'Unplanned' is a chance to see what everyone is talking about

Unplanned is a movie unlike anything you have ever seen. It depicts the third most common medical procedure performed on women—a procedure that is largely veiled from sight.

Annually, about a million and a half women have cataracts removed and 1.3 million have C-sections. YouTube gives people of all ages unfettered access to video of these procedures taken right in the operating theater. The third-place procedure is another story. Even though an average of 900,000 were performed each year since 2014 (down from an earlier average that rivaled first place), video of the procedure is not to be found.

A pivotal scene in Unplanned set about to break this barrier. Even so, it refrained from any explicit images, opting, instead, to show a computer-generated simulation of a black and white ultrasound. Unlike prime-time CSI shows, it does not linger on gruesome images of the slain. Nevertheless, the MPAA gave it an “R” rating.


Dr. Bernard Nathanson former abortionist shows
actual ultrasound footage of an abortion. 

Does the mere presence of blood merit such a rating? We have grown accustomed to bloodied clothing in PG-13 movies and even on television. On the other hand, as a parent, I’m not sure that I want my 13-year-old to see those scenes. Other parents disagree, including the woman who lived the scenes and was on the set to ensure accuracy. She wants her 12-year old daughter to grapple with the realities portrayed.

I suppose that is precisely the parental guidance that PG would allow. But the MPAA gave it a “Restricted” rating. Not content with parents guiding their children, it wants to prohibit teenage girls from viewing on the silver screen what they can often procure even without parental permission.

The scenes that prompted this controversial rating come early on and make up a relatively small part of the film. Its real focus is to take the viewer into the world of Planned Parenthood through the eyes of Abby Johnson who wrote the book on which the movie is based.

As a freshman at Texas A & M University, Johnson first volunteered at a nearby clinic. Upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a masters, in counseling, she began to work there full time. Eventually, she became the youngest Planned Parenthood employee ever to become a clinic manager. By 2008 she was named “Employee of the Year.”

Planned Parenthood in Bryon, Texas

All this makes Johnson uniquely qualified to reveal the truth behind the glitzy media campaigns and the focus-group-tested slogans. Her book tells how she was convinced that her work at the clinic was truly a help to women in crisis. She was a true believer that its contraceptive focus made Planned Parenthood’s signature procedure safe, legal and rare.

This Johnson maintained despite mounting evidence that what was billed as a rare necessity turned out to be Planned Parenthood’s bread and butter. Slowly, imperceptibly, she became entangled in a web of lies—lies the staff told one another, lies they told to the clients, lies they heard from headquarters and, most devastating of all, lies they told themselves.

The most poignant scene came as Johnson returned home in a driving rainstorm. Her little daughter, Gracie, ran to meet her at the door. Concern entered her voice as she observed, “Your shoes are all bloody.”

After a moment’s hesitation Johnson looked straight into her daughter’s worried eyes and assured her, “Mommy was helping a lady at the office since she had a nose-bleed. But I took care of her and she’s all better now.”

Few scenes in cinematic history have conveyed so much in ten seconds. An innocent child sees a glimpse of what the billion-dollar industry works very hard to conceal. Her mother looks her own flesh and blood straight in the eyes—and lies.

She doesn’t dodge or demur. She doesn’t obfuscate or use a euphemism. She just tells an outright lie. There was no nose bleed and nobody is “all better now.” The movie’s viewers know the truth of her dilemma. In a flash of clarity, the audience instinctively knows why she cannot tell the truth, but also asks, where will the lies stop?

I wish I could write in a way that would convince everyone to see this movie. I wish that the subject matter were not such that sensitive people will be afraid to look. I wish that the lies were not so divisive that so many are flatly unwilling to see. I wish countless souls were not already wounded by the lies we tell ourselves.

Such wishes are unrealistic. But there is hope, nonetheless. Johnson finds healing in the end and points every viewer to the same redemption and forgiveness in Christ. In hope she faces the truth, not as condemnation, but as cleansing.

Her hope gives hope to us all. With confidence of redemption and forgiveness, we can tell the truth going forward—to ourselves, to others, and for posterity.

Unplanned is a film that moves toward that end. It is honest and unblinking. It challenges entrenched opinions and changes compassionate minds. It opens nationwide on Friday, March 29. Don’t miss it. It is a rare opportunity to actually look at what everyone is talking about but nobody wants to see.

The Federalist: ‘Unplanned’ Lifts The Veil On What Happens Inside Planned Parenthood

 

This movie depicts the third most common medical procedure performed on women—a procedure that is largely veiled from sight.

Annually, about a million and a half women have cataracts removed and 1.3 million have C-sections. YouTube gives people of all ages unfettered access to video of these procedures taken right in the operating theater. The third-place procedure is another story. Even though an average of 900,000 were performed each year since 2014 (down from an earlier average that rivaled first place), video of the procedure is not to be found.

Continue reading on the Federalist.

WTE: Unplanned is a chance to see what everyone is talking about

Unplanned is a movie unlike anything you have ever seen. It depicts the third most common medical procedure performed on women—a procedure that is largely veiled from sight.

Annually, about a million and a half women have cataracts removed and 1.3 million have C-sections. People of all ages interested in seeing these procedures can easily view them on YouTube.

The third-place procedure is another story. Even though an average of 900,000 were performed each year since 2014, video of the procedure is not publicly available. Unplanned refrained from any explicit images of the procedure itself. It opted, instead, to show a computer-generated video of a black and white ultrasound. Unlike prime-time CSI shows, it does not linger on gruesome images of the slain. Nevertheless, the MPAA gave it an “R” rating.

Does the mere presence of blood merit such a rating? We have grown accustomed to bloodied clothing in PG-13 movies and even on television. On the other hand, as a parent, I’m not sure that I want my minor children to see those scenes. Other parents may disagree and want their children to grapple with the realities portrayed.

I suppose that is precisely the parental guidance that PG-13 would allow. But the MPAA gave it a “Restricted” rating. Not content with parents guiding their children, it wants to prohibit teenage girls from viewing on the silver screen what they can often procure even without parental permission.

The scenes that prompted this controversial rating come early on and make up a relatively small part of the film. Its real focus is to take the viewer into the world of Planned Parenthood through the eyes of Abby Johnson who wrote the book on which the movie is based.

As a freshman at Texas A & M University, Johnson first volunteered at a nearby clinic. Upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a masters, in counseling, she began to work there full time. Eventually, she became the youngest Planned Parenthood employee ever to become a clinic manager. In 2008 she was named “Employee of the Year.”

All this makes Johnson uniquely qualified to reveal the truth behind the glitzy media campaigns and the focus-group-tested slogans. Her book tells how she was convinced that her work at the clinic was truly a help to women in crisis. She was a true believer that its contraceptive focus made Planned Parenthood’s signature procedure safe, legal and rare.

Slowly, imperceptibly, she became entangled in a web of lies—lies the staff told one another, lies they told to the clients, lies they heard from headquarters and, most devastating of all, lies they told themselves.

The most poignant scene came as Johnson returned home in a driving rainstorm. Her little daughter, Gracie, ran to meet her at the door. Concern entered her voice as she observed, “Your shoes are all bloody.”

After a moment’s hesitation Johnson looked straight into her daughter’s worried eyes and assured her, “Mommy was helping a lady at the office since she had a nose-bleed. But I took care of her and she’s all better now.”

Few scenes in cinematic history have conveyed so much in ten seconds. An innocent child sees a glimpse of what the billion-dollar industry works very hard to conceal. Her mother looks her own flesh and blood straight in the eyes—and lies.

She doesn’t dodge or demur. She doesn’t obfuscate or use a euphemism. She just tells an outright lie. The movie’s viewers know the truth of her dilemma. In a flash of clarity, the audience instinctively knows why she cannot tell the truth, but also asks, where will the lies stop?

I wish I could write in a way that would convince everyone to see this movie. I wish that the subject matter were not such that sensitive people will be afraid to look. I wish that the lies were not so divisive that others would be unwilling to see. I wish so many people were not already so deeply hurt by the lies we tell ourselves.

Such wishes are unrealistic. But there is hope, nonetheless. Johnson finds healing in the end and points every viewer to the same redemption and forgiveness in Christ. In hope she faces the truth, not as condemnation, but as cleansing.

Her hope gives hope to us all. With confidence of redemption and forgiveness, we can tell the truth going forward—to ourselves, to others, and for posterity.

Unplanned is a film that moves toward that end. It is honest and unblinking. It challenges entrenched opinions and changes compassionate minds. “Students for Life at UW” are sponsoring a free screening next Thursday, March 28, at the Regal Fox Theater in Laramie. You can get tickets for the 7:00pm show by contacting them on Facebook @UWstudents4life.

Don’t miss this chance to see what everyone is talking about.

Facts about fetal cell lines and Wyoming law

https://health.wyo.gov/wyoming-immunization-requirements-enhanced-updated/

The Holiday Inn Aurelia in Rome, Italy will be the site of this week’s 32nd annual International Conference on Vaccines and Immunizations. In anticipation of this event, Renovatio 21 gathered people from around the world to discuss the history, science and politics surrounding the use of aborted children in vaccines around the world.

If that last sentence caught you off guard, let me say it again. For almost fifty years, various pharmaceutical companies have used tissue cultivated from aborted human beings in the manufacture of vaccines for public consumption.

Let me say up front: right or wrong, I am not an anti-vaxxer. I have received many vaccinations myself and have given them to my children. The motivation for this article is neither to support nor to oppose vaccines per se. It is, rather, to inform the reading public of little-known facts.

Information is power. But, for decades the power of this information has been swept under the rug. It’s not that anybody was lying or failing to disclose the information altogether. For decades the necessary information has been printed on the information sheet that accompanies every vial of vaccine.

Have you ever asked your doctor for that information sheet? I never did. I was content to read over the bullet point summary that was given me in 12-point type on a regular-sized piece of paper. But this summary never divulged the fine print on the manufacturer’s information sheet.

On the insert that Merck distributes with its Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine, you will read that the vaccine contains: “the Wistar RA 27/3 strain of live attenuated rubella virus propagated in WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts.” Most eyes simply glaze over at these words. But if the word “human” jumps off the page at you, you may wish to learn more.

WI-38 (Wistar Institute-38) is a cell line. According to the ATCC website, it is the lung tissue of a Caucasian girl who was aborted when she was three months into gestation. She was about 3 ½ inches long and weighed a little less than an egg. Dr. Leonard Hayflick took her lung and experimented with cultivating it. He published a paper documenting his success in December, 1961.

In 1970 Dr. Stanley Plotkin used her lung tissue to grow the Rubella virus into a vaccine that was first licensed in Europe in 1970. It was licensed for use in the United States in 1979.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, that same culture is currently used in some Adenovirus and MMR vaccines. It is kept frozen in liquid Nitrogen and sold to pharmaceutical companies that thaw it and keep it growing.


Dr. Stanley Plotkin, 2018 deposition

WI-38 is not the only such cell line. MRC-5 (Medical Research Council-5), likewise, is lung tissue from a Caucasian male at 14 weeks. His 27 year-old mother aborted for psychiatric reasons. It was developed in 1966 and is currently used in some DTaP, Hepatitis A, MMR, Rabies, Chickenpox and Shingles vaccines.

These are the undisputed facts. You can watch Dr. Plotkin testify to these facts under oath in a January 2018 YouTube video. The war between vaccination proponents and vaccination opponents is about the significance of these facts. It is not about the facts themselves.

So, what issues do these facts raise?

At the start, there is the issue of consent. Medical ethics absolutely forbids any experimentation on human beings without consent. You may choose to donate your organ for transplant. You may choose to donate your body to science. But without your explicit consent, it is ethically abhorrent to desecrate a human body.

Would this woman (WI-38) and man (MRC-5), who would now be 59 and 53 years old respectively, consent to having parts of themselves injected into millions of people?

A second issue is safety. What effect does it have on a person to have genetic material from another injected into his system? As the cell lines get older, do the effects change? What about implications for the future of humanity as two individuals have had their genetic material exposed to so many millions around the globe?

These issues are being strenuously argued between proponents and opponents of vaccination. One day, perhaps, there will be clear and undisputable answers. But that day is not now. Biochemists and medical doctors still present strong arguments on both sides of the issue.

Photo from the Mirror's article, May 2012

A third issue is that of morality. Consuming parts of another human being for the sake of gaining physical or spiritual health is one of the most widespread and persistent taboos across all cultures. Many see parallels between this taboo and using fetal material in the manufacture of vaccines.

In May 2012, news broke that South Korean customs agents had seized over 17,000 capsules of dried and ground Chinese babies. Most reports expressed alarm that the babies were not properly sterilized before being dried and ground. What does it say about us, as a culture, that few reported it as a moral abomination in and of itself?

These three issues alone give one considerable pause. No doubt, readers of this column will come to different conclusions about them. Some will dismiss the discussion as over-scrupulous. Others may regard these vaccines as necessary evils. Still others will consider them to be morally abhorrent and unusable under any circumstances.

In 2003 the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, headed by the cardinal who would soon be named Pope Benedict XVI, took up this question. Among four conclusions, it declared: “there is a grave responsibility to use alternative vaccines and to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems.” This position has been affirmed by the Catholic Medical Association.

The Christian Medical and Dental Association has also  voiced its concern over ethical problems with vaccines derived from fetal cell lines. Nevertheless, its Position Statement on Immunization stops short of an absolute prohibition of using them.

Are there any conclusions that can be drawn from all this troubling information? I believe there are two things to be said.

First, the public should be better informed. Myriad commercials on TV and radio promote the use of various prescription drugs. We routinely hear a staccato voice at the end of the blurb read off the various label warnings required by the FDA. Why does the FDA not require doctors’ offices to inform people of the presence of fetal cell lines in the vaccines you are encouraged to give your children?

Informed consent is the standard of every medical procedure. Vaccinations should be no exception. At the very least, there is the potential of moral misgivings. There is also the possibility of negative outcomes.

Information, alone, can enable people to weigh the facts. It could also lead drug manufacturers to develop alternatives to meet a widespread public demand. In fact, in some cases alternative vaccines are already available in other countries. Consumer demand could bring them here.

Second, as school districts, state and federal legislators consider laws and policies that would mandate the administration of vaccines, they need to know that a significant number of their constituents may have moral objections. Room must be provided in policy so that parental rights and religious liberty are respected.

Currently Wyoming requires several of the vaccines manufactured with WI-38 and MRC-5. Thankfully, that same law accommodates objections. According to W.S. 21-4-309, “Waivers shall be authorized by the state or county health officer upon submission of written evidence of religious objection or medical contraindication to the administration of any vaccine.” This clause protects the constitutional rights of all Wyoming students.

Generosity is an invitation to find true happiness

There is probably no virtue so universally acknowledged as the virtue of generosity. People the world over instinctively admire generous people and loathe the greedy.

While some of the universal virtues—like marital fidelity, honesty and temperance—have recently fallen on hard times, generosity still remains uncontested as a virtue. I know of no one trying to marginalize it as a merely “Christian” virtue. Nobody is being shamed for advocating it or practicing it.

In earlier times, generosity was called “almsgiving.” It is a gift of mercy. It means giving material help to a person who is neither family or friend nor one who has any other moral claim on your generosity. Generosity does not ask if a person is deserving in any way, it only asks if a gift would be helpful.

I am especially mindful of almsgiving as I write today. Millions of people around the world heard about it last week as the first word in Lent. The lesson for Ash Wednesday lists almsgiving even before prayer and fasting.

Whether you do anything intentional to cultivate it, or whether you simply remind yourself to be generous year-round, now is as good a time as any to think about what makes generosity such a universally admired virtue.

Before we even begin to talk about giving, we must first have something to give. If we don’t possess anything, we obviously cannot give it. So, the first thing to notice is that we humans have things. That fact alone sets us apart from most creatures in the universe.

Aside from ants and squirrels and a few hoarding species, almost every animal in the world owns nothing but the fur on its back. It has nothing in hand or hoof. Food goes straight from the plant to its lips, and that is that.

In contrast, human beings have things. We have food in the cupboard, money in the bank, furniture in the house, toys on the floor and in the garage! We have piles of things in storage that we don’t need to survive. And that is the second remarkable fact.

Not only do you have things, you have surplus things. Think about that! Every single person that you have ever met has not only enough, but more than enough. Especially here, in America, we have more than enough.

Of course, our own greediness can easily obscure this fact. There is always someone who has more, and we fantasize that we will have enough only when we have as much as they do. But such greed blinds us to those who have less and are hungrily looking at what we have.

Complain, as we might, about the “one percent,” chances are you are one of them. I recently came across an article in  Investopedia.com that ran the numbers. Here’s the fact: If you have an income of $622 per week—wages, tips, welfare, free rent and utilities, food stamps, or gifts—you are in the top one percent world-wide. Ninety-nine out of every one-hundred people have less than you do.

If you only receive $39 per week, you are still getting more than half of the world’s population. All this means that, in comparison with the world’s population, the chances are high that you have a surplus from which to give. What I find remarkable as I travel the world is that even those living on less than $39 per week still find that they have something left over to give.

I have visited Sierra Leone, a country where 72 percent of the people live on less than one dollar per day. I have watched these people freely and cheerfully give some of that to others. You can also read about the Soviet gulags where people were given less than a pound of bread per day. Even here, some prisoners would set aside a portion of their ration to give to those in need.

All of this makes the point that no matter who you are, or where you live, you have been given more than you actually need for survival. And that surplus is the stuff of generosity. We all have it. Nobody is left out. Nobody is so poor that he can’t afford to give of his abundance to a total stranger.

The question is: why would you want to? The answer is: freedom and a happy heart.

The surplus stuff that we have can easily become a prison. When our surplus is a security blanket, it quickly becomes a ball and chain. Your heart is filled with anxiety about keeping it and getting more. But the more you get, the less secure you truly are. Fear sets in, that if we let some of it go, we will be letting go some of our happiness.

But the opposite is true! What we find in the real world is that when we give something away, we don’t lose security. We gain it. Time and time again we see that what we give away is soon replaced by the sheer grace and providence of God.

These repeated lessons translate into freedom. Freedom is never found in hoarding so much that you will never need any more. True freedom is found in knowing that no matter how much you need in the future, God will give it to you when you need it.

That’s the practical effect of “giving alms.” Try it, and you will see for yourself that the chains of fear are dissolved. While you are trying this experiment, you will also notice something else. You will notice the stirrings of a good feeling inside.

I am not talking about a sense of pride at how good you look to others. That is, rather, poison to be avoided. The good feeling that giving gives is something that comes even when no one else knows. Giving freely resonates with something deep inside every human being.

Christians have an explanation for this. When we say that all people are created in the image of God, it implies that when human beings are being truly human, it will be an echo of what God Himself is like.

The deep longing that people have to give kindness to others who have no “right” to it is a clue to the meaning of the universe. It points to the nature of God who gives not out of obligation, but out of grace.

Seen in this light, the fact noted above--that God gives everyone not only enough to survive, but enough to share—tells us that giving is not some burdensome obligation. Rather, the ability to give alms is itself a gift from God. God not only wants us to experience the joy of receiving, He also wants us to know the joy that He has in giving.

The true joy of giving is not experienced as your achievement, but as something that you were blessed to receive. Rather than shameful pride, it is more like taking delight in a masterful piece of art created by someone else.

Even in our giving, the true Giver remains the God who gives Himself to the world. In giving Himself, He gives all that makes us human

WTE: Decades-old law may soon be enforced

The legislature has closed a decades-old loophole in Wyoming health law. In 1977, only four years after the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Wyoming’s health laws governing abortions, Governor Edgar Herschler, D-Kemmerer, signed legislation that required “the reporting of every abortion performed or prescribed in” the state of Wyoming.

The law, while taking care to protect the identity of the mother, required abortionists to record: the age of the mother, the type of procedure, any complications, the number of pregnancies, births and abortions in the woman’s history, the length and weight of the child and the type of facility in which the abortion was performed.

As with other laws collecting health data, these statistics are needed to help Wyoming spot unsafe abortion clinics, enforce existing law prohibiting abortions after viability, and learn how best to allocate resources for the benefit of women.

The year the law was passed, the Center for Disease Control thought there were 113 abortions in Wyoming. The year after it was passed, that number jumped to 716. Unless we are to assume that actual abortions jumped by over 600% between 1977 and 1978, it seems the law was addressing a real problem of under-reporting.

Even then, however, the numbers recorded in Wyoming did not match those kept by Planned Parenthood’s research arm, the Guttmacher Institute. Over the next three years, Guttmacher consistently recorded over 1,000 abortions per year while the state of Wyoming only knew of 700 to 800. Then the bottom dropped out.

For the past 38 years Wyoming statistics are spotty, at best. Often, reports filed with the state number in the single digits while Guttmacher continues to report hundreds of abortions in Wyoming every year.

What accounts for this disparity? The answer seems clear. Wyoming reporting law is weak on enforcement. So, while abortionists initially reported at a higher rate, they soon realized that they could ignore the law without penalty.

For decades, Wyoming’s board of medicine has not investigated non-reporting abortionists. Although Wyoming Statute 33-26-401(a) gives them the authority to initiate an investigation, it does not require them to do so.

By 2007 Wyoming’s chronic under-reporting had come to the attention of state legislators. Rep. Bob Brechtel, R-Casper, introduced legislation to provide a penalty for abortionists that did not follow the law. Similar legislation was submitted again in 2009, 2016 and 2017.

All four of these previous attempts to address the problem died without ever seeing debate on the house floor. This year “HB 103 Reporting of abortions” was heard by the House Labor committee and came to the floor with a significant amendment.

The original version of the bill addressed the problem by imposing a late fee of $1,000 for forms that were not submitted within 30 days. It then provided that, after six months, the board of medicine “may” direct the doctor to submit the form or face disciplinary action.

The committee amended that to get rid of the late fee and change the word “may” to “shall.” This compromise solution wisely left the discipline of Wyoming doctors to the board of medicine but now requires the state health officer to report non-reporting doctors.

The bill passed the House (38-21) and went on the pass the Senate (20-9). The Senate added some amendments which further strengthened patient privacy and made clear that reporting abortions does not require the reporting of miscarriages.

During debate, three things stood out.

First, many of the bill’s opponents did not speak against giving the board of medicine investigatory authority. Rather, they opposed the reporting of abortions altogether. But, Wyoming state law already requires reporting of abortions. The passage or failure of this bill would not change that.

A second theme was that there are so few abortions performed in Wyoming that this bill is unnecessary. But opponents of the bill could not cite any data sources that weren’t already tainted.

Since the whole point of the bill was to strengthen the reliability of our current data, it would be a circular argument to cite the currently incomplete data as a reason not to fix the problem of incomplete data.

Third, some said that we already have laws that require reporting. But that was never in dispute. The only question is whether those laws were adequate to assure the citizens of Wyoming that the law was actually being followed. As long as the most reliable estimates are ten or twenty times higher than actual reports to the department of health, nobody has a good reason to be satisfied.

Wyoming has had good reporting law since Governor Herschler signed it in 1977. If Governor Gordon signs HB 103 (now designated HEA 116) the board of medicine will finally be given the authority to enforce it.