By Bob Vander Plaats
Bob Vander Plaats
Abortion advocates aren’t telling you the whole truth about the proposed Protect Life Amendment to the Iowa state Constitution.
In their efforts to malign the Protect Life Amendment, abortion activists conveniently leave out the most important details: why the amendment is needed, and what can happen right here in Iowa if voters don’t pass it.
Abortion activists don’t tell you that without the Protect Life Amendment, the precedent is already in place for future courts to force third-trimester abortion on Iowa, all the way up to the day of a baby’s birth.
They don’t tell you that, without the Protect Life Amendment, Iowa taxpayers will almost certainly be forced to pay for abortions.
And they don’t tell you that, thanks to a group of radical, unelected judges taking it upon themselves to rewrite the Iowa Constitution without even a peep from the people, we are already living — in terms of judicial precedent — in one of the most extremist, pro-abortion states in the country.
Abortion activists — and their friends in the media — tend to leave that part of the story out.
What’s also left out is that Iowa’s prolifers never planned for this amendment, but rather were pushed into it by radical, pro-abortion judges in 2018.
Judicial overreach
Three years ago, five justices on the Iowa Supreme Court, in Planned Parenthood v. Reynolds, openly admitted they were ignoring the intended meaning of our state constitution, relying instead on their own read of society’s “evolving standards,” to invent a new “right” to abortion that could be limited only under the strictest standard of the law.
This strict-standard ruling went way, way beyond Roe v. Wade. Iowa’s five, unelected judges pronounced a precedent so extreme that it could effectively cancel every abortion restriction Iowa has ever passed or ever could. And even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, it wouldn’t overturn the 2018 ruling — Iowa could keep right on being radically pro-abortion.
No Iowan voted for this (except for five radical justices). No legislator ever got a say. And two dissenting supreme court justices blasted the ruling, saying it “ignores the text” of the Iowa Constitution and “forgoes accepted methods of constitutional interpretation.”
Five men in robes said they and they alone get to make abortion law in Iowa, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Nothing that is, except pass a constitutional amendment to correct their overreach.
‘We the People’
That is exactly what America’s founders intended. When courts overstep their bounds in interpreting the Constitution, We the People can amend the Constitution to correct them.
And that’s what the Protect Life Amendment actually does. It restores the original meaning of the Iowa Constitution and gives back to the people of Iowa the right to discuss, debate, and determine reasonable limits on abortion.
It’s possible that if the Protect Life Amendment passes, future Iowans may pass laws further limiting abortion. Or not. Iowa is not Tennessee. And even though Tennessee passed a form of Protect Life Amendment (like Louisiana, Alabama, West Virginia, and Rhode Island have also done) and then passed additional limits on abortion, Iowa doesn’t have to follow Tennessee’s path.
But without the Protect Life Amendment, Iowans don’t get to choose our path.
If you’re OK with that kind of pro-abortion extremism, and if you’re OK with judges ruling Iowa instead of the voters, then strike down the Protect Life Amendment.
But I question if you’re OK with unborn children being snuffed out minutes before their first breath. I doubt Iowans support their tax dollars paying for elective abortions. And I don’t think you’re really OK with radical judges taking away our vote and voice.
So I ask you instead to join Iowa voters in restoring our constitutional form of government — and resuming the needed discussion over when a baby’s life begins — by encouraging your legislators to pass House Joint Resolution 5, the Protect Life Amendment.
[Bob Vander Plaats is president and CEO of The FAMiLY Leader, an Iowa based pro-life organization and Christian ministry. IFL thanks them for permission to publish this essay on our blog.]
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Margaret Sanger is a feminist icon and founder of Planned Parenthood. Upon accepting Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award, Hillary Clinton waxed eloquent on Ms. Sanger:
“Now, I have to tell you that it was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision … And when I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn, taking on archetypes, taking on attitudes and accusations flowing from all directions, I am really in awe of her.”
Former president, Barack Obama, was even more magniloquent when he accepted the prestigious award:
“In 1966, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America gave its first Margaret Sanger Award to Martin Luther King, Jr. And in his acceptance speech, which was delivered by his strong and wonderful wife, Coretta, Dr. King wrote, “Our sure beginning in the struggle for equality by non-violent, direct action may not have been so resolute without the tradition established by Margaret Sanger and people like her.
That struggle for equality is not over and now we are at one of those rare moments where we can actually transform our politics in a fundamental way. But it’s going to take people as resolute as Mrs. Sanger and Dr. King—people like your own Cecile Richards—it’s going to take young people like Ariana. It’s going to take millions of voices coming together to insist that it’s not enough just to stand still. That it’s not enough to safeguard the gains of the past—that it is time to be resolute and time to march forward.”
Sanger’s racist underpinnings
And indeed, Planned Parenthood is marching forward in reaction to the volatile racial climate that defines our age. In an April 17th New York Times op-ed, current Planned Parenthood president, Alexis McGill Johnson, finally acknowledged the racist underpinnings of Sanger’s creed, something the pro-life community has known for a long time. Ms. Johnson wrote:
“Up until now, Planned Parenthood has failed to own the impact of our founder’s actions. We have defended Sanger as a protector of bodily autonomy and self-determination, while excusing her association with white supremacist groups and eugenics as an unfortunate “product of her time.” Until recently, we have hidden behind the assertion that her beliefs were the norm for people of her class and era, always being sure to name her work alongside that of W.E.B. Dubois and other Black freedom fighters. But the facts are complicated.”
An influential American
Indeed they are complicated if you’re an abortion behemoth, and your founder has enjoyed fawning cultural adoration since she burst onto the scene a century ago. Time Magazine named her one of the 20 most influential Americans of all-time, as but one example of her lofty status among the elite.
But with the public repudiation by the current Planned Parenthood CEO, Margaret Sanger’s fall from grace is complete.
What is particularly complicating for Planned Parenthood, though, is Sanger’s rejection of abortion as the cornerstone of women’s liberation, a procedure she unequivocally denounced:
“… while there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.”
What is even more complicating for Planned Parenthood is the disproportionate impact human abortion has had on the African-American community.
In the city where she founded Planned Parenthood, New York, black women are more likely to have an abortion than give birth. Nationally, Blacks represent 12% of the population but 36% of all abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, three out of four abortions are performed on women who are poor.
Planned Parenthood is unperturbed by these outcomes.
They cherry-pick Sanger’s legacy to suit their bottom line.
A Clash of Creeds
Iowans for LIFE produced a theater piece called “A Clash of Creeds” which dramatized the philosophical underpinnings of three diverse women of the 20th century: Margaret Sanger, Ayn Rand, and St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta. The piece used their own words. You can watch it in its entirety here.
In the exchange above with the G.K Chesterton character, you get a good sense of just how repugnant Sanger’s embrace of eugenics really was. It’s about time Planned Parenthood acknowledged it.
The next step? It is time for the abortion giant to acknowledge that the 7.6 million abortions that they’ve performed since the Roe v Wade decision “are a disgrace to civilization.”
Dear Iowans for LIFE Supporter:
Iowans for LIFE is going big. And we need your help now to make it happen. I’d like to introduce you to one of the biggest projects we’ve ever taken on:
THE HOLY FAMILY Project.
We’re developing an entire pro-life series wrapped around the primacy of the family unit. As Saint John Paul the Great said:
“As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
Here’s the reality: the family structure is crumbling. Dads aren’t present in the home. Single mothers struggle to cope with parenting their children alone. Each new pregnancy feels like a crisis, which makes abortion look like the only way out.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
Everything about families is good. As Monsignor Frank Chiodo told us,
“the Holy Family is the ‘soul’ solution for a wounded world.”
We like this line so much that we’ve asked Msgr. Chiodo to collaborate on this project with us and help put a spotlight on the beauty of holy families. In fact, we’re going to use his line as a recurring theme.
Here’s how we plan to roll out this 3-pronged project:
Live talk
Monsignor Chiodo will be the keynote speaker at our November 20th IFL Christmas Gala at the Ron Pearson Event Center. He’ll talk about the life-giving nature of a holy family and set the stage for the 4-part Advent series that follows.
Msgr. Frank Chiodo
Advent Radio Series
Monsignor Chiodo, IFL Board President, Tom Quiner, and myself will host a 4-week Advent series on Iowa Catholic Radio where we’ll dig deeper into the hope that awaits holy families. You’ll hear nationally known guests join us to consider spiritual and worldly strategies to be better parents, grandparents, and children. Ultimately, the pro-life message resonates most powerfully when the family unit is considered to be a sacred creation, not just a secular convenience.
Webinar
Here’s where things get really exciting. We’re producing this 4-part series as a polished webinar presentation worthy of cable prime-time to expand our audience exponentially. Where our banquet can reach hundreds of people and radio can reach thousands, a webinar can reach tens of thousands. Maybe more over time.
Iowans for LIFE needs your financial support now to help us create the absolutely best project possible.
Families break down when men force girl friends and wives to abort. They unravel when they’re not active participants in the parenting of the children they bring into this world.
Families break down when women come to view the gift of reproduction as a curse.
And when families break down, pain and suffering follows. Always. Often, abortion is involved.
To promote a pro-life message, Iowans for LIFE has to reach people where they’re at
Sometimes it’s a live event. I speak all over the state throughout the year before live audiences (sadly, that was curtailed last year).
Sometimes it’s on the radio. We are fortunate to have a pro-life radio station like Iowa Catholic Radio willing to partner with us on this project.
But sometimes, we need to go even bigger with a webinar that smashes through the barriers imposed by the culture of death. Although we have built a large social media footprint on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, they make it hard for us to go to the next level.
One of our associates is connected with a high-ranking Facebook executive who acknowledges that for the foreseeable future, pro-life groups will continue to be blocked from boosting pro-life messages beyond existing followers.
In fact, they just rejected our request to promote our first “What do you say?” Pro-Life Apologetics video.
That’s why this Holy Family Project is such a big deal
We’ll create a polished, professional webinar and promote it aggressively with a digital advertising campaign to reach our largest audience ever.
A 4-part Holy Family Webinar lets us reach more people where they’re at to help us change hearts and minds on dignity of life issues.
If you know people in Davenport, Fort Dodge, Storm Lake, and Sioux City who need an inspiring pro-life, pro-family message, the Holy Family project is for them.
IFL wants to blast this programming to Dubuque, Cherokee, Clinton, Atlantic, and Council Bluffs and even beyond our borders.
But producing professional, inspiring programming takes a serious financial investment.
If you want to make your state a better place to live, I am asking you to donate to the Holy Family Project fund today.
We’re at war
I’m sure you see that our great country is engaged in an internal war that is part cultural, part political, and very much spiritual warfare. The anti-life side controls one political party, the media, our universities, public education, and our entertainment industrial complex.
Iowans for LIFE fights back on behalf of the unborn with a form of guerrilla marketing warfare. The Holy Family is just the latest project in a dynamic slate of programs we’ve launched within the last twelve months.
Other IFL projects
You saw our "Black Voices on Black Live” series that ran during Black History Month which talked about the impact abortion has on the Black community. Funny how the mainstream media never covers stories like this one.
We offered a Respect Life Novena at the start of Lent. Our new “What would you say?” Pro-Life Apologetics video series has just launched on social media. And for good measure, I’ve been camped out at the capital for much of this legislative session testifying on behalf of pending pro-life legislation.
Now I’m asking for your financial support to fund the Holy Family Project. An undertaking of this breadth requires professional polish and an artistic presentation to attract a statewide audience and keep them coming back for all four installments.
IFL needs big and small donations
Frankly, I am hoping a few people receiving this letter can underwrite this project with gifts of $5000 or more.
But every single gift counts, whether if it’s $500, $100, or $50. No gift is too small.
Iowans for LIFE wants to light a candle in a dark world for young people to see the beauty and promise of becoming a holy family. THE “Holy Family” is our model. We want to encourage moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, and aunts and uncles, that a family is a beautiful thing to behold.
In fact, IFL hopes that families watch The Holy Family together. We’re hard at work on this project as I write. But it won’t happen without your financial support.
Help Iowans for LIFE light a candle smack dab in the middle of this cultural battlefield.
Help us stand up for the sanctity of life and family. Simply go to IowansForLife.org/donate and make your donation by credit card right now.
I thank you in advance for your support.
Sincerely,
Maggie DeWitte
Executive Director | (515) 201-8281
[Support The HOLY FAMILY Project today!]
P.S. Just for fun, we want to host a dance this summer for our Iowa pro-life community at the Jasper Winery. Mark your calendar for Friday, July 23rd!
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The Iowa House and Senate both support the Protect Life Amendment. But they don’t agree on the language of the Amendment. Let’s compare:
Iowa Senate’s Language
Sec. 26. Protection of life. To defend the dignity of all human life, and to protect mothers and unborn children from efforts to expand abortion even to the day of birth, we the people of the State of Iowa declare that this Constitution shall not be construed to recognize, grant, or secure a right to abortion or to require the public funding of abortion.
Iowa House Language
Sec. 26. To defend and protect unborn children, we the people of the State of Iowa declare that this Constitution does not recognize, grant, or secure a right to abortion or require the public funding thereof.
Iowans for LIFE along with all of our fellow members of the Iowa Coalition of Pro-Life Leaders supports the Iowa Senate’s language for specific reasons:
1. Tested language. The Senate language was poll-tested and significantly out-polled the language used by the House. This is important: once the amendment passes in two legislative sessions, Iowa voters must approve it with a majority vote. The Senate language is a winner according to extensive polling; the House language is iffy at best.
2. The House stripped the language on late term abortions. According to Gallup Polls going back to 1996 right up to today, Americans overwhelmingly oppose late term abortion. As of 2018, 81% of Americans said it should be illegal. The house stripped our biggest selling point to Iowans by removing the words, “even to the day of birth,” weakening our ability to get Iowa voters to support the amendment.
3. The house version stripped the title of the bill. If you look at our Iowa constitution, you’ll note that it is filled with titles. Titles help people find things. When it comes to selling this to the people, they’ll want to know what this amendment is about. Here’s the risk: If we pass it with no title, a state worker will come up with his own when he goes to enter it into the record. What if he titles it something like the “abortion neutral amendment?” That title polled the worst. The “Protect Life Amendment” polled the best. WE should select the title and not leave it up to the whims of a faceless bureaucracy.
The Senate language is superior in every respect, according to IFL Executive Director, Maggie DeWitte:
IFL Executive Director, Maggie DeWitte
“We need to encourage our Representatives to move forward with the Senate’s version of The Protect Life Amendment. This is the best poll tested language. As you know, in order to pass this amendment, we have to go through one more legislative session and then a vote before the people of Iowa. We have to be forward thinking to this vote and pass language that has the best chance of getting the vote of the people of Iowa.”
What you should do now
Iowans for LIFE encourages you to contact House Republicans and encourage them to support the Senate’s language of The Protect Life Amendment.
[Iowans for LIFE is hard at work on our next project, The Holy Family. We need your support now to fund this exciting undertaking. Donate today.]
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By Tom Quiner
Happy Easter! My name is Tom Quiner, president of Iowans for LIFE’s board. I had an Easter epiphany: Easter is very pro-life. After all, what is the lesson of Easter? Simply put, Easter says that you matter, that your life has meaning.
Easter says your life has so much meaning that God sent His Son into to this world to die for you to save your soul. Easter recognizes that your soul is eternal and that without the cross, it will be separated from God forever.
In other words, Easter presents us with a very pro-life message: your life matters.
What we do in this physical world has an impact on the longterm disposition of our soul. Without the cross and resurrection, we’re dust.
I just watched “The Passion of the Christ” again this Lenten season, and I squirmed and recoiled in horror as an innocent man, Jesus, was brutalized by Roman tools of torture.
Fr. John Riccardo once said on Iowa Catholic Radio,
“If that’s the cure, imagine the disease.”
So the lesson of Easter is that there’s a cure for our disease: Christ, and that Christ’s unimaginable sacrifice is a bold statement that your life matters, that it has meaning, rich, lavish meaning in God’s eyes.
Otherwise, why would God do what He did if your life was meaningless? Seriously.
Msgr. Frank Chiodo once said that
“if you were the only person who was ever born, Christ would have still climbed onto that cross and died for you, so you could live.”
In light of this, the question shifts to: does ALL of your life matter? In other words, do the first 9 months count, your time of development in the womb?
As Christ hung on the cross in an agony we’ll never fully comprehend, was He dying for only the born with a disregard for those in the womb?
In other words, did Christ NOT die for the 61 million human beings aborted in the United States since 1973. I refer to these 61 million aborted entities as human beings since 96% of biologists acknowledge that human life begins at fertilization.
I refer to them as human beings since embryologists assert that at fertilization, “For the first time the new life has all chromosomes and all the directions (DNA) it needs for the rest of life. The sex of the baby, the color of the hair, everything is already fixed.”
So to repeat the question: did Christ die for the human beings in the womb, human beings as defined by the scientific community, or did Christ look upon them with indifference, which seems unlikely since sacred scripture tells us that God knew us before we were born.
In light of this, how can acceptance of abortion be anything other than a rejection of Easter?
Dear Fellow Pro-Lifer:
The Senate just passed the Protect Life Amendment by a 30 to 17 vote! Way to go, pro-life legislators!
The Iowa House already passed a similar Amendment, which means both Houses will need to negotiate the final language of the bill.
This is the first, critical step to returning the Iowa Constitution to its original abortion-neutral status, undoing the handiwork of activist judges who found a constitutional right to an abortion in our State charter.
Once the two houses pass the final wording, the Amendment will need to be passed in another legislative session.
The final step: Iowans must vote to enact the Amendment.
Thanks to the courageous legislators who stood up for the rights of the unborn in passing the Protect Life Amendment.
This Amendment returns the right to regulate human abortion to the people of Iowa, taking it back from unelected judges who legislate from the bench.
We ask you to thank and encourage your legislators for passing this historic Amendment this session.
Our work isn’t done, but it’s a great start!
Yours for Life …
Maggie DeWitte, Executive Director
By TOM QUINER
I am savoring this glorious Easter season.
My feelings toward Christ are simple: “Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.”
The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen brilliantly states the lesson of Easter this way:
“The lesson that emerges from Easter is that the world was wrong and Christ was right; that there is a world of difference between an authority on which you rely when it pleases you, and one which you trust absolutely whether it pleases you or not; for what the world needs is a voice that is right not when the world is right, but right when the world is wrong. “
By TOM QUINER
Have you ever wondered what your last words will be?
Leonardo da Vinci’s focused on what he didn’t get done:
“I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
Actor Humphrey Bogart was flip:
“I should never have switched from scotch to martinis.”
Atheist Karl Marx was typically defiant:
“Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”
Clearly, nine words too many!
On the other other hand, Jesus quoted Psalm 31 on Good Friday, as reported by Luke 23:46:
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
This psalm is so important, so loaded with meaning, that we sing/pray it every Good Friday in the Catholic Church in three minutes of stark drama.
Like Psalm 22 that we sang on Palm Sunday, Psalm 31 explores the depths of the human experience at a crisis point. The psalmist is a laughingstock, an object of scorn, a pariah who has lost friends. The world has rejected him.
All of this leads to the power of this psalm.
When we hit bottom, we have two choices: give up, or go on. The psalmist tells us to go on, as long as we let God carry us. He calls on God to rescue him. And then he turns everything, body AND spirit over to the Creator who provided the gift of his body and spirit in the first place.
The prayer of the psalmist is primal:
“Into your hands I commend my spirit; you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.”
This is a prayer for the living, whether you have a billion breaths left … or but one.
By TOM QUINER
How can you make a return to the Lord? Is there anyway you can actually ‘payback’ the Lord for all the good he has done for you?
Think about it: everything you have is a gift from God: your family, your friends, shelter, food … everything.
What can you possibly do to pay Him back? That is the question posed by the psalmist in Psalm 116 which Roman Catholics traditionally sing/pray on Holy Thursday.
The psalmist quickly provides an answer. We are called to do two things; take up the cup of salvation; and call upon the name of the Lord. That’s it.
Our Lord doesn’t need the ‘return,’ but we do, for this cup to which the psalmist prophetically refers holds the Blood of Christ.
God, the Father, knows that our very souls depend on this cup for our survival, which is why He sent His Son. On Holy Thursday, Jesus kneeled before His disciples as any lowly servant would, and washed their feet.
He modeled to us the importance of being servants to each other, born and unborn, which frees us from the chains of smothering self-centeredness, just as the psalmist sings:
“I am your servant, the son of your handmaid; you have loosed my bonds.”
Psalm 116 reminds us of the sanctity of life:
“Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.”
After drying His disciples feet, Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist at His last supper. Interestingly, Psalm 116 was written as much as a thousand years before the drama of Holy Thursday. And yet when the psalmist sings…
“To you will I offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call upon the name of the Lord …”
… it’s hard not to think of the sacrifice Jesus made for us. It’s hard not to fall on our knees in sheer thanksgiving for this sacrifice our Savior made to give us life, eternal life.
Imagine: within about 12 hours, Jesus will be hanging from a cross, “calling upon the name of the Lord” in the most tragic cry in human history: “My God, My God, why have You abandoned me?” Psalm 116 should be, must be, our response.
House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi
Marianette Miller-Meeks apparently won a squeaker of an election to the House of Representatives in Iowa’s 2nd district last November.
The vote was close and recounted, with the pro-life Miller-Meeks coming out 6 votes ahead of abortion rights proponent, Rita Hart. A bipartisan panel unanimously certified the outcome, and Miller-Meeks was seated in the House this January.
However, rather than appealing the outcome in Iowa state courts, Ms. Clark appealed the outcome directly to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her party, which controls the House.
Mill-Meeks explains:
Marianette Miller-Meeks
“I was ahead on election night. I was ahead at the official county canvass of all 24 counties. All of these ballots were examined. And then in the recount, [there] is a three person bipartisan board, eyeballs on these ballots that were considered illegitimate under Iowa law — and she could have appealed to the Iowa courts, but did not, because under Iowa law, these ballots would have been tossed out. She knew that she would lose. So, yes, strategically, they felt better to appeal to the House Committee on Administration and Congress, which is a majority of Democrats. So it changes it from an election process.”
Pelosi considers abortion-rights to be foundational to her party’s belief system. Her House majority is a slim eight votes. Pelosi’s career has been defined by her willingness to play hardball politics. To that end, she acknowledges that she can “see a scenario” where she replaces a pro-lifer with a pro-choicer, even though that’s not what Iowans want.
Speaker Pelosi can’t lose many of her party’s votes to pull off this brazen political power play. But even one of her own caucus, Rep. Dean Phillips from Minnesota, opposes the move:
“Losing a House election by six votes is painful for Democrats. But overturning it in the House would be even more painful for America. Just because a majority can, does not mean a majority should,” Phillips Tweeted.
So will Pelosi let Iowans elect their own Representative or not? Stay tuned.