Adoption

 

Answering three big adoption myths

  Deanna Wallace 

1. Your baby will end up in foster care

Many abortion advocates will claim that there are not enough people willing to adopt and point to the fact that there are an estimated 400,540 children in the American foster care system. While this number is sobering, and steps should definitely be taken to reduce it as soon as possible, it is not a number that affects adoption as a viable alternative to abortion for women who are not ready for parenthood.

Let’s look at the facts: according to a 2011 study by the Health and Human Services Department, an estimated 2.6 million Americans have taken concrete step towards adoption, and an estimated 18.5 million Americans have at least considered adopting a child. The HHS study additionally states that those seeking to adopt showed a preference for children under two – a criterion that newborns certainly would meet.

When a birth mother decides on adoption, she can seek out any number of private adoption companies that will help her connect with a family who desperately wants to adopt her baby. Foster care is not even in the picture.
This brings us to the next myth:

2. You will never know if your child is being taken care of

A 2012 study by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that 95% of private adoptions in American are “open adoptions.” An open adoption means that the birth mother chooses the family for her baby, and both parties agree to the sharing of information, and to maintain a certain level of ongoing contact throughout the years. In an open adoption, a child grows up knowing where he came from, his medical history, and that the decision to place him for adoption was a decision made out of love.

While there are varying levels of openness, it is the choice of the birth mother, not the adoptive parents, and the birth mother is able to choose a family based on the degree of openness they are willing to agree to.

A 2007 Health and Human Services study looked at the effects of adoption on children and found the following:

• Adopted children are less likely to live in households where the income is below the poverty line
• 85% of adopted children are in excellent or very good health
• 91% of adopted children in the survey had been consistently insured for the past year
• Only a small minority of adopted children are diagnosed with disorders such as attachment disorder, depression, ADD/ADHD, or behavior or conduct disorders.
• Over half of adopted school-age children have excellent or very good perform ace in reading and math
• Adopted children are more likely to be read to every day by their parents, or to be sung to or told stories every day
• 81% of adoptive parents report their relationship as being very warm and close.

3. Adoption is abandoning your baby

Far from being abandonment, adoption is amazing and admirable. It takes a remarkable amount of selflessness and courage to place a child up for adoption. It means recognizing that you are not able to be the parent your child deserves, and making sacrifices to ensure that she is taken care of the way she should be.

Attitudes on adoption have also changed over the years, with two thirds of Americans having a favorable opinion of adoption. Additionally, two-thirds of Americans have a personal connection with adoption, be it through being an adoptive parent, sibling, or adopted child, or knowing someone who is one of those things.

There are many stories available online detailing how adopted children feel about their adoption, and I personally can attest to my gratefulness to my birth mother.
My birth mother was only 19 when she had me, and she already had 3 other children. Those in the pro-abortion lobby would say that my mother would have been totally justified in aborting me, but she chose life. While I was not adopted at birth, but later placed in foster care with my siblings, I still have a deep respect for the choice my birth mother made in relinquishing her parental rights so that I could be adopted along with my brother and sister (another brother was adopted by a different family). I always knew that I was adopted, and my parents made sure to explain that I was placed for adoption not because I wasn’t loved, but because I was loved very much both by them and by my birth mother.

I am very aware of the different path my life could have taken, and when I look at where I have ended up, I feel a great sense of being blessed beyond what I deserve. My parents are amazing, selfless people (although when I tell them this, they assure me that they are just normal people), who took three children who needed a family and gave them love and stability.
Adoption is a truly amazing thing, and it should be encouraged for those women who are facing an unplanned pregnancy. While they might not be ready to be parents, they can still be amazing mothers by giving their children the gift of a family, of love, of security – the gift of hope and a future.

Source: LiveAction News

Pro-Life Hero

 

Garrett Swasey is a hero to the pro-life movement

  Cassy Fiano 

Much has been speculated about regarding the man responsible for the horrible attack on a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood. But one person we should be focusing on is Garrett Swasey.
Garrett Swasey is one of the three victims who lost their lives in the shooting. He was a 44-year-old University of Colorado Colorado Springs police officer who died after rushing to the scene to save another injured police officer. He was 10 miles away on campus when news of the shooting broke out, and was known to respond to dangerous calls off campus.

He was also strongly pro-life.

Swasey spent seven years serving as co-pastor of Hope Chapel. And while he was against abortion, and did not support Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, his friends say that this would never have factored into his decision to respond to the shooting. He cared about saving lives, a true hero of the pro-life movement.

While many abortion advocates have been quick to cast blame on the pro-life movement, the truth is, Swasey exemplifies what being pro-life means. Being pro-life means accepting that all lives have dignity and value, inherently, regardless of what people choose to do with their lives. It’s why being pro-life means protesting both abortion, and the death penalty. And it’s why someone like Swasey would risk his life to save staffers at an abortion clinic. It’s why pro-life leaders immediately denounced the shooting. Being pro-life means protecting all life, and Swasey died doing just that. He is truly the hero of the pro-life movement.

Source: LiveAction News

Adoption

 

“Wanted” – A short film about adoption with a lesson for us all

  Amanda Read  

By presidential proclamation, this November was designated National Adoption Month. Adoption is an issue very near to the heart of the pro-life movement, and the life enrichment it gives has been reported in such documentary works as The Sidewalk Chronicles (2015). Demystifying the process of adoption and presenting facts are very important, and so is breaking the generational cycle that devalues life.

The cultural zeitgeist too often sloppily defines the value and quality of life according to convenience. Hence, the words “wanted” and “unwanted” usually appear when pregnancy and abortion are discussed.
We know of babies whose life and death, by national law, are hanging in the balance due to whether or not they are wanted. When their parents reject them from the womb or later, these children then may struggle with feelings of being worthless and unwanted, which is a major theme in the Erwin Brothers’ October Baby (2011) film.
A movie about adoption released just this year by Roundtable Productions doesn’t mention abortion, but it bolsters conversation about nurturing life beginning within the home, even through the most simple of gestures.

A scene from Wanted

Aptly titled Wanted, Nathan Jacobson’s award-winning short film tells the story of Luke (a compelling performance by Rusty Martin, Courageous), a foster child who is welcomed into a family home right before his eighteenth birthday. Because of his troubled upbringing, Luke feels no one wants him, and he settles for not wanting anyone either, until something gives him a change of heart.
“He has to want this,” says Luke’s new mother, Rachel (Stacey Bradshaw). It’s a simple line that encompasses every reformation, as far back as when Jesus would query before performing a miracle: Do you want to be made well? (John 5:6) Healing involves a decision that comes from within. In order to embrace the sanctity of life, our generation has to know it, and then also has to want it. The value of life is not rooted in how wanted that life is, but how beautiful it is for someone to want it!
Wanted is a tear-jerker with cinematography that moves as gently as the story convicts. Gracing the screen is a sensitive Eliya Hurt (Polycarp), alongside a motherly Stacey Bradshaw (Providence), and a steady Andrew Cheney (Beyond the Mask). Composer John Campbell (known for Adventures in Odyssey) provides the beautiful soundtrack.

It’s artwork you can’t find a negative thing to say about. Watch it.

Source: LiveAction News

Commodification of Life

 

Surrogate pregnant with triplets threatened with ‘financial ruin’ if she doesn’t abort

  Cassy Fiano 

The ethical issues with surrogacy – and assisted reproductive technology – continue to arise. Parents manufacture children on demand, and then when things don’t go as planned, they decide to then destroy the children, who were intentionally created by said parents. This scenario happens over and over and over again, but it’s no less horrifying whenever a new situation presents itself. The latest shocking example is a surrogate, implanted with three embryos by a man who wanted to become a father, who unsurprisingly became pregnant with triplets.

But as the father didn’t want triplets, he’s now demanding that she get an abortion against her will, and is even threatening her if she continues to refuse.
Melissa Cook was paid $33,000 to have a man’s child via artificial insemination. Like many IVF parents, the man chose to have three embryos implanted, because implanting multiple embryos has the highest chance of achieving a successful pregnancy. All three embryos took, and Cook discovered she was pregnant with triplets at about eight weeks. She says he immediately began to raise concerns, which have become more threatening over time.

The dad “understands, albeit does not agree, with your decision not to reduce,” his lawyer, Robert Warmsley, wrote in a Friday letter to Cook, who has never met the sperm donor.

“As you know, his remedies where you refuse to abide by the terms of the agreement, are immense [and] include, but are not limited to, loss of all benefits under the agreement, damages in relation to future care of the children [and] medical costs associated with any extraordinary care the children may need,” the lawyer warned.

Cook received another letter from Warmsley on Tuesday urging her to schedule a “selection reduction” — abortion of one of the fetuses — by day’s end.

Cook insists that abortion isn’t right, that these are human beings. But she also says she’s beginning to waver in her resolution to protect these lives, as she’s understandably scared of the repercussions if she doesn’t do as this man demands.
Surely, pro-abortion activists will loudly be denouncing this man and offering their support to this woman, as they claim they support a woman’s right to do what she wants with her own body, and say that a woman should never be pressured into an abortion. But don’t hold your breath waiting for them to pipe up.

Sadly, this is not unusual. It was awful enough when parents of twins, also conceived through IVF, publicly spoke about their dismay at becoming pregnant with twins. They enthusiastically implanted two embryos, and were then outraged when they shockingly became pregnant with twins. These parents didn’t abort either of their babies, thankfully, but they openly dehumanized their children and hoped for one of them to have a birth defect so they could have an excuse to abort them.
Other parents actually go through with the selective reductions. Celebrated pro-abortion “feminist” Amy Richards famously wrote about her decision to kill two of her preborn children after becoming pregnant with triplets because she would have to do horrible things like move to Staten Island, shop at Costco, and buy big jars of mayonnaise. And if a couple undergoes IVF and becomes pregnant with a child who has a disability, like Down syndrome, chances are that child will be killed.

IVF allows people to design babies and then destroy them when the product they paid for is “defective” in some way. The day of parents designing their children’s hair and eye colors doesn’t seem too far off. Instead of treating children as independent human beings with their own inherent dignity and value, we have begun to treat them as objects we are entitled to own. And even when these children aren’t aborted, it still affects them. Alana Newman, founder of Anonymous US, an organization that aims to give a voice to children conceived through artificial reproductive technology, pointed out that these parents are inflicting pain on their future children, often pushing their own suffering onto the children they want. We as a society seem to believe that we have the right to play God. It’s that simple.

And in a culture that commercializes children, likes to play God, and treats children as products they’re entitled to own, it’s no surprise that abortion is so rampant. Melissa Cook’s tragic story is heartbreaking, but it’s just the latest symptom of a larger disease.

Source: LiveAction News

Media and Abortion

 

Slate hopes watching ‘Jessica Jones’ will shame pro-lifers

  Rebecca Downs 

Slate just loves Jessica Jones, the new Netflix show. Slate also loves to promote abortion and has found a way to combine both.
A piece from Nov. 24 by Christina Cauterucci claims in its headline that “Anyone Who Opposes Abortion for Rape Survivors Should Watch This Jessica Jones Scene.” The piece’s byline and content also specifically address those in the GOP who oppose rape exceptions.
It would be one thing if the piece hailed what Cauterucci thought was a television show making an important point about this issue. It would even be plausible if the piece stuck to its headline and suggested that those who hold such a view might look into another perspective. But that’s not what Cauterucci does. Instead, she slams those who do hold such a view.
The piece is chock full of your typical pro-abortion misconceptions when it comes to abortion.
A character from episode six is Hope Schlottman, who is pregnant with the baby of a rather terrifying serial rapist. Hope is in jail and has paid another inmate to beat her up in hopes of inducing a miscarriage.
Titular character Jessica Jones suggests that Hope wait for a clinical abortion. Hope answers, “Every second it’s there, I get raped again and again.”
For those of us who have not found ourselves in such a situation, we may not be able to know exactly what Hope is going through, but there are those who have gone through the same thing, and who have spoken up. Many of them do not feel the way Hope does. Rather, it’s those around them – those pressuring them to abort – who have taken such a disdainful view about the pregnancy.
That Hope doesn’t want to wait also rebuts one of Cauterucci’s own points. The caption following the screenshot from the episode reads, “With no other options, Hope Schlottman took her abortion into her own hands.” Except it doesn’t sound like Hope had “no other options.” Since Hope was not set on choosing life, she could have at least taken Jessica Jones’ suggestion. If Slate is trying to use this character’s situation to argue about the fate of women should abortion be outlawed, they fail miserably here.
As an abortion-supporting site, it’s not surprising that Slate takes issue with pro-life candidates. But Cauterucci makes a very bold, and also false, claim:

This year’s slate of Republican presidential candidates is crowded with men who wouldn’t give Schlottman’s case a second thought.

Current presidential candidates may oppose abortion in cases of rape or incest. But by opposing one so-called solution to a horrific crime and act of violence in no way means that they “wouldn’t give [a] case a second thought.”
Marco Rubio, for instance, a candidate mentioned by name, talked with Meet the Press’s Chuck Todd about the rape exceptions. Part of his response mentioned:

… I mean, a rape is an act of violence. It’s a horrifying thing that happens. And fortunately, the number of abortions in this country that are due to rape are very small, less than 1% of the cases in the world. But they happen. And they’re horrifying. And they’re tragic. And I recognize that.

This is just one instance where Rubio has spoken about his stance. Does that sound like somebody who “wouldn’t give [a rape victim’s] case a second thought?”
The rest of the piece contains points which could apply exactly to the regret a woman who aborts her baby may feel:

Schlottman’s pleas testify to the injustice of abortion politics that don’t include exceptions for rape, incest, and women’s safety. Politicians who would force a woman to carry to term a fetus created by assault are inflicting yet another violation on a survivor who’s already had her desires trampled… But for actual survivors of sexual violence, memories of a perpetrator without Killgrave’s evil superpowers can be equally painful as Schlottman’s. A resulting pregnancy can be an equally distressing reminder of that trauma—to say nothing of the sadism of forcing a rape victim to endure the excruciating, sometimes days-long ordeal of labor and delivery.

Oftentimes the abortion is a way of “inflicting yet another violation on a survivor who’s already had her desires trampled,” especially if the woman is pressured into the abortion.
The woman now has to recover from the abortion as well as from the rape. And let’s not forget that an abortion is always a violation against the preborn child’s life, regardless of how conception took place.
Cauterucci points to the “sometimes days-long ordeal of labor and delivery.” But that’s how babies are born, regardless of whether or not a woman was raped. (A midwife mentions that while it’s very difficult to predict how long labor takes, first births rarely take over 18 hours.)The amount of time your delivery takes doesn’t depend on how your baby was conceived.
More important is the fact that the baby will be born and labor will come to an end. However a baby was conceived, giving birth is a courageous act. Many rape victims have shared that it helped empower them from their rape.
Cauterucci closes by stating that “politicians should be concerned with punishing rapists, not their victims.” Yes, exactly! Aborting the baby may actually serve to help a rapist, as it covers up his crime. An abortion, even if it is what the rape victim wants, or thinks she wants, punishes a completely innocent party. The preborn child is the farthest thing from the rapist – he or she is a victim.
Essentially, Cauterucci’s piece does very little for rape victims. It just shames those who happen to disagree with her view.

Source: LiveAction News

Abortion Clinic Workers

 

Abortion workers reveal disturbing facts about abortion industry

By Sarah Terzo
Pro-choice author Carole Joffe interviewed abortion industry workers for her book The Regulation of Sexuality: Experiences of Family-Planning Workers. Although many of the clinic workers Joffe interviewed genuinely seemed to want to help the women, the book reveals many disturbing things about what went on in the abortion facility. According to the workers’ own words and the author’s observations, women were rushed through the facility to maximize profits – and abortionists often treated them badly.

Joffe observes that the abortion facility regularly overbooked patients to maximize revenue. A significant portion of women, she observed, didn’t show up for their appointments and overbooking guarded against lost business. Joffe says:

Like many other nonprofit clinics, Urban [the name Joffe gave to the clinic] typically overbooked clients, especially at peak hours, to guard against the loss of revenues that would result from too many no shows. This meant, for counselors, a never-ending stream of clients in the waiting room…The clinic had to make the most efficient use of medical personnel, the highest-paid workers in the clinic, for financial reasons and for courtesy. (83)

One thing to take away from this quote is that many women change their minds after making the initial abortion appointment. We don’t know how many of the women the book speaks of chose life on account of pro-life intervention, but their minds were changed by something. Not all women who make their appointments already have their minds made up. Abortion seeking women are often still reachable.
But the facility’s overbooking also had the result that workers were forced to rush women through the abortion process one after another to fit them all in. They did not have time to counsel women as thoroughly as they would’ve liked. As Joffe says:

… As the clinic director was fond of pointing out, counseling did not generate revenue for the clinic; being seen in the medical room did. Perhaps the greatest problem with slowdowns [counseling sessions that took longer than average] was the risk of annoying doctors.(89)

There was no doubt that the overbooking was done mainly to maximize profits:

Besides ongoing frustration over salaries, the [abortion] counselors felt that there was no real understanding of the pressures and demands of their work. They believed, for example, that the agency director and board were always devising ways to increase the patient load (and hence generate more revenues) without considering that more patients applied a need for additional staff. (57)

Obviously, counseling fell by the wayside. There was little care or respect for each woman as an individual. Even though many of the workers wanted to give more support, they were under intense pressure.
The facility’s owners and management always wanted to increase revenues. This caused tension between workers who wanted to help a woman make the best choice for her and management which simply wanted more abortions done:

At Urban, as in other family planning clinics that provide abortion services, these services are the major source of revenue; hence, there are constant pressures from management to increase the total number of abortions performed. During the period of my observations, abortions were performed four days a week, and there were ongoing discussions about whether they should be increased to five. (112-113)

One abortion counselor talks about trying to console upset women despite the pressure to rush them out of her office quickly:

I’ve taken up to one hour and a half if the patient needs it – the people at the front desk don’t love it if I do that too often, but if I have to, I do. I just had a patient today that took a really long time. It was a post abortion – she was crying, feeling really guilty. The doctor really scared her; I had to act as her advocate. (86)

This is not the only time a worker had to protect a patient from the words and actions of the facility’s abortionists.

As Joffe says:

Another counselor grievance concerned doctors’ interpersonal style with patients. Certain doctors were accused of being too abrupt or “insensitive” with patients… Bernice [a clinic worker] recalls that when “Dr. Stuart first came, he did a very racist number on a couple of patients. I called him on it, and he has changed.” Some specific accusations of insensitivity were related to the rejection of obese women for clinic abortions.… [These patients pose “special difficulties” in an emergency] Counselors felt that some doctors handled this admittedly difficult situation in a particularly mortifying way. (106)

Also, abortion workers were forced to try and intervene for women when they were on the abortion table and wanted to change their minds, or became so agitated it seemed clear they did not want the abortion. Abortionists often did not want to stop the process, even if they could do so safely:

Infrequently it happened that a patient became so upset during the procedure that the counselor felt that it should be stopped.… For the Urban physicians, on the other hand, the ruling premise was that any procedure, once started, should continue – as long as it was medically safe to do so… For some doctors at Urban, “starting” meant any contact with the patient, including the preabortion pelvic examination.… The doctors at Urban did not routinely proceed with the abortion in the face of immense distress. As one put it, “if she’s crying a little, you still go ahead… If she jumps a foot off the table during a pelvic, that is a different story.” The point is that the doctors have far more tolerance of emotional distress than the counselors did. And the ultimate decision to continue or discontinue past a certain point is with the doctors. (106)

The workers complained about the insensitivity some doctors showed towards patients.

Some doctors tended to initiate small talk with the counselors and essentially ignore the patients: most counselors felt that this was insensitive: “she’s lying on the table having an abortion… She doesn’t want to hear what you did with your boyfriend last weekend. (97)

And, of course, there was only so much the abortion workers could do to protect women from shoddy medical care and poor surgical skills. One worker says:

At Gino’s, quality of a hamburger depends on who’s working the grill that day. It’s the same with abortions. If Dr. Benjamin is on that day, I know there’ll be few complaints. If it’s Dr. Thomas, I know there will be a lot of pain. (105)

Even though many of the workers Joffe interviewed went into the abortion business hoping to help women, they all had to face the reality that the doctors and facility administration were not in the abortion business to serve the women, but to make money. Sadly, most workers adjusted to this reality and continued working there. However, the author notes that during the time she was interviewing and observing at the facility, one worker decided she’d had enough. She announced that she had become pro-life and quit her job in the abortion business, never to return.

Source: Carole Joffe The Regulation of Sexuality: Experiences of Family-Planning Workers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986)

Editor’s note. This appeared at liveactionnews.org and is reprinted with permission.

Source: Abortion Workers

Non-Negotiable

 

U.S. Bishops Declare “Intrinsic Evil” of Abortion Must Always Be Opposed

Editor’s note. The following is provided by PNCI–the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved revisions to “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” on political responsibility during their recent meeting in Baltimore. The updates in the document “take account of recent developments in the United States in both domestic and foreign policy” including “the ongoing destruction of over one million innocent human lives each year by abortion” and physician-assisted suicide.

The bishops warn against “intrinsically evil” actions which must always “be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned.” Abortion and euthanasia are listed as prime examples because they “have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others”. Human cloning and destructive research on human embryos, and “other acts that directly violate the sanctity and dignity of human life”, are also intrinsically evil and “must always be opposed”.

The bishops warn that it “is a mistake with grave moral consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice. A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed.”

Catholics are called “to make practical judgments regarding good and evil choices in the political arena” and the bishops warn that the taking of innocent life in abortion cannot be equated as “just one issue among many” and must always be opposed.

They advise that when voting, “It is essential for Catholics to be guided by a well-formed conscience that recognizes that all issues do not carry the same moral weight and that the moral obligation to oppose policies promoting intrinsically evil acts has a special claim on our consciences and our actions. These decisions should take into account a candidate’s commitments, character, integrity, and ability to influence a given issue. In the end, this is a decision to be made by each Catholic guided by a conscience formed by Catholic moral teaching.”

Catholics serving in elected office are called to have “a heroic commitment” and “must commit themselves to the pursuit of the virtues, especially courage, justice, temperance, and prudence. The culmination of these virtues is the strong public promotion of the dignity of every human person as made in the image of God in accord with the teachings of the Church, even when it conflicts with current public opinion. Catholic politicians and legislators must recognize their grave responsibility in society to support laws shaped by these fundamental human values and oppose laws and policies that violate life and dignity at any stage from conception to natural death.”

Opposing evil should also “open our eyes to the good we must do, that is, to our positive duty to contribute to the common good and to act in solidarity with those in need.”

Faithful Citizenship explains the USCCB’s position that it “supports laws and policies to protect human life to the maximum degree possible, including constitutional protection for the unborn and legislative efforts to end abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. We also promote a culture of life by supporting laws and programs that encourage childbirth and adoption over abortion and by addressing poverty, providing health care, and offering other assistance to pregnant women, children, and families.”

The bishops call for greater assistance for the sick and dying stating, “The end of life is a holy moment, a moment that marks a preparation for life with God, and it is to be treated with reverence and accompaniment. The end of life is as sacred as the beginning of life and requires treatment that honors the true dignity of the human person as created in the image of the living God. We recognize that addressing this complex issue effectively will require collaborative efforts between the public and private sectors and across party lines.”
The document ends with the section, Goals for Political Life: Challenges for Citizens, Candidates, and Public Officials, and a list of ten policy goals which the bishops offer in the hope that it will “guide Catholics as they form their consciences and reflect on the moral dimensions of their public choices.”

The ten issues “address matters of different moral weight and urgency”, some involve intrinsically evil acts, which can never be approved while others “involve affirmative obligations to seek the common good.”

Source: NRLC News

IVF

 

Couple sues for malpractice after IVF doctor aborts “strangers’ embryos” mistakenly implanted in woman

By Dave Andrusko

Melissa and David Pineda

David and Melissa Pineda have filed a malpractice suit against Dr. Rifaat Salem, alleging that he used two different techniques to abort when Dr. Salem discovered he had mistakenly implanted “strangers’ embryos” in Mrs. Pineda.

“We went there to have a baby, not to kill a baby,” Mrs. Pineda said. The Pinedas told The Daily Mail “they never would have agreed to an abortion.”
The Daily Mail’s Ashley Collman reports this all began in December 2013 after the couple was unable to conceive a fourth child. They decided to go to Dr. Salem for IVF treatments. The embryos were implanted on February 7.
While Mrs. Pineda was on ordered bed rest, and just two days after the procedure, “she says she got a call from the Torrance, California, fertility doctor telling her to come into the office immediately – even though it was a Sunday.” According to Collman.

When she got to the practice, Mrs. Pineda says she had a disturbing conversation with a nurse who said she came in to check on the couple’s remaining embryos on Saturday and found that all 14 original eggs were still in the petri dish – suggest that they had in fact been implanted with another person’s embryos.

Without any explanation, Dr. Salem said he wanted to check in on how the embryos were doing. But Mrs. Pineda believes she actually underwent a very painful dilation and curettage procedure – a scraping of the cervix which is the most common method used in first term abortions.

Mrs. Pineda was told to come in the next day to receive an injection of a drug that would stop some of her bleeding, but she later found out that what she really received was the drug methotrexate – a chemical abortion drug.

The couple’s lawyer, Neil Howard, told the Daily Mail Salem had not gotten the Pinedas’ consent for either the D&C or the chemical abortifacient. “In a sworn deposition, one of the doctor’s nurses says Mrs. Pineda didn’t sign off on the D&C until after it was performed,” Collman reported.
“There’s no question in my mind that this was a viable healthy pregnancy that he [Dr. Salem] wanted to make sure did not continue,” Howard told the Daily Mail. “That’s why he did two things: a chemical abortion and a surgical abortion. He wanted to be 1billion per cent sure this baby did not go to full term.”

Mr. Pineda said, “We should have a little kid running around now,” adding, “That’s the hard part and what will never be replaced – the moments and the happiness with this child that we wanted and it’s not there now.”
The Pinedas told The Daily Mail they “believe that the couple whose embryos they received should know the truth about what happened. ”
Dr. Salem’s practice did not immediately return calls, the Daily Mail reported.

Source: NRLC News

Abortion

 

Abortion attorneys fear U.S. Supreme Court ruling on dismemberment method

By Kathy Ostrowski, Legislative Director, Kansans for Life
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, all fourteen judges of Kansas’ state Court of Appeals will begin analyzing all legal briefs, pro and con, for an expedited hearing on the grisly topic of dismemberment abortions.

That includes a “friend of the court” brief submitted by Kansans for Life in support of Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt. Schmidt is appealing a lower court decision that blocked implementation of the state’s first-in-the-nation Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act.
Oral arguments are set for December 9.
Last July Shawnee County District Court Judge Larry Hendricks issued an injunction, blocking Senate Bill 95 from going in effect.
The Act bans a barbaric abortion method that tears living, well-formed unborn babies apart in their mother’s wombs.
The preliminary injunction was obtained by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Kansas father-daughter abortionists at the Center for Women’s Health in suburban Kansas City.
But the abortionists’ lawsuit was not filed in the federal court route that ends with the U.S. Supreme Court. The Kansas Attorney General’s legal team points out clearly in its filings that the abortionists logically should have taken that path, but instead are pursuing the state court path that ends with the state Supreme Court.

Why? Two reasons. Abortion attorneys
1. recognize this Act could well be upheld for the nation, and
2. want to, instead, carve out a state right to abortion as interpreted into the Bills of Rights section of the Kansas Constitution.

The explanation for #1 is that dismemberment method abortions were examined at some length by the U.S. Supreme Court during their deliberations on partial-birth abortions. The Court assessed both methods as “brutal.”

In its 2007 Gonzales decision, the High Court upheld a prohibition on the gruesome partial-birth method, as furthering “legitimate interests in regulating the medical profession in order to promote respect for life, including life of the unborn.”
The explanation for #2 is that the Kansas state Supreme Court has shown a decidedly pro-abortion bias over the past two decades. Abortion attorneys are attempting to take advantage of that, hoping that the Kansas Supreme Court will “discover” a right-to-abortion in the state Constitution.
Everyone knows that is what is happening. The Nov. 15 “rebuttal” filing from the Kansas Attorney General observed that

“[this suit invites] Kansas courts to take on a long rejected activist role: to change the people’s Constitution of the past 150 years in order to recognize “rights” that Plaintiffs may deem politically or morally expedient, but which an overwhelming majority of Kansans do not support.”

APPEAL COURT CONSIDERATIONS
The Kansas Court of Appeals has been asked by the Kansas Attorney General to rule on whether the lower court– that opined dismemberment abortions cannot be banned –erred in two areas:
· misstating the relevant U.S. Supreme Court findings, and
· claiming that there exists a state right to abortion.
The abortion attorneys have clearly misstated the U.S. Supreme Court—and that’s why they don’t want to end up there.

As to the claim that Kansas has a state abortion right, attorneys for the Center for Women’s Health argue that permitting abortionists to dismember living babies till they bleed to death is part of a woman’s liberty right, and a development of Kansas’ “pro-woman” history. They cite that, from its inception, Kansas gave women the right to hold property and vote in school election
How absurd is that stretch?! Unless a baby is merely property that can be dismembered/shredded in the manner that is most convenient for abortionists. However, the Supreme Court’s most recent abortion ruling of 2007 doesn’t invest abortionists with veto power over the state legislature:

“Physicians are not entitled to ignore regulations that direct them to use reasonable alternative procedures. The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice, nor should it elevate their status above other physicians in the medical community.” Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124, 163

“The medical profession, furthermore, may find different and less shocking methods to abort the fetus in the second trimester, thereby accommodating legislative demand.”

There is more yet to be aired on what attorneys are claiming in “friend of the court” briefs now being digested by the Kansas appellate court

Source: NRLC News

Adoption

 

Adopted boy shares same disability as his new grandpa

  Carole Novielli 

The beautiful story of an adopted boy with a disability has gone viral after photographers captured the moment his adoptive grandfather – who has the same disability – met the child.


Little Kirill was placed for adoption by his biological family when he was just 20 days old. It took his adoptive parents Doug and Lesley Facey three years to adopt the four year-old from an orphanage in Kazakhstan but they were thrilled when they were finally able to pick him up and take him to his new Canadian home. By the time the Faceys got Kirill, he had been passed up for adoption six times because he was born without a hand. Doug Facey told Fox 6 that when he expressed an interest in adopting Kirill, the adoption agency questioned him, repeatedly asking if he and his wife really wanted a child with only one hand.

At the age of four, Kirill spent his life thinking there was no one else like him. That is until he met Doug’s father, his new adopted “Grandpa,” Chris Facey. Doug told ABC News about the moment his new son met his dad and the touching encounter was captured in the image below. “I was excited when Kirill met my Dad,” Doug said.

“I knew it would be a great thing for him because Kirill would realize he was not the only person in the world missing a hand.”
Doug described the first time his dad saw a photo of Kirill. “Dad’s reaction was emotional the first time he saw a picture. His first words were, ‘He’s like me,'” Facey told TODAY.

“My Dad’s reaction was one of excitement as well because he could show [and] teach Kirill that the sky is the limit and he can do whatever he wants.”
Lesley Facey said that the media attention her family has received has been tremendous. “A lot of people are saying, ‘You guys are wonderful and you guys have done a fabulous thing,’ but Doug and I never, ever thought that way,” she told Canada’s CBC.

Lesley thought back to the concern others had when the couple adopted Kirill, telling Fox6 that she knew no disability would hold her son back because it did not hold back his new grandpa:

How can I sit there and say ‘this is gonna be a problem’ when you’re looking at this man who’s been to the Paralympics, who played soccer, he’s a great philanthropist in the city, he’s a very successful businessman. How can you sit there and say ‘my child won’t be able to do any of that?’

Kirill’s new grandpa agrees, noting that when he met his grandson for the first time, “I didn’t see a little boy who was disabled and missing a right hand.”
Doug said that he and Lesley are happy that now their son can just be a kid. They told the media that adopting Kirill has changed their lives and that they are happy to “have a little boy to love, cherish and educate.”
“He’s going to get the best chance to be the best he possibly can. He’s bright, he’s smart … He’s a keeper,” his grandpa added.

Source: LiveAction News

Assisted Suicide

 

“Compassion and Choices”: Trying to turn Thanksgiving into a mope-fest

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
Editor’s note. Thursday is, of course, Thanksgiving. We’re running an article on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday to remind us of what Thanksgiving means for us as pro-lifers. This first ran in 2014. Happy Thanksgiving in advance to you and yours!
What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Trip to Grandma’s? A cooking marathon? A touch football game?
Leave it to the hope-killers of the suicide movement to take one of the great things in life and turn it into a mope-fest.

The Hemlock Society — now deceptively called “Compassion and Choices” — wants you to spend Thanksgiving Day talking about assisted suicide with your family and friends.
I have a better idea. Spend the holiday enjoying life. Express your thanks for all of your many gifts. Treasure your loved ones and tell them how much you love them. Celebrate all that’s good in your life and in the lives of those you care about. Take a deep breath and, as you exhale, remember how good — no, make that great — life can be.

The best antidote to the physician-prescribed suicide scourge is an enthusiastic “yes” to life. It’s a hope-filled declaration that, despite the detours along our individual journeys, each of our lives have meaning and merit — from the moment of conception to the instant of natural death.
This Thanksgiving, whether you’re dining with masses or having an intimate dinner with only a few, raise your glass and toast to life. It’s the one great gift no one has a right to take away.

Editor’s note. This appeared at paprolife.us

Source: NRLC News

WOW!!!

 

Parents sue hospital over failed abortion

  Nancy Flanders 

Italian parents Giuseppe and Aurora Bellandi are suing the hospital that failed to abort their daughter Elisa 15 years ago, claiming psychological trauma. At 43 years old, Mrs. Bellandi began hemorrhaging and doctors explained that she had an ovarian fibroma which had to be removed. When she went in for the operation, doctors discovered she was pregnant.

The doctors called Mr. Bellandi and told him that his wife was miscarrying and needed an abortion to save her life. He agreed. However, one month later, they realized she was still pregnant, but she was beyond 21 weeks gestation (about 5 months) so it was too late for an abortion in Italy.
The couple told The Daily Mail that they were devastated by this because the pregnancy would be dangerous and the baby could have brain damage because of the failed abortion. In addition, they felt Mr. Bellandi’s job did not pay well enough to support all three of them. Mrs. Bellandi was ill throughout the pregnancy and the family went into debt during that time.

“We were told that we had to have an abortion,” Giuseppe Bellandi told The Daily Mail. “Other couples who get pregnant get to decide if they will keep it or not. We didn’t get to decide anything. They told us – first ‘You’re pregnant and you must have an abortion.’ Then, ‘You can’t have an abortion’. They decided everything. As they decided everything, they should bear the responsibility.”
Meanwhile, their daughter has always known she was a “mistake” and says she supports her parents 100% and has always felt loved.

In 2008 the couple received 120,000 Euro in damages after suing the doctors for physical harm to the mother. But they claim they are still struggling financially due to a lack of work for Mr. Bellandi and a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease for Mrs. Bellandi. They are seeking one million Euro to help pay for Elisa’s education and provide her with a better lifestyle. Their son Marco, who is 34 years old, sends his family money each month to help, and he often takes his sister shopping for clothing.
While the parents insist they are only trying to care for their daughter whom they love, they did have a choice in whether or not to abort their daughter. They also had the choice of placing her for adoption if they were not financially able to care for her as they claim.

In addition, it’s hard to see Elisa as a mistake instead of a miracle. For a child to survive an apparent miscarriage, then an abortion, then rebound after being born not breathing, and then develop properly despite the doctors’ concern that she would have brain damage, is nothing but a miracle – or one miracle after another.

According to The Daily Mail, the family has been offered 60,000 Euro from the hospital, but have refused it, saying they want at least twice that amount. Hospital lawyers argue that the Bellandis never wanted an abortion and therefore aren’t owed any money from the hospital.

“The doctors try and make us feel guilty for making a case,” said Mr. Bellandi. “They made a mistake. They brought her into the world. If they do an examination [after the abortion], as they say they did, how was she born? What did they examine? A rabbit? […] She is a smart, beautiful girl. She is a leader among her friends. She is not the problem. They are the problem.”

While opinions on this case vary, no one should ever wish for a dead child over a healthy one.

Source: LiveAction News

Media

 

ABC’s ‘Scandal’ abortion scene is sick, but pro-abortion media’s applause over it is sicker

  Lisa Smiley 

In the wake of the recent scandal over Planned Parenthood selling baby body parts (no pun intended), it seems that Hollywood has stepped in to do some of its bidding. Yes, damage control for the disgraced Planned Parenthood on prime time TV.

Last Thursday’s whole episode of “Scandal” was dedicated to hailing Planned Parenthood as the savior of women’s health and women’s rights. It culminates in a scene where character Olivia Pope undergoes an abortion with a slight smile on her face as a female medical professional uses her pointed instruments between Olivia’s legs. A baby is being killed. Hers and the President’s, without his knowledge, whom she has just broken up with earlier that day.

All the while Silent Night plays in the background. Indeed, a song dedicated to celebrating the birth of baby Jesus and the beautiful relationship between a mother and her newborn son is used to accompany a scene of a woman aborting her baby.


Then it ends with Olivia sipping on a glass of wine in front of her Christmas tree, no remorse, no emotion, just another day in the life of a high-powered career woman!
This “Scandal” episode, and more specifically, this abortion scene, has been applauded by the liberal media as being “brave and unprecedented”, “daring” and “magnificent”, “progress”, and “perfect”.
I am not a “Scandal” viewer or TV viewer in general, and watching this episode on the internet to see what all the fuss was about, just makes me glad that I don’t adulterate my mind with such sick content like this on a regular basis. Because ultimately, it’s content like this that will skew your mind to believe pernicious, self-destructive lies about the reality of abortion.
No matter how glamorous Hollywood portrays abortion by using one of its main characters on a popular show nonchalantly just having one, it will never change the the fact that abortion, by definition, is the ending of a life; the termination, the killing of a woman’s child, whether by the choice of the woman herself, or forcibly by another (as is often the case in communist China).
As women, as humans, we should all feel some emotion towards such a tragic situation, whether we are pro-life or pro-abortion.

Yet that is what the producers of the show, and the liberal media in general want us to become desensitized to and deny: reality.

See! Abortion is no big deal. Go to work, break up with boyfriend, move out of the White House, have an abortion, and you’ll still have the energy and time to sit down in front of your Christmas tree and enjoy a glass of wine. What?! That is Hollywood fantasy at its finest, people.
Yet this scene has been applauded as being “brave and unprecedented.” No emotional breakdown or soul searching to decide whether to keep the baby or abort her. No confrontation with her boyfriend. The scene was so anti-climactic that her abortion is not even overtly mentioned. Which is exactly how the liberal media so desperately wants the public to see abortion. Just another “legal medical procedure” like getting your cavity filled!

The reality with abortion is that a life has just been snuffed out. It will never ever not be a big deal. A child’s life has disappeared from the earth. Her dismembered corpse is lying in a Planned Parenthood clinic somewhere at the original scene of the crime, her eyes, spinal cord, and “gonads” are being sold, or left in a freezer for months until it’s time to do business, to fund the staff’s Lamborghini.
And the liberal media is celebrating what this character just did to her child as being “brave”?
When I think of mothers and what bravery means to me, I think of immigrant parents who sacrifice their own comfort by working day and night for their children’s better future. I think of what our soldiers do on a daily basis to protect the freedoms of this country. Laying down your life for another. Putting others before yourself.

No, a character like this is not brave, but more like self-centered, selfish, narcissistic, callous, and unhealthily unemotional.

This scene is “unprecedented” and “daring”? Darn right it is unprecedented, but for all the wrong reasons. Unprecedented in its bold assault on decency and morality. And the producers of this show should have thought twice before they dared to put such a disgusting, immoral, and unrealistic show of abortion on prime time TV.
And “magnificent” and “perfect”? You have got to be kidding me. The only thing magnificent and perfect about this whole thing is how magnificently and perfectly it displays the moral void of the show’s producers and writers.
I’m suspecting I’m not the only one who feels this way, by the amount of backlash that has ensued. Many of us do not hail this as “progress” in our society, but the complete opposite. Human progress, they assert, is seeing a woman on a popular show having an abortion, and not batting an eye! And they wish this would happen more often!

Sounds more like the desensitization of our human emotions to feel and empathize with our very own children and the pain of their death. Sounds to me like a decline in our moral compass. Sounds to me like we have become narcissistic mini-gods who would put money, career, and convenience over the lives of our babies.

Sounds to me like we are not at all progressing, but regressing. Back to heathen times, when men and women would sacrifice their children to demonic “gods” like Molech, and then have a dance party afterwards. Except today, we would make ourselves the center of our worship. And the pro-aborts are jumping for joy that this very thing just happened!
If there is any level of decency, compassion, morality left in us, we will not stand for this. “Scandal” has gone too far. There is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. A woman having an abortion while Silent Night plays in the background is a mockery and direct assault on religion. The callousness with which the abortion is portrayed absolutely shows us the immorality and moral void of the producers of this show.

I encourage you to make your voice heard and let ABC and Disney (who owns ABC) know we will not stay silent. Sign Live Action’s petition. Share this story on social media. Voice your disgust to your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere you congregate on or offline. This is a big deal and they need to know it.
God help us, when our society throws away our offspring without remorse, then has the nerve to say it is brave.

Source: LiveAction News

Miscarriage

 

The fragility of life: a mesmerizing account of a baby lost to miscarriage

By Dave Andrusko
As happens so often, courtesy of the “World Wide Web,” a reader ran across a story I posted a while back and commented. The topic struck home with her in such a compelling way I am taking the liberty of reposting the story for others who may feel the same response.

The day is rapidly getting away from me. I want to make sure that if I get to no other story today, I tell you about “THANKSGIVING IN MONGOLIA: Adventure and heartbreak at the edge of the earth,” by Ariel Levy which appeared in the New Yorker.
It is Ms. Levy’s deeply sorrowful account of her miscarriage while on assignment in, of all places, Mongolia.

Over the decades I have read many stories of wanted babies lost, despite all that the mother could do. And, like anyone with a huge extended family, there have been many miscarriages in the Andrusko/Castle clan. But perhaps because our daughter-in-law recently delivered our second grandchild safely, this essay really hit home

Tragically, Levy blames herself for flying thousands of miles while in her 19th week, although her doctor assures her that had nothing to do with the loss of her baby boy. (The doctor told her she had a placental abruption, a very rare condition and that her miscarriage could have happened any place. Levy lost her baby in her hotel room.)

While there are a few asides that are hardly PG, I would strongly encourage you to read her narrative. While it is very difficult to read, there are whole sections that remind us just how developed, how amazingly beautiful the unborn child actually is and how profoundly we grieve when a child is lost.
What follows is an extensive quote, which begins just after she writes of tremendous pain so frightful it drops her to her knees:

“I felt an unholy storm move through my body, and after that there is a brief lapse in my recollection; either I blacked out from the pain or I have blotted out the memory. And then there was another person on the floor in front of me, moving his arms and legs, alive. I heard myself say out loud, ‘This can’t be good.’ But it looked good. My baby was as pretty as a seashell.

“He was translucent and pink and very, very small, but he was flawless. His lovely lips were opening and closing, opening and closing, swallowing the new world. For a length of time I cannot delineate, I sat there, awestruck, transfixed. Every finger, every toenail, the golden shadow of his eyebrows coming in, the elegance of his shoulders—all of it was miraculous, astonishing. I held him up to my face, his head and shoulders filling my hand, his legs dangling almost to my elbow. I tried to think of something maternal I could do to convey to him that I was, in fact, his mother, and that I had the situation completely under control. I kissed his forehead and his skin felt like a silky frog’s on my mouth.

“I was vaguely aware that there was an enormous volume of blood rushing out of me, and eventually that seemed interesting, too. I looked back and forth between my offspring and the lake of blood consuming the bathroom floor and I wondered what to do about the umbilical cord connecting those two things. It was surprisingly thick and ghostly white, a twisted human rope. I felt sure that it needed to be severed—that’s always the first thing that happens in the movies. I was afraid that if I didn’t cut that cord my baby would somehow suffocate. I didn’t have scissors. I yanked it out of myself with one swift, violent tug.

“In my hand, his skin started to turn a soft shade of purple. I bled my way across the room to my phone and dialled the number for Cox’s doctor. I told the voice that answered that I had given birth in the Blue Sky Hotel and that I had been pregnant for nineteen weeks. The voice said that the baby would not live. ‘He’s alive now,’ I said, looking at the person in my left hand. The voice said that he understood, but that it wouldn’t last, and that he would send an ambulance for us right away. I told him that if there was no chance the baby would make it I might as well take a cab. He said that that was not a good idea.

“Before I put down my phone, I took a picture of my son. I worried that if I didn’t I would never believe he had existed.”

She tells us that she cried all the time in the beginning (“It seemed to me that grief was leaking out of me from every orifice”) and still does, although “just” once a day.
People try to say the right thing—sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But Levy wants them (and us) to know this loss was of a somebody, not an abstraction or a “potential person.”
She writes, “I had given birth, however briefly, to another human being, and it seemed crucial that people understand this. Often, after I told them, I tried to get them to look at the picture of the baby on my phone.”

By everything she wrote Levy’s healing will be very slow, very gradual. Perhaps this is because she was older when she became pregnant, having not really thought that parenthood was necessarily for her. Although she never says it in so many words, Levy likely believes this was her only chance to bear a child.
Say a prayer for her and all the other mothers who have lost babies to a miscarriage.

Source: NRLC News

The Good Wife

 

WOW! ‘The Good Wife’ Powerfully Reenacts Planned Parenthood Video Scandal in the BEST Possible Way!

By Alexa Moutevelis Coombs
CBS just aired an episode of The Good Wife that brought the undercover videos exposing how Planned Parenthood sells baby parts to a whole new audience of millions – but whether the audience even knew the storyline was based on real videos is unknown. There has been a near media blackout on showing the videos, although CBS has aired the most coverage of the big three networks.

The Good Wife episode “Restraint” was remarkable in how closely it mirrors the real Planned Parenthood videos, although they don’t mention them by name. In the video below, you’ll note the similarities; an abortionist cavalierly discusses selling baby parts while eating frozen yogurt – in the Planned Parenthood videos, it’s over salad. The fictional company that produced the videos is called Citizens for Ethical Medicine, the real one is Center for Medical Progress. The price – $100 per specimen – is about the same, discussion of hearts and livers is the same, talk of moving the baby into breach position to better preserve its organs for harvest is the same, and talk of “squashing” or “smushing” is pretty much the same.

– Abortionist on video: God, I love frozen yogurt. My conscious mind tells me it’s not healthy, but my unconscious mind… It’s an easy product to harvest, so I think $100 per specimen would be preferable.

– Woman: And what if we need to buy tissue intact?

– Abortionist: Not a problem. We mostly work under ultrasound, so we know where to put the forceps. But we can also always keep track of what you need– a heart or a liver.

– Woman: You can extract them intact?

– Abortionist: Yes. We know where not to grab. Then we don’t squash the part of the specimen you need.

– Woman: And you can change its position?

– Abortionist: If we need to. Again, ultrasound helps. With the added dilation, we can change it to a breach.

– Diane: So?

– Ethan: So?

– Diane: So you have to tell me what you’re thinking. I can’t guess.

– Ethan: I think you can.

– Diane: Well, you’re against abortion, so my guess is you’re repul…

– Ethan: I’m a human being. And yes, I am appalled by a doctor calmly eating yogurt while talking about selling…

– Diane: No, not selling.

– Ethan: $100 a specimen.

– Diane: To preserve, package and deliver. That is legal.

– Ethan: Oh, God, do you hear yourself? Parts of babies. Preserving, packaging and delivering parts of babies.

– Diane: Parts of fetuses.

– Ethan: So you think there’s anything wrong with that video?

– Diane: I think it’s shop talk. I think if you listen to any two doctors…

– Ethan: Or abortionists.

– Diane:…Talking over drinks or yogurt about an appendix removal, it would sound just as bad.

– Ethan: So you know it’s bad?

– Diane: No, I know it’s an effective piece of propaganda. That’s all.

– Ethan: And why is it so effective? Because the majority of Americans only support abortion if they don’t have to face the fact of it, if they don’t have to hear the talk about where to squash…

– Diane: The majority of Americans only support anything if they don’t have to face the fact of it. How the hamburger ended up on their plate.

– Ethan: Except this has a face. It’s not an appendix. It’s a human being.

– Diane: Well, that’s the difference between us. I don’t believe it. How did you even get it?

– Ethan: The video? Citizens for Ethical Medicine.

– Diane: Oh, God. That radical anti-abortion group?

– Ethan: It’s not radical. Why is something radical merely because you disagree with it?

– Diane: What, they pretended to be a bioengineering firm needing human tissue?

– Ethan: Aborted fetal organs.

– Diane: And, what– you’re-you’re planning to do what with that?

– Ethan: Sue.

– Diane: Who?

– Ethan: Her. Her organization.

– Diane: For what?

– Ethan: Well, that’s where you come in.

– Diane: No.

– Ethan: It’s not about you being a lawyer.

– Diane: Oh, really? Thank you.

– Ethan: It’s about you telling me how Mr. Dipple can sue.

– Diane: Well, he can grow a uterus. You don’t have standing. What are you gonna sue for?

-Ethan: Selling of fetuses.

– Diane: No. What, $100? That’s nothing.

The Hillary Clinton-supporting, pro-abortion Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) tries to dismiss the videos to pro-life Ethan Carver (Peter Gallagher) as “shop talk” and “propaganda” by a “radical anti-abortion group.” But when a judge grants an emergency hearing to allow the videos to be banned – reminiscent of the National Abortion Federation lawsuit against CMP – Ethan reminds her of a speech she gave to the pro-abortion PAC Emily’s List when she said, “Anyone can defend a sympathetic client with popular beliefs. The real test of the First Amendment is whether we are willing to stand up for people and ideas we hate.”
Diane takes the case, but she starts to lose clients over it. Ever the idealist, Diane says, “The pro-choice position isn’t so weak that it can’t stand up to the marketplace of ideas,” but she finds out that’s not true. The intolerance of the pro-abortion side is exposed when a group is appalled by the “insane” idea of defending their beliefs.

-Diane: Bea. I didn’t know we had an appointment.

-Bea: We don’t, but we need to talk.

-Ethan: Ms. Wilson, Ethan Carver. I recognize you from your appearances for National Council on Women’s Rights.

-Bea: And I recognize you from the congressional hearings on defunding Planned Parenthood.

-Diane: Uh, why don’t you two wait in the office?

-I think that’s a good idea.

-Bea: How can you do this?

-Diane: Bea, if you’re talking about this case, it’s not about choice. It’s about the First Amendment.

-Bea: That’s a nice, neat justification.

-Diane: The pro-choice position isn’t so weak that it can’t stand up to the marketplace of ideas.

-Bea: This isn’t about censorship. This is about an orchestrated, right-wing war on women.

-Diane: Bea, I will join you in arguing against the substance of these tapes, but only after they’re made public.

-Bea: But that’s insane. We wouldn’t have to argue against them if they weren’t made public.

The judge, a long-time professional acquaintance of Diane’s, is also shocked that she is defending a pro-life client. In conduct unbecoming of a judge, he pulls her aside and demands to know why she is on this case, as he knows her personal politics, which are the same as his. He says the undercover tapes are “disgusting” – not because of their vile content, but because they’re an attack from “right-wing Republicans” who “don’t play fair.” He also references James O’Keefe and the ACORN tapes as if those were bogus, too.
In an appalling display of judicial activism, he finishes by saying,

“Let’s make sure those videos never see the light of day.”

Judge: This is not ex parte, but we need to talk.

-Diane: Whenever you want, Your Honor.

-Judge: Now. Diane, what are you doing here?

-Diane: Your Honor?

-Judge: Please, stop with the “Your Honor.” This is just “Ben.” You really think your client is a whistle-blower?

-Diane: She was reporting a public fraud.

-Judge: To whom? She didn’t serve notice to this court. Did she notify the SA’s office? The Attorney General? The FBI?

-Diane: No, but…

-Judge: Then under the statute she has not provided proper notice.

-Diane: Then she posted the video online. Are you telling me that this doesn’t satisfy the spirit of the notice requirement?

-Judge: I’m telling you it’s too much of a reach. And even more so, I don’t understand why you’re trying so damn hard to make it. Diane, I’ve known you for a long time and this… This is not your case.

-Diane: Are you saying that I shouldn’t pursue this case because of my politics?

-Judge: I’m saying you shouldn’t be pursuing this because it’s not you.

-Diane: This is about free speech, and you know it.

-Judge: No, I don’t know it. This undercover tape is disgusting. It’s like James O’Keefe with ACORN. It’s like all right-wing Republicans. They don’t play fair. This is…

-Diane: You can’t be telling me this.

-Judge: And yet I am. I want you to stop trying to make this work. So let’s go back out there, put this to bed, and make sure those videos never see the light of day.

It is very rare in television that you see a fair, even sympathetic, treatment of the pro-life side as represented by Ethan. Even more rare when the pro-abortion side is shown to be as rigid, intolerant, unreasonable, craven, and heartless as they really are. And it is downright shocking when attention is drawn to the damning Planned Parenthood videos instead of the love letters to the abortion giant we have come to expect from Hollywood.

The Good Wife recently began waking up to the fact that it had been shunning half its potential audience by being so liberal in past years. Great to see it’s continuing the inclusion of realistic, intelligent conservative characters. Keep it coming!

Editor’s note. This appeared at newsbusters.org and is reprinted with permission.

Source: NRLC News