As Bob Cratchet says to Ebenezer Scrooge the morning after Christmas, “I am behind my time.” Bob was eighteen minutes late for work, and expected to be fired. He got a raise. We’re two days late on recording Action News and don’t expect to get fired or to get a raise. But we won’t let it happen again.
Fewer Unplanned Babies Being Aborted
A story out of the Alan Guttmacher Institute reporting from Atlanta making the rounds lately says more American women are having babies they didn’t want now than formerly, and that this statistic may be the result of a changing attitude about abortion.
In 1995, only 9 percent of birth were unwanted and by 2002 this number was up to 14 percent, yet the abortion rate actually went down. In 1995, 26 out of every 100 pregnancies ended in abortion, but by 2002 this number was down to 24 even though the unwanted figure had more than doubled.
Women are giving birth to their unwanted babies. The logical conclusion is that attitudes are becoming more anti-abortion.
According to Susan Wills of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, this shows a shift to pro-life, which she thinks is based on the increasing use of ultrasound. Meanwhile, the pro-aborts say the decrease in abortions is due to fewer abortion providers being available to do the abortions.
While both conclusions are valid—more access to ultrasound and fewer abortion providers—the drop is also due, we believe, to more education on abortion itself through a national debate, through keeping abortion on the political and legislative front burner, and through pro-lifers’ massive education programs such as truth tours, truth trucks, campus pro-life programs, massive leafleting, pro-life legislation, court cases restricting aborton, and multi-media presentations such as TV ads and billboard advertising.
Even the secular press, despite its general support for abortion, have at times been unintentionally helpful by following the abortion debate closely and at times reporting accurately on boycotts and protests against abortion providers and abortion affiliations.
In the recent case of the Pro-Life Action League’s boycott of American Girl, much of the media reported the event fairly and spelled out the positions of Girls Inc. as pro-abortion, pro-contraception and pro-lesbian, the reasons pro-lifers were protesting American Girl’s support of Girls Inc. In the case of Judge Sam Alito, the media continues to concentrate on the major problem Democrats have with his record, which is his past anti-Roe stand.
In Illinois alone abortions have declined from a high of 71,326 in 1977, to a current low of 41,577. A Dec. 26 Chicago Sun-Times story about Illinois abortions says 2004 showed a 30 year low. Here, pro-lifers credit better education on the evil and complications of abortion as well on success of teen-based abstinence programs, while pro-aborts say it is wider use of the morning after pill. In Illinois during 2004, five times as many single women had abortions as married women.
Henry Hyde Loses His Son
Say a prayer for the repose of the soul of Illinois’ Congressman Henry Hyde’s oldest son, Henry John Hyde Jr., who died of liver cancer Christmas Eve in Elk Grove Village. Hank was just 55, and leaves two children, Veronica, 20, and Daniel, 18. Congressman Hyde told one of his other children to look at it this way: “Hank gets to spend Christmas with Mom in Heaven.”
In 1973 Hyde Jr. had signed with the Atlanta Braves and was famous for his un-hitable knuckleball. But nerve damage to his arm ended his professional baseball career. He worked as a revenue agent for the Illinois Secretary of State. He was buried Wednesday from St. Julian Eymard Catholic Church in Elk Grove Village.
Many Saves During Chrismas Season
Over the Christmas Holidays there were an unusually large number of saves at Chicago abortion facilities, such as the nine one morning at Family Planning Associates on Washington Street. Some of the saves have been near miracles, and we congratulate those hard core pro-lifers who come out week after week, and in some cases day after day, to counsel and to pray at the abortion centers.
