While many Republicans are celebrating Tulsi Gabbard’s exit from the destructive Democrat Party, Illinois Family Institute is taking a wait-and-see approach to yet another political incarnation of Gabbard. While rejecting the Democrat Party and its baleful policies is always a good thing, not every exit from the Democrat Party constitutes an embrace of conservative principles.

Two decades ago, Gabbard rightly opposed the legal recognition of homosexual relationships as marriages. Later, as a Democrat, she issued not one but two groveling apologies for her prior conservative views on marriage. Here is her most recent apology released in Jan. 2019 when she began her failed quest to be the Democrat candidate for president:

In my past I said and believed things that were wrong, and worse, they were very hurtful to people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones. Many years ago, I apologized for my words and, more importantly, for the negative impact that they had. I sincerely repeat my apology today. I’m deeply sorry for having said them.

My views have changed significantly since then, and my record in Congress over the last six years reflects what is in my heart: a strong and ongoing commitment to fighting for LGBTQ rights. …

I … grew up in a socially conservative household where I was raised to believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. … While many Americans may be able to relate to growing up in a conservative home, my story is a little different because my father was very outspoken. He was an activist who was fighting against gay rights and marriage equality in Hawai‘i, and at that time I forcefully defended him and his cause.

…

When we deny LGBTQ people the basic rights that exist for every American, we’re denying their humanity denying that they are equal. We’re also creating a dangerous environment that breeds discrimination and violence. Because when we divide people based on who they are, or who they love, all we’re doing is adding fuel to the flames that perpetuate bigotry and hatred. I’m so grateful to my friends, my loved ones, both gay and straight, who have patiently helped me see how my past positions … were causing people harm. I regret the role that I played in causing such pain, and I remain committed to fighting for LGBTQ equality.

Again, for the dull of mind, homosexuals always had the right to marry, just as polyamorous people, sibling lovers, and “minor-attracted persons” have a right to marry today. Homosexuals were legally unable to marry people of the same sex, just as consensual non-monogamists can’t marry multiple people, sibling lovers can’t marry their siblings, and pedophiles can’t marry minors. What homosexuals sought was the unilateral right to redefine in law the parameters of marriage. (And now, polyamorists are doing likewise.)

Does Gabbard want to “divide people based on” their love for multiple people, or close blood relatives, or minors? Does she want to add “fuel to the flames that perpetuate bigotry” against consensual non-monogamists, incestuous couples, or adults who love children? Does she want to deny that they are equal? Does she want to hurt them and their loved ones by continuing to exclude them from legally marrying the person or persons they love?

Someone should pose those questions to Gabbard.

In addition to throwing her father under the political bus driving her ambition, Gabbard said that by opposing the legal redefinition of marriage, conservatives deny “LGB” and “T” people their humanity and that conservatives create a dangerous, discriminatory, violent, bigoted, and hateful environment. Now that she’s no longer a Democrat, let’s see how she zigs and zags her way out of that rhetorical ugliness aimed straight at conservatives.

From the website Vote Smart, Americans can learn a boatload of information about Gabbard that may surprise them.

For example, they will learn that Gabbard is a strident advocate for abortion who said,

The very real possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned terrifies me. I am sick of women’s bodies being used as pawns so politicians can score cheap political points at the expense of their freedom and safety. I am wholly committed to abortion remaining safe, legal and rare. We must commit to defending a woman’s right to choose.

Vote Smart cites Gabbard’s office boasting about her human slaughter bona fides:

Tulsi has a 100% voting record with both Planned Parenthood and NARAL. Tulsi is committed to defending a woman’s right to choose, which government has no place infringing on.

More questions for Gabbard:

If humans in the womb are fair game for extermination, if they have so little intrinsic worth that powerful humans can order their deaths for any or no reason, then why should abortion be rare?

If, on the other hand, humans in the womb are, indeed, humans with, therefore, intrinsic worth, why should abortion be legal?

And if the right of a woman to control her reproduction comes into direct conflict with a less-developed human’s right to exist, which right does Gabbard believe is a right of a higher moral order?

Gabbard’s compassion and sense of justice don’t seem to extend either to the unborn or to citizens and illegals who are suffering on our southern border due to our de facto open border. Vote Smart reports that Gabbard opposes the construction of a wall along the Mexican border and opposes requiring illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin before becoming eligible for citizenship.

Conservatives may want to ask Gabbard if her views on gun issues have changed since her office released this statement in 2018:

Tulsi … has long called for reinstating a federal ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring comprehensive pre-purchase background checks, closing the gun-show loophole, and making sure that terrorists are not allowed to buy guns. Tulsi has an F-rating from the NRA, a 0% rating by the Hawaii Rifle Association, and a 100% rating by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Then there are Gabbard’s troubling statements on energy production, which would put a smile on the clucking faces of climate Chicken Littles everywhere—if chickens could smile:

I also support a ban on fracking, ending the $26 billion/year in fossil fuel subsidies, ban offshore drilling … and ban all subsidies or waivers to the nuclear power industry.

Gabbard’s political shapeshifting may point more to the presence of political ambition than to principled conservative convictions. We’ll just have to wait and see.

With a bang of a gavel in 1973, 63 million fellow Americans were condemned to die. And the number keeps growing.

Now if the U.S. Senate confirms Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, another pro-abortion justice will be added to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Last week, Judge Jackson, nominated by Biden to the U.S. Supreme Court, faced four days of hearings in the U.S. Senate. South Carolina Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham raised an intriguing point to her: “Every group that wants to pack the court, that believes the court is a bunch of right-wing nuts who are going to destroy America, that considers the Constitution ‘trash’—all wanted you picked. That is all I can say. That so many of these left-wing radical groups who would destroy the law as we know it…supported you is problematic for me.”

Jon Schweppe of the American Principles Project noted, “On abortion and religious liberty, it’s clear where she stands. Jackson co-authored an amicus brief for the Massachusetts NARAL chapter characterizing pro-life sidewalk counselors as ‘indisputably harmful’ and supporting the notion that they should not be allowed anywhere near an abortion clinic.”

He adds, “Why would leftist groups like American Atheists, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association and the Southern Poverty Law Center push the White House to nominate Jackson and the Senate to confirm?….Ketanji Brown Jackson is a woke Trojan horse, as the preponderance of evidence suggests.”

When asked to define what a woman is, Judge Jackson declined, claiming she’s “not a biologist.” When asked when human life begins, she said to Louisiana U.S. Senator John Kennedy: “Senator, um… I don’t know.”

Gary Bauer responded to her answer: “Of course, this well-educated, Harvard graduate knows life begins at conception. The problem is that she’s all in on abortion on demand.”

The U.S. Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade (1973) and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992) established by judicial fiat a right to abortion. Thus abortion, said Judge Jackson, is “settled law of the Supreme Court concerning the right to terminate a pregnancy. They established a framework the court has reaffirmed.”

One Constitutional authority had some criticisms of Roe v. Wade as a legal opinion. She said that Roe “tried to do too much, too fast—it essentially made every abortion restriction in the country at the time illegal in one fell swoop—leaving it open to fierce attacks. ‘Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped…may prove unstable.’”

Who was this radical anti-abortion activist that would dare criticize the left’s most beloved decision? It was Ruth Bader Ginsburg–before she became a justice on the high court who did everything in her power to preserve Roe v. Wade.

Writing for Lifenews.com, Micaiah Bilger observes that Judge Jackson has called peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors at abortion clinics “hostile, noisy and in your face” people.

Bilger added, “Jackson has the support of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which advocates for abortions without limits up to birth…She also ruled against the Trump administration’s efforts to defund the billion-dollar abortion chain Planned Parenthood, and she clerked for pro-abortion Justice Stephen Breyer when he issued an opinion against the partial-birth abortion ban.”

I believe abortion is the single most important political issue of our time. It’s not complicated. Abortion takes a human life every time.

When judges rule in favor of abortion, they are playing God. I find it amazing that the left constantly decries bullying, yet they favor abortion rights. What could be more bullying than dismembering a defenseless, unborn child limb by limb because it is perceived as somehow inconvenient?

Some critics on the left, like Bill Maher, say that the only reason conservatives oppose Judge Jackson is because she’s black. But people need to remember that the founder of the nation’s leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, was Margaret Sanger, who spoke at a Ku Klux Klan meeting. She wrote a letter to one of her board members (Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, 12/10/1939): “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” No wonder the majority of abortion facilities are in urban areas—to this day.

In our nation’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, our founders said that our rights come from the Creator—and first among these rights is the “right to life.” Indeed, if you’re dead, how can you enjoy any other right?

The U.S. Constitution, which is predicated on the Declaration, notes in the preamble that one of its purposes is: “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Our posterity? That is, the yet to be born.

To paraphrase Dr. D. James Kennedy, Judge Jackson should get down on her knees and thank God that her mother wasn’t “pro-choice.”

If you get abortion wrong, you tend to get everything else wrong too.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

As expected, pundits on the left are in an uproar at the president’s claims that a doctor conspires with parents as to whether to execute their newborn baby. In Trump’s words (spoken at a recent rally in Green Bay), “The baby is born, the mother meets with the doctor, they take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully. Then the doctor and mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”

In response, Rolling Stone senior writer Jamil Smith tweeted, “President Trump keeps telling the same lie about abortion doctors murdering healthy fetuses after delivery. This doesn’t happen. Yet he said it again last night. This is precisely the kind of hysteria that inspires people who murder doctors and patients.”

Julia Pulver, a former neonatal nurse, said this: “When a baby dies in the hospital, it is a very sad thing but it is not something that is ever chosen. It is a horrible situation thrust upon parents who want their baby, who have prepared for the baby, who have framed sonograms sitting on their desks.”

According to Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, “What Trump asserted, for the second time, is false, illegal, and simply not happening — nor would it happen.” She claimed that, “The president “not only straight-up lied but also vilified women, families, and doctors facing situations every single one of us prays we never encounter.”

And Huffington Post adds this: “The recent focus on the alleged horrors of late-term abortions is especially fact-free. Only 1.3 percent of abortions take place after 21 weeks, and experts say these involve pregnancies that endanger the mother (and by extension the baby) or severe fetal anomalies that are incompatible with life.”

Let’s address these claims one at a time.

First, President Trump said nothing about the baby being healthy (contra the tweet of Smith). Instead, he spoke about the very real situation in which a baby survives an abortion (or, presumably, is born with a life-threatening defect) and is allowed to die. That’s why Congress keeps trying to pass the Born Alive Protection Act.

In its current form, the bill reads, “To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.”

This is a real bill designed to address real, life and death situations.

Not only so, but it was Virginia governor Ralph Northam who provided Trump with his main talking points about infanticide.

As Northam infamously said during a radio interview, “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. So I think this was really blown out of proportion.”

Yet the left rails on Trump for calling this out rather than on Northam for saying it.

To repeat: These things are really happening.

An official government document dated September 23, 2016, notes that, “In 2002, Congress responded by passing the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which was signed by President George W. Bush and is current federal law. This law recognized a child who is born alive after a failed abortion attempt, as a legal person under the laws of the United States. The legal definition of live birth includes any sign of life, such as breath, heartbeat, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles.

“Unfortunately, incidents involving born alive children being killed after an attempted abortion have continued after this law was passed. Infanticide is unacceptable in a civilized society, regardless of what one may think about abortion itself. It should be uncontroversial for the federal government to supplement current law with enforcement protections for born-alive children after attempted abortions. That is why Congress must pass the proposed legislation known as the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 3504/S. 2066).”

Trump is not lying. These things are happening. They may happen just as he described (with the baby being wrapped in a blanket) or they may not (perhaps the baby is left naked and crying on a table). But they are happening, nonetheless.

Yet, to repeat, there’s no outcry from the left about these horrors. The outcry is about the president drawing attention to the horrors.

As noted by Tony Perkins, “Liberals certainly thought infanticide was real enough in 2002, when protecting infants was so uncontroversial that it passed without a single Democratic opponent. Since then, the CDC’s data only confirms these atrocities — as do mountains of eyewitness testimony, grand jury reports, survivors’ own stories, and admissions by doctors like Northam himself!”

Second, what point is made by saying, “Only 1.3 percent of abortions take place after 21 weeks”? What if the sentence read, “Only 1.3 percent of abortions take place after birth”? Would that lessen the severity of the crime? We only kill a tiny percentage of babies once they’re born!

Let’s also put this in real-life numbers.

According to a just-released CDC report, in New York City in 2015, “the number of abortions at or after 21 weeks was 1,485 while the number of homicide victims was 352.”

Shall we celebrate the fact that this (allegedly) represents “only” 1.3 percent of abortions?

These, in short, are the facts: States like New York have passed laws allowing for abortions right up to the time of delivery. Infanticide is taking place. And in countries like the Netherlands, “650 babies a year [are] euthanized so that their parents don’t have to witness them struggle with disability or disease.”

In light of all this, I’m glad that President Trump continues to speak up. He is addressing something terribly evil, and it behooves every person of conscience to stand with him in standing for the rights of “the least of these.”

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

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-

Written by Richard Wiley

In the waning quixotic campaign to compromise principle for the sake of convenience, the American Medical Association (AMA) has reaffirmed a 2005 study challenging the capacity of babies to feel pain at twenty weeks. Of particular significance is the fact that a former lawyer for NARAL, a former medical director for a Hospital in San Francisco that provides abortions, and a former consultant for Planned Parenthood contributed as three of the five authors to the study.

In a recent letter in answer to an inquiry filed by James Agresti, the president of Just Facts, the AMA Journal’s Editor-in-chief Howard Bauchner diplomatically explained that the study would not be retracted because, according to him, the study’s authors complied with the AMA’s conflict of interest requirements and had accumulated all of the data without falsification or fabrication.

Although the study suggests that twenty-week-old babies cannot consciously perceive pain due to a still developing cerebral cortex, several studies have demonstrated that the lack of a cerebral cortex does not ensure the lack of pain receptors.  A study in 2012 proposes that while the dispute over conscious and emotional perception of pain in twenty-week infants remains in the air, there is no shortage of evidence demonstrating that babies have a nervous system sufficiently developed to drive responses to tissue injury as early as sixteen weeks into gestation.

According to a 2013 expert testimony before the U.S. Congress by Dr. Maureen Condic, Director of Human Embryology instruction for the School of Medicine at the University of Utah, “Multiple studies show that ‘the human fetus from 18-20 weeks elaborates pituitary-adrenal, sympatho-adrenal, and circulatory stress responses to physical insults.’” In order words, the baby responds to pain in several of the ways that humans normally do.

Because recent studies demonstrate at least motor faculties at that stage in development, it is unrealistic to propose that the matter is certain. The Kennedy Institute for Ethics Journal in 2012 states, “when a doubt of fact bears on settling whether an alternative under consideration should be excluded, one should presume one will cause the harm until the fact has been settled.”

Christian Communicators of the South East, a debate league that hosts rhetoric tournaments in the Virginia/North Carolina area, trains young homeschooled high school students to research and argue with professional poise. Novice debaters are taught from the beginning to avoid noncommittal modifiers like “could,” “might,” and “may” when researching for a topic. Lines such as: “[b]ecause pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester, discussions of fetal pain for abortions performed before the end of the second trimester should be noncompulsory […]”(emphasis added), would be enough to declaw the study.

And yet publications by New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Live Science  refer to the study as an authoritative source proving beyond a reasonable doubt that babies cannot experience pain at 20 weeks. Such blind adherence to outdated claims only proves one thing: the pro-abortion argument is starving for support. Those in favor of abortion, a group that likely includes members of the AMA, are at their wits end in the fight against the quickly growing Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. But there’s still work to be done. Fourteen states have passed the legislation, although the legality of the law in some states has been challenged.

Richard Wiley is the 2016 Policy Intern for The Family Foundation, and law student at Liberty University School of Law.

This article was originally posted at The Family Foundation blog.

Early Bird Specials Expire on Sept. 5th!

The Illinois Family Institute is very pleased to invite you to attend the 2016 Annual Faith, Family and Freedom Banquet on Friday, September 30th at 7:00 p.m. in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

We are thrilled to have as our keynote speaker former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a strong and consistent voice for pro-family values. A former candidate for POTUS, she not only distinguished herself by forming and chairing the Tea Party Caucus in 2010 in the U.S. House, but as a courageous and outspoken pro-life leader, as attested to by her rating of zero from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).  First elected in 2006 and stepping down in 2014, Congresswoman Bachmann understands well the gravity of our diminishing civil freedoms and has experienced, first hand, the relentless and intolerant attacks of the Left on people of faith.

Michele is a graduate of Anoka High School and Winona State University. Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, live in Stillwater where they own a small business mental health care practice that employs 42 people. The Bachmanns have five children, Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In addition, the Bachmanns have opened their home to 23 foster children, which was the inspiration for Michele’s advocacy and work for foster and adopted children, earning her bipartisan praise for her efforts.

Join us as we hear an exciting and motivational presentation from one of our nation’s top conservative champion of conservative values.  Your attendance and support is essential to our success!

Click HERE for a banquet flyer.

You can also Partner with us as a Sponsor!

Banquet sponsorships start at $1.5K & range up to $10K

Program advertising opportunities are also available.

Please contact us today!

Event Details:

Illinois Family Institute
Faith, Family and Freedom Banquet

Friday, September 30 , 2016
Stonegate Conference Center
2401 W. Higgins Road
Hoffman Estates, IL  60169

Secure your tickets now – click here or call (708) 781-9328.

Program advertisements & banquet sponsorships available.

Early Bird Specials Expire on Sept. 5th!

NARAL Pro-Choice America, an infamous pro-abortion organization, is described by Fortune Magazine as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.” NARAL Pro-Abortion America recently published its annual Status of Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States report. According to this vehemently anti-life group, the United States received a “D” grade for so-called “reproductive rights.” 

The report not only graded the nation but also graded states individually. The report card uses a point system based on an assessment of governors, laws, access to contraceptives, access to abortions, spousal and parental consent, “post viability abortion restrictions” on abortions, state constitutional guarantees of abortion, “contraceptive equity” (a euphemism for state-subsidized contraceptives), and the codification of Roe v. Wade in state law. 

The “D” given to our nation means that our federal laws tend to lean pro-life. Those of us who believe that life is sacred from conception to natural death look forward to the day that NARAL assigns the United States an “F.” 

The report explains that both state restrictions and federal “anti-choice” laws determine the nationwide grade. These laws include the Federal Abortion Ban, signed into law in 2003 by President George W. Bush; the Federal Refusal Clause of the 2004 Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, which protects health care practitioners who oppose abortion; and abortion restrictions for U.S. military women. 

This relatively good news, however, does not extend to the Land of Lincoln. In fact, NARAL lauds Illinois’ state constitution for providing “greater protection for a woman’s right to choose than the U.S. Constitution.” (The U.S. Constitution neither explicitly nor implicitly guarantees the “right” to abort an unborn baby.) 

Additionally, NARAL lists our state’s top executive, Pat Quinn, as “pro-choice,” the Illinois Senate and Illinois House are listed as “mixed-choice,” however; the Illinois General Assembly is led by abortion supporters Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago). 

NARAL enumerates several anti-life laws in Illinois, which include requiring health-insurance plans that cover prescription medication to provide the same coverage for contraception, requiring pharmacies to dispense birth control, and providing access to “family planning” to low-income women through Medicaid. The report also highlights the long-litigated case to enforce Illinois’ 1995 Parental Notification Act, which remains in legal limbo and unenforced. 

The NARAL report underscores the unacceptable reality that Illinois’ laws and far too many lawmakers favor abortion. After the tabulation of points, NARAL ranks Illinois as the 17th most anti-life state in the nation — with Louisiana ranking 50th and California placing 1st in this dubious competition. NARAL also gave the state of Washington an “A+,” while Maine, Oregon, Maryland, Hawaii, and Connecticut received an “A.” States that received an “A-” are Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Montana and Vermont.

The states that received a failing grade from NARAL, thus being the safest for the unborn, are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, an infamous pro-abortion organization, is described by Fortune Magazine as “one of the top 10 advocacy groups in America.” NARAL Pro-Abortion America recently published its annual Status of Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States report. According to this vehemently anti-life group, the United States received a “D” grade for so-called “reproductive rights.”

The report not only graded the nation but also graded states individually. The report card uses a point system based on a n assessment of governors, laws, access to contraceptives, access to abortions, spousal and parental consent, “post viability abortion restrictions” on abortions, state constitutional guarantees of abortion, “contraceptive equity” (a euphemism for state-subsidized contraceptives), and the codification of Roe v. Wadein state law.

The “D” given to our nation means that our federal laws tend to lean pro-life. Those of us who believe that life is sacred from conception to natural death look forward to the day that NARAL assigns the United States an “F.”

The report explains that both state restrictions and federal “anti-choice” laws determine the nationwide grade. These laws include the Federal Abortion Ban, signed into law in 2003 by President George W. Bush; the Federal Refusal Clause of the 2004 Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, which protects health care practitioners who oppose abortion; and abortion restrictions for U.S. military women.

This relatively good news, however, does not extend to the Land of Lincoln. In fact, NARAL lauds Illinois’ state constitution for providing “greater protection for a woman’s right to choose than the U.S. Constitution.” (The U.S. Constitution neither explicitly nor implicitly guarantees the “right” to abort an unborn baby.)

Additionally, NARAL lists our state’s top executive, Pat Quinn (D), as “pro-choice,” the Illinois Senate and Illinois House are listed as “mixed-choice,” however; the Illinois General Assembly is led by abortion supporters Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago).

NARAL enumerates several anti-life laws in Illinois, which include requiring health-insurance plans that cover prescription medication to provide the same coverage for contraception, requiring pharmacies to dispense birth control, and providing access to “family planning” to low-income women through Medicaid. The report also highlights the long-litigated case to enforce Illinois’ 1995 Parental Notification Act, which remains in legal limbo and unenforced.

The NARAL report underscores the unacceptable reality that Illinois’ laws and far too many lawmakers favor abortion. After the tabulation of points, NARAL ranks Illinois as the 19th most anti-life state in the nation — with North Dakota ranking 50th and California placing 1st in this dubious competition. NARAL also gave the state of Washington an “A+,” while Maine, Oregon, Maryland, and Connecticut received an “A.” States that received an “A-” are Alaska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Vermont.

The states that received a failing grade from NARAL, thus being the safest for the unborn, are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia.