Tag Archives: Abortion

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

Governor Tom Wolf has enacted far-reaching measures to protect the most vulnerable from Covid-19, closing schools, places of worship, and non-essential businesses for weeks. Citizens are sacrificing freedoms and finances for a greater good.

Yet, while stay-at-home orders have been issued for the entire state, Wolf allows the eviction of some from homes in their mother’s wombs.  Amidst the myriad of closures, abortion centers remain open.

The irony is tragically rich and the hypocrisy blatant. Abortion essential? A life-sustaining business? Isn’t it quite the opposite?

And now, Wolf recklessly promises to veto Senate Bill 857, the Telemedicine Bill, because it prohibits dangerous abortion pills being dispensed via phone or video.

These are women who would not have been examined by a physician. Women who don’t know exactly how far along they are. Women who may have an ectopic pregnancy, or multiple pregnancies, or high blood pressure, or other complicating factors.

Wolf somehow believes it is “life-sustaining” to prescribe a pill that will starve a growing baby and then expel it. Does he realize there could be hemorrhaging or baby parts left behind or a dozen other scenarios that necessitate a trip to a hospital emergency room or that could jeopardize a woman’s life? Does he realize the trauma a woman may endure when holding her own lifeless child in her hands?

By insisting abortion drugs be included in a telemedicine bill, he contradicts the recommendation of the FDA.

So protective of access to abortion, Wolf is willing to trade every Pennsylvanians’ access to telemedicine for it, revealing an incredibly inconsistent life ethic.

If he believes in sustaining life, he should stop supporting those who steal it.

He should close the abortion centers and promote life-sustaining options to women facing difficult pregnancies.

And he should not hold health care hostage to the powerful, profitable abortion lobby.

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

Governor Tom Wolf has enacted far-reaching measures to protect the most vulnerable from Covid-19, closing schools, places of worship, and non-essential businesses for weeks. Citizens are sacrificing freedoms and finances for a greater good.

Yet, while stay-at-home orders have been issued for the entire state, Wolf allows the eviction of some from homes in their mother’s wombs.  Amidst the myriad of closures, abortion centers remain open.

The irony is tragically rich and the hypocrisy blatant. Abortion essential? A life-sustaining business? Isn’t it quite the opposite?

And now, Wolf recklessly promises to veto Senate Bill 857, the Telemedicine Bill, because it prohibits dangerous abortion pills being dispensed via phone or video.

These are women who would not have been examined by a physician. Women who don’t know exactly how far along they are. Women who may have an ectopic pregnancy, or multiple pregnancies, or high blood pressure, or other complicating factors.

Wolf somehow believes it is “life-sustaining” to prescribe a pill that will starve a growing baby and then expel it. Does he realize there could be hemorrhaging or baby parts left behind or a dozen other scenarios that necessitate a trip to a hospital emergency room or that could jeopardize a woman’s life? Does he realize the trauma a woman may endure when holding her own lifeless child in her hands?

By insisting abortion drugs be included in a telemedicine bill, he contradicts the recommendation of the FDA.

So protective of access to abortion, Wolf is willing to trade every Pennsylvanians’ access to telemedicine for it, revealing an incredibly inconsistent life ethic.

If he believes in sustaining life, he should stop supporting those who steal it.

He should close the abortion centers and promote life-sustaining options to women facing difficult pregnancies.

And he should not hold health care hostage to the powerful, profitable abortion lobby.

🔊 Play By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director

A Philadelphia abortion facility has failed to ensure parental consent for some abortions, a clear violation of the long-standing Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act.

PA Health Department inspectors found that, in half of the ten pediatric medical records reviewed, the Philadelphia Women’s Center neglected to obtain parents’ permission before administering chemical abortions.

The RU-486 abortions took place in February, May, June, July, and November of last year, without the parental oversight required by state law.

The health inspection report states that a “request was made…on February 12, 2020, for a policy that addressed parental consent for medications that are included in the termination of a pregnancy for pediatric patients. None was provided.”

In case after case, the health department documents that “there was no parental or legal guardian consent” for the use of Mifepristone and Misoprostol, the drugs used in RU-486 abortions.

Lack of parental consent for abortions in Pennsylvania is egregious under any circumstances and violates a key provision of the 1989 Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act, which was the basis of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Other provisions of the landmark law include a 24-hour waiting period for abortions and informed consent, meaning that a woman must be told the risks of abortion and alternatives to abortion prior to an abortion taking place.

Ironically, the Health Department report also shows that the Philadelphia Women’s Center “failed to establish a patient safety committee, as required by the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act of 2002.”

In addition, Health Department inspectors found in February that the abortion center “failed to establish an infection control committee.”

Given the crisis ultimately created by the COVID-19 pandemic, this omission is all the more alarming—especially in Philadelphia, which is now considered a Coronavirus hot spot.

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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Photo by David Veksler on Unsplash

Right now we are united in a heroic effort to protect each other from an invisible, aggressive enemy. Choosing to exercise self-restraint and self-denial, we’ve adopted a new normal and together face an uncertain future. We are making sacrifices to protect the most vulnerable members of our society because we recognize their value and dignity.

How very beautiful.

And how very pro-life.

For decades, the pro-life movement has been protecting the weakest and most vulnerable from certain death by fighting a different pandemic, the widespread killing of preborn children.

Our current situation certainly calls for extraordinary measures, yet there is a tremendous and tragic irony at play here.  We’re taking unprecedented steps in an effort to save lives, but, in actuality, only some lives.

While businesses close, schools teach virtually, and life as we know it comes to a halt, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers remain open.

While we take severe measures to stop an invasive virus from claiming life, some medical practitioners invade the womb for just that purpose.

Covid-19 has claimed over 100 precious lives in the US thus far, but abortion claims the lives of almost 3000 precious babies every single day, with the death toll to date exceeding 61 million.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

At a time when we are all sacrificing for the good of the other, should we not re-consider the “other” we’ve been sacrificing in legalized abortion?

Isn’t it time to recognize their humanity, their value, their dignity? To unite as a country in protecting and providing for the weak and vulnerable on the other end of the life spectrum?

Our country is demonstrating that we have the capacity to change and adapt in the face of a life-threatening virus.  We can do the same for the virus that has infected our culture, turning mother against her own child. We can save the next generation.

Among them may be the one who finds the antidote to a highly contagious virus, preventing a deadly world-wide pandemic.

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

by Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

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Planned Parenthood is sounding the siren, alerting supporters in an email to the grave threat they face.

“… as the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the June Medical Services case, we’re faced with a terrifying possibility: that our rights could be gutted in a few short months.”

Hyperbole and half-truths.

This case is NOT about abortion “rights” or access. And it is not brought by women seeking abortions but by abortion centers seeking to maximize profits. Whether providers even have legal standing to file suit as a third party is itself questionable.

This IS a case about protecting the safety of women.

The abortion industry thrives on misinformation, doing everything it can to hoodwink supporters into believing that they truly care about women.

But they don’t.

If they did, they would provide medical care that meets standards required at any other out-patient surgical facility. They would employ qualified doctors who have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles, so that, if ever needed, emergency care could be sought.  They would recognize that abortion complications do happen and that they can be deadly to a woman.

The reality is that the abortion industry sets their bar for women’s health much lower than the bar for their profit margin.  Consequently, vulnerable young women, who’ve paid hundreds of dollars to entrust themselves to what is often an itinerant abortionist with whom they have no prior relationship, put their health and lives at risk.

According to a Wall Street Journal editorial, five abortionists at June Medical Services did not have hospital admitting privileges. When the Louisiana legislature passed a law to remedy that situation, one abortionist retired, three failed to make a good-faith effort to obtain privileges, and one was discovered to have had no medical school training to perform abortions.

Upholding the duty to protects its citizens, the state of Louisiana said women deserve better.  Like 14 other states, their legislature raised the bar on the abortion industry, acting to protect women from substandard care by requiring admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

And now the abortion industry is challenging that common-sense regulation at the Supreme Court, while its largest provider claims, “our rights could be gutted in a few short months.”

What “rights”?  The right to an untrained doctor? Or one who can’t earn admitting privileges to a hospital due to incompetence?  Or is too apathetic to even try?  The right to delayed treatment of a perforated uterus or a fetal arm left behind?

What about the rights of young women who surrender their babies and bodies to the hands and tools of the abortionist? Is any abortion, whether unsafe, unsterile, and unregulated, better than an abortion that holds the provider to a reasonable level of accountability?

If the abortion industry is unwilling to enact basic safety guidelines that protect women, hasn’t the back alley just simply moved to the front office?

Yes, Planned Parenthood is sounding the siren, but it’s certainly not the one meant to rescue a wounded woman from a botched abortion. It’s the one meant to rescue them from any regulation that might diminish their profits.

Press Release from the Office of the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Turzai

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Representative Kate Klunk and Speaker of the House Mike Turzai in April 2019 introduced the Down Syndrome Protection Act in Pennsylvania as House Bill 321. This bill prohibited the abortion of any child on the sole basis of a diagnosis of possible Down syndrome.  Representative Klunk and Speaker Turzai held a press conference in support of their bill on March 20, 2019.

During the 2017-18 Session, Speaker Turzai previously prime-sponsored the same legislation alongside then-Representative Judy Ward as House Bill 2050. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed HB2050 on April 16, 2018 with a bipartisan, veto-proof vote of 139-56. 115 Republicans and 24 Democrats voted to protect those unborn children with Down syndrome. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to bring the bill forward for a vote in the prior session.

Representative Klunk and Speaker Turzai were determined to get the Down Syndrome Protection Act to the Governor’s desk this 2019-20 session. The state House of Representatives passed House Bill 321 on May 14, 2019 with a bipartisan vote of 117-76. 102 Republicans and 15 Democrats voted to protect these vulnerable unborn children. On November 20, 2019, the state Senate passed HB 321 by a vote of 27-22, with 25 Republicans in support, as well as one Democrat and one Independent.

Governor Wolf, however, issued a veto on November 21, 2019, depriving these unborn children in Pennsylvania of protection against abortion. The Governor’s veto underscores the importance of electing pro-life candidates at every level of government.

Currently, five states have enacted legislation prohibiting abortion based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome, including Indiana and Louisiana in 2016, Ohio and North Dakota in 2017, and Kentucky in 2019. Statues like the Down Syndrome Protection Act allow state legislators across the country to challenge Roe v. Wade’s U.S. Supreme Court Ruling.

Dr. Karen Gaffney, an advocate in support of the bill last session and public speaker with Down syndrome, visited our Capitol to emphasize the urgent need to ban the eugenic practice of eradicating Down syndrome through abortion, as Iceland has been promoting:

“Those of us with Down syndrome and our families face a very difficult future,” Dr. Gaffney said, “We face the possibility of wiping out all of the tremendous progress we have made. Just as we are making so much progress, a whole industry has grown up focused on prenatal screening – screening that would end our lives before we take our fist breath. Now that you can test for Down syndrome before birth, there are many ‘experts’ in the medical community that say this extra chromosome we carry around is not compatible with life. Not compatible with life? After everything we have done, I would say we are more than compatible. We are what life is all about. Our lives are worth living and our lives are worth learning about.”

Dr. Gaffney and many other individuals with Down syndrome are thriving.  We must work to change hearts and minds so that someday soon Pennsylvania can protect all the unborn.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                       CONTACT: MARIA V. GALLAGHER PPLF February 7, 2020                         717-541-0034  gallagher@paprolife.org   

Gov. Tom Wolf                                                             

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HARRISBURG, Pa. – Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s proposed budget includes a line item that may represent a pipeline to the abortion industry.

            The line item in the Department of Human Services budget calls for $3 million for “Access to Reproductive Health Care.”

            The description of the line item is vague, but lawmakers question whether the grant represents a gift to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion operation.

            “The Governor appears to be trying to sneak in funding for an organization that performs and promotes the taking of innocent human life. This is appalling,” said Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, an affiliate of National Right to Life.

            “The policy of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is to promote childbirth over abortion. How can we trust that Pennsylvanians’ hard-earned tax dollars will be protected from abortion?” Gallagher added.

            “Public opinion polls consistently show that Americans do not want tax dollars to be spent on organizations that perform abortion. We call on the state legislature to ensure that Pennsylvania taxpayer funds are protected from the abortion industry,” said Gallagher.    

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The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation is a grassroots right-to-life organization with members statewide.  As the state affiliate of National Right to Life, 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.

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By Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

Two red lines. She began to sink into a sea of panic. Fear blinded her to any other option.

She called the clinic, but no physician would see her in person. Rather, she was given a Telemed appointment with a doctor via computer.

Within an hour, two pills were ready, a “lifeline” amidst the waves that tossed her about.

No one will ever have to know. It’s early, just a clump of tissue. This is safe.  This is easy. This will give me my future back.

She believed all that.  She wanted to believe all that.  Reality said otherwise.

The excruciating cramping induced tears to rain down her face. The bleeding seemed interminable, weakening her until all she could do was lay on the cold, tiled floor.

For weeks, not days, the agony lasted. She was never more alone.

No one had told her.

No one told her that the “tissue” she’d pass would have a tiny nose and upper lip.

No one explained she’d deliver a tiny fragile human into a toilet, an image she could never unsee.

She was further along than suspected.  But a doctor never examined her. He simply prescribed the abortion drug via computer.

Who is she?

She is any woman in crisis who turns to the abortion industry. A daughter, a sister, a wife, a friend. And she is in danger.

As more surgical facilities close, chemical abortions steadily rise, ensuring the strong profit margin of the abortion industry.  Profit at the expense of desperate young women who’ve received little information, even less counseling, and no examination.

Three abortion facilities in Pennsylvania have applied for telemedicine status, one of which failed its recent inspection.

Abortions are not sinus infections. Antibiotics are not equivalent to drugs that kill and expel a fetus. And put a woman’s life at risk.

With no physical examination, an ectopic pregnancy goes undetected. So do twins.  So does any undiagnosed medical condition that could endanger her life.

Had she gone to a Pregnancy Resource Center, someone would have held her hand, wiped her tears, given her options, offered her hope. She would have been told about the Abortion Pill Reversal. Her child might be alive today. She could live at peace with her decision.

But the ease of a Telemed abortion, the temptation to hide a secret, the myth that this would be easy and even “good” for her, all these coalesced into an irreversible decision rooted in fear. A tragic decision.

This is the next “generation” of abortion that not only kills the next generation, but threatens the present one.

Please take action today. If we don’t, blood will be on all our hands.

Legislative alert: Call your PA state Senator today to urge them to support the House Amended Version of the Telemedicine Bill 857 which would prohibit Telemed Abortions. Find your legislator here.

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By Bonnie Finnerty, Education Director

Good writing should illumine truth.  That was my goal in writing a recent op-ed on abortion. Its publication elicited a response from a retired professor that unfortunately clouds the issue with flawed logic and a denial of known scientific facts.  For the sake of clarity and in pursuit of truth, let’s look at his claims.

Writing that a zygote is a form of life that “has the POTENTIAL to become one (or more) humans”, the professor asserts that a zygote is “certainly not a person, any more than an acorn is an oak tree.” He later likens a zygote to a gnat.

This common argument confuses potentiality and actuality. So let’s clarify. An acorn is actually the same species as an oak tree, but simply in an earlier stage of the life cycle. This is true of a zygote who, created of human parents and bearing human DNA, actually belongs to the human species.

So what is the difference between an acorn and oak tree, or a zygote and adult?  Age.  An acorn is not an oak tree in the same way a toddler is not a teenager. But an acorn is a potential oak tree in the same way that a zygote is a potential adult.

One cannot say that a zygote is not human. Nor can we say that an adult is more human than a fetus because of age.

In fact, the word “fetus” comes from the Latin for offspring.  Can two human beings create offspring that is anything other than human?

But there’s more erroneous reasoning. The professor asserts that preborn children, even if human, are not persons, stating, “As the embryo/fetus develops, it comes ever closer to becoming a person.”

Using the pronoun “it” is a typical tactic to dehumanize the preborn baby boy or girl, although gender has already been determined. So how do we define personhood?

Miriam Webster defines person as “human, individual” and defines individual as “existing as a distinct entity.” Is the zygote a distinct entity?

At conception, a combination of DNA occurs that is unique and unrepeatable, forming a person that has never existed before and never will again.  Genetically differentiated from the mother, the zygote exists as a distinct entity, not just part of the mother like a leg or kidney. The mother does not have two hearts, two brains, or four arms.   A distinct individual human person exists within her.  That’s not a religious claim, that’s scientific fact.

And this science makes arguments for bodily autonomy fall flat, for when the humanity of the preborn is recognized, we acknowledge just what we are destroying, a smaller, younger, more vulnerable us. We were once they.

While the professor makes several other equally fallacious claims, curiously he admits, “No one is FOR abortion.”

I wonder why, if all we are killing is a “gnat.”

Perhaps, deep down, even the professor doesn’t believe his own flawed logic. Nor should anyone else.

🔊 Play By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

 As we approach the 47^th anniversary of the tragic U.S. Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, some may be wondering why we persist to try to protect every human life, from conception to natural death. Wouldn’t it be better, these individuals say, to just draw a line at abortions after the first trimester of pregnancy?

In fact, some people wrongly believe that Roe itself bans abortions after 12 weeks gestation. But when Roe is considered with its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, the ruling actually allows for abortions for any reason or no reason during all nine months of pregnancy. That is how we have ended up with states such as New York passing bills lifting all restrictions on abortion.

There is no doubt that second and third trimester abortions are especially heinous, given what we know about the development of the preborn child. But every abortion ends an innocent, irreplaceable human life.

If we were to pass a law banning abortions after the first trimester in most of the states, chances are that that would effectively end the national dialogue on abortion. We would be closing the door to future abortion restrictions.

What’s more, the majority of preborn babies would not be protected, since most abortions occur in the first trimester. For instance, in Pennsylvania, of the 30,364 abortions which occurred in the Commonwealth in 2018, 26,404 occurred at less than 13 weeks gestation.

Imagine passing a law against abortion—and still, 26,404 children would lose their precious lives!

It is true that the pro-life movement has been successful in an incremental, or step by step, approach to restricting abortion. For instance, laws requiring informed consent, parental consent, and 24-hour-waiting periods have decreased in abortions. In Pennsylvania, the Abortion Control Act, which contained such restrictions, succeeded in cutting the abortion rate in half.

Our goal as a pro-life movement is not to end abortions after the first trimester. Our goal is to ensure that each individual child is welcomed in life and protected under the law. When it comes to common ground or consensus, the point of agreement we should be aiming for is to help people see the humanity of the preborn child at all its stages of development. We should also work to assist people to understand the vast help and resources that are available to pregnant women in difficult circumstances.

Helping all preborn children and helping all pregnant women—that’s where our consensus should lie.