Dave Andrusko

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Obama won because we 'kept Independent women scared': Pro-abortion PACs

Dave Andrusko
By Dave Andrusko

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 15, 2012, (National Right to Life News)—You can’t know what percentage is truth (if any), exaggeration, gloss, or hyperbole, but Planned Parenthood is not shy about taking credit for the re-election of pro-abortion President Barack Obama. But I confess not until I read a piece by Paul Bedard in his “Washington Secrets” yesterday did I understand how they made their case.

According to Bedard of the Washington Examiner, Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood, told an EMILY’s List post-election analysis panel (in Bedard’s words) that it “kep[t] Independent women scared long enough about Romney’s agenda for Obama to win them over.” (EMILY’s List is a high-powered PAC that funnels money exclusively to female Democrats who are the pro-est of pro-abortionists.)

Planned Parenthood’s strategy was to ignore women who had made their decision. Instead, beginning in June, they targeted “a whole group [of women] that, what it looked like we could do, is expand the amount of time they were willing to give the president and the economy to recover,” Laguens said. “So we could kind of hold them in ‘undecided’ by, in particularly in the presidency, by making Mitt Romney questionable in their mind on our set of issues.”

How did they keep the minds of independent women open to voting for Obama? “By warning how Romney would rob them of birth control and abortion,” according to Bedard’s paraphrase. In other words, “The effort had a simple strategy: Just get women, [who were] frustrated with the economy, to hold off deciding for Romney. ‘Don’t. Wait. Gotta learn more about this stuff,’ was the theme, said Laguens.”

Laguens likened this to keeping the elevator door open “until we could see the economy start to come up and the president’s campaign do that closing argument that really did finally tip them over. And I really think that was the role that we played in there with a lot of independent women.”

Whew, think about that one. PPFA completely distorted Mitt Romney’s position on “birth control” (what he opposed what federal funding for PPFA) and abortion (he included exceptions for rape, incest, and life of mother, although you’d never know it by PPFA or Obama’s re-election team) until there was the slightest uptick in the economy which gave them these women an excuse to vote for Obama. Put another way, they shoved Romney down the elevator shaft and shafted the American people, all in one fell swoop.

Beyond the Abortion Establishment crowing about its supposed role, there are as many explanations for Obama’s victory as there are pundits. We’ve talked about a number of them in this space over the last week. Most are either short-sighted, panicky, or are in service of the agenda of separating the Republican Party from its pro-life base.

Here are a few additional thoughts, courtesy of Pew’s Andrew Kohut, which in some ways dovetails with what Laguens said and we have observed.

Although Romney lost, Kohut writes, “Republicans increased their share of the presidential vote among many major demographic groups. Compared with 2008, they made significant gains among men (four percentage points), whites (four points), younger voters (six points), white Catholics (seven points) and Jews (nine points). Mr. Romney also carried the independent vote 50 percent to 45 percent. Four years ago, independents voted for Mr. Obama 52 percent to 44 percent.” In addition, “49 percent continued to disapprove of Mr. Obama’s health-care law (compared with 44 percent approving).”

How did Romney lose? It wasn’t because of a gender gap among women—women went in comparable numbers for Obama in 2008—but because Romney’s personal image was battered by countless millions of dollars of negative ads. Obama’s team unfairly but brilliantly portrayed Romney as out of touch of the average voter.

As we discussed yesterday, Republican strategist Karl Rove was unfairly attacked for making an absolutely valid point: that Obama’s team had succeeded by deliberately “suppressing the vote.” How so? Columnist Michael Medved put it this way: “He [Obama] and his supporters succeeded in discouraging and disillusioning the Republican and independent voters whom Romney needed for victory.”

Obama sullied Romney, slinging mud by the ton.  “A report from a monitoring agency at Wesleyan University suggests that an astonishing 85 percent of all campaign commercials by the Obama campaign and allied groups featured negative messages about Romney,” Medved wrote. “These attack ads aren’t supposed to inspire your people to go to the polls; they’re meant to dissuade the other guy’s supporters from going to the polls. The purpose of negative advertising is to discourage, not encourage, voting…

In this election, the lower overall turnout clearly helped Obama. The president got a smaller share of the vote in 48 of 50 states, everywhere except Hawaii and Mississippi, but he retained enough support in the diminished electorate to hang on to the White House. Lacking any confidence that they could reinspire cynical, disillusioned citizens about the glories of hope and change or the president’s heroic first-term achievements, the Obama high command settled for producing a general distaste for both candidates and even for the political process itself.

Pro-lifers, led by National Right to Life PAC, were active throughout the election and especially in key swing states. You did everything possible to carry Romney over the finish line. But the barrage of negative ads, magnified by a sympathetic and compliant media, put Mr. Romney in a huge hole from which he never fully recovered.

Reprinted from National Right to Life News.

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Thaddeus and Theresa Baklinski and their 14 children, on the occasion of their son Ben's wedding.
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An Exodus story

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By Thaddeus Baklinski

There’s a story that in retrospect seems very recent but actually took place two generations ago. A young father was driving with his 4-year-old son down one of the main streets of the city in which they lived. While quietly chuckling, enjoying, and trying to answer the endless stream of 4-year-old questions the lad was posing, one question literally stopped the dad in his tracks.

"Why's that lady got no clothes on Papa? And what's that big word mean?"

"What? Where are you looking? What are you seeing??" the dad asked in worried astonishment as the boy pointed to a huge billboard, newly set up on top of a building along the street.

The billboard had the image of a naked woman's torso, wearing only what appeared to be a shark tooth necklace. There was no face in the picture, just torso, showing only a little of her breasts and hips, but as much of her body as probably was legally possible without the image being pornographic.

Beside the image was the word "hedonism" in huge capital letters. Below this was an invitation to come to a luxury tropical resort village operated by a French tourist company.

The father was dumbfounded. He could not think of an answer to the boy's questions, neither why the lady had no clothes, nor an explanation of the word that a 4-year-old could understand.

But inside he began to seethe with indignation that his son should have been subjected to this "advertising," and that there was nothing that he could do to undo the harmful effect this visual assault might have on his child.

Or was there …

The mother and father had been, for a quite a while, discussing the possibility of pulling up the roots they had begun to set down in the city of the mother's childhood after they had wed. Their dream of a place in "the country" was strong in their hearts. But the reality of such a radical change for them was both daunting and filled with uncertainty about their ability to make a go of it.

They wanted to own some land, plant gardens, raise livestock for their own use, cut firewood and use it to heat a home where they and their children could doze or play in front of the fireplace during the cold winters. They wanted to grow in their Catholic faith.

Their hope was for their children to have a wholesome and faith-filled environment in which to flourish.

A place where they could swim in clean lakes, hike forest trails, build native villages and settlers' cabins, learn to fish, hunt, be silent when watching a deer or rabbit that had not yet seen them, and go crazy with youthful exuberance without fear that their noise would upset the neighbors. And a place where their faith could grow and mature in the midst of a community of families whose religious life was the center of their family life.

The billboard decided the issue for them. "It's now or never, my love," the dad said to the mom after describing what he and his child had been subjected to as they drove along the city street. "We have three kids now (four, three and a not-quite-one-year-old), so this will be difficult, but we can do this!

"It will take a leap in faith for us, but if we don't try to do what's in our hearts now, we may never have the courage to do it later. I don't want our sons to have to look at billboards like that ever again, not if I can help it."

So the father and mother began the arduous process of moving to "the country," but not without first putting themselves and their plans in the hands of Our Lady, on whose intercession to Jesus on their behalf they would completely rely.

On the last day of May, they left "the city" in an old van packed to the roof (and on the roof), and towing a borrowed trailer with all their belongings, and set out for "the country."

And what did they find there? Certainly all the things they had hoped for, but much more besides - both hardships and indescribable joy.

The day after settling into a cabin on a lake that was to be their headquarters for the summer while they scouted out available properties for sale, the local parish priest dropped by for an unannounced visit.

"I had heard about you moving in here, and thought I'd come over to welcome you to the parish, and see if there was anything I could help you with or do for you?" Fr. Joe said.

Wow! They had never before been visited at home by a parish priest … and how did Fr. Joe know they were there, and where to find them? Was this the well-known news grapevine of small communities?

They were overwhelmed by the priest's warm welcome and generous offers (he never did tell them how he knew they were there). They counted his visit as an affirmation that they were in the right place and Our Lady's hand was on them.

At Mass that Sunday in their new parish, the young couple with their three children were apprehensive about how they would be received by their follow parishioners. Most of them were older folks, but there were a few families with young children.

Some of the old-timers were aloof, suspicious of the newcomers, but many others were not only welcoming but overjoyed that the couple had brought themselves and their kids to the parish.

"Don't worry if your kids are noisy, deary, we don't mind - it's nice to have more children in the church," the young mom was told.

And they discovered to their wonderment that many of the older families in the parish (the families whose ancestors had pioneered and settled the area in the 1850s) had lots, and lots, of kids - 8, 12, 16 kids!

The children, nine of them and mostly grown to adulthood, of one of these families were such warm and kind people, that the young father was prompted to ask the mom of this family how she did it, hoping to gain some insight into raising children.

The dad of this family, who farmed his land and drove a logging truck, stood by and smiled a smile that turned into hearty, exuberant, good-natured laughter.

The mom looked away wistfully for a moment, but with a smiling twinkle in her eye, then told the young father, "Well, I loved them, I just loved them. And I was always there for them."

She then added the most down-to-earth advice the young dad had ever heard. "And if they didn't work, they didn't eat," the woman, full of the wisdom of her age, said.

The young father never forgot these words, and pondered them in his heart. And while he never had occasion to put this advice into actual practice (although it could be used as a motivational tool), he learned that working together to build a culture of life within the family was what the older woman was really saying.

So this, dear reader, is a little part of the story of the young couple's abandonment of "the city" to begin a new life in "the country."

They live near Combermere, Ontario, where many of their 14 children also live. Their lives in the country have proven, so far, to be a great adventure, with both hardships and heartaches, but also with abounding love and great joy, as the lives of families everywhere are bound to be.

For this they are truly grateful to their Father in heaven for His blessings and protection, to Our Lady who has guided them along the way, to Jesus who is The Way they have tried to follow, to their friends and neighbors who are always there in times of need and in times of celebration, and to their children, without whom the adventure wouldn't have been half as much fun.

As they look forward to the celebration of the birth of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they want to wish you, dear reader, a most happy, blessed and holy Christmas, and much joy, laughter and Life in the coming year.

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Previous owners Michael and Sheila O'Brien joined our family for the joyful moment we took possession of our new home. The children are holding spring flowers.
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And a little child shall lead them…to their new home

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By Pete Baklinski

It was about a year ago when I contacted our landlord to ask if we could continue renting for another year. Having rented from him for a few years already, I was pretty sure he would say “Yes.” When he replied that he needed the house to entertain guests that coming summer, I pleaded with him, telling him we were expecting again and a move a couple of months prior to the due date would be very difficult for my wife Erin and the baby. But he would not change his mind. He congratulated us for the new baby and said we had to be out in five months.

Both Erin and I were in despair. Having five children already made it almost impossible to find someone who was willing to rent to a ‘crazy large family whose parents obviously don’t know how to control themselves.’ And buying a home with a mortgage was out of the question because of our student loans that always upset the financial ratios. And believe me, we had tried everything to get a mortgage, from local banks, to national banks, to mortgage brokers. It was always the same No, No, No.

It was about a year before this new pregnancy that we had decided to make a deal with God. We told him that if he wanted us to buy a house, he would have to meet three conditions:

1. The house would have to be a place of beauty where we would be happy to raise our children and be able to do some small-scale farming, like raising chickens and goats and growing a garden.

2. The owners would have to want to sell the house specifically to us, seeing us as a perfect fit for their home.

3. The financing would have to work out.

It was a tall order, but it gave us peace knowing that if God wanted us in a home, he would make it clear to us by fulfilling these conditions.

Now, with our landlord closing the door on us and the banks already having closed the door on us, we had no option but to pray that God would provide a place for us to live, even if it meant living in a cave in the middle of the forest (we said, half seriously). One of our daughters helpfully suggested that we could simply live in the car. Would we have a home in which to bring our newborn child? It was a painful question to face.

But then something unexpected happened a few weeks after having our landlord turn us down. It started one night when Erin noticed blood. Four days later the cramping started. The following morning, Erin passed the placenta and amniotic sack, all intact with a tiny baby inside about the size of two peas. Everything fit in the palm of her hand. At 12 weeks the baby should have been about 3-4 inches, but we could tell that she was much smaller. I immediately baptized the baby. Then we held one another and our little baby and cried.

We named her Perpetua Christina Marie. We later discovered that she had died at about 6 weeks, which would have been just around Christmas.

It was painful to tell our children of the loss. We told them that their little sister had been called home to heaven, much sooner than we would have liked. We told them that she had joined her brother Gabriel and her sister Jacinta and that all three of them were now praying for us and helping us become holy so that we could all be together one day.

We showed the children Perpetua’s remains. We could see the tiny little head with little black dots for eyes. We could see her tiny arms and legs and her little feet. The kids took holy water and each of them blessed Perpetua. I kissed her before wrapping her up in preparation for burial.

Our grief over her loss was great, but it was mingled with a strange joy that God was somehow doing something bigger than the eye could see… In his will was our peace…

I must now switch gears and tell you about a local Catholic couple who had been dropping hints to us for some time now that they could “just see” our family in their country house. They were good friends of ours who had already raised their children and were ready to move into something smaller and closer to town. And it was a beautiful house with about two acres of farmable land. The house had a feasting hall with a stone fireplace. The property included a grove of majestic maples and was a two minute walk from a small lake teaming with fish. There was even an impressive hill out back that would make a perfect toboggan run in the winter.

I remember when it suddenly hit Erin and me that two of our conditions regarding our deal with God were met with this house. But we did not even begin to get our hopes up since we were sure the finances would never work out.

It was a few days prior to the miscarriage that we began a nine-day prayer to St. Joseph, asking him to intercede on our behalf for a financial miracle from God. It was during this novena that, out of the blue, my older brother who lived thousands of miles away contacted me, saying he had heard about our financial woes and had a friend who had connections in the banking industry who might be able to help us. I called my brother’s friend and explained our situation. I was given the name of a person to call at a national bank.

The day Erin miscarried was the day I was supposed to speak with this person at the bank. Sensing there was more happening than could meet the eye, I decided to make the call that day. The person I spoke with was the first to look seriously at our real financial situation and see that we could actually afford mortgage payments. Days later we were astounded to be "pre-approved" for a mortgage from the same bank that a few months before had rejected our application for a small loan to buy a car. We were approved a few days after the miscarriage and the day after finishing our novena prayer to St. Joseph.

All the pieces were now coming together quickly. It seemed to us that God had fulfilled his side of the deal superabundantly. He had found us a lovely home surrounded by natural beauty. The owners wanted nothing better than for us to live there. And we now had a green light on the finances. It seemed almost unbelievable to witness how all the knots became untied.

We took possession of the house May 1st, the feast of St. Joseph. I carried Erin across the threshold while the children frolicked around the yard picking the daintiest spring flowers you ever did see. The owners joined us in our joy. It was truly a paradise moment.

Throughout all of this, Erin and I discerned that someone special besides St. Joseph might have been pulling strings for us someplace on high. And it was not too hard to figure out who. This whole journey to our new home began when we asked our landlord to continue renting because we were expecting. When we lost our baby, both Erin and I believe she went straight to God and pleaded with him to come through on the deal we had made with him. And we both believe that God listened real closely to her and was moved by what she had to say.

We now live in a place we call “home.” It is our “forever” home where we will raise our family. Here we will love, laugh, cry, eat, sleep, and pray. Here we will raise our children and teach them about the mysterious ways of God and how if they put their trust in him, he will always come through in the end.

We will always grieve the loss of our daughter, but at the same time, we have this inkling that she is still with us, watching over us, doing “her thing” with God to pull off something amazing for all of us here on earth. We have no doubt that Perpetua is still very much part of our family, contributing her unique gifts to the flourishing of the whole. We sense a real and almost tangible spiritual closeness with her.

I often talk to my daughter Perpetua. I thank her for putting us on the path that got us to our home. I thank her for bringing our needs to God. I often ask her to intercede for us regarding anything related to the house, such as the success of the various renovations we have undertaken since moving here – drilling a new well, putting insulation in the ceiling of the feasting room, and upgrading the heating system. Believe it or not, she has come through for us every time.

As I reflect on Perpetua’s short life and her much too short stay with us, I am reminded of a verse from Scripture that seems to describe her relationship to our family: “And a little child shall lead them…” (Isaiah 11:6). Yes, this little child led us to something wonderful, and continues to lead us towards things the eye has not seen nor the ear heard (1 Cor. 2:9). We are grateful for the gift of her life.

Pete and Erin live with their five children in Combermere, Ontario. They will be welcoming a new baby in February. They are glad to have a home in which to welcome this new life.

Editor's Note: As has been our custom for over a decade, LifeSiteNews is again this year publishing Christmas reflections by our staff. For a full listing of this year's reflections, click here.

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LifeSiteNews Editor-in-Chief John-Henry Westen with his wife Dianne and eight children.
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What’s under our tree this Christmas – promise not to tell?

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By John-Henry Westen

In a family of 10 what’s under the tree is always interesting. We’ve found that with increasing years comes a shift from wanted items to needed items.  While for the baby (now 3) it’s still mostly toys and some outfits, for the older children it’s more about needed items such as a new desk chair (don’t tell) and clothing.  That of course becomes most evident with gifts designated ‘to Mom.’ 

In the pile for Mom are really most of the gifts for the family… a new kettle (don’t tell), soap, mugs, and the like. They’re mostly the kind of gifts that are best described as ‘for you but actually for me, or for us’ rather than really ‘for you.’  I’d like to say for Dad it’s the same but a new table tennis racquet (don’t tell I found out) wouldn’t really qualify.

We’re often told as Christians that your gifts are fleeting things and you can’t take them with you. But there is one gift you can at least try to take with you to the life hereafter. And that is the gift of children.  We’ve been blessed to have one child on Christmas Day and another on the 28th so we’re always celebrating birthdays throughout Christmas.

Those gifts of life you can take with you into the afterlife – or at least give it your best shot.  We’ve been successful with three children thus far (which officially makes us a family of 13), that while lost to us through miscarriage, are, as the song goes, “from the heavens to the womb to the heavens again.”

Christmas is all about accepting the Christ Child into your life, into your heart. And with every child you accept into your family you accept Christ – you clothe the naked, you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, you care for the sick, and even visit the imprisoned as the crib becomes a frequented late-night vigil spot. 

With each child you welcome into your family – each gift of God you embrace – you fulfill that which Christ told us would be demanded of us to enter heaven.

Your children are truly the best gifts under your family tree. Embrace them as you would the Saviour, because as he said, ‘Whatever you do to the least you do to me.’

Thus your openness to life leads to the greatest gift.  To our Lord’s final call: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”

From my family to yours, dear friends, our prayers for a happy and holy Christmas. 

Editor's Note: As has been our custom for over a decade, LifeSiteNews is again this year publishing Christmas reflections by our staff. For a full listing of this year's reflections, click here.

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