The story of an abortion survivor is one “that could not be heard, and therefore must not be told.” This was the lesson learned by then-college freshman Melissa Ohden who, in a discussion with new friends about “every kind of abuse, abandonment and human heartache,” found that... Read More →

  At a family gathering early in the last election season I was asked by a practicing Catholic who reflexively votes Democratic whether, if Donald Trump had gotten the Republican nomination, I would vote for him in the general election. When I said yes, both she and her... Read More →

  During the last presidential campaign, friends and acquaintances urged me to cast my vote for the Republican Party platform. I didn’t, because it wasn’t on the ballot. I wasn’t always so clear-eyed. In 1980, being young and both bloodless and woolly in my political... Read More →

  One of the doves who come to our window feeder seems to be missing the skin on the back of his head. I’m pretty sure we see his skull when he looks away from the house. It’s a dangerous world out there when you’re prey. They’re pretty birds, our doves, but they don’t look... Read More →

  On the first Saturday of every month, about forty of us gather outside Planned Parenthood on Bleecker Street in downtown Manhattan for an early morning Vigil for Life. We have been holding this vigil for almost ten years and neither wind nor rain nor blazing sun... Read More →

I always knew it was going to happen. I just didn’t know when—or for whom. My 11-year-old daughter, Magdalena, has Down syndrome. Over the years, my wife and I have met dozens of other parents of children with special needs—through schools, through Special Olympics programs,... Read More →

The story of Mary Magdalene, a repentant sinner who went on to sainthood, is well known. Today she serves as inspiration for two life-affirming organizations: The Community of St. Mary Magdalene and The Magdalene Institute. Their founder, Mary Langlois, hopes that the... Read More →

  According to the Centers for Disease Control, more people in Massachusetts die annually from suicide than from motor vehicle accidents (National Vital Statistics Reports, April 24, 2008). In 2007, the state’s suicide rate (8.0 per 100,000 people) was almost three times... Read More →

  Neil Gorsuch’s probable ascension to the Supreme Court nicely conforms to a script that pro-life advocates hopeful of seeing Roe v. Wade overturned have been writing in their minds for the past year: Elect a Republican president, who soon fills Scalia’s seat with a pro-life... Read More →

  What is the pro-life movement about? Oddly, it is this question that is most contested. If pro-choice people agreed with us as to the purpose of the pro-life movement, we might actually get somewhere. This was brought home to me recently at a conversation-with-cookies... Read More →

  He shocked his friends, and lost a good many of them. He said something no one in his circles would say. In doing so, he exposed one of the weirder and sadder failures in modern American political life. Nat Hentoff was one of the really cool guys. He wrote for the New York... Read More →

  It is clear that Donald Trump will keep tweeting after he is sworn into office as President. His Twitter site now claims to have over 20 million followers. What politician would give up such a goldmine of support? Especially when media reporters follow it closely? If Trump... Read More →

Wei Jingsheng, perhaps the Peoples Republic of China’s best known pro-democracy, human-rights activist, spent a total of 18 years in prison as a dissident charged with “counter revolution propaganda and agitation.” He was released in 1997 and, following pressure from the Clinton... Read More →

Great is the fury of the pro-choice community. And wouldn’t you be riled, too, if the State of Texas (or any other governmental entity, for that matter) had undertaken to train an unflattering spotlight on your philosophical premises? That’s what Texas’ new requirement for... Read More →

After their devastating losses in the November election, Democratic Party leaders finally understand that they have a huge problem with blue-collar Americans. They know it will take major efforts to regain the trust of the working class they used to champion. But doesn’t it occur... Read More →

It’s the claim that the opponent argues illogically when he hasn’t that’s the sneaky thing. People on all sides of every contentious issue do this, but the pro-choice movement seems—and I’ll admit I may be biased here—particularly keen on this way of trying to win an argument... Read More →

One hundred and forty-four years separate the first woman to campaign for the presidency of the United States and the latest to have done so. Despite this extended period of time, during which America has changed dramatically, it is interesting to note that the lives and views of... Read More →

A majestic lady recently took her place on a bluff overlooking the mighty Missouri River in South Dakota. On September 17th, a shiny and silvery statue called “Dignity” was unveiled near Chamberlain, a small town on the riverbank, along the route followed by Lewis and Clark as... Read More →

  That’s the title of Christian Schneider’s Sept. 25 column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And what a thought-provoking column it is. When Schneider was four, he tells us, his five-year-old sister was killed after a tornado sent a tree crashing into the family’s camper:... Read More →

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I left our apartment with our son James, to take him across town for his second day at a new special education school. As I stood on the crosstown bus, I was thinking about the introduction for the Summer issue of the Human Life Review, which... Read More →

In September 2015 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a series of goals and targets in order to eradicate poverty, eliminate inequality, and subdue climate change by 2030. These Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), comprising 17 goals, 169 targets, and 230 indicators (to... Read More →

  Yeah, of course I’d visit with Annemarie. I didn’t know her, but I knew her parents. We’ve long been members of the same Episcopal parish. She was interested in journalism as a career. She hoped to ask me some questions (as if an old warhorse from the... Read More →

The platforms of the two political parties reveal, albeit unintentionally, which party holds the moral high ground and which is in defensive mode. To begin with, the Republican platform is written in English. The words actually mean what they say. The Democrat platform is written... Read More →

Last week, Congress made real progress for Life. July 14, was a crazy all-over-the-map legislative day. By the end of it, the Freedom of Conscience Act  had been passed 254-182, and pro-life initiatives had advanced. Two important bills, the Labor-HHS and the State Department... Read More →

Take Action Now! This week Congress is going to vote on what posterity may someday look back upon as one of the most important votes in the history of our country. It’s called the Conscience Protection Act of 2016 (H.R.4828/S.2927). Here’s why it’s needed urgently. Back in the... Read More →

The first ever pro-life women’s conference took place on the weekend of June 24-26 in Dallas. Hosted by activist Abby Johnson of And Then There Were None, the conference attracted women from all over the country eager to hear from female leaders and connect with one another. Over... Read More →

  The word “rape” is abused almost to the point of meaninglessness. Feminist zealots argue that a pervasive “rape culture” causes the high incidence of rape on college campuses today. In the name of addressing this crisis, federal legislation proposes to seize yet more... Read More →

Moy Moy has quadriplegia. How did I not know this? I know the meaning of “quad” (4) and I know that Moy Moy has neither the use of her arms (2), nor her legs (2). I also know that 2 + 2 = 4. And yet somehow the term “quadriplegic” has never occurred to me in connection with Moy... Read More →

  Counterattacks against pro-life gains are intensifying. In Washington State, Planned Parenthood and NARAL are scoring candidates for state office according to whether they will promise to regulate (i.e., suffocate) pregnancy resource centers. At this very moment, the... Read More →

    On the evening of May 11, the Italian Chamber of Deputies approved by a wide margin a legislative proposal to legalize civil unions for gay (and heterosexual) couples. Known as Cirinnà’s Law, after its sponsor, Senator Monica Cirinnà, the bill had been passed by the... Read More →

    Last week was pretty much business as usual for the pro-life movement in Washington . . .  as the country heads into what may be the most important presidential election in our lifetimes. On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a non-decision in the Little Sisters of... Read More →

  On March 30 Planned Parenthood got a big gift from the Obama Administration. That’s the day the FDA rewrote the label on chemical abortion drugs. Now, the FDA regulations conform to what had long been the common off-label use of the drugs by chemical-abortion providers. If that... Read More →

“Pare la guerra . . . Stop the war!” Those were the final words uttered by Sr. Maria de Guadalupe, a missionary who has lived in Syria, as she ended her presentation at a United Nations gathering last month titled “Defending Religious Freedom and Other Human Rights: Stopping Mass... Read More →

A Congressional hearing on April 20 gave the House Select Committee on Infant Lives a clear bipartisan mandate for further investigation into Stem Express and other companies engaged in fetal tissue procurement. Prior to the hearing Democrat staff leaked to Stem Express some of... Read More →

  “You can’t make this stuff up” I thought, as I was  reading a particularly gripping account in Abby Johnson’s new book, The Walls Are Talking: Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories;  a few paragraphs later, a clinic worker herself  observes that “Sometimes... Read More →

  On March 30, after more than four years, a civil case brought by three pregnancy care centers against New York City was settled in the centers’ favor. The case, Pregnancy Care Center of NY v. City of New York, was brought in response to Local Law 17, which then Mayor... Read More →

Pro-lifers across the country should make it a priority this week to contact their two U. S. Senators   The media machine of the Left is in high gear now, attacking conservative Senators because they don’t want to waste their time. For how many years did the media lament... Read More →

  Maternal surrogacy has become a major item on the reproductive-rights agenda and a rapidly expanding segment of the innovative procreation market. Concocted by whatever means, a human embryo is implanted in a “rented womb” of an unrelated woman—usually a very po... Read More →

The Daily Signal had the best headline last week: “Big Brother Bullies Little Sisters at the Supreme Court.” That was on March 23, the day the justices heard oral arguments in the Little Sisters of the Poor case (Zubik v. Burwell), the latest trip to the high court for those... Read More →

  All sorts of natural, legal, and Constitutional standards have been warped in order to accommodate the unrestricted right to abortion inherent in the Supreme Court’s 1973 rulings, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. It is a right that denies fathers an equal interest in the... Read More →

  The Left does not understand why we and our movement don’t implode, collapse, or otherwise dry up and blow away. Daniel K. Williams, in his stunning new book Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade answers that question in 365 pages of carefully... Read More →

You can’t fool Mother Nature. Melissa Cook thought she could. She had what she thought was a smart business arrangement: By renting out her body as a surrogate mother, the 47-year-old mother of four could earn good money. A contract that pays $27,000 (plus a $6,000 bonus if more... Read More →

  One of the pro-life movement’s best friends is taking hostile fire right now. For saying nothing but what ultra-pro-abortion Henry Waxman was saying sixteen years ago! Marsha Blackburn, who represents the 7th Congressional District of Tennessee, chairs the Select... Read More →

If you are pro-life and you pray, you’ll want to pray very hard on March 2. That’s the day the Supreme Court had scheduled for oral arguments in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt—the biggest threat to Big Abortion in two decades. In light of the untimely and unexpected death of... Read More →

Newspaper accounts indicate that despite threatening clouds on a cold Roman day, anywhere from 700,000 (the left-wing press) to close to two million (the organizers) people gathered in Rome Jan. 30 to support the traditional family, currently under attack via a bill in the... Read More →

  Wisconsin is a wonderful state. Politically, it’s rated deeply purple, but common sense seems to be in the genes up there, and it eventually prevails in political matters. For instance: Milwaukee is the only city in the country to have elected three openly Socialist mayors* and... Read More →

  Too late for Halloween, but just in time to frighten voters, the Guttmacher Institute (formerly associated with Planned Parenthood Federation of America) has released a report strongly implying that if Roe v. Wade were overruled, abortion would immediately become illegal... Read More →

“We are a cultural tectonic shift. We will outlast their political movement.” The 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade is next week. What’s the state of our Cause today? Note the word Cause. The defense of human life from the moment of conception until natural death is often referred... Read More →

  If you can’t handle ambiguity, don’t read this column. At the same moment that millions of unwanted children are being carved up for their constituent organs and sold to the highest bidder because their mother does not want them, other women—and men—are going to... Read More →

  The Human Capital Project has changed the national conversation on taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. The Human Capital Project is the name for a series of undercover videos—made by David Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress—that show high-ranking Planned Parenthood... Read More →

  Linda Greenhouse’s Thanksgiving Day op-ed in the New York Times, “Sex After 50 at the Supreme Court”  is a telling piece: telling about the thinking as well as the politics that inform it. Greenhouse’s essential argument is this: Fifty years after the Supreme Court... Read More →

“Everybody knows [it] is a gesture in futility,” said Harry Reid, the former Senate Leader. It’s “a victory worth fighting for,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List. They were both talking about the bill to repeal Obamacare that was passed by the U.S. Senate... Read More →

  Did you know that November was National Adoption Awareness Month? What did you miss? Unfortunately, not much. That is a shame, because infant adoption deserves the focused attention of those of us who care about the best interests of children—and few are as passionate... Read More →

  Last week the Cleveland Clinic announced that a medical team there will soon be the first in the United States to transplant a uterus (fallopian tubes and ovaries not included). Eight women have already begun the screening process. One travelled more than 1,000 miles to... Read More →

  “Pro-lifers are holding the country hostage because of their feud with Planned Parenthood.” This is a meme we have heard before and may hear again. What does it really mean? It could refer to two separate processes; two separate dramas. Right now in Washington, the... Read More →

  The news trail has grown cold on Dr. Michael A. Roth, the Detroit area OB-GYN who was found two weeks ago to be carrying pain-killing drugs and “products of conception” in his car—“14 containers of human tissue, possibly fetuses,” according to an Oct. 16 WXYZ report. Dr.... Read More →

Last week the Human Life Foundation (publisher of the Human Life Review) held its annual Great Defender of Life Dinner. As always, it was a scintillating event, with the bright lights of the national pro-life movement circulating around the room, talking with anyone and everyone.... Read More →

The first story broke on October 13 on WXYZ Detroit. An OB-GYN, Dr. Michael Arthur Roth, is suspected of performing abortions in his and/or other peoples’ homes. Now under investigation by the Michigan Attorney General, he hadn’t been charged with any crime as of this writing.... Read More →

Back in the early days of the March for Life, the National Park Service used to issue official estimates of crowd size for any demonstration. Crowd estimates were always contested because the size of a crowd was a measure of the urgency/validity/resonance of an issue. Eventually... Read More →

What we had here was a failure to communicate. Democrats in Congress seem willing to shut down the government to prevent any money being removed from Planned Parenthood in the upcoming Continuing Resolution. Yesterday, Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, testified... Read More →

It’s amazing, really, what Congress can do when it puts its mind to it. The question of the day is: What will Speaker of the House John Boehner put his mind to? So far, he’s keeping his cards close to his vest. In the past, the GOP has been accused by some of being only... Read More →

  Will the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) video campaign depicting wholesale trafficking in fetal body parts be the tipping point for the Planned Parenthood brand in America? Merriam-Webster defines tipping point as “the critical point in a situation, process, or system... Read More →

  This is the week to contemplate heroes. On the morning of September 11, 2001, I drove into Washington from Springfield, Virginia, and nodded at the Pentagon as I approached the 14th Street Bridge. When I arrived at the office ten minutes later, the receptionist gaspe... Read More →

The August homework assignment was to talk to a stranger about the Planned Parenthood videos. I initiated some conversations. Please tell me how you think I did in the comment section below. And please share your own homework stories. My first encounter was with the man sitting... Read More →

  Last Saturday was a day to remember in pro-life history: It saw the best-organized local action on behalf of life ever. And the more local the life issue can be, the more likely pro-life is to prevail. When mainstream media pretends the pro-life movement doesn’t exist,... Read More →

If you’re lucky, you live in or near a city where an anti-Planned Parenthood demonstration is going to take place this Saturday—August 22. Click here to find the one nearest you. Whether or not you go to a protest, there are things every single one of us can do right now to help... Read More →

  As someone once said long ago, there’s nothing new under the sun. While we scramble to keep up with the many implications of the ongoing release of the Center for Medical Research videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s horrific side business, we must not overlook the... Read More →

There were 53 votes in the U.S. Senate to defund Planned Parenthood yesterday. For pro-life, that should count as a victory. Planned Parenthood has deep roots on Capitol Hill. We have always known that, so the remarkable thing about yesterday is that the vote to defund it was as... Read More →

  As early as Monday, the U.S. Senate could have a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood. For sure, the vote will occur before it leaves for its August recess later next week. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has “fast-tracked” the bill, S. 1881, and the official clock has... Read More →

  Thanks to the First Amendment and the internet, the Center for Medical Progress’s Human Capital investigative journalism study of Planned Parenthood’s traffic in human body parts is getting the attention of the non-pro-life world. On Tuesday, July 28, there will be ... Read More →

  Last week was one to remember. The Washington Post, defender of the left and of abortion in every case and circumstance, said it best: “Planned Parenthood, for being flip about aborted fetuses, you had the worst week in Washington.” It has long been known in the pro-life... Read More →

“I want to say to any doctor out there, and certainly any doctor I’m going to: your moral beliefs? Frankly, I could give a damn . . . I don’t want your moral judgments; don’t need your moral judgments. Save that for some theology discussion you’re having over dinner.” Thus spoke... Read More →

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges and wiped the traditional meaning of marriage out of the laws of the United States. Words of the dissenting opinion by Chief Justice Roberts will resonate in legal history: “If you are among the many Americans—of whatever... Read More →

Ah, the June wedding season. I was at one recently that keeps coming back to mind. The dress was gorgeous, the bride was radiant, the reception was lovely. Amazingly, at the bride and groom’s first dance, I could actually hear the words of the song, “Share the Darkness”: Now that... Read More →

  A memorable scene in the movie Patton is when the general does his version of a victory dance and shouts to the sky, “Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” This by way of explaining why he was able to defeat Rommel. Pondering the dearth of pro-life victory... Read More →

  A 26-year-old woman in Los Angeles nearly died last month because of a blood clot in her brain. The cause? An oral contraceptive (OC). A 21-year-old woman in England, Fallan Kurek, did die last week after taking an oral contraceptive for only 25 days. It had been... Read More →

THE BIRTH OF THE PILL:How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig (Norton, 2014)   I asked Jonathan Eig why he wrote this book, as his other biographies are about Al Capone, Lou Gehrig, and Jackie Robinson. “My wife said I should write a book... Read More →

  The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) reported May 7 that with aggressive treatment a quarter of premature infants now born at 22 weeks (i.e., five months) survive. This is good news: Medical research and scientific advances increasingly are making it possible to save... Read More →

“Should we give fetuses painkillers before we abort them?” That’s the title of Jeff Guo’s March 26 Washington Post report on a bill subsequently passed by the Montana Legislature stipulating that any abortion performed after 20 weeks (five months) be preceded by anesthetization... Read More →

 “…our debate about religious freedom should include a conversation about freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can indeed jettison . . . rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.” Thus spake Frank Bruni in an April 3 op-ed... Read More →

The big brouhaha about Sex Trafficking and the Hyde Amendment is finally over in the U.S. Senate. Yesterday the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act unanimously passed—with the Hyde Amendment language firmly intact. The leaders of the pro-life side deserve credit all around:... Read More →

From time to time I detect an undertone of dissatisfaction from prolifers who don’t like to hear our issue identified as “conservative” or “Republican.” And I wonder: Why should prolifers think it undesirable that our movement is strong enough to be a coalition partner with one... Read More →

It is well known in the pro-life movement that the pro-choice/anti-life lobby at the United Nations has been advocating for sexual and reproductive health and rights for many years. The organizations that promote this agenda behave like termites, working to erode and demolish... Read More →

CBS News came out with a new poll last weekend, this one about who Americans would consider voting for as President. Compared to February, Jeb and Rand and Ted and Marco and Scott are up, and so on. Hillary is unchanged and Martin O’Malley is up. But that sort of data will change... Read More →

 The battle over abortion is merging into the battle for religious freedom on another front: In the nation’s capital, religious freedom is being attacked in the name of “reproductive health decisions.” The City Council has enacted a Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act,... Read More →

It is a measure of the effectiveness of the pro-life movement that life issues increasingly are co-mingled with other ones. Right now, in the U.S. Senate, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (S. 178) is being held up for a second week because pro-aborts want to use it to... Read More →

There’s a big brouhaha right now in the U. S. Senate over the human trafficking bill. The spin is: “a warm fuzzy inter-party cooperation is being fractured because those evil pro-lifers are holding hostage a wonderful bill to help the victims of human trafficking.” That is... Read More →

There is a shortage of organs available for transplantation.Estimates are that 123,000 people in the U.S. are in need of a transplant, and about 21 people die each day waiting for one. The art and science of transplantation is so advanced as to be routine. Science sees the... Read More →

The speed on the Slippery Slope is accelerating. And our side is fighting it with our hands tied behind our backs. Earlier this month, Canada’s Supreme Court opened the door to doctor-prescribed death throughout the country by ordering Parliament to write a bill legalizing ... Read More →

Dr. John C. Willke, M.D., reposed quietly in the Lord on Friday, February 20. He was born in 1926, served in World War II, and then went to medical school.  Jack Willke was an obstetrician happily delivering babies and building his own family in Cincinnati when he became... Read More →