Life Links 11/26/13

A legislator in China has called for public hospitals to provide free abortions to students.

Wei Aimin, a deputy of the Beijing People’s Congress and a lawyer with Beijing Dangdai law firm, told Beijing-based Morning Post that many students seeking abortions went to underground clinics to prevent their parents and teachers from finding out and because they could not afford to go to large hospitals.

“All public hospitals in the city should offer abortions to pregnant students for free or for a minimal charge of 100 yuan,” Wei was reported as saying, “So they are not forced to go to cheaper unlicensed clinics.”

When U.S. abortion advocates whine about restrictions on webcam abortions, remember that in Canada, RU-486 abortions aren’t available because no company is distributing the drugs.

A manufacturer would have to apply to bring the drug to market in Canada. And Dr. Sheila Dunn, one of the authors of the commentary published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, said it's not clear why no one has applied to market mifepristone in Canada before now.

"We don't ever know the reasons that people have for not bringing drugs into different countries," says Dunn, a family physician who specializes in reproductive medicine at Toronto's Women's College Hospital.

There were clinical trials of the drug in Canada early in the last decade. But one was stopped after a woman who received the drug died of a bacterial infection.

A New York man has been convicting of assaults on his wife, including one where he killed his unborn child.

Vikas Jagota of 28 Butternut Drive in New City was found guilty of abusing his wife and convicted by a jury on felony counts of abortion and assault and five misdemeanor charges. The 37-year-old Jagota faces a maximum of seven years in state prison when he is sentenced on March 18, 2014.

Life Links 11/25/13

The Planned Parenthood in Austin, Texas resumed abortions on Friday after their abortionist obtained admitting privileges at a local hospital.  This was the same Planned Parenthood which cancelled Marni Evans’ abortion.  By the way, Evans has deleted her tweets asking various media individuals to contact her about her cancelled abortion.           


The Miami Herald has an article on the frequent use of misoprostol (aka Cytotec) as an abortion drug in Haiti. 

“There is no control over the medication. People go to any pharmacy and ask for this medication and they give it to them,” said Dr. Vladimir Larsen, head of the Society of Haitian Obstetrics and Gynecology , which has conducted two studies in the last four years on the widespread popularity and use of misoprostol.

When Nadia, 19, asked a friend to purchase misoprostol at a local pharmacy to terminate her five-week pregnancy, she wasn’t prepared for how her body would react. The friend bought three pills and told her “they said take two and insert the third.”

“You hear people talk. But you don’t realize where it can have you end up,” Nadia said from her hospital bed after an incomplete abortion. Two days after secretly downing two pills, the teen landed at the emergency obstetrics center run by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders in the city of Delmas in Haiti’s capital. She had shivers, heavy bleeding, a fever and a headache........

A Miami Herald reporter easily purchased the pill from pharmacies, and street merchants near the country’s public State University Hospital. Every vendor quoted a different price and instructions on how much to take to terminate a 12-week pregnancy. Almost all suggested it be taken as part of a cocktail mix of wine or beer, as they dug deep into colorful cone-shaped buckets to retrieve the pill from a silver package. They simply smiled when asked why it was hidden.

   
State officials in Delaware have reached a consent agreement with former Planned Parenthood  abortionist Timothy Liveright after the state found he was a “clear and immediate danger to the public.”

A hearing on the complaint was scheduled for Friday but was canceled after Liveright signed a consent agreement drafted by the attorney general's office. Officials refused to disclose details until the agreement is accepted by the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline at its January meeting.

Vladimir Putin has signed a law to make abortion ads illegal in Russia.

Life Links 11/22/13

Melissa Kwoka, a former staff accountant at Planned Parenthood Western New York, stole more than $100K from her former employer.  Planned Parenthood hired her despite her having a history of theft. 

Kwoka, 44, of Lockport, has a history of larceny. She has three theft convictions dating back to May 2002, when she admitted stealing $212 from the City of Lockport Building Inspection Department. She worked there as a secretary for a little more than a year.

While awaiting sentencing in the Planned Parenthood theft, she was accused last month of electronically transferring $520 from a friend’s bank account so she could make a car payment. She had been held on $1,000 bail in the Niagara County Jail on a fourth-degree grand larceny charge in that case.

Now she heads to the Erie County Correctional Facility to serve a six-month jail term that Michalski imposed Thursday for second-degree grand larceny in the Planned Parenthood theft.

Chicks on the Right Amy Jo Clark and Miriam Weaver discuss Sarah Silverman’s idiotic idea that prolifers are scared of vaginas.

And this begs the question, do liberal women not understand the difference between a living, developing baby and vaginas? Do we need to sit down and have a basic anatomy lesson? There is a big difference between a child growing in your womb and your “ladyparts.” Contrary to Silverman’s preposterous claim to Chris Hayes, people are not scared of vaginas. But thinking people are perplexed by the inability of liberals to differentiate between a vagina and a child. Because when a separate and distinct human being enters the picture, the picture is about more than your ladyparts.

Marie Stopes is pushing to get the RU-486 abortion drug to Kenyan women.

Marie Stopes Kenya launched a new product, MedipristTM (Mifepristone), geared towards safe motherhood, with the primary aim of reducing maternal mortality caused by unsafe abortion.

Statistics in Kenya show that unsafe abortion accounts for approximately 35 per cent of maternal deaths.

The launch saw 100 healthcare providers - gynaecologists, medical officers, clinical officers, pharmacists and pharmaceutical technologists- from Mombasa, Kilifi and Kwale counties, come together at Sarova Whitesands Beach Resort and Spa to engage in discussions around prevention of maternal mortality and unsafe abortion.

FOX San Antonio did a segment about the illegal sale of abortion drugs in south Texas.  Too bad they didn’t include any prolifers.

Life Links 11/18/13

Slate’s L.V. Anderson thinks horrific abortion stories appearing in pro-choice media outlets are good for the pro-choice movement.

It helps no one when women feel that their feelings about their own personal experiences with abortion and contraception are somehow “not okay.” Which is why it’s wonderful that New York and Elle are reclaiming these stories from religious conservatives. Some women are pressured into getting abortions, and not every abortion provider is skilled and compassionate. Some women get depressed when they take the pill, and some experience agony during their medication abortions. Abortion and contraception can be good or bad for the patient, depending on her biology, her socioeconomic circumstances, her provider. To acknowledge these realities is to treat reproductive healthcare like any other kind of medical care—and isn’t that what feminists have been fighting for all along?

I doubt that NARAL and Planned Parenthood will be sharing horrific abortion stories (unless they are pre-legalization ones) anytime soon. 


The UK’s Daily Mail has a story of a Chinese man who begged his girlfriend not to have an abortion. 

A Chinese man sunk to his knees in an abortion clinic and made a tearful plea to his girlfriend’s mother not to force her to have an abortion, it was reported in local media.

The mother, Liu Rong, had deemed the man, called Zhang, as being unworthy of her daughter as his social standing was too low.

Because Zhang worked in IT and was not from the civil servant class – the new ruling elite of China – she allegedly declared him to be ‘beneath’ her daughter’s status.

           

Mollie Hemingway writes about Planned Parenthood’s abortion theater. 

So the question is obvious. If 97% of Planned Parenthood’s services aren’t abortion, why in the world would an abortion regulation cause a dozen Planned Parenthood clinics to close?

Closing clinics make for great headlines and more dramatic court briefs. But a media mildly more skeptical of savvy public relations campaigns and well-scripted legal wrangling might serve the public a bit more.

The Toronto Star reports on declassified information from abortion debates within Prime Minister Mulroney’s cabinet in the late 80's/early 90's.

Abortion stories in NYT Mag feature coercion, scary clinics and complications

New York Times Magazine has published 26 stories from women who’ve had abortions. 

Many of the stories are sad and show how abortion is far from empowering for many women.  Nicole shares how she didn’t want an abortion but was coerced into it by her boyfriend.     

We went to get $1,000 from a gas-station ATM. I was hysterical, and he said, “Okay, you don’t have to go back.” I was so happy. Then he said, “We drove all this way. Stop crying, act like a woman.” I was angry, but I was so sleepy and tired of fighting.

   
Heather notes her experience during her first abortion and shares how her in-laws pushed her into a second one.

My first was two years ago. My husband and I were having financial problems and were considering separating. I just had to shut my conscience down. The doctor was grotesque. He whistled show tunes. I could hear the vacuum sucking out the fetus alongside his whistling. When I hear show tunes now, I shudder. Later, he lost his license.....

They gave us $500 cash to bring to the clinic. I felt very forced. I felt like I was required to have an abortion to provide for my current family. Money help is a manipulation. I’m crazy in love with my daughters—imagine if I did that to them? It’s almost too much to open the door of guilt and shame because it’ll all overcome me.

Dana Weinstein’s story is featured and she describes delivering her dead child (at 31 weeks) while sitting on the toilet. 

At six in the morning on the day I was supposed to return to the clinic, I felt my water break. I was alone in a hotel bathroom so far away from my home. I wanted to protect my husband. I didn’t let him in. I delivered her intact, sitting on the toilet, and I sat there until the doctor and nurse came and took her away properly. It’s different for me than my husband. I carried her. I didn’t have relief until my next daughter was born.       

Abby’s experience with a RU-486 abortion didn’t go well.

After the contractions started, my hands turned into claws. I was dehydrated. I had this underlying feeling that I was being made to suffer, to repent for my situation. I called my boss. He took me to the ER. It cost $2,000. When I stood up, the bed was covered in blood.

Madeline (in a Catholic high school at the time) shares how her parents took her for a 20-week abortion that cost $2,000. 

I found it notable that many of the women also share the circumstances around children they didn’t abort or make a point to mention that they have living children.  Overall, the stories paint a rather bleak picture of abortion as an often frightening procedure you have because you're coerced into it or you feel you don't have another choice and then often think about for years afterwards.

That important detail NARAL left out

  
In their latest effort to attack legislation which bans abortion after 20-weeks, NARAL has posted a video featuring Dana Weinstein discussing her late-term abortion. NARAL (and other pro-choice groups) have used Weinstein and her story before. 

What’s interesting about this new video is the detail NARAL leaves out.  The video says Dana had an abortion "after more than 20 weeks of pregnancy."  That’s true but the video seems  to imply that Dana's situation would have been affected by 20 week bans (which regulate abortions typically between 20-24 weeks). 

There’s one problem with that.  Dana had her abortion at 31 weeks.  This means 20-week bans wouldn’t have affected her case because her abortion was well passed the viability standard of 24 weeks.  That’s why she had Warren Hern (abortionist in Colorado) do her abortion.  There’s not many other abortionists doing abortions at 31 weeks.   

The federal 20-week ban wouldn't deter Hern from performing late-term abortions because he's already stated that he "will certify that any pregnancy is a threat to a woman's life."

Life Links 11/6/13

Notorious abortionist Stephen Brigham has opened an abortion clinic in Philadelphia.  Brigham’s presence has pushed other abortion providers to send an alert to the state.

The new clinic, Integrity Family Health, is on Bustleton Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. The state Department of Health did an initial inspection and issued a permit, called a registration, eight weeks ago, then added the facility to its online list of abortion clinics in the Keystone State.

The new clinic's connections to Brigham are circumstantial but were enough to concern some longtime critics of his operations - in this case, other abortion providers......

Then they called the toll-free number for Brigham's multistate abortion company, American Women's Services, and found that appointments were being made for Integrity Family Health. They also got Integrity's prices, directions, and heard a recorded abortion-counseling message.

Then they alerted state health officials.

A district court judge has issued a temporary stay on Iowa’s rule which prevents abortionist from prescribed chemical abortions thru a webcam. 

Polk County District Judge Karen Romano ordered a temporary stay on a rule passed by the Iowa Board of Medicine, which effectively would ban use of the first-in-the-nation video-conferencing system. The medical board said its rule was based on concern for patient safety. But Planned Parenthood supporters said the rule was a political attempt to limit rural women’s access to legal abortions......

The stay means the system may continue to be used while the issues are argued more extensively in court, which could take months.

Wendy Davis really is an Abortion Barbie.  Read how she tried to sue a local paper for libel after losing an election.  Remember that Davis got a law degree in 1993.

In 2000, nearly four years after her loss, Texas’ 5th Court of Appeals rejected Davis’ claim that she was libeled by the Star-Telegram during her 1996 campaign for city council. Rubbing salt in the wound, the court wrote in its 3-0 decision that they “cannot conclude a person of ordinary intelligence would perceive the statements as defamatory.”

Ouch. 

Indifferent, emotionless couple whine about cancelled abortion

The Texas Tribune has an article and a video interview with an engaged couple (John Lockhart and Marni Evans) who recently had an appointment for an abortion at Planned Parenthood cancelled.  Their appointment was cancelled because of 5th Circuit Court ruling on a Texas law which requires abortionists to have local admitting privileges.  Apparently, the abortionist at the Planned Parenthood in Austin didn’t have admitting privileges.     

Marni Evans, 37, a self-employed sustainability consultant, was scheduled to undergo a surgical abortion on Friday morning at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin. She said in an interview that she received a call from Planned Parenthood late Thursday evening informing her that her procedure for the following day had been canceled due to the appellate court ruling.

“My first reaction was to feel fairly devastated, to feel like my rights were being taken away from me,” Evans said, "to feel very disappointed that elected officials had the ability to make decisions about my and my fiancé’s life.”

After the cancellation, Evans went online to find another provider. She said she struggled to determine which abortion clinics around the state were still providing abortion services and had available appointments.

At six and a half weeks pregnant, Evans said, “it is important for me to have an abortion now, and I think probably less painful, less expensive and less emotionally heart-wrenching.” To avoid delaying the procedure, she decided to purchase a plane ticket to Seattle, where she previously lived, to have the procedure at a Planned Parenthood clinic there. She used frequent flyer miles she said she had saved for her honeymoon.

Questions:
   
How did the Texas Tribune find Evans and Lockhart so quickly if they weren’t involved with pro-choice groups?

Here’s how.  Evans used her twitter account to contact various individuals in the media.  In other words, she had her appointment cancelled and then went to the media with the story nearly immediately.  What kind of person does that?  Someone trying to gain fame in progressive circles, perhaps?

When Planned Parenthood cancelled her abortion, why didn’t they refer her to the other abortionist in town who could have done her abortion?  If Planned Parenthood really cared for their patients and abortion is such an important service wouldn’t it make sense that they would refer to another provider?   Or did they refer her and Evans forget to mention that?

After having her abortion cancelled why would Evans buy a plan ticket to Seattle instead of seeking out another in-state abortionist?  Is it really that hard to call other abortion clinics and ask if they are still doing abortions?  Does Evans not have basic life skills? 

She says she wanted to avoid the bureaucracy of Texas but if she just looked for another abortionist nothing would have changed except she would have gone to a different abortionist.  My guess is that the Seattle angle is a lame attempt to gain pity.  "Woe is me.  I have to travel out of state and waste my frequent flyer miles because I can't make phone calls."

Why does her fiancee think she’s going to have a different and more invasive procedure?  The only reason this would make sense is if she was scheduled to get a chemical abortion and is now past the deadline. 

The couple comes off as impulsive and rather thoughtless.  Are we really supposed to feel sorry for a middle-aged engaged couple who have enough resources to get a plane ticket to Seattle for an abortion without taking the time to see if there is another abortionist in town? 

I don’t. I feel sorry for the child they’re about to have killed. 

Dave Andrusko has more.