GERMANTOWN, MD, February 8, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The news that a 29-year-old woman died of a late term abortion on Thursday has filled the pro-life community with waves of sorrow, outrage, and resilience.
“Never again,” said Students for Life of America (SFLA) in a press release.
“We pray for this young woman and her family and recommit ourselves to abolishing all abortion so that never again will a woman feel that killing the life within her is her only choice,” said SFLA President Kristan Hawkins.
“We are heartbroken at the news that another mother and child have fallen victim to the horrors of legal abortion in this country,” she said.
Human Life International called the young woman's death, during an abortion in her eighth month of pregnancy, “truly tragic” on its Facebook page.
“How many women and children are killed by abortionists like Carhart without our ever knowing, their deaths covered up by pro-abortion physicians?” asked Lila Rose of Live Action. “Those women who are lied to and misled about these 'procedures' deserve to know exactly what Big Abortion – and their abortion bosses like Carhart – seek to do to them.”
The death comes days after the debut of a new film at the Sundance Festival, After Tiller, that seeks to “humanize” those who, like Carhart, perform late-term abortions – a fact Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League noted.
The death also came the same day that Scheidler's organization filed a legal complaint with the Illinois state government over the death of 24-year-old Tonya Reaves from a legal abortion last July. The complaint, filed by Illinois Department of Professional Regulation by Thomas Brejcha of the Thomas More Society, said Planned Parenthood's decision to allow Reaves to hemorrhage for five-and-a-half hours, then deposit her at a local hospital without telling officials of a possible uterine perforation violated state law and amounted to the “abandonment of a patient.”
Pro-life leaders say they refuse to abandon Reaves, or the newest victim of the abortion industry.
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“The state of Maryland has to shut down Carhart's killing business,” said Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life. He encouraged “every person who cares about” this woman's death “to spread the word immediately about this tragedy, to awaken the consciences of our neighbors. This includes pastors speaking out about the harm abortion does, and it includes all of us telling the stories of those harmed and killed by abortion.”
“We need to redouble our efforts to mobilize people in the pro-life cause,” he said. “If this latest tragedy isn't enough evidence that the time to end abortion is now, then what is?”
“No longer will we allow these women to remain unknown to the American public,” Father Pavone said. “The silence ends today.”
Fr. Pavone was on hand as Dr. Alveda King read a litany of names of women who had died from legal abortion, led by Reaves, at the National Memorial Service for the Preborn and their Mothers and Fathers in Constitution Hall, just before this year's March for Life.
Pro-life leaders are planing a prayer vigil and memorial outside Carhart's clinic next Monday at 9 a.m.
“Please pray that this tragedy will be a turning point in abortion and that the barbaric practice of 3rd trimester abortions will end (along with all abortions),” said Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser at Operation Rescue, who broke the story of the latest adult abortion casualty. “We also won't rest until Carhart is brought to justice through the legal system.”