The other day we noted that, after months of coverage by Glenn Beck, the case of Justina Pelletier had suddenly exploded into a full-fledged Religious Right campaign this week, with Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver signing on as the family’s new attorney while Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition (who was deeply involved in the Terri Schiavo case) began serving as a family’s spokesman.
On top of that, Personhood USA has also gotten involved and is set to begin running television ads about the case on Fox News beginning today. The ads were put together by a right-wing media firm called Rapid Response TV on behalf of Personhood USA with funding provided by the same unnamed billionaire benefactor who has been bankrolling this entire campaign.
For technical legal reasons, the ads are being run by something called Revolution PAC, but as Rapid Response TV’s president Bryan Hartong told Beck yesterday on his radio show, “the understanding is that anything that comes out of this is going to Personhood,” meaning that all the names gathered or money raised will be handled by Personhood USA.
As Beck’s The Blaze reported today, Personhood USA has also organized a call-in campaign to the Massachusetts court officials about the case:
A human rights group says it has organized people to make hundreds of calls to court officials asking them to “release Justina Pelletier,” the Connecticut teen at the center of an ongoing, high-profile custody battle.
Keith Mason, president of Personhood USA, said more than 500 calls have been made so far to the office of the Suffolk County Juvenile Court, which is overseeing the Pelletier case. The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families took custody of the 15-year-old last year after doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital disagreed with her parents and another doctor’s diagnosis.
If the name of Keith Mason or his Personhood organization seem familiar to readers here, it is probably because he was the “manager of the Yes on 62 Campaign” back in 2010, which was the failed effort to pass a constitutional amendment in Colorado that would have granted “personhood” from the moment of fertilization in order to completely outlaw abortion and some forms of birth control.
The campaign was most remarkable for the ad campaigns that Personhood ran in support of the amendment, including comparing supporters of legal abortion to Nazis and even running a radio ad featuring a “fomer slave” who compared abortion to slavery:
I’m George Stevens and I’m a person. I was held as property as a child. Even before my birth I was called a slave in an America you wouldn’t recognize. But folks like you helped me escape North to freedom and in 1864, I joined the infantry to fight for my country. I fought so all slaves would be recognized as persons, not property. And we won.
But today in Colorado, there are still people called property – children – just like I was. And that America you thought you wouldn’t recognize is all around you and these children are being killed.
This November, vote “yes” on Amendment 62. Amendment 62 declares unborn children persons, not property. And that’s the America I fought for.
So visit PersonhoodColorado.com and in November, vote “yes” on 62. It’s the right thing to do.
Amazingly, that was not even the most radical ad the organization ran during the campaign, producing one that literally likened President Obama to the Angel of Death:
As Beck declared on his radio broadcast yesterday, “this is a very big deal” not only because Justina’s life and health at stake, but Beck thinks that this case is also the key to stopping things like Common Core and progressivism in general once and for all.
“Thank you Lord,” Beck said. “Quite honestly, thank you Lord for this Justina case because maybe perhaps this is a blessing because we will all wake up and we’ll be able to stop it before it’s too late”:
