DES MOINES—”Overturning Roe just means we come home to fight,” WHO-Newsradio Host Jan Mickelson told a sold-out crowd at IRTL’s annual fundraising dinner on May 8, 2010, adding, “I’m up for that, by the way.”

Mickelson, host of 1040 WHO AM’s popular Mickelson in the Morning show, was the keynote speaker at IRTL’s Spring Fling at Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse in West Des Moines. Mickelson explained that he wasn’t always pro-life. But an encounter with Planned Parenthood early in his radio career changed his mind.

As a talk host at a radio station in Cincinnati, Mickelson invited a representative from the local Planned Parenthood on as a guest. He said he didn’t understand how controversial Planned Parenthood was until the lines began to light up and listeners gave him a good thumping and asked, “How could you?”

Mickelson was later invited to a screening of the documentary Silent Scream, with a group of both Planned Parenthood people and pro-life people. Silent Scream, which first came out in 1984, was narrated by Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a former abortionist, who turned pro-life. The movie shows shows ultrasound images of the abortion of a baby in the womb at 12 weeks.

Mickelson said the pro-lifers sat in the back of the room weeping, while the Planned Parenthood people sat in the front row laughing openly and mocking the abortion that was depicted on screen. The experience changed him.

“When all else fails, read the directions.”

Not understanding the legislative process early on and how changes in law schools affected the judiciary was an early weakness in the life movement, according to Mickelson. “52 million kids died because we got hustled,” said Mickelson.

Mickelson pointed out that both the U.S. Constitution and the Iowa Constitution gives legislators the final word of law—not the judicial branch. Legislators can remove appellate jurisdiction by putting the words “not subject to judicial review.” Those words are all over the recent health care legislation.

Mickelson said there needs to be a Life Amendment that the “right to life is the law of the land and not subject to judicial review.”

For More on Jan Mickelson: www.whoradio.com/pages/pp_janmickelson.html