Amanda Marcotte fails again

In her latest Slate piece, Amanda Marcotte attempts to attack Lila Rose and Live Action's possible Planned Parenthood sting by arguing that sex-selection abortions aren't an issue in the United States.

Does she examine any of the relevant data which shows an imbalance in the sex ratios in Asian families with second and third children when the first child is a girl?

Nope. That would require actual junior high level research. And effort.

No, instead she uses elementary school level reasoning.

Last time, she was trying to prove that Planned Parenthood is involved in sex trafficking. Now she's trying to accuse them of fueling a social problem that doesn't even exist: sex-selective abortion. Even though Rose hasn't released any of her no doubt misleadingly edited videos, the presence of women in Planned Parenthood clinics claiming that they wanted abortions only if their fetuses were female tipped the organization off that there's another sting afoot. Marinate on that for a moment, if you're eager to believe that Planned Parenthood is part of some nationwide anti-girl conspiracy. If they were routinely---or even occasionally---handing out sex-selective abortions, they wouldn't figure out so quickly that they were being targeted by a sting. The only reason the sting operation is sticking out is because sex-selective abortions aren't actually a thing that people are doing, not in the U.S. And certainly not through Planned Parenthood.

So Marcotte's "reasoning" is that sex-selection abortions can't be happening even occasionally in the U.S. because one abortion provider, which has been harmed by previous undercover stings, believes they may have been visited by another undercover sting involving people pretending to want a sex-selection abortion.

Marcotte never seems to think that maybe after the rather large sex trafficking dust-up, Planned Parenthood may have implemented different reporting systems which encourage employees to share with their supervisors any patients who could have controversial requests and then these supervisors examine the requests for a pattern.

Marcotte also never seems to understand that the vast majority of women having sex selection abortions probably aren't bringing it up with their abortion provider voluntarily.

Life Links 4/26/12

In the Washington Times, Cathy Cleaver Ruse discusses the depths of Representative Jerrold Nadler's ignorance.

Mr. Nadler did make one concession at the committee meeting. "On the other hand," he said, "an 8-month-old fetus or a 9-month-old fetus, in my opinion, is a human being." Some concession. Can we not in 2012 call even a nearly born infant a human being as a matter of fact rather than opinion?

Father Raymond De Souza writes about Canada's non-consensus on abortion and Stephen Woodworth's motion to study if the unborn are human beings.

Canada's "consensus" on our unlimited abortion licence — any time, for any reason, fully funded by tax dollars — is a strange one. First of all, it's not really a consensus, as only a minority of Canadians, when polled, support the extreme position we currently have.

Yet the faux-consensus is apparently so essential that any attempt to moderate Canada's abortion enthusiasm is thought to be unpatriotic, as if adopting, say, French or German abortion policies would be to accede to the most retrograde social policies imaginable. At the same time, the faux-consensus is so fragile that every attempt must be made to prevent any discussion about it.

At Red State, Marjorie Dannenfelser notes that Planned Parenthood's completely unpersuasive ad was well.......completely unpersuasive to Pennsylvania's voters.

In Pennsylvania's 134th House district, they spent an eye-popping $100,000 on a TV ad campaign trying to sink the candidacy of Republican Ryan Mackenzie by linking him to ultrasound legislation that was before the legislature.....

That trial balloon popped when MacKenzie cruised to victory by an 18-point margin, 59 percent to 41 percent.

In a transparent attempt to keep her problem-ridden Alabama abortion clinic afloat, Southern state abortion clinic magnate Diane Derzis is trying to pull a Steven Brigham. She's trying to hand over ownership of her abortion clinic to someone who either rents from her or lives with her. Prolife groups have noted the fishy business.

Ochata Management LLC filed an application for a license to run the clinic on March 30, according to state records released at the request of The Birmingham News. Ochata was formed on March 21, according to records in the office of the Alabama Secretary of State.

Several anti-abortion organizations on Tuesday sent regulators a letter alleging that Ochata's administrator and the clinic's current owner, Diane Derzis, have a relationship that should bar the company from taking over the clinic. Under the terms of a consent decree any new operator "must be independent from and not affiliated with New Woman or its officers and directors."
......
According to Ochata Management's license application, Ochata is located in a 16th Street South building. According to Jefferson County tax records, Derzis owns a building with the same street address. According to other public records, Rain-Water lives at the same address.

This anti is taking the bait

Steph Herold at the Abortion Gang has a post entitled, "Toxic Work Environments in the Reproductive Health Rights and Justice World" in which she lists a number of problems in working for pro-choice organizations.

Every so often several friends and I debate the merits of "outing" certain organizations for their legendary (expletive). Everyone knows that organization A has an executive director who's a megalomanic. Everyone knows that two particular organizations bully other smaller organizations. Everyone knows that organization B likes to fire (almost) everyone every couple of years. Everyone knows that certain national organizations have less than cordial relationships with their local affiliates. Is there merit in pinning a name to these claims? What would happen to the person who decided to to do so? Would she be ex-communicated from the movement? Lose the ability to work or volunteer in the movement ever again?

Maybe my friends and I are just bitter (former) employees. But we also believe that our movement can and should be better than this. Is this bait for antis? Everything is bait for antis.

Herold then goes on the list a myriad of issues she and others have seen as problematic while working for abortion providers and pro-choice organizations. While some of them could be typical of any work place, others point to a large amount of hypocrisy in leading pro-choice organizations. 

You don’t get insurance coverage. The insurance coverage you get doesn’t cover pre-natal care, contraception, or abortion. You don’t get decent maternity or paternity leave. Yet these are all values your organization supposedly champions......

Your organization only cares about marginalized people in a marginalized place (hello, low-income Texan women!) when your org stands to make a buck off of promoting their rough situation.

Herold has previously voiced her disappointment with leading pro-choice organizations who didn't hire her because of her outspoken views.

You can imagine my excitement when over the course of a few months, I landed interviews at many of the big pro-choice organizations here. I don't have to name them. You know who they are. I interviewed for jobs at these places that fit my experience, jobs at which I could've kicked ass. But each interview ended with some version of this: "I'm sorry, but you are too radical/too much of an activist to work for us." At one particular organization, a senior executive looked me in the eye and said, "If you work here, you have no voice on reproductive rights." Another organization wanted me to delete my twitter account. Some wanted me to stop blogging. Others said that because I have a published opinion on later abortion, I would be a liability. One wanted me to resign from all my volunteer pro-choice activism, namely being on the board of the New York Abortion Access Fund. These requests were not implied. They were said to me in no uncertain terms.

She was eventually hired by the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health and is now working at Columbia University.

Any guesses to who the supposed megalomaniac is? Cecile Richards, perhaps?

Life Links 4/25/12

At the Charleston City Paper, Jack Hunter doesn't get pro-choice vegans.

What is it that is so precious about milk that it should be respected, but a fetus is something we can dispose of? What is it that is so sacred about cheese, but is nonexistent when it comes to the value of a human life? I simply do not get it. When the primary guiding philosophy behind your diet is a respect for life, it seems perverse to put human beings at the bottom of the food chain.

At the Philadelphia Daily News Christine Flowers writes about the idea that having an abortion is courageous or selfless.

We can disagree about the law. We can disagree about the science. We can even disagree about the politics of reproductive autonomy. What we can't do, though, is delude ourselves into believing that it takes more courage to destroy a growing fetus than it does to allow that child to be born. We can't pretend that it is more selfless to use abortion as birth control than it is to give birth and then gift that child to loving, adoptive parents.

The California Nurses Association is opposing legislation to make it legal in California for nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physicians assistants to perform abortions. There is currently a study in California at UC San Francisco Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health where 41 non-doctors are being trained to perform aspiration abortions.


Jane at the Abortion Monologues provides a great example of how some pro-choicers in Canada are almost completely unable to debate abortion. When a call for a government committee to study when human life begins leads to such a mindless, angry, unpersuasive and unreasonable monologue it makes you wonder if someone like Jane really knows that the unborn are human beings but cares too much about abortion to let that inconvenient fact get in the way.


One of Steven Brigham's closed abortion clinics in Pennsylvania is hoping to re-open but the state doesn't appear to be backing down.

"Rose Health Services' failure to have a physician on-site to perform abortion services and notify the department accordingly in a timely fashion is a violation of the law," said Christine Cronkright, Health Department director of communications. "The Pennsylvania Department of Health stands by its actions in the April 17 letter and order revoking the registration."

Planned Parenthood stung again?

Planned Parenthood has notified some of its friends in the media that they suspect Live Action actors recently posed as women looking to get sex-selection abortion and their clinics in a variety of states. Planned Parenthood is trying to get out ahead of this one.

A string of suspicious incidents at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country has given the organization reason to believe that anti-abortion activists are targeting it in a new organized sting operation. According to Planned Parenthood spokesperson Chloe Cooney, clinics in at least 11 states have reported two dozen or more "hoax visits" over the past several weeks, in which a woman walks into a clinic, claims to be pregnant and asks a particular pattern of provocative questions about sex-selective abortions, such as how soon she can find out the gender of the fetus, by what means and whether she can schedule an abortion if she's having a girl..... While Planned Parenthood condemns seeking abortions on the basis of the gender of the fetus, Cooney said the provider is also "committed to providing high-quality, confidential, nonjudgmental care to all who come into our health centers." While Planned Parenthood staffers are extensively trained to answer unusual and difficult questions and to refer women to necessary counseling, none of its clinics will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selection abortion (Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois).

Since Live Action often points out how Planned Parenthood clinic flout the law, I wouldn't be surprised to see videos from some of those states where sex-selection abortion is illegal.

Jessica Valenti pre-emptively defends Planned Parenthood and claims it's ethical to take part in sex-selection abortions. Hooray for feminism!!!

Life Links 4/23/12

The Washington Examiner reports that the vast majority of abortion clinics in Virginia will comply with the state's recent law abortion clinic regulation law.

Twenty of the 23 facilities affected by the new rules have already informed the state that they meet those new standards or would make the necessary changes to comply, according to license applications The Washington Examiner obtained through an open-records request. Of the other three that didn't apply for a license, one already stopped providing abortions and two others didn't have to meet the new standards because they plan to perform fewer than five first-trimester abortions a month.

When the regulations were being considered, abortion advocates continually claimed the regulations would force numerous clinics to close. Abortion advocates are now claiming it will cost between $150,000 to $3 million to meet the regulations.


The BBC will produce a live two hour radio program at an abortion clinic.

The BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Victoria Derbyshire will host an edition of her show from an as yet unnamed clinic next month and carry out interviews with women who are undergoing pregnancy terminations, as well as doctors, counsellors and junior members of the clinic's staff. After a period of negotiation the clinic has consented to the programme and is likely to be identified.

Planned Parenthood has stopped distributing RU-486 abortion pills in Wisconsin because of a new law.

It mandates that women having nonsurgical abortions visit the same doctor three times and that doctors ensure the woman is having the procedure voluntarily and without coercion. Failure to follow those requirements could result in felony charges against the doctor..... Planned Parenthood president and chief executive officer Teri Huyck said because of confusion over the new law, nonsurgical abortions are being suspended. Planned Parenthood will continue to provide surgical abortions at its clinics in Madison, Milwaukee and the Appleton area, its leaders said. "The added risks of felony penalties for physicians who provide medication abortion are unnecessary and intended to threaten a physician's ability to provide women with medication abortion,'' Huyck said.

Or maybe it's just not cost-effective for the abortionist to see a woman three times.


The Santa Fe New Mexican has a long article on retired abortionist Lucia Cies.


An Indian woman who was forced into 6 sex-selection abortions is exposing abortion and sonography clinics.

Bhatt had already filed a police case against her husband and in-laws for harassment. But in order to expose this practice Bhatt filed RTI applications with the health officers of two districts seeking details about her abortion case and other such cases. The explosive information exposed a nefarious nexus between gynecologists and sonography clinics involved in illegal abortion and sex determination tests. Bhatt found that her name did not figure in the elaborate list of patients who had undergone sonography tests. "This meant that the government had no information on the tests conducted on me, as mandated under the PCPNDT Act. There may have been many such women like me. The doctors were maintaining a secret list of patients on which sex determination tests were being conducted," says Bhatt. Due to Bhatt's expose, licences of two doctors' were cancelled for malpractice and the state government reviewed the requirements for doctors to submit their monthly reports.

Life Links 4/20/12

The Texas Tribune is reporting on another Planned Parenthood affiliate merge. North Texas, Austin and Waco Planned Parenthoods are merging to become Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas.

Publicly, Planned Parenthood leaders say the merger, which has been under discussion since 2009, is about creating a leaner, more efficient organization, especially in the face of reductions in state and federal financing. Less brazenly, they suggest that joining forces is the best way to defend their branches from an onslaught of anti-abortion legislation — and to connect the fundraising powerhouses concentrated in North Texas with endangered clinics throughout the 58,000-square-mile region and beyond. "For us, it's a strategic merger, an opportunity to pull together three very strong operations into one," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Waco-born daughter of the late Gov. Ann Richards. "It will help on the advocacy side and, more important, on the health care delivery side."

Also in Texas, a judge has heard arguments over legislation to remove Planned Parenthood from the state women's health program.

But lawyers for the state said Planned Parenthood's mission was contrary to a Texas Women's Health Program goal of reducing abortions. The program provides cancer screenings, birth control and other health services to more than 100,000 low-income women. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel did not rule on Planned Parenthood's request but said he planned to do so by April 30. "I find this to be a difficult case," he said after lawyers for both sides made their arguments.

Pennsylvania has revoked the registration of one of Stephen Brigham's abortion clinics which has been shuttered because its abortionist resigned.

The letter acknowledges the clinic voluntarily closed, but the newspaper says regulators noted the clinic failed to notify the state that its doctor resigned creating an "infrastructure failure" that prompted the letter revoking the clinic's registration.

Girl without hands wins penmanship award

Here's your feel good story of the day:

By all accounts, Annie Clark, 7, a first-grader at Wilson Christian Academy in West Mifflin, is a hard-working and determined student who makes a point of learning from her mistakes and strives for perfection in her work.

So on the surface, it should come as no surprise that she won a national handwriting award from the Zaner-Bloser language arts and reading company. That is, of course, if you didn't know that she was born with no hands.

On Wednesday, Annie received one of two national handwriting awards the Zaner-Bloser firm offered for the first time this year to disabled students. The other went to a student in Eastlake, Ohio, who has a visual impairment.

USA Today has a video of Annie writing.

 Her parents certainly sound like they're prolife.

Annie's can-do attitude may come from her family of eight siblings. The Clarks have three biological children, Amanda, 29, Amy, 25 and Abbey, 21. Abbey was born with Down syndrome, and the Clarks said their experiences with her opened their eyes to the world of disabled children. "I feel like God used that to teach us the value of every human being," Mrs. Clark said. Devout Christians, the Clarks started to adopt disabled Chinese children. In addition to Annie, the Clarks adopted sons Travis and Talbot, 10, and Tyler, 18, all of whom are missing parts of their right forearm. They also have two other adopted daughters, Alyssa, 18, who also has Down syndrome, and Amelia, 4, who has an undiagnosed lesion on her leg. The Clarks said while others might consider their family a burden, they consider their children to be blessings.

Life Links 4/19/12

I can't believe Planned Parenthood is wasting money on this ad. It's completely unpersuasive. An abortion clinic nurse practitioner isn't going to vote for prolife candidate because showing women their ultrasounds is "cruel" and women will get black eyes if they are given their ultrasound photo. The arguments against ultrasound legislation are getting weaker and weaker.




A Minnesota man has been arrested after beating his pregnant ex-girlfriend and attempting to kill his unborn child.

Kenneth L. Turner, 28, assaulted his ex-girlfriend at a home for three hours, at one point ordering her to lie on her back and stomping on her stomach with both feet, the charge said. He told her she didn't deserve the baby and that he was going to kill it, the complaint said.

The woman is two months pregnant. It's unclear whether her embryo suffered any permanent injuries.

Turner was charged with felony first-degree attempted murder of an unborn child and felony domestic assault. He has previous domestic assault convictions and two other violent felony convictions.

Jordan Sekulow and Matthew Clark on Planned Parenthood's abortion prayers.

While admitting that aborted babies are "our children—even those we decide not to bring into the world," Faith Aloud cannot debunk the claim that abortion is murder. Faith Aloud's Web site states, "When you hear something over and over, like ‘abortion is murder', it can get into your head—like a commercial. But if you really believed that abortion was the same as murder you probably wouldn't even be considering it."

All Planned Parenthood and Faith Aloud can do is rationalize the taking of another human's life under the guise of prayer.

Pro-choice reporter gets voluntary transvaginal ultrasound

Megan Carpentier is a little behind the times on this one. Wasn't this news like a month ago? Anyways, she decides to get a transvaginal ultrasound at an abortion clinic in Ohio and then report on it.

The most notable item about the whole story is the "green" abortion clinic in Ohio where Carpentier went requires transvaginal ultrasounds at certain gestational periods even though Ohio doesn't have a law requiring ultrasounds.

Notably, Preterm has a policy of performing ultrasounds on all patients seeking abortion, though Ohio law does not yet require it. For medical reasons, they use ultrasound to confirm pregnancies (in case of false positives), rule out ectopic pregnancies and physically locate the gestational sac in order to perform better, safer abortions. Patients that do not wish to undergo a transvaginal ultrasounds early in their pregnancies can opt to return at a slightly later date, when they are far enough along (though not too far along for a first trimester abortion) to be able to visualize something on the ultrasound.

The whole controversy on this issue is so fabricated. For obvious medical reasons, abortion clinics do ultrasounds. When abortion clinics don't do ultrasounds it's probably because they're shady clinics who don't care if women are actually pregnant and don't care about the possibility/dangers of ectopic pregnancies. Since shady abortion clinics don't have a governing body which regulates them, it makes sense for the government to regulate them.

Life Links 4/18/12

Prolifers in Ohio on working on new legislation to keep funds away from Planned Parenthood.

Under the proposal, local public health departments get the top funding priority, followed by federally qualified community health centers, private primary-care centers and, last, Planned Parenthood and other stand-alone family planning centers.

"We refer to it as defunding Planned Parenthood because a lot of the money, in fact, will go to the top three (categories), but it doesn't preclude Planned Parenthood at the end of the day from receiving money," said Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life.

Pro-choice intolerance is alive and well in Connecticut where a number of students attempted to prevent the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform from setting up a display of images of aborted children at the University of Connecticut. Two students, Brenna Regan and Logan Place, who refused to stop interfering after authorities showed up were eventually arrested.

Regan described the images on display as "imposing and attacking." The posters included bloody images of aborted fetuses, detached baby heads and dismembered limbs......

"If the UConn Police would rather arrest UConn students than stop a hate speech, so be it," Place said.

At the Hartford Courant, student Cindy Luo has a rather delusional perspective of the protest and arrest.

Protesters gathered on Tuesday to try and reason with GAP members, asking that they at least take into consideration the emotional health of students, but they refused to stop displaying these images. This showed that they don't actually want to have an informed, civil discussion, but rather want to traumatize people who may have had abortions or might be facing such a decision.

Trying to prevent a prolife group from setting up a display using force proves the prolife group doesn't want to have a civil discussion?


"I had an abortion" t-shirts are sparking controversy at UNC-Wilmington.

The shirts were for sale on University of North Carolina Wilmington's campus Monday in connection with a panel discussion about abortion and Jennifer Baumgardner's book signing. The author and abortion rights advocate started making the shirts in 2004, to encourage people to speak about their experiences. The sales sparked other students to rally with their own shirts, saying things like "I haven't killed a baby."

Apparently, Politico has no understanding of what an apology is. From Sarah Silverman, this clearly isn't one.

In her apology, Silverman tweeted:"It wasn't funny for me to talk so casually about abortion. But when they take our right to choose away it will be HILARIOUS!" And: "The government should STAY OUT of our PRIVATE LIVES except when it comes to who we marry & what we do w our uteruses!!"

Vanessa Williams said this about her abortion in an interview with a Fox affiliate:

Who knows how life would have been different? I think the bottom line is I definitely would have been where I am now even if I'd gone down another path. It doesn't take away from the drive or the talent. You can make your life whatever you want with or without a child.

Life Links 4/17/12

In a new book, actress Vanessa Williams discusses an abortion she had in high school.

Vanessa Williams, now a mother of four, said she first got pregnant when she was in high school but decided to have an abortion -- another secret she kept from her mother.

"Being pregnant is the most frightening thing that happens in your life," she said. "I knew in high school that's something that I was not prepared to do, or fight, or struggle with."

Mississippi's governor has signed the bill to tighten abortion regulations. Abortion advocates claim the legislation could put the state's lone abortion clinic out of business since two of their three abortionists don't have admitting privileges.

The clinic's owner, Diane Derzis, said in a telephone interview this month that all her doctors are obstetrician-gynecologists, but only one has admitting privileges at an area hospital. She vowed to fight to remain open.

Erin McCann, a student at the University of Maine, provides your typical piece opposed to the Genocide Awareness Project. Assertion filled and argument-free.


The Irish Times has a piece on four women who aborted children with genetic abnormalities or a condition where the child would die shortly after birth. The women refer to their aborted children as babies throughout the piece but there really aren't any quotes for why they had abortions instead of bringing the children to birth.

"Having to walk around Birmingham for five hours when you've just ended your baby's life, you've had an anaesthetic and are bleeding and cramping . . . I believe in a loving, caring, understanding God and that I won't be damned for what I did.....

Overheard: JaVale McGee was almost aborted

From the latest Sports Illustrated:

On a Saturday morning in the spring of 1987, Pamela McGee sat on the shore at Dockweiler State Beach in Los Angeles, 72 hours from a scheduled abortion. "Do you want to be pregnant?" the counselor at the clinic had asked her. "No," McGee replied. She was a single, 24-year-old professional basketball player, and she could not take maternity leave. And even if she could, she couldn't imagine hauling an infant to Italy and parking the stroller next to the bench. But as McGee looked out over the Pacific, she began to reconsider. "I prayed and prayed and prayed and felt like I heard a voice from God," McGee says. "He was telling me, 'This is your gift.' " The next day she went to Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, and the pastor delivered a sermon about not aborting one's blessings. O.K., God, McGee thought. You don't have to beat it into my head. She called the clinic to cancel, and on Jan. 19, 1988, gave birth to a boy with physical abilities that would border on the supernatural.

Life Links 4/16/12

In an attempt to attack Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, RH Reality Check's Robin Marty ends up providing evidence for what prolifers have been saying about Planned Parenthood for years.

There's only one little problem with Heineman's strategy. Planned Parenthood doesn't provide prenatal care in any of its Nebraska clinics.

So then Planned Parenthood in Nebraska doesn't provide any services for pregnant women except abortion, correct?


The New York Times has a piece by Susan Heath discussing her abortion in 1978. She fails to understand that her experience with abortion in 1978 would closely mirror someone's experience in 2012 if they were both having abortions in New York. As per usual, the actual abortion is completely glossed over. I found this bit interesting:

Two years later, I'm driving upstate by myself. I look down and think that if I hadn't had the abortion, there would be a baby seat next to me with a small child in it, resting comfortably, knowing it would always be safe because I was in charge. It might be a girl — I would have liked to have a daughter in the family mix.

But I'm not grieving over the absence; I don't have and never have had a single qualm about not bringing that child into the world. I know many women who have grieved greatly over the children they decided not to have, and I am thankful to have been spared that agonizing sadness of guilt and regret.

This seems rather common among some pro-choice post-abortive women. They say they have no regrets but then mention thinking about what would have been, the child they would have had, etc.


A man in the United Arab Emirates is on trial for allegedly attacking his pregnant girlfriend and forcing abortion pills on her.

The cleaner told prosecutors that when she found out she was pregnant she asked the driver to marry her, but he refused. He then ordered her to abort the baby, and she refused.

She said he then beat her all over her body with a wooden stick before leaving. When he returned he had some tablets which he ordered her to take. When she refused, he assaulted her again.

Brandishing a knife, he then told her he would kill her before shoving six tablets down her throat and two others into her genitalia, which caused her to start bleeding.

In Pennsylvania, a 14-year-old boy has been found guilty for killing his father's fiancee and her unborn child when he was 11.

Lawrence County Judge John Hodge found the now-14-year-old Jordan Brown delinquent, the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty verdict, in the deaths of 26-year-old Kenzie Houk and her unborn child.

Governor Granholm - Job Creator? In what bizarro universe?

If you're a resident of Michigan, this is funniest thing you'll read this week. At the RH Reality Check, Jessica Mack interview former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm and proves she is not living in reality.

Your legacy as Governor of Michigan (2003-2011) was job creation and clean energy, but you are also staunchly pro-choice.

Maybe Mack should be forgiven because she lives in Seattle and was maybe completely unaware that the unemployment rate in Michigan went from 6.3% when Granholm took office in January 2003 to a high of 14.2% in August of 2009.

Granholm's job creation numbers look like this:

This is why Cal-Berkeley hired her to lecture on "Creating Jobs in America."

Life Links 4/12/12

The Morning Call has an article on the state of Pennsylvania's decision to pull the operating registration of Steven Brigham abortion clinic in Allentown.

The department pulled the registration after it learned that Allentown Medical Services lost its lease at 2200 Hamilton St. Since registrations for abortion facilities are specific to a location, losing the lease broke the terms of the registration, the state said.

Additionally, Brigham and clinic officials showed a "chronic inability … to comply with the most fundamental statutory and regulatory requirements," Deputy Secretary for Quality Assurance Anna Marie Sossong wrote in a revocation letter.

The soon to be closed abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama will stay open until May 18th. A group of prolifers protested outside the clinic.

So why doesn't the state shut the clinic down sooner than May 18? Attorneys for the state health department say that date was reached in a settlement with the clinic. They say had the department gone through a full out administrative hearing procedure, which was originally planned, it would have been at least June before the clinic would have had to close its doors.

At one point in the video, it appears that the abortion clinic turns it's sprinklers on the prolifers.


Speaking of the Birmingham clinic, Slate's Irin Carmon is playing defense the best she can. Not until the second to last paragraph does Carmon provide the reasoning for the clinic's coming closure.

New Woman All Women's most recent troubles started when Derzis called 911 on Jan. 21 because two women had accidentally been given 10 times the intended dosage of the drug Vasopressin. The protesters outside – whom Derzis had repeatedly battled in court – said they photographed the women getting into the ambulance and filed a complaint with the Department of Public Health. According to the subsequent report, "the registered nurse that made the medication error has had disciplinary action taken against her by the clinic. Medical records and interviews with clinical staff at the clinic did not indicate the patients were in immediate danger." But the subsequent investigation produced a 76-page report, which mostly details violations of documentation — such as failing to have clear job descriptions for various employees and adequate orientation procedures — and legibility of records. Other findings were more serious, such as a chart being signed off by a nurse who wasn't present in the clinic on that day and failure to document the monitoring of a patient who was given Pitocin. All added up to the surrender of the clinic's license, rather than go through protracted negotiations.

It's amazing how far abortion advocates will go to defend obviously below standard abortion clinic. To treat "failing to have adequate orientation procedures" aka "employees weren't properly trained to do their jobs" as if it is some minor detail is ridiculous.

Life Links 4/11/12

An infant in India has died after being beaten by her father.

Police arrested her 25-year-old father, Umar Farooq, who relatives alleged tortured the child as he was upset at having a daughter instead of a son.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas are suing in an attempt to get funds via the Women's Health Program.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Austin, asks the court to file a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of a rule that Texas legislators approved in 2005, denying participation in the program to any clinic affiliated with an abortion provider.

A ban on abortions after 20 weeks has passed the Arizona House and Senate (the bill also includes other prolife provisions) and just needs Governor Brewer's signature to become law.

The proposal increases the current requirement that an ultrasound be performed before an abortion from one hour to 24 hours before. It also requires abortion clinics to post signs providing notice that it's illegal for anyone to coerce a woman to have an abortion.

In wording similar to that in the laws of other states with 20-week bans, the Arizona legislation specifies that the state's ban would start from a point "as determined with reasonable probability by the attending physician."

Authorities in China allegedly caught a group of people providing illegal gender tests via ultrasound.

Life Links 4/5/12

In Mississippi, abortion clinic protesters got a scare when a man stopped his car and slashed up their sign with hunting knifes.


In Australia, a doctor is facing medical misconduct for posting information on how to do a do-it-yourself abortion online.

The Medical Board of Australia is pursuing professional misconduct action against Brisbane doctor Adrienne Freeman after she posted advice online explaining how women could have abortions without medical supervision.

The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal's deputy president Judge Fleur Kingham said in a judgement published this week that Dr Freeman's disciplinary hearing had to be adjourned because she made an attempt to lead evidence while cross-examining an expert witness from the medical board.

Francis Grady, a 50-year-old man with a fairly extensive criminal past, has admitted he tried to burn down a Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin.


The Washington Post profiles "anti-abortion grandpa" Dick Retta, a sidewalk counselor who has been sued under the FACE Act.

Retta's lawyer, Jim Henderson, denies in court documents that Retta blocked the woman from entering the clinic. She had approached Retta for help, he wrote, and volunteers were leading her into the clinic against her wishes. He said Retta didn't shout or yell but said to the woman, "don't let them force you to have an abortion," a statement protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Life Links 4/3/12

An Idaho man has been sentenced to 15 years in jail after getting a 12-year-old pregnant and forcing her to have an abortion.

Kenneth Lamb of Wilder was sentenced Monday by 3rd District Judge Molly J. Huskey to 15 to 30 years in prison on felony convictions of lewd conduct with a minor child and conspiracy to escape from jail. He pleaded guilty in January.

In India, a woman is struggling to survive after being beaten by her husband and in-laws who were attempting to kill her unborn child because they thought the child was a girl. The woman had two previous abortions which were girls or assumed to be girls.

Police circle inspector Shaikh Usman said that the husband and in-laws of the victim, Munni, a resident of Balajipeta in Tenali town believed that she was pregnant with a girl child as a local Baba had predicted that only the 7th child in her womb will be a male. Husband hence allegedly beat up his wife that lead to miscarriage.

This was victim's sixth pregnancy and his husband and in-laws made her abort again and again because they didn't want the girl child.

As no local doctor was willing to abort the child for the third time due to her health condition, the family decided to do it themselves. Husband Allabaksh, father-in-law Rahman and mother-in-law Fathima tied her to a pole and beat her on the stomach under the impression it would lead to abortion.

Forbes has a piece by Ryan Holliday discussing Planned Parenthood's decision not to accept a $500,000 donation from Tucker Max. It's obvious they didn't want the possibility of negative publicity.

Remember that Live Action previously recorded Planned Parenthood employees being willing to accept donations for racist reasons.

Talk about begging the question

The Huffington Post has a debate between Canadian MP Stephen Woodworth and Canadian abortion advocate Joyce Arthur regarding when or if the unborn should be recognized as human beings.

Arthur's piece shows how complacent abortion advocates in Canada have become. She starts by accusing Woodworth of begging the question by claiming he assumes the unborn are human beings as his premise when he has actually asked for a commission to study the medical evidence as to whether they are or aren't. Woodworth's piece also makes a number of arguments for why the unborn should be considered human beings. Arthur's piece admits the unborn are biologically human (hmmm.... isn't a biologically human organism a human being?) but then asserts they aren't persons. Here's her argument for personhood:

Personhood is a socially and legally constructed concept, and it is bestowed upon birth for very practical and obvious reasons.

Yup, that's it. No argument for "sentience" or "self-awareness" just an assertion that personhood is at birth and that's that.

Here's the core of Arthur's position:

It is impossible for two beings in the same body to exercise competing rights in any meaningful or just way. The biological or medical status of the fetus is irrelevant anyway, because women need abortions and always have.

Bingo. She doesn't care if the unborn are human beings or persons. Not one iota. Women "need" abortions and that's the end of the story. She starts with the position that women "need" abortions and everything else follows from there. There's no serious thought about what the unborn are, if they have value or rights and if they should be provided any type of protection.

Here's Arthur argument in a nutshell: Women need abortion so abortion should be legal. Abortion should be legal because women need abortion.

Life Links 4/2/12

In possibly the weakest attack on ultrasound legislation so far, here's abortionist Pablo Rodriguez claiming showing a woman her ultrasound and describing parts of the child turns the ultrasound into a "torture machine." (my emphasis)

"All this bill does is turn the ultrasound into a torture machine," Rodriguez added. "You have to start turning the machine around and start describing every little part of the screen, which is hard to begin with and would serve no purpose other than to scare woman and make them change their minds. The result is to get the gestational age (of the fetus), that's why we do the ultrasound. It's not to be identifying parts of the fetus.

"For the most part, under 10 weeks, it is difficult," he added, "you have to have a knowledge of embryology and anatomy to even comprehend what you are seeing. To pretend that we can give women a course on ultrasound images in the 10 minutes it takes to do an ultrasound, it serves no purpose. It is an intrusion in the patient-physician relationship."

Sometimes abortionists let it slip why they really oppose ultrasound legislation.


Someone placed a homemade explosive device outside of a Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin.

Police say someone placed the device on an outside windowsill. It later exploded causing damage to the building and a small fire that burned out before the fire department arrived.

Dr. Barry Starr admits there were unrealistic expectations behind Proposition 71 but he has a rather delusional assessment of the "success" of Proposition 71 after providing a highly misleading description of embryonic stem cell research in the U.S. pre-Prop. 71.

There was a real worry the U.S. would be left behind and that this would keep U.S. researchers away from the forefront of biological research for the first time in our history. It was a frustrating, scary time for scientists.

Of course it was an awful time for people suffering from awful incurable diseases too. They were worried that cures involving ES cells would not come in time for them unless research was done in a big way here in the U.S.

In swooped Proposition 71 to save the day. It provided 3 billion dollars of funding for ES cell research here in California. At a minimum it provided stopgap funding to keep ES cell research alive and well here in the U.S. until President Obama re-opened the spigots again in 2009.

Even if this is all Proposition 71 accomplished, I would argue it was worth it. Eventual cures using these cells are 5-6 years closer than they would be without the money spent by California voters. This is a big deal to patients suffering from all those life threatening diseases we always hear about.

A stop gap? At minimum? Did the citizens of California really want to spend $6 billion (with a B) on a stop gap?


A doctor is Jamaica has been charged with performing an illegal abortion.

Overheard

Charles Krauthammer on the contraception mandate:

If contraception is prevention, what are fertility clinics? Disease inducers? And if contraception is prevention because it lessens morbidity and saves money, by that logic, mass sterilization would be the greatest boon to public health since the pasteurization of milk.

Where does Jimmy Carter stand on abortion?

The answer to that question depends on which Jimmy Carter you're talking to.

Jimmy Carter's recent discussion of abortion on Laura Ingraham's show is making some news. Audio and transcript at Hot Air:

“I never have believed that Jesus Christ would approve of abortions and that was one of the problems I had when I was president, having to uphold Roe v. Wade. And I did everything I could to minimize the need for abortions. I made it easy to adopt children, for instance, that were unwanted and also initiated the program called Women and Infant Children, or WIC program, that’s still in existence now. But except for the times when a mother’s life is in danger or when a pregnancy is caused by rape or incest I would certainly not or never have approved of any abortions…

“I’ve signed a public letter calling for the Democratic Party at the next convention to espouse my position on abortion which is to minimize the need, requirement for abortion and limit it only to women whose life are in danger or who are pregnant as a result of rape or incest. I think if the Democratic Party would adopt that policy that would be acceptable to a lot of people who are now estranged from our party because of the abortion issue.”

What's noteworthy is Carter's claim regarding Roe v. Wade. Here's what he said in 2006 on the Larry King Live.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don't think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

And so, I made sure that our young people had adequate instruction on how to avoid pregnancy if they should choose to have sex before marriage and before they wanted a baby, abstinence is the best approach of course, I made sure that women and infant children, the WIC Program, Women and Infant Children gave prospective mothers the assurance that they could have their child and that they would be adequately cared for economically.

And I also improved the quality or ease of adoptions by a mother who didn't want to raise her child to get matched up in a convenient way with couples who couldn't have children of their own and could delightfully raise those children. So, I did everything I could to minimize the need for abortions.

Carter provides the same talking points about reducing the need for abortions but in 2006 he said he could live with Roe and didn't think it ought to be changed. In 2012, he's saying upholding Roe was problematic for him as president and claims to favor limiting abortion in such a way which would require the overturning of Roe.

Life Links 3/29/12

Former abortionist Krishna Rajanna was caught dumping patient records in a recycling bin at an elementary school.

The Star reported that the woman found more than 1,000 records, and Rajanna confirmed that he left about that number in the bin. The Star said the records contained names, birth dates, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers and the patients' health histories, including whether any abortions were performed, for patients from almost every county in the Kansas City area and beyond, from Topeka to Freeman, Mo.

It's not that he didn't really care that much about privacy, it's just that he was so focused on saving the planet!

He wasn’t jeopardizing the privacy of women who had visited his now-defunct abortion clinic in Kansas City, Kan. Rather, he said, he was protecting the environment by not burning the paper records of the services they’d received.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards recently spoke at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy. Note her focus on social media:

Planned Parenthood uses Facebook, Twitter and text messaging to deliver sex education to young people without having to get it through the Legislature. She noted that the number of people who visit Planned Parenthood online is equivalent to about 160,000 classrooms.

“We have seen what young people and Planned Parenthood supporters can do in the face of censorship,” Richards said. “Technology has the power to connect people, to get our message out and drive social change.”

Here's a quote you wouldn't normally see at the RH Reality Check:

Yet both sides agree there is a moral urgency to ending the contamination of human beings from toxic chemicals, beginning in the womb. Government interest in fetal life shouldn't be limited to blocking women's right to choose. Instead, governments should choose to protect the interest in a healthy fetus by protecting women's health, specifically women's right to bear children and their right to a healthy pregnancy.

Interestingly, Margie Kelly think prolifers are to blame for the idea that women and the unborn are enemies.

Life Links 3/26/11

Matthew Hennessey on the unnaturalness of abortion:

(Abortion) is a lot of things. Natural, it is not.

Yet, somehow the politics of this have gotten all turned around. The greenies are in league with the pro-abortion people. The same ones who promote all-natural living—organic fruits, locally-grown vegetables, hormone-free milk, free-range chickens, solar panels, wind turbines, etc.—are usually the same ones who want to make sure that women everywhere have unlimited access to synthetic compounds—gemeprost, methotrexate, mifepristone, misoprostol, etc.—that cause abortions.

Here's another rosy profile of Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. This time via the San Antonio Express-News.


In the UK's Daily Mail, Kathy Gyngell writes about the complete failure of emergency contraception to lower the pregnancy and abortion rates in Britain.

And despite all this our teenage birth rate is still five times higher than the Netherlands, double that of France and more than twice than Germany. This cannot be right. It is quite clear now that the solution Labour's Teenage Pregnancy Unit dreamed up is not the answer. Their idea was to halve this birth rate by 2010 by promoting the wider use of contraception and the morning-after pill. Well, it has not.

Whatever anyone thought about its potential efficacy in the past, the idea that the morning after pill protects young girls from unwanted pregnancy now lies in tatters. The medical profession's ‘gold standard' Cochrane Review says there is no evidence it does. Worse, health economists from the University of Nottingham have found that emergency contraception provided free to teenagers led to a rise in unwanted teen pregnancy. And it has contributed to dramatically rising sexually transmitted infections amongst teenagers.

Frank Bruni might need a bit more skepticism

New York Times editorial writer Frank Bruni really can't smell complete rubbish when it conforms to his view of prolifers. Out of the blue, a former Catholic classmate contacts him to share stories about his life and work as an abortionist.

He shared a story about one of the loudest abortion foes he ever encountered, a woman who stood year in and year out on a ladder, so that her head would be above other protesters’ as she shouted “murderer” at him and other doctors and “whore” at every woman who walked into the clinic.

One day she was missing. “I thought, ‘I hope she’s O.K.,’ ” he recalled. He walked into an examining room to find her there. She needed an abortion and had come to him because, she explained, he was a familiar face. After the procedure, she assured him she wasn’t like all those other women: loose, unprincipled.

She told him: “I don’t have the money for a baby right now. And my relationship isn’t where it should be.”

“Nothing like life,” he responded, “to teach you a little more.”

A week later, she was back on her ladder.

Really? So none of the other protestors noticed when she (a woman who stood for years on a ladder) entered the abortion clinic? She wasn't at all fearful of how the other abortion protestors would respond to her abortion? The other abortion clinic protestors didn't shun her at all? Come on. You've got to be so gullible to believe that.

And why does this story sound so familiar to stories late abortionist George Tiller (whom the abortionist quoted above claimed to have known) would frequently tell?

George told me that in several instances, people who had been picketing his clinic later entered as patients - seeking abortions for themselves or their daughters, sisters, wives. The women obtained their abortions, then returned to the picket line. Apparently they found their own circumstances to be extenuating and compelling - but did not reach to imagine that every patient there had a similarly compelling story.

UK abortionists break law too

A solid percentage of abortion providers in the UK are willing to break the law to avoid abortionists actually having to see women or knowing something about her circumstances before providing abortions.

Spot checks at more than 250 abortion clinics this week found evidence of blank forms being signed in anticipation of patients seeking a termination.

The law states that, except in emergencies, two doctors must agree for a woman to have an abortion.

Although doctors do not have to see the woman in person, they must certify that they are aware of her circumstances and why she wants to go ahead with the procedure......

Of more than 250 clinics investigated so far, it is thought 15% to 20% may be breaking the law.

Britain's leading abortion advocate Ann Furendi was more dismayed that the media were informed than around 50 abortionists were breaking the law.

The BBC has a video of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley explaining why pre-signing abortion forms is illegal.

Life Links 3/19/12

A college student in South Africa has died after having an abortion. Even though abortion is legal is South Africa, authorities believe she obtained an illegal abortion.

Ayanda Masondo (20), a second-year student in human resources from Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal, was found leaning against the door in her room, in the Benjemijn hostel, early yesterday, Beeld newspaper reported today.

Paramedics were called, but they pronounced her dead at the scene.

Brixton police station spokesperson Constable Michael Kgatle said there would be a judicial inquiry into Masondo's death.

"At this stage an illegal abortion would appear to be the reason for her death. There was a lot of blood at the scene," Kgatle said.

In Australia, a woman who had an RU-486 abortion has died from complications.

Little is known about the circumstances of her death or even where she died, but she had been treated at a Marie Stopes clinic.

A statement from Marie Stopes International confirmed that sepsis caused the death.

USA Today is covering California's stem cell agency's future and notes the lack of return on promises.

So far, CIRM has spent some $1.3 billion on infrastructure and research. At the current pace, it will earmark the last grants in 2016 or 2017. Since most are multi-year awards, it is expected to stay in business until 2021.

So what have Californians received for their money so far?

The most visible investment is the opening of sleek buildings and gleaming labs at a dozen private and public universities built with matching funds. Two years ago, Stanford University unveiled the nation's largest space dedicated to stem cell research — 200,000 square feet that can hold 550 researchers.

There are no cures yet in the pipeline and CIRM has shifted focus, channeling money to projects with the most promise of yielding near-term results. Most of the money early on was funneled toward learning the basics and recruiting scientists.

Life Links 3/16/12

Illinois continues its long overdue attempts to crackdown on abortion clinics. This time, the state is ordering an abortion clinic to stop advertising surgical abortions since it lost its license in October.

The Illinois Department of Public Health sent a strongly worded order to the Women's Aid Clinic in Lincolnwood by certified mail on March 7. But the clinic's website on Thursday still was promoting "first trimester abortion services from 6 to 14 weeks of pregnancy with two types of anesthesia."

In October, the clinic lost its abortion clinic license after it was cited for dusty equipment, lack of a supervising registered nurse and failure to perform CPR on a patient who later died.

Since then, the clinic has remained open, even as its owner told the state the clinic would cease to operate as a licensed pregnancy termination center. It's unclear whether the clinic still is providing surgical abortions, which could be a violation of state law. A woman answering the phone said the clinic provides only the abortion pill.

The clinic failed to pay a $36,000 fine assessed in October, according to the March 7 letter, which also demands that the clinic return its original license to the state or face a revocation action. The matter will be referred to the Illinois attorney general's office if the clinic doesn't pay the fine and cease its "false advertising," the letter states.

I'm surprised the Washington Post headline in this story/blog post correctly attributes the decision to defund the Texas Women Health Program to the White House.

WaPo also has an interview with a local Planned Parenthood leader about the defunding and PP's plans to cut corners.


Funny how abortion advocates act like all abortion clinic owners aren't really in it for the money but just care so much about women. Then you have an abortion clinic worker say something like this:

Sometimes our employers tend so much to the "business" part of our business, that they forget the heart of it. They forget that without passion, without advocacy, without caring for more than the bottom line (and without having employees who do, to their core, have these qualities), they will have a very cold business. They will lose those who care the most: who are motivated by making a difference in women's lives. Some of my friends are getting lied to by their bosses: being promised that they would always have a job/not get a paycut/not get laid-off/that they're too valuable to ever lose; then all of the above happens. And employees who are rude to patients, rude to other employees, who suck the heart out of a clinic stay behind.

Ready to get sick? At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner interviews an anonymous abortionist about the role her faith plays in killing defenseless human beings.

For the doctor, her faith is "an important part of my life I think it still helps me find balance and determine what actions to take. I do feel like I have a calling for certain things, including the work I do, and that comes from my faith and my beliefs."

A calling from God to rip innocent human beings limb for limb?

Life Links 3/15/12

The Detroit Free Press has an article on Michigan State women's basketball player Lykendra Johnson, her unplanned pregnancy and her daughter.

As MSU learned it would be heading to Wichita, Kan., to play Northern Iowa in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Johnson learned something, too.

"It wasn't fatigue," she said. "That's when I first found out."

She found out she was pregnant, and had been pregnant for most of the season, including when she had 16 points and 17 rebounds against Ohio State in February and 24 points and 12 rebounds against Penn State. The pregnancy -- former MSU men's player Delvon Roe was the father -- was a shocking surprise.

A California man was given 25 to life for killing his girlfriend and her unborn child.

A man who admitted to strangling his pregnant girlfriend, killing her and her 4-month-old fetus, was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years to life in state prison.

Michael LaBrunda pleaded guilty to both first-degree murder for killing 21-year-old Alisha Chapman of Westminster on Oct. 10, 2007, and second-degree murder for killing the fetus, Los Angeles County prosecutors said.

In Reason, Steve Chapman writes about the real war on women.

If the effort to limit the contraceptive mandate were truly a frontal assault on women, a majority of them would not be endorsing the offensive. But the ideology of groups like Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women (NOW) sometimes ignores inconvenient gender realities.

Those advocates have been distracted from a different and far less figurative war on women—which, as it happens, is helped rather than hindered by one of the "reproductive rights" they champion. Legal abortion may empower women, but it has also become a powerful method for the mass elimination of females.

Bookmark this to respond to arguments that "no one likes abortion".....

I love abortion. I don't accept it. I don't view it as a necessary evil. I embrace it. I donate to abortion funds. I write about how important it is to make sure that every woman has access to safe, legal abortion services. I have bumper stickers and buttons and t-shirts proclaiming my support for reproductive freedom. I love abortion.

Life Links 3/14/12

The office of Governor Rick Perry responds to the Obama Administration announcement that the federal government will defund the Woman's Health Program because Planned Parenthood wouldn't get any of its funding.

The fact that the Obama Administration would announce its decision to deny care for more than 100,000 low income women during a press event before giving official notice to the state is a clear demonstration of the political motivation behind this decision. This tactic is an affront to the more than 100,000 women served by this program. We await official word from the Administration on this matter and in the meantime, at Gov. Perry's direction, the state continues to move forward to ensure low-income women will not lose access to this preventative care. Gov. Perry will continue to fight this egregious federal overreach and defend life, our state's laws and the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.....

• There are more than 2,500 qualified providers in the WHP that operate more than 4,600 locations across the state.
• Planned Parenthood represents less than two percent of providers in the WHP.
• Planned Parenthood's cost per client is 43 percent higher than most other providers, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Sometimes, I wonder if abortion clinic workers at the Abortioneers blog ever notice how ridiculous they sound:

So, here is my struggle...I want factory farms to be exposed for their cruelty (not only to animals, but also workers) more than anyone. I know deep down that undercover investigations in factory farms are NOT the same as anti-woman creeps like Lila Rose (and yes I feel bad giving any of her sites web traffic, but google her if you must). The footage and audio that people like Lila Rose obtain from abortion clinics is manipulated and taken out of context and at the end of the day just a downright lie. When it comes to undercover footage from factory farms there is little manipulation going on. I have seen enough of that footage to know that animal cruelty is commonplace in factory farms and no amount of photoshopping or editing can create the horrors I have seen.

Manipulated? Taken out of context? Downright lie? Umm.... do you mean the full, uncut tapes?

Do these abortion clinic workers really believe the uncut videos are downright lies or does their overwhelming preference for pro-abortion policies and their hate for prolife organizations prevent them from doing any actual research?


Spanish doctors announced they carried out the world's first lung surgery on a preborn child in 2010.

During the 30-minute procedure performed in late 2010, doctors introduced an endoscopy through the fetus' mouth to repair the defected bronchi.

"It is an extremely delicate operation since it is carried out near the heart on tissues as thin as cigarette paper. But without this fetal therapy, the baby would not have survived," Dr. Gratacos told reporters.

The baby named Alaitz was born at eight months and is in very good health condition 16 months after birth, said the doctors who unveiled their landmark work on Tuesday.

UK abortion clinics aren't used to large protests.

The spokeswoman, who requested anonymity because she said she had received hate mail, said the protests were bigger than many other anti-abortion protests.

"We've always had sporadic outbursts down the years, but I think we are seeing something, seeing protest on a scale we haven't seen before," she said.

Local Texas Planned Parenthood president Tony Thorton arrested

What's the last thing Planned Parenthood in Texas needs right now? How about the executive director of Planned Parenthood Lubbock exposing himself at a baseball field to another man?

Tony Thornton, CEO and president of the Planned Parenthood Association of Lubbock, was arrested and charged with indecent exposure Monday afternoon.

Thornton, 56, was arrested at the baseball field on Municipal Drive in Lubbock, said Sgt. Jonathan Stewart with the Lubbock Police Department.

According to the police report, the alleged victim was a 43-year-old male.

The local FOX station picked the story up as did a local NBC station which called the national headquarters.

KCBD NewsChannel 11 contacted the national headquarters of Planned Parenthood. A person with the media relations department said they would work to issue a statement on Thornton's arrest. As of Tuesday evening we have not received a response.

At this point, there is no word on whether Thornton is still employed with Planned Parenthood, following his arrest.

Life Links 3/13/12

The Washington Times has an article on Abby Johnson's $5.7 million whistleblower lawsuit against Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.

According to the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast contracted with the state to help prevent unwanted pregnancies among a population of eligible women. The clinics' main service was to offer women an annual family-planning exam and consultation; only office visits "related to contraceptive management" were reimbursable by the Medicaid program, the lawsuit said.

However, owing to financial pressures of its own, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast leaders and staff collaborated to register all kinds of ineligible services — pregnancy tests, sexual-disease tests, Pap tests — for Medicaid reimbursement, the lawsuit claims, adding that the bosses admitted to Ms. Johnson and other clinic directors that these claims were not eligible for reimbursement, but told them, "We have to keep these people as patients" and "We must turn every call and visit into a revenue-generating client."

Two New York researchers were awarded the King Faisal International Prize for Medicine for their work to treat alloimmune thrombocytopenia, "an auto-immune disease which can cause fatal brain hemorrhages in unborn fetuses and newborn children. The cause is unclear, but the illness causes the mother's immune system to attack the fetus as if it were a foreign body or disease."


Dr. Peter Goodwin, a leading advocate of Oregon's assisted suicide law killed himself using pills obtain under the state's "Death With Dignity Act."


In the Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson discusses the "after-birth abortion" bioethicists.

The article doesn’t go on for more than 1,500 words, but for non-ethicists it has a high surprise-per-word ratio. The information that newborn babies aren’t people is just the beginning. A reader learns that “many non-human animals … are persons” and therefore enjoy a “right to life.” (Such ruminative ruminants, unlike babies, are self-aware enough to know that getting killed will entail a “loss of value.”) The authors don’t tell us which species these “non-human persons” belong to, but it’s safe to say that you don’t want to take a medical ethicist to dinner at Outback.

Saletan on "After-Birth Abortion"

While William Saletan doesn't agree with bioethicists Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva but he recognizes that they raise some challenging questions for pro-choice advocates with their after-birth abortion position.

The challenge posed to Furedi and other pro-choice absolutists by “after-birth abortion” is this: How do they answer the argument, advanced by Giubilini and Minerva, that any maternal interest, such as the burden of raising a gravely defective newborn, trumps the value of that freshly delivered non-person? What value does the newborn have? At what point did it acquire that value? And why should the law step in to protect that value against the judgment of a woman and her doctor?

Life Links 3/8/12

The amended Virginia ultrasound bill has been signed by Governor McDonnell. Unsurprisingly, the AP article about the law has this mischaracterization:

The measure initially had sought to mandate a vaginally invasive form of an ultrasound, triggering a national uproar that resounded across political talk shows and TV comedy shows.....

Soon after the uproar, McDonnell had his party remove the requirement for an invasive exam through an amendment.

Also absent from the AP article are any facts regarding how standard ultrasounds are.

Sarah Kliff suggests the pro-choice movement blundered by focusing on transvaginal ultrasounds and not their real opposition to the bill.



A Baltimore Sun article about the dropped charges against abortionists Nicola Riley and Steven Brigham has more information on why the charges were dropped.

Rollins said his office had been consulting with an expert, whom he declined to identify. Early in the investigation, the expert told the state's attorney that the termination and removal of the fetuses must have occurred in the same place, said Rollins.

This expert, whom Rollins planned to use at trial, then changed his determination, under pressure "from [the expert's] colleagues in the late-term abortion community," he said. The witness decided the termination and removal of the fetus could have happened in different places.

"We've got an expert whose testimony is useless to us because he's said two different things now," said Rollins, who concluded that his office could no longer prove the pregnancies were terminated in Maryland and therefore dropped the charges.

It appears Brigham may continue his abortion caravans as New Jersey authorities have no plans to press charges.

Rollins has said his office is going to review all its evidence and may hire another abortion expert to re-examine the place of termination of the fetuses.

If the state's attorney determines that the terminations occurred in New Jersey, similar charges are not expected there.

"There's no indictable offense in this state that fits what he was doing here," said Jason Laughlin, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Camden County, N.J., where Brigham's primary clinic is located.

I like how the New York Times describes the situation regarding the Texas Women's Health Program.

Now, the Medicaid-financed Women's Health Program is in jeopardy. Texas signed regulations prohibiting clinics affiliated with groups that provide abortions from receiving funds, even though the clinics do not perform abortions themselves. The federal government says excluding qualified providers in this way is illegal, requiring it to withhold $35 million — about 90 percent of the program's financing — if the regulations, which take effect on Wednesday, are not rescinded.

Which part of the federal government? The Obama administration? Is it really required to withhold the money or is that them choosing to stick up for Planned Parenthood over funding a woman's health program.

Andrew Rosenthal also provides his typically ignorant thoughts on the issue claiming that "Texas is now planning" on shutting down the program. Rosenthal also seems to think that all Title X money goes to Planned Parenthood despite a comment in the NY Times article linked above (and also linked to by Rosenthal) which notes other organizations besides Planned Parenthood get Title X funds.

Life Links 3/7/12

Maryland prosecutors have dropped murder charges against abortionists Stephen Brigham and Nicola Riley. It appears Brigham is being let go because he injected the unborn children with fatal chemical while in New Jersey, killing them there (despite not having a valid medical license there), creating a jurisdictional issue.

As first reported Tuesday by the Cecil Whig newspaper, Rollins said in a news release that after consulting expert witnesses, prosecutors realized that fetal demise "created a jurisdictional issue."

Thus, Rollins said, Maryland "cannot successfully prosecute these matters at this time." However, he added, "the investigation is continuing."

Lawyers for Brigham and Riley argued that prosecutors had misinterpreted Maryland's fetal homicide law and its abortion law regarding the issue of fetal viability.

Brigham's lawyers argued that the abortion law gives the attending physician the responsibility for determining whether a fetus is capable of surviving outside the womb. "And under the law, it doesn't matter if others disagree," Brown said......

Brown said the latest crisis "has been very stressful for Dr. Brigham. He's eager to get back to his life and his practice."

So post-viability abortion caravans will continue unless New Jersey prosecutors step up and charge this guy with something.


The American Thinker has a story by a man whose wife "selectively reduced" triplets to a single child.

But that emotional scar will ache my whole life. I see my child's smile every night and anticipate a new one in some months...but I think of the two smiles I will never see. Every day, returning from work, I hear "Hi Daddy!" and know there are two voices and two giggles that I will never hear. I play with and cuddle my child, looking forward to the same with the second...but I know there are two sets of hands that will never touch mine, two sets of toes that will never be counted, two hugs that will forever be absent from my arms.

Obama is not very popular in Oklahoma. Abortion foe Randall Terry got 18% of Democratic primary vote there and may get a delegate.


The Muskegon Chronicle is running stories on unsolved crime mysteries. Today's story is about a 27-year-old woman who was found dead in the Muskegon River. She was going to testify against an abortionist who was caught aborting her child.

The obvious suspect was Earl Sales, the Flint man whom England was about to testify against. Investigators were also interested in the fact that Sales' wife was a Flint police officer.

"In a case like this you've got to look for motive," Knudsen said. "You have no other evidence that you can trace out. So obviously who could benefit by her death? And of course Earl Sales was the obvious guy."

But it wasn't enough.

Sales was polygraphed twice, the second time just before he was sent to prison to serve 18 months to four years for performing the abortion. (The 63-year-old was convicted of that even without England's testimony.)

Life Links 3/6/12

One would think the LA Times' Jenny Deam would do some cursory research before writing such a puff piece on wannabe abortionist Mila Means. The Wichita Eagle already profiled Means and their story would leave most normal people with the impression that Means is an unreliable individual whose "plans" to open an abortion clinic weren't very well planned out.


At First Things, Matthew Cantirino discusses Peter Singer's reaction to the strong reaction to a recent essay arguing in favor of infanticide.

Nevertheless, what's surprising about Singer's response is not necessarily his position on infanticide (which, at this point, is well known), but the academic insularity it exudes. He appears to be genuinely bothered that a paper arguing there should be no ethical taboo against killing a newborn baby is fomenting "virulence" among the general public. If only the grown-ups who run academic journals were left alone to "discuss it in a serious and well-reasoned manner," why, the controversy would be practically nonexistent.

Prolifers in Jacksonville won a lawsuit over the city's ordinance which prevented them from protesting near an abortion clinic because the spot lacked sidewalks.


A guess this is what counts as research nowadays. The New Times' Economix blog is linking to a Brookings Institute paper which claims that if the federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on various projects (mass-media campaigns, evidence-based teen pregnancy intervention and expanding access to Medicaid family planning aka giving people who aren't poor free contraceptives) aimed at reducing unplanned pregnancies, the government would save much more money from the decrease in unplanned pregnancies. Of course, the small percentage reductions in unplanned pregnancies are based solely on estimates from the same author apparently in a different paper and the expanding access to Medicaid family planning insanely estimates that it would reduce unplanned pregnancies by 4.1%.

Yeah, that's not happening when only a small percentage of the people who get pregnant without using contraceptives failed to use contraceptives because of "access" issues. We're left to believe that large percentage of the people who supposedly can't afford contraception are going to eligible to enroll in this plan, enroll in the plan and use contraception every time perfectly or decide to use unpopular long-acting contraceptives.


Jonah Goldberg on Democrats' dishonesty over Obama's contraceptive mandate.

The Obama campaign insists that "if Mitt Romney and a few Republican senators get their way, employers could be making women's healthcare decisions for them" and require that women seek a permission slip to obtain birth control.

It's all so breathtakingly dishonest. Rather than transport us to President Franklin Pierce's America, never mind Charlemagne's Europe, the Blunt amendment would send America hurtling back to January 2012. That's when women were free to buy birth control from their local Ralphs or Wal-Mart, and religious employers could opt not to subsidize the purchase. What a terrifying time that must have been for America's women.

Life Links 3/2/12

Rick Perry responds to President Obama's plan to cut federal funding to Texas Women's Health Program because they Texas disallowed funds to go to Planned Parenthood.

However, the Obama Administration apparently is unwilling to allow the exclusion of organizations like Planned Parenthood, as Texas law requires, even though that organization represents less than 2 percent of enrolled providers. Texas has more than 2,500 qualified providers in 4,600 sites across the state, ready to deliver care.

If this debate were really about health care, the Obama Administration would allow the Texas Women's Health Program to continue.

Instead, the administration's stated intention to reject the Texas program reflects nothing more than its pro-abortion agenda, and is a blatant pander to the president's liberal base, which has made Planned Parenthood's abortion services a celebrated cause.

The Wall Street Journal on the tabling of the Blunt Amendment:

Nancy Pelosi called it "devastating legislation" and "the latest ploy in the Republican agenda of disrespecting the health of American women." Planned Parenthood claimed the "dangerous proposal" would have allowed "your boss"—yes, yours—to decide "which prescriptions you can get filled and which medical procedures you can have," including cancer screening, maternity care and AIDS medications.

It sounds medieval. But in fact, the provision that the Senate tabled yesterday would merely have restored the status quo ante of one month ago. Those were the dark ages before the Obama Administration overturned traditional conscience protections with its birth-control insurance mandate under the Affordable Care Act.

At least one state legislator in California (Sen. Christine Kehoe) thinks first trimester abortions should be a decision between a woman and her nurse practitioner, physician assistant and nurse midwife.

Lawmakers opposed to abortion, however, were furious.

"My immediate response when I heard about this bill was visceral — I felt like I was kicked in the gut," Assemblyman Brian Jones (R-Santee) said in a statement. "I shouldn't be shocked at the moral failure this represents, but I fear what it says about our society that we are actually looking for more ways to abort babies."