Jill Stanek Brings Her Story To DBQ

As I mentioned the other day, Jill Stanek was in DBQ Friday for the DBQ Co Right to Life's annual L.I.F.E. Dinner. I am happy to report that this year's dinner had the largest turnout ever, about 620 people came for the dinner & many more came later for the talk.

When it came time for Jill to speak she basicly shared her story of how she came to be active in the Pro-life work she is doing. I will share a bit of her story (probably poorly).

She started by telling of what lead her to become a nurse, coming upon an accident where she was unable to help a dying baby. All she could do was hold it in her arms. Several years later after she got her RN she applied at Christ Hospital for a job. She thought that because it was named after her Lord & Savior that she wouldn't have to deal with abortions. & at 1st she didn't even know they were going on there.

That was, until the night she came in & found out otherwise. & not only were they doing abortions, they were doing a type where the child was often born alive & then allowed to die, often alone in the soiled utilty room. She ended up holding a dying baby & feeling the same feelings she felt years before when that other baby died. That lead her to complain to management. They refused to do anything about it. That is when she went public. This eventually lead her to testify before Congress as well as an apearance on the O'Reilly Factor. She shared the following video with us. In it you will see a true rarity, Bill O'Reilly left speechless, & not just once.

Eventually her actions lead her to getting fired, even though she had never done anything at work. Christ Hospital has never refuted a claim she made, even though she shared everything under oath & if she was lying they could have gotten her for perjury. In fact, the hospital has all but admitted that her claims were true by the fact that they created what they call the "Comfort Room" where the child is brought to die. I couldn't belive this when she described it. The baby is wrapped in a blanket & put on a small bed like shelf. The Comfort Room is complete with a First Foto machine if parents want professional pictures of their aborted baby, baptismal supplies, gowns, & certificates, foot printing equipment & baby bracelets for mementos It also has a rocking chair for the parents to hold the child until it dies. I suppose you could argue this is to help with the post-abortive pain, but IMHO it is just macabre.

She went on to talk about several other stories of "eugenic abortions", esp of children with Down syndrome. She also shared about how abortion hurts men as well as women. She told the story of 2 parents who were doctors who were told by the (then) 2D sonogram that the child had spinal bifida. When the father went to see the aborted child he found out that the child was totally healthy & that what they thought was spinal bifida was an undeveloped twin.

There is so much more that she talked about than I can include here. There were times when I was holding back the tears, other times I felt anger welling up in me.

On 4 June 2009 Kieth Olberman gave her his "Worst Person in the World" award. As usual, Olberman was wrong in his premises for awarding it. But Jill still considers it an honor as it hows she is getting her message out there.

After the program was over I had a chance to meet & talk with Jill. It was an honor & priveledge to be able to talk to 1 of the leading Pro-life heroes. I thanked her for the work she did & esp how much I appreciated her blog. I admit that I did give DCRTL Executive Director Steve Brody a bit of a hard time, jokingly, about finding out that the Monticello Planned Parenthood was closing on her blog 1st.

I also got a copy of the DVD she made with her story. Much of it was the same as the talk she gave Friday night.

Mille grazie to Jill for her willingness to come to DBQ to help out DCRTL. She also filmed a show for DBQ's community access cable. The talk was also taped & will appear on cable access as well.