Over 100,000 Americans Take to the Streets to Tell People “Abortion Kills Children”

By Micaiah Bilger
Life News

Standing on busy sidewalks and town squares across the country, more than 100,000 Americans urged their communities to recognize the value of unborn babies’ lives.

The annual Life Chain, held on the first Sunday in October every year, celebrated its 30thyear on Sunday with approximately 1,600 events in communities across the United States and Canada. The pro-life event is a peaceful rally that calls people to pray for an end to abortion and raise awareness about its devastating effects on our culture.

Many of the pro-life advocates had personal experiences that brought them out to the sidewalks.

A crowd of pro-lifers in Plattsburgh, New York received a mixed response to their prayers and signs that read “Abortion Kills Children.” Some people in the public waved in support, while others seemed angry or upset by the signs.

The Press Republican reports Kasia Dasilva, one of about 60 people who participated in the event, said she was standing there because of her children.

“I had three disabled children in a row,” Dasilva said. “They taught me so much about life.”

Len Kobylus also had a very personal reason for participating in the Life Chain in Salisbury, North Carolina – his grandson.

Kobylus told the Salisbury Post that his daughter got pregnant in high school and considered having an abortion. But because of her family’s support, she chose life for her son; now, Kobylus said his daughter is pursuing a doctorate degree and his 16-year-old grandson is starting to look at colleges.

“Every year that we can make it, we come out and pray for the unborn,” he said. “We understand that God, luckily, gave us the strength to make the right decision.”

Winnie Charles, of Sparta, New Jersey, told the New Jersey Herald that a co-worker’s abortion deeply affected her several years ago. She said it prompted her to become more involved in the pro-life movement.

“I offered my apartment to her to come and live with me because she was afraid her family wouldn’t accept a child out of wedlock, but she personally chose to have an abortion, and with that she closed herself off to a lot of people who would have been able to support her as a friend,” Charles said.

 “Abortion hurts her and other women like her for years afterward when they realize what they have done, and that the choice they made eliminated a whole human being from the face of the Earth.”

Life Chains focus heavily on prayer, but many different Christian denominations unite for the Life Chains. In Winchester, Virginia, more than 100 people from various denominations prayed together for unborn babies and moms along a busy street, according to the Winchester Star.

Life News continues

Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link.  Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest.  Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.

Pregnant, need help or know someone who does?  


National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131.
In Southeast Penna:  Call or text 610-626-4006  
If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available.  Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.  

Where Have All the Children Gone?

A recent Philadelphia Inquirer news article ("Not Children’s Play, 9/17/2017") bemoaned the fact that children specialty stores are closing and begging the question “Are there enough babies and young children to support existing retailers and newcomers?”  Well, finally somebody noticed?

  Of course, the finger is pointed at a falling birth rate, as well as that #1 fiend -- the internet -- which allows e-tailers to sell their wares cheaper than brick and mortar stores, thereby causing a drop in sales at stores such as The Children's Place, Justice and Gymboree, which is closing hundreds of stores in an effort to survive after bankruptcy.  And Toys “R” Us (owner of Babies “R” Us) also has filed for bankruptcy claiming it needs to revamp its long-term debt.

But let’s peel the onion back a little further.  What fueled that falling birth rate? Would more customers have helped the bottom line?  They certainly could not have hurt it.  In 2014 the U.S. estimated abortion rate was 926,190 (National Right to Life).   Is there even a remote possibility that if these stores had the opportunity to peddle their wares to almost a million more children that year (and in the previous years since Rose v Wade) that perhaps – just perhaps – the children’s market for goods would have remained sustainable?

Gymboree was founded in 1976.  Think of all the children that were aborted that year (1,179,000).  Conceivably, their deaths might have played a part in Gymboree’s ultimate demise as these aborted children would not grow up to have their own children and then grandchildren, so the lack of original sales was then compounded.   It’s sad to talk of children in a dollars and cents connotation and maybe this is an over simplification of more complex economic issues that these businesses faced.  However, it is noted in a Life News.com 2010 article that Toys “R” Us was dropped from Life Decisions International’s  boycott  list once the store stopped funding Planned Parenthood.  That cannot excuse the fact that prior to that time, Toys “R” Us, a company which relies solely on sales of children’s toys, clothes, videos, etc., was donating to Planned Parenthood,  an organization that takes very seriously its task to remove those same children from society.  I did not matriculate at Wharton, nor do I have a Harvard MBA, but I have to question the strategic thinking of the Board of Directors that thought that was a good idea. 

And while many of these children’s stores may have had no affiliation with Planned Parenthood, how many of them actually took a front-and-center stand against abortion?  Perhaps if the titans of these children-centric companies had spoken up for the rights of their future customers, they would not be facing extinction now.

There's Still Time to Register for A Baby's Breath Run for Life 5K/1 Mile Walk

We are rapidly approaching the 7th Annual Run for Life at Tyler State Park (Tyler Park Center for the Arts - map and directions).

The goal this year, as always, is to raise money for the ongoing mission of A Baby's Breath in Warminster.  This all-volunteer group's mission is to assist a woman meet the challenge of a crisis pregnancy and choose life for her child so that she may see her child 'take his/her first breath'. 

A Baby's Breath offers free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, pre-natal classes and counseling, parenting classes, and more. 

Register online for this run by clicking on this link.  

Event check-in on October 14th - 8:00 to 8:45 am

Fun Run/Walk begins promptly at 9:00 am

5K Race starts at 9:30 am

Please Note: Online Registration will end on October 07, 2017 at 12:00 AM. After the Online Registration period has ended, you may still register at the event.

Euthanasia Activists Want to Euthanize Alzheimer’s Patients, Even Without Their Consent

By Wesley Smith
Life News

The culture of death is an aggressive virus. Its pushers are now moving to permit Alzheimer’s patients to be killed if the person so requested in writing before becoming incompetent. (That “if” won’t last long if such homicides become normalized.)

Over at First Things, I detail the lethal threats:

• Polls from Quebec–where euthanasia is legal–show that more than 90% of Alzheimer’s caregivers support such a policy. More than 70% support euthanizing those in their care even if they never asked to be killed.
• Netherlands and Belgium already permit euthanasia for Alzheimer’s. In one case, the person killed was struggling against being killed. So the doctor instructed her family to hold her down as she gave the lethal jab.
• Compassion and Choices teaches the elderly how to commit suicide by self starvation.
• Prominent bioethicists want caregivers forced to starve Alzheimer’s patients to death if they asked in an advance directive–even if they willingly eat

I have written about many of those matters here. But here is something that I think receives too little attention. From, “Euthanasia for Alzheimer’s Patients?”:

There’s one more point to which we must attend. Suffering due to Alzheimer’s disease sometimes falls heavier on caregivers than on patients. True, many say at the end of the difficult road that it was an honor to care for their incapacitated loved ones. But we shouldn’t sugarcoat it: Caregiving can be exhausting and heartbreaking, and in some cases perilous to caregivers’ health…

Life News continues

FBI May Launch Criminal Investigation of Planned Parenthood for Selling Aborted Baby Parts

By Micaiah Bilger
Life News

The media attention to Planned Parenthood’s baby body parts trade has died down, but federal authorities have not forgotten about it.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee recently learned that the FBI received its criminal investigation referrals of Planned Parenthood and other groups involved in the aborted baby body parts trade, according to Breitbart.

The Senate committee and the U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives both opened investigations into the abortion industry after the Center for Medical Progress first exposed its baby body parts trade in 2015. Late last year, both committees concluded their investigations by recommending that the FBI investigate and potentially file criminal charges against Planned Parenthood.

In a June letter to committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley, the FBI confirmed that it is reviewing the committee’s recommendations.

“We can confirm the Criminal Investigative Division (CID) of FBI Headquarters received your referrals and sent them to the relevant FBI field offices for review and whatever action is deemed appropriate,” FBI official Gregory Brower wrote.

Brower apologized for the delay in responding to Grassley, but assured the pro-life senator that the FBI did receive the information and sent it to the appropriate people for review. When contacted by Breitbart, FBI officials would not confirm or deny an investigation of the abortion chain.

In December, Grassley’s committee referred several Planned Parenthood affiliates and companies involved in sales of aborted baby parts, as well as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, to the FBI and the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.

“I don’t take lightly making a criminal referral. But, the seeming disregard for the law by these entities has been fueled by decades of utter failure by the Justice Department to enforce it,” Grassley said at the time. “And, unless there is a renewed commitment by everyone involved against commercializing the trade in aborted fetal body parts for profit, then the problem is likely to continue.”

The committee found evidence of numerous violations by Planned Parenthood and fetal tissue procurement companies like StemExpress.

Life News continues

Please Join Us on October 14th in West Chester, Pennsylvania for the Fatima 100 Conference

Malvern, PA  Discover heaven’s blueprint for restoring family and a culture of life during an upcoming event entitled the Fatima 100 Conference on Saturday, October 14 at St. Maximillian Kolbe parish in West Chester, PA. (map and directions)

One hundred years ago the Mother of God appeared in a tiny village in Fatima, Portugal to three shepherd children with a message for mankind. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Fatima and the anniversary of the Knights of the Immaculate, a unique conference has been designed by the Knights of the Immaculate and the Pro-Life Educational Foundation featuring three internationally known evangelists including Dr. Ralph Martin, Dr. Paul Kengor and Christopher West.

   Dr. Ralph Martin is the founder and president of Renewal Ministries. As a world-renowned evangelist and author, he will address Our Lady’s most prophetic statement at Fatima –the error that would spread throughout the world and its meaning for our generation.

Christopher West is a renowned author and co-founder of Theology of the Body. He will offer the most compelling lens to see and heal the world’s challenges offering the message of Fatima as the key to reclaiming the culture of life.

Dr. Paul Kengor is considered the world’s most authoritative biographer of Ronald Reagan. His recent book, A Pope and a President are widely acclaimed. The Grove City college professor, Kengor will share the back story of how a Pope and a President forged a Fatima connection that brought down the Soviet Union.

At this time in history, why is the Fatima message relevant? Does it have significance to you and your family? What is the Blessed Mother asking us at this moment? According to Brian Gail, one of the conference organizers, “In a very real sense, St. Maximilian Kolbe’s founding of the Knights of the Immaculate within 72 hours of the last apparition of Fatima on October 13, 1917 was the first Fatima apostolate. This conference will honor both events.”

St. Pope John Paul II in traveling to Fatima declared the message “more urgent than ever before.” Michael McMonagle, President of the Pro-Life Educational Foundation shared, “During her appearance at Fatima Our Blessed Mother warned that “…the errors of Russia will spread…” The most terrible manifestation of these errors has proven to be the vast culture of death that claimed the lives of hundreds of millions of human beings during the past 100 years. 

Our Lady’s other Fatima messages have identified how her Son’s Church can not only resist, but overcome this culture of death. This conference serves to deepen and spread the implementation of her Fatima message.”

The event will begin with Mass at 8 AM and conclude at 3:00 PM with a special consecration to the Blessed Mother for all who attend. A continental breakfast and boxed lunch are included in the registration fee.

 All families are welcome to attend by registering at www.fatima100conference.org

 

Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link.  Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest.  Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.

Pregnant, need help or know someone who does?  

National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131.
In Southeast Penna:  Call or text 610-626-4006  


If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available.  Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.  

NFL Super Bowl champion Matt Birk: I Am ‘Unapologetically Pro-Life’

By Rebecca Downs
National Right to Life

NFL champion Matt Birk, formerly of the Baltimore Ravens, has never been shy about standing up for his pro-life convictions. In 2016, Birk spoke at the March for Life, where he told participants that he is “unapologetically pro-life.”

Birk, who has eight children, said that pro-lifers “love and appreciate” post-abortive women who now defend the preborn. After his Super Bowl win, Birk declined to visit the White House when pro-abortion President Barack Obama was in office. Birk expressed his disapproval when Obama said, “God bless Planned Parenthood” during a Planned Parenthood event. Iowans for LIFE describes why Birk decided to skip the White House:

Birk stated then, “It was because of my Catholic faith and my pro-life convictions…ultimately, it was because of my kids. I want to not just talk about my faith, but…live it out, too. And a few years ago, some of the older ones [were] aware of Planned Parenthood and what occurs there, and so, I wanted to set the example for them and be a dad that they could be proud of.”

In his retirement and as an NFL player, Birk has continued to be someone who “set[s] the example,” even as he’s faced criticism for standing up for the various issues he believes in.

Now, Birk is scheduled to headline the upcoming Iowans for Life fundraising dinner on October 12. His speech is titled: “Standing Ground: NFL Pro Says YES to Life.”

Birk joins other well-known professional athletes who are also speaking out for life. Tim Tebow appeared with his mother, Pam, in a Super Bowl ad about how she chose life despite her difficult pregnancy. For his part, Tebow has remained steadfast in his beliefs and activism, despite pro-abortion and media criticism.

NFL player Benjamin Watson, who is also with the Baltimore Ravens, has also spoken out numerous times against abortion. He has condemned Planned Parenthood’s history of targeting the African-American community and encouraged men to “stand up for” women and children.

“It is past time for men to be the leaders, caretakers and protectors they were created to be,” Watson said. “As with many other social injustices, abortion will not end until men stand up for both the lives of the innocent and the mothers in crisis. While it has been attractively packaged by some, abortion is the most egregious social injustice of our time.”

Live Action News continues 

After Two Abortions, Muslim Woman Becomes Pro-Life and Turns to Christ

By Micaiah Bilger
Life News

By the time Derya Little was a young teenager, she was seriously questioning her Muslim faith and its treatment of women.

Her doubts, coupled with her parents’ divorce and family struggles, took her down a troubling path where she drank heavily, experimented with drugs and aborted two unborn babies. Eventually, though, Little’s life began to change when she developed a friendship with a pro-life Christian.

Little recounts her life story in her book “From Islam to Christ: One Woman’s Path Through the Riddles of God,” new from Ignatius Press. Her book gives westerners an intriguing look at the Muslim culture in Turkey, Islamic beliefs about unborn babies and women, and her conversion from Islam to atheism to Christianity.

Now a devout Catholic, wife and mother in the United States, Little grew up in a Muslim home in Turkey. Her parents divorced when she was in middle school, something still very much frowned upon in the conservative culture, and the separation deeply affected her life.

Little did not have a good relationship with either of her parents. After the divorce, she lived with her mother and brother. Her mother was quiet and distant, and she seemed to care more about how the neighbors perceived her and her children than their actual well-being.

So when Little began spending a lot of her time drinking and experimenting with drugs, her mother did not seem to care, as long as she didn’t get caught.

Little’s school friends introduced her to atheist writers and communist thinkers, and she began reading Karl Marx, Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche. She became an agnostic and later an atheist while she was in high school.

“My atheism relieved me of the burdens of conscience,” she wrote. “… Premarital sex was not an issue at all, because sex was a natural need and suppression of sexual desires leads to aggression and violence. … Abortion was not murder because a fetus is a bunch of cells and nothing more.”

Life News continues 

Pennsylvania Legislative Alert: Harrisburg Senate Bill 3

from Pro-Life Union of Delaware County 

October Newsletter

Last year, due to the magnificent work of House Pro-Life Caucus Leader Kathy Rapp, the Pennsylvania State House passed a ban on late term Dismemberment Abortions by a margin of 132 to 65. However, the State Senate failed to act, and so the process must begin anew. 

In January, Senator Michele Brooks introduced Senate Bill 3 (SB 3) which is very similar to last year’s HB 1948. This time, the Senate quickly passed it – by a margin of 32-18, and sent it back to the House. If the House passes SB 3, the bill would go to Governor Tom Wolf for his signature to become Law. 

But Governor Wolf is a rabid pro-abortion extremist, who volunteers as an abortion escort at Planned Parenthood, and he has vowed to veto it as soon as it gets to his desk. The House margin will be veto proof, and the Senate is only two votes short of the margin needed to override a veto. (There are four potential swing votes in the Senate, and if two support the override, the bill would become law over Wolf’s veto.) 

So, please pray for those who are working to make this bill a reality, and for each member of the legislature – that they see the dignity of each child whose life hangs in the balance from their vote. 

Please contact House Majority Leader Dave Reed, and ask him to move SB 3. 

dreed@pahousgop.com 717-705-7173

Anti-abortion Groups Fuming over GOP Failure to Defund Planned Parenthood

by Jessie Hellmann
The Hill

Anti-abortion groups fuming over the Republican failure to defund Planned Parenthood as part of ObamaCare repeal are eyeing tax reform as the next vehicle for their cause.

The groups want Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood in a tax reform package that the GOP plans to move through the Senate under special budgetary rules that protect it from a Democratic filibuster.

“The failures to pass repeal and replace, including redirecting those dollars to other providers that don’t do abortions, has been incredibly disappointing to us,” said Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of government affairs at the Susan B. Anthony List, a D.C.-based group that works to elect anti-abortion members of Congress.

Continue reading by clicking here

   

Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link.  Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest.  Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.

Pregnant, need help or know someone who does?  

National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131.
In Southeast Penna:  Call or text 610-626-4006  

If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available.  Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.