Correction appended
Leaders from over 20 pro-life groups will meet in Illinois today to brainstorm a massive strategy to shut down an organization that has become the epitome of everything they are against.
The pro-life advocates represent lawyers, students and veterans of the cause who have dedicated their lives to defend the lives of "unborn" or "pre-born" babies, otherwise known to the other camp as merely fetuses.
Meeting in Rosemont for "Planned Parenthood: BAD for America," representatives will each bring to the table a different strategy emphasis that will contribute toward a draft joint resolution, which is expected to outline a plan to de-fund and shut down Planned Parenthood, according to an announcement this week.
Planned Parenthood is the nation's single largest abortion provider. The organization receives $300 million taxpayer dollars a year for reproductive health services that in many cases include abortion. Many pro-life advocates have criticized the background of Planned Parenthood as being founded by eugenics supporter Margaret Sanger.
Eric Scheidler, communications director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, which is organizing the meeting, said the growth of Planned Parenthood is cause for concern.
"Even as the abortion rate declines nationally, Planned Parenthood's abortion numbers are on the rise - and now Planned Parenthood has launched a major expansion, aggressively targeting the young and vulnerable of our nation," stated Scheidler in a statement.
"Today more than ever, the pro-life movement must stand together to oppose Planned Parenthood."
Scheidler is no stranger to efforts aimed at uprooting local branches of the organization. Last year, he led protests directed at a massive new Planned Parenthood facility that was up for installment in his group's backyard, Aurora.
On Thursday, Scheidler is taking his campaign against Planned Parenthood to an unprecedented level as he joins in coalition with leading advocates in the pro-life movement, including his father, Joe Scheidler.
The meeting will include addresses by several renowned pro-life advocates.
Tom Brejcha, chief counsel of Thomas More Society/Pro-Life Law Center, will share his group's experience in handling both state and federal court cases against Planned Parenthood in a session entitled, "Fighting Planned Parenthood in the Courtroom."
In "Exposing the True Face of Planned Parenthood to the American Public," Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life of America, will discuss Planned Parenthood's willingness to accept racially motivated donations through a series of widely viewed YouTube videos.
The pro-life roundtable will also devote time to hear from Jim Sedlak, executive director of STOPP Planned Parenthood, the nation's leading Planned Parenthood watchdog group, as he talks about the abortion provider's expansion effort in "Planned Parenthood's Vision for the Future."
For Scheidler, there is strength in numbers.
"Planned Parenthood is a huge organization, flush with cash," he said, "but no enemy is too big when we work together."
Correction: Thursday, September 18, 2008:
An article on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, about a pro-life coalition holding a meeting to create a plan to shut down Planned Parenthood incorrectly reported the name of the founder of Planned Parenthood as Margaret Thatcher. The founder's name is Margaret Sanger, not Thatcher.
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Did Obama support the murder of Christians in Kenya? Aparently he raised $1 million dollars to his uncle who did.
"Christians want the abortion option available for themselves,"
COMPOST ALERT!!!! If you can't dazzle them with brilliance....
"Can someone explain this to me?"
Simple. They defend the sinner by defending the sin. The victim is not part of the equation. It is nothing more than sinners defending sin and their right to sin.
Now we are picking verses to use and ignoring other. God is against fornication in the first place. You want Him to address the abortion issue and over look fornication. God says if you break one law you break them all. Thus, we must address the issue as a hold not in parts.
jer333, I totally agree the media does tend to give more press to people trying to stop the death penalty from being carried out at a correctional facility than to those who are trying to stop the death penalty from being carried out at an abortion clinic.
the "Baby Cries OUT"
http://www.myspace.com/rmurphsmusic
a song, to have us all think, about "WHAT" these babies that are murdered everyday in our country would say IF THEY COULD... "Baby Cries OUT"
It does not take half a brain to close these industries down. Close them down finiancilaly. Put them out of business by reducing their potential client base.
Teach your children the importance of abstinence but also instruct them how to prevent pregnancy in the first place. Pro-Life policies must extend past the womb. Develop, allow and stop eliminating programs (health and social) to support and nurture parents who wish to keep their precious lifes.
Till then all your hard work is doing is propping up the abortion industry.
Believer, I stand corrected. I used to see people stading outside abortion clinics with signs, without any media coverage. However, when a murderer is about to be put to death, the media is quick to cover all the people standing outside holding signs defending the "sanctity" of that man's life.
jer333, great post, but one error there are people standing outside some abortion clinics with signs declaring those truths, although unfortunately thanks to liberal lawmakers, in some places they have been restricted from doing that.
As an individual who came from a country where neither abortion or capital punishment were legal, I find it quite interesting how some people here in the US view life.
In one hand you have an innocent little person who may not be allowed to have an opportunity to live and make his own choices and some say the mother has a right to take that life and people applaud that freedom of choice. No one is standing outside the clinic with posters saying that "no one has a right to take another's life"; no reprieves, no appeals for someone everyone knows is innocent.
On the other hand you have individuals who made choices that harmed others to the point of taking other people's lives, yet some claim that the state should not be able to take a life and line up outside the prison holding signs stating that "no one has a right to take another's life". Reprieves and appeals are in order for someone who in the majority of cases is guilty.
Can someone explain this to me?
pvlman, you need to do your homework before you make such an ignorant remark. If it wasn't for Conservative Evangelicals and many Catholics abortions providers would have free reign to murder babies all the way up to the moment they come out of the womb and who knows they might even be allowed to murder babies after he/she is born if they have any unacceptable deformities. We at least have rules with regards to how many months into the pregnancy a woman is allowed to abort her baby, parental notification laws, use of an ultrasound prior to the abortion taking place and bans on partial birth abortions. Granted these are not near strong enough in preventing the murder of any babies, but if if wasn't for Conservative Evangelicals and many Catholics chances are we wouldn't have these restrictions.
Nice that you all have PP, and Obama to blame. That way you don't have to face one of the major facts as to why abortion remains legal. That is many Conservatives, Christians want the abortion option available for themselves, and the women in their lives.
blue1018 -
I'm with you - I don't believe the 1% rape statistic either; mainly because it's even lower according to the Guttmacher Institute's research (not Christian org at all). Rape and incest came in at 0.3%. And let us not forget that Roe vs. Wade was based on the lie of a rape.
Not only are innocent lives being murdered by PP and their willing patients, but don't forget that, unless the women repent and turn to Christ, millions of women will one day stand before a holy God on the day of judgment and be forced to admit they took the life of their own child because they were inconvenient. (Hebrews 10:31)
i do not believe in any statistics in regards to rape or incest. Who determines these numbers? You? Some religious-backed group? The 'government' who can magically calculate every other statistic in the country? Do they consider females who do not report rapes or incest, do not report pregnancies after rapes, abusive relationships which could count towards unwilling rape, or incest so vulgar that a female can not mentally dispute it?
All that I am trying to say is that PP does not advocate abortion on a radical level that every person here seems to think. Females ultimately have choice and especially in cases that are so harmful and ethically wrong. Convenient abortion may seem wrong to many, but it is not anyone's place to assume moral depiction of others.So many churches have an anti-gay, hateful, discriminative, racist, intolerable viewpoint.. should people get together and rally to close those narrow-minded churches? After all, they do 'some' good.
philo, I'm adamantly opposed to abortion and if a group like this was meeting in my area I'd be involved with them, but I would also stay involved in my local Crisis Pregnancy Center as well. Why do you and others seem to assume conservative evangelical Christians are not capable of multi-tasking? Plus, with as many couples who are desiring to adopt infants, with the exception of the mother's life being at risk, why would any woman need to get an abortion. And many of these couples would even be willing to adopt a handicapped infant or child and there are even some who those are the types of infants or children they are specifically looking to adopt.