"Congressional Investigation" eh?

I didn't see much new information in this Emily Bazelon NYT piece. Abortion advocates are scared to challenged fetal pain legislation but they like to describe their decision as "good legal strategy," which it may well be. It doesn't change the reality that they're fearful of the consequences of losing a challenge.

What is laughable is how Bazelon describes a high school-level report by pro-abort Henry Waxman's staff as a "Congressional investigation." The whole report is basically: prolife CPCs claim one thing about how abortion affects women but we have one or two studies which say different, ergo they're providing misleading information.

There's no thought to where are CPCs are getting their information, evidence showing those studies were poor, etc.

Life Links 5/27/11

63-year-old Ralph Lang has been arrested in Madison, Wisconsin after he shot a gun in a motel room and then informed police he planned on killing an abortionist.

Lang said he planned on shooting the clinic’s doctor “right in the head,” according to the complaint. Asked if he planned to shoot just the doctor or nurses, too, Lang replied he wished he “could line them up all in a row, get a machine gun, and mow them all down,” the complaint said......

Lang had a history of targeting Planned Parenthood buildings. Court documents said he was arrested in 2007 outside a Madison branch, telling officers that everyone in the building deserved to be executed and that police were failing in their jobs by not carrying out the executions. Lang received a disorderly conduct citation, according to court records.

A law regulating the use of RU-486 which passed in Ohio in 2004 has been ruled constitutional by a federal judge.

The law bars use of the drug, RU-486, unless it is administered in compliance with Federal Drug Administration rules. The drug could not be prescribed more than seven weeks into a pregnancy. Violations are a felony.

Planned Parenthood and other abortionists frequently prescribe RU-486 in a different manner than the FDA rules for women further along in their pregnancies and in a way that doesn't require the abortionist to see the woman as often.


An Australian anesthesologist who worked at an abortion clinic has been charged with "54 counts of conduct endangering life, negligently causing serious injury and recklessly causing serious injury" after he allegedly infected abortion clinic patients with hepatisis C.


The ACLU and some Democratic Congresswomen attempted to get Congress to vote on whether health care coverage for military women should include abortions for rape victims.

Louisiana health department shuts down abortion clinic

From the story:

The State Department of Health and Hospitals has ordered the closure of the Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women for alleged violations of state licensure regulations....

The Gentilly abortion facility is currently appealing a separate license revocation action instituted by the Department in January 2010. That action was based on a determination of the facility's "substantial failure to comply with the minimum standards for licensure of abortion clinics," according to DHH.....

DHH says Wednesday's revocation action was based on a new survey of the facility conducted by DHH Health Standards on May 6, 2011.

State officials say the recent survey "found the clinic to be in violation of standards for abortion clinic licensure...Specifically, the facility failed to provide nursing services to meet the needs of its patients and adequately monitor women in recovery following a procedure."

Overheard: Steph Herold is sad she couldn't pay for woman's elective post-24 week abortion

Sometimes I think some abortion workers live in a world of their own.

Here's some more evidence for that pile from the Abortion Gang Blog.

Angela (name changed) was one such a case. She called our hotline when she was well over the legal limit for an abortion–over 24 weeks. She had been trying to have an abortion for two months, but because of various medical conditions and never having enough money, she was turned away from many local providers. She’s in a conundrum. She needs to have an abortion. The only provider that will see her is 5000 miles away, and that abortion is $9000, not to mention travel and lodging. Angela couldn’t afford to feed her children last week. Where will she come up with $9000?

There is no easy solution here. I wish I had a big bag of abortion money and could grant Angela the abortion of her dreams. Unfortunately, Angela couldn’t get that abortion. I wish I could’ve called Congress and put her on speaker phone. I wish I could call Henry Hyde and have him listen to her cry. My heart aches for her and for all women in her situation. Until politicians hear the voices and experiences of women like her, restrictions on this legal medical procedure will continue to roll out of Capitol Hill and states across the nation. Until the broader pro-choice movement embraces later abortion access as a matter of justice and equality, Angela and all women in her situation will continue to suffer, lacking the ability to get the care they need.

Does Steph really think that having a woman over 24 weeks pregnant cry to Henry Hyde would have made him think that tax dollars should pay for her late-term abortion? Are the voices of women who want post 24-week abortions really the best voices for the pro-choice movement?

Also, notice how the word "need" is used twice to describe a late-term abortion that Angela wants.

What happens when you take Christ and the cross out of the church?

That's exactly what the former Christ Community Church of Spring Lake did in June of 2010 when they changed their name to C3Exchange and removed the cross from their building. It appears the church stopped practicing orthodox Christianity years ago but in 2010 they tried to make sure they weren't mistaken for a church.

C3Exchange, 225 E. Exchange, Spring Lake, was formerly known as Christ Community Church. The Rev. Ian Lawton, the church's pastor, said the name change and removing the cross were designed to reflect the church's diverse members.

"Our community has been a really open-minded community for some years now," he said. "We've had a number of Muslim people, Jewish people, Buddhists, atheists. ... We're catching up (to) ourselves."

.....

Lawton said C3Exhange will also begin “dechurching” the building’s interior over the next year, replacing banners and rearranging the building’s layout.

Fast forward a year and they're attempting to sell their building and land because they can no longer afford it.

The C3Exchange Board of Trustees has announced that the "inclusive spiritual community" can no longer afford its building at 225 E. Exchange, Spring Lake.

The building, a landmark in the village, is to be listed with the Grand Rapids-based real estate firm NAI Wisinski for $1.9 million, C3Exchange officials said.

The board said, in a press release, that older debts were a major reason for the cash flow problem. The community had announced it was having financial problems in March and would consider all options, including leaving the building it had occupied since the 1970s.

Life Links 5/26/11

An Indiana man named Leonard Beaty has been found guilty for molesting a young girl who became pregnant and had an abortion at 11-years-old. The girl apparently continued to be molested after the pregnancy and abortion, thanks to the abortion clinic which seemingly didn't inform law enforcement about a pregnant 11-year-old.

The girl involved in the case became pregnant when she was just eleven years old, but she says that Beaty continued to molest her after the pregnancy that she aborted. She is now thirteen years old.

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to ban teaching health centers from using tax money to train abortionists.

The author of the measure, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said she wanted to make it "crystal clear that taxpayer money is not being used to train health care providers to perform abortion procedures."
......
The amendment also states that no funds available under the grant program can be used to perform abortions and that teaching health centers will not be eligible for funds if they discriminate against providers that deny abortion services.

An abortion clinic in New Jersey called Pilgrim Medical Center was cited in 2009 for various deficiencies.

A patient's chest was not hooked up to an EKG monitor, but an EKG status was written on that person's medical record anyway.
State inspectors found a series of health violations at Pilgrim Medical Center on Bloomfield Avenue, including some that posed immediate risks to patients.

State inspectors found a series of health violations at Pilgrim Medical Center on Bloomfield Avenue, including some that posed immediate risks to patients.

Before they were ready to be inserted into patients, 10 needles were removed from their packaging and placed in an unsterile plastic container.

Employees were exposing medication to possible contamination by opening vials with their bare hands after having wiped them with alcohol.

Frederick Dyer writes on how abortion became illegal in the United States.

Storer, the American Medical Association, and the state/territorial medical associations were wonderfully successful. Connecticut and Pennsylvania passed strict anti-abortion laws in 1860. By 1880, nearly every state and territory had new legislation that made it a serious crime to induce abortions unless the mother's life was in danger. Most of these stringent state laws against abortion were virtually unchanged until Roe v. Wade overturned them in 1973.

Ohhhhh poor NARAL

They really do make it too easy to punk them.

Check out their Flickr photostream, filled with photos from prolifers (including some graphic images of aborted children).

I love that a link to NARAL's flickrstream is on the front page of their web site.

Life Links 5/25/11

A man in New York has been arrested and charged with felony abortion and assault for allegedly punching his 17-year-old girlfriend in the stomach in an effort to kill their child.


I'm still waiting for the RH Reality Check's Robin Marty to provide evidence for her false assertion that "The number one factor being cited for unintended pregnancy is an inability to afford birth control."

I won't be holding my breath.


Abortions in the UK are still on the rise. As always, pro-choice groups have only one solution in mind.

But health commentators including pro-choice groups said they were surprised by the rising total number and rate of abortions, and called for greater spending on contraceptive services.

The number of repeat abortions is up.

Figures also show that more women are having repeat abortions. In 2010, 34 per cent of women ending pregnancies had had at least one previous abortion, up from 30 per cent a decade ago. In total, 85 women have ended seven or more pregnancies.

Life Links 5/24/11

Research shows that Indian couples are increasingly using sex-selection abortion to abort daughters in second pregnancies if their first child was a girl.

The study found that, from 1990 to 2005, the “sex ratio” of first-born female children in India did not change significantly nor differ from what was biologically expected. (In 1990, it was 943 girls per 1,000 boys, and in 2005 it was 966). However, in families whose first-born was a girl, the incidence of the second-born being a girl fell almost steadily over that period, from 906 per 1,000 boys in 1990 to 836 in 2005.

During the period, the trend increased among families in which the mother had 10 or more years of education but did not change in families in which the mother had no education. The sex ratio fell especially sharply in the richest 20 percent of households, Jha and his colleagues found. The findings were the same in both Hindu and Muslim households.

The most extreme decline in the probability of having a girl occurred in families in which the first two children were girls. In that case, the ratio of girls to boys in the third-born child was 768 to 1,000 in 2006. This came at a time when the average family size in India was 2.6 children — a huge reduction from earlier generations.

The Phoenix FOX News affiliate has the story of a woman whose child had been growing in her abdomen, outside of her uterus.

Nicollette Soto's son weighs just 2 pounds, 14 ounces. She had what's called a cornual pregnancy, and doctors are amazed he survived.

He was born at 9:20 a.m.

Doctors say they noticed that the baby was developing outside the uterus at 20 weeks. They offered to operate because of the complications involved, but Soto declined.

A woman in Illinois named Marisol Molina pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter after taking "at least 10 abortion pills before having a baby, then tying the still living infant in a plastic bag and leaving her in a closet 'as if it were garbage.'"

Molina, who was seven to nine months pregnant, wrapped the baby in a robe and tied her in a plastic bag on Feb. 18, 2010, before hiding her in a closet in her home in the 6100 block of North Sheridan Road— where the baby was discovered dead a day later, said Kevin DeBoni, an assistant Cook County state’s attorney.

In Massachusetts, a woman was sentenced to two years in jail for killing an unborn child while beating another woman in a hair salon.

Authorities said Woodhouse kicked and punched the other woman during an argument as other people in the salon screamed at her to stop.

The fetus was delivered by emergency Cesarean section, but did not survive. The medical examiner determined that the fetus died because the placenta became detached from the uterus.

Why can't Lawrence Finer and the Guttmacher Institute tell the truth about their own research?

Another day and another Guttmacher Institute study which leads them to exact same talking points we hear over and over and over and over again. Somehow a study which shows a higher percentage of women having abortions are poor should inform us that poor women are having abortions because they have less access to contraception (even though previous Guttmacher Institute research shows other leading reasons why women have unplanned pregnancies) and abortion restrictions effect poor women's access to abortion (Wait? Didn't the research show poor women were having more abortions?)

The Guttmacher Institute's Lawrence Finer also drops this blatant lie:

"Women who are deciding to have an abortion are women who have unintended pregnancies, and limited access to contraception is one of the key drivers of unintended pregnancies," said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute and author of the 2006 report. "Most Americans want to control how many kids they have and when they have them. We should [ease] access to contraception when possible to reduce the substantial proportion of unintended pregnancies."

Limited access is not one of the key drivers of unintended pregnancies and the reason I know this is because Guttmacher Institute research shows it isn't. Much higher numbers of unplanned pregnancies occurred because

1.) Contraceptives were used inconsistently
2.) Women thought they were unlikely to get pregnant
3.) Women had concerns about contraceptive methods
4.) They had unexpected sex

Planned Parenthood supporters in Nebraska argue for abortion while claiming not to

Karen Amen and Penny Berger, two former Planned Parenthood leaders in Nebraska, have an editorial in which they argue for abortion while claiming not want to enter into the "choice" debate.

We recognize that spokeswomen for the anti-choice movement, such as Sandy Danek in her editorial in the May 19th Journal Star and Julie Schmit-Albin in her work in the Legislature to curb or destroy a woman's right to choose, are guided by their own ethical and religious beliefs. We recognize that in matters of the heart and faith, factual information and rational debate rarely will change opinions about reproductive health, sexuality, family planning, birth control and abortion. We acknowledge and respect Danek's right to hold dear her beliefs on these issues. We have no desire to persuade her otherwise.

Now that's an underhanded way of saying, "She's irrational, we're rational." It's also quite cowardly. Instead of pointing out how Danek's arguments were incorrect, Amen and Berger just cast them aside. Here's Danek's column. Notice the number of facts and statistics and the complete lack of religious arguments.

Danek uses her column to rant against the new Planned Parenthood facility in southeast Lincoln, focusing solely on abortion and using the term "business model" in an emotionally charged way. Even though we suspect she and her organization have their own business model, as must any organization that hopes to survive for the long term. Nonetheless, Danek uses the phrase to imply that Planned Parenthood provides abortions just to make money. To reiterate what others already have pointed out, abortions are approximately 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's income and work.

WRONG. Maybe Amen and Berger have been out of the game a while and don't understand that services and income doesn't necessarily equal each other.

But we write today not to enter the likewise emotionally charged debate surrounding the "choice" issue, although each of us has close friends who have faced the difficult choice of whether to continue or end a pregnancy.

So we're not going to argue about abortion but here's a reason we're in favor of legal abortion. Oh, and here are some more arguments in favor of abortion.

These friends made different decisions; each made the decision best in her circumstances.

And that, of course, is our point. We firmly believe every woman deserves the sacred right to choose when to become a mother and when to make a full commitment to being the best parent possible to her precious child. We do not wish to impose our dearly held belief upon people who have a different opinion; we ask the same respect from them.

A bad moral argument for abortion

I don't think I will ever understand how people can think it is better to kill children than to have them grow up in difficult circumstances. That's Davidson Loehr's position in a "Moral Argument for Abortion":

We can always breed, but should only do it when we are ready, willing and able to care and provide for our children. While a few kids out of a hundred thousand may make it out of the ghetto, those are unfair odds to pile on a parent, child, or society.

There is an image from September 11, 2001 that was burned into the memory of everyone who saw it: people, sometimes holding hands, jumping to their death from the Twin Towers, with no safety nets to catch them. It should be as heart-rending to see millions of children pushed out into a world that has no adequate safety nets for them either. And to enact laws whose intent is to force the most desperate women to bring babies into a home and a world that can't care for them is, if not evil, a brutality against the most vulnerable women and children in our society -- and profoundly immoral.

So instead of trying to provide safety nets for them, we should kill them faster?

Why don't these advocates of killing unborn children (based on future hardships) ever advocate for killing other human beings whose lives they might consider "nasty, brutish and short"? Where's Loehr's "A Moral Argument for Killing the Homeless" or "A Moral Argument for Killing the Poor"?

If the unborn aren't human beings then you don't need a moral argument for abortion. But if they are then claiming they won't have a quality of life doesn't really have much consistency to it unless you're willing to allow the killing of born humans whose lives you don't consider quality either.

Life Links 5/23/11

Here are the latest results from Gallup on American attitudes towards abortion. For the first time in 2 years, the percentage saying they are "pro-choice" was greater than those saying they were "pro-life." 51% of Americans view abortion as morally wrong and 61% of Americans think abortion should be legal in either no or only in a few circumstances. Interestingly, 18-34s were the likeliest group to describe abortion as morally wrong and think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. They were also the group that most likely felt abortion should be legal in all circumstances.


LifeNews just noticed this information from a Telegraph story from April about President Barack Obama's father.

Mr Obama Sr. and Miss Dunham divorced in January 1964, by which time he had left Hawaii and was studying for a PhD in Economics at Harvard.

The file said two months later, concerns were raised over Mr Obama Sr.'s relationship with a Kenyan high-school student on an exchange scheme in nearby Boston, who abruptly travelled to England.

"The suspicion exists," the March 1964 document said, "that she may have gone to London for [redacted]". It is unclear what the next word is. At the time, abortions were illegal in the US.

The New York Times notes how the Obama Administration isn't pleased with Indiana's law defunding Planned Parenthood and are trying to decide how to proceed.

The changes in Indiana are subject to federal review and approval, and administration officials have made it clear they will not approve the changes in the form adopted by the state.

Federal officials have 90 days to act but may feel pressure to act sooner because Indiana is already enforcing its law, which took effect on May 10, and because legislators in other states are working on similar measures.

Apparently, a bunch of big-league pitchers want the same adult stem cell procedure Bartolo Colon received.

Don't let Margarette Shegog become a doctor

She thinks children born and unborn before 28 weeks of gestation aren't alive. This is coming from someone who describes herself as a "second-year medical student."

Below is part of her letter to the editor of the Dayton Daily News in which she claims having a heartbeat is arbitrary in deciding whether the unborn are alive. Instead, having complete neural pathways is supposedly a completely non-arbitrary criteria for whether human beings are alive.

For more than 30 years, brain death, not heartbeat, has been used to denote life in medicine. Thorough neurological testing for basic reflexes and reaction to stimuli is used to test this.

Neurological pathways in the embryo are still developing at birth. After 28 weeks of gestation (third trimester) the fetal brain begins to communicate with the fetal body.

This means that a fetus would not have any basic reactions to stimuli until well after the current cutoff for non-medically indicated, elective abortion. These fetuses cannot feel pain, nor are they self-aware.

We should not limit people’s choices based on a non-medical, arbitrary marker of development such as a heartbeat.

Margarette almost seems unaware that numerous children are born before 28 weeks. According to her ludicrous criteria, they're not alive because their brain supposedly hasn't begun communicating with their body.

The Onion on Planned Parenthood's "AbortionPlex"

The fake news web site The Onion has a piece on a fictional Planned Parenthood AbortionPlex. While I think the partial goal is to poke fun at how prolifers supposedly view Planned Parenthood, there's also a good deal that hits abortion clinics like the floor plan where a day care center promises that young children can play "while their unborn siblings are being terminated elsewhere in the facility" or the adoption center for dogs and cats.

The 900,000-square-foot facility has more than 2,000 rooms dedicated to the abortion procedure. The abundance of surgical space, Richards said, will ensure that women visiting the facility can be quickly fitted into stirrups without pausing to second-guess their decision or consider alternatives such as adoption. Hundreds of on-site counselors are also available to meet with clients free of charge and go over the many ways that carrying a child to term will burden them and very likely ruin their lives......

"We really want abortion to become a regular part of women's lives, especially younger women who have enough fertile years ahead of them to potentially have dozens of abortions," said Richards, adding that the Abortionplex would provide shuttle service to and from most residences, schools, and shopping malls in the region. "Our hope is for this facility to become a regular destination where a woman in her second trimester can whoop it up at karaoke and then kick back while we vacuum out the contents of her cervix."

"All women should feel like they have a home at the Abortionplex," Richards continued. "Whether she's a high school junior who doesn't want to go to prom pregnant, a go-getter professional who can't be bothered with the time commitment of raising a child, or a prostitute who knows getting an abortion is the easiest form of birth control—all are welcome."

Life Links 5/19/11

Two men, one in California, another in Virginia, have been charged with killing their unborn children along with killing their girlfriends.


A legislative committee in Wisconsin has voted in favor of a proposal to prevent abortion providers from getting family planning grants. Cue crazy quote from abortion advocate:

Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) expressed concern that funds could be cut for organizations that provide abortions for victims of rape or incest.

"We're going back centuries to a time when women were more like a child and you could not make your own choices," Taylor said.

An abortionist in Australia is claiming sans evidence that abortion clinic protesters are driving up her business.

Dr Kathy Lewis travels from Melbourne every week to run the Albury clinic and said members of the Helpers of God's Precious Infants may be sabotaging their own efforts to make women reconsider a termination.

"In my experience they're not turning people away," she said.

Dr Lewis said the clinic's bookings were up "because everybody knows we're here", though she would not provide figures.

Killing is kindness?

At the Daily Mail, a woman who is regular Daily Mail writer shares the story of how she aborted her child because he had spina bifida and doctors said he wouldn't be able to walk. Her thought process is sickening. How messed up is our society when people actually think that killing your own child because he will be paralyzed is the kindest thing to do?

I pictured him watching from the sofa, frustrated and immobile, as his sisters turned cartwheels and somersaults in the living room. I envisaged trips to the park, where he would sit on the sidelines as other children clambered over climbing frames and kicked footballs......

I tried to shake away the image I conjured in my head of a little boy, lonely and friendless, robbed of the most basic human functions. The prospect of watching a child I'd love just as much as his sisters suffer in this way made me howl. I hugged my stomach, as if I could in some way shield him from the misery that lay ahead.....

And so it was that a week after that first scan, and against my initial instincts, I realised I couldn't bring this child into the world, knowing the extent to which he would suffer.

Andrew and I talked long into the night, and finally agreed that ending the pregnancy was the kindest thing we could do for our son.

Life Links 5/18/11

Angel Dillard has filed a counterclaim against the Justice Department, claiming their lawsuit against effected her free speech and religious rights.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division sued Dillard under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The government's lawsuit seeks a court order permanently prohibiting Dillard from contacting Means or coming within 250 feet of the doctor, her home, car or business. It also seeks damages of $5,000 for the doctor and a penalty of $15,000.

In her counterclaim, Dillard claims the government's conduct has intimidated and interfered with her First Amendment right to worship where she chooses because her church is located less than 250 feet from Means' office.

Dillard is seeking attorney fees, court costs, statutory damages of $5,000 per violation, as well as punitive damages to deter the government and its agents from further alleged violations of constitutional rights.

New Mexico Right to Life wants its name removed from a billboard posted by a man upset that his former girlfriend possibly had an abortion without telling him. In the billboard he uses the name of his former girlfriend as the name of his unofficial organization.

The billboard depicts an Alamogordo businessman, GEFNET owner Greg A. Fultz, holding what appears to be an outlined baby in his arms as he is looking down at it. Next to the picture, in large print, is the statement, "This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child! [sic]."

A woman in California is under arrest after trying to kill her 6-week-old daughter. The article reveals that she previously killed an unborn child by using meth.

According to authorities, this isn't the first time Mailloux has harmed one of her children. In 2009, the death of her 39-week-old, 7 pound fetus was ruled a homicide by the Coroner's office.

"Homicide to us simply means that someone else caused the child's death," said Commander Dennis Smithson, Kern County Coroner's Office. "It wasn't natural cause, it wasn't an accident, someone did something to the child that caused the death."

Smithson says that "someone" was Mailloux and that "something" was drug use. "A toxicology report was done and the baby came back positive for a high level of methamphetamine."

But, under California law authorities cannot criminally prosecute the mother for this type of death.

Man cured of HIV by adult stem cell transplant interviewed

Timothy Ray Brown was recently interviewed by the San Francisco CBS affiliate about being cured of AIDS after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor who was immune from HIV.

“I quit taking my HIV medication the day that I got the transplant and haven’t had to take any since,” said Brown, who has been dubbed “The Berlin Patient” by the medical community......

Both doctors stressed that Brown’s radical procedure may not be applicable to many other people with HIV, because of the difficulty in doing stem cell transplants, and finding the right donor.

“You don’t want to go out and get a bone marrow transplant because transplants themselves carry a real risk of mortality,” Volberding said.

He explained that scientists also still have many unanswered questions involving the success of Brown’s treatment.

“One element of his treatment, and we don’t know which, allowed apparently the virus to be purged from his body,” he observed. “So it’s going to be an interesting, I think productive area to study.”

NZ woman who had abortion as teen - "I wish I had told my parents"

In New Zealand, a woman who had a secret abortion at 16 with her school's help has come forward. She still seems to be pro-choice and thinks if teenagers had to tell their parents they go to the "black market."

She said at the time she had no real comprehension of what she was doing and was only asked by a GP if she was sure about her decision.

"You're naive at that age and choices are very one-dimensional."

.....

Ms Wickham said though she wouldn't change her decision, it had haunted her and she felt great guilt over the lost life.

"When it comes to the time that you become a mother, there's guilt with that."

Daughter who would have been aborted graduates from college

From the Trentonian comes a heart-warming story:

So in February 1988, Nichols and her mother, Carolyn, headed off to New York City where the Trenton 14-year-old had been scheduled for an abortion procedure.

“I was literally on the table and being prepped for anesthesiology when I changed my mind. I couldn’t go through with it, even though I knew keeping my baby would change my life, end a lot of my dreams. I always wanted to be a dancer. I was smart and intelligent, had good grades. And my parents wanted so much for me,” Nichols recalled Monday.

Nichols’ retreat from an abortion had been bolstered by a clinic protester.

“There was this guy who had a piglet inside this jar with liquid. I remember his sign that said this is what I would have been doing to my baby. I will always remember that sign. That man,” Nichols said.

Nichols, a 14-year Motor Vehicles Commission employee, will remember always May 15 when the girl she saved, MicCheah Nichols, received her diploma as a member of the Rutgers University Class of 2011.....

“I’m glad that I made the decision to keep my baby. It’s one of the best choices I’ve ever made,” she said.

Life Links 5/16/11

In New Zealand, a storm is brewing over recent revelations that a 16-year-old had an abortion which was arranged by a school counselor without her parents' knowledge.


Taiwan is missing 3,000 girls who should have been born in 2010 because of sex-selection abortions.

The Bureau last month launched an investigation after it found that 10 out of every 11 babies delivered in a clinic in New Taipei City last year were boys. Nine out of every 10 babies delivered in a Taipei City hospital during the same period of time were also male.

Government officials suspected that doctors at the two medical institutions might have conducted the illegal abortions after expectant parents had viewed ultrasound scans which allowed them to predict the sex of their baby.

Under Taiwan's law, any doctor found guilty of conducting such an abortion may face a fine of up to Tw$500,000 ($17,368).

Authorities in South Africa caught an illegal abortionist after an alert hospital security guard realized something was amiss.

B4S VIP Security managing director, Zubair Gafoor, said the man’s alleged scheme involved using hospital documentation to convince women that he was a practicing doctor at the hospital.
“Once he convinced them he takes them for coffee at the hospital café where he allegedly explains how the abortion will take place.

“Our investigations have revealed that he allegedly also tells them that apart from working at the hospital he has a private ‘surgery’ behind a Gold Exchange shop in Church Street where he performs the operations.

“Here he allegedly abandons his victims once he has taken their money. Our biggest fear now is how many women he has ‘operated’ on and what has happened to them.”

The number of women in Australia who contracted hepatitis C from an anesthetist who worked at an abortion clinic has risen to 49.

Dr Peters also worked at the Fertility Control Centre in East Melbourne, the St Albans Endoscopy Centre and the Western Day Surgery in Sunshine.
But Dr Carnie says the infections appear to be isolated to the Croydon Day Surgery.

In a Herald Sun article, Victoria's Chief Health Officer Dr. John Carnie doesn't think the women were infected accidentally and we get some more background on Dr. Peters.

Dr Peters had a history of drug use and was last year convicted of possessing images of child pornography.

A West Virginia judge has upheld a life sentence on teenager who killed a pregnant woman's unborn child when he was 16.

Life Links 5/13/11

The Canadian version of the March for Life was held yesterday in Ottawa.

While the crowd, estimated at over 10,000, largely consisted of teenagers in matching T-shirts bused in from schools across the province, all walks of life and all ages were represented in the crowd, including a crew of Knights of Columbus in full parade regalia, small groups of nuns and quite a few men of the cloth.

Legislators in Missouri have passed a ban on post-viability abortions past 20 weeks with veto-proof majorities.

The bill, which passed in the House by a 121-33 vote, would ban abortions performed after 20 weeks of gestation, except if the fetus is not viable or in the event of a medical emergency. Two physicians would be required to approve an abortion. It would also become a felony for doctors to perform illegal late-term abortions, a crime carrying a minimum one-year prison sentence and a fine of as much as $50,000.

Hadley Arkes on the No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act:

But Ms. Slaughter must have known that she was speaking the most serious untruth about that bill she was opposing. Was this cynicism, or had she and her party simply come to see the world through the slogans they have come to absorb? For she must have known that this bill did not restrict or deny the access of any woman to an abortion.
It reflected, rather, the understanding even of many people who are pro-choice on abortion: that abortion might be a private liberty or “right” under the laws fashioned by the courts, but a private liberty is not necessarily a “public good,” which deserves to be supported by public funds.

Iowa Republicans aren’t happy with the bill introduced by Sen. Joe Bolkcom designed to keep abortionist LeRoy Carhart out of Council Bluffs.

How not to write about abortion

Abortionist William West, aka Beket, has a new post at Daily Kos entitled, "Extreme Religion Stops a Thinking Brain - and Kills Women and Teenage Girls," in which he rambles almost endlessly. Seriously, this is a novel of nothingness.

While the post uses more than 6,000 words, Beket doesn't mention any of the recent issues his employer, Whole Woman's Health, has been been dealing with or how he was willing to break Texas' 24-hour informed consent law.

Life Links 5/12/11

Why am I not surprised? After the dust over Kermit Gosnell and his deplorable clinic has settled, pro-choicers like Morgan Zalot have stopped lamenting about how Gosnell was allowed to stay in business and are now opposing legislation (which would treat abortion clinics as ambulatory facilities) designed to prevent clinics like Gosnell's. To attack the legislation, they're using the exact same "you can't limit abortion access" argument pro-choicers used back in the day which allowed Gosnell's clinic to go decades without inspections.

Also, unsurprisingly, abortion advocates are throwing out obviously made-up estimates for how much complying with the new law would cost.

The bottom line for opponents of the bill is that it increases the cost of abortions. Frietsche claims that cost would increase by as much as $1,000 and cost each clinic as much as $1 million, which would force most — and possibly all — of Pennsylvania's 22 clinics to shut down.

Those sound like very round numbers, huh?

Stevens, of Planned Parenthood Advocates, says assertions about clinics potentially shutting down "aren't hypothetical" and points to a bill passed in 2004 in Texas that imposed similar regulations on abortion clinics. Of 20 clinics statewide, she says, none could initially comply. Eventually, a few managed to become certified outpatient facilities — but not without raising the cost of an abortion by as much as $1,000.

I'm not sure which law Stevens is referring to. On NARAL's legislative page for Texas there are a variety of TRAP laws mentioned. None of them were enacted or amended in 2004. There are more than 20 abortion clinics in Texas.

So somehow, according to Sari Stevens of Planned Parenthood, Texas passed a law in 2004 (which NARAL doesn't have a record of) and this law supposedly was so onerous that it dropped the number of abortion providers in Texas from 20 (I'm sure there were more than that in 2004) to "a few." Since then, apparently more than 20 clinics have started up.

Exhibit #4,365,395 in why you should never trust a word out of Planned Parenthood rep.'s mouth.


A Democratic legislator in Iowa has drafted a proposal to keep abortionist LeRoy Carhart out of Council Bluffs but still allow post-20 week abortions.

Bolkcom said his proposal would use the certificate-of-need process to ensure that a new abortion facility that performs abortions after 20 weeks is near an Iowa hospital that is capable of providing an appropriate level of perinatal care to protect the life or health of the woman and the fetus.

There is no hospital in Council Bluffs that meets the standard established by his proposal, Bolkcom said.

The BBC has a video about the faces of unborn children develop.

Indiana Planned Parenthood funding cut off for now

Judge Tanya Walton Pratt refused Planned Parenthood's request to stay the enforcement of Indiana new law to defund abortion providers.

"While the underlying issues of this case will be argued at a later date, today's ruling allows the statute the Indiana Legislature passed to remain in effect," state Attorney General Greg Zoeller said.

"The legislation has generated strong emotions on all sides, and my office will provide a vigorous legal defense for the statute," he said. It is the attorney general's duty to defend in court the constitutionality of any Indiana statute, Zoeller said.

In a four-page order denying the bid for a temporary order, Walton Pratt said she wasn't persuaded that the new law "will have a concrete and immediate effect that would warrant the extraordinary remedy" of enjoining it before the state has a chance to fully contest the issues raised by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

This case is far from over.

Ken Falk, legal director for the ACLU of Indiana, which appeared in court on behalf of Planned Parenthood, conceded that getting a temporary restraining order is rare.

A temporary restraining order usually means the defense doesn't get to fully argue or brief the case, so the burden is high.

Pratt set a June 6 preliminary injunction hearing, which could still halt the law from taking effect.

She expects to make a decision by July 1.

Pratt – an Obama appointee – cautioned lawyers and reporters Wednesday that her initial ruling is not a signal of how she would decide the merits of the case.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana are already turning Medicaid patients away and telling them to find another provider. Strange since Planned Parenthood is always acting like they're the only ones who can provide reproductive health services.

Life Links 5/11/11

Yesterday, Mitch Daniels signed a law defunding abortion providers in Indiana, Planned Parenthood sued and a judge will decide today if funding will continue at least temporarily while the case is decided. Judge Tonya Walton Pratt was nominated by President Obama.


A second patient in Geron spinal cord clinical trial has been injected with cells derived from embryonic stem cells.


In Belarus, the Ministry of Health is working with religious organizations a pilot project where psychologists will talk with women considering abortion.

According to the specialist, nursing personnel will also be trained within the project to communicate with patients who face a choice to keep the baby or not. "The work of specialists will be built, avoiding pressure on women, but presenting the necessary information about the negative consequences of abortion to health," said Alexander Barsukov, BelaPAN.

Louisville's abortion walk

Everysaturdaymorning has a post by a guest blogger who is an escort at an abortion clinic in Louisville and did a project for one of her classes in which she had her friend pose as someone having an abortion and videotape her walk into the abortion clinic through a corridor of prolifers.

The video also includes the friend talking before the walk about what she's expecting and after the walk describing how she felt.

In the video, a sidewalk counselor offers the friend a free ultrasound, says she wants to help her, offers adoption counseling, financial counseling, "whatever you need," tells her that her child is either a son or a daughter and that her child is valuable and precious. The sound gets muddled as the clinic escort speaks louder and they approach the crowd of prolifers. One guy says, "Hail Mary" and another woman says something about free ultrasound as they enter.

Here's how the escort describes the video:

When I first watched the video, I thought it was pretty tame. I’m kind of ashamed of that. I must be pretty desensitized to the situation if I thought that was as tame as I did. A few of my friends that watched it were pretty shocked. One cried. One said they couldn’t watch the whole thing.

One part I found very interesting is that at about 4:50 when the friend is discussing her experience, she talks about how even if the sidewalk counselor had "saved" her and says, "that kind of stress, that kind of panic can't possible be healthy for you or a baby."

Life Links 5/10/11

Catholics for a Free Choice have published a symposium of articles discussing whether President Obama is liberal enough for them. Here's their press release and web page of their magazine Conscience. Some pro-choicers are not happy with Obama. RH Reality Check's Jodi Jacobson writes the following and says he's not prochoice by her definition.

The president has presided over the greatest erosion to women's reproductive health and rights in the past 30 year, and a continuing degradation of our rights at the state level. Yet still he remains silent.

Authorities in Louisiana are looking for a woman who scammed a couple looking to adopt out nearly $7000 after claiming she was pregnant. She had gotten pregnant earlier and had an abortion.

The family gave her $6800, but then she told them she 'gave birth' in Shreveport and decided to keep the child after all. The family even made an effort to come to Shreveport to give her diapers and things for the baby after the birth, said Habich.

Iowa lawmakers are working to ensure that late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart doesn't come to Council Bluffs. Don't miss Carhart's brilliant argument against the proposal below.

Iowa City Democratic Sen. Joe Bolkcom says a compromise could be reached later this week that would block the clinic but not impose a broad ban as has been approved by the House. Bolkcom acknowledged Monday that details of that compromise are still being bargained.

The proposed restrictions are in response to a plan by Nebraska Dr. LeRoy Carhart to open a clinic in Council Bluffs that specializes in late-term abortions. Carhart told The Associated Press the proposal is silly.

In Florida, a pregnant woman was stabbed 30 times.

Lee County sheriff's deputies received a complaint that a car horn had been sounding for nearly an hour. When they responded to the scene around 4 a.m. Saturday, they found a bloody, visibly pregnant woman inside her vehicle. She told deputies she was stabbed by an acquaintance in his driveway, and then driven to an abandoned apartment complex and left to die.

The victim and her 6-month-old fetus were taken to a hospital, where they are in critical condition.

Life Links 5/9/11

An audit of abortion complications performed in South Australia found that RU-486 abortions are less safe than surgical abortions.

The "audit" of nearly 7000 abortions performed in South Australia in 2009 and last year found that 3.3 per cent of women who used mifepristone in the first trimester of pregnancy - when most elective terminations occur - later turned up at hospital emergency departments, against 2.2 per cent who had undergone surgery.

And the rate of hospital admission jumped to 5.7 per cent for recipients of early "medical" abortions - using drugs - compared with 0.4 per cent for surgical patients re-admitted for post-operative treatment.

It looks like some higher up Democrat has gotten to Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams. The D.A. who filled charges against abortionist Kermit Gosnell and whose office put together the grand jury report detailing what can happen when abortion clinics aren't inspected is now claiming Pennsylvania law to treat abortion clinics as ambulatory facilities (which the grand jury report recommended) goes too far.

His letter ignited sharp reactions in Harrisburg. Said Rep. Matt Baker (R., Bradford), chairman of the House Health Committee and the bill's sponsor: "I don't understand why he wrote the letter and who influenced him. . . . It's almost as if he's trying to defend, on the one hand, his grand jury report. Then, on the other hand, he's raising all kinds of questions that contradict his own grand jury's recommendations."

The Los Angeles Times has an article on prolife legislation in various states.

"We are always monitoring a huge number of anti-choice laws," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenges antiabortion laws. "But what we are seeing this year is some of the most extreme restrictions, and they are passing at a rather sharp clip."

That is probably because of several factors, including the prominence of the abortion issue in last year's healthcare debate, as well as gains by Republicans, both at the state and national level, in November's election, advocates on both sides say.

Overheard: Most prolife legislation consistent with Planned Parenthood v. Casey

"While some elements of the anti-abortion trend fly in the face of the Supreme Court's holdings on abortion, the preponderance of them are actually consistent with the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision."
.......
In theory, this subjective ("undue burden") formulation could provide a fairly robust protection of reproductive freedom. The way the Casey plurality actually applied the standard, however, all but guaranteed that it would not. The Pennsylvania law is now a model for the proliferation of anti-abortion legislation that has followed in its wake.

- Pro-choice lawyer Scott Lemieux on Planned Parenthood vs. Casy and prolife legislation

Life Links 5/6/11

Charges have been dropped against 94 individuals who protested President Barack Obama's commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame.

The St. Joseph County Prosecutor's Office announced Thursday the university and defendants met and resolved the situation, and the prosecutor won't stand in the way of their agreement.

Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade) will play a role in a small budget movie.

Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe, appears in "Doonby," a psychological thriller from British writer/director Peter Mackenzie. She plays an elderly woman who tries to talk the expectant mother out of going through with her plan.....

The niche title tackles abortion head-on, taking place in modern times but with significant flashbacks to an era when illegal abortions were conducted in back alleys. The filmmakers know they've created something controversial but maintain it is apolitical -- a position that will be a tough sell beyond pro-life circles.

The federal government will have decide how it will deal with Indiana's efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a possible Republican contender for the White House, set the stage for a legal and political clash with the administration last week when he announced he will sign legislation requiring the funding cutoff for Planned Parenthood. An "overwhelming majority of Hoosiers" are opposed in principle to any use of "tax dollars to support abortion," he said.

But the federal Medicaid Act, which pays for care for patients who are poor, says these persons may choose any provider who is "qualified" and "willing" to provide a service. In many states, Planned Parenthood clinics provide basic health care and medical tests for low-income women.....

U.S. health officials have been pondering how to respond.

"If the state denies payment to these providers, that would be illegal," said Mary Kahn, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. agency that administers the two huge health-care programs. "There are some options available to us, but I can't say what action will be taken to bring the state into compliance. All we can say now is we will review the matter once Indiana decides."

Hungary starts prolife ad campaign

According to a Wall Street Journal blog, the above ad will run for two months and reads, "(I understand if you aren’t ready for me) …but rather put me up for adoption, LET ME LIVE!"

Hungary’s new constitution, adopted in April and reflecting Christian-conservative values, says that “life is protected from conception.” A similar provision, along with an explanatory bill, limits legal abortions in Poland to only a few medical and criminal situations.

The ruling party has repeatedly said that a ban on abortion in Hungary wasn’t an option. But nongovernmental organizations, like the Hungarian Civil Liberties’ Union, said the new constitution opens the way to a future change of the law.

Overheard - In New York, yes to minors' abortions, no to indoor tanning

On proposed legislation in New York to ban minors from indoor tanning:

"Kids can get an abortion without parental permission, but you can't get a tan," said Dan Humiston, president of the national Indoor Tanning Association, which is fighting the measure. He owns 41 Tanning Bed stores from Buffalo to Utica.

New York currently bars indoor tanning for children under 14 and requires parental permission for children aged 14-17.

New York has no such legislation for abortion.

Life Links 5/5/11

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. The vote was 251-175. Sixteen Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the act.

Before the vote, Michael New offered these encouraging words.

Regardless of the outcome of today’s vote, pro-lifers should take heart. In the aftermath of the 1994 election, Congress never even voted on defunding Planned Parenthood. This year, there was already a concerted effort to remove Planned Parenthood funding from the remainder of the FY 2011 budget. The ban on taxpayer-funded abortions in the District of Columbia was reinstated. Now Congress is voting on a bill that would effectively make the Hyde Amendment permanent. Indeed, the increased attention that this Congress is giving to sanctity-of-life issues is evidence of the increased popularity and influence of the pro-life movement.

MSNBC has a long article on the Justice Department's increased use of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act since President Obama took office.

Since Obama's inauguration, federal lawsuits have been filed against a woman who blocked a car from entering a clinic in Florida; a Texas man who threw his body across the door of a patient waiting area in San Antonio; and a Pennsylvania man who posted on the Internet the names and addresses of abortion providers and extolled his readers to kill them.

Government records obtained by The Associated Press show that in slightly over two years, the Obama Justice Department has filed six lawsuits under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, mostly to seek injunctions and fines. That compares with just one such lawsuit during the entire eight years of George W. Bush.

D.C. councilwoman Mary Cheh was arrested for protesting the ban on tax-funded abortions in D.C.

"H.R. 3, aimed at every woman in the District and in the United States, yet specifically singles out low-income D.C. women for special abuse by preventing them from exercising their constitutional right to an abortion, if the District decides that local funds are necessary," Norton said in a release. “Today’s arrests builds on the momentum that was created by DC Vote and the arrests of ‘D.C. 41’ last month. The arrest of D.C. women, on behalf of the city’s low-income women, signals that the revolution is spreading and is being sustained by D.C. residents. Residents realize that undemocratic abuse from the Congress cannot end without direct action by citizens."

If I was an abortion advocate, I don't think I be at all impressed by this post by the Center for Reproductive Rights' Nancy Northup on why they haven't sued to stop fetal pain laws from taking effect.

Like any other movement, we make strategic decisions about when, and with what tools to fight for fairness and equality. We don’t jump just because the anti-choice zealots say jump. We won’t be baited into a lawsuit. If a state passes a law that impairs women’s access to abortion services, and that fails to meet constitutional standards, it will be challenged -- when the circumstances and timing are right. To the extent that states have unconstitutional, and unchallenged, abortion laws on their books, it is because those strategic criteria have not yet been met. That has nothing to do with giving up the fight. It has everything to do with ensuring that we devote our resources to the strategies and goals that best serve women’s health and rights in the long run.

In other words, we're scared to challenge fetal pain laws because we're scared we'd lose. Maybe they're hoping that Obama will get a chance to replace one of the 5 justices who voted to keep partial-birth abortion illegal.

CIRM gave Geron $25 million for their embryonic stem cell spinal cord clinical trial.

Life Links 5/4/11

At National Review, Kevin Burke writes about Aerosmith lead-singer and American Idol judge Steven Tyler's experience with abortion which was cited in the band's autobiography.

When Miss Holcomb and Tyler conceived a child, his longtime friend Ray Tabano convinced Tyler that abortion was the only solution. In the Aerosmith “autobiography,” Walk This Way (in which recollections by all the band members, and their friends and lovers, were assembled by the author Stephen Davis), Tabano says: “So they had the abortion, and it really messed Steven up because it was a boy. He . . . saw the whole thing and it [messed] him up big time.”

Tyler also reflects on his abortion experience in the autobiography. “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”

Here's a new video from the Guttmacher Institute on Abortion in the U.S.


As typical from the Guttmacher Institute, the video pushes the idea that more access to contraception will decrease abortions despite their own research showing the majority of women who have abortions were using some form of contraceptive in the last month, large percentages of women using contraceptives did so inconsistently, and that only a low percentage (12% of non-contraceptives users) of women who had abortions cited their lack of access to contraceptives as their reason for not using them. Other reasons for non-use of contraceptives were cited by much higher percentages of women. 33% cited "the perception that a woman was at low risk of becoming pregnant." 32% cited "concerns about contraceptive methods" and 27% cited "they had had unexpected sex."

Why is access to contraceptives always the top concern for the Guttmacher Institute when it's clear from their own research that a lack of access to contraceptives comprises a much smaller portion of women who end up aborting than women who use contraceptives inconsistently, think they're not going to get pregnant, don't like various contraceptives, and have unexpected sex?

A guest blogger at Feministe takes the old, worn-out path to defend Planned Parenthood funding - just forget about the unborn.

My general rule is that my opinions and politics should always be on the side of choice (unless you’re trying to bring a gun to class), but apparently most people do not abide by that, which would be fine if those same people weren’t trying to take away rights that I believe are necessary and fair and essential to my freedom. My beliefs aren’t effecting anyone else’s life, won’t restrict anyone from doing anything, and won’t force anyone into doing something that they don’t want to do. It would be nice if other people had enough respect for their fellow humans to adhere to the same principle.

Except that legal abortion effects the lives of unborn children, restricts them from developing and doesn't respect them.

UK mom defied docs' abortion advice

The Daily Mail has the story of a woman who risked her life to bring her daughter to birth despite advice to abort.

Medics feared she was suffering from cancer - but a biopsy later revealed the true cause of her pain - which had been triggered by increased levels of oestrogen and progesterone, caused by her pregnancy.

When she suffered a double-lung collapse, doctors warned the couple that there was very little chance of their baby surviving - and begged them to consider ending the pregnancy.

Mrs Hewetson said: ‘The longer Lily was in there, she was safe, but I wasn't.

‘But she'd just survived me having major surgery. I knew she was a fighter and I didn't want to give up on her.

‘She was my little girl and I was determined to keep her.

‘I was experiencing the greatest pain I'd ever felt before in my life - but that didn't matter to me......

Throughout her pregnancy, more cysts continued to grow on Donna's kidneys - and days before the new mother reached 28 weeks, doctors insisted on a caesarean section.

Lily was born in April 2009, three months' premature and weighing just 2lb 7oz - but incredibly, after nine weeks in an incubator, she was given the all-clear.

Life Links 5/3/11

At the New York Daily News, Kassi Underwood writes about her post-abortion experience in a piece entitled, "Get your politics off my grief: After my abortion, neither pro-life nor pro-choice forces helped."

At first, I sought refuge in the pro-choice movement. In finding a community, I was coping. Our communication, however, sounded a little more like war rhetoric than sharing in a common bond. I heard myself sounding like a bumper sticker. "Fight for choice!" I hollered, as if war has ever been the answer.

Emotions, I learned, could be regarded as a chink in the pro-choice armor. Pro-lifers have long hyped "post-abortion syndrome," a condition the American Psychological Association continues to refute. As recently as January, a Danish research team reconfirmed that there is no evidence of an increased rate of mental illness after the procedure.

But three years after my abortion, I started having nightmares about babies. Awake, I missed my potential child. It was bewildering that I could feel so mournful about a decision that was supposed to buttress the architecture of my identity.

It felt traitorous to admit that, far from thinking I had expelled a "blob of cells," I now wondered who that person I aborted would have been. Mental illness or not, having the blues seemed to insult my foremothers, who fought not just for my right to end a pregnancy, but for my right to vote, to attend college, to wear a godforsaken pair of pants. I shut up about my feelings because I valued my community, but my community was unsupportive - suspicious, even - of my gloom.

I then attended, of all things, a Catholic retreat called Rachel's Vineyard, one of the few services for people who need to address their terminations. An alumna "leery of religious concepts" had reassured me with her fulsome brochure blurb, but at the retreat, politics again prevailed, this time from the other side.

In Minnesota, a truck driver has been indicted for the deaths of two women and an 8-week unborn child after he drove into the backs of cars stopped by traffic on the freeway.

Prosecutors disclosed Monday that the trucker was reaching down to his cab floor for an energy drink and when he looked up, he saw traffic had stopped for construction and couldn't brake in time.

He also wasn't wearing his corrective lenses, authorities said.

Styrbicky, 37, of Buffalo, Minn., has been indicted in the deaths of Pamela Brinkhaus, 50, of Elko New Market; Kari Rasmussen, 24, St. Anthony, and of her fetus.

Minnesota law recognizes the killing of a fetus at any stage of prenatal development as homicide. It does not address the controversial issue of when a fetus is capable of living outside the womb.

Another man is on trial for allegedly attacking his pregnant girlfriend whose children he didn't want to support.

The way a prosecutor presented her case to a jury Monday, had Shawn Walker-Johnson had his way, Julie Hardy would not be preparing to celebrate her first Mother’s Day on Sunday.

What Walker-Johnson wanted, Assistant District Attorney Priya DeSouza said in an opening statement in his trial on assault charges, was for Hardy, his girlfriend, to give up the twin boys she was pregnant with and which he was father to, either though adoption, abortion, or a forced miscarriage.

He “did not want to be a father,” DeSouza told a jury of eight women and four men at the start of Walker-Johnson’s trail in front of Judge Anthony Sarcione. “And he put Julie and her twins through hell in order to make his wishes come true.”
......
In addition, in a pre-trial hearing out of the jury’s presence, Hardy said that on April 15, 2010, just after she learned she was pregnant, Walker-Johnson virtually dragged her to the Planned Parenthood office in Coatesville to force her to get an abortion.

Should it be legal to kill unborn children because some children are born addicted to drugs?

At the Washington Post's On Faith web site, public broadcast reporter Martha Woodroof has a column on abortion which asks, "Is abortion always wrong?"

Woodroof doesn't believe it is and doesn't think religious people are right for being opposed to abortion. Her "reasoning?"

Drug-addicted babies exist.

Shouldn't right-to-lifers have the moral right to talk in terms of "God saying" and "God wanting" and "God thinking" about unwanted babies only after they, themselves, have stood beside one that's been born addicted or brain-damaged in some new born intensive care unit and realistically considered that particular baby's future? Of course, a black-and-white, conservative religious approach to morality is more comfortable than a NICU approach, but surely our own comfort doesn't mean we can claim moral righteousness at a safe remove from reality.......

Which leads me back to my original question: Is abortion always wrong?

Before you answer yes, go to a NICU and spend some time with an abandoned, addicted baby. Are you willing to take that baby home? And if you're not, then who are you to say that God, humanity's engine of love and compassion, demands that all babies have to be born?

Let's now listen to Larry, an advocate of spousal abuse, use the same line of "thinking" to defend spousal abuse.

Is spousal abuse always wrong?

Before you answer yes, go a woman's shelter and spend some time with a victim of spousal abuse. Are you willing to marry that woman? And if you're not, then who are you to say that God, humanity's engine of love and compassion, demands that all wives shouldn't be beaten.

Amanda Marcotte repeats inaccurate claims from Rachel Maddow to attack prolifers

Amanda Marcotte has a classic know-nothing Marcotte column at Alternet entitled, "The Heartless Way Conservatives Treat Young Women Who Choose to Have Babies." The column discusses a recent Rachel Maddow show which included footage of pregnant and parenting students being arrested by Detroit Police while protesting the closure of Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school for pregnant and parenting students. Here's Marcotte:

The new Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, signed a law that allows the state to functionally dissolve local governments and hand them over to "emergency managers," who are using their new powers to enact a series of wish list items for conservatives under the guise of fiscal responsibility......

The imminent shut down of Catherine Ferguson demonstrates the emptiness of Republican claims that they oppose reproductive rights because they value life. Instead, Republican policies are rooted in a sadistic desire to punish and control, and to deprive women---especially young women, poor women, and women of color---of any opportunities whatsoever.....

And now the very same conservatives that wax sentimental about “choosing life” are working to shut down the educational opportunities of young women who did what anti-choicers want, by having their babies.

This is really overwhelming evidence that prolifers don't care about teenage mothers. Except.......

Who was the shady emergency manager dedicated to enacting the conservative agenda who decided to close Catherine Ferguson Academy?

It was Emergency Financial Manager of Detroit Public School Robert Bobb. Strange. Marcotte doesn't mention him. Hmmmmm......

So which Republican appointed Robert Bobb to that position?

It was Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat.

Wait! What?!?!?! How could liberal Jenny appoint such a vicious Rethuglican to be the Emergency Financial Manager of the Detroit Public Schools? That makes no sense.

And how is that supposed Republican water-carrier was previously the president of the Washington, D.C. board of education (a Republican stronghold if there ever was one) and was the deputy mayor of D.C. under Democrat Anthony Williams and is a lifelong member of the NAACP? Doesn't exactly sound like your stereotypical prolife Republican, huh?

So according to Marcotte, prolifers are to blame for the closure of a school for pregnant and parenting students because a Republican governor gave new powers to a Democratic-appointed manager and that Democratic-appointed manager decided to use those new powers to close the school (along with 44 other schools which will be closed or charterized) to save the school district money. This somehow proves prolifers really hate pregnant and parenting students.

Reality is one thing. It just doesn't sell as well to the people Marcotte and Maddow cater to.

I'm left wondering if A.) Amanda Marcotte and Rachel Maddow are complete idiots who can't do basic research or B.) they think the people who read and watch their garbage are complete idiots.

Overheard: Abortion is the more admirable decision, pat yourself on the back aborting moms

At the Abortion Gang, Shayna shares her annoyance with receiving multiple ultrasound photos from her pregnant cousin and writes about how she thinks abortion is a more admirable decision:

I’m not sure whether I find the barrage of baby news and photos so obnoxious because it began upon conception or because of its sheer volume. It could be because, despite the fact that it is remarkably easy to conceive a child, her behavior indicates that it is somehow a daring or difficult choice. Yet, I believe, that it is so much more challenging and admirable to make the decision to not have a baby. To dare to put quality of life above “life,” to make the hard decisions that, unfortunately, no one will be sending you cute little pastel care packages for. It is so much more difficult to decide to have an abortion, to decide that you cannot have a child now, because, unlike the decision to have a child, there is no one there to pat you on the back, let alone legions of family, friends and acquaintances. As Mother’s Day approaches, though, if you are one of these courageous women, then please pat yourself on the back. Whether you have children now or not, know that you decision mattered, and that you deserve to be praised every bit as much as and more than those who decided to carry pregnancies to term.

Life Links 5/2/11

Democratic state legislators in Florida got into a heated argument after one of them (Daphne Campbell) backed a prolife bill.

Deeply religious and opposed to abortion, Campbell clashed with her colleagues over the abortion bill. Randolph had had enough. And the two exchanged words — possibly more.

At that point, the stories diverge. And they're being revised.

Campbell said Randolph called her a "traitor," threatened to run an opponent against her and threw papers at her. Randolph denies it. He acknowledged he threw some of her papers and a pen in the trash.

The New York Times is covering Indiana's push to stop providing tax-dollars to abortion providers.

Abortion rights supporters condemned the decision, saying it would leave 22,000 poor residents of Indiana, who use Planned Parenthood's 28 health facilities in the state, with nowhere to go for a range of women's services, from breast cancer screening to birth control. Planned Parenthood of Indiana said it would file an injunction to block the measure from taking effect. But abortion opponents said the move merely guarded against sending tax dollars to facilities that perform abortions, and said women on Medicaid still had plenty of health facilities available to them all over Indiana.

Here's the text of the bill in question. It also includes a 20 week/fetal pain abortion ban, tweaks their informed consent law with ultrasound viewing option, tries to prevent cross-county judge shopping for parental consent waivers, requires abortionists to have admitting priveleges

Below is a video of a news report on the story. At the end, the female anchor notes that Gov. Daniels' office says organizations can get their funding back - all they need to do is stop performing abortions. When Planned Parenthood is forced to choose between state funding and providing abortions, they're going to pick abortion every time. They won't even acknowledge that ceasing abortions is an option.



Huntington News isn't too impressed with West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant's decision to get funding from EMILY's List in her attempt to become governor.

Reasonable people can disagree on the pro-life/pro-choice issue. But until this year, we have yet to see a West Virginia statewide candidate for office so brash as to tell her future constituents that they must kowtow to the out-of-state special interest group that says that abortion on demand is fine and dandy. Natalie Tennant may have gotten a few TV spots paid for by Emily's List money this year.

But in exchange, she's sold her political career here for a very cheap price.