Preborn babies sense not just pain, but light and temperature

This past week, Students for Life of America’s Western Regional Director Reagan Barklage shared a post on the SFLA Facebook page, discussing her recent trip to see a massage therapist about some sciatica pain due to her pregnancy. She describes how her preborn baby boy did not like being moved out of his position, which was causing his mother pain. She then tells how her massage therapist calmed her baby for the rest of the session — and it’s amazing:

Barklage writes, “Before I left for DC a few weeks ago, I got a massage as Baby Barklage was sitting on my sciatic nerve and causing a lot of pain…. While getting the massage, he started freaking out and kicking really hard, because the therapist was kindly evicting him from his current living situation. The therapist stopped and said, “Hang on! We gotta calm baby down first.” The therapist then put some warm towels on me to get Baby B to calm down, and within seconds, he could feel the warmth and instantly settled down. The therapist was then able to gently move him without any stress from the baby. Here is why that situation blew my mind. 1) My therapist put my baby first, making sure he was calm and relaxed before working on me. 2) My baby could feel the warmth of a towel! WHAT?!”

It really is mind-blowing to learn about the development of preborn children. According to the Endowment for Human Development, which released a prenatal video series in partnership with National Geographic, by nine weeks after fertilization (according to six different studies), “the nerve receptors in the face, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet can sense and respond to light touch. Following a light touch on the sole of the foot, the fetus will bend the hip and knee and may curl the toes.” Between 12 and 13 weeks after fertilization (according to three different studies), the preborn child’s “whole body surface, except the top of the head and the back, responds to light touch.” By 24 weeks in the second trimester, the preborn baby “responds to pressure, movement, pain, hot and cold, taste, and light.”

Yes, even while still in the womb, babies can feel temperature changes.

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The War on the Hippocratic Oath

The screaming was so loud, you would have thought that the Trump administration had overturned Roe v. Wade. It hadn’t, of course. But it had directed needed attention at the existing legal protection that allows doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in abortions without fear of firing or other job sanctions. This protection is sometimes called “medical conscience rights.”

The occasion for the uproar? The Department of Health and Human Services announced its intention to create a new office of Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to enforce medical conscience. It is worth noting that this proposed action will not change the law. But it will revitalize enforcement efforts after years of the Obama administration’s hostility toward religious liberty generally and medical conscience rights specifically. Indeed, the newly created enforcement office will put medical employers on notice that the current administration considers medical conscience rights to be fundamental. As the HHS press release put it:

    The creation of the new division will provide HHS with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom, the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights.

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NARAL's "Outrage" Clothing Line Makes it Official: Big Abortion is Out of Ideas

Out of gift ideas for that special someone this Valentine’s Day? The abortion-promoting ghouls at NARAL have you covered.

Introducing a real-life product line called—no kidding—“Outrage,” the largest group of abortion supremacists now offer their dwindling minions a wearable way to express support for their favorite topic.

“Outrage,” which was rolled out in January to commemorate 45 years of legalized abortion on demand in the U.S., includes t-shirts, buttons, postcards and more.

Naturally, all proceeds go to increasing American abortions through Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

The sloganeering featured on all Outrage products range from vacuous—“Believe Women”—to tasteless—the word “Abortion” framed in a heart.

Most notably, the line includes a t-shirt with "We Won't Go Back" and a coat hanger, drawing upon the myth of thousands of women dying annually from so-called "back-alley abortions" made up by founders of NARAL, including the late Bernard Nathanson, who later admitted to spreading the misinformation. In reality, 90 percent of illegal abortions carried out prior to Roe were done so by doctors, according to Planned Parenthood in 1960.

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Even Trump’s critics have to admit the Mexico City Policy is making an impact

Some of President Donald J. Trump’s harshest critics admit that his reinstatement and expansion of the pro-life Mexico City Policy has been implemented by Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan, blocking U.S. funding for foreign organizations that provide or advocate for abortions has been highly effective in advancing the United States’ moral influence to curb the international abortion lobby. Direct U.S. funding for overseas abortions is already prohibited in law by the Helms Amendment in 1973.

Despite the deeply entrenched political divide around abortion, the policy’s critics hope to sway pro-life stakeholders by arguing that the policy causes harm through its unintended consequences. They claim that it results in the denial of basic health services to women whose providers choose not to comply with the policy, lose U.S. funding, and therefore reduce their offerings or close their doors altogether.

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Former abortion worker reveals the horror of D&E abortions

The Pain Capable Child Protection Act would have banned abortion after 20 weeks, but on January 29, 2018, the Senate voted not to proceed with the bill. The act would have saved the lives of between 12,000 and 18,000 preborn babies a year from abortion.

In response, former abortion worker Catherine Adair posted a heartbreaking message on Facebook. Adair has assisted in late-term abortions and is familiar with the most common late-term abortion method – the D&E.

Below, former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino describes the way a D&E abortion is committed:



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Ex-Planned Parenthood VP Launches New Effort to Slam Pro-Life Centers

Led by Mary Alice Carter, a former interim VP for communications at Planned Parenthood, Equity Forward was approvingly profiled by TheHill.com Friday. The group has already kicked off its initial investigation meant to smear the nation’s 2,700 locally funded pregnancy centers that offer peer counseling, ultrasounds, material aid and post-abortive help offered at no cost.

"Rather than going on a wild goose chase against pro-life pregnancy help, abortion activists would do far better to investigate their own industry,” Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International—which serves over 2,400 pregnancy help organizations around the world—said. “Pregnancy centers are good for women and their children. It is abortion businesses—not pregnancy centers—that routinely physically harm their patients, profit off a woman’s desperation and break the law to maximize their bottom line.

“No woman has ever died or been harmed in a pregnancy center, and sadly, we can’t say the same about abortion businesses.”

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350,000 Reached Out to Option Line in 2017 for Life-Saving Pregnancy Help

Entering 2018 just a few thousand contacts shy of 3 million since answering its first call in 2003, Heartbeat International’s 24-7, 365 pregnancy helpline Option Line responded to well over 350,000 women facing an unexpected or difficult pregnancy in 2017.

The growth in contacts corresponds to a similar increase in visits to Option Line’s website (www.OptionLine.org) in 2017.

Option Line’s goal is to connect each woman with one of the 2,752 pro-life pregnancy help centers and ultrasound-equipped medical clinics across the U.S.—plus hundreds more in Canada. As the only fully-staffed 24-7 pregnancy helpline in the nation, Option Line answers the call—in English and Spanish—for dozens of helplines and national outreaches, including the National Safe Haven Alliance, Bethany Christian Services, Heroic Media and more.

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VIDEO: Democrat Senators high-five after voting in favor of late-term abortion

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer high-fived one of his Democrat colleagues, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, Mondday after she voted in favor of late-term abortion.  The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) has identified Heitkamp as a “vulnerable” Democrat who they aim to unseat this November.

Sen. Schumer, D-NY, high-fived and then clasped the hand of Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-ND, on the floor of the U.S. Senate after she voted “no” on ending debate over the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Sixty senators needed to vote to end debate over the bill in order for it to have come to an actual vote.



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VIDEO: A ‘male feminist called me a piece of s***’: pro-life youth share horror stories from Women’s March

The second Annual Women’s March, organized to protest the democratic election of President Donald Trump in 2016, flooded the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on January 20 with a torrent of pink hats and feminist anger.

One hundred members of the college pro-life group Created Equal served as a counter-protest, standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to witness to the carnage visited upon unborn children, over half of them baby girls. Created Equal’s representatives showed the marchers actual images of the aftermath of abortion: a dismembered dead baby.  The young pro-lifers withstood a barrage of verbal abuse and sexual harassment as furious abortion supporters vented their rage at this challenge.



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Pro-abortion myths, fables, and fairytales about fetal pain

We all know the French adage, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Never, ever was that more true than in listening to the pro-abortion drivel on display Monday in the Senate as Democrats successfully prevented Republicans from cutting off a filibuster of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. (Sixty votes were needed to “invoke cloture” so there could have been an up or down vote.)

But I was wrong. There is a worse example of recycling myths, fables, and fairytales about fetal pain. I didn’t notice it at the time but evidently Maggie Fox of NBC News had read twitter posts from a “doctor” and decided to interview him after the Senate vote.

By way of preface, Fox can be very perceptive reporter, but less so when she wanders into politics. For example, “the doctor just explained late-term abortion—on Twitter” is Dr. Daniel Grossman.

Grossman is not some ordinary M.D. He is a nearly full-time abortion apologist who composes such convoluted half-truths it takes five times as much space to rebut them as for him to compose them.

For example, he tells Fox

“I really feel like it’s important for policymakers, legislators, to use the best available scientific evidence when they are making policy related to health. I also think it’s important for them to listen to the patients that are affected by this healthcare and neither of those things were done related to this recent bill.”

Small problem. Everything—everything—he told Fox is wrong. Demonstrably wrong. Wrong in the sense of being debunked years ago.

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President Trump, Vice President Pence criticize Senate failure to pass Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

Monday after Senate pro-lifers were unable to garner the 60 votes necessary to move to an actual vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (“invoke cloture”), both pro-life President Donald Trump and pro-life Vice President Mike Pence blasted the Senate’s 51-46 vote.

Here’s is what President Trump said:

Recently, when I addressed the 45th annual March for Life, I called on the Senate to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, important legislation that would protect our most vulnerable. It is disappointing that despite support from a bipartisan majority of U.S. Senators, this bill was blocked from further consideration.

Scientific studies have demonstrated that babies in the womb feel pain at twenty weeks. The vote by the Senate rejects scientific fact and puts the United States out of the mainstream in the family of nations, in which only 7 out of 198 nations, including China and North Korea, allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. We must defend those who cannot defend themselves. I urge the Senate to reconsider its decision and pass legislation that will celebrate, cherish, and protect life.

And here is what Vice President Pence said with regard to the “Senate’s Failure to Advance the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act”:

I am disappointed that tonight, 46 Senators voted against a motion that would have respected the majority of Americans’ convictions – including those of President Trump – by refusing to advance a bill that would restrict abortions on babies when they are capable of feeling pain. Just earlier this month I watched as our president, a true pro-life advocate, energized the growing movement at the March for Life. The pro-life message is winning and President Trump and I will never cease in our commitment to defending and protecting the most vulnerable among us. We will continue standing up for the sanctity of life.

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Planned Parenthood accidentally tweets about ‘baby’ doctors saved while in the womb

A Planned Parenthood affiliate tweeted, and then deleted, an article about a “baby” who successfully underwent surgery while still in the womb.

Planned Parenthood of Maryland tweeted a beautiful baby picture which linked to an amazing story of a pre-born baby’s life being saved by experimental surgery for spina bifida at Texas Children’s Hospital. 

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U.S. Senate votes on nationwide protections for pain-capable unborn children, falling short of 60 votes

A majority of the U.S. Senate voted to advance the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 2311), but on a near party-line vote, a minority blocked consideration of the bill. Fifty-one senators (forty-eight Republicans and three Democrats) voted to take the bill up for debate, but 60 votes were required.

This bill is based on model legislation developed by National Right to Life in 2010, and is in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

“Americans should be outraged that pro-abortion Senate Democrats refuse to protect unborn babies who can feel pain. An overwhelming majority of Americans support this bill, including 56% of Democrats and 56% of those who identify as ‘pro-choice’,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.

Tobias added, “We applaud Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and chief sponsor Sen. Lindsey Graham for their steadfast commitment to passing these protections for pain-capable unborn children. We will keep coming back to the Senate, again and again, until it passes this bill.”

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is sponsored by Senator Graham (R-S.C.), along with 46 cosponsors, and has been one of the right-to-life movement’s top legislative priorities. The operative language is identical to H.R. 36, approved by the House of Representatives on October 3, 2017. This legislation extends general protection to unborn children who are at least 20 weeks beyond fertilization (which is equivalent to 22 weeks of pregnancy—about the start of the sixth month).

The text of the bill is available here

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Men have the right to say abortion is wrong

On January 25, 2018, conservative commentator and Daily Wire editor Ben Shapiro posted a Facebook video of a Q&A session at the University of Connecticut, in which he answered a questions from a female audience member (who says she is going into the healthcare field). She asks how he, as a “white, well off, religious man” feels he has a right to tell a woman that abortion is wrong.

The unidentified woman says, “I personally don’t think that I could have an abortion… but how do you defend your opinion as a white, well off, religious man… telling a woman what she can do with her body and forcing her to –”

Before she can finish, Shapiro answers, “Because evil things are still evil, even if I’m a white, well off, religious man.”

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Pregnancy centers free speech case set for oral arguments at Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court announced March 20 as its date to hear oral arguments in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra. A case both sides of the abortion divide agree is the Court’s most significant of 2018, NIFLA v. Becerra challenges a 2015 state law in California forcing over 100 privately funded pro-life pregnancy help medical clinics that offer free ultrasounds to post signage directing their clients to a taxpayer-funded abortion program through Medi-Cal.

The clinics—which are state-licensed, but receive no taxpayer funding—argue that the state’s so-called “Reproductive FACT Act” co-opts and overrides their right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment. With lead plaintiff NIFLA joined by co-counsel Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the pro-life organizations are now gearing up for their day at the nation’s High Court. Groups representing pro-life, Christian and free speech constituencies—plus 22 states and 144 members of the U.S. Congress—have filed amicus briefs in support of NIFLA.

“NIFLA looks forward to prosecuting our case against the state of California to enjoin its horrendous violation of the free speech rights of pro-life pregnancy centers,” Thomas Glessner, J.D., NIFLA president and founder, said. “This law compels pro-life centers to violate their consciences and promote abortion. As such it cannot and will not stand.”

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Singer Turns Heads at the Grammys With Stunning Anti-Abortion Outfit: ‘I’m a Pro-Life Woman’

Singer Joy Villa has once again turned heads on the Grammys red carpet, wearing a large, white wedding dress to Sunday night’s awards show that included a painted image of a baby surrounded by colors of the rainbow.

And if her message celebrating the unborn wasn’t clear enough, Villa, 26, carried a purse in her right hand that included the words “choose life” — and later told Fox News that she’s “all about life.”

Singer Joy Villa wears anti-abortion FETUS dress at Grammys https://t.co/L1vanotnOR @joy_villa #chooselife

— Joy Villa (@Joy_Villa) January 28, 2018

“I’m a pro-life woman. This year I chose to make a statement on the red carpet like I always do,” she said. “I’m all about life.”

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Almost 75% of American women who had abortions were pressured

The study, published recently in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, found that nearly three-quarters (73.8%) of women with a history of abortion surveyed admitted that they experienced at least subtle forms of pressure to terminate their pregnancies.

More than half of the women reported that the perceived pressure was great enough to significantly influence their decision to abort. Of the 987 women surveyed, more than half (58.3%) indicated that they decided to abort in order to make others happy. Nearly 30% of survey respondents admitted that they were afraid that they would lose their partner if they failed to terminate their pregnancy.

Click here to view the study

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NRLC urges Senators to vote to proceed to Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

Dear Senator:

Majority Leader McConnell has indicated that on Monday, January 29, the Senate will vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 2311) sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the nationwide federation of state right-to-life organizations, urges you to vote “aye” with Leader McConnell on this motion. We intend to include the roll call in our scorecard of key right-to-life roll calls of the 115th Congress.

S. 2311 currently has 46 cosponsors. The operative language is identical to H.R. 36, approved by the House of Representatives on October 3, 2017. This legislation extends general protection to unborn children who are at least 20 weeks beyond fertilization (which is equivalent to 22 weeks of pregnancy—about the start of the sixth month).

There is abundant evidence—summarized in the findings of the bill—that by this point in development (and probably earlier), the unborn child has the capacity to experience excruciating pain during typical abortion procedures. On this basis, the bill prohibits abortion after that point, except when an acute physical condition endangers the life of the mother, or in cases of rape, or cases of incest against a minor. The bill spells out the procedural requirements that abortionists must follow when performing an abortion under these exceptions, including seeking to preserve the life of the child whenever this is feasible. The bill also creates specific requirements for the protection of infants who are born alive during these late abortions.

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Cecile Richards reportedly stepping down from Planned Parenthood

Cecile Richards, who has served as president of Planned Parenthood since 2006, will soon step down from her position, two sources told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday.

No official timetable has been reported, but a statement provided to BuzzFeed said that Richards “plans to discuss 2018 and the next steps for Planned Parenthood’s future” at next week’s board meeting.

During Richards’ tenure as president, Planned Parenthood increased the number of abortions performed each year by more than 10 percent. In 2006, Planned Parenthood performed 289,750 abortions. In the 2016-2017 report, that number had grown to 321,384.  On average, Planned Parenthood carried out 320,000 abortions each year during Richards’ tenure.

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Senate to debate Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act next week

The bill is based on model legislation developed by National Right to Life in 2010, and enacted thus far in 16 states.

“This bill would save thousands of unborn babies annually from terribly painful deaths,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, when it passed the House, 237-189 . “It is now clear that the overwhelming majority of House Democrats believe that painfully dismembering babies, in the sixth month and later, is just fine – now let them try to explain that to their constituents.”

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act has been among the right-to-life movement’s top congressional priorities for the 115th Congress. Like the state bills, the proposed federal law would generally extend legal protection to unborn humans beginning at 20 weeks fetal age, based on congressional findings that by that point (and even earlier) the unborn child has the capacity to experience great pain during an abortion.

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