September, 2010

NARAL launches 40 Days campaign against picketers (keep up the great work, everyone!)

  • September 28, 2010
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40 Days for Life officially began September 22 and runs through October 31.

In response to the joyful, hopeful message that 40 Days for Life brings, NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin has launched its own 40-day observance.

Taking a cue from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s efforts to raise money off Pro-Life Wisconsin, NARAL is asking supporters to donate money in response to 40 Days for Life.  Lisa Subeck, executive director of NARAL, sent the below email yesterday, September 27.

Where will this money go? To crisis pregnancy centers that help women by providing free ultrasounds, prenatal care, baby clothes, counseling, parenting classes and a supportive shoulder to lean on?

Nope. The money goes right into NARAL’s pocketbook. So Lisa Subeck can continue to write pro-abortion editorials like this one advocating for genocide in the womb.

NARAL’s desperate attempt to fundraise includes the “Forty 4 Forty” logo (above), which states “Pledging to end harassment… one picketer at a time”. What does this mean? What, exactly, is “one picketer at a time”? This is not “choice,” nor is it pro-woman nor pro-health. It is threatening.

During 40 Days for Life, the window shades at the Madison Planned Parenthood are shut, so the women waiting to see the abortionist cannot look outside. If Planned Parenthood cared about women and was confident in its message and mission, why the fear? Why make the abortion facility a dark, hopeless place? This simple change – closing the window shades so patients and workers cannot see the people outside praying for them – demonstrates the effect our prayers are having, more than we know.

Please – join 40 Days for Life today as we celebrate the joy of life and offer women love and hope outside Wisconsin’s abortion mills. If you can’t join us, keep us in your prayers.

40 Days for Life is observed in the Wisconsin area in Appleton, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, Wausau and Rockford, Ill. For more information on locations and who to contact, go to the 40 Days for Life website.

Chemical and surgical abortions increased in Wisconsin in 2009, state report shows

  • September 27, 2010
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The state of Wisconsin Department of Health Services recently released its annual report on induced abortions in Wisconsin. The total number of abortions in Wisconsin  in 2009 was 8,542, up from 8,229 in 2008.

This is the first increase in the number of abortions since 2003.

Statistics show the use of mifepristone/misoprostol has risen while surgical abortions have declined. This drug regimen, commonly known as RU-486, results in a chemical abortion. Both chemical and surgical abortions are reported to the state of Wisconsin and are covered by the statistics.

With the rising use of mifepristone/misoprostol, increasing numbers of women are left to abort their babies alone in their homes, without any medical care or emotional support. This is not progress for Wisconsin women; it is a tragedy. Women need help, not a drug that can have fatal complications for women (and always the baby).

Of the 8,542 reported abortions in 2009, 72 percent were surgical, 27 percent were chemically induced, and 0.6 percent were surgical procedures following a failed or incomplete chemically induced abortion. In 2008, these proportions were 80 percent, 19 percent, and 0.4 percent, respectively.

According to a LifeSiteNews article, one out of four babies aborted early in the United States is killed by these abortion pills rather than a surgical procedure.

The chemical abortion method consists of first administering mifepristone, which kills the child before misoprostol is given two days later, a drug that induces the mother to expel the dead baby’s corpse.

These numbers of chemical abortions do not include the use of the morning after pill and other forms of hormonal birth control, which can cause a pre-implantation abortion, and are sold over the counter.

Click here to read the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services report on 2009 abortions in Wisconsin.

Raising money off Pro-Life Wisconsin didn’t go so well for Planned Parenthood?

  • September 16, 2010
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On July 28 and 29, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, was the keynote speaker for two fundraisers for Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett. Gov. Jim Doyle, a Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin lifetime achievement award recipient, also attended.

After we announced our protests of the Planned Parenthood fundraisers, Teri Huyck, president of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, sent an email to supporters, encouraging them to make a donation in Pro-Life Wisconsin’s name. (To view a slideshow with Pro-Life Wisconsin’s pictures from the protests, click here.)

Teri Huyck celebrates the baby-killing work her organization does by tastelessly declaring, “It’s good to be bad!” If the thousands of babies killed annually by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could talk, bet they would wish she wasn’t so bad.

Huyck also claimed Planned Parenthood would send Pro-Life Wisconsin a note “letting them know a donation has been made in their name to Planned Parenthood and in support of our events.”

Not surprisingly, we’re still waiting on Huyck’s note. It’s been three months to the day. Perhaps it got lost in the mail. Or perhaps Planned Parenthood wasn’t able to raise $5,000 in 24 hours and Huyck can’t admit it?

Why is Planned Parenthood worried about Wisconsin, so much they brought in Cecile Richards? Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin receives a LOT of money from the state of Wisconsin, courtesy of the taxpayers –  $12 million per year in state and federal funding. PPWI’s 2008 financial records list $10 million in assets and a $20 million yearly budget. $8.6 million of that budget is spent on employee salaries. In 2008, PPWI had enough money to pay off a $400,000 loan owed to abortionist Dennis Christensen. Once again, it’s all about the money.

As a sidenote: Planned Parenthood claimed, via Facebook, that 300 people attended three fundraisers they held for Barrett.

Those numbers don’t impress us much… considering the U.S. Census Bureau puts Wisconsin’s population at 5.65 million.

We’re not impressed with Planned Parenthood’s numbers. Why?

- Our annual auction dinner, held every fall, is attended by more than 500 people;
- Our spring awards dinner is attended by nearly 100 people;
- Hundreds throughout Wisconsin observe Roe v. Wade with prayer in their communities;
- Our Pro-Life Wisconsin affiliates throughout the state mobilize to march in parades, staff fair booths and pray and sidewalk counsel outside Wisconsin’s abortion facilities;
- Every year, the number of high school students who apply for our Sharon Schumer Memorial Scholarship increases;
- Thousands signed our pro-life petition to keep abortion out of the Madison Surgery Center;
- Our Victory Fund PAC endorsed a record 96 candidates for political office this year, showing that more and more candidates are embracing the total protection message;
- Many of Planned Parenthood’s count of 300 people were their own staff members!

What does this mean? Pro-life is winning! And you’re helping us win – through your prayers, financial support, activism and volunteering.

Why 40 Days for Life?

  • September 13, 2010
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40 Days for Life officially begins September 22 and runs through October 31.

40 Days for Life will be observed in the Wisconsin area in Appleton, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, Wausau and Rockford, Ill. For more information on locations and who to contact, go to the 40 Days for Life website.

There have been six coordinated 40 Days for Life campaigns since spring 2007. Reports document 2,811 lives spared from abortion since 40 Days for Life began just three years ago, and those are just the ones we know about! More than 20 of those saved babies happened in Milwaukee at Affiliated Medical Services. In Madison, after 40 Days for Life was held at a proposed late-term abortion facility, the plans to provide abortions at the facility were scrapped.

The following narrative illustrates something we encounter all too frequently outside abortion facilities – teenage girls brought in by their mothers. This situation happened during last spring’s 40 Days for Life. We ask you to join us in observing 40 Days for Life this fall, to pray for an end to abortion – so no 15-year-old girl, or anyone, will ever be forced into abortion again.

She had somewhere to go. On her way, Teresa thought she would stop by the abortion clinic on Farwell Ave. in Milwaukee and pray for an hour as part of the 40 Days for Life campaign. It was Friday and she was praying at the clinic when a young girl of 15 walked up to the clinic, obviously pregnant.

I’ll call her Doris (not her real first name). She was there with her boyfriend.  She told Teresa she was 21 weeks pregnant and did not want to have an abortion. Her mother wanted her to have an abortion. Her mom was threatening to sue her boyfriend if she did not kill her child. The boyfriend did not want her to abort their child. Teresa and a sidewalk counselor tried to offer her help and other options. She went in the clinic anyway, but on her way in she turned to Teresa and said, “Are you going to be here when I come out?” Teresa replied yes, not knowing when Doris would come out.  Teresa would be late to her next stop.

When Doris came out of the clinic, she would only tell Teresa that she had made an appointment for the abortion the next day at 8:30 am. The abortion clinic had closed the deal. Teresa and others promised to pray for Doris and her child. Teresa would return to the clinic the next morning after many hours of prayer and after asking an army of people to pray for Doris and her child. It was hoped that she would not return to the clinic but when Doris did return, she was extremely sad and said, “I can’t back out now, my mother has paid $2,000 to the clinic.”

Teresa describes Doris as “well off” in her appearance, not poor. However Doris is truly the poorest of the poor when her own mother forces her to abort her large, kicking unborn child. Doris’ mother does not realize that Doris will at least resent and probably hate her for a very long time. Teresa was afraid her mother wouldn’t care. If that is so, how poor is that?

“Are you going to be here when I come out?” Even though Doris felt she had to give in to the extreme coercion that she was under, she still wanted to know, “Are you going to be here when I come out?” Is this not the cry of the poor? Was she not begging for someone to come after her with love? Are we not all wanting God to “come after us” when we sin? Are we not all called to be the hands and feet of Christ to the women coming to the abortion clinic who are so poor that they are not just hungry; they are so poor that they feel trapped into having their babies stolen from them by a curette or a suction machine at our abortion clinic… right here in Milwaukee? Can we not find an hour or two to pray for these women, to be there for them, to offer them love and hope?

No one wants to work at Planned Parenthood?

  • September 9, 2010
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We’ve written in the past about Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin hiring “field canvassers” in Milwaukee, Madison and the Fox Valley (taking a page from ACORN and Saul Alinsky). These employees of PPWI will be going “door-to-door [to] talk about issues affecting women’s health and rights.” Click here to view the job description on PPWI’s website.

Turns out PPWI is still hiring (and posting it on their Facebook page). Why is this? Does no one want to work for Wisconsin’s number-one baby-killing organization? Or is PPWI getting worried about pro-lifers turning out in droves for the upcoming election? Either way, it’s good news that PPWI is having a hard time finding people to do their dirty neighborhood work.


Make sure you know what to say if PPWI employees show up at your door (parents, beware!). You have the right to refuse to talk to PPWI employees. Click here for a sign to print off and post on your door or your window. Share it with your family, friends, church groups and neighbors! If Planned Parenthood does knock on your door, and you do not feel comfortable engaging them in a discussion, point to the sign and tell them to leave. By law, Planned Parenthood employees have to leave your property when you direct them to the no-trespassing sign.

Executive education with UW-Madison and former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

  • September 2, 2010
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For $2,495, you could hear Faye Wattleton, former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, speak at a University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business “Executive Education” summit on October 1. View the entire schedule here (Wattleton’s presentation is second-to-last, at the bottom of the page).

The mission of the University of Wisconsin’s School of Business Executive Education program is to, “Help companies improve their business performance through practical education and applied knowledge.”

The UW School of Business Executive Education program consistently receives high marks from the London-based Financial Times, which ranks business school program all over the world. The UW School of Business is ranked at #67 in the world by the Financial Times.

University of Wisconsin School of Business graduates do well in the world – in 2005, UW joined Harvard as the most common university attended by S&P 500 CEOs. More than 1,050 UW-Madison alumni serve as CEO of a company and nearly 16,000 hold an executive management position, according to the UW School of Business website.

With all of this hard-earned prestige, is throwing Planned Parenthood of America into the mix a good idea?

None of these 1,050 alumni CEOs were available?

As Wattleton’s autobiography on her website indicates, she did not attend nor receive a degree from UW-Madison.

While Wattleton’s resumé may be impressive, why is it more impressive than any of the 16,000 UW graduates in executive management positions?

UW-Madison’s entanglement and fascination with the abortion industry is well-documented. You can read more here and here and here.

It is unfortunate that potential alumni speakers were passed over in favor of an affiliation with Planned Parenthood, an organization that has killed so many future Badgers.

Why is NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin outraged with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?

  • September 1, 2010
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Lisa Subeck, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, is “outraged” with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, according to a NARAL email sent this morning. View the entire email here.

But why, exactly, did NARAL state the organization is enraged with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a mere week after the newspaper’s editorial board wished Planned Parenthood a public “Happy 75th Birthday”? Why is NARAL asking its members to demand higher journalism standards?

On Sunday, August 22, the Wisconsin State Journal printed a high-profile article about the Women’s Fund, an organization that exists solely to pay for poor women to have abortions. You can read that article here.

What prompted NARAL’s rage?

On August 24, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an opinion column about the Women’s Fund by columnist Patrick McIlheran. In the column, McIlheran refers to Anne Gaylor, founder of the Women’s Fund, as “Sweet little old Granny Blood-Money.”

It took NARAL more than a week – from the publishing of McIlheran’s column on August 24 to today, September 1 – to collect their thoughts and get a handle on their rage. Or did it take a week for NARAL to realize the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wouldn’t budge?

NARAL’s attempts to manhandle the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel failed, as the email indicates the newspaper refused to issue a retraction for an opinion column. NARAL didn’t protest the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s birthday wish to Planned Parenthood, so is it only pro-life opinion columns that fill Lisa Subeck full of rage?

Subeck’s demands for higher standards in the abortion debate are laughable, considering NARAL awarded a “George Tiller Memorial Award” at its recent Milwaukee and Madison “Wine and Choice” fundraiser events. An award in the name of Tiller’s trust in women is a disrespect to the thousands of baby girls Tiller killed via grisly late-term abortions. Subeck’s editorial on the George Tiller Memorial Award can be found here.

UW-Madison, the “birthplace” of embryonic stem cell research, has big money riding on recent court decision

  • September 1, 2010
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A little background: On August 23 a District of Columbia federal district court judge blocked rules promulgated by the Obama administration that expand embryo-destructive research. President Obama’s March 2009 executive order permitted federal funding of new embryonic stem cell lines derived from the destruction of new human embryos “donated” from in vitro fertilization clinics.

In his August 23 decision, Judge Royce Lamberth [which the Obama administration appealed yesterday] concluded that the new National Institutes of Health (NIH) guidelines clearly violate a 1995 federal law (known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment) that prohibits federal funding of scientific research in which human embryos “are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.” Because embryonic stem cell research necessarily depends upon the destruction of the human embryo, Judge Lamberth ruled that the NIH guidelines violate the “plain language of the statute.” The New York Times has an article that clearly articulates the nuances of this issue. Read it here.

Pro-Life Wisconsin legislative director Matt Sande debated the issue on Wisconsin Public Radio’s (WPR) Joy Cardin show last week. To hear the show on WPR Audio Archives, click here. Then scroll down to Wednesday, August 25, 7 a.m.

How does this all relate back to UW-Madison?

UW is making money from embryonic stem cell research in two ways.

First, by way of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation [WARF], the designated patent management organization of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. WARF has at least 35 licensing agreements whereby WARF is paid for the worldwide distribution of embryonic stem cells. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is the largest licensee named publicly to date.

According to its website, in 2007-08 WARF, “Gave $83 million to  UW-Madison to support research, signed 68 new license and option agreements, took equity in 2 new UW-Madison spin-off companies…” It should be noted WARF’s patent income is not derived solely from embryonic stem cell distribution.

Second, UW brings in $5 million annually in federal tax payer dollars to fund embryonic stem cell research at the university. That amounts to 75 scientists who work solely on embryonic stem cell research, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

From an August 25 Wall Street Journal article: The University of Wisconsin has 34 approved projects involving human embryonic cells, of which 21 are paid for by the federal government, supporting the work of 18 scientists from cardiologists to chemists. Total federal funding for human-embryo research at the university is about $5 million annually.

Dr. Kamp, for example, is a cardiologist trying to understand heart function by studying the electrical properties in heart cells. Since it can be hard to obtain human cardiac cells, he is deriving heart cells from embryos, a project funded by the NIH.

So it’s not a surprise when UW welcomes Obama’s effort to restore embryonic stem cell research funding.

Timeline of embryonic stem cell research at UW, via the Wall Street Journal:

  • Mid-1990s James Thomson, a University of Wisconsin biologist, begins trying to grow human embryonic stem cells.
  • Nov. 1998 Dr. Thomson announces that he has successfully grown the cells.
  • Jan. 1999 Tommy Thompson, then-governor of Wisconsin, praises Dr. Thomson’s work in his state-of-the-state address, prompting outrage among pro-life groups.
  • Oct. 1999 The university-related Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation creates a private subsidiary, the WiCell Research Institute, to handle stem-cell distribution and oversee the lab. Dr. Thomson is the scientific director.
  • Feb. 2000 Some Wisconsin Republicans launch the first of several attempts to block the research.
  • Aug. 2001 President Bush decides to allow federal funding for research on existing human stem-cell lines. WARF officials expect researchers working with those lines will no longer have to work from private labs.
  • March 2009 President Obama signed an executive order federally funding embryonic stem cell research. The order removed President Bush’s August 2001 federal funding restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research.
  • August 2010 A federal judge blocks the expansion of funding embryonic stem cell research.