A Schizophrenic Nation

National Right to Life President Carol Tobias

By Carol Tobias, President, National Right to Life

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines schizophrenia as a psychotic disorder with serious specific characteristics. Its second definition is “contradictory or antagonistic qualities or attitudes.”

Based on this second definition, when it comes to Life, I think it’s safe to say that our country is schizophrenic.

After almost 44 years and 59 million dead babies, this country is still not comfortable talking about abortion. It’s not a topic at the family dinner table. “Well, Susie, what did you do today?” “Oh, I went to Planned Parenthood to get an abortion.” Women don’t tell co-workers they will not be at work tomorrow because they’re going to get an abortion.

Because of right-to-life efforts to keep the fate of unborn child alive as part of the public debate, this country still knows that it’s wrong to kill unborn children. Any woman in this country who is considering abortion knows that someone–a family member, a friend, co-worker, or neighbor– would counsel her not to do it.

This loss of respect for the innocent human life of that defenseless unborn child has created a mindset that no human life is special. The elderly and persons with disabilities are being denied food and water, and medical treatment, because someone decided they are a “burden” taking up space and resources.

However, while our country legally condones the killing of unborn children, and devalues the lives of other vulnerable persons, the children who did survive, the so-called “wanted” children, have become even more precious– maybe because they survived.

Consider: The development of technology has allowed us to declare “Amber alerts” nationwide. If a single child is missing, the entire country is asked to help find him/her. This is an unqualified good– we should search for every missing child and grieve for every lost child. But this highlights our schizophrenia.

A less unqualified good, perhaps, are parents so overtly involved in their children’s lives that a recent phenomena—“helicopter parents”– has arisen. The parents are “hovering” not just in their young children’s lives– there are stories of parents who phone their college-student children to wake them up for class, or even attend job interviews with them.

Some might say it’s a paradox that at the same time we dispose of more than a million unborn children each and every year, the children who “survive” are cherished and protected.

A better explanation, I believe, is schizophrenia.

Compare. Decide. Vote November 8

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats want you to pay for abortions. Hillary Clinton has pledged to change the law so that your tax dollars will pay for abortion on demand.

6.7 million dead babies–PPFA “just getting started”

Cecile Richards and Margaret Sanger

Okay, I appreciate the need to thread the needle–that is, for PPFA to acknowledge (in the most minimal imaginable fashion) some of the outrageous things its founder did and said without raining on Planned Parenthood’s parade in celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding by the notorious Margaret Sanger.

Thus the convoluted, intended-to-hide headline from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, “ The Layered, Complex History of Margaret Sanger — Planned Parenthood Founder and Reproductive Rights Trailblazer”– and the oblique first sentence :” Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was a woman of heroic accomplishments, and like all heroes, she was also complex and imperfect” [www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/blog/margaret-sanger-planned-parenthoods-founder].

“Imperfect”? Yes, you could say that. Let’s just cite one example.

Here’s a passage from, “The Need for Birth Control in America,” which appeared in Birth Control: Facts and Responsibilities, ed. Adolf Meyer, M.D., 1925.

“In his last book, Mr. [H. G.] Wells speaks of the meaningless, aimless lives which cram this world of ours, hordes of people who are born, who live, who die, yet who have done absolutely nothing to advance the race one iota. Their lives are hopeless repetitions. All that they have said has been said before; all that they have done has been done better before. Such human weeds clog up the path, drain up the energies and the resources of this little earth. We must clear the way for a better world; we must cultivate our garden.”

“Hopeless repetitions” that are “clog[ging] up the path” that “we must clear away” so as to “cultivate our garden”?

“Imperfect” seems a bit of an understatement, wouldn’t you agree?

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Life Matters

By Carol Tobias, President NRLC

NRLC President Carol Tobias

Bizarre. Heart-rending. Sad. Mind-boggling. Select your own adjective. To put it mildly, this election season has been one of the most unusual our country has ever seen. With just a couple weeks to go before the election, it is still inevitable that our next president will be either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. We must remember that we’re in this battle because LIFE MATTERS.

More than 59 million innocent babies are dead because of legal abortion. That’s 59,000,000 lives, lives of boys and girls who are no more because the Supreme Court decided their lives have no value.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is responsible for the deaths of more than 6.7 million of those preborn babies. Why is that important? Because PPFA wants Hillary Clinton to be our next president. She wants to make sure PPFA continues to receive taxpayer funds. In addition, she wants to change the existing law so PPFA can be reimbursed by the taxpayers for killing the children of women on Medicaid.

We hear, of course, that other issues are important and we can’t be “single-issue.” Issues like poverty and child abuse. In 1978, NARAL (now NARAL-Pro-Choice America) said freely available abortion will “greatly reduce the number of unwanted children, and thereby curb the tragic rise of child abuse in our country.” That hasn’t happened. Approximately 700,000 kids are abused each year (and that doesn’t even include the one million abortions each year). Not surprisingly, reducing the value of unborn children has also reduced the value of born children.

Poverty? The numbers are falling but we still have millions of people below the official poverty line. Abortion hasn’t suddenly made people rich — unless they’re in the abortion industry.

Respect for women, or abuse of women? Many claim that women can’t be “free” until they can control their own bodies– a woman should have the “right” to kill her unborn child, a child with a body separate from her own. And yet, read any issue of National Right to Life News and you will see evidence that more and more women every year are beaten and assaulted because she won’t kill her child by abortion.

What about the untold number of women who are suffering because they regret killing their child? Depression, suicidal thoughts, drug and alcohol abuse, and self-condemnation are rampant. Abortion didn’t help make their lives better.

I often think of the couple I met who got an abortion many years ago. That turned out to be their only child and they now regret having no grandchildren to enjoy. Abortion is not a cure-all for any problem. It is an end-all of the unborn child’s life.

A lot of charges of racism have been bandied about during this election. What about the racism that exists among abortion purveyors? 79% of Planned Parenthood surgical abortion centers are within walking distance of African American or Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods. In New York City alone, 60% of viable black pregnancies are aborted. That should certainly be part of the discussion about racism.

There are many issues, no doubt. But as Mother Teresa stated, “”We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other.”

Sadly, the media matters, too

For years the media has shown bias in its reporting on pro-life issues, as well as pro-life candidates. When we hear that NBC News had the “Trump tape” for a couple of months but decided to wait until one month before the election and just prior to a debate to release it, that’s kind of a “there they go again” moment.

Pro-lifers have a natural, justified skepticism of anything they hear or read in the “mainstream” media. Why do the accusations matter when made against a Republican candidate but it wasn’t an issue when the candidate was Bill Clinton?

Media Research Center found that, over a four-day period, the major news outlets spent 198 minutes on Donald Trump’s now-famous tape but only 13 minutes on the WikiLeaks release of Clinton campaign emails.

How many people have learned that Donna Brazile, then a CNN contributor and now head of the DNC, had the exact wording of a town hall question and passed it on to the Clinton campaign prior to a debate with Bernie Sanders? How many have heard that Clinton campaign officials showed anti-Catholic bigotry or that John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s campaign, helped to create a “Catholic” group to foment disagreement in the Catholic Church on moral issues?

The media bias continues. Last November, Hillary Clinton tweeted that “Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported.” Yet, there was very little coverage and certainly no outcry of indignation when Joy Behar, co-host of ABC’s “The View,” called the women claiming assault by Bill Clinton “tramps.” I guess only women who fit the mold of a pro-abortion liberal have a right to be offended and defended.

Again, LIFE matters

Are all social ills caused by abortion? No. Will all social ills be cured when unborn children are again protected? No. But when a society decides to value and protect the lives of innocent, defenseless children, we will be taking a gigantic step forward in understanding that all human life is precious.

Never forget that without the right to Life, we have no other rights. There are many issues in a campaign, but when we vote, one “issue” must take precedence.

LIFE matters!

Black leaders: 'Absurd' to support pro-abortion Hillary

Clenard H. Childress Jr,
director of The Life
Education and Resource
Network

During LEARN’s demonstrations that spanned from New Jersey to Washington, D.C., the black pro-life group asked black voters why they are turning a blind eye to the racist legacy of America’s abortion industry – and supporting a candidate who most closely reflects Sanger’s racially motivated ideals and goals.

“In May 1926, Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood and an outspoken advocate of eugenics, addressed the Ku Klux Klan’s women’s chapter, where she so impressed them that she received ‘a dozen invitations to speak to similar groups,’”  LifeSiteNews’ Ben Johnson informed. “She launched an effort dubbed the Negro Project, which paid black leaders to promote the use of birth control and sterilization.”

Hillary supporting black genocide?

Despite Sanger’s clearly exposed racist agenda, Clinton has expressed that she idolized Sanger for her ideals.

“[I am] in awe of [Sanger’s] courage, her tenacity, her vision,” the then secretary of state proclaimed at Planned Parenthood’s gala back in 2009.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

Pro-lifers to mark Planned Parenthood's 100 years with candlelight vigil

Saturday, October 15, 2016, the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League will host a candlelight prayer vigil at the Aurora Planned Parenthood, marking the abortion providers' 100th year.

Eric Scheidler, Executive Director of the Pro-Life Action League, noted the significance of the abortion giant’s anniversary, saying, “This month Planned Parenthood turns 100. That’s 100 years of preying on our families, polluting our culture, and, since 1970, killing our children by the millions. As they hold big fundraisers to celebrate this shameful milestone, those that value human life will unite to pray for an end to this organization that has done so much to destroy American families.”

Saturday's event will recognize Planned Parenthood's October 1916 founding by birth control activist and sex educator Margaret Sanger. While organized decades before, the first Planned Parenthood abortion was performed three years before the practice was legalized with the Supreme Court's Roe vs Wade decision. To date, Planned Parenthood has provided roughly 7.3 million abortions, currently adding over 320,000 to that total every year, cornering nearly one third of the U.S. abortion market.

The Aurora candlelight vigil - to begin at 6:00 PM Saturday - is one of 120 pro-life events in the United States marking the 100th anniversary of the abortion giant.

Click here for more from Illinois Review.

How should Pro-Lifers dialogue with the American people?

In the run up to the very important November 8 elections, understandably we pay a great deal of attention to the political process. But whoever is President, pro-life Donald Trump or pro-abortion Hillary Clinton, an overarching question will remain unchanged: how do those who affirm the value of all human life most propitiously dialogue with the American people?

The historian W.E. Lecky somewhere observes that the spread of any idea depends not only on the intrinsic power of that idea but also on the predisposition of the age to which it is presented. Taking that as our cue, clearly our task is to create in modern America an overriding receptivity—a predisposition—to the idea that the unborn child is “one of us,” deserving of justice and loving care.

Since pro-lifers believe that virtually every heart, no matter how calloused, can be touched, we have a challenging job ahead of us. But before we can devise a winning strategy for seriously influencing the hearts and minds of people, we must figure out what are today’s principal stumbling blocks, the primary obstacles that impede this receptivity to the message that the unborn are our brothers and sisters.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

100th Anniversary: 100 Celebrities Who Support Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood celebrates its 100th anniversary this Sunday, October 16. Over the years, the organization, which has aborted 7 million babies since 1970 (according to pro-life organizations), has never been short of support from its star-studded fan base.

From actress Kerry Washington to comedian Amy Poehler, here are 100 of the most famous celebrities who support Planned Parenthood through a myriad platforms... Click here for the list.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Early voting for 2016 elections has already begun

In the last presidential election, about 35% of voters, over one third of the total, voted early. In several states, over half of all voters voted prior to Election Day.

So if you’re waiting to share where the candidates stand with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and all other social media, DON’T. The time to start is NOW. Pro-lifers need to educate themselves AND their friends about where the candidates stand on life issues NOW. As of this writing, voters in eleven states have already begun, and many more will follow soon.

To find out how to cast a ballot early in your state click here.

You can view the IFRL PAC Endorsements by clicking here.

Please use your social networks to share the invaluable resources here with your pro-life family, friends and colleagues.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

“In case you didn’t know”…

A few of the many implications of a question asked in Sunday’s second presidential debate...

The issue of the Supreme Court–and its composition under either a President Trump or a President Clinton–did not come up until near the end. A questioner stated/asked

Good evening. Perhaps the most important aspect of this election is the Supreme Court justice. What would you prioritize as the most important aspect of selecting a Supreme Court justice?

In case you didn’t know, Clinton said,”I want a Supreme Court that will stick with Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose.” She added, “Now Donald put forth of the names of people he would consider. And among the ones that he has suggested are people who would reverse Roe v. Wade,” which, she said, “would be a terrible mistake and take us backwards.”

Trump responded...

Justice Scalia, great judge, died recently and we have a vacancy. I am looking to appoint judges very much in the mold of justice Scalia. I am looking for judges and have actually picked 20 of them. So that people would say: Highly respected. Highly thought of and actually very beautifully reviewed by just about everybody. But people that will respect the Constitution of the United States. And I think that this is so important.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Pro-lifers forced into abortion referrals

Both California and Illinois have passed tough laws forcing pro-life volunteers to refer pregnant women for abortions, despite the fact that the volunteers’ purpose is to convince mothers not to terminate the lives of their babies.

Jor-El Godsey, who heads Heartbeat International, tells OneNewsNow the pro-lifers also have to post signs that are contrary to their message.

“Including [a sign saying] 'This is not a licensed medical clinic,' which is kind of interesting,” he says, “because in some of the states, what's supposedly required there is no licensing for medical clinics - so it's a bit of an intentional obscuring of truth in order to advance an agenda.”

So why are abortionists so ardent in their quest to force pro-lifers to send clients to abortion clinics?

“They are losing in the marketplace because abortion numbers have been coming down, thank God,” he responds.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

How important are the 2016 elections? PPFA knows but do we?

PPFA President Cecile Richards waves as she walks
onto the stage at the Democratic National Convention
where abortion advocacy was at a fever pitch.
[Photo credit: Getty]

Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Votes can raise buckets of money, no doubt about it.

But its innumerable supporters in the media act not only as megaphones for whatever line it is PPFA wants advanced, they also attempt to act as a force suppressant. That is, they paint PPFA as if it is an irresistible invading army so powerful pro-lifers ought to just give up.

Reporter Tim Dickinson’s task begins by telling readers that this year’s output will make the previous outlays of the political arms of the largest abortion provider pale in comparison. So big, in fact, so buoyed with volunteers (they tell us they are going to reach three million voters in six states), that it “could tip the balance in as many as half-a-dozen swing states.”

No one ever said PPFA is modest.

But after rolling out the statistics, Dickinson shifts to the real purpose of his article: to paint Donald Trump and Mike Pence as “extremists” on abortion. That’s rich coming from an organization that performs over 300,000 abortions a year, takes in a half-billion from the federal government, and traffics in baby body parts.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

International Day of the Girl Child: End gendercide in China

Baby “Lian,” saved from abortion
by WRWF’s “Save a Girl” Campaign

An estimated 200 million women will not be celebrating International Day of the Girl Child today, because they are not alive. They were selectively aborted just because they were girls – victims of “gendercide.” Son preference runs amok in both China and India; both countries suffer from a vast gender imbalance, which in turn is driving human trafficking and sexual slavery.

Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, stated “The message of sex-selective abortion is that girls and women do not deserve to live. The selective elimination of 200 million women demands the passionate outrage of the women’s movement. It should be the number one priority of the international women’s movement.”

Women’s Rights Without Frontiers has launched a “Save a Girl” Campaign in China, which rescued hundreds of baby girls from gendercide. The advocacy group sent out a newsletter today highlighting the story of one such girl, “Lian,” who was almost aborted, but whose life was saved by their “Save a Girl” campaign...

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Jahi McMath Breathing on Own?

Jahi McMath

Readers may recall Jahi McMath–the teenager declared brain dead in California.

Her family–assisted by the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network and the Life Legal Defense Foundation–fought the determination in court.

A settlement led to Jahi being declared dead by California as the family was permitted to take her to New Jersey, where she remains.

Now, a few years later, her body has not deteriorated as usually happens in brain death, and indeed, her family claims she is slowly improving. California courts have ruled that the family may attempt to prove in court that she is not actually dead.

Her family has now released a video in which a breathing measuring machine is seen, with her mother urging Jahi to take breaths without mechanical assistance.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Can’t Refuse to Kill, Can Refuse to Care

As I have been–and will be–warning with intensifying urgency, moves are afoot to destroy medical conscience clauses under which doctors, nurses, and others can refuse to participate in abortions and assisted suicide.

This force-MDs-to-kill meme was summarized in a recent Reuters story:

Physicians shouldn’t have the legal right to act as conscientious objectors and refuse to provide services like abortion or assisted suicide even when these things conflict with their personal values, some doctors argue.

But what about patients who want life-sustaining treatment, that is, they want to remain in the fight to stay alive?

Some of the same activists who argue that doctors should be forced to be complicit in killing, say that doctors should have the right to refuse wanted treatment that keeps patients alive.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Pence exposes Clinton/Kaine abortion extremism

Many politicians – and others – are afraid to discuss abortion. That’s a big mistake.

Take vice presidential candidate Gov. Mike Pence’s debate performance on Tuesday. He won, and part of the reason was the way he handled abortion.

No clichés, just compassion. No bumper sticker phrases, just facts.

Let me quote Gov. Pence from the debate:

“But what I can’t understand is with Hillary Clinton, and now Senator Kaine at her side, is to support a practice like partial-birth abortion. The very idea that a child that is almost born into the world could still have their life taken from them is just anathema to me.”

Americans think partial-birth abortion is despicable. We passed a law that banned it, but now there are threats to bring it back by Supreme Court decree. And Hillary Clinton wants to make us all pay for abortions with our tax dollars.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

PP 'excited about abortion stories,' deploys $30M Hillary army

No longer content with the messaging that abortion advocates want to keep the lethal procedure “safe, legal and rare,” Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards and Clinton are now pushing the Democratic Party’s movement that is vying to normalize abortion across America by promoting extremist pro-abortion activism.

Part of Richards campaign now is urging women to come out of the closet and proudly share about their abortions – much like the homosexual agenda encourages those who engage in homosexual behavior to speak up for the LGBT community. She is attempting to make both sound as if abortion and LGBT activists are part of a civil rights movement.

Richards is fearful of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump harnessing the power to nominate pro-life SCOTUS judges – as he has promised to do if elected – especially with the lifelong pro-life activist, Mike Pence, at his side as his running mate.

Click here for more from OneNewsNow.

FRC Submits Public Comment with March for Life, Susan B. Anthony List, and Charlotte Lozier Institute Opposing Obama’s New HHS Title X Planned Parenthood Rule

The Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a new proposed regulation blocking states from defunding Planned Parenthood from federal Title X family planning funds.

Family Research Council submitted public comment today with the Susan B. Anthony List, the Charlotte Lozier Institute, and the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, urging HHS to reconsider and rescind this harmful regulation, which would effectively create a backdoor handout for the abortion industry.

You can read those comments in full here in a PDF.

Click here for more from Family Research Council.

Archbishop Aquila thoughtfully answers the question, “How should a Catholic vote?”

Archbishop Samuel Aquila
of Denver

In just 33 days Americans will make a monumental decision: who will be the 44th President of the United States. This will the 13th presidential election in which I have cast my vote and never have the stakes been higher.

Archbishop Samuel Aquila, writing in the Denver Catholic offers counsel as he addresses the question, “How should a Catholic vote?” He is not telling his parishioners whom to vote for, of course, but rather what principles should inform their decision as a Catholic.

Archbishop Aquila explains that he told a group of Catholics at a dinner gathering that he is not keen on either presidential candidate but

Then I said that they need to reflect on the platforms of both parties, with an emphasis on the human life issues. Everyone at the table knew well the teaching of the Church on life and the dignity of life. They knew that Catholics in good conscience cannot support candidates who will advance abortion.

Click here for more from National Right to Life.

Pence's clear stand on abortion issue draws accolades from pro-life leaders

Reaction to Gov. Mike Pence's outspoken offense on the Clinton-Kaine effort to increase the number of abortions in American continues to come in. Pence - who is Donald Trump's vice-presidential running mate - made his position clear Monday night during the VP debate when he said:

But what I can’t understand is with Hillary Clinton, and now Senator Kaine at her side, is to support a practice like partial birth abortion. I mean, to hold to the view – and I know Senator Kaine, you hold pro-life views personally – but the very idea that a child that is almost born into the world could still have their life taken from them is just anathema to me. I can’t conscience about a party that supports that.  And I know [Sen. Kaine has] historically opposed taxpayer funding of abortion, but Hillary Clinton wants to repeal the longstanding provision in the law where we said we wouldn't use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.

More and more young people today are embracing life because we know we’re better for it. Like Mother Teresa said at that famous national prayer breakfast: Bring the children. Let’s welcome the children into our world.

A society can be judged by how it deals with its most vulnerable: the aged, the infirmed, the disabled and the unborn. I believe it with all my heart that I couldn’t be more proud to be standing with a pro-life candidate in Donald Trump.

Click here for more from Illinois Review.