Pro-Life

Grappling with abortion trauma

Abortion | Many women who’ve undergone abortion speak to the pain of the experience and the regret they feel, but confession and God’s forgiveness offer the path to healing

by Danielle Bliven
Posted 1/21/21, 05:03 pm

Maria Malafronte was 24 years old and six months pregnant when she walked into the All Women’s Care center in Seattle in September 2019. Two hours earlier she had taken pills—she wasn’t sure what they were—the abortionist had prescribed ahead of her appointment. Now she was in excruciating pain.

Malafronte didn’t want an abortion. She and her fiancé, Ben, wanted to place the baby for adoption, but her parents refused to pay for medical care during the pregnancy. They did offer to pay for termination: With no insurance and little money, Malafronte felt she had no other option.

Death of a hospice

Death | Canadian caregivers fight the country’s pro-euthanasia agenda

by Leah Hickman
Posted 1/18/21, 05:09 pm

The red brick Irene Thomas Hospice facility in Delta, British Columbia, sits at the back of a small, shady corner lot that it shares with a supportive care center for nonhospice patients. The Delta Hospice Society built the coordinating buildings in 2009 on land leased from the Fraser Health Authority, a governmental health group.

A fighter for life dies

Abortion | Pro-Life Action League founder Joe Scheidler spent decades trying to stop abortion

by Marvin Olasky
Posted 1/18/21, 05:03 pm

Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League, died Monday morning at age 93.

He entered the pro-life movement half a century ago after his wife Ann dragged him to a rally in downtown Chicago on a Saturday afternoon. Scheidler knew about activism—he had marched with Martin Luther King Jr.—and the Illinois Legislature was debating an abortion legalization bill, but Scheidler wanted to stay home and watch Notre Dame football.

Longtime pro-life champion Joe Scheidler dies

Rachel Lynn Aldrich | 1/18/21, 04:42 pm

Joe Scheidler decided to leave his career and become a full-time worker for the pro-life cause shortly after the Supreme Court legalized abortion with its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The veteran pro-lifer died on Monday at the age of 93, according to a spokesperson for the Pro-Life Action League.

Life for Tinslee Lewis

Life | The Supreme Court weighs in on case of a child on life support

Leah Hickman | 1/14/21, 06:32 pm

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Cook Children’s Medical Center’s request to remove a child from life support against her mother’s wishes. The case returns to a lower court, where Tinslee Lewis’ supporters at Texas Right to Life expect the court to allow the child to keep living.

Birth of a movement

Life | A look back at the first two decades of pro-life work after Roe v. Wade

Marvin Olasky | 1/14/21, 04:51 pm

Connie Marshner was executive vice president of the Free Congress Foundation in the 1980s and chair of Ronald Reagan’s Family Policy Advisory Board.

In 1972, if you were told one party would become the pro-life party and one party the party of abortion, which would you have selected? The Democrats would be pro-life. Lots of Republicans favored “population control.”

Containing abortion

Roe v. Wade | Property in men, property in babies

Marvin Olasky | 1/14/21, 04:34 pm

Jan. 22 is the 48th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Ten days later, Black History Month begins. We should think about the connection.

Sit-ins and statutes

Law | Closed doors on early pro-life efforts led activist Sam Lee to craft legislation that supports women in crisis pregnancies

Leah Hickman | 1/14/21, 04:25 pm

Sam Lee was sitting in a doorway when he met Roberta, a white girl in her early 20s with glasses and long brown hair. She couldn’t get past him, and that was his goal. It was around 1980, and in those early years of the pro-life sit-in movement, Lee was experienced in using his body to barricade abortion facility entrances. He was 23 and had been doing it since 1978.

Pro-life progression

Lifestyle | Q&As with pro-life leaders: The politically diverse pro-life movement in the 1970s, and the racially and ethnically diverse movement now

Leah Hickman | 1/14/21, 04:20 pm

John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe co-founded in 1977 the Pro-Life Nonviolent Action Project and was arrested more than 20 times at sit-ins. In recent years he’s concentrated on supporting immigrants and opposing racism. My questions and Cavanaugh-O’Keefe’s answers follow.

The unseen faces of abortion

Roe v. Wade | The events of 2020 expose contradictions in the pro-abortion message

Leah Hickman | 1/14/21, 04:11 pm

Last year’s COVID-19 lockdowns in the United States sparked fights between state governments and abortion groups over whether abortion is essential or elective. State governments in March and April halted nonessential medical procedures to conserve medical supplies. Governors in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia carved out exceptions for abortion facilities, while 11 other states deemed abortion procedures elective.