We’re moving on to the 2nd half of the Blogs4Life conference, at the corner of 1st and Constitution, where the March for Life will nearly end, just 1/2 block from the Supreme Court building, where the infamous Roe v. Wade decision was made 35 years ago today.
Watch the March for Life rally on EWTN now.
2:45p, EST: End of the March
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2:15p, EST:Jill: Am speaking now with Eric Scheidler. Eric, I heard you dissed the Blogs4Life conference this morning to have breakfast with the President?
Eric: That’s right. It was a really fine thing. We got to see all kinds of pro-life leaders. We were in the East Wing. There was a buffet with little things. You had to put an effort into getting a big breakfast, but you could. It was a great breakfast. We all had breakfast and enjoyed the atmosphere with a Marine playing a Steinway piano.
Then we were all ushered into this room, and the President came in. He stood between ginormous portraits of George and Martha. He thanked pro-life leaders, including Nellie Gray, about 250 people. He remarked on the victories we’ve had over the recent years, the pba ban and how that was upheld, the stem cell developments, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. He said we’re gratified the abortion rate is going down, but there are over a million babies being killed every year. He said, “America’s better than that.” Our goal should be welcomed in life and protected by law. I think he really put the focus on our transformation of hearts and outreach to women. He said we should work toward the goal if a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, that she will get the help she needs from compassionate people, and that pregnant teens will be able to complete their education. He spoke for maybe five minutes and then shook hands for awhile. I didn’t get close enough to shake his hand.
Jill: You’ve been to quite a few Marches. Is this one different – bigger, smaller, more or less energetic?
Eric: The energy level is extremely high. I met a group of kids from Omaha. They had divised a whole new series of pro-life chants on their bus ride out here. They were choreographed, bouncing and swaying, and they were LOUD. There was a group from Tulsa nearby, and they were competing with their bullhorns. The bullhorn is back. And that is my message for March for Life 2008, the bullhorn is back! The bullhorn is definitely old school. They’ve never changed. You can get them at Radio Shack. They’ve always been $100, and they’ll always be $100. It’s cool because you have people chanting and counter-chanting to rouse up the crowd.
Then you’ve got the new cutting edge technology, people videotaping onto the digital hard drive of their camera to post on YouTube. It’s the awesome fusion of the old and new. What is more old school than marching on the nation’s capital? So, ok, the media has been ignoring that for 35 years, so we say ok, we’ll go around them. End run.
I want to share some of these new chants with you. One of them was playing off the Beastie Boys. “We’ve got to FIGHT for the RIGHT to beeeeee BORN!” It was wild. They also played off the song, “I like candy.” “We like babies….” THe cool thing about it was they choreographed. They were bouncing as they were chanting in unison.
2:05p, EST:
Nellie Gray is en route to the hospital, fyi, and needs prayers.
View down Constitution Avenue from our 4th floor window:
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View down First Avenue toward the Supreme Court Building, the end of the March:
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View looking into the Russell Senate Office Building, with pro-lifers waiting to go through security to see their senators, at the corner of Constitution and First:
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1:35p, EST: Jill: I have next to me Bobby Schindler, my dear friend. Bobby, tell me about your life now, almost 3 years after Terri’s death.
Bobby: Oh, gosh, Jill. We started Terri’s Foundation after Terri’s death, trying to 1) help families that might be in similar circumstances that our family was; 2 and 3) because there is a tremendous amount of confusion on this issue, we’re trying to educate and spread awareness.
Jill: What confusion?
Bobby: Terri’s case is often described reported as an end-of-life issue. It wasn’t. She was not dying. Her brain was not killing her. There were no machines keeping her alive. The only thing sustaining her was what sustains us all, food and water. She was simply a woman with a disability, and she was deliberately and purposefully killed by taking away her food and water.
Jill: But I thought they said she was brain dead?
Bobby: Patently false, one of the lies the media continues to report to confuse the general public to justify killing my sister.
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Jill: I’m now speaking with Brother Paul, seen closely by the Schindler family’s side during the ordeal to try and save Terri. He is still by their side. Tell me how your life has changed, Brother?
Brother Paul: I became involved in the pro-life movement when I was 13, 35 years ago today with the Roe decision. Later in life, the founder of my religious community – the Franciscan Brothers of Peace – became ill and was in a condition like Terri. In caring for him, I began to support other families in similar situations.
Our founder died in 2003, and I met Bobby in 2004 at the National Right to Life convention. The minute our community saw a video clip of Terri, we just connected and became part of the family. And of course, during Terri’s ordeal, I started off solely as a spiritual support to the family. But as things evolved, and the media frenzy happened, they asked me to speak on behalf of the family, which I still do to this day.
I live in St. Paul, MN, and myself and some of the brothers serve as volunteers contributing consultation on a daily basis on the euthanasia topic exclusively.
1:30p, EST:
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1:25p, EST: The March has started:
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12:45p, EST:
View below is of Constitution Avenue, now blocked off from traffic flow by police. The March will start after the Rally ends. Nellie Gray just fell on stage. We need to pray for her.
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Michael Hichborn, media director of American Life League (ALL), and his boss Judie Brown are paying bloggers a visit. Michael initiated the American Life League reports, which I’ve spotlighted.
Jill: How do you see pro-lifers making inroads into the new media and young culture?
Michael: I think the youth are probably more tech savvy than anyone in the pro-life movement, so they’re utilizing YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and other forms of new media to stay informed and to spread the message of pro-life issues. The RockForLife project of ALL is one of the most effective projects we have going, particularly because the youth are so on fire with the truth of the pro-life movement and desire to save babies.
Jill: Are you getting many converts?
Michael: That’s hard to tell. We only know if someone says anything. We do have people who have said they were brought to our side by things of ours they’ve seen. We had attorneys viewing our video, ‘Baby Steps’, to ensure we were not violating any fair use laws, and they were converted.
Here’s that video:


Now I’m honored to interview Judie Brown.
Jill: Judie, you mentioned this morning at the Blogs4Life conference that I pull no punches, which was a high honor coming from you. You certainly don’t either. You are my role model. With that in mind, I want to broach a tough topic: incrementalism.
Judie: Dr. Michael New’s statistics made a couple of points to me. The first and most important is that we are slowly changing our culture. People are beginning to view the wrongness of abortion in light of certain circumstances. But the fact of the matter is, every abortion is wrong. Our role in the pro-life movement as ALL is to continually focus attention on personhood. Incrementalism has to be very clearly defined so that people understand the difference between banning all 3rd trimester abortions in the true sense of the word and permitting abortion in some circumstances. The reason for this is the average person looks at the victim of sexual assault these days and relies on her ability to get an abortion because even pro-lifers say killing that child is different than killing a child for some other reason. I call that “flawed incrementalism.”
Jill: I know you’ve always said this, but is your approach changing?
Judie: Oh, yes. Putting a negative at the beginning of a sentence is a very bad thing. Instead of saying, “No exceptions, no compromise,” it is a more positive thing to say we need to express our pro-life integrity. Pro-life integrity is an integrated philosophy of life that leaves no preborn child behind. We’re repackaging our message to be more appealing. You got a scoop. This is the first time we’ve discussed this publicly.

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