CMP, or the Centre for Medical Progress is the organisation started by David Daleiden which exposed Planned Parenthood's illegal baby-parts trafficking business. Among their many undercover videos is a series taken at the 2014 National Abortion Federation conference held in San Francisco. Topics at the conference included self-care for late-term abortionists, as well as how to dispose of those pesky surplus fetuses - presumably the ones that aren't sold - very profitably - for research purposes. (You can read about how aborted fetuses are legally used for research in Australia here.) Planned Parenthood temporarily stopped the CMP from circulating this conference series.

 Marches and rallies can be a great chance for pro-life people to get together and support each other. They build the movement as we swap notes about our various forms of work or just take some time out together. They are a chance to celebrate the gift of life when much of our time is taken up with witnessing death near abortion facilities, see gruesome images and videos, or read distressing articles and reports. There is no doubt that marches, such as the recent Melbourne March for the Babies, play an essential part in the lives of many pro-lifers and are rightly a significant date for us. But there is another aspect to marches and rallies that I think we need to think about.

 If a woman is about to enter an abortion facility and a person praying outside the facility offers her help, is this person acting immorally? I have just been told of a lecturer in a Catholic institute who stated that such a person is breaking the moral law. His reasoning was that the action of this pro-lifer will do no good but only harm. Why? Because the woman seeking the abortion has already made up her mind – otherwise she would not be there. So the pro-lifer offering help won’t achieve anything. But she will do positive harm, because her action with be upsetting to the woman about to have the abortion. The situation, then, according to this lecturer, is that no good will be done and the woman who is already under stress will be further upset.

Today I received a letter from an inmate of a Queensland jail. I have never met this man in person but it is probably the fourth or fifth time that he, Michael, has written to me during the last eight years that he has been in prison. Michael first initiated contact when he read a newspaper article about me being in prison. (I was “inside” for engaging in non-violent sit-ins in front of the doors of abortion clinics.) Although each of us ended up in jail by way of very different routes we do share a common concern – we both believe that the deliberate taking of the life of a child in the womb is terribly wrong. Unlike many, probably the large majority of pro-lifers, Michael does not profess to hold any Christian or religious beliefs - not that he is antagonistic to those who do oppose abortion based on Christian convictions. Rather, in his own words, he is motivated to oppose abortion because, “my memory of the time before my birth is something very, very strong and I recognise it has happened for a reason,” and, “It is not due to ‘conviction’ that I oppose abortion-on-demand, it is love.”

"Rescue those being led away to death, hold back those staggering towards slaughter" (Proverbs 24:11). For 23 years up until the end of April 2016, the Helpers of God's Precious Infants have had a daily presence outside a large East Melbourne abortion business. There the Helpers have endeavoured to the best of their ability to put into practice precisely what is being urged in Proverbs 24:11. Through their prayers and offers of support to mothers who are contemplating abortion, the Helpers have helped rescue hundreds of babies who were being led away to a horrible death at the hands of abortionists and, in so doing, have helped hold back their mothers from proceeding with an act of slaughter they would have regretted for the rest of their lives.

 At the beginning of 2015, the Victorian ALP Government rightly removed the Coalition's "move on" laws from the statute book. Rightly so, as the laws were intended really to prevent unions protesting. The laws were seen as an unfair restriction on free speech, with Attorney General, Martin Pakula, proclaiming that: "Victoria doesn't need Bjelke-Petersen-style laws designed to silence dissent and outlaw peaceful protests." At year's end, a total back flip by Victorian Labor with its MPs denied a free vote and totally under the thumb of Emily's List. Why not a conscience vote? After all the issue, like 2008, was about abortion on demand and not about a mother’s health.

Guest post by Anne O'Dwyer. Anne is a Melbourne mother and grandmother who has been involved in many areas of pro-life work. In this article, she writes of her experiences at the Croydon abortion facility, where she witnessed faithfully for many years until "safe-access zones" were established in 2016: In 1998 David Grundmann brought his grisly late term abortion business to Croydon Victoria. At the time I was a volunteer with Right to life. Living close to the proposed facility, I was asked to form a small group to pray and offer help to the girls and women entering the facility. I had undertaken training in support of pregnant women and had worked on phone and face to face counselling on a volunteer basis since 1991. However, to actually see these girls and women at the coal face, sometimes accompanied by partners or family, on the point of actually taking this step to end the life they were carrying, had a deep affect.

As prolifers, we strive to have the law to protect all human beings from conception to natural death with no exceptions. In recent times, we have seen efforts to get the law to offer protection to some of the unborn. Rachel Carling-Jenkins introduced the Infant Viability Bill into Victorian Parliament. It would have protected babies after 24 weeks of pregnancy. It would not have affected babies before that age. The bill was defeated in the Victorian Upper House by a 27 to 11 vote. When the Victorian Parliament legalised abortion in 2008, Bernie Finn and Peter Kavanagh moved several amendments in attempts to reduce the damage done by the Victorian law. The Texas legislature recently passed a law requiring abortion facilities to have at least the same health standards as facilities doing other surgeries. Most of Texas’s abortion clinics would not have met these standards. Many closed, and others would have had to spend large amounts of money upgrading them. Women seeking abortions would have to travel much further to obtain an abortion and some would have second thoughts about having the abortion.

The US Supreme Court overturned the law by a 5-3 decision, on the grounds that it would have been too difficult for a woman to have an abortion. There have been other laws passed or submitted that would protect some lives. Several years ago, the US legislature passed a bill banning partial birth abortion. Because of a veto by President Clinton and later on rejection by the US Supreme Court, it was several years before the bill became law. The prolonged debate over the bill helped change the opinion of many, as the evil of this form of abortion is so obvious. More recently, bills have been passed in some US states to ban dismemberment abortion, the most common method used in the second trimester. While the bills will probably be rejected by the US Supreme Court, their efforts highlighted the brutality of abortion.

Undercover work by Lila Rose, who showed that Planned Parenthood(PP) covered up statutory rape of underage girls, and David Daleiden, who exposed PP’s illegal profits from sale of body parts of unborn babies, some states have stopped providing funds to PP. The adverse publicity to Planned Parenthood may also dissuade some women from seeking abortions. Clearly, the above proposed laws were imperfect as they would only save some unborn babies. This raised the question Can we support such laws? In Evangelium vitae (article 73) St John Paul wrote: In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to "take part in a propaganda campaign in favour of such a law, or vote for it". A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, in other nations--particularly those which have already experienced the bitter fruits of such permissive legislation--there are growing signs of a rethinking in this matter. In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality.

This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects. I have no doubt that most of those voting or campaigning against the above laws, believed the proponents of the law were against all abortions. Certainly, Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote Supreme Court decision overturning the Texas law, saw it as an attempt to reduce the number of abortions. While the statement of St John Paul can be considered his personal opinion, his opinion is enough for me from a moral point of view. Another consideration may be one of prudence. There is the danger that reaction against attempts to ban some abortions may stir up opponents to produce even worse laws. It is not easy to think of worse laws than those in Victoria at present. California has recently passed laws that require all hospitals to perform abortions, and there are attempts to require all obstetrician-gynaecologists to perform abortions.

Obviously, we have to fight these attempts. Most pro-abortion people want us to accept abortion as a settled issue. Lila Rose recently pointed out that our struggle can help change the culture.

“We need to expose and defund the abortion industry,” she said. “As long as Planned Parenthood is being propped up by taxpayer dollars, they have power that they shouldn’t have.” “But first and foremost, the battle is the culture,” she said. “And that’s actually where it’s very inspiring and encouraging because many people are being persuaded.” “When you actually give people the facts, when you approach them with love—but with truth--people do flip on the pro-life issue,” she said.

If we save one life, our efforts are worth it.

The Helpers of God’s Precious Infants have saved many babies, as have the volunteers at Pregnancy Counselling Centres. There is no doubt that Lila Rose and David Daleiden and others are doing their part to change the culture. It is up to us to do our best to follow suit.

 Last year, the world was shocked by a series of undercover videos which showed the relationship between abortion giant Planned Parenthood and human tissue providers. The videos, made by the Centre for Medical Progress, brought to light the ethical and legal ramifications of using aborted foetal tissue for research purposes, and eventually led to a congressional hearing, the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives. As in the US, the practice of using aborted fetuses for research is legal in Australia, although it is subject to various limitations, but it is unlikely that the majority of Australians know about the extent or frequency of its occurrence.