The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) is helping the pro-life movement in Europe develop more effective strategies for activism and growth.

So says Neil Datta, secretary of the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (an abortion advocacy organization).  Referencing an interview with Mr. Datta, Women’s eNews (a feminist online publication) wrote:

U.S. anti-abortion groups appear to be sharing their expertise with their European counterparts.  Datta cites the example of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, based in Knoxville, Tenn., which ran a poster campaign that links photos of genocide and holocaust next to images of aborted fetuses.  Countries, such as Slovakia and Poland, used a similar ad campaign to promote their agenda at the European Parliament and in public squares, said Datta.

Mr. Datta also described the linkage between good strategy and growth of the pro-life movement:

Datta said it’s hard to prove the financial links between U.S. anti-abortion groups and their European counterparts but signs of growing prosperity are obvious.  In Brussels, he said, for example, about a dozen anti-abortion groups have offices and professional staffs.  “Twenty years ago,” he said, “there were maybe two or three organizations in Brussels.”

See entire article here.

When you support CBR, you not only save lives and change public opinion in the USA,  you enable strategic pro-life activism across the globe!

Kendra Wright

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), Southeast Region Operations, is pleased to announce the appointment of Kendra Wright as our newest (and youngest) Project Director in Virginia.

Kendra resides in Staunton, Virginia.  (That’s pronounced STAN-ton, not STAWN-ton, for all you people in Rio Linda.)

Kendra’s family moved from Denver, Colorado to Staunton when she was 4.  She told FAB,

Four-year old Kendra was a strong-willed rebel and continued to live in her stubborn ways until God grabbed her heart 9 years later.  The Lord is now using my strong will for His glory.

[Side note:  Some might say that, in fact, God grabbed her heart before the foundation of the world was laid.  You see, although some of us at FAB were predestined to be Arminian, others chose to be Calvinist of their own free will.  But, I digress.  Anyway, …]

Kendra finished high school a year early and then graduated from Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey in less than two years … at only nineteen years old!  She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications.

In her spare time, Kendra enjoys strumming her guitar, singing, and spending time with friends and her five siblings.  Active in her church, she leads worship and leads children to the Lord as well.

Kendra’s passion for pro-life activism stems from her own personal testimony of narrowly escaping abortion at five weeks gestation.  Her mother was a rare case of a woman walking out of her abortion appointment.  God spared Kendra’s life so she could rescue others!

Kendra is a big-picture person who appreciates CBR’s vision of ending abortion altogether by exposing the truth of it.  She is excited to win hearts, change minds, and save lives, by God’s grace and with your help.

Welcome aboard, Kendra! We’re expecting great things from you and and the rest of the Virginia staff!

If you’d like to support Kendra (or any of our staff members), it’s quick, easy, and secure to support CBR online.  Whatever you can do will make a huge difference.  To support Kendra’s work in Virginia, designate your gift for “Virginia Projects (SE-KPW).”

CBR UK displays abortion photos outside a BPAS abortion facility.  (Click to enlarge.)

Excellent debate between Ann Furedi, CEO of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the UK’s largest private abortion provider, and Gregg Cunningham, Executive Director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR).

They debated the question of whether it is morally wrong to display graphic abortion images outside UK abortion clinics.  Furedi argued that it is immoral for CBR to show her prospective customers what she intends to do to their babies.  Cunningham argued it is immoral to hide the horror from them.

CBR-UK and Christian Concern, an association of Christian attorneys, co-sponsored this debate, and a capacity crowd filled the Emmanuel Center in Westminster, London.

More on this story:

• Story by Christian Concern: Debate on use of graphic abortion pictures
• Story in CBR Communique:  Historic Debate: CBR graciously demolishes UK’s largest abortion provider

by Mick Hunt

“Abortion bias seeps into news.”

Well, we older pro-lifers have known this a long time.  In fact, a stunning revelation of the universal modern phenomena written by a staff writer appeared with this exact title in the LA Times in 1990, 24 years ago.  One reason for the bias, the author says, is because as many as 90% of reporters and editors “favor abortion rights.”

… we bypass the bias and censorship of the news media and go directly to people, which is to say, it is media, carrying the message to readers, listeners, and viewers.

Since Roe v. Wade and before, the American populace has been subjected to daily distortion, misinformation, and news blackouts about abortion and the pro-life movement. No wonder we encounter so much inertia and resistance to protecting pre-natal children.

If anything, what once was bias has transformed into abortion advocacy.

When the old Soviet Union controlled all the open media within its empire, it still could not suppress the truth. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcast news into communist controlled territories. From within, dissidents secretly typed, reproduced on mimeograph machines, and hand-distributed censored publications, including fiction, poetry, and unofficial news accounts, which all was called samizdat.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) and its Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) are like Radio Liberty and samizdat.  With GAP, we bypass the bias and censorship of the news media and go directly to people, which is to say, it is media, carrying the message to readers, listeners, and viewers.

And not only does GAP communicate and generate discussion at the display and between people around campus, it provokes multiple news stories and commentary.

Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote that even distorted, deceptive propaganda can be informative once you have learned to read between the lines, so keep this in mind as you look into the media reports and published comments.  And with some material, such as this revealing Facebook Event page from the group that attempted to censor GAP at NC State University last spring (as with C.S. Lewis’s book The Screwtape Letters), you have to reverse the values and meanings portrayed.

This summer my son spent ten days in Prague, Czech Republic.  He said a dominant feature of the city skyline was the imposing Žižkov television tower, standing at seven hundred and nine feet tall, a remnant of the Soviet Union’s intention to block television broadcasts from free Germany and the West.

The story is always the same.

With the help of supporters (click here to help), CBR will continue to broadcast the uncensored truth about the oppression of abortion directly to the many thousands of students, staff, and faculty on our nation’s university campuses and to people on our public highways and byways.  We will go back again and again.  And then we pray truth and courage together will topple the abortion empire.

Mick Hunt (Meredith Eugene Hunt) is a FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the southeast and elsewhere.

A typical scene at our UNC GAP. (Click to enlarge.)

by Mick Hunt

Earlier this month, a woman verbally and physically abused Created Equal (CE) staffers who were showing abortion victim photos in Columbus, Ohio.  The incident was caught on tape and received extensive news coverage, including an interview on the Sean Hannity show (link here).

The attacker repeatedly called CE staffers misogynist and racist.  If you are engaged in important work like CE and CBR, it won’t be long before someone says those things about you … if you are white and male.

But when women and people of minority races express pro-life views, it proves the issues of race and gender to be irrelevant to the argument.

The pro-life movement has a number of prominent African-American leaders like Dr. Alveda King (niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.) and Rev. Clenard Childress (a CBR director).  To help complete the picture, however, I’d like to share a few black voices.  These are stories written by staff and volunteers who helped with our recent GAPs in North Carolina, but they might have come from any state.

UNC-Chapel Hill  (March 31-April 1, 2014)

p A black female student told me her brother was supposed to be aborted, but her mother went through with the pregnancy and her brother turned out fine.  She was glad we were showing the truth.

p I gave a brochure to a black man and asked if he would like to know how we make the genocide comparison.  He took the brochure and said emphatically, “It is genocide!”

p A black male student said, “I thought it was OK until maybe 3 months, until I saw these pictures.  I had no idea!”

p Black male psychology student said, “Human fetus = person.”

p Conversation with an older black female:  Q: Would you like some information?  A: No, because I agree with you.

p Tony, a black student, was staring at the signs, listening to the crazy NARAL woman, and asked her, pointing to the signs, “How is that hate?” (This was in response to a comment she had made repeatedly.)  She said, “I’ve had an abortion, and I’m not ashamed of it, but their signs are trying to shame me for my choice.”  Tony was not buying any of it.  I was standing right there, so we began talking, along with two other black women.  Tony said, among other things, “It seems like anything pro-God, pro-morality, pro-creation, etc. gets stifled on this campus.  It’s ironic that they try to profess tolerance, and yet with their appeal to the Dean, they are trying to shut you up, and take away your rights.  That’s what is hate.  If we don’t have the First Amendment, we don’t have anything.  Them trying to get you guys off campus, we might as well be back in the 50’s.  It’s just like the racist saying, ‘Get in the back, n***’”

North Carolina State University (April 2-3, 2014)

p A black female student was raised in a pro-life church and family; she didn’t know about the NCSU Students for Life group and immediately signed up.  She came back to volunteer the next day.  Her Bishop came as well and we encouraged him as a black pro-life pastor.  Four of our folks went to his church on Friday to support their work.

Next time: African-American performance artist Shawn Welcome’s poem “Civil War.”

………………………….
Mick Hunt (Meredith Eugene Hunt) is a FAB contributor.  He has helped organize more than 50 Genocide Awareness Projects (GAPs) all over the Southeast and elsewhere.

Ruby Nicdao and one of the babies she helped save at the largest abortion mill in Virginia. Through Ruby’s work, this mill has been permanently closed!

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), Southeast Region Operations, is pleased to announce the appointment of Ruby Nicdao as our newest Project Director in Virginia.

Ruby started pro-life activism as an engineering student at the University of Florida, when she was invited by a friend to pray near a local abortion mill.  Soon, she was counseling women on the sidewalk.  After graduating, Ruby continued sidewalk counseling on Saturdays while working full-time as an electronics engineer for the Department of Defense.

Ruby moved to Northern Virginia to study theology at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College and worked as a systems engineer on missile defense systems.  She told FAB

It’s ironic that while our country spends billions to protect our people from ballistic missile attacks, millions of children are unjustly killed in the womb, under the radar.

Beginning in 2009, Ruby led 40 Days for Life campaigns at NOVA Women’s Healthcare, the largest abortion mill in Virginia.  The campaigners at this mill not only prayed to end abortion, they also exposed abortion using CBR “Choice” signs.

As a result of Ruby’s leadership, the number of abortions at NOVA dropped by 28 percent over four years.  In 2013, this abortion mill close forever!  Her most memorable pro-life experience came in 2014, when she held for the first time a baby she helped rescue from this death camp.

A resident of Fairfax, Ruby will work in close collaboration with Nicole Cooley of Churchville and Maggie Egger of Front Royal, CBR’s other Project Directors in Virginia.

If you’d like to support Ruby (or any of our staff members), it’s quick, easy, and secure to support CBR online.  Whatever you can do will make a huge difference.  To support Ruby’s work in Virginia, designate your gift for “Virginia Projects (SE-RMN).”

Gregg Cunningham speaks with Pastor Matt Higa of New Hope Kauai Church at Kapaa, Hawaii.  Watch the entire video below.

Excerpts:

The church response to this holocaust has been tepid, ineffective, timid, and risk-averse.  We are working to change that.

The Church is missing an enormously effective healing ministry [by covering up abortion.]  … We’ve had countless men and women tell us that actually seeing abortion forced them to stop rationalizing what they had done and seek forgiveness and healing.

If what we are doing is socially responsible and Biblically correct when we go onto a university campus to display abortion pictures to students whose professors are covering up the truth about abortion, why wouldn’t we do this on sidewalks outside churches whose pastors are covering up the horror of abortion?

Outside a Baltimore Abortuary

CBR Maryland reports on how a graphic abortion video on the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s (CBR’s) website, AbortionNO.org, was used to save a baby’s life.

“Star” was counseling for only the second time ever outside Planned Parenthood (PP)of Baltimore.  Among the numerous couples she approached was a woman in her 30’s, escorted by her male friend.  While mom didn’t want to speak to anyone, her friend was willing to hang around and chat.  Like most people headed into an abortion clinic, he was convinced that this was the only choice.

Star procured a smart phone and persuaded him to watch the graphic abortion video posted on AbortionNO.org.  He was visibly disturbed and told her that witnessing abortion certainly did change his perspective.  Eventually mom came out again to retrieve her friend, who urged her to view the video herself.  Reluctantly, she did, and experienced the same paradigm shift.

Star continued counseling these two for 30 minutes, aided by other counselors on scene, until at last the couple departed the clinic, armed with information on a local crisis pregnancy center.  Victory!

Star was instrumental in another save that same day, and in a third encounter used the graphic video to persuade a woman to reenter the clinic and attempt to get her abortion-minded friend out of there (result inconclusive).

CBR encourages the use of graphic abortion images outside abortion mills.  The pictures do not make the sidewalk counselors unapproachable, and they have been instrumental in deterring several women from aborting their children.  Praise God that an image of man’s inhumanity can become a tool of life and love!

Despite cloudy and rainy weather, 65% said GAP was effective, including 29% who said specifically that GAP changed their own minds.

People always ask us how we know GAP is effective.  Based on the nature and extent of anecdotal evidence alone, we are 100% certain that GAP wins hearts, changes minds, and saves lives.

However, actually quantifying the magnitude of the effect is a more difficult question.  Poll table results suggest between 5% and 15% of students change their minds from pro-choice to pro-life, but the sample is considered “biased” (a statistical term), because the participants self-select to respond (as opposed to being selected at random).  We have no way of knowing in which direction the bias affects the results.

Still, I just came across a set of class papers as representative of student opinion as we have ever encountered.  They were written by students for extra credit in an undergraduate philosophy class at the University of Louisville.  FAB is hard-pressed to believe that pro-lifers (or persuadables, for that matter) are more (or less) likely to take a philosophy class, nor do we believe that they are more (or less) likely to want/need extra credit.  If that’s true, then let us consider that possibilities that the data suggest.

A total of 17 students wrote papers for extra credit in their undergraduate philosophy class.  The professor in the class shared the papers with us.  (FAB couldn’t see the names of the students, only their remarks.)  Of 17 papers written:

• 11 (65%) said the GAP display was effective, either because GAP either (a) changed their own minds, (b) caused them to think analytically, and/or (c) appeared to be effective at engaging students in general.
• Of those 11, 5 (29%) said GAP changed their own opinions about abortion.
• Another 2 said GAP forced them to think analytically about abortion, but did not say it changed their opinion.  That makes a total of 7 (41%) said that GAP was effective at getting them to think about abortion.
• The remaining 4 (of the 11 who said GAP was effective) described GAP’s effectiveness in general terms, but did not specify an effect on themselves personally.
• Only 5 (29%) said GAP was not effective, primarily because either (a) GAP didn’t change their own thinking, or (b) they noticed that some of the more vocal passersby tended to reject the message.
• 1 (6%) did not state an opinion as to whether GAP was effective or not.

If these numbers are anywhere close to representative, then GAP is successful beyond our wildest dreams.  Below are representative comments:

Student B:

I had always believed in choice … but the pictures were too convincing.   I’m not sure why the relationship between abortion and genocide has never crossed my mind, but the display was surprisingly convincing.  … Abortion is a form of murder and genocide.

Student I:

… it truly changed my perspective on abortion …

Student L:

I had only a few cheap glances over at [the pictures], but what I did see I whish I would have not. … [The photos] made me think about this and I think that the pictures woke me up … and gave me a reality check. … The pictures said enough for me.

Student O:

The first picture stuck in my head and I just stared at it in total shock.  It was a picture of a tiny little embryo/baby, its head the size of a dime, lying dead in blood with all its organs visible … They are murdered because of the selfishness of others.

Student P:

I think these photos were used to prove the point that abortion is still murder and in mass numbers, should be compared to genocide.  I  didn’t think of abortion in this way until viewing the exhibit.

Student A:

It definitely make everybody not just stop and look, but to really think about the message …  It worked!

Student J:

They made the presentation so that you didn’t want to look but you couldn’t help but look.

Student Q:

It was a clear illustration of how a well-planned … project could reach hundreds of people in a very short span of time.

Student D:

The exhibit could not have made the point they wanted because every time I walked by it I seemed to see many liberals ranting about it.

Student E:

The purpose of [GAP] is as pointless as the message it is trying to convey.

Student N (self-identified as pro-life):

It seems to me that [the GAP display] was trying to be extra graphic to prove a point but in reality I thought it did the opposite.

Note:  Student N should speak with Students B, I, L, O, P, A, J, and Q.

GAP creates modulated conflict that draws a crowd and makes our story irresistable to the press.

Young people like the members of Bama Students for Life (BSFL) give us hope for the future.  We can’t let them down.

BSFL hosted us on the University of Alabama campus on April 6 for the Pro-Life Training Academy (GAP) and on April 10-11 for the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  Here is what BSFL members said about it.

David DeStefanis:

Just seeing those pictures is enough to get someone uncomfortable enough to actually examine the issue of abortion and re-examine their own stance on it.
***
GAP created more dialogue and discussion about abortion than anything I’ve ever seen.
***
To pro-life people who were against GAP coming here, I asked them if they could tell me a method or tactic that could make as big an impact as GAP did. And none of them could.

Ruth Bishop:

GAP revealed to students the ugly truth about abortion; a truth that must continue to be shared for the sake of preborn children and their mothers.

Levi Crawford:

I spoke with a Jewish friend of mine in class and asked him to come and see the GAP display. He wasn’t offended, he admitted [that the preborn] is a human life and that he would never be able to support unconditional abortion again.  He walked away with a changed heart, and I am forever grateful for GAP in bringing this change about.

Joanna Robinson:

GAP is crucial for any student group that wants to start a real conversation about abortion on their campus. You can talk about abortion all you want, but until people see what abortion is, it remains in their minds an abstract idea. GAP presents abortion in a very stark and real way that cannot be ignored.
***
I have been actively involved in my pro-life campus group for nearly three years, and I have never seen an event cause a discussion about abortion like GAP. I have seen first-hand the anger it caused, but I have also seen GAP working to change hearts and minds, not over weeks or months, but over the course of minutes and seconds. We need to make sure that no college student in America graduates without seeing GAP and becoming aware of the reality of abortion.

Claire Chretien:

We forced people to think about and talk about abortion.
***
We are able to articulate the pro-life position to thousands of people, create a conversation about abortion that lasted weeks after GAP, make important comparisons between the contemporary genocide of abortion and past genocides, recruit new members, and show people the truth about abortion — that it is a gruesome, violent procedure that kills an innocent human being.

Zack Wepfer (BSFL Past President):

I can honestly say that this last week [of GAP] has been the week I am most proud of in my entire collegiate career.  I am so proud to accomplish what we did.  I cannot think of a better way to end my collegiate career.

Help us achieve the vision set forth by Joanna Robinson, who said, “We need to make sure that no college student in America graduates without seeing GAP and becoming aware of the reality of abortion.”

To be a part of that lofty achievement, please click here to make your most generous investment in the lives of babies and moms.   Young people like Claire, Joanna, Ruth, and David give us hope for the future.  We can’t let them down.  Please support our work on campus right now!

Bama Students for Life

BSFL Vice-President Claire Chretien speaks to the media. Young people like Claire give us hope for the future. We can’t let them down.

GAP sign reaches high above the crowd, defeating censorship attempts encouraged by the University of Buffalo.

Our GAP at the University at Buffalo (UB) brought out the pro-aborts in force.  UB student newspaper The Spectrum reported as many as 150 protesters on Day 2.  They chanted, screamed obscenities, tried to block our signs, … the whole 9.

The only thing they didn’t do was give a rational explanation as to why it is OK to kill some human beings and not OK to kill others.

They even brought out fabric barriers in in a failed attempt to block the signs.  The police refused to intervene, giving law-breakers tacit approval to prevent the UB Students for Life and CBR from exercising our First Amendment rights.

FAB wonders if the UB Administration would be similarly “tolerant” if conservative students interfered witih a leftist presentation on campus.  Naah … we didn’t think so.

Anyway, CBR defeated this attempt by putting up one sign on the second level, extending high above the blocking reach of the mob.  (Can’t wait to go back!)

The UB has a long history of obstructing pro-life speech.  When the UB Students for Life organized in 2010-2011, UB stalled their application for 9 months, until the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) forced UB to give the Students for Life the same access to UB spaces/facilities that all the left-wing students enjoy.  Story here: Recent Victory for Pro-Life Speech.  Later, UB students vandalized a Cemetery of the Innocents display, not once, but twice.  Stories here: Second Round of Discrimination and Vandalism at University of Buffalo Continues.

Stay tuned!  Much more to come!  To fight against censorship of pro-life students, please support our work here!

CBR’s GAP display, “Choice” signs, and a truth truck makes abortion unavoidable at the U of Buffalo.

State employees in Juneau attempted to censor CBR Alaska’s display of aborted baby photos.  News coverage:

• AnchoragePress.com.
• LifeNews.com.

Video here:

Pictures work magic on the hearts and minds of passing motorists and their passengers.

Another day of exposing abortion in Nashville.  We were set up at the Marriott Opryland Hotel & Convention Center for Day 2, where it much colder than yesterday due to a cold breeze coming down from Canada.  In fact, we heard reports that it was so cold down at the State Capitol, the politicians had their hands in their own pockets.

At this location, we had no opportunities to engage people verbally, but we knew the pictures were working their magic.  We could see them working in the expressions of passing motorists and their passengers.

In fact, Georgia Project Director Lincoln Brandenburg reminded us just how effective the pictures could be with his story of a recent encounter with a member of the Georgia Tech Students for Life.  This active pro-lifer from Connecticut became pro-life at the tender age of 12, when she saw one of our truth trucks in the run-up to the 2004 elections.  She recalled that her mother complained about the picture on the truck, but it caused the youngster to become a life-long (so far) pro-life activist.  The pictures do work.

CAP signs on display at Marriott Opryland Hotel & Convention Center.

The Corporate Accountability Project (CAP) at Marriott/Opryland was a huge success on Day 1.  Our team of volunteers displayed signs for about 6 hours, as scheduled, from about noon until dark.  They were very enthusiastic about the experience, and most promised to return again to help as the picketing continues over the next 4 days.

We reached thousands of people, especially those lined up at the traffic light, waiting to turn left into the Opryland complex.  Several people in the turn lane took pictures as they waited for the light to change.  Friday is a huge day, because so many people arrive for their weekend stays.  In this case, people were also arriving for the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Convention.

We got many thumbs-up from passersby, but only one or two “flying buzzards.”  (The difference between thumbs-up and the other finger is what we call the “digital divide.”)

Our presence was covered by WZTV-17, the local Fox affiliate.  Their concluding remark was the biggest laugh-line of the day (if you are into macabre humor); they identified Planned Parenthood as an agency that “provides services to expectant parents.”  Who writes this stuff?  (Oh, yeah, Planned Parenthood writes it.)

CAP signs were visible to thousands of motorists entering and passing the Marriott Opryland Hotel & Convention Center.

A member of The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform hands a student educational material in front of their graphic anti-abortion display by the UCF Reflecting Pond on Monday. (Photo/caption from Central Florida Future)

The CBR team just wrapped up two days at the U of Central Florida.  CBR Project Director Lincoln Brandenburg (Georgia) reported on a baby’s life saved:

Just had a student at UCF tell us in tears, “It’s so weird that you guys are here today. … I think I’m pregnant, and I was considering abortion because I don’t want kids, but after seeing these pictures I’ve changed my mind.”

We are thrilled when post-abortive women join us in this work.  Debbie Picarello of Knoxville is deeply involved in the work of Deeper Still, a ministry to women (and men) who have been wounded by abortion.  She also volunteers for GAP projects all over the US.  Debbie’s presence was noted in the article and she was also quoted:

Debbie Picarello, a volunteer from CBR and Deeper Still, a ministry that provides healing retreats for both men and women who have had abortions, has had one herself.

“After a child has been aborted there’s a mother and a father left behind,” Picarello said.

To see the entire story, link here.

Check back here for more on this an other stories from Florida GAP.