Life Links 2/27/14

Prolifers are suing  over Madison’s abortion clinic buffer zone law. 

The City Council approved the ordinance Tuesday. It creates a protective zone within 160 feet of health care facilities to allow patients and others to enter and exit without obstruction.

Under the ordinance, people on public way or sidewalks within that 160-foot radius may not approach, without consent, another person within 8 feet for the purpose of oral protest, education, counseling, passing leaflets or handbills, or displaying signs. Violations of the ordinance are punishable by fines ranging from $300 to $750.

         
A Kansas man has been charged with first degree murder after he allegedly crushed up an abortion pill and put it in a woman’s pancake, causing the death of an unborn child.

Scott R. Bollig, 30, is accused of intentionally killing the 8- to 10-week-old fetus by putting a crushed form of the medication on a pancake eaten by the woman, according to a criminal complaint filed in Trego County District Court and posted on the attorney general’s website.

The Daily Beast has a puff piece on Medical Students for Choice which bemoans the limited number of abortion training programs and how hard it is for medical students who want to learn how to kill unborn to get learning experiences.

Are prolife laws the problem?

In a RHRealityCheck article Tara Murtha attempts to use the case of a Pennsylvania mother who endangered her teenage daughter’s life by giving her abortion pills which were purchased online to argue that prolife laws are the problem. 

While the Gosnell grand jury report indicated that the rogue provider was able to operate undetected as a result of lawmakers treating abortion as a political issue rather than a public health one, the response of the state legislature was to further politicize abortion.

What?  No.  Murtha intentionally equivocates between how pro-choice individuals in the administrations (Departments of Health and State) of pro-choice governors Tom Ridge and Ed Rendell didn’t enforce rules and how prolife legislators passed laws to further regulate abortion clinics to make sure something like Gosnell doesn’t happen again.  For Murtha to act like the Grand Jury report would somehow be against these new regulations (the Grand Jury report specifically calls for abortion clinics to be treated like ambulatory surgical facilities) is intentionally deceptive. 

The Whalen case reveals we’re at a tipping point in Pennsylvania: The politicization of abortion ultimately means the criminalization of pregnancy.

Unable to defend a mother who endangered her daughter’s life by buying abortion pills online, Murtha claims pregnancy (!) is going to somehow be criminalized as opposed to illegally giving abortion pills to your daughter.  Yes, prolife laws which regulate abortion clinics are going to be used to round up all pregnant women.  That's makes sense in bizzaro land.   

Study after study shows that restricting access to safe, legal abortions by outlawing the procedure or, as is the preferred method in the United States, implementing geographic, logistical and financial barriers, doesn’t result in fewer unplanned pregnancies or abortions.

Murtha’s “study after study” actual links to one Huffington Post article and one Guttmacher Institute web page where "the studies" in question are really pro-choice researchers guessing how many abortions are performed in countries where abortion is illegal. 

Unfortunately for Murtha, that has nothing to do with how prolife laws in the U.S. which restrict abortion affect unplanned pregnancies and abortions in the U.S.  I wonder why Murtha didn't provide a study showing that prolife laws in the U.S. don’t result in fewer abortions since that’s the issue she’s talking about? 

Neither strategy reduces the need for safe abortion. They both result in women seeking abortion through other, unregulated and often unsafe means. That is one of the main reasons pre-Roe pro-choice advocates argued for regulations.

I wonder why she doesn’t provide any evidence for these assertions either.  In Michigan, abortions are down by more than 50% in the last 25 years in part because of prolife legislation yet Murtha would have us believe that somehow these ten of thousands of women in Michigan are seeking illegal abortions and yet the hospitals aren’t filled with women suffering from complications for these illegal procedures.  Please.  

Abortion advocates like Murtha can't have it both ways.  If prolife laws don't do anything to reduce abortion and only lead women into taking dangerous means to end pregnancies then why aren't our hospitals filled with women who've been injured by these dangerous methods?  Either prolife laws reduce abortion and illegal abortions are quite rare or prolife laws lead to lots of illegal abortions which are quite safe. 

Absurd story of the day: Prolife woman gets ticketed for parking car with prolife magnets in the buffer zone

This is absurd: 

Molly Jesse of Essex Junction, who opposes abortion, was ticketed by a Burlington police officer in June for parking near the clinic — within the 35-foot buffer zone where city law states that no one may “knowingly congregate, patrol, picket or demonstrate” — while she prayed nearby, outside of the buffer zone.


Jesse’s car had three magnetic signs, including one ribbon on the tailgate that said “choose life” and a larger sign on the door that said “your baby is forever, love you.” She contested the ticket.



In a six-page judgment issued Feb. 13, Vermont Judicial Bureau Hearing Officer Howard Kalfus wrote that the signs on Molly Jesse’s car amounted to a demonstration.

Buffer zones and the rights of women considering abortion not to be "harassed" are so sacrosanct that women considering abortion can't even be confronted with small car magnets which ask them to "choose life" if they happened to look at the back of Molly Jesse's car.  

Life Links 2/20/14

Bishop Richard Malone of the Archdiocese of Buffalo has spoken out strongly against the “evolved” position on abortion of State Senator Timothy Kennedy. 

“For anyone to say that he or she is a faithful Catholic and to be pro-abortion/pro-choice rights is totally inconsistent with Catholic teaching, which is clearly articulated in the catechism of the Catholic Church,” Malone said......

The bishop’s blast at Kennedy follows a Buffalo News report Sunday in which the senator explained that his views on abortion have “evolved” in the last few years, despite earlier views that fell into the pro-life category and even in the past earned support from the Conservative Party, which opposes the procedure.   

In the Wisconsin State Journal, Chris Rickert notices how some protestors are more equal than others. 

Speeding its way through the city’s legislative process is an ordinance that would create “buffer zones” around patients as a way to keep anti-abortion protesters from trying to accost women going into Madison’s lone abortion clinic.

Under the ordinance, you risk a $300 ticket if you get within 8 feet of a patient with a leaflet or a plea to reconsider. And it doesn’t matter if you’re on a sidewalk or other public property if the property is within 160 feet of the clinic.

By contrast, there are no buffer zones or really any other meaningful government restrictions on free speech in the Capitol rotunda.

Pro-abortion groups are continuing their push against the Michael Boggs nomination. This is why the abortion positions of prolife Democrats often “evolve.”  If you want to move up, you’ll be opposed tooth and nail by pro-abortion groups.  


Someone upset with a Iowa church’s prolife sign has vandalized it twice.

But sometime Saturday night, a pro-life sign outside the church was spray-painted. The word “abortion” was crossed out and the “s” in kills covered, leaving “Kill God’s Children.”

Life Links 2/18/14

The Planned Parenthood in Flagstaff, Arizona has resumed providing RU-486 abortions.  They found a physician would prescribe the pills but is apparently only available one day a week which might eventually force them to stop again. 

Howard said it has taken this long to find a physician who could provide the service at the Flagstaff location. The physician will be available once a week on Tuesdays, and unlike before, an appointment is now necessary.

The law now requires that women seeking a medical abortion first undergo a face-to-face meeting with the physician. After a 24-hour waiting period, the woman may then be given the abortion pills. But, in Flagstaff, because the physician comes only one day a week, the next possible visit for a woman would be a week later.

And, in April, when a new law is scheduled to take effect, it is possible that a physician also will be required to dispense the second round of the abortion medication, which is taken 24 hours after the first round. Currently, a patient can self-administer the second pill or a nurse practitioner can dispense it.

If that happens, it is possible the Flagstaff center will again have to end abortions, Howard said, unless a physician can provide that follow-up day of service as well.

The government of North Korea is apparently worse than I’d imagined. 

North Korea forces women to undergo abortions and young mothers to drown their newborn babies, and has starved and executed hundreds of thousands of detainees at secret prison camps — atrocities that the chairman of a U.N. panel that documented the abuses compares to those of Nazi Germany.

“The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” the U.N. Commission on Inquiry said in a 372-page report released Monday on North Korea’s atrocities. These crimes are ongoing because “the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place.”

The Students for Life group at the University of Alabama received an apology after their display was taken down. 

Guttmacher Institute can't stop making stuff up about IUD use

The Guttmacher Institute is really pushing this idea that health insurance needs to provide free contraceptives so poor women will get IUDs.  Here's Eyal Press in the New Yorker:

Thanks to publicly funded family-planning services provided to poor women under Title X—a federal program that House Republicans have repeatedly tried to eliminate—there is evidence that more low-income women have been using I.U.D.s in the past decade. But the total number of users is still small, and the cost, which can exceed a thousand dollars before insertion, remains prohibitive for many low-income women who don’t qualify for Medicaid and cannot afford private insurance. “We know that cost is a major factor in a woman’s ability to choose and access a method of contraception that works best for her, and behind the cost is access to health-insurance coverage,” Kinsey Hasstedt, a public-policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, told me.

I wonder why they don’t provide any evidence.  Is it because the percentage of women who used IUDs in 2006-2008 (table 11) hardly varied between income levels?  Also, noteworthy is that the increase in IUD use from 2002 to 2006-2008 is much higher in the 300+% of poverty level group than in the lower income groups.  IUD use went up from 1.5% in 2002 to 5.9% in 2006-2008 among women making 300+% of the poverty level while only went from 4.1% to 4.8% for women in the 0-99% of poverty level. 

Or why don't they mention that poor women are much more likely to use female sterilization (which is typically more expensive than an IUD) as their contraceptive method than their richer peers? 

It would be nice if reporters actually examined studies on contraceptive use as opposed to just parroting the Guttmacher Institute’s talking points. 

Wendy Davis is now okay with 20-week abortion ban.....well, not really but kind of, sorta

Texas gubernatorial candidates Wendy Davis is trying real hard to have it both ways on legislation to ban abortion after 20 weeks.  Try to sort through this:

“The Supreme Court sets that viability and it probably will be revisited,” Davis said. “It’s one that deserves that kind of reflection to determine whether that kind of constitutional protection should exist at a time period less than what it is right now.”

Davis said she could have supported a bill that contained only a 20-week ban, but the law’s restrictions on clinics and doctors have greatly curtailed access to the procedure in parts of Texas.

“It was the least objectionable,” she said. “I would have and could have voted to allow that to go through, if I felt like we had tightly defined the ability for a woman and a doctor to be making this decision together and not have the Legislature get too deep in the weeds of how we would describe when that was appropriate.”

So she could have support a 20-week abortion ban if it allowed women and their abortionists to make the decision (which wouldn’t be a ban at all)? 

Criminal abortionist caught in Germany and extradited to U.S.

Local Georgia media outlets are reporting that abortionist Charles Rossman was caught in Germany and extradited back to Georgia after a decade on the run.

VPD says that Rossmann was arrested last year in Germany and has now been extradited to Valdosta, to face multiple counts of criminal abortion, drug charges and a FBI warrant for Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution.

Rossmann fled the area shortly after being investigated for performing illegal abortions at his medical practice in Valdosta.   

Here a LifeNews article on the 2003 case which involved a 31-week abortion.

The woman was 31-weeks pregnant at the time, Heaton said, and investigators
believe the woman may have requested the abortion because she feared the child
had Down syndrome.

After starting a procedure — presumably to induce labor — Rossmann allegedly
provided the woman with contact information and left her alone in his office,
Heaton said. The doors to the building were locked, though Heaton said the
woman could have left the building if she wanted and was able. There is no
indication that she was held against her will, he said.

The woman unsuccessfully attempted to contact Rossman, couldn’t reach him, and was forced to call 911.

Rossmann was subsequently charged with two more counts of criminal
abortion after two more alleged victims came forward. He is also charged with four counts of having prescription medications out of their original container. Rossmann’s office is also not licensed by the state for child births.

Eclectablog’s Obamacare Posterboy Ed Mulak was convicted in 2006 for having child porn

Eddie Mulak via Eclectablog

In an attempt to shine a positive light on Obamacare, Eclectablog published a story by Amy Lynn Smith featuring 31-year-old “young invincible” Eddie Mulak and his experience with Obamacare. 

Unlike many of his fellow young Americans, who are expected to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) right before the 2014 enrollment deadline on March 31, Mulak signed up in December. He knew the initial glitches at HealthCare.gov would be worked out — and they were. By the time he used the site to enroll he says it was “easy breezy.”

.........

As a college student working multiple jobs, Mulak appreciates the tax subsidies that kept his premiums down to just $20 per month. The maximum he’ll have to pay out-of-pocket in a year is $750 and he has a $0 deductible. That’s right: zero. He also pays nothing for generic prescription drugs and just $10 to see his primary care physician. Mulak also got to choose his doctor, which was important to him.

I googled Ed Mulak as I wondered where someone would be working to get insurance for $20 a month.  I found a little more than I was expecting. 

This CBS News story from 2006 came up about a 23-year-old Edward Mulak being arrested for having child pornography on his computer.  At the time he was roommates with Ken Gourlay whose work setting up child porn web sites made the New York Times. 

I placed a comment at Electablog asking if it was the same Ed Mulak because they have the same name, live in the same area and the ages seem to line up.  My comment was deleted. 

When I tweeted the author and the web host (Chris Savage) about why my comment was deleted, Savage responded that he deleted the comment because it was not true and called me a "dumbass."   
                                   
My first thought was, “If it’s not the same guy then why would you delete the comment instead of merely saying, ‘That’s not him.’” So then I did some more web searching and found this story about an Ed Mulak who talks about his former addiction to crystal meth and his use of pornography.            

"Most times if there was ever the inclination to use again, ... it was immediately dashed away by thinking, 'Well, do you really want to go back to that?'" Mulak said. "'Do you really want to go back to being stuck in someone's basement, ... having sex ... watching porn and being down there and not realizing that three days have gone by?'

Edward Mulak 2009 via Otis

I then went to OTIS and found this rap sheet on Edward Mulak (the picture looks eerily similar to the one on Eclectablog) which notes a conviction for possession of child sexually abusive material, use of a computer to commit a crime, and possession of meth.

Among other current jobs, Eddie Mulak’s LinkdIN page lists that he is the Communications Director for Rudy Serra, a candidate for Michigan’s 27th House.  It also shows a lack of work history during the time Edward Mulak was in jail.

Life Links 2/6/14

This is a great paragraph in the Washington Post’s GovBeat blog regarding which states have the highest and lowest abortion rates. 

The highest abortion rates recorded were in New York, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Delaware and New Jersey, with 27 to 34 abortions per thousand women ages 15 to 44. Wyoming, Mississippi, South Dakota, Kentucky and Missouri had the lowest, at one to five per thousand.

Michelle Goldberg writes about the New Yorker piece on abortionist Steven Brigham.

The important question, though, is what makes them vulnerable to exploitation. Without a doubt, Brigham’s ability to operate represents a legal and regulatory failure, one aided by official indifference to poor women’s health care. But, like Gosnell, his business depended on the stigma around abortion and the difficulty many women have in accessing safe procedures.

She should have stopped after the second sentence.  Brigham has centered his operations in New Jersey and Maryland, both of which use state tax dollars to fund abortions and where access to abortion is not difficult. 


A local Arkansas TV station has a story on a prolife billboard and a woman who choose life for her unborn child.


In Pennsylvania, a woman has been charged with “ a felony count of medical consultation and judgment“ after getting abortion drugs online and giving them to her teen daughter.     

On Feb. 6, 2012, her daughter was transported to the Geisinger Medical Center emergency room with severe abdominal pain. Medical records obtained by police stated she was "treated for an incomplete abortion and a urinary tract infection."

Is the falling abortion rate due solely to fewer women becoming pregnant?

I’m somewhat skeptical of the Guttmacher Institute’s latest estimates for annual abortion numbers because of the large number of abortion providers which didn’t respond to them.  Regardless, some abortion advocates have attempted to argue that a decline in pregnancies is close to the only cause of the decline in abortion rate.

For example, Libby Anne argues: 

It’s particularly interesting to note that the abortion rate fell during this period, even as the birth rate fell. In other words, the falling abortion rate wasn’t the result of more women choosing parenthood and the falling birth rate isn’t a result of more women having abortions. Instead, both are the result of a third external factor—fewer pregnancies.

The problem is she does no number crunching.  The birth rate is falling alongside the abortion rate.  Okay.  But are they falling in tandem?  

According to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates fell 13% from 2008 (1.21 million and a rate of 19.4) to 2011 (1.06 million and a rate of 16.9) with there being 150,000 fewer abortions a year. 

According to the CDC, fertility rates (which are based number of births by 1,000 women aged 15-44) fell 7.2% from 68.1 in 2008 to 63.2 in 2011.  There were 294,104 fewer births in 2011 (3,953,590) than in 2008 (4,247,694).

That would mean there were approximately 450,000 fewer pregnancies which were ended either by birth or abortion in 2011 than in 2008. 

In 2008, the abortion ratio (abortions per 1000 births in the same age group) was 285.  In 2011, it’s 268.   That’s a 6% decline. 

Now maybe that decline is solely caused by a subset of women who would have had abortions if they became pregnant doing things to prevent pregnancy.  But then that argument has to be made.

The problem with making it is the abortion ratio for the non-existent pregnancies in 2011 vs. 2008 (150K abortions/294,104 births) is 510.  That’s a higher number than the CDC has for the 2010 abortion ratio of sub-groups of women who have very high abortion ratios.  For example, according to the CDC, the abortion ratio of 16-year-olds in 2010 was 394.

The CDC’s abortion ratio only goes above 510 for 15-year-olds (541) and girls younger than 15 (837). 

So while it’s true that a good percentage of the abortion decrease is based on fewer pregnancies (based on abortion ratio numbers, I would estimate at least half), that’s not the whole story for the abortion decrease.

"Non-existent prolife laws to blame for Steven Brigham or something"

Amanda Marcotte comments on the New Yorker piece on abortionist Steven Brigham and unsurprisingly attempts to blame his abortion empire on prolife laws and social stigma. 

So what can be done to stop dangerous abortion providers? One major thing is to stop marginalizing abortion from the rest of medical care through anti-choice legislation and social stigma.

Interestingly, she never cites any of the prolife laws in New Jersey and Maryland which might have lead to Brigham operating there.  That’s because both states receive high marks from NARAL because of their lack of prolife laws. 

Marcotte has previously blamed the existence of Kermit Gosnell and his abortion practice on Pennsylvania’s ban on tax-funded abortions.  Both New Jersey and Maryland use tax dollars to pay for abortions.

Life Links 1/27/14

The New Yorker has a lengthy article on infamous abortionist Steven Brigham.  The author is a daughter of an abortionist and her connections to the abortion industry helped her get an interview with Brigham.  Most of it will be a rehash for prolifers who’ve followed Brigham’s numerous exploits.  The exception will be the abortion providers who still defend him. 

Yet not all of his peers view him as a rogue provider. Among the expert witnesses at his trial was Gary Mucciolo, an abortion provider and an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at N.Y.U.; he argued that Brigham’s conduct did not deviate from medical norms. During a break in the proceedings, Mucciolo, who received fifteen hundred dollars from the defense, told me that he considered the trial “a witch hunt.” (Later, he added, “Does Brigham have a good track record? Frankly, I don’t know.”) Another abortion provider told me, “The real story is that the government, the insurance companies, and the hospitals don’t care. They don’t want us in business, and that’s exactly why people like Brigham exist—and you know what, maybe they should exist, because, if they don’t exist, women will get abortions even more illegally. It’s better than nothing, and nothing is coming.”

The public editor of the New York Times feels the March for Life deserved more than just a photograph.   


Christopher O. Tollefsen writes in Public Discourse about Roe.

The court declined to answer this question: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” But Justice Blackmun then proceeded to suggest that the reason this question did not need settling was its unsettle-ability. Doctors, philosophers, and theologians have failed to reach consensus; ancient and medieval theorists subscribed to different theories. Thus did Blackmun imply that the answer to this question was private in the following sense: our answer is largely a matter of private opinion, of speculation.

Life Links 1/24/14

The city of Elgin, Illinois has settled a lawsuit with a prolife group with uses vans equipped with ultrasounds.       

The settlement announced Thursday allow non-profit organizations to operate out of vehicles, the Chicago Tribune reported. Elgin agreed to change a zoning ordinance adopted in 2012 and to waive permit fees.

Elgin will also pay $280,000 to Life Center. The group says the money will be used for legal expenses.

      
                       
The Republican National Committee passed a resolution asking prolife politicians to stop being silent on the abortion issue.

“Staying silent fails because this strategy allows Democrats to define the Republican brand,” the resolution said, “and prevents the Republican Party from taking advantage of widely supported pro-life positions … to attract traditional and new values voters.”

Here’s a solid letter to the editor.

What is it about being “in there” that makes him not a person but being “out here” that does make him a person? I have searched the libraries and the Internet with diligence and thoroughness and, except for abortion, I cannot find a single other human endeavor or field of study which proposes, or has ever proposed, a theory by which an object’s “essence of being” is transformed by moving it a few inches from here to there.

A Swedish nurse is suing for religious discrimination when a work offer was taken after she mentioned her opposition to taking part in abortions.

The student nurse spent her internship at a hospital in Eksjö where claimed she had been promised to work extra in the summer. When she told them that her faith prevented her from taking part in abortions, the hospital retracted its offer of summer employment, Ellinor Grimmark claimed in a complaint that has submitted to the Swedish discrimination watchdog Diskrimineringsombudsmannen (DO).

About that 3% number from Planned Parenthood

For the file on rebutting Planned Parenthood's claim that abortion is only a small part of what they do is this from the RH Reality Check: 

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people visit the Planned Parenthood St. Louis clinic each year, according to Gianino, including patients, family members, vendors, and employees. About 6,000 people per year visit the clinic to receive abortion care.

 So then between 40% and 60% of Planned Parenthood St. Louis clients are their for abortions?

Life Links 1/22/14

Gerard Bradley looks at the prolife movement 41 years after Roe v. Wade.

First, there would be—and should be—thanksgiving and even joy. It is evidence of Divine Providence and proof of human love that we are here at all. Quick quiz: which other developed democracy can claim a pro-life movement that is a fraction of the one in the United States? Answer: none......

Almost no one now speaks of the unborn as “tissue,” a “blob,” or an internal organ of the mother. Most abortion proponents no longer speak of the unborn at all, because there is nothing they could plausibly say that would serve their “pro-choice” cause.....

Yet we have not won. We are not even winning. And the pro-life movement faces challenges greater than it has ever confronted.

Media Matters is hilarious.  They have an article entitled, “How The Media Is Helping Conservatives Kill Roe v. Wade”. 


An abortion clinic escort reviews the study which produced the “1 in 3" women will have an abortion statistic and finds the study doesn’t really say that. 

It is misleading to assume that one-third of a given group of women (such as a group of female protesters standing on the sidewalk) will have an abortion, or that one-third of your friends will have an abortion. I am not implying that anyone who has used the “1 in 3” figure when discussing abortion has been intentionally trying to twist the facts or mislead people. What I am saying is that there are a lot of critical limitations to consider with research – things that don’t fit cleanly into sound bites or onto posters.

  

Life Links 1/21/14

Abortionist Martin Haskell plans to appeal the Ohio Department of Health’s order that he close his Women’s Med Center abortion clinic. 

The clinic’s attorney, Jennifer Branch of Cincinnati, said an appeal would be filed within the required 15-day period, asking a local common pleas court judge to allow the facility to remain open until the case is resolved. She called the state’s action “unprecedented” and part of “a regulatory witch hunt on abortion providers at the bequest of Governor John Kasich.”

   
NFL running back Arian Foster is counter suing the mother of his unborn child for defamation. 


The New Yorker discusses the cases of Jahi McMath and Marlise Munoz. 

But, forty years after Roe v. Wade, the intensity of the abortion debate has not waned. Indeed, as these cases illustrate, the controversy grows and spreads into new areas that are logically unrelated to abortion itself. This American struggle never ends.

   

Life Links 1/17/14

The Washington Post has one of those columns from one of those professors who write some of those books which attempt to study prolife people or Christians like we’re exotic animals.  It has some hilarious assertions like claiming that prolife legislation on the state level “largely went unnoticed, and thus popularly unopposed, until Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis’s filibuster brought attention to the strategy.”

Joshua Wilson is writing about Massachusetts’ 35 foot buffer law and compares sidewalk counseling and clinic blockades but never mentions the FACE Act which has a much greater effect on clinic blockades than any buffer zone law. 


At National Review, Ed Whelan points out that the primary evidence Massachusetts’ lawyer cites for why the 35 foot buffer zone was needed is “pro choice advocates swearing and screaming at pro life advocates” in the smaller buffer zone. 


Local media outlets are taking notice of Planned Parenthood in Birmingham closure. 

Spencer did not comment beyond her statement.

"Planned Parenthood in Birmingham prioritizes patient care, and provides essential reproductive health care to over 1,600 women, men and teens each year," she said. "We are slowing down our services in Birmingham temporarily in order to upgrade our operations.

"Planned Parenthood Southeast is committed to excellence, and the effort we are taking is to verify that we are doing everything we can to ensure patients have a safe, positive experience while in our care. "

Life Links 1/15/14

Slate’s William Saletan describes the mindset of pro-choice people who think prolifers are misogynists who don’t really care about abortion.

The assertion that pro-lifers don’t really care about abortion—that what really motivates them is misogyny, controlling other people’s bodies, and forcing anyone who has sex to have a baby—is morally comforting to a lot of pro-choice people. It reassures us that we’re on side of compassion, justice, and progress, and that there’s no reason to feel ambivalent about this issue. We have nothing to heed or learn from our enemies. Our only challenge is to defeat them.

This is one of those echo-chamber beliefs that won’t survive a reality test.   

Julia Herrington writes about how she changed her mind on abortion and the framework of the abortion debate.

But with an awareness of the framework we’re dealing with, we have the opportunity to start a new dialogue. Actually, I think it is incumbent upon us to change the conversation, addressing the topic from new and varied points of view. The conversation need not be first and foremost political. And the friction enshrouding abortion needs to be diminished. This requires that we really examine the nuts and bolts of the issue, turn it on its head and find new angles as entry points for discussion.

At the Boston Herald, Margery Eagan shares her discomfort with how abortions are mostly performed at abortion clinics.

Abortion clinics should be closed and women seeking them should be able to get them where they get the rest of their medical care: their physician’s office. Outpatient clinics that also treat asthma, diabetes, broken bones or aching backs. Secure clinics within big hospitals.

Do you think Mass. General, Brigham and Women’s, Beth Israel — or their ?influential patients and ?patrons — would put up with screaming protesters outside their front doors? No, they wouldn’t. Not for one minute.

So why then are women, in 2014, still being farmed off like pariahs?

Because hospitals don’t want the hassle of abortion. Most doctors don’t, either. Insurance companies don’t want to pay more than they’re already paying.

And pro-choice women let everybody get away with this disgrace.

Ladies, we are fighting the wrong fight, accepting crumbs from the table, and being played for fools. When will we wake up?

Life Links 1/14/14

A 20-year-old college student is suing Houston Texans running back Arian Foster, claiming he is pressuring her to have an abortion.

Norwood said everything changed when she told Foster she was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby.

"He's like, 'You can't have this, you can't have this kid, like, we cannot bring a child into this, like, think about my kids,' " Norwood said.

She said Foster began sending text messages urging her to end the pregnancy.

"You just can't bring a life into this world under these circumstances. It's not fair to anyone. It's not just about you," read one message, according to Norwood.

The Atlantic has a piece on abortion clinics in Texas and its prolife laws which mentions this tidbit.

I discovered a similar problem when reporting on reproductive laws in Texas. Though countless abortion clinics and providers made themselves available to me, they could not put me in touch with a single woman who has so far been impacted by the new law. Even Susan, though she squeaked in just before the deadline, was ultimately able to terminate her pregnancy. When I asked roughly a dozen pro-choice groups for examples of patients who had suffered under the law, they responded either that nobody wanted to come forward out of privacy concerns, or that it’s hard to know when someone isn’t able to do something.    

Pro-choice groups in Michigan can’t get their act together.  That’s good news for the unborn. 

Reproductive rights groups opposed to Michigan's new abortion insurance law will not seek to overturn it at the ballot box in 2014.

The ACLU of Michigan, along with state chapters of Planned Parenthood and the National Organization of Women, had been considering a referendum to repeal the law, which prohibits insurers from covering most abortions unless a woman or her employer has purchased an additional rider in advance.

"The timing is just not right for a referendum or initiative at this point," Rana Elmir, deputy director for the ACLU of Michigan, said Tuesday.