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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
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Students from Christian Liberty Academy reach out to abortion-bound mothers at Planned Parenthood Aurora [Photo by Eric Scheidler]
It was a beautiful morning for this past Saturday’s monthly protest at the Planned Parenthood mega-center in Aurora, Illinois. The Pro-Life Action League has hosted a protest there every month for the past five years and more since the “Abortion Fortress” opened in 2007.
Among the dozens of stalwart pro-lifers sacrificing time from their weekends to fight abortion was a large group of teens from Christian Liberty Academy, whose youthful zeal for the cause of life has become a regular feature of these monthly protests.
Several months ago, a Planned Parenthood client aggressively swerved his car at one of the CLA students and is now facing aggravated assault charges, as reported in today’s Chicago Sun-Times. The unfortunate incident did nothing to diminish the determination and activism of these dedicated pro-life students.
On the picket line at Planned Parenthood Aurora [Photo by Eric Scheidler]
Response from passersby seemed more pronounced than usual, especially from those showing their support, possibly because of the prominence of abortion in the news during the Kermit Gosnell trial and subsequent guilty verdict.
At the conclusion of the protest, I offered prayers of thanksgiving to God for giving each of us the grace not only to recognize the evil of abortion for what it is, but to come out on the street and actively do something about it—as we’ve been doing for more than five years in Aurora.
At Mass this past Sunday, Catholics heard the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11).
One thing I find amazing about this Gospel passage is that it almost didn’t make it into the Bible. In fact, before the canon of Scripture was finalized in the late 4th century, some copies of St. John’s Gospel didn’t include this story.
St. Augustine tells us (cf. De coniugiis adulterinis, 2, 6) that many early Christians were afraid of keeping this story in John’s Gospel since it showed Jesus as being so merciful that they thought it might lead people to think that the reality of sin wasn’t as serious as the Church made it out to be.
Apparently, the Holy Spirit wasn’t concerned about this, since He made sure the story was kept in there.
The story of the woman caught in adultery was the inspiration behind a post-abortion healing brochure [PDF] the Pro-Life Action League designed a few years ago. On the front is an image of Jesus and the woman, and the words “Neither do I condemn you.” On the back is information on where to find help dealing with post-abortion aftermath, and the message, “Please give this card to someone who needs it.” [Continue reading ...]
The massive Planned Parenthood abortuary in Aurora, Illinois, was the scene of a dynamic, multi-faceted protest Saturday morning. It was my privilege to coordinate the monthly picket of the facility at the corner of New York Street and Oakhurst Avenue, dedicated this month to the conversion of abortion workers. The League has invited pro-lifers across the country to dedicate special prayers and fasting for this intention.
Meanwhile, in front of the Planned Parenthood facility two busloads of students from Christian Liberty Academy under the direction of David Berquist fanned out with beautiful LIFE signs and offered goodie bags to Planned Parenthood clients, including baby booties and information on the nearby Waterleaf Women’s Center.
Among the students was the courageous Hannah M., who was threatened by a speeding motorist at last month’s protest. The motorist—a Planned Parenthood client—has been charged with aggravated assault.
As the CLA students and regular sidewalk counseling team reached out to Planned Parenthood clients, a large group with the Knights of Columbus Council 1369 from Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Naperville prayed a Rosary for Life.
All told, about sixty pro-lifers were on the scene Saturday, braving chilly winds to share the pro-life message, offer help to Planned Parenthood clients and keep the abortion issue before the public eye.
On a bleak Friday afternoon, our savior Jesus Christ was crucified at Golgotha, “the place of the skull.” Today, we have our own Golgotha: the abortion clinic, where two thousand years after the Crucifixion, His image is violently destroyed, again and again, by abortion.
That’s why, for the last five years, the Pro-Life Action League has marked Good Friday with a pro-life “Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion” at our local Planned Parenthood.
We’ve found this activity to be such a blessing, one of our favorite pro-life activities of the year. So this year we’re calling on pro-lifers like you nationwide to join us in hosting a “Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion” at your local abortion facility.
And, we’re providing you with all the tools you need to make it happen in your area, including an ecumenical prayer service book, templates to promote your event through e-mail and in churches, advice on practical considerations and more!
Though the devotion of the Stations of the Cross has Catholic roots, the service we conduct is completely ecumenical. People of every denomination join us every year and there is no material in the book that would be offensive to non-Catholics to pray. Please feel free to join or host a Way of the Cross no matter what your denomination. [Continue reading ...]
A crowd of over 50 pro-lifers gathered on a cold, windy winter morning last Saturday to protest Planned Parenthood’s “Abortion Fortress” in Aurora, Illinois as they have every third Saturday for over five years now.
Among them was a group from Christian Liberty Academy (CLA) in nearby Arlington Heights, Illinois. The group of students has taken to coming out on third Saturdays to protest, pray and offer help to abortion-bound moms through sidewalk counseling.
Several of the young ladies from this group even spoke at the TeenSpeak teen pro-life conference earlier this month about their sidewalk counseling ministry. The talk was inspiring for many of the students present. [Continue reading ...]
Father Frank Pavone once gave a talk in which he asked his audience what the first step of any effective pro-life effort must be. Most people in the audience guessed, “Prayer.” But Father Frank went deeper than that.
He explained that the first thing we must do, if our pro-life witness is to be effective, is to repent.
One might think that to repent is to pray, but repentance itself is an act that precedes prayer. Repentance is the admission in my heart that that I have sinned, and that I stand in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the penitential season of Lent, so it is a fitting time for each of us to contemplate our own need for repentance, and especially how we, as pro-lifers, can live out Our Lord’s call to repentance in our prayer about abortion and our witness outside abortion facilities.
The Pro-Life Action League’s Life Witness Prayer Book includes four hours of prayer especially suited for praying outside abortion clinics, with the third hour dominated by the Stations for the Cross and the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary—and filled with exhortations to repent.
For example, in the First Station (Jesus Is Condemned to Death), we pray, “My innocent Jesus, often, rather than offend men, I have forsaken You,” and in the Fifth (Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross), “Let me be ashamed that, like Simon, I so often carry the cross only on compulsion.” [Continue reading ...]
The following is a guest blog post by Monica Migliorino Miller Ph.D., director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and author of Abandoned: The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars (St. Benedict Press, 2012).
On the 40th anniversary of Roe. v. Wade, Simcha Fisher posted an article at National Catholic Register online entitled “Eight Reasons Not to Use Graphic Images at the March for Life.” Simcha’s negative view of graphic images is part of a larger debate within the pro-life movement on the use of abortion victim photos, and I now offer this rebuttal.
Simcha prefaces her eight reasons by stating: “A public place is not the place to use these images — ever.” Simcha makes it clear that she does not oppose the use of graphic images in certain contexts, but she attempts to argue that they should never be used in a public forum.
Simcha contradicts her own position when she states that seeing the photos caused her to “be shaken out of a vague, fuzzy support for the pro-life cause into the realization that this is a life and death struggle — real life and real death.” If so, then why oppose the public display of the tragedy of abortion when others, too, may be shaken into the same realization? Here are Simcha’s reasons and my response to them. [Continue reading ...]
NOTE: This article is one of a series on the “top ten” accomplishments of the pro-life movement over the past 40 years since unborn children were stripped of their legal right to life by the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court rulings.
In a series of articles these past ten days, I’ve been discussing the concrete accomplishments of the pro-life movement since the U. S. Supreme Court stripped unborn children of their legal right to life in their Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton rulings, handed down 40 years ago today.
This series has been intended to serve two purposes. First, it offers a response to the criticism coming from some in the pro-life movement, mostly newcomers, that little has been accomplished since Roe. As I have shown, this is profoundly not the case.
Secondly, this series offers some perspective, both on what things might have looked like in the absence of all the pro-life Americans have done over the past 40 years, and on what a valuable legacy we have to build upon.
With the 40th anniversary of Roe and Doe upon us today, I offer here a wrap-up of my list. As we soberly, somberly reflect on the legacy of these rulings—over 55 million dead and a society deeply wounded—may this overview of our accomplishments give us courage and confidence moving forward: [Continue reading ...]
NOTE: This article is one of a series on the “top ten” accomplishments of the pro-life movement over the past 40 years since unborn children were stripped of their legal right to life by the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court rulings.
One day in May last year, two young women met on the sidewalk outside an abortion clinic.
One of the women, Shevelle, was sixteen weeks pregnant—already showing. She was there for an abortion.
The other woman, Carol, was serving her first day as a pro-life sidewalk counselor. She was there to talk Shevelle out of getting that abortion. But she couldn’t, even after Shevelle learned about the risks of abortion and how a woman had died at this same abortion clinic.
Finally, Carol told Shevelle, “If you’re going to go through with this, at least let me give you a hug.”
Shevelle agreed. Carol embraced her, and Shevelle immediately broke down sobbing. She changed her mind about the abortion, and Carol accompanied her to a nearby pregnancy resource center for help.
Shevelle’s daughter Saveah was born in November—saved by a hug. [Continue reading ...]
NOTE: This article is one of a series on the “top ten” accomplishments of the pro-life movement over the past 40 years since unborn children were stripped of their legal right to life by the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court rulings.
Last month, the entire nation was struck with horror over the massacre of 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School at Newtown, Connecticut. We all felt the pain of their tragic murders; we mourned the loss of their young lives.
That mourning was only amplified as we learned more about the massacre—as we connected those 26 bodies with particular names and faces, acts of heroism or kindness, dreams and aspirations that will never be realized.
It is right and just that we should respond in this way. But that response points to one of the great injustices of abortion: we have no names, no faces to connect to the 55 million children who have been legally killed by abortionists over the past 40 years.
God alone knows their names and their faces. But though we cannot mourn these children as they truly deserve—by name—we have not forgotten them.
Roe v. Wade‘s earliest victims would now be raising their own children by now. Some of them might even be grandparents.
Reflections like this help us to get our heads around the scale of this tragedy, whole generations cut down with every abortion. Brothers and sisters, friends, spouses, coworkers, neighbors we will never know. [Continue reading ...]