Read Polls Carefully

                             

Digging beneath the surface of new poll reveals many extremely encouraging nuggets

By Dave Andrusko

All polls on abortion must be read carefully, but that is especially true for one released November 19: “US opinion torn on Texas abortion law as Supreme Court readies to hear arguments.”
I strongly suspect the objective of the Reuters/Ipsos poll is to reach the conclusion that the public strongly disagrees with the Texas pro-life law the Supreme Court has agreed to review.
But does this online poll of 3,387 U.S. adults tell us that?
We’ll go through the major points, one by one, and talk about one question I’ve never seen asked before. (Hint: the results for the latter are particularly encouraging.)
For purposes of the challenge to Texas’ H.B. 2, here’s what Lawrence Hurley of Reuters tells us about the responses:

About four in 10 Americans ‒ 41 percent ‒ believe laws like the one passed in Texas are intended to make abortion clinics safer, 35 percent said such laws are designed to make it difficult or impossible for women to obtain abortions, and 24 percent said they did not know, according to a new online Reuters/Ipsos poll of 3,387 US adults that was released on Wednesday.

Ok. Let’s deconstruct that answer. Given the hysteria generated by the Abortion Lobby and passed along uncritically by most of the “mainstream media,” the only answer you would think most people could possibly give is “such laws are designed to make it difficult or impossible for women to obtain abortions.” That’s the mantra repeated endlessly.
In fact only 35% agree with that.
Indeed more people (41%) agree that the objective is to “make abortion clinics safer.” AND note this: Exactly as many Democrats as Republicans took that position!
Next question, should the High Court strike the law down.
24% said strike the law, “because it restricts access to abortion services”; another 9% said strike “because of other reasons”=a total of 33%.
But 22 % said uphold the law “because it doesn’t’ restrict access to abortion services”; another 10% said uphold “because of other reasons”=a total of 32%. A virtual dead-heat.
Since 36% said “don’t know,” it means there is lot of education that could be put to good use.
And speaking of encouraging results, consider this question: “Thinking now about the buildings where abortions may occur, in your opinion should clinics that perform abortions follow the same building standards as

• ”Medical (non-hospital) facilities that perform outpatient medical procedures”–30%.
• ”Hospitals facilities that perform more invasive medical procedures”–44%! That is what the Texas law requires! By a 3-2 margin, the public agrees with Texas H.B. 2.

While 51% of Republicans agree with that, even 40% of Democrats and 46% of Independents did so. (26% said they “don’t know.”)
The Reuters/Ipsos poll also asked about the other requirement under challenge: that abortionists have admitting privileges at a local hospital in case of emergencies. Here’s how the question was asked (note, 31% said they “don’t know”):
“Which of the below statements comes closer to your own opinion on doctors that perform abortions at clinics?”

• ”They should be able to work there regardless of their affiliation with nearby hospitals or other medical facilities”–38%
• ”They should have to be affiliated with a nearby hospital or facility in addition to the clinic where they perform abortions”–31%.

Ask yourself, if someone is not up to speed on the issue, what’s missing from these two alternatives? There’s nothing about WHY there is a requirement “to be affiliated with a nearby hospital or facility.”
What would the response have been if the question instead had been

“They should have to be affiliated with a nearby hospital or facility in addition to the clinic where they perform abortions, so, in cases of medical emergencies, they can follow their patient to the hospital”?

I’m betting considerably higher!


Note also that many of these abortionists fly-in to abortion clinics where they kill unborn babies a couple of days a week or a couple of days a month. To say that they are “affiliated” with the abortion clinic is technically true but stretching the truth (to put it mildly).
What about those questions I hadn’t seen before and which did not get mentioned in the reporting? Here’s the most interesting one (27% said “don’t know”):

“And which of the below is closest to your view about where abortion laws should be made?” Options are

“Abortion laws should be made at the state level by state legislators”–13%.

“Abortion laws should be made at the state level by voter referendum”–21%.

“Abortion laws should be made at the national level by Congress” –11%

“Abortion laws should be made by the U.S. Supreme Court declaring a nationalwide constitutional right”– 27%.

Let that soak in for a moment. Barely a quarter of the public agrees that the Supreme Court should have rendered what it did in 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision–“a nationalwide constitutional right” to abortion.
There’s lots more to peruse at your leisure. You can read the poll for yourself.


Source: NRLC News

Power in Forgiving

                         

                 

                            

Three men arrested in murder of pregnant pastor’s wife

By Dave Andrusko

Davey and Amanda Blackburn and Weston

Three men were charged today in connection with the death of Amanda Blackburn, a pastor’s pregnant wife who was murdered in a November 10 alleged home invasion that turned deadly.
This morning a “slew of charges” were filed against 18-year-old Larry Taylor, the Indianapolis Star reported. In addition to murder, “According to court filings, Taylor also faces felony burglary, theft, robbery, auto theft and criminal confinement charges, along with a misdemeanor charge of carrying a handgun without a license,” the Star reported.
Early this afternoon Jason Watson ,21, was also charged with murder and other charges. As of 2:30 pm, it was not clear what charges had been filed against Diano Gordon, who is 24.
Mrs. Blackmun, who was 13 weeks pregnant, was shot in the head in the Indianapolis home she shared with her husband, Pastor Davey Blackburn. “The couple’s 15-month-old son, Weston, was at home upstairs in a crib but was not harmed in the attack,” according to The Chicago Tribune.
She died in the hospital two days later.
Her husband had gone to the gym earlier that morning. Both are children of pastors.
Investigators believe Taylor “whom neighbors also reported seeing walking in the area, may have seen Davey Blackburn leave that morning shortly after the suspect allegedly burglarized a nearby house. Police had sought the public’s help by circulating images of a man caught on home surveillance cameras,” The Tribune reported. “The Blackburns moved to Indianapolis from South Carolina to found the independent Resonate Church in 2012.”
In a statement Rev. Blackburn said he hoped for three things, the first of which was “That the court system would have wisdom on how to prosecute this man, so that no one else endures the pain Amanda and our family have had to endure because of his actions.”
But he went on, in an amazingly magnanimous fashion, to later add

Though everything inside of me wants to hate, be angry, and slip into despair I choose the route of forgiveness, grace and hope. If there is one thing I’ve learned from Amanda in the 10 years we were together, it’s this: Choosing to let my emotions drive my decisions is recipe for a hopeless and fruitless life. Today I am deciding to love, not hate. Today I am deciding to extend forgiveness, not bitterness. Today I am deciding to hope, not despair. By Jesus’ power at work within us, the best is STILL yet to come. Even when I don’t see it, I believe it to be true.


Source: NRLC News

                              

                                           

                            

Media Bias and Abortion

            

                 

                            

Media Applaud ‘Awesome’ Abortion Scene in ABC’s ‘Scandal’

By Katie Yoder
The Left worships death. Don’t believe it? Check out the reception journalists and writers gave Thursday’s episode of Scandal on ABC.
Scandal showed the main character, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington), aborting her baby to the accompaniment of the Christmas hymn “Silent Night.” In fact, the entire episode, Baby It’s Cold Outside, was a plug for abortion, including a recitation of Planned Parenthood talking points during a Wendy Davis-like filibuster. For its efforts, the show’s scenes have been lauded by lefty media – from the Huffington Post to Cosmopolitan and Bustle – as “groundbreaking” and “awesome.”
As MRC Culture previously wrote:

“Between the execution of a man that opens the graphic clip below, the talk of ‘soft tissue,’ saying family destroys you, watching a doctor take his instruments between Olivia’s legs, and the hint of a smile on her lips at the end, it is a truly vile scene, stomach churning scene.”

But liberals didn’t see it that way.
For the Huffington Post, editor Jessica Samakow called it “perhaps the most powerful message of the first half of season 5.”
Deeming the episode “radical” and “groundbreaking,” she lauded the show for its portrayal of abortion:

“‘Scandal’ showed abortion for what it is: A completely legal medical procedure that does not determine what kind of person a woman is, and that only makes up a small part of said woman’s life story.

That’s why Olivia Pope’s no-big-deal abortion was such a big deal.”

(By the way, if the media were to show abortion for what it is, viewers would be horrified. Too bad the media won’t show, for example, the Planned Parenthood videos of baby limbs mixed in a dish. Hollywood will show gun violence though.)
Salon’s Sonia Saraiya began her piece by declaring, “‘Scandal’ is pro-choice.”
She commended the “revolutionary act” of airing the “procedure” on television. Furthermore, she argued, the “most tragic moment of the episode” wasn’t Pope’s abortion but was when the president “chooses her dress for her … and Olivia quietly acquiesces.”
That’s because, she concluded, “Choice matters.”
Concurring with Salon, Slate’s headline read, “Scandal’s Take on Abortion and the Planned Parenthood Fight Was Perfect.”
Writer Christina Cauterucci applauded the “honest look at a positive experience with abortion,” and slathered praise on the abortion portrayal:

“Kerry Washington played out Pope’s self-determination with sensitivity and grace; the closing shot of Pope comfortable and smiling for the first time in a long time says everything about why abortion access is such a crucial part of women’s health. Kudos to showrunner Shonda Rhimes for giving viewers an affirming depiction of a woman who gets an abortion.”

Yeah, that was some Grade-A agitprop, Shonda.
The entertainment news world couldn’t gush enough over the scene either.
Entertainment Weekly’s Isabella Biedenharn insisted “It’s only fitting that Scandal knows how to put on a great Christmas episode” with its “skillful mashup of real world events.” (Seriously, snuffing out an innocent life makes for great Christmas TV?)
“[W]e never saw Liv gazing dreamily at babies, chatting about becoming a mom someday. And if she didn’t want kids, could you blame her? Look at her parents!!!!” she wrote.
Vulture’s Phoebe Robinson first reacted in shock.


“OH. MY. GOD. OLIVIA JUST GOT AN ABORTION!” she wrote. Later, calmed down, she similarly reasoned, that Pope “knew she couldn’t bring a child into an extremely toxic environment.”
E! Online’s Lauren Piester decided that having a child with the president, among other duties, “was never going to work for” Pope and that “tonight we were fully on Olivia’s side.”
But perhaps the feminist news sites were the happiest of all.


Refinery 29’s Rebecca Smith applauded how “women’s reproductive rights take center stage” in the show while Bustle’s Nicole Pomarico wrote about the “truly awesome” move.
“For Olivia the character, it only highlighted her bravery,” Pomarico continued. “And for Scandal as a whole? Having the female lead of such a popular show have an abortion on screen was such a powerful, important moment.”


She hoped the show would prompt similar plotlines in the future.


“How cool would it be if this one scene set a new precedent for how a woman’s right to choose translates into television?” she concluded. “My fingers are crossed.”
Cosmo’s Penny Brown also commented on the episodes defense of Planned Parenthood with its Wendy Davis-like filibuster. “It’s unplanned, it’s passionate, it’s brilliant,” she wrote.
Sadly, it’s nothing new – even for Scandal. Earlier this year, online media similarly adored another “groundbreaking” abortion scene featured by the show.


Editor’s note. This appeared at newsbusters.org


Source: NRLC News

Horrible Story

            

                                              

Woman cuts baby from pregnant friend’s womb, insists to police, “It’s my baby.”

Angelikque Sutton dies from multiple stab wounds, baby Genesis miraculously survives
By Dave Andrusko

Ashleigh Wade, left, is accused of killing her nine-months-pregnant friend Angelikque Sutton, right, and taking her baby from her womb.Photo: Facebook

This story is so ghastly, it will be relatively short and will avoid the horrific details as much as possible.
22-year-old Ashleigh Wade stands accused of killing her nearly nine-month-pregnant friend and then cutting her baby out of her womb in a crude caesarian-like maneuver.
Angelikque Sutton, also 22, died on Friday but her baby girl, named Genesis, survived, according to the New York Daily News and multiple other news outlets. As of Sunday, Genesis was doing well.
When police arrived at the bloody scene, they found the placenta and umbilical cord on the floor and Wade insisting, “It’s my baby!” Authorities were called to Wade’s home by her boyfriend, Angel Praylow where they found the mortally wounded Sutton.
Angelikque and her baby were taken to Montefiore Hospital, where Sutton was pronounced dead.
“Wade was taken into custody at the scene and was being held for observation at Jacobi Medical Center,” reported Kevin Fasick and Jennifer Bain of the Post. As of the morning, Wade was “being held in the psychiatric ward [at Jacobi Hospital], facing murder charges,” according to WABC TV.
Wade, who is heavy, told neighbors that she was pregnant. As part of an elaborate ruse, Wade commented on ultrasound images of a baby’s face she’d posted on Facebook, calling the girl “my lil dimpled cutie pie.”
According to the Post, the deception was so complete that Wade’s boyfriend of six year, Angel Praylow,

wrote about his “baby girl” on Facebook, posting the 3-D images of the fetus’ face and answering questions from relatives eager to attend the baby shower.

Praylow told one family member on Facebook that they thought Nov. 15 was Wade’s due date. But on Facebook that day, he wrote, “She not ready to come out yet.”
“It’s a shocker to him. It’s a shocker to me and my wife,” said Angel’s dad, Steven Praylow.

Baby Genesis

Praylow, who is not considered a suspect, only found out the truth when Wade called Friday and asked him to come to her home immediately. Sources told the Post Wade explained she’d done something “very bad.”
Praylow entered the bloody scene where he found a mortally wounded Sutton. He wrapped Genesis in a jacket, carried her outside, and called 911.
Wade initially claimed Sutton had “lunged first during an argument,” the Post reported. “She claimed she cut the wounded woman open to ‘save’ the baby girl.” The story quickly unraveled.
 Source: NRLC News

Planned Parenthood

                             

Rep Chris Smith on the undercover PPFA videos: “We must not remain silent and look the other way.”

By Dave Andrusko
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, needs no introduction to any pro-life audience, let alone the readers of National Right to Life News and National Right to Life News Today.


Nor does Planned Parenthood, whose callous indifference to the lives of unborn children is matched only by its corporate desire to increase its market share in the abortion industry. PPFA already aborts over 320,000 children every year but that’s not enough for the leading provider of abortion in America. Here are just a couple of pieces of evidence.


PPFA’s national office mandated that every affiliate have at least one abortion performing center; PPFA is fiercely promoting chemical abortions (and “Webcam” abortions which allow the abortionist to be in one location but talk women all over the state through a chemical abortion); and PPFA is building mega-clinics. Moreover through its roles as ObamaCare “navigators,” “in-person assisters,” or “certified applications counselors,” PPFA is able to channel even more clients into its clinics.
Rep. Smith often addresses PPFA,. He did again in an op-ed printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday under the headline “It’s time to demand answers from Planned Parenthood.”
In his opinion piece, Rep. Smith reminds readers

The House has voted to form a select investigative panel to learn more about the brutal practices at Planned Parenthood that were exposed in undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP).

Establishing this select panel is the right thing to do. We simply can’t remain silent or look the other way.

This is, of course, exactly what PPFA has long counted on: collectively we will look away, or never look, at all! What the eleven undercover CMP videos have accomplished is to give us the ability–if we choose–to see the truth, to know the truth.
Rep. Smith explains what we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears on those videos:

In one clip, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, senior director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Medical Services, says on camera:

“We have been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, and because we know that, I am not going to crush that part. I am going to basically crush below, I am going to crush above, and I am going to see if I can get it all intact. . . . I would say a lot of people want liver; and for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they will know where they are putting their forceps.”

What Nucatola describes is a dismemberment abortion – arms, legs, torsos, decapitation – but the prized body part is preserved, pulled out intact, and then sold to brokers.

There’s much more about these atrocities in Rep. Smith’s op-ed and in the many stories we’ve posted on NRL News Today. His point is simple but profound. We need this select investigative panel to answer many of the deeply disturbing issues raised by the videos and unanswered to date.
Rep. Smith concludes by illustrating the depths to which abortionists will sink, illustrated by the notorious Kermit Gosnell now serving three consecutive life terms. He quotes from the Grand Jury report which, even though I have read it multiple times and this quote dozens of times, still is chilling:

“Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered: he killed them. He didn’t call it that. He called it ‘ensuring fetal demise.’ The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that ‘snipping.’ “

It is a similar kind of horror that the CMP videos have revealed. The question is what else is there?
Rep. Smith insists

We must not remain silent and look the other way. The dehumanizing practices revealed in these undercover videos must be investigated.

I suspect that if President Obama watched at least one of the videos, he would join us in demanding real answers and an immediate end to Planned Parenthood’s inhumane behavior.

Or at least I hope he would.

Source: NRLC News

Compassion and Choices?

 

Gushing profile of “Compassion and Choices” offers important insights into leading proponent of physician-assisted suicide

By Dave Andrusko

Barbara Coombs Lee

I’m beginning to think USA Today is the unofficial in-house publication of Compassion and Choices–formerly (and more honestly) known as the Hemlock Society. But the flip side for those of us committed to confronting and fending off the physician-assisted suicide movement is that in addition to gushy, free publicity for C&C, these stories offer insights straight from the horse’s mouth.
Remember back in April, prior to California legalizing physician-assisted suicide, when C&C executive director Barbara Coombs Lee laid out her real agenda in a story published in USA Today?

Both Oregon and Washington found that participants had three major concerns: loss of autonomy, diminishing ability to engage in the activities that make life enjoyable, and loss of dignity. Meanwhile, only about a third of patients in both states were concerned about inadequate pain control.

“It’s not as simple as pain,” Coombs Lee said. “Everyone gets to identify their own definition of suffering.” [Emphasis mine.]

Then, just a couple of days ago, USA Today wrote a flattering profile of the organization that was soon reposted by the always sympathetic Kaiser Health News.
Besides all the celebratory language about new volunteers and new enthusiasm and the introduction next year of more “aid in dying” bills, what did we learn from Phil Galewitz’s story?

#1. “As more states take up the aid-in-dying issue, [national political advocacy director Jessica] Grennan said her group will continue using individual stories to educate the public and lawmakers.” In plain English, “Compassion & Choices is embracing that lesson as its campaign expands.”
What lesson? That Brittany Maynard’s story was absolutely instrumental to C&C winning in California–and that stories just like hers will be exploited–and distorted–to the max.
#2. The power and reach of George Soros. According to Galewitz, in the 2013-204 fiscal year, contributions and grants to C&C reached $17.1 million. A $2 million contribution came from billionaire financier George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
#3. Back to Maynard. We read

Compassion & Choices connected with Maynard through a friend, and then worked to publicize her story, assisting in producing two widely-watched video interviews on YouTube and helping line up a People magazine article that put her on the cover shortly before her death at age 29.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the impact of all three, particularly the People magazine cover, in softening up the public. Young, beautiful, terminally ill, the only “solution” was to move from the (then) hard-hearted California to the most death-affirming climes of Oregon.
That it was a solution to nothing; that the law’s passage all but put the bulls-eye on millions of vulnerable people; and that the change in the law was opposed by virtually all the disability rights groups gets ignored.

#4. Back to the money. Galewitz’s story lays out how C&C was able in 2014 and 2015 to “spent $150,000 on online advertising and other types of outreach, and $500,000 on focus groups, polling and other efforts to sway lawmakers and public opinion in the state, the group said.” C&C also “submitted sympathetic opinion articles to major newspapers”–effectively millions of dollars of in-kind contributions. And lastly

#5. Re-framing the language. It’s always about language, redefining clear language into gauzy verbiage that beautifies the ugliness. Galewitz writes that C&C won the battle over how to label physician-assisted suicide.

Compassion & Choices argues that “aid in dying” is the most neutral term to describe measures that some advocates call “death with dignity” and some opponents label “assisted suicide.” The group insists assisted suicide does not accurately describe terminally ill, but mentally competent, people who request life-ending medication that must be self-administered. The Associated Press Stylebook, widely used by news media, advises laws such as California’s be described as “medically assisted suicide” and allowing “the terminally ill to end their own lives with medical assistance.”

It’s not surprising that after unfairly bringing up the bill during a special legislative session that was convened to address California Medicaid budget, and winning, C&C is brimming over with confidence–and even more money.

But it is equally unsurprising that everywhere C&C will launch its campaign, the anti-physician-assisted coalition will be there to tell the truth.
Tough row to hoe?
Sure, but that’s nothing new. The anti-life forces have always had the money and the media.
But we have you!

Source: NRLC News

Life Saving

 

National Right to Life Hails Bill Providing Equal Treatment for Pro-Life Advance Directives

WASHINGTON – The National Right to Life Committee applauded the introduction today, in both the Senate and House, of the “Medicare Choices Empowerment and Protection Act.”

The companion bills would give Medicare beneficiaries and others online access to model advance directives that choose life-saving treatment, food and fluids equally with those that reject them. The bills would require they be told, “You should not feel pressured to violate your own values and preferences, and you are entitled to implement them without discrimination based on age or degree of disability.”

The bills would help offset widespread efforts to “nudge” patients to agree to forego life-saving treatment documented in National Right to Life’s March 2015 report “The Bias Against Life-Preserving Treatment in Advance Care Planning.”

“The pro-life movement has been concerned that advance care planning is too often used, in an effort both to cut health care spending and advance the ‘quality of life ethic,’ to ‘nudge’ people to agree to reject life-saving measures (including assisted feeding) using unbalanced, distorted, and even false data,” stated Burke Balch, J.D., Director of the Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics.
“By contrast, the legislation National Right to Life is endorsing would create and promote a government website that gives a choice of alternative advance directive forms, including those that direct treatment and assisted feeding, like our group’s ‘Will to Live,'” Balch said. “It would ensure that the online providers of advance directives to be promoted by Medicare must ensure their documents comply with State laws, including statutes that contain important informed consent safeguards.”

The Senate bill is sponsored by Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) and Chris Coons (D-DE). The House Bill is sponsored by Representatives Diane Black, R.N. (R-TN), Chris Collins (R-NY), Mike Thompson (D-CA), and Peter Welch (D-VT).
Further information is available from the National Right to Life Committee’s Powell Center for Medical Ethics at www.nrlc.org/medethics/advancecareplanning/

Source: NRLC News

Assisted Suicide

 

“Papageno” and “Werther “effects–public policy lessons for the prevention of suicide

By Dr. Peter Saunders
Editor’s note. We’ve written and repost multiple times explaining how the number of suicides–or requests for “assistance” in suicide–spikes when such deaths are portrayed in a sympathetic, even laudatory fashion. The following ran a few years ago and it brilliantly and succinctly explains why the converse is true as well–the numbers drop when (as Dr. Saunders writes) “media stories about how people coped positively with suicidal feelings actually lead to a decrease in levels of suicide in the general population.’
Dr. Saunders is a former general surgeon and is CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organization with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members.
I recently blogged about the new German film ‘Goethe’, a study of the early life of the celebrated German poet of the same name.
It retells the quasi-autobiographical love story ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ which made Goethe famous. Werther commits suicide after his lover marries another man. The book, when initially published in 1774, provoked a spate of suicides amongst young people, and thereby gave rise to the medical term ‘Werther Effect’ meaning ‘copycat suicide’ or ‘suicide contagion’.
The ‘Werther Effect’ is the subject of the World Health Organization international guidelines on the portrayal of suicide in the media, ‘Preventing Suicide: A Resource for Media Professionals’.
The guidance sets out the type of media coverage of suicide that is likely to elicit copycat behavior, most of which has been breached by BBC coverage of assisted suicide.
I was therefore most interested to find a recent paper by Austrian authors in the British Medical Journal and a much longer one by the same group in the British Journal of Psychiatry published only late last year reviewing media coverage of suicide.
The authors note in the first (BMJ) paper, ‘Papageno vs. Werther Effect’, that some media coverage of suicide actually leads to a decrease rather than an increase in suicide rates.

‘Newspaper items accounting for (a decrease) form a distinct non-sensationalist class of suicide reporting. They follow the recommendations of the World Health Organization in reporting suicide—for example, avoiding terms such as suicide epidemic. Our findings suggest that media reports on individual mastery of suicidal crises are highly relevant in preventing suicide.’

In other words, media stories about how people coped positively with suicidal feelings actually lead to a decrease in levels of suicide in the general population.
They name this protective effect ‘the Papageno effect’ in honor of the character in Mozart’s opera the Magic Flute.

‘When Papageno fears that he has lost his love, Papagena, he prepares to kill himself. But three boys save him at the last minute by reminding him of other alternatives to dying.’

The second (British Journal of Psychiatry) paper had the aim ‘to test the hypotheses that certain media content is associated with an increase in suicide, suggesting a so-called Werther effect, and that other content is associated with a decrease in suicide, conceptualized as a Papageno effect.’
It concludes that

‘The impact of suicide reporting may not be restricted to harmful effects; rather, coverage of positive coping in adverse circumstances, as covered in media items about suicidal ideation, may have protective effects.’

They concede that ‘More research is needed to understand the Papageno effect’ but argue that ‘from a public health perspective, even small protective effects could have a noticeable positive impact on internationally ongoing collaborations between health and media professionals’.
So we have a tale of two fictional lost loves. Werther killed himself but Papageno was helped to find new meaning in life. Werther effect bad. Papageno effect good.
Now all we need to do is to persuade the media in Britain, and especially the BBC, to apply these findings.
Editor’s note. This first appeared at pjsaunders.blogspot.com.

Source: NRLC News

Gates Foundation

 

Gates Foundation pours $120 million more into pushing abortifacients

  Calvin Freiburger 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged to spend another $120 million over the next three years to promote abortion-inducing drugs worldwide.

The Family Planning 2020 initiative, one of the priorities of the charitable foundation owned by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, is meant to combat unwanted childbirth in poor nations by distributing contraceptives and other family planning services to 120 million women and girls by 2020, but a recent status report revealed their distribution of 25 million is too low to meet that goal.
“Since we made that promise, millions of unintended pregnancies have been avoided and thousands of lives saved,” Melinda Gates contends, promising that birth control will “empower” women and lead to greater “prosperity” for them.

However, despite a 2014 promise that the Foundation would not fund abortion, among the methods it distributes is the injectable Depo-Provera, which causes the deaths of already-conceived embryos by thinning uterine lining too much for them to implant. Reports have also linked Depo-Provera to increased dangers of HIV transmission.
This has led Population Research Institute president Steven Mosher to denounce the “cruel reality” of the Family Planning 2020 project, which he says “undermines primary health care, leads to human rights violations, and makes no demographic sense in a world of falling fertility.”

Source: LiveAction News

Life the Best Choice

 

10 women who decided to stop or reverse their abortion

  Nancy Flanders 

Women are often pressured into abortion, or decide to go through with one because they feel they have no other choice. But sometimes, at the last moment, women find their own strength, change their mind about the abortion, and choose life. Abortion reversal is possible.

1. Ashley

At 20 years old, Ashley discovered she was pregnant, but the boyfriend who convinced her to have sex with him by promising to take care of her and a baby if she did become pregnant, handed her money for an abortion and sent her off to get her abortion alone. After taking the first dose of the abortion pill, Ashley regretted it and asked the abortionist what would happen if she didn’t take the second pill. She was told that the baby would die anyway, but if the baby somehow survived, he or she would be deformed…

Ashley turned to her mother, telling her about the pregnancy and the abortion and her remorse. Her mother called a local crisis pregnancy center, and that center called Dr. Matt Harrison. Harrison had no idea what to do, but told them to come to his office. After flipping through textbooks, he had the idea of injecting Ashley with progesterone, to try to “out-compete” with the RU-486 which he says acts as a progesterone counterfeit and tricks the body into acting as if the pregnant woman is having a menstrual cycle, starving the placenta and the baby.
There were risks to both Ashley and the baby as this had never been done before, but Ashley knew she had to try it. It worked, and Ashley gave birth to healthy baby girl, Kaylie – the first baby saved by the abortion pill reversal kit.

2. Autumn Barnes
When Autumn Barnes discovered she was pregnant, she panicked. She and her boyfriend already had a daughter, and finances were tight. Scared, she secretly went to a doctor to access the abortion pill. After taking the first dose, she immediately regretted it, telling Fox 46 Charlotte: “I just killed my baby. I have a little girl. How is it fair that I just took an innocent child’s life?”
She turned to the internet in hopes of finding a way to stop the abortion, and she found a link to AbortionPillReversal.com. She was doubtful that it would work, but she called the number anyway.  She was connected with a doctor who provides the abortion pill reversal kit in her area. After taking the treatment, she went in for an ultrasound and was relieved to see that her baby was still alive. Months later, her “miracle” baby boy, Walker, was born healthy and he continues to do well.


3. Jamie Stout

Stout was already the mother of a daughter who was being raised by Stout’s parents due to Stout’s problem with drug addiction. After deciding to get off drugs, Stout moved back in with her parents and daughter to start a new life. However, she was 20 weeks pregnant and since she was trying to overcome her addiction and felt she was in no place to care for another child, Stout and her parents decided she should abort.
Stout didn’t want to have the abortion but felt she had no other choice. When her neighbor, Marina Cortopassi, an ultrasound technician, found out, she knew she had to help. However, Stout was already with the abortionist and when Cortopassi arrived, the two-day late term abortion procedure had already begun and the abortionist had placed small sticks called laminaria into the cervix to cause dilation.
But Stout changed her mind about going through with the abortion and thankfully, Cortopassi got her into the care of doctors who were able to remove the laminaria. There was still the risk of miscarriage, but a few months later, Stout gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Claire.

4. Kimberly Henderson

Kimberly Henderson with Vaida

A viral internet star, Henderson was already the mom of three children, the first of whom she gave birth to at age 16, when she found out she was pregnant. Her relationship with her boyfriend was unstable and Henderson was scared of raising another child on her own. She went to an abortion facility, where she sat in the waiting room crying.
“I kept trying to justify it, but my heart was heavy,” she wrote in a blog post. “I felt like I was about to make a horrible, horrible decision, and God was giving me signs to not do it. I woke up this morning, my daughter was sick. I had to find a sitter, I got lost, my car broke down for about 15 mins and I got here late, but they still got me in. I prayed God would stop and give me a sign, give me the strength to get up and walk out of here.”
After being called in for her appointment, a card a couple had given her fell out of her wallet. It had Isaiah 41:10 on it: “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.”
Henderson walked out of the abortion facility and never looked back. Months later, she gave birth to baby girl – Vaida Everly – whose name means “beautiful life.”
5. Andrea Minichini

Andrea Minichini and Gabriel.

In 2014, Minichini was sitting in a Planned Parenthood exam room with an abortion pill in her hand. She didn’t want to take it, but the abortionist told her that it was expensive and would melt in her hand if she didn’t take it quickly enough, and then told Minichini that it wasn’t the right time for a baby.
She took the pill and went home to take the second one 24 hours later. But instead of taking that second pill, she went to the emergency room to try to save her baby.  The hospital staff told her that her baby would be “deformed” if the abortion wasn’t completed. Minichini called two ob-gyn doctors who both said they couldn’t help her.
She started bleeding and cramping and was scared that it was too late. She turned to the internet where she found the story of a woman who had her abortion reversed. That story led her to a 24-hour hotline number, which led her to a local pro-life doctor.
After receiving progesterone injections and being closely monitored, Minichini gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Gabriel.
6. Becky Buell

Already the mother to one small child, attending college, and going through a divorce, Buell discovered she was pregnant. Afraid she would let her parents down and lose her home, she went to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. But after taking the first dose of the abortion pill, she felt “instant regret” and sat in her car searching on her phone for a way to fix what she had done.
She called the abortion reversal hotline and the nurse there connected her with a doctor.  Buell was scared that the reversal wouldn’t work – the success rate is about 60% – and when Planned Parenthood called her to see why she hadn’t shown up for her second appointment, they told her that the reversal wouldn’t work and that her baby would be deformed.
Buell went forward with her plan to save her baby and at the doctor’s appointment was able to see her baby’s heartbeat. She felt a huge sense of relief and months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Zachariah.
Buell now advocates for other women who change their minds about an abortion.
7. Donanne

Doanne and Sean

At 16 years old, Donanne found out she was pregnant. Her boyfriend told her to get an abortion and though she never thought she would ever abort her own child, she was scared, and she went to Planned Parenthood. Even though she had just barely turned 16, she didn’t need her parents permission for the abortion. She sat in the clinic alone wondering why she was doing this.
They called her in, and while crying she asked if she could see the ultrasound screen. They told her she couldn’t. Donanne started to pray.
“All of a sudden time stopped and God was telling me to get up and leave and that everything would be ok. So I did.”
Though the next few months were tough, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Sean. Donanne is now married and has four children.
8. Andrea

Christina’s mom walked out of an abortion clinic.

After discovering she was pregnant, Andrea was feeling pressured to abort. Her boyfriend wasn’t happy about the news and her mentor turned his back on her. Scared and feeling alone, she made an appointment for an abortion. She went alone and the counselor told her she was making the right decision. But Andrea wasn’t so sure.
She was sitting in the waiting room crying when the janitor walked towards her. This woman came close to Andrea, lifted her chin and looked into her eyes and said: “Do you want to have this baby?”
Andrea felt at peace and said, “Yes.”
The stranger said, “Then God will give you the strength. Put on your clothes and leave.”
But Andrea went into the operating room when her name was called. There she saw a puddle of blood on the floor. She immediately changed her mind about the abortion, but the abortionist tried to convince her to go through with it. But Andrea stated: “I am leaving. I am having this child.”
She gave birth to a healthy girl named Christina who now works in the pro-life movement.
9. D.C. McAllister

McAllister had left her husband and two children for a life with another man. Regretting her decision, she went to her church to ask for forgiveness and began the process of trying to fix her marriage. But on that night, as she packed her belongings, she discovered she was pregnant.
Devastated, she cancelled her plans to return to her family and stayed in her apartment for two months before telling the father of the child about the baby. She told him she wanted to place the baby for adoption, but he said he wanted to raise the child himself.  But her husband refused to accept that. He would only take her back if the baby was placed for adoption with strangers.
Full of fear, McAllister decided that abortion would solve everyone’s problems and she went to Planned Parenthood. But after walking through the doors and seeing the tears of a young woman, she decided she couldn’t abort.

It has been difficult for her, as choosing life for her child changed the course of her life. But she knew that killing her own child because of the poor choices she had made wouldn’t take away her mistakes.

10. Anna Chernocke

Chernocke was nearly five months pregnant back when she went to the hospital for an abortion. She told her baby she was sorry as she sat in the waiting room, but as time ticked by she felt less relief about the procedure and more remorse.
Two nurses came to take her back for the abortion, and she was led into a room where the doctor was waiting for her. He asked her if she was ready and if there was anything she wanted to say.
“Yes,” she told him. “I’m really sorry, but I’ve changed my mind.”
To her surprise, all three of them became full of joy. The doctor congratulated her and they all told her that she would never regret having her baby.

Months later she gave birth to her son David and she has never regretted her decision.
As technology advances and we learn more about life in the womb, more and more women are choosing life. But even after choosing to abort, there is hope. AbortionPillReversal.com and the hotline are available 24 hours a day to help women with abortion reversal both in the first trimester and late-term as well.

Source: LiveAction News