Dear Partners and Friends, 

This month, we begin our coverage of CBR’s Key States Initiative. This is a huge undertaking, and we thank God for making it possible through your generosity. We pray that He continues His work in the hearts and minds of voters this Fall. Thank you so much for your faithfulness.
Fletcher and Jane

CBR Launches Key States Initiative 2004

TV stations all over the country are covering our Key States Initiative. Many, including Atlanta’s NBC affiliate, are showing full views of the abortion pictures.
This election year, we at CBR have launched our biggest and most aggressive campaign yet. Never before has any pro-life group attempted a nationwide education project of this magnitude. For most of this year, we are pulling together our entire fleet of box-body trucks that feature pictures of aborted babies in the first trimester of pregnancy. Along with the trucks, we are flying our airplane that tows a huge banner depicting a picture of an aborted baby.
 
With this combined land and air operation, we are traveling to 21 states in which abortion will be intensely debated during this election year. These are “key” states in which the Presidential race is expected to be close or there is a contested Senate race between a pro-life and a pro-abortion candidate. The heightened interest in the elections in these states ensures that abortion will be a topic of much discussion.
 
When the issue of abortion is raised, the mainstream media tends to mischaracterize the pro-life position as the “extreme” political position, whereas they refer to the pro-abortion position as the “moderate” position. To them, saving babies is “extreme”, but killing them is “moderate.” CBR’s Key States Initiative (KSI) is designed to show voters that the pro-life position is, in fact, the moderate political position, whereas support of baby-killing is the extremist position.
 
Everywhere we go, we are making abortion an unavoidable topic of debate and are educating thousands of people about the reality of abortion. We launched this project on February 16 in Florida, and we plan to continue until Election Day in Washington State.
 
This is a huge project!

Driving the trucks and security cars is only one small piece of the logistical puzzle. Before one volunteer can drive one truck or car, he must be identified, recruited, transported from his home to the city where the trucks happen to be, housed, fed, trained, and added to multiple vehicle insurance policies. We estimate that before this project is over, we will have

• recruited, insured, and trained 250 volunteer drivers,
• arranged for pro-lifers in the towns we visit to provide more than 2000 nights of housing and 6000 meals for the volunteer drivers that travel with the team,
• arranged for about 100 airline flights to bring volunteer drivers to the trucks and take them back home,
• arranged for about 100 car rentals to bring volunteer drivers to the trucks and take them back home,
• notified 250 police departments that the trucks would soon arrive in their respective jurisdictions,
• sent nearly 1000 press releases to TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations,
• returned 1000 phone calls from people who saw the pictures and left a recorded message on our hotline,
• made formal presentations to nearly 100 pro-life groups.

Like we said, this is a huge project, made possible only by God’s grace and your financial partnership.
 
Our role.

The CBR-Southeast staff (Fletcher and Jane) are taking a leading role in planning and executing the project. Fletcher is serving as the Project Coordinator. He schedules drivers and arranges for insurance coverage. He communicates critical information to the field team, including weekly driver lists, housing lists, phone lists, and other information necessary for the smooth execution of the project. Jane does most of the heavy lifting. She coordinates all of the local support, including housing and meals for the traveling team, ground support for the CBR airplane, and volunteer drivers from the local areas. Mark Harrington and the rest of the staff of CBR-Midwest are doing an outstanding job of transmitting police notifications, sending out press releases, arranging media interviews, and coordinating fund-raising activities.
 
Extending our reach.

Above: This CBS affiliate in Charlotte, NC showed how we educate people about abortion from the air. Below: Fletcher is interviewed by Charlotte’s ABC affiliate.
Getting TV coverage of our projects is an excellent way to multiply our impact; that’s because even more people are exposed to the pictures. In the first 2 months of the project, it was covered by 20 TV stations in the biggest cities in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Fletcher was interviewed extensively for these news reports.
 
Perhaps the biggest media splash was in Charlotte, where three major network affiliates reported on the project. Two of them broadcast live from downtown Charlotte during their respective noon news programs. Additionally, Fletcher was interviewed live by the morning talk-show host at WBT radio. This host, who is generally conservative but was hostile to our project, tried very hard to change the subject to gay marriage, President Bush, etc. Each time, however, Fletcher was able to keep moving the discussion back to what abortion is and does.
 
The project has also received national attention. NPR radio covered the story on its morning broadcast on May 24. The reporter interviewed Bill Calvin of CBR-Northeast and commented on how many people were looking at the trucks as they drove through town.
 
The response.

The phone calls to our hotline tell us that people are definitely seeing the pictures. The anger tells us that many consciences are being pricked. Often, pro-aborts try to hide behind their children, saying “children shouldn’t see these pictures.” These pro-aborts remind me of the terrorists who hide behind human shields. They are saying, in effect, “Don’t shoot at us; you will kill our women and children! But we are going to keep shooting at you.” These pro-aborts are saying, in effect, “Don’t show these pictures to us; our children will see them! But we’re going to keep killing babies.”
 
Other callers claim to be pro-life, but they express no anger at all about the killing of children. They are only angry about our efforts to stop the killing. Apparently, these “pro-lifers” care more about the feelings of born children than the deaths of unborn children.
 
Some callers are upset because they have to explain the pictures to their children. Perhaps some of them are finding it difficult to explain to little Johnny why it is considered OK in this country to chop a little baby into pieces. Or why Mommy and Daddy support the practice. Or perhaps even why they killed Johnny’s older brother or sister.
 
The Catch-22.

Abortion is so grossly offensive that it hides in the magnitude of its own evil. Most people either support abortion (or else don’t oppose it in any meaningful way) because they don’t understand how evil it is. They don’t understand because they have never seen it. If we show it to them, many of them get angry—not at the abortionist, but at us! Their extreme anger at seeing abortion guarantees that few pro-lifers are willing to show it to them. Thus most people don’t see abortion, they remain ignorant, and the killing continues unabated. CBR is working to change all of that.
 
Another life saved!

In addition to laying the foundation for long-term social reform, the pictures also have a short-term impact. They save lives! In Cleveland, we learned of a woman who was standing at an intersection when one of the trucks passed by. She said, “Oh my God! That’s what abortion is. I almost did that to my baby.” A pro-life Christian overheard her remark and spoke to the lady, who was pregnant and had scheduled an abortion. As a result of seeing the pictures, she was certain to cancel the appointment. Praise the Lord!

Our work can continue only if you help!  To make an on-line donation to our work:
https://id28.securedata.net/abortionno/CBRSoutheast/creditcards.html
 
To arrange your automatic monthly bank draft to support our work:

1. Download and print the Electronic Gift Transfer Authorization:
http://www.abortionno.org/pdf/ElectronicGiftTransferSE.pdf
2. Fill out the form.  Make sure you designate the gift for "CBR Southeast"
3. Enclose a voided check or deposit slip bearing the account number of the account we should draft.
4. Mail the Transfer Authorization form and a voided check (or deposit slip) to CBR Southeast, P.O. Box 20115, Knoxville, TN 37940.

Please pray that God will raise up others to help you support this life-saving work!