VIDEO: Activists Conduct Acts of Civil Disobedience at Abortion Clinics in Defense of Unborn

On September 15th, in three different cities across the United States, pro-lifers simultaneously entered abortion centers to talk to women scheduled for abortions, and by refusing to leave the clinics when told to do so by law enforcement, they offered an act of non-violent defense of unborn children about to be aborted, resulting in the pro-lifers' arrests.

    Watch the video "In Defense of the Red Rose Rescue" by Monica Miller...


    
    Watch RAW VIDEO of the #RedRoseRescue in Sterling Heights, MI – 9.15.17...



Those defending the unborn entered:

    Northland Family Planning, 3810 17 Mile Rd., Sterling Heights, MI
    
    Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, 101 S Whiting St. #215, Alexandria, Virginia
    
    University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health, E, 2301 Yale Blvd. SE, Albuquerque, NM.

Once inside the clinics, small teams of pro-lifers peacefully approached mothers seated in the waiting rooms and offered them red roses as a symbol of life. Attached to each rose was a card which on one side read, "You were made to love and to be loved ... Your goodness is greater than the difficulties of your situation. Circumstances in life change.  A new life, however tiny, brings the promise of unrepeatable joy." The card also contained phone numbers of local pregnancy help centers.

Those involved in the "Red Rose Rescue" talked to women scheduled for abortions, extending to them words of encouragement and offering material help.  In addition to reaching out to the mothers, the rescuers chose to remain in the clinic as an act of solidarity with the unborn children scheduled to be killed by abortionists.  The rescuers, like any others who recognize an urgent situation, responded to dire circumstances of imminent peril in a spirit of intervention on behalf of innocent babies and beleaguered mothers.

Click here for more from Christian Newswire

Pro-life groups to Senate Dems: Don't eliminate Hyde Amendment

After a Democratic senator boasted on Wednesday that his party’s Medicare bill would repeal the Hyde Amendment, pro-life groups are pushing back, stressing that the longstanding policy has saved lives.

“This month marks the 41st anniversary of the Hyde Amendment and in that time it has been found that over 2 million lives have been saved,” said Tom McClusky, vice president of government affairs at the March for Life in Washington, D.C.

“The senator might think we'd be better off without those people,” McClusky said, “however I know 2 million lives who would disagree and are thankful they aren't targeted by Sen. Blumenthal.”

Click here for more from CNA/EWTN News

Senate committee votes to overturn Trump administration’s overseas pro-life initiatives

A U.S. Senate committee passed an amendment last week that would wipe out all of President Donald J. Trump’s pro-life protections in foreign aid. Abortion advocates claim it was a sharp bipartisan rebuke to the President, but its main goal appears to be red meat for the Democratic base since the measure has no chance of moving forward.

The FY’18 State and Foreign Operations (SFOPs) was passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee containing a hostile amendment by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) that reverses the prohibition on overseas abortion funds, increases family planning funding, and restores funding to the controversial United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Shaheen’s amendment passed in a close 16-15 vote due to support from Republican Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Pro-life Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) opposed it. The SFOPs bill funds overseas diplomacy, humanitarian and global health assistance.

Click here for mre from C-Fam

House approves appropriations bill with numerous pro-life provisions

The prolife cause was advanced when the House of Representatives passed H.R. 3354, the Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, 2018 on Thursday.

Many new pro-life provisions were included in HR 3354, in addition to longstanding riders, including the Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion in Health and Human Services appropriations, and numerous others.

National Right to Life issued a scorecard warning letter on two amendments where the right to life position ultimately prevailed. The first, the Norton Amendment, was attempting to restore the so-called “budget autonomy” law enacted by local officials of the District of Columbia. National Right to Life sent a letter to the House urging them to vote against the Norton Amendment.

The Norton amendment would have allowed District officials to hijack over $8 billion annually in funds that the Constitution and the Home Rule Act place under congressional authority, opening the door to use of these funds to pay for elective abortions or other illicit purposes.

The second amendment where the pro-life position prevailed related to reversing the so-called “Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act” (RHNDA), a local law enacted by the District Council in 2014. RHNDA could be used to force pro-life, as well as other religious advocacy groups to make personnel decisions that are inconsistent with their sincerely held beliefs about the sanctity of human life.

The Palmer Amendment was adopted on the House floor today by a vote of 214-194. 212 Republicans and two Democrats–Rep. Lipinski (IL.) and Rep. Peterson MN–voted for the Palmer amendment.

Voting against were 183 Democrats and 11 Republicans–Rep. Coffman (Co), Rep. Costello (Pa), Rep. Curbelo (Fl), Rep. Dent(Pa), Rep. Fitzpatrick(Pa), Rep. Katko (NY), Rep. McSally (Az), Rep. Meehan(Pa), Rep. Poliquin(Me), Rep. Reed(NY), and Rep. Stefanik) voted against.

Twenty-five Members did not vote.

In addition, there is a new provision based on the Conscience Protection Act. The Conscience Protection Act would prohibit any level of government from mandating that health care providers participate in abortion. That would protect doctors, nurses, hospitals, and health plans (and employers who purchase the plans).

Most importantly, the language in the Conscience Protection Act empowers those who are affected by abortion mandates to file private lawsuits in federal courts – without the need for intervention by the pro-abortion activists who draw paychecks at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Another new provision would prevent federal funding for fetal tissue research from induced abortion.

Additionally, there is a provision to defund abortion providers receiving large Federal grants, including Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. Another provision eliminates funding for the Title X Family Planning Program, wherein Planned Parenthood receives a large sum of money in most states.

An additional provision added by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) would nullify DC’s dangerous and recently enacted assisted suicide law, euphemistically labeled, “The D.C. Death With Dignity Act.”

While we can expect that many of these prolife provisions will not ultimately become law, the bill serves as a strong prolife starting point and is the result of the hard work of a Congress that values life!

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Planned Parenthood center director admits its customers are poor, young ‘women of color’

Celebrating the new East Side location, which effectively replaces a downtown facility that was shut down in March 2016, Planned Parenthood Southeast president Staci Fox reminded the world about the long-term business strategy for the nation’s leading abortion chain: Target minorities and poor people, then profit off them through abortion.

“Predominantly our patients are about 15-29 years old, women of color living at 150 percent or more under the federal poverty level and those are the women who qualify for Medicaid,” Fox told NPR.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Abortion group ‘alarmed’ that 145 clinics have closed in the last 5 years

The Abortion Care Network (ACN), a coalition of independent abortion businesses, issued a report on the declining number of abortion centers. In the past five years, 145 independent “clinics” closed.

The ACN supports abortion businesses that are not affiliated with Planned Parenthood or a hospital chain. Of those, numbers went from 510 facilities in 2012 to 365 today, not counting the hundreds of Planned Parenthood centers.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Moral acceptability of abortion varies widely among Protestant denominations, Gallup finds

The Mainline Protestant denominations are Episcopalians, Presbyterians Lutherans, and Methodists. As the graph included on this page show, Episcopalians are those likely to find abortion morally acceptable (57%), followed by Presbyterians (53%) with Lutherans and Methodists tied at 53%.

By contrast only 13% of Pentecostals find abortion morally acceptable, followed by Southern Baptists (17%), Non-Denominational (26%), and Other Baptist (27%).

Three quick points. First, according to a survey published by Gallup in July, there are fewer Protestants that identify with a specific denomination and a growing number of “nones” who don’t have a specific identity at all. The fastest growing Protestant “denomination” is the non-denomination.

Barely a quarter of them (26%) find abortion morally acceptable.

Second, as noted in the quote above, this same caution must be exercised when talking about “Catholics.” Their position on the moral acceptability of abortion will vary along many grounds, most specifically how often they attend church.

Third, Pew Research finds very, very different results. From January 2017.

More than four-in-ten Americans (44%) say having an abortion is morally wrong, while 19% think it is morally acceptable and 34% say it is not a moral issue. These views also differ by religious affiliation: About three-quarters of white evangelical Protestants (76%) say having an abortion is morally wrong, but just 23% of religiously unaffiliated people agree.

How can that be? Gallup asks something that is essentially abstract while Pew queries about what people feel when they are asked about having an abortion. This is a reality check and people are far less likely to say it is morally acceptable to actually abort a child.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Illinois, Hawaii put federal funding in jeopardy by forcing pregnancy centers, doctors to promote abortion

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed complaints Monday with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of pregnancy care centers and pro-life doctors in Illinois and Hawaii who are being forced to advertise for the abortion industry. The federal Church and Weldon amendments do not allow states which receive federal funding to compel medical personnel to operate contrary to their conscience or religious beliefs.

ADF attorneys represent pregnancy care centers and physicians in both a state and federal lawsuit in Illinois and a federal lawsuit in Hawaii. So far, courts have issued injunctions against the forced-advertising law at issue in both Illinois cases.

“Government officials shouldn’t be allowed to force anyone to provide free advertising for the abortion industry,” said ADF Legal Counsel Elissa Graves. “Furthermore, federal law simply doesn’t allow it. States that compel pro-life doctors and staff to act contrary to their conscience do not qualify for federal funds. We have filed these complaints to inform HHS of what is happening so that it can take action.”

ADF attorneys submitted the complaints on behalf of Dr. Anthony Caruso and A Bella Baby OBGYN in Illinois, Dr. Tina Gingrich and Maryville Women’s Center in Illinois, and A Place for Women in Hawaii. The three complaints explain that the rights of doctors and pregnancy care centers “to offer medical assistance to women in need without compromising their religious convictions relating to abortion or abortion-causing drugs are protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution” in addition to federal law, Illinois law, and the Illinois and Hawaii constitutions.

Illinois SB 1564 compels speech and action in violation of the oaths of health professionals. Specifically, pro-life doctors and pregnancy centers must tell pregnant women the names of doctors they believe offer abortions, that abortion has unspecified “benefits,” and that abortion is a “treatment option” for pregnancy.

Click here for more from National Right to Life

Catholic leaders defend Trump after Pope challenges his pro-life views

Pro-life Catholic leaders are defending President Trump against Pope Francis after the Pontiff questioned Trump’s pro-life views, despite the fact that Trump has racked up major pro-life accomplishments during his short time in office.

Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), recounted a short litany of pro-life actions already taken by the new White House. “President Trump has appointed a pro-life constitutionalist to the Supreme Court. He has appointed pro-life constitutionalist to the lower benches. He has defunded the rapaciously pro-abortion UN Population Fund. He has taken pro-life positions at the UN. He has staffed the Department of Health and Human Services stem to stern with pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

U.S. judge tells Christian churches they must cover abortion in insurance plan

A federal judge told three Christian congregations in California that they have no case in wanting to opt out of the state’s requirement that they cover abortions through their health insurance plans.

U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller upheld a 2014 requirement of the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) that all employers throughout the state must pay for abortion insurance for their employees. She told the three churches that they failed to state an adequate claim.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

U.S. blasts lead UN agency for supporting China’s one-child policy

The United States blasted the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) on Thursday (Sept. 8) for supporting China’s four decades-long birth control policy, which has led to human rights abuses such as forced abortions. The censure came as the agency unveiled its new three-year plan which promoted policies on sexuality which UN member States have expressly rejected in negotiations.

“As long as UNFPA supports or participates in any program of coercive birth limitation, the United States will not fund UNFPA,” U.S. deputy ECOSOC ambassador Stephanie Amadeo said.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

In US Supreme Court Brief, Christian Doctors Cite Conscience Conflicts Similar to Creative Artists

The nation's largest faith-based professional association of health professionals, the Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org), contends in a legal brief filed with the Supreme Court that its members' conscience battles parallel those of creative artists sued for declining to participate in proceedings inconsistent with their conscience and convictions.

CMA has filed a brief with the Court in the case (Masterpiece Bakeshops v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission) of Jack Phillips, a cake artist sued for declining to participate in a same-sex wedding, an event that contradicts his moral persuasions. CMA contends in its brief that health professionals face similar challenges to their First Amendment freedoms in situations involving abortion and other matters involving ethical choices and professional medical judgment.

"Preserving freedom of medical judgment for doctors is an essential protection for patients. Imagine if the government were to dictate every medical decision and decide every medical prescription and procedure apart from the medical judgment of the doctors who know and care for their patients best."

Click here for more from Christian Newswire

Outrage: The American Nurses Association Approves Physician Assisted Starvation Suicide

“People with decision-making capacity have the right to stop eating and drinking as a means of hastening death.”

and

“There is an extensive knowledge base to help manage the burden of most physical symptoms (of voluntary stopping of eating and drinking). Symptom control is imperative.”

With these quotes from its recent position statement “Nutrition and Hydration at the End of Life,” the American Nurses Association (ANA) effectively gives up the principle of opposing physician assisted suicide.

ANA Recommends that:

-Nurses recognize those situations when nutrition and hydration can no longer benefit a patient, and adhere to clinical standards that include providing nutrition and hydration only to patients for whom it is indicated.

-Patients with decision-making capacity—or their surrogates, who are relying on the patients’ preference or have knowledge of the person’s values and beliefs—will be supported in decision-making about accepting or refusing clinically appropriate nutrition and hydration at the end of life.

-Nurses will have adequate and accurate information to understand patients’ cultural, ethnic, and religious beliefs and values regarding nutrition and hydration at the end of life. Patients’ views and beliefs should be respected.

-Nurses will support patients and surrogates in the decision-making process by providing accurate, precise and understandable information about risks, benefits and alternatives.

-Decisions about accepting or forgoing nutrition and hydration will be honored, including those decisions about artificially delivered nutrition as well as VSED.

-People with decision-making capacity have the right to stop eating and drinking as a means of hastening death.”

Click here for more from National Right to Life

20 state Attorneys General tell Supreme Court to release videos exposing Planned Parenthood

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich authored the amicus brief, which argues for lifting an injunction by Judge William Orrick and upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stopping the release of the undercover videos made by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP).  Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin are all part of the amicus brief.

Banning the videos “hampers law enforcement’s ability to effectively receive information and investigate possible civil or criminal wrongdoing,” Brnovich reasoned.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Vision 2020 - Week 30 - Senator Terry Link (D) and Senator Kimberly A. Lightford (D)

Pray for our legislators...

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
--Isaiah 42:16

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.

NY court unanimously rejects assisted suicide in major pro-life victory

New York’s highest court upheld the state’s ban on assisted suicide Thursday, in what Catholic leaders have called an important pro-life victory for the state.

The New York State Court of Appeals ruled unanimously Sept. 7 to uphold the state’s law which bans physicians from providing life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients.

Catholic leaders welcomed the decision, noting it was in part the result of the combined work of the Church together with numerous other advocacy groups which oppose assisted suicide.

The written decision was “very strong, they shot this down from all angles,” Kathleen Gallagher with the New York State Catholic Conference told CNA.

Click here for more from CNA/EWTN News

Planned Parenthood tries to capitalize on latest immigration controversy

The leader of the nation’s most lucrative abortion business used President Trump’s decision to phase out an exemption for illegal immigrants who came to the country as children as a fundraising opportunity.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards sent a fundraising email to supporters bemoaning the rollback of former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  “At Planned Parenthood, we firmly believe that every person has the right to live, work, and raise a family freely,” Richards said without referring to abortion. “We believe in every person’s right to control their own destiny and their own body.”

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

Pro-life leaders blast U.S. Congress for failing to defund Planned Parenthood

Pro-life leaders wrote a letter to members of Congress on Tuesday, rebuking them for not keeping their campaign promises and imploring them to defund Planned Parenthood once and for all.

Six leading women and four influential men among the nation’s top pro-life activists reminded legislators that America gave them their positions in part because they promised to defund the nation’s largest and most lucrative abortion conglomerate.

Click here for more from LifeSiteNews

US bishops join pro-life groups in support of Conscience Protection Act

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) joined thirty-two other major pro-life, religious, and health care organizations on September 6 urging the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to pass the Conscience Protection Act of 2017 (H.R. 644/S. 301). Signatories include numerous medical groups representing tens of thousands of health care professionals who object to abortion and are seeking legal protection to serve their patients in good conscience.

"Federal laws protecting conscientious objection to abortion have been approved for decades by Congresses and Presidents of both parties. Even many 'pro-choice' Americans realize that the logic of their position requires them to respect a choice not to be involved in abortion," they wrote. "Yet, with violations of federal conscience laws occurring in California, New York, Washington, Alaska, Illinois, and most recently Oregon, it is increasingly clear that the current laws offer far less protection in practice than in theory."

The Conscience Protection Act (H.R. 644/S. 301), introduced in the House on January 24 by Reps. Diane Black (R-TN) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), and in the Senate on February 3 by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), addresses several "loopholes" in current federal laws that have allowed violations of conscience rights to continue. The letter cites a 2014 California mandate requiring almost all health plans in the state to pay for elective abortions in direct violation of the Weldon amendment, and the subsequent failure of the HHS Office of Civil Rights to enforce Weldon. It also cites the government's failure to vindicate the rights of New York nurse Cathy DeCarlo after she was pressured to assist at a late-term abortion.

Click here for more from The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

House Financial Services Appropriations Bill contains new prolife riders, amendments expected

The House of Representatives today entered the second day of debate over the Financial Services Appropriations spending measure. Congressional leaders and President Trump may agree on a temporary spending measure that would extend federal funding and ignore much of what ends up in the spending measure. Even so, the House Appropriations bill serves as a strong pro-life starting point for negotiations with the House and Senate.

This House appropriations bill carries a significant amount of excellent prolife language. In addition to continuing longstanding riders like the Hyde, which prohibits Federal Medicaid dollars for paying for elective abortion, there are several new pro-life policies that would change current law if enacted.
There is a provision based on the Conscience Protection Act. The Conscience Protection Act would prohibit any level of government from mandating that health care providers participate in abortion. It would protect doctors, nurses, hospitals, and health plans (and employers who purchase the plans). Most importantly, the language empowers those who are affected by abortion mandates to file private lawsuits in federal courts – without the need for intervention by the pro-abortion activists who draw paychecks at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Another provision would prevent funding for fetal tissue research from induced abortion. An additional provision would nullify DC’s dangerous and recently enacted assisted suicide law.
There are expected to be dozens of amendments, with two of pro-life interest. As reported by the Appropriations Committee, the bill includes language to make null and void the so-called “budget autonomy” law enacted by local officials of the District of Columbia. National Right to Life sent a letter to the House urging them to vote against the Norton Amendment which would delete this crucial provision from the bill. The Norton amendment would mean continuing to allow District officials to hijack over $8 billion annually in funds that the Constitution and the Home Rule Act place under congressional authority, opening the door to use of these funds to pay for elective abortions or other illicit purposes.

The other amendment relates to the so-called “Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act” (RHNDA), a local law enacted by the District Council in 2014.

The RHNDA prohibits employers within the District from engaging in “discrimination” on the basis of “decisions” reached by employees, or potential employees, regarding “reproductive health” matters. It is not disputed that abortion is among the matters encompassed by the term “reproductive health” as used in the new law. The scope of the RHNDA is very broad, covering any “decisions” that are “related to the use . . . of a particular . . . medical service . . .” [emphasis added]

We are urging the House to vote in favor of the Palmer Amendment to curb implementation of the “Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act.”

While we can expect that many of these prolife provisions will not become law, the bill serves as a strong prolife starting point.

Click here for more from National Right to Life