Dear Pro-Life Friends,

This is it. We've waited since 2000 for the opportunity to appoint a pro-life judge on the Supreme Court to replace one of its six abortion advocates.

With the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the court will have one less advocate of both abortion and partial-birth abortion.

If President Bush nominates a pro-life jurist, as most people expect he will, and if the Senate confirms the nominee, we will be one vote away from overturning the dreaded Roe v. Wade decision that has resulted in more than 43 million abortions.

That's great news!

But, as you know, it will take tremendous hard work. Over the years, pro-life groups have asked for your help in so many ways -- to educate the public, help to pass pro-life legislation in Congress and state legislatures, and to elect pro-life candidates to state and federal offices.

You've risen to the occasion countless times and, together, we've won so many battles. But unborn children need you now more than ever before!

This is the battle we've been fighting since 1973. The fight to get a pro-life justice on the Supreme Court is what the pro-life movement has been all about since then. For everyone who values the lives of precious children before birth, there's no greater fight.

There are several ways you can help in this battle and I'm going to outline several of them below.

1.) Immediately contact President Bush and urge him to appoint a justice who will interpret the words and actual meaning of the Constitution and not legislate from the bench. Moreover, ask him to appoint a judge like Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia who values the culture of life. Contact President Bush at: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, 202-456-1111, (fax) 202-456-2461, president@whitehouse.gov. You can also send an email by going to https://sawho14.eop.gov/PERSdata/intro.htm

2.) Contact your two senators and encourage them to support President Bush's nominee. Ask them to oppose a filibuster against the nominee. You can reach any senator by calling 202-224-3121 or find specific contact information by going to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm3.
3.) The best way pro-life people can keep informed about the upcoming Supreme Court battle is by subscribing to the LifeNews.com Email Report. As you know, we offer free daily and weekly emails. Please encourage pro-life friends and family to email us at news@LifeNews.com to sign up or send us their email addresses yourself.

4.) Educate others. Take the information you get from LifeNews.com and write letters to the editor, forward the news to pro-life people, and print out news stories or emails to take to members of your church.

5.) Finally, support LifeNews.com with a financial gift. We bring you all sorts of news about abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, and human cloning. However, we need your financial support to write and disseminate the news on a daily basis. Please print out the form below and mail it to us with a donation, send us a gift through PayPal to news@LifeNews.com or go here to make a secure online donation to our nonprofit.

Thank you for your help and support and please do everything you can to help put another pro-life voice on the Supreme Court.

Sincerely for Life,
Steven Ertelt

Top 10 Reasons Why You Will Not Call Your Senator *

* some of the reasons given contain descriptions that may not be suitable for younger audiences.

10.) You define an “extremist judge” as one who was supported by 76% of California voters, believes in preserving the institution of marriage, believes there should be limits on obscenity, favors a ban on partial birth abortion, and believes it is constitutional to keep references of God in the pledge of allegiance.

9.) You want your senators to know you like politicians who claim to be conservative, yet are very sympathetic to the radical liberal agenda and are quite willing to compromise – I mean, reach a compromise – so that some, but not all of the judicial nominees, will get a fair vote up or down in the full Senate. You especially admire particular Republican senators – namely, John McCain (Ariz.); Mike DeWine (Ohio); Lindsey Graham (S.C.); Lincoln Chafee (R.I.); John Warner (Va.); Olympia Snowe (Maine); and Susan Collins (Maine). You feel these men and women are true opportunists who exemplify strong self-interest and a willingness to succeed politically, even if it means sacrificing deeply-held values of the majority of Americans – such as defending marriage and family, protecting human life, and preserving religious freedom.

8.) You would rather have a “gang of 14” senators decide which judges are allowed on our federal benches through a process of backroom deal making behind closed-doors rather than allowing all 100 senators to publicly debate the merits of all nominees before voting them up or down.

7.) You’re in favor of disrupting 200 plus years of Senate tradition by preventing highly qualified judges from serving on our federal benches. (The minority Democrats have blocked 10 of the president's 45 appeals court nominees by using the filibuster). The thought of holding judicial nominees hostage for years while federal benches remain vacant makes you feel like the country is moving in the right direction. It also makes you proud to support those who resort to name-calling (considering their arguments are weak) and portray those who try to restore normalcy back to the Senate as “extremist.”

6.) You want more judges deciding matters of right and wrong who subscribe to the religious worldview of secular humanism instead of judges who subscribe to the religious worldview of Christianity.

5.) You think the 10 Commandments should be censored while child pornography is allowed. In fact, you think unrestricted obscenity in the media is good for children. You were particularly inspired by the recent decision handed down by a judge in Pennsylvania who deemed it constitutional to allow pornographers to publish pictures showing depictions of women being gang-raped, and urinated and defecated upon.

4.) While you believe that marriage should be between one man and one women, you believe it can still be protected at the state level, despite the evidence to the contrary such as the recent federal judicial decision which null and voided Nebraska’s Defense of Marriage Amendment (DOMA) by deeming it unconstitutional.

3.) You know that this issue of filibustering has nothing to do with the future make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court. You also think that federal abortion laws should not be altered, despite the fact that these laws allow for the legal murder of children moments before being born through partial-birth abortion (a process whereby a child’s skull is crushed and brains are vacuumed out right before being delivered dead through the birth canal).

2.) You know that your senators know you won’t be able to remember how they dealt with this most important issue of judicial filibustering when they are up for re-election.

1.) You think your Senators will personally take your call and ask why you are bothering them.

Christian Leaders Continue Defending Truth As Culture War Wages On

COMMENTARY by Ed Nicholson

Anything goes in our ever-increasing, relativistic culture. If the death of Terri Schiavo wasn’t a telling sign, we can see that the culture war is far from being over. The November elections did not end the culture war, they only brought a reprieve, or an opportunity for the Church to recommit, re-group, and re-focus our efforts at holding back the advance of darkness while waging our own offensives. What we do after the election is just as important as what the Church did on Election Day. The next few years will most likely determine whether our society and our children’s society experience a tide of revival or a spiritual slide further into the mud of moral decay.

We probably can see no better example of the intensity of this threat than in the “hate crimes” legislation that persistently tries to make it’s way into American law. This insidious ideology has been instituted in other countries like Australia. Canada enacted their own version of this legislation in 2004, which now makes it a crime to read Romans Chapter 1 in a public forum – including in church services! Through what is called C-250, this law not only tells Canadians how they must feel, but it makes it a crime to think a certain way. Can you believe it! Some actually believe that government is capable at judging hearts and knowing one’s motivations. Give me a break! I thought only God had that gift! This scary legislation is now at America’s front door. After nearly 20 years of trying to get similar “hate crimes” legislation through Congress, liberals like Ted Kennedy have never been closer.

In response to the downward moral spiral of our country today, evangelical leaders of all stripes and perspectives are coming together and saying “Enough is enough!” Many have made significant decisions in their respective ministries to encourage Christians everywhere to “Be Silent No More.” In his newest book by the same title, Charismatic leader Rod Parsley, pastor of World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, urges believers to engage in the marketplace of ideas and public policy. For this reason, he has started The Center for Moral Clarity, which “exists to affect moral change in our nation by encouraging passionate and persuasive Christian leadership, educating Christians, mobilizing believers in an organized fashion and by providing a wide-range of tools needed to equip everyone . . . to be a voice in our nation.”

Due to the increasing threats to the family, Dr. James Dobson has decided to make a bold, new move with his mega-ministry as well. While maintaining his Chairmanship on the board of Focus on the Family, he decided in 2003 to step down as CEO to focus more of his time and attention at defending the family in the public arena through the newly created Political Action Committee known as Focus on the Family Action. (Here’s his April newsletter about Life, Death and Judicial Tyranny.)

Within the Conservative Evangelical community, we also find up-and-rising stars like Greg Koukl, who are making inroads encouraging Christians to not only be “light,” but “salt”(Matthew 5:13-16). As President of Stand to Reason, Koukl has devoted his ministry to helping Christian think more clearly about issues of moral, social, and religious significance. The scope of his ministry is specifically aimed at “equipping Christians in three vital areas: Knowledge, Wisdom, and Character.” Recently, he debated the kingpin of New Age gurus, Deepak Chopra on PAX television. You can read more about Stand to Reason at http://www.str.org/.

In the 17th century, the Church in Europe fell asleep. The result was the ushering in of the “Enlightment” period. The Enlightment Period set the stage for Charles Darwin, who later deeply influenced Joseph Stalin, who later killed millions of his own people.

With the emergence of a new nation in the midst of a different kind of war, Thomas Paine wrote in 1777: “It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequences will be the same.” Americans today are facing a similar challenge, and a similar crossroad of personal – as well as corporate – decision-making. The question is, are we going to stand and take action, or are we going to go back to bed? Collectively, as the Church, we will decide what will be our legacy.

Please join with other believers to do our part in influencing those in our centers of influence with the Truth and the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

Poll Finds Majority of Americans Feel Judicial Appointments Deserve an Up-Or-Down Vote.

More than 80 percent of participants in a recent Republic National Committee poll believe that "even if they disagree with a judge, Senate Democrats should at least allow the President's nominations to be voted on.” For details on the survey, click here.

QUOTABLE QUOTE

"If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage."

-- Abraham Lincoln

FREE ONLINE AUDIO & VIDEO RESOURCES

Download the free audio/video player here.

• College Students Beware: Unsuspecting Dangers Lurk on College Campuses. You may be surprised by what they are. Listen here. */ Link to more shows.

• Are different denominations a sign the Church is not in unity? Download this MP3 audio file here * (Right click (PC) or control-click (Mac) and select Save Target As). Then move the stroll bar to the 1:13:33 mark of the show to listen as Greg Koukl offers clear insight on this issue (3 minutes in length).

• Popular Press pushes inaccurate view of “Separation of Church & State”See for yourself here how history tells a different story.

• Sermon by Dr. Adrian Rogers: Taking Back Lost Ground.* From the Series: The Incredible Power of Kingdom Authority. Under Dr. Rogers’ 32 years of pastoral leadership, Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, grew from 9,000 members in 1972 to more than 29,000 today. He has been elected three times as President of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the world's largest Protestant denomination of 16 million members.

* available free on the net for a limited time only

Senator Bill Frist Joins African-American Pastors

-- Family Research Council

Concerned Women for America asks, What If They Filibustered American Idol?

What if millions were denied a chance to vote when guest judges filibustered a skinny singer from New Jersey?

You may say: “What can I do? I’m only one person.”

Read this story showing the Power of One.

Are the judicial nominees as radical as the liberal media tells us they are?

See for yourself.