Life Links 8/16/11

At the RH Reality, there is a long article from the Guttmacher Institutes Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health regarding George Tiller's abortion clinic and the post-24 week patients who went there.

Patients at this meeting were also given written information on “baby plans” (For fetal indication patients, staff used the term “baby,” rather than “fetus,” reflecting these patients’ preferences. The word “baby” was not typically used with other abortion patients at WHCS; among other women, the most common term was “pregnancy.”)—the options available to them after their abortion.......

On a day-to-day basis, one of the most difficult things for staff to manage was the boycott of the clinic by local businesses, an action engineered by Operation Rescue and other groups. Protesters photographed the license plates of all vehicles that entered the premises and maintained a list on the Operation Rescue Web site of local establishments that did business with the clinic. In many cases, this intimidation worked. Staff reported that numerous local establishments abruptly ended long-standing business relationships with WHCS......

As noted earlier, Dr. Tiller was a highly spiritual person, and he periodically referred to the clinic’s work as a “ministry.” Similarly, several staff—particularly those with the most emotionally challenging work—pointed to their own strong religious beliefs as having guided their work. “I felt I was doing the Lord’s work,” said the staff member charged with readying the stillborn babies to be seen by their parents. In almost identical terms, the woman who prepared the babies’ bodies for cremation said, “God put me here to do this work.” And the clinic chaplain, referring to the comfort she tried to give to grieving parents, recounted, “This was holy work we were doing here. We gave the parents the gift of not having to make their babies suffer.”

RH Reality Check also has this post from an alternative reality by Sunsara Taylor criticizing the NY Times Magazine piece on fetal reduction.

The only basis for viewing the decision of a woman not to carry every fetus to term as a “moral” or “ethical dilemma” is the unscientific lie that treats fetuses like people, rather than as a subordinate part of a woman's body.

And this is exactly what Padawer does. She even adopts the anti-abortion language that refers to fetuses as people, as when she writes: “Consider the choice of which fetus to eliminate: if both appear healthy (which is typical with twins), doctors aim for whichever one is easier to reach. If both are equally accessible, the decision of who lives and who dies is random [emphasis added].”

No. Fetuses have the potential to become human beings but they are NOT human beings – they are not independent biological or social beings at all – until they are born. In other words, there is no “who” when referring to a fetus.

How many unscientific assertions does Taylor make here?

1. The fetus is a subordinate part of the woman's body (pay no attention to that completely different DNA code).
2. Fetuses are not human beings because
3. They only become human beings at birth because
4. Birth is the magical event which makes fetuses into independent biological and social beings.


A Florida judge has denied abortion kingpin James Pendergraft a new trial.

Judge John Marshall Kest's ruling also denied Pendergraft's motion to set aside verdicts for compensatory and punitive damages. It means the troubled operator of the Orlando Women's Center – and his clinic -- may soon have to start paying out $36.7 million in damages awarded by the jury......

Pendergraft's attorney argued in his motion that the woman was partly responsible. Had she stayed at the clinic, "the abortion procedure would have been completed," he argued.

It was not immediately clear if Pendergraft will appeal Kest's ruling. Fernandez said Pendergraft is uninsured.

David Schmidt at the Live Action blog has caught a Planned Parenthood chaplain lying about his affiliation with the Southern Baptist Church.

A current Southern Baptist Minister with personal connections to the Southern Baptist national executive committee confirmed that one must currently be connected with a Southern Baptist congregation to be a “Southern Baptist Minister.” He said that claiming to be a Southern Baptist Minister while not even attending a Southern Baptist church was “misrepresentation.” Southern Baptist North American Mission Board Chaplaincy Coordinator Dr. David E. Mullis commented of Lachina’s deception, “unbelievable hubris to think he would not be found out!”

This revelation means that a Planned Parenthood Chaplain traveled from Washington State to Mississippi and made false religious claims to influence Mississippi voters against a pro-life ballot measure.