Human Life International Launches New Affiliate - HLI America

Big announcement late last week from Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, President of Human Life International:

The great founder of Human Life International, Fr. Paul Marx, said time and time again: "When you sow contraception, you reap abortion." The vast majority of Americans just don't get the connection. The truth of his prophetic words continues to unfold before our eyes in the epidemic of promiscuity and the ongoing slaughter of the innocents through abortion. Some of the inherent blindness of this mentality was on display recently when the new Miss USA, a Catholic-school-educated Lebanese American named Rima Fakih, said that she thinks birth control should be paid for by insurance companies. Unfortunately, Miss Fakih is not unique in her opinion at all. She represents what I call the "default mentality" of our age, which believes that contraception is both a "medication" (as Miss Fakih said) and a legitimate part of "healthcare."

Now, in memory of Fr. Marx who did everything he could to stem the tide of contraception, HLI is taking the extraordinary step of setting up an American affiliate known simply as HLI America. With affiliates and associates in over 100 countries, I have often been asked if HLI does any pro-life work in our own country. In answering this fair question I usually point to the hundreds of pro-life groups all around the country and the thousands of Pregnancy Care Centers and let people know that the bases are well-covered here, but not overseas. In fact, HLI literally is the pro-life movement in dozens of countries that would not have any organized opposition to the culture of death were it not for our presence.

However...

Very few pro-life groups in our country are dealing with the root cause of abortion, which is the Pernicious Pill and all other forms of contraception that have given the abortion industry its feeder system of contraceptive failures and the devaluing of women and children. "Sow contraception, reap abortion" is dead on. We might add that contraception also reaps infanticide of baby girls, male sexual irresponsibility, marital and family breakdown and a whole host of other evils that afflict our society today.

Our choice for heading up HLI America is the very dynamic Jenn Giroux who, as a Registered Nurse and a mother of nine, has a proven track record of fighting contraception. I have met a lot of people throughout the last million miles I have travelled, and, among them, very few stand out as being as authentic, committed and ready for battle as Jenn. She is someone I can fully endorse as part of the HLI mission. I am delighted to introduce Mrs. Giroux as Executive Director of HLI America to our Spirit & Life audience and let you know that she deserves our full support in this magnificent work she is undertaking.

What will HLI America do? We're going to fight the "big lie" of contraception head on and promote the value and beauty of large families. American culture desperately needs these twin witnesses! As part of this effort, HLI America will also be launching the Association of Large Families (ALFA) soon as a way of affirming the most degraded and despised institution in America after the Catholic Priesthood - the large family. Stay tuned for more information on this initiative in the future.

Please take a moment to look at the HLI America website and then join Jenn Giroux and HLI in this effort to attack the culture of death in America at its root: the culture of contraception. Our challenge is to take on this issue, and the overwhelming power and influence of the mass media, in order to stop its distortion of the truth regarding contraception. Otherwise, Miss USA and the men and women of this upcoming generation will continue to wallow in their ignorance and further promote the big lie, while families continue to suffer.

Washington Post Challenges Pro-Abortion Critics of Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad

This morning's Washington Post included a column from award-winning sports reporter Sally Jenkins on the upcoming "Focus on the Family" Super Bowl ad, which uses Florida QB Tim Tebow to promote life. 

Of course, the pro-abortion lobby is fighting hard to get the ad pulled, especially in light of the gay dating service ad recently getting pulled by CBS.  Ms. Jenkins, who is pro-choice, takes a shot at those pro-abortion leaders who are, indeed, hypocrites and intolerant. 

Glad to see that there are some individuals on the pro-choice side who are willing to listen to other side and at least respect their position. Hopefully, this ad will convince other like-minded pro-choice Americans that intolerance, typically indentified with the Religious Right, is in reality more prevalent on the Left...


Tebow's Super Bowl ad isn't intolerant; its critics are

By Sally Jenkins, Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 2, 2010

I'll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won't endear me to the "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep," otherwise known as DOLL, but I'll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on.

As statements at Super Bowls go, I prefer the idea of Tebow's pro-life ad to, say, Jim McMahon dropping his pants, as the former Chicago Bears quarterback once did in response to a question. We're always harping on athletes to be more responsible and engaged in the issues of their day, and less concerned with just cashing checks. It therefore seems more than a little hypocritical to insist on it only if it means criticizing sneaker companies, and to stifle them when they take a stance that might make us uncomfortable.

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't.

There's not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the "need" for abortions wasn't so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow's ad.

Here's what we do need a lot more of: Tebows. Collegians who are selfless enough to choose not to spend summers poolside, but travel to impoverished countries to dispense medical care to children, as Tebow has every summer of his career. Athletes who believe in something other than themselves, and are willing to put their backbone where their mouth is. Celebrities who are self-possessed and self-controlled enough to use their wattage to advertise commitment over decadence.

You know what we really need more of? Famous guys who aren't embarrassed to practice sexual restraint, and to say it out loud. If we had more of those, women might have fewer abortions. See, the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancy is to not get the sperm in the egg and the egg implanted to begin with, and that is an issue for men, too -- and they should step up to that.

"Are you saving yourself for marriage?" Tebow was asked last summer during an SEC media day.

"Yes, I am," he replied.

The room fell into a hush, followed by tittering: The best college football player in the country had just announced he was a virgin. As Tebow gauged the reaction from the reporters in the room, he burst out laughing. They were a lot more embarrassed than he was.

"I think y'all are stunned right now!" he said. "You can't even ask a question!"

That's how far we've come from any kind of sane viewpoint about star athletes and sex. Promiscuity is so the norm that if a stud isn't shagging everything in sight, we feel faintly ashamed for him.

Obviously Tebow can make people uncomfortable, whether it's for advertising his chastity, or for wearing his faith on his face via biblical citations painted in his eye-black. Hebrews 12:12, his cheekbones read during the Florida State game: "Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees." His critics find this intrusive, and say the Super Bowl is no place for an argument of this nature. "Pull the ad," NOW President Terry O'Neill said. "Let's focus on the game."

Trouble is, you can't focus on the game without focusing on the individuals who play it -- and that is the genius of Tebow's ad. The Super Bowl is not some reality-free escape zone. Tebow himself is an inescapable fact: Abortion doesn't just involve serious issues of life, but of potential lives, Heisman trophy winners, scientists, doctors, artists, inventors, Little Leaguers -- who would never come to be if their birth mothers had not wrestled with the stakes and chosen to carry those lives to term. And their stories are every bit as real and valid as the stories preferred by NOW.

Let me be clear again: I couldn't disagree with Tebow more. It's my own belief that the state has no business putting its hand under skirts. But I don't care that we differ. Some people will care that the ad is paid for by Focus on the Family, a group whose former spokesman, James Dobson, says loathsome things about gays. Some will care that Tebow is a creationist. Some will care that CBS has rejected a gay dating service ad. None of this is the point. CBS owns its broadcast and can run whatever advertising it wants, and Tebow has a right to express his beliefs publicly. Just as I have the right to reject or accept them after listening -- or think a little more deeply about the issues. If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.

Tebow's ad, by the way, never mentions abortion; like the player himself, it's apparently soft-spoken. It simply has the theme "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." This is what NOW has labeled "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." But if there is any demeaning here, it's coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren't real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day.

Polls find more Americans call themselves 'pro-life' than 'pro-choice'

Less than four months into President Barack Obama's term, opinion polls are finding that Americans are taking a dramatic turn toward greater opposition to abortion. A poll conducted May 7-10 as part of the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs survey found that a majority of Americans (51 percent) described themselves as "pro-life" with respect to the abortion issue, while only 42 percent said they were "pro-choice." The results were made public May 15. It marked the first time since Gallup began asking the question in 1995 that more respondents said they were pro-life than pro-choice, and was a shift of 7-8 percentage points from a year earlier, when 50 percent said they were pro-choice and 44 percent said they were pro-life. Obama is a strong supporter of keeping abortion legal. Some groups that promote abortion have said his November 2008 election was a mandate to expand access to and federal funding of abortion. A separate Gallup Poll Daily survey conducted May 12-13 found that 50 percent of Americans described themselves as pro-life and 43 percent as pro-choice.

Final Push: Have Your Voice Heard!

The fight to defeat the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius as the Secretary of Human Services is coming down to its final hours. We have received word from the Senate that they will be debating and voting on her nomination tomorrow, Tuesday April 28.

Governor Sebelius has shown an unwillingness to back down from her extreme pro-abortion agenda. Just this past Thursday, Governor Sebelius vetoed “The 2009 Late-Term and Partial-Birth Abortion Regulation Act” in Kansas that would have put important restrictions on the abortion industry.

Once again Kathleen Sebelius has sided with her abortion clinic friends like George Tiller rather than act to protect women and children from the particularly horrific practices of partial birth and late term abortions.

Write your Senators today and once again urge them to vote NO on Kathleen Sebelius.

As governor, Sebelius has repeatedly vetoed other common-sense restrictions on the abortion industry like the Comprehensive Abortion Reform Act, which would have implemented restrictions on late-term abortion procedures. She has opposed or vetoed several abortion-accountability bills, including legislation that would have required medically-supported clinic regulation. She has also vetoed legislation requiring explicit medical reasons for post-viability, late-term abortions.

It is bad enough that Kathleen Sebelius has pushed her abortion agenda on Kansas. We cannot allow Sebelius’ radical pro-abortion agenda to be implemented for the whole country.

This fight is now more crucial than ever as opposition to Sebelius grows.

Please tell your Senators to join the growing chorus of opposition to Kathleen Sebelius!

There is still time to make your voice heard!

Choose Life Plate Becomes Law in Virginia!

Today, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine signed SB 817, the "Choose Life" license plate into law, making Virginia the 24th state to offer the pro-life plate. As many of you know, Senator Richard Stuart (R) drafted the bill and then Senator Ken Cuccinelli (R) amended it on the Senate floor and pushed this legislation through during the last legislative session. It was passed with solid bi-partisan support. It's a huge win for those in the pro-life movement, and also for those who hold dear our First Amendment rights.

In his statement, Governor Kaine (who also happens to be President Obama's hand picked National Chairman of the Democrat Party) said: "Because Virginians -like all Americans - regard freedom of expression among our highest values, courts in the Commonwealth and elsewhere have reviewed license plate programs to ensure that government regulation of plate messages does not discriminate based on the viewpoint expressed by a particular group."

We couldn't agree more - (and that's a first!)

This is a great momentum builder for the Cuccinelli for Attorney General campaign. All across the Commonwealth, thousands of people, many involved in politics for the first time, are joining the Cuccinelli team.

Senator Cuccinelli is the ONLY candidate for Attorney General who has a PROVEN RECORD of getting things done. He has cast thousands of votes and has never wavered from his conservative principals, something that unfortunately has been in vogue in Richmond and Washington for years.

PG County Police Hold Funeral for Abandoned Infant

In the Washington, D.C. metropolitan county of Prince George's County, Md., it is nice (for a change) to see a positive news story regarding its police department. Dealing with one of the most violent counties on the East Coast, the police department finally received some "above the fold" positive press in the Washington Post. The men and women in the PG Police Department exhibited great respect for life, especially for the innocent life of a newborn found in a trash bag.

Honoring 'a Baby No One Loved'
Prince George's Police Hold Funeral for Abandoned Infant

The homicide detectives stood in the cold wind yesterday at a quiet Clinton cemetery to bury an infant they named Maria del Pilar. They were the only mourners.

A month ago, the newborn was found alive in a trash bag in the Takoma Park area. She died later that day, and her mother was charged with murder. No one stepped forward to bury her, so Price George's County police officers gathered yesterday morning to do so themselves.

"This was a baby no one loved. This was a child who did absolutely nothing wrong," said Maj. Daniel Dusseau, head of major crimes for the Prince George's police.

Maria is the third infant whom Prince George's police have named and buried at Resurrection Cemetery in Clinton, a somber ritual that officers say is both cathartic and, they hope, a reminder to parents of what happens when they abandon a baby.

Buried next to Maria are two others: John Caleb Daniels, who was found in a plastic grocery bag in Oxon Hill in 2004, and Maria Grace Daniels, who was found in a plastic bag in a sediment pond in Riverdale Park in 2006.

The children could have been taken to a hospital, a church, a fire station or another safe haven, as allowed under Maryland state law, authorities said. Instead, police investigated their deaths and planned their funerals.

The lead investigator in Maria's case, Detective Nelson Rhone, organized yesterday's service and helped name Baby Jane Doe: Maria, because she was Hispanic, and del Pilar, after the Virgin of El Pilar, who is celebrated in Spain on Oct. 12, the day of the baby's birth and death.

"Every detective wants to close his case and provide some closure for the family. Unfortunately, when there is no family, the only closure we can provide is to the infant," Rhone said.

The funeral was a collaborative effort: The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 89 raised money for a headstone, Lee's Funeral Home donated all services and a tiny coffin, Clinton Floral Shop sent a basket of pink carnations and white daisies, and the police chaplain performed the ceremony.
In addition to showing compassion to infants who died within hours of birth, the funerals help detectives cope with the heartbreak of such cases, said Steve Rhoads, the police chaplain. Most people don't realize the strong bond that investigators often form with victims whose deaths they are trying to solve, he said.

"They think that these guys are robots and unfeeling," Rhoads said. "This proves that they are not."

The cases of the first two abandoned babies are unsolved, but police have an arrest in Maria's death because of an anonymous tip. Four days after Maria was found, Prince George's police arrested Wendy Y. Villatoro, 25, who lived in the Takoma Park area. She admitted abandoning the infant, police said, and was charged with second-degree murder. The baby's extended family declined to claim the body.

"These are the kinds of victims your heart just breaks for, because they were completely innocent," said Detective Kelly Rogers, who helped organize a funeral for Maria Grace Daniels, the baby found in Riverdale Park. "Most of us have kids and know that if you just hear somebody yelling 'Mommy' in a crowded store, you turn your head out of instinct. You know something must have been seriously wrong with them or going seriously wrong for them to do this."