The Girl Scouts of Gateway Council in Jacksonville, Florida, includes Sanger on their list of "Women Working for Human Rights," reports “Girl Scouts, Why Not?” founder Rochelle Focaracci.
“These councils have described Margaret Sanger as 'instrumental in the development of the human rights movement' and 'important for accomplishments of women,'” Focaracci said. Or one of the “most inspiring and empowering women in American history,” “a woman who has made a significant impact on society” and a woman who “opened the first birth control clinic.”
A majority of voters in 2018 Senate battleground states oppose giving tax dollars to Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, instead of comprehensive healthcare providers, a poll released in January by Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) found.
While Illinois will not be involved in the upcoming 2018 Senate campaign, a majority in North Dakota, Montana, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Florida said they would be less likely to vote for Senators who vote to keep sending tax dollars to the abortion giant.
President Trump has committed to reallocating Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding to comprehensive, whole-woman health care centers. These health care clinics outnumber Planned Parenthood 20 to 1 nationwide and provide the same preventative services Planned Parenthood claims to offer, but do not do abortions. These community health centers also offer services Planned Parenthood does not, such as mammograms, treatment for diabetes, hypertension and arthritis.
If even one Planned Parenthood affiliate or center has to close as a result of defunding, they say, the patients Planned Parenthood serves will have no access to health services elsewhere. This is utter nonsense, of course.
The claim that removing federal dollars from Planned Parenthood will shutter their doors is ludicrous. As Live Action News has previously reported, the organization’s own annual reports reveal that Planned Parenthood has been netting a profit for many years. Almost every year since 2000, Planned Parenthood’s revenue has exceeded their expenses — not by just a few dollars, but by tens of millions of dollars (yearly surpluses ranging from $18.5 million to a high of $127 million). In addition, with the threat of defunding now more real under the newly elected Congress and president, Planned Parenthood has repeatedly claimed that private donations are suddenly flooding into their coffers.
American parents sending their little Sally or Joan to Girl Scouts to learn essential life skills may be horrified to learn that the organization funds and partners with the world's leading abortion advocacy organization.
Rochelle Focaracci, former leader of her daughter’s Girl Scout's troop, told LifeSiteNews that the organization's “money trail” to abortion is indisputable. She spoke to LifeSiteNews while supervising an anti-Girl Scouts booth during an event at the March for Life in Washington last month.
As Congress moves forward with plans to reallocate funding from Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion business, to comprehensive health care centers, citizens across America will speak up in support of the action. Saturday, February 11, groups will gather outside over 200 Planned Parenthood facilities in 44 states and the nation's capital to #ProtestPP. There will also be overseas support with a demonstration at the London headquarters of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which was recently defunded by executive order.
"The federal government has been subsidizing Planned Parenthood to the tune of more than $430 million annually," explained Eric Scheidler, national organizer of #ProtestPP. "This, at the same time that the nation's largest abortion provider holds $500 ticket fundraisers and charges a woman about $500 to abort her baby," he continued. "On top of that, Planned Parenthood is trafficking baby body parts. Taxpayers are sickened to see their money spent in support of these atrocities." Click here for more information on the demonstration.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has "reaffirmed" its opposition to parental consent laws on abortion, saying that adolescents have a "right" to get an abortion without letting their mom or dad know.
In a statement published in the February issue of Pediatrics, the AAP claims that parental notification laws "do not achieve the intended benefit of promoting family communication."
The Illinois Federation for Right to Life is proud to partner with Vision 2020 in prayer for our Illinois legislators. Please remember to pray each week in support of those who fight for life and for a change of heart for those who oppose life.
CALLING ALL PRAYER WARRIORS
- Join us in praying for our state legislators
We would like to invite you to join us in praying for our state legislators. We will send out information about a couple different state representatives each week for you to pray over.
Consider sharing this information with your ministry partners, your church family, on your website and/or your Facebook page.
We know that prayer changes things. And we know that NOTHING is impossible with God. So let's join our hearts and voices together and petition heaven on behalf of the great state of Illinois!
Petitioning Heaven
Vision 2020 would like to invite you to join us in praying for our state legislators. We will send out information about a couple different state representatives each week for you to pray over.
Consider sharing this information with your ministry partners, your church family, on your website and/or your Facebook page.
We know that prayer changes things. And we know that NOTHING is impossible with God. So let's join our hearts and voices together and petition heaven on behalf of the great state of Illinois!
Rep. Michael J. Madigan 22nd District
Speaker of the House
Rep. Sara Feigenholtz 12th District Sponsor for HB 40
(Taxpayer Funding of Abortion)
And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith."Matthew 21:22
Kerstin Wirth, who has been completely paralyzed by ALS
‘Locked-in syndrome’ is a rare neurological disorder characterized by complete paralysis of voluntary muscles in all parts of the body except for those that control up and down eye movement. Patients can communicate by using simple blinking systems.
But complete locked-in syndrome [CLIS] patients–as was the case in a study the results of which were just published– have lost eye movement as well
In a groundbreaking experiment reported in the journal PLOS Biology, four complete locked-in patients “told doctors they are ‘happy’ using an astonishing new brain computer interface which deciphers their thoughts,” according to Daily Telegraph Science Editor Sarah Knapton. Although incapable of even moving their eyes, they “were able to respond with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to spoken questions.”
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee decided to boycott confirmation hearings for HHS Secretary Rep. Tom Price and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Earlier, both were endorsed without a dissenting vote by the committee. A change of strategy on the part of petulant Democrats? Actually, no.
According to the Washington Post, “The Republicans voted to temporarily suspend committee rules requiring at least one Democrat present to conduct business.”
Pro-life Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is the committee chair and among the most amiable members of the Senate. Confrontational he is not.
But after Tuesday, he’d had enough. In a statement, Sen. Hatch said
“We took some unprecedented actions today due to the unprecedented obstruction on the part of our colleagues. As I noted earlier, the Senate Finance Committee has traditionally been able to function in even the most divisive political environments. Personally, as longtime member of this committee, I have been proud of that distinction. And, in my time as both Ranking Member and Chairman of this committee, I have bent over backwards to preserve its unique status as one of the few places where Republicans and Democrats not only work together, but achieve results. That all changed yesterday. Republicans on this committee showed up to do our jobs. Yesterday, rather than accept anything less than their desired outcome, our Democrat colleagues chose to cower in the hallway and hold a press conference. Now, I get that my colleagues think these nominees are controversial. I get that they don’t want to see them confirmed. We’ve all been in that situation. It comes part and parcel with the job of being a Senator. And, this is hardly the first time a nominee deemed to be controversial has come before this committee.” Click here for more from National Right to Life.
Two new investigative videos from Live Action show Planned Parenthood uses its ultrasound technology for abortions, but not for women who want to continue their pregnancies and check the health of their babies.
Only three of the 68 Planned Parenthood centers visited by Live Action investigators were able to provide women with an ultrasound for a purpose other than abortion. This is because, in its employees' own words, Planned Parenthood only does ultrasounds "not related to prenatal care."
Video #1 Ultrasounds for Killing, Not Care, at Planned Parenthood
Video #2 Planned Parenthood Managers: Ultrasounds for Abortions, Not Health Care.
The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates, commended President Donald Trump for his selection of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat vacated by the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
“All too often, our efforts to protect unborn children and other vulnerable humans have been overridden by judges who believe they have a right to impose their own policy preferences,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “We are heartened that Judge Gorsuch appears to share Justice Scalia’s view that federal judges are constrained to enforce the text and original intent of constitutional provisions, and on all other matters should defer to democratically elected lawmakers.”
As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit since 2006, Gorsuch has not reviewed any state or federal abortion laws. However, he showed support for conscience rights in two cases involving Obamacare mandates. He dissented from a ruling hostile to Utah’s attempts to curb funding for Planned Parenthood (Planned Parenthood Association of Utah v. Herbert). Gorsuch’s 2006 book The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia argued against the legalization of assisted suicide, and defended the idea that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”
“Pro-life legislators and activists nationwide can have high confidence that as a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch will not join those who have nullified past efforts to protect the lives of unborn children and other vulnerable humans,” said Douglas D. Johnson, Senior Policy Advisor for National Right to Life.
Eric Metaxas blasted the mainstream media at the March for Life for its bias against the pro-life movement, punctuating his brief address with the question: “ABC News, are you covering this?”
“The media in America has not told the other side of the story, that women have been the victims of abortion and that abortion hurts women,” Metaxas told the hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the Washington Mall for the 44th annual March for Life. Click here for more from LifeSiteNews.com
After a week of pro-life political victories that would have been unthinkable under the Obama administration, the House of Representatives is ready to go after Planned Parenthood, Chris Smith told the March for Life.
“This is the turning point for the right-to-life movement,” declared the New Jersey Republican Congressman, who is co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.
By all accounts, attendance was huge. Certainly the atmosphere was optimistic, even celebratory. How could it not be with all that has taken place these last two and a half months, in addition to the stirring speeches from pro-life counselor to President Donald Trump and pro-life Vice President Mike Pence?
Between Facebook, various Hashtags, news accounts, and tweets, one conclusion would be hard to miss. For whatever reason (and we named a half- dozen possibilities earlier in the week), there’s been much more media attention paid to the March for Life, which first began the year after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was dropped on an unsuspecting public.
Could be a pang or two of guilt over the seemingly endless stream of flattering stories about last Saturday’s pro-abortion, anti-Donald Trump “Women’s March.” Might be that, as Mr. Pence concluded today, “Life is winning again in America.”
For the first time in its 44-year history, the National March for Life was attended by a vice-president. VP Mike Pence and presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway addressed the marchers Friday at noon in Washington D.C.
Thursday evening, Pence met with pro-life leaders in his office and tweeted out a photo of the meeting, saying he was "honored" to meet with them. Within the first few days of being sworn into office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning U.S. tax dollars being sent to other countries to fund abortions.
Friday morning, President Trump lent his support to Pence and the March for Life via Twitter:
House Speaker Paul Ryan vowed to the hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers at Friday’s March for Life that the Republican-controlled government will be doing its utmost to continue defending unborn human life and ensuring they’re protected under the law.
In a short statement addressed to participants, Ryan expressed the unified support of the House, Senate, and White House, for the March and the pro-life cause as a whole.
The Illinois Federation for Right to Life is proud to partner with Vision 2020 in prayer for our Illinois legislators. Please remember to pray each week in support of those who fight for life and for a change of heart for those who oppose life.
CALLING ALL PRAYER WARRIORS
- Join us in praying for our state legislators
Petitioning Heaven
Vision 2020 would like to invite you to join us in praying for our state legislators. We will send out information about a couple different state representatives each week for you to pray over.
Consider sharing this information with your ministry partners, your church family, on your website and/or your Facebook page.
We know that prayer changes things. And we know that NOTHING is impossible with God. So let's join our hearts and voices together and petition heaven on behalf of the great state of Illinois!
Senator Daniel Biss
9th District
Senate Sponsor for SB1564
Rep. Robyn Gabel
18th District
House Sponsor of SB1564
O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth. Psalm 54:2
During a Wednesday night interview with ABC, President Trump called out the media for covering a pro-abortion march but ignoring the March for Life.
ABC's David Muir asked Trump if he "could hear the voices from the women’s march here in Washington?" "I couldn’t hear them, but the crowds were large," Trump responded. "You’re gonna have a large crowd on Friday, too, which is mostly pro-life people. You’re gonna have a lot of people coming on Friday, and I will say this, and I didn’t realize this, but I was told, you will have a very large crowd of people. I don’t know – as large or larger – some people say it’s gonna be larger. Pro-life people. And they say the press doesn’t cover them."
Congressman Darin LaHood argued to end taxpayer
funding of abortion
A measure that would end taxpayer funding of abortion passed the U.S. House Tuesday afternoon with a 238 to 183 vote. All of Illinois' delegation voted along party lines, except Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3), one of three Democrats that supported the bill.
Six members of the Illinois delegation - five Republicans and one Democrat - signed onto H.R. 7, the "No Taxpayer for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2017," as co-sponsors: Democrat Dan Lipinski and Republicans Rodney Davis, Randy Hultgren, Mike Bost, Peter Roskam and Darin LaHood.
On the House Floor, Rep. LaHood said, “57 million innocent lives have been lost to abortion since 1973. Even more disheartening, taxpayer dollars are currently funding them, despite the fact that polls show that 60% of Americans believe that abortions should not be directly paid for with these dollars. I am proud to cosponsor and vote for this measure to permanently prevent taxpayer dollars from being spent on aborting unborn children. It’s time to make this life-saving amendment permanent and government-wide. If signed by the President, this measure would do just that.”
U.S. Senator Ben Sasse reintroduced the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.
"Every baby deserves care and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act is a rare opportunity to find common ground and protect newborns. We all know that every little boy and girl deserves a fighting chance and, if you've ever held a newborn or just walked past a NICU, you know this has nothing to do with your politics and everything to do with your heart. I'm grateful that the House passed this legislation last Congress and I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to put this on the President's desk this Congress."
Background:
Sasse"s bill, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, would protect newborns that survive abortions by requiring appropriate care and admission to a hospital.
The legislation requires that, when an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, health care practitioners must exercise the same degree of professional skill and care to protect the newborn as would be offered to any other child born alive at the same gestational age. It also requires that the living child, after appropriate care has been given, be immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.
Currently federal law does not adequately protect a born child who survives an abortion.
Pro-Life Activists participate in a 'Memorial Die-in' outside the White House, photo by Alex Wong of Getty Images
On January 27, at 9:30 a.m. young activists from across the nation led by Fr. Terry Gensemer of CEC For Life, Star Parker of Urbancure and Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition will hold President Donald Trump accountable for his repeated promise to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion chain.
WHAT: Annual DC Memorial Die-In
WHEN: Friday, January 27th at 9:30 AM
WHERE: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
During this 2017 DC Memorial Die-In, a hundred young people will peacefully demonstrate their stance against abortion and federal abortion funding by "dying" on the ground directly in front of the White House.
They will lie on the ground in a fetal position, covering themselves in red cloth, while others hold signs reading, "They are lying down in a fetal position, identifying themselves with the preborn…."
A new Live Action investigation debunks Planned Parenthood's oft-repeated claim that it provides prenatal care to pregnant women. Undercover videos and phone calls show that Planned Parenthood regularly turns away pregnant women seeking options other than abortion, which is the focus of their business.
The pro-life group called and visited 97 Planned Parenthood facilities that are part of all 41 regional Planned Parenthood affiliates across the United States where undercover recording is legal. Ninety-two out of 97 turned away women seeking prenatal care. Planned Parenthood workers admitted to investigators that the name "Planned Parenthood" is "deceptive" and "deceiving." A Planned Parenthood worker in Albuquerque, New Mexico even admitted that the local CareNet would be a better place for a woman seeking prenatal care to go.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters today that President Trump will not ignore the upcoming March for Life in Washington.
“I think it’s no secret that the President has campaigned as a pro-life President. It’s something that is very important to him, as evidence by the Mexico City Policy reinstatement he issued yesterday,” Spicer said. “Obviously we’re going to have heavy administration presence there,” he added.
President Trump will sign the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which passed the House today, if the legislation makes it to his desk.
“The Administration strongly supports H.R. 7,” the White House said in a statement today. “If the President were presented with H.R. 7 in its present form, he would sign the bill.”
You likely recall on January 11, at pro-life President Donald Trump’s first formal press conference following his election, he told reporters, “I’ll be making the decision on who we will put for justice of the United States Supreme Court, a replacement for the great, great justice Scalia, that will probably be within two weeks of the 20th. I’ll be making that decision, and it’ll be a decision which I very strongly believe in.”
Today, ahead of a meeting with Senate leaders to discuss the vacancy, Trump told reporters, “We will pick a truly great Supreme Court justice.” Asked about a timetable, the President said, “Probably making my decision this week, we’ll be announcing next week.”
Leonard Leo, one of Trump’s advisers on the Supreme Court pick and Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society, told the Associated Press’s Julie Pace, “The president wants to move as quickly as he can.”
USA Today reported, “The [Senate] Judiciary Committee eventually will conduct hearings on Trump’s nominee, most likely in March.”
National Right to Life congratulates the House of Representatives for its vote in support of “Making the Hyde Amendment Permanent and Government-Wide No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” H.R 7 passed by a vote of 238-183, and now goes to the Senate for its consideration.
But didn’t such a measure to permanently prevent taxpayer subsidies for abortion-covering health plans, both in Obamacare and in other federal health benefits programs already pass at least once? It did, indeed, in June 2015.
Significant majorities of Americans oppose the use of tax dollars to fund abortions and want the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in favor of abortion restrictions, according to a new Marist Poll sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.
Americans overwhelmingly oppose the use of tax dollars to support abortion in other countries (83 percent). More than six in 10 Americans (61 percent) also oppose the use of tax dollars to fund abortions in the United States. This includes almost nine in 10 Trump supporters (87 percent) and even nearly four in 10 Clinton supporters (39 percent).
The poll demonstrates that there is a clear bi-partisan consensus on limiting abortion to – at most – the first trimester, with a majority of Clinton supporters (55 percent) and more than nine in 10 Trump supporters (91 percent) saying they support such limits.
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning the use of federal funds to promote abortion overseas.
The executive order reinstates the “Mexico City policy” that was first adopted by President Reagan, blocking the flow of taxpayer money to organizations that use the funds for abortions. The policy was rescinded by President Clinton, reinstated by President Bush, and rescinded again by President Obama—all by executive orders issued soon after they took office.
Trump’s action fulfills a campaign promise to pro-life supporters. The executive order does not yet fulfill Trump’s promise to cut off all federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Donald Trump takes the Presidential Oath of Office
If you did not hear President Trump's inaugural speech, go to YouTube and watch. The reasons President Trump won are there is bold relief.
Looking forward, single-issue pro-lifers are ecstatic. Here’s why.
Let’s start with something that simply is not given the importance it deserves. No major pro-life candidate for President has ever been as bold, as straightforward, and as unambiguous about his pro-life credentials as President Trump
Over the course of the campaign, Mr. Trump made a series of very explicit promises to the pro-life community. It begins with the aforementioned promise to nominate only pro-life justices to the Supreme Court. In his first press conference after the election, then President-elect Trump said that would make his first nomination (to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia) “within two weeks” of his inauguration.
Mr. Trump also vowed to sign into law the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would end painful late-term abortions nationwide, defund Planned Parenthood as long as they continue to perform abortions, and reallocate their funding to community health centers that provide comprehensive health care for women.
The speech was brief and vintage Trump. There were few rhetorical flourishes –but they were very good–and many, many promises to keep faith with the American people. Most specifically that “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
And no one has been more forgotten, more neglected, or treated more unfairly than the unborn child.
"Men need to accept responsibility for the fact that it is our gender that actually promoted and pushed abortion in America," Brian Fisher, CEO and president of Human Coalition tells OneNewsNow, "and we are still the ones that 'profit from it,' in that sexually explicit men can sleep with whomever they want and then leave that relationship unencumbered by the responsibilities of the child."
Abortion - Ultimate Exploitation (book cover)Human Coalition works with thousands of women in several major cities each year, and most of them have been impregnated and deserted by the father. Fisher believes that trend can be reversed. He addresses the issue at length in his book, Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women.
"It takes character to step up and be a man and fight the culture on this," he says, "because obviously the culture believes that this is primarily a women's issue."
Pro-lifers are nothing if not creative. Over the decades, they have produced thousands upon thousands of “visual aids,” from the simplest black and white one-sheeter to full-blown movies—and everything in-between.
Congressional plans to strip Planned Parenthood of federal dollars have gained considerable media attention in recent weeks, leading to speculation about the impact that such a move would have on women’s health.
Both the House and the Senate have passed measures to set up a vote to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds, which mostly come in the form of Medicaid reimbursements. According to its FY 2014-15 report, the organization and its affiliates received almost $554 million in taxpayer dollars, 43 percent of its total revenue.
The measures have been hailed as a victory by pro-life groups, and lamented as an attack on women’s health care by those who support abortion. But beneath the hype, what exactly would happen if federal funding were pulled from Planned Parenthood?
A video celebrating the legacy of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s number one abortion purveyor, and its founder Margaret Sanger was released yesterday featuring a slew of voice-overs by Hollywood stars, with none other than Star Wars Director J.J. Abrams serving as Executive Producer. It’s unfortunate that so many cultural elites don’t seem to care that the organization they care about so passionately just happens to sell the body parts of discarded unborn babies for profit, as well as aid and abet child sex traffickers.
The dark legacy of Margaret Sanger’s group has been well-catalogued by FRC and many other organizations, including her eugenicist and racist views. Surprisingly, the new Planned Parenthood video actually acknowledges that she “aligned herself with eugenicists.” It then conveniently justifies this unfortunate fact by concluding: “While there’s no question that Margaret left behind a conflicting legacy, it’s also true that she was a champion of progress.” So according to Planned Parenthood, the ends of committing abortions and distributing abortifacient drugs justifies the means of promoting eugenics and racism (back when it was popular) in order to gain legitimacy. In other words, you have to crack a few eggs in order to make an omelet.
The video also laments the passage of the Hyde Amendment, highlighting the tragedy of Rosie Jimenez’s death at the hands of an illegal abortionist as “the first woman to die because of the Hyde Amendment.” To claim that a woman’s tragic decision to let an illegal abortionist kill her unborn child, and in the process kill her, was a direct result of a piece of legislation is a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly. What isn’t a stretch is that the Hyde Amendment has helped save the lives of an estimated 2 million babies who resulted from unplanned pregnancies.
A sketch poking fun at the disparity between women today and their feminist forebears on the most recent Saturday Night Live (SNL) also inadvertently conveyed an effective pro-life message.
Many don’t know that as a rule the first feminists were pro-life, and according to data from Feminists for Life, most held that abortion is a form of oppression and violence against women and their children.
A new report released by the Guttmacher Institute found that in 2014, for the first time since 1975, the annual number of abortions dropped below one million.
“Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2014” is the result of the Guttmacher Institute’s latest survey of 1,671 abortion clinics, hospitals, and private physicians.
The report found that the number of abortions performed in the U.S. in 2014 dropped to 926,190, the lowest figure in thirty years, and was the first time the total has dropped below million a year since 1975. Click here for more from National Right to Life.
Attorney Thomas Olp of the Thomas More Society says a 2009 law passed in Chicago prohibits sidewalk counselors from getting close to abortion-minded women by creating an eight-foot bubble zone around each woman approaching the entrance to an abortion clinic.
"Within 50 feet of that entrance that bubble zone appears," Olp tells OneNewsNow, "and a pro-life counselor cannot knowingly, without permission, enter into that eight-foot bubble."
According to the attorney, the ordinance has resulted in confusion that has extended to police.
"Over the course of seven years there have been many instances in which the police have misinterpreted the law," he says. "We believe that the law is applied only to pro-life counselors and not to the escorts that are often times there at the abortion clinics to try to get between the pro-life counselors and the clients of the abortion clinic."
Thousands of pro-life activists marched Sunday in Chicago to celebrate life and protest abortion in America. The march is held annually at this time of year in response to the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion 44 years on January 22, 1973, commonly called Roe V. Wade. There are estimates that 55 million babies have been legally killed (some say murdered) in that time.
Cardinal Blase Cupich spoke to the enthusiastic crowd before the march saying a simple message, "Life wins." He was joined on stage by Congressmen Darin LaHood, Peter Roskam, and Dan Lipinski. Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran was the master of ceremonies. A moving story was told by abortion survivor Gianna Jessen.
Others attending the march included Illinois state representatives Jeanne Ives and Tom Morrison, State Senator Dan McConchie, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Dan Patlak, and WLS 890-AM radio host Stephanie Trussell. Also seen were prolife activists Joe Scheidler, Eric Scheidler, Bonnie Quirke, Sandy Weir, Babette Holder, and Chris Iverson.
On Friday, Iowa Rep. Steve King introduced a bill to prohibit abortions when a pre-born baby's heartbeat can be detected.
The Heartbeat Protection Act of 2017 (H.R. 490) mandates that abortionists check for a fetal heartbeat before committing abortions. They may not commit an abortion if a fetal heartbeat is detected. Pre-born babies' hearts begin to beat as early as 21 days after fertilization. Click here for more from LifeSiteNews.com
Just one day after the Senate took a similar action, the House of Representatives today passed a budget resolution which established a framework for repealing and replacing the “Affordable Health Care Act”–Obamacare.
The House vote was 227-198. The Senate vote, which occurred early Thursday morning, was 51-48.
The House action took place exactly one week before the inauguration of pro-life Donald Trump who has called Obamacare the “unaffordable care act.”
For pro-lifers, there are multiple highly objectionable provisions in Obamacare including provisions for tax-based subsidies to about 1,000 health plans that cover elective abortions and which impose government-imposed rationing of lifesaving medical care.
Judge: Pro-lifers can sue Chicago over law that keeps them from abortion clinics
Chicago area pro-life advocates achieved a victory last week when a judge denied the City of Chicago’s motion to dismiss a federal complaint challenging Chicago’s abortion-protective “bubble zone.”
The ruling by United States District Judge Amy J. St. Eve was in response to the Thomas More Society’s challenge, on behalf of the Pro-Life Action League, Live Pro-Life Group and several individual pro-life counselors, that the ordinance denies life advocates their First Amendments rights and impedes their ability to share life-affirming alternatives with women seeking abortions.
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is coming this weekend, when churches are asked to focus on two issues of the life movement.
Life Matters Worldwide is the primary sponsor for the annual event, and LMW president Tom Lothamer says it's a call for the church to pray to end the termination of preborn babies, estimated to be 60 million since abortion was legalized in 1973.
"Some churches unfortunately don't even bring it up but many, many churches do," he says. "And it's through a message, maybe special music, a special testimony - that kind of thing - where they really want to highlight the sanctity of human life as children in the womb are image bearers of God."
Activists - encouraged by signals that the incoming presidential administration and Republican majority in Congress will tilt federal policy back towards protecting human life - will once again brave the cold in Chicago and Springfield to show their support later this month.
The annual March for Life Chicago will start at 2:00 PM at Chicago's Federal Plaza. After a rally, the attendees will march on a planned one-mile route, returning to the Plaza.
Another March for Life will be held in Springfield Friday the 20th, starting at St Katharine Drexel Parish House on 12th Avenue at 1:30 PM.
Starting at 2 PM on January 22, a Re-commitment to Life rally will be held at the State Capitol.
The marches are held annually near the anniversary Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States in 1973.
