Week in Review – Dr. Wen gone; UNPLANNED in Canada; Title X rules; PP sex ed
Major news this week was Planned Parenthood firing Dr. Leana Wen from her position as president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Wen was dismissed just eight months after she became president, and two weeks after the close of PPFA’s 2018-2019 fiscal year. Wen issued a statement that she had differences with the board on the vision for PP’s future. Wen wanted to move Planned Parenthood into the mainstream of healthcare, while the board wanted the organization to be more politically active and fighting for abortion in the political arena. American Life League issued a statement on Wen’s firing that can be read here.
The movie UNPLANNED was released in Canada this week and had a “phenomenally strong” opening weekend. According to published reports, the film brought in $352,510 CDN at 49 theatres that reported revenues. B.J. McKelvie, president of Cinedicom, UNPLANNED’s Canadian distributor said, “It shocked me . . . That’s a phenomenally strong opening for 49 reported theatres . . . The per-average theatre number ($7,041) is the second highest in North America” for that weekend. One of the film’s producers, Chuck Konzelman, said: “We expected a solid opening, but the No. 2 highest per-screen average in all of North America is something we couldn’t have predicted.”
The 9thCircuit Court of Appeals, generally considered the most liberal appeals court in the country, voted 7-4 to allow the Trump administration to enforce new Title X regulations that will keep about $60 million a year from Planned Parenthood. It did that because it believes it is likely the Supreme Court—based on a previous Rust v Sullivancase—will uphold the new rules. Predictably, Planned Parenthood is going ballistic. Its then-president, Leana Wen, exclaimed that the ruling is “devastating news for the millions of people who rely on Title X.”
The Kaiser Family Foundation looked at the facts of what percentage of Title X clinics are either run by Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers. KFF shows that Wen was exaggerating. Some 16 states do not have a single Title X clinic that is run by PP. In another 11 states, less than 10 percent of the Title clinics are run by PP. That’s a majority (27) of the states where these new rules will have zero or very little impact. The only states to see a major impact from these rules will be Alaska, Vermont, and Utah—states that have allowed PP to dominate the Title X industry.
In Worcester, MA, Planned Parenthood had a tough time over the last year and could not get its sex education into the middle schools. (Planned Parenthood’s business plan is: get sex education in the schools; sell birth control to students at a great profit; then sell abortion as the “solution” to contraceptive failures—also at a profit.) Then, this week, Worcester Youth Services ran the Worcester Youth Development & Professional Leadership Symposium to “provide training to summer employment participants on topics such as leadership, workforce development, financial literacy, communication, dependability, taking initiative and youth/family development.” Attendees at the meeting were 15 college- and high school-age summer workers. Somehow, Planned Parenthood managed to get itself invited to present at the symposium. When it was PP’s turn to present, what the students got was an “overly-political” presentation on the need for a comprehensive sex education curriculum in the Worcester schools. In the meeting, “Planned Parenthood’s presentation reportedly encouraged students to advocate to the School Committee for the comprehensive curriculum the organization supports.” Members of the Worcester government were livid and the director of the city’s Youth Services Division said it “was a mistake and the result of a miscommunication . . . the presentation was removed and discontinued from the overall curriculum as soon as we learned about its political advocacy content.”
ALL in the News – Judie Speaks out on Dr. Leana Wen’s Planned Parenthood Dismissal
This week, Judie released a statement regarding Dr. Leana Wen’s dismissal from Planned Parenthood. Her comments were featured in a Townhall article.
Also this week, an article on the hidden sexual messages in Disney’s The Lion King resurfaced. In the article, the American Life League is cited as the organization that fist noticed the underhanded sexual messages. The article was republished on several foreign sites.
Jim Sedlak’s Pro-Life Activism from Creation to Death is a weekly talk-radio program on the Radio Maria USA network. The show can be heard live every Friday at noon (Eastern Time) and is repeated on Saturdays at 10 PM.
Video of the Week – The Legacy of St. John Paul II—creating a culture of life
Someone left us a blueprint for pro-life and pro-family efforts. The quest for a true culture of life can be found in the writings of St. John Paul II. Judie Brown, president of American Life League, explains how his teachings can lift us up out of a culture that feels like it has abandoned us.
(Original presentation date: March 2014)
Action Item of the Week – Crossroads in last three weeks of cross-country walks
At the beginning of June, we told you about the organization, Crossroads, and their annual walks across the United States. Crossroads was founded in 1995 by Steve Sanborn, a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville. The mission of Crossroads is to respond to Pope St. John Paul II’s call to the youth of the world to take an active role in the pro-life movement in order to establish a Culture of Life. In answer to that call, Crossroads conducts annual pro-life pilgrimages across the United States.
This summer, young adults will walk on two simultaneous pro-life walks across America from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Washington, DC. Walking almost 7,000 miles, these young people hope to convert the hearts and minds of others—at the grass-roots level—by witnessing to the dignity and sanctity of all human life, from the moment of conception to natural death.
While walking, Crossroads participants join their efforts, prayers and small sacrifices with the sufferings of Christ—crucified for the sake of all, born and unborn. They also speak to parish groups to encourage pro-life activism in their communities and actively participate in radio, television and newspaper interviews with local media as well as many religious media outlets. During the walk, they stop at local abortion clinics along the route to participate in prayerful, peaceful protests and to counsel women in crisis pregnancies to help them choose life for their unborn child.
This summer, there is a Central walk that began in San Francisco on May 18 and a Southern walk that began in Los Angeles the same day. They are in a different city every day and the full, day-by-day schedule can be viewed on their website.
The walks wrap up on August 10 with a rally in Washington, DC. Listed below are the locations where the walkers will be each weekend from now until August 10. Please visit with them when they are in your area and let them know how much their sacrifice of time and sore muscles mean to you.
| Weekend | Central | Southern |
| July 21-21 | Indianapolis, IN | Birmingham, AL |
| July 27-28 | Columbus, OH | Atlanta, GA |
| August 3-4 | Steubenville, OH | Charlotte, NC |
| August 10 | Washington, DC | Washington, DC |
All pro-lifers in the Washington, DC, area are encouraged to welcome the walkers on August 10.
Pro-life Social Media – Abortion extremists make abortion look “easy” with a watermelon
Can a heart explode from an overdose of cuteness? How else can we describe our reaction to scrolling upon this photo of a mother taking a bathroom selfie with her squeaky-clean baby?
One of the most popular pro-abortion arguments against banning all abortion is that it will make killing your baby more dangerous for the mother. If the thought of a federal abortion ban emboldens the back-alley abortionists, they’re in for a disappointment. When abortion is banned, it will continue just like it was pre-Roe v Wade—in secret by physicians, nurses, and other people with every kind of medical degree in the interest of “saving women.” And when the abortion is botched, pro-lifers will be blamed rather than the butcher holding the knife . . .
. . . or the suction tube.
The pathway to maimed and dead mothers is already being paved by abortion advocates. Video taken at Netroots Nation, a political convention for the networking of far-left progressive ideas, surfaced on social media. A discussion on abortion featured a watermelon having its contents sucked out by an aspirator.
If the idea of a manual aspirator isn’t absurd enough, the haphazard method by which these women demonstrate an abortion should be a warning of things to come.
“It’s easy. It can be safely done.”