House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Photo by Medill DC. Used under CC 2.0.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has a political track record of supporting pro-life initiatives, leading to increased frustrations among pro-life activists when he and other Republicans reneged on their promise to support “The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which would effectively ban all abortions after twenty weeks.
In response to the about-face, Reverend Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, Jill Stanek of Jill Stanek.com, and Troy Newman of Operation Rescue issued a diplomatic letter of protest to Speaker Boehner.
The pro-life leaders also organized a sit-in event called #FreeTheBan to be held in Boehner’s D.C. office at 10:45 A.M. EDT on March 25th. Over 100 people have reported that they will be in attendance on the event’s Facebook page. The event is an act of civil disobedience and participants run the risk of arrest.
Undeterred by this fact, Stanek stated, “My entry into the pro-life movement was prompted by the fact I held a 21-week abortion survivor until he died. He would have been saved by this 20-week ban. I have determined now is a fitting time to leverage my experience – to refocus attention on the baby and to continue to memorialize his senseless death the best I know how.”
