American Life League

(Note: As a Lenten project, over the next 6 Sundays I will look at some of the leading Pro-Life Organizations. Since I will be putting up several posts over Lent about 40 Days for Life, they will not be included. Instead I will look at 6 other groups that I am highly familiar with. These are only a few of the many Pro-Life groups out there doing an excellent job in the battle for the "Culture of Life". I am also doing them in alphabetical order.

I am doing this for 2 reasons. 1st to make people aware of some of the leading Pro-Life organizations out there. The 2nd, to encourage you to support them, esp financially.)

The 1st group I would like to look at is American Life League. ALL is a 501(c)(3) organization co-founded in 1979 by Judie Brown and nine other dedicated pro-life Americans. They have grown to be the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life education organization in the United States. (Judie is the author of an excellent book that I highly recommend, Saving Those Damned Catholics.)

According to ALL's website: "ALL is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. It is rooted in pro-life integrity that stands up for every innocent human being whose life is threatened by what Pope John Paul II called "the culture of death." That ranges from the single cell human embryo to the elderly, the infirm and others at risk of having their life terminated by acts of euthanasia. The pro-life position notes that neither abortion nor euthanasia can ever be medically necessary or morally permitted."

ALL accomplishes its mission in a variety of ways. There is a variety of printed material, DVDs & CDs that they make available. Naturally, they also provide a huge variety of resources on their website as well as having several speakers available to come & talk on a variety of issues.The issues are: Abortion, Bioethics, Birth Control, Euthanasia, Philosophy, Technology &Urban Legends. Founder Judie Brown writes a column, Straight Talk on Life , where she looks at various current events. They have a weekly radio program, On the Edge. They make videos that appear on YouTube (as well as this blog). They provide e-mail news updates & many other materials. They have also been at the forefront in calling for American Bishops to enforce Canon 915.

But ALL is also more than that. In fact ALL is actually an umbrella orginization for several other organizations.

1 of those groups is Rock for Life. They are "committed to offering the truth about abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia to America's youth through music and ministry." They have 3 main ways in which the accomplish this:

Music

hosting Rock for Life concerts

presenting educational booths at concerts and festivals

producing pro-life compilation CD's

aiding over 100 Christian and secular bands in presenting the pro-life message

Education

providing literature to students and youth groups speaking at concerts and youth rallies

equipping bands with pro-life resources to take on tour maintaining

RFL chapters around the country
Outreach

encouraging and participating in peaceful, legal street level activism

passing out literature in front of high schools

holding prayer and worship services in front of abortion clinics

participating in national pro-life events and activism

providing alternatives for girls in crisis pregnancies

Another group that is a huge part of ALL is STOp Planned Parenthood. Their name says it all, they exist to close down Planned Parenthood. "The purpose of STOPP is really quite simple. We intend to cause such discontent with Planned Parenthood programs that it will have no choice but to close its doors and get out of town!" STOPP works with parents & others "who share the belief that we have the God-given right and obligation to raise our children, from the moment of conception." STOPP is headed up by ALL VP Jim Sedlak.

Their tactics: "STOPP endorses all nonviolent activity which is in accord with the laws of God. We support the no-exception legislation position of American Life League. We believe all these activities are necessary and must be joined with an all-out assault on the failed sex ed programs of Planned Parenthood if we are to restore the family to its true place and protect our children."

As a Christian organization they do all of their work in accordance with the teachings of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. The main guidance of that work is the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 10.

"In 1985, the idea of STOPP was conceived. As the work moved from local to national to international, new groups were formed. STOPP INTERNATIONAL has led the fight since 1994. The acronym which forms our name was taken from our purpose, i.e., to STOP Planned Parenthood. To be completely correct, we suppose we should have called ourselves STOPPP, but that seemed a bit of an overkill. The acronym has provided us with many light moments as we have seen PP try to figure out what it stands for. PP used to print that it stood for STamp Out Planned Parenthood. More recently, they have called us "the Society To Outlaw Planned Parenthood." Whichever they use, the meaning is clear."

2 other major projects are National National Pro-Life T-Shirt Week (formerly day) & Pro-Life Memorial Day. T-Shirt Week started out in 2006 as T-Shirt Day. The last Tuesday in April was chosen as the day for this event. On that day everyone, especially students, was encouraged to wear a T-shirt with a Pro-Life message. The reason for wearing the T-shirts was to get "people to think of the child as a person from the moment of fertilization. It is much harder to murder a person than it is to "remove a lump of tissues," and it is only when we finally get the nation thinking in those terms that we will be able to make abortion a crime, as it should be."

Being aware of the problems that students in public schools often run into when they wear a shirt with a Pro-life message, they provide information to help them deal with harrasment from school officials.

Due to success over the past years, they have extended it from 1 day to an entire week beginning on Tuesday 28 April. As in past years, they are providing at a very low cost, a T-Shirt with this year's theme, Person Inside & Out.

Then there is the Pro-Life Memorial Day that is held on the 1st Monday in October. That date was chosen to coincide with the annual openning of US Supreme Court for a new session. It chose that date as a reminder that it was the Supreme Court that openned the floodgate of abortion by its Roe v Wade & Doe v Bolton rulings in 1973. They also have a T-Shirt for this day.

The main purpose of the day is to schedule local events into a united nationwide remembrance. They ask local groups to plan gatherings for this day at the local Cemetery of the Innocents, or at the local Knights of Columbus memorial. But even without a memorial, they want every community in the USA to have a Pro-Life event on this day.

Finally, their is their project started in 2008 to educate people about the fact that The Pill Kills . The goal is to make people aware that not only is the Pill is an abortifacient*, it also has many harmful side effects for the women who take it. Last year they held a Protest the Pill Day on 8 June.

This is only a part of the many things ALL does. Please check out their website to find out more about the yeoman's duty they are doing in the building of the "Culture of Life".

_______________

* It does so by changing the lining of the uterus. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the five- to seven-day-old baby to attach to the lining, where he/she would receive the nourishment needed to grow. If the baby does not successfully attach to the lining, he/she dies and is expelled from the body during menstruation. This process is known as a chemical abortion.

Next Sunday: Human Life International