Year in Review

from Students for Life of America

January 2011: A youth organization lead by a former SFLA intern, Lila Rose, took their undercover work exposing Planned Parenthood a step further, releasing 7 videos of Planned Parenthood facilities, some that even receive federal taxpayer funding, aiding actors who were posing as human sex traffickers.

February 2011: The pro-life movement united in the “Expose Planned Parenthood” campaign, calling on Congress to de-fund Planned Parenthood of all taxpayer dollars. On Valentines’ Day, we took a stand and prayed and rallied in-front of hundreds of Planned Parenthood facilities. Then, for the first time in our nation’s history, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to federally de-fund Planned Parenthood. The vote caused so much turmoil in Washington, that the government almost shut down in March as the Senate refused to allow a vote on the issue. Instead of waiting for the federal government to act, numerous states like Indiana, New Hampshire, Texas, and Ohio have now gone on to de-fund Planned Parenthood facilities within their borders.

May 2011: The Gallup organization released a poll showing that for the first-time since they began polling on abortion, America is now pro-life.

August 2011: The Guttmacher Institute reported for the first 6 months of 2011, states enacted a record number of pro-life laws, more than 80, more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010. States like Nebraska, Idaho, and Ohio are three who have already enacted fetal pain laws that protect preborn children from abortion after 20 weeks. Arizona and Virginia have enacted a law to regulate abortion facilities, forcing them to comply with the same set of medical standards that other types of medical facilities must follow. And others like South Carolina and Texas passed ultrasound laws that require abortionists to mothers the opportunity to see her preborn child. All of these laws will reduce abortions, and they enjoy broad support with more than 60% of Americans supporting these laws.

September 2011: For the first timein it’s history, the U.S. House of Representatives launched a formal investigation into Planned Parenthood’s practices.

October 2011: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Protect Life Act, a bill voicing the will of the people not to fund any abortions in Obamacare whatsoever.

The innocent still shed their blood

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents, all those young boys in and around Bethlehem, two and under, whom Herod had massacred in order to kill Jesus Christ. 

Today we honor their sacrifice. And through our honoring of them, and worship of God, we seek to atone for the many sins against human life, beginning with abortion, and including other forms of murder, and euthanasia, disregard for the safety and dignity of others, mistreatment and indifference to the plight of others, and all other sins against life.

Where does human cruelty come from? Surely it grows in us by stages, for most of us are not born with murderous fear of others. It is “bequeathed” to us by others, and we grow it in our heart. Hatred, rooted in fear, is handed on down through the generations, and the murderous inherit a thinking that there are some who are not worthy of their respect and love. Perhaps they are a threat, perhaps their relatives did something in the past. Perhaps they may do something in the future. Herod was clearly a fearful man, so fearful that he was unmoved by the cries of wailing parents, or of suffering infants. His heart had grow cruel through repeated insensitivity inflicted on others, due to raging and irrational fear.

An Old Latin Hymn says, Crudelis Herodes, Deum Regem venire quid times? Non eripit mortalia, Qui regna dat caelestia (Cruel Herod what do you fear in the King and God to come? He seizes not earthly things who gives heavenly kingdoms). But in the end it IS his fear that drives him.

We know well that Holy Innocents continue to be killed in our world through abortion. And here too, it is most often fear that drives the killing. How will the baby be afforded?! What changes will this baby bring that I cannot take? Perhaps the prenatal tests show a possible defect. I cannot deal with this! What if my parents know that I am pregnant? How will this pregnancy affect my career?! What if my father finds out I got my girl-friend pregnant!? And society says, What of poverty? What of overpopulation? What of deformity? How can we collectively handle all this?

And thus fear drives the current bloodshed. Fear makes us focus on our self, such that we think too little of what we do to others. Abortion thus becomes an “abstraction,” an “issue” that is debated, a “choice.” Abortion, to many, is anything but real. The reality of fetal pain is out of sight and thus less real than the fear. What abortion is doing to our world, that too is less real than the fear. It is the fear that is real, and the fear eclipses everything else. And fear desensitizes, and thus the killing of the innocent becomes plausible, a woman’s “choice,” reproductive “freedom.”

The only solution to fear is trust, faith in God. God alone can set us free from the awful fears that currently drive abortion. We in the Church must be realistic about the fears that many face before the mystery of new life and we must provide reasons for hope and trust. Fear is a cruel task-master and it drives us to do some pretty awful things.

One of the most common lines in the New Testament is “Do not be afraid.” Hope, trust and Faith are important to us on this feast of the Holy Innocents.

There is also this dangerous thought on this Holy Feast.

I’ll explain what I mean by “dangerous” in a moment. But for now consider some biblical facts with me.

1. When God was drawing close to liberating his chosen people from slavery in Egypt there occurred the order to murder of the all the baby boys among the Hebrews. It is almost as though Satan sensed that God was up to something good, and Satan raged, through Pharaoh, in murderous anger driven by fear. Thankfully the actual numbers were reduced since the Egyptian midwives engaged in civil disobedience, refusing to allow the practice to continue.
2. At the time of Jesus, when God was preparing to liberate his people from sin, there also occurred the murder of innocent baby boys. Here too, it is almost as though the Devil sensed that God was up to something good and, he once again raged, this time through Herod, in murderous anger driven by fear. Thankfully too this infanticide also ended at some point.
3. Notice the pattern. When God prepared a great liberation, the Devil, raging in fear, went after the babies. In our time, on a scale as never before, the Devil is going after our babies in murderous anger driven by fear. What is he afraid of? Is God planning something big in the near future? Is there a great liberation at hand? Is there a great advancement of evangelization and conversion in the offing? We can only speculate. But patterns are patterns and Scripture has a way of repeating its patterns and echoing down through the centuries.

Why is this a dangerous reflection? Because I want to make it clear that abortion, the killing of the innocents in our age, is NOT, and never can be, considered something good, or a “positive sign.” Such a speculation might cause some to wrongly conclude that abortion is part of God’s plan or something we should see “positively.” We should not. It must be fought. It is of Satan, it is rooted in fear.

End the Massacre And the Glory follows – I want to conclude by reminding you that the great liberation that followed the past infanticides did not occur until AFTER those murderous rages were stopped. Hence, to follow the pattern established in Scripture, and to see a potentially great and liberating act of God, we must first see an end to the slaughter. Work and pray to end abortion. May the Holy Innocents pray for us!

read the rest of this reflection here.

ArtPeace 2012 coming soon!

To all who participated or will be participating in the ArtPeace Project:


After displaying the ArtPeace Project since Oct 4, 2011 in 6 storefront windows on Fulton Ave, in Grand Rapids, the ArtPeace Project has been taken down.


pictures and videos are on the web
www.facebook.com/40daysGR
www.artsignup.weebly.com


The K of C will be auctioning off the art very soon with the proceeds to go to charity.
If you have any art pieces to submit (or wood to return) please do so soon! Email or call.


Some that I have spoken to plan to participate in this fund-raising, with no renumeration, however, if you do want a percentage, could you let us know? Please choose 10%, 30% or 50%. Which leads me to the next question, can you send a short paragraph about your art piece with your name, city, email, tel. Some of you are professional artists, would you please tell us what to start the pricing at? Also, if you need more than a paragraph to describe your art, please take as much as you need. TEACHERS: Please tell your students we need this. If we do not hear from you, we will wing it.



We are planning for ArtPeace 2012, and are discussing an upright square "temple" with the Heart Sail in the middle, to give the look and feel of Solomon's Temple with the Heart Sail being the "holy of holies" inside the square enclosure. Displaying the art vertically is definitely better. We will need about 5000 art pieces, and will be needing a venue, structure design and the materials to make the structure, which we will handle. We plan to obtain more cedar wood tiles. Please participate again!


Please share any ideas. Please feel free to comment, send suggestions, etc.


Please feel free to call/text me anytime 980-6031


Patrick Keeley
Publicity Coordinator, Fall Campaign 2011
Grand Rapids 40 Days for Life
www.40daysforlife.com/grandrapids/
www.artsignup.weebly.com

Also, Member K of C #7761, life events coordinator for the ArtPeace Project

from David Bereit

“I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

These words spoken more than 2,000 years ago by the angel of the Lord to the shepherds tending their flocks remind us that when God chose to come to Earth in human flesh, He did so through the womb of a mother.

During this Christmas season, we give thanks for the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ … and we count the many blessings God has showered on 40 Days for Life through your prayers and efforts:

• 1,633 individual campaigns have taken place in 422 cities across all 50 American states and 13 countries
• More than 500,000 people have joined together in an historic display of unity to pray and fast for an end to abortion
• More than 14,000 church congregations have participated in the 40 Days for Life campaigns
• More than 1,800 news stories have been featured in newspapers, magazines, radio shows and TV programs
• Reports document 5,045 lives spared from abortion — and those are just the ones we know about
• Thousands of women and men have been spared from the tragic effects of abortion, and many have stepped forward to begin post-abortion healing and recovery
• 61 abortion workers have quit their jobs and walked away from the abortion industry
• 19 abortion facilities have shut down following local 40 Days for Life campaigns outside their doors

Has the tide turned?

Jen Fulwiler thinks so:


As you’ve probably heard by now, the Duggar family lost their precious daughter Jubilee Shalom on December 8th at 20 weeks gestation. They held a memorial service for her last Wednesday, which has generated even more discussion than the original announcement that they were expecting their 20th child. At the service, the Duggars chose to display some professional photographs of the baby’s hands and feet.

Someone leaked the pictures to the media, and the blog world has exploded with conversations about it.
As I made my usual rounds on the internet this weekend, it seemed that I everywhere I clicked there was someone writing about this. The secular blog world seemed particularly interested in the issue: TMZ posted the leaked pictures, and was flooded with hundreds of comments. Posts at Babble, the Stir, the Daily Beast and Jezebel also generated a ton of responses. [Note: Click through at your own risk, since some of those posts and comments have not-safe-for-work language]. At first I moved on from these posts with nothing more than a glance; I didn’t want to dampen the Christmas spirit by reading the inevitable vitriol about those wacky pro-lifers and their obsession with “fetuses.” But then I noticed something shocking:

Wait a sec…nobody is denying that this is a baby!

I went back and read each of the posts, then scanned through comment after comment, hardly able to believe my eyes. The debate that all of these people were having was whether or not the Duggars had disrespected their child by showing pictures of her deceased body at the funeral. Of the hundreds of comments I read, nobody suggested that this was not a full-fledged child. The cause of contention was the issue of whether they had respected their daughter’s dignity, not whether she had dignity in the first place. Her worthiness of respect was taken for granted.

I have been reading sites like this since I first got online. I have been following this kind of subject for years, both when I was pro-choice and now that I’m pro-life. And I can say with certainty: This would not have been the tenor of the conversation 10 years ago—or even five. Even as recently as 2006, there would have been a flood of “it’s just a fetus, who cares?” remarks, and the debate would have centered around whether the child was even worthy of a funeral.

The old myth about unborn life being “just a clump of tissue” has been under attack since the advent of the ultrasound machine, and now it would seem that it’s finally been relegated to the dustbin of history. And, after reading all of these internet discussions, I know that more than a few people are going to be thinking hard about the fact that abortions at this point of gestation are all too common. (As for the myth that abortions at this age are extremely rare: Here’s a video in which an abortion doctor casually mentions women having abortions at 20 weeks because their boyfriends left, or at 24 weeks because it took them a while to collect the money. Also, a quick Google search of second trimester abortion certainly doesn’t seem to indicate that this is a rare or inaccessible procedure. And, if my math is correct, according to this Guttmacher data, over 60,000 babies were killed after 16 weeks gestation in 2008.)

I’ve thought for a long time that the pro-life position will be the default position in the future. I fully believe that 100 years from now, the vast majority of people will consider abortion morally wrong—modern technology has made it too hard to deny the dignity of human life within the womb. The only question was when the shift would finally happen, when society would finally stop clinging to the antiquated, unscientific ideas about unborn children. Survey data has been looking promising for a while, but the internet reaction to the Duggar photos seals it. There is no question that our society has far more respect for unborn human life than it used to.


Ten years ago, the average person would have felt uncomfortable admitting it if she thought abortion were wrong; in the future, I think that public opinion will have shifted to the extent that it will not be socially acceptable to be in favor of abortion. And I believe that history will point to 2011 as the year the balance of public opinion tipped, and the momentum began moving in a pro-life direction.

I believe that we have just witnessed the tide turn.

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jennifer-fulwiler/pro-lifers-the-tide-just-turned/#ixzz1h6EOQGuF

Revealing

excerpt from this article at LiveAction:

Here are some examples of actual texts people have sent containing this word:

“So I decided to start saving money for my abortion in a tomato sauce jar because it says ‘Prego.’ I know I thought it was f-ing genius!”

“they had a keg party to fund her abortion.”

“Just paid for that girls abortion on my dad’s black card. I feel like P-Diddy.”

“Only mom could turn an abortion day into a shopping day”

What does this tell us about the attitudes some young people have about abortion?

Granted, these few texts are not necessarily representative of an entire generation. But this is just a sampling. There are four pages of texts containing the word, and they’re all along the same lines as these. And these are just the few random kids who know about the site, decide to submit a text, and have theirs chosen. Each one of these text messages could represent the attitude of thousands of kids.

A lot of “pro-choice” people like to say, “Look, I think women should have a choice, but I don’t think it should be used as a form of birth control.” How many times have you heard that? Personally, at least a hundred.

If it’s not a form of birth control, then what is it exactly?

To the young person living in the age of the hook-up and embracing casual sex as a way of life, abortion is a matter of course. It has to be, in order for them to continue with the lifestyle they enjoy. These values are probably passed down from their parents in a lot of cases. Note two examples above: the young lady whose mom takes her shopping after an abortion, and the young man whose dad lends his credit card to pay for a girl’s abortion.

from our allies at Stand True

So it begins – this January 22 will mark the beginning of the 40th year of government sanctioned, protected and funded child killing in America.

I know it is Christmas season (yes, I refuse to call it “the holiday season”). I know we are mostly thinking about joyous and happy things this time of year, and I really don’t want to spoil that for you.

But as much as I enjoy Christmastime, it also brings another season along with it for me to begin preparations. Every year at this time I kick into full gear with my planning and for the annual March for Life in Washington, DC.

This year is probably one of the most significant I have ever planned for as we are entering the 40th year of the decriminalization of abortion in America. I was 4 years old when the Supreme Court once again decided to strip the personhood from a group of people, as they did back in 1857 with the Dred Scott decision. I don’t have much memory of life at 4 years old, so in my lifetime I have never really known a time when babies were not being slaughtered.

Anyone who knows me knows I can be a very emotional person and I am honestly fighting back the tears right now as I am typing these words. 40 years! It is so hard for me to grasp the fact that we as a society are still justifying the systematic slaughter of sector of society as some even fight for it existence as a human rights issue.

I have noticed over the years while doing outreach at abortion clinics that the pro-abortion volunteers get most angry with me while I am praying or reading my Bible. They hate it when people gather and pray a rosary or the Psalms. They hate when preachers will just read out loud the word of God; it simply drives them insane.

The spiritual battle does not just exist outside of the abortion clinics; the war is raging inside the churches as those who call themselves followers of Christ continue to ignore this battle. The spirit of apathy is alive and well inside of churches and it is winning. 

Can you imagine if those of us who called ourselves Christian and claimed to be pro-life actually stood up and said, "No More"? What if the pastors and priests led their congregations to the gates of hell, the killing centers, and got on their faces before God to cry out about this blood being spilled in the streets? What if every singleperson in each city where these death camps existed marched to the front doors and said, "No More"? 

Maybe you are one of those who think that this is just too big of a hill to climb, just as some thought that William Wilberforce could not climb the hill to abolish slavery? Maybe you are one who thinks that we must just accept the way things are because they will never change, just like those who thought Martin Luther King, Jr. would never change things? 

I know how big God is. I know he is bigger than abortion. I have seen God take a scumbag like myself and allow me to go out and help lead a generation of the most amazing young people to take a stand against the killing of their generation. I still believe God is bigger than abortion and that we will win this battle. 

This generation also believes that and that is why this is the generation who will end abortion. This will be the next William Wilberforce generation; they will take action and be the generation to usher in the abolition of the worst human rights tragedy in history, abortion. 

As we enter the 40th year of decriminalized child killing in America it is time for Christians to break off the chains of 40 years of apathy and rise up, stand true and cry out for the abolition of abortion. 

Are you with us? 

For Christ I Stand,

Bryan Kemper

from our allies in Southfield

After the 40 Days for life campaign ended, I took a few weeks off to take a mental and physical break from it. Sometimes when you take a break from something, it can be hard to get back into the groove again. 

 

So yesterday I went out around 10:00 a.m., just planning to say a rosary and then leave.  The clinic had a few cars there when I arrived, but it was not busy.  I saw a few familiar faces, who were happy to seem back.  As I was about to finish my Rosary,  I noticed a group of 4 cars lined up to turn into Womancare.  I first thought this was strange,  and then it hit me.   Our Veritas member Claudia had invited her students to come and pray.   I had forgotten about it, and left my phone at my home.  It was so great to see Claudia and about 10 of her students praying together while walking around the abortion center.  What

 

You never know the suprises (gifts) that God presents to you when you least expect it.   The even better news was that there was a possible turn earlier in the morning (the woman decides to keep her baby).   

 

The Christmas season can be so busy on all of us.  Work, life in general can take it's toll.   I know speaking for myself, when we get free time, we just want to take a break.  Do something fun, rest,  watch football (ok atleast me), be with friends and family.   Those are all great things and we need them in our life.  

 

Our group would not be the same without your support.  Everyone reading this is apart of what we are trying to do.  To save lives and hearts. 

 

For me, it's easy to be caught up in everything you need to do, and you can get comfortable in that cycle.  When you're not at the abortion clinic, it can lose a little meaning of exactly what is going on there, and the emotional hurt taking place.  

 

We need to rejoice this advent in preperartion for Christmas.   But during reflection please think of the women, and men struggling with these decisions they face.  People who may be leading a lifestyle that will bring them more hurt and less fullfillment in life.  We never know who  the people we are in contact with at work, in our churches, at the grocery store, at a family christmas party could be going through.  

 

Thanks you as always for reading this.  May everyone have a truly wonderful Christmas.   

 

James

Please pray!

After praying for an end to abortion with 40 DFL in Ann Arbor, Southfield, and Grand Rapids, I have moved to a city where abortions don't take place: Alpena, MI.

My heart grieves, however, because Planned Parenthood is targeting my hometown of Auburn Hills, MI, where I was born and raised. They intend to build a flagship facility on the border of Pontiac, halfway between the economically depressed African American population in that city and the college coeds at Oakland University. If they succeed, it will be the largest abortion mill in the state.

They are trying to target the two customers they prefer most: minority women and college students. Ask yourself why those two groups would be a crucial demographic for PP?

Monica Miller, of Citizens for a ProLife Society, has led the charge against PP. There is currently a deed restriction in effect that may prevent this facility from being built. But prayer warriors are needed, all over the state of Michigan!

If PP wins, it will affect Grand Rapids and Lansing and all of us. Please pray for Monica Miller and the campaign in Auburn Hills. They have a long road ahead of them, and it will last longer than 40 days.