Plan: Class action lawsuit by pro-lifers against pro-lifers
I was forwarded the following email from a reliable source, sent from Bob Enyart, one of the organizers of the group I wrote about today in my WND column.
The plan outlined is tragic. The email also contains what seems to me a veiled threat:
Hello XXX…
Out of our friendship, and your friendship with XXX, I’d like to let you know that we have begun collecting notarized affidavits toward a class-action lawsuit to recover damages for fraudulent PBA fundraising, so far we’re working with donors in fourteen states. There has been a hesitancy to launch such a lawsuit, but it will be filed against NRLC [National Right to Life Committee] if they disenfranchise CRLC [Colorado Right to Life] (which might happen at a Wednesday hearing in Kansas City, MO). If such a suit is filed, it could expand to target multiple organizations. If you make sure to include Dr. Dobon’s assessment (quoted just below) or its equivalent, in any fundraising effort that mentions PBA, I would then make every effort to exclude your organization from such a suit…..
Thanks again,
Bob Enyart
Also relevant:
Quotes admitting the truth about the legal authority of the PBA ban, a truth that was hidden from donors during the many years of PBA fundraising:
Thomas More Society’s Pro-Life Law Center: special counsel Paul Linton authored amicus briefs to the U. S. Supreme Court in the partial-birth abortion cases, and said of the PBA ruling: “It’s not going to stop any abortions as such,” he said. “They’re still going to take place by other means.”
WorldNetDaily.com’s Bob Unruh wrote about the partial-birth-abortion ruling, that there is “the fact that the legal ruling, itself, does not and cannot be used to proscribe [prohibit] a single abortion….”
FRC in a Washington Post story: “Chuck Donovan, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, a Washington advocacy group allied with Dobson, said… “there are certainly a fair number of people, including in our own building, who think… that, practically, there may not be even one fewer abortion in the country as a result.” The Post quotes another source: “…the partial-birth abortion ban as a fundraising technique has brought in over a quarter of a billion dollars” for major antiabortion groups, “but the ban has no authority to prevent a single abortion , and pro-life donors were never told that….”
Dr. James Dobson : “Ending partial-birth abortion… does not save a single human life.” -Focus on the Family website, May 2007.
FYI, I will post details later how the Partial Birth Abortion Ban has and will help the pro-life effort.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Priceless! ;-P
Typical American solution for everything: LETS SUE THE BASTARDS!!!
with all of the BS going on, can you honestly blame pro choicers for thinking the pro life agenda isnt actually all about saving babies?
($$$)
Cameron and Amanda:
Don’t get your hopes up.
Brothers and sisters have squabbles too, except those of course, who were excluded by abortion.
This too will pass.
Pride is certainly a destructive sin. In the Catholic Church we call it one of the seven deadly sins because not only does it disrupt ones relationship with God, but it literally destroys realationships with other people as may be happening with NRLC and CRLC.
I agree with HisMan that this will pass, but I fear it will have devastating consequences. Once people assume a morally righteous attitude, they rarely come down from it and only then when great damage has been done.
It seems with this proposed lawsuit that we are entering a new phase. Pray that humility wins out and ego is out aside!
“Pray that humility wins out and ego is out aside!”
I think the morals-for-self-promotion community has mostly abondoned all sense of humility now.
Amanda,
There is indeed more to the pro-life movement than saving babies – it is also about saving and protecting the physical, emotional, and mental health of women.
“Pray that humility wins out and ego is out aside!”
I think the morals-for-self-promotion community has mostly abondoned all sense of humility now. At least not without getting angry and hostile to such an extent that virtually self-distruct before eating that pie and apologizing.
“There is indeed more to the pro-life movement than saving babies – it is also about saving and protecting the physical, emotional, and mental health of women.”
Funny… doesn’t sound anything like making gestation compulsory, and making doctors and women submit to investigations/testing, and turning over every sexual-implicated personal record they might have. With support/protection like that, who needs [place trite historical villain here].
This makes me so sad. :-( I don’t understand why this is happening.
We pro-lifers have got to stick together! This is just not right…. we shouldn’t be attacking each other. We are all aiming for the same goal!
United we stand, divided we fall. Please don’t divide, we need to stick together! Come on, we all believe in the same thing, we want the same outcome, and we are getting closer to our goal. Please just continue perservering in pro-life work, and don’t lose faith or get sidetracked by diversions like this…
We need to be united and work together for our ultimate goal of ending legal abortion!
I’m with you Bethany!
Forget about abortion, their now letting born babies be killed with no consequenses:
A second Los Angeles judge (bum) threw out the murder charge against a suspended USC student accused of killing her 2nd newborn child on Tuesday.
Holly Ashcraft, a 22-year-old architecture major who has stood trial for two years for another baby killing, still faces a June 27 hearing for one charge of child abuse.
Ashcraft was arrested previously in October 2005 after a newborn was found in a Dumpster behind the 29th Street Cafe. DNA evidence proved it was her son.
http://media.www.dailytrojan.com/media/storage/paper679/news/2007/06/13/News/L.a-Judge.Dismisses.Charge.In.Ashcraft.Case-2914520.shtml
The Cowards creed:
http://www.markcrutcherblog.com/index.cfm/2007/5/17/The-Cowards-Creed
Who is a coward Jasper??
Well Jasper,
I can’t say that I’m surprised. Can you?
Holly Ashcroft didn’t deserve acquittal. She should have to go rot in prison.
Movin’ stuff here from the rolling stones post…
Rae,
I’m gonna borrow your little “@” thingy. It really works well when addressing more than one person in a post…
@Rae,
Are you sure you’re not my daughter? Princess Bride, Pirates, lemmings and now Monty? I love you. I want to marry you!
@Alyssa,
I don’t know why I keep mixing you and Amanda up when I reply to posts…sorry. As for your brother, I’m not exactly winning any awards for producing productive young adults…aka the son in blue! But I’ll give your brother a shot! Send him down. He’ll hate every minute of it…at first. But eventually he’ll learn that while we “have our rules” we’re actually a family of lunatics and the “rules” are almost worth it!
Acquitting women of infanticide or giving them light prison sentences is sending a dangerous message to society. I guess abortion is really sending the message that the life of a child is insignificant.
MK: He’s a good-looking kid…at least we’d be trading good looks!! Should I send you a picture? :)
Blah this makes me so mad. Why are we fighting ourselves?
1 Corinthians 6:1-8
1Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
2Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
3Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
4If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
5I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
6But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
7Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?
8Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.
Lauren, please think. We can’t have this attitude that we must join in unity with anyone or any group that wants to end abortion. That is insane. Have you heard of Neal Horsley, etc.? Do you want to join forces with a group that believes the way to end abortion is to murder abortionists, and blow up abortion mills? “But why are we fighting ourselves?” For very obvious reasons Lauren…
Will, not associating with terrorist is a bit of a stretch from bickering about stratagy.
I agree that the pro-life game plan should be investigated. We should work to end abortion. Period.
The problem is, abortion doesn’t exist in a vacuum (sorry, I couldn’t think of a better way to say that). There are sociatal factors that influence a woman’s “choice”. Recognizing these factors exist does not make us less devoted to saving lives or misled by the world, it simply gives us better insight to win.
If we pass laws that outlaw abortion but do not provide support for women, we have failed. In order to end abortion we must establish fetal personhood and support women. Making “pure” laws alone does neither. We must both affirm life, and the fear that women facing unwanted pregnancies are feeling. We must show them the truth, and give them hope. Only then will abortion end.
Lauren, very good points! How are you doing by the way? I hope you’re feeling better, and how is your house?
Lauren said, “Will, not associating with terrorist is a bit of a stretch from bickering about stratagy.”
How? That’s their personal strategy that they feel will end abortion. As Lauren would say, “Don’t bicker about strategy, or fight against other pro-lifers.”
Lauren said, “In order to end abortion we must establish fetal personhood and support women.”
Agreed. Now you can be the first pro-lifer in America to answer one question. Where in the PBA ban is fetal personhood established?
Will D, why all the hostility?
Will, if the traditional pro-life view was adding to the killing you would have a point. Instead you feel we are just not doing enough to stop it. I ask you, what has “purist” legislation done to stop abortion?
As for the PBA establishing fetal personhood, legally it doesn’t. It has, however, made the general population more aware of fetal personhood. For that reason, it is a gain.
Lauren, don’t believe Jill Stanek’s lies. This isn’t a purist vs incrementalist debate. I’ve told her this many times, and she won’t respond. If anyone would at least read the open letter to Dobson, we explicitly said that incrementalism is fine in the letter! Overturning Roe v. Wade is incrementalism in and of itself. Abortion would still be legal worldwide, including Canada and Mexico. Your claim that PBA has made the general population more aware of fetal personhood is lame. Prove it. The supposed pro-life justices still called it a fetus. In reality, the partial birth abortion was the best way for us to show the world that abortion is cold blooded murder. Now we are pushing abortion back inside the womb, out of the view of the general population, and making even more painful deaths to these innocent babies. What a victory. Congratulations Lauren. Hope you’re happy.
Ok Will, I don’t believe that you are pro-life. Sorry I don’t.
“In reality, the partial birth abortion was the best way for us to show the world that abortion is cold blooded murder. Now we are pushing abortion back inside the womb, out of the view of the general population, and making even more painful deaths to these innocent babies. What a victory. Congratulations Lauren. Hope you’re happy.”
And you say *we’re* the ones who don’t give a flip about the babies!
I personally think he cares more about winning than about babies
WillD, Jill said that she will be posting an article explaining exactly why Partial birth abortion is an incrementalist step. Please just give her time to write it and then please read it with an open mind. I can’t believe that you would insinuate that a fellow pro-lifer has evil goals in mind instead of true intentions. It’s so mean. And so wrong. Why would you do something so heartless and cold?
I can understand a pro-choicer doing this, but a fellow pro-lifer? How do you think this possibly helps the pro-life cause?
“In reality, the partial birth abortion was the best way for us to show the world that abortion is cold blooded murder. Now we are pushing abortion back inside the womb, out of the view of the general population, and making even more painful deaths to these innocent babies. What a victory. Congratulations Lauren. Hope you’re happy.”
Wow.
Purist do believe in incremtalism, as long as the law doesn’t end with killing a baby. One thing purist refuse to do, is compromise on God’s command; do not murder. Does someone become an accomplice when they approve such a law?
Mark, are you by any chance a supporter of the Death Penalty?
re: death penalty
Yes, for the guilty. No, for the innocent.
To me, Will sounds like the man, who back in 1990, made a pledge, not to support any politician who would endorse the killing of one innocent child.
Lauren, do you prefer the babies feel more pain or less pain when they’re butchered?
JK, winning what?
Bethany, after 15 years and a quarter of a billion dollars in fundraising, don’t you think there should be someone other than Jill Stanek who can explain why this PBA ruling is a good thing?
Lauren, do you prefer the babies feel more pain or less pain when they’re butchered?
I know for a fact, that just as you do, based on what Lauren has said, that Lauren would rather they weren’t being butchered at ALL. Is it somehow our fault that the decision didn’t allow late term abortions to be banned?
It is so insulting for you to imply that any of us have different motives than you in this.
Why are you attacking your own side? Why dont you focus all of this anger on the REAL enemies of the pro-life cause, like Planned Parenthood and NARAL?
A house divided against itself cannot stand. Please stop trying to cause division among your own!
We understand your points and we AGREE with you. We are not trying to fight with you about the barbarity of abortion. We AGREE that it is barbaric EITHER WAY to kill a child at any point in pregnancy. We hate that it’s allowed in ANY trimester!
We ALL are running towards the exact same goal. Please stop insulting us by insinuating your motives are better than ours! WE AGREE ALREADY!
Bethany and Lauren, what appals you so much that I’m hurt that babies will now go through even more violent deaths, and that abortion is slowly being pushed out of the publics eye?
Since abortion is legal, and we haven’t returned legal protection to one single child in over 30 years, I would rather a 2nd or 3rd trimester baby be aborted as quick and painless as possible, because I still care about the baby. Do you stand with me on this, or no?
Bethany, after 15 years and a quarter of a billion dollars in fundraising, don’t you think there should be someone other than Jill Stanek who can explain why this PBA ruling is a good thing?
Who’s FAULT is it that the PBA ruling didn’t ban late term abortions completely, Will? Why do you blame US when all WE are doing is trying to do whatever we are ABLE to do?
Bethany and Lauren, what appals you so much that I’m hurt that babies will now go through even more violent deaths, and that abortion is slowly being pushed out of the publics eye?
What appalls me is that you are blaming the wrong people!
Since abortion is legal, and we haven’t returned legal protection to one single child in over 30 years, I would rather a 2nd or 3rd trimester baby be aborted as quick and painless as possible, because I still care about the baby. Do you stand with me on this, or no?
I would rather they weren’t aborted at ALL, Will. And yes, if they are going to be aborted, I would MUCH rather it be painless. By what you said, could I conclude that you would support legislation where they had to give the baby painkillers before death? Of course not, because that legislation would assure that babies continued to be allowed to die.
Yes, I agree with you that it is AWFUL that they are subjected to such torture! What in the world kind of monsters do you think we are?
Will, what in the world are you talking about?
“Pushing this out of the public eye”
Um, NO the PBA ban put abortion *into* the public eye. Are you honestly saying that you wish we hadn’t tried to stop this procedure? It seems to me that you are upset that you don’t have the poster child of partial birth abortion to wave around anymore. That is sick.
I understand that the ruling does very little to even end the procedure, but it is the first time in history that ANY type of abortion has been banned. We can next go to the equally barbaric “ripping apart babies in the womb” abortions.
I don’t know why you assume we don’t support a human life ammendment. We do. But we also must work where we stand. Would you perfer we simply sent ill fated bills through the system again and again that had no chance of passing?
We are working twoards a day that they *will* pass.
Bethany said, “Who’s FAULT is it that the PBA ruling didn’t ban late term abortions completely, Will? Why do you blame US when all WE are doing is trying to do whatever we are ABLE to do?”
Bethany, this comment helps me understand that we may be talking past each other. I love you guys (gals) on this site and will do anything possible to help us understand each other. It’s hard on a blog, but I will keep trying. My personal email address is YesYouNeedJesus@gmail.com, and I’m more than willing to talk one on one with anyone who would like to come to a better understanding of where I’m coming from and I too want to make sure I understand everyone else’s point of view.
Lauren said, “I don’t know why you assume we don’t support a human life ammendment. We do.”
Lauren, same to you as to Bethany. YesYouNeedJesus@gmail.com
I don’t think you don’t support a human life ammendment. Jill Stanek thinks (without evidence) that this is a purist vs incrementalist debate and has convinced a lot of people that the signers of the open letter support only purist legislation, such as a human life ammendment to the Constitution. This is such a gross misrepresentaiton on her part. Our open letter even said that incrementalism is a good thing! I challenged her to provide evidence that Bob Enyart or Colorado Right to Life has ever said that they are pushing for a human life ammendment to the Constitution as their “purist” strategy. I don’t think they have.
Lauren, if you hate me and don’t care what I have to say, I plead that you only listen to this one thing.
You said, “I understand that the ruling does very little to even end the procedure, but it is the first time in history that ANY type of abortion has been banned.”
If you found out from the ruling itself, that “the first time in history that any type of abortion has been banned” because the judges wanted abortion to look more pleasing to the public eye, would you feel sick inside? I could be wrong, but that’s how I read the ruling. And that scares me. Hypothetically, if the judges ruled that they wanted to stop this method of abortion because A. the fetus is a person, or B. because they felt the baby suffers too much pain for this particular method, or any other reason, I would be okay. But if their intent was actually to encourage the abortionists to find less shocking methods to abort, to make it more pleasing to the eyes of the world, I would be worried. I think I can prove to you from the ruling that this is the case. “He who has ears, let him hear.”
Bethany, this comment helps me understand that we may be talking past each other. I love you guys (gals) on this site and will do anything possible to help us understand each other. It’s hard on a blog, but I will keep trying. My personal email address is YesYouNeedJesus@gmail.com, and I’m more than willing to talk one on one with anyone who would like to come to a better understanding of where I’m coming from and I too want to make sure I understand everyone else’s point of view.
WillD, I’m sorry for getting so angry earlier. It was hard for me to take when you were calling Jill a fool and a liar. I feel there are much better ways to get your point across.
I do feel that you and others here have been somehow blaming us for the fact that abortions still exist…. Blaming Dobson, blaming other pro-life organizations. You yourself said it was the judges who had the ill intent, when you said, ” the judges wanted abortion to look more pleasing to the public eye”. In my opinion, it is the judges, Planned Parenthood, all abortion supporters, etc to blame for the fact that the decision ended up that way, not Mr. Dobson, not any pro-life organization who supported the ban, etc. We on the pro-life side all want abortion stopped. We all wanted the partial birth abortion ban to ban all partial birth abortions. We are all doing the best we can. Could any of those people you talk about have changed the decision of those judges? Please think about it, I don’t think any of them could. I believe they did their absolute best to do what they could!
I also believe you sincerely want abortion to end. I just wish you wouldn’t place blame on others who want abortion to end just as much as you do.
Maybe that isn’t your intent, it just seems like it. I feel like we’re under attack by our own side. :-(
Will, I don’t hate you. I just think we must be misunderstanding each other. It just *seems* like you are saying that the babies are better off being aborted via PBA. I think I understand you better know.
I honestly don’t think that the judges are trying to make abortion more palatable, but I understand why you might. I think the ruling shows that the judges were trying to “soften the blow” so to speak for the pro-abortion folks. Perhaps they felt it was the only way to pass the legislation.
I honestly don’t know their motives. What I do know is that the ruling has made it so that all future rulings may only be questioned if some one has been “harmed” by the ruling. That is a very good thing. We have been dealing for 33 years in hypotheticals.
My problem is that instead of raising issue with the judges or the bill itself, we are attacking each other. I have no issue with trying new ways to end abortion, but I don’t believe that this is the way to go about doing things.
Bethany and Lauren, abortion is a very emotional topic as you both know. I’m new to abortion and the pro-life movement actually. Maybe a month and a half? So I guess I’m still in that crazy emotional state where I’m ready to take over the world and just end abortion myself. Have I let my emotions get the best of me here? Yes. Is that okay? Absolutely not.
Jill, you said, “FYI, I will post details later how the Partial Birth Abortion Ban has and will help the pro-life effort.”
Do you mean by this statement that the ban won’t help babies at all, but will just help the “pro-life effort”? I have no doubt this could help the pro-life effort. But on the contrary, I also have evidence that the ban has helped the “pro-choice effort” as well.
Will, I’m moving on here. I appreciate your newfound zeal for the pro-life movement. If and when you learn to direct it outward and not inward, get back to me.