City Tries to Shut Down Pro-Life Pastor Who Yelled So Loudly He Disrupted Abortions

By Tom Ciesielka
Life News

A pro-life pastor is seeking to have his case against State of Maine officials heard by the United States Supreme Court. The Thomas More Society has filed an amici curiae(“friends of the court”) brief in March v. Mills, et al. The non-profit national public interest law firm is supporting Andrew March in his quest to have the noise provision clause of the Maine Civil Rights Act ruled unconstitutional and discriminatory.

March, pastor of the Cell 53 church in Lewiston, regularly preaches outside Planned Parenthood’s abortion facility in Portland. He is asking the Court to rule on whether police can enforce noise regulations against pro-life demonstrators in Maine’s largest city. March’s petition seeks review of a 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision stating that protesters could be cited for breaking a state noise ordinance.

Thomas More Society attorney Thomas Olp explains the case with an analogy. “Imagine three drummers standing outside a Planned Parenthood, drumming away at an equal volume for equal amounts of time—and loud enough to disturb the services inside the facility. 

One practices his skills to audition for a band. Another shouts, ‘Keep abortion legal!,’ at the top of his lungs. The third drummer, hoping to deter abortion-minded women, repeats, ‘Overturn Roe v. Wade,’ in a normal conversational tone without amplification. Under the noise provision clause in the Maine Civil Rights Act, only the third drummer would be cited for violating the law.”

The challenged provision bars a person from intentionally making noise that “can be heard within a building,” when such noise is made with the additional intent to either “jeopardize the health of persons receiving health services within the building” or “interfere with the safe and effective delivery of those services within the building.” 

 “Only in the third example given above,” says Olp, would the conduct possibly violate the noise ordinance. But that comes about because of the message communicated, not the noise itself. For that reason, the noise ordinance is content based and viewpoint discriminatory. The Maine District Court recognized this in striking down the law, but the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ignored this obvious fact and erroneously reversed the lower court. We hope the U.S. Supreme Court will correct this situation.”

The brief contends that the Ordinance violates Constitutionally guaranteed free speech for a number of reasons, including:

The government can only regulate the when, where and how of public speech, not what the speech says. Maine’s noise provision ultimately seeks to punish a speaker based on the speaker’s message, not on the loudness with which it is delivered, because it singles out only certain messages at a given noise level for regulation.

Maine’s noise provision lacks adequate criteria to ensure the noise ordinance is enforced objectively, rather than based on the subjective attitude of the hearers of the speech.

The 1st Circuit’s decision upholds an ordinance that applies a different free speech standard to abortion-related speech, than is applied in non-abortion contexts. This sets a dangerous precedent.

Life News article continues here 

She Had an Abortion Scheduled, But One Call Changed Everything

By Jay Hobbs
National Right to Life

The phone rang at a call center in Columbus, Ohio, this Thanksgiving weekend. On the other end of the line, a woman and her young daughter were in tears, barely audible as the consultant at Option Line (www.OptionLine.org; 1-800-712-HELP) answered the phone.

Choking back tears, the mother, “Karen,” told the Option Line consultant the situation. Her daughter, “Beth,” was pregnant, and the baby’s father had intimidated Beth into making a decision she really had not intention of making.

At her lowest point, Beth felt she had no choice other than abortion, so she set an appointment at a nearby abortion business. The night before the appointment, Beth had second thoughts and finally told her mother what was going on.

That’s when Karen reached out to Option Line—a 24-7 pregnancy helpline that answers over 1,000 cries for help every day of the year. Time was of the essence. There was no time to wait around for an answering machine.

On the phone with Option Line, Karen struggled to gain her composure. With Beth by her side, Karen said she’d support her daughter no matter what decision she made, but with time winding down to her appointment, she couldn’t stand the thought of losing her first grandchild to abortion.

In the course of the conversation, the Option Line consultant asked to speak with Beth directly, and Karen handed the phone over to her daughter—praying silently her daughter would find the help she so desperately needed.

Terrified over the threats and bullying she’d received from the baby’s father, Beth felt her future was in the balance. If she canceled the appointment and chose life for her child, she’d be giving up a relationship with her boyfriend and—far worse—be forced to sacrifice her career goals all at once.

Those fears—which the abortion industry so commonly exploits—had compounded to effectively rob Beth’s ability to make a decision on her own.

All of that changed in just one phone call to Option Line.

By the time she and her mother hung up the phone, Beth had canceled the abortion and scheduled a new appointment: this time at a local pro-life pregnancy center, where she could get a free pregnancy test, free ultrasound, free material aid and the chance to connect woman-to-woman with staff and volunteers ready to help her through every point of pregnancy and well on into motherhood.

“We were so thrilled Beth called that night,” Nafisa Shamsher, the director of Option Line, said. “No woman should be so afraid or coerced that she feels she has no choice other than abortion. What a blessing it was to come alongside Beth in her journey.”

National Right to Life 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 the Community Women's Center at  215-826-8090

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.  

Judge Overturns Trump Repeal of Obamacare Mandate, Forces Christians to Pay for Abortions

“This is a shameful ruling that seeks to continue the Obama-era assault on conscience rights and religious liberty” 

By Micaiah Bilger
Life News

Christian groups and businesses once again may be forced to pay for birth control, including forms that may cause abortions, after a federal judge ruled against the Trump administration Friday.

In October, President Donald Trump’s administration provided relief from the Obamacare birth control mandate by granting wider exceptions to religious groups.

The new rules provided relief to groups like the nuns of Little Sisters of the Poor and the religious owners of Hobby Lobby, which were forced to challenge the mandate to the U.S. Supreme Court or face crippling fines. However, several state attorneys general challenged the decision.

On Friday, a challenge by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro succeeded when federal Judge Wendy Beetlestone blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the rule, according to the AP.

“The Commonwealth’s concern is that absent available cost-effective contraception, women will either forego contraception entirely or choose cheaper but less effective methods—individual choices which will result in an increase in untended pregnancies,” Beetlestone wrote. “That, in turn, will inflict economic harm on the Commonwealth because unintended pregnancies are more likely to impose additional costs on Pennsylvania’s State-funded health programs.”

Here’s more from the Washington Free Beacon:

Shapiro’s victory came after arguments in front of Judge Wendy Bettlestone Thursday, where the A.G. contended that the rollback would harm Pennsylvania’s 2.5 million women. Dr. Cynthia Chuang, of Penn State University, testified before Bettlestone that the rollback would cause “serious medical harm,” including unintended pregnancies, Courthouse News reports.

The government disagreed with this argument when, in October, Trump ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to allow for fairly broad-based religious and moral exemptions to the mandate.

The administration expected in October that only a few organizations — as few as 200 — will take advantage of the expanded exceptions. A senior administration official said then that it was expected that 99.9 percent of women will be unimpacted by this new rule.

One leading pro-life group decried the nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the Trump Administration’s interim final rule protecting employers who have religious or moral objections to providing abortion-inducing drugs and devices to their employees. The class of conscientious objectors includes employers like the Little Sisters of the Poor, as well as groups like Susan B. Anthony List.

“This is a shameful ruling that seeks to continue the Obama-era assault on conscience rights and religious liberty,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. 

Life News report continues 

22-Week-Old Baby Dies After Doctors Refuse to Save Her Life

"If she did pass I could look you in the eye and say thank you for trying. You decided her fate, not God, and now I’ve got to live with that forever."

By Nancy Flanders

Live Action News

Unexpectedly pregnant with their sixth child, Sophie Dennis and her husband were initially shocked, but by the time they traveled from the United Kingdom to Spain for their family vacation at 13 weeks gestation, they loved their new preborn child as much as any of their others. However, that vacation would be the beginning of a heartbreaking struggle to save their preborn baby girl only to tragically lose her, they say, due to medical negligence. 

Baby Autumn would be born extremely premature at 22 weeks and six days gestation – a gray area in which some doctors would offer her medical intervention, but others would not. Autumn’s doctors would choose the latter, despite her mother Sophie’s repeated requests for help for her premature baby. Some children born as early as 21 weeks have survived, thanks to medical assistance.

While on vacation, Sophie began to experience bleeding so heavy that she had to wrap a towel around herself. She went to the local hospital, but a language barrier kept her from fully understanding what was happening. Thankfully, the woman they were renting their vacation apartment from accompanied her and was able to explain some of what the doctors were saying.

“I just remember them saying the word hematoma and the measurements of it,” Sophie told Live Action News. “So the two weeks spent there I did a lot of googling. Subchronic hematoma 3.2 cm. I phoned home a few times to speak to someone at the hospital. I’m sensitive. I’m obviously worried. The bleeding started again and I bleed for the rest of the holiday. But it wasn’t fresh blood so that was good.”

As soon as they arrived back in the United Kingdom, Sophie went to the hospital where an ultrasound revealed baby Autumn was perfectly content – a huge relief. Sophie’s cervix was closed as well, which was another good sign. However, doctors did not check the size of the hematoma and instead scheduled a scan for two weeks later to measure it. Sophie expressed her dissatisfaction, but there was nothing she could do. She went home, happy that her daughter was safe, and researched outcomes of pregnancies with hematoma.

When she returned for the scan to measure the hematoma, doctors told her that most of the time the body simply reabsorbs it or it continues to grow. They assured her that women go on to have healthy pregnancies and that while she could go into preterm labor, in her case, she was most likely to have miscarried the baby while she was on vacation. The hematoma had grown from 3.2 to 7.2 cm.

“The told me, ‘The baby looks good, and there was no fresh bleeding’,” said Sophie. “But blood is an irritant to the uterus so that can cause contractions. It should have been a warning sign to keep an eye on this lady and this baby.”

Live Action News story continues

She Suffered Enormous Guilt After Taking Friend to Abortion Clinic

'

By Sarah Terzo
National Right to Life

A woman named Michelle talks about how she was crippled by guilt after helping a friend have an abortion:

“After I took my roommate home and got her settled, I started off for a visit to New York. It was a four hour drive and there was plenty of time for me to think… I began to realize that my friend’s abortion was troubling me…

Until then, I had just listened to what people had said about abortion and would accept what they thought… I had believed what they told me: “It’s a personal decision.”…

As I continued to drive, I felt as if I were drowning in a sea of silence. What was going on? I protested, I didn’t do anything! Yet I was haunted by what had happened that day and it rendered me numb…

That Sunday I went to church with my mom… While in church that morning, I heard a baby crying just a couple of seats away. The baby’s cry rang in my ears as if there was a message in the crying that I needed to hear…

Then as if a dam had burst, tears began to flow from my eyes. The more I tried to push back the strong current of tears, the heavier they flowed. I didn’t understand how I could feel such sorrow for an abortion that someone else had experienced. 

Then, suddenly, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of me when I realized for the first time that abortion was death! There had been a death. I had not simply escorted my friend to an abortion clinic; I had taken part in a baby’s death! On that fateful day “the problem” had not been taken care of; instead, a life had been snuffed out!”

Cheryl Chew, Make Me Your Choice (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image Publishers, 2006), pp. 122 – 123.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Clinic Quotes and is reposted with permission.

Website: National Right to Life

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 the Community Women's Center at  215-826-8090

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.  

Pennsylvania's Dismemberment Abortion Bill Has Passed But We Still Have Work to Do!

   

Barney Byrne

However one's opinion on Abortion is, I'm pretty certain, that "Dismemberment Abortion", which is the extracting of an unborn living child from the mother's uterus, one piece or limb at a time while the child is, as I said still alive, by using clamps, forceps, scissors and who knows what else in this procedure, I believe would be considered "Horrific" by the vast majority of Americans.

Just recently, the Pennsylvania Legislature had the courage to pass, Senate Bill 3, which would ban dismemberment abortions. Unfortunately, it will most likely be vetoed by our extreme Pro-Abortion Governor, Tom Wolf.

The vote in favor of the ban was, House of Representatives 121 to 70, and in the Senate 32 in favor and 18 against the ban. Again unfortunately, these totals would not be enough to override the Governor's veto.

We have to many politicians in the Pennsylvania Legislature who profess to be personally pro-life but who over their political careers have been staunch supporters of Planned Parenthood and Abortion in general.

My own Senator in District 10, Chuck McIlhinney, who I believe if memory serves me right, has often professed to be personally Pro-Life is one of those senators who voted no on Senate Bill 3, which would have banned this form of horrific abortion.

I've followed Senator McIlhinney's time in the Pennsylvania legislature and have come away with wondering how on earth he manages to keep getting re-elected. He was a thorn in fellow Republican, Governor Tom Corbett's side and kept a lot of good reform bills bottled up in his committee. This failure to work with the Governor, I believe, led to Governor Corbett's re-election defeat.

Senator McIlhinney was one of the original legislatures that passed the public employee pension plan, under Governor Tom Ridge, This is the pension plan that is leading a lot of our school districts and municipalities towards bankruptcy. The Senator recently signed on to a long term fix to the pension problem but one that will not effect the golden parachute pension that he helped passed for himself.

Can't we do better than this? Do we rally want someone representing us who will stand up and defend this hideous form of Abortion. In my opinion, people who have supported far less hideous acts have been by the World Court, convicted of war crimes.
Barney Byrne is a pro-life warrior who lives in Doylestown Township with his wife Barbara. 

 

Gov. Tom Wolf vows to veto this bill.  Fellow Pro-Life Pennsylvanians need to contact their Representatives and Senators and encourage them to vote to override Gov. Wolf's veto.  

Here is a link to use to find your Pennsylvania elected officials.  Please be firm but courteous when contacting  them.  

Whoopi Goldberg on Planned Parenthood “No One is Harvesting Baby Parts”

By Tom Blumer
Life News

In November 2015, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar at The View rudely shut down then-presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, insisting that she was lying when she stated that Planned Parenthood had admitted to harvesting baby parts from aborted fetuses.

On Friday, in a development which is predictably failing to get the media visibility it deserves, Orange County’s district attorney announced a $7.8 million settlement with two California companies accused of “selling fetal-derived cells and tissues” obtained from fetal body parts acquired from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. When will ABC demand that Whoopi and Joy apologize to Fiorina — and to the nation?

Here is the relevant November 6, 2015 video excerpt:

Transcript (bolds are mine throughout this post):

CARLY FIORINA: Let’s just start with abortion.

JOY BEHAR: OK.

FIORINA: I mentioned common ground. Actually, the American people have found common ground on this issue. Whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life — I’m pro-life. But whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, the majority of Americans are horrified by the reality that we’re harvesting baby parts through late-term abortions.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Carly, I need to stop you —

FIORINA: The majority of Americans —

GOLDBERG: — because that is not — you know that’s not true.

FIORINA: You asked me a question.

GOLDBERG: Carly, no one is harvesting baby parts.

FIORINA: Well, that’s interesting. That’s interesting.

GOLDBERG: No one is harvesting baby parts.

FIORINA: That’s interesting—

GOLDBERG: Oh, Carly, come on, girl —

FIORINA: — that Planned Parenthood. It’s interesting that Planned Parenthood just announced that they were no longer going to take compensation for that —

GOLDBERG: They were not harvesting baby parts, baby. They were not harvesting— go ahead, Carly, because, yeah, you have the floor. My bad.

BEHAR: You can’t say things like that that aren’t true. That offends my sensibility to hear you say something like that when you know it’s not true.

By November 2015, 11 undercover videos had already been released by the Center for Medical Progress showing that Planned Parenthood had indeed been harvesting fetal body parts, and that the abortion provider was profiting from their sale, not merely recovering its costs.

Life News article continues

Daleiden Requests Removal of Judge from Undercover Video Case Due to His Ties to Planned Parenthood

David Daleiden, Center for Medical Progress

By Lauretta Brown
Town Hall

David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) announced Wednesday that they are filing a new motion in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to request the removal of Judge William Orrick in the lawsuit brought against them by Planned Parenthood, pointing to his ties to Planned Parenthood.

According to Daleiden’s petition, Judge Orrick has "an ongoing and longstanding professional relationship with one of the named Plaintiffs.” Orrick is a founder and officer of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center (GSFRC), an organization that partners with Planned Parenthood and had a Planned Parenthood clinic incorporated on its premises while Orrick served as secretary and counsel to the organization.

      Judge William Orrick

The petition also cites the use of Orrick’s image by his wife in Facebook posts to “endorse inflammatory public statements about the disputed facts of this case – statements that denigrated the principal Defendant in the harshest terms, while lauding Plaintiffs.”

Orrick’s wife used his image in a post that referred to CMP’s undercover videos, allegedly exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal trafficking in fetal tissue, as “domestic terrorism.”

"Judge Orrick is part of the Planned Parenthood family," Daleiden told reporters on a press call Wednesday.

Daleiden and his lawyers say Orrick and his wife assisted in getting a Planned Parenthood clinic at GSFRC while they served there.

"Judge Orrick's image has been deployed repeatedly online in support of terrible statements referring to the CMP videos as 'domestic terrorism,' literally 'domestic terrorism,'" said Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society, the pro-life legal group representing Daleiden and CMP.

Daleiden petitioned the Supreme Court in August to remove a gag order that Judge Orrick issued barring CMP from releasing additional undercover footage.

“Judge Orrick’s gag order, issued at the behest of Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, is an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment by a clearly biased federal judge,” Daleiden said at the time.

 “Judge Orrick even wants to press his gag order in the California Attorney General’s bogus criminal case against me—though he, NAF, and Planned Parenthood insist the gag order only applies to my defense, and not to the Attorney General’s bogus prosecution.”

Daleiden previously filed a motion in June to Orrick’s state-level court seeking his removal but that motion was denied, so he is appealing the decision to the Ninth Circuit.

Town Hall article continues

Why Would Christians Go Christmas Caroling Outside an Abortion Clinic?

By Eric Scheidler
Life News

A young woman sits in the waiting room of American Women’s Medical Center on Chicago’s northwest side, waiting to be called back to the operating room for her procedure. Even now, she’s unsure about the choice she’s made. She knows that abortion is against her religion, but she feels cornered. This is the only way out.

Then she hears something that breaks through her anguished thoughts. A group of voices is singing outside the building. She recognizes the familiar words of a Christmas carol: “’round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant, so tender and mild.”

Outside, a group of some 30 carolers huddle together, bundled up against the cold, each holding a photocopy of a song sheet. As they finish the last lines of their final carol, “Silent Night,” the young woman comes out of the building. She approaches a member of the caroling group and says she’s decided not to go through with her abortion. “I heard your singing and started thinking of Mary and Jesus, and I just couldn’t go through with it.”

As the rest of the carolers move off to their cars to head to the next stop on their caroling tour, an experienced counselor stays behind to talk to the young woman about her situation. She gives her the number for a nearby pro-life pregnancy center that can help her with prenatal care, housing, getting plugged into social services, and anything else she might need.

This Christmas miracle took place on a Saturday morning in December 2003, the year the Pro-Life Action League organized our first Christmas caroling tour at abortion facilities throughout Chicago. We soon began training other pro-life groups to hold “Peace in the Womb” Christmas caroling tours in their own communities, and they were soon reporting back to us with their own stories of mothers being moved to cancel their abortions. This year, Christmas carols will be sung at close to 100 abortion facilities throughout the country.

It is especially sorrowful that a child would be aborted at this time of year—a horrible contradiction of the Christmas story of hope and joy dawning upon the earth with the birth of a baby. 

Those of us who go out every year to sing Christmas carols outside abortion centers draw parallels between the story of Bethlehem and so many of those sitting in abortion waiting rooms right now—the poor and displaced who have found “no room at the inn,” and in desperation are turning to abortion.

Life News story continues 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 the Community Women's Center at  215-826-8090

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.  

Former Planned Parenthood VP Tina Smith Replaces Disgraced Pro-Abortion Senator Al Franken

By Steven Ertelt
Life News

With disgraced pro-abortion Senator Al Franken stepping down from his Senate seat after being exposed of multiple counts of sexual harassment, Minnesota is getting a new Senator. Unfortunately the state as merely replacing one abortion activists with another.

Today, pro-abortion Gov, Mark Dayton replaced Franken with a former executive of the Planned Parenthood abortion company, Tina Smith.

Leo LaLonde, President of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, was disappointed but not surprised by the news.

“Gov. Mark Dayton’s appointment of Tina Smith to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate is overwhelmingly disappointing to the state’s pro-life majority. An abortion industry insider, Ms. Smith is a former vice president of Planned Parenthood in Minnesota, the state’s leading performer of abortion. The choice of Ms. Smith is particularly egregious to Minnesota’s pro-life citizens, who will have no representation in the Senate,” he told LifeNews.

He added: “Most Minnesotans are pro-life. They support greater protection for unborn human beings. Minnesotans need someone who will fight for justice for the most vulnerable among us, the unborn.”

Many know Smith as the state’s lieutenant governor, but not her long history as an advocate of abortion on demand.

Smith is a former vice president at Planned Parenthood in Minnesota. As a leader in the state’s abortion industry, she put her marketing background to work for Planned Parenthood from January 2003 to February 2006. The organization performed 9,717 abortions in Minnesota during that period, and increased its abortions by 22 percent. 

It was also reimbursed $458,574.74 by Minnesota taxpayers for performing 1,892 abortions on low-income women. Planned Parenthood became the largest abortion provider in the state in 2004—and has held that position ever since. It received $12.65 million in government grants from 2003 to 2005.

As an executive at Planned Parenthood, Smith helped lead the organization’s fierce opposition to Woman’s Right to Know. Smith opposes informing women about abortion risks, complications and alternatives.

Life News article continues here