Life Links 2/20/13

Manuel Montalvo's reaction to news that his wife was carrying two sets of identical twins is classic. 

Manuel's immediate reaction was jubilation.

"The first thing I said was ‘Home run!' and then I started jumping up and down," he said.

The Montalvo's doctor says this delivery is a very rare event.

"The incidence of spontaneous quadruplets is somewhere of the order of 1 in 500,000," said Dr. Brian Kirshon, a specialist in maternal and fetal medicine at Houston Perinatal Associates. "And then if you take two sets of identical twins in the quadruplet set, the incidence must be one in many, many millions. It's an extremely rare occurrence."

NARAL's take on the teen whose parents allegedly attempted to force her to have an abortion is not-surprising (they argue it confirms the importance of "choice") but it leaves me wondering: "If you're really in favor of everyone's choice, then why is it that a prolife group had the resources to help this young woman while I've never heard of a pro-choice group protecting women from forced abortion."


National Review has an editorial on Governor Cuomo's attempt to make abortion even more accessible in a state which is home to the nation's abortion capital.

New York does not want for access to abortion. Two in five pregnancies end in abortion in New York City; the rate for black women is 60 percent. The statewide figures are lower, but they are high enough. There are about 250 abortion clinics in the state, and 93 percent of the state's women live in a county that is home to an abortion facility, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Nationally, abortion kills the equivalent of the combined populations of Atlanta and Cleveland every year. All that with no help from Governor Cuomo.

Governor Cuomo's bill is not about easing access to abortion — those bloody skids already are well-greased. The issue is political domination. The abortion party does not brook resistance, and it steadfastly seeks to ensure that everybody has a hand in its grisly business: taxpayers, employers, priests. All must be implicated. If a religious hospital declines to provide abortions, then it must be forced to do so. If a counseling center treats adoption as preferable to abortion, it will either change its mind or have its mind changed for it by the gentle persuasion of the State of New York.