I so wish that I could have been in Washington DC for the 9/12 March yesterday.  In fact just last Sunday I was looking at airline tickets and trying to figure out a way to come up with the money to fly out there. In case you are unaware of what the 9/12 March was…let me give you the 411.  The march yesterday which drew tens of thousands of people (some estimate 2 million) from all across America was a gathering of people from every walk of life, every race, every creed, every political and non political party who wanted to express their desire to see America return to 9 basic principles and 12 values. 

Here are the 9 principles:

1.  America is good
2. I believe in God and He is the center of my life
    ”The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington´s first Inaugural address.
3.   I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
   “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
   “It is in the love of one´s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
     “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson
6.  I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
   “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
    “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
    “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington
9.  The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
    ”I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson

Here are the 12 values:

• Honesty
• Reverence
•  Hope
• Thrift
• Humility
• Charity
• Sincerity
• Moderation
• Hard Work
• Courage
• Personal Responsibility
• Gratitude

And yes they were there to protest – the current healthcare reform, the increase in government spending and trillion dollar deficit, tax increases, wealth redistribution to name a few. Here is a great slide show from a blogger friend of mine was there so you can see it for yourself  -http://picasaweb.google.com/BarbarasMommyLife/912MarchOnWashingtonDC?feat=embedwebsite#

These values & principles as well as protests combined with my pro-life/anti-abortion (let me be clear with the facts of science – abortion is the killing of a baby and should not happen in any society – there is an answer to unwanted babies it is called adoption) passion is what I am (or striving to be as I certainly have not arrived in several of these areas).

 During the past several months many of our leaders and media have classified people like me who have attended marches, tea parties, town hall meetings or protests in very unbecoming and untrue way. 

I am not:

• a Nazi  — I have never been nor will ever embrace socialism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism or fascism
• a racist — I do not see color or race but rather as Martin Luther King hoped for, I judge people on the content of their character.  I have very close friends of most every race – African American, Filipino, Mexican, South American, Korean. Oh and did I mention I have a precious & perfect baby girl who happens to be black that we adopted here in the USA?
• un American — I am a proud & patriotic American, raised in a third generation military family with both of my grandfathers serving in WWII (and one giving his life there).  I have voted in every election since I turned 18, proudly fly the American flag daily and participated in the celebration of our country, our national holidays and the democratic process my entire life.
• astroturf – this new name given to those protesting who are supposedly being paid to go protest by some big organization or corporation. Ummmm…no one has paid this lady a dime, nor recruited me let alone even talked to me. And FYI…I do not watch Fox news (have only had television reception since last Thursday), have never listened to Glen Beck (although I would love to) and catch perhaps a grand total of 1 hour per week of conservative talk radio while I am in the car driving my kids to all their actvities. 
• a homeland terrorist - I have never ever been involved in acts of violence or coercion against America or anyone for that matter and just because I am pro life, against illegal immigration, believe in state & local authority  and  am conservative I am going to be labeled a terrorist?
• “fishy” - simply by having legitimate concerns about the current healthcare reform bill and sharing those concerns with others makes me suspicious…hmmmm.
• a “tea bagger” – I am too classy to even respond to this base name calling by our media
• a moron  – some refered to yesterdays demonstration as the “Million Moron March”  So now I am being called a moron.  (I was there in spirit if not in flesh) I do not claim to be the brightest individual in the world but I am not stupid (the technical definition is an adult with the mental age of 8-12) and in fact graduated in the top 12 of my high school class (albeit in the California public schools), scored a 1200 on my SAT’s and earned a college degree from UOP.

Ok, I just thought I’d clear that up for everyone..although I doubt that the people who called me those names are reading my blog!  I will be at the next march and despite my very full life (ummm….8 children, homeschooling Mom, Director of Development for JECHS, Creative Memories Consultant and trying to do something to promote adoption) I will be campaigning for new congressmen & new senators that reflect what I am.

Red Envelope Day is TODAY – March 31, 2009

I have been hearing about this for months and was excited to participate along with my family.  I wrongly assumed that others who believe in the life of the unborn would have heard of it through facebook, email or at their churches.  Just this past week I have become aware of some of my close friends who are passionately pro life had not yet heard of this event.  So even though the day is here…I am hoping to help get the word out and to inspire those of you out there to join in the effort to take a stand for the unborn.

It’s a simple concept: just buy a red envelope(or make out of construction paper or wrapping paper or color white envelopes red as my friend Becky’s children did)  seal it up (yes, empty), address it to the president, and add this note on the back of the envelope: “This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.”   Or do it the EASY way go to this website – pay $1.10 & they will send your red envelope (or as many as you want to send) - couldn’t get any easier & way cheaper than your cup of coffee today  – http://www.redenvelopeday.com/send.html

You may wonder, “What good will this do?” No one but God can answer that, but the campaign reminds me of the “launcher” tactic used by William Wilberforce and others as they fought against slavery in the British Empire. It’s a simple, peaceful way of drawing attention to an evil that needs to be changed. President Obama, as Chuck Colson noted in this BreakPoint commentary, is confused on this issue: he rightly believes that God does not support taking innocent life, yet he is staunchly pro-abortion.  

Here’s the address so you don’t have to look it up:
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC  20550

My children participated in this at their homeschool co-op and also sent envelopes to our local media telling them what was happening. Then last weekend when all the “Borden” cousins were here for Amy’s Rite of Passage (more on that to come) we had a red envelope party.

The students at Jim Elliot Christian High School also participated – they made their envelopes out of red copy paper and addressed them in my husband’s Bible class yesterday & today.

The girls and I just dropped ours off at our local post office – hoping that you are all doing the same thing (or getting on line and placing your red envelope order) 

Even if you are not reading this post on March 31st – I would still do it – a few days late will not matter as hopefully millions of red envelopes arrive at the White House throughout the next week!  This is an easy & painless way to let your voice be heard for the innocent unborn.

January is National Right to Life Month.

If you have read much of my blog or have known me for longer than 24 hours you most likely are well aware that one of my passions is LIFE!  I believe that all human life is a precious gift from God to be more highly valued than riches, possessions, personal pleasure or pursuits. I believe that every human being has the “right” to life – no matter their size, their level of development, their environment or their degree of dependency.

Do you believe that?

* Size – Are bigger people more human or more valuable than smaller people?  Is a baby born at full term weighing 7lb 11 oz more human than the one born in the room next door at 26 weeks gestation weighing 1lb 6oz? For my dear friend who delivered her baby at 15 weeks and held in the palm of her hand a tiny yet perfectly formed little baby boy and saw his perfect little hands, toes, eye brows and tiny little finger nails- she can tell you that her tiny baby was valuable and human.

Level of Development- Certainly we do not want to live in an elitist society that says only people with a certain level of development are human and valuable?  Are you at a higher development level  - physically, emotionally and mentally –  now than when you were 5 or 15 or  even 25 for that matter. I certainly am.  And as I age, I realize that in many ways my development will actually start deteriorating  (especially in the physical arena) – does that mean I am less valuable or human?  Level of Development does not make a life valuable.  No matter what our level of development, no matter what our disabilities, we have the right to life.

Environment – Does where we live determine our right to life or our value as a human being?  I have lived -

• under my parents 14 ”roofs” (in seven different cities, in four states)
• in a dorm room at UOP
• in two different apartments and a rental home
• in my own home (well ok, really the banks home)

….and in my mothers womb! I have been a valuable human being with the right to life in each and everyone of those places. Why would anyone suggest that an 8 inch trip down the birth canal somehow makes you human?

Degree of Dependency - Dependency is irrelevant to value in human beings.  My 21 month old precious baby boy (I refuse to call him a toddler yet) is completely dependant on others to sustain his life.  My 19 year old amazing daughter is completely dependant on insulin to stay alive. Someday I just might be completely dependant on my children due to the loss of my health or ability to work t0 provide for my needs – will that make me not valuable or have the right to life? In many ways we are all dependant on someone or something to sustain our life. And for those of us who have others depending on us to sustain their lives….are we not morally and ethically responsible to provide that need?

Bottom Line – Why is it ok to end the life of  a baby before they are born?

My passion for life is not something I just talk about – it is something I have actively lived out by -

• praying, praying & praying
• sharing my passion for the unborn with young people for the past 25 years
• teaching & training those same young people to defend the rights of the unborn
• having the privilege of being able to “rescue” a teenager literally right from out of an abortionists hands (her beautiful daughter is now 20 years old & living a wonderful life!)
• being arrested & going to jail for peaceful civil disobedience while protesting abortion (no signs, no words,no threats)
• being personally open to every life the Lord wants to bless us with – at any age, under any circumstances, at any time
• being willing to adopt any baby (no, not just a “perfect” baby) that a mother is unable to raise for whatever reason (really!  If you know of someone with a “unwanted” pregnancy we would love to raise their baby in our loving home)
• having an “open home” policy for anyone in a crisis pregnancy (or any other crisis for that matter)
• donating baby clothes, diapers and money to the Pregnancy Help Center in Stockton
• participating in fund raisers for Pregnancy Crisis Centers
• teaching, training, influencing and inspiring my own seven children to be actively pro-life
• and this past Saturday our entire family participated for the first time (but not the last!) in the Walk for Life in San Francisco with over 30,000 others who are taking a stand for the right to life for the unborn. 

These type of events help to solidify your and your children’s convictions in every way – from the inspirational speakers, the testimonies from women who regret their abortions, the warm, wonderful & diverse fellowship with fellow walkers and even listening to the angry protesters rhetoric ignites passion & purpose.

My eldest daughter, Michelle,  participated in the March for Life in Washington DC two days prior to our event (and I have to say I am one proud Mommy – she has been passed the baton & is running with it!)

She got to hear incredible “right on” speakers like Pastor Luke Robinson -

If you too believe in the right to life for the unborn,  I would ask you today….what are you doing to “talk the talk” AND ”walk the walk”?  Together we can – stop the killing of innocent life.

 * The SLED acronym was learned from Scott Klusendorf one of the best defenders of life in our country!(www.prolifetraining.com)

WARNING!  If political debates or “hot topic” issues cause your blood pressure to rise, get you depressed or incite you to start cursing at your computer screen – you may want to skip reading this post today. Read on at your own risk. 

Ok….so I am a one issue voter.  Whether you agree with me and are saying “Amen, Sister!”, think I am crazy, foolish or vehemently disagree and want to scream at me – I hope you can respect me for my passion and commitment to my beliefs or at the very least “tolerate” me (as it seems would be the “politically correct” thing to do – although I find very little tolerance for many of my Christian tenets from those who scream tolerance the loudest…but I digress….). 

Here are my core beliefs:

• I believe that life begins at conception(ie: the minute a sperm & egg meet a human being is created – this is an area where both religion & science agree with me – so that should make us all in agreement on at least one point!)
• I believe all life deserves a chance to be lived to it’s fullest – whether that “full life” is hours, days, years or decades or whether that full life has it’s challenges, hardships, handicaps or disabilities (what life does not include some of these?).
• I believe that deliberately taking that life is murder. (dictionary definition – “to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously”  I consider scraping a baby from a mother’s womb piece by piece as in 1st trimester abortions as inhumane.  I consider 2nd & 3rd trimester and partial birth abortions as barbaric. I consider leaving a baby alone to die after a botched abortion as infanticide – the act of killing an infant)
• I believe that murder is breaking one of the 10 Commandments, is a sin and is morally wrong (I must add here that like all sin,  it is forgivable – thank God for His amazing love, mercy & grace for us all)
• I believe that murder/abortion should be illegal in our country
• I believe that abortion is not a “right” nor should be a ”choice” (we should not have a right to murder or again we should not have a choice to end the life of a innocent baby)
• I believe that I will stand before God one day and give an account for my actions or in-actions when it comes to what I did to help stop the aborting of 3,000 innocent babies each day in the USA.

Because of that belief I have:

• volunteered for and supported with my time, talent and money many Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
• taught against abortion to thousands of teenagers whom I have worked with for the past 28 years.
• encouraged those teens as well as the many others in my sphere of influence to do something to help end abortions.
• was privileged to have intervened with one of those students who was just moments from having an abortion (truly she was inside the abortion clinic, as was I – it is quite a story!). She now has a beautiful 20 year old daughter and thanks the Lord daily that she did not end her child’s life. (she came by my home several years ago and with tears in her eyes expressed her tremendous gratitude for my “guts” that day)
• participated in a peaceful demonstration in front of an abortion clinic in 1988 which resulted in closing the clinic for a day and in my arrest. (and I promise it was peaceful….singing worship songs and praying – no yelling, screaming, no signs or posters).
• helped many single mothers – physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially - who have chosen to have and raise their children rather than have an abortion.
• am in the process of trying to adopt a baby from a crisis pregnancy center whose mother was in crisis and has chosen adoption over abortion.
• always voted for elected officials who do not support abortion as well as always voted for propositions that are pro-life or that will limit/restrict abortions and/or abortion funding.
• taught my children that abortion is wrong and encouraged them to be involved in all of the above. I want them to be passionate about this issue! (which means in the next decade + a few years there will be, at the very least, seven more pro-life/anti-abortion activists out there.  Hmmmmm….and if they each are blessed with seven children (which is highly likely as they all want lots of sweet babies!), then there will hopefully be 49 more joining the cause.  By the time I am a great gramama….there could be well over 300 one issue voters just from the Lambdin clan alone – perhaps there is hope we can turn things around. Wait that could mean 2,000 – 2,500 of us in just three more generations…wow!  Opps, I got carried away and caused the over population crowd to hyper ventilate!)

I am posting this article from a professor at Princeton University that sums up why I can not/will not vote for Senator Obama. (On a side note….please do not even begin to think/say that I am racist – it could not be farther from the truth – I have voted for Alan Keyes several times and…just wait to see the race of our soon to be adopted child/children!  Also, are you aware that the highest number of abortions in the USA are performed on black women? – I want to save those precious black babies as well as help those women in crisis pregnancies. I hate that during this election process I have often felt like I needed to “prove” that I am not racist…but once again I digress….) No matter which side of this abortion issue you fall, I hope you will read this article to the end and give it some serious consideration. (I have only included a part of it here on my blog…please click on the link at the end to get the entire article)

Obama’s Abortion Extremism

by Robert George

Oct 14, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama’s views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.

 

Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.

Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-lifeCatholics and Evangelicals – who aggressively promote Obama’s candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of view.

What is going on here?

I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama’s self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what they are saying. But before proving my claims about Obama’s abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as “pro-abortion” rather than “pro-choice.”

According to the standard argument for the distinction between these labels, nobody is pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without abortions. After all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to have an abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find themselves with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when having a baby would present significant problems for them. So even if abortion is not medically required, it should be permitted, made as widely available as possible and, when necessary, paid for with taxpayers’ money.

The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus if we shift to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of Americans: slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition. Such people – Thomas Jefferson was one – reasoned that, given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn’t think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given constitutional protection.

Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as “pro-choice”? Of course we would not. It wouldn’t matter to us that they were “personally opposed” to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were “unnecessary,” or that they wouldn’t dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said “Against slavery? Don’t own one.” We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being “pro-abortion” and being “pro-choice.” Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Bidenhassometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to create a meaningful category called “pro-choice,” then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.

The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supportsThe same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, “forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.” In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in uterowere it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.

But this barely scratches the surface of Obama’s extremism. He has promised that “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act” (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed “fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, “a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined ‘health’ reasons.” In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would “sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.”

It gets worse.  …. Read whole article here

Further evidence for me – here is a short video clip of Senator Obama speaking at a Planned Parenthood event -

Because many elections and especially this election has proven to be very volatile and because we seem to live in a society that has ceased having polite discourse on the issues (especially the issue of abortion), I am sure that this post will cause more than a few to unsubscribe to my blog or vow to never read my writings again – which is yet another price I am willing to pay to live out my core beliefs. If I have influenced just one more person to be more actively involved in ending abortions and saving the lives of those babies, then I will have accomplished my purpose here.

For those that choose to leave….I am sad to say goodbye.  For the rest of you who stay…I will continue to strive to inspire, motivate, challenge and bless you along the way.

Lastly, I have to add – perhaps someone reading this blog is currently contemplating having an abortion – I beg you from the depths of my soul, not to go through with it.  I am willing to do whatever it takes to help you choose life for your unborn child. Email me at beth@bethlambdin.net and I promise to be there for you.