Week in Review
Sorry, The Arizona Abortion Law Is NOT Pro-Life
The Arizona Supreme Court made headlines this week for upholding a “near total abortion ban.” The court upheld a law from 1864 that bans abortions in most cases, but not all.
There are two sides of the aisle with this case, but American Life League doesn’t belong on either. The one side of “mostly” pro-life Americans is celebrating the court, as only some dead babies are better than a lot, right? The other side of totally pro-abortion Americans is shaking their fists at Arizona demanding that mothers be allowed to kill their babies at any time for any reason.
American Life League will not choose either side in this case, as this law still allows for babies to die. The law references the debunked claim that abortion should be allowed in cases where the mother’s life is at risk. As ALL and over 400 doctors have stated, there is no medical condition in which murdering a baby by abortion will save a mother’s life.
“This is not an abortion ban,” says ALL’s Judie Brown. “It is a law that permits aborting the child of a mother whose doctor alleges that her health is at risk if she continues her pregnancy. Babies do not kill their mothers, but abortions kill babies.”
This circles back to the argument that American Life League—and only American Life League—has been making since 1979. We should not have to choose between the lesser of two evils—only some dead babies or a lot of dead babies. It is not our right to decide whose life is worth saving and whose is not. That right is reserved for God and God alone.
ALL’s sole mission is to remind people of that and encourage them to be brave enough to stand up for life without exception and without compromise.
In this case? Simply remind people that a “near total abortion ban” is like implementing a “near total drunk driving ban.” It doesn’t make sense.
Sorry, The Arizona Abortion Law Is NOT Pro-Life
Sidewalk counselors and other pro-lifers in Walnut Creek, California, are facing the possibility of a sound ordinance that would limit the interaction they can have with women entering Walnut Creek’s Planned Parenthood. In a 5-0 vote last week, Walnut Creek’s City Council approved a sound ordinance that would restrict the use of megaphones, microphones, and other amplifying devices within 100 feet of the Planned Parenthood’s entrance. This ordinance follows a 2022 buffer zone that Walnut Creek’s City Council created to restrict how close pro-life protesters could gather outside the death clinic, as well as ensure that they remained eight feet away from patients. According to a detailed report by local Contra Costa News, the council members were disappointed to see that sound devices were being used as an alternative to the buffer zone to speak to the women going into Planned Parenthood. City council member Kevin Wilk stated the following in the April 2, 2024, meeting:
Over the past two years, we have seen repeated uncivil behavior by protesters trying to disrupt doctors, nurses, patients attempting to exercise their rights under California State law. Over the last 9-months, I’ve gone to Planned Parents facility a couple times to see what is going on there and what I have seen before people realize who I am, is blocking when people pass that signs are being shown of vile pictures. When someone pulls into the driveway or walking by, they are immediately spoken to. . . .
It’s intimidating, it’s probably the worst day in somebody’s life and some of these people are not the ages of people who are in this room. Some of these people are young teenagers who have come from out of state because their states have now outlawed reproductive services and in some case discussions. . . . Thankfully Walnut Creek and California has made this right something they can come to.
Even the council member acknowledges the vileness of abortion as it is shown in graphic pictures! What is even more ironic is when Walnut Creek’s assistant attorney, Alexandra Wolf, said that the effects of the noise by pro-lifers using amplifiers include:
- Creation or exacerbation of patient health issues
- Increases levels of stress
- Increases anxiety
- Increased heart rate
- High blood pressure
However, Wolf completely overlooks the numerous physical, mental, and emotional side effects of abortion on women and the result of physical death imposed on preborn children by abortion.
Some of Planned Parenthood’s volunteers and staff spoke out at the meeting against the volume of noise coming from the amplifiers. One Planned Parenthood volunteer said, “The amplified sound is attacking the patients coming in. . . . The clients that have come in, it allows them to call them murderers. It allows them to target people that are inherently fragile at a time that is very difficult for them. . . . It’s so loud I could hear it inside the health center with the door closed. That should not be allowed to continue to happen.”
Of course, both verbal and physical harassment are always wrong and never the way to approach teaching the truth about abortion. 40 Days for Life, whose members prayerfully protest outside that abortion facility, made the statement regarding accusations of harassment by pro-lifers outside this Planned Parenthood: “40 Days for Life is, and will remain, committed to being a peaceful, prayerful presence for life on the sidewalk. We are out there in prayer, and to offer women support and alternatives to abortion, if they wish.”
The sound ordinance was not met without opposition, especially from those involved in sidewalk counseling and pregnancy care centers. One woman with the pregnancy care center Love Life said, “They have clinic escorts that as soon as the moms get there, they are in their ear. . . . They are trying to interfere with our First Amendment rights and reaching out to the moms to offer the help and hope that we can provide through Jesus and the local church.” A woman who was helped by Love Life outside that Planned Parenthood shared that, “If it wasn’t for meeting the sidewalk counselors that day I probably wouldn’t have chose[n] life for my baby.”
Though final approval is still needed for the ordinance to go into effect, a second meeting will be held on April 16. STOPP sends prayers and encouragement to those pro-lifers in the Walnut Creek/San Francisco area to continue publicly praying and speaking up with respect and courage to defend mothers and their children from abortion and from Planned Parenthood.
ALL in the News
Katie Brown, ALL’s national director, was invited to be a guest on Choose Life Radio. She spoke about how parents can watch out for abortion propaganda in their children’s schools and even in after-school groups. Find the podcast here.
Susan Ciancio, editor of Celebrate Life Magazine and director of the Culture of Life Studies Program, writes a weekly commentary on timely pro-life topics for each program. Last week her magazine op-ed linked the connection between abortion and child abuse. The article was published by LifeSiteNews. This week, her CLSP article focused on teaching teens the evil of assisted suicide.
Twice a week, Judie’s commentaries are distributed to an expansive media list. The list contains over 100 media outlets such as Fox News, The Federalist, Breitbart, and The Daily Caller, among others. Judie’s commentaries are each featured on the front page of ALL.org.
Pro-Life Education
Culture of Life Studies Program
Without Mercy: An Introduction to Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and Other Threats to the Medically Vulnerable examines the complex topics of euthanasia and assisted suicide and teaches students the reality behind what the culture of death advocates regarding end-of-life issues. Using Church documents, the Catechism, and subject-matter experts, this four-class supplement provides students with a basic understanding of the Catholic Church’s teachings on euthanasia and gives students the tools they need to defend those teachings against current cultural attitudes and pro-euthanasia arguments. ORDER HERE
ALL’s Education Materials
ALL’s Loving Will Comfort and Care Directive tells your doctor and other healthcare personnel how to take care of you should you become so sick that you are unable to communicate your wishes. Unlike a “living will,” a Loving Will presumes a desire for life and provides for necessary medical treatment and care, including food, water, and oxygen. In short, it instructs healthcare personnel to do nothing intentionally, by act or omission, to cause your death. Download free of charge. SHOP NOW
Pro-Life Social Media
Andrew Bailey, Missouri’s attorney general, has waged a war against Planned Parenthood and hopes to make Missouri “the safest state in the nation for children.” This week he tweeted the good news that a Missouri court “just ordered Planned Parenthood-St. Louis to turn over documents exposing how they subjected children to puberty blockers and irreversible surgery, often without parental consent.”
We applaud his efforts to stop Planned Parenthood, and we encourage other AGs to do the same!
🚨NEW: The Court just ordered Planned Parenthood-St. Louis to turn over documents exposing how they subjected children to puberty blockers and irreversible surgery, often without parental consent.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) April 11, 2024
We are 3/3 in our court battle to force clinics to comply with our investigations
