Author Archives: LEC

Family & ProLife News Briefs – March 2023 Newsletter

Life Choices

Fallout from 50 Years of Roe

  • We were told before Roe that with legal abortion, every child would be wanted and therefore child abuse would decline. But child abuse has skyrocketed since Roe. Saint Mother Teresa said: “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell others not to kill one another?”
  • Abortion pills are marketed as safe. But the emotional and physical ramifications will be horrendous, as documented in other nations that have used these pills.
  • Abortion has undermined the Hippocratic Oath that physicians “do no harm.” Our nation now has a scene of devastation with 64 million unborn babies dead.
  • Millions of mothers have participated in the destruction of their own preborn babies. Some have been hardened in their hearts, other have felt terrible regret. [Christian Action News, 3/23]

Child Predators Make TikTok ‘Every Parent’s Nightmare’

This was the headline of a report in the Wall Street Journal (2/16/23) in which law-enforcement officials found that the platform has become a danger zone. Pre-teens and teens “spend more time there each day than on any other social-media platform. Billions of videos are uploaded to the site each month, many starring young people singing, dancing and talking about their personal lives.” Nothing prevents young users from falsifying their birth dates when registering, so they can get access to the full platform including private talk messages with others. Investigators have found many adult males follow children’s postings.

Abortion Pill Can Be Reversed

Nationwide chemical abortions account for more than 50% of all abortions. The method involves two steps: the first abortifacient drug (mifepristone or RU- 486) is given at the clinic or taken at home, killing or weakening the baby. The second, misoprostol, is taken usually at home 24-48 hours later, to expel the baby. But the first drug doesn’t always end the baby’s life.

The hearts of some women may change during the 24-48 hour period. They may profoundly regret taking
the first abortion pill. An Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) protocol is supported by the Amer. Assoc. of Pro-Life
Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Reversal can occur with multiple doses of natural hormone progesterone. To date over 4,000 babies have been born following use of the APR protocol. There are over 350 doctors & 40 pregnancy medical centers that offer APR. Any woman questioning her decision to terminate her baby’s life after taking the first pill should consult a physician immediately at the APR Hotline: 877-558-0333. [Nat. Right to Life, The State of Abortion in the U.S., 1/2023]

To Help Women Make An Actual Choice

When a woman finds the Sisters of Life, they don’t tell her not to have an abortion. They love her back into life and make an actual choice possible. The Sisters say that many young adult women have never had a birthday party thrown for them. Birthdays are a priority for the Sisters. If you don’t know your life is special, how are
you ever going to make room for another life?

Visiting one of their convents on any given day often will involve bumping into women who were long ago pregnant and now are picking up supplies or human support. The Sisters help with housing and job skills &
immigration applications. They are mothers to mothers, free to be self- sacrificial love to women who maybe never before saw what that looks like.

Now the Associated Press instructs writers to make clear that ministries and other places that provide pro-life pregnancy support must be labeled “anti-abortion counseling centers” to describe what many of us typically call pregnancy-resource centers or crisis-pregnancy centers. Yes, they exist to provide alternatives to abortion — parenting or choosing adoption. These places help facilitate actual choice. And women are free to leave and have an abortion.

Avail (NYC), Aid for Women (Chicago), Bella (Denver), Birth Choice (Dallas), Mary’s Shelter (Virginia), Mother Teresa Home (Buffalo), Good Counsel Homes (NJ & NY) are just a few examples of centers and networks that help and house and love women and their children for life. I have no objection to you knowing that the people who run these beacons of light in a culture of death are opposed to abortion. But AP’s description is as inaccurate as it is limiting. These resources save lives and not just of unborn children. [Kathryn Jean Lopez, Our Sunday Visitor, 2/19/2023]


In a Jan. 31 video, Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of
Winona-Rochester, Minn., reacted to a new state abortion law
that has been called “the most extreme bill in the country”: I
don’t know why abortion is really debated anymore in our
country, but this strikes me as just the worst kind of
barbarism. And in the name of, I don’t know, subjectivity,
and freedom, and choice and all this, we’re accepting this
kind of brutality.”


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Pop Singer Confesses Abortion Regret

Kaya Jones, a former singer for the Pussycat Dolls, said her past abortions still haunt her to this day. As someone with a public platform, she spoke out on Fox News, explaining “how she had her first abortion as a teen when her birth control medication failed.”

We’ve been saying for years that birth-control methods sometimes fail. When they do, women are set up for abortion. Contraception and abortion are fruits of the same tree. “The former singer also argued that abortion led to a breakdown in respect between men and women in the culture. What you’re showing men is that you
don’t value yourself or your seed or their seed, and in return they don’t value us as women because we’re willing to do these things to ourselves and to our children. Even if I become a mother tomorrow and happily married and all is well, I’m still going to regret the three children that I did not have.”

Millions of people have been harmed by the perverse dogmas of the sexual revolution – children of divorce; refugees from the hook-up culture and the LGBT subculture; people who regret their years of cohabitation; and women who regret their abortions. The Ruth Institute is one organization that helps victims of the sexual revolution recover from their experiences and become advocates for positive change. [Jennifer Roback Morse © 2023 EWTN News, Inc. Excerpt with permission from the National Catholic Register – www.ncregister.com]

During Lent, Devote an Hour a Week

During Lent, Devote an Hour a Week 40 Days for Life is an internationally coordinated 40-day campaign that aims to end abortion locally through prayer and fasting, community outreach, and a peaceful all-day vigil in front of abortion businesses.

The visible, public centerpiece of 40 Days for Life is a focused, 40-day, non-stop, round-the-clock prayer
vigil outside a single Planned Parenthood center or other abortion facility in your community. It is a peaceful and educational presence. Those who are called to stand witness during this 24-hour-a-day presence send a powerful message to the community about the tragic reality of abortion. It also serves as a call to repentance for those who work at the abortion center and those who patronize the facility. To find a local campaign near you, look up locations at https://www.40daysforlife.com/

Nazi Holocaust and Life

In Richard Hurowitz’s book In the Garden of the Righteous, we learn of many heroic acts of people who were not Jewish but willing to risk all to help save Jews from the Holocaust. The ten rescuers featured in the book were honored at Israel’s Holocaust memorial with the title Righteous Among the Nations. Religious belief and concern for humanity motivated them to act rather than stand by, as many others did, in silent complicity. The rescuers all shared the belief that every human being deserves respect. Similar arguments are made today by pro-lifers to end abortion and assisted suicide. Every human life from conception to natural death deserves respect and dignity as children of God.

Apply for Pro-Life Internship

“Before This Summer, I Never Even Considered Doing Pro-Life Work, Much Less Making It A Career. Now, Defending The Preborn Is What I Feel Called To Do With My Life.” Heidi Whaley 2020 Intern

Dear Student:

Tired of putting your heart and hard work into pro-life efforts that go largely ignored? Want to do something that ends abortion instead of just fighting it? Not sure how to be effective? CBR may be just the place for you! Our Summer 2023 Intern Program is from May 21 to August 11 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Final application deadline is March 29, 2023. (Must be 18 or older by May 21, 2023) to apply. Successful applicants will be notified of acceptance into the program by April 3rd. Visit: https://AbortionNo.org/intern

Hiding Students’ Decisions from Parents

USAID, which serves as the “world’s premier international development agency,” recently released a guide that promotes ways of integrating people who identify as LGBTQ into the American education system. The ninth principle has provoked a negative reaction from parents as it states education systems should “protect students’ privacy.”

This means that USAID is working to ensure that students have the ability and right to, as the agency says, “hide their sexual orientation or gender identity from family and close friends.” Students would not only be
encouraged to keep their “sexual orientation” to themselves, but intentionally hide it from the people they
are most connected to. “American parents are fighting every day against this outrageous principle that teachers know a child better than their parents,” said co-founders of Moms for Liberty Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich. [USAID Encourages Students to ‘Hide Their Sexual Identity’ from Parents, Abigail Olsson, The Washington Stand, 2/4/23]


This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

Changing Hearts, Minds and Lives – February 2023 Newsletter

Issues We Face

Highlights from Fall 2022 issue of Human Life Review (www.humanlifereview.com):

  • Vicki Thorn was the founder of Project Rachel in 1984 in her Milwaukee archdiocese to console and heal women mourning their aborted children, a process that could take years for some. Today, Project Rachel is a nationwide ministry of the Catholic Church. Vicki, who died in 2022, is a hero to countless women (and men) who have repaired abortion-damaged lives
  • Christopher Reeve (film’s Superman) and Michael J. Fox both promoted embryonic stem cell research, which has had little to show for its promises. A Nobel Prize-winning
    discovery revealed that adult stem cells could be used in place of stem cells from human embryos that are killed. “Healing born bodies need not be done at the expense of unborn human lives.”
  • Regarding gender reassignment surgery: “If our pet dog leaped from our second-story window under the delusion it was a bird, we would not benignly endorse its choice of identity … Why don’t we react to our fellow deluded humans with similar seriousness?”
  • Murchison, in “Farewell Roe,” says: “We seem as a nation, as a people, to desire a little of this and a little of that: not wholesale permission to abort and not a wholesale prohibition either.” States can now each make their own policies. “But in a moral debate, you need moral premises.” A vote or referendum won’t get the job done. “A multitude of women, over the past half-century, have grown accustomed, thank you, to the opportunities of deciding this or that ….” But at the same time, “moral codes binding on persons of both sexes have eroded.” Hence, it is okay, even a “right,” to abort a developing human being. “The pro-life cause in the 21st century consists in continuing, against hardship and rebuke to proclaim the moral worthiness of life yet unborn. We are not there, when it comes to abortion, nor anyplace close. Not yet.”

That is what the pro-life movement is about. We are not simply anti-abortion as we are so often painted to be. We are pro-life, pro the mystery of life, pro the wonder of life, pro the joy of life. And we are impelled to share this message with everyone. We need to bring the Gospel of Life
to the heart of every man and women and to make it penetrate every part of society.
John Cardinal O’Connor (1920-2000)


Caregiving is Pro-Life

The encyclical Gospel of Life recognizes the full range
of threats against human life… war, poverty, life….
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was
thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you
welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and
you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
Matthew 25:34-36

How do you feed the hungry? You shop for your mother and stock her cupboard with nutritious food, take her out to lunch, or cook for her. You visit her in the nursing home, sit with her and her friends in the dining room, assisting those who need help by cutting their meat or spoon-feeding the weak.

How do you help the thirsty? You take your father out for a cup of coffee at his favorite coffee shop or split a beer with him while you watch Sunday football together. You give him ice chips to relieve the awful dryness, and swab his mouth when he cannot swallow.

You welcome a stranger by visiting with your beloved aunt who has forgotten who she is and who you are, reintroducing yourself every time. You clothe the naked when you do your uncle’s laundry. You care for the sick every time you accompany your mom to visit the doctor, bathe her feverish head, hold her in your arms to comfort her, change her diaper, and in a hundred other
gentle ways. You visit the imprisoned when he is a shut-in, unable to go where he wants to go. You keep him company and play Rummy or Checkers to pass the long hours.

You may not be able to add days to the life of a loved one, but you can add life to their days. [The Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization (halovoice.org)]

Take a Pill, Kill a Baby

After consulting with a doctor who is not pro-life, a woman can be prescribed chemical abortion, that is, abortion by two pills, which now accounts for more than 50% of all abortions in the USA. New York is now an official “sanctuary state” for abortion, offering abortion pills free to anyone. New Jersey Governor Murphy is also pushing this, as are several other states. Walgreens, CVS & Rite Aide will provide them over the counter.

Such pills put a woman at serious risk as they force her body to go into labor and expel the baby. The abortion is done in her home, in her bathroom, and sadly she will witness all that happens there. These pills can only be taken within the first 10 weeks after conception but no ultrasound is required before they are given. Because women no longer have to take the first dose of the abortion pills in the presence of a physician, it is impossible to know no whether they actually take the drugs or not – or whether abortions are forced on them without their consent.

Imagine the fallout for women as they deliver their dead baby alone without any follow up. What about women who are past the 10-week period? Who will be there if they see the remains and how will they process that? What if there are complications? The Life Legal Defense Foundation is currently involved in two malpractice lawsuits involving young women who were seriously injured by abortion drugs. When taken in the second trimester, abortion pills can cause uterine rupture, excessive bleeding, and other life-threatening injuries.

Two studies have found that chemical abortions have four times the complication rate as surgical abortions. One study used comprehensive data from the California Medicaid program from 2009 to 2010. Another analyzed 42,000 Finnish women who obtained abortions between
2000 and 2006. Loosening the regulations on chemical abortions will only increase those risks. [Michael New, LifeNews.com, 1/13/23]

The 2023 label removes the requirements for pill dispensers to advise patients that, should they require emergency care after taking the drug, they ought to let the emergency department healthcare providers know that they are undergoing a medication abortion.

With the government’s elimination of common-sense restrictions on dispensing abortion drugs, data on abortion rates and complications are unreliable at best. According to the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute, only 28 states require abortionists to report post-abortion
complications. This is exactly what Planned Parenthood and other abortionists want: zero factual reporting, zero accountability. It is clear what the federal administration leadership really wants. Thankfully, a lawsuit has been filed against the FDA. One of the plaintiffs is the American Assoc. of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists


Motherhood must be treated as a great end and a great task
in itself. For with it is connected the mother’s work in giving
birth, in feeding, and in rearing. No one can take her place.
Nothing can take the place of the heart of a mother always
present. True respect for work brings with it a proper esteem
for motherhood. It cannot be otherwise. The moral health of
the whole of society depends on it.
Pope St. John Paul II


Actor Who Plays Jesus in The Chosen

“Today, we are under an assault on our sense of virtue, enduring an affront to the innate holiness that we are all called to, an attack on the family structure, and the sacredness of the gift of life.
As followers of Jesus, we are charged to be the standard bearers who defend & preserve
the dignity of every human, but especially the most vulnerable which begins with the initial
stages of life, and continues over life’s stages. You are here today for the noblest and worthiest of causes: to allow the unborn to enter into the world.” [March for Life 2023: speech of Jonathan
Roumie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYY2-wf-cl0]

Monetary Value of Marriage

Today, young Americans are delaying marriage while they wait for career success. Nearly 60% of them live together without the commitment of marriage. Yet cohabitating couples have only 25% of the net worth that married couples have in the same age group. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2019, for the ages 25-34.) It seems that the emotional commitment in the marriage vow is a driver of success. Marriage actually means “for richer for richer”; it is the unmarried couples who get the “for poorer” part. Plus, many other riches, in addition to money, come with marriage.

Those in successful marriages know that their bond with another person is far more important than any career goal. All of society suffers from instability when marriage rates drop. Maybe the hard reality of cold cash can reverse this troubling culture that undervalues the
beauty of marriage. [Anne Schlafly Cori, EagleForum.org, 11/13/22]

For High School Students

  • Students who will be entering their senior year of high school in the fall of 2023 are invited to apply for the 2023 summer program sessions. This will mark the 25th year of this wildly popular program, “The Best Week Ever,” which boasts close to 4,000 alumni since 1999. Each year, hundreds of high school students spend a week on campus, described as one of the best weeks of their lives, ranking it on average 4.8 out of 5. Applicants can choose any one of five weeks offered. This is the most popular, well-attended, highly-ranked pre-college summer program of its kind. Attendance is competitive, and with a waiting list each year, students should not delay applying at www.christendom.edu
  • Teens and college students displayed creative signs at January’s March for Life. “Human rights begin in the womb” was one; another quoted Dr. Seuss’s “Horton Hears a Who;” “Unborn Lives Matter” another. See all: https://www.lifenews.com/2023/01/20/28-of-the-best-m
    arch-for-life-signs/

Pornography Addiction

Plenty of bad stuff comes from our computer, smart phone or tablet. Any addiction to gambling, videogames or porn drives our brains to want more and with more intensity, causing us to ignore more important aspects of our lives such as work, family, school. Parents of students should be alert and make use of programs such as
Covenant Eyes (forwards screen shots to a designated accountability partner) or Accountable2You.


This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

US bishop: Biden, Pelosi serve ‘godless agendas’ of same-sex ‘marriage,’ abortion

Family & ProLife News Briefs – January 2023 Newsletter

New Year & New Start To Promote the Dignity of Human Life

Rally for Life – in D.C. or Home State?

Many supporters of human life again will be attending the national March for Life in Washington, DC, on Friday, January 20th. Especially positive are the ever-increasing numbers of high school and college students who enliven the whole day with their singing, praying and enthusiasm for the goal of respecting life from conception to natural death. Others arrive the day before and attend programs, galas and evening church services.

One notable program, Life Fest, is being sponsored by the Knights of Columbus and the Sisters of Life who invite everyone to attend a morning rally featuring dynamic speakers, music, Holy Mass, and more. Held at the D.C. Entertainment and Sports Arena, the program runs 7:30-10:30 am on Jan. 20th, right before the March for Life.. LifeFest2023.com asks: Why Life Fest? The answer: Because Every Human Person Is Made in God’s Image; Because Our World Is Crying out for Healing; Because Love Is the Answer.

Some state respect life groups are planning rallies for later in the year. For example, New Jersey is planning a Rally for Life on Saturday, June 24, 2023, 11 am – 1 pm, outside the State House Annex in Trenton to celebrate the anniversary of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

What Do Love & Marriage Mean Today?

For most people today, “marriage is about love.” The precise meaning of the word “love” is never spelled out too clearly, but most people seem to simply agree with President Barack Obama, who said that “love is love.” But this rejects thousands of years of wisdom about male-female relationships. Until very recently marriage was identified not as a sexual-romantic union dissolvable at will but as an subordination of feeling and “personal happiness” to the goal of a stable family for the raising of children. Today, both in no-fault divorce and in universal cohabitation, our society has clearly embraced the “love” union model, except ironically we now call it … marriage, out of cultural nostalgia or for the sake of respectability.

Our culture rejects that “marriage is between a man and a woman” when the dominant understanding rejects
as essential the possible bearing and raising of children (and thus sexual difference). But research indicates that both male and female parents serve best the welfare of children.

Today’s views reflect an inadequate understanding even of love itself. Ultimately, if one reflects deeply about the experience of love, one discovers what Servant of God Luigi Giussani called “the law of life”: Life is fulfilled only in making a complete, unconditional gift of self. This is what people really, though confusedly, seek in affective relationship. A love that can end is not a completely true love, because a gift that can be revoked is not a true gift.

This is the deeper reason why the bearing of children (at least as a possibility) is intrinsically part of the
definition of marriage, making it a “natural” institution rather than a mere legal fiction. The birth of a child can-
not be undone & literally “incarnates” the parents’ love.

Catholics need to keep advocating for public policies that support childbearing and reward parents who live with their children. But the more fundamental task is to give witness (in a society that has largely forgotten it) to the “great mystery” of the natural coming together of man and woman in a fruitful, indissoluble union. [excerpt from Carlo Lancellotti, Commentaries, 12/9/22]

Marriage & Divorce Declined in 2020

How did the pandemic affect existing marriages and relationships. While both marriage and divorce rates fell by double digits in 2020, a few more years of data are needed to determine the longer-term impact. 74% of married couples surveyed in late 2020 felt the pandemic strengthened their marriage, and 82% said it made them feel more committed.

Among singles, 74% are now looking to find a partner who wants to marry. This is the second year in a row where far more singles are eager for a committed long-term relationship compared with the prepandemic survey of 2019. Young people are much more inclined to focus on attributes that increase the odds of long-term relationship success. For years “physical attractiveness” has ranked among one of the topmost desirable attributes in a potential partner. This year, it has been knocked out of the top five most-desired traits. Instead, 92% of singles now rank “emotional maturity” & “comfortably communicating their needs & wants” among the most important traits. And the top attribute most singles are looking for is someone they can trust and confide in. This bodes well for longer, healthier relationships.

An important factor keeping marriages together is a strong desire to want the relationship to succeed. Just like most things in life, even in a relationship, if you really want it to work, you will pick the right priorities and make the right trade-offs to increase the odds of success. Also important are kindness and generosity—to yourself and your partner. [excerpted from Shar Dubey, Wall St. Journal, 12/15/22]

Adoption Fills a Mother’s Waiting Arms

As I hold my youngest baby in my arms, I am grateful for the choices his birth mother made that led him to
become a part of our family. I’m thankful for the radical hospitality she showed by carrying him for nine months and doing all she could to keep him healthy and safe. I’m thankful for the hours she spent poring over the profiles of waiting families and discerning which one she wanted her son to join. I’m especially thankful she chose us!

I’m thankful for the brave love shown by all my sons’ birth mothers and for all those women who choose life for their children. Being asked to be the mother of another woman’s child is the greatest gift I have ever received. If we can promote adoption as a good and empowering choice for mothers to make when they’re unable or unwilling to welcome a child, adoptions will certainly rise.

I pray that when faced with an unplanned, unwanted or crisis pregnancy, women will choose life for their babies
and see adoption as an empowering choice. I pray, too, that a waiting mother’s empty arms will soon be holding
a baby of her own.
[Excerpts from Leigh Snead, “Brave Love,” 12/18/22, © 2022 EWTN News, Inc. Reprinted with permission from the National Catholic Register – www.ncregister.com]

Hiding Truth Through Euphemism

For more than 50 years, pro-abortion activists have used euphemisms to hide the various horrible aspects of abortion. The Associated Press Stylebook sets the usage and grammatical format for hundreds of news agencies, laying out style and terms in an alphabetized book several hundred pages long. “Do not use the term ‘late-term abortion,’” the stylebook said in a December post on Twitter. “The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [ACOG] defines late term as 41 weeks through 41 weeks and 6 days of gestation, and abortion does not happen in this period.”

“This is absurd,” said LifeNews, a pro-life group. “When SCOTUS came up with three trimesters in 1973, late-term was understood to be post viability or the 3rd trimester. Redefining it to be the 6 days before term is not medicine; it’s propaganda designed to gloss over late-term abortions.” Another on Twitter said: “Is ‘Late-term abortion’ too aggressive a way to describe stabbing a viable unborn baby in the heart with a needle containing potassium chloride & delivering its lifeless corpse? The ghouls populating our elite class traffic in euphemism because they have nothing else.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote: “Partial-birth abortion is the term Congress has used to describe a procedure that crosses the line from abortion to infanticide. The doctor delivers a substantial portion of the living child outside his mother’s body — the entire head in a head-first delivery or the trunk past the navel in a feet-first delivery — then kills the child by crushing his skull or removing his brain by suction.”
[excerpt from Joseph Curl, DailyWire.com, 12/8/22]

I was staring at my phone, weeping.

[This is what Kate Bachelder Odell wrote in the Wall St. Journal (12/14/22) in reviewing a book on motherhood by Jessica Grose.]

“My second son, then 7 days old, had flunked his hearing screening at the hospital, and since then I’d been harassed via emails, texts and phone calls that he needed more testing and might be deaf. It would ultimately prove a false alarm, but I couldn’t know that as I stared down at my baby. My husband corralled everyone in this mass meltdown into bed. It would be unwise, he told me, to continue reading about cochlear implants on the internet.”

The demands, uncertainties and complex emotions that accompany the arrival of children can be intense and
overwhelming. Ms. Grose concedes that raising children is easier now than in the past. She also says today’s parenting is “uniquely difficult in the amount of information we get about what we’re supposed to be doing.” A clinical psychologist reports many of her clients cite social media as a source of their “anxiety, jealousy, shame, guilt.”

In a revealing remark, one psychology professor tells Ms. Grose that “being forced to stop or reduce working” during the pandemic “took an emotional toll on moms.” But women often divert time or attention away from paid labor when they have kids. For most, the relationship will be far more valuable later in life than the few years of marginal retirement contributions they’d gain from working while paying for expensive child care. Overwhelming moments arrive, then pass. What you can handle will expand; what overwhelms you now will soon be routine. Life will be suffused with far more focus, substance and meaning and less self- absorption. Children will prevent you from pursuing personal ambitions at all costs—and thank God for that guard rail.


Aside from just having a ministerial preference for the unborn,
we also serve the poor, the imprisoned, the marginalized, the
oppressed, the sick and the aged. Whatever we need to do to
uphold the image and likeness of God in humanity is what we
do. Deacon Kevin Cummings, Archdiocese of Kansas City,
KS, on the pro-life apostolate, Deacons of Hope, that he
started with Deacon Doug Hemke, Kansas City-St. Joseph
Diocese, Missouri.


This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

Mother of 13 and founder of ProLife Across America shares how men can help build a culture of life

Meet Mary Ann Kuharski on this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show.

Featured Image

 

(LifeSiteNews) — As the abortion movement threatens our communities and pushes the anti-life narrative worldwide, LifeSite remains committed to sharing the biggest voices and most influential leaders in the pro-life movement — with the most powerful yet in a brand-new episode of The John-Henry Westen Show. 

John-Henry Westen speaks with a mother of thirteen children, including six adopted children, Mary Ann Kuharski — founder of “ProLife Across America.” 

Kuharski’s remarkable pro-life experience comes from decades of building a culture of life through her own motherhood and her work for ProLife Across America. Her insights include: 

  • Exposing the sinfulness of contraceptives used even in marriage 
  • Raising children who can resist negative peer-pressure 
  • Overcoming the countless difficulties of parenthood  
  • The importance of faithfully raising one’s children  
  • Understanding the vocation of procreation 

Don’t miss out on this uniquely insightful interview on the spiritual significance and importance of motherhood from one of the most zealous pro-life advocates today — and on what other pro-lifers can learn from her wealth of experience as a mother, entrepreneur, and faithful Catholic.  

Kuharski also reveals the deep impact that husbands, fathers, and other men make to fight and win against the culture of death — building a culture of life for generations to come. 

“Men are natural providers and protectors. They want to help that woman,” she says.

LifeSite’s continued work at the forefront to protect life, faith, family, and freedom is now more important than ever. John-Henry’s interview with Mary Ann Kuharski is one you will not want to miss.  

 

 

Human Life Begins at… – December Newsletter

by Frank Tinari, Ph.D., Life Education Council Board of Trustees

Human Life Begins at…

 

Life: “This is rudimentary biology”

  •  “With the fusion of the sperm and the egg, a new human life begins. This is rudimentary biology — it has been settled science since the early 19th century. (Dr. Michael R. Egnor, prof. of neurosurgery & pediatrics, State Univ. of NY, Stony Brook, Evolution News, 2022)
  •  “At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and in its zygotic stage is one of form, not nature.” (American College of Pediatricians)
  •  “Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment.” (The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 5th ed., Moore & Persaud, 1993, Saunders, p. 1)
  •  “The new cell is a new combination of genetic material, resulting in an individual different from either parent and from anyone else in the world.” (Obstetric Nursing, 1980, p. 136, Sally B Olds)
  •  “Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. … The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote.” (Human Embryology & Teratology, 2nd ed., 1996, pp. 8, 29, Ronan O’Rahilly & Fabiola Miller)
  •  “Each human begins life as a combination of two cells, a female ovum and a much smaller male sperm. This tiny unit, no bigger than a period on this page, contains all the information needed to enable it to grow into the complex structure of the human body. The mother has only to provide nutrition and protection.” (Clark, J., ed., The Nervous System: Circuits of Communication in the Human Body, Torstar Books Inc., Toronto, 1985, p. 99) [excerpts from: 44 Quotes From Medical Textbooks Prove Human Life Begins at Conception, LifeNews.com, 11/1/22]

“Aside from just having a ministerial preference for the unborn, we also serve the poor, the imprisoned, the marginalized, the oppressed, the sick and the aged. Whatever we need to do to uphold the image and likeness of God in humanity is what we do.” Deacon Kevin Cummings, Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas


Former Abortion Director is Now Pro-Life

Reflecting upon his time with MSI, an abortion mill, Kevin Duffy describes how he “always knew that abortion involved taking a human life but I felt, at the time, confident in the belief that women would undergo abortions regardless, so it was better for these to take place in hygienic and safe conditions.” But when MSI began to promote self-managed DIY drugs, Mr Duffy felt deep concerns regarding the safety and well being of women. “Increasing numbers of women are presenting with incomplete abortions at facilities after self- administering abortion pills which they had bought in local drug shops.”

Mr. Duffy left MSI in March 2019. In 2020, the announcement that women in the UK could get abortion drugs through the mail prompted him to conduct a project which exposed the lack of safeguards and recklessness of the UK’s DIY home abortion scheme. 26 sets of calls were made, resulting in 26 packets of abortion drugs being sent out to women who essentially did not exist. Duffy said: “To think that after just two phone calls taking no more than an hour in total, a woman who doesn’t exist, is not pregnant, is not registered at the recorded GP surgery, who misleads the service provider about her medical history and her gestational age, even changes her gestational age mid-process, is able to obtain the abortion pills, a service for which the abortion provider is paid by the government. And they called this a fantastic advance in women’s healthcare.”

“Women are not being well served and are missing out on essential clinical assessments. They are left to manage the expulsions on their own at home—and with no follow-up care afterwards. This is a long, long way from the comprehensive, safe abortion care that the abortion industry claims to provide.” Mr Duffy became the
Executive Director of the largest UK pro-life group, saying: “I decided to put my knowledge and experience at the service of the pro-life movement. I am certain that the false narratives of the abortion industry which claim to ‘care about women’ can be defeated and a culture of life which truly cares about the well-being of women and safeguarding of human rights can be restored, so that one-day abortion will be rendered unthinkable.” [The
Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, UK, 11/25/22]

Abortion Rate Drops 20% Since 2010

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released abortion data for the year 2020. Even though there was an overall reduction in the incidence of abortion, abortions increased in 29 of the 47 states that reported data. Of concern is the large increase in chemical abortions. From 2019 to 2020, the number of chemical abortions increased by 17.9%. Overall, the share of all abortions that were chemical abortions rose from 43.7% to 53.4% during that period. Under the current federal administration, the FDA allows women to get a chemical-abortion drug with no personal medical exam. The U.S. abortion rate fell by more than 20% since 2010. Overall, pro-lifers have succeeded in reducing the abortion rate by approximately 50% since 1980. The long-term decline in the U.S. abortion rate is very solid evidence of the positive impact of pro-life service, educational and legislative activities. [Michael New, Ph.D., LifeNews.com, 11/28/22]


The problem with “the wise and the learned” is not that they’re educated but that they are trying to govern and run their own lives on their own terms rather than living in obedience to God, with an attitude of receptivity like a child.
Bishop Robert Barron, Daily Gospel Reflection, 11/29/2022


A French Pro-Marriage Campaign

The U.S. could learn from one French organization that promotes marriage. “Based on the father/mother/child relationship, the family structure favors the renewal of ages and the stability of society,” states the website of La Manif Pour Tous (Demonstration for
All). It argues that children are not commodities to be traded and that mothers and fathers contribute to the public good by the raising of their children. “The family is the fundamental foundation of any society: the source of its human, cultural and economic wealth; an eminent place of solidarity, dignity, freedom and love.”

Children are the future of a society. They are also society’s most vulnerable members. La Manif argues: “Because it requires parents to provide for the moral & material direction of the family as well as the education of the children and the preparation of their future, marriage also protects the fruit of their love.” Civil marriage, then, protects the defenseless, whether spouse or child. [Fr. Patrick Briscoe, Our Sunday Visitor, 12/4/22]

A Woman’s Value

Drawing on her experience on America’s Next Top Model and her work as a fashion model, Leah Darrow exposes the lies we are told about our worth being tied to our appearance. She invites us to look again at the real meaning of beauty. In her book, The Other Side of Beauty: Embracing God’s Vision for Love and True Worth, she shows how we can reclaim true and lasting beauty–the kind that doesn’t depend on self-doubt, exploitation, or comparison–when we reflect God’s glory and embrace our value as he made us to be: strong, brave, and free. She says: “Only when we learn to see ourselves as God does can we leave behind our culture’s definitions and demands and find lasting joy.” [https://www.leahdarrow.com/home]

LGBTQ + CNM?

LGBT activists privately hope to break having only two partners in a marriage, “to infect the straight world” with polyamory, and to “radically alter” or abolish marriage altogether. The practice, and advocacy, of non- monogamous “marriage” is one of the secrets buried in the LGBT movement’s closet. Kimberly Rhoten of the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition announced that non-monogamy is “as large as the LGBTQ population in the United States.” The LGBTQIA2S+ movement has announced the latest addition to its ever-growing acronym: CNM, which stands for Consensual Non-Monogamy, or open relationships of the variety common in the LGBT community.

LGBT extremists view same-sex marriage & polygamy as ways to redefine, and ultimately abolish, marriage. Activist Masha Gessen admitted that “It’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist.” Similarly, LGBT activist and journalist Michelangelo Signorile encouraged the LGBT movement to undermine “society’s moral codes” and “radically alter an archaic institution.” Christians’ argument that same-sex marriage will degrade the institution is coming to fruition.

Experts have long known two things: monogamous couples report higher levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction, due precisely to their exclusivity. “On a scale from 1 to 10 rating how crucial fidelity is to a successful marriage, young women’s average score was 9.8 and young men’s average was 9.7,” wrote Alan J. Hawkins of the National Marriage Project. Surveys consistently show that nine out of 10 Americans believe extramarital sexual relations are immoral. So how can social engineers break down widespread moral rejection of promiscuity? The same way they broke down public opposition to homo-sexuality: by declaring it is an inborn trait.

A stream of propaganda defining sexual preference fetishes as immutable traits has changed American morality. In 1972, 74% said “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” is “always wrong.” In 2018, 58% said such relations were “not wrong at all.” Similarly, the few Americans who view polygamy as “morally acceptable” has nearly quadrupled since 2006.

“The concept of sexual freedom is promotion of the acceptance of deviant sex” said Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth. Adopting an anything-goes sexual standard, and equating all relationships by labeling them “marriage,” is the next step toward abolishing the institution altogether, as same-sex marriage and polygamy advocates admit. [Ben Johnson, Same-Sex Marriage Advocates: Polygamy Is Next, The Washington Stand, 11/28/22]


This free monthly newsletter is used by dozens of churches as a bulletin insert, and since 2013 has had over 30,000 readers. To receive each month’s issue in your
inbox, email Frank Tinari, Ph.D. at tinarifr@shu.edu

Open Letter Concerning the Killing of “Baby Amanda”

On November 3, 2022, National Public Radio (NPR) aired the sounds of the killing of a Child through abortion.

The baby has been name Baby Amanda Marie, for the name Amanda means “she who ought to be loved.”

To those who were involved in this killing, and to any others aware of it, we wish to communicate the following:

First, to the mother of this Child:

Dear Mother,

We are with you, and God is with you. We are not here to condemn or punish you, but to express our love and care for you. We wish we could have helped you avoid abortion; and even now, we want to help you heal from its wound, as we have helped so many others.

We do not know precisely what motivated you to have this abortion, nor how aware you were of what precisely an abortion is, i.e., that it is the taking of the life of a real human being, the taking of the life of your very own Child, Dear Mother.  We know that the abortion industry preys on vulnerable women—women who are in difficult situations, experiencing confusion in their minds and fear in their hearts—and this evil industry wickedly presents abortion as the “solution” to the problems of such women, whereas abortion will do nothing but greatly increase the problems of such women.

Further, this industry intentionally keeps women in ignorance concerning the reality of the development of their children and what an abortion does to those children.  We suspect that you were one of these women.  Did those who killed your baby tell you that your baby, at 11 weeks, already had a beating heart, brain waves, fingers, toes, etc., etc., etc., that your baby was, well, a baby?  Did they tell you that?  We doubt it.  Did they tell you that the abortion suction machine would rip your baby apart—that this Precious Child would likely try to avoid the killing machine (as other babies have been seen to do on ultrasounds—but, to no avail: that, eventually, that death machine would pull apart your baby, that your child’s beating heart would stop beating, that your child’s limbs would be sucked apart, etc., and that, afterwards, these killers of your baby would need to “assemble” all the various parts of your Precious Baby’s body to make sure they “got it all”.  Did they tell you this, Dear Mother?   Had they done so, we highly doubt you would have gone through with this “procedure” which, as you can tell, from this description here (which is only a small part of the full and horrific description of abortion), is nothing less that the destruction of a real human being, your Precious Little One.

Dearest Mother, our hearts go out to you, our hearts weep for you, and your Child.  We know that you were already in a difficult place interiorly to even consider abortion and, now, having ended the life of your Child, you are most surely in an even darker, more difficult place (and, if you do not recognize that yet, dear Mother, in due time, if you are honest, you will realize that you are hurting, deeply hurting).  As many women who have had abortions have said, abortion does not merely hurt women, it destroys them.

But, Dearest Mother, there is hope: Jesus Christ is your hope.  He is loving, He is merciful, He is your Savior.  Simply repent of your sin against your Precious Little One (whom we have taken the liberty to honor with the name of “Amanda Marie”, for “Amanda” means “she who ought to be loved” and “Marie” is a beautiful form of the name of the Mother of God, the Mother of Jesus Christ).  Repent of your sin, Mother, and Christ will forgive you, as will your Little One, Baby Amanda.  We pray that, one day, in the next life, that you will be reunited with your Precious Little One in an eternity of joy; we pray that you can begin to experience this reconciliation with your Child even in this life, through repentance and a life of reparation.  Go to Jesus, receive the forgiveness that He offers through His Church (and the Sacraments of His Church), and then have hopeful confidence that, yes, one day, you WILL be with your Child again in an eternity of joy.  Amen.

To the abortionist and to the others who worked with him/her in murdering Baby Amanda,

Whereas we have good reason to believe that the mother of this Child (who, now, has a name, Baby Amanda) was largely ignorant of precisely what she was doing when she asked you for an abortion, we have little reason to believe that you were ignorant of the fact that abortion is murder.  For, you know full well the development of the Child, you know full well that abortion rips apart that Child, and, thus, you know full well that abortion is, in a word, murder, and murder of the worst kind: murder of the most innocent, defenseless, and precious human beings—little babies!—and before these Precious Little Ones can ever enjoy even the light of day!  Shame on you for murdering Baby Amanda!  We exhort you to repent of this brutal murder of a Precious Child in the womb, of Precious Baby Amanda, and that you go to Jesus Christ, begging for mercy. We exhort you to think about and picture Baby Amanda, and express your sorrow to her for taking her life!

We will pray for you, surely—for, our exhortations here are done, first, out of love for Baby Amanda, and a desire to vindicate this Child, but, also, out of love for you, that you be not lost, that you repent so as not to lose your own salvation, but instead, like many Saints of old, go from a life of sin to a life of holiness! Repent deeply in your heart for brutally murdering Precious Baby Amanda Marie (and for making a show of her death on the air, the death of a fellow human being and a baby at that!), as well as your part in the murders of any other children in the womb which you have committed, resolve now to no longer kill children, and then live a life of intense reparation.  Go to Jesus Christ and His Church, the Catholic Church, for the graces of forgiveness that you so desperately need.  We love you, and we pray for you, even if we are also, at the same time, extremely disgusted and angry at how you have treated Little Amanda (and so many others like her).

To the workers of NPR who aired the murder of Baby Amanda,

You missed something.

You say you described an abortion, but all we heard were some words about the mother and the machine.

Why didn’t you describe what was removed from this woman? What did the vacuum suction out of her?

At 11 weeks into pregnancy, the baby is 9 weeks old from fertilization. For comparison, the “Precious Feet” pins that  you often see pro-life people wearing represent a baby’s feet just a few days after this age. At 9 weeks, the baby is the size of a small tomato and just about every component of every body system is already present. The baby’s heart has already beat over 9 million times. At this age, the baby’s face, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet respond to light touch. The mouth opens and closes; the tongue moves. The baby can swallow amniotic fluid. This baby sighs, stretches, and moves his/her head. The baby has begun sucking her thumb, yawning, and grasping objects.

None of these facts are mentioned in the your report, including the fact that this entire body system is pulled apart by that vacuum and sucked down a plastic tube and into a collection jar.

Abortionist Harlan Raymond Giles was asked under oath, “Can the heart of a fetus or embryo still be beating during a suction curettage abortion as the fetus or embryo comes down the cannula? Answer: For a few seconds to a minute, yes.” (Sworn testimony given in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S)).

That isn’t mentioned in your story either.

And as for what the staff did at the end of the day, it wasn’t just paper and stocks that they had to deal with. They had to dispose of the body parts – the parts of every body system that you and I also have.

We have similar words to you as we do to the abortionist and those who worked with him/her to kill Little Amanda: shame on you, NPR, for airing the brutal murder of a Baby in the womb, shame on you for dishonoring Baby Amanda Marie by flaunting her death over the air!  May God have mercy on your soul!  Your actions were beyond disgraceful (and that you used taxpayers dollars for such an atrocity makes it even worse)!  On the Last Day, when Jesus Christ comes again, you will see not only Jesus Christ Himself, but this Little Child, whose murder, whose death you made light of, and you will need to face this Child, and answer to this Child why you made show of her unjust killing, of her murder.  We pray that before that day comes, you will embrace the gift of repentance and receive the merciful forgiveness of Christ, which he so wants to give you.

To the public who heard the abortion which killed Baby Amanda,

By now, you see that, in listening to the abortion that was aired on NPR, you heard the killing, the deliberate killing, the murder, of a real baby, Baby Amanda.  Sadly, Amanda is hardly alone: thousands of Children across the nation (and many more around the world) are murdered in the womb daily as she was   This is the issue.  Our hearts should break over any child abuse, even over one child.  Our hearts should break even more over the murder of even one child!  And this is done under cover of “law” (it is an unjust “law” so not real “law” anyway. In the abortion of Baby Amanda, we most grotesquely heard one of these murders: we heard the murder of a real, living Baby, who, sadly, is no longer with us because of what happened to her in that abortion: she was unjustly killed, she was murdered, by the abortionist who murdered her.  Realize the horror of every abortion, realize the horror of this abortion, of the killing of Baby Amanda, honor her in your hearts, and then do all you can to end this most horrible of atrocities, legalized abortion.

In Christ and Mary,

(Signers of this statement).

To sign this open letter, please click on the following link: https://www.priestsforlife.org/babyamanda/openletter.aspx

Priests for Life to host day of mourning for baby whose abortion death was played on NPR

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(LifeSiteNews) — In response to the National Public Radio (NPR)’s recent airing of an abortion on live radio, a Catholic organization has called for pro-lifers to observe a day of prayer to honor the unborn child lost during the murderous procedure.  

Following the inspiration of Father Alan Bernander, O. Praem, the organization Priests for Life is calling on pro-lifers everywhere to gather together on December 3 to observe a day of prayer, fasting, and penance in honor and mourning of the death of a child whose abortion death was recorded and broadcasted on the radio by NPR. The now-deceased child was christened as Amanda Marie – which means “she who ought to be loved” – by the group of priests.

“We have to honor the baby that this abortion – and this broadcast – dishonored,” Priests for Life wrote in its letter to pro-lifers. “We have to bring to the light of day [to] what this broadcast deliberately hid in the shadows. We have to remember what this broadcast tried to make us forget. We have to re-humanize what this abortion and this broadcast de-humanized.” 

“And we have to make a big deal of what this broadcast trivialized,” they added.  

Priests for Life also issued an open letter which pro-lifers can sign, addressed to the mother of Amanda Marie, the abortionist who performed the murder, the NPR broadcasters involved, and all those who heard the broadcast, condemning the murder and calling for repentance.  

“We are with you, and God is with you,” Priests for Life wrote to Amanda Marie’s mother. “We are not here to condemn or punish you, but to express our love and care for you. We wish we could have helped you avoid abortion; and even now, we want to help you heal from its wound, as we have helped so many others.” 

“Dearest Mother, our hearts go out to you, our hearts weep for you, and your Child.  We know that you were already in a difficult place interiorly to even consider abortion and, now, having ended the life of your Child, you are most surely in an even darker, more difficult place (and, if you do not recognize that yet, dear Mother, in due time, if you are honest, you will realize that you are hurting, deeply hurting).  As many women who have had abortions have said, abortion does not merely hurt women, it destroys them.” 

“Repent of your sin, Mother, and Christ will forgive you, as will your Little One, Baby Amanda,” they wrote. “We pray that, one day, in the next life, that you will be reunited with your Precious Little One in an eternity of joy; we pray that you can begin to experience this reconciliation with your Child even in this life, through repentance and a life of reparation. ”

“Go to Jesus, receive the forgiveness that He offers through His Church (and the Sacraments of His Church), and then have hopeful confidence that, yes, one day, you will be with your child again in an eternity of joy. Amen,” concluded the group.

While the Priests for Life expressed their compassion for the mother of Amanda Marie, the group did not shy away from the reality that the abortion industry “preys on vulnerable women— women who are in difficult situations, experiencing confusion in their minds and fear in their hearts.”

“For, you know full well the development of the Child, you know full well that abortion rips apart that Child, and, thus, you know full well that abortion is, in a word, murder, and murder of the worst kind: murder of the most innocent, defenseless, and precious human beings – little babies! – and before these Precious Little Ones can ever enjoy even the light of day!” they continued.  

“Shame on you for murdering Baby Amanda!  We exhort you to repent of this brutal murder of a Precious Child in the womb, of Precious Baby Amanda, and that you go to Jesus Christ, begging for mercy. We exhort you to think about and picture Baby Amanda, and express your sorrow to her for taking her life!” 

To the NPR broadcasters who aired the live abortion, Priests for Life said that they “missed something.”  

“You say you described an abortion, but all we heard were some words about the mother and the machine,” they wrote. “Why didn’t you describe what was removed from this woman? What did the vacuum suction out of her?” 

Continuing, Priests for Life said that NPR’s actions were “disgraceful,” adding, “Shame on you, NPR, for airing the brutal murder of a Baby in the womb, shame on you for dishonoring Baby Amanda Marie by flaunting her death over the air!

“On the Last Day, when Jesus Christ comes again, you will see not only Jesus Christ Himself, but this Little Child, whose murder, whose death you made light of, and you will need to face this Child, and answer to this Child why you made show of her unjust killing, of her murder,” charged the pro-life priests.

“We pray that before that day comes, you will embrace the gift of repentance and receive the merciful forgiveness of Christ, which he so wants to give you.”

In concluding their emotional letter, the priests addressed those who listened to the NPR broadcast.

“Our hearts should break over any child abuse, even over one child. Our hearts should break even more over the murder of even one child! And this is done under cover of ‘law’ (it is an unjust ‘law’ so not real ‘law’ anyway.)” 

The group then called upon the listeners to realize that every abortion is the murder of an innocent child, and thus, a horrific act:

In the abortion of Baby Amanda, we most grotesquely heard one of these murders: we heard the murder of a real, living Baby, who, sadly, is no longer with us because of what happened to her in that abortion: she was unjustly killed, she was murdered, by the abortionist who murdered her.

Realize the horror of every abortion, realize the horror of this abortion, of the killing of Baby Amanda, honor her in your hearts, and then do all you can to end this most horrible of atrocities, legalized abortion.

 

New Jersey Democrats Scrap Amendment for Right to Kill Babies in Abortions Up to Birth

New Jersey Democrat leaders officially threw out plans for a pro-abortion state constitutional amendment over the weekend in response to division among party lawmakers and financial concerns from prominent pro-abortion groups.

Lawmakers did not make the details of the proposed amendment public, but the New Jersey Globe described it as an attempt to “enshrine abortion as a basic human right” in the New Jersey Constitution.

According to the report, state Democrat leaders wanted to put the amendment on the November 2023 election ballot for voters’ approval. To amend the constitution, the language must pass the legislature by a simple majority in two consecutive sessions and then receive approval from a majority of voters.

However, the plan received wide-spread push-back from both sides of the abortion debate and the political aisle. On Sunday, Senate President Nicholas Scutari and Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz said they decided to scrap the plan, North Jersey.com reports.

“Although we strongly considered a proposal to amend the Constitution within the next year to further strengthen protections, after many conversations with stakeholders, we have decided that now is not the appropriate time,” the Democrat leaders said in a joint statement.

State Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin specifically mentioned Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union in his statement about canceling the proposed amendment.

“While we were open to advancing a new ballot question on reproductive rights before the end of the year, advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have asked us to hold off for the time being, particularly with battles occurring in other states where reproductive rights are at immediate risk,” Coughlin said.

New Jersey already has some of the most extreme pro-abortion laws in the U.S. Killing unborn babies is legal for basically any reason without restriction, and the state Supreme Court is favorable toward abortion.

Because of the situation and the financial costs of convincing voters to support a pro-abortion constitutional amendment, Planned Parenthood of New Jersey leaders urged lawmakers to delay action, the New Jersey Globe reports.

Jackie Cornell, executive director of the abortion chain, said they do not want to spend “tens of millions of dollars” next year trying to pass the amendment. Instead, they plan to lobby the legislature to send more money to the abortion industry.

“We will continue to advocate for strengthening access to reproductive health care, including abortion, by breaking down barriers to getting care and making meaningful financial investments into providing care,” Cornell said.

According to NorthJersey.com, one of abortion advocacy groups’ priorities for 2023 is legislation that would force health insurance companies to cover elective abortions.

Here’s more from the report:

The amendment idea emerged as an intriguing strategic option for Democrats, who are feeling a measure of anxiety after Republicans flipped seven legislative seats in 2021. Compounding the concern is that a new legislative map gives the Republicans a fighting chance to reclaim control of the Legislature for the first time since the late 1990s.

According to the Globe, the proposal caused division among Democrat lawmakers, too. The pro-life Democrat organization Democrats for Life also spoke out against the potential amendment, as did Republican lawmakers.

“While Democrats have not shared their proposal publicly, we should oppose their effort on both moral and scientific grounds if it seeks to enshrine in our constitution the extreme idea that abortion should be legal right up until birth,” Senate Minority Leader Steve Oroho, R-Sussex, said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life, criticized the proposal as “nonsense” in a state where abortions already are legal for basically any reason. She said state lawmakers should focus on supporting pregnant and parenting families in need instead.

“The legislature already removed almost any barrier to abortion earlier this year. Instead of this redundant idea, they should put energy into making a concerted effort to provide equity in pregnancy outcomes – particularly for poor and minority women who are over-represented in abortion numbers,” Day said.

New Jersey has the highest abortion rate in the country and some of the most permissive pro-abortion laws.

A state constitutional amendment on abortion would have made it much more difficult for voters and their elected state lawmakers to pass even moderate restrictions on the killing of unborn babies, such as a 15-week abortion ban, which polls consistently show most Americans support.

Earlier this year, New Jersey Right to Life warned voters about how extreme state Democrat leaders are on abortion. The pro-life group pointed to a USA Today editorial by Gov. Phil Murphy and Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver that admits they support late-term abortions and oppose parental consent for minors.

“They don’t care that the people of NJ don’t support such an extreme edict!” the pro-life organization responded.

Polls consistently show that a strong majority of Americans support legal protections for unborn babies after the first trimester, parental consent for minors and other limits.

A recent Harvard poll found 72 percent of Americans, including 75 percent of women, oppose abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Another Marist poll in January similarly found 71 percent of Americans oppose abortion after the first three months of pregnancy.

Even in Democrat strongholds like California, polls show opposition to unrestricted abortions through all nine months of pregnancy. For example, a Rasmussen poll in August found only 13 percent of California voters think abortions should be legal up to birth.

However, three states, California, Vermont and Michigan, passed pro-abortion amendments to their constitutions in November. Pro-life leaders warned that the amendments will void restrictions on late-term abortions and parental consent laws, and allow unborn babies to be killed for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy.

Pro-abortion activists dumped tens of millions of dollars into the states, funding massive misinformation campaigns that deceived voters about just how radical the amendments were.

Google quashed midterm ‘red wave’ by manipulating swing voters: Big Tech expert Robert Epstein

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – Google and other giants of internet technology played a major role in preventing a “red wave” in last week’s 2022 midterm elections, according to research spearheaded by American Institute for Behavioral Research psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein.

For months, many on both sides predicted that Republicans would sweep into strong majorities in both chambers of Congress in response to President Joe Biden’s unpopular handling of numerous issues; instead, the GOP barely won a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and failed to wrest the Senate from Democrat control.

Epstein, a prominent tech researcher, wrote Tuesday in The Epoch Times that “almost no one is looking in the right place” for the correct explanation, and that Big Tech is in fact expanding the reach of “rumors and conspiracy theories” about it to divert attention from itself.

“Over a period of months, Google nudged undecided voters toward voting blue by showing people politically biased content in their search enginesuppressing content they didn’t want people to see, recommending left-leaning videos on YouTube (pdf) (which Google owns), allegedly sending tens of millions of emails to people’s spam boxes, and sending go-vote reminders on their home page mainly to liberal and moderate voters,” Epstein said. “These manipulations (and others) don’t affect voters with strong points of view, but they can have an enormous impact on voters who are undecided (pdf) — the people who decide the outcomes of close elections.”

Epstein’s team determined Google’s activities by monitoring the content seen by a panel of 2,742 politically diverse voters predominantly in swing states, primarily “ephemeral experiences” (EEs)— content such as text reminders that nudges people in a particular direction but does not linger to be reviewed after the fact and is not seen by anyone not targeted with it.

These researchers, however, preserved more than 2.5 million EEs. And while similar past warnings about Google’s influence on the 2020 election went unheeded, Epstein expressed hope that next year, “this large dataset might be used by authorities to go after Big Tech,” which he thinks “will almost certainly occur” in a GOP House.

Epstein also revealed that his team is “continuing to build a digital shield. “By late 2023, we’ll be monitoring the content that tech companies are sending to a representative sample of more than 20,000 voters and children in all 50 U.S. states 24 hours a day, and we’ll report suspect content to authorities and journalists as we find it,” he said. “This digital shield — the first of its kind in the world—will protect our democracy and our children from potential manipulation by current and emerging technologies for many years to come.”

“What’s more, if these stories are spreading like wildfire on social media platforms, that’s only because the tech companies want them to spread,” Epstein wrote. “The tech companies allow such stories to spread — or even force them to spread — to turn your attention away from the companies themselves. If you think that there were fake ballots, you won’t pay attention to the fact that tech companies might have shifted millions of votes in the midterms.”

Many possible factors have been identified as potentially contributing to Republicans’ underperformance, with competing factions of the conservative movement currently holding fierce online debates as to which are most to blame.

Among them are Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell withdrawing financial support for certain candidates; former President Donald Trump redirecting midterm donations to his own organization instead of midterm candidates and his elevation of questionable candidates in Republican primaries; Democrats themselves funding weaker Republican candidates in primaries; potential election fraud and Democrats’ effective harvesting of early votes and mail ballots; establishment Republicans failing to offer a compelling contrast to Democrats over the last two years; and the long-term results of left-wing bias in media and education.