Life

I read this article recently and it spurred thoughts about this issue...

Abortion Is as American as Apple Pie

It is such a hard topic for so many but for me it stands as this...

We are forbidden to take life.

So then begins the debate of what is life.

Is the fetus just tissue and blood?

It is interesting that a doctor, who performs abortions, states:

"In the beginning [pro-lifers] were calling it a baby. We were saying it was only blood and tissue. Let's agree this is a life form, a potential life; you're terminating it. You don't have to argue that abortion stops a beating heart. It does."

But I didn't need to hear it from this doctor or from any doctor.

I heard it from Elisabeth and Mary in the New Testament over 2012 years ago (give or take a few years).

When Mary approached Elisabeth, John leaped for joy in the womb. Jesus was who He was in that tiny fetus in Mary, and John was who he was. Those individual spirits were already there. They were sacred and whole individuals, with thoughts, actions and emotions.

Does this mean we should be cruel to someone who has made this choice? Certainly not. The Savior was about nothing if not love and forgiveness, but man alive, He also taught what was right and what we need to do to be numbered among His sheep and that we should strive to live what is right and importantly to help others to know and see His light. So I will stand up for what I believe and what I believe the Savior expects of me.

I believe Satan delights in each spirit which is rejected it's chance to come to this earth, receive a body and experience joy and pain. Satan does not have a body, and without that body, the power and glory of mortal life. Satan can never experience the touch of a baby's hand, he cannot smell the beauty of a baby's head. He cannot feel the exquisiteness of pure heaven, as an infant rest upon your shoulder and nuzzles into that sweet spot at the crook of the neck. The baby's sweet breath warms the skin upon your neck and the glory felt at that moment cannot be described with mere words. Satan cannot have that without a physical body and he is just mean enough to want to take that away from others.

No, I cannot support anyone, any party, or any law, which believes they have God's power to give and take life. Some would question the death penalty, and say it is taking on God's power but I believe it is not a legitimate or equal debate, regardless of how I feel about it.

We are all accountable for our own sins and it was that way since Adam. In my opinion, abortion is taking sin out upon a baby, the death penalty takes sin out upon the individual. Two different issues entirely.

To me, it is not a moral issue, it is a matter of life.

Maybe everything isn't Bush's fault after all.

I get irritated when one person is made the pawn. One person doesn't ruin everything in the economy, they may have strong influence but they are not the cause of all that is wrong. The congress has more power to push and pass laws then the President (read up on your American History people). The current mess has been years in the making... this mess has been created by people who save too little, spend too much. This mess has been made by people trying to live above their means and excusing debt, debt, and more debt as something acceptable. This is a mess from a society of people who have to have everything NOW. This is a problem from trying to have people who have not paid the price, who have never made a sacrifice of want but yet agencies have arbitrarily handed out loans to people who most likely would not be able to afford them, just to help people out -- well, people are helped out all right.

READ:

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

To read on... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink


So to Pres. Bush -- I'm sorry your the pawn -- I'm sorry people are taking out the economic situation on you. I'm sorry that you are being blamed for something created under the Clinton era... I'm sorry that so many Americans and people across the globe cannot accept, cannot face up to the fact that we all played a roll in this mess. Everyone who spent money instead of laying a little aside, everyone who purchased on credit rather than having cash on hand, those are the people who are responsible -- stand up and take it like a man and take some responsibility for your own actions.

One more thought from an email on change...
To all those people who voted for change two years ago... when gas was low, home equity high, unemployment down, and the Dow up ... you wanted "change" ... you got it ... now we all get to suffer.