We will write more about our Empty Manger Christmas Caroling effort later — we have one more Christmas caroling event tomorrow, at Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee.

In short, response was overwhelming! Hundreds of people turned out to share the Christmas message in front of Wisconsin’s abortion facilities, in Milwaukee, Madison, La Crosse, Green Bay and Appleton. We will share pictures later as well.

A short description of what happened in Milwaukee this morning:

Today was difficult to say the least.  Four Milwaukee Police Department squad cars showed up at about 9:30am to inform us that we were loitering and needed to keep moving – a blatant misuse of the ordinance.  In the past couple years of side-walk counseling at Affiliated Medical Services either with a small or large group, we have only been told once that we were loitering – on October 30th, 2010, when an ambulance was called to take a botched abortion patient away at AMS.  They simply didn’t want us around, so they used the police as their personal show of force to chill our free speech rights.

Today, some got in the line and others were disinclined to acquiesce to the officer’s request – displaying their civil disobedience by standing still.  Tactically, moving around in a circle gave us full permission from the police to block the clinic entrance with our solid line of carolers – so – great!  Officer Hyczewski (#2543) tried to give one of our vigilers a parenting lesson by offering that it was a bad example to disobey the police in front of your children.  Our vigiler vehemently disagreed with her – so he stated his case to her and then stood with his son to continue singing.  I couldn’t help but think of the Jews in Nazi Germany, as they slowly gave up the fight for their basic human rights – one by one – ultimately being herded up like cattle to the death camps.  Officers Matecki (#2133), Kaine (#2320), Murphy and Sargent Wagner were busy going back and forth into the abortion mill to get their marching orders from the interim clinic director, Wendy, while we sang God’s praises in Christmas fashion.  No citations were issued.  Could you imagine the immense public relations nightmare they would’ve had on their hands if they had?!

Sidewalk counselors in Milwaukee, despite all the craziness, had a save this morning, the FOURTH save this week! We also found out the medical director of AMS has quit. It has to be wearing, as Abby Johnson noted, to have people praying outside your place of employment every single day.

Tis the season for miracles!  Thank you for everyone who turned out to witness to the preborn and share the joy of the Christ Child.

In 2010, Pro-Life Wisconsin’s investigative research revealed that the system was already in place for so-called telemed abortions, a process whereby a woman consults with a doctor on a video camera, and at the end of the “appointment,” out pops abortion-causing drugs.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland is currently dispensing RU-486 in this manner, and we have no reason to doubt the same isn’t occurring here in Wisconsin.  Jill Stanek wrote about the issue at length last summer.

In 2009, the Business Journal of Milwaukee revealed that taxpayer dollars paid for a telemedicine system to be installed at Planned Parenthood locations in Wisconsin. At the very least, PPWI is dispensing contraception in this manner.

Today, a Wisconsin bill banning telemed abortions had a committee hearing. Capital Times article here. You will notice in the article that PPWI does not deny that telemed abortions are being done in Wisconsin.

Pro-Life Wisconsin’s Matt Sande submitted written testimony in favor of the bill. We are encouraged to see legislators using our research to advance the cause of protecting life.

As we celebrate Christmas and move into 2012, we are at a truly historic point in the pro-life movement here in Wisconsin. 2012 marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of our Pro-Life Wisconsin ministry. We were formed by a small group of seasoned pro-life advocates who realized that, to achieve total protection for all preborn children in Wisconsin, the pro-life movement needed to refocus on principle.

They knew that they needed to secure constitutional protection for all preborn babies at all stages of development without exception. That principle they had refocused on is today known as personhood. In the early years of PLW, we were often marginalized for our aggressiveness and idealism. When we were called radical, we pointed out that “radical” means “from the root”; when we were called zealots, we used that as the theme for our 1997 state convention, “A Zeal for Life.”

Then and now, we are seen by many as an inconvenient disruption to politics as usual, the contraceptive mentality and pro-life pragmatism. Inconvenient or not, we will never shy away from using every tool available to evangelize the fullness of the truth of the culture of life. While our mission and conviction have not changed, the means by which we now communicate has drastically improved, dramatically expanding our audience and ranks. Our use of the internet and new social media has even propelled PLW into the international spotlight.

In the past couple of months alone, PLW’s social media efforts have educated tens of thousands. On October 26, PLW posted a video on You Tube of abortion mill staffers dancing in the streets and threatening 40 Days for Life prayer warriors, shortly after a botched abortion sent a woman to the hospital by ambulance. The video, posted and edited by PLW, went viral and has been viewed nearly 20,000 times. On November 3, PLW broke the news on Facebook that a young girl was physically prevented by Affiliated Medical Services personnel (also known as deathscorts) from leaving the abortuary.

That simple Facebook post was picked up by Canada-based LifeSiteNews, who interviewed Virginia Zignego and Dan Miller. LifeSiteNews sent out the story world-wide, and it caught the attention of thousands, including Mark Belling, who devoted a full hour of his popular radio show to exposing the complicity of the Milwaukee Police Department in the culture of death.

Comprehensive factual information posted on our PersonhoodWisconsin.com website, resulted in an interview and a well-balanced, front-page November 23 article in the Wisconsin State Journal about our personhood amendment.

As we move into our 20th year, our cutting-edge communications are combined with good old-fashioned counseling, advocacy, public witness and of course, prayer. You can help us express our unchanging zeal for life through Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, our blog, our websites, and all of the tried-and-true traditional outlets.

May you enjoy a blessed Christmas and prosperous New Year as we together bring Christ, the light of the world, to others.

Click here to make a Christmas gift to Pro-Life Wisconsin.