Our hat is raised for Bernadette Smyth of Balleymena, Northern Ireland, Founder and Director of Precious Life, the foremost activist pro-life organization in that country. Bernie is in front of the only remaining abortion referral agency in Belfast, the Family Planning Association, every hour that it is open. Precious Life has peacefully closed twelve referral offices that were operating there when Bernie started visiting them several years ago.
Irish Activist Unjustly Arrested
On August 8, an angry boyfriend began shouting at Bernie and tried to tear up her leaflets and her posters. Bernie dialed the police to report that she had been assaulted. When the police arrived the angry boyfriend lied that to the police that he had been assaulted by Bernie. The police, after spending an hour inside the abortion referral office, arrested Bernie.
This is about par for the course. It happens in Belfast just as it happens in Chicago. You call the police to report that you are being harrassed, and they arrest you. So Bernie was bundled into the back of the police van, taken to the station where she spent three hours and was charged with assault.
We spoke with Bernie Wednesday, and she told us she has a good lawyer who thinks she will get off. Bernie said she was not locked up because, according to the police, she looked so nice. Bernie returned to the abortion referral office when she got out, and continued counseling women not to go to England to kill their babies. Two women were definitely talked out of abortion and possibly a third, who left the offices by the rear door.
Bernie says all pro-life activists must step up their efforts at a time when some feel overwhelmed and others are a bit too optimistic. She says Irish pro-lifers draw strength from American activists and our successes.
Well, we draw strength and encouragement from leaders like Bernadette Smyth. Bernie is featured on our video, “Action Speaks Louder than Words. ” The film was taken when Bernie was in Chicago for our Supreme Court Victory Celebration.
Blago and Plan B
Illinois’ Gov. Rod Blagojevich has threatened the Federal Drug Administration that if they don’t make Plan B, the powerful morning after pill and abortifacient, available without a doctor’s prescription, he will use his bully pulpit to order that it be sold over the counter in Illinois, without a doctor’s prescription to anyone who wants it.
We hope the Gov. is ready to take full responsibility for the babies the pill aborts and for the women who die from a double dose of an already lethal drug. Meanwhile, I have personally invited Rod to be my guest Sept 22 and 23 at our “Contraception Is Not the Answer” conference being held in Rosemont, IL. Maybe if our contraception-pushing Governor knew something about contraception he wouldn’t be such a fan of the immoral poison.
MS Magazine Editor Won’t Sign Her Own Abortion Declaration
Talk Show Host Michael Medved asked MS Magazine editor Katherine Spillar Monday if she was going to sign her now-circulating internet form that declares, “I have had an abortion.” He caught her in a blatant act of genuine hypocrisy. She isn’t going to sign the boastful pledge of having had an abortion—that she is asking millions of other women to sign.
Medved says she’s either embarrassed that she had an abortion, or she is afraid to say she didn’t have one, thus ashamed that she didn’t kill a baby. In either case, he thinks this is depraved and twisted thinking. And, of course, he’s right.
