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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
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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!
In the wake of yesterday’s protest of Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s presentation of the “Pro-Choice Leadership Award” at a pro-abortion political action committee fundraiser, Illinois’ Catholic bishops have asked for a meeting with Quinn to discuss his support for abortion, gay marriage and other issues at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church.
As we await the meeting, check out some great footage of the protest and pro-life rape victim who chose life, Mary Higgins and get links to all the media coverage after the jump:
Pro-lifers protest Governor Quinn and Personal PAC [Photo by Eric Scheidler]
Illinois “Catholic” pro-abortion governor Pat Quinn presented the “Pro-Choice Leadership Award” at Personal PAC’s annual fundraising luncheon, and the Pro-Life Action League was there to protest.
Despite being called out by all six Illinois Catholic bishops, Quinn obstinately disobeyed and presented the award.
Bearing protest signs reading, Shame on Pro-Abort “Catholic” Quinn and Personal PAC = Abortion, League staff and volunteers staked positions outside all the entrances to the Chicago Hilton and Towers where the event was held.
The League also brought graphic images of aborted babies to make it absolutely clear what the euphemism of “choice” is covering up. [Continue reading ...]
What could cause pro-life Christians to join forces with Planned Parenthood?
Lies. Planned Parenthood’s go-to move, and, I believe, the largest reason why Mississippi’s Initiative 26 ballot measure was defeated at the polls yesterday.
The measure, a proposed “Personhood” law, would have declared “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof” to be a person deserving of the full protection of the law. Resulting laws the measure would require, would likely ban all forms of abortion.
There were strong indications prior to yesterday’s vote that the measure stood a very good chance of passing and that many, even most, Mississippians supported the idea. So what happened? [Continue reading ...]
Jennie Goodman and Governor Pat Quinn
On Thursday, November 17, Personal PAC will hold its annual fundraising luncheon in Chicago.
Personal PAC is “dedicated to electing pro-choice candidates to state and local offices in Illinois.” Their motto—It’s Pro-Choice or No Choice—is unwittingly revealing. They believe in No Choice for an unborn baby. Nor do they really believe in choice for women.
Personal PAC actively opposes even measures that are beneficial to women such as a 24-hour waiting period before making a choice for abortion, laws mandating informed consent and Illinois’ parental notification law, which remains unenforced 16 years after being enacted. [Continue reading ...]
Yesterday, pro-life blogger Jill Stanek posted a cartoon called “Occupy Womb Street” that originally appeared at the leftist website The Daily Kos. The target of cartoonist Jen Sorenson was the pro-life leadership of the House of Representatives, which passed the Protect Life Act last week.
The cartoon is clever, despite its hateful attitude towards both the unborn child and childbirth (which even some feminists cherish as the special province of women). I credit Sorenson for her creative play on the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, as well as her pun on the word “labor” in the cartoon’s last panel.
But what impresses me most about this 4-panel comic is panel 2, in which a fetus holds a picket sign reading “Will work for nutrient rich blood.”
Here Sorenson unwittingly highlights the humanity of the child in the womb, not only by recognizing the child’s utter dependence on its mother at this early stage of life, but drawing what can only be called a cute little fetus. [Continue reading ...]
Pro-Life Anderson with League National Director Joe Scheidler in the 1980s
I knew Charles F. Anderson even before he had his first name officially changed to “Pro-Life.”
Pro-Life Andy was so tired of never seeing the word “pro-life” used in news stories — but always the weasel-word, “anti-choice”—that he went to court and had his name changed so the press would have to use “pro-life” whenever he did something newsworthy—which was often.
In fact, when Collins Publishers sent out 200 photographers to capture “A Day in the Life of America,” the day being May 2, 1986, they did a two page spread on Andy praying in his front yard. He was surrounded by six large pro-life signs leaning against his house and car, as he held a crucified doll in one hand and his rosary in the other.
In the photograph he is wearing his trademark white cowboy hat with the red badge on the front reading, “Protect Life.” The caption explains that Andy goes to church every morning at 7:30 and then hits the streets of Reno to campaign against abortion. [Continue reading ...]
This past Sunday I stumbled upon a speech by a fellow named Phil Plait from a 2010 conference called “The Amaz!ng Meeting 8″ (that’s not a typo, by the way—that’s how they write it). I had never heard of Plait or TAM before, but I found a lot of value in what he had to say.
Turns out Plait is a noted skeptic and atheist. An astronomer by training (he worked on the Hubble Space Telescope), he writes the popular science blog, Bad Astronomy (I don’t know where he stands on abortion, but I’m willing to bet he’s pro-choice). TAM is an annual meeting that focuses on science, skepticism and atheism.
It may seem strange for a devout Catholic pro-life activist like me to be taking advice from a world-famous atheist, but Plait offers some keen insight on how people think and how we can reach them.
Plait admits that the human brain is “wired for faith” and that therefore skepticism is a “hard sell”—and that’s where what he has to say becomes so relevant for us pro-lifers. [Continue reading ...]
Atlantic editor Megan McArdle
I ran across a very interesting article today by Megan McArdle, senior editor for the Atlantic. The thrust of the piece concerned why the “millennial” generation is growing in support for gay “marriage,” but waning in their support for abortion.
While the article gives some interesting reasons for that discrepancy and is well worth a read, one section really jumped out at me. McArdle was taking another article on the millennial question to task for implying that pro-lifers don’t really understand how many women, and which women, are having abortions and that if we only understood how widespread it was, we would just accept it. McArdle doesn’t think so:
Do you know who has the most accurate grasp of the number of abortions performed annually in this country? My pro-life friends. My pro-choice friends, in my limited experience, usually cannot come within half a million of the actual number. Now, you can argue that my pro-life friends are unusually well informed, and that’s true—I’m sure that there are loads of pro-lifers who believe wildly inflated statistics. But they’re about as well informed as my liberal friends, who generally dramatically underestimate the number of abortions obtained in America.
Last week I was out at the Planned Parenthood center in Aurora when a car pulled up to the side of the vacant lot across from the building, where the pro-life outreach there is usually based.
The driver rolled down his window and said, “Let me ask you a question: Why are you out here harassing these young women?”
That’s not an especially uncommon remark, but he went on: “Why don’t you go to the hospital and explain to the parents of a three-year-old dying of cancer why your God lets a child suffer.”
Standing beside me was Marie, a sidewalk counselor, who recognized the man from a previous encounter. Apparently this wasn’t the first time he’d stop to hassle the pro-lifers out at Planned Parenthood.
The man continued to harangue us about how the young women going into Planned Parenthood have made up their minds and probably even talked to their pastors, as Marie tried to explain that the girls going into Planned Parenthood are often scared and feeling pressured to get an abortion they don’t want. But he wasn’t listening.
Then I tried to respond to his original remark, though he kept interrupting me, too: [Continue reading ...]