The Guardian’sarticle and imagery suggests there are no human body parts at nine weeks development. That’s not true. The irony is that the article is guilty of the deception it castigates.

Abortionist Dr. Joan Fleischman says she sometimes shows her patients the pregnancy tissue she removes after an abortion. She says that post-abortive women are “stunned by what it actually looks like,” and the women “feel they’ve been deceived.”
Her testimony was recently reported by The Guardian in a story about “What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks—in pictures.” The article contains pictures of a “pregnancy” at four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine weeks.
When I saw the pictures, I was stunned as well. Not only could I not believe my eyes, but I also couldn’t believe the dishonesty of this story. Why? See for yourself. Here is the image the article labeled as “Nine weeks of pregnancy.”
It’s surprising because the image doesn’t show anything resembling a tiny person or even what one would imagine looks like a tiny embryo. All you can see is what appears like wet cotton material floating in a petri dish.
It’s no wonder the article slams pro-lifers for propping up images that, as Dr. Fleischman claims, lead women to expect “to see a little fetus with hands—a developed, miniature baby.” After seeing the tissue, women respond with, “You’re kidding. This is all that was?”
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Written by John A. Sparks |
Monday, March 13, 2023
Literally on the same day in 2017 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ original case involving the two gay men, Scardina placed an order with Masterpiece Cakeshop for a cake to celebrate both Scardina’s birthday and transition to being a woman. Scardina first placed the order without mentioning the cake’s purpose, noting only that the cake was to be blue on the outside and pink on the inside. But during a second call on the same day, Scardina made clear the purpose of the cake for a trans celebration. At that point an employee of Masterpiece said the business could not bake such a cake. Phillips explained the reason why in testimony. He believed “that God designed people as male and female, that a person’s gender is biologically determined.” Making such a cake to celebrate a gender transition would violate his religious beliefs and force him to express views that were contrary to those beliefs. Scardina filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. 

In 1950, Eileen Barton’s rendition of “If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake” became #1 on the Billboard charts. Until 2012, that song might well have been Colorado baker Jack Phillips’ favorite. But in that year, his three-decade love of baking cakes and other baked goods for those who patronized his Lakewood, Colorado Masterpiece Cakeshop turned into a decade-long nightmare of legal and cultural battles.
Today, Phillips would like nothing better than to return to the quiet hum of his baking establishment’s kitchen. Why isn’t that possible? Why can’t he resume preparing confections for customers without members of sexual minority groups demanding that he adopt and help celebrate their own peculiar view of human sexuality? Why is the state of Colorado menacing an upright citizen like Phillips with criminal complaints and fines?
Let’s briefly trace Jack Phillips’ unhappy legal trek.
In the 1970s, Phillips became a Christian and was convicted that his faith put limits on the types of customized cakes he would bake in his own private business. For example, he refused to portray witches and ghosts for Halloween or sexually suggestive images. In keeping with his Christian beliefs that marriage should be between one man and one woman, he concluded that he could not be part of the celebration of same-sex unions by artistically designing custom wedding cakes for such occasions.
Phillips’ faith commitments did not pose problems for him until 2012 when he respectfully declined a request from two gay men to bake a custom wedding cake for them. That got him in trouble with Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) and the Colorado Civil Right Commission after the pair filed a claim alleging that Phillips discriminated against them because of their sexual orientation. Phillips defended his refusal, saying that his religious liberty and his freedom of speech, including the right not to be compelled to express a certain message, were being violated. To his chagrin, the administrative law judge hearing the case ruled that Phillips either had to bake cakes for all weddings or none. Furthermore, the judge’s order required Phillips to “retrain” his staff to accept requests involving gay weddings, and to report, over a two-year period, all cake orders he refused.
To make matter worse, when Phillips appealed, the Colorado Court of Appeals supported the commission and the law judge’s findings and remedies and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, in 2018, the Supreme Court found in favor of Phillips, but only on the weakest possible grounds. Some of the Colorado Civil Rights Commissioners made outlandish public statements during proceedings about Phillips’ religious beliefs, referring to them as “despicable pieces of rhetoric” which allowed him to use his “religion to hurt others.” There were other similar statements. All of this was too much for the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy, along with six other justices who joined or concurred in his opinion, said that “the Commission’s treatment of Phillip’s case violated the state’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or a religious viewpoint.” (Keep in mind that Justice Kennedy wrote the Obergefell decision making same-sex marriage the law of the land.)
The Kennedy opinion, though a temporary victory for Phillips, was based on flagrant and foolish public misconduct by the Colorado governmental body hearing his case, and which was not likely to be repeated. Unfortunately, Kennedy’s opinion failed to address the central issue of whether the recently devised use of “public accommodation laws,” like the CADA law, to advance the claims of sexual minorities for equal treatment, should override the long-standing constitutional rights of speech and free exercise of religion. The court’s failure to face head-on that set of issues meant that providers like Phillips would be open to further legal challenges. That is precisely what has happened. A transgender woman—Autumn Scardina—who was an attorney, is doggedly pursuing Phillips and Masterpiece by every legal means available.
Literally on the same day in 2017 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ original case involving the two gay men, Scardina placed an order with Masterpiece Cakeshop for a cake to celebrate both Scardina’s birthday and transition to being a woman. Scardina first placed the order without mentioning the cake’s purpose, noting only that the cake was to be blue on the outside and pink on the inside. But during a second call on the same day, Scardina made clear the purpose of the cake for a trans celebration. At that point an employee of Masterpiece said the business could not bake such a cake. Phillips explained the reason why in testimony. He believed “that God designed people as male and female, that a person’s gender is biologically determined.” Making such a cake to celebrate a gender transition would violate his religious beliefs and force him to express views that were contrary to those beliefs.
Scardina filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Before that case could be heard, however, Phillips and Masterpiece brought an action in federal court against Colorado. Eventually, Phillips and Colorado settled by each withdrawing their respective suits. But the dispute was not ended.
Scardina then filed a civil suit on her own behalf in a state court, the current case being litigated.
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Some men may speak less, but do a better job at this act of truth-telling. In the life of action, there is a deeper wisdom, than in a life of word without this action. It takes a manly courage and a sense of humility before God to persist in this truth-speaking in the home, in the church, in the work-place. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can persist in speaking the truth in love. Act as men. Speak the truth and speak it in love.

In my last blog post, I spoke about facing giants, and acting like men in doing so. I focused on a lot of personal or internal characteristics of a man who acts like a man in battle: prayer before God and the destruction of idols of the heart (selfishness, pride, self-pity). But what does that look like in the real world? It seems that certain visible skills must be cultivated.
I want to focus on what acting like a man looks like in the realm of truth-telling. This is one of the primary battlefields for the modern Christian man.
There are many issues in the culture, in the church and in the modern family. But how can men in the church begin to effect the change that they want to see in the church and the world? The assembly is under attack. A Biblical and creational understanding of man and woman is under attack. Pornographic material saturates the world and weakens men spiritually and morally. The inherent dependence on government weakens men in their responsibility to work hard and provide for their families. We look to the government and to leaders for solutions, rather than accepting this core truth: I must take responsibility to serve God fearlessly and boldly within my own spheres of influence.
That responsibility begins with speaking the truth to myself and then within my environment.
In I Corinthians 16:13-14, a man is commanded to let all that he does be done in love. The truth is under attack in our culture and in our homes, just as when Satan crept up on Adam and Eve in the Garden: did God really say? Adam as the head of the home bought into the lie, when he should have laid down his life for his wife. Of course, even this truth-speaking must be done in love: “Rather, speaking the truth in love.” (Eph. 4:15)
This is one of the hardest parts of learning to be a man. It is easy to veer into one of two ditches. Either we promote a spineless love that is unmoored from the truth. Or we present the truth in ways that are less than upbuilding. For example, a man must tell his wife the truth and lead his family in truth, but he does so recognizing that she is the weaker vessel, and having patience with the immaturity in his children. He does so to build her up. It is done in selfless love.
I have seen an issue in the “manosphere” that at times when men want to “tell the truth” so to speak, they do it with filthy language and insults. Somehow dropping crass language makes it more courageous. I am not saying that there is no place for strong language. For example, Paul tells the Judaizers in Galatia essentially that they should castrate themselves (Gal. 5:12). But it was well aimed along the lines of their beliefs that that they could only fellowship with those who were circumcised. And so Paul is telling them to just circumcise themselves from the Church if they want to got that far in their practice. But the vast majority of what is arising in our culture is simply filthy language that does not build up but tears down. Much of it does not make sense within context and so it is not truth-telling, but simply filthy language.
Back to the ditches. Fear of consequences, can make a man harsh in telling the truth on one hand, or make him compromise in telling the truth on the other hand. Both responses are a symptom of fear. It takes courage to speak truth in love in a culture where, the consequences might put you in a place where you are without a job.
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