Looking Ahead to 2010 (Shirts)

Last Thursday, I joined Brodie McClain and Larry Lucas for our year-end board meeting. Our primary focus was to come up with an action plan for 2010 that would help ensure Abort73’s financial viability after a rather difficult economic year. After much prayer and deliberation, we arrived at a number of critical decisions which I believe will help us be better stewards of all God has blessed us with. All of those decisions will be disclosed in the weeks to come. For now, I want to highlight the portion of our summary document that deals with T-shirt sales:   

When it comes to Abort73 T-shirts, volume has always been our primary objective. Making money was never the issue. We wanted to get as many T-shirts out the door as possible – by selling them at an absolute bare minimum and often selling them at a loss. Four years later, it has become apparent that our T-shirt model must now evolve. Though sales have increased dramatically each year, our bottom line has not. As a result, our

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Opening the Door to Adoption by Closing the Door to Abortion

Next February, Abort73 has been given the opportunity to participate in Southern Seminary's Adopting for Life conference. Because Abort73 is not a traditional adoption ministry, I wrote following to help explain the connection. Pending approval, this will be included in the conference program:

As you stop by the various exhibit tables this weekend, at least one of them might seem an odd fit. Adopting for Life is a conference to celebrate adoption, but Abort73 is not an adoption ministry – at least not in the traditional sense. For those of you who don't know, Abort73.com is a website that seeks to comprehensively educate people about abortion – on the premise that the more someone knows about abortion, the less likely they are to have one, recommend one, or support one as a matter of public policy. Abort73 exists because a general understanding of abortion does not exist.

Lest you miss the connection, here it is. Adoption and abortion are inextricably linked. In individual

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Samuel Farr, M.D. 1787

In 1787 Samuel Farr, M.D., challenged the long-held notion that life begins sometime after the beginning of pregnancy. It was a common belief that life began at "quickening," when fetal movements were first felt by the woman. But in his Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, he wrote:

"With regard to the state of the life of the child, the following question requires to be decided: At what time may a foetus be supposed to begin to live? To answer this, we must consider, that conception is made in the ovarium of a female after coition with a male, when the subtile aura of the semen hath so far penetrated into the germen, which may be supposed to contain the outline of the future man, as to produce a turgescence and motion of its circulating humours. At this time, it may be said, that life begins, i.e. immediately after conception. Hence those seem to err: 1st Who would persuade us, that the foetus acquires life when it is so particularly active, that the mother becomes sensible of

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William Wilberforce, Francis Beckwith, and Ad Hominem Attacks

A few months a go I posted a blog concerning a certain pet peeve I have where abortion advocates attempt to discredit the pro-life position by accusing us of only caring about the unborn (and not the born) and/or only caring about one issue (and not caring about other issues). In some reading I've done lately, I have come across material worth sharing that relates to all this.

First, I've been reading a biography about William Wilberforce, the abolitionist responsible for ending the slave trade and slavery in Britain. In 1823 a slavery defender named William Cobett attempted to discredit Wilberforce's work to end slavery by claiming his concern for suffering among African slaves was hypocritical because he did not seem to equally care for the working poor in England. Cobett said, "You seem to have great affection for the fat and lazy and laughing and singing and dancing Negroes . . . [But] Never have you done one single act in favor of the laborers of this country . . . You make

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The Great Commission and Pro-Life Work?

I've noticed that when many Christians think about the Great Commission, they primarily think about personal evangelism, sending out missionaries, and initial conversion. While the Great Commission surely includes these things, it also includes a whole a lot more. In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus gave his Great Commission, saying, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." In this passage there is one main command, "make disciples," and three necessary components for carrying out the command: "going," "baptizing," and "teaching." Going and baptizing definitely have to do with the initial stages of evangelism and conversion, but teaching encompasses the entire life of a disciple. Notice Jesus said, "...teaching them to observe all that I

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