In This Issue

• A city in California is attempting to silence pro-lifers who try to save babies from abortion. 
• We wait and wait for Planned Parenthood’s annual report, but we know what it will say about abortion.
• We must keep talking about abortion and murder. And we must expand our conversation to include the evildoers at Planned Parenthood.

The Irony Behind Silencing Pro-Lifers Is Deafening

By Ed Martin

Sidewalk counselors and other pro-lifers in Walnut Creek, California, are facing the possibility of a sound ordinance that would limit the interaction they can have with women entering Walnut Creek’s Planned Parenthood. In a 5-0 vote last week, Walnut Creek’s City Council approved a sound ordinance that would restrict the use of megaphones, microphones, and other amplifying devices within 100 feet of the Planned Parenthood’s entrance. This ordinance follows a 2022 buffer zone that Walnut Creek’s City Council created to restrict how close pro-life protesters could gather outside the death clinic, as well as ensure that they remained eight feet away from patients. According to a detailed report by local Contra Costa News, the council members were disappointed to see that sound devices were being used as an alternative to the buffer zone to speak to the women going into Planned Parenthood. City council member Kevin Wilk stated the following in the April 2, 2024, meeting:

Over the past two years, we have seen repeated uncivil behavior by protesters trying to disrupt doctors, nurses, patients attempting to exercise their rights under California State law. Over the last 9-months, I’ve gone to Planned Parents facility a couple times to see what is going on there and what I have seen before people realize who I am, is blocking when people pass that signs are being shown of vile pictures. When someone pulls into the driveway or walking by, they are immediately spoken to. . . .

It’s intimidating, it’s probably the worst day in somebody’s life and some of these people are not the ages of people who are in this room. Some of these people are young teenagers who have come from out of state because their states have now outlawed reproductive services and in some case discussions. . . . Thankfully Walnut Creek and California has made this right something they can come to.

Even the council member acknowledges the vileness of abortion as it is shown in graphic pictures! What is even more ironic is when Walnut Creek’s assistant attorney, Alexandra Wolf, said that the effects of the noise by pro-lifers using amplifiers include:

• Creation or exacerbation of patient health issues
• Increases levels of stress
• Increases anxiety
• Increased heart rate
• High blood pressure

However, Wolf completely overlooks the numerous physical, mental, and emotional side effects of abortion on women and the result of physical death imposed on preborn children by abortion. 

Some of Planned Parenthood’s volunteers and staff spoke out at the meeting against the volume of noise coming from the amplifiers. One Planned Parenthood volunteer said, “The amplified sound is attacking the patients coming in. . . . The clients that have come in, it allows them to call them murderers. It allows them to target people that are inherently fragile at a time that is very difficult for them. . . . It’s so loud I could hear it inside the health center with the door closed. That should not be allowed to continue to happen.” 

Of course, both verbal and physical harassment are always wrong and never the way to approach teaching the truth about abortion. 40 Days for Life, whose members prayerfully protest outside that abortion facility, made the statement regarding accusations of harassment by pro-lifers outside this Planned Parenthood: “40 Days for Life is, and will remain, committed to being a peaceful, prayerful presence for life on the sidewalk. We are out there in prayer, and to offer women support and alternatives to abortion, if they wish.”

The sound ordinance was not met without opposition, especially from those involved in sidewalk counseling and pregnancy care centers. One woman with the pregnancy care center Love Life said, “They have clinic escorts that as soon as the moms get there, they are in their ear. . . . They are trying to interfere with our First Amendment rights and reaching out to the moms to offer the help and hope that we can provide through Jesus and the local church.” A woman who was helped by Love Life outside that Planned Parenthood shared that, “If it wasn’t for meeting the sidewalk counselors that day I probably wouldn’t have chose[n] life for my baby.”

Though final approval is still needed for the ordinance to go into effect, a second meeting will be held on April 16. STOPP sends prayers and encouragement to those pro-lifers in the Walnut Creek/San Francisco area to continue publicly praying and speaking up with respect and courage to defend mothers and their children from abortion and from Planned Parenthood. 

Waiting on Planned Parenthood’s Annual Report

You would think that an organization that receives hundreds of millions of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars would publish its annual report in a timely manner. You would think that an organization with so much support of the government would want to show that it is a good steward and explain exactly how it spends its money.

Well, you’d be wrong. Planned Parenthood is just this organization, and yet again it is delayed in filing its annual report. Last year, Planned Parenthood filed its annual report in the last days of April, long after most organizations have done so. (By the way, the annual report last year is a propaganda document that overuses the cringeworthy word “relentless,” as in Planned Parenthood is relentless in its support of abortion!) 

What is relentless about Planned Parenthood is that it uses our money to kill our children. But we at STOPP are relentless too. In the coming weeks, we expect that the annual report will finally be published. When it is, we will go through it down to the last dollar. Last year, we showed that Planned Parenthood spent less money on health services and more money on abortion. We expect more of the same.

If anyone asks you, feel free to complain that Planned Parenthood is still hiding from the people. And look for the STOPP exposé of all the organization is really doing.

Don’t Listen to the Media and Politicos Saying ‘Stop Talking about Abortion’

It seems like the news is covering pro-life stories every single day. This is great! And no matter what the media and pundits say, this is not bad. Don’t be distracted by the spin: This is all good news for pro-lifers.

You see, we should all want the debate about abortion BECAUSE it is killing. It’s good to get the truth out there. And we want actions like the recent Arizona Supreme Court decision to uphold a law passed over 100 years ago that banned abortion. We want more and more Americans to face the reality of murder of the preborn.

The media and the political pundit class are trying to say that we will “pay a price” for this discussion. We know this is fearmongering. Every time any American is faced with the truth of abortion, the truth breaks free: Life is a gift of God and worthy of our protection.

In the coming months, we will hear more and more about how pro-lifers must not only “settle” for laws that don’t protect life, but we also must “stop talking about abortion” because it will cost us elections.

The opposite is the truth. We must keep talking about abortion and murder. And we must expand our conversation to include the evildoers at Planned Parenthood and how they are using hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to commit murder.

Life is winning, and we should sing it from every mountaintop!

Please pass this WSR on to others and encourage them to speak up for life.