Category Archives: General

Who Really Has Women’s Best Interests at Heart?

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Planned Parenthood with its bright pink logo and its catchy slogans claims to have women’s best interests at heart. But it doesn’t take much to see past the façade.

The abortion provider fights vehemently for “access to women’s reproductive health care” (translation: abortion). They oppose any and all abortion regulation laws – including those PlannedParenthood1meant to protect women’s health – all in the name of access.

But when it comes to real health care access issues, Planned Parenthood isn’t just silent. They’re actually promoting a law that cuts off access to basic health care for women and their families.

I’m talking about Obamcare.

Planned Parenthood is one of the biggest proponents of the federal health care law. The problem is that as more people sign up for new insurance plans, they are finding that their new plans exclude specialist doctors and highly-reputable health care centers, according to a report by the National Right to Life Committee.

National news outlets also are picking up on the restricting effects of the law. In an Oct. 21, 2013, piece in USA Today, Annika McGinnis wrote:

“In New Hampshire, the exchange has just Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which greatly reduces the number of hospital options, says State Sen. Andy Sanborn. Since more than 90% of doctors are affiliated with specific hospitals, the new plans will also exclude many doctors, he added. Plans don’t include the capital’s Concord Hospital, and the next-closest hospital uses Concord doctors, Sanborn said. So, he said, people will have to drive to a third hospital an hour away. They’ll even have to call an ambulance from a far-away hospital to pick them up, he said.”

And this is just one of many examples.

Planned Parenthood conveniently ignores the fact that Obamacare is forcing families to travel further to find basic health care. As long as women can have easy access to abortions, nothing else matters to them.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that Planned Parenthood cares only about abortion. No matter what.

Learn the Latest Pro-Life News and Information at Our Spring Town Hall Tour

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This winter seemed as though it would never end, but the signs of spring are finally appearing. I love the warmth and hope that spring holds. It reminds me that good things are ahead.

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Micaiah Bilger during our 2013 Town Hall Tour

I feel the same way during our annual Pro-Life Town Hall Tour, which is coming up April 28 to May 6.

It’s a time when we travel across the state and connect with pro-lifers, sharing the latest information about pro-life issues and ideas for restoring a culture of life in our state.

This year, we’ll be talking about the effects of Obamacare on abortion and euthanasia, notorious abortionists in our state, pro-life progress in Pennsylvania, tools for communicating the pro-life message, and more.

I really enjoy the time I spend talking with people before and after the meetings. I always feel so hopeful after hearing about what pro-lifers are doing in their towns to support and encourage families to choose life.

Please join me and our Executive Director Michael Ciccocioppo to learn, connect, and be inspired for life. Join us in:

Gettysburg – Noon to 1:30 p.m. Monday, April 28
West Chester – 7 to 9 p.m. Monday, April 28
Danville – Noon to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 29
Lewistown – 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 29
Clarion – 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 30
New Castle – Noon to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, May 1
Latrobe – 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 1
Huntingdon – Noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday, May 2
Mechanicsburg – 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, May 6

For details, contact us at lifelines@paprolife.org or 717-541-0034.

Dancing with Disability

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By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director

When I worked in TV news, we would talk about creating a “moment,”–a point
in time played out on the television screen that was particularly memorable.

As I was watching a replay of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” this week, I
witnessed such a moment, or, more accurately, a series of amy-purdy-contemporarymind-blowing
moments, when the couple known as “Amy and Derek” danced.

The ABC website reports that contestant Amy Purdy lost her legs at the age
of 19 following a bout with meningitis. Undaunted, she became a three-time
World Cup Para-snowboard champion.

Her contemporary dance with professional partner Derek Hough began with baby
steps on her artificial legs and feet. At times, she gracefully fell to the
floor, to be picked up again by her partner. At one point, Derek twirls
her about so that she appears to be flying, and by the end of the dance, it
looks as if she is walking on air.

The song that accompanies the dance is “Human,” in which the singer notes,
“I can do it,” before admitting, “I’m only human/And I crash and break
down.”

At the dance’s end, the face of guest judge Robin Roberts of “Good Morning
America” reflects immense human emotion. The dance is a brilliant gem of an
example of the courage, fortitude, strength, heroism,and endurance that
people with disabilities evidence everyday.

It was a profound moment of accomplishment, and showed the miraculous feats
that can be achieved through hard work and perseverance–a moment of triumph
over trauma.

Share this video with your Facebook friends and Twitter followers. It is a
powerful argument against an attitude which says that a disability makes
life no longer worth living–or of no value from the start. The video is a
moment worth living again and again.

Click here to view the video.

Patterns in the Universe Point to the Value of Life at Conception

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A few weeks ago, there was big news about new scientific evidence involving the Big Bang theory.

USA Today summed up the findings this way, “In an achievement hailed as astounding, scientists have detected ripples made in the fabric of the universe just after the Big Bang, providing definitive evidence that that the universe underwent a fast and incomprehensibly massive growth spurt in its earliest infancy.” spaceimage

I don’t know where you stand on the whole beginning of the universe thing. Maybe it all began with one random, colossal bang of energy, or maybe God created it in six, consecutive 24-hour periods. My purpose isn’t to argue science or theology.

No matter what you believe, it’s hard to deny that our world is full of patterns. Our universe has an order, a predictability to it. As I was reading the news story, it made me think about the similarities between the beginning of the universe and the beginning of our lives.

I’m no scientist, but from what I understand, the Big Bang theory says the universe began with a huge explosion of random particles that suddenly turned into our universe – to put it very, very simply.

The point is that the universe didn’t gradually come into being – whether you believe the Biblical creation story or the Big Bang theory. Basically, there was nothing, and then a big event suddenly turned it into something: our universe.

That pattern should be familiar to us. We see it in the beginning of every human life. First, there’s nothing – just some random cells from a man and a woman. Then, as the matter meets, there’s suddenly something: a new human life.

It may seem like a simple observation, but the more I look at the world and explore the issues of life and death, the more I see how nature reinforces the principle that human life is valuable from the moment of conception.

Human life doesn’t gradually become valuable, just as the universe didn’t gradually become our universe.

We are valuable from our very beginning.

Women at NYC Abortion Center Reject Abortion Doula Services

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Today, I read a story in The Atlantic about a woman who volunteers as an abortion doula in New York City.

The woman said she provides “pain management and relaxation techniques, information and education about pregnancy, and above all, emotional support and empathy” to women undergoing abortions.

What really struck me was the number of women who refused her services during their abortions. She said: “Of the seven I was with yesterday, five of them were not really interested in connecting. They don’t want to make eye contact. They’re resistant to my offered hand.”

I wondered why all those women refused her support. Then, an achingly painful thought crossed my mind. I imagined being those women laying on the cold, hard table, feeling so powerless and so alone as if all the world was against them.

I imagined them looking away bitterly and thinking, “Where were you yesterday?”

“I don’t need your compassion today. I needed it yesterday when my boyfriend told me he’d leave me if I didn’t get this abortion.

“I needed you yesterday when I couldn’t pay my rent.

“I needed you yesterday when I felt self-conscious and wanted someone to tell me I’m still beautiful.

“I needed you yesterday when I thought maybe, just maybe if I had a friend to take me to doctor’s appointments and hold my hand during labor and help with babysitting, that maybe I could do this. I could be a good mom.

“No, your compassion came too late.”

I believe a lot of people who support abortion do it out of a misplaced compassion. They see pregnant women struggling, worried, alone, and they believe abortion is a quick and easy solution. But they fail to see that their compassion doesn’t go far enough and doesn’t come soon enough. They fail to realize that an abortion doesn’t really solve the woman’s actual problem, and it carries a life-long impact for two people, not just one.

That’s why pro-life outreach through pregnancy resource centers is so vitally important. These centers provide complete compassion for both women and children. And they help women to overcome the root of their problems – whether it’s poverty or relationship trouble or emotional support.

Our pro-life movement truly is a movement of compassion. We realize that compassion is a never-ending task, and we keep striving to extend our compassion further and further so that every woman is empowered with the resources to choose life.

If you know someone who is pregnant and needs help, click here to find pregnancy resources in Pennsylvania.

“God’s Not Dead” Movie: Every Life Is Meaningful through God

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A movie with the provocative title, “God’s Not Dead” opened in theatres over the weekend. Although I tend not to be an opening weekend kind of girl, I had been eagerly awaiting this film, ever since I saw the eye-opening trailer.

God'sNotDeadThe intriguing plot centers on a college student who finds his Christian faith challenged on the first day of his philosophy class by a professor with a Mt. Sinai-sized chip on his shoulder. A number of interweaving subplots demonstrate the drama of faith—both the callous rejection of it and the courageous embrace of it.

While the story is fictitious, it is based on a number of fundamental truths about human nature, creation, and relationships. As the final credits indicate, the film was also inspired by real-life court cases, some of which involve college pro-life groups and the challenges they can face on campus.

And that got me to thinking. While pro-abortion groups sometimes use members of the clergy to sell their message about “reproductive rights,” there is something fundamentally atheistic about the whole business of legalized abortion.

For it denies the supremacy of the Creator in determining when life begins and when it ends. It cuts the Almighty out of the equation.

In one poignant scene of “God’s Not Dead,” a pastor helps a young woman to understand that she is not a mistake, because God doesn’t make mistakes. Yet, more than three thousand times a day, the abortion industry tells American women that their babies are mistakes, and therefore should be eliminated. Pro-abortion apologists attempt to shore up the argument by claiming that these undesirable children would have ended up committing crimes and otherwise wreaking havoc on society, as if they were programmed to cause trouble from the moment they appeared in the womb. On one hand, abortion advocates argue that life does not begin at conception, while on the other hand they claim they can know from the start that this baby should not be given a chance at life.

The film deftly points out that a public denial of the existence of God can mask a deep hurt stemming from a profound tragedy which occurs during the course of one’s life. The age-old question appears: How can an all-loving God permit evil? One might wonder, too, what emotional scars prompt a woman to seek abortion—or a doctor to turn to abortion to make a living. Read the book The Hand of God by the late Dr. Bernard Nathanson, NARAL’s founder, and you can catch a glimpse of the world of pain that can exist within an abortionist’s soul.

Nathanson went from being an atheistic abortion rights pioneer to a Christian pro-life advocate. His conversion to the pro-life stand preceded his religious conversion—he first began to see the humanity of an unborn child in an ultrasound before he was able to touch the face of God.

One can come to the conclusion that abortion is unjust purely through the force of reason. Indeed, there are atheists and agnostics who do recognize abortion to be the taking of an innocent human life.

But there is also a profound religious argument to be made in defense of the pro-life stand: Abortion is the ultimate rejection of God and His merciful love.

Pennsylvania Remains a Leader in the Fight for Life

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By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director
gallagher@paprolife.org

A national group recently claimed that Pennsylvania is losing ground, as far as the fight for life is concerned.

Thankfully for Pennsylvanians, this is actually NOT the case.

Capitol-front-viewLargePennsylvania has made incredible progress in defending innocent human life in the past three years. We’ve seen at least six abortion facilities shut their doors. Abortion totals have nosedived nearly 5 percent. We’ve also passed landmark legislation such as our abortion center regulation law, which ensures that abortion facilities follow the same safety standards as outpatient surgery centers. And we enacted a law guaranteeing that no taxpayer funding of abortion will occur in the Keystone State under the health insurance exchange created by the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

The prosecution of abortionist Kermit Gosnell also awakened a number of Americans to the horrors that can occur inside a legal abortion facility. Gosnell and his associates–who killed infants and whose negligence resulted in the death of a female patient–have been brought to justice.

The political arm of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion operation, is targeting Pennsylvania because of the stunning victories we have achieved on the pro-life front.

It can easily be argued that, in the past few years, Pennsylvania has made more pro-life progress than in the past twenty years. That is due to pro-lifers across our state, who are calling and emailing our public officials as never before, lobbying on behalf of life. And we must also thank our state legislators and our Governor for their steadfast determination to protect babies and their mothers from harm.

Pennsylvanians have every reason to be proud of our pro-life achievements. They are helping to not only save lives, but improve the quality of life for our citizens.

One Year after Kermit Gosnell’s Trial, We Must Stay Vigilant

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One year has passed since abortionist Kermit Gosnell went on trial, and his horrific crimes are still having an impact today.

Pennsylvania and other states have taken action to help prevent other abortionists like Gosnell from preying on vulnerable women and their babies; but there is still so much work to be done.

Star Parker, a pro-life leader in the black community, writes at LifeNews.com:

gosnell40“Anecdotes of those who worked (at Gosnell’s abortion facility) suggest the scope of murder, illegal abortions, abuse of women — mostly low income minority and immigrant women — was far beyond what could be adequately documented to stand up for the trial.

“The years that Gosnell committed his atrocities with no regulatory oversight, and the challenges to get national media attention to his trial once it began, should provoke extra vigilance today to ad-dress the issues involved that still are not getting adequate attention and the extent to which similar abuses are occurring elsewhere.

“At the conclusion of the Gosnell trial, the chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Energy and Commerce committees wrote to Attorneys General and leading health officials in all the states.

“Attorneys General were asked whether ‘state and local officials are being stymied in their efforts to protect the civil rights of newborns and their mothers by legal or financial obstacles that are within the federal government’s power to address.’ State health officials were asked how they regulate and monitor abortion clinics to protect the health and safety of women.

“We’d like to know the results of these inquiries and how this information can be used to create better policies for protecting women and children.

“My colleagues find in their investigations around the nation that Kermit Gosnell was by no means one of a kind. There are more. And, to our dismay, irresponsible and inhumane behavior continues regarding the treatment of women, particularly low-income minority women, in these facilities.”

Pennsylvania, under pro-life Governor Tom Corbett, has done a lot to help protect women and babies from abortionists who would prey on their vulnerability.

Right now, the Pennsylvania Senate is considering a bill that would enact harsher penalties for impersonating a doctor – something several of Gosnell’s employees did.

We must stay vigilant. We must never forget the women and babies who Gosnell slaughtered. And we must never stop working to protect them.

Discovering Pro-Life Truths in the New “Son of God” Movie

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By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director

A couple of things struck me as I watched “Son of God,” the movie of Jesus’ life produced by “Touched by an Angel’s” Roma Downey and mega-hit TV producer Mark Burnett of “Survivor” fame.

SonofGodMovieThe first thing that made me pause was when Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” My mind turned to those who are non-committal when it comes to the point at which human life begins.

At one point in my life, I was in that category. I could understand a being of three months’ gestation being called a baby, but before that, I wasn’t so sure. It took a radio news editor to get me back on track, saying that life began at conception. It seemed an inconvenient truth to me but, in the end, logic demanded that I accept it. The beginning doesn’t start with the heart beat or the brain wave—it begins with the union of sperm and egg. Any other proposed starting point would be entirely arbitrary and, well, untrue.

Another particularly poignant point in the film was when Jesus asked the Father to forgive those who put him to death because they know not what they do. I have known so many, many people who did not understand the cruelty of abortion, who did not know relevant facts about fetal development, who really did not fully comprehend what they were doing when they were advocating for abortion or procuring one.

That is why pro-life education is so vitally important—for opening the eyes of women and men alike to the horror of abortion. Whether the education comes in the form of a fetal model, a 4D ultrasound image, or a full description of a dismemberment abortion, it is critical for persuading the public that abortion is, in truth, the taking of an innocent human life. So too, post-abortive women need to be encouraged and supported when giving their gut-wrenching testimonies about the devastating impact abortion has had on their lives. It can be frustrating to think that, after more than four decades of legalized abortion, we still need to share some basic truths, but that is, in fact, the case.

We also need to empower those who believe that abortion is bad for women, but who are not quite brave enough or motivated enough to work for its end. If we are not speaking out about the world of hurt that abortion causes…if we are not educating our children about it, writing letters to the editor, contacting public officials…we are passive bystanders to the greatest human rights violation of our day.

For, in truth, each child who has been conceived is a son or daughter of God, of infinite value and undeniable dignity, who should be protected both in the womb and beyond.

Mom Rejects Abortion after Seeing Friend’s Facebook Post

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Just a short note today. It’s a reminder about when we feel ineffective or discouraged as advocates for life.

Today, I read about a woman who posted a pro-life photo and article on her Facebook page. It was a simple post, but it made all the difference to someone who saw it.Unborn baby picture

After posting the photo, she received this note from a woman who was considering having an abortion:

“So, not really sure how I know you exactly or why we’re Facebook friends, just know that your 12 week old image and article had a profound effect on me and my current situation. Thank you… Just know that your post has changed my outlook. Thanks, girl, for more than you know.”

Because of that simple post, the woman chose life for her baby. You can read the full story here.

I just wanted to encourage you, readers, to keep doing what you’re doing. You may be doing something simple like posting a photo to Facebook or something mundane like folding newsletters for a pro-life organization.

Just remember, even the little things can make a big difference for life.