Warning:
This pro-life article may purport to sanction human cloning.
The 41st annual convention of the National Right to
Life Committee was held in Jacksonville, Florida from June 23 –
25. The convention, the theme of which was “Bringing America
Back to Life”, featured outstanding general sessions in the
mornings and a host of practical and informative workshops
running every hour-and-a-half throughout each of the three
afternoons.
The morning of Thursday, June 23 began with the opening general
session. The keynote speaker was Fred Barnes, executive
director of The Weekly Standard, who was making his
fourth NRLC convention keynote address dating back to 1993 in
Milwaukee.
In the second general session, titled “Planned Parenthood: The
Hyper-Political, Under-Regulated, Out-of-Control Mega-Marketer
of Abortion”, Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood abortion
clinic director from Texas, told her story. Ms. Johnson was
Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s 2008 Employee of the
Year, winning an award at a banquet at which she had the honor
of being seated next to Hillary Clinton. But just a few weeks
later, she was called from her office to assist during an
abortion, which she had never done before. Ms. Johnson held the
ultrasound wand but watched the screen in horror as the preborn
baby vainly attempted to get away from the abortionist’s cruel
instruments. After a few minutes, the baby was vacuumed out of
this life, and Ms. Johnson began a conversion to pro-life
activism. Her full story, including her legal battle with
Planned Parenthood to be able to publicize some of the inner
workings of America’s leading abortion organization, can be
found in her book Unplanned.
After Ms. Johnson spoke, Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRLC’s
Director of Education and Research, presented data to show,
among other things, how Planned Parenthood has been attempting
to “corner the market” on abortion. He said that PPFA is
undergoing corporate restructuring, where underperforming
clinics have been closed and mega-facilities have been erected
in places like Denver, Houston, and Aurora, Illinois. Planned
Parenthood, a long-time fixture in poor, urban locales and on
college campuses, is “expanding into suburbia,” Dr. O’Bannon
said.
During each afternoon timeslot, convention participants were
able to select from among six or seven different workshops
covering a wide variety of topics. Workshop speakers included
NRLC staff, experts in various organizational aspects of the
pro-life movement, long-time pro-life stalwarts, and many
religious pro-life leaders—including Father Frank Pavone, who
seemed to be participating in several different workshops at
the same time.
In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure that, in order to
meet his plethora of schedule demands, Father Pavone cloned
himself—which leaves us pro-lifers in a sticky spot. As a rule,
we adamantly oppose human cloning…but, c’mon, would it really be
so bad if there were a couple extra Father Pavones running
around our planet? I really want to answer that question with a
“yes”, but I think that I’m going to have to stand on principle
here and scold him for his self-clonage: “Father Pavone, no
matter how well-intentioned you may have been, cloning—even
self-cloning—is a no no…no no no no.”
At the Friday morning prayer breakfast, the featured speaker was
Melissa Ohden. Mrs. Ohden is a rare person indeed, for she
survived the abortion intended to take her life. In 1977, her
biological mother went to an Iowa hospital to begin a five-day
long process of a late-term saline abortion.
During a saline abortion, a long needle is inserted through the
mother’s abdomen and the wall of the uterus into the amniotic
cavity. As much amniotic fluid as possible is withdrawn, and it
is replaced with a strong salt solution. The baby swallows the
salt solution and is poisoned, and her skin is burned. After
suffering for an hour or longer, the baby’s heartbeat stops, and
she dies. (This description of a saline abortion comes from the
Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life website, www.mccl.org.
MCCL is the NRLC state chapter in Minnesota.) Labor is
artificially induced, and within a few days a dead baby is
delivered.
Miraculously, Melissa Ohden survived the abortion with no
long-term side effects. She was adopted by a Christian family
but did not learn of the events surrounding her birth until her
teenage years. Mrs. Ohden is the founder of For Olivia’s
Sake (named after her own daughter, born at the same Iowa
hospital where she was “unsuccessfully” aborted more than three
decades earlier), an organization which seeks to “raise
awareness of the intergenerational impact of abortion on men,
women, children, families, and communities.”
At the second general session on Friday morning, five Republican
presidential candidates were “on hand”; a number of other
notable Republican candidates did not address the NRLC
convention. Herman Cain, the former president and CEO of
Godfather’s pizza, and Rick Santorum, former U.S. Senator from
Pennsylvania, made the trip to Jacksonville and spoke for about
fifteen minutes each. Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Tim
Pawlenty were all piped in via Skype.
I really want to tell you who absolutely wowed me—who blew
everyone else away, but as doing so may be perceived to be a
public endorsement, I must refrain. However, there are no
restrictions on me sharing my personal opinions privately; so,
if you see me, I’d be happy to go into more details about all
five of these candidates. I should also add here that NRLC’s
political action committee has not yet made an endorsement from
among the candidates for the Republican nomination for
president, and it probably won’t do so until 2012.
The themes of Friday’s workshops (at least two of which were led
by Father Pavone) ranged from pro-life activities in
pro-abortion denominations and in supportive congregations to
the fundamentals of direct mail and telemarketing fundraising
for non-profit organizations.
During Saturday morning’s general session, Bobby Schindler spoke
about the death of his sister, Terry Schiavo, and his subsequent
work as the executive director of the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope
Network. The mission of this organization is to “develop a
national network of resources and support for the
medically-dependent, persons with disabilities, and the
incapacitated who are in or potentially facing life-threatening
situations.” One alarming national trend that Mr. Schindler
mentioned is the increasing practice in many states of defining
the delivery of food and water through a tube as an
“extraordinary effort.” In fact, in some states, a hospital
ethics committee can override a patient’s own wish regarding his
or her end-of-life treatment.
After Mr. Schindler spoke, Burke Balch, J.D., NRLC’s Director of
the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics, presented a very
detailed lecture on the so-called Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act, known to many as the Obamacare law. He
described how an Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel
consisting of 18 bureaucrats, is tasked to limit Medicare so
that it doesn’t keep up with inflation. One effect will be that
reimbursement payments will be limited, but other “quality
control measures” may be imposed as well. For the sake of
having a nationally uniform policy, private health care holders
may be legally prevented from using their own money to
pay for medical treatment in some circumstances. This is one of
the reasons that so many pro-life organizations and other
grassroots groups are fighting to repeal Obamacare. An
excellent website with many resources on this issue is
www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/Index.html.
Saturday’s workshops included The Church, the Media, and the
State; Raising Money to Build Chapters, From Telephone Trees to
Facebook Messaging to Tweeting—How to Effectively, Quickly, and
Accurately Activate the Grassroots; I Had an Abortion—What Do
You Say Next?; and, of course, more Father Pavone.
Church services for both Catholics and Protestants were held on
Saturday evening, and the convention closed with a banquet. The
featured speaker at the banquet was Michael Clancy, the
photographer who took the world-famous picture of Baby Samuel as
he reached out and grasped the finger of the doctor who was
performing a spina bifida surgery on him in utero. Mr.
Clancy told his life story, beginning with his suffering at the
hands of a sexually and physically abusive step-father until he
ran away at the age of 16. He became a photographer, working
his way up through the ranks at various newspapers, and he
eventually became a Christian (just three months before landing
the assignment which led to the famous photo.) Although the
photograph was snapped in 1999, the story doesn’t end there.
The photo and the testimony of four-year-old Samuel before the
U.S. House of Representatives in 2003 were instrumental in the
passage of the law which banned partial birth abortions. Mr.
Clancy continues to travel the globe to tell his story, but he
has faced opposition from some of the medical staff at the
Vanderbilt University Medical Center who witnessed the operation
on Baby Samuel, but who later, under administrative and
political pressure, called the photo a hoax.
If you missed the convention this year, mark your calendar for
the 2012 NRLC convention. You won’t have to go far. It will be
held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City at Reagan National
Airport, just outside of Washington, D.C. in Arlington,
Virginia, from June 28 – 30. I can’t say for sure, but my guess
is that Father Pavone (or one of his many clones) will be there.
July 7, 2011
