Jill Stanek

Jill Stanek was a registered nurse in the Labor and Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois when she discovered that the hospital was not only providing abortions, but babies were being aborted alive and left to die with no medical care.

Rather than turn a blind eye, she shone a light on the issue of infanticide in the United States and her testimony helped enact both the Partial Birth Abortion Ban and the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. She was fired from the hospital for speaking out, and now acts as a voice for the unborn through her blog JillStanek.com and as a columnist for WorldNetDaily.com.

2011 was a banner year for the pro-life movement with the passing of 83 pro-life laws, and 9 states successfully defunding Planned Parenthood. Stanek believes these triumphs are thanks to the variety of innovative ideas from diverse pro-lifers working together to attack abortion from several angles, and that this will be what continues to propel the movement in 2012.

“As a group, we’ve really come into our own,” explains Stanek, “The PR was so good with Planned Parenthood for so long that it’s definitely turned a corner now thanks to Lila (Rose) and Live Action. The defunding and giving Planned Parenthood a bad name will continue. We made a lot of legislative gains in 2011. The most ever, so hopefully that will continue in 2012. The fetal pain bill is really a good bill. They just introduced that. That’s the First time that a federal legislator has introduced an abortion inhibiting piece of legislation for the District of Columbia.”

Another group that Stanek believes made a big impact in 2011, and will continue to in 2012, is 40 Days for Life, a community-based campaign that draws attention to the abortion industry through prayer, fasting, constant vigil and community outreach.

“40 Days is really important,” says Stanek, “because if you think about your typical union shops where the union workers go on strike, and they picket in front of the union shop and they take away business. That’s what 40 Days is like. It’s a sustained 40-day presence twice a year in front of an abortion clinic, and it physically hurts their business and it forces the workers to see them. They are just praying in front of those clinics and it has an impact on the workers too. 40 Days is a really big part of our movement now and I think it helps explain why so many abortion clinics are closing. They just can’t take losing that much business twice a year.”

Stanek also shared her thoughts on the Presidential election and says has endorsed Rick Santorum because she believes he would be the best one to battle Obama on right to life issues.

“I endorsed Santorum but I would be happy with any of the candidates,” She explains, “We’re too hard on Romney. He says he’s converted. We should leave him alone. Santorum would be the best because of his belief system. He’s never wavered. He’s a really good speaker and debater on abortion. He would be perfect to go against Obama because he sponsored Born Alive federally; Obama opposed it. He sponsored the Partial Birth Abortion Ban federally; Obama opposed it.  And he sponsored the Child Interstate Trafficking law, which didn’t pass, but it would stop adults from trafficking minors across state lines from states with parental notifications to states without. He sponsored it; Obama opposed it. So Santorum would be great to show people who the extremist is, the one who is against infanticide, partial birth abortion and trafficking of minors, or the one who is for it.”

But to really wipe out abortion and win back the rights of the unborn, Stanek believes everyone needs to tap into their own strengths and use those strengths to do whatever they can, small or large, to change minds, win hearts and save babies.

“Everybody has different passions and different gifts,” explains Stanek, “There’s people who like to sit in front of their computer all day and there’s people who have a passion for sidewalk counseling. Then there’s people who have that different kind of bravery who can go into an abortion mill undercover. People need to evaluate their strengths, the gifts they’ve been given both through education and by God. You don’t need a blog to make an impact. There’s an easy place to get involved. Go online, Google abortion and find and abortion article to leave a comment. It will take a few minutes. If you don’t have time to do much, you have time to make a comment, and there’s people in the middle (of the abortion debate) that are reading these comments. That’s overlooked but it’s very important.”

Stanek’s best advice for those who want to help the pro-life movement is to pay attention to what is going on around you. She asks, “Where are you right now? Look around. Jesus reached out to his little circle in Jerusalem. He started at home. Don’t make it hard. Start at home.”