This is a similar question on the topic of how to win the war against abortion to May 5’s, which analyzed the article, “Time to change pro-life tactics?”

Today we look at a May 25 post by pro-life blogger Jennie Stone, published at LifeNews.com, entitled, “Hey Pro-lifers: Six things NOT to do to end abortion.” Your thoughts? Read on…

Using inflammatory language.

… Calling an abortion clinic an “abortuary” or a “murder mill” isn’t going to exactly entice a pro-choice advocate to listen to you when you want to discuss the reality of abortion. Even worse, calling them “pro-death” or “anti-life” will be taken as a personal threat and will shut them away from you completely.

Hating clinic workers.

I used to see abortion clinic workers as greedy, money-hungry people who enjoyed killing babies. I know that that mindset is not unique, either, and unfortunately, it still runs rampant. Abortion clinic workers are not the enemy….

When we stand outside a clinic and scream “murderer” or “baby-killer,” we have absolutely no chance of helping clinic workers transition out of the industry….

Fighting amongst ourselves.

Infighting among fellow pro-lifers is sometimes caused by differences in political opinion, but more often it is caused by differences of religious beliefs. Ridiculous rifts between Catholics and Protestants, believers and non-believers, are a detriment to the cause and do nothing but cause division among pro-lifers….

Judging abortion-minded women.

I wrote a blog about this last year. Let’s be honest: some people who call themselves pro-life are just plain cruel. And yes, I used to be guilty in this aspect….

When we encounter an abortion-minded woman, whether outside an abortion clinic or anywhere else, first and foremost, we cannot jump to judge her. We have to listen to these women, we have to show compassion, and we have to offer alternatives….

Condemning post-abortive women.

Post-abortive women have some of the most powerful testimonies in favor of life that we could ever imagine…. Post-abortive women are human beings, and they need to be treated like it. Their testimonies can save other women from a lifetime of regret and can save babies’ lives.

Staying silent.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke

If you are only silently pro-life, you are abetting the legal onslaught of the unborn. Regardless of your age, there are so many things you can do to put an end to abortion. Be a voice for those who do not yet have one. Be active in your convictions. The lives of the most vulnerable among us depend on your activism.

It’s a strange question, but in these days of technologically created children, it is happening. From the Washington Post, May 21:

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a man’s children who were conceived through artificial insemination after his death cannot get Social Security survivor benefits.

Justices unanimously ruled that twins born to Robert Capato’s surviving wife Karen did not qualify for survivor benefits because of a requirement that the federal government use state inheritance laws.

The Capato twins, conceived using Robert Capato’s frozen sperm, were born 18 months after their father died of esophageal cancer. Karen Capato’s application for survivor benefits on behalf of the twins was rejected by the Social Security Administration, which said Robert Capato needed to be alive during the children’s conception to qualify….

Capato died a Florida resident, and Florida law expressly bars children conceived posthumously from inheritance, unless they are named in a will. The only beneficiaries named in Capato’s will are his wife, their son and his two children from a previous marriage.

Do you think children conceived posthumously should qualify for survivors’ benefits?

UPDATE 5/26, 8:20a: E! Online has posted a fair story on Brad’s pro-life stance. Add your comment! This is an article we can anticipate many who consider themselves “pro-choice” will read. At present comments are running 90% pro-life, a beautiful thing.

5/25:4:41p: Since yesterday liberal websites have been aghast at the news former Lyte Funky Ones boy band member Brad Fischetti (on the far right in photo) is now a pro-life activist.

LFO was a pop/hip hop group that had several hits between 1998-2002, the most prominent of which were “Summer Girls,” “Girl on TV,” and “Every Other Time.”

In 2009 Fischetti announced the band’s break-up on YouTube.

And then something obviously happened in Fischetti’s life to bring him to where he is today, as chronicled by Buzz Feed’s lament…

Fischetti has indeed been doing some pro-life sidewalk counseling at the Orlando Women’s Center abortion clinic in Florida. Here is sampling of Fischetti’s tweets that is so disturbing the pro-abortion community…

After I read about Fischetti and perused his tweets last night, I started researching him, because honestly, I’d never heard of LFO.

What I learned made me even more curious. Fischetti is now the Director of Contemporary Music and New Media at the Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Celebration, FL. Here’s his hip hop arrangement of “Awesome God,” pretty cool.

Thanks to God for His amazing favors, I indeed got to speak with Brad a little while ago, with the help of pro-life activist John Barros. Brad has an amazing testimony, which I’m just going to let him share it with you….

Brad Fischetti’s pro-life testimony

I look back now and regret having such a serious platform but not using  it.

With LFO I was out there and recognizable, selling millions of records and playing in front of tens of thousands of people, but I didn’t have strong convictions about anything. I wasn’t able to stand up about anything that was really important to me.

Don’t get me wrong, when we were on top of the world I was very spiritual. I was baptized Catholic, and I grew up Catholic. I carried my Bible around with me on the road and lead prayers before concerts. As a group we were very spiritual.  But over the course of time, witnessing the horrible things that occur in this world, I could tell I was slowly losing my faith.

Then one day sometime in 2000-2001 I heard a terrible story about young boys getting kidnapped near their house by devil worshipers. Their genitals were mutilated and they were murdered. I decided right then that if there was a God, He wouldn’t let that happen. 

And so I stopped believing.  I stopped praying, stopped reading my Bible, and just lived without faith. I didn’t work against those who believed, I just didn’t.  And my life seemingly continued to go well.  (Later I discovered that “things of this world” can never satisfy the human heart.)

I lived without a faith for two or three years.

U-Turn

Then one summer I decided to take a handful of my bands from my record label, 111 Records, on a tour. We rented a big RV and hooked a trailer to the back of it. One of the girls touring with us had cancer. It was a slow moving cancer and didn’t effect her daily life too much.

But one night she starting having difficulty breathing and couldn’t feel her hands, and I rushed her to the closest ER. We were in a little town in upstate New York in the middle of nowhere, and the hospital was very small. The ER doctor wanted to send the surgeons down to operate to remove the tumor then and there, but I said no way.  I told the doctor I would drive her to her cancer hospital, which was about seven hours away.   The doc gave her weak pain killers and sent us on our way.

I started driving the RV. It was late at night, raining, and we were in the mountains with slick roads and fog all around us. I felt like I was already dead, already gone.

I took a wrong turn trying to find a gas station.  I drove miles and miles down this two-lane road looking for a place to make a u-turn.  Finally I happened upon a state police station.  So I pulled in and attempted the u-turn, when suddenly the RV got stuck on a flat boulder.  So here I was at three o’clock in the morning, in the pouring rain, stuck, with this girl in the back of the RV in pain.

And so I stepped out into the rain.  I looked up to the sky.   And I prayed. It was the first time in years.  And I said, “God, if you can get me out of this I will never again turn my back to You.”

And yes, I got the RV unstuck and got the girl to her hospital. This was a pivotal moment in my conversion. But it didn’t happen overnight.

Grains of rice

Before my conversion I didn’t like abortion, but it didn’t affect me. It was just grains of rice being aborted, I thought.

But my faith became supremely important to me, and through that the abortion picture became clearer.

And when you learn, when you get to know what really happens in an abortion, it becomes atrocious.

I didn’t ask for this seemingly newfound platform.  And it’s hard to understand why people care so much about what I have to say when there are so many others who have fought longer and harder for the pro-life movement than I.  But if God is calling me to use what little platform I have left to help educate people, to help people understand what abortion really is, then – “Here I am Lord.  I come to do Your will.”

Many people don’t really know what happens in an abortion. Rarely is a girl only a couple of weeks pregnant.  Most women don’t find out they are pregnant until they are four or five or six weeks along.  And then they spend time trying to decide if they want an abortion, and by the time they get to the clinic, they are 12 or 13 or 14 weeks pregnant.  Their babies have fingers and toes. 

And at the clinic in Orlando I’ve seen girls 24 weeks pregnant have abortions done.  And I’ve seen girls who are up to 30 weeks pregnant referred to the clinic owner’s secret abortion facility in the DC area, where he will abort babies well past 30 weeks of pregnancy!

The “pro-choice” concept is ludicrous. It makes no sense to me. “Pro-choice” is the choice to have sex or not to have sex.  And, yes, I do realize that a small number of abortions are performed on women who have been raped or are victims of incest.  And those crimes are as despicable as abortion. 

But abortion is not the answer.  We should not punish the baby for the sins of the father.  And further, in a situation like that, the woman has already been violated enough.  An abortion will just serve to violate her further. 

Bodies

I saw the “Bodies” exhibit in Las Vegas. They had a whole display on fetal development, and it was astounding how developed a baby is early in pregnancy. That’s when it dawned on me that abortion is not right under any circumstances. I believe a baby is a gift from God, and abortion is an atrocious sin and not acceptable under any circumstances.

I further believe when abortion was legalized it was never intended to be what it has become: Men who call themselves doctors go inside a woman’s womb and tear babies apart – or deliver them dead – or sometimes alive. It’s disgusting.

I really don’t care what people think of my stance against abortion. I may lose family and friends. But I am obligated to speak the truth. If I have a platform of 500 or 5,000, my job is to speak the truth. We have God on our side, and eventually abortion will be a sad chapter in our history. 

Just because abortion is legal does not make it right.  There was a time in this country when denying a woman the right to vote was legal.  Was it right?  No.  There was a time in this country when slavery was legal.  Was it right?  No way.  To quote the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen, “Legality does not equal morality.”

Although I regret not having stronger convictions when I had a platform, I wouldn’t change anything.  I am content with who I am and where I am.

I haven’t read what the other side is saying about me right now, but I don’t care and I don’t judge them or anyone.  I only want people to know the truth, and I only want to help.  And I’m content doing so in my little bubble in Orlando, Florida.  But if God calls me to take a larger role, I will do His will.

I’m a man, I’m a father, I’m a Christian, I’m a human, and I’m pro-life.

Jill again

Pro-life community, please join me in praying for our new dear friend Brad as he walks down this unknown path of speaking out against abortion to pro-abortion peers and fans.  It won’t be easy for him. But we are grateful for his voice, and more than us, so are the babies.

by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli

We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.

• ProWomanProLife links to the testimony of a blogger who has finally found her voice regarding her past abortions, which she confesses caused a great deal of emotional trauma as well as incompetent cervix, resulting in the loss of her third child.
• Pro-Life Action League’s Ann Scheidler hits the nail on the head in her post noting the strange compartmentalization of the left’s latest campaign tactic, “Dreams of our Daughters”:
  

  Why would we want to teach our daughters that it makes good sense to use discipline in choosing what to eat, getting enough exercise, doing homework, striving to be the best, but when it comes to sexual activity, the message is “Take a pill and do whatever you want”?Would anyone think it made sense if we invented a pill that would counteract all the calories in ice cream and candy bars, and then told women, “Take this pill and eat all you want”? Why is discipline and moderation in the area of eating hailed as an ideal — note Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity — yet discipline in sexual practice is dismissed as impossible?

• At The New Feminism, Jennifer Lahl discusses the importance of protecting female fertility by educating ourselves.
• Pro-Life Wisconsin rejoices – while NARAL laments – that Affiliated Medical Services has joined Planned Parenthood in discontinuing its RU-486 chemical abortions. Legislation banning webcam abortion, which the industry saw as their cash cow of the future, may be the reason for the announcement. PLW notes:
  

  The average woman loses four times the amount of blood in a drug-induced medical abortion as compared to a standard surgical abortion. Several deaths have been attributed to mifepristone and therefore its prescription and use – from a medical standpoint – ought to be highly restricted, if not banned.But these risks are ignored by an industry whose profits depend on volume.

• The Passionate Pro-Lifer describes the recent States of Refuge protest in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. (States of Refuge travels to states with only one remaining abortion clinic in each – Arkansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.) Apparently, the “Civility, Compassion, and Love” counter-movement wasn’t quite as civil and loving as it could have been:
  

  My biggest regret is that I didn’t capture the “civility” of a senior citizen in front of the St. John’s
  Episcopal Church on film. On the way to the front entrance OSA participant, Ken Scott, put Sing a Little Louder fliers on the wind shields of several cars parked on the street. An enraged recipient, who by the way, had what appeared to be his grand daughter with him, was so incensed that were police not in the immediate vicinity I feel certain he would have gone to blows with Ken.

• Moral Outcry discusses the news story of a British man who was arrested for smuggling six roasted human fetuses (warning – graphic photo) – wrapped in goldleaf – in his luggage. He had purchased the fetuses online for $6500 and planned to sell them for use in Taiwanese black magic rituals. This sort of idea shocks our sensibilities, but is our culture really all that different?
  

  Fetuses found wrapped in gold leaf are used as “good luck” charms, which may be one of the ultimate in witchcraft….The Taipei Times reports that the use of dead babies in black magic rituals is rather common, adding that most are stillborn babies from abortions….

  We think all the witchcraft and black magic is happening in Korean energy capsules or creepy fetal good luck charms but it’s really far away and “we” don’t do that. Really, we use an aborted baby in a lab to create taste receptors; we slap the processed ingredients on our faces to preserve our beauty and look younger.

• Wesley J. Smith uses the example of the embryonic stem cell research debate as a way to point out that good science and good ethics should go hand in hand:
  

  I believe that in part due to President Bush’s keeping the focus on the value of human embryonic life, scientists looked for ways to get the hoped for benefits of embryonic stem cells, without destroying or cloning embryos. This led to the induced pluripotent stem cell breakthrough that takes normal cells, changes them to stem cells, and thence into other types of tissue.

by LauraLoo

Kudos to disgusted Anderson Cooper, asking Sarah Burge  (the “Human Barbie”) to leave his show.  Afterwards, Anderson shares his regret for having her on as his guest.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrdqhA0i5U8[/youtube]

Yeah, I’m disgusted too.

Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions.

Adoption is a calling… there is something in you that can’t be denied.

You just know in the deepest part of your being that you are meant to find this little soul and guide them through life.

~ Celebrity personal trainer Jillian Michaels, sharing her thoughts about being a mother to her adopted daughter Lukensia and newborn son Phoenix (born to her lesbian partner Heidi Rhoades), as quoted by People, May 24

Here’s how it is for socially conservative Republican politicians.

If they broach the topic of abortion, liberals howl, “It’s the economy, stupid!” and proclaim them obsessed with divisive social issues.

And if they focus on fiscal issues, the media asks them questions about social issues and proclaim them obsessed anyway.

Now we have Barack Obama sinking in the polls only after making gay marriage, free contraception, and “choice” the centerpieces of his campaign, and the media doesn’t notice. It cannot be that a Democrat could possibly suffer politically by focusing on social issues. This narrative is reserved solely for Republicans.

The latest example of Obama’s preoccupation with social issues is a two-minute video featuring Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards (who’s looking a little weathered), posted at BarackObama.com/Women on May 17…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cFc-4TSLvo[/youtube]

Before that, as documented by LiveAction.org’s David Schmidt on May 4, the Obama campaign began running web ads aimed at supporters of “choice”…

The barackobama.com/stand-for-women site is already gone, presumably replaced by barackobama.com/women.

At the new site you can get a free Women for Obama bumper sticker, but only if you’re a woman who believes in the “right to choose.”

(I just ordered one so as to make the campaign waste money on me.)

But where’s the media? As I wrote last week, Obama has been bombing in the polls among women ever since he started trying to attract them to himself via supposed women’s issues, including cradle-to-grave government patriarchy.

This is a story. But it’s not.

It is also a story that President Obama would cut an advocacy video for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, when Planned Parenthood is under federal investigation. It’s like making a video to support Solyndra.

It’s a story that President Obama would cut a video for that political action committee in the White House and with “www.WHITEHOUSE.gov” at the end – an official presidential video. Had President Bush done the same for the Susan B. Anthony List, would the media not have noticed?

Would the media not notice if Mitt Romney suddenly decided to make the pro-life and marriage issues the focal point of his campaign – and immediately sank in the polls?

Nevertheless, it’s still a fact.

So Cecile, keep making those videos.

by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat

• Planned Parenthood is opposed to forced abortion so much that they issued a press release regarding Chen Guangcheng after he had already made it safely to the United States. Gee, thanks.
• Robin Marty attempts to prove that if abortion is difficult to get, women will go to desperate lengths to end their pregnancy. She highlights a British woman who died after drinking concentrated vinegar in a home abortion attempt. One large problem with this argument is abortion is readily available in Great Britain and paid for by tax dollars. So the example undercuts Marty’s argument because it shows that some women, regardless of how much access there is to abortion, will do stupid, dangerous things.
• The Daily Mail is reporting that an abortionist in Spain has been ordered to pay child support on a child he failed to kill:
  

  A Spanish judge ordered the unnamed gynecologist to pay £780 a month maintenance to the boy’s mum after he bungled a termination at a clinic in Majorca.She checked in for an abortion in April last year when she was eight weeks pregnant – and returned three months later for another thinking she was carrying a second child.

  Tests revealed the gynecologist had misread an ultrasound and the unborn baby thought to have been aborted was still alive.

• Abortion advocates are attempting to find the bright side of the record low (41%) percentage of people who self-identified as pro-choice in a recent Gallup poll. Abortion Gang member KushielsMoon and NY Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal play a similar note.

Rosenthal:

But only 20 percent of Americans say they think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. A majority, 52 percent, think it should be legal under certain circumstances, and 25 percent say it should be legal in any circumstance. In other words, there are more pro-choice absolutists than pro-life absolutists, and far more people who take a middle position than absolutists on either side.

KushielsMoon:

Now, this might sound like a serious problem to some pro-choice advocates. However, one needs to look further into the polling to see the real situation.

52% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal under some circumstances. An additional 25% believe it should be legal under any circumstances. Together, that means a whole 77% of Americans support abortion being legal. In contrast, only 20% believe abortion should always be illegal (and that’s down 2% from last year!).

Obviously, this is a case of people not understanding what “pro-choice” and “pro-life” really mean.

Or maybe it’s a case of you not actually reading the complete poll results as Ramesh Ponnuru explains:

Here are the latest numbers: As of May 3–6, 20 percent of Americans think abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances,” 39 percent say it should be “legal only in a few circumstances,” 13 percent say it should be “legal under most circumstances,” and 25 percent say it should be “legal under all circumstances.”

The vast majority of opponents of legalized abortion have been willing to bestow the “pro-life” label on politicians who do not take the position that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. George W. Bush, for example, favored exceptions to a ban for cases where pregnancies threatened the mother’s life or resulted from rape or incest. One might say, then, that his position amounted to thinking that abortion should be legal “only in a few circumstances.” The two relatively life-protective positions get a combined 59 percent, the two less-protective positions get 38 percent.

[Image via hallelujahsbyholly]