Matt C. Abbott
Tim Tebow, Gloria Allred, Scott Roeder, and a Catholic parish that caved to an abortionist
By Matt C. Abbott
A potpourri of pro-life items today...
Feminist attorney Gloria Allred is crying foul over the much-hyped upcoming Tim Tebow Super Bowl commercial. Writes Bill Donohue of the Catholic League:
I must admit, I've had mixed emotions over the murder of abortionist George Tiller and the Jan. 29 conviction of Scott Roeder for that murder. But the bottom line is that Roeder's action was very wrong, even though what Tiller did for a living — killing unborn children — was evil.
Veteran pro-life activist Monica Migliorino Miller, Ph.D., writes:
Again, God bless the work of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society.
From TMS' most recent fundraising letter:
January 30, 2010
A potpourri of pro-life items today...
Feminist attorney Gloria Allred is crying foul over the much-hyped upcoming Tim Tebow Super Bowl commercial. Writes Bill Donohue of the Catholic League:
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'Allred, who has not seen the ad, charges that when Tebow's mother was being advised by doctors in the Philippines to consider an abortion (she was on antibiotics for a pregnancy illness), it was illegal there to have one. In a monumental stretch, Allred reasons that the ad should disclose this information, otherwise it is 'misleading.'
'What is really misleading is Allred's duplicity. Several years ago, she represented Amber Frey in a case related to the death of Laci Peterson; Peterson's husband, Scott, was convicted of murdering both her and the baby she was carrying, a boy they named Connor. In an interview she gave to Hannity and Colmes on the Fox News Channel on June 5, 2003, Allred found it useful to her case to emphasize the humanness of Peterson's baby: 'And the fact that there are two individuals who are dead there, Laci and Connor, that has to be the most important consideration of everything.' For once, she was right.'Allred's confession in 2003 undercuts her credibility — to say nothing of her ethical standing — to make the case against this Super Bowl ad. She knows that Tim Tebow is alive today because his mother did not abort him. To top it off, she can't even deal respectfully with this issue. Her snide remark, which is in the letter to Moonves, is classic. 'As the story is reported,' she says, 'Tim's mother decides to take her pregnancy to term anyway and give birth to Tim. Apparently they have lived happily ever after since that time.' And apparently, this woman has no shame.'
I must admit, I've had mixed emotions over the murder of abortionist George Tiller and the Jan. 29 conviction of Scott Roeder for that murder. But the bottom line is that Roeder's action was very wrong, even though what Tiller did for a living — killing unborn children — was evil.
Veteran pro-life activist Monica Migliorino Miller, Ph.D., writes:
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'...The use of force in defense of the unborn is virtually immoral. This means, of course, that it could be morally licit under extremely rare circumstances. I've been thinking about the possible hypothetical situations. However, even if force is licit, I believe there is good reason to forego its use, especially in our attempt to end abortion. Simply because a person has the right to the use of force in defense of life does not necessarily mean he must make use of it. St. Francis could have defended himself against the robbers by resorting to force. He chose not to. If he had maybe he wouldn't be Saint Francis — but in any case he would still be a good man, or at least a man not guilty of evil doing.
'On the practical level force really won't work. As long as abortion is legal it is ultimately the woman who must be reached. Abortion is a very peculiar sort of murder. The victim is inside the body of another person. As long as abortion is legal, this other person, namely the mother, must be persuaded not to kill her child. This means she must be reached by having the truth spoken to her and by personal acts of love toward her.
'But there is something even more than just whether force is practical in saving babies or not practical. I believe that our most effective weapon against abortion is adhering to the Cross of Christ. Perhaps God will call us to fight a bloody war over abortion, but ultimately the cause of abortion can still only be healed through a massive change of heart — a conversion. Abortion is the result of a grave spiritual crisis. The Cross of Christ is the only true balm for such a moral disaster as abortion represents. What does the Cross of Christ mean but that the Christian pro-lifer lay down his life for others — to live a life of self-sacrificial love so that others may be saved. We need to be radical lovers. What keeps us from this is fear. And so we need to pray for a lot of grace....'
Again, God bless the work of the Chicago-based Thomas More Society.
From TMS' most recent fundraising letter:
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'I recoiled in horror when I realized that he was smiling at me.'
- Abortionist Palmer is a convicted felon. Back in 1979 one of his employees asked him for a raise. Palmer was too cheap to do so and his employee turned him in to federal prosecutors who found his two sets of books. Palmer served six months in a federal jail, was fined and had to perform 250 hours of community service after he got out of prison.
- According to some of Palmer's ex-employees, Palmer hates overweight women. He reportedly abuses his overweight patients verbally and physically during the abortions, slapping them on the rear, among other abuses. Why does he hate overweight women so much? Apparently it's because he has a harder time locating the baby in the womb when the pregnant mother is overweight, making it more likely that he'll botch the abortion.
- Palmer's employees hate working with him. That's why some of them have converted to the pro-life side.
- Palmer's litany of malpractice suits features a parade of horrors: severed arteries, incomplete abortions (baby parts left to decay in the mother's womb), life-threatening septicemia (blood poisoning), permanent sterility, and worse. One shocking case involved a 51-year-old woman who suffered permanent brain damage and is now in a nursing home for life!
- One of our sidewalk counselors in Aurora recently offered literature to a couple entering the abortion center's parking lot in a car. The man behind the wheel aimed a loaded pistol at her! It turns out he was an off-duty Chicago cop. We're pressing this matter to the hilt! We helped this heroic young woman bring a criminal charge and tell her story as well to Chicago's police disciplinary investigators. If need be, we'll file a civil lawsuit to make sure this rogue officer has to answer for this egregious misconduct that may cost him his job, just as we had earlier helped Des Plaines, Illinois, fire a rogue cop for harassing sidewalk counselors.
- We filed a 'friend of the court' brief for the D.C.-based Family Research Council supporting traditional marriage between one man and one woman in California's Proposition 8 case.
- We filed a lawsuit in Maryland against the state police who arrested and strip-searched teenage girls and others who were peacefully and legally picketing against abortion.
- We're on the verge of winning First Amendment cases in Aurora and Rockford, Illinois.
- We continue to defend pro-life leader Eric Scheidler in his monumental struggle against the huge Planned Parenthood abortion mega-facility in Aurora.
That's how St. Louis-area baby-saver Susan Cooke described her encounter with abortionist Allen Palmer as he entered his abortion business.
In a seemingly jaunty, carefree manner Abortionist Palmer honked his horn, broke out into a wide grin, and then turned to smile and even wave at Susan. It was the way he smiled and waved at her that shocked something deep inside Susan's spirit and made her shudder. And then Palmer got out of his car and sauntered into the building to attend to his grim, bloody business — ending the lives of babies in their mothers' wombs.
Susan believes there is a capacity for good in every human being. So, she appealed to him, 'We're praying for you. Please quit doing these abortions!' But as usual, Dr. Palmer let Susan's words go in one ear and out the other.
In fact, however, Palmer wasn't so carefree as might have seemed that day. Susan got on his nerves. She bothered him a great deal. She was saving so many babies by her sidewalk counseling outside Dr. Palmer's clinic that he made it his goal to ruin her financially. His weapon? A vicious lawsuit. Not only did he slap Susan with a nuisance lawsuit, he also sued Susan's own Catholic parish, claiming that it encouraged and caused Susan and other 'guilty' parishioners to picket, pray, and trespass on Palmer's private property at his abortion premises.
Susan's parish was so worried about the prospect of endless litigation, mounting legal bills, and financial ruin that it took its lawyer's bad advice and settled with Palmer. If only the parish had asked the Thomas More Society for help, we would have defended them for free! We didn't even know about the lawsuit until after the settlement, which was just awful.
As for Susan, she courageously stood firm, refusing to give in or back off in the face of Palmer's frivolous lawsuit. Why? Because she knew she had done nothing wrong! She knew that she was saving so many babies, persuading their mothers and often their fathers too to spare them from the abortionist's knife. She desperately needed help to beat Palmer in court. That's why our lead attorney Tom Brejcha answered a call from Missouri pro-lifers and went down to St. Louis to offer help and support to Susan's local attorney.
In fact, Susan is counter-suing abortionist Palmer for abuse of process because his lawsuit against Susan is frivolous and without merit. The goal is to teach Palmer that pro-lifers can't be bullied, pushed around, and scared into settling meritless lawsuits just to avoid the hassle and expense. The human lives at stake are priceless. So too is the right to counsel and advocate — peaceably and lawfully — in efforts to save lives! Palmer himself deserves to be taken to the cleaners once and for all!
Let me tell you some shocking and scandalous details about this Dr. Palmer, who boasts that since the 1970s he has aborted over 17,000 babies by his own hand!
Palmer is also an itinerant abortionist. He travels, performing abortions not only at his St. Louis-area killing center but also at the so-called 'Hope' abortion center in Granite City, Illinois, right across the Mississippi from St. Louis, and reportedly at a killing center in Peoria as well.
Why would so-called 'clinics' in Illinois hire a sleazy abortionist like Palmer? The stock of abortionists is dwindling. Few new doctors want to kill rather than heal human beings. Thus those who stoop to this level increasingly come from the bottom of the barrel of the medical profession.
Let me tell you what happened just recently at the so-called 'Hope' abortion center in Granite City, where Palmer attempted to abort a large baby boy. According to our former client Angela Michael of Small Victories who told us about this story, the boy weighed three pounds five ounces at 31 weeks gestation. That's an incredibly big baby!
You see, on Tuesday, December 29, 2009, a 16-year-old pregnant mother from Missouri crossed the river and went to Granite City, where abortionist Allen Palmer started an abortion on her baby at about eight-months' gestation. She went home with instructions to return for the multi-day abortion. But the abortion didn't go as planned.
The girl gave birth to the baby boy in the toilet at her apartment, where she was living with her boyfriend. As the baby thrashed around in the toilet, struggling for life, the girl was at the point of panic. She called the abortion center for instructions.
An abortion center employee instructed her to put the baby in a plastic bag, tie it shut, and bring the bag to the abortion center in the morning. Why did the employee tell her to tie the bag shut? Obviously, it was to suffocate the baby as quickly as possible. Why did the employee tell her to bring the bag to the abortion center? Angela reports that 'Hope' is widely known to accept 'fees' for procuring body parts. In other words, the 'Hope' clinic is in the grisly racket of selling babies' body parts and wanted to make some extra profit from killing this baby boy.
If the 16-year-old mother had followed the employee's instructions, it's unlikely we ever would have found out about this botched abortion. Fortunately the mother called 9-1-1 instead of putting the baby in a plastic bag and tying it shut. Emergency personnel arrived and tried to keep the baby alive. But at the hospital, the baby was pronounced 'dead on arrival.'
The hospital personnel were shocked to see that someone who calls himself a 'doctor' would try to kill a perfectly healthy and beautifully formed baby boy. They were saddened when they heard the mother's story. And they were appalled when the mother told them what the abortion center employee had instructed her to do to her struggling baby.
Well, you get the picture: Susan Cooke was costing abortionist Allen Palmer big money by saving so many babies through her sidewalk counseling at his killing center. The main thrust of Palmer's lawsuit was his accusation that Susan trespasses at his abortion center. He asked the St. Louis court to order that she must stop trespassing.
But this accusation is totally false. She hasn't trespassed. The police have never arrested her for trespassing. Nor have they warned her that she's trespassing. Nor has Palmer's landlord ever once complained about Susan's baby-saving efforts constituting a trespass. Why should Susan agree to stop doing what she was never doing in the first place?
As I mentioned earlier, Palmer's lawsuit is so baseless, so frivolous, and unjust that Susan called to ask Tom Brejcha to help her counter-sue Palmer for abuse of legal process. Because Palmer's lawsuit claims that Susan has hurt his abortion business, Susan is demanding that Palmer produce all of his financial statements, tax returns, and business records. But the abortionist never expected that Susan would counter-sue him. Palmer doesn't want to reveal his finances to us! Well, that's just too darn bad. Palmer has to obey the subpoena!
The abortionist already seems to regret that he started a fight with Susan. He acts as if he stumbled into a bear trap. He's even willing to drop his lawsuit against Susan if she will also drop her counter-suit. Her answer: Nuts! The abortionist's feet will be held to the fire. Next month he'll be put under oath on the hot seat in a deposition. He may have to squirm and sweat in his chair. He'll have to reveal his finances. And then he'll have to go on trial before a jury!
We're determined to do everything we can to help Susan Cooke and her very pro-life 'show me' Missouri attorney — tough, able and heroic Frank Conard who stepped forward to defend her. But we urgently need your prayerful and financial help right now to increase pressure on Palmer and to keep our other cases going. Could you rush us a tax-deductible gift right now?
The smiling Dr. Palmer must be brought to justice for his baseless lawsuit against Susan, an innocent lady whose only real 'wrong' was costing Palmer profits by saving priceless human lives. That Palmer bullied the Catholic parish into agreeing not to encourage its parishioners to trespass, when it never did so and they never did so, is an outrage. Susan's suit strikes a blow for justice.
Please help us help Susan and her heroic Missouri lawyer! And let me tell you about some of our other cases.
You may have heard about 19-year-old UCLA college student Lila Rose, who secretly (and lawfully) recorded Planned Parenthood employees breaking the laws, covering up statutory rape and child abuse. Recently, however, Lila was assaulted while praying at a California abortion center.
Here's what happened.
Lila was leading a group of about 20 high school students at a prayer vigil outside a Planned Parenthood abortion center in San Jose, California. One of the clinic 'escorts,' a big, beefy man, was hustling pregnant mothers past the sidewalk counselors. Lila politely asked him, 'Do you know what abortion does to a baby? Are you aware that babies in the first trimester have arms and legs?'
The beefy man replied, 'You've caused so much trouble, you piece of — !' His face became beet red with rage, and it seemed he was on the verge of punching Lila's lights out. Instead, he used both of his hands to bash the hand in which Lila was holding her Bible and some pro-life literature. His blow knocked Lila's Bible and literature onto the ground.
Then the 'escort' stormed off like a madman, screaming 'IT'S NOT A BABY!'
Lila says the pain from his slap lasted several minutes. She's afraid the "escort" may attack her again, perhaps using greater force — punching or kicking her or one of the sidewalk counselors.
The 'escort' mustn't get away with assaulting Lila. That would only encourage him to continue harassing, abusing, and attacking pro-lifers who save babies at the abortion centers.
We believe it's essential to sue Lila's assailant....
Let me tell you about another sizzling case. You probably heard about how the pro-abortion U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy from Rhode Island, son of the late Ted Kennedy, has been fighting with his bishop over abortion. The bishop asked Kennedy privately not to present himself for communion as long as he continued to promote abortion. But Kennedy publicly took the bishop to task for this!
And at the same time he keeps on promoting abortion. He insists that abortion must be part of the Democrats' proposed national health care program.
Patrick Kennedy paid lip service to the sanctity of life at an 'open forum' on health care at Ivy League Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. At the forum, he said that all people deserve health care because they are 'children of God,' adding that 'all of us have that spark of divinity.' A young mayoral candidate from Providence named Christopher Young then stepped up to the microphone to ask why Kennedy didn't consider children in the womb as 'children of God.'
Young asked Kennedy point blank: 'Why would you mandate Catholics to support the funding of abortion when it goes against our religious beliefs? The proposed health plan forces Catholics to fund abortions with a five-year prison sentence. You make it a felony.'
Apparently in Rhode Island, you're only supposed to ask Congressman Kennedy a question if it's 'friendly' and you support him. If you challenge him, you can get yourself arrested! Campus security guards were all over Young in the blink of an eye. Yet all he did was ask a question — at a public forum! So much for the 'openness' of this 'forum'! Young did nothing wrong.
Young cooperated with the arrest, but Brown's security guards tried to pull at his shirt so that he would fall backward to the ground. And then some of them pulled his legs out from under him. One of them was about to step on Young's back, but a newly arrived Providence police officer snapped at him, 'Don't you dare step on his back!' Yes, there are pro-lifers in Providence!
Young was charged with disorderly conduct — 'assembling to cause a fight,' an outrageous charge of which he's completely innocent. He was referred to our Thomas More Society by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and we have rallied to defend him. Tom Brejcha hired local counsel and flew to Providence. We'll be filing a motion to dismiss, and if it isn't granted we'll take the case to trial on February 17. Chris Young deserves a strong defense. If he loses, it would set a terrible precedent. Please help us defend the man who had the guts to challenge Patrick Kennedy's pro-abortion position in public!
Briefly, here are a few of our other cases:
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