The Board of Idaho Chooses Life has been busy researching candidate records and collecting questionnaires from candidates across the state. Based upon legislative records, a number of good people have already won endorsement, and a second round of endorsement decisions is scheduled for this weekend.

With the Primary Election coming fast (May 27th), we will need to be in a position to advise pro-Life voters across Idaho on who they can trust to defend our families and our future.

Board policies have developed over the years in response to this heavy responsibility.

We rely heavily upon proven public records, primarily voting history, when dealing with incumbent legislators. Bill sponsorship, public statements and personal history are also given serious consideration.

For candidates running without the benefit of a legislative voting record, we turn to an extensive survey on key pro-Life questions – sixteen in all. The survey leaves plenty of opportunity for candidates to express their heart when it comes to protecting the sanctity of human life.

We continue to be driven by the firm conviction that no person is qualified to hold public power over the community who does not have a deep regard for the value of each human being.

We ask for your prayers and support as we move forward through this difficult and sometimes controversial process. And may the Lord carry us to victories next month that allow us to move forward with rebuilding a Culture of Life in Idaho.

What strange times we live in. The Yale Daily News reported that a student at that once prestigious campus produced video recordings of self-induced abortions as part of her senior art project. The young woman claimed that she had repeatedly impregnated herself using donated sperm over the past year – so she could film numerous self-abortions in her bathtub using various herbal abortifacients.

Once she presented her video to the Senior Art Project Forum – revulsion spread across the campus, resulting in a newspaper story by the student paper. In an interview, Ms. Shvarts claimed that her “performance art” was designed to encourage debate about the relationship between art and the human body.

Campus officials decided to investigate and, when confronted, Aliza Shvarts claimed that it was all just an elaborate hoax.

Probably so. Yet the thinking and moral numbness behind this dark episode is obviously disturbing. How could an otherwise intelligent young woman show such disregard for the human destruction and suffering involved in abortion?

The truth is, such sociopathic behavior must be expected in a culture which denies the humanity of preborn children for the sake of convenience. Planned Parenthood’s propaganda campaign – in which human beings are just “blobs of tissue” – has taken hold.

Can the masters of the culture be so certain that they can keep the beast contained?

The Independent newspaper (London) ran a disturbing story yesterday about the scientific “progress” being made in cloning techniques.

A new procedure has been developed by Dr. Robert Lanza of the American-based Advanced Cell Technology which makes the successful cloning of humans easier and more likely. The technique re-programs skin cells into a pre-embryonic state; this was the process used in the dramatic breakthrough announced last year in which embryonic stem cells were manufactured without the destruction of a human embryo.

One scientist is quoted by the Independent as arguing that this development means we almost certainly have the scientific methodology to produce a human child.

Dr. Lanza himself expresses ethical concerns:

“It raises the same issues as reproductive cloning … whereby anyone, young or old, fertile or infertile, straight or gay can pass on their genes to a child by using just a few skin cells.”

Recent experiments on mice have produced offspring 100% genetically identical to the donor.

Dr. Lanza went on to observe that those mouse experiments demonstrate how easily the technology could be applied to produce or chimera babies. Such cloning techniques are not illegal in many places because the law has not kept pace with scientific developments.

We may need to bring this whole matter to the attention of the Idaho Legislature in the near future, as well as members of Idaho’s congressional delegation.