Heartbeat Press - March 2024 Edition

POV: Abortion - An Ingnored Reality 

On a sunny afternoon in 2008, a young woman got out of a parked car just down the street from a neighborhood Planned Parenthood and walked up the fenced-in driveway to the building's imposing double doors. While they didn't slam as they closed (courtesy of expensive, high-tech automation), the vacuum of silence and air that followed the door's ominous click was all but deafening. It seemed so final, like there was now a barrier between the woman and the world outside. Like there was no going back after that boundary was closed, and yet, at the same time, there seemed to be no way forward either. 

    Forcing herself to take her next step, the young woman looked ahead to the sparkling white reception room that waited for her. Sparsely peppered with other women waiting for their own (dreaded) appointments, the room was surprisingly bright despite the one-way glass on the windows, a fact that woman pondered as she shuffled up to the reception desk and checked in with the nurse behind it. "Why would any business need tinted windows? Are they afraid of something being seen?" These and other similar questions formed in the young woman's mind as she joined the ranks of waiting patients and watched as each one was called through another set of non-slamming double doors that led deeper into the bowels of the building. When her name was finally called, the woman did the same.

    Completely devoid of any windows, tinted or otherwise, the space behind the doors felt jarringly different from the pristine waiting room. Gloomy and narrow, a hallway, colored almost grey by its filmy overhead lights, stretched back as far as the woman could see. Dingy vinyl tiles full of scuff marks did little to reflect the poor lighting. Faceless doors lined the space and served as the only breaks in the walls that, in and of themselves, seemed to lean claustrophobically close on either side. The hallway smelled clean, like bleach and latex gloves, but after a moment even that sterile scent became heavy. Following a nurse through the confined space, the young woman felt an uneasiness growing in the pit of her stomach that churned up and soured what was left of a breakfast she now regretted.

    After what felt like endless moments, the nurse turned and held one of the drab doors open. Pausing for a moment to take a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm her nerves, the young woman stepped over the threshold and into the company of a new nurse who sat beaming from behind an imposing center desk. This new nurse's smile did nothing to ease the mounting tension in the small space; in fact, it was unsettling as it glowed a little too wide and a little too bright, like it was practiced and mindlessly plastered on hundreds of times a day. 

    Sitting down across from the nurse, the young woman took another deep breath and tried to remind herself why she was here. Despite any fears or uneasiness churning in her stomach, she had to do this. She couldn't leave this building without getting rid of her "problem," and these nurses, no matter how cold, brisk, or entirely too cheerful, were going to help her. At least she hoped they would. Holding her wide smile, the nurse broke the thick silence with a cacophony of questions, each one asked a little too quickly and buttered with practiced sympathy: "How old are you?" "Reason for today's visit?" "How far along are you?" The young woman tried to answer each question as it was asked, but as she did, all she could feel were her emotions rising again, bubbling up and overwhelming her until all she could focus on was the thundering of her own heartbeat and the repeated reminder: "You've come too far to turn back now."  

    Hours later, when the sun had just dipped below the horizon and street lights were beginning to blink on, the young woman finally pushed her way out of Planned Parenthood's double doors to reenter the outside world she had left behind an eternity ago. Her insides felt hollow, in more than one way, and as she walked back to her car, only one thought bounced around her hazy mind: "I will never go through that again." She thought she had wanted an abortion. She had felt there was no other option available to her. But now, having actually gone through with the procedure, she felt and sharp spur of regret growing in her heart. "Had this really been the only option?" "Had the baby felt any pain?" "Would this empty feeling ever go away?" Nothing was clear. Instead, everything was a dull ache. As the young woman started her car and shifted it into gear, she couldn't help but sob as the growing darkness sank lower around her. 

    This is a common experience for thousands of woman walking into Planned Parenthood every single day. While the industry would love to deny it, there is no ignoring the reality right before our eyes. And yet, so many do because it is much easier to ignore a painful truth than take the difficult steps to expose and change it. But consider this: abortion is not female empowerment. It is a violent and isolating exploitation that no one, let alone a frightened young woman, should be subjected to. A true champion of women would fight to protect the vulnerable from it, no matter how difficult the battle. 

Photo Credit: IStockPhoto.com

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For more stories that expose the abortion industry check out The Walls Are Talking by Abby Johnson

Heartbeat Press - February 2024 Edition

American Gilead - The Handmaid Reality 

    "We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone." These descriptive words begin the 1985 book, The Handmaid's Tale, written by Margaret Atwood and, at the same time, kick off a popular modern feminist screed intent on discrediting the Pro-Life movement. 

    Written in response to the growing Christian values of the late '70s and early '80s, the book follows the story of a woman named Offred as she navigates the personal and political minefield of the newly-minted Republic of Gilead that has replaced the United States at an unspecified time in the future. Built on a warped religious foundation, the new nation groups its citizens into categories that determine their value to the state. Offred, like every woman capable of bearing children in a time where the birth rate has dropped dramatically, is forced to serve as a walking womb for childless government leaders and their wives. The Handmaids, as they are called, have no choice in the matter and must endure repeated and republic-mandated assaults for the greater good.

    Modern feminists and the Pro-Choice cabal love to compare the Pro-Life movement to this oppressive and deviant model, claiming that protecting children from murder, providing aid to their mothers, and nurturing familial love is comparable to legal rape and slavery. While their assertions are completely false, disproven daily by mothers who kept their children and now have a chance to love and watch them grow up thanks to the Pro-Life movement, those who defend "choice" are too blinded by rage and caught up in their own agenda to see the difference. At the same time, many of them support a practice, created in 1976, that is much closer to a realized Gilead than anything in the Pro-Life movement: the Surrogacy Industry. 

    Enabling parenthood through the use of volunteer wombs for couples who can't carry their own children, surrogacy seems like a wonderful medical advancement and a shoe-in part of the Pro-Life cause. Unfortunately, the realities of the industry draw stark lines between the two, and the practice more often resembles a baby-buying business that thrives off desperate parents, exploitation of women, and disregard for the basic needs of its commodity (children) than anything remotely positive. In fact, much like the abortion industry, surrogacy is primarily focused on making money over the wellbeing of anyone associated with it.

    In Georgia, a European country thriving off the surrogacy industry, this fact is clinically displayed. As one of the country's higher paying professions, thousands of women desperate for money or fleeing domestic violence offer up their bodies as incubators, not understanding that, in doing so, they have transformed from human beings into enterprise preservers. They must carry the babies but they must not get attached to them. They must follow every order prearranged by the industry and the parents they serve. Their only worth lies in delivering healthy babies so, in failing to do so, a surrogate may be subjected to an abortion at the whim of the child's parents with no regard for the toll that procedure takes on the woman. Though it is hardly spoken of, many women regret surrogacy and wish they had never sold their bodies so haphazardly. And yet, in the face of industrial greed, their voices, pain, and regret are all but silenced.

    

    We here at Heartbeat Press recognize that the issue of surrogacy is a difficult one to discuss because many families would not have their children without the innovation. And any advancement that allows children to be born rather than aborted is a blessing. But we also ask that those who ardently support the industry reflect and do their own research on what we have discussed above. Any industry a person supports should be researched in depth, for your own knowledge, and in cases like this one, to shed light on dark corners that have festered far too long. Surrogacy is not perfect (far from it) and often opens the door for exploitation and greed. It completely disregards the babies it barters (depriving them of essential parental connection and the physical benefits of bonding with the women who carried them), and the women who spend nine months nurturing these children are dehumanized and left without the fulfillment that should come with the birth of a child.

    Beyond that, surrogacy sets the precedent that women's bodies can be used without regard for an individual's worth, that motherhood is an inconvenience that can be passed off and reclaimed when "convenient," and that life can be bought and sold. No better than the abortion industry, surrogacy and its ideals go against everything the Pro-Life movement holds dear and, therefore, should be passionately fought against in favor of building true connections, love, and family. We don't live in an American Gilead yet, but, then again, how much further would we have to go to get there? 

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As stated above, Heartbeat Press highly encourages individual research on the issue of surrogacy. 

As a broad, complicated, and emotionally charged issue it is important to be informed and confident in your conviction no matter which side of the aisle it falls on. 

Heartbeat Press can only provide so much information and we wouldn't want our readers to only take our word on this issue so please, dive deeper into the debate for yourself.

- Informative Videos To Start With -

Selling Surrogates - Wombs for hire in Georgia

How Involved Should Moms be with Their Babies?

How Does Baby Surrogacy Actually Work?

She's Having My Baby

Khloe Kardashian's Surrogacy Regret

    

Sources: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Wikipedia, Creative Family Connections, Unreported World

Photo Credit: Noah Eisenman 

Winter Mist

Morning mist on a February day.

Floats in the air like a bride's gauzy vail,

And strings glittering dew on the tall silent grass.

A soft blanket for winter's spring. 

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Heartbeat Press - January 2023 Edition

Green Umbrellas and Dead Sara - Two Tales of Hidden Grief 

    In Fall 2007, singer and former child star Britney Spears was chased from her Beverly Hills home though the streets of L.A. by paparazzi jockeying for candid photos of the twenty-six year old. Having all but disappeared from the public eye after abandoning her tour schedule, getting married, and having two children, Spears' personal life had become a keen point of interest for fans who had begun to wonder what had happened to her. They missed her music, but they were also concerned for her well-being. Rumors abounded, courtesy of the Hollywood tabloids, that Spears had become mentally stable, based on erratic behavior and "wild" partying from the year before. Pictures captured by the paparazzi when they finally caught up with the singer at a local gas station only seemed to confirm that gossip. Their photos depict an irate and bald-headed Britney confronting them with a wild look in her eyes before turning to attack their car with, of all things, a bright green umbrella that she brandished like a battle axe. Swinging her weapons multiple times, she barely dented the vehicle but did permanent damage to her reputation once the photos were published. 

    In a moment, everyone "knew" that Britney was unhinged and, apparently, spiraling rapidly into early destruction like dozens of other child stars who had gone before her. But, rabid for the drama that Spears' behavior and subsequent public breakdown gifted them, the media, and, by default her fans, neglected to look beyond her behavior to see if there was a deeper root to her mania. If they had, they would have discovered that Britney's anger went far beyond and had, in fact, started long before the green umbrella ever made its debut.

    Unbeknownst to the media or her fans, but later detailed in her book The Woman in Me, Britney was dealing with a litany of issues that was wearing on her physical and mental health. She had spent years in the limelight with no respite, she was in the middle of a messy and custody-threatening divorce, and nearly a decade before (during her whirlwind romance with fellow teen star Justine Timberlake) Britney had had an abortion that weighed heavily, if unknowingly, on her soul. Recounting the event, the singer revealed that she had wanted to keep the baby and most likely would have if Timberlake hadn't insisted that she terminate the pregnancy. Spears wrote, "But, Justin definitely wasn't happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren't ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young." Hopelessly devoted to the boy she thought was her prince charming, Britney trusted that he had her best interests in mind and took an abortion pill that killed her child and made her sick for an entire day. Spears admitted that in the moment she regretted the decision and, though she has championed the Pro-Choice stance every since, she wrote that, "To this day, it's one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life."

    Spears' story is not uncommon for Hollywood and, in fact, the industry is overrun with the abortion agenda as it aids the "glamorous" and "independent" lifestyle the entertainment industry promises. As a result, hundreds of celebrities have had abortions, sacrificing their children to build their careers, though many would never admit they endured the procedure. Despite the narrative that abortion is empowering, once an individual has experienced it, she is forever cursed with the understanding of its horror. Never again can she discuss abortion without remembering the grief of her own. Deep down, she will always feel the absence of her child (even if she "didn't want it") and that pain will inevitably seep into her work.

    In 1979, artist and lead Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks wrote the song "Sara" for the band's "Tusk" album. The six-minute song is dour and haunting with a heartbeat-like bass line that could be interpreted as an outpouring of grief, a thought Nicks confirmed in an interview with LifeNews, where she revealed the song was about a baby she conceived and then aborted with Eagles singer Don Henly. Nicks said, "Had I married Don and had that baby, and had she been a girl, I would have named her Sara..." Fearing that her burgeoning career would be hamstrung by a child and thoroughly steeped in Hollywood's agenda, Nicks convinced herself that disposing of it was the best option, and yet her account of the experience reveals that it stayed with her for decades.

    Strong women have routinely proven that unexpected children are not burdens to their lives. On the contrary, children often improve and broaden their mothers' world tenfold. And yet the abortion industry is allowed to warp that truth under the guise of health care, a care that contradicts the meaning of the word by killing children and leaving women with agonizing and volatile hidden grief that is written off as a "necessary evil" of empowerment.  

Sources: The Woman in Me, LifeNews.com, Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times, Vogue (edited by Polish Photo Editor)

Static Hair

Static hair prickly and dry,

Stands out wide and stands up high.

Charged with a bolt conducted by me,

I hold on for a moment then set it free.

Wild as the wind it shoots off a far,

To burn down a tree or leave a scar.

Or maybe just maybe it will find me a friend,

And we'll be linked by lightening end to end.

Photo Credit: Tulpa on Pinterest

Heartbeat Press - December 2023 Edition

Mary - A Moment of Peace 

Picture this: It's early on a Monday morning, and the sun has just peeked over the smallest downtown buildings but the city below is already buzzing with busy people. Office workers speed down the sidewalk, tightly gripping overpriced cups of emotional-support coffee, kids rush off to school with hurried good-byes from their parents, car horns blare on the interstate, doors slam as soccer moms bustle from one grocery store to another, phones ring off the hook. Take all of this in and...one timid teenage girl sitting alone in her home bathroom holding a newly positive pregnancy test. Unlike the rest of the world, the space around this girl has gone completely still - frozen, in fact - as she stares in dumbfounded horror at the two little blue lines on the test that slowly begin to blur as tears prick her eyes.

     Unsure how this even happened, the girl's mind races with unanswerable questions. How is she going to take care of a baby? Is she capable of being a mom? What will her parents think? How will she finish school? Will her boyfriend be upset? Will her boyfriend leave her? Every awful option and outcome rushes through her head, but as the shakily stands up, furiously wiping the tears from her eyes, nothing seems clear and pure panic floods her entire body. She's not ready to have a baby but what can she possibly do about it?

    Now transport the scene I just described to Israel around the year 6 BC. Replace the pregnancy test with a divine angel visit and the bathroom with a courtyard in the land of Galilee...and give the young girl and name: Mary. As strange as it seems, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was once in the same seemingly "hopeless" situation that many young girls find themselves in and, she undoubtedly had many of the same questions and fears. She was afraid, she was alone, and she was unsure of what to do next. Her world went still and her mind raced. And yet in that moment, the most chaotic moment of her young life, Mary heard the angel who had bought the news speak the most beautiful command: "Do no be afraid." 

    Spoken softly and filled with a truth that clamed her heart immediately, Mary understood that, blindsided as she was, she truly had nothing to fear. Deep in her soul, she knew she would be all right because, though she couldn't understand his reasoning, God, the creator of the universe, the world, and Mary herself, had specially picked her for this moment. He knew what he was doing and had perfectly planned this pregnancy for a greater and glorious good. He didn't make mistakes or have lapses in judgment and, with his help, she was and always had been ready for this calling.

    Mary's unplanned pregnancy would go on to save the world, and, while hers was the only child to be the son of God incarnate, her story is still a beautiful testament to the simple truth that no child is a mistake. They may not be expected, their mothers might panic at the news, their lives may even hang in the balance for a moment. But, given peace and a trust in God's timing, every "hopeless" situation can become a great blessing. And yet, if Mary had lived in our modern world, she would have been the perfect candidate for an abortion. Preyed upon by the abortion industry and its lies that said she wasn't ready, capable, or strong enough to have a baby, she would never have had the opportunity to feel that moment of peace that convinced her to let go of fear. 

    Instead, she would have fallen for the "quick" and "easy" solution that Planned Parenthood offers to hundreds of girls every day. She might have believed them when they said, "This is the best thing for you." She would have convinced herself that, in getting rid of her child, she was exercising the empowerment that every woman is entitled to. She would have felt a wave of unimaginable terror wash over her as the procedure began, undermining any confidence she had that her decision was right. She would not have known until it was too late that, having allowed a murder, she would have to live with the shame and guilt of that realization for the rest of her life. She would have experienced the hell that thousands of women go through every year because no one was there to tell them, "Do not be afraid." 

    Where are the angels who will tell these expectant mothers that, no matter their circumstances, fears, or setbacks, their children are a blessing and they will be all right? Where are the calming voices that can proclaim that the Lord has a plan and doesn't make mistakes? Where are the hands that can snatch life from the jaws of death though patience and love? They are here, in the Pro-Life movement. As the God-appointed protectors of life, we must also be the hands and feet of Christ in the life of every mother who needs our comfort and our care. We have been called for such a time as this and we must answer boldly and quickly...because we never know when we will encounter a Mary in need of us. 

Source: Wikipedia, Luke 1:26-38 

Photo Credit: ar.inspiredpencil.com 

Summer Sky

The sky is endless,

Utterly blue white and warm.

Oh to get lost underneath it,

To travel forever and always feel at home. 

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Heartbeat Press - November 2023 Edition

Abby Johnson - Beauty from Ashes 

    After walking out of her abortion clinic for the last time in 2009, Abby Johnson had no idea what the future would hold. She knew she could never enable another abortion and she had been "taken in" by Pro-Lifers at the local Coalition for Life, but, despite those small favors, she couldn't help but think that there was no possibility of redemption for a woman who had wholeheartedly sold abortion for years. Try as she might, Abby couldn't find any clear steps towards healing and forgiveness. Months later, there were still no clear answers, but Abby had begun telling her story at Pro-Life conventions in the hope that her testimony would bring healing to other women. It was at one of these conventions, Unidos por la Vida (United for Life) in Los Angeles, while walking through a back hallway, that Abby first met Annette. 

    As a current employee of Planned Parenthood, Annette had been reluctant to attend the convention even when her boyfriend insisted for the sake of their relationship. But, once there, Abby's story had so moved Annette that she had desperately sought her out afterwards. Barred from reaching Abby directly, Annette shouted Abby's name, desperately trying to get her attention. She didn't want to work for Planned Parenthood anymore and knew she couldn't stay but she had no idea how to leave. When Abby came over and reached through the gate to give Annette the warmest hug she had ever experienced, she knew she had just found her lifeline. 

After the convention, Abby badly wanted to help Annette leave her situation, but, after hours of searching the web and calling every resource she knew, Abby couldn't find one ministry that offered help for abortion workers who wanted to leave the industry. In fact, many organizations specifically condemned abortionists for their actions, refusing to show them any compassion. This reality cut Abby to the quick, not only because it left truly repentant abortionists no options (though their awakening should have been a joyous occasion), but also because it revealed a horrible double standard in the Pro-Life movement. Pro-Lifers had whole-heartedly accepted Abby when she had sought an escape and she was now thought of as a powerful voice in the fight for life, but only a few months prior she had been no different than Annette, trapped in a tense situation with no one reaching out to help her. Would the Pro-Life movement deny all the powerful testimonies that could result from mercy-driven repentance because it had forgotten simple truths like those found in Micah 6:8? Was Abby the only exception? 

    Then it struck her. If the Pro-Life movement was to see all the good that could come from individuals leaving the abortion industry, it needed to know that workers were actually seeking an escape. To do that, workers needed support so they could feel empowered to leave and Abby, as the poster child for abortion repentance, could provide that support. In November 2011, And Then There Were None, a non-profit organization specifically geared towards abortion workers with the goal of helping them leave the industry, was born. The organization's on-going ministry has shown mercy to hundreds. Its outreach has proved to the Pro-Life movement that redemption is possible for anyone and that mercy should be a key aspect of the fight for life. And, more than anything else, And Then There Were None has nurtured Abby's own healing, proving to her that she was redeemed for a reason.

    On the morning of May 4, 2019, Abby found herself reflecting on the unprecedented course her life had taken over the past ten years and the Lord's mercy that had permeated every moment of that time. Reflecting on her past was not new to Abby. She had parsed through it many times since leaving Planned Parenthood in 2009, but on this specific day the blessings of her transformed life were culminating in a very special way. By all rights, she shouldn't be where she was on that morning. She shouldn't have experienced the grace and forgiveness that had so totally overwhelmed her life. But, here she was, sitting in the back of a mobile ultrasound van in Times Square, New York, ready to proclaim the Pro-Life message in the most profound way.

    The sound of a heartbeat, steady and strong, reverberated through every corner of Times Square. The third trimester ultrasound of Abby's seventh child was being witnessed by millions, Pro-Life and Pro-Abortion alike, as a striking testimony to the humanity of the preborn. And all Abby Johnson could do was cry tears of joy. For her child, for everyone who could hear his message, and for herself. The woman who had once carelessly sentenced thousands of children to death was now the vessel through which their humanity was being proclaimed. The Lord had truly raised Abby out of the ashes of her own choices and was working through her in a spectacular way.  

Sources: Fierce Mercy, Wikipedia, And Then There Were None, Biblia.com 

Photo Credit: Liberty University 

Heartbeat Press - October 2023 Edition

Margaret Sanger - America's Abortion Monstriarch 

Last October for our Halloween edition, Heartbeat Press covered the spine-tingling tale of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his horrific contributions to the abortion industry. His televised trial captured the attention of the nation in December 2013, and had the two-fold effect of exposing his decades-long rap sheet and pulling abortion and all its cruelty into the public view for everyone, Pro-Life and Pro-Death, to consider. Convicted of many charges (including malpractice, retention of untrained staffers, and the murder of hundreds of babies and at least one woman), the trial put Gosnell and many of his associates behind bars, ridding the world of a few monsters. But the reality is that their crimes could never have been perpetrated if abortion wasn't rooted in and condoned by American culture. One of the people responsible for that atrocity is quite a special monster herself.    

    Born in Corning, New York, in 1879, Margaret Sanger seemingly entered the world with a deep-seated grudge against marriage and the family unit. She vocally expressed her distain for both from an early age and began her young adult life by founding a center (with her sisters) in 1916 (renamed Planned Parenthood in 1942). The main goal of the center was to dispense birth control pills to combat what Sanger considered a needless amount of children being born. Since birth control was illegal at the time, the center was eventually raided and Sanger spent 30 days in jail after refusing to pay a fine. While modern feminists applaud Sanger for this and many other "brave" acts of societal defiance, they often forget or are unaware of Sanger's other "accomplishments." 

    In 1939, Sanger, who not only protested the traditional family but was also a proud eugenicist, created "The Negro Project" with other prominent xenophobes of the time. This endeavor, which called upon Black doctors to sterilize other African Americans (willingly or unwillingly), aided Sanger's vision of racial purity and displayed her prejudices against 14.1 million members of the American population at the time. She was once quoted as saying, "The masses of Negroes...particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among white, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit." Years later, Sanger would be given an honorary KKK membership as the members of that group highly praised her work.

    Throughout the 1940s and '50s, Margaret Sanger traveled the country, tirelessly preaching her doctrine of birth control and limited family, saying, "Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches." When unchanged or rising birth rates hampered her cause, she eagerly endorsed abortion, saying of it, "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it," and, "Every single case of inherited defect, every malformed child, every congenitally-tainted human being brought into this world is of infinite importance to that poor individual; but it is of scarcely less importance to the rest of us and to all our children who must pay in one way or another for these biological and racial mistakes." As she had hoped, her teaching began to take root and were eventually touted by the worst of humanity.

    Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels both greatly admired Sanger's work and applied it to their own goal of racial cleansing during WWII. More notably, Dr. Josef Mengele (the notorious butcher of Romany and Jewish prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp) took his inspiration directly from Sanger's ideology, justifying his torment of human being with the defense that they were inferior to his race and therefore "subhuman" without the right to basic care and decency. After the war, Mengele went on to perform abortions, further advancing Sanger's cause, and many policies that Sanger boldly defended (Buck v. Bell) were used as Nazi defense during the Nuremberg trials of 1945-46.

    Margaret Sanger died in 1966, but her work was quickly picked up by other "visionary" feminists in the name of women's empowerment. If only they could see the hypocrisy of that goal. While Margaret Sanger may not have committed any abortions herself of actively sold them (though birth control goes hand in hand with and in many cases is abortion), her actions spurred on those who would, and her organization remains the biggest provider of abortions in the country. The blood of millions is on her hands and the minds of millions still bow to her whims. 

Photo Credit: The University of Chicago

Sources: Live Action.org (Margaret Sanger) (Josef Mengele), Forgotten History, Wikipedia.org, The Denver Post.com, Encyclopeidaushmm.org

Heartbeat Press - September 2023 Edition

Sophie Scholl - The Power and Cost of Truth

On February 18, 1943, the quiet studious halls of Maximillian University in Munich were pierced by the delicate sound of fluttering as dozens of papers suddenly fell through the air. Gauzy and weightless as birds on the wing, the pamphlets tumbled from the second floor mezzanine and hung in the air for a moment, catching the late afternoon light before gracefully landing on the polished floors below...and Sophie Scholl scurried out the back door. Having just committed an act of treason against the state, Sophie knew she was risking her life distributing those pages, but in her line of work it was a risk worth taking.

    Sophie was a member of the anti-Nazi student organization known as the White Rose, which worked in secret from 1942-43 to write, print, and distribute political pamphlets that challenged Hitler and the Nazis. Having grown up in Germany during the regime's rise to power and subject to its every whim, Sophie and the other members of the White Rose (Hans Scholl, Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst, and Kurt Wagner) knew what oppression and the destruction of free thinking looked like all too well. Sophie had seen individuality fade from her friends one goose step at a time within the ranks of The League of German Girls. Her brother Hans witnessed justified homicide firsthand on the Russian Front.  Every day, Sophie saw more atrocities going unchallenged by the public in the name of compliance and self-preservation. But, unwilling to be swept along with the masses and knowing that there was power in one person maintaining his or her convictions, Sophie and the White Rose determined to do everything it could to combat the oppressive regime. 

    Speaking in simple but powerful language, the group's pamphlets asked the German people to think critically. The Nazis only retained their power because the vast majority of the public refused to stand up to them (due to willful ignorance and fear of persecution), but what would it take for the people to finally fight back? Were the people really willing to let the whims of a few dictate the many? Would they continue to stand by as their friends and neighbors were massacred for the "crime" of their race? Did the public know how many crimes Hitler had truly committed? What would they risk to be free again? Who would stand up? What would happen if everyone stood up?

    Leaving pamphlets everywhere, the group worked tirelessly to make the truth accessible to everyone. The six leaflets that they completed were left in phone booths and at train stations. They were mailed to nearby cities, where they were recopied for distribution, and on that fateful day in February, Sophie left dozens of copies at her school.

    Recognized by a university maintenance man and betrayed to the Gestapo, Sophie, her brother Hans, and Christoph Probst, were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by guillotine in the Nazis' political court. But, even facing death itself, Sophie did not regret what she had done. On the contrary, she bravely faced her captors in one final act of defiance, saying of her crimes, "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did." At the age of 21, Sophie Scholl met her death with boldness and grace. Her last words, spoken with a smile, were, "The sun still shines." And indeed it did. Even after her death, Sophie's words lived on. Her sixth pamphlet was smuggled out of Germany and mass-produced for airdrop in July of 1943, and, just as they once had at Maximillian University, the pages blanketed the sky with bright filtered sunlight as they drifted downwards, proclaiming freedom to everyone below. 

    For those of us in the Pro-Life movement, Sophie can be a powerful inspiration for our own work, not only because she risked so much at such a young age to defend the truth but also because she never wavered in that defense. Regardless of what everyone around her was doing, Sophie knew the difference between right and wrong and would not let anything change her beliefs, not even death itself. Sophie Scholl was all-in for truth. Are we willing to do the same? 

    Finally, in a way, Sophie is also our direct predecessor in the fight for life. Her enemies, the Nazis, violated every human right during their reign and were huge proponents of abortion. Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood) was highly praised by many of the Nazis' top brass, and the Nazis used abortion to realize their plans of "racial purity." 

    Though it operates under different names today, the Nazi ideology of death is still thriving. Are we willing to respond to Sophie's request for boldness in this fight, or did she die in vain? 

Photo Credit: Groundbreaking Girls.com

Sources: World History, Empowered by Catherine Parks, Wikipedia, Google