Tag Archives: Abortion

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

In her memoir, This Will Only Hurt a Little, actress Busy Philipps reveals that she had an abortion when she was a teenager.

At the time of what would have been her baby’s due date, she went on a tour of Europe. She speaks of her feelings following the abortion:

“I still cried regularly in bed at night, sure not only that I had murdered a baby but that I was also going to hell. How would God ever forgive me? How would my own father? How would I?”

Whenever Busy visited a cathedral during her trip to Europe, she would “light a candle and pray for forgiveness. Pray for my baby. Pray that God would allow me to have beautiful children in the future.”

At the Vatican, she found herself looking into the eyes of Pope John Paul II. He “then took my cheeks in his hands and said something softly in Italian, I guess? A prayer for me.” She remembers that his eyes were soft, and “that he really had love for me.”

The exchange occurred on her due date.

Women who have had abortions need healing and hope. When they cry out to heaven, we must be ready to respond to their tears with compassion.

Sadly, from the rest of the book, it appears that she believes in keeping abortion legal. I pray that one day she will recognize that the state should protect women and children from going through what she and her baby underwent. Meanwhile, let us as pro-lifers always approach women who have had abortions with the tenderness of Pope John Paul II.

While driving into my office on day, I began to think of all the reasons that I love the pro-life movement. Although this is not an inclusive list, it does begin to express the gratitude I feel for this life-saving, life-changing movement:

1. It recognizes the intrinsic worth of the most vulnerable among us. It sees beyond appearances and stereotypes and attests to the value of the preborn, the infirm, and the elderly.

2. It is filled with young people. They give heart and hope to this incredible movement.

3. It is peopled with seasoned veterans, who enrich us with their wisdom and inspire us with their perseverance.

4. It is a movement of love. It is powered and sustained by a profound love for one’s fellow man and woman.

5. It is hopeful. It sees beyond the death and destruction of Roe v. Wade and envisions an America that is abortion-free.

6. It reaches out to women and men who have suffered from abortion. It is dedicated to the principle that individuals whose lives have been shattered by the scourge of abortion can find healing and hope.

7. It is peaceful, calling for a non-violent revolution of love.

8. It is inclusive, including people of all races and nationalities. It does not discriminate based on background or ethnicity.

9. It reaches out to the poorest among us–the preborn child.

10. It is compassionate, extending friendship to people in desperate circumstances and undergoing trying times.

The pro-life movement is truly one of America’s greatest treasures. I am thankful to all of you who make it so!

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

History shows that the pro-abortion movement was founded on lies.

The late Dr. Bernard Nathanson co-founded the pro-abortion lobbying group known as NARAL. He admitted:

“A truthful poll of opinion then would have found that most Americans were against permissive abortion. Yet within five years we had convinced the Supreme Court to issue the decision which legalized abortion throughout America in 1973 and produced virtual abortion on demand up to birth.”

He further stated that NARAL produced fictional polls to bring about the legalization of abortion:

“We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority.”

He also lied about the number of illegal abortions performed in the U.S. prior to the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in all fifty states.

“We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public.”

He also fabricated the number of deaths from illegal abortions:

“The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200 – 250 annually. The figure constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law.”

But Dr. Nathanson later testified to the truth by renouncing his pro-abortion advocacy and adopting a pro-life stance. He also served as a compelling witness to the deceitful origins of the pro-abortion movement–a movement which has led to the deaths of more than 60 million preborn children.   

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

I recently wrote an article about how there is so much “wrong” with the so-called “right” to abortion. A Twitter follower responded, “You are right but you have to start with the children.” I quite agree.

When I was in seventh grade, my astute teacher took our class down to the state Capitol to demonstrate against Roe v. Wade, the tragic U.S. Supreme Court decision which led to the killing of a million (sometimes more) preborn babies each year.

As I participated in my first pro-life event, I wondered, “Where are all the other people who should be protesting against this?”

I was not aware of the fact that, on the same bitterly cold day in January, masses of people descended on the nation’s Capitol for the annual March for Life. Nevertheless,  standing on the state Capitol grounds with my sign, I felt a powerful concern for unborn children everywhere, for our country, and for the movement I had just joined.

At the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, the National Right to Life affiliate where I work, we reach out to young people everyday through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. We give presentations to classes and hand out soft-touch fetal models to masses at the Creation Music Festival. We reach out to junior high and high school students with our annual essay and oratory contests. And we’ve reached more than 600,000 teens through our innovative partnership with the website TeenBreaks.com.

We know that, for the children and mothers of tomorrow to be saved from the tragedy of abortion, we need to reach out to young people today. The iGeneration is a critical link in the chain of hope crafted by the pro-life movement. The building blocks for a renewed culture of life rest in their hands.

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

In the wake of a tragedy, it is important to listen to the voices of the family members who have been left behind. That is why, at trials, victim statements are so powerful–they put into words the trauma and anguish of losing a family member to violence.

Abortion is such a tragedy. We cannot hear the silent screams of the babies who are killed in their mothers’ wombs. But we can pay attention to the testimony of mothers who have experienced the profound loss of a child to abortion.

The Silent No More Awareness Campaign (www.SilentNoMoreAwareness.org) gives voice to these courageous mothers. They underwent abortions, at times under heavy pressure. They have now come to regret those abortions, and they want to share their experiences with the world.

Take for instance Nicole from Illinois:”Immediately after, I sat there in recovery, crying and bawling. I had wanted to keep my baby, but I was so sick. However, I immediately regretted my decision, and I felt like a horrible mother. I should’ve fought my way through the pregnancy.”

Or Janet from California: “My sister took me the first time to a Planned Parenthood clinic, and it was wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, over and never discussed again. I didn’t dare bring up being upset about it. It wasn’t allowed.”

Or Sue from Oklahoma: “I really didn’t have a clue.  This was back in the 70’s when abortion wasn’t as widely publicized as it is today.  Back then we were still being told that it wasn’t a real baby, just a clump of cells. No one came to me and told me I was ending the life of a human being.  No one.”

Or Laura from Utah: “I cannot change what happened but I can share about it and speak out, in the hopes that perhaps one woman out there will make a different, wiser, better choice-–a life-giving rather than a life-taking choice. I pray that that will be the case!”

When I did a search of the Silent No More website, 2,331 records came up of women who wanted to speak out about their abortion regrets. Their tear-filled testimonies must not be ignored.

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

In these days of social media frenzy, when arguments break out on Facebook faster than you can press the “angry” icon, it’s important to keep in mind that rational discussions on the right to life are indeed possible.

In fact, we can learn a lot by considering the points made by Bishop Robert Barron in his recent book, which is a summary of talks he gave at the offices of Facebook and Google. While the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles’ book is entitled, Arguing Religion,the ideas he offers for argumentation can be applied to a non-religious context.

One example he uses is of a video that went viral. It is of a six-foot tall male, interviewing college students by posing a series of provocative questions: “What if I told you I was a woman? What if I told you that I felt I was a Chinese woman? What if I told you that I claim the identity of a six-foot-five-inch Chinese woman?”

As Barron writes, the students “all agreed that they would be fine with that description if that’s what he truly felt he was.”

He points out that the interviewees “are in the grips of a deeply distorting ideology” that distances them “from reality.”

A similar argument could be used to characterize those who support legal abortion. They deny the reality that a living being with separate DNA from the mother lives in the mother’s womb. They deny the fact that the words “right to an abortion” appear nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. And they routinely ignore the cries of women who say they have been deeply harmed by their abortions.

A case in point which Barron specifically references is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which failed to overturn Roe. The decision curiously stated, “It belongs to the nature of liberty to determine the meaning of life, of existence, of the universe.”

This is clearly wrong. My freedom does not determine your existence. You exist independently apart from me, and you were a separate being from your mother from the time of your conception.

On facts alone, the pro-life side wins!

By Maria V. Gallagher, Legislative Director

We as Americans take our rights very seriously. The right to free speech. The right to freedom of religion. The right to peaceable assembly.

But there is so much wrong with the so-called “right” to an abortion.

To begin with, each abortion ends an innocent, unrepeatable human life. It is an act of killing a defenseless human being. There is nothing right, and everything wrong, with that.

In addition, the image of a woman freely and independently exercising a “right” to abortion is deeply flawed. Research shows that, much of the time, women are pressured into abortion by a boyfriend, husband, parent, or even a grandparent. In other words, they are making a choice they don’t want. A study also indicated that the vast majority of women who experience difficulties after abortion would have chosen life if just one person had supported it–just one!

The so-called “right” to abortion also completely ignores the rights of fathers. Under Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion, a father’s right to defend the life of his child is stolen away. How many men are suffering in silence today, grieving the loss of a child they very much wanted?

Our society has suffered greatly from the loss of the more than 60 million preborn children who have died under Roe. We’ve lost doctors and diplomats, social studies teachers and scientists, and all manner of other professionals from legalized abortion.

A so-called “right” to abortion appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. It was invented by a group of men on the U.S. Supreme Court who did not have access to the 4D Ultrasound we have today–technology which clearly shows the development of the preborn child.

For the sake of our nation and our posterity, the so-called “right” to an abortion cannot stand. It will fall under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

               Since the beginning of September when the hearings to confirm now Justice Brett Kavanaugh began, pro-abortion activists have been in hysterics.  Paid pro-abortion protesters have been disrupting public meetings and trying to interrupt Senate proceedings.  Worse, they’re not done yet.  Congressman Jerrold Nadler, who is in line to head up the House Judiciary committee if the Democrats win a majority in the US House of Representatives, plans an investigation into Justice Kavanaugh if he becomes Chair of the Judiciary Committee.

The actions of the pro-abortion crowd stand in stark contrast to the love and quiet strength shown by pro-lifers.  We are in the midst of the fall Forty Days for Life Campaign during which prolifers hold vigils outside pregnancy centers. They take a peaceful, prayerful approach to sharing the truth about abortion.  This past weekend was Life-Chain Sunday during which dozens of life chain events were held across Pennsylvania (and hundreds all over the country).  At these events pro-lifers silently stood together in solidarity, praying for the end to the horrors of abortion.

While the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh was a huge victory, there’s much work left to do to end legal abortion.  Consider participating in a Forty Days for Life vigil or joining your local chapter of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation and standing in solidarity with the pro-life community against the horrors of abortion. You can lovingly support those who are facing an unexpected pregnancy and remind them that there is always a reason to choose life.