Please express your concerns about a deeply troubling proposal pending in the Illinois state capitol in Springfield.
TAKE ACTION: Send a message to your state representative to ask him to vote AGAINST HB 40.
HB 40 is a pro-abortion bill that would authorize the use of tax dollars to pay for abortions in Illinois through Medicaid and state government health care insurance plans. It is sponsored by State Representative Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago). This bill would reverse the current law which bans taxpayer funding of abortion under Medicaid.
In 1977, when the ban on taxpayer funding of abortion under Medicaid passed into law, there were over 12,700 abortions paid for under Public Aid's Medicaid program with taxpayer dollars. When the ban went into full affect after a June 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision specifically upholding the Illinois Law, 22 abortions were paid for in 1981 with taxpayer dollars.
Since the Illinois ban on taxpayer funded abortions under the Public Aid Code was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in June 1980, at least 10,000 babies in Illinois were saved each year through 2014.
TAKE ACTION: Send a message to your state representative to ask him to vote AGAINST HB 40.
History has always been of interest to me. Even as a little boy I enjoyed hearing about dates and events in the past. In school, I was extremely interested in the Civil War and World War II because I knew that members of my family had fought in both wars. Later, because of research, I found out that my great, great, great grandfather had fought in the Revolutionary War. So, one of my passions in adulthood has been to visit national battlefield sites. In visiting Shiloh, Andersonville and especially Gettysburg, I have been gripped with sorrow. Still, I was not prepared for the feeling of complete distress that came over me as I was walking through the grounds of Auschwitz and Birkenau outside of Krakow, Poland.
These Nazi death camps, where 1.5 million people were systematically murdered, continue to remind the world what evil men can perpetuate upon one another. As I walked through the compounds that housed prisoners, I saw the shoes of the victims, reminding me that I get to walk out of this place but the owners of those shoes did not. Those shoes were worn by families that came to Auschwitz hoping to work and be released because, as the words over the entrance said, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Means Freedom).
I hardly know how to describe the feelings I had when I saw a large room filled with human hair that was taken from women being marched into gas chambers and put to death. Not only was there a desire to kill those women but also to bring great shame upon them. The group that I was with included several women and you could hear and see these ladies respond with gasps of unbelief and with the sound of weeping.
The horrific and egregious devaluing of human life by the Nazis was demonstrated in another room that we viewed. We saw braces, crutches and prosthetics that many of the victims had to use to make their way to the camp. When they arrived they were taken immediately to the gas chambers, where they were murdered and their bodies burned because in the Nazis eyes their handicap meant they were people of no value.
The thought that flooded my mind as I left that place of death and evil was “could it happen again and in America?” Then it came to me that it is already happening in our country. Abortion is systematically taking the lives of millions of human beings.
I wonder if future generations will be given tours through Planned Parenthood buildings, where millions of babies have been and continue to be murdered. Will that generation say about my generation, “How could they have let this happen?” Are we doing what many of the churches in Germany did when cattle cars filled with Jews traveled by where they were gathered to worship? They would just sing louder so they could not hear the cries of despair from their fellow human beings.
Singing to praise and worship the God of the universe is right, good, and holy. Singing to drown out the cries of the innocent is a shame and a disgrace. May God grant us the courage to confront evil. Then we shall sing loudly of His mercy, glory, and grace.
