NRLC's Educational Tools

By Joseph Landrum

As noted in the story on page 14, National Right to Life has an award-winning web site - - www.nrlc.org - - from which teachers, students, and parents can obtain wonderfully helpful resources.

With the new school year already in full gear, it's also important to know about the many educational tools NRLC has for use in the classroom which you can purchase inexpensively. NRLC's Educational Trust Fund has a number of fact sheets, mostly one- page, two-sided sheets, giving an overview of one particular topic, which are especially useful. Let me give you the highlights.

* First, we have a single-sided page, "Abortion Techniques," giving a quick description of the methods of abortion. For a quick primer, we offer "The Basics." This includes highlights of the milestones of fetal development, current statistics, the reasons women give for seeking abortion, and statistics on repeat abortions. (See the fact sheet on page 13.)

* "Abortion: Statistics and Trends" provides a yearly breakdown since 1973, along with an analysis of the overall decline in abortion numbers, rates, and ratios that has taken place in the years 1990-1997.

* For a provocative glimpse into what abortion has done to the American economy, we have "The Economic Impact of Abortion: What Do 40 Million Lost Lives Mean?" This fact sheet looks at the resulting shrinking labor force, the effect on future of Social Security and Medicare, and the high "cost" of tax- funded abortions.

* If you have forgotten about RU486 because other issues have dominated your pro-life "radar" in recent days, to refresh your memory, we have "RU486 - Risks and Dangers." This does an excellent job of helping the reader understand the real hazards this two-drug abortion technique poses to women (not to mention the lethal effects on the unborn child). There is also a lengthy "Question and Answer" section on RU486 on our web page, dealing with the history of the approval process, how the drug works, and a much more detailed discussion of side effects.

* Our most recent fact sheet covers stem cell research, discussing the moral problems with killing human embryos to obtain stem cells, the promising ethical alternative of using adult stem cells, and the pro-life adoption solution for dealing with the so-called " excess" embryos no longer wanted by their biological parents.

* Finally, we offer a more lengthy fact sheet on "Planned Parenthood: The real story behind the nation's premier 'family planning' agency." Accompanying the fact sheet is a three-page series on efforts in three local communities to slow down or halt Planned Parenthood's abortion efforts.

The fact sheet covers Planned Parenthood's abortion business, the money it takes in from abortions each year, the amount it takes in from your tax dollars, various lobbying campaigns it has been involved in, and information about its founder, Margaret Sanger.

We also have materials that people order year in and year out. These include the complete text of our "Abortion: Some Medical Facts" booklet. Also available is "When Does Life Begin?," filled with strikingly beautiful photos of fetal development. It is an excellent resource for biology and health classes on human growth and development.

"Abortion in America - When You Were Formed in Secret" is a two- part booklet, with basic information on abortion, fetal development, and crisis pregnancy center hotlines. Essays by Kay Coles James and Dr. C. Everett Koop discuss the pro-death mentality in America, brought about by the corruption of law and medicine embodied by the Supreme Court decisions allowing abortion on demand.

Teachers may also be interested in an excellent, comprehensive overview called "Abortion Information for Classroom Teachers." This 35-page book gives pertinent information for teachers on fetal development, methods of abortion, physical and psychological complications of abortion, legal and historical aspects of abortion, and the decision-making process for teens regarding sexuality and abortion.

Each section is well footnoted for those teachers or students who wish to do further research into any one aspect of the abortion issue. Sample research assignments and questions for classroom discussion on all aspects covered make this an excellent tool for teachers in many disciplines. Since the current version of the text was copyrighted in 1992 (we're working on getting it updated), an excellent companion is the Life Cycle publication, "What the Nurse Saw." This eight-page, full-color booklet deals at length with partial-birth abortion, not covered in "Abortion Information for Classroom Teachers."

For more advanced high school or college studies in post- abortion research, the Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change publishes a newsletter roughly every other month dealing with the negative aftermath of abortion, both physical and psychological. Recent issues have dealt with the long-term protective effects of childbirth for the mother's health, deaths from legal abortion, and adverse psychological effects of abortion. The newsletters are well footnoted for those wishing to pursue a particular area of research.

ORDERING INFORMATION

To request any of the above materials, call (202) 626-8809; e- mail nrletf@juno.com; or write to NRL Educational Trust Fund, 419-7th St., NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20004. You can receive one free copy of "Abortion: Some Medical Facts" and "When Does Life Begin?"

"Abortion: Some Medical Facts" costs 25 cents per copy. "When Does Life Begin?" costs 30 cents per copy. "Abortion Information for Classroom Teachers" costs $1.25 each. Prices for these items drop for orders over 100, so call first to check if you are ordering large quantities.

"What the Nurse Saw" costs 25 cents per copy, any quantity. " Abortion In America - - When You Were Formed in Secret" normally starts at $1.00 per copy. However, until November 30, you can order any quantity for 75 cents per copy, with no additional shipping charges for this item only.

Shipping for all other items is $3.95 for orders under $20, and 20% of the total for orders of $20 and over. A one-year subscription to the association newsletter costs $25, payable to the Horatio Storer Foundation, at the same address as above. Back issues are available for $1 per copy. Single copies of all fact sheets are free, and you are free to make as many copies as you need.