Dangerous Legislation

 

Meet the man who wants to make it illegal for journalists to post undercover footage

  Kristi Burton Brown 

Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) is a relative newcomer to the California legislature, but he’s proving himself to be one of the  most dangerous politicians there. Elected in 2012, Gomez is the author of AB 1671. This bill is being decried – even by liberal media organizations and supporters of abortion – as blatantly unconstitutional.

AB 1671 would “make it a crime to publish confidential conversations with certain health care providers—most notably, anyone affiliated with an abortion clinic. This means anyone who posts a photo or video of an interaction with an abortion clinic employee or volunteer—including clinic escorts—could be prosecuted under the bill. AB 1671 provides for penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and one year in state prison.”


Media organizations are speaking out against this bill, not because they necessarily support pro-life undercover investigative journalists like David Daleiden or his Center for Medical Progress, but because they realize that such an unconstitutional law could easily be applied to them. It is already illegal in California to record a conversation without both parties’ consent (in most situations). But AB 1671 would extend the government’s reach, arguably allowing them to prosecute any citizen or journalist who publishes recorded content involving certain “health care providers” – whether or not they were the one to actually record the content.

Yet Gomez has chosen his ally in this battle, and it’s neither the common man nor the Constitution. Instead, Assemblyman Gomez – who represents northeastern Los Angeles and East Los Angeles – has selected Planned Parenthood as his BFF.

Days ago, Gomez posted this picture on his Twitter account:

In 2015, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) gave Gomez its Champion of Choice Award. According to the Center for Medical Progress, PPLA was discovered partnering with Novogenix Laboratories, LLC, to deal with “fetal organ harvesting at their surgical abortion clinics.” In the video below, Novogenix’s Executive Director, Dr. Ben Van Handel, can be heard admitting that, sometimes, after the abortion is done, “the [baby’s] heart actually is still beating.” And yet, the baby’s organs and body parts are still promptly harvested.
Documents released by the New York Times include an email between a fetal body parts buyer and a harvester, who already had “a lot of frozen fetal tissue,” but was planning to go to a California Planned Parenthood for more fresh body parts, including a liver.

This organization – Planned Parenthood in California – is the one Gomez has chosen. They, too, have chosen him. In two elections (2014 and 2016) Gomez has received $13,500 from Planned Parenthood, even though he lives in an incredibly liberal district where he hardly needs the support. In 2014, he received 83.6% of the vote.

Prior to running for the CA legislature, Gomez worked as the Political Director of the United Nurses Associations of California. This group is listed consistently as one of Gomez’s top campaign contributors, and it often joins Planned Parenthood in support of various legislation or ballot initiatives in the state. UNAC also recently hosted a Women’s Empowerment Forum where it invited a PP staff member to speak, demonstrating the companionable relationship between the two groups.
Gomez has made no secret of the purpose of some of his sponsored legislation: to benefit Planned Parenthood. One bill he sponsored in 2015, AB 1177 (which was signed into law by the governor), removed the legal requirement of a Hospital Transfer Agreement from community care clinics. Such transfer agreements (and the similar hospital admission privilege requirements) protect patients and “serve as a safety net,” particularly in dangerous and time-sensitive emergencies. PP despises such agreements, even though they prevent abortionists from abandoning their patients. Since such a law benefits PP (while endangering women), Gomez calls the law, “Protects Patient Access to Planned Parenthood Services,” even though it applies to all community care clinics.
In 2013, Gomez sponsored what appears to be a good piece of legislation, AB 790. He claimed AB 790 would “assure that child abuse reports are made by every mandated reporter.”

This bill is critical in maintaining safety among all children. “There is a loophole in the law, which creates a situation where not every mandated reporter is required to report the abuse, suspected abuse or neglect of a child,” said Assemblymember Jimmy Gomez.”

It’s simply unfortunate that Gomez hasn’t realized how terrible his BFF, Planned Parenthood, is at reporting child abuse. Perhaps he would reconsider his vocal, absolutist support of the abortion chain if he watched this video:
Simply put, since Assemblyman Gomez enjoys focusing on and fixing apparent loopholes in the law, it would be far more helpful to women if he would find and fix the ‘loopholes’ that allow them to suffer at the hands and the silence of Planned Parenthood.

Source: LiveAction

Tragic

 

‘This baby won’t stop breathing!’ Abortionist strangled baby while nurses watched

  Sarah Terzo  

In 1977, abortion was legal throughout the country during all nine months of pregnancy. When an obstetrician/gynecologist told teenager “Mary W” that she was 28 weeks pregnant, he suggested that she give the baby up for adoption, as few doctors in the area were willing to perform abortions that late.

But Mary was determined, and she managed to find an abortionist – Dr. William Baxter Waddill. On March 2, 1977, Mary arrived at Westminster Community Hospital for a saline abortion.
Saline abortions are seldom performed today because of the possibility of live births, but in the ’70s and ’80s, they were very common. They were generally used to end the life of a child towards the end of the second trimester.
In a saline abortion, a caustic saline solution is injected into the woman’s uterus. It slowly burns and poisons the baby, and then the woman goes through labor, “giving birth” to a usually dead child.
The abortionist injected the saline and then left, leaving the nurses to tend to Mary. It was common for abortionists to inject their patients with saline and then leave, forcing the nurses to bear the emotional brunt of the abortion procedures and to dispose of the dead babies. In this case, however, Mary gave birth to a living baby girl, 2 pounds, 8 ounces.
At first the nurse did not realize that the baby was still alive. She clamped the cord as normal and placed her in a bucket to be taken to the pathology lab. Then the baby began moving and crying. The nurses gathered around the baby. Unsure what to do, they summoned their supervisor, who called Dr. Waddill at home. Mary was not told that her baby had been born alive – the infant was whisked away from her before she realized what had happened.
All of this came out in testimony at the trial.

File photo: Newborn baby.

While waiting for Waddill to arrive, the nurses cleaned the baby, suctioned her throat to help her breathe, brought her to the nursery, and placed her in isolette. A neonatal ICU nurse began taking care of the child and charted a heart rate of 88 beats per minute. According to the American Heart Association, an ideal heart rate for newborns is 140 bpm. However, premature babies often have lower heart rates, and many of them survive.
When Dr. Waddill arrived at the clinic, he was angry. He reportedly chased all the nurses out of the room and made a call to another physician, Dr. Ronald Cornelsen. The law at that time stated that two doctors needed to be present to pronounce a premature baby dead. The conversation between the two doctors was recorded and entered into evidence in the trial. According to the tape, Waddill said:

If we all tell the same story, there will be no trouble. … So long as we stand together, no one anywhere can make any accusations anywhere. … Do not get squirrely. Just tell them exactly as we’ve discussed. Just say you went in, there was no heartbeat and you left.

Dr. Cornelsen later testified that he believed that the baby was closer to 31 weeks than 28 weeks. He heard Waddill say, “Sorry to get you into this mess. We had a baby that came out alive from a saline abortion, and it can’t live!”
Dr. Waddill requested potassium chloride to inject into the baby’s heart to stop it. Dr. Cornelsen prevented the nurse from getting it. Waddill then discussed throwing the baby into a bucket of water. Dr. Cornelsen said in testimony:
“I said, ‘Why not just leave the baby alone?’ Waddill said, ‘This baby can’t live or it will be a big mess.'”
Finally, Waddill began strangling the child in full view of Cornelsen and other nurses. No one stopped him. He was quoted saying, “This baby won’t stop breathing!”
When the baby was autopsied later, an examination of the lungs indicated that the baby had been breathing for at least 30 minutes. There were bruises on her throat, consistent with strangulation.
Dr. Waddill went to trial. However, despite the fact that the autopsy proved that the baby had been strangled and a number of witnesses watched the strangulation, charges against Waddill were dismissed after two mistrials. He was never punished for strangling the baby. He was not reprimanded in any way.

He did not lose his medical license. In fact, he continued to perform abortions, and as of the year 2000, he was working for the Family Planning Associates’ chain of abortion facilities. He and the facility he worked at were even endorsed by the National Abortion Federation, an organization that supposedly gives endorsements only to the best facilities and providers.
Incidentally, despite the fact that Family Planning Associates has been endorsed by the NAF, at least 12 women have died at their clinics, and there have been numerous lawsuits.
Could the little girl have survived if she had not been strangled? In the 1970s, neonatology was not as advanced as it is today. In the 1990s, over 90 percent of babies born at 27 weeks were able to survive. The number is even higher now.
Statistics from the 1970s are harder to come by, but an article in The Sydney Morning Herald claims that these babies had about a 71 percent survival rate if given medical attention promptly. So it is possible – if not very likely – that the baby would have survived if she had continued to be treated in the ICU.
Much of the information contained in this article was brought to light by Christina Dunigan. Her blog can be found here:
See “History: William Waddill and the killing of baby W” and “Can Gosnell Walk?” 

Source: LiveAction News

Hillary

 

When pressed, Clinton campaign attributes mounting problems to “vast right wing conspiracy”

By Dave Andrusko

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (left) and Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon

With the conventions of both political parties coming closer and closer, and with the infighting between Hillary Clinton and Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders growing more vituperous by the day, it can’t be a good sign for the former Secretary of State when the editorial page of the Washington Post rips into her, as does sympathetic Post columnist Dana Milbank, and even Democratic flack NBC’s Chuck Todd voices skepticism.
The firestorm of criticism was lit, of course, by the scathing report by the State Department’s inspector general this week about Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server when she served as President Obama’s Secretary of State.
Todd actually did a good job on Meet the Press Daily when he directly addressed a core problem for Clinton: the public, including many Democrats, has serious doubts about bedrock issues of personal integrity.
Todd said

“Your lead in the polls arguably, might be a lot bigger if you didn’t have these honest and trustworthy issues with the voters.”

Well, yes, when only forty-some percent believe you are either and, by the way, when you have more negatives (41%) than positives (38%) among those Democratic voters supporting Sen. Sanders.
The email server issue is not our issue. What is relevant is the manner in which Clinton’s handling of it has diminished her prospects and soured reliably Democratic outlets (not, I hasten to add, that they would ever support a Republican for President).
For example, the Post editorial concludes (after listing a couple of weak Clinton rationalizations)

But there is no excuse for the way Ms. Clinton breezed through all the warnings and notifications. While not illegal behavior, it was disturbingly unmindful of the rules. In the middle of the presidential campaign, we urge the FBI to finish its own investigation soon, so all information about this troubling episode will be before the voters.

Yikes.
Even though he begins by trotting out Clinton’s excuses, Milbank goes much further than the editorial board. Here’s a summary of his argument.
(1) A knee-jerk resistance to transparency:

But what’s damning in the new report is her obsessive and counterproductive secrecy.

(2) A well-earned reputation for believing if she can avoid providing a complete answer, the furor will eventually die down:

The stonewalling creates a firm impression, well captured by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week when he interviewed Clinton’s spokesman, Brian Fallon: “If she didn’t do anything wrong and she had nothing to hide, why didn’t she cooperate with the inspector general?”

(3) One step above being crooked:

But what Clinton has been is nearly as problematic as being crooked: Hunkered Hillary. At the first sign of conflict or accusation, Clinton circles the wagons, shuts her mouth and instructs those around her to do the same. This generates a whole lot of smoke, even if there’s no fire. Her secrecy elevates the accusations — whatever the accusations are.

(4) Finally, the reflex response that all criticism of Clinton emanates from the “vast right wing conspiracy”:

Fallon, a skilled flack, tried to argue that Clinton and her aides prioritized the similar Justice Department investigation and were cooperating with that one. Then he insinuated that “there were hints of an anti-Clinton bias” in the IG’s office.

The vast right-wing conspiracy had infiltrated the State Department! Asked Blitzer: “Are you accusing the inspector general of the State Department” — a Democratic appointee — “of having an anti-Clinton bias?”

The spokesman retreated, noting that the report documented “that the use of personal e-mail was widespread and done by her predecessors, including Secretary Powell.”

And that might have been the take-away — if Hunkered Hillary hadn’t let her instinctive caution again get the best of her.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day.

Source: NRLC News

Pain Capable and Babies Live

 

New study: Up to 71% of premature babies can survive if given active care

  Cassy Fiano 

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics just released a new study that shows that medical advances continue to make the point of viability earlier and earlier in pregnancy. The study, conducted in 2015, tracked 106 micro-preemies, babies born at either 22 or 23 weeks gestation (which is 20-21 weeks post-fertilization), at the University of Cologne Medical Centre in Germany from 2010-2014. Of these 106 babies, 86 of them received active care instead of palliative care. 58 of those babies survived until hospital discharge (67%), with 20% of them surviving without any severe complications.

The study is relevant considering that pro-abortion activists are furious about yet another state passing a 20 week abortion ban. This study just further shows why these bans are needed. Scientifically, we know that preborn children are human beings. As their viability gets earlier, it becomes clear that there truly is no reason for late-term abortions to take place.
Despite the fact that these late-term abortions are medically unnecessary, there are late-term abortionists who perform them anyway. Planned Parenthood is among them. Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards denied performing abortions after viability, yet multiple Planned Parenthood facilities will perform abortions up to 24 weeks.

Some clinics will only perform abortions up until 21 weeks, six days. However, there are babies who have been born that young and survived. Women may also get the date of their last menstrual period wrong, meaning that a baby could be older than she estimates him or her to be.
As medicine continues to advance, abortion should be further condemned. This is especially true for late-term abortion and the viability of preborn babies. As it moves earlier, and science continues to show that they can feel pain, it becomes more and more clear that late-term abortion is an atrocity that should not be tolerated.

Source: LiveAction News

Planned Parenthood and Rapists

 

Here are 10 rapists Planned Parenthood has helped

  Adam Peters 

If you’re at college, you might hear about the Sexual Health Advocacy Group – SHAG for short. Known as “shaggers” (seriously), members try “to open up the conversation about sexual health, sex positivity, and sexual communication.” SHAG embraces disadvantaged groups, including those in the disabled community. It’s also fine with aborting them.

SHAG’s chapter at the University of Georgia has a website with links to various pro-abortion articles. Among them is a piece in Teen Vogue titled, “10 Girls Share How Planned Parenthood Made A Difference In Their Lives.”
Included is a story from “Danielle,” who describes being raped at 14 by several male acquaintances.

The experience left her “a hopeless, desperate, and sad young teen whose innocence was ripped away by four evil men,” and she was grateful to Planned Parenthood for giving her Plan B the next day. Danielle says she lied and told Planned Parenthood staff the sex was consensual; even if she hadn’t, I’m not sure it would have made a difference.
It didn’t when one of accused serial rapist Tyler Kost’s alleged victims went to Planned Parenthood. Despite telling staff she’d been assaulted, they decided filing a report would be too much “hassle.” Kost remained free, with local law enforcement contending that an investigation could have started months earlier if Planned Parenthood had come forward.
Planned Parenthood didn’t help Denise Fairbanks, either. Fairbanks was brought there for an abortion at 16 by her incestuous father. In a subsequent lawsuit, she recalled explicitly telling Planned Parenthood employees about the abuse…who proceeded to do nothing, allowing it to resume when she got home.
Live Action investigated the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Planned Parenthood.
Becki Brenner was president of the Planned Parenthood affiliate Fairbanks got taken to, and she insisted her organization would be exonerated, proclaiming, “I am going to be very, very pleased when the facts of this case do come out in a court of law.” Or not: Planned Parenthood chose to settle rather than face a jury.
But ignoring signs of abuse is nothing new at America’s largest abortion chain, which is why I’ve made a list of my own. So without further adieu, here are 10 child rapists that were helped by Planned Parenthood.

1.  Gary Cross

When Cross’ wife noticed her 13 year-old daughter was gaining weight, Cross knew it was because he’d gotten her pregnant. Luckily for him, Planned Parenthood staff didn’t care that she was well below the age of consent. Instead of calling authorities, they arranged an abortion. With the evidence gone, Cross was free to keep abusing her – which he did.
2. Timothy Smith

Colorado’s Office of Children, Youth, & Families warns that when a child under fourteen “becomes pregnant or contracts a venereal disease,” it’s time to get suspicious. Employees at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains don’t agree, with one admitting under oath in 2014 that “being thirteen and pregnant alone is not a red flag” there. That made things easy for Timothy Smith: he brought his 13 year-old stepdaughter in for an abortion after impregnating her. When they were done, Planned Parenthood turned the victim back over to her abuser, no questions asked. Later, when the girl’s mother sued Planned Parenthood, the abortion chain rushed to a settlement when the judge commented that PP’s conduct so outrageous that punitive damages would be appropriate.
3. Joseph Coles

Planned Parenthood didn’t file a report when Coles’ 12 year-old stepdaughter showed up. Then again, the two other abortion centers she was taken to didn’t say anything either.
4. Edgar Ramirez

Ramirez brought his 13 year-old daughter to Planned Parenthood for two abortions in less than 6 months. No action was taken.

5. Luis Gonzalez-Jose got Planned Parenthood to perform an abortion on an 11 year-old that he raped. Staff accepted the girl’s story of being impregnated by a 14 year-old boyfriend…despite her not knowing his name, address, or phone number.

6. Andrew King benefited from one of Planned Parenthood’s cover-up abortions in 1982. He continued preying on girls for over 25 years.

7. John Haller coerced his 14 year-old victim into an abortion at Planned Parenthood; he paid the bill while claiming to be her “stepbrother.”

8. Adam Gault brought his teenage victim to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, too.

9. Gray David Woods also received a helping hand.

10. Kevon Walker did as well.

Keep in mind that shame and fear cause many victims to remain silent. The truth is, there’s no way to know just how many crimes Planned Parenthood has helped cover up.

So, how can we stop this type of rape enablement? Not funding it would be a good start. Tell Congress that Planned Parenthood’s half billion dollar subsidy should go to federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and community health centers (CHCs) instead. Not only are they more accessible, they also offer services Planned Parenthood won’t. Last year, FQHCs performed over five hundred thousand mammograms. Planned Parenthood? Zero.

In her entry, Danielle said that “if you don’t support Planned Parenthood, you don’t support 14-year-old me.” Given that Planned Parenthood assists the type of men who preyed on her, I have to disagree.

Source: LiveAction News

Knew This Was Coming

 

Planned Parenthood sponsors bill to make it illegal to record and post undercover footage

  Susan Michelle 

A bill making its way through the California State Assembly, sponsored by Planned Parenthood, seeks to make it a crime to publish conversations with certain health care providers, notably those associated with abortion facilities.

California has already squashed the rights of pro-life pregnancy centers, demanding they offer abortion as an option to their clients, despite their pro-life mission.
Now, Planned Parenthood and CA Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez think it’s a fine idea to prosecute someone from posting a “photo or video of an interaction with an abortion clinic employee or volunteer— including clinic escorts,” Life Legal Defense Foundation reports:

Planned Parenthood is sponsoring legislation in California to criminalize the publication of evidence of its business practices, which include harvesting and selling the body parts of aborted babies.

Assembly Bill 1671 would make it a crime to publish confidential conversations with certain health care providers—most notably, anyone affiliated with an abortion clinic. This means anyone who posts a photo or video of an interaction with an abortion clinic employee or volunteer—including clinic escorts—could be prosecuted under the bill. AB 1671 provides for penalties of up to $10,000 per violation and one year in state prison.

Gomez, who is behind the bill, is a strong companion of Planned Parenthood. The assemblyman has a 100 percent rating from the abortion giant, and is a recipient of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles’ “Champion of Choice” award.

From Jimmy Gomez’s Facebook:
I’m proud to stand with @PPActionCA today and everyday! #PPCapitolDay #AccessMatters — with Planned Parenthood Los Angeles at California State Capitol.

Undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress last year exposed Planned Parenthood’s barbaric baby parts harvesting practices, and placed the abortion giant’s public funding under national scrutiny.
Life Legal says the bill is an unconstitutional, direct assault on free speech, and on pro-lifers who have exposed the abortion giant’s egregious activities.

California legislators are willing to throw free speech under the bus to protect Planned Parenthood’s financial interests. Please urge your legislators to oppose this unconstitutional bill.

Pro-life organizations have used investigative journalism, in the manner of “60 Minutes” and other media outlets, to bring to light the atrocities hidden inside the abortion industry.
Yet investigative journalism is not limited to pro-life organizations. Other groups have come out against AB 1671, including the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA). CNPA states:

The bill has been repeatedly pulled from hearing in the author’s attempt to sort out language that would remove the many opponents to the bill, including CNPA. Despite continued efforts to craft narrowly-tailored language that does not potentially capture journalists’ activity, the bill’s sponsor, Planned Parenthood, has been unwilling to squarely address CNPA’s concerns to protect the redistribution of an illegal recording that depicts a matter of high public interest.

The amendments to the bill have narrowed its scope which would target only recordings where one party to the recording is a health care provider. While this does narrow the bill, it still captures a significant net of newsworthy content. It still has a chilling effect. And it still violates First Amendment law.

On May 27, CNPA announced that “CNPA, California Broadcasters and the Motion Picture Association all oppose the bill,” and that the bill was “a content based regulation and presumptively unconstitutional.”

Source: LiveAction News

Ethics

 

Growing Human Embryos Outside the Womb: New Record, Old Questions

By David Prentice, Ph.D.
In Aldous Huxley’s classic novel Brave New World, natural human reproduction has been replaced by laboratory-based methods. All children are conceived and grown in laboratory “hatcheries,” observed and in some cases manipulated during their gestation to predestine them for certain roles in society, and then “decanted” from their vats rather than born. There is complete control over what has become a manufacturing process, disconnected from nurturing as well as from the attitude that each individual human life is intrinsically valuable.

While still some distance removed from Huxley’s futuristic reproductive process, two research groups—one in the U.K. and one in the U.S.—have succeeded in growing human embryos in the laboratory for 13 days, almost twice the time that had previously been achieved and well beyond the developmental point (approximately seven days) that a human embryo would normally implant into the uterine lining.

The groups stopped the experiments (and destroyed the developing human embryos) only because they were approaching the “14-day limit,” an internationally-agreed-upon upper limit for the amount of time in which human embryos may be grown and experimented on in the laboratory. Now they want to go further. The shadow of Huxley’s Brave New World is growing, preceded by the attitude that embryonic humans are merely experimental fodder.

The research papers were published in the journals Nature and Nature Cell Biology (subscriptions required for full text.) Nature also published its own science news story, as well as a commentary on the scientific results (subscription required). But perhaps most troubling of all is publication of a proposal by several bioethicists advocating for expansion of the currently-recognized limit on the age allowed for experiments on human embryos.

The 14-day limit on laboratory experiments with human embryos has been adopted into law in at least 12 nations (including the U.K.) and included in ethical research guidelines in other countries (such as the U.S.). That particular time point was supposedly adopted because in the next stage of development, the embryo forms the primitive streak, the first sign of a rudimentary nervous system, and is also supposedly past the point at which twinning can occur.

But now the bioethical apologists claim that 14 days was “never intended to be a bright line denoting onset of moral status,” but was simply “a public-policy tool” that allowed policymakers to “carve out a space for scientific inquiry and simultaneously show respect for the diverse views on human-embryo research.”

The 14-day rule is indeed arbitrary. A zero-day limit would be the accurate biological marker, since fertilization delineates the beginning of the human organism. No human being should be used for lethal experimentation, no matter what age or stage of development.

But allowing experiments on human embryos beyond 14 days post-fertilization risks the lives of untold more human beings, in creation and destruction for research purposes. The deadly research on young human embryos has yielded no benefit; meanwhile, morally unproblematic avenues are delivering treatments and even cures for some of the most pressing health issues of our day. No potential, promising scientific results can justify lethal experimentation on any human being, especially the youngest and most vulnerable.

The “arbitrariness” of the 14-day limit can be seen in its success; it worked only as long as it was technically impossible to break. Now that it is possible to move beyond that length of time in human embryo culture, the limit is inconvenient.

There is no discussion about whether to proceed, only how to proceed, and what is the next expedient limit to set, until that new limit also becomes inconvenient. This is a risky venture which encourages further eugenic attitudes and actions.

There needs to be a pause for a deeper discussion about just why such research is being done, and if there are any ethical lines that should not be crossed. How many lives are worth sacrificing? One? One thousand? One million? The real question is not when human life begins, but when do we value any human life.

Editor’s note. This appeared at cmda.org and is reprinted with the author’s permission.

Source: NRLC News

Planned Parenthood

 

Providing PPFA with free advertising is media’s stock and trade

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director, Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
It can be argued that Planned Parenthood does not need a communications department, because there are plenty in the news media who are willing to promote the organization, free of charge, and without charging for overtime.
As if I needed another reminder, I recently ran head-first into another case of blatant media bias when it comes to the abortion giant known as Planned Parenthood.

The Scranton Times-Tribune this week ran a glowing endorsement of Planned Parenthood in an op-ed piece entitled, “Trained, ready to fight for freedom of choice.”
The author, Laura Quinones, spoke of her unbridled support of Planned Parenthood, including her enthusiasm for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s “largest volunteer training in history,” which took place in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This training, the activist writes, was to “make a difference in the 2016 elections and beyond.”

She further spoke of “reproductive rights” being “under attack,” and touted both the Roe v. Wade decision and abortion.
It occurred to me that this column screamed out for a response—especially given the fact that the newspaper’s home city, Scranton, was once dubbed the “pro-life capital of the U.S.”
I penned a letter to the editor making the following points:

1.) some gravely important facts were missing from the op-ed;

2.) the abortion giant performed more than 327,000 abortions in fiscal year 2014—a rate of one abortion every 90 seconds;

3.) a series of undercover videos have shown high-ranking Planned Parenthood officials blithely discussing the proposed sale of baby body parts while eating salad and sipping wine;

4.) Planned Parenthood receives $500 million taxpayer dollars a year while showing a complete unconcern for the health of women inside their mothers’ wombs.

An editor rejected my letter? Why? I hadn’t addressed what the columnist had said in her column, I was told.
But I had taken on the column head-on–noting its glaring omission of key facts—facts that could arguably change a person’s view of Planned Parenthood. Sometimes omission is a greater sin than commission, and I felt it was clearly true in this case.

The editor’s response to my retort was that abortions account for “3 percent of (Planned Parenthood’s) medical services.” That is an accurate regurgitation of a Planned Parenthood talking point. But it is incredibly misleading, since PPFA arrives at the figure by counting every STD test, every packet of pills given out, and even a woman’s initial pregnancy test as a separate service, even though these may all be bundled and sold together as part of the abortion.
And, oh by the way, abortion is PPFA’s largest profit center.

Perhaps this explains why Roe v. Wade has been able to survive for so long and why more than 58 million preborn babies have perished since the tragic 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The general public is shielded from the facts about abortion and Planned Parenthood by a news media that are willing to defend the abortion operation and its grisly trade at all costs, including balanced and comprehensive coverage of a controversial issue.

When I went to Northwestern, I was taught that journalism was a profession that was ennobled because it was dedicated to a pursuit of the truth. But the truth is absent in editorial pages that fail to include hard and fast abortion statistics and opt instead to present a pristine cheerleading piece about an entity that takes the lives of more children than any other, while ignoring the searing pain of women who mourn their dead babies.

No wonder the newspaper business is dying. They might have had 327,000 more subscribers, but Planned Parenthood aborted them—news the newspapers were not willing to print.

Source: NRLC News

Abortion

 

The CEO of the Royal College of Midwives must step down over this abortion scandal

By Peter Saunders
Editor’s note.. Dr. Saunders is a former general surgeon and CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organization with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members.
“BPAS” refers to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service– the nation’s largest abortion provider. This appeared here.
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has come under fire for backing the BPAS ‘We Trust Women’ Campaign, which advocates the decriminalisation of abortion up until birth.
RCM CEO Cathy Warwick gave her backing to the controversial campaign back in February, when she said that the campaign had the College’s ‘full support’.
This will surprise the 30,000 midwives who belong to RCM as they were not consulted at any point. Nor it seems was the RCM board.

98% of women in a 2012 survey said they opposed any rise in the abortion limit above 24 weeks so it seems that women in general are strongly opposed to Warwick’s position.
Furthermore, the RCM itself in the 1980s actually supported a lowering of the upper limit for abortion from 28 weeks to 24 weeks.
So how did an organisation, devoted to the safety through childbirth of both mother and baby, and with the motto ‘Life is the gift of God,’ come to such a place?
The answer it seems lies in its current leadership. Its CEO, who also chairs the abortion ‘provider’ BPAS, responsible for 65,000 abortions per year in Britain, is apparently waging something of a personal crusade.

Warwick’s proposal is to remove legal protection from babies between 24 and 40 weeks, allowing viable babies in the womb to be aborted for each and every reason.
In the UK about 8% of babies are born before 37 weeks (a normal pregnancy lasts 40 weeks), nearly 60,000 premature births every year. The vast majority of these survive and thrive, and in the best units like University College London, about 80% of those born at 24 weeks will live with good postnatal care.
How does one abort a baby at an age at which it would be born alive and almost certainly survive?
One has to kill it first in utero, normally with a lethal injection, or alternatively, remove it manually piece by piece. Chilling to think that midwives, trained safely to deliver babies and place them tenderly in their mothers’ arms, are now supporting their destruction at the very same age.
Abortion is contrary to every historic code of medical ethics. It is against the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva and the International Code of Medical Ethics. In 1947 the British Medical Association called abortion ‘the greatest crime’.

Two hundred midwives have already signed a letter ‘not in our name’ dissociating themselves from the RCM’s position and thousands more citizens have called on the College to abandon its policy.
Thus far the RCM has shown no sign of turning. It has published a statement on its website today replete with specious euphemisms claiming that it is the victim of ‘distorted and sensationalist accounts’.
But the legal position it is advocating is one where all legal protection for unborn children will be removed – a law like that of China and North Korea.
The RCM used to stand for women’s and children’s health. Now it seems to deny the humanity of the preborn baby altogether.

Any society will be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members and there is nothing more innocent and vulnerable than a baby in its mother’s womb.
Warwick is guilty of a blatant conflict of interests. She needs to step down either from the RCM, or BPAS but cannot continue in both positions.
Hopefully the board and members of the RCM, rather than complicitly closing ranks around her, will help her to do the decent thing.

Source: NRLC News

What Does It Mean to be Human

 

“What does it mean to be fully human?”–To love you as you are

By Dave Andrusko

Jean Vanier

Over the years contributors to NRL News Today have had the pleasure of writing stories about Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche , a community of people with intellectual disabilities and those who assist them, who share their lives together.

A friend forwarded a story that appeared last week in The Catholic Register about a new biography of the almost 88-year-old Catholic philosopher written by Michael Higgins. According to reporter Michael Swan, “Published in Canada by Novalis, Jean Vanier, Logician of the Heart has seen record-breaking pre-publication orders pour in to its American publisher, Liturgical Press.”

“I have no illusions that this has anything to do with the author,” said Higgins [at the Toronto launch of the book]. “It’s all about the subject.”

Higgins was asked how it is possible for Vanier to take “strong, uncompromising and unpopular positions” against, for example, physician-assisted suicide. Swan writes

Higgins’ answer is that Vanier knows how to state his case positively and in Christian charity.

“He shows us how you state your case without eviscerating, vilifying or diminishing those who hold other positions,” Higgins said.

The Vanier method of argument humanizes and ennobles everyone, he said.

“Here is a religious figure for whom the secular can find something admirable,” said Higgins.

When last we wrote about Vanier, he had just received the 2015 Templeton Prize, an award for promoting spiritual awareness.
Who is Jean Vanier? He is described (by the Independent’s John Litchfield) as a Catholic philosopher, and activist for those with mental disabilities whose “life’s work has been based on the conviction that the ‘strong need the weak.’” That would be L’Arche to which Vanier said he would give the 1.7 million prize money.
In a powerful piece written last year by Conor Friedersdorfmar that appeared in The Atlantic, Mr. Friedersdorfmar took the time to transcribe Vanier’s deeply inspirational remarks delivered when he received the award.

To be fully human is really to discover who I am. And who am I? I’m a member of the huge human family, where we’re all brothers and sisters wherever we come from, whatever our culture, whatever our religion. We were born in weakness. We will grow. And we will die. So the story of each one of us is a story of accepting that we are fragile.

To discover who I am is also to discover a unity between my head and my heart. The head we are called to grow, to understand, and to work through things. But the heart is something else. It is about concern by others. We are born into a relationship. And that relationship that we all lived is a relationship with our mom. We were so small. So weak. So fragile. And we heard the words which are the most important, and maybe the words we need to hear all our life: I love you as you are. You are my beloved son or my beloved daughter. And this is what gives consistency to people. They know they are loved. And that’s what they’re seeking, maybe for the rest of their lives.

So there’s the head, where we are called to understand and to deepen the laws of the world, of nature, and so on. But there’s also the heart. The heart is a very fragile part of us.

And terribly fragile in the little child. If the little child is not loved at the moment of his birth or the few months after there’s a deep, deep inner wound. And from that wound comes up anguish, from anguish comes fighting and wanting to win, and to prove that I am someone.

Fundamentally, to develop the heart is to see that in each person you are beautiful. You see, the whole thing with human beings is to learn to love. And to love is not to do things for people. It’s not to tell people what to do. It’s to reveal. What do we reveal? ‘You’re important.’ You might be important in the things you do. But there’s something even more important than what you do. It’s who you are. And who you are is something about your heart being open to others. A heart that is not filled with fear.

The problem today is that many people are filled with fear. They are frightened of people, frightened of losing. And because people are filled with fear they can no longer be open to others. They’re protecting themselves, protecting their class, protecting their group, protecting their religion. We’re all in a state of protection. To become fully human is to let down the barriers, to open up. And to discover that every person is beautiful. Under all the jobs they’re doing, their responsibilities, there is you. And you, at the heart of who you are, you’re somebody also crying out, “Does somebody love me not just for what I can do, but for who I am?”

So to be fully human is the development of the heart and the head, and then we can become one. One inside of us. Becoming one inside of us we can little by little let down the ego, the need to prove that I am better than you. And then I can begin to see in other people, other groups, other religions, other cultures, that people are wonderful. And then we can come and we can work for peace together.

Source: NRLC News

National Platform

 

National Right to Life congratulates GOP Platform Committee leadership

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin

WASHINGTON – The National Right to Life Committee today praised the selection of Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), and Gov. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.) as co-chairs of the Republican Platform Committee.
“In selecting Sen. Barrasso, Rep. Foxx, and Gov. Fallin to head the Platform Committee, the Republican National Committee has sent a strong message that the pro-life planks in the Republican platform will steadfastly reflect commitment to the right to life, and that the GOP will proudly stand as the party of life,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)

Sen. Barrasso has maintained a 100% pro-life voting record since joining the U.S. Senate in 2007. Rep. Foxx also has a 100% pro-life voting record, and has been a faithful and articulate leader for life as a member of the U.S. House. Gov. Fallin has been a stalwart defender of society’s most vulnerable members, first with a 100% pro-life record in the U.S. House, and now as a strong pro-life leader as governor of Oklahoma.
“As governor, Mary Fallin signed into law 18 pro-life bills protecting unborn children and their mothers during these past five and a half years,” said Tobias.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

As adopted in Tampa, Florida, in 2012, the current Republican platform reads, “Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”
“We applaud Sen. Barrasso, Rep. Foxx, and Gov. Fallin, and look forward to working with them to ensure that the pro-life values embodied in the Republican platform continue to move us toward a society that welcomes the vulnerable in life, and gives them the full protection of our laws,” Tobias added.

Sourcew: NRLC News

Pain Capable

 

South Carolina becomes 14th State to enact Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

WASHINGTON – South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) today signed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act – a bill that protects unborn children from abortions after 20 weeks fetal age, a point by which there is compelling evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain. South Carolina becomes the fourteenth state to enact this legislation, which is based on a model bill developed by National Right to Life.
“South Carolina now joins thirteen other states in recognizing the humanity of the unborn child,” said Carol Tobias, National Right to Life president. “The smallest and most vulnerable members of our human family need our protection, and South Carolina has taken a vital step to save unborn children who are capable of feeling the excruciating pain of abortion.”
The South Carolina Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act generally protects the lives of pain-capable unborn children from being killed by abortion. The law protects unborn children from 20 weeks fetal age, based on legislative findings that there is compelling evidence that an unborn child by that point (if not earlier) is capable of experiencing excruciating pain during the process of dismemberment or other abortion procedures.
“South Carolina Citizens for Life and the pro-life grassroots network worked tirelessly against the militant abortion industry,” said Holly Gatling, executive director of South Carolina Citizens for Life. “Pro-life lawmakers prevailed, however, because of the dedication and hard work of the pro-life community. In addition to South Carolina Citizens for Life, the legislation was strongly supported by a coalition of the Catholic Diocese of Charleston, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, the South Carolina Association of Pregnancy Care Centers, and Palmetto Family Council.”
Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a national version of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 36). A minority of pro-abortion Democrats blocked consideration of the bill in the U.S. Senate last September.
“Basic compassion for human life demands that this legislation be enacted all over the country,” said National Right to Life Director of State Legislation Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D. “In our upside-down society, most animals have more rights than unborn members of the human family. We are thankful the South Carolina General Assembly and Gov. Nikki Haley have recognized their solemn duty in protecting the lives of the most vulnerable.”
Some of the extensive evidence that unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks fetal age, is available on the National Right to Life website at www.nrlc.org/abortion/fetalpain and also here: www.doctorsonfetalpain.com.
South Carolina Citizens for Life has found a direct correlation in the enactment of pro-life laws and a dramatic 59% decline in the number of abortions in the state since 1988. A chart showing the decline can be found on the SCCL website.

Source: NRLC News

What Does It Mean to Be Human

 

Does every human life have equal and incalculable moral value simply and merely because it is human?

By Wesley J. Smith

Wesley Smith

We live in an increasingly secular society. One consequence (among many) of this cultural shift has been an increasing rejection of the once uncontroversial belief that humans reside uniquely at the pinnacle of moral worth.
Activist academics, purveyors of popular culture, and issue ideologues across a wide swath of movements—from bioethics, to animal rights, to environmentalism—seek to knock us off the pedestal. Public intellectuals like Princeton University’s Peter Singer even argue that being human is morally irrelevant; what matters is possessing sufficient cognitive capacities to qualify as a “person.”
In this view, some humans—such as the unborn, infants, and those people with advanced Alzheimer’s—don’t qualify as persons, meaning that they can be killed, have their organs harvested, or become subjects of experiments. At the same time, some animals are deemed persons, making their captivity equivalent to slavery.

Deeper in the realm of the surreal, some of the world’s leading environmentalists consider us the villains of the planet—a “plague on the earth, according to Sir David Attenborough, or, as Canadian television and environmental celebrity David Suzuki once put it, “maggots defecating all over the environment.”

Such blatant anti-humanism is often dismissed or unanswered in the public square. But, as recent headlines about Planned Parenthood and the push for assisted suicide demonstrate, now is the time to defend intrinsic human value. What, however, is the best defense?
The case for humankind is often made in religious terms. For example, Christian leaders may say that we have unique value because only humans are created in God’s image. As true as I think that is, imago Dei will not persuade those who don’t believe in God.
A belief in human exceptionalism, on the other hand, does not depend on religious faith. Whether we were created by God, came into being through blind evolution, or were intelligently designed, the importance of human existence can and should be supported by the rational examination of the differences between us and all other known life forms.

After all, what other species in known history has had the wondrous capacities of human beings? What other species has been able to (at least partially) control nature instead of being controlled by it? What other species builds civilizations, records history, creates art, makes music, thinks abstractly, communicates in language, envisions and fabricates machinery, improves life through science and engineering, or explores the deeper truths found in philosophy and religion? What other species has true freedom? Not one.

Only humans have the capacity to embrace the good and to engage in evil—a moral attribute embedded in our very natures. Moreover, we alone comprehend the grandeur, beauty, and importance of the natural world. The elephant is not awestruck at the sight of sunset. Nor can the squirrel appreciate the beauty of the blue jay and the butterfly. Yet even small children can love animals and wonder at the world.

Perhaps the most important distinction between the fauna and us is our moral agency. The sow that permits the runt of her litter to starve is not a negligent parent, but a human mother doing the same would be branded a monster. The feline that plays with a fallen baby bird before consuming it is not being sadistic; she is acting like a cat! But any human who tortures an animal is rightly seen as pathological.

Some see the claim of human exceptionalism as hubristic and dangerous; if we are so superior, aren’t we then entitled to treat animals as cruelly as we want? Just the opposite, in fact. We are capable of apprehending the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, proper and improper conduct. Or, put another way: If being human, in and of itself, isn’t what requires us to treat each other, animals, and nature properly, then what in the world does?
I believe that our morality in the twenty-first century will depend on how we respond to this question: Does every human life have equal and incalculable moral value simply and merely because it is human?

Answer yes, and we have a chance of achieving a truly humane, free, and prosperous society. Answer no, and we are just another animal in the forest. If that is how we define ourselves, it is precisely how we will act.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant to the Patient’s Rights Council. This appeared at firstthings.com.

Source: NRLC News

Abortion

 

Due to fear of disability, doctor tries to get woman to abort

By Sarah Terzo
Author Ann Saltenberger describes an experience she had while pregnant. She became sick and spent some time in the hospital, where doctors ran a battery of tests including x-rays. She was pregnant and a doctor told her she should abort her baby. The doctor told her the following when he was driving her home:

“An hour later the green, sundrenched farmlands of South Jersey were slipping past the car windows. I settled back into the plush seat and relaxed. But Dr. L was tense and I soon found out why. “I know you’re the wrong person to say this to,” he began (I had already begun to garner a considerable reputation for my research into the effects of artificial pregnancy termination), “but you really should have an abortion.”

His words had continued, unheard. I tuned in as he was saying something about my probably having a viral infection, and German Measles is a viral infection, “and we all know what German Measles does.”

“Yes, but it only does it to 25% of preborns. You’re not going to tell me that part, are you?,” I thought, but I said nothing.

He droned on. The x-rays. X-rays do horrible things: twist developing bodies, destroy forming minds. No doubt about it, he was sure this baby would be retarded or deformed. Not worth worrying over. Not worth saving. Rx: abort it and forget it.”

Her baby was born perfectly healthy:

“Now, eight years later, it’s spring again. The sun is shining and the breezes are warm. And Jimmy is seven and healthy and strong, full of fun and questions and tricks. Appearance: beautiful; neurological evaluation: normal; intelligence: superior.”

Ann Saltenberger, Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of Legal Abortion (Glassboro, New Jersey: Air – Plus Enterprises, 1983) 14, 17.

Source: NRLC News

Politics and Hillary

 

Who had the worst 24 hours in Washington? Hillary Clinton

By Dave Andrusko

Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Bernie Sanders

At the Washington Post, they have a feature asking who had the “worst week in Washington?” If there was an award for the worst 24 hours, clearly it would go to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, pro-abortion Hillary Clinton.
(Although Democratic National Committee Chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ,who may be on her way out the door, could be a close second. But the two go together.)
You no doubt heard that the long-simmering scandal-in-the-making question of Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State just got a whole lot hotter and a whole lot less “potential.”
To quote Reuters

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while U.S. secretary of state broke government rules and was not approved by State Department security officials, according to an internal government watchdog’s report released on Wednesday.

Clinton’s use of the private email server in her home in Chappaqua, New York, for government purposes has prompted several investigations, including an ongoing probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The email controversy has hung over her campaign for months.

Added POLITICO

The report represents the latest pushback — in this case by a nonpartisan government entity — against her campaign’s claim that she did not break any rules and that her use of a private server was completely allowed.

Meanwhile, with the huge California presidential primary coming up June 7, more internecine fighting between Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party. This week Sanders said if he becomes president, he would ask Wasserman Schultz to step down.
According to CNN

Democratic senators are discussing whether Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz should be removed as the head of the party because she has become “too toxic” in the ongoing Democratic civil war.

“There is a lot of sentiment that replacing her would be a good idea. It is being discussed quietly among Democratic senators on the floor, in the cloakroom and in lunches,” a senior Senate Democratic source told CNN on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks among lawmakers.

Added the Hill, whose story first reported on the possible ouster

Wasserman Schultz has had an increasingly acrimonious relationship with the party’s other presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, who argue she has tilted the scales in Clinton’s favor.

“There have been a lot of meetings over the past 48 hours about what color plate do we deliver Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s head on,” said one pro-Clinton Democratic senator.

The lawmaker said senators huddled on the chamber floor last week to talk about Wasserman Schultz’s future and estimated that about a dozen have weighed in during private conversations.

“I don’t see how she can continue to the election. How can she open the convention? Sanders supporters would go nuts,” said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

At the same time, however, according to the Hill’s Alexander Bolton

There is no indication Wasserman Schultz, who is also a Florida congresswoman, has any plans to leave her post. And Senate sources stress that a final decision won’t be made until Clinton and Sanders negotiate some type of deal aimed at healing the party. President Obama, who selected Wasserman Schultz as chairwoman in 2011, is expected to play a major role in any such talks.

The next few days before the California primary will be something else. Oh, by the way, Sanders campaign has asked for a recanvass of voting in the Kentucky May 17 primary that he lost to Clinton by less than 2,000 votes.

Source: NRLC News

Hillary- Trouble?

 

Putting a positive spin on Clinton’s falling numbers

By Dave Andrusko
Editor’s note. If you want to peruse stories all day long, go directly to nationalrighttolifenews.org and/or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/daveha

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton

I was waiting in my car to meet my pastor for coffee when I heard Democratic shill MSNBC’s Chuck Todd interviewed on a local Virginia radio station. The immediate topic was pro-abortion Virginia Gov. (and Hillary Clinton confidant) Terry McAuliffe who, the Washington Post had reported in today’s newspaper, had been under federal investigation for more than a year.
According to the Post

CNN first reported the inquiry, saying that investigators are looking into a six-figure contribution that Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang made to McAuliffe’s campaign through his U.S. businesses.

But a federal official told The Washington Post federal investigators are looking broadly at donations to McAuliffe and at his personal finances.

I mention this for multiple reasons. Were this a Republican governor, the two local radio people interviewing Todd would have been on him/her with unparalleled ferocity. (By the way, Newsbusters pointed out that in breaking the news, CNBC’s chief Washington correspondent John Harwood “slipped and referred to McAuliffe as ‘the second consecutive Republican Governor to face a corruption investigation’ following predecessor and actual Republican Bob McDonnell.”)
Instead their tone was one of more sadness than anger/outrage. Todd’s voice was so quiet I thought his microphone was malfunctioning.
Todd had no choice but to bring up the obvious: McAuliffe’s long standing ties to the Clintons and the truth that Virginia is a swing state in the 2016 presidential election.
But it’s more than not-so-subtle media bias and the possible impact on the presidential election that attracts your attention. This was one of several stories in the Post and elsewhere where reporters were running interference for the former Secretary of State, or at least attempting to limit the damage.
For instance, there is another story in the Post about next month’s California presidential primary. As Abby Phillip and Anne Gearan write, while it is mathematically possible Clinton will have already achieved enough delegates to win the nomination before the June 7 primary,

losing one of the country’s most diverse and Democratic states to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont would be such a damaging way to end this tumultuous primary season that Clinton is planning to spend millions there over the next two weeks.

This isn’t exactly what Clinton had hoped to be doing as her party’s July convention in Philadelphia approaches and Republicans ramp up for the general election.

And then what to do about the recent polls which show Mrs. Clinton’s support melting away? Nate Cohn dips into “Explaining Hillary Clinton’s Lost Ground in the Polls” in today’s New York Times.
In the end, don’t be overly worried, right? The party will consolidate around Mrs. Clinton as the nominee, correct?
Well… Cohn writes

But Mrs. Clinton nonetheless struggles because of her inability to consolidate the independent-leaning, young, liberal supporters of Mr. Sanders. The most recent wave of national surveys shows Mrs. Clinton winning just 55 to 72 percent of Sanders’s supporters. She’s faring far worse among young and liberal voters than one would expect.

And didn’t Obama experience a dip in the polls against GOP nominee John McCain and then regain the lead after he formally became the Democrats’ presidential nominee? In other words, won’t Sanders’ supporters come home? Cohn observes

Mrs. Clinton may find it not so easy to repeat Mr. Obama’s gains. There has been weakening in her support among Mr. Sanders’s supporters over the last month or so. In April, Mrs. Clinton held between 71 and 82 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters; today it’s between 55 and 72 percent.

Exactly what’s driving the shift is hard to say. What’s clear is that Mrs. Clinton’s challenge isn’t totally superficial. Just 20 percent of Mr. Sanders’s supporters have a favorable view of Mrs. Clinton in the most recent New York Times/CBS News survey, while 47 percent have an unfavorable one.

Of course, this wasn’t Cohn’s topic, but it is not just Clinton’s intra-party woes. Independents do not particularly like her, nor (overwhelmingly) do White males.
More to come.

On the Move in New York

 

Death measure wins narrow approval in New York Assembly Health Committee

Having rushed the “Medical Aid in Dying Act”– A10059/S7579 was introduced just two weeks ago– the New York Assembly Health Committee yesterday narrowly approved the measure, 14-11. Eight Democratic members of the committee are sponsors of the bill.
It is urgent that you contact your legislators in the Assembly immediately and urge them to vote NO on A10059/S7579.
You can find a list at: http://nyassembly.gov/mem
For the moment, there is no action in the Senate.
The quick move in the Health Committee comes less than three weeks after the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ruled that New York’s ban on assisting a suicide is constitutional.
“In its decision in Myers vs. Schneiderman, the Court noted that there has been no ‘societal evolution’ on this issue and there is no consensus of opinion,” said Michael Burgess, former Director of the State Office for the Aging and a spokesperson for the NY Alliance Against Assisted Suicide. “Why would our elected representatives choose to rush to vote on a brand new bill giving this kind of unprecedented power to physicians who aren’t even seeking it?” Burgess asked. “It is actions like this that have caused New Yorkers to question the way state government operates.”
A10059/ S.7579 is being promoted under the false notion that it will provide terminally ill people with merely one more “option.”
However, this is far from the truth. The “Medical Aid in Dying Act” is riddled with dangerous problems that seek to destroy existing protections for the vulnerable.
The language purports to “safeguard” assisted suicide and restrict it to the terminally ill and the competent. However, these kinds of assisted suicide proposals are opposed by medical groups (including the Medical Society of the State of New York and the American Medical Association) and many in the disability right community. Safeguards simply do not work. Among the glaring omissions:

· There is no protection for those seeking assisted suicide because they suffer from treatable depression or any other mental health issue

· Predictions that someone will die in six months are often wrong;

· Abuse of elders and people with disabilities is a growing but often undetected problem

· If assisted suicide is legalized, it will quickly become the cheapest alternative to medical treatment.

It is urgent that every member of the New York Assembly Health Committee hear from you. Most legislators have never considered legislation like this, and they need to know that New York does not want to destroy existing protection for those facing a difficult diagnosis.
Printable factsheets can be found at: www.nrlc.org/medethics/directkilling
Please contact your legislators in the Assembly immediately and urge them to vote NO on A10059/S7579.
A list of names can be found at: http://nyassembly.gov/mem

Source: NRLC News

Media and Abortionists

 

Annual Media love-fest for abortion entrepreneur Burkhart

By Kathy Ostrowski, Legislative Director, Kansans for Life

South Wind Women’s Center director Julie Burkhart

Well, May is here, and with it comes the now apparently obligatory annual media interviews fawning over abortion profiteer Julie Burkhart.
Burkhart started the George Tiller legacy project [“Trust Women”] after the Wichita abortionist’s death on May 31, 2009. Every May afterwards, the media spins a “memorial” of sorts to Tiller and Burkhart.
The tributes escalated beginning three years ago, when, after much fanfare, Burkhart opened the SouthWind Women’s Center on the site of Tiller’s old Wichita, Kansas location. It is part of her drive to “forge new frontiers” in the Midwest– which pro-abortionists term a “desert” of “abortion care.”
On cue last week, a lengthy pro-Burkhart feature–“Meet the Woman Opening an Abortion Clinic in the Most Anti-Choice State”- turned up in Rolling Stone.

There were numerous other local and national reports (see below).
They were orchestrated undoubtedly by Trust Women’s new publicist, Deb Gruver. It was quite the coup getting Gruver, who recently ended a 26-year news reporting career, with the last 15 years writing for the pro-abortion Wichita Eagle.

The Burkhart media blitz included:
* May 17 – a story from the liberal National Council of State Legislatures in which Burkhart complains of health inspections under conservative governors and spending over $200,000 in (unspecified) legal fees.
* May 19 – a Wichita Eagle Guest Column by Burkhart, claiming that Kansas abortion “restrictions” keep poor women in “second class” teaching and nursing jobs instead of lucrative careers and political offices.
* May 19 – a TV news feature on Burkhart’s “challenges” to opening a clinic in Oklahoma, because it is such “a politically hostile environment for women and their families.”
* May 19 – an extensive article in Marie Claire that lionizes Burkhart’s Wichita/Oklahoma fly-in abortionist, Colleen McNicholas. McNicholas admits to a rate of 31 abortions per 8-hour shift when she works at the Planned Parenthood in St. Louis.
* May 20 – a Washington Post article (also in the Eagle) about Burkhart’s circuit-riding Missouri abortionist and her confidence that abortion attorneys will block any Oklahoma pro-life law that threatens them.

* May 20 – Robin Marty’s piece in Rolling Stone where Burkhart complains about how hard it was to find the Oklahoma location and obey state regulators; she also claims pro-life laws unfairly scare women about the caliber of abortionists and their facilities, whereas SouthWind clients compliment her “all the time” on how “clean and nice” her facility is. (I’m not kidding.)
* May 21- another Eagle/AP story that extensively details Burkhart’s financial issues, with her prediction that many “underserved” Texas women will use her Oklahoma City clinic.
The unifying media message in these articles is that (1) Burkhart battles “hostile’ pro-life state legislatures; and (2) she may lose ground  in an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Texas HB 2 abortion clinic regulations law.

The Court “threat” for Burkhart was spelled out in Marie Claire:

“All three states where McNicholas performs abortions [MO-KS-OK] have admitting-privileges laws on the books…. Kansas and Oklahoma have also passed privileges laws, but both are currently on hold pending legal challenges. McNicholas has admitting privileges only in St. Louis, which means if HB2 is upheld and Kansas’ and Oklahoma’s pending laws are enacted as a result, she will no longer be able to perform abortions anywhere outside St. Louis.”

PBS reported that Burkhart’s SouthWind Wichita clinic charges up to $2,000 for dismemberment abortions past 14 weeks gestation. She is quoted in Rolling Stone that her Oklahoma City business will do higher gestation abortions—abortions on even more mature and developed babies–at expectedly higher prices.

A whole lot of money is riding on Burkhart having abortionists available for hire.
Although the media acquiesces to the annual May blast of stories portraying Burkhart as continuing some noble quest in honor of Tiller, we know better.

Source: NRLC News