Good morning, pro-lifers! Thank you for coming to beautiful Jacksonville, Fla. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules, and making this time commitment and financial commitment to come this week to educate yourselves, to meet other pro-lifers, and to get new ideas to take home so that you can make a difference in your state and in your local community.

You, the grass-roots pro-lifers, from all over the country, are amazing. Because of your efforts, unborn children WILL some day be protected by law, and protections will be restored for the elderly and disabled, whose lives are threatened by assisted suicide, euthanasia, and rationing of medical care. The work you do -- educating your communities, lobbying your elected officials, and helping to elect pro-life candidates to office at every level -- is making an impact.

You are the voice of National Right-to-Life in your local community. Your efforts are helping to spread the message that is being heard in every community across the nation. You are making a difference. And you came here, to Jacksonville, to learn and to get re-energized so that you can do even more. You are my heroes.

How many have been to a previous NRL convention? How many are here for the first time? We’re so glad you came. What can you learn in the next three days?

If you have an interest in education -- the impact of abortion on women and men, abortion and breast cancer, adult stem cells, knowing more about Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the nation – we have workshops for you.

If you have an interest in legislation at the federal or state level -- we have workshops for you.

If your interest is politics and the 2012 elections -- we have workshops for you.

If you’re concerned about euthanasia, rationing, the devaluation of life after birth, we have workshops for you.

For those who want to know what’s happening on the international scene to protect innocent human life -- we have workshops for you.

For those who want to learn how to get the pro-life message out; how to work with members of the media – we have workshops for you.

Whether you want help with chapter activities or fundraising ideas, guidelines for working with the IRS or learning new ways of reaching people through the social media, such as Facebook and Twitter -- we have workshops for you.

You can even learn if you’re green or orange and how people with different colors can work together. We have something for everyone …

This afternoon we’ll hear from Abby Johnson, the former director of a PP clinic. Tomorrow at the prayer breakfast, we hear from Melissa Oden, who survived a saline abortion. I got to meet her daughter, Olivia. She’s an adorable little girl, and we’re so glad to have both of them here.

Saturday night, at the banquet, we’ll hear the story of the incredible photo, showing an unborn baby grabbing the doctor’s finger during surgery.

There is so much packed into these three days that you’ll probably go home physically tired, but hopefully, you will be mentally and emotionally ready to charge onward; ready to meet the challenges that lie ahead. And we do have challenges. Although the number of abortions is slowly decreasing, we still lose more than a million unborn children to abortion each year.

Another challenge is the way technology is being used. Technology is wonderful, but not when it is being used to make abortions easier in more remote parts of the country. In a telemed, or webcam abortion, a doctor sits in his office in one city, talks to a woman in another city, via computer. After this “expert consultation,” he pushes a button on his computer so a drawer in her room opens to reveal two pills. She takes one, then goes home; takes the other pill a day or two later, and expels her dead baby.