Transcript of Just the Portion About
The "Is This What You Mean?" Project

Source: http://priestsforlife.org/conferencecall/08-06-25-transcript.htm

On Wednesday, June 25, 2008, Priests for Life held a web teleconference. Over 1000 leaders and activists participated. This is a transcript of the portion of the teleconference in which the "Is This What You Mean? project was discussed.

Father Frank: Brothers and Sisters, I now want to explain the project that, taking into account everything we've heard so far, can help to increase the number of people for whom abortion is a critical issue in determining how they are going to cast their vote.

Now, for those of you who are joining us by computer, I want to point out that on the conference screen on the lower right-hand section of the screen, you see a button called, "Is This What You Mean?" It's the big button with the maroon trim with the big arrow pointing to it, and I would ask those of you now who are on computer to click that button.

For those of you who are listening just by phone, we are looking at a PDF file which we can make available to you. It is available to you on our PriestsForLife.org website and we will be in touch with all of you who are participating to send you additional information by email, in the days ahead, about what we are about to discuss.

This project can be used on the local level and first we're going to describe the project itself and how you can carry it out and then we're going to hear from one of our pastoral team members about his experience in actually doing what I'm about to describe. "Is this what you mean?" is a project that attempts to get back to the basics and to challenge pro-abortion politicians with this question. Is this what you mean by abortion? And it starts by simply quoting the words of the abortionists themselves. We quote their words and we ask these supporters, "When you say the word abortion, is this what you mean?"

Now please know what the abortion supporter says in response is not what matters. Once the quote is stated and the question asked, the project has accomplished its purpose because what that person, if he or she is pro-abortion, what they stand for has been revealed both to the person and to everyone who listens. So if you see the document here, Part A says, "Considerations regarding the project." Let's just go through them briefly.

Number 1: Indisputable evidence. The "Is this what you mean?" campaign relies on the words of the abortionists themselves obtained from medical textbooks and court testimony by practicing abortionists. It's evidence that cannot be contradicted regarding what abortion actually is, because it comes from those who do it and those who teach it to others.

If you take one of these quotes, of which we'll look at some examples at the bottom of the page, and you state these quotes, there's no need to engage in any kind of debate. We're not asking you to stand up in front of a group and start debating a pro-abortion politician. It's not that at all. You don't have to refute any slogans or arguments or talk about the morality or legality of abortion.

Rather, again, the project just establishes a starting point. What are we talking about when we say abortion? So the whole project is as simple as reading an abortionist's quote and asking, "Is this what you mean?" Once you do that you have educated the listeners and it doesn't have to take any more than 20 or 30 seconds.

Here's the dilemma for the pro-abortion politician that we challenge in this particular way. They don't want the people whose votes they're asking for to hear any description of abortion. When they're challenged with the quotes of the abortionists and they are asked, "Is this what you mean?" here's the dilemma they face. Either they admit that what they support is horrifying, or they demonstrate by their evasion that they can't even admit what they support. Either way it doesn't look very good for abortion and it certainly doesn't look very good for them.

Now, where would you ask a question like this? The ideal forum is at a town hall meeting. And we're talking about people at every level of government. There might be somebody running for local school board, city council, a state representative, governor, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, or President of the United States. You go to a town hall meeting when one of these candidates is taking questions from the audience, you stand up, you quote the abortionist and you ask, "When you say the word abortion, is this what you mean?" Beside the town hall meetings this can be done in other circumstances like private meetings or in classrooms or on television or radio programs, where you can call in and ask a question, or in letters to the editor or on blogs and other Internet forums.

Where would you find this source material, all these quotes? You'll see on Part C of this document, those who are following on computer, that there is a link there to the main project page, PriestsForLife.org/isthiswhatyoumean and on that page we will continue to add more and more quotes that can be used.

If you go to the bottom of this document you'll see the quotes in red. Let me just share a few of them with you to give you a feel for this project. You stand up or you're sitting with one of these people or your standing up in a town hall meeting and you say, "From the medical textbook called Abortion Practice written by Dr. Warren Hern, he says, 'A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus.' Sir when you say abortion, is this what you mean?"

Another example, "Sir/Ma'am, the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales vs. Carhart decided in April of 2007, described the D&E abortion procedure, which is legal. It said, 'The friction causes the fetus to tear apart. For example, a leg might be ripped off the fetus as it is pulled through the cervix.' Sir/Ma'am, when you say the word abortion, is this what you mean?"

Another example. Dr. Martin Haskell, when testifying in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in 1999, described the D&E procedure and said, "'We would attack the lower part of the lower extremity first, remove, you know, possibly a foot, then the lower leg at the knee and then finally we get to the hip.' When you say the word abortion, is this what you mean? Dr. Haskell also offered a quote that said, 'Typically the skull is brought out in fragments rather than as a unified piece.' Again, when you say abortion, is this what you mean?"

And brothers and sisters, the wisdom in this project is that you stop there. You don't debate the person. You don't have to. We're simply exposing what abortion is and the voters will get the point. This is what this person supports when they say they are pro-choice.

Back on Section C of the document you'll see a number of other resources that we're providing for you and you'll see the links to our online store where you can get these things. You can get diagrams of the procedure that have a lot of these quotes right on the back of the diagram, 8 ½ by 11 medical diagrams, you'll see the link there where you can obtain them.

There is also the possibility of using this project in a way that utilizes video and so, for example, we have a video called The Procedure and we also have a number of videos on YouTube. If you utilize this project online by going onto a blog, for example, or a forum and challenge people on that forum with this question, then, of course, you can simply put a link, for example, to one of our YouTube videos describing and showing the abortion procedure. And again, you're saying, "Look at this. The source is the abortionists themselves. When you say the word, is this what you mean?"

This project is perfect for the 2008 election cycle. Why? We talked, we heard from Chris Smith, from Dr. O'Steen, we talked about the fact people need to be energized, they need to be mobilized. There's a lot at stake and if people have, somewhat, waned in their enthusiasm, there's nothing better to bring them back to it then getting back to the basics and look right in the face at what we are fighting.

If this is done by enough people in their local communities, used at every level of government, eventually somewhere by someone, a candidate, even for President of the United States, could end up being challenged with this question.

Moreover, this project can be used after the elections. It can be used all year round. It can be used with people who are already in office, not just running for office, and it can be used not just with politician but people in academia, people in the media, people in our own families, among our friends, among our coworkers, even some clergy who don't seem to be very excited about the abortion issue. That is Part 1 of the project, what you can do in your own community.

There is a second part and we welcome our pastoral team member, Paul Schenck, with whom I have worked closely for many years and who heads up the National Pro-Life Action Center in Washington, D.C. He's going to speak with us in just a second about this Part B of the project which is this; at a specified point in time in the near future -- and we're not necessarily going to announce the date yet, we want it to be an element of surprise for the people in Congress -- but what we are going to do is to visit the members of Congress. The Priests for Life Team is going to get together and, literally, walk the halls of Congress.

We're going to walk into the offices of pro-abortion members of the House of Representatives of pro-abortion members of the U.S. Senate and we are going to go in there and do exactly what I just described. We are going to bring the quotes of the abortionists. We are going to bring the diagrams of the procedure and we're going to ask a very simple question, "When you say the word abortion, is this what you mean?"

Now, brothers and sisters, this is not just about what we're going to do. This is about what we're inviting you to do, because we are asking you to lend your names to this project because we're going to be visiting -- if your Representative in Congress is pro-abortion or you have one of your two -- one or both of your U.S. Senators are pro-abortion, we want to go in there and we want to put down on their desk thousands of names of people who could vote for them or against them in the next election and we want to say, "It is not only we at Priests for Life who are asking this question. Your constituents are asking this question along with us and here are their names and addresses."

As I invite Paul to come on here and speak to us about this, I also want you to look, if you would, at the conference page, again, and in the lower right hand section of this page you're going to see a link that says, "Challenge Congress." If those of you who are following by computer, if you would click on that link, you'll see a form that allows you to sign up, and you can do it even right now as we're speaking, sign up to give us your name and say, "Yes. When you go to Congress, when you walk into those offices, when you walk through those halls, let my Representative, let my Senator know that I, too, am asking this question, 'Is this what they mean when they say abortion?'" And this is an aspect of the project that is critically important.

Before Paul shares with us the dynamics of what takes place or what can take place in Congress, let me ask Jim Pinto to share his experience of how he actually implemented Part A of this project, which, as I described, is conducted, ideally, at a town hall meeting. Jim, tell us about the town hall meeting you went and how you carried out this simple project.

Jim Pinto: Right. My beloved wife, Joy, was reading the paper one evening and she saw that this town hall meeting was being advertised and that the public was being invited to ask any question they wanted of one of our Congressmen. So we recognized that this Congressman was well known to be a pro-abortion supporter, pro-choice supporter so we felt like this would be the perfect opportunity.

So we made our way down to the town hall meeting and even though we were a half hour late, we always felt like this is what we needed to do and just went in and said, "Well, how do we ask a question here?" And they said, "Well, just simply raise your hand."

So I made my way right to the front row. It was a little bit like church, nobody sitting in the front row, maybe one person so I took that position right across from the Congressman and really just let my heart fill with prayer, with love and just kept raising my hand and trying to make eye contact with him.

And then, you know, finally the time came and he called upon me and I just simply stood up and I thanked him, sincerely, for the town hall meeting, what a great opportunity for the public. I thanked him for everything that he's done that was good for our state and then I said that, you know, "Your position on abortion rights and on choice are very well known and my question is to that end." And I said that I had recently read, "Some quotes from doctors who actually do abortions," and I did what you described earlier. I said, "Dr. Martin Haskell, who does abortions, says this, 'It's not unusual at the start of a D&E, dilation and evacuation procedure, that a limb is acquired first and that the limb is brought through the cervix.'" And Father, at this point I could sense rumbling in that room. "'When you're doing a dismemberment, a D&E, usually the last part to be removed is the skull itself and it's floating free inside the uterine cavity. So, typically, there's several mis-directions, his attempts to grasp and finally, at some point, either the instruments are managed to be placed around the skull or a nip is made on some area of the skull that allows it to start to decompress. And then once that happens, typically, the skull is brought out in fragments, rather than a unified piece.'"

And then I held up the two procedure diagrams for the D&E procedure and the suction procedure and I just, I said, you know, "I'm gonna quote from this professional medical diagram on how abortions are done." And I just quoted the body parts are grasped and here we see a leg being pulled out and an arm being pulled out and the remaining parts are then grasped and pulled out and the head is grasped and crushed in order to remove it from the vaginal canal.

And then I looked straight into his eyes, the eyes of the Congressman, and I solemnly and I deliberately said, "So my question to you sir is this. When you say you support abortion, when you support choice," and I was pointing to the diagrams at this point, "Is this what you mean? Do you mean the same thing as these doctors who give testimony regarding abortion? Is this what you mean by abortion? Is this what you mean by choice?" And I mean, it was like dead silence.

But he went on, you know, he just kind of avoided it, you know, like you said, he danced around it. He talked about criminalizing teenage girls who have abortions. He talked about morality, religion, politics, all of this, nothing that I had addressed, and at some point he said that he had supported partial birth abortion, the ban on it. And so I did say to him at that point, I know that this isn't exactly a part of how we do this, but he mentioned it so I just said, "Well why did you support the partial birth abortion ban even though you're pro-choice?" So he said, "Because it went too far." And I said, "What do you mean by too far?" And he just kind of looked at me and so I just said to him, "Well do you mean that the baby is almost fully delivered, moving in the hands of the doctor and he sticks a scissor in the back of the baby's skull, opens it up and sucks the brain of the baby's head. Is this what you mean by going too far? Is this what you mean by abortion? Is this what you mean by choice?"

And so, you know, he kind of just addressed the crowd a little bit and then he wouldn't speak with me any further so I sat down and then at the end of the time I made my way to him and presented him, you know, I shook his hand and I thanked him again. I thanked him for supporting the partial birth abortion ban then I said, "I'll work with you in any way I can to curtail abortion." And I presented him with the diagrams and I said "I really didn't come in here to talk about morality or religion or anything else but what abortion really is, please look at these diagrams. I look forward to speaking with you further." So that was it.

Father Frank: Right. Well, Jim, I want to thank you for doing that and showing that it can be done and of course, as you know, and as we're stressing with everyone here on the call that the goal was accomplished as soon as you read that description.

Jim Pinto: That's right. That's right.

Father Frank: The people there in that room, many of them supporters of this pro-abortion Congressman, they heard for the first time the words of the abortionists themselves describing what this horror actually is. And that's the project. Because then the voter really has to make an informed decision.

Well, thanks Jim. I want to remind a number of people have come on the call in the last few moments that we're talking about how to implement this, "Is this what you mean?" project. And if you're joining us by the computer at the lower right hand section of the screen you see a link called, "Is this what you mean?" Click on that for the PDF file that describes and equips you with the quotes for this project, download that to your computer, print it out, save it on your hard drive and use it as you begin, then, to implement this particular project.

You will see, by the way, in the middle of that document, the link to the main project page which is PriestForLife.org/isthiswhatyoumean. On that page, brothers and sisters, any of you who do this project in the way that Jim just described, for example, we ask your feedback. We ask you to be in contact with us. There's a form there that you can use to share with us what has happened, how you did it, ask questions and we'll guide you through the process.

That's Part A of the project. Part B, as I already explained, the Priests for Life Team is going to walk the halls of Congress, we have the dates already set, we have time for you to join us by simply lending your name when we go to see your Representative and your Senator and again, at the lower right hand section of our conference call screen here tonight, you'll see the link that says "Challenge Congress."

You can put your name there right now as we're having this call and this will enable us to say to your Representative or to your Senator, "It is not only we asking this question, it is your constituents back home."

Paul Schenck, from our Washington, D.C. office, director of the National Pro-Life Action Center, thanks for being on the call tonight. Tell us the importance of the participation of our listeners tonight in actually lending their names and the impact this can have when we go into these Congressional and Senate offices with this question.

Paul Schenck: Thank you, Father Frank. Of course, the National Pro-Life Action Center on Capitol Hill is the only pro-life initiative geographically located on the Hill, directly across the street from the Supreme Court, just 60 paces from the Justices' private entrance and exit to the court.

That means that we have access to all of Capitol Hill, literally, within minutes and that's the staging ground for our efforts to bring the Gospel of Life to Capitol Hill, all three branches of our Federal Government including most of the Federal Judiciary.

And we have to remember that Capitol Hill belongs to the people. This is not a political class that owns and operates the Federal Government of the United States. The people own that Hill and the House of Representatives and the United States Senate are the people's houses, as is the Supreme Court and the White House. Security is a little tighter these days in the wake of 9/11 but nevertheless these are the people's houses so we have access to the United States Capitol and to all of the offices of our representatives, both in the House and the Senate. When Father Frank and I discussed this initiative, "Is this what you mean?", we talked about making surprise calls on our representatives in the House and in the Senate. We can approach those offices. We can do so with audio and video equipment. There are no regulations that prohibit the use of cameras or audio equipment in the United States Capitol. It makes it a little more of a challenge to get in but of course technology now makes these devices so small that they're readily passed through the magnometers and so forth that are used for security purposes. So we can access the building very easily with no difficulty. We don't have to have appointments made in advance. We don't have to give notice that we're going to be arriving. Instead, we would make a surprise call. Now some people may say, "Well wouldn't it be better if you knew your representative was there, if you knew the Senator was in the office?" But attempting to make the appointment is far greater risk of them deliberately absenting themselves than making the surprise visit and even if you're not able to talk directly with the representative or the senator, each staff will meet with you and the very same questions can be asked. In fact, I would suggest that it is equally as effective to speak with the staff and to confront them with this question as it is the elective representative themselves because that staff, we want to reach their hearts and their minds as well. We want to plant a very serious question in their minds and this kind of visitation is very effective, that any individual would be willing to make their way to Washington at expense of money and time and effort speaks volumes to the representative. Now, to the clergy, when a collar walks through those halls and the collar appears, be that individual Catholic priest or identified readily by a business card or some other insignia as a Protestant minister, a rabbi, even an imam, who might be a part of that group, remember that the representative is looking at a person who represents a key element in their constituency and both parties today are very eager to connect with the religious community and so they are going to give an additional deference to the clergy and we find that the clergy are with very few exceptions, and the few exceptions are the very high profile office holders, but the most, the majority will give special deference to the clergy and will give them the courtesy of a hearing, at least a meeting with a key staff member.

Fr. Frank: This is going to be very exciting especially the video portion of this to put up, both aspects of this project to get these video clips and to get them up on YouTube, someone like Jim Pinto standing up in this town hall meeting and exposing abortion for what it is in the presence of a pro-abortion member of Congress and then Paul, you and I and our other priests bringing the names of thousands of people like those that are listening to our call tonight and dropping those names on top of the desk and dropping that abortion diagram and quoting those quotes, OK tell us once and for all is this what you mean? This is going to be fantastic and Paul I want to thank you for your leadership there in Washington and throughout the country. It's a pleasure to work with you and have you part of the team and we look forward to this project being fully implemented.

Paul Schenck: We do as well.

Fr. Frank: Brothers and sisters I told you in the announcement of tonight's conference that we would have a special message from the Vatican and in fact, one of our good friends there in Rome, Cardinal Renato Martino has left us a recorded message. He has encouraged our political responsibility efforts in countless ways. Cardinal Martino is a very close advisor to the Holy Father, under John Paul II and now under Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Martino heads up not one but two key offices at the Vatican. One is the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the other is the office that takes care of questions of migrants and refugees. Cardinal Martino used to be in New York as the Holy Father's Permanent Observer at the united Nations and so has worked worldwide in the defense of human rights and now in his position at the Vatican, essentially oversees and coordinates all of the Catholic Church's work throughout the world when it comes to human rights, social justice, international development, and world peace -- many of the issues of course that are of key concern to voters in this election. I'd like you to listen to this message now from Cardinal Martino regarding what issue the Holy Father has indicated is most important and how we are to advance it.

Cardinal Martino: The Holy Father speaks of the protection of life as the fundamental realization and respect for human rights. Without that realization, without that respect for the right to life, no other discussion of human rights can continue. What better motivation can we have to be involved or become more active in the making our societies, our world, a better place and what could be easier than being an informed and active voter? Voting is a right as well as a duty. But it is also essential to be informed and to vote as your heart, as your conscience tells you.

Fr. Frank: A very clear affirmation of the centrality of what we are talking about here tonight, the abortion issue. As the Cardinal said, no discussion of other human rights can even continue unless this right is secure. Well, Theresa and Kevin Burke are also with us tonight. Theresa and Kevin founded Rachel's Vineyard Ministries, the largest ministry in the world for post-abortion healing and we are privileged to have Rachel's Vineyard as a ministry of Priests for Life. Kevin and Theresa are full time pastoral associates of Priests for Life and they're on the call with us tonight. Kevin and Theresa, we need to ask you this simple question. We're talking about exposing abortion quite graphically here and publicly through these quotes. What kind of impact can this have on those who've had abortions as a catalyst actually towards their healing, and if people implement this project how can they point people who hear them, these graphic descriptions, towards the healing that Rachel's Vineyard provides?

Kevin Burke: Let me start Father by talking about the issue of denial because this campaign very powerfully confronts the denial in our culture to protect the public from seeing the reality of the abortion procedure but I'd like to also point out that there's actually powerful denial of the reality, the truth that abortion deeply wounds those who participate in the procedure.

Fr. Frank: Yes.

Kevin Burke: So we could really think in a sense that these two things are kind of a mirror image of each other. The images of the abortion procedure, when the procedure's described, the horror of that, that's also reflected in the heart and souls, the lives, the relationships of those who suffer after aborting their son or daughter or who have participated in any way with abortion and when they come to realize the horror of the reality of that, that's reflected in their lives. Those realities are deeply painful and disturbing and neither can remain hidden without a horrible cost to both the unborn and the lives of those who have participated in abortion. Maybe Theresa you can maybe touch on that because this campaign is confronting that denial and underneath that denial is the pain and anger that some may have because they've been involve in abortion.

Theresa Burke: Well one of the things that Father Frank has said is that through this campaign we're going to look right in the face of exactly what we're fighting and I think that it's important to try and frame this wherever possible as injustice against women. I think that there's so much ammunition in our favor. I want to recommend that everyone take a look at David Riordan's work for rebirthing the gender gap and maybe Christa can put information about that out there. But he did a poll before the last election and he found that only 16% of people polled believed that abortion makes women's lives better and even among those people who describe themselves and pro-choice, less than 30% of those pro-choicers believed that abortion genuinely improves women's lives. So we have that in our favor. 67% of pro-choice women stated that they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who calls for government support for grief counseling programs, things that would assist women who are experiencing emotional problems and another huge, huge statistic in our favor is especially when we talk about this freedom of choice act that politicians are promoting, 64% of women felt that they were pressured by others through coercion and that coercion can escalate to violence against women and even murder, murder of course is the number one cause of death during pregnancy and we hear about women going missing all the time and many of these are newly pregnant women and the only one who knows is when she discloses to her boyfriend who doesn't want to pay child support. So I think that in all these situations, being able to focus on the injustice towards women and to bring that into the question. When you support choice is this what you mean? And give great examples and I think we can probably provide really great examples of people's personal experiences of abortion, the depression, the mental illness, the suicide and by supporting choice -- Is this what you mean?

Fr. Frank: Well thank you Theresa and thank you Kevin and the resources of Rachel's Vineyard of course are available to everyone who needs this healing after the abortion experience. Well finally we have Dr. Alveda King with us, another pastoral associate of Priests for Life and the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I'll ask Alveda just to touch on how this project reflects what happened in the civil rights movement and their efforts, the efforts of her dad and her uncle Martin to expose the evil horror of segregation. Alveda?

Alveda King: Thank you Father and thank you to all the listeners. During the mid-20^th century and in the movement led by my uncle, Dr. King in one of his campaigns said that America will not reject racism until America sees racism and so America had an opportunity firsthand to see the atrocities that were being committed against people because of skin color. Theresa just mentioned the part about injustice against women. My uncle said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and even as he and my father, Rev. A.D. King, labored diligently in the vineyards on behalf of people who were being oppressed because of skin color, the little baby of course is being oppressed in the womb or the sanctuary of the mother and he or she is already fully human with those 46 chromosomes, 23 from mom and 23 from dad. So I salute Father Frank who says that America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion and certainly the "Is This What You Mean" campaign is so effective because it is bringing to the forefront the civil rights of the babies. The first human right is civil rights and because in the Book of Act, 17, where it says that God created us all of one blood, then we are all human beings from the very conception of our lives to the natural end. So certainly the life issue is a civil rights issue and I just urge everyone to be mindful of that and to put that question before those people who are running for office and who are asking for our vote and I want to urge everyone to vote for the content of a person's character and not the color of our skin.

Fr. Frank: Thank you Alveda and God bless you for the work you do. Brothers and sisters in these last few moments before we hear a special message from Senator Brownback and I ask Father Peter West to close us in prayer, let me point out the other links at the lower right hand section of your screen. The elections information link, that's our political responsibility center where you'll get updated information about the things you can do in the elections. We'll be providing constantly updated information and more guidance and documents that you can download to guide you in this activity. And of course there's the link to donate. So many of you support our ministry and help us to do projects like this and we encourage you to make a donation online tonight or at any convenient point when you can help us in that way. Brothers and sisters the work that we do in the pro-life effort is much more than politics and elections. We're talking here tonight about this one very important arena but I want to state that together with this the movement is advancing in powerful ways on so many other fronts, not the least of which, our presence at the abortion mills and the 40 Days for Life campaign is something that I will continue to be an ardent proponent of and assistance for it will be provided through our efforts. I want to thank David Bereit for being with us this evening behind the scenes. He has helped us really to make sure all the ins and outs of these big teleconferences are working well for us here tonight. Senator Sam Brownback, a key voice for pro-life in the United States Senate gave us this message earlier today.

Senator Brownback: This is Sam Brownback and I just want to record this message and speak to the Priests for Life meeting. Of course, God bless you guys. You are phenomenal. You have had and are having a massive impact across the country and don't stop and don't give up. We are winning the life fight but we can't quit now. We've turned really much of the country to the pro-life message. It is now a majority pro-life nation. But this next election is critical. Unfortunately a number of people have been elected to public office who are pro-choice in spite of the movement across the country that supports life. So we've got to have you hang in there particularly on the election cycle. You have some candidates that are radically pro-abortion. I think any abortion is a radical notion but you have people even that support the situation that if a child is born alive in a botched abortion they want to allow the physician there to go ahead kill the child. That's sick. It's obviously wrong and it's something that we need to educate the country about. We're winning the embryonic stem cell debate. We're winning on the science. We're winning it in people's hearts because they know now that this is a life and therefore protecting it. So I want to really, really encourage you to stay in the fight, to be on your knees praying about this, praying for the country, and to speak about it from the pulpit and in your actions around the country and around the world.

Fr. Frank: I'm very grateful to Senator Brownback for his message tonight and for all the support that he gives. Now I'd like to ask Father Peter West, another of our priest associates at Priests for Life, to close us in prayer. Father Peter?

Fr. Peter West: Father in heaven and Lord of life, tonight we pray for our nation, that we will elect leaders who support the right for life, the most basic human and civil right that we have. Use us to tear away the euphemisms that hide the ugly reality of what abortion is, violence against preborn children and the exploitation of women and minorities. Use us to help others to understand where the candidates stand and enlighten them to do their duty to protect the least among us, especially those most threatened, the unborn who are threatened by abortion and the elderly and the sick and handicapped threatened by euthanasia. Give your people courage and wisdom and prudence. Help us develop winning strategies and the strength and the wisdom to carry out these strategies. Help us devote ourselves more fully to this cause and to call our nation back to the basic principles upon which we were founded, to restore the right to life, which our Declaration of Independence recognizes as a right by which we are endowed by You, our Creator. Heal our nation from the deep wound of 35 years of legal abortion and help the pro-life movement and all people of goodwill to work together in unity to build a culture of life.

Fr. Frank: Thank you Father Peter. Thank all of you brothers and sisters. PriestsForLife.org, you can get continued updates and we will be having another one of these conference calls in July, Thursday night, July 17. Check our website for the details. Thanks for your participation, good night. God bless you.

[Closing music]

Related Pages
Ending Abortion
How You Can Help in Any of a Number of Ways
"Is This What You Mean?" Project