July 2020 – Article 1:
Life and death campaigns are taking place on the internet and social media. One helps promote and protect the Personhood of every pre-born child. The other seeks to make it more convenient to end those precious lives.
Georgia Right to Life’s (GRTL) Facebook, Google, and billboard outreach efforts are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of women visiting pro-life counseling services.
Visitors are referred to the Option Line national call center where counselors connect them to the closest Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC) in their community.
Option Line has served PRCs and pro-life advocacy groups since 2003 and has fielded nearly four million calls, texts, chats, and emails. GRTL has utilized their services since 2005.
In addition, callers are directed to Teen Breaks, which contains a wealth of information about pregnancy and abortion.
“I am greatly encouraged that our outreach efforts are working,” said Steve Bowman, GRTL’s Director of Development. “We’re having a positive impact on thousands of girls and young women who need help with their pregnancies.”
COVID-19 Used to Push Harmful Practices
At the same time, culture of death advocates are shamelessly using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to call for increased use of the internet for do-it-yourself abortions.
Not surprisingly, the media is gleefully supporting their cause.
- “Amid COVID-19, a Call for M.D.s to Mail the Abortion Pill,” a New York Times headline read.
- “More Patients Seek Abortion Pills Online during Pandemic, But Face Restrictions,” an NPR article lamented.
- “Could Coronavirus Make Telemedicine Abortion the New Normal,” Elle magazine asked.
They are hoping the pandemic will increase the use of “tele-abortion”, allowing more women to use the deadly abortion-causing pill—RU-486—at home.
“Unfortunately, women are being influenced by fear right now, and this is being perpetuated by the abortion industry,” Dr. Christina Francis, Chairperson of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, told EWTN Prof-Life Weekly.
New York based Gynuity Health Products is in the forefront of the push to ignore safety standards which put women at a higher risk.
The company is sponsoring a tele-abortion research project in 13 states, including Georgia, which allows women to obtain a prescription for RU-486 via teleconference. The pills are then sent to the woman by mail.
The project, open to girls as young as 10 years old, is approved by the FDA and is directed at eliminating the agency’s own safeguards for chemical abortions. The regulation, known as Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), requires women to take the first pill in the presence of an abortionist.
Chemical Abortions are Dangerous
The regulation is not misguided—chemical abortions are dangerous.
Since its introduction in 2000, the FDA reports (as of 12/31/18) a total of 4,195 adverse events related to its use, including:
- 24 deaths.
- 97 ectopic pregnancies.
- 1,042 hospitalizations, including deaths.
- 599 cases of blood loss requiring transfusions.
- 412 infections, including 69 considered severe.
Using the process also adds to the trauma of abortion by requiring the woman to dispose of the remains of her dead child.
It’s important to note that the abortion pill is not the same as Plan B, the so-called morning after pill.
Although it’s marketed as a contraceptive, it’s possible for the pill to act as an abortifacient by making the womb inhospitable to an already conceived child.
Please pray that God will use GRTL’s social media and billboard campaigns to reach even more girls and women and that innocent lives will be saved.
Sources: catholicnewsagency.com; nytimes.com; time.com; npr.org; elle.com; lifeinsuesinstitute.org; fda.gov.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor