Many people wish to let Phyllis know of their concern and have asked what they can do. While flowers and cards are thoughtful, more than anything she would appreciate a donation to either Eagle Forum or RNC for Life. Expressions of good wishes may be sent to her at P.O. Box 618, Alton, Illinois 62002.

WORDS FOR PRO-LIFERS TO LIVE BY - FROM FATHER RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS 
Dr. Jack Willke, president of Life Issues Institute and former president of National Right to Life Committee, Inc., published a column in the latest edition of Life Issues Connector in which he quoted "one of the preeminent academic voices of the pro-life movement," Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, who gave a speech about fifteen years ago in which he said:

"So long as we have the gift of life we must protect the gift of life. So long as it is threatened, so long must it be defended. This is the time to brace ourselves for the long term. We are today laying the foundations for the pro-life movement of the twenty-first century. Pray that the foundations are firm, for we have not yet seen the full fury of the storm that is upon us."

"But we have not the right to despair. We have not the right and we have not the reason to despair if we understand that our entire struggle is promised not upon a victory to be achieved, but a victory that has been achieved. If we understand that, far from despair we have right and reason to rejoice that we are called to such a time as this, a time of testing, a time of truth. The encroaching culture of death shall not prevail, for we know, 'the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.' The darkness will never overcome that light."

Those prophetic words should serve as strong encouragement to all of us as we face the anti-life onslaught currently underway in our country. We must always remember former Congressman Henry Hyde's reminder that, when judgment day comes for each of us God isn't going to ask us, "Did you succeed?", but "Did you try?"

ABSTINENCE EDUCATION 
The Obama administration has de-funded abstinence education programs. Those who promote abstinence from drugs, alcohol and sexual activity among our young people are constantly under attack by know-nothings who claim that "it doesn't work." Invariably, one can find a connection between the groups that criticize abstinence education and the merchants of sexual promiscuity and abortion, Planned Parenthood.

Recently in Texas, in response to such criticism, Jonathan Saenz of the Free Market Foundation, a conservative group that supports abstinence programs, said, "The reality is that abstinence works. If two people decide not to have sex that is sex education that works 100 percent of the time." (The Dallas Morning News, 2/25/09)

ABORTION ZEALOT TO HEAD OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL AT DOJ 
President Obama has nominated Indiana law professor Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at the Department of Justice. The OLC staff interprets the law for the U.S. Attorney General. Its members are supposed to be apolitical and academically disciplined, according to Andrew C. McCarthy writing on March 9, 2009 in National Review.

In 1989, Johnsen was legal director of NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) and as such filed a brief in the case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The Webster case involved a Missouri law that restricted the use of state funds and resources for abortions, although it did not ban the practice altogether.

Mr. McCarthy writes, "Any restriction that makes abortion less accessible is, in her [Johnsen's] view as expressed in the brief, tantamount to "involuntary servitude" because it "requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest [in the life of the unborn.]" In effect, a woman "is constantly aware for nine months that her body is not her own: the state has conscripted her body for its own ends." Such "forced pregnancy," she contends, violates the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery. Fortunately, the court rejected her ridiculous argument.

Johnsen opposes 24-hour waiting periods, parental consent requirements for minors, and laws against partial-birth abortion. In 2007, when the court upheld the ban on partial-birth abortions in Gonzales v. Carhart, Johnsen's reaction was to complain that "every first-year law student's constitutional law casebook" now contains "gruesome descriptions designed to make abortions sound like infanticide." In a 2006 op-ed opposing Samuel Alito's confirmation, opposition to all restrictions on abortion — not just acceptance of Roe v. Wade — should be a litmus test for judicial nominees. "The notion of legal restrictions as some kind of reasonable 'compromise' — perhaps to help make abortion 'safe, legal, and rare,' she wrote, 'proves nonsensical.'"

The Office of Legal Counsel drives administration legal policy. Because of her record of pro-abortion advocacy, Dawn Johnsen should not be confirmed for this position. Please ask your U.S. Senators to vote NO on her confirmation. Click here for congressional contact information.