By L.A. Williams, Correspondent
Christian Action League
January 17, 2013
WENDELL — Former U.S. Congressman and 2012 presidential candidate Virgil Goode addressed parishioners at Charity Free Will Baptist Sunday morning, speaking up for the unborn at the church’s Sanctity of Life service. Christian Action League Executive Director Mark Creech was also a featured speaker.
“There are those who argue that abortion is not mentioned in the Bible word for word and that because of that, choice is OK,” Goode said. “That is not my view and not the view of most who have read even a smattering of the Bible.”
Beginning with Job 3:16 and ending with John 3:16, Goode gave numerous references to the “child” in the womb, and to the hope that all believers share, even those who have deviated from God’s plan and had an abortion which they now regret.
He said the Bible has at least 26 references to women being “with child” — not their having a “blob of tissue” or even “a fetus,” and that there is no question that life begins at conception when a child, complete with 23 chromosomes from each parent, begins to grow.
“The woman is carrying that person, but she is not adding to that. The child develops its own cells. The woman provides nourishment,” he said. “I think science and the Bible are on our side with that view that life begins at conception.”
Even so, he said our nation has allowed the murder of 55 million babies since the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Perhaps as shocking is the fact that an estimated 93 percent of abortions are for convenience or gender selection. Goode said fewer than 1 percent are the result of rape or incest and the other 6 percent are split between pregnancies endangering the health of the mother and potential health problems of the baby, such as deformities.
“Proponents of abortion like NRAL and Planned Parenthood don’t want to focus on those figures,” he said. The statistic he’d like to see change — in addition to a huge drop in the number of abortions — is government funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation‘s largest abortion provider.
“I want Planned Parenthood to get zero funding,” he said. “We could save a half billion dollars right now.”
Known for his opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants, the former Constitution Party candidate said the U.S. doesn’t need massive immigration to build population.
“We’ve killed 55 million of our own babies…” he said. “Let’s work to save those that could have been born.”
Goode urged members of Charity Free Will Baptist to take up the pro-life fight in Raleigh by attending the N.C. Right to Life Prayer Breakfast and March for Life Rally on Saturday and also by visiting their lawmakers and urging them to follow the Christian Action League‘s pro-life recommendations on issues that arise throughout the session.
Following Goode’s address, the Rev. Creech challenged the congregation with a question — when is human life expendable? — and an incredible illustration.
“The question you would think ought to be easy to answer — never. There is no life not worth saving,” he said. “Two people or 50 or a whole community will team up to find a lost child on a mountain or rescue a miner trapped by an explosion…. Yet, as we’ve heard today, millions of lives are being written off, snuffed out with scientific expertise. In fact, 4,000 innocent lives are destroyed every day in America.”
Knowing that it is difficult for anyone to picture the bodies of the more than 50 million babies murdered in the last 40 years, Dr. Creech told the crowd that since Roe v. Wade, “we have snuffed out a population approximately the size of Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming combined.”
His voice trembling as he read off the list of states, the Rev. Creech assured the crowd that the Christian Action League is doing everything possible to advance the pro-life position in Raleigh. He told the crowd that lawmakers in North Carolina had defunded Planned Parenthood and that the CAL’s “fingerprints” were all over a number of pro-life bills passed last legislative biennium, including Ethen’s Law, modeled after the federal unborn victims of violence act, and the Woman’s Right to Know Bill, which mandates a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortion.
Even though the ultrasound portion of Woman’s Right to Know and a bill passed to allow for a new Choose Life License Plate to benefit pregnancy care centers are now tied up in court, Dr. Creech said he expects victory on appeal in both cases.
He also said he anticipates that more pro-life legislation will be introduced this session.
Dr. Creech said. “Human lives are dependent on our ability to defend the value, dignity and sacredness of life at every stage.”
As a final reminder to the church not to grow weary in their efforts on behalf of the unborn, Dr. Creech told the congregation that in books and movies, the villain is the person who does what he shouldn’t — he robs a bank, lies, cheats or steals. But in Jesus’ parables, he noted, the villain is the man who simply leaves undone the thing he ought to have done.
“It is the priest, the Levite passing by on the other side leaving a robbed and beaten traveler to his fate. It is the rich man allowing Lazarus to die at his gate, the servant hiding his talent … these are the villains about whom Jesus spoke,” he said. “I think when God’s judgment is rendered on the last day, it will be those of us who were silent in the face of evil, those of us who passed by on the other side, those of us who did nothing when there was great need, those of us who hid our talent when we could have made a difference — these I believe God will deem to be the real villains of our time. We dare not be counted among them.”