Let Them Live

An expectant mother writes – I’m currently pregnant and felt there was no way to parent. I was referred to an agency called Let Them Live. They got me a car, a house, and are going to pay my rent until 3 months after the baby is born. They have fund raisers for moms upwards of 30k. They also do tons of workshops from financial planning to meal planning everything in between but those are not required. The only requirements are attending 2 support groups a month, which are done through Google Meet. No money is paid to you directly, only to cover your expenses / purchases.

Another woman responds – I’m glad that you were able to receive assistance. I’m not sure that Let them Live is a super reliable resource, given their lack of fulfillment on their promises to some women. Just advising you to be cautious. (blogger’s note – I immediately discerned red flags when reading about all the stuff the woman received – what was the catch ?)

Doing a Google Search on the organization, I found this at Business Insider – LINK>Anti-abortion group Let Them Live to pay $10,000 it never gave to women who agreed not to terminate pregnancies.

An anti-abortion couple promised pregnant women thousands of dollars if they didn’t have abortions. The women had their babies, but the couple didn’t always hold up their end of the deal. Business Insider investigated. Now Let Them Live says it will pay out the nearly $10,000 the women never got.

The Details – Let Them Live is an Indiana-based nonprofit. They promised the three women thousands of dollars of support in contracts that a lawyer described as “abusive.” The group offers women financial assistance, if they are considering having an abortion for economic reasons, “The Catch” as long as they sign a contract vowing not to terminate their pregnancy.

The women said Let Them Live failed to deliver on $30,660 in support, which it had promised them for childcare, food, rent, and utilities, leaving one considering suicide and another having to “ask on Facebook” for diapers. of All the women said they were at least five months pregnant, when they were told the support would be cut, meaning their options for abortion were narrowing. “I feel conned into keeping this baby,” one told Business Insider.

The organization’s founders are a millennial, anti-abortion, Christian couple who have deep connections to the conservative movement. They claim to have “helped” more than 700 women cancel their abortions, since it was founded in 2019.

Philip Hackney, an expert in nonprofit law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said Let Them Live’s contracts were “abusive” because the women were obligated to conditions including giving up “significant” health privacy rights.

You can read Business Insider’s full investigation report at this LINK>I feel conned into keeping this baby.

(Note – you will be asked to create an account and there IS a paywall. I used my Facebook account and they only asked for my name, profile picture and email address. Then, they asked me to pay.)

Hard Truths

It’s easy to be righteous about “life” and extreme in your anti-abortion views – perhaps you should open your heart to read this story in today’s Huffington Post LINK>A Letter To My 1-Year-Old Son About His Abortion. The truth is, for many women (myself included) an abortion is just a waypoint on the way to having other children.

The article is full of the REAL reasons some women must resort to an abortion. Near the end, the father says – We won’t tell you about the joy Dub Dub (grandma) felt knowing you were on your way, or how hard Pop Pop (grandpa) tried to live long enough to meet you, only to pass away on the last Sunday in January, exactly three weeks before you were born. We won’t explain how heartbreaking it is to become a parent just as you’ve lost your own.

We will wait until you are ready . . . We will wait to explain Roe vs. Wade, and make sure you know how to raise your voice when the moment demands it, because women shouldn’t have to face this fight on their own. We will wait to explain how dark our world was during that time, but never miss a chance to tell you that you were the one ray of light.

We will wait until you are older to tell you the bad parts, and how they outnumbered the good. We will wait until you are grown to tell you how fortunate we were to live where we did, because if we hadn’t, we might not have had you.

Abortion Prevents Adoptions

I once had an abortion. The timing of my pregnancy was all wrong (and significant drug use was taking place), the father to be all wrong (not interested), the progression of the pregnancy was all wrong (see drug use above) as breakthrough bleeding was occurring. My sister-in-law gave birth to a son with severe birth defects. While I cannot know if her desperate attempts to hide her high school, out of wedlock, pregnancy played a role, it could have. I know when my first husband discovered I was pregnant at a time when he had an active case of hepatitis (most likely also drug related) he feared our child would be compromised. I stuck with that pregnancy and she is as close to perfect as any of us are (we do all have our individual health related challenges in life).

So, I was grateful for the ability to have a safe and clean, medically provided, mental health counseling included before the procedure, abortion at Reproductive Services in El Paso Texas in the mid-1970s. Honestly, it has haunted me. Not because I think it was the wrong decision but because abortion is such a contentious issue. For a long time, I didn’t tell anyone I had had one.

I am old enough now that whether abortion was outlawed or not, it would not affect me personally. I am wise enough to think, instead of trying to control women’s bodies, men could choose to control their own. For one by not promiscuously pursuing sex. Young men could be given vasectomies that are reversible when they become mature enough to be responsible as fathers. That’s a winning option in my perspective.

I loved the passion in Paxton Smith’s speech because I see my own self when I was that age. I have always been an outspoken person. I loved to debate the boys in my Algebra class in high school (I also had a coach for Geometry class who made it more understandable). I gave impassioned speeches at pep rallies on occasion. I am still outspoken as anyone who follows my Facebook page surely knows. Paxton has said the most meaningful reactions to her speech have come from concerned fathers who fear for their own daughters’ futures.

Paxton Smith had pre-written a speech on how TV and media have shaped her worldview, which had been approved by school administrators. But when it came time to address the graduating class of Lake Highlands high, she switched course. Her nervous emotions are plain to see before they reach that level of impassioned anger. I recognize how that feels.

Texas’s new “heartbeat” measure ranks among the most extreme abortion bans in the US, blocking the procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy – before many women and girls even know they’re pregnant. The bill, due to come into force in September, doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest and allows private citizens to enforce its provisions through what could be a torrent of expensive and time-consuming lawsuits.

Abortion or Pro-Life issues are the hot button for evangelical Christians. It is not lost on me, what the Salvation Army in El Paso Texas told me when I was researching my dad’s adoption through them – they had to close down their homes for unwed mothers (a method of channeling infants to prospective adoptive parents) after Roe v Wade passed because there were simply not enough clients to keep the enterprise going. Another factor is the societal acceptance of single mothers – I know more than one who is doing a fantastic job raising their children – both genders included in this number. I don’t know if the Salvation Army took “donations” from prospective adoptive parents in exchange for infants but it would not surprise me if they did. Adoption is a lucrative business at any level of charitable intent.

Evangelical Christians are very interested in taking heathen babies and converting them to the faith. True, it may simply be emotional, adorable baby feelings that they think causes them to be against abortion and Pro-Life. However, just like Mitch McConnell’s nefarious agenda for our government’s institutions, the powers that be in the Christian hierarchy seek to increase the number of the faithful in part through adoption.

What Would A Pro-Life Person Do ?

I was startled last night to read that this was part of the keynote speech at the March for Life last weekend –

“The argument, I guess here, is that would you kill baby Hitler?” Shapiro said in what appeared to be a response to a question submitted online. “And the truth is that no pro-life person on earth would kill baby Hitler, because baby Hitler wasn’t Hitler, adult Hitler was Hitler. Baby Hitler was a baby. What you presumably want to do with baby Hitler is take baby Hitler out of baby Hitler’s house and move baby Hitler into a better house where he would not grow up to be Hitler, right? That’s the idea.”

~ Ben Shapiro

It wasn’t that a pro-lifer wouldn’t kill a baby that got my attention – it was that the perspective of evangelical Christians is a lot like the philosophy of Georgia Tann who took babies from poor families in order to give them to wealthy clients suffering from infertility. It was her perspective that their outcomes would be better. My own mother was one of those babies. And yes, she had a good outcome but that really isn’t the point.

I believe one of the unconscious reasons for the anti-abortion stance is to take babies from unwed and poverty stricken mothers and indoctrinate them with religious beliefs. To raise up an army of the faithful and to diminish the number of heathens.

Sad !!

The real baby Hitler