Answers to Lawmakers' Objections

Outlawing Abortion FAQ's

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This article was started by Dave Leach R-IA Bible Lover-musician-grandpa (talk) 04:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC). Interaction from other writers will be distinguished from my writing with horizontal lines above and below. Your response to anything you read here is most welcome. Please add your response next to what you are responding to. If your reaction is not to any specific part of this article, please add general comments on the "Discussion" page.

Introduction

So far the objections to the plan of "How States can Outlaw Abortion in a Way that Survives Courts" are not made by those who have read it, so they are not that any specific part of the plan is legally incorrect or politically unrealistic. Rather, they are mostly justifications for not studying it. If a challenge emerges to the legal correctness of the plan, that will be addressed first. The lawmakers who raised these objections are not identified except by code.

Let me say it more carefully: for decades, there have been general objections to any substantial outlawing of abortion, calling that a legally incorrect pipe dream. It is this plan, founded on the full range of court-recognized findings of facts in every category of court-recognized finders of facts, that has not yet been attacked as legally correct. Many of those general objections of the past would seem to apply to this plan, so this plan addresses them. So far no failure of this plan to address them has been argued.

Outlawing abortion isn't reality. We can only reduce them

Response: It is an untested theory that outlawing abortion “isn’t reality”, because no state so far has presented even a fraction of the overwhelming, unanimous, court-recognized evidence in support of triggering Roe’s “collapse” clause, that I urge states to cite in court.

When a prosecutor has 1,000 witnesses to a murder but calls only one, we might expect that a conviction won’t be reality. So why do states cite only one or two court-recognized fact finders who have established that babies are people? (Past "personhood" laws have cited only the finding of their own legislature. Alabama in 2019 cited that plus a few medical authorities within Alabama's borders.) Shouldn’t a conviction of abortion as murder be more "reality" if all the court-recognized evidence were presented in court? The 38 legislatures in their "unborn victims of violence" laws, Congress in 18 USC 1841(d), dozens of juries in abortion prevention trials acquitting because lives were saved, and unrefuted expert witnesses in thousands of such trials? Are you in favor of getting all that evidence in court? May we send you information about that?

True, the Supreme Court says no state law can be an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to kill. But that is only in a vacuum of state-submitted evidence that babies are people. SCOTUS has NEVER withdrawn Roe’s holding that such evidence, once “established”, requires ALL states to outlaw abortion.

Although lower courts say that evidence is irrelevant because Roe made babies non-“persons” “as a matter of law”, that is not merely absurd: it is demonstrably the opposite of what SCOTUS said.

I propose a simple, powerful way to make critical points like that in a bill’s “findings of facts”, at my online post of what I mailed you, which is also how my book begins. See: A_Law_Designed_to_Force_Courts_to_Address_Evidence_of_Life.

It explains that when the defense of a law is that it is NOT a “substantial” restriction (“undue burden”) of abortion, (that was Martin Cannon’s defense of Iowa’s Heartbeat law) then whether it IS a substantial restriction of abortion becomes the issue in court. When that is the issue in court, evidence of Life isn’t even relevant.

Didn't Roe positively rule that babies are not persons?

Response: Did Roe indeed affirm that babies are NOT "persons"?

This quote explicitly denies that SCOTUS took any position on "when life begins":

“When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” Roe v. Wade, p. 159 (In other words, "when life begins" is treated as a fact question concerning which "expert witnesses" in medicine and theology are more expert than SCOTUS, not a "matter of law" concerning which SCOTUS is the world's expert.)

Probably the closest Roe came to sounding like a ruling that baby humans are not "persons" was this quote on P. 12 of my book:

Roe said “the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.” Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 162 (1973). This was Roe’s rationale for presuming that legislatures did not regard the unborn as in fact “recognizably human”, Roe, p. 133. And because legislatures, in Roe’s view, did not treat the unborn as fully human, SCOTUS was “in no position to speculate” whether they are.

Roe did NOT say lack of protection by law was, and it obviously is not, evidence that one is not in fact human or that one has no constitutionally protected “right to life”.

Roe did NOT say there are humans who are not "persons".

P. XVI: Roe v. Wade equates the time an unborn child becomes “recognizably human” with the time the child becomes a “person”: “These disciplines variously approached the question in terms of the point at which the embryo or fetus became ‘formed’ or recognizably human, or in terms of when a ‘person’ came into being, that is, infused with a ‘soul’ or ‘animated.’” 410 U.S. 113, 133(1973)

Had the 14th Amendment “equal protection of the laws” been only for those who are legally recognized as human, we could still have slavery simply by declining to legally recognize a minority as fully human. All pro-slavery judges would need to do would be to rule that blacks are only 3/5 human according to the Constitution. Or that immigrants aren’t treated by our laws as “persons in the whole sense” when they are prosecuted for what their parents did with them, bringing them here as babies, so we can enslave them.

It is the fact that unborn babies are living human children that makes killing them murder, not what any law says about it, or even what the Constitution says about it. That’s what makes the consensus of court-recognized fact finders a stronger legal reason to end legal abortion than a Life Amendment. Which makes it insane for prolifers to not even mention this legally recognizable evidence in each and every prolife case!

The quibble of Roe was not whether babies are “persons” or merely “humans”, but whether very young babies depicted in Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary as indistinguishable from pig fetuses are “recognizably human”. (See p. 166.)

Nothing will hold much muster until we resolve the state supreme court finding a fundamental right to an abortion

Response: Many are treating the ICC as such a cure-all that there is no reason to even be aware of any other strategy - no reason to study any other plan to see if it really is a gift of God offering more than we had dared hope!

Can ANY strategy be THAT good?!

Were I in office I would vote for the Amendment. But both plans can be worked on together. The Amendment needn’t be passed before outlawing abortion. [See next section for more reasoning.]

Surely you do not prefer a strategy that takes 2-10 years over one that takes one; or one that can be overturned by a judge over one whose evidence no judge can squarely address and keep abortion legal; or one that addresses only the state obstacle over one that also will remove the Supreme Court obstacle; or one that only offers to facilitate future restrictions that are not an “undue burden” on abortion over a present law against all abortions. Surely you say “nothing else will hold much muster” only because you have not yet considered the power of the consensus of every category of court-recognized finders of facts.

Your plan might work where courts have not made abortion a fundamental right. Not in this state.

Not only that, but it doesn't matter that state courts are subject to the U.S. Supreme Court; they will do whatever they want anyway.

Response: The same evidence which no federal judge can squarely address and keep abortion legal, will also force any judge in any state, with or without a "fundamental right to abortion" precedent, to acknowledge the "collapse" of abortion's legality. Let me explain. It is not necessary, although it wouldn't hurt, to first have a "no right to abortion" state constitutional amendment.

State courts really are subject to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is rebellious enough to declare themselves the masters of legislatures. This they dare to do by alleged authority of the U.S. Supreme Court. Without that, they don't have sufficient cultural capital to declare themselves supreme over legislatures AND SCotUS. (Supreme Court of the United States.)

Roe v. Wade's holding, that once we find out babies are people then "of course" legal abortion must "collapse", is just as binding precedent as its holding that until we find that out, a woman's right to manage her own health is unmitigated by any right of any baby to live.

But that ruthlessly repeated "collapse" clause invokes a greater authority than SCotUS itself. By saying "of course", Roe concedes that even if SCotUS had never said it, it would still be true, and obviously so. Once some state finally places before courts all of the court-recognized evidence that babies are people, establishing conclusively that abortion is not just murder but is legally recognizable as murder, no court will be able to keep it legal without undermining its own reason to exist.

From page 37, "How States can Outlaw Abortion in a Way that Survives Courts":

As ignorance passes, so must abortion. Abortion’s legality and aura of “constitutional protection” can continue only in the absence of this “establishment” – only as long as uncertainty is alleged whether the unborn babies of human mothers are humans.

Roe’s “of course” acknowledges that it is obvious that abortion’s legality cannot survive knowing it is murder. That is, alleged ignorance cannot rationally or legally be made an obstacle to letting fact finders “establish” this fact. If there is evidence, it must be heard. Because it is unthinkable that we would knowingly want the blood of innocent human lives on our hands. So if the babies of human mothers turn out to be humans, we need to protect them.

Many abortion supporters hope, and prolifers fear, that even after our nation’s laws and courts officially acknowledge that abortion is the legal equivalent of murder – that the babies abortion kills are humans/persons, it will be possible, even likely, for other rationales to replace Roe’s rationale – Roe’s official ignorance about “when life begins”.

Appendix G deals with some of them inside and outside case law and shows this is simply impossible. It is just as obvious today as when Roe’s “collapse” clause began with “of course”, that SCOTUS can’t decide who lives and dies as a question so exclusively of law as to render irrelevant whether SCOTUS’ rulings protect murder.

The 14th Amendment “equal protection of the laws” is for all who are in fact humans/persons. Had it been only for those who are legally recognized as human, we could still have slavery simply by declining to legally recognize a discrete class of people as fully human.

From page 66:

Possibly what motivated the Roe justices to say they found it relevant to consult theologians, is that a relevant, practical problem is created for courts by the conflict between Imago Deo and logic alone.

Faith looks at this virtually unrestrained killing of lives whose humanity logic struggles to grasp, and sees genocide. It sees the blood of 60 million slain running down the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. This dangerously erodes public confidence in American justice. The only reason "we the people" created courts was to prosecute crime. Murder is the ultimate crime, and genocide is the ultimate murder. To the extent judges promote genocide, and especially after it becomes clear that is what is done, judges undermine the reason for their existence.

Fortunately the American legal system is able to balance doubt and faith and allow America to move forward, although no one is happy that it takes so long.

People debate facts and faith. Their debate spills into courts. America's court-recognized fact finders rule. As the facts become clearer to everybody, there is a point of decision whether to ignore reality or accept and accommodate it. The process of legal recognition through fact finders is for a nation like the conscience is for an individual, from which courts stray at peril to their own credibility.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created with unalienable rights...life...."

The "self evident" status of our fundamental "rights" establishes the role of popular understanding in legal reasoning. Rights are the Gift of God, our Declaration says. But in few nations during few centuries have they had the support of popular understanding. Popular understanding of our rights, which can exist only to the extent of reverence for Imago Deo, acts as a nation's acceptance of God's Gift. Popular understanding is not to be ignored. Not to be dismissed as irrelevant. Without it, no rights are safe.

No Roe backup is possible. Several wannabe replacement rationales wait in the wings to take Roe’s place when it “collapses”. 12 of them are addressed in Appendix G. None of them can survive “establishment” that all unborn babies of humans are humans/persons.

“Indeed, our decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), inferentially is to the same effect, for we would not have indulged in statutory interpretation favorable to abortion in specified circumstances if the necessary consequence was the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.” – Roe v. Wade at 159.

In oral arguments in Roe v. Wade, Justice Potter Stewart asked Sarah Weddington “If it were established that an unborn fetus is a person, you would have an almost impossible case here, would you not?” Weddington audibly laughed and acknowledged “I would have a very difficult case.” Stewart pursued, “This would be the equivalent to after the child was born...if the mother thought it bothered her health having the child around, she could have it killed. Isn’t that correct?” Weddington answered, “That’s correct.”

This exchange is what presumably provoked Justice Blackmun to write “[If the] suggestion of personhood is established, the case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”

....There is only one skeletal sustaining principle...in Roe, to which a succession of rationales may attach in turn: alleged uncertainty whether the unborn babies of humans are human.

This alleged uncertainty is articulated in Roe’s “collapse” clause where it is explicitly identified as Roe’s sustaining principle, in the sense that without it, Roe’s holding cannot stand.

This uncertainty as a matter of law cannot still seriously be alleged. Granting that the unborn babies of humans are humans, making their killing the legal equivalent of murder, will this Court still insist their murder is some kind of “private and personal right”, a “sacred choice” with which courts and lawmakers ought not interfere? Once this “outer shell” of alleged uncertainty who is human “collapses”, no rationale can stand.

Lawmakers won't pass another personhood bill - no matter how court-proof!

Response: You say Iowa lawmakers simply won't pass a "personhood amendment" no matter how court-proof it is.

First, don't confuse what I propose with any "personhood bill" of the past. I certainly urge a bill establishing that babies are people, BUT backed by evidence - not just scientific, medical or genetic evidence we find on the internet, but legally recognizable evidence already in thousands of court records: unanimous court-recognized evidence from every category of court-recognized finders of facts. "Personhood" bills of the past have cited only the declaration of a single legislature; Alabama this year added medical authorities but only from their own single state.

Second, the opportunity I outline requires specific criminal penalties that substantially outlaw abortion. "Personhood" bills of the past came without criminal penalties tailored to the unique circumstances of murder of very tiny humans, such as the difficulty of proving, without a body, that a murder was committed. When such a toothless bill became law, courts didn't even bother to overturn them because they didn't stop any abortions anyway. It was only in that sense that such laws were "court-proof" - the same sense in which termites are exterminator-proof so long as they stay out in the woods and stay away from the house. Because as long as they stay away from the house, exterminators don't care about them. Of course the easy way to make a personhood bill "court-proof" is to keep it toothless; don't enforce it. No criminal penalties. That way abortionists won't care enough about it to take it to court.

Webster, 1989, explains that there is nothing for a court to decide, before there is an actual restriction of abortion whose substance and purpose may be weighed. Not even the president of PersonhoodUSA, a few years ago, expected its own personhood laws would be able to end legal abortion. 

But if you mean Iowa Republican lawmakers aren't interested in a bill which would be both effective in stopping legal abortion, AND court-proof, you have to realize that is an untested theory. No bills like that have been considered over the past decade in the Iowa legislature. None of them cited Findings of Facts that included any evidence that "life begins" at fertilization, beyond the mere allegation of a single state legislature. There is no basis for imagining that is enough to persuade any court, since that is what was before SCOTUS in Roe v. Wade and that allegation of the Texas attorney general, Wade, was dismissed as a "suggestion" insufficient to "establish" the fact. ("If this suggestion of personhood is established...")

I believe the calculation that a bill cannot survive courts - or cannot effectively stop legal abortion - is a perfectly legitimate reason to have little enthusiasm for it. I believe the case I make, that the opportunity I outline is so irrefutable that no judge can squarely address the proposed evidence and keep abortion legal, will completely change the lawmakers' resistance which you expect.

Therefore I believe it is very worth the attention of every prolifer to take enough time to assess whether this bill, once passed, really will do well in court, AND once safely past courts, will end legal abortion. I believe the holdup is not Iowa lawmakers, but Iowa prolife leaders, to whom Iowa lawmakers must turn for guidance on what Iowa prolife voters are willing to understand and support.

In any case, my strategy requires a political component. Because of the readiness of judges to rule irrationally and illegally in cases where no one wants them to rule honestly and constitutionally, it is imperative that a significant population of prolifers understand the legal defense enough to recognize when a judge tramples law, justice, and Roe v Wade itself in order to perpetuate murder, so that the public will be ready to hold judges accountable.

We don't have time to read a book. You should talk to the lobbyists, and let THEM do all that reading, Give THEM the book. and then let THEM bring a nice simple summary to lawmakers

Response: Surely you don’t mean to disqualify my volunteer and I as “lobbyists”, as if we have to paid by someone other than God to merit your attention? My volunteer HAS done all that reading – I did all that writing - and that two-sheet mailing was about as condensed as any legislative agenda can get, that holds any promise of ending legal abortion.

You didn’t have to read very many pages to understand how this plan works. The first page of the book should be enough, to alert you to more of an opportunity than any state has explored - evidence which no judge can squarely address and keep abortion legal. The only reason to read the rest of the book is if, as a leader of this movement, you want to be equipped to answer every imaginable objection to this opportunity, or if you want to understand why a concept so simple has either never been thought of by anyone else, or has been thought of but rejected by even the most committed prolifers and lawyers.

As for the model legal brief which is part 2 of the book, that legal research is there for the benefit of any lawyer who wants help visualizing what kind of legal cases and arguments could carry this law successfully through every court despite such overwhelming judicial opposition to saving lives over the past 47 years. Not that it is over the head of anyone but a lawyer. Anyone can understand it. And the more people who understand it, the harder it will be for judges to get away again with dodging law, evidence, and precedent.

We are already paying for legal minds to work on it.

Response: A state lawmaker doesn’t want any information about how to end legal abortion because “we are paying lawyers to figure this out?” What is scary about that statement?

This man is a “Law Maker”. How happy can we be that a law maker is comfortable understanding less about law than a lawyer?

A judge’s role is to understand law only enough to apply it, not enough to write it. A lawyer’s job is only to bend the law to his personal interests. A Law Maker’s job is to write laws which can’t be bent for personal interests, and which can be sensibly applied to life situations.

We are all human, not knowing everything, so it is understandable that a law maker might know less about some areas than others. But this lawmaker doesn’t merely admit how intimidated he is, thinking he cannot understand the laws he enacts as well as a lawyer; he abdicates any responsibility to learn any more than he already knows! He has hired a lawyer to study so he doesn’t have to, so there is no need for him to take his precious time to examine the research I offer him.

Furthermore, it cannot be that any other human, than the one he has hired, may have valuable information on the subject. It is a waste of his effort to even try to understand what he has hired a lawyer to understand.

Not that he is less responsible than the rest of us; he merely articulates what probably most Christians feel. Intimidated. Not qualified. Therefore, not responsible.

Creepy, that not feeling qualified to understand law until a lawyer tells you what it means seems somehow irrelevant to the struggle of so many activists to become Law Makers!

But just as creepy that the rest of us feel so little responsibility to even try to understand law and lawmaking yet without any sense that our competence to elect lawmakers is thereby diminished!

The fact is the Rule of Law requires all of us to think for ourselves at least a little. To the extent we allow ourselves to be intimidated from even trying to question the experts, or from looking for better solutions than the old familiar, comfortable, official solutions which do not work as well as anyone wants, then even if we hire a lawyer to think for us, how will we trust the very lawyer we hired, when an EXALTED JUDGE rules that your LAWYER is wrong?

Even when you hire a lawyer, you need to understand your case as well as you can, or you won’t have any idea whether your lawyer is even doing what you want, and frankly, your lawyer won’t know either.

One other problem is that even if the Law Giver Himself, Jesus, were the one hired by a bunch of lawmakers who expected Jesus to do all their thinking for them, so that we could be confident that everything He advised was a 100% answer to everyone’s prayers, Jesus would still face the resistance of lawmakers who don’t understand what He offers, and who therefore will not support it. Two examples of God having to diminish the blessings He wanted to give mankind are 1 Samuel 8 and Matthew 19:8. By the same principle, any expert advising lawmakers must consider not just what bills should pass but what bills will pass, given not just the resistance of ideological enemies but the mental inertia of friends.

Civilization: specialists serving each other. Civilization is a structure made of of specialties; we develop our own area of expertise and serve others, as others with their specialties serve us. But whether we are hiring an electrician, carpenter, computer geek, or auto repairman, to the extent we don’t understand what we are asking them to do, we are at the mercy of both their integrity and their competence, and moreover, our lack of understanding will create many problems for which we will have to hire them back again and again.

In the case of abortion, law and precedents are so tangled up with twisted rulings which people who know better have been too intimidated to plainly expose, for so long, that the only way to unravel Mr. Death is for a lot of prolifers to jump off the fence about what certain plain words mean, so they can recognize, in significant numbers, the next time judges ignore plain evidence and law, and hold them accountable.

God calls us to think, decide, and act for ourselves. Christianity is a thinking man’s religion. Proverbs is a 31-chapter call to seek wisdom.

Proverbs 4:5 Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. 6 Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. 7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. 8 Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. 9 She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

Proverbs 8:1 Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? 2 She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. 3 She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. 4 Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. 5 O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. 6 Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. 7 For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.

By contrast, Hindus don’t think anything is “true”, but rather, all is “illusion”. The goal of their meditation is to remove all cogent thought from their minds.

Ancient Greeks, observing how persuasively “rhetoric” is employed by politicians to promote lies, asked with Pilate, “What is ‘truth’?”

Moslems establish what is “true” by beheading anyone who tries to submit "insulting" evidence.

The Loveliness of Truth. Millions of Christians truly “love” (Proverbs 4:6) truth so much that it is harder for them to renounce it than to bear being tortured to death. Even though no man knows all truth! We Christians, many of us, are willing to die for devotion to the little glimpse of truth we have, even though many of our questions remain unanswered!

Jesus told Thomas, John 20:29 “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Thomas had not lacked for evidence. A man born blind, seeing; a stormy sea walked on; 10,000 or more fed from a single lunch box; three dead people raised to life! Yet Thomas was determined to stay on his safe comfortable fence, about whether Jesus was actually alive, until every last question had been answered – until every last excuse for doubt was vaporized.

Why did Jesus say people are “happy” (the meaning of “blessed”) who don’t stay on their fence that long? Why does God especially value the willingness of people to jump off the fence between conflicting positions before every last question is answered?

The evidence that Jesus died and rose again is overwhelming, but only for those willing to look at, and think about, the evidence. (For example.) The fact that Jesus did that, and no one else did, proves that what Jesus says about God, and about what happens beyond death, is more reliable than what anyone else says. But it only proves that to those who think about that evidence.

Why does God want us to think? Why did God leave Adam and Eve alone with the devil, or at least so they thought? Why wasn’t God right there visibly, refuting the devil – better yet, silencing if not killing him? Why does God leave our faith at the mercy of our thinking?

A condition of Heaven is helping the least of Jesus’ brethren.

Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:....45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. 16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

Jesus’ brethren are destitute and tyrannized partly because of natural conditions, and partly because of evil within humans. Delivering the destitute is therefore as complicated as humans are. Since we are humans that means delivering those in need stretches us to our full capacity. It requires thinking. It requires sorting through the evidence for and against each step of how to proceed.

The American model for Christian activism is half a dozen people per issue per state becoming expert on an issue, sending out fundraising letters with no more wisdom than will fit in four pages, in order to get salaries so the half dozen can keep studying, but who are too busy to process the flood of suggestions they receive from people who are not credentialed, qualified, certified, official experts.

This system rules out better solutions than the old familiar, comfortable, official solutions which do not work as well as anyone wants. But it is the preferred system. It has a very important advantage.

The Advantage of old, tested, official, failed solutions. This system spares most people from responsibility for deep, independent thought. Deep thinking – especially when the only people it benefits is other people – is costly.

Even when we are in the best of health, deep thought can be as physically exhausting as heavy manual labor. When we are sick, or in pain, the very idea of thinking deeply just for the benefit of others can be quite offensive.

Independent thinking, by definition, is lonely. It separates us from friends and even, sadly, sometimes, family. Matthew 19:29, Luke 14:26. (The Greek word μισει translated “hate”, means “love less”.) To independently understand some truth which is critical to helping others, and then to articulate it openly, both because you love truth and because you want to bless others, makes you the target of those who want to continue oppressing those you want to help, as well as the target of those who share your concern for the oppressed but are not ready to take the action which your truths demand.

That’s why God values those who are ready to jump off their fences and help, without waiting until reality sends fire ants up every last board. God wants Heaven full of people who love each other so much they are willing to suffer when that will help.

The Solution to Old, Tested, Failed Solutions. God offers a solution in one word: in Greek, He wrote the word, εκκλεσιαν. We translate the word “church”, but we define the word quite differently.

By the word, we today mean a large crowd gathered to hear one man speak, where decisions are rarely made by the group, nor action taken whose effects reach very far beyond the group. For example, action needed to deliver those being led away to slaughter with the blessing of government, Proverbs 24:10-12, may not be addressed, nor disagreement resolved through reasoning, nor action steps strategized on church premises, because that is both “politics” and “controversial”.

By contrast, the Greek word εκκλεσιαν meant, to Greeks, the gatherings of all the people of the city for the sole purpose of making political decisions as a body, with no single voice dominating the rest. This view of εκκλεσιαν is supported by an honest reading of 1 Corinthians 14, the Bible’s most detailed description of the format of a worship service, in which seven different verses call upon “all” to verbally contribute.

Obviously, were this what we mean by “church” today, the world would be blessed by a forum where real solutions would be discussed, vetted, perfected, and implemented, along with the personal spiritual development necessary to shine Light out where it is darkest. Fellowship would become a laboratory where participants could practice reasoning with each other in love, building the relationship skills needed to heal marriages, and to reason with unbelievers to bring them into the fold. “Church” would become CHURCH, a lighthouse for the land, an engine of healing for the culture.

Meanwhile. Until that next step in the progress of Daniel’s “stone...cut out without hands” (Daniel 2:34 – compare with Luke 22:25-27) takes root, consider that my book, “How States can Outlaw Abortion in a Way that Survives Courts” may not be the only original idea or solution offered by Christians struggling to get their solutions looked at by the very people praying for them.

Consider, when someone offers you an opportunity that is so close to matching your bravest prayers that you are suspicious that it is “too good to be true”, that God explicitly promises happy endings that are “too good” to believe, but which are indeed true. Romans 8:28, 1 Corinthians 2:9. Be suspicious, instead, that you and your friends may be rejecting God’s answers to your very own boldest prayers, just because they are gift wrapped in hard work, a little persecution, or are delivered by a messenger you would be ashamed to bring to your country club.

You say you don’t know that the solution being offered to you will work? Until you have actually studied it enough to be certain it will not work, and cannot be made to work with some attention and prayer, you may be frustrating God’s efforts to bless you.

Get off the fence. Open it. Test it. See if it is real. Think for yourself. If the experts aren’t paying attention to it, find out if they have good reason, or are merely suffering from mental inertia.

That is a process that will expose you to a lot of nonsense, but at least you will thereby confirm that it is nonsense. That is also the process by which you will finally recognize God’s answer to your prayers – the means to finally bring down the mountains of evil (Matthew 21:21-22) that have tempted you to ask why a “God of Love” would allow them. You will learn the answer to that question: God has left them there for you to have something to pull down, to fill your own life with meaning.

I am not qualified/too busy/too scared to take the lead on this

Response: This bill pretty much explains itself. Its mission is to present evidence and argument that babies are people, making abortion legally recognizable as murder, so clearly and irrefutably that no judge can squarely address it and keep abortion legal.

If someone is against it, there are three possible reasons: (1) he hasn't read it and feels too busy with other priorities than saving lives to read it, which is a very common obstacle among lawmakers who have to read and take positions on a thousand bills every year; (2) he doesn't want legal abortion to end; or (3) he has identified a genuinely fatal flaw in it.

We look forward to critics in the legislature and in the media doing their very best to identify flaws in this bill so we can try to amend them before this bill becomes law. Because we don't want any flaws left in it when this law goes before a judge. We don't want it to be possible for any judge to squarely address this evidence and argument and keep abortion legal.

However, when criticism does not honestly address this evidence and argument, but only ridicules a caricature of it, people who want legal abortion to end and who are paying attention will notice the difference between this bill and the caricature, and will be encouraged that its opponents were unable to find fault with the bill without first pretending it was something else that was much easier to ridicule. Both news reporters and judges have done that in the past. Those of us who care about murder need to pay attention, and hold them accountable if they do that again.

Now that every court-recognized fact finder has established that abortion kills fully human beings, abortion is legally recognizable as murder, and we are very much against murder.

I certainly relate to being fearful of not being ready to face challengers. I began publishing my analyses of prolife legal defenses in 1989, 30 years ago, and I still have to choke down, or pray down some fear as I present this opportunity to a lawmaker, lawyer, or prolife leader. What if I am wrong? What if I have overlooked fatal errors in this too-good-to-be-true (but 1 Corinthians 2:9) answer to prolifers' prayers? What if I am humiliated even more than I have been already - not only for wanting an end to legal abortion, which makes me a "fanatic" according to Banned Parenthood as quoted with glee by their media puppets, but also for "tilting at windmills" - pursuing a legally unrealistic fantasy, divorced from reality?

But I have another fear that is even greater. What if I am right, and I do nothing for fear of being wrong, and when I stand before Jesus He shakes his head and says "If you had just tried a little longer, a little harder! Legal abortion was on the verge of collapsing, and you would have saved millions of lives!" (Not that the collapse of legal abortion rides on my actions alone. Every activist, every lawmaker, every prayer warrior, every voter has a rope in his hands tied to this mountain. All of us, pulling harder, are enabled by Jesus to pull it down.)

Queen Esther faced the same dilemma.

Esther 4:10  Again Esther spake unto Hatach, and gave him commandment unto Mordecai; 11  All the king's servants, and the people of the king's provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days. 12  And they told to Mordecai Esther's words. 13  Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. 14  For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? 15  Then Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer, 16  Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish. 17  So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. 

The opportunity promoted here is a more direct legal assault on legal abortion than any state has ever mounted. To the extent it is a real threat to the Murder Lobby, and to the extent you take the lead, liberal reporters will come after you with more lies, more malicious mischaracterizations, than you have probably ever experienced. That is, unless they have become more fair, honest, and principled than they were when I began publishing my writings about prolife legal defenses.

In fact, one of the bitterest accusations they will likely make about you is that you let yourself be deceived by me. Or worse yet, you agree with me.

I had a daydream, where I was you and was trying to defend this strategy to a hostile news reporter. I answered:

“One thing I have in common with the author of this strategy is a desire to see an end to legal abortion. Another is an urgency about placing before judges the legally recognizable evidence that babies are people, established by juries, expert witnesses, 38 states, and Congress.

"That much consensus, with not one legal authority saying human life begins any LATER than fertilization, seems pretty persuasive to me. Doesn’t it to you? Can you identify a fatal flaw with this measure?

"I am sure there are things about this goal that I don’t know. I assume I will be challenged with questions I can't answer. Which of course is true of anything that humans do which is very important.

"But what if this opportunity to end legal infanticide is real, and I do nothing?

"We humans are called upon by God to made decisions and take positions about things about which our understanding is imperfect. That always creates the risk of being ridiculed for overlooking some detail. Although frankly I expect to be hated more if this bill actually does succeed in ending legal abortion, than if it never gets out of the gate.

"I am definitely not the most legally qualified lawmaker to be leading the charge on this initiative, but I have a strong desire to find out if this opportunity is real, and the only real way to do that is to test it: to introduce it and see if anyone can disprove it.

"This is what Jesus did, when He was only 12 years old. He sought out the brightest minds in the world about His area of concern, and asked them questions, testing His understanding, seeing if they could disprove any of the concerns on His heart. (Maybe it was not at all for His own elucidation, but was only to set an example for us.) And then he thought about those answers for the next 18 years before He publicly opposed them. (Not that we have 18 years to save lives; God's time for us to act is often very short.)

"So let me turn your question around to yourself: can YOU find a legal fatal flaw in this theory? I am willing to suffer humiliation for the sake of satisfying my curiosity about this, and for the hope of saving many lives. I look forward to your article. I trust you will look for a law professor somewhere to refute me, but I challenge you to challenge her to actually read the legal arguments first before dumping on them.

"I have to warn you: if all you do is call me names as you mischaracterize what I am introducing, that will only encourage me to believe you had concluded that reporting this opportunity honestly would have left you unable to criticize it, because you share my belief that this opportunity is irrefutable! So what I will be watching for is to see if you can honestly address the arguments in this book and still

show how they are wrong. "If you can show me these legal arguments are wrong, I will withdraw my support for them. But I admit I want them to be correct, because I want there to be a way to end legal abortion very soon. Now that every court-recognized fact finder has established that abortion kills fully human beings, abortion is legally recognizable as murder, and I am very much against murder.

"Aren’t you?”

As frustrating as it is to have to take positions on matters about which not all our questions are perfectly answered, that is what makes it possible for humans to be heroes.

It is when the soldier charges into a hail of bullets, not knowing if he will survive, not knowing if he will accomplish anything at all, that he receives a Congressional Medal of Honor.

How easy it would be to play football - to carry the ball to the goal - if there were no opposing team! But how boring football would be! It is the opposition which makes football interesting.

Many people can paint fairly well. But when a paraplegic paints well, holding a paintbrush between her teeth, that is what makes people stand up and cheer.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 Work hard at whatever you do, because there will be no physical action, no tools, no schools, no skills in the world of the dead---and that is where you are going.

It is only during this short physical life that we have the human limits that make life an adventure, and enable us to be heroes. Heaven will be different. Creating will be easier and safer. There will not be foreign languages or limited knowledge in need of being built up and stored up through schools and libraries, we learn from 1 Corinthians 13, but there will be love. Which Matthew 15:13 defines as readiness to sacrifice ourselves for others. But love, we learn from 1 Corinthians 13, is the one thing we can start building right here, and which "you can take it with you".