and our pro-life allies face a very difficult struggle in the coming weeks, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and majorities of each House of the State Legislature are intent on passing abortion expansion legislation.

To be blunt, our odds of success are quite low. Nevertheless, we will continue to stand for life and leave the ultimate outcome to the Lord.

The proposed Reproductive Health Act would:

1. Eliminate the requirement that abortions be performed only by licensed physicians;
2. Take abortion-related crimes off the books in cases where pregnant women miscarry after being assaulted;
3. Unambiguously establish a state-law right to abortion after more than 24 weeks’ gestation when the abortion is “necessary to protect the patient’s life or health” (which, based on court decisions, would allow late-term abortion for any reason at all); and
4. Repeal existing protections for viable babies born alive following late-term abortions.

Every follower of Christ in the State of New York should be actively involved in opposing abortion expansion. To do this, Christians need two things: Moral clarity and moral courage. Moral clarity simply requires a Christian to understand that abortion is something the Lord hates.

Murder is the intentional taking of an innocent human life, and an unborn baby is an innocent human life (a baby has its own heartbeat within the first month of pregnancy, and has its own distinct DNA at conception). The Bible makes it clear that the Lord hates murder (Exodus 20:13) and that He is intimately involved in fetal development (Psalm 139:13-16).

Moral courage requires that a Christian be willing to advocate for the unborn, remembering that the Lord calls upon His people to protect the defenseless (Proverbs 24:11-12).

Friends, if you have the moral clarity and moral courage to oppose abortion expansion, please write your state legislators today and urge them to vote against this disturbing proposal. Please pray against the passage of this bill, and please stay turned for further actions we can take together as we stand for life in Albany.

In January 1984, former President Ronald Reagan began a solemn tradition in our country – Sanctity of Human Life Day.

Each year on the Sunday closest to January 22, we have the opportunity to collectively mourn the tens of millions of lives that have been lost since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. This year, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday will be held on January 21, and we have the opportunity to come before God as the body of Christ to mourn and cry out to God.

Taking time to stop, mourn and pray has long been a spiritual practice and discipline. We see many examples in Scripture in the Old and New Testaments of lament, and our participation can be powerful. One definition of the word lament is “When we hurt physically, we cry out in pain; when we hurt religiously, we cry out in lament.” Lamentation can be described as a loud, religious ‘Ouch!’

Currently, four in ten women who have had an abortion are actively attending a church. Therefore, the abortion issue directly affects each of our churches. Our lament should be loud! This is a way that our hearts are able to be formed and brought into God’s heart – to feel what God feels.

Please join Embracing Options and the many Rochester-area churches as we bring awareness of the moral evil of abortion and the multiplied impact it has on the lives of those affected by it. Let us learn to lament together. In doing so, we will find something important: God’s love and mercy can lead to forgiveness and healing from the deep wounds caused by abortion!

by Crystal Cutting

Click here or on the banner above to read the our January newsletter.

A 35 year old woman came in on the last day of July for a pregnancy test. She has 3 children and is going through a divorce but still trying to make her marriage work.

She has suffered a lot of tragedy and loss in her life. Her brother was murdered years ago. Her father was a drug dealer and was murdered. Her husband was shot in the head and survived. She herself had multiple abortions in her past. So much loss!

The upside of all this tragedy is that she knows the Lord and said she could not have gotten through all of this without him.

These kinds of stories may be shocking to us, but they are not unusual. Many of our clients have family members who were murdered. We need to be an oasis – a place where our clients can come for refreshing truth and love.

Click here to read this month’s full report to the His Branches Board of Directors.

After they were eventually shamed into covering the Kermit Gosnell trial ­ many in the media admitted they should have covered it earlier and more vigorously. Some of the more honest journalists and outlets also admitted they had not reported on it because of their biases and reluctance to write about a story that shines a negative spotlight on abortion.

But that was then and this is now, they said. We will do better next time, they promised.

Well the next time has arrived and passed and the media has again completely ignored a truly shocking story about abortion. The Senate Judiciary committee last week published a 500-­page report on the practice of abortion clinics profiteering from selling body parts of aborted fetuses.

The committee makes it very clear that although they were prompted to act by the CMP’s famous undercover Planned Parenthood videos, their investigation was completely separate. They relied almost exclusively on documents acquired under subpoena from Planned Parenthood and the businesses doing the actual buying and selling.

And they were doing a lot of buying and selling…

Click here to read the full article in Townhall by Phelim McAleer.

We know what the majority on the Supreme Court thinks about abortion. But increasingly, the court of public opinion is issuing a different ruling.

It hasn’t even been a month since the Supreme Court handed down a decision many saw as a massive setback for the pro-life movement. But new data shows that it’s the supporters of legal abortion, not pro-lifers, who face an uncertain future. PR Newswire reports that the Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbus, conducted a scientific survey of a thousand Americans, 18 and over. And the results were stunning.

Although around half of Americans still call themselves “pro-choice,” seventy-eight percent—nearly eight in ten in this country—support substantial restrictions on abortion. It turns out not all Americans who call themselves “pro-choice” take the extreme position that abortion should be legal at any stage of pregnancy for any reason.

And the younger the survey participant, the less pro-choice they become. A similar study by Students for Life of America found that just seventeen percent of millennials support anything-goes abortion. Most, it turns out, want abortion heavily regulated and restricted to the earliest stages of pregnancy. In fact, an astonishing sixty-two percent of those who describe themselves as “pro-choice” believe abortion should be banned after the first trimester!

But it gets even more interesting and relevant to current debates. The study also found that over sixty percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions, and nearly eight in ten want abortion clinics held to the same standard as other outpatient surgery centers—a rule the U.S. Supreme Court just struck down in Texas. And speaking of the Supreme Court, seventy percent of those surveyed say doctors who perform abortions should be required to have hospital admitting privileges—another Texas requirement declared unconstitutional by the Court. And most remarkably, Americans agree by a margin of 20 percent that religious healthcare providers should not be forced to perform abortions against their deeply-held beliefs.

Let’s be clear about something: This doesn’t amount to a pro-life revolution. Far too many Americans still think abortion should be legal at least in some cases—a position those of us who believe life begins at conception find inconsistent and unbearable. The overall goal of the pro-life movement is not that abortion becomes illegal; we want to persuade hearts and minds so that it becomes unthinkable.

Still, what this study does show is how profoundly out of touch many of our judges and lawmakers are with the American public. Liberals on the Supreme Court and elsewhere are basically keeping unrestricted abortion on “life support” in this country. The overwhelming majority of “we, the people,” favor cracking down on the practice.

But what about the rest of the world? The Left loves to tout Western Europe as a model for social democracy and progress. But as Cassy Fiano explains in a terrific video at Prager University, abortion laws in the United States are some of the most liberal in the world! Throughout Europe, where such laws were democratically-enacted rather than imposed by a court, abortion is widely restricted to the first trimester of pregnancy.

In Germany, Denmark, Belgium, and France, abortions after 12 weeks are virtually illegal. Waiting periods and parental consent requirements for minors are common. These kinds of laws raise cries of “theocracy!” in the United States. But they’re the democratically-enacted norm in much of famously secular Europe.

So what does all this mean? Though we still have a lot of work to do, the cultural winds are fair. Make no mistake: The Supreme Court’s recent edict striking down common-sense safety regulations on the abortion industry is an act of extremism.

Four decades of peering into the womb have forced most Americans to rethink abortion. Those on the bench and elsewhere who refuse to listen are getting lonely. And that’s why now is the time to press hard for change.

By John Stonestreet
Published in BreakPoint on July 29, 2016

in May 2016 shows the number of Americans who consider themselves “pro-choice” has dropped to 47 percent, down from 50 percent last year. The poll also shows that 46 percent of Americans identify themselves as “pro-life” this year, up from 44 percent last year.

Review the chart below to see how little the numbers have fluctuated over the years:

In analyzing the data, Gallup notes:

Gallup began asking Americans to define themselves as pro-choice or pro-life on abortion in 1995, and since then, identification with the labels has shifted from a wide lead for the pro-choice position in the mid-1990s, to a generally narrower lead for “pro-choice” — from 1998 through 2008 — to a close division between the two positions since 2009.

In other words, attitudes toward abortion have been pretty evenly split for many years. The following Gallup poll chart shows the stability of the “absolute” and “qualified” pro-life stand in another way:

Currently 69 percent of Americans feel that access to abortion should be illegal entirely or legally limited in some way, while only 29 percent agree with abortion on demand. From a “pro-life” perspective, this is an improvement from the lowest recorded ebb in 1993 where only 61 percent were in favor of legal limitations, while 34 percent favored abortion on demand. Compare these numbers with attitudes expressed in the mid-1970s where a full 74 percent favored legal limitations, while only 22 percent agreed with abortion on demand.

People tend to think that the Supreme Court decision in “Roe vs Wade” was an expression of democratic sentiment rather than an unpopular decision from the bench and discount the national soul-searching that has continued unabated for over 40 years. One commentator, Joe Scarborough, said he thinks advances in technology over the years may play a large role in why the numbers have not drifted steadily toward the “pro-choice” position:

You now have the technology that not only takes parents inside so early. And it’s three-dimensional imaging and you sit there and you know what you do? You tear up. That’s what you do…The imagery that’s allowing parents to see their unborn children earlier, that’s having an impact. I remember seeing the 3-D imagery, and as I walked out of the office, I said ‘This is going to change the abortion debate. This is gonna change that because you see that and you immediately go ‘Ok, you can call it what you want to call it, but that’s a human being in there.’ That’s not a political statement. That is a statement as a dad.

Click here to review a summary of Gallup poll abortion results over the years.

a quick fix, the only way to keep your life on track. But the memories won’t stay buried.

Let us help you learn to forgive yourself and begin a new stage of your life.

Take the first step by calling 585-545-4690 or filling out the form below.

To Register for the Retreat fill out the fields below:

Registration Deadline is March 25. A NON-REFUNDABLE Deposit of $25 is due upon registration with FULL payment due by April 4.

Please make checks payable to Embracing Options and mail to:

Embracing Options, 35 Curtice Park, Webster, NY  14580

We’re all looking forward to another year of serving in His Name with your help! Day by day men and women find us, some just walking by in the neighborhood and seeing our sign, others by referral, and increasingly more and more through our website and social media. People are rethinking the choices they’ve been making and are looking for hope, encouragement, meaning, support, and even truth and guidance in their lives. We value your ongoing prayers and support as we enter 2016 with the expectation of meeting more hungry hearts in the days and months ahead.

Please join us in upholding the lives of the unborn on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday this month on January 17th and throughout the year. And if you’re looking for help or might even like to become a volunteer, just give us a call!

“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the Knowledge of God.”

Colossians 1:9-10

Embracing Options is a ministry that relies on prayer and God’s direction and intervention. Reliance on the leading of our Lord has produced much fruit this year. Men and women show up at our door for STD tests, pregnancy tests, and free ultrasounds. We listen and discern their individual situations and guide them with truth about positive life choices that line up with the Word of God.

Our Parenting classes are bearing much fruit as young women (and sometimes men) learn how to be better parents, truly caring for the needs of their children. Through this they “Earn While they Learn” baby bucks to spend in our Ba-Bee Boutique (located at our Webster Center). This past year more than 400 items went home with the participants!

It warms our hearts when moms and dads return to Embracing Options with their new little ones, wrapped in the handmade baby quilts, crochet blankets, hats, and booties they received from us, with proud smiles only a parent can have!

Many thanks go out to all who partner with us through your prayers, volunteerism, and financial gifts. We couldn’t reach out with the love of Jesus Christ without you. You have participated in the production of much Godly fruit this year!

The ‘black lives matter’ slogan excludes the unborn