Dear Iowans for LIFE Supporter:
I’m in Washington DC preparing for the March for Life, but I had to write to you immediately on an urgent matter. Planned Parenthood is flooding Iowa with dishonest billboards like this one …
and this:
PHOTO CREDIT: Jenifer Bowen
Their goal is to normalize abortion and to restore their dwindling abortion revenues.
Iowans for LIFE and our pro life allies have been wildly successful in educating young people on the dangers of human abortion. As a result, abortions have plummeted in recent years.
Planned Parenthood seduces vulnerable women with dishonest messaging
Planned Parenthood was forced to close twenty clinics between 2010 and 2017 as more young women chose life over human abortion. In an attempt to bolster “sales,” they have launched an aggressive, nationwide billboard campaign to seduce at-risk women into aborting inconvenient babies.
Their billboards are peppered throughout the state of Iowa, including Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Iowa City, and Council Bluffs.
The billboard that defines human abortion as healthcare is simply obscene. We have created a billboard to rebut their falsehood with this simple statement:
Our campaign can go “live” only with your help
We can’t publish this billboard, and others we’re working on, without your financial support. I really believe you’re going to want to get behind this project as you learn what we have in mind. For example, here’s another billboard we’re working on:
And here’s another:
Support our pro life billboard campaign. Donate today.
Let’s face it, Planned Parenthood has deep pockets. Rich celebrities and liberal politicians support them. Taxpayers have been forced to fund their services (until our pro life coalition got the Iowa legislature to pull the plug last year!).
Get ready for a pro-life billboard blitz!
IFL has reached out to fellow members of our pro-life coalition to fight back with a substantial pro life billboard campaign throughout Iowa.
We’ve taken the lead in uniting our allies to pool our resources with riveting pro-life messaging.
How would you like to see this billboard exposed to tens of thousands at-risk women…
Or this…
Or this…
Support our pro life billboard campaign. Donate today.
These efforts work.
Iowans for LIFE is making a difference. But there’s not a day that goes by that we can let up. Big Abortion is tenacious. There’s big money to made in abortion factories. They are investing big time in a sprawling advertising campaign designed to regain the lost “business” we’re costing them.
Here’s what we need
So here’s where we’re at: We’ve got a half a dozen pro-life groups lining up to fund our own $50,000 campaign featuring the billboards above.
Iowans for LIFE has pledged $11,000 towards the project. And we need to fundraise the money right now. Planned Parenthood has a month head start on us.
We turn to you, a valued pro-life warrior, to fund this noble cause. Specifically we ask you to financially support this billboard campaign with an immediate donation of $1000 … or $500 … or $100.
No contribution is too small (nor too large!). Seriously. The more people who donate, the lighter the load. IFL has taken the leadership role in galvanizing our pro life allies in every corner of Iowa to join forces.
Our share is $11,000. Together, we can save lives.
Support our pro life billboard campaign. Donate today.
Our efforts work
We’ve used funds raised last summer to fund pro life curriculum in Catholic elementary and middle schools.
We’ve used funds raised at our October banquet and our year-end appeal to fund our Clash of Creeds project (more performances coming in late February!).
And now we’re moving at the speed of light to launch an ambitious pro-life billboard project.
We can do it. And it will make a HUGE difference in Des Moines and beyond. Human lives WILL be saved, I promise you.
Iowans for LIFE needs your support today to raise the funds to counter the obscene messaging being imposed on our impressionable youth.
Thanks to you, we are winning. Life is winning. Please: support our billboard campaign today by donating today.
Yours for LIFE,
Maggie DeWitte
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
P.S. Time is short. Go to our donate page here. Thank-you.
By Maggie DeWitte
Did you see the latest billboard:
“I had my gall bladder removed, and I’m not apologizing for it.”
Sorry, that’s not quite what Planned Parenthood’s new billboards say. Here is the actual wording:
“I had an abortion, and I’m not apologizing.”
Here is the distinction: no one would take out a billboard boasting about a gall bladder gone bad. Planned Parenthood’s new advertising campaign tries to normalize abortion in an attempt to bolster their lagging sales.
It gets worse
Another one of their billboards is especially disingenuous when it proclaims:
“I had an abortion, & it was just healthcare.”
Keep reading, because Iowans for LIFE has a plan to fight back with their own pro life billboard campaign.
Let’s be honest: human abortion is not healthcare
The overwhelming majority of abortions involve a healthy mom carrying a healthy baby in her womb.
An online dictionary defined healthcare as “the field concerned with the maintenance or restoration of the health of the body or mind.”
It goes further by defining health as “soundness of body or mind; freedom from disease or ailment.”
A pregnant woman is not ill
The unborn person in her womb is certainly not a disease or an ailment, at least according to the dictionary, which defines a disease as “a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ.”
And the vast majority of babies being aborted by Planned Parenthood are healthy, rosy-cheeked, ‘correctly-functioning’ human beings at the early arc of their life.
So we can agree that human abortion has nothing to do with healthcare, especially in light of the potential health risks to women, including, injury to uterus or cervix, hemorrhage, infection, and even maternal death. And then there are the psychic wounds so many women experience that can have a lifelong impact on their mental health.
So if human abortion has nothing to do with human healthcare, why is Planned Parenthood investing tens of thousands of dollars in an attempt to deceive vulnerable women that ending the lives of the babies they carry is somehow healthy?
It’s all about profits
The former Planned Parenthood of the Heartland was forced to close 20 abortion clinics between 2010 and 2017 as fewer Iowans sought abortions (thanks in part to the yeoman educational efforts of Iowa’s pro life community, including IFL, and the non-stop prayers of rank and file Iowans); and thanks to the Iowa legislature’s decision to re-funnel taxpayer money to authentic reproductive health clinics that don’t perform unneeded abortions.
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland was forced to merge with surrounding states to keep their remaining clinics open. And where are these remaining eight clinics? Des Moines, Ames, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs and Iowa City, the exact same places where their billboards appear.
Planned Parenthood needs sales
Every single abortion they perform rings their cash register and helps pay the $488,000 annual salary of their executive director, Sarah Stoesz.
Iowans for LIFE fights back
Okay, so what should we do about Planned Parenthood’s offensive billboards? We’re going to fight back with our own, but we need your help right away. Iowans for LIFE is at work designing our own pro life billboard campaign with a healthy pro-life message. Can you help? We need to raise $7000 as a first step to fight back and get our initial billboards published.
Simply click here and donate now.
It’s interesting that the same political activists who rail against pharmaceutical companies for advertising their products actually cheer Planned Parenthood for doing the same.
At least pharmaceutical companies are actually involved in healthcare. Big Abortion can’t say the same.
[Help us fight Planned Parenthood’s dishonest billboard campaign with our own pro-life billboard campaign. Donate now!]
Elite Daily blasts pro-lifers:
“But why don’t they give a single sh*t about that baby once it’s actually born?”
Comedian Lizz Winstead joins the pro-abortion chorus:
“Just think if all those people protesting outside of abortion clinics decided they cared about ACTUAL kids…”
Actress Lena Dunham, who once lamented that she’s never had an abortion, echoed their sentiments:
“I know this is basic knowledge at this point, but my mind simply can’t comprehend that the same people who claim to care so much about embryos care so little about living children.”
Guardian columnist, Jessica Valenti, chimed in that pro-lifers …
“don’t give a sh*t about actual babies.”
Why are they so misinformed?
Let us set aside the inability of these abortion advocates to express a cogent thought without being profane. Why are they so misinformed? Why are they so oblivious to the loving outreach to “actual kids” by thousands upon thousands of pro-life supporters in the U.S. and beyond?
Because their rant is all a smokescreen to demonize the pro-life movement while attempting to present abortion advocates in a compassionate light.
Here’s the question:
Would these supporters of unfettered, legal abortion actually change their tune about the pro-life movement if confronted with the profound, compassionate outreach by pro life groups? No, they wouldn’t.
But Pulse Life Advocates knows that there are many Iowans who identify as pro-choice who embrace a variety of less radical positions. These Iowans appreciate honest reporting on the subject.
Two U.S. Senators publicly smear the Knights
For example, two pro-abortion Senators demonized the Knights of Columbus in 2018 during a judicial confirmation hearing in Washington DC.
Then-senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii suggested that Omaha lawyer, Brian Buescher, is not suitable to become a federal judge because of his longstanding membership in the Knights of Columbus.
Senator Hirono charged that the Knights have staked out “extreme positions” based on Catholic teaching that supports traditional marriage and the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.
In fully McCarthyism mode, she demanded to know:
“If confirmed, do you intend to end your membership with this organization to avoid any appearance of bias?”
And Senator Harris showed her disdain by characterizing “the Knights of Columbus [as an] an all-male society comprised of primarily Catholic men … [that] opposes a woman’s right to choose.”
Anti-Catholic bigotry is alive and well.
And yet if ever there was a pro-life group that helps babies after they’re born, it is the Knights.
The Knights of Columbus supports the Special Olympics, you know the very kids abortion advocates abort at alarming rates. (Some 90% Down Syndrome babies are aborted.)
They buy ultra sound machines for pro-life pregnancy centers.
They provide funds to support refugee relief to help persecuted groups facing genocide around the world.
And they provide coats for kids; wheelchairs for the lame; and homes for the homeless.
Local outreach
Have you ever seen a Knight handing out Tootsie Rolls when you walk into a local grocery store, and do you ever wonder what happens to the money you donate? Here’s one example in Des Moines, Iowa: Holy Trinity Catholic Church’s Knight’s chapter has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Ruby Van Meter school over the years.
Ruby Van Meter is a school for kids with significant intellectual disabilities. The Knights help these “actual living human beings.”
They buy coats for actual human beings.
They save lives of actual Christian human beings being persecuted in dangerous corners of the world.
And they improve the lives of actual disabled young people.
This is a compassionate organization liberal politicians should be applauding, not demonizing.
Can you see how abortion poisons rational thinking?
For the record, what is Planned Parenthood doing to help actual human beings AFTER they’re born? The answer is self-evident when the organization is the largest provider of abortions in the U.S..
The Knights of Columbus are true servants of mankind. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Don’t let anti-Catholic bigotry gain more traction.
[Can you support Pulse Life Advocate’s pro-life educational outreach by donating to our “How to Raise Pro-Life Children” video project? Thank-you!]
By Maggie DeWitte
“The personhood claim is rhetorical, not factual. We can live by our own belief systems, within reason. We are not free to impose them on others.” REKHA BASU, Des Moines Register, December 11, 2018
Rekha Basu distilled the debate on the dignity of human life into a concise, well-written paragraph which I quote above.
She expresses a belief system held by many. Her system is animated by political, philosophical, and even religious elements. Let’s examine her claims more closely.
A debating ploy?
Regarding the idea of personhood, she suggests that pro-life advocates invoke the term as some sort of debating ploy, grounded in cynical grandiloquence rather than reality.
And yet science clearly establishes humanity as fact at fertilization, as The Family Leader’s Drew Zahn pointed out in his rebuttal to Ms. Basu.
The deliberate killing of innocent human beings is immoral
Since the deliberate killing of innocent human beings is immoral and subject to legal penalty, abortion rights proponents suggest that humanity and personhood are two different issues, a distinction that didn’t exist prior to the Roe v Wade decision in 1973.
And even Roe v Wade didn’t specifically define personhood. Harry Blackmun, author of the Roe decision, admitted that:
“If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment.”
Is there really a difference?
So the reasonable follow up question is, what is the difference between a human being and a person?
Abortion advocates suggest that an unborn human being doesn’t become a person until he or she reaches viability, that point when they can survive on their own outside of the womb. But there’s no logic to this belief.
The age of viability keeps changing
Think about it. The age of viability keeps changing thanks to medical advances. When Roe was decided, the age of viability was 28 weeks; today, it is 24 and in some cases, the markers have been moved to 21 weeks.
Is there really any distinction between a 24 week old human being in 2018 compared to one in 1973? No, there’s not. It takes a leap of faith to think otherwise, but that is the leap of faith abortion advocates make.
If you think about it, a human being is not viable for a number of years after birth. They will die of hunger or exposure without the intervention of their mother and father.
By the same token, human beings in a coma or afflicted by dementia or other ailments are not viable without intervention.
Viability is a false marker
Viability is demonstrably no indication of personhood.
What we’re faced with is a capricious standard on what exactly comprises personhood in the eyes of the powerful special interests who support human abortion. As Russell Neglia points out at the PRO LIFE, PRO LOGIC blogsite,
“If personhood is a moving target how can anyone say with certainty that their beginning point has any universal credibility? This argument is purely a metaphysical one, unsupported by facts or science.”
Rhetoric vs. reality
So to return to Ms. Basu’s quote above, it is she who is being ‘rhetorical’ and not factual by holding to a sliding scale as to what defines personhood.
Even more, it is she and fellow supporters of human abortion who wish to impose their own belief system on others by aborting human beings who don’t live up to their own belief system.
As Mr. Neglia states above, the arguments for abortion have a metaphysical component. After all, abortion isn’t just bad for the human being who is aborted, it poses risks to the mother.
As you can see at about the 5:20 mark in the Live Action video above, a former abortionist points out the health risk to abortive women. These risks include the potential for:
- injury to uterus or cervix
- hemmorage
- infection
- maternal death.
In light of this, it takes some sort of leap of faith to think abortion is good. There is no sound medical reason for a healthy woman to abort her healthy baby. If you walked into a doctor and asked him to amputate your perfectly-functioning right arm, he’d say no.
Religious overtones
The disconnect runs deeper when you hear abortion proponents embracing the “Shout your abortion” movement, a movement animated by evangelical fervor that sounds suspiciously like a religion.
In passing the Heartbeat Bill, Ms. Basu said the Iowa legislature “thumbed their noses at rulings and constitutions and established science. They imposed their religious positions on a secular state.”
If anyone is thumbing their noses at science, it is abortion advocates. And if anyone is trying to impose their godless religious beliefs on our state, it is they.
The Iowa legislature passed one of the most pro-life bills in the country earlier this year: The Heartbeat Bill. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU immediately tried to block the bill through the courts, and a judge imposed an injunction on the law. Tomorrow, a judge will consider if the case merits a full trial to go forward, which is the pro-life community’s wish, or if the law should be immediately struck down based on an earlier Court ruling.
We ask you to continue praying.
Iowans for LIFE also encourages the pro-life faithful to join us at the Polk County Courthouse tomorrow at 10:30AM as a show of support.
DAY EIGHT PRAYER
Saint Frances Cabrini,
In every corner of hemisphere
you sought out those whom everyone had forgotten.
Mother of immigrants, friend of orphans, protector of the poor,
intercede for us who seek to follow your example.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Mother of the aged;
Be with those who are forgotten and alone.
Mother of the oppressed;
Pray for all who are condemned to die.
Mother of the sick;
Pray for those tempted to forget the infinite value of life.
Our Father …
Hail Mary …
Glory to the Father …
Check back tomorrow for our Day Nine Prayer as our Novena comes to and end. And thank-you for supporting the cause of Life with your prayers.
[If you’re able, join us on December 7th at 10:30AM in the Polk County Courthouse for a show of support on behalf of our unborn brothers and sisters. Thank-you.]
The Heartbeat Bill goes to court on December 7th
As a reminder, the Heartbeat Bill goes to court on December 7th as referenced in an earlier blogpost. We are praying a Novena for a successful outcome. Our Novena comes from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who encourage us to invoke three powerful pro-life witnesses on behalf of the cause.
We invoked Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton the first three days of our Novena and Saint John Neumann for the next three days. Now we turn to Saint Frances Cabrini. According to the USCCB:
“Frances Cabrini was born in a little village in Lombardy in 1850, so fragile at birth that she was brought immediately to Church to be baptized. While from her youth she dreamed only of being a missionary, she was three times rejected when applying to a convent. Yet in her years of religious life she founded an order, 70 orphanages, schools and hospitals, scattered over eight countries in Europe North, South, and Central America.”
DAY SEVEN PRAYER
Saint Frances Cabrini,
In every corner of hemisphere
you sought out those whom everyone had forgotten.
Mother of immigrants, friend of orphans, protector of the poor,
intercede for us who seek to follow your example.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Mother of immigrants;
Give us a love for the lives of all who are rejected or forgotten.
Mother of the oppressed;
Inspire us to work for justice and the protection of all life.
Mother of the lost;
Inspire us to seek out all whose lives are forgotten.
Our Father …
Hail Mary …
Glory to the Father …
***
Check back tomorrow for our Day Eight Prayer. And thank-you for supporting the cause of Life with your prayers.
[If you’re able, join us on December 7th at 10:30AM in the Polk County Courthouse for a show of support on behalf of our unborn brothers and sisters. Thank-you.]
DAY SIX PRAYER
Saint John Neumann,
as a loyal son, a faithful priest, and a tireless Bishop,
you worked to support and defend life in all its wonder.
Intercede for the Church you loved with all your heart
that we may be faithful witnesses to the Gospel of Life.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Preacher of the truth;
Teach our nation to protect the lives of all its citizens.
Friend of the sick;
Inspire doctors to cherish the lives of all.
Our Father …
Hail Mary …
Glory to the Father …
Check back tomorrow for our Day Seven Prayer. And thank-you for supporting the cause of Life with your prayers.
[If you’re able, join us on December 7th at 10:30AM in the Polk County Courthouse for a show of support on behalf of our unborn brothers and sisters. Thank-you.]
DAY FIVE PRAYER
Saint John Neumann,
as a loyal son, a faithful priest, and a tireless Bishop,
you worked to support and defend life in all its wonder.
Intercede for the Church you loved with all your heart
that we may be faithful witnesses to the Gospel of Life.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Missionary to America;
Pray for the leaders of our country.
Tireless servant of the cross;
Make our hearts to love Christ suffering in those who have grown very old.
Model of self sacrifice;
Help us not to count the cost in proclaiming the Gospel of Life.
Faithful unto death;
Guide unwed fathers, that they may be true to the Faith.
Our Father…
Hail Mary…
Glory to the Father…
Check back tomorrow for our Day Six Prayer. And thank-you for supporting the cause of Life with your prayers.
[If you’re able, join us on December 7th at 10:30AM in the Polk County Courthouse for a show of support on behalf of our unborn brothers and sisters. Thank-you.]
The Heartbeat Bill goes to court on December 7th
As a reminder, the Heartbeat Bill goes to court on December 7th as referenced in an earlier blogpost. We are praying a Novena for a successful outcome. Our Novena comes from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who encourage us to invoke three powerful pro-life witnesses on behalf of the cause.
We invoked Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton the first three days of our Novena. Now we ask for intercession by Saint John Neumann for the next three days. According to the USCCB:
“Saint John Nepimucene Neumann came to the United States as one of 36 priests to serve the 200,000 Catholics of New York and New Jersey in 1836. As a priest in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore, and as Bishop of Philadelphia, he was tireless in his love for the people of the United States. He died in 1860, while on his way to mail a chalice to a missionary priest..”
DAY FOUR PRAYER
Saint John Neumann,
as a loyal son, a faithful priest, and a tireless Bishop,
you worked to support and defend life in all its wonder.
Intercede for the Church you loved with all your heart
that we may be faithful witnesses to the Gospel of Life.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Faithful son of faithful parents;
Teach us to honor our parents when they grow old.
Immigrant and stranger;
Inspire us to welcome the rejected of the world.
Protector of the young;
Inspire us to work for the safety of all children.
Our Father …
Hail Mary …
Glory to the Father …
***
Check back tomorrow for our Day Five Prayer. And thank-you for supporting the cause of Life with your prayers.
[If you’re able, join us on December 7th at 10:30AM in the Polk County Courthouse for a show of support on behalf of our unborn brothers and sisters. Thank-you.]
DAY THREE PRAYER
Saint Elizabeth Seton,
you knew the beauty of all human life
when you carried a child in your womb
and when, as a young widow,
a teacher, and founder of the Sisters of Charity,
you sought to live the Gospel of Life.
Inspire us, intercede for us, and be with us.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
You know the loneliness of the orphan;
Consecrate us to the protection of children.
You know of the vocation of the teacher;
Inspire us to teach the Gospel of Life.
You know the vows of religious life;
Pray that we might be faithful to the Gospel of Life.
Our Father …
Hail Mary …
Glory to the Father …
***
Check back tomorrow for our Day Four Prayer. And thank-you for supporting the cause of Life with your prayers.
[If you’re able, join us on December 7th at 10:30AM in the Polk County Courthouse for a show of support on behalf of our unborn brothers and sisters. Thank-you.]