MCFL honors local pro-lifers

By Margaret M. Russell

Abortion in the news is good for the pro-life cause. It keeps people thinking about the issue.
As a result of the Dr. Kermit Gosnell trial, people  understand that there is a baby in the womb when a woman is pregnant, Massachusetts Citizens for Life President Anne Fox said last Thursday evening.
(Dr. Gosnell was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder and malpractice in connection with actions at his Philadelphia abortion center.)
In a report at the MCFL annual banquet, held Oct. 10 at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Norwood, Mrs. Fox, said that we need to make the public aware of the humanity of the unborn and that will keep the message alive and growing.
“The defeat of Question 2 on the Massachusetts ballot, was the only bright spot in the 2012 election,” she said. But people around the country who are now facing the same threat of legalizing physician-prescribed suicide in their state are looking to Massachusetts and saying, “if they can defeat it in Massachusetts, it can be defeated anywhere,” Mrs. Fox said.
The more than 500 pro-life supporters at the banquet were encouraged to “never give up” by a young woman who wasn’t even born when many of them began the fight against abortion when it was legalized in 1973.
Twenty-five-year-old Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, told how at the age of 9 she was made painfully aware that abortion was real and happening right near her home in San Jose, Calif.
The young Lila had opened “Handbook on Abortion,” a foundational book by Dr. and Mrs. John C. Wilke, that was on the coffee table at her home. In the center of the book were images of a tiny child, 10 weeks old with newly forming arms and legs, who was a victim of abortion.
“My heart was sinking,” she recalled. She couldn’t believe that it was real.
As one of eight children in a very pro-life family she had been protected by her loving parents.
“I had been protected, but there were children close to us who were not protected and not safe,” she said. The Planned Parenthood abortion facility was 10 miles from her home.
She began to ask: “What can I do?”
She got her inspiration from Blessed Mother Teresa who said that abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace in the world.
“As a young teen that struck me,” she said. The most fundamental right is the right to life, and if we are about protecting human rights, what do we do about the killing of the weakest among us, she asked herself.
“If we do not protect the unborn, how can we thrive as a nation?” she asked.
She prayed that God would use her in some way, and, she said, if you do that, you know that he will.
By the age of 14 Lila Rose had made the decision to
make San Jose the most pro-life city in the country, so she started reaching out to other young people with the truth.
At 18 she started investigating Planned Parenthood by posing as a younger teenager seeking an abortion.     “The Planned Parenthood worker told me to lie about my age,” she recounted.
Over the years she has heard lies, seen child sexual abuse coverups, and the willingness of Planned Parenthood workers to help sex traffickers.
“What’s behind the curtain? We have to know so we can fight it,” she said.
“These people are working with a lot of evil. They are looking at a lot of evil,” she said of the abortion industry workers.
“We have the truth on our side,” she said, “And we must present the truth boldly and with love.”
She spoke of the hope she gets from her generation - Generation X.
“We see these things. We are touched. We don’t want that ... we want to reject that,” she said.
“Young people are hungry for this message,” she said.
Live Action uses social media such as Facebook to reach young people with the pro-life message and counts some 600,000 of the followers as 13- to 17-year-old girls, she said. Live Action investigative videos of visits to abortion offices have been seen on major television networks and are accessible on its website www.liveaction.org.
“This is God’s battle, not ours. When we save one life, when we save one soul, it’s worth it. Don’t give up,” Ms. Rose said.
Looking out at her audience for the evening she said she wanted to show her appreciation to the older generations, “Thank you for leading this fight.”