Courageously Pro-Life

WEEK ONE: SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE

INTRODUCTION
(Student Guide pg. 16)
Teacher’s Note: What is a PHO? PHO is an abbreviation for the term “pregnancy help organization.” A pregnancy help organization can be a pregnancy resource center, pregnancy medical center, adoption agency, or maternity home. A pregnancy resource center is typically a non-medical ministry that provides baby items, parenting classes, and free pregnancy tests. Pregnancy medical centers often do all that a pregnancy resource center does but they also provide ultrasound services, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and occasionally other medical services as well. Adoption agencies arrange adoptions and provide services for both adoptive families and birth families. Maternity homes provide housing and care for women who are pregnant or have recently had a child. There is a tremendous amount of overlap between these organizations and all of them work together to care for women and their families when they’re facing an unplanned pregnancy. I encourage you to get in touch with your local PHOs and ask one or more of them to share with your class. You could even invite them to teach the first week! God is doing tremendous work through thousands of locally run PHOs, and getting your class involved can be a great first step to building a culture of life.

Welcome to week one! Pictured on the right is an ultrasound image of a set of twins taken by a pregnancy medical center (shared with permission). The mother of these twins was planning to abort them but changed her mind after coming to the pregnancy medical center, hearing about her options, and seeing her babies’ hearts beating. We begin the series with this photo for several reasons:
<<Insert Image 003>>
10-week-old preborn twins. Their mother was very abortion-minded, but after seeing her ultrasound she chose life!
1. It reminds us that we’re fighting for people. This isn’t an academic debate or a theological dispute. These are children. People who have the right to live. As you go through this series, look at this picture as often as you need to and remember why you’re doing this.
2. This photo shows how vital pro-life ministries are to our community. These little guys/girls are going to have a chance to grow up and make an impact on our world because of the life-saving work of a local pregnancy medical center.
3. A picture is worth a thousand words. These little ones will show your students the humanity of the unborn. Even if they forget everything you tell them, they will remember this picture.
Teacher’s Note: In order to have a good discussion and for optimal learning to take place, students should study and prepare the week before class. However, many students will not have the time or inclination to do much work in advance. As you get to know your students, you can balance discussion with teaching in a way that makes sense to them.
You don’t want to spend the entire class lecturing, but you also don’t want to have meaningless discussion because nobody has taken the time to prepare. Each student has questions to answer in their workbook—you have the answers (or suggestions) in the Teacher Guide if they get stuck.
This week, the goal is to help every student understand that humans are created in God's image and that we all have inherent value. Challenge them to allow this truth to sink so deeply into their hearts that it fundamentally changes how they interact with those around them.
This week may not bring your students any new information. The purpose is to get everyone started with the same set of assumptions and beliefs to guide us through the rest of the curriculum. They are:
• Human life is sacred.
• All human life is worthy of protection.
• God made man in His own image.
• God desires a relationship with every individual.
• God had plans for us before we were born.
• Jesus Himself valued children.

DEFINITIONS
(Student Guide pg. 17)
All definitions are taken from Webster's online dictionary.
Dominion - domain. Supreme authority
Sacred - worthy of religious veneration, holy, entitled to reverence and respect

Teacher’s Note: How should we refer to a child that is still in their mother’s womb? Throughout the text I will frequently use unborn and preborn. As far as I am concerned, these terms are interchangeable. Some people believe that preborn is a better term, but I honestly don’t think it really matters. I have even heard the term “unbornie” as a different way to refer to an unborn child! Other terms, such as blastocyst, zygote, embryo, and fetus, have often been used to dehumanize the child, and because of this some people avoid using these terms. The reality is that these medical terms simply denote the level of development the child has reached. As long as we’re respectful of the child’s humanity I don’t think it really matters what word we use. The unborn child, preborn child, unbornie, blastocyst, zygote, embryo, and fetus are all really one and the same—a baby.

RELATED SCRIPTURE
(Student Guide pg. 17)
Genesis 1:26–31
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day [emphasis added].