Abortion & Adoption

Born With A Purpose

2010-09-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

-By Charles Lin

Each human life is unique, distinct, and irreplaceable. Even identical twins have their own distinctive characteristics, personalities, and emotions. Mankind has been specifically created in God’s image, and has inherent value. Therefore, all who are willing to follow God—regardless of color, level of education, cultural background, or socio-economic status, have the opportunity to live memorable, honorable lives.

I. God chose the weak
“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

1.Steve Jobs- Founder of Apple Computer. His young, unwed biological mother was still in graduate school when she became pregnant with Steve, and decided to put him up for adoption.

Because his adoptive parents had only graduated from high school, Steve’s biological mother made them promise to put him through college. Steve did not end up graduating from college. He dropped out after attending Reed College for six months because he could not bear to see his working-class parents’ entire savings spent on his expensive college tuition. Yet, he went on to achieve great things. Without his biological mother’s decision to give birth to Steve and his adoptive parents’ love and care, there would be no Apple computer, iPhone, or iPod in our world today.

2. Nick Vujicic-No arms, no legs, no worries. Nick Vujicic was born in Australia, his father a pastor, and mother a nurse. During the pregnancy, ultrasounds showed no abnormal development of fetal limbs; but in 1982, Nick was born without limbs, only a very short left leg with two small toes. Now 25 years old, Nick can surf, play golf, swim, and complete a marathon. He finished his schooling with a double Bachelor’s degree, and has gone on to become a world-renowned author and speaker. He has also founded “Life without limbs,” an international non-profit evangelical organization.

Growing up, Nick had to overcome many struggles. His life was not without doubt, discouragement, and prayers for a miracle to occur. But he learned to type with his two toes, write, dress, comb his hair, and open doors with his mouth. His optimism and confident personality surprised those around him, and furthermore—inspired many who had been dissatisfied with themselves. Though he may have been useless in the eyes of the world, he became a source of encouragement and inspiration. Many young people, disappointed with their lives, have been brought to tears and renewed hope, simply by seeing the brilliance of his life.

3. James Robison- Founder of Life Outreach International Ministries. At age 41, his mother was raped, and became pregnant with James. Initially, she sought abortion, but was refused by the doctor. A pastor and his wife took James in, and raised him until he was five years old. He then went back to his biological mother and lived with her in poor conditions for ten years. At age ten, he met his biological father, an alcoholic. He remained in this volatile environment until the age of 14, when he returned to his adoptive parents, and accepted Christ. (www.Lifetoday.org)

James and his wife Betty now have 11 grandchildren, and their television program Life Today, broadcasted in North America, Australia, and Europe, has reached more than 100 million households—transforming lives, restoring marriages and families, and encouraging people to put their faith in Jesus Christ for eternal life.

Through the lives of Steve Jobs, Nick Vujicic, and James Robison, we can see that God has indeed chosen “the offensive, lowly, weak, and foolish,” to show the glory, honor, and value of human life.

II. God is sovereign over life
“This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb, ‘I am the LORD, who has made all things.” (Isaiah 44:24)

“…Everything under heaven belongs to me.” (Job 41:11)
God makes it very clear that He alone created all things, and is sovereign over every living thing. He was the one that created mankind from the dust, that caused Mary to conceive Christ, and the one that gives children to parents as their inheritance. Once a life is formed, the ownership of that new life belongs to God. All human life is equally precious and valuable to Him, and He has destined a purpose for each person.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5)

III. The baby in the womb is a living being, with a body, soul, and spirit
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. ” (Psalms 139:13-16 )

Each one of us begins life as a simple fertilized egg, which divides, becomes an embryo, and develops organs and a heart beat that, once started, continues to beat for the rest of one’s life. This tiny fertilized egg becomes a living body, with a God-given spirit and soul. What a great mystery this is! We are truly God’s fearful and wonderful creation.

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ..... As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” (Luke 1:41-44)
In this scripture, John the Baptist shows the emotion of joy at the presence of the Messiah, while in his mother’s womb. He was only 6-months old at the time! The angel that appeared to Zechariah described John the Baptist, “For he will be great and distinguished in the sight of the Lord. And he must drink no wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit even in and from his mother’s womb.” (Luke 1:15 )
If a baby in the womb can experience emotions and be filled with Holy Spirit, then he must be a person, complete with body, soul, and spirit, not merely a lump of lifeless tissue.

It is interesting to note that Chinese people start counting a baby’s age before they are even born. While most westerners count a child one year old only after he has reached his first birthday, Chinese people would say a newborn is already a year old. In addition, according to Chinese tradition, the mother-to-be is advised to start “educating” the baby during pregnancy by listening to classical music, reading good books, and keeping herself in a peaceful state of mind. These traditions show an underlying principle that the journey of life begins, not at birth, but in the womb.

IV. The statistics of Abortion
According to the statistics of Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) and WHO:

● More than 46 million abortions performed annually worldwide. Out of these 46 million abortions, about 13 million took place in China.

● In USA, over 1.2 million pregnancies are terminated by abortion every year. Among them, 1/5 of the abortions are performed by born-again Christians.

Today, abortion remains legal in United States and many countries around the world. Through Proverbs 24:11-12, we can see how God views this matter. “Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don’t stand back and let them die. Don’t try to avoid responsibility by saying you didn’t know about it. For God knows all hearts and he sees you. He keeps watch over your souls, and he knows you know. And he will judge all people according to what they have done.” (NLT) The millions of aborted babies are those that scripture refers to as sentenced to death without a cause. When an abortion is performed, it is essentially the “shedding of innocent blood.” When innocent blood is shed, it actually cries out to God from the ground. In addition, the Lord says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.”( Genesis 9:6)

As the people of God, we should tremble at God’s words, and seriously think about the consequences of abortion for ourselves and for future generations. We may think that it has very little to do with us, or that there’s nothing we can do, but God asks us to stretch out our hands and actually rescue them.

V. Do justly and love mercy
God wants us to act justly, protect, and rescue those who die from injustice and cannot defend themselves from destruction. The truth about the nobility and dignity of life must be preached in the church. Let us, who did not understand the value of life and made the mistake of having abortions before, repent and receive God’s forgiveness. Let churches arise to intercede for the ending of abortion and for the changing of related government legislation.

ERS’ next project is to show how a mother, when faced with the dilemma of “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” trusted in God’s guidance and made the decision to preserve life. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those who are perishing.”( Proverb 31: 8). The baby in the womb belongs to God, and is precious in His eyes—whether or not they are conceived within the marriage covenant. Many pressures and other different factors go into one’s decision to choose abortion. Yet we must understand that ending even a partially formed life is destroying a life that had no chance to even defend itself.

ERS plans to produce our next film as a drama adapted from true stories. It will tell of the mother’s struggle in deciding whether or not to choose abortion, and how God’s grace and faithfulness came through when she turned to God and trusted Him with her decision. We are earnestly seeking church partnership in our media production ministry. Our estimated budget for the next film will be $210,000. We believe God’s financial provision and resources are mainly stored at His churches – the body of Christ. We sincerely invite churches and our brothers and sisters to partner with us to answer His call.

Massive “Abortion Changes You” Campaign Greets New York Subway Riders

2010-03-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

By Peter J. Smith from LifeSiteNews.com
The subway campaign is the second time the Abortion Changes You outreach has run ads in the city dubbed by New York Magazine “the Abortion Capital of the United States.”

The posters – there are ten different designs – feature men and women of various ages who have been affected by abortion.

One poster features a close-up of a young woman with a young man in the foreground. The poster says, “We made the decision together, but I never felt so alone.” Another poster features an older man and says, “My wife gets depressed around the anniversary of our daughter’s abortion.” Yet another features a downcast woman and the caption, “My child would have been six this year.”

The caption “Abortion changes you” then follows, and the poster directs readers to the website AbortionChangesYou.com.

A welcome box greets visitors to the site saying, “Abortion can produce troubling emotions. You are not alone. Many are seeking to make sense of their own or their loved one’s abortion experience. This website is a safe place to begin.”

The site offers several resources for individuals struggling with the effects of an abortion.

At the top of the site sits a locator in which individuals can enter their zip code and find local and national resources for professional counseling. A section called “healing pathways” has tools for daily journal entries, identifying potential networks of support, ways for individuals to work out their emotions “in a safe environment,” identifying harmful behaviors, and even submitting stories, artwork, and poetry as part of the healing process. The site allows an individual to save their work to their desktop, and gives them the option of publishing it anonymously.

The “Explore” section of the site invites viewers to read nearly 100 anonymous stories from post-abortive mothers, fathers, family-members, and friends.

One post-abortive young woman shared her story on the site after encountering an Abortion Changes You poster.

She wrote: “I was on a train today here in New York City, and as I sat listening to my iPod, I looked up and saw this advertisement. The ad had a guy on it and over his head was written, ‘I wonder if there was more I could have done for her?’ Below was written, Abortion Changes You. As I read these three words I began to cry.”

“At the time I felt it was my only choice. Even now, I feel I couldn't have given him the amazing life he deserved. But, the thought that he just deserved a life period haunts me everyday … A part of me died in that sterile room the day he was terminated. This part of me will always ache for him, and wish he were here. But, I want to stop hating myself for what I did. How do I do that? Do I even deserve to?”

Fredenburg says she developed the idea for AbortionChangesYou.com after struggling with post-abortive grief for years after her abortion at the age of 18. Healing only came for her, she says, when she finally sought and received counseling. Working through those emotions finally helped bring her a sense of peace.

“I thought the abortion would erase the pregnancy. I thought I could move on with my life. I was wrong,” Fredenburg explains on the website.

For Fredenburg, all the “many heartrending stories about abortion” she has listened to over the years – each of them completely unique – shared one common thread: “abortion changes you.”

A Memorial to the Unborn

2010-03-11T12:03:00.000-08:00

By Stephanie Lin

The memorial begins with an invitation to the viewer—to “step into another’s shoes.” The pair of baby shoes is made up of tiny black and white paper units. The units are small, intricate, delicate—representing the fragility of life and the reality of our humanity. They fit tightly together to form each shoe. By themselves, they are seemingly insignificant, but each unit plays an essential part in the piece. Yet, the form cannot stand without its protective wire frame.

The memorial is a statement of the value of life. More specifically, it is a memorial to the unborn—babies whose lives were ended in the womb. It honors the individuals that never made it into the world, the dreams never birthed, the potential musicians, writers, inventors, artists never realized. Since 1975, 50 million babies have been aborted. That is more than the population of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, New Orleans, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington D.C. combined. It is a tragedy that we have forgotten the value of the individual. The memorial serves as a reminder: Life is a gift to be cherished and protected.

“Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.”
(Prov. 31:8-9)

A controversial pro-life TV commerical at 2010 Super Bowl

2010-02-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

2010 Super Bowl brodcast a Pro-Life ad sponser by Focus on the Family.

This advertisement stars the mother of Tin Tebow, thge Flordia Gators team's quarterback star. Tim Tebow's parents were missionareis in the Philippines, and when pregnant with him, the doctors recommended abortion. However, the parents chose to keep him, and if they had not insisted on it, there would be one less football star!

This warm advertisement has brought a lot of protest:

The President for the National Organization for Women, Terry O'Neill said: "When you recall that Focus on the Family wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade ... this revelation is extremly, extremly disturbing."

Planned Parenthood has also filmed an "anti advertisement", the content in order to "respect the decision of everyone in the world" as the topic.

There could be no Apple computer, if Steve Jobs was not adopted

2010-02-23T11:49:00.000-08:00

"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"
Transcript of Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech to Stanford University:

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well- worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much.

Our next proposed project

2010-02-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

Before our last production "Quick Fix" came to a close, God highlighted us the topic of "Abortion and Adoption" would be our next video project.

God called ERS with His Words through this scripture:

"Open your mouth for the speechless,
In the cause of all who are appointed to die.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
And plead the cause of the poor and needy." (Proverbs 31:8, NKJ)

Those aborted babies are the ones described in the scripture: " who are appointed to die". God knows every unborn even unformed babies in their mothers' wombs,

" For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be." (Psalm 139:13-16)

No matter the circumstances surrounding a person's life or conception, God is able to change it for the better and reveal the beauty and uniqueness of each human life . We hope to carry a simple yet profound message, one making all the difference: that the "unwanted' are deeply loved by God; and shed light to the many possibilities available for adoption.

Taiwan Abortions Rise as Nation Faces Severe Underpopulation Problems

2010-02-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

June 5, 2006
by Steven Ertelt , LifeNews.com Editor

Taipei, Taiwan (LifeNews.com) -- Unlike its communist neighbor China, Taiwan faces a severe problem of underpopulation. Abortions are on the rise there, the nation recently experienced its lowest birth rate ever and the country faces the economic and social problems that will accompany a likely zero population growth in 15 years.

The Taiwan Ministry of Interior yesterday warned that the Asian nation could face a zero population growth by 2021. In 2005, Taiwan's population only increased by 0.91 percent -- the lowest birth rate ever recorded there.

Already, 10 percent of the nation's population is over 65 and with fewer Taiwanese babies born to enter the workplace and support them, the country could face problems supporting its elderly residents.

Wu Yu-chen, who represents a civic group for older residents, told the Taiwan News that a country is considered "aging" if just 7 percent of its population is over 65. Taiwan has had a higher percentage since 1993.

The government agency also reported that from January to April of this year, only 65,400 babies were born.

According to a Taiwan News report, even foreign-born mothers are having fewer children. That's a concern because they normally make up for the fewer children that native Taiwanese women have. Births to foreign women are down 10 percent compared to previous years.

The underpopuolation problem is exacerbated by legalized abortion.

The Taiwan Department of Health released new statistics showing almost 20 percent of women between 20 and 44 years of age have had abortions and the number of abortions is on the rise.

Those women who are deciding to have babies are doing so later in life as the average age of first-time mothers in Taiwan has increased to 28.8.

The Taiwan News reports that women are having babies later in life because of financial concerns.

Council of Economic Planning and Development Chairman Hu Sheng-cheng says the government should encourage the birth of more babies.