Life Links 4/30/10

This is a not a good trend for the pro-choice movement.

Over the past three decades, men and women have consistently held similar views about the extent to which abortion should be legal. Typically, majorities of both sexes have said abortion should be "legal only under certain circumstances."

I wish Gallup would take the time to actually find out what people mean when the reply to "only certain circumstances."


Lawmakers in the Kansas House failed to override Governor Mark Parkinson's veto of legislation which would have changed Kansas' late-term abortion law.


Kathleen Parker's latest column discusses ultrasound legislation.

We all know what abortion is and, thanks to some of the sign-toting anti-abortion protesters — who do their cause no good — we know what abortion looks like. Shouldn’t pregnant women also know what their healthy fetus looks like before they hit delete?

This is a question lacking in sinister intent. What is sinister is the proposition that ignorance is better — and the implied hope that women won’t choose to reconsider.

Life Links 4/29/10

For Dignitas, death with dignity apparently means assisting in your suicide and then dumping your remains into a lake.

Dignitas boss Ludwig Minelli now faces up to three years jail and a £3,000 fine for carrying out unauthorised burials.

Police divers — who stumbled across the pile of urns while searching for a missing sunshade from one of their boats — believe as many as 300 may have been dumped.

Locals were outraged amid fears the popular bathing resort and a drinking water source had been contaminated.

And critics accused Dignitas — established to offer a dignified death to the terminally ill — of "fly tipping" the remains of clients to avoid funeral costs.

Police diver Roman Ruetz said: "We stopped counting at 50 urns - they're all lying on a heap."

In Italy, a 22-week child survived a botched abortion for more than a day after being abandoned.

The mother, pregnant for the first time, had opted for an abortion after prenatal scans suggested that her baby was disabled.

However, the infant survived the procedure, carried out on Saturday in the Rossano Calabro hospital, and was left by doctors to die.

He was discovered alive the following day – some 20 hours after the operation – by Father Antonio Martello, the hospital chaplain, who had gone to pray beside his body.

He found that the baby, wrapped in a sheet with his umbilical cord still attached, was moving and breathing.

The priest raised the alarm and doctors immediately arranged for the infant to be taken to a specialist neo-natal unit at the neighbouring Cosenza hospital, where he died on Monday morning.

Italian police are investigating the case for "homicide" because infanticide is illegal in Italy.

The law means that doctors have had an obligation to try to preserve the life of the child once he had survived the abortion.

What was President Barack Obama's position on children who survive abortions? Oh yeah, that's right.


The National Institutes of Health has re-approved 4 older embryonic stem cell lines after Wisconsin researchers were able to provide the required documentation. Even though the public was told over and over again by scientists how worthless the embryonic stem cell lines approved for federal funding under the Bush administration were, they still desperately wanted these older lines to be re-approved for funding under Obama's embryonic stem cell policy.


Two men were convicted of violating the Fair Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Richard Dugan and Theodore Puckett face up to six months in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Life Links 4/27/10

Michael Bloomberg assured NARAL luncheon attendees that New York City would remain the abortion capitol of the United States as long as he remains mayor. He also called on President Obama to nominate a pro-choice individual to the Supreme Court.


What does it take for a government diplomat in Great Britain to lose their job? Apparently, quite a bit because I'm struggling to imagine something stupider and more disrespectful than this.

Anjoum Noorani, 31, was the leader of the Papal Visit Team which drew up a document suggesting the Pope should launch his own range of “Benedict” condoms, open an abortion clinic and stay in a council flat in Bradford.

The Oklahoma legislature has overridden Governor Brad Henry veto of abortion-related bills.

Life Links 4/26/10

The Daily Mail has a story on Amanda Moore, Britain’s smallest mother who is 3 ft. 1 inch tall, and her 14-month old son, Aidan, who is 2 ft. 6 inches. When pregnant, doctors advisted Moore to abort.

She was born with 14 broken bones and resigned herself to never having children because experts feared that her tiny frame could not cope with a pregnancy. But she accidentally fell pregnant and defied doctors' advice to have an abortion.

Amanda said: 'Doctors advised me to have a termination and we did think about it. I didn't want to die and there was a real and likely possibility that the baby growing inside me would kill me.

'But at the same time I felt a strong love developing for our unborn child I just couldn't dismiss. We both wanted this baby so much.'

Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry vetoed two abortion-related bills on Friday and signed another one into law. The legislature plans to override his veto.


Two film makers are hoping to make a glowing documentary entitled “Trust Women” about abortionists George Tiller Warren Hern and LeRoy Carhart and their work aborting late-term unborn children.

This documentary will take audiences into the day-to-day lives of these inspiring doctors, providing audiences with a fresh perspective on this controversial issue. Dr. Hern and Dr. Carhart have met separately with the filmmakers and both are excited about the project and have agreed to provide as much access as possible. Rather than presenting these doctors as one-dimensional symbols of a divisive political battle, our film will use their everyday routines, personal convictions, and community relationships as gateways for understanding these brave individuals and the many women whose lives they touch.

I wonder if film makers Martha Shane and Lara Wilson will have the courage to include footage of late-term aborted children in this documentary.


Stand to Reason’s Brett Kunkle has posted videos of an abortion debate on the campus of Cal State San Marcos between STR’s Alan Shelmon and professor Cecili Chadwick.

Life Links 4/23/10

Jack Kevorkian likes the HBO biopic film about him entitled "You Don't Know Jack."

"I thought it was superb," says Kevorkian, who liked the authenticity of Pacino's performance. "He handled it the way I did it in court. He yelled like I yelled. And he had outbursts like I had. It's perfect."

Here's Michael Gerson on President Obama's supposed lack of an abortion litmus test.

During an Oval Office meeting with Senate leaders yesterday, President Obama symbolized the sorry, misleading state of public argument about the Supreme Court. He insisted that he has no “litmus test” on abortion for his Supreme Court nominee, while asserting that his choice will interpret “our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women’s rights. And that’s going to be something that’s very important to me.”

So no litmus test on abortion -- except the protection of “women’s rights,” which everyone in the room understood as a reference to abortion. Obama’s pose of neutrality came with a theatrical wink and nod. Everyone got the joke.

The Vatican is going to donate about $2.7 million for adult stem cell research being done at the University of Maryland.


Harlan Drake has been sentenced to life in prison for killing abortion protester Jim Pouillon and businessman Mike Fuoss.


I think it's hilarious when young pro-choicers attempt to defend the work they've done and then write something showing their utter ignorance. For example, here's Desiree Flores of the Ms. Foundation promoting her organization's work to defeat the Colorado personhood initiative. The ballot initiative was defeated 73%-27% (my emphasis).

For example, in November 2008, COLOR helped defeat by a slim margin a Colorado state ballot initiative on fetal personhood by launching a Spanish-language media campaign that tailored messages to a Latina/o audience and building partnerships with labor and racial justice groups to expand the base of support for reproductive justice in that election and beyond.

Where have all the pro-life Democrats gone?

Has some scientist who works with Planned Parenthood discovered a mixture of chemicals which, when injected, weakens the will and integrity of prolife Democrats?

Or does the desire for power and the conventional wisdom that a prolife Democrat won’t be given leadership positions or get elected to higher office make them abandon their once strong prolife beliefs.

The prolife positions rarely crumble all at once (though Dennis Kucinich's switch from 90% prolife voting record to favoring the legality of partial-birth abortion was pretty close) but instead start with favoring the funding of embryonic stem cell research or providing funding to organizations who provide abortion overseas.

The latest case of a prolife Democrat who certainly appears to be turning his back on the prolife movement appears to be Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon (who just happens to be running for governor).

During a question and answer session with Democrat party loyalists, Dillon said he was personalized opposed to killing human embryos for research but he thought it would help the state's economy.

Yesterday, the Michigan Senate by a vote of 25-12 passed a reasonable group of bills to regulate embryonic stem cell research (in line with the Constitutional proposal which was passed in 2008) and make researchers who use embryos to provide basic information about how many human embryos they are using.

In response to the passage of these bills, Andy Dillon issued a statement with the following:

"The Senate bills appear to be political in nature and ignore both the will of the people as well as the state's Constitution," House Speaker Andy Dillon said in a statement.

Watch out for that scary 'political' legislation?

Keirstead on the prowl

I wondered why embryonic stem cell researcher and promoter Hans Keirstead would leave a comment this week on a post I wrote almost 3 years ago.

Now I know why.

Life Links 4/22/10

Live Action is getting some local media coverage from their most recently released undercover film showing an abortion clinic employee in Kentucky not reporting sexual abuse between a 14-year-old girl and a 31-year-old man. The abortion clinic is standing by their employee.

"The reason why we would never report it at that point, for one thing, we don't know who the girl is," Ann said. "We don't have an ID on her. We don't know how old she is. We haven't done an ultrasound on her. We don't even know if she's pregnant."

Ann said the girls were not clients, but walked in off the street, and she said the person answering their questions was not a counselor, but the clinic's receptionist.

"These were not patients of ours," she said. "They didn't have an appointment and certainly, if we have young girls coming in through the door, we're going to answer their questions."

NARAL President Nancy Keenan responds to the group of young pro-choice bloggers who were upset that Keenan told Newsweek she didn’t see the same passion on the abortion issue from young pro-choicers compared to young prolifers. Basically: I’m sorry. There are young people involved in the pro-choice movement. Let’s continue this discussion.


Cassy Fiano had a rantastic reply to Jessica Valenti and her post about abortions for convenience:

The whole feminist philosophy is disgusting. They tell women to sleep around like men do. When women then get unintentionally pregnant (usually while unmarried), they tell the women to just kill the damn burden growing inside of you and throw it out like refuse. And NO, don’t you dare do any research about abortion, what your baby looks like, or the effect having an abortion can have on you. Just kill the damn thing and get back to your Womyn’s Studies classes because college is the MOST. IMPORTANT. THING. EVER! And no, you cannot do both, you must choose between being a pregnant, barefoot housewife in a kitchen or being a smart, single, feminist womyn with a degree in Gender Studies. If you have the baby you are contributing to the partiarchy! And you will be a victim! Do what we say! Don’t think for yourself!

It’s sickening, truly sickening.

Worst reason why emergency contraception doesn’t reduce pregnancies and abortions? Can someone make sense of this one at the RH Reality Check?

Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) are now available in many countries, but have failed to have the desired impact on unwanted pregnancy rates. Why is this? Earlier barriers to access are becoming less and less prevalent.

What? The reason emergency contraceptive haven’t shown a reduction in pregnancies and abortion (even in studies where women have been given a pack of them to use whenever they want) is because earlier barriers to access are becoming less prevalent?

Kentucky's Abortion Clinic: Minor? Statutory Rape? Not a problem.

Live Action has released yet another undercover video showing an abortion clinic employee in Kentucky who was willing to skirt state law and look the other way at statutory rape. From their press release:

Student-led pro-life group Live Action has released footage today of Kentucky’s only abortion provider, EMW Women’s Surgical Center, ignoring the sexual abuse of a child and giving misleading abortion counseling. The footage was taken by Live Action President Lila Rose and actor Jackie Stollar who posed undercover as minors with Rose telling the staff that she was 14-years-old and impregnated by her 31-year-old “boyfriend”.

In the video, the EMW counselor named “Wendy” determines that Rose is “14 to 15-weeks pregnant” and Rose expresses that she wants to keep the situation secret from her parents. Though Rose gave no indication that she would face abusive parents, the clinic directs Rose to call Louisville attorney Mickey Adams so that she can obtain a judicial bypass around Kentucky’s parental consent law and avoid parental knowledge of the abortion or sexually abusive relationship.

Life Links 4/21/10

Authorities in India have arrested a gynecologist in connection with the unborn children found near a garbage dump or in a garbage bin (depending on the source).

The accused Dr. Jayanti Patel said that on Monday while the clinic was being cleaned some jars containing the specimen foetuses were damaged accidentally, they said.....

However, Dr. Patel has been booked for unhygienic disposal of bio-medical waste and was being questioned further, police said.

The gender of the foetuses has not been released, but police said they had not ruled out that the case was due to illegal sex-selective abortion.

That took long enough. Police in Los Angeles have just discovered that a white powder which they obtained in October contained the abortion drug misoprostol. Police discovered the powder while arresting restaurant owner Joshua Woodward on suspicion of inducing a miscarriage in his girlfriend.


The Tennessee legislature has voted to opt out of abortion funding in health care reform. The votes appear to have veto-proof majorities.

The bill sponsored by Senate Republican Caucus Chairwoman Diane Black of Gallatin was approved 27-3 by the Senate Monday evening. It passed the House 70-23 earlier this month.

Sponsors say the federal health care bill allows states to opt out of abortion funding within new insurance plans that they're required to start. They say their proposal makes sure that Tennessee tax money doesn't pay for abortions within those plans.

The wife of NFL player Chris McAlister is claiming (through TMZ) that he kicked her out of their house after she refused to get an abortion.

Life Links 4/20/10

The Calgary Herald has an editorial by John Carpay defending the University of Calgary students who are being charged with "nonacademic misconduct" and have been threatened with expulsion for refusing to turn graphic images of abortion inward during an on-campus display.

Last year the U of C charged its own students with trespassing for having set up their pro-life display on campus. But the Crown Prosecutor's Office stayed the charges rather than go ahead with the trial. Nobody knows what the trial's outcome might have been, but the notion that tuition-paying students become "trespassers" on their own campus when exercising their free speech rights is both shocking and absurd.

U of C students Alanna Campbell, Leah Hallman, Cristina Perri, Ryan Wilson, Cameron Wilson, Peter Csillag, and Asia Strezynski stand charged with "nonacademic misconduct" for having refused the University's demand that they turn their pro-life display's signs inward such that no passersby could see the signs. The U of C has informed these students that their conduct is a "Major Violation" in the same category with theft, vandalism, fraud, sexual assault, firearms misuse, and selling drugs. The students face penalties which include expulsion from the university.

According to the Catholic News Agency, an 11-year-old girl in Mexico has refused an abortion. My Spanish is a bit rusty but I believe this is the article on which the CNA article is based. I believe the article notes that she was abused by her stepfather and is 17 weeks pregnant. Here's more information on the situation from CNN which says the girl is 10 years old.


Tulsa World has news on prolife bills in Oklahoma which passed the Senate and are now either heading back to House or to the governor's desk.


Marc Theissen has an editorial in the Washington Post about Nebraska's fetal pain legislation. I tend to agree with this sentiment.

But regardless of the legal outcome, a national discussion on the topic of "fetal pain" can only help the pro-life movement.

The bodies of more than a dozen aborted children were found near a garbage dump in India. Authorities suspect they were placed there by an abortion clinic which performs illegal sex selection abortions.

China: Violate one-child policy, get sterilized

According to the UK's Times Online, one county in China is in the midst of a campaign to sterilize 10,000 men and women who have violated the country's draconian one-child policy.

Family planning authorities are so determined to stop couples from producing more children than the regulations allow that they are detaining the relatives of those who resist.

About 1,300 people are being held in cramped conditions in towns across Puning county, in Guangdong Province, as officials try to put pressure on couples who have illegal children to come forward for sterilisation.

The 20-day campaign, which was launched on April 7, aims to complete 9,559 sterilisations in Puning, which, with a population of 2.24 million, is the most populous county in the province.

A doctor in Daba village said that his team was working flat out, beginning sterilisations every day at 8am and working straight through until 4am the following day.

I wonder if Thomas Friedman thinks forced sterilization is one of "politically difficult but critically important policies" put in place by the "reasonably enlightened group of people" leading China.

NARAL gets bad polling news

In Newsweek, Emily Kliff shares information discovered in a poll conducted by leading pro-choice organization NARAL. Young Americans who are opposed to abortion are much more likely than abortion supporters to consider the issue "very important."

A survey of 700 young Americans showed there was a stark "intensity gap" on abortion. More than half (51 percent) of young voters (under 30) who opposed abortion rights considered it a "very important" voting issue, compared with just 26 percent of abortion-rights supporters; a similar but smaller gap existed among older voters, too. Worse still for NARAL, the millennials surveyed didn't view abortion as an imperiled right in need of defenders. As one young mother in a focus group told NARAL, it seemed to her that abortion was easily accessible. How did she know? The parking lot at her local clinic, she told them, was always full.

The news for prolifers isn't necessarily great. Many young people recognize that abortion is immoral and understand that abortion kills a human being yet they still don't think the government should provide any kind of protection for the unborn.

Millennials are more likely than their boomer parents to see abortion as a moral issue. In the NARAL focus groups, young voters flat-out disapproved of a woman's abortion, called her actions immoral, yet maintained that the government had absolutely no right to intervene. As one young woman in Denver said, "I only get mad when [a friend] tries telling me, 'It is like nothing, oh well, it is just an abortion.'?" It wasn't the abortion itself that seemed to trouble the woman; rather, it was her friend's nonchalance. "Even if it was like nothing," the woman told NARAL, "it was something."

Life Links 4/19/10

AUL’s William Saunders goes over some possible Supreme Court nominees and writes that he thinks Merrick Garland would be a tough nominee to prevent from joining the court. I’m still amazed the Governor Jennifer Granholm is still supposedly on Obama’s short list.


The Washington Post profiles possible Supreme Court nominee Diane Wood and discusses how opponents of her nomination would focus on her abortion rulings.


At Feministing, Jessica Valenti attempts to argue that prolifers see every reason a woman gives for having an abortion as being a reason based on convenience. She seemingly asserts this solely because a prolife blogger at Red State pointed out how Jessica celebrated the vandalization of a prolife advertisement and noted how the vandal’s stated reason for abortion “Now I can go to college & fulfill my dreams” was a reason based on convenience.

Maybe it’s because Jessica doesn’t spend very much time interacting with prolifers but she apparently doesn’t seem to have the faintest clue as to what prolifers typically mean when they say discuss “convenience abortions.” Typically prolifers are referring to abortions which are obtained for reasons because having an abortion would be more convenient for the mother than having a child such as “she can’t afford a baby right now” or “having a child would interfere with some other aspect of her life” or “she doesn’t want to be a single mom,” etc. Abortions which would typically fall outside of what are referred to as abortions for convenience would be abortions for reasons of maternal life, maternal health, child’s health, etc.

I’m sure Jessica thinks having an abortion because someone doesn’t want to be (or thinks they can’t be) a parenting college student is a justifiable reason for having an abortion but that doesn’t it isn’t an abortion based on convenience.

Life Links 4/16/10

Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson has vetoed a bill to strengthen Kansas' late-term abortion law. The bill would have forced abortionists to list the exact medical diagnosis which led them to commit an abortion after 21 weeks, changed the definition of viability and allowed women to sue abortionists if they have evidence the abortion law was broken. Parkinson's stated reasons for the veto are incredibly lame:

"Kansas' current law concerning abortion was passed more than a decade ago and strikes a reasonable balance on a very difficult issue," Parkinson said in his veto message. "I support the current law and believe that an annual legislative battle over the issue is not in the public's best interest."

He also said: "My view is that all abortions are tragedies, which is why I would encourage women who have unwanted pregnancies to consult with their partners, families, doctors and spiritual advisers. I would not encourage women to consult with state legislators, as this is a private decision and should not be dictated by public officials."

How nonsensical is that? He supports the current abortion law (which was passed by state legislators and effects abortion decisions) but he doesn't think state legislators should have a say in abortion decisions. He also guarantees another legislative battle on abortion (which supposedly isn't in the public's best interest) with this veto.

Scientists in Britain have created human embryos with DNA from one man and two women using cloning techniques. David Prentice provides some more details.

In this human cloning experiment, the scientists used one-cell embryos as both the DNA donor and recipient, an “Embryo Cell Nuclear Transfer”. NOTE that most news stories call these embryos “fertilized eggs”; the term is a scientifically inaccurate misnomer and misleading, as once fertilization occurs, these are no longer eggs but rather embryos. The scientific paper published in Nature uses the scientifically-accurate term: “Pronuclear transfer in human embryos to prevent transmission of mitochondrial DNA disease”

After fertilization, but before the maternal and paternal nuclei have joined as a single zygote nucleus, the embryo is at the “pronuclear” stage. The scientists transferred this nuclear material out of one embryo (thus destroying the first embryo), placing the nuclear material into a second embryo (the second embryo having had its nuclear material removed, i.e., destroying the second embryo to make room for the nuclear material of the first.)

Two embryos are destroyed to create (with new genetic mitochondria) a third, recombined embryo. The newly-created recombined embryo has the nuclear material from one embryo, and the cytoplasmic material from another embryo.

Susan Martinek on the sex-selection abortion debate in Canada:

After all, it's illogical for a pro-abortionist to argue against sex selection when abortion is touted as a woman's choice in which society (and the state) have no say. Yet that leaves many feminists twisting in the wind of their own rhetoric -- how can feminists support the practice of killing girl babies on the basis of their sex? And, how can they deny women a right to a sex selective abortion, yet still claim that abortion is about a woman's right to choose, not what's best for society?

A female police officer in Botswana is on trial after allegedly giving birth (possibly after taking abortion pills) and then burning the body of her child.

Hi, I work at an abortion clinic and have no clue what eugenics is

Yesterday, Abortion Gang blogger Shayna commented on Nebraska's new law which requires abortionists to screen women for risk factors before performing an abortion on them.

Mental health screenings:This one amazes me, because I can easily envision dozens of scenarios where the mental health of a woman would be threatened by being forced into being an incubator for an unwanted pregnancy. Moreover, if a woman does have a mental illness, ranging from ADD to bipolar depression to schizophrenia and everything in between, the medications that are used to mitigate the effects of those illnesses, to allow their sufferers to lead normal, productive lives, are damaging to fetuses. The medications are linked to birth defects. So, if a woman is pregnant and wants to have an abortion, and is found to have a mental illness, then what?

Is she refused an abortion, and forced to forgo medication until she gives birth (is she put in some kind of cattle pen also)?

Is she forcefully medicated, refused an abortion, and stuck with a baby with birth defects ranging from mental illness to non-functioning organs?

Does anyone else hear echoes of eugenics and Hitler’s experiments?

She obviously is struggling to understand what eugenics is. Proponents of eugenics (especially negative eugenics) would want to kill the baby with birth defects from a woman with a mental illness not prevent a woman with mental illness from having an abortion.

Shayna is on the side of the eugenicists (kill the child because it could have birth defects) and she doesn't even know it.

Abortionist claims abortion protesters "no different than Osama Bin Laden"

The Examiner.com has an interview with Austin,Texas-based abortionist Peter Kopf. The arrogance and shallowness of the arguments are pretty much par for the course from what I’ve seen from other abortionists.

Abortion is an issue to me that - scientifically, ethically, politically, legally - in my heart of hearts I favor legal, properly-performed abortions. Anybody who demonstrates against us, in my experience - and it's always tied to some religious organization - to me, they are no different than Osama bin Laden and his creed.....

Second, in a certain patient population, an early abortion is a safer, better birth-control method than even taking birth control pills. So, from a medical point of view, there is no scientific or ethical argument that you could come up with against early pregnancy termination. As long as humans have recreational sex they will need abortion. As long as some pregnancies are abnormal, we will need abortion. You can't get around it.....

Abortion is birth control. Adoption is giving up your child and not accepting your duties as a mother. Most women are not interested in that. It's only in a religiously-altered mind that that's a true option.

Life Links 4/15/10

Leading Canadian pro-choicer Joyce Arthur, in a letter to the editor attempting to respond to Kelly Parland on sex-selection abortion, displays why she avoids debates like the plague.

He argues that to support a woman's right to choose, "you have to believe that a fetus is not human in the moral sense."

This is incorrect. The pro-choice view is woman-focused, and we take no view on the fetus (or should not). The status and moral value of the fetus is moot because it's a matter of subjective personal opinion, and the only opinion that counts is the pregnant woman's.

At the RH Reality Check, Sarah Seltzer notes, Greenberg, the newest Ben Stiller movie has an abortion storyline.

That's right. "Greenberg" features one of the most mainstream, unremarkable, lengthy and prominent abortion scenes since "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (in fact, there's a marked similarity) and it does something no film has ever done as effectively: it mines abortion for humor. In fact, the aftermath of the abortion scene is one of the funniest, and most poignant, in the entire film. It would be wrong to give it away, but let's say it involves our male protagonist's extremely misguided attempt to buy an appropriate post-abortion gift for Florence, who has elected to undergo anesthesia for her D&C procedure and wakes up rather groggy.

At ProWomanProLife, Andrea Mrozek calls out the McGill Daily’s Stephen Davis for this piece in which he thinks a woman holding a sign saying “I Regret My Abortion” prevents meaningful discussion. You know, as opposed to a bunch of intolerant thugs interrupting a scheduled prolife presentation by singing and shouting. Apparently, prolifers are to blame for the stupidity and rudeness of pro-choice students at McGill because prolifers think and argue that abortion is the killing of a human being.

One is left with the distinct impression that the author wants women–only pro-life women, though–to go and “dialogue” in a dark closet somewhere, by themselves. Talk about a wimp. If you can’t handle a gentle woman holding a sign, you’ve got a problem and should probably get some help.

How Bonnie Erbe gets paid to write is one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Here’s her commentary on Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty declaring April to be Abortion Recovery Month.

What is the religious right doing by campaigning against abortion? First and foremost, its efforts seem aimed at trying to keep church pews filled by bringing more and more poor people into the world.

"The pain was agonizing"

Salon has a piece by an anonymous 34-year-old writer (who's "wanted children ever since (she) can remember") describing her abortion experience and attempting to argue that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty shouldn't have declared April to be Abortion Recovery Month because she had an abortion.

I quickly learned that getting unintentionally knocked up at my age, and being friends mostly with women my age who are new mothers, expectant mothers, or, like me, single and struggling with baby lust, makes me, and my pain, largely untouchable. The two new and expectant mothers I told pushed prenatal vitamins. The two single and childless ones were as I imagine smokers to be around cancer patients, avoiding physical and emotional contact. If I don't acknowledge this, it won't happen to me.

Eventually, I called the baby's father. He drove to town from his home out of state. He was ready to move in with me, get a steady job, co-parent, be the best kind of friends that we are since, according to him, "marriage never works anyway." He's divorced. "Maybe this is the excuse I needed to settle down, stop living like a nomad," he said. It was not the response I'd predicted. But I didn't want to to be his "excuse" for a major life change. That wouldn't work for me.....

The procedure was excruciating and scary. The pixie of a doctor's aid gave me an IV with a concoction of painkillers, a gas mask and earphones -- the procedure is also torturously loud. And then the procedure, which felt like it lasted forever, but I'm told lasted only five minutes. Even with the drugs and the gas the pain was agonizing.....

Then it was Wednesday. I woke up feeling damaged, empty, scared, guilty and in pain. The terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" were emanating from the TV screen. They sounded reductive, glaringly inadequate. The word "abortion," fraught with shame and accusation, was being bandied about for pieces of political theater. The words "baby killer" were omnipresent, too. Although I didn't feel like a baby killer, like I'd killed my baby, I did feel partially dead.

Life Links 4/14/10

Michael New responds to Andrew Koppelman's claims that red state policies and the religious right increase abortions.

This argument occurs once again in a widely circulated essay entitled “How the Religious Right Promotes Abortion” by Northwestern University Law Professor Andrew Koppelman. Koppelman favorably cites Naomi Cahn and June Carbone’s book Red Families vs. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture. According to Koppelman, the hostility in red states to both contraception and comprehensive sex education leads to a greater incidence of abortion. Conversely, even though blue states are more tolerant of premarital sex, their support for comprehensive sex education and contraception actually lowers abortion rates. Koppelman spends much of the rest of the essay criticizing the religious right for their opposition to both sex education and government funding of contraception.

Unfortunately, Koppelman’s claims are based on rhetorical sleights of hand and a faulty analysis of data. What is unique about this essay is that all three of Koppelman’s arguments are incorrect. First, there is little evidence that more federal funding for contraceptives will reduce abortion rates. Second, there is some evidence that abstinence-only sex education is effective at reducing sexual activity among minors. Finally, red states actually have lower abortion rates, in part because they have placed more legal restrictions on abortion.......

However, the best way to empirically test Koppelman’s claims is to simply analyze abortion data from the state level. If Koppelman’s claims are correct, then sexually permissive, contraceptive friendly blue states should have the lowest abortion rates. However, that is not the case. Data from both the Centers for Disease Control and the Alan Guttmacher clearly indicate that abortion rates are significantly lower in red states than in blue states.

Yesterday, Nebraska's Governor Dave Heineman signed Nebraska's fetal pain law (which prohibits abortion at 20 weeks and beyond) and the law requiring abortionists to screen women for risk factors. The fetal pain bill isn't scheduled to take effect until October.


Ed Whelan shoots down Emily Bazelon's attempt to defend possible Supreme Court pick Diane Wood's abortion rulings.


Some prolifers in North Dakota have submitted petition language to the state's secretary of state to ban fetal "skull crushing." If the language is approved they would need to gather 13,000 to get the language on the ballot.