An Open Letter to Representative Gwen Moore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-q0EP8HjA0

Dear Ms. Moore,

How sad I was to hear your remarks about the tragedy of kids having to eat Raman noodles and mayonnaise sandwiches and going without fresh fruit as a justification for providing funding to Planned Parenthood.  While your remarks might sound compassionate to some ears, they sounded cold and hard-hearted to mine.  What you said to a woman like me is that it is better that I were never born, better that my mother should have aborted me.

You see, my mother gave birth to four little unplanned blessings.  We did grow up eating Raman noodles. We never ate mayonnaise sandwiches but we did eat a whole lot of peanut butter and jelly.  That's not a tragedy. Things were hard, it's true, and sometimes we didn't get as full as we'd like.  We wore hand-me-downs from other kids, and sometimes we got made fun of because we didn't have the money for a haircut.  What we learned growing up, though, was important.  We learned how to make the best of what we did have, and we learned that life doesn't owe you anything. We learned to be creative and innovative, to see potential in things that other people think are junk.

I was 19 years old when I found myself pregnant with my own unexpected blessing.  I wasn't sure how I was going to make it. I didn't have a college degree, or a decent job. I didn't know how the future would go.  I simply decided to put my trust in God and I gave birth to a happy, healthy baby boy two weeks before my 20th birthday.

I wasn't the perfect mother, and we didn't have the perfect life. He's eaten his fair share of Raman noodles and peanut-butter jelly sandwiches. Nothing turned out the way I planned it, but that's the truth about parenthood - there is no planned parenthood, it's not a script or a formula, and it never turns out the way you thought it would.  I have an associates degree, but not a bachelor's like I planned.  I never did climb the corporate ladder and I have never made more than $70,000 in one year.  That unplanned blessing, though, saved my life.  I am a better person because he was born. So is the world.

Don't you dare tell me my life has no meaning because I had to eat a few bowls of Raman noodles, or I had to eat a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Don't you dare tell me my son's life is worthless because he had to do the same.  If you really want to help those kids, stop giving money to Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood never once did anything that helped a kid in poverty to get out of it.  You can't eradicate poverty by exterminating the poor as if they were insects, Ms. Moore, and you can't end child abuse by destroying children.  If you really want to help the poor, Ms. Moore, and give those children something better to eat, then fight the HHS mandate so that people who actually value all life can continue to do the work they already do helping poor kids eat and live better.  Stop giving to Planned Parenthood and start giving to charities who actually value life.
Sincerely,

Brandy M. Miller

P.S. Growing up in poverty isn't a real tragedy.  Never being allowed to grow up at all because you were killed before you were born is.

Civil Disobedience and Freedom

As it becomes increasingly clear that Obama's administration intends to strip American business owners of their right to refrain from providing their employees with health insurance that includes birth control, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs, I am forced to make a decision.  I am forced to decide whether I will stand with Christ, and defend the sanctity of all human life by refusing to participate even though I know what the cost will be to me personally, or whether I will seek to save my life and my comfort and thus lose my place in eternity.  You might not be surprised to hear me say this, but I've already decided.  I am choosing to disobey Obama's mandate so that I might obey the more important mandates given to me by Christ. This means that I will not only  not be providing my employees with health insurance, but I will not be purchasing it for myself or my family either.  We will trust in God's providence for our health care, and we will deal with the consequences.

Since it is still a year before Obama's administration intends to force the issue, I will take the time now to remind people of the reason that freedom is spoken of as an inalienable right in the Declaration of Independence written and published by our forefathers in the late 1700's.  Freedom cannot ever be taken from you, and guns do not change that fact.  Someone wielding a gun does have the power to limit your choices - they can reduce the choices you have to "obey and live as a slave" or "disobey and die free".

Some might say it is crazy to trade your life for a principle or belief, but I will point out to  you that it is crazy to place your faith in someone who is so morally corrupted that they view threatening your life as an appropriate motivational tool.  If you obey the person who has the gun, you are placing your faith in their willingness to honor their promises and to do as they have told you they will do, a highly questionable thing to do given their demonstrated lack of morality. The truth is, you have no reason to believe them when they say they will let you live if you do what they tell you to do.  It is better to die doing what you believe is right than to compromise your own values in the vain hope that such a person will honor their word.

I leave you with the lyrics of a song I wrote almost two years ago, entitled Freedom. I hope that you keep these words in your heart and in your mind, and remind yourself of them no matter how dark the days may grow.

Refrain

Your freedom doesn’t end

Where the barrel of a gun begins

It’s still up to you

What are you going to do?

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Don’t believe the words they say

Don’t let them take your freedom away

Hold your head up high

Don’t give in to the lie

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They can limit your choices

They can silence your voices

But in spite of all the pain

The Truth still remains

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If you do what they say

They might kill you anyway

Better to choose what’s right

Than to go down without a fight

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Freedom takes courage

And courage takes heart

Love is the fountain

Gives courage its’ start

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Restoring Economic Freedom

It all started with the passing of the abomination of a bill known as Obamacare.  This law was supposed to care for the poor, making sure that no one went without health care services.  In reality, all it did was take away the freedom of Americans to decide when, where, and whether to purchase health insurance.  Next, the Obama Administration approved a mandate by the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services which would require all employers, including religious organizations who served or employed people outside of their own faith, to purchase health insurance that would include free birth control, free abortion-inducing drugs, and free sterilizations to their employees. In response to the immediate and fervent uproar that arose from religious leaders of all faiths, the Obama Administration said that they would no longer require employers to provide the free birth control, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilizations to their employees.  The caveat, of course, was that the Administration has now mandated that all insurance carriers provide these things to those they insure.

This is not merely an issue of religious freedom, as many are calling it, but an issue of economic freedom. Will we allow this administration to tell us what we have to buy? Are we going to stand by while business owners are forced to provide services or carry products that they have no desire to provide?  Will we let the government dictate to retailers what items they must stock on their shelves? If they can force insurance carriers to provide these things, will they then force companies that carry pharmaceuticals to carry condoms, birth control pills, and abortion-inducing drugs?  Will they force doctors to write prescriptions for birth control pills and abortion-inducing drugs? Force them to perform sterilizations?  Does the government have the right to dictate to a business what products to carry or to tell an individual what services they must purchase?

When the government can dictate to you what products you must carry and what services you must offer, it stops being your business and starts being an arm of the government.  I am a small business owner.  I am firmly against birth control, sterilization, and abortion.  I do not wish to purchase health insurance that pays for those things as I know that any money I give to such a company is contributing to the problem.  I will not give my money to those companies.  I will go to jail first. I would rather lose ever possession I own than be responsible for the death of an innocent human being.  This isn't just an issue of religious freedom.  It's an issue of economic freedom, too, the right to dictate where and when and if I spend the money that I earn - and I'm not going to stand by and allow the government to take that freedom from me.