So, Planned Parenthood decided a few years ago that they were going to do a series of “superhero” videos.  Most of them came out from the Planned Parenthood Golden Gate affiliate (you know, that one that recently got shut down).  Nevertheless, I think these videos make for good conversation pieces.  They “don’t want violence” yet in the video, they blow up the thriller-esque pro-life demonstrators.  Even pro-choicers though it was tacky.  Watch and see for yourself. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l0SAVeK2Rg

Many of this is from Life Issues Institute. 

I want to first say that if you have not read any of Gosnell’s reports, this is going to be shocking.  The Grand Jury report is very graphic.  I just want to warn you before you open the report. 

More than 200 pages describe the infanticide, drug violations, illegal late-term abortions, racketeering and other offenses of a Philadelphia abortionist. The grand jury report  released just last week, resulted in locking up Kermit Gosnell without bail.

For decades, this opportunist murdered beautiful, fully-formed babies – some born alive, even crying and photographed – in his dirty and decaying, yet legal abortion clinic. And it was no secret. Patients, family members and even employees took numerous complaints to officials. But the babies kept dying, the mothers kept turning up in local emergency rooms—even dead, and the clinic kept operating.

The Gosnell investigation began almost by accident. State officials conducted a raid in February 2010, not prompted by the growing stack of abortion-related complaints, but rather a suspicion that Gosnell was selling pain prescriptions cash. Once inside, they found a far graver situation.

News reports only touch on what investigators uncovered that day: dozens of dead babies, their remains haphazardly stored in milk jugs, juice cartons and piles of bags. Severed baby feet displayed inside glass jars. Pools of blood on the floor. Rusty instruments. The emergency exit padlocked shut. A “sedation cocktail” chart drawn by a teenage employee – the same teen left alone to administer medication to women sitting on toilets, their babies literally falling out of them. Toilets that even the janitor refused to unclog. Seeing the carnage was too disgusting, he said.

We now know that Gosnell’s patients increasingly came for illegal late-term abortions. Doped up and induced into labor, women well past 20 weeks pregnant delivered living, breathing babies. Gosnell ended their lives by plunging a pair of scissors into their necks and severing their spinal cords.

Gosnell’s house of horrors could and should have been shut down years ago.

Had the State Health Department not let 15 years go by without inspecting abortion facilities, officials would have known unlicensed staff members were medicating women solely based on ability to pay. Gosnell’s own admissions of conducting illegal late-term abortions were blatantly recorded in patient files, too. But the politics of a pro-abortion governor put an end to inspections. Abortion clinic got a free pass.

Had the Department of State paid attention to a steady stream of complaints, Gosnell’s license would have been revoked long ago. In fact, 10 years ago, a former employee “laid out the whole scope of his operation.” Others came forward, too. Family members physically prevented from calling for help. Women with perforated uteruses and bowels. A patient’s death that Gosnell hushed with a nearly million-dollar settlement. Oddly, the department deemed none serious enough to warrant further action.

 Had the National Abortion Federation sounded the alarm after personally visiting the site, women they claimed to protect would not have been lying on rusty stretchers, bodies bleeding and broken. It was the worst facility the NAF representative had ever seen. NAF’s mission is “to ensure safe, legal and acceptable abortion care.” Yet she told no one.  

 Had the Philadelphia Department of Public Health reported what its employees observed and enforced its own regulations, Gosnell’s filth and fraud might have stopped sooner. The city knew aborted babies were stored in the refrigerator alongside employee lunches. They knew Gosnell had no medical waste plan. They knew he defied local health regulations.  But years passed with no action.

 Had a local hospital disclosed complications suffered at Gosnell’s hands, the word may have gotten out sooner. Gosnell’s patients rushed to emergency rooms with slashed intestines, some even unconscious with fetal remains still inside. Even though legally required, the hospital that treated them failed to report all but one of Gosnell’s butchery. They covered for a colleague.

We’ll never know what might have been. We don’t even know how many died or suffered inside Gosnell’s clinic. But the grand jury investigation recognizes the harshest truth: that these babies had but a “few moments of life spent in excruciating pain” in the hands of a sadistic abortionist.

With photographs and testimony from 58 witnesses, the full report is almost too much to stomach. So many knew so much and yet did nothing. Please don’t do the same. Don’t let this story stay hidden any longer. Go to the link above and read the summarized Overview at the beginning of the Grand Jury Report.  Then share what you know with others.  Blog, text, email and post on twitter and Facebook.  Appalled by Gosnell’s brutality, Americans have been confronted with an important reality: killing inside the womb is as grievous as killing outside the womb. That’s a conversation we all need to have.

I ask you to do one one more thing.  Please pray.  Not just for our country and the people affected by Gosnell…but for Gosnell.  Please pray for the workers who were participating in these acts of murder.  They need to be punished in the courts, but they also need the salavation of Christ.  Please pray for their eternal souls.

San Francisco is pro-choice?? Really? This is one of the chants I heard while at the West Coast Walk for life. There were an estimated 50,000 people who joined their hearts and voices in honor of the unborn on January 22, 2011. This day marked the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This was my second time to attend the WCWFL. I am always so blessed by the spirit and enthusiasm of the crowd. I am always so encouraged by the attendance of the crowd. It gets bigger and bigger every year. It also makes me feel frustrated for my own state. When people think of the liberal state in our country, they probably immediately think of California. It is generally a place that doesn’t stand for traditional family values. But when I look out into this San Francisco crowd, I see 50,000 people who are ready to stand up and do something for this movement. I see people who are more than talk. I see people who believe that women deserve better than abortion. I look out and feel encouraged. Take my state for instance. Texas. Texas would be considered a conservative state. Yet, we are lucky if 5,000 people show up for our state walk. I mean, what is going on here? Do we just feel like we voted for the right people so that is enough? It is not enough. We can’t count on our legislators to end abortion. We must do our part. Why the complacency? Why no sense of urgency from so many pro-lifers? While we are complacent, children die every day. I pray that pro-lifers will feel that urgency in their soul. I pray they will feel compelled to “take up their cross” and get involved in this movement. I pray they will go to the clinics, get involved in pregnancy resource centers, so SOMETHING!! If California, the most liberal state in our nation can do it, so can we.

Today, many, many, pro-life bloggers are typing away.  We are on twitter, facebook and our own blogs trying to ask pro-choice supporters…what exactly does CHOICE mean??  We still haven’t gotten a good answer.  They can’t seem to just say, “Well, “choice” is deciding to murder your unborn child.”  Why won’t they just say it.  You know how much more credible they would sound?  Why tippy-toe around it??  I talked to a guy one time that said…yes, I know it’s murder, but I’m okay with that.  At least he was honest about what is taking place.  Planned Parenthood won’t be honest.  They keep hiding behind “choice.”  I wonder…who gave these babies a choice?  (Warning - graphic images)

1/15/11 – 1/22/11:  Please pray for Dr. Curtis Boyd.  Dr. Boyd provides abortion services up to 30 weeks gestation.  He employs many late term abortionists to work for him at his facility.  He currently works in the state of New Mexico.  Please commit with me to pray for Dr. Boyd and cover him in prayer every day for 7 days.  This is not a call to contact him or his facility. 

**Please post this on your Facebook wall, send to your prayer groups, talk to your minister, post on a prayer chain, or do whatever you can to get this message out. The goal is to have as many people praying for this physician at one time. We know the power of prayer is amazing and can change any heart. Thank you for your commitment!

I know I am a little late here to chime in on this, but here it goes anyway.  I did watch the show.  I am actually glad they showed it.  NARAL had sent out an email showing their excitement about the upcoming show.  Funny, they didn’t send ANYTHING out praising the show after it aired.  I think that was because it didn’t really do much for their cause.  They had these three young girls who had obviously been given the Planned Parenthood talking points before the show.  But they could hardly get them out over their sobs.  My heart is so broken for them.  I thought there were three outstanding parts of the show. 

One was after the African-American young lady had her abortion.  Her boyfriend too her out to dinner to make her “feel better” about her abortion.  Good thinking.  :/  Anyway, they were at dinner and the girl starts saying how her abortion counselor had told her to “not think about it as a something with a forehead and 10 fingers and 10 toes.  Just think about it as a mass of cells.”  Then her boyfriend, trying to chime in and support that statement said something about how he had always encouraged her not to get attached to that “thing.”  Then came the truth.  She didn’t like him calling it a “thing” because it wasn’t a “thing” to her.  She said that it was her baby and it did have 10 fingers and 10 toes and it would have turned out just like the daughter they already had.  She then said she wondered “if they had made the wrong decision.”  She said she had already become attached to her baby and he would never understand what she was going through.  So, there it was.  The truth.  The raw truth.  Those counselor’s words sounded good, but they didn’t ring true to her.  And now she wondered if it was the right decision…too late. 

The second thing I really liked was the conversation they showed between the same couple.  They were lying on their bed discussing what decision they were going to make.  I liked it because it showed the real, unedited logic a woman in a crisis pregnancy will use to justify abortion.  I think if pro-lifers have a better understanding of that logic, we can have a better understanding of penetrating through that logic. 

The third thing I liked was the woman they talked to for only a few minutes named, Katie.  She quickly broke down after she began talking about her abortion.  But that wasn’t what I liked.  I liked that she said this, “For me having an abortion was a parenting decision.”  She said she recognized her “fetus” as a baby and she thought the best decision as a parent would be to abort her baby.  Now this has left some people totally taken aback.  Not me.  Because I know the talking points.  One of the new talking points Planned Parenthood had created right before I left talked about this.  It talked about abortion being a “parenting decision.”  Planned Parenthood says “Women choose abortion because they care about their family and their future family.”  You see, Planned Parenthood had to wise up.  The young people in the country have gotten smarter.  Technology and science have advanced.  We can no longer say that it is just a “mass of tissue.”  Our young people know better.  So, they had to come up with something else…and this is it.  They had to figure out a way to convince these women that it was better to kill their baby than to parent their baby.  Unfortunately, many women have bought into that lie.  Not because they really believe it, but because they are so desperate to hang on to something.  They are in a crisis and Planned Parenthood is throwing them a life raft.  What they don’t know is that life raft is going to deflate when they are right in the middle of the ocean…when they feel alone and helpless…and then Planned Parenthood won’t be there again. 

If you haven’t watched it, I encourage you to do so.  You can go to MTV.com and search No Easy Decision.  You can watch the full episode.  So many people hurting from abortion.  We can learn from shows like this where, unfortunately, they are exploited.

Since Planned Parenthood alerted the media about my change of heart, pro-choicers have been out to get me.  And, honestly, when I think about it, I just don’t get it.  I remember reading this one blog where this woman was attacking me about my change of belief and this other woman simply said, “You know, it doesn’t matter to me that she had changed her mind.  I am truly pro-choice, so I am fine with her decision to be pro-life.”  I have to say, her logical state of mind seems to be rare. 

Yesterday, I found out that a pro-choicer was making threats against my 4 year old daughter.  Really?  Is that the way the pro-choice movement really wants to be seen?  So, they don’t respect life in or out of the uterus.  Great. 

Another thing that kind of gets me is that the pro-choicers are so interested in me.  I mean, if they are SO for abortion rights, why in the world are they following me so closely?  I am not engaging them…but they continue to engage me.  That shows me that these folks are vulnerable in the best kind of way.  If someone is really sure of their beliefs, then they don’t continue to defend them over and over again.  They know their beliefs, they are sure of them, and that is enough.  They certainly don’t continually engage people from the other side of the debate.  It gives me hope for these individuals.  I was once like them…and now look at me.  The more they are exposed to the lies of the abortion industry, the better.  The more they hear the truth, even if they fight against it, the better. 

Pro-choicers seem to think that my fight is against them.  It’s not.  I still care about them.  I have friends that are pro-choice.  That is not a dividing issue for me when it comes to my friends.  It is when it comes to voting…but not friendships. 

It makes me sad because I see them as trapped.  Trapped inside rhetoric that they have heard so many times that now, they have started to believe it…rhetoric that many of them use to justify their own abortions.  They don’t know peace; they know dysfunction.  They don’t know joy; they know pain masked by defensiveness.  They don’t know facts; they know talking points. 

When I worked for Planned Parenthood I was revered as such a “hard worker,” “wonderful employee,” “trustworthy,” “loyal,” “educated,” “intelligent,” “a creative mind.”  I was heading up the Planned Parenthood chain.  I was a trusted leader in the organization.  Now that I am pro-life, all of a sudden, it seems that these Planned Parenthood supporters think I have lost my mind or something.  Now they call me a “liar,” say that I was a “terrible employee,” I am a “terrible mother,” “traitor,” “immature,” “follower,” “moron,” “idiot,” “whore,” “stupid,” “trashy,” I have “no class.”  It is kind of funny.  I make a “choice” that is different than theirs, and all of a sudden they become the more intolerant people I have ever been in contact with.  Ironic. 

So many of these people attacking me and my character are young women.  Many of them have probably made an abortion decision.  It is easier to mask pain by trying to inflict pain on others.  I pray for these young women daily and hope that one day they will reach out to someone for help.  They will realize when they are hurting, Planned Parenthood won’t be there for them, but we will…just like people were there for me.

Someone recently asked me why that was the title of my book.  Honestly, I can’t think of a better title.  My life over the past year has been totally unplanned.  Planned Parenthood put my pro-life beliefs in the spotlight and it has been a journey since then.  It is hard to believe it has only been a little over a year.  My life so far has been unplanned, and seems to continue to be that way. 

While I never thought I would be doing ANY of this, I definitely NEVER thought I would have a book out.  I don’t necessarily love to write and really, the thought of seriously writing a book had never crossed my mind. But publishers started calling asking if I would consider putting my story down on paper.  I was a little hesitant at first.  I knew more publicity would only draw in more criticism, and I didn’t think I was in the mood.  But the more people kept calling, the more I felt a tug at my heart.  Should I do this?  Should I put that type of vulnerability out there for everyone to read and for people to spit on?  The more I prayed about it, the more I felt like it was probably a good idea…even though I was still not totally on board.  My book rep put me in contact with a woman who he had known for many years. He thought that maybe she would be a good fit for a writer.  I knew with my schedule I would never be able to write a book on my own, and honestly, had no desire to.  Her name was Cindy Lambert. 

As soon as Cindy and I started talking, I knew it was a fit.  The pro-life movement was something very dear to her heart as she was an adoptive mother.  After we finished our conversation, I knew it was a go; with Cindy and with the book. 

Now comes the easy part.  Telling my story.  That should be easy, right?  Wrong.  It wasn’t easy at all. I had experienced a lot of hurt in that past few months…more than I realized.  But actually sharing my experiences and reading them on paper was very healing.  I am so thankful that I had that opportunity. 

Cindy was amazing.  She had the book whipped out in no time.  We edited together to clarify and make sure everything was factual.

I remember the day that I received my first official copy of the book.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was an author.  There was my story, in print.  My big face on the cover of a book.  Whoa.  Was this actually happening?  All because of God’s amazing grace…and Planned Parenthood’s big mouth.

Tyndale (the publisher) had been working behind the scenes to get a marketing plan together.  Their plan worked beautifully.  Before I knew it, my calendar was booked up with media opportunities…people who had received an advance copy of my book and wanted to have me on their show to discuss it. 

Now after all of the waiting, the day has finally arrived.  The release date of my book!!!  Today I will be live on the 700 Club and on several other CBN shows.  Saturday, I will be back on the Huckabee show.  I don’t love promoting myself, but I will try to keep you aware of the big television media events that I do (if there are any more). 

I want to thank all of you who have supported me through this journey.  You are my heroes.  I don’t know why God chose to use my voice in this movement, but I hope that I always make all of you proud.  I do this to first honor Him and then to honor all of you…you that have been fighting for so long.  You are the ones making a difference.  I am your story.  I am here fighting for life because of you.  I will keep fighting because of you.

When I worked for Planned Parenthood, I said this ALL of the time.  “The only way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies.  The only way to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies is to increase the supply of contraceptive methods.”  I wish I had a dollar for every time I said that to a legislator or a media reporter, a client…or even myself.  It kind of seems to make sense when you look at it.  But, in reality, it makes no sense at all.  It was just another justification I told myself over and over again to help me feel better about the abortions I was party to.  “I am just trying to decrease the number by working here!”  Yeah right. 

Studies show that contraception DOESN’T actually reduce the number of abortions.  A recent study actually showed the opposite.  The higher the contraception rate, the higher the abortion rate.  Interesting, huh??  Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood’s hired research firm) actually showed similar statistics.  On their website, www.guttmacher.com, they show that 60% of abortive women state that they were using a contraceptive method at the time they got pregnant.  Hmmm.  I thought the “typical” (failure) rate of hormonal and barrier methods was around 5-10%.  Guess someone got that wrong!!  And here’s the truth from my experience.  I rarely counseled a women who was having an abortion that wasn’t using a method when she got pregnant.  That is the truth.  Yes, there are some women who say…well, I just wasn’t using anything!  But most were using something; condoms, the pill (most common), depo, IUD, SOMETHING! 

And OF COURSE they would be on a method!  Our society today makes women feel like it is riskier NOT to be on a hormonal method.  Totally ridiculous.  It is risky TO BE pumping artificial hormones into your body!!  These hormones have been linked to reproductive cancers, strokes, heart disease, osteoporosis, nerve disorders, future infertility, food allergies, metabolic disorders, and many other things!!  But we think it is riskier NOT to take them??  We think getting pregnant is riskier than those diseases I listed above??  Really?  And you know what makes this even better?  All of those risks are listed in the package insert.  But no one takes the time to read them…and your doctor sure doesn’t take the time to go over them with you.  Doctors give out birth control pills like they are handing out M&M’s.  They treat women like we are too stupid to understand our bodies.  Like we are second class citizens when it comes to health care.  And, honestly, we are partially to blame to for that.  We have allowed it happen. 

Birth control enslaves women to their fertility.  It puts all of the responsibility on them.  And that is exactly what it was intended to do.  Birth control was created so that people could have sex without consequences.  What has happened since then?  Women are turned into sexual objects for men to yearn for…and we allow ourselves to be lusted after.  All for a society of sex without consequences.  That is not what sex was intended for.  That is not what fertility was intended for.  Fertility was meant to be a shared partnership between a husband and wife.  A partnership that is open to life.  Where the possibility of life is not seen as a burden, but a gift.  Now, I am practical.  I am not saying that you have to pop out kids like you change your socks.  My husband and I have chosen to use Natural Family Planning, the Creighton Model.  It is a very advanced form of fertility management that allows both partners to be involved…the way it was intended.  That model may not be for you.  You may choose something else.  But, I think if women actually knew the dangers of hormonal birth control, they would not likely take it. 

One more thing.  When do you think life begins?  I believe life begins at conception…when the egg and sperm meet.  Conception is when DNA is formed and a human life is formed.  If you also believe life begins at conception, then you should have a hard time getting behind hormonal methods.  Hormonal methods work three ways.  One way is to prevent ovulation.  But if that fails and “breakthrough ovulation” occurs, then conception can occur.  Another way hormonal methods work is by irritating the uterine lining to the point that a fertilized egg (a human person) would not be able to implant on the uterine wall and begin to grow.  So, the woman passes the fertilized egg (human person) with her cycle and miscarries without even knowing it.  It is sad, but that happens MANY times while women are on hormonal methods.  That is why people will say that hormonal methods have an abortifacient property in them…because they can actually cause an abortion. 

There is a really great documentary out called “28 Days on the Pill.”  I encourage people to check it out.  You can google the title and get to the website.  It was actually created by Protestant ministers.  We need churches to get on board with this and stop pushing the pill and other methods within their congregation.  The pill is not healthy for women and for marriages.  There are other ways that are better and don’t take the lives of children.  People need to know the truth.

I know I have been a super slacker with the blogging.  There is so much I would love to share with you.  I will have to do it a little bit at a time.  I am kind of playing catch up. 

So, for New Year’s this year, my husband and I went to Disney World.  It was totally amazing.  Yes, we went without our beautiful daughter.  Yes, we felt guilty almost the whole time.  Yes, we brought her back so many gifts that we had to buy another bag to fly them back.  :)  We called them “guilt gifts.”  However, we are taking her next year for her 5^th birthday, so we aren’t all that terrible. 

One of the coolest things that we experienced happened by total happenstance.  We were in Epcot and had just gotten done with dinner at the Japanese restaurant.  In Epcot, Japan is right next to the U.S. area.  As we were walking around, we heard this beautiful chorus and saw that the stage was also lit up beautifully.  They were singing Christmas songs.  We asked one of the workers when the show had started and he said that it had just begun and we could still get in.  So, we walked around to the entrance and they escorted us to our seats.  Marley Matlin was narrating the Christmas story from the Bible in American Sign Language.  There were probably about 300 people on stage singing these songs about the birth of Christ.  Two-thirds of them were high school students.  There were hundreds of people in the audience.  I have never been so moved by music in my whole life.  I had tears streaming down my face the entire time.  It was so beautiful. 

Sitting there during that performance, I realized that God was in that place.  I realized that it actually was not a show or a performance at all.  It was a time of witness.  A time for people to experience God…people who maybe have never experienced Him before.  It was so awesome.  I realized how cool it was for that to happen at a place like Disney World.  Disney is a place where people come from all over the world with so many different cultures and beliefs.  People who NEED to hear the truth of Christ.  And there we were…hundreds of us, listening to such a powerful message of Christ.  Amazing. 

Then I started to think of something else.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if Disney decided they would take out all of this “tolerance” crap and actually become a Christian organization??  I mean, it will probably never happen, but wouldn’t it be totally awesome????  People wouldn’t stop going to Disney!!  They would continue to come, every year, by the millions!  And all of them would be exposed to the truth of Christ.  Wow!  I can’t even imagine what sort of impact that would have on our world.  Just a vision I had.  :) 

Two things that REALLY impressed me at Disney. 

One.  We spent one day in Hollywood Studios at Disney.  I was so impressed to see a huge nativity scene when you walked through the park and also during the lights show at night, they had a lighted nativity scene at the front of the lights show.  I was shocked to see it, but very happy!!  Also, no one seemed shy to say Merry Christmas or anything like that.  I didn’t hear any “holiday” talk. 

Two.  I was so excited to see the accommodations they made for people with special needs.  It was beautiful to see so many adults and children getting to experience Disney without stress.  It was great.  We actually talked to a family who had a child with Down’s Syndrome.  He is 6.  His mother kept going on and on about how wonderful everyone treated her son at Disney while they were there.  She said they bent over backwards to make sure that her son had the very best time while he was there.  That was so good to hear. 

Anyway, we counted down the New Year in Hollywood Studios which was awesome.  It was great to be in a place with a ton of people from all over the world…and with so many families.  There was no drunk and disorderly conduct or anything like that.  :)  It was great.  If you guys haven’t ever experienced the “magic” of Disney, I hope that you get to one day.  It truly is like nowhere else on earth.