Amazing

 

Pioneering doctor reveals the science behind abortion reversals – and the babies saved

  Kristi Burton Brown 

Dr. George Delgado recently pioneered a treatment that has many around the nation talking. He discovered a novel, scientifically accurate, and medically proven way to reverse abortions.
The kind of abortion Dr. Delgado (and the doctors on his impressive team) can reverse is commonly known as a medication or medical abortion. It is performed through the use of a combination of pills, almost always in the first trimester of pregnancy.
In the stunning 22-minute video posted below, Dr. Delgado puts to shame the claims of abortion advocates who argue that his treatment is unscientific and deceptive. Dr. Delgado’s team of doctors around the nation have a 60% success rate, when they treat mothers who want to stop a medication abortion.

The team is also there for pregnant women in other capacities, promising to not leave them “stranded or alone,” and to help them find solutions to other pregnancy-related needs. The team also urges women to not think it is too late. If women want a reversal, even if they are told that they cannot stop the procedure, they should call the Abortion Pill Reversal hotline: 877-558-0333.

From the FAQs on AbortionPillReversal.com

And, lest anyone think this team of doctors is small and on the fringes, consider that Dr. Delgado has over 270 physicians around the world willing to help mothers reverse their abortions. The hotline is available and “staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by one of our medical professionals.”
Natasha is one young mother who successfully went through the abortion reversal process. She writes passionately about her love for her baby son which she now gets to experience every day.

“I don’t know where I would be right now if I wasn’t for this website and the angels that guided me every step of the way…
There are moments in life where you feel trapped. Some of us have this illusion that a woman need to be ‘ready’ to have a baby. She needs to plan it, it’s the only way it will work. I learned that a woman can never be ready for motherhood. You learn as you go…Motherhood is an amazing experience…The love and joy you feel when you hold that beautiful baby is indescribable. I learned that you should never let your fears take that away from you.” [Read Natasha’s full story here.]

Rebekah Chaveste has also spoken out about her success story which led to the birth of her son, Zechariah.

(Photo by Christiano Valli)

Pro-lifers in California have placed a billboard only a block from a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, informing women that they can reverse their medical abortions. There is help, if they change their minds.
Arizona recognized the stellar service that Dr. Delgado and his team provide to women who change their minds about abortion. The state passed a law nearly three months ago, requiring that factual, medical information about abortion reversal be provided to women seeking a medication abortion.
Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) has named five foundational principles that guide the organization’s actions in aiding women who want to stop their abortions:

1. It is reasonable and appropriate to respect a woman’s right to choose to reverse a medical induced abortion.

2. A woman should never be coerced into starting or continuing an abortion.

3. Human beings are valuable and should be protected at all stages of their development.

4. Mifepristone does not significantly increase the chances of birth defects. Reversing a mifepristone medical abortion is within reasonable medical practice.

5. Progesterone can reverse the effects of mifepristone and has been safely used in pregnancy for over 40 years.

Naturally, Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood, and company are up in arms. With dozens of babies saved and counting (as of October 2014, over 50 babies had been born and over 100 mothers were still successfully pregnant after treatment), the abortion industry is losing its effectiveness with every life saved and every mother fully informed.
Watch Dr. Delgado persuasively refute abortion advocates’ claims that abortion reversal is “junk science,” “not scientifically supported,” and that laws requiring doctors to inform women of their options “force[] doctors to lie to their patients.” Hear him tell about real lives saved and mothers empowered to give life to their preborn babies.

Source: LiveAction News

Good News

 

CA Judge: Nursing Homes Can’t Make Medical Decisions

By Wesley J. Smith
This is very good. A California judge has ruled that it is unconstitutional to permit nursing homes to make medical decision on behalf of their incompetent patients.
From the Kaiser Health News story:

A California law allowing nursing homes to make medical decisions on behalf of certain mentally incompetent residents is unconstitutional, a state court ruled this week. The law, which has been in effect more than 20 years, gave nursing homes authority to decide residents’ medical treatment if a doctor determined they were unable to do so and they had no one to represent them.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio M. Grillo wrote in the June 24 decision that the law violates patients’ due process rights because it doesn’t require nursing homes to notify patients they have been deemed incapacitated or to give them the chance to object.

Grillo acknowledged the decision is likely to “create problems” in how nursing home operate but wrote that patients’ rights are more compelling.

“The stakes are simply too high to hold otherwise,” the judge wrote. Any error could deprive patients of their rights to make medical decisions that “may result in significant consequences, including death.”

This is very important because a nursing home could have a deep financial conflict of interest in making these decisions, particularly if–as is usually the case–the patient is on Medicaid and the home needs the bed to pay for a higher compensating private-pay customer. (Don’t think that doesn’t or couldn’t happen.)

What to do? Each patient should have a duly appointed or state guardian with the legal and fiduciary obligation to make decisions on behalf of the patient’s best interests.
True, in this day when bioethical utilitarianism permeates everything, that can be a slim protection of the equal dignity and right to life of such patients. But at least the guardian will not have a potential financial conflict of interest.

By the way, Grillo is the judge who pushed for the settlement in the Jahi McMath brain death case that allowed her mother to take Jahi to New Jersey, where she remains viable to this day.
Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog.

Source: NRLC News

What Next- Dare I Ask

 

“Abortion Drone” delivers abortion pills to Poland

Taken as part of a “symbolic stunt” by women who were not pregnant

By Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL Director of Education & Research
As promised, over the weekend “Women on Waves,” the same folks who brought you the “abortion ship,” abortion hotlines where you can learn how to self-abort, and the “I need an abortion” website where you can order abortifacients launched their “abortion drone.”

The launch occurred June 27. A small drone carried two packs of abortion pills from Frankfurt an den Oder across the Oder river border separating Germany and Poland. Contained were mifepristone (RU-486) and a prostaglandin (misoprostol) which were “delivered” to women in Slubice, where abortion laws are highly protective.

Two Polish women (who Agence France-Presse said were not really pregnant), took the pills and swallowed them as part of a “symbolic” stunt organized by Women on Waves to draw attention to (itself and) Poland’s abortion policies.

“It’s a symbolic operation designed to show that just a few kilometres [between the take-off and the landing site] can be a gulf in terms of respect for women’s rights, reproductive rights which are human rights,” said Jula Gaweda, a spokesperson for Feminoteka, one of the local groups responsible for the event (AFP, 6/27/15).

Women on Waves is the main organizer responsible for this latest misuse of technology. They insist that these chemical abortifacients can be taken “without medical supervision” for pregnancies of less than nine weeks.
Whether this latest venture is merely another in a long line of publicity stunts or is actually supposed to eventually become some new delivery system will become obvious with time.
Two German policemen can be seen in the accompanying video confiscating the drone controllers and personal iPads of what appear to be the drone pilots.
However, apparently this did not occur before the drones reached their destination on the other side of the river. There was no word of any police activity at the landing site in Poland.

Women on Waves insisted that given the weight of the drone (about eleven pounds), the way it is being flown (not through commercial airspace), the fact that it is not being used for any commercial purposes, no authorization is required for the flight under Polish or German law. It also pointed out that a doctor had written legal prescription for the medications (though for what purpose they were ostensibly prescribed is unclear, given the admission that the Polish women taking the drugs were not pregnant).

Gomperts has been joined by local activists groups who are part of the campaign to overturn Poland’s abortion laws and policies. Her website identifies Cocia Basia, a “Berlin based abortion support group for Polish women,” Warsaw based Fundacij Feminoteka, the 8th of March women’s rights informal collective “Porozumienie kobiet 8 marca” and a group called “Berlin-Irish Pro-Choice Solidarity.”

Why Poland and who is next? According to The Telegraph (6/23/15), “Gomperts said Poland was chosen because of the lack of awareness around their abortion laws, but if the mission is a success, it could also be deployed to Ireland, where women can only have abortions if their lives are at serious risk.”
LATEST IN A LONG LINE
As NRL News has reported previously, Women on Waves is the group founded by former Greenpeace activist Rebecca Gomperts in 1999. Their first big public splash was when Gomperts anchored her “abortion ship” in international waters just off the coast of Ireland 2001. They offered to ferry women to the boat where they could have abortions using the combination of mifepristone and misoprostol.
From there the boat went on to Poland, Portugal, Spain, Ecuador, Morocco, wherever Gomperts and her group wanted to draw media attention to countries where abortions were not allowed and unborn children were legally protected.

It isn’t clear whether Women on Waves ever did many, if any, actual abortions on the abortion ship, but they were successful in drumming up massive publicity, to the point where they were the subject of an award-winning documentary “Vessel” produced in 2014.

Gomperts’s group switched tactics in 2009, turning to launching abortion “hotlines” in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Pakistan, Venezuela, Morocco, Bangladesh, Kenya, Indonesia, Malawi, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Poland, and Uruguay. Women who call these hotlines are told how to obtain misoprostol, already available in many countries as an anti-ulcer drug, and use the drug to abort their babies.

For a number of years, one of Women on Waves related groups, Women on Web, has run the “I need an abortion” website where women from countries where abortion is illegal can answer a series of medical questions that are supposed to amount to a consultation (though it doesn’t really seem matter what answer you give – the website will let you keep going) and be referred to a “licensed doctor” who will “provide you with abortion pills” that will be shipped to your address.

You are asked to make a “donation” of between 70-90 euros at the end of the consultation before the pills are shipped, and you are asked to electronically certify that you will not hold them responsible if you have any problems (you are advised to go to the nearest hospital with a trusted friend if you do, but they tell you that “You do not have to tell the medical staff that you tried to induce an abortion; you can tell them that you had a spontaneous miscarriage.”)

Beyond being political theatre and an attention grabbing ploy, Gomperts’ move is simply an extension of the abortion industry’s efforts to reduce physician involvement and make abortion less dependent on the dwindling supply of willing abortionists. Chemical abortions were the first move, reducing the need for qualified surgeons, then there were the web-cam abortions where a woman’s only contact with the abortionist was through a computer terminal.

At least with the web-cams, she had to travel to some store front clinic and meet with someone who could at a minimum check her blood pressure and take her vitals. Now, however, if the new technology takes off, even that minimal encounter could become a thing of the past. Now, it appears, all she has to do is order her pills and wait for a drone to fly the package to her front door.
Even the most minimal, sensible caution has been thrown to the wind for the sake of the cause.

Source: NRLC News

Supremes

 

Supreme Court issues stay on portions of Texas’s H.B. 2 while it consider whether to hear pro-abortionists’ appeal

By Dave Andrusko
On Monday, the last day of the current term, the Supreme Court agreed to issue a stay thus allowing nine Texas abortion clinics to remain open while the Justices consider whether to hear an appeal of two provisions of Texas’ omnibus H.B. 2 that had been scheduled to go into effect in July.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel A. Alito Jr. voting to deny the emergency appeal.
If the Supreme Court eventually refuses to hear the case, the stay will be lifted and the law will take effect. However if the justices agree to hear the case, the stay would remain in effect until a ruling is issued.
Adding significance to the importance that is attached to any High Court decision on abortion is that it could come down next June, during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The provisions at issue are the requirements that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital in case of medical emergencies and that abortion clinics meet the requirements of ambulatory surgical centers.

As NRL News reported, other provisions of the law took effect in 2013 and one provision–a measure banning the abortion of pain-capable unborn children–was never challenged.
(An in-depth analysis of the brilliant brief submitted by Texas legislators defending the need for both these requirements can be read at www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2014/11/texas-legislators-brilliantly-defend-the-need-for-abortionists-to-have-admitting-privileges-and-for-abortion-facilities-to-meet-asc-standards/#more-38729.)

A week ago last Friday a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined a request by Texas abortion clinics to issue a stay on its decision that upheld the bulk of Texas’ historic H.B. 2.
Attorneys for abortion clinics in Texas then filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court which the justices acted on today.

As veteran Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston explained, “Both of those provisions have been upheld, in nearly all situations in the state, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. It modified the surgical facilities requirement slightly to accommodate the clinic in McAllen, the only clinic performing abortions in a wide area of southwest Texas. The Fifth Circuit divided two to one in refusing to delay the enforcement of the law.”
A different (and divided) three-judge panel of the 5th circuit struck down a Mississippi law that is similar in one respect (admitting privileges) but different in another (no requirement that abortion clinics be treated as ambulatory surgical centers). That vote was 2-1.

A number of states have passed what pro-lifers believe are commonsensical requirements. To be specific, 16 states have protective laws requiring that abortionists have admitting privileged in a nearby hospital while 22 states have laws mandating that abortion clinics be treated like ASCs

Source: NRLC News

Sex Selection Abortion

 

Hoisted on Her Own Petard, and Mad as a Hornet about it

By Dave Andrusko
Editor’s note. I’ve argued many times in this space that the consciousness-raising capacity of sex-selection abortion is never, ever to be underestimated. Killing babies because they are the “wrong” sex (almost always because they are female) flies in the face of the just desire for female equality which pro-abortionists wrongly insist includes abortion.
Periodically, readers zipping through cyberspace discover that hundreds of millions of women are “missing.” The assailant? Sex-selection abortion. One of those newcomers to the discussion emailed me, asking what could I send her and/or post on NRL News Today.

There are dozens to choose from. I picked this one, although it is a couple of years old, because it touches on the intersection of so many factors.

What if you are “pro-choice” but (at least rhetorically) uncomfortable with its unlimited application? What if you write a book that exposes the horror of sex-selective abortion, which has cost the lives of 160 MILLION females, and then (to your horror) a reviewer concludes that the book is “aimed, like a heat-seeking missile, against the entire intellectual framework of ‘choice’”?

Well that would make you a very uncomfortable Mara Hivistendahl, author of Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.” It would also make you the author of still another attempt to prove that your amazing book provides no such intellectual weaponry, in this instance an article in Foreign Policy magazine, entitled “The Abortion Trap: How America’s obsession with abortion hurts families everywhere.”
As was pointed out on another pro-life website, Hivistendahl’s bottom line defense in her Foreign Policy article is “[S]electing for sex — or any other quality — is different from a woman’s decision not to carry a pregnancy to term.” Consider…

“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?”
There are ironies galore in her piece, starting with a sharp, indeed withering critique of “the 1960s population control enthusiasts,” which includes the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, mentioned in her book although not in this article. She writes

As I delved into this history for my book, the tragedy for me became this cold foresight: the fact that some prominent activists and scientists actually anticipated the side effects of widespread sex selection — that a massively imbalanced sex ratio at birth would result in rising instability, risks for those women who are born, and a social environment bordering on what one early proponent described as a “giant boy’s public school or a huge male prison” — and yet dismissed those effects as necessary ills in the quest to solve humanity’s problems through technology. They knew, and still they plowed ahead.

But her real criticism is for “anti-abortion activists” who ”have been at work in a disingenuous game, using the stark reduction of women in the developing world as an argument for taking away hard-earned rights. Conservative theorists have written openly about how sex-selective abortion is merely a convenient wedge issue in the drive to ban all abortions, both in the United States and abroad.”

If her point is that we desire to return legal protection to all unborn children, I plead guilty. (I am innocent of the “conservative theorist” charge.) But what makes her book so dangerous to her fellow pro-abortionists is not that we can parley resistance to sex-selective abortion into a more-or-less total ban on abortion.

To backtrack for one second–-the logic that drives these abortions is at bottom no different than any other abortion: we want THIS kid out of the way because [fill in the blank].
But the impact is multiplied many times over because sex-selective abortions turns pro-abortion feminism’s ideology (female empowerment) against females.
We won’t kill [exercise our choice] if the unborn is male but we will kill [exercise our choice] if the unborn child is female. This is daft by anyone’s definition.
Take ten minutes out and read Hivistendahl’s essay.

Don’t worry if you can’t follow all the twists and turns. They are not meant to illuminate but to get the reader off on rabbit trails.

Source: NRLC News

Adult Stem Cells Work

 

Lifesaving Adult Stem Cell Research & Cures Focus of Capitol Hill Hearing

Editor’s note. The following comes from the office of pro-life Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ).

Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, director of the Carolina Cord Blood Bank

Washington, DC —A House panel responsible for advancing and monitoring the nation’s health care and research laws Thursday examined new bipartisan legislation supporting treatment and therapies derived from adult stem cell lines.

Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), author of the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2015 ( HR 2820), said he was encouraged that the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health moved quickly to include the legislation in their hearing entitled: “Examining Public Health Legislation: H.R. 2820, H.R. 1344, and H.R. 1462.” Smith and Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Ca.) introduced the bill only last week with a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
“This important bipartisan legislation will save more lives,” said Smith who also authored the first law (The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005—P.L. 109-129) creating the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI) program and continuing the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation program. Smith said

“The adult stem cells found in bone marrow and cord blood provide hope not only for curing the diseases and conditions currently known, but they also set the stage for even more cures in the future.”

The witnesses included experts on the programs for bone marrow and cord blood transplantation, and their testimony underscored the measurable success of these lifesaving programs.
Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, professor at Duke University and director of the Carolina Cord Blood Bank, testified about the successes of the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI) program in providing unrelated cord blood donations to treat diseases such as Sickle Cell Anemia.

Kurtzberg also spoke of the potential for future use of cord blood cellular therapies in treating brain injuries saying: “Over the past six years, we have initiated trials of autologous (the patient’s own) cord blood in babies with birth asphyxia … cerebral palsy, hearing loss, and autism.”
Dr. Jeff Chell, CEO of National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), told the story of Brandy Bly, a child whose family could not find a matched donor for her in the 1980s and she tragically died. It was Brandy’s case that prompted the creation of a national bone marrow registry, which was later expanded by Smith’s 2005 law to inclu
de cord blood as well. The new reauthorization will keep the program going for future patients.
“Today we are able to treat patients with cancers and pre-cancers, such as leukemia, Myelodysplasia, and lymphomas; bone marrow failure disorders, such as aplastic anemia and immunodeficiency syndrome; and genetic diseases, such as sickle cell disease,” Chell said in his testimony.

“Cord blood and bone marrow adult stem cells have an applicability and potential that is proven and invaluable—promising life-saving cures for multiple diseases. The program must be extended and I look forward to this bill advancing quickly through the legislative process and being signed into law,” Smith said.
The reauthorization is supported by the National Marrow Donor Program and Cord Blood Association.

Source: NRLC News

Media Use and Abortion

 

Illegal Abortion Instructions Via Cell Phone

Editor’s note. The following comes from PNCI, the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues.
Increasingly, organizations providing and promoting abortion deem national laws prohibiting abortion as irrelevant in their work advising women on how to perform illegal ‘do-it-yourself (DIY) abortion’. The latest example comes from the NGO Ipas and its partners working to use “mobile technology to expand women’s access to safe, comprehensive abortion care”, including in three countries where abortion is restricted-Bangladesh, Kenya and Nigeria. The information was shared during a recent youth and technology conference in San Francisco.

Referring to the total global deaths attributed to ‘unsafe abortion’- 47,000 women- Ipas explains that the “vast majority of these deaths are in the global south, where the use of cell phones and other mobile devices is growing rapidly, including in rural communities.” (PNCI notes that access to any type of health care in the region remains limited creating an especially dangerous situation for women who are enticed to self-abort with abortion inducing drugs that can lead to severe blood loss.)
Ipas emphasized its work using mobile phone technology, called “mHealth,” including promoting abortion pills in three countries that restrict abortion explaining:

“As the use of mobile technology to deliver health information and services grows at a lightening pace, Ipas has implemented mobile health (or “mHealth”) projects in four countries-South Africa, Bangladesh, Kenya and Nigeria-and is supporting researchers and community-based organizations with the development of new mHealth projects in several others. Many abortion-related mHealth projects focus on improving young women’s access to abortion care.”

“One unique opportunity for mobile technology centers on expanding women’s access to medical abortion-abortion with the use of pills-at the community level. For example, a crucial question about medical abortion outside the formal health system is whether women can accurately assess their own eligibility for medical abortion.”

Abortion ‘outside the formal health system’ means illegal abortion and ‘assess their own eligibility for medical abortion’ means that Ipas is seeking to have a woman self-determine the gestational age of her baby and whether or not she can ‘safely’ use abortion pills.
In discussing the promotion of illegal abortion in Indonesia by a local NGO which is implementing text messaging and a mobile application for instruction on performing illegal abortion, Ipas acknowledged that “Abortion is highly restricted in Indonesia… is legally permitted only to save the life of the woman and in cases of fetal impairment and rape. Spousal authorization is required, and unmarried women often are restricted from accessing abortion services.”
The founder of this NGO in Indonesia currently runs a hotline for illegal abortion and stated, “…medical abortion has had a ‘revolutionary impact’ on women because it gives them the opportunity to have control over the abortion process while in the privacy of their home or whatever setting they choose.”

WHO Action Likely to Increase Availability of Abortion Drug
The drug misoprostol has received approval by the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines for inclusion in the Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) for the additional indication of treating post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) on the community level. It is already listed for preventing PPH and along with mifepristone for induced abortion.

Misoprostol is a powerful drug that can save the lives of mothers but when misused, it can end the lives of their children. It is the drug that is most often recommended for illegal DIY [Do It Yourself] abortion when RU 486 is not available.

Pro-abortion organizations have long sought inclusion of misoprostol alone, for community level use, on the EML in order to increase its availability in countries with pro-life laws which refuse to register the abortion drug mifepristone. Gynuity is the organization which led the effort to secure inclusion on the EML and filed the application with support from numerous NGOs and groups, including the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development, and Reproductive Health.
Gynuity tracks countries’ registration of misoprostol alone and
mifepristone but in its application to the EML Committee, Gynuity choose to ignore its work to instruct women in DIY abortion with misoprostol or mention its publication: “Abortion with Self-Administered Misoprostol: A Guide For Women.” The guide includes an explanation as to why it promotes abortion via misoprostol:

“Because mifepristone is a registered abortion drug, its sale and use are not permitted in most countries with restrictive abortion laws. In contrast, misoprostol is an anti-ulcer medication that is registered under various trade names in more than 85 countries. Research has found that misoprostol used alone is about 85 percent successful in inducing abortion when used as recommended. Although less effective alone than when combined with mifepristone, misoprostol offers a safe and accessible alternative for women who have no other option.”

The website of the 20th Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines has additional information and links to all the statements and supporting information.

Source: NRLC News

Graphic Novel

 

First Abortion Graphic Novel Illustrates ‘Funny,’ ‘Humorous Look’

By Katie Yoder
It’s a new notion to make abortion “funny”: draw a graphic novel about abortion that doesn’t actually show an abortion. Because, well, the sight of baby remains is anything but.
Hailed as the “first graphic novel about abortion,” Not Funny Ha-Ha by artist Leah Hayes illustrates two women going through the “abortion process.” In it, Hayes attempts to show an “often funny,” “even humorous look at what a woman can go through during an abortion.” Already some in the media have recognized the “abortion story that needs to be heard.”
Published by Fantagraphics, the graphic novel goes on sale August 8. Hayes originally tried to self-publish through crowdfunding site Kickstarter (infamous on topics like abortion), but the 100-120 page book raised only $3,680 of its $20,000 fundraising goal. Hayes begins readings of the book in L.A. next month.

Already available on Amazon for pre-order, the self-described “bold, slightly wry graphic novel” follows two young women of different backgrounds as they undergo abortion (one medical [chemical], another surgical).

“[The book] follows them through the process of choosing a clinic, reaching out to friends, partners, and/or family, and eventually the procedure(s) itself,” the site’s summary read. “It simply shows what happens when a woman goes through it, no questions asked.”
But despite no questions, the book eagerly offered answers – by normalizing abortion in a humorous way.

“Despite the fact that so many women and girls have abortions every day, in every city, all around us, it can be a lonely experience,” the description urged. “Not Funny Ha-Ha is a little bit technical, a little bit moving, and often funny, in a format uniquely suited to communicate [emphasis added].”
In the description, “humor” was stressed repeatedly.

The book is “meant to offer a “non-judgmental, comforting, even humorous look at what a woman can go through during an abortion [emphasis added],” the summary continued.
As the author, Hayes distanced herself from her project.

“The author takes a step back from putting forth any personal opinion whatsoever, simply laying out the events and possible emotional repercussions that could, and often do occur,” the site read.
On Twitter and on Kickstarter, Hayes released teaser pictures from her book. One of the pictures shows a woman having an ultrasound – without an image of her unborn baby on the monitor.
Rather than illustrating an actual abortion (like where “tiny arms and legs” are pulled apart), Hayes drew a picture of the ceiling with the words “She could hear the humming of instruments.”
The Kickstarter description offered a more detailed account of the novel.
“It takes the viewer through the process from the waiting room to the bathroom to the weeks after, when the girls have gone ‘back to real life,’ [emphasis added]” the site read.
On the crowdfunding site, Hayes admitted that she faced challenges with her project.
“This is a tricky book project in some respects, but one that is very important to me to get out and into the world,” Hayes wrote. “It is meant to tell a story, but also offer some ‘technical’ insight, in order to quell concerns and/or fears that may not have been answered in the doctor’s office, or online.”

“The hope is that it will give a sense of ‘we-are-not-alone’ for many girls, women, families, and men who are touched by abortions,” she said.
To her credit, she admitted at the bottom, “There can be sadness/anxiety/depression that can arise days, months, even years later.”
But the graphic novel seems to encourage abortion rather than support women who regret their choice.

http://newsbusters.org/s3/files/styles/blog_body-100/s3/images/notfunny.coffee.jpg?itok=pKfi7kWZ
Winning a media endorsement already, the book captured the attention of The Huffington Post, which called the graphic novel an “abortion story that needs to be heard.”
Likening the artwork to the “abortion romantic comedy” Obvious Child, HuffPost spoke with Hayes about her upcoming project. Hayes insisted that the book wasn’t political.
“The main thing for me is that I don’t really want to offer this graphic novel as a political stance on abortion,” Hayes said. “I wanted to illustrate JUST that time, from when you make an appointment to when you are ‘done’ and going back to everyday life. A lot happens during that period of time that is not political, just doing what you need to do, and dealing with the emotional ups and downs of having surgery.”

NARAL Pro-Choice America (whose president believes “anti-abortion is anti-American”) also applauded the “first graphic novel about abortion.”
Editor’s note. This first appeared at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/katie-yoder/2015/06/26/first-abortion-graphic-novel-illustrates-funny-humorous-look

Source: NRLC News

Selling Commodes

 

Woman asks for $1 million, or she will abort her 7-week baby

  Susan Michelle 

Her abortion is allegedly scheduled for July 10, but one anonymous mother is demanding that pro-lifers give her $1 million to keep her from killing her preborn baby through an abortion.
The woman, who says she will do her “best to remain anonymous in this process as what I aim to prove has nothing to do with me personally,” claims that pro-lifers don’t actually care about the life of a child. She writes:

“On July 7th I will start accepting donations on this page. I will accept donations for 72 hours, the same amount of time this state currently requires a woman to wait after a consultation with a doctor until she can have an abortion. If one million dollars is raised in those 72 hours then I’ll have the baby, give it up for adoption and every cent of that one million dollars will be put in a trust fund for the child, which he or she will have access to when they turn 21.
“I’ll keep none of the money for myself so if I am to be vilified in this process, it can’t be for that. If the one million dollar goal is not met by the end of those 72 hours, any and all donations received will be refunded and I will have an abortion that I have already scheduled for July 10th in my home state. Mathematically this means that every one of the 157 million Americans that identify as pro-life needs to donate less than one cent to stop this abortion.
“The backward direction this country is headed in terms of its treatment of women I feel is due in large part to the influence of the religious right disguised as the pro-life movement. The pro-life movement cares very little about saving lives and far more about controlling women by minimizing their choices in a wide variety of ways not the least of which is readily available reproductive health care.”

At face value it may sound like it’s not about the woman but the cause; however, other factors come into play that indicate it’s much more about her than she would like us to believe.
Pro-life blogger Jill Stanek calls it blackmail: “Pro-abort blackmail: Give me $1 million, or I’m having an abortion,” her headline reads.
The Stir says, “It’s like a political Kickstarter — or a ransom note, depending on where you stand on the issue of abortion.”

Indeed, some comments say she trying to hold pro-lifers hostage by saying they must prove it if they want a baby to live. If pro-lifers don’t give her $1 million, she will kill the baby. If she gets the money, she promises to have the baby and give him or her up for adoption, sending the $1 million with her child in the form of a trust fund. She calls it a baby, too, not a fetus, indicating she understands exactly what she’s doing: ransoming the life of her preborn child for self gain. Early human trafficking at it’s (un) finest, some might say.

Her demands leave other questions, though.
First, many accuse her of wanting the money for herself. She says nothing, at least yet, about accountability to show that they money is legally bound to go to her baby.
Second, this ransom is actually a prime money-making opportunity for the 26-year-old graduate student from either Missouri, South Dakota, Utah, or North Carolina – states that have 72-hour waiting period laws. Even if she legally sets up every penny to go to her baby, her personal income from the talk show and book circuit could skyrocket, which makes the ransom more opportunistic than the heartfelt political awareness plea she would like people to see.

The woman insists if she doesn’t raise the money in 72 hours, she will refund all the donations to the people who gave and she will keep her July 10 abortion appointment. What some may wonder is if she will take the media along for the appointment, or will she simply wait until she leaves to stop by the talk show circuit to make her statement?

Countless ways exist to bring awareness to the plight of the child who needs adopting as a solution to abortion, but pro-life blackmail and ransom demands are far more about self-promotion and gain than they are the care about any cause.
One can only hope that since she clearly understands she is carrying a human life, she will choose not to put her baby to death in some political statement she tried to use for publicity. Even animals get treated with more dignity than that.

Source: LiveAction News

Beautiful Story

 

Miracle baby born with anencephaly defies the odds, turns one

  Kirsten Andersen 

Little Angela Morales wasn’t supposed to live. When she was still inside her mother’s womb, doctors diagnosed her with anencephaly – a condition in which the brain and skull fail to develop, usually leading to the baby’s death before or shortly after birth.
When delivering a prenatal diagnosis of anencephaly, almost all doctors advise mothers to abort in an attempt to spare them the pain of carrying a child for nine months, only to see him or her die within minutes or hours of birth.


But baby Angela was lucky enough to escape that fate – her mother, Sonia chose to carry and give birth to her despite her doctors’ warnings.
Now, having just celebrated her first birthday, Angela is alive and thriving, leaving doctors scratching their heads and her parents urging other couples to think twice before ending the lives of babies with similar prenatal diagnoses.

Doctors “used these words when I was pregnant: ‘Incompatible with life,'” Sonia told Rhode Island’s NBC 10 News. “No, anencephaly is not incompatible for life, because she is living and she’s proving that these babies can live.”
For the first few weeks of Angela’s life, the Morales family celebrated every day that she survived with birthday cake, never knowing if it would be their last chance to rejoice over their daughter’s life.
“Last year we were crying. It was like saying hello and goodbye the same day, so it was painful,” Sonia told WPRI, recalling Angela’s birth.
But not only did Angela beat the odds by surviving her entry into the world, she kept on fighting.
Hours turned to days, days turned to weeks, and weeks turned into months.


Now, Angela is a year old and seemingly thriving, confounding the doctors who were once sure she would never make it outside the safety of her mother’s womb.
“She’s making progress every day,” Sonia told WPRI. “Tiny, tiny little things, for us are big, big milestones.”

While Angela still lags far behind her peers developmentally, she can lift her head, smile, and roll over – achievements that spurred her doctors to change her diagnosis from anencephaly to encephalocele – a condition in which only part of her brain is intact and growing.
“It’s something that we didn’t expect to happen,” Sonia told NBC 10. “But God had other plans, and He gave us this time.”

To WPRI, Sonia said, “We’ll take care of her until God decides to take her away, and God has already given her to us for one year.”

The Morales family maintains a Facebook page for baby Angela, where she has more than 4,000 followers praying for her and monitoring her miraculous progress.
“We just do it because we just want to show her life and we want to show that sometimes the doctors can be wrong,” Sonia told NBC 10 about their ongoing social media outreach.
Baby Angela is not the first child with anencephaly to have beaten the odds after her mother resisted pressure to abort. Nickolas Coke, a little boy from Colorado, lived three years with the condition before passing away in 2012. His grandmother told the UK’s Daily Mail, “He taught us everything – he taught [us to] love, how to be family. He taught us everything…He was our hero.”
Another little victim of anencephaly, Marcela Ferreira of Brazil, became the center of a national controversy in 2006, as abortion advocates urged the government to legalize the termination of babies like her, whose short lives would be filled with pain and suffering.

Marcela’s mother fiercely opposed the proposal. “Everybody suffers, but she doesn’t belong to me. She belongs to God, and I am taking care of her here,” she said in an interview shortly after Marcela’s birth. “Every second of her life” is precious, she said.
“I consider her life to be a miracle so great that I am going to wait until God decides when to take her.”

Marcela lived a year and eight months with her condition. She touched so many lives that 1,500 people attended her funeral and a street was named in her honor.
But even mothers whose children lived only a short time after being born with anencephaly say they have no regrets about bringing them into the world.
Kari Williams’ daughter Marley was diagnosed with anencephaly at her 20-week ultrasound scan. Doctors urged Kari to abort, but she refused. Marley lived five hours, long enough for her to meet most of her extended family. Now, Kari runs a Facebook page for other mothers facing the same diagnosis.

“I tell moms that [doctors] can’t force you,” Kari told Live Action. “I have never seen a mother…who carried her baby and had regret. The only ones with regret are the ones who terminated or induced. And it’s sad.”

“I don’t have a single regret,” Kari added. “I don’t for a single second regret carrying her. I knew she was my baby. I’m not going to end her life. That’s in God’s hands, how long she lives for. If she could have lived forever, I would have loved that.”

Micah, who was just 17 when she learned she was pregnant with her daughter Ambra, also refused to abort, even after she learned the baby had anencephaly.
“[N]o matter what, she was my daughter,” Micah told LifeSiteNews. “There was a life inside of me and I couldn’t just take that away from her.”
Although baby Ambra was stillborn, Micah cherishes the three and a half hours she and her boyfriend spent cuddling their infant daughter. Now, she shares her experience publicly as a pro-life activist, urging other girls and women facing unplanned or difficult pregnancies to give their children a chance at life.

“I got to meet my daughter, to hold and kiss her. I couldn’t imagine not being able to share those few hours with her,” Micah told LifeSiteNews. “Even to this day when I share my stories, doctors, mothers of many children, fathers and strangers will ask, ‘why not abort?’ It saddens me that this is the way we think. I still continue to fight for her, and all the babies that have been aborted.”
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on LifeSite News, and is reprinted here with permission.

Source: LiveAction News

More on Abortion

 

Guttmacher: Only those who approve of abortion should monitor it

By Rebecca Oas Ph.D.
June 25, 2015 (C-Fam) — For half a century, the Guttmacher Institute has been attempting the “Epic Split” of attempting to frame itself as both an impartial source of facts about human sexuality and reproduction and an advocacy organization dedicated to promoting “a comprehensive view of sexual and reproductive health” including the rights that would enable women (and men!) to …”exercise the right to choose safe, legal abortion.”
Apparently, it’s so pleased with its ability to track the incidence of abortion in the United States – “routinely recognized as the most reliable, including by the [Centers for Disease Control],” that it wants to start dictating how state and national government abortion tracking should be done as well.
A recent Guttmacher Policy Review article by Joerg Dreweke titled “Abortion Reporting: Promoting Public Health, Not Politics,” characterizes Guttmacher’s efforts as both complementing and surpassing government efforts to track abortion incidence, complains that government data are slow and incomplete, and laments the fact that not all of those collecting or using the data agree with Guttmacher that abortion is a perfectly good thing.

According to the article, reporting on abortion incidence exists solely to advance public health, and should not be used to further a political agenda. Since abortion is currently legal in the United States (with some restrictions that vary by state), Guttmacher seeks to characterize abortion as simply a medical procedure like any other. Therefore, it is content to document the number of abortions done, the methods used, the gestational age, the basic demographic profile of the mother, and similar things. However, the type of data collection Guttmacher deems “politicized” and therefore negative, involves monitoring of compliance by abortion providers with state requirements such as pre-abortion counseling or parental notification in the case of a minor patient.

The main flaw in Guttmacher’s position is its assertion that any data collected on abortion must be solely for public health record-keeping and analysis. That is certainly one reason, but abortion is a matter of law and policy, not just health, and data collection to monitor compliance with legal obligations is also a legitimate purpose. Guttmacher is not proposing that these two purposes should be accomplished separately (which would inevitably be duplicative), but instead argues that the legal restrictions themselves are the problem. The report variously refers to them as “intrusive,” “onerous,” and “unwarranted,” and complains that monitoring compliance “serves no discernible public health purpose.” In other words, if we can’t get rid of legal restrictions on abortion altogether, we should at least stop trying to ensure they are followed. Lest we forget, the gruesome career of Dr. Kermit Gosnell was enabled not by a lack of regulation, but a total lack of monitoring.

Guttmacher likewise criticizes “politically-charged” language in some states’ reporting forms, particularly those that refer to the fetus as an unborn child. Statistics about the reasons why women have abortions are deemed to be “important questions that are too intrusive, as well as unnecessary, for the government to collect itself,” although they do allow that nongovernmental organizations – like Guttmacher, for instance – might obtain such information through the use of voluntary surveys, alongside information about “the cost and logistics of arranging for an abortion.”
As a side note, although the legal contexts from country to country are different, most other nations that allow abortion require justification on specific grounds (life of the mother, fetal abnormality, rape, etc.). In England, where abortion is effectively available on demand, the most recent statistics show that 98% of abortions are done on the grounds of the mother’s mental health, a justification which is not supportable by medical evidence. Where abortion is available on demand, whether in practice, by law or both, the vast majority of abortions are done for social, rather than health, reasons.
But Guttmacher would rather we didn’t collect that data:
“Governmental public health reporting systems must be limited to collecting basic incidence and demographic data for legitimate public health purposes. Official governmental reporting systems that go beyond this limited scope have the effect of stigmatizing women obtaining abortions or harassing abortion providers for the purpose of promoting an antiabortion policy agenda. Using a public health surveillance system for this purpose cannot be justified on any grounds.”
(A lot hinges on that word “legitimate” – Guttmacher doesn’t think life in the womb is a legitimate public health concern when it comes to abortion; others disagree.)

There is a simple matter of conflicting interests here. Any government-mandated reporting on the incidence of abortion has to be done in collaboration with the entities that provide abortions. Depending on the political situation of the particular state, the relationship between abortion clinics and the governments monitoring them may be anywhere from friendly to hostile. Because of its explicitly pro-abortion stance, the Guttmacher Institute is likely to have access to more willing participation from abortion clinics when it comes to collecting data. However, it is also more likely to withhold from the public information that could potentially put abortion in a negative light. While Guttmacher may have officially separated itself from Planned Parenthood (the nation’s largest abortion provider and its own founding organization), its position on abortion remains unchanged. And abortion remains as much a politically-charged issue in the United States (and the world) as it was when Guttmacher was founded.

Leaving abortion reporting in the hands of pro-abortion advocacy groups is not good enough (see Gosnell), and the Guttmacher Institute is a veritable Tobacco Institute of abortion research. While Guttmacher is certainly free to publish its own findings, its argument that government entities should collect less data on abortion for fear that it might be used to make abortion look bad is simply disingenuous and smacks of desperation:

“However, in the current political climate, merely opening a discussion about creating a more robust government abortion surveillance system could well result in antiabortion policymakers in the states—and potentially even at the federal level—exploiting this issue in pursuit of their increasingly aggressive antiabortion agenda.”
The bottom line: Guttmacher is free to add its two cents to the debate, but it doesn’t get to make the rules.
Editor’s note. This appeared at c-fam.org

Source: NRLC News

Abortion

 

A profile of the “little people” at an abortion clinic—no, not the unborn victims

By Dave Andrusko
Regular NRL News Today readers (and there are a lot of you) are probably familiar with the South Wind Women’s Center in Wichita, Kansas, run by Julie Burkhart. At least initially, Burkhart was using an Illinois fly-in abortionist, Cheryl Chastine.

Burkhart is a particularly familiar figure to pro-life Kansans. Burkhart ran the late abortionist George Tiller’s Political Action Committee — ProKanDo PAC– from 2002 until 2009 and SWWC is located in the same Wichita, Kansas, building Tiller occupied for decades.
The pro-abortion website RhealityCheckorg ran a post yesterday about the little people. No, not the unborn babies that are killed, but the South Wind Women’s Center support staff.
The headline gives you the flattering self-portrait: “Heroes in Their Own Right: What Clinic Staff Do, and Why They Do It”
It’s worth a read, in my opinion, but in case you don’t have time, here are a couple of considerations worth pondering.

There is a built-in contradiction between the high-flying abortion rhetoric—abortion is a walk in the park that ought to be celebrated six days a week and twice on Sunday– and abortion on the ground—what actually happens at the clinics.
Read Paul Brink’s piece and what jumps out at you is not that women can’t wait to brag about their abortions but what you and I know is the truth: most times they are petrified with fear and anxiety.
Of course pro-abortionists attribute that to “abortion stigma,” which is as bogus as it is hard-hearted. Most of these women (and girls) are engaged in an unspoken hand-to-hand combat with their consciences.

There are so many revealing statements but since this is going to be a short post, here’s just one. Brink writes

When a patient arrives at the facility for their appointment, they once again are greeted by the administrative staff after going through security. Just as the first contact on the phone is important to providing a comforting environment, the first in-person contact is essential. This is complicated by the expectations many patients have when coming in. Ashley told me that “because of the stigma surrounding abortion, they have no idea what to expect when they walk into our facility. Oftentimes, we are met with surprise at how nice and clean our facility is and how kind everyone is to them. And sometimes it’s hard to deal with that, because that means they were expecting something terrible, maybe gross and dirty, but they still came to us.” Molly added, “We need to be the opposite of anything false they’ve read on what can be a really stressful day for them. We want to be as comforting as we can.”

Three quick points. That first “contact” on the phone or in person as the woman walks in the door is “important.” They need to be assured [aka talked into believing] that all the alarms going off in their souls are false.

Second, the post includes a photo of a brightly lit, comfy room at the South Wind Women’s Center. We are to conclude that this room at SWWC is representative of abortion clinics. Tell that to the women who suffered (and died) at Kermit Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society, dubbed by the Philadelphia District Attorney (accurately!) as a “House of Horrors.

Third, perhaps another reason women “expect” a pit is where else would defenseless unborn children be purposefully annihilated—40, 50, 60 babies slaughtered daily in an assembly-line fashion?
“Heroes in their own right”? No.
How about “Heroes in their own minds”?

Source: NRLC News

ObamaCare

 

Supreme Court Decision Underscores Need for No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act

Editor’s note. The following is National Right to Life’s response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in King v. Burwell.
“Federal taxpayer subsidies are helping pay for over 1,000 health plans that cover abortion on demand, and today’s Supreme Court decision underscores that only Congress can put a stop to that,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.

“This decision again demonstrates the need for enactment of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would permanently prevent taxpayer subsidies for abortion-covering health plans, both in Obamacare and in other federal health benefits programs,” Tobias said.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 7) in January by a vote of 242-179, despite a veto threat from the Obama White House.
When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, an array of long-established laws, including the Hyde Amendment, had created a nearly uniform policy that federal programs did not pay for abortion or subsidize health plans that included coverage of abortion, with narrow exceptions. Regrettably, provisions of the 2010 Obamacare health law ruptured that longstanding policy. The Obamacare law authorized massive federal subsidies to assist many millions of Americans to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand. In addition, the law contains multiple provisions that will ration life-saving or life-preserving medical care.

In September 2014, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigatory arm of Congress, issued a report [www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-742R] containing information that confirmed predictions by National Right to Life that federally subsidized abortion-covering health plans would become a widespread feature of Obamacare. That report found that more than one thousand federally subsidized exchange plans currently cover elective abortion. Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia allow coverage of elective abortion in health plans that qualify for the federal subsidies (while 24 states have restricted or prohibited such coverage).

For further documentation, please see www.nrlc.org/uploads/ahc/ProtectLifeActDouglasJohnsonTestimony.pdf, and www.nrlc.org/uploads/DvSBA/GenericAffidavitOfDouglasJohnsonNRLC.pdf.
For information on how Obamacare rations life-preserving medical treatment, see www.nrlc.org/uploads/communications/healthcarereport2014.pdf.
For a pro-life alternative to Obamacare that would provide health insurance to those unable fully to afford it without rationing or government deficits, see www.nrlc.org/uploads/medethics/ObamacareAlternativeNRLC252015.pdf.

Source: NRLC News

I Call It Hardness of Heart

 

Repeat abortions? Not at all. Call them “multiple abortions,” pro-abortionist insists

By Dave Andrusko

Steph Herold

As our growing army of readers knows, NRL News Today posts a great deal on our benighted opposition’s attempts to “normalize” abortion, as if obliterating your own child were no different (literally, in one case) than a relaxing day at the spa.

Some abortions are “easier” to defend, which is why not so long ago abortion apologists wanted to talk about nothing but the hardest of the hard cases. Now they believe they have cracked the code: convince everyone that no abortion is problematic, no matter how morally unserious the reason the child is killed. If people buy that, they won’t ever get to the question of whether a civilized nation butchers pain-sensitive babies or literally dismembers unborn children.
Even so, repeat-repeat abortions are tricky, even for the cagiest of apologists. I hadn’t seen a “defense” lately until a reader asked me about a story I’d written debunking one of them–“Evidence-Based Advocacy: Expanding Our Thinking About ‘Repeat’ Abortions.”
If you needed any hint where Steph Herold is heading notice that ‘repeat’ abortions is in quotation marks, suggesting it’s a figment of our imagination or something so misunderstood as to need Ms. Herold’s blue pencil. A better word would be, we’re told, “multiple abortions.”
Right out of the gate Herold makes no bones about her absolutism. Even to try to intervene after a first abortion to prevent a second (or third, or fourth, or however many) abortion is to miss that each abortion must be seen “as a unique experience with its own set of complex circumstances.” That’s why these women are not “repeaters”: each abortion is, duh, unique. Get it?
(Each abortion IS unique in the sense that every baby lost is unique but that decidedly is not what Herold means.)

Herold tells us that “Tracy Weitz and Katrina Kimport, sociologists with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), analyzed the interviews of ten women who’d had multiple abortions.” They’d had a total of 35 abortions and each was different, some easier/harder than others.
If you ARE going to “target” these women, understand that each abortion came with its own “unique emotional and social circumstances.” Okay (for purposes of following the argument), now what?
“Similarly, providers should not assume that a woman with a history of multiple abortions will have the same emotional or contraceptive needs after each abortion,” Herold writes. “In fact, Weitz and Kimport found that some women avoided going to the same provider for each abortion because they feared being judged for having multiple abortions or having to hear the same contraceptive-counseling script. Providers should not make assumptions about their patients’ needs based on the number of abortions they’ve had.”

Am I missing something, or is Herold confirming that these women can’t be bothered with trying not to become pregnant—and they simply will shop around for a different abortionist?
If this group is representative, women who have multiple abortions want what they want when they want it and “mainstream pro-choice organizations” ought not to be “worrying that discussing multiple abortions will rile up the anti-choice movement.”
What should they be worried out? “Focus[ing] on de-stigmatizing the experience of abortion, no matter how many times a woman needs to access this service,” Herold lectures. “Women who have had multiple abortions should not be viewed as a separate class of people from women who have had one abortion.”

Chew on that one for a while.
Her conclusion? “We should understand women who have had multiple abortions through their individual life experiences rather than judging them on their pregnancy history. If we want to better meet women’s emotional needs around abortion, we can start by using the phrase ‘multiple abortions’ instead of ‘repeat abortions,’ and moving away from policies that seek to prevent ‘repeat abortions.’ To support women who have had multiple abortions, we need to acknowledge that some abortions may be more difficult than others.”

Pardon? I guess that means there really is no such thing as a “repeat” abortion, only a series of discreet, separate, don’t-connect-the-dots abortions that are multiples of one. Why?
Because some abortions are easier than others and because the circumstances under which a woman has abortion “c” are different than the circumstances for abortion “a” and abortion “b.”
It’s hard to know what to say to someone who reasons like this. However, my guess is that even some of the Sisterhood might swallow hard at this indigestible excuse for unlimited abortion.

Source: NRLC News

Family

 

Supermarket chain releases touching video about the gift children are to parents

By Texas Right to Life
Publix, a chain of grocery stores that dot the southeast United States, is known for addicting deli sandwiches – and touching Father’s Day and Mother’s Day advertisements . The message tends to be Pro-Life – an intention the chain’s spokespeople deny , but which is undeniable (or, maybe, unavoidable) nonetheless.
This year, the company’s commercial released ahead of Father’s Day was no exception.
The ad was not overtly branded as a Father’s Day commercial, but the timing and the subject matter hint at a dad’s day theme. When asked on Facebook whether the ad was in honor of Father’s Day, Publix responded that the release was a “happy coincidence.”
The following was posted on Monday June 15 on Publix’s Facebook page:

Our brand-new commercial is here and we wanted you to be the first to see it. Surprise! Here’s a sneak peek.

[At the now-adult daughter’s birthday party] The father concludes with a sentiment shared by moms and dads universally: that in giving the gift of Life to a child, the gift is returned to parents in hundred-fold fashion:

“So, as this day comes around once again,” he says, “we remind ourselves that, while we may have given you Life, you have given us so much more.”

Every child is a gift, and every child deserves to leave a unique mark on the world—a mark that is first made on his or her parents.
Editor’s note. Watch the video at www.facebook.com/publix/videos/vb.168342453214799/847553628627008/?type=2&theater

Source: NRLC News

Media Bias

 

AP Orders Media to Stop Using “Committed Suicide”

By Wesley J. Smith
I believe that we are in the midst of a broad push, across different sectors of society, to make suicide more palatable and normalized–at least for some categories of people, such as in those who commit assisted suicide because of illness, disability, or advanced age.
If that is too strong–and it may be–at the very least, an effort is underway to remove all moral judgment from the act of killing oneself. And that is why I think the AP Stylebook–the words and phrases bible for most media–has forbidden the use of the term, “committed suicide.”
From the Ragan.com blog:

[Quoting an AP Tweet] A new entry [in the Stylebook] covers suicide in news reports – “committed suicide” should be avoided except in direct quotes from authorities.

[Quoting an AP Tweet] Alternate phrases include killed himself, took her own life or died by suicide.

David Minthorn [one of the editors ] told Poynter the reason for the entry:

“Committed in that context suggests possibly an illegal act, but in fact, laws against suicide have been repealed in the US, at least in certain states, and many other places,” Minthorn said, “so we’re going to avoid using that term on our own, although it’s a term that authorities widely use and we will use it while quoting authorities.

Baloney. Suicide–as opposed to assisted suicide–is not illegal in any state. But there is no right to suicide as authorities can involuntarily hospitalize the suicidal for treatment based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
My theory–call it Smith on media bias–is that advocates convinced AP that using the word “committed”–even though accurate, as it means to intentionally perform an act–implied a negative judgment about that act. And that conflicts with the drive to make at least some suicides more palatable generally–or to put it the other way around–that not all suicides are bad or wrong.
In short, this is a political act–not the first by AP in this regard, heck, not even the second–and it won’t be the last.
At the very least, this change was not driven by a desire on the part of AP’s Stylebook rulers to improve accuracy in reportage.
Editor’s note. This appeared on Wesley’s great blog.

Source: NRLC News

Sad Case -Profound Implications

 

Healthy 24-year-old woman to be euthanised in Belgium – An Update

By Alex Schadenberg, International Chair – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
The Belgian euthanasia insanity continues with the case of a 24-year-old healthy woman (Laura) who will die by euthanasia this summer for psychological reasons, now the Inquisitr has provided more information on this horrific story.
The June 19 DeMorgen article by Simone Maas explains (google translated):

She has good friends, loves good coffee and theater. And she has felt that she wanted to die ever since childhood. Laura (24): “Life, that’s not for me.” This summer, euthanasia will end her life full of inner conflict, depression and self-destruction.

I met the West Flemish Laura at the presentation of the book ‘Libera me’ euthanasia for psychological reasons. Writer Lieve Thienpont is one of the psychiatrists who gave Laura a positive opinion for euthanasia.

Today the Inquisitr published an interview with Laura that explains the story in an even more shocking manner. According to the Inquisitr, Laura experiences suicidal thoughts, otherwise known as suicidal ideation.

Laura, a 24-year-old woman is planning on dying this summer via euthanasia. Unlike many cases before, Laura is not sick with cancer or dying. She simply has had suicidal thoughts since childhood and claims, “Life, that’s not for me.”

Laura claims that she has been living with suicidal ideation since kindergarten. The medical news defines suicidal ideation as:

Suicidal thoughts, also known as suicidal ideation are thoughts about how to kill oneself, which can range from a detailed plan to a fleeting consideration and does not include the final act of killing oneself. The majority of people who experience suicidal ideation do not carry it through.

According to the Medical news suicidal ideation can be triggered by other suicides.
Researchers reported in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) that suicide can be contagious .

Dr. Ian Colman, from the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine and Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Epidemiology, explained that one person’s suicide can have an impact on another’s suicidal thoughts or behavior, especially among teenagers.

He adds that the teenagers do not necessarily have to be associated with the person who died by suicide to start having suicidal thoughts or attempting to end his/her own life.

It appears that Laura’s suicidal ideation may be linked to the euthanasia death of Sarah. The Inquisitr stated:

Due to these issues, she began seeking treatment in a psychiatric institution over the last three years. Laura says she first began considering euthanasia when she became friends with another woman named Sarah, who also ended her life about a year and a half ago. Now, Laura is also a candidate for euthanasia for psychological reasons, which is when a patient is in mental pain and wants to die.

Euthanasia for psychological reasons is done when a psychiatrist agrees that the psychological pain that a person is experiencing cannot be relieved in a way that the individual finds acceptable.
That means, Laura may be treatable, but she has decided to only accept death as a “treatment.”
Similar to the euthanasia deaths of Godelieva De Troyer (64), a healthy Belgian woman who was living with depression or Ann G (44) who asked for euthanasia for psychological pain after being sexually exploited by her psychiatrist, Laura has been approved for lethal injection, even though she is physically healthy and only 24-years-old.

In March, the chairman of the federal euthanasia commission in Belgium admitted that 50 to 60 euthanasia deaths are done on psychiatric patients each year.
Similar cases are occurring in the Netherlands , where a report indicated there were 42 euthanasia deaths for psychiatric reasons and 97 euthanasia deaths for people with dementia in 2013.

A healthy 24-year-old to be euthanised in Belgium.

Belgium euthanasia: Treatment for depression.

More than 1000 Belgian deaths were hastened without explicit request in 2013.

Euthanasia doctor justifies death for depressed people.

Belgium euthanasia deaths increase by 26% in 2013.

Euthanasia promoter admits that there are problems with the Belgian euthanasia law.

Editor’s note. This appeared at alexschadenberg.blogspot.ca.

Source: NRLC News

Watch and Read

 

Eloquent pro-life answers in response to the word “abortion”

By Dave Andrusko
Thanks to Rebecca Downs for posting on a cut.com video of women, ages 15 to 50, responding on camera to the word “abortion.” We may have a slightly different overall take, but her insights were very helpful.
Cut.com does these composites where they ask a range of people (including on at least one occasion children) for their first response in one word to a word–i.e., abortion, father—or to a question.
The lens gives you a very tight shot, inviting you to read their faces as they answer the question. Sometimes the woman’s face is blank; sometimes her expression reinforces her words; and sometimes you know that still waters run deep.

Yahoo Lifestyle UK’s ran a piece on the video last Friday. Alison Coldridge ends with the usual usual—“Every woman who has an abortion has her own reason for doing it, as one woman who had an abortion at eight months pregnant knows only too well. If you want advice, support or information about abortions, you can get in touch with Abortion Choices or look at your choices on the NHS website’’—so I don’t think it’s unfair to conclude she has an agenda.
However she also includes a couple of insights along the way. For example, that the two most straightforward condemnations of abortion come from the 15 year old girl and the 16 year old girl.
But far more important than toting up the numbers—for, against, and more or less neutral—and drawing the obvious conclusion that the youngest girls are the most passionately pro-life (a word Coldridge does not use) is that these two go first! No matter what follows they have made the first impression.
From the 15 year old, her response is

“Killing, because they’re basically killing the baby even though it’s still in the mum.”

From the 16 year old

“Horrible…if you’re given the gift of a baby then you should treasure that gift.”

A 17 year old, who goes next, is speechless.
Then a monotonic “choice” followed by “necessary” followed by

“Wrong. I guess I’ve always just been pro-life. I feel like when people think of pro-choice they just think of the mom and the person, people don’t think about the life that’s inside of you, or the person that doesn’t have a voice.”

Wow.
More pro-abortion answers including a defiant “None of your business.” And then this:

“Against it. I was asked to have an abortion and I didn’t. And I’m really happy about it. She’s my motor and she’s the reason I wake up every day.”

One side, rote answers. The other eloquent, probing, reflective objections to abortion.
Take out 3:29 seconds and watch the video.

Source: NRLC News

Men and Abortion

 

How abortion affects men

By Eric Metaxas
Editor’s note. This ran the Friday before Father’s Day but the topic is ever-timely.
It’s good that women are finally beginning to share the pain of their past abortions. But the fathers of those lost children need to be heard — and helped — as well.

On Father’s Day this Sunday, many dads will be blessed with colorful sweaters, loud ties, maybe a burned breakfast from their kids, and lots of hugs and kisses.
But for some fathers out there, Father’s Day is a day of pain—a reminder of an ugly event in their lives: The day their unborn children were aborted.

As astonishing as it may seem, according to the experts, fathers of aborted children often feel even worse than mothers.
I recently interviewed my friend Brian Fisher on “The Eric Metaxas Show.” Brian is co-founder of Online for Life, and the author of a book titled “Abortion: The Ultimate Exploitation of Women,” in which he allows men to tell their stories.

As one father put it, “Hardly a day goes by that I don’t shudder and almost weep again for the murder I helped bring about . . . My actions, despite my confession and repentance before [God], continue to rob much of the joy from my life.”
Another man—who tried to talk his wife out of her abortion—wrote: “My heart was crushed; this was pain I had never felt. Our family was broken and torn apart by this abortion.”
According to the research, Brian writes, “Men often experience . . . harmful effects from abortion, whether they wanted the abortion or not.”
He says, “While abortion seems to bring a sense of relief, [men] also report feeling anxiety, grief, guilt, and powerlessness.”

Abortion researcher Dr. Catherine Coyle concurs. She notes that when it comes to a decision about an unexpected pregnancy, men usually defer to their partner’s wishes. It’s only later that these fathers “suffer intense grief . . . as well as regret, helplessness, guilt, anxiety, anger, and emasculation.”
For some men, post-abortion suffering “may be so profound as to cause post-traumatic stress disorder” which may lead them to self-medicate with drugs.

Why do these dads suffer so much? It’s partly because they’re hard-wired to protect and care for their children. And on a gut level, these men know they have violated the moral law. A law that says it’s wrong to kill. They recognize that they behaved in a less than manly way by doing nothing while their child’s mother aborted their baby—or worse, by coercing the child’s mother and paying the abortionist.
No wonder they can’t sleep at night or take up drinking to forget their pain.
Now I’m glad to say that many fathers of aborted children are going public with their stories, just as post-abortive women are.

If you or a man you know is suffering from the loss of a child through abortion, help and healing is available by contacting menandabortion.net. You can also visit fatherhoodforever.org. We’ll have those links for you at BreakPoint.org. Just click on this commentary.
Friends, you and I need to share efforts to let men know what they may be in for if they push their partners into aborting their child. Educate yourself by reading books like the one by Brian Fisher. Start a Sunday School class on men and abortion, or speak to your church youth group. Make sure the young men you know realize that if they’re responsible for an unplanned pregnancy, they need to man up—or they may be in for a lifetime of regret.

And on Father’s Day this year, take a moment to say a prayer for the fathers for whom it is too late—the ones who won’t be receiving a loud tie or any other gift from their lost children. Pray that they will receive healing from the One who forgives and washes away our tears.
Editor’s note. This appeared at breakpoint.org and is reprinted with permission.

Source: NRLC News

Pregancy Help Centers

 

Dear Slate.com, If You Want to Make Pregnancy Help Centers Illegal, Let’s at Least Start with the Truth

By Kirk Walden
Editor’s note. This first appeared in Pregnancy Help News.
On Wednesday, Meaghan Winter, writing at Slate.com, asks, “Why are crisis pregnancy centers not illegal?” Underneath the headline, we read, “They peddle false and misleading information. But putting them out of business is tougher than it may seem.”
Ms. Winter, readers may remember, wrote a piece for Cosmopolitan on Heartbeat International’s 2014 conference (she seems quite interested in our work).
At one level, I’m not concerned with Ms. Winter’s interest in shutting down our centers. She has an opinion. She’s allowed her views. And her earlier piece in Cosmo wasn’t hateful; while I saw some mis-perceptions and some bias, I also saw someone with more than a passing interest in seeing another point of view. (Full disclosure: I was quoted in the Cosmopolitan article. While I had a slight issue with context, she was accurate.)
In this Slate article, Ms. Winter outlines three possible avenues for making pregnancy help centers (PHCs) illegal: Proving consumer fraud (misleading advertising), claiming that centers taking government funding are violating the separation of church and state, or proving that centers are committing medical malpractice (practicing medicine without a license).
Ms. Winter notes each avenue is difficult, for various reasons, all of which ignore the obvious: Pregnancy Help Centers aren’t committing consumer fraud, aren’t violating the Constitution (not that the “separation of church and state” idea is even in the Constitution), and our medical clinics are quite adept at providing top-flight health care.
If Ms. Winter thinks PHCs should be illegal, she can have at it. She must overcome one small challenge however. PHCs don’t have issues with the law. It is abortion centers, such as this one in Gary, IN, which continue to have problems meeting even minimal legal and health standards.
My issue with Ms. Winter’s Slate article then, is not her intentions. My problem is that in these types of pieces, opinion is treated as fact and a vague accusation is seen as evidence.
This type of reporting is a microcosm of big abortion’s attack on PHCs. Take for instance, NARAL’s vicious report on PHCs in Connecticut. In the report, total reliance is placed on opinions provided by NARAL “investigators.” So we are supposed to trust the views expressed by those bought and paid for by an organization committed to closing the doors of PHCs?

Forgive me for being skeptical of their findings.
Ms. Winter provides a perfect example of this technique in her article. She points to a 2006 “damning report” from Congress, no less, which claimed PHCs mislead patients and clients. A low-information reader would conclude from Winter’s article then, that PHCs lie and cheat in order to get our point across.

What Winter fails to note is that the report is a minority report, commissioned by the left-wing, abortion-promoting Henry Waxman (D-CA). In essence, one man with a title (U.S. Representative) wanted to shred pregnancy help centers. He used taxpayer funds and government employees to do so.
In the end, the “report” was only the opinion of Rep. Waxman and his staff. Any House member with an ax to grind can create a “report” on any subject. We read nothing of this in Winter’s article. To leave out this information is indeed, “false and misleading.”
As long as we are on the subject of misleading, inside the article, Winter writes of “An Ohio woman who mistook a CPC for an abortion provider, delaying her abortion by weeks . . . .”
Whoa. Really? An abortion delayed for weeks by the actions of a pregnancy help center? This is exactly what the reader is supposed to believe.

To make an accusation like this one, a reporter must, absolutely must, ask enough questions to provide readers with the “Who, what, where, when and why” of the claim. Those five questions are drilled into students at any reputable school of journalism. I graduated from one of those schools. This is essential in reporting.
If the accusation in this article were true, all of us in pregnancy help ministry want to know where the center is, who said what, who trained who and whether this center is affiliated with any national network. All of us who support life choices will affirm that truth, not misrepresentation, must lead the way.
Instead of answering any of these burning questions however, the article claims, without explanation or proof, the center committed “consumer fraud.” The supposed victim only says, “No one wants people to know they’ve been to a pregnancy help center.”
That’s it? She won’t even tell Ms. Winter what happened at the center? The client in question supposedly “mistook a CPC for an abortion center.” Because there is no pertinent information, the reader has no way of knowing whether the client entered the PHC through misleading advertising or through her own mistake.

If Ms. Winter wants to blame the PHC, please give us facts. Show us the advertising. Point us to the web site.
As for delaying an abortion for weeks, again we have an implication that this is somehow the fault of the center. If so, give us the client advocate’s name, the executive director’s name and tell me exactly what they did outside of the law which caused a woman who walked in their door to delay an abortion for weeks.

Show us the person who blocked our anonymous client’s exit from the center. Give us the details of coercion. If this is a true story, don’t leave us wondering.
Frankly, I don’t believe a word of it. Ms. Winter might, but I don’t.
But this is the modus operandi of a smear campaign. It’s easy to write, most readers never notice what they are not reading, and those who agree with the writer shout, “We got ‘em!”
Yet the truth is lost.

It may seem so, but I’m not berating Ms. Winter here. This is objective criticism, and I freely admit my bias toward Pregnancy Help Centers. I’ve been in hundreds of PHCs, and these are good people. Good, good people, just trying to do the right thing and help those who are hurting.
I’m just pointing out that if we are ever to have a true dialogue on PHCs, it must start with the truth. And based on Ms. Winter’s Cosmopolitan article, I believe she would be open to knowing the truth about how we operate and the motivations behind all of our work.
So Ms. Winter, drop me a line. Let’s talk. Let’s get all of the facts out there. I think you’ll find we have something special going on in PHCs in this country and around the world, and we welcome the truth—all of it.

Source: NRLC News