Saving Babies One by One

"Will I go to hell if I have an abortion?" the young woman sitting across from my wife asked. This was the woman's first question, and it was obvious she was leaning toward abortion. But she had some doubts, and she knew it wasn't right.

My wife shared the facts of fetal development with her and explained the abortion procedures along with their risks using the crisis pregnancy center's medically-accurate literature. At the end of the discussion, the young woman decided to make an appointment later in the week for an ultrasound. By the time she returned for the ultrasound, she had decided to keep the baby.

My wife and I are thrilled that she had a part in saving this precious child's life and guiding the mother away from the devastating decision to kill her child. But these life-giving decisions happen every day at crisis pregnancy centers across the country.

Legislative changes are crucial, but as we work for those changes, remember that minds are changed, hearts are won, and lives are saved one by one.

Wesley Wilson

Wesley Wilson is the President of Let Her Live, a tax exempt 501(c)(3) SC nonprofit corporation dedicated to saving babies by showing the beauty and value of life to women considering abortion. Please learn more about the Let Her Live targeted pro-life billboard campaign. Donations are tax deductible.

Update on SC Ultrasound Bill

After the passage in the SC House of H3355, the bill requiring abortionists to review the ultrasound of the baby with the mother before an abortion, the state Senate amended it to make it almost meaningless.

Holly Gatling from SC Citizens for Life reports that State Senator David Thomas, R-Greenville, has proposed a compromise amendment to make the bill meaningful once again. According to Gatling, the amendment "would require abortionists to review and explain the ultrasound image to women before an abortion, but it would not require her to look at it."

1. The Thomas Amendment drops the House mandate on abortionists to perform ultrasound examinations before 14 weeks of pregnancy. (State regulations already require ultrasound at 14 weeks and recommend it at 12 weeks). The three licensed abortion facilities in South Carolina already do ultrasound as part of the abortion procedure so there is no need to require it by law.

2. If the abortionist performs an ultrasound, the Thomas Amendment keeps the duty on the abortionist to review the ultrasound information with the woman one hour before the abortion. Full disclosure by the abortion doctor is an essential element of informed consent if the pregnant woman is to make this decision intelligently.

3. The Thomas Amendment explicitly clarifies that the woman does not have to look at the ultrasound against her will. Neither the abortionist nor the woman can be penalized if the pregnant woman declines to look at the ultrasound. Although this is implied in both the House and Senate bills, it is not stated explicitly in either.

Please pray for the passage of the Thomas Amendment today. If you live in South Carolina, please contact your state senator today also.

To contact your State Senator go to http://www.scstatehouse.net/html-pages/senatemembers.html. To find out who your legislators are, visit http://www.scstatehouse.net/cgi-bin/zipcodesearch.exe.

Many thanks to Holly Gatling for her tireless work in Columbia.

The Pretty Picture and the Not So Pretty

Today I saw a 4D ultrasound image of our unborn granddaughter. Her eyes were closed. Her nose is shaped like her big brother's. Her cheeks and lips remind me of her mamma's. She has been growing for five months and is due to be born on her great-grandfather's birthday, a birthday gift that will please him pink.

If her parents believed differently this precious child could be killed any of the nine months inside her mother's womb. If the Supreme Court had not upheld the Congressional ban on partial birth abortion, she would be eligible to die a grisly death that we cannot legally inflict on the worst of murderers.

After partially delivering the baby, the abortionist plunges scissors into the skull to kill it or crushes the skull. It makes me shudder every time I think of it.

But it doesn't make the Democratic candidates for president shudder. Instead they shudder that the Supreme Court would prevent this horrendous procedure.

John Edwards wrote on his website:

I could not disagree more strongly with today's Supreme Court decision. The ban upheld by the Court is an ill-considered and sweeping prohibition that does not even take account for serious threats to the health of individual women.

What John Edwards does not take into account is that "serious threats to the health of individual women" do not require the killing of the baby in the last few months when the little one can live outside the mother's womb. If the mother did not want her, she could be put up for adoption. The judges did take into account that no legitimate health needs of the mother requires the killing of a late-term baby, especially not in such a grisly way. Do you think it's legal to do this to unborn puppies and kittens? Imagine if this had been done to known terrorists in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo! But to an unborn baby? It's important to John Edwards that this method of killing a child be available to women!

How about Barak Obama? Compared to Edwards, he's the model of reason and smoothness, isn't he? Not this time. On his website, he writes:

I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women.

And Hillary Clinton? Being a woman and a mother, having carried a daughter to term, having felt the butterfly kisses of her baby's movements, Chelsea's hiccoughs, and midnight calisthenics, surely she'll oppose the grisly procedure!

Don't count on it!

Mrs. Clinton writes on her website:

This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman's right to choose and recognized the importance of women's health. Today's decision blatantly defies the Court's recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother. As the Supreme Court recognized in Roe v. Wade in 1973, this issue is complex and highly personal; the rights and lives of women must be taken into account. It is precisely this erosion of our constitutional rights that I warned against when I opposed the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.

Most Americans look at this terrible procedure and wonder how you can justify it. The baby has committed no crime. Yet it is sentenced to a death not allowed to the grossest mass murderer. And partial birth abortion's defenders would scream the loudest against it if Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, or Ted Bundy had been put to death this way!

But you see abortion is not about babies. Baby is a four-letter word to liberals. Babies interfere with a woman's availability for sex. Pregnancy can be a deterrent to having fun with a married man or a one-night stand with someone who doesn't want commitments.

Think I'm making this up?

Andrea Dworkin, a radical feminist who wrote "the most important book of the decade" according to Congresswoman Bella Abzug, said in that book, Right-Wing Women,

It was the brake that pregnancy put on (obscenity for intercourse) that made abortion a high-priority political issue for men in the 1960s.... The decriminalization of abortion...would make women absolutely accessible, absolutely "free." The sexual revolution in order to work, required that abortion be available to men on demand. Getting laid was at stake. (94-94)

You see, to liberal politicians who pride themselves on civil rights and compassion, abortion isn't about babies. It's about sex. It's about having fun without visible consequences. It's not about the next time a baby loses its life to a pair of scissors; it's about the next time someone wants to "get laid" without consequence or responsibility.

And then, that may not be the only reason they support abortion. There's always campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry to consider.

I feel dirty now. I think I'll look at my unborn granddaughter's picture and try to guess what name her parents have chosen to surprise us all.

Debbie W. Wilson

Debbie W. Wilson is a human rights advocate, speaker, and author of Christy Award-winning thriller Tiger in the Shadows. Her weekly prayer list for the persecuted church can be found on the home page of Bound Together Ministries.

What's Wrong with this Picture?

What’s wrong with this picture?

In my 13 years as a pro-life lobbyist, I have not witnessed an unprecedented attack on right-to-life legislation such as occurred last week. Eleven militant pro-abortion organizations spent tens of thousands of dollars on full-page newspaper ads all over South Carolina opposing the ultrasound law currently before the State Senate. It already passed the House by a vote of 91-23.

The Ultrasound Bill requires an abortionist or a qualified staffer to perform an ultrasound on a woman and review the image with the woman before the abortion. Ultrasound is the best, medically accurate, non-judgmental information a woman can have about her unborn child and her "choice." She has the legal right to know.

The big lie that the pro-aborts are spreading is that the legislation forces a woman to look at the ultrasound. Anyone who has read the bill even once knows this is not the case.

Pretend for a moment you are an abortionist who has to comply with the ultrasound law. How would you handle the situation to your advantage? You'd say, "Ms. Jones, I have the ultrasound image here showing the fetus is 12 weeks gestational age. I am required by law to review the image with you. You are not required to look at it. All you have to do is sign this Informed Consent statement verifying I have reviewed the ultrasound image with you."

If she says she want to see the image, she has the right to see it. She also has the right not to look. Chances are better than 80 percent that if she looks at the ultrasound, she will cancel the abortion and give birth.

South Carolina Citizens for Life and the National Right to Life Committee welcome this great public discussion of the humanity of the unborn child as seen in the ultrasound image. The abortion industry's militant opposition to the SC Ultrasound Bill is an indication the pro-aborts are terrified of any discussion of the humanity of the unborn child. When a pregnant woman chooses life, the abortionist loses money.

Back to the original question. What's wrong with the ultrasound picture? Nothing -- unless you are an abortionist who is afraid to give a woman the best available scientific, accurate, non-judgmental information on which she can make a truly informed decision about abortion or giving birth. The ultrasound image may be the only picture she will have of her child or it could happily be the first picture in the baby's scrapbook.

Holly Gatling, Executive Director
South Carolina Citizens for Life

Editor's Note: The S.C. Senate Medical Affairs subcommittee hearing the Ultasound Bill finished hearing testimony Wednesday. The subcommittee will meet again to vote on the bill. Please pray that the committee will approve it. If you live in South Carolina, please also contact your state senator and ask him or her to support the Ultrasound Bill, H3355/S84, as the state senate will need to vote on this bill.

All or Nothing Gets You Nothing

Many pro-life South Carolinians are aware of a group called Columbia Christians for Life (CCL) which spends the majority of its email messages attacking state and national pro-life organizations. Their email update on March 21 opposing the ultrasound legislation that passed the SC House 91-23 demands a response.

It [the ultrasound bill] may reduce abortions, but it will also prolong the practice of "legalized" ABORTION. In the 34-year battle to end abortion, it is yet another strategic and moral error, adopting the incrementalist approach to reducing the number of abortions, while distracting the pro-life community efforts and resources from the proper focus on ending abortion.

As even the well-meaning people of CCL acknowledge, this law will most likely reduce abortions, perhaps saving as many as 1000 or more lives per year. But they would rather build their campaign to completely end abortion on the bodies of those babies than save the ones they can while continuing to fight for a total ban.

CCL argues that Roe vs. Wade allows a total ban on abortions if the state recognizes babies as persons under the law. Obviously, the Supreme Court stands as the decider of all laws, as it has long ago usurped that role from the legislature. So the decision on that law, as the outcome of any challenge to Roe, will depend on the composition of the Court--at least until a state is willing to defy its unconstitutional authority--but that's another issue.

Some of the CCL literature indicates that the total abortion ban they desire would have no exception to save the life of the mother. While we may soon be able to surgically move ectopic fetuses to the uterus and save their lives, right now an ectopic baby will die. Condemning the mother to death as well is immoral and anti-life. Even if, in some rare instance, a choice must be made between the life of the mother and the life of the baby, the baby's life has no greater moral value than the mother's.

In the nine years that a total ban has been pushed in SC, pro-life organizations and citizens have lobbied the legislature to pass laws that restrict abortion, cutting in approximately half the number of babies murdered annually.

Meanwhile the all-or-nothing crowd has achieved nothing. That's the problem with demanding all or nothing. You usually get nothing. As CCL recognizes, the danger of the incremental approach is that you forget your destination.

So let's stick with an all-or-something approach instead. We can continue winning incremental victories and saving babies every day, and one day we will win the full victory.