Pro-Life Unity ~ Life & Liberty

§ What is Pro-Life Unity?

To achieve Pro-Life Unity we will establish standards that we all agree upon, and efforts that we all regularly participate in. By working together we can challenge the culture of death and the apathy which is pervasive in our society.

§ Action Code

Dear Friends of Life,

Imagine bags and bags of letters, carefully addressed in children’s wobbly handwriting, pouring into the courtroom, overwhelming the judge, and setting Kris Kringle free!  (You remember the scene in Miracle on 34th Street, right?)  A similar miracle is needed today, not for something so fictional or frivolous as freeing Kris Kringle, but for a real life-or-death issue confronting millions of unborn children threatened by the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).

We’re starting a letter writing movement for life. We are asking you to take 10 minutes to be the voice for the unborn in our country. Write a letter to President-elect Obama, and send a copy to your Senator and House Representative. 

In our modern age of email and cyberspace, the power of a personal letter is seriously underestimated, but in the eyes of a government official, a personally written letter sent through the mail has the weight of 40 votes.

Let’s fight the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). If passed, FOCA would institute the right to abortion as a fundamental right, on the same level as freedom of speech or the right to vote. It would retroactively eradicate all laws that limit abortion in any way (i.e. partial birth abortion, parental consent for minors seeking abortion, etc.) and it would order the federal funding—your tax dollars—of abortion. This is just the beginning. (Read more at http://fightfoca.com)

The goal is to create a nationwide movement and to inundate the White House (and our elected officials’ mailboxes) with a plethora of letters such that our government cannot ignore the plea for life.

Especially we are seeking pro-life supporters of Obama. If you are truly pro-life, it is your duty to challenge President-elect Obama to reconsider his staunchly pro-abortion stance. How else will he know that you—and millions of other Americans—support life? It is essential that he hears from his supporters. As far as he is concerned, a vote for him meant a vote for all of his policies, including the federal support and promotion of abortion. In his acceptance speech, Obama said, “There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.” Let your voice be heard if you disagree with President-elect Obama about the issue of abortion. If you believe that all human beings deserve the most basic right, the right to life, do not be silent.

Let us challenge our new president to be a better leader by extending his policies that support the poor and lowly of society to include the most fragile and innocent among us, our youngest citizens—the unborn. Obama urged the nation, “So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.” Here is a chance to truly look after each other. The babies who are killed through abortion need advocates. We want to encourage our Senators and House Representatives to vote NO on FOCA, and ask President Obama to veto FOCA, should it pass. Further, we would like to ask our elected officials to make it a priority to decrease the number of abortions by offering aide, support, and other options such as adoption, to women considering abortions.

Join the movement now and stand up for all of the unborn children who desperately need a voice.  Please forward this letter on to as many people as possible.  Together, we can change the culture of our nation and save lives.

Here are some guidelines and suggestions for your letter(s): [print this page for reference]

(1) Type your letter and send it through the mail. A typed letter with your signature and return address is significantly more effective than an email or an online petition. Ask for a reply to your letter. Send your letters ASAP—mail can take up to 3 months to reach the White House due to security reasons.

(2) Send (at least) three copies of your letter.

ONE:
President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

TWO: Send a second to your House Representative. Find your representative and mailing information using the link below:
http://www.house.gov/
Click on the “Write Your Representative” link on the left side.

THREE: Send a third to one (or both!) of your state Senators
Find your Senators and mailing information using the link below:
http://www.senate.gov/
Use the drop down menu on the top right of the website to find your Senators by state.

(3) Try to limit your letter to one page. Here is a sample format for your letter:

Paragraph 1: State that you are writing to ask ____ to oppose FOCA and protect unborn babies, and say who you are. You may include any personal experience or connection to the abortion issue—for example, are you a mother or father who has chosen life? Are you a mother who has had an abortion and regrets the decision? Are you an ob/gyn or related to one? Do you work in a hospital that will not provide abortions because of religious reasons? Etc.

Paragraph 2: Make your argument using facts and logic, not just emotion. Give specific examples of how FOCA will affect you and your community (i.e. your tax dollars will support abortions, your local religiously-affiliated hospital may have to close rather than be forced to provide abortions, your friends/relatives who are doctors or obstetrician/gynecologists do not want to be forced to perform abortions against their consciences, etc.) Refer to the bill by name accurately. In the Senate, it is the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), S 1173 1S. In the House, it is the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), H.R. 1964 1H. In the letter to President-elect Obama, you may simply call it the Freedom of Choice Act.

Paragraph 3: Conclude with a call to action. Check if your Senator or Congressional Representative is a co-sponsor of the bill, so that you know what your call to action should be—are you asking him or her to remove sponsorship, to vote no if he/she is undecided, or to continue to work against the bill if he/she has shown opposition already? The following website has a list of co-sponsors. http://www.aul.org/FOCA_Sponsors Finally, Urge President-elect Obama, your Senators, and your Representative(s) to work to decrease the number of abortions by aiding pregnant women in need and creating incentives to promote adoption as a loving option.

(4) While this is a very emotional issue for all of us, we are more likely to be taken seriously if we write intelligent, reasonable letters, than if we write in a melodramatic, emotional manner, write angrily or accusingly, or come off as vindictive or “holier-than-thou.”

(5) The following website has excellent information on how to write an effective letter to Congress, as well as the appropriate way to address your Senators and House Representatives: http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa020199.htm

(6) If you are a parent or teacher (at a private school), get your children / students to help!  A high school student’s letter can follow the same format as above, but a younger child’s letter can be much simpler (especially if you don’t want to explain what abortion is to a young child).  Here is an example: “Dear _______, My name is ____ and I am ___ years old.  Please help protect babies before they are born by voting “NO” on FOCA.  Thank you!”

(7) Finally, here are some resources and facts to get you started writing the body of your letter.

RESOURCES:
* For quick facts and information on FOCA, visit http://www.fightfoca.com
* Read the House version of FOCA here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1964:
* Read the Senate version of FOCA here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1173:

FACTS & THOUGHTS to consider:
* The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” FOCA denies the most basic right to life to the unborn.
* FOCA would wipe away every restriction on abortion nationwide
This would eradicate state and federal laws that the majority of Americans support, such as:
• Bans on Partial Birth Abortion
• Requirements that women be given information about the risks of getting an abortion
• Only licensed physicians can perform abortions
• Parents must be informed and give consent to their minor daughter’s abortion
* FOCA would compel taxpayer funding of abortions.
* FOCA would force faith-based hospitals and healthcare facilities to perform abortions.

*The book Anti-Abortionist at Large by Raymond Dennehy (link to book on amazon.com)offers an exceptionally clear, reasonable argument against abortion.

To summarize his argument (which may be very useful to you in your letters…):

If the fetus is a human being, then induced abortion is the direct killing of an innocent human being, and what reason could justify that?

To prove that the fetus is, indeed, a human being, Dennehy asks us to consider the following:

(1) The fetus is the product of a human father & a human mother.  If it’s not a human being, what is it?

(2) Scientific evidence comes down on the side of the fetus being a human being.  For example, consider this quote from Bruce M. Carlson’s Petten’s Foundations of Embryology, “Essentially all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization, when the sperm meets the egg, represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny of the individual.”

(3)The field of medicine known as perinatology, concerned with the unborn and the mother, considers the unborn child a patient, who should be given the same care that is given to pregnant women.

(4) As late as 1963, even Planned Parenthood made public its view that the human fetus is indeed a living human being.  In its official pamphlet for 1963, it states, “Is birth control an abortion?  Definitely not.  An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun… Birth control merely postpones the beginning of a life.”

(5) In People v Davis, 1993, the California State Supreme Court ruled that a third party who kills a fetus could be charged with murder, even when the fetus in nonviable.  The court added that this does not affect a woman’s right to an abortion.  So basically, Americans have decided that it should be considered “murder” if the child is wanted, but a woman’s “right to abortion” if the child is unwanted.  Since when can we say that a human being who is unwanted can be killed?

(6) Logically, how would one deny that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception?  From conception every element is present in the child’s DNA.  Nothing is added or taken away to create the human being that emerges from the womb. “Fetus” simply refers to a stage in life, like adolescent or adult; it does not mean that the fetus is not a human being.

—>Again, based on all of this information, it would seem that the fetus is indeed, a human being.  How, then, can we justify taking the life of an innocent human being?

* The right to life is a Civil Rights issue. Consider America’s blindness to Civil Rights issues in the past. For a long time, the majority of Americans supported another humanity-denying practice—that of slavery; African-Americans were not considered to be human beings deserving of liberty. It took many brave people to speak out and convince the rest of America that African-Americans deserve every right that the white majority already enjoyed. Similarly, the unborn are not seen as fully human or deserving of basic rights. It will take many brave people to speak out to show the rest of America the humanity of the unborn.
* FOCA states that its aim is “To protect, consistent with Roe v. Wade, a woman’s freedom to choose to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy, and for other purposes.” The “choice” that FOCA would guarantee is the choice of death for one’s own child. Shall we then say that we should have the choice to kill any unwanted American citizens? Do we define life in terms of being wanted or useful to society, or will we protect all life as sacred?
*People argue that abortion is a “religious issue,” when it is actually a human rights issue based on the same natural law that tells us that murder, rape, discrimination, and theft are wrong. Why are all of these wrong—because one’s religion tells them so? No, it is because they violate basic human rights that we believe all human beings deserve. Thus, it is not enough to say you are “personally” against abortion, but you think women should have the right to choose to kill. Certain actions are inherently wrong and we must be willing to say so, even though it may be unpopular to pass such judgment.

Thank you for your support!

Annie Morin - via Facebook

JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP “Letters for Life” !