Vision 2020 - Week 8 - Rep. Jaime M. Andrade Jr. (D) and Rep. Kelly M. Cassidy (D)

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!

Rep. Jaime M. Andrade Jr. (D) 40th District Rep. Kelly M. Cassidy (D) 14th District Both of these Representatives voted to pass HB40 (taxpayer funding of abortion) out of the Human Services Committee  O God, hear my prayer; give ear  to the words of my mouth. Psalm 54:2

Life Advocacy Day - March 29th in Springfield

                               Click here for the registration form

Help confirm Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court!

Judge Neil Gorsuch

The critically important confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court have begun.

Judge Gorsuch will do what a Supreme Court justice is supposed to do: interpret the law, not make it.

He knows that laws are to be made by legislative bodies, not courts.

With his judicial philosophy, Judge Gorsuch has ruled in favor of litigants like Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor. He has written a book in which he 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.”

Please do this now:

1) Use this link to contact your two U.S. senators and ask them to vote to confirm Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and to do whatever is necessary to overcome any attempt to obstruct a final vote on his confirmation.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Abortion is not HealthCare: the new Republican Health Care Plan

Paul Ryan Introduces American Health Care Act

The Republican-led House of Representatives has unveiled the American Health Care Act (AHCA). The AHCA would undo the numerous abortion-expanding provisions that became law in March, 2010, as part of the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), known as Obamacare.

The House leadership, along with those who have contributed to the draft under consideration in the House of Representatives, has included multiple provisions to prevent government dollars from paying for elective abortions.

This is crucial. By conservative estimates, more than two million Americans were born and are with us today, who would have been aborted, if the Hyde Amendment had not been in place. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute has termed this a “tragic result,” but NRLC regards it a major pro-life success story. The Hyde Amendment is the most successful domestic “abortion reduction” policy ever enacted by Congress.

In short, restrictions on the government funding of abortion save lives! Unfortunately, the Hyde amendment (which applies to Medicaid) does not apply to the AHCA, as it did not apply to Obamacare. However, the newly unveiled AHCA places numerous crucial Hyde-like restrictions on new government health care spending.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

HB 3735 Clinic Crimes Bill

Illinois Pro-abort Bill:

HB 3735 Clinic Crimes Bill

House Sponsors:
Rep. Conroy

Status:
Placed on Calendar 2nd Reading in the House

Summary:

HB 3735 Amends the Unified Code of Corrections. Provides that it is an aggravating factor in sentencing that the defendant committed a crime of violence or criminal damage to property in a woman's health clinic or on the real property comprising the clinic or who intimidates persons attending the clinic or physicians or nurses at the clinic performing services at the clinic. Defines "woman's health clinic" and "crime of violence".

The Illinois Federation for Right to Life does not support violence at or property damage to abortion clinics.  The serious problem with HB 3735, is that it will enhance penalties for imprisonment on speech that is not approved by others by the addition of “intimidation” in this bill.   Protecting free speech, even those we don’t agree with, should generally be all of our concerns.

In the heated debate of abortion, is a person holding a sign that shows aborted baby pictures showing “contempt or ridicule?”   Does heated speech where a person cries out “Don’t kill your baby” rise to “contempt or ridicule” so that it is a crime that carries” 2 years and not more than 10 years in prison?” 

HB 3735 will be “an aggravating factor in sentencing” if done at an abortion clinic rather than any other place.  This is clearly targeted at actually intimidating speech of sidewalk counselors and/or protesters! 

Action:

Now is the time to contact your Representatives.  Click here for contact information for your Representative.  Urge the to vote NO on HB 3735

Illinois Doctor, pregnancy centers sue Rauner over law forcing abortion information disclosure

The Thomas More Society filed suit this week in federal court on behalf of a pro-life physician and two pro-life pregnancy resource centers challenging Public Act 99-690, the controversial law that forces physicians and other health care providers to provide information about the so-called benefits of abortion and to give referrals to abortion providers upon request.

The suit advances claims under the federal constitution as well as a number of federal laws, including the Hyde-Weldon Amendment.

The plaintiffs are Dr. Ronald L. Schroeder, 1st Way Life Center, and Pregnancy Aid South Suburbs (PASS). Dr. Schroeder provides pro bono medical care to women in crisis pregnancy situations. PASS and 1st Way are pregnancy resource centers that help women choose life for their babies by providing emotional and material assistance to women and families.

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

What's the new plan have planned for abortion providers?

Kristan Hawkins, who heads Students for Life, says the replacement bill, the American Health Care Act, puts a lot of weight into Planned Parenthood being defunded.

"However, this could come down to a Senate parliamentarian -- whether or not the Hyde Amendment would apply to this bill and that Planned Parenthood couldn't receive funding, and also that abortion could not be funded in this new healthcare system that they're creating," she tells OneNewsNow.

Hawkins, Kristan (Students for Life)That is because it seems the tax credits could allow money from the refundable credits to pay for abortions in health savings accounts. But Hawkins insists that abortion funding, whether it is provided directly or indirectly, is not acceptable. In addition, the measure prohibits tax dollars from going to abortion organizations that get over $350 million in federal money, but presumably, facilities that provide abortion and receive less revenue could.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.com

Restoring our lost common sense about the killing of human beings

During the 19th century, scientists and physicians came to understand that the life of a human being (an individual member of the species Homo sapiens) begins at conception. The old idea that “quickening” was relevant to the nature of unborn children had been shown to be biologically mistaken.

“The true scientific position,” explained an essay published in 1866 in the United States Medical and Surgical Journal, “is this: from the moment of conception, when the spermatozoa coalesces with the cell-wall of the ovule, the ovum is a distinct human being.”

For Americans of this era, the humanity of unborn children settled the question of the morality of killing them. “Because the medical and legal establishment presupposed the moral axiom against killing innocent human beings,” writes Justin Buckley Dyer in his historical treatment of the subject, “the physicians involved with the anti-abortion movement in the nineteenth century thought a demonstration that life begins at conception was sufficient to establish the wrongness of abortion at any point during pregnancy.”

Unborn children are, as a matter of empirical fact, human beings. Intentionally killing innocent human beings is wrong. So abortion is wrong. Case closed. Unborn children deserve protection just like all other members of the human family. Consequently, in the mid- to late-19th century, states replaced the common law or earlier anti-abortion statutes with statutes banning all elective abortions, both before and after quickening.

But the commonsense view that killing innocent human beings is wrong isn’t as common now as it was back then.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Touching story: 26-week-old preemie reaches out to nurse with tiny hand in captivating photo

A 26-week-old preemie reaching out to touch a nurse's hand

The Daily Mail published the photo, found on a website for medical staff called Figure 1. It shows a tiny baby girl, born at 26 weeks’ gestation and weighing less than one pound, "seeking the comfort of human touch."  The baby girl's whole hand was only 3/4 of an inch.

"I was changing her nappy and she just held onto my hand," the nurse explained online. "I had to stop and just let her. Human touch is so important."

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews.com

Southside Rally 2017

Standing for LIFE, FAMILY & FAITH

We Rally For:
*The dignity of all human LIFE from conception to natural death,
*The importance of  the traditional FAMILY comprised of father, mother and their children,
*The right to express and live our Christian FAITH in the public domain without intimidation or repercussion.

Rally & 1-Mile March:

              When:    Saturday, March 18, 2017
              Where:   Mt. Greenwood Community Church
                            3509 West 111th Street
                            Chicago, IL 60655
              Time:    9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

For more details on the Rally Events:  Click Here

To become a walker, download your walker form:  Click Here

You can't join us?  Sponsor a walker here.

Pro-lifers are the antidote to the present darkness

It is a truism of sorts that because something is 100% expected, we can easily overlook its significance. Looked at another way, however, it is equally true that because the outcome is wholly predictable, it speaks volumes.

By way of illustration, the New York Times (the anti-life newspaper of record) recently ran a story that talked about informal discussions pro-life President Donald Trump had with the largest abortion provider in the known galaxy, Planned Parenthood. During the campaign, Mr. Trump made clear he was not opposed to federal funds going to Planned Parenthood if the nation’s largest provider of abortions got out of the abortion business.

“Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept,” huffed Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable.” So, just to be crystal-clear, decapitating a helpless unborn child is providing a “health care service.”

Even though Planned Parenthood continues to propagate the frequently dispelled falsehood that abortion makes up only 3% of the “services” it provides, it knows–we know–there is a lot at stake for PPFA which obliterates over 320,000+ unborn babies each and every year.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

The closer the confirmation hearings, the more hysterical the pro-abortionists

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch

With confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch set to begin next Monday, the Abortion Industry and its media allies are ramping up opposition to Neil Gorsuch, the federal appeals court judge President Donald Trump has nominated to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

A four-page letter, signed by 55 pro-abortion groups, was provided to POLITICO “in advance of its release,” according to Seung Min Kim. The letter was to be delivered sometime today to all Senate Democrats.

“We implore senators to do everything necessary to block this nomination,” the groups wrote. “Gorsuch has demonstrated he will go to extraordinary lengths to reach a result that would block women’s access to basic reproductive health care” [aka, abortion].

The 55 groups included the usual suspects, according to POLITICO: Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the National Abortion Federation.

Click here to Help support NRLC’s National Project to Confirm Judge Gorsuch.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Planned Parenthood VP refuses to say if abortion kills a human

During an interview with FOX News' Tucker Carlson, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood repeatedly refused to answer whether abortion ends a life.

Carlson pressed Dawn Laguens about her thoughts on abortion extinguishing a fetal heartbeat and whether a fetus whose sex is different from his mother's is part of the mother's body. She didn't answer Carlson's questions directly, instead repeating unrelated pro-abortion talking points.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews.com

Let me remind my liberal friends: George Orwell was pro-life

George Orwell

With the rise of Trump, bloggers have decided that America is now on the path to the dystopia of 1984, or perhaps whatever it is that happened in Animal Farm. But if we’re going to spend the next few years waving George Orwell quotes at each other, I’d like to remind my left-wing friends of something important: Orwell was pro-life.

In his 1944 essay “The English People,” for example, Orwell mourned that, “In England of the last thirty years, it has seemed all too natural…that abortion, theoretically illegal, should be looked upon as a mere peccadillo.” This is coming not from a devout Catholic like Hilaire Belloc or staunch Protestant like C.S. Lewis, but from an admitted agnostic who only attended church regularly for a brief time in the 1930s.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews.com

RU486 over the counter a 'recipe for disaster'

A little less than a year ago, the Food and Drug Administration eased restrictions on use of the drug, reduced the dosage, extended use of it from the seventh to the tenth week of pregnancy, and loosened qualifications for prescribers. Dr. Randall K. O'Bannon with National Right to Life tells OneNewsNow a group of medical professionals wants restrictions further reduced.

"They've got a group of folks together who signed this article in the New England Journal of Medicine arguing that they want it to be able to be sold at retail pharmacies or be available through online mail order instead of having to go through procedures that are there for the safety of women," he says.

The group of doctors call themselves the Mifeprex REMS Study Group – and according to the NRLC spokesman, there's nothing in their arguments dealing with making the abortion drug safer for women.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.