Friday, May 31, 2013

Life Links 5/31/13


The woman from El Salvador whom abortion advocates have been claiming (for weeks) would die if she didn't get an abortion will have a early Caesarean section delivery of her child next week, according to the Telegraph. 

For some reason, the title of one abortion advocate's article is claiming a Caesarean delivery is an "emergency abortion" though the writer admits it's not an abortion in the article.  They must have really wanted that "life-saving" abortion.


A Preferred Woman's Health Center abortion clinic in Charlotte, which was closed by the state and then allowed to re-open, will continue to be monitored by the state.  The clinic was giving women injectable methotrexate and having them drink it from a cup.  The National Abortion Federation (PWHC is a certified NAF clinic) actually defends the practice based on a single study from decades ago.  
Dr. Mitchell Creinin, a California-based obstetrician who was among the first to study methotrexate abortion procedures, questioned the practices at the Charlotte clinic.

"There is sufficient data to be using methotrexate but not the way they used it," said Creinin, who is the chairman for the University of California Davis' Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "It's no different than hearing about an orthopedic surgeon cutting off the wrong leg."

But National Abortion Federation medical director Dr. Matthew Reeves said the Charlotte clinic's use of methotrexate wasn't as risky as Creinin implied.

The National Abortion Federation, a professional association representing abortion providers, recommends A Preferred Woman's Health Center as one of three abortion clinics in Charlotte.

Reeves noted that a Canadian physician a couple of decades ago studied the effectiveness of orally giving patients liquid methotrexate to induce abortions. That study found the method to be safe and effective, Reeves said.

But Creinin said one study is not sufficient to support the drug's use in that way.

A Wisconsin man has been convicted of attempted murder after he drove to Madison with a gun and said he wanted to kill an abortionist. 
Lang was arrested May 25, 2011, by police responding to his accidentally firing the weapon through his motel room door. He allegedly told them that he wanted to kill abortion providers who were killing babies at the Planned Parenthood clinic on the city's east side.

Delaware AG files complaint against former Planned Parenthood abortionist


Delaware's attorney general has filed a complaint against abortionist Timothy Liveright based on the testimony of former Planned Parenthood nurses.  Liveright was presumably fired from his duties at the Delaware Planned Parenthood this spring.  At that time he told the Division of Professional Regulation he was retiring from doing abortions in Delaware. 
The Delaware Attorney General's office filed a complaint today against former Planned Parenthood abortion doctor Timothy F. Liveright, citing him for unprofessional, incompetent and negligent conduct and calling him a "clear and immediate danger to the public."
Contacted this evening, Liveright, 68, said such charges were "scandalous" for the state to make.
Liveright is not happy about the complaint.
"It's pure bullshit," he said. "They're jumping on whatever they can jump on. I don't know what their agenda is, but I don't think I'm a danger to the public."
According to another article, Liveright is still licensed to practice medicine in Pennsylvania.  That article also notes an incident of sexual harrassment.
Vasikonis, who worked at the clinic from October 2011 to August 2012, said Liveright often failed to wear sterile gloves during abortions, but that she never saw any problems with the actual physical procedures themselves.

She also said she never saw Liveright yelling or cursing, but that she did witness an incident of sexual harassment. That incident involved Liveright teasing a young female intern about a cellphone photograph of a pierced penis that he and another male employee were looking at.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Life Links 5/30/13


The Supreme Court in El Salvador has denied the petition of a woman with a high-risk pregnancy who requested an abortion and by noting that the threat to her life"is not actual or imminent, but rather eventual."
The court recognized that Beatriz has lupus, but it said that her disease was currently under control and that the threat to her life "is not actual or imminent, but rather eventual."

It ordered that her health continue to be closely monitored, saying that if complications arose that put her right to life in imminent danger doctors "could proceed with interventions."
According to CNN, "Beatriz" is now 26 weeks pregnant with a child who has been diagnosed with anencephaly.  While a number of abortion advocates have acted like Beatriz is knocking on death's door and the court ruling is a death sentence for her, an article yesterday in the New York Times reveals that's not the case. 
But the case has its medical detractors as well. José Miguel Fortín Magaña, director of the Institute of Legal Medicine, which evaluates medical issues for the Supreme Court, acknowledged Beatriz's medical problems but said that her health was currently under control and that she was not in danger at the moment.
I believe abortion advocates have jumped on this case largely because Beatriz's child has a serious birth defect in the goal of helping legitimize all abortions (regardless of whether the woman has health issues or if her child has defects). 


Andrea Mzorek writes about the death of Henry Morgentaler, the longtime Canadian abortionist.
Abortion is the "choice" in that critical moment in a woman's life when hope went on holiday.

This is Morgentaler's legacy: The death of a child, renamed a choice, and without limit in Canada.

He deserves neither all the credit nor all the blame, of course. When the Supreme Court of Canada heard the now infamous Morgentaler case in 1988, their intention was not to bestow abortion as an unfettered right. Instead, the court went so far as to acknowledge a legitimate public interest in restricting abortion, and then threw the question back to Parliament — which has been holding the ball ever since.

The LA Times has a puff-piece interview by Patt Morrison with Alan Trounson, the president of California's stem cell institute.  The first sentence is patently absurd.  
In 2004, with President George W. Bush dead set against stem cell research, California just went ahead and did it.

Washington Post covers "meat-market-style" abortions at Delaware Planned Parenthood


The Washington Post's She the People blog has a post on the testimony of two former Planned Parenthood nurses about the unsafe conditions at Delaware Planned Parenthood.  If you get time, I suggest you read the testimony of Joyce Vasikonis and Jayne Mitchell-Werbrich.

Vasikonis describes how she attempted to improve disorganized clinics which were failing in numerous facets (training, quality assurance, cleanliness, confidentiality, reporting abortions to the state, limited staff, etc.)  while Mitchell-Werbrich describes in-depth her numerous efforts to get state regulatory agencies to do something about the conditions in the clinic.  The agencies basically did nothing until Vasikonis and Mitchell-Werbrich went public. When Mitchell-Werbrich asked Mary Peterson of the Division of Public Health who regulates Planned Parenthood, she was told, "No one regulates Planned Parenthood." 
She said she witnessed “meat-market-style, assembly-line abortions,” with patients “rushed in and out the door.”

“The abortion rooms need to be sanitized and the sterile procedures need to be just that, sterile, so patients are not exposed to the blood and body fluids of other patients,” Mitchell-Werbrich said.

Vasikonis, who also left in August 2012, said, “For the last three weeks I worked at Planned Parenthood of Delaware, I alone scrubbed and sterilized instruments because no one else knew how.”

I doubt you'll see any of the usual abortion-advocating bloggers (Amanda Marcotte, Jill Filipovic, Michelle Goldberg, Irin Carmon, etc.) mention this as they can't blame Delaware's non-existent prolife laws for why patients went to Planned Parenthood and can't claim that Planned Parenthood is an outlier. 

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Life Links 5/29/13


Baby 59 via Getty images
The mother of newborn child found in a sewer pipe in China apparently alerted her landlord to the child's presence.  She claims she tried to catch the child after delivering him but he slipped into the pipe. 
The state-run, Hangzhou-based newspaper Dushikuaibao said police became suspicious when they found baby toys and blood-stained toilet paper in the 22-year-old woman's rented room, in the building where Saturday's rescue occurred in eastern China.

The woman, whose name was not revealed in state media reports, confessed to police when they asked her to undergo a medical checkup.
   
The woman told police she could not afford an abortion and secretly delivered the child Saturday afternoon in the toilet. She said she tried to catch the baby but he slipped into the sewer line and that she alerted her landlord of the trapped baby after she could not pull the child out, the state-run, Jinhua-based Zhezhong News said.

Some of Kermit Gosnell's former employees, including his wife, will be sentenced this week. 
Also scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday is Gosnell's wife, Pearl, 51, who has spent two years on house arrest and could be sent to prison for racketeering and performing an illegal abortion. She feels she's left "holding the bag" after her husband shamed the family, turned down a plea deal that would have kept her out of prison, and refused to speak at his trial, her lawyer said Tuesday.
   
Kermit Gosnell will plead guilty to the federal drug charges he originally pleaded not guilty to. 
Gosnell, 72 - who was sentenced this month to three life terms for murdering three born-alive babies during illegal late-term abortions - was due to stand trial in federal court for the narcotics-related charges after pleading not guilty last year.

A change-of-plea notice was filed with the U.S. Attorney's Office yesterday. Gosnell is scheduled to formally enter the new plea June 6 in front of U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia M. Rufe.

Speaking of abortionists who illegally prescribe drugs, a late-term abortionist in Australia named Mark Schulberg has been struck off the medical register for a year after prescribing copious amounts of pain killers.
Between 2000 and 2009, the Croydon-based doctor prescribed multiple patients with more than 25,000 Xanax tablets and 9000 Valium among other addictive drugs.

In her judgment, senior member Noreen Megay said his conduct represented the ''most serious and grave lapse'' of professional standards. ''His conduct was consistent with poor practice, it endangered the patients, it continued over a number of years and we viewed the pattern of prescribing as reckless,'' she wrote.

An Algerian abortionist has been found guilty of child trafficking. 
An Algerian doctor has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for abducting children born to single mothers and selling them in France for adoption......

The case came to light in 2009 after a woman died during an abortion at an illegal clinic belonging to Hanouti.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Life Links 5/28/13


The Supreme Court declined to hear the state of Indiana's appeal regarding their efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.
While federal law blocks the use of government funds to perform most abortions (with exceptions for rape, incest and woman's health), the Indiana ban went further by denying Medicaid funds for other purposes as well. In order to receive Medicaid funds, providers would have to create separate entities for their abortion services. Hospitals were excluded from the law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago ruled that the ban on Medicaid funds was unwarranted because it was not related to Planned Parenthood's ability to perform medical services. But it upheld a ban on federal block grant funds. The high court will let both rulings stand.

The New York Times revealed the Archdiocese of New York pays for a health care plan which covers abortion for some of its union employees.              
The archdiocese agreed to cover its own health workers long before Cardinal Dolan became archbishop of New York, and even today insists that it has no choice. As a result, about 3,000 full-time workers at ArchCare, also known as the Catholic Health Care System, receive coverage for contraception and voluntary pregnancy termination through their membership in 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a powerful health care workers union, according to Dave Bates, a spokesman for the union.

An off-duty police officer who was working at Planned Parenthood was allegedly attacked by a truck driver and ended up shooting the truck driver.  The incident had nothing to do with abortion but rather the truck driver receiving two tickets. 

On Monday, eight-year veteran Merrillville Police Officer Curtis Minchuk was in uniform but off-duty working a security detail for Planned Parenthood, where Strand had parked his semitrailer-tractor truck for hours without permission and against Merrillville ordinance, police said.

When he returned to find two tickets, Strand became outraged and eventually began to attack Minchuk in the parking lot, beating him and fighting for his weapon, police said. Minchuk was able to regain control of his gun and shot Strand in the abdomen.

Minchuk has been in the news before.  Merrillville settled a lawsuit after a Minchuk and fellow officer allegedly used excessive force against a security guard. 

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Health department finds deficiencies at 75% of Maryland's surgical abortion clinics


After the death of Jennifer Morbelli, the state of Maryland investigated Maryland's 16 surgical abortion clinics and found problems at 12 of them (including numerous problems at LeRoy Carhart's clinic in Germantown).  It has also suspended the licenses of 3-4 of the 12 with deficiencies as they threatened the lives of women. (The Baltimore Sun article says 3 while the WaPo article says 4.)

From the Sun:
State health officials have suspended surgical abortion procedures at three clinics, including one in Baltimore where a patient suffered cardiac arrest and later died at a hospital.

The physician who performed the abortion at Associates in OB/GYN Care LLC on North Calvert Street wasn't certified in CPR< and a defibrillator at the facility did not work, state officials said in a letter Friday to the General Assembly.

Although the cardiac arrest was caused by underlying health conditions and not the abortion, investigators found that it raised questions whether doctors at the clinic can handle an abortion that goes wrong.

The other two clinics that lost surgical privileges, located in Landover and Silver Spring, also are owned by Associates in OB/GYN Care and also had licenses suspended for issues related to the ability to respond to life-threatening problems during surgery.

The Silver Spring clinic is a NAF certified abortion clinic. UPDATE: Correction - This isn't a NAF certified clinic - the NAF web site says "American Women's Care" but there doesn't appear to be a clinic named that in Silver Springs.  The Associates in OB/GYN Care clinic in Silver Springs is part of Stephen Brigham's American Women's Services group of clinics but that clinic has a different number than the number listed by the NAF.  It appears the NAF clinic is actually called Silver Spring Family Planning. 

Here's a tidbit from the Post article:
Investigators later determined that it was standard, unwritten protocol at all four clinics to give misoprostol to all patients who were at least 11 weeks pregnant, even if the patient had not been evaluated by a doctor and even if no physician was present......

In a statement, Associates in OB/GYN Care said it was disappointed with the suspension. ”We think it’s unfair,” said Bridget Wilson, communications outreach coordinator. She said the suspension was based on actions of a single independent contractor physician and not part of the facilities’ overall procedures. “When we learned of the issue, we forbade the office staff from following this physician’s request,” she said.

Will the pro-choice crowd blame all these deficiencies on Maryland's prolife laws?  That might be somewhat difficult as NARAL gives Maryland an "A."


Thursday, May 23, 2013

Life Links 5/23/13


John Londregan on the "birther" myth.
It is past time we abandoned the "birther" myth that we are transformed magically through the process of birth from being tumorous growths within our mothers into fully human infants. The uncivilized confusion on the part of abortion advocates about whether newborns are fetuses or infants highlights the artificial nature of making birth the definition of humanity.

A 25-year-old woman in India is accusing two nurses of "forcibly aborting her baby."
The incident came to light when the patient's family members apprised senior CHC authorities of the incident. When reporters rushed to the CHC, the staff present day showed an OPD slip issued against the payment of Re 1. However, they were unable to provide the BST slip of Neetu. A BST slip is issued to a patient admitted to a hospital before undergoing a surgery.

Patient's family members also claimed that no pathological tests were conducted to identify the problem. The nurses even refused to look into pre-natal reports. Instead of undertaking a medical examination, the two nurses told family members that the patient had developed medical complication and it would prudent to abort the pregnancy.

Washington abortion advocate are up in arms because at one time, two insurance plans initially proposed not to cover abortion.  They both do yet because they initially proposed not, this is evidence to abortion advocates that abortion must be required to be covered. 
The proposals set off frustration among advocates who have been pressing for a new state law to secure abortion coverage for all Washington health plans. Elaine Rose, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest, said it is evidence of the need for lawmakers to make it clear that abortion should be covered.

"What's going to happen next year, or the year after that or the year after that?" Rose said. "Are we going to constantly be at the whims of insurance carriers changing their minds?"

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Life Links 5/22/13


The wife of a Michigan judge testified about their plan to get the judge's mistress to have an abortion. 
Earlier Tuesday, the judge's wife, LaVerne McCree, testified that her husband told her about the affair and also informed her that LaMott said she was pregnant.

She said she and her husband hatched a plan to get Mott to terminate a pregnancy she really wasn't convinced existed.

LaVerne McCree, who has been married to the judge for 25 years, said her husband filed for divorce to appease Mott, who was threatening to go public with their affair. LaVerne McCree said her husband told her that Mott was refusing to terminate the pregnancy unless he filed for divorce.

There were also concerns, she said, that if Mott did not have abortion, the judge could be liable for child support and the child could have a claim on the inheritance his mother left him.

Wade McCree withdrew his divorce petition a few weeks later.
       
Nebraska's attorney general has filed disciplinary charges against one of abortionist LeRoy Carhart's nurses.
The petition accuses Lindsey Creekmore, the sole registered nurse employed at the clinic since April 30, 2011, of administering incorrect intravenous dosages of sedatives and a labor-inducing drug to 11 patients between January 2011 and March 2012.

The charges filed against Creekmore do not indicate whether any of the patients were injured or hospitalized as a result of the incorrect dosages.

The complaint also alleges that the clinic did not routinely staff its recovery room with licensed medical staff, in violation of a rule that prohibits a registered nurse from delegating complex nursing care to unlicensed staff.

A prolife protest featuring Abby Johnson and a pro-abortion counter protest in New Orleans received some local media coverage. Planned Parenthood is planning on building a large 7,000 sq. ft. abortion clinic on an empty lot. 


"I wanted to throw up when I saw it."  That's how one high school student describes finding images of abortion in a high school bathroom in Texas. 

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Salon writer's pro-choice ideology makes it difficult for her to explain her miscarriage grief


Salon has a piece by JJ Keith in which she discusses her 3 miscarriages and her feelings about those miscarriages and abortion (she's pro-choice).  I find it odd that someone who claims to grieve her miscarriages would label unborn children the way she does (my emphasis).
I still haven't had an abortion unless you count my last miscarriage, which stubbornly refused to go on its own and thus at 10 weeks the heartless lump of cells had to be evicted by my OB-GYN with some sort of vaginal suppository that acted by mechanisms I don't understand. It's probably more accurate to say that I never chose to have an abortion, but the one I had to have was messy, both emotionally and otherwise, albeit not indicative of most abortions. Once I finally did give birth to a real live baby, I was surprised to learn that pushing out a fully formed human is only marginally more painful than ejecting a clump of cells the size of a pencil eraser......
She continues and goes on to claim that her unborn children didn't die.
However, even the most ardently anti-choice people I know do not mourn those three miscarriages as if I had lost three children. Having a stillborn baby is different from a miscarriage. Losing a child is different still. Hidden in our collective intuitive response to miscarriage is the reason why choosing to terminate a pregnancy is different from killing a baby: People can’t be OxyCleaned out of your underwear.
Deaths are important events, marked by ceremony and reverence, but what happened inside my body was not death. Whatever I lost is mourned only by me because only I knew them. They lived, however briefly, in me and nowhere else. Even my husband never got to know them, though they were ostensibly half him. They are my own losses, personal but not private. I am not obligated to mourn them, though I do despite not knowing how to do it.
They lived in you but they didn't die when they..... died? 

It's interesting to me how years of accepting pro-choice mumbo-jumbo regarding what the unborn are makes it extremely difficult for some people to accept and deal with reality.  JJ Keith struggles to mourn her children because her pro-choice ideology has dehumanized them so thoroughly. 

Monday, May 20, 2013

Life Links 5/20/13


In Washington State, a man who raped and impregnated a pre-teen girl and took her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion has been sentenced to 6 years in jail and then he'll have to leave the country.
Luis Gonzalez-Jose, 31, raped the girl at a home in rural Whatcom County while her mother was in the shower, according to charging documents filed in Whatcom County Superior Court.

He brought the girl to a Planned Parenthood clinic in August 2012. She told staff members that her 14-year-old boyfriend impregnated her, but she couldn't give the boy's name or address.

Six weeks after the abortion, the girl told a detective how she had really become pregnant. Gonzalez-Jose had insisted "it would be best for her" to not have the baby, according to the documents.

Gonzalez-Jose pleaded guilty to second-degree rape of a child in April. The girl's family refused to cooperate with prosecutors, according to a Department of Corrections report.
A previous article from the Bellingham Herald indicates Planned Parenthood alerted Child Protective Services. 


A woman in Great Britain with severe mental health problems is asking for permission to have an abortion at 23 weeks.
The 37-year-old, who suffers from bipolar and paranoid delusions, had planned the pregnancy with her husband and previously seemed happy to be expecting a child. But last month, the woman, who is 23 weeks pregnant, became convinced that she wanted a termination.
She wants to have a medical abortion, rather than surgery, which means a decision needs to be made "within a matter of days".....
Dr T said he believed she had "the ability to understand the court proceedings," but that she was not capable of making an informed decision about her unborn child. "Because of her persecutory delusions she refuses to take on information which she should be taking on to perform a balanced decision."

In Arkansas, a man has been charged with domestic battery and negligent homicide for running over his pregnant girlfriend with a car.  The woman, who was around 20 weeks pregnant, survived but the child did not. 


Some abortion advocates in Congress are targeting crisis pregnancy centers, claiming they want to ensure that pregnant women aren't deceived.
"No one should ever be subjected to misleading information when they are seeking health care, especially during pregnancy," Menendez said. "We have worked too hard to expand the availability of women's health care services to have any confusion created by those who would deliberately deceive a woman to suit their own purposes."
Too bad Menendez doesn't feel the same way when it comes to abortion clinics deceiving women. 


Thursday, May 16, 2013

Life Links 5/16/13


Five abortion clinics in the Pittsburgh area have closed after Pennsylvania's passed abortion clinic regulations.  Four of the clinics voluntarily shut down while Stephen Brigham's American Women Services was closed by the state.  Planned Parenthood, always playing the victim, is complaining about the extra business. 
Since June, five Pittsburgh abortion clinics have closed, state Department of Health records show. The department shut down American Women's Services on Fort Duquesne Boulevard. Others voluntarily closed their doors.

Two registered facilities remain in Pittsburgh, records show.

 "There's just no providers," Cavanaugh said.

More women have flocked to Pittsburgh's Planned Parenthood since the local closures, causing scheduling problems and later abortions for some, Cavanaugh said.  

A California man has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail for killing his girlfriend and unborn child (who according to this article was 22 weeks). 
A Colfax man who admitted he shot his romantic partner in the back, killing her and their unborn child, will be sentenced to 19 years, 8 months to life.

That is the plea deal 37-year-old Lee Martin Konnerth reached with Placer County prosecutors in the May 15, 2011 murder of Sarah Lynn Burr and the couple's baby.

The investigation into abortionist Douglas Karpen is receiving local coverage as well as a blip in the New York Times. 
Late Wednesday, the Harris County District Attorney's office confirmed it is investigating allegations reportedly made by the doctor's former employees.

This may become another high-profile case with high-profile politicians and political groups already involved. The D.A.'s office acknowledged the allegations are "very similar on the surface" to the case in Philadelphia.

Daniel Henninger writes in the Wall Street Journal about Gosnell and America's current abortion law. 
Their verdict is that if a late-term baby is outside the womb and is alive, and if a doctor performs a procedure on the baby that causes it to die, that is murder in Pennsylvania. For which Kermit Gosnell is being spared the death penalty and going to prison for life. That said, if in some states babies are inside the womb when procedures similar to Gosnell's are done, that is legal. The piercing and snipping Gosnell performed isn't something he invented. Later-term abortion isn't an antiseptic procedure like getting a tooth pulled. It can be a difficult and complicated mess.

Medical science and skilled doctors keep pushing back the time babies can survive birth before they've reached full term. Rest assured that any doctor in the U.S. who performs abortions past 20 weeks is looking at the Gosnell verdict and wishing there was more clarity about what falls along the spectrum between a day at the office and first-degree murder.

Florida man could get life in prison for killing unborn child with abortion drug


A Florida man named John Welden could spend the rest of his life in prison after being charged with killing his unborn child using an abortion-causing drug.  He's been charged under the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act because he killed the child while committing another crime.   Welden has apparently admitted his crime. 
Welden forged the doctor's signature on a prescription for Cytotec, relabeled a pill bottle as "Amoxicillin" and told the woman that his father wanted her on antibiotics, a federal prosecutor asserted Wednesday.....

If someone kills an unborn child while committing a federal crime, it's considered murder, said Tampa lawyer Todd Foster, a former assistant U.S. Attorney and FBI agent who is not associated with this case.

Welden's first alleged crime? Product tampering, "with reckless disregard for the risk that another person would be placed in danger of death or bodily injury."

.......

The woman took a pill on her way to work, then quickly felt abdominal pain and began bleeding, the prosecutor said.

She lost the baby at a hospital.

Another article notes that Welden tried to get his girlfriend to have an abortion. 
Muldrow said Weldon wanted her to have an abortion, but the woman told him she would raise the child without his help and without any expectations from him.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Life Links 5/15/13

At the Washington Post's She the People blog, Keli Goff wonders if Gosnell could save the pro-choice movement from themselves.
While Planned Parenthood applauded the Gosnell verdict, and should be applauded for doing so, the real question becomes how it, and the rest of the reproductive rights movement, moves forward after Gosnell. If the Gosnell case is treated as merely an unfortunate blip, then the mainstream reproductive rights movement will risk becoming a relic of the past, out of touch with modern day feminists who embrace reproductive rights, as well as the grey area of what constitutes a life. But if these groups care about ensuring that reproductive rights continue to exist long after the name Kermit Gosnell has been forgotten, then it is essential that they acknowledge two things.

First, that protecting life is important morally, ethically and politically. Second, defining when life begins is a conversation that must be dictated by science and common sense, not political expediency.
       
For some reason, Slate's William Saletan seems to think that abortionists who kill children after they survive abortions would report those killings to the CDC.  If Gosnell didn't report killing infants born alive, why would any other late-term abortionist?
         
Saletan also pulls the "late-term abortions are rare" claim by noting they are a small percentage of all abortions.  That's a little like arguing the federal government rarely spends money on science and medical research because it's just 2% of the budget. 


Saletan's claim that there are no more Gosnells is published just before Operation Rescue and LifeDynamics reveal the horrific photos of children allegedly born alive and killed at Douglas Karpen's Texas abortion clinic.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

"I couldn't eat my food if I had to look at that."

Mike Fink has announced he will close his Portland restaurant which is located near a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic because his business has been affected by protests at the clinic. 

Last winter Fink attracted widespread attention for staging what he called "anti-anti-abortion" rallies, in which he asked people to carry signs or honk car horns to show their opposition to the anti-abortion demonstrations.

More than 100 people, including dozens of protesters on both sides of the divisive abortion issue, showed up for the dueling demonstrations on Jan. 4. But after several more of the counter-protests, Fink said, "things just got worse."

He eventually called off his protests......

Perkins said he understands Fink's frustration.

"When the protests started, the first thing I thought about was Mike's, because that's a food place and those pictures are disgusting," he said. "I couldn't eat my food if I had to look at that."

Overheard on Gosnell


Ramesh Ponnuru:
The question that should haunt us now is not how many victims Gosnell killed, which we will never know, but how many more Gosnells there are in our country.

Robert George:
Late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been convicted of first degree murder for killing babies after delivering them alive.

The trial now moves into the penalty phase, and we wait to hear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty. But Dr. Gosnell is only the front man; and the real trial has only just begun. The defendant is the abortion license in America.

Matthew Franck on President Obama's speech at Planned Parenthood:
Evidently he is not afraid to come into contact with our own "class of native tyrants," who carry on the despicable business of destroying hundreds of thousands of human lives each year, and have the audacity to say they are serving "women's health." But then this is, after all, the same politician who voted against an Illinois law to protect the lives of newborns who survived failed abortions.

There is a limit even to Obama's audacity, though. The president mentioned the "right to choose" four times in his brief speech, but somehow this transitive verb never took an object. Choose what? He never uttered the word "abortion," though it was plain that the entire speech was about the centrality of abortion to the president's notion of women's "health." Is there any other constitutional right, real or invented, that does not go by its true name when its defenders speak of it?

NARAL Pro-Choice America opposes Gosnell being convicted of illegal late term abortions

      
You wouldn't know it from their press release about abortionist Kermit Gosnell's conviction and "justice being served" but NARAL Pro-Choice America opposes a law Gosnell was convicted of breaking 21 times.  That's right. NARAL opposes Pennsylvania's late-term abortion ban.   

NARAL Pro-Choice America supports the legal framework established in Roe v. Wade and does not oppose restrictions on post-viability abortion so long as they contain adequate exceptions to protect the woman's life and health.  NARAL Pro-Choice America opposes Pennsylvania's post-viability restriction because the health exception is dangerously narrow.  NARAL Pro-Choice America also opposes this law because it is unconstitutional to the extent that it prohibits pre-viability abortion by defining viability at 24 weeks.       

Something tells me Ilyse Hogue is going to be noting NARAL's opposition to Pennsylvania's post-viability  ban on MSNBC anytime soon. 
   

National Abortion Federation president Vicki Saporta can't tell the truth about Gosnell and NAF


National Abortion Federation (NAF) president Vicki Saporta has an editorial in USA Today which boggles the mind. One would never know from reading it that abortionist Kermit Gosnell worked one day a week at a NAF clinic in Delaware.  One would never know that various NAF clinics referred patients to Gosnell.  One would never know that the state of North Carolina recently shut down a NAF clinic because it was an "imminent danger to the health, safety and welfare of the clients."

Instead, you would be left with the false idea that Gosnell was some lone wolf provider who preyed on women (the same women NAF clinics sent to him), Pennsylvania's unenforced abortion restriction led to Gosnell, no level of restrictions would have stopped Gosnell (umm.... how about regular inspections?), the NAF's application process is rigorous (so rigorous a NAF clinic hired Gosnell) and "women can be assured of receiving high-quality care at NAF member facilities" (except for that just closed NAF clinic in North Carolina).

Shouldn't USA Today do some bare bones fact-checking before publishing this garbage.  

North Carolina closes NAF abortion clinic, cites "imminent danger to the health" of clients

The state of North Carolina has closed A Preferred Women's Health Center in Charlotte after an investigation. 
The 12 page report from DHHS spells out several alleged violations committed at the clinic.

The report says the clinic presents an "imminent danger to the health, safety and welfare of the clients," and alleges employees administered medications improperly, lowering the effectiveness.
                           
A Preferred Women's Health Center in Charlotte is a National Abortion Federation affiliated clinic. 

A couple of negative CitySearch reviews indicate a the kind of treatment women received there. Also notice the fake recommended reviews.  Interestingly, I found other recommended reviews of other Preferred Women's clinics (this one in Georgia) from similiarly named users with basically the same review. 


Here's a review from Yelp from a different Preferred Woman's Clinic in Raleigh might provide some more insight into how these clinics are run. 
When asked how long it would take, was told the dr was reviewing my chart but no update after that. Finally, around 12:15pm, was given the shots and cleared to leave. The nurse administering the shots was preparing the bandaids to be applied by opening the wrapper and then attaching the sticky side on to the counter, which was then put on to my skin after the shot ( in hind sight, I should have said something but was too traumatized then).

The staff was dismal. Obviously the HIPAA law does not matter to this clinic. All the patients are made to sit in this row of chairs in the hallway, with others sitting there. Staff will sit next to you and ask questions that they fill out, in normal tones so that everyone else sitting there can hear - I knew the women sitting next to me were 9 weeks, 7 weeks pregnant, whether they had STDs or not, when their last periods were and other details like that. There was one woman who was being asked the questions by the ultrasound tech, and she said " I am so scared". The ultrasound tech, in a very dismissive tone, told her " you will be all right" and continued right on with the questions. The tone was not soft, complete apathy was displayed with some brusqueness.

Monday, May 13, 2013

NARAL's illogical statement on Kermit Gosnell's conviction


In response to the conviction of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, NARAL has released a horrible illogical and disgraceful statement from their president, Ilyse Hogue. 
"Justice was served to Kermit Gosnell today and he will pay the price for the atrocities he committed. We hope that the lessons of the trial do not fade with the verdict. Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell wasn't a "back-alley butcher."  He was a main street butcher who operated his clinic on main street in Philadelphia and openly advertised his services for decades.  In fact, numerous other abortion providers referred women to him.  Notice how Hogue never mentions what she considers an atrocity and never mentions the babies Gosnell killed after they were born alive. 
"From the lack of funding available for low-income women to access abortion services, to the sharp decline of reputable providers in Pennsylvania, to the gross negligence of authorities to enforce the law after complaints were filed against Gosnell, each aspect of this case must be a teachable moment for lawmakers: until we reject the politicization of women's medical care and leave these decisions where they belong — between a woman and her family and her doctor — women will never be safe. The horrifying story of Kermit Gosnell is a peek into the world before Roe v. Wade made legal a woman's right to make her own choices.

Here Hogue puts the blame first on no tax dollars for abortion, a supposed decline in reputable providers in Pennsylvania (there was no decline in the city of Philadelphia) and then last on the authorities, who under the instructions of a pro-choice regime bypassed inspections. 

If the decision to have an abortion at Gosnell's clinic should be between a woman and her doctor it makes no sense to think Gosnell should have been convicted.  What an absurdly thoughtless statement. 

Gosnell isn't a peek into the world before Roe.  He's a peek into the world post-Roe where pro-choice politicians prevent abortion clinics from being inspected and leading abortion advocacy organizations don't report the filthy abortion clinics. 
"NARAL Pro-Choice America's annual Who Decides? publication has given Pennsylvania an ‘F' grade precisely because it has passed medically unnecessary laws that restrict access to safe and legal abortion care. It is my sincere hope that the women in Gosnell's clinic did not suffer in vain and that Pennsylvania, and every state, will step up and join us in making the protection of women's ability to get, safe, high quality, and legal abortion care a top priority."

Hogue and NARAL get real thoughtless here.  They previously blamed Gosnell on negligence of authorities to enforce the law and now they're blaming the unenforced laws for the Gosnell.  Which is it?  Is it the laws?  Or that they weren't enforced?  If the laws should be enforced then why did you give Pennsyvlania an "F" for having them? 

Gosnell found guilty of killing woman and children


From the Washington Post: 
Abortion provider Kermit Gosnell was convicted Monday of three counts of first-degree murder for severing the spinal cords of infants born during abortions at his West Philadelphia clinic.

Gosnell also was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of 41-year-old Virginia woman Karnamaya Mongar, who died from an overdose of drugs while undergoing an abortion at the clinic. Prosecutors described the clinic as a “house of horrors” because of the unsanitary conditions and unsafe practices that defined it......
Gosnell reacted calmly to the verdicts, but jurors and lawyers displayed more emotion. One prosecutor was sobbing. 

Life Links 5/13/13


At Slate Emily Bazelon claims Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro has never killed even though he allegedly killed Michelle Knight's five unborn children.  Apparently in Bazelon's mind, unborn children can't be killed.
The Supreme Court has so far ruled out the death penalty for crimes other than murder. If you think that's the right line to draw—that the state should not take the life of someone who has not killed—then Castro shouldn't be executed. I have to say I'm having some trouble typing those words. But in this case, I think that's the right call.
     
The New York Times interviewed Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. To me she comes off as standoffish even though a good deal of the questions are softballs.  There's even a Todd Akin question.


NARAL and Planned Parenthood probably don't like hearing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talk like this publicly.  Also note that Ginsburg considers herself a proponent of judicial restraint.  
Asked about the continuing challenges to abortion rights, Ginsburg said that in her view Roe's legacy will ultimately hold up.

"It's not going to matter that much," she said. "Take the worst-case scenario ... suppose the decision were overruled; you would have a number of states that will never go back to the way it was."               
Kind of hurts the old "End of the world if Roe was overturned" fear mongering when Justice Ginsburg is saying "It's not going to matter that much."

Friday, May 10, 2013

New Gallup poll finds majority of Americans don't know about Gosnell


This Gallup poll really isn't really surprising. For the Kermit Gosnell murder trial to change someone's mind on abortion, they would have actually had to learn something about it, which the majority of Americans haven't.
Although the latest Gallup survey was conducted after much of the testimony in this trial had already been reported in the news, the stability in Americans' views about the legality of abortion suggests the trial has not swayed public opinion. Part of the reason could be that relatively few Americans are paying attention to the case.

One-quarter of Americans say they have followed news of the case either very closely (7%) or somewhat closely (18%), but that is well below the 61% average level of attention Americans have paid to the more than 200 news stories Gallup has measured since 1991. An additional 20% of Americans say they are following Gosnell case "not too closely" while 54% say "not at all." This makes the Gosnell case one of the least followed news stories Gallup has measured.
Note the incredible ignorance of the 18-34 age group of whom 71%!!! aren't following the Gosnell case at all. On one hand, you would think the social media would possibly provide them more opportunities to hear about Gosnell.  Maybe they're too busy following Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber. 

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Life Links 5/9/13


The New York Times covered Live Action's InHuman video of abortionist LeRoy Carhart.  While writer Erik Eckholm says Carhart uses "some imprudent phrases while discussing the process of a late-term abortion," the article is largely a defense of Carhart and fails to mention his blatant lies regarding the deaths of Jennifer Morbelli and Christine Gilbert. 
The new video captures the doctor, LeRoy H. Carhart, using some imprudent phrases while discussing the process of a late-term abortion with women posing as patients. At one point he describes a fetus that has died after an injection in the womb as softening like "meat in a Crock-Pot." But the video provides no evidence of illegal action or subpar medical techniques.

Other medical experts as well as defenders of abortion rights said the comparison with Dr. Gosnell, who seemed to show blatant disregard for his patients and the law, was misleading and unfair. 

Ramesh Ponnuru and Robert George call for Congress to hold hearings on how states regulate (or in some cases don't) abortion clinics.
The grand-jury report suggests as well that the fact that the victims were poor and black partly explained the passivity of state officials. This claim, if true, strengthens the case that the state was failing to fulfill its legal duty. There is, of course, all too much precedent for such state failure to enforce civil rights granted by the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment contemplates such failure and offers a solution: Its fifth and concluding section confers upon Congress the power to enforce its substantive guarantees. In this case, power clearly implies duty. It is a power Congress has often used to force states to do the right thing, or to step in itself to bring justice where states refused.

Is it a coincidence that the Energy and Commerce Committee has sent letters to every health department in an attempt to ascertain how each state licenses and inspects abortion clinics?  And the Judiciary Committee has sent letters to state attorney general regarding the enforcement of various laws?    


The Gosnell grand jury continues to hear the re-reading of testimony.   Based on JD Mullane's picture of the charges, the jury deliberations could take some time. 
The jurors are also apparently still wrestling with minor charges as well, asking to see files related to two babies that were allegedly aborted past Pennsylvania's legal limit for abortions of 24 weeks. The panel of 12 also sent out a question asking if the medical files were the sole basis for the 227 misdemeanor charges against Gosnell for allegedly violating Pennsylvania's 24-hour waiting period on abortions.

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Life Links 5/8/13


I didn't think I could have a lower opinion of abortionist LeRoy Carhart.  Then I watched this.  While I'm not surprised by his willingness to routinely lie about his practice, the callousness he displays while talking about killing unborn children is disturbing. 


Jillian Kay Melchoir has a long expose on a chain of abortion clinics in Florida which are still in operation despite their numerous run-ins with the law and the killing of a child who was thrown in a garbage bag after being born alive. 
And Ralph Gracia, a homicide detective who helped hunt for the body, tells me that the clinic "had boxes with all the [aborted fetuses] in the recovery room sitting there, resting behind the chairs where the patients would sit after their abortion. In some of them, I actually saw some small flies just hovering around the boxes." The smell was terrible, he adds. He had to sort through each of the biomedical bags, searching among the aborted fetuses for the body of the baby who had been born alive.....

"I think she got away with murder, yes," Rodriguez continues, "especially in the cold way she disposed of the body. I mean the fact that the baby landed on the recliner, the mother's sitting in this room, and she's witnessing the baby breathing, she's witnessing the baby moving, and according to Sycloria, Belkis comes and tilts the recliner with the baby on the recliner, dropping the baby to the floor. And then she sweeps the baby into a bag and closes the bag and throws it away. That's pretty cold for a human being to be able to do something like that. Yeah, I think she got away with murder.

Congressman Marlin Stutzman shares how he was almost aborted.
On a cold December night in 1975, a 17-year-old girl sobbed on the bedroom floor of a neighbor's house. Her own home had just burned to the ground, destroying everything she had. But that wasn't the only weight she carried that night. She had just discovered that she was a few weeks pregnant with her first child. In the dark, alone and terrified, she decided to find a way to Kalamazoo, Mich., 40 miles away, to "take care of her situation."

That young girl was my mother, and if she had gone to Kalamazoo that night, you wouldn't be reading this today. I would have been aborted.

Why is it that people who know next to nothing about the Gosnell case seem to think their incredibly ignorant opinions are worthy putting into print.  Forbes embarrasses itself by publishing this commentary by Amesh Adalja, who seems to think that if Pennsylvania's unenforced abortion restrictions were removed, someone like Gosnell would "instantly evaporate."  Adalja clearly hasn't read the Gosnell Grand Jury report and likely has no clue that Gosnell's clinic wasn't inspected for 17 years. 
I believe it is no coincidence that Pennsylvania, a state with some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation (and hence the potential for a lucrative black market), was where an individual like Kermit Gosnell decided to operate his alleged infanticide operation.

Advocates of freedom in medicine would do well to include all aspects of medical care, irrespective of faith-based opposition, in the quest to allow for capitalism's return to healthcare. Not only will the removal of such restrictions enhance liberty, but also instantly evaporate any nascent back-alley black markets.

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Life Links 5/7/13


The Hill has an article on Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards which is largely complimentary.  The article does note the prevalence of abortion at Planned Parenthood but unfortunately doesn't ask Richards what her thoughts are on the troubles with the Delaware Planned Parenthood.               
Planned Parenthood is at the center of the abortion debate, as one of the most powerful abortion-rights lobbies and also as a leading abortion provider.

Planned Parenthood provides roughly 27 percent of the 1.2 million abortions performed each year in the U.S. — more than any other single provider.

An Orange County hospital has announced that it will no longer provide abortions.  Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian provided less than 100 abortions a year. 
Noting a correlation between low volume and low quality of care, Braithwaite said the board had decided to eliminate "direct" abortions because the hospital performs such a low volume of them — fewer than 100 per year.

Direct abortions are those procedures whose sole purpose is to terminate pregnancy before the fetus is considered medically viable.

America is the only place with shady abortionists.  An abortionist in China has been accused of taking a nude photo of a patient and blackmailing her with it. 
When Zhang got to the hospital, the doctor gave Cai her clothes back. However, the patient claims that the doctor took pictures of her while she was changing clothes and tried to use the photo as blackmail so that they would pay.

The hospital later returned the extra money the couple had been charged and issued an apology after police were called to investigate the situation.

In the Baltimore Sun, Marta Mossberg argues that the Gosnell case should make Maryland rethink their permissiveness of late-term abortion. 
Abortion supporters argue Dr. Gosnell, whose trial is garnering national media coverage, is a fringe outlier. In Maryland alone, there is much evidence to prove that assertion false. What about Steven Chase Brigham, for example? He was charged with murder for the deaths of viable babies at an abortion clinic he operated illegally in Elkton. Or what about the death of 29-year-old Jennifer McKenna-Morbelli in February after undergoing an abortion at 33 weeks at a Germantown clinic? In March, Maryland officials suspended abortions at three clinics, including one in Baltimore where a patient had a heart attack and later died. According to a report in this paper, "The physician who performed the abortion at Associates in OB/GYN Care LLC on North Calvert Street wasn't certified in CPR and a defibrillator at the facility did not work."

Monday, May 06, 2013

Life Links 5/6/13


In a devastating letter to the editor, Richard Doerflinger notes the Washington Post's editorial against Virginia's abortion clinic regulations and how if those regulations were enforced in Pennsylvania, they might have saved Karnamaya Mongar's life. 
The Post complains that the new Virginia regulations have "claimed their first victim." The "victim" The Post grieves for is a Norfolk abortion clinic that closed because it couldn't meet the new safety standards. Perhaps the paper could shed a tear for the dead babies and women who are abortionists' real victims. Some of us think they have even more rights than buildings do.

Kirsten Powers says abortion rights groups have become the NRA of the left. 
Speaking as a liberal who endorses more government regulation of practically everything—banks, water, air, food, oil drilling, animal safety—I am eternally perplexed by the fury the abortion rights contingent displays at the suggestion that the government might have a serious role to play in the issue of abortion, especially later-term abortion. More and more, the abortion rights community has become the NRA of the left: unleashing their armies of supporters and lobbyists in opposition to regulations or restrictions that the majority of Americans support. In the same way the NRA believes background checks will lead to the government busting down your door to confiscate your guns, the abortion rights movement conjures a straight line from parental consent to a complete ban on abortion.

Such an attitude makes having an honest conversation about abortion almost impossible. That is just one of the many reasons I hate talking about it. Additionally, there is no upside in our media culture to challenging this sacred cow. More likely, there is a price to be paid, which is why so few people take it on. However, I cannot legitimately say I am a person who cherishes human rights—the animating issue of my life and a frequent topic of my writing—and remain silent about our country's legally endorsing infanticide.

Kermit Gosnell's attorney Jack McMahon is upset with FOX News for airing a special on Gosnell.
"It's outrageous," McMahon told reporters who had gathered to await a verdict Monday. "I've never seen anything so irresponsible in journalism."

After McMahon aired his complaints to Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart, the judge instructed jurors to notify his staff if any of them had seen or heard details of the show during the weekend. He also told them it should not factor into their decision-making.

Chris Evert is not happy with Jimmy Connors claiming she had an abortion and it played a role in the end of their relationship.
"In his book, Jimmy Connors has written about a time in our relationship that was very personal and emotionally painful," Evert said in a statement released Saturday to Reuters through her agent Lawrence Frankopan at StarWing Sports.

"I am extremely disappointed that he used the book to misrepresent a private matter that took place 40 years ago and made it public, without my knowledge. I hope everyone can understand that I have no further comment."

Friday, May 03, 2013

Life Links 5/3/13


During the Pennsylvania's governor race will the media investigate whether Democratic candidate Allyson Swartz's abortion clinic referred late-term patients to Kermit Gosnell?  
At Blackwell, the answers aren't clear, either. The doctors there don't perform abortions on site, but they do refer patients to abortion clinics in the area. These days, Blackwell's policy is to provide no referrals for any patient seeking an abortion past 21 weeks of gestation. The law in Pennsylvania allows for abortions up until 24 weeks, but a Blackwell employee who answered the phone says a woman after 21 weeks would have to travel to New Jersey or Delaware to get an abortion that late. Why?

"No clinics in Pennsylvania will take patients past 21 weeks," the employee confirmed.

Not anymore, but there was a time when at least one clinic in the Philadelphia area was performing late-term abortions on women who were past 21 weeks of gestation: Gosnell's. Late-term abortions were his specialty, particularly for poor minority women. If a woman at 23 weeks came to Blackwell looking for an abortion, where would Blackwell refer her to if not Gosnell's clinic?

In Arizona, the Republic covers Live Action's sting of The Family Planning Associates Medical Group and got a statement from the abortion clinic. 
The Family Planning Associates Medical Group's e-mail said: "The individuals in the video were never in the position to provide direct medical care to patients undergoing second trimester abortions and no longer counsel patients at our clinic. Family Planning Associates Medical Group strictly adheres to all applicable state and federal laws regarding the delivery of abortion care."
This seems to claim that Laura Mercer wasn't going to do the late-term abortion and was just there to read the state-mandated law.


Abortion advocates are gearing up for Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016. 
The liberal backlash against President Obama coincides with a new, nationwide campaign to elect a female president -- with his former rival-turned-secretary-of-state at the top of the list. The "Madam President" initiative was launched Thursday by EMILY's List, which raises money for female, Democratic candidates who support abortion rights.

"There is one name that seems to be getting mentioned more than the others. We do not know if Hillary is going to run, but we are hopeful that she will," EMILY's List President Stephanie Schriock said.


Former tennis star Jimmy Connors is claiming Chris Everet's decision to have an abortion played a role in ending their relationship. 
He has indicated that his fiancée decided to have an abortion after he made her pregnant. He was 22 at the time, with a volatile bad boy reputation, while she was 19, the all-American girl from a devout Catholic family....

"Chrissie, however, had already made up her mind that the timing was bad and too much was riding on her future," he writes. "She asked me to handle the details."

He adds that he told her: "Well, thanks for letting me know. Since I don't have any say in the matter, I guess I am just here to help."

Thursday, May 02, 2013

Life Links 5/2/13


Ramesh Ponnuru and Margaret Carlson have a discussion about Kermit Gosnell and abortion.  Carlson, to her credit, doesn't play defense for the abortion industry. 
Margaret: Let me answer the question you raise: Yes, we have gone too far. Since we're talking about what we wrote, during last year's Democratic convention I wrote about how terrible it was that Democrats took out of their platform that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." As I read the Gosnell case coverage, I've learned that late-term abortions aren't as rare as I thought. Gosnell is charged with repeatedly and openly killing babies born alive. That is something doctors who perform abortions sometimes have to contemplate.

The vast majority of research money distributed by the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine has not been for human embryonic stem cell research.  Only $458 million (or 25.44%) out of $1.8 billion dollars. 
The amount is of some interest because the key reason that the agency now exists is the perceived need in 2004 to fund hESC research in the wake of the Bush Administration restrictions on federal funding in that area. The restrictions created a national uproar in the scientific and patient advocate community, which feared that promising therapies would never be developed.

Dick Polman doesn't seem to understand (or maybe he's being intentionally obtuse) that the criticism over the lack of national media coverage was for Gosnell's trial (which as Polman notes started March 18).  Polman's main argument is that various media covered Gosnell when he was arrested in 2011 and somehow thinks that excuses the national media blackout of the first three weeks of the trial. 

The paragraph below is especially telling of the mindset of many abortion advocates who dreamily believe the myth of Roe v. Wade.
In truth, Gosnell is a classic back-alley practitioner, the kind of quack who thrived prior to Roe v. Wade — and would again if the bad old days ever returned. Gosnell is actually an advertisement for why early abortions should remain legal, with government oversight to keep them safe.
Notice Polman's delusional belief that pre-Roe was the bad old days (back-alley practitioners thrived) and Roe created the good days (back-alley practitioners apparently don't thrive) because of government oversight while he's discussing the case of a man who operated an unsanitary abortion clinic on a main street for 3 decades and whose clinic wasn't inspected by the government for 17 years.


Rich Lowry's column is on Barack Obama, Planned Parenthood and how pro-choice individuals often avoid saying "abortion." 
Listening to him, you could be forgiven for thinking that the country is riven by a fierce dispute over whether women should be allowed to choose their own ob-gyns or decide whether to take contraceptives or to get cancer screenings. One side is pro-women's health, the other anti. In his speech, the president said the word "cancer" seven times. About that he is happy to be straightforward.

Imagine if he had been similarly frank about the rest of Planned Parenthood's work: "In 2011, according to your annual report, your clinics or affiliates performed 330,000 abortions. That's a lot of abortion. Over 10 years more than 3 million. Thank you, Planned Parenthood. Think of all those women who wanted to terminate their pregnancies and you were there for them. That's what you do. That's what you are about. And that's what this country is about."

Wednesday, May 01, 2013

Overheard: Abortion advocate spoke of her unborn child as "baby"


Michelle Goldberg's admits to calling her former fetus her "baby" before he was born.
Last summer, when I was 20 weeks pregnant with my son, I went for a 3-D ultrasound that would tell me if he had any serious physical abnormalities. In the days leading up to it, I was seized with anxiety that something would go wrong, and it was the deepest sort of relief to see each healthy part of him in turn—fingers and toes, heartbeat and brain, liver and stomach. I could even see, sort of, what his face would look like. At that stage, a fetus appears quite human. Not that I referred to him as a fetus. I am very pro-choice, but I already spoke of him as my baby.
What would be interesting here would be some insight into her thought process for how her unborn son was her "baby" but the children other women want to abort at 20 weeks are mere fetuses.

She then goes on to make a number of unsupported broad claims about late-term abortion.
Women do not have late abortions cavalierly. The vast majority of abortions—98.5 percent, according to the Guttmacher Institute—are done before 20 weeks. There’s not very much research about the 1.5 percent of abortions that happen after 20 weeks, but a significant number are done when a wanted pregnancy goes horribly awry.
Because the large majority of abortions occur before 20 weeks doesn't mean that there are no women who have late abortions cavalierly. She then goes on to list a study which shows that some late term abortions are likely done for what many people would consider a cavalier reason. 
Twelve percent were teenagers, some of whom went months without realizing they were pregnant.

Life Links 5/1/13


CNN covers Live Actions InHuman videos.  More are on their way.  Working in the abortion industry is likely quite stressful at this point in time. 
"There definitely are more videos coming out," Live Action Founder and President Lila Rose told CNN. "There's likely going to be another one coming out this week. And then more in coming weeks. So, you know, we're again focused on reaching as many people possible with ... kind of the expose of what's happening on a daily basis in the [late-term] abortion industry."

........

Also, CNN repeatedly attempted to contact senior staff at the Dr. Emily Woman's Health Center in New York. During initial calls, a representative said Director Marjana Banzil was unavailable until Wednesday. During subsequent attempts to reach senior staff, representatives grew agitated and, in one instance, screamed, "No comment!" before hanging up.

Ireland's government has submitted draft legislative language to change the country's abortion law.  At least one prolife group is opposed to the legislation.
Under the draft legislation, when the threat is not from suicide, two doctors must jointly certify that there is a "real and substantial risk" of the loss of the pregnant woman's life, and that they believe abortion is the only way to avert that risk.

One of the doctors must be an obstetrician or gynecologist, and at least one of the two should consult with the woman's own doctor where possible.

When the risk to the pregnant woman's life is from suicide, the assessment must be made by an obstetrician or gynecologist, along with two psychiatrists.

Denise Burke in the Washington Times on Gosnell and the abortion industry.
Sadly, Big Abortion continues to equate women's health and safety with mere access to abortion. Access to sanitary and appropriately regulated and inspected abortion facilities is simply not part of their political and self-interested calculus.

The "right" to abortion, as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court, does not give rise to a corollary "right" for abortion providers like Kermit Gosnell to turn profits or to practice without meaningful oversight and regulation. Quite simply, Big Abortion does not — contrary to its apparent beliefs — have a constitutional right to maim and kill women in unlicensed, substandard and dangerous clinics.

If Gosnell was an outlier then why were various abortion clinics referring patients to him?


Here's a must watch interview with Desiree Hawkins, a former patient of Kermit Gosnell who had a late-term abortion at his clinic when she was 16.  She was referred to Gosnell by the Hagerstown Reproductive Health Services abortion clinic.  Hagerstown Reproductive Health Services is accredited with the National Abortion Federation. 

In the movie, Desiree even shows the abortion clinic pamphlet where Gosnell's name and number were written.  From the testimony of Karnamaya Mongar's relatives, we also know that a D.C. abortion clinic referred patients to Gosnell. 

While the abortion industry and their loyal advocates continue to blame Gosnell on prolife laws and abortion restrictions, I've yet to see one abortion advocate come to grips with the reality that various other abortion clinics were referring patients to Gosnell.  In all likelihood, hundreds (maybe even thousands) of women (many from out-of-state) went to Gosnell not because of prolife laws but because they were referred there by other abortion clinics who didn't do abortions past a certain point.  Desiree Hawkins would have never heard of Kermit Gosnell, went to his clinic, and had the foot of her child stored there if she wasn't referred to him by a NAF clinic.