Life Links 11/30/09

The CDC has released its 2006 abortion statistics compiled from state health department but missing a couple of states including California.

Results: For 2006, a total of 846,181 abortions were reported to CDC. Among the 46 areas that provided data consistently during 1996--2006, a total of 835,134 abortions (98.7% of the total) were reported; the abortion rate was 16.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years, and the abortion ratio was 236 abortions per 1,000 live births. During the previous decade (1997--2006), reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 5.7%, 8.8%, and 14.8%, respectively; most of these declines occurred before 2001. During the previous year (2005--2006), the total number of abortions increased 3.1%, and the abortion rate increased 3.2%; the abortion ratio was stable.

LifeSite News has more information on the incident in which a woman entering an abortion clinic threatened a sidewalk counselor with a knife.

Duluth Police arrested the suspect, 25-year-old Mechelle Talluah Hall, inside the abortuary and found a knife in her purse matching Leah's description. She has been charged with second-degree assault. Hall told the judge considering the conditions of her release, "I know what I did was wrong."

Meghan McArdle on abortion in health care and the reactions of pro-choice group to the Stupak amendment.

But the number of people who are going to lose access that they currently have, and therefore be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, is not likely to be all that large. We're mostly talking about a modest number of women who will have to hand over several hundred dollars that they would really rather spend elsewhere. ....

So I don't get the outsized reaction to all this--I mean, outside the professional interest groups, who of course are contractually obligated to get outraged about everything. Fears that women will lose their current access to abortion often seem to be muddled together with frustration at not being able to expand access to abortion.

During Meet the Press, Pastor Rick Warren noted his disagreement with President Obama’s position on abortion.

He added, "Now, I don't understand the idea of it should be rare and, and less. Well, either you believe it's life or you don't. Why would you believe it should be rare? Because if it's not -- if a baby, a fetus is not a life, then why restrict it?"

The Flint Journal is covering Caitlin Bruce’s lawsuit against abortion Alberto Hodari, whose first name is apparently Abraham. The Journal article claims Bruce was 6 weeks pregnant while a previous story by a local Flint television station previously said she was 6 months pregnant but has now been corrected.

Bruce claims in a civil lawsuit that Hodari and an assistant held her down and covered her mouth as she screamed for them to stop while Hodari aborted her fetus.

A written statement reportedly provided by another worker in Hodari’s office and contained in the lawsuit, claims that the doctor told an upset Bruce “I’m not going to do this. I’m going to send you home” before going through with the abortion.

The employee wrote that Hodari grinned as he completed the procedure, according to court documents.

For some reason, the Journal article claims Hodari is a “nationally respected doctor.” Then they even use a quote from the infamous YouTube video where Hodari says he has a “license to lie” to his patients without mentioning the “license to lie” statement or that the video was secretly shot by prolifers.