By Micaiah Bilger
Life News
One of the last things Oprah Winfrey did before her mother died this fall was to thank her for choosing life. The celebrity’s mother, Vernita Lee, 83, died on Thanksgiving Day.
Winfrey is not pro-life. She promotes pro-abortion campaigns and politicians through her media empire. But she did see the value of her mother’s difficult decision to choose life for her as a young teenager.
In a new interview with People Magazine, Winfrey described her last moments with her mother and her struggles to communicate what she was really feeling.
A few days before Lee died, Winfrey said she canceled all her meetings and traveled to Milwaukee to be with her.
“I waited for a way to say what I wanted to say,” she said. “I couldn’t find it that day. The next morning I woke up, and I was actually praying for, ‘What is a way I can have this conversation about the end? How do I close it?’ I just thought, ‘What is the truth for me? What is it that I need to say?’”
Eventually, Winfrey did figure out what she wanted to say: Thank you. According to the report:
She recalls, “I played another one of her favorite artists, Joshua Nelson, singing ‘How I Got Over.’ I could see that it opened her a little bit, because my mother’s been a very closed down person. I could see that the music gave me an opening to say what I needed to say.”
“What I said was, ‘Thank you. Thank you, because I know it’s been hard for you. It was hard for you as a young girl having a baby, in Mississippi. No education. No training. No skills. Seventeen, you get pregnant with this baby. Lots of people would have told you to give that baby away. Lots of people would’ve told you to abort that baby. You didn’t do that. I know that was hard. I want you to know that no matter what, I know that you always did the best you knew how to do. And look how it turned out.’”
Lee gave birth to Oprah when she was 18 and living in Mississippi, according to the report. She struggled with poverty throughout her life, working as a maid and trying to raise three children. She made an adoption plan for her fourth child, Patricia, a half-sibling that Oprah did not even know she had until adulthood.
Later, Lee told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she never told Oprah about her half sister because she was ashamed of the adoption. Lee said she was not able to take care of Patricia herself.
“I thought it was a terrible thing for me to do,” Lee said.
But as Winfrey pointed out in her final good-bye to her mother, it was not terrible at all. Lee chose life for her and her half-sister. Those were difficult decisions, but they were courageous ones because Lee gave her daughters a chance at life. She did not take what some would consider the easy way out and have an abortion. That truly would have been a “terrible thing,” but Lee chose the better, more difficult path because she knew her daughters’ lives were valuable.
Sadly, Winfrey has not promoted this type of courage lately. Instead, her magazine recently featured the “Shout Your Abortion” campaign, a pro-abortion movement where women brag about how wonderful it was to abort their unborn babies. Winfrey also campaigned for pro-abortion candidates this fall. In doing so, she seemed to forget how her mother was one of those women in difficult circumstances and she one of those unborn babies who could have been aborted.
By Melissa Barnhart
Christian Post
There are hundreds of thousands of women in America who regret their abortions and their supporters are calling on Oprah to let their voices be heard too.
At least twice this year O magazine has featured articles supportive of abortion rights. Most recently, #ShoutYourAbortion co-creator Amelia Bonow was profiled as an activist whose mission is to destigmatize abortion by giving women an outlet to post messages about their abortions while advocating for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
"First of all, to shoutout about your abortion like it's the greatest thing that happened to you is very misguided, because you've caused the death of an unborn child," said Janet Morana, co-founder of Silent No More Awareness Campaign, in response to Bonow's article during an interview with The Christian Post. "I don't see it as anything to be celebrated."
"I deal with all the aftermath, all the women who've been hurt physically and psychologically from abortion. I just find it such a farce that they tout this as a safe, wonderful medical procedure when in fact it's not," she added.
In the piece for O magazine and Oprah.com, Bonow describes her distress in 2015 when the U.S. House voted to defund Planned Parenthood, the national abortion chain where she'd had an abortion the previous year. Although the House had voted to defund Planned Parenthood, the bill failed in the Senate and the business continues to get over $500 million from federal taxpayers every year.
Although Bonow has denigrated pro-life activists as "cultural dinosaurs" and "people who bankroll and inspire domestic terrorists," Morana isn't calling for O and other left-of-center women's magazines to stifle pro-choice speech. Instead, she and others like her say they're just asking for equal time.
(PHOTO: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)Activists hold signs reading "I regret my abortion" onstage as they participate in the annual March for Life rally in Washington, January 25, 2013.
"It's my experience that most of these liberal magazines won't give us the voice," said Morana, who's also executive director of Priests for Life. "We'd love to have it. Can we have some equal time? Can we have a fair and honest debate? Can I bring a few women who can talk about the physical damage and you can bring a few who think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and let's have an open and honest conversation? But they don't want to do that," she added.
This is not the first time that Winfrey has been perceived as supporting abortion rights. In 1996, an episode of the "Oprah Winfrey Show" aired clips from the HBO pro-abortion film "If These Walls Could Talk" starring Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek and Cher. And earlier this year, O magazine featured "10 Superhero Nurses Making a Big Difference" which included a nurse who works at North Dakota's lone abortion clinic.
By Karen Townsend
Life News
Awards season has begun, which means a fresh opportunity for Hollywood and media elites to congratulate themselves.
In the lead-up to the 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards, which aired January 7 on NBC, host Seth Meyers promised a “politically charged” ceremony. Attendees were told to wear black as a fashion statement against sexual abuse and pay inequality, plus a lapel pinsaying, “Time’s Up,” was created as the accessory to sport.
Most of the commentary was about the problems in Hollywood – Harvey Weinstein was labeled “the elephant in the room” and only a couple of veiled shots were taken at President Trump. Meyers made one referencing his own appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He, along with the rest of the entertainment industry, really wants Oprah Winfrey to run for president. (See NBC’s own Oprah for Our Future President tweet.)
SETH MEYERS: In 2011 I told some jokes about our current president at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, jokes about how he was unqualified to be president. Some have said that night convinced him to run. So, if that’s true, I just want to say, Oprah, you will never be president. You do not have what it takes. And Hanks, where’s Hanks? You will never be vice president. You are too mean and unrelatable. Now we just wait and see.
Meyers also took a shot at Trump while introducing the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. He described her by asking the audience to “welcome a president who actually is a stable genius.” Oh, brother. I noted she was wearing all red, not the required black attire. Heh.
Hollywood’s Queen of the Universe, Oprah Winfrey, received the 2018 Cecil B. de Mille Award and went into a bit of an alternative universe in her praise of the media. She bemoaned that the media is “under siege” and gushed they have an “insatiable dedication to uncovering absolute truth.” What?
OPRAH: I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. We know the press is under siege these days. We also know it’s the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice. To tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies. I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this. What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have.
Where was Ms. Winfrey during eight years of the previous administration when a whole lot of corruption and injustices were taking place, mostly against conservatives? I think “absolute truth” to Oprah and her pals mean the truth as they believe it to be, not actual facts.
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