Using the Scripture text Micah 6:8, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you — But to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”, Ricardo exhorted the 40 Days crowd to humbly prepare for vigil duty; have a merciful and empathetic attitude; and trust that God will apply perfect justice on behalf of the 50 million unborn American babies.

Keynote Speaker -- Ricardo Davis of Georgia Right to Life

The 40 Days For Life Fall 2011 Campaign in Lawrenceville will run from September 28 to October 6, 2011. The 40 Days For Life campaign in Lawrenceville plans to fill the vigil calendar for 12 hours per day — for 40 straight days. There are still many vigil time slots that need to be filled. Please visit the website at http://www.40daysforlife.com/lawrenceville/ or contact Mary Hayes at 770.853.1756 to sign up.

For more information, email Gwinnett Right to Life at GwinnettRighttoLife@gmail.com or telephone 770-339-6880.

Fact No. 1: Murdering an innocent person is outlawed by the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Exodus 20:13

Fact No. 2: The unborn or preborn baby is a person.

Conclusion: Aborting an innocent unborn baby is wrong.

We know that every preborn baby is a person, because:

• They are living and growing. Abortion kills the unborn. Only something living can be killed.
• The unborn is a separate individual being from his or her mother, with a separate genetic fingerprint; brain and central nervous system; blood type; and may even be a different gender.

Unless their life is terminated by an induced abortion, they will mature from a tiny person, to a small person in the course of the first nine months of life. If it is not a living, growing person from the moment of conception, — why does its existence require killing in order to stop it?

1. What words would you use to define the Pro-Life Activist and the Pro-Life Campaign in the twenty-first century?  Do any of the following words come to mind?

Local, National and International
Coordinated and Effective
Politically Savvy
Our Apologetic is Logical, Ethical and Scientific
Trusting God to Protect Us and Lead Us

2. Were you standing vigil or marching in the streets on these dates in the past year?

Life Chain 2010 – Sunday, October 3
Fall 40 Days For Life 2010 – September 22 to October 31
Together For Life 2011 — January 21 in Atlanta
Spring 40 Days For Life 2011 – March 9 to April 17

3. Where Do You Plan to Be On These Dates in The Coming Year? Please answer, “Standing vigil or marching in the streets!”

Life Chain 2011 – Sunday, October 2
Fall 40 Days For Life 2011 – September 28 to October 6
Together For Life 2012 — January 23 in Atlanta
Spring 40 Days For Life 2012 – February 22 to April 1

Our next opportunity to participate in local pro-life activism is at the Fall 40 Days For Life Campaigns that are taking place from Wednesday, September 28, 2011 to Sunday, October 6, 2011 at almost 300 locations across the globe. Visit the 40 Days For Life website, to find a location near you.

If you are not familiar with 40 Days For Life, it is an international event which began nationally here in the U.S. in 2007. Pro-Life activists gather at their local abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood locations across the country and around the world to conduct peaceful prayer vigils. 40 Days For Life Campaigns also include prayer and fasting, and community outreach to private residences, churches and nursing homes.

Participating in the 40 Days For Life prayer vigil at your local abortion facility or Planned Parenthood location is an unparalleled opportunity to do two things:

It is both an opportunity to witness to a watching world that a staggering number of infant deaths by abortion occur every day in our nation, and then a time to bring this before God in prayer. It matters to the God of the universe who created every single human life in the womb, that 35 millions infants have been murdered by abortion in the US. Four thousand babies are aborted daily.  We are witnessing a staggering human tragedy – let’s not stand by in discouragement. Get involved with 40 Days For Life this fall and pray to end abortion.

If you are a north Georgia resident, please visit Gwinnett Right To Life at the 2011 Gwinnett County Fair from September 15 to September 25. We are seeking “Modern Pro-Life Activists” to come assist us at the Fair by handing out literature and engaging people in conversation as we ask them their thoughts about the following question, “Do you believe that abortion should be legal during all nine months of pregnancy?” You would be surprised at the varied answers we have received to this question at colleges across north Georgia this past year!

For more information about attending the Fair, visit the Gwinnett County Fair Home Page. If you would like to volunteer in the Gwinnett Right To Life booth, please call 770.339.6880.

Visit the Gwinnett Right To Life Booth at the Gwinnett County Fair

Thursday September 15, 6:30 PM — Baby Miss Gwinnett Pageant (0–18 Months)

Repeating daily from 7:00 & 9:00 PM is the “Paul Bunyan Lumber Jack Show”

Friday Sep 16 , 5:00 PM — Chi-Influence Show

Saturday Sep 17 , 11:30 AM — Southeast Empire Lamb Show  and at 8:00 PM, the Miss Gwinnett Pageant

Monday Sep 19, at 7:30 PM will be the The Bellamy Brothers in Concert

Gwinnett Right To Life is a county chapter of Georgia Right To Life, serving Pro-Life citizens working to end abortion, euthanasia, and infanticide in Gwinnett County. If you desire to support our work, please consider becoming a member by visiting our website Home Page and selecting Donate.

The Gwinnett County Fairgrounds are located at 2405 Sugarloaf Parkway in Lawrenceville, Georgia. For more information, call 770.339.6880.

Fair Exhibit Hall and Carnival Hours are:

Weekday Exhibit Hall and Carnival Hours

Exhibit Hall – 4:00 PM til 10:00 PM

Carnival – 4:00 PM til 11:00 PM

Saturday Exhibit Hall and Carnival Hours

Exhibit Hall – 11:00 AM til 11:00 PM

Carnival – 11:00 AM til Midnight

The Gwinnett Right To Life Federal Family Planning page highlights this recent federal legislation announced August 1, 2011, by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The legislation will force insurance plans to cover (without co-payment or deductible) all FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices, as preventative care.

Religious institutions offering health insurance may choose to opt out of offering birth control, but representatives of the religious community object to the extent of the legislation. The archbishop of Galveston-Houston and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo issued the following statement:

“HHS says the intent of its ‘preventive services’ mandate is to help ‘stop health problems before they start,’” he said. “But pregnancy is not a disease, and children are not a ‘health problem’ – they are the next generation of Americans.”

Jeanne Monahan, Director of the conservative Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, commented: “The new rule will force many Americans to violate their consciences or refrain from participating in health care insurance, further burdening an already costly system,” she said.

A New York Times Op-Ed article by Vanessa Cullins, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Vanessa Cullins applauds the federal government for its full coverage of costs for birth control, and other services. Her comments include:

“Today’s system of co-payments and deductibles for birth control compromises the health of families, wastes money and sends a terrible message to women like my daughter: when it comes to planning your family, you’re on your own. It’s time to change that.”

Is it not significant that Vanessa Cullins’ employer stands to profit significantly from this new legislation?

For the full article, visit the Federal Family Planning Page.

The 40 Days for Life Campaign has three primary components including 1) prayer and fasting; 2) a constant prayer vigil at Planned Parenthood — Lawrenceville; and 3) community outreach.

The prayer vigil will be conducted from 7am to 8pm on seven days a week for 40 days. Volunteers are urged to sign up for time periods to come and be part of the vigil at Planned Parenthood, Lawrenceville.

Community outreach focuses on enlisting prayer support for the unborn, and educating residents about the evil of abortion, and alternatives to abortion. For more information, visit the 40 Days For Life Website.

Since 40 Days For Life began nationally in 2007, over 400,000 pro-life activists, and 13,000 churches have come together to fast and pray for an end to abortion. The campaigns have helped to educate the pro-life public about the following facts:

• Thousands of babies are dying each day in our country behind closed doors that we frequently drive past without thinking about what is really happening inside.
• There are practical and effective things they can do to save lives and minister to birth parents, and post-abortive parents.
• God expects us to act on behalf of the innocent unborn.

Come join us at 40 Days For Life in Lawrenceville from September 28 to November 6, 2011!

Your local chapter of Georgia Right To Life needs your participation and support. We are planning Fall events including a booth at the September Gwinnett County Fair, the Fall 40 Days For Life Campaign and Vigil at the Lawrenceville Planned Parenthood office, and the Fall Making Abortion Unthinkable Class scheduled to begin in October.

The goal of the Gwinnett County Chapter of Georgia Right To Life is to restore respect and effective legal protection for all human life from earliest biological beginning to natural death. We hope to accomplish this in our County by being a vital and active “grassroots” organization that works to:

• Educate Gwinnett County residents on all sanctity of life issues;
• Promote the sanctity of life for the unborn, medically fragile and elderly;
• Mobilize and equip residents to take a stand against abortion, euthanasia, infanticide and embryonic stem cell research;
• Advance and support pro-life legislation;
• Promote membership in Gwinnett Right To Life 

The Gwinnett County Chapter is in a formative stage. We have many spots to fill to become an effective Chapter. There are jobs that will require a significant commitment of time and many that do not require a significant time commitment. The following is a list of opportunities for service, organized into three sections:

• Event promotion and support
• Committee Chairperson positions
• General support roles and tasks

We would like your valuable contribution of time and energy to be directly spent accomplishing the Chapter goals, and protecting the sanctity of life for the unborn, medically fragile and elderly. Please contact us at GwinnettRightToLife@Gmail.com to let us know if there is either a position of responsibility you would like to assume or a support role (or task) that you would enjoy taking on. 

One of the easiest and most helpful things you can do immediately is to become a member of Gwinnett Right To Life. The annual fee is just $20.

Thank you!

Elizabeth Greenewald, Chapter President of Gwinnett Right To Life

For more information please contact us at:  GwinnettRightToLife@gmail.com

Defending the Pro-Life position “on the street” – face-to-face with women who have had abortions, or are considering an abortion, is very challenging. Gwinnett Right To Life regularly conucts pro-life training classes in Lawrenceville, Georgia, using “Making Abortion Unthinkable: The Art of Pro-Life Persuasion” by Gregory Koukl and Scott Klusendorf. The material presented in “Making Abortion Unthinkable: The Art of Pro-Life Persuasion” concisely and logically equips individuals to HELP those who are making decisions about whether or not to have an abortion; or individuals trying to come to a better understanding of their sanctity of life views.

As Christians, we are called to love each pregnant mother, and every unborn baby. It is not a matter of winning an argument; it is a matter of prayerfully equipping ourselves to lovingly and persuasively convince people of the truth that an unborn baby is a “distinct, living, and whole human being…” and deserving of life. If you live in the Atlanta, Georgia area, and are interested in attending pro-life training classes, please call 770.880.3405.

Instead of the contemporary political approach of seeking legal limits and regulation of abortion, Daniel Becker proposes a strategy for prolife activism that is based on an uncompromising biblical principle, known as “Personhood”.

Personhood is defined as:

“… the recognition by our culture and our government that each individual human life has an `unalienable’ right to life from its earliest biological beginning. This right to life extends to natural death, regardless of one’s disability, gender, race, dependency or manner of conception. The `unalienable’ right to life comes from God by virtue of the fact, that we have been created in His image and are thus imbued with a unique worth and dignity not found in the rest of creation.” (24)

Daniel Becker asserts that Personhood is defined by God (not governments) and is based on divine law, which declares that God is the creator, sustainer and ultimate determiner of when life begins and ends. Divine law is contrasted with natural law, which “… draws its authority on a presumed absolute demanded by Reason and supposedly shared by all humans, not on a moral absolute whose authority is God the Creator.” (37)

The book presents a history of Personhood from the first century onward, noting legal and theological literary sources. Becker powerfully explains what happens when government usurps the right to define who is to be considered a person and who is not. Of the many historic examples of slavery, suffrage and eugenics, Becker particularly notes the following: the 1858 Virginia Supreme Court ruling that a slave was not considered a person, but property; 1935 Nazi Germany`s legislation that Jews were subjects, not citizens; and the 2008 Cornell University declaration that crossing human genes and fluorescent Australian jellyfish genes (and then killing the resulting embryo) was acceptable because the test-tube embryo (child) is not considered a “person” under the US Constitution.

Chapter 5, `Personhood: Future of the Prolife Movement’ is of tactical significance in the prolife battle, as the author draws our attention to the importance of challenging the 21st century biotechnical advances that threaten the dignity and sanctity of human life. In addition to addressing the ongoing life issues related to embryonic stem cell research and in vitro fertilization, Becker calls upon prolife activists to adjust their strategy and message to embrace a larger field of issues including emerging technologies such as cloning, ectogenesis and human-animal hybrids.

Early in the book, Becker notes the following sobering facts:

“It has been nearly forty years since abortion was legalized in the United States through all nine months of pregnancy… for any and all reasons. Over 53 million children have died, and their parents have been scarred by either regret or callousness. Two generations of young people have grown to adulthood during those years, never knowing a time when law protected the preborn and criminalized a doctor for aiding a mother in taking the life of her own child.”

In Chapter 8, `Personhood: The Battle is the Lord’s', the author raises the question of whether a nation can be held accountable for its national sins, specifically, for allowing and promoting abortion. In a comprehensive and thoughtful line of reasoning, Becker quotes Scripture and several of the founding fathers as he answers this question in the affirmative.

Personhood outlines the history of Georgia Right to Life’s personhood-based prolife strategy and summarizes the many successes Georgia Right to Life has experienced since adopting stricter political candidate endorsement criteria, no longer allowing rape and incest exceptions. Chapter 7 provides instruction on how other states can follow suit.

I highly recommend this book to individuals who are seeking a better understanding of their personal prolife and sanctity of life beliefs; and to those who are in search of a more effective and principled state and national right-to-life organizational strategy. To quote the author, “Imagine what the prolife movement could do if it spoke with a unified voice, using Personhood as our primary message and divine law as our roadmap?” (124)

Category 1: The political perspective. An image of pro-lifers protesting at abortion clinics, a picture of an abortion doctor killed by an individual espousing pro-life views, or a picture of politicians arguing at legislative hearings.

Category 2: The abstract concept. Many people have no “image” at all when thinking of abortion. It is an abstract concept representing a confusing, complex subject that few people willingly contemplate.

I would like to suggest that for all of us (whether pro-life or pro-abortion) when the word abortion is used, we should picture a bloody image of a baby that has been aborted. The reality of abortion is very unpleasant, most of us prefer to avoid seeing pictures of it, and would never attend the actual surgical procedure — but, let us all at least be HONEST about it. It is not a political perspective or an abstract concept — it is the violent death of an innocent child, often involving the severing of limbs and crushing of the baby’s skull.

Pro-abortion author Naomi Wolf expressed it well, when she urged pro-abortionists to be honest about the reality of abortion, “The pro-choice movement often treats with contempt the pro-lifers’ practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics….[But] how can we charge that it is vile and repulsive for pro-lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if the images are real?  To insist that the truth is in poor taste is the very height of hypocrisy.” (1)

Gregg Cunningham of The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform says, “Abortion represents an evil so inexpressible that words fail us when attempting to describe its horror.  Until abortion is seen, it will never be understood.” And, “If something is so horrifying we can’t stand to look at it, perhaps we shouldn’t be tolerating it.” (2)

1. Naomi Wolf, “our Bodies, Our Souls,” New Republic, 16 October 1996

2. Gregg Cunningham (Center for Bioethical Reform, http://www.cbrinfo.org/)