{"id":280584,"date":"2022-11-30T10:43:15","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T16:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=280584"},"modified":"2022-11-29T21:27:40","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T03:27:40","slug":"book-decades-inspired-generations-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/book-decades-inspired-generations-life\/","title":{"rendered":"This book, written decades ago, inspired future generations to fight for life"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

In her book “Fighting for Life<\/a>,”<\/em>\u00a0Live Action President Lila Rose described her first encounter with the reality of abortion.<\/p>\n

“One afternoon, I pulled from a lower shelf a small paperback creased from wear and tear and gray with age,” Rose wrote.\u00a0“On the front cover was an image of a sober-looking woman under the title, A Handbook on Abortion<\/em>. The book was written by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke, founders of National Right to Life. Inside were pictures.\u00a0I was not prepared for the images I saw in that book.”<\/p>\n

WARNING: Images of abortion victims below.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Rose was very young at the time.\u00a0“Shocked and horrified, I quickly shut the book and sat back. What did I just see?”<\/p>\n

“Feeling I was on the brink of an important discovery, I opened up the book again,” she wrote. “I was staring at the photo of a tiny baby with tiny arms and legs severed from a tiny body. I was looking at a little human being during the first trimester torn into pieces by a powerful suction abortion.”<\/p>\n

URGENT:\u00a0<\/b>For every dollar given, 34 more people can be reached with the truth about abortion. Will you join us in this life-saving work as a monthly donor today?<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image:

Handbook on Abortion by Mrs. and Dr. J. C Willke aborted baby first trimester<\/p><\/div>\n

“Looking back, I realize what a gift it was to experience heartbreak over the evil of abortion as a child. It gave me the drive to start my organization, Live Action, at a young age,” Rose wrote.<\/p>\n

Abortion Victim Images Published<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Handbook on Abortion” was originally published in May of 1971.\u00a0“The book helped popularize the use of [abortion victim] images in campaigns against abortion and later at demonstrations outside abortion clinics,”\u00a0New York Times columnist and abortion advocate Linda Greenhouse once wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 1971, Dr. Willke met Dr. Russell Sacco, a urologist from Oregon who shared several slides he had taken of aborted preborn babies. The photographs, including the most famous one later dubbed “Precious Feet<\/a>,” were from aborted babies given to Dr. Sacco by a pro-life pathologist tasked with destroying the bodies.<\/p>\n

“Shortly thereafter, our first edition of Handbook on Abortion<\/em> was published,” wrote the Willkes in a separate book entitled, “Abortion and the Pro-life Movement and Inside View.”<\/p>\n

“Following that, the picture was printed in the Life and Death<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and Did you Know?<\/a><\/em>\u00a0brochures, and subsequently in uncounted other pamphlets, flyers, books, etc.,” the Willkes noted.<\/p>\n

\"Image:

Precious Feet image in Handbook on Abortion Mrs. and Dr. J. C Willke<\/p><\/div>\n

Inspired to publish<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the Willkes, the book’s inspiration came from pro-lifers who had been asking the couple to write something. However, it wasn’t until their eldest daughter, then a college student, urged them to publish the book that they seriously began to work on it.<\/p>\n

“Now, look, you’ve got to write the book,” she told the couple. “Write it simply – a question and answer format – with a title like Handbook on Abortion<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Marie Willke, daughter<\/a> of the Willkes,\u00a0recounted<\/a>\u00a0the events in an interview on Slate’s “Slow Burn” program.\u00a0“It was Christmas of my junior year, and I came home. Everything was decorated, you know, the big Christmas dinner and stockings hung, and it was all the traditions,” she told the outlet.\u00a0“I said, you know, they\u2019re saying in my classes that abortion is a woman\u2019s right. You can\u2019t force her to carry this child. And, you know, she has a right to control her own body. We don\u2019t make men do anything like this. Why should women pay the penalty? And my parents, I think, were just horrified.”<\/p>\n

Marie said her parents quickly defended their pro-life position. “They were like, ‘Well, is that human life? Look at the chromosome count. Can you refute that?’ And I couldn\u2019t,” Marie stated. “‘And what if she\u2019s a blue-eyed blonde and the baby’s a little redheaded boy with freckles? Is that part of her body?’ Of course not. It\u2019s a completely separate person.”<\/p>\n

“And I thought, well, that\u2019s a pretty strong argument, you know. And then I would say, you know, well, what about the poor rape victim? And Dad would just look at me and say. ‘So, we\u2019re going to make the child pay the penalty for the crime of the father. Does that sound fair?’ And I would think, ‘well, no, that doesn\u2019t sound fair either,’ you know,” she recounted.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Handbook on Abortion John C Willke<\/p><\/div>\n

“I said, why don\u2019t you write a little book? Because nobody knows the answers that you know, at least nobody I\u2019m talking to,” said Marie, who ended up transcribing the dictated chapters of the book for her parents.<\/p>\n

Marie told Slate that the woman on the front cover of the book was actually her.\u00a0“I\u2019m sitting there. I\u2019m in a sweater and a miniskirt. I\u2019m holding a Kleenex like I\u2019ve been crying. I\u2019m looking at my dad. You can see the back of his head and he\u2019s holding his stethoscope. And I\u2019m supposed to sit there and look worried, like I\u2019m the girl who needs the abortion, you know?” she told Slate.\u00a0“So, I thought, ‘I look like death warmed over,’ which was Dad\u2019s plan. And I said, ‘Dad, you can\u2019t use that.'”<\/p>\n

Marie recalled that her father said in response,\u00a0“No, no, it\u2019s perfect. You look like you\u2019re in distress.”<\/p>\n