Twenty years ago, an OB GYN nurse at Oak Lawn's Christ Hospital picked up a Down Syndrome baby boy lying on a shelf in a soiled utility closet. He'd been left there to die because his mother agreed to induce labor to expel the imperfect child. Jill Stanek held the baby for 45 minutes until he breathed his last breath and his little heart stopped. She then crossed his little arms, wrapped him and delivered him to the hospital morgue.
That day started Jill on a crusade to do something about it. In an effort to end birth day abortion, she sought help from the hospital officials, the Illinois Attorney General, the Illinois General Assembly. She testified before the Illinois Senate – a committee upon which then-State Senator Barack Obama sat. He grilled Jill, insinuated her story was a lie and proceeded and succeeded to block and then water down a reasonable measure to protect babies like the little one Jill held that are born alive.
As we all know, Obama went on to become president with the help of Illinois' abortion industry.
Jill's life-changing experience was in 1999. Twenty years ago – right here in Illinois, in a southwest suburban hospital named for Christ. Now the hospital is better known as "Advocate Christ Hospital." Soon, it's likely that uncomfortable middle name will be dropped.
All these memories were stirred recently – first, by the Virginia governor that confirmed how babies born alive, yet possibly imperfect but unwanted by their mothers, would be treated under the provisions of a new radical bill proposed in his state legislature. Then next, by radical measures being introduced in the giddy, abortion-obsessed Illinois General Assembly. Then in the U.S. Senate by Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse.
All these proposals determine the future of innocent babies and whether they will be embraced and welcomed into the world or rejected and tortured. Whether they will be assisted or left breathing their only breaths as "fish out of water," as Jill told Bill O'Reilly on his Fox News cable show during her efforts to make the practice at Christ Hospital public.
Family Research Center sent out the following email Wednesday introducing a new campaign to "End Birth Day Abortion":
This week the U.S. Senate failed to pass the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” (S. 311). This bill would have stopped the brutal killing of infants born alive after surviving an abortion. Despite knowing the horrific reality of infanticide, 44 senators voted against this life-protecting bill. Without this bill, abortionists can deny medical care to these innocent babies. But the fight is not over to stop infanticide! Now the focus in the struggle to protect born-alive babies is on the House of Representatives.
End Birth Day Abortion is a new campaign to send a strong message to our legislators that the killing of born-alive infants needs to stop. Moments after babies are born, the first article of clothing they’re given is a thermal hat with blue and pink stripes. Our hope is to ensure every baby has a chance for that kind of dignity, care, and love.
Unfortunately, the current laws in place don’t protect all infants from being killed outside the womb, and critical laws to prevent infanticide are not being passed.
It’s imperative to remind Congress that every baby should be welcomed into the world with a hat to keep them warm, not to be callously backed away from and left to die.
The gruesome topic is hot once again – 20 years later. Prolifers tried to tell the public that treating little ones with such callous would only grow into more life-rejecting mindset in the medical community.
The fact is it has. And next will be a movement to discard humans deemed non-productive and costly. That means senior citizens, elderly, infirmed and handicapped will soon be left in soiled utility closets to die. It's only a matter of time.
And will our descendants say we just stood by and watched it happen?
Illinois U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth need to know what compassionate Illinoisans think about their votes against protecting newborns. So do Illinois state lawmakers.
