Life Links 7/30/13

Abortionist Nicola Riley has been allowed to keep her Utah medical license despite almost killing a woman in Maryland and at one point being charged with murder.  All she has to do is write an essay. 

A Salt Lake City doctor once accused of murder for a botched abortion in Maryland will be allowed to keep her medical license in Utah.

Utah's Physician Licensing Board ruled recently that Dr. Nicola Riley could keep her license so long as she writes an essay about what she learned from the 2010 incident, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.....

In August 2010, Riley performed an abortion at a clinic in Elkton, Md., however, the 18-year-old patient's uterus ruptured. The young woman survived, but Maryland prosecutors got an indictment against her on murder and conspiracy charges.

Another former employee of Planned Parenthood of Delaware is set to testify about the dangerous practices at their clinic. 

Former manager Melody Meanor and two nurses said they will testify today at a legislative hearing in Wilmington that Planned Parenthood failed to inform as many as 200 women that they tested positive for gonorrhea and chlamydia, and failed to notify 87 women of results of their colposcopies.

The city of Portland officials are looking into options to limit a group who have been protesting at a local abortion clinic. 

Since last summer, 10 to 20 protesters have stood outside the clinic every Friday morning with pictures of aborted fetuses and pamphlets to discourage clients from choosing abortion. More recently, they have been showing up on Saturday mornings, too.

City officials said in December they were looking into their legal options for limiting the protests, but the matter has not come before the council and the meeting Tuesday is seen by some as a possible first step in the process.

Legislators in Tasmania’s Upper House are hearing testimony on a bill to legalize abortion up to 16 weeks. 

Life Links 7/25/13

A Green Bay, Wisconsin clinic which performed abortions will no longer after being bought.  The abortionist, Robert DeMott agreed to no longer perform abortions after selling his Ob/Gyn Associates clinic to Bellin Health System.  Ob/Gyn Associates was the only abortion provider in Green Bay.

In the declaration by DeMott, he acknowledges the sale to Bellin, indicates he will become an employee of Bellin, and as a condition of employment with Bellin he says, "I may not provide abortion services to any patient."

      
In light of the J.J. Redick abortion contract, New York Magazine’s Kat Stoeffel writes that an abortion contract has “practical potential.”

Abortion can be kind of heavy, so abortion contracts should be lighthearted and verbal — along the lines of “our objective is not procreation, pinky swear” — and definitely precoital. When they are hashed out after the fact, abortion contracts can become contentious, expensive, and even a little supernatural, as it did for abortion-contract pioneer and NBA player J.J. Redick.

The Washington Post discovers that most people (including the majority of Democrats) would prefer abortions to be restricted after 20 weeks.  The poll also found that only 1% of people volunteered the opinion that abortion should be "always legal" compared to 8% who volunteered "never legal." 

Life Links 7/23/13

RH RealityCheck has another post in which a child who was born alive and left to die in a dumpster is described as a fetus.  RHReality Check’s Senior Legal Analyst Jessica Mason Pieklo has this description of local authorities prosecuting a woman who left her child (who was born around 30 weeks gestation and whom the coroner says breathed after being born alive) to die in a dumpster then lied about giving birth and the child’s gestational age to authorities.

The State of Indiana is prosecuting another woman for a failed pregnancy, this time charging a woman with felony neglect after a fetus was found in a dumpster. Prosecutors had originally considered charging the woman with feticide, like in the case of Bei Bei Shuai. Either way, the state has made it clear any pregnancy that does not result in a successful live birth will be viewed first and foremost as a probable crime, which is a terrifying reality for women in the state.             

It wasn’t a failed pregnancy and the reason the state didn't charge her with feticide was because the child wasn't a fetus.  The evidence clearly suggests that Purvi Patel ordered abortion drugs online, took them, gave birth to an approximately 30-week child at her home, and then disposed of her child (who was born alive) in a dumpster.  Pregnancies that don't result in successful live births will probably only be viewed as a possible crime if the mothers lie about being pregnant, lie about their gestational age, and dump their born alive child in a dumpster.


The New York Times has a promotional puff piece on Senator Wendy Davis.  I’ve seen EMILY’s List e-mails promoting candidates less effusively than this. 

She was an overnight sensation.

In short order, she pumped life into the moribund Texas Democratic Party, recharged the state’s women’s movement, raised nearly $1 million in two weeks for her re-election campaign and, not least, was beseeched by supporters and some in her party to run for governor in 2014, which might be a quixotic quest in a state that has not elected a Democrat to that office in 20 years.

A building with an abortion clinic in El Paso has a “for lease” sign in the window but clinic employees say the clinic doesn’t plan on closing. 

But a woman who answered the phone at the Hill Top Women's Reproductive Clinic on Schuster Avenue said it had no plans to close. Another woman who returned a phone call said another building on the same property had been up for lease for several years.

Two people in India are being held after a young woman died after an abortion. 

Police said the victim and the man, identified as Deepak from Dadri, had been in a relationship. On realizing that the victim was pregnant, Deepak arranged for an abortion. He took the victim to a quack, Nisha Rani, who allegedly performed an illegal abortion on July 18. During the procedure, the victim allegedly became serious which scared Deepak. He then decided to rush her to Naveen Hospital where he abandoned the victim and fled, police said.

Life Links 7/22/13

In 2012, a woman who traveled from Ireland to Great Britain for an abortion died in a taxi cab after having an abortion at a Marie Stopes clinic. 

The woman died in January 2012. An inquest has not yet been held into the woman's death as the police investigation is continuing.

The woman's husband, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he was still waiting for answers but was frustrated at the lack of progress.

"I think if this was an Irish or a British woman, we would know what happened to her. But I am still waiting for answers," he told the Irish Times in Dublin.

Ross Douthat on the Texas abortion experiment: 

In the first case, many European countries already have versions of Texas’s late-term abortion ban on the books. France, Germany and Italy all ban abortions after the first trimester, and impose waiting periods as well.

Notably, these nations tend to have lower abortion rates than the United States, and none of them are exactly reactionary dystopias in the style of Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale.” So the European experience suggests that at least some abortion restrictions are compatible with equality and female advancement.

The man in Ireland who claimed his girlfriend was being forced into an abortion by her family has dropped his attempt to get an injunction after his girlfriend said she wasn’t proceeding with the abortion.

Counsel said the woman had sworn a statement in reply to the man's claims. While no details contained in the statement were revealed in open court, counsel said his client was "happy to put faith" in the statement and "matters would continue as at present in relation to the pregnancy".

The couple, who cannot be identified by order of the court, are both foreign nationals and reside in Ireland.

They sat beside each other and held hands during the short hearing. 

Life Links 7/19/13

Sharon Griggs, the editor of the Dallas News, writes about how her position on abortion has changed over the years and how she didn’t find HB2 in Texas to be unreasonable.

Fast forward to House Bill 2, the sweeping and controversial abortion regulations bill. While my thinking hasn’t moved to the place that I’m ready to lead a board revolt to change our pro-choice stand and call for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, neither do I think the provisions of House Bill 2 are unreasonable.

When our board debated the restrictions in this bill, I couldn’t really find a lot of fault in the rules. I certainly think the 20-week limit is reasonable. And I don’t think the surgical center rules — even being able to get a gurney through the door — are unreasonable. I recognize that almost never does something go wrong in an abortion procedure, but it can. The “admitting privileges” at a nearby hospital is troublesome, but not so much that I think it was cause to oppose the bill.

In Indiana, a woman named Purvi Patel has been charged with felony neglect of a dependent after putting her premature newborn child into a dumpster. 

The affidavit alleges Patel took drugs she ordered from Hong Kong to induce an abortion, but gave birth to a live baby that a forensic pathologist determined was born at least 7 months from conception.......

Last Saturday, hospital staff called police when Patel went to an emergency room bleeding, with the umbilical cord still protruding, but had no baby with her.

Patel told doctors she had never been pregnant but later told them she miscarried and put the body in the Dumpster behind the Mishawaka restaurant that she manages.

The affidavit says a forensic pathologist concluded the infant could have survived outside of the womb and did take a breath after it was born.

RHReality Check’s Robin Marty repeatedly describes the dead newborn child in the case as a “fetus.”


Abortionist James Pendergraft has reopened his Orlando clinic which closed after debt collectors removed equipment.

Media decides to investigate deceptive pro-choice claims after legislation passes

It’s funny how Reuters decided to investigate the absurd claim which was repeated non-stop that only 5 clinics in Texas would stay open after their prolife legislation passed.  Why they didn't investigate these claims while the legislation was being debated and making national news is anyone's guess.

Twenty-six states have laws that require abortion clinics to meet varying levels of hospital standards, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Pennsylvania, Virginia and Missouri passed strict health and safety rules similar to Texas, it said.

In those three states, however, most clinics were able to stay open after the laws passed, some by reallocating dollars to comply with building upgrades, according to abortion providers and state health department officials interviewed by Reuters.....

 Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, which favors abortion rights but does research cited by both sides, said the new law will have an impact in Texas but maybe less than the worst fears.

"Clinics will close," she said. "But I can't say we are going to go down to six."
                                  
.........

Only one clinic has closed in Virginia since a new law was implemented there earlier this year, the state health department said. No clinics have closed in Missouri because of a tough law passed there in 2007, abortion provider Planned Parenthood of Kansas and mid-Missouri said.

Life Links 7/18/13

I would suggest women stay far away from Jessy Jordan Holtzkamp if he ever gets out of prison.

From Pierce County Jail

Holtzkamp, a second-year high school senior, told an officer he was too young to be a father and wanted the unborn child to be aborted or not be born alive, according to the complaint.

When the officer told Holtzkamp his situation would be worsened if Alters-Meulemans suffered a miscarriage, he replied, "Why I wanted that to happen; I would love for that to happen," according to the complaint.

After he was advised he was being booked into jail on suspicion of attempted first-degree homicide of an unborn child, Holtzkamp "started making himself out to be a celebrity, stating, 'We got a murderer up in here,' " and then started singing a song about killing the baby, the complaint states.

When an officer asked him if he felt any remorse for trying to kill the fetus, he replied, "Hell naw," according to the complaint. 

Mary Kate Cary on legislation to regulate abortion clinics like surgical facilities. 

What does having a doorway 32 inches wide have to do with having a safe abortion? Not a thing, say abortion rights advocates. In fact, they argue that state restrictions on abortion clinics are arbitrary, cosmetic and aimed at ending women's access to reproductive health care services. But that 32-inch rule isn't from out of the blue: it is in the Life Safety Code (LSC), which is now part of the U.S. Code and was originally written by the National Fire Protection Association. The LSC regulates everything from exit signs to sprinklers to revolving doors to elevators – you name it – in day care centers, health clinics, hotels, schools, prisons, businesses and homes across America. Alabama's latest abortion law, for example, doesn't mention 32-inch doors anywhere; it simply says abortion clinics must abide by the LSC.

And so when I read that several states have required abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers – with doorways wide enough for ambulance gurneys, in case things go wrong – that didn't strike me as "extremist" or a "war on women." It struck me as common sense. I've been in a situation where a gurney couldn't fit through a door to help save someone who was dying, and it was horrendous. It's also common sense to have nurses on duty, a safe blood supply, and a hospital within 30 miles. Having a doctor with hospital admitting privileges, so there won't be an hourslong wait in the emergency room, seems like a good idea too.
   

Former rock singer and bass player Suzi Quarto still thinks about her abortion after more than 40 years.

The former rocker fell pregnant shortly after striking up an affair with a married man at the age of 18, and she decided not to keep the baby.....

"I would have loved to have had that baby. Not a year goes by when I don't think about it - what that child would be like, how old they would be," she told Britain's Daily Mail.

Life Links 7/17/13

A woman in Texas is making and selling voodoo dolls of Governor Rick Perry and donating the proceeds to Planned Parenthood.

"I was inspired to make them because I wanted to figure out something I could make that would send a message and raise money for Planned Parenthood," said Sinched. "What's better than sticking pins in Gov. Goodhair or burning him at your own doll sized stake? I would probably best describe myself as pro choice and pro life. No one ever wants to face the abortion choice but it happens. I believe no one has the right to make that choice but the woman it affects.

Governor Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island vetoed a Choose Life license plate bill because he claims it violates the separation of church and state. 

Chafee wrote to lawmakers in his veto message that the function of a license plate is "to register and identify a motor vehicle."

"It is my belief that state participation in the transmission of funds to this organization would violate the separation of church and state, one of the fundamental principles upon which our state was founded," he wrote.           

A man in Ireland is trying to prevent his girlfriend from going to Great Britain for an abortion.  He claims she is being pressured by her family.

He says his girlfriend's family is of the view she will be ruined if she has a child with a non-white man. The couple are both foreign nationals.

The man sought court orders to stop his girlfriend leaving Ireland until it can be established she is acting from her own free will.

The orders were not granted but his girlfriend did come to court this afternoon.

Texas Senator Wendy Davis should really provide some evidence for this claim about post 20 week abortions.

In nearly all of these cases, a family in tragic circumstances has had to make the difficult and private decision to let go of a much-wanted pregnancy because of a major medical concern.

                   
Also, notice how Davis brushes off the 20-week ban because post-20 week abortions are only 1% of abortions but then says the lack of a rape exception is "no small matter."  Rape is typically given as a reason for around 1% of all abortions and in all likelihood an even smaller percentage for women who have abortions after 20 weeks.  Logic fail. 

Life Links 7/16/13

Rich Lowry on the abortion extremism of Texas Senator Wendy Davis:

Davis likes to say that fewer than 1 percent of abortions in Texas take place the 20th week or later, without realizing how that damns her own case. By her own admission, she is not willing to give up even 1 percent of abortions. Nationally, opponents of the 20-week prohibition cite the same 1 percent statistic. Even if it is accurate — and no one can know for sure — that means 8,000 abortions a year after 20 weeks.

The New York Times is getting two writers for the price of one with David Leonhardt.  He writes:

About 60 percent of Americans favor access to abortion in the first trimester (or first 12 weeks) of pregnancy, but close to 70 percent think it should be illegal in the second trimester, according to Gallup.

Then later in the same article:

Perhaps the best weapon of abortion rights advocates is their opponents' extremism. The Texas bill, for instance, would close most of the state's abortion providers and ban the procedure after 20 weeks, without exceptions for rape or incest. A clear majority of Americans support such exceptions, as well as those for the health of the mother, polls show.                    

So 70% of Americans think abortions should be legal in second trimester but prolifers are extreme for backing a bill which would make late second trimester abortions illegal?  He noticeably doesn't link to any poll showing a clear majority of Americans favoring exceptions for rape and the health of the mother after 20 weeks.

       
Buried deep in the Washington Post article on the closure of the NOVA abortion clinic in Virginia show more than clinic regulations is effecting this clinic.

In addition, the filings said, NOVA clients had been seen regularly inside the building "lying down in corridors . . . and, in some instances, even vomiting." One filing said witnesses would testify that this was a daily occurrence.

Also, the apparent transfer of ownership interest from Mi Yong Kim to Taehyun Kim, which Eaton Place alleged was a full transfer, would have constituted an illegal sublet of the fifth-floor office space, the suit said. These issues constituted violations of NOVA's lease, Eaton Place alleged, asking that the tenant be declared in default. Eaton Place's lawyer, Sean Roche, declined to comment.....

In April, Eaton Place sued NOVA in Fairfax General District Court for failure to pay $95,000 in back rent. In June, NOVA agreed to pay the back rent and surrender the space, court records show.

In India, 4 people have been arrested for kidnapping a teenager and forcing her to have an abortion. 

According to API Walmik Patil of Palghar police station, Sandeep Balwant, 36, a resident of Jiwdani Nagar of Palghar East was in a illicit relationship with the girl from the same locality following she became pregnant.

Balwant then threatened the girl into silence and forcibly took her to Vaishali Nursing Home and got their child aborted, the complaint by the victim's mother said.

Life Links 7/11/13

The New York Times has a long article on abortionist Stephen Brigham, his abortion caravans and how Maryland regulates abortion clinics.

Dr. Brigham, who was not licensed to practice in Maryland, had not even been required to notify the state health department when he set up the Elkton center to complete late-term abortions, after about the 14th week of pregnancy. He initiated the procedures in New Jersey, where he was not authorized to perform them, then led his startled patients to Maryland, where the abortions were completed......

As he had with dozens of other patients over the previous months, Dr. Brigham began the young woman's procedure at his clinic in Voorhees Township, N.J., initiating the cervical dilation of the woman, who was 21.5 weeks pregnant, and using a standard injection to kill the fetus.

The next morning, he led the puzzled patient, her mother and boyfriend, along with two other patients, in a car caravan 60 miles south, across Delaware, to the clinic in an unlabeled suite in Elkton. There, Dr. Brigham advised Dr. Nicola I. Riley, who had a Maryland license but limited experience in late-term abortions, as she administered anesthesia and began extracting the fetus. "It seemed like he was training her," the patient later testified.

Soon, Dr. Riley testified, she realized that she was tugging not on the fetus but on intestinal tissue, indicating a potentially life-threatening perforation of the patient's uterus and damaged bowel.

Illinois' Supreme Court will finally let the state's parental notification law take effect.  It was passed in 1995.  The law will be enforced in 35 days. 

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday to uphold a circuit court's earlier dismissal of the case challenging the parental notification law filed by a Granite City women's health clinic and a doctor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The decision means the state's parental notification law now has to be enforced - unless there's an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In its opinion, the court noted that the nation's high court has found parental notification laws to be constitutional.

"Those precedents were followed here to find no due process or equal protection violation in Illinois," the court wrote.            

PoltiFact Ohio gives Rachel Maddow a "pants on fire" rating for her recent comments about a prolife ultrasound law in Ohio.

In interpreting some of the budget's more-ambiguous abortion language, Maddow contended that the new regulations included a "mandatory vaginal probe at the insistence of the state."
.......
 In other words, not only are external methods such as transabdominal ultrasounds allowed under the new law; they are required. That sinks Maddow's claim of a "mandatory vaginal probe."

We reached out to MSNBC and asked representatives if Maddow had anything more to say, but we did not hear back from them.

Life Links 7/10/13

The West Virginia abortionist being sued after he allegedly continued an abortion against a patient's wishes is denying the allegations and is claiming that leaving a pieces of the child in the patient wasn't his fault. 

Her complaint claims she came to the clinic for an abortion but that she wasn't given enough medication ahead of the procedure because the center and Stephens didn't know enough about her history with "use and/or abuse" of pain medication.

Stephens refused to stop the procedure when Gravely told him to and staff members restrained her while he finished the procedure, according to her complaint. She says she felt enough pain after the procedure to eventually go to Charleston Area Medical Center.

At the hospital, Gravely says the doctors removed more materials from her uterus, including a skull......

Stephens and the center also state they are "of information and belief" that CAMC removed "additional products of conception." But Gravely was told that "retained fragments and tissue" could remain after the abortion, which could lead to the need for further medical attention.

If any "products of conception" remained in Gravely, it wasn't because Stephens or the center didn't provide the proper care, according to the response.

At Slate, Jessica Grose is not happy with wrenching abortion stories.  Instead, she wants more stories from women who have abortions "and don't look back."

All of these essays describe how wrenching and horrible the choice to terminate a pregnancy is, and they also read as an attempt to change anti-choice minds about the necessity of a woman's right to choose. This is a noble goal, but as the years go by and state legislatures see more and more challenges to abortion rights, it's also a futile goal. Humane essays aren't going to change the entrenched anti-choicer. Instead they do something else: push the rhetorical battle even further rightward than it has already been pushed.

The Fairfax City Council has voted in favor of adding a new term to their zoning law which abortion advocates oppose because they believe it will prevent an abortion clinic from setting up in the city.

The Fairfax City council voted Tuesday night to create a new term in its zoning law, "medical care facility," delete the term "clinic" from the current definition of a doctor's office, and require all medical care facilities to obtain a special use permit at a cost of $4,800, along with a detailed approval process and a final vote by the city council. Pro-choice activists said the move was aimed at keeping abortion clinics out of Fairfax City, including an existing clinic in the city which was trying to relocate to meet Virginia's new hospital-style zoning standards for abortion clinics.

Life Links 7/2/13

Kirsten Powers doesn't stand with Wendy Davis.  She also points out the obvious false claim that 37 out of 42 abortion clinics will close. 

In addition to the limit on late-term abortions, the Texas legislature sought to pass regulations on abortion clinics similar to what was passed in Pennsylvania in 2011 after the Gosnell horror. The New York Times warned that the Texas bill "could lead to the closing of most of Texas's 42 abortion clinics." That sounds familiar. In 2011, the Pennsylvania ACLU claimed a post-Gosnell bill "would effectively close most and maybe all of the independent abortion clinics in Pennsylvania." Last month, a Pennsylvania news site reported that "several" abortion clinics have closed, which isn't quite the Armageddon the abortion-rights movement predicted.

Betsy Woodruff discusses some of the threats prolife legislators in Texas have had to deal with.     

State senator Donna Campbell, who issued the third point of order against Davis's filibuster (which ended it), has also been the target of extensive verbal abuse from pro-choice protesters, according to her spokesman Jon Oliver.

They've received Facebook messages and e-mails saying, "I hope you're raped" and "I hope your daughter's raped," Oliver tells me.

West Virginia's attorney general's attempt to get abortion clinics in his state to provide him with information about their practices wasn't met with open arms. 

The clinic's response likely is not what Morrisey had in mind.

"The center is not in the position of providing substantive responses to your letter," executive director Sharon Lewis wrote. "Our center is a defendant in a civil litigation matter and, upon advice of counsel, we must decline to respond to your inquiries and allow the discovery process and justice system to address those matters."

Lewis is referring to a suit brought against the clinic last month by Itai Gravely, 26, who alleges Dr. Rodney Lee Stephens continued an abortion after she told him to stop due to excessive pain. The lawsuit also said Stephens left parts of the fetus in her uterus.

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has changed his mind again and will apparently plead guilty to federal drug charges less than a week after rejecting the plea. 


Both houses of the Delaware legislature have unanimously passed their minimum abortion regulation expansion.

The House unanimously passed the Senate-approved bill, sponsored by Sen. Robert Venables, D-Laurel. The measure, which now goes to Gov. Jack Markell for his signature, allows clinic employees to lodge complaints with public health officials that could prompt an inspection. It also mandates independent accreditation of any facility that performs invasive procedures, directly targeting Planned Parenthood, which accredits its own facilities.                              

Life Links 7/1/13

Over the weekend, the media was their usual disgraceful, blatantly biased selves regarding Wendy Davis and abortion restrictions in Texas.  Ross Douthat has the list of  questions ABC News asked Davis while the Corner has David Gregory's hard-hitting interview with Nancy Pelosi. 


At First Things, Christopher Kaczor writes about the gradualist development of the right to life and why we should reject it. 

We should reject, for example, the analogy between the gradual development of a right to life and the gradual attainment of other rights. There is a radical difference between the right to life and the rights to vote or drive or hold public office. Those rights can be enjoyed only by those who can meet the corresponding responsibilities. Five-year-olds have no right to drive, because they cannot meet the responsibilities of drivers. But the right to life does not have any corresponding responsibilities, and so it may be enjoyed by those who cannot discharge any duties, like children before the age of reason or mentally handicapped adults. Although some rights are attained gradually as the person matures, the right to life is not one of them.

David Freddoso on Wendy Davis and late-term abortion legislation and how Gosnell is rarely mentioned.

Imagine a parallel universe in which the media coverage of legislators' recent efforts to pass gun control omitted any reference to last year's slaughter of 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School.....

As of Friday, the pink sneakers Davis wore on Tuesday night while standing up for late-term abortion were mentioned in more than 90 newspaper articles and 15 television segments, according to the Lexis-Nexis database. Yet a far more relevant detail — the reason this law was ever considered — received just four mentions in the papers and two on FOX News.

Alliance Defending Freedom is suing the University of Buffalo after it charged the prolife student group a $650 security fee to put on a debate.

UB Students for Life is an officially recognized student organization at the university. When it reserved space for a debate on abortion in April, the university required it to pay a fee for campus security because officials anticipated it would be controversial. Alliance Defending Freedom said another group that hosted a debate between a Christian and an atheist in the same building at the same time wasn't charged a security fee.