This week Priests for Life launches a public education and advocacy campaign focused on late term abortion, consistent with the message we have always conveyed that we educate people by starting with what is most obvious and leading to what is less obvious -- and to those confused about where they stand on abortion, the most obvious place to start is with third-trimester abortions.
Priests for Life associate Father Stephen Imbarrato will talk about the reality of third-trimester abortion at a press conference set for 9:30 a.m. MST Wednesday, April 19 at the University of New Mexico’s Hodgins Hall in Albuquerque.
The press conference was organized by Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) to urge New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas to follow up on possible criminal activity at the University of New Mexico and Southwestern Women’s Options, an abortion business.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) also will address the media at the press conference. Ms. Blackburn chaired the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, whose report raised serious ethical and legal questions about the relationship between the university and the abortion business.
The panel sent two criminal referrals to Balderas but his office has taken no action yet.
“The fact that babies’ bodies are being dissected and their parts sold is horrific and needs to be discussed out loud and criminally prosecuted,” Father Imbarrato said. “But my purpose at this press conference is simply to make sure everyone knows that third-trimester abortions are taking place in New Mexico and they are not being done to save the life of the mother or because of serious illness in the babies, as the abortion lobby would have us believe.
“Healthy mothers are aborting fully viable healthy babies, and this must stop.”
Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, noted, "Most people do not even know that third-trimester abortions are permitted in America, and that the effort to stop them mobilizes not only pro-life people, but also those who identify themselves as pro-choice. The United States is one of only a handful of countries that allow babies to be killed through all nine months of pregnancy.”
Two recent cases illustrate the problem.
In January 2015, the mother and uncle of a young woman in Great Britain contacted Priests for Life to ask for help in dissuading the woman from aborting her 30-week baby at Southwestern Women’s Options. Despite the intervention of Father Imbarrato and other pro-lifers, the baby was killed by a shot of digoxin to the heart and delivered stillborn days later.
In March 2016, a 16-year-old girl made arrangements to travel from her home in Waco, Texas, to Albuquerque to abort her twin daughters, who were 34-36 weeks in gestational age. She met with Southwestern abortionist Susan Robinson on April 5 and was assured the $21,000 abortion was her best option and would begin that day. But pro-lifers in Waco kept in touch with her and she decided to delay for a day. By the next day, she had changed her mind and went home to Texas. Her healthy baby girls were born April 9, 2016.
In an undercover phone call commissioned by Priests for Life and made a few days ago to Southwestern Women’s Options, a late-term abortion mill owned and operated by Curtis Boyd and located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it was clear that Boyd was willing to kill a Down Syndrome baby at 33 weeks of pregnancy. Hear audio or watch video of the undercover phone call.
“Even people who consider themselves pro-choice should be outraged at the crimes against humanity taking place in our state,” Father Imbarrato said. “Certainly we can sympathize with the plight of a pregnant teenager but there is always a better option than an appointment at Southwest Women’s Options or any other abortion business.”
To arrange an interview with Father Imbarrato or Father Pavone, call Leslie Palma at 347-286-7277 or email her at leslie@priestsforlife.org For more info, including the undercover phone call, the 30-week abortion, and the Select Panel report, visit www.priestsforlife.org.