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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
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Eric speaks in Anneville, PA Oct 14 [Photo by Henri Lively]
Last week I was honored to join the Defend Life Speaking Tour—the longest running pro-life speaking tour in the nation—at the invitation of stalwart pro-life activist Jack Ames. Jack is famous for putting his speakers to work, and Jack managed to line up 5 talks for me in just two days.
I arrived the morning of Thursday, October 13 and was picked up at the airport by Fran Griffin, who helped Jack arrange my speaking engagements. After lunch with some of the pro-life leaders of northern Virginia, we drove to Seton School in Manassas, founded by Catholic historian Anne Carroll, whose late husband Warren founded Christendom College.
I addressed the all-school assembly about how they can help restore a culture of life. After a brief overview of the humanity of the unborn child and the key facts about abortion, I explored how Catholics like them are called in a special way to actively fight against abortion. [Continue reading ...]
Joe Scheidler (right) with St. Joseph Right to Life County President Tom Gill [Photo by Ann Scheidler]
On Thursday, October 6, League Director Joe Scheidler gave the keynote address at the 20th anniversary celebration of St. Joseph County Right to Life in South Bend, Indiana. Joe had also been the speaker at the group’s inaugural banquet in March 1992.
Scheidler congratulated Indiana on its decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood, a move that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius immediately objected to, claiming that Indiana had no right to make such a determination. Scheidler assured the crowd that many other states are watching the drama over de-funding Planned Parenthood, with the aim of taking the same action.
Scheidler emphasized the importance of prayer and action in our battle against abortion. As a former Benedictine seminarian, he still adheres to St. Benedict’s motto, Ora et Labora — Pray and Work. “Prayer is essential,” said Scheidler. “But it is not enough. We have to take action to change the culture.” [Continue reading ...]
Eric Scheidler leads pro-lifers in song outside Planned Parenthood in Aurora, IL [Photo by Matt Yonke]
This past Sunday, October 2, marked the 4th anniversary of the dark day that Planned Parenthood opened the doors of their “Abortion Fortress,” the first of their mega-centers which are now spreading across the nation.
Though it might seem counter-intuitive, the Pro-Life Action League marked this grim day with a “Do-it Yourself” pro-life concert on the vacant lot across the street from the midwest’s largest abortion clinic.
The DIY concert is an idea League Executive Director Eric Scheidler came up with to celebrate the closing of the second 40 Days for Life vigil in 2008 and we’ve held them several times since. Pro-lifers bring a lawn chair and copies of their favorite hymn or praise song and an instrument if they play one, and we sing praises to God thanking Him for the victories He’s granted us as a movement. [Continue reading ...]
Illinois Supreme Court Building
This morning the case of Sandholm v. Kuecker begins oral arguments before the Illinois Supreme Court.
Normally a case like this involving a high school athletics coach who was fired and later sued a group he claimed was libeling him wouldn’t make pro-life news, but Sandholm is different because it involves the Illinois Citizen Participation Act (CPA).
The CPA is the same law that Planned Parenthood has used in the Scheidler v. Trombley libel case to put the Pro-Life Action League and League Executive Director Eric Scheidler on the hook for nearly $500,000 in legal fees.
The CPA states that, when pursuing favorable governmental action, a person cannot be held responsible for public statements made in pursuit of that action, even if those statements are libelous.
Scheidler v. Trombley began when Planned Parenthood ran a smear campaign on the League and local activists while trying to open their massive “Abortion Fortress” in Aurora, Illinois. When Eric and the League sued for libel, Planned Parenthood counter-sued under the CPA and won, claiming that they weren’t responsible for their false claims about pro-lifers because they were seeking the favorable government action of getting the Aurora City Council to approve their new clinic.
This is obviously ridiculous as it essentially grants Planned Parenthood, or anyone else invoking the CPA, a license to lie and say whatever they please about their opponents without being held responsible. [Continue reading ...]
Picket outside Planned Parenthood in Aurora, IL [Photo by Sam Scheidler]
On Saturday, September 17, over 50 pro-lifers beat the pavement outside the “Abortion Fortress” of Aurora, Illinois just as they have every third Saturday since the facility opened in the fall of 2007.
With signs reading Moms for Life, Dads for Life, Planned Parenthood LIES to You and Planned Parenthood: BAD for Aurora the group witnessed to the community’s continuing resistance to the presence of the Midwest’s largest abortion mill in their town.
I’ve been a part of the League’s protest efforts at Planned Parenthood Aurora since the very beginning, and it’s been a great encouragement to get to know the area’s faithful activists. As I handed out signs on Saturday, I saw many of those who have been there since the beginning as well as some new faces. [Continue reading ...]
Recently, League Executive Director Eric Scheidler’s posted a piece here at the Hotline that has been turning heads in the media and generating a lot of buzz.
Though Planned Parenthood has their way of spinning the numbers, Eric’s article makes it clear that although Planned Parenthood’s government funding has increased every year for many years, the rate of unintended pregnancy has stayed level and even increased slightly even though Planned Parenthood’s contraception and abortion services are supposed to bring that rate down.
Recently, Eric was invited on CBN News to speak more about this glaring discrepancy. Check it out and share this important information with your friends!
As part of my work fighting Planned Parenthood, I regularly monitor the abortion giant’s e-mail messages to supporters. I’m rarely surprised by the heated rhetoric and propaganda I see in these e-mails, but last Friday’s message from Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards betrayed such contempt for the truth that even I was struck by it.
The message begins fairly typically, with an outlandish declaration:
Dear ________,
I’m appalled by what is happening in my home state. Governor Rick Perry and the Texas legislature have launched a relentless assault on Planned Parenthood and women’s health that is a true threat to women in Texas and beyond.
Note that Richards decries this “assault on Planned Parenthood and women’s health” as if the two are one and the same—and as if anyone would really be opposed to “women’s health,” least of all the 21 women members of the Texas legislature who voted in favor of the measure, well outnumbering the 15 women who voted against it.
Of course, by “women’s health” we know what Planned Parenthood really means: abortion. That’s the kind of rhetoric we’re used to. But Richards’ next paragraph rises to a crescendo of dishonesty:
This week, Gov. Perry and anti-women’s health legislators in Texas passed a bill that would force women seeking abortion care to view a sonogram. It would also require doctors to read an anti-choice script written by the anti-choice legislature . . .
The bill—HB 15—was actually passed way back in May, not last week, but that error seems almost quaint in comparison to the shocking mendacity of the way Richards characterizes the legislation. [Continue reading ...]
Planned Parenthood has done it again. They created a front company to purchase real estate, just like they did in Aurora, Illinois. The target of their deceptive practices this time: Dubuque, Iowa.
In Aurora, Planned Parenthood created a subsidiary named Gemini Office Development, LLC to purchase property and obtain building permits, even going so far as to lie outright to city officials about the identity of the future occupant.
In Dubuque, they created Hillcrest, LLC to attempt the same caper. And as in Aurora, Planned Parenthood officials tried to justify their ruse by pointing the finger at pro-life activists. [Continue reading ...]
Eric Scheidler’s post earlier this week shone a spotlight on Planned Parenthood’s failure to reduce unintended pregnancy in the U.S., despite receiving ever increasing taxpayer funding.
Following on his commentary, I thought it would be worth taking a closer look at another element of the seemingly endless “How can we reduce unintended pregnancy?” debate: namely, so-called emergency contraception (hereafter: EC).
Today I came across a press release dated September 2, 1998 from a company called Gynétics (which at the time was based in New Jersey, but is now based in Belgium). The release announced that the their product, Preven, had just become the “first FDA-approved product for emergency contraception that can prevent pregnancy when used within 72 hours” after sex.
The press release contained this comment from one Dr. Anita Nelson, an Ob/Gyn professor at UCLA:
It is estimated that nearly 50 percent of all abortions and unintended pregnancies in this country could be avoided if women had access to emergency contraception.
That’s no small prediction. And looking back, it’s turned out to be hopelessly wrong. [Continue reading ...]
Last week, the Guttmacher Institute announced the publication of an analysis of the rate of unintended pregnancy in the United States from 2001 to 2006. The report unwittingly makes the case for defunding Planned Parenthood.
Guttmacher reports that overall “the unintended pregnancy rate has remained essentially flat” during that period but that it “has increased dramatically among poor women.” Their conclusion [PDF]: “The United States did not make progress toward its goal of reducing unintended pregnancy between 2001 and 2006.”
The Institute was founded as a division of Planned Parenthood in 1968, and later named in honor of former Planned Parenthood director Alan Guttmacher when it became independent in 1977. However—as the two groups’ response to the new report shows—Guttmacher and Planned Parenthood continue to work hand-in-glove.
“The Guttmacher Institute’s new analysis of unintended pregnancy should serve as a national wake-up call,” declared Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards—and for once I agree with her. But we’re completely at odds as to what the wake-up call is trying to tell us. [Continue reading ...]