Katie Hawley is a fighter.

Katie was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 9.  Since the summer before she started 4^th grade, she has been through at least a dozen surgeries, two dozen chemotherapy treatments, more than two dozen radiation treatments, and dozens more scans and blood transfusions.

Understandably, Katie was ready to quit. In an interview with ESPN, Katie’s dad told the reporter Katie told him, “Dad, I’m done this time. I just want to go.”

Thankfully, her willingness to fight was restored by an unlikely source—the Anaheim Ducks, and their All-Star center Rickard Rakell.  Katie’s family had a number of friends and neighbors who were Duck season ticket holders. They would often donate their tickets to Katie to go see a game when she had a rough day.  When the Ducks organization, and Rakell specifically, heard about Katie’s condition they were quick to encourage her to keep fighting, even making her an honorary “21^st Duck” and sending her to All-Star Weekend.

Katie’s story stands in stark contrast to that of another young woman, Brittany Maynard. In Brittany’s case, instead of having an organization come alongside her and encourage her to fight, she was encouraged by the old Hemlock Society, rebranded as “Compassion and Choices” to kill herself.

The contrasting stories of Katie and Brittany are a good reminder to all of us that sometimes people fighting serious illness need someone to come alongside them and encourage them to fight. Part of being pro-life is being like the Ducks and coming alongside those who need help and showing that assisted suicide is not the answer.

House Bill 2050 has been introduced in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives by speaker Mike Turzai to ban the abortion of preborn babies who have been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Pennsylvania State Senator Scott Martin from Lancaster is introducing an identical bill in the Senate.

Here are some ways you can help this legislation become law.

1. Plan to attend a rally in support of House Bill 2050 on Monday, March 12^th at 2:30 PM in the Capitol rotunda.  For more details or to share the event on Facebook, click here.
2. You can share with us your story. If you, or someone you know, has had their life changed by someone with Down syndrome, please contact Education Director Matthew Wagner at lifelines@paprolife.org or by calling 717-541-0034.
3. You can contact your state Representative and state Senator and encourage them to co-sponsor these bills to protect preborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome. If you don’t know who your state lawmakers are, or you need contact information, please contact Legislative Director Maria Gallagher at gallagher@paprolife.orgor at 717-541-0034. Thank you for sharing these stories and making these important contacts to remind people they can always choose life!

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative/PAC Director
Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation

            Some individuals who call themselves a name similar to the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation have put out a false report, suggesting that state Senator Scott Wagner is not pro-life. Wagner, a candidate for Governor in the May 15, 2018 Pennsylvania Primary Election, has a 100 percent pro-life voting record, has co-sponsored pro-life bills, sponsored a bus to the March for Life, and distributed a clear statement condemning Roe v. Wade, the tragic U.S. Supreme Court ruling which legalized abortion nationwide.

             Wagner has also worked to ensure that the Pennsylvania Department of State would not repeat the mistakes that led to the lack of enforcement that enabled abortionist Kermit Gosnell to ply his trade in West Philadelphia. Gosnell was ultimately convicted in connection with the deaths of three full-term babies and a female immigrant patient, Karnamaya Mongar.

             Pro-life voters who have questions about candidates for public office at the state or national levels are welcome to contact Maria Gallagher at the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation PAC at 717-541-0034.

by  Carla Ezell Southeast PA Regional Coordinator Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation

ezell@paprolife.org

We African-American women were and are being used for various reasons.

In the abortion industry we have been used to sell the belief of some in our society that abortion is an answer to unexpected pregnancy.

It’s a known fact that if a woman has sex she could get pregnant.  Planned Parenthood knows and relies on this.  Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses push abortion in the African-American community.  Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist and founder of Planned Parenthood in the late 1920’s and 1930’s, planned an effective way to convince African-Americans to abort their babies.  Her plan was to tell them that they did not have the means to raise large families.  This, they were promised, would be a way for our people to attain more in life if our families were smaller.

This was called The Negro Project.  Sanger believed the key to selling her secret agenda of reducing the Black race was to use the Black Church and its pastors.  Well, African-American families are smaller and we are a shrinking minority.  Our women abort our babies more than any other race in America.  Over 17 million African-American children are gone forever without a whisper.

February is Black History Month, and a time to celebrate the accomplishments of African-Americans.  But it is a time set aside to recall the struggles of African-Americans in this nation.  The targeting of African-American women is nothing new.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, new forms of birth control, such as the intrauterine device (IUD) and different forms of birth control pills were tried out on African-American women in the inner cities.  The IUD alone came with many negative reports, but a promise of no unwanted pregnancies.  This form of birth control was a research project—but that fact was never told to the women who were its unwitting subjects.

The IUD was implanted in girls as young as 13 years old.  Many women became pregnant while using IUDs.  During some pregnancies the implants became embedded in various parts of the bodies of the infants.  As you can imagine, this caused complications for these children.  Some women became sterile because the IUDs would move inside them and cause tears in their uterine walls.

Those reports were never exposed to the public, but I worked in a hospital in North Philadelphia across the street from a neighborhood housing project.  These young women were used for study without being informed that they were the subject of medical research.

How long will society use us African-American women for abortion and other secret experiments?  Today, abortion is the great deception and it will continue if the NAACP, Black Caucus, African-American legislators, mayors, and civic leaders continue to keep silent and turn a blind eye to the plague of abortion that has devastated our African-American community.  We have accepted the lie that killing our children is an answer to our problems.  We are the ones that must reject it.

Nothing in life is perfect.  Life comes with struggles and pain no matter who we are.  But we make it harder when we do not tell the truth about aborting our preborn babies.  The fact is we are killing our future.  I see nothing to be proud of when babies are sucked out of the wombs of mothers every day and then sold to industries that use the organs of these little ones for the financial gain of Planned Parenthood and others in the business of abortion.

We are accountable for our silence.

YouTube sensation Logan Paul has recently come under fire for an insensitive video he posted on YouTube.  In the offending video Paul, whose YouTube channel has over 15 million followers, visited Japan’s Aokigahara forest, also known as the “suicide forest.”  During their visit, Paul and his friends came across the body of someone who recently committed suicide and made jokes about the suicide victim.  Their insensitivity led to him to delete the video and issue an apology.

The backlash to the insensitivity of Paul and his friends has been swift and strong, and rightly so. What’s interesting is the notable silence of the Hemlock Society, rebranded as Compassion and Choices.  Its advocacy for legalizing doctor-prescribed suicide (and ultimately euthanasia) hinges on an assumption that suicide is no big deal and should be treated as cavalierly as Paul and his friends did.  The fact that the organization has not come out in full-throated defense of Paul is indicative of its hypocrisy.

Paul has stated he posted the video “to raise awareness for suicide and suicide prevention” but admits he doesn’t expect to be forgiven.  He has even apologized to the family of the person who committed suicide.  Similarly, Compassion and Choices, and other advocates of doctor-prescribed suicide should apologize to all who commit suicide for the cavalier attitude they display toward suicide and should refocus their attention on reminding people considering suicide they can always choose life.

The annual number of abortions has declined in Pennsylvania,  bringing them to their lowest level ever recorded in the Commonwealth, according to figures released by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

The figures show that, in 2016, 30,881 abortions occurred in the Keystone State, down about three percent from 31,818 the previous year.

“The decline in abortions is good news for Pennsylvania mothers and babies,” said Maria Gallagher, legislative director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, an affiliate of National Right to Life. “Our protective laws, scientific advances such as 4D Ultrasounds, and pregnancy resource centers around the Commonwealth are contributing to this encouraging trend,”Gallagher added.

The Department of Health reports more than 80 percent of abortions in Pennsylvania occurred in four counties: Philadelphia (14,626), Allegheny (6,080), Northampton (3,042), and Dauphin (1,504). The figures indicate the largest contingent of women having abortions were in the age range of 20 to 24 years.

Abortion totals in Pennsylvania would be much higher were it not for the vast number of pregnancy resource centers around the state. “The caring, compassionate individuals within these centers offer everything from diapers to day care referrals, from mentoring to maternity clothes to women and their families,” Gallagher said. “These pregnancy centers are truly a lifeline for women facing challenging circumstances.”

“Make no mistake—every single abortion is a tragedy, because it is the taking of an innocent, unrepeatable human life. Yet, Pennsylvanians can take great pride in the decline in abortions, which has been aided by the loving alternatives to abortion that exist in the Commonwealth,” Gallagher added.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                        CONTACT:  MATTHEW WAGNER,                                                                                              PA PRO-LIFE FEDERATION

December 18, 2017                                                                   717-541-0034

The following statement can be attributed to Michael Ciccocioppo, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, an affiliate of National Right to Life:

“This is a sad day for women and children in Pennsylvania. With his veto of Senate Bill 3, Governor Tom Wolf is allowing the inhumane practice of dismemberment abortion to continue in the Commonwealth. No living child should have to endure being ripped limb by limb from a mother’s womb, and no mother should have to endure the emotional pain of losing a child in such a brutal manner. Governor Wolf’s distressing decision goes against the will of the vast majority of Pennsylvanians, who want to see cruel dismemberment abortions banned, once and for all.”