How millennials are impacting the pro-life movement

In the 2016 March for Life, the youth made up 80 percent of approximately the half-million marchers. The pro-life movement is mostly a youth movement. As the most tech savvy of all the generations, they are perhaps the least likely to be fooled by pro-abortion rhetoric. Their first baby pictures were most likely sonogram images or even 3D ultrasound pictures. They have access to YouTube, Snapchat, Tumblr, Twitter, VSCO, Instagram, etc. and they know how to use it. There is no topic they don’t know how to Google search within seconds for answers.  They know what abortion is and they don’t like it.

It’s easy to understand why. This generation is not just standing up for babies in danger of being aborted — they are also standing up for themselves. They understand that they are survivors. They know that when they were in the womb, they were not protected. Millennials experience "survivor syndrome," like soldiers back from the war in which their comrades were killed. In fact, during the gatherings of the Silent No More campaign (a project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life), we have a growing awareness of siblings holding signs that say, I mourn my aborted sibling.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Latest Gallup numbers very encouraging for pro-lifers

An analysis of the 1,011 adults queried by Gallup to various dimensions of abortion issue appeared June 9. What does the latest survey tell us? Let’s start at the end with what the author Lydia Saad calls the “Bottom Line” and work backwards:

There is no consensus among the American public for making abortion completely legal or illegal. Rather, the largest segment falls in the middle, saying it should be legal but with restrictions. Nearly half of U.S. adults also consider abortion morally wrong.

This helps explain how the states have been able to pass a vast array of laws limiting when, where and how abortions can be performed. It also sheds light on how citizens can shift from electing a staunchly pro-choice president in Barack Obama to electing an avowed pro-life one in Donald Trump. For most Americans, the issue involves shades of gray, not black and white.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Pro-lifers not resting case against Chicago bubble zone

Chicago enacted a bubble zone rule of 50 feet from abortion clinic entrances, stating that once in that bubble, pro-life counselors could get no closer than eight feet from someone entering the clinic. Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League says his organization filed suit against that rule about two years ago.

"We have documented the many ways that this law has been abused – the way it's been used harass pro-lifers," he tells OneNewsNow. "Plus, the fact that it's been only actually used in any kind of police action a couple of times, and in every instance those cases have been dismissed."

In contrast to the restriction on pro-lifers, abortion proponents – including clinic escorts – can enter into the same bubble zone and confront pro-lifers, screaming and yelling at them if they choose. Scheidler contends that one form of speech is restricted while another is not.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Judge who censored undercover Planned Parenthood videos was on pro-abortion group’s board

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) is seeking to disqualify the judge who censored its undercover footage of an abortion conference because of his ties to a pro-Planned Parenthood organization that lets the abortion company run a clinic on its premises.

When David Daleiden began releasing his now-famous exposé on the abortion industry's participation in the baby body parts trade, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) took him to court. Daleiden had undercover recordings of its abortion trade show. NAF succeeded in getting U.S. District Judge William Orrick to issue a gag order preventing the release of this footage.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Vision 2020 - Week 19 - Rep. Mark Batinick (R) and Rep. Thomas Bennett (R)

Recently, I heard a pastor tell the story of a United States Senator.  The Senator told the pastor, "I feel like the church prayed me into this Senate seat but now they have left me to do the job on my own."

Have we, God's people, done just that?  Have we prayed that God would put Godly men and women in our city, county, state and federal government offices and then failed to cover them in prayer?

Perhaps it's time to renew our commitment to pray for them!

Will you join us in praying that God will give our Godly leaders boldness and courageous to fight courageously each day for a government that honors God in their words and their deeds?

Will you step up to be a guardian of our cities and our state?  Will you be the watchman on the wall?  Will you be the prayer warrior and the superhero that Illinois is so greatly in need of today?

Rep. Mark Batinick (R) 97th District Email: batinick@ilhousegop.org Pro-Life  Rep. Thomas Bennett (R) 106th District Pro-Life

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!

Some of our legislators need prayer that God will open their eyes and change their hearts (or move them out of their positions) and some need prayers that they will have the strength, courage and boldness to be able to stand firmly against the opposition as they fight for life and family values.

The Lord will march forth like a mighty hero;

he will come out like a warrior, full of fury.

He will shout his battle cry

and crush all his enemies.

- Isaiah 42:13

‘Wonder Woman’ filmed epic fight scene while five months pregnant

Israeli actress Gal Gadot was five months’ pregnant with her second child last November while she did reshoots that involved a battle scene for the superhero Wonder Woman film.

Gadot — an international model and former Miss Israel who served two years in the Israeli Defense Forces beginning at age 20 and also performed her own stunts acting in three installments of the "Fast and Furious" movie franchise – illustrated the folly of a feminist culture that tells women they can’t have a life and children.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Texas bans mutilating babies in abortion, selling their body parts

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law Tuesday protecting babies from dismemberment abortions, preventing aborted babies' bodies from being sold, and requiring that babies killed via abortion are buried or cremated rather than treated as medical waste.

Senate Bill 8, the Texas Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act, also makes partial-birth abortion illegal. A federal law aleady bans partial-birth abortion. The procedure involves delivering all of a live baby except her head and then stabbing scissors into the base of her skull, sucking her brains out, and then removing her head after it's been destroyed. It's a form of late-term abortion that is illegal under federal law; other methods of late-term abortion are legal even hours before a baby is to be born.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Insurance companies are refusing to pay for treatment… but offering to pay for suicide

A Nevada doctor has said that insurance companies in states where assisted suicide is legal have refused to cover expensive lifesaving treatments for patients — but have offered to pay to end their lives.

Dr. Brian Callister, associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Nevada, told the Washington Times that two separate insurance companies refused his request to transfer patients to California and Oregon for procedures not performed at his hospital.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Male suicides and abortion-related mental illness–the evidence mounts

I don’t believe I’ve even seen a more powerful representation of the price men pay when their unborn children are aborted, especially over their objections.

The graphic appeared in the Daily Telegraph. It’s a puzzle showing a man holding a bottle about to feed a little baby.

Only the pieces where the baby should be are missing.

Wow!

The very sympathetic story, written by Corrine Barraclough, is tellingly headlined, “Piecing together the pain of loss for men after abortion.”

Here’s her lead which nicely sets the reader up for a series of surprises:

THERE are some times in life when you don’t join the dots until you have a conversation that’s like switching on a series of light bulbs.

This week, I had one of those. I put down the phone absolutely stunned.

We know male suicide rates are soaring.

Did you know male suicides and abortion-related mental illness are interrelated? Neither did I. It’s poorly understood by professionals too.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Why even the slightest deviation from militant pro-abortion orthodoxy unnerves the Democratic Party

Whenever there is a suggestion that there exists even the slightest space between Democrats and 100% support for abortion on demand , you can expect what we’ve seen over the last month or so–oodles of laments that (as Amy Irvin wrote in Cosmopolitan magazine yesterday) “Anti-“Abortion Democrats Put Women at Risk.”

To be fair Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards gives Ms. Irvin and her associates real reason to lament. He does not furrow his brow and talk about being “personally pro-life” and then follow NARAL’s line without the slightest deviation. He actually signs pro-life bills and actually files amici briefs in support of pro-life legislation. So you can understand why the subtitle to Irvin’s post is “Take a lesson from Louisiana.”

But the to-ing and fro-ing from the likes of pro-abortionists such as Irvin is not about genuine pro-life Democrats, who, alas, are as rare nowadays as hen’s teeth. They throw a conniption when there is even the slightest suggestion there is room in the Democratic Party for pro-lifers.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

How can there be climate ‘accord’ without protection of the unborn?

In order for man’s dominion over the earth to be rational and well ordered, he must first and foremost respect the gift of life given by God to every human being from his creation (biological beginning/conception/fertilization). In other words, without respect for the human person, the environment as we know it cannot survive. So when President Donald J. Trump announced that the United States would pull out of the Paris climate accord, I was astounded to read what allegedly Catholic pro-abortion former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to say about it.

You see, the word “accord” means consistency or harmony with others. And in the case of the environment and its protection, there can be no harmony when babies are killed under cover of law. Man cannot be the steward of an environment that enables him to kill his progeny.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

March for Life Wants Justice Department to Investigate Planned Parenthood

The March for Life, along with over a dozen other organizations, signed a letter released Tuesday asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI acting Director Andrew McCabe to investigate Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the selling of fetal tissue.

“We, the undersigned representing millions of Americans, strongly support an investigation into paid fetal tissue transfers involving Planned Parenthood,” the signers write.

Click here for more from the Daily Signal

Teen pregnancy rate falls 42.6 percent after UK cuts sex-ed, birth-control funding: study

The Effect of Spending Cuts on Teen Pregnancy" analyzed data in England before and after contraceptive-based sex-ed expenditures were slashed -- cuts that were criticized by liberals and praised by Christians

The Paton and Wright research team used statistics from 149 municipalities between 2009 and 2014 and found that after sex-ed budgets were cut, teen pregnancy rates fell by 42.6 percent.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Sharon Osbourne: Having an Abortion Was the “Worst Thing I Ever Did”

Sharon Osbourne, reality star and talent-show judge on the British X Factor TV show, suffered three miscarriages due to damage to her cervix after having had an abortion at age 17.

She recounted: “I had an abortion at 17 and it was the worst thing I ever did . . . I went alone. I was terrified. It was full of other young girls, and we were all terrified and looking at each other and nobody was saying a bloody word. I howled my way through it, and it was horrible. I would never recommend it to anyone because it comes back to haunt you. When I tried to have children, I lost three — I think it was because something had happened to my cervix during the abortion.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Cecile Richards: We’re a Target of “Fake News.” But She Can’t Name a Single Example

Last week, Cecile Richards sat down for an interview with Kara Swisher at Recode, a media and technology conference in California. When asked about the impact social media has had on her abortion chain, Richards quickly brought up “fake news.”

Planned Parenthood’s claims about the Center for Medical Progress investigation quickly come to mind, but Richards refused to give any examples. Instead, she changed the subject and argued that Planned Parenthood has strong public support.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Video: Assisted Suicide Becoming Only Treatment Option for Terminally Ill, Disabled

“It’s a lot cheaper to grab a couple drugs and kill you than it is to provide you with life sustaining therapy,” Dr. Brian Callister of Reno, NV told the Patients’ Rights Action Fund. “Simple as that.” His words appeared in a sobering video PRAF released exposing the shockingly limited treatment options available to terminally ill patients.

One particular option, however, is becoming increasingly available to patients – that is, if you can call it an ‘option’ at all. Physician assisted suicide, now legal in California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Washington State, and Washington, D.C., has been recommended more and more frequently. Yet the healthcare professionals recommending assisted suicide are not necessarily doctors. Insurance companies are beginning to cash-in on the fact that legalized assisted suicide proves less expensive than covering life-saving procedures. “They want to do whatever the least costly thing is,” Dr. Callister told PRAF.

In the video, Dr. Callister related how insurance companies denied life-saving procedures to two of his terminally ill patients yet asked whether they had considered physician assisted suicide.



Click here for more from National Right to Life

Vimeo on witch hunt against ‘malicious’ video exposing Planned Parenthood

Video hosting services, including Youtube, Facebook, and now Vimeo are on a witch hunt against the latest undercover Planned Parenthood video, deleting instances of it wherever they find it.

The shocking video put out by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) shows what really happens on the inside of a secretive abortion conference run by the National Abortion Federation.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

National Right to Life commends draft rules protecting rights of conscience

Draft rule changes to the Affordable Care Act and HHS coverage mandate that would protect moral and religious rights of conscience began circulating in Washington this week. National Right to Life commends President Trump and his administration for this latest effort to protect moral and religious rights of conscience.

“Rights of conscience are extremely important to the right to life movement to protect medical professionals, religious institutions, and employers from being forced to participate in abortion,” said Carol Tobias,” NRLC President. “We commend President Trump for keeping his campaign promises by supporting these rights of conscience.”

“No one should be forced to participate in abortion against their religious or moral convictions,” Tobias said. “If enacted, these rule changes will help promote a policy that protects pro-life rights of conscience with regard to abortion.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life 

Planned Parenthood's services are declining...except for abortion

The controversial abortion provider Planned Parenthood has lost over half a million unique patients in five years, but its abortion figures remain the same – a consistency its critics have blasted.

“While non-abortion services are declining, Planned Parenthood continues to perform a record number of abortions – over 300,000 per year,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, Susan B. Anthony List president.

“They've performed more than 1.6 million abortions in the last five years alone.”

Click here for more from CNA/EWTN News

Reflections on Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report

Planned Parenthood, the mega-abortion provider, begins its latest annual report with this spit-in-your-eye assurance:

We have been here for 100 years, and we’ve been fighting for reproductive health care and rights since day one. We’re going to be here for another 100 years — and then some — and though the path forward isn’t an easy one, ours never has been. Planned Parenthood has weathered some intense storms in our history, and we’ve come out of each one stronger, smarter, and fiercer than ever before.

So take that, all you troglodytes. We’re still raking in $1.3543 billion a year in revenues; still the recipient of $554.6 million in “Government Health Services Reimbursements & Grants” (this under the last full year of the Obama administration); still hauling in $445.8 million in private contributions and bequests; and still the darling of Hollywood which cannot say enough wonderful things about the wonderfulness of pulling tiny arms off of little torsos.

Take a few minutes and read PPFA’s annual report.

It is vitally important to know that PPFA lives to kill.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Numerous Planned Parenthood closures not missed

President Donald Trump has submitted his proposed $4.1 trillion budget to the United States Congress, part of which denies federal funds to organizations that provide abortions – including Planned Parenthood. It calls for sending those dollars to the more than 10,000 federally qualified medical centers located across the country that do not provide abortions.

As a recognized expert on Planned Parenthood, Jim Sedlak of the American Life League told OneNewsNow that women living in poverty actually do not miss the abortion clinics – evidence that was provided last week by the nation's largest abortion provider:  “These qualified health centers provide a wide range of services – a lot more women services than Planned Parenthood does – and so they're able to cover not only what Planned Parenthood does, but they're able to cover a huge range of services, including providing primary care … which Planned Parenthood does not do,” Sedlak explained.

The massive abortion business has closed down more than 300 clinics in the past two decades and has provided fewer health services – while increasing abortion.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Abortionists describe in gruesome detail the abortion procedure, YouTube censors [video]

Pro-abortion lawmakers in the Illinois Senate and House voted in May to force state taxpayers to pay for Medicaid and state employees' procedures to selectively end their pregnancies.  Some of those procedures are done at Illinois' Planned Parenthood facilities.

Someone should show the abortion advocates so giddy last week about the bill's passage the latest video from the Center for Medical Progress in which abortionists describe in gruesome detail how they perform late term abortions.

But YouTube took it down as of Friday morning - viewers see the following now:



Click here for more from Illinois Review

No more excuses, group tells GOP – defund Planned Parenthood

So far this session, the measure that would defund the abortion-provider has been attached to what is called a "reconciliation bill," but likely the provision will be stripped from the bill in the Senate. Rob Chambers, vice president of AFA Action, suggests there's a better way.

"Congress has used the pro-life legislation for far too many years as a political football when they add it to other pieces of legislation, either to get something passed or to use it as a poison pill," he explains. "We believe passing a standalone bill would increase the possibility of getting Planned Parenthood defunded."

In January, Congresswoman Diane Black (R-Tennessee) introduced a standalone bill: the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2017 (H.R.354), which would remove funding for a one-year period. However, despite having more than 140 co-sponsors, the legislation is "collecting dust" as it sits in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, according to AFA Action.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Vision 2020 - Week 18 - Rep. Deb Conroy (D) and Rep. Fred Crespo (D)

Petitioning Heaven

Vision 2020 and the Illinois Federation for Right to Life 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!

Some of our legislators need prayer that God will open their eyes and change their hearts (or move them out of their positions) and some need prayers that they will have the strength, courage and boldness to be able to stand firmly against the opposition as they fight for life and family values.

Rep. Deb Conroy (D) 46th District Email: repdebconroy@gmail.com Pro-Choice Rep. Fred Crespo (D) 44th District Pro-Choice

Interstate abortion ban could slow human trafficking

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) has reintroduced the Child Custody Protection Act (S.1173). It would prohibit transporting minors across state lines for abortions in states where parental consent or notification prior to their child’s abortion isn’t required.

The bill, says Portman, will “strengthen the effectiveness of state parental notification laws and ensure that parents and their daughters fully understand the consequences of the decision.”

The bill only bans interstate transportation of minors as a means to circumvent existing laws and does not interfere with current parental notification laws already in effect in some states.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

National Right to Life Convention ~ Milwaukee WI - June 29 - July 1

Click here for more

Trump budget completely defunds abortion providers, and Planned Parenthood is furious

Breitbart reported yesterday that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney told the media on Monday that the new budget would defund the abortion business, but only if the new Republican healthcare legislation passed recently by the House is also passed by the Senate and signed into law. Asked if the Fiscal Year 2018 Trump budget defunds Planned Parenthood, Mulvaney said, “’Yes.."

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the grassroots pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, applauded Trump, saying, “Taxpayers should not have to prop up Planned Parenthood’s failing, abortion-centered business model.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Planned Parenthood is clueless when women ask for help: ‘Just Google it’

Just hours after Hollywood filmmaker Joss Whedon launched a puff piece celebrating Planned Parenthood, another video surfaced telling a far different story about the nation’s leading abortion business.

Though buoyed by well over $500 million in taxpayer dollars each year, Planned Parenthood offers little else beyond abortion. That’s why staff at seven local clinics tell callers to “just go online” or “just Google” information on services ranging from prenatal care to adoption and parenting resources in a video released last Wednesday by Live Action.



Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Trump appoints pro-life conservative to lead Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

There is more good “personnel” news for pro-family advocates: President Trump has hired another top social conservative, Shannon Royce, former chief of staff at the Family Research Council, to work in his Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Royce will serve as the Director of the Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships at HHS, under Dr. Tom Price, a former U.S. Representative, R-GA, and pro-life stalwart. The Faith-based Center was formed in 2001 by President George W. Bush to ensure that religious non-profits were not excluded from federally-funded programs to serve the poor and vulnerable.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

NIH deserves a pro-life director, say lawmakers

NIH is currently headed by Dr. Francis Collins, who was appointed to the post by former President Barack Obama in 2009. Now, 41 self-described "staunchly pro-life" members of Congress have signed off on a letter to President Trump calling for Collins – a professed Christian – to be replaced because of his stance on certain life issues.

"... [The] stances that Dr. Collins has taken in the past, regarding embryonic stem-cell research and human cloning, are not life-affirming and directly conflict with the pro-life direction of your new presidency," states the May 22 letter to the president. "It is because of this troubling paradox that we ask you to re-consider his leadership role at NIH."

Mostly under Collins' leadership, more than a billion federal tax dollars so far have been used for embryonic stem cell research – with no documented treatments or cures for medical conditions. At the same time, Prentice points out, Collins has largely ignored adult stem-cell research, which has successfully treated over a million and a half people for various conditions.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Post-abortion woman: “It feels like a part of me died that day and will never return”

Cary Tennis is an “advice columnist” best known for a “Since You Asked” column that ran for years at Salon. I just re-read a column from a while back and it got me to thinking.

Since no one would come away thinking Salon is a home for card-carrying pro-life activists, it is to his (and Salon’s) credit that Tennis answered a letter from a deeply unhappy woman under the headline, “My Abortion Traumatized me: The father of my child dropped me at the clinic and disappeared. Every day I mourn.”

Highpoints [actually low points]?

-She wanted the baby but aborted “based my relationship with the baby’s father” [a promise of marriage and kids down the line…if only THIS one was aborted].

-She continues to have nightmares. “I wake up every morning and it is the best minute of my life before the knowledge of what happened returns to me and the cycle of sadness and regret begins all over again.”

-And “I am a liberal woman and as pro-choice as you can be! Which is even more upsetting.”

-Her question? How to move forward and free herself “from this unending cycle of regret?”

Tennis’s final recommendation—that she links up with a pro-abortion “after-abortion counseling talk line”—is unfortunate. But much of everything else he says is helpful to women grieving after an abortion.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

David Daleiden to speak at NRLC 2017 Convention in Milwaukee

With the beginning of the 2017 National Right to Life Convention now less than six weeks away, pro-lifers will be delighted to know that David Daleiden will be speaking June 29 at 12:20 – 2 pm.

For information about the convention and how to register, go to nrlconvention.com.

Mr. Daleiden, a citizen journalist and the project lead at The Center for Medical Progress, became nationally known in 2015 when CMP undercover investigators posed as buyers of “fetal tissue” (an umbrella term that includes intact hearts and lungs and pancreas and brains), and asked the kinds of questions someone who is the middleman would ask of the abortion industry.

The product of this 30-month-long “Human Capital” investigation was a lengthy series of videos that documented Planned Parenthood’s unsavory involvement in the procurement and sale of body parts from aborted babies.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Study claims waiting period laws don’t work even though minds are changed and lives saved

America’s abortion research academy—UCSF (University of California, San Francisco)—has produced another study claiming that yet another category of pro-life legislation is ineffective, or even has harmful consequences. This time, according to authors Sarah Roberts, Elise Belusa, Sarah Combellick, Lauren Ralph, and David K. Turok, the offending law is Utah’s 72 hour waiting period.

The law, researchers acknowledged, “did not prevent most women who presented for information visits from having abortions” but had, they asserted, “burdened women with financial costs, logistical hassles and extended periods of dwelling on decisions they had already made.”

However, when UCSF conducted its three week followup, the data shows something UCSF did not wish to highlight. There were women who did change their minds about abortion after their counseling sessions and three-day wait, who were still pregnant and no longer seeking abortion.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Iowa defunds Planned Parenthood; IL moves toward taxpayer-funded abortion

While the majority in the Illinois Senate and House leads an effort to force Illinois taxpayers to pay for ending lives of the state's next generation, states to the east and west, are closing Planned Parenthood clinics.

State Rep. Allen Skillicorn (R-West Dundee) says the passage of HB 40 - a measure that would force state taxpayers to fully fund Medicaid and state employee abortions - sets Illinois in direct conflict with the national trend away from abortion. He says with the state being in such dire financial straits, the measure will not only offend morally-conscious taxpayers, but deny others are dependent on state programs for their needs.

"That's right, Illinois is $13 Billion behind in back bills and HB40 will gut services even deeper to fund the abortion industry. This is extremely disappointing. Morally-conscious taxpayers would be in a position of either 1. funding abortion with the fruits of their labor, 2. avoiding paying taxes, or 3. leaving the state," Skillicorn said.

Click here for more from Illinois Review

Emotionally Manipulative Videos Can't Save Planned Parenthood

First, it was Star Wars director J.J. Abrams.  Now, Avengers director Joss Whedon has joined the Planned Parenthood bandwagon. A Whedon-directed video entitled “UNLOCKED” was recently released portraying Planned Parenthood as the savior of women by providing cancer screenings, STD prevention classes, and birth control.

It’s a video that is long on emotional, slow-motion tracking shots accompanied by heart-rending orchestration, but short on factual reality. The first myth of “UNLOCKED” is that without Planned Parenthood, countless women would be robbed of vital cancer screenings. But this is simply not the case. According to Planned Parenthood’s own numbers, they provide a fraction of care nationwide:

Planned Parenthood performed 271,539 Pap tests in fiscal year 2014-15, out of 28.1 million tests nationwide. That’s less than 1% of the nation’s Pap tests.

Planned Parenthood performed 363,803 clinical breast exams (these are not mammograms) in fiscal year 2014-15, out of 20 million exams nationwide. Planned Parenthood’s U.S. market share for clinical breast exams is 1.8%.

Planned Parenthood’s market share in the nation’s mammograms is 0.0%. Meaning, no, they do not provide any mammograms… at all.

It’s clear from these numbers that the 13,540 health care centers in the U.S. would have no problem picking up an additional 1-2% of cancer screenings, showing that Planned Parenthood is in no way “vital” to women’s health care.

Click here for more from the FRC Blog

Vision 2020 - Week 17 - Rep. Kelly M. Burke (D) and Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia (D)

Vision 2020 and the Illinois Federation for Right to Life 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!

Some of our legislators need prayer that God will open their eyes and change their hearts (or move them out of their positions) and some need prayers that they will have the strength, courage and boldness to be able to stand firmly against the opposition as they fight for life and family values.  

Rep. Kelly M. Burke (D) 36th District kburke@kellyburkerep36.org Pro-Choice	Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia (D) 83rd District lindachapalavia@il83dist.com Pro-Choice

Problem for abortuaries isn't the law

The Guttmacher Institute was formerly affiliated with Planned Parenthood, but even after they parted company, Guttmacher still works to promote the abortion industry. Dr. Randall K. O'Bannon of the National Right to Life Committee says the latest effort from the Institute to make women feel like abortion regulations have harmed them is flawed and misleading because it puts a number of studies together – some 35 years old – and reaches conclusions not supported by the data.

"There's not really any new information here," O’Bannon notes. "It's just the old, tired studies being brought together and under one heading. The claim is that there's no [need] for these laws, but the study does not get down to the nitty-gritty of exactly what's going on in the abortion clinics and why these laws got passed in the first place."

"But one thing they're ignoring is that there have been clinics that have been closing in the United States for the past 10, 20 years," O’Bannon tells OneNewsNow. "And a large part of it is just because demand is down. We used to have 1.6 million abortions a year. Now, we are finally under a million, and a lot of these clinics just aren’t getting customers, and they closed clinics even before some of these laws got passed."

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Performing abortion is ‘God’s work’? The real story of Christianity and abortion

To the utter consternation of the abortion rights movement, the issue simply will not go away. Decades after they thought they had put the matter to rest with the Roe v. Wade decision, America’s conscience is more troubled than ever, and near panic appears regularly to break out among abortion activists. Such a panic is now underway, and the defenders of abortion are trotting out some of their most dishonest arguments. One of the worst is the claim that Christians have only quite recently become concerned about the sanctity of human life and the evil of abortion.

In fact, one of America’s most infamous abortion doctors, Dr. Willie Parker of Mississippi, has made such a claim in his new book, Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice. Parker, who refers to himself as a Christian, writes: “If you take anti-abortion rhetoric at face value, without knowing much about the Bible, you might assume that the antis have Scripture on their side. That’s how dominant and pervasive their righteous rhetoric has become. but they do not. The Bible does not contain the word ‘abortion’ anywhere in it.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

America Raises the Banner of LIFE Worldwide

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Trump administration sent a powerful message to the world yesterday: The principle established in America’s founding document, that all men are created with an unalienable Right to Life, would be a determining factor as the U.S. helps with health programs around the world.

Following through on his January memorandum regarding the Mexico City Policy, the administration has declared with its new Promoting Life in Global Health Assistance that abortion will not be an export of the United States in any way.

The Mexico City Policy was issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. It barred the use of U.S. funds from being given to foreign organizations that perform or promote abortion as a method of family planning overseas. That policy was continued by Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and rescinded by President Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

When President Trump reinstated the pro-life policy on January 23, he took the policy further. He instructed the Secretary of State “to implement a plan to extend the requirements of the reinstated Memorandum to global health assistance furnished by all (emphasis added) departments or agencies.”

The Mexico City Policy originally covered funds distributed for family planning and “reproductive health” purposes. The new policy now covers all global health assistance, pulling in international health programs such as HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, malaria, and global health security. Because of the additional programs covered by the policy, the amount of money covered by the policy has gone from $500-$600 million to almost $9 billion annually.

People in developing countries want help—they want food for their children, they want shelter over their heads, they want to live in a safe environment, they want learning and training so they can take care of, and provide for, their families. When agencies and organizations enter a community, supported by U.S. funds, the people will know that we are not there to kill their children.

The United States is waving a banner worldwide—our health assistance will honor and protect life.

By Carol Tobias, President NRLC

Facebook quickly restores illegal abortion drug page after deleting it in ‘error’

Some 24 hours after it deleted the Facebook page of Women on Web, which sells illegal abortion pills online, Facebook backpedaled, apologized, and reinstated the page.

The social media giant shut down Women on Web May 12, citing its policy against the “promotion or encouragement of drug use,” the Guardian reported.

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Trump administration expands pro-life Mexico City Policy

The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would begin implementing an expanded Mexico City Policy, which pro-life leaders hailed as a key step to curtailing abortion funding.

The expansion means that more forms of foreign funding will be directed to go to organizations that do not perform or support abortions overseas.

Trump instructed the Secretary of State to expand the Mexico City Policy. Now, Secretary Rex Tillerson has released the plan to put this expansion into action. Entitled “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance,” the plan extends the ban on funding of abortion supporters to other forms of foreign aid like global health assistance.

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‘The strength that he has is so inspiring:’ NHL star befriends disabled boy who was almost aborted

Doctors said Christian Ouimet’s parents should abort him because of an adverse prenatal diagnosis. He had developmental disabilities and wasn’t supposed to survive the first trimester of his mother’s pregnancy.

Christian overcame serious obstacles to survive and even play hockey. And while he has been thrilled to be friends with the sports celebrity, Kyle and Julie Turris are clear about the effect that Christian has had on them.

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NFL star takes strong stand against abortion

Chris Maragos, who won a Super Bowl ring with the 2013 Seattle Seahawks and is entering his fourth season on the Eagles, is set to participate, along with his wife, Serah, at a fundraiser for AlphaCare’s “Kick It for Life” fundraiser May 27 in Philadelphia.

A pro-life pregnancy help center that operates a mobile medical unit, AlphaCare began serving women just a wall away from the shuttered abortion clinic of convicted murder Kermit Gosnell this January, with the ultimate goal to purchase and repurpose the clinic itself.

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Rauner muddies the waters more on his abortion stance

On a radio show Friday, Governor Bruce Rauner muddied his position on HB 40 all the more.|

Before being elected, Rauner assured abortion advocates in Personal PAC that he supported a woman's right to choose abortion. Then he led a group of social conservative lawmakers to believe he would veto HB 40, which would force state taxpayers to fund abortions for women on Medicaid or working for state government, and would remove language making Illinois a pro-life state if Roe vs Wade were to be overturned.

The bill passed the Illinois Senate Wednesday, but has yet to be sent to the Governor's desk.

Before the bill was voted on in the Illinois House, Rauner's spokeperson Allie Bovis wrote Illinois Review in an email on April 14, "Governor Rauner does not support HB40 and will veto the bill if it reaches his desk."

While talking to WBEZ radio host Tony Sarabia Friday, Rauner confused his stance all the more.

Click here for the interview from the Chicago Tribune.

Click here for the associated Action Alert!

Click here for more from Illinois Review.