Showing posts with label Susan B. Anthony List. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Susan B. Anthony List. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Abortion's Shockwaves Extend Beyond the Womb

Abortion's Shockwaves Extend 

Beyond the Womb



WASHINGTON - Pro-life leaders gathered at the National Press Club just a few days before the Jan. 22 March for Life to announce that a special emphasis this year will be on the many and usually unpublicized ways abortion hurts.

They pointed out abortion has certainly created 56 million victims - the unborn babies killed. But the reverberations from it go way beyond that.

Georgette Forney aborted a child when she was 16 years old and is still grieving 39 years later. She helped found the group Silent No More so she and others can communicate the long-term pain and trauma abortion can inflict.

'Not Like Pulling a Tooth'

"It doesn't happen in this little room and you walk away and it's all gone. It's not like you get a tooth pulled and you get up and you go back to work and it's no big deal," Forney insisted.

"It is a trauma," she continued. "It's life-changing, and not only for the woman herself, but for people around her."

Like the daughter she eventually had, who as an 8-year-old was horrified when she first heard how her older sister had been killed.

"This 8-year-old on my lap knew it wasn't okay, knew it didn't matter if it was legal or illegal, but that it had permanently impacted her life," Forney said.

That little girl couldn't let go of her unborn sister, who would have been named Elizabeth.

"And so she began to have kind of a pretend relationship with Elizabeth that carried on for many years because she had always wanted a big sister," Forney explained.

Forney is hoping an increasing number of older women and those wounded by abortion will guide younger women away from the gruesome procedure.

"How can we protect the next generation? These are our daughters, our granddaughters. We don't want them to repeat the pain," Forney asserted. "Why can't we stop the madness and really help women?"

As for men, Silent No More's Kevin Burke found out recently from a counselor at a maximum security prison how many would-be fathers spin out of control after abortions.

"Ninety percent of the inmates had experienced abortion, and in an informal poll he did many of these men shared that it was part of their descent into crime," Burke said.

He explained men's post-abortive rage and anger can lead to all sorts of trouble.

"Destructive relationships, abusive behaviors, impulsive, risk-taking behaviors," Burke listed. "Some of the men took that risk-taking and impulsive behavior and they went into the military. And they volunteered for front-line service."

'I Mourn the Loss of My Grandchildren'

Janet Morana knows from painful personal experience how much would-be grandparents can be devastated.

"My daughter had two abortions without even telling me. And she knew I was pro-life. She knew she could come to me," this Silent No More co-founder said. "But somehow she felt 'I don't want to disappoint Mom,' and she went off and did that. And so I mourn the loss of my grandchildren."

Father Frank Pavone, the leader of Priests for Life, said the circles of harm go beyond the woman and the family.

"You have the friends who might have helped her to get an abortion or the abortionists themselves and their staff, even the pro-life advocates who try to save that life and fail," Father Pavone explained. "That hurts. And they need to mourn and grieve that child."

At the end of this year's March for Life, as marchers gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Silent No More, Priests for Life and their allies will launch a year-long project called "Healing the Shockwaves of Abortion."

Every month these organizations will pray for and reach out to a different group of people hurt by abortion.

For instance, in February they'll focus on how abortion has especially wounded black families, who have seemed particularly targeted by abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood over the decades.

Throughout the year, each month will highlight a different emphasis. In addtion to February's focus,
March will emphasize grandparents
April the siblings
May the mothers
June the fathers
July the survivors and friends
August the abortion providers
September families in general
October Hispanic families in particular.
November on healing the pro-lifers who actively work to save unborn babies. They see occasional victories but also many painful, wounding defeats.

Finally, the emphasis in December will be on seeking healing through Jesus Christ.

'Kids Are Underbrush'


Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life organization promoting pro-life candidates and legislation.

This long-time abortion foe explained how pro-choice advocates believe abortion has saved society from what the Nazis labeled "useless eaters," millions of unproductive young people that would have drained resources.

"Think about the roots of abortion where (Planned Parenthood founder) Margaret Sanger said the way to approach problems with the economy, problems with distribution of resources, is to eliminate the number of people who actually need those resources," Dannenfelser said.

"The thinking behind that, of course, is that kids are underbrush, and that there are certain parts of society that should be cleared out so that the rest of us can actually eat well and live with some distance between you and me," she explained.

"That's not a good way to make a decision. That puts people last, and people should be considered first," she told CBN News.

Father Pavone agreed.

"The continuation of legal abortion is seen by some as an ultimate long-term benefit for society," he explained. "But in reality, it's the opposite."

"Because with a declining population you have not only economic issues, because our greatest economic asset is people, you have national security issues," he continued. "The fabric of society itself is weakened when we allow the killing of the youngest children."

"Think of all the children that were aborted: over 50 million," Morana said, looking across the decades since the practice was legalized nationwide. "And that's just from surgical abortion. They would have been working and paying into society."

"Maybe government would not be shutting down and social security would not be going bankrupt because they would be productive citizens," she said.

'Made for a Purpose'

"The real question is 'can we afford not to have this child given what that child was meant to do and be?'" Dannenfelser asked.

She believes each aborted child could have contributed something important to the world.

"Because we know that each of them was made for a purpose," Dannenfelser said. "Many of those purposes were purposes that were never filled by somebody else."

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Is Pro-Life Activism Really Making a Difference?

Is Pro-Life Activism Really Making a Difference?



WASHINGTON -- The March for Life comes to Washington, D.C., Thursday, January 22. Some years have seen hundreds of thousands in attendance. Still, activists say it would have much more impact if millions came and marched.

After 42 years of legalized abortion and some 56 million unborn babies dead, many abortion opponents doubt their activism will accomplish much.

Pro-life leaders say the opposite is true.

"By coming together, by making our presence known, we are saving lives," Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, told CBN News. "Incremental legislation is being passed. People's minds and hearts are reached."

In fact, this leading pro-life priest was one whose mind and heart was reached when he came to Washington as a young man to join an early March for Life event.

"I received my own start in the pro-life movement from the inspiration I got from coming to this March for Life in 1976 as a teenager," Pavone said.

Another leader is Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. Her group works to elect pro-life candidates and promote laws that will reduce and someday end abortion.

Activism Pays

"If there were a year where you would have hope in activism, it would have been election year 2014," Dannenfelser told CBN News.

Throughout 2014, the SBA List sponsored groups in various states to fight for pro-life candidates. And in state after state, those candidates beat opponents who favored abortion rights.

"This was the year that showed that activism pays, and it pays in lives," she said.

Dannenfelser said the pro-life majority in the House appears ready to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act as early as January 22, the same day as this year's March for Life. That, she says, is evidence that activism pays.

She also expects the new pro-life majority in the Senate to pass its version of the bill, which would ban abortion of unborn babies 20 weeks old or older.

Dannenfelser told CBN News without the kind of activism thousands of pro-lifers displayed leading up to the election, passage of this bill wouldn't be possible.

When Enough Fight

And she believes when everyday folks battle those wrongs together, they can be defeated.

"It's what ended slavery. It's what ended child labor. It's what ended all sorts of things," Dannenfelser explained. "And we're beginning to see the end of abortion in the Congress right now with the Pain-Capable bill. And it will save 18,000 children a year."

Of course, the ultimate pro-life goal is to make abortion unthinkable and illegal again, because if it's legal, that suggests it's okay.

Janet Morana co-founded Silent No More, a group of post-abortive women and others wounded by abortion who've decided to speak out about the pain it causes.

"You can listen to the voices of the women, and they'll say making it legal was giving permission," she said. "Just think of how many things you don't do because it's illegal."

Georgette Forney co-founded Silent No More alongside Morana. Forney told CBN News just three years before, the Supreme Court had legalized the procedure nationwide, which made a huge difference in her teenage mind when she aborted her first child.

Legalizing Abortion Made it Okay

"There I was in 1976 -- I remember driving down the road," Forney said, as she recalled thinking of her upcoming abortion, "This feels wrong, but it's legal, so it's got to be okay.'"

Lifelong civil rights activist Alveda King fights alongside Silent No More. She said activism can convince others abortion's not okay.

"Get out there," King encouraged. "Hold your sign, do your prayer, sing your song, ask people to keep their children. I know for a fact that lives are saved when we do that."