Author Archives: Matthew Wagner

“Should we not be entitled to all the information, regardless of whether we want kids or not, regardless of whether or not that information is at odds with cultural norm?”

That is the question that is central to the documentary “Hush.”  This documentary looks at the truth about the physical and psychological damage abortion causes.  It highlights the misinformation told by abortion center workers and addresses how the medical community is complicit in hiding the truth.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is the journey writer-director and narrator Punam Kumar Gill takes as she explores these questions.  Punam starts the film identifying herself as a feminist, and admits she started this film with a pro-abortion viewpoint that informed consent laws are meant to scare women into not having an abortion.  As she dug deeper into the issue, she found more and more evidence of the medical community suppressing studies that showed a linkage between breast cancer and abortion, hiding research that shows a correlation between surgical abortions and pre-term births, and attempting to minimize the stories of women who have had serious psychological problems after an abortion.

Punam’s journey became more personal when, while doing her research, she tragically lost her first child to a miscarriage at 32 weeks. As she states, “When it’s your life at stake, it’s amazing how the information suddenly means something.”  By the end of the movie, Punam’s position has changed, and while she still identifies as “pro-choice,” she concedes that women deserve to have all the answers, and not a bunch of lies, when making important decisions that will impact their long-term health.

The film can be purchased through the website http://hushfilm.com/.  It is a great resource for pro-lifers to make sure they have all the information they need…which is the point of the informed consent laws to begin with!

“No matter how dark it is, all you need is a little ray of hope to overcome it.”

This quote by Indian film maker Anurag Prakash Ray has been at the forefront of my mind the past few weeks.  We’ve certainly experienced our fair share of darkness recently.  Between the senseless violence and death both overseas and even in our own cities, and the vitriolic rhetoric that comes with an election season, it is easy to lose hope and despair.  It would be easy to give up and ask “what difference can I make”.  It would be easy to focus on the darkness and miss the little rays of hope.

Instead, I encourage everyone to focus on those little rays of hope.

Focus on the women heading into an abortion center but choosing life after talking to a pro-life sidewalk counselor.

Focus on the women visiting a pro-life pregnancy resource center and finding out about the resources they need to choose life.

Focus on the abortion centers being forced to close because of lack of business.

Focus on legislative victories such as HB1948, which would ban the brutal practice of dismemberment abortion and change the legal cut-off for abortions from six months to five months in Pennsylvania, moving through the legislative process.

Focus on the parents who have chosen life for their child, despite doctor’s prognoses of challenges like Down syndrome, and recommendations to kill their child.

I recognize sometimes that’s sometimes easier said than done.  When every time we turn on the news we are faced with news of another shooting, or more death and destruction, it is easy to think we’ve lost and it is hopeless and not worth trying.

However, I leave you with this anonymous quote: “Sometimes life seems a dark tunnel with no light at the end, but if you just keep moving forward, you will end up in a better place.”

Our challenge is to keep moving forward through the dark tunnel of a culture of death. We need to continue praying as if it is up to God and working as if it is up to us. If we do that, and focus on those rays of light, we will end up in a better place where life is valued.

A recent article in the Worcester county Maryland paper The Dispatch titled “Battle Waged to Save Trapped Cat from Euthanasia; National Group Sparks Letter Writing Campaign to Elected Officials” caught my eye.   The article is about a cat named Oliver, who was part of the colony cared for by the local Community Cats Coalition.  Oliver was trapped in the area, during an effort to rid the area of rabid animals, and now apparently awaits its fate with the county’s Animal Control Department.

Oliver may or may not be rabid, so last week a group called Alley Cat Allies interceded with a letter to the Worcester County Commissioners urging them to allow the Animal Control Department to turn Oliver over to the local Community Cats Coalition organization to quarantine the animal for as long as it takes to ensure it is not rabid at its own expense and effort. After getting little in the way of response from the commissioners, shelter staff or Animal Control Chief Susan Rantz, Alley Cat Allies on Tuesday reached out to its vast membership to intercede on Oliver’s behalf and, as a result, over 56,000 emails were reportedly sent to the Worcester County Commissioners.

Now, you may be asking why we’re talking about some random cat in Maryland, but my point is simple.  If a stray, potentially rabid cat can get 56,000 emails, how many more emails, calls, etc. should the pro-life movement be able to generate for pre-born babies, and other vulnerable humans?

The question is not meant to disparage the vast number of pro-life volunteers and staff who spend countless hours praying outside abortion centers, writing letters to the editor, helping pro-life pregnancy centers, or otherwise working to protect the most vulnerable among us.  Truly, these volunteers are on the front-line of the movement, and are its heart and soul.

Rather it is meant as a challenge to all of us.  If a cat can get that kind of response, we should be able to get an equal, if not greater, response for pre-born babies.  Surely the lives of pre-born babies are worth more than that of a cat (as much as I love cats).  We need to see this response for Oliver as a challenge to all of us…is there one more thing we can do to protect those who can’t speak for themselves?  Is it spending an extra hour per week praying at an abortion center?  Maybe it’s forwarding that “call to action” email we received to ten more people (after answering the call to action ourselves of course).  Perhaps it is that “thank you” call to your pro-life legislator after he or she votes the right way on an important bill.  Whatever it is, each of us needs to consider what that “one more thing” may be, and then put that plan into action.  A cat’s life doesn’t depend on it, but the life of a pre-born baby just might!!!

It is always interesting when the rhetoric of abortion advocates meets reality.

Consider the abortion rhetoric “her body, her choice”.  Abortion advocates use this rhetoric much as today’s teenagers use the word “like”—indiscriminately, and reflexively. Occasionally though, the fact that there is a second person impacted, when an abortion occurs hits home in a way that cannot be ignored.

Such was the case in Wellsboro PA recently when 25 year old Danielle Reddig was arrested and charged with multiple drug charges including drug delivery resulting in death and involuntary manslaughter.

The victim in this case was her pre-born son Collin, described as “a beautiful, handsome little guy” by deputy coroner James Daugherty.  Due to his mother’s repeated drug use while Collin was in the womb, Collin died a little more than an hour after he was born by emergency cesarean.  The autopsy lists Collin’s cause of death as maternal drug use.  Prosecutors note repeated positive tests for opiates, codeine, and morphine in Reddig’s pre-natal urine test, as evidence she used drugs throughout her pregnancy.

Now, if an unborn child is “just a bunch of cells” and not really a person, as abortion advocates try to pretend, shouldn’t Reddig have the “choice” to do whatever she wanted to her body without regard to her son?  However, as prosecutors in this case, pro-lifers, indeed anyone who has ever seen an ultrasound image knows, the choices Reddig made affected a second life—Collin’s life—thereby nullifying her right to do whatever she wanted.

As pro-lifers, all we can do is pray that the loss of her son is the wake-up call Reddig needs to turn her life around.  With a lot of prayer and support maybe someday she can use her loss as an example of the illogic of the “her body, her choice” argument.

HARRISBURG, Pa. – The U.S. Supreme Court has dealt a tragic blow to the health and safety of women with its ruling striking down provisions of a common sense Texas law regulating abortion centers and abortionists.

“The Supreme Court has sided with abortionists over women in this disturbing decision,” said Maria Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the Pennsylvania affiliate of National Right to Life. “Women’s health and safety could be severely compromised as a result of this ruling.”

The Texas law required abortion facilities to follow basic health and safety standards and for abortionists to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. States have moved to more closely scrutinize abortion centers in the wake of the Kermit Gosnell tragedy. Gosnell was a West Philadelphia abortionist who was convicted of killing three full-term babies and causing the death of a female patient in what prosecutors called a “House of Horrors.”

“Before the revelations about Gosnell, hair and nail salons were more stringently regulated than abortion facilities. The Gosnell case clearly showed that the abortion industry has not been policing itself—that the state needs to step in to protect women. We are saddened that the Supreme Court has issued a ruling that could prevent future Gosnells from being put out of business,” Gallagher said.

“This is a tremendous loss for the women of America,” Gallagher added.

This is a great piece that compares presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump and presumptive Democrat Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on abortion. Please share this on your social media pages, give a copy to your pro-life friends, and have as a handout at fairs, festivals, and carnivals at your pro-life booth.

2016 Presidential Candidate Comparison Piece

The Pennsylvania Pro Life Federation would like to congratulate the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for passing, in a bipartisan vote of 132 to 65, House Bill 1948 a common sense piece of legislation which bans brutal dismemberment abortions.

“These common abortions are performed on fully developed, preborn babies at their most vulnerable, and when they should be the safest,” said Maria Gallagher, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation Legislative Director. “In a dismemberment abortion, fully-formed babies are brutally torn apart limb from limb. We’ve seen ultrasound images of these babies clapping, dancing, and reacting to stimuli from outside the womb. Surely we can all agree that they do not deserve to be torn apart in the most horrific and gruesome way possible,” Gallagher added.
Dismemberment abortions have been described by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in Gonzales v. Carhart as a procedure that is “laden with the power to devalue human life.” Of the approximately 1 million abortions performed annually in this country, almost 9% are performed by dismemberment. Approximately 1,550 Pennsylvanians died from this abortion method in 2014.
Former abortionist Dr. George Flesh has been quoted as saying:
“Tearing a developed fetus apart, limb by limb, is an act of depravity that society should not permit. We cannot afford such a devaluation of human life, nor the desensitization of medical personnel it requires. This is not based on what the fetus might feel but on what we should feel in watching an exquisite, partly formed human being dismembered.”
“Most countries are civilized enough to realize pre-born babies should not be torn apart. There are only seven countries in the world, including human rights-violating countries such as North Korea and China, that allow this terrible act. Pennsylvanians deserve better,” stated Michael Ciccocioppo, executive director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the Pennsylvania affiliate of National Right to Life. “This is an important first step in removing us from that stigma. Now we call on the Pennsylvania Senate to act quickly to concur and on Governor Wolf to sign the bill to protect his most vulnerable constituents.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                       CONTACT:  MARIA GALLAGHER, PA PRO-LIFE                                                               717-541-0034

June 20, 2016                                                                                                                         

HARRISBURG, Pa. –Presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump has won the support of Pennsylvania’s largest single issue pro-life organization.

The Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation voted unanimously in State College this past weekend to give its political action committee’s support to Mr. Trump.

“Donald Trump will be a dedicated defender of innocent human life in the White House,” said Maria Gallagher, PAC Director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. “He has pledged to appoint Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who will interpret the law, rather than aggressively making laws from the bench. In sharp contrast, his opponent, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, would have a radically pro-abortion litmus test for judicial nominees,” Gallagher added.

Mr. Trump also supports a ban on gruesome late-term abortions, in which fully-developed, living babies are killed in their mothers’ wombs. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Act, which was supported by a vast majority of Americans.

In addition, Mr. Trump will safeguard our hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being used to support organizations that perform abortions. Mrs. Clinton, in contrast, opposes a ban on tax funding of abortions, despite national public opinion polls which show that nearly seven in 10 Americans, including Millennials and women, oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.

“When it comes to safeguarding precious babies and their mothers from harm, Donald Trump is the clear choice for President,” Gallagher said. “He recognizes the distinct value of human life and has pledged to protect it from its earliest stages—something that Mrs. Clinton, sadly and tragically, refuses to do.”

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The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation is a grassroots right-to-life organization with members statewide.  PPLF is committed to promoting the dignity and value of human life from conception to natural death and to restoring legal protection for preborn children.