if you're a ucsd student or just happen to be near ucsd campus, prayer meetings for any and all every wed nights. 10pm. center 201.

Bill makes killing fetus separate crime
Abortion activists say proposed law threatens right to choose
Monday, February 23, 2004 Posted: 8:24 AM EST (1324 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Expanding rights for the unborn without limiting mothers' reproductive rights is an issue that confronts lawmakers this week when the House takes up a bill that would make it separate federal crimes to injure or kill both a woman and her fetus.

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act is regarded by conservative groups as one of the most important social policy measures that could come before Congress this year.

"It's a step in the right direction, toward recognizing the humanity of the unborn," said Genevieve Wood, spokeswoman for the Family Research Council.

The National Right to Life Committee cites polls showing that 80 percent of the public believes there should be a law recognizing the killing of a fetus as a homicide.

Opponents see the legislation as another attempt, after last year's ban on a procedure that critics call partial birth abortion, to curtail abortion rights.

The legislation would allow prosecutors to charge a person with two murders for killing a woman and her fetus, or with murder for an attack that kills the fetus but the mother survives. The proposal would apply only to federal crimes, such as terror attacks, interstate stalking or cases that occur on military bases or federal land.

The bill specifically precludes from prosecution those who carry out legal abortions.

Matching state law
Already passed twice by the House, in 1999 and 2001, the measure is expected to win approval again when it comes up Wednesday or Thursday.

The Senate, with its stronger abortion rights forces, effectively ignored the proposal in the past. This time, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, has promised to take it up soon.

The bill, he told a group of conservatives recently, "recognizes that when a criminal attacks a pregnant woman and kills her unborn child, he has claimed not just one but two precious human lives."

The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pennsylvania, said she is trying to bring federal law in line with the 28 states that have laws covering the unborn.

Abortion rights groups see it differently. "We believe that it is a deceptive and callous attempt to undermine the right to choose," said Evelyn Becker, spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The concern is that giving a zygote, an embryo or a fetus the same rights as a person could lead to future assaults on the Roe v. Wade court decision affirming a woman's reproductive rights.

Certain forms of contraception could be banned or an airline might refuse to sell a ticket to pregnant women out of fear of being liable for a miscarriage, abortion rights groups said.

Laci's law
Rita Smith, executive director of the Denver-based National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said her group tried to work with lawmakers writing the legislation to make it more about protecting women. "They wouldn't go down that road. ... This seems to be more about trying to undo abortion," she said.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California, and other opponents of Hart's bill favor a substitute that would increase penalties for attacks that lead to the interruption of a pregnancy but do not confer separate legal rights to the fetus. That version is not expected to prevail in the House.

Opponents said it would be the first federal law to recognize a fetus at any stage of development as an independent being. Hart argued that fetal rights, such as inheritance rights, have plenty of precedent in law.

The Bush administration, which supports the unborn victims bill, took its own initiative on fetal rights in 2002 when it ruled that "unborn children" were eligible for health care from the moment of conception under the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The legislation also is being called Laci and Conner's Law, linking it to the highly publicized death in late 2002 of Laci Peterson and her fetus, whose body was found with plastic tape around its neck. Her husband, Scott Peterson, is on trial for their murders under California's unborn victims law

Criminal pastor heads back to pulpit
Sunday, November 30, 2003 Posted: 9:36 AM EST (1436 GMT)
excerpts from cnn.com

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) -- A Baptist minister whose fall from grace began with a fire his wife set at a home he had secretly bought with his mistress will walk out of prison on Sunday and head directly to the pulpit.

The Rev. Henry J. Lyons expects to be rededicated by other ministers at a ceremony Sunday and then preach a sermon at the First Baptist Institutional Church in Lakeland, about 55 miles northeast of St. Petersburg, his attorney, Larry Hardaway, said.

Lyons will have completed his prison sentence on grand theft and racketeering charges, but will remain on probation for the next three years on federal charges of including bank fraud and tax evasion. He also owes $2.5 million in restitution.

Wildly popular and charismatic, Lyons was at the height of his power as pastor of Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church and president of the National Baptist Convention 1997, when Deborah Lyons set fire to the house.

The resulting investigation unmasked Lyons' use of his leadership role at the convention to access millions of dollars to finance his lavish lifestyle. Officials estimate that Lyons took about $4 million to buy luxury residences, jewelry and support his mistresses....

He and his wife have since divorced, and the woman at the center of the scandal, Bernice Edwards, died in prison earlier this year....

"I know I need to be stronger morally," Lyons said. "I need to say, 'no' to myself and others and mean it and stick with it."

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.

- Timothy 3:1-7

i honestly have no idea who actually reads the stuff i post on this site but if you do then i imagine this kinda stuff interests you somewhat and you think about it sometimes. help out the family of God and tell us what you've been learning too. aka submissions appreciated.

"But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." - Hebrews 3:13

click on my discerning reader link to get me 10 cents per click towards new books. b/c i love books.

i had a dream a few nights ago. i hope i never forget it. i'll leave out the stupid details, but the essence of it was that it was the end of the world. no rapture, no crazy angels or supernatural things happening. nothing was really happening but for some reason we all knew that we would all die soon. i was at home in rb with my family. some of my friends were there too. i remember at some point, i was looking over the faces of my family. and i wondered, what will happen to them after this all ends...and i knew that they weren't saved...just like i do now. and my friend henry was there. and i told him, we need to pray....for the unsaved people we knew. and he said alright. and we were about to. i don't remember anything after that. maybe that was the end of it all. i vaguely remember how it felt, knowing that unless on some tiny chance that Christ saved them in the few remaining moments of existence, my family could not go to heaven. there's no time for bullshit. this life is too short to waste it.

20 years of stupidity. indeed.

this afternoon i noticed that i have more smile lines on my face. i must'v been smiling a lot more than before for the past year or so. :-D and today i had a lot more fun and laughed a lot more than i have in a long time. life is good. God is good.

grassroots is helpin a poor brutha like me out. they have pretty much every christian cd worth having and they're relatively cheap. apparently if you click on the link i have for them in the links section and buy something i get like 5% of it. yessum. grassrootsmusic.com