Showing posts with label Personhood Alliance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personhood Alliance. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2015

HR36 is Back Worse Than Before

Will the 20 Week Ban Save Babies?   ~by Darlene Pawlik

HR 36 Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is Back

The Republican leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives has announced that it will bring the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to the House floor for a vote on Wednesday, May 13, or Thursday, May 14.

You might recall that the bill had been scheduled for a vote on January 22 during the annual March for Life when hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates would be in Washington DC to commemorate Roe v Wade, but it was pulled at the last minute.  The media's account was that the bill had a reporting requirement for rape that didn't meet with the approval of a couple of legislators. 



At first glance, there was huge support for this bill because most pro-life advocates did not know that the bill had exceptions for rape and incest, meaning that abortions would be banned after 20 weeks except if the child was conceived in rape or incest.  When a core group of pro-life advocates found out about the exceptions and that there would be no hearing to try and remove that language, a huge opposition to the bill began and the bill was pulled off the docket.

Those against the bill, including Savethe1 and Personhood Alliance objected to the huge push by National Right to Life, Susan B Anthony List and Priests for Life asking pro-life advocates to contact their congressman to support the bill, without mentioning that the bill had exceptions for rape and incest.


The basis of the bill is that preborn babies at 20 weeks gestation feel pain as they are being killed by abortion. Is there any reason to believe that the manner in which a child is conceived impacts their ability to feel pain? Rape conceived babies feel pain too. We are developmentally the same as babies conceive in love.

The US has long been respected as a just nation. Is it just to kill a child because his or her father is a criminal? According to our laws, in no other circumstance is a child held accountable for the crimes of their father. We have courts and trial lawyers to hold people accountable by due process of the law. What due process is afforded these babies?

Emails from major pro-life organizations have already been out today to raise money based on the premiss that HR36 will save babies from abortion. A few have mentioned, while they don't condone the rape and incest exceptions, they support the bill because it will save babies. But will it?

My understanding is that the the reporting requirement has been removed. So, there may be no fear of reprisal for women claiming to have conceived by rape and less likelihood of women reporting abusers or traffickers when they conceive by rape or incest. Abortion is a trafficker's best weapon. Abortion keeps women subservient and breaks their spirits, so that abusers can continue their abuse. Coerced abortion is very prevalent. My trafficker forced me to make an appointment for an abortion and threatened my life if I didn’t abort.

How can we think that if a woman is desperate enough to submit to abortion and have her baby killed at five months pregnant, that she wouldn't be desperate enough to lie?

And what about the logic, or shall I say illogic, of this kind of a stipulation in law. How illogical is it to say that a baby who can feel pain should be protected in some cases, but not others? We have a concept here in the United States called equal protection under the law. This concept usually governs the enactment of legislation by giving a hearing to bills to be discussed. This bill was scheduled to be brought to the floor for a vote without a hearing last time and it has been scheduled without a hearing again.

The announcement that it will be voted on next week doesn't even allow for much media or lobbying for the exceptions to be removed. Savethe1 President, Rebecca Kiessling, will be there in DC along with Personhood Alliance President, Dan Becker, to reach out to as many legislators as possible next week. Please help us get the word out about the flaws in this bill and help others understand that there is either a baby worth saving or there isn't.



Darlene Pawlik was conceived by rape and has also conceived a child as a result of sex trafficking. She has been a pro life advocate for over 23 years and currently serves as a speaker and VP of Savethe1 and NHRTL Educational Trust Chair, as well as, the NH delegate to Personhood Alliance. 
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Thursday, February 12, 2015

Carry to Birth Group Celebrates Defeat of Ireland Abortion Law by Sarah St. Onge

In 2010 my unborn daughter was diagnosed with a lethal birth anomaly. We continued our pregnancy, much to the consternation of our physicians, and she lived for almost two hours after birth. 

As the mother of a child who was diagnosed in the womb with a life limiting condition, I take a keen interest in abortion legislation which seeks to destroy protections for the most vulnerable members of our society like my daughter Beatrix.


This includes international legislation like that which was roundly defeated in The Republic of Ireland earlier this week. Socialist politician Clare Daly proposed a bill that would legalize terminating pregnancies in which a lethal birth defect had been detected. These laws have often been used to weaken limitations on abortion overall -- removing the focus from the child involved, who has a right to life no matter how short that life will be, and instead wrongfully focusing solely on the woman carrying the child.

During the proceedings we heard the stories of women "compelled" to leave the Republic of Ireland to end their children's lives. "Forced" to have their very personal medical procedures preformed in a foreign land, these women were not surrounded by their friends and family as they allegedly  "deserved" to be.

Not once did we hear about the value of the child whose life hung in the balance as an individual, except in terms of how the parent quantified that value. Not once did we hear about the humanity of the child involved, except in terms of how the expectant mother viewed the situation. This is disturbing to me, as the mother of one of these fragile children.

Unfortunately, the attitude that a child's worth before birth is dependent upon a mother's judgement is one shared by many Americans today. When you add a lethal birth defect (or a sexual assault) to the mix, then even many pro-life persons have trouble properly focusing on the issue of the child's humanity.

This was abundantly evident last month when our own House of Representatives scuttled a pain-capable abortion prohibition because of the lack of "protections" for women who have become pregnant as a result of sexual assault. 

This bill was widely viewed as one of the most significant pieces of pro-life legislation since the Roe v. Wade decision, was supported by the majority of Americans, and was considered to be an easy win for House Republicans, most of whom ran on a pro-life ticket. The votes were there. It was set to be passed on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

But it failed. 

It fell fast and hard over one small item. A rape exception.

Like lethal fetal anomalies, sexual assault is a bullet point that pro-choice activists like to use when trying to defeat pro-life legislation. It's their trump card, and it's the last life breath of a movement that has been slowly dying for decades. 

Either one of these exceptions can be called up at will when any pro-life legislation is winning support, and portrayed in such a way that progress in terms of pro-life legislation seems "anti-woman." They sway public opinion with one sided emotional stories -- never sharing the side of parents who love their children conceived in rape or carried to birth, and because pro-life legislators fail to articulate a strong defense of all life. They throw out images of women suffering under the undue tension of these negatively affected pregnancies, and like the arguments by Clare Daly, they never address the humanity or worth of the baby involved. 

Because of the overwhelmingly negative association with carrying to birth, based on the inappropriately focused pro-choice narrative, parents are very rarely told of the benefits of continuing their pregnancies. This creates a dynamic where women are pressured into ending pregnancies with affected babies, thus denying families the opportunity to parent their child for the short life that they will have. During my own pregnancy with Beatrix, we faced doctors who unapologetically pushed termination even after we had clearly stated that we were not interested in ending her life. 

Unlike our own lawmakers, the Dáil seems to understand what is at stake, that the deceptively-named "Protection of Life" abortion bill has everything to do with destroying life. The Irish legislators understand that a woman facing a pregnancy in which a lethal diagnosis has been made is not the only patient involved in the situation, that the child involved has the right to protection. No person should have the right to decide when another person should die, based on the circumstances of their conception. 

As pro-life Americans, it would behoove us to remember that the reason we are called "pro-life" is our unshakeable belief that all life is sacred -- even for those whose lives may not last long. In order to continue the steady progress which has been made, we must remember that the baby in the photo below is equally as important as the women whom Clare Daly was purportedly trying to "save".












BIO:  Sarah St. Onge is a wife, mother of 4, step-mother of 2, and pro-life blogger for Save The 1.  She blogs on grief, loss, and pro-life issues pertaining to continuing a pregnancy after a lethal anomaly has been diagnosed, at www.shebringsjoy.com.


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Saturday, January 17, 2015

You Want Us To Compromise Our Pro-Life Values MORE?!!! By Rebecca Kiessling

Pro-life leaders, pundits and bloggers are up in arms now because Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers -- NC, (along with at least five other female Republicans,) is protesting the terms of the rape exception within the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act – H.R. 36, also known as the 20-week abortion ban.  As written, the late-term abortion in the case of rape or incest is permitted “if the rape is reported any time prior to the abortion to an appropriate law enforcement agency.”  To be clear, given the plain language of the legislation, there’s no time frame as to when the rape must be reported, the bill doesn’t require that the rape victim actually report the rape herself, and there’s no requirement that the reporting must be done in person.  Accordingly, an abortion clinic employee could “report the rape” (wink-wink) by telephone, just seconds before the late-term abortion takes place.

This overly-permissive language certainly opens the door for late-term abortions on demand, for any reason, which is why closet pro-choicers always want a rape exception – to open the door.  Women will be told to lie, just like Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) of Roe v Wade was told by her lawyers to lie in order to obtain an abortion.  In addition, there is absolutely no sense of due process involved in this death penalty decree for children conceived in rape.  Can you imagine if Congress introduced a bill stating that a rapist could be put to death -- just with the requirement that a rape be “reported”?!  But according to the U.S. Supreme Court, rapists don’t deserve the death penalty, and even for child molesters, it’s “cruel and unusual punishment.”  Yet, the Congressional GOP will summarily issue the death penalty to the innocent child.  Never mind that children conceived in rape feel pain too, we can just go ahead and suffer for all they care.  And such exceptions are also violative of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.
But Ellmers and the other female lawmakers want the liberal reporting requirement to be completely removed.  She stated that “the bill will cost the party support among millennials” and she said in an interview, “I have urged leadership to reconsider bringing it up next week . . . .   We got into trouble last year, and I think we need to be careful again; we need to be smart about how we’re moving forward. . . .  The first vote we take, or the second vote, or the fifth vote, shouldn’t be on an issue where we know that millennials—social issues just aren’t as important [to them].”  The liberal press is all over this -- saying the bill is so extreme that even pro-life Republicans can't support it.
As a result, some pro-life bloggers have called her a “pro-choice mole,” or “a lying waste of oxygen,” and “sniveling liar,” but has she really broken any campaign promises, and how did she even get elected as a pro-life legislator?  Well, she was pro-life with exceptions when she ran, so this really shouldn’t be a big shocker, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to the groups who endorsed Ellmers that she’s now advocating according to her prior values. 
On Susan B. Anthony List’s website, their endorsement of rape-exception Ellmers for Congress includes the following statement:  “A new women’s movement which affirms its original pro-life roots is making its way to the House of Representatives, and Ellmers is one of its brightest new stars.”  But original pro-life roots would not have included a rape exception.  I’m very pro-woman, but I’d much rather see a 100% pro-life male endorsed than a rape-exception female!  Other big names in pro-life circles helped get Ellmers elected as well:  Wikipedia gives credit to Erick Erickson’s RedState blog, as well as Sarah Palin’s endorsement for helping to get the “previously obscure” Ellmers elected to Congress in 2010.
In the article in which Erick Erickson calls Ellmers a liar, he says, “Just as the GOP has decided to stand firm on a piece of legislation supported by +60% of the nation, she’s scared people won’t like her.”  Stand firm?  The bill was introduced with a rape exception!  How is that standing firm?  And it was done because Congressional Republican leadership were scared people wouldn’t like them!  But Erickson is the same guy who endorsed rape-exception candidate Karen Handel in a bid for U.S. Senate in the 2014 primary when there were viable 100% pro-life candidates.  If Handel had won, she’d surely be standing with Ellmers, and I guess Erickson would now be calling her a liar too, just for standing by her declared values. 
Erickson is also the guy who accused Georgia Right to Life of “moral vacancy” for refusing to compromise on the rape exception in the last go-round with the 20-week ban, and in fact, Erickson went on to get GRTL kicked out of National Right to Life for refusing to compromise, replacing them with his own newly-formed Georgia Life Alliance.
Right now, the other five Republican women are not being named, but once those names are released, it’ll be very interesting to see which pro-life groups and leaders endorsed them, and what their prior positions were on the rape exception before gaining the honor of those endorsements.  If we want to have better legislators – ones who really are champions for defending human life, then pro-life leaders need to stop lavishing undeserving candidates with pro-life endorsements.  That means no rape exceptions!
One has to wonder -- how can pro-life leaders who endorsed them, and who’ve also compromised on the rape exception themselves, now be so upset?  After all, this bill was introduced with a rape exception already in it, set on a “fast track” with no hearing, no debate, and allegedly no amendments to be allowed, yet there was scarcely any public objection to this rape exception from pro-life leaders and organizations.  Instead of objecting to the exceptions, big pro-life organizations like National Right to Life Conference, Susan B. Anthony List and Priests for Life instantly began promoting the bill as is.  There was no campaign from the pro-life movement at-large to contact Congressmen to get the rape exception out, only no-compromise organizations like Save The 1, Personhood Alliance and its affiliates, and American Life League.  Children conceived in rape were summarily yanked off the 20-week rescue bus and thrown under it, while pro-life leaders tried to hide the bodies – not even informing their supporters that there’s a rape exception in the bill.  Are we that negligible?  And the grass-roots can’t be trusted with the truth?  How could they give in so quickly and how can they now be so upset that a group of rape-exception Republican women want the impotent reporting requirement removed?
 It reminds me of the old story where a guy asks a woman, “Will you get in bed with me for $1 million?” And she says “Yes!”  Then he asks, “Will you get in bed with me for $50?”  Now she’s indignant:  “No way!  What, do you think I’m some kind of whore?!”  The man replies, “We’ve already established that.  Now I’m just negotiating terms.”  When pro-life leaders get in bed with rape-exception candidates by endorsing them and colluding with them, and when they instantly accept, enthusiastically endorse and aggressively promote a fast-tracked rape exception bill, they’ve already compromised their values.  So why should they be upset when these legislators begin negotiating terms?
BIO:  Rebecca Kiessling is an international pro-life speaker, writer and lawyer, having been conceived in rape and nearly aborted at two back-alley abortions, but legally protected by no-exceptions Michigan law.  She’s the founder and president of Save The 1 and co-founder of Hope After Rape Conception
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

How I Faked an Abortion and Escaped Sex Trafficking by Darlene Pawlik

I was trapped in the sex trafficking industry from age 14-17.  Trafficking in persons is not like any regulated industry.  It is unmitigated anarchy. There are no rules.  

I was conceived during a brutal rape and learned of it when I was very young. That knowledge and child sexual abuse by my own father and later by a maternal uncle had me feeling worth less than others and vulnerable.  I was 12 when my mother got her second divorce.  By thirteen, I’d been dabbling in drugs and alcohol, wandering the neighborhood and hanging out with a bodybuilder in a black Cadillac.  He was patient as he courted me and manipulated me into his bed.

I wasn’t held in sex trafficking with locks, bars or handcuffs, but by fear, threats and hopelessness.  I had no hope in the authorities helping me.  One apartment I stayed in was leased to the candidate for sheriff of that small city.  Some of the buyers were businessmen, a city councilman, professionals, as well as derelicts who thrived on violence and pain. 

He sold me for the first time on my fourteenth birthday. I stood in three inches of slush, my sneakers full of icy water, shivering in front of a local drug store at the end of the street where we lived waiting for Ace to pick me up.  The buyer was thrilled to know I was so young, awkward and afraid. 

Ace sold me for sex hundreds of times. He then sold me to another man who sold me for sex too. It was a quagmire of abuses, gang rape, attempted suicide, sleeplessness, huddling in doorways and church steps, drugs, drinking, arrests and foster care, and running away again.  At seventeen, I was sold to a man as a "house pet." I thought I’d be safer -- at least I would only have to serve him.  He dressed me up and took me to nice dinners.  I got a job.  Finally, I felt kind of stable, kind of normal.

He’d told me that if I got pregnant, I would have to have an abortion.  It scared me, but I didn’t feel I had any choice.

After four months, I did get pregnant.  As he slammed his fist on the wooden arm of the couch, he shouted, “I want NO life!” It was terrifying -- his voice shot right through me.  The man was a small-time organized crime boss.  He said that I would have an abortion or he’d kill me, and I knew this was true.  One of his enforcers had been my trafficker and beaten and raped me numerous times.  I made the appointment in his presence.

That evening, I literally threw my hands in the air as I cried and prayed, “God, if you’re real, please help me!”  Somehow, I fell asleep and I had a dream of an abortion in living color from the perspective of inside of the womb.  I had no knowledge of abortion at the time, but I now know that it was accurate for the level of development in great detail.  Those little hands and feet, that tiny face, the ribs and blood -- it was horrifying!  I wanted to be a mom for as long as I could remember.  

When I awoke, I called everyone I could think of, going through old business cards people had once handed me.  I reached a social worker who had tried to help me as a runaway.  She found a maternity home that would take me.  Some friends would take my things to storage.  But how would I get away?  My captor insisted that we would go out to dinner after the abortion appointment.

So, the day came.  I left and made arrangements with the social worker, but I returned and got ready for dinner.  I’d been so scared that I was crying and near hysterical all day.  With my face swollen, eyes bloodshot, trembling and shallow breaths, I got into the car.  I fidgeted -- my breaths uneven.  I stuttered, as I told him that I wanted to go live with a cousin who would give me a job. “Something happened to me on that table,” I said, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”  I thought he would understand because he had told me of other girls who he’d forced to have abortions and they were let go. The whole evening, I couldn’t sit still at all because I was so afraid he’d find out.  I went to the bathroom frequently and cried through the meal, pretending to be nauseous and in pain.  On the way home, he said I could go, but if I came back to town, I would have to find him.

I moved quickly the next day.  I promised God that I would bring my children up in the fear and admonition of the Lord, if my baby was okay.  She was, and I did.  People who know me today, cannot fathom that I had lived such a life.  I explain to them -- saving my baby saved my life.

BIO:  Darlene Pawlik is a wife of 24 years and mother of 5.  She's also an author, a practicing nurse, the Chair of the Educational Trust for New Hampshire Right to Life, an Executive Board Member of Personhood Alliance, the Vice-President of Save The 1, and a pro-life speaker and blogger for Save The 1.
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