Life Links 1/23/12

The smallest surviving child born in California is going home. Melinda Guido weigh a little more than ½ a pound at birth.

She was born four months premature on Aug. 30 and weighed just more than 9 ounces, making her the second smallest in the United States and one of the world's smallest surviving babies.

Melinda was so tiny she could fit into the palm of her doctor's hand.

Doctors say the baby now weighs 4.5 pounds and has progressed enough to be discharged.

Overhead - Mark Judge on Washington Post writer Dana Milbank's observations about the March for Life:

What makes this so awful is not that Milbank is a liberal. It's the rote belching up of cliches in place of thought, research, or contemplation. It's the making of an idiotic assertion about financial motivation, followed the inability to follow a more interesting assertion he stumbles over to an interesting place. It's the childish impulse, not to mention the moral sclerosis, of the sarcastic quotes around "conscience clause."

Scott Klusendorf and Jay Watts defend incremental prolife legislation.


Casey Martinson, the Director of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes (PPSFL), writes that the sky is falling on Roe v. Wade.

I'm sorry to say that the sky is falling on Roe v Wade. It's been falling incrementally for the past four decades, and it fell further, faster, in 2011 than in any year before. According to the Guttmacher Institute, state legislatures passed 94 new laws restricting abortion in 2012. Not only is that a new record, but it shatters the previous record of 34 new laws passed in 2005 by a lot.

Interestingly, the director of public affairs doesn't know how old Roe v. Wade is.

So the alarm that defenders of reproductive rights have been sounding at a higher and higher volume is serious business. As we approach the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we have an opportune moment to bring these concerns into focus against the never-ending blur of our modern news cycle. Anti-choice extremists – a fair word for people who equate not just abortion but birth control pills with murder – are gearing up to make their own hay on this issue, and after 38 years of losing ground, pro-choice advocates need maximum effort to turn things around.

Unsurprisingly, avid pro-choicers who spurn debate have no problem interrupting a prolife event at the March for Life to mindlessly spout chants. Jennie Stone has the video and summary.

ProLifeCon live streaming

Don't miss the live stream of ProLifeCon at the Family Research Council's website.

Illinois inspecting abortion clinics again

Two separate Associated Press articles on local Illinois television stations inform readers that in 2011 the state of Illinois started to inspect abortion clinics after years of neglect.

An analysis of state documents by The Associated Press finds the state is catching up with a backlog of neglected inspections, but a few clinics still haven't been checked in more than a decade.

The renewed oversight last year led to the permanent closure of a clinic in Rockford earlier this month, following the closing of a second clinic in suburban Chicago last October.

State officials say gruesome revelations about a Philadelphia facility spurred the renewed inspections.

Another article lists the number of years since various clinics had been investigated.

Even the unborn are Tebowing

You know a trend is popular if unborn children are taking part in it.

Life Links 1/19/12

Russell Moore writes about sharing the gospel in an abortion culture.

In your congregation this Sunday, and in the neighborhoods around you right now, there are women vulnerable to abortionist propaganda, not because they reject the church but because they're afraid they ‘ll lose the church. Pregnant young women are scared they will scandalize church people when they start to show, so they keep it secret. Parents are fearful their pregnant daughter, or their son's pregnant girlfriend, will prompt the rest of the congregation to see them as bad families.

As they keep all of this secret from the Body of Christ, many of them fall prey to the false gospel of the abortion clinic. "We can take care of this for you," these people say. "And it will all go away."

Scott Klusendorf recently had a piece entitled, "The 2012 Elections: Five Questions for Pro-Life Advocates" published in the Christian Research Journal.


It's hard to keep straight face reading this from Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards:

In fact, the Tebow story exemplifies the health care environment that Planned Parenthood promotes....

The Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization have apparently put together another one of those worldwide abortion studies guesstimates based on guesstimates which the Lancet decided to publish. Unsurprisingly, they claim abortions are more frequent in countries where abortion is illegal and to push for more funding of contraceptives.

Life Links 1/18/12

Massachusetts' state appeals court has struck down a probate judge's ruling ordering a woman with schizophrenia have an abortion and be sterilized.

Earlier this month, a Norfolk probate judge declared a pregnant woman with schizophrenia incompetent and ordered her to undergo an abortion, stating she could be "coaxed, bribed, or even enticed'' into the hospital for the procedure.

Unbidden, the judge further directed that the 32-year-old woman be sterilized "to avoid this painful situation from recurring in the future.''

Yesterday, the state's appeals court struck down the decision in unusually harsh terms, saying the woman had clearly expressed her opposition to abortion as a Catholic.

"The personal decision whether to bear or beget a child is a right so fundamental that it must be extended to all persons, including those who are incompetent,'' the opinion stated, citing a 1982 ruling by the state's Supreme Judicial Court......

The woman, identified in court records by the pseudonym Mary Moe, described herself to court officials as "very Catholic,'' and said she would never have an abortion. When asked about an abortion at a December hearing, she replied that she "wouldn't do that.......''

The woman, who also has bipolar disorder, has been pregnant twice before. In the first pregnancy, she had an abortion. In the second she gave birth to the boy.

At some point between her abortion and the birth of her son, she had a "psychotic break'' and has since been hospitalized numerous times for mental illness, court records say.

Dr. Rajendra Kale, interim editor-in-chief at the Canadian Medical Association Journal, defends his call for withholding information on fetal sex until the 30th week to prevent sex-selection abortions in Canada.

Kale said the overall numbers might be small, but if the phenomenon is showing up in census data, it's not as small as people here want to believe.

"Anyone saying it doesn't happen in Canada or happens in ridiculously low numbers is just wrong," Kale said. "I'm convinced we need to do something."

A South African court is hearing from an abortionist about the death of a 35-year-old woman who died during a botched 18-week abortion at a Marie Stopes abortion clinic.

e said soon after the procedure started, 'something went wrong' and Mathebula's condition deteriorated. She died after losing more than two litres of blood. 'I did not force the forceps . . . to cause the tear, I simply grabbed the foetus. I do not know what caused the tear which eventually led to the rupture,' he is reported to have said.

Overheard - Dana Milbank on abortion provider Merle Hoffman's claims of an abortion expulsion since the recession:

Abortion rates have exploded since the economic collapse, she warned, as nearly three-quarters of women ending their pregnancies say they simply can't afford to have a baby. Hoffman expanded on that trend to forecast a "dim future" for women if a Republican wins the White House: a world of abortion "slave states" and "underground railroads" and "pre-Roe reality."

There was just one problem with this hysteria: The data in the study she presented were from 2008 — before the impact of the recession was felt. The sweeping conclusions came, rather, from "journalistic reports," as well as "seminal studies" (no pun intended, apparently) at Hoffman's own clinic in New York — where, as she eventually admitted, abortion rates were "relatively stable" the last two years.

Life Links 1/16/12

The Northern Illinois Women's Center abortion clinic in Rockford will be closed permanently. This is after the clinic had done a variety of tasks required to meet health regulations including plans to hire an abortionist with surgical privileges at an in-state hospital.

According to an email sent to the Rockford Register Star, the clinic's owners have decided to voluntarily shut their doors for good.

Clinic officials state their decision is based on lack of support from the community, the political climate surrounding the abortion issue and the challenge the clinic would face in rebuilding staff.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the immediate enforcement of Texas' ultrasound law.

Then on Thursday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked the appeals court to make its decision effective immediately, shortening the 22-day waiting period typically required under the court's rules. The appeals court granted the request in a one-sentence order less than a day later......

The Texas Department of State Health Services expected to implement its enforcement plan in the coming weeks, spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. The department was finalizing its notification letters that it will send to abortion facilities and inspectors, Williams said.

Overheard: George Berkin in NJ Voices on the Texas ultrasound law and it's detractors.

First, Planned Parenthood's response shows just how empty the "pro-choice" rhetoric really is. In our everyday experience, more information makes for greater freedom of choice. Should I attend Rutgers or Montclair State? As I consider my options, I want as much information as possible about academic offerings, costs, social life, etc.

Deciding what to do when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, unlike choosing which school to attend, is fraught with moral consequences as I consider each option. But that moral dimension should make it more important to be fully informed about each possible choice, not less important.

Amanda Marcotte is really off her rocker. She think that if Griswold v. Connecticut is overturned, she could see "conservative states passing laws requiring you to be married (to get contraceptives) or some such nonsense." No states are mentioned nor any legislators in such a state who would support such a law. She really is the mayor of Crazytown, U.S.A.

Later, she shows why she continuously struggles to form anything resembling a reasonable argument.

Santorum is trying to argue basically the contraception somehow causes out-of-wedlock births---man, I hate that term---because it lets people think they can have sex and then they get pregnant. Luckily for us, we actually have data to disprove this argument, and not just common sense. The record high for teen pregnancy was not 1966, the year after Griswold was decided. Nor was it after condoms became ubiquitous in the 80s and 90s. It was actually in 1958, when it was twice as high as it is now. True, there were a lot of shotgun marriages back then, but so what? The difference is not in contraception use, but in mores regarding marriage and pregnancy.

First, she's comparing apples and oranges. Teen pregnancy doesn't equal out-of-wedlock births, especially in 1958. My mother was the first woman in her immediate family not to be married and have a kid before she was 20. This is why teen pregnancy numbers were high in the late-fifties. It wasn't because a bunch of unmarried teens were having unplanned pregnancies nor was it because of "shotgun marriages." It was because a bunch of married women who were teenagers were having planned pregnancies.

People got married and started having children at a much earlier age in the 1950's. In 1950 and 1960, the median age of first marriage for women was 20.3 years. That means a little less than half of the women getting married were doing so in their teens. Unsurprisingly, a higher number of women being teens when married leads to a higher number of teen pregnancies. Interestingly, Marcotte never seem to think that easier access to contraceptives may have played a role in changing society's mores on sex, marriage and pregnancy.

Life Links 1/12/12

A Maryland woman is facing 5 years in jail after buying abortion pills online and giving them to a teenager who was 20 weeks pregnant. Sandra Craine pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment after the teen she gave the pills to wound up in a hospital delivering a child hours after taking the pills.

"The pills arrive in the mail and (Craine) gives the packet to (the victim). She takes her first pill on the morning of June 30 and two hours later, the pregnant (victim) is in Union Hospital with pain. Her baby was born alive a short time later, but died shortly thereafter," Urick said.

Doctors who treated the victim contacted police and Det. Angel Valle of the Cecil County Sheriff's Office, in turn, conducted the investigation that led to the indictment.

Rai Rojas, the Director of Hispanic Outreach for the National Right to Life Committee, discusses prolife people who claim they wouldn't vote for their non-favored Republican against President Obama.

I promise you, I am going to scream the next time I hear a conservative pundit or "family issues" blogger state that they wouldn't vote for this guy or that guy if this guy or that guy wins the GOP nomination. And if one more holier-than-thou pro-lifer quips that so-and-so would be just as bad as Obama – I'm also going to scream, but not before I whack them straight up the side of their numb-skull head.

This president is the single most pro-abortion one we have ever had, worse, this is a president who has said that banning infanticide would impede a "woman's right to chose." Seriously. Are you still going to insist that Gingrich, Romney, Paul et al are just as bad? If so, you've lost all grip on reality.

UK abortionists are getting ready for an increased number of abortion procedures after the holiday season.

Mr Bradshaw, 57, said: "There is a significant increase in post-coital contraception in the week after the festive season. There are also more requests for terminations within the next few months.

Life Links 1/11/12

A panel of three judges on the Fifth District Court of Appeals has overturned a restraining order which prevented Texas' sonogram law from fully taking effect. The law required an abortionist to show women considering an abortion their ultrasound and describe it. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks had originally ruled that parts of the law infringed on the free speech of abortionists.

Chief Judge Edith H. Jones used her opinion to systematically dismantle the argument that the Texas law infringes on the free speech rights of doctors and patients, the key argument against the law.

"The required disclosures of a sonogram, the fetal heartbeat, and their medical descriptions are the epitome of truthful, non-misleading information," Jones wrote. "The appellees failed to demonstrate constitutional flaws" with the law.

Sparks had ruled in August that several provisions of the state law violated the free-speech rights of doctors who perform abortions by requiring that they show and describe the sonogram images and describe the fetal heartbeat, all of which doctors have said is not necessary for good treatment.

In response to this opinion, Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights hilariously goes all libertarian. Just don't let them know you favor tax funds being directly inserted into that private decision!

"This law, and this decision, inserts government directly into a private decision that must be protected from the intrusion of political ideologues," Northrup said. "Anyone concerned with the erosion of the constitutional protection of our individual rights as Americans should be profoundly concerned and disappointed by today's events."

A Michigan judge has ruled Planned Parenthood can open a clinic at a property with a disputed deed restriction. Planned Parenthood deceived the property owners of a nearby hotel which held the deed restriction and have repeatedly lied about their intentions for the clinic. Prolifers have promised to appeal.

At the hearing, Circuit Judge James Alexander said lawyers representing those opposed to Planned Parenthood failed to show how the clinic, set for a business-zoned area of Opdyke Road, would violate restrictions set forth when the land was split for sale more than a decade ago.

He scolded lawyers representing the opponents for arguing on the assumption that the clinic would provide abortion services, when local Planned Parenthood officials have said repeatedly that they may not.

"Let me stop this right now," said Alexander, as attorney James Carey referred to the clinic as "an abortion clinic" in the beginning of his arguments. "This is not an abortion case. This is a property case."

It shows you something about how abortion clinics don't really care about "choice" when there is supposedly only one abortion clinic in the entire country that is also an adoption agency. No statistics are given comparing the number of adoptions with the number of abortions. The story of this clinic in Ohio also disputes one popular pro-choice assertion.

One of the myths surrounding abortion is that a woman walks into an abortion clinic, says get rid of it, climbs on the table and walks out baby-free. But abortion providers know that the greatest problems with abortions can come in the aftermath, if a woman goes into a deep depression over her decision.....

Nature profiles Robert Lanza and ACT, the only company currently running a clinical trial using cells created from human embryonic stem cells, and there various troubles.

Now, the company's future hinges on the outcome of the trials. Final results won't be out until 2013, and they will show mainly whether the cell transplants are safe. The patients enrolled in the trial are in the late stages of vision loss, so the chances of dramatic improvement are remote, experts say.....

But even if the trial results are positive, ACT will face enormous challenges in commercializing the technology. The company will have to show the FDA that its RPE cells can slow vision loss in bigger and more expensive clinical trials.

And even if the treatment works, storing and distributing the cells, which often have short shelf-lives, is expensive and logistically difficult, says Chris Mason, head of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Bioprocess Group at University College London.

This is why it's tough to take feminist pro-choice bloggers seriously

Jill Filipovic at Feministe provides a perfect example of why thoughtful people have trouble taking feminist pro-choice bloggers seriously. She links to a piece in the Washington Post which takes down the silly idea that Rick Santorum wants to outlaw birth control.

Jill claims she isn't scared Santorum himself would move to ban birth control but Jill is worried about "efforts on the state level to outlaw birth control."

Do I think that if Santorum is elected president he'll try to outlaw birth control? No. Of course not. That's not going to happen, and that's not what anyone is actually worried about. What we are worried about are the efforts on the state level to outlaw birth control, and the kinds of federal judges that President Santorum — a phrase that makes me feel slightly ill — would appoint, to the Supreme Court and other federal courts.

This is crazy. Which states are going to try to outlaw birth control?

Can Jill name any state which has 10, heck 5 legislators in favor of outlawing birth control? If not, then why would she be worried about it?

Jill continues,

We are, however, concerned that he will stack the courts with anti-choice judges, and will back state efforts to limit or outlaw birth control.

Why would Santorum back efforts to outlaw birth control? In the Washington Post article Jill links notes Santorum is opposed to state efforts to outlaw birth control,

To be clear, he does think that laws banning birth control would be dumb "for a number of reasons. Birth control should be legal in the United States. The states should not ban it, and I would oppose any effort to ban it.''

So Santorum opposes state efforts to outlaw birth control, thinks laws to ban birth control would be "dumb," thinks birth control should be legal but Jill still thinks in some way he's going to support non-existent state efforts to ban birth control. Somebody took a crazy pill recently.

Amanda Marcotte is also drunk on delusional fears.

Life Links 1/6/12

Bobby Joe Rodgers, a homeless man with an extensive arrest record, has been arrested for and has admitted to setting fire to Steven Brigham's abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Rodgers told investigators he had an aversion to abortion.


The lawyers for abortionist/accused murder Nicola Riley want police and prosecutors in her case to be charged with contempt.

In the petition for contempt, Riley's attorneys argue that details about the charges against her have appeared in more than 700 news articles, prejudicing her presumption of innocence and likely tainting the jury pool......

In the motion to unseal the indictment and set bail, Riley's attorneys argue that the evidence against her is weak and that Maryland's viable fetus law does not apply to her.

"Because Dr. Riley is a medical professional and because she provided lawful medical care to a patient, in this case, she is exempt from prosecution," the motion says. "The facts of this case ... and the express language of the statute run counter to the state's bald assertion that this case is unique."

The Northern Illinois Women's Center abortion clinic in Rockford, Illinois plans to reopen after being closed since September. Here's a PDF of the final order which includes the complaint, NIWC's plan of correction, etc. The final order shows NIWC had to hire a "new" (he's probably around 75 years old) abortionist as an "Independent Contractor" who has privileges at the Methodist Hospital of Chicago and will work one day a week at NIWC. The other abortionists who work at NIWC don't have surgical privileges at an Illinois hospital.

Life Links 1/5/12

The Rockford abortion clinic which failed two inspections in a row can reopen if they pay a fine of $9,750. If they pay the fine and reopen, they can be shut down if 2012 inspections find any of the deficiencies found in 2011 inspections.

Or they can pay a $1,000 fine and close.

RH Reality Check's Robin Marty thinks violations like not having a nurse in the operating room and abortionists not having privileges with licensed hospitals have "very little to do with the actual services that it provides."


For some reason Jill at Feministe seems to think the fact that cells from the unborn child cross over the placenta and stay in the child's mother for years is somehow helpful to proving that the unborn aren't distinct, unique human beings. She presents no argument so I'm struggling to see why she would think cells from Human Being A existing in Human Being B proves that Human Being A isn't a distinct, unique human being. Transferred organs with the DNA of distinct, unique human beings live in other human beings for years. Does that prove organ donors aren't distinct, unique human beings?

The web page she links to also hurts the ole' "fetus is a parasite" argument as it notes the cells from the unborn child inside the mother help the mother.

Pincott adds that some fetal cells can also "migrate to injury sites" and speed up healing, as well as minimize scars after pregnancy and normalize skin structure — meaning that baby is helping to restore mommy!

Planned Parenthood has opened a new office in Johnson City, Tennessee and is relocating an abortion clinic in Waco, Texas.

Life Links 1/4/12

Lawyers for the state of Illinois and a Rockford abortion clinic will meet before a judge today told to talk about the suspension of the clinic's license. The Northern Illinois Women's Center has been closed since the end of September after failing a health and safety inspection.


The cause of the fire at the abortion clinic in Pensacola has yet to be determined. Abortionist Steve Brigham, who was recently charged with multiple counts of murder, is the owner of the clinic. According to a Philadelphia Inquirer timeline detailing Brigham's various run-ins with authorities, Brigham purchased the facility in March of 2011.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Local, state and federal agencies are helping with the investigation.

"We have not determined that it's arson," said Deborah Cox, a spokeswoman for the state fire marshal's office. "The investigation is continuing in that regard."

Planned Parenthood's monster affiliate, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, keeps getting bigger.

Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma has joined Planned Parenthood of the Heartland to create an affiliate that spans four states and includes three centers in Tulsa and one in Broken Arrow.

No decision has been made regarding whether the merger will make abortion services available at the Tulsa and Broken Arrow centers, and there is no timeline to make such a decision, a spokeswoman said.....

The merger, announced in June, brings together 34 centers in Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.

Rich Lowry discusses how the Santorum family lost a child and the recent "controversy" caused by the idiotic comments of Alan Colmes.

How is a family supposed to deal with the death of a child? Among some on the left, there's an instinctive reaction against how the Santorums handled their loss because the logic of abortion rights denies that there is any loss worth troubling over. The Santorums accepted their grief, and when life presented them with another wrenching challenge, accepted it in turn.

Life Links 1/3/12

In case you missed it, abortionists Steven Brigham and Nicola Riley have been charged with multiple counts of murder, presumably for killing viable unborn children. Both have been arrested and Maryland authorities are working on their extraditions.

Maryland criminal law states that people can be charged with murder if they "intend to cause the death of the viable fetus." The law does not define "personhood" and states it is not intended to infringe on a woman's right to have an abortion.

But state law also defines a fetus as "viable" if "there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus' sustained survival outside the womb."

Brigham provided abortions to five patients ranging from 18 to 33 weeks pregnant, according to a report by the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners.

The determination of whether those fetuses were "viable" could occur in court.

On New Year's Day, an abortion clinic in Pensacola was burned.

The Florida Fire Marshal's Office is heading the investigation, but the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have joined in because of the location of the blaze, said Deborah Cox, spokeswoman for the marshal's office.

"Because of the structure that was involved, because it was an abortion clinic," she said.

A preliminary investigation found that the fire began outside the clinic, Cox said.

The address of another one of arrested abortionist Steven Brigham' clinics is listed as the clinic's mailing address.

American Family Planning lists its physical address at 6770 N. Ninth Ave. and its mailing address as 1 Alpha Ave. in Voorhees, N.J., according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

The New Jersey address used by Brigham is the location of American Women's Services, which offers abortion and gynecological services.

The Washington Times has a New Year's piece featuring abortion proponents complaining about President Obama's supposed failures on the abortion front.


MSNBC has the story of a woman who was reunited with her biological daughter 77 years after the child was adopted.


New York prosecutors have dropped self-abortion charges against a woman who used abortion drugs to self-abort and then dumped the child in a dumpster.

Selective reduction abortion statistics from the UK

The propensity to kill one of your unborn twin children is not just an American tragedy though I would guess the numbers in the U.S. would be much higher.

Department of Health statistics found that more than 100 babies were terminated by women expecting twins, triplets or quintuplets, the Daily Telegraph said.

The statistics, released under the freedom of information law, revealed that in 2010, 85 women aborted at least one foetus while going on to give birth to another baby. This compares to 59 women in 2006.

Of the 85 women undergoing selective reductions last year, 51 were reducing a pregnancy from twins to a single baby, up from 30 four years before.

The data showed that there were 20 abortions to reduce triplets to twins and nine procedures to take a pregnancy from triplets to a single child.

GOP attacks women by trying to save girls from sex-selection abortions?

Oh Alternet. You rarely disappoint. Here's Tanya Somanader piece entitled "The GOP's 10 Most Extreme Attacks on Women." One of those extreme attacks on women is legislation which hopes to outlaw sex selection abortions in the U.S.

Race/Sex Abortions: Taking their queue from Arizona, House Republicans introduced the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA) — a so-called "civil rights" bill that bans physicians from performing abortions based on the fetus's race or sex. The problem of selective abortion is virtually non-existent, as not one state official or independent research offered any evidence of race-based abortions. Only 5 percent of abortions occur after the point when a fetus's sex can be determined. Arizona's measure, now law, sends doctors and clinicians to jail for three years if they knowingly provide such abortions. The federal bill PRENDA allows for civil suits against the physicians.

Tanya never explains how this legislation, which would deal with a supposedly "virtually non-existent" problem, is extreme or an attack on women.

I guess I supposed to take it as a given that for Alternet readers any legislation which restricts abortion (even abortions performed solely because the child is a girl) is an extreme attack on women.

Life Links 12/28/11

Rick Perry dropped his rape/incest exception to abortion after attending the abortion forum in Iowa, watching Gift of Life and discussing abortion exceptions with a woman who was conceived in rape. The Hill has the video of him discussing his change of heart.


The Detroit Free Press has an AP story on China's one-child policy and those who defy it.

It's impossible to know how many children have been born in violation of the one-child policy, but Zhai Zhenwu, director of Renmin University's School of Sociology and Population in Beijing, estimates that less than 1% of the 16 million babies born each year are "out of plan."

Robocalls are bad enough but now we've got robotexts.

During Tuesday's edition of "Andrea Mitchell Reports," correspondent Peter Alexander said that some Iowans received text messages Tuesday morning urging them to call an in-state phone number.

When they did so, they heard "a recording of Mitt Romney's comments from 1994, where his convictions on the pro-life, the abortion, debate have really been in question."

In California, Willie Hines Jr. has pleaded not guilty to murdering Tatjana Cruz and her unborn child.


A Texas man has been arrested for a stem cell scheme in which he made $1.5 million for injecting stem cells into patients with diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis. His scam was featured on 60 Minutes in 2010.

According to a 19-page indictment filed in Houston's federal courthouse in November, Morales oversaw the purchase umbilical cords and placentas from a maternity clinic in Del Rio, Texas.

Morales allegedly had the genetic materials shipped to a lab in Arizona where they were forwarded into the hands of a South Carolina pathologist who harvested the stem cells.

According to the 15-count indictment, Morales would use the stem cells in Mexico as medical treatments for cancer, multiple sclerosis and procedures that are not approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

New research is showing that performing an autopsy on the remains of stillborn children can provide information about a possible or probable cause.

In fact, the study of 512 stillborns -- a fetal death in the second half of pregnancy -- found the most common causes were obstetric complications, including preterm labor and premature rupturing of the amniotic sac, accounting for 29 percent of the deaths.

Life Links 12/22/11

One of the Planned Parenthood clinics which is closing in Washington provided RU-486 chemical abortions. Herald writer Sharon Salyer gets how RU-486 abortions work completely wrong.

The Oak Harbor clinic, which operated three days a week, served a little more than 1,000 patients, said Kristen Glundberg-Prossor, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman.

While surgical abortions were not performed at the site, women could prevent a pregnancy by getting from the clinic RU 486, the so-called abortion pill.

State Representative Margo Davidson, one of the Pennsylvania legislators who voted in favor of the new abortion clinic regulations, was related to Semika Shaw, one of abortionist Kermit Gosnell's victims.

"I honor her memory by voting for this bill," Davidson told her colleagues Wednesday after the controversial measure was approved. "So women will no longer walk into a licensed health-care facility and be butchered as she was."
......
Shaw's death, which led to a $900,000 insurance settlement, was central to the grand jury's conclusion that state officials had failed to inspect the clinic for two decades and repeatedly ignored complaints of possible criminal activity there.

Davidson, 49, who grew up in same Mantua neighborhood where Shaw lived and the Gosnell clinic was located, said her young cousin probably sought an abortion because she had two young children and realized that as a single woman, she could not support a third. The grand jury report said Shaw had four previous abortions.

Little wonder the clinic wasn't inspected in those days, Davidson reasoned. "The regulations regarding inspection were only policy," the legislator said. "It was not mandated by the law."

In Australia, a 42-year-old woman died after undergoing an abortion at the same abortion clinic where abortion clinic anesthesiologist James Peters infected dozens of women with hepatitis C. The clinic is run by Marie Stopes International.


A woman in the UK spent the last 3 months of her pregnancy in a tilted hospital bed to reduce the risk of miscarriage.

Donna Kelly, 29, was told five months into her pregnancy that her baby was just an inch from the top of her cervix and at risk of "falling out".

So doctors made her lie in a hospital bed tilted at 45 degrees to reduce the pressure.

Georgia abortionist charged with Medicaid fraud, billed abortions as new patient visits

Georgia-based abortionist Tyrone Malloy has been indicted on Medicaid fraud. He and his former office manager allegedly billed the federal government over $100,000 for abortions over a nearly 3 year period. They also allegedly billed the government for ultrasounds they didn't perform. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The alleged fraud occurred at Malloy's Old National Gynecology, a medical practice in the 6200 block of Old National Highway in College Park, whose website says it specializes in first-trimester abortions.

According to the indictment, between Dec. 9, 2007 and Aug. 9, 2010, the defendants billed the Georgia Medicaid program approximately $131,615 for new patient visits when, in reality, the visits were for elective abortions.

The Georgia Medicaid program is funded jointly by the state and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Under federal law known as the Hyde Amendment, federal funds cannot be used for elective abortion services; nor are abortions covered by Georgia Medicaid, the indictment states.

Malloy and Warner also are charged in the indictment with billing Georgia Medicaid about $255,024 for detailed ultrasounds that actually were never performed during the same period from 2007 through 2010.

Life Links 12/19/11

In the Washington Post, Marc Thiessen discusses Newt Gingrich's various statements on when life begins and embryonic stem cell research.


The Guttmacher Institute has published new research which looks at the demographics of women who have abortions after 12 weeks. The studies findings include that black women and teens were more likely to have later term abortions than other segments of the population and that later term abortions were more likely to be paid for with health insurance.

Here's abortion advocate/journalist Sarah Kliff's write-up.


A California woman, whose name has not been released, has died after being beaten by her unborn child's father. She was 20 weeks pregnant and her child died immediately after the attack and she died a couple of days later. Police are now looking for Willie Davis Hines Jr.

San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies received a report of a domestic disturbance at 4:44 p.m. They discovered the victim, a 24-year-old woman, was knocked unconscious by Hines during a fight. The unnamed victim was flown to a hospital for treatment of critical head and upper body injuries. Doctors discovered the woman's 20-week-old fetus had died.

St. Louis Today has the story of Melinda Star Guido, a child who was born at 24 weeks, weighing nine ounces. She now weighs over 4 pounds.

Melinda was just 270 grams at birth — roughly the size of a soda can. When a baby is that small, doctors say it is anybody's guess what will happen. There is little research about long-term survival. Doctors across the nation often let babies weighing less than 400 grams die, Ramanathan said.

Planned Parenthood resumes abortions at two Arizona facilities

Planned Parenthood of Arizona has announced that they will resume providing abortion at two clinic as they either found another abortionist to provide them (they were using nurse practitioners until Arizona law squashed that) or their current abortionists have become more willing to travel.

The organization halted abortion services at all but three clinics statewide in late August after several state laws went into effect requiring that only physicians dispense medication abortion pills or perform first-trimester surgical abortions. Before, a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant could perform those duties. Planned Parenthood at the time was unable to find enough doctors to continue providing abortions at all of its locations, particularly those in the more rural areas of Flagstaff, Yuma and Prescott Valley.

The only three clinics that continued to provide abortions were in Tucson, Tempe and Glendale.

Planned Parenthood of Arizona CEO Bryan Howard said they now have enough doctors to serve five locations in the Tucson and Phoenix metro areas. He said they are still trying to find doctors in the rural areas so they can re-open those clinics.

Bryan Howard again restates that 20% of Planned Parenthood of Arizona's patients are looking for abortions.

According to Howard, about 50,000 Arizona women seek care from Planned Parenthood's 13 clinics each year, about 10,000 of them for abortions. The rest are for a variety of health-care needs, including birth control, vaccinations, cancer screenings and annual gynecological exams.

Howard also notes that the abortion restrictions have likely lowered the number of abortions performed on women from rural communities (which undermines the pro-choice talking point that abortion restrictions don't prevent abortions).

Life Links 12/15/11

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article on Katie Sharify, the last patient in Geron's now-canceled study, who was recently injected with cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. It's tragic the false hope this young woman has been given. While doctors tell her that the cells aren't likely to help her, she seems to not know about adult stem cell research into paralysis and her expectations of what embryonic stem cells are going to do in the future is completely unrealistic. At first she wasn't convinced, then a surgeon talked her into it, likely citing a first-of-its-kind-must-be-super-important kind of reasoning and downplaying possible risks.

Sharify said she wasn't immediately sure she wanted to participate in the study. She didn't know a lot about embryonic stem cells other than that they were controversial. She knew she'd be getting a treatment that was considered fairly safe, but was also experimental. Her parents were even less enthusiastic.

The entire family debated the treatment up until the night before the surgery. In the end, it was the surgeon from Stanford who would be injecting the actual stem cells who convinced her.

"After talking to him, I knew this was a really big deal," Sharify said. "I'd been trying to find the reason all of this happened to me."

National Right to Life PAC and Nebraska Right to Life PAC will be working against Senator Ben Nelson in 2012 if he seeks re-election because of his vote on health care legislation.

"Ben Nelson cannot win in Nebraska without pro-life support and he won't have it. No pro-lifer should even consider supporting Ben Nelson for re-election," David O'Steen, the national group's director, said in a statement.

Whether or not Nelson will seek reelection is one the biggest open questions in the race for control of the Senate. Democratic leaders have kept mum about their conversations with Nelson, who told The Hill on Tuesday that he could make a decision as early as next week.

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been indicted for his illegal prescription business, which was the only reason his house of horrors abortion clinic got raided in the first place.

Authorities said the doctor wrote hundreds of prescriptions a month, topping out at 2,300 prescriptions in January 2010, the month before federal drug and FBI agents raided the clinic.....

According to prosecutors, patients paid $115 to $150 for the prescriptions and received cursory, if any, examinations. They were allowed to purchase multiple prescriptions under different names, authorities said.

Gosnell and his staff dispensed some of the medicine over the 20 months covered by the indictment, including more than 900,000 pills and 19,000 ounces of cough syrup with codeine, authorities said.

USA Today, CNN and MSNBC covered last night's abortion forum in Iowa.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Iowa polls, won the biggest applause from the crowd tonight – and aimed his remarks at his competitors.

"I have some problems with some of the folks who running for office these days when they say, ‘I believe life begins at conception.' That's like, I say, ‘I believe the sun rises.'" Santorum said, to laughs.

"Why would you say you believe something that's a fact?" Santorum added.

Abortionist's wife pleads guilty

Pearl Gosnell, the wife of infamous Philadelphia abortion Kermit Gosnell, has pled guilty to a variety of charges related to her helping him abort children at the Women's Medical Society abortion clinic. She won't testify against her husband at trial.

Pearl Gosnell, 50, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to performing an abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy, two counts of conspiracy and participating in a corrupt organization, according to court documents.....

Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner set Pearl Gosnell's sentencing for Feb. 15. He warned Gosnell that she faces up to 54 years in prison, but that her actual sentence would not be "nearly that long," according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The lawyers in the case are under a gag order. However, defense attorney F. Michael Medway confirmed to the Inquirer that Pearl Gosnell would not testify against her husband at trial, which is her legal privilege.

Life Links 12/13/11

The federal government denied a request from the state of Texas which would have prevented Medicaid patients from using family planning money at abortion clinic.

As for the state's request to ban clinics that perform abortions from getting money through the Women's Health Program under a separate Medicaid waiver, Mann said it violated federal law.

"Medicaid does not pay for abortions and will not pay for abortions," Mann said. "The issue here is not whether Medicaid funding is involved, but whether a state can restrict access to a qualified health provider simply because they provide other services that Medicaid doesn't pay for. The law does not permit this."

"We are disappointed in the decision, which is inconsistent with federal law that gives states the authority to establish qualifications for Medicaid providers," said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for Texas Health and Human Services.

The Wall Street Journal's William McGurn writes about Kathleen Sebelius' plan to impose a contraceptive coverage mandate on employers, including Catholic employers.

Whether you approve or disapprove of contraception or sterilization is beside the point. Today nine out of 10 employer plans offer what Mrs. Sebelius wants them to. The point is whether it is right or necessary for Mrs. Sebelius to use the federal government to bring the other 10% to heel.

There was a day when liberals and libertarians appreciated the importance of upholding the freedoms of people and groups with unpopular views. No longer. As government expands, religious liberty is reduced to a special "exemption" and concerns about government coercion are dismissed, in the memorable words of Nancy Pelosi, as "this conscience thing."

Another study with iPS cells out of Stanford shows how their potential to be used to model genetic diseases far outreaches embryonic stem cells due to the ease of obtaining them from patients with genetic disease as opposed to attempting to find embryos with genetic diseases, then kill them and obtain their embryonic stem cells.

Stanford University School of Medicine investigators have shown that iPS cells, viewed as a possible alternative to human embryonic stem cells, can mirror the defining defects of a genetic condition — in this instance, Marfan syndrome — as well as embryonic stem cells can. An immediate implication is that iPS cells could be used to examine the molecular aspects of Marfan on a personalized basis. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, can't do this because their genetic contents are those of the donated embryo, not the patient's.

This proof-of-principle regarding the utility of induced pluripotent stem cells also has more universal significance, as it advances the credibility of an exciting approach that's been wildly acclaimed by some and viewed through gimlet eyes by others: the prospect of using iPS cells in modeling a broad range of human diseases. These cells, unlike ESCs, are easily obtained from virtually anyone and harbor a genetic background identical to the patient from which they were derived. Moreover, they carry none of the ethical controversy associated with the necessity of destroying embryos.

Life Links 12/12/11

Newsweek's The Daily Beast has a long story on Jennie McCormick, the woman in Idaho who aborted a later-term pregnancy using RU-486 and then put her dead child in a box on the back porch.

McCormack, who thought she was about 12 weeks along, took the pills (the protocol involves two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol) the afternoon they arrived. The drugs are FDA-approved only for ending early-stage pregnancies; McCormack had no complications, but the pregnancy turned out to be more advanced than she thought—perhaps between 18 and 21 weeks, experts later speculated—and the size of the fetus scared her. She didn't know what to do—"I was paralyzed," she says—so she put it in a box on her porch, and, terrified, called a friend. That friend then called his sister, who reported McCormack to the police.

The author, Nancy Hess, includes this absurd claim about fetal pain with no source given.

(Virtually all research on the subject shows that fetuses cannot distinguish pain until as late as the 30th week of gestation.)

ABC News has a report from Elizabeth Vargas on sex-selection abortion and infanticide in India.


Hilarious Amanda Marcotte quote of the week (my emphasis):

But don't take my word for it. David Dayen at Firedoglake quoted respected and non-ideological pollster Celinda Lake on the issue:

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said she could "not even remotely" understand the political calculus of the decision, saying it "alienates the base, causes conflict with women in the base, [is] bad for key groups of women like younger women and unmarried women, and doesn't win the swing independent women."

It's one thing to ignorantly claim Celinda Lake is non-ideological. It's another to say she's non-ideological and then post a quote which the author identifies Lake as being a Democratic pollster.

Pro-choice advocates: Back-alley abortions? Who cares?

Among the numerous foolish claims in this RH Reality Check piece questioning why self-inducing a post-24 week abortion should be illegal, Steph Herold and Susan Yanow claim:

In spite of ever-increasing restrictions, abortion is legal through the second-trimester throughout the United States, although it is inaccessible to many women.

Yet the arrested woman self-aborted her child in New York City, the abortion capital of America where tax dollars pay for the abortions of poor women and 41% of pregnancies end in abortion.

How is abortion inaccessible in New York City?

It's not as Herold and Yanow admit later noting the woman had virtually unfettered access to abortion.

Women in New York City have much better access to abortion care than Ms. McCormack did. New York State allows state Medicaid funds to cover abortion services, and there are a number of clinics in New York City that provide abortion care through 24 weeks. New York also does not have the restrictions, such as waiting periods and parental consent, that are insurmountable barriers for women in many other states. So why would a woman in New York City decide to end her pregnancy by herself?

What's interesting here is that if the woman in question had self-aborted in a state with abortion restrictions, pro-abort individuals and organizations would be screaming from the mountaintops about how draconian prolife laws forced this woman into a dangerous situation where she felt she had to self-abort. But since the incident took place in America's abortion capital, we're informed how safe self-abortion supposedly is (at 24+ weeks - are you kidding me!) and told it shouldn't be a crime.

We do not have enough information to guess whether or not this woman fell through the gaps in the social support and health net, or made a conscious choice to end her pregnancy in a way that she felt most comfortable. But why is self-treating an unwanted pregnancy a crime?

We certainly should do everything possible to provide excellent information to women about services and fight to keep abortion care widely available and accessible. But if a woman decides that the best thing for her to do is to self-induce an abortion, she should have access to the best information available on how to do this safely (ie with medicines, NOT herbs) and know where to go in case of a complication.

Reason pro-choice Canadian won't debate: "We already won" yet we still have lots to do

Try to make sense of these two posts from Abortion Monologues writer Jane.

First, she claims the reason pro-choicers in Canada are unwilling to debate prolifers is because they've "already won." While it's true that abortion is legal in Canada that hardly means pro-choicers have won the debate over abortion.

In her next post, Jane claims her time is better spent advocating for abortion (but wait - I thought you already won?) as opposed to trying to provide a defense of abortion that doesn't get completely destroyed in a minute of cross-examination.

I would wager $100 that for any other cause where the law isn't on Jane's side, she wouldn't be claiming that the other side has already won and debating was pointless.

Life Links 12/8/11

On Wednesday, authorities arrested a man enlisted in the Navy named Joseph Devia for allegedly killing Omoyeme Erazua, a pregnant woman he had apparently impregnated, after see refused to have an abortion.

Erazua's body was discovered on a Houston street. An autopsy showed she had been stabbed in the neck about 20 times.

A purse found with the body contained a cellphone that showed calls and text messages between Erazua and Devia indicating Devia believed he was the child's father. The messages also indicated Devia wanted Erazua to have an abortion and that she had refused, according to a complaint filed by the Harris County district attorney's office cited in the Houston Chronicle.

At least 4 presidential candidates (Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum and Perry) have signed up to attend an abortion forum in Iowa.


Former Planned Parenthood manager Abby Johnson has been hired as Senior Policy Advisor by Americans United for Life.


Michael New reviews a recent study on abortion legislation in Europe which, as he notes, "shows nothing."

Methodological shortcomings aside, the findings themselves should cause pro-lifers little concern. The only restrictions the study analyzes are country-wide requirements that a woman must demonstrate 1) a physical-health reason, 2) a mental-health reason, or 3) a socio-economic reason before having an abortion. The study finds that five EU countries that require that women demonstrate a reason for obtaining an abortion (Spain, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Finland, and the U.K.) have similar abortion rates to EU countries where abortion is available on demand. However, the findings support what pro-lifers have been saying for years, that health exceptions (and other exceptions) are too broad and fail to provide any real protection to the unborn.

Life Links 12/6/11

Newt Gingrich's communication director Joe DeSantis has clarified to prolife bloggers that Gingrich believes life begins at fertilization.

I still haven't seen any defense or reasoning for Gingrich's comments to ABC's Jake Tapper in which he specifically said he thought life began at implantation and provided his reasoning for that belief. It seems rather far fetched to believe he got implantation and fertilization confused. I'm not buying this at all.


British abortion provider BPAS is encouraging women to stock up on emergency contraception during the Christmas season and promoting a new service which allows women to get the pill for free with a phone call.


The trial of the Australian abortion clinic ananaesthetist who infected more than 50 women with Hepatitis C is under way.


The Daily Caller has a piece on embryonic stem cell research by Neil Munro which discusses the intentional hyping of embryonic stem cell research by scientists and Democrats. It has these interesting quotes by bioethicist Art Caplan who recently did a 180 on embryonic stem cell research.

"By hyping stem cells, the Democratic guys could accuse [conservatives] of being anti-science," said Caplan. "Those deals were wink-wink deals, but they were going on," he said.....

The mass media aligned with the Democrats "because the science community and the patients' community was on the pro-[embryo stem-cell] side," said Caplan. "They tended to listen to those voices more than the political [conservatives] and religious [advocates] and few scientists" pushing the rival technologies, he said.

Caplan was one of those guys accusing conservatives, especially President Bush, of being anti-science. He was one of the key voices on the pro-embryonic stem cell side the mass media turned to for an opinion which invariably promoted embryonic stem cell research while downplaying alternatives.

I welcome converts to the "embryonic stem cell research was completely hyped" tent but converts like Caplan should admit they were among the hypers and apologize for their attacks on prolifers who were right about the science.

Life Links 12/5/11

After his odd and competing statements on when life begins and embryonic stem cell research, Newt Gingrich's campaign has gone into damage control and published a statement on their web site which says Gingrich believes that "life begins at conception." It never notes what Gingrich means by conception. Unfortunately, the definition of conception (which should by synonymous with fertilization) has been manipulated to where some people think it means the same thing as implantation. Clarification needed.


The New York Times features on article on the prolife factions in Ohio and the heartbeat bill.


A former abortionist at Marie Stopes abortion clinics in the UK has been disqualified from practicing medicine. One of the patients whose care Phanuel Dartey botched was a woman seeking an abortion.

One of the five cases involved an unidentified Irishwoman whose uterus was perforated. The patient was also left with parts of her fetus inside her during the 2006 procedure.

The woman had to be rushed to hospital on her return to Ireland and was in a critical condition for two months before eventually recovering.

Defending prolife legislation can be expensive. In Kansas, for example:

After about six months, the state has tallied $392,520 in legal bills stemming from attempts to restrict abortion that were pushed during the legislative session earlier this year.

The state spent $237,834 on private lawyers defending efforts to strip Planned Parenthood of federal family planning funds. It has laid out $94,380 defending new rules for abortion clinics.

New York NOW is upset a New York woman has been arrested and charged for self-abortion.

Gingrich's position on implantation/embryonic stem cell research is nonsensical

Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich talked with ABC's Jake Tapper about abortion, when life begins and embryonic stem cell research. While Gingrich is supposedly the intellectual candidate in the field, his answers are far from thoughtful.

I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life. because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions.

So instead of basing when he thinks life begins on something like....I don't know... science, Gingrich appears to base it on his desire to avoid difficult questions.

Tapper seeks clarification:

TAPPER: So implantation is the moment for you.

GINGRICH: Implantation and successful implantation. In addition I would say that I’ve never been for embryonic stem cell research per se. I have been for, there are a lot of different ways to get embryonic stem cells. I think if you can get embryonic stem cells for example from placental blood if you can get it in ways that do not involve the loss of a life that’s a perfectly legitimate avenue of approach.

What I reject is the idea that we’re going to take one life for the purpose of doing research for other purposes and I think that crosses a threshold of de-humanizing us that’s very very dangerous.

If life begins at implantation (as Gingrich asserts) then why would he think that the killing human embryos who haven't implanted would "involve the loss of a life" and would cross "a threshold of de-humanizing us"?

His views make absolutely no sense. He completely contradicts himself in the span of a few sentences.

New York woman charged with self-abortion

Yesterday, I linked to a story about the body of an approximately 24-week-old unborn child being found in a Manhattan dumpster. Now authorities have charged 20-year-old Yaribely Almonte with performing an abortion on herself.

Yaribely Almonte was charged with self abortion in the first degree, a misdemeanor which carries a punishment of up to a year in jail.

It was initially unclear how police connected the fetus to Almonte, but a law enforcement official said that she admitted to police that she had purposefully induced an abortion. It was not immediately clear how Almonte is alleged to have done this.

Under the state law, it's illegal for a woman who has been pregnant for 24 week or more to commit or submit to "an abortional act upon herself which causes her miscarriage." The exception to the law is if a licensed doctor performs the abortion after determining that the mother's life would otherwise be in danger.

Life Links 12/1/11

Slate's William Saletan (a pro-choicer who favors some abortion restrictions) describes his debate with Ann Furedi regarding limits on late-term abortion and while his conclusion (cognition, interaction and viability make humans valuable) is wrong, he still points to some major flaws in her beliefs:

If, as Furedi says, viability makes no particular difference, then why stop at birth? In our debate, I pointed out that the neural development trajectory outlined in "The Emergence of Human Consciousness: From Fetal to Neonatal Life" doesn't end at birth. It runs through the first three years of life. If a child's ability to survive on its own makes no difference, and if neural development adds no binding significance to the fetus's original dispensability, then who are you to impose your values on Susan Smith, Andrea Yates, or Marilyn Lemak? If a woman feels that eight, 18, or 28 weeks after birth isn't too late for her, shouldn't we trust her judgment?

Interestingly, Salean is unable to see that his own arbitrary criteria for limiting abortion could also lead to the killing of some born human beings.


On Tuesday, Circuit Judge William Gowan entered the default judgment in favor of Daschica Thomas who sued longtime Mississippi abortionist Joseph Booker in 2005 after a botched abortion in 2003 put her in a coma for a week. Booker didn't show for the hearing and his former lawyer doesn't know where to find him. He no longer works at Mississippi's lone abortion clinic.

The lawsuit claims that Booker wasn't the doctor originally scheduled to perform the abortion, but the other doctor was out that day. When Booker was performing the abortion, he allegedly stopped abruptly, said he couldn't finish it and told Thomas to come back so it could be completed by the other doctor.

The lawsuit claims a "reasonably prudent" physician would have treated Thomas with antibiotics because of her diabetes, but Booker didn't. Thomas allegedly came down with a blood infection, went into a coma and needed blood transfusions. The lawsuit also claims, among other things, that Thomas couldn't have children after the abortion and that her husband lost his job for missing work while caring for her.

Booker performed abortions in Mississippi for years and found himself in controversial situations before.

Here's an interview Booker did after the death of George Tiller.


The Illinois Supreme Court will take up Illinois' parental notification law which has been in limbo since 1995.


At the NY Times Opinionator Gary Gutting discusses personhood, abortion and logic.

The basic problem is that, once we give up the claim that a fertilized egg is a human person (has full moral standing), there is no plausible basis for claiming that all further stages of development are human persons. The DNA criterion seems to be the only criterion of being human that applies at every stage from conception to birth. If we agree that it does not apply at the earliest stages of gestation, there is no basis for claiming that every abortion is the killing of an innocent human person.

Trent Franks has introduced a bill to ban sex-selection abortions on the federal level. The usual suspects are opposed to the bill as they favor ensuring access to "culturally competent medical care."

n a letter to Congress co-signed by over 30 pro-choice groups — including Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Center for Reproductive Rights — laid out their case, explaining that Franks' bill was "simply more of the same from the anti-choice extremists choice extremists in the House" and urged Congress to oppose the initiative.

"[T]he bill will effectively exacerbate already existing disparities by limiting some women's access to comprehensive reproductive health care and penalizing health care providers," they wrote. "Instead of addressing health disparities and ensuring accessible and culturally competent medical care for all women, the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act will further isolate and stigmatize some women — particularly those in the Asian American and Pacific Islander and African American communities — from exercising their fundamental human right to make and implement decisions about their reproductive lives."

Life Links 11/30/11

Kathleen Parker writes about Mitt Romney's prolife conversion.

he result of that conversation and others was a pro-life Romney, who kept his campaign promise to honor the state's democratically asserted preference for abortion choice but also began a personal path that happened to serve him well, at least theoretically, among social conservatives. Was his conversion sincere? No one can know another's heart, but Hurlbut is convinced that it was.

"Several things about our conversation still stand out strongly in my mind," Hurlbut told me. "First, he clearly recognized the significance of the issue, not just as a current controversy but as a matter that would define the character of our culture way into the future.

"Second, it was obvious that he had put in a real effort to understand both the scientific prospects and the broader social implications. Finally, I was impressed by both his clarity of mind and sincerity of heart. . . . He recognized that this was not a matter of purely abstract theory or merely pragmatic governance, but a crucial moment in how we are to regard nascent human life and the broader meaning of medicine in the service of life."

Washington Post's Breaking News Blog covers the Maryland Board of Physicians decision to close its investigation into abortionist LeRoy Carhart's failure to disclose how he would be performing late-term abortions in Maryland.


The National Catholic Reporter has a piece on Democrats for Life. Of note is DFL's continued support for Senator Bob Casey despite his rather lackluster voting record.


A human child at 24 weeks gestation was found in a trash can in Manhattan.

"The way I found it was perfectly placed, covered with garbage," said Gregory Santana, 20, who is the son of the building's super.

"It was inside a small bucket, inside a couple of extra bags," he said. "I ripped it open, immediately saw the baby [and\] closed it back up."

Life Links 11/29/11

The Northern Illinois Women's Center abortion clinic in Rockford will stay closed until at least January 4, 2012, when attorney for both the abortion clinic and the state health department will have another hearing.


Lea Singh writes about the upcoming Gosnell murder case and the acceptance of late term abortion amongst some.

And yet, late-term abortions, effectively right up to the moment of natural birth, are not illegal in Canada or in many parts of the United States. If Gosnell had chosen to act in medically acceptable ways by dismembering or killing the fetus within the womb just before removing it, he would likely be a hero in the eyes of many for providing an essential service that empowers women. Who knows, he could have gotten the highest civilian award -- a mere three years ago we bestowed the Order of Canada upon Henry Morgentaler, a man who claims to have personally performed over 100,000 abortions.

Is it just me, or is there something sickly schizophrenic about a society that huffs and puffs in outrage at the killing of a baby in the light of day, but quietly supports it when it happens in the darkness of the womb? We are talking about the very same baby here, at the exact same moment of gestation, the only difference being the location of the demise. If we can kill a baby within the womb, why not outside of the womb? Viable babies are being put to death in late-term abortion clinics all over the United States, perhaps some in Canada. We call it "abortion" but in the light of day, these actions clearly are "murder".

Apparently, some pro-choicers at Harvard aren't big fans of tolerance. From Aurora Griffin's op-ed in the Harvard Crimson:

In response to the growing hostility toward discussion of the abortion issue on campus and dissolution into name-calling, as seen in the impressively consistent vandalism of Harvard Right to Life's poster campaigns, I'd like to present a philosophical argument for the pro-life position. HRL's innocuous "Smile, your mom chose life." posters have been ripped down within hours of posting almost without exception. At a school where free speech and diversity are valued so highly, this is a travesty.

Why the pro-choice movement is losing?

I think one reason is they typically just aren't very good at persuasion. Here's Ann Furedi attempting to argue there should be no limits on abortion.

What we have to ask ourselves is whether there needs to be any policy intervention or social intervention to change or regulate what is going on at the moment. And I don't think there does. There is no evidence to suggest that we need to restrict later abortions in any way, by enforcing legal time limits. And I certainly don't see any reason to think that doctors are abusing the current situation, or indeed that women are abusing the current situation......

Does late abortion have a detrimental effect on society? No, I really don't think it does. There is no evidence that the number of women requesting late abortions is increasing. The figures remain very much the same. However, does the idea that we can override who makes these decisions about late abortion have a detrimental effect on society? Yes, I really believe it does. Because what we're really saying when we argue that an earlier time limit needs to be imposed is that we don't trust women's decisions, and we don't trust doctor's decisions.

Notice the complete lack of evidence and thoughtfulness. Furedi's reasons for why something should be or shouldn't are as follows: "I don't think there does", "I certainly don't see any reason to think", "I really don't think it does" and "I really believe it does."

It's like the end all and be all of evidence for Ann Furedi is what she believes.

This is how elementary school children argue. Yet she's one of (if not the) leading voice for abortion in the UK.

Life Links 11/28/11

The Washington Post is covering the case of the New Jersey hospital attempting to force nurses to assist in abortions.

One of the nurses, Fe Esperanza R. Vinoya, said a manager told her: "‘You just have to catch the baby's head. Don't worry, it's already dead.' "

The ACLU says who cares about conscience, nurses should be forced to catch dead baby heads.

"These are health-care professionals who work at a publicly funded hospital saying that they do not want to do the job they were hired to do, including caring for a woman before or after surgery," said Jennifer Dalven of the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project. "People have a right to their beliefs, but that shouldn't give them the right to discriminate against patients who need medical care."

A prolife group in New Zealand used a location of statue featuring a large hand holding a tiny baby child to launch balloons and spread the prolife message. The group which commissioned the statue and the clueless artist are upset.

Meanwhile, a surprised Mr Vincent said the anti-abortion group's message was not the intent of his sculpture.

"Voices Against Violence was the organisation that commissioned it, and it's about nurturing and protecting the most vulnerable in our community, which is children."

The Californian has a long story on a couple whose child's spina bifida was repaired in the womb.

"The ultrasound tech was nervous; you could tell something was wrong," Marriah said earlier this year in the couple's Winchester home. "She told us, 'The fetus would have been a girl.' People abort babies with spina bifida. That's what you do. I said I didn't want anything to do with abortion."
......
A team of 27 medical professionals performed the procedure. Marriah's uterus was removed and placed on her stomach. Doctors entered the uterus and the still-forming fetal spine and attached fetal skin to the hole in the fetus's lower back. The uterus then was replaced inside Marriah and she was sewn back up. After the surgery, she was bedridden for three months while her baby continued to grow....

Kaleah Erin Peltzer was born Oct. 18, 2010, by Cesarean section. Although premature, she was a healthy baby girl.

"She was our miracle baby," Marriah said.

A Nashville woman has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit, alleging the treatment she received while in jail caused her to miscarry and then jail staff improperly disposed of the child's baby.

Allison said prison staff denied her requests to take another test and other medical requests until Nov. 13, 2010, her birthday, when she began to experience "sudden and excruciating abdominal pain" during a Bible study.

Allison said she went across the hall to a bathroom, was bleeding profusely and miscarried into a toilet. She was later taken to Nashville General Hospital.

Prison employees were under instructions from paramedics and a doctor to preserve the fetus, according to the lawsuit, but their attempts to unclog the toilet destroyed it.

Life Links 11/22/11

CNN has an article on a clinical trial using fetal stem cells from an aborted child in an attempt to treat ALS.

In an operation than lasted about four hours, Grosjean received five injections into the cervical, or neck, area of his spinal cord, each delivering 100,000 cells. The cells came from Maryland-based biotech company Neuralstem, which is funding this clinical trial and devised a procedure to grow millions and millions of motor neuron cells from the donated spinal cord tissue of an 8-week-old aborted fetus.

In the UK, updated figures from the Department of Health show that Britain is spending much more than they originally thought on abortion.

Campaigners say the new calculations provide more reason to stop the organisations that offer counselling to pregnant women also performing terminations, which are now estimated to cost £680 each, on the grounds that it represents a conflict of interest.

They are calling for spending watchdogs to investigate why Parliament was "misled" over the scale of the "abortion industry".......

Under the updated figures, taxpayers spent £118m on abortions in 2010, of which £75m went to private clinics and just £44m to NHS bodies.

The total number of terminations carried out in England rises from 136,000 to 173,000 and the cost of each one from £660 to £680 under the revised figures.

Herman Cain has signed Susan B. Anthony List's Pro-Life Presidential Leadership Pledge.

Michigan Attorney General shuts down two abortion clinics for good

From the AG Bill Schuette's press release:

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced the permanent dissolution of Health Care Clinic, of Delta Township, and the affiliated Women's Choice Clinic, of Saginaw, in response to a lawsuit filed by his office alleging the clinics were operating without the proper physician ownership required by State law. According to an agreement submitted by Schuette and the clinics' owner and approved by Eaton County Circuit Court Judge Calvin E. Osterhaven, the clinics will permanently dissolve. The clinics' owner, Richard Remund, as well as his wife and corporate officer, Margaret Remund, are banned from ever organizing another abortion clinic.

"Profit should never come before patient safety, and that's why state law requires medical facilities to be run by licensed medical professionals," said Schuette. "Facilities that fail to follow this important safeguard should not be in business."

According to paperwork filed with the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), the clinics, which have been closed under temporary restraining order since Schuette filed suit on November 7, 2011, have now officially been dissolved. A consent order approved in Eaton County Circuit Court today makes that dissolution permanent.

Life Links 11/21/11

Ramesh Ponnuru notes presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's history (which includes various quotes noting his favoring of funding research using "cells in a fertility clinic") with human embryonic stem cell research.


In the meantime, Michelle Bachmann is going after Gingrich on abortion and claiming that he has "Failed to Meet a Consistently Pro-Life Standard."


Wesley Smith links to an article in the LA Times discussing the collapse of Geron's human embryonic stem cell research program. The article seems much more like an editorial. Reporter Eryn Brown makes this false assertion

"Many biotech start-ups benefit from hefty grants from the National Institutes of Health, but until 2009 the agency largely remained on the sidelines of embryonic stem cell research."

The NIH spent around $250 million on human embryonic stem cells from 2002-2008 and around $700 million on animal embryonic stem cell research for the same time period. I know spending in Washington is out of control but spending around $1 billion in 7 years on experimental research is hardly sitting on the sidelines.

Overheard - Pro-Choice Feminists rip Planned Parenthood, NARAL

Ninersgal at the Abortion Gang blog:

Here's the scoop: if PPFA didn't spend so much money on fancy pink posters and snazzy T-shirts, they might not need to shake the money tree so often.

Kalli Joy Gray at the Daily Kos:

I'm not saying Keenan and her organization don't mean well. Or that the big feminist advocacy organizations of this country serve no purpose at all. But this post reflects the kind of ineffectiveness and tone deafness that is so prevalent among those who monopolize so much of the conversation about women in this country. Far too little, far too late. With zero recognition of the work that a new generation of feminists is doing to fight for women

Pro-choicer Marie Diamond might want to try learning how to do some basic research before attempting to discredit prolifers

It amazing how little research some pro-choicers will do before attacking prolifers. Marie Diamond's piece in Think Progress is a perfect example.

She claims,

RH Reality Check explains that here was never any proof to support an anti-abortion activist's claim of finding fetal remains in an abortion clinic's dumpster, but the anti-abortion lobby has nevertheless used the story as an excuse to propose an unprecedented bill about the disposal of fetuses.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The RH Reality Check piece by Robin Marty which Diamond links to claims, "In the end, it turns out that there was no proof of mishandled remains." Notice how Marty says, "mishandled remains" as opposed to just saying remains. This sloppy language could confuse someone who can't do any research besides looking on pro-choice blogs (like Diamond) to believe there were no remains.

And as evidence for this claim, Marty links to another one of her posts which notes that "At the time, the AG said there was no documents found that violated HIPAA regulations."

Isn't that amazing how quickly that an assertion about documents found alongside the remains of aborted children and how dousing the remains with formaldehyde made it legal to dump them in the trash quickly turned into evidence that no remains of abortion children were found?

All it takes is a couple of sensationally lazy pro-choicers like Marty and Diamond who are much more focused on attacking prolifers than learning/telling the truth. Instead of accurately describing why no charges were filed and linking to an article sharing that information, Marty uses language which makes it seem like prolifers didn't find what they found.

Of course, Diamond's assertion that there was no proof of prolifers finding fetal remains in an abortion clinic dumpster is patently absurd considering prolifers took pictures of the remains, created a slide show of them and then publicly buried them in front of a crowd of approximately 1,000 people including a TV news crew.