"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill and cumin, yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy, and faith. These things you should have done without neglecting the others." (Matthew 23:23, HCSB)

A friendly exchange over the weekend addressed whether abortion is "the human rights issue of our day." It will be obvious to most that I believe abortion to be a human rights issue. My challenge concerned the use of the word the. Can we rightly hold the position that abortion is the human rights issue of our day? I contend abortion is an incredible injustice carried out not only in the United States, but worldwide. But I am not persuaded it is any greater moral evil than human trafficking, slavery in its various forms, governmental "disappearing" of those who resist injustice, or other types of oppression.

Since 1973 many Christians have elevated one injustice, abortion, to a level above all others. Emphasizing the "right-to-life" for unborn babies is important, but we have understood it less within a framework of biblical justice than as a constitutional right. As many Christians cannot articulate a fully biblical view of justice we have watched abortion become a political rallying cry for our two party system of mutual antagonism. Failure to declare the biblical breadth of God's justice allows "woman's right to privacy"–which should be discarded as a non-sequitur–to guide the conversation. more >>

Even though conservatives suffered some major losses in the 2012 elections, in part due to losing the youth vote by a large margin, conservatives are winning the abortion issue among young voters, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, told The Christian Post Thursday.

Hawkins was at the Conservative Political Action Conference and spoke on a Friday panel about how conservatives can better communicate their message to young voters.

Today's young generation is the most pro-life generation since 1973, when abortion became legal, Hawkins explained, "because we've had a different experience with abortion. We've seen the ultrasounds of our brothers and sisters. We've googled abortion, we've seen the bloody images. We all know somebody who has had an abortion." more >>

The North Dakota Senate voted Friday to approve new measures that ban abortion at the first sign of fetal heartbeat, which can be as early as five or six weeks into pregnancy.

House Bill 1456 will also block doctors from performing abortions due to gender or genetic abnormalities, The Associated Press reported, making North Dakota one of the hardest states to obtain a legal abortion. Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple is expected to sign the measures into law.

"The heartbeat is society's marker for life," said state Representative Bette Grande of Fargo, one of the co-sponsors of the bill. more >>

Atheist professor Richard Dawkins has stirred up a firestorm on his Twitter account by suggesting that the only moral question behind abortion is whether a fetus can feel pain or not, by which logic he reasoned that they are "less human" than adult pigs.

"With respect to those meanings of 'human' that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig," Dawkins, who is an evolutionary biologist, posted on March 13.

In response to Tweets questioning his reasoning, the author of The God Delusion tried to explain that he wasn't arguing that pigs have human DNA, but that this point concerned solely the morality of abortion: "Of course potential to be human is among fetus' qualities. But my pig comparison was careful to specify 'relevant to morality of abortion.'" more >>

The CEO of an electric company in Florida has filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services over the "preventive services" mandate, making it the 50th such suit filed against HHS.

Thomas Beckwith, CEO of Beckwith Electric of Largo, filed the suit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division.

"This is a case about religious freedom," reads the first point under the "Nature of the Action" section of the 48-page suit. more >>

Pope Francis, the newly elected leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has been greeted by a wide array of media responses, and while many have focused on his record with social work, his stance on gay marriage and abortion has divided opinions.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, had served as the cardinal of Buenos Aires, Argentina, since 1998 before he was elected Wednesday to succeed the retired Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. He chose to be named after St. Francis of Assisi, the Catholic saint known as an early church reformer.

Many news websites have focused their coverage of Pope Francis on his social work with the poor – NBC News described him as prizing "compassion, humility and simplicity," reminding readers that back home in Buenos Aires he takes the bus to work instead of using the services of a private chauffeur. As a member of the Jesuit Society of Jesus, he has taken a vow of poverty and dedicated his life to working with the poor and suffering. more >>