Life Links 1/16/12

The Northern Illinois Women's Center abortion clinic in Rockford will be closed permanently. This is after the clinic had done a variety of tasks required to meet health regulations including plans to hire an abortionist with surgical privileges at an in-state hospital.

According to an email sent to the Rockford Register Star, the clinic's owners have decided to voluntarily shut their doors for good.

Clinic officials state their decision is based on lack of support from the community, the political climate surrounding the abortion issue and the challenge the clinic would face in rebuilding staff.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the immediate enforcement of Texas' ultrasound law.

Then on Thursday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked the appeals court to make its decision effective immediately, shortening the 22-day waiting period typically required under the court's rules. The appeals court granted the request in a one-sentence order less than a day later......

The Texas Department of State Health Services expected to implement its enforcement plan in the coming weeks, spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. The department was finalizing its notification letters that it will send to abortion facilities and inspectors, Williams said.

Overheard: George Berkin in NJ Voices on the Texas ultrasound law and it's detractors.

First, Planned Parenthood's response shows just how empty the "pro-choice" rhetoric really is. In our everyday experience, more information makes for greater freedom of choice. Should I attend Rutgers or Montclair State? As I consider my options, I want as much information as possible about academic offerings, costs, social life, etc.

Deciding what to do when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, unlike choosing which school to attend, is fraught with moral consequences as I consider each option. But that moral dimension should make it more important to be fully informed about each possible choice, not less important.

Amanda Marcotte is really off her rocker. She think that if Griswold v. Connecticut is overturned, she could see "conservative states passing laws requiring you to be married (to get contraceptives) or some such nonsense." No states are mentioned nor any legislators in such a state who would support such a law. She really is the mayor of Crazytown, U.S.A.

Later, she shows why she continuously struggles to form anything resembling a reasonable argument.

Santorum is trying to argue basically the contraception somehow causes out-of-wedlock births---man, I hate that term---because it lets people think they can have sex and then they get pregnant. Luckily for us, we actually have data to disprove this argument, and not just common sense. The record high for teen pregnancy was not 1966, the year after Griswold was decided. Nor was it after condoms became ubiquitous in the 80s and 90s. It was actually in 1958, when it was twice as high as it is now. True, there were a lot of shotgun marriages back then, but so what? The difference is not in contraception use, but in mores regarding marriage and pregnancy.

First, she's comparing apples and oranges. Teen pregnancy doesn't equal out-of-wedlock births, especially in 1958. My mother was the first woman in her immediate family not to be married and have a kid before she was 20. This is why teen pregnancy numbers were high in the late-fifties. It wasn't because a bunch of unmarried teens were having unplanned pregnancies nor was it because of "shotgun marriages." It was because a bunch of married women who were teenagers were having planned pregnancies.

People got married and started having children at a much earlier age in the 1950's. In 1950 and 1960, the median age of first marriage for women was 20.3 years. That means a little less than half of the women getting married were doing so in their teens. Unsurprisingly, a higher number of women being teens when married leads to a higher number of teen pregnancies. Interestingly, Marcotte never seem to think that easier access to contraceptives may have played a role in changing society's mores on sex, marriage and pregnancy.