheBackPew cartoon. If I am willing (and recognize my own limitations) BUT give it all over to God, His will and power offers me unlimited possibilities. And that's just during this earthly life. Imagine the possibilities for our eternal lives. AWESOME! Think about it.

Also... drum roll please...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRINCESS!
Our younger daughter is 10 years old today.

TOPIC: Mass Murders at Virginia Tech ... the Blood is on Our Hands
Editorial by Greg Stier of Dare2Share
What do you get when you add easy access to weapons and a culture that increasingly devalues life and glorifies violence from video games to slasher films? A growing, almost exclusively American, problem. The mass murders by a lone gunman at Virginia Tech are the latest in a string of school shootings that are proof of this. As this week marks the eighth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School we couldn’t find a worse way to remember that tragedy than through an even worse one. Our hearts break for the friends and families of the victims of this senselessness [act].
Eight years ago this week, I was sitting in a youth room with six youth pastors promoting Dare 2 Share Ministries, an organisation committed to training and equipping Christian teenagers to know, live, share and own their faith in Jesus. At 11:30 or so the pastor of the church we were at popped in and said, “You guys had better pray. Something bad is going down at Columbine.”
Over the hours and days to follow, all of us discovered the extent of these slayings at the hands of two disillusioned teenagers. Columbine is twenty minutes down the road from Dare 2 Share and I couldn’t help but feel that some of the blood of the victims was on my hands. While I didn’t pull the trigger I hadn’t done all I could do to prevent school shootings. Have you?
I had that same sinking feeling today at 10:45am Mountain Standard Time as I saw on msn.com that another school shooting of even greater magnitude had unfolded at Virginia Tech. To be honest, I feel like the blood is on my hands once again. Do you? I think we all do.
And, just how degrading and violent do video games and movies need to get before moms and dads put their feet down with their own kids and “just say no” to their teenagers?
Movies and video games are getting bloodier and bloodier. And we just hide under the banter that “kids will be kids”. But, ultimately, it is not just a media thing or a gun thing, but a God thing.
America has forsaken her roots as a Christian nation and is embracing a cultural of secularism that devalues life. Without God we only have “survival of the fittest”. In pre-historic days it was those with the biggest claws and jaws that won the day. Today it is those with the biggest guns.
If there is no God then why not pull the trigger, on everyone else and then yourself? If there is no God then there is no heaven and no hope, just the hell and hopelessness of everyday living in a pain-stained world. But if there is a God then people matter, for they were made in His image. If there is a God then there is hope, there is a reason to value life.
Let’s share the good news of Jesus with a culture that has forgotten or forsaken the true value of life. And let’s pray for the family and friends of the victims of another senseless tragedy. Because if we don’t, the blood is on our hands.

TOPIC: Virginia Tech Massacre
Nothing was posted about the awful massacre of 32 people + the suicide of the gunman on The Sope-Bocks today because I was busy posting news updates on one of my other blogs, Previews, Newz and Reviews. Most of the content there is related to news updates from major media outlets -- along with a few editorial comments.
I'll post sentiments, on a more personal basis, on The Sope-Bocks tomorrow or Wednesday. In the meantime, keep up with the latest updates on my News Blog. Keep the victims' families and friends in your prayers!

TOPIC: Prom, Prom, Shake Your Pom, Pom
Source: FOXNews.com
Photos: Higgins High School Student Life website
Dozens of girls were turned away from a prom at Higgins High School because a teacher thought their dresses were too revealing. Families of the girls said the teacher cited alleged violations of the Jefferson Parish schools dress code, most of them related to excessive display of cleavage.
"I was embarrassed," said Miranda Melerine, 17, a senior at the Marrero high school, who was among those barred by teacher Judy Gardner, an adviser to senior activities. "We can't go back to prom night. Prom's over. Our prom has been stolen from us." Melerine said she is larger-busted than many of the girls who passed inspection at the door. She said it is harder for her to get the right fit in a prom dress and that Gardner gave her blessing to a picture of the dress long before the dance.
Earlis Fayette, 18, said his girlfriend also was sent away by Gardner at the door. "I find it's wrong, because you can't help what the girl has. You're born with that," he said. "I think it was discrimination toward a woman who has features."
Gardner refused to talk with parents who rushed to the dance hall Friday night after frantic calls from daughters. She also declined comment Saturday to The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, saying she is not allowed to talk to the press. The Associated Press could not locate her Sunday. But Jefferson Parish schools spokesman Jeff Nowakowski said Gardner did nothing wrong and that the ones in error were girls who showed up with dresses that didn't comply with a district code that says: "A student will not wear clothing that exposes the student's back, chest or midriff."
The policy, which also strictly restricts any use of fishnet or see-through clothing, has been in effect for years and is included in a handbook that parents sign, Nowakowski said. He said that students who didn't gain admittance Friday night were given a chance to leave and alter their dresses to bring them into compliance, and that some did that. Twenty to 25 girls "didn't meet the code and so they were turned away because they didn't want to fix the dress in order to come inside," Nowakowski said. "It should have covered the breast, and that's not what happened last night."

The Sope-Bocks: I applaud Ms. Gardner and Mr. Nowakowski for sticking by the rules. My wife is a high school teacher. Each year, the staff at her school has to turn away young girls who are showing way too much skin from underneath skimpy dresses. The fact is that the students know their attire is not within the dress code for the school. Their parents know it, too. Each and every student is given a school rule book -- and the parents sign that they have read that rulebook. Yet, the girls continue to try and break the rules in order to show as much "booty" as possible.
Let's face it -- in many high schools across the nation, the prom is little more than a dress-up musical prelude to drunken sex free-for-alls over the weekend. My question is -- WHERE were the fathers of these young ladies? WHY didn't they look at their daughters and put their foot down BEFORE she ever left the house? HOW could a mother send her daughter to a darkly-lit place where hormonal boys and girls would be gyrating their loins against each other -- dressed like high-dollar call girls (or as JayZ and Imus would call them, ho's)?!?
Ms. Gardner and Mr. Nowakowski would be faced with ridicule and outrage had they allowed the girls to enter -- and one of them ended up being gang-raped by horny boys. Instead, they did the right thing. They stuck by the rules and offered the girls a way to "fix" the problem -- specifically cover their breasts. Those that didn't and are now complaining have only themselves (and their parents) to blame.
BTW, it's not like the girls weren't given some leeway. Check out the included photos, straight from the Higgins High School website. I see several examples of young ladies showing too much skin -- from the Halloween party and Winter Formal.

TOPIC: Micro-lending to the Third World
If you haven't heard of micro-lending, you're in for a treat. A firm named KIVA is working with small business lenders in "third world" countries -- offering loans to entrepeneurs who need a hand in expanding their businesses.
I heard about KIVA and the micro-lending industry while listening to WorldVision Report earlier today. The segment focuses on a woman in Uganda and one of the people who loaned her money from the US. The woman has a peanut butter business from which she supports herself and six children (some are orphaned from the country's wars). I urge you to spend a few minutes listening to the podcast -- and then join KIVA.org.
At right is a photo of the individual I am supporting with my first small no-interest loan through KIVA. His name is Arzuman Huseynov and he owns a grocery store in the Fizuli district of Azerbaijan. His loan request is for $800.00 -- to expand the size of his store. It's an awesome cause and I look forward to hearing how Mr. Huseynov's business grows!

Click on the graphic below to join KIVA and offer your support!

OnThisDay: April 14th
1775 - First abolitionist society in US organizes in Philadelphia, PA.
1814 - Napoleon abdicated & was banished to Elba
1818 - US Medical Corp formed
1853 - Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape
1859 - Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" published
1860 - First Pony Express rider arrived in San Francisco, CA. from St. Joseph, MO.
1865 - President Abraham Lincoln shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth
1894 - First public showing of Thomas Edison's kinetoscope (moving pictures)
1906 - The Azusa Street Revival -- modern Pentecostal movement -- officially began.
1910 - President William Howard Taft began tradition of throwing out baseball on opening day
1940 - RCA demonstrated its new electron microscope in Philadelphia
1944 - First Jews transported from Athens arrive at Auschwitz
1945 - My mother was born in North Carolina HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!
1978 - Korean Air Lines Boeing 707, fired on by Soviets; crashed in Russia
1981 - First Space Shuttle - Columbia 1 - returned to Earth
1989 - 1,100,000,000th Chinese citizen born

DEVOTION: What Saul Saw
By Tony Beckett and Woodrow Kroll
Key Verse: 1 Samuel 28:6-7
A person can get a bit tongue-tied trying to tell what happened in 1 Samuel 28.

Saul saw a seer because of what he had seen. When Saul saw what he saw, he sought a seer to see what the seer would say about what he saw.

That may seem like a ridiculous set of sentences when you are reading the Bible and having devotions, but they make a point. What Saul did was ridiculous, a mistake we should not make either.
The bottom line is that Saul was living by sight, not by faith. "When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart" (28:5). His first response was to pray, but God did not answer. His next response shows that he was not seeking God as much as he was looking for help, no matter where it came from. "Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her," he said (v. 7). It wasn't the first time that Saul's impatience got him into trouble. In 1 Samuel 13:11-12, he was rebuked by Samuel. His defense was, "When I saw . . . I thought." Living by sight was a pattern with Saul. Living by faith was not. Yet living by faith is blessed by God. Living by sight is not.
How do you live? When God does not seem to answer quick enough for you, it is tempting to decide on the basis of what you see. Don't do it. Don't be like Saul, who let what he saw decide what he would do. Going to God should not be your last resort but your first. Seek Him and stay away from those whose advice is not from His Word.

Nothing is too great and nothing is too small
to commit into the hands of the Lord. -- Arthur W. Pink

TOPIC: Some Thoughts We Should Keep to Ourselves...

... Buying Ultra Slim Fast for your wife is one of them. I'm glad Jeff Larson (creator of TheBackPew) added the "ish" to the Bible reference for Matthew 7:11. I'm quite sure Matthew didn't mean anything close to this when he wrote about the "good gifts" we imperfect humans give to each other.

Source: TheBackPew.com

TOPIC: Federal Appeals Court Decision Dismisses ACLU Lawsuit Challenging Boy Scouts

Source: christiansunite.com

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), specializing in constitutional law, Tuesday applauded a decision by a federal appeals court dismissing a lawsuit by the ACLU challenging the U.S. Department of Defense's support of the Boy Scouts of America and their national jamboree. The ACLJ filed an amicus brief with the appeals court on behalf of 90 members of Congress asking that the suit be dismissed.
"We're delighted that the federal appeals court reached the proper conclusion in this case," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which filed the brief on behalf of members of Congress.

"This is just another example of the ACLU trying to impose its flawed view of the constitution on the rest of America. The military provides the Boy Scouts with support and services that aid both the military and the Scouts without endorsing religion. This lawsuit should never have been brought in the first place and we're pleased the appeals court dismissed the suit clearing the way for this beneficial relationship between the military and the Boy Scouts to continue."

The ACLJ asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to reverse a lower court decision that declared a 1972 statute passed by Congress enabling the Defense Department to provide support to the Boy Scouts unconstitutional because it violated the separation of church and state. The Defense Department provides support and services every four years when the Scouts hold their Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. In a decision released this week, the appeals court ruled that the ACLU-backed taxpayer plaintiffs who brought the suit did not have legal standing to bring the case and dismissed the lawsuit.
The dispute began in 1999 when the ACLU filed suit claiming that the Defense Department's sponsorship of the Boys Scouts violated the First Amendment because the group requires its members to swear an oath which states, in part, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country." A federal district court said the Jamboree statute was unconstitutional and violated the Establishment Clause because it had a primary effect of advancing religion. The decision was appealed to the 7th Circuit.
The ACLJ represented nearly 90 members of Congress in support of the statute. In its brief, the ACLJ contended that in passing the statute, Congress sought to help the military advance its own goals, not to promote the Boy Scouts religious beliefs. The ACLJ contends the lower court used flawed legal reasoning to reach its conclusion. The brief asserts that the Defense Department's support comes in the form of "non-religious supplies and services." The brief states: "The military's rental of forklifts and trucks, transportation and military equipment, restoration of Fort A.P. Hill after the Jamboree, and provision of other secular services is clearly 'neutral and nonideological.' The only possible message that the military's aid can be viewed as conveying is that patriotism, self-reliance, physical fitness, and support of the military are positive things." You can read the entire ACLJ amicus brief here.

TOPIC: CMA Doctors Tag U.S. Senate Stem Cell Bill as a Path to Turn Human Embryos & Women Into Commodities

Source: christiansunite.com

The Christian Medical Association, the nation's largest faith-based association of physicians, today urged the U.S. Senate to reject the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (S.5), scheduled for debate today, because the bill is scientifically impractical and assaults human dignity. CMA CEO Dr. David Stevens urged senators to vote against the bill, saying,

"By exploiting the relatively few stored human embryos currently considered eligible for research, this bill would result in just a tiny fraction of the stem cell lines from embryos that researchers demand. It's clear that the ultimate utility of the bill is to further erode respect and protections for human embryos and thus pave the way for creating embryos purely for experiments -- including through sperm and egg donation and human cloning."

Creating human embryos and harvesting their stem cells, ostensibly for disease treatments, is a highly speculative, impractical and unethical proposition. Human cloning and egg donation would exploit poor and vulnerable women and subject them to potential harm through the superovulation and egg harvesting process. "So while reducing human embryos to a commodity now, embryonic stem cell research would eventually exploit women as a commodity as well. Besides the moral wrongs of killing embryos and exploiting women, this bill would also divert precious healthcare funds away from ethical and effective research using stem cells found in the patient's own body, and also in cord blood, amniotic fluid and placenta. Such non-embryonic stem cell research does not harm a human embryo and is already producing real therapies for real patients in over 70 different diseases and injuries."
CMA Senior Vice President Gene Rudd noted, "Instead of killing through research the few stored embryos whose parents do not intend to implant them, we should instead promote adoption by childless couples. Agencies such as the National Embryo Donation Center stand ready to help couples accomplish this life-honoring dream."Dr. Rudd said, "Instead of paving the way for human cloning with this bill, the Senate should instead pass a real ban on human cloning, such as the bipartisan Human Cloning Prohibition Act (S.1036) introduced by Senators Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.)."

TOPIC: Killing for Cures? The Embryonic Stem Cell Debate
Source: christiansunite.com
According to a recent article written by Steven Ertelt of Lifenews.com, the US Senate will debate Embryonic Stem Cell Research funding April 10. The Senate has "scheduled a debate and vote on a bill that would force taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research." The article continued by saying, "The main bill, S. 5, is legislation that would mandate federal funding of embryonic stem cell research that requires the destruction of days-old unborn children for their stem cells."
Phil Magnan, Director of Biblical Family Advocates greatly disagrees with the funding of ESCR, embryonic stem cell research in saying,

"It makes absolutely no sense that the Senate would seek to fund research that is unproven, extremely costly and kills children who should be saved from dismemberment. Why should our tax dollars be used to kill others to find cures that are already found in adult stem cells and cord blood stem cells?
There are over 70 cures using these ethical use stem cells so why do we waste tax dollars in the billions of dollars to fund something that even the proponents of embryonic stem cell research admit may take even decades find life saving cures?"

Biblical Family Advocates, BFA, strongly encourages Americans to contact their Senators immediately and denounce this outrageous attack on human life and its incredible waste of tax payer dollars. As Mr. Magnan has stated in California State Senate hearing in September of 2004, regarding the funding of ESCR, that he himself would refuse any medical treatment derived from embryonic stem cells as it would be highly unethical to benefit from killing others. It is the hope of BFA that all Americans would take this principled stand publicly - which could very well stop this horrific pursuit of killing the unborn to heal our selves.
Please reach your senator at 202-224-3121 or you can find specific contact information by going to www.senate.gov as they need to hear from those Americans who do not want killing for cures.