Last week the people of Ireland voted to repeal Ireland’s Eighth Amendment that granted “equal protection of the right to life of the preborn child and his or her mother.” After the repeal, “legislators will have the power to legalize abortion for any reason up to birth.”

Leading up to the vote, however, Facebook, Twitter and Google all weighed in — arguably on the side of the pro-abort forces:

Google, Facebook, Twitter ban pro-life ads on Ireland abortion referendum

Leading up to the May 25th referendum in Ireland on repealing the Eighth Amendment, Google announced that it would suspend all advertising related to the subject. The move has been condemned by pro-life groups as an attempt “to rig the election.”

In the announcement, Google claimed the decision came as part of “our update around election integrity efforts globally.” Pro-abortion groups applauded the decision, but as observers have noted, the only ads related to the referendum appear to be pro-life ads, so the ban would effectively benefit the pro-abortion campaign and harm campaign efforts for life in Ireland.

Also, from the article:

The repeal campaign has benefitted from marked pro-abortion bias in the media, celebrity endorsements and significant funding from the international abortion lobby. As such, the pro-life campaigners are at a disadvantage and have used online advertising on Google and social media platforms to reach voters with their message. The pro-life groups Save the 8th and the Iona Institute issued a joint statement that read in part, “Online was the only platform available to the No campaign to speak to voters directly. That platform is now being undermined in order to prevent the public from hearing the message of one side.”

And this:

Twitter has also announced that it will suspend ads related to the referendum ahead of the May 25th vote. Twitter has a confirmed history of censoring pro-life content.

Facebook also “jumped on the bandwagon” to ban ads. The article notes that “the pro-abortion side is far from immune from outside influence as this side has received significant monetary support from George Soros and other globalist elites.” The question whether the social media giants would’ve issued the restriction “if a surge in advertising had come from the Yes [pro-abortion] side?” is worth asking.

Facebook claimed “neutrality” in a statement: “We understand the sensitivity of this campaign and will be working hard to ensure neutrality at all stages… Our goal is simple: to help ensure a free, fair and transparent vote on this important issue.”

Do you believe them?

There is plenty of reason not to. After all, the way the social media giants have been caught censoring conservatives, the claim of neutrality isn’t believable in the least. To read more about that — skim the many articles linked here.

After the 2016 elections, those social media giants realized that if their political agenda was to be advanced, they were going to have to clamp down even further on the information being provided by conservative organizations. Here was a headline at The Daily Signal: “After Royally Screwing Up the Election, the Media Want Control Over Your Facebook News.”

If the social media giants are indeed Leftists and committed to silencing conservatives, what is to be done?

An interesting article recently posted at National Review about whether those big tech companies are violating anti-trust laws. Here is an excerpt:

There is a strong Republican antitrust tradition.

The big digital monopolies demand that we conform to their worldview and shut us down when we dissent. They have too much power. They are are threat to this country. Congress is doing nothing about it. It’s time to complain, while we still can. #Tucker @FoxNews

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 27, 2018

When he tweeted these words, Carlson was expressing a sentiment that many on the right have come to embrace. People are concerned, with good reason, that big tech companies discriminate against conservatives. Numerous conservative outlets have had their videos demonetized on Google’s YouTube. PragerU is appealing their loss in a lawsuit over that. A study by The Western Journal showed that a change to Facebook’s algorithm disproportionately harmed conservative sites.

In normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem for government to solve, but social media has come to dominate our national conversation. Large political websites thrive or die based on changes to Facebook and Google algorithms. Everyone from cable news to newspapers to online-only publications create and tweak their content based on how they think it will play on social media. A study has also shown that Google search results can have a frighteningly large impact on elections:

Randomized, controlled experiments conducted with more than 10,000 people from 39 countries suggest that one company alone — Google LLC, which controls about 90 percent of online search in most countries — has likely been determining the outcomes of upwards of 25 percent of the national elections in the world for several years now, with increasing impact each year as Internet penetration has grown.

Keep in mind that we’re not talking about individuals or even whole industries here; we’re talking about unaccountable monopolies with detailed information about hundreds of millions of Americans, billions in cash reserves, and the capability to shape what is discussed and what is not discussed in America in a way that no book, radio show, television show or individual has ever had.

The entire article can be found here.

Not everyone agrees. You can read an opposing view here.

Earlier this year, IFI asked the question “What is the Conservatives Movement’s Answer to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube’s ‘Viewpoint Discrimination’?‘” That question is still on the table.

So many smaller groups often rely on the relatively inexpensive social media advertising options to help make more people aware that there are other arguments other than those coming from the Leftist “mainstream” media, Hollywood, and any number of other outlets.

This issue, and this challenge, isn’t going away any time soon. There is plenty of talent and resources available on the conservative side of the aisle. Eventually that talent and those dollars will have to get serious about winning the information war — with the help of Leftist social media giants or not.

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[Last] month Governor Butch Otter signed a law making Idaho the fifth state to mandate that women getting a medical (drug-induced) abortion be told that the abortion may possibly be stopped after the first dose if the woman changes her mind about having the abortion. This abortion reversal process  involves taking the hormone progesterone to counteract the first abortion drug mifepristone and before taking the second drug misoprostol 36-72 hours later that causes expulsion of the unborn baby. There is now a website at www.abortionpillreversal.com for information on abortion reversal that includes a hotline phone number at 1-877-558-0333.

The first abortion reversal  was performed by Dr. Matthew Harrison in 2007 and by 2015, he claimed that more than 213 babies had been saved. Although not always successful, abortion reversal has resulted in hundreds more babies alive today. Last December, the California Board of Registered Nursing finally notified Heartbeat International that it can now grant continuing education units (CEUs) to nurses who study the life-saving process known as Abortion Pill Reversal.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups are not pleased.

As I wrote in my February 16, 2017 blog “Are Mail Order Abortions Coming?” , medical abortions rates now rival surgical abortion rates while abortion clinics are closing at a record pace because of factors like “economic difficulties”, “a generally hostile atmosphere and declining demand”. Thus, the medical abortion procedure has become more appealing to groups like Planned Parenthood and now there are even efforts to provide more medical abortions by telemedicine even though a 2014 study found more complications with medical abortions than surgical ones.

THE PROMOTION AND CHANGING CRITERIA FOR MEDICAL ABORTION

In a disturbing March 27, 2018 Medscape article “Medical Abortion in Very Early Pregnancy” (password protected),  Peter Kovacs, MD, PhD touts a study that allegedly shows medical abortion is now safe even “as soon as early pregnancy is diagnosed” and even before an ultrasound can show if the unborn baby is developing outside the womb. This abnormality is called an ectopic pregnancy and, if not detected early, can result in life-threatening complications and surgery.  Ectopic pregnancy occurs in 1-2% of  all pregnancies.

But as even Dr. Kovacs admits:

“Under well-controlled conditions using sedation and appropriate pain control, surgical termination of pregnancy is associated with minimal bleeding or pain. However, it can be associated with surgical complications (trauma, heavier bleeding, infection), which can lead to further interventions.

Medical abortion can be more painful because the products of conception have to be expelled from the uterus, and it is accompanied by prolonged bleeding. Still, medical abortion obviates surgical complications and is significantly cheaper.” (Emphasis added)

He recommends  “(A)propriate patient selection (no increased risk for or symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, appropriate follow-up to confirm successful abortion, patient compliance)” as obviously important. (Emphasis added)

CONCLUSION

Planned Parenthood tells women that having a medical abortion (at home, of course) is just “kind of like having a really heavy, crampy period” with large clots and that “(a)ny chills, fevers, or nausea you have should go away pretty quickly”.

And that:

“People can have a range of emotions after having an abortion. Most people feel relief, but sometimes people feel sad or regretful. This is totally normal. If your mood keeps you from doing the things you usually do each day, call your doctor or nurse for help” along with numbers to call for “free, confidential, and non-judgmental emotional support after an abortion.” (Emphasis added)

But two things Planned Parenthood does not tell women about is medical abortion reversal and the availability of real assistance with a problematic pregnancy including crisis pregnancy centers that now outnumber abortion clinics in the US.

Women need-and have a right-to know about both these alternatives.  It’s up to all of us to make sure as many women as possible know this.

Read more:

Study finds reversal of mifepristone safe, effective

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com

I have had two children; I was old enough, when I became pregnant, that it made sense to do the testing for Down syndrome. Back then, it was amniocentesis, performed after 15 weeks; now, chorionic villus sampling can provide a conclusive determination as early as nine weeks. I can say without hesitation that, tragic as it would have felt and ghastly as a second-trimester abortion would have been, I would have terminated those pregnancies had the testing come back positive. I would have grieved the loss and moved on.

That’s an excerpt from an op-ed penned by Ruth Marcus, editor for the Washington Post and Harvard Law School grad.

Been there, not done that.

My late wife Mary Hickey was a beautiful and wickedly smart woman. More important, she was the loving mother of my three children.

In 1988, we learned that we were to be blessed with our second child. Fifteen weeks into Mary’s pregnancy she was tested via the same amniocentesis ritual described by Ruth Marcus. Mary’s obstetrician was a woman who determined there was a 99.9% surety that our child would be a Down Syndrome baby.  Mary responded, “So what?”

The doctor snorted, ” Well, I would abort it ASAP.”

Mary replied, “Well, you’re fired.”

Mary also called her a name I won’t repeat and shopped for a physician who would first, do no harm.

Our son was born, and he is a big healthy, happy, strapping broth of a man, who was captain of his high school football team and is now a stationary engineer.

Science.  Think about it.

I am an English teacher, and Mary was an art teacher. Mary died in 1998 and ordered me to send all three children to Catholic schools. I did. Sadly, they were raised by me and without this smart and loving woman.

I can be as much a monster as the worst of people. My literary studies taught me that a monster is a warning/a portent. The word comes from the Latin monere: to warn. 

The Golem, Grendel, and Irish Banshee all came from human imagination. Science gave us nastier monsters.  Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde and designer babies come from science, or man’s attempt to usurp God.

We all have monsters within us, but those of us who have metaphysical connections to eternal truths–that is the  belief in God–fear Him who created us out of love more than the monsters we create out of our fears, insecurities or vices.

The Greeks created a monstrum horrendum in the character of the first feminist Medea. Medea slaughtered her sons to show the gods that no man could hurt her “when Jason deserted Medea for the daughter of King Creon of Corinth; in revenge, Medea murdered Creon, his daughter, and her own two sons by Jason and took refuge with King Aegeus of Athens, having escaped from Corinth in a cart drawn by dragons sent by her grandfather Helios.”  She then, like Ruth Marcus, moved on.

She could have it all and she married King Aegeus who dumped her when she tried to poison his son Theseus. Kill your kids, why not kill other people’s kids. That is the mad genius of abortion supporters, ” I would have grieved the loss and moved on.” Monstrous.

Ruth Marcus offers sober and clinical reasons for aborting a Down Syndrome child that all add up to selfishness:

I’m going to be blunt here: That was not the child I wanted. That was not the choice I would have made. You can call me selfish, or worse, but I am in good company. The evidence is clear that most women confronted with the same unhappy alternative would make the same decision.

I am going to be blunt here, an Austrian paper-hanger was in good company from 1933-1945.  Monstrous.

As a nurse threatened with termination for refusing to participate in an unethical health care decision years ago, I have a special interest in conscience rights for health care professionals.

Over the past several decades, new threats to conscience rights have widened from refusing to participate in abortions to other deliberate death decisions like withdrawal of feedings from people with serious brain injuries, VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking), terminal sedation and physician-assisted suicide.

Thus, I am pleased that the Trump administration recently announced the new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division  in the department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to enforce “federal laws that protect conscience and the free exercise of religion and prohibit coercion and discrimination in health and human services”. The division specifically mentions “issues such as abortion and assisted suicide (among others) in HHS-funded or conducted programs and activities” and includes a link to file a conscience or religious freedom complaint “if you feel a health care provider or government agency coerced or discriminated against you (or someone else) unlawfully”.

Predictably, both Compassion and Choices and Planned Parenthood immediately condemned the new department.

In a recent fundraising email, Compassion and Choices states that:

 “This office (OCR) is not about freedom; it’s about denying patient autonomy. Under their proposed rules, providers are encouraged to impose their own religious beliefs on their patients and withhold vital information about treatment options from their patients — up to, and including, the option of medical aid in dying. And your federal tax dollars will be used to protect physicians who make the unconscionable decision to willfully withhold crucial information regarding their care from a patient and abandon them when they are most vulnerable.” (Emphasis added)

Planned Parenthood is just as adamant and includes other issues in their reaction:

“OCR is an important office within the HHS that’s meant to protect health care for marginalized communities, including LGBTQ people and underserved women. But the creation of the new “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division” paves the way for discrimination against people for a variety of reasons — be it their gender identity, sexual orientation, or decision to access a safe, legal abortion.” (Emphasis in original)

A SHORT RECENT HISTORY OF FEDERAL CONSCIENCE RIGHTS PROTECTIONS

In response to declining numbers of doctors willing to do abortions in the 1990s, efforts began to mainstream abortion into the health professions such as requiring abortion training for OB/GYNs, shifting training and practice into teaching hospitals and  integrating abortion into regular health care.

The National Abortion Federation along with Medical Students for Choice, pushed for change and in 1995, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education ruled that OB/GYN residency programs must include abortion training or lose accreditation.

That was overturned the next year with the Coats Amendment passed by Congress but  efforts to marginalize pro-life medical professionals continued, especially with newly passed physician-assisted suicide laws and well-publicized withdrawal of feeding tube cases like Terri Schiavo’s.

In 2008, the Christian Medical Association compiled a list of dozens of real-life cases of discrimination in health care, including doctors, medical students, nurses and pharmacists.

That same year, President Bush strengthened the HHS rules protecting the conscience rights of doctors and nurses to refuse to perform abortions.

In 2011, the Obama administration dismantled key provisions of the Bush administration conscience rights rules.

That same year, 12 New Jersey nurses faced firing for refusal to participate in abortion and had to rely on groups like Alliance Defending Freedom to bring a  lawsuit defending their rights. They were finally vindicated in 2013.

Right now, Wisconsin is considering a physician-assisted suicide bill that states a doctor’s refusal to prescribe the lethal drugs or refer the patient to a willing doctor “constitutes unprofessional conduct”.

Obviously, conscience rights cannot depend just on litigation, conflicting state laws or professional organization positions like the American Medical Association’s  or American Nurses Association’s that don’t vigorously defend conscience rights.

As explained on the Dorsey Health Care group website ,

“In January 2018, OCR announced a proposed rule to strengthen conscience-based protections for individuals and entities with objections to certain activities based on religious belief and moral convictions.”

“OCR now proposes to return much of 45 CFR part 88 to its 2008 Bush-era form, adding a requirement that certain recipients of HHS funds certify they comply with conscience protection laws and notify individuals of their rights thereunder”, enhance investigative and enforcement abilities and expands its enforcement authority to more conscience-protection laws than the 2008 or 2011 iterations. It will also “handle complaints [both formal and not], perform compliance reviews, investigate, and seek appropriate action,” including terminating funding and requiring repayment. OCR states “that a more centralized approach to enforcement of conscience protections is necessary in part due to rapidly rising complaints.” (Emphasis added) Comments on this proposed rule can be submitted by March 27, 2018.

CONCLUSION

Health care professionals with pro-life views have been under attack for decades. It’s more than just not being “politically correct”; the very existence of such health care professionals threatens the appropriation of health care by groups dedicated to promoting abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia as civil rights.

Without strong conscience rights protections like a successful Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, they will succeed in making health care termination-friendly.

But in the end, enforcement of the most basic civil right of health care professionals to provide care for patients without being required to participate in life-destroying  activities should not be determined by politics or popularity polls but by the acceptance of the universal principle of respect and protection for human life.

This article was originally published at NancyValko.com

Snowflakes are a thing of beauty, wafting through the air, hushing the cacophony of non-nature noise, painting the landscape a fresh vivid, pristine white. King David, a sinful man who found mercy in repentance, references both the pre-born and snow in Psalm 51:

¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.

² Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.

³ For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.

⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.

⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Fresh snow is the the perfect picture of a fresh start. Snowflakes are also amazing in their individuality, their stunning uniqueness:

It is unlikely that any two snowflakes are alike due to the estimated 10¹⁹ (10 quintillion) water molecules which make up a typical snowflake, which grow at different rates and in different patterns depending on the changing temperature and humidity within the atmosphere that the snowflake falls through on its way to the ground.

Thus, the name Snowflake Baby is so very apt — a baby who began life as a fertilized, frozen embryo. As written at Nightlight.org:

Just as each snowflake is frozen, unique and a gift from heaven, so are each of our embryo adopted Snowflake Babies. We hope to help each donated embryo grow, develop and live a full life.

January, Sanctity of Human Life Month, is a wonderful time to reacquaint folks with “Snowflake Babies” (not to be confused with the spoiled, whiny, college “snowflakes” who act worse than babies). It’s tragic that America even has the need for a “Sanctity of Human Life Month” and “Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.” In the words of Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

I hate Sanctity of Human Life Sunday because I’m reminded that we have to say things to one another that human beings shouldn’t have to say.

• Mothers shouldn’t kill their children.
• Fathers shouldn’t abandon their babies.
• No human life is worthless, regardless of skin color, age, disability, economic status.

The very fact that these things must be proclaimed is a reminder of the horrors of this present darkness.

Hannah Strege, the world’s first Snowflake Baby, made headlines, in print and on TV, when she and her parents joined President George W. Bush in 2006 as he vetoed the embryonic stem-cell research bill. President Bush, surrounded by a “group of families with children who were born from adopted frozen embryos that had been left unused at fertility clinics,” explained:

This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it.”

These boys and girls are not spare parts. They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research. They remind us that we all begin our lives as a small collection of cells.

Showing his true colors regarding life, President Obama, in 2013, attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to defund the Embryo Adoption Program, funded under Section 301 of the Public Health Service Act. It should be noted that Obama was scheduled to be the keynote speaker on April 25, 2013, at Planned Parenthood’s annual gala (with the ironic theme, “Time For Care”) in Washington, D.C. Though he cancelled the dinner address to attend a funeral in Texas, he did speak to the conference the next morning.

In his remarks, the former president thanked Cecile Richards:

Cecile, thank you for the warm introduction, and thank you for the outstanding leadership that you’ve shown over the years. You just do a great, great job. I want to thank all of you for the remarkable work that you’re doing day in, day out in providing quality health care to women all across America. You are somebody that women — young women, old women, women in between — count on for so many important services. And we are truly grateful to you.

And concluded with, “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”

Newsflash Obama: God does not bless any organization that profits from the wholesale murder of the unborn.

This is the battle we fight and must win. Death versus life.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

And fighting joyfully for life, Nightlight prominently posts this verse on their site:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you. (Jeremiah 1:5)

Nightlight explains Snowflake Babies:

The ever-increasing use of infertility treatments, particularly in vitro fertilization (IVF), has resulted in an ever-increasing number of embryos in cryo-preservation. For the families who have remaining embryos they don’t plan to use, the only solution that gives the embryos a opportunity to live is donation for reproduction. Those embryos need a friendly womb!

In the course of one election, people in this nation chose a man who has, almost surprisingly, become the most pro-life president in America’s history. Barack Obama became the first president to speak to the national annual meeting of Planned Parenthood. Donald Trump is the first president to address the National March for Life.

Obama wanted to defund the Embryo Adoption Program,Trump would like to defund Planned Parenthood.

And now, at a time when the pro-life message and movement seems to be winning, these precious Snowflake Babies should receive attention.

As written at Students for Life of America:

Not only is adoption a viable and preferable option to abortion, even the excess embryos from In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) can be adopted. The children who result from these adoptions are called “snowflake children” because “embryos are unique and fragile, just like a snowflake.”

The first embryo adoption program began in 1997 by Nightlight Christian Adoptions, a California and South Carolina-based non-profit organization; and since that time Nightlight has allowed 247 embryos to achieve their ultimate purpose — life. This program meets a great demand, as there are over half a million frozen embryos (pre-born children) in cryo-banks in the United States waiting for a chance to develop into babies; just as there are many women who actually want to be pregnant but are unable.

But there are those on the other side of the battle who decry the Snowflakes program.

In an article at NBCnews.com titled “The problem with embryo adoption” author Arthur Caplan, Ph.D. argues:

One of the strangest outcomes of the ongoing debate over embryonic stem-cell research is the government’s use of taxpayer money to support a little-known private organization called Snowflakes.

While helping people have babies is ethically commendable, there is something very strange about extending the use of the term “adoption” to embryos.

So what’s the big deal about a religious group that believes all embryos are children and is trying to find them “adoptive” parents among infertile couples using IVF? Well, actually there is a lot that is wrong.

Moreover, using terms like “adoption” encourages people to believe that frozen embryos are the equivalent of children. But they are not the same.

The older a woman gets, the less likely her embryos are to become babies.

The battle of life versus death is so clear. Caplan scoffs at the notion that a fertilized embryo is fully human. But we answer to the Author of life who tells us to choose life. And we must always bear in mind God’s words written in Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you.”

Snowflake baby Marley Jade. Frozen for 17 years.

These embryos should not be treated as disposable tissue. Consider the case of Marley Jade, a healthy baby girl born on June 3, 2016, who was a Snowflake baby for 17 years before being adopted! 17 years!

God knows these little ones. And we should never stop fighting the good fight for life.

Yes, snowflakes are beautiful. But Snowflake Babies are beautiful and amazing and a testimony of God’s handiwork — unique and precious and worth fighting for.

Links to further information are below.

EmbryoAdoption.org

Snowflakes Embryo Adoption

National Embryo Donation Center

MiraclesWaiting.org

Should Christians Adopt Embryos by Russell Moore

Does the Rise in IVF Popularity Leaves Thousands of Babies in Limbo?

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Heroism is usefully defined as an act of selflessness — sacrificing oneself for the life of another. Medal of Honor recipients perform acts of true heroism, often giving their life to save their brothers in arms.

But what is the opposite of heroism? What would you call an organization and its leader who brag about killing the most innocent among us and killing in a barbaric, painful manner for selfish reasons?

Planned Parenthood and its leader, Cecile Richards, are responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of babies annually and brag about just that.

Found within the Planned Parenthood Annual Report, a quote by President Cecile Richards:

We are here today to thank generations of organizers, troublemakers, and hell-raisers who formed secret sisterhoods, who opened Planned Parenthood health centers in their communities, and demanded the right to control their own bodies.

Cecile Richards
Women’s March 2017

Breathtaking! Ms. Richards is proud of generations of “organizers, troublemakers, and hell-raisers who formed secret sisterhoods, who opened Planned Parenthood health centers in their communities, and demanded the right to control their own bodies.”

Of course women should have the right to protect and control their own body. But should not the innocent child in the womb have the same right to life written in our Declaration of Independence and admonished in the Bible?

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. (Declaration of Independence)

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. (Deuteronomy 30)

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. (Jeremiah 1:5a)

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14a)

Scripture is abundantly clear that we face a battle between death and life. Jesus said: “…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) We’re told to choose life.

But Cecile Richards boasts about her abortions and her agency that chooses death for millions of babies — over seven million, six hundred thousand unborn children murdered through Planned Parenthood alone since Roe v. Wade.

Richards wrote in a 2014 Elle column:

I had an abortion. It was the right decision for me and my husband, and it wasn’t a difficult decision. Before becoming president of Planned Parenthood eight years ago, I hadn’t really talked about it beyond family and close friends. But I’m here to say, when politicians argue and shout about abortion, they’re talking about me—and millions of other women around the country.

And in an Katie Couric interview Cecile expands:

It was a decision my husband and I made. It was a personal decision. And we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life. And we decided that was as big as our family needed to be. It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that.

Let those words sink in.

“It was a decision my husband and I made.”

“And we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life.”

“And we decided that was as big as our family needed to be. It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that. ”

It was just a decision. Like whether to have cable or dish network, whether to have beef or chicken for dinner. No big deal.

And think about Richards comment “we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life.” How must those children feel? They are only adored because they happened to be number one, two and three. Had they been number four or more, they would have been killed. That’s a pretty calloused and capricious selection process.

Further, Cecile and her husband, Kirk Adams (who was vice president of the Service Employees International Union, and is now executive director of the Healthcare Education Project in New York), made that choice — a married, power couple. There was no hardship and no threat to Cecile’s life. Just the virulently selfish decision to use abortion as birth control. By any other name that would be called wickedness.

Looking on page 31 of the Annual Report, we see the total abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in 2017:

That’s 321,384 babies whose lives were ended at Planned Parenthood abortion mills in 2017. Consider that taxpayers contribute $500 million per annum to that vile organization, and try not to lose your cool.

Richards deceitfully explains that federal tax dollars do not go toward abortions, but that’s a misleading argument. The government money received by Planned Parenthood is fungible and frees up their other resources to promote their abortion services, lobby state and federal lawmakers, pay rent and the electric bill among other things. The notion that taxpayer money does not fund their abortion services is a ruse.

We should review the inception of Planned Parenthood to understand the true nature of this organization. Most worthy entities have great beginnings, such as the Ivy League Schools which were founded as seminaries. Over the decades, the original intent has degraded and the universities transformed into centers of Progressive propaganda, in direct opposition to a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Unlike the Ivies, Planned Parenthood was founded by an evil eugenicist, Margaret Sanger. As I wrote in 2014:

The real Margaret Sanger espoused sinister motives for advancing birth control and abortion: she fully endorsed eugenics for the betterment of race and society.

Sanger was a Darwinist who embraced a utilitarian view of human life, and proposed to rid our nation of the criminal element and “inferior races” through abortion and breeding programs.

And as noted in the 2016 article, “Planned Parenthood, An Unnecessary Evil“:

The original intent of Planned Parenthood has been veiled with a facade of honorable work, but the truth is despicable to the core.

Planned Parenthood’s predecessor, The American Birth Control League, was founded by Nazi-inspiration Margaret Sanger, the godmother of modern eugenics, in 1921.

So, this behemoth baby-killing business had a nefarious founding and mission, and an anti-biblical, anti-Christ goal of convincing teenaged and older females to choose death rather than life.

And notice, the “other services” touted so frequently by abortion-lover Richards have been dwindling as the main cash crop — killing the unborn and then selling the baby body parts — has increased.

As written at the Daily Wire by Paul Bois:

Feminists love to throw out the “but Planned Parenthood provides other valuable services” line when discussing the organization’s lucrative war against the unborn in the practice of abortion.

It turns out, according to the organization’s 2016-17 Annual Report, those “other services” have been steadily dropping since 2008 while their abortions remain stable, making it PP’s most reliable revenue stream — other than the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars it receives from the government, of course.

As noted by LifeNews, Planned Parenthood’s revenue has increased since 2009, from $1.1 billion to roughly $1.4 billion in 2017. That Planned Parenthood’s overall services have decreased rather increased makes this all the more puzzling. LifeNews provides a summary of the report’s findings:

In 2008, PPFA affiliates were seeing 3 million patients a year. Today, they see only 2.4 million—a huge drop of 20%.

PPFA’s highly publicized ‘cancer screenings’ fell by almost 2/3rds–from 1,830,811 in 2009 to just 660,777 in 2016.

What about contraception services? They dropped from 3,868,901 in 2009 to 2,701,866 in 2016—a 30% tumble.

How about their much vaunted (but barely existent) prenatal services? From 40,489 in 2009 to just 7,762 in 2016—a decline of more than 3/4s.

Bottom line: Planned Parenthood is a vile organization that should be defunded and its president, Cecile Richards, should be out of a job.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send an email or fax to your U.S. lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, urging them  to defund Planned Parenthood. Let them know that you strongly believe that businesses which profits from the wholesale killing of babies and the (illegal) selling of baby body parts should be shuttered and never receive another penny of taxpayer money.

More ACTION:  Please pray that our state and nation will repent from supporting this moral, political, and financial evil. Pray that your “pro-choice” family members, friends, and neighbors will finally understand that abortion is barbaric and indefensible in every situation — not just when tax dollars are being spent to support it. Pray that our state and nation will mourn the legalization of abortion, which has eradicated 60+ million innocent lives.

Spread the word! Ask your friends to speak out to their federal lawmakers also by forwarding this email or by posting it on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #DefundPP.

Be heroic! Take a strong stand in defense of the unborn! Join Illinois Family Institute in its battle to call for the complete defunding of tax dollars for Planned Parenthood!

March for Life Chicago!

Join thousands at March for Life Chicago 2018 as we come together from across Chicago, the Midwest and the U.S. to defend, protect and celebrate LIFE this Sunday at the Federal Plaza from 2 PM to 4 PM.  For more information, click HERE.

Our goal is to serve as a visual and vocal reminder that the people of Chicago and the Midwest stand for LIFE.  We come together to change perceptions in a society that thinks abortion is the answer. We call upon religious, civic and community leaders to renew every effort to build a nation and culture dedicated to protecting life at every stage and eliminating the violence of abortion. Our women, men, children and families deserve better than abortion!

Join us and choose life and blessing for our nation and the unborn!

In yet another ethically repugnant judicial decision, Texas district court judge Lee Yeakel struck down a Texas abortion law (SB 8) that prohibits 2^nd trimester “dismemberment abortions” in which live humans are dismembered prior to death and then sucked out of their mothers’ wombs in pieces.

The law, passed by both the senate and house and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, would have permitted dismemberment of humans in utero as long as they were killed first by “injecting a chemical called digoxin into the woman’s abdomen; injecting potassium chloride directly into the heart; or inserting instruments through the cervix to cut the umbilical cord.” As barbaric as those methods are, they are less barbaric than death by dismemberment.

Dismemberment would violate every state’s laws on permissible ways to euthanize animals, and yet a Texas judge and Planned Parenthood barbarians prefer to dismember live humans rather than euthanize them first in more “humane” ways.

No compassionate, civilized human endorses killing tiny humans in the womb by any method, but until that legal right is eradicated, compassionate, civilized humans should seek to prevent the unborn, whose bodies have pain receptors by 10 weeks gestation, from experiencing the prolonged torment of having body parts ripped off one by one.

“Progressives” argue that requiring doctors to kill babies before they dismember them is ineffective and unsafe (Clearly, they’re referring to the safety of the mothers). So, here’s what a 2008 study reveals about the digoxin method of killing babies terminating pregnancies:

Intrafetal digoxin injection at a dose of 1.0 mg is safe and effective for fetal demise prior to pregnancy termination in the second trimester.

In testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, Dr. Maureen Condic, associate professor of neurobiology, adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and director of human embryology instruction for the medical school and of human neuroanatomy for the dental school explained the timetable of brain development as pertains to pain perception:

The earliest connections between neurons in the… (regions of the brain involved in… pain perception) are detected by 37 days post sperm-egg fusion and are well established by 8-10 weeks…. Connections between the spinal cord and the thalamus, the region of the brain that is largely responsible for pain perception in both the fetus and the adult, begin to form around 12 weeks and are completed by 18 weeks.

An article on fetal surgery for spina bifida, which is performed between 19-25 weeks (i.e., the 2^nd trimester), recommends the administration of pain medication to babies:

[I]t is not known definitively when fetuses can experience pain. Therefore, it seems prudent to provide analgesia during fetal surgical procedures.

This argument parallels one of the central arguments against abortion: If, as many on the Left claim, no one knows when life begins (or when “personhood” begins), then isn’t it prudent to provide protections against being killed to the unborn who are indisputably the product of conception between two humans, who are living, who have human DNA, and whose DNA is distinct from that of the women in whose bodies they are developing?

Yeakel wrote that the “State’s legitimate concern with the preservation of the life of the fetus”—an interest which he believes begins at birth—is subordinate to the “right” of a woman to have an abortion, which in Yeakel’s view is “absolute.”

Further, he concludes that “the State’s legitimate interest in fetal life does not allow the imposition of an additional medical procedure on the D&E—a procedure not driven by medical necessity.” He’s right. Requiring the expedient death of babies prior to dismemberment is not a medical necessity. It’s a moral necessity incumbent on even semi-civilized humans.

Pro-dismemberment-choicers object to the indelicate term “dismemberment abortion,” which lacks the euphemistic euphony of “dilation and evacuation” (D&E) upon which their anti-culture, anti-maternal savagery depends. Just as the movement to normalize deviant sexuality relies on language butchery, so too does the baby-butchery movement. “Dismemberment abortion,” though not technical medical language, is truthful plain-speaking that everyone understands, and linguistic clarity advances the cause of moral clarity.

One of the features that distinguishes humans from animals is our capacity to make moral choices—free decisions not driven by instinct. But some choices humans make render them less like humans and more like animals:

[M]other bears, felines, canids, primates, and many species of rodents—from rats to prairie dogs—have all been seen killing and eating their young. Insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds also have been implicated in killing, and sometimes devouring, the young of their own kind.

Humans find this behavior repellent in animals and then rationalize and celebrate it in humans.

Immediately after Yeakel’s decision was issued, Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, making it the third state to have a dismemberment ban pending in an appellate court. Many believe this case will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Let’s pray for wisdom at all judicial levels.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Pro-Choicers-Choose-Live-Dismemberment.mp3

PLEASE consider a financial gift to IFI to sustain our work.
We’ve stood firm for 25 years, work diligently to accomplish our mission to
“boldly bring a biblical perspective to public policy” in Illinois.

In an ethically incomprehensible decision, Texas district court judge Lee Yeakel struck down a Texas abortion law (SB 8) that prohibits 2^nd trimester “dismemberment abortions” in which live humans are dismembered prior to death and then sucked out of their mothers’ wombs in pieces.

The law, passed by both the senate and house and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, would have permitted dismemberment of humans in utero as long as they were killed first by “injecting a chemical called digoxin into the woman’s abdomen; injecting potassium chloride directly into the heart; or inserting instruments through the cervix to cut the umbilical cord.” As barbaric as those methods are, they are less barbaric than death by dismemberment.

Read more…

For those who weren’t politically active in the 70’s or never got around to learning the specifics about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), here is a thumbnail sketch of the purpose and danger of the ERA.

This proposed U.S. Constitutional Amendment is deceptively named. Men and women already have equal standing and equal protection before the law and possess God-given rights which are delineated in the Bill of Rights.

If the goal is to ensure equal opportunity, then the path is not the broad and ambiguously written ERA. Even supporters of the ERA cannot answer questions about its full impact on existing legal protections for women (and children) in state and federal statutes.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote Sex Bias in the U.S. Code when she was with the ACLU. In her book, she admitted that at least 800 federal laws would likely be struck down – laws aimed at protecting women.

Are men and women different? Over the course of centuries, common sense and science have detailed the physical and mental differences that are biologically based. The push today by Leftists to pretend these obvious differences don’t exist is not a new phenomenon — and the ERA was once such an effort that ended in failure in the 1970s.

The Equal Rights Amendment says: 

“Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or any State on account of sex.“ (Emphasis added.)

The Equal Rights Amendment is a poorly worded amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would restrict all laws and practices that make any distinctions based on gender or “on account of sex.” Under the ERA men and women could not be treated differently, even if the different treatment is due to physical differences.

The ERA is centrally about abortion.

Since abortion is unique to women, any attempt to restrict a woman’s access to abortion would be seen, under the rules of the ERA, as a form of sex discrimination. As a result, abortion restrictions would be overturned.

In addition, since medical procedures unique to men are funded by Medicaid (such as circumcision and prostatectomies), then abortion which is unique to women, must also receive Medicaid funding under ERA requirements.

Pro-abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund have all submitted legal briefs stating that the ERA supports abortion rights.

Using this same ‘sex discrimination’ logic, legal scholars have reasoned that the ERA would do the following:

• Eliminate all abortion restrictions including the federal partial birth abortion ban, third trimester abortions, and parental notification of minors seeking abortions.

• End conscience clauses for nurses, doctors and hospitals who do not want to facilitate abortions in any way.

• Threaten tax exemptions of private religious schools that do not believe abortion is moral and that discourage it when teaching students.

• ERA would also provide a new basis for abortion rights in the U.S. Constitution. Roe v. Wade is founded on an unwritten “right to privacy” assumption that is vulnerable in legal challenges. The ERA would insert a written, defined right based on sex discrimination into the U.S. Constitution, and thus provide a strong legal basis for overturning all abortion restrictions.

Americans need to become informed on this issue and seek to help educate others on the consequences of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Then they must make sure their state representatives and state senators know both the dangers of the ERA and their opposition to it.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to your lawmakers, urging them to protect women’s rights by opposing the Equal Rights Amendment.

The Illinois Family Institute has posted important articles outlining what the ERA is all about – examples can be found here, here, here, and here.

State lawmakers will be back in Springfield for the veto session November 7-9, and this legislation may come up for a vote during that time.  PLEASE speak out today!

IFI depends on the support of Christians like you. Donate now

-and, please-

In a fast-moving story, right of conscience cases are moving forward and possibly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here are just two recent headlines from Life News:

October 30: Pregnancy Centers Ask Supreme Court to Overturn California Law Forcing Them to Promote Abortions

October 31: Judge Blocks California Law Forcing Pregnancy Centers to Promote Abortions

In a case that could impact Illinois, Life News reports, “California pregnancy centers could hear any day now if the United States Supreme Court will hear their appeal for relief from a pro-abortion state law”:

Their cases involve a pro-abortion California law that forces pregnancy centers to promote abortions. Deceptively named “The Reproductive FACT Act” by its pro-abortion authors, the 2016 law is the subject of multiple lawsuits. It forces about 200 pregnancy help non-profits to either promote taxpayer-funded abortions through the state or face heavy fines.

Jay Alan Sekulow, an attorney for the American Center for Law and Justice which is representing several pregnancy centers, said the case is about whether California can “compel nonprofit, faith-based, pro-life licensed medical facilities, against their religious convictions and identity to advertise a government program that provides free or low-cost abortions.”

If that sounds familiar, it is, because back in 2016, Governor Bruce Rauner signed SB 1564, which forced

medical facilities and physicians who conscientiously object to involvement in abortions to adopt policies that provide women who ask for abortions with a list of providers “they reasonably believe may offer” them. Two federal laws, known as the Coats-Snowe amendment and the Hyde-Weldon amendment, together prohibit states that receive federal funding from forcing pro-life physicians and entities to refer women for abortion or to make arrangements for their referral. Illinois law also prohibits government from placing burdens on religious conscience without a compelling interest for doing so.

Since then, the Alliance for Defending Freedom, alongside attorneys at Mauck & Baker, filed suit on behalf of Illinois clients to overturn the law.

As IFI reported back in August,

a Federal District Court granted the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates and several pro-life pregnancy centers a preliminary injunction against an Illinois law that forces pro-life healthcare professionals to make abortion referrals. The injunction prohibits the State from enforcing the law against healthcare facilities or physicians who have a conscience objection to performing abortions or making abortion referrals.

Attorney Noel W. Sterett told the Illinois Family Institute that the Illinois case is now proceeding through the discovery phase.

Life News reports that whether the challenge to the California law will be heard by the United States Supreme Court might be known as early as Monday.

The Justices have considered the appeals for more than three weeks in their weekly conferences, suggesting at least several of them are inclined to hear the cases.

Recently, lower courts have split on controversies arising from state regulations of medical professions.

The American Center for Law and Justice’s Jay Sekulow said the law violates “the principle that one cannot be conscripted into acting as a ventriloquist’s dummy for a government message.”

“This law is like forcing the Sierra Club to advocate for oil spills or demanding St. Jude expose their patients to lead poisoning,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which is representing another group of California pregnancy centers.

“However, this law is actually much more repulsive. While those situations might cause unintended harm, abortion is intended — even specifically designed — to kill.”

Here is Mauck & Baker’s Noel W. Sterett on the topic of the Illinois law:

“The government has no business forcing pro-life doctors and pregnancy care centers in Illinois to operate as referral agents for the abortion industry. A law that targets medical professionals because of their pro-life views and right of conscience is unconstitutional and unethical.”

In the Life News story from October 31, Jay Hobbs reports:

In a major victory for free speech, Riverside County Superior Court Justice Gloria C. Trask ruled late Monday that California must not force pro-life pregnancy medical clinics to post signage promoting state-covered abortions to their clients.

The October 31 Life News article also includes a reference to the above-referenced statewide preliminary injunction on the 2016 Illinois law.

The Illinois Family Institute will continue to monitor the news regarding both the Illinois and California lawsuits.  Please pray for the ultimate demise of these tyrannical laws.

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The U.S. House of Representatives has scheduled an October 3rd vote on H.R. 36, a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks up until the time of birth. The U.S. House passed a similar bill in 2015. During the debate on the bill, Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) gave one of the most impassioned speeches for protecting the lives of innocent pre-born children.

“This is not a debate about abortion or even non-abortion, pro-life or pro-abortion,” Duffy said. “Those who are even pro-abortion agree that these tactics are unacceptable. They have no place in our society, and that federal tax dollars should actually go to fund an institution that harvests baby body parts for sale is absolutely asinine.”

“What do we stand for in this institution if we do not stand-up for the most defenseless and voiceless among us?” concluded Duffy.

According to Lifenews:

During the hearing on the last bill, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.

Sadly, when it was brought to a vote in the Senate (where the Democrats then held a majority) it was defeated via filibuster.

U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hosted a press conference yesterday providing details of when the House will vote on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36). McCarthy was joined by pro life U.S. Representatives Diane Black (TN-06), Trent Franks (AZ-08), Vicky Hartzler (MO-04), and and other pro-life leaders such as Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser.

The family of Micah Pickering was also present at the press conference, according to Lifenews. Micah Pickering is a miracle baby who survived after being born prematurely at 20 weeks. Today, Micah is a happy, healthy five year old.

SBA List Marjorie Dannenfelser stated the faces like Micah help bring this issue to life in many people’s minds.

“Micah really is the real face of this issue,” she urged. “Because it’s really easy to talk about it, the abortion issue, in abstract theoretical terms. But when you really have come across … and see a young man running around full of energy and love, you realize this is not any other political issue.”

U.S. Representative Trent Franks made similar references to Micah, according to Lifenews. “When Micah stands there,” he said, “you can’t ignore him. He’s as real as it gets.”

In a post press conference interview with MRC Culture Associate Culture Editor, Katie Yoder, Representative Franks also stated:

“I understand that mothers are in a great challenge in these circumstances and my heart is so deeply with them, but there’s nothing liberating about taking the life of a child. It doesn’t liberate the mother. It only puts her in a deeper heartache in the long run.

I’m convinced that if America will look at this as it is, and say ‘Okay, what’s the real question here? Does this thing kill a baby or not?’ If it doesn’t, then okay, it’s no big deal,” he concluded. “But if it really does kill a little helpless human baby, and it’s done that 60 million times now, isn’t it about time we changed direction?”

Representative Franks introduced the legislation back in January, and also proposed legislation in July in an effort to try to save the now deceased Charlie Gard.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representatives to ask him/her to support H.R. 36, the 20-week abortion ban, also known as the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”  The U.S. House is scheduled to vote on the bill on Tuesday, October 3rd.

It is inexcusable, in the light the pain these babies feel and the broad public support for such bans, that such a federal ban does not already exist.

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-and, please-

If signed into law by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, HB 40, which passed in both the Illinois House and Senate, will force taxpayers to subsidize abortions for women on Medicaid and for women covered by state employee health insurance.

Feticidal maniacs in Illinois—including lawmakers—are desperate to have Rauner sign this bill into law. They reason that since abortion is legal, the public should subsidize it. Leftists believe all Illinois taxpayers should pay for poor women’s and state employees’ choices to have their unborn children killed. Ironically, while Leftists command that men never express an opinion on abortion, Leftists also say male taxpayers should fund abortion. Word to Leftists:

1.) Those tiny humans growing inside women get half their DNA from men.

2.) The issue of whether the product of conception between two humans is a human with rights is a human rights issue—not exclusively a women’s issue.

3.) There are no criteria that Leftists can manufacture to defend the right of some humans to snuff out the lives of other humans that apply only to incipient human lives. Whether those criteria are intrinsic or extrinsic to humans in the womb, they all can be applied to humans who escaped the torture chamber that the womb has become. Intrinsic criteria such as immature development, dependency status, lack of sentience, or lack of perfection apply to humans outside the womb as well. Extrinsic criteria such as being considered a financial or emotional burden also apply to humans outside the womb.

4.) According to Leftists, men can have wombs, menstruate, become pregnant, and give birth, and, therefore, abortion is a men’s issue.

5.) Using the language of “rights,” feticide-defenders are appealing to the respect Americans have for “negative rights”—also known as liberties—(e.g., the right to vote, assemble, exercise one’s religion, and speak freely), which are not accompanied by any obligation for others to subsidize them. But what feticide-defenders are really suggesting—without explicitly saying—is that women have a “positive right” (i.e., an entitlement) to abortion, which imposes a duty on others to subsidize it. Abortion, however, is not an entitlement, and society has no obligation to pay for women to get them. Neither wanting something; nor really, really wanting something; nor experiencing suffering from not obtaining this desperately desired thing means the public has an obligation to provide it.

7.) We, as a benevolent society, have created safety nets to provide for basic health care for those who are unable to provide for it themselves. No matter how many times feticide-defenders call the killing of incipient human life “health care,” it’s not. Killing human fetuses is neither health care nor reproduction. It’s death facilitation and anti-reproduction. If Leftists want to help poor women and state employees kill their offspring, they have the choice and negative right to do so.

In an editorial appearing in Crain’s Chicago Business, K. Sujata, president and CEO of the Chicago Foundation for Women (CFW), frets about the implications of an HB 40 veto. She worries about the economic interests of pregnant women, many of whom choose to have sex when they can’t afford or don’t want to provide for the needs of humans who may result from their choice to have sex:

HB40 also removes restrictions on reproductive health care coverage that put women’s economic security at risk…. In order for women and their families to achieve full economic security, all women in Illinois must be able to make the important decision of when to start or grow their family.

Do Illinoisans really have a moral obligation to provide for the “full economic security” of state employees? Do Illinoisans really have a moral obligation to pay for the destruction of the tiny family members already growing inside of poor women?

And how does killing humans—including female humans—whose lives are just beginning fulfill this core principle of the Chicago Foundation for Women:

We believe that equality is a universal human right, and we uphold respect and dignity as guiding principles in all our work.

If Leftists really believe that more developed, sentient, able-bodied, and cognitively superior humans have the right to exterminate less-developed and cognitively and physically impaired humans whose self-awareness is diminished or absent, then they are kindred spirits with Princeton University bio-unethicist Peter Singer who makes the same argument but applies it to post-natal humans as well. What possible ethical difference do a few days or few inches of birth canal make in terms of the right to kill?

Remember ten years ago when Hillary Clinton expressed her belief that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare. And by rare, I mean rare“? Northwestern University law professor Andrew Koppelman expressed the same sentiment during a forum at Northwestern Law School several years ago. When I asked why abortion should be rare if incipient human life is so devoid of personhood as to be undeserving of even minimal constitutional protection, he had no answer.

If Leftists really wanted abortion to be rare, they wouldn’t be fighting tooth and nail for the passage of HB 40, which, it is estimated, will result in an additional 15,000 abortions each year at taxpayer expense.

But no one actually believes Leftists care about whether abortion is rare or common. To them destroying human fetuses is no different from excising tumors.

Wombs should be sanctuary spaces and no-kill people shelters where all humans are safe. Governor Rauner should kill HB 40.

Take ACTION: Click Here to email Governor Bruce Rauner. Urge him to keep his pledge to veto HB 40. Also, please continue to call the governor’s public comment line every day until this is resolved: (217) 782-0244 and (312) 814-2121. 

You can also send Gov. Rauner a message via Twitter: @GovRauner

Listen to Laurie read this article in this podcast:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2Kill-HB-40-Wombs-Should-Be-Sanctuary-Spaces-and-No-Kill-Shelters.mp3

PLEASE consider a financial gift to IFI to sustain our work.
We’ve stood firm for 25 years, work diligently to accomplish our mission to
“boldly bring a biblical perspective to public policy” in Illinois.

The minds of “progressives” have become so darkened, their consciences so seared that they shout about their abortions and unashamedly admit that abortion ends the lives of humans. This week IFI received the following email from a Chicagoan Mary Jennifer Pruim about a billboard we put up that says, “Abortion Takes Human Life”:

Your billboard “Abortions take human lives” is exactly correct. Are there people who don’t know that? Do you think they think there are lemurs, lambs or tadpoles in there? That is exactly the point of abortions- to not add another human to this crowded, polluted earth that we humans have been ruining. Especially poor babies (noting your billboard on the south side of Chicago) with no capable parent in sight, one that will much more likely than not never contribute anything useful, will likely be destitute or even violent, and just add to the chaos we call “humanity”. Abortions across the board should be encouraged and I will continue those efforts.

Surely, Pruim knows that feticide advocates have long tried to promote the science-denying fiction that humans in the womb are not actually human. For years, they called humans in wombs, lumps of tissue, blobs of cells, products of conception, or uterine contents—anything to divert attention from the inconvenient fact that the sexual union of two humans produces a human being, also known as a baby.

Since the South Side is predominantly black, Pruim’s comments about the South Side bear more than a tinge of racism: She refers to babies “that will much more likely than not never contribute anything useful” to society but instead will “likely be destitute or even violent, and just add to the chaos we call ‘humanity.'”

Apparently Pruim believes the poor have no intrinsic right to live. And apparently Pruim is able to predict which humans will become violent. But do those “contributing” humans who managed to survive the treacherous waters of the womb have the right to kill humans whom they—the “contributors”—prophesy will “contribute to the chaos”?

How different are Pruim’s beliefs and goals from those of the Nazi regime who killed children whose lives they deemed “unworthy of life”?

If someone were to think that “progressives” contribute enormously to human suffering and chaos—including by supporting the legalized slaughter of humans in the womb—should they have the right to kill babies in the womb whom they prophesy are likely to become “progressives”?

The obscene views and cold frankness that Pruim’s email revealed were also revealed this week by actress and pro-feticide activist Martha Plimptom who interviewed late-term abortionist Dr. Willie Parker at a “Shout Your Abortion” spectacle in Seattle. In a ghastly display of virtual sociopathy, Plimpton gleefully announced—to loud cheers and applause—that Seattle is special to her because it’s where she had her first abortion:

“Seattle has some particular significance for me for lots of reasons. I’ve got a lot of family here, some of whom are here in the audience tonight. I also had my first abortion here at the Seattle Planned Parenthood. YAAAYYY!

Notice I said ‘first.’ I said ‘first.’ And I don’t want Seattle — I don’t want you guys to feel insecure, it was my best one. Heads and tails above the rest! If I could Yelp review it, I totally would.”

Watch the first 1 ½ minutes to see this unsettling display of a malformed conscience:

While Dr. Parker may be very skillful at executing babies in the womb, he’s not a very skillful thinker.

I give the facts, not alternative facts…. [The ‘antis’] say abortion is murder… but murder is a legal definition. In order to murder someone, they [sic] have to be a person. A fetus is not a person…. Personhood is conferred at birth.

To what “fact” is Parker referring when he says, “a fetus is not a person”? It may be a fact that under the law, a fetus is not considered a “person,” but that’s not a scientific fact or a moral truth.

When asked a question about late-term abortions, Parker said this:

I think why they [pro-life activists] focus on [late-term abortions] is that at that point the pregnancy looks so much like a baby that it’s easy to use that language to blur the lines and say at that point “it’s a baby….” I’ve never killed a baby. I’ve ended pregnancies, but I’ve never killed a baby.

Well, a pregnancy never is or looks like a baby, so that’s a silly statement. But the soft, fleshy objects in wombs with heads, torsos, wiggly arms and legs, and valuable internal organs (much prized by 21^st Century body snatchers) that were the result of sexual intercourse between two humans of opposite sexes and have unique human DNA are actually human babies. And Dr. Parker has killed many of them.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Darkened-Minds-if-Feticide-Cheerleaders.mp3

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please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  

It does make a difference.

Last year I was at lunch with an evangelist. After the meal, he handed our waitress a Gospel tract. I wanted to reinforce his compassion, so I told the young lady that her relationship with God was the most important thing in the world. She responded, “Yeah, that and global warming!” She proceeded to tell us that she wakes up in fear of what may happen to the earth during her lifetime. I was shocked. I asked her if she was familiar with the old Sunday school song, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” She said, “Yes.” I told her it was true.

I left that meeting with a deeper awareness of the politics of fear.

The Left uses fear to get people to act. Environmentalists argue that a growing human population using growing amounts of energy from fossil fuels is causing catastrophically dangerous global warming. The Left prescribes two cures.

First, replace fossil fuels with wind, solar, and other renewables. But as Dr. E. Calvin Beisner (of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation) explains, abundant, affordable, reliable energy is indispensable to lifting and keeping any society out of poverty, and fossil fuels are and for the foreseeable future will remain our best source of that energy. Wind, solar, and other renewables are diffuse, expensive, and unreliable. Substituting them for fossil fuels makes energy more expensive, thus slowing, stopping, or even reversing the conquest of poverty in the developed world while impoverishing many in the developed world.

Second, slow, stop, and finally reverse population growth. Environmentalists openly advocate reducing the world’s population to 500 million, i.e., getting rid of 9 out of 10 human beings. How? Partly through homosexuality and transgenderism, but also through government-run “family planning” programs that invariably involve highly incentivized and often even forced use of contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion.

Efforts to control population have unintended consequences. For example, from its start in 1979 China’s one-child policy has led to sex-selected abortions, with male births outnumbering female by about 115 to 100, resulting in about 33 million more Chinese men than women. In turn, this has fueled demand for pornography and prostitution, much of which is met by sex-trafficking that has become so bad that the U.S. State Department has named China among the world’s worst offenders.

All of these things led to our inviting Dr. Beisner to speak for our events in April. I was convinced that the climate change debate had to be addressed from a Christian perspective.

Dr. Beisner did an amazing job helping people of faith to understand why this issue is a conservative, pro-life concern. He ably integrated Biblical worldview, theology, and ethics with excellent science and economics to help our audiences understand how climate alarmism threatens family, freedom, and prosperity—and how to respond to it.

Yes, climate change is a pro-family issue.

As anyone knows who has counseled couples on the verge of divorce, one of the most common causes is financial stress. Poverty harms families. Driving up energy prices increases poverty and so undermines the family.

To that end, it is a very good thing, indeed, that President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Accord on climate change.

Learn More:  If you’d like to learn more, Dr. Beisner’s presentation was video-recorded and is now posted on the IFI YouTube channel. This 90-minute presentation will leave you much better informed and with a deeper understanding of why Christians should actively oppose the climate alarmist agenda. You can watch it here below, or click HERE.

Please subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel.

Read more about Dr. Beisner and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and please visit their blog, EarthRisingBlog.com.

You can also follow them on Twitter @CornwallSteward, and “like” their Facebook page HERE.

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