John Rustin | May 29, 2019 | SHARE: 
Dear Friends,
North Carolina is a great place to live. It’s a great place to raise a family. And, it’s a great place to run a business. The landscape is beautiful—from the mountains to the coast. The climate is ideal—we get to experience all four seasons. Our population is diverse and growing more so every day. We have so much to be thankful for!
North Carolina has also transitioned from operating in relative political anonymity to becoming one of the most competitive battleground states in the nation in the last decade. We have become a major target of presidential hopefuls, national super pacs, and political parties. We live at an incredibly exciting time in our state’s history!
North Carolina is also a national leader. Our economy is booming, tourism continues to exceed record levels, and year after year we receive top marks in a myriad of national business rankings and economic ratings of states across the nation. Initial estimates suggest that we are likely to see a state budget surplus of over half-a-billion dollars in 2019. By all measures, North Carolina is experiencing great prosperity.
Under the surface, however, our state is facing a battle of monumental and fundamental proportions—a literal war over life and death!
As I compose this message, the North Carolina General Assembly is debating the future of a bill designed to protect the lives of newborn babies who survived a failed abortion attempt. What we are talking about here is a breathing newborn baby with a beating heart who is alive outside of its mother’s body. The bill, Senate Bill 359—Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, would require “any health care practitioner present at the time the child is born alive” to “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.”
Incredibly, the bill is necessary because ample evidence exists that abortionists are leaving surviving newborn babies to die and in some cases intentionally killing them. To the abortionists, the unborn baby—and in this case the newborn baby—is not the patient, the mother is. The newborn baby is simply the product of a failed medical procedure.
The General Assembly has passed this bill, but Governor Roy Cooper promptly vetoed it. The State Senate overrode the Governor’s veto on April 30 by the slimmest of margins. Now, the future of the bill and the lives of these precious newborn babies, sit in the hands of 120 members of the North Carolina House of Representatives.
Jesus, in a parable in Matthew 25, tells us “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” He follows that by saying “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
If we fail to follow God’s call to love our neighbor—including protecting the lives of the least, the weakest, and the most vulnerable among us—then all the other accomplishments and accolades the Old North State has achieved and received in recent years are utterly worthless. It’s as simple as that.
The lives of these children and the fabric, character and future of our state is at stake!
Let us fervently pray that God will fill the hearts and minds of these state lawmakers with the will and resolve to enact this critical life-saving measure into law.
Please join NC Family as we pursue our vision of “A state and nation where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive and LIFE IS CHERISHED!”
