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Thankfully, Abby Johnson, upon whose life the film Unplanned is based, is a staunch pro-life advocate.
However, it was not always that way.
Many people know that Johnson worked for Planned Parenthood — and, as a local clinic director, was their Employee of the Year — until she had to assist with an abortion herself.
What most of us do not know is that Johnson actually had two abortions before being employed by Planned Parenthood. These episodes are covered in the film.
After reading a Christian Post article by Brandon Showalter, ‘”Unplanned” movie will cause men to repent for mistreating, abandoning women and shift the culture’, I was amazed that any woman who went through two traumatic abortions would even want to work for Planned Parenthood.
One cannot help but think that God was trying to send her a message. When the first one did not reach her psyche, He seemed to have tried again. Incredibly, that one also failed.
These, quite possibly, involved Johnson’s two abortions, both of which involved her boyfriend, then husband, Mark.
Showalter tells us that Johnson’s first abortion took place while she was in college and partying quite a bit with Mark. The inevitable happened, and Mark offered her a lift to an abortion clinic to ‘take care of it’. He couldn’t afford to pay for her abortion, so:
Abby applied for her first credit card to pay for it herself.
Unplanned shows Ashley Bratcher, who plays Abby:
being handed a few crackers as she’s seated alongside several other dazed and traumatized women dressed in pink hospital gowns as they’re herded in and out of the procedure room at the clinic like cattle.
Abby’s father warned her about Mark, but she went ahead and married him anyway. A year later, on Valentine’s Day, he was cheating on her. She filed for divorce, then found out she was eight weeks pregnant with his baby. She went to the Planned Parenthood clinic which later employed her as its director. Perhaps she worked there to improve standards, because this was her experience (emphases mine):
… she’s told that because she’s only eight weeks pregnant she qualifies for a chemical abortion that she can perform by herself at home.
Actress Ashley Bratcher turns in a stunningly convincing performance as Abby Johnson. She fully inhabits the role. And in my view, the most unforgettable scene was how she portrayed the grisly, excruciating night of desperation that a young, panicked Abby endures as she bleeds out and discards the pieces of her second pregnancy. One can palpably feel her anguish as she writhes in intense pain, sobbing all alone in the fetal position on her bathroom floor.
Her ordeal was followed by several weeks of severe abdominal cramps and blood clots, health risks Planned Parenthood never warned her about when they gave her the RU-486 abortion pill couched in professional-sounding assurances that she’d be just fine.
Wow.
So she went to work at a place that could have killed her. She also encouraged, even indirectly, other women to have abortions there.
Thankfully, the Lord got through to her mind and heart in the end.
Fortunately, everything ended well. Showalter elaborates:
It’s extra hopeful in that she was fortunate to find a good man in her second husband, Doug, a stay-at-home dad who I interviewed in the latest CP podcast, and with whom she’s now expecting their eighth child.
The one thing Showalter does tell us is that his reaction to the abortions portrayed in the film — Abby’s and the one in which she had to participate — is not unusual for other men who have also seen Unplanned:
The film’s promoters told me that my visceral response to the movie was something they’d seen from many men at other prescreenings around country. If that’s true, then I dare say we are on the cusp of a massive shift in the national conversation about abortion. And it won’t just be about this or that legal restriction and the usual toxic politics we have trained ourselves to tune out or compartmentalize as just another issue.
Go see “Unplanned” this weekend. Take several friends with you. I’d advise taking a box or two of tissues. This one is not to be missed.
Make sure your sons, nephews and their friends see Unplanned. Just because it’s about abortion does not mean it’s ‘only’ a ‘woman’s’ film.
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Unplanned, the movie based on ex-Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year Abby Johnson’s experience, premiered a week ago on Friday, March 29, 2019 and came in fourth out of new releases. It even showed in fewer theatres than those films:
And it has an R rating because of the abortion scene — not sex:
Even more amazing about Unplanned‘s success is that major television networks refused to allow adverts for it:
NewsBusters reported that family networks also refused to air the advertising. Oh, the irony! Emphases mine below:
Several mainstream channels like HGTV, Lifetime, and Hallmark have straight up rejected advertising for Pureflixâs new movie, so if youâve been wondering why youâve only seen ads for the film on Fox News Channel, the promotional fix is in. Oddly enough, this is coming from channels that we regularly consider as providing wholesome, family friendly material.
THR reported that, besides FNC, âevery other mainstream television outlet has declined to air the ad.â Among these, the Travel Channel, Cooking Channel, HGTV and Food Network, â all owned by Discovery â ârefused to sell ad time for Unplanned due to the âsensitive natureâ of the movie,â Unplannedâs promoters claimed. Unplanned producer John Sullivan claimed, âWe were looking to spend money, but they didn’t want to get involved.â
The Hallmark Channel and USA Network (NBC Universal) also firmly rejected the filmâs ads, objecting to the controversial nature of the movie. Another producer, Joe Knapp, surmised, âMost of the networks didn’t go into detail beyond citing the subject matter of the film and that they didn’t want to get into politics.â
Yeah, maybe. Though itâs not like some of these networks have ever shied away from promoting a certain left wing bias. Lifetime for example, (owned by A&E, a Walt Disney/Hearst Communications Venture) âpreviously promoted an interview with Scarlett Johansson where she pitches Planned Parenthood.â Sounds about right.
Twitter proved problematic, too:
Twitter reinstated the account. Even the US ambassador to Germany noticed:
I hope this happens:
And this:
Abby Johnson, who became a pro-life activist once she saw the horrors of abortion for herself at Planned Parenthood, appeared on Fox and Friends last Saturday:
I worked at Planned Parenthood for eight years, rising through the ranks from volunteer escort, to clinic counselor to clinic director. I was awarded the Employee of the Year prize in 2008 and was one of the youngest clinic directors in the country, setting an example of how to run a clinic to churn out as many abortions â the biggest money maker â as I could. Then it all changed when I was asked to assist in an ultrasound-guided abortion …
The fetus was 13-weeks-old and I could easily see itâs head, arms, and legs. The abortion instrument â a suction tube â was on the screen as well. The baby jumped away from it but it was all for naught. The abortionist turned on the suction and I saw that baby get sucked apart right in front of me on the screen and inches from the probe I was holding.
In mere seconds, that fetusâ life ended and the screen only showed a black, empty uterus. The life that was there just a couple minutes ago was gone. In that moment, I saw for myself what I was supporting for the last eight years and it broke me.
How do you deal with something so profound that completely turns your worldview upside down? Everything I knew to be true was flipped. The lies exposed. I cannot have just seen that. Iâve been told this isnât a baby, that itâs just tissue. How could not have known?
My life was forever changed. I walked out of Planned Parenthood a week later, after failing to justify what I had seen. I couldnât stop thinking about that baby I saw on the screen and what had happened …
Two directors – both men – in Hollywood approached me five years ago about turning my book, âUnplanned,â into a film. It tells the story of what I saw that day on the ultrasound screen, how I started working at Planned Parenthood, and what happened when I walked away. This is my story, my voice and I was surprised that someone in Hollywood wanted to tell it. Itâs not a mainstream story but itâs my story. And itâs the story of many, many abortion workers, those who have already left the industry and those who are still in it.
You wonât be able to unsee what I saw if you go see the movie, which I implore you to do. But you also wonât be able to say you didnât know what abortion is or what happens when a woman walks into Planned Parenthood. If you are pro-life or pro-choice, you will know exactly what you are supporting.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the life story of Ashley Bratcher who plays Abby Johnson in Unplanned. Ashley was almost aborted herself — at her grandmother’s insistence.
For those in the US who would like to see Unplanned, I would suggest doing so sooner rather than later. There is likely to be a shutdown of it, just as there was with another top box office abortion film, Gosnell, in October 2018.
Do not wait. Please take sons and/or nephews with you, too — not just daughters, their friends and nieces. More to follow on men’s reactions to Unplanned in a future post.
In November 18, my reader underground pewster of Not Another Episcopal Church Blog posted ‘Good News and Bad News: Number of abortions in U.S. hits historic low’ which contrasts abortion and homicide figures for the United States.
As the whole world knows, gun control is a huge topic. These were America’s homicide figures for 2016 as compiled, interestingly enough, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Emphases in the original:
All homicides: 19,362
Firearm homicides: 14,415
The CDC also publishes abortion statistics. In 2016, the Washington Post reported an annual total of:
638,169 abortions …
Is anyone up in arms (pun intended) about that?
No.
In fact, WaPo cheered the news:
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that âfewer U.S. women are having abortions than at any time since Roe v. Wade.â … down two percent from 2014.
Wait a minute. In the run up to Roe v Wade in 1973, abortion supporters told the American public that this ‘medical procedure’, as they called it, would be ‘rare’.
Yet, this is the lowest number of abortions per annum since 1973?
So much for ‘rare’.
In 45 years, there have been approximately 60 million abortions in the US.
‘Rare’, indeed.
In January 1918, LifeSite.com reported the statistics. The 60m figure comes from the Guttmacher Institute, which assumes that CDC under-reports figures by as much as five per cent, exacerbated by the absence of reporting from state health departments in California and New Hampshire for over a decade. Here is a graph comparing the two sets of figures.
Note that in 1973, there were well over half a million abortions that year alone:
So, the next time someone gets triggered over homicides and gun control, ask them if they are equally as worried about abortions.
Remember: 60 million, since 1973.
Then ask that person what the greater worry is: guns or abortion?
The short video below does not delve into how Dr. Willie Parker can reconcile abortion with Christianity, but he does acknowledge what ‘pro-choice’ people do not.
Go halfway in (1:15):
Parker cannot remember whether he’s performed 20,000 or 30,000 abortions:
What’s the difference?
Created Equal, it would seem, is making the pro-life movement the next Civil Rights movement, particularly in their use of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s speech voice-overs.
I pray for their success in raising pro-life awareness.
They have an excellent Twitter feed, too:
Get involved in some way, shape or form in bringing the horrors of abortion — murder — to the forefront of people’s minds.
We’ve run from this issue for too long, while millions of lives around the world, not only in the United States, have been deliberately and violently ended — prematurely.
A new film about the reality of abortion clinics makes its US debut on Friday, March 29, 2019.
Unplanned tells the true story of Abby Johnson, a former abortion clinic manager. Ms Johnson won a Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year award. Then, one day, she saw just what an abortion entailed — and that the baby was very much alive and moving. She subsequently resigned and became a pro-life advocate.
This moving trailer provides a synopsis:
Unplanned is rated ‘R’ because it shows the graphic detail behind an abortion.
On February 22, Life Site News reported (emphases mine):
âUNPLANNED is an âRâ rated film which has no MPAA cautions for profanity, nudity, sex or violence ⊠except for violence directly associated with the abortion process,â said writers/directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman, reported Movieguide.Â
âIronically, the MPAA seems to be indirectly endorsing the pro-life position: namely that abortion is an act of violence,â they added. They do not plan to contest the rating.
A double irony of the rating did not go past Solomon and Konzelman.
âEven more ironically, as a result of the MPAAâs decision to give us a âRestrictedâ rating, many teenage women in this country who can legally obtain an actual abortion without parental permission will be prohibited from going to see our film containing simulated images of abortion, without obtaining parental permission,â they said.Â
Abby Johnson, a pro-life advocate, had this to say about the film:
We are pushing the boundaries of what has never been before on such a wide scale by showing America exactly what abortion is — and abortion is disturbing. It’s violent. No one will walk away from seeing this movie and say ‘I didn’t know.’
I would urge everyone with teenagers to get them to the cinema at the end of March to see this film. The Unplanned website lists a number of US locations, so please click the +More box to see additional towns and cities where it will be shown.
When I was growing up in the 1970s, Americans were told that abortion is simply ‘a medical procedure’ to remove ‘a mass of cells’. Now we know better.
I would also highly recommend that readers watch Ashley Bratcher’s interview on Fox News. Bratcher plays Abby Johnson in the movie. She did not have time to speak with Johnson, because she got a last-minute call to pack her bags — for seven weeks — and head out to Oklahoma to begin filming.
While she was in Oklahoma, Bratcher received a call from her mother, who told her that she — Ashley — was almost aborted herself. Her mother and father were in their late teens and did not feel ready for a child. Her father pawned a family shotgun to pay for the abortion. Ashley says that she finds it odd that the price for a human life would have been a shotgun.
In the end, Ashley’s mother felt sick on the operating table and said she could not go through with the abortion.
Oh, the irony of it all — but what a blessing!
Bratcher says that Unplanned has all sorts of elements to it and that it is not a judgemental film, but rather one of hope, forgiveness — and grace.
A few days ago, I watched an abortion survivor give her testimony against Planned Parenthood before the US House Judiciary Committee on September 9, 2015.
Melissa Ohden is, happily, not the only abortion survivor, but further proof that there are many living miracles. The good Lord’s design was to have them survive the worst procedures, give those babies care through concerned hospital staff and provide them with loving adoptive families to nurture and raise them.
This is powerful testimony — and it’s just over six minutes long. I encourage everyone, especially logical, rational, pro-choice readers to listen to what this lady says and to especially note what she survived at 31 weeks old — saline solution over a five-day period — designed to burn her to death (see the medical report at 1:06 minutes in):
It turns out that Melissa’s biological parents wanted her to be born and wanted to get married. However, Melissa’s maternal grandmother — a pillar of the community — said they were much too young (aged 19) and that would impact the family’s social standing negatively. So, Melissa’s grandmother forced the abortion procedure against the 19-year-old’s will (see first 14 minutes in this 2013 video of hers):
Returning to the first video, Melissa says that she was fortunate in that the abortion procedure was performed in a hospital rather at a Planned Parenthood clinic. She says that Planned Parenthood are experts at ensuring that abortion survivors — live babies — die.
Melissa survived abortion in 1977. That was only five years after Roe v Wade was passed. Those of us who were alive at the time were told that abortion was a simple ‘medical procedure’ performed at an early stage on a ‘lump of cells’. I had no idea until now that abortions then were also performed at an advanced stage of pregnancy.
When she was a newborn, doctors told Melissa’s adoptive parents that she would be chronically ill throughout her life. Certainly, she had seizures and other illnesses that no baby should suffer. Yet, despite all the odds, thanks to God’s mercy and a loving family, Melissa grew up to become a healthy child — and a healthy adult.
Melissa holds a Masters degree in social work and worked in that field dealing with clients who had problems with substance abuse, domestic violence and sexual assault.
Melissa researched the failed abortion herself, which took dogged attempts over the years. Finally, she was able to obtain her medical records of the failed saline procedure at St Luke’s Hospital — oh, the irony — in Sioux City, Iowa.
Melissa’s journey was, at times, understandably painful emotionally. She came to terms with the circumstances of her birth and her biological family by becoming a Christian. She is a practising Roman Catholic.
Visit Melissa’s website for more information.
The video in the tweet below is from 2013, but if, like me, you are relatively new to watching abortion clinic footage, then you might also find it instructive:
The woman from the clinic gives the prospective ‘patient’ (an undercover investigator for Live Action, a pro-life organisation) various scenarios for later-term abortion, presumably by injection, as she says two-day procedures are not uncommon.
If the patient goes to the clinic, the staff would put the live baby into a jar of solution to drown. According to the woman from the clinic, the baby wouldn’t feel anything. Hmm. Seems a bit hard to believe.
She counsels the patient about what to do if she has the baby at home before being able to make it into the clinic: either flush the newborn down the toilet or put it in a bag and take it to the clinic.
Yes, the woman actually says:
Flush it!
And:
Put it in a bag or something.
The woman from the clinic actually laughs at various points.
I had no idea abortion was so hilarious.
Below are two views of abortion.
The first is Bill ‘Science Guy’ Nye presenting his opinion, strongly objecting to the pro-life movement and stupid men of ‘European’ extraction who legislate against it. Nye, an atheist, disapproves of the Bible, which he mentions here as ‘a book around 5,000’ years old, and, clearly, outmoded. He does not present one salient fact about abortion. Essentially, if you don’t like abortion — tough. You’re probably too dumb:
The second is from a former abortionist, Dr Anthony Levatino, who still works as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. He testified in 2015 before the House Judiciary Committee hearing about Planned Parenthood’s medical procedures. The YouTube description adds:
Planned Parenthood has been under fire after videos were released showing how the mega abortion provider sold fetal tissue to researchers.
Regardless of where you stand on the subject, I strongly recommend watching — not just listening to — Dr Levatino’s description of what happens during a second-trimester abortion. This video is especially important for those who call foetuses/developing babies ‘whatchamacallits’:
During his career as an abortionist, he performed over 1,200 D&Es — dilations and evacuations — as abortions done between 13 and 24 weeks are known in the medical profession.
The instrument he is holding in his hand is a Sopher clamp. That is used to remove all the body parts. Watch him describe how the abortionist has to use it ‘blindly’ in search of a leg, then an arm, then the head.
The Sopher clamp purposely has rows of sharp metal teeth on it so that the doctor can grasp all of the body parts as efficiently as possible.
He says that all the body parts must be set aside on a table and be accounted for. Anything left in the former mother can cause infection, haemorrhaging and, possibly, death.
He then related his own family experience. He met his wife while at medical school in Albany. Interestingly enough, they wanted to start a family, but they had an infertility problem. They adopted a baby, Heather, in 1978. Incredibly, his wife became pregnant a month later.
Just before Heather turned six, she was fatally injured in an automobile accident. Levatino thought he could get through the mourning period and go back to work.
He did, for a time.
Then, one day when he was beginning another abortion, he pulled out a limb and got sick. He composed himself and finished the abortion, but when he looked at all the assembled body parts:
All I could see was somebody’s son or daughter.
That was the last D&E he ever performed.
Several months later, he stopped doing abortions altogether.
————————————————————————————
In November 1987, Levatino spoke at the first ever Meet the Abortion Providers conference.
Pro-Life Action has an edited transcript of what he said. Excerpts follow, emphases mine.
He said that the private clinic where he worked in Albany was about the only one performing D&Es:
My partner and I, however, were relatively important in the Albany area for one infamous fact, which to this day I regret. Our group was just about the only group that was performing late abortions, D & E procedures, Dilatation and Evacuation. And we received referrals from all over the area in our part of the state, even from neighboring counties 70 to 80 miles away. We had a lot of patients.
He explained why OB-GYNs perform abortions:
It’s profitable, there’s a lot of money in it! But there’s philosophical things that come first. As I’m fond of telling people, if you are pro-choice and you happen to be a gynecologist, then it’s up to you to take the instruments in hand and actively perform an abortion. It’s the most natural association in the world.
Along the way you find out you make a lot of money doing abortions. In my practice we were averaging between $250 and $500 for an abortion, and it was cash.
The pro-choice movement helped a lot, too:
There are other reasons; they’re perhaps no less important. I’ve heard many times from other obstetricians: Well, I’m not really pro-abortion, I’m pro-woman. How many times have you heard that one? The women’s groups in this country, they’re not alone, but they’ve done a very good job selling that bill of goods to the population. That somehow destroying a life is pro-woman. But a lot of obstetricians use that justification to themselves, and I can tell you, a lot of them believe it. I used to. It’s not hard to be convinced of it.
There is a gynaecological procedure known as a D&C — dilation and curretage — which is performed when a woman has a uterine ailment. However, it is also used for early-term abortions. Levatino described his residency period, which required that he perform several D&C suction abortions twice a week. Despite the fact that they are first-trimester abortions, they can also present risks to a woman. And, in case anyone is still unconvinced, there is more than ‘a mass of cells’ afterwards:
When the abortionist finishes a suction D & C he has to literally reassemble the child.
When the abortionist finishes a suction D & C, he has to open a little suction bag and he has to literally reassemble the child. He has to do that because he wants to make sure he didn’t leave anything behind.
I had complications, just like everybody else. I have perforated uteruses. I have had all kinds of problems — bleeding, infection — Lord knows how many of those women are sterile now.
I remember getting called down to my chairman’s office because a young lady that I had done an abortion on showed up, and the abortion had been incomplete. I had not done my job right, and she passed an arm or a leg and she freaked out because she didn’t realize what had happened.
He also performed saline procedures. This was during the time he and his wife were going through their period of infertility. Saline is painless, right? Saline is harmless, right? After all, ‘it’s just a mass of cells’, right? Levatino describes what he experienced during his residency:
My discomfort came at that point because there was a tremendous conflict going on inside me. Here I was doing my D & Cs, five and six a week, and I was doing salines on a nightly basis whenever I was on call.
I wish one of these people would just let me have their child. But it doesn’t work that way.
The resident on call got the job of doing the salines and there would usually be two or three of those. They were horrible because you saw one intact, whole baby being born, and sometimes they were alive. That was very, very frightening. It was a very stomach-turning kind of existence.
Yet, I was doing that at the same time that my wife and I were trying to have a child, and we were having difficulty with that. We had been married a couple of years at that point — and no baby. Suddenly, we realized we had an infertility problem.
I kept doing abortions, I didn’t stop. But it was tough. We started desperately looking for a baby to adopt, and I was throwing them in the garbage at the rate of nine and ten a week. It even occurred to me then: I wish one of these people would just let me have their child. But it doesn’t work that way. So the conflict was there.
Remember that Levatino also helped pregnant women have their babies. I cannot fathom how one can rejoice with an expectant mother one moment, then perform an abortion the next. Yet, these men and women do it. Levatino said:
As a doctor, you know that these are children; you know that these are human beings with arms and legs and heads and they move around and they are very active. But you get reminded — every time you put that scanner down on somebody’s uterus — you are reminded. Because you see the children in there — hearts beating, arms flinging.
We have a ball with it. It is a lot of fun. We have people coming in who have bleeding and who are afraid they may have a miscarriage — now this is someone who wants to have their child. There is no better news for me than to put that scanner on them at seven and eight weeks and show them a heartbeat and say: Your baby is okay. You do that as an obstetrician all the time.
And then, an hour later, you change your clothes, walk into an operating room and do an abortion. If you have any heart at all, it affects you.
Having graduated and being the proud adoptive father of baby Heather, he joined a gynaecologist in the Albany area who did D&Es. Levatino learned how to perform them. By then, his wife was expecting their first child:
Again, I didn’t particularly like doing abortions, but my partner did abortions and I didn’t object to it morally, so we worked together. I was on salary at the time, as a new partner, so it made not a whit of difference on my income. I did it to be agreeable. It’s a lousy reason in retrospect, but that was my reason. That was our business for years to come.
In 1984, his daughter Heather was hit by a car in front of their home and died:
Everything changes. All of a sudden, the idea of a person’s life becomes very real. It is not an embryology course anymore. It’s not just a couple of hundred dollars. It’s the real thing. It’s your child you buried.
His relationships at home and in the office became strained:
Every time I was asked to schedule an abortion, I got very angry. I began feeling that people were doing something to me. That was ridiculous — I was doing it to myself.
After a few months of that I started to realize — this is somebody’s child. I lost my child, someone who was very precious to us. And now I am taking somebody’s child and I am tearing him right out of their womb. I am killing somebody’s child.
Eventually, he turned his revulsion on himself:
My own sense of self-esteem went down the tubes. I began to feel like a paid assassin. That’s exactly what I was. It got to the point where it just wasn’t worth it to me anymore. It was costing me too much personally. All the money in the world wouldn’t have made a difference.
So, Levatino stopped performing abortions:
I slept a lot better at night after that.
I really like hearing male doctors present the case against abortion, and I particularly liked Levatino’s staccato, matter-of-fact delivery in the video above. He presents his case objectively. Any men who are fence-sitting on abortion would do well to watch his video.
I hope that someday that Dr Levatino meets Bill Nye and teaches him a thing or two about abortion.
On Thursday, February 14, 2019, President Donald Trump joined pro-life leaders on a nationwide conference call to discuss late-term abortion.
Late-term abortion — up to birth — passed the New York State senate on January 22.
A similar measure failed in Virginia around that time.
However, a handful of other US states have already signed into law or are proposing similar legislation.
White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp spoke to the media after the conference call. CBN reported (emphases mine):
“He spoke about the horrors of late-term abortion in particular and wanted to give them the motivation and strength to keep fighting, keep moving what he called the pro-life movement, that this is a moment in time where we need to make sure that their voices are heard in this fight, to ensure that we don’t, that our country doesn’t go in this extreme direction that the Democrats are taking us on the issues of abortion,” White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp said.
The president recently signed a letter to Congress making it clear that he will veto any legislation that weakens existing federal protections of innocent life.
Alluding to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s stunning assertion that some babies should be allowed to die right after they’re born, Schlapp said President Trump made it clear he would consider such a move to be nothing short of an “execution.”
“As he said in the State of the Union, it’s executing a baby,” she said. “He cannot fathom that a governor, the governor of Virginia would say a baby is born and you keep the baby comfortable and then the parents can decide whether to not to keep the baby or kill the baby.”
Schlapp said the president hopes to see Congress pass legislation prohibiting such barbaric procedures but acknowledges there will likely be plenty of push-back from Democrats …
Meanwhile, President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy preventing foreign aid from being used to support abortion. In addition, the administration has issued a proposed regulation to ensure taxpayer dollars from the Title X family planning program are not used to fund abortion.
What follows is the transcript of the National Pro-life Presidential Conference Call. As the president was speaking from the Oval Office, he had with him invited guests — pro-life advocate Alveda King (Martin Luther King Jr’s niece) and other pro-life advocates of all ages (Breaking Christian News has Ms King’s group photo):
[START OF TRANSCRIPT]
Male Speaker: Hello and thank you for joining todayâs National Pro-Life Conference Call. This call is not intended for press purposes and is not on the record. If you are a member of the press, please disconnect now. Please note at this time, all audience members are in listen-only mode to minimize background noise. I would like to formally begin todayâs call and introduce the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Donald J. Trump: Thank you very much and I want to thank all of the thousands of pro-lifers and pro-life leaders, pastors, families and advocates for joining this call and for working with such love and devotion to build a culture that cherishes human life. In recent weeks, events have taken place that have shocked the conscience of our whole nation and this is whether youâre pro-life or anything else you happen to be because whatâs happened is terrible. Democratic lawmakers in multiple states have been working to expand extreme late-term abortion. In New York State, legislators cheered with delight for a law that will allow babies to be ripped from the womb of their mother in the ninth month, right up until the moment of birth. Then to take it even a step further, in an incredible event and a horrible event, the Governor of Virginia even stated that he would allow a newborn baby⊠a baby that was actually outside and as he said, âWrap the baby, warm the baby,â and then he has a discussion with the mother and the father as to what to do with the baby and we use the word, in the State of the Union, âexecutedâ the baby. That is exactly what it was. It was an execution. This was shocking to everybody and frankly the pro-life leaders⊠I think your popularity and your cause is going to be actually benefitted by what happened because nobody can believe what he said and what he did.
In both cases, in New York and in Virginia, America must always be a nation that protects the most vulnerable and that defends the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, called the âRight to Life.â Since day one, I have kept my promise to protect unborn children. During my first week in office, I reinstated the Mexican City Policy, so the Mexico City Policy has been reinstated, which as you know other presidents⊠many presidents were not willing to do but I did it. Last month I signed a letter to Congress to make clear that if they send any legislation to my desk that weakens the protection of human life, I will issue a veto. Iâve taken historic action to protect the conscience rights and religious liberties of doctors and nurses, charities, and faith-based adoption agencies. During my State of the Union address, I asked Congress to pass legislation to prohibit late-term abortion of children who can feel the pain in the motherâs womb. We just have been very, very strong on that and Iâm here with a lot of the great friends and the great leaders of the pro-life and I call it a movement, because I think now itâs become a movement more so in the last two weeks than it has been in a long time. Itâs now a movement.
I know many of the leaders on this call are working to get this legislation passed, and I believe weâll be successful. Weâll work very hard and I want to thank you for helping. I also hope that one day we can have a special signing ceremony right here in the Oval Office. If that gets done, weâll all be together in the Oval Office, weâll sign it. A few moments ago, I spoke with several families⊠beautiful stories serve as an inspiration to all of us. Theyâre actually in my office right now. One of the people who joins us in the Oval Office today is Micah, in name Micah Pickering right in front of me. Beautiful young man. Mi[cah] was born at 22 weeks. Today is a healthy⊠I can tell you that, Iâm looking at him, a healthy six-year-old boy filled with energy and filled with life and heâs doing very well. I can say that. Micah, are you good, everything good? The whole world is talking about you right now, Micah. Micah is doing good, he said. Weâre also proud to be joined today by Katy Shaw. Katy was born with Down Syndrome and she said, âIâve made the world a better place.â Katy has actually made the world⊠sheâs right in front of me. She looks fantastic. Katy, I really want to thank you for being here⊠very, very special. We have thousands of people on this call and theyâre all sending their âhelloâ to Katy Shaw, very, very special. Our nation is uplifted by the incredible Americans like Katy who are powerful advocates for life. Every child born and unborn is made in the holy image of God. Together, we will continue to work for the day when all children have a chance to live and to love and to dream and to reach their full God-given potential.
I want to thank all of the people on the call today. I have a whole group of people in the Oval Office and weâll be discussing this very important issue. But to all of the pro-life leaders, we respect you and we thank you very much. I think weâve make a lot of progress in the last two weeks because of horrible things that have been done by the other side. Thank you all for being on the call and I look forward to seeing you and weâll have signing celebrations and I look forward to having them in the White House. Thank you all very much. Goodbye.
Male Speaker: Thank you all in the audience for joining us today. Again, this call was not intended for press purposes and is not on the record. The call is concluded and you may disconnect.
[END OF TRANSCRIPTION]
I have several YouTube videos of varying lengths with testimony as to what happens during a late-term abortion. They have graphic descriptions of the procedures involved. One long-time abortionist, who has since stopped aborting, displayed the tools he used to perform what we have been told for nearly 50 years is a mere ‘medical procedure’. His frank and impartial descriptions, whilst holding up the tools, will leave you shocked.
I will feature these videos in future posts.
Last week, I posted a summary of President Donald Trump’s 2019 State of the Union (SOTU) address.
In case you missed the event, CBS has a video and full transcript.
It created such a buzz that I have more bookmarks than would fit into one post.
What follows are America’s views of the SOTU as seen online.
Polling
Trump got high marks from viewers at home:
The CBS reporter seemed shocked that Americans side with Trump on immigration. He can barely get the words out:
Trump’s much vaunted ‘wall’ is gaining traction. This was the issue that the media said would lose him votes in 2016. In the end, he won the election, and now a clear majority of voters agree with him on this most controversial issue.
Here is a breakdown by political party:
Note that nearly one-third of Democrats approve and — just as importantly for 2020 — 82% of Independents do, too.
CNN also conducted a poll. The results must have upset them greatly:
Adding both positive percentages together gives Trump’s SOTU a 76% approval rating — the same as CBS’s. There appears to be a rounding error in CNN’s:
The Republican National Committee (RNC) calls it ‘Spirit of 76%’ (an association with 1776):
Television ratings
Trump’s speech was a huge televisual draw.
On February 6, The Hollywood Reporter provided the ratings (emphases mine below):
The State of the Union was a slightly bigger draw than it was in 2018.
Just under 46.8 million people â 46.79 million, to be precise â watched President Trump’s address to Congress across 12 networks, about 3 percent more than watched a year ago. Â
The 2018 address drew 45.55 million viewers. Trump’s first address to Congress in 2017 â not technically a State of the Union, as he had only been in office a few weeks â drew the largest audience of his term to date with 47.74 million.Â
Fox News led the field 11.27 million viewers from 9-10:30 p.m. ET, off slightly from the 11.5 million who watched the 2018 SOTU. NBC topped broadcast networks with 7.14 million viewers, followed by CBS (6.68 million) and ABC (5.91 million). The Fox broadcast network’s 4.2 million viewers beat out both MSNBC (3.79 million) and CNN (3.47 million).
The four broadcast networks and big three cable news outlets combined for 42.46 million viewers. PBS, Telemundo, Univision, Fox Business and CNNe combined to averaged 4.33 million.
Tuesday’s address drew more viewers than the comparable ones in the first terms of Barack Obama (42.79 million in 2011) and Bill Clinton (42.2 million in 1995) but fell well short of George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union, which drew 62 million as Bush made a case for invading Iraq. That address is the most-watched State of the Union in this century.
In earlier metered-market ratings, the State of the Union averaged a 16.3 household rating across ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, up about 10 percent from a 14.8 last year. The SOTU was also slightly higher in metered markets than Trump’s 2017 address, which is not technically considered a State of the Union speech as he’d only been in office a few weeks.
Two anti-Trumpers’ positive verdicts
At least two anti-Trump pundits praised him for a great speech.
Here is Bret Baier from Fox News:
And the Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan, who wrote Bush I’s ‘Thousand Points of Light’ acceptance speech for the Republican nomination in 1988:
As for those who watched at home:
Favourite SOTU themes
Many of the tweets I saw were supportive of Trump’s views on socialism, abortion and human trafficking.
Socialism
Trump firmly denounced socialism. If you think that is unfair, look at how Venezuela, once South America’s jewel in the crown, has deteriorated:
A number of people picked up on Bernie Sanders’s reaction:
Here’s a graphic — meme — to circulate:
The Dems have a plan of attack, though. In fact, they already previewed a new lie of theirs on a Sunday news show:
Abortion
Stephen Miller did a marvellous job writing the speech, but the part on abortion was especially moving:
The following day, House Republicans re-introduced the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, sponsored by Ann Wagner (R-Missouri) and Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana). Unfortunately, the measure failed to pass for consideration, as the vote had to be unanimous.
Ann Wagner had this to say:
Behind the scenes
According to The Daily Caller‘s Benny Johnson, someone fainted during the speech:
Benny also liked Trump’s speech:
Democrats
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her freshmen Representatives received rightful criticism.
However, all the Democrats deserve the public’s censure for booing Trump when he introduced the critical subject of border security by mentioning the migrant ‘caravans’. The Daily Caller reported conservative commentator Michelle Malkin’s reaction:
âWhen you have the Democrats booing because President Trump was exposing and continuing to hammer the fact that these caravans are endangering the country and posing enormous costs to people at the border, let alone in the interior, this is a message I think is going to resonate all the way through 2020, and itâs going to pose a huge optics problem for the Democrat party,â Malkin said …
âI think it underscores an important point that President Trump himself has made in the face of this debate and the intransigence of the open borders Democrats â and that itâs not just about a wall. As long as you have these magnets drawing people here and everybodyâs aware of it around the world, itâs not going to stop,â she said earlier in the interview.
âAnd that is a point that President Trump made during the address last night. ⊠President Trump delivered very defining moments that contrast the differences between the parties.â
I hope she is right.
Joe Manchin
There was only one Democrat who stood with the president, at least on energy and abortion: Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. He’s delighted to see the revival of coal mines in his state. On abortion, he had this to say:
Nancy Pelosi
Pelosi, a notional Catholic, invited the president of Planned Parenthood as a special guest:
Then, there was Pelosi’s jewellery.
She wore a long gold brooch, a tiny version of the Mace of the United States House of Representatives. The Mace is modelled on the Roman-era fasces, which has always represented authority:
AlterNet has a photo of Pelosi and a bit of history on how the Mace has been used in the House of Representatives. It is on regular display when the House is in session (emphases mine):
At each daily session, the Sergeant at Arms carries the mace in procession, ahead of the speaker in to the rostrum. While the House is in session, the mace stands on a pedestal at the speakerâs right hand. The mace is almost four feet in length and made of silver and 13 ebony rods (representing the original states in the union).
Itâs the peopleâs house, and the people have entrusted it to Speaker Pelosi for this term. Along with it comes the power to maintain order in the House.
The Roman authorities used fasces on criminals and people disturbing the peace. Lictors — officials similar to law enforcement officers — could beat miscreants and criminals with the whole fasces or untie the bundled rods and go after several at a time. They also had the authority to use the axe inside the fasces to put them to death, when necessary.
Later in history, fasces became a symbol representing national unity and indivisibility: many rods bundled together make a single entity.
This American Intelligence Media video purports that Pelosi wore the mace pin to signal that she is the equal to President Trump. That’s a very real possibility.
Whatever the case, there were times when it was clear she does not want Americans to succeed:
Democrat women
The only time Democrat women rose was to cheer Trump’s stats on women in the workforce and in Congress.
That’s right, gals, applaud yourselves:
As TurningPoint USA’s Candace Owens pointed out:
The Daily Wire‘s Ryan Saavedra tweeted this in response to AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from Queens):
Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) seemed to deny the crime going on at the southern border:
Prescription drug prices
There is one important SOTU topic that has not received much coverage — the cost of prescription drugs:
I found this response to the tweet interesting:
Democrat rebuttal
Since President Reagan’s tenure, Democrats believe it is their duty to provide a short SOTU rebuttal to Republican administrations.
Before I return to and conclude on the SOTU, it is worth mentioning the 2019 rebuttal.
The Democrats who give these short speeches are not exactly la crĂšme de la crĂšme. Last year’s was a young member of the Kennedy clan who did not do well at all, either visually or rhetorically.
This year, it was the turn of Stacy Abrams, who unsuccessfully ran for governor of Georgia last year and indirectly complained about her loss:
According to the Gateway Pundit (emphases in the original):
Stacey Abrams opened the Democrat Party response to President Trumpâs State of the Union Address by wishing everyone a happy Lunar New Year.
Stacey Abrams: âGood evening my fellow Americans and Happy Lunar New Year.â
And it went down hill from there.
And they wonder how they lost the working class and Middle America?
The chairwoman of the Republican Party — Mitt Romney’s niece — tweeted:
I’m not sure what universe Abrams is living in, but what she said is patently untrue:
The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel put it this way:
SOTU fact checking
Some readers might wonder how wrong Stacy Abrams was.
The Daily Signal posted a well sourced article supporting Trump’s speech content: ’13 Fact Checks on the State of the Union Address’, which three of their journalists compiled.
The Q Tree has more facts backing up Trump’s speech: ‘The State Of Our Union’.
Unity
The SOTU theme of ‘Choosing Greatness’ points to Trump’s call for national — and political — unity.
Recall that the motto for the United States is E Pluribus Unum: Out of Many, One.
Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager tweeted:
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee — father of Trump’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — made a political observation:
And, socially, the Trumps’ ingenious choice of special guests showed national unity, with young and old from so many different backgrounds and personal experience. I won’t show this year’s White House tweet in full, because the photo included was from 2018, however, the text reads as follows:
President @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS‘ #SOTU guests all come from different walks of life. No matter their story, each has something important in common: They represent the very best of America.
They are an impressive group of people.
Matthew Charles exemplifies the good results that come when politicians put party differences aside and work together, as Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s victorious 2016 campaign manager explains:
Matthew Charles deserved his release, as BreakPoint.org explains in ‘Restoring All Things — One Person At A Time’, a moving account of Charles’s personal transformation.
Conclusion
I am very much looking forward to seeing what the next year brings for the Trump Administration — and for the United States, as well as the world.
With Donald Trump, we are witnessing history in the making. This era will be written about for generations to come. Enjoy it and embrace it while it lasts.
