David Bereit, the founder of 40 Days for Life, spoke at two Pro-Life Wisconsin events last week, along with leading prayer at two vigils. Image: David with the PLW staff.

On Thursday, April 26, David spoke to 250 people in Madison. Bishop Morlino said the opening prayer, and Dr. Nancy Fredericks was presented with an award for her courage in exposing the Madison Surgery Center’s plans to perform late-term abortions.

On Friday, April 27, a prayer vigil was held at Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee, one of several 40 Days for Life sites across the state. Please pray for a young couple, 18 weeks pregnant, whom pro-lifers sidewalk counseled there.

Saturday, April 28 was draft day for the Packers in Green Bay…. But dozens of pro-lifers turned out to pray with David Bereit in Green Bay, another 40 Days for Life site (image, above). Sidewalk counselors were able to assist a pregnant woman in need of help as well!

That evening, at our Annual Spring Awards Dinner, Rep. Andre Jacque was presented with our “Legislator of the Year” award and Jim Ball, leader of 40 Days for Life in Green Bay, was presented with our “Activist of the Year” award.

Thank you to all our supporters, steadfast prayer warriors, attendees, volunteers and all those who join us in advocating for the right to life for all.

More photos, below.

Bishop Morlino, David Bereit and PLW’s Steve Karlen.

PLW’s Matt Sande and Rep. Evan Wynn, one of the co-sponsors of the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment.

PLW’s Matt Sande and Rep. Andre Jacque (one of my UW-Madison cohorts!). Rep. Jacque is the author of theWisconsin Personhood Amendment and received PLW’s Legislator of the Year award.

PLW’s Steve Karlen, Peggy Hamill and Jim Ball, recipient of the Activist of the Year award.

One of the rationalizations we hear for abortion is in so-called cases where the mother’s life is threatened. Pro-Life Wisconsin opposes abortion in all instances — especially these “exceptions” cases, believing both mom AND baby can be cared for.

Here, a Wisconsin mother of six shares her story of being pregnant with cancer.

First, this from The Weekly Standard:

Top Wisconsin Democrats acknowledge that labor issues are not “moving” voters in the state, so a major part of the Democratic recall campaign against Scott Walker will involve an effort to portray him as a belligerent in the so-called “war on women.” But it’s not at all clear that this is a battle the Democrats can win. The two leading Democratic candidates, Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett and Dane county executive Kathleen Falk, have staked out deeply unpopular positions on the issue of abortion that could prove toxic in the general election.

As a congressman from Milwaukee in 1993, Tom Barrett broke ranks with the other eight other members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation (three Democrats and five Republicans) when he voted against the Hyde amendment, a measure that prohibited federal funding of elective abortions for Medicaid recipients (the amendment made exceptions for the cases of rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is at stake).

At an event in Madison last week, Barrett reaffirmed his support for taxpayer-funding of elective abortions under Medicaid.

“In Congress you voted against the Hyde amendment on Medicaid abortion funding. Do you still oppose the Hyde amendment?” Barrett was asked by THE WEEKLY STANDARD following a candidates forum in Madison on Wednesday.

“Yes, I do,” Barrett replied.

Read the rest here. In a nutshell, Barrett supports taxpayer-funded abortion.

Photo, l-r: At a 2010 fundraiser for Barrett’s failed gubernatorial bid. Milwaukee mayor and gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett; Planned Parenthood of America president Cecile Richards; and former Gov. Jim Doyle, also a pro- abortion Catholic.

Pro-life Gov. Scott Walker is facing a recall election, and Barrett is running against him. Walker recently signed three pro-life pieces of legislation, cut funding to Planned Parenthood in his 2011 budget and ended PPWI’s eligibility to participate in a state program that provided cancer screenings to low-income women.

Barrett’s pro-abortion view should come as no surprise — in July 2010, Cecile Richards headlined three Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin fundraisers for Barrett.

Barrett is a so-called practicing Catholic and was recently given a forum in the Milwaukee Catholic Herald.

What a pro-abortion race to the bottom.

Seen and heard round Twitter the past two weeks. Follow us on Twitter!

The Wausau 40 Days for Life wrapped up with an Eucharistic Procession on Holy Thursday.  Above is a picture from the Eucharistic Procession held at Family Planning Health Services, where 40 DFL was observed.  75 people attended, and the Knights of Columbus escorted the Blessed Sacrament.  The relic of Our Lady of Guadalupe was presented during the procession. The priest pictured is Fr. Robert Thorn, pastor of St. Matthew of Wausau. We are blessed with many pro-lifers in Central Wisconsin!

Image: In 2005, UW-Madison’s health services division sponsored this student newspaper ad promoting emergency contraception.

From LifeSiteNews:
A state representative is criticizing the University of Wisconsin at Madison for giving away free bags to students before spring break containing lip balm, suntan lotion – and condoms.

Rep. Steve Nass has said the giveaway sends the wrong message and is a poor use of funds by the state-funded university.

His spokesperson, Mike Mikalsen, said Nass believes “it’s not the role of the university to encourage sexual activity.” He added, “if you can afford to go to the Caribbean, then you can afford to buy your own condoms.”

“It’s bad on several levels,” said Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, a state pro-family organization. “It’s bad because it uses taxpayer money for something of that nature. But it’s also sending a message to our young people that sex is just for recreation, and there’s no procreative aspect to it. As our president said, you wouldn’t want anybody punished with a baby.”

U-W Madison’s University Health Services Executive Director Sarah Van Orman said the university provides “free” condoms to students all year long at a cost of a few thousand dollars annually.

“Our U-W system has had this of mentality of promoting promiscuity and encouraging recreational sex among the student on taxpayer money for years,” Appling said. She said the problem goes well beyond Madison, one of the nation’s most notoriously liberal universities, and is system-wide. “We know that other campuses have done this in the past, as well,” she said.

After a similar incident created widespread backlash several years ago, she said the university has gotten better at communicating the message under the media’s radar.

Rep. Terese Berceau, the Democratic representative of Madison, said the condom giveaway is “sending a good message.”

Click here to read more.

If this story doesn’t leave you believing in the goodness of mankind, nothing will!

From the Milwaukee Catholic Herald, a profile of one of our sidewalk counselors and a woman who chose life due to his efforts:

Six-month-old Joseph Landeros has gorgeous, dark saucer-shaped eyes, a little button nose and a smile that lights up his chubby face.

About 13 months ago, Miller met Mareza for the first time as she was entering the clinic planning to have an abortion.

He’s a stunning baby, but one of the most cherished photos that his mom, 19-year-old Mareza Landeros, keeps in a frame near her bed doesn’t show his black hair or flawless olive skin and toothless grin. Rather, it’s a fuzzy image of Joseph taken some 13 months ago.

It’s a bit blurry, but you can see his tiny head, arms and body on the ultrasound as he grew inside Mareza.

That was actually the second image of Joseph that Mareza had taken that February day in 2011, and it’s the one that convinced her that Joseph was a person, a life waiting to be born, instead of a blob of tissue that she had planned on aborting.

Mareza has the first image taken of Joseph, too, the one from earlier in the day on Feb. 24, 2011, the one taken during her initial consult in preparation for the abortion at Affiliated Medical Services on Farwell Avenue in Milwaukee.

That one is even fuzzier and is taken at a wider angle. Here it’s more difficult to see Joseph and he looks more like the mass of cells that Mareza thought he was at this 10-week stage of her pregnancy.

40 Days for Life wrapped up on Palm Sunday. 40 Days for Life in Milwaukee closed out the campaign with 31 saves — the 2nd highest number of saves of all 258 40 DFL locations! This is great news, but it is sobering, as well — there is much work to be done with assisting women in need. In addition, sidewalk counselors are seeing higher numbers of clients come in from out of state, especially Illinois, now that the infamous Rockford abortion mill has closed permanently. Please keep sidewalk counselors, their work and their spiritual welfare in your prayers.

Today presidential candidate Rick Santorum endorsed the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment, legislation that would amend the Wisconsin Constitution to apply personhood rights to preborn children at all stages of development. Introduced by Representative Andre Jacque (R-Bellevue) last October, Assembly Joint Resolution (AJR) 77 seeks to extend the inalienable right to life found in the Wisconsin Constitution to all preborn children from the beginning of their lives.

“I support the efforts of Wisconsin to protect the unborn through a state Constitutional Amendment,” said Santorum. “As our founders declared, our Creator endowed us with inalienable rights – of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Protecting the unborn is the starting point for preserving the American dream and opportunity for all.”

From a pro-life perspective, the Wisconsin Constitution contains a glaring error at its outset.  In specifying the beneficiaries of its human rights, it leaves out the preborn. It applies rights to only those people who are “born.” Representative Jacque is proposing a minimal but absolutely essential correction, a personhood amendment, to make the Wisconsin Constitution cover all people, every person, at any stage of development. The proposed amendment (AJR 77) tracks the original as closely as grammatically possible, only substituting the inclusive personhood definition for the word “born.” That definition is as follows:  As applied to the right to life, the terms “people” and “person” shall apply to every human being at any stage of development. Such a definition is indispensable to spreading the protective cover of Wisconsin’s constitution over all its citizens.

“We thank Senator Santorum for speaking out in support of this critical legislation,” said Matt Sande, Pro-Life Wisconsin Director of Legislation. “The introduction of the Wisconsin Personhood Amendment is a watershed moment in the history of the pro-life movement in our state. It seeks to end abortion in Wisconsin, not to regulate or restrict it.  It seeks to end all violence toward preborn children in Wisconsin – surgical, chemical, experimental, etc. – at all stages of development.”

The Wisconsin Personhood Amendment has been endorsed by Wisconsin Family Action, Personhood USA, Joe Scheidler of Pro-Life Action League, Pastor Walter Hoye of the Issues4Life Foundation, American Life League, Charles E. Rice, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Notre Dame, Pastor Matt Trewhella of Missionaries to the Preborn and Ambassador Alan Keyes.

Sunday marked the end of the spring 40 Days for Life campaign. Thank you to everyone who prayed for an end to abortion with us! And a special thanks to vigil organizers — many of them were on the sidewalk every day, sacrificing a lot of personal time to ensure the success of these pro-life efforts.

The national 40 Days for Life reports that as of today, 668 babies have been saved, through this campaign alone! 31 of those saved babies are from Milwaukee, including a set of twins.

In Stevens Point, 75 people attended the 40 Days for Life closing ceremony. PLW’s Virginia Zignego was the guest speaker. Awards were given to those who had put in the most time with 40 Days for Life. A 17-year-old boy took the top slot — he spent 27 hours total during 40 Days for Life praying for an end to abortion!

In Milwaukee, 30 people attended a closing prayer service for victims of abortion, their parents, clinic workers, and all involved at Affiliated Medical Services.

In Medford, local pro-lifers attended the closing ceremony and heard testimony about a local baby being saved, due to pro-lifers’ presence outside Family Planning Health Services. PLW’s Peggy Hamill attended.

More than 180 people joined Pro-Life Wisconsin’s Northeast Wisconsin affiliates yesterday to pray the Pro-Life Stations of the Cross at the Appleton Planned Parenthood and at the Medical Arts Building at Green Bay’s Bellin Hospital, where abortions are performed. “We had beautiful weather for a beautiful devotion,” said PLW’s Steve Karlen, who was on hand for both events. “And we are confident our prayers will be heard and that these powerful vigils will contribute to saving lives and changing hearts.”

In Appleton, five area deacons led the prayers. A tour of the Womankind Medical Clinic—a pro-life alternative to Planned Parenthood—was offered immediately after the Stations. In Green Bay, the Stations of the Cross helped close out the 40 Days for Life campaign. PLW partnered with the 40 Days for Life team and the Pro-Life student group at St. Norbert College. St. Norbert students held the images for each Station and led the prayers (photo, left.)