Death takes two steps forward

In Francis Schaeffer's video series, "How Should We Then Live?," he included a segment on news reporting. The scene depicts a clash between students and police as reported by a notional media outlet. The police come off looking like thugs carting off the peacefully protesting post-grads.

Then Schaeffer stops his camera and lets us see another news outlet's take on the event. In it, the thugs are reversed. The students come off as rioters and the police as frantically attempting to keep the peace. The whole event was a one-time drama put on by actors but filmed and reported by different groups.

The message? What the media wanted to tell its listeners made all the difference.

I thought of that yesterday as I walked passed a TV in my workplace. The CNN talking head gushed to her female cohort with unashamed giddiness,

"Now we can finally move ahead with embryonic stem cell research."

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold the bus. You could report the same thing this way:

"The plight of unborn children grew more dire today as the FDA opened the door for their murder in the cause of science."

For that is what happened as the Food and Drug Administration okayed the usage of embryonic stem cells on patients. President Bush restricted stem cell studies to embryonic lines that had already been started. In other words, no more intentional destruction of human life to advance science. The door is ajar. Expect the new president to fling it wide open.

The article (here) states that embyronic stem cells are the most powerful, but it fails to note that in all the testing that has been done thus far, the most useful stem cells have been those taken from living adults or umbilical blood and not those from destroyed babies.

And in keeping with his promises toward greater bi-partisanship (cough), the new President has lifted the ban on overseas funding for groups that promote abortions (here). Reagan began and Bushes Sr. and Jr. enforced this fiscal restriction to save lives abroad. Mssrs. Clinton and Obama have both repealed the restriction as one of their first acts in office. The latter waited until the day after Roe's anniversary.

What can we expect from the President regarding conservative values? Yesterday when meeting with leaders from both parties, the President flexed his muscle. When meeting steady resistance from the Republicans regarding his ideas for the wickering with the economy, he finally retorted, "I won" (here).

The left will spin this as the uncooperative righties not giving the new President his 100-day grace period. The right will consider the President's sweeping speeches and campaign promises a sham. It is interesting that the same man, on the day of his inauguration, declared

"We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken—you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

In the meantime, millions more unborn children will die with the "legal" consent of the United States and its President. The genocide continues...