Author Archives: maria

Winning the Argument on Abortion

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Baby girlBy Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

In these days of social media frenzy, when arguments break out on Facebook faster than you can press the “angry” icon, it’s important to keep in mind that rational discussions on the right to life are indeed possible.

In fact, we can learn a lot by considering the points made by Bishop Robert Barron in his recent book, which is a summary of talks he gave at the offices of Facebook and Google. While the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles’ book is entitled, Arguing Religion,the ideas he offers for argumentation can be applied to a non-religious context.

One example he uses is of a video that went viral. It is of a six-foot tall male, interviewing college students by posing a series of provocative questions: “What if I told you I was a woman? What if I told you that I felt I was a Chinese woman? What if I told you that I claim the identity of a six-foot-five-inch Chinese woman?”

As Barron writes, the students “all agreed that they would be fine with that description if that’s what he truly felt he was.”

He points out that the interviewees “are in the grips of a deeply distorting ideology” that distances them “from reality.”

A similar argument could be used to characterize those who support legal abortion. They deny the reality that a living being with separate DNA from the mother lives in the mother’s womb. They deny the fact that the words “right to an abortion” appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. And they routinely ignore the cries of women who say they have been deeply harmed by their abortions.

A case in point which Barron specifically references is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which failed to overturn Roe. The decision curiously stated, “It belongs to the nature of liberty to determine the meaning of life, of existence, of the universe.”

This is clearly wrong. My freedom does not determine your existence. You exist independently apart from me, and you were a separate being from your mother from the time of your conception.

On facts alone, the pro-life side wins!

 

Guide to President George H. W. Bush’s Pro-Life Achievements

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George HW BushBy Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

I must admit, I was ignorant of President George H.W. Bush’s Pro-Life achievements.

It’s been three decades since he was elected leader of the free world, so I imagine I was not alone.

But for the sake of history, it is important that we educate ourselves about Bush 41’s record of accomplishment on the pro-life front.

Here’s what I found out:

  • The Bush Administration wanted the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the tragic Supreme Court ruling which brought us abortion on demand for any reason, and for no reason, during all nine months of pregnancy.
  • The Bush Administration stated that “protection of innocent human life–in or out of the womb–is certainly the most compelling interest that a state can advance.”
  • Of the radical Freedom of Choice Act, which would have established a pro-abortion policy beyond Roe, President Bush said, “It will not become law as long as I am President of the United States.”
  • President Bush vetoed ten bills with pro-abortion provisions, including taxpayer funding of abortion.
  • The President defended the “Mexico City Policy,” which prevents taxpayer funding of organizations that promote or perform abortions overseas. He also banned abortions at U.S. military bases, with the rare exception of saving the mother’s life.
  • President Bush banned thousands of federally-funded clinics from counseling or referring for abortions.

These are just some of the many pro-life milestones during the Bush 41 administration. As we mourn the loss of this pro-life President, let us be thankful for the graceful manner in which he strove to protect innocent human life.

There is So Much Wrong with This “Right”

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Baby sleepingBy Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

We as Americans take our rights very seriously. The right to free speech. The right to freedom of religion. The right to peaceable assembly.

But there is so much wrong with the so-called “right” to an abortion.

To begin with, each abortion ends an innocent, unrepeatable human life. It is an act of killing a defenseless human being. There is nothing right, and everything wrong, with that.

In addition, the image of a woman freely and independently exercising a “right” to abortion is deeply flawed. Research shows that, much of the time, women are pressured into abortion by a boyfriend, husband, parent, or even a grandparent. In other words, they are making a choice they don’t want. A study also indicated that the vast majority of women who experience difficulties after abortion would have chosen life if just one person had supported it–just one!

The so-called “right” to abortion also completely ignores the rights of fathers. Under Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion, a father’s right to defend the life of his child is stolen away. How many men are suffering in silence today, grieving the loss of a child they very much wanted?

Our society has suffered greatly from the loss of the more than 60 million preborn children who have died under Roe. We’ve lost doctors and diplomats, social studies teachers and scientists, and all manner of other professionals from legalized abortion.

A so-called “right” to abortion appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. It was invented by a group of men on the U.S. Supreme Court who did not have access to the 4D Ultrasound we have today–technology which clearly shows the development of the preborn child.

For the sake of our nation and our posterity, the so-called “right” to an abortion cannot stand. It will fall under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

Pro-Life: A Celebration of Humanity!

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Baby ChristmasBy Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

During my recent vacation, I had a chance to watch a movie that came out some time ago. A few lines of dialogue reminded me of the pro-life movement.

Referring to a show, one of the characters described it as a “celebration of humanity.”

To me, that is exactly what the pro-life movement is–a celebration of humanity. We celebrate the humanity of the child in the womb. We honor the humanity of a mother in difficult circumstances. We recognize the humanity of a father facing the prospect of lost fatherhood through abortion.

We also celebrate the humanity of people with disabilities, the elderly, and the infirm. We see all as precious human beings, deserving of our support and protection.

Another line from the film spoke of celebrating people of all races, sizes, and shapes. Again, the pro-life movement came to my mind. We work to end the black genocide caused by the abortion industry in the African-American community. We educate the Latino community, the Asian community, and the Native American community about the harm abortion causes women and about the development of the preborn child.

In defending the lives of preborn children, we defend the smallest among us. We recognize the dignity and worth of all individuals–no matter the shape of their development.

Humanity is at the heart of the pro-life movement. We work each day to protect humanity from the grave dangers that come in the form of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Our work will not end until the lives of all innocent people are protected and cherished.

Reviewing the Kermit Gosnell Case

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Gosnell CenterBy Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

I had the opportunity recently to watch “See No Evil: The Kermit Gosnell Case.” The documentary originally aired on Fox News some time ago, but it is now available on the channel’s new premium streaming service, Fox Nation.

As anchor Brett Baier adroitly asked: Was there anything “more horrific than Gosnell?”

Gosnell was the West Philadelphia abortionist who was ultimately convicted of murdering three newborn babies and causing the death of a female immigrant patient, Karnamaya Mongar. The grand jury believed that Gosnell had actually killed hundreds of newborns, but prosecutors could bring charges in only a handful of cases, because Gosnell destroyed so many records.

He killed his prey in a violently vile manner, severing their spinal cords with scissors. He was known to then throw his victims in the trash–although he also severed their feet, which he then kept in jars. These souvenirs of his killing sprees shocked even the most seasoned of detectives.

The documentary notes that Gosnell earned an astounding $2 million a year in cash from his grisly trade. He operated under the “benign neglect of authorities,” who failed to inspect his filthy facility for 17 years.

The 281-page grand jury report posited allegations of a host of abuses at the Women’s Medical Society–everything from spreading venereal disease through the use of tainted medical instruments to illegally performing late-term abortions.

Even upon a second viewing, “See No Evil” is shocking and deeply disturbing. We see victims whose cries were met with a brutal death. May we answer this senseless violence with the admonition: Never forget!

A Second Look at the Planned Parenthood scandal

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Child pensive

 

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

It’s a good time to take a second look at the baby body parts scandal which rocked Planned Parenthood.

A series of undercover videos three years ago showed high-ranking Planned Parenthood officials blithely discussing harvesting the body parts of aborted babies as the doctors sipped wine and savored salad.

Last week, the group behind the videos, the Center for Medical Progress, asked the Supreme Court to toss out Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against it as a violation of first amendment rights to freedom of speech.

And just this week, Fox News featured its documentary on the scandal on its new streaming video service, Fox Nation.

The television special, “Planned Parenthood: the Hidden Harvest” is well worth a second look. It tells the story of David Daleiden, the intrepid citizen journalist who masterminded the undercover investigation.

The probe took two-and-a-half years and encompassed 300 hours of video. It also launched Congressional investigations into Planned Parenthood’s questionable business practices.

Tellingly, although former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards denied at the time that the organization profited from the sale of baby body parts, Planned Parenthood officials refused to be interviewed for “The Hidden Harvest.”

What does Planned Parenthood have to hide?

Your #GivingTuesday Gift Saves Lives!

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Picture1By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director

A woman recently came up to me at our educational display and told a fascinating story.

She had once given a soft-touch fetal model to a male student who requested it. The student then ended up giving it to a pregnant young woman who was contemplating abortion.

She cancelled her plans and her baby’s life was saved.

And it all happened just because of that one precious fetal model–the type of model we hand out to countless numbers of people each year.

We’ve also reached more than a half-million teenagers through our innovative partnership with the website TeenBreaks.com, connecting them with life-saving, life-changing information.

We reach hundreds of thousands of people each year through radio, television, social media, and the Internet. And we’re just getting started!

This #GivingTuesday, please consider making a generous gift to the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. We’re working everyday to save lives and rebuild a culture of life in communities throughout the Commonwealth.

But you don’t have to wait until #GivingTuesday to make your contribution. Donate now at https://fs20.formsite.com/pplf/form22/ . Thank you in advance for your support as we work to ensure that every Pennsylvanian knows there is always a reason to choose life!

Listen to Survivors

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teenagersBy Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

A positive development in our society is a subtle change in language. Rather than speaking about victims, increasingly we talk of survivors.

“Survivors” is a more empowering word, indicating that someone has overcome a gross violation in the past.

However, the mainstream media tend to ignore the survivors of abortion.

These are the individuals born after the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. They know that they could have been legally aborted, but their mothers chose life.

However, they have not survived Roe unscathed. They know that there are brothers, sisters, cousins, and potential friends missing because of legalized abortion. Some of them even know the staggering number–more than 60 million preborn babies killed under Roe.

A number of these hearty souls will converge on Washington, D.C. in January for the annual March for Life. It is important that we listen to these survivors’ stories. They can enlighten us and convict us to do even more to protect precious children and their mothers from the harm of abortion.

If you are one of the survivors, I salute you! Know that your very presence is a gift to all of us.

The Abortion Industry Betrays Women

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Sad woman at the window

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

The devastating impact that the abortion industry has had on women is crystal-clear in the recently-released book, The Abolition of Woman by Fiorella Nash.

Nash is a women’s rights activist, stating at the beginning of her book, “Like many women of my generation, I like to imagine that I would have been a suffragette if I had been living over a hundred years ago…”

She experienced in pro-life feminist groups a “relief that pro-life women had a ‘safe place’ to go intellectually, and the capacity to fight for equality without being forced to go against their own consciences.”

She holds that the abortion industry has betrayed women, based on an ideology that denies science. “Denial has always been a necessary defense mechanism for abortion advocates, but rather than have the courage to face scientific realities head-on, many supporters of abortion hide behind ever more elaborate and misleading language to conceal the truth of what abortion involves.”

Such obfuscation includes referring to unborn babies as “products of conception” or “pregnancy tissue.” The height of this hypocrisy came when former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards “continued to refer to ‘our involvement with fetal tissue research’ when members of her own organization had been caught on camera candidly discussing the value of baby livers and eyeballs.”

To be pro-life is to be pro-woman–to recognize the full humanity of both mother and child. It is to celebrate life at all its stages and phases, and to empower women to make life-affirming decisions for themselves and their families. One can advocate strongly for both women and preborn babies and not shortchange either one of them.

 

Each Child a Miracle

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Baby beautifulBy Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director

“Such a big miracle in such a little child.”

That’s the message affixed to one of the walls at the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, where I work.

The motto succinctly celebrates the dignity and value of each child–before and after birth.

When I was working as a secular journalist, I wrote many, many stories about abortion. But at that time I did not know the fundamentals of fetal development.

For instance, I did not realize that at just 19 days after conception, the baby’s eyes start to develop. I had no clue that at 42 days, the skeleton is complete and reflexes are present. I was ignorant of the fact that at 43 days, electrical brain wave patterns can be recorded, meaning that thinking is taking place in the brain.

Each of these milestones, in and of itself, is a miracle. When you put them all together, you have a magnificent child of priceless worth.

If you do not know the markers of the development of an unborn child, I invite you to visit https://www.paprolife.org/your-babys-development/ Chances are you will be just as amazed as I was at what you find.

And the next time you hear someone talk about an unborn child as just another “choice,” think about the development of the baby in the womb, and take a minute to ponder the miracle that is every child.