Pro-Life Page

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 12/3/14 12:40 PM

Since the introduction of the dangerous RU 486 (mifepristone) abortion drug, pro-life physicians have focused on coming up with a method of reversing the abortion pill process if a mother decides immediately after taking it that she wants her baby.

It’s not commonly known that the RU 486 abortion drug process can be reversed if a mother changes her mind about the abortion in time. LifeNews has chronicled a number of women who have already reversed their abortions.

However, a protocol has already been developed for helping women who changed their minds about going through with a multi-day second-trimester abortion after it’s been started. The process, which involves reversing a second trimester abortions by removing the laminaria, can be used as long as the abortion practitioner has not yet done the lethal injection that destroys the life of the unborn baby.

Now, pregnancy centers that help women find abortion alternatives are now also helping women who change their minds immediately after taking the abortion pill.

On November 17, 2014 the Women’s Choice Center of the Quad-Cities became the first pregnancy center in the Midwest to offer natural progesterone treatments to attempt to reverse RU-486 medical abortions. The treatments are being offered in partnership with Moline, Iowa-based OBGYN Dr. Karla Polaschek, the center’s medical director.

So far, there have been 58 babies born alive and healthy to mothers treated with this protocol after beginning a medical abortion. In addition, 106 women are expecting delivery of children they first tried to abort.

Dr. Poascheck is using a hormone treatment protocol developed by Dr. George Delgado, Medical Director of Culture of Life Family Services. Dr. Delgado reports a 60% success rate in attempted abortion pill reversals started within the first 72 hours after taking the first pill. Dr. Polaschek, who also serves on the board of Human Life International introduced the Iowa pregnancy center to the RU-486 attempted reversal concept. She recommended WCC become a referral site for women attempting to reverse their medical abortions.

According to the Iowa Department of Public Health, nearly half (2,314) of 4,638 abortions recorded in Iowa in 2012 were abortions involving RU 486. In an RU 486 pill-based abortion, pregnant women are given two drugs and directed to take them three days apart. The first, mifepristone, blocks the hormone progesterone from getting to the growing baby, starving it of the nutrients it needs to survive. The second drug, the ulcer pill misoprostol, triggers uterine contractions to expel the dead baby. Women eventually complete the abortion and home and deliver a dead baby.

Dr. Delgado and Dr. Thomas Hilgers found that women who receive high doses of progesterone shortly after taking the first abortion pill can override the action of the progesterone blocker, and save the pregnancy.

“Time is critical,” says Dr. Polaschek, who notes that the pregnancy center is launching a rapid-response protocol to get women wanting to reverse their medical abortions to their Clinic as quickly as possible, preferably within the first day or hours after the first abortion pill is taken.

Within the first week of offering the treatment protocol, WCC received its first call from the national website/hotline (www.abortionpillreversal.com), which offers referrals to women seeking to reverse their medical abortions.

“The potential demand for attempted reversals is great,” says Tyler, a certified counselor who has helped hundreds of post-abortive women along the path to healing. “Regret after an abortion can be devastating. For some, that regret begins immediately after the abortion. Previously, there hasn’t been much hope for turning back once a medical abortion began. Now there is.”

by Randy O'Bannon, Ph.D. | LifeNews.com | 12/2/14 10:44 AM

The government’s latest report confirms the good news reported by Guttmacher earlier this year. That not only the number of abortions in the U.S. have dropped to lows not seen since the earliest days of legal abortion in America, so, too, have abortion rates and abortion ratios.

The 730,322 abortions reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2011 do not include any from California, Maryland, or New Hampshire, which did not make them available. Guttmacher reported 1,058,470 for the same year. (As we explain fully below, Guttmacher’s numbers will always be higher because it directly surveys abortion “providers.”)

But it is significant that this is the lowest figure the CDC has reported since dropping California, New Hampshire, and at least one other state in 1998.

Long term drops in abortion rates and ratios make it clear that we are in the midst of a historic trend. The 13.9 abortion rate (the number of abortions per thousand women ages 15-44) is lower than any rate recorded by the CDC since abortion became legal in the U.S. in 1973.

Granted, abortions from California or other states missing since 1998 might have given us somewhat higher rates. When numbers from California were available, the abortion rates for the U.S. were about 2 to 3 points higher than those calculated without them. But that does not change that the 2011 abortion rate of 13.9 has dropped by nearly half (44.4%) from what it was at its high point in 1980: 25 abortions per thousand women of reproductive age.

Likewise, the abortion ratio (the number of abortions for every 1,000 live births) is at a historic low, with 219 abortions for every thousand births. [1] The same caveat mentioned above about missing California numbers applies here. But the enormous drop from 359.2 abortion for every 1,000 births in 1980 to the 219 for every 1,000 for 2011 cannot simply be explained by missing states with high abortion proclivities.

CDC versus Guttmacher

Around Thanksgiving every year, the CDC publishes its annual report of national abortion data. This year’s report “Abortion Surveillance – United States, 2011″ issued November 28, 2014 (it takes the government a few years to collect and process the state data), shows the number and rate of abortions dropping by 5% over the previous year. The ratio of abortion to live births declining by nearly as much, 4%.

The Guttmacher Institute’s report, issued earlier this year, showed similar significant drops in the number of abortions, though starting from higher numbers. As we have explained, Guttmacher surveys abortion clinics directly while the CDC relies on state health reports, meaning Guttmacher’s numbers will always be higher than CDC’s.

With respect to CDC, some state data is better than others, and not every state reports data to the CDC; abortion numbers from the nation’s most populous state, California is missing from this latest report, along with data from Maryland and New Hampshire.

For all of these reasons, Guttmacher’s totals are considered to be more accurate. The offset, however, is Guttmacher only reports every few years or so.

By contrast, the CDC reports its data every year. And because it generally tracks the same variables from year to year, the CDC report is a very useful tool for studying abortion demographics and confirming trends.

The CDC suggests that economics could have played a part in the decline in the number of abortions, which may be so. But with the long term drop in abortions and abortion rates and abortion ratios being seen in times of both economic booms and busts, the correlation is hard to nail down.

“Increasing acceptance of non-marital childbearing” is offered as one more possible explanation for the reduced incidence of abortion, but data point to something more. The statistics indeed show us that more children who would have been aborted are now being born. However there has not been a measurable increase in U.S. birth rates that matches up well with decreasing abortion rates.

Though the CDC does not seem to put a lot of weight on factors such as pro-life legislation such as parental involvement, waiting period laws, state regulations on clinics, and does not appear to consider that the lower numbers may reflect changing public attitudes towards abortion, these developments do seem to offer an explanation coherent with the data.

Americans are obviously tiring of a “solution” to an unplanned pregnancy that it has discovered to be no solution at all. Faced with the grisly reality of abortion, the gruesome truth about America’s abortionists, and, thanks to right to know laws and selfless pro-life volunteers reaching out to young women in crisis, the knowledge that there are practical, realistic alternatives to abortion that are better for both them and their babies, more women are choosing life.

We will provide more details on demographic data from the CDC report tomorrow.

[1] This does not include miscarriages or stillbirths, so cannot be easily turned into an abortion percentage. Other CDC sources attempting to count these have put the percentage of pregnant women aborting their babies at 18%.

by Katie Yoder | LifeNews.com | 12/1/14 10:59 AM

The media are all for giving voice to the voiceless, as long as the message fits their agenda. Case in point: journalists recently rushed to publicize the positive – but only the positive – stories of women who chose to abort their unborn babies.

Dozens of women shared their abortion experiences on Nov. 20 during a live-streamed Abortion Speakout hosted by Advocates for Youth’s 1 in 3 Campaign. Participants included Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards, comedian Lizz Winstead and columnist Jessica Valenti.

Half a dozen outlets including The Washington Post and The Daily Beast reported on the event to praise women “who made the best decision” with “no regrets.” These stories ignore the abortion testimonies from women full of “regret” and “horror,” like those published by the Silent No More Awareness Campaign since 2003. Co-founder Georgette Forney explained to MRC Culture how these outlets “censor” and “edit” women who regret their abortions. The media are “trying to keep us quiet, all the while pretending to be representing women.”

The 1 in 3 Campaign aims to “end the stigma and shame women are made to feel about abortion” by stressing that one in three women will have an abortion during her lifetime (a statistic disputed by the pro-life movement).

Media Hype ONLY ‘Happily Ever After’ Abortions

In her anticipation of the event, The Washington Post’s Diana Reese wrote “Women will talk about their abortions Thursday, and I spoke with two of them.” While Reese stressed the trials and tribulations of those two women, she also focused on the “positive” (a recent trend at her newspaper).

To begin, Reese spoke with Marycruz Figueroa about her abortion story. Figueroa detailed how she made “the most responsible decision for all parties involved.” “I have no doubts, no regrets,” she emphasized.

Another woman, Julie Bindeman, made the “heart-breaking decision” to abort her child with a brain abnormality, Reese reported. But, after having other children, Reese consoled, “Her story has a happy ending.”

For anti-American Al Jazeera, Claire Gordon interviewed Michelle Kinsey Bruns. Recounting her abortion, Bruns said, “I’m glad that I did it. I don’t have any regrets.”

“Bruns knows that her abusive childhood, her youth, her poverty, her mental health, all explain her decision to have an abortion 20 years ago,” wrote Gordon. “But to her, they aren’t justifications, because they don’t need to be.”

For her part, Cosmo’s Jill Filipovic cited Jacqui Morton, a woman who aborted her baby with a “chromosomal defect.” “I couldn’t have a baby and bring her into a world and a life of suffering,” Morton told the magazine, which received an “Excellence in Media Award” by Planned Parenthood this past August. “If I hadn’t had the abortion, I would never have met my husband.”

Although she didn’t have a story to share, MSNBC’s Irin Carmon still chimed in. Abortion access, she wrote, “remains under assault across the country, and, decades later, the procedure is still often shrouded in silence.”

Writing for the abortion-plugging Daily Beast, Brandy Zadrozny covered the event “with presenters as diverse as the stories on display.” She noted the story of Brittany Mostiller. “Yes I’ve had an abortion,” Mostiller told Zadrozny. “And yes that’s ok, yes I have a family, and yes I made the best decision for myself and my family.”

After listing women in the media who have described their abortions, Zadrozny concluded, “If the current trend towards openness about abortion continues, soon there will be very few people – regardless of ideology – who can claim not to know ‘the kind of woman’ who would have an abortion.”

Emma Cueto agreed via feminist site Bustle:

The voices that are so rarely consulted, and are often shamed or shouted down when they do speak out, are the women who have actual, first hand experience with abortion. Those are the voices who should be shaping our understanding of what abortion is.

Ironically, the 1 in 3 Campaign – and these journalists themselves – shares the blame of censoring women’s stories on abortion.

The Media-Censored Stories

“Sadly, many self-identified feminists who see themselves as advocating for the health, welfare and empowerment of women deny the lived reality of thousands of women after abortion,” Janet Morana, co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, told MRC Culture.

She argued, “These campaigns to normalize and affirm a woman’s abortion experience fail to acknowledge that for many women, abortion can be an experience that has a negative impact on their lives.”

Morana’s organization, a project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life, “seeks to expose and heal the secrecy and silence surrounding the emotional and physical pain of abortion.”

Serving as a witness, the site lists thousands of testimonials from people ravaged by abortion – many from women who regret their choice. Here are just a few of the stories the media refuse to share:

• “Please understand the horror of getting an abortion. It’s not a procedure to fix an illness; it’s to end a life.  It’s not all going to go away, you will think about it for the rest of your life.  It will haunt you.” – Jenna, Indiana
• “The cold, dark, heart-breaking experience at the abortion clinic slowly infiltrated every area of my life. It’s so ironic that the abortion clinic tells you how quick and safe the procedure is but never mentions that the effects are destructive and will last a lifetime.” – Katie, Indiana
• “I had an abortion; it was my choice. I regret it.” – Erica, Illinois
• “I’m living proof that you never get over an abortion.  Every time someone dies or I see a couple struggling to become pregnant, I’m reminded of how precious life is.  If I can offer one bit of advice to a young woman in a similar situation to mine, it’s don’t have an abortion.  You’ll regret it the rest of your life, just like I have.” – Debbie, Montana
• “If I could do it over, I would have kept her … I will never forget what a horrible decision I made at the time, and I will never forget that I killed my little girl, my only girl.” – Young, Alabama
• “To my precious baby: I will not forget you. I never have. You were always here hidden in my heart. I will not hide you anymore. I love you. To say that I am sorry doesn’t seem to be enough.  I will never forget you! Your life does matter. I know that you are with Jesus in His Kingdom, and I will see you one day. Love, Mom” – Joanne, New York

As the other founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, Georgette Forney slammed the media for censorship. “They’re censoring us,” she told MRC Culture. “They’re basically saying, ‘We don’t want your voice included in the debate.’”

She found it “upsetting” that, since the organization’s founding, “the media has ignored our message because it doesn’t go along with their agenda” in that “it doesn’t affirm abortion.”

The media’s actions, Forney continued, “tell me they’re much more interested in protecting the right to abortion than protecting the women.” Or in other words, “they don’t really care about women. They care about the abortion industry.”

And by “editing our stories,” the media “are in essence trying to keep us quiet all the while pretending to be representing women,” she stressed.

While the media promote the “1 in 3” story, she said, they ignore “the thousands of voices that have been out there speaking for years.” That includes Forney’s organization, which has “had over 5,600 testimonies shared publicly in the last 12 years.”

“What we’re saying is that lots of people are impacted by the consequences and the pain that comes with abortion,” she explained, “[a]nd all of these people have been ignored and shut down and censored.”

But “our voices do count,” she emphasized. “Even if the media wants to shut us down, we’ll continue to stand out in public places and share the truth.”

This latest “1 in 3” push by the media follows journalists’ new spin on abortion: that the destruction of the most vulnerable is a “moral” “social good.”

by Steven Ertelt | LifeNews.com | 11/28/14 1:19 PM

The Centers for Disease Control released its national abortion report on Friday and the new figured show the number of abortions in the United States has declined to a historic low. From 2010 to 2011, the total number and rate of reported abortions decreased 5% and the abortion ratio decreased 4%, and from 2002 to 2011.

Although 730,322 babies lost their lives in abortions in 2011, the latest year CDC has produced figures for, that represents a decline of about half since the highs of more than 1.5 million in the late 1980s, when the effect of legalizing abortion in 1973 finally took its full effect.

The new CDC report also indicates the abortion rate has also declined to a historic low. At their high decades ago, approximately 1 in 3 pregnancies ended in an abortion — resulting in brochures, banners and billboards proclaiming that fact and greying out every third baby displayed in pictures of newborn children. Thanks to pro-life laws, educational efforts, pregnancy centers and the actions of pro-life groups that have resulted in closing down abortion clinics, now just 18 percent of all pregnancies in the United States end in an abortion.

“Large decreases in the total number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions from 2010 to 2011, in combination with decreases that occurred during 2008-2010, resulted in historic lows for all three measures of abortion,” said the CDC.

The data also indicates abortions are down on younger women — making it clear that efforts to provide abortion alternatives to teens and college students has paid dividends. Although there is much good news in the latest report, the numbers also show that abortions are up among older women, especially among women over the age of 40 — who may be increasingly using abortion as a form of birth control.

The CDC also indicates 10 women died in 2011 as a result of legal abortions, which are not safer for women simply because they are legal.

“Deaths of women associated with complications from abortions for 2011 are being investigated as part of CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. In 2010, the most recent year for which data were available, 10 women were identified to have died as a result of complications from known legal induced abortions. No reported deaths were associated with known illegal induced abortions,” it said.

According to the numbers, there were 730,322 abortions for a rate of 219 per 1,000 live births. In 2002 there were 854,122. Most were to women in their 20s, or 57.8 percent. Most abortions took place before the 13th week of pregnancy. White women had the lowest abortion rates while black women continued to have the highest.

The CDC report indicates that 19 percent of abortions done before 13 weeks of pregnancy were done using the dangerous mifepristone, or RU 486, abortion pill.

This report is based on abortion data for 2011 that were provided voluntarily to CDC by the central health agencies of 49 reporting areas (the District of Columbia; New York City; and 47 states, excluding California, Maryland, and New Hampshire.

by Natalie Brumfield | LifeNews.com | 11/18/14 3:58 PM

Lee Jong-rak is a Korean pastor in South Korea. A simple man with a huge purpose, Pastor Lee saw a devastating problem. He thought of a way he could change it, and he became a prophetic voice to his society. His story is a story of faith. A story of hope. A story of love. And when you hear this heroic tale, you just may never be the same.

Lee Jong-rak is the creator of the Baby Box. His Baby Box is the first and only box in Korea that is for collecting abandoned babies who are physically or mentally handicapped, or are just unwanted by their mothers.

Hundreds of unwanted babies are abandoned on the side of the street in South Korea every year. Jong-rak knew he needed to set up a way to save the lives of these precious babies. He built a drop box on the side of his home with a humble sign reading, “Place to leave babies.”

The inside of the box contains a thick towel covering the bottom, and lights and heating to keep the baby comfortable. A bell rings when someone puts a baby in the box; then Pastor Lee, his wife, or staff associates come to immediately move the baby inside.

His aim was to provide a life-giving alternative for desperate mothers in his city of Seoul. He even admits that he didn’t really expect that babies would come in; he was mistaken. The babies came. In the middle of the night, in the middle of the day, some with notes, some without a word, and only a very few mothers actually spoke to him face-to-face.

Pastor Lee stated that one of the mothers said, “I have poison to kill both myself and my baby.” He responded, “Don’t do that. Come here with your baby.” One single mother left this heart-wrenching note with her baby. The English translation follows.

“My baby! Mom is so sorry.
I am so sorry to make this decision.
My son! I hope you to meet great parents, and I am very, very sorry .
I don’t deserve to say a word.
Sorry, sorry, and I love you my son.
Mom loves you more than anything else.
I leave you here because I don’t know who your father is.
I used to think about something bad, but I guess this box is safer for you.
That’s why I decided to leave you here.
My son, Please forgive me.”

My breath was taken away as I read, “I used to think about something bad, but I guess this box is safer for you.” Yes, this little box is a safer place than the plans that once haunted this single mother’s mind. Because this box was an alternative, she chose life. Thus, this box would be the beginning of an previously undreamed ministry in Korea, the ministry of the Baby Box.

The story of this man and his baby box is reaching the entire world with its own 72-minute documentary called The Drop Box by a young 22 year-old, Brian Ivie. The documentary won the “Best of Festival” Jubilee Award and “The Best Sanctity of Life” film award at the 8^th annual San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival in February 2013.

Ivie was stirred to do the film after reading an article in the Los Angeles Times about Pastor Lee’s mission, and he decided to go to Korea to make the documentary. After seeing the testimonies of this orphanage up-close, Brian Ivie’s life was changed. In his acceptance speech, Ivie said, “These kids are not mistakes. They are important.”

He went on saying, “I became a Christian while making this movie. When I started to make it and I saw all these kids come through the drop box – it was like a flash from heaven. Just like these kids with disabilities had crooked bodies, I have a crooked soul. And God loves me still. When it comes to this sanctity of life issue, we must realize that that faith in God is the only refuge for people who are deemed unnecessary. This world is so much about self-reliance, self-worth, and self-esteem. It’s a total illusion that we can be self-sufficient. Christ is the only thing that enables us.”

The documentary that changed Brian Ivie’s life is bound to change the lives of the film’s audience. Following their success with Irreplaceable, Focus on the Family is working with the film producers and Fathom Events to screen The Drop Box in theaters nationwide on March 3-5, 2015. Be sure to like the movie’s Facebook page and connect directly with Pastor Lee’s ministry at Kindred Image.

As I scrolled through the stories on Facebook, I was overwhelmed to see a post dated as April 17^th where one of the staff members of the Baby Box orphanage stated that they had received five babies in one week and to pray for them. There beside her request was a picture of five beautifully bundled babies. In my head, all I could think was, “This is the real thing. This ministry is the real thing.”

Korea is not the only place that deals with child abandonment. Globally, millions of children die from abandonment. It takes different forms from country to country.

In the United States, abortion serves our abandonment purposes and they call it a “woman’s choice.” Our nation is still struggling to see that these babies are human beings, too. They deserve to live just like any other human being. With incredible men and women like Pastor Lee, this world is seeing how life can be for these babies when we take them in; when we become a voice for the ones that cannot speak up for themselves.

They are loved, they are cherished, and they are worthy just the way they are.

“They’re not the unnecessary ones in the world. God sent them to the earth to use them.”
- Pastor Lee Jong-rak in The Drop Box documentary