Life Links 12/13/13

Indiana/Illinois abortionist Ulrich Klopfer will lose his "Physician Designee" in Fort Wayne after Klopfer failed to quickly report statutory rape and admitting he encourages victims of statutory rape to go to other states.  This means Klopfer may not be able to legally perform abortions in Fort Wayne in the new year.

The Allen County Patient Safety Ordinance requires that doctors who practice but don't live in the county to have a relationship with a local doctor who can legally practice in Allen County. State law requires abortion doctors to have local admitting privileges or have entered into an agreement with a physician who has admitting privileges at a hospital in case of an emergency.

Dr. Geoffrey Cly, OB/GYN, notified Dr. Ulrich Klopfer in a letter dated December 12 that he will no longer serve as the "back-up" physician for Klopfer effective December 31, 2013.

Big thanks to RHRealityCheck for posting the interview in which Klopfer admits he encourages victims of statutory rape to go out of state. 


The New York Times Magazine has an article on “The Heroic Commutes of Abortion Providers.”  It’s funny how some abortion advocates act like abortion isn’t a big money maker yet how else would these abortionists/clinics be able to afford such long commutes? 


Politico covers Michigan’s legislation to require abortion insurance coverage be purchased with an optional rider

Michigan became the 24th state to ban most abortions in its exchange plans when the state legislature passed a bill Wednesday afternoon by sizable margins.

The action follows an an unusual citizens’ petition drive that allows state lawmakers to resurrect a bill the governor had vetoed and vote it into law without his signature. The ban goes into effect 90 days from Friday.

Jessica Valenti has an interesting piece in which chides abortion advocates for calling the Michigan abortion insurance legislation "rape insurance."  She points out that focusing on the hard cases doesn't help (and actually undermines) the pro-choice movement's goal to win support for abortion in more typical situations.  

I understand why many in the pro-choice movement focus on the most extreme examples when we talk to the media; they are truly harrowing and serious issues. And we need public support—but not at the expense of our feminist values.

As Merritt Tierce, executive director of Texas Equal Access Fund, told me in an interview last month: “The lawsuits and the media coverage always focus on the most sympathetic cases, without acknowledging that while of course those cases absolutely deserve our sympathy, most women will not experience anything like what they see and hear in the media.”

Life Links 12/5/13

Jorge Martin-Santana, a medical assistant at a Sacremento Planned Parenthood, has been charged with sexual battery for allegedly touching a patient inappropriately in October. 


Notorious abortionist Steven Brigham is back in the news after New Jersey prosecutors revealed that Brigham lied under oath about whether he had malpractice insurance.

Now, as Brigham, 57, tries to regain his license, New Jersey prosecutors have submitted evidence that his sworn statement was yet another lie. They allege that not only did he stop carrying required liability insurance around 2006, but last month produced a phony insurance policy when forced to back up the statement.

The Bermuda-based company that purportedly issued his policy was itself a sham. It has not issued policies since 2006, when the company operator went to jail for insurance fraud and money laundering, according to legal papers filed Nov. 27 by New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Jeri L. Warhaftig.

"Brigham also produced a fraudulent receipt for payment for a policy issued by" the sham company, Warhaftig wrote.

ABC covered Chris Smith’s announcement that the vast majority of health plans offered to Congress and their staffers include abortion coverage.

The disclosure Wednesday by abortion opponent Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., also highlights an emerging issue nationally: It may be hard for individual consumers to determine whether abortion is a covered benefit in plans offered through the new online insurance markets.

For government insiders, there's another twist: Lawmakers and their staffs now appear to be the only federal employees with access to abortion coverage through their government-supported health insurance plans.

Smith said only nine of the 112 insurance plans offered to members of Congress and their staffs through the Washington, D.C., insurance market exclude abortion as a covered benefit.

A Washington city may pull a grant from a family resource center which provides information which directs women to abortion referring clinics. 

Michigan Planned Parenthood President Lori Lamerand struggles to argue for standard abortion insurance

In a flailing attempt to kept abortion as a standard part of tax-subsidized insurance plans in Michigan, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan President Lori Lamerand has a Huffington Post editorial which even received a tweet in support from PP's grand leader Cecile Richards.

Lamerand writes,

Under the proposed law, if a woman wants insurance to cover abortion, she'll have to anticipate the need well in advance and purchase a separate rider to cover the procedure.

And this is bad why?  If a woman wants abortion coverage then she can pay for it.     

Michigan politicians have invoked this rarely-used legislative maneuver only five times in its history -- and three of those times it has been used to attack women's access to health care.

Actually, politicians don’t invoke this legislation.  It’s called “citizen-initiated legislation” because Michigan citizens have to initiate the legislation by collecting hundreds of thousands of valid signatures from registered voters.   The reason it is rarely used is because it is difficult to collected more than 300,000 signatures in less than 6 months.  That's the same reason Planned Parenthood isn't mounting their own effort to collect signatures to get the legislation on the ballot.  They don't have the grassroots resources and they don't want to spend the money to pay signature gatherers.

Insurance coverage of abortion is not a partisan issue -- it is a health issue. 

Nice assertion.  Any argument or evidence?

Last December, the Michigan Section of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposed an abortion insurance ban and "any legislation that seeks to restrict access to the legitimate medical services necessary to preserve and protect the reproductive health and well being of the women of Michigan."

Guess not, unless saying a pro-choice group is opposed to prolife laws is evidence for something being solely a health issue.    

Why would the legislature interfere with how private parties contract to cover a safe, legal and constitutionally protected medical procedure?

That is an interesting argument coming from someone who favors Obamacare and the HHS Mandate which interfere in how private parties contract over health insurance much more than Michigan’s Abortion Insurance Opt-Out legislation.  The reason they'll pass the legislation in because Obamacare creates tax-subsidized insurance policies which cover abortion if states don't opt-out. 

The medical community objects to the abortion insurance ban.

Really?  The entire medical community does?

Republican Party leaders have vetoed it in the past and polls show that only 36 percent of Michigan voters support the provision.

So two Republican governors vetoed it (compared to the dozens who voted for it) and one poorly-worded poll with showed 36% support on an issue that large swaths of the public don't understand and that means what exactly?

Legislators should take this opportunity to stop injecting themselves into private health decisions and let Michigan voters decide what kind of insurance coverage is best for them and their families.

Again, this is coming from someone whose organization supports Obamacare and its various rules which require certain coverages.  If Lamerand actually gave a hoot about letting Michiganders decide their insurance coverage, she would be opposed to Obamacare.