Archive for the 'Culture Wars' Category

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH).

In partnership with Planned Parenthood, ICAH is part of a coalition called the Illinois Campaign for Responsible Sex Education. (ICAH and the ICRSE apparently operate out of the same office, as they have the same mailing address.)

The Campaign’s goal is to strip all funding of abstinence education for Illinois schools and instead require them to use so-called comprehensive sex education programs.

You may also remember that two years ago, ICAH’s annual fundraiser was held at the headquarters of Playboy magazine in downtown Chicago. I took part in a protest of the event, and wrote about it here.

Tickets to the adults-only event cost $75, and those who kicked in an extra $50 were also entitled to “a tour of the Playboy offices and art collection” as well as a VIP reception with Christie Hefner.

Christie Hefner (the daughter of Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy), has been its CEO since 1982. It was she who decided that the company could make more money by producing increasingly harder-core pornography — something that even her father was reluctant to do for a long time.

ICAH’s 2007 fundraiser — also an adults-only event — featured a stripper and was held at “Chicago’s premier liquor spa”.

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Hundreds of crosses that were part of a Cemetery of the Innocents pro-life display at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point were torn out of the ground by a rampaging pro-abortion student May 1. Members of the campus pro-life group, Pointers for Life, caught the entire incident on video.

The vandal, sophomore Roderick King, is a senator in the UWSP Student Government Association. A commentor on the YouTube video page, one Kristen Carlson who says that she is SGA senator, indicates that King is being suspended, but Jill Stanek reports that no such action has been taken.

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**UPDATE, 4/18, 4:55pm: A Yale spokesperson says Shvarts’ project was a hoax. Shvarts disagrees.

There has already been a lot of reaction among pro-lifers to the news that a Yale student, Aliza Shvarts, plans to display for her senior art project “a documentation of a nine-month process” during which she repeatedly got pregnant and took drugs to induce abortions on herself.

An article in the Yale Daily News also reports:

[Shvarts] said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.

Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America, has issued a challenge to the major pro-abortion groups:

“I call on Planned Parenthood, NARAL, NOW and all other so-called pro-choice groups to condemn this. Abortion should never be trivialized as a matter of ‘art.’”

It will be hard for them to do that, as these groups have been saying for decades that women should be able to have abortions for any reason at all. (more…)

As you do your Christmas shopping, do yourself a favor and don’t buy anything from Abercrombie & Fitch.

This morning we got an an e-mail telling us about some of their new T-shirts.

One has the message, “Make love not babies”, and another has the message, “Awkward mornings beat boring nights”.

This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten themselves in trouble, and it probably won’t be the last.

There are several things I’ve been wanting to post about for a while now, but I’m just getting around to it now.

Here are a few of those “several things”.

Exposing the Truth about Pornography

Bishop Paul Loverde of the Diocese of Arlington (Virginia) has a must-read column titled “Letters from Teens about Pornography”, in which he includes excerpts from dozens of letters he has received from teenagers in response to a pastoral letter he wrote last year titled, Bought With a Price: Pornography and the Attack on the Living Temple of God.

Bishop Loverde’s column begins:

Recently I have been hearing a lot about pornography.

The mail I have received on this issue from Catholics and others around the country gives me hope, even as it confirms the gravity of the threat this scourge poses to us all.

Here is what one high school senior wrote

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Bryan Kemper of Stand True reports that students from over 4,600 schools in 19 countries participated in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity on Tuesday.

Many students who chose to give up their voice for a day faced quite a lot of opposition, Bryan said:

We have heard some of the most shocking stories about how some of the students were treated by other students, teachers and administrators. From being pushed down stairs, shoved into lockers, having tape ripped off their mouths, being called names and laughed at and even teachers and school staff screaming at kids and calling them stupid.

In the face of all this persecution, the students stood strong and continued their vigil for the babies. Christians in American have it easy and don’t face a lot of the persecution that goes on in the world. These students saw some of that and remained resolute in their mission. They have been telling me how much stronger it made them, and how much more they knew they needed to continue to be a voice.

Imagine something as simple as the word life written on your mouth can cause such hatred and anger. This shows us more now than ever that the pro-life message needs to be Christ centered. The only thing that can turn that anger and hatred around, is the hope we find in our loving savior, Jesus Christ.

To all who participated in the Silent Day: God bless you!

Related

• LifeNews: Pro-Life Students Heckled During Abortion Protest Day

Last week Aurora Planned Parenthood blogger Veronica wrote:

Are you just as frustrated by the Aurora situation as I am? I know you are! Are you also frustrated by the general animosity towards women’s bodies and our reproductive rights? We’re in luck!

Then she posted information about an upcoming townhall meeting:

The Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health, The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, and the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum present…

Understanding Reproductive Justice:
Reclaiming Choice and Broadening the Movement

Thursday, October 11
5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 South Halsted Street
Chicago
Free and open to the public.
Reservations are required.

For more information or to reserve your place, contact the Illinois Caucus
for Adolescent Health online,
by e-mail, or by calling 312.427.4460 x233.
Reservations must be made by October 9

The event’s page is here.

It’s not surprising that Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area is promoting this event, as they’ve partnered with one of the host organizations, the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH), to form a coalition whose goal is to strip all funding of abstinence education for Illinois schools and require them to use so-called comprehensive sex education programs instead.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember ICAH.

Last year, ICAH held its annual fundraiser at Playboy’s executive offices. (more…)

According to this news article about the arrest of eight members of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in North Carolina on Tuesday:

College officials said the group refused to comply with their requests and acted confrontational, shoving one of the security guards.

“Confrontational”? “Shoving”?

You tell me:

See also this post on the Survivors blog, Response to Survivors’ Press Conference in Asheville.

God love you, Survivors!

HT: Jill Stanek

I’ve written before about the hate mail we get on a regular basis here at Pro-Life Action League/Generations for Life/Families Against Planned Parenthood.

As you might guess, with all the attention these past several weeks surrounding the fight against the Abortion Fortress of Aurora, we’ve been seeing far more hate mail than usual.

Here are some of the messages we’ve received in recent days:

Perhaps if the members of your organization spent more time working out at fitness centers instead of getting together worrying about other people’s private sexual lives, your members wouldn’t look like a bunch of big fat Catholic cows.

And:

You pathetic Jesus freaks are NOT wanted in Aurora. Your childish Jesus BS is just that. What should of happened years ago is your mama aborted you.

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From an e-mail Eric just sent:

In light of recent developments, I think it would be a good idea for many of us to be present at City Hall [at] 4:30 when the mayor and aldermen will meet in a “Committee of the whole.”

Here’s the news:

1. I am informed that NO ABORTIONS were scheduled for today — in fact, it looks like no clients were being seen. So we can afford to devote some forces to prayer at City Hall.
2. We have filed an appeal with the Aurora Zoning Board of Appeals today. That appeal SHOULD have resulted in an immediate stay, with Planned Parenthood remaining closed. The City is not enforcing the law, once again, so we need to be there with our witness.

Finally, I have important news about the Prayer Vigil. Because Planned Parenthood is now open, the time has come to shift from a round-the-clock vigil to a “Life Force Team” mode.

This means that we will commit to being present at the Planned Parenthood site during ALL hours that they are open.

Please visit the vigil page to pledge to be there praying when PP is open. The calendar will now display the hours from 7-5 each day.

I’ll write again soon with more information on this new phase of our ongoing prayer campaign.

Meanwhile, please join me at City Hall this afternoon at 4:30 to pray for the mayor, corporation counsel and aldermen.

No matter where you are, no matter when you actually read this, please offer some prayers that Aurora city officials do the right thing.

And, if you’d like to follow the Aurora Planned Parenthood situation more closely, please sign up for Eric’s e-mail updates here.

“Its all I can do when one of the Scheidlers shows up to NOT run them over.”

This comment on a post at the radical left-wing blog The Daily Kos about the September 25 City Council meeting illustrates why the pro-life movement will ultimately prevail. This reason is simple:

We are not filled with hatred for our opposition. We are not afraid to talk to them. We are not content to merely assert the correctness of our position and sniff at anyone who questions us.

Take a look at that post at The Daily Kos. The original author, "Got a Grip," isn't too bad, though he or she seethes with contempt for the pro-life crowd in the City Council Chamber. But the comments are a hot bath of vitriole.

What's notable is how much time and energy is devoted to slamming me and my father and the rest of the pro-life "rabble." They really have no argument other than "pro-lifers are a bunch of knuckle-draggers."

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From last night…Check it out:

The rally in Aurora Saturday was huge.

The Chicago Tribune estimated a crowd of 1,000. The Aurora Beacon estimated 1,200.

The actual number may have even been higher.

Watch the local FOX News station’s coverage of the rally here.

Note Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area president Steve Trombley’s comments during the news segment:

We want people to understand that 90% of what we do is about providing contraception and basic health care, both of which prevent the need for abortions. We believe that health center will do more in one day to prevent abortions than those protesters will do in a lifetime.

Ah, yes, because everybody knows that making contraception more widely available is the answer to preventing abortion, right? (more…)

The new Planned Parenthood abortion clinic under construction on June 28 in Aurora, IL [Photo by Eric Scheidler]

There’s an article in today’s Chicago Tribune — titled “Abortion clinic built under radar” — that confirms information we got several weeks ago that Planned Parenthood is planning to slyly move into a building currently under construction in Aurora, IL.

The building is located next door to a Dominick’s grocery store and other businesses, and there are homes a block away.

If it opens, this huge 22,000 square foot building will be one of Planned Parenthood’s largest abortion clinics in the country.

The Planned Parenthood location is close to homes and shopping [Photos by Eric Scheidler]

As Eric said in an article on the Pro-Life Action League site, “They tried to sneak into Aurora with this massive new facility, but we found them out. Now they’ll try to sneak into our schools and lure in our children. We won’t let them.”

We’ve already begun making a series of plans — including leafleting the surrounding community, talking directly to the contractors, holding a community meeting with Jim Sedlak of STOPP Planned Parenthood, and protesting at the site on August 22. (more…)

If anybody deserves to be picketed, it’s MTV.

And the teens and young adults at Stand True, Generation Life, and CEC for Life are going to do just that tomorrow morning at the network’s headquarters in New York City.

Before they arrive there, they’ll be stopping to pray at several abortion clinics and abortionists’ offices. Here are the details:

New York City Abortion Mill Prayer Walk and MTV Protest

When: Friday, July 27th 8:00 AM - 11:00 AM Prayer Walk

11:00 AM - 2:00 PM MTV Protest (more…)