A project of Illinois Right to Life, “They Say You Say” is a new video series designed to teach viewers how to talk about life issues with others. In each of these videos, we address different arguments and questions that are often posed to pro-lifers today. In doing so, we provide a unique, discussion-based platform for conversation, while fortifying the audience with science and facts. At the same time, these videos are designed to educate and help all viewers make informed decisions about the issues presented.
Why Are You Pro-Life?
I’m pro-life, because I have seen the hurt and the pain that abortion has caused women. I’ve dried their tears while counseling them. I’ve been there for them as they felt broken after their abortion.
Read MoreWomen who have had abortions – they deserve to feel whole again. But, knowing how much pain it puts them through, I could never recommend abortion for anyone of my friends or my sister. Studies all across the world support these experiences, showing that women who have had abortions have an increased risk of breast cancer, suicidal attempts, drug and alcohol abuse. They feel great pain from the abortions. That’s why I could never support abortion.
And the second reason why I’m pro-life is because of science.
At the moment of conception, an unborn child’s hair-color, eye-color, and gender have all be determined. At conception, a child’s DNA is completely unique from its mother’s and will never again be repeated in the history of the world. At 21 days, before most women know their pregnant, the baby’s heart is beating, and at 16 weeks, that unborn child can hiccup in the womb. At 20 weeks, the unborn child can begin to feel the pain of being dismembered by that abortion, and at 22-24 weeks is when the unborn child can begin to survive outside the womb.
So I’m pro-life because abortion hurts women, and because of science.
You’re A Man, So What Say Do You Have In The Abortion Debate?
People often ask me, “Well you’re a guy – what are you doing leading a pro-life organization?”
And that was something I grappled with in high school. I thought wow, how could a guy step up on this? The mother, is having the biological changes. I am not carrying the child. So what say do I have in the abortion debate?
Read MoreI’ve often found when you’re excluding certain groups of a population, that to be a bad thing – in any debate. I don’t have to live in poverty to know that poverty is a bad thing. I don’t have to have experienced that to understand that we want to help people who are in poverty. Similarly, I don’t have to become pregnant in order to step up and support mothers who are. The concept of the abortion debate is really about pregnancy and what do you do when you are pregnant, what are your options, and where do you go.
Many people say directly to abortion, “get rid of it,” “it’s not a life,” “disregard it.” I think the concept that the father isn’t involved or men shouldn’t have a voice in this debate/discussion is kind of strange because you are involved in pregnancy. As an old saying goes, “It takes two to tango.”
It seems strange that we have separated that notion from it, and then the first act that you’re going to choose to do is disown your fatherhood, to say, “Oh, you know what, whatever you choose honey. It’s not up to me. It doesn’t matter to me.” Well the life of your child should matter. The lives of children should matter to all men.
In fact, when fathers aren’t around, when they’re not present, you see a huge increase in drug abuse by children without fathers. Single family homes that are headed by mothers are 80% more likely to be in poverty than a married couple. If you are raised in a family without a father present, you are twice as likely to commit suicide. Now if your father is there, you are 70% less likely to drop out of school.
So the first thing we’re going to say to men across the board and to categorically reject them from participating in the discussion about pregnancy and where to go from there is that you’re not involved? Not only are we hurting the men involved in not having a voice, but it has significant ramifications on their children.
I’ve wondered as a man how you can sit by and not step up, and I think there’s been a lot of accurate concerns of saying, “Well men don’t provide, men don’t step up, they’re not there.” I think it’s pitiful. I think it takes very little courage to walk away, to not commit, to not be a man, and to not be a father to your child. I think that’s ridiculous, and I agree with the complaints that say men need to be more involved. You’re absolutely right.
But respect does not mean that you do not have an opinion. It’s in fact rather disrespectful that I as a male would say, “You know what, it doesn’t matter to me.” That’s absurd because children matter to me. Women matter to me. The idea that we should not respect human dignity matters to me. We have to step up. You have to have the courage and the respect for yourself in order to be a man and enter the debate, because women and children are important, and we should definitely respect them.
How Is An Abortion Performed?
The following are abortion procedures performed with life-like scientific models and actual abortion instruments. Though disturbing, it is extremely important for everyone, everywhere to know what an actual abortion procedure entails, how its victim will die, and how a woman could be hurt by it.
Please don’t look away.
Read MoreThe first procedure that I am going to demonstrate for you is the Partial-Birth Abortion Procedure. Although this procedure is currently banned in the United States, other late-term abortion procedures are less well-known to us, and they are as horrific as this abortion procedure, so it is important to know about how babies are being killed at this late stage in pregnancy.
In a normal pregnancy, for the first half of the pregnancy, the baby is presenting head up inside the mother’s body. But during the latter half of the pregnancy, about the middle of the second trimester, the baby typically moves so it is head down, which is a safe delivery for the mother and baby.
In partial-birth abortion, the abortionist must first force the woman’s cervix open, prematurely, which is dangerous and causes a much higher rate of premature birth in later pregnancies. Then the abortionist reaches up inside the uterus and turns the baby so it is no longer head down but head up – this is the breech position. He then delivers the baby so that just the head is left inside the mother’s body. The abortionist must leave the head inside the mother, otherwise the baby is considered born.
In the eyes of the law, as soon as the baby is born, if the abortionist performs the exact same procedure that he could have with the baby’s head still inside the mother, the abortionist has performed a homicide, not a justifiable abortion.
Once the abortionist has delivered the baby thus far, he takes his medical forceps, he stabs the baby inside the back of its head (reach up and feel that bony part in the back of your skull, and then right below that, there’s a soft spot where the spinal cord connects to the brain. That is where the abortionist stabs the baby in head) he opens the forceps to make a hole, he then uses his suction tube, which is essentially a vacuum, sucks the baby’s brains out, crushes the baby’s head, and delivers the dead baby.
Again, if he were to perform this exact same abortion procedure on a baby that had been completely delivered from the mother, it would be a homicide. Three inches, or the length of a credit card in your wallet, separates a homicide from a “justifiable” abortion.
The second abortion procedure that I am going to tell you about is induction abortion, which is performed on late-term pregnancies. In this abortion procedure, the abortionist uses a ten inch long needle. He fills the syringe of the needle with digoxin. He then takes the needle, inserts it through the mother’s abdomen, and stabs the baby in its heart. He floods the baby’s heart with digoxin which causes a massive heart attack.
Survivors of a heart attack tell us that heart attacks are both terrifying and extremely painful. The baby feels every bit of this, as anesthesia is not administered. Up to two or three days later, the mother is induced and must go through the delivery process, and delivers a dead baby.
Dilation and Evacuation is performed in the second trimester. In this abortion procedure, as with other late-term abortion procedures, the abortionist must first prematurely open the mother’s cervix. After the abortionist has opened the cervix, he reaches inside the uterus with a pair of medical forceps. He then takes hold of the baby with his medical forceps and grabs pieces of the baby, and rips apart the baby’s skeleton – taking arms, legs, head, part of the body – and pulls them outside of the mother, one by one.
A nurse would stand by, reassemble the body, like some sort of macob jigsaw puzzle, to make sure that no part of the baby was left inside of the mother. If any part of the baby is left inside of the mother, this opens the mother up to dangerous infection, because the baby is of completely different genetic material than herself.
This abortion procedure is particularly risky because the abortionist can, thinking that they are grabbing a part of the baby, puncture the mother’s uterus, grab a part of the bowel, and bring it inside the mother’s uterus, where it ruptures, spilling waste into her body. This is how many women have lost their lives to legal, ‘safe’ abortion.
First trimester abortions are the most common in America. For some reason we think that a first trimester abortion is acceptable – the babies are so small, so underdeveloped, that it’s okay to kill them – but later on in pregnancy America becomes increasingly more against abortion.
These are examples – scientific replicas – of babies in first trimester abortion. The first baby is seven weeks, the last baby is ten weeks.
Dilation and Curettage is performed up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. This is a 20 week baby model, and this is a 12 week baby model, so imagine between this size. The abortionist uses a curette in this abortion procedure. Imagine a spoon, but instead of a basin, it’s hollowed out, and the inside is serrated like a steak knife. The abortionist uses the curette by inserting it inside the mother’s body and carving the baby into pieces, [and] then using the spoon shape of the curette to scrape the baby outside of the mother’s body, where the baby is disposed of as waste.
One of the most common abortion procedures in the United States is a Vacuum Aspiration abortion. The abortionist uses essentially a strong vacuum, reaches inside the uterus, vacuums the baby, the placenta, and all the contents of the womb out, where the baby typically can go down the sink or as medical waste.
Chemical abortions are on the rise. Think of them as, horrifically, the fast-food of the abortion industry. Abortionists can spend very little time with women, give them their abortion, and send them out the door. RU-486 is currently responsible for the deaths of at least 14 women, as well as countless babies. RU-486 is a two-part drug cocktail.
The first drug is call Mifeprex. Mifeprex operates as a hormone blocker. Essentially what it does is tell the mother’s brain ‘you aren’t pregnant.’ Instead of the mother’s brain telling the body, ‘send nutrients, send support, take care of the baby growing in your womb,’ the brain says, ‘were not pregnant.’ All support is cut off to the baby. The baby starves for lack of care.
Up to two days later, not in an abortion clinic but at home, typically in her bathroom, the mother takes Misoprostol, either vaginally or orally. Misoprostol is a labor induction drug. Misoprostol causes painful contractions for a woman whose body is not ready to go into labor. She has to go through the labor process and deliver a dead baby. Some women have said that they have even seen recognizable features of their baby in their toilet, after an RU-486 abortion.
I highly suggest you google Holly Patterson. She died after taking RU-486. She was told that she was going to have a safe abortion. That her accident would be wiped away. That her life would get back to normal. Instead, within a month, after having her legal, ‘safe’ abortion, she was dead.
It’s time for women everywhere to know what abortion procedures actually do to their children, what actually happens in their body, the risks, and complications of common abortion procedures. Our hope is that by knowing what abortion is, America will rise up and stop abortion.
It’s easy to think about abortion just being a choice. But what if it was a choice being made for you.
Are one of these abortion procedures the way you would like to die?[1]”
Is it a baby? Or is it just tissue?
In order to determine if it’s a baby, or if its tissue, we have to know what tissue is.
Read MoreNow at conception, an unborn child’s hair color, eye color, and gender have all been determined. The unborn child’s DNA is completely unique from its mother’s, and will never again be repeated in the history of the world.[1]
This is a baby at 3 weeks. Now at 3 weeks is when an unborn child’s heart begins to beat. That’s before most women know that they’re pregnant. [2]
At 4 months is when an unborn child can hiccup inside the womb. This is a baby at 3 months.[3]
Now at 5 months is when scientists begin to feel the pain of being dismembered by the abortion. This is a baby at 6 months. Now between 5 and 6 months is when the unborn child can begin to survive outside the womb. [4]
So, when does a child become a child? Well don’t take our word for it. Take the word of scientists and medical textbooks from all around the country – actually, from all around the world.
This is a compilation of just 40 different textbooks and scientists and medical professionals who agree that life begins at conception. You can read it for yourself in the link below.[5]
So let’s review:
Tissue…
Baby.
[1] http://illinoisrighttolife.org/science-of-life/
[2] http://illinoisrighttolife.org/pro-life-is-pro-woman/
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
What gives you the right to tell a woman what to do with her body?
I don’t have a right to tell any woman what to do with her body. I’m a woman, and I don’t want anybody telling me what to do with my body.
But, in an abortion, it’s not just a woman’s body that’s involved.
Read MoreAnd if you ask any pregnant woman or mother about those moments when the baby was moving inside of them, they’ll probably tell you about those times when the baby was kicking and punching, and maybe jabbing at her spleen. And she probably wanted to make it stop sometimes, but she couldn’t, because that was another human person who she just couldn’t control.
So abortion is not a procedure that’s performed only on a woman. It’s performed on another individual – a baby – and it takes that baby’s life. Now yes, as women, we have rights to do what we want with our bodies. But our rights end, where another human person’s rights begin.
Planned Parenthood is a great women’s healthcare organization. Why don’t you think so?
I think we can agree that women deserve the best healthcare from a great women’s healthcare organization. But Planned Parenthood, as an organization, has some extreme policies and philosophies that just don’t sit right with me.
Read MoreOn top of this, Planned Parenthood opposes all parental notification and consent laws. This means that they want to get between you and your daughter. They would rather give your daughter an abortion, regardless of whether or not you knew about it or gave your consent.
In addition, they have no policy for born alive infants. This means that if a baby is born alive during an abortion procedure, they will refuse to provide that baby with life-saving treatment and care, and leave the decision up to the patient and her doctor.
In addition to all of this, if we investigate Planned Parenthood clinics in our own state of Illinois, what we find is astounding. First, no Planned Parenthood clinic in our state has received a health and sanitary inspection in over 16 years. By comparison, tanning salons, nursing homes, a Chicago restaurant – is licensed and inspected, by law, on average once every year. So an abortion clinic, where surgical tools are inserted into a woman’s body, shouldn’t be as well? Second, no Planned Parenthood facility in Illinois is licensed by the state.
Finally, Planned Parenthood really isn’t that popular in Illinois. According to their most recent annual report, less than 2.3 % of women of child-bearing age, actually use Planned Parenthood’s services, which means that nearly 98% of us go elsewhere for our healthcare needs. As a matter of fact, there are only 17 Planned Parenthood clinics in Illinois, and for every one of those clinics, there are 37 alternative clinics where women can go to receive the same healthcare, except they don’t do abortions.
So, those are just a couple of reasons why Planned Parenthood really isn’t that great. And if you want to hear more of my beef with Planned Parenthood, go to the link right here: http://illinoisrighttolife.org/the-case-against-planned-parenthood/