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On Saturday, February 9, I was pleased to join a group of nearly 70 pro-lifers to kick off the Spring 40 Days for Life campaign in Aurora, Illinois outside the Planned Parenthood mega-center.
I had worked with Karen and Kathleen from Holy Cross parish in Batavia, Illinois as they discerned whether or not taking on the campaign was the right thing for them to do, so it was extra special to be able to address the crowd as the effort kicked off.
Before the Rally even started, God gave an incredible blessing. A couple stopped on their way out of the Planned Parenthood and told our sidewalk counselors that they had decided not to go through with the abortion. Though the 40 Days Campaign hadn’t even started yet, God was already doing wondrous things!
Karen and Kathleen opened the Rally and Deacon Jim Newhouse of Ss. Peter and Paul parish in Virgil, Illinois gave an opening prayer. Next came a wonderful pro-life song from Catholic singer-songwriter Karl Miles called “Where are the Warriors?”, which you can listen to above. [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 ...]
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.
If what we pro-life advocates are saying about abortion is true—that abortion is the profoundly unjust killing of an innocent human person with an inherent right to life—then being involved with abortion is bound to have a negative impact on one’s life. In fact, that is exactly what we see.
After 40 years of legalized abortion, the evidence is clear that abortion harms women—and even some abortion advocates admit it.
Abortion has been linked with increased rates of depression, suicide, substance abuse and sleep disorders, in addition to physical harms, which carry their own psychological dimension.
A woman’s relationship with the father of the aborted child is likely to suffer, and a she may find it difficult to connect with any living children she may have. [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 1995, the Gallup polling company asked Americans for the first time whether they consider themselves “pro-life” or “pro-choice” with respect to abortion. Only 33% answered “pro-life,” while 56% said they were “pro-choice.”
By 2002 the gap had tightened, and in 2009, Gallup reported a majority of 51% lining up under the pro-life banner, compared to 42% for pro-choice.
This trend has continued. In 2010 Gallup called the shift to the pro-life position “the new normal,” saying that their data suggests “a real change in public opinion.”
By 2012, the pro-choice number had dropped further, to 41%, a trend seen among Republicans, Democrats and independents. [Continue reading ...]
Ann give a presentation at the National Sidewalk Counseling Symposium in St. Paul, Minnesota [Photo by Debra Braun]
Joe, Ann and Eric Scheidler were among the presenters at the second annual National Sidewalk Counseling Symposium hosted by Pro-Life Action Ministries in the Twin Cities July 19-21.
On the opening night of the symposium, Joe and Fr. Frank Pavone spoke on the paramount importance of this special mission reaching out to women and men who perceive that abortion will solve their immediate predicament.
Joe read an excerpt from former NOW president Patricia Ireland’s autobiography, What Women Want, that revealed the paranoia that abortion providers have concerning the pro-lifers who stand out in front of abortion clinics. As Joe pointed out, the abortionists invent a fearsome scenario, partly fueled by media distortions, and then they believe their own rhetoric—no matter what actually happens out on the sidewalk. [Continue reading ...]
Sometimes it’s the simple things that make the biggest difference.
In the summer of 2010, the Pro-Life Action League helped get a fledgling pro-life group off the ground called Northwest Families for Life in the suburbs of Chicago.
Part of our help was designing signs (pictured right) directing abortion-bound moms to the Women’s Center, a local pregnancy resource center.
Sidewalk counselors stake the signs in the parkway outside the abortion mills so that even if they can’t talk to the patrons, they will know that help is available. [Continue reading ...]
I arrived at the clinic about 9:15 on Thursday morning, as I do every Thursday.
A small gray car turned into the alley. I tried to offer literature to the driver, but he went on by and pulled into the parking lot, parked and got out with a small child. I called to him that we had help available at the Women’s Center, if he had someone in the clinic that he loved.
Just after trying to talk to the man, an ambulance came down Carmen Avenue and turned into the clinic alley. I pulled out my phone to get a picture and got one shot as the ambulance pulled just past the clinic gate to the back door of the facility. [Continue reading ...]