. . . because action speaks louder than words.
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
Q & A on abortion, the unborn child, where we stand on the issues and more
Helping abortion-bound women choose life for their babies
Unmasking the truth about abortion in the public square
Our youth outreach, raising up a new generation of pro-life leaders
Abortion industry converts tell the inside story
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
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March for Life 2012 outside the US Supreme Court building [Photo by John Jansen]
I’ve attended the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. a good number of times, but this year’s was by far the most upbeat, energetic and encouraging march I’ve been to, and the Pro-Life Action League was thrilled to be a part of it.
The crowd was enormous and excited about the coming year, as well they should be. 2011 was a banner year for the pro-life movement, and the momentum only keeps going our way.
As the march wound through the streets of the nation’s capital one could see groups from all religious traditions, all ages and races, school groups, church groups, colleges with huge banners—it was quite a show.
But there was one thing that I don’t think anyone missed—the Crusaders for Life pro-life youth group from our own St. John Cantius church here in Chicago. The giant group came equipped with chants, huge yellow “LIFE” balloons, and portable platforms where they could carry some of their cohorts above the crowd to lead chants. [Continue reading ...]
March for Life, Washington DC—Three little words from President Obama’s statement yesterday on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade reveal how radical his support for abortion really is. He says we must strive to “reduce the need for abortion.”
Obama dare not hint—by professing a desire to reduce abortion itself—that there’s anything whatsoever wrong with abortion. What’s bad, what we want to reduce, is “the need for” abortion.
Some will say I’m reading too much into these words, that what Obama means to say—what they may even think he is saying—is that he wants to reduce abortion. But he never does say that. Look at his statements on abortion—always careful to add those three little words.
Obama is happy to mislead people on this score, to appear to share a goal most Americans would embrace: to bring the number of abortions down from the staggering current rate of over 1 million a year.
But hidden in those the little words is a clear message to the abortion industry: “I got your back.” They can rest assured he will fight any effort to actually bring down the number of abortions, keepig the focus on that nebulous “need” for it. And he’s proven that commitment again and again over the past 3 years.
Well, here at the 39th Annual March for Life, we’ve got three little words of our own—three little words that inspire our action today and carry us to victory on November 6: “Stop abortion NOW!”
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards had a laugher of a letter to the editor in the New York Times this week in which she wrote:
In “He’s a Quarterback, He’s a Winner, He’s a TV Draw, He’s a Verb” (This Land column, front page, Jan. 14), Dan Barry writes about a 2010 Super Bowl commercial telling how Tim Tebow’s mother decided not to end a life-threatening pregnancy and he adds, “There was no tebowing that week in the halls of Planned Parenthood.”
That suggests that Planned Parenthood does not celebrate birth or a remarkable story like Mr. Tebow’s. In fact, the Tebow story exemplifies the health care environment that Planned Parenthood promotes — a world in which women and families are supported in the medical decisions they make for themselves and their families without government interference. [emphasis added]
Seriously? Cecile Richards actually wants you to believe that Planned Parenthood celebrates “a remarkable story like Mr. Tebow’s”? And that “the Tebow story exemplifies the health care environment that Planned Parenthood promotes”?
Maybe in Bizarro World that’s true, but not in the real world. [Continue reading ...]
Sign posted at Rockford’s NIWC abortion mill before its license was suspended on Sept. 30, 2011. NIWC is now closed for good. [Photo via Pro-Life Corner]
The notorious Northern Illinois Women’s Center in Rockford just became the first abortion clinic in the U.S. to shut down in 2012.
A Rockford Register Star article posted just this afternoon confirmed that NIWC’s management has decided not to reopen after having its license suspended by the State of Illinois for over three months due to serious health violations.
Why did NIWC decide not to reopen? The article explains:
The clinic’s decision is based on a lack of support from the community, the political climate surrounding the abortion issue both locally and nationally and the challenge the clinic would face in rebuilding staff, the director said.
Take a look at these reasons again:
(1) A lack of support from the community. It’s not hard to see why the good people of Rockford want nothing to do with NIWC. A creepy looking place that doesn’t sterilize their instruments and has bizarre window displays featuring signs of Jesus giving the middle finger and saying, “Even Jesus hates you” isn’t the sort of place anyone would want in their backyard. [Continue reading ...]
Stalwart activist Jim Finnegan, who joins the League on our Face the Truth Tour every summer recently led a protest of abortionist Phillip Waterman outside his sprawling estate on the Gulf of Mexico.
Check out scenes from the protest and hear Jim tell the story of another abortionist who quit after Jim led protests outside his home!
American Family Planning clinic, Pensacola, FL [Photo by Tony Giberson, Pensacola News Journal]
Early in the morning on New Year’s Day, American Family Planning clinic in Pensacola, Florida caught fire. The fire went undetected for several hours as the night was foggy and passersby didn’t notice the smoke.
The building sustained significant damage and a suspect, Alabama resident Bobby Joe Rogers, has been arrested for starting the blaze. So far, no motive has been reported for the crime.
But even days before there was even a suspect, the media had already jumped to the conclusion that this was an act of anti-abortion violence, which may yet prove to be the case.
This is the clinic where Paul Hill murdered abortionist John Britton in 1994, for which he received the death penalty, so it wasn’t surprising to hear that mentioned as speculations about motive fly. But many in the media aren’t playing fair, and worse, they’re not giving people the whole story. [Continue reading ...]
Ann Scheidler talks to reporter Mary Jo Ola after the January 4 hearing [Photo by John Jansen]
Several of us from the Pro-Life Action League attended a public hearing in Chicago this morning regarding the fate of Rockford, Illinois’ notorious Northern Illinois Women’s Center abortion facility, which was ordered closed by the Illinois Department of Public Health on September 29, and has remained closed since.
The hearing was called to order by Administrative Law Judge Cynthia Ramirez, who asked the parties in the case to identify themselves. Harold Hirschman, counsel for NIWC, and Eva Byerly, attorney for the Illinois Department of Public Health and representing the State of Illinois, did so. Judge Ramirez then noted that only the parties in the case were allowed to speak during the hearing.
Byerly told the judge that an agreement had been reached between the State and NIWC yesterday afternoon, and was signed this morning. Hirschman concurred.
Judge Ramirez then said that since an agreement had been reached, the case was dismissed.
The entire hearing lasted no more than two (2) minutes. Judge Ramirez then exited the conference room.
The reporters present were just as mystified as the rest of us, since they seemed to think there would be no story for them to report. They immediately approached Byerly and asked her about the details of the agreement, but she refused to comment, and then exited the conference room. [Continue reading ...]
2011 was a huge year in the abortion battle and the Pro-Life Action League was busier than ever fighting abortion on the front lines with hard-hitting grassroots activism.
To show you a sample of what 2011 looked like for the League, we’ve put together this 2 minute video displaying a few of the things we did each month. We hope you enjoy this look back at the last year and that you’ll join us in making 2012 an even bigger year for life!
When abortion became the law of the land in 1973 with a fiat from the U.S. Supreme Court, the first thing I did was go to the library and look through the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature.
I checked out most of the magazines and secular journals to find what they had been saying about abortion during the past decade or so, and I found that the stories were almost always slanted toward the legalization of abortion.
Coverage of events such as Sherry Finkbine’s highly publicized abortion in 1962 was mostly pro-abortion. Finkbine, hostess of the then popular Romper Room, had taken thalidomide—which could cause fetal defects—and Finkbine feared that she would have a deformed baby.
When her story went public and she was denied an abortion in Phoenix, she went to Sweden for an abortion. The media took her side, and abortion for fetal defect became “reasonable.”
More stories followed and the secular media had set its course.
We could cite hundreds of such stories, always with a pro-abortion slant or outright support. The secular media cheered Roe v. Wade in 1973 and has never steered away from this course.
There were occasional articles pointing out this bias, even by writers in the secular press, but while they were noted, they were mostly ignored. The abortion bias continues to this day.
A recent example appears in a Newsweek article by Nancy Hass. [Continue reading ...]
We found out recently about a new campaign called My Abortion, My Life.
Based in Cleveland, they’ve recently placed ads on the city’s buses as part of their effort to start the “long process of” — wait for it — “de-stigmatizing abortion in our society.”
Campaigns like this that set out to normalize abortion are doomed to fail.
Why? Because they’ve always failed. And there’s no reason to believe things won’t be different this time.
Remember the “I Had an Abortion” T-shirts released in 2004?
If you don’t, you’re not alone. Even after a big publicity splash when they were introduced, they were — to the surprise of exactly no one — never very popular. (And, what’s more, the online store that once sold them is no longer accessible.)
Then, two years later, Ms. Magazine tried a similar campaign. It, too, was a flop. As League National Director Joe Scheidler wrote at the time: [Continue reading ...]