Life Links 12/7/09

Politico has the latest on the abortion debate in the health care reform bill.

“We are going to defeat it,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) of Nelson’s amendment, which is expected to closely mirror the Stupak language.

Asked if he believed abortion could derail the health care bill, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) didn’t hesitate: “Yes, absolutely.”

The Wall Street Journal has an article which calls abortion the “top threat” to health care reform legislation.


The Los Angeles Times reviews “South Dakota: A Woman's Right to Choose,” a “dramumentary” film which follows the story of two pregnant teenagers in South Dakota.

Isacson said his movie's purpose is to edify, inform and not take sides, but some may view "South Dakota," intentionally or not, as subtly weighted against abortion. The film's emotional highlight, after all, is the rescue of 14-year-old Barb by her boyfriend from an abortion clinic exam room and its grossly insensitive nurses.

Included in the article is the thought from one pro-choice professor who thinks the film is “prolife” because it includes images of an unborn child at 22 weeks.


Creative Minority Report posts on a Michigan abortion clinic attempting to pass killing unborn children off as “sacred work” via video. The videos have now been removed from their web site and YouTube.


Wesley Smith discusses how Rom Houben’s faulty diagnosis hasn’t changed the minds of bio-ethicists in favor of removing nutrition and hydration from patients with cognitive impairments.

In any case, why the sour response to a good news story? It is hard to shake the feeling that the emotional crosscurrents stirred by Terri Schiavo have been stirred again. Time reported that Schiavo-type "legal fights are likely to become more common as classifications of brain-injury severity are revised." According to ABC, Schiavo's family "felt both heartbreak and vindication" about the story.

Predictably, activists on both sides have weighed in. Much-quoted bioethicist Art Caplan, who strongly backed Michael Schiavo quest to end his wife's life, sniffed after viewing a video of Houben that it all looked like "Ouija Board stuff" to him. The Huffington Post's resident bioethicist, Jacob Appel, argued that people in Houben's condition should be considered for euthanasia: "Rather than offering a compelling reason to keep such patients alive," Appel wrote, "the horrors of enduring such a petrified existence may offer a compelling reason to let them die."

Abortionist Leroy Carhart admits to CBS News that a good deal of the late-term abortions he performs are for the mother’s mental health.

Carhart says half the abortions he performs between the 22nd and 28th week are due to fetal health issues. The other half are for the mother's mental health. After the 28th week, 90 percent of the abortions he performs are for fetal health.

Women like Sue, an unmarried 28-year-old mother of three, come from around the country. She's somewhere between 21 and 23 weeks pregnant. She's aborting because she put her last baby up for adoption and had a nervous breakdown. She waited so long because she didn't have the money.

UPDATED:The article formerly had a typo which said Carhart said the quote below. It's now been updated to note that a local prolife activist Larry Dolan gave the quote.(end update) Also note Carhart’s response to the question of whether he’s going to hell.

"Is Dr. Carhart going to hell?" Axelrod asked.

"I don't know," Carhart said. "It does not look good."

In New York City, a woman has been arrested after allegedly tricking her husband’s pregnant mistress into taking drugs to cause an abortion. The child was born 2 months premature.

Police say Kisha Jones of Brooklyn used a doctor's prescription pad to order the medication, then phoned the victim pretending to be from her obstetrician's office and told her to pick up the drug at the pharmacy and take it.

The woman fell for the trick, took the drug and went into labor, authorities said. The baby was born two months early, but survived.

Jones then tried again, according to prosecutors.

They say that, posing as the baby's mother, she sent a man to the hospital with two bottles of tainted liquid, saying it was breast milk, and instructed nurses to feed it to the baby.

Hospital staff grew suspicious and called police.