I wanted to blog today about something that I have been seeing a lot of lately and I find it personally very disturbing. I'm fairly new to the pro-life active community. I have been pro-life all my life but until a few months ago I wasn't very "active" in the cause as I have stated here several times before. But in just the short time that I have been active in the online pro-life communities I have seen something that has been very shocking to me and I felt I had to say something. I have seen countless instances of pro-life people and groups being very rude, disrespectful, and in a few cases even downright mean to other pro-lifers.

I never expected this from the pro-life community. Now I know that when there are a lot of people involved in anything that there are going to be disagreements and differences in how people think that things should be done that's a given. But what I have seen and even experienced myself is some people that claim to be pro-life, (which to me is a cause that stands for at it's very core love) being hateful, condescending, and trying to tear their fellow pro-lifer's down. This to me is just unbelievable!  Being pro-life we are suppose to be fighting to save lives and do what is right for our fellow human beings. How can these same people that claim to love and defend life not even be civil to their fellow human beings who are fighting for the same things right along beside them?

Sure we may have differences of opinion on things in life that's part of being human. But we should be working together to help end abortion as soon as possible not focusing on keeping our own little cliques together and looking down at and others who are wanting to help end abortion too! Or taking a holier than thou attitude to others who haven't been in the cause as long as others have. These people are focusing on all the wrong things! Over a million children are loosing their lives every year in this country and the best way, the "only" way, to end abortion is if we stand and work together. Not fight each other and waste our valuable energy and time that we should be using to save lives on each other. Now I'm not saying that you have to go along with everything that someone else believes, but you should be nice to them and let them help in the fight if what they are doing isn't wrong. Just because you don't share the same religion or political party is no reason to think that other pro-lifer's can't help in the fight to end abortion! And if you don't agree with someone and want to convert them to your way of thinking do you really think you will ever be able to convince them by being hateful, disrespectful, and mean to them?

We should be willing to help our fellow pro-lifers especially the new converts and those that are wanting to start their own groups and give them tips and a helping hand. Help promote them and encourage them so that they can help us in the fight to end the silent holocaust of thousands of innocent lives everyday! There is room and a place for everyone in this fight for life! And we NEED every good person that we can get to help fight this enemy! This isn't a popularity contest it's about saving lives. It's not a business, it's not a competition. Your fellow pro-lifers aren't the enemy - abortion, Obama, pro-choice legislators, Planned Parenthood, and all the other abortion clinics are! The enemy would like nothing better than to see us fight each other. Because while we are focusing on fighting other pro-lifers we are letting them go about their business of killing innocent babies in peace. A house divided against itself cannot stand. How do you think it looks to people who haven't made up their mind about being pro-life or not yet to see pro-lifers backbiting and being hateful to their fellow pro-lifers? Do you think that this type of behavior that is going to encourage them to join the cause? You need to ask yourself if you are helping the cause or are you hurting it with your behavior and attitude.

Many people in the pro-life community are Christians but the behavior of many that I have seen at least online is many times anything but Christian behavior. I have friends who are atheists who treat people with more kindness and respect than I have seen some so called Christians treat their fellow pro-lifers. That is not right! I am a Christian and the bible tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. To be kind to strangers even! That is not the type of behavior that I have seen many showing to people that are pro-life just like them. This needs to STOP! You can disagree with someone without being mean and disrespectful to them. The bible says in 1 John 4:20 KJV "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"

There are thousands of babies who need all of us to be their voice for them because they don't have theirs yet and if we keep fighting in amongst ourselves they will die without one! My brothers and sisters in the pro-life cause please stop the prideful and hateful attitudes and put "self" on the back burner and fight for those children they deserve life! Stop alienating those who want to help you save lives and work with them to help end this tragedy that is running rampant in our country! Pro-life is a cause of love and it needs to be represented as one!

The privilege of democracy carries with it the responsibility to vote, and in each election cycle it is important to consider what is at stake. In recent election cycles, American voters have proven that Life Counts at the ballot box by choosing life by a margin of two to one.

No matter your political persuasion, if concern for life motivates your vote, these are the top five most significant issues in 2012. The United States needs policies:

1. CURBING THE RADICAL EXPANSION OF ABORTION: President Obama has set in motion the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade through the enactment of Obamacare. Obamacare’s Covert Abortion Premium Mandate slips funding for abortion into health insurance policies, and preventive care guidelines that mandate insurance coverage for life-ending drugs and devices mischaracterized as “contraception.” Because support for abortion is so pervasive in the healthcare law, the only solution is repeal. To read more about abortion in healthcare, click here.

2. RESTORING FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE PROTECTIONS: Last year, the Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the clear influence of Planned Parenthood, announced that it was defining a “preventive services” provision of Obamacare to include “all FDA approved contraceptives,” forcing private health insurance plans to fully cover life-ending drugs and devices, including ella, an abortion-inducing drug.

Despite the knowledge that mandated coverage for life-ending drugs violates the religious beliefs and moral principles of many Americans, HHS has not budged and the mandate began to impact plans on August 1. By design, the mandate has a “rolling” start. With each passing month, more plans will be infected with forced coverage for life-ending drugs and devices. The so-called “safe harbor” for certain religious non-profit organizations expires on August 1, 2013. To confront this travesty, AUL launched a Freedom of Conscience project. Click here to learn more.

3. PROVIDING COMMONSENSE LIMITS ON ABORTION: The Obama Administration’s support for unrestricted abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy is out of touch with the vast majority of Americans. Recent polls reveal that 63 percent of all Americans – 70 percent of women – support a late-term, 20-week abortion limitation.

In particular, late-term abortions are exponentially more dangerous to women, an issue that AUL has addressed in our groundbreaking “Women’s Health Protection Act” which bans abortion at or after 20 weeks because of the well-documented risks of late-term abortion procedures. To learn more about the health risks of late-term abortion procedures, click here.

4. ADOPTING LIFE-AFFIRMING POLICIES IN LINE WITH THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE WORLD: Under current law, the United States stands with North Korea, China, and Canada as the four nations with the most radical pro-abortion laws. The U.S. is one of only 4 nations (out of 195 nations in the world) that do not limit abortion after fetal viability. To read an AUL analysis of this tragedy, click here.

5. GETTING THE TAXPAYER OUT OF THE BUSINESS OF SUBSIDIZING THE ABORTION INDUSTRY: The Obama Administration is so committed to taxpayer funding and subsidies for abortion providers that they have worked to override the actions of duly elected state officials to eliminate or reduce taxpayer monies going to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. In fact, the Obama Administration was willing to allow a shut down of the federal government rather than see any cuts in the more than $1 million dollars a day going to Planned Parenthood through federal taxes.

Meanwhile, 7 in 10 Americans – both pro-life and pro-choice – do not want their tax dollars to fund or subsidize the abortion industry. AUL has called for an investigation into Planned Parenthood so that taxpayers can learn what was done with the billions of tax dollars given to the abortion mega provider. To read more about the Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood, click here.

LifeNews.com Note: Charmaine Yoest is the president of Americans United for Life.

The title of Ramesh Ponnuru’s excellent post today captures a powerful truth–“Obama and Infanticide: The media still insist on defending his votes in favor of infanticide.” We will quote at length from his analysis, but it is very much worth reading in full at National Review Online.

Mr. Obama and those who defend his actions as a state Senator have offered a number of explanations for his opposition to a bill in Illinois that would have provided legal protection to babies who survived abortion. For example, as Ponnuru explains, “They said he opposed it because the law lacked a clause clarifying that it did not protect fetuses within the womb. In fact Obama opposed a version of the bill that contained one (not that there was ever any need for it).”

In fact, as Ponnuru notes, Obama understood it didn’t apply to babies in the womb and, more importantly, “never said otherwise.” To quote Ponnuru

State Senator Obama raised a related objection to protections for pre-viable infants born alive (in commenting on a different piece of legislation), according to Ponnuru: “Granting them protection by requiring that a second doctor be present to treat any born-alive infant would ‘burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.’ Legal protection for these infants, in addition to being wrong on principle, would inhibit abortion.”

In 2008 National Right to Life carefully documented Obama’s actions while a state Senator, but the media shield was impermeable. Surely, we were told, no one could seriously believe Obama would support the right to infanticide.

The issue has resurfaced again because pro-lifers refuse to allow the truth to stay buried. And that is that Obama (in Ponnuru’s words) “believed that certain infants — those at an early stage of development — should not have legal protection, and he believed it because he thought it would undermine the right to abortion.”

Having established Obama’s real position while a state Senator, Ponnuru spends a lot of time carefully dissecting the conclusions of the Washington Post’s Josh Hicks who “fact-checked” an ad by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List. (You can read the analysis in its entirety atwww.nationalreview.com/articles/316590/obama-and-infanticide-ramesh-ponnuru.)

In general Hicks imputes positions to Obama he didn’t express, for example (as Ponnuru writes) “At no point does he [Obama] suggest that it would be okay to provide legal protection to pre-viable infants who survive abortions. That’s because he opposed such protection.”

And Hicks is determined to put the worst construction on comments made in the ad by abortion survivor Melissa Ohden and former Governor Mike Huckabee while giving Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt (even when there isn’t any) —and more.

For instance, Hicks quotes Huckabee saying, “Obama “believes that human life is disposable and expendable . . . even beyond the womb.” Besides concluding it’s all so confusing to say anything definitively, Hicks announces “Nonetheless, we find it hard to fathom that the former senator expressed a belief that human life is disposable outside the womb.”

Yes, it would be, if it weren’t for that pesky record. As Ponnuru explains, “Huckabee was right: Obama did believe that at least some human lives, ‘even beyond the womb,’ are ‘disposable and expendable.’ He believed that for the law to treat them otherwise would be wrong. Whatever Hicks can or cannot fathom, Obama expressed that view both in his words and in his votes.”

Ponnuru concludes by d****** with faint praise:

NRLC’s website contains definitive documentation on this issue, much of which is distilled in a comprehensive “white paper” written by NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson and Senior Legislative Counsel Susan T. Muskett in August, 2008, which is here:http://www.nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/WhitePaperAugust282008.html