April 15^th is the day in the United States when most individual income taxes are due.  I mailed mine last Friday, as I am concerned about internet security.  (According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) identified more than 1.8 million tax-related identity thefts during 2012, more than four times the number from just two years ago.)  So I had the weekend to relax and remember that our Founding Fathers objected to taxation without representation.  Yet, as some have wryly observed, the Founders should only see what taxation has become with representation.  For 2013, our federal government is on track to reap the highest amount of taxes in our nation’s history.  I think that you can learn a great deal about someone from how they arrange their tax affairs.  For 2012, President and Mrs. Obama only paid an income tax rate of 18 percent on an adjusted gross income of $608,611.  (Didn’t the Romneys “only” pay 15 percent?  Those wily and shrewd Romneys.)  Further, during 2012, Vice President and Dr. Biden paid an income tax rate of almost 23 percent on an adjusted gross income of $385,072.  Even though he gets government housing, $26,400 of Vice President Biden’s income was derived from renting out part of his private property to the Secret Service.  (No, I am not making this up, but wouldn‘t you be ashamed if you were to charge the government for providing your own protection?)

You may have noticed that the income tax system is complicated.  Even Albert Einstein ruefully observed that the “hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”  The present income tax code contains 3.8 million words, written on 73,954 pages.  This is 57.7 times longer than my nice Bible, which contains 1,281 pages.  The typical modern, English-language Bible contains approximately 775,000 words.  The tax code is so challenging that many federal employees owe approximately $3.5 billion in back taxes.  In fact, a recent report from the IRS indicates that 40 of the President’s key White House aides owe back taxes of $333,485.  However, this is an improvement from the prior year when 36 White House aides owed back taxes of $833,000.  (I guess some of the big increases in White House salaries helped to pay down the back taxes.)  In fact, for 2011, the last year for which the final tax filing deadline of October 15, 2012, has now passed, 107,658 individual federal government workers had an “unresolved” federal income tax delinquency.  At the House of Representatives, 454 tax delinquents owed $8.9 million for 2011, while at our venerable Senate, 234 individuals owed the IRS $1.9 million.  Sadly, the IRS does not disclose the names of the deadbeats.  (Why don’t those names ever get leaked to the media instead of licensed gun owners?)  And why is indifference to compliance with federal tax laws not a firing offense for federal employees?  Why doesn’t the President simply issue an executive order to that effect since he frequently bemoans that some are not paying their fair share?

As we see in Matthew 17: 27, our Lord Jesus and St. Peter had to work miraculously to pay some of their taxes.  But most of us don’t necessarily have that privilege.  But I am reminded of one of Arthur Godfrey’s aphorisms, who once observed, “I’m proud to be paying taxes to the U.S.  The only thing is that I could be just as proud for half the money.”  Happy Tax Day Everyone!

I recently wrote on these pages that a proposed pro-life student chapter at Johns Hopkins University, Voice for Life, had been denied recognition by the University’s Student Government Association Senate.  The student senate’s failure to recognize the student group was appealed to the Student Judiciary Committee of the University.  At a meeting on April 9th, the Student Judiciary unanimously overturned the student senate’s rejection of recognition for Voice for Life.  Internal student senate emails revealed a bias against pro-life advocates, even going as far as comparing them to white supremacists, and saying that they engaged in hate speech.  A copy of the Student Judiciary’s statement is available here: http://studentsforlife.org/files/2013/04/Judiciary-Statement-on-VFL-vs.-SGA1.pdf.

Congratulations to Voice for Life, and may God prosper your efforts!

I suppose that forests will be denuded by the tributes that will be devoted to Lady Thatcher in the weeks and months ahead.  I also mourn her passing.  The only claim that I have to mourn for her is that for some of the years she served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I also lived in England.  Much will be written about her strong and steadfast leadership, about her economic and political wisdom, and her fierce anti-communism and anti-socialism.  She, along with President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul the Great, provided the intellectual, economic, and moral strength that contributed to the collapse of communism in many nations, and to the great increase in freedom and prosperity for so many.

I never met her, but my years in England were during some of the most difficult days of her leadership.  I had moved to London to work in international finance early in her first term of office.  Her economic policies (and those of her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Geoffrey Howe) were shaped by monetarist economic thinking.  She increased interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply to lower inflation.  She introduced limits on governmental spending, and in an economy that often coddled Britons, she reduced expenditures on government welfare programs, including those in education and housing.  Every evening, I would return to my home in the English countryside to watch the BBC News at 8 P.M.  Night after night, the BBC newsreader would passively describe, “Today it was announced that another 1,500 would be made redundant” at a particular company or industry, or that another factory would be closed with another 150 losing their positions.  This economic drumbeat went on night after night.  On my morning drives to work, I would listen on the radio to the prior day’s “question time” from Parliament where Lady Thatcher would forcefully defend her government’s policies from questions and comments from the Labour Party opposition.  (To catch a glimpse of Lady Thatcher in vigorous legislative debate, please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CiNqfEJLsw )  She was often described by her political opponents as a dictator, and often far worse.  I remember thinking at the time how strong and deep her convictions must be to stand stalwart against the vitriol directed against her and her government from her political opponents.  During 1981, there were riots in many English cities arising from opposition to her government’s policies.  The British media urged her to undergo a policy U-turn, but at the 1980 Conservative Party conference, Lady Thatcher announced: “You turn if you want to.  The lady’s not for turning!”  Despite job approval ratings that were lower than any previous Prime Minister, she persisted.  But within several years, unemployment fell dramatically, the British economy was stable and strong, and inflation was low.  She went on to be re-elected as Prime Minister two more times.

On many occasions, my work brought me to the city of Aldershot, a town southwest of London, which is the home of the British Army.  This town has been a garrison town since the Crimean War, and soldiers and Gurkhas, with their traditional Khukuri, were visible everywhere.  After the Argentine Army invaded and occupied the Falklands Islands in 1982, Lady Thatcher announced that her government would dispatch a naval task force of 127 ships to engage the Argentine navy and air force, and to retake the islands.  Aldershot became a ghost town.  I remember a certain lightness in Britain as the military prepared to sail south, as the average Briton expected this conflict would be settled diplomatically in short order, and without war.  After all, the British fleet would take several weeks to arrive on station, and in the meantime, a negotiated settlement would come to pass.

This lightness among Britons changed when the Argentine naval cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by a British nuclear submarine with the loss of more than 300 Argentine sailors.  Two days later, the British destroyer, HMS Sheffield, was burned and sank due to a direct hit from an Argentine Exocet missile, with the loss of twenty British sailors, and severe injuries to 24 others.  Eventually, British paratroopers, commandos, and Gurkhas retook the Falklands, and after 74 days of conflict, 907 were killed, of which 649 were Argentine, 255 were British, and three were female Falkland Islands civilians.  There were also 2,000 injured in the hostilities.  Lawrence Freedman, writing in The Official History of the Falklands Campaign: War and Diplomacy, noted the determination of Lady Thatcher.  She did not ignore opposition or fail to consult others in the meetings of the War Cabinet, however, when a decision was taken, “she did not look back.”

There are other incidents that highlighted her strength.  I remember her steadfastness in the face of large, weekly protests against nuclear weapons at the RAF Greenham Common.  In 1983, more than 300,000 people gathered in London to protest nuclear weapons.  But Lady Thatcher was determined that her nation would bravely and boldly stand for freedom against communist authoritarianism.  I mourn the passing of Lady Margaret Thatcher, but I also thank God and rejoice that she lived.  Thank you, Lady Thatcher, for being the leader we desperately needed.  Peace to her memory, and may God grant mercy to her soul.

On March 12, 2013, a pro-life group at Johns Hopkins University, Voice for Life, was denied the right to become an official student club by the Student Government Association (“SGA”), even after having been recommended for approval by the SGA’s Appointments and Evaluations Committee.  (Ironically, another student group, Students for Justice in Palestine (“SJP”), was approved at the same meeting, even though it has a long history of anti-Semitism at other campuses.  But I digress.)  The SGA explained that they would not grant official club status to Voice for Life because (1) the pro-life group’s intention to peacefully engage in sidewalk counseling off campus at a Baltimore abortion mill “clearly violates the JHU Harassment and Code of Conduct policies”; and (2) one of the 100 pro-life organizations linked on the Voice for Life website included the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s (“CBER”) website, which the SGA judged to be “offensive.”  Why was CBER offensive?  Presumably because the CBER brought the Genocide Awareness Project display to Baltimore in the past.  The display features gruesome and shocking images of aborted preborn babies, as well as Holocaust victims, and victims of lynching.

A class senator of the SGA wrote in a leaked e-mail chain that she objected to Voice for Life because the Genocide Awareness Project display made her (and others) feel “personally violated, targeted and attacked at a place where we previously felt safe and free to live our lives … this sidewalk attack on how abortions are hateful and such amounts to hate speech.”  (Just imagine how it felt to the unborn babies?)  She further opined in her email that a private university has “the right to protect our students from things that are uncomfortable. … Why should people have to defend their beliefs on their way to class?”  Yes, Madame Senator, state-sanctioned murder of unborn children could easily make one feel “uncomfortable.”  (I wonder if this would apply to pro-Israeli students, faculty and staff seeing a display sponsored by the SJP.)  In any event, ironically, JHU’s motto is “The truth will set you free.”  Once upon a time, it was at the colleges and universities of our nation where one thought about difficult and challenging issues, such as abortion, and one learned to defend their beliefs vigorously.  Now, a few students believe it is their sanctimonious duty to limit discussion of abortion, which is the greatest human rights tragedy and sin in our nation.

Voice for Life President Andrew Guernsey says, “It is inconsistent with the JHU’s motto . . .  for the SGA to try to hide its students – many future doctors and nurses – from the truth about abortion and how it hurts women, families and, most of all, innocent preborn babies.  In fact, at the abortion facility a block from Hopkins campus, a woman recently died from a botched abortion.”  See the related news story here: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-03-12/health/bs-hs-abortion-clinic-suspension-20130308_1_abortion-clinics-clinics-face-surgical-abortion-procedures.

This matter now goes before the SGA Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, April 9^th, for review.  Please pray for the success of Voice for Life chapter at Johns Hopkins University.  And if you want to contact JHU’s president to express your views on SGA’s viewpoint discrimination that is violative of the SGA’s constitutional free speech guarantee, you can reach Ronald Daniels at 410.516.8068, or email him at president@jhu.edu.  (Oh while you are at it, you can let him know that you think that Dr. Ben Carson is a wonderful role model for the young people of our nation.)  Incidentally, after I wrote to Dr. Daniels, the Acting Vice Provost of Student Affairs and Dean of Student Life, Dr. Susan Boswell, replied by email to me, and stated that “I can assure you that, in accordance with our commitment to broad debate and freedom of expression, the earlier decision made by the Student Government Association not to recognize Voice for Life as an official SGA student group is being reviewed by the appropriate student appeal committee.”  I expect that a sound and legitimate process will be followed, but I will be following developments in this matter.

The Obama Administration continues its plan to overwhelm the American society.  A review from this morning’s www.regulations.gov website, where the Obama Administration announces its new proposed rules and regulations to manage better our society, shows that 6,458 new rules have been issued in the past 90 days.  This averages almost 72 new rules each day.  One of the proposed rules deals with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) rule from February 6, 2013, regarding contraceptive and abortion coverage (oops…”certain preventive health services . . .”) at no cost to employees of religious employers.  Here is the link to the rule.

This coming Monday, April 8^th, 2013, is the deadline for submitting comments on this proposed rule. It seems to me that the proposed rule is inadequate at many levels, but primarily the definition of “religious employer” is narrow, and excludes many traditional religious employers, including religious colleges, hospitals, and ministries.  The proposed “accommodation” for these employers, by which HHS proposes to make insurers or third-party administrators pay for drugs and other “procedures” that violate the employers’ religious conscience is, of course, an economic charade.

You might like to make your voice heard.  Comments need not be lengthy or comprehensive, and may be submitted electronically HERE by midnight Monday.  And let your church family, other friends, and family know if they are interested in this vital religious liberty matter. Having worked in government, I know that these comments are read and studied, and they do make a difference, even in an ideological Obama HHS.  Just be thoughtful and polite in your comments.

I love Resurrection Sunday, and always have. It is always associated with some of the most beautiful days of my life, and among the saddest. I hope that Easter was a great blessing to each of you. I went to celebrate Easter with some friends at their church, and I had the chance to re-meet friends from decades ago. The sermon by Pastor Roger was taken from I Kings 17 and dealt with hope and God’s great love, perfect topics for Easter. At the worship service, some were baptized, but before their baptism, they shared their testimonies of how Jesus Christ had transformed their lives. So Easter blessed and encouraged me, but most importantly, I had the chance to thank God for His great salvation in Jesus Christ. I am sure that you were also blessed with a wonderful message, majestic and inspiring music, and a worship service that glorified a loving God who raised His only begotten Son on the first Easter morning to redeem sinners.

But who would expect to hear hate speech at church on Easter Sunday? Sadly, President Obama and his family did. Yesterday morning, the President and his family went to Easter Sunday services at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. According to the White House pool reporter who noted that the Rev. Dr. Luis Leon’s sermon had this little spiritual gem: “It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back … for blacks to be back in the back of the bus … for women to be back in the kitchen … for immigrants to be back on their side of the border.” Have you ever heard a “captain” of the religious right say such things? I never have. Further, I actually have no clue who that might be really. And if the captains exist, who are the colonels and generals? But it sounded like hate speech to me. Perhaps the President never realized that he was short-changed on Easter morning. I am just glad that I wasn’t, and that you weren’t either.

On these pages, I recently wrote how John F. Kerry’s State Department declined to appear at a Congressional Commission on Human Rights hearing regarding the plight of Rev. Saeed Abedini, the naturalized American of Iranian descent, who is imprisoned in Iran.   After months of being held without formal charges, Pastor Abedini was sentenced to eight years in the notorious Evin Prison on January 27, 2013, on charges of Christian evangelization and threatening Iranian national security.

The failure of any State Department officials to testify on behalf of Pastor Abedini in Congress was particularly jarring in light of the fact that 84 members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary Kerry urging him to “exhaust every possible option to secure Mr. Abedini’s immediate release.”  As an expression of bipartisan appeal, the letter was signed by both representatives and Senators who can typically agree on little else, including Representatives Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois).

However, our State Department has finally found some religion.  Last Thursday, March 21, 2013, Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, who serves as the United States Representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, called for Pastor Abedini’s release.  In her remarks, Ambassador Donahoe stated:

We note with particular concern the worsening plight of religious minority communities in Iran, including Christians, Sunnis, Sufis, Jews, and Baha’i.  Iranian officials continue to restrict these communities’ freedom to practice their religious beliefs free from harassment, threat, or intimidation. Christian pastor Saeed Abedini’s continuing harsh treatment at the hands of Iranian authorities exemplifies this trend.  We repeat our call for the Government of Iran to release Mr. Abedini, and others who are unjustly imprisoned, and to cease immediately its persecution of all religious minority communities.  The United States also repeats its call for the Government of Iran to provide without delay the urgent medical attention Mr. Abedini needs.

It is interesting to note that Ambassador Donahoe’s remarks were presented in the context of the European Union’s “Resolution on Freedom of Religion or Belief.”  The 27-member European Union called for Pastor Abedini’s release previously before the U.N. Human Rights Council.  Ambassador Donahoe failed to present Pastor Abedini’s case at the U.N. Human Right Council on a hearing day that focused on human rights violations in Iran.  But kudos to the European Union for standing up for Pastor Abedini’s freedom.  And now, I only can hope and pray that both Secretary Kerry and President Obama will make public statements about Pastor Abedini.  Such statements would send powerful messages to Iran and to our allies.  In any event, Ambassador Donahoe makes a welcome first step, and better late than never!  Thank you, Ambassador Donahoe, and let’s press ahead!

On March 26, 2013, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments regarding California’s ban on homosexual “marriage.”  The Court will determine whether California’s ban violates the constitutional rights of homosexual and lesbian couples to equal protection.  The Supreme Court will further decide whether the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) violates the civil rights of homosexual and lesbian couples to have their “marriages” recognized in all 50 states.  President Obama’s “Administration” has weighed in arguing that California referendum and DOMA express “impermissible prejudice.”  The oral arguments come on the heels of a conveniently published Washington Post-ABC News poll that reported public support for homosexual “marriage” has “hit a new high as Americans increasingly see homosexuality not as a choice but as a way some people are.”  The Washington Post article stated that the new poll showed that 58 percent of Americans now believe “it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to get married; 36 percent say it should be illegal.”  Given the decades-long torrent of propaganda that has been foisted on the American people by the institutions of influence in our society, I am surprised that the numbers in support are that low.  And then, positioning for a 2016 presidential run, former New York Senator and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has now flipped, and now supports homosexual and lesbian “marriage.”

George Will, writing recently in the Washington Post, warned “[the oral] arguments will invoke the intersection of law and social science. The [Supreme Court] should tread cautiously, if at all, on this dark and bloody ground.”  Mr. Will cites a brief submitted in this case by the distinguished, conservative professors Leon Kass and Harvey Mansfield, and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which warns that “the social and behavioral sciences have a long history of being shaped and driven by politics and ideology.”  Professors Kass and Mansfield further note that the stability of same-sex marriages or child-rearing by same-sex couples is “radically inconclusive” because these are recent phenomena and provide only a small sample from which to conclude that these effects will be benign (as compared to six thousand years of recorded history involving traditional marriage).  Mr. Will writes, “The brief is a preemptive refutation of inappropriate invocations of spurious social science by supporters of same-sex marriage.”  You can read the interesting Kass/Mansfield brief here .

The Roberts Supreme Court can learn an important lesson from its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortions in the United States.  Justice Blackmun, writing the Roe opinion, found a right to abortion, of course, not in any specific text of the Constitution, and explicitly rejected the unborn child’s “right to life” argument.  However, he found the right to an abortion grounded in the penumbra of emanations of privacy rights.  (But why doesn’t a penumbra also emanate from the First or Second Amendments?)  The Roe decision set off a firestorm of controversy in our nation comparable to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott case that ultimately led to the devastating Civil War.  In the wake of the Chief Justice Roberts decision on the so-called Obamacare legislation, we are often told that Justice Roberts’ primary focus is the legacy of his Supreme Court.  If such is truly the case, then he would guide the Court to leave the decisions about marriage in the hands of the individual states, as marriage has never been considered a federal matter under our constitutional system.  If the people of an individual state wish to permit homosexuals and lesbians to enjoy the bonds of a form of matrimony, then, under our system of government, that should be the decision of the people and their representatives.  In his dissenting opinion in Doe v. Bolton, the case consolidated and decided with Roe v. Wade, Justice Byron White unknowingly gave some astute advice to Chief Justice Roberts, when he wrote:

The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the woman, on the other hand.  As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

(Emphasis added.)  This sounds like direct and sage advice from Justice White to Chief Justice Roberts, and does not rely upon the penumbra of emanations from his dissenting opinion.

The initial few weeks of John F. Kerry’s tenure as Secretary of State have been rough, with amateurish mistakes and diplomatic misstatements.  I am sure that there will be many more to follow.  Today, I want to address one more of Secretary Kerry’s rookie mistakes.  On these pages, I have written about the plight of Pastor Saeed Abedini, the naturalized American of Iranian descent, who is imprisoned in Iran.   After months of being held without formal charges, Pastor Abedini was sentenced to eight years in the notorious Evin Prison on January 27, 2013, on charges of Christian evangelization and threatening Iranian national security.

Late Friday, Pastor Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, appeared before Congressional lawmakers where she pressed them to fight for her husband’s freedom.  The congressional commission on human rights is a bipartisan group co-chaired by Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va.  Mrs. Abedini’s goal was to convince Congress to increase pressure on Iran, either directly or through the Obama “Administration,” which has abandoned Pastor Abedini.  In an interview with Fox News (which was the only mainstream media reporting on the congressional hearing so far), Mrs. Abedini said, “[Pastor Abedini] has been in that brutal prison long enough.  He hasn’t broken any laws.  It’s not just Saeed, there are many others. They are being persecuted because of their beliefs, and I hope this hearing sheds light on other cases as well.”

Last month, 84 members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary Kerry urging him to “exhaust every possible option to secure Mr. Abedini’s immediate release.” The letter stated that “[a]s a U.S. citizen, Mr. Abedini deserves nothing less than the exercising of every diplomatic tool of the U.S. government to defend his basic human rights.”  A copy of the letter by the 84 Congressional members is available here (pdf download).

Shamefully, although invited to appear before the congressional committee, no one from Secretary Kerry’s State Department appeared to testify.  In response to the no-show, Commission Co-Chairman Representative Wolf stated, “It is amazing.  I can’t, almost, believe it.”  I agree; it is hard to imagine that Secretary Kerry’s State Department would fail to exercise diplomatic protection for any American citizen, including Pastor Abedini.  But with the Obama “Administration,” it can be reasonably anticipated that little will be done to help American Christian believers.  So Christians beware if you intend to go on a mission trip.  You are deemed quite expendable by this “Administration.”  And if you pray for Christian missionaries serving in other nations, please remember to pray for God’s protection over them.

Pastor Abedini is in chains for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are reminded in Hebrews 13:3, “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”  If you wish to contact your congressional representative about this important matter, I would urge you to do so.  And if you (or other members of your church, Sunday School class, or small group) want to send a card or letter of encouragement to Pastor Abedini, please write to him at the following address:

Pastor Saeed Abedini
Evin Prison
Saadat Abad
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

The 20th century has experienced the most horrific holocausts in human history.
Whether it was Chinese communism, the Nazi Regime, or Stalin’s murders, tens of millions died as a result of deliberate governmental policies. As one example, under Mao Tse-tung and his Chinese brand of communism, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, writing in their exceptional biography Mao: the Unknown Story, review Mao’s unspeakable record in great detail, and observe that in his 27 years as China’s Great Helmsman, 27 million died in prison and labor camps, while an additional 38 million died of starvation, of which 20 million starved in 1960.
(The book opens with the sentence “Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world’s population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth century leader.”)

However, the murders of Mao, Hitler, and Stalin pale in comparison to the number of murders of unborn children in China over the past 42 years. Simon Rabinovitch writing recently in the Financial Times, (available here: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/6724580a-8d64-11e2-82d2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2NqABj2Qq) reported:

Since 1971, doctors have performed 336 [million] abortions and 196 [million] sterilizations . . . They have also inserted 403 [million] intrauterine devices, a normal birth control procedure in the west but one that local officials often force on women in China. The numbers do not directly equate to “missing” births because some couples who violate the one-child rule have also had abortions or been sterilized.

Mr. Rabinovitch quoted these results from official data from the Chinese health ministry. Thus, the number of abortions in China far exceeds the population of the United States.
China has implemented a national one-child policy (families are allowed by the Communist government to have only one child). Yet Chinese culture prefers boys. As was reported in The Economist on March 4, 2010, in an article entitled “Gendercide,” the overwhelming majority of aborted babies are girls (see The Economist article here: http://www.economist.com/node/15606229). The Economist noted:

In fact the destruction of baby girls is a product of three forces: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus. In societies where four or six children were common, a boy would almost certainly come along eventually; son preference did not need to exist at the expense of daughters. But now couples want two children—or, as in China, are allowed only one—they will sacrifice unborn daughters to their pursuit of a son.

For those of us who oppose abortion, this is, indeed, heinous mass murder, and the ultimate holocaust on the weakest and most vulnerable. It is the true war on women, and the greatest holocaust of the 20th century. May the memory of the Chinese children be eternal, and may God have great mercy on our souls for God is not to be mocked.