PHILOSOPHY

A. What is American Life League?

B. What is the primary purpose of ALL?

C. What is ALL's mission?

D. What differentiates ALL from other pro-life, pro-family groups?

E. What does ALL do?

F. Does ALL have a religious affiliation?

G. What are ALL’s stands on rescue, picketing, demonstrations and “justifiable homicide”?

H. What is ALL’s position on “partial-birth” abortion?

I. What is ALL’s view on “parental consent” legislation?

J. What is ALL’s view on in vitro fertilization?

K. Does ALL take a position on the death penalty?

L. Does ALL lobby on Capitol Hill?

M. Does ALL endorse candidates?

N. How is ALL funded?

O. Are donations to ALL tax deductible?

What is American Life League?

American Life League is a non-profit educational organization committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from fertilization to death. Five families founded ALL on April 1, 1979. Today, more than 300,000 families nationwide support ALL. It is the largest grass-roots, pro-life educational organization in the United States.

What is the primary purpose of ALL?

ALL exists to teach the reality of the child living in his mother’s womb during pregnancy, the value of every single innocent human life, and ways to counter society’s widespread acceptance of the ethic of death.

What is ALL's mission?

The mission of American Life League is to serve God by helping to build a society that respects and protects innocent human life from fertilization to natural death, without compromise, without exception, without apology.

It is the current objective of American Life League to develop leadership in the areas of education, research and support in the pro-life movement intended explicitly to achieve an acceptance of total protection for all innocent human beings. Our primary focus is total opposition to abortion.

What differentiates ALL from other pro-life, pro-family groups?

Because ALL is founded on biblical principles, we take a "no discrimination" approach when teaching others about contraception, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and other matters that directly or indirectly influence the way our society views the value of the human person.

We are opposed to all abortion, contraceptive methods that cause abortion and other threats to the human person and the family. This total protection approach separates us from many of the other major groups in the nation because we do not discriminate against any innocent human being.

ALL will not support legislation that contains exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, fetal deformity or other such language or discrimination.

What does ALL do?

ALL has a staff of 60 employees who work in a variety of areas:

Publications

Celebrate Life, a bimonthly magazine, focuses on the efforts of families, organizations and individuals who make a difference for life in their homes and communities. In addition, Celebrate Life addresses difficult questions such as population control, physician-assisted suicide and medical abortion techniques.

Communiqué, an e-mail news update, briefs the reader on under-reported news from the pro-life movement, the states, the courts and various professional journals.

The Judie Brown Report, a bimonthly newsletter, focuses on developments ALL helps to generate within the pro-life movement, across the nation and around the world. This newsletter focuses on pro-life successes and needs, and actions others can take to spread victory at the local and national levels.

Reality Check is the monthly newsletter of ALL's youth outreach division. It presents a pro-life, pro-chastity message to today's teens in their own language, along with suggestions about how to become more active members of the pro-life community.

STOPP International's Ryan Report is a monthly publication of ALL's Stop Planned Parenthood International division. This newsletter offers updates on Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest single abortion provider, and highlights efforts to fight Planned Parenthood.

Pro-Life Bulletin Board is a monthly bulletin insert for churches. These inserts carry short, basic and timely announcements, suggested church activities and prayer projects.

A Slice of Life with Judie Brown is ALL's daily two-minute radio commentary, which is being marketed to Christian broadcasters around the country. The program features Judie Brown's observations on current events relating to the pro-life movement.

Research

The ALL staff studies the real needs of those who defend life at the local level. We ask questions, do internal market research, and subsequently develop our brochures, booklets, bumper stickers, handbooks, signs, and other useful pro-life materials.

Resources

ALL's educational resource department is quick to help individuals, churches and organizations trying to locate the exact type of material that will best suit their individual needs.

Grass Roots Activities

ALL has a team of grass-roots specialists who coordinate efforts with associate groups, working closely with grass-roots pro-life organizatons across the United States. These ALL staff experts are prepared to help local and state groups grow in number, strengthen their level of recognition in the community, and sponsor local and regional seminars and conferences.

This division coordinates a growing ALL Associate Program that provides basic tools and leadership at the local level.

Public Policy

ALL’s Public Policy division provides advice to state and federal lawmakers on life-related issues by drafting bills, correcting flawed bills by attaching principled amendments, and providing speech material.

In addition, this division studies problems such as eugenics, population control, reproductive technology, human embryo research, and welfare reform programs. These professionals also unmask the deception behind such programs which is often used to cover effects that are detrimental to the preborn child or the vulnerable elderly.

ALL provides study papers, booklets and articles to those who are involved in the formulation of public policy at all levels.

Communications

ALL’s communications office responds to attacks on innocent human life and issues the statements ALL needs as a focus for news events, grass-roots activity and Congressional action. Every major news outlet around the country is within a phone call, an e-mail or a fax. This office schedules interviews for Judie Brown and other ALL experts.

Development

ALL’s development office is dedicated to enhancing ALL’s name recognition among those in corporate and foundation structures. This office is also responsible for preparing grant requests for our special projects and keeping up with the project outlines detailing programs for which ALL has ongoing needs, such as international networking with pro-life groups around the world and enhanced computer communications capability.

Youth Outreach

ALL's youth team is committed to making a total commitment to the future of our nation by reaching out to young people in a concerted way. It is our mission to present our future educators, elected officials and religious leaders with God's absolute truth so they will be equipped to bring the battle for life to the next generation.

The youth outreach mission includes production of new brochures and other publications with specific pro-life messages for America's young people. This department is also responsible for organizing presentations to church groups and youth organizations, and development of a ALL's youth-oriented web page.

Pro-life outreach

ALL spokesmen and women who are experts in specific areas of concern are available to travel to deliver speeches, participate in debates on college campuses, or simply meet with concerned pro-lifers around the nation.

Does ALL have a religious affiliation?

  ALL is firmly established on moral and ethical principles based on the natural law (the moral law), the Word of God and the Magesterial teaching of the Catholic Church. The fact that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God is the foundation of our mission. ALL embraces Pope John Paul II's encyclical, The Gospel of Life, and teaches it in as many ways as we can. We recognize that in this one message, based on Scripture, there is a rich philosophy that is at the root of Christianity itself: that God, as the author of life, must be respected if man is to endure on this earth.

ALL is not formally tied to any denomination but works with our brothers and sisters in Christ to restore the culture of life in America and around the world.

What are ALL’s stands on rescue, picketing, demonstrations and “justifiable homicide”?

ALL advocates non-violent direct action. Because we recognize the child in the womb as a human being, we also recognize the act of abortion as the intentional killing of a human being. We affirm that the child in the womb has a right to be protected non-violently.

ALL does not condone violence in thought, word or deed against any innocent human being. Those who embrace the concept of “justifiable homicide” have taken unto themselves a judgment that defies God’s authority. Cold-blooded murder is wrong, whether the act is perpetrated against an abortionist or a preborn baby.

What is ALL’s position on “partial-birth” abortion?

American Life League knows the facts about this heinous act. When a child is four-fifths out of the mother's womb, and only his head remains in the birth canal, an act that destroys him is not abortion but infanticide.

The proposals of the 1990’s in Congress and many state legislatures contain a “life of the mother”exception, which means this surgical act of infanticide would not be banned. In practice, it would not even be curtailed.

Thus American Life League continues to focus on all attacks on innocent human beings from the time of fertilization as equally criminal acts and opposes them all. We do not single out one type of murder as being more grotesque than any other.

We do not endorse current political proposals, but do acknowledge the profound effect that the education surrounding this deadly act has had on the American public, many of whom have been forced for the first time to see the child and the mother as two separate human beings.

What is ALL’s view on “parental consent” legislation?

Let's examine what “parental consent” proposals intend. “Parental consent” means that if one or both of a minor’s parents agree with the minor and her doctor that her preborn baby should be destroyed by surgical abortion, then the slaughter can occur. This is not a pro-life proposal, and ALL opposes all “parental consent” legislation.

Parental notice, on the other hand, provides parents with the opportunity to be notified before their daughter either receives dangerous birth control chemicals (many of which cause abortion or leave serious physical side effects) or elects to kill her baby by surgical means. Every parent has the right to know prior to a child's treatment with any medical or surgical procedure.

What is ALL’s view on in vitro fertilization?

Because of the absolute dignity of the human person, ALL affirms that every child not only has the right to life and total protection, but also the right to be conceived during the physical union of his mother and father, carried in the womb of the mother, brought into the world and raised as a member of his family as designed by God.

A child is not an object to which one has a right, nor can he be considered as an object of ownership: rather, a child is a gift, "the supreme gift" and the most gratuitous gift of marriage, and is a living testimony of the mutual giving of his parents.

ALL opposes all methods of reproductive technology where the conception/fertilization of a human person is achieved outside the physical union of the couple.

Also see: Artificial Fertilization and the Christian Response.

Does ALL take a position on the death penalty?