Life Links 6/28/13

Salon's Dave Weigel really should do some basic research before making such broad generalizations.

Abortions after 24 weeks (excepting medical emergencies) are flat-out illegal.   

If Weigel had taken the time to do even the most basic research, like say typing "abortion 26 weeks" into Google, he'd find this abortion advertising listing where a variety of abortion providers offer elective abortions past 24 weeks.  But hey, they're flat-out illegal, right? 

Your average pro-choice journalist/commentator has never done 5 minutes of research on abortion besides going to Planned Parenthood's or NARAL's web page.


Jonah Goldberg on "women's health":

Of course, this argument will be wholly unpersuasive to the folks shouting the loudest about "women's health decisions." Which raises an even greater irony. The basic conservative or pro-life view is that abortion is different from other health-care decisions because there's a harmed party other than the mother. This fact, not sexism or traditionalism or theology, is what trumps the general conservative preference for individual freedom. You don't have an unfettered right to harm someone else.

But once you get beyond abortion, conservative public policies treat women like autonomous human beings capable of making their own choices — about health care or anything else. It's the abortion-rights extremists who boil down the vast range of issues and choices raised by the term "women's health" to a single issue, sexual reproduction, as if women were nothing more than breeders. And yet conservatives are the ones who are called sexists.

The U.S. Supreme Court may take up a case on an Oklahoma law which required abortionists to follow the FDA protocol when dispensing RU-486 chemical abortions. 

An Oklahoma court ruled that the law violated women's bodily integrity and right to abortion and struck it down, saying it "can serve no purpose other than to prevent women from obtaining abortions." The state's highest court affirmed that decision, and now the state attorney general has appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the law is a reasonable exercise of state power.

Life Links 6/27/13

Is this an AP story or editorial by Will Weissert on Governor Rick Perry's call for a second special session to pass a Texas bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks and hold abortion clinics to higher standards?

It sought a statewide ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the point at which anti-abortion activists claim a fetus can feel pain — despite a lack of scientific evidence to support that.

Because I'm sure Weissert carefully reviewed the scientific evidence.
                             

Charles Cooke doesn't #StandwithWendy:

But dress it up as they might, the truth remained ghastly: What Wendy and her team of protesters were trying to do was block a bill that would have made it illegal to deliberately kill an unborn child after 20 weeks of pregnancy. And that is a disgrace.....

As a rule, people winning wider political battles do not invade their legislatures and scream. On Tuesday night, demonstrating a combination of genuine media savvy and animalistic frustration at not getting their own way, the diehards in the crowd shouted loudly enough to kill a bill that the majority wants. They will not prevail for long.

I'm hoping Newsbusters' Matthew Balan will do a comparison between the March for Life coverage and the coverage of Wendy Davis on the nightly news casts. I'm guessing they spent more time covering a woman standing for 10 hours than hundreds of thousands of prolifers marching in D.C.  He notes how the morning shows gushed over her filibuster in support of late-term abortions. 


Abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell has refused a plea deal for federal drug charges. 

Federal prosecutors say Gosnell flooded Philadelphia streets with more than 700,000 oxycodone or OxyContin pills by selling prescriptions to addicts, dealers and others who lined up at the clinic.

Planned Parenthood is using Obamacare to expand its outreach into the Hispanic community. 

Outreach efforts will particularly target Hispanic women, 38 percent of whom lack insurance coverage in Florida, according to a 2009 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Nearly 20 percent haven't been screened for cervical cancer in the past three years, and nearly one-third haven't had a mammogram in the past two years, according to Planned Parenthood.

Except Planned Parenthood doesn't do mammograms.    

Pro-choice ideology in a nutshell

Feministe has a guest post by Melissa Weininger which is entitled, "How My Miscarriage Made Me More Pro-Choice" in which Weininger attempts to explain how her initial sadness over her miscarriage is actually an argument for why she's pro-choice. 

After noting she largely forgot her miscarriage after becoming pregnant again, Weininger discusses her initial feelings.

That's not to say that I felt nothing about miscarrying, or that I denied the feelings I did have. I was sad; I was anxious; I was disappointed. I cried and felt sorry for myself. I worried that I might not be able to get pregnant again. But I realized, as I experienced the hormonally enhanced emotional aftermath of my miscarriage, that even the source of my sadness was a powerful argument for choice.

So her sadness over the loss of her unborn child is an argument for the legal killing of more unborn children?  Not quite.

I was unhappy because my expectations had been radically and unexpectedly altered by circumstances outside of my control. The thing that upset me most was that I had chosen one future, and my body had chosen another. This understanding in and of itself was enough to cement my previously untested feelings about reproductive choice. Because whether you choose to have a baby or you do not, the most crucial thing is that you are able to choose.

So she supposedly wasn't sad her unborn child died.  She was sad because she didn't get what she wanted.

I think this neatly sums up the pro-choice ideology held by Weininger:  I want what I want and I get mad/sad when I don't get what I want so I should get what I want. 

In addition to this intellectual understanding of my emotional reactions to miscarrying, I also experienced a kind of physical revelation. The actual fact of the fetal tissue that had been removed from my body (my own tissue, after all) didn't bother me in the least.

So the fetal tissue was your tissue? Huh?  These must be the weird, completely-biologically-incorrect things abortion advocates tell themselves to get over grieving their wanted children who are miscarried and the cognitive dissonance it causes.  I mean, how could they grieve a blob of cells? 

I had to undergo a somewhat uncomfortable medical procedure, sure, but I knew definitively, even physically, that I had not lost a baby. There was no baby to lose; there was only my idea of a baby, and my sense of loss was a feeling I only had for myself.

If there was no baby to lose why did you require a medical procedure to remove something?  What was that something?  A toaster?  Or did the doctor physically remove an idea of a baby? 

Life Links 6/24/13

Legislators in Texas have tentatively passed new regulations on abortion clinics in Texas. 

Supporters say the bill will raise the standard of women's health care, but opponents point out the bill would shut down 37 out of 42 abortion clinics in the state. 

"If this passes, abortion would be virtually banned in the state of Texas, and many women could be forced to resort to dangerous and unsafe measures," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of the late former Texas governor Ann Richards.

I recall not that long ago abortion advocates claimed similar legislation in Virginia would close 17 of 21 clinics.  After the legislation passed, the story changed and 20 out of 23 clinics decided to meet the new standards.  From what I've seen one closed and one is suing to prevent from being closed.  Abortion advocates often lie about what abortion clinics will do as their main tactic to avoid stricter regulations.     


The Toledo Blade has a long article on the closed Toledo clinic named Center for Choice.  The article also discusses the possible closure of Toledo's other abortion clinic. 

The answering machine at Center for Choice clicks on after several rings, quickly telling every caller of the clinic's closure.

"Unfortunately we closed our doors as of Friday, June 7, due to restrictive abortion legislation in Ohio," the message states.

Thirty years as a Toledo abortion provider over in about 30 seconds. To some, the words are an answer to prayer; to others, cause for alarm.

Capital Care Network, the only remaining local abortion clinic, could face the same fate, and its closure would make Toledo the biggest Ohio city without an abortion provider.       

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding Massachusetts' 35-foot abortion clinic buffer rule. 

The justices today said they will hear an appeal from abortion foes seeking to overturn the Massachusetts law as a violation of the First Amendment. The challengers say they have a right to hand out leaflets and start conversations with women entering abortion clinics.

A 17-year-old girl in India died after a forced abortion. 

On June 19, after heated arguments with Babulal, Anajanai went for an abortion but her condition deteriorated soon afterwards. Babulal subsequently dropped her to her house and escaped. Anajani's family however refused to take her back and sent her back to Babulal's house. On June 20, Babulal rushed her to medical college where she died early morning. Babulal has reportedly escaped leaving the body abandoned at the hospital.

23 week abortion story in New York Times fail to persuade

The New York Times has one of those baffling editorials that abortion advocates must think is somehow persuasive to someone other than abortion advocates.  Former Seattle City Councilwoman Judy Nicastro writes about her decision to have an abortion at 23 weeks while she was pregnant with twins.  Some of the male's child organs weren't developing normally so she has an abortion to kill the male child even though it risks the life of the other child (who thankfully survived).

 Once we had all the data, we met with a nurse, a surgeon and a pediatrician at the hospital. The surgeon said our boy had a hole in his diaphragm. Only one lung chamber had formed, and it was only 20 percent complete. If our boy survived birth, he would be on oxygen and other life supports for a long time. The thought of hearing him gasp for air and linger in pain was our nightmare.

The surgeon described interventions that would give our son the best chance of surviving birth. But the pediatrician could tell that we were looking for candid guidance. He cautioned that medical ethics constrained what he could say, then added, "Termination is a reasonable option, and a reasonable option that I can support." The surgeon and nurse nodded in agreement. I burst out sobbing. My husband cried, too. But in a sense, the pediatrician's words were a source of comfort and kindness. He said what we already knew. But we needed to hear it from professionals, who knew we were good parents who wanted what was best for our children.
   
The next day, at a clinic near my home, I felt my son's budding life end as a doctor inserted a needle through my belly into his tiny heart. She had trouble finding it because of its abnormal position. As horrible as that moment was — it will live with me forever — I am grateful. We made sure our son was not born only to suffer. He died in a warm and loving place, inside me.

So instead of actually trying to help her sick son, Nicastro tell herself the best thing for her children was to have an abortionist kill her son by injecting digoxin into his heart and risk the life of her daughter in the process.  Truly bizarre.

Also, shame on the medical staff for basically encouraging them to have an abortion.  

Later Nicastro reveals the lengths she'll go to in order to convince herself that having her son killed was right.

Thankfully, Kaitlyn was born, healthy and beautiful, on March 2, 2011, and we love her to pieces. My little boy partially dissolved into me, and I like to think his soul is in his sister.

This is from someone who describes herself as "not religious."

What's even stranger is that at the end of the editorial Nicastro asserts (my emphasis) "second-trimester abortions must remain legal because, until a child is viable outside the womb, these decisions belong with the mother" while earlier in the editorial she wrote,

In fact, I asked if we could postpone the abortion until the third trimester, by which time my daughter would have been almost fully developed; my doctor pointed out that abortions after 24 weeks were illegal.

 So she wanted to have the decision to kill her son even after he was viable and then goes on to mark viability as crucial. 

Life Links 6/21/13

The LA Times has a story on Hoag Hospital's decision to merge with the St. Joseph Health System and stop performing abortions.  To get an idea of how pro-abortion some people in California are, the attorney general of the state is now investigating whether Hoag performed less than 100 abortions a year and is making sure Hoag is "doing enough to ensure that there are accessible alternatives for elective abortions."
      
  
Notice the difference in headlines?  From the headline in the Denver Post, you'd never know prolifers testified in favor of the bill.
              

PennLive's John Micek provides an incoherent reason for why he opposes abortion restrictions.

And I've been equally disdainful of elected officials who put needless obstacles in the way of women seeking access to a legal medical procedure.

And that's what abortion is: a legal medical procedure. You can disagree with whether it's right. I'm of the "safe, legal and rare" school myself. But until something changes, it's the law of the land

So you're opposed to laws which restrict abortion because legal abortion is the law of the land and it will be that way until something changes (like the passage of a prolife law which restrict abortion?)  Later, Micek goes on to prove he knows next to nothing about the Gosnell case by claiming Pennsylvania's unenforced prolife laws inevitably led to Gosnell.


Debra Saunders writes about the dangers of egg donation.  California is considering a bill to legalize payments to egg donors and one proponent of the measure compared donating eggs to donating sperm. 

Alice Crisci, a cancer survivor and patient advocate for Fertile Action, testified that the ban on research payments "is discriminatory. It assumes all women are incapable of making their own decisions about their reproductive well-being if fair compensation is allowed." Researchers compensate men for donated sperm, she added, so it's only fair to compensate egg donors.

That sperm-egg parity argument is so bogus. When men donate sperm, they risk second thoughts about unknown, random offspring, but they do not risk serious medical side effects. Egg donation, on the other hand, can be hazardous to your health. The New York Times reports, "Egg donors can suffer serious side effects from the powerful hormones needed to generate multiple eggs." And: "The most significant risk is ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome, which can cause bloating, abdominal pain and, rarely, blood clots, kidney failure and other life-threatening ailments."

Life Links 6/20/13

In light of the problems at the Delaware Planned Parenthood, state legislators are working on legislation which allows employee complaints to prompt inspections.  Obviously, this isn't ideal legislation and but even some pro-abortion legislators are recognizing that Planned Planned shouldn't be accrediting itself. 

The legislation would allow clinic employees to lodge complaints with public health officials that could prompt an inspection, and mandate independent accreditation of any facility that performs invasive procedures. The second change targets Planned Parenthood, which accredits its own facilities.

"There were certainly some problems earlier this year," said Senate President Pro Tem Patricia Blevins, D-Elsmere, a co-sponsor on the bill. "And it was the state that caught them, not the accrediting body. That certainly raised some concerns in our eyes."       

Faye Sonier points out how Canadian abortion advocate Joyce Arthur misuses a poll in an effort to get reporters to ignore prolifers.

When Canadians label themselves as ‘pro-choice,' they don't mean it the same way Arthur does. Most believe there actually are some restrictions on abortion access and that those limits on access are reasonable. For example, the same survey reveals that nearly half of Canadians believe that abortion is only accessible during the first trimester. When they say they are pro-choice, they are pro-choice in that they support a law they wrongly believe exists. 

Life Links 6/19/13

Joe Carter responds to the NY Times story editorial on the passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act: 

Which Republican leaders made the claim? Peters doesn't say. He also doesn't explain how — or even if — the abortion issue hurt the GOP with women in 2012. But everyone at the New York Times already knows it did, and common knowledge doesn't need to be supported with facts, right? And there is no issue here of married women vs. single women, when it comes to voting. Right? All women support abortion rights, or so Peters would have us think:

The Texas Senate has passed legislation to toughen regulation of abortion clinics. 

Senate Bill 5 would increase regulatory standards for facilities that perform abortions, require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting procedures at nearby hospitals and require doctors who administer abortion-inducing drugs to do so in person.

Planned Parenthood is opening a new clinic in the Bay Area with the help of $250,000 in local tax-dollars. 

Planned Parenthood opened the new San Rafael clinic Wednesday after buying the $2.3 million property at 2 H St. and investing $900,000 to renovate it. Many protesters took issue with a recent Marin County Board of Supervisors' grant to the clinic of $250,000 to put toward its renovations.

By cutting off the digits of mice, scientists have discovered that stem cells under the fingernail help fingertips regrow. 

The digit bones can regenerate only if the amputated stump still has some nail stem cells, the researchers found. But the cells alone are not enough; also crucial is a zone of tissue that grows from the stem cells during normal nail growth. After amputation, this tissue sends signals that attract new nerves into the end of the stump and begin the bone regeneration process. If amputation removes the nail zone or if the signals are blocked, the digits will not regenerate.

Life Links 6/17/13

One of Steven Brigham's Maryland abortionists had their license reinstated. 

Dr. Mansour Panah's license has been restored.....

Meanwhile, the board upheld the license suspension of Dr. Michael Basco while the license for a third doctor Iris Dominy is still in summary suspension.

Police in Rome arrested two men who were beating a woman in an attempt to kill her unborn child. 

The Bulgarian woman's assailants were her 26-year old ex-partner - the father of her two children - and an 28-year-old male accomplice. The men, who are also Bulgarian, allegedly attacked the woman as a vendetta against her pregnancy by new companion.

The Georgia State Supreme Court refused to dismiss charges against abortionist Tyrone Cecil Malloy.  Malloy has been charged with defrauding Medicaid.  Malloy works at a clinic housed in a building owned by Attorney General Eric Holder's wife. 


Looks like Governor Cuomo's plan to make New York even more permissive of abortion is cooked, at least for this year.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he expects his women's rights agenda and the abortion proposal that threatens its passage will be taken off the negotiating table so it can be taken up again next year when he and lawmakers are running for election.

West Virginia's attorney general is looking into regulating abortion clinics in light of a recent lawsuit. 

Morrisey said the state regulates numerous health professionals, including massage therapists, chiropractors and acupuncturists.

"But abortion clinics are neither licensed nor regulated by the state," he said. "Regardless of one's position on abortion, the state needs to evaluate this basic fact."

Authorities raid Florida abortion clinic

Authorities in Orlando, Florida have raided one of James Pendergraft's abortion clinics and removed various items.  The reason for the raid was apparently an attempt to partially settle a $38 million lawsuit Pendergraft lost and know owes a former patient. Pendergraft is upset because he attempted to hide his money and assets via a trust. 

That case went to court and there was a $38 million dollar judgment decided in 2011.

But the clinic has only paid $100,000 of that settlement. Pendergraft said the raid is the result of that.

Pendergraft said the agents were taking whatever they could to help settle the suit after collections agents could not get money from them. He said the assets were not his, but rather in a trust.

"The sheriff department is following the orders of the judge that had this done on Monday, but what makes this illegal is that it's not mine or that of Orlando Women's Center," said Pendergraft.

Life Links 6/12/13

The New York Times has an article on women who were denied abortions because they were too far along and profiles a woman (S.) who didn't have an abortion, struggled in various ways after giving birth but now says her child is the best thing to ever happen to her.            

After S. urinated in a cup, she was led into a small room. She texted one of her sisters, "Do you think God would forgive me if I were to murder my unborn child?" It was the first time anyone in her family knew she was pregnant......

In the exam room, a technician asked her to lie down. She did an ultrasound, sliding the instrument across S.'s stomach: "Oh . . . it shows here that you are a little further along." She repeated the exam. S., she estimated, was nearly 20 weeks pregnant, too far along for this Planned Parenthood clinic.....

When I told Foster S.'s story, she wasn't surprised that S. ended up bonding with her baby. "That would be consistent with our study," Foster said. "About 5 percent of the women, after they have had the baby, still wish they hadn't. And the rest of them adjust." S.'s experience is also consistent with one of the most striking statistics from Henry David's Czech study. David found that nine years after being denied abortions, 38 percent of women said they never sought one in the first place. 

                   
The take of abortion advocates on this piece will be interesting.  Neither S. nor J. (another woman whose experience getting a late-term abortion was detailed) were delayed in seeking abortions by prolife laws.  Nor did either have a prenatal diagnosis which revealed problems with the child.  Both didn't realize they were pregnant until late into their pregnancy.  J. (age 38) thought she was too old to be pregnant and S. had spotting and typically had light periods.  I'm sure that won't stop abortion advocates from claiming these situations prove the need for more access to abortion. 


The BBC has a story on British immigration rules where one woman blames her abortion on the rules.

My doctor said: "This is disgusting. This could be the last time you could have children." But I didn't feel I had a choice. I came out of the doctors crying - a married woman shouldn't have to cry and be forced into a decision like that.

I've had some counselling, I've been depressed. It destroyed a lot of things in our relationship for months.

If it wasn't for the immigration rules I wouldn't have had an abortion.

Abortion Kermit Gosnell will plead guilty today to federal drug charges.


Planned Parenthood and ACLU have filed suit against Alabama's admitting privileges law.

Life Links 6/11/13

In Arizona, lawmakers are working on legislation to allow abortion clinics to be inspected without announcement and without a warrant. Planned Parenthood is opposed. One state legislator pointed out the silliness of requiring a warrant to have an unannounced inspection of an abortion clinic. 

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, pointed out there is no warrant requirement for other state-licensed medical facilities, and that health inspectors need no warrant to check out the conditions in the food-preparation areas of the local McDonald's restaurant, an operation Kavanagh said is far less dangerous to public safety.

"An inspector can mosey in any time, unannounced, to protect the public," he said.

A Bollywood star recently committed suicide.  In her suicide note, she mentions numerous issues with her boyfriend including a recent abortion.


A police officer in Pawtucket has resigned after a domestic violence incident in which he attacked his ex-girlfriend after she refused to have an abortion. 


Planned Parenthood might close an abortion clinic in Appleton if the state legislature passes a law to require abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. 

On Monday, the bill requiring clinic physicians to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles was approved by the Senate's Health and Human Services Committee on a party-line 3-2 vote, with Republicans in the majority. The bill also requires an ultrasound before every abortion.

Planned Parenthood's Nicole Safar said applying for admitting privileges could take months and wouldn't happen before the bill takes effect.

"If this bill passes in the time frame they are proposing, we are closing the doors," Safar said, referring to the Appleton clinic.

NAF abortion clinic sued over forced, botched abortion

A National Abortion Federation abortion clinic in West Virginia is being sued after abortionist Rodney Stephens allegedly wouldn't stop an abortion when a woman asked him to, had her restrained and then left the child's head in her uterus. 

The Family Policy Council of West Virginia, an evangelical Christian group, said Monday the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Itai Gravely against the Women's Health Center of West Virginia in Charleston and Dr. Rodney Stephens.

The Kanawha County Circuit Court lawsuit says Gravely was given a sedative but wanted to stop the April 2012 procedure because she was in severe pain. It says Stephens ignored her instructions and had her physically restrained. The pregnancy was near the end of the first trimester.

A subsequent exam at a hospital revealed the fetus' head in her uterus.

NAF lists the Women's Health Center of West Virgina as one of two members in the state.  

Life Links 6/10/13

A Connecticut man's bail has been set at $2.5 million after he was accused of hiring a friend to kill his pregnant girlfriend.  Carlton Bryan allegedly wanted Shamari Jenkins dead because she wouldn't have an abortion. 

Calling the crime "egregious," prosecutor Cathryn J. Krinitsky told the judge that Bryan asked a friend to shoot his girlfriend because "the girlfriend has previously decided to have an abortion but decided not to."

According to the warrant for Bryan's arrest, he "begged" Hall-Davis to shoot Jenkins, 20. She was shot in the chest April 29 as she sat behind the wheel of her Honda Accord, with Bryan in the front passenger seat, in front of 137 Magnolia St. in the city's North End.

"Carlton Bryan did not want to have the baby with Shamari Jenkins," Hall-Davis told police. "Carlton Bryan said Shamari initially agreed to have an abortion but changed her mind and she was now four months pregnant."

Hall-Davis also told police that Bryan "wanted to stay with … his other girlfriend," the warrant states.
 

Remee Lee, the Florida woman whose boyfriend tricked her into taking abortion drugs, is working with a state representative to encourage the passage of an unborn victims of violence law in Florida which covers unborn children before viability. 

Before she was tricked into taking abortion pills, Remee Lee planned to name her baby Memphis Remington, she said.

Now Lee and her attorney, Gil Sanchez, hope that name will give new impetus to a state bill that would more often ban crimes against fetuses.

The Offenses Against Unborn Children bill, sponsored in 2013 by state Rep. Larry Ahern, R-St. Petersburg, has failed at least three years in a row.

Ahern said Sunday he might name the 2014 bill after Memphis Remington in an effort to personalize the issue and help gather the support it needs to pass.

                   
Prolifers in Florida are suing over a sound ordinance which police have been using to fine them. 

According to the lawsuit, the ordinance banning people from shouting, playing loud music or making any amplified sound within 100 feet of any health care facility is not only unconstitutional but local police officials also have been applying the law unevenly against Pine and Blackburn by fining them for using a bullhorn near the clinic.

The fine, they say, came after police officers routinely recorded them when they used the bullhorn and even used a laser-measuring device to calculate the distance between the clinic and where the protesters were standing.

After the fine, police failed to provide the women with guidance on how far away they could stand from the clinic without violating the ordinance, according to the suit.

The group contends that the ordinance is so broad that — if enforced correctly — it should land many other residents in trouble.

Jessica Valenti leaves out facts regarding abortions pre-Roe, intentionally deceives The Nation' s readership

Abortion advocate Jessica Valenti has an intentionally deceptive piece in The Nation in which she describes abortions pre-Roe.

She writes,

This isn't even the most dangerous thing that anti-choice organizations go out of their way not to acknowledge. The Pro-Life Action League, for example, insists that before Roe, "there were not many illegal abortions, or illegal abortions were relatively safe." The truth? According to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion was listed as the cause of death for almost 2,700 women in 1930—18 percent of maternal deaths. In 1965, abortion accounted for 17 percent of deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth—and those were just the reported cases.

Valenti's information is taken (nearly word for word) from this Guttmacher Institute web page. 

Here's the pertinent paragraph from the Guttmacher Institute (note the highlighted portions which Valenti conveniently leaves out):

One stark indication of the prevalence of illegal abortion was the death toll. In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women—nearly one-fifth (18%) of maternal deaths recorded in that year. The death toll had declined to just under 1,700 by 1940, and to just over 300 by 1950 (most likely because of the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, which permitted more effective treatment of the infections that frequently developed after illegal abortion). By 1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200, but illegal abortion still accounted for 17% of all deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth that year. And these are just the number that were officially reported; the actual number was likely much higher.

Why does Valenti leave out the specific numbers for the deaths in 1950 and 1965 but keep in the much larger number for the 1930?   

Also note the year.  Why is Valenti discussing 1965 when Roe wasn't decided until 1973?

Is it because there were 39 reported deaths from illegal abortion in 1972 (there were also 24 reported deaths from legal abortion)? 

Now maybe Valenti thinks 39 deaths from illegal abortion vs. 24 deaths from legal abortions in 1972 proves that there were a lot of unsafe illegal abortions pre-Roe and that overturning Roe would lead to large number of illegal abortion deaths.  But if she thinks that, she should actually make that argument instead of trying to deceive The Nation's readers by leaving out facts which are inconvenient to her position and basically prove the argument of the prolifers she's trying to vilify. 

For what it's worth and to show how deceitful Valenti is, here's the Pro-Life Action League web page where Valenti gets her quote from them.  The web page (which isn't linked to or cited in The Nation article) discusses the effect of penicillin in dropping the number of deaths from illegal abortion (just as the Guttmacher Institute does) and notes there were 39 deaths from illegal abortion in 1972. 

A few media outlets cover problems at Maryland abortion clinics

The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle have the AP article covering the closure of 4 abortion clinics in Maryland owned by abortionist Stephen Brigham and the license suspension of three abortionists.  The AP article features quotes from Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation and the attorney of the abortion clinics and no quotes from a prolifer. 

Four affiliated abortion clinics in Maryland have been shut down and three doctors have had their licenses suspended after a patient died at one clinic and regulators found lax procedures at all four, according to documents filed online by two regulatory agencies.

The clinics in Baltimore, Cheverly, Frederick and Silver Spring were initially shut down in March. They were later allowed to reopen, but they were shut down again in early May after state regulators received a complaint about a patient who was given a drug used to induce abortions without a doctor present, according to documents posted online by the state Office of Health Care Quality, which regulates the clinics and ordered them to close.

I'm still waiting for an abortion advocate like Amanda Marcotte and Jill Filipovic to blame the problems at these clinics on prolife laws. 

Patient of abortionist George Tiller remembers elective 24 week abortion

At the Abortion Gang blog, a former patient of abortionist George Tiller describes her elective 24 week abortion.  While abortion advocates often act like no one would wait so late in their pregnancy to have an elective abortion, here's a pro-abortion blog relaying how a woman waited until she was 24 weeks to seek an abortion. 

Although I had been raised in a solidly pro-choice family, I was incredibly ashamed of myself for getting pregnant and found that denial was the easy out. I tried everything I could in the beginning to force miscarriage; I remember hitting myself in the stomach, getting so drunk I would hold a trash bag to throw up into and then drink more, and taking every medication I had in my little apartment in the hopes that something would work. Nothing did.

My boyfriend was living in another state and I will never forget the phone call I made from our little apartment to tell him the news. I'm lucky today that I can call him husband; it was this pregnancy situation that helped me see what a wonderful man he is. After hearing about the pregnancy, he resigned his internship and jumped on a plane the next day to come home. We went to our local clinic and, of course, were told I was too far along for them to help. 24 weeks pregnant. 24 weeks.

Former Planned Parenthood abortionist Timothy Liveright defends himself and assembly-line abortions

Former Planned Parenthood abortionist Timothy Liveright is defending himself after Delaware's attorney general filed a complaint against him.  The News Journal has a long story and USA Today picked it up.  Some details featured in the story are that Liveright once left the clinic to deal with a mechanical situation with his plane (he claims it was an emergency - if it's not in the air is it really an emergency?) and when he returned, he was upset because the women weren't ready for him. 

Mitchell-Werbrich said Liveright left the clinic last June to tend to an emergency mechanical situation with his plane while patients -- already medicated and awaiting procedures -- sat in the waiting room. Two patients later were brought to the recovery room after "roaming outside confused and dazed," she said. Two others in recovery endured cramps during Liveright's absence.

When Liveright returned, she said, he went through the halls proclaiming, "Where are the patients? Let's get the ball rolling."

He also apparently sang hymns during abortions.  Talk about creepy. 

Mitchell-Werbrich also said that while operating, Liveright would chant hymns, including one with the lyrics: "Jesus, oh Jesus, take the sinners down by the river, oh Jesus." She said one patient had tears streaming from her eyes as Liveright sang.

He only admits to making one mistake during an abortion and says a lot of problems at the clinic were because Planned Parenthood was disorganized. 

I think the nurses accusations of "assembly-line abortions" certainly stand when Liveright admits this:

He'd perform as many as 30 abortions a day, he said, making about $60 per procedure and from $5,000 to $10,000 a month, depending on demand.