Last Thursday night I attended a fundraising dinner for the Gwinnett Pregnancy Resource Center, a Southern Baptist ministry that helps women who have unexpectedly become pregnant.  My friend Kathy Schraeder serves on the board of the ministry.

The featured speaker, Gianna Jessen, was described in the program as an “abortion survivor,” and I assumed we would be hearing from a woman who had an abortion that she now regretted.  But I assumed wrongly.  Our speaker was a former unborn baby who had survived her own abortion.

Thirty years ago, her mother underwent a “saline abortion,” a procedure in which a toxic saline solution is injected into the womb, causing the baby to die over a 24 hour period and then be stillborn.  But in her case, eighteen hours into the procedure, she came roaring out of the womb, scalded by the saline, but very much alive.

In 1977, it was legal for the abortion doctor to suffocate a newborn baby who survived an abortion.  Fortunately for Gianna, he was away from the clinic, not expecting her arrival for another six hours.  The panicked nurse called an ambulance and she was taken to the hospital. 

Two pounds in weight and badly burned by the saline, she was given almost no chance of surviving.  But survive she did.  She made it out of the hospital and into the loving arms of a foster family. 

At eighteen months, she was given another obstacle.  She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a result of her prenatal brain being deprived of oxygen during the abortion.  Her doctors said she would likely never be able to hold up her head, sit up, crawl or walk.

But I watched her walk, with a slight limp, to the front of a hotel ballroom Thursday night.   She sang three beautiful songs and told us a mesmerizing story of love, hope, perseverance and forgiveness. 

Her foster mother, Penny, taught her to walk at age 3.  Penny’s daughter adopted her, and Penny, her “queen,” became her grandmother.  She has traveled the world, done indoor rock climbing and “run” marathons. 

She is thankful that she has only had three surgeries for her cerebral palsy.  Most suffering from cerebral palsy have had more. 

In 2002, she met President Bush when he signed the Born-Alive Infant Protect Act, which extended legal protection to infants born alive after a failed abortion.

Her speech, obviously, was intended to make a point about abortion.  Believe me, it did.  Loud and clear.  But her speech was not about abortion.  It was about overcoming obstacles, persevering against adversity and finding the blessing in everything — good and bad — that comes our way.

I think about the setbacks, rejections and defeats that have frustrated, discouraged and at times demoralized me.  Even the most painful losses — my Dad dying twelve years ago — pale in comparison to what Gianna Jessen has been asked to bear.

Gianna was hurt badly by a poor decision.  She lives with it every day, not just the emotional hurt but the physical.  But live with it she does. There is a lesson in her story for all of us.

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I spent a good deal of my career as a political operative trying, without success, to defeat Zell Miller.  When I was executive director of the Georgia Republican Party in the early 1990s, I helped recruit Guy Millner to challenge him for re-election as Governor.  I even left my job at the party to manage Guy’s campaign.  In 2000, when Zell ran in the special election to fill the late Paul Coverdell’s term as United States Senator, I supported Mack Mattingly, serving as his volunteer campaign treasurer.

Perhaps that is why I reacted differently than most Republicans to Senator Zell Miller’s de facto conversion to the Republican Party.  I treated the whole business with bemused skepticism.  This is a man, after all, who had earned the nickname Zig Zag before I was old enough to vote.

But I was still looking forward to Zell’s speech at Georgia Right To Life’s Changing Hearts and Saving Lives Celebration.   I was expecting to be entertained and instead found myself being both moved and challenged.

The former Governor and United States Senator began by tracing his religious roots to the mountain churches of North Georgia.  He spoke frankly about the challenges of reconciling one’s religious faith with the demands of political expediency.  Church attendance is the easy part, he said.  Applying those principles in everyday life is the hard part.

As Governor, Zell Miller had a pretty good pro-life record.  He signed laws banning partial-birth abortion and requiring parental consent for a minor to obtain an abortion.  But in his speech, he dismissed these important pro-life accomplishments, saying he had done what he did because the polls suggested it was smart, not because his heart told him it was right.

His path to the Changing Hearts and Saving Lives Celebration was marked by a family medical tragedy that forced him to his knees in prayer and a grainy image of his unborn grandchild produced by the wonders of modern technology.  He talked about Baby Samuel, a “nonviable” 21 week old fetus from Villa Rica, Georgia, whose spina bifida corrective surgery was photographed by USA Today.  Science had compellingly confirmed to him what so many believe as an article of faith — that the fetus is a human being and not a mere clump of cells.

It was a good speech, and it earned him a standing ovation.  It also gave me pause to consider my own cynicism.  Zell Miller is not running for office.  He is not looking for votes or volunteers.  He was not paid a speaking fee, awarded an honorary degree or even given a plaque.  That 75 year old man had absolutely no reason to leave his beloved home in the mountains and brave the Atlanta traffic other than he believed strongly in what he had to say.

I am glad I was there to listen, and much to my surprise, I found myself wishing that his days in public office were not over.

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The Athens Banner Herald has endorsed a retired Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nate Pulliam, in the special election for the Tenth Congressional District.  

The editors of the Banner Herald had one reservation about their chosen candidate:

That isn’t to say he’s the perfect candidate. Pulliam has some far-right positions on relatively trivial issues - he doesn’t believe in “winter holidays” but in “Christmas holidays,” and believes the words “In God We Trust” should continue to appear on American currency. However, Pulliam said those issues, while important to him, won’t be a high priority for his service in Congress, if he’s elected.

What a right wing radical.  He does not want to rename Christian religious holidays or change the national motto.

Hat tip to Peach Pundit.

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The Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee heard five bills yesterday afternoon and evening, two of them relating to the Sunday sales of alcohol.

On the issue of Sunday sales, we heard two hours of testimony from those passionately for and against the bill. Horace Hamilton, a constitutent of mine who is a top executive at Kroger, argued that many of his customers only shop on Sunday and that allowing sales of beer and wine is a simple matter of customer convenience. Bob Moore, an executive from Publix told the committee that he was a Christian who would rather see all stores closed on Sunday but that he supported Sunday alcohol sales because it would bring in between one and three million dollars in extra excise taxes from the increased sale of beer and wine. Jay Hibbard of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States upped the ante, saying the sale of liquor alone would bring in as much as five millions dollars or more in new excise taxes. Joe Fleming of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce made a brief statement, endorsing Sunday sales as pro-business.

Opponents argued that liberalizing the alcohol laws would increase drunk driving and underaged drinking. Pastor Mike Griffin spoke to the issue of drunk driving, saying that when New Mexico passed a similar bill in 1995, alcohol related crashes and fatalities rose dramatically. Jim Beck of the Christian Coalition pointed out Sunday sales “doubles the time” on the weekends that the underaged have access to beer from convenience stores. Sadie Field of the Georgia Christian Alliance also attended the hearing in opposition to the bill, but yielded her speaking time to pastors from the home district of the bill’s sponsor.

There were actually two Sunday sales bills on the calendar, Senate Bills 137 and 138, Continue Reading »

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A couple of you have already posted comments on another potentially controversial issue, the likely effort to modify or repeal the prohibition on the retail sale of alcohol on Sunday.  Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution made it clear earlier this week that she wants to buy beer and wine on Sunday, writing:

Why are we allowing a bunch of Baptist preachers to control our choices and restrict our commerce? In a secular, pluralistic democracy, does the will of a few theocrats determine whether we can buy beer and wine on Sundays?

Although she quickly dismisses Baptist preachers with an opinion on the matter as “theocrats” bent on undermining the First Amendment, she herself invokes the first miracle of Jesus and cites verse from the Gospel of John before declaring that there is:

(N)othing sinful in purchasing a bottle of pinot noir from Publix on Sunday.

I will leave the debate on Scripture to others.  This issue is complicated enough even before you inject religion.   Package stores, which are closed on Sundays, do not want to go to the expense of opening an extra day of the week just to sell beer and wine.  They want the Sunday ban on liquor repealed, too.  They see the partial repeal advocated by convenience and grocery stores as nothing more than the use of government regulation to help one group of retailers take market share from another.

And, of course, there are groups like MADD that have purely secular reasons for wanting to stem the free flow of alcohol.

What do you think about this issue?  Should the sale of beer and wine be allowed on Sundays?  What about liquor?  Is there any reason to treat liquor differently than beer and wine?  Let me know your thoughts.

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