Selectively killing a twin

The New York Times Magazine has a long story on selective reduction, specifically the reduction of twins to a single child by killing one of the twins. It is really quite disturbing.

As Jenny lay on the obstetrician's examination table, she was grateful that the ultrasound tech had turned off the overhead screen. She didn't want to see the two shadows floating inside her. Since making her decision, she had tried hard not to think about them, though she could often think of little else. She was 45 and pregnant after six years of fertility bills, ovulation injections, donor eggs and disappointment — and yet here she was, 14 weeks into her pregnancy, choosing to extinguish one of two healthy fetuses, almost as if having half an abortion. As the doctor inserted the needle into Jenny's abdomen, aiming at one of the fetuses, Jenny tried not to flinch, caught between intense relief and intense guilt.

"Things would have been different if we were 15 years younger or if we hadn't had children already or if we were more financially secure," she said later. "If I had conceived these twins naturally, I wouldn't have reduced this pregnancy, because you feel like if there's a natural order, then you don't want to disturb it. But we created this child in such an artificial manner — in a test tube, choosing an egg donor, having the embryo placed in me — and somehow, making a decision about how many to carry seemed to be just another choice. The pregnancy was all so consumerish to begin with, and this became yet another thing we could control."

Jenny was even turned down by two doctors who refused to selectively reduce one of her twins.

After being rebuffed by physicians close to home, Jenny went online and found Dr. Joanne Stone, the highly regarded head of Mount Sinai's maternal-fetal-medicine unit. Jenny traveled thousands of miles to get there. She still resents the first doctor back home who told her she shouldn't reduce twins and another who dismissively told her to just buck up and buy diapers in bulk.

In response to this mother's decision to kill one of her twins, Robin Marty shows a crack in the pro-choice armor.

If she had gotten pregnant on her own, she would have been willing to keep both twins, but since it was already "so consumerish" she didn't feel like the same "rules" applied? I find it hard to wrap my head around the idea that someone would abort a twin just because of the way the pregnancy was conceived. If you feel that it was somehow part of the "natural order" for twins without intervention, why would medical assistance change that mindset?

As Marty's commenters point out, if you accept the "Trust Women" mantra then you can't judge any reproductive health decision even the women who callously decides to abort via selective reduction because she's embracing her consumerish desires.

Life Links 8/10/11

Chicagobusiness.com profiles a bunch of abortion advocates who give and raise funds for pro-choice organizations including billionaire Helen Zell.

Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers replies to China's promise to crack down on sex-selection abortions.

A BBC News article, "China acts to protect baby girls," reported the same vow in 2004. Zhao Baige, then Deputy Director (now Vice Minister) of China's National Population and Family Planning Commission, vowed seven years ago: "Illegal sex determination and sex-selective abortion must be strictly banned . . . China has set the goal of lowering the sex ratio to a normal level by 2010."

The result? In 2004, there were 117 boys born for every 100 girls born. In 2011 -- a year after China had vowed to bring sex ratios to a normal level -- there are now 119 boys born for every 100 girls born. The gender gap has not closed, but widened.

Same government. Same vow. Should we expect a different result?

The Ottawa Citizen reports on displays of images of aborted children in towns around Ottawa, Canada.

In the case of a grisly photo of a first-trimester aborted child that was prominently displayed Tuesday, "we have documentation from the pathologist" as well as a letter from a lawyer confirming the pathologist's credentials.

"I don't know why in this age of instant information people are surprised at the visuals. You can see the facts (on the stages of development) in any high school biology textbook. And, if you know abortion techniques, then you know a child can be decapitated, can be disembowelled in an abortion."

Members of prolife group in Canada are claiming they were original prevented from praying in Montreal's Notre Dame Basilica by a guide because of prolife t-shirts but were eventually let in after threatening to go to the media.

Life Links 8/9/11

Indian authorities sealed two hospitals (they sound more like clinics) for performing illegal abortions which may have been sex-selection abortions.

The BMC sealed the operation theatre of Shabnam Hospital in Govandi's Baiganwadi area after reports that a six-month-old foetus was abandoned by the hospital's owner, Dr Diwan Gupta, and the child's mother, Yasmin Khan, a resident of Mumbra.

The Summer of Mercy 2.0 has wound down and NOW's Terry O'Neill still has talking points from the 1970's.

National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O’Neill said abortion services and abortion research were necessary.

“Do you know what happens in areas where here are no abortion providers?” O’Neill asked. “That is when women try to self abort and predatory butchers set up shop in the back alleys for women to terminate their pregnancies in unhygienic ways. So what we need is good health care including excellent abortion care.”

Gallup's web site notes areas where a majority of people describing themselves as pro-choice and pro-life both favor certain policy decisions on abortion. They include having abortion legal to save the life of the mother, protect the health of the mother and when a woman is raped. The also both favor a variety of abortion restrictions including banning abortion in the second and third trimesters.

What I find truly interesting is that only 68% of self-described pro-lifers favor banning partial-birth abortion while 90% favor banning all second trimester abortions. That leads me to believe a lot of self-described prolifers have fallen for the lie that partial-birth abortions were performed for health reasons.

Life Links 8/8/11

The Daily Mail has the story of Charlie Allen, a 5-year-old who was born at 23 weeks, weighing 1 lb. 7 oz.

Charlie's survival prompted Mrs Allen to re-ignite the debate on the abortion time limit, and she has called for the current 24-week deadline to be lowered.

She said: ‘How can you say at that stage that they are not a life. They are babies - Charlie is living proof of that.

‘The abortion time limit should be reduced.

‘Charlie has amazed all his doctors and the hospital staff. He was faced with battle after battle from the moment he was born, but he's overcome them all – he's my little fighter.'

Salon did some research into a woman whose death from an illegal abortion shaped Mitt Romney's previous pro-choice beliefs.


China is promising to work on its sex-selection abortion problem.

The pledge is in the outline of a plan for childhood development through 2020 but has no specifics. The plan said authorities would increase efforts against the non-medical use of ultrasound tests and abortion of fetuses based on gender.

Abortionist Richard Leigh from North Dakota recently died. In his career, he performed more than 11,000 abortions.

In January 2003, on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Leigh said in an interview with the Herald that he had no regrets about his medical career choices.

"Abortion is not a good solution," he said then. "It would be better if we didn't have it. But it would be even better if we didn't need it."

Life Links 8/5/11

The Durango Herald covered a protest at Mercy Regional Medical Center. Mercy is a Catholic hospital yet Planned Parenthood abortionist Richard Grossman is a member of their medical staff.

Grossman, who writes a monthly column for the Herald called “Population Matters!,” said he respects the group's right to demonstrate.

“I honor their beliefs,” he said, “I don't agree with them.”

And how exactly does he honor prolife beliefs?


It amazing what years of abortion advocacy can do. In 20 years, at least five women in Maryland have died from anesthesia-related issues during abortions yet now is the first time that abortion clinics will be regulated in the state.

Under procedures drafted by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the state would for the first time regulate clinics that perform surgical abortions, said spokeswoman Karen Black. Facilities that offer only abortion pills, and physician’s offices that perform occasional abortions would not be affected.

The department has no listing or data on abortion clinics because they have never been regulated, Black said.

This year, lawmakers in Virginia approved regulations for abortion clinics, and officials in Pennsylvania and Kansas took similar steps.

It is estimated that about 20 sites in Maryland perform surgical abortions. Five of the sites are in Montgomery County.

“We don’t know where the sites are unless we look in the Yellow Pages,” Black said.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates are planning on suing to prevent North Carolina's informed consent law from taking effect.

Stam said he isn't surprised that certain groups are planning a lawsuit. "If you read abortion case law, half of them are Planned Parenthood suing over something," he said.

Life Links 8/4/11

Rebecca Taylor on Mara Hvistendahl's "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.":

What I loved most about this book is that it goes beyond the typical reasons why Asians are aborting their girls in record numbers. We know they have a preference for boys and China has a one-child policy. But Asia has always prized their sons and only China has a one-child policy. Yet all over Asia, in the last few decades, millions of girls have gone missing. Why? Hvistendahl makes a compelling case that the Western world shoved population control down the throats of Asians and presented sex selective abortion as the "ethical" means to do it. The typical arrogant and fearful Western minds thought they had to control the growth of Asian populations and reasoned that if Asians kept having children until they got a boy, then providing sex selective abortion was the answer.

Hadley Arkes on Rick Perry, the Tenth Amendment and abortion:

Perry remarked that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the matter of abortion would be subject again to legislation by the states and that is where the matter should be dealt with. "You either have to believe in the Tenth Amendment or you don't," he said.

Perry is of course perfectly right, that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the states would recover their power to legislate in imposing serious restrictions, even restrictions that come near banning abortions as a practical matter. But why would Perry assume that the federal government has no business acting in this domain? The problem, after all, emanated from the center. It was the intervention of the federal courts, striking down laws on abortion within the states that converted abortion into a federal or national issue.

The corrective, then, needs to come in part from the center......

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a law which was designed after prolifers protested abortion using graphic images at a school. The law creates tougher penalties for creating a disturbance near a school.

The bill was signed three years after a federal court found that the 1st Amendment rights of anti-abortion activists were violated when they were ordered to stop circling Dodson Middle School in a truck with billboard-sized photos of aborted fetuses.

The intent of the new law was questioned by Robert Muise, an attorney for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, the group that staged the 2003 demonstration outside the school but was stopped by school officials and Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.

"I think it's meaningless,'' Muise said. "If they pass this in a way to prevent the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform from engaging in peaceful demonstrations on public streets they are not going to win that fight.''

A man in West Virginia was arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting an ex-girlfriend.

The victim, who is three months pregnant with another man's child, told officers Cook told her to have an abortion. When she refused, he held a knife to her stomach and told her he would abort the baby, according to a complaint filed in Kanawha Magistrate Court.

"Rabid feminist" ignorant of Plan B, "war on women" somehow to blame

A Feministe guest blogger named Anna Lekas Miller has a (language warning) post in which she shares a response she gave to a male friend who wrote her because he thought using the terminology "war on women" was a bit much. Miller responds by discussing a circumstance in which she used Plan B two+ years ago.

Lacking access to information isn't just something that "kinda sucks" — it's potentially dangerous and life altering. For example, I didn't know what Plan B was until I needed it. Luckily, my boyfriend's roommate had been in that situation before, and told us that we could get Plan B at Walgreens. My boyfriend took full responsibility and paid the $50 to buy it for me. I also live in New York City, meaning that I could walk down the street to Walgreens and purchase it.

So there's a war on women because Miller (a rabid feminist) didn't know what Plan B was even though it has received a ton of news coverage for years, been advertised nearly everywhere, promoted like crazy by Planned Parenthood and feminist organizations and there was a large political controversy over whether it should be prescribed or be an over-the-counter drug. Really?

I was mortified to ask the Pharmacist for Plan B. I felt like a complete whore for having consensual sex where the condom just happened to break. In this country, if you are a girl who acknowledges her sexuality, you feel like whore by default.

So there ‘s a war on women because Miller is embarrassed that she's having sex. Miller's insecurities = war on women. Got it.

So, what if I hadn't lived in NYC? What if I had lived in the middle of Texas and needed to get a ride to a Planned Parenthood that was 50 or even 100 miles away? What if I lived in South Dakota or Idaho or North Carolina? What if I didn't have the money? What if some bull**** (that has happened to three of my friends) happened where I went and they said "I'm sorry – we are out of Plan B. We will have it in two days and you can come back then." (I'll give you a hint, its not called the "two days after you (expletive)" pill).

Amazingly, Miller (remember she's a "rabid feminist") is writing about her experience with Plan B yet is still incredibly ignorant about it. She thinks you can't use it two days after intercourse. The FAQ section of Plan B's web site says, "You can use Plan B One-Step™ after you've had unprotected sex or contraceptive failure one or more times in the last 72 hours (3 days), and you don't want to become pregnant."

The problem here isn't a war on information or a war on women but rather someone who is apparently unable to process and remember information.

Life Links 8/3/11

Indiana's attorney general has asked a federal court to overturn the preliminary injunction issued by Judge Tonya Walton Pratt which has prevented Indiana from defunding Planned Parenthood.

"This dispute belongs between the state and the federal government that administers and funds the Medicaid program, not between a private contractor and the state," Zoeller said.

"The proper place to argue this dispute is the federal government's own administrative hearing process, established for exactly this purpose. We hope the 7th Circuit will agree, reverse the U.S. District Court's decision and allow the administrative review to run its course."

Looks like San Francisco will be the next city to try to pass pregnancy center legislation.

In a deceptive ploy to preach to pregnant women, anti-abortionists have set up “crisis clinics” in San Francisco claiming to offer non-judgmental abortion services, city officials say.....

City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Supervisor Malia Cohen will discuss efforts to crack down on the faux clinics at a City Hall news conference Tuesday morning.

The New York Times has picked up this story and adds some more details.


Planned Parenthood Mar Monte is still looking for the 9 parking spaces needed to open up a clinic in Redwood City. They are also trying to force Enterprise to keeps an agreement to provide the spaces.


NPR's ombudsman responds to Ryan Bomberger's charges of biased editing during his debate with Carlton Veazey. In the comments section you can tell Bomberger is unimpressed. NPR ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos seems to not have listened to the unedited version because he provides no comparison information about the editing. Nor does Schumacher-Matos seem to notice host Michel Martin's clear bias. LifeNews has an editorial by Bomberger on the ombudsman's comments.

Overheard

At First Things, Matthew Hennessy discusses Down Syndrome and prenatal testing.

One night, not long after we learned of our daughter’s Down syndrome diagnosis, my wife and I were lying in bed when she pointed to her pregnant belly and said, “You know, we’ve been talking about this child as if she were imaginary, but she’s here in the bed with us now.” It was a powerful moment for me. I believe I became prolife right then and there.

Judge grants temporary injunction in Kansas Planned Parenthood funding case

From the AP:

A federal judge on Monday blocked implementation of a new Kansas law that would strip federal family planning funding from the state's Planned Parenthood chapter, dealing Republican lawmakers their second major legal setback to their recent moves against abortion providers.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten ordered the state to immediately resume funding for Planned Parenthood, agreeing with Planned Parenthood that without the injunction the group would suffer irreparable harm while its challenge to the law works its way through the courts.

Planned Parenthood said it would be forced to close its clinic in the western Kansas city of Hays unless the court immediately prohibited the state from stripping it of $330,000 in federal Title X annual funding. It contended that its 5,700 patients would also face higher costs and have less access to services and longer wait or travel times for appointments.

Life Links 8/1/11

The Washington Post covers pro-choice and prolife demonstrations at LeRoy Carhart's Germantown abortion clinic. Patch.com has a video of the marches with interviews. The Post story notes that Carhart's clinic will be closed this week during the Summer of Mercy 2.0.


In response to abortionist Steven Brigham's abortion practice, Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has released new draft regulations for abortion clinics including applying for a license, having a 24-hour hotline, having emergency plans and having a qualified anesthesia provider.


The Topeka Capitol-Journal discusses how some prolifers in Kansas aren't happy with incremental legislation.


A teenager in South Carolina has been charged in the deaths of his mother and unborn sibling. He also shot and injured his 12-year-old sister. He was just booked in jail after spending years in the juvenile detention system.

Shortly after being shot, the girl told investigators that before the shootings, the suspect asked her if the baby would die if his mom were shot, according to a Darlington County Sheriff's Office incident report.

Life Links 7/29/11

The North Carolina Senate voted to overturn Governor Beverly Perdue's veto of the state's informed consent legislation. It will go in effect in 90 days.


Overheard - David Daleiden at the Live Action blog discusses the medical license suspension of a top Planned Parenthood abortionist.

Think about it. The highest-paid, star abortionist at the biggest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country is a stoner and a lush who has a long history of medical malpractice. How bad must all the other ones be?

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the city of Oakland can enforce a bubble zone outside it's abortion clinic as long as the same rules which apply to sidewalk counselors also apply to clinic escorts.

By allowing escorts to approach the women, advise them to ignore the protesters and accompany them into the clinic without first asking consent, Oakland "has enforced the ordinance against anti-abortion speakers but not pro-abortion speakers," the court said in a 3-0 ruling.

Such a policy "unconstitutionally suppresses speech based on the content of its message," said Judge Marsha Berzon, writing for a left-leaning panel that also included Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a well-known liberal. She also said antiabortion protesters might be able to show that the city was violating their rights by allowing escorts to shield the patients and prevent the protesters from getting their consent to talk.

The New York Times has another piece by Kassi Underwood on her abortion. In May, she wrote a piece for the New York Daily News about how neither prolife or pro-choice groups helped her deal with her abortion grief. In this piece she discusses her feeling about her ex-boyfriend's child with another woman.

Meanwhile, I went into treatment, quit drinking and moved to Austin, Tex., for a job. With sobriety and a salary, I couldn’t stop thinking about the baby that wasn’t, a loss somehow made more painful by his baby that was. I spent my workdays browsing photos of his little girl, believing in some twisted respect that I was glimpsing the face of the child I could have had. On lunch breaks, I went home to cry in bed, longing for a paranormal miracle......

In the three years since, he has spent much of his time incarcerated for drug-related offenses. I wish I could share my sobriety, my degree and my career to rent that apartment for his little girl, but reality has finally sunk in: the abortion is mine alone, just like Jade is his.

Mara Hvistendahl takes another shot at trying to explain her position on abortion

Mara Hvistendahl attempts to defend her opposition to sex-selection abortions but support of legal abortion in a piece for Foreign Policy. She writes,

That said, selecting for sex -- or any other quality -- is different from a woman's decision not to carry a pregnancy to term.

But what if a woman's decision not to carry a pregnancy to term is based her desire to select for sex? Then aren't they one and the same?

When parents choose to have a child because he is male, they may do so with the expectation that their son will turn out to be an upstanding heir or that he will carry on the family line. Or, should they want a girl, they may be seeking a child who enjoys wearing pink dresses and playing with dolls. Ethically, this is worlds apart from a woman's choice not to continue a pregnancy -- or not to get pregnant in the first place. One is the decision of a woman considering her own body. The other involves the creation of a new human being -- and expectations for how that human being will turn out.

What if a woman considers her own body and decides she doesn't want a female child in it? Does that make sex-selection abortion okay?

Why is selecting for sex "worlds apart" than selecting for economic conditions or health? If you ever read the stories of women considering abortion or who've had abortions, they often discuss their expectations of their unborn children. They often discuss their current economic situation and how that situation would effect their child. Or how they want the child born into a stable environment.

Hvistendahl merely asserts aborting children based on sex is ethical "worlds apart" from aborting children because of other desires pregnant women may have for their lives or the lives of their children. There's no argument here. All we have is Hvistendahl's belief that some choices pregnant women make are wrong.

That's fine and dandy but once you accept that pregnant women can make bad decisions about their pregnancies and that some of their choices should be regulated, then you kind of blow a Titanic-sized hole in the pro-choice position which values the autonomy of the woman and her decisions above all.

Unfortunately, Hvistendahl still hasn't come to the realization that you can't use "choice" or "trust women" or "consideration of her body" type language and still consistently oppose sex-selection abortion.

Triple murder suspect turns himself in

A man wanted for triple homicide in Arkansas surrendered himself to authorities in Saginaw.

Kevin Wolfe allegedly killed Jada Moses, Aligene Seals, and Seals' unborn child after Seals' husband sold him fake drugs.

Ohio Planned Parenthood loses out on $5 million grant

An Ohio Planned Parenthood affiliate is out more than $5 million over 5 years after their grant application was determined to be incomplete. The story doesn't say which information was left out.

The loss of more than $1 million annually amounts to 12 percent of the organization's budget, said Laurie Housemeyer, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood, which was notified of the loss of funding this month.

Planned Parenthood's grant application scored too low for funding because it was incomplete, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, which administers the grant program. More details about why the application was incomplete weren't available Wednesday.

"That is hard to believe," Housemeyer said upon being told Wednesday why Planned Parenthood lost the funding, which it has received for at least 25 years. "We have a very thorough and qualified grant writer," Housemeyer said.

Life Links 7/28/11

A study out of New Zealand found that women who get IUDs after abortions are less likely to have repeat abortions in the next two years. The repeat abortion rate for IUD users was less than 6%. It was 13% for birth control pill users and 17% for condom users.


The North Carolina Senate is working to overturn Governor Bev Perdue's veto of their informed consent legislation. The NC House already overrode the veto.


Here's the LOL quote of the week from Amanda Marcotte describing abortion providers in the same week that an abortionist who owns multiple abortion clinics (and is a convicted felon and has had his medical license suspended multiple times) lost a lawsuit and was ordered to pay $36 million and 2 abortionists in Pittsburgh have been charged with illegally providing drugs to a co-worker.

Anti-choicers refuse to acknowledge that abortion providers are medical professionals who put their patients first, instead using terms such as "abortion industry" and claiming that abortion providers are trying to increase the abortion rate to make more money.

There's a reason we refuse to acknowledge abortionists as medical professionals who put their patients first. We follow the news.


Someone threw a molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood facility during Tuesday night. It didn't get inside. A Planned Parenthood rep says it caused serious damage while the fire department says the damage was minor.

Life Links 7/27/11

Joe Carter asks abortion moderates what the relative value of the unborn are.

Is the relative value of abortion worth the equivalent cost in lives lost to homicides? If not, then what equivalent number would be acceptable? What is the relative value of a fetus? That is a question that pro-choice moderates need to answer. They often walk up to the line, admitting that abortion is “tragic” and should be “rare.” But when pressed to quantify “rare” by putting an actual number to the abstract value, will they balk? It’s time we found out. It’s time we started asking them to directly answer: When it comes to abortions, what number is acceptable?

David Prentice discusses Judge Royce Lamberth's decision to dismiss a federal lawsuit against President Obama's embryonic stem cell funding policy.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth has dismissed a federal lawsuit challenging current NIH guidelines that allow taxpayer funding of human embryonic stem cell research. Judge Lamberth had originally ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, Dr. James Sherley and Dr. Theresa Deisher, in a preliminary injunction in August 2010. That preliminary injunction temporarily shut down federal funding, until an Appeals Court placed a temporary hold on the injunction in September 2010. The Appeals Court eventually vacated the preliminary injunction in April 2010 in a 2-1 split decision. Supplemental briefings were filed in the case in June 2010.

In today’s opinion by Judge Lamberth, he noted that the April split decision by the Appeals Court tied his hands in terms of ruling on the main lawsuit

Abortion docs in Pittsburgh busted for illegally providing pills to staffer

From an AP story:

Two doctors at a Pittsburgh abortion clinic gave hundreds of prescription diet pills over several years to a staffer seeking to treat anxiety and depression, state authorities said Tuesday in charging the three and a former registered nurse not affiliated with the clinic.

Providing the drugs was illegal because the doctors did not have a clinical relationship with the staffer, Mark Wagner, 48, and therefore abused their Drug Enforcement Administration licenses to dispense prescription medications, Attorney General Linda Kelly said.

Over 3 years, the abortionists allowed the clinic director to order pills for Wagner whenever he wanted them, totaling more than 20,000. Wagner didn't pay for drugs, which were viewed as a form of compensation. Wagner also sold the drugs to a friend. Neither abortionist monitored how many drugs were being ordered.

A story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has a couple of additional details.

Miller said she thought Wagner was taking the pills for anxiety and depression issues, the complaint said. Miller could not explain the discrepancy when investigators pointed out that usage for three years would account for only 6,480 of the 18,400 tablets ordered.

When confronted by investigators, Wagner admitted sharing the tablets with Kane, a friend and former nurse, the complaint said.

Kane recently bought six bottles -- with 100 tablets in each -- from Wagner for $1,000, the complaint said. She said she used the medication to control her weight, but her doctor didn't know about it and most likely wouldn't prescribe it to her, the complaint said.

Here's the press release from the Attorney General's office.

From the abortion clinic's web site (very basic with cheesy graphic and wall paper) and prices listed it seems like this is a low-end clinic.

UK premie born before 24 weeks goes home

The Telegraph has a story on Jacob McMahon, a premature infant who was recently allowed to go home after spending the first four months after his birth in the hospital. Jacob was born at 23 weeks and weighted 1 lb. 4 oz. His parents were told to consider abortion after his twin died.

His birth came even earlier than Amelia Hope Burden, whose premature arrival after 23 weeks and two days last July prompted calls for the limit to be reduced.

Although he still has to be constantly attached to an oxygen supply because his lungs are so small, Jacob has grown to 7lb 3oz and doctors say his health is steadily improving.

His mother said: “It feels surreal being home. It is a day that was not spoken of because we thought it would never happen.

"We couldn't believe it when doctors told us we had to consider abortion. They told us I had an infection and that he wouldn't survive. They gave us 24 hours to decide whether we wanted to take a tablet that could stop his heart.

"We did not want to do that but luckily that decision was taken away from us when I went into labour at midnight."

Nevermind that attempted forced abortion

Pro-choicers like Robin Marty act like they're all about "choice" but blog posts like this leave me wondering.

Marty quotes a Pennsylvania Pastors' Network press release which notes the story of a 14-year-girl whose parents were attempting to force her to abort against her will. A law firm stepped in and an emergency injunction was issued.

The president of the Pennsylvania Pastors' Network applauds the girl for choosing life and the father's parents for supporting the couple.

Instead of being grateful the girl wasn't forced against her will to have an abortion, Marty's reaction to this seems to be one of dismay that a 14-year-old girl would choose life and a chance to snark at the prolifers.

Overheard

Rebecca Taylor on IVF:

I am all for the teary-eyed couple getting the cherub-cheeked baby that they so desperately want, but 30 other lives should not have to be created and discarded or destroyed in the process.

Life Links 7/25/11

Gallup has a new poll out on abortion restrictions. The public widely favors informed consent, parental consent, 24-hour waiting periods and bans on partial-birth abortion. They weren't as open to ultrasound legislation, conscience protections for health care providers and defunding abortion providers (though the framing of the last two questions really could change how people respond).

Respondents also overwhelmingly favored banning abortion in the 2nd trimester. 71% thought 2nd trimester abortions should be illegal. 86% thought 3rd trimester abortions should be illegal.


The Washington Post has a long article on late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart and his abortion business in Maryland.


Mother Jones interviewed a woman named Dana Weinstein who aborted her child at 29 weeks after a sonogram showed brain abnormalities.

She decided to end the pregnancy rather than continuing for another two months and prolonging the suffering. It was a very personal decision, she says, one made between her, her family, and her doctors. "We wanted her and loved her," Weinstein says. "In some ways I feel a little bit lucky, in that she was so sick that the decision was almost made for us. I don't wrestle with guilt."......

Even though she lived in Maryland and saw a doctor in Washington, DC, Weinstein found it difficult to obtain an abortion so far along in her pregnancy. There were no doctors, at the time, that offered the procedure at her stage in the Washington area. She had to travel to Dr. Warren Hern's clinic in Boulder, Colorado, far from her support network. Weinstein spent a week in Colorado between the initial visit with the doctor and the actual procedure, all the time worrying that the baby was suffering.

The New York Times has a piece on male contraception.


The NY Times also unsurprisingly editorializes against a court decision to stop the enforcement of New York City's pregnancy center law.


The Daily Mail has the story of an Irish woman who traveled to Britain for an abortion.

‘I wont regret this at all,' she said. ‘I'm not going to be one of those people who will think of this every year. I'll just forget it and move on. I'll have to make sure it never happens again. I just want this to be over and done with. I'm in an terrible state over the entire thing.'......

She said very little as we packed up our things and called a taxi for the airport. The ordeal had taken its toll – she looked pale and extremely emotional and occasionally wiped her eyes and nose with a tissue. She said she felt ‘hollow and exhausted'.

‘I still feel pregnant even though I know there is nothing there now,' she said.

‘I feel hugely guilty – guilty for keeping it a secret and guilty for what I've done. But I don't regret it. In time the guilt will go.'

David Mayo - worst sports columnist ever?

The Grand Rapids Press has probably one of the worst sports columnist in America right now in David Mayo. He has less knowledge of most sports than the vast majority of guys in a college dorm. He laughable thought that former Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier got in trouble with the team for bringing a non-winged helmet to practice when Tate was forced as a punishment to wear the wingless helmet. He also thought Michigan punter Zoltan Mesko was also the field goal kicker.

Anyways, in 2008, Mayo wrote a column criticizing Brandon Inge (calling him a "cowardly tiger") because Inge wouldn't talk to him about the Tigers' acquisition of Miguel Cabrera (at the time Cabrera played 3rd base and some thought Inge would have to move to catcher to keep his roster spot). Apparently, Inge was upset about this, privately told the front office he didn't want to catch and wanted to be traded. During a guest autograph signing in Grand Rapids, Mayo wanted an interview where Inge criticized the Tigers' front office publicly. Mayo didn't get his tabloid interview and went off.

To me and every sane person, this made no sense. Mayo was mad at a professional athlete for acting professional. I wondered if Mayo was on drugs.

The column received so much response, the Grand Rapids Press had to devote an entire page to the responses.

About a year later, Mayo was busted for growing marijuana in his house.

In his most recent column, Mayo discusses Inge's demotion to the minors and describes the controversy over his past Inge column thusly:

A few years ago, I wrote a column that irked many Inge loyalists when he rejected the team’s request to catch. The premise was Inge wasn’t doing the best thing for the Tigers, because his pea-sized average and microscopic power numbers were acceptable if he caught, but not if he played third base. He became an impediment by holding down a position that mandates offensive punch without providing it, and no, his excellent defense didn’t compensate.

Sorry, David. The premise wasn't that Inge wasn't doing the best thing for the Tigers. The premise was that Inge was a coward for not publicly airing his feelings about the situation in an interview with you.

"You and that baby won't leave here alive"

Those are the words Ben Switzer allegedly told his pregnant partner as he choked, punched, kicked and jumped on her stomach in Australia.

A MAN accused of attempting to kill his unborn baby by bashing his partner and kicking and jumping on her stomach has been allowed bail.

Ben Thomas Switzer, 35, was released from jail yesterday after applying for bail on 12 charges including attempting to procure an abortion, deprivation of liberty, going armed so as to cause fear, using a carriage service to menace or harass and assault causing bodily harm.

Police alleged that on October 13 last year, Switzer and his partner of 11 years, who was 15 weeks pregnant, became involved in an argument where he accused her of infidelity.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Barry Stevens said Switzer began choking the woman before pushing, punching and kicking her.

“He was saying words to the effect...‘You and that baby won't leave here alive',” Sgt Stevens said.

The woman allegedly tried to escape and Switzer grabbed her and pulled her back inside.

“He jumped with both feet on the side of the victim's stomach,” the prosecutor said.

The woman eventually escaped but was forced to have an early induced pregnancy because there was no chance of the baby surviving.

Life Links 7/22/11

Testimony is over in the ethics case against Phill Kline.

During a break in testimony, Kline said actions by Hensel and the grand jury's attorneys "killed" the panel's investigation of the clinic. He and anti-abortion groups have made much of an agreement with Planned Parenthood's attorneys to obtain records — drafted but ultimately not followed — that would have limited how the documents could be used, even by the district attorney.

"This procedure was not an investigation," Kline said of the grand jury's work. "I've never seen anything like it in my life."

From everything I've read it seems clear that lead juror Stephanie Hensel shouldn't have been on the jury and had an axe to grind with Kline. It makes no sense for an impartial juror to attempt to make a deal with the organization she supposed to be investigating.


The Indian abortion clinic has been shut down after a Bhutanese woman died from complications after receiving an abortion there.

Records with the Phuentsholing hospital show that it handles on an average two post-abortion complication cases a week.

From January to June this year, the hospital recorded 44 such cases and two deaths resulting from unsafe abortions done in Jaigaon.

The hospital’s gynaecologist, Dr Devendra, said some post abortion cases he handled were so complicated, it required the surgeon’s assistance.

Only 15 of the 44 patients of post abortion cases that came to the hospital said they had aborted, while the rest said complications had arisen because of medicines that had consumed.

A district court judge has issued a temporary restraining order on legislation in North Dakota which would prevent the off-label use of the RU-486 abortion drug.

Pro-choice researchers find that telemedicine abortions are somehow magically more effective

MSNBC has coverage of the research.

The women received ultrasound at the clinic to determine the gestational age of the fetus before speaking with a physician either in person or virtually. Medical termination was successful in 99 percent of the telemedicine patients as compared to 97 percent of those who had face-to-face counseling. There was no significant difference when it came to complications between the two groups of women.

Telemedicine patients were more likely to report satisfaction with their care than those receiving face-to-face counseling

Notably, follow-up data was obtained from only 449 of the original 578 patients. Who knows how many of the missing 129 patients (more than 1/5 of the original patients) had complications or were unsatisfied with their experience.

The MSNBC article also identifies Ibis, the pro-choice organization the study's lead author works for, as "non-profit research organization."

Life Links 7/20/11

The Kansas City Star has an update on Phill Kline's ethics trial.

Stephanie Hensel, the presiding juror, testified Tuesday about its investigation into whether the clinic had failed to report sexual abuse of children as required by Kansas law. She said Kline and his subordinates provided incomplete and misleading information about state law, prompting the grand jury to issue a subpoena for Planned Parenthood records. The grand jury eventually withdrew it and never issued an indictment.....

In comments to reporters during a break, Kline said he and his staff provided an accurate summary of the law. His attorneys later produced a transcript from a December 2007 grand jury meeting with comments from Kline to the grand jury that were more nuanced than in Hensel’s account.

And Kline told reporters that Hensel and other grand jurors were confused by attorneys the grand jury had retained to help it.

The Justice Department has sued another prolife protester under the FACE Act.

According to the federal complaint, Maryland resident Richard Retta has violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by intimidating and interfering with patients for more than a decade.

The complaint seems pretty weak. There is one claim that he physically obstructed a woman from entering an abortion clinic. Besides that we're told he walks closely to women and one time stepped on a woman's shoe.


Ohio Governor John Kasich has signed a post-viability abortion ban.

House Bill 78 bans abortions when a doctor determines a fetus can live outside the womb — a condition known as viability, which is typically when a pregnancy is 23 to 24 weeks along. Doctors would be required to test for viability when a woman is 20 weeks’ pregnant or more.

The law will take effect after 90 days.

Here's the text of the bill.

Planned Parenthood may be prevented from opening a clinic because they don't have enough parking spaces

From the story:

The city's planning department notified Planned Parenthood on Tuesday that a permit issued May 20 allowing it to operate the clinic at 2890 El Camino Real has been amended.

As a result, the women's health services provider now must produce a letter from Enterprise Rent-A-Car confirming that its car rental business across the street from the proposed clinic will provide it with nine parking spots. Planned Parenthood needs those spaces because the city has required it to come up with at least 27 parking spots for patients and staff. The clinic site can accommodate only 18 spaces.

Michelle Tangunan, an associate planner for the city who oversees the clinic application, said that after the use permit was approved, Planned Parenthood informed the city Enterprise might try to pull out of the agreement.

Lupe Rodriguez, a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, confirmed that the rental car chain had expressed "second thoughts" about making nine spaces available. Rodriguez said she doesn't know why Enterprise might try to renege from its legally binding contract with Planned Parenthood.

I guess Rodriguez has never thought about how protesters could possibly effect Enterprise's business.

Belmont resident Ross Foti, known for protesting outside abortion clinics with graphic pictures of fetuses, offered an explanation. He said abortion foes have approached the company and threatened to picket its El Camino Real location if it delivers the parking, he said.

Life Links 7/19/11

Politico covers James O'Keefe's most recent project in which actors posing as Russian drug dealers attempt to get Medicaid benefits.

When the men disclose they need an abortion for their underage sister who performs "sexual favors" for clients when closing deals, the state employee refers them to Planned Parenthood for free abortions that do not require parental consent.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has sued to stop a North Dakota law aimed at restricting medication abortion.


The Daily Mail has the story of a couple who were advised to abort because a scan showed their unborn daughter had a blood-restricting tumor on her heart.

She was born in January 2010 three weeks premature by Caesarean section at Blackburn Royal Hospital.

Heather said: 'All I wanted was to see her eyes. The doctors still said that she would die as the tumour was so big it would stop the blood flow around her heart.

'But she cried, she was breathing and doing everything that a newborn does.

'Straight away they took her down to the neonatal intensive care unit and scanned her heart. The tumour was inside the entire left chamber but somehow her little heart was still finding a way to pump blood around.'

In the New York Post, former state Assemblyman Michael Benjamin argues New York should pass an Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

New York law now effectively denies adequate protection to pregnant women and their unborn children. Although the murdered babies are laid to rest in marked graves and the families grieve for them, our state tells them that their loved ones never existed.

The refusal to recognize the intrinsic value of an unborn child's life amounts to zealotry. This is insensitive toward the mothers and their loss. It seems to treat the loss of an unborn child as though it were a bruise or a broken bone. Yet broken bones heal; a stolen life can never be replaced.

Ryan Bomberger v. Carlton Veazey on NPR

Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation debates Carlton Veazey, President of the Reproductive Coalition of Reproductive Choice on NPR regarding the Radiance Foundation's billboards and abortions in the black community.

A little before the 9 minute mark, Bomberger makes a great point in refutation of one of Veazey's arguments. Veazey argued that black women have more abortions on average than other races because of a lack of access to (reproductive) health care.

Bomberger's response:

How is it that these same people who can find these clinics to have an abortion can't find the same clinic for contraception?

He also goes on to point out how Hispanics have higher percentages of uninsured than blacks yet have lower abortion rates.

Life Links 7/18/11

The Times of India notes that 273 ultrasound centers have been closed and 75 abortion clinics have had their recognition withdrawn in a massive inspection drive aimed at derailing clinics engaged in sex-selection abortion.

"The decision to conduct a massive inspection drive was taken from the highest decision-making level in the state and it was decided to ensure that strict action should be taken against those centres and doctors who indulge in sex determination and sex selective abortions," said Suresh Gupta, additional director of state health services.

Provisional figures of census 2011 came as shock for the state as the child sex ratio declined by 30 points from 913 in 2001 to 883. The status of child sex ratio was a cause of grave concern for the entire state in general and all districts in Marathwada in particular. The child sex ratio has declined by 30 or more points in 14 districts, of which 7 districts - Jalgaon, Jalna, Parbhani, Hingoli, Washim, Buldhana and Beed - have shown a decline of more than 50 points.

The Times of India also discusses the rising misuse of abortion pills.

Going by the law, only gynaecologists and registered medical practitioners recognised under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 can prescribe the drug. One needs a prescription to buy it.

However, the drug is easily available. When this reporter visited five chemists in prominent areas of the city and asked for the abortion pills without a prescription, three sold them across the counter while at two places the chemists said they had run out of the stock.

The Kansas City Star has an article on how some prolife groups in Kansas might push for more restrictive measures in 2012 (like a heartbeat bill or personhood amendment) while others are more cautious.


Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline's second disciplinary hearing starts tomorrow.

Life Links 7/15/11

A woman from Bhutan has died after undergoing a 6-month abortion in India.

In her statement to WCPU officials, the friend said she waited in an adjacent room while the deceased was taken to another room. About half an hour later, she heard her friend crying in pain, and she entered the clinic room, where she saw a man using forceps and later his hands to pull out the foetus.

The woman had bled profusely and struggled a lot, according to the friend. After she became semiconscious, the man at the clinic told the friend the case was complicated, and that she should be taken to Siliguri.

When the friend insisted that the deceased be taken to the Phuentsholing hospital, the man accompanied them there, but told the friend that she should tell hospital authorities the deceased had an epileptic attack.

AUL has responded to Planned Parenthood's incredibly weak defense of itself. There's a stark difference between Planned Parenthood's short assertion-filled, evidence-free rebuttal and AUL's lengthy, detailed, sourced rebuttal.


The New York Times has an article about new abortion restrictions in Russia.

Friday Baby Blogging

Missouri Governor lets late-term abortion ban become law without signature

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon did what he's done on some other pieces of prolife legislation, he choose not to sign or veto legislation which bans abortion after 20-weeks, which allows it to become law.

The constitutional deadline for signing or vetoing bills expires today, meaning any bills Nixon doesn't take action on will automatically become law.

The bill, which passed both the House and Senate by veto-proof margins, bans abortions performed after 20 weeks of gestation. The only exceptions would be if the fetus is not viable, if the life of the mother is in danger or if the mother risks “irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” Two physicians would be required to approve an abortion under those circumstances.

Doctors could be convicted of a felony and face a one-year prison sentence and a $50,000 fine if they perform an illegal abortion.

Pro-choice Missouri State Rep: Prolifers to blame for Black on Black violence

Via RH Reality Check's Robin Marty (who apparently thinks the editorial is persuasive), I had the pleasure of reading this editorial by Missouri State Representative Tishaura O. Jones. It's a doozy.

I was a patient there because my mother (who is now deceased) told me that the best place for a young woman's reproductive health was Planned Parenthood. If she had not given me that sage advice, I wouldn't be alive today.

Ummmm.... not if you had just received your reproductive health care from a regular doctor who would have found the pre-cancerous cells on your cervix as well.

In my own house, I am pro-life. As a black woman and a mother, I can decide what's best for my body and for my child. But who am I to tell someone else what's best for her?

That's why I am pro-choice for everyone else. Abortion is a moral decision that's best decided between a woman, her doctor and God, or whomever she chooses to worship.

Why are you "prolife" in your house? Is there something morally wrong with abortion? Does it kill a "child?" If there's something wrong with abortion (like maybe it kills a human child?), don't we often tell others not to do things (like killing human children) which are morally wrong?

Missouri's laws that would further restrict abortion have no place in my bedroom or my uterus. Those same Bible-toting, scripture-quoting extremists who think that Roe v. Wade should be overturned are the same people who claim to care about black babies, which is utter nonsense.

If you care about black babies, why do they make up 25 percent of the more than 10,000 children in the foster care system, according to the Missouri Department of Social Services?

One, 25% of the children in Missouri foster care system aren't black babies. They're black children of various ages (the average age is 10) who are in foster care for a variety of reasons relating to their parents' inability to raise them. How that is the fault of prolifers is never explained by Jones.

If you care about black babies, why are urban school districts crumbling?

Maybe the urban school administrators aren't very good. Maybe the teachers have given up? There could be hundreds of reasons. Again, how on earth do allegedly bad urban school districts prove prolifers don't care about black babies?

If you care about black babies, why is Missouri No. 1 in crimes committed against black men?

Well, unless prolifers are the ones who are committing crimes against black men, I'm struggling to see how any sane person could think prolifers are responsible or at fault for black men being killed (78% by someone they know in Missouri and9 out of 10 by another black individual).

What prolifers can't care about black babies unless they solve Black on Black crime in Missouri?

She then goes on to call prolife billboards in Missouri racist.

The scariest part. This woman is the assistant minority floor leader.

Couple upset after their miscarried child dumped with medical waste

An Australian couple is rightly peeved at a hospital which threw their miscarried child in the trash. I'm amazed a nurse would say the following to a couple who just lost a child at 17 weeks.

On April 27, Lisa and husband were told by a nurse at Swan District Hospital that "it's not a baby, it's just a foetus" and that it had "probably been thrown out with the medical waste".

The couple had wanted to take their baby's body home to bury.

Lawyer John Hammond, who has taken on the couple's case, said there was an obligation for the hospital to report the death of a foetus to the Registry of Births and Deaths after 20 weeks.

Although Lisa was only 17 weeks into her pregnancy, Mr Hammond said she was entitled to take the foetus home to bury.

Health Minister Kim Hames today apologised to the couple and said he would investigate the incident.

An article in WA Today provides some more background on the case.

"We asked to find out where the baby was, and we were told that the baby would be sent off to King Edward Memorial Hospital for testing ... but they advised us they hadn't received any baby over the weekend."

He said that after staff at both hospitals researched the incident, it became apparent that the baby had never been sent for further tests as the couple had requested. He said that since there was no paper trail, staff "presumed it had been thrown out".

Life Links 7/14/11

Two blind patients have received cells created from human embryonic stem cells in a Phase I clinical trial by Advanced Cell Technology.

A team led by Steven Schwartz at UCLA administered about 50,000 cells Tuesday into one eye of a volunteer suffering from Stargardt Macular Dystrophy, a progressive form of blindness that usually begins in childhood, and another with Dry Age-Related Macular Degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the developed world, Advanced Cell Technology, which is sponsoring the study, announced Thursday.

New York City's law regulating crisis pregnancy centers was blocked by federal judge William Pauley on Wednesday.

The judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the new law seems unconstitutionally vague and may infringe upon First Amendment rights. He wrote that the plaintiffs had demonstrated that the law would "compel them to speak certain messages or face significant fines and/or closure of their facilities."

The Boston Herald has a balanced piece from the Oakland Tribune on prolife billboard in Oakland, California. Apparently, the billboards were removed on Monday after pro-aborts started a campaign to take them down.


Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed legislation which included rules on abortion advertising.

According to Russian lawmakers, advertisements mislead the public by creating an impression that an abortion is a simple surgery that poses no health risks.

The new amendments require that warnings about the dangers should occupy no less than 10 percent of each advertisement.

Retirement home lip dub

The City of Grand Rapids made some national TV shows with their 9 minute lip dub of American Pie which now has more than 3 million views on YouTube.

Now, the Clark Retirement home in Grand Rapids is hoping to match their city's success with a lip dub of Michael Buble's "Feeling Good".

What now Holland Home?

Life Links 7/13/11

NPR has a piece on surgery to correct spina bifida in the womb.

A few more staples and they had opened a small window, about 3 inches across, in the uterus.

"And here's the fetal bottom," Adzick said.

It was an amazing sight — the 6-inch-long fetus, its back facing up into the glare of the surgical lights.....

At this point, neurosurgeon Sutton stepped up to the table to help do the crucial part of the operation. He cut into the sac and spinal fluid gushed out. Adzick pointed out the hole underneath.

"The spinal cord is right there. It's like a tiny ribbon of tissue," he said. "It's a little bit yellowish, and there's a little bloodstaining there."

The hole was only about an inch across. Sutton needed magnifying lenses to stitch it up, using a curved needle.

The Washington Post has a piece on abortion activist Julie Burkhart's drive to open an abortion clinic in Wichita. Some prolifers appear to be taking Burkhart's efforts more seriously than Mila Means' but not Operation Rescue's Troy Newman.

Julie Burkhart, now executive director of the St. Louis-based lobbying group Trust Women, said Tuesday she hopes to open a clinic that offers first-trimester abortions and other women’s health services in Wichita in about a year. The group is trying to recruit a qualified doctor......

Newman dismissed Burkhart as “pretty much irrelevant.”

“There are doers and there are talkers. Doers are the abortionists and then there are the talkers, they are just the proponents ... Julie Burkhart is just a low-level talker, that’s all she is.”

Noemie Emery in the Washington Examiner on how "choice" language has quieted pro-choicers when it comes to sex-selection abortion:

Why not? It's a "choice" -- and choices, of course, must never be questioned, no matter to what ends they lead. Late-term abortion? Terrific. Infant dismemberment? Hardly a problem. Sequential abortion? No problem there.

Abortion as a tool to dispose of unwanted girl children? Now, this is a problem, but liberals have surrendered the right and the standing to make moral judgments. They have found now a choice they despise, and they can't rail against it. Who would listen to them holding forth on this issue? What in the world would they say?

Ready to fight over a word, wink or whistle, they have no words at all for all those dead females. They are strangled and silenced by "choice."

The Times of India discusses how even though sex-selection abortion in India is illegal, it is difficult to prosecute.

So what makes it difficult for sexdetermination cases to be detected or prosecuted ? Legal experts put the blame on the "doctor-patient nexus".

"The person who goes to a doctor for sex determination and the doctor who provides the information are accomplices ," said senior criminal law counsel Nitin Pradhan . "No third person is involved . And the act is done under the shroud of secrecy . Hence , no complaints are filed in most cases."

Life Links 7/12/11

Anglican priest Joanna Jepson writes about the abuse of Britain's Abortion Act.

Last week saw the Department of Health – following a six-year moratorium – make a full disclosure of the provision of abortions since 2002. Their years of resistance, victoriously challenged by the ProLife Alliance, was claimed to be for the sake of protecting the identities of the mothers undergoing late-term abortions, who might be tracked down, exposed and hounded by the press.

While that fear has not been justified, the withholding of statistics has impeded the accountability necessary to observe where the Abortion Act is being abused. The release of this backlog of data suggests that the injustice and double standards surrounding abortion need rigorous attention. Perhaps this is most starkly illustrated by the figures showing that there have been 26 abortions for cleft lip and palate in the past nine years, one of those taking place after the upper legal limit of 24 weeks.

Ramesh Ponnuru lists and corrects numerous inaccuracies in a New Republic article by Christine Stansell. Some of them are so bad, I'm left to wonder if The New Republic still employees editors in these rough economic times.

"Anti-abortion views first entered presidential politics in 1980, seven years after Roe v. Wade, when Ronald Reagan embraced a “family values” agenda to run against Jimmy Carter."

Also, Stansell can't even take the time to get Planned Parenthood's corporate name right. It's Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) not Planned Parenthood of America (PPA).


Planned Parenthood of the Heartland has taken over Planned Parenthood clinics in Oklahoma and Arkansas (they will official merge at the beginning of 2012) and now they're considering performing abortions at clinics in Tulsa and Broken Arrow.


The Bishop of Toledo has banned parishes and Catholic schools in his diocese from raising funds for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Bishop Blair, in his letter sent over the weekend to all priests and parishes in the 19-county Toledo diocese, stated that "at present the Komen Foundation does not fund" embryonic stem-cell research.

However, he said, "their policy does not exclude that possibility" and the foundation "may very well fund such research in the future."

A spokesman for the national Komen Foundation acknowledged that if it received a request to fund embryonic stem-cell research, it would be considered.

What could be less empowering than abortion?

At the Abortioneers, there was recently a guest post in which an abortion counselor discusses a recent counseling session with a young woman named "Nicole" looking to get an abortion. The woman was conflicted and indicated that the abortion was more her parents' choice.

Her story came out in bits and pieces as we continued to talk: like so many of my patients, she had always considered herself to be against abortion and never imagined that she would wind up across from me in this counseling room. She did not think she would cope well after the procedure and she was struggling with whether it was the "right" thing for her to do. At twenty-one, she was a few years removed from legal childhood yet still dependent on her parents, and she said that they were the ones making her terminate the pregnancy. "My parents will kick me out if I have a baby," she told me. "I'll be homeless. I won't have anywhere to go."

.......

You told me you're being forced. You told me you don't want to have an abortion. We can't see you when you've told me those things.

"I'm being forced, but I have to do this. I don't WANT to do this, but I HAVE to. You don't understand! It's my decision too. I came here for an abortion, and I have to have an abortion."

Nicole, what you've told me worries me. We find that women cope best after an abortion when they've been able to come to terms with it as their decision. Take some more time. The procedure, the cost won't change between now and next week. Come back next week if you decide this is the right thing for you. We'll still be here.

"NO!" she exclaimed. "I planned for this today. I can't come back next week. Nothing's going to change! You don't understand, I don't HAVE a choice. Yeah, I'm going to feel awful afterwards, and yeah, I'll probably regret it in a way, but it'll be worse otherwise – I have to have an abortion today!"

Nicole certainly seems empowered by abortion, no? And while the abortioneer originally planned against allowing Nicole an abortion that day, she relented at Nicole's persistence and allowed her to have an abortion despite Nicole saying she was being forced by her parents.

That makes it twice that Nicole's abortion wasn't really her choice. First, her parents force/coerce her to get an abortion and then she can only get the abortion if she can convince her abortion counselor that she's ready.

Life Links 7/11/11

The New York Times has an article on Mila Means' efforts to provide abortions in Wichita. The article notes Means' financial difficulties and has quotes from Means discussing her reasoning for attempting to provide abortions.

But Dr. Means is certainly not the ideological warrior many expected to fill his void. She said her decision to start performing abortions was as much about making money for her struggling practice as about restoring access to a constitutional right. .....

She looked at the finances of her solo family practice and figured she might be the poorest doctor in the state. Though she lives modestly, she has had continuing problems managing money: her credit card companies have taken her to court, and her checks occasionally bounce. Determined to work alone, she did not have enough patients to cover the bills.

Offering abortions seemed the easiest way to keep the doors to her small office open, she said. The need was also there, she felt.

The article also notes how Means attempted to work at a CPC in 2001.


A right to life office in New Brunswick, Canada was vandalized 3 nights in a row.

"It happened on three successive nights, three different incidents,'' said association executive director Peter Ryan. "One night they painted the word 'Choice' on one side of our building in large black letters and came back two other nights and ripped off our wooden flower boxes attached to the front of our building which dress it up nicely.

"They didn't just rip out the flowers, but they went to the trouble of yanking the whole fixture off the wall, which suggests there was some animosity toward us."

A study by Northwestern researchers has found injecting patients with their own stem cells can help relieve angina.

After six months, even patients with low doses of stem cell injections had fewer angina episodes per week than the control group (about seven compared to 11); results were still similar after one year. The low-dose stem cell group could also exercise longer, lasting an average of 139 seconds on a treadmill, compared to 69 seconds by the control group.

Pennsylvania abortion clinic cited for various violations

One of Steven Brigham's abortion clinics in Pennsylvania has been cited by the Pennsylvania Department of Health for various violations. Brigham had previously transferred "ownership" to a dummy corporation after a July 2010 order to prevent him from having a controlling stake in abortion clinics.

Allentown Medical Services at 2200 Hamilton St. was cited recently for preparing to use unsterilized instruments on patients, having drugs and single-use devices that were past their expiration dates and for splattering blood on the walls and on the floor of a scrub room freezer, according to a state Department of Health report recently made public.....

It noted that in two "procedure rooms," an employee showed inspectors dozens of metal devices used in abortions that had been sterilized, but not wrapped to maintain sterility. Nine packages of surgical instruments, the report said, "had an accumulation of brown debris in the hinge areas and brown staining on the inside of the packages." An employee, who was unnamed, "confirmed that these surgical instruments were considered sterile and ready for patient use."

......

The report said: Other instruments were stored in dirty containers. A freezer for infectious waste in a scrub room was splattered and smeared with blood and the bottom of the freezer was coated with a "thick layer" of frozen blood.

Prolifers to protest Planned Parenthood comedy event with Daily Show's Lizz Winstead

From the Detroit Free Press:

With promises of protests by anti-abortion activists, the co-creator of "The Daily Show" will host a comedy fund-raiser Saturday night for Planned Parenthood in Pontiac.

Lizz Winstead's first stop on her tour comes as Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan is at a standstill in its efforts to open a clinic in Auburn Hills because of litigation.

"Every woman I know has used Planned Parenthood. I am no exception," Winstead told the Free Press.

But several groups don't want her or Planned Parenthood there.

"We are picketing the Planned Parenthood fund-raiser to send a public message that this group kills innocent human life, and its clinic, indeed its whole anti-life agenda, is not wanted," said Monica Miller, director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society.

D.C. now says it paid for 300 abortions

The AP has an article which claims Washington, D.C. paid for approximately 300 abortions (at a cost of $185K) in the 8 1/2 months after D.C. started using tax funds to pay for abortions until the Dornan amendment was reinstated. It took the city almost a year to start paying for abortions after it was originally overturned. The AP got their information from the city after filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

The number of abortions the city now says it paid for contrasts with previous statements.

In May, Mayor Vincent Gray reported to Congress that the city had paid about $62,000 to provide 117 abortions to women whose health care was covered by Medicaid and the D.C. HeathCare Alliance, programs serving low-income residents. The mayor's office said Thursday in an email that the discrepancy reflects the fact bills were not submitted on time, but that 300 procedures was the correct number. City spokeswoman Doxie McCoy said that the exact number of abortions the city paid for could still rise because claims are still being processed.

I'm still wondering if this number is low based on the roundness of the number and the claims that 28 women had to have their abortions rescheduled in one day at one D.C. abortion clinic after tax dollars stopped funding abortions.

Life Links 7/7/11

Some local media outlets have covered the attack on abortion protester Bud Shaver in Albuquerque by a post-abortive woman.

APD said a criminal summons will be filed for the woman in the video.

She will be charged with one count of aggravated battery and one count of battery.

APD expects those charges to be filed on Thursday and at that point they will release the woman's name.

An Oregon judge will order a pregnant woman who was arrested for damaging a hotel room to be committed to a mental health facility. The woman requested an abortion and police suspect she was trying to set herself on fire when she was damaging the hotel.

On Wednesday, Collins issued a magistrate's hold ordering the county's civil commitment investigator, Todd Sprague, to evaluate Burkholder's mental status. He issued a report, which Collins relied on to order her to a mental health facility. She will leave Thursday morning.

The decision regarding the abortion will be left up to doctors at the new facility. Collins declined to say which facility she would move to.

Don't see a mainstream media headline like this too often: "Pro-abortion group asks judge to block Texas sonogram law"


A teenager may face feticide charges after crashing her car into a tree and killing a passenger's unborn child at 36-weeks. She told authorities she had been drinking before the accident.

Prolife laws now face court battles

As with nearly every prolife law, prolifers have to win battles in courthouse as well as the legislature.

The Kansas law regulating abortion clinics which would have closed two abortion clinics has been temporarily blocked from taking effect.

In court, the state attorney general's office argued there was no good reason to stop the licensing process and that unlicensed clinics could still do up to five emergency abortions a month. They also said the Planned Parenthood license disproved claims that the rules were solely designed to shut down abortion services.

U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia ruled the providers showed sufficient evidence for their case, and issued a temporary injunction on the new rules until the lawsuit goes to trial.

The trial begins August 16.


A federal judge will hear arguments on a new law in Texas which requires abortionists to perform ultrasounds before abortion.

The so-called sonogram law, which takes effect Sept. 1, requires a doctor to describe the fetus' features and allow the pregnant woman to hear the fetal heartbeat. The law does not allow women to opt-out of the description. Exemptions are allowed only cases of rape or incest and when the fetus has fatal abnormalities.

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the federal lawsuit last month, arguing that the law is unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks will hear the case in Austin.

The group is asking Sparks to impose an injunction to keep the law from being enforced until the lawsuit is resolved.

Judge Sparks was nominated to his position by President George H. W. Bush.

Abortion proponents in Kansas are now also trying to raise patient privacy as an issue with the new regulations, as the regulations require abortionists to have their records available at the clinic for inspection. The article lists a number of other states which also require abortionists to allow their medical records to be inspected.


A lawsuit against a South Dakota law which would have created a 72-hour waiting period has been grant temporary injunction.

In a 61-page opinion granting the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Karen Schreier found Planned Parenthood's challenge of the counseling centers and waiting period would likely succeed.

The help center requirements "constitute a substantial obstacle to a woman's decision to obtain an abortion because they force a woman against her will to disclose her decision to undergo an abortion to a pregnancy help center employee before she can undergo an abortion," Schreier wrote.

Schreier, a Clinton nominee, has ruled on a number of South Dakota's abortion restrictions and has consistently ruled against them.

Life Links 7/5/11

The UK's Department of Health has finally released late term abortion statistics.

The Department of Health statistics, which go back almost a decade, were released after a six-year legal battle. They reveal that between 2002 and 2010 there were 17,983 terminations on the grounds that there was a “substantial risk” that the babies would be “seriously handicapped” — known as Ground E abortions. Of these, 1,189 were aborted after 24 weeks, after which there must be such a serious risk for an abortion to be legal if the mother is not in danger. Last year 147 foetuses were aborted after 24 weeks, a rise of 29 per cent since 2002.

26 of the Ground E abortions (one past the 24 week limit) were for cleft palate.

In the Wall Street Journal, Bill McGurn discusses Mara Hvistendahl's book on sex-selection abortion.

For her part, Ms. Hvistendahl offers a compelling indictment of the cult of expertise that has inflicted tremendous human damage around the world, from the Western development agencies that told women in places like Asia and Africa that their babies were the reason their nations were poor—and supported sometimes brutal efforts to stop them from having those babies. Or the many folks who never tire of preaching, no matter how much history refutes them, that babies are just plain bad: bad for the environment, bad because they increase competition for limited resources, bad because, in this view, each new life is but a new burden on everyone else.

The Wall Street Journal also has an article on fetal programming, where researchers in the UK are attempting to make children healthier by making their environment as unborn children healthier.

In the study, which is taking place at five sites across the U.K., pregnant women who are obese but nondiabetic will be given a drug used to treat type-2 diabetes called Metformin over the course of their pregnancy. Obese women, even those who don't have diabetes, tend to have higher blood sugar during pregnancy, the researchers say. The glucose passes through the placenta to the fetus, causing the fetus to work harder to produce more insulin to deal with the higher levels of sugar. The babies tend to be born larger and to produce more insulin because their bodies expect to take in higher levels of glucose, Dr. Norman says.

The researchers expect that the diabetes drug will lower the mothers' blood sugar, which in turn should reduce the amount of glucose passed to the fetus. The hoped-for outcome is that the babies are smaller at birth and have metabolisms that don't come out churning insulin and aren't predisposed towards obesity.

In the LA Times, Jack Dolan discusses the high salaries at the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine.

With his $400,008 salary, Thomas joins institute President Alan Trounson — who made $490,008 last year — high on the list of the state's top paid, non-university employees.....

In a written statement to the board after his election, Thomas told his new colleagues they were in a "communications war" in which "the world seems to be focused on internal issues instead of the grand big picture" of the institute's mission to cure disease.

His solution? In late June the agency posted an ad for a new public relations director who will make as much as $208,520 per year.

Abortion protester Flip Benham has been found guilty of misdemeanor stalking.

Prosecutors said Benham distributed photos with the names and photos of several Charlotte doctors who perform abortions and the words “Wanted ... By Christ, to Stop Killing Babies.”

Life Links 7/1/11

Joe Carter points out Mara Hvistendahl's obviously inconsistent beliefs about abortion and sex-selection abortion.

So why does she accept the first form of the argument but not this one? Because that is the outcome she wants. She believes that (A) a woman should have the right to an abort a fetus and that (B) a woman should not have the right to abort a fetus if she knows it is a female. Logic and consistency be damned, the two beliefs must be compatible because she wants them both to be true at the same time.

It truly is amazing how pro-choicers who are opposed to sex-selection abortion can't see how the premise of their pro-choice position (women should be allowed to choose for themselves whether they should remain pregnant) is wholly inconsistent with saying women shouldn't be allowed to abort because they don't want a female child. I guess "Trust women!" only goes so far.


Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri has been granted a license to perform abortions in Kansas.

Shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday, state health officials notified Planned Parenthood that it would be the only abortion clinic to get a license under controversial new rules that take effect today....

The state’s two other abortion clinics — Aid for Women in Kansas City, Kan., and the Center for Women’s Health in Overland Park — are without licenses and unable to provide abortions.

Both will be in federal court at 3 p.m. today to challenge the new rules. Neither clinic had any abortion appointments scheduled for today.

A Detroit man has been charged with the killing of his girlfriend and her unborn child.

Jomiah Washington has been charged with first-degree murder, willful killing of an unborn child, mutilation of a dead body and felony firearm, the prosecutor’s office said.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the girlfriend was killed and her body was burned May 28 in the 14000 block of Abbington in Detroit.

The Missourian has a long article on prolife groups in the Show Me State.