The Revolution Will Not Be Live-Tweeted...

... After All!

It seems that in her desire to show people how safe, easy and comfortable legal abortions can really be, Angie Jackson decided to live-tweet her RU-486 abortion.

In the event, it turned out not to be the brief afternoon picnic she envisioned. Jill Stanek has the story:

Be careful what you attempt to demystify.

At 4:08 p.m. on Feb. 18 micro-blogger Angie Jackson began posting the blow-by-blows of her RU-486 abortion on Twitter. "I took the first pill a little under 2 hours ago," she tweeted.

The 27-year-old's intention, she later told ABC News, was to "demystify" RU-486 abortions.

Jackson had announced her pregnancy on Twitter Feb. 13, even before telling the boyfriend ("BF") she and her 4-year-old son have been living with since last December.

BF was on board with aborting his offspring, so when it came down to which type, four-weeks pregnant Jackson chose the RU-486 at-home medical abortion, which the FDA states can be prescribed up to 49 days, or seven weeks, after the first day of a mother's last period.

RU-486 abortions are the coming rage, much less hassle for abortion profiteers than surgical abortions. The mother takes an RU-486 pill (aka mifepristone or mifeprex) at the clinic, which kills the baby, and follows up at home with one or two doses of cytotec (aka misoprostol) pills to cause contractions to expel the baby. All for $480, as Angie tweeted.

The bonus for abortion clinics is if an RU-486 abortion doesn't work, which occurs 7.9 percent of the time according to RU-486's label, there is no guarantee, so mothers must then undergo and pay for surgical abortions – abortion double-dipping.

Notwithstanding that, along with serious, life-threatening complications that can lead to death, as has happened at least eight times in the U.S. since RU-486 was legalized in 2000, are RU-486 abortions generally less hassle for aborting moms?

Jackson thought so, basing her decision on the fact her abortion would "be over in 4-8 hrs," as she initially tweeted, and done in the comfort of her home, since she was frightened of surgery.

After visiting her local Planned Parenthood, Jackson again tweeted her abortion experience would be a "4 hour bleed-out," so this was apparently the official teaching Angie received.

But the first rule of demystifying is one must herself be demystified before attempting to demystify. If not, the demystifying process may not go as anticipated, which is what happened in Jackson's case.

Only because Angie decided to live tweet her RU-486 abortion did we learn in actuality it's a long, drawn out, painful process. For that reason I thought Angie's exposé was a worthwhile educational experience for us all.

Here are some common adverse reactions, according to the RU-486 packaging:

Nearly all of the women … will report adverse reactions, and many … report more than one. … 80 to 90 percent of women reported bleeding more heavily than they do during a heavy menstrual period. … Women also typically experience abdominal pain, including uterine cramping. Other commonly reported side effects were nausea, vomiting and diarrhea … pelvic pain, fainting, headache, dizziness... fatigue... back pain...

That's sobering enough on paper, but how does reality play out?

For nine days, from Feb. 19-27, Jackson tweeted about such severe cramps she had difficulty walking across the room. She went through 17 Vicodin in six days and at a point soon after requesting a prescription for another 20.

Jackson tweeted nausea, vomiting, backaches, headaches and bleeding. Five days into her abortion experience, Angie commented on another blog, "Honestly I had no idea this would go on so long. I thought the entire abortion would take a few hours, as I'd read in a few stories. ..."

At the bottom of this column you can read what Jackson's suffering looked like in real time, where I've synopsized nine days of her tweets.

Planned Parenthood obviously did not explain the reality of an RU-486 abortion to Jackson, nor did any of her other sources.

But Edouard Sakiz, former chairman of Roussel Uclaf, the company that developed RU-486, stated:

As abortifacient procedures go, RU-486 is not at all easy to use. ... True, no anesthetic is required. But a woman who wants to end her pregnancy has to "live" with her abortion for at least a week using this technique. It's an appalling psychological ordeal.

Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu, who invented RU-486, stated:

It's insulting to women to say that abortion now will be as easy as taking aspirins. It is always difficult, psychologically and physically, sometimes tragic.

Jackson stopped tweeting her symptoms on Feb. 27, when she realized I was reposting them on my blog. But she wrote the evening of March 2, "In real life, I had a terrible day & don't wanna talk about it."

So whatever the physical, emotional, psychological toll Jackson has endured up to this point, it's not over.

See the rest of the story here.

I still don't get it. If abortion is such a wonderful thing, why should it be "tragic" or a "psychological ordeal"? What other rights do we describe in such terms?

As for Miss Jackson, let's pray for her.

(Cross-posted from Thoughts of a Regular Guy.)

Abortion Will Kill Obama's Healthcare Reform

I've predicted for months now that abortion will be the death of the President's healthcare reform bill. Now it's happening:

Now that President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress have officially decided to use reconciliation to force the Senate pro-abortion health care bill through the House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi begins the task of finding enough votes for the bill to get it approved on a majority vote.

However, in part because of the massive abortion funding and other pro-abortion problems with the Senate bill, she my not get there.

The House could vote on the bill as early as March 19 and some Democrats who voted for the House version of the bill, which was approved on a very narrow margin, have already said they are either undecided on the bill or may vote no.

Rep. Bart Stupak, the respected pro-life Democrat, confirmed this week he will not vote for the Senate bill and as many as 10-12 pro-life Democrats who voted yes on the House bill may join him.

The House approved its bill 220-215 and the defection of Stupak and those 10-12 Democrats would be enough to defeat the measure. Add pro-life Republican Rep. Anh Cao of Louisiana, the only GOP lawmaker to back the House bill, to the mix and Pelosi is even further behind the eight ball.

Obama and top Democrats hope to sweeten the pot with the language in the reconciliation bill but Stupak told the Wall St. Journal that he and other Democrats won't bite.

"We're not going to walk the plank again just to see the Senate shut us down," he said.

“You're going to make members vote for a bill that’s going to be hung around your neck come Election Day,” he said. “After sending so much legislation to the Senate, we just don't trust that they're going to do it.”

But today, Rep. Michael Arcuri, New York Democrat, told media outlets that he has changed his mind and is now firmly in the no column after voting yes before. [Emphasis added.]

Who would have thought that pro-life Democrats in the House would be the ones to stop this bill? But they will be.

Human Services Committee to Take Up Illinois FOCA Bill This Week - UPDATED

UPDATE (3/2/10, 3:15 PM): We're told that the committee will be holding a hearing on this bill in the Capitol next week, on March 10th. Be there if you can!
______________________________

The Human Services Committee of the Illinois General Assembly will be taking up the Illinois FOCA bill this week, possibly as soon as tomorrow.

If you were involved in fighting against this bill last year, then you will want to save the trouble of going through it all again this year, by stopping it from even getting to the House floor. Committee Chairwoman Naomi Jakobsson is a co-sponsor of the bill, and committee member Sandy Cole, whom I ran against in the recent primary, voted for this bill in committee last year, and will probably do so again. The STOP ILLINOIS FOCA blog reports:

They are the people who get to vote on whether or not this bill moves on to the House floor. It’s important that everybody contact these representatives whether or not they are YOUR representative.

They all represent you as an Illinois citizen on this committee, so they need to hear your voice.

Call, write, fax and visit these reps and tell them to vote NO on HB6205. Tell them:

• HB6205 will create a huge expansion of abortion in Illinois
  
• HB6205 will force Illinois school children into “condom training” sex-ed from pre-school
  
• HB6205 will make it more difficult for women to seek justice after a botched abortion
  
• HB6205 will pave the way for the gutting of the Parental Notice Act of 1995, which a strong bi-partisan majority of Illinoisans support

Please call, write and visit as many of these Reps as possible. Here’s the list of names and phone numbers to call. For all the details on how to contact these Reps and maps to their offices, see the full list below:

• Rep. Naomi D. Jakobsson 217-558-1009
  
• Rep. Constance A. Howard 217-782-6476
  
• Rep. Patricia R. Bellock 217-782-1448
  
• Rep. Sandy Cole 217-782-7320
  
• Rep. Annazette Collins 217-782-8077
  
• Rep. Mary E. Flowers 217-782-4207
  
• Rep. Timothy L. Schmitz 217-782-5457

I hope you'll find time today to make a call. Or six.

New Co-Blogger

Good morning! I'd just like to take a moment to introduce myself, the new co-blogger here at the Lake County Right to Life Blog.

My name is Paul Mitchell, and for nearly five years, I've written a pro-life blog (under the pseudonym, "Paul, Just This Guy, You Know") called Thoughts of a Regular Guy, where I've made the arguments for ending abortion and bringing about a culture of life, and defended traditional marriage. And written on other topics as they caught my interest.

In the middle of last year, I launched a campaign for state representative in the Illinois 62nd District, opposing Republican Sandy Cole. At the February 2nd primary, I captured only just over 38% of the vote in a two-way race, and so was defeated. But elections have consequences, even for losers, and one of those consequences is that Bonnie has asked me to blog here, in addition to my blogging at my own site (as well as Southern Appeal).

Although I am devoutly Roman Catholic (I am a parishioner at St. Peter parish in Volo, and Charter Grand Knight of Knights of Columbus Cure of Ars Council #14819), my approach to the life issues tends to make use of scientific and secular arguments, because I believe that they are more difficult for pro-choice (and pro-abortion) people to ignore. Here's an example, from my appearance at the Right to Life candidate forum last November, in which I also warn that the Illinois FOCA bill will be returning, as it has: