Archive for the 'The Front Lines' Category

I’ve attended the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. for the past 8 years, but this year’s was by far the most upbeat, energetic and encouraging march I’ve been to, and Generations for Life was thrilled to be a part of it.

The crowd was enormous and excited about the coming year, as well they should be. 2011 was an amazing year for the pro-life movement, and the momentum only keeps going our way.

As the march wound through the streets of the nation’s capital, you could see groups from all religious traditions, all ages and races, school groups, church groups, colleges with huge banners—it was quite a show.

Crusaders for Life Steal the Show

But there was one thing that I don’t think anyone missed—the Crusaders for Life pro-life youth group from my parish, St. John Cantius in Chicago. The giant group came equipped with chants, huge yellow “LIFE” balloons, and portable platforms where they could carry some of their cohorts above the crowd to lead chants. (more…)

During the Pro-Life Action League’s “Face the Truth Tour” a few weeks ago in Cincinnati, one of the local pro-life activists who came out to join us for the day reminded me of something that can’t be repeated often enough.

He and I were talking about various ways to fight abortion, and he remarked that one of the most important things any of us can do — no matter how old we are — is to strive for personal holiness in our everyday lives.  I couldn’t agree with him more.

My co-worker Eric Scheidler has talked in two recent posts on the Pro-Life Action League’s blog about the need for pro-lifers to be diplomats for our cause, and to always keep in mind when we’re talking with people who are pro-choice that our purpose isn’t to “score points” but rather to persuade them to agree with us about the value of life in the womb.

Occasionally, a single conversation with someone who is pro-choice may result in an on-the-spot conversion to pro-life. But I would guess that instances like these are more the exception than the rule. (more…)

There’s a great pro-life event beginning next week in over 300 cities across the country: the 40 Days for Life prayer campaign.

From September 28th through November 6th, 40 Days for Life prayer vigils will be held outside abortion clinics in 301 locations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, England, Germany, Spain, and Argentina.

This will be the ninth ever 40 Days for Life campaign, and the results of the first eight have been amazing:

• MORE THAN 400,000 PEOPLE of all ages have joined together to
  pray and fast for an end to abortion
• At least 4,313 BABIES HAVE BEEN SAVED from abortion—and those
  are just the ones we know about
• 53 abortion workers have QUIT THEIR JOBS and walked away from
  the abortion industry
• 16 abortion facilities COMPLETELY SHUT DOWN following local 40
  Days for Life vigils

And this fall’s 40 Days will be the biggest one yet — more babies will be saved, more parents will be spared a lifetime of regrets, and more abortion workers will have their hearts touched and leave their jobs.

I hope you won’t want to miss the chance to take part in this historic pro-life prayer campaign. You can find the 40 Days site nearest you here.

With our summer “Face the Truth” Tour getting ready to hit the streets July 8-16, the Pro-Life Action League — GFL’s parent organization — is proud to present an exciting new video explaining the Face the Truth approach to pro-life activism and why we believe it’s one of the most important tools in fighting abortion:

(more…)

Hey everybody! Gosh, I am so sorry for not blogging here for so long! I got so sidetracked, but the good news is that I was sidetracked with pro-life work! It’s been very wonderful, but I really do think I should share here more through blogging. I’ll do better now.

Something I’d love to discuss today is sidewalk counseling. Just that phrase, “sidewalk counseling”, tends to give us pro-life people either thrills and goose pimples, or it freaks us out! It’s really quite a glorious thing, and as a young pro-life kid, I used to watch my mother do it in real time. And boy did I dream of the day that I could do it too, just like Mom!

I’m 22 now, and finally this year, I really did get to do THE sidewalk counseling! It was every bit as thrilling as I dreamed; truly God is good to allow us to work with people in that way. I was able to bring a young pregnant mother away from an abortion facility, take her and the baby’s father out to lunch, and convince them to let us help them keep their child! Wow! (more…)

This time to counter Planned Parenthood’s poorly attended teen rally at the California State Capitol:

Some time in the next few weeks, my wife is planning to have her pregnancy terminated.

Now, if you’re shocked to hear me say this, let me clarify:

My wife, Jocelyn, and I are expecting our 6th child. As of tomorrow, she will be 39 weeks pregnant.

And, as babies growing and developing in the womb have a tendency of doing, our baby will, some time soon, be born. After this happens, needless to say, my wife will no longer be pregnant.

Thus, her pregnancy will have been terminated.

Rhetorical Fraud

This occurred to me as I read a recent post by Life Dynamics’ Mark Crutcher, who wrote about the “rhetorical fraud” used by pro-choicers in which the term “pregnancy termination” is used as a euphemism for “abortion”:

The pro-life movement is not now, has never been, and will never be, opposed to pregnancy terminations. We are fully aware that all pregnancies terminate.

Remember this the next time (more…)

I have often driven by the abortion clinic nearby my home and seen courageous people out there praying. Though I had joined them occasionally in years past, it is only recently I have begun going regularly.

It is a difficult thing, standing there, knowing what is going on inside. A baby is being killed and their mother’s, father’s, grandparents’, and siblings’ lives are being altered forever. Yet it is a spiritual battle that needs to be fought, and for more than one reason. (more…)

Here’s the latest video from pro-life teen Mary Susan, who explains how to deal with bullying:

I just got an e-mail from my friend Bryan Kemper about a great spring break opportunity:

If your Spring Break is between March 9th and April 17th we want you to spend it praying for the end of abortion. Stand True and Austin Coalition for Life are teaming up to provide a great pro-life mission opportunity for you during spring break.

March 9th marks the start of the spring 40 Days for Life campaign where pro-lifers from around the world gather to pray and minister outside of abortion clinics. Hearst and minds are change and hundreds of babies are saved during each 40 Days for Life event.

Former Planned Parenthood Director, Abby Johnson quit and joined the pro-life movement because of the efforts a 40 Days for Life campaign in Texas. One of the key figures in her journey into the pro-life movement is Elizabeth McClung who will be hosting this Spring Break Mission Trip in Austin, TX. (more…)

In response to the “Walk for Choice” in Chicago sponsored Saturday by the Illinois Choice Action Team, over 200 members and friends of the Crusaders for Life teen pro-life club — many of whom belong to St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago — organized a Pro-Life Flash Mob in Daley Plaza to counter the event. They then followed the same route as the pro-choicers, but on the opposite side of the street:

God bless ‘em!

While they had a little help from the club’s adult moderators, much of the planning and execution of this flash mob was carried out by the club members themselves, on their own initiative.

It’s for reasons like this that I’ve often said, and will continue to say, that young people are not the future of the pro-life movement, they are the here and now of the pro-life movement.

If I could pick one word to describe the 2011 March for Life, it would be:

Huge.

The numbers looked and felt especially massive by the time we made our way to the Supreme Court, where we could only take one step every few seconds on account of the wall-to-wall Marchers.

I’ve posted some pictures from the March below:

(more…)

I hope you’ve made plans to attend the March for Life in Washington, DC next week.

If you’ll be there, join us! Generations for Life will be marching together with other pro-life youth organizations — including Stand True, Rock for Life, Students for Life of America, Survivors, and Crossroads — in a show of unity among national pro-life youth organizations, and I would like to invite you and your group to march with us.

Here are the details:

• DATE: Monday, January 24
• TIME: 12:00 Noon
• WHERE TO MEET: 4th St. & Madison Dr. NW [map]

I also encourage you to attend the first ever Teen Defenders Walk for Life before the March, and the first ever National Pro-Life Youth Rally after the March.

Hope to see you there!

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Our Lord Jesus in a few weeks, I’m also looking forward to one of my favorite Advent traditions: the Pro-Life Action League’s annual “Empty Manger” Christmas Caroling Day.

Each 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 both the empty space
left behind by abortion and the hope born with every child, even in difficult circumstances.

This year’s Caroling Day is Saturday, December 18, and we’ll be conducting TWO different caroling tours — one in Chicago and one in west suburban DuPage County.

You can get all the details, including maps and schedules, here.

If you don’t live near Chicago, how about doing your own “Empty Manger” Caroling Day at abortion clinics or Planned Parenthood offices in YOUR area? 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.

In the early morning hours yesterday, the home of Joe and Ann Scheidler (the directors of our parent organization, the Pro-Life Action League) was vandalized. Asphalt chunks were thrown through two of their windows, and a strange note was attached to one of them.

You can read Ann Scheidler’s account of the vandalism to their home here.