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Illinois Federation

For Right to Life

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"So every year, colleges award bachelor's degrees to millions of students who cannot name the first book of the Bible, who think that Jesus parted the Red Sea and Moses agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane, who know nothing about what Islam teaches about war and peace, and who cannot name one salient difference between Hinduism and Buddhism. Think of the ripple effect if recipients of B.A. degrees in communications -- our future journalists, newscasters, television producers, and film directors -- knew something about the world's religions. Or if college graduates going into politics or business were even mildly conversant with the Quran."

     Stephen Prothero, author of "Religious Literacy," writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The IFRL is the largest grassroots pro-life organization in Illinois. A non-profit organization, that serves as the state coordinating body for local pro-life chapters representing thousands of Illinois citizens working to restore respect for all human life in our society. The IFRL is composed of people of different political persuasions, various faiths and diverse economic, social and ethnic backgrounds. Since 1973 the Illinois Federation for Right to Life has been working to end abortion and restore legal protection to those members of the human family who are threatened by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Diverse though we are, we hold one common belief - that every human being has an inalienable right to life that is precious and must be protected. IFRL is dedicated to restoring the right to life to the unborn, and protection for the disabled and the elderly.   Click here to learn more about the IFRL.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Abortion: The Price of Illiteracy

Prothero raises an important question that we will simply move from his context [religious illiteracy] to ours [a profound misunderstanding of what the real issues are in the battle to save vulnerable unborn babies and the medically dependent-- and what led us to where we are today].

 

To borrow from Prothero, we can't "outsource" democracy: public policy is too important to be left to politicians and to "television's talkocracy."

But how can people participate in the abortion debate without a more-than-passing acquaintance with the basics? Indeed, if people know next to nothing about abortion–what it is, its impact on the wider culture, what led us to where we are today, to name just three-- how can they meaningfully participate in the public square?

 

My question to you is this: what precisely are those basics? Put another way, if you were able, what fundamentals would you weave into the intellectual warp and woof of our culture in order to raise the public's literacy on abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia?

 

Part of that might require posing the following and then coming up with ways to remedy the problem.

In the debate over whether/why/how to protect innocent unborn life, what are the equivalents of such rampant religious mythunderstandings as the conviction that Sodom and Gomorrah were a happily married couple; that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife; or that Billy Graham preached the Sermon on the Mount?

 

Contact: Dave Andrusko

Source: National Right to Life

Source URL: http://www.nrlc.org

Stephen Prothero