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 →

The Polish press reports another instance of in vitro fertilization (IVF) gone amuck: a little girl born to a woman who subsequently discovered she was not her genetic mother. The child was born, apparently in August 2014, to a 30-year-old woman in Szczecin province along the... Read More →

King v. Burwell? Never heard of it?  You may soon. On March 4 the Supreme Court will hear the case. The question before the justices is: What did Congress really mean when it wrote the ObamaCare law? You know, the erroneously-named “Affordable Care Act” (ACA), aka ObamaCare.  The... Read More →

Connie Marshner In the wake of the recent disappointment with Congress’ failure to vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act—which would ban abortion at 20 weeks, the age at which it’s been determined an unborn child can feel pain—it’s nice to remember there’s a big... Read More →

Papal exchanges on long distance flights have certain reporters salivating. Ever since the Holy Father’s famous remark, “Who am I to judge?” (taken out of context), uttered in the summer of 2013 on the way back to Rome from World Youth Day in Rio, reporters have waited anxiously... Read More →

The day ended OK. But it sure raised some red flags. Early in the morning on March Day (today, January 22), pro-lifers woke up to a kick in the solar plexus with the news that the Pain-Capable Infant Protection Act had been pulled from the House Calendar late the night before.... Read More →

As Marchers for Life will be stomping their feet and blowing on their hands to keep warm next Thursday, inside the U. S. Capitol something unprecedented will be happening. To begin with, the 114th Congress will actually be in session (as I recall, more frequently than not they... Read More →

Fact #1: a pregnant woman with a brain-death diagnosis can gestate a healthy live baby.  Of course, not every such pregnancy has such an outcome. Fact #2: Because of Fact #1, some foreign countries and some states in the USA have laws to give unborn babies in these unfortunate... Read More →

Two million dollars is the cost of respecting life. Call me rogue if you will, but from my perspective it’s worth every penny. Let me explain. Just before Christmas, a US District Court ordered a $1.9 million judgment against the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend for enforcing a... Read More →

Pro, Katha Pollitt, Picador, 2014 No one, we are told, is pro-abortion. No one thinks these are easy decisions. Abortion is something that will happen no matter what; it is up to us to tame it. In the words of Bill Clinton, abortion must be “safe, legal, and rare.” Safe and... Read More →

On Saturday, William E. May will be buried. [http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=173463827] The Catholic universe is grieving his passing, but those in the pro-life movement who are not Catholic have reason to grieve as well. He... Read More →

On November 18th, Encounter Books hosted “A Conversation on Roe v. Wade,” a panel discussion focusing on Clarke Forsythe’s highly acclaimed book, Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe v. Wade. Readers of the Human Life Review are likely to recall that Forsythe was honored... Read More →

  Eric Metaxas, who, along with his wife Susanne, was honored as a Human Life Foundation Great Defender of Life (2013), has a new book out, Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your life. Metaxas is the author of the NY Times best-selling... Read More →

Planned Parenthood has a global and national presence; being well-funded, it seeks to provide its “services” at more and more locations. Not content with over 700 “health centers” throughout the United States, the organization recently broke ground for the construction of a $9... Read More →

If, as the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, maybe the women of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign should be pleased by Planned Parenthood’s new fundraising campaign. A story on the Bloomberg News website explains how the tactics developed in the fight... Read More →

On May 18th my first book saw the light. It’s called Where Do I Fit In? A New Yorker in Never-never City (http://www.editorialconfluencias.com/que-pinto-yo-aqui/). I’m translating from Spanish. The book, published in the media and language of the country where I’ve lived for the... Read More →

When my mother died, I, who had been fairly stoic during the months of her final illness and hospice care, started wailing, shrieking really, uncontrollably. I couldn’t help it, even though as the big sister I felt guilty for calling attention to myself when my three siblings... Read More →

Unborn Child is the title of an album boldly released in 1974 by the rock duo Seals and Crofts at the height of their popularity. Ever hear of it? Didn’t think so. Even if you were a pop music fan during the 1970’s you likely have no recollection of the album, or its title song,... Read More →

Doris Gordon, the Jewish atheist pro-life activist who founded Libertarians for Life, died July 7, after a long illness. She was 86. A lifelong resident of Silver Spring, Maryland, Gordon is best known as an advocate for the unborn, although she spent years in the pro-choice... Read More →

The Senate on July 16 failed to end a filibuster in its effort to fast-track passage of Senator Patty Murray et al.’s bill to overturn the Supreme Court’s June 30 Hobby Lobby ruling. By a vote of 56-43 (four short of the number required to invoke cloture), the bill failed. Every... Read More →

This will be personal. Ten years ago, my best friend had a stroke. He lay unconscious on his bathroom floor for about 20 hours before anyone (me!) realized he wasn’t answering his phone. I called the police before dashing to his house. Officers were there when I arrived; Richard... Read More →

RMP:  Good Morning Mr. Hentoff, thank you for taking the time to talk about Jim McFadden and the Human Life Review. NH: Thank you for calling me. Yes, of course, I love the McFaddens. They are some of the most important people in my life. RMP:  As we discussed last week, the... Read More →

Jennifer Lahl on Breeders: A Subclass of Women? Jennifer Lahl, Director and Executive Producer of the new documentary film Breeders: A  Subclass of Women? about the experience of women and surrogacy, is president and founder of the Center for Bioethics and Culture in Pleasant... Read More →

  This month a new abortion comedy titled Obvious Child opens in theaters. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it, abortion comedy? Okay, how about a comedy with a story about abortion? That may be even more accurate, because for this film, written and directed by... Read More →

It is customary for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to issue a statement every time there is a special day designated by the UN to honor or commemorate something or other. May 15th is chosen as the “International Day of Families.” Ban Ki-moon’s statement to mark this... Read More →

This is the story of Ernest Trice, who entered my life in a way I can only ascribe to Divine Providence. I am a volunteer who visits elderly and disabled persons in nursing homes. Several years ago I asked a staff member at one of these homes if they had anyone who could use a... Read More →

They came from every continent and many countries. There were more than 30 speakers with a very specific purpose: the promotion of sexual and reproductive health and rights, family planning, universal contraceptive use, and abortion. Shockingly, but perhaps not surprisingly,... Read More →

[Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared on townhall.com on March 25, 2014. reprinted here with permission.] What a joy to find the New York Times editorial page staff on duty whenever a tough moral question arises, such as, “Can the U. S. government require business... Read More →

Witnessing to Life in 2014 [This is the text of the Keynote Talk for the Sacred Heart Major Seminarians’ 5th Annual Charity “Dinner for Life” for Rachel’s Vineyard on February 7, 2014, in Detroit. Mark S. Latkovic, S.T.D., is Professor of Moral Theology at Sacred Heart Major... Read More →

      Superceleb Wendy Davis—headed down the path to becoming Wendy Who?—won, as expected, the Texas Democratic primary for governor. She plans to base her campaign against Republican Greg Abbott on education, the economy, and jobs. As if Abbott were likely to let her off the... Read More →

  The February 5, 2014 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) features an opinion piece by two bioethicists and a medical doctor vigorously defending a “brain death” definition of death against individual dissenters—such as the McMath family in California—in the name... Read More →

  On Sunday, February 9, the Swiss electorate voted on three referenda, one of which was the following: Do you accept the popular initiative “Paying for an abortion is a private matter—reduce the burden on health insurance by ending basic coverage for abortion?” The popular... Read More →

     The late Fr. Stanley L. Jaki once remarked that “it takes unusually strong guts to challenge that secularist and unabashedly anti-Catholic stronghold which is the New York Times.” His choice of the word “guts” is significant. The word “courage” is derived from the French... Read More →

  Pro-choice critics of the multi-state push for 20-week abortion bans say such bans place an undue and onerous burden on women, because many serious and “lethal” fetal abnormalities are not discovered until ultrasounds performed at about the 20-week mark. According to the Alan... Read More →

  My seven-year-old son and I were hunting for books in the children’s section of the local library when I noticed a text with the title Asking About Sex & Growing Up, subtitled A Question and Answer Book for Kids (2009 Revised Edition). When I saw the author’s name,... Read More →

So, the New York Times tells us, Harry Reid’s “nuclear option” to change Senate rules and ban filibusters of judicial nominations[1] was driven by—surprise!—the desire of Senate Democrats to put radical pro-abortionists on the federal bench. Our self-proclaimed national “paper of... Read More →

        “Culture of life” is a term Blessed John Paul II highlighted in his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium vitae. The Pope wanted to address the civilizational struggle afoot between the “culture of life” and the “culture of death,” the latter understood as... Read More →

“Grand Bargain,” No. Serious Rethinking, Yes Many weeks ago, I all but completed a reply to the critique that George McKenna published in the Human Life Review of “Beyond the Stalemate,” my June 21 Commonweal article, on the current state and future prospects of Catholic... Read More →

  Many mental-health providers where I live, in Westchester County, New York, censor speech about abortion in day programs, outpatient or inpatient therapy, group therapy, one-on-one therapy, social clubs and half-way houses. I have a mental illness. I also believe strongly... Read More →

  It’s a Girl Directed and edited by Evan Grae Davis Produced by Andrew Brown 1:02, Shadowline Films, 2012. www.itsagirlmovie.com           “The three deadliest words in the world,” according to this documentary, are “it’s... Read More →

A Bad Bargain: A Postcript           At about the middle of September I wrote a piece on this site critical of an article in Commonweal magazine by Peter Steinfels, a writer and former editor of the magazine... Read More →

  Pope Francis’s arrival on the international scene didn’t come about without a few glitches. For instance, when he warned in a recent interview that “small minded rules” could cause “the moral edifice of the Church . . . to fall like a house of cards,” his remarks were... Read More →

(Maria McFadden Maffucci delivered this speech at the Human Life Foundation’s Great Defender of Life Dinner on Sept. 26, 2013,  at which Eric and Susanne Metaxas were honored.) Welcome to all our friends—I see many beloved faces here, and many new ones as well; I am so... Read More →

New Yorkers are used to listening to two AM all-news stations: WCBS and WINS. WINS’ venerable motto is “all news, all the time.”   Well, the motto of America’s abortion establishment is fast becoming “all abortion, all the time.”  That’s essentially what Jessica... Read More →

 A Bad Bargain In his 1858 debates with Senator Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln argued not for an immediate national abolition of slavery but for preventing its spread into the new territories. Lincoln understood that if slavery’s growth were arrested as the rest of the... Read More →

  Back in 1968, Andy Warhol observed that everybody “will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” The latest recipient of 15 minutes of fame is Texas State Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth), being lauded as gubernatorial timber (and perhaps even more) for her “epic” 1 eleven-hour... Read More →

                                                                               ... Read More →

A Belgian website features a picture of a hospital bed with some stuffed toys on it. The picture is captioned: “the latest news on the euthanasia front (from a so-called ‘civilized’ country).”1 The image vividly captures the current drumbeat for the euthanasia of minors.2... Read More →

  Oh, baby! Just can’t get enough of you! After all, how many cuddly, brand-new royal kids are out there? Just one: Prince George. And does the world love him or not? Consider:  People magazine expects to sell 1.4 million copies of its “Royal Baby Joy!” collector’s issue. ... Read More →

Imagine this scenario: an acquaintance comes up to you at a function, and you exchange the usual pleasantries—how ‘s the job, the kids, etc. And then he or she says: So, how old is “your spouse,”—“50” or so?  How’s his health? Think he’ll get cancer or have high blood... Read More →

  The June 18 vote in the House of Representatives on the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” was telling—and what it told us about abortion absolutism was highly disturbing. The 228-196 vote was almost completely along party lines: If there are “Democrats for Life,”... Read More →

          Done.  And of course there wasn’t more than the inevitable shadow of doubt – the one that hangs over all human enterprises – that the Texas Legislature was going to pass that abortion bill, as duly happened last Saturday.... Read More →

                 The Texas Senate votes Friday or Saturday on an anti-abortion bill the House approved Wednesday, 96-49. Declares Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: “We’re not in the filibuster range right now, and we’re going to pass th... Read More →

        Sorry, Wendy, it’s going to pass, and this time you probably can’t do a thing about it, pink sneakers or no pink sneakers.        Nothing probably is ever final in politics, and febrile assumptions can turn to dust; but... Read More →

                                                                People going into nursing homes fear both loss of independence and having little to do. Some, who are literate, maintain a degree of control by devouring books. On my visits to homes as a volunteer I’ve encountered... Read More →

            On June 13, Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack asked former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the morality of late-term abortions.  His question was probably driven by the recent convictions of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell for first degree murder of... Read More →

Welcome to the blog! Scroll down for older entries. NEW:  Wendy Davis v. Greg Abbott by William Murchison (March 7, 2014) Defining Death, Not Defining Life by John Grondelski (February 26, 2014) Double Header Blog: Sign of the Times by Donald DeMarco & Swiss Abortion... Read More →