Dialogue with pro-abortion student. (I got the shade; I was there first.)

This is our 8th day of GAP in the last 3 weeks.  If you count our Pro Life Training Academy, travel, and prep work, it’s my 16th day of hard labor in 19 days.  By hard labor I mean up at 6:00 am and to bed at midnight or later on GAP days … with only slightly more sleep on the other days.  There would be 3 more days after this one.

But God is good.  He knew that we were all tired.  He didn’t test us.  After we got the exhibit set up, I propped myself up on a wall underneath a shade tree, right near the poll table.  They would have to come to me.

At the poll table, students answer the question, “Should abortion remain legal?”  A “no” response means pro-life; we sign them up for the Pro Life Collegians.  A “yes” response means pro-abortion; we initiate dialogue with the goal of helping them rethink their position.  For most of the day, I just quietly asked the “yes” responders, one at a time, “May I ask why you responded that way?”  If they answer, we’re off to the races.

For a nice change of pace, God didn’t send any combative people over to the table this day.  The combative types can offer awesome opportunities, especially if they draw a crowd.  But they are rarely thoughtful and it is hard work to be reasonable with somebody who is unreasonable.  I just wasn’t up to it.

So God sent to me (and all the rest of us) a steady stream of people who were willing to have civil discourse.  He also sent a number of pro-lifers who gave us encouragement.  It was very different from most GAPs, including most GAPs at UT.

Of course, a few passersby gave us the “flying buzzard” as they rushed on past, but the drive-by’s can be easily ignored.  We should aways remember that such people are often facing struggles that we probably can’t imagine.  We should also remember that God loves each and every one of them, too.  But God would have had a hard time loving them through us on this day.  The civil ones got all we had to give.

Students from Catholic High School gather for opening services for the Fall 40 Days for Life campaign. No other Christian school was represented.

Yesterday morning, about 50 Knoxville pro-lifers joined their counterparts in 300 other cities around the world by kicking off their semi-annual 40 Days for Life campaign. The opening services were held at Tyson Park, across the street from one of Knoxville’s three abortion facilities.

It was wonderful to see a number of teenagers, but it was a bit disheartening to know that they all came from one Christian school (Catholic High School).  How many Christian schools are there in this town, anyway?  How many “pro-life” pastors in Knoxville have ever attended a single 40 Days event?  Ever been at the abortion facility, even once?

We are thankful for the Diocese of Knoxville Peace and Justice Director Paul Simoneau and 40 Days Coordinator Lisa Morris for their tireless work on this campaign.  They really need your help … and they deserve your help.  There are many time slots available for the duration of the campaign.  If you’ve never been to a 40 Days vigil, now would be a great time to sign up!  It’s really very low-stress, non-confrontational.  It’s a time for prayer and presence.  I hope you will take part.  Check it out: http://www.40daysknoxville.com/.  E-mail Lisa at information@40DaysKnoxville.com.

Paul Simoneau and the National 40 Days for Life Director David Bereit will be joining me on WRJZ radio at 5:00 pm next Tuesday afernoon.  They both have inspiring stories to share and I hope you’ll join us!

Nearly 50 pro-lifers gather for opening services for 40 Days for Life campaign.

Pro Life Training Academy in Knoxville

The Pro Life Training Academy (PLTA) trains you to articulate and respectfully defend the pro-life position.  Here we are in Knoxville today.

Shirley Moore models the sign she held at the Planned Parenthood Framing Choice event.

Chris Lefebvre was among the pro-life crowd that attended the Planned Parenthood fundraiser at Market Square on May 6.  Here’s her story.

Hope for the Future

Seven bright-eyed high school students stood in Market Square on a recent Friday night.  Some of them held colorful hand-made signs defending life; others held signs exposing death.  They came to stand with a small group of adults, including at least one post abortive woman.  Together they formed a solemn semi-circle facing the stage where Planned Parenthood was holding its youth photo fundraiser called Framing Choice: What Choice Means to Me.

This small group had made the decision that Planned Parenthood would be confronted wherever they tried to promote their deadly deceptions.  It wasn’t easy to devote a Friday night to standing vigil; some of the folks who passed by made hostile remarks and some gave us disgusted looks.  Many more stopped to inquire and some even thanked us for being there.  Some of the people who browsed the display told us afterward that they had no idea it was a Planned Parenthood event; there were no signs indicating the name of the organization and they were surprised to learn the name from us!

Many of us who were there on Friday night face these kinds of events with a certain degree of trepidation, but it never fails that, when all is said and done, we find abundant blessings in being willing to take a stand.  This event was no different; the questions we were able to answer, the truth that was told about life and death and the seeds planted by that truth will bear fruit in uncountable ways.  The most wonderful blessing of all was the presence of those seven courageous young people.  They give us great hope for the future.

Please pray that God will guard them and add to their number.  Pray also that Planned Parenthood will not go unchallenged whenever and wherever they try to promote their deadly work in our city.

Pro Life activists in Knoxville display Choice signs (at left) and a banner announcing the PP fundraiser.

My trip to Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware continues. More on that later. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Shirley Moore and others took a number of CBR “Choice” signs to a Planned Parenthood fundraiser (PP) at Market Square in downtown Knoxville. Here’s her account:

Framing Choice: What Choice Means to the Victim

Planned Parenthood held their annual FYI Peer-to-Peer fundraiser at Market Square in Knoxville on Friday, May 6. This was held right in the middle of the May edition of Knoxville’s summer monthly First Friday celebrations. The Peers are students trained through 40 hours of exposure to Planned Parenthood ideology and advocacy coaching. They are required to make “100 informal educational contacts with their peers.” These newly designated “sex-perts” promote Planned Parenthood in schools, churches, and anywhere else teens gather. Here is Planned Parenthood’s announcement of the May 6 event:

Framing Choice: What Choice Means to Me

For three years, the teens of FYI have exhibited photography that explores choices in life – a road, a friend, a frame of mind, etc. The framed photos are always thought-provoking. With depth and beauty these Knoxville area teens explain what choice means to them and you have the opportunity to share in that experience. This exhibit promises to challenge and inspire you. In order to make the event a success, we need your help.

There you have it; they needed our help to make the event a success! You don’t have to ask twice! So a few of us borrowed CBR’s “challenging” and “thought-provoking” photographs to set up a display of our own.

Arriving early with the signs, I saw a large man in the PP party eye me suspiciously, even though the pictures were turned face-in, leaning against a tree, and not visible … not yet, anyway. Several of us gathered and waited for the young people to arrive. When those brave young souls entered the Square, we picked up our signs and walked toward the stage. We hoped to inspire a few people to reconsider what “choice” really means, so we held signs that said “Celebrating Choice Means Celebrating This” above the graphic photos of aborted babies.

A dozen of us stood in a semi-circle facing the stage, surrounded on both sides of the Square by diners enjoying a First Friday meal at the many restaurants. Since we were toward the front of the Square and not facing them, the diners appeared to pay little heed. Two of our party stood with their backs to the stage holding a long banner, announcing to those entering the Square from the opposite direction, “Planned Parenthood: the Largest Abortion Provider in the USA.” I think PP should be glad we were there to announce it was a PP event, for they had no signage of their own. No banner proudly heralding their name, no bold identifier … just a humble grey tri-fold display board with the PP logo at the bottom. A few people wandered through the exhibit, never realizing it was a PP event. Why so shy? How popular is that brand, anyway?

Perhaps the large man on stage called the police, because a policeman arrived and stood next to the stage most of the time. Which suited me fine, because some people walking by made comments of the hostile “hit and run” variety. But others were supportive and not afraid to come up and talk. One man said, “I’m against it too, but you shouldn’t be showing those.” And there he was, holding a professional camera with an impressive lens on it, lecturing me about censoring imagery. I thought, “If you’re against it, why not use that lens to stop it?”

A young man on a bicycle whizzed by tossing off a hit-and-pedal remark: “Mind your own business.” But as Jacob Marley’s ghost (A Christmas Carol by Dickens) says,

 ”Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

A professorial woman critiqued our images and explained facts about fetal development to a companion, never meeting our eyes or acknowledging our presence. Invisible as the unborn, I guess.

But the most boisterous reaction was from a musical band of blasphemy singers who took up positions in front of us and played loudly, mocking religion and believers in general, best I could tell. This song of mockery greatly heartened the PP personnel on stage and they came to the edge of the steps, beaming approval.

All in all, I hope PP appreciated our taking the opportunity to “share in that experience.” Anytime they need a banner to herald their name, we’ll be glad to bring one.

Shirley Moore

My name is Shirley Moore and I am a recovering dupe, a victim of deception. Are you one too? I pretended for a hopeful moment that Planned Parenthood (PP) was out of the schools when they were removed from the approved speakers’ list on February 25, 2011.

But parents ought to know they have been covertly embedded for years in the education profession through teachers’ associations, PTA and the family life curriculum. They often play the role of “curriculum guidelines” policeman to maneuver their programs into the schools. It seems to have worked three years ago when they won approval from the Knox County Schools (KCS) to present their marketing pitch to the captive KCS audience.

The fly in the school reformers’ ointment was that they tore the cover off PP by putting them on the approved speakers’ list in 2008. It must have seemed the PP brand was acceptable now as it had never been before (even to Dumb Tennesseans, as one Knoxville News Sentinel letter writer recently called us). But was it really? A fracas ensued in the school administration building when parents discovered their presence in the schools in the fall of 2010.

The questions they raised about their fitness to be there showed it still isn’t a reputable brand. (And even Planned Parenthood supporters get squeamish when their association with them is made too public. That’s why the Life Decisions International Boycott list works…given time and persistent boycott participants.)

By removing all outside groups in the area of sex education, the Superintendent has undercut any abstinence presentations. Since no outside groups are presenting overtly, there will be no apparent need to “opt out.” But “opt out” was always a toothless maneuver as Planned Parenthood’s material and worldview can be woven into as many subjects as possible throughout the school day.

A Planned Parenthood trained teacher can serve it up in subtle ways. It’s called “comprehensive sex education.” Be aware: the hidden hand of Planned Parenthood remains in the KCS schools via teacher training seminars. The Superintendent admitted as much in the WATE-TV interview after the April 6 School Board meeting. It was a “yeah but, no but, yeah but” bumbling statement, but it’s there.

But what does our School Board think? We don’t know. They fired themselves from their jobs in 2008 by signing an agreement with the Superintendent promising not to dissent in public. Odd way to go about Racing to the Top. The top of what? The heap? But what’s in that heap? A heap of parents, the community, and our local democracy, for starters. Evidently, we can’t discuss it in public and that should tell us all we need to know about the secrecy and arrogance operating in this matter.

Shirley Moore
Knoxville, Tennessee

More Knoxville News Sentinel coverage of our Celebrate Life event.

Gov. Mike Huckabee at Knoxville Convention Center

Great event Monday night at the Knoxville Convention Center with Gov. Mike Huckabee.  We had more than 700 in attendance, and we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about the event.  More about Gov. Huckabee’s remarks later.

Media coverage:

• WATE TV
• WBIR TV
• WVLT TV
• Knoxville News Sentinel
• Knoxville News Sentinel -- Greg Johnson column
• UTK Daily Beacon
• Tennessee Journalist
• Politico
• WSMV TV
• Metro Pulse
• The Weekly Standard
• LifeNews.com
• CNN Political Ticker

A good crowd of 40 or so protested outside.  The importance of this should not be underestimated.  First, how fortunate we are to live in America, where the right of every person speak his or her mind is protected. The public debate and dialogue is a healthy process that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Second, the presence of protesters is another affirmation that our strategy is working. If the abortion photos had no effect, the pro-abortion folks would just ignore us as irrelevant. In fact, showing abortion pictures is the one thing that pro-aborts fear most, because the pictures make it impossible for people to ignore or trivialize abortion. The images raise awareness and force the other side to defend an obviously horrifying act of violence against a defenseless human being.

BTW, our new video was very well received:

Greg Johnson

Great column in the Knoxville News Sentinel this morning by columnist Greg Johnson.  Be sure to add your comments at the bottom of the column.

By the way, here’s your last chance to order tickets to Celebrate Life with Mike Huckabee on Monday night.

Pro-lifers lawfully demonstrating on public sidewalks and in the air.

I attended the parent’s meeting at Sacred Heart last Thursday.  A lot of good information was presented.  The best speaker was Alaynna McCormick, the Hardin Valley Academy student who sparked the controversy by telling her mother what Planned Parenthood was teaching at her school.

So far, the school officials are mum.  If they are getting the message, they aren’t letting on.  They don’t seem to understand that their one-page curriculum is almost irrelevant.  What matters is who is teaching and what they are saying.  And in the age of the internet, what websites are associated with the speaker.  It’s not just about what is said in class; inviting PP and the abortion industry into any school is an endorsement.  I don’t care what the anti-smoking curriculum says, I still wouldn’t get Phillip Morris to present it.

Despite the good work done by all who presented, there are two key points that are not coming through, as yet.  The parents are going to have to make policy makers and citizens alike more aware of two key points.

First, the PP websites contain much more debauchery than was exposed by any of the speakers on Thursday night.  It’s just like trying to explain abortion.  If you sanitize it, people don’t get it.  To effectively rid the schools of PP, they need to be exposed.  And they have published plenty of stuff that would make a sailor turn red.  We just need to buck up and read this filth into the public record, no matter how dirty it makes us feel.  Speakers need to blow up and hold up the pictures that are on PP websites and in their books.  Otherwise, we look like a bunch of prudes.  And it’s not just the description of the acts; it’s the encouragement of our teens to “experiment” and do whatever they feel like doing at the time.

Second, we need to expose the profit angle.  In a previous post, FAB documented the amount of money that PP stands to make off marketing sex to our children.  It is an outrageous conflict of interest, and it needs to be exposed.

Community Meeting, Thursday, January 27

WATE 6 News covers Planned Parenthood gaining access to students at Hardin Valley High. First of all, it is inappropriate to allow abortion industry representatives to come in and advertise their “services.” Second, it is critical to understand the vile nature of the materials that appear on PP websites, the details of which would likely never be shown on TV.

Overall, the report glosses over the PP websites and other material directed at teens.  Not addressed at all are the encouragments for teens to engage in behavior that is depraved and/or dangerous.  We have to do a better job of forcing people to understand the depravity of PP materials.  For example, see the “I didn’t spew” video on the TakeCareDownThere.org website, which is a PP website directed at teens.  Following is a synopsis.  The video itself is so vile, it would surely be rejected by YouTube, so I just performed a few screen captures.

Lisa Morris of ProCET

Below is a statement from Lisa Morris of the Pro Life Coalition of East Tennessee (ProCET).  Note meeting on January 27.

Planned Parenthood has been given access to Knox County students, and at least one presentation has been done without parental knowledge or consent.  Beyond the fact that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, their “wellness education” includes elements that many parents would consider unacceptable, if not pornographic. We have attached a flyer with excerpts from their Teen Wire website as well as a link to video selections from their “Take Care Down There” website.  [FAB note: If you want to see the depravity of PP materials, go to www.TakeCareDownThere.org and watch the "I didn't spew" video.]

We are asking for every concerned leader and parent to take a clear and immediate stand against this effort to corrupt our students and degrade the gift of human sexuality with their unacceptable materials.

Please attend an informational meeting:

January 27, 2011
6:30- 8:00PM
The Chancery Office
805 Northshore Drive, SW
Knoxville, TN 37919

We will present additional information on Planned Parenthood’s agenda and history along with our strategy for action to remove Planned Parenthood and any of their endorsed materials from our schools. Our unity in this effort will be critical for success, so please share this information with other concerned friends and family and invite them to join you for this important meeting.

In addition please call or write Governor-Elect Haslam, 615.254.4799, Superintendent of Schools, Dr. McIntyre, 865-594-1620, and Knox County Mayor Tim Burchett, 865-215-2005, to express your outrage.

Here are some additional points you may want to include:

• Planned Parenthood has already presented their materials to students at Hardin Valley Academy without parental knowledge or consent.
• Planned Parenthood is the world’s biggest abortion provider; their graphic websites target teens with obscene material that encourages risky sexual behavior and they are under investigation in a number of states for violations of state laws regarding mandatory reporting laws for sexual abuse of minors.
• Please remove Planned Parenthood from the list of approved guest speakers in our schools.

For any questions or to request digital copies of this material, contact Lisa Morris, 865-567-1245.

Please feel free to copy and distribute this information.

Note:  Keep up with the latest on the No Planned Parenthood-Knox County Schools Facebook page.

Dr. Alveda King and Fr. Frank Pavone

Protestants and Catholics, unite!  Dr. Alveda King, a Baptist minister, and Fr. Frank Pavone, a Catholic priest, have long worked together to promote the Gospel of Life, a message of hope and healing, across racial and denominational lines.  Fr. Pavone and Dr. King (niece of Dr. Martin Luther King) will be in Knoxville on Friday-Saturday, October 15-16, and I hope you will join us.

Friday night’s Worship Rally will be at 7 p.m. at the Tennessee Theater and Saturday’s Prayer Vigil will be at 9 a.m. at the Cherry Street Planned Parenthood Clinic.

There are three abortion clinics in Knoxville, including Planned Parenthood’s new clinic in East Knoxville.  Nearly 4000 children are killed every year in these clinics. This does not include those killed by the RU-486 abortion pill and other forms of chemical abortion.

Nearly twenty years ago, pro-life leaders in Chattanooga rallied and prayed together.  For their faithfulness, God closed the last abortion clinic in Chattanooga, turning that property into The National Memorial for the Unborn. Chattanooga remains the largest city in America without an abortion clinic or PP presence.

Let’s pray and work to make Knoxville the next one.  For more information, visit www.ProLifeFreedomRides.com.

CBR Board Member Rev. Clenard Childress addresses the crowd.

 A number of CBR volunteers attended the Freedom Ride that started in Birmingham and ended in Atlanta on Saturday, July 24.  The event was organized by CBR board member Fr. Frank Pavone.

The TV coverage by the CBS affiliate in Birmingham was actually very well done.  Several women appeared on camera to express regret for their abortions and describe how they were deceived by the abortion industry.

Pastor Cecil Clark of True Vine Baptist Church in Knoxville was interviewed for that story (video below).  He appears at about the 1-minute mark.

More coverage by Fox News, the Birmingham News, and the National Catholic Register.

Question for you:  What kind of effect will demonstrations such as this have on the larger culture?  Please comment below!

Deeper Still's Karen Ellison and Kay Smith at Market Square.

While doing GAP on Market Square last week, we were pleased to be joined by Deeper Still, a post-abortion healing ministry based in Knoxville.  It was the perfect message for our community, emphasizing both the horrifying reality of what abortion is and does, but also emphasizing the forgiveness and healing available to every abortion-wounded heart through Jesus Messiah.

Deeper Still invites abortion-wounded women to participate in weekend retreats that help bring healing and lasting freedom.  These are offered free of charge, not only to women in the Knoxville area, but nationally and internationally as well.  Please visit their website!

Deeper Still President Karen Ellison talks about Deeper Still: