Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Life Links 1/18/11

In the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn asks "Are babies better than abortion?"
So again the question: As a society, does this figure say anything about the choice between a baby and abortion? Even for those who believe the choice for an abortion belongs to a woman alone and ought to be unfettered by city, state or federal law, is there any ratio such a person would say is too high?

The question becomes even more compelling when broken down by race. For Hispanics, the abortion rate was 41.3%—i.e., more than double the rate for whites. For African-Americans the numbers are still more grim: For every 1,000 African-American live births in New York, there were 1,489 abortions.

These numbers can make Roe seem very distant. Years ago, Bill Clinton famously summed up the pro-choice argument as "safe, legal, and rare." What can the qualifier "rare" mean, however, unless it means that in some fundamental sense, a baby is better than an abortion?


In the New York Post, Michael Benjamin (a just retired member of the state Assembly with a pro-choice voting record) notes how the news of New York City's incredibly high abortion rate has been mostly ignored.
Last week, Schools Chancellor Cathie Black's offhand joke about how birth control would resolve school overcrowding elicited a cascade of angry responses flooding news outlets, blogs and Twitter. Before the sun was high in the sky, the usual suspects stood in front of the microphones and sat in front of their keyboards denouncing Black (who has now apologized).

Earlier in the month, news of some truly horrifying health statistics vanished almost without a peep.

First, Archbishop Timothy Dolan and several clergy leaders held a news conference to decry the high abortion rate in New York City. The most recent data are for 2009 -- when 41 percent of pregnancies ended in abortion.....

It is indeed heartbreaking that 60 percent of all unborn African-American babies are aborted.

Just think about it: Black women in our city have three abortions for every two live births. The Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation are giving "fist bumps" all around.


In California, Planned Parenthood has plans to open up a facility in Redwood City.
"We don't have abortion as a service that we're initially providing," Linkin said, adding that the clinic later will "evaluate the need" for the pregnancy termination procedure.
More like "evaluate the local competition" (the former Planned Parenthood Golden Gate affiliate now called Golden Gate Community Health which has a clinic 10 miles away in San Mateo) and see if we can run them out of town.

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