NPR segment on Gosnell murder trial and abortion clinic inspections

NPR actually mentions the Gosnell murder trial. They don't go into a ton of detail and focus mostly on how the state has picked up inspections but the end of the article is rather powerful.

Abortion opponents were not the only ones supporting Baker's legislation. State Rep. Margo Davidson says her 22-year-old cousin, Semika Shaw, died of sepsis and infection after an abortion at Gosnell's clinic. Davidson delivered an emotional speech on the Statehouse floor in 2011.

Dedicating her vote to Shaw, Davidson said she hopes the law will safeguard the health of women seeking abortions, "so that never again will a woman walk into a licensed health care facility in the state of Pennsylvania and be butchered, as she was."

Life Links 3/28/13

In the Kermit Gosnell murder trial, assistant medical examiner Gary Collins has testified that despite the defense attorney's claims, Karnamaya Mongar's death had nothing to do with soot in her lungs. 
   

Defense attorney Jack McMahon has argued that Mongar hid respiratory problems that made her more vulnerable to the effects of Demerol.

Mongar, a native of Bhutan, lived for 20 years in a refugee settlement camp in Nepal before immigrating with her family to the United States four months before she died.

Collins conceded that Mongar's lungs showed carbon particles but said it was the normal soot inhaled by any person, not sign of a disease such as black lung. Otherwise, Collins said, Mongar's lungs were normal.

A fight is brewing in San Francisco over Planned Parenthood's plans to put a clinic (which they claim won't provide abortions) downtown near a Catholic church.

Although Planned Parenthood says it doesn't intend to offer abortions at the clinic, opponents of the procedure have already fired off dozens of letters to the city opposing the facility. Neighboring businesses are also wary of the project, fearing protesters at the clinic will drive away customers.

Some 100 people, many of them opponents, turned up at a recent meeting where a parking plan for the clinic at 435 Grand Avenue was approved. An appeal to the City Council of that decision is expected and the deadline is next week. But parking is just the start of the approval process, which will go to the planning commission, and in all likelihood the City Council.

A woman who believes proposed legislation in North Dakota would prevent her from getting in vitro fertilization allegedly threatened the life of a state lawmaker.  The legislation appears to attempt to limit the number of embryos created in an IVF cycle to the number that will be implanted.

Richland County State's Attorney Ron McBeth on Friday charged Nicolette Jean Knudson with threatening a public servant, a class C Felony punishable upon conviction with up to five years in jail, $5,000 or both.

Court records obtained by Forum Communications show authorities allege Knudson called Sen. Margaret Sitte, R-Bismarck, at 3 a.m. Feb. 27 and threatened to kill Sitte if she interfered with her attempts to get pregnant via in vitro fertilization.   

A Pennsylvania man named Ruben Velazquez has pleaded guilty to killing his girlfriend and unborn child.  He faces two terms of 5 to 40 years.

"License? We don't need no stinkin' license!" says Alabama abortion clinic

The Alabama Health Department has filed a complaint to close down the  New Woman, All Women abortion clinic.  The clinic, which is owned by "Abortion Queen" Diane Derzis was shut down and had their license revoked.  They've recently been performing abortions without a license. 
     

In a news release sent out by the state yesterday, Hale said, "The Alabama Department of Public Health today filed a civil complaint in Jefferson County Circuit Court seeking to enjoin operation of an unlicensed abortion/reproductive health center in Birmingham. This filing is the result of an investigation that began in February 2013.  From its investigation, ADPH determined that All Women's, Inc., doing business as New Woman All Women Health Care, continues to hold itself out to the public as an abortion provider doing business at 1001 17th St. S. in Birmingham. This is in violation of state law, administrative rules of the State Board of Health, and a consent agreement ADPH executed with Diane W. Derzis, as President of All Women's, Inc., in April 2012, and that Bruce E. Norman, M.D., is providing abortions at the 1001 17th St. S. facility doing business as the Women's Center. "

Judgmental abortion clinic escort claims she doesn't make judgements in a post where she makes a judgement

Abortion clinic escort Servalbear has these thoughts about clinic escorts and prolife protesters.

I want to start by stating the obvious: there are wide divisions between antis and escorts in our beliefs. Escorts believe in a person’s choice for abortion. Antis believe no one should choose abortion ever. Escorts believe in not making judgments about people they meet at the clinic. Antis judge everyone on the sidewalk.

 She goes on then to describe a situation regarding a lost glove.

I told the escort I had seen D look at the glove and suggested maybe she picked it up. The escort asked D if she found a glove. The answer was, “No, I didn’t see a glove.” About 5 minutes later, the glove turned up. It was draped on top of the fire hydrant directly in front of the clinic doors.

I cannot prove D placed it there since I didn’t see her do it, but proximity to both sites the glove was draped seem to circumstantially indicate she saw it, picked it up, and then placed it somewhere else we were sure to see.

Then, without any evidence except her assumption that D took the glove or knew where it was decides that D is a liar.

But they believe in not making judgements about people, right?  

Life Links 3/26/13

A record number of people wrote in to oppose the HHS mandate regulations. 

Three years after Congress approved President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA), contraceptive care remains its most controversial provision, drawing not only more comments than any other regulatory proposal on any subject government-wide, according to an analysis of federal regulations on Sunlight's Docket Wrench.

More than 147,000 people and organizations have made their voices heard over the debate, most of them opposing the provision that requires that federal agencies have interpreted to mean that women have access to preventive services--including contraception--at no cost.

The latest person to testify in the Kermit Gosnell murder trial is Philadelphia fire Lt. Don Burgess about being called to Gosnell's clinic as Karnamaya Mongar was dying.

Burgess said they were led through a "maze to a room where we found a female nude from the waist down and with her feet in stirrups."

A female worker and Gosnell were there but neither was doing anything, and there was no sign emergency resuscitation had been tried.

"The doctor was confused," Burgess said, responding to questions from Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron. "I asked him what happened, and he blurted out something I couldn't understand."

   
Prolifers in Ohio are upset with the University of Toledo for helping to keep an abortion clinic open.
           

He distributed paperwork showing that the Ohio Department of Health in March, 2012, levied a fine of $25,000 and threatened to shut down Capital Care Network for having no transfer agreement in place. The shutdown threat was canceled after Capital Care signed an agreement with the UT Medical Center, formerly the Medical College of Ohio, in August, 2012.

"This abortion mill would not be able to exist without the University of Toledo and it's time for the University of Toledo to get out of the abortion business, even if it's indirect," Mr. Coats said.

Rep. Lynn Wachtmann (R., Napoleon) said he believes Ohio law already prohibits the arrangement under its ban on state-funded entities supporting abortion, but said he would soon introduce legislation to make the ban more explicit.

In the Washington Times, Victoria Cobb writes about the abortion industry's opposition to public oversight and how that endangers women. 

Some industry representatives claim they support regulations, but say that the proposed Virginia standards "go too far." In fact, for several years they adamantly opposed legislation before the Virginia General Assembly that would have required only licensing, inspections and emergency equipment. Now we know why. The discovery of widespread violations of health and safety in the inspections — inspections the industry fought so hard to stop — reveals that it has no credibility when it comes to which regulations are necessary and which are not. An industry that has covered up for two decades the kinds of problems found in the inspection reports does not deserve to be listened to when it comes to how it should be regulated.

Abortion advocates blame Kermit Gosnell's atrocities on lack of abortion funding

NARAL president emeritus Kate Michelman and Carol E. Tracy have an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled, "Why women chose Gosnell," in which they attempt to blame prolifers and prolife laws for Kermit Gosnell's "House of Horrors" abortion clinic. 

They ask this proper question:

In a state that has led the nation in imposing restrictions on abortion, how could such atrocities go undetected?

Unfortunately, they never provide the truthful answer.  Instead of pointing out how the Grand Jury Report in the Gosnell case found that pro-choice politicians and lazy, unaccountable bureaucrats worked to prevent abortion clinics from being inspected, Michelman and Tracy claim the problems were that abortion wasn't treated as a medical procedure, tax-dollars didn't pay for abortions, there weren't enough abortionists in Pennsylvania, and prolifers stigmatize abortion.

Worse still, they attack prolife laws which passed after the Gosnell was arrested and the following inspections which closed down other shady abortion clinics. 

Compounding this shortage, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law in 2011 mandating that the remaining handful of abortion providers comply with volumes of costly regulations designed for ambulatory surgical facilities, where much more complex surgeries take place.

In Michelman's and Tracy's bizarro world, the way we stop shady abortion clinics like Kermit Gosnell's is by treating abortion as a abortion procedure, funding abortions, getting more abortionists, and destigmatizing abortion as opposed to simply inspecting clinics and regulating them. 

It also makes no sense to claim abortion clinics shouldn't meet ambulatory surgical standards if you think abortion should be treated as a medical procedure. 

Here's a hilarious tidbit from their piece:

It's important that the women of Pennsylvania know that abortion is a legal, safe medical procedure. As set forth in the Gosnell indictment, legitimate providers like Planned Parenthood and members of the National Abortion Federation follow standard medical procedures and the law.

Maybe they're unaware of this but Michelman and Tracy fail to note that before getting arrested, Gosnell worked 1 day a week at a National Abortion Federation member clinic.  Whoops. 

Florida man arrested for punching pregnant ex-girlfriend for refusing abortion

Warning ladies: You might want to avoid Louis Vickers.

Lee County deputies arrested a man for punching his pregnant ex-girlfriend in the stomach after she refused to abort the baby. 

Deputies said Louis Vickers, 27, punched the 21-year-old mother of his unborn child three times in the stomach after she refused to get an abortion.....

According to the arrest report, it wasn't until she went to the restroom that she noticed blood coming from her vaginal area. 

She was treated at Lehigh Regional Medical Center on March 18, but Vickers was not arrested until March 21. 

It was determined that the child did not suffer any trauma from the blows.

Life Links 3/22/13

At MTV's web site, rapper Mack Maine discusses his new video "Celebrate," a collaboration with Lil' Wayne and Talib Kweli.  Maine mentions one lyric which discusses how he was almost aborted.  

"My mom was about to abort me. She was about to have an abortion. She was lying on the table and she changed her life at that moment," Mack said open and honestly.

Moments before the procedure, the rapper's mother had a routine consult and immediately changed her mind, choosing to give birth to her son. "She changed her life that day, she got saved and became a Christian," he said.

Delaware Online is covering Delaware Right to Life's call for an investigation into a Delaware Planned Parenthood abortion clinic where 3 patients have been taken away by ambulance in the last month.  The article also mentions the assault on Rae Stabosz.

Delaware Right to Life officials are calling for an investigation and eventual closing of the Planned Parenthood operation on Shipley Street, saying members of their group have witnessed three patients being taken by ambulance from the clinic in just over a month's time.

A fourth woman, who had returned to the clinic after complications from an abortion five days earlier, was accompanied to the emergency room by an anti-abortion sidewalk counselor, said Nicole Collins, president of Delaware Right to Life. That counselor told group officials that part of the fetus had been left inside the woman's uterus, Collins said.

John Sexton wonders aloud about the national media's decision to largely avoid covering the Kermit Gosnell trial.

I could not agree more with your observations about the media's interest in Kermit Gosnell. Imagine for a moment that the man on trial had killed an abortion provider. Somehow I think the major media would find time to mention his trial. But a man who is arguably the worst serial killer in U.S. history, who operated a clinic that is straight out a horror film with freezers full of body parts, a man who actually groomed his subordinates to kill, a man who smiled after he was arrested and believed he would be cleared to return to his important work--amazingly that's of no interest.

And it's not just the media that's taking a pass. President Obama has made a habit of offering words of comfort when tragedy occurs, especially tragedy that involves children. He traveled to Tucson and spoke movingly of the 9 year old girl who was killed by Jared Loughner. He had great compassion for the young victims of Adam Lanza and promised to work to change the laws that, he claimed, allowed those killings to take place.

So where is Obama on the 7 infants killed in Philly (really it's many, many times that number)? Why are there no teachable moments this time? Why no national dialogue about the grim reality of late term abortion?

Stu Bykofsky also writes about the Gosnell trial.

A full day of testimony by anesthesiologist Andrew Herlich, an expert witness, revolved around Mongar, who was not present in court Thursday, the trial's fourth day.

She was not present because she died in 2009 within 24 hours of an abortion in Gosnell's "house of horrors," a/k/a Women's Medical Center in West Philadelphia.

That the woman, who was 41, is dead is indisputable, allegedly Gosnell's sole adult victim. Amid the stomach-turning accusations of snipping babies' necks and spines in and out of the womb, and collecting their feet like monarch butterflies, the death of the tiny immigrant from Bhutan is almost lost in the shuffle.

But not quite.

Life Links 3/21/13

Yesterday, the Kermit Gosnell trial discussed why the abortionist saved dozens of feet from some of the children he killed. 

"Do you think there is any medical reason to save the foot of a baby?" Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron asked.

"In my practice, we would have no reason to save the foot, and I've never seen that done," replied Daniel H. Conway, a physician and neonatologist at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.

Questioned by Gosnell attorney Jack McMahon, Conway acknowledged that the creases on the bottom of the foot are one factor sometimes used to determine the age of a stillborn or premature baby.

But Conway maintained he had never heard of physicians or researchers preserving and saving severed fetal feet.

The Global Times has an article about sex-selection abortion in China and a group who illegally performed ultrasounds to identify the gender of the child.

"Pregnant women would call them according to the number on the name card. The gang members would tell these women to meet them at a specific time and place. Then, they would dispatch a minivan to pick them up, drive them to remote areas in the countryside, and carry out the ultrasound tests or abortions," Zhang Rongmin, a local judge who took charge of the case, told the Global Times.

The business was lucrative, Zhang said. It cost around 60,000 yuan to buy the vehicles and ultrasound machines, but the gang charged 800 to 1,200 yuan for a gender test and 3,800 yuan for an induced abortion.

A mother writes to Dear Abby wondering why she has taken her daughter's abortion so hard.

Abby, I have taken this really hard. I have cried every day since she had the abortion, and I'm torturing myself thinking this is my fault because I went against everything I believe in when I supported her in her decision.

A man in India has been arrested along with his mother for allegedly forcing his wife to have an abortion. 

Sangrur resident Jyoti had complained to the police against her husband Naresh Bansal and other family members for forcing her to abort the 8 weeks old foetus at a private clinic. Sangrur DSP Gurmeet Singh Dhindsa said "Jyoti on Wednesday had complained to the police that her husband wanted to get rid of the child and forced to go in for the abortion. Working on her complaint the police has booked Naresh Bansal and his mother u/s 313(causing miscarriage without woman' consent), 120 IPC". DSP said the role of private clinic is also being investigated.

Overheard: During FBI raid, abortionist Kermit Gosnell ate dinner with bloody gloves

In court testimony, FBI agent Jason Hunt recalls the raid on Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic:

Huff said his supervisor arranged for an ambulance for some patients but others required Gosnell to perform the abortion while agents searched.

At one point, Huff continued, Gosnell returned to the clinic office to resume being interviewed and have some dinner.

"He came back and ate his food still wearing the bloody, torn latex gloves," Huff testified.

Life Links 3/18/13

The lawyer of abortionist Kermit Gosnell is hoping he can convince the jury that the medical standards of West Philadelphia are below the standards of any other place on earth and Gosnell is being prosecuted  for killing infants because authorities are racist.  Good luck with that one Jack.     

Defense attorney Jack McMahon gave the jury a starkly different view of the case, telling the jury that prosecutors are trying to impose "Mayo Clinic" standards on a West Philadelphia clinic that serves the urban poor.

"They're trying to hold him up to the standards of the Mayo Clinic the standards of a West Philadelphia clinic," McMahon said. "If you want Mayo Clinic standards than you go to the Mayo Clinic."

McMahon urged the jury to keep an open mind, saying that, until today, he and Gosnell have been unable to make public a defense because of the judge's gag order on the lawyers and principals.

The evidence will show, McMahon said, that none of the infants that Gosnell is accused of killing were ever born alive.

McMahon argued that all doctors lose patients but that the prosecution is redefining medical complications as murder: "It fits their needs, this elitist, racist prosecution, to make this a homicide."

San Francisco Supervisor David Campos is hoping to expand the city's buffer-zone around abortion clinics.

A city law passed in 1993 created an 8-foot "bubble zone" around anyone who is within 100 feet of a health care facility, but Campos said that has been ineffective. Demonstrators, he said, get around the law by staying in one spot and not approaching clinic visitors.

You know you've hardened your heart on abortion when a woman saying she's had 10 abortions makes you thinks she's empowered.

There are times a client and/or companion is so empowered they instantly gain my admiration.......

The companion and I escorted the client down the sidewalk. We were in a line: E, companion, client and me. E started with "Women regret their abortions. Don't lead her into this place." The companion waved dismissively at him and said, "Oh, I know all about abortion. I have had 10 already."
........
It was great to witness these two completely ignoring the words meant to hurt and shame them. They are just words. The antis don't know anything about the clients and why they made the decision for abortion. I felt privileged to witness this calm confidence.

Ohio woman sues clinic for failed abortion

An Ohio woman named Ariel Knights is suing the Akron Women's Medical Group abortion clinic because of a failed abortion.  Days after the abortion, she was feeling ill and went to the ER and found out that she was still pregnant.  She has uterine didelphys, a condition where she has two uteruses.  In all likelihood, the abortionist vacuumed out the wrong uterus and never did a post-abortion ultrasound.  She gave birth to a healthy child in September. 

"Every seat was full. People were standing," she said. "It was pretty much like a slaughterhouse; it was like OK, next, next."

When her name was called that March morning a year ago, she walked into a cramped room and climbed onto a table, positioning her lower body above a trash bag. When the doctor finished, Knights, still woozy from being sedated, was handed her things and shown the door......

After leaving the abortion clinic in Akron, Knights thought her pregnancy was over. She is still unsure how or why the abortion failed. An ultrasound was performed twice before the procedure. She is unsure if one was done afterward.

She is also unsure why the abortion clinic doctor believed the procedure was complete and what, if anything, was removed from her body.

"[The doctor] said, ‘All right, everything's good and clear, everything went well,' " she recalled.....

It was then, she said, that she and her fiance decided to forge ahead with the pregnancy. What followed were multiple trips to the ER, four hospital admissions that lasted three to five days, and biweekly visits with a doctor who specializes in high-risk pregnancies. The visits always included an ultrasound exam, she said.....

The irony of the failed abortion, however, is not lost.

"That's a sore subject to think about," she said as she became visibly emotional. "I mean, it's just hard, thinking she's here and thinking, if they would have done their job. … It's just something I don't like to think about."

Pro-choice intolerance in Canada reaches new low

I guess to some Canadians, college isn't a place where you learn, engage with ideas and debates.  It's a place where you dress up in vagina costumes, interrupt a presentation by an elected official and make fools of yourselves.

An event with MP Stephen Woodworth at the University of Waterloo yesterday was derailed as protestors shouted down the speaker, preventing Mr. Woodworth from continuing his presentation to the students assembled.

“We understand that there are strong opinions when it comes to an issue like abortion,” says Hannah Bailey, President of Waterloo Students for Life, which had organized the presentation. “But we expected better from our peers at the university. Their behaviour was an embarrassment to the entire university community.”
...........
Although campus security was present, they failed to take any kind of action to allow Mr. Woodworth to continue his presentation. When asked to intervene they declined to do so, stating that unless the protesters became violent, they could not step in.

A short video of the protestors is here.

Life Links 3/13/13

In his Best of the Web column from yesterday, James Taranto hits on a number of issues related to abortion, out-of-wedlock births and sex-ratios as he comments on New York City's new campaign to stigmatize teen births and Planned Parenthood's response. 

Planned Parenthood may describe itself as a "health organization," but in reality it is an ideological outfit. It is committed to the idea of "reproductive rights" that belong only to women. In the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, for instance, the group persuaded the Supreme Court that a married woman has a constitutional right to abort her husband's child without telling him.

If men have no reproductive rights, it follows logically that they have no reproductive responsibilities.......

The contemporary problem of illegitimacy, then, is largely the consequence of Planned Parenthood's ideology of female "reproductive rights" and the technology that made it feasible. Planned Parenthood's hostility toward any effort to tackle, or even acknowledge, the problem is anything but coincidental.......

The "98%" poster alludes to that life script and makes the dubious supposition that following it--at least if one leaves out college--is realistic for all women. But an important reason women bear children out of wedlock is because they don't expect to find husbands.

Intersections South LA has an article about sidewalk counselors and abortion clinic escorts at one South LA abortion clinic. 

On one side, a group of people kneel on a broken sidewalk, sliding rosary beads through their fingers as they call for divine action. And across the sidewalk, another group stands silently; dressed in bright orange vests and black sunglasses. They escort patients into the clinic. Both sides stay on their sides without budging an inch, unless someone tests the boundaries.

An unlicensed pharmacy in Bangkok has been shut down for illegally distributing abortion drugs.

"One of our officers who is three months pregnant entered the store and asked to buy abortion pills. The pharmacist gave her the pills and charged her 16,000 baht," Ministry of Health legal officer Chatree Pinyai explained. 

Life Links 3/12/13

Authorities in Minnesota have charged a man with two counts of murder for killing his wife and his unborn child.

The Dakota County attorney's office charged Roger Earl Holland, 36, with two counts of second-degree intentional murder _ one count in his wife's death and one in her unborn child's death. Bail was set at $1 million, or $750,000 with conditions.

Holland called 911 last Thursday to report finding his wife, Margorie Ann Holland, in cardiac arrest at the foot of a staircase in their Apple Valley apartment, prosecutor James Backstrom said in a news release. Margorie Holland, who was nearly four months pregnant, and her unborn child died at a hospital later that morning.

The Beaumont Enterprise has a story of a fetal surgery where doctors used a laser to cut off blood flow to a mass which was pushing against the child's lungs and heart.

The surgery, known as fetal laser ablation for bronchopulmonary sequestration (BPS), has only been performed one other time in the United States, at the St. Louis Fetal Care Institute in 2011. During the procedure, doctors insert a needle into the mother's belly and into the womb. Then, the needle is advanced into the baby's chest, then into the BPS where a laser fiber is introduced through the needle and targeted at the abnormal blood vessel going to the BPS. The laser fires and blocks the blood flow, causing the mass to stop growing. The goal of the operation is to reverse the process by which the BPS is causing heart failure in the fetus. After the surgery, the BPS steals less blood flow from the fetus, and the heart and lungs start growing more normally as the BPS shrinks in size. 

NARAL Wisconsin stopped CareNet of Dane County from getting a city loan to build low-income housing.

City staff had recommended extending two low-interest loans totaling $550,000 to Care Net, which operates a crisis pregnancy center and residential home for pregnant single mothers on MacArthur Road. The group is proposing to build a 36-unit apartment building and daycare on land it owns next to its center.....

Clausius' comments came after Megin McDonell, a board member with NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, and Ald. Lisa Subeck, the former executive director of NARAL, told the committee that Care Net, an anti-abortion, faith-based group, misleads women about the risks of abortion and does not offer "all-options" counseling, as it advertises.

Life Links 3/11/13

The state of Maryland has suspended the licenses of three abortion clinics.

State health officials have suspended surgical abortion procedures at three clinics, including one in Baltimore where a patient suffered cardiac arrest and died.

The physician who performed the abortion at Associates in OB/GYN Care LLC on North Calvert Street wasn't certified in CPR and a defibrillator at the facility did not work, state officials said in a letter Friday to the General Assembly.

Although the cardiac arrest was caused by underlying health conditions and not the abortion, investigators found that it raised questions whether doctors at the clinic can handle an abortion that goes wrong......

The other two clinics that lost surgical privileges, located in Landover and Silver Spring, also are owned by Associates in OB/GYN Care and also had licenses suspended for issues related to the ability to respond to life-threatening problems during surgery.

The National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers was March 10.  From the various pro-choice sources I read, it seems like it was less celebrated than usual. 


The Wichita Eagle interviewed one of the physicians who has signed up to provide abortions at the South Wind Women's Center abortion clinic when it opens.  South Wind is operating at the same location where George Tiller provided abortions in Wichita.  The new physician says she's never performed an elective abortion.

She has been a board-certified OB/GYN for about 10 years but has never performed elective abortions. The doctor says abortion is probably not a choice she would make for herself.

But she believes that women have the right to that option and she said she felt a calling to step up to provide that option.

The doctor asked to not be named in this story.

Tiller was shot to death on a Sunday in May 2009 at his church by a man who opposed abortion.

The OB/GYN wants to remain anonymous for as long as she can.

Overheard: Arkansas' "misogynistic" 12-week abortion law similar to the law of ultra-conservative......France?!?

Something to keep in mind when the abortion advocates at NARAL and Planned Parenthood and the various pro-choice blogs howl about Arkansas' recently passed (but likely soon to be overturned) law which bans abortions after 12 weeks.  Via Garance Franke-Ruta in the Atlantic:

But it's been the case since their abortion laws were liberalized in the 1970s that many of the European nations have abortion laws not much less strict than the one Arkansas just passed. France permits abortions up until the 14th week of pregnancy (which is counted from the date of the last menstrual period, even though ovulation doesn't usually occur until one to two weeks after that). After that, abortions are only available in exigent circumstances, such as severe fetal deformities, or to save the health or life of the mother. France also has a mandatory one-week waiting period for all abortions (they prefer to describe it as a "cooling-off" period), unless by so waiting the woman would pass the 14-week cut-off, which coincides with the end of the first trimester. Other nations that restrict abortions largely to the first trimester include: Germany (14 weeks), Italy (90 days from the last menstrual period), Spain (14 weeks), and Portugal (10 weeks).

Abortion law in the United States is out of sync with most of world but not in the way abortion advocates think. 

Planned Parenthood to open new abortion clinic in Meridian, Idaho

From KTVB.com:

A woman's access to abortion may be getting a little easier in the Gem State. KTVB told you about the shortage of doctors here, and Planned Parenthood said this also applies to reproductive health care providers.

However, they are doing something about it right here in the Treasure Valley.
By the end of April, there will be a third Planned Parenthood health center in Idaho.

"We'll do well women exams, breast health exams, life-saving cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment,  birth control services and abortion services as well," said Hannah Brass Greer, with Planned Parenthood.

Federal judge overturns Idaho's pain-capable abortion law

A federal judge named B. Lynn Winmill has ruled that Idaho's 20-week abortion ban in unconstitutional. 

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled late Wednesday in favor of Jennie Linn McCormack, who was 33 at the time she decided to challenge the state's so-called fetal pain law and other abortion laws.

Judge Winmill relied, at least partially, on the disproved mythology of abortion laws pre-Roe created by NARAL lawyer Cyril Means which claim laws banning abortion were created solely to protect women.

"Historically, abortion statutes sought to protect pregnant females from third parties providing dangerous abortions," Winmill wrote. "As a result, most states' abortion laws traditionally criminalized the behavior of third parties to protect the health of pregnant women -- they did not punish women for obtaining an abortion. By punishing women, Idaho's abortion statute is therefore unusual."

Prolifers need not apply

Apparently, being prolife is a disqualification for serving on abortionist Kermit Gosnell's jury. 

Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart treaded lightly, but directly, as he questioned potential jurors about their views this week. Those who expressed religious, ethical or moral qualms about abortion or the death penalty were promptly dismissed.

Lawsuits, bankruptcy lead to more abortion clinic closures in Michigan

Some times abortion advocates argue that providing abortions isn't a profitable business. I guess in some cases that could be correct if the abortionist (like Reginald Sharpe) keeps botching abortions and getting sued.

Livonia’s last remaining abortion clinic — The Women’s Advisory Center at 27549 W. Six Mile Road — permanently closed Saturday after operating in the city for more than 30 years.

Owner Dr. Reginald Sharpe, of Grosse Pointe Park, filed for bankruptcy Oct. 15 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, alleging assets of up to $50,000 and liabilities of $100,001 to $500,000. He was also the subject of three lawsuits, one filed April 29, 2011, by the family of a 26-year-old Detroit woman who died following an abortion performed by Sharpe, the other two filed Aug. 30, 2012, by women who said their reproductive organs were damaged as a result of abortions by Sharpe. One of the women had to have a hysterectomy.

Sharpe could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon. Someone who answered a call to the clinic phone number Tuesday said simply, “The office is closed.” A message was left for Sharpe......

Sharpe owned clinics in Bloomfield Hills and Warren, which also have been closed, Miller said.

Sharpe has a long history of unsavory practices.  Superpages.com has 4 reviews of Sharpe's Woman Advisory Center in Detroit, 3 of which give 1 star. 

Life Links 3/5/13

A Wisconsin man has been charged with stalking after he allegedly threatened to kill a woman if she didn't have an abortion.

True Xiong, 46, demanded she undergo the procedure when she learned she was pregnant with his child in July, according to the complaint filed Monday in La Crosse County Circuit Court.

She refused, and Xiong continued with his threats to kill her and the child, sometimes calling her two or three times a day. Xiong said he

tampered with her car and rotated her bed, an action in Hmong culture meant to bring bad luck to the woman and her child, according to the complaint.

Xiong, who is married, threatened the woman in person when he could no longer reach her by phone.

A teacher who was fired by a Christian college after becoming pregnant is suing her former employer. 

Teri James, 29, told the news outlet that she did sign a two-page contract with San Diego Christian College that included a provision agreeing not to engage in "sexually immoral behavior including premarital sex."

"I needed a job in this economy and so I never thought that anything would happen," James explained to "Today."

But James said she was humiliated after being pulled into her supervisor's office last fall, where she was asked if she was pregnant and then was let go. After James lost her job, she claims the school offered a position to her now-husband, even though they were aware he'd had sex before getting married, too.

Planned Parenthood representatives testified against legislation to curtail Alaska's tax-funded abortions. 

One of their arguments was that limiting tax-funded abortions would be dangerous for women and would "put their health at risk."  They provided no evidence that states which have banned tax-funded abortions are more dangerous places to obtain abortions.  Another argument was that the government should stay out of abortion decisions (an odd argument to make when you want the government to pay for abortions). 

Alaska's Supreme Court ruling allows tax-funded abortions in cases that are "medically necessary" and then went on to define "medically necessary" in a way that allows anything to be considered "medically necessary."  Last year, Medicaid paid for about 1/3 of Alaska's abortions. 

The testimony by the Planned Parenthood representatives is great evidence that Planned Parenthood thinks that any abortion is "medically necessary" if a woman wants one. 

Amanda Marcotte's late-term abortion vs. rape conundrum

In a piece for the RH Reality Check, Amanda Marcotte argues that pregnancy from rape "is very common" and that women seeking abortions who are pregnant due to rape are frequent occurrences. 

Here are her statistics, which I won't argue with:

Pregnancy from rape is very common, and no amount of right-wing wishful thinking will change that fact. Pregnancy resulting from rape was estimated to be around 32,000 cases a year from a longitudinal study conducted in 1996. About half of those surveyed had an abortion, putting their estimates at 16,000 abortions needed a year. Guttmacher Institute's more recent statistics (which were collected differently) indicate that about 1 percent of women getting abortions were raped, which would put the number of rape-related pregnancies at around 12,000. This is not a small number......

The more conservative numbers would suggest a woman gets pregnant by rape every 43 minutes in this country, assuming half of them don't get abortions. That means 230 women a week in this country need to have abortions to end a pregnancy caused by.

So 12,000 abortions or 1% of all U.S. abortions is not a small number in Marcotte's opinion.  

Well....at least when it comes to abortions performed on women who were raped.  When it comes to late-term abortions, Marcotte has been singing a completely different tune for years.  Here's what Marcotte has to say about late-term abortions and their frequency.

In the American Prospect:

The noise might lead most people to think late-term abortions are far more common than they are, but only 1.5 percent of abortions occur after 20 weeks, and the incidence goes down dramatically each additional week into a pregnancy.

In Slate:

This just goes double for the late term abortions that Bachmann was discussing when she allowed that states should have a right to legalize them. Only1.5 percent of abortions are performed after the 21st week of pregnancy, and most of those are done because of fetal indicators or maternal health problems.

At Alternet:

Anti-abortion propaganda tends to focus on late term fetuses and even pictures of babies and small children, falsely implying that what’s evacuated during your typical abortion is basically the same as a baby. They shouldn’t be able to get away with this, but instead should acknowledge that nine out of ten abortions take place in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. 

The RH Reality Check also has a history of downplaying the frequency of late-term abortions and saying they're rare.  Here's a Jodi Jacobson "fact-sheet" on them. 

Late-term abortions are very rare.  About one percent of all abortions performed in the United States occur after 21 weeks.  There are different definitions of what constitutes a "late term abortion," but most definitions refer to abortions at or after 24 weeks or in the third trimester.

So are 12,000-18,000 abortions a year a rare occurrence or a frequent one?

For abortion advocates, that apparently depends on if you're talking about abortions performed on women who were raped (very common) or late-term abortions (very rare). 

Overheard: Abortion advocate admits transvaginal ultrasounds are "a useful tool"

At RH Reality Check, uber abortion advocate Tracy Weitz defends the use of trans-vaginal ultrasounds and even praises them for allowing earlier abortions. 

Both supporters and opponents of abortion rights get another thing wrong: they misunderstand standard abortion practice. The use of trans-vaginal ultrasounds is routine among abortion providers. When I started this work three decades ago, pregnant women often had to wait until they were seven or eight weeks pregnant before providers felt comfortable performing an abortion—they needed to wait that long to confirm a pregnancy and its placement. With advances in ultrasound technology—specifically the ability to conduct trans-vaginal ultrasounds—providers can now verify an intrauterine pregnancy as early as 4 weeks. Women no longer have to wait through weeks of pregnancy symptoms and distress before having a desired abortion. Trans-vaginal ultrasound is a useful tool and shouldn't be maligned by abortion rights supporters seeking to make a quick exaggerated political point.

I'm not sure why she thinks abortion opponents misunderstand standard abortion practice.  One of the reasons for the mandatory ultrasound bills is to make sure shady abortionists aren't endangering women with substandard practices. 

The main reason she opposes mandatory ultrasound laws is she doesn't like abortionists having to do the ultrasounds themselves or having to be at the clinic when they are done. Basically, it's not preferable for circuit-riding abortionists.  Imagine the horror of an abortionist having to be at a clinic for two consecutive days! 

Let’s consider the minutiae of these laws and the significant problems they pose. To start, the policy requires that a physician perform the ultrasound at least one day in advance of the procedure and that this physician is the same physician who performs the abortion. There are several problems with this requirement. One, this type of mandate is contrary to the way health care is generally provided. The truth is that ultrasounds are routinely performed by competent non-physician staff in the abortion setting. There is no evidence that this way of providing care is unsafe or unsatisfactory.
Two, these mandates increase the costs of abortion. Requiring the physician to be present in the clinic on two consecutive days drives up the cost of abortion for the women seeking them. In most states, low-income women have to come up with between $500 and $1000 in cash to pay for an abortion.
- See more at: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/01/challenges-in-the-trans-vaginal-ultrasound-debate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=challenges-in-the-trans-vaginal-ultrasound-debate#sthash.kSD0dcLE.dpuf

Let’s consider the minutiae of these laws and the significant problems they pose. To start, the policy requires that a physician perform the ultrasound at least one day in advance of the procedure and that this physician is the same physician who performs the abortion. There are several problems with this requirement. One, this type of mandate is contrary to the way health care is generally provided. The truth is that ultrasounds are routinely performed by competent non-physician staff in the abortion setting. There is no evidence that this way of providing care is unsafe or unsatisfactory.
Two, these mandates increase the costs of abortion. Requiring the physician to be present in the clinic on two consecutive days drives up the cost of abortion for the women seeking them. In most states, low-income women have to come up with between $500 and $1000 in cash to pay for an abortion.
- See more at: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/01/challenges-in-the-trans-vaginal-ultrasound-debate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=challenges-in-the-trans-vaginal-ultrasound-debate#sthash.kSD0dcLE.dpuf

Let’s consider the minutiae of these laws and the significant problems they pose. To start, the policy requires that a physician perform the ultrasound at least one day in advance of the procedure and that this physician is the same physician who performs the abortion. There are several problems with this requirement. One, this type of mandate is contrary to the way health care is generally provided. The truth is that ultrasounds are routinely performed by competent non-physician staff in the abortion setting. There is no evidence that this way of providing care is unsafe or unsatisfactory.
Two, these mandates increase the costs of abortion. Requiring the physician to be present in the clinic on two consecutive days drives up the cost of abortion for the women seeking them. In most states, low-income women have to come up with between $500 and $1000 in cash to pay for an abortion.
- See more at: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/03/01/challenges-in-the-trans-vaginal-ultrasound-debate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=challenges-in-the-trans-vaginal-ultrasound-debate#sthash.kSD0dcLE.dpuf

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell may be considering plea deal

The Philadelphia Inquirer notes there is talk of abortionist Kermit Gosnell possibly pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty.  Gosnell is accused of murdering 7 children who were born alive after late-term abortions and killing one woman who was seeking an abortion.  It would be hard to imagine that Gosnell would stand a chance at trial considering all the evidence against him and because many of his former employees have already pleaded guilty and could testify against him.  

Gosnell never appeared in court at the city's Criminal Justice Center. Instead, he was in a prisoner interview booth attached to the courtroom.

There he spent about two hours as defense attorney Jack McMahon shuttled between the booth and Assistant District Attorneys Edward Cameron and Joanne Pescatore in a nearby waiting room.

Gosnell's third wife, Pearl, 52; a teenage daughter; and an adult son periodically joined McMahon in the booth.

Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart carved out the morning from an ongoing murder trial in case a formal hearing was required. But by about 1 p.m., the shuttling ended and the lawyers left.

It could not be determined if Gosnell had rejected a plea offer, as a gag order was cited by Cameron, Pescatore, and McMahon in declining to comment.

A last-minute plea deal is not unusual in a case like Gosnell's, where a death sentence is possible if the jury finds a defendant guilty of first-degree murder.