The Illinois Department of Public Health finally posted the latest abortion statistics for the year of 2008.   Sadly, the numbers establish an upward trend for Illinois abortions since the low point of 2003, thus discounting the slight drop in 2007.

A total of 47,717 abortions were committed in Illinois in 2008, up 5.3% from 45,298 in 2007.  Abortions for Chicago area residents jumped at a much higher rate, accounting for more than the statewide increase.  Cook County abortions jumped by 3,233 (14.5%) to a total of 25,529.   Abortions in some of the counties surrounding Cook, though much lower totals, jumped by even higher percentages as follows:
  Kane County  —  up 38% — from 832 to 1145
  Will County   —   up 22% — from 953 to 1161
  Kendall County — up 73% — from 112 to 194

In contrast, abortions held steady in three other Chicago area counties: DuPage (-22), Lake (+8), and McHenry (-2).   For the four counties with substantial increases in abortions, the total increase was 3,836 more abortions.  For the entire state, abortions increased by 2,419.   Thus, abortions throughout all of Illinois outside of those four counties actually fell by 2.9%.

What might account for this rather localized increase in abortions?  

Could this primarily be the impact of Planned Parenthood’s huge abortion fortress in Aurora?  What actions spared DuPage, Lake, and McHenry counties from participating in these large abortion increases?

About the only good news from the 2008 statistics was the drop from 4,042 to 3,903 for abortions committed on out-of-state residents.  Interestingly, the number of abortions on women of unknown residency dropped from 1965 to 1111.  Since some of these cases could also have been out-of-state residents, the drop might be even larger.   Even so, these numbers still represent many underage girls who enter Illinois to avoid parental involvement laws in other states.

The unknown residency statistic jumped from only 114 in 2004 to 1683 in 2005, and peaked at 2115 in 2006, possibly reflecting concern about potential enforcement of parental notification.  Is the 2008 drop an indication abortion providers have become convinced parental notice will never be enforced in Illinois?

Abortion Advocates Going Ballistic as Losses Mount

With the most pro-abortion leadership in Washington, D.C. ever, the Pro-Life movement is supposed to be losing on many fronts. There certainly are many issues and concerns, such as increased government funding for international abortions and the threat of more abortion funding here at home. However, abortion advocates are not very happy with these results so far.

The nightmare for abortion advocates actually began when polling data showed U.S. citizens are becoming more Pro-Life.  They really took notice with the lost vote for government funding of abortion, after the special election for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts.  Now they are very concerned that they are losing the opportunity for government-controlled health care with its planned bailout of the abortion industry, even though many pro-abortion members of Congress are still inaccurately claiming that abortion would not be funded under the health care bill. 

When Planned Parenhood rallies their supporters to demand action on health care because “too many lawmakers seem ready to give up on reform” and “we’ve never had a better chance to expand access to” abortion, what does that tell you about abortion coverage in the health care bill?

As usual when they are losing support, abortion advocates always look for new ways to attack their opposition.  In Virginia and Washington state bills have been introduced to attack pregnancy centers, trying to put them out of business.  Fortunately, both bills were quickly defeated in subcommittee so the lies about pregnancy care centers received no support in those two states.

Some abortion advocates are using the trial of Scott Roeder, accused of murdering late-term abortionist George Tiller, to again ask the Obama administration to investigate Pro-Life organizations by claiming Pro-Life groups are fostering a climate of violence that motivated Scott Roeder to kill, even though he was not affiliated with any Pro-Life group. These same abortion advocates remained silent when Pro-Life activist Jim Pouillon was murdered in Owosso, Michigan. In contrast, Pro-Life organizations immediately condemned the murder of George Tiller in very strong terms.

Abortion advocates could not stomach the possibility of a positive Pro-Life message reaching the public during the February 7th Super Bowl.  They attacked the CBS-approved 30-second ad featuring University of Florida football star Tim Tebow, demanding unsuccessfullly that CBS cancel it.  The leaders of this anti-life campaign had not even seen the ad, but they assumed it must be a terrible threat to abortion “rights” since Focus on the Family was sponsoring it.

In fact, their diatribe gave the ad and Pro-Lifers free publicity.  For example, on January 26th, Chicago CBS Channel 2 did a long and balanced story on the controversy.  Does anyone think that a call for censorship was viewed positively by the general public? After not getting even a second of coverage for the well over 300,000 who attended the March for Life, this unexpected publicity could only be beneficial to the Pro-Life cause. The bonus effect was showing how unreasonable abortion advocates can be. Even some people who call themselves “pro-choice” became critical of the effort to get the ad cancelled.

The controversy created by abortion advocates generated extra viewers for the “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” Super Bowl ad and drove traffic to the Focus on the Family web site to get details on the story of Tim Tebow and his mother’s decision. The message that choosing life, even under dire circumstances, is more noble than sacrificing your child to abortion, was made visible.

The recent Supreme Court decision that rejected certain restrictions on corporate advertising as unconstitutional violations of First Amendment rights has abortion advocates nervous.  The ruling rejected some long-standing precedents, suggesting a possible line of reasoning to throw out Roe v. Wade.  Just when they thought everything was lined up to move rapidly in their favor, abortion advocates are finding roadblocks developing in their path.   Pray that these trends continue and lead to significant Pro-Life victories.

Bill Beckman

Pro-lifers have had exciting news lately – over 300,000 attended the March for Life on January 22, with over half of those being young people; polls show that a majority of people in America now identify themselves as pro-life. Do you ever think back about how the pro-life movement developed?

We all know what crisis pregnancy centers do, and activists with their signs and demonstrations bringing the message to the streets; and the people who write pro-life laws and defend them in the courts. Pro-life education is a little harder to figure out, but it was the education part of the pro-life movement that laid the foundation for all the other groups.

It was the speakers from Illinois Right to Life, the first pro-life group in Illinois and one of the first in the country, armed with slides of the developing child and pictures of the abortion procedures that went into churches, schools, and community groups to tell the pro-life story. It was those speakers that inspired others to “do something,” - to go to the clinics, to help the mothers and to write protective laws. It was those early speakers that showed the damage to the baby and their mothers and opened the horizons of what could be done and what must be done.

It is Illinois Right to Life that continues to educate the public through our amazing website, continually updated with pro-life information. It is our radio ads reaching millions of people regularly with the latest information on many of the current life issues. It is responding to the calls from a parent or a young woman about a problem pregnancy and connecting them with real help and real choice. It is the family of a senior citizen in a nursing center or hospice with fears of euthanasia that we are able to refer to pro-life lawyers for advice and assistance. It is providing a hospice checklist so caring relatives can make an informed choice when seeking hospice care. It is giving people a better choice on advanced directives so their wishes are accurately expressed.

Education is still a necessary foundation of the pro-life movement. Many people are pro-life in their hearts, but aren’t fully aware of the attacks on human life at all stages and need to learn the facts. They need to know the threats to life in the Health Care Plan. They need to know the efforts to eliminate abstinence education for young people. They need to know the efforts to establish abortion as a protected “right” in our own state.

Like all non-profit organizations during the current financial crisis, Illinois Right to Life is also facing a financial crisis. We would be grateful for your extra generous support at this time to continue our crucial work of education. Now is the time to stand up and be counted – to tell the truth about abortion and euthanasia so we can put an end to the killing.

Rosemary Hackett

Planned Parenthood continues to market the concept their mission is to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions. The evidence keeps rolling in their real mission is to make as much money as possible from doing as many abortions as possible.

Recent incriminating evidence comes from a former insider who knows the truth. In October 2009 Abby Johnson resigned her position as director of the Bryan Texas Planned Parenthood. While participating in her first March for Life in January 2010, Abby was interviewed by EWTN. Abby very quickly revealed some key points about the agenda of Planned Parenthood. 

Their goal is to “make every family planning center into an abortion center” by dispensing the abortion drug RU-486.  They are “abortion minded all the time.”  Abortion will make them money and “that is what Planned Parenthood is about.”  “Planned Parenthood plans to open super-centers.  All of them will be late-term abortion facilities, up to 24-25 weeks.” Shortly after leaving her job at Planned Parenthood, Abby had revealed how she was constantly pressured to increase profits by performing more and more abortions.

Taking a wider look a Planned Parenthood, Operation Rescue reports that abortion facilities total 710 locations nationally.  Of these, 306 are Planned Parenthood offices, up from 287 just over 2 years ago.  These figures reveal that Planned Parenthood already controls 43% of abortion facilites while currently doing just over 25% of the annual abortions.   However, Planned Parenthood recently opened two abortion mega-centers, one in Houston and another in Portland.  Other recent abortion mega-centers were opened in Denver, CO and Aurora, IL.  These abortion mega-centers will certainly increase their market share.

Operation Rescue’s research finds that independent abortion providers are gradually closing their doors for various reasons.  Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood’s expanded abortion business gets indirectly subsidized with over $350 million in taxpayer funding annually, helping it to overcome any financial storms.  Ironically, even Planned Parenthood has closed some locations, but their number of locations committing abortions continues to rise. They currently have 493 family planning centers that are not yet dispensing the abortion drug RU-486, so the potential for expanding their abortion business remains very large.

Pro-Life Wisconsin obtained information about a grant request from Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin (PPWI) to the Susan T. Buffett Foundation.  PPWI stated in this grant request, “In January of 2009 PPWI will provide more than 60 percent of the more than 9,000 abortions performed in Wisconsin, and within a decade PPWI anticipates being the sole provider of abortions.” 

Planned Parenthood expects to have a monopoly on the Wisconsin abortion market by 2019.  They already have a monopoly in South Dakota, with the only abortion facility in the state.  In how many other states do they have a similar plan? Remember these facts the next time you hear Planned Parenthood claim that “they prevent more abortions daily than pro-lifers ever do” as they tout their birth control distribution as a means to reduce unwanted pregnancy and abortion.   They must know the reverse effect in fact occurs.  Otherwise, they would be totally violating their own business objectives.

Bill Beckman

A very dangerous trend threatens our children and grandchildren. The push to ban abstinence education in schools in favor of so-called comprehensive sex education is making headway, much to the delight of Planned Parenthood and other abortionists who will reap the abortion profits from this misguided social experiment to encourage casual sexual activity among teenagers.