Pro-life crusader and ILLINOIS LEADER columnist Jill Stanek

Father Frank Pavone

Those words, given by Father Frank Pavone during a speech before the recent March for Life, rekindled anger I have long felt because I have witnessed what he asserted.

There is a staggering amount of pro-life complicity with abortion when one thinks about it.

Father Pavone was speaking about the business community. "It is time for construction workers, plumbers, electricians, computer technicians, and any other professionals called upon to service killing centers to say, 'I will not cooperate.'"

I also saw it in the hospital setting.

At Christ Hospital I watched charge nurses who claimed to be pro-life Christians accept aborting patients into the department, make nursing assignments for their care, and order their abortion medications, while maintaining they were not betraying their pro-life convictions because they did not actually commit the act.

I watched nurses, residents, and doctors who called themselves Christian or Muslim commit abortion. I watched supposed pro-life chaplains, secretaries, nursing assistants, pharmacists, anesthesiologists, cleaning personnel, and management participate in various aspects of abortion.

It takes a village to produce a killing field.

Covert participants may simply have not thought it through. But Chris Danze, organizer of the ongoing boycott against the Planned Parenthood abortion mill in Austin, Texas, compares the abortion climate in America today to the Holocaust climate in Nazi Germany.

"Someone had to build the gas chambers," said Chris. "Pro-lifers make the comparison between them and abortion clinics, but our situation is even worse. SS officers probably forced people to build those ovens and produce the gas pellets. But no one is forcing us to help today."

I witnessed pro-life medical personnel aid and abet abortion. Chris sees pro-life business people doing the same.

"I've had contractors tell me, 'This is not Nazi Germany, this is the United States of America. The Supreme Court said it's legal. I'm not doing the abortions. I'm not holding the knife. I'm not cutting the baby's head off.' I've heard that a thousand times," said Chris. "I say, 'But you're facilitating. You're building the building that will create the environment that will allow serial killers to kill tens of thousands of children over the next several years.'"

The same goes in an aborting hospital setting. Even if medical personnel are not actually committing the suctioning or dismemberment of preborn babies, they are aiding and abetting abortion by their very presence in that institution. Even if they perform fabulous, life-saving work work in a completely separate department, their presence in that hospital frees up someone else to help with abortion. And a portion of their paycheck, no matter how small, comes from the blood of children.

People who give money to United Way, UNICEF, or the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, etc., are aiding and abetting abortion. If one is a secretary or due paying member of the American Medical Association or the National Education Association, etc., s/he is aiding and abetting abortion. A garbage company that picks up trash at an aborting hospital or abortion clinic is aiding and abetting abortion.

Wake up! There were 1.3 million abortions in America last year. Why? Those would have been impossible to commit without our help.

Chris told me, "The other side has the media in their pocket, they have the politicians where they want them, and they have the pharmaceuticals moving in their direction, but they don't have us. We have to develop the spirit of passive resistance, of noncooperation. It's a conversion thing. It really is a conversion. We have to build consciences from scratch. I'm out there trying to build contractors' consciences. After months and months, it starts to click in. Now we have to build the consciences of a whole city, Austin, Texas."

And then America. I can't tell you the number of pro-lifers I've met at pro-life rallies and churches who freely admit they work in aborting hospitals and not give it a second thought.

They don't understand that without there ever having to be a change of law, abortion could be ground to a halt if pro-lifers would refuse to work at aborting hospitals, and if pro-life business owners, service industry owners, and workers would refuse to help abortion providers in any way.

Are your hands clean from the blood of abortion? We must evaluate where we work and where we invest our time and money. We are responsible to God for all. If you determine your hands are not clean, today is the day to wash them.

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Jill Stanek became a leader in the Illinois conservative movement when she fought to stop "live birth abortion" after witnessing one as an RN at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. In August 2002, President Bush asked Jill to his signing of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. In January 2003, World Magazine named Jill one of the 30 most prominent pro-life leaders of the past 30 years. In November 2003, the White House invited Jill to President Bush's signing of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Jill continues to press for Illinois to become a state where unborn and newly born babies are safe. Jill is also pro-life coordinator for Concerned Women for America of Illinois and a public speaker around the country.