Another iPS advance

Scientists at Children's Hospital Boston have discovered how to create induced pluripotent (iPS) cells from skin cells using mRNA molecules they created to tell the skin to produce make 4 proteins which turn the cells into iPS cells. From the Washington Post story:

After tinkering with the mRNA molecules in the laboratory to make signals that the cells would not destroy as dangerous invaders, the researchers found that a daily cocktail of their creations were surprisingly fast and efficient at reprogramming the cells. The approach converted the cells in about half the time of previous methods - only about 17 days - with surprising economy - up to 100 times more efficient than the standard approach.

Moreover, detailed tests indicated the cells had not experienced any disturbing changes in their DNA caused by previous methods and were virtually identical to embryonic stem cells. In addition, the researchers went one step further and showed that they could use the approach to then coax the iPS cells they created into a specific type of cell, in this case muscle cells.

Another woman discussing her planned abortion on Twitter

The twitter account Abortion Reality is by a woman claiming to be 3.5 weeks pregnant and planning on having an abortion. Most of the recent posts at this point are insults/replies to prolifers or replies to pro-choicers wishing her the best. The account is described thusly:

Pro-choice activist who made a mistake and ended up pregnant. I will be having an abortion. This is the reality of abortion for one woman.

She's plans on having an RU-486 abortion and she seems to be rather ignorant of fetal development. In a tweet from September 27 at 9:20 p.m., she notes that she believes she conceived sometime around September 3 (which would make the child 24 days old on the day of her post with a beating heart) yet still thinks she has 2.5 weeks until the child has a heartbeat. I'm not sure if she doesn't understand that pregnancy is typically dated from the last menstrual period and that conception typically takes place a couple of weeks after this. So she may be 3.5 weeks pregnant or 5.5 weeks pregnant (my guess).

She accepts that the child she will be aborting "is 100% human" but doesn't "accept that terminating a pregnancy is inhumane or evil."

She has also called Planned Parenthood (they referred her to another clinic) to see if they can find someone to help her with the funding.

In a series of tweets she writes,

"Here are the facts: I am currently on unemployment and have been sending my resume to 3-10 different companies a week w/ few interviews. Pregnant women do NOT have equal rights to job protection and are utterly unhireable. So unless the #antichoice community is going to COMPLETELY fund my cost of living, cost of pregnancy, and the COMPLETELY organic diet I would adhere to if keeping the pregnancy, then we can talk. I also expect perks. If u demand my body be used in a way I do not desire I should be compensated handsomely. That is asking WAY TO MUCH of a stranger.

Life Links 9/30/10

Alan at the Stand to Reason Place blog provides a helpful flow chart which breaks down defenses for abortion into three categories and how to respond to them using STR techniques.


A man in Alabama has been found guilty of killing his girlfriend and her unborn child.

Timothy Stallworth of Montgomery was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide Wednesday in the 2007 stabbing death of his pregnant girlfriend, Kimberly Lewis.

Stallworth, 31, had been charged with one count of capital murder in the death of two people -- Lewis, 34, and her 4-month-old fetus.

The case was prosecuted using a 2006 state law that allows a murder charge to be filed in the death of an unborn child.

A dead human fetus was found by a custodian in a dormitory trash can at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.

Leslie Geary, a university spokesman, described the incident as "an apparent miscarriage" and that the student involved has been taken to a hospital.

She said she did not have the identity of the student and did not know how far along the student was in her pregnancy.

British doctors have repaired the leg of a woman facing amputation using her own stem cells.

Stuttard was hit by a car while walking home after a night out in 2001. Her left tibia and fibula — her lower leg bones — were badly broken.

Scans revealed that more than 2-inches of her bone had become infected and died, preventing the fracture from healing.

In a pioneering operation at the Spire Alexandra Hospital in Kent, England, surgeons first removed the dead tissue, then clamped Stuttard's shinbone back together.

They then took a sample of bone marrow from her pelvis and purified stem cells.

These were mixed with Surgifill, a unique gel that traps the cells against the fracture. Within days they start to form healthy new bone, healing the break.....

It will be 18 months before surgeons can be sure that Stuttard's bones have properly healed.

Court of Appeals allows stay of embryonic stem cell funding ruling

A three-judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled yesterday that the government had met the legal standard for a stay of injunction in their appeal of Judge Royce Lamberth's ruling to end the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

After the appeals court's Sept. 9 action, the NIH told staff that grants for stem cell research should be given priority given the delay in their issuance. That came after U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled in August that government funding for embryonic stem-cell research was barred by a 1996 law that prohibits the use of federal money for research in which an embryo is destroyed.....

The stay is in place while the appeals court more fully considers the case. It could be several weeks or months before the appeals court issues a final ruling on the legality of the funding. The stay will remain until then.

Life Links 9/29/10

Abortionist Steven Brigham has denied any wrongdoing in his practice of beginning late-term abortions in New Jersey, leading caravans of women to Maryland and then finishing the abortion or having another abortionist finish it.

The Attorney General's Office contends Brigham "flagrantly" disregarded the state's medical rules and jeopardized patients by providing abortions to women who were more than 14 weeks pregnant. The state asserts Brigham's office and his qualifications do not meet the standards required for such second- and third-trimester abortions.

Joseph Gorrell, Brigham's attorney, said the doctor had done nothing wrong. "Everything he did complied with applicable law and was in conformance with accepted standards of medical practice," said Gorrell.

The dispute is to go before the state Board of Medical Examiners on Oct. 13. Brigham has voluntarily stopped practicing medicine in New Jersey until then.

President Obama recently answered questions about abortion and his faith at a town-hall style meeting.

The same questioner also asked Obama about regulations on early and late-term abortion, a politically charged issue in the abortion debate.

Obama responded that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" in America, adding that families -- not the government -- "should be the ones making the decision."

Restrictions against late-term abortion are in place now, he said, adding that "people still argue and disagree about it. That's part of our Democratic tradition."

Ross Douthat points out that abortion fits perfectly in one op-ed writers criteria for a moral evil that future generations will condemn.

In the spirit of such self-congratulation, I would (predictably) nominate abortion as a presently-tolerated evil that will one day be generally deplored. After all, it fits Appiah’s rubrics pretty neatly: The moral arguments against the practice are well known, its defenders are increasingly likely to defend the social necessity of abortion rights (often along “women’s equality depends on legal abortion” lines) and the impracticality of an outright ban than they are to defend the justice of abortion itself, and the pro-life movement spends a great deal of time trying to confront Americans with the physical realities of abortion, whether via ultrasound images or grisly photos of fetuses held up at protest marches.

Elementary students at a Catholic school in southern Illinois raised $800 for a local pregnancy network. The third-graders raised the most so they got to lead a Walk for Life.

Life Links 9/28/10

First Things has an article by Lila Rose discussing her prolife work. Here's how it starts.

One cold, wet day in San Jose, California, I was stuck inside my childhood home, looking for a book to read. Because I was homeschooled, the daughter of passionate book lovers, and one of eight children, our home was full of books of all kinds. It was my goal, at the age of nine, to read all of them. On the bottom shelf of a bookcase, I found something called the Handbook on Abortion by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Willke. Curious, I opened it. And there they were: pictures. In shock, I quickly shut the book and pushed it away. And then I opened it slowly and looked again. I was looking directly at the picture of a tiny child, maybe ten weeks old, with tiny arms and legs, who had been the victim of an abortion.

Right then I knew it was ugly and wrong. But over the next decade I grew in my understanding of the gravity and urgency of this holocaust of unborn children, of our duty to protect them, and of my desire to help.

When I was thirteen I wrote in my journal, “God, it’s time I actually do something about abortion.”

Nancy Pearcey discusses how pro-choicers have become anti-science.

In First Things, law professor Stanley Fish sets the record straight: “It is pro-lifers who make the scientific question of when the beginning of life occurs the key one.” By contrast, “pro-choicers want to transform the question into a ‘metaphysical’ or ‘religious’ one”—using those terms to mean disconnected from any scientifically knowable reality.

Of course, people are much more than biological organisms. Yet biology gives an objective, empirically detectable marker of human status.

What this means is that pro-choicers have lost the argument on the scientific level—and so they are repudiating science. In the New York Times, Yale professor Paul Bloom informs us that abortion “is not really about life in any biological sense.”

Family Research Council's Jeanne Monahan reflects on ten years of RU-486 in the U.S.

As RU-486 celebrates its ten-year anniversary, one thing is ironic. The abortion movement promised decades ago that women having abortions would have the best medical attention—no more unsupervised, lonely abortions with women bleeding away in back alleys. Well, now with chemical, and especially with telemed abortions, women have less medical attention and still bleed away, having a lonely, unsupervised abortion over a toilet. Progress for women’s health? No.

Life Links 9/27/10

Longtime Arkansas abortionist William Harrison died on Friday at the age of 75. He had recently closed his clinic to deal with leukemia.

Harrison carried out around 20,000 abortions over three decades and spoke out forcefully in defense of his practice.....

Harrison admitted that he destroyed life, but denied that he killed babies. His said an embryo was far from a human being with a brain, and the higher moral value was salvaging the future of an often disadvantaged girl or woman.

The New York Times has an obituary.


There's a new study out which I'm sure pro-choicers will be pointing to for years to come. The study of surveyed 289 teens who were pregnant sometime between 1994 and 1996. Sixty-nine of those teens had abortions. An analysis of the survey and one done 5 years later showed no association between having an abortion and depression or low self-esteem. It will be interesting to see how pro-choicers who typically brush off small sample size studies which show an association between abortion and depression will receive this study.


According to a press release by Defend Life, suspended abortionist Romeo Ferrer is at least temporarily closing his Maryland abortion clinic after the physician he recruited to replace him (Ghevont Wartanian) didn't want the hassle.

It appears Wartanian, a doctor of obstetrics and gynecology, has abandoned the idea of supplementing his income by child killing. Wartanian contacted Gynecare one day after the 40-Day for Life vigil was moved to his Glen Burnie, Maryland, OB-GYN medical practice. He instructed Gynecare to cancel all of his existing appointments, and informed them he would not be returning to the facility.

A three judge panel on the Court of Appeals has heard arguments regarding the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Overheard

Congressman Chris Smith in a Washington Post editorial on abortion and the Millennium Development Goals.

Talk of "unwanted children" reduces children to mere objects, without inherent human dignity and whose worth depends on their perceived utility or how much they're wanted. One merely has to look at the scourge of human trafficking and the exploitation of children for forced labor or child soldiering to see where such disregard for the value of life leads.

Tim Carney talks about EMILY's List's pro-abortion fundraising in an article about the Tea Partiers and abortion (my emphasis).

On the Democratic side, abortion plays a different role, not providing votes and energy but giving a big boost to fundraising.

In August, the pro-choice PAC Emily's List raised $430,000 for its special independent-expenditure PAC, with 80 percent of that money coming from four donors. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, pro-choice groups including Emily's List have given $2.2 million to candidates so far in this election cycle. The $1.4 million that Emily's List has given to candidates in this cycle is more than twice the total from the National Rifle Association.

Abortionist arrested

Jay Rogers reports that Florida abortionist Randall Whitney was arrested last night after failing to show up for a trial. He is accused of slapping a pregnant woman.

Randall Whitney was arrested for failure to appear in court. He may now have to remain in jail with no bond until his trial. He will be tried for a second degree felony, “Aggravated Battery upon a Pregnant Person.” If convicted, he could have his license suspended by the Florida Board of Medicine for the following reason.

Grounds for disciplinary action; action by the board and department.

Being convicted or found guilty of, or entering a plea of nolo contendere to, regardless of adjudication, a crime in any jurisdiction which directly relates to the practice of medicine or to the ability to practice medicine.

Here is the deeper irony in all this. If Randall Whitney had simply slapped a patient, then he would have been charged with no more than a misdemeanor. If he had simply performed an abortion, then even though this is child killing, there would have been no consequence since it is legal. However, Randall Whitney slapped a pregnant woman. In the state of Florida, that is a felony.

Life Links 9/23/10

Abortionist Steve Brigham is now accused of violating the standards of care for at least two more patients. Here are some more details about Steve Brigham's abortion of a 33-week child with Down Syndrome.

In early August, Brigham performed an abortion for a 35-year-old Canadian who was 33 weeks pregnant, the documents show. The fetus had Down syndrome but was otherwise viable.....

The procedure on the Canadian patient "seriously violated medical standard of care and, to my knowledge, is not sanctioned by any statute or regulation," Dr. Gary Brickner wrote in an expert opinion to the medical board. He noted that the woman's pregnancy "did not involve a fetus with a lethal defect or a condition dangerous to the mother's health."

At the Abortioneers blog, anti-anti has a post entitled "Deception" where she relates a story about how she called a CPC and lied about possibly being pregnant. The CPC does nothing deceptive. They say they offer free pregnancy tests, say they don't have a doctor on staff and could give her information at the center. She some how surmises that because the CPC wouldn't give her medical information over the phone that "They wanted me to come in so they could hold me hostage and force feed me propaganda."

Anti-anti then notes the web site of CPC in Michigan which she calls "*sorta* honest." So who's being deceptive?


At Feministe, a guest blogger posts a video by the Center for Reproductive Rights about the Hyde Amendment. Besides a fundraising gimmick, I don't see the point of the video. Yes, when tax dollars don't pay for elective abortions, women who are poor and want elective abortions have to pay for the abortion themselves. They don't like this. Tell us something that isn't obvious. I guess it does note that the federal government only paid for 85 abortions in 2006 (the Hyde Amendment doesn't restrict funding for abortions because of rape, incest or life of the mother).

Life Links 9/22/10

In response to the failed attempt to override New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's veto of family planning funds, a Planned Parenthood in Cherry Hill is closing.


Judge Mike Caldwell has ruled that the Louisiana health department can't enforce their recent suspension order of an abortion clinic's license.

DHH spokeswoman Lisa Faust said department attorneys will review the transcript of the hearing and make recommendations on how to proceed.

“We are disappointed that this abortion facility can remain open while we go through the process of revoking its license,’’ she said. “We want to assure Louisiana women that we will continue to fight to protect them from unsafe abortion facilities.’’

Researchers hoping to use embryonic stem cells to treat spinal cord injuries have decided that jockey Michael Martinez is not a suitable patient for the procedure because his injury is too severe. Dr. David Seftel, a track physician, then claims that adult stem cell research which has actually been used to treat humans is not "as promising" as embryonic stem cell research, which has been used to treat rats.


A California man is facing the possibility of 25 years in prison after being "found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of attempted murder."

Oxnard resident Jaime Solis Olmos, 22, is facing 25 years to life in prison for paying two men $500 to stage a robbery and punch his pregnant girlfriend so she would have a miscarriage.

Monday, a Ventura County Superior Court Judge found Olmos guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit murder and one count of attempted murder.

Olmos reportedly did not want to support a child or his girlfriend, Justina Cornejo, after she told him she would not get an abortion....

n January 2008, while the couple was parked in a car at a Newbury Park overlook, the men attacked the woman, punching her in the face and stomach.

Cornejo later gave birth to a baby boy, who is now a healthy 2-year-old.

Life Links 9/21/10

Operation Rescue reports that troubled physician Ghevont Wartanian has taken over performing abortions at Romeo Ferrer's abortion clinic in Maryland after Ferrer's license was suspended 4 years after the death of Denise Crowe. Apparently, Wartanian has at this time only agreed to perform abortions up to September 30.

Operation Rescue also mentions that Ferrer's Gynecare Center abortion clinic is affiliated with the National Abortion Federation. That makes this piece by NAF president Vicki Saporta at the RH Reality Check blog touting NAF clinics less than a week after Ferrer's suspension all the more ridiculous.


The Philadelphia Inquirer continues to report on abortionist Steven Brigham and his late-term abortion operation. Their latest article provides details about Brigham's phantom Grace Medical Care clinic which advertised online they would perform abortions up to 36 weeks. No address was listed and only cash would be accepted. No address was listed because it wasn't an actual clinic just the side operation where he would initiate abortions at the Voorhees clinic in New Jersey and then finish them or have another abortionist finish them in Maryland. The article also provides some of the reasons behind these late term abortions.

Records released Monday of three post-viability abortions show one involved a 33-week-old Down's syndrome fetus, for which Grace Medical charged $21,900. But another case involved 25-week-old twin fetuses that the parents wanted to abort because they felt "stress" and regret that they had conceived through fertility treatment with donated sperm. In a third case, no health problems were documented - until the 20-year-old Pittsburgh woman could not go to the bathroom because of the absorbent rods.

She wound up being rushed from her hotel, in labor, to Virtua Hospital in Voorhees where she delivered a dead fetus.

The New Jersey Senate failed to override Governor Christie's veto of family planning funds. Previous reports on the removal of family planning funding mentioned that Planned Parenthood could lose up to $2.4 million in funding.


At the Abortioneers' blog, one abortioneer mourns the loss and changes of feminist-based abortion clinics. She basically blames Planned Parenthood.

But there’s another reason things have changed for feminist clinics. Another reason they’re busy and finding it hard to do feminist things: competition. Okay. Come on. Admit it. Clinics have competitors. Yes. Yes. I know. I spoke the unspoken. (Gasp!) I mean, HELLO. Running a business doesn’t make you less altruistic. And, honestly, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that small women-owned and operated, independent businesses, find it hard to stand tall against corporate-like competitors.

It’s super important that access to abortion is increased. We already know nearly all counties in the USA don’t have abortion providers. That is wrong and it sucks. But there’s another side to all of this. Clinics are closing down. Not because of obnoxious, annoying protesters and harassing laws. Not because the department of health is making things difficult (well, except in this instance!). You’re all clever. So I’ll just ask you this: were any of the clinics that closed down recently Planned Parenthoods? Not that I know of. (I could be wrong.) They were all little clinics.

Life Links 9/20/10

Who's more "extreme" on abortion - a candidate who favors partial-birth abortion and tax-funded abortion or a candidate who is against abortion except in cases of life, rape and incest? For some reason, Virg Bernero thinks it's the latter.


Adult stem cell researcher Jean Peduzzi Nelson writes about some of the adult stem cell success stories she shared with a Senate committee last week.


In the New York Times, Amy Julia Becker writes about why she decided not to screen her unborn child for Down Syndrome.

Our daughter, who is now 4½, has Down syndrome. She was born when I was 28. Although there is no known cause for Down syndrome (the presence of an extra 21st chromosome), as soon as I conceived Penny, my chances of having another baby with Down syndrome increased significantly, from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 100. Those chances only increase further as I age.

But my dread as I walked into the doctor's office didn't come from the thought that this new baby might have an extra chromosome. My dread arose from the prospect of talking to a doctor about prenatal testing. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends prenatal screening for Down syndrome for all pregnant women, regardless of age. Screening tests can include an ultrasound to measure aspects of the baby's anatomy and blood tests to measure hormone levels in the mother. These tests accurately identify babies with Down syndrome 85 percent to 90 percenty of the time.

Peter and I know the statistics. We know the health complications associated with Down syndrome — heart defects, intestinal abnormalities, celiac disease, low muscle tone, developmental delays. We know that Down syndrome brings with it more intensive one-on-one attention in the early years and more doctor's visits throughout childhood. We know it brings with it more uncertainty as the child grows up.

But we also know that a textbook definition of a syndrome can never capture the reality of any particular human life......

I told myself that I wanted to know if the baby had a healthy heart. But the literature about the test explains that it is effective 90 percent of the time in detecting Down syndrome and only 40 percent of the time in detecting congenital heart defects. It wasn't offering me a chance to know the physical health of my baby so much as providing me a choice about whether to continue my pregnancy if the baby had Down syndrome....

We declined prenatal testing not because we assume this baby in my womb has the typical 46 chromosomes. We declined prenatal testing because we would welcome another child with Down syndrome.

FOX News has an article on the abortion amendment in the defense budget bill.

An amendment from Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., to end a longstanding ban on abortions at U.S. military hospitals overseas is attached to the defense authorization bill set to come up for a vote in the Senate......

The Senate will meet Monday to resume consideration of the defense bill, with a vote to start formal debate set for the following day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated that even if the Senate clears that hurdle, which requires 60 votes, the defense bill likely will not come up for a final vote until after the November election.

What is the world coming to?

When a harmless mascot fight gets a student banned from university athletics?

Ohio University has apologized to Ohio State and its fans after the school's Bobcat mascot tackled the Brutus Buckeye mascot, touching off an impromptu wrestling match before Saturday's game at Ohio Stadium.

In addition, the student who was dressed in the Bobcat costume has been banned from any further affiliation with Ohio athletics.

The Bobcat first went after Brutus as the OSU mascot led the Buckeyes onto the field for the game.

Moments later, the Bobcat mascot climbed on the back of Ohio State's mascot and rode him to the ground. The two then tussled in the end zone while fans booed.

Here's the video. Hilarious. Fight like a real mascot Brutus!

Life Links 9/17/10

Ramesh Ponnuru writes in Politico about how social issues like abortion still matter in elections.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says that the social issues “ain’t going to change anybody’s vote this year.” Sen., John Cornyn, who is running the Republican Senate campaign this year, said that many independent voters tell him that the party’s social-issue stands turn them off and praised the tea parties for emphasizing fiscal issues.

But somebody forgot to tell the voters. The Republican primaries suggest that while, of course, economic issues are at the top of most people’s minds, conservative voters still care a great deal about social issues.....

It should not be surprising, given the state of the economy, that voters do not rate abortion or same-sex marriage one of their top issues. (Most voters never do.) But don’t confuse cyclical changes for structural ones. The relative importance of social and economic issues alters as circumstances, especially economic circumstances, do. But there is no reason to think that the social issues are in long-term decline.

Formerly prolife Congressman (he's voted in favor of removing restrictions from federal embryonic stem cell funding and in favor of the health care law which opens the door to abortion funding) Dale Kildee is now lying about health care reform.

“I am proud of my voting record, and I stand behind my vote for health reform legislation, which contains fully the Hyde Amendment protecting the life of the unborn,” Kildee’s statement reads.

That's utterly ridiculous. Kildee is well-aware that the Hyde Amendment isn't even partially contained in the health care reform legislation. Even President Obama's executive order doesn't assert that the Hyde Amendment covers the entire legislation. It only mentions the Hyde Amendment with regards to "newly created health insurance exchanges" and community health centers.


The Archbishop of Manilla has issued a pastoral letter on abortion after a couple of aborted children were left outside of churches in the Philippines.

Abortioneer talks about burn-out

One of the reasons she feels burned out is that women keep telling her that they feel like they're killing.

Part of it is repetition--the same stories ("I feel like I am killing."), the same obstacles (poverty), and less patient interaction in my current position.

Life Links 9/16/10

A U.S. Senate panel is holding a hearing on embryonic stem cell research today. A webcast of the hearing is here.


The leader of Democrats for Life in Ohio was denied a request to distribute her pamphlets at the Erie County Democratic Women events.


Matt Bowman on embryonic stem cell research at CNN's Opinion site:

Human embryonic stem cell research is the $10,000 toilet seat of the 21st century. Years ago, science created a cell that appears to be, in the words of an MIT study published last month, "virtually identical" to an embryonic stem cell but is cheaper, promises better compatibility to patients and kills no embryos. ...

So, like many failed industries, embryo researchers demand a taxpayer bailout. They claim that they're too big to fail, when in fact they've never succeeded.

NIH Director Francis Collins melodramatically announced that the district court's injunction against his funding of embryonic stem cell research, in spite of the 1995 law against such funding, "poured sand into the engine of discovery." The problem is that Collins is wasting taxpayer money on "discovering" the equivalent of the riverboat steam engine.

Life Links 9/15/10

Abortionist Rapin Osathanondh will serve 6 months in jail (he was sentenced to 30 months but the rest was suspended) after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of Laura Hope Smith. Osathanondh will also pay the family $2 million as a result of their civil suit against him. I think Brian Ballou's article in the Boston Globe goes a good job of trying to show the Smiths' love for their daughter and their loss.

She arrived at the Smith household almost 18 years ago, a small raven-haired girl with tattered and dirty clothing, a black eye, and all her possessions in a plastic grocery bag, except for the doll she held in her hand. Tom and Eileen Smith wrapped the neglected, abused, and abandoned girl with their love, only to lose her later to a botched medical procedure.

Assisted suicide advocate George Exoo, who claims to have assisted in more than 100 suicides, is planning on opening up a Dignitas-style death house in North Carolina where individuals from neighboring states looking to kill themselves can come to die. North Carolina doesn't have a law against assisted suicide.

To establish such a facility in Gastonia would require several steps on Exoo’s part. The area, currently listed as residential, would have to be rezoned. If dubbed as a hospice center, Exoo would need to apply for a certificate of need from the state.....

Exoo’s attempt to renovate the house from afar hasn’t met with success, according to Taylor. Men hired to work on the home lived in it and appeared to sell drugs, said Taylor. People have come and gone through the back door and even used buckets as toilets only to throw the waste in the yard, Taylor said.

In West Michigan, Kent County commissioners have voted to remove abortion from Kent County's employee benefit package.

Despite it being a controversial issue, the legislative and human resources committee vote was 9 to 0 to remove elective abortions as a covered benefit from one of the county's two medical insurance plans....

Opponents bombarded commissioners with E-mails and letters voicing objection to the decision, saying it threatens a woman's right to have a safe and legal abortion.

Part of one letter read "access to a safe, legal, high quality abortion is very important to me."

In response, Antor said "well safe, high quality abortion is an oxymoron. There is nothing safe about two individuals entering an abortion clinic and only one of them coming out. There is nothing safe for the baby in the process of an abortion.

A judge in Louisiana has stayed an abortion clinic's license suspension order. Hope Medical Group for Women is now allowed to stay open until a hearing on September 21.

State health officials are "very disappointed" about the ruling, said Bruce D. Greenstein, the new Health and Hospitals secretary.

"This order was signed without any notification to us and without any effort to hear from medical professionals about the risk to the facility's clients posed by the violations our inspectors found," Greenstein said in a written statement. "We will continue to fight to protect Louisiana residents and to shot down activities that put women in harm."

State officials are still working to revoke the clinic's license. The state is pursuing an unrelated revocation case against Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women in New Orleans. Inspections that started in 2009 allege employees there were dispensing narcotics without proper authorization.

Dead Infant Found Outside Planned Parenthood Office in North Carolina

A infant girl was found dead outside a Planned Parenthood in Winston-Salem. The child was alive when born and it will take a couple of weeks for the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Jason said the baby was a few weeks premature, but it is still unclear when the baby was born. He said further testing, including an examination of the infant's brain, will need to be done.

Employees at Planned Parenthood saw a blue plastic storage bin outside the office at 3000 Maplewood Ave. about 7 a.m. Saturday and immediately called police....

Jason said the baby was found wrapped in a blanket. The infant had on a diaper and a one-piece garment, he said. The blanket did not obstruct the baby's airways, Jason said.

The Planned Parenthood office in Winston-Salem closed Saturday but was back to regular hours yesterday. The director of the local office referred all questions to Reed.

Reed said this is the first time that a dead infant has been placed outside of a Planned Parenthood office in North Carolina. She said counseling was being made available to employees who came to work Saturday.

Abortionist pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter

Abortionist Rapin Osathanondh has plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter for his role in the death of Laura Hope Smith. He will be sentenced today and plea agreement recommends he spend 3 months in jail and 9 months in home confinement. Osathandonh also settled a civil suit (terms weren't released) the Smiths had filed against him.

The guilty plea followed an agreement between Cape and Islands First Assistant District Attorney Brian Glenny and defense attorneys Paul Cirel and Serina Barkley of Boston.

For several hours yesterday, the lawyers negotiated back and forth, going to and from the chambers of Superior Court Judge Gary Nickerson with reports of their progress. Throughout the day Glenny frequently stopped to discuss matters with Smith's parents, Tom and Eileen Smith. At the same time, Cirel and Barkley took their client aside to privately discuss offers on the table.

Osathanondh faced a possible 20 years in state prison. But the recommended sentence, endorsed by prosecutor and defense, calls for less time in jail.

He is scheduled to be sentenced today in Superior Court.

If Nickerson approves that sentence — and there was nothing yesterday to suggest the judge would not — Osathanondh will serve three months in a county jail, nine months under home confinement with an electronic monitoring device, and three years of probation. Additionally, under the terms of this plea agreement, he must not practice medicine, nor teach.

Steve Brigham's late term abortions

LifeNews has posted a story which summarizes the information Operation Rescue obtained from the state of New Jersey through an open records request regarding abortionist Steven Brigham and the investigation following the botched abortion on an 18-year-old who was 21 weeks pregnant.

Besides the blatant evilness of Steven Brigham, what stands out to me is the incredible lateness of some of these abortions. After George Tiller was shot and killed, I read over and over again on pro-choice blogs (some examples here and here) how third trimester abortions were only done because of serious health issues to the child or mother. Yet Brigham's Elkton (just 1 of his 16 clinics) patient logs show numerous post-viability abortions.

On July 13, there were abortions at 24 and 24.1 weeks.
On July 21, there was an abortion at 28.3 weeks.
On July 23, there was an abortion at 31.4 weeks.
On July 28, there was an abortion at 29 weeks.
On July 30, there was an abortion at 33 weeks.
On August 4, there was an abortion at 33 weeks.
On August 6, there was an abortion at 28 weeks.
On August 13, there was an abortion of twins at 25 weeks.

So in the span of a month, 9 post-viability abortions were performed on patients from the New Jersey area whose abortions were started in New Jersey and finished in Maryland.

Even Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation says that Steve Brigham is a quack so it seems reasonably obvious that it would take a truly despicable OB/GYN to refer a pregnant patient suffering from some serious health issue to Brigham.

The question is why would these women be getting abortions and how did they get in contact with Steve Brigham?

My guess is they just kept calling local abortion clinics until they found the one in the area which was willing to perform post-viability abortions.

Life Links 9/13/10

Operation Rescue reports that abortionist Steven Brigham has agreed to have his New Jersey medical license suspended starting September 15 so he can prepare a defense for himself. His suspension hearing is now scheduled for October 13.


Does Carlton Veazey not understand how ridiculous this sounds?

Respect for all human life is a basic principle of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) - but the facts are that these embryos were created for fertility treatments, are no longer needed, and are slated by those who created them for destruction.

How can "respect for all human life" be a basic principle for an organization which advocates the killing of certain human beings? If you respect all human life it wouldn't matter if the embryos are created for fertility treatments, are "no longer needed" (talk about proving how you don't respect life - no one who genuinely respects life thinks of human beings as a type of commodity which is needed or not) and whose parents want them destroyed.


The LA Times has an article on stem cell face lifts using adult stem cells from the patient's fat.

Stem cell face-lifts could someday offer real advances, says Dr. Michael McGuire, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and a clinical associate professor of surgery at UCLA. But he believes that scientists are still at least 10 years away from reliably harnessing stem cells to create new collagen and younger-looking skin. Until then, promises of a quick stem cell face-lift are a "scam," he says.

The Associated Press picked up the story of abortionist Rapin Osathanondh's trial for the death of Laura Hope Smith.

Life Links 9/10/10

The Associated Press has a long story on abortionist Steven Brigham's recent and past troubles with the law and medical boards. Even National Abortion Federation president Vicki Saporta can't stand behind him.

Brigham's license has been suspended or revoked in several states, but he has managed to continue operating more than a dozen clinics. The new allegations stunned even those familiar with his notorious reputation, who said they had never heard of a doctor initiating an abortion in one state, then finishing it in another.

"His record is the most egregious one I know of in the field," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, an association of abortion providers, which has been warning authorities about Brigham's practices since the mid-1990s.

"He operates in his own economic interests and not in the best interests of the women who seek his care," Saporta said.

A Planned Parenthood in Missouri has stopped performing abortions temporarily, apparently because of scheduling issues with their abortionist.

“It’s not that we are no longer providing abortions in Columbia,” said Peter Brownlie, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. “We utilize physicians as they are available, and we happen to be at a point that the physicians in Columbia aren’t currently available due to scheduling issues.”

The temporary halt of abortion services in Columbia leaves St. Louis as the only city in Missouri where an abortion can be legally obtained. Brownlie acknowledged that that would inconvenience some women....

“We’re working with the doctors, and I’m hopeful we will (provide abortions) by the end of the month, if not sooner,” Brownlie said.

The University of Calgary won't undo a decision which found 8 students guilty of "non-academic misconduct" for displaying images of aborted children. The students aren't backing down.

"We were found guilty of nonacademic misconduct and were given a warning not to do it again," said the fourth-year student. "We plan on doing the display again."

New Planned Parenthood Abortion Numbers

A fact sheet of Planned Parenthood services for 2008 (they haven't released their 2008-2009 annual report yet) shows that the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood affiliates in 2008 was 324,008. That's almost 1/3 of a million. This is a substantial increase over the 305,310 abortions they performed in 2007.

Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research back on for the time being

From the Washington Post:

An appeals court ruled Thursday that the federal government can resume funding human embryonic stem cell research while the court reviews a judge's order that had temporarily prohibited such funding.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a request from the Justice Department to lift a temporary injunction issued Aug. 23 blocking the funding on the grounds that it violated a law barring funding any research that involves the destruction of human embryos.

While the move was praised by advocates for the research, the appeals court made it clear it was not making a final decision about the case, which means the reprieve could be short-lived and the fate of the funding could continue to be whiplashed by seesawing court rulings.

Overheard

Via Megan at the Abortion Gang blog comes an explanation for why she believes that life begins at birth:

My blood boils when I encounter anti-choice propaganda, but I realize that I'm on the feminist fringe when it comes to abortion rights. For me, life begins at birth. Not conception. Not implantation. Not when the fetus' heart begins to beat or when it develops the semblance of human phalanges. Life begins at birth because I care about women.

Life Links 9/9/10

A man from North Carolina named Justin Moose has been arrested for allegedly providing information on bomb making to a person he believed would bomb an abortion clinic.

Justin Carl Moose, 26, of Concord was arrested Tuesday on charges of providing information related to the making, use or manufacture of an explosive, destructive device or weapon of mass destruction to a person he believed was planning to bomb a women's health care clinic, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of North Carolina.

A criminal complaint alleges that Moose used the social networking site Facebook as a platform to advocate violence against women's healthcare clinics, specifically where abortions were performed and employees at such clinics.

The complaint alleges that last week, Moose spoke and met with a confidential source and provided detail and instruction about various explosives or incendiary methods for the purpose of enabling the source to destroy a North Carolina abortion clinic.

Chen Guangcheng has been released in China but his village has apparently been put on lockdown.

Controversy has returned to the village of Dongshigu, and with it, a security crackdown. The source of both: the release of Chen Guangcheng, a blind, self-taught lawyer who drew worldwide attention to his rural neighbors' stories of forced sterilizations and late-term abortions at the hands of local authorities.....

Villagers said they are alternately thankful for Chen's work and fearful of being associated with him. Reporters from the Associated Press, who tried to enter the village on Thursday, said men in plainclothes came running, scuffled with the reporters and pursued them at high speed as they left the area. Local authorities did not return calls.

Seven women convicted of "homicide against a relative" in Mexico were released after the state of Guanjuato enacted legal reforms. The women claim they had miscarriages but prosecutors "maintained to the end that the women's trials were fair, that their babies were born alive but died because of mistreatment or lack of care."

More on Brigham in Philadelphia Inquirer

This article about New Jersey's efforts to take away abortionist Steve Brigham license in the Philadelphia Inquirer provides a few more details into his shady abortion business.

Besides "D.B.," the complaint cited two other women - "S.D., who was 25 weeks pregnant with twins," and "N.C.," who was more than 18 weeks pregnant. Both were taken by car from New Jersey to Maryland on Aug. 13.

"Brigham caused patient 'S.D.' and 'N.C.' to be transported out of New Jersey after their unlawful procedures were begun," the complaint alleges. "Fetal demise for both patients was 'initiated' in New Jersey."

Brigham also created false records, or asked others to make them, showing that the procedures in Maryland were done by physician George Shepard Jr. or an unlicensed medical school graduate, Kimberly Walker, according to the complaint. Both Shepard and Walker told authorities they did not perform any procedures, the complaint says.

New Jersey wants abortionist Steve Brigham's license

The New Jersey Attorney General office has filed a complaint against abortionist Steve Brigham and is seeking the suspension or revocation of his medical license. Brigham is licensed to perform abortions in New Jersey up to 14 weeks but a recent botched abortion incident in Maryland has alerted authorities to how he begins later second-trimester abortions in New Jersey and then caravans women to Maryland where another abortionist finishes the abortion.

Brigham was not authorized to abort fetuses older than 14 weeks in New Jersey. Maryland law does not specifically restrict second-trimester abortions.

New Jersey authorities accuse Brigham of initiating abortions for three patients in Voorhees, N.J., then leading them in a caravan to Elkton, where the procedures were concluded. Documents show another physician botched the abortion of one of those patients, forcing her to undergo emergency surgery.

In other Brigham-related news, a panel for Maryland's state medical board has upheld the license suspensions of two abortionist (Nicola Riley and George Shepard Jr.) who worked at Brigham's American Women's Services abortion clinics in Maryland.

C. Irving Pinder Jr., the executive director of the physicians board, said that even though Brigham was unlicensed in Maryland, he could still be fined $50,000 for each incident of malpractice, and law enforcement agencies were looking into the possibility of charging him with felonies. The other two doctors could also be charged, and the physicians' board retains the option of reprimanding them, revoking their licenses, placing them on probation or dismissing their cases.

The second page of the article also notes that the board members signed the suspension order for another abortionist in Maryland. Romeo Ferrer had his license suspended after a woman died of an overdose of anaesthesia in 2006.

The woman in that case, the mother of a 3-year-old boy, was 16 weeks pregnant and healthy at the time of the abortion, according to the document. An autopsy indicated that she died of "Meperidine intoxication," a reference to a narcotic analgesic.

Board investigators concluded that a second dose, given to the patient just five minutes after the first, "was too large and administered too quickly" and that Ferrer and his team failed to properly monitor her pulse and blood pressure. When the woman's fingernails turned blue, a sign that she was deprived of oxygen, Ferrer "failed to provide adequate resuscitative efforts," the document says

Life Links 9/8/10

Here comes the battle over the Dickey Amendment. Judge Royce Lamberth turned down the Obama's administration appeal for a stay on his ruling to prevent the federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. In May, Wesley Smith noted that the current version of Diana DeGette's legislation to overturn the Dickey Amendment includes a false definition of human cloning.


The trial of abortionist Rapin Osathanondh has been delayed for another week. Osathandondh is charged with manslaughter after he negligence led to the death of Laura Hope Smith.


One of the Abortioneers laments times when her clinic has to turn women away for abortions because the woman is too far along and her child is too big for them to kill at their clinic.

It kinda sucks when someone is too far to be seen at the clinic and you have to turn them away. Of course, lots of effort goes into ensuring she can see another provider; but sometimes that means the patient has to wait several days or travel a long distance (possibly even out of state) to be seen.

The wife of Chen Guangcheng is reporting that her husband may be released by Chinese authorities. Chen Guangcheng is a blind activist who was jailed after uncovering a variety of human rights abuses including forced abortions and sterilizations.


In the UK, a man named Craig Connell has been sentenced to a year in prison after attempting to strangle his pregnant girlfriend. He also apparently attempted to force her to swallow abortion pills.

Health officials close Louisiana abortion clinic

Louisiana officials have closed the Hope Medical Group for Women abortion clinic in Shreveport.

Agents from the DHH said they found the Hope Medical Group for Women, 210 Kings Highway, failed to administer physicals prior to procedures, properly administer anesthesia or monitor anesthetized patients' vital signs, according to the DHH license revocation letter.

"These are some of the most basic medical practices they were excluding," said Anthony Keck interim secretary for the Louisiana DHH. "They were out of compliance with several major licensing standards."

Louisiana Act No. 490, signed into law earlier this year, requires the clinic to immediately suspend operations because of DHH findings and the revocation of their license. The clinic has 30 days to put forward an appeal.

The RH Reality Check story on the closure never mentions why the clinic was closed.

Friday Baby Blogging

Multi-tasking



Feeding some pygmy goats at the zoo



Artwork

Life Links 9/3/10

Politico has an article on the possibility of Diana DeGette's legislation to overturn or amend the Dickey Amendment and re-allow federal funding on embryonic stem cell research. Unfortunately, writer Richard Cohen can't accurately describe the issue at hand.

As Congress prepares to return for a limited pre-election agenda, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said she has picked up wide support for her bill to permit embryonic stem-cell research and expects it will pass this month. Although it has been strongly opposed by anti-abortion activists, she voiced confidence that the measure will be a political boost for its backers as well as good policy.

Really? Is it that hard to put "the federal funding of" between "permit" and "embryonic stem-cell research"?

DeGette also shows her incredible ignorance of basic biology but at least she admits the unborn are organisms.

But DeGette has joined with outside researchers and the Health and Human Services Department in contending that Lamberth’s ruling, which was quickly appealed by the administration, misread the law. “Embryos and stem cells are two entirely different organisms,” and they involve different types of research, she said.

If I was an ESCR advocate, I'm not sure I'd want someone who thinks stem cells are organisms to be my spokesperson.


The Center for Reproductive Rights has issued a "First Look Back at the 2010 State Legislative Session" report which contends that "2010 has been one of the most challenging state legislative sessions for women’s access to abortion in many years. States considered and enacted some of the most extreme restrictions on abortion in recent memory, as well as passing laws creating dozens of other significant new hurdles."


A Wall Street Journal blog has a short interview with James Sherley and Theresa Deisher, the plaintiffs in the case Sherley v. Sebelius which has at least temporarily halted the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

About 2004, I was sitting in my kitchen with my kids listening to the radio – I have two daughters – and I heard one of my colleagues responding to a question from an interviewer. The question was, “Do scientists and physicians know when life begins?” And the response was, we weren’t sure. I knew that not to be the case. My whole reason for being here now is because of recognizing there’s a need for scientists to give the public information that’s correct. And then the public can make more informed decisions about what we should do with embryos and embryonic stem cell research.

In Minnesota, Connie Stroud has been sentenced to three years in jail for driving drunk and crashing her truck into a minivan and killing an unborn child.

Connie Stroud, 43, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17 percent, more than twice the legal limit, when she drove the wrong way on an Interstate 94 ramp in north Minneapolis and struck the van, carrying Tao Thao, who was 24 weeks pregnant, her husband, Yia Vang, and their five children.

At a two-hour sentencing Wednesday, Thao and Vang wore T-shirts reading "We love you. Always and Forever" and carrying an image of the boy they had planned to name Jaylee.

Former abortion clinic director accused of creating false bomb scare

Linda Meek, the former executive director of Reproductive Services of Tulsa, has been accused by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tulsa of giving authorities "false and misleading information" which led to a bomb scare at the clinic in August.

Reproductive Services, 6136 E. 32nd Place, and a building next door were evacuated Aug. 13 after Meek made the report. Reports at the time said an employee reported seeing a box in a trash can that she did not recognize to be trash from the clinic.

A Tulsa Police Department bomb technician examined the package and found no explosive device.

Reports that the employee said she heard a ticking sound coming from the box before she called the police were unconfirmed, Tulsa Police Officer Leland Ashley said at the time.

"She told us that the box in the trash can didn't look like trash the clinic usually throws away in that trash can," he said then.....

Neither Assistant U.S. Attorney Dennis Fries nor Meek's attorney, Allen Smallwood, would discuss what Meek's alleged motivation could have been for providing false information.

Meek is charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office, as opposed to a grand jury indictment. Cases prosecuted in this fashion normally result in guilty pleas, although Smallwood indicated that no plea deal has been finalized.

Both Fries and Smallwood said Meek would face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted.

On Thursday, Ashley said he doesn't recall ever being told the name of the employee who made the report.....

Reproductive Services did not respond to requests for comment, but Smallwood said Meek's employment at Reproductive Services ended after the Aug. 13 incident.

Maryland launches investigation into abortionist Steven Brigham's business

Transporting abortion patients across state lines, botching abortions, and storing late-term fetuses in jars are just a few of the issues surrounding Steven Brigham's American Women's Services abortion business.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Three weeks ago, physician Steven Brigham led a car caravan of patients from his Voorhees abortion clinic to his facility in Elkton, Md. After one of the patients was critically injured during her surgery there, Brigham put the semiconscious, bleeding woman into the back of a rented Chevrolet Malibu and drove her to a nearby hospital emergency room rather than call an ambulance.

Those details are contained in documents issued over the last 10 days by the Maryland Board of Physicians and Elkton police. The two agencies have launched a wide-ranging investigation into Brigham's long-troubled abortion business, which he conducts in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

On Aug. 25, the Maryland Board of Physicians ordered Brigham, 54, to stop performing abortions in that state, where he has never been licensed to practice medicine. By then police had raided Brigham's Elkton facility - from which they said they removed 35 "late-term fetuses and fetal parts" - as well as the Voorhees headquarters of his chain of 15 clinics, which does business as American Women's Services.

Maryland authorities seek missing medical records, and are looking into Brigham's habit of sending late-term patients across state lines after initiating their abortions in Voorhees.

One of the late-term fetuses was 36 weeks.

Maryland Board of Physicians has also suspended the medical licenses of two abortionists who work for Brigham.

On Tuesday, the board suspended the Maryland license of George Shepard Jr., a Delaware obstetrician-gynecologist hired in 2009 as a part-time medical director of Brigham's four Maryland clinics. The board has charged Shepard with unprofessional conduct and with helping Brigham flout credentialing requirements.

Shepard's lawyer, Jason Allison of Elkton, said, "We are reviewing the allegations and . . . are confident that Dr. Shepard's license will be reinstated."

On Tuesday, the Maryland board also suspended the license it granted less than two months ago to Nicola I. Riley, a family physician who in late July began flying "from her home in Utah every other week to Maryland to perform abortions." Riley did not return a call left with her mother in Utah.

Riley botched an abortion on an 18-year-old who was 21-weeks pregnant and "cut through the patient's uterus into the bowel and vagina."

Riley informed the patient's mother and boyfriend of the complications, but refused to call for an ambulance. Riley "originally contemplated taking [the patient] by wheelchair to the hospital, which was about two blocks away."

Brigham drove Riley and the patient to the hospital, where the two abortion doctors dodged questions "about who they were, what had happened, and from where they had come."

The patient's injuries were so complex that she had to be flown by helicopter to Johns Hopkins Hospital while Riley "returned to the Elkton office . . . to perform another abortion."

Life Links 9/1/10

Police in New Mexico have arrested the father of a girl going for abortion after he allegedly threatened to kill abortion protesters if they talked to his daughter.

A protester standing just outside the clinic said the man lost it and said he was going to put a bullet through her heart....

Police did find a magazine clip full of bullets on him, but no gun. The man did have several guns locked inside his car.

Police confiscated them, citing the volatility of the situation.

Bryan Kemper responds to the canard that Planned Parenthood has prevented more abortions than they've performed.

Are you kidding me? Prevented more abortions then they have preformed? That is like saying a rapist prevented more rapes then he committed; it does not change the fact that he is still a rapist and even just one rape is too many. The same should be said about killing a baby (abortion): killing just one is too many.

Authorities in New Jersey have arrested an ex-con after he allegedly raped his girlfriend after she said she wouldn't get an abortion.

When the woman who gave birth to two children with Thomas O. Hill said that she had another on the way, police in Burlington County say, the ex-con insisted on an abortion.

But the woman wanted to keep the pregnancy, police said, and an argument over the issue inside her home on Union Landing Road, in Cinnaminson, turned violent Sunday.

"He got pissed off at her," said Cinnaminson Police Det. Sgt William Covert.

Hill, 24, of Camden, is accused of sexually assaulting the woman in a bedroom where three children, including two of his own, were sleeping, Covert said.

I've heard some bad pro-choice arguments before but this assertion by Maya at the Abortion Gang is just beyond ridiculous:

It is an objective truth that is stubbornly ignored by the anti-choice movement that abortion rates are the same whether abortion is legal or not.

Other "objective facts" Maya could possibly assert:

1. All abortionists are really nice people who love and respect women.
2. Abortion is the removal of a blob of cells
3. Stopping tax dollars from paying for abortions does nothing to the abortion rate
4. All anti-choicers are big meanies