Life Links 2/25/11

The prolife billboard in New York which caused a stir has been taken down after the advertising company feared for public safety. Pro-choicers had apparently been harassing staff at a nearby restaurant.


I wonder if William Saletan's latest piece which discusses a number of abortionist horror stories in a variety of states will get any pro-choice bloggers to get off the company line that prolife laws are what led to Gosnell's clinic.

The clinic's owner, Barbara Lofton, blamed reports of her recklessness on the pro-life views of the local paramedic chief. He denied that he held such views. Months later, on 60 Minutes, Lofton's former employees and patients alleged that she had practiced medicine without a license and had nearly killed a patient by botching her abortion. CBS correspondent Meredith Vieira reported that "many pro-choice leaders knew about problems at Hillview but didn't want them publicized. National Abortion Federation head Barbara Radford admitted she was just hoping we would go away."

Nor were these leaders eager to address the underlying problem: Maryland had no laws for abortion clinics or outpatient surgery centers. Anesthesia and emergency medicine in these facilities were unregulated. That was why Lofton had moved her clinic to Maryland when the District of Columbia ordered her to stop performing abortions without a clinic license. A pro-choice legislator in Maryland had sought to regulate clinics but had met resistance from her colleagues. "There's only so much of a willingness to try to push ... the pro-choice movement to do what I think is the responsible thing to do," the lawmaker lamented, "because they then treat you as if you're the enemy."

The country of Hungary is so desperate for children that they're extending maternity leave to 3 years along with a variety of other measures including the possibility of giving parents more voting rights. Plans to ban abortion were scrapped.


The prolife group at Carelton University in Canada is suing their university for discrimination.

The $225,000 lawsuit filed in Ontario Superior Court on Feb. 18 by Carleton students Ruth Lobo and John McLeod claims the university breached its own human rights policies and procedures by refusing to let a campus club called Carleton Lifeline set up a controversial display featuring large images of aborted fetuses and genocide atrocities in the Tory Quad, a high-traffic square at the centre of campus. (University officials offered the group space at a different spot.)

Claiming the university was trying to censor its message by suggesting the group set up its displays in an alternative location, Carleton Lifeline attempted to set up its display in Tory Quad last October and were arrested by Ottawa police and campus security.