Cameron’s Story

by Kirk Barker

Imagine if you had to choose either the life of your wife or the life of your child. What would your decision be? How would you feel?

This is the position my wife and I were in 16 years ago. It is a decision that still affects us today. Had a personhood law been in effect, we could have avoided this situation. Let me explain…

16 years ago my wife was pregnant with our son. She became very sick and lost 42 pounds in one month. My wife was hospitalized for most of that month. Our doctor didn’t order any blood work. He didn’t do much to care for my wife. She was so weak she couldn’t walk without help. No official diagnosis was made. Had a personhood law been in effect, our unborn son would have received better care from the doctor.

Eventually the doctor said, “There is nothing more that I can do. If you don’t terminate the pregnancy you will die.” Since our faith was in man, and not in God, we decided to follow his advice. Years later we found out the doctor who cared for my wife was the abortionist at the facility to which he referred us.

We went to the abortion center for the scheduled procedure. I thank God for the sidewalk advocate He placed on the sidewalk that day. He pleaded with us not to go through with the procedure. We explained to him that we didn’t want to do this but our doctor told us if we didn’t, then my wife would die. He apologized and prayed for us, but we continued into the abortion center.

We sat in the waiting room with the paperwork in our hand. Then God intervened. My wife looked at me and said, “I don’t care if I die, I am not going to kill our baby.” We got up and walked out. Two weeks later God healed my wife. Later that year she gave birth to Cameron without any complications.

We now understand that every child is a blessing from God. That no matter how difficult the circumstance, it is our duty to protect our children. We pray that our story will help people understand how valuable every life is, even the unborn.

We have dedicated our lives to sharing our story and hope to bring glory to God, to inspire people to choose life, and to be a light to people in their time of need. Here is a my testimony, including the story of Cameron’s birth:

The Barker Family

If you would like to have Kirk Barker come speak at your church or event, please visit the following link: www.savethe1.com/kirk-barker-tx/

Open Letter on Personhood and Dismemberment Legislation

by Senator Richard Cash | 4/29/18

On Thursday, April 26th, the SC Senate voted to set H3548 (Dismemberment) to special order so that it can be brought to the floor for debate. This came after a vote for special order failed on Wednesday. I voted in the affirmative both times. However, since I will be offering amendments to H3548, including a Personhood amendment, I believe it is appropriate for me to explain my stance on H3548 to pro-lifers. 

Since I arrived in the SC Senate, I have made it clear that my number one priority is to end the killing of unborn babies, and that I believe that the Personhood bill is the best way forward toward that objective. I founded Personhood SC in 2015 with this in mind and anyone who is familiar with my campaign for office knows that although I talked about all the issues on the table, I always referenced ending the killing of unborn babies if I was asked what the most important issue was or what my highest priority was. There is simply nothing more important than ending the shedding of innocent blood and establishing justice for unborn babies.

My interest in Personhood legislation did not begin in 2015, but goes all the way back to 1998 and the first Personhood bill in SC. Along with a pastor, I met with Sen. Mike Fair and the late Rep. Terry Haskins and asked them to sponsor Personhood. They did, and similar bills have been introduced many times since then. 

However, 20 years have gone by, and the SC Senate has yet to bring a Personhood bill to the floor. Many other pro-life bills have been acted on, but not Personhood. Why? Well, most pro-life bills are incremental in nature and seek to slowly chip away at abortion rights, whereas Personhood goes straight to the fundamental issues and seeks to abolish abortion as soon as possible. Incremental bills provide an easy vote for pro-life politicians, whereas Personhood presents a hard vote on the most difficult aspects of the debate. 

Over the past 20 years, many incremental bills have been passed, and undoubtedly lives have been saved as a result. However, during that same time period over 130,000 unborn babies have been killed by abortion in SC. The current incremental bill, Dismemberment, will apply to less than one percent of abortions; only 22 abortions out of the 5,736 that took place in 2016 were done by dismemberment. Surely something more is needed.

This brings me to the current dilemma: Dismemberment has been set for special order while Personhood has not. Over the past two months I have expressed some concerns about the Dismemberment bill. One problem is that while the bill would prevent the dismemberment of living babies, it does not prevent the abortionist from killing the baby via injection and then dismembering the baby, nor does it prevent the abortionist from killing the same baby by some other method. This and other flaws in the bill exist because it is written to intentionally avoid a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade in the hope of being upheld by the courts. Personhood, meanwhile, is written to challenge the fundamental error of Roe v. Wade and provide a basis to overturn it. While Dismemberment presents a great opportunity to talk about the humanity of the unborn baby, it might not save a single baby from being killed.

My concerns about the Dismemberment bill should not be taken as criticism of its proponents. Like me, they are very committed and sincere in their pro-life work. We share the same goal of abolishing human abortion, and we believe in the same principles of personhood. We simply disagree on some aspects of strategy. 

To try and accommodate both pro-life bills, back in March I suggested to Republican Senate members and supporters of the Dismemberment bill, that the best approach would be to bring both Dismemberment and Personhood to the floor and let them be voted on without amendment. I appealed for help to accomplish this and made it clear that if both bills were brought forward, I would not object to Dismemberment when it was being debated. Because of what I consider to be fatal flaws, I would not vote for it as written, but neither would I vote against it. 

During that time, however, I also made it clear that if Personhood, which has been out of committee since February, was pushed aside I would not sit quietly. The stakes are too high not to attempt to pass Personhood, challenge Roe v. Wade, and end the killing of all unborn babies. At this time, amending the Dismemberment bill is the only possible way to do that. In 2016, 5,736 unborn babies were killed in the womb in SC, including 22 by dismemberment. When the debate begins, I intend to speak on behalf of all 5,736 of those precious lives.

Massey

Please ask Senator Shane Massey to bring the Personhood Act (S217) to a vote immediately!

Senator Shane Massey’s contact information:

shanemassey@scsenate.gov

(803) 212-6330 (Gressette Senate Office)

(803) 480-0419 (Home)

(803) 637-6200 (Business)

Eli’s Story

by Dr. Matt & Amanda Roberson

Several years ago, my wife Amanda and I had been blessed with beautiful twins, Jack and Sadie. A healthy son, a healthy daughter, a happy marriage and a joyful home are wonderful things to enjoy. We eventually decided try to have another child. Amanda’s first pregnancy was a little anxious due to the threat of premature labor and other factors mostly related to a twin pregnancy. We both felt like we had more room in our hearts for another child and on some level, I think she wanted to have a ‘normal’ pregnancy (more about that later). Our children were joyous and beautiful like a Pinterest photo or the picture that comes with the frame. Our home was full of adorably mispronounced words, little feet running to welcome me home from work, preschool art, and reading time. Life was good.

As is usually the case, Amanda knew before I did. I came home to see Jack and Sadie wearing shirts that said “I’m a Big Brother” and “I’m a Big Sister” respectively. Amanda’s excitement had obviously spilled over to them. They ran wide eyed around our kitchen not fully grasping what all the excitement was about. We were over the moon!

At about 18 weeks, Amanda went to see her doctor just to have a question answered about Eli. Since it was an unscheduled visit, I was at work rather than being with her. Normally she wouldn’t have seen her doctor again until 20 weeks for the ‘anatomy’ ultrasound. The ultrasonographer kindly offered to try the anatomy ultrasound early since it was so close to 20 weeks. Who wouldn’t want an extra peek at their growing baby, right? As the gray and black of the ultrasound images flashed across the screen, the ultrasonographer’s face turned white. “I’m going to go get the doctor” she offered as she awkwardly left the room. A doctor then hastily entered and performed his own scan, and his faced paled as well…

Read moreEli’s Story

Cloture Commitments for S217

Find contact information for all senators here.

Updated: 4:28 p.m., Tuesday, March 20

The Senate Majority Leader and Rules Committee Chairman, Senator Shane Massey, should be prayed for AND emailed AND called daily. Ask Sen. Massey to set personhood for special order without delay. He is the majority leader and the rules committee chairman, and he has the leadership and the authority to do this.

The following senators are committed to vote for cloture:

Cash, Timmons, Goldfinch, Climer, Rice, Talley, Shealy, Martin, Corbin, Peeler, Verdin, Gregory

The following senators are not committed to vote for cloture and are the highest priority to contact:

Email AND Call daily: Williams, Bennett, Leatherman, Campbell

The following Democrats have supported Personhood legislation in the past but have yet to give support this year (ask for cloture commitment):

Email AND Call daily: Reese, Jackson

The following Republican senators have yet to support S217 (ask for support of S217 before asking for cloture commitment):

Email AND call daily: Senn, Rankin, Campsen

The following Democrat senators have yet to support S217:

Allen, Fanning, Hutto, Johnson, Kimpson, Malloy, Matthews, Bright Matthews, McElveen, McLeod, Nicholson, Sabb, Scott, Setzler, Sheheen

Noah’s Story

Seeing your baby on ultrasound for the first time never gets old. Watching all those turns and kicks on screen, seeing that tiny heart beating, catching a glimpse of that precious little face…all confirmation that the exhaustion and illness has, in fact, been worth it.

I’ve had a lot of ultrasounds, a lot. Things seemed fine at first this time around. Beautiful heartbeat. Lots of little squirms. But the nurse was making me nervous after a while. I started wondering. My wonder turned to panic. Why is this lasting so long? Why is she asking me so many strange questions? Is something wrong? She said she would show the ultrasound to the doctor and be back.

The ultrasound has now taken so long that my husband is going to be late for a meeting out of town. I tell him to go. It’s probably fine. I worry too much. He agrees, it’s probably fine. It always is. He closes the door behind him as he leaves the room. I hear the muffled voice of the nurse outside the door, catching him as he heads down the hall, “You’re going to want to stay”, she says. Oh no! I was right, it’s not fine. My worst fear. Something is wrong.

The doctor enters. I’m already crying and wringing my hands. It’s worse than I could imagine. It’s the worst. She tells us that our baby, our precious little human, the one we were just watching up on that screen, that baby cannot live outside the womb. He has no kidneys. She explains that ultimately, without kidneys, the baby’s lungs cannot develop. There is nothing they can do.

Through sobbing tears we explained that we would not have ever considered terminating. How could we? We just witnessed a perfectly content baby living inside my womb…

Read moreNoah’s Story