This summer I hear the drumming, Twenty-three thousand dead in Ohio...

After all the bad news I included in my 1000th post, I thought it might be good to put up a little good news, but it must be tempered a little...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP via yahoo)
"The number of abortion providers in Ohio has shrunk by half amid a flurry of restrictive new laws over the past four years, and the number of the procedures also is declining, according to a review of records by The Associated Press."

"Seven of 16 Ohio abortion providers have either closed since 2011 or curtailed abortion offerings, while an eighth, in Toledo, is operating under the cloud of pending litigation, according to AP interviews and examinations of state licensing and business records."

"Ohio saw induced abortions fall from 25,473 in 2012 to 23,216 in 2013 — a period when 5 of the 7 affected providers closed or curtailed services — state figures show. That was the lowest level recorded since the state began tracking the data in 1976, and part of a general downward trend that began in the late 1990s."

Way to go Ohio, but in absolute terms 23,216 abortions is still a huge number considering there were 139,694 live births in Ohio in 2013 (source Centers for Disease Control publication p. 123). This means that if you are conceived in Ohio, then you have a 15% chance of being sucked out of the womb either whole or in pieces.

Does anyone remember 45 years ago when four protestors were killed in Ohio and how that was turned into a rallying cry against the Vietnam war and the President of the United States?

Remember Neil Young singing, "Ohio"?

"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?" Neil Young, "Ohio"

Why is it that nobody today is singing, "Twenty-three thousand dead in Ohio"?

"Eric Holder and Obama coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Twenty-three thousand dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Mothers and doctors are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew us
And found us dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?" UGP

It was youth Sunday at our church today, and I wonder how many of those and other states' missing 15% might have helped fill the ranks of our youth group today.

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us," Hebrews 12:1