Vision 2020 - Week 36 - Rep. Marcus C. Evans, Jr. (D) and Rep. Mary E. Flowers (D)

Pray for our legislators...

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. 

We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.
 It must be fought for, protected,
 and handed on for them to do the same."
--Ronald Reagan

For when they see their many children
    and all the blessings I have given them,
they will recognize the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob.
    They will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
Isaiah 29:23

Will you Pray with us?

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.

Judge Right to Order Feeding of Anorexic Woman

A judge ruled that parents were able to become an anorexic 20-year-old daughter guardians and have her artificially fed against her wishes.

The primary purpose of society is to protect the lives of its citizens–even when they might not want their lives protected. That is why suicidal people can be involuntarily hospitalized for treatment–except for the terminally ill in five states, which is a terrible abandonment and statement of inequality.

So too, people with serious mental illnesses whose condition can be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt to be a threat to their own safety.

That is why a New Jersey judge is correct to grant medical decision-making rights to parents of an anorexic woman whose illness endangers her life.

Click here for more from NRL News Today

Reward for ensuring “Jane Doe’s” abortion?

Judge should be at the top of the line next time Democrats choose Supreme Court nominee, writer says

Opening the floodgates for (short-term) hundreds of abortions for undocumented women and girls and an unlimited number going forward—well, you would expect pro-abortionists to very grateful. The prospect of Texas becoming an “abortion sanctuary,” as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton feared in opposing the abortion of “Jane Doe,” is music to the ears of the likes of Mark Joseph Stern of Slate magazine .

That is why he lavished praise on Judge Patricia Millett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. You’ll recall she was the dissenter last Friday in a three-judge panel of the same court which concluded it only made sense, legally and otherwise, to give the Trump administration until the end of October to find a sponsor for the 17-year-old girl.

When on Tuesday the full court D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the panel’s decision, the 6-3 ruling was to send the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. Within hours, Judge Chutkan ordered the government to “promptly and without delay” transport the teen to a Texas abortion provider. Soon after “Jane Doe” aborted her 16-week-old baby.

Stern correctly points out the full court’s majority dutifully followed Judge Millett: “Her dissent was so powerful that when the full D.C. Circuit eventually reversed the panel’s ruling, it did nothing more than explain in a single paragraph that Millett had it right.”

What should be her reward for advancing “a woman’s right to bodily autonomy?” Stern says nothing but gold: “It should also earn Millett a spot at the very top of the Supreme Court shortlist the next time a Democratic president gets tasked with making a selection.”

Click here for more from NRL News Today

VIDEO: Late-term abortion center offers to abort baby at 37 weeks for $17,000

A new undercover video shows the staff of one of the country’s most notorious late-term abortion facilities offering to abort a 37-week-old baby for $17,000 and help the mother get on Medicaid to pay for it.

An undercover investigator from Abortion-Free New Mexico, identified only as Felicia, went into Southwestern Women’s Options at 37 weeks pregnant. She’d had two tests during her pregnancy that indicated her baby had trisomy 18.  “If we are to see you here in the clinic, it would be $17,000” for the entire procedure, a Southwestern Women’s Options employee told Felicia. The employee was Susana Estorga, according to Abortion-Free New Mexico.




Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Pro-life leaders blast Senate GOP for not approving Trump’s judicial nominees

Pro-lifers applaud President Donald Trump for fulfilling campaign promises to nominate constitutionalist judges to the nation’s courts, but senate Democrats are holding up confirmation of 87 percent of Trump’s picks.

“We are witnessing confirmation obstruction on steroids,” the Hill’s Victor Williams summarized. “The unprecedented obstruction is, obviously, part of a wider attempt by partisan opponents to discredit Donald Trump’s election; to ‘resist’ Trump’s governance.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Twitter censors pro-life ad saying abortion supporters favor ‘killing babies’

The latest Susan B. Anthony List pro-life ad comparing Virginia Attorney General candidates Mark Herring and John Adams was  censored by Twitter and was deemed unacceptable because it used the term “killing babies.”

The ad accurately described Herring as a “pro-abortion radical” who supports taxpayer-funded abortions, late-term abortions, and abortions on minors without parental consent.



Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Undocumented teenager aborts unborn child day after D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision

The 17-year-old undocumented teenager, the center of a month-long legal battle, aborted her 16 week-old baby this morning, according to a tweet from the ACLU.

Her abortion came a day after the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a prior decision by a three-judge panel of the same court that had given the federal government until October 31 to find a sponsor for “Jane Doe.”

The effect of the D.C. Circuit’s 6-3 ruling was to send the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. Within hours, Judge Chutkan ordered the government to “promptly and without delay” transport the teen to a Texas abortion provider.

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who had led a group of attorneys general from Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina in filing an amicus brief supporting the government’s position, said, “Today’s loss of innocent human life is tragic.”

“This ruling not only cost a life, it could pave the way for anyone outside the United States to unlawfully enter and obtain an abortion. Life and the Constitution are sacred. We lost some of both today.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Pain-Capable bill would stop Carhart

Leroy Carhart does abortions through the ninth month of pregnancy in Maryland, where laws permit him to do so. He recently tried to open a new shop in Bethesda without obtaining a state permit.

Arina Grossu of the Family Research Council tells AFN what would stop Carhart is passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said will come up for a vote.

"We want to see that happen and to pass through the Senate and end up on President Trump's desk,” Grossu says. "President Trump has already indicated and promised that he would sign the 20-weeks ban. This would ban all abortions in America after 20 weeks.”

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Former baby parts harvester recalls first day at work: ‘You can feel the death’

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a new video today of a former fetal body parts harvester describing her first day at work inside a California Planned Parenthood.

Holly O’Donnell, who has previously appeared in CMP videos describing her work as a procurement technician for StemExpress, said she “felt the pain radiate through my hand” the first time she touched the limb of an aborted human.  “You can feel the death,” she said, noting that the aborted baby through which she was assigned to pick “was something that was just alive.”



Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Full Appeals Court opens the way for undocumented 17-year-old to have abortion

On a 6-3 vote, a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on October 24th ruled that a 17-year-old undocumented girl can have an abortion.

The judges vacated a three-judge panel’s holding rendered last Friday that gave the Department of Health and Human Services until the end of the month to find a sponsor to take custody of the girl, known as “Jane Doe.”

A spokesman for the Justice Department “said the administration is reviewing the order,” POLITICO reported. “He had no immediate comment on whether federal officials will try to seek relief from the Supreme Court.”

Short of an appeal to the Supreme Court and a stay, it is unclear how soon the girl, who is approximately 16 weeks pregnant, will abort. Clearly it would be soon. Jane Doe currently is in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a sub-division of HHS that oversees the shelter.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Apple drops pro-life app after pro-aborts complain

Until last summer, Human Coalition utilized an app which generated group prayer across America for women seeking an abortion. The app also invited prayers for the women’s babies and families.

Lauren Enriquez, spokeswoman for Human Coalition, tells OneNewsNow the app was extremely effective but Apple banned it after getting complaints from abortion proponents and numerous journalistic hit pieces on the ministry.

"We had tens of thousands of downloads, and many, many prayers were recorded for the women who were considering abortion,” Enriquez says.

Apple has claimed that a feature of the app needed to be corrected, even though it had been in operation without complaint for several years. The tech giant declined to reveal what feature needed the changes.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Pro-abortionist laments pro-lifers adroit use of Twitter

Tip of the cap to Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, for his post informing us of a veteran pro-abortion scribe’s lament which was headlined, “The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Killing It on Twitter.”

The subhead to Robin Marty’s post–“Abortion opponents use the social media platform like a weapon, and with absolute precision—and they’re winning as a result. What are pro-choicers doing wrong?”–nicely summarizes the gist of her analysis.

To be fair, after her pro-forma lament (“anti-abortionists” are so mean to her online, as if somehow this is unique to pro-abortionists), Marty quickly concedes such “aren’t truly representative of anti-abortion Twitter.”

She is more interested in cutting to the chase than whining:

When it comes to the movement itself, it is a coordinated, well-oiled machine that uses Twitter with absolute precision.

And honestly, they are kicking our [behinds] every time they do it.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

ACTION ALERT - SJRCA 0004 Equal Rights Amendment

SJRCA 0004 Equal Rights Amendment

Gov. Rauner signed into law HB40, the massive taxpayer funding of abortion bill last month. Now anti-life forces want to pass a so-called Equal Rights Amendment or ERA in the General Assembly that would lock in abortion rights in the U.S. Constitution and would cause HB40 type taxpayer funding of abortions in every state in our country and the federal budget. Contact your State Representative and urge him or her to vote NO on the ERA!

There is a renewed push to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the Illinois veto session that begins on October 24th, 2017.  Supporters of the ERA are targeting legislators and threatening to run candidates against them in the upcoming elections if they don't vote for the ERA. 

To counter these tactics, your Illinois state legislators need to hear from you.  They need to hear your continued encouragement for them to vote against the ERA, and they need to know you will support them if they vote no on the ERA.  Please remind them that the poorly worded ERA will harm women, harm our unborn children, and harm our society.

The ERA will harm our unborn children by overturning all restrictions on abortions and mandating taxpayer funding for elective medicaid abortions.  

Please click here to contact your State Senator and State Representative by phone and email and encourage them to vote no on the ERA (Bill #SJRCA0004).  If they have previously told you they will vote against the ERA, please contact them and encourage them to stay firm in their conviction to vote against the ERA.  Let them know you will support them in their no vote and in the elections.

Click here for contact information for your Senator and Representative.

THE ERA-ABORTION CONNECTION

Leading pro-abortion groups – including NARAL, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood -- have strongly urged state courts to construe state ERAs, containing language virtually identical to the language of the 1972 federal ERA proposal, to invalidate laws that treat abortion differently from other “medical procedures,” including laws restricting tax-funding of abortion and laws requiring parental notification or consent for minors’ abortions.

Consider, for example, the case of New Mexico, which in 1973 adopted a state ERA (“Equality of rights under law shall not be denied on account of the sex of any person”) virtually identical to the federal language that SCR 194/HCR 109 purports to ratify.  In New Mexico, this ERA language was subsequently used as the sole basis for a successful attack the state policy against tax-funding of abortion.  In 1998, every justice on the New Mexico Supreme Court agreed that the state ERA makes it unconstitutional for the state Medicaid program to refuse to fund “medically necessary” abortions (which simply means any abortion performed by a licensed medical professional) if procedures sought by men (e.g., prostate surgery) are funded. The case was NM Right to Choose / NARAL v. Johnson, No. 1999-NMSC-005 – you can read or download it here: http://nrlc.org/uploads/era/ERANewMexicoSupremeCourt.pdf.  (Moreover, similar arguments regarding tax-funding of abortion have been accepted by some courts in other states, including Connecticut.)

The New Mexico Supreme Court based its ruling solely on the state ERA, and the justices merely adopted the construction of the ERA urged upon it in briefs submitted by Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund.  The doctrine that the ERA language invalidates limitations on tax-funded abortion was also supported in briefs filed by the state Women's Bar Association, Public Health Association, and League of Women Voters.

Writing for the unanimous court, Justice Pamela Minzner wrote that “there is no comparable restriction on medically necessary services relating to physical characteristics or conditions that are unique to men. Indeed, we can find no provision in the Department’s regulations that disfavor any comparable, medically necessary procedure unique to the male anatomy . . . .[the restriction on funding abortions] undoubtedly singles out for less favorable treatment a gender-linked condition that is unique to women.”

It should be obvious that this same analysis – that limits specific to abortion are by definition a form of sex discrimination and therefore impermissible under ERA – can be used to invalidate any federal or state restrictions even on partial-birth abortions or third-trimester abortions (since these are sought “only by women”); the federal and state “conscience laws,” which allow government-supported medical facilities and personnel -- including religiously affiliated hospitals -- to refuse to participate in abortions; and parental notification and consent laws.  Indeed, the ACLU “Reproductive Freedom Project” has published a booklet that encourages pro-abortion lawyers to use state ERAs as legal weapons against state parental notification and consent laws.

When questioned about the New Mexico ruling and other such rulings, some ERA proponents reply that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously reviewed abortion-related restrictions under a “privacy right” analysis, and ruled (5-4, in 1980) that this “privacy right” does not invalidate a law (the Hyde Amendment) restricting federal Medicaid funding of abortion.  They go on to assert that the proposed federal ERA would not “change” these past “privacy” rulings.  But this argument is transparently evasive, wholly begging the question.  Obviously, past U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion issues have dealt only with the current U.S. Constitution – without the ERA’s absolute prohibition on abridgement of “rights” on the basis of “sex.”  Whatever one thinks of the Supreme Court’s “privacy” doctrine, that doctrine is irrelevant to the question of what legal impact the ERA itself – as a new constitutional provision -- would have on future cases involving abortion-related laws, when ERA-based challenges come before judges.

For additional documentation on the ERA-abortion connection, see the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/federal/era.

Again, please click here to contact your State Senator and State Representative by phone and email and encourage them to vote no on the ERA (Bill #SJRCA0004).  If they have previously told you they will vote against the ERA, please contact them and encourage them to stay firm in their conviction to vote against the ERA.  Let them know you will support them in their no vote and in the elections. 

 

Media covering up the dangers of abortion

What is missing is information on the dangers of abortion, which the leftist media refuses to cover.

Cheryl Sullenger of Operation Rescue points to stats that have surfaced in just the past couple of weeks.

“We've received reports of nine ambulances that have been called to abortion clinics in six different states …” Sullenger informed. “This is really an astounding number because we know for a fact that some of the injuries were life-threatening.”

In addition, there have been 51 documented incidents of ambulances transporting women from abortion clinics to hospitals so far this year nationwide, and, two-thirds of these involved Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, yet that information is not reported by the mainstream media.

“I think when the media actually ignores stories like this, what they do is they help place these women in danger – to be honest,” the pro-life activist shared. “Everyone deserves to know all of the facts before they make any kind of medical decision, but especially a decision that's going to take the life of an innocent child.”

Click here for more from OneNewsNow

Pro-abort Facebook exec slams Twitter for censoring pro-life ad

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, paid for a campaign ad on Twitter that was suppressed for being “inflammatory.” The Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (pictured) lashed out against rival Twitter for its censorship and told Axios that Twitter decision-makers should not have banned a senate candidate’s ad.

Blackburn’s ad said, “I fought Planned Parenthood and we stopped the sale of baby body parts, thank God.” She also said she is “100 percent pro-life.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

TV Show ‘The Good Doctor’ Surprised Us With This Beautiful Pro-Life Stance

On Monday night, the new ABC medical drama series, The Good Doctor, told the story of a woman with a high-risk pregnancy determined to give birth to her baby despite doctors’ recommendations that she abort.

The episode ended, against all odds, with a successful, life-affirming outcome. How refreshing, in an age when pro-abortion storylines are so frequently worked into television scripts, to see a pro-life message win out.



Click here for more from Save The Storks

Daughter of pro-abortion billionaire George Soros gives Planned Parenthood political arm $500,000

The daughter of pro-abortion billionaire George Soros has cut a half-billion dollar check to “Planned Parenthood Votes,” the New York-based Super PAC affiliated with Planned Parenthood.

Schoffstall says that according to FEC records, Andrea Soros Colombel made the $500,000 donation on August 1. Two additional important details put the contribution in context.

    “The donation accounts for more than a quarter of the money that the group has raised so far this year, which shows $1.7 million in contributions between January and the end of August.” And
   
    “Andrea’s contribution was the only one the group received throughout the entire month of August. Only 11 other donors have given to the group this year.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Acknowledging that pain-capable legislation is strongly supported by women and men

Of all the pro-abortion myths recycled by a compliant media, few are as egregiously off the mark and as damaging as the insistence that the pro-life position is some outlier. If you were silly enough to believe what you read in the Washington Post and the New York Times, you would think pro-life legislation, such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, is widely opposed by substantial majorities of Americans.

The truth is the exact opposite!

Which may be one reason that when the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act passed the House of Representatives 237-189, for the major television networks it was like the proverbial tree in the forest that none of them heard fall. As Katie Yoder of Newsbusters informed us

During their Oct. 4 morning news shows, ABC, CBS and NBC didn’t mention the vote once. But they found time for others topics like fall fashion deals (NBC Today), a new drama starring Actress Connie Britton (ABC Good Morning America) and puppy-related infections (CBS This Morning).

There the usual hit pieces in the Post and the Times and the rest of usual suspects. But then, miracles of miracles, there was this story that appeared in the October 4 Washington Post under the headline, “Most GOP lawmakers support banning late-term abortions — and so do a lot of women.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Pro-abort Billionaire George Soros gives $18 billion to make pro-abortion foundation the second richest in U.S.

George Soros, the billionaire who funds left-wing activism worldwide, gave $18 billion to the Open Society Foundations which was the “bulk of his wealth,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The LA Times said this transfer of money has made the pro-abortion foundation “into one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations” making it the second richest U.S. charity.

Soros is an “ATM for the abortion providers,” Liz Yore, director of La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, told the International Conference on Population Control. He has given “decades-long financial support (to) the enemies of life” and to movements that use environmental advocacy to mask their true goal of reducing the world’s population.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Judge rules to allow illegal immigrant minor to abort her baby immediately

UPDATE: A judge has temporarily prevented a minor in the U.S. illegally from obtaining an abortion until another hearing takes place on Friday.
The Trump administration appealed U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan’s Wednesday ruling that an illegal immigrant minor in the government’s custody be allowed to abort her baby “promptly and without delay.”

Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ordered the government to allow an illegal immigrant 17 year old minor from Mexico in its custody to abort her preborn child “promptly and without delay.”

Justice Department lawyers argued the government has “strong and constitutionally legitimate interests in promoting childbirth, in refusing to facilitate abortion, and in not providing incentives for pregnant minors to illegally cross the border to obtain elective abortions while in federal custody.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews