Saturday, December 27, 2008

Don't Let the Elections Get You Down!

Get Up & Help Instead!

Please! Don’t be demoralized because of Election Day! Amendment 48 was a bright, shining, positive example of progress — a victory which should outweigh any other setbacks we had that day. We at Colorado Right to Life would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the hard work and determination you invested in the Amendment 48 campaign!

Your commitment to carry petitions, to get the signatures of your friends, coworkers and complete strangers — the gathering of more than 130,000 signatures — was the single most promising pro-life happening in this state in 40 years! When you and your friends went out to gather nearly twice the number of legally required signatures, it meant more volunteers were mobilized, gathering more signatures, than for any previous ballot initiative in Colorado history! It was the most energy and vitality we’ve ever seen in the pro-life movement!

But still, how can 27% of the vote be a victory???

Because Amendment 48 wasn’t your typical “abortion restriction.” Amendment 48 was the strongest anti-abortion legislation seriously considered in any state at any time since Roe v. Wade! In 5280 Magazine, our opponents expressed fear that we were shifting from the “chip-away” strategy of regulating abortion — they understood that the Personhood movement is nothing less than a direct attack upon “the abortion right” and all the central legal arguments in favor of abortion!

Consider this: Previous polls have showed only 10 or 15 percent of Colorado voters support a total end to abortion.

But this year, a clear, cogent, “life at conception” message got through to huge numbers of Colorado citizens — a full 27% of voters in Colorado (where even many Republicans are pro-choice) voted not just to prohibit all abortions, but also to end embryonic stem cell research, some forms of in vitro fertilization, and those forms of birth control that cause abortions, even while facing near-total media opposition, lacking the support of many prominent politicians and organizations, and while being outspent 10-1.

Despite all that, our campaign — yours and ours — doubled or tripled the number of people who realize that unborn children are Persons. They understand that, no matter how popular or “socially acceptable” certain forms of killing may be, no one can ever have a “right” to kill an innocent person for any reason. Nearly 600,000 voters were willing to stand up and proclaim that an unborn child at any stage of development is a Person with an unalienable Right to Life!

That’s not just a VICTORY — THAT’S HISTORIC!!!

Those numbers show the encouraging promise of the Personhood strategy — if people think abortion is something to be regulated, they’ll aim for a good middle ground and they’ll never support an end to all abortion. But if we educate them about the Right to Life, and present it as a moral evil worse than slavery, most people will see there IS no middle ground, and abortion will end.

This strategy — an older strategy, given new life — should give us all hope that sometime in the next few years we will see a total end to abortion, embryonic destruction and abortifacient use in the state of Colorado! Perhaps elsewhere as well. What’s more, FOCA (the Freedom of Choice Act) won’t stop Personhood — once Personhood is established, it overrides FOCA!

The whole Personhood campaign became a spectacular opportunity to spread the Right to Life message! Never before have we had such access to the ear of the public, and so many chances to talk to people about the concept of unalienable rights and how life begins at the moment of fertilization. We could never have reached this many people without Amendment 48.

Personhood will energize and mobilize the pro-life movement! Now, we must reach people who have never heard these concepts before! We must continue that outreach! That’s where you come in. We must continue this conversation with our citizens!

We’re not asking for money — this is a thank you letter, and a letter of encouragement! We want you to know we haven’t given up. We want to know you haven’t given up either! Will you invest your volunteer time on this mission???

Colorado Right to Life was always at the center of the Personhood effort, but now that we have access to the campaign’s volunteer list, we are asking you to join with us and continue the Personhood campaign! There’s so much more still to be done!

Please, call us at 303-753-9394 or e-mail us at office@coloradorighttolife.org or write to us at 1535 Grant Street #303, Denver, CO 80203, and let us know you’re with us! Let us know you want to be a part of a continued lifesaving ministry to the people of Colorado, so they can know the truth of God’s laws against murder, and can turn back the Culture of Death!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you stand for life, and if you stand for Jesus, the Creator of life, then you must be a perennial optimist.

Whether prolifers win battles or not is irrelevant...the point is we must stand.

And we will win "the war".

May God bless you with courage, understanding, and resources for the coming year.

Tony

Anonymous said...

The personhood movement is addressing the defining issue that will determine the future of America. The battle for an unborn child's right to life is also the battle for the heart and soul of our nation. This is a battle we can not afford to lose.

Sweeping repentance and fervent corporate prayer throughout the churches of America is the vital and too often neglected link between the God of Life and the pro-life's victory over our vile culture of death.

The entire American church must be mobilized in fervent prayer to seek God for mercy to lead our nation into repentance. The deadly wounds abortion has inflicted upon our nation are not political or judicial. They are spiritual. There are no political pharmaceuticals or judicial remedies to treat the malignant guilt our nation bears for slaughtering a generation of unborn children. Fifty-million times we have violated God's law that declares: "Thou Shalt not kill."

Our nation is polluted in innocent shed blood. All Americans are in grave peril because this bloodthirsty curse has brought us to the very brink of terrifying judgment. The prophecy God gave me twenty years ago is now being fulfilled. America will experience revival or ruin, wrath or restoration. Only sweeping repentance and a great movement of prayer throughout the church in America can obtain God's mercy to avert an imminent catastrophic reaping for the fifty-million seeds of death our guilty nation has sown.

AMERICA, FALL ON YOUR KNEES!

Who would have believed? What mind could have conceived?
America, land of desolations!
What has happened unto thee, the sweet Land of Liberty?
The envy of all the other nations….
Where’s the vision that was thine when your forefathers signed,
For independence, their bold Declaration?
When godliness was revered, I was honored, loved, and feared.
With My blessing you became a mighty nation.

Once the Land of the Free, once the Home of the Brave,
We have forsaken the Living God, in whose image we were made.
If to Him we will return, from His wrath He may yet turn.
America, fall on your knees!

By the sweat of the slaves’ brows were your cotton fields all plowed.
Like oxen, herded onto your plantations.
By the slaves that you owned, were the seeds of Civil War sown,
As they cried out to me in desperation.
They shed blood, sweat, and tears by your injustices for years,
Till I arose in my indignation.
I smote your land with the sword, for this brutality I abhorred.
With your blood I brought Emancipation.

Once the Land of the Free, once the Home of the Brave,
We have forsaken the Living God, in whose image we were made.
If to Him we will return, from His wrath He may yet turn.
America, fall on your knees!

Up from the ground I again hear the sound
Of innocent blood being shed in your nation.
It’s the cry of the unborn, from their mother’s wombs they’re torn
As they gasp for life in desperation.
What is this that thou hast done?
They’re your daughters. They’re your sons.
My greatest gift, the crown of my creation.
I am girding on my sword. These ruthless murders I abhor.
I will smite again your blood-guilty nation.

Once the Land of the Free, once the Home of the Brave,
We have forsaken the Living God in whose image we were made.
If to Him we will return, from His wrath He may yet turn.
America, fall on your knees!

Why are my people still asleep? I behold you and I weep.
The only hope of your dying nation!
Unaware of gathering gloom, Apart from you, America’s doomed.
Church of God, where is your consecration?
By your pleasures you’re still bound. On your knees you’re rarely found,
Crying out with tears and supplications.
For her sins my fury’s stored. By the church, I’m still ignored.
Shall I come in wrath, or restoration?

Once the Land of the Free, once the Home of the Brave,
We have forsaken the Living God in whose image we were made.
If to Him we will return, from His wrath He may yet turn.
America, fall on your knees!
copyright 1989 Dave Hamer

Only sweeping repentance can save us from the dreadful tsunami of wrath that is rushing towards the blood-sodden shores of our guilty Nation. Will we be swept away in a furious wave of rising terror? Will our battered Christian foundations completely collapse as our political and financial institutions crumble? Will chaos prevail as the ominous swell sweeps away multitudes, pummels our cities, destroys our infrastructure, and devours our wealth? What cataclysmic event must we endure before Christians in America awaken? Will we remain in deadly denial and spiritual apathy, until the dreadful darkness falls on the black night of our grim reckoning? Will we all have to endure earth-shattering judgment, death, and destruction at the hands of brutal terrorists before the Church repents and unites in intercession for a spiritual awakening in our reprobate land? Will Lady Liberty fall into generations of desolation as the American Church plummets into a new Dark Age? Will our cities be ruined in judgment while western Christian civilization is reduced to religious rubble? Will we refuse the refuge of redeeming grace and incur a plague of devouring wrath instead? May Almighty God forbid! Church of God, in the Name of Jesus, unite in prayer and fight for the lost soul of our wayward country! Rebuild the altars of intercession in our houses of worship and restore the godly foundations of American civilization! Only a national spiritual awakening will suffice! And nothing but God’s people united on their knees can obtain it!

Dave Hamer
A pro-prayer advocate for pro-life empowerment

Kevin J. Jones said...

"a full 27% of voters in Colorado (where even many Republicans are pro-choice) voted not just to prohibit all abortions, but also to end embryonic stem cell research, some forms of in vitro fertilization, and those forms of birth control that cause abortions,"

One of the few reasons I could bring myself to vote for it was because I didn't want it to fail by too much. What makes you think our society would respect such a law if passed?

Amendment 48 backers overreached and wasted resources that would have been better directed elsewhere, such as swinging a few state senate or house races.

Why was the effort led by a 21-year-old woman? However articulate she is, that's folly.

Pro-lifers can't just pretend that these largely futile efforts are good for the cause. We need to ask ourselves if we are tempting God by our efforts.

We sometimes ask too much from a deeply mistaken society.

Had the Supreme Court even ruled on Amendment 48, it could have only further enshrined our wicked laws, and probably created a few new ones.

What good is it if you have justice on your side, if you don't have wisdom?

Bob Kyffin said...

Kevin,

Thank you for your strongly felt opinion. I'm disappointed that you didn't have better reasons for voting for Am. 48, but I trust you mean that you disagreed with the strategy, not with the goal.

Our society will never start to respect such laws until they are passed. Period. We must try, or we will never achieve anything.

We admire Kristi because she had the courage to propose a principled law when so many, even on our side, reject principle in favor of compromise. But Kristi was hardly alone in leading the Personhood effort. Besides CRTL's full-scale efforts, there were many organizers, and 1,000 petition gatherers who moved the fight forward.

You're seeming to think the pro-life fight will be won by a margin of support in the legislature, or in the courts. That's not so.

Truly, it doesn't matter what the courts do yet, because abortion is already 100% enshrined, and today's court won't change that. We either try other means, or we give up.

Look at our $10,000 Challenge -- even if we'd waited for 2 or 3 more conservative Supreme Court appointments before trying this, it wouldn't have given us victory, because none of the Supreme Court justices there already would have supported this.

That doesn't mean victory is impossible. It means we must use other means to achieve victory, or else accept that victory may be 100 years away.

The courts, and the politicians will acknowledge Personhood if the people urgently shout for it! The judges and the politicians will NEVER take up the call for Personhood unless the people do it first.

That's what we've done!

And that's why moving forward from this point is so important. If they aren't paying attention this year, they will when we increase the margin by 10% or 20%. It's a matter of educating the public. That's how we'll achieve victory.

And, frankly, that's wisdom -- finding the way toward victory when other means have failed, and victory seems impossible.