On Friday night as my husband and I were driving to the post office to drop off a package, we happened to catch
Sean Hannity's radio show. One of Sean's guest was
Jill Stanek, a former registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, IL, who is now a pro-life leader and advocate for the unborn. Her story and experience is heart-wrenching to listen to and at the same time incredibly powerful.
Her basic experience is this: she was a registered nurse at Christ Hospital when she discovered that the hospital was preforming abortions on live children, leaving them to die alone in the
soiled utility room. She discovered this hush-hush practice one day when another nurse could not "tend" to a down syndrome baby who had
just survived an attempted abortion by doctors. Jill took the little baby to a quiet room and held it for 45 minutes until it finally died.
In the case of these abortions, doctors induce the mother early (in this case 21 weeks), with a good guarantee that the baby will not survive during labor. Most don't. Jill Stanek said that approximately 10% of babies survived the labor, but then are left to die alone in the soiled utility room.
Jill went to hospital leaders, asking them to stop this practice. When they told her no, she went public. In 2000 and 2001 she was asked to testify before a U.S. House committee for the
Born Alive Infants Protection Act. In 2002 the act was signed into law by President Bush.
Jill was conveniently fired by Christ Hospital because of her outspokenness. She now is an activist in the pro-life movement, a popular blogger and a frequent guest on talk radio shows, such as Sean Hannity's.
My husband and I sat stunned in the car as we listened to Jill and Sean discuss this horrible practice. How could this practice be happening in America? How could people do this to innocent lives? It is unimaginable. Debate all you want about whether life begins at conception - these babies
clearly are babies, regardless of whether or not the mom wanted them to exist. They exist, they survived the mother and doctor's attempt to terminate their life, and the fact that they received absolutely no medical attention and were left to die is horrendous.
Jill Stanek is very outspoken about her pro-life beliefs, and she is particularly outspoken this year because of the presidential election. Why? Jill was from Illinois, and guess who else is from Illinois?
Barack Obama was a state senator during the time Jill discovered the abortion practices of Christ Hospital. During state level committee hearings about this practice and Jill's testimony about her experience, she recalled to Sean that Obama seemed distant, not particularly interested in what Jill had to say. And really, why should he? Barack Obama was against the IL Born Alive Infants Protection Act. He was the only state senator to speak out against the federal act that was later signed into law in 2002. Not even Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy spoke out against this act. And pro-choice organizations took neutral positions. But Barack Obama stood alone, and publicly declared that infants who survive abortions have no right to life, that they should be left to die...alone...in the comfort of no one...their life almost an after thought. Yet this is the presidential candidate who wants universal health care for everyone. That is, if you can make it out of your mother's womb alive and in one piece, and oh yeah - if your mom
wanted you born in the first place.
This chills me to the core. I don't care where you stand on politics, on religion, on abortion, on right-to-life, on anything. How could anyone allow a baby to die in a trashcan? If that's legal, then why would a teenage mom who gives birth to an unwanted child and tosses that baby into the high school dumpster be charged with murder?
It's the same thing.Abortion is such a sensitive subject, and I seriously debated even posting about this subject because it's such a hot button issue that I think is used a lot of times to get people riled up. But hearing Jill Stanek's story on Friday chilled me to the core. Her experience was truly life changing for her, and a story that I won't soon forget. What also causes me great fear and anxiety is that our country is on the verge of electing a man who doesn't support the rights of babies who survive an abortion (let alone babies in the womb). In fact, Barack Obama referred to unwanted babies as a "punishment" to the mother. Is this
really the man that needs to be our country's leader? I fear that our country is so blinded by his celebrity that we're not examining the nitty-gritty issues that make the man. If Obama is trying to court evangelical Christians, he's going to have a hard time if Jill's story hits the mainstream media. And I hope it does. Because this issue is too important, to critical, to be glossed over by the liberal talking heads on MSNBC.
There were many reasons before Friday evening why I did not support Barack Obama. But after Friday evening, all the other reasons seemed to fade to a distant second, as I realized that this issue on abortion and a person's right to life -
from the moment of conception on -was the main issue for me and the most outstanding reason why Barack Obama should
never hold an office of any authority ever again, especially that of President.
After all, he said it himself - it's out of his pay grade.
