The Pro-Leader's Role in the 2016 Elections

The topic of this video is how can churches and other C3 organizations participate in elections here in the State of Illinois.  Learn what pastors and churches can do to help candidates that share their values.

Illinois Vision 2020 Webinar from iWorshipCenter on Vimeo.

Obama like clockwork in opposing abstinence ed funding

President Obama's 2017 budget proposal eliminates a $10-million/year grant program for abstinence-only education – also known as sexual risk avoidance (SRA). Valerie Huber of Ascend, formerly known as the National Abstinence Education Association, says this comes as no surprise – even after Congress boosted the program to the $10 million mark.

"He is predictable but inexcusable," says the group's executive director. "Every single year since he has assumed the office of president, the budget that he sent to Congress eliminated every penny for sexual risk avoidance education – and this year is no exception."

"We're having a congressional briefing on Capitol Hill to let members of Congress and their offices know the lay of the land and what is in peril this year," she explains, "and to help them understand the benefits of sexual risk avoidance education."

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

Born premature at 10 ounces, one of the world’s tiniest babies goes home

Baby E’Layah Pegues, one of the smallest and youngest babies to have ever survived premature birth, is going home. She was born via emergency C-section on September 23, 2015, at just 24 weeks gestation.

E’Layah’s mother Megan Smith began to experience severely high blood pressure during her pregnancy, and both her life and the life of her daughter were at risk. Doctors, who said they could fit E’Layah in their palms when she was born, were not sure she would survive, and they prepared E’Layah’s parents for the worst. However, her mother never gve up hope, and E’Layah proved to be a fighter.

Smith told ABC News that they gave E’Layah the middle name of Faith because she and her fiancé would always have faith and would never give up on their daughter. Before heading into the C-section, Smith prayed.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Why the U.S. Senate must refuse to cooperate in President Obama’s plan to make the U.S. Supreme Court into a pro-abortion super-legislature

At the U.S. Supreme Court, a vacant chair is draped in black. In filling the vacant seat, the stakes could not be higher.

The vacancy should be filled by the president who is elected on November 8, 2016.

Certainly, the Constitution gives President Obama the authority to nominate a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia – but the Constitution also makes it clear that the vacancy will endure until the U.S. Senate gives “consent” to a nominee. There are various ways that the Senate may refuse to consent, including inaction on a nomination, which is what should occur in this case.

That is because this is not primarily about the professional credentials of a particular nominee – it is about who decides whether unborn children will be protected, whether religious liberty will be protected, and whether the free-speech rights of groups out of favor with the liberal elites will be protected (among other things).

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

IL family, pro-life and TEA Party leaders side with McCarter, condemn Shimkus, over latest ad

Despite claims being made by 20 year Congressman John Shimkus in a new campaign ad attacking Senator Kyle McCarter, the 15th CD GOP primary challenger says Shimkus is not telling the truth.

While January polling showed Shimkus way ahead of McCarter, Shimkus must see a need to try to dub McCarter "a Washington insider" that sides with the "Chicago Machine." The ad also accuses McCarter of supporting ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood.

“I never voted for or voiced support for Obamacare and I never supported Planned Parenthood funding,” McCarter said in a statement. “The healthcare resolution to Congress and the President asked them to address the healthcare issue. There was still ongoing national debate at the time and Obamacare was still two years away from taking effect."

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

Congressional Subpoenas Go Out to Uncooperative Abortion Providers, Profiteers

The Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives has announced that it will begin issuing subpoenas to two businesses and one publicly-funded university in an attempt to obtain information in its investigation of abortion abuses. All three institutions have been uncooperative with the Select Panel’s requests to voluntarily provide information to the Committee.

“It will be interesting to see what happens next. The subpoenas will set up a showdown between the rule of law and those who routinely act outside it. Will there be compliance with the subpoenas or will these members of the Abortion Cartel continue to behave as if they are above the law?” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “We hope there is compliance, but the Committee must be prepared for the same arrogant defiance we have seen so often in the past.”

“This is a unique opportunity for the Committee to tear off the veil of secrecy that is protecting a corrupt system that is shielding abortion businesses from responsibility for substandard operations that is brutally killing babies just weeks or days from delivery and endangering the lives of women every day,” said Newman.

Click here for more from Operation Rescue.

Why do you matter? Just because you are

The great apologist G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “All men matter. You matter. I matter. It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.”

Without being able to give credit where credit is due, this writer took Chesterton’s observation and concluded “And that God—the God who is big enough to speak all of that [just the part of the universe we know about] into existence and hold it in the palm of his hand—says you matter to him. He says I matter to him.”

I wonder, could there be anything that more fundamentally separates pro- and anti-life forces than the bedrock pro-life conviction that every life matters? That lives are not disposable based on some sort of sliding scale, whether that be “wantedness” or “quality of life” or any other arbitrary and capricious line of demarcation?

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Unborn children have lost a great champion

When pro-lifers read through so many Supreme Court decisions on abortion, decisions whose contempt for state legislatures was matched only by their indifference to the fate of unborn children, we could count on Justice Scalia to cut through the dithering and the deception and the duplicity.

Unlike many of his colleagues, he really did understand there are three branches of government and that the Supreme Court ought to pay appropriate deference to men and women elected by the people. Justice Scalia’s withering critiques of untethered judicial activism will be read by law students for generations to come.

As it relates to our issues, it’s important to remember that Justice Scalia warned decades ago that a kind of judicial mission creep might lead a future Supreme Court to declare that lurking in the penumbras of the Constitution is a “right” to physician-assisted suicide. Which, of course, is but one reason the kind of jurist who will be his eventual replacement is so important.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

#ProjectWeakLink: Chicago's Stericycle, Inc. Targeted for Enabling Planned Parenthood

Stericycle is Planned Parenthood's main medical waste service provider in America.

Stericycle's collaboration with Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry through its collection, transportation, and disposal of aborted children and the instruments used to kill them is well documented (see Evidence). Providing this service enables the killing of preborn children. Planned Parenthood depends upon medical waste companies to dispose of dead babies.

Question: What if Stericycle were to stop doing the dirty work of Planned Parenthood?

Answer: Planned Parenthood would be unable to dispose of the babies they kill, and the murder of millions of innocent children by Planned Parenthood would likely halt.

Click here for more from Christian Newswire.

PP trying more abortions to offset losses

According to the numbers ALL vice president Jim Sedlak provided for OneNewsNow, Planned Parenthood closed many more clinics in 2015 than it opened.

“Planned Parenthood opened ten new facilities and closed 33 of their existing facilities,” Sedlak tells OneNewsNow.”They are now down to 645 clinics around the country. That is 293 less than there were in 1995.”

Now, Planned Parenthood is trying to increase medical abortions, RU486 and the like, because it costs less to set up facilities for those purposes — as opposed to surgical abortion clinics.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

NRLC Urges Co-Sponsorship of Dismemberment Abortion Ban

RE: Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act (H.R. 3515)

Dear Member of Congress:

The National Right to Life Committee, the federation of state right-to-life organizations, urges you to co-sponsor the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act (H.R. 3515).

This vital pro-life legislation, introduced by Reps. Chris Smith, Vicki Hartzler, Virginia Foxx, and Trent Franks, would prohibit the performance of dismemberment abortion. H.R. 3515 is based on a model state bill proposed by National Right to Life, which was enacted during 2015 in Kansas and Oklahoma. So far in 2016, similar bills have been introduced in nine state legislatures, and in several of those legislatures the bills are moving forward.

H.R. 3515 defines “dismemberment abortion” as “knowingly dismembering a living unborn child and extracting such unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slice, crush or grasp a portion of the unborn child’s body in order to cut or rip it off . . .”

This definition largely overlaps with what those in the abortion trade currently refer to as “dilation and evacuation” or “dilation and extraction” (D&E) abortions. The method is commonly used starting at about 14 weeks of pregnancy, and extending into the third trimester.

H.R. 3515 allows performance of an dismemberment abortion if necessary to save a mother’s life. The bill also says that it does not limit abortions performed in cases of rape or incest, if performed by a method other than dismemberment abortion.

In his dissent in the 2000 case of Stenberg v. Carhart, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote regarding D&E abortion: “The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.”

A medical illustration of a D&E dismemberment abortion is available here.

If you agree that an unborn child should not be subjected to the cruel violence of having her arms and legs torn off by brute force, with steel tools that grasp, tear, and crush, please co-sponsor the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act. Thank you for your consideration of the importance placed by our organization on this landmark legislation.

Respectfully submitted,

Carol Tobias
NRLC President

David N. O’Steen, Ph.D.
NRLC Executive Director

Douglas D. Johnson
NRLC Legislative Director

IFRL PAC makes Endorsements for the 2016 Illinois Primary

The Illinois Federation for Right to Life Political Action Committee has made it's 2016 Illinois Primary Endorsements.

Click here to view the IFRL PAC Endorsements.

Click here to download the IFRL PAC Endorsements in a printable PDF.

Click here for a webinar on The Pro-Leader's Role in the 2016 Elections.

Will 9th Circuit 'go liberal' on Daleiden?

Despite a lower-court ruling barring him from doing it, David Daleiden remains hopeful he will be able to release more undercover videos of abortion advocates discussing the harvesting and sale of aborted babies' body parts.

Since last summer Daleiden has released a series of "sting" videos, mostly of Planned Parenthood officials harvesting and discussing the sale of body parts from aborted babies. A federal judge in San Francisco has made permanent an injunction prohibiting Daleiden and his Center for Medical Progress from releasing videos featuring members of the National Abortion Federation. The NAF is suggesting the release could cause irreparable harm.

OneNewsNow talked with attorney Alexandra Snyder of Life Legal Defense Foundation, who says she's disappointed, but not surprised with the ruling. The impact, she says, is that Daleiden's speech "is still being censored."

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

New undercover video shows National Abortion Federation 'really interested' in proposal for fetal-tissue sales

Undaunted by a federal court’s injunction against release of undercover videos involving the National Abortion Federation (NAF), the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) has released a new video, in which an NAF representative touts the advantage of a “group purchasing program” to promote sales of fetal tissues.

In the new video—which is not covered under the terms of the injunction granted last week by Judge William Orrick—a NAF official says that a proposal to provide kickbacks to abortion clinics that provide fetal tissues would be “a win-win” and “a really great option to be able to offer our members.”

Judge Orrick, in issuing an injunction against the release of videos filmed at NAF meetings, had charged that the CMP videos “have not been pieces of journalistic integrity, but misleadingly edited videos and unfounded assertions.” The judge insisted that no abortionists had shown an interest in the illegal sale of fetal tissues for profit. The new video released by CMP shows, however, that a NAF representative described a proposal to share profits from tissue sales as “something some of our members would be really interested in.”

Click here for more from Catholic World News.

3% of population producing 30% of abortions

During Black History Month, a pro-life leader reminds the nation that the most dangerous place for a black baby is in the womb.

Seven years ago, Pastor Walter Hoye of Issues for Life Foundation spent 18 days in jail in Oakland, California, for holding a pro-life sign on a sidewalk in that city. Now he is spreading the truth about the impact of abortion on the black community nationwide. He points first to stats for New York City.

“For every 1,000 live births that we have in the black community in New York City, we have over 12,000 abortions,” he says. “We need to bring this kind of information to the light.”

Nationwide, the figures for how many abortions take place among African Americans are just as dramatic.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

'Clever' Super Bowl ad has pro-life fans

By most accounts, it is a clever, funny commercial – but the fact that it clearly shows a baby in the womb is not a "clump of cells" has evidently offended abortion supporters.

"I thought it was a clever ad; it was funny," says National Right to Life Committee president Carol Tobias. "But what NARAL doesn't like is that it showed the unborn child as a human being with a personality – and they want everybody to think this is just a clump of cells."

Tobias is referring to a Super Bowl ad for Doritos that – via an ultrasound – depicts a preborn baby trying to reach his father's bag of Doritos. The pro-abortion group NARAL Pro-Choice America used Twitter to accuse the ad of "using #anti-choice tactic of humanizing fetuses."

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

Pro-life and Pro-Family PACS support State Senator William "Sam" McCann

Three of the major Pro-life and Pro-Family political action committees in the State have come together in strong support of the candidacy of State Senator William "Sam" McCann for the 50th Senate District in the March 15, 2016 Republican Primary.

“Senator McCann has been a strong  voice for the pro-life cause, recently voting against a bill that would have forced crisis pregnancy centers, that devote their efforts to helping women choose Life for their unborn babies, to participate in abortion” said Ralph Rivera, Chairman of Illinois Citizens for Life, PAC and state lobbyist for Illinois Citizens for Life at the State Capitol.

David Smith with Illinois Family Action, PAC also voiced his strong support for Senator McCann, “Sam stood up for families and religious liberty when he voted against the so-called same-sex marriage bill. He has a consistent record of defending our families and our religious liberties.”

“Since being elected to the Illinois Senate, Senator McCann has supported our efforts and has been actively involved with numerous pro-life events to protect unborn lives,” stated Dawn Behnke, President of Illinois Federation for Right to Life, PAC.

The Illinois Citizens for Life and the Illinois Federation for Right to Life PACs are organizations that support candidates who take positions in support of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. Illinois Family Action, PAC supports candidates who will defend life, family, and religious liberties.

“I am humbled and honored to have the support of these three grassroots organizations that represent many families in my district. I stand with them and will continue to advocate for life, and family, and protect the religious liberties of all Illinoisans,” said State Senator Sam McCann.

Abortion group criticizes Doritos for "humanizing fetuses" in Super Bowl ad

The National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) commented on Twitter about several Super Bowl ads Sunday evening, but they found one especially offensive: the Doritos ad that NARAL said used an "antichoice tactic" of "humanizing fetuses

And NARAL's response:

An array of Tweets pushed back, reminding NARAL that fetuses in human moms are human.

NARAL's abortion policy is to insist mothers' reproduction rights include ending her baby's lives until birth, for any reason, including emotional distress and familial difficulties. They fully support and advocate Planned Parenthood, despite a move nationwide to defund.

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

Federal Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction to Prevent the Release of Additional Planned Parenthood Videos

The National Abortion Federation (NAF) has been granted a preliminary injunction by Judge William Orrick to keep David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress from publishing material recorded at NAF's annual meetings in 2014 and 2015.

Essentially, Judge Orrick's ruling came down to a balancing test that pitted Daleiden's First Amendment rights against NAF's assertions that continued publication of videos will result in "irreparable harm." The First Amendment lost.

Although Judge Orrick acknowledged that "debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" (quoting New York Times v. Sullivan), his ruling prevents accurate information from being included in the public debate on an issue of paramount importance.

Click here for more from Christian Newswire.

House fails to override Obama veto, setting the stage for fall elections

Repeat after me: elections have consequences. In spite of a valiant effort by the pro-life Republican congressional leadership, we were unable to override pro-abortion President Barack Obama’s veto of HR 3762. Currently while we do not have two-thirds to override a presidential veto, the vote accomplished many critically important objectives.

At the top, every voter knows there are 186 members of the House who, rain or shine, scandal or no scandal, will vote to keep hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funds going to Planned Parenthood and protect many parts of Obamacare, including the program that provides tax-based subsidies for about 1,000 health plans that cover elective abortions.

The vote also reminded us of what happens when the occupant of the White House walks arm-in-arm with the abortion industry.

Tuesday tally was 241-186, a vote that came down almost entirely along party lines. All but three Republicans– John Katko and Richard Hanna of New York, and Bob Dold of Illinois–voted to override Obama’s veto of “The Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life.