Tomorrow, Thursday, May 8, 2014 at 9:00 am, I will join Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, in Washington, DC. Standing with others in my role as Director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life, we will join our brothers and sisters at a Rally for Religious Freedom at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, 333 Constitution Ave., NW Washington, DC 20001. Many will be standing with us. Please join us! If you can’t be there in person, please joins us in spirit and prayer!
Hobby Lobby is standing with us as we face the next round of challenges to our stand against the unjust HHS Mandate. On April 29, 2014, Hobby Lobby CEO David Green expressed his solidarity with Priests for Life and the other religious, non-profit groups who, like Hobby Lobby, are challenging the HHS Mandate. In support of PFL, Mr. Green released the following statement:
“The religious freedom of believers of all denominations is under attack. Our family therefore joins in prayerful support of the Priests for Life case against the HHS mandate. As our Hobby Lobby case represents the concerns of businesses, so the Priests for Life case represents the concerns of the religious non-profit groups. Together, we stand against this injustice, and for the law of God.”
Please visit www.priestsforlife.org/hhsmandate to review links and supporting information and commentary about the HHS Mandate and in particular, the Priests for Life case against the mandate.
Also, oral arguments will be heard in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Thursday, May 8, 2014. Ours (PFL) is the first of the religious non-profit cases to have oral arguments heard at the appellate level on the merits.
Priests for Life Attorney Robert Muise, Co-Founder and Chief Counsel of the American Freedom Law Center stated:
“This case with Priests for Life is the lead case for the non-profit religious organizations challenging the mandate similar to how Hobby Lobby is the lead case for the for-profit companies challenging the HHS mandate.”
Meanwhile, global attacks on the lives of infants in the womb and their mothers continue to mount. From their seats of power, some are continuing to distort truth by calling fertility rights torture.
The latest example is that of a U.N. treaty monitoring body distorting truth with a treaty to advance abortion at the Committee on the Convention Against Torture (CAT) during its 52nd Session in Geneva.
This time around, committee members-officially called experts-chastised the Holy See for its opposition to abortion during its review of the Holy See’s report on compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture, CAT). Committee members stated that pro-life opposition to abortion results in torture for women. Actually the opposite is true. Abortion and carcinogenic birth control methods continue to torture and harm the lives of babies and the women who are their mothers.
So truth and liberty are at risk at home and abroad. As an African American woman, the threat to my freedom is under siege with the threat of the HHS mandate looming over my vocation at PFL, and over the plight of my people whom abortion threatens to depopulate because of our skin color.
The CDC’s latest Abortion Surveillance report (Nov. 29, 2013) found that between 2007 and 2010, nearly 36 percent of all abortions in the U.S. were performed on black children, even though blacks make up only 12.8 percent of the population. Another 21 percent of abortions were performed on Hispanics, and an additional seven percent on other minority races. A total of 64 percent of all abortions were on minority groups.
A disproportionate number of Planned Parenthood abortion mills, 79 percent, are in black and other minority neighborhoods; further evidence of the targeting of minorities by the abortion industry.
Women like Tonya Reeves and Lakisha Wilson are dying in these abortion mills. Abortion has also robbed men like boxer Floyd Mayweather of fatherhood.
Dangerous carcinogens contraceptives are harmful to women and are negatively impacting our society. The effects of these contraceptives lead to increased risk of various cancers, infertility, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, psychological problems, relational problems, and a host of other issues including death.
Abortion has also been linked to cancer and other female disorders.
Please connect the dots. Abortion and applied use of carcinogenic fertility blockers masquerading as “birth control” are acts that repeatedly result in the often painful deaths of a children in the womb and which can inflict lasting negative emotional, physical and psychological consequences on women is real torture. Yet some officials and experts – at home and abroad – continue to chose to ignore these facts, focusing instead to challenge the Prolife Community’s respect for the right to life and opposition to abortion.
The fight for religious freedom, the battle against the unjust HHS Mandate, the UN crusade against fertility, the decimating impact of abortion on the Black community; these are not isolated incidents. They are all part of a war on the rights of children, women, families and the global communities. God help us! This is war! Please pray with us and join us in the march towards victory.