The First 200 Days in Office

A lot has happened since the November 2008 election of the first Black President of the United States of America. There have been many interviews, articles, e-blasts, blogs and celebrations highlighting the election of President Barack Obama. I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting on what is being said, processing how I feel about it all, as well as praying for our president and his administration. Many people across the country have asked why I haven't written much about it. Quite frankly, my thoughts have been a bit conflicted and I did not want to cause anyone to spiral into confusion by any of my foggy feelings.

Now, I am ready to share my thoughts…as a minister, Black American, national pro-life educator, husband and father. August 7, 2009, will mark the President's 200th day in office. So far, our President has made anti-life assaults in many areas. I want to specifically highlight he and his administration's aggressive push toward abortion-on-demand across the board. Too many Black Americans remain enamored by the fact that we finally have a Black President, while refusing to look at the facts concerning his consistently anti-life actions. We've all heard his rhetoric on "making abortion rare," but we haven't seen a shred of movement in that direction. Jesus said, in Matt. 12:33, Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

Abortion continues to remain the leading cause of death in the African American community. Every day in the U.S., approximately 1,200 black babies die by abortion. Every month in the U.S., approximately 35,000 black babies die by abortion. Every year in the U.S., approximately 425,000 black babies die by abortion. In fact, over 14 million innocent pre-born black babies have died by abortion, since 1973. Abortion has significantly contributed to African Americans no longer being the largest minority in the US.

Furthermore, our research shows that 62.5% (that's approximately 2 out of every 3) of Planned Parenthood's facilities, our nation's largest abortion chain, are strategically located in black communities, continuing to carry out Margaret Sanger's original agenda to exterminate Blacks, according to details contained in her "Negro Project." One would think that an African American President's first order of business would be to move quickly to protect the lives of precious, innocent pre-born Black babies, as well as shielding their families from the all too often long-term physical and emotional aftermath of abortion. But such has not been the case.

Before you get angry and stop reading, take an honest look at the facts surrounding President Obama's aggressive pro-abortion agenda during his first 200 days in office.

Quoted from 3 key sources, although there are many others who chronicle these same facts:
Life Issues Institute, Inc., The First Seven Weeks and Life Issues Connector, Aug. 2009.
LifeNews.com, Obama's First 100 Days.
LifeSiteNews.com, Obama's First 100 Days.

• By executive order, President Obama reversed the Mexico City Policy. When in force, it prohibited your tax dollars from funding international organizations that promote or perform abortion. The administrator of the USAID foreign assistance program, pro-lifer Kent Hill, is replaced with Alonzo Fulgham, the current COO and Executive Secretary of USAID, who announces that the reversal of the Mexico City Policy is being implemented immediately. Fulgham issues a formal notice informing field offices worldwide.
  
  
• A Congressional committee debated the Prevention First Act (PFA), which if passed, will hand over millions for "family planning" methods, attack freedom of conscience rights for health care providers and financially pave the way for the proposed Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would strip all states of the ability to restrict abortions.
  
  
• Susan Rice, President Obama's new ambassador to the UN, pledged support for the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Already, the CEDAW committee has tried to bully 93 countries into making abortion legal.
  
  
• The director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), pro-abortion Thoraya Obaid (Saudi Arabia), welcomed President Obama's restoration of $50 million to the UNFPA's coffers and its coercive population control plans. "Access to reproductive health [a code word for contraception, sterilization and abortion] is the core of equality for women and girls," she says. The funding had been suspended since 2002.
  
  
• President Obama's new group of 24 faith-based advisors includes Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Washington-based Religious Action Centre of Reform Judaism, which was a sponsor of a 2004 pro-abortion march by Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Other pro-abortion members were added later.
  
  
• As feared by pro-life groups, the Omnibus Appropriations Bill cut funding for abstinence education by $54 million, while giving more money to Planned Parenthood programs.
  
  
• Time magazine, in attacking opponents of the FOCA bill, was accused of many inaccuracies, non-sequiturs and misrepresentations. Time has described the bill as "mythical." Yet, President Obama announced his intentions to sign such a bill in 2006, again in a July 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood, and once more on January 22, 2008 on the Roe v. Wade anniversary.
  
  
• The Obama administration prepared to rescind conscience rules for health care workers. Obama officials told the Chicago Tribune that, for the Provider Conscience Law and other regulations protecting medical personnel against involvement in abortions, they opened a 30-day public comment period, after which they prepared to rescind the law. Pro-abortion groups have long desired to coerce all medical personnel and hospitals into providing contraception, sterilizations and committing abortions. As one writer put it, "This is a declaration of war on all who oppose the killing of the unborn."
  
  
• President Obama shut out pro-life groups from attending a White House health care summit, called to discuss how health care reform should be implemented. Pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood, however, were invited to attend. Planned Parenthood's president, Cecile Richards, called for including access to abortion in any health care reform plan.
  
  
• The President's appointments seem to have been almost universally pro-abortion, including critical selections that could dramatically affect unborn babies. During the first 50 days, the President appears to have selected the most anti-life radicals he could find for his administration.
  
  
  • Vice-President Joseph Biden (former senator, pro-abortion).
    
    
  • Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (feminist, extremely pro-abortion). Clinton controls the American UN delegation.
    
    
  • Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano (former governor of Arizona, strongly pro-abortion).
    
    
  • Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (former senator from Colorado, pro-abortion).
    
    
  • Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (former California congresswoman, pro-abortion).
    
    
  • Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta (former congressman; Bill Clinton's chief of staff, pro-abortion).
    
    
  • Food and Drug Administration director Margaret Hamburg (Not only is she strongly pro-abortion, she has been an opponent of abstinence education).
    
    
  • Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (governor of Iowa, 1999-2007; Catholic, pro-abortion).
    

  Legal Counsel

  • Attorney-General Eric Holder. The first African-American to hold this office (was deputy attorney-general under Janet Reno during the Clinton years).
    
    
  • Deputy Attorney-General David Ogden (denies negative effects of abortion; considers pregnancy a form of slavery; was a lawyer for Playboy and other pornographic interests).
    
    
  • Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice. Assistant Attorney General, Dawn Johnsen (pro-abortion, lawyer and legal director for NARAL Pro-Choice America, 1988-1993).
    
    
  • Solicitor General Elena Kagan (strong abortion supporter. The Solicitor General represents the government before the Supreme Court).
    

  Health

  • Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (former governor of Kansas, pro-abortion, including support for late term abortions (Ontario and Quebec send late-term abortions to Kansas, paying an average of US $5,000 for each.) HHS would play a role in getting abortion coverage in the new health care program and make it mandatory that hospitals or insurance companies cover abortion).
    
    
  • Health Care Reform Office, White House. Nancy-Ann De Parle, Clinton political advisor (wants health care to cover abortion).
    
    
  • Deputy Health Care Director Jeanne Lambow (pro-abortion).
    
    
• Other Clinton Holdovers and Washington Lobbyists for White House Appointments (Do Not Require Congressional Approval).
  
  
  • Chief of Staff, White House. Rahm Emanuel (former congressman from Illinois, pro-abortion - has a 100 percent NARAL "pro-choice" rating).
    
    
  • White House Political Advisor David Axelrod (pro-abortion). Axelrod was Obama's main election strategist during the two-year-long campaign for office.
    
    
  • Director of Communications Ellen Moran (former CEO of Emily's List, a major and wealthy pro-abortion political action committee).
    
    
  • Director of Domestic Policy Melody Barnes (former board member of Emily's List and Planned Parenthood staff member).
    
    
  • Director for Foreign Women's Issues (a new office to re-affirm the population and development goals of the Beijing 1995 UN conference; i.e., to promote abortions and overturn pro-life laws in foreign countries) Melanne Verveer (former chief of staff to Hillary Clinton; a pro-abortion Catholic). Holds rank of ambassador-at-large.
    
    
  • White House Council on Women and Girls (new office) director Tina Tchen (Chicago Lawyer, vice-president of NOW, feminist, pro-abortion. She has a mandate to examine all federal laws and agencies pertaining to women).
    
    
  • Chairman of the Democratic Party Tim Kaine (governor of Virginia, pro-abortion).
    
    
• At the end of the first 50 days, except for publicity about the new financing of embryonic stem cell research and a mention of the overturning of the Mexico City Policy, adoring liberal daily newspapers have not mentioned Obama's new Death Culture.
  
  
• President Obama established a White House Council on Women and Girls and appointed pro-abortion Chicago lawyer Tina Tchen as Executive Director. Tchen served as Vice-President of NOW (National Organization for Women). The new Council will examine all federal laws to see how they affect women, especially from the point of view of feminist "rights" supporters.
  
  
• In Mexico, Hillary Clinton stated that emphasizing and promoting abortion is a key issue in President Obama's foreign policy from now on. Clinton received the Margaret Sanger award from the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood group, two days after she visited the Catholic Lady of Guadalupe shrine in Mexico.
  
  
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Dem) approves of including abortion in national health plan.
  
  
• House of Representatives, with only eight nay votes, passed Bill H.R. 20 (S 304). It requires all new mothers, their spouses and children, to be evaluated for post-partum depression. This Mother's Act seeks to re-classify the natural process of pregnancy and birth as a mental disorder requiring psychiatric treatment and medication. The bill is promoted by the pharmacy industry.
  
  
• The Office of Intelligence and Analysis of the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Janet Napolitano issued a nine-page report, which registers the pro-life movement among "right-wing extremism in the Unites States." Those concerned call the document "outrageous," describing the tying of conservatives and opponents of abortion to foreign terrorists as radical deceit.
  
  
• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will not appeal the ruling of federal judge Edward Korman that the MAP (Morning After Pill) be made available to 17-year-olds without prescription.
  
  
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted before the House Foreign Relations Committee that as far as the new government is concerned, the term "reproductive health" includes abortion. "The Obama government will promote abortions overseas." "We are now an Administration that will protect the rights of women," she also added: "The 20^th Century reproductive rights movement, really embodied in the life and leadership of Margaret Sanger, was one of the most transformational in the entire history of the human race." (Note: Margaret Sanger was a radical eugenicist and racist of the 1920's and the 1930's who lived and worked in New York City).
  
  
• Abortion advocate Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL, "celebrates" the end of the first 100 days of the Obama Administration as a "milestone in these challenging times."
  
  
• The most recent anti-life fruit falling from this same tree is a national health care bill which seeks to mandate funding for all abortions for any reason, among other things.
  

If Blacks in America will open our eyes and truly acknowledge that something is radically wrong with this fruit, rather than giving our President a pass simply because he's Black, maybe we will begin holding him accountable to fulfill his promises to "make abortion rare."

You and I must pray for our President and his administration. And in addition to praying, I encourage you to contact the White House, your U.S. Senators and member of the House of Representatives. Educate them to the fact that abortion remains the leading cause of death in the African American community and challenge them to develop a comprehensive plan that REALLY reduces, and eventually eliminates abortion. If we will do this, perhaps the next 200 days can bring hope and change to the 240,000 Black babies that will otherwise die by abortion. If not now, then when? If not you, then who?

Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death;
Don't stand back and let them die.
Don't try to avoid responsibility by saying you didn't know about it.
For God knows all hearts, and he sees you.
He keeps watch over your soul, and he knows you knew!
(Proverbs 24:11-12a/NLT)

Sincerely,

ARNOLD M. CULBREATH
Urban Outreach Director
Protecting Black Life
An outreach of Life Issues Institute, Inc.