The event was held inside the SC State House in the first floor lobby between the SC Governor's and Lt. Governor's offices. Two media outlets were present at the news conference (SC Radio Network and WSPA-TV7), and just over 15 supporters in attendance.
There were four speakers who made statements:
1. Mr. Charles Butler, pastor, Souls Afire Baptist Church, Orangeburg
2. Mr. Jim Schirmer, pastor, Heritage Presbyterian Church
3. Johnny Gardner, Voice of the Unborn
4. Steve Lefemine, Columbia Christians for Life
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CCL note: There are references to three pieces of SC state legislation (H.3213, S.111and H.3338) and two pieces of federal legislation (HR 552 and HR 3313) in the news conference statement below made by Steve Lefemine. The on-line URL's for each of these five bills is given at the end of this e-mail for those who wish to see the actual bills, or look at who the co-sponsors are (or were, in the case of HR 3313 from 2004), or to see the legislative progress of each bill, etc.
CCL note: The text of the infamous Roe vs. Wade decision may also be seen at the URL given at the end of this e-mail.
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Columbia Christians for Life
P.O. Box 50358, Columbia, S.C. 29250
* (803) 765-0916 *
www.ChristianLifeandLiberty.net
“… I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Matthew 16:18
“JESUS IS PRO-LIFE” NEWS CONFERENCE AND PRO-LIFE RALLY
Thursday, May 26, 2005, 10:45 PM:
First Floor, SC State House, Columbia, SC
Statement by Steve Lefemine, dir. Columbia Christians for Life:
Good morning, my name is Steve Lefemine. I am director of Columbia Christians for Life. Our purpose in gathering today is to praise and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, to remember the works of the Lord this 2005 legislative session, which ends next week, and to bless His Name. God wants us to remember His mighty works, and to teach them to succeeding generations: Ps. 78 says, [read Psalm 78:5-8]. As I begin, let me say that both the Right to Life Act of SC and the Unborn Children’s Monument memorial are active bills at this time, and we expect that both will be carried over to the January 2006 legislative session. Though neither bill has yet passed into law, as believers in the Sovereign Lordship of King Jesus, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). We believe that while duty belongs to us, it is God Who gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). To Him be the glory !
One day, child-murder by abortion will be ended in SC. I know this because Jesus said, “I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16:18) Over 300,000 pre-birth human beings have been destroyed in their mothers’ wombs by surgical abortion alone in SC since the abominable, unconstitutional, Roe vs. Wade opinion in 1973. Many times more than that number have likely been killed by chemical abortion; by Depo-Provera, by birth control pills, etc. Yet since surgical abortions in SC peaked in 1988 at over 14,000, the # has dropped by over 50% to less than 7,000 in 2003. The # of major abortion centers in SC has dropped from 12 in 1988 to 3 today, a decrease of 75%. One day, every abortion mill in SC will be history. And by the way, Roe vs. Wade is not the Law of the Land according to Art. VI. of the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, the U.S. Congress and the President have the power to end abortion in the United States in one week’s time by passing HR 552, the RTL Act in the U.S. House, with the same Article III., Section 2. prohibition of federal court jurisdiction that the U.S. House passed last year in HR 3313, the Marriage Protection Act.
To recap what the Lord has done with the RTL Act of SC in 2005 it has been a historic year: for the first time the bill passed the House Judiciary Comm. and the full SC House. Unfortunately, an amendment for a morning-after pill rape ‘Exception’ was added on the House floor, which fatally flaws the bill. I will speak more on that later. After passing the House, H.3213 went to a Senate Subcomm. of the Judiciary Comm., which has now held two public hearings on the bill, but has not yet taken a vote. This Subcommittee also has S.111 in its original, unamended form, under consideration.
By way of remembrance, let me briefly re-cap the history of how the Lord has progressed this bill over the last 8-years. The bill was conceived in 1997, and first filed in Feb 1998. It did not get a public hearing until April 2001, when it was defeated by a vote of 4 to 1 in a House Subcomm. with three Republicans. The only legislator to vote for the bill in 2001 was a Democrat from the black caucus. The next hearing did not come until April 2004. The bill passed the same House Subcomm. this time with some new members, by a vote of 2 to 0, with one abstention. The next week the bill was defeated in the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Comm. by what I maintain to this day was a fraudulent voice vote, because we spoke to numerous members afterwards, and if they voted as they claimed, the bill should have passed. Instead it was defeated. Nevertheless, in 2005, we started over again. This year the bill (H.3213) passed the same House Subcomm. again, this time by a 3 to 0 vote, with one abstention. The day before, the S.C. Attorney General, Henry McMaster, had issued an Opinion on the constitutionality of H.3213 the Opinion asserted the bill was “constitutional on its face” but if applied to abortion, would run into the matter of adjudication in the courts. The next week the bill passed the full House Judiciary Comm. for the first time, by a 15 to 5 vote, and was on its way to Second Reading on the floor of the full 124-member SC House, with 74 Republicans and 50 Democrats. Before the vote on Second Reading, the number of co-sponsors continued to increase, until there were 52 co-sponsors signed-on to the bill, 47 Republicans and 5 Democrats. On April 13th, the RTL Act of SC passed the SC House on Second Reading by a vote of 95 to 18, but not before a ‘fatal flaw’ rape ‘Exception’ Amendment was proposed by a Democrat, and accepted by the manager of the floor debate for the Republicans. This ‘Exception’ to fetal personhood undermines the whole legal “personhood” concept of this bill, just as a “life-of-the-mother” ‘Exception’ undermined the Texas law challenged in the Roe case over 30 years ago. The text of the Roe decision says explicitly, “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the [pro-abortion argument], of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.” However, Justice Blackmun also said in a footnote to Roe, “… if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother’s condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the [14th] Amendment’s command ?… “ In other words, if fetal personhood is established, as the RTL Act of SC is intended to do, Roe collapses. However, if there are any ‘Exceptions’ to fetal personhood, then the “personhood” argument collapses, and Roe stands. The ‘fatal flaw’ amendment added by the House must be removed in the SC Senate before it goes back to the House, or the bill must be killed.
As I said earlier, this amended bill passed by the House has now been passed to the Senate, and resides in a 4-man Senate Subcommittee, with three Republicans, including the chairman, and one Democrat. The Senate version of the bill (S.111) remains unamended, but has only six co-sponsors at present, and none of these 4 Senate Subcommittee members are among the six. Much work remains if this bill is to make it through the Senate. However, let this verview of the 8-year history of this bill not only work to build your faith in God’s overruling, prevailing Sovereignty, but let it give you a sense of having a long-term view and vision for the advance of Christ’s kingdom. The Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish:…” (Proverb 29:18). God says in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:…” Did you know that Article VI. of the U.S. Constitution does not include Opinions of the U.S. supreme Court in its list of the three things which are identified in the text as the “supreme Law of the Land?” Check out the literature and hand-outs on the card table here on the side if you would like to learn more. Did you know that the U.S. Constitution, in Art. III., Sec. 2., gives Congress the authority to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the U.S. supreme Court; and that Congress has the power to even eliminate all the other lower federal district and appellate courts, because Congress established them to begin with, and can certainly define their jurisdictions ? Remember, Congress and the President have the power, now, as they have had for the last 32 years, to end abortion in America in one week’s time. Please don’t believe the lie that we have to wait for the nine men and women in black robes to figure out the obvious, as any 3 or 4 year old can tell you, that the child in the womb is a “baby.”
In conclusion, remember the decades-long battle of an evangelical Christian from England against a different crime against humanity, waged in a different era. William Wilberforce was a member of the British Parliament from 1780 to 1825. He first fought the British Empire’s slave trade, which was outlawed by 1808, after he had worked against it for over 20 years, and then he worked for the abolition of slavery itself. He died in July 1833, and the Emancipation Bill, abolishing slavery in the British Empire, was passed a month after he died, in August. Today, the intercontinental slave trade is on the ash-heap of history and so it will be with child-murder by so-called “legalized” abortion. This outrageous atrocity against God’s little image bearers in the wombs of their mothers will come to an end one day. May the Lord be pleased to hasten that day ! Hallelu-Yah ! Praise the Lord !
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Prepared by Columbia Christians for Life * http://www.righttolifeactofsc.net/ * (803) 765-0916 * Columbia, SC
Note:
For add’l resources that may be useful in lobbying SC State Senators, go to http://www.christianlifeandliberty.net/, and click on “RTL Act of SC.” There you will find some items germaine to your lobbying effort, which may be printed out and mailed or faxed; or, e-mailed, to these Senators.
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If you wish to contribute to Columbia Christians for Life, go to http://www.christianlifeandliberty.net/ and click on "Support" for further information (contributions are not tax deductible)
See the three SC state bills (H.3213, S.111, and H.3338) referred to inthe statement above, on-line at the following URL's:
H.3213 - Right to Life Act of SC (filed in SC House)www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/3213.htm
S.111 - Right to Life Act of SC (filed in SC Senate)www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/111.htm
H.3338 - Unborn Children's Monument memorialwww.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/3338.htm
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See the two U.S. House (federal) bills (HR 552 and HR 3313) referred to in the statement above, on-line at the following URL's:
HR 552 - the Right to Life Act (introduced 2/2/2005 in 109th Congress)48 co-sponsors (out of 435 members of Congress) http://thomas.loc.gov/
Enter Bill Number: HR 552 (click on 'Search') HR 3313 - the Marriage Protection Act of 2004 (from the 108th Congress in 2004) http://thomas.loc.gov/
- Under "LEGISLATION," click on "Search Bills and Resolutions"
- Under "Select Congress," click on "108th (2003-2004)
- In the "Enter Search:" block, enter HR 3313- click on "Search"
This bill should have been passed last year in 2004 by Congress. This bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives on July 22, 2004, by a vote of 233 to 194; however the U.S. Senate did nothing with this historic marriage-protecting legislation, which would have prevented the U.S. supreme Court from having appellate jurisdiction, or the lower federal courts from having any jurisdiction to decide cases concerning the (1996) Defense of Marriage Act - this bill (HR 3313) to protect marriage could have been passed by a simple majority in the U.S. Senate. Instead, we are subjected to the endless charade by the Republicans in Congress and the Republican President, of their purported plansto work for the passage of an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect marriage,a much higher legislative hurdle, which requires a 2/3 vote in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate (instead of a simple majority vote like with HR 3313, the M.P.A. of 2004) and which also then requires 3/4 of the state legislatures to approve. The Republicansare failing to protect marriage, just as they have failed to end abortion, or protect statelaws criminalizing sodomy from being overturned by a runaway federal judiciary, whenCongress and the President have the power now to curtail and restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts !!! [see Article III. Section 2. of the U.S. Constitution]
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See the text of the Roe vs. Wade decision itself at:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=410&invol=113
