Many prayer groups today find that their rights to peaceably assemble on public sidewalks and right-of-ways are being dangerously threatened. Not too long ago I too was a prayer leader. Our group exercised our rights to pray on a public sidewalk in a very busy part of town and quite often we were met with confrontations and hostile individuals.

In order to curb these volatile situations I consulted a dear friend, who also happens to be an attorney at the Rutherford Institute. He gave me some excellent pointers:

• Have an emergency contact plan. My group created business cards for all our members with my phone number, our church phone number and a lawyer’s number. The church and lawyer were instructed to call me 24/7 in the event of an emergency.
• Always have a phone, camera or video recorder with you in case of emergency.
• If you are harassed, assaulted or in some other danger, do not be afraid to call the police. On one occasion a man I knew was run off the sidewalk with a Hummer while praying the Rosary. However, we had the emergency plan in place and I was able to take care of the situation immediately.
• Be Prepared! Know your local laws and ordinances about where you can stand and how and what types of literature you can pass out.
• Be kind, but firm with your local police. Know that you have rights and do not be afraid to ask for a badge number or a chance to call your lawyer. However, do be nice to the police. Hostility will not get you on good terms with the officers. There is no need to be a martyr!

Having an emergency plan in place before you go out to pray can save a lot of heartache later on. Once our group learned these simple but effective planning techniques, the confrontations towards us were drastically cut down because we were prepared to handle them.

As a pregnancy counselor and prayer leader outside a Virginia Planned Parenthood, I have learned a lot over the years. Ministering to vulnerable women, men, and their preborn babies is extremely important, but can also be very overwhelming if you are unprepared.

If you do not have formal training as a sidewalk counselor from a reputable program or pregnancy center stop! Please do not go out blind to your local abortion clinic. Ministering without any training will not benefit women or babies. Actually, it could possibly lead to legal trouble if you say or do something inappropriate.

This is definitely not meant to deter anyone from ministering at clinics. In fact, ministering is a wonderful opportunity; one that should be met with zeal and love.

Romans 12 implores us to offer our lives as a “living sacrifice to God.” We are all parts of the one body. In being part of this “one body” we are asked to do simple tasks like getting a woman to a pregnancy center. We do not have to do the whole counseling session right there. Rather, we only have to be a witness, a part, just one small link in the bigger chain.

Here are some simple suggestions to help you get started in ministering:

• Your local Pregnancy Center can train and equip you with the tools you need to guide women toward true help. Many centers have annual or semiannual training sessions for around $25.00 per person. It is well worth the cost to learn how to properly minister to women in need.
• Form a small group and approach your local center with a proposal to trade training time and resources for help in guiding clients to their door.
• Once you are trained, know the local laws regarding abortion clinics.
• Always be polite and prayerful in your approach, never aggressive. A smile and a kind word go a long way!
• Do not yell at the women or abortion workers. No one listens to anger and shouting.
• Remember to work with your local Pregnancy Center - it is about the babies and the moms!

Know that God has prepared tools for you, so do not be scared to reach out to your area churches and CPCs to find them! You are not alone in your mission, so do not try to take the world on your shoulders. Be brave enough to admit when you need help.

A dear friend came to me frustrated about her local pregnancy center. Wanting to help, I offered to take her out for coffee. As we chatted, the truth slowly unfolded that she had recently discovered that the center near her was telling women that contraceptives were “okay.”

Screeching break sounds!

I couldn’t believe my ears. Sad but true, many pregnancy centers are misinformed about birth control and the dangers they pose. Many contraceptives actually cause early abortions. However, there is something you can do!

• Get the name and number of your local pregnancy center and call them to learn about their policies.
• If the pregnancy center near you is not pro-life, schedule an appointment to talk with the center director. Use this appointment as a chance to open up a dialogue and minister to them.
• Listen to the reasons behind their policies before you start sharing information with them.
• If you do need to share the pro-life truth with them, come prepared with specific questions about their ministry. This will allow you to frame your response more to their needs. Also, make sure that the reasons you give them for becoming a 100% pro-life pregnancy resource center are both scientific reasons as well as moral reasons.
• Remain calm when you speak. Remember that you have the truth. Do not get angry or abrasive in your tactics.

Exodus 23:22 says, “If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you” (NIV). For me this has means listen to the opposing arguments so that the Holy Spirit can show me the best way to counter them.

And guess what, it works! If you listen to others, they will listen to you.

Recently my beloved husband wrote a post on handling legal issues like a man. While this is out of my normal scope, given that I know little to nothing about legal issues, I simply had to toss my two cents in to the pot when his simple article exploded into a battle of the sexes and the sexless.

Those near and dear to Andrew and me know that my husband runs a little into right field. As for me, let’s just say that I would have a seat in the nose-bleed section off of right field if they would even let me into the stadium! Yes, I am on the record as a “card carrying, ultra conservative” Catholic. However, I come from a melting pot of family values and am quite accustomed to hearing every argument under the rainbow when it comes to political issues, moral issues, or what-have-you.

However, there is one argument, regardless of the various values and wide political views that members of my family have, that has never wavered: gender. This does not mean that gender roles have remained unchanged in my family. It simply means that gender is unchanged. From my ultra conservative view to the most flaming liberal in my family, we all agree that women and men have inherently different parts. Dipping down to the most basic biological level, women are built with the ability to carry and birth children and men are typically built to endure the heavy lifting and the hard labor.

Frankly I do not have a problem with owning up to how I am built. It is when we start discussing gender roles that even I can draw a sharp breath. I was brought up knowing that men and women can do most things quite equally. Nevertheless, I was still brought up in the glorious “Southern” tradition that women and men should treat each other with respect because the sexes are dependant upon each other.

My mother taught me that a gentleman should open doors for ladies, remove their hat in a presence of a lady or inside a building, should pull out a lady’s chair at the table, should stand when a lady leaves or returns to the table, and should always ask before laying a single finger on a lady (even if it is to assist her with getting out of the car). Conversely, ladies should always say “please” and “thank you” to a gentleman for his help and should acknowledge him for his respectfulness.

Some women and men today see these actions as archaic. I honestly see them as respectful and necessary mechanisms to keep society at a certain level of politeness and decorum. So many times I see hate and hurtful behavior of one human to another. I am of the mind that this is because we are trying to convert society to the “gentlePERSON” mantra rather than preserve the gentleman and lady interactions of yesterday.

Preserving politeness does not mean that we will necessitate a degradation into gender stereotypes. In fact, quite the opposite may occur because we have learned so much in the last century about gender and gender roles. I say all this cautiously because I will honestly always be better at cooking and administrative tasks than my husband, and he will always be better at using power tools and fixing computers. However, my husband and I gladly divide and conquer the chores in our home as do the other married couples in my family. We are acutely aware that we can both clean a toilet with equal ability, and that our respective genders have absolutely no effect on how we each hold the brush.

What truly matters is that we know and understand that we are biologically built different. Beyond that we desire a human difference, a respectful differentiation that stems from biology, but is ultimately held in the social court.

Though his true identity is known to few, his presence is known to many. Cranky Catholic, as he is known in the blogosphere, is a deeply devout Catholic with a world of experience and knowledge and a bone or two to pick with society.

Surprisingly, Cranky Catholic is not a cranky, cantankerous, crabby or otherwise bad-tempered person. No, he is actually terribly funny and can quite possibly send you into a laughing fit so serious it may send you to the emergency room. I am also sure he has made milk come out someone’s nose at least once in a school cafeteria before.

Many sitting on the “right”-side of the fence have applauded his snipes and gripes, his jabs and pokes at leftist media and their abortion inclination. “Mr. Cranky” has posted commentary on conservative blogs like Jill Stanek and American Life League. He is the constant kernel in the craw of large left blogs like RH Reality Check and Feministing. Though the left-wingers typically try to blow him off with as much pompous steam and derogatory comments as possible, even Amanda Marcotte, indisputably the ‘Queen Bee’ with the poisonous stinger of the RH Reality Check mogul, has trouble shaking this man!

Even with all his popularity on other blogs, Cranky Catholic has finally decided to settle into his own URL. You can now find his musings and aggravations about life at his newly launched blog, www.CrankyCatholic.com. Also on the site are two new additives by our favorite Catholic. The first is “Pop Stupid.” This fabulous little tidbit is loaded with illustrious little blurbs, or should I say verbal screw-ups, from the more famous members of society. The second is “Mass Destruction” and cautions you to “hold onto your breviaries” as it takes you on a tour of the more sacrilegious-minded of the Catholic faithless.

And just to allay any fears you may have, I don’t doubt “Mr. Cranky” still plans his stunning crash appearances on other blogs. After all, we would never want him to quit bothering Ms. Marcotte and her miscreant band of writers!

Roderick King takes carrots from hungry rabbits.
Image compliments of and copyrighted by Cranky Catholic.

Life is so beautiful, so magical. It is hard to believe that it begins with the act of one man and one woman coming together in the ultimate show of love! When the sperm and egg unite to create a new human being something greater than words can express takes place.

Unfortunately we have lost sight of this beautiful act. With the advent of contraceptives, we mercilessly kill our preborn children before they have a chance to even start their long journey in life. But do not take my word for it. See for yourself how contraception manufacturers and scientist have twisted words over the years to fit their own agendas.

Prior to the mid-1960s, medical personnel appear to have had at least some belief in their Hippocratic Oath of “do no harm.” At least scientist and doctors saw “the instant of fertilization” as paramount to the beginning of life. The U.S Department of Health Education and Welfare published the following in their Public Health Service leaflet No. 1066 in 1963:

“All the measures which impair the viability of the zygote at any time between the instant of fertilization and the completing of labor constitute, in the strict sense procedures for inducing abortion.”

Clearly health workers viewed newly created humans, fertilized eggs as they are called today, worthy of our attention and care. However, this did not last long. Just as everything else in the psychedelic 60s broke every fad, manner and rule, so too did doctors break their oath to the most innocent of humans.

In 1965 the American Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecology redefined pregnancy by saying, “Conception is the implantation of a fertilized ovum.” They published this quandary of a statement in their Terminology Bulletin No. 1, “Terms Used in Reference to the Fetus.” ACOG once again “clarified” their warped idea of pregnancy by changing the definition in 1972 to, “Conception is the implantation of the blastocyst.” A truly impersonalizing and dehumanizing definition, this head-scratcher was published in the Obstretric-Gynecologic Terminology handbook, ‘Gametogenesis and Fertilization.’

What is a blastocyst? The most common definition I found was “a hollow ball of cells filled with fluid.” This, however, is just another attempt to completely dehumanize newly created life!

With this new definition of pregnancy, the makers of oral contraceptives were free to create their pills with an eye to not only preventing ovulation and thickening cervical mucus, but also changing the lining of the uterus. The last mechanism - changing the lining of the uterus - makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a preborn child to implant in the womb. When he cannot implant in the womb, he is denied necessary nourishment and is expelled from the body during menstruation.

This is a chemical abortion!

Oral contraceptives recognize this third mechanism in their own full-patient prescribing information. They do not advertise this point openly, but they have gone on record for noting the abortifacient properties of the pill. As quoted in the booklet ‘Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?’ by Randy Alcorn, a representative of the Ortho-McNeil said, “If you end up with a fertilized egg, [the baby boy or girl] won’t implant and grow because of the less hospitable endometrium.”

The makers of oral contraceptives and ACOG have known for decades that life begins at conception. They have even gone out of their way to change the definition of pregnancy just to legitimize their work. If they can see that when life begins, why can’t the rest of society? Why don’t we stand up to the pressures of pharmaceuticals and ACOG and demand that they treat life, all life from creation to natural death, with more dignity and respect?

Journalism is a worthy and respectable profession. The person who dedicates her life to educating humanity to the societal ebbs and flows takes on a heavy burden. She must hold herself to the highest standards because without reliability in the news, society is at a loss for direction or knowledge.

I personally do not believe that RH Reality Check qualifies as a news source. However, given that they have their own followers who look to them as a supply for information and daily insight into the world of pro-abortion politicking, they have in effect launched themselves into the stratosphere of ‘Newsies’.

When I did my April 1st exposé on RH Reality Check’s ‘Don’t Be Fooled’ campaign against Crisis Pregnancy Centers, I was more focused on their typical un-feminine way of bashing anything that did not fit their agenda. However, their latest news stunt is beyond grabbing for attention. Eleanor Bader’s April 15 article is atrocious. She has thrown truth to the wind and decided that she is exempt from journalistic ethics or research.

Bader’s article is not simply biased against CPCs; it is also littered with factual errors. Centered on the issue of ‘Choose Life’ license plates, Bader argues that the plates are a “lie” to the community because they fund CPCs and no comparable pro-abortion plates exist. Her argument is nothing more than a straw man, one that can easily be blown over with a light puff.

Ms. Bader’s first point of contention is that the Florida ‘Choose Life’ plates are $22.00 above the normal cost of regular plates. This is true, but it is true that all specialty plates are above the cost of regular license plates. Most of Florida’s plates are $20.00-$25.00 above the cost of regular plates, plus administrative fees. However, Bader has duped her readers into believing Randy Harris somehow “masterminded” this idea of raising the cost of his plate and that all of the “extra money would then go to non-profit adoption agencies.”

This is wholly untrue. Only $20.00 goes to Choose Life, Inc. This amount is the typical donation amount to the charity. The extra $2.00 is an administrative processing fee that is listed as “same as base tax” in the Statutory Authority of Motor Vehicle License Plate Fees section of Florida’s Annual Revenue Report. Again, this administrative fee is a standard amount and is listed on most every specialty plate.

Similarly, the annual special tag fee for ‘Choose Life’ plates in Georgia is $25.00. Though Ms. Bader does not discuss this state’s plate, she would more than likely have her readers believe that it too goes whole kit-and-caboodle straight to CPCs. In reality, the breakdown of the extra $25.00 is as follows: $1.00 to Georgia’s Centralized Taxpayer Accounting Department; $2.00 to the Department of Revenue for design and manufacturing costs; $12.00 for the State Treasury; and a mere $10.00 to Choose Life Georgia, Inc. That is right - only $10.00 per plate goes through Choose Life Georgia, who then distributes this money among several pregnancy care centers within the state.

Both Florida and Georgia represent typical distribution arrangements set up between the state governments and the 17 states that currently have ‘Choose Life’ plates and decals. Bader bates readers into believing that CPCs are getting more money than they really are and that this money is not being distributed fairly. She runs with this mantra across the board and does not treat each state as individual apart from the original Florida leader.

While I agree that Florida is currently too restrictive in how it allocates its funds, other states are much more agreeable in their spending. To her credit, Bader does use the Mississippi Pro-Life America Network to illustrate a more overarching plan for ‘Choose Life’ plates. Mississippi is the model program, and appears to be what other states are striving for, not Florida. The wider use of funds for mothers and their children, born and preborn, in order to cover anything and everything from material goods like pampers and formula, to pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, peer-counseling, community referrals for other services or needs, adoption information and referrals, STD information, and abstinence information and counseling.

All of these services and materials seem great to me. Frankly I don’t see a problem with offering pampers and formula to a mother in need. I don’t see a problem with giving ultrasounds or adoption referrals. If people want to make a conscious choice to buy a license plate that they know supports a CPC, and the CPC wants to use that money to provide services other than abortion, then that should fit the whole mantra of “choice.”

Another point abhorrent to Ms. Bader is that “no comparable pro-choice plates exist.” This terrible point of contention is brought up by Bader in an effort to inflame readers into believing that states do not allow freedom of speech. Bader even goes so far as to quote Janet Crepps, Deputy Director of Domestic Legal Programs at the Center for Reproductive Rights, “If they’re going to give anyone access to the license plate forum, they should give access to all viewpoints.”

My, my how we lie, Ms. Bader! In fact three states currently have pro-abortion plates: Montana; Hawaii and Pennsylvania. Hawaii technically offers a decal to pro-abortion people seeking to spruce up their license plates, but the same goes for pro-lifers. They too are offered a decal with the ‘Choose Life’ logo on it, so both sides are equal in that state.

As for there not being any pro-abortion plates in any other states, perhaps the pro-abortion supporters all should try asking for their own plates rather than suing to get ‘Choose Life’ plates removed. After a quick search I found that most states have made the application process quite easy for anyone seeking to pursue a new plate or decal image. New York is the only state that currently has a moratorium on license plates, and that is across the board.

As an interesting note, Florida is already pursuing a pro-abortion plate. They are in the process of collecting petition signatures for their scientific study to present to the state. Also, eleven other states currently allow non-profits preferential treatment of some kind in applying for new plate designs: Delaware; Kentucky; Maryland; Nevada; New Jersey; South Carolina; South Dakota; Texas; Virginia; Washington; and Washington, D.C. On top of these, four states are relatively easy to apply to if you simply read the directions and call the right person within the state government: Georgia; Illinois; Oklahoma; and Tennessee.

That makes a total of 19 states that have a pro-abortion plate, have already applied for a pro-abortion plate, or could easily apply for a pro-abortion plate. So why waste valuable time and money coming after ‘Choose Life’ plates when you can have your own? Pro-abortion plates can even designate the charity of your choosing, which I would assume would be Planned Parenthood or some other abortion provider, but that is neither here nor there. What is more important is that pro-abortion supporters constantly argue that the license plate issue is about “free speech.” Well, here is your answer: go get your own plates!

If you really are that worried about free speech, then go get your own placard and toot your own horn as you drive by!

Hurricane Katrina was horrible; a disaster that will stick in our minds for years to come. The lives lost were an immense pain felt by all, but as a nation we overcame adversity and grew in love towards one another. We see this love in the many pictures and videos of rescue workers fighting to save stranded individuals.

Two of the most heartening images I have seen have only recently surfaced. They are more than two and a half years apart, yet they are connected by Katrina’s story.

The emotion of the first video is dark, depressing. You see only flat-bottom boats and rescue workers as they carefully hold metal containers and guide their boats out of the treacherous building. It doesn’t look like much is being saved, not until you view the second image and learn that those rescue workers saved 1,400 tiny lives. The second image shows the real miracle. Here you see one of those lives, Noah Benton Markham, who was born to grateful parents on January 16, 2007.

Robert George, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, hopes that stories like Noah’s will spur more embryo adoption. In response to the notion that preborn babies are not people because they depend on their mothers George said, “An embryo is already a human being…all of us are dependent on other people.” He notes that there are around 400,000 frozen embryos that need loving parents, and the government is spending millions on programs like Nightlight Christian Services trying to get them adopted.

For more information on this story, please refer to CBN News.

For 43 years women have been told that their bodies, their femininity, are wrong. We have been led by pharmaceutical companies and doctors to believe that the very thing that makes us women is somehow inherently evil, and that science can and will triumph over our monthly cycle.

Why? What is the purpose of ridding myself of what makes me a woman?

Some women say that they take oral contraceptives in order to combat serious health problems like endometriosis and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). To be perfectly honest with you, I was once put on the pill for a painful bout of ovarian cysts after I was raped in high school. I implicitly trusted my doctor and her advice that this “magic” pill would take care of the pain and make everything just go away.

In college, however, I started having severe adverse reactions to the pill. I experienced nausea, migraines, weight gain, dizziness, vomiting and a whole slew of other troubles. As horrible as I felt, I can only imagine how my dorm-mates felt taking care of me. After reading the package insert and realizing that these symptoms could only get worse and possibly lead to death, I finally called my doctor and told her I was quitting the pill cold turkey!

Shortly after that I met the man of my dreams and we fell in love. We started courting, holding hands, meeting with our parish priest, and eventually prepping for marriage. When the topic of children came up, I was thrilled and scared. How would I explain to my husband that I was completely open to children, but that God’s gift - my ability to bear children - was extraordinarily painful?

Thankfully God always has a plan!

My husband and I both said “I do” and we moved north. We settled into a new parish and, with the help of friends, found a fabulous new doctor. My new doctor told me up front that she did not prescribe the pill. She told me that she had read the full prescribing information and would not prescribe anything with so many harmful side effects - including death for women and the unknown deaths of their preborn children!

My doctor cared about me as a person and wanted to do more than mask the symptoms!

Over the course of the next few months she ran blood work and various other medical tests to determine the underlying cause of my pain. After everything came back, we discovered that I had some vitamin and mineral deficiencies. I also had some scar tissue from my multiple rapes that was not healing properly because of my imbalanced diet.

Because the pill had been masking my symptoms rather than correcting the problem and because it had caused so many adverse reactions, my body was practically screaming at me for help, but I couldn’t hear it; I was deaf to what my body needed.

The good doctor put me on a new diet and a strict regimen of vitamins tailored to my body’s specific needs. She also taught me how to chart my cycle so that I would know what my body was saying. It didn’t take long before I felt like a new person.

A year later I went for my annual exam. I was nervous, but I honestly felt much better than I had in the previous years. My cycles were not nearly as painful, and I was able to manage them with over-the-counter remedies. I felt like a “normal” woman. When the results came in, I was floored! My doctor, a smile from ear to ear, informed me that my scars were almost all healed, my blood work showed vast improvement, and my cysts were much more under control.

I still have pain every now and then, but it is much more manageable now that I am free of the pill’s toxins. I am happy knowing that I can rely on natural remedies to cope with my cycle. And of course I love the fact that I can give myself, my whole self, to my husband without fear of a pill that takes away my ability to be who I am: a WOMAN!

“Life” is a beautiful Biblical subject. It is unfortunate that we often take life and the Biblical understanding of life for granted. We rarely look at the numerous life quotations in the Bible because I do not think we understand the wide range of emotional evocations.

There is everything from fear to boldness, sorrow to joy, and everything in between.

My favorite life statements include the Commandment “you shall not kill” (Exodus 20:10, cf Deuteronomy 5:17) for its simplicity, but I also have a few that are there because of their beauty and even some because of the Godly fear they instill in me.

• “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” Jeremiah 1:5a

• “Children too are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.” Psalms 127: 3

• “Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.” Deuteronomy 20:19b-20a

• “Yet you drew me forth from the womb, made me safe at my mother’s breast. Upon you I was thrust from the womb; since birth you are my God.” Psalms 22:10-11

• “Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” Matthew 19:14

• “My very self you knew; my bones were not hidden from you; when I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth.” Psalms 139:15

• “With skin and flesh you clothed me, with bones and sinews knit me together.” Job 10:11

Whatever emotions motivate you, I encourage you peruse your Bible and find your favorite life statements. A great place to start is to read Genesis, Psalms, Proverbs and the Gospels. These books of the Bible have some wonderful life quotations. They also make for wonderful reads!

Again, do not be afraid to write down, shout out and share your favorite life statements from the Bible with your friends and family!