Vote Tuesday November 4th

Get out and vote on Tuesday, November 4th.

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Vote Pro-Life!  Your vote counts!

Jim Oberweis and Dick Durbin Comparison on Life Issues

National Right to Life PAC Illinois Endorsements

One twin’s ‘rescuing hug’ saves the life of her sister

Brielle and Kyrie Jackson were born premature on October 17, 1995, a full 12 weeks ahead of their due date. As standard medical practice, doctors at The Medical Center of Central Massachusetts placed the twins in separate incubators in order to reduce the risk of cross-infection. The stronger twin, Kyrie, began to gain weight and her condition improved, but her sister, Brielle, had trouble breathing. Brielle’s oxygen level was extremely low and she had difficulty gaining weight.

On November 12, Brielle’s condition dropped to critical. Her tiny arms and legs turned blue as she lay gasping for air. Her heart rate skyrocketed, and her family watched in tears as they prepared for the possibility that Brielle would not make it.

The medical staff tried everything to save tiny Brielle, but no remedy seemed to work–then, Nurse Gayle Kasparian sought parental permission to place Kyrie in the same incubator as her struggling sister. The practice, used commonly among medical centers in Europe, was almost unheard of in the United States– but as soon as Nurse Kasparian placed Kyrie in the same bed, Brielle moved close to her sister and her heart rate began to steady.

Within a few minutes, her blood-oxygen readings miraculously began to stabilize. As Brielle started to fall asleep, her sister wrapped her left arm around her, and Brielle’s body temperature increased to normal.

When the hospital released the twins, their parents placed them in the same bed and their condition continued to improve. Even after five years, their parents said the twin girls still slept in the same bed.

Kyrie’s “Rescuing Hug” has garnered the attention of CNN, Life Magazine and Reader’s Digest, and has sparked an interest in the practice of co-bedding premature twins, triplets and quadruplets. The University of Massachusetts Memorial placed roughly 100 sets of premature multiple birth siblings in the same incubator. In all cases, doctors have not reported a single case of infection between the newborns. The twins, who are now all grown up, still share the same tight knit bond they had when they first entered the world.

By Becky Yeh, via NRL News Today

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.

Obama OKs IVF Industry to Sell US Citizenship!

Reverse biological colonialism!

I have written about this before, but now the Obama Administration has given its imprimatur to foreigners buying U.S. Citizenship for their babies.

Here’s how the scheme works: Imagine a Chinese couple create embryos using IVF in Beijing. The embryos are shipped to the USA and implanted in an American woman’s uterus. She gives birth and the babies are taken back to China by the biological parents. Should the kid be a US citizen?

The Obama Administration has just promulgated regulations saying yes! From the USCIS summary:

Under this new policy, a mother who meets this definition but does not have a genetic relationship with her child (for example, she became pregnant through an egg donor) will:

- Be able to petition for her child based on their relationship
- Be eligible to have her child petition for her based on their relationship
- Be able to transmit U.S. citizenship to her child, if she is a U.S. citizen and all other pertinent citizenship requirements are met.

Realize that under surrogacy contracts, THE SURROGATE WAIVES LEGAL PARENTHOOD! But for purposes of opening America’s doors, the Feds say baby citizen if surrogate was the legal mother at birth.

So, the contracts will just provide that the waiver of parenthood occur after birth, and voila, instant citizenship. For sale. Unbelievable.

The voracious IVF industry is way out of hand. And now, it has the seal of approval from the U.S. Government to sell American Citizenship.

This scheme will turn a pretty penny!

HT: Daily Caller

PS: Neil Munro of the Daily Caller shows another way this could work:

The change means that a woman who is a U.S. citizen can be hired by a reproductive medical clinic to become pregnant overseas and to give birth in China, Saudi Arabia, or anywhere else, and then effectively hand a U.S. passport to the baby.

Either way, there’s money in selling citizenship.

By Wesley J. Smith, Life and Dignity

Pretty obvious Planned Parenthood using tax dollars for abortions, says pro-lifer

There is more proof that Planned Parenthood uses tax dollars for elective abortions even though the majority of Americans don't want their annual donations to the government used for that purpose. 

Rita Diller, national director for STOPP, a division of American Life League, says the abortion giant "has historically hidden a large percentage of its government funding by reporting it as patient income or clinic income but not noting the government source."

Diller

But she says four of seven Planned Parenthoods in California have recently fully disclosed the information, including two that are getting 83 percent of their funding from taxpayers, most of it via Medicaid.

A story about STOPP's investigation can be read here. 

"We find that nationwide Planned Parenthood shows that 46 percent of its total funding comes from government sources. And that's a huge amount," she tells OneNewsNow.

That's in light of the fact that Planned Parenthood receives about $550 million from the federal government alone.

The pro-lifer alleges that Planned Parenthood wants to be almost totally government funded, "and if we knew the true figures nationwide," she adds, "we may see numbers that more closely resemble right now that 83 percent government funding that we see in California."

Planned Parenthood has denied using tax dollars for abortions but with 83 percent government funding, tax dollars are obviously being used to terminate the lives of preborn babies, Diller says. 

By Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow

Pro-choice psychologist describes abortion she witnessed; baby would now be adult

Dr. Magda Denes was a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who died in 1996. 20 years before her death, she wrote a book called “In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death inside an Abortion Hospital. “

Magda Denes was pro-choice for her entire life and talks in the book about why abortion should remain legal. However, when it was published, the New York Times reviewer called it ”a highly emotional anti-abortion tract.” Why?

It seems that Denes, who had had an abortion herself, was honest about what she witnessed in the clinic, instead of sugar coating the reality of abortion the way the New York Times (and other mainstream media) has always tended to do. She used plain, honest language to describe abortion procedures and the bodies of aborted babies.

One procedure she described was a D & E (dilation and evacuation) abortion. This procedure, which was new at the time, is still popular today. It takes place in the second and early third trimesters and consists of the abortionist reaching into the womb with forceps and pulling apart the unborn baby. You can see a diagram of it here.

Denes describes a D&E abortion that she witnessed.

“‘Forceps, please,’ Mr. Smith slaps into his hand what look like oversized ice-cube tongs. Holtzman pushes it into the vagina and tugs. He pulls out something, which he slaps on the instrument table. ‘There,’ he says, ‘A leg. You can always tell fetal size best by the extremities. Fifteen weeks is right in this case.’ I turn to Mr. Smith. ‘What did he say?’ ‘He pulled a leg off,’ Mr. Smith says. ‘Right here.’ He points to the instrument table, where there is a perfectly formed, slightly bent leg, about three inches long. It consists of a ripped thigh, a knee, a lower leg, a foot, and five toes. I start to shake very badly, but otherwise I feel nothing. Total shock is painless…”

She describes the abortionist taking out other parts of the baby, including the head:

“There lies a head. It is the smallest human head I have ever seen, but it is unmistakably part of a person.”

Some may think that there is no point in describing an abortion that took place so long ago. But abortions are still being done this way, every day, in the U.S. It is likely that at least one has taken place since you started reading this article.

We can also reflect on what we have lost. Had this baby lived, he or she would already be 38-years-old. We have no idea who this child would’ve grown up to be. He could be a world-renowned scientist, a doctor who just cured cancer (or Ebola), a famous actor, a best-selling children’s author – or just a loving father. The baby whose death you just read about could already have had children of her own. And he or she was just one of the thousands of abortion victims that day.

In Necessity and Sorrow has so many disturbing, powerful, and still relevant things to say that I will be referring back to it in future articles.

Source: Magda Denes, PhD. In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death Inside an Abortion Hospital (Basic Books, Inc.: New York, 1976)

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org.via NRL News Today

Hillary Clinton and the War on (Unborn) Women

(RIGHT) Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Pro-abortion political consultants are pulling their hair out! Their script has gone off the rails!

You’ll remember that with the 2012 elections, some pro-abortion candidates ran on a campaign theme that claimed their opponents were conducting what they called a “War on Women.”

The media lapped it up and dishonest as it was, the theme actually helped some pro-abortion candidates.

Fast forward to 2014. Some pro-abortion consultants pulled the old playbook off the shelf and thought they’d make hay with another “War on Women” theme in 2014.

But a funny thing happened on the way to their dishonest forum of ideas. The theme didn’t work. In fact, this year, it might actually be hurting candidates who use it.

For example, pro-abortion Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) at one point had more than half of his campaign ads running on various “War on Women” themes. But since then, Udall has seen his lead evaporate and pro-life Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), his pro-life rival for the Senate seat, now has a 5-point lead in the polls.

Significantly, Udall’s lead among women voters has shrunk dramatically. The “War on Women” theme was insulting to voters. It’s been exposed as a lie. And it’s no longer working.

Even left-leaning newspapers like the Denver Post and Washington Post have torn into the Udall campaign for overemphasizing the theme. In endorsing Gardner, the Denver Post, Colorado’s largest newspaper, wrote: “Udall is trying to frighten voters rather than inspire them with a hopeful vision. His obnoxious one-issue campaign is an insult to those he seeks to convince.”

But even as Udall’s consultants backpedal furiously to get away from their losing message, another prominent pro-abortion Democrat is apparently prepared to take up that “obnoxious . . . insulti(ing)” campaign theme and run with it.

Which brings us to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday, Clinton came to Colorado, ostensibly to stump for Udall. But at least one commentator wondered aloud in print if she wasn’t throwing Udall under the bus to get her own message out – one she thinks will win her the support of left-leaning delegates for the 2016 presidential nomination.

Andrea Drusch of the National Journal Hotline wrote: “Sen. Mark Udall’s campaign spent the last several months relentlessly talking about women’s health issues, but as his numbers sagged in the past few weeks, they’ve made a concerted effort to change the subject. That’s why it’s surprising to see Hillary Clinton doubling down on that message in her Colorado stump speech yesterday, even calling out critics of Udall’s “single-issue campaign.” As with any Clinton appearance, there’s a subtext of her potential 2016 bid, and in this case – it’s one that may have even trumped what’s best for the candidate.”

Clinton made another colossal blunder in that Tuesday speech in Aurora, Colorado. Even while touting elsewhere in her speech a so-called “right” to abortion, she pretended to be an advocate for the young: “I want everyone in this room to be able to look at any baby, any child, and truthfully say, ‘You have the same right to the American dream that I did and the generations before me.”

But Clinton – and the pro-abortion Senate candidates she’s supporting – routinely fights to take that “right to the American dream” away from millions of unborn babies. For those babies, the American dream ends at the end of a curette knife, a suction aspiration machine, a Sofer clamp – instruments abortionists use to violently snuff out their lives.

Pro-lifers recognize the rhetorical games Clinton is playing as part of the struggle to build and win a Culture of Life: Will America be a place where every human being is welcomed in life and protected in law? Or will the violent destruction of human life continue, and perhaps even increase because of those, like Clinton and Udall, Sens. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), pro-abortion challengers Michelle Nunn (Georgia) and Bruce Braley (Iowa), and a host of other candidates who openly support the killing of unborn children?

____________________________________________

Sex selection abortions are almost always performed to kill unborn baby girls – a real war on women. Candidates who support keeping this despicable practice legal have no moral ground to claim anyone else is conducting a “war on women.”_________________________________________

It’s worth noting that none of these candidates, when asked by National Right to Life in its candidate questionnaire, would affirmatively answer the question whether they’d support a “prohibition on the use of abortion as a method of sex selection.” Sex selection abortions are almost always performed to kill unborn baby girls – a real war on women. Candidates who support keeping this despicable practice legal have no moral ground to claim anyone else is conducting a “war on women.”

It’s good to see the credibility of the war on women theme fade. But as long as politicians like Hillary Clinton and her allies think they can make a credible argument that “any baby, any child” should have “the same right to the American dream that I did and the generations before me,” while at the same time advocating for the killing of unborn babies and children, then we still have a lot of education and persuasion to do.

Our movement is making great strides: abortion numbers are way down and the younger generation is more pro-life than those that preceded it. Calling out hypocrisy like that spouted by Clinton, educating the American people on the reality of abortion and the development of the unborn child, and legislating protection for the vulnerable – born and unborn – are the best answers to those who would degrade our culture and kill millions of innocent human beings in the process.

By Don Parker, NRL News Today

There can be dignity in all states of life

Catherine Frazee

In his article of Oct. 9, Desmond Tutu emphasizes the importance of language on the sensitive issue of medically assisted dying. In the spirit of advancing a respectful dialogue, I must urge him to consider the deeper meanings of dignity, and how our experience of human dignity leads disabled Canadians to a very different conclusion about end-of-life interventions.

Last week I had the opportunity to share my thoughts with a small group of parliamentarians on the subject of medically assisted dying.

I was not alone. Several friends and colleagues from the disability rights community were each given five minutes to present an argument against amending the criminal code to sanction medically assisted dying.

One spoke about the discriminatory implication of offering state-sanctioned assistance not for everyone, but only for persons who are frail, very ill, or seriously disabled. Another presented a chilling account of the “creep” of euthanasia in permissive jurisdictions.

Another spoke from personal experience, about the time someone said to him, “I don’t know how you do it; I’d rather be dead than in a wheelchair.” There were nods of recognition around the room. This is a common experience.

I spoke about dignity. The suffering that medically assisted dying is said to alleviate most often correlates with loss of dignity. I don’t believe that anyone should take a position on medically assisted dying without first understanding what dignity is, and what it is not.

I say this as a person whose naked body is handled daily by persons who love me, or persons employed by me, or perfect strangers with skills and capacities I myself lack. I say this as a person who considers immobility, incontinence, impairment and dependence to be routine conditions of life. I say this as a person who cannot bathe or breathe or swallow or feed without the aid of some device.

No one should argue that my life is undignified because of whatever tubes I had to be hooked up to this morning before I could settle down to write these words. The same, I submit, should be said of Craig Schonegevel [who committed suicide, a man whose life and death was chronicled by author Marianne Thamm].

Dignity does not spring from some extraordinary fortress of determination encoded within us. Dignity doesn’t work like that. Dignity is fragile and ephemeral.

Allow yourself to be consumed by all of the perceived misfortunes of my predicament, and suddenly, my dignity will be shattered.

See me as anything but your equal in human worth, and at that moment, in that glance, with that sorrowful sigh, you have robbed me of dignity. Speak of willful death as a reasonable choice for persons afflicted with the presumed indignity of physical incapacity, and my dignity is undermined.

This is not some trivial conceit. For my dignity is utterly bound up with your respect for my way of life. It is not abstract, and it is not a solitary attribute. Dignity is social.

It doesn’t come from inside of me. It comes from others, always, in relation to me.

In our opposition to legislative amendments that would permit medical assistance to end one’s own life, disabled citizens are seeking to advance a vital truth, one that is imperative for our fellow citizens to embrace as well. Our physical and cognitive powers are not the source of human dignity. As these powers attenuate, human life does not lose its inherent value.

At the heart of this debate, we must choose between competing visions of our social fabric. Shall we uncritically submit to the voracious demands of individual liberty no matter what the social cost? Or shall we agree that there are limits to individual freedom, limits that serve all of us when we are vulnerable and in decline?

Let us seize this moment in our nation’s history to affirm that all states of living are inherently dignified and worthy of our utmost respect.

Catherine Frazee is Professor Emerita at the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University, and former chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

By Catherine Frazee, via NRL News Today

Editor’s note. This article was published in the Ottawa Citizen on October 15.

Make Our Founding Fathers Proud

National Right to Life President Carol Tobias

Are you ready?? Are you as excited as I am to learn the results of the elections just around the corner?? Will Harry Reid be able to maintain his grip on a pro-abortion majority in the Senate, or will pro-lifers control both the House and the Senate??

Candidates and political parties and organizations have been hard at work to produce victory on election night. I daresay, none of them have been working as hard as the innumerable pro-lifers laboring on behalf of those candidates who believe in the dignity and preciousness of innocent human life.

I love history and enjoy reading about the people who banded together almost 250 years ago to create this wonderful new country called the United States of America. I am always amazed at the wisdom, the forethought, and the determination, of the men known as the “Founding Fathers.”

People of different backgrounds, different occupations and levels of education, different ideas of what is important, all came together with the common cause of freedom. Their ideals, their dreams, their values were summarized in the eloquent words that flowed from the pen of Thomas Jefferson. Read again these famous words:

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.

I marvel at the thought of all these amazing people being brought together in the same place, at the same time, in history. And their number one priority was Life.

…their number one priority was Life.

Fast forward to today’s America, where so many have forgotten the ideals of our founders. Would those founders have believed it possible that this country would allow the killing of more than 56 million of its children? Could they even fathom the idea of candidates and elected officials insisting that your tax dollars be diverted to facilitate that killing?

I firmly believe that pro-life people are the true descendants of our Founding Fathers. Why do I say that? Pro-life people understand the vision and the principles established for this great country. Pro-life people clearly see where our great nation has gone astray. And it is because we so love our country that we continue to move forward with perseverance and optimism.

Those who advocate for the killing of unborn children protest that we want to take the country “back,” as in “backwards” to a worse state of affairs than we have today. Rather, we want to bring back –to restore— the vision of our Founding Fathers. We want to restore the soul of our nation by proclaiming that each and every individual human being is precious.

I have been involved in electoral politics for many years. Every election cycle, I think of John Adams, who wrote

“It has been the Will of Heaven, that We should be thrown into Existence at a Period, when the greatest Philosophers and Lawgivers of Antiquity would have wished to have lived: a Period, when a Coincidence of Circumstances, without Example, has afforded to thirteen Colonies at once an opportunity, of beginning Government anew from the Foundation and building as they choose. How few of the human Race, have ever had an opportunity of choosing a System of Government for themselves and their Children? How few have ever had any Thing more of Choice in Government, than in Climate? These Colonies have now their Election and it is much to be wish’d that it may not prove to be like a Prize in the Hands of a Man who has no Heart to improve it.”

The people of the United States are blessed with a system of government that gives us the opportunity to choose our leaders. Sadly, too many people don’t take advantage of that opportunity. They are too busy, they don’t like the candidates on the ballot, or even worse—they just don’t care.

Many should-be voters decide that their vote won’t make a difference so they don’t bother to vote. But when we vote, we are not only doing our duty as citizens. We are also making a statement. Use your vote to be a voice for the voiceless.

Pro-lifers across America have been working for many months to elect candidates who believe in Life; candidates who want to protect unborn children and their mothers. There are just a few days left until November 4, which means the last thing we can do is rest.

Use your vote to be a voice for the voiceless.

After the materials have been printed and distributed, and the phone calls have been made, and information posted on various social media outlets, there may still be a handful of people you haven’t spoken with yet. Make sure that the pro-life people you know are going to vote. Do they need a ride to the voting booth? Can you take them, or find someone who can?

We occasionally hear the idea of someone “turning over in his/her grave” because something they espoused is being turned completely upside down. Electing politicians who favor the disposal of innocent life, not its protection, is at odds with everything our Founding Fathers stood for.

In the remaining few weeks, let us do everything we can to advance the cause for life and make our Founding Fathers proud.

By Carol Tobias, President, National Right to Life

You can view and download the IFRL PAC Endorsements for the 2014 General Election at:

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“Repeat Abortions” versus “Multiple Abortions”: call them what you will, pro-abortionists defend them unwaveringly

Steph Herold is the author of an article appearing on rhrealitycheck.org describing a “Special Issue” of Women & Health. The objective is to put an academic gloss on the notion that while abortion stigma “permeates every level of our culture,” that is only because the “belief that abortion is socially or morally unacceptable” is foisted on women.

To understand why Herold is the perfect choice to write a hosanna-filled puff piece, let’s look at one of her own articles—“Evidence based Advocacy: Expanding Our Thinking About ‘Repeat’ Abortions,” which also ran on rhrealitycheck.org. It’s a real corker for it is an unabashed defense of abortion as birth control and a Jeremiah against abortion “stigma.”

The crux of her case is found in her preferred term for women who abort more than one baby: “multiple” abortion over “repeat” abortion. [Notice “Repeat’ is in quotation marks in the title.] To anyone but the most feverish pro-abortion zealot, this must be a distinction without a difference, right?

In practice, yes, but in trying to erase the deep unease even many “pro-choicers” feel at a woman repeatedly taking the lives of unborn babies, it makes all the sense in the world. And it also might work for those attempting to finesse the fact that nearly half of the abortions procured are now to women who’ve had at least one prior abortion.

Let me try (emphasize try) to explain how Herold attempts to square the circle.

Right out of the gate Herold makes no bones about her absolutism. Even to try to intervene after a first abortion to prevent a second (or third, or fourth, or however many) abortion is to miss that each abortion must be seen “as a unique experience with its own set of complex circumstances.” That’s why these women are not “repeaters”: each abortion is, duh, unique. Get it?

(Each abortion IS unique in the sense that every baby lost is unique but that decidedly is not what Herold means.)

Herold tells us that “Tracy Weitz and Katrina Kimport, sociologists with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), analyzed the interviews of ten women who’d had multiple abortions.” They’d had a total of 35 abortions and each was different, some easier/harder than others.

If you are going to “target” these women, understand that each abortion came with its own “unique emotional and social circumstances.” Okay (for purposes of following the argument), now what?

“Similarly, providers should not assume that a woman with a history of multiple abortions will have the same emotional or contraceptive needs after each abortion,” Herold writes. “In fact, Weitz and Kimport found that some women avoided going to the same provider for each abortion because they feared being judged for having multiple abortions or having to hear the same contraceptive-counseling script. 

Providers should not make assumptions about their patients’ needs based on the number of abortions they’ve had.” [my emphasis]

Am I missing something, or is Herold confirming that these women can’t be bothered with trying not to become pregnant—and they simply will shop around for a different abortionist[s] knowing that their cavalier attitude is hard to square with one pro-abortion talking point–that women “agonize” over their abortion?

If this group is representative, women who have multiple abortions want what they want when they want it. And “mainstream pro-choice organizations” ought not to be “worrying that discussing multiple abortions will rile up the anti-choice movement.”

What should they be worried about? “Focus[ing] on de-stigmatizing the experience of abortion, no matter how many times a woman needs to access this service,” Herold lectures. “Women who have had multiple abortions should not be viewed as a separate class of people from women who have had one abortion.” Chew on that one for a while.

Her conclusion?

“We should understand women who have had multiple abortions through their individual life experiences rather than judging them on their pregnancy history. If we want to better meet women’s emotional needs around abortion, we can start by using the phrase ‘multiple abortions’ instead of ‘repeat abortions,’ and moving away from policies that seek to prevent ‘repeat abortions.’ To support women who have had multiple abortions, we need to acknowledge that some abortions may be more difficult than others.”

Pardon? I guess that means there really is no such thing as a “repeat” abortion, only a series of discreet, separate, don’t-connect-the-dots abortions that are multiples of one.

Why? Because some abortions are easier than others and because the circumstances under which a woman has abortion “c” are different than the circumstances for abortion “a” and abortion “b.”

It’s hard to know what to say to someone who reasons like this. However, my guess is that even some in the Sisterhood might swallow hard at this indigestible excuse for unlimited abortion.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News Today

Obama’s sagging fortunes among women voters dragging down vulnerable Democrats

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama

Two weeks from today we vote in the mid-term elections. Survey results from a number of hotly contested Senate races show the difference at a point or two.

In two states—Louisiana and Georgia—that require the winner to have 50%, there is a likelihood that there will be subsequent runoffs after November 4. (The presence of a third candidate could easily drain off enough of the vote to prevent anyone from reaching the magically 50%.)

Message? Be sure to vote, and be sure that all your pro-life friends, family, and acquaintances do likewise.

Meanwhile, President Obama remains an albatross around the neck of vulnerable Democrats. Yesterday he once again did his best to wipe away the pretence Democrats who vote with him 95%-99% of the time are somehow independent agents.

You remember a couple of weeks ago when after talking about his economic policies, the President ad-libbed: ‘Now, I am not on the ballot this fall . . . but make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.”

Monday, he did himself one better in the candor category. Interviewed by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Obama went out of his way to defend those Democrats who have not welcomed him to come into their state to campaign with them. (Some, of course, refuse even to say if they voted for Mr. Obama!)

“The bottom line is, though, these are all folks who vote with me; they have supported my agenda in Congress,” Obama said.

One other intriguing fact that is coming out in the surveys. To be sure, with his approval ratings at around 40%-41%% and disapproval figures around 53% to 55%, you wouldn’t expect his approval numbers to be particularly high among any category except among African-Americans.

Even so a headline in POLITICO—“Obama’s standing with women hurts Senate Dems”—was a bit surprising. Manu Raju writes with two weeks to go, “the president’s diminished standing with women is quickly becoming one of the biggest liabilities facing Democrats as they struggle to hang onto the Senate majority.”

He mentions in passing what everyone already knows—that Democrats in key Senate races are taking a beating among men. Thus these incumbents cannot do well if they do not enjoy a strong advantage among women.

Raju uses Alaska as an example of the possible spillover effect of Obama’s unpopularity. Obama lost Alaska soundly in both 2008 and 2012, In Alaska, for instance, Obama lost soundly in 2008 and 2012. But, according to Raju

“he’s only gone downhill from there, especially among female voters, only 29 percent of whom give him high marks. Obama’s unpopularity could be having a spillover effect on Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), who is fighting for his political life against Republican Dan Sullivan. In one recent CNN/ORC poll of likely voters, Begich was losing women to Sullivan by 7 points.”

Sullivan, who is firmly pro-life, says he “has done well with women by promoting local issues that resonate with them,” Raju reports. Said Thomas Reiker, a spokesman for Sullivan, “Mark Begich continues to run the same tired ‘war on women’ campaign straight out of Harry Reid’s playbook, but he can’t run from his failed record in Washington, D.C.”

Raju also cited Colorado, where incumbent Mark Udall has so obsessed on abortion and “reproductive health issues” one reporter dubbed him “Senator Uterus.” A Quinnipiac poll this week showed NRLC-endorsed Rep. Cory Gardner beating Udall among men by 19 points and behind among women by only 9 points.

The President’s “sharp decline in Colorado,” Raju writes, “has made life much harder for Udall. The CNN poll showed 60 percent of white women disapproving of Obama’s job performance — and 56 percent of nonwhite women also holding negative views.”

The same phenomenon is seen in other Senate races.

By Dave Andrusko, NRL News Today

Bustos and Illinois Dems Attempt to Paint Schilling as "Pro-Rape"

EAST MOLINE, IL - Most Republican candidates expect the usual pro-abortion, "coat hanger" ads to hit their constituents' mailboxes as Democrat groups attempt to confuse voters by gining up baseless fear just prior to an election.

However, Democrat Congresswoman Cheri Bustos and the Illinois Democrat Party may have sunk to a new low in putting out a mailer accusing her opponent - former Congressman Bobby Schilling - of trying to redefine rape.

Shocked by the audacity of Bustos and the Dems, and angry about the deliberate deceit, Schilling spokesman Jon Schweppe told Illinois Review the mailer is "completely false."

"The bill in question about 'redefining rape' was H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," said Schweppe. "Bobby co-sponsored this bill and voted for it when it passed the House. It contained exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and when the mother's life was at risk. It had nothing to do with rape. To say so is shamelessly misleading and false."

"Bobby did not vote against the Violence Against Women Act. He voted for it," argued Schweppe. "This is simply untrue."

And the accusation that Schilling voted to restrict women's access to mammograms? "Ridiculous," says Schweppe. "They are referring to a vote to repeal Obamacare."

  

Illinois Review

A Focus on Abortion in the 2014 Election

A study in contrasts. Unlike, for example, the pro-abortion group EMILY’s List, which is largely avoiding even mentioning the word “abortion,” the Democrat Party is prominently focusing on the issue as its primary strategic challenge to many pro-life candidates.

This dichotomy would be fascinating in any case, but especially so given that the worn-out “war on women” meme is rapidly showing its age. The Democratic incumbent senator in Colorado, Mark Udall is so tunneled visioned on abortion and “reproductive health,” that one reporter from a highly pro-abortion newspaper dubbed him Mark Uterus.

Ultimately, I believe it will hurt the pro-abortion, out-of-mainstream candidates so favored by media outlets, especially when the public finds out what the Democrat Party supports.

EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL Pro-Choice America are avoiding the “a” word like the plague in traditionally “red” states – especially EMILY’s List. They are focusing on “fluff” issues, unrelated to abortion, and their candidates are pretty mum on the issue, too. I believe they “get it.” They realize their extreme positions on abortion hurt their ability to win so they disguise it and sugarcoat their rhetoric.

The truth is all but a handful of congressional Democrats support legal abortion for any reason.

Tools on the National Right to Life Political Action Committee website (nrlpac.org) will help you determine which candidates support your values. You can download comparison flyers and share them with your pro-life friends and family.

If you were to pop by the National Right to Life office right now, you would find that it has been quite busy –and it will continue to be so until about mid-November. We are working our hearts out because we know that abortion stops a beating heart. 

Currently, well-deserving pro-life candidates from across the nation are receiving their endorsement letters from National Right to Life. If you are interested in knowing which candidates National Right to Life has endorsed in the 2014 election cycle, go to nrlpac.org for that, too.

To view the IFRL-PAC Endorsements, please visit: http://ifrl-blog.blogspot.com/p/ifrl-pac-endorsements-for-2014-general.html

In fact, every day, more information is being provided on the website. So use it. Then vote, because not to vote, is to vote. It’s a decision to allow Obama’s pro-abortion policies to continue unabated.

Samuel Adams, in 1781, said, “Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that [...] he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.”

Be accountable. Vote.

By Karen Cross, National Right to Life Political Director