January has been declared National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. It’s timely that the seriousness of this issue is being recognized, as it is not only a global crisis but a growing problem here at home.

Thankfully, the mainstream media are picking up on the crisis of human trafficking in the U.S., which FRC highlighted in two events last year. In a gripping new report, Fox News states that “with increasing technology and the Internet, human trafficking has become more accessible and more anonymous.” Even the normally business-focused Forbes Magazine is informing its readers about “How To End Sex Trafficking and Human Slavery.”

As Fox reporter Elizabeth Prann notes, “Experts say, across the globe, millions of people are trafficked each year. Hundreds of thousands of the victims are women and girls. But what surprises many — is the rate it is happening in affluent neighborhoods where minors are being turned into sex slaves.”

According to Rob McKenna, Attorney General of Washington State and current president of the National Association of Attorneys General, “Human trafficking is a $32 billion global industry, the fastest growing and second largest criminal activity in the world, tied with arms and after drug dealing … I urge all Americans to educate themselves about all forms of modern slavery and the signs and consequences of human trafficking. Together, we will combat this crime within our borders and join with our partners around the world to end it.”

The problem is grave and the harm it inflicts so painful it is difficult to describe. However, there is good news – the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability lists 31 Evangelical ministries that seek to help girls and women enmeshed in the sex trade, and Catholic Charities has launched a major project to restore the victims of this horrible practice to well-being. You can link to both sites by visiting FRC’s RealCompassion.org web site.

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At FRC we have been incredibly inspired by the outpouring of enthusiastic and creative submissions to our “I’m Pro-Life Because” campaign. There have been a number of truly remarkable and miraculous stories shared with us over the last few weeks.

We received one such story and image this past weekend. Sweet, energetic, bright three-year-old, Olivia Ohden, is holding a picture of her sonogram and is a vision of love and joy. The image is accompanied by the words “I’m Pro-life because my mom, Melissa Ohden, is an abortion survivor.”

In 1977 Olivia’s grandmother, Melissa Ohden’s mother, had a saline infusion abortion in a hospital in Iowa.  After her mother delivered the baby, Melissa was believed to be dead. But miraculously, a nurse saw signs of life and this little baby who should have died at six months of gestation survived and thrived…

Listen to Melissa’s story

If you have not yet submitted your story, please consider doing so! Here’s how:

*1.* Pose in a picture with your ultrasound (or first newborn photo) or have your children pose with their first photo.

*2.* Let us know in 140 characters or less why you are Pro-Life!

*3.* Chose two words to describe each individual pictured (examples: Musician, Son or Painter, Mother). And include your age of your infant picture, or the week of the pregnancy in your ultrasound.

*4.* Submit your words and photos (one photo per person, please) via email to: photos@frc.org

Over the next few weeks, we will showcase these powerful images to show the uniqueness and value of every human life.

Be creative in telling your story in a single image! Gather your children to take a group picture with their own ultrasounds or newborn photos, or take fun pictures of them playing happily with their ultrasound photos nearby. Take your own photo with your ultrasound or infant picture while at work or doing a favorite activity or hobby.

Take the pictures in settings that portray what you love, and what your life means. Some of the more poignant photos will be featured in FRC publications and advertisements.

Entries, selected by FRC’s staff, will be featured on the FRC website and our other publications, including Facebook. By submitting photos and/or your story to FRC you are granting FRC a free license and permission to publish, republish, and distribute all or portions of your photos and story, including your words and image, in any format it may choose, including in print, on the Internet, or in any other digital form.

Thanks for standing for life!

Click here to view our “I’m Pro-Life Because…” gallery.

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As part of FRC’s Sanctity of Life month activities, we are collecting images for the “I’m Pro-Life Campaign”. Having only announced the initiative on December 23rd, we have been delighted by the overwhelming response during what is normally a slow time of year. We’ve already been flooded with unique images and stories. One very moving image and story is that of the Olivia Grace Somerville. Her Grandfather John Sommerville writes “Olivia was born nine weeks early weighing 3 lbs 2 oz with severe club feet. Her left foot was turned 180 degrees from normal. After one surgery and a short time in corrective shoes, Olivia is an active five year old with no signs of her original condition.” The image submitted was taken on Olivia’s 5th birthday, holding her baby-picture from when was a new born in the Neo-Natal unit.

“We are pro-life because we believe all human life has worth. I remember how my wife and I and our son and daughter in law reacted when we heard the results of the ultra sound. We felt sympathy and then love and compassion for our unborn granddaughter knowing that God had a reason for her deformity. It never even crossed our minds to terminate the pregnancy, abortion isn’t in our vocabulary. We know now, without a doubt, we made the right decision. Olivia stayed in Intensive care for almost two months and today, there is no sign of any of the problems she faced when she was born. God is indeed wonderful and He does have a plan for each of us!”

Listen to John tell his family’s story of love and life

Please join us in FRC’s “I’m Pro-life Because…” campaign. Here’s how:

1. Pose in a picture with your ultrasound (or first newborn photo) or have your children pose with their first photo.

2. Let us know in 140 characters or less why you are Pro-Life!

3. Chose two words to describe each individual pictured (examples: Musician, Son or Painter, Mother). And include your age of your infant picture, or the week of the pregnancy in your ultrasound.

4. Submit your words and photos (one photo per person, please) via email to: photos@frc.org

Over the next few weeks, we will showcase these powerful images to show the uniqueness and value of every human life.

Be creative in telling your story in a single image! Gather your children to take a group picture with their own ultrasounds or newborn photos, or take fun pictures of them playing happily with their ultrasound photos nearby. Take your own photo with your ultrasound or infant picture while at work or doing a favorite activity or hobby. Take the pictures in settings that portray what you love, and what your life means. Some of the more poignant photos will be featured in FRC publications and advertisements.

Entries, selected by FRC’s staff, will be featured on the FRC website and our other publications, including Facebook. By submitting photos and/or your story to FRC you are granting FRC a free license and permission to publish, republish, and distribute all or portions of your photos and story, including your words and image, in any format it may choose, including in print, on the Internet, or in any other digital form. Thanks for standing for life!

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As we officially begin the 2012 Sanctity of Life Month this January, the Associated Press is reporting an amazing adoption story, “Mom reunites with daughter 77 years later.”

In 1928, as a young and innocent teenager, Minka Disbrow lived in South Dakota and worked on a dairy farm. One day while enjoying a picnic, Minka and a friend were jumped by three men and raped. Innocent to the degree that she didn’t comprehend how babies were created, months later the 17-year-old Minka was confused and surprised to find her body changing and growing. Her parents soon found an adoption agency.

“I loved that baby so much. I wanted what was best,” Disbrow said. “She never met [the adoptive parents] or knew their names. But over the years, Disbrow wrote dozens of letters to the adoption agency to find out how her daughter was faring. The agency replied faithfully with updates until there was a change in management, and they eventually lost touch. Disbrow’s life went on … Every year, she thought about Betty Jane on her May 22 birthday.”

Years later she would find herself frequently wondering about her daughter. “For most of her 100 years, Minka Disbrow tried to find out what became of the precious baby girl she gave up for adoption after being raped as a teen. She hoped, but never imagined, she’d see her Betty Jane again.” In 2006, Minka Disbrow and her daughter, Ruth Lee had a very joyful reunion seventy-seven years after their separation. Minka learned that she had six grandchildren, including a veteran astronaut, Mark Lee.

In a similar story, Ryan Bomberger, of the Radiance Foundation was conceived in an act rape. Like Minka, Ryan’s mother chose to carry her child to term. Ryan now dedicates his life to promoting and protecting the dignity of every person. For a recent lecture by Ryan on the hope and joy of adoption click here.

All can agree that rape is a horrific act of violence that no one should ever undergo. But abortion after a rape robs an innocent victim of a very beautiful life.

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On November 25, 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its annual report with the most recent data and statistics on abortion in the United States, Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2008. 

The CDC has reported on abortion-related data annually since 1969. Generally these reports are very helpful and informative in terms of tracking and understanding larger trends and actual numbers related to abortion in the United States. The 2008 report is dense with information ranging from the ethnic background and age of the mother to the age of the baby when aborted, as well as the kind of abortion that took place. However, because states are not required to provide abortion data to the CDC, while the surveillance report offers important information and numbers about abortion in the U.S., it does not provide a complete and thorough depiction of abortion data in the U.S. By way of background, until 1998, every state annually reported abortion-related data to the CDC. But beginning in 1998, combinations of states began to refuse to submit abortion-related information to the CDC. Over the years non-reporting states have included California (1998-2008), New Hampshire (1998-2008), Oklahoma (1998-1999), Alaska (1998-2002), West Virginia (2003-2004), Louisiana (2005), and most recently, Maryland (2007-2008). Missing any state’s information is problematic, but in particular, because California has the most abortions in the U.S., not including their data significantly skews the overall picture.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that states that do submit data to the CDC may pick and choose which information they provide. “…the level of detail that CDC receives on the characteristics of women obtaining abortions varies considerably from year to year and among reporting areas….because the collection of abortion data is not federally mandated, reporting areas can develop their own forms and do not necessarily collect all of the information that CDC compiles.” (page 2) Since the CDC’s abortion surveillance reports have incomplete numbers, policy-makers and other interested groups and people must rely on the Guttmacher Institute’s statistics and analysis. However, research neutrality comes into question because Guttmacher was originally founded as the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, although they have since formally separated.

The CDC report reads “CDC is unable to obtain the total number of abortions performed in the United States. During 1999–2008, the total annual number of abortions recorded by CDC was 65%–69% of the number recorded by the Guttmacher Institute, which uses numerous active follow-up techniques to increase the completeness of the data obtained through its periodic national survey of abortion providers.” (page 6)  

Also as reported last year, the report is again missing the abortion fatality rate. Page 5 reads, “Although national case-fatality rates (the number of abortion-related deaths per 100,000 reported legal induced abortions) have been published for 1972–1997, this measure could not be calculated with CDC data for 1998–2007; because a substantial number of abortions have been documented in states that did not report to CDC during 1998-2007.”

One might consider that most statistical conclusions in the abortion surveillance reports since 1998 lacked some form of U.S. data. Therefore the claim that the abortion rate can not be estimated as other statistics have been does not appear to be reasonable. It would seem that the abortion rate should be able to be computed with the same limited information obtained by the states that other statistics are computed. The report has also not updated its latest abortion-related deaths from the previous report (with 2007 data).

Last year it was reported that for the states that reported data, in 2007, six women died in the U.S. as a result of complications related to abortion. (page 5) The updated 2008 number has not yet been released. However, while some information is missing, there is still much to be learned from what the data that is included in the report. Below are some basic statistics and numbers on abortion-related information in the U.S. in 2008.  

· More children were aborted in the U.S. (in reporting states) in 2008 than in 2007. “Among the 49 reporting areas that provided data for 2008, a total of 825,564 abortions were reported.” (page 3) In 2007, the total number of abortions as reported by the CDC was 810,582, an increase of close to 15,000.

· Most abortions were performed on women in their 20s. “Women aged 20-29 years accounted for the majority (57.1%) of all abortions in 2008. In 2008, women aged 20-29 years also had the highest abortion rates (29.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 20-24 years and 21.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 25-29 years).” (page 3)

· The report states that the majority of abortions are performed early in pregnancy. “For 2008, the majority (62.8%) of abortions were performed at ≤8 weeks’ gestation, and 91.4% were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation.” (Page 4) Few abortions (7.3%) were performed at 14-20 weeks’ gestation, and 1.3% were performed at ≥21 weeks’ gestation. (page 4)

· In 2008, approximately 14.6% of women used RU-486, the dangerous abortion drug, and that approximately 75.9% of abortions
were surgical (“curettage”) for abortion done at 13 weeks or earlier. (page 4)

· Non-Hispanic black women accounted for 35.5% of all abortion while making up approximately only 12.6% of the population according to the Census Bureau); Hispanic women accounted for 21.1% of all abortion, while making up 16.3% of the population according to the Census Bureau. Non-Hispanic white women accounted for 37.2% of abortions, while making up 72.4% of the population according to the Census Bureau.  (page 4)   The CDC annual abortion surveillance reports are very informative and helpful, albeit incomplete, to those interested in women’s health – both those women who are born, and those women (and men, too) who are unborn.

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Earlier this month, Elizabeth Vargas of ABC hosted a special report documenting the appalling practice of sex selection abortion in India. She traveled to India after hearing about the gendercide of girls in India.

“Six months ago, I traveled to India to see firsthand what the prime minister of that country calls a national shame. It is the systematic, widespread, shocking elimination of India’s baby girls. Some 50,000 female fetuses are aborted every month in India. Baby girls are often killed at birth, either thrown into rivers, or left to die in garbage dumps. Its estimated that one million girls in India “disappear” every year.”

Ms. Vargas describes what she calls the “dirty little secret” related to ultrasonography in India. “We walked down street after street and saw signs everywhere advertising ultrasound services. There are even technicians who pack portable ultrasounds and travel to villages offering their services. The dirty little secret is that many couples use the ultrasound to find out the sex of their baby.”

She explains the gendercide’s primary motivating factor: money.

“The reason so many Indians do this is financial. A family with a girl will pay a dowry to her husband’s family when she marries. It is a long cultural tradition in India that new laws cannot seem to break. So a girl means the family will lose money, property, or cattle on the wedding day. A boy means the family will gain those things. The illegal ultrasounds and the illegal gender abortions are used by India’s middle class to guarantee they get sons.

Poor women who cannot afford these services will simply kill or abandon their babies. Some will take their newborn girls to a drop box, usually in the middle of the night, and leave the baby there. One drop box is at a place called the Unique Orphanage in Punjab. We went from the village with no women, to the orphanage with no boys. There are only girls here…60 of them…all cared for by a wonderful woman who will raise each and every one. It is striking to see all those little faces, some two days old, others teenagers, all unwanted by their biological families. They are actually the lucky ones. Their parents didn’t kill them. They now have someone who loves them.”

Vargas also describes the disproportionate number of males to females in certain Indian localities. “50,000 girl fetuses are aborted every month in India. It is a staggering number. And it has created whole villages where there are hardly any women. We went to one such village in the province of Haryana. Everywhere we looked, we saw boys, young men, old men, but very, very few women. It was unsettling, especially because we knew this was not some freak of nature, but a result of the deliberate extermination of girls.”

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FRC staff, visitors, and friends on the Web had an extraordinary opportunity this week to hear a lecture by Leticia Velasquez. Mrs. Velasquez is the mother of a Down Syndrome child. She spoke movingly of her experiences and how she viewed this child as a special blessing from God. Nurses told her eight years ago, “we regret to inform you that…” It started off that coldly, that clinically. “Mongolita,” her husband told her, using the Spanish word for Mongoloid. But Leticia is a feisty New Yorker. She answered back: “This beloved child will never shoot up her school or do drugs.” And she’s right about that.

Sitting in the audience, I remembered my first encounter with this subject. I was a graduate student reading the biography of Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle had then only recently retired as President of the Fifth Republic of France.

A military hero during World War I, de Gaulle at 6’5″ towered over most of his countrymen, both figuratively and literally. In the interwar years, Col. de Gaulle taught at Saint-Cyr, the French military academy, and was an outspoken advocate for tank warfare. His theories were considered too radical, and he was shunted aside. Only in 1940, did de Gaulle see his ideas put to devastating use–by the Nazis panzers as they plowed through the Ardennes forest. While the divided French Cabinet argued about whether to surrender or keep fighting, the newly promoted Gen. de Gaulle escorted a British friend to the airport outside threatened Paris. Then, without so much as a toothbrush, he closed the door to the aircraft and flew to England. He watched from the air as the battered French towns below burst into flames. His own wife and daughter Anne were down there.

He rallied the French people with a speech delivered over the BBC. And he led the Free French throughout the war. Afterward, he briefly led the government before going into retirement. But in 1958, France was wracked with internal divisions over Algeria, communism, and much else. Called out of retirement, Charles de Gaulle became President of France. He re-wrote the constitution, creating the Fifth Republic that governs France to this day. In World War II, he restored French honor after the debacle of Hitler’s invasion and occupation. As President, he sought to make France respected again throughout the world.

Retiring for a second time in 1969, de Gaulle was asked by an interviewer what gave him the courage, the stamina, and the vision to fight so hard for his country. Unhesitatingly, he answered: “The love of Anne de Gaulle.”

As a student, I was puzzled. But I soon found out what he meant. Anne was born with Downs Syndrome. Charles and his wife Yvonne raised Anne at home. What’s so unusual about that? At that time, most of France’s upper classes, and certainly most ambitious military figures, would quietly place such a daughter in a convent school, where loving and devoted nuns would care for her. There would be visits several times a year, of course, but the child would effectively be banished from the family.

Not the de Gaulles. They rearranged their entire domestic life around the need to love and care for Anne. And Anne returned that love in abundance. One of the most moving scenes I ever read showed Charles and Yvonne standing at the gravesite in a small country churchyard in Colombey Les Deux Eglises. Embracing his grieving wife, the world leader said: “Now she is like all the others.”

As an historian, I’m often asked why it is we don’t seem to have leaders on the world stage who are like the giant figures of World War II. In France today, 96% of unborn children diagnosed with Down Syndrome are killed. In the U.S., it is 92%. These lethal rates are even higher among the elites from whose ranks we draw our leaders. Might it be that we no longer produce leaders who can love as unconditionally as the de Gaulles? Anne’s love inspired and motivated one of the greatest leaders of the Twentieth Century. Perhaps we need more such lovers. And more capacity to love.

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In a recent column on CNN online, science writer Annie Murphy Paul discusses her astonishment at finding myriad studies about what babies can learn in the womb.

Once considered a mundane field for the researcher, “[n]ow the nine months of gestation are the focus of intense interest and excitement,” she writes, “pregnancy is not a nine-month wait for the big event of birth, but a crucial period unto itself.”

Researchers are learning that much of what a mother experiences in her daily life is communicated to developing child, from the air she breathes and the food and drink she consumes even to the emotions she feels. Paul likens it to “biological postcards from the world outside.”

“The fetus, we now know, is not an inert blob, but an active and dynamic creature, responding and adapting as it readies itself for life in the particular world it will soon enter.” Amen to that.

The findings won’t shock the pro-lifer, but the fact that they’re gaining attention in the scientific community and are being reported in places like CNN online should cheer the pro-life soul. “The recognition that learning actually begins before birth leads us to a striking new conception of the fetus, the pregnant woman and the relationship between them.”

Some of Paul’s conclusions, though, seem to be a stretch. “By attending to such messages,” she writes, “the fetus learns the answers to questions critical to its survival: Will it be born into a world of abundance, or scarcity? Will it be safe and protected, or will it face constant dangers and threats? Will it live a long, fruitful life, or a short, harried one?” A bit deterministic, if you ask me, but I welcome her acknowledgment of the growing child’s sentience.

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“You will always be a part of me,” might be a mother’s teary farewell when her child goes off to college, but research is showing it’s quite literally true.

Kathy Ostrowski reports in the Kansans for Life blog on a recent National Public Radio Morning Edition program featuring Science editor Robert Krulwich and his explosive report about “fetomaternal microchimerism.”  According to Krulwich there is increasing evidence that “when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or daughter, [but] an army of protective cells – gifts from her children that will stay inside her and defend her for the rest of her life.”

Some interesting points and quotes from the segment:

• “In a teaspoon of an ordinary pregnant woman’s blood… [are] dozens, perhaps even hundreds of cells… from the baby,” according to a Tufts University researcher.  Lab studies done “over and over and over and over” of mother mice with diseases (ovarian, endometrial, and cervical cancers) show that fetal cells rush to the places where they’re needed in the mom.
• “The cells of an unborn child will stay in the mother for decades… essentially forever,” said a researcher from Thomas Jefferson University.  “There’s a lot of evidence now starting to come out that these cells may actually be repairing tissue.”
• A study involving a Boston woman with hepatitis (and a history of five pregnancies) found hundreds of fetal cells at work “repairing” her liver.

In a culture where children are too often seen as a threat to self, here’s an argument that might reach even the hardest heart.

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Recently, Hot Air reported that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi doesn’t understand why the U.S. Catholic bishops are against requiring insurance companies to cover contraceptives, including known abortifacients.  She belittles Catholics who object, conscientiously, to paying for or performing services that their church teaches are wrong.

Perhaps she should consider the Catholic Catechism, which says that “Moral conscience, present at the heart of the person, enjoins him at the appropriate moment to do good and to avoid evil.”  What could be more good than defending life?  And what could be more evil than to disregard it, or denigrate those who seek to uphold it.

Even though the former Speaker is Catholic, she seems to have long forgotten that Catholicism is unequivocal in support of the sanctity of human life, from conception onward.  This teaching is discussed throughout the Catechism, and there is even a section regarding the usage of abortifacients, and the Catholic Church’s stance against the use.

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Last week my brother and sister-in-law welcomed a new little lady. Sweet little Bella was an extra special gift and surprise because her parents, who have two young boys, were expecting another little boy but instead delivered a beautiful little girl much to their delight! Bella, of course, means beautiful in Italian. And a beauty she is.

I have always believed that a person’s name holds significance. Some people of faith even believe that God is so intimately involved in the creation of persons and their lives that He names his sons and daughters. Some parents entrusted with the life of a child prayerfully seek to “discern” the name of the precious life entrusted to them.

Sadly, this is not the case in India where disturbing gender biases haunt and hurt many women; this is played out even in naming little girls. A few weeks ago the Huffington Post ran a story about hundreds of young women who received the terribly sad name “Unwanted” at birth. It is horrifying to imagine a parent cruel enough to name a child “Unwanted.” only because the baby is a “she.”

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Leticia Velasquez, author of the recently published “A Special Mother is Born” on parenting a child with special needs, will be Washington, D.C. for a book signing, on Tuesday, November 15th, at 12:30p at the Catholic Information Center: 1501 K Street, NW.

Leticia is a wife and mother of three daughters, one with Down Syndrome. She writes professionally, has her own blog, Cause of Our Joy and is a co-founder of the support group, Keeps Infants With Down Syndrome (KIDS).

“A Special Mother is Born” is a beautiful anthology of stories from parents with children who have special needs. Contributors include Rick Santorum, Mary Kellet and Dr. Gerry Nadal, among others. This will be an opportunity (and a book) you will not want to miss.

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Last night, Rob Stein of the Washington Post published a fascinating piece on new technology that can potentially measure a person’s level of consciousness by examining electrical activity in the brain.

Disturbingly, those conducting the research have found that numerous patients diagnosed to be in a persistent vegetative state are in fact, fully conscious according to their brain electrical activity. This obviously begs many bioethical questions about the capacity to diagnose persistent vegetative state. The article is worth reading in full, but below are a few quotes capturing the main points:

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On September 30th, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) received thousands of negative comments related to the interim final rule published on August 3rd where all insurance plans were informed that they must cover the full range of FDA-approved contraceptives with no co-pay. A very narrowly defined conscience exemption for religious organizations was included which, in essence, covers only places of worship and was originally drafted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for a bill in California. For more information on the rule, see FRC’s fact sheet on this topic.

Curious to read some of the comments and get a sense of volume, this week I perused the official regulatory website of the government, regulations.gov. Recall that the language from the rule indicated that comments would be posted publicly: “All comments are posted on the Internet exactly as received, and can be retrieved by most Internet search engines.”

Much to my surprise, my search led me to only a very small number of comments — under 100. Knowing that FRC constituents alone submitted close to 12000 comments, and that USCCB constituents filed close to 60,000 comments, I was surprised and assumed I was searching incorrectly. So, I called the regulations.gov helpline and had a knowledgeable customer service representative walk me through the process to assure I was doing everything correctly. At the end of that conversation together we located only 58 comments! I then asked the customer service representative if HHS may withhold certain comments. The representative ironically began by telling me that the “Obama Administration is committed to transparency” but then told me that HHS has control over what they post.

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In a characteristically perceptive op-ed titled “Downward Mobility,” Washington Post economics writer Robert Samuelson notes that “for young Americans, the future could be dimmer.”  As he summarizes:

In 1990, there were 32 million Americans 65 and over; by 2040, that’s reckoned at 80 million. Rising costs for Social Security and Medicare have created a new political dynamic: If benefits for the elderly aren’t cut, burdens on the young will go up. Decaying infrastructure poses similar choices. Either pay for repairs or tolerate substandard roads and schools. If today’s weak recovery persists, the outlook darkens. Unemployment will remain high, say 7 percent to 9 percent. Wage increases will remain depressed. Young workers will have trouble finding jobs to develop the skills and contacts that lead to better jobs. Productivity growth might falter.

This is not a scenario anyone wants to contemplate, but contemplate it we must if we want our country to remain the economic engine and beacon of prosperity it for decades has been.

One thing Samuelson did not note, however, is that our economic crisis is significantly augmented by a lack of future employees.  As my colleagues Drs. Pat Fagan and Henry Potrykus have demonstrated in their important study, “Decline of Economic Growth: Human Capital and Population Change,” ”The slowdown of GDP growth is explained by the concentration of both population and human capital in the baby boom, which is now being replaced by lower human capital cohorts.”  In sum, they argue, “the historical balance of population growth, human capital development, and physical capital investment is the optimum national path to economic growth. Growing our human capital is critical to our future economic growth.”

We cannot have a growing economy with a shrinking labor pool.  Yet that is the grim demographic reality we are facing.  Even the most extraordinary gains in productivity cannot compensate for a lack of one indispensable resource: people.  Given that we are losing roughly 3,000 unborn children through abortion every day, is it any wonder that our economic future looks bleaker than ever?

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When Austin and I learned we were pregnant for the fourth time, we rushed to the radiology lab – not the usual response to such happy news, but this pregnancy followed three miscarriages and so we had a routine:  positive home pregnancy test followed quickly by a blood test to check for hormone levels and then an ultrasound to try to see what was happening.  In prior ultrasounds we had seen a yolk sac but not much growth and, most important, no measurable heartbeat.  Each of these pregnancies miscarried between 4 and 9 weeks.

This time was different.  There on the ultrasound, at just 4 weeks, was the rapid flutter of a tiny rudimentary heart!  What a sight!   And then, what a sound!   I had always held pro-life views.  Always known that a tiny growing child in the womb was a living human being.  But seeing and hearing Lucy’s heart beat brought me to a deeper knowledge of the truth of her humanity.   It was my sweetest encounter with Thomistic epistemology.

A coalition of pro-life groups is embarking on a new effort to promote state laws nationwide that would do one simple thing:  require abortion practitioners to make the fetal heartbeat audible and visible to pregnant women before an abortion.   It does not ban abortion or restrict it in any other way.  It does not require abortion practitioners to make pro-life statements.  It simply requires the use of medical technology to impart medical facts.  Genius.

An Associated Press report yesterday quoted Ohio Right to Life director Mike Gonidakis, whose group is part of the coalition, as touting the measure as both legally sound and effective:  “This is it,” he said.  “This is the one that’s going to continue to save lives in the current court environment we have.”  The approach is supported by Family Research Council Action, the National Right to Life, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Americans United for Life, and Susan B. Anthony List.

The pro-abortion crowd is sounding the alarm, of course, and falsely claiming this approach takes away women’s rights.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Knowledge is power.  Let those little hearts beat!

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David Gushee, a self-professed “progressive” Evangelical who supported Barack Obama in 2008, yesterday published an elegant piece on the sacredness of human life, in which he previews his forthcoming book on this topic.  Conservative Evangelicals can applaud Gushee’s argument, as summarized in the following:

The moral witness of the early church gives us stark evidence of what our forebears understood life’s sacredness to mean. Theirs was a comprehensive sacredness of life ethic that recoiled at the shedding of blood and opposed Christian participation in practices ranging from abortion to infanticide to murder to gladiator games to torture to war.

As to war, the record of the early church is much more mixed; over time, there were many Christian soldiers in the Roman legions, and the text of the New Testament indicates that military service is consistent with God’s plan for both government and His redeemed people.  But Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Georgia’s Mercer University, should be given his due: He is a political liberal whose commitment to Scripture is such that he cannot deny the witness of God’s Word - that personhood begins at conception.

In a 2009 op-ed in USA Today, Gushee described his disillusionment with the then-nascent Obama Administration:

“Mexico City, conscience clause, Sebelius, embryonic stem cells. In each case, I have been asked by friends at Democratic or progressive-leaning think tanks not just to refrain from opposing these moves, but instead to support them in the name of a broader understanding of what it means to be pro-life. I mainly refused … a society that legally permits abortion on demand is deeply corrupt. It pays for adult sexual liberties with the lives of defenseless developing children. That practice, in turn, desensitizes society to the implications of paying for prospective medical cures with defenseless frozen embryos, which themselves are available because our society pays for medically assisted reproductive technology by producing hundreds of thousands of these embryos as spares.”

As he puts it in yesterday’s Associated Baptist Press op-ed, “My biblical explorations find building blocks for this belief (that human life is sacred) in the Old Testament and New Testament. These include the creation narratives (including the imago dei concept), Old Testament laws and prophetic writings. It also includes New Testament narratives about Jesus and the early church as well as the theological significance of God becoming human in Jesus Christ and dying for sinners such as us.”

Amen, brother.  Amen.

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Last week Margaret Ogola’s life on Earth came to an end, at the very young age of 53.  Here was a woman who understood the gift of time, for she filled the hours allotted to her in radical solidarity with those God entrusted to her care, and in service of advancing the cause of human life and dignity.

Dr. Ogola was a medical doctor, an award-winning novelist, a university professor, a human rights advocate, and a mother of six children.  She ran a hospice for AIDS orphans.  She directed the Institute of Healthcare Management at Strathmore University in Nairobi.  She was an advisor to the Catholic Bishops of Kenya.  She was a powerhouse, yet was described as a person filled with peace.  (For a comprehensive obituary see the Strathmore University web site.)

Margaret Ogola was well known in her country as an award-winning novelist.  Her first novel, The River and the Source, won every African literary award around.  Her subsequent works also received acclaim.

Dr. Ogola was well also known to many Americans active on the world pro-life stage.  Family Research Council’s own Pat Fagan and my husband Austin Ruse knew her from their work with her on the biennial World Congress of Families where I am told she kept huge audiences rapt with her soft voice and powerful message.  In a speech she made at the 4th Women International Conference in Beijing (China) in 1995, she argued that, unless we recognize that each individual is valuable by virtue of simply being conceived human, we cannot begin to talk about human rights.

May God give comfort to her husband and children and may He rest her soul in eternal peace.

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For years, Christians and other people of conscience have worked to undo the great damage done (53 million unborn lives lost, and countless women deeply scarred) by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling known as Roe v. Wade.

Thus far, we have been unsuccessful in correcting Roe, which is why, after nearly four decades, there are those who say we should evacuate the public square, abandon political activism, support our local pregnancy care centers, and admit legislative and jurisprudential defeat.  Focus on personal and ecclesial acts of charity, they say, but let politics alone.

Such an attitude betrays a weak understanding of the nature of political change.  Such change is almost always incremental, involving two steps forward and one step back, over and over again.  This process is tedious and sometimes discouraging.  It is also necessary and intrinsic to any system of representative self-government.

At some point in the future, a Supreme Court that honors life might end Roe’s legacy of death.  Until then, however, conservatives and champions of life will have continued opportunities to hem-in unrestricted access to abortion on demand.

For example, under President Bush, we were successful in enacting the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, a ban on partial-birth abortion, and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.  We ended U.S. funding for organizations that perform abortions in the developing world and prevented federal funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research.  Mr. Bush appointed a series of pro-life judges to the federal courts and actively fought efforts to clone human beings.  This is only a partial list.

Under President Obama, some of these have been reversed: Our country now funds groups that perform abortion abroad and subsidizes abortion at home.  The President’s most recent Supreme Court nominee was a leading advocate for the legalization of partial-birth abortion. Yet some of the progress under the previous President has not been, nor likely will be, reversed.

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- On Tuesday, September 20, the National Catholic Partnership on Disability will host a webinar, “Threats to Life from Physician-Assisted Suicide”. Registration is free at www.ncpd.org. For more information, contact Peg Kolm: mkolm@adw.org or 301-853-4560.

- In Altum Productions, the talented Allot brother film-making team is hosting a benefit on Friday, October 7, 2011 from 6- 8 pm, in Alexandria, Virginia for an upcoming documentary on prenatal disability diagnosis, “Flashes of Color”. A shocking 90% of babies in the womb who are diagnosed with a serious disability are aborted. Flashes of Color, seeks to highlight the profound contributions of people with disabilities at a time when a “culture of perfection” is fueling a deep and deadly bias against them. For more information contact In Altum Productions.

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