Wrongful Birth Suit…Chilling!

Couple Wins Suit, Doc Didn’t Suggest Aborting Baby With Down Syndrome. This is all I had to read of a recent LifeNews.com article to realize I needed to read more.

A couple in the Portland area was awarded $2.9 million in what is being titled a “wrongful birth” case. What is a “wrongful birth” case? Wrongful birth cases are simply that…when parents feel they have the right to sue their doctor for allowing the birth of a child they DID NOT want. In the suit of Ariel and Deborah Levy vs. Legacy Health System, the parents openly stated that had the doctor found the child to have Down syndrome, they would have aborted it.

In court, the Levy's alleged that the doctor failed to supply the proper testing to assure the parents of the chromosomal defect, Down syndrome, in their baby. What the parents suspected is that during the prenatal test, called a chorionic villus sampling, or CVS, the doctor took a maternal sample instead of a fetus sample, resulting in the test coming back negative for abnormal cells.

Here is where it gets interesting. The baby has what is called Mosaic Down syndrome. What this means is that a considerable number of the child’s cells do not contain the extra 21st chromosome, the cause of Down syndrome. So is it possible that the doctor could have taken a proper prenatal test but due to the mosaic Downs that no abnormality could have been detected?

And here is where it gets disturbing. This family, in order to take this case to trial, had to claim that the mother would have chosen to abort her pregnancy had she known her daughter had Down syndrome. Yet, in court, her attorney said his clients deeply love their daughter but worried about being portrayed as heartless. He said they sued because they were worried about all of the possible medical problems and that their child will likely have, yes, I said possible! So which was it? Love...or death? If the family had to do it all over again would they have aborted her? If so, should they still be able to collect $2.9 million? If not, shouldn’t the child be taken away from them since they are willing to openly say they wish her dead? How can they have it both ways? Sickening!

Being the father of a child with Down syndrome (my daughter Liberty to the left), I can tell you that each child with Down syndrome is different. Just like all children, they have needs, wants, likes, dislikes, personality, character, and most of all love. They deserve the same right we do to live…and live with dignity. It is reported that almost 90% of pregnancies of children found to have Down syndrome while still in the womb will be terminated. So only 10% of these incredible children get to face life…the challenges…the ups and downs (no pun intended!)…and the blessings...simply because their “parents” felt they were not worth enough to waste their time on. And somehow our society finds this to be reasonable and normal…I simply don’t understand. Since when did we get to play God and take life as we see fit? I am scared of the future of America if we continue to put ourselves in this place.

All human life is sacred…from conception to birth. Our country has forgotten this. We have replaced respect of life with respect of choice…sanctity with selfish ambition.

Wesley J. Smith of the Daily Caller said it well, ”The time has come to reverse course. We could begin with states prohibiting wrongful birth lawsuits as a matter of public policy. We may have a right to have a baby, but we don’t – or at least shouldn’t – have a right to the baby we want. Most importantly, none of us should ever be declared by a jury to be a wrongful life.”

In Psalms 139 it says:
“You created every part of me; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother’s womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there – you saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began.”

I will be on television on April 10th, 9:00PM CST, on Significant Insights. It airs on Total Living Network nationally. To find out more go to www.tln.com or e-mail me at gbogdan@camgroupinc.com.

Check out this incredible video from International Down Syndrome Coalition for Life...CLICK HERE

American Taxes for African Abortions

I want to start by thanking each of you reading this for your support of the recent efforts to legalize abortions in Kenya (sarcastically of course!). Whether you know it or not and whether you want it to or not, our tax dollars, $23 million of them according to a Foxnews.com, have gone to support a constitutional referendum in Kenya. This referendum has been put together ultimately to push legalizing abortion in Kenya. The worst part is that the referendum was not even written by Kenyans, but instead by "U.S.-funded NGO's, working in concert with Planned Parenthood," according to Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey.

Planned Parenthood's website states that, "despite the legal and health risks, roughly 700 abortions occur every day." Planned Parenthood states their goal of working in Kenya to be to "reduc(e) maternal death and disability by increasing the availability of affordable safe abortion services and supporting advocates to decriminalize abortion in the country."

So Planned Parenthood, along with other groups such as Development Alternatives (who received over $3 million from the U.S. government), have been suspended from receiving assistance in Kenya from the U.S. while a probe into the legality of the taxpayer dollars going to these organizations is completed.

A federal law known as the Siljander Amendment makes it illegal for the U.S. government to lobby on abortion in other countries. The amendment reads, “None of the funds made available under this Act may be used to lobby for or against abortion,” and violations are subject to civil and criminal penalties under the Antideficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. § 1341.” Based upon the initial findings, the U.S. government has to be held accountable. This is ridiculous. There have even been accusations that the Obama administration has been offering financial incentives to Kenya to approve the referendum.

So why do American political leaders care if Kenyan's have a right to abortions? Why when our economy is suffering and our national debt has reached over $13,000,000,000,000, or $43,000+ per US citizen, does our government feel the need to support abortions overseas instead of utilizing that money to build America back up or pay off some of the national debt?

The answer is simple. President Obama is not a president looking to build America. Our President is a left-wing radical looking to find ways of promoting liberalistic views and socialistic worldviews on all nations, civilizations, and cultures. His concern is not so much that abortion be legal but that the government, all government(s), should have jurisdiction to regulate and control population. They are starting slow and quiet, but ultimately will bring this reality to closure.

We are seeing more and more of this in the laws being passed and even in the media today. Just last night I was watching a program on Hulu and there was a commercial by a humanitarian group talking about education. It shows this young girl, obviously in poverty, and the statement was something like, "What would happen to this girl if she was able to be educated?" Then it went through all these statistics...X% more likely to get a job...X% more likely to get out of poverty...and so on. Then the final one, which came up very, very quickly was "X% more likely to have a small family." How disturbing. So the better educated, the better equipped we are to understand the need to control population. And regardless of how much they want to fight it, it is completely discriminatory.

The crazy thing is that if President Obama and his left-wing cronies were to understand most African cultures, he would realize that the average perspective on children is that they are a blessing. Children are not viewed as liabilities like the left-wing media wants Americans to believe they are. Even amidst the poverty, children are loved, respected, and wanted. They may have a hard life, but they are loved.

Legalized, unregulated abortion was not, has not, and never will be good for America; and it never will be for Kenya, Uganda, or Liberia (yeah - I'm bringing it home now!). And I can tell you this - I am not happy to see my tax dollars are going to fund this left-wing, radical, and illegal political push...how about you?

So what does this have to do with "Consuming Faith". Our faith is not something we "do" on Sunday. It is our life...it is the very fabric of our being. We cannot compartmentalize our lives and believe that God is just in a small part, or in our religion but not in our homes; or our families but not in our jobs. We live in a culture and in a time that demoralizes faith, family, children, and the sacredness of marriage. Our government wants us to believe they can determine, or change, morality in our culture. From abortion, to alternative lifestyles...the list goes on and on. Government is trying to rip us of rights and create jurisdiction where they do not, and should not biblically have it. We need to speak-up for our God-given freedoms and realize that if we don't we could ultimately lose our freedom altogether.