UPDATE: The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act has passed the U.S. House, 228-196.

Much debate has recently centered on H.R. 1797, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. And sadly, much of this debate has been among pro-life groups.

Originally, this bill was written to ban abortions after the baby reached 20 weeks’ gestational age. (This is 22 weeks into a pregnancy, using the popular LMP method of timing a pregnancy.) There was an exception to the ban when the life of the mother was endangered. However, in the last few days, the bill was amended to add in an additional exception for rape and incest.

Several issues arise with this turn of events, and pro-lifers would do well to analyze the truly appropriate response. I have personally worked with genuine pro-lifers who support incremental legislation, like H.R. 1797, and I have worked with equally genuine pro-lifers who support only legislation without exceptions. Our movement gains absolutely nothing by name-calling, turning on each other, and condemning fellow pro-lifers. Even when we disagree on strategy, we ought to respect each other, as we are all fighting to save lives in the best way we know how.

Should we have a discussion on the best strategy? Absolutely. Should we push each other to do our best, to do what’s right in this battle? Yes. Should we explain why we believe that our strategy is most likely to succeed and try to convince others to jump on board? Sure. But all too often, I believe we pro-lifers waste time arguing within our own ranks, pushing our own ideas as the only correct standard, and, in the end, talking more than we are acting.

You disagree with other pro-lifers’ strategy? Fine. But don’t just stand there and talk about it. Go get busy implementing your own strategy, and don’t attack them for implementing theirs.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act – and other fetal pain bills – raises several specific issues we ought to consider.

1) Can we support this legislation even though it fails to protect unborn children prior to 20 weeks?

In 2008, I was the spokesperson for the Colorado Personhood Amendment. I wholeheartedly believe that every baby – at every age – is worthy of equal protection. I fought for the youngest babies’ protection for years, as many pro-lifers have done, and I would support a bill to protect unborn children from fertilization in a heartbeat.

However, so far, personhood amendments have not become law in any state. They are making great progress, and I am thrilled to see them advance. This is one important strategy in our movement.

Yet, we cannot forget that there are also other important strategies. Naturally, we cannot all work on every single strategy out there, but I believe that by advancing multiple strategies at once, we will change the laws and the culture. Fetal pain bills, especially in light of the recent Gosnell trial, do strike a chord in the heart of the American people.

We are a compassionate nation, and in many nations across the globe, we work to end suffering. Certainly, we ought to end suffering here at home as well. Fetal pain bills provide an excellent opportunity to educate Americans on the barbaric procedures used in abortion and the great pain suffered by unborn children. Few Americans understand the actual realities of abortion, and fetal pain bills like H.R. 1797 provide a perfect opportunity to reveal some of the horrific realities.

While fetal pain bills are far from the perfect solution to our nation’s abortion problem, they can save thousands of lives (H.R. 1797 could save around 16,000-18,000), help to humanize the unborn child, and provide a realistic view of the horrors of abortion to the American public. These bills are one way to change our culture and reach hearts for life – all while legally saving thousands of lives in the process.

2) What about “saving the one”? Can we support legislation with a rape and incest exception?

Within the pro-life movement, there are excellent discussions going on about how best to save all unborn children from the destruction of abortion. Many pro-life experts stand up strongly for the lives of babies conceived in rape and incest. These babies are their focal point, and these pro-lifers do an excellent job convincing people that an innocent child should never be executed for the crimes of her father. Abortion does not erase rape, and it sets in motion a whole host of additional problems for women.

The rallying cry to save the babies conceived in rape and incest is “save the one!” (Approximately 1 in 100 abortions is performed because of rape or incest.) Each of these precious children does indeed deserve to live; all of them must be saved.

Yet the question arises – how should pro-lifers respond when a bill is presented that does not “save the one”? Should we proclaim, “Kill the bill!” and wait until another year, when legislation that also saves these babies is presented? Or should we save the 99 babies whom we can save and press on afterwards to save the one left behind?

While I believe that it is noble – and right – to fight to save one single life, I also cannot help but mourn when pro-lifers reject saving the 99 only because they cannot save all 100. Are we really thinking this through? If a house were on fire with 100 little girls inside, would we really argue that, unless we can save all 100 of them, we should leave all 100 to burn – even when we have an option of saving 99? Is that not a difficult thing to leave on our consciences?

Save the one, but if you can’t, kill the 99 you could have saved? I know that’s not the language being used, but in effect, that’s exactly what some pro-lifers are advocating for.

3) How can we view this battle going forward?

Here are a few steps of action I would propose:

• Strive to get the best possible language in pro-life bills, when possible. The best language would eliminate rape and incest exceptions as well as broad exceptions for “health” (which includes emotional, financial, and psychological “health”) and exceptions for fetal abnormalities. It would protect babies at fertilization, the moment of their existence, and beyond. Consider, though, if it is better to save the babies we can save instead of only and always insisting on “no-compromise” bills.
• If a bill is presented with exceptions, despite our efforts, realize how many babies it will save instead of focusing solely on how many it will not save. Consider if it is really worth it to let thousands of babies continue to die simply because we cannot save all of them. Look to the example of William Wilberforce. How many whom we could have saved will die in the time it takes us to pass our perfect legislation?
• If a bill with exceptions is passed, realize that this is not the end! Continue fighting to “save the one.” Urge politicians to support legislation that removes the exceptions; go back and save these babies! Just because we support saving 99 never means we forget about the one we left behind. The fight is not over when a bill is passed. The bill may improve the situation, but we should not give up until the situation is fixed.
• Use every opportunity to educate the American public on the horrors of abortion and the preciousness of every single human life. Learn and broadcast accurate scientific facts. Hone your philosophical arguments. Use any pro-life bill as a chance to talk about the cruelty of abortion and the value of human life – not as a chance to debate and argue with other pro-lifers.

In the end, let’s save as many lives as we can in this moment we have been given. Then, let’s go out and create more moments to save more babies until they are all saved.

Editor’s Note: This article is the opinion of the author, not the official position of Live Action on H.R. 1797.

The post Fetal pain bills: Should we “save the one”? appeared first on Live Action News.

This week, anti-life members of The View cast demonstrated their bias once again in a discussion about the proper nomenclature that should be applied to individuals with mental and chromosomal abnormalities.

Had the target been anyone other than the vehemently hated conservative Sarah Palin and her beautiful son who was born with Down Syndrome, The View‘s Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg would undoubtedly not have defended the vulgar Bill Maher, who called Trig Palin “retarded.”

In a despicable demonstration of the all-too-common liberal tendency to defend their own at all costs, Walters and Goldberg “reasoned” that because “retarded” used to be an acceptable term to describe persons with chromosomal or other disabilities, Bill Maher was justified in his hate speech.

The discussion left viewers dumbfounded at the irony that the same cast who will defend Maher’s senseless hate speech tears into anyone who dares to express opposing viewpoints (such as the pro-life views discussed on the show here and here).

Barbara Walters explains that her mentally challenged sister was called “retarded” growing up, since that was the normal term in those days. She argues that Bill Maher couldn’t have “intended to be mean-spirited,” and that he didn’t know that using the term “retarded” is derogatory (because it’s simply inexplicable to imagine Bill Maher being scathingly cruel at the expense of entire groups of people in the name of “comedy”).

Whoopi Goldberg jumped in to agree with Walters in supporting Maher, saying that it is society’s fault that the term “retarded” became a derogatory term at all. And somehow that excuses Maher’s hate speech.

As is the norm, Elisabeth Hasselbeck was the sole voice of reason in this discussion, calling out Walters on her bogus claim that poor Maher simply didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. Hasselback stated that there is not one compassionate person on earth who would get in front of an audience unaware of the fact that using the term “retarded” to refer to a mentally challenged individual is derogatory.

In a conclusion that leaves the viewer with a glimmer of hope for humanity, Hasselbeck’s comment is the only one that gleaned applause from the audience.

The post Members of anti-life The View cast agree that Trig Palin is “retarded” appeared first on Live Action News.

In 2008, best-selling Christian author Donald Miller openly campaigned for Barack Obama, claiming, “Barack Obama opposes late-term abortions.” In another interview, he went so far as to state:

[Obama] is also standing up to his own party on the issue [of abortion] and moving the party forward to elevate the issue of the sanctity of life within the Democratic Party.

In 2008, I was attending a Christian college in Ohio, and I can testify firsthand to the tremendous influence that Miller’s endorsement had on the voting decisions of my peers.

Last month, Dr. Anthony Levatino testified before Congress in support of H.R. 1797, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Though Dr. Levatino showed no photographs, his testimony was extremely graphic and disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised:

On June 17, 2013, President Obama responded with this statement:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 1797, which would unacceptably restrict women’s health and reproductive rights and is an assault on a woman’s right to choose. Women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies and their health care, and Government should not inject itself into decisions best made between a woman and her doctor.

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose. This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women’s health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients’ health care decisions, and the Constitution. The Administration is continuing its efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies, expand access to contraception, support maternal and child health, and minimize the need for abortion. At the same time, the Administration is committed to the protection of women’s health and reproductive freedom and to supporting women and families in the choices they make.

Obama does not just oppose H.R. 1797. He “strongly opposes” the bill. He labels it an “assault” on women’s rights and claims that it shows “contempt” for women’s health and the Constitution.

Has Obama changed his mind on abortion? Hardly. When he was a senator in Illinois, Obama was making the exact same argument.

In addition to claiming that Barack Obama was against late-term abortions, Donald Miller reasoned that his pro-choice views were not that critical, because “[t]he executive branch doesn’t have that much power.” I am not sure where Donald Miller studied politics, but the executive branch has plenty of power. It certainly has enough power to veto H.R. 1797.

Obama won the election because of men like Donald Miller. Obama was placed in a position to veto H.R. 1797 by men like Donald Miller. Therefore, because of men like Donald Miller, thousands of pain-capable infants may be dismembered next year.

If Donald Miller ever reads these words, I encourage him to use his influential voice to protect those children.

The post Obama vehemently opposes late-term abortion ban appeared first on Live Action News.

Words are powerful.  They can be used to illuminate, and they can be used to conceal. Consider this excerpt from MSNBC’s Meet the Press:

Pastor Rick Warren clearly asked, “At what point does a baby get human rights?,” but for some reason Tom Brokaw seemed to be hearing another question: “When does life begin?”

“When does life begin?” The abortion debate is so often framed around that question, but of course, that question is entirely irrelevant to the abortion debate. Abortions can be performed only on living babies! If the human fetus were not alive, then he or she could not be killed.

The absurdity of such language was on full display in Live Action’s latest video:

Late-term abortion doctor LeRoy Carhart states:

Well, in my heart and my mind, you know, life begins when the mother thinks it begins, not when anybody else things it begins.  For some women it’s before they conceive; for some women, it’s never.  Even after they deliver, it’s still a problem, not a baby.

LeRoy Carhart

Carhart purports to be answering the question “When does life begin?,” but of course he is not answering that question at all. Carhart does not actually believe that you existed before your parents had sex, nor does he believe that an infant squirming in the incubator is dead. Carhart does not doubt for one moment that a living member of the species Homo sapiens comes into existence at the moment of conception. He knows that the fetus is alive, but he does not care.

As I argued in a previous post, genocide, slavery, abortion, and infanticide are all based on the notion that human rights are not intrinsic to the species Homo sapiens but are rather bestowed on certain individuals by society. As two Australian philosophers concluded in their defense of infanticide (or, as they call it, “after-birth abortion”), “[m]erely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.”

This notion stands in stark contrast to the view that all human beings have an intrinsic and inestimable value, a view which is often grounded in the conviction that human beings are created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27).

Therefore, the question at the heart of the abortion debate is not “When does life begin?,” but rather “Which humans have value?” If the pro-choice lobby is afraid of this question, perhaps it is because, deep down inside, Americans already know the answer.

The post When does life begin…for living babies? appeared first on Live Action News.

In a society where murder of the pre-born (and infanticide) is widely accepted, it is tragically unsurprising that the next step, child euthanasia, may soon take hold in a new way. This sad news comes out of the country of Belgium, where legislators are likely to approve a measure that will allow children who are “gravely ill” to be euthanized.

According to a Belgian newspaper:

The bill, introduced by the Socialist party in December, would lay out guidelines for doctors to decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not a child is mature enough to make the decision to end his or her own life, as well as whether a child’s health is grave and hopeless enough to warrant euthanasia.

Should a child ever be made to feel as if his or her life is “hopeless”? Belgian medical professionals and legislators say, “Yes.” But consider possible abuses: a parent who no longer wishes to care for a gravely ill child or disabled child could push for euthanasia. The fact is that the culture of death, which includes an acceptance of euthanasia as a good practice, does lead parents to believe that deathly practices are merciful and good. This unfortunate fact is illustrated by the shockingly high incidence of abortion following prenatal Down syndrome diagnoses (the statistic is as high as 90%).

Unsurprisingly, the mentality that some lives are not worth living has led to postnatal mercy-killings and euthanasia. Just this week, news broke that a mother and caregiver stabbed a fourteen-year-old autistic teen to death because his condition causes him to suffer, and the killers claim that he did not receive adequate medical care for his condition. According to CBS News, they have both been charged with first-degree murder.

No one is charged with murder, however, when very similar situations occur under the guise of “assisted suicide.” In a Kevorkian-like fantasy-turned-reality, twin brothers who were going blind committed assisted suicide rather than endure the inconvenience of living without one of their faculties. In a disturbingly nonchalant account, ABC News quotes a television show that captured the scenario before their death:

The men, who were born deaf, had a cup of coffee and said goodbye to other family members before walking into hospital room together to die, their doctor told Belgian television station RTL.

“They were very happy. It was a relief to see the end of their suffering,” said Dr. David Dufour.

“They had a cup of coffee in the hall. It went well and a rich conversation. Then the separation from their parents and brother was very serene and beautiful,” he said. “At the last there was a little wave of their hands and then they were gone.”

Is there any doubt that the pro-life movement has a lot of work to do when a country nods its collective head at the idea that a less-than-perfect life is so horrible that dying is a better option than living? It is no surprise that in the same country where pre-born children can be aborted for convenience and adults can commit suicide to avoid inconvenience, Belgians are ready to legalize the killing of children in the crusade to avoid suffering at all costs.

The post Is ‘mercy-killing’ really merciful? appeared first on Live Action News.

In September of 2012, a thirteen-year-old girl from Elwood, Indiana was overpowered and raped by her seventeen-year-old neighbor and became pregnant as a result. Her abuser was found guilty of molesting her and two other child victims and faces sentencing this week. The girl, now fourteen, chose to carry the baby to term and is due in early July.

The crime is tragic, but not rare.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, in Indiana, hundreds of girls aged fourteen and under become pregnant each year. Most of these pregnancies are the result of child molestation. Under Indiana law, child molestation occurs when a man seventeen or older has sex with a girl thirteen or under, or when an older man has sex with a girl fifteen or under.

As Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics revealed in his research report “Child Predators,” “[a]ccording to the most reliable studies, among girls fifteen and younger who become pregnant, between 60 and 80 percent of them are impregnated by adult men. We have also uncovered data showing that as the age of the victim goes down, the age of the perpetrator goes up.”

The girl from Elwood is only one of thousands of young girls across America: children bearing children, through no fault of their own.
Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood of Indiana weighed in on the tragic Elwood story via their official Facebook page. Planned Parenthood of Indiana posted a link to an article in the Indianapolis Star about the rape in Elwood along with this insightful comment: “As this article notes, heartbreaking stories like this are all too common in Indiana, which ranks second in the number of teen sexual assaults. Comprehensive sex ed can make a difference in preventing sexual assaults.”

When I saw that, I shut my eyes in disbelief.

First, try telling the girl in Elwood, Indiana – a ninety-five-pound little girl who was forcibly raped in a car – that sex education could have made a difference in preventing what happened to her. It was not the girl’s lack of sexual education, but the man’s lack of any semblance of humanity that is fully and completely to blame.

But second, am I the only one who remembers Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s disgusting history of breaking the law to cover up the abuse of thirteen-year-old girls? In 2008, Lila Rose posed as a thirteen-year-old victim of statutory rape and went undercover at Planned Parenthood clinics in both Bloomington, Indiana, and Indianapolis, Indiana. Though she made it absolutely clear to staff members at both clinics that she had been impregnated by a man who was thirty-one years old – a full eighteen years her senior – the staff at both clinics repeatedly told her that they did not care how old the man was and that they could help her get an abortion without anyone knowing the man’s age. Under Indiana law, it was the clinics’ express duty to notify authorities of the statutory rape the girl was reporting to them. What was Planned Parenthood’s response? The girl was assured that her privacy would be protected and no one would ever know. Absolute silence. No authority was ever notified.

In what universe is sex between a thirteen-year-old and a thirty-one-year-old a private decision that deserves to be protected?

I suppose it is the same universe where hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are funneled to Planned Parenthood. And it is probably the same universe where we trust Planned Parenthood to send “educators” and curricula to our schools to “educate” children about their sexual freedom.

Behind the bright pink banners, talk of cancer screenings, and “Care: No Matter What” slogan lurks a sinister agenda. It is an agenda which claims that sexual assault is “heartbreaking” but aid molesters by offering to perform abortions on child-victims, without notifying parents or authorities. It is an agenda that, instead of mourning the loss of innocence and childhood of a thirteen-year-old little girl at the hands of a sadistic molester and vowing to crack down on child-abusers, chooses to emphasize comprehensive sex education.

It is time that Planned Parenthood be exposed for what they truly are – an organization feeding, not ending, the cycle of abuse of thousands of young girls in Indiana each year.

You can be a vital part of exposing Planned Parenthood. Use your Twitter, Facebook, and your voice to get out the word about the true agenda of Planned Parenthood. Expose them.

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” -Ephesians 5:11 (ESV)

The post Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s solution for raped and pregnant 13-year-old: “Comprehensive sex ed can make a difference” appeared first on Live Action News.

On his radio show Friday, Rush Limbaugh delivered a powerful monologue (transcript, video) asserting that in addition to its innate monstrousness, abortion is “at the root of our cultural decay” as a nation, its impact stretching from respect for life and personal responsibility to crime, immigration, and the economy:

If you use the popularly accepted figure of 1.3 million abortions a year, go back to Roe vs. Wade 1973, 52 million taxpayers haven’t been born, is the way Washington looks at it.  They don’t look at it morally. They don’t look at it in any kind of cultural way or any kind of cultural impact. They just say we’re 52 million people short.  We have 52 million fewer people paying taxes.  We gotta replace ‘em.  Hello amnesty.  The Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass in order to keep themselves alive as Santa Claus, to keep winning elections and stay in power […]

I just want to tell you something.  I really think that abortion is at the root — you could do a flowchart — I think abortion is at the root of so much that has and is going wrong in this country.  I think that the number of abortions themselves, but what in toto it all means, culturally, in terms of the sanctity of life, how that’s crumbled, I think it’s almost at the root of everything.  And if it’s not at the root of everything, it’s clearly had a profound impact on our culture, our society, and our politics, I think in ways that people don’t even stop to consider.

None of it good and it’s caused all kinds of horrible problems that nobody knows how to fix.  Because they refuse to even accept that abortion is more than what it is.  To most people, it’s just a woman’s right to choose, and it’s nobody’s business, and leave it alone and I don’t want to talk about it.  But it’s really had much more impact on this country than just that.  It’s had impact on crime.  It’s had a profound impact on our politics.  It is at the root of our cultural rot and decay.

You can trace the problems with accepting personal responsibility, no consequences for your actions, you can trace so much right back to it.  And I’m not talking about the women.  I’m talking the overall effect of a society having literally no problem with eliminating 52 million of its citizens.  That can’t be good […]

I don’t know how you can have so much white guilt over slavery 150 years ago and have no guilt over what’s happening with abortion.  I really don’t.  I think it is the cause of so much that seems to be inexplicable to people.  Why are 10-year-olds shooting each other to death in Chicago?  Why is our society so permissive, anything goes, the more ribald, the better?

As an example of just how far we’ve fallen, Rush pointed to the utter unwillingness of Nancy Pelosi, leader of House Democrats, to explain the moral difference between Kermit Gosnell killing a newborn and aborting a baby of the same age before birth. When a former speaker of the House of Representatives, one of the highest offices in the land, calls ending infanticide “reprehensible” and feels no obligation to even pretend she cares about the answer, it’s hard to deny how much our national conscience has dulled.

Rush is absolutely right; in fact, he could have gone a lot farther. Last July, our own Mitch Behna found that the United States’ birth rate isn’t quite meeting our replacement level and that without the percentage of the population taken by abortion, Medicare and Social Security are short $11 billion and $47 million, respectively. Economist John Lott has demonstrated that, contrary to claims popularized by the dubious book Freakonomics, the legalization of abortion likely led to an increase in violent crime. Forbes contributor Bill Flax puts the lie to the popular talking point that abortion is necessary to stem out-of-wedlock births, noting that actually, the opposite has happened. Professor Michael New has linked abortion’s legalization to an increase in child abuse.

It’s not hard to see the shapes taken by the fallout of these social ills – educational failure, poverty, dependence, sexually transmitted diseases, social alienation and resentment.

Take a broader look around us today, and abortionism’s worst siblings are readily apparent. It is increasingly respectable to entertain ideas about neglecting and eliminating our elderly and disabled countrymen. Parental neglect that would have been unthinkable a generation ago almost becomes something you can set your watch to. Slavish devotion to pointless regulation can win out over a little girl’s fight to survive. You can advocate doing nothing about doctors starving newborns to death in closets and still get elected leader of the free world.

Rush Limbaugh scratched the surface of a discussion the country desperately needs. As the country is preoccupied with economic malaise and immigration uncertainty, he should be commended for reminding us that, as abortion is a outright rejection of the first truth of our country, it cannot help but upset the balance of everything else.

The post Rush Limbaugh: abortion is at the heart of American society’s ills appeared first on Live Action News.

I am reading through Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and tonight I was struck by how closely the cultural debate concerning slavery, preserved in this novel, mirrors the modern abortion debate in America. Consider the following exchange from Chapter 12. Several white passengers are traveling on a riverboat which happens to also be transporting slaves in chains:

Passenger 1: “What a shame to our country that such sights are to be seen!”

Passenger 2: “O, there’s a great deal to be said on both sides of the subject.  I’ve been south, and I must say I think the Negroes are better off than they would be to be free.”

Passenger 1: “In some respects, some of them are well off, I grant.  The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections, – the separation of families, for example.”

Passenger 2: “That is a bad thing, certainly.  But then, I fancy, it don’t occur often.”

Consider the two arguments for slavery contained in this exchange:

1. Slavery is ultimately better for Africans.
2. The really heartrending stuff does not occur very often.

Have you ever encountered the echoes of these arguments in your own conversations about abortion?

1. Abortion is ultimately better for children. Parents abort because they cannot afford a child, they do not want a child, or their child has been diagnosed with some defect. Therefore, abortion prevents situations in which children grow up in poverty, experience abuse and neglect, or live life with some miserable disability.
2. Sure, the Gosnell-style beheadings, partial-birth abortions, and agonizing late-term dismemberments are bad, but all that stuff is quite rare.

How should we respond to these arguments? Well, we could point out that (1) even poor, bullied, and ugly people generally prefer to be alive, and (2) late-term abortion is most certainly not rare. However, perhaps we would do best to answer as did a young parson, also traveling on the riverboat: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.”

Towards the end of the chapter, Stowe offers her own commentary on slavery: “The weak [are] broken and torn for the profit and convenience of the strong!” Tragically, even though slavery has been abolished in America, Stowe’s words are still quite true. Literally.

The post Abortion and slavery: The same conversation appeared first on Live Action News.

I have already written a couple of pieces on the connection between the Girl Scouts and pro-abortion organizations. Yet Girl Scouts of the USA still claims that it “does not take a position” when it comes to sex, birth control, or abortion.

Rochelle Focaracci is a former Girl Scout troop leader. She set up the website “Girl Scouts Why Not,” which documents the connections between the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) and Planned Parenthood.

While the Girl Scouts claims to not take a position on abortion, on May 9, 2013, MAKERS, a feminist, pro-abortion video of women whose “pioneering contributions” have apparently changed America, was screened as a Girl Scout-sponsored event.

Rochelle sent her thoughts on the MAKERS documentary and the involvement from the Girl Scouts to Mary Hasson, who wrote a rather informative and encompassing piece for LifeNews.com.

The Girl Scouts can no longer hide behind a neutrality stance when it actually sponsors such a screening and encourages participation. Hasson’s article sums up the connection very well in describing the event. In fact, the event and MAKERS were geared specifically to the Girl Scouts, from the Girl Scouts of Greater New York’s logo, a shout-out from the moderator to those Girl Scouts in the audience, and the college-aged panelist who was a former Girl Scout. Hasson mentions how the connection goes further, though:

In fact, the producer of the documentary explained during the panel discussion that they chose an online platform for MAKERS because “We knew we wanted to reach an audience like Girl Scouts” and girls are online more than anywhere else. Far from being a local event of one council, the MAKERS event garnered support from the Girl Scouts USA. The national group promoted the New York event on Twitter, inviting young Girl Scouts to “join” the live event or to watch it online later. And the MAKERS Facebook page included a photo after the event of the grinning producer surrounded by a group of Girl Scouts.

Also mentioned in the piece is that a panel discussion also featured pro-abortion feminists Marlo Thomas and Amy Richards. Thomas has been on MSNBC “to talk about the role of Roe v. Wade and reproductive rights in the greater feminist movement.” Richards is the co-founder of Third Wave Foundation, a pro-abortion group; an adviser to Planned Parenthood NYC; and a member of the MAKERS Board of Advisers.

For an organization that claims to take no stance on certain issues, the Girl Scouts seems to put an awful lot of support and promotion behind those who not only promote abortion, but criticize pro-lifers, including Phyllis Schlafly and Caroline Graglia. The Girl Scouts USA website links to the promoters of the video series and showcases it not only through the blog, but also through Twitter and Facebook.

The rest of Hasson’s article goes into a helpful description of those pro-abortion advocates involved in the MAKERS video series.

Rochelle also provided more information, however. Commonsense Media, though it gives the documentary a positive review, including a high review for “positive messages” and “positive role models,” does have a warning to parents:

Parents need to know that Makers: Women Who Make America discusses potentially sensitive issues like abortion, birth control pills, domestic violence, and rape as they relate to the women’s movement beginning in the 1950s through today. Most of these topics are talked about, not visualized, though there are a handful of blurred images – one of a women who died after an illegal abortion and another of an image of a naked woman. There is also some discussion of how the lesbian movement fit in (and diverged from) the mainstream feminist movement. Teens mature enough to handle these topics will find an inspirational story told by strong, smart, impressive women. Younger kids might be able to watch clips on key topics on the show’s website.

Also provided is a statement from Rochelle’s daughter, Madelyn, a former Girl Scout:

I’m very disturbed that Girl Scouts is promoting this pro-abortion project to girls – girls who are even younger than me! How can Girl Scouts continue to say they do not take a position on abortion and yet promote the MAKERS documentary, which clearly undermines the pro-life movement with an aggressive abortion-rights message? Girl Scouts continues to create controversy through pro-abortion events and relationships like MAKERS that contradict the pro-life position. And all along Girl Scouts are still being hosted and endorsed in our churches. It’s time to warn families – I hope our pastors will step up and protect girls.

Madelyn has a point. For those pro-lifers who have been unaware and involved in the Girl Scouts, certainly hearing of such connections cannot be easy. As the Girl Scouts continues to involve itself in such controversies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to remain ignorant and stay silent. Be it our pastors, those formerly involved in the Girl Scouts, or concerned pro-lifers, we must continue to highlight these controversies to truly “warn families” and protect girls.

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Penisfeels.

That’s the word coined by a pro-choice blogger to mock and insult an anguished father-to-be. His girlfriend wants an abortion, and he sought anonymous advice from a newspaper columnist on how to cope.

I am, sadly, unfamiliar with “penisfeels.” (Liberals and feminists who try to shock people by chanting words for private parts are kind of like 3-year-olds who do the same thing: sort of funny, but mostly annoying. And trust me: it stopped being shocking sometime in the early 2000s, after The Vagina Monologues became popular on college campuses.) But I assume that the blogger intended to mock the letter-writer for having feelings…because he is, after all, a man.

I have a question for pro-choicers: what’s wrong with a man having an emotional reaction to his partner’s abortion? I’d love a coherent, reasoned explanation. Even if you don’t think a man should have any legal say in abortion, is it not okay to feel what he feels?

Men’s experience with abortion is a murky topic, rarely researched or discussed openly. There is only one academic, nonpartisan (not explicitly “pro-life” or “pro-choice”) book on the topic: Men and Abortion: Lessons, Losses, and Love. The authors, Arthur Shostak and Gary McLouth, surveyed 1,000 men and boys whose partners were having abortions. The results showed that men can and do suffer from abortion – although they often choose to suffer in silence.

Eighty percent of the men thought either “occasionally” or “frequently” about the child who would never be born. Forty-seven percent agreed with the statement “Males involved in an abortion have disturbing thoughts about it afterwards.” Seventy-four percent were interested in some sort of counseling; 91 percent “were emphatic about their desire” to never be involved in another abortion. Eighty percent described their day at the abortion clinic as one of the hardest of their lives.

A follow-up survey revealed that when it comes to men and abortion, time does not heal all wounds. Only 3 percent of men in clinic waiting rooms thought their relationship would break up over the abortion – but later on, 25 percent thought it had. The number who agreed that men would have “disturbing thoughts” about it afterwards rose by 16 percent. Sixty percent still had thoughts about the child who had been aborted – even though the abortion was months or years earlier.

“We heard, over and over again, of day and night dreams of the child that wasn’t born,” the authors wrote, “and about fantasies of their adequacy as new fathers – though all emphasized the effort they made to consciously control these mental maladventures.”

In fact, Shostak and McLouth found men to be at slightly greater risk than women for suffering after abortion. They were more likely to blame the abortion, rather than external circumstances, on their personal failings. A Los Angeles Times survey confirmed this, finding more regret and guilt among post-abortion men than women.

However, men are reluctant to air these feelings, either because they want to support their partners or in an effort to appear strong. There’s still a social stigma against male emotionality and grieving: notice that the letter-writer mentioned above felt comfortable seeking advice only anonymously.

I often hear women my age – especially the feminist-minded ones – complain that men are emotionally unavailable. Wouldn’t it be great if we raised boys to express their feelings as openly as girls? It would certainly make them better husbands, fathers, and friends. Why can’t men be more like women?

But when a man writes in to an advice columnist expressing sadness, guilt, and confusion over a politically charged situation, the same women ridicule his emotional reaction as “penisfeels.”

Pick one.

The post About those “penisfeels”: Men and abortion appeared first on Live Action News.

This month, college students from all over the state of Texas drove, carpooled, and flew to Houston for the Dr. Joseph Graham Fellowship for College Pro-Life Leaders training program. The Fellowship, sponsored by Texas Right to Life, is a program for pro-life college students who earn up to $8,000 over the course of their college careers as life advocates on their respective college campuses.

In order to develop effective witnesses for life, Texas Right to Life brings all of the fellows together every summer for an intensive period of training and preparation so that when the fall semester comes, they will be ready to march onto their campuses with up-to-date and professional knowledge of every imaginable life-related topic. The training program also prepares students to accomplish the more fine-tuned details of running a pro-life group, like recruiting members, debating with students who disagree with their pro-life stance, and working in conjunction with faculty and staff at their school to ensure that a legitimate pro-life group is established and cultivated over the years.

Live Action obtained an insider’s view of the Fellowship training program in an interview with Baileigh Poston, a sophomore psychology/political science double-major at the University of North Texas who is a second-year fellow. Baileigh is a trained sidewalk counselor and a volunteer at pregnancy resource centers in Dallas, and her area of interest in the pro-life movement is with adoption and special-needs children. “I am adopted, and that is a very special thing to me and I am able to see how loving that option is firsthand,” she said. Baileigh’s affection for her adoptive father is palpable. She continued: “I also have a deep love for people with special needs and a love to volunteer at schools and organizations that work with different citizens that have varying degrees of special needs.” Baileigh is no stranger to work with special needs, as she has been volunteering with special needs communities and groups for years, and she even volunteered with a group to help ensure that special-needs peers in her school were able to achieve a normal high school experience.

Curious how a college training program could add to the well-established pro-life foundation Baileigh had already established before college, Live Action asked how the training had benefited her. “The fellowship training helps a lot with being able to promote the pro-life message on college campuses across TX. We hear a lot of speakers who are experts in their area that give a lot of information on all pro-life topics that we are able to use to communicate to other students on our particular campus,” she said.

Baileigh pointed out that the training program also helps to prepare students to encounter opposition on campus: “We also do practice tabling, where we present topics and have some students be the pro-life people running the table and other students pretend to be pro-choice and present arguments that we may face when talking with an actual pro-choice individual.” She says that getting input from all of the other students about what has worked for them in the past is a benefit of the training program.

What is a typical day at training like? “A typical day at training starts at about 7:30 am. You wake up and get ready in business casual attire and eat breakfast in the room. Training normally starts between 8:30 and 9. We meet in the conference room and spend 10 to 15 minutes writing out our goals [this is a trade secret over at Texas Right to Life]. After that, on an average day, there would probably be 2 speakers before lunch, each speaker covering a variety of topics from abortion, Planned Parenthood’s business model, euthanasia, adoption stories, etc. Each speaker’s presentation lasts between 1-1.5 hours. Then we would have lunch around 12 or 1. After lunch we may practice tabling for a few hours or talk through scenarios and how we could respond to them when on our campuses. After that practice, there may be another speaker and then dinner. After dinner there would be an educational movie, such as October Baby, Schindler’s List, or Gattaca, and then a debriefing on the day. The day normally last until 9 or 10, and then we are free for the night.”

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The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy annually surveys teenagers and adults in our nation. The Campaign interviews teens and adults, asking them questions about sex, birth control, teen pregnancy, and related topics. The survey has two main goals. The first is to assess and report on American opinion concerning teen pregnancy and related issues. The second goal is to use the surveys as a helpful addition to the behavioral data collected by the federal government.

The latest data was collected in a report released in August 2012, titled “With One Voice 2012: America’s adults and teens sound off about teen pregnancy.” One of the questions asked on the survey was, “When it comes to your/teens’ decisions about sex, who is most influential?” The results show 38% of teens aged 12-19 say parents are the most influential people when it comes to their decisions about sex. Friends come in second place with 22%, the media is 9%, religious leaders and siblings tie for 6%, and 4% of teens said teachers and educators.

In a culture where teens are continually being exposed to sexual images in the media, it’s encouraging to know that parents still hold the most power when it comes to impacting teens’ choices about sex. These results are consistent with all of the previous National Campaign surveys. The report states that overall closeness between parents and their children, shared activities, parental presence in the home, and parenting caring and concern all are associated with a reduced risk of early sex and teen pregnancy. Teens who are close to their parents and feel supported by them are more likely to delay sex, have fewer sexual partners, and use contraception more consistently.

Another question posed to the teens and adults was, “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It would be much easier for teens to postpone sexual activity and avoid teen pregnancy if they were able to have more open, honest conversations about these topics with their parents.” Eight-seven of teens age 12-19 and 90% of adults agreed with this statement. Although a majority of teens and adults agreed that it’s helpful for parents to talk with their children openly about sex, 90% of teens surveyed and 88% of adults believe that parents often don’t know what to say, how to say it, or when to start talking.

CNN Health published an article from the Mayo Clinic titled “Sex education: Talking to your teen about sex.” The article shares a truthful statement: “Sex education basics may be covered in health class, but your teen might not hear — or understand — everything he or she needs to know to make tough choices about sex. That’s where you come in. Awkward as it may be, sex education is a parent’s responsibility.” The article goes on to discuss ways parents can break the ice and bring up these topics. The author encourages parents to be honest and direct, to avoid lecturing, and to listen to their teens’ points of view. The article tells parent to reward their teens’ questions with affirming responses like “I’m glad you came to me.”

In a Focus on the Family article titled “Talking about Sex and Puberty,” parents are advised to not wait to tell their children everything they know about sex during a single intense marathon session. Focus on the Family believes that doing so risks either waiting until it’s too late or dumping more in the child’s lap than he can process. They suggest gradually releasing information during many conversations over a period of several years. If a child asks questions a parent can’t answer, parents should be honest and do research. Focus on the Family believes that parents will gain far more stature in their children’s eyes by showing candor than by bluffing.

Here are some other compelling statistics from the National Campaign’s survey:

• Some 67% of teen girls and 53% often boys who have had sex wish they had waited longer.
• Forty-four percent of respondents age 12-19 said they have not had sex.
• Nine in 10 teens (91%) say they want to be married before they have/father a child.
• About seven in 10 adults (68%) believe their community needs more efforts to prevent teen pregnancy.
• Nearly nine in 10 adults and teens (89% and 90% respectively) say teen pregnancy is an important issue even when compared to other social and economic problems facing the country.

As pro-lifers who stand against abortion, we must remember to deal with the root issues that lead to thousands of terminations a day. National data shows that 3 out of every 10 U.S girls is pregnant at least once by the age of 20. Making birth control accessible to kids of all ages is not the great fix to this critical issue in our society. Rather, I think we must begin at home, with loving parents who teach their kids the benefits of abstinence before marriage and delaying sex. Children who lack supportive parents need teachers, mentors, religious leaders, and coaches who will listen and talk with them. The National Campaign to prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has a helpful document titled “Tips to help faith leaders and their communities address teen pregnancy.” As a youth leader, I make it a priority to talk with the teenagers in my church about these issues. We all can have a voice in these areas if we’re just willing to speak out.

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