by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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A few days ago my 23 year old niece did something extraordinary.  She had a baby. A precious 10 pound baby girl.

Whereas in the past, giving birth seemed like a natural, common, and somewhat ordinary progression of life (yet still inherently miraculous), today having a child, or even more so children, is nothing short of extraordinary.

With today’s couples delaying marriage and often trading in bibs for leashes, the birthrate in the United States has hit its lowest rate ever. Some attribute this to the pandemic, but the fact is that the birthrate has been dropping steadily for several years.

The case against children has been simmering under the cultural surface for decades as the abortion industry has cast children as the enemy to be eradicated. Children limit our freedom. Children require sacrifice. Children are expensive.

The messaging has been subtle and steady. Now, however, it’s screaming at us from billboards: “Stop Having Children!”

As reported by Life News, that’s the very visible billboard campaign launched in Portland, Oregon by a pro-abortion group subscribing to anti-natalism, a “philosophical and ethical stance against human reproduction…to radically reduce suffering and environmental destruction in the world.” 

This is Margaret Sanger 2.0. Like the founder of Planned Parenthood, this small but vocal group of extremists believes the way to eliminate suffering is to eliminate the sufferer.

If we stop having kids, we’ll stop bringing people into a world that has problems.  And, as a happy side effect, there will be more resources for those of us granted the privilege of birth.

Cancel culture canceling life itself.

But there are problems with this sterile, short-sighted wokism.

The drooling babies, demanding toddlers, and difficult teens of today eventually become what you and I are now- the older and wiser caretakers, the persistent problem-solvers, the productive contributors to society.

Babies become people. And people are our greatest natural resource, fueling the world with their ingenuity, hard work, and good deeds. People discover, invent, cure, produce, and achieve. We imagine, overcome, inspire, seek a greater good, and above all, we love.

Canceling children today cancels tomorrow’s generations, and that severely limits our potential as a society.

Just ask China.

After years of brutally enforcing a one-child policy, they are now scrambling to reverse their humanity deficit as reported in Forbes magazine. Couples are now “permitted” to have up to three children in China to replenish their population.

Billionaire Elon Musk has issued his own warning about global population decimation, stating, “Please look at the numbers – if people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble, mark my words.”

But the problem of canceling kids is bigger than labor shortages or economic impact. We don’t just have children to supply tomorrow’s workforce.  Rather, children are the fullest expression of human love.

And when we have them, through the demands made and sacrifices offered, we learn to love in a way we hadn’t before. We become more “other-oriented” which is not only beneficial to the family unit but good for society in general. Raising children, the citizens of tomorrow, is a chance to
leave a legacy, our fingerprint on the future.

But children are not just our tomorrow, they are also our today.  They surprise and delight, help us to stay grounded, and become lifelong friends, perhaps even our own caretakers.  They give us more, much more, than they demand.  It’s not something we can quantify or even adequately articulate. If you know, you know.

What we need in our country is not anti-children billboards scaring young people away from parenthood, but a return to the very ordinary idea that having a family is a beautiful, worthwhile, and in its own way, extraordinary vocation.

As GK Chesteron said, “The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”

Let’s make America extraordinarily ordinary again by welcoming children into a country that we can make better together.

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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They say good things come in threes. Three times recently I have been awe-struck by the passion and conviction of pro-life teenagers.

First was the young woman who knocked on my door one Saturday. She was canvassing for the Susan B. Anthony List, making sure Pennsylvania residents understood where political candidates stood on life issues. I let her do her thing before telling her that I too work in the pro-life movement. Despite a windy, brisk afternoon, we ended up having a prolonged conversation about abortion and how to effectively share the truth.  I was practically moved to tears by her dedication to knock on doors, risking rejection and challenges as she moved from house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood.

While she occasionally found an ally like me, sometimes she really had to work hard to open eyes to the reality of abortion.  She told me of an instance just that day where she and her partner talked with a decidedly pro-choice woman for an hour. By the end, that woman expressed doubt in her original position, pledging to do more research!

As if trekking through unfamiliar neighborhoods on a cold winter weekend wasn’t enough, I then learned that this young woman actually traveled over an hour and a half to do this boots-on-the-ground educational outreach and that she was a still a senior in high school!

A few days later I received a plea for help from a colleague.  Her friend’s daughter, an eighth grader in public school, was experiencing much push back from her peers about her pro-life convictions.  She planned to write a paper about abortion and its devastating effects on women and society, but she needed to talk through common mantras she was hearing from her classmates, such as “My body, my choice” and “It’s not a baby yet.” How can she respond?  Where can she find good resources? 

This young lady and I were able to talk by phone for almost an hour. She was a mature middle schooler, impressing me with her wisdom and fortitude.  At a time in her life when peer pressure is reportedly the greatest, she was not backing down from her deeply held belief that life is sacred and worth protecting.  She was willing to endure unkind remarks from classmates. She just needed more “ammunition” to fight the good fight…facts and figures, science and stories to show them that abortion is not empowering or compassionate or justified.  In a follow-up email, I “armed” her with several good resources-books, videos, articles, websites- that she can use as she grows in her pro-life advocacy. I am in awe of her courage and have no doubt that she will be planting seeds in the hearts of many of her peers today and in the years to come.

And then, even more teen voices for life inundated me! This week marked the deadline for our annual pro-life essay contest for grades 7-12.  I have hundreds of essays sitting on my desk, sorted into our two judging categories. While some teachers incorporate the contest into their classroom assignments, other essays are submitted by individual students. We’ve received essays from public, private, Catholic, Christian, vocational, and homeschool students. One young lady, a public school student, wrote and emailed her essay after going to an educational talk offered by a local pregnancy center. She was so moved by what she learned, she entered our contest that night.

Some students emailed their essays which I in turn acknowledged, thanking the student for being a voice for life. Several students replied and thanked us for sponsoring the contest.  One young lady wrote, “You don’t have to thank me for submitting an essay…I thank you for giving me an opportunity to be able to share my opinion about abortion! The topic is very important to me and I want to help any way I can, and this contest gave me the chance to get my voice out, so I’d write this essay any day if it meant helping the women of our state!!”

While I am supposed to be the educator, I think these amazing teens are teaching me and all of us “seasoned” pro-lifers a valuable lesson: don’t ever let our pro-life flame grow dim…stay strong and bright, and when it’s darkest, courageously spread the light of life!

By Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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In 2020, over 16,000 women in Pennsylvania were given pills to abort their preborn children. For the first time, non-surgical abortions comprised 51% of abortions, the majority. While the 2020 PA Department of Health Abortion Statistic Report  lists these abortions as “medical” they are also known as chemical abortions.

Chemical abortion involves two medications: mifeprex (mifepristone) which blocks progesterone, cutting off nourishment, and misoprostel, which causes contractions, expelling the preborn child from the uterus.

The Food and Drug Administration does not recommend chemical abortion beyond the 10^th week of pregnancy, stating on their website that a woman should not take Mifeprex if it has been more than 70 days since the first day of her last menstrual period.

Despite abortion industry claims, chemical abortions are not safe, having a complication rate that is four times that of first trimester surgical abortions.

In fact the FDA website acknowledges there were reports of 26 deaths of women associated with mifepristone since the product was approved in September 2000.

In addition, more than 4000 adverse events have been associated with chemical abortion, but the actual number is likely much higher as mandatory reporting of adverse effects was suspended in 2016.

While chemical abortion by its very nature is dangerous and traumatic when given within recommended FDA guidelines, it is even more so when done outside of them.

That is why the 2020 PA Department of Health Abortion Statistic Report is so alarming. It shows that a total of 175 abortions were done after 10 weeks gestation in 2020. 

Most shocking is that 26 chemical abortions occurred at 18-20 weeks gestation and 25 at 21-23 gestation.  Not only are babies at these stages fully formed, much larger, and pain-capable, but many are viable. 

Premature babies as young as 21 weeks are being treated and saved in neonatal units across our country. But according to this report, others are being killed by chemical abortions, most likely in someone’s bathroom.

The abortion pill was not designed for later abortions, which is why the FDA has not extended its use past 10 weeks.

With chemical abortion it is more likely that a woman will experience complications the further along she is in her pregnancy. These complications can include incomplete abortion, retained products of conception, excessive bleeding, and infection. The abortion pill failure rate also increases over time.

Another disturbing statistic from the Pennsylvania report shows a 344% increase in sharp curettage abortions in just one year, a procedure that is often used for incomplete abortions.

So while the report claims that there were fewer complications from abortion than in the previous year, the dramatic rise in the sharp curettage procedure, in which the uterus is scraped, may reflect a higher rate of failed chemical abortions.

So we must ask who is prescribing chemical abortions beyond their recommended time frame and why are they putting women’s health in jeopardy? Are women warned of the risks? Are they warned of the psychological impact of delivering not just “pregnancy tissue” but a fully formed lifeless baby?

We can and must do better.  This is not health care. Or empowerment.  Or reproductive justice. It is a betrayal of vulnerable women.

Every abortion steals an innocent human life. And every chemical abortion risks great harm to the mother, especially those done beyond the recommended guidelines.

It shouldn’t be happening in Pennsylvania or anywhere.

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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February, designated as Black History Month, is a time to note and celebrate the many achievements of African Americans.  While a multitude of inspiring stories are recounted this month, there are countless others whose stories remain unspoken. That’s because so many Black voices have been silenced.  Their potential left unrealized. Their contributions rejected. They are Black children who were aborted.

And there are many. Abortion disproportionately affects the Black community.  While African Americans account for 12% of the population in Pennsylvania, in 2020 Black women accounted for 44% of the abortions in the state.  

That trend extends nationwide. Across the country, on average Black women are 4 to 5 times more likely to abort than white women. Tragically, it is estimated that the majority of pregnancies (52%) in the Black community end in abortion. More Black children are being killed in the womb than brought into the world. (see Blackgenocide.org)

This racial disparity stems from the very founding of the abortion industry, dating back to a movement that originated in eugenics. Planned Parenthood was recently forced to distance itself from its founder, Margaret Sanger, who referred to the Black community and other minorities as “human weeds,” warning that “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population….”

But that was exactly the underlying agenda of the American Birth Control League, the precursor to Planned Parenthood. Today, the vast majority (79%) of Planned Parenthood surgical abortion facilities are deliberately planted within walking distance of minority neighborhoods.

In a faint effort to be politically correct, Planned Parenthood took Margaret Sanger’s name off a building in New York. Yet, every single day they continue to target for extermination the very people she saw as less desirable.  

Illogically, abortion supporters allege that any law restricting abortion is racist, harming people of color. But what could hurt the Black community more than killing the next generation?  Depopulating them?  Wounding the women who bear life and alienating the men who are supposed to protect and provide for children? Weakening their families?

America’s Black community would be 36% larger today if not for abortion. There would be 20 million more beautiful Black faces dotting our cultural landscape, enriching our schools, our communities, our workplaces, our families. There would be so much more Black History to celebrate.    

Legalized abortion has not eradicated poverty, racial disparity, or domestic abuse. It has simply eradicated children who committed no offense. While the abortion of any child of any race is tragic, the decimation of Black children at the current rate is alarming in its demographic impact.

Abortion is the number one cause of death for Blacks. Some estimate that if this trend continues for the next 30 years, Black voting power, Black families, and Black people will be nearly extinct, realizing the vision of Sanger and other eugenicists. (See maafa21.org)

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Rather than promote abortion, we could address the root causes of why abortion is sought.  We could empower young women with the resources needed to bring life into the world, and support them in ways that will lift them out of their difficult circumstances.

That is what hundreds of maternity homes and pregnancy resource centers across our country do every day.  Just imagine if we amplify that effort, giving it much more attention and funding, rerouting taxpayer money that is handed to the abortion industry and using it instead to actually give life and hope.

True racial justice means ending the Black Genocide. Only then can future generations celebrate a more robust and beautiful Black History, one that welcomed the promise and potential that every single life holds.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE             CONTACT:  MARIA GALLAGHER, PPLF
January 4, 2022  717-541-0034

Pennsylvania Abortion Totals Increase;
Pandemic Partly Responsible for the Rise

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The number of abortions in Pennsylvania increased in 2020 by 3.5% according to the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the Keystone State affiliate of National Right to Life.

Statistics released by the Pennsylvania Department of Health show 1,105 more abortions occurred in 2020 compared to 2019. In all, 32,123 abortions took place in 2020—a year when the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the Commonwealth.

In a year when the Wolf Administration refused to allow Pennsylvanians to undergo elective surgeries, abortion operations were permitted to perform abortions unabated.  

“The increase in abortions in Pennsylvania is truly alarming,” said Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. “When many other businesses were forced to shut their doors, the abortion industry, led by abortion giant Planned Parenthood, continued to operate.

“Every abortion represents the tragic loss of an innocent human life. In addition, mothers are left to grieve children who are lost to abortion. It is a family tragedy of epic proportions,” Gallagher added. 

In Pennsylvania, abortion totals would be much higher were it not for the many pregnancy resource centers which provide free counseling and material assistance for pregnant women facing challenging circumstances. Pennsylvania’s state-assisted Pregnancy and Parenting Support Program offers true alternatives and options to women in their time of need. 

“No pregnant woman in Pennsylvania should feel as if she is alone. Pregnancy help centers stand ready to offer no-cost assistance and the emotional support every pregnant woman deserves,” Gallagher added. 

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The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation is a grassroots right-to-life organization with members statewide.  As the state affiliate of National Right to Life, PPLF is committed to promoting the dignity and value of human life from conception to natural death and to restoring legal protection for preborn children.

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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The two red lines sent her into a state of panic.

A call to Planned Parenthood confirmed she need not come in for an examination.  A tele-med appointment would now suffice. And it would cost less.

Within an hour, the prescription was ready. Two little pills would be her “lifeline.”

No one will ever know. This is safe.  This is easy. They told me so. This will give me my future back.

She wanted to believe all that. Hours later, reality proved otherwise.

Tears rained down her face while she tried to muffle cries and endure excruciating cramps.

Blood. Everywhere. Severely weakened, all she could do was lay on the cold floor for hours.

Hemorrhaging and pain would last for weeks. The trauma forever.

No one told her.

No one told her that women have died from these pills. That thousands have serious complications.

No one warned that the “tissue” she passed would have a little nose and perfectly formed upper lip.

No one explained she’d deliver a tiny baby, her baby into a toilet, an image she would never be able to unsee.

She was further along than suspected.  But a doctor never examined her. Instead, a stranger prescribed an abortion via computer.

She never felt more alone. Scared. Wounded.

This is mail-order abortion. This is what the FDA, the agency that is supposed to safeguard our health, is now allowing. 

This is what the abortion industry is selling. “Tele-health” that kills preborn babies and seriously puts women’s physical and emotional health at risk.

Back alley abortion has come into the home.

We mustn’t let it.  We must warn all the young women susceptible to the lies and deceptions of the abortion industry. We must assure them of our help and support.

We must protect them and their precious children, even when our government will not.

By Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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On December 1, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health regarding Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.  One argument put forth by the pro-abortion side was reliance.   In other words, the so-called right to abortion must be preserved because women have come to rely on it.     

In her opening statement, Department of Justice Solicitor General Elizabeth Prologar said, “The Court has never revoked a right that is so fundamental to so many Americans and so central to their ability to participate fully and equally in society.”

Can Prologar hear herself? Can she hear how profoundly anti-woman this argument is? She, and by extension our government, claims that abortion, the deliberate killing of one’s own child, is necessary for women to participate “fully and equally in society.”

Women can’t succeed without abortion. Is there a more misogynistic statement?

It is this line of thinking that allows Hollywood producers, Wall Street executives, and corporate management to tell women facing an untimely pregnancy to “get rid of it.” 

It is this warped mentality that encourages men to wash their hands of their responsibility as fathers, protectors, and providers. 

It is this pathetic worldview that says a woman’s fertility is a barrier to success. In order to compete with men, she must “apologize” for her own completely natural life-giving superpower by killing her own child.

Furthermore, this reliance mindset damages efforts to offer true support to women and families. Why offer paid maternity and paternity leave, remote work options, affordable child care, academic alternatives, or material and emotional support to women and families, when motherhood could have been “avoided” via abortion?

What kind of society have we created that some women feel they cannot acquire an education, advance their career, or find fulfillment unless they sacrifice their unborn child’s life?  This is pitiful progress in terms of the women’s movement.

Rather than removing the child from the sanctuary of the womb, we should be removing educational, vocational, and economic barriers for the women nurturing the next generation.

Shattering glass ceilings should not require shattering human lives.

While Prologar says the Court has never before revoked a right so fundamental to Americans as abortion, she is wrong. What could be more fundamental than the right to life itself?  In Roe the Court revoked that right, tragically denying “full and equal participation in society” to 62 million preborn Americans.

During arguments, Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that the South once relied on segregation in creating a society based on white supremacy.  It was an improper reliance, he acknowledged, based on an egregiously wrong understanding of what equal protection means.

The same can be said for abortion.  It is an improper reliance based on an egregiously wrong understanding of the law.  No one should have to rely on sacrificing a precious human life in order to participate fully and equally in society.

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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My body is not their property. So said Madi, a 21-year-old college senior who was 13 weeks pregnant.  Featured in a recent ABC News story, Madi flew to Mississippi’s lone abortion facility, with her mother’s blessing nonetheless, to get the abortion she could no longer get in Texas, stating, “I had to keep in mind that I was doing this for me.” 

At 13 weeks, Madi was in her second trimester, and her child was about 3 inches long, the size of a peach. His heart was beating, his gender distinguishable, and his vocal cords newly formed. He could respond to light touch, turning his mouth toward it, an indication of the rooting reflex used when nursing. Madi’s baby could even hiccup. His little body was physically joined to but genetically separate from his mother. His body was not her property.

But no one seems to tell Madi this fact. Rather the entire ABC News segment focuses on aborting her child as THE only choice, leaving out information on any other option.

Missing is any evidence of an ultrasound, perhaps because seeing her baby would have changed Madi’s mind as it does to the majority of women considering abortion.

Missing is the hundreds of easily accessible pregnancy resource centers equipped to help Madi materially and emotionally through her pregnancy and long after.

Missing is the father of the baby, with whom she said she had been in a committed relationship.  Co-creator of this new life, he is denied any role as to whether his child lives or dies.

Missing is any mention whatsoever of the other A-word: adoption, and the fact that for every baby placed for adoption there are 36 couples waiting to grow their family.

Missing are specifics of how the “procedure” is done, whether the baby feels pain, and where his little body ends up.

And missing is just one person to say “Yes, you can do this and I will help you.” Even Madi’s mother is willing to exterminate her own grandchild so that her daughter can get back to her “typical college life.”

With abortion dominating headlines due to Supreme Court cases, we can expect more liberal media stories sympathetic to the abortion industry. Indeed, poor Madi is upheld as a new Norma McCorvey of sorts, the original Jane Roe, who was used by the abortion lobby and then tossed aside.  McCorvey actually never got an abortion though, and her daughter lives today. Madi’s child does not.

Among the many things Madi is never told in this thinly veiled propaganda piece is that she doesn’t have to choose between her child and her future.  That she should be empowered and supported to return to school and chase her dreams. That she can take responsibility for her child to whom she is already a mother.  That she engaged, by her own admission, in baby-making behavior that indeed made a baby.

Also unspoken are the long term consequences of abortion. While Madi gushes over the kindness of abortion staff, one must wonder where any of them will be when a more mature Madi, perhaps trying to conceive one day or watching her next child’s ultrasound, awakens to the reality of the precious life she sacrificed.  Where will the abortion advocates be when the anxiety, addiction, depression, relationship issues, and suicidal thoughts that plague many post-abortive women come to haunt Madi?

No one reminds her that pregnancy is temporary, but abortion forever. And forever is a long time to feel the ache of grief and guilt over a child needlessly killed.

Equipped with truth about the baby within her and supported by family and community, Madi might have taken another road. All she needed was someone to tell her the plain truth that yes, her body is not their property, and it never was…even when she was 13 weeks old in her own mother’s womb.