Archive for the 'Babies' Category

One of the speakers at our TeenSpeak 2008 conference was Scott Klusendorf, who is one of the best pro-life speakers I’ve ever heard.

The main reason why he’s so good is that he’s able to explain why abortion is wrong in a simple, convincing, and logical way by focusing on just one single question.

In an article titled “A Short Defense of the Pro-Life Position”, Scott writes:

Pro-life advocates contend that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. This simplifies the abortion debate by focusing public attention on just one question: Is the unborn a member of the human family? If so, killing him or her to benefit others is a serious moral wrong. Conversely, if the unborn are not human, elective abortion requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled.

This is not a debate about privacy or trusting women to make their own responsible choices. For example, does the right to make one’s own responsible choices include the rights of parents to abuse children in the privacy of the home? Therefore, if the unborn are human like other children…killing them in the name of privacy is a clear moral wrong. Hence, the abortion debate is really about one question: What is the unborn? Is he or she a member of the human family? Everything comes back to that one question.

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There was an article this weekend in a Los Angeles area newspaper about Korin Cuico, a San Pedro teenager and a highly recruited softball player who became pregnant and decided — at the last minute — against having an abortion.

Instead, Korin chose to let one of her cousins (who had just found out she was unable to have children) adopt her baby:

“In my mind, I was thinking about an abortion,” Cuico said. “But I didn’t want to because the baby was already moving in my stomach. I felt sad just thinking about an abortion. It was an emotional roller coaster for the next month….”

“I had a change of heart. If I had an abortion, I don’t know how I would’ve lived with myself.”

[HT: JivinJ]

At a campaign stop in Johnstown, PA this Saturday, Barack Obama was asked, if he were elected president, how his administration would deal with HIV/AIDS and preventing STDs in young girls.

Obama responded:

– or we give them really expensive surgery and we don’t spend money on the front end keeping people healthy in the first place. So when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include — which should include abstinence education and teaching the children — teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals.

But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.

First, regarding this last part: If Obama really is interested in not withholding information from teenagers that will help them avoid getting an STD, what kind of information is he talking about? (more…)

I came across information on the show “Baby Borrowers” on Jill Stanek’s blog - a site which, by the way, I highly recommend. I don’t know how she keeps up on all of this stuff! She’s amazing.

“The ‘Baby Borrowers’ will be a “social experiment” involving 5 teenage couples who play round-the-clock parents and caretakers for 3 days each to a baby, toddler, pre-teen with pet, teenager, and senior citizen (”some with health issues”) in succession.” (more…)

I saw Juno the other night and really liked it. Has anyone else seen it? What did you think? I’d like to see it again, but I’ll have to wait until it comes out on video since I can’t really afford to go to the theater again.

I think Ellen Page did a great job, but so did everyone else, especially her boyfriend, Bleeker (Michael Cera).

I just wanted to get your thoughts on a few things. First, I was a little surprised by her choice of adopted parents given her personality. What were your thoughts on that?

Also, for those of you who have not seen the movie and don’t want to know the ending, stop reading here . . . (more…)

Every year on the Saturday before Christmas, we visit abortion clinics in Chicago to sing Christmas carols, gathered around a life-size empty manger, which symbolizes the hope every new life brings as well as the emptiness left behind when a child is killed by abortion.

This year’s Caroling Day is Saturday, December 22, and we’re going to conduct two different caroling tours at the same time — one in Chicago and one in west suburban DuPage County.

Join us for one of them if you can:

Chicago Caroling Tour

• 9:00 Planned Parenthood, 1200 N. La Salle Dr., Chicago map
• 10:00 Family Planning Associates, 659 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago map
• 11:00 American Women Medical Ctr., 2744 N. Western Ave., Chicago map
• 12:00 Albany Medical Surgical Ctr., 5086 N. Elston Ave., Chicago map

DuPage County Caroling Tour

• 9:00 ACU Health Center, 736 N. York Rd., Hinsdale map
• 10:00 Aanchor Health Center, 1186 Roosevelt Rd., Glen Ellyn map
• 11:00 Access Health Center, 1700 75th St., Downers Grove map
• 12:00 Planned Parenthood Aurora, 3051 E. New York St., Aurora map

Don’t live near Chicago? How about doing your own “Empty Manger” Caroling Day at nearby abortion clinics or Planned Parenthood offices?

Pro-life groups all over the country have taken up this idea, and babies have been saved when their mothers heard the caroling.

To make it easy, we’ve prepared a caroling song sheet [PDF] you can copy and pass out.

If you do your own Caroling Day, let us know how it goes.

There’s a beautiful article in today’s Chicago Tribune about Linda Sanchez, a Texas mom who has breast cancer and was treated with chemotherapy while pregnant. Her daughter, Isabella Marie, was born three days ago, weighing 5 pounds, 2 ounces.

From the article:

Isabella became the 70th baby born under a University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center program that once was controversial, but which last year formed the basis of the first national guidelines for the treatment of pregnant women with breast cancer. Until this program, women with cancer who learned they were pregnant were told to abort [emphasis added].

“Told to abort”? “Told to abort”? So much for “choice”…

That’s what Sanchez, 27, was told last spring after she learned in a span of a few days that she was pregnant and that she had breast cancer.

Good thing for Linda and Isabella that Mom got a second opinion. Our prayers are with them.

Read the whole thing.

Tough Questions for the Opposition is the title of one of the articles in our Pro-Life Curriculum.

It’s taken from an article written by Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics, in which he lays out 15 very specific questions pro-lifers can should use when we find ourselves in a debate with someone who is “pro-choice”.

One of these questions is:

Why don’t we each look at the downside of our respective positions? Have you ever thought about the ramifications if you are wrong?

He then explains that we’re “better off taking the risk of being pro-life and wrong than pro-abortion and wrong.”

I thought of Mark’s article when I saw this video:

HT: Jill Stanek

Saturday’s Jericho March finale at the Aurora Planned Parenthood site was a great success, with an estimated 1,000 people walking, singing, playing instruments, and, most of all, praying for the “Abortion Fortress” not to open.

We got some good media coverage, too:

• See ABC News Channel 7 video here
• See Fox News Channel 32 video here
• See WGN News Channel 9 video here
• See the Chicago Tribune story here

Here are a couple of slide shows from the Jericho March finale: (more…)

Annie and her husband Robert are pleased to announce the birth of their new baby girl, Emma Jane Casselman!

Emma was born on August 17, weighing 5 pounds, 7 ounces. She and Annie are both doing well.

Annie and Robert would like to extend a big thank you to all of you who have been remembering their family in your prayers.

Our son, Jose James Jansen, was born on Sunday, May 6, at 2:06am. He weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces.

I’ve posted more pictures on my personal blog.

Jill Stanek has a great post today explaining why pro-lifers should not support the March of Dimes. Basically, it comes down to two reasons:

1. MoD refuses to admit that having an abortion increases the chances that a woman will deliver a premature baby in a future pregnancy.
2. MoD supports embryonic stem cell research.

Just last week, we got an e-mail from a high school student in California asking us to sponsor her in the MoD’s WalkAmerica this Saturday. In my reply, I said, “I’m very glad to hear you believe in supporting the lives of the littlest among us. Unfortunately…” Etc.

Although pro-life groups have been opposed to the March of Dimes since the 1970s, there still seem to be large numbers of individual pro-lifers — especially among young adults, college students, and teens, just like the girl who e-mailed us last week — who, through no fault of their own, are simply unaware that MoD isn’t what it’s made out to be.

For more on why pro-lifers shouldn’t support MoD, check out this article by Doug Scott of Life Decisions International.

If you’re from DeKalb, Illinois or the surrounding area, please join We Care Pregnancy Center for their annual Walk for Life. It’s on Saturday, May 5. Hannah and I will be there with our walking shoes on! Well, she’ll be in the stroller and I’ll be walking. Hope to see you there!

For more information check out there site or give them a call at 815-748-4242.

The “anti-breeding” animations of artist Nina Paley have to be seen to be believed. I would call her “radical child hater Nina Paley,” but even that doesn’t come close to describing her apparent contempt for children—and indeed for all resource-consuming human beings.

Then again, for all I know she might be quite fond of the particular children she knows, preferring to despise only those unknown but too-numerous children spawned by Christians and suburbanites. Consistent logic is not to be expected from those who hold the view that human beings are by their nature a blight upon the planet; they apparently except themselves from that analysis, so why not their friends and their children’s friends too?

But whatever Ms. Paley may be like in person, her animations are horrific—the more so because she is tremendously talented. See for yourself: (more…)

Amillia Sonja Taylor, who spent only 21 weeks and six days in her mother’s womb and weighed less than 10 ounces at birth, will be released from a Florida hospital today.

My favorite quote from the AP story on Amillia’s birth:

“We weren’t too optimistic,” Dr. William Smalling said Monday. “But she proved us all wrong.”