Abortion can never be morally justified because it is the direct, intentional and willful destruction of a preborn child. Every preborn child, from fertilization on, is a human being who is entitled to both social and legal protection.

To discriminate against any individual child, or a selected class of children, on the basis of parentage or any other arbitrary classification (i.e., rape, incest, fetal deformity) violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

ALL embraces expert medical opinion that abortion can never be necessary to save the life of the mother. Proper treatment for ectopic pregnancy and uterine cancer that results in the unintended death of the child is not considered abortion, either morally or legally.

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Activism

ALL advocates non-violent direct action. Because we recognize the child in the womb as a human being, we also recognize the act of abortion as the intentional killing of a human being. We affirm that the child in the womb has a right to be protected non-violently.

ALL does not condone violence in thought, word or deed against any innocent human being. Those who embrace the concept of “justifiable homicide” have taken unto themselves a judgment that defies God’s authority. Cold-blooded murder is wrong, whether the act is perpetrated against an abortionist or a preborn baby.

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American Life League will present the truth about the abortifacient nature of certain forms of so-called contraception and point out that the dangerous practice of birth control is a gateway to abortion.

ALL’s legislative goal in this area is a legal ban on abortifacient birth control—that which kills or endangers a human being at any time after fertilization.

The abortifacient nature of the pill, IUD, Depo-Provera, the “morning-after pill,” anti-pregnancy vaccines and other types of birth control is confirmed by the material and studies available.

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Capital punishment

American Life League takes no position on the death penalty. We do, however, recognize that there is a substantial amount of debate on this topic, not only among Catholics, but among pro-lifers in general.

As Fr. Michael Orsi notes, "While the pope [John Paul II] demands that "capital punishment be applied in a very limited way, or even that it be abolished completely" (Evangelium Vitae, Section 56), he does not use the language of tradition or the language of prohibition. On this matter he is using his pastoral voice and making a prudential judgment. Since the Church has always recognized the right of the state to protect itself from criminals through the use of capital punishment, it is not inconsistent for a Catholic politician to uphold its efficacy for retributive justice and the good order of society. Therefore, there can be no equivalence between a pro-choice and a pro-death penalty politician. One is strictly illicit, while the other one is licit within the tradition. However, the pope's teaching on the death penalty merits careful weighing in examination of conscience for those in public office."

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There is no Constitutional “right to die.” We must protect the weak and vulnerable from the growing threat of euthanasia. When law and collective morality no longer view all persons as equally worthy of life, everyone’s most basic right—the right to life—is in jeopardy.

ALL opposes all forms of euthanasia—an act (or the omission of an act) that is done to bring about a person’s death, including administration of lethal drugs, starvation and dehydration by withholding food and water and, in nearly every case, the withdrawal of tube feeding.

ALL opposes the Living Will and other advance directives that are used to deny people with terminal diseases basic medical treatment, food and water. Many state laws and courts now consider necessary “medical treatment” to include food and water, and “terminal” to include people who are not dying. To authorize a doctor to stop basic care, such as the provision of food and water, usually amounts to authorizing euthanasia by starvation and dehydration.

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In vitro fertilization

Because of the absolute dignity of the human person, ALL affirms that every child not only has the right to life and total protection, but also the right to be conceived during the physical union of his mother and father, carried in the womb of the mother, brought into the world and raised as a member of his family as designed by God.

A child is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered as an object of ownership: rather, a child is a gift. ALL opposes all methods of reproductive technology where the conception/fertilization of a human person is achieved outside the physical union of the couple.

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Parental consent / notification

Over the years we have been told that proposed laws which provide for parental notice or parental consent prior to aborting the child of a minor are laws that will reduce the number of abortions.

In practical terms, nearly every one of these measures includes a "judicial bypass" caveat, which in essence renders the noble purpose of the proposal null and void. For just as exceptions provides a loophole for abortion, so too judicial bypass provides a loophole for an abortion-minded teen or judge.

In philosophical terms, American Life League has concluded after years of study and reflection that it opposes parental consent and notification measures because, in the long run, they do not advance the goal of personhood. They merely provide a platform for the act of abortion to be regulated. This gives the impression we accept the fact that abortion is legal and are content with mere regulation of a legal action.

Short term, we may see that there is an obstacle placed in front of the path to the abortion facility; but long term, the obstacle may be one that we are placing upon on our own path towards consistent thinking about the evil of abortion.

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Partial-birth abortion

When a child is four-fifths out of the mother's womb, and only his head remains in the birth canal, the act that destroys him is not abortion but infanticide.

Partial-birth abortion legislation usually contains a “life of the mother” exception in which this surgical act of infanticide would be permitted. In practice, it would not even be curtailed.

We do not single out one type of murder as being more grotesque than any other. While we do not endorse current political proposals, we acknowledge the profound effect that the debate has had on the American public, many of whom have been forced for the first time to see the child and the mother as two separate human beings.

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ALL will support only educational programs built on absolute standards of right and wrong, that teach sexual morality in the context of leading children toward the practice of virtue and that avoid examining the subject of sex in any concrete, detailed or descriptive way in the classroom or other public setting.

ALL will support only educational programs that recognize, respect and support the primary role of parents in the moral formation of their children and their prerogative to impart any information beyond the abstract on the subject of sex privately, delicately and at the appropriate stage of development for the individual child.

ALL believes that a proper formation of conscience, beginning with the parents in the home, and reinforced by the church and school, is the foundation to raising children with a healthy respect for God’s gift of sex.

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