Support Letter November 2012

November 1, 2012

Dear Friends,

Greetings in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust this letter finds you well and enjoying the grace of God.

In 2004, my family and I moved to Florida, and since 2004, I have been a member of Gulf Coast Community Church in St Petersburg, FL. Like most evangelicals, I considered myself pro-life. 

However, on Mother’s Day 2007, my pastor, Jerry Cisar preached a life-changing message on the horrors of abortion, entitled, “The Number One Problem In America Today.” God definitely used that sermon to open my eyes to the horrors of abortion. Since then, I have sensed the LORD calling me to action.

Soon after, I became involved with pro-life politics on both the local and state levels. In 2009, I was blessed to meet Cal Zastrow, President of Personhood USA, on his tour through Florida promoting the Personhood Amendment, which would amend the Florida Constitution so that the word 'person' applies to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, sex, health, function, or condition of dependency, including unborn children at every stage of their biological development regardless of the method of creation.

In March 2011, I drove to Jackson, MS to help Mr. Zastrow in promoting Mississippi’s Personhood Amendment, and to participate in sidewalk counseling and ministry in Mississippi’s only! abortion facility. I regularly volunteer as a sidewalk counselor at a local abortion clinic here in St Petersburg, and serve on Gulf Coast Community Church’s Pro Life Action Team. I am also involved with the Pinellas Pro-Life Alliance, a pro-life nonprofit organization located here in Pinellas County Florida.

Fast forward to Summer 2012….

I am writing to you in order to announce the creation of my pro-life mission work, FLORIDA PREBORN RESCUE.  Florida Preborn Rescue has four goals. First, to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to women and men considering abortion. Second, to rescue the preborn from discrimination and destruction, as we are commanded to Proverbs 24:11-12. Third,  to equip and awaken the church to demonstrate Christ’s love and compassion through sidewalk counseling. Fourth, to reach out to the doctors and abortion mill workers with the redemptive love of Jesus. FPR deploys sidewalk counseling trainers to local churches near abortion clinics in order to rescue the preborn from death, and to spare mothers and fathers from a lifetime of guilt. FPR labors to further connect women in crisis with Christian organizations and centers that will help them make the godly choice for life. Further, FPR also is working with churches, youth groups, and schools to promote a “conscience for life” among the next generation.

Every city in Florida of respectable size has at least one abortion clinic. And every city in Florida of respectable size has hundreds of Bible-believing churches which are pro-life. The Tampa Bay area alone has seven abortion clinics, and over 1000 churches. In fact, many abortion clinics have over 100 churches within a five mile radius.

But over 400 babies are killed every day in our state. Many of these clinics are without a Christian witness and the slaughter continues unrecognized and in secret. Those who do volunteer to minister to women and their babies are volunteering their own time and cannot, due to other obligations, minister full time. In this battle, the pro-life side is a volunteer army with many other responsibilities and obligations; the pro-death side has doctors, and volunteers, and in some cases, paid escorts to get the women into the clinics.  But the LORD has raised up Florida Preborn Rescue for “such a time as this…”

Here is where you come in.

Will you prayerfully consider supporting FLORIDA PREBORN RESCUE with either a one-time or monthly financial support? All donations are tax-deductible. I am hoping to be able to be a full-time missionary with FLORIDA PREBORN RESCUE in 12-18 months. Your support will be used to cover start up costs, literature distribution, audio/visuals, and travel throughout the state to promote FPR.

Sincerely,

Scott J Mahurin

Florida Preborn Rescue

P.O. Box 10976

St Petersburg, FL  33733

(727) 481-3354

floridaprebornrescue@yahoo.com

floridaprebornrescue.blogspot.com

Guilt: Gosnell's and Ours

Guilt: Gosnell’s and Ours

Scott J Mahurin

“Sometimes it’s not enough to know the meaning of things, sometimes we have to know what things don’t mean as well.” Bob Dylan

Guilty.

A mid-spring day in Philadelphia may turn out to give more momentum to the pro-

life movement.

“Dr.” Kermit Gosnell was convicted of three of four first-degree murder charges today. Gosnell was acquitted of many more charges, over 258 charges of third-degree murder, and 227 counts of infanticide.

Unnamed, butchered and discarded, often in toilets, these babies were named by the courts “Baby A,” “Baby B,” “Baby E,” etc. My friend and fellow pro-life activist, Frank Pavone, has named the babies in a recent memorial service. There are others that remain unnamed. Conservative estimates have between 40,000 and 42,000 babies murdered in Gosnell’s clinic from 1988-2009.

The babies that Gosnell killed were often alive for 15-20 minutes before he would snip their spinal cord with scissors.  The details of Gosnell’s house of horrors are well-documented, grisly, and will not be repeated here.

So, let’s analyze this.

What does it mean? And what does it not mean?

1. We must reject the idea that late-term abortion is more horrific than early-term abortion. Terms like “late-term” or “viability" or “post-birth” all blur the issues that really are black and white. All life begins at conception. All life is sacred. All abortion murders people, be they big or small. The Gosnell trial gives us a picture of late-term abortion and its particular horrors, which are many, but abortion, in all its stages, is murder. Murdering a child is the same as murdering a grandmother. Robbing a convenient store is as much theft as robbing the Bank of America. The size of the victim doesn’t matter.

2. The mainstream media will never do the work for the pro-life movement. Individual bloggers can and must do this work. Facebook and Twitter can do this work, and they largely did. After a social media blitz several weeks back, Fox News did a documentary on Gosnell.

3. While we are on the topic of media, the pulpits of America are the media that God will use to end abortion. Ignoring the Gosnell trial enraged right-wing conservatives, but we must ask ourselves a question. How many of us in the pro-life movement have heard a pastor preach about abortion in the last six months? A year? Five years? If the church begins talking about it, we won’t need NBC Nightly News to talk about it.

4. Late term abortion is ugly. Remember that President Obama has defended this ugliness as a State Senator from Illinois by voting against the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” He is the most extremely pro-death President we have ever had. Obama defended the rights of Gosnell and his ilk all across the country.

5. This disconnect, though, between the liberal ideologues who defend late-term abortion and those who were jurors (and even reporters!) during the Gosnell trial is stark. When presented with the horrific evidence, the jurors did not think about reproductive rights, instead they were thinking of dead babies. They did not equivocate, like so many politicians do, about when life begins, and wonder what their decision might mean for “choice” advocates. They heard of babies struggling for life until “Dr” Gosnell severed their spinal cord, leaving them dead and unfeeling. And they made the humane decision by convicting Gosnell.

6. The grisly face of abortion must be seen. It is uncomfortable, shocking, gross, and stomach-turning. But the Gosnell trial provides the pro-life movement with a new talking point, a new antecedent for future discussion. The silence on the left is deafening. This is our moment. Let’s not let this issue go away. Petition your local governments for health inspections of abortion facilities. Find out where the nearest abortion clinic is to your home, your church, your Bible study, and go, and pray. (If you live in Florida I have a list of all the abortion clinics in Florida on the Florida Preborn Rescue blog). Support pro-life missionaries who go to the streets in order to rescue babies and their mommies.

Finally, pray.

But pray with your feet. Let’s do something. 

For if we do not, our guilt and fate will be the same as Gosnell’s.