Tag Archives: Pennsylvania

Everyone Can Do Something for Life This Autumn

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One person cannot do everything to protect life, but every person can do something.

That’s a message our Executive Director Michael Ciccocioppo shares with pro-lifers when he is out on the road. How true it is.

Bucks County Right to Life volunteers

If you’re one of those people who has always wanted to do something more, this fall is a great time to get involved.

Maybe it’s just taking an hour to read the latest news about what’s happening in the abortion debate in America. Maybe you can help educate other people in your church by requesting our free Respect Life Bulletin insert (Contact us at lifelines@paprolife.org or 717-541-0034). Maybe you can read a pro-life book such as “Unplanned” by Abby Johnson or “Why Can’t We Love Them Both” by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke. When you’re done, consider donating it to your church or community library so others can read it, too.

Maybe you can participate in one of these upcoming pro-life events in Pennsylvania:

Lila Rose Red DressCelebrate Life Banquet — On Oct. 29 in Pittsburgh, join pro-lifers all across Pennsylvania for the pro-life event of the year. This special evening will feature Lila Rose, the young pro-life activist who founded the undercover investigative group Live Action. Register now by calling 717-541-0034 or visiting our website. The banquet benefits the life-saving work of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation Education Fund.

“What I saw at the Gosnell Trial” with journalist J.D. Mullane — at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, Doylestown, in St. Mary’s Hall across the street from the church. J.D. Mullane is a columnist for the Intelligencer and the Courier Times. He reported extensively on the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the West Philadelphia abortionist convicted of murdering newborns. The event is hosted by the Bucks County Right To Life.

Life Chain — Thousands of Life Chain events will be held on Oct. 6 on sidewalks all across the U.S. People will gather to pray and hold pro-life signs as a peaceful public witness about the devastation of legalized abortion. For a list of times and locations, visit LifeChain.net and click on “Pennsylvania” on the left side of the screen.

Respect Life Conference — St. Gabriel’s Ministry will host the conference “Building a Respect Life Community” from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 5 at the St. Patrick’s Parish Activity Center, 85 Marsh Drive, Carlisle. Speakers include Monsignor Stuart Swetland, vice president of Catholic Identity, Mount St. Mary’s University; and Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. Registration is $25, including lunch. A family rate is available. For more information, contact Patricia Dowling at dowlingkp@yahoo.com or Gabriel Marcella at marcella@pa.net.voiceofjohn

Pro-life Film Showing — A special showing of “The Voice of John,” a pro-life film produced here in Pennsylvania, will be held at 6 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Hill City Church, 600 South Poplar Street, in Hazleton. Come see the newly released director’s cut with never before seen footage. The event is free.

40 Days for Life – Join pro-lifers outside abortion centers to pray peacefully for an end to abortion. There will be ten 40-day prayer vigil sites in Pennsylvania this fall. The outreach runs Sept. 25 to Nov. 3. For locations, visit 40daysforlife.com.

For more ideas, volunteer opportunities, and events, click here to contact pro-life volunteers in your community.

New Threat to Life in PA — Assisted Suicide

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Euthanasia is something I don’t think about too often. Maybe it’s because I’m under 30 and healthy. Maybe it’s because assisted suicide is illegal in Pennsylvania and most of the U.S.

But now that there’s a euthanasia gOldwomanroup lobbying here in Pennsylvania, I’ve been reading more about this pro-life issue.

In his book “Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia: Past and Present,” Dr. J.C. Willke wrote that the problem with assisted suicide is that it judges that human life has only relative value, not absolute value.

Just take a look at Oregon where physician-assisted suicide is legal. According to Oregon Right to Life, the top reasons people request assisted suicide are losing autonomy, decreasing participation in activities, and loss of dignity.

These are value issues. At its roots, assisted suicide pushes the idea that some lives aren’t as valuable as others – maybe because they are disabled or they can’t participate in the same activities they once did. It leads to people devaluing themselves and others.

So what can we do to reverse this trend?

When a loved one is suffering, we need to ensure that they receive the proper medical treatment and pain relief. Most of all, they need our assurance that their life is valuable – no matter what their level of ability or degree of dependency.

Learn more by listening to our half-hour podcast where our Executive Director Michael Ciccocioppo and I discuss the issue in depth. Download it here.

Euthanasia Lobby Exploits Pennsylvania Case

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A Pennsylvania case has caught the eye of the euthanasia lobby.
Compassion and Choices, whose roots can be traced back to the pro-euthanasia Hemlock Society, is representing a nurse from Philadelphia who is being charged with assisting in the suicide of her 93-year-old father.

According to a Philly.com report, Joe Yourshaw was in hospice care when he asked his visiting daughter Barbara Mancini, who is a nurse, for his bottle of morphine.Gavel
A hospice nurse at the home told police that “her client had taken an overdose of morphine with the intent to commit suicide.” The hospice nurse said Mancini gave her father the morphine “at his request so that he could end his own suffering.” The hospice nurse called 911, and Yourshaw was revived at the hospital. He died four days later.

Mancini says she gave her father the medicine to help ease his pain, not to help him die.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office was asked to prosecute the case because of a conflict of interest at the local court level.

“If a person beyond a reasonable doubt committed assisted suicide, justice needs to be served and the law needs to be adjudicated,” Michael Ciccocioppo, executive director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, told ABC News. “But in a case like this one, which is so murky, unless there is real evidence to corroborate the charge, it’s hard to see how this would go all the way through.”

While the details of this specific case are not clear, the intentions of the euthanasia lobby are. The group is urging state Attorney General Kane to drop the case, by citing her decision not to defend a Pennsylvania law upholding traditional marriage. If the attorney general refused to defend that law, the euthanasia lobby argues she could refuse to defend the Pennsylvania ban on assisted suicide, too.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously in Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill that states have an interest in protecting their citizens from suicide, and they may ban assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Wesley Smith, an attorney and leading advocate against euthanasia, wrote about how the euthanasia lobby is twisting the court rulings to push their agenda here in the Commonwealth.

“Over 20 years of anti-euthanasia advocacy, I have come to realize that many activists on the other side care little for the truth, or indeed, facts. They just want to win!” Smith wrote on LifeNews.com.

The euthanasia lobby claims pain as a reason for legalizing assisted suicide, but studies show pain is not a leading factor in suicides.

In Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, studies show that pain is one of the last reasons people give for committing suicide. Depression – a treatable condition – “is the only factor that significantly predicts the request for death,” according to Oregon Right to Life.

Pennsylvania’s ban on assisted suicide protects vulnerable people from being pressured into committing suicide.

“One thing is for sure,” Ciccocioppo said. “People in pain have a right to relieve their pain, and we don’t have a problem with that. But the same Supreme Court decision … also upheld assisted suicide laws and the rights of the states to say it’s not legal. We stand by that to the end.”

Pro-abortion Side Makes False, Misleading Statements during Political Debates

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It’s been hard to miss the abortion issue in the news lately. Pro-life protections have been introduced and, in some cases, passed in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, and, yes!, here in Pennsylvania, too.

All the media attention to these new bills and laws has people discussing abortion Gavelagain. Talk is a good thing, but misleading and incorrect information is not.

Here are some misleading or incorrect things I’ve read recently online in reference to the debates:

A commenter on PolicyMic.com wrote: “None of this will stop until a case makes its way back to SCOTUS. Given the current court the most likely outcome will be to reaffirm Roe v. Wade leaving it to the states.”

Our country’s education about this infamous Supreme Court decision is poor at best. Polls show it, and this comment demonstrates it.

Roe v. Wade actually did the opposite of what the commenter says. It took the abortion decision out of states’ hands by striking down laws – both those protecting life and those allowing abortion – in all 50 states. The ruling of seven men overrode the states’ interests. In their overarching power, the judges set a new rule in place: abortion for any reason up to birth.

Thankfully, since Roe, states have been fighting to reclaim their roles in protecting life by passing legislation to help preborn babies and their mothers.

The “brochoice” campaign attempts to recruit more young men to the pro-abortion side. A headline reads, “Bro-Choice: How #HB2 Hurts Texas Men Who Like Women.”

One of the key points in the article claims that men will lose their freedom to make decisions about their family if abortion becomes more regulated. The truth is that men lost most of that freedom in Roe v. Wade. The decision denied the man’s freedom to help make choices about his preborn child by saying that abortion should be a private decision between a woman and her doctor.

Just recently I heard from a man who was desperately seeking help because his girlfriend wanted to abort their baby and he didn’t. He wanted to know what he could do to protect his child. My heart broke when I had to tell him that legally he can’t do much of anything to protect his child’s life before he/she is born.

(A side note: Our laws do make it illegal for a man (or anyone else) to force a woman to kill their child in the womb.)

“Women’s health” – Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates are using fear-mongering tactics by making women’s health synonymous with abortion. They claim that pro-lifers are trying to sabotage “women’s health” when what they really mean is end abortion.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg pointed this out in a recent column: “But it is bizarre to suggest that women’s health and abortion rights are interchangeable. The biggest killer of women is heart disease, followed by cancer, then stroke. … And yet President Barack Obama — and nearly every other abortion-rights supporter — blithely accuses Republicans of wanting to make women’s ‘health care choices’ for them.”

A procedure that kills one human life and often damages another is not health care. And, as Goldberg says, it’s disrespectful – sexist, even – to narrow the term “women’s health care” to mean sexual reproduction “as if women were nothing more than breeders.” Women are so much more than that.

We have truth on our side. Pro-lifers don’t have to resort to manipulative word-play to sway people, but we do need to equip ourselves with the truth about Roe v. Wade, abortion, and life in the womb.

How Simple It Should Be

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Politicians debate it for hours and hours. News outlets dedicate large segments of time/space to the controversy. Around the dinner table, many families avoid talking about it.

Yet, when you ask a child about a baby’s life, they make it clear how simple the abortion issue really is.girl

Our Philly Pro-Life chapter published an article in its summer newsletter with children’s thoughts about babies. We’ve republished it here with the chapter’s permission:

I asked a group a kids ages 3 to 12 to tell me something about babies and their feelings for them. This is what they said:

Trinity, Age 10 – I care for babies. I care for my baby brother Dominic. I can never leave him out of my sight. I would never want him to get hurt. I will always protect him. He can’t do anything for himself yet. That is why he needs me. If he got hurt or sick I would be very upset. I love him so much. You should treat a baby the same way you want to be treated.

Kayla,  Age 3 – I like babies to drink bottles and play with toys. I like mommies to give presents and daddies to play with babies. I would like to hold a baby and I would sing the A B C’s to make the baby feel good.

Cloey,  Age 5 – I love my baby brother. We take care of each other. Jesus wants us to be happy together. I love him so much because he is my baby brother.

DJ,  Age 12 – I think it is wrong to abort a baby because a baby is human life. Babies are cute and they need someone to take care of them. If we didn’t have babies we wouldn’t have a future.

Natalie,  Age 6 – I like babies! I like to feed them and play with them. Babies are nice and they don’t hurt people. Sometimes they bite though.

Jada,  Age 7 – I feel sad when mommies go to the doctor and kill their baby. They are only tiny and they cry in the mommies belly and move in the mommies belly. It is not fair!

This is all from the mouth of babes!!!! This is how simple it should be.

Thanks To You, No Taxpayer Funding of Abortions!

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Thanks to you, it happened!

HB818Maria-Micaiah

Legislative Director Maria Gallagher and Education Director Micaiah Bilger with a copy of House Bill 818, signed by Governor Tom Corbett.

Thanks to you, Pennsylvania taxpayers will not have to pay for abortions under the health insurance exchange created by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

House Bill 818, which became law as Act 13, ensures that Pennsylvania opts out of elective abortion coverage in the state health insurance exchange created through Obamacare.

Our team worked round the clock to ensure that you and your family would not be forced to pay for the expansion of abortion in the Commonwealth.

Lives will be saved, mothers will be empowered, and your hard-earned tax dollars will be safeguarded as a result of this remarkable legislative achievement.

Please join us as we work to make the next miracle happen. Donate today or volunteer with a pro-life chapter in your area!

Pa. Alternatives to Abortion Program Offers Women Another Choice

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When a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, she may believe that abortion is her only option.

Real Alternatives is there to assures her it isn’t.

Real Alternatives is Pennsylvania’s innovative alternatives to abortion program, which offers caring, confidential support to pregnant mothers and their families. Women Have a Right to Know!

Founder and CEO Kevin Bagatta spoke with the 700 Club in an interview that aired Tuesday. He said, “There were surveys done of women who’d had an abortion. And they said if one person had helped them during the crisis pregnancy, they wouldn’t have had the abortion.”

Real Alternatives centers across the Commonwealth offer that help to women in crisis. It helped Jamie, an unemployed mother who discovered she was pregnant with her fourth child right after her husband left her.

Hundreds of thousands of women like her have received support for themselves and their families at Real Alternatives centers. The state-wide program offers emotional support through counseling and physical support through various means — from temporary shelter to diapers.

To learn more, visit Real Alternatives or watch the 700 Club interview.

Pa. Candidate for Governor Is Still Not Answering Gosnell Question

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Pennsylvania candidate for governor Allyson Schwartz still isn’t commenting about the Kermit Gosnell abortion horrors, and people are starting to wonder.

Schwartz, a Democratic candidate in the primary, ran an abortion center in Philadelphia for 13 years, according to LifeNews.com. The abortion center was just a few miles from Gosnell’s “house of horrors.”Capitol-front-viewLarge

A letter to the editor recently appeared on the Harrisburg Patriot-News website, PennLive.com, calling for transparency from Schwartz by asking her to answer if her center referred patients to Gosnell’s center.

Kermit Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of three infants who were born alive after failed abortions. He also was held partly responsible for the death of a female patient who died after receiving an overdose of anesthesia from Gosnell’s unlicensed staff.

It was pro-abortion politics in the first place that allowed Gosnell’s abusive practices of butchering women and killing babies to continue unchecked for so many years.

For the sake of women and preborn babies, we cannot accept “no comment” as an answer when it comes to Gosnell.

Governor Signs Bill Protecting Pa. Tax Dollars from Abortion

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Legislation Allows the Commonwealth to Opt-Out
of Elective Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Exchange

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Governor Tom Corbett signed into law Monday a measure to protect Pennsylvania tax dollars from being spent on abortion.

House Bill 818, which passed the state House in April and Senate on June 5, ensuresChoose Life! that Pennsylvania opts out of elective abortion coverage in the state health insurance exchange created through the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

“House Bill 818 is a true taxpayer protection bill,” said Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. “We thank Governor Corbett and the legislators for protecting taxpayers’ interests and preserving Pennsylvania’s longstanding and time-tested policy that prevents taxpayer funding of abortion.”

The Affordable Care Act includes a provision allowing states to opt-out of abortion coverage in the health insurance exchanges. Pennsylvania joins more than 30 other states that have, or are in the process of, enacting opt-out legislation.

“National polls show the majority of women and men – on both sides of the abortion issue — agree that our tax dollars should not be spent on abortion,” Gallagher said. “Without this legislation, Pennsylvania taxpayers would be forced to support the abortion industry.”

House Bill 818 includes exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, which are the same exceptions that apply to Medicaid funding of abortion in Pennsylvania. Therefore, the Pennsylvania bill is in line with state law and the U.S. Constitution.

The bill was sponsored by state Rep. Donna Oberlander, R-Clarion.

Victory! Pa. Senate OKs Bill to Prevent Tax Funding of Abortion

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Bill Protecting Pa. Tax Dollars Heads to Governor

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Pennsylvania taxpayers gained a victory Wednesday when the state Senate passed a bill to prevent tax dollars from being spent on abortions.

House Bill 818, which passed the state House in April, ensures that Pennsylvania opts out of elective abortion coverage in the state health insurance exchange created through the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. The bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support, 31 votes in favor to 19 against.

“House Bill 818 is a true taxpayer protection bill,” said Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. “We applaud the Senate for preserving Pennsylvania’s longstanding and time-tested policy that prevents taxpayer funding of abortion.”

The Affordable Care Act includes a provision allowing states to opt-out of abortion coverage in the health insurance exchanges. Pennsylvania is one of more than 30 states that have, or are in the process of, enacting opt-out legislation.

“National polls show that more than 70 percent of Americans oppose tax dollars being spent on abortion,” Gallagher said. “We are grateful to both the Senate and the House for listening to women and men throughout the Commonwealth who do not want their hard-earned tax dollars to be used for abortions.”

House Bill 818 includes exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother, which are the same exceptions that apply to Medicaid funding of abortion in Pennsylvania. Therefore, the Pennsylvania bill is in line with state law and the U.S. Constitution.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Donna Oberlander, R-Clarion, will go to Governor Tom Corbett’s desk for signature.