Life Links 4/21/11

Wesley Smith on how Planned Parenthood could stop people from objecting to Planned Parenthood receiving tax dollars:

I find it interesting that whenever PP defunding comes up, defenders bemoan the loss of cancer screenings and contraception dispensing for poor women, and materially downplay the importance of abortion in the overall PP menu of services. Well, there is an easy way out of that conundrum–if they are truly the core of PP's mission: Simply stop performing abortions and many people will stop objecting to its receiving taxpayer dollars.

But as we all know, abortion is the true core of PP's mission so that's not happening anytime soon.


Live Action reports on "Maria Talks" a state funded web site for teens in Massachusetts in which abortion is promoted as "safe and effective," "more common than you think" and easy to get. The site also provides contact information to an organization which can help young girls pay for abortions, to Planned Parenthood to help teens get a judicial waiver instead of parental consent, and a link to NARAL Massachusetts where girls can get a list of abortion providers.


A federal judge has ruled that a letter sent by Angel Dillard to wanna-be abortionist Mila Means wasn't a threat.

A federal judge on Wednesday refused the government's request for a preliminary injunction to order a Kansas anti-abortion activist to stay away from a doctor who plans to offer abortion services in Wichita.

The Justice Department filed a civil complaint against Angel Dillard, 44, after she sent what it alleges was a threatening letter to Dr. Mila Means. In denying the government's request for a preliminary injunction that would have prevented Dillard from coming within 250 feet of the doctor, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten said that while the letter was clearly meant to intimidate Means, it wasn't a threat.

The British High Court has ruled the British government has to release statistics noting how many British unborn children were aborted past 24 weeks and the reason for the abortion. The government stopped publishing the statistics in 2003 after a report showed a child had been aborted because of cleft palate.


A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to jail time after beating his girlfriend because she wouldn't have an abortion.

Roderick Douglas Gaines, 28, of East Vine Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to three to six years in a state correctional facility after he pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated assault of an unborn child, simple assault and terroristic threats in connection with a July 2010 altercation with his former girlfriend at a Pottstown residence.....

Court papers indicate the victim reported that Gaines struck her with a closed fist and told her if she screamed during the incident, he would "give her something to scream about." Additionally, the victim told police that Gaines said, "she was forcing him to have this baby and she should respect that he wants her to have an abortion. Since she won't respect his request to have an abortion, he won't respect her."

It appears that Indiana may defund Planned Parenthood.

Sources in Indiana tell PULSE the governor will most likely be forced to swerve away from his long-touted "truce" on social issues when a bill to defund Planned Parenthood and set up new abortion restrictions lands on his desk within the next two weeks. The Indiana State Senate passed the bill this week and groups on both sides of the issue expect the governor to sign off on it.