Biola president Dr. Barry Corey, pictured right, has issued a public letter of apology for retaliatory actions staff members of his Christian university took against pro-life student Diana Jimenez in June for showing graphic images of abortion on campus:

For actions on our part that were perceived to be heavy-handed and retaliatory, I have apologized to her and stand by this apology publicly. I acknowledge and regret our errors, and steps have been taken to correct them….

In so many ways, Diana is the kind of student with the deep Christian convictions I hoped to see when I came to Biola six years ago. In her convictions about saving the unborn, she represents what Biola is about—the desire to speak up against injustices that break the heart of God. Like Diana, Biola is and has been passionately pro-life.

A campus security guard was caught on video threatening to have Jimenez arrested, and the director of the nursing program, Dr. Susan Elliott, ordered her staff not to write letters of recommendation on Jimenez’s behalf.

Going a step further, Dr. Corey outlined in his letter a plan to educate all Biola students via the student newspaper, chapel services, and public displays on campus about the importance of showing the graphic reality of abortion.

In addition, Dr. Corey and his staff are working to ensure all Biola curricula is infused with pro-life teaching:

This year we are accelerating our work and adding leadership to our academic team for the specific purpose of making sure our stated values and theological convictions are evident in our curriculum and learning outcomes and of making changes where we see learning outcomes are not evident. This relates to the sanctity of life, as it is one of our six theological distinctives. We desire that each student graduating from Biola understands and can articulate the biblical message of the sanctity of human life, so that students demonstrate these values in their own communities….

We have begun to consider additional ways to emphasize the tragedy and trauma of abortion so that our students not only embrace the convictions those like Diana champion but also understand there’s help for them in times when they need it.

Dr. Corey’s letter brought tears to my eyes. It is a beautiful Christian example of how to respond when error is recognized and forgiveness and repentance are sought.

For the past seven weeks pro-life leaders John Ensor, M.Div., President, Passion Life Ministries; Scott Klusendorf, M.A., President, Life Training Institute; and Marc Newman, Ph.D., President, Speaker for Life – two of whom are Biola graduates – have been working with Biola to craft a better pro-life policy. As they wrote in a press release today:

Ultimately, the problem at Biola was not about the university’s statement of faith regarding the sanctity of human life. The real problem at Biola was that a fourth-year nursing student could complete that program, yet remain totally unaware of the grisly reality of abortion or the persuasive arguments that support a pro-life perspective. It took exposure to those images, displayed at a student-sponsored pro-life event which drew only a handful of participants, to awaken her to the need to rouse her fellow students to action. And if Diana’s ignorance of abortion was typical in Nursing, what about students in Music, Communication, English, or Biblical Studies?

The trio is hoping to work with Biola and other Christian universities on a larger plan:

We would like to see Biola, and other like-minded universities, take a further step to integrate an inter-disciplinary minor in Applied Bioethics to further equip and professionalize the next generation of pro-life advocates and ministry partners. Such a move takes time, but we are willing to work with Biola – or any interested Christian university – to create and implement such a minor. In fact, we already have a curriculum outlined.

I commend Dr. Corey and Biola for their examples of Christian maturity and the leadership role they are embarking upon among Christian institutions of high learning to stop the atrocity of abortion. I concur with Ensor, Klusendorf, and Newman:

Because of these extraordinary and unprecedented steps, we believe Biola deserves the whole-hearted support of the pro-life community. Few Christian universities take their Biblical convictions concerning life as seriously as does Biola. It is our fervent hope that these collective actions of confession and repentance will prove to anyone with doubts that Biola is a champion for Life. We ask for prayer and for reconciliation between Biola and the wider pro-life community. Our prayer is that God would empower us with a spirit of grace as we seek to work together toward our true task: to save the lives of unborn children created in the image of the God we serve.

One final note, according to the pro-life groups’ press release, several weeks ago the Biola administration overturned nursing Elliott’s directive.

I am also told Dr. Elliott has retired.

Add “Using images of famous people without permission” to late-term abortionist James Pendergraft’s long list of crimes, this one in the “dumb-and-dumber” category.

Pendergraft is apparently desperate to make a buck after his Orlando clinic was raided by police and closed for five weeks before he scraped together borrowed abortion equipment to reopen it in July.

According to News4Jax.com, Pendergraft is currently running a tv ad offering $100 off abortions. The ad features a snapshot of actress Kate Hudson, but her rep says it’s without her permission.

Pendergraft says he didn’t know and will fix the ad.

So was Pendergraft perhaps stupid as a fox? He has gotten lots of free publicity from the episode.

Hudson should sue.

[HT: Susie Allen]

by LauraLoo

From the The Heritage Foundation comes a great video on debunking the defunding myths of Obamacare:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuTFC-0lMXU[/youtube]

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[HT: Ben Howe]

I am a man. I could say this has nothing to do with me. Except I have two daughters and I have a mother who was forced to illegally have an abortion in her state where abortion was illegal when she was a very young woman. It cost $600 cash. It was a traumatizing thing for her. It was shameful and sleazy and demeaning. When I heard the story I was aghast by the lowliness of a society that would make a woman do that.

I could not understand its lack of humanity; today is no different.

~ Excerpt from a letter by actor Mark Ruffalo, recently read at a pro-abortion rally in Mississippi, Huffington Post, August 19

EXTRA: Follow the link to view a slideshow of 12 pro-life celebrities.

[HT: Jill]

Well, God works in mysterious ways.

Poor planning by Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, ironically due to two successful attempts to preserve its bottom line, has resulted in overextending itself to the point it has to close two of its 23 clinics. At least that’s PPRM’s claim. From the Colorado Springs Independent, August 14:

It’s been widely reported that in 2008 and 2010, opponents of personhood greatly outspent supporters.

And they won easily. In 2008, Amendment 48 failed 73.2% to 26.8%. In 2010, Amendment 62 failed 70.53% to 29.47%.

But the victories have come at a cost, particularly to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, which is gearing up for another fight should Brady backers get enough signatures by early September to qualify for the ballot. PPRM spokesperson Monica McCafferty notes that her organization led the funding in both campaigns, which together cost about $3 million.

Though donations are up, McCafferty says the campaigns’ costs have hurt. It’s one of the reasons why PPRM is closing two centers (neither of which offers abortion) in September. One is in La Junta, the other in eastern Colorado Springs.

McCafferty says she believes personhood organizers have taken to the ballot repeatedly as “a tactic … to just drain our resources.”

[Personhood USA spokesperson Jennifer] Mason says that’s untrue – her group has run Personhood in Colorado, she says, because Personhood USA is based in Colorado. Not that she’s shedding any tears over the clinics: “It was an unintended consequence. And I can’t say I’m disappointed.”

Actually, I don’t believe for a minute that personhood initiatives were responsible for PPRM’s clinic closures. As we saw recently in Texas, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast tried to blame government defunding and a new pro-life law for three clinic closures, but it soon came out PPGC simply ran out of financial reserves to pay a Medicaid fraud settlement.

But whatev, I’ll take it.

Meanwhile, Colorado pro-lifers are pressing ahead with a different sort of personhood initiative in 2014. It is called the Brady Amendment and named for Brady Paul Surovik, an 8 pound, 2 ounce, baby boy who was killed en utero by a drunk driver on July 5,  2012, just days before he was due to be born.

Brady’s mother Heather, who was seriously injured but survived, was grieved to learn the four-time convicted driver would not be charged for killing Brady, because Brady was not considered a person in Colorado. (Neither was Colorado theater shooter James Holmes charged with the murder of a perborn baby who miscarried after his/her mother was shot.)

In May the Colorado legislature passed the deceptively named Crimes Against Pregnant Women Act, which upped penalties in cases such as Brady’s but did not confer personhood to preborns. Planned Parenthood approved the bill, which was stuffed with pro-abortion trinkets.

According to the Catholic News Agency:

Two personhood amendments have gone before Colorado voters, but neither attracted more than 30% of the vote. Another proposed amendment to define personhood failed to qualify the 2012 ballot. These efforts tried to define personhood from the moment of fertilization or from the moment human development begins.

The Brady Amendment differs from these previous amendments. Its phrasing only concerns victims of crime or negligence. Since abortion is legal in Colorado, the amendment may not have any effect on it.

Here’s more on precious baby Brady…

[youtube]http://youtu.be/BCaVnHejbZ0[/youtube]

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.

• Culture Campaign notes another Planned Parenthood closing – this time in New Jersey. With no fanfare or explanation, the facility in Manville closed. The clinic had come under fire in the past through Live Action stings.

• Clinic Quotes shares remarks on abortion regret from now-deceased actress Gloria Swanson (pictured left):
  

  The greatest regret of my life has always been that I didn’t have my baby… in 1925. Nothing in the whole world is worth the baby, I realized as soon as it was too late, and I never stopped blaming myself.

• Big Blue Wave wonders if pro-lifers should consider sidewalk counseling at IVF clinics. In a couple’s quest for a child, it is easy to get embroiled into the process without understanding the issue of the sanctity of human life. BBL quotes Dr. Peter Saunders at Christian Comment:
  

  Liberal Democrat Peer Lord Alton recently asked in parliament how many embryos have been created in each year since the commencement of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act 1990, and how many of these have resulted in live births.

  Figures given in reply by the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health Earl Howe showed that 3,806,699 embryos have been created since 1990. Between 1992 and 2006 a total of 122,043 live births occurred according to figures from the HFEA given alongside his reply….

  122,043 live births from 3,806,699 embryos represent a success rate of 3.21%. Or, to put it another way, 3,684,656 embryos never made it to birth.

• Live Action discusses the success of the A&E show Duck Dynasty, where the starring family talks about abstinence, pro-life values, and the beauty of adoption instead of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Clearly, audiences long for a positive message in media:
  

  The Abstinence Clearinghouse website recently posted a video of Jase and Missy, a couple on the show. Jase is one of Phil’s (the Patriarch of the family) four sons…. Jase and his wife unashamedly admitted they chose to wait till marriage to have sex….

  Along with abstinence the Robertsons address the issue of abortion. Phil Robertson… is a strong supporter of the pro-life movement. Phil’s son Willie shows his love for children by being an adoptive father… [of] a bi-racial son, Will.

• Life Training Institute says if we really want to win hearts and minds, we need to learn to “argue” like Westley from the movie, The Princess Bride:
  

  In The Princess Bride, Westley is confronted with sword fights, hand to hand combat with a giant, a battle of wits to the death with a rude Sicilian, and the efforts of an evil prince to separate him from his true love. Though not lacking in strength or will, almost every engagement is peppered with wit and warmth. Even in his more terse and threatening exchanges with Prince Humperdink, his aggression is constrained by the necessity of the situation. It offers a good picture to evaluate our own exchanges in the impossibly charming light of Westley the stable boy turned Dread Pirate Roberts.

• The Leading Edge wonders if viability should even be an issue in the abortion debate:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/IHRkdGx1BuA[/youtube]

by Hans Johnson

Only days after Kathleen Sebelius’ HHS announced awarding Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. $375,000 to “promote” the Affordable Care Act, comes word that an additional $655,000 is going to three more branches.

But according to the Heritage Foundation, that million dollars is only the start:

Planned Parenthood could also financially benefit from an Obamacare requirement that qualified insurance plans cover “essential community providers.” Those providers, according to a list released by the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year, could include over 400 local Planned Parenthood affiliates.

Laura Ingraham discusses on Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/lTgv4wjNM5o[/youtube]

You can see a report from when news of this partnership first broke here, and a recent discussion here.

And as you can see, the lie about Planned Parenthood providing mammograms is still being put forth as fact by their defenders.

Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.

[M]y partner and I began to discuss various scenarios. Adoption sounded good. After all, we barely knew each other’s family.

I was told by a Planned Parenthood representative that regardless of whether or not I showed up for the appointment, the payment would be kept in full.

~ Anne Taylor (pictured), Live Action News, August 19

You can read Anne Taylor’s testimony at Live Action News, in a four-part series:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four (coming soon)