Life Links 9/13/11

The Kansas Board of Healing Arts is holding hearings to determine if former abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus inadequately approved late-term abortions for abortionist George Tiller. Neuhaus was formerly Tiller's second-opinion rubber stamp for girls and women who wanted post 22-week abortions.

A complaint before the State Board of Healing Arts deals with Neuhaus' care for 11 patients — ages 10 to 18 — all at least 25 weeks pregnant, who received abortions from July to November 2003. Kansas law permits the abortion of a viable fetus starting at the 22nd week of pregnancy only if the woman faces death or "substantial and irreversible" harm to "a major bodily function," which in 2003 included mental health. Neuhaus diagnosed the young patients seeking abortions with anxiety disorder, acute stress disorder and single-episode major depression

Planned Parenthood of Arizona says it will no longer challenge Arizona's 2009 prolife law which restricts abortion in a variety of ways.

- Requiring a woman seeking an abortion to meet in person with a doctor 24 hours before the scheduled abortion.

- Allowing only physicians to perform first-trimester surgical abortions.

- Requiring that parental consent for minors seeking an abortion be notarized.

- Allowing health-care workers, including pharmacists, to decline to provide information or access to abortion, emergency contraception or birth control based on their personal beliefs.

Planned Parenthood of Arizona's president and CEO, Bryan Howard, said there were two reasons for the decision not to appeal: Financial and resource challenges demand that the organization focus on health care, and the court's ruling indicated that the chances of success in this particular case were not strong.

Note this especially:

Howard said about 50,000 Arizona women seek care from Planned Parenthood's 13 clinics each year, about 10,000 of them for abortions.

That's 20%. Not 3%.


Wesley Smith takes apart a variety of strawman arguments about ethics from stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler.


Abortion protesters displayed the name of a man who owns an abortion clinic at his daughter's middle school. He owns the clinic where abortionist LeRoy Carhart works.

A small group of protesters stood outside Robert Frost Middle School in Rockville on Thursday, holding signs and a banner, during back-to-school night, officials said.

The student's father, who did not want to be named to protect the safety of his daughter, a sixth-grader at the school, said he saw the five protesters when he went to the school event.

Some held a large banner that showed his photo, his full name, his phone number and the words "Please STOP the Child Killing." Others held posters showing aborted fetuses.