A baby was saved from abortion today in Bakersfield! We'll share more on that praise report later, but regrettably it is necessary for this report to focus first on negative news:

The California Senate Office of Research has released a report on "Crimes Against Reproductive Rights in California" which accuses LifeSavers Ministries and its subsidiary, Voice For Life, of being criminal organizations (see http://www.sen.ca.gov/sor/reprocrimes.htm).

The report was apparently issued to generate support for SB 780, the Senate's latest attempt to make saving babies a "hate crime" (for details on SB 780, go to http://www.glorifyJesus.com/hatecrime/).

Chapter Two of the report, entitled "A Look at Threats and Trends," includes "VoiceForLife/LifeSaver Ministries, Bakersfield" among the "anti-abortion organizations in California known to advocate, condone, or practice actions such as violence, vandalism, assaults, obstruction and stalking, or that openly cooperate with national organizations that do so." (See the text of footnote 43 of the document for a list of the accused organizations. Please note that LSM and VFL are in good company on this list: none of the listed organizations promotes violence or other illegal activities.)

By listing LifeSavers and Voice For Life as "anti-abortion" organizations as opposed to "pro-life" organizations, the Senate report is intentionally classifying LifeSavers and Voice For Life as criminal operations (for an explanation of the report's distinction between "pro-life" and "anti-abortion," read "A Note on Terminology" in the report).

LifeSavers Ministries and Voice For Life promote peacefully saving babies through an approach we call "pregnancy evangelism," which, quite simply, is summed up by applying the statement "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life" to both the pregnant woman and to her preborn child. An effort to brand the efforts of LifeSavers and Voice For Life as "criminal" may open the door for your church to be targeted next. Are you ready?

The Voice For Life website (referenced as evidence by the Senate report) is at http://VoiceForLife.glorifyJesus.com. Take a look for yourself and see what your Senate considers to be "criminal." Then contact your Senator and share your concerns with them.

If you don't take action, you're part of the problem.

A poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller, Berlin, 1939.
[Niemoller was a pastor in the German Confessing Church who spent eight and one-half years in a Nazi concentration camp.]

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out--because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out--because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: `No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

LifeSavers Ministries received a call this morning from an employee at a rural health clinic, explaining that she had a teenage client who wanted to abort her baby. The employee had been to the LifeHouse several months ago when she thought she was pregnant, and had seen a video about abortion. The employee was obligated by her job to give her client an abortion referral, but she believed that if her client could see this video, she would change her mind. The employee asked if she could bring the client in this morning.

LSM's Terri Palmquist explained that the LifeHouse is not open today, but the employee stressed that the only time she could bring the client in would be this morning. After an unsuccessful attempt to arrange for another LifeSavers team member to come to the LifeHouse, Terri saw that it would be necessary for her to make the two-hour round trip from her home to Bakersfield. (Other local pregnancy centers were briefly considered, but they will not show graphic abortion videos to women, and in this instance, as is so often the case, the visual images seemed to be a key to the woman's decision.)

Thankfully, Terri's trip was not in vain. After seeing the video, the young client agreed that she would not abort her baby. She explained to Terri that she wanted to wait to have a baby until she could provide "the best" of everything. But Terri helped her see that depriving her next baby of a sibling would be far worse than any material possessions she may lack.

More details may be available on this report later. (This sketchy praise report was taken by Tim Palmquist in a phone call with Terri; after reviewing the written records more relevant details may be noticed.)

(Good thing Terri didn't have to drive across state lines; if she had, saving this baby's life would have been a "federal" crime!)