Tag Archives: abortion

Abortions Drop to All-Time Low in Pennsylvania in 2013

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HARRISBURG, Pa. – Abortions have dropped to an all-time low in Pennsylvania, according to 2013 abortion statistics released Wednesday by the state Department of Health.

Choose Life!“As abortion centers close and more life-affirming information and resources become available, more women are being empowered to choose life,” said Ms. Micaiah Bilger, education director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation.

In 2013, the number of abortions in Pennsylvania dropped by 7 percent to 32,108, according to the report. The closure of abortion facilities, the assistance offered by pregnancy resource centers and state-of-the-art technology are all playing a role in the decrease in abortion totals in the Commonwealth.

“Modern technology is making it easier to see the value of life in the womb and the tragedy of abortion,” Bilger said. “Ultrasounds allow parents to see their baby smiling or sucking his or her thumb, and a new study from the University of Florida showed that preborn babies can learn nursery rhymes in the womb.”

Tragically, however, more women are being harmed by abortions in our state. In 2013, abortion complications rose by almost 22 percent, according to the report.

“Women deserve to know the risks of abortion and their alternatives,” Bilger said. “Thanks to Pennsylvania pregnancy resources centers and our state Alternatives to Abortion program administered by Real Alternatives, Inc., more pregnant and parenting moms have access to this information and support.”

Real Alternatives offers free, confidential caring pregnancy services including pregnancy testing, temporary shelter, diapers and other baby supplies, food and shelter assistance referrals, counseling, and more. Learn more at www.realalternatives.org.

“This is key to ensuring that pregnant and parenting women have access to the support that they and their families deserve,” Bilger said. “We will continue to work so that every woman and her preborn child are protected and valued under the law.”

Read the full 2013 Pennsylvania Abortion Statistics report.

Eight Pro-Life Resolutions for 2015, Including Mine

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I have a confession. I rarely make New Year’s resolutions. I like to think it’s not because I’m lazy, but because I see New Year’s Day as just some arbitrary spot on the calendar. I tell myself I can make resolutions any time. I don’t need “January 1st” to motivate me.

People for Life of Erie at the March for Life

People for Life of Erie at the March for Life

Well, I have resolved to change that. I am making a resolution, and I encourage you to make one, too – whether you start Jan. 1 or some other time. Here are eight pro-life resolutions for you to consider (including mine for 2015):

1. Dedicate time to pray for an end to abortion. Last year, I began praying every Friday morning during my hour-long commute. Fridays are one of the busiest days for our local abortion center, so I spend my hour praying for the women, their families, the sidewalk counselors, abortionists and staff. If you are a religious person, consider a new prayer resolution.

2. Learn to articulate your position on human life. Put Scott Klusendorf’s “A Case for Life” or Frank Beckwith’s “Defending Life” on your reading list this year. Both offer a very strong, reasoned case for why all human life should be protected. They also help teach you to respond to pro-abortion arguments.

3. Listen. If a friend is facing a crisis, listen. If he/she wants advice, offer it but only after you listen. If your sister-in-law is pro-choice on abortion, listen to her reasons why before you respond. Sometimes the best way to love people is to show them that we care enough to listen.

4. Volunteer. Contact one of our 40+ chapters, a pro-life group at your school or college, or your local pregnancy help center to volunteer.

5. Attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C. This huge pro-life rally inspires hundreds of thousands of people every year. It’s an awe-inspiring event. Contact us for details.

6. Tell your elected officials where you stand on life. If they vote pro-life, thank them. If they don’t, ask them to. And if you don’t know where your elected officials stand, contact us and we’ll let you know.

7. Stay informed. As the 2015 approaches, we already have our eyes on new threats to life here in Pennsylvania, including doctor-prescribed suicide and a new pro-abortion governor who already has appointed abortion advocates to his transition team. Keep yourself informed by signing up for our twice monthly e-newsletter.

8. Donate. Pro-life organizations like us need your support. Whether you can donate time or resources, you can help us in our mission to restore protections for life. Personally, I’m resolving to spend less on things like coffee and junk food in 2015 so I can donate more to those in need. Donate here.

Please consider making a pro-life resolution in 2015. You can be a part of this mission to ensure protections for every human life in Pennsylvania.

Merry Christmas, and happy New Year!

Women Headed to Congress Will Work to Protect Preborn Babies

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I have to chuckle when a politician says something that is meant to push abortion but ends up sounding very pro-life — and it backfires on them.

joniernst

U.S. Senator-elect Joni Ernst from Iowa

For example, this morning I was reading an article in the National Review about a wonderful group of pro-life women who will be heading to Congress next year. The article included a quote from Hillary Clinton, who was campaigning in Iowa right before the election.

Clinton attacked pro-life Senate candidate Joni Ernst, saying: “It’s not enough to be a woman. You have to be committed to expand rights and opportunities for all women.”

Expanding rights for all women sounds good when you consider preborn females in the womb. But we know Clinton was only referring to born women.

Iowans heard Clinton’s message and chose Ernst instead. They recognized the candidate who is truly committed to expanding rights for all women – born and preborn.

It’s an exciting time for pro-lifers. A strong group of women will be in our U.S. House and Senate next year, fighting for the rights of preborn babies.

Read more about Ernst, Elise Stefanik, Mia Love, Barbara Comstock, Mimi Walters and others who will be new voices in Washington for the rights of all women – born and preborn.

How to Explain Why We Believe What We Believe about Life

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Last Saturday, I participated in a very encouraging youth event organized by the St. Gabriel Respect Life Committee in Carlisle.

CupcakeOne thing that really struck me about the event – from the speaker’s talk to the students’ comments — was the vital importance of teaching young pro-lifers to understand and articulate our position on life.

Guest speaker Missy Martinez from Students for Life said many young people are in the “mushy middle” when it comes to abortion. Many haven’t thought a lot about the issue.

Martinez encouraged students to start conversations with their peers about abortion. She laid out the basic pro-life position and discussed how pro-lifers can have civil, reasonable conversations with people around us. Here are the basics of the pro-life position:

We believe every human being has an equal right to life. Modern science has proven that from the moment of conception preborn babies are distinct human beings. Therefore, we believe preborn babies also should have an equal right to life.

We believe there is no significant difference between a preborn human being and a born human being that makes it ok to kill the preborn human. A preborn baby is different from an adult in size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency; however, the differences are not significant enough to make it ok to kill a preborn baby. Born humans also have these differences.

We believe that circumstances such as poverty or wantedness are not good reasons to kill a preborn baby in the same way that circumstances are not a good reason to kill a toddler. Both the preborn baby and the toddler are human beings who should have an equal right to life.

These points are foundational to our cause. Every pro-lifer should memorize them and be willing to discuss them. They explain what we believe and why it’s so important.

Please consider sharing this article. Or share this short video “Defending Your Pro-Life Views in Two Minutes or Less,” which explains the same points.

Planned Parenthood Abortions — 3 Percent or 93 Percent?

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Abortion advocates spin their deadly trade to make themselves look friendly and appealing. Even Planned Parenthood, our nation’s largest abortion provider, prefers to promote its other, non-abortion services to make itself look better.

PP3percentPlanned Parenthood claims that abortion makes up only 3 percent of its services, but Students for Life is calling out this deceptive abortion statistic in a new video. Watch here as Students for Life explains how the group manipulates its numbers to come up with 3 percent.

In the video, Students for Life breaks down Planned Parenthood’s annual report numbers and finds: Of all pregnant women who went to Planned Parenthood in 2012-2013, 93.78 percent had an abortion.

Planned Parenthood works hard and spends a lot of money (our tax dollars) to promote itself as a kind, caring women’s health organization. But its numbers point to Planned Parenthood’s true priority – abortion.

Planned Parenthood: Care. (About Abortion.) No Matter What.

Dear Magazine Publisher, Abortion Is Bad for Business

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By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director
gallagher@paprolife.org

I recently felt tempted to subscribe to a fashion magazine in which a famous pop star graced the cover.

Image of a baby at seven weeksBut, when I happened upon the magazine’s website, I discovered an article claiming that having an abortion was not a difficult decision.

Not only did I not subscribe — but I let the publisher know why.

Abortion is, in fact, bad for business — but some business leaders are not getting the message. That’s why it’s important for us to communicate our view that abortion is not a trifling subject — it is a matter of life and death.

I think far too often we sell ourselves short, thinking our opinions don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. In fact, they do — and so do our decisions about where and how we spend our hard-earned money.

Businesses that promote abortion on demand for any reason during all nine months of pregnancy need to be taken to task. They need to be reminded that the radical agenda they are pushing is out of the mainstream.

In the end, money does talk — and it should talk in defense of the helpless baby and her mother.

Assisted Suicide, Quick Fixes, and a Lesson from My Dad

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Growing up, my dad always impressed upon us the importance of doing a job well.

He didn’t believe in quick fixes. When we worked with him, we were expected to finish the job right. If we made a mistake, he helped us repeat the task until it was correct.

OldwomanPerhaps the biggest test of this work ethic came when my father took on the huge task of building a home for us. I remember when my siblings and I helped him measure and lay the cinder block foundation. I was about 14 at the time, and I remember thinking he was being very fussy about measurements. He told us, if the foundation was even a fraction of an inch off, it would cause major problems as we built the rest of the house.

Throughout the building process, he strongly emphasized that we must not take short cuts or try to quick-fix a mistake we had made. He promised that he wouldn’t be angry if we made a mistake, but he would be upset if we tried to cover it up. And he was true to his word. If we made a mistake, he was patient with us. He took the time to teach us how to do it correctly, though it created more work for him.

Now as I look back, I realize how vitally important that lesson is to my work today. A recent episode of 60 Minutes reminded me of the newest quick fix being proposed in our society – legalized assisted suicide.

The show focused on the case of Barbara Mancini, a Schuylkill County woman who was arrested after allegedly helping her 93-year-old father, Joseph Yourshaw, commit suicide. Mancini later was exonerated due to the lack of evidence.

Still, Mancini told 60 Minutes that her father should have had the option to commit assisted suicide. She said her father was in pain, and he told people he wanted to die. Mancini now is working with the pro-euthanasia group Compassion and Choices to push for legalized assisted suicide.

But Dr. Ira Byock, who was interviewed later in the show, exposed assisted suicide as a quick-fix solution that ignores the real issue.

Byock, a Dartmouth College professor and a medical expert in end of life care, reviewed Yourshaw’s medical and hospice records and discovered that he was not receiving adequate care for his pain. Byock explained that almost all pain can be managed with modern medicine, but many health care providers aren’t trained well in pain management.

He also pointed out that the elderly and terminally ill are often made to feel that they are burdens on society, and Yourshaw felt he was being a burden, according to his medical records.

Byock emphasized that the solution for people like Yourshaw is not assisted suicide but better end-of-life care and the assurance that their lives still matter.

But making that solution a reality takes a lot of hard work. Our job as pro-lifers isn’t easy, just as my dad’s job wasn’t easy. It takes patience and perseverance to help an elderly or ill person through their day to day life. It takes hard work and dedication for health care professionals to learn the additional skills necessary to help relieve patients’ pain.

But without hard work, what do we get? The quick fixes of assisted suicide and abortion. They take away something valuable that we can never get back, no matter how hard we work — an individual person’s life.

Generation Y and Why They Are Naturally Pro-Life

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By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director
gallagher@paprolife.org

“You’ve got to be taughtClassroom
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

— From the Broadway musical “South Pacific”

The lyrics above explored discrimination — but I think the sentiment also applies to the pro-abortion cause. I think you have to be carefully taught to deny the humanity of the unborn child and to accept Roe v. Wade.

I was reminded of this truism during a recent talk I gave to 7th and 8th grade religion students. I started by asking them how many abortions they thought took place in the U.S. each year. When I told them the number was estimated at more than a million, a look of incredulity crossed their faces — as if I had informed them their parents were throwing out their cell phones.

When we ventured onto the topic of euthanasia, their bewilderment increased. They could not understand why anyone would intentionally kill anyone — especially an elderly person or a person with a disability — under the guise of compassion. They were astounded.

I suppose someone on the pro-abortion side might argue that these students lacked the maturity to fully understand the issue of abortion. Yet, the same individual would probably argue that the female students would be mature enough to go before a judge and obtain a judicial bypass for an abortion.

Which is it — are young people not thoughtful enough to grasp Roe? Or are they so mature that they no longer need parental input in their decisions?

I would argue that a young person’s tendency is to treasure life — especially the lives of people younger than themselves. It is only when society brainwashes them into believing that life is random, dependent upon another’s whims, and disposable that they veer off into pro-abortion land.

After all, you have to be carefully taught.

Doula Struggles with Saying 11-Year-Old’s Abortion, Sex-Selection Abortion Are Wrong

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I read a lot of terrible abortion stories for my job, but some break my heart more than others.

Mom-and-ChildA few weeks ago, I came across a column in the New York Magazine written by an abortion doula. Curious, I clicked on the story and read about the young woman, who provides emotional support for women as they have abortions.

I began to feel more and more horrified as I read about her work and her attempts to justify really terrible things. She writes:

“A year ago, when I was just starting out, Mitchell met with me and the other trainees to talk about the job. We sat in the park, eating pie. She gave us a sheet with situations so exaggeratedly horrible they seemed unreal: An 11-year-old in for an abortion who asks for birth control when she’s alone with the doctor. Her mother works nights; she’d been left with a friend who has a twentysomething son. She calls him her boyfriend; he will go to jail. A woman who says she’d like to do another ultrasound to see if it’s definitely a girl, because she’ll only keep it if it isn’t. …
“’What do you assume?’ Mitchell asked of each case. ‘How can you be supportive?’ We talked about what would be hard for us to overcome, things we might say or do and how we might feel. I felt embarrassed by my assumptions, and the limits of my compassion. I judged these women on the worthiness of their reasons (‘Would she really only keep a boy?’ I wondered) and found myself questioning why those who come in for late-term abortions had waited so long to decide. Later, I learned from Mahoney that all the examples were real cases that had come from her first six months working as an abortion doula.” (You can read the full article here. Parts of it are graphic.)

I hung my head in anger and shame as I read about this young woman from my own generation, a young woman so caught up in the net of moral relativism that she believes it is compassionate to dismiss the rape of an 11-year-old or condone the woman who is aborting her baby simply because she’s a girl.

My generation place high moral value on the idea of acceptance and non-judgment. I think it comes from college, where we’ve been taught moral relativism – your morals aren’t better than mine, and mine aren’t better than yours. We have no right to judge someone else’s actions or beliefs. There is no right or wrong.

Acceptance, inclusiveness, a judgment-free attitude – these are all good things. But when these concepts are taken to the extreme of moral relativism, they become dangerous, and this article is a perfect example of it. Acceptance and non-judgment are no excuse for ignoring things that are truly terrible.

Sometimes people are wrong. Rape is wrong. Taking advantage of a child is wrong. Sex trafficking is wrong. Ignoring the victim of a crime is wrong. Killing an innocent person is wrong.

I could feel the columnist struggling with right and wrong throughout her column. Some situations seemed wrong to her, and rightly so. Yet, moral relativism won the hour.

Let’s not let it win the day. Abortion is wrong. We must never shy away from saying it – though we also must be compassionate when we do. Contrary to what moral relativists would have us believe, realizing that something is wrong opens the doors for us to extend a hand of compassion and love to those who are hurting. And that is true compassion.

How One Student’s Pro-Life Speech Impacted Millions for Life

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In 2009, 12-year-old Lia Mills wowed the pro-life community with a simple YouTube video of her school speech about abortion.

Lia spoke so articulately and passionate about protecting life that her video immediately spread across the globe. Watch it here. LiaMills1

“What if I told you that, right now, someone was choosing if you were going to live or die?” she says in the video. “Thousands of children are right now in that very situation. That someone is their mother. And that choice is abortion.”

Today, her video has more than 2.4 million views on YouTube, but her impact has been so much more than mere numbers.

According to a 2012 article in Toronto Life, Lia has received many “thank you” notes from pregnant women who watched her video and decided not to have an abortion. She also travels throughout the U.S. and Canada speaking and inspiring thousands of pro-lifers.

Lia’s exceptional story is an example of why our organization hosts an annual Pro-Life Oratory Contest for students. We believe in encouraging young people to use their voice for life. When young people speak up with passion and sincerity, people listen, and babies and their moms are spared from the pain of abortion.

Our contest is open to students in 9th to 12th grades. Students must write their own original speeches on the topic of abortion, euthanasia, or stem cell research, videotape the speech, and submit it to us by April 15, 2015. For details, email lifelines@paprolife.org or click here.

Please encourage students you know to participate. Like Lia, they can make a big impact for life!