I am so excited about having yet another opportunity to address, what I consider, to be the finest Knights in the Order, the leadership of Texas Knights.  What a thrill and honor it is to be here with you all once again.

Before I get started I wish to say something on a personal note.  I would like to thank Larry and Susan Zapalac for entrusting me with this position while they have been our State Deputy… you have given me a gift that I don't deserve, but am so totally thankful for.  I wanted to thank you, Larry and Susan, for the allowing me the privilege of being the State Pro Life Chairman for the greatest jurisdiction in the Order.  It has changed my life in so many wonderful ways.   Thank you both from the bottom of my heart!

I am happy to report that the Pro Life ACE Awards are being sent to all parts of this great State, and beyond.  I have been is communication with the Pro Life Chairman for the State of Missouri.  They have decided to implement our ACE Award Program to help push the Pro Life movement forward and to help our brother Knights get involved in the Pro Life movement.   Our Brother Knights in Texas, and their ladies, are busy fighting the good fight, saving the lives of innocent babies in every community that finds a Knights of Columbus Council or Round Table… so as a favor to all those babies whose lives are threatened and for those whose lives will end that day, please say a prayer for them daily, and please up your efforts to recruit a new member, or better yet, start a Council or Round Table.  Once those new Knights start working in Pro Life lives will be saved, and you will be the reason for it!!!

As many of you know that when I'm not busy working as a Pro Lifer I am busy working as an Engineer for a Defense Contractor.   I bring this up because as an Engineer you are forced into thinking a certain way and it has a tendency to invade the way you think in matters outside of work..like the home... just ask my wife what it's like.  Poor thing.

But what designing computer systems and trouble-shooting problems for a living does is it makes you always wonder how things work, or what could be done to make them work better..or sometimes how something got so messed up to begin with.

So you take an Engineer and mix him up with the Pro Life movement and you have something that resembles..well me, and the result of this is the speech that I'm about to do.

By answering e-mails and phone calls from across this Great State I have had to look for answers to our Brother's questions.   In doing this I have found out just how much I didn't know about Pro Life, and I have been in a type of classroom for the past two years trying to learn all I could so that I could be an effective leader in this position.

So I have found myself applying my "Engineer's" thought process more times then not.  Why is it that we have abortion in this Country, what caused this to happen, what is the root cause?

Many people will point at the 1973 Roe Vs. Wade court decision as the problem…  I believe that Roe vs. Wade is a symptom of a much larger problem.  That in order to find the problem you will have to look farther back than just 1973.

It's just like a problem with a computer, or a car.  Find the root problem and you can fix the issue.  If you just fix the symptoms you'll never get anywhere.

So I studied and learned and studied some more.  Because of this I believe I have learned the root problem that causes abortion in this Country.  It is without a doubt, Planned Parenthood.  I will present to you several facts about this corporation and after I do I think you will be inclined to call it what I do..the Evil Empire.

So to learn what Planned Parenthood is all about we must first look at its founder, Margaret Sanger.  Ms Sanger was born in upstate New York, one of 11 children.  Her mother died at a young age and Margaret blamed this on the fact that she had so many children.  Because of this belief she despised large families, and would end up spending the rest of her life working to stop large families from occurring.

Margaret Sanger was a woman who held three philosophies close to her heart throughout her life.

The first one was she believed in uninhibited sexual activities.  She believed that you should be able to have sex with whomever you choose, whenever you choose, regardless if you are married to that person or not, or if that person was married to someone else.

Margaret Sanger second core belief is in birth control.  She believed that small families of one, perhaps two children was the correct way of thinking.  She also wanted to have lots of sex, but didn't want the children that would come around because of it… and in the early 20th Century this was a problem, because you see, contraceptives were illegal to use, manufacture, and sell.  She also advocated Birth Control at this time.  What's the difference you ask?  Contraceptives prevent conception, Birth Control, prevent births… and we all know that's called… abortion.   So in 1916 she was advocating contraceptives that were illegal, and abortion, that was unheard of.

Margaret's third philosophy was that of eugenics - the purification of the race by selective breeding.  She believed that the government should hand out birth licenses allowing only certain couples to reproduce, and that those who were of "dysgenic" stock should be sterilized or place on a farm where they couldn't reproduce.  Margaret placed her Birth Control clinics in Irish and African American neighborhoods in the 20's and 30's.  After all both of these "races" needed to go away.

So here is an organization whose founder's core beliefs are as anti-Christian as one could possibly get.  If the roots are rotten the tree and the fruits will also be rotten!  Let's look at some of those fruits that we are the unlucky recipients of.

In 1916 Planned Parenthood was formed as the American Birth Control League.  This presented a bit of a problem because, as I have already mentioned, contraceptives were illegal in the US, and they were condemned by every Christian denomination, not just the Catholic Church, but every Christian denomination.  In addition to this problem it was difficult for Margaret to distribute her literature through the mail, because it was illegal to send any sexually oriented material through the US Mail System.  This was protected under the Comstock Laws.

So Margaret and her friends had an uphill battle to try and sway the country to her way of thinking.  Her first plan of attack was the Church… change the Church and you change the world.  Although most denominations shunned her she kept working until she discovered a Theologian in the Anglican Church by the name of William Ralph Inge.  In 1930 the first major victory occurred when at the Lambith Conference of the Church of England the use of contraceptives for married couples was allowed under certain limited circumstances.  The walls that held back the flood began to crumble and soon after this conference one by one each and every Christian denomination began allowing the use of contraceptives.  That is all except for one denomination..or should I say THE denomination.

In the 1940's through a series of court decisions Planned Parenthood negated the Comstock Laws, thus opening up the US Mail to sex information.  Today we have a thriving sex industry with pornographic materials going from one end of the country to the other and outside of our borders to other countries.  We have Planned Parenthood to thank for this.  The Playboy Corporation has shown its appreciation to Planned Parenthood for this very act by giving PP a large donation of money.

In 1996 the US Congress passed the Communication Decency Act.  This was passed and signed by the President.   The Communication Decency Act was designed to get pornography off of the Internet.  PP and the ACLU went to court and had the law struck down, claiming that it inhibited Free Speech.

And if that wasn't enough, in 2000 Congress attempted to keep any computer in a Public Library from being able to access websites that were pornographic in nature… you guessed it... PP and the ACLU stepped back into the courts and had it struck down.

So we can thank PP for our thriving Pornographic industry.  We can thank them for the death of morals in much of this Country.  We can thank PP for the death of millions of souls that die because of pornographic and sexual addictions and the subsequent death of millions of marriages.

And if that wasn't enough PP again teamed up with the ACLU to rid the country of the sodomy laws that stood until just a short time ago.  Opening up our latest attack on our moral values, the institution of marriage.

Of course PP was celebrating the 1973 Roe vs. Wade court decision that brought us legalized abortion.  They had a hand in this as well because of a 1965 court ruling PP was involved with that officially struck down the remaining Comstock laws.  By doing this and proving a "right of privacy" the doors were opened to help bring the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision into reality.

So why are they doing this?  Why would an institution that claims to be a Healthcare organization want to bring sex into our lives like this?  It is a simple case of good versus evil… and the fact that they also make money selling condoms and other contraceptive devices.  If we are hooked on sex they sell more of these items, and if we are hooked on sex and these items fail, as they so often do, PP is there to provide abortions on demand.  For a price of course.  PP leads the nation in abortions each year with 250,000 abortions annually.  They make millions of dollars each year on just abortions.

And how do they sustain this?  By going into our schools and teaching, or should I say preaching, their type of sex education to our children.  PP actually wants to start sex education in Kindergarten.  While they have not been very successful in getting into our Kindergartens they have been successful in getting into our middle schools and some classrooms where the children are as young as 10 years old.

On your tables there is a sealed envelope.  Please take a minute to look at this.  You will find an example of what they are passing out to our kids.  It is nothing less than pornographic in nature, and I apologize if this offends anyone here… but this is what PP brings into our schools via a book called "It's Perfectly Normal".   In this book kids are exposed to every possible sex idea out there… and there is even a section on what to do if you get pregnant and don't want to be.  The abortion section, interestingly, doesn't contain any pictures… just comments that abortion its fine, painless and doesn't hurt anyone.

Imagine what this does to a 10 year old or a 13 year old.  It warps their little minds.  It undermines the parents, and it undermines the Church's teachings, and it takes years to correct.

This book, and even PP itself, have found their ways into many of our Catholic schools and public libraries.   There are even Girl Scout troops in parts of the Country that award merit badges for attending PP sponsored events.

PP is the evil empire.  It is rotten to the core and we as the leadership in Texas must be aware of what they do and how they do it.  If we make known their agenda, they will cease to exist.  If PP goes away that means that 250,000 babies will be spared each year and our Country will begin to heal from 34 years of the American holocaust.

Keep your eyes and ears open.  When PP is mentioned make sure it is mentioned in a negative way.  If someone says something nice about them… butt in and tell them the truth.  Find out if your local schools are using PP information to teach sex education.  Find out if the book "It's perfectly Normal" by Harris is on the shelves of your library.  Find out if any of your local Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, or any association where young people get together have any dealings with PP.  Find out what companies have ties with PP and either boycott them, write them, or find a way to protest them.  It is the only way we will stop the Evil Empire.

Right now Texas is 4th in the nation as far as the number of abortion clinics.  We have 48.  This is one place where we need to come in last - but I need your help.  Are you with me Texas?

God bless, God bless, Texas and get out there and help save the babies.  Become an ACE!

Much of the information contained in this document is to be credited to Jim Sedlek, founder of STOPP, Stop Planned Parenthood.   Please visit Jim's website at www.all.org for additional information and how to Stop Planned Parenthood!

Tom Clark - State Pro-Life Chairman