Life Links 3/26/13

A record number of people wrote in to oppose the HHS mandate regulations. 

Three years after Congress approved President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA), contraceptive care remains its most controversial provision, drawing not only more comments than any other regulatory proposal on any subject government-wide, according to an analysis of federal regulations on Sunlight's Docket Wrench.

More than 147,000 people and organizations have made their voices heard over the debate, most of them opposing the provision that requires that federal agencies have interpreted to mean that women have access to preventive services--including contraception--at no cost.

The latest person to testify in the Kermit Gosnell murder trial is Philadelphia fire Lt. Don Burgess about being called to Gosnell's clinic as Karnamaya Mongar was dying.

Burgess said they were led through a "maze to a room where we found a female nude from the waist down and with her feet in stirrups."

A female worker and Gosnell were there but neither was doing anything, and there was no sign emergency resuscitation had been tried.

"The doctor was confused," Burgess said, responding to questions from Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron. "I asked him what happened, and he blurted out something I couldn't understand."

   
Prolifers in Ohio are upset with the University of Toledo for helping to keep an abortion clinic open.
           

He distributed paperwork showing that the Ohio Department of Health in March, 2012, levied a fine of $25,000 and threatened to shut down Capital Care Network for having no transfer agreement in place. The shutdown threat was canceled after Capital Care signed an agreement with the UT Medical Center, formerly the Medical College of Ohio, in August, 2012.

"This abortion mill would not be able to exist without the University of Toledo and it's time for the University of Toledo to get out of the abortion business, even if it's indirect," Mr. Coats said.

Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R., Napoleon) said he believes Ohio law already prohibits the arrangement under its ban on state-funded entities supporting abortion, but said he would soon introduce legislation to make the ban more explicit.

In the Washington Times, Victoria Cobb writes about the abortion industry's opposition to public oversight and how that endangers women. 

Some industry representatives claim they support regulations, but say that the proposed Virginia standards "go too far." In fact, for several years they adamantly opposed legislation before the Virginia General Assembly that would have required only licensing, inspections and emergency equipment. Now we know why. The discovery of widespread violations of health and safety in the inspections — inspections the industry fought so hard to stop — reveals that it has no credibility when it comes to which regulations are necessary and which are not. An industry that has covered up for two decades the kinds of problems found in the inspection reports does not deserve to be listened to when it comes to how it should be regulated.