Abortion Has Killed More Black Americans Than Crime, Accidents, Cancer or AIDS
This week Right to Life of Michigan launched a new website that exposes the massive amount of abortions taking place on African American babies in their state. The pro-life group reports that Black women had 13,065 (49.6 %) of the 26,321 abortions performed on Michigan residents in 2014.
Their website explains, “In the United States, the abortion rate for black women is almost 4 times that of white women. On average, 870 black babies are aborted every day in the United States. This tragedy continues to impact the population levels of African-Americans in the United States. The abortion racial disparity holds true when the focus is on Michigan statistics as well.”
In announcing the new web page, Right to Life of Michigan said, “More than crime. More than accidents. More than cancer, heart disease and AIDS. Abortion has taken more black American lives than any other cause of death since 1973.”
“Did you know that? Abortion is the leading cause of death in the United States, but for black Americans abortion causes more deaths every year than every other cause of death combined. Now is the time for this fact to be addressed in the media and in the classroom,” it added.
It concluded: “This week Right to Life of Michigan has launched a new webpage to provide information and statistics on abortions in the black community to help encourage dialogue. The webpage also features a beautiful new full-color brochure that can be downloaded and printed for free, as well as links to our Compassion Project ads and contact information for Right to Life of Michigan’s Multicultural Outreach Office.”
As LifeNews previously reported, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released its national abortion report last year and the new statistics reveal that Michigan is one of ten states in the U.S. that perform the most abortions on minority women. Unfortunately, every year in Michigan over 10,000 African American babies die in abortion as well as nearly a thousand Hispanic babies.
According to the Census Bureau, Blacks and Hispanics comprise only 13.2% and 17.1% of the population respectively yet account for the most abortions. In fact, abortion ends the life of more African Americans than all other causes of death combined, including accidents, cancer, AIDS and violent crimes. These new statistics confirm a pattern that has been going on for years: the abortion industry, specifically Planned Parenthood, targets minority women.
In the media, Planned Parenthood is praised for being “diverse”, but 79% of all their abortion facilities are located near minority neighborhoods. There is no way that’s simply “coincidental.” Since 1973, approximately 13 million black babies have been lost because of abortion, and out of the approximately 4000 abortions that are performed daily in the United States, 1452 of them are performed on African American women and their unborn children.
In 2014, Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., addressed abortion and racism. King said, “Right now in America almost half of our babies are being killed in the womb, and in certain parts of America more of our babies are being aborted than being born. While we were marching in the sixties, a place was being prepared for us at Planned Parenthood. We were trying to get off the back of the bus, and they were going to have a space for us in the front of the abortion mill.”
Science Just Discovered Something Amazing About What Childhood Piano Lessons Did to You
If your parents forced you to practice your scales by saying it would "build character," they were onto something. The Washington Post reports that one of the largest scientific studies into music's effect on the brain has found something striking: Musical training doesn't just affect your musical ability — it provides tremendous benefits to children's emotional and behavioral maturation.
The study by the University of Vermont College of Medicine found that even those who never made it past nursery rhyme songs and do-re-mi's likely received some major developmental benefits just from playing. The study provides even more evidence as to why providing children with high-quality music education may be one of the most effective ways to ensure their success in life.
The study: James Hudziak and his colleagues analyzed the brain scans of 232 children ages 6 to 18, looking for relationships between cortical thickness and musical training. Previous studies the team had performed revealed that anxiety, depression, attention problems and aggression correspond with changes to cortical thickness. Hudziak and his team sought to discover whether a "positive activity" like musical training could affect the opposite changes in young minds.
"What we found was the more a child trained on an instrument," Hudziak told the Washington Post, "it accelerated cortical organization in attention skill, anxiety management and emotional control."
The study found increased thickness in parts of the brain responsible for executive functioning, which includes working memory, attentional control and organizational skills. In short, music actually helped kids become more well-rounded. Not only that, they believe that musical training could serve as a powerful treatment of cognitive disorders like ADHD.
We need this sort of proof now more than ever. In presenting their findings, the authors reveal a terrifying truth about the American education system: Three-quarters of high school students "rarely or never" receive extracurricular lessons in the music or the arts. And that's depriving kids of way more than just knowing an instrument.
School systems that don't dedicate adequate time and resources to musical training are robbing their kids of so much. Prior research proves that learning music can help children develop spatiotemporal faculties, which then aid their ability to solve complex math. It can also help children improve their reading comprehension and verbal abilities, especially for those who speak English as a second language.
In these ways music can be a powerful tool in helping to close the achievement gaps that have plagued American schools for so long. It's even been shown that children who receive musical training in school also tend to be more civically engaged and maintain higher grade-point averages than children who don't. In short, musical education can address many of the systemic problems in American education.
Hudziak's research is an important addition to the field because it shows that music helps us become better people, too. One thing is clear: Learning music is one of the best things a person can do. Who knows — running scales may have changed your life. And it could change the lives of future generations too.
Evolution Made Really Smart People Long to Be Loners
Psychologists have a pretty good idea of what typically makes a human happy. Dancing delights us. Being in nature brings us joy. And, for most people, frequent contact with good friends makes us feel content.
That is, unless you’re really, really smart.
In a paper published in the British Journal of Psychology, researchers Norman Li and Satoshi Kanazawa report that highly intelligent people experience lower life satisfaction when they socialize with friends more frequently. These are the Sherlocks and the Newt Scamanders of the world — the very intelligent few who would be happier if they were left alone.
To come to this conclusion, the researchers analyzed the survey responses of 15,197 individuals between the ages of 18 and 28. Their data was a part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health — a survey that measures life satisfaction, intelligence, and health. Analysis of this data revealed that being around dense crowds of people typically leads to unhappiness, while socializing with friends typically leads to happiness — that is, unless the person in question is highly intelligent.
The authors explain these findings with the “savanna theory of happiness,” noting how different our world is than that of our Pleistocene-era ancestors. The savanna theory of happiness is the idea that life satisfaction is not only determined by what’s happening in the present but also influenced by the ways our ancestors may have reacted to the event. Evolutionary psychology argues that, just like any other organ, the human brain has been designed for and adapted to the conditions of an ancestral environment. Therefore, the researchers argue, our brains may have trouble comprehending and dealing with situations that are unique to the present.
The two factors that differ the most between ancestral and modern life are population density and how frequently humans socialize with friends. Today, most of us are around more people and spend less time with friends than our ancestors. But not the exceptionally smart among us: The authors argue that less intelligent people are affected by the savanna theory more than highly intelligent people.
“In general, more intelligent individuals are more likely to have ‘unnatural’ preferences and values that our ancestors did not have,” Kanazawa tells Inverse. “It is extremely natural for species like humans to seek and desire friendships and, as a result, more intelligent individuals are likely to seek them less.”
The survey results also revealed that smarter people were less likely to feel that they benefited from friendships, but they actually socialized more than less intelligent people.
Intelligence is believed to have evolved as a psychological mechanism to solve novel problems — the sort of challenges that weren’t a regular part of life. For our ancestors, frequent contact with friends and allies was a necessity that allowed them to survive. Being highly intelligent, however, meant an individual was more likely to be able to solve problems without another person’s help, which in turn diminished the importance of their friendships.
Because highly intelligent people do not necessarily prefer what their ancestors would have wanted, they are more comfortable in urban settings, the authors write. Historically, people tended to live comfortably in groups of around 150: the typical size of a Neolithic village was 150, Roman military units were usually 120 men, and the average company size of a World War II army was 180. Densely packed urban centers, in contrast, are thought to bring about isolation and depression because they do not foster close relationships. But a busy, alienating place has less of a negative effect on more intelligent people.
“In general, urbanites have higher average intelligence than ruralites do, possibly because more intelligent individuals are better able to live in ‘unnatural’ settings of high population density,” says Kanazawa.
That certainly doesn’t mean that if you enjoy being around your friends that you’re unintelligent. But it does mean that the really smart person you know who spends much of their time alone isn’t a sad loner — they probably just like it that way.
World-Famous Physicist Drops Bombshell “God” Discovery… Atheists Will NOT Like This
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Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku recently claimed that he found proof that God exists, and his reasoning has caused a stir in the scientific community.
When responding to a question about the meaning of life and God, Kaku said that most physicists do believe in a God because of how the universe is designed. Ours is a universe of order, beauty, elegance and simplicity.
He explained the universe didn’t have to be this way — it could have been ugly and chaotic. In short, the order we see in the universe is proof of God.
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“I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence,” the physicist said, according to Science World Report. “Believe me, everything that we call chance today won’t make sense anymore. To me it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.”
Kaku, one of the creators and developers of the revolutionary String Theory, came to his conclusions with what he calls primitive semi-radius tachyons, which are theoretical particles that have the ability to “unstick” matter or the vacuum space between particles, leaving everything in the universe free from any influence from the surrounding universe.
The physicist explained that God is like a mathematician, which is similar to what Albert Einstein believed.
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This idea isn’t new for Kaku. In an article for Big Think, he wrote that his String Theory was based on the idea that we are “reading the mind of God.”
Watch Kaku in a video explaining his theory below:
World-Famous Physicist Drops Bombshell “God” Discovery… Atheists Will NOT Like This
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These ideas will no doubt make atheist heads explode, because the more intelligent people come to accept that there is a God, the more atheists will look foolish.
One mom's photo of her breast milk is getting the Internet pumped up. Arkansas mom Mallory Smothers noticed that her bag from Friday morning versus the one from Thursday night were drastically different—and that's because of a really magical fact about breast milk.
In a Facebook post, that now has more than 77,000 shares, Smothers said in February 2016 that she nursed her baby every two hours or so overnight, and she didn't pump until she was up for the day. One Friday morning, around 3 a.m., she noticed her daughter was "congested, irritable and sneezing a lot" and attributed it to a cold.
In a viral article we ran last year, mom.me contributor Leslie Goldman writes, "A mother's lactating breasts are actually bouncy undercover doctor/pharmacists, diagnosing infections and dashing off silent prescriptions. That is just cuckoo-awesome."
That's because when a baby nurses, a vacuum is created in which the infant's saliva sneaks into the mom's nipple. If mammary gland receptors detect pathogens from the baby's spit via backwash, Mom's body will change the milk's immunological composition and produce customized antibodies.
That's why Smothers' latest batch of milk "resembles colostrum," or what many know as liquid gold—the form of milk moms make during late pregnancy and in the first few days of birth; it's filled with leukocytes and antibodies to protect newborns against disease.
"This comes after nursing the baby with a cold all night long. Pretty awesome, huh?! The human body never ceases to amaze me," Smothers wrote.
10 mistakes people make during cold and flu season
It's time to win the war against germs this fall and winter season.
The flu is nothing to sneeze at and can be especially dangerous for the elderly and pregnant women. In some cases, complications from the flu can lead to hospitalization.
Here are 10 surprising ways to protect yourself this cold and flu season.
1. Rethink that nightcap
An after-dinner drink may be a relaxing tonic, but researchers say alcohol can disturb sleep, especially REM sleep. REM sleep is the crucial stage where your body rests and restores itself. Sufficient sleep is considered a "vital sign of good health," according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But here's another way to use alcohol: Flight attendants suggest using vodka as a disinfectant and replacement for hand sanitizer because of its high alcohol count.
2. Pump up on protein
As people get older, their diets often have smaller amounts of protein. One reason is because foods high in protein often take the longest to prepare, and they're left off the menu when senior adults only need to cook for one or two people. However, protein helps build antibodies that make up a big part of your immune system. Be sure to get enough protein by using ingredients such as eggs, fish and yogurt.
3. Get some fresh air
It’s commonly thought that staying inside is better for your immune system than subjecting yourself to colder temperatures. However, being indoors puts you in close contact with other people, and their germs. Not only does taking a stroll outside help you break free from circulating germs, the exercise can lead to an increase in natural killer cells, like neutrophils, which help boost your immunity. Just be sure to bundle up before heading out.
3. Add more zinc
Zinc is essential for building white blood cells. You can get zinc from your diet through foods such as spinach, lean beef, nuts and mushrooms. If you struggle to get the recommended amount of zinc from your diet, consider adding a zinc supplement to your daily vitamin regimen. As always, ask your doctor before adding any new supplements.
4. Stay social
Stress can beat down an immune system. Relaxing and managing stress are important when trying to keep the flu or a cold at bay. To lower your stress level, make socializing a part of your schedule. Spend time with friends to take your mind off stress and find balance in your life.
5. Wipe away sweat
Another stress-relief move is hitting the gym or a sauna, and sweating is a natural process that your body uses to cool off and rid it of toxins. To avoid germs, gym owners and trainers recommend draping a towel over the mat or bench before starting your exercise. Use disinfectant wipes on weights and equipment that you touch with your hands.
6.Sanitize office spaces
Just like gyms, offices are breeding grounds for germs. Co-workers and clients touch the same things you use on a daily basis, such as elevator buttons, phones, copiers and doorknobs. Doctors say the rhinovirus, a common viral infection that causes a cold, can survive on these types of hard surfaces for two days. Disinfect your office at least once a week with cleaning products.
8. Throw glovesin the wash
Make sure to wash your cold weather gear, especially gloves. Doctors stress washing your hands, but when it's cold, your gloves touch all the surfaces your hands would normally touch. Washing your gloves is another layer of protection for your hands.
9.Get down and dirty
While washing your hands and cleaning surfaces are vital ways to stay healthy during cold and flu season, go ahead, get a bit dirty first. Dirt boosts immune systems by exposing the body to germs and allowing the body to build an immunity. Before cold and flu season sets in, do a bit of gardening or challenge yourself by competing in a muddy obstacle course with friends, for even more socialization.
10. Rethink babysitting
Colds can be longer and nastier for children than adults, increasing the amount of time that you may be susceptible to illness. Also, researchers have discovered that those with lung diseases, such as COPD or emphysema, are twice as likely to catch an infection that will develop into a full-fledged cold after being near sick children. If staying away from sick kiddos, especially those adorable grandchildren, is impossible, be sure to wash or sanitize your hands often and teach little ones to cough or sneeze into their elbow.
Of course, the flu shot is the most effective way to prevent this exhausting illness. Since the virus adapts every season, only an updated shot can keep you from contracting the flu each season. Visit Kroger's website to learn more about how the supermarket chain’s flu shots can help you and others in your community.
The Top 10 Characteristics of the Average Unchurched Family
Many years ago when our church began revitalization, we prayed and asked God whom he was calling us to reach.
The answer we felt God impressing upon us then was to focus on unchurched families.
So we created strategies and programs designed to reach out to these families.
God showed up and we began making inroads to reach these families, but then something unexpected happened.
They changed.
In fact, while we were busy perfecting the plans and programs we had used to reach the average unchurched family, the entire culture shifted.
Here we are 16 years later and we have found that we needed to reevaluate everything in light of these radical cultural shifts.
As we stepped back and took a fresh look at the average unchurched family that God is bringing to us, we have noted some characteristics that have become the foundation for reinventing our structures, strategies, and programs.
So, what does the “average” unchurched family look like today?
1. They are a blended home.
43 percent of all marriages are remarriages and 65 percent of those involve children from a prior marriage. Blended families are becoming the norm.
Not to mention that nearly 41 percent of children are born of unmarried parents. Many of our families have been together for years but have never been legally married.
More than half of the children in our programming come from these family realities.
This means that little Billy probably comes so sporadically because that’s how often he’s with the family that attends our church.
POINT: Don’t scold Billy when he shows up or say things like “we sure wish you’d have been here last week when we had our big fun time.” Children’s programs need to maximize every weekend recognizing that we may only get Billy about 20 times in a year. Programming must realistically deal with the new family norms.
2. They are spiritually mismatched.
Families typically begin attending our church due to just one of the adult guardians. Most often this is “mom” (I put mom in quotes because she may or may not be the biological mother of the children she’s bringing) who makes the connection first. She starts coming, bringing the kids along, while “dad” is busy “enjoying his only day off” back at home.
POINT: Don’t make mom feel awkward for not being there as a couple. Equip her to be the spiritual leader in the home without alienating dad. Celebrate that she has worked hard to get her family there. Create on-ramps that will make it easier for her to invite her husband to come with her. Maximize special events that create bridges into the life of the spiritually mismatched partner. Offer small groups that mom would feel comfortable being a part of.
3. They are financially strapped.
According to Pew research, the average middle class family cannot absorb even one financial catastrophe. Credit has become a way of life for the American household. Digging ever deeper holes of debt with no end in sight. In other words, they’re strapped.
These families need more from a church than just another organization asking for their money. They need help. They need desperately not just to understand what tithing is all about. They need the basics. They need to learn how to earn, budget, spend and save their money. Fortunately, the Bible is one of the greatest manuals for money management on the planet!
POINT: Churches must teach on money beyond giving. We must offer classes on sound money management. In addition, when planning events and programs such as camps and conferences we need to consider whether the average family in our church could afford this and how we can make these extras more accessible.
4. They are over-calendared.
Most families are driven by the schedule of the kids. Practices, games, and recitals … And just in case you haven’t noticed, none of these extracurricular activities could give a flip if they conflict with church. Parents have become the willing slaves of these activities and even the most dedicated Christian families have decided to play tag on the weekend with one of them taking little Billy or Susie to their activity while the other one takes the leftovers to church.
Add to that chaos the fact that the standard work week isn’t standard any more. Many families are working 50-60 hours a week on a rotating schedule that cuts right through the weekend (yes, that includes Sundays).
POINT: Churches must become incredibly creative in their programming. Most churches offer only two choices: take it or leave it. Missional churches work hard to accomplish two objectives: 1) how do we make this more accessible? 2) how do we shorten this? You can either curse the culture or become “wise as serpents.”
5. They are biblically illiterate.
They have absolutely no idea what the Bible actually says.
To many it is a dark mysterious book filled with antiquated dictums of morality which are no longer relevant in the 21st century or it is a compilation of fables and fairy tales intended to teach some life lesson.
To others the Bible is a book that tells of an angry deity bent on suppressing happiness and destroying homosexuals.
One thing is sure, nearly all of them are misguided on the true content of Scripture.
It’s clear that many Americans — including Christians — don’t know their Bible. Just look at the numbers from a recent study:
More than 60 percent of Americans can’t name either half of the Ten Commandments or the four Gospels of the New Testament.
Some 80 percent (including “born again” Christians) believe that “God helps those who help themselves” is a direct quote from the Bible.
And 31 percent believe a good person can earn his/her way into heaven.
POINT: Churches need to stop assuming that their audience has any biblical knowledge whatsoever. Stop saying stupid things like, “open your Bibles to…” or, “I hope you brought your Bibles…” or even worse, “I hope you have a real Bible with you this morning and not some silly Bible app on your phone.” Have you not figured out yet that they don’t own one! We’ve got to begin at the beginning. Tell them how to get a good Bible. Teach the Bible for clarity, not to show off your academic prowess. Offer classes that introduce people to the Bible. Teach the stories of the Bible. Help people with Bible reading plans that make it easy for them to begin their journey with the Bible.
6. They are ethnically diverse.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s in the shadow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy. That means that my parents and grandparents were culturally racist, meaning segregation was a cultural norm. Even if they didn’t embrace racism, they saw it as an acceptable division.
My generation had the knowledge that racial segregation was wrong, but most still lived under the unspoken cloud of racial suspicion/tension.
Millennials can’t really relate to any of that.
Up to 8.4 percent of new marriages are now interracial. This is up from .4 percent in 1960.
And although the culture has come a long way from the 1960s, most churches have not.
POINT: There are not many practical program changes I can think of to increase the welcoming of racial diversity. I think the most powerful cues come directly from the leadership. People pick up on the silent sense of acceptance that we telegraph. Church leaders must ask themselves how they truly feel about racial diversity. Do they see problems to be solved or just people to be loved?
7. They have a special needs child.
Families with special needs children are on the rise.
2 percent of children are diagnosed with autism
7 percent are diagnosed with ADHD
8 percent have a learning disability
14 percent have a developmental disability
17 percent of Americans experience a communications disorder
19 percent of Americans are classified as a person with a disability
2 percent of 13- to 18-year-olds are identified with an anxiety disorder
12 percent of the children in K-6 in our public schools are identified with a disability. Are 12 percent of the kids in our church programs identified as having a disability? Probably not. The reason may simply be because our churches are not ready to receive them.
POINT: Churches that are serious about reaching unchurched families need to begin thinking of ways we can reach families with special needs children. These families need the greatest amount of help. Granted, these needs are widely varied, immensely challenging, and highly complex. However, sometimes even small changes in our programs and approach can make a world of difference.
8. One in five have experienced some form of trauma in the home.
Abuse is common among families today. Whether it is domestic violence or sexual assault, there is a tremendous amount of pain behind the closed doors of American families.
1 in 4 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime
44 percent of those were under 18 when it occurred
Two-thirds of all sexual assaults were conducted by a family member or close friend
On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men.
1 in 15 children are exposed to domestic violence each year, and 90 percent of these children are eyewitnesses to this violence.
POINT: Churches need to do more than preach and teach. Churches should not be country clubs for cool Christians. They need to become hospitals for the hurting. They must bring hope and healing.
9. They want to be successful.
Unchurched families are coming with a myriad of challenges yet they want to build successful homes.
They want to be a good parent, but they aren’t sure how. They want to have a good marriage, but they aren’t exactly sure what that even looks like. They want to build a home that is a haven of harmony, but they find themselves trapped in a cycle of repeating the patterns of their own upbringing. They have an image of what they’d like to become, but they have no idea how to get there.
POINT: Churches can tap into that desire by offering practical applications that families can begin to implement at home. Churches are not supposed to be the primary spiritual equipping unit for the family–parents are! Churches must begin to shift their mindset from “we’re the experts” to “we’re the equippers” with the goal of making the home the primary disciple – making environment for the family.
10. They are spiritually hungry.
Wow, the American family seems to be in real trouble.
Yes it is, but the good news is best when the need is the greatest.
Bad times for the culture are good times for the church.
All of these characteristics are screaming, “We need Jesus!”
Make no mistake, many of these families are hungry for change.
They sense an emptiness for something deeper.
They’re searching for truth and meaning and hope and healing.
And they’re wondering if Christianity just might be what they’ve been looking for.
May we be the church that throws fuel on the fire of their quest.
May we remove every unnecessary encumbrance and unbiblical distraction and be the place of grace that reaches the ones Christ gave his very life for.
