Life Advocacy Briefing

March for Life Set for Jan. 19

THIS IS THE WEEK which brings hundreds of thousands of Americans to the nation’s capital to seek redress for the unconscionable Supreme Court edict which has blocked sensible, compassionate, American-valued policies in this country since Jan. 22, 1973, and to ask our fellow citizens: Aren’t 60 million innocent human lives lost to abortion since that black day enough?

The annual rally at noon on the National Mall this Friday, Jan. 19, will include speeches by Tim Tebow’s mother and former NFL player Matt Birk and his wife, as well as brief remarks by the co-chairmen of the House Pro-Life Caucus, Representatives Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and Chris Smith (R-NJ). The theme this year is “Love Saves Lives,” and the rally will be followed by a march to the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill. Rally participants are encouraged to spend much of Friday afternoon visiting the offices of Congressmen and Senators on Capitol Hill, seeking a return to America’s embrace of Life, of mercy, truth and justice.

Other events related to the March are listed at the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing.

Born-Alive Infant Act to Come Up in House

THE HOUSE IS EXPECTED TO VOTE LATER THIS WEEK on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act, HR-4712.

Said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), in a statement announcing the Leadership’s intent to bring HR-4712 forward for a vote during the week which concludes with the March for Life: “This bill states simply that if a baby is born after a failed abortion attempt, he or she should be given the same medical care as a baby born in any other way. … Doctors who fail to provide medical care to newborns will be held criminally accountable,” he said. “There is absolutely no ambiguity here. This is about protecting babies who are born and alive,” he noted, “and nobody should be against that.”

Those readers who wish to weigh in on this measure during its consideration by the House should do so now, with calls to home-district lawmakers via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202/224-3121.

Senate Needs to Pass Late-Term Abortion Ban Now

PRIESTS FOR LIFE HAS ISSUED AN APPEAL for letters to Democratic Senators in 10 states, seeking their votes for the House-passed Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would bar abortions on babies whose gestational age (20 weeks or older) indicates a likelihood they would suffer excruciating pain in the process of abortion. The bill, notes the PfL appeal, would “remove our nation from a list of just seven countries in the world that allow the abortion of babies at 20 weeks or later.”

Standing with Priests for Life in this campaign, we suggest that telephone calls to the Senators’ offices would also be helpful. (Capitol switchboard: 1-202/224-3121) Here are the names of the Senators who should be contacted: Sen. Bill Nelson (FL), Sen. Joe Donnelly (IN), Senators Gary Peters & Debbie Stabenow (MI), Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO), Jon Tester (MT), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Sherrod Brown (OH), Robert Casey (PA), Joe Manchin (WV) and Tammy Baldwin (WI).

Planned Parenthood Takes on a New Target

PLANNED PARENTHOOD HAS TAKEN ON A NEW ‘CAUSE,’ according to a bulletin from Liberty Counsel (LC), a Florida-based national legal organization that promotes litigation related to evangelical Christian values.

The abortion cartel’s leading abortion monger “has expanded its services,” reports LC, “to offering ‘transgender’ hormone therapy.”

Liberty Counsel quotes Planned Parenthood’s 2016-17 annual report as stating: “‘We’re expanding access to care – from pioneering research on self-injectable birth control to offering new services for our transgender patients. Planned Parenthood has focused,’” reads the report, according to LC, “‘on expanding services to people who are too often overlooked by the larger medical community – including trans patients [sic]. Seventeen states now have Planned Parenthood health centers that provide hormone therapy.’

“While masquerading as a ‘healthcare’ provider for women,” notes LC, “Planned Parenthood works more to exploit women, provide abortions and now promote gender confusion. The healthcare centers and clinics,” writes LC, “annually perform one-third of the nation’s abortions, including 321,384 abortions in 2017. Despite the facts, Planned Parenthood invariably reports abortion as 3% of its total services.”

Call to Prayer

Jan. 9, 2018, BreakPoint commentary by John Stonestreet & Stan Guthrie

            If you’re a regular listener or reader of our BreakPoint commentaries, you know that we are staunchly pro-Life. And likely you are, too. Every human life, in or out of the womb, is precious and invested with a special dignity, having been created in God’s image. But in our culture, Life is assaulted.

            Christians should, at the same time, both love unborn babies and their mothers and also hate what abortion does to them – and to our broken society.

            Many of our BreakPoint listeners and readers are active in the pro-life movement. Many of you have walked a picket line, written a letter to the editor or volunteered at a pregnancy care center. Many of you have given money, sacrificially, to support pro-life organizations. And yet, despite all this effort by you and millions like you and the great progress made by the pro-life community, the monstrous evil of legal abortion continues.

            The statistics, 45 years after Roe v. Wade, are so well-known by now that, incredibly, they fail to shock us as they should. Around 60 million unborn American babies – think of it! 60 million – have succumbed to abortion since 1973. That’s more than the combined populations of Texas and New York.

            Each year some 652,000 abortions are still performed in the US. About one in three women will have an abortion by age 45. Nearly half (49%) of abortions are among women and teens 24 years of age and younger. These are sobering and, if we’re honest, depressing numbers.

            And yet, there’s good news – some really good news. First, public opinion is turning against unlimited abortion. Even young people, who are generally liberal on social issues, are quite conservative when it comes to Life. A study by Students for Life of America found that just 17% of millennials support anything-goes abortion. And a Knights of Columbus poll in 2014 found an incredible 84% of Americans want to restrict abortion to the first three months of pregnancy or less!

            Second, many states have enacted laws over the years that have restricted abortion and even forced some Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to close their grisly death mills; in fact, 37 abortion clinics closed in 2017 alone. Praise God!

            And the best news of all is that God is with us on this issue, and He answers the prayers of His people. Is anything impossible for God? Jesus Christ reigns over heaven and earth, He loves the little children and He is perfectly willing and able to answer our prayers for them. And there are some things that we’re called to that will only, only be accomplished through prayer.

            So let all of us who love life – born and unborn – commit to praying through this new year, asking and expecting God to act. That’s something that all of us, no matter our political, financial or social status, can do. …

Try This!

Jan. 8, 2017, Washington Update commentary by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins

            For every parent who’s tried to tell their teenage kids that “everyone’s not doing it,” here’s proof! According to the CDC’s new nationwide report, the number of high school students who said they’ve ever had sex dropped from 47% in 2005 to 41% in 2015. The good news is even better for African American students, who showed improvements across the board, followed by Hispanics, who practiced more abstinence in three of the four grades.

            None of this is thanks to Pres. Obama, researchers say. After two terms of the last Administration’s “if-it-feels-good-do-it” approach, most experts agree he accomplished one thing: making the situation worse. “Compared with their peers,” a 2016 study by the American Journal of Public Health found, “teenagers in the [government’s programs] were more likely to begin having sex … and more likely to get pregnant.” And it’s no wonder. The curriculum was so extreme that 40% of young people actually said they felt more pressure to engage in sex from their sex-ed classes than from their boyfriends or girlfriends!

            In other words, the Obama Administration wasn’t just wasting money on an approach that doesn’t work but also makes the problems worse! Fortunately, conservatives in Congress have been steadily chipping away at the dollars America is wasting on these failures. Under the latest spending bill, Republicans take direct aim at the $110 million money pit of the liberals’ Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs and start redirecting a portion of it to a message that even Obama’s CDC reluctantly endorsed: abstinence.

            And guess what? This approach isn’t just what works but what teenagers want. According to our friends at Ascend, most young people support saving sex for marriage. Most of them don’t like the idea of casual sex, want to wait or wish they’d waited longer. When the CDC released its latest numbers on teen sex, researchers were stumped. Most people just assumed kids were having sex. And maybe that’s part of the problem. We’re so busy teaching about birth control that we don’t even bother with self control.

            Somewhere along the way, it became assumed – not discouraged – that teenagers would have sex. And as a result, we have an entire area of teen education [which] accelerates the risks instead of curbing them. Think about the other behaviors that can devastate a young person’s life. We don’t tell kids to drink less. We tell them not to drink, period. The same with smoking. We don’t hand them filters assuming that they’ll light up anyway. We challenge them not to.

            Most teenagers want to be challenged to stay pure, too. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough people teaching them how. Maybe parents are too embarrassed to talk about sex or think their kids aren’t listening. Well, I’ve got news for you – they are. Valerie Huber, who left Ascend to take a leadership post in Trump’s HHS, knows from personal experience: “The healthiest message for youth is one that gives youth the skills and information to avoid the risks of teen sex, not merely reduce them. This is a message that is relevant [today], since the majority of teens have not had sex, far fewer in fact, than 20 years ago.” It’s time to adapt our thinking, our strategies and our public policy to an approach that makes the most sense for our kids and their future. And based on the latest research, that isn’t Obama’s.

March for Life Events Schedule

Source: LifeSiteNews.com

Thursday, Jan. 18

• 8 to 10 a.m. <> Protest at Planned Parenthood, 1225 Fourth Ave. NE, DC
• 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. <> Anglicans for Life Summit, 6565 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church
• 9 a.m. to Noon <> MfL Conference (Keynote: Stephanie Gray), Renaissance Hotel, 999 9th St. NW, DC
• 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. <> Law of Life Summit, Renaissance Hotel
• 2 to 4 p.m. <> MfL Youth Rally, Renaissance Hotel
• 4 to 6 p.m. <> Pro-Women’s Healthcare Centers Launch Event, Busboys & Poets, 625 Monroe St. NE, DC
• 5:30 p.m. <> Opening Mass of National Prayer Vigil for Life (Celebrant: Cardinal Timothy Dolan), Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
• 6 to 10 p.m. <> Celebrate Life with CFRs & Paul J. Kim, Mother Seton Parish, Germantown   
• 6:30 to 10 p.m. <> Young Adult Night for Life (cash bar), St. Charles Catholic Church, 3304 Washington Blvd., Arlington
• 7 to 9:30 p.m. <> OneVoiceDC, Renaissance Hotel
• 7:30 to 10 p.m. <> Diocese of Arlington’s “Life Is Very Good” Evening Prayer, EagleBank Arena, George Mason University, 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax

Friday, Jan. 19

• 5:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. <> Hospitality for marchers at St. Peter’s, 313 2nd St. NE, DC
• 6:45 to 10:30 a.m. <> Archdiocese of Washington Youth Rally, Capitol One Arena, 601 F St. NW, Verizon Center, DC
• 7:30 a.m. <> Closing Mass for the Solemn Prayer Vigil for Life, National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
• 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. <> National Prayer Service, Priests for Life, DAR Constitution Hall, 1776 D St. NW, DC
• 7:30 a.m. <> Morning Mass for Life, St. Mary Mother of God Church, 727 5th St. NW, DC
• 8:30 a.m. <> Tridentine Mass, Institute of Christ the King, St. Mary Mother of God Church
• 8 to 10:30 a.m. <> March for Life Expo, Renaissance Hotel
• 8:30 a.m. <> Pro-Life Con at Family Research Council, 801 G St. NW, DC
• 9 a.m. to Noon <> Diocese of Arlington’s “Life Is Very Good” Morning Rally, EagleBank Arena, George Mason University, 4500 Patriot Circle, Fairfax, VA
• 9 a.m. <> Anglicans for Life Summit Prayer & Worship Service, 6565 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, VA
• 11 a.m. <> Pray to Defund Planned Parenthood @ Sen. McConnell’s Office, Russell Senate Office Bldg., Capitol Hill, DC
• 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. <> Liturgy for the Preborn at the Time of Death (CEC for Life), in front of the Supreme Court, 1 1st St., NE, DC
• 11:30 a.m. <> March for Life musical opening featuring singer/songwriter Plumb, National Mall, 12th Street, DC
• Noon <> March for Life Rally, National Mall
• Conclusion of Rally <> March up Constitution Avenue to Supreme Court and Capitol
• Conclusion of March <> Silent No More testimonies outside Supreme Court
• 4 p.m. <> Nellie Gray Solemn High Extraordinary Form Mass, St. Mary Mother of God Church, 727 5th St. NW, DC
• 4 to 7 p.m. <> March for Life Expo, Renaissance Hotel
• 4 p.m. <> Building a Culture of Life Happy Hour, 201 Bar, 201 Massachusetts Ave. NE, DC
• 6 p.m. <> March for Life Rose Dinner (Keynote: Pam Tebow), Renaissance Grand Ballroom
• 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. <> Latinos por la Vida Concierto, St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, 3305 Glen Carlyn Road, Falls Church, VA

Saturday, Jan. 20

• 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. <> Students for Life of America National Conference, 1st Baptist Church, Glenarden Event Center, 600 Watkins Park Dr., Upper Marlboro, MD
• 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. <> Latinos por la Vida Conferencia, St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, Falls Church, VA
• 9 a.m. <> Tridentine Mass with the Society of St. Pius X, Renaissance Meeting Rm. 12/13/14
• 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. <> Cardinal O’Connor Conference for Life (Keynote: Lila Rose), Georgetown University, DC
• 7 p.m. <> The Bitter Fruits of the Sexual Revolution (Keynote: Prof. Stephanie Mercier), Tradition Family Property, 1344 Merrie Ridge Road, McLean, VA