Ultrasound echoes of the unborn contribute to science based slowing of abortion rates.

 Echolocation: sight through sound— is a stunningly effective second sight for otherwise blind creatures. Bats are so effective at using their sonar sight that even in the darkness they can catch up to 1,200 insects an hour—one Texas cave system of bats consumes an incredible 200 tons of bugs every single night!

One of the marvels of modern medicine is harnesses similar sonar techn

ology that allows pregnant women to use echo technology to see their unborn children. These ultrasound sessions— as mothers watch their unborn children— have resulted in comical, sometimes incredulity inducing results— parents have seen their unborn children clapping their hands and feet, a child slapping its twin in retaliation, thumb sucking, or demonstrating their parents’ facial mannerisms.

As women have experienced the wonder of unborn heartbeats, antics, and evident humanity of their child, analysts have wondered if these wonderful insights into the womb have resulted in 2014’s record low abortion rates, which were the lowest since abortion was legalized in 1973. Abortion rates have continued to fall over the last five years. 

The organization Save the Storks notes that they have an eighty percent success rate with mothers choosing life after they see their children on an ultrasound. This sonar technology is aiding medicine to see the reality of life where science has been blind.

The sonar echoes of children in the womb are voices allowing the United States to see despite their decades long blindness the humanity of the unborn.

Whatever the cause of the decline of abortion, one ultrasound had a lasting and far reaching impact on the life of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson. Ms. Johnson was famously involved in the abortion business. Ironically, she joined the Planned parenthood initially to reduce the number of abortions through helping women that came to her clinic. 

Nevertheless, Johnson says that she was connected with 20,000 abortions that came through the clinic during her time, but she notes that despite the numbers she was blind to the realities of abortion until she was called into help with an ultrasound guided abortion. It changed her life forever. She felt confronted by the humanity of the child she was seeing on the screen and left the abortion industry. Johnson now works to help other abortion workers leave the business.

Today, Johnson uses kindness to help previously blinded abortion workers sound their way out of the business. In a segment of society where there is so much darkness, Abby works using empathy to enable others to see the humanity of the unborn and to locate a different life path. Johnson speaks with obvious compassion when she discusses that for the majority of abortion workers this was never the plan, and they don’t know how to get out.

Abby Johnson runs the campaign, And Then There Were None. (ATTWN) Her organization helps abortion facility workers find healing and a way out of the abortion business.

“To date, ATTWN has helped approximately 350 workers leave the abortion industry and we have helped them on their journey toward healing. As a direct result of the testimony of these workers, several clinics have been permanently shut down…The abortion industry understands something that many pro-lifers fail to grasp: there is no tool in the pro-life arsenal as effective or lethal to the abortion industry than their former employees.”

Like Johnson, these former employees operate against the travesties of the abortion business once they are on the outside. Their testimonies and empathy for other clinic workers that are still involved in abortions makes them significantly impactful in the pro-life movement.

Johnson’s organization ATTWN continues that: “Many times, workers have been a part of or witnessed illegal activity at their clinics. We have attorneys in all 50 states who are willing to help these workers bring these facts to light and offer them legal protection and representation. When appropriate, these lawyers also use the testimony of the workers to close down abortion facilities.”

These operatives provide abortion workers with the capacity to transition from their clinic work: a month’s salary, professional resume writers, and resources in every city in America to help workers transition into new employment.

In her book, Unplanned, (now a records shattering independent film) Johnson describes the casualties of the Abortion Wars as reaching beyond the mother and child. Parents, grandparents, the abortion workers themselves are all harmed through abortion emotionally and relationally.

Correspondingly, ATTWN’s focus is to bring healing to former abortion workers. Each former clinic worker is partnered with a Client Manager that aids in the recovery process, non-judgmental forums are available for sharing, and clients are invited on all expense paid retreats.

If Mark Twain was right that, “kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see,” then Abby Johnson is restoring sight that echoes all across the United States.

https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/13-incredible-bat-facts.htm

By Sarah-Marie Hoduski

Testimony: Nurse Jill L. Stanek during Born Alive Infant Protection Act Congressional Hearings (1)

Did you know that sometimes babies survive abortions?

There are abortion procedures that sometimes do not succeed in killing the child-subject. For instance, Jill Stanek, a nurse that testified in Congressional Hearings, describes one abortion process where children are medically induced and delivered— either to die in the process of delivery or to be left to die unattended.

Florida Rep. Cary Pigman, an emergency medicine physician says that hundreds of babies die after failed abortions every year, “as of 2010, 1,270 infants were reported in that category — and I emphasize reported.” The actual number of infant deaths could be much higher. (2)

However, one plucky little ten year old girl who survived her abortion grew up to successfully sue her abortion doctor for 36 million dollars. (2) She suffers severe medical issues including cerebral palsy as a result of the abortion attempt.

Nevertheless, the majority of babies are not fortunate enough to be allowed to live after a botched abortion. Specifically describing the born alive survivors, Stanek recounts that:

In the event that a baby is aborted alive, he or she receives no medical assessments or care but is only given what my hospital calls “comfort care.” “Comfort care” is defined as keeping the baby warm in a blanket until he or she dies, although even this minimal compassion is not always provided. It is not required that these babies be held during their short lives.

It’s an embarrassment for doctors and nurses— so, often, children are left to die: it can take days in the back of clinics. Stanek remembers that:

One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived… After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.

It’s totally legal.

Something is very wrong with a legal system that says doctors are mandated to pronounce babies dead but are not mandated to assess babies for life and chances of survival. In other words, our laws currently say that babies have no rights to medical oversight until they are dead. We look the other way and pretend that these babies aren’t human while they’re alive but human only after they are dead.

Except, that the House voted January 19th to give legal protection to anyone that makes it through the procedure. The new legislation states that if the abortion fails then that baby must be given medical attention or the doctors face legal consequences.

The vote now goes to the senate for passage.

Testimony: Nurse Jill L. Stanek during Born Alive Infant Protection Act Congressional Hearings

Did you know that sometimes babies survive abortions?

There are abortion procedures that sometimes do not succeed in killing the child-subject. For instance, Jill Stanek, a nurse that testified in Congressional Hearings, describes one abortion process where children are medically induced and delivered— either to die in the process of delivery or to be left to die unattended.

However, one plucky little ten year old girl who survived her abortion grew up to successfully sue her abortion doctor for 36 million dollars. She suffers severe medical issues including cerebral palsy as a result of the abortion attempt.

Nevertheless, the majority of babies are not fortunate enough to be allowed to live after a botched abortion. Specifically describing the born alive survivors, Stanek recounts that:

In the event that a baby is aborted alive, he or she receives no medical assessments or care but is only given what my hospital calls “comfort care.” “Comfort care” is defined as keeping the baby warm in a blanket until he or she dies, although even this minimal compassion is not always provided. It is not required that these babies be held during their short lives.

It’s an embarrassment for doctors and nurses— so, often, children are left to die: it can take days in the back of clinics. Stanek remembers that:

One night, a nursing co-worker was taking an aborted Down’s Syndrome baby who was born alive to our Soiled Utility Room because his parents did not want to hold him, and she did not have time to hold him. I could not bear the thought of this suffering child dying alone in a Soiled Utility Room, so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived… After he was pronounced dead, we folded his little arms across his chest, wrapped him in a tiny shroud, and carried him to the hospital morgue where all of our dead patients are taken.

It’s totally legal.

Something is very wrong with a legal system that says doctors are mandated to pronounce babies dead but are not mandated to assess babies for life and chances of survival. In other words, our laws currently say that babies have no rights to medical oversight until they are dead.We look the other way and pretend that these babies aren’t human while they’re alive but human only after they are dead.

Except, that the House voted January 19th to give legal protection to anyone that makes it through the procedure. The new legislation states that if the abortion fails then that baby must be given medical attention or the doctors face legal consequences.

The vote now goes to the senate for passage.

Please enjoy for a moment that James Bond was inspired by true stories of WWII.

Bond characters including M., Moneypenny, Q, and Vesper came out of Ian Fleming’s actual experiences working for WWII’s most covert operations, which were christened by Winston Churchill himself with, “go and set Europe ablaze.” This cloak and dagger outfit was operated with exploding brief cases, guns disguised as pens, and cyanide suicide pills as armament against capture, details Giles Milton in his book Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. 

Stationed off of Baker Street, they were titled “the Baker Street Irregulars” or in truly British form: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Alternately, agents worked as covert pirates disguised as yachting Swiss, performed guerrilla warfare under the guise of nomadic goat herders, and sabotaged the NAZI’s ability to go nuclear in the last few months of the war, says Milton.

The Baker Street Irregulars were the product of extraordinary times. They were the measure of a great evil that needed to be vanquished. Excitingly, today, another organization has achieved great things under cover: Center for Medical Progress (CMP) has worked in the abortion wars to save the lives of the unborn. Covertly, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt filmed meetings with Planned Parenthood executives, abortion clinic workers, and at abortion events.

They are successful.

Their results have been staggering to the American public. Their findings have shocked citizens, resulted in Congressional investigations, and activated voters to move toward defunding Planned Parenthood.

“I want a Lamborghini.”

Those are the now infamously sardonic words uttered by Dr. Mary Gatter who is president of the medical directors’ council at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America was caught on film by CMP, Dr. Gatter was haggling over upping the prices she would charge for the remains of children post-abortion.  “$50 was like 12 years ago,” Dr. Gatter of Planned Parenthood scoffs at the number the undercover journalist in the video proposes for the purchase of one baby part.

These remains are used in medical testing. Liver, hearts, eyes, and brains are line items in a mill of baby body parts for sale. So much person per pound.

For example, in a separate investigation, Pepsi was caught using purchased aborted baby taste buds to develop a better product for diabetic soda consumers but stopped the practice due to public outrage. (1)

Daleiden and Merritt’s work is indicative of the way that average citizens can make a huge impact in the abortion wars. Their work has resulted in numerous investigations into Planned Parenthood’s practices.

The team has faced a number of law suits… from which they continue to be cleared of charges. California alone brought 15 charges— 14 of which were dropped. They have also been condemned and harassed by mass mill media as deceptively editing their work, yet Planned Parenthood itself found that their editing in no way deceptive or misrepresentative of those being filmed.

Make no mistake: abortion will end, and it will be seen as a great evil of the past. Daleiden. Merritt. And others will be remembered for their courage just like those that worked undercover in the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare during WWII. We are proud of citizen journalists that face down corporate piranhas like Planned Parenthood.

It’s exciting to live in times of courage and change. Be bondsmen of truth; go and set the United States ablaze with justice for the unborn.

(1) http://www.healthclinicweb.com/2016/02/11/list-of-companies-using-fetal-cells-from-aborted-babies-to-flavor-known-to-share/

“What ever they were in life, here, at the end, each man stood with courage and honor. They fought for the ones who couldn’t fight for themselves, and the died for them, too. All to win something that didn’t belong to them. It was – magnificent.”                                                       —From the film Magnificent 7

North Korea. China. Vietnam…. Canada & the United States could all form an organization as the only countries in the world that allow abortion at any point: as long as the child is still in the womb.

The US is joined by the Netherlands and Singapore to make up The Malevolent Seven countries that allow abortions after 20 weeks. The Washington Post examined, “abortion laws in 198 countries and other independent or “semiautonomous” regions with more than 1 million residents.”

This status classes the United States with human rights violators like China who have been caught harvesting prisoners’ organs and selling them. (1) Similarly, the US’s Planned Parenthood had its own abortion related organ harvesting scandal which was uncovered by the the Center for Medical Progress.

America is almost totally alone in the world in its barbaric and extreme attitude toward abortion.

However, states are routinely seeking to outlaw abortions after 20 weeks, which is the scientifically accepted point that an unborn child feels pain. Twelve states now have fetal pain laws. The Lozier Institute notes that:

Unborn babies are treated as patients by fetal surgeons, and receive pain medication (2):

• Fetal surgeons recognize unborn babies as patients. A leading children’s hospital has performed nearly 1,600 fetal surgeries between 1995 and June 2017. Perinatal medicine now treats unborn babies as young as 16 weeks post-fertilization (18 weeks gestation). Pain medication for unborn patients is routinely administered as standard medical practice.
• One of the premier fetal surgeons makes the obvious point: “Fetal therapy is the logical culmination of progress in fetal diagnosis. In other words, the fetus is now a patient.”
• A European fetal surgery team states: “The administration of anesthesia directly to the fetus is critical in open fetal surgery procedures.”

In fact, the Lozier Institute asserts that unborn children actually feel more pain than adults since their capacity to inhibit pain is underdeveloped. They state, “Authors of a 2015 study used the fMRI technique to measure pain response in newborns … Babies had 18 out of 20 brain regions respond like adults, yet they showed much greater sensitivity to pain, responding at a level four times as sensitive as adults.”

Most countries consider our abortion stance to be fanatical. Nine out of ten Italian doctors refuses to perform abortions on moral grounds according to Relevant (3).

Some European countries outlaw abortion altogether. For example, the Irish are staunchly pro-life. Their 8th amendment protects the unborn and gives them full rights as citizens.

In Ireland the attitude about their 8th amendment is that, “It’s that rare thing: a law that can definitively be described as “life-saving”. Instead of attacking it, we should be applauding those who had the foresight to work for its inclusion at a time when there were no 4D scans that showed the awesome beauty of the child in the womb. It is truly a beacon of human rights protection, (4)” The Catholic Herald

Spain has moved legislatively to outlaw abortion altogether, while most other European nations restrict abortion to 12 weeks: Finland, Germany, Denmark, etc. Even Russia are each more progressive than the United States on the issue of unborn human rights.

Europe, South America, and most of Asia leave America almost totally alone in the world in its barbaric and extreme attitude toward abortion.

The United States needs to cowboy up and protect the unborn: American Exceptionalism shouldn’t be defined by its inclusion with human rights violators like China and North Korea.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/index.html

http://catholicherald.co.uk/issues/december-2nd-2016/irelands-happy-pro-life-warriors/

Our Dear Friends and Family,

Wow!!

Anna is engaged! Yesterday, Megan and I took her to the DC Memorial and her boyfriend, James Strasburg surprised her. He took her to a French Patisserie and then to see the city from the original US Postal Service. Later, they went up to the National Cathedral Rose Garden, where Megan and I were hiding. James proposed in an ancient stone Gazebo overlooking the garden and cathedral. It was lovely! We are SO happy for them!

We are at the Family Research Council Event, this morning waiting to hear President Trump speak! Anna is a table host at the event, tonight! We are thrilled to be here. We get to hear David Daleiden of the Center Medical Progress, Lila Rose of Live Action, Alveda King the niece of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and others! It’s a grand collective of many of our pro-life heroes. We have been up since the wee hours for the event.

Doors are also being opened for our upcoming event: we needed chairs and the Weavers are coming through for us on them. We needed a sound system and Mr. Spencer Clarke and Mr. Boyd Beck are bringing a sound system from Kansas City from our friend Mr. Gordon. They are also bringing lights for the event.

We are going to have Americans United for Life and the Family Research Council speaking at our event on Sunday, which is super exciting! Amy Cheng with the FRC has been great— finding James a place to stay and into this FRC event, today!

We are thrilled at the kindness of God and all of the opportunities we have had! Thanks for praying!

All our love,

Sarah-Marie Hoduski

& The Project If Life Team

Our Dear Friends and Family,

Another crazy, great day!

We met this morning with New Mexico Congressman Stevan Pearce to discuss the project. He told us a great story about his solo flight around the world in support of Vietnam War Veterans. We SO appreciate Congressmen who will fight for life; especially, we appreciate when they fight in states where the pro-life issue is a challenge! We also met with staffer Josh Stanford: he gave us great advice for networking on the Hill. Congressman Pearce also gave Anna an opportunity to record an interview for his radio talk show which is available at  ______________

Anna is interviewing with LifeSite News right now, which is super exciting! We really appreciate their newsfeed. They are so thorough with the life issue!

This evening, Anna is biking 35 miles to Annapolis, Maryland today. It’s the final leg of the journey ( aside from running the little bit to the Lincoln Memorial for finishing party) SO exciting!

We are meeting with Rebecca Duberstein with the pro-life caucus this afternoon before Anna rides. We are so excited to plug in with other pro-life advocates!

John Ellis with PJ Media published an article about Anna crossing the nation, today. Check it out! He did a bang up job; we are so grateful for Anna to have the opportunity to talk about the pro-life movement through this platform!

Thank you for continued prayers and support! Your encouragement is very important on this journey for pro-life!

All our love,

Sarah-Marie Hoduski

Our Dear Friends and Family,

We left Roland and Yvette Warrens’ home this morning. They have an 1850’s brick cabin that we got to stay in; it was so Jane Austen that we watched the movie Emma one night to celebrate. The Rolands stocked us with our favorite things: great cheese, sparkling water, dark chocolate; it was so lovely! Roland is the president of Care Net— it was really neat to hear his heart for men in the pro-life movement. 

Today was a crazy, amazing day! Anna spoke at Patrick Henry College, where the students and staff were very welcoming. They were a great audience; Anna did a fantastic job tailoring her message. Megan and I were laughing right along with the kids at some of the outrageous things we’ve done on this trip.

After speaking at Patrick Henry College, we headed to the Family Research Council building. Annie spoke in front of the capitol dome for their Facebook live event. We got a tour of the building, which was a really neat experience! We use their data a lot in our research on abortion statistics. Amy Cheng with their offices helped coordinate our housing near the capitol for this week, which was huge blessing!

We are on our way to go to Kansas Senator Jerry Moran’s office to meet with his staff. (He is back in Kansas right now). We are excited to talk with them about the upcoming fetal pain bill that would make abortion after 20 weeks illegal. We’re currently trying to find parking— DC makes that pretty exciting.

All our love,

Sarah-Marie Hoduski

& The Project If Life Team

Our Dear Friends and Family,

Cruising through this last week of riding! Anna is out doing the Appalachians; the fall colors are spectacular! For a treat, today, she had chocolate milk from the cows in the area. Anna just crossed into Virginia. The last state of the journey before she hits DC, as I type this! We have experienced so much kindness and beauty in this state. There are historical markers everywhere— mountain by mountain, it feels like secret places with sweet people living tucked away.

Megan nearly adopted a cat, yesterday, on our hike along a river. In Halloween fashion it was black with pumpkin orange eyes. The lovely girl that has been caring for these strays had borrowed money at one time to afford kitten formula. There are so many precious people along this route.

Also yesterday, we met a gentleman with Keyser Inn that was so kind— he gave Megan home cooked ribs, beans, and coleslaw out of the blue for us for lunch. When we told him about the project he donated to the end object and was very encouraging!

We are nearly there: planning the end rally/speech at the Lincoln Memorial and figuring out meetings for the week following our finish. Please continue praying for the remaining portion of this project: Anna’s knees, connections, and that we would be at the right place at the right time.

All Our Love,

Sarah-Marie Hoduski

& The Project If Life Team

No one is quite sure who suggested the slip-and-slide that we graduated to, but before we knew it there were thirty kids in the yard, alternately standing in a foot of soap bubbles and surfing a 48 foot mattress slide.

My mom had six kids in six years— I am the oldest, and at the time of this particular adventure I was twelve. My mom asked us to take our mattresses outside to beat them out. Accordingly, we hauled our beds out to the lawn for a Spring cleaning session.

I remember telling my co-conspirator sister Natosha that it would be better if we rinsed them off with the hose. The thing about big groups is that things always escalate, and with that many kids we were always in a big group. We quickly decided that it would be even better if we used Dawn soap on the mattresses. Eventually, we lined up our mattresses for their scrubbing along the lawn.

And it was literally down hill from there. We used the sloping trajectory of our yard for extra velocity as we slipped and slid our way down the mattresses.

My mother came out in the climax of this extravaganza we were hosting and calmly remarked, “this is not what I had in mind.” Then, she went back inside.

We slept on the ground for six months before my parents could afford to replace our mattresses.

We once had a club where the six of us broke the ice on a pond and swam across it to get in. We grew up hiking in every mountain chain in the US and listening to my dad read hundreds of books as we fell asleep.

There’s a disturbing attitude about having children in this country. The word irresponsible gets used, but it’s the voids, the families that are quiet and withering that make this propaganda detrimental.

I know personally, they always told my parents that they were doing it wrong. They had kids too early (that’s me—I’m the baby they had right off.) They said they had kids too close together. They always said they had too many kids. (Sorry, Alex, Anna, Nick)

To make ends meet, my dad would buy from discount bins that resulted in lunches so bizarre that they got passed around the lunchroom for sampling. Pear potatoes was one of the biggest hits.

However, who would we choose to lose in order to do things “right?” At the risk of being in very bad taste I will say my family is fabulous.

Natosha is an award winning author and deeply empathetic crusader for the weak: most recently, caring for refugees in below zero temperatures and working for peace in the Middle East. She once did 6 continents in 6 months, and is the funniest person anyone knows.

Tessa is also an award winning essayist, and a mischievous, elf of a human being. She is on the fast track with a fortune five hundred company because of her integrity and drive.

Alexander was once asked to perform for 3,000 people; he taught himself guitar that day and performed that night. He once carried a Nepalese orphan 10 miles at the base of Everest to get them medical help. He has a 166 IQ making him literally one of the smartest people on the planet.

Anna has summited Mt. Rainier and is finishing a cross nation bike/run for the equal rights for the unborn. She’s a seasoned public speaker that founded her own non-profit as a sophomore in college.

Nick has also summited Mt. Rainier, taught himself German, and biked from the Colorado Rockies to Santa Monica Beach California. The family’s only perfectionist and a deep risk taker, he climbed North America’s most difficult indoor rock climbing route in a single attempt as a lark.

The six of us are a team careening toward the next grand adventure, but that team was only made possible because my parents have the wisdom and guts to know that saying children are a burden is bunk.

Being from a large family means more fun. It means I can’t think clearly without a certain decibel of noise. It means odd traditions like Moroccan food on the floor, dancing to Irish music after Sunday brunch, Lord of the Rings parties until dawn, and forty gallons of cinnamon roll dough every Christmas.

One of the most ridiculous things people say to me is that they only want one child because they want to give that child enough love. I have my parents, but I also have five people that would die for me. I have five people that hear my stories and take my side, for whom my friends are their friends, my enemies their enemies. I hate seeing people robbed of what I have.

Mostly, being from a family with more people means that life is an adventure with people that get all of your jokes and will take you down a peg… and it humanizes you.

Because what is truly inhumane is telling families they are better off without some of their members. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, once said, “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

Today, Planned Parenthood has the same rhetoric. They claim the environment would benefit from parents choosing a child not to have.

Practicing eugenics has real world consequences. So, whom of my family should we pick?