Our South Carolina Citizens for Life's Life Weekend 2012 (my 15th that I've attended) was busy, but worth every minute of the action. Friday night, the ceremonies began (it's become a frequent event for a Friday event to precede the March for Life, as I remember attending the ones in 2006 (Suzanne Vitadamo) and 2011 (Rick Santorum). This year's "Proudly Pro-Life Dinner" was scheduled to hold 200 people at Our Lady of the Hills Catholic Church, but with over 250 attended, someone forgot and dinner wasn't served to a considerable number of those in attendance, including the children of our keynote speaker! How could that have happened, I can't remember, but a local restaurant was called to finish supplies for those (and the speaker noted that!) deprived. If that wasn't enough, the union airline attendants lost the luggage of our Saturday keynote speaker and she arrived in town without it . . . and the worst part of it was she was shabbily dressed when the contingent were in business suits (and I never appear at major events without a suit)! Oh to think of the old days when people were dressed to the nines for airline flights!
As most who read this blog understand, I've had a long fight with bad church music. Imagine to my surprise to see three violins from three of the nineteen Duggars (four children were at the weekend) playing an Irish sacred song. Their parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, were the keynote speakers for the event.
The Stand Up for Life March and Rally XXXIX was attended by over two thousand people, including notable dignitaries such as Griffin Perry and Elizabeth Santorum, representing their fathers' Presidential campaigns, dignitaries including State Senator Larry Grooms, the father and (step)son pair of Congressman Joe* and Attorney General Alan Wilson, Joshua Putnam (the youngest member of the South Carolina House, just elected), and a contingent of many pro-family organisations (Palmetto Family Council, the Diocese of Charleston, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, Nurses for Life, and many organisations that I photographed) and representatives of various Presidential campaigns in addition to the two children of candidates. Once again, the karaoke of North Greenville's "Joyful Sound" (now why am I no fan of this karaoke material that typically comes from the Michael Jackson Library or false doctrines of Hillsong, VIneyard, or Lakewood!) entertained this audience.
Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood worker in College Station, Texas, was our keynote speaker and exposed some dangerous information on the group of which she was the 2008 Employee of the Year.
One in three pregnancies result in an abortion, she noted, with 72% of those who attend the abortion mill are active church members, and in the black community, 50% of all pregnancies end by infanticide known as abortion. Planned Parenthood exploits college students, which is an ideal hunting ground for them, as they "have saturated college campuses with their lies, deceits, and (pro-abortion propaganda)." With the taxpayer funds sent to the organisation (including $400 million in 2010), they built a 78,000 square feet building where she had an office on the third floor, with the late term abortions being serviced there. When she evaluated the fiscal year 2010 plans with officials, she noted the family planning budget was the same, but the baby killing numbers were wanting to be doubled, as the money was in doing the baby murders, so the quota of babies to die in the mill were to be doubled. On September 26, 2009, she visited an abortionist who had a new "ultrasound guided abortion" technique to be taught.
What she then warned us was how blindly the abortion was, with a suction tube placed in the mother's uterus. The slaughterhouse technician is to "poke" the child until it was "done" and they were never to see the ultrasound, in order to sell the murder. If the woman saw the ultrasound, the live baby would be seen, and she asked would the baby feel that. As she noted, the baby jumped, recoiled, and fled from the attempt to kill him. That was enough of it for her, and she left Planned Parenthood shortly after. As she noted with the prayer chain around Planned Parenthood, she had to enter from the back door in order to be counseled after what she had seen, and noted, "There was nothing but forgiveness. We are not fighting a political battle. We are fighting a spiritual battle on abortion."
The gruesomeness of her story was followed by the benediction delivered by the Duggars, and Michelle broke down discussing the recent miscarriage of what would have been the 20th child.
Another successful March for Life in South Carolina came with stories directly from the mill, and an emotional breakdown by the Duggars. And those of you attending Monday's National March for Life, we'd like to hear from you. ◙
Friday, January 20, 2012
